Genuine Joy: Philippians 3

 
Introduction
About seven or eight years ago, I was in a men’s morning Bible study and prayer group.  Weekly, we would meet and discuss a Bible passage or read a book together and then share our thoughts, struggles and insights with each other and then end with prayer. 
One morning one of the guys said, “I think we should all run a 5k together.” He proceeded to give his reasons as to why he thought we should do it.  He said, “it will be fun” …  “it will build comradery” … “it will be healthy” … blah, blah, blah.  

The other guys nodded their heads in agreement and I heartily shook my head NO!  I said, “This all sounds great and all, but I am not a runner!  I have never run more than one country block in the past 20 plus years and quite frankly, I don’t plan on starting… So, I am out.”  The man responded, “Before you say no, I know of a realistic and attainable running program called ‘From the Couch to 5k’ that I think might work for you.  Would you at least consider it?”  I thought for a moment and agreed to consider it.

He gave me the outline and as I read it, I thought, hmm I can do this.  Yes, it was going to be a challenge and a huge commitment on my part, but I agreed to do it.  So, I contacted another friend who was one of the local high school football coaches and I asked if I could join him in his morning workouts at the school workout room.  He agreed.  I started the program and after the first day I thought I was going to die.  But I committed to staying the course.  I determined that instead of thinking negatively towards running, I was now going to embrace it.  Yes, it was hard work.  It was not fun.  I could have thought of 195 things that I would rather do on any given morning at 6 am other than running.  

I started by run/walking 1 mile, then 1.25, then 1.5 and so on… after 4 months I was running 3 miles every other day.  As time passed running became easier AND I was enjoying it.  This did not entail that it was easy… No, it was tiresome, it was exhausting, it took discipline.  There were times I ran, and I would be halfway into my run and I wanted to quit, turn around and go home.  But I kept pressing forward and enduring to completion. 
Finally, I was ready.  That following summer I ran four 5ks.  It was an accomplishment I would never have achieved had I not endured hardship and press forward.  Unfortunately, over the years I have stopped running.   I don’t have a good excuse other than I don’t have time, but really it is not a great excuse.  I know that if I started back up again it wouldn’t take much time to get back to running 3 to 3 ½ miles.  Some days I think I should start back up but then the memories flood back and I let my attitude defeat me, because I know running is hard and I don’t like hard.  I prefer easy.  Sitting home on the couch is much easier for me than running.  It is tiresome, sweaty and I get thirsty, but in the long run (pun intended) pressing forward and shooting for a goal is the right thing to do.  

This leads us into today’s message in Philippians 3 where Paul talks about doing the hard things to attain the prize.  He equates the Christian life to pressing forward (like running) so we may receive the prize which is the upward call of Jesus Christ.  

 Rejoice in the Lord

Philippians 3:1 - 9
Vs 1: “Finally…”  Some Pastors and bible readers get a little chuckle out of teaching Paul’s opening statement in chapter 3.  It is similar to the story where a little boy who is in church says to his father, “What does the preacher mean when he says ‘finally’?  To which his father muttered, “Absolutely nothing.”  This is true with the Apostle Paul concluding by saying, “finally” and then continuing to write for two more chapters… I know… typical pastor.
He encourages his readers once again to “rejoice in the Lord.”  He mentions that he does not grow tired of telling the Philippians this because the Lord himself is both the point and source of joy.  There is safety in rejoicing.  The joy of the Lord will keep us safe and guarded when our spiritual foes try to take us down and destroy us.  

Vs 2:  Paul abruptly turns from calling for joy to the Philippians to issuing a warning to certain people, most likely Jewish Christians who insisted Gentile Christians should observe and submit to the Mosaic law, including circumcision. According to former Pastor and commentator R. Kent Hughes, “Paul here engages in searing rhetoric with three alliterated insults that all begin with the letter kappa (k): ‘Look out for dogs’ (kunas), ‘Look out for evil doers’ (kakous ergatos), ‘Look out for those who mutilate the flesh’ (katatome).”  But what is more than the alliteration is the ironic sarcasm that is meant to be insults to the Judaizers.  

He starts by calling them “dogs”.  Ancient Israelites did not have pets.  In fact, dogs were considered scavengers who ate garbage, carcasses, and were despised street animals.  Dogs were images for what was unclean.  To call a person a dog was neither a compliment nor flattery.  He warns the Philippians to stay away from Judaizers because they were dogs.  Yes, this was intended to be an insult to them.  

