Well, good morning, everyone. If you turn in your Bibles to Philippians chapter 3, you're looking at the first nine verses this morning of Philippians chapter 3. And this evening, I hope to continue the chapter and finish it. So we'll look at the rest this evening.
So we'll read the whole chapter now and look at the first nine verses. Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord.
Safety in Repetition
For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation. For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Though I also might have confidence in the flesh, if anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so.
Circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, A Hebrew of the Hebrews concerning the law, a Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting the church, concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gained to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed, I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ
The Righteousness That Comes from God
and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, let us, as many as are mature, have this mind, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule.
Let us be of the same mind. Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping. that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their mind on earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body, that it may be conformed to his glorious body, according to the working by which he is able even to subdue all things to himself.
Let's pray.
Opening Prayer
Our Father in heaven, we have just sang and asked more love to Thee, O Christ, more love to Thee. And Lord, that is our earnest plea this morning, that as we look at this passage of Scripture that just so clearly points to the Savior, to the Lord Jesus. Lord, I pray that it would be a means where we would see Christ as in all His glory, that we would glory in Him and that we would and that we would rejoice in Him as our Savior. Lord, we stand in need of Your Spirit this morning, greatly, Lord, in ministering the Word, and in hearing the Word, and listening, and understanding these truths.
And Lord, we need your spirit in the hearts of those among us who are not saved. Lord, that your spirit would revive their hearts and give them that change that enables them to see Christ as that Savior. and that gives that faith to look upon Him as their Savior. And Lord, we pray for your blessing. We pray that this morning that your people here would be edified, that just the light of Christ would shine brighter in their hearts, and that those who do not know Christ, that that light would ignite in their hearts, and that would it be a fire and that they would see Christ, and that they would seize upon Him as their Savior.
Lord, we ask for much grace, and we go in the strength of the Lord, and we pray this in the name of our Savior. Amen.
Introduction
So when we jump into the middle of an epistle like this, it's obviously very important that we understand the context that we're in here. Because when Paul begins this chapter with, finally, my brethren, it sounds like he might be closing out the chapter, but we have to look at that word finally as more of a conjunction, tying it back to what he's been saying previously in here and in the first two chapters. If we look back at the first two chapters, he's been giving a lot of doctrinal teachings and theological things there, and a lot of also just practical instruction for the Philippians there, for the Christians there. So he's been encouraging them to continue on. in their faith, to walk together in unity, not to grumble.
He calls them to a life of sanctification, and just one where they're functioning as lights in this world, in the midst of this crooked and perverse generation, calls them to be blameless and harmless. And all through this, there's this constant theme of rejoicing that we see here. So Paul's rejoicing just because of the godliness of the Philippians, He's rejoicing at his imprisonment because it's given him an opportunity to share the gospel to all the guards in the palace there. And it's also emboldened others to share the gospel.
He's even rejoicing that there's some people who are sharing the gospel, preaching Christ with suspect motives and more for selfish ambition to try and gain a following. But yet he's still in chapter one, verse 18, he says, Christ has preached and in this I rejoice. We also see him rejoicing that he's confident that he's going to be released from prison. and soon he's gonna be able to visit them again. So you may be thinking, wow, Paul's an optimist.
We should all be like Paul. Well, yeah, we should all be like Paul, and optimism is a good thing, but that's not what Paul wants us to understand in this passage here. Paul's not writing Philippians as sort of a mindset training to help them just to look on the bright side and focus on the positives. Not that those are bad things.
I think it's a good thing that we do that. Definitely. But what Paul wants us to understand in this book, and particularly in this passage that we come to now, is what he says in verse 1 here, is to remind us of the source of our joy.
Rejoicing in the Lord
So where does our joy come from? He says, finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. So the source of our joy is not circumstances. The source of our joy is Christ.
And that's where it's very important that we understand the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is an emotional response to our circumstances. And where joy, on the other hand, has to be understood as a complete satisfaction. Complete satisfaction.
So Paul's not happy about the fact that he's in prison, but he can rejoice that it's part of God's plan for him to further the gospel. He can do so because He has this complete satisfaction in Christ. So our circumstances do not determine our joy. It's not that we are joyful on the good days and we're miserable on the bad days.
You know, we're not joyful on the days where we feel like we did really good in our walk of sanctification. And on the days where we didn't, we didn't read our Bible in the morning or whatever it may be, we didn't pray, we weren't conforming to the image, and then we're miserable on those days. That's not what Paul wants us to get here. So the source of our joy is Christ.
Christ is eternal and unchanging, so our joy ought to be constant joy. And that's what Paul says later in chapter 4, verse 4. He says, rejoice in the Lord always, and again I will say rejoice. Joy will express itself in happiness, to be sure.
