Because of Christ

Let’s start this morning with three questions, and I want to tell you this right away — I’m not over-speaking here and I’m not kidding — these are the most important questions you could ever ask yourself.

1. What is your heaven?

2. Who is your savior?

3. Where are you now?

Over the next 35 minutes I’m asking that each of you think about these questions as we dig into Philippians Chapter 3, and I don’t know what each of you are bringing in here today, but I do know that God works by his Spirit through his word and I invite you to humble your heart to that fact. Let’s pray:

Father in heaven, our great God, you are King from of old and you are working your salvation right now in the midst of the earth. We ask this morning that you work in here, by your Spirit, through your word, for your glory, in Jesus’s name, amen. 

1) What Is Your Heaven? (verse 3)

Look at verse 3. Now Pastor David Mathis talked a lot about this verse last week and it was so good, so we need to start here again this week, especially with that phrase “For we are the circumcision.” What does that mean again? 

What does Paul mean by calling this church and himself (that’s who he has in mind when he says “we”) — what does he mean by “we are the circumcision”?

The False Teaching

Notice first that the phrase is meant to be a contrast to verse 2. In verse 2, Paul warns about false teachers and calls them dogs, evildoers, and mutilators of the flesh. And last week we learned two things about this: not all of us are dog people. … (there are some good cat people out there); we learned that these false teachers are Jewish false teachers who had been misleading Gentile Christians by telling them that the men had to be physically circumcised in order to really become part of the people of God.

The false teachers said that if you wanted to be set apart by God, recognized by God as his people, then you have to obey Jewish laws, and the most central, life-adjusting law was for the men to be circumcised — that wasn’t something you just did on a whim; it was a distinctive lifelong marker.

And in the minds of the false teachers, circumcision was the marker that meant you were part of the people of God. They conflated the two: To be God’s people was to be circumcised. To be circumcised was to be God’s people. So, if someone were to say, “we are the circumcision” that’s like saying “We are God’s people.”

Well, in verse 3, that’s what Paul is doing. He says: “For we are the circumcision.” He’s saying we are the real people of God — not these false teachers and those like them who think you have to be Jewish in order to be the people of God, but it’s us, we — Paul who is ethnically Jewish and these Gentile believers — we are the real people of God, not by keeping Jewish laws like circumcision, but by faith in Christ.

What They Wanted

And Paul is going to elaborate on that in the following verses and that’s where we’re gonna focus, but before we do that, I want to step back and ask a broader question … it’s the question: What do they want? 

What did these false teachers want? That’s another way of asking: What is their heaven? That’s the way to think about “your heaven.” Your heaven is what you most want. 

I think for these false teachers, the answer is that they wanted to be God’s people. That’s the irony in what Paul says in verse 3 — These false teachers wanted to be the people of God (and they were trying to tell others how to be the people of God), but Paul says, No, you’re actually dogs. You’re evildoers and mutilators. We are the real people of God.

The false teachers were wrong, but we should know they were probably sincere in what they were doing. And that’s true for most false teachers: False teachers tend to really believe the lies they spread. Which is why it takes discernment on our part. The false teachers were spreading lies, but if what they wanted, if what they were after was to be the people of God, that’s not a terrible thing. That’s a pretty good thing to want. If your heaven is to be God’s people, that’s a good start to our first question. I mean, there are a lot of worse things to most want in life … Some people most want to be rich and famous. That’s their heaven. Some people most want to be comfortable and cared for. That’s their heaven. Some people most want to advance their cause at all costs. That’s their heaven.

So you have the worldly ambitious … and the comfort-loving don’t-mind-me’s … and the scorch-the-earth zealots — A lot of people fall into those three categories. Everybody has their heaven. What’s yours?

What do you most want? Pretend that this afternoon you meet a genie who gives you one wish, what are you asking? It can’t be for more wishes; every genie shoots that down. What’s the one thing you’re asking? “What is your heaven?” — hold that question. 

