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PAUL’S CONFIDENCE

Joy for the Journey, Part 7

June 8, 2008

Pastor Bob Sanders

Philippians 3:1-11 (Today’s New International Version)

   1 Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. 2 Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. 3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— 4 though I myself have reasons for such confidence.

    If others think they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

    7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

Introduction

In general, Paul was a careful man, a thoughtful man, a sober man.  In general, Paul didn’t say the kind of things in his sermons that could wind up years later on an embarrassing You Tube video clip.  In general, Paul didn’t use language in his letters that could be thought of as crude or intemperate. 

I keep saying “in general” because there are a few exceptions, and we come to one of them this morning in our reading from Philippians 3.  In today’s passage Paul gets pretty worked up and says some things that are, for Paul, rather intemperate, rather extreme. 

Look at verses 7 and 8.  He says, “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss . . . I consider everything a loss . . . I consider them garbage” compared with “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”  Paul has just gone through a list of his accomplishments, his credentials.  And they are very impressive (as we’ll see in a moment).  But look at what he says about them: he calls them garbage – at least, that’s the way the New International Version puts it.  Sometimes Bible translators are more genteel than the original, and that’s what’s happening here.  The Greek word translated garbage is in fact the word for excrement.  So here’s what Paul, this thoughtful, careful person, is saying:

“You know my three degrees from Harvard?  You know my two Pulitzer Prizes?  You know my Congressional Medal of Honor?  They’re all crap.” 1 

I’m sorry if that offends you, but it’s what Paul is really saying: “My achievements, my awards, my accomplishments – all garbage, all crap.”  And my question is: what would move a thoughtful, careful man like Paul to say something like that?  Something so extreme, so intemperate?

Two reasons, actually.  The first is negative.  He’s upset at something.  He’s reacting to a false teaching called performance religion – and by that I mean a religious point system, a religious merit system, a religious earn-your-own way system.  And the second reason for his extreme language is positive.  Paul has discovered that the Christian faith is not a performance religion but a personal relationship.  It’s not about having an impressive religious resume that earns your way into heaven.  It’s about knowing a Person who changes your life here and now – Jesus Christ.  I want us to take a closer look at these two: first, the problem with performance religion, and second the promise of personal relationship.

Performance Religion

Let’s start with Paul’s negative reaction.  It’s not just what he says in verses 7 and 8.  You have to see that polite language went out the window in the opening verses.  Look at verse 2.  “Watch out for those dogs,” he warns.  He’s not talking about a cuddly lap dog but the vicious scavengers that prowled the city streets: the zoological low lifes of the first century.  “Watch out for them,” he warns, “dogs, evildoers, mutilators of the flesh.” 

Nice talk, Paul.  Who’s he talking about?  Scholars refer to them as “Judaizers.”  Best we can tell, it was a group of people who came into places like Philippi after Paul left and taught that in order to be “real Christians” these new believers had to submit to the rituals and requirements of the Jewish tradition, beginning with the sign of circumcision (that’s why Paul calls them “mutilators”).  They said Paul’s message of salvation through faith in Christ was too easy.  Something more was needed to get right with God.  Look at Jesus, they said.  He was a good, practicing Jew.  So the way for Gentiles like you to get in right relationship with God was to first become a Jew, and then you could follow Jesus and become a Christian.

And when Paul heard about it, he hit the ceiling: “Those dogs!”  He goes nuts because these Judaizers are not only upsetting the faith of the Philippian believers, they’re actually nullifying the Gospel itself.  They’re saying what Jesus did on the cross wasn’t good enough.  They’re saying in order to be in right relationship with God you need something more than Jesus.  You need to be a good enough person.  You need to rack up enough spiritual brownie points.  You need to get yourself enough religious merit badges.  Salvation isn’t free.  You gain it the old-fashioned way: you earn it. 

It’s performance religion and it drives Paul crazy.  It robs the Gospel of its transforming power and reduces it to just another human self-help program.  It takes the good news of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ and turns it into the bad news of what we have to do for ourselves.  And in order to counteract these Judaizers Paul challenges them to a duel on their own terms.  “You want to talk about earning your salvation?  You want to talk about being good enough?  OK, check this out.”  And he rattles off a list of credentials that wow any Judaizer.  Look at verses 5 and 6 where Paul says he was…

“…circumcised on the eighth day” – meaning he was born a Jew.  He wasn’t some recent convert, like many of the Judaizers.    

“…of the tribe of Benjamin” – one of the two tribes of Israel that had been faithful to the house of David.  He’s stressing his racial purity, which was extremely important to these people. 

“…a Hebrew of Hebrews” – that is, he spoke Hebrew as his mother tongue, unlike so many Jews of the time who spoke only Greek, meaning he’s culturally pure as well as racially pure. 

“…in regard to the law, a Pharisee” – that means he was highly educated.  He got his Ph.D. from the toughest school of all – from the Pharisees. 

“…persecuting the church” – he was an activist, a leader in the Pharisaical movement, and “faultless” when it came to keeping their laws.

Paul says: You want to talk about earning your salvation?  Take a look at my religious resume.  Pedigree?  Heritage?  Training?  Accomplishments?  You name it – I had it.  If human performance counts for anything in getting right with God, no one could claim a higher score than mine.

The only problem was – it didn’t work.  The point-system, the spiritual balance sheet, the religious merit system – all of it failed.  Performance religion always fails.  As many of us have found out who’ve tried it – those of us who’ve tried so hard to please everybody, tried so hard to win the approval of God or our family or our friends or whoever we think needs to validate us in order for us to finally be good enough.