So, Christians ought to be a happy people. Spurgeon says, you know, what a happy religion is ours, where it's our duty to be happy. So, you know, what greater cause for rejoicing than to know that your sins are forgiven and that you are reconciled with the Almighty Creator. So, we as Christians, we shouldn't be going about always morose and miserable.
We need to rejoice in the Lord always. and because we are most satisfied in Him. So, when I say that phrase, that we are most satisfied in Him, some of you may be thinking, well, where have I heard this before? That God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him. And that's right.
That's the coined phrase of John Piper. Now, this statement may be true, when we understand what true joy and true satisfaction really is, and that we don't confuse that with happiness. Because that's what seems to have happened a little bit here with this statement. Whether Piper intends that or not, I'm not here for that.
But the idea is that God is happy when we're happy. So as long as we're skipping and singing our way to heaven, then God is looking down and smiling. Like I might watch my daughter skip through a field and chase in a butterfly. But that's not what Paul means.
That's not what scriptures is taught, teaches anywhere. So Piper's statement here is only true when we understand what true satisfaction in Christ is. in the way that Paul is going to explain it in the next few verses here. So true satisfaction must begin at the beginning. It has to be at our conversion.
So Christ must be everything to us. We must be completely satisfied in Christ for justification and our salvation. Complete satisfaction in Him. Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
So nothing else can come in between. And Paul is going to explain that. in detail in the next few verses. Matthew Henry comments on this verse and he says, The more we take of the comfort of our religion, the more closely we shall cleave to it. The more we rejoice in Christ, the more willing we shall be to do and suffer for Him, and the less danger we shall be in of being drawn away from Him.
The joy of the Lord is our strength." Nehemiah 8, 10. And that last line there, the less danger we shall be in of being drawn away from Him, that's exactly what Paul means in the next line here. where he says, for me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe. So he knows that he's being repetitive in his teaching here to the Philippians, but he's doing this for a purpose. It's for their safety.
Like Luther said, he says, I preach justification by faith to my people every week, because every week they forget it. See, Paul knows the tendency of the human heart to add our works to Christ's works. Our old human nature just cannot grapple with the fact that we do not and we cannot bring anything to the table in regards to our justification. Now, it's easy to agree to that statement.
I think we all would agree to that, but that our works don't merit anything. But how quickly can we start to take a little comfort in our own actions? our church attendance, being raised in a Christian home, raising morally upright children, our morning devotion time, quiet time, whatever it may be. But we must always be on guard that although these things, they may be good things, that we do not place any value on them that will detract from being fully satisfied in the work of Christ for us. It is all Christ's work, none of our work, that merits eternal life.
And Paul will get to that in a minute there. And the Philippians had to be especially on guard, not because of just their own hearts, but because of the teachings of these other evil men who had shown up in the city.
Beware of the Judaizers
If we look at verse 2 here, he says, beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation. So these were the Judaizers. These were the men who would follow Paul around and they would do their utmost to subvert his teaching. They could not handle that message that Paul taught, one of justification by faith alone, apart from the deeds of the law, apart from works.
And they made it their aim to follow him around and try to teach the people that, you know, yes, you can believe in Jesus, that's fine, but you need to adhere to the Mosaic Law, and especially circumcision, if you want to be saved. So it's kind of funny because Paul calls them dogs here, but that was a common term that the Jews used to refer to the Gentiles. So Paul is now saying, no, you guys are the dogs. And we've got to remember that dogs are, you know, obviously in Paul's day, dogs are not what we what we have dogs like now.
In those days, dogs were, you know, wild, just savage, uncontrolled beasts that were running around the city. So, Paul's comparing these Jews to dogs, since they were, you know, uncontrollably, and quite savagely in many cases, going around and polluting this pure gospel of Jesus Christ by adding works to it. So, and John Gill also notes here, he says that they returned to Judaism like dogs return to their vomit. And then he calls them the mutilation.
Beware of the mutilation. And so they were preaching here that believers, if you want to be saved, you have to be circumcised as well. And the word that Paul uses here means cutting. It's just mutilation.
And he's teaching that. Circumcision is just that. It's a useless cutting of the flesh. It's bodily mutilation in a sense.
Circumcision was a sign to the Old Testament Israelites of the promise that God had given to Abraham and his descendants, that he was going to be their God, and that they would be his special people, and he would preserve them, he would protect them, and ultimately to bring about that promised seed, the seed of the woman, the seed that would crush the head of the serpent, and the one in whom all nations of the earth would be blessed. So now as we transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant here, the promised seed has come. is fulfilled. And the Jews had also rejected their Messiah, had broken their part of that covenant, and now this outward sign of circumcision as belonging to the nation of Israel is completely irrelevant. And the Jews had misunderstood circumcision the whole time.
