Full Transcript

Hi, and welcome to Share the Word, the best way to learn your way through the New Testament one chapter at a time. We know there are a lot of devotionals and encouraging thoughts for the day from the Bible available online, but our goal is a little more to honestly and systematically present the whole story of the New Testament. So let’s listen in to today’s lesson and go a little deeper. Philippians chapter 3. Taking out the garbage. I’m a little bit of a hoarder, that’s the right term.

I don’t like throwing things away if I can imagine any possible use for them in the future. Every now and then when my daughters are home, they decide it’s time to go through my closets and my shed and even my fridge to clean out some stuff they feel is no longer any good. How long have you had this mustard, Dad? The expiration says 2012. I don’t even like mustard, but I protest. What if somebody comes over and we have a picnic and they want mustard on their hamburger or hot dog?

When’s the last time you had a picnic, Dad? It’s garbage. It’s past time to throw it out. Throwing stuff away is hard for me. Stuff that is at this point actually worthless, I still have a hard time accepting that yes, it’s time to get rid of that. Wait, you’re not going to do a podcast about garbage today, are you, Paul?

Well, actually, yes, but in a way that may surprise you a little bit. From virtually the outset of the church age, since the ascension of Jesus back to heaven and his apostles engaging in proclaiming the gospel and planting Christian churches, people have been trying to turn Christianity into a religion. I’m being polite by just calling them people. The New Testament writers often use much more colorful language, as here in chapter 3 where Paul calls them dogs. By the way, dogs in a New Testament world weren’t lovable golden retrievers and adorable French bulldogs like the two dogs that live at my house. Most dogs were mangy, semi-wild scavengers who roamed the streets or who ran in packs in the countryside.

That’s how the apostle Paul characterized false teachers. He realized they were agents of the enemy, and fully expected they would show up in Philippi. They hadn’t already, because they always did. Now, when I say such people have, since the apostles’ time, been trying to turn Christianity into a religion, I’m distinguishing religion as something different from Christianity, although I know most people will conflate the two. But I think of religion as a system of rules and rituals and human effort that people are taught have the ability to connect them to God. The message of religions is, Here are the things you must do to please God.

Try to do the best that you can at these things because that’s the way, hopefully, God will be pleased enough with you to accept you into heaven one day. Christianity, on the other hand, offers a restored relationship with God based on what Christ has already done. The message of Christianity is, Nothing you can do will impress God enough to let you into heaven one day. So turn from your sin, your self-reliance, and put your faith in Christ alone. He’s the way God has provided for us to be saved. Maybe the best way to think of religion versus Christianity is to see them in the terms try versus trust.

We can try to please God through obedience and faithfulness or whatever a church or our reasoning tells us God will like, or we can trust in Christ, who has already paid for our sins and made a way for us to be reconciled to God through his atonement on the cross. It’s try versus trust. It’s something you can accomplish if you try hard enough, or it’s nothing you could ever accomplish, so trust in the Savior God has provided, who has accomplished it for you. The Apostle Paul keeps coming back to this in letter after letter because it’s so important. He understood the difference very clearly and knew the difference through his own personal experience.

In Philippians chapter 3, he’s mostly giving his own personal testimony about going from trying to please God by who he was and what he could do, to realizing how impossible that was and actually insulting to God that was, and finally coming to the place of trusting Christ instead. Picking up in verse 3, he gets to this big idea, explaining it through his own experience of being very religious, but then becoming a Christian. Listen, and I’m quoting now from the Modern Language New Living Translation. We rely on Christ and what he has done for us and put no confidence in human efforts. Though I could have confidence in my own efforts if anybody could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their efforts, I think I have even more.

I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I’m a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin, a real Hebrew if there ever was one. I was a member of the Pharisees who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish laws. I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church, referring to early Christians. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault. I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done.

Yes, everything else is worthless when compared to the infinite value of knowing Christ my Lord. For his sake, I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying laws. Rather, I’ve become righteous through faith in Christ, for God’s way of making us right with him depends on faith. There was a time when Paul had a lot of confidence in himself, he’s saying, in his own religiousness, if that’s a word. He lists some of the things he took great pride in, which he felt pretty sure at the time put him in good standing with God.