Now here’s the second question:

2) Who Is Your Savior? (verses 4–7)

Now, our first two questions are closely related. We’re not done with the first one, but we need to see something here.

We’re going to focus on verses 4–7, but notice again in verse 3: After Paul says, “For we are the circumcision” (we’re the real people of God) — he explains what that means in three things that we do. Pastor Mathis called these “three marks of what it means to really be a Christian” (verse 3) — We worship by the Spirit of God, we glory (or boast) in Christ Jesus, and we put no confidence in the flesh. 

And that last one is especially important because that’s precisely the opposite of what these false teachers were doing and teaching. These false teachers were saying that in order to be part of God’s people, the flesh does matter and you need to make it something you can put confidence in.

So Paul directly shuts that down. To be a real Christian is to put NO confidence in your flesh — no confidence in your own efforts and energies as a way to earn God’s favor. Christians are done with the flesh.

But wait a minute …

Confidence in the Flesh?

The false teachers (or someone influenced by the false teachers) might hear Paul say that and think, “Well, he’s just saying that because he feels sorry for these Gentiles who don’t have anything good in their flesh!” “Paul is just stacking the deck in their favor!” 

It’s like this: imagine I’m playing basketball with my four boys, and imagine, hypothetically, that a couple of the boys can’t dribble well. They prefer to tuck the basketball like it’s a football and run to the goal, hypothetically.

Now what if we’re about to play a game and I gather the four boys together and said, “Hey, boys, for this game, we put no confidence in dribbling. You don’t have to dribble according to the rules of this game.”

If I were to say that, the other two boys would say, “The only reason you’re saying dribbling doesn’t matter is because they can’t dribble. This is rigged.”

In verse 4 Paul anticipates that being said to him. He anticipates someone saying: The only reason you say flesh-boasting doesn’t matter is because they’ve got nothing to flesh-boast about.

And Paul goes like sanctified ballistic here. Notice he changes from the third person “we” in verse 3, and he starts talking about himself. 

He says: “[we, the real people of God] put no confidence in the flesh — THOUGH I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more.”

This is what Paul is saying. He’s saying: “You don’t have to dribble in this game, but I can dribble. In fact, if anybody thinks he can dribble, I’m actually better.” 

Then in verse 5 Paul’s like, Give me the ball. Let me show you. 

And he tells us seven things about himself that make him remarkably Jewish. He is so Jewish, and was once so committed to Judaism, that he beats these false teachers in their own game. He outscores them on their own scorecard. Paul was everything (and more) of what these false teachers could only hope to be. 

And it’s fascinating what he says in verse 6 when he says that he was “a persecutor of the church.” This means that Paul has actually been where these false teachers were, except that he was so extreme in his zeal that he didn’t just try to make Christianity more Jewish, he tried to end Christianity. Paul was better at doing what these false teachers are trying to do. 

This is a stunning passage. Paul says I could play your game. I once did — and did better than you. But verse 7. 

Counted As Loss

Paul says:

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.” 

(More literally, he says here: “But whatever was gain to me, this I counted, because of Christ, as loss.”)

He uses an accounting metaphor. 

And notice that the verb “counted” in verse 7 is in the perfect tense — it’s something done in the past. That same verb is used two other times in verse 8 and they’re both in the present tense. But first, in verse 7, there was a past action, a past “counting.” There was a time when Paul reconfigured his P&L sheet.

He had been running hard in his Jewishness, excelling, accruing, building an impressive resume — lots of religious gains and profit. More than anyone. But then, he took that entire column, all those things he counted as gains, and he said “LOSS.” Why? Why the change? Because of Christ.

Paul met Jesus Christ — against all odds. We can read the story in Acts Chapter 9. Paul retells the story himself in Acts 22 and 26. The risen Lord Jesus intervened in Paul’s life. Jesus knocked him off his horse and saved him. Paul had been zealous for God, but Jesus told him he had been going about it all the wrong way. Which means, although Paul wanted God, he was trying to get God by trusting in himself. He put his confidence in his own gifts and achievements, which means he looked to these things to be his savior. 