It never had anything to do with their salvation, but they thought that this outward act was something that would make them right with God. But yet God had clearly said to them in Deuteronomy 10 that they needed their hearts to be circumcised, meaning that they had that old fleshly nature, loving sin and self, they had to repent, they had to turn to God. So God didn't require outward signs, outward conformity, but it was a broken and a contrite heart, we read, a repentant heart, a changed heart. And that's what Paul says here in verse 3.
He says, we are the circumcision.
True Circumcision of the Heart
So in verse 2, when he's speaking of the Judaizers, he says mutilation or cutting, and he contrasts that in verse 3 now with the word circumcision. In some translations, yours might read, we are the true circumcision, and that's been added there to highlight what Paul is, what he's doing here. That true circumcision is a changed heart, a heart that truly desires to worship God. So if you turn with me for a minute to Romans chapter 2, We see that quite clear in Romans chapter 2.
Verse 28 and 29 in Romans 2. For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men, but from God. So true circumcision, it's not outward conformity to the law of God, it's a changed heart. So it's a change from either having no religion or an outward religiosity like the Jews had, and whether that motive was to earn God's favor or was just simply for the praise of men that Paul says here in Romans.
True desire, so it's a change to having a true desire to worship God for who He is and for what He has done for us. The heart is changed. That's where He says, those who worship God in the Spirit. So whether, you know, Spirit in this verse, whether we interpret it with a capital S, the Holy Spirit, or a little s, we know that this change is wrought in the heart by the Spirit of God.
So, when we worship God with true and right motives, it's by the power of the Holy Spirit. It's by the power of the Holy Spirit changing our hearts at the beginning and we continue on in that worship in the Spirit. So, we often say that we, Trinitarian worship, we worship the Father through the mediation of the Son by the power of the Spirit. The true circumcision, here Paul goes on, are those who rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh.
So, although Paul uses a different word in the original here for rejoice, some translations might say glory in Christ Jesus, the idea is the same. It's a complete satisfaction in Christ, having no confidence in our flesh, in our ability, in our religiosity, our outward show of religion, none of that, but a complete satisfaction in Christ and relying on him and his work for our salvation. That's what makes a Christian, not an outwardly religious one, not someone who's just moral and does their best to obey the Ten Commandments, whatever it may be. Christian is one who glories in Christ alone and places no confidence in their ability.
Confidence in the Flesh
So let me ask a question. For those unbelievers here, why did you come to church this morning? Did you come to earn the praise of men? You didn't want to upset your parents?
Or is it you didn't want to upset your spouse? Why was it? Maybe you wanted others to think that you're a decent and a morally upright person? Or are you trying to earn God's favor?
Is that what you're doing with your church attendance? Trying to clean up your act, make yourself more savable for God? Now, don't get me wrong. Being in a good gospel-preaching church is a good thing.
That's not going to contribute to your salvation in any way. There's no amount of church attendance, no amount of tithing, of moral reform, anything, any good works that can earn your favor with God. Because God demands perfection. He doesn't demand your best effort.
So, I don't know what your purpose may be for being here this morning. But God's purpose is that you would hear from His Word what we're going to look at today, that all your outward religiosity is meaningless. And you need to understand that it's rubbish. Paul calls it later here.
So listen, because you need to understand this, and this is a hard fact to accept. I know I've been there, but don't be upset with me because I'm just the messenger. So look at the next verse here, verse 4. Though I also might have confidence in the flesh, if anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so.
So if our works, if our outward religion merited anything, then if anyone could have confidence in their works, then of all people it was Paul. He should be heralding this as loud as he can because he should be boasting about it because he's the one who can have, he's got all these credentials. Look at what he does here. He starts to list them now.
So he circumcised the eighth day. So that means that he was circumcised exactly how the law stipulated there, that he was born a Jew and he wasn't one who, not a proselyte, someone who was Converted later on in life to Judaism and circumcised then but he was he's he's of the stock of Israel as he says next year And he's a genuine Descendant of Abraham. He's of the the tribe of Benjamin so this tribe was was the only tribe that remained loyal to the tribe of Judah when when the Davidic Kingdom split the the ten tribes split off and Benjamin stayed loyal to the to the Davidic line there. So Paul sort of, you know, gets maybe an extra credit for this, he thinks.
And Hebrew of the Hebrews, so basically he's the best of the best. Concerning the law of Pharisee, now Pharisee means separated ones or holy ones, and I think that we're all very familiar with the Pharisees from the Gospels. They believed that they were so much better than the common people. They were separate from them.
