1.
Grace,
mercy & peace to you from God our heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. This week we’re
learning from St. Paul how we aren’t to have any confidence in our sinful flesh
to earn for ourselves salvation. Paul
tells us how he abandoned any confidence that he had in his good works and
looked to Christ and Him crucified for His salvation. The message today will focus on Philippians
3:4-11 and is entitled, “To Know Christ,”
dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
She was an older lady, well-dressed and
clearly a member of the upper class. She
stopped to watch as a street evangelist was preaching about Jesus Christ near
St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.
But, after the evangelist had the chance to talk to her about Jesus he
began to learn more about her. The lady
thought that Jesus was alright for some people.
Certainly for the poor and the destitute. But, this lady truly believed that she wasn’t
only religious, but was a GOOD PERSON.
She told the evangelist that she’d NEVER done anything mean or petty,
and while others might need Jesus. She
didn’t.
3.
What a sad story this is. Do you know someone who believes that they
can get to heaven on account of whether they are a GOOD PERSON? Is that what the Bible teaches us about
salvation? This story of the old lady on
the street reminds us that the hardest people to reach with the Gospel of
Christ and Him crucified are those who’ve tried to live good lives and by all
appearances have succeeded. But, it’s
important for us to realize that some of the things we might regard as
advantages can actually be loss for us if they stand in the way of our knowing
Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Being born
into a Christian home, confirmed in the faith, receiving a Christian education
and being members of a Christian congregation are certainly blessings from
God. But, being a member of a Christian Church
isn’t what earns us eternal life.
Likewise, having money or intelligence, charm or education can actually
become a stumbling block to our salvation.
If for any reason we regard our own GOOD WORKS as more important than
knowing Christ and Him crucified for our sins we’re sorely mistaken.
4.
This is why Paul begins Philippians
3:4-11
by saying, “4If anyone else thinks he has reason
for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5circumcised on the eighth
day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as
to the law, a Pharisee; 6as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as
to righteousness, under the law blameless. 7But whatever gain I had,
I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8Indeed, I count
everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my
Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as
rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not
having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes
through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10that
I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings,
becoming like him in his death, 11that by any means possible I may
attain the resurrection from the dead.
5.
Why does Paul begin Philippians 3 by
saying that he doesn’t have any confidence in his human flesh? It’s because Paul was trying to warn the
Philippian church of the Judaizers.
These were men of Jewish decent and pharisaical
tendency who were trying to convince believers that they must become Jews in
order to be Christians. In other words,
these Judaizers were saying that in order to become a believer in Christ one
must be circumcised and keep the ceremonial regulations of the Old Testament. But, Paul called these men evil and
mutilators of the flesh. He does this
because the Judaizers were focusing the attention of believers on their GOOD
WORKS for salvation and drawing people away from Christ Jesus our Lord.
6.
This is the first clue to finding
our ultimate source of joy as Christians in the message of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ and Him crucified for our sins. We’re
not to count on what we’ve done, are doing or will do with our GOOD WORKS
towards our salvation. We count SOLELY
on what Christ has done for us through His death on the cross. In fact, Watchmen Nee, the great Chinese
evangelist once said, “Christianity is an
odd business. If at the outset we try to
do anything, we get nothing, if we seek to attain something, we miss
everything. For Christianity begins not
with a big DO, but with a big DONE.” Here
Watchman Nee reminds us that only by continuing to rely on Christ and His
perfect sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins and abandoning
all reliance on our own works can we go on in the Christian life and experience
joy in Jesus.
7.
This is why Paul uses his own life
as an example to why we as Christians should have no confidence in our sinful
flesh for salvation. To the Judaizers
fleshly things such as ethnic background, physical rituals and outward displays
of human achievement meant everything.
They labored under the impression that their soul’s salvation depended
on those earthly things. But, Paul
didn’t want the Philippians to be deceived by that way of thinking. Where the Judaizers were concerned with
circumcision… Paul had been circumcised on the 8th day. Where the Judaizers were concerned with
ethnic purity… Paul was 100% a pure
Israelite, being a member of the tribe of Benjamin, which was one of only two
tribes that had remained ethnically pure after the Jews returned from their
Babylonian exile. Paul’s family had
remained strictly faithful to the ancestral religion and even retained the
Hebrew language, which many other Jews had forgotten. If the Judaizers were concerned about keeping
the Old Testament ceremonial laws… Paul could boast that he was a
conservative’s conservative as a Pharisee.
The Pharisees even added many of their own laws to the laws of
Moses. During his years as a Pharisee
Paul upheld all the Old Testament laws.
He even sought to destroy the Christian Church, because it taught a way
of salvation that was against what the Pharisees taught.
8.
Paul tells us that all the things
that he thought would bring him salvation were now counted as loss. When Christ appeared to Paul on the Damascus
Road he came to see himself as the wretched, helpless sinner he really was. It wasn’t Paul’s good works that earned Him
salvation, but the ONLY GOOD WORK that saves— that of Jesus’ perfect life,
death and resurrection for the sins of all humanity. Jesus alone whose blood purifies and covers
over our sins. Jesus alone who clothes
us with His righteousness and makes us blameless in God the Father’s sight. This is why Paul sought to KNOW nothing, but
Jesus and Him crucified.
9.
It may be strange, but the truly
wicked have an advantage over those who see themselves as GOOD PEOPLE when they
become Christians. For instance, John
Newton—the man who wrote the great hymn, “Amazing
Grace,” began his life as a slave trader.
He went to sea as a slave trader, became a vile, drunken and violent
man. Later, when Newton came to know
Jesus as His LORD and Savior he never lost his sense of the dark pit of sin
from which he’d been rescued.
10.
Paul reminds us here in Philippians
chapter 3 that believers who possess Christ’s righteousness will want to
constantly grow in their knowledge of Him.
When we’re in Christ we’ll want to experience His love more deeply and
respond to that love with lives of service to Him. The Lord blesses such growth through the
Gospel in Word and Sacrament. As we
regularly find Christ in His Word, remember our baptisms and receive Christ’s
body and blood in the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Spirit reveals the Savior even
more to us. Through the Holy Spirit’s
work in our hearts, we’ll experience the power of Christ’s resurrection. Where our sinful human nature has been put to
death and we’ve been raised to new life with Him. May God enable us to continue to serve Him in
all that we do and to have no confidence in our sinful flesh, but ONLY in
Christ and Him crucified! Amen.
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