Questions Connection

And here’s where I want you to see how the first two questions are connected: What is your heaven? And Who is your Savior?

Your heaven is what you most want. Your savior is who you are trusting in to get you what you most want. 

We have to get both of these right, but you can imagine how easily this could go wrong. The gate of wrongness is wide here. There more than one way to mess thing up.

Like, you could get it wrong both ways: false heaven and false savior. And that’s probably none of you in here. All those people are working hard somewhere right now. They’re running hard down dead-end roads.

But what about true heaven, false savior?

That’s like Paul. You want God, but your savior is your own flesh. You’re trusting in your own gifts and your own achievements to be why God accepts you.  

I know what that’s like. 

My Own Story

My heaven for the longest time was to always play baseball at the next level, which meant in high school I wanted to play in college. So I was pursuing that. And one weekend I was at this showcase event — and a showcase event is when you go to this place and try to showcase your skills in front of a bunch of college or pro scouts. Well, at this thing, one of the coaches there who had been recruiting me, about halfway through the showcase, he pulled me aside, and he said, “Parnell, hustle is what makes you good.”

It was not a compliment. What he was saying was: “You’re not very good, so you have to play really hard.” I was 17 and I remember it to this day (and there are some deep reasons why) but one reason is because I knew he was right. It cemented something for me: if baseball was my heaven, hustle was my savior. I better bust it. I better get after it. 

But then, I got into this car wreck, and God, in his mercy, started to do a new work in my life, and after about a year, baseball was not my heaven anymore. God became my heaven. I wanted to know him. I wanted to be used by him, so I left baseball and started to pursue theological training to be a pastor.

But here’s the thing: I was still hustling. I thought: If I want to know God, if I want God to accept me and use me, I have to really play hard. So I did. I had intense spiritual disciplines. I hit the books like I never had before, and I became religiously competitive. Until one early morning in prayer, when everybody else was sleeping and I was really playing hard, I told God that the reason he loved me more than he loved my roommates was because of my hustle. I told God that.  

And in that moment … I can remember exactly where I was — it was almost like Jesus stepped into the room and he said You’ve got this all wrong. It’s called grace. 

Grace changed my life.

“I Boast No More”

See, Jesus is God’s grace to us and all of him for us is grace. 

Which means, you can’t be proud about discovering grace because it’s only by grace that you know it’s by grace. 

And then it’s only by grace that you know it’s by grace that you know it’s by grace. It’s just grace, grace, grace, grace until you get to God who “before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen [a people] in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love, without any other thing in the creature as the condition or cause moving him thereunto” (1689, 3.5).

Go back before time! Go as far back as you can! Turn every angle you want! It’s all grace. And when we understand that, our own righteousness just looks stupid. All those gifts and achievements you once boasted in, if you are a Christian there was a time when you counted as loss. We have exposed them as false saviors. And we say:

No more my God, I boast no more

Of all the duties I have done

I quit the hopes I held before

To trust the merits of Thy Son

The best obedience of my hands

Dares not appear before Thy throne

But faith can answer Thy demands

By pleading what my Lord has done

Jesus Christ is the only true Savior. 

He’s the only one who gets you God … if God is who you want. 

Prosperity Gospel?

What about those who look to Jesus to be their Savior, but they want Jesus to get them something other than God? What if Jesus is your Savior but your heaven is comfort and ease? So true Savior, false heaven.

Well that’s what’s called the “prosperity gospel” — people who use Jesus to get themselves temporal pleasures. They use Jesus to get something other than God. 

And of course we think “that’s not us!” — right? We would never do that, but this is where we need to stop and think. It’s why the third question matters.

First, What is your heaven? Second, Who is your savior?