In regards to their outward conformity to the law, they were holy. Especially if you think of how the Pharisee prayed in Jesus' parable in Luke 18. He says, God, I thank you that I am not like other men. So that's how they viewed themselves.
So much better than others because of that strict outward adherence to the law. And they also, the Pharisees also added lots of laws as well. They were just sort of going the extra mile for God in a sense there. So, and then concerning the... concerning zeal, persecuting the church.
Now zeal was that chief attribute of the Pharisees, and it means a passion or a fervor, and generally for a certain cause. So this zeal for the law drove Paul to persecute the church, because the Christians were teaching that we could not earn God's favor through the law, and that we needed Christ. But Paul hated this, and he wanted to defend the law as a means of salvation at all costs. So it drove him to persecute the church, And concerning the righteousness that is in the law, blameless.
So outwardly, he kept that law impeccably, perfectly. He was blameless. He was above reproach in any way. Now remember, this is outward conformity here.
Notice that Paul doesn't say sinless, because he knew his heart. He knew that his heart was sinful, but the Pharisees didn't care about the heart. They only polished the outside of the cup. for they thought that was all that mattered. So this righteousness here that's in the law, John Kelvin says that the righteousness that Paul speaks of here is that righteousness which would satisfy the common opinion of mankind.
So as long as they look good in the eyes of others and others thought that they were very holy and very good, that was all that mattered for Paul and for the rest of the Pharisees there. Paul has everything going for him here. He's a genuine Israelite by birth. He's circumcised.
He's kept God's law perfectly in his eyes and in the eyes of the others around him. But then look what he does with all that in verse 7 here. He says, what things were gained to me, I have counted loss for Christ. So, gain and loss here we have to understand in accounting terms.
And to fully understand what Paul's doing here, we have to think of of this next section as a bank ledger or a statement of account. So, in one column, we have all the gains, all the deeds that we have done, good deeds, things, and, you know, sort of, if there was any good deeds, we stack them all in this gain column, and then in the other, we have all the losses, all the sin. So, keep that in mind as we go through this bank ledger, this statement of account here.
The Accounting Ledger of Justification
So Paul, pre-conversion, he's writing his statement of account with God, and he's listing all these things, and they're all going in the gains column. They're all credits to his account. So when he gets to the end, He's got nothing in his loss column here. When he looks at his life, everything is, in his eyes, he's blameless.
There's nothing that he needs to enter into this loss column. Nothing that would count against him in his standing with God. So in fact, when he gets to the end, he owes God nothing, and God owes him everything. So of course, Paul, of all people, would have much reason for boasting in the flesh, for confidence in the flesh.
Now, common people, they might have lots of entries in the loss column, and hopefully the gain outweighs, cancels out the losses. We see that a lot, don't we? That as long as the good outweighs the bad, then we can go to heaven. How many people have their hope built on this?
That as long as I'm a good person, as long as I do more good than bad, then I can go to comfort. Sorry, then I can go to heaven. Ray Comfort, I don't know if any of you are familiar with him, but if you've ever seen any of his work, you see that so often there is when he says, have you ever stolen anything? Well, yeah, I have.
Well, what does that make you? A thief. Yeah, okay, I'm a thief, but I've done all this other good stuff. People's hope is built on that, that the good will outweigh the bad.
But it doesn't work that way. So we have to understand that even though Paul is using these accounting terms here, our justification is not based on a tally of all our works. And then as long as we've kept it out of the red, so to speak, then we're accepted into heaven. That's not how it works.
Because God demands perfection. And there's a standard that must be met. And that standard is not our best effort. That standard is not, you know, the good outweighing the bad, but it's perfection.
And in Romans 3, we see he refers to it as the glory of God, that our sin causes us to fall short of that glory of God. So we see that God's standard is perfection. Our confession of faith states that it's a personal, exact, entire, and perpetual obedience to that law. And that's not something that we can attain.
And why not? Let's look at the the rest of verse 7 here. He says that all these things that were gained to me, I counted as loss for Christ. So Paul's taken all of these things that he's entered in as gain, pre-conversion, he thought they were all going for him, and he's moved them all into the loss column.
So now all this gain has turned into a huge deficit. And why does he do that? Well, there's two reasons for that. The first is that if there's to be any room for Christ, there can be nothing of our own gain in that prophet column.
So to meet that standard of perfection, we don't give our best effort and then Christ tops off the rest to hit that standard. It's not Christ and my good works, it's Christ alone. And Christ has that perfect righteousness that meets God's standard of perfection. So none of our works are even necessary.
And we'll see that as we get farther in here. And the second reason is why we don't put nothing into that gain column is that according to God's standard, we don't even have anything that would be valid, have value as something that would credit our account. There's nothing there. That's why Paul has moved all these things into the lost.
