A couple of weeks ago our family used some movie coupons we had received as a Christmas gift to go see the new Nicolas Cage film: Family Man. Now, there were a couple of scenes at the beginning of the movie that I could have done without but all in all it was a very good film, mainly because it had a tried but true plot. You see, the story is sort of a combination of It’s A Wonderful Lifeand A Christmas Carol.Cage plays the roll of a very prosperous investment banker. He’s single, successful, and very rich. He owns a huge, luxurious condo in downtown New York, drives a silver Ferrari sports car, has a closet full of $3000 suits with shirts, ties, and shoes to match. Beautiful women vie for his affections. He does WHAT he wants WHEN he wants. He eats at only the finest restaurants and is the CEO of one of the most powerful financial firms in the world and is constantly involved in exciting business transactions worth billions of dollars. I mean, any way you TALLY his assets…Cage’s character was a VERYsuccessful man.
Now, the film also reveals that 13 years ago (BEFORE Cage’s ship came in so to speak) back when he was a poor young college graduate looking for work, he was in deeply in love with a girl who is played by Tea Leoni. There’s a big scene at the airport as he leaves for London to accept a job that he sees as his big break. Taking this position will mean that he and his girl friend will be separated by the Atlantic Ocean for several months but Cage PROMISES to keep in touch. He’ll call. They’ll write. They’ll see each other as often as they can…and this job is only temporary, of course. Well Leoni’s character begs him not to go, telling him that she has a feeling that he will NOT return. Call it feminine intuition or whatever but she just KNOWS that if he gets on that plane their relationship will end for good. He assures her she’s wrong and gets on the plane anyway…but her premonition turned out to be accurate. They fall out of touch, get involved in their own NEW lives…and never see each other again. Well, then the movie flashes back to the present when, on the way home from work late on Christmas Eve, swinging single Cage does something brave and selfless and as a reward of sorts God sends an angel to give him a glimpse of what his life would have been like if he had NOT gotten on that plane to London all those years ago. He wakes up to find that he and Leoni are married. They have two beautiful children, as well as a mortgage, and very little money since in this time line he uses his marketing skills to sell tires. Like most Americans, he now lives the lifestyle of a lower-middle class family.
At first he balks at this and tries to get his old rich swinging single life back BUT as the weeks go by the scales fall off his eyes so to speak and he discovers that all these years he has in essence been COUNTING wrong in life. That is to say, he has been ascribing GREAT VALUE to things that are really WORTHLESS. He comes to see that his fancy condo, his expensive sports car, his rich, swinging single lifestyle-all these things that used to be so precious to him-are not near as valuable as a committed relationship with a loving wife and two children.
Now, when I began to study today’s text I thought of this movie because in this portion of Philippians Paul tells his OWN experience of learning to COUNT correctly. Take your Bibles and turn to chapter 3 and listen as I read the first 11 verses and perhaps you’ll see what I mean.
1 – 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.
2 – Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh.
3 – 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-
4 – though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:
5 – 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;
6 – as for zeal-persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness-faultless.
7 – But whatever was to my profit I now consider [COUNT AS] loss for the sake of Christ.
8 – What is more, I consider [or count] 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, that I may gain Christ
9 – 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.
10 – 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,
11 – and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Now, as I said a moment ago, the thing that motivated Cage’s character to re-evaluate his life was the appearance of an angel, who provided him with a glimpse into what might have been.The thing that motivated Paul to do his own self-evaluation in this text was the APPEARANCE of some rather critical people. He mentions them in verse 2. Read it again with me, Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh.
Now, this is not a text you see used as a memory verse for Vacation Bible School. And I don’t remember ever seeing it done on a flannel graph as the focus of a children’s sermon because this is definitely not a mild-mannered statement. Paul isn’t pulling any punches here. He’s venting some genuine righteous indignation. Why was he so upset? What had him so steamed?
Well, his anger stemmed from the arrival in Philippi of a group of people known as judaizers.
They were teaching that you couldn’t be a Christian unless you were first a Jew which meant you had to be circumcised. We see them at work at another church in Acts 15:1 where it says, Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: ‘Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.’These judaizers were hyper-legalists who taught that salvation is the result of something WE do rather faith in what GOD has done. When Paul thought of them and the damage they were causing in Philippi with false teaching like this, he thought of dogs.
