Philippians 3:

2017 10.08 Philippians 3:4-16 If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. 7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. 16 Only let us hold fast to what we have attained. 1

Trash for Treasure My first job after graduating college was with a British-owned medical publishing company in New York City. The company s name was Churchill Livingstone, which is about as British-sounding as you can get. Churchill Livingstone was a medical publishing company. They produced medical books and journals. The majority of the business was in books, but I worked on the journals side. I was an editorial assistant, which is a fancy way of saying secretary. I did administrative work, like typing, filing, and sending faxes (back when sending faxes was a thing). When I arrived home at my parents house after my first day of work, wearing a sport coat, tie, and trench coat, my sister greeted me by cheerfully shouting, It s the executive! Without missing a beat, I said, Executive secretary. It wasn t the most exciting work, but one good thing about working at Churchill Livingstone was the people. Churchill was filled with interesting people. One of them was a guy named Dave Terry. Dave was a copy editor. He worked on the books side. He edited these massive medical reference books that were so large and heavy that bookshelves bent under their weight. As big as the finished books were, the manuscripts were even bigger. When Dave sat at his desk you almost couldn t see him behind the enormous stacks of manuscripts that were piled up all around him. He looked like an Eskimo in a half-finished igloo. It takes a special type of personality to edit books of that density and filled with medical jargon, and Dave had it. Dave was an interesting guy for several reasons. First of all, he was a vegetarian the first one I had ever met. I wasn t the only one who was intrigued by his vegetarianism. Another coworker, amazed to have learned that Dave did not eat meat, felt the need to probe further. You don t eat pork? she asked. No. 2

You don t eat chicken? No. You don t eat fish? I remember Dave s answer, which he seemed to choose with scientific clarity. If it has a central nervous system, I don t eat it. Yet despite the fact that Dave was a vegetarian, he had a terrible diet. He didn t like vegetables. He ate mostly bread and pasta. Dave s unhealthy vegetarianism was just one of his quirks. Another was that he wore a suit and tie every day, which was above and beyond the company dress code of business casual. (I wore a tie my first day, but then never again.) One of the appeals of the publishing industry is that the working environment is casual. The executives might wear suits, but copy editors don t need to dress to impress. They don t take business meetings with clients; they sit at their desks behind walls of manuscripts. Nevertheless, Dave dressed each day like he was going to a wedding. Then one day, in place of his usual suit and tie, he showed up sporting a Hawaiian shirt, khakis, and loafers. The next day he wore the same thing. And then the day after that. I never saw him wear a suit again. I was dying to know why the sudden change in wardrobe. So one day as Dave was passing by my desk, I said to him, Dave, I need to ask you something. You used to wear a suit and tie every day, but now you dress like you re going bowling. What happened? He prefaced his answer by inhaling deeply. Then he smiled and said, You know, I used to want to get ahead, so I thought I should dress up in order to show people 3

that I was serious about my career. But then I woke up one day and realized that I didn t care. I d rather just be comfortable. Dave s newfound Zen attitude carried over from his wardrobe into his work. A project manager approached him frantically one day with a stack of papers that needed editing urgently. How quickly can you edit this? she asked. The client needs it right away. I ll never forget Dave s answer. He was completely calm, and even smiled as he said, I can edit it for you in whatever timeframe you d like. I can do it for you in two minutes. How good of a job do you want me to do? That was such a good answer, and the right answer to an unreasonable request! I ve been waiting almost 20 years for a situation in which to use it myself. It hasn t happened yet. Maybe some day. The change in Dave s external appearance reflected an inner transformation. He gave up something, but in giving up something he also gained something. He gave up his career ambitions but gained happiness. Whatever he had hoped to gain in career success he considered as loss for the value of peace of mind and contentment that he acquired. In today s reading, the Apostle Paul experiences something similar, only at a much deeper level. He gives up everything in which he had placed confidence his pedigree, his reputation, and his self-understanding. But in giving up all these, he gains something infinitely more valuable a relationship with Jesus Christ. Today and next week we will take a brief tour through Philippians. It s a short book, just four chapters, and we re going to read just portions of chapters 3 and 4. So let s get a little bit of background on this short but important letter [SLIDE]. 4

The city of Philippi has quite a storied history. It was near Philippi that the forces of Mark Antony and Octavian (later to become Augustus, the first Roman emperor) defeated the forces of Brutus and Cassius, the men responsible for assassinating Julius Caesar. Shortly after the battle, Mark Antony settled many veterans from his army in Philippi, establishing it as a Roman colony. The church in Philippi was founded by Paul nearly 100 years later, sometime around the year AD 50. The church in Philippi was the first European Christian community. Paul s first convert in Philippi was Lydia, a merchant who sold purple cloth. Shortly after Lydia s conversion, Paul and his companion Silas were arrested and placed in prison. An earthquake shook the foundations of the jail, allowing all the prisoners to escape. But Paul and Silas remained. They ended up converting their jailer and his entire household and winning an apology from the judge who oversaw their arrest. Paul was nothing if not persistent and persuasive [SLIDE]. This wasn t the last time that Paul would find himself in prison. In fact, Paul writes his letter to the Philippian church from prison. Where Paul was imprisoned is a matter that scholars debate. Some think Rome, others elsewhere. What is not debated is that the Philippians are aware that Paul is in prison. Having learned that, they send one of their own to visit Paul and bring him gifts to supply his needs. That man s name is Epaphroditus. While visiting Paul in prison, Epahphroditus becomes seriously ill. He recovers, and then Paul sends him back to Philippi with the letter that we know as Philippians. That s enough background. Now to the letter itself. The passage starts with Paul bragging about his reasons to be confident in the flesh [SLIDE]. I m sorry, but we need just a little more background. What Paul is referring to is a group either within or around the Philippian church who are saying that Gentile converts to Christianity must take on Jewish practices such as circumcision. Paul refers to such an attitude as putting confidence in the flesh. 5