They're all counting against him. So when he realizes that God's standard is perfection, and he sees the futility then of his efforts that So he doesn't just erase them from his ledger and ignore them, but he cut and paste from the gain into the loss column. So all these things that were going for him, all this outward religiosity, outward conformity to the law, all counted against him. So you might think, well, that's a little harsh.
Aren't those good things? Why would they count against him, which would be sin? And we have to understand here then what the Bible says about the unconverted man.
Nothing Pleasing to God Apart from Christ
We tend to give way too much credit to unbelievers, you know, especially ones who are really nice, really morally upright, you know, good church-going folk. But we need to be clear, there's nothing that an unconverted person does that is pleasing to God. There's no good work in any way. Everything that an unbeliever does is sin.
Everything. And turn to Isaiah 64 for a minute to see that. Isaiah chapter 64, in verse 6, the prophet here says that we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags. So our righteousnesses are filthy rags?
Yeah, and in the context here, this is old covenant Israel, you know, and their law-keeping. Their outward conformity to the ceremonies of their religion was nothing but a filthy rag that did nothing to cover up their dead heart. And that was the problem, again, that all these things were done from a heart that did not love God. what determines if something is a good work or not. Is it done out of a true love for God or not?
And these Israelites, it was not. It was done out of an outward conformity and tradition. And if you still don't believe me, then later I suggest you read Isaiah chapter 1 to see what God thinks about a heartless religion like that. So what determines if something is good work is if it is done out of a true love for God.
So turn to Romans 8 for a minute here. It gives us a very clear picture of the depravity of the human heart. Romans chapter 8. If we read verses 5 through 8 here.
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit, For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God." So the carnal mind here, that's an unbeliever, is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So not only do we not need any of our own merit to supply here, we cannot supply any merit.
So everything we do is, prior to conversion, is sin and is counted against us. So we need to understand this, is that we bring nothing to the table in regards to our righteousness. The only thing that we contribute to this statement of our account here is the sin that fills that loss column. And I'd also like to note here too, as believers, that our faith does not go in that gain column either.
Our faith does not earn us anything. It is not something that God requires as part of the righteousness that earns eternal life. I'll explain more about the role of faith in a minute. But it does not earn our salvation in any way.
And neither do we put our repentance, our contrition, anything as having any value there. Now, faith and repentance are good things. They're necessary things, but they do not contribute to justification in any way. Because there are those out there that say that the righteous requirements for eternal life in the New Covenant, where we find ourselves now, is now just faith on the part of the believer. and sincere obedience to the law.
So Roman Catholics, for example, would teach that. They don't deny Christ. They say you can have Christ, but your requirement now to complete that work is faith and your best effort, sincere obedience. We see that in a lot of other theologies that are out there, new perspective on Paul, federal vision.
There's even some new covenant theologians that teach this, not all, but some would. You know so saying that God's new standards is this simply faith sincere obedience So you can you can believe in Jesus as the one who's paid for your sin But when it comes to to earning eternal life That's up to you because remember eternal life had to be earned. It wasn't just God just didn't give it It was that Adam was tasked to earn eternal life there So their idea then is that Jesus brings you from negative to neutral, to zero, and then you bring yourself the rest of the way. And thankfully, God has lowered that bar.
It's no longer perfection. It's just faith and your best effort. But God never did change his standard. His standard has always been perfect obedience to his law.
So, like I said, Adam was tasked to do that in the garden. He failed. And that's why Jesus came to this earth. That's what he came to accomplish.
He said that himself. He said, I didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. And fulfill it means to keep it perfectly. And the Bible is very clear that Jesus did keep God's law perfectly.
Romans 5 verse 19 says that by one man, that's Jesus, by one man's obedience, many will be made righteous. So to teach that our repentance and our faith and our sincere effort can earn eternal life is to take away from that work of Christ. And that would be not being fully satisfied in Christ. So we need a perfect obedience to the law of God, and only Christ is the one who ever did that.
And that's what Paul means by gaining Christ. It's Christ's righteousness that goes into that gain column. But we'll see that more when we look at verse nine. So Paul had to count everything at its loss here in verse 7, and then again in verse 8 he repeats himself here, but now he's speaking in the present tense.
So he says, So he says, yet indeed I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. So not only had he had to come to that realization at his conversion there that all his righteousness was filthy rags, but he has to continually be of that mindset. He has to continually remind himself of that. John Kelvin here again, he says, he means that he continues to be of the same mind because it often happens that transported with delight in new things, we forget everything else and afterwards we regret it.