3) Where Are You Now? (verses 8–9)

In verse 8, Paul is no longer talking about the past, but he’s doubling down on his accounting. In verse 7 he said,

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.”

Verse 8:

“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

So Paul didn’t just get the math right one time, but this is a present counting. A current counting. And then Paul explains more of what this means, verse 8: 

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him [Paul wants Jesus. He wants to be found in Jesus] not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith …

Those things that Paul once trusted in — his own righteousness — that’s all garbage to him now.

“Savior” once he called his flesh. “Sewage” now he counts his best.

His “own righteousness” does not get him God. 

The best obedience of his hands does not earn God’s favor, but he needs the righteousness of God through faith in Christ — Paul says it twice in verse 9 — he’s talking about “the righteousness of God that depends on faith.” That’s what he needs.

Paul needs GOD to call him righteous which God only does through his faith in Jesus. That goes for you too, for us.

Listen: the only way God accepts you is by looking at you and seeing something not of you. 

I hope that doesn’t hurt your feelings. It just means that Jesus, not yourself, Jesus must be your Savior. Jesus is who gets you God.

The Ultimate Goal

And more than that. Look at the first thing Paul says in verse 8. He presently counts everything as loss because of “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” [He’s going to pick this back up in verse 10, which we’re gonna talk about next week (but to preach the same things to you is no trouble to us and is safe for you). So we’ll talk about it now and next week.]

What we see in this knowing Jesus is that Paul doesn’t just want to be right with God — that’s penultimate — but the final goal, the ultimate goal, the real heaven, is a relationship with God through Christ. That is what makes heaven heaven. It’s to know Christ. 

And what’s interesting here is that Jesus is not just the means to get you what you want, but Jesus also becomes what you want. Jesus is means and end. To know Jesus is of surpassing worth. That is what is most valuable — to know “Christ Jesus my Lord.” 

And this is the only time in the New Testament when Paul says it exactly like that. “Christ Jesus my Lord.” There are several times when he says “Christ Jesus our Lord” but here he says “my Lord.”

What we see here is both “intimacy and devotion.” Devotion in that Paul has surrendered to Jesus as Lord. Jesus is King and in charge. So we do what Jesus says to do and go where Jesus says to go. Devotion. 

But it’s also intimacy, closeness, in that Paul says Jesus is my Lord — he knows Jesus as my Lord. This is a deep, personal knowing. It’s real experience in real relationship. Intimacy. 

The late commentator Gordon Fee says, “There is something unfortunate about a cerebral Christianity that “knows” but does not know in this way…”

We Are Heart-People

And church, I don’t want that to be true of us. Y’all know that we really value doctrine around here — what you think about God and his world matters. The head is important. But Cities Church, we are heart people, and we want heart-knowledge.

And what that means at the end of the day, when our thinking is in order, when our doctrine is in line, we just want to know Jesus. Not in an abstract, distant, check-the-box kind of way, but we want to remember his realness in all of life. We want to be alive to the ever-present fact that he is alive. Jesus is near to us. His Spirit dwells within us. He never leaves us. He never forsakes us. I know this is crazy, but it’s true — Jesus loves us. Jesus loves me. I want to know him like that. I want us to know him like that. 

And so, where are you now?

Here’s a little catechism for you:

What is your heaven? 

My heaven is to be closer to Jesus

Who is your savior?

My only savior is Jesus.

Where are you now?

I’m pressing on to know Jesus my Lord.

That’s what brings us to the Table.

The Table

We come to this Table glad and grateful — not to work, but to rest; not to do, but to receive. For those of us who trust in Jesus, that’s what’s going on in this moment.

But if you’re here and you’ve not yet trusted in Jesus, it means you’re still looking to your own efforts to be your savior. But listen: you can be done with that today. You can count all those things as loss right now and you can put your faith in Jesus. I invite you to do that.

For those who don’t trust Jesus yet, trust him now. 

For those of us who do trust Jesus, let’s receive his Table and give him thanks.