My friend Luis Palau used to tell this story about his grandfather… When his grandfather lay dying in a Buenos Aires hospital, Luis sat by his bedside, urging him to trust in Jesus for eternal life. But Luis’ grandfather always put him off saying, “Don’t worry about me, Sonny. I’m alright. After all, I’m Scotch Presbyterian.” And whenever he told this story, Luis would add, “But my grandfather definitely preferred Scotch to Presbyterian!”
What are you rejoicing in today? Your heritage? Your church background?
The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the church at Philippi, urges us to rejoice in the Lord, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. Listen for God’s word to you from Philippians 3:1-11…
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. Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. 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— though I myself have reasons for such confidence.
If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 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; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 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 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. 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 talk with you today about plugging into the power of joy instead of legalism. And what do I mean by legalism? Legalism usually rears its ugly head in one of two ways: either the attempt to add to God’s law, or the attempt to be justified in God’s sight by obedience to the law.
So how do we choose joy in Christ instead of legalism? The first thing Paul urges us to do is to rejoice in our relationship with the Lord.
Apparently, Paul had discussed this subject with the Philippians on a previous occasion, for he says, “It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.” What Paul says here he deems to be of utmost importance. He is about to warn of a great danger in the Christian life. But before doing so, he gives us a positive encouragement: “Rejoice in the Lord!”
As we saw in our study of Galatians, Christianity is, fundamentally, not a religion, but a relationship with God through his Son Jesus Christ. Every religion in the world is an attempt to reach up to God, or to what adherents of religion deem to be the highest good in life. Every religion is based upon works, trying to work your way toward heaven, or nirvana, or whatever one deems to be the goal of life. As my friend Tim Hansel once wrote, “… religion becomes a pattern of rules and regulations, a system that helps us tidy up our behavior, somewhat like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It allows us a better view as we go down.”
But in Christianity we have something fundamentally different going on. In Christianity we have God becoming human in Jesus of Nazareth, taking on human flesh, living a perfectly righteous life in fulfillment of all God’s law, something no other human being has ever done, and then dying on a cross in our place, and rising again from the dead. Through religion, human beings try to reach up to God, but in Christianity we have the good news that God has reached down to us and said, “Here, let me help you.”
That’s why Paul can say, “Rejoice in the Lord!” Rejoice in the fact that you have a relationship with God through his Son Jesus Christ. Don’t get sidetracked into rejoicing in religion, rejoicing in what you think you can do for God, because ultimately all religion is rubbish.
It is so easy to lose our focus on Jesus as we move along in the Christian life. That is why Paul had to write to the churches in Galatia and ask: “What has happened to all your joy?” They had lost their focus on Jesus, they were attempting to be saved by works, and consequently they had lost all their joy. Paul was afraid that the same thing might happen in Philippi, so he warned them ahead of time.
How we look at our Christian faith makes all the difference. Is Christianity, for you, more like following a rule book, or following a person?
There is a great scene in C. S. Lewis’ children’s book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where the Christ-figure of the story, the great lion Aslan, takes two of the children in the story, Susan and Lucy, for a ride on his back. Lewis says, “That ride was perhaps the most wonderful thing that happened to them in Narnia.”
Being a Christian, I believe, is much more like going for a ride on Aslan’s back than it is like following a rule book. And that ride brings great joy!
The second thing Paul calls us to do, after rejoicing in the Lord, is to watch out for legalism. Paul says, “Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh.”
Paul is talking about the circumcision party. This is a group of Jewish followers of Jesus who are insisting that for Gentiles to follow Jesus they must first be circumcised and then follow all the Jewish law.
Paul warns the Philippians using very strong language. He calls some of his fellow Jews “dogs”. Now, what you must understand is that Jews in the first century often referred to Gentiles as “dogs”. Paul is turning the tables on them and saying that the circumcision group are the real dogs. Rather than performing “good works”, Paul says these people are “evildoers”. Rather than performing true circumcision, these Jews are merely mutilating flesh. I believe Paul uses such strong language because he believes the error these people are committing is serious. Those who follow their error will not know grace through Jesus Christ.
Paul goes on to say, “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— though I myself have reasons for such confidence.”
So, those who glory in Christ Jesus, who worship by the Spirit, and who do not put confidence in the flesh—these people are the true circumcision. It seems to me that what Paul is saying is that it doesn’t matter whether your flesh has been cut in a certain way. What matters is whether God has cut out the old nature of sin from your heart, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The same thing could be said today of baptism. The most important thing is not whether you have been baptized with water because baptism doesn’t save you. What counts is whether you have the Holy Spirit living in you.
The problem with the circumcision party is that they think they will be saved by following certain religious rituals, following certain rules. But this problem was not unique to certain first century Jews. The problem of legalism continues today…
Researcher, Merton Strommen, surveyed 7000 Protestant church youth from many denominations, asking them whether they agreed with the following statements:
- “The way to be accepted by God is to try sincerely to live a good life.” More than 60% agreed.
- “God is satisfied if a person lives the best life he can.” Almost 70% agreed.
- “The main emphasis of the gospel is on God’s rules for right living.” More than half agreed.
I am here today to tell you that those statements do not represent what the Gospel is about. Those statements represent the legalistic view of the Christian life.
As I said earlier, whenever we attempt to be justified by our works, or whenever we try to add to God’s law, we are sliding into legalism. One problem with the second form of legalism is that when we engage in it, we think we are becoming more holy than we are in reality. We delude ourselves into thinking that we are pleasing God when we are merely following human rules. And pride, one of the greatest sins, often arises from legalism.