Hence, Paul, having said that he renounced all hindrances that he might gain Christ, now adds that he continues to be of this mind. So as believers, we need to be constantly reminding ourselves of this. Now it's important to understand also here that all these things that Paul is talking about here, like his Jewish heritage, his circumcision, his keeping of the ceremonies of the law, he's not denouncing those things as bad things that he wanted to separate himself from. But the problem with Paul was that the value that he was putting on those things.
So he was trusting in the signs and the symbols and the shadows of the things that were to come. He thought that there was a value, a meritorious value in those things, and not realizing that the true value, the true substance of those was what they pointed to, the Lord Jesus Christ. He speaks to that in Colossians 2 as well. So these things were all there to point him to Christ.
Those things were not in themselves evil, but they had no value. And so Paul thought that they had value, that by keeping them and obeying them, he could earn a salvation, but the real value is Christ. So when I speak about church attendance or, you know, morning devotional time or tithing or not cheating on your taxes or, you know, whatever it may be, those things are all good things to do, but it's the value that you place on those things. They play no part in your justification, either prior to your conversion or after your conversion.
So there is a place for good works, to be sure, in regards to our sanctification that comes after a conversion. But it's important to understand that distinction here, that they have no value or no merit towards our eternal life.
Suffering the Loss of All Things
So if we move on then here, Paul says it the third time again in verse 8 here that he, now he says, I've suffered the loss of all things. Now, in one sense, he's probably referring to his current situation here. He's in prison, writing this epistle from prison, suffering for the cause of Christ. And what had got him there was the fact that he renounced his Jewish heritage and his circumcision and his law keeping and all that as having any merit. hated him for it, persecuted him, and incited the Romans to lock him up in prison.
So, in one sense, yes, Paul has suffered the loss of many things for the sake of Christ, and those trials have helped to draw him closer to Christ, to help him to know what it means to be fully satisfied in Christ. But I think that there's another sense here in which Paul has suffered the loss of all things, of what he means here. And that's going back to his conversion, going back to verse 7 there, where he had to take all those things, all those things that were so precious to him, that he held so dear, and realized that they were all worthless. And then he had to chalk them all up as losses.
And that is painful. It's painful when we understand that we've sinned and we need to be reconciled to God and we get to work trying to clean up our act. You know, we do everything in our power to clean up our life and make ourselves worthy of Him. And like the prodigal son, we say, I'm going to return home to my father and work for him to earn his favor.
And then we come to the realization that all our righteousnesses are filthy rags, that none of what we do has any merit. And that is a painful realization when all these things that we held so dear we have to count as rubbish. Paul says here that I suffered the loss of all things, counted them as rubbish. So that's refuse or garbage, just useless.
They had no value in regards to his standing with God here. And both Calvin and Spurgeon give an example here of a ship. an example of a ship in a storm where the sailors are tossing their precious cargo overboard in order to save themselves. So all this cargo was so precious to them when they were in the safety of the port. Now they're in the middle of the storm and they have to toss it overboard if they want to be saved.
Now it's painful. It's a painful process to be sure, but it's a necessary process. So if you're here this morning and you're trusting in the fact that you go to church every Sunday, that that's what makes you right with God, you have to throw that overboard. Are you trusting that, no, I'm a pretty good person?
Overboard with that. I'm doing my best to obey the Ten Commandments. Overboard, everything, you have to throw it overboard. And now why do we need to do that?
Now look at the end of verse eight here, that I may gain Christ. Christ goes in the gain column, because he's done it all. If we are to have Christ as our righteousness, we must abandon all hope of our own merit. And that's what he says in verse 9 here.
Look at verse 9. And be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith. So, not having my own righteousness here. That's not a perfect righteousness anyways.
It's not worthy of anything, but having that righteousness which comes from God. This is what Martin Luther struggled with so much prior to his own conversion here. He knew that his best attempt was futile, and he was at a loss. He didn't know what to do.
He knew that he did not have his own righteousness. Now, Luther was not in this section of Scripture. He was in Romans 1. Verse 17, where it says, in it, that is in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.
Then he suddenly came to the realization here that this verse was not talking about the attribute or the perfection of God, like God's righteousness, his inherent righteousness, where he's a righteous being, but this was the righteousness that God gives, a righteousness from God. And that's what Paul says here in this verse, that it's a righteousness from God. Luther called it an alien righteousness that we need, something that's not our own, but the righteousness that God gives, the righteousness that comes from Him. And this righteousness is, like we've said, the perfect righteousness of Christ that God imputes or credits to our account and puts onto that statement.
It's the righteousness that must be in our gain column of our statement of account with God, if we have any hope of eternal life. Because only Christ's righteousness can satisfy the demands of God. We've already mentioned Romans 5 here, 19, by one man's obedience, many will be made righteous. But the Bible is very clear that Jesus lived a perfect life without the slightest sin.