He says he was born into a strictly observant family of God’s covenant people. His parents had him circumcised at eight days old, a covenantal religious rite of the Jews dating back to the days of Abraham. He was thoroughly Jewish, a Hebrew among Hebrews. He studied hard and became a Pharisee, a member of Israel’s most traditional and respected religious order. His fixation was on knowing and keeping the Old Testament moral and ceremonial laws, the laws of Moses. He mentions the fact, and we saw this in Acts, he was so zealous for his religion that he even became a persecutor of the early Christians because he, along with the Jewish hierarchy in Jerusalem, considered followers of Jesus to be heretics.

He was fully sold on, immersed in, a devoutly religious life that was all about being in himself righteous before God. He confesses, I saw all these things as very valuable. At the time, I thought these things were the things that made me worthy in God’s eyes. But now, he goes on, now I consider all those things worthless in comparison to what Christ has done. What I can do, religion, versus what Christ has done, Christianity. If Paul was preaching this as a sermon, and he probably did more than once, I can picture him illustrating this before an audience, stacking up things on a table that represented who he used to be, what he used to think, what he used to take great pride in and trust in.

I picture him taking off his distinctive pure white trimmed in blue robe that only Pharisees wore and folding it up and placing it on the table. Also on the table, he could place something that represented his birth certificate showing his Jewish heritage. Perhaps he kept the letter from the Sanhedrin that said they authorized him to hunt down Christian heretics, or other relics of the period in his life when he was zealously practicing his religion. After he stacked all these things on the table, he then shared with his audience his personal testimony about meeting the resurrected Christ on the Damascus Road, how in a flash, literally, he realized that what the Christians were preaching about Jesus, it was all true, that he was the Christ, that he was the Savior.

At that point, Paul would pick up in his arms and carry all those things he’d stacked on the table over to a trash can, or throw them into the garbage, or maybe toss them out a window. For his sake, he would say, for Jesus’ sake, I’ve discarded all these things. I counted all as garbage in order to gain Christ and become one with Him. Can you picture that? Paul realized when he went through his own conversion, through his metamorphosis, that it had to be one or the other. You can think it’s about you, who you are, what you have done, or you can realize, no, it’s about Jesus and what He has done, because it can’t be both.

Paul clearly came to realize he had to choose who to trust, himself and his attempts at religiousness, or Jesus Christ and the power of His cross. And when he looked at it like that, he knew there was no comparison. He decided, I’m not foolish enough to trust in things that revolve around me when I can trust in the risen Christ who died to pay for my sins. The actual terms that Paul uses in verse 7 are taken from the business world. They’re accounting terms. Literally, he writes there, But whatever things I believed were gain to me, these things I now count as losses because of Christ.

All that stuff about being a Hebrew of the Hebrews and a zealous Pharisee and a meticulous law keeper, all that stuff I once thought of as being in my profit column, once I realized who Jesus was and what He had done for me, I pushed it all over to my loss column. In comparison to what Christ has done, in comparison to the personal relationship with Him by faith God offers me, all those things in my past are worthless. So I now glory in Jesus Christ and put no confidence in myself. This is not news to you if you’ve been listening to Share the Word, especially if you listen through Romans and Galatians. In fact, this was not even news to the people in Philippi who first got this letter, because Paul began to write these same things to you is no trouble for me and is a safeguard for you.

In other words, I know we’ve gone over this before, but it bears repeating because hearing it again will help solidify your faith. Back to try versus trust for a moment. In one of my recent online discussions, which I too often get into with a very religious guy, a devout Roman Catholic, he was trying to convince me, without any real evidence but more because he’d been taught this over and over, he was trying to convince me that there were only two kinds of Christian religion. There was his church, which he was adamant was the only true apostolic faith founded by Jesus Christ, and then there were all the other denominations and offshoots which were seriously deficient. I told him I agreed with the first part, that is, that there’s really only two forms of Christianity, but that I would divide them very differently.

There are those, I said, who preach a message that it’s by trying to impress God through faithfulness to religion that you deserve to be accepted into heaven, and there are those who preach the message of the gospel, that Jesus has done everything necessary to allow anyone to enter heaven if they will only repent of their sins and place their faith in Him. You can try to be religious enough that God is impressed with your religiousness, I said to him, or you can trust in Jesus and be the beneficiary of His righteousness. As Paul writes here in verse 9, I no longer count on my own righteousness. Rather, I became righteous through faith in Christ, for God’s way of making us right with Him depends on faith.

