Philippians 3.1-4.1
Breaking with the Past
Finally, my brothers and sisters,
rejoice
in the Lord.
To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me, and for you it is a safeguard.
Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh!
For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God
and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh— even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: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.
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. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 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. I want to know Christ
and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Pressing towards the Goal
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. 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, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly
call of God in Christ Jesus. 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. Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.
Brothers and sisters,
join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. But our citizenship
is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation
so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory,
by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.Therefore, my brothers and sisters,
whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.
There is much I wish to say and explore about this chapter
but time eludes me. To begin let us look at the passage as a whole. The chapter can be seen as having three
sections. The beginning is a powerful
exhortation and warning against those ‘dogs’ – dogs who are trying to undo the grace
of Christ by insisting that Christians must follow the Jewish Law, that we must
be circumcised. Paul makes clear that
they are not the true ‘circumcision’ but rather we Christians, circumcised in
spirit, we Christians who worship God our Father by the Holy Spirit and through
Jesus the Christ, are the circumcision. Real progress in life then is not found in keeping
all of the laws of Deuteronomy; it is found only in being increasingly conformed
to the image of Christ – worshiping the One God and serving Him with
praise. Obeying the Law can only give a superficial
and incomplete righteousness; perfect righteousness is only to be found in the
gift of the death upon the cross of Jesus the Messiah.
Paul
moves on to speak to the Philippians of his own life, and how all that he was
he now considers as being more worthless than garbage. If anyone on the planet
could ever have claimed to be sinless and righteous before God it was
Paul. He kept all the laws, he was
circumcised on the eighth day, an Israelite of perfect lineage, and a man so
zealous for the Law that he persecuted the Church - standing by and watching as
St. Stephen, the first martyr, was stoned to death. Paul thought he was righteous, yet when on
the Damascus Road he bore witness to the boundless righteousness of Jesus he
found himself blinded by its glory. Now
Paul sees again, and he sees that all he thought he was he was not, and sees
that only in Christ can he be made righteous. For righteousness is not of the
realm of humans, righteousness is a divine virtue imparted to us by grace, imparted
by our living, broken, in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Paul finally goes on to explain how to attain this
righteousness, how to attain eternal life, and he calls on the Church to follow
his example and devote their entire selves to Christ that they may be transformed
into glory by the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is largely on this final aspect of the
passage that I wish to speak, to explore, to exhort, and to prayerfully seek
understanding.
If
Paul was so wrong about what righteousness was, then it remains to be asked
what it truly is. For the Pharisee Paul,
righteousness was a doing, an acting, a mechanical virtue found in living
blamelessly, a ‘thing’. But Paul now
sees that he was wrong – indeed was it not in ‘doing’ something to gain
knowledge and righteousness that Adam and Eve fell from their relationship with
God? Paul makes it clear that righteousness
is this relationship with
God. Righteousness is how a person
relates to God who is the only truly Righteous and Holy One. And it is not Law that opens up the door to a
relationship with God. No, God Himself
opens it by sending His only Son to save the world, it is opened by God sending
His Son to die, to rise, to ascend – and in doing so clear the path to a relationship
with Him - if only we believe.
I
remember as a child always wanting to be a soldier, a policeman, James Bond or
Robocop. I watched all the movies, I
read all the books. I even began
practising martial arts and learnt archery and shooting. I did all of this because I wanted to be
someone who could protect others, could protect myself. I took on role models from the movies and the
books, from my Martial Arts instructor and my elder cousin who joined the Armed
Forces. It is not surprising that being
so committed to fulfilling this role and by pursuing it with intense desire I
am now a Black Belt, a nationally qualified martial arts instructor, and a
Yeoman Archer of Burton Constable Hall.
The
message here is that we are formed into the image of what we desire. I am sure that all of us here have followed
dreams, and chased personal goals, and in doing so found ourselves to have grown
as people. This is exactly what Paul is
speaking about in this passage. How are
we transformed into glory? We are transformed
into glory by desiring above all Christ.