If we look at 1 Peter 3, 18, For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. Hebrews 4, 15, For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted, as we are, yet without sin. And 1 Peter 1, 19 calls him the lamb without blemish and without spot. Now, these are only a few of the scripture references to Jesus' absolute perfection.
But this is that perfect righteousness that is necessary for eternal life. Remember, that standard for eternal life is perfection, and Jesus met that standard. And this righteousness is the righteousness that God is freely offering to all of us. So, how does this righteousness become ours?
So how do we get Christ's righteousness to fill that gain column on our account here? And Paul says that this righteousness comes to us through faith in Christ. So faith is how we receive this righteousness. It's believing and trusting in Christ as our sole righteousness, as the one who has earned it all for us.
He's earned eternal life for us. So then God credits that righteousness to your account. That's called the imputation of Christ's righteousness. Imputation means simply to credit to your account.
But before we talk more about faith, I want to look at another place in Scripture for a minute, because we've talked a lot about that gain column here, about having that righteousness that meets God's standard. And that is what Paul is emphasizing here in this passage. But what about that loss column? So we've, you know, everything that we've put in there, we have a massive debt that's incurred, that we've incurred with God here.
And God's justice demands payment for that. So God cannot just simply sweep that under the rug and forget about it. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. And, you know, the payment for sin is death.
So our good deeds cannot cancel out that sin. Not even Jesus' good deeds, you know, His act of obedience to that law, His perfect life, that can also not cancel out that debt. So turn to Colossians 2 for a minute, and we'll see what happens with that debt column here. Let's read verses 13 and 14, Colossians chapter 2.
And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to his cross. So the NASB here reads that having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, and the ESV calls it the record of debt with its legal demands. So all that sin, all that debt that we've incurred, everything that we have done has gone in that loss column.
We've incurred a massive debt. Jesus takes that and nails it to the cross, so to speak. So all that sin, goes with him to the cross, and on the cross, God imputes that sin onto Jesus, charges it to his account, or we could say that he legally declares Jesus guilty for all those sins, and punished him in full. Christ bore that full wrath of the Father against all of that sin, and paid the price in full.
And that's what Jesus cried from the cross as he died. It is finished, meaning paid in full. So he's taken that loss column, and paid it in full. So all those entries in there, we have incurred so much debt, and now we can say, paid in full, paid in full.
Christ becomes our surety, the Bible calls him. Surety is the one who has paid for all that debt. So, Now, we know that Christ did not die for the sins of the whole world, so don't go home and say that, you know, Ryan taught universal atonement this morning, or blog about it, as Pastor Butler would say. We know that God punished Jesus only for the sins of His elect, or His people on that cross.
But that is God's perspective, is the elect. Our perspective is all who believe in Him. And that's another sermon in itself there, Suffice it to say, when the Bible says that whoever believes on Him will not perish, but have everlasting life, it means exactly that. So Jesus said, the one who comes to me, the one who believes in me, I will in no wise or by no means cast out.
What It Means to Believe
So then it becomes important that we understand what does it mean to believe in the Lord Jesus. So if we go back to Philippians chapter 3 here, Again, where we were, Paul says that this righteousness comes from God and is received by faith. So, and the same thing goes for the atonement, for the cancelling out of that loss column. It's credited to us through faith.
So, through faith we receive the paid in full stamp on our statement. So, what is faith? So, first of all, if we look at Back at verse 8 there, he says, he says, So the knowledge of Christ Jesus. And in verse 10, he again, he mentions that as well, that I may know him.
So faith is built on knowledge, knowing why Christ is an able saviour. Christian faith is not a blind faith. It's not a leap of faith, a leap into the abyss and hoping that someone catches us at the bottom. It is built on knowledge, and God has communicated these clear, logical truths in His Word, like we see here, very clearly laid out.
You need this righteousness, but you don't have it. Christ has it. You have a problem with all this sin, but Christ can pay for that all. It's clear, logical truths.
We need to understand these things. Because if I told you to trust in whatever it may be, that piano, you would have no reason to trust in that piano. to trust in Christ, we've just seen very clearly why he is trustworthy, because he lived that perfect life, because he died to atone for the sins of all his people. So we need to have this practical knowledge of him, John Kelvin calls it, so knowing what he did. But it's not just knowing the facts, you know, of his perfect life and of his atonement, that he died on the cross to pay for sin, not just knowing That would be knowing about Christ, not knowing Christ, as Paul says here.