Isn’t that exactly what we learned from Romans chapter 3, where Paul wrote, We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ, and this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in His grace, freely makes us right in His sight. He did this through Christ when he freed us from the penalty of our sins. I wonder what you may have stacked up on your table. As for me, I was born into a very Christian family.

My father was a pretty well-known and respected pastor. I was taught Bible verses from the time I could talk. Somewhere I may still have my perfect attendance Sunday school pins. When I was a young teen, I made some serious religious vows, vows that I have never broken. I take pride in that. When I got older, I committed myself to becoming a minister too, like my dad, and everyone thought I’d be great at it because, well, they thought I was smart and had some talent.

I took pride in that too. I spent six years studying the Bible in ancient languages and have a diploma in my file cabinet that says I’m a Master of Theology. And on top of all that, I don’t drink or smoke or chew or hang around with girls who do. That’s the stuff I could stack on my table. But compared to knowing Christ, compared to His righteousness, which God offers me as a gift of His grace, there’s no comparison. All my stuff amounts to a pile of rubbish.

When it comes to my standing with God, Jesus plus nothing is all I need. Jesus plus nothing is what I choose. My faith is entirely in Him. What would you pile onto your table? Are you imagining or even expecting there’s some things you can place there that God would be impressed by? I hope after this scripture lesson, that’s not where you will keep your hope and trust, whatever those things are.

Saul of Tarsus was a very religious, fervent religious man, remember. But the best he could put together to offer up to God, in comparison to what Christ can offer, he called garbage. In fact, the venerated King James Version in verse 8 translates the word he used as dung. You know what that means, right? A pile of… But I don’t like to use that language, so let’s stick with calling it garbage.

And I hope that doesn’t hurt your feelings or insult you. Paul is just trying to draw the strongest possible contrast. God loves us enough, He sent Jesus to die for us, and He offers us Jesus’ own righteousness if we will only trust in Him. What could any of us have to offer God that could possibly compare to that? Something that often happens to me when I have a big idea from the Bible rolling around in my mind is I find myself suddenly thinking of or even humming a song that’s been lodged somewhere back in my brain. And when I stop and think, the lyrics of that song are usually about the scripture idea I’ve been meditating on.

This happens to me all the time. It happened to me again yesterday. And as I was pondering how best to explain Paul’s big idea here in chapter 3, this song that popped into my mind is one I haven’t heard in at least 25 years. But what a great hymn. I first heard it at a Promise Keepers convention in Washington, D.C., at the old Redskins Stadium. There were 30 or 40,000 men there, and when that many men’s voices joined together in worship songs to God, wow, what a powerful experience.

In fact, I don’t remember any of the speakers or any of the messages from that event at all, but I do remember several worship songs I heard there for the first time and how they made me feel. The one that came back to my mind yesterday is called Knowing You. When Tony signs us off here today, if you have a couple of minutes, I suggest you Google Promise Keepers Knowing You and listen to this song. Graham Kendrick, who wrote this contemporary hymn, took the lyrics almost directly from our chapter here in Philippians. When you search Promise Keepers Knowing You, then click the Videos tab. The first video that comes up will be from that stadium event.

If you’re already a Christian, it just might make you want to start to worship. And if you are not a believer yet, you’ll see tens of thousands of men worshiping together who have experienced the same thing the Apostle Paul experienced and wrote about in our chapter. Here’s how the song goes. All I once held dear and built my life upon, all this world reveres and wars to own, all I once thought gain I have counted loss, spent and worthless now compared to this. Now my heart’s desire is to know You more, to be found in You and known as Yours, to possess by faith what I could not earn, all-surpassing gift of righteousness. Knowing You, Jesus, knowing You, there is no greater thing.

You’re my all, You’re the best, You’re my joy, my righteousness, and I love You, Lord. Step it up a key here. Oh, to know the power of Your risen life and to know You in Your suffering, to become like You in Your death, my Lord, so with You to live and never die. Knowing You, Jesus, knowing You, there’s no greater thing. You’re my all, You’re the best, You’re my joy, my righteousness, and I love You, Lord. And I love You, Lord.

Thanks for listening. This is Paul for Share the Word. Thanks for listening. We hope you found this commentary both interesting and insightful. Keep in mind that Share the Word releases two new podcasts weekly at 9 a.m. on Mondays and Thursdays. If you’re just joining us, visit sharetheword.org and check out all the podcasts we’ve already released, as well as other offerings available to you.

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