A Lot to Brag About

Philippians 2:19-30, 3:1-11

I don’t think we can adequately understand how hard it was on Paul, waiting to receive news about his loved ones, when we are bombarded with news. If my mom hasn’t gotten a Facebook update from me in a couple of days, she gets frantic (sorry for picking on you mom, and please know that this is hyperbole). We have Facebook and cellphones and Skype and stuff I don’t even know about.

Instead of all of that, Paul has Timothy. We already discussed Timothy very briefly when we looked at the introduction and back in January I had a sermon series about Paul which included a sermon about Timothy, Paul’s  “beloved son in the Lord” (2 Corinthians 4:17), his “true son in the faith” (1 Timothy 1:2). As we’ve gotten this far in Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi, we have seen that Paul is calling the Philippians to have a Christ-like attitude, one that values others over self, but did you notice Paul’s attitude? Paul is in prison, where Timothy and Epaphroditus are there encouraging him, but Paul is thinking about the Philippians. He can’t wait to send Timothy to them, because Timothy loves the Philippians more than anyone. And above anyone else, Timothy takes a genuine interest in their welfare.

For everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

We’ve gone over this a couple of times, but it bears repeating: everyone would be better off if our prayers and our actions and attitudes revolved around what is in Jesus’ interest. Even Jesus prayed for his Father’s will to be done and not his own.

So Timothy is that one person who values the Philippian church more than anything. This is one of the chief purposes of the first half of Paul’s letter – that we are indeed to “look out for number one” – just as long as “number one” is the cross of Jesus and our neighbors.

And then there is Epaphroditus. His story is this: he was from Philippi and was sent from Philippi to take care of Paul in prison. But while he was away from home, he got very sick and almost died. Everyone knows that there’s no place like home when you are sick, and Epaphroditus had to fend for himself while sick. When they heard about it in Philippi, they were very distressed. But did you notice his attitude? Here is another guy with a great attitude. He wasn’t distressed because he was sick and almost died; he was distressed because his friends back in Philippi heard he was sick. He didn’t want to be a burden; he wanted to continue to do Jesus’ work – which he was willing to do, even to the point of death!

The Philippians should know that even though Epaphroditus is returning early from his mission trip, that he was not a failure in mission – that indeed he was successful because his obedience mirrored that of Jesus Christ. Sometimes it can be hard to be obedient. I’ve heard it said that “it’s not the parts of the Bible I don’t understand that bother me; it’s the parts I do understand.” With that thought in mind, what would happen if we defined all of our successes by our obedience? Sometimes it can be hard to discern where God might take us, but God doesn’t require us to take the whole journey in one step. God requires us to take one step at a time, and often God only shows us what the next step is.

As we get to the beginning of chapter 3, we see a sharp turn in Paul’s letter. He has been encouraging the church in Philippi, thanking them for sending Epaphroditus with a gift that has actually sustained his life. He has been encouraging them to be humble, valuing others above themselves. He has been telling them to have God’s unshakable joy, even while they are suffering. Chapter 3 begins with a repetition of this joy.

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.

And now he shifts gears dramatically. But that shift shouldn’t be read as separate from verse one. He is using verse one to prepare the audience for verse two. He is saying, “I have said this before, and I’m not bothered by having to write it again, because I’m dictating it to Timothy, so he technically has to write it, but all the same, I’d say it anyway because it is meant to keep you safe.”

His safeguard? Watch out.

In Paul’s day, there were groups of Jewish Christians who would follow Paul around and cause huge trouble for him. Not only would they oppose his teaching, but they would frequently incite riots and even cause physical harm to Paul. These Jewish Christians required any Gentile believer to be circumcised to become a Christian. If you can imagine, this was a big issue in the early church: do you have to become Jewish to become Christian? So Paul warns the Philippians: Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh – though I myself have reasons for such confidence.

While we don’t require people to become Jewish before they can become Christians, unfortunately, Christians today can be just as misguided as those Jewish Christians. I don’t know how many times I’ve invited someone to church and they have all kinds of reasons why they don’t come. One thing I hear frequently is they’ll joke that they’ll be struck by lightning if they come into the building (or that the roof will fall in). Why would they say this? Because they have an underlying fear that they aren’t worthy to even come into the building.

Some people don’t think they can come here because they don’t look right, have the right clothes, have the right name, or whatever else they think might disqualify them from being part of us.

Other people have the impression that to become a Christian, someone has to behave a certain way. Now, they are kind of right to have that impression, because the Bible tells us all kinds of things that we are supposed to do and other things that we aren’t supposed to do.

But those aren’t conditions of our salvation! We don’t have to already have it right to come to Jesus. In fact, we can’t already have it all together! And Paul wants everyone to know that those conditions are wrong. So he goes on to show how he, of all people, should have confidence in the flesh – in other words, have confidence in all of his accomplishments and accolades.

If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.

If you think you are righteous, Paul can one-up you. His pedigree is better. His education is better. His works are better. Paul was a rock star. He had it all. And as humans, we are always bragging about our personal pedigrees. We are raised and trained to do this. We write résumés and applications and we are asked to highlight our education, achievements and awards. We get scholarships and jobs and careers and even volunteer positions in churches based on all that we’ve done.

I know plenty of people who are “cultural Christians” who think because they were baptized at some point of their lives that they’ve got it made. I know people who are more patriotic than Christian and who somehow believe that the USA is God’s Chosen People, and somehow confuse patriotism with Christianity. I know people who are careful to always have the right answers and do all the churchy things and they make sure to never miss church, but their hearts aren’t right with God.

So Paul turns it all upside-down:

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish,

I don’t want to quickly gloss over this, because it’s important. Do you hear how vehemently Paul is writing here? He is not saying that his achievements don’t matter or that they’re unimportant. He is saying that they are garbage. In fact, that word “rubbish” is a nice way of putting it. In Greek, he is making a play on the fact that he called the Judaisers “dogs” earlier – when I had a dog, I remember once he found this horrible nasty dead fish by the road, and of course he ate it. This is a better translation of what Paul is saying; instead of “rubbish,” this is the nasty, foul-smelling street garbage that only a stray dog would eat. And this is what Paul is calling his pedigree.

He recognizes that all of the things that the world holds important are foul-smelling street garbage, only fit for nasty mangy dogs, for the purpose: that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Blameless following of all of the rules is street garbage. We cannot just sit back and say, “I followed the rules. I was baptized. I go to church,” and think that’s what saves us!

Righteousness, that is, right relationship with God, only comes from God and is by faith! Jesus makes the offer, and we accept, and God does the work.

That kind of makes it sound simplistic, and I realize that life isn’t that easy. Even Paul mentions Jesus suffering and dying as something we will participate in along our pathway to resurrection. Remember that Paul has been telling his audience that we need to have the same attitude that was in Christ Jesus, and that our job is to work as a result of our salvation.

Here’s the thing: everyone is going in one direction or another. Our lives are moving on some trajectory or another. Our culture tells us that we can pick our own direction – that we can be whatever we want to be – but that direction only gets us so far. Our direction has to be set by Jesus Christ – by knowing Him fully.

To know Christ means first of all to know the power of his resurrection. If Jesus was merely a good teacher and a religious martyr, then we can know about him, but to actually know him is different. It only happens because we know a resurrected Jesus, one who is alive. And we know him through Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ resurrection is powerful because it gives that power to us! So we, too, can experience God’s power in our lives today, even in the midst of difficulties and struggles, and, when we, too die, we will receive our resurrection and our reward!