It
seems to be almost every day that I hear the term ‘five a day’ on the
television or in a magazine. Dr. so and
so says you should eat five a day to help keep the doctor away. And if you desire good health then Dr so and
so is right. Paul himself followed a
five a day plan as well – there were five things he needed and we need to do every
day to keep ourselves in Christ.
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Firstly, Paul says that we must know Christ
Himself – not just know about Him but know of Him, have a relationship with
Him.
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Secondly, we must know the power of Jesus’
resurrection and what that power means for us.
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Thirdly, we need a healthy portion of
fellowship in the life of Christ. That
is to say that we must give ourselves freely, empty ourselves selflessly, and
equally we must be elevated with Christ to the glory above.
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Fourthly, we must accept that death is
coming; death is the great leveller of all that lives. We all die, even Jesus died.
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And it is in His death that we find the final
portion of spiritual fruit, the cherry on the top as it were – Jesus died, the
Son of God died, as absurd as such a proposition sounds, for each one of us individually
Jesus died. But He was resurrected, He
trampled down death by death – and opened the gates that we may do the
same. So, finally and above all, we must
desire the resurrection that is to come, the new life on the new earth where
there is no more pain or suffering, death or fear, darkness or dissension.
And
just as when I zealously desired to be an action hero I trained and dreamed
every day - so I made myself that little bit closer to being one. And so each day we desire to be resurrected
in Christ so that happens. For sure, and
as Paul makes clear, we are not yet resurrected, we do not live in the Kingdom
yet to come, but to think of ‘the resurrection’ as this single event in a far
away unpredictable time is to miss the seed of the Kingdom of God already in us
– the ray of heaven that lightens all of our lives if only we let it out of the
box. The resurrection may only be
completed at the End of Days, but the resurrection calls here and now for
death. A death to those aspects of our
lives that distance us from Jesus and His life – that distance us from one
another – that they may be resurrected and thus reformed, made holy, and be
aspects of our lives found in Christ and not in darkness.
I
recall some years ago getting off the school bus and a girl named Katy coming
to talk to me. Now I had known Katy since she was born, and I waved my hand, I
was about to say hello when somehow I found I had forgotten her name! I am sure we have all had experiences of
forgetting small details, names, phone numbers, did you lock the door – you go
back and check and it is locked and then you head off again and find five
minutes later you still can’t remember!
Sometimes forgetting can be embarrassing, insulting, and annoying.
But
in this passage Paul teaches us that forgetfulness can be a blessing. As I am
sure you are all aware, there is another side to memory – not being able to
forget things, not being able to forget things we have done or thought. I know for certain I will never forget
accidently breaking a shed window and paying for it out of months of pocket
money! Nor will I forget the insulting
things I have said at times of anger or frustration to my dearest friends. Looking back can bring joyful memories, but
also memories that cause feelings of guilt, disappointment and discouragement
to rise up, memories of sins and bad attitudes to things that have gone on around
us. However, there is hope.
Paul,
who of all people could claim to have been righteous without fail, looked back
and saw mistakes, saw his persecution of his Messiah, looked back and felt
guilt. Paul in this passage tells us that
even though he is an apostle (and as we know, destined to become one of the
greatest of the saints) he is still running the race, still aiming for the
treble-twenty on the target. Paul, even
though in prison and at the end of his life, is still pursuing Christ, is still
desiring the resurrection, is still being transformed from glory to glory. And Paul knows two things:
–
Firstly that God is Good. It cannot be stressed enough how truthful
that statement is – God is Good and God not only forgives all who repent but
forgets.
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Secondly, that when a runner runs a race,
it is when they look back at the other racers that they slow and stumble. Paul calls for us to leave behind the past
and be reborn – be resurrected – here and now in Christ, to put to death our faults
daily and let them be risen in Christ. And may Christ bless us that this be
done!
So,
brothers and sisters, with this in mind let us push on towards what is ahead – a
life with Jesus – that we may be defined and transformed by Him. Let us desire to fulfil “that high calling of
God in Christ Jesus” for us – to be citizens of heaven, just as in fact we are. And as Paul concluded this passage so may I
humbly say to you: “brothers and sisters… stand firm in the Lord in this way –
my beloved.”
Amen
[a wordle of Philippians]