Next, he calls them “evildoers”, and this is a retort on the Judaizers because they claim to keep the law and thus do what is right in God’s eyes.  Paul was literally saying they were not righteous, instead they were evildoers.  The reality is that instead of their legalistic demands to keeping the law to make them more righteous, they were driving themselves away from righteousness

Lastly, he calls them mutilators of the flesh.  This is a sarcastic wordplay on circumcision.  For the Jew circumcision was the greatest source of pride and Paul is saying their circumcision is a mutilation of the flesh, thus showing them that they have no part in God’s people.

Vs 3: “For we are the real circumcision” Paul declares that those who worship by the Spirit of God are the true circumcised.  He says those who rely on their circumcision for their righteousness are putting their confidence in the flesh and not in Jesus.  If your boast is in Christ, your confidence cannot be in yourself.  The Christian has no room to boast in his works of the flesh. 

Vs 4 – 6:  Paul now says that if our boast is in the works of the flesh then he has every reason to boast.   He was…

1.  “circumcised on the eighth day” in strict compliance with the Abrahamic covenant. 
2. “of the people of Israel” which means, racially he was a pure-blooded Israelite.
3. “of the tribe of Benjamin”.  Benjamin was the only tribe that remained faithful to Judah and the House of David after the death of Solomon.  King Saul was a Benjamite and Paul was even given the kings name.  Thus, Paul’s heritage was honorable.
4. “Hebrew of Hebrew”. He had the best education in Jerusalem as he was educated under the Rabbi Gamaliel.
5. “as to the law, a Pharisee”. According to historian Josephus there were about 6,000 Pharisees and they were and privileged denomination in Jerusalem.  Pharisee means separated one.  They distanced themselves from unclean peoples and they only associated with Jews”
6. “as to zeal, a persecutor of church” Before Paul met Jesus, he believed followers of Jesus were heretics and they were an abomination to the God he served.  In response to this he joined in the persecution of the Christian church.  He would stop at nothing to accomplish the goal of destroying Christianity.  
7. “As to righteousness, under the law blameless” Paul did not imply he was perfect or sinless.  According to the Pharisees a faithful Israelite could keep all 613 commandments in the Torah.  Blameless describes an exemplary way of life lived in accordance with Pharisaic traditions.     

Vs 7 – 9: “Whatever gain I had…”  It did not matter what Paul thought he had gained from all of his righteousness because it was counted as loss.  In fact, Paul counts everything that he considered useful and productive as rubbish, dung, or excrement.   Everything he thought (before meeting Christ) that was drawing him closer to God was in fact keeping or pushing him from Christ.

In Paul’s economy everything was considered loss because in comparison to what he received from Christ; all of his human accomplishments were added up to a dung heap.  However, his relationship with Christ was the greater investment. In reality there was no loss on Paul’s part.  Everything he accomplished equaled nothing, and you cannot lose more than nothing. You can only gain when you have nothing at all.  Paul’s gain was Christ and his righteousness.  Paul went from giving up all HIS accomplishments (works and pride of the flesh) in exchange for righteousness from God that depends on faith.

Paul’s conclusion

Philippians 3:10 - 21
Vs 10 – 11: In gaining righteousness Paul’s desire is to know Jesus more and to know him in such a way that his life that would be identified with the Christ and that it would be radiated through his life.  His desire is to…

1. Know the power of the resurrection – This is God’s life-giving power.  God raised Jesus from the dead and this same resurrection power is available to Paul and all who believe.  We were once dead in our trespasses (sins) and condemned for our sinfulness.  But we are told that in God’s rich mercy and love we were made alive together in Christ. This is the joy of the new life.  We were dead and we are now alive.  We were in chains and shackles and now we are free from sin, bondage, and death.
2. Share in his sufferings – This is less appealing, but necessary, nonetheless.  Paul knew that knowing and experiencing the power of God came with a price tag and the price was suffering.  In giving up his self-righteous ways for the righteousness that comes from Christ there was a tradeoff.  He was going to suffer for the sake of Christ.  He was going to be persecuted for his new life.  However, Paul didn’t see this as something to avoid and fear; he saw it as a divine gift or a sacred intimacy with Jesus.  This is true for every believer.  Sharing in his sufferings and this suffering is not a result of God’s neglect for his children, rather it is proof that grace is at work in your life.  The simple fact of the matter is the more a believer becomes like Christ, the more he or she will suffer for the sake of Christ.