Understand-he wasn’t thinking of the little lap dogs many of us enjoy as pets or those much, larger but just as loyal creatures we pamper and nourish like the McGaffin’s Great Danes. No, in Paul’s day DOGS were more likely to be dirty, disease-carrying scavengers that roamed the streets of the city in packs. These animals lived in garbage dumps and attacked everyone who crossed their path. Thisis what Paul had in mind when he says to the Philippians here, Beware of these guys…these ‘DOGS.’Interestingly enough, when a Jew of Paul’s day really wanted to insult someone who WASN’T a Jew they would call themdogs.Back then that was as low a name as a Jew could give. So, Paul really turned the tables on them here and referred to THEM, these law-abiding Jews, as canine critics. For, their irrational attacks and unfair accusations reminded him of the behavior of junk yard dogs. I mean, they followed Paul around and nipped at his heels harassing him and his message of grace every where he went.
You see, these Jews believed that righteousness was something which could be obtained from the outside in-that good works on the outside would make a person pure on the inside. They taught that obeying the laws, especially those that concerned circumcision, would somehow make them sinless in God’s eyes. And that is the problem with legalism. It appeals to people because it makes religion easy by appearing to be hard. It makes salvation difficult but do-able on our own.
Swindoll defines legalism as, a man-made standard for the purpose of exalting selfand that definition would fit the teachings of these judaizers. Paul was upset because all their false teaching was not leading people TO righteousness that is found in Jesus but AWAY from it.
Another thing-these judaizers were really proclaiming a FALSE circumcision. They were saying that the PHYSICAL SYMBOL itself was enough to ensure their inclusion in the people of God regardless of what was in their HEARTS. And ironically, in doing this, they were overlooking their own prophets who long, long ago had said that circumcision is only a sign in the flesh….a symbol. It was to REPRESENT, not REPLACE, a special relationship with God. These prophets of old had rightly taught that if a man is to actually BE in such a relationship with God then something far more is needed than a mark on his body. A person must have a certain kind of inner attitude-and this truth is recorded throughout the Old Testament.
The writer of Deuteronomy 10:16 referred to this when it says, Circumcise the foreskin of your HEARTS and be no more stiff-necked.Jeremiah 6:10 speaks of the un-circumcised ear, the EAR that will not listen to the word of God. In Exodus 6:12 Moses talks about un-circumcised LIPS.So for centuries Jewish leaders had seen that physical circumcision was nothing but a symbol. They had warned the people never to confuse the symbol with the substance the ritual with the reality. What God actually required was consecration of the entire person…their mind and heart and lips.
So what Paul says here is, If you have nothing to show but circumcision of the flesh…if all you have is a physical mark, then you’re not REALLY circumcised…you’re only mutilated. In fact Paul then goes on in verse 3 of our text to say that it is the Christians-not the Jews-who are TRULY circumcised or set apart by God for a special purpose for they are circumcised, not with the outward mark in the flesh but with that inner and spiritual circumcision of which the great law-givers and teachers and prophets wrote and spoke so many hundreds of years ago. In Romans 2:28 Paul also referred to this when he wrote, A man is not a Jew-set apart by God-if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit…Paul was mature enough in the Lord to know that righteousness could only be obtained from the inside out-wrought not by man’s works but by our humble acceptance of the grace of God. So, he was saying to these judaizers, You-not the Gentiles-are the ones who are ‘dogs’ for you have defamed the name of God and have distorted the Law of God.
Well, it was these attacks from the Judaizers that caused Paul to take a walk down memory lane. It provided HIM with a glimpse back into his life to recall how he had changed the way he looked at life. The key word in these first eleven verses of chapter 3 is countand the Greek here means to evaluate or assess.Paul did exactly that here and in so doing he reminded the Philippians that he had once been like those judaizers. There was a time when Paul valued the things they valued-COUNTED on the things they COUNTED ON. Let’s review them with him.
1. First of all he writes that he had once counted on was His RACE or family heritage.
In verse 5 Paul says, I was circumcised the EIGHTH DAYjust as God had commanded Abraham back in Genesis 17:12 .With this claim Paul makes it clear that he is not a descendent of Ishmael for they weren’t circumcised until their THIRTEENTH YEAR. He was also stating for the record that he was not a proselyte to the Jewish faith who had been circumcised as an adult.
No, he stresses the fact here that he had been BORN into the Jewish faith and had known