Earlier this year, some in our church read and discussed Philip Yancey’s book, What’s So Amazing About Grace. Yancey once said this about legalism…
I first ran into legalism in an extremely conservative church when growing up in Atlanta, Georgia. It took only one month of attendance to figure out what the list of “don’ts” were in that church. The list included dancing, card-playing, smoking, drinking, civil rights, movies, rock music, long hair, games on Sunday, dice games, miniskirts, swimming with the other sex, and dating blacks or Hispanics. If you stayed away from all those evils and carried a Bible, you were automatically accepted into the group. Later in a Bible college in the South, I ran into a new list of rules. There, integration was supported (but still no inter-racial dating and, to stay on the safe side, the one resident black student roomed with the one resident Puerto Rican). Bowling, one of the Atlanta youth group’s favorite activities, was frowned on because some bowling alleys served liquor. Who would know whether you went there to bowl or to drink? Roller skating was forbidden, because skaters had the pernicious habit of holding hands while they skated and, besides, skating looked suspiciously like dancing. The real hang-up at the Bible college seemed to be with sex. Miniskirts were not only frowned on but measured! During the four years I was there, the acceptable skirt length rose from one inch below the knee to mid-knee to one inch above the knee (in the late sixties, when thigh-high skirts were everyday scenery elsewhere). Then the maxi-skirt came along, and a great sigh of relief went up. So innocent an act as a guy holding hands with a girl was banned. Hand-holders or especially kissers who were caught by a dean were quickly put on restriction or dismissed from school.
Well, you get the point. But the problem is… legalism is easy to spot in other people, other times, other places. It is harder to identify in ourselves. Even though I grew up in a Christian home where legalism was not an issue, I have seen the temptations to legalism crop up in my life as an adult Christian. So, I think we all need to heed Paul’s warning to watch out for legalism.
If we are going to plug into the power of joy, a third thing this passage invites us to do is to consider Paul’s life. Paul says…
If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 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; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.
In other words, Paul thought he was the perfect first century Jew. If we are ever tempted to boast about our own righteousness, it might be helpful to compare ourselves to Paul… and then realize there is no comparison. Most of our human attempts at righteousness pale in comparison to Paul’s.
It reminds me of the story of the man who died and went to heaven. When he entered through the pearly gates, he saw a large crowd gathering and so he asked St. Peter: “What’s going on?”
Peter replied, “Oh, they are gathering for Show and Tell. Do you have anything you would like to share?”
The man replied, “Yes, I would like to tell the story of how I survived the Johnstown flood of 1889.”
“That will be fine,” Peter replied. “Just remember when you stand up to speak that Noah will be in the front row.”
Similarly, when we are tempted to boast of our righteousness, it is helpful to remember that Paul is in the audience. Paul had it all, religiously speaking, but he came to a point in his life where he realized his religiosity was worthless.
That leads to a fourth thing we can learn from this passage and that is to count everything as a loss to gain Christ.
Socrates is quoted by Plato as saying, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
I think Paul would have agreed with that statement. He had examined his life. He had counted the value of everything in his life before meeting Christ and he counted it as rubbish so he could gain Christ.
Much success in the Christian life depends on getting back to basics, like learning how to count. Before he met Christ, Paul counted his heritage, his religion, his education, his language, even his persecution of Christians, to be of great value. After meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus, Paul counted those things as worthless.
Jesus told two parables that could be viewed as descriptions of Paul’s life. Jesus said,
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.
Paul found Jesus to be so valuable that he was willing to give up everything to have him. Jesus is like the treasure hidden in the field or like the pearl of great price.
Jesus is tremendously attractive, but there is a cost to following him. So, sometimes it seems easier to choose a less expensive way of life.
Many years ago, I read a story about some kids who won four free goldfish at their town carnival. The next morning their father had to go out and buy an aquarium, of course. The first few he saw ranged in price from 40 to 70 dollars. Then dad spotted another aquarium, a used 10-gallon tank, complete with gravel and filter for a mere 5 dollars. Sold! Of course, the used aquarium was very dirty, but the savings made the two hours of clean-up seem like a small price to pay in effort for the cash savings.
Those four goldfish looked fantastic in their new home… at least for the first day. But by Sunday, one goldfish had died. Too bad, but three remained. Monday morning revealed a second casualty, and by Monday night a third goldfish had gone belly up. Dad called in an expert who had a 30-gallon tank. It didn’t take the expert long to discover the problem. Dad had washed the tank with soap—an absolute no-no. Dad’s uninformed efforts had destroyed the very lives he was trying to protect.
Sometimes in our zeal to clean up our lives or the lives of others we use “killer soaps” like legalism. Just follow all the religious rules and everything will be alright. Or so we think. But according to Paul, that way leads to death.
So, what’s the alternative? Paul says that the alternative is to make it our goal to know Jesus intimately.
Paul says…
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.
That is Paul’s personal mission statement in life:
- To know Christ.
- To be like Christ, even in his suffering.
- To live a life marked by the resurrection power of Christ.
Is that your mission in life? Is it mine? If not, we can make it ours today. Let us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, make it our one consuming passion, not just to know about Jesus, but to know him personally, to know the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, and to know the power that raised him from the dead.
As I have said many times before, being a Christian means giving as much as we know of ourselves to as much as we know of Christ. That’s an ongoing, lifelong process. But as we engage in that process there is great joy…
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