Vs 12 – 21: Paul continues in humility to share that he is far from reaching the place he desires to be as a Christian.  He admits he has not obtained the relationship he desires with Christ.  He longed to know his savior more, and he longed to grow in Him.  What we see in the first part of vs 12 is a type of holy discontent.  Paul is not satisfied, he wants to know Jesus more and more, and this translates to a good thing.  Paul’s holy discontent shows us that he has an active faith that is continually growing, and this is a blessing.

He then equates his journey to straining forward and pressing on toward the goal of the prize.  He is not focusing on his past accomplishments.  No, his journey is a forward moving journey like a marathon or race.  He is so focused on the prize which is knowing Christ fully and experiencing perfect fellowship with him that no matter how difficult, exhausting, or tiresome this race is, he will keep pressing forward.  

Vs 17:  Paul invites his readers to join in imitating him by doing what he is doing.  He is calling them to discipleship by saying, “Come, join me as we press on together in pursuing Christ.”  Unfortunately, there are some who has taken the path of walking as enemies of Christ.  They found the race is not worth running.  They have chosen to invest in worldly affairs which leads to destruction and shame.  But to those who pursue Jesus, we are citizens of heaven and we wait patiently for the day that we will become like Christ and we are transformed to our glorious bodies by the power of the Spirit.

Conclusion
So, FINALLY my dear friends how can we apply all this to us today individually and as a family of God?  We can look at what I have just talked about and apply these three thoughts…

1. What are you trusting in with regard your relationship with Jesus?  Do you depend on your righteousness to make you right with God or do you fully cling to Jesus’ righteousness?  Sadly, Christian legalism has bred a ravenous beast within the body of Christ.  There are so many self-righteous believers who cling to their accomplishments or works to define their relationship with Jesus.  We work so hard to not sin, that we miss out on the joy of living in Christ.  I consider individuals like this as people who live in the “thou shalt not” as opposed to the “thou shalts”.  This means that some have invested their whole lives by focusing so much on what they can’t or shouldn’t do, that they never experience the freedom of doing what God has set them free to do.  It is easy to point out the sins of others and spend so much time fighting to not sin that we rarely experience the freedom of living in God’s grace, mercy, and love.  This is not to diminish the importance of avoiding sin, because we are told over and over to not walk in the darkness.  But we must remember that because of what Christ has done for us because of sin, he has given us freedom from this very sin we work so hard to avoid.  May our only boast, our only confidence, our only hope must be in Jesus Christ and his works of righteousness.
2. Is there anything keeping you from fully pursuing Christ?  There are many things in this world that can and do distract us from pursuing Jesus.  In our world there are so many things that compete for our attention… To name a few… smart phones, social media, YouTube, entertainment, sports and the list goes on.  Now, I am not demonizing these I am just calling them what they are…  distractions.  One of the biggest challenges for the church and Christians today is lack of focus on that which is most important, and this is Jesus.  Your relationship with Jesus takes work and discipline.   And quite honestly, for some of us, at the end of the day we do not have a lot of energy to invest in many things, let alone our walks with Jesus.  But no matter what we need to protect that which is important.  We need to be mindful of those things that are hindering our relationship with Jesus.  Thus, we must identify them and then deal with them.  I don’t think the best way to “deal with them” is to give them up fully, I think we just need to determine how we will have balance.  Distractions cause us to take our eyes off of what is important.  As Christians Jesus should be of utmost importance, so we need to find what is keeping us from pursuing him and determine how we will focus our attention on Him instead of the distraction.
3. Press forward.  The Christian life is hard.  It can be exhausting, tiresome, and hard work. But if our relationship with Jesus is the foundation of who we are in Christ we must press forward, not matter how hard or difficult it is.  One of the ways we can press forward is by having a holy discontent.  May we never be satisfied where we believe we have achieved or accomplished a perfect relationship with Jesus.  May we never put our relationship with Jesus on cruise control.  The more we desire to know him, and to be like him the more we will be discontent with our relationship today.  This is a dangerous place to be because it can lead to a works-based faith, but when our motivation is to deepen our relationship with Him out of love, then we will be disciplined in pressing forward and staying the course as we pursue Him.