So faith is a resting, relying on Christ, on His perfect righteousness, and on His atonement for sin as sufficient for your salvation. So faith is giving up your own merits, counting them all as loss, and accepting Christ's righteousness as the reason by which you may be saved. Faith is not a force that we wield, that we use to take salvation and make it ours. It's not a force.
It's not deciding to follow Jesus. It's not asking Jesus into your heart. It's not having heart knowledge over head knowledge. Faith is understanding these facts and then passively receiving the righteousness of Christ as your own and the atonement of Christ as payment for your sin.
And that's all that it is. Faith is simply trusting that Jesus has done it all for you. Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. That's faith.
My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. And that's what it means to rejoice in the Lord, to be fully satisfied in Him. When your statement of account is all Christ, where He fills the gain, that profit column, it's all Christ. And in that loss column, where you've incurred so much debt, there's a big stamp that says, paid in full by Christ.
And that's what Paul wants us to see here, you know, to remember, regardless of our circumstances, rejoice in the Lord always.
Application
So brethren, don't passages like this just make our hearts sing sometimes. We just need to dwell on this and realize what Christ has done, that he's done it all for us. And it's no wonder that the bride says of her bridegroom in the Song of Solomon there that he's altogether lovely, and later that he's chief among 10,000. So, I hope this gives you a fresh glimpse of Christ and just stirs your heart to love Him more.
We sang that this morning, more love to one of my favorite hymns, and I hope that this has been a means to encourage you to just see Him in all His glory. So, and then tonight, we're going to look at the rest of this chapter, and then that really, Paul explains how we apply this in our daily lives as we go on as believers here. And for those of you who are not believers, as I said earlier, I don't know your motive, why you came here this morning, or maybe listening online. But you've now heard how salvation is possible.
And I praise God that every week from this pulpit, you hear how salvation is possible. And you hear that clear gospel message. But I hope you understand that you don't bring anything to the table here. This morning, our brother read from Romans 10.
And such a good passage that explains it so clearly. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." So I want you to make sure to understand to not be ignorant of the righteousness of God. There is a righteousness that God is offering.
You don't need to clean up your life and become a better person first. God demands perfection, but he's offering you perfection in Christ. He demands payment for sin, full atonement, but he's offering that full atonement in Christ. So trust in him as the one who has done it all for you, as the one who's lived a perfect life for you because you can't, and the one who died to pay for your sin so you don't have to.
Now, don't go home and think about it. The devil will throw a thousand distractions in your way before you even get out the doors there. You don't even know if you'll make it home. You know, the Bible says now is the accepted time.
Now is the day of salvation. Because there are people in hell today who procrastinated yesterday. You don't need to wait for feelings and emotions. You saw that there's no part for feelings and emotions in this equation here.
I just laid out the gospel message, how that a man can be justified with God. And you can't find a place where feelings and emotions are going to fit and are going to change things. Feelings don't fulfill that righteous standard of God that had to be met. Feelings cannot atone for sin.
Now that doesn't mean that the gospel isn't going to invoke feelings, make sure I'm very clear on that, but there's no value, you don't need to look to yourself for feelings, you don't need to look to yourself for good works, you don't need to look to yourself for anything, but look to Christ, look to Him. Believe in the Lord Jesus. Trust in him. Rest fully satisfied in him that everything he's done for you is sufficient.
Believe in the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved. Let's pray.
Closing Prayer
Our Father in heaven, we are so thankful for the clear teaching of scripture. Lord, you have You have communicated your truth to us in clear ways that we can understand, clear terms that we can wrap our minds around. And Lord, we have just seen that we need Christ. We need all of Christ.
And Lord, I pray that you would help each one of us here to rest fully satisfied in Christ. Lord, I pray that this morning would be a means that your children here would see Christ in all his glory, and that there would be more love for Him. Lord, I pray that those who do not know Christ would see that they do not need to offer their own works, their own doings, but that it is all being offered by Christ, and that they would look to Him in faith and seize upon Him as their Saviour. trusting in Him, and that they would leave here today singing, Hallelujah, what a Savior. Lord, we are thankful for Your Word.
We're thankful for Your Son, the Lord Jesus, and it's in His name that we pray. Amen. So we'll close with the doxology, I believe, hymn number 568. Do so standing, please.
Brother, all blessings flow. Praise him, all creatures, hear me low. Praise him above the heavenly host. I'll close with Romans 15 13.
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Father, again, we are so thankful for your Word. We are so thankful that we can come here and gather as believers in Christ to sing your praises together and to look at your Word together. Lord, we pray that this would be a blessing for each one here.
And Lord, I pray that your Spirit would work mightily among each one of us to point us to Christ. Lord, go with us as we leave here now. Bring us back together safely tonight. and watch over us. Lord, we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen. So please be seated for a time of meditation.