See, with performance religion no matter what you’ve done, it’s never enough.  No matter how hard you try, you need to do something more.  No matter what you’ve given or given up, you’re never good enough. 

Ralph Underwager is a pastor and a professor of psychology and in his book called I Hurt Inside he talks about how many of us get caught up in performance religion, how many of us work so hard at being good enough to earn God’s approval and love.  He tells a sad story about an eight-year-old girl who spent a wonderful evening with her mother, who was a gentle and gracious woman.  They’d been on a walk together, sharing laughter and tears.  After tucking her daughter into bed, the mother went back to look in on her later that night.  Underwager writes,

She found this printed note clutched in her girl’s hand: “Dear God, I try so hard to do what you want, but it doesn’t seem to work out.  I love you.  Betty.”  The sweet, good emotional release of the evening opened up the pain in this eight-year-old’s heart.  It is the identical pain of many conscientious and devout Christians. 2

“I try so hard, God, but it doesn’t seem to work out.”  How many of us have said or thought something like that?  See, it never works out, it’s never enough – not when we live by performance religion.  That’s what Paul discovered.  He had racked up a lot of religious merit badges, but it was never enough.  But then one day Paul found something better.  Or, rather, something better found him. 

Personal Relationship

It was back when Paul was doing his Pharisaical best to persecute the church.  He was full of self-righteous zeal, heading for Damascus to beat up some Christians there.  That’s when it happened.  That’s when he was ambushed by Jesus Christ.  But instead of crushing him like a bug (which is pretty much what Paul expected – and deserved), the Lord spoke to him in love, welcomed him in grace, called him into a whole new life based not on what Paul had done but what Jesus had done.  Here was a Lord who offered him righteousness based not on the law but on a saving, personal relationship. 

And little by little, Paul came to realize his whole religious achievement system was utterly worthless.  He didn’t have to earn his salvation.  He didn’t have to keep proving he deserved it.  He’d tried so hard to achieve those things, and they’d always eluded him.  But now here it was – a free gift. 

And that’s what changed Paul from the inside out.  That’s why he points to his resume of awards and achievements and says, “Worthless!”  All those things he’d put his confidence in, all those accomplishments he’d counted on for security – he didn’t need them anymore.  He’d found something better: “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” 

It’s what Paul desperately wanted and needed all along: not a performance religion but a personal relationship.  Look at verse 10.  I think of this as Paul’s “life verse” – the verse that best captures his heart and soul:

I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

“I want to know Christ,” Paul says.  “Not just know about him.  Not just know biblical facts or theological opinions.  I want to know this Jesus in vital  personal relationship. 

“I want to know his resurrection power – not just when I die, but right now in my own everyday experience of weakness and struggle, in those times of emptiness when it feels like hope is gone. 

“And I want to know this crucified Jesus so well that as he suffers in this world of AIDS and earthquakes, in this world of preventable hunger and disease, in this world of violence and injustice – so I suffer with him.  I want my heart be broken by the things that break his heart – that’s how close I want to be to him. 

“And that’s not all.  I want to know him ultimately.  I want to see him on that final day, when the dead are raised to meet him face-to-face, when every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.  I want to be there, by his grace.”

That’s what Paul wants.  Not a performance religion where you have to prove you’re good enough, but a personal relationship with a Lord who makes you good enough. 

What about you and me?  Some of you know me well enough to know I’m preaching to myself this morning as much as to anyone else.  Part of me believes the Gospel.  Part of me understands I can never be good enough.  Part of me knows I’m saved by grace alone.  But another part of me keeps trying to earn it, keeps trying to rack up enough points to prove I’m good enough. 

After all, was I not born of Presbyterian parents, baptized as an infant in a Presbyterian Church, graduated from a Presbyterian seminary and ordained a Presbyterian Minister of Word and Sacraments, the pastor of three Presbyterian churches and the father of a soon-to-be-ordained Presbyterian minister? 

You’ve got to admit: that’s one impressive religious resume, right?  Only problem: it doesn’t work.  It never works.  Like any religious resume, it’s never good enough.  And compared with the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, it’s

 all . . . well, in Paul’s words, it’s all garbage (I decided to go with genteel).

Here’s the bottom line.  Like Paul (and like many of you) what I need to hear is the good news that in Jesus Christ God accepts me, just as I am, even with my neurotic performance religion tendencies.  I need to hear the good news that in Jesus Christ God claims me even when I’m not worth very much.  I need to hear the good news that in Jesus Christ God says, “It is enough.  What I’ve done for you on the cross is enough.”

What if it were true – that in Jesus Christ God accepts us, welcomes us, loves us?  What changes might that make in your life?  For some of us, it just might get us to stop trying so hard to impress God and everybody else, and instead let God embrace us.  It might help us say with Paul, “What I want is to know him personally – to know the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings, even his death, and to be able to spend the rest of eternity with him.  Nothing compares with this: the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

Dear friends, believe the good news of the Gospel: in Jesus Christ we are loved.  We are forgiven.  We are accepted.  Thanks be to God. 

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,

Save in the death of Christ my God;

All the vain things that charm me most,

I sacrifice them to His blood.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,

That were a present far too small;

Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all. 3

1. I was alerted to this meaning by Dr. Timothy Keller in a sermon preached to Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York, New York entitled “Found in Him.”
2. Ralph C. Underwager, I Hurt Inside (Augsburg, 1973), p.98.
3. Isaac Watts, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” in The Presbyterian Hymnal (Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), p.101.