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, Paul writes, I have more, (Phil. 3:4). He then proceeds to launch into a litany of his qualifications for confidence in the flesh: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless (Phil. 3:5-6). As to humility Paul seems rather lacking in humility, doesn t he? At times in Scripture, here and elsewhere, Paul can come across as arrogant. Some of this may be due to his personality, but in this case, there may be something more at work. It was common in Paul s day to make an argument based on one s autobiography. In fact, it s still common. We tend to take a person s opinion more seriously if they have experience that supports their opinion. Paul s life experience was that of a faithful Jew, born and bred. Paul makes it clear that no one can question his Jewish credentials. He was an insider among insiders. Yet all this his pedigree, his status, his reputation he regards as loss because he has gained Christ [SLIDE]: Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord (Phil. 3:7-8). Knowing Christ. That is what concerns Paul. That is what transformed Paul. As much as we think of Paul as a theologian (he wasn t, at least in a traditional sense), the way he saw himself was as someone who had a powerful experience of the risen Christ. The church, especially the Reformed church, to which the Presbyterians belong, has often tried to turn Paul into a systematic theologian. Yet that s not how Paul thought of himself. In many ways Paul was more of a pastor than he was a theologian. He 6

wrote letters to churches to encourage, and advise, and sometimes criticize their way of living out their faith in Jesus Christ. Here in Philippians Paul is encouraging the Philippian church by sharing his own experience of transformation. He tells them that he once defined himself by a bunch of things that he now regards as rubbish, as trash. Yet I want to introduce a word of caution. Paul is not rejecting his Jewish roots. It is far too easy for the church to slide into anti-semitism by saying that Paul rejects Judaism and converts to Christianity. During Paul s life, Christianity as we know it, as a religion distinct from Judaism, did not exist. Early Christians like Paul were regarded by Rome, and regarded themselves, as a movement within Judaism. They were Jews who recognized Jesus as the Messiah. What Paul is rejecting is not Judaism but the notion of allowing any of those things that once defined him his pedigree, his status, his reputation to continue to lay claim to his identity. Paul s identity has been redefined by his relationship with Jesus Christ: For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him (Phil. 3:8-9). Knowing Christ is the key for Paul. But by knowing Paul doesn t mean simply intellectual knowledge. Paul doesn t mean knowledge of Christ in the way that the church has sometimes reduced faith to a system of beliefs. In that way faith becomes nothing more than a business transaction: If you believe in Jesus, you will go to heaven. What foolishness and what arrogance to think that the gospel could be reduced to a transaction! Paul s knowledge of Christ was not at all transactional. It was lived knowledge. It was knowledge that knocked him to the ground. As described in Acts 9, Paul encounters Christ on the road to Damascus. Paul is on his way to Damascus to 7

round up Christians and bring them as prisoners to Jerusalem. But in that moment he encounters Jesus Christ, and everything else fades from view. I mean that quite literally. Paul was temporarily blinded; he couldn t see. And yet, in another way, he saw clearly for the first time. He saw himself through the eyes of Jesus Christ. Everything else, all the things that once gave him his identity, became as garbage to him. Paul was liberated from his need to define himself by such things. We also know Christ, and not purely at an intellectual level. Of course faith involves the intellect, but it is not confined there. Our knowledge of Christ knocks us off our feet, just as it did Paul. It knocks us to the ground and brings us to our knees, which is where you will spend a lot of time when you know Christ on your knees. We fall to the ground not only in reverence, not only in prayer, but also in power. That sounds odd, doesn t it? Fall to your knees in power? We associate being on our knees with powerlessness. Being on our knees is a position of weakness, not of strength. But this is a different type of power. It is not power as the world knows power. It is not the power of military might or the power of money. It is the power of the resurrection [SLIDE]: I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death (Phil. 3:10). In knowing Christ, we are becoming like him. I don t mean sinless and perfect, and certainly not divine. What I mean is that knowing Christ means being formed by his Spirit. It means being transformed from who we were and into his image. It means sharing in his sufferings by becoming like him in his death. It means dying to our pride and selfish ambition and living as he lived putting to death our self-seeking ways and faithfully loving God and neighbor. 8

It s not about being Christian, it s about becoming Christian. It s about continually being converted and transformed into the way of Jesus Christ. It s about giving up, again and again, our relentless selfishness and gaining Christ s selflessness. It s about giving up all the things by which we define ourselves and regarding them as trash next to the treasure of knowing Jesus Christ. It s about giving up the vanity of defining ourselves by our careers, our bank accounts, our relationships, our children s success, by how others think of us, or by how we re doing in comparison to others. It s frightening to give all that up. Of course it is! Paul writes that he suffered the loss of all things. But in losing them, he was at last able to see them for what they were trash especially when compared with the treasure of knowing Jesus Christ. This conversion, this transformation, does not occur in a moment. It s a lifelong process. Let s go back to Paul. Paul s conversion didn t end when he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus. That was only the beginning of his conversion. Paul would spend the rest of his life being converted to the way of Jesus Christ, to the power of the resurrection. He says in verse 12 [SLIDE], Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own (Phil. 3:12). We press on knowing that Jesus Christ has made us his own. That means that our lives are no longer our own. They belong to Jesus Christ who is converting and transforming us through the power of his resurrection. And that is something to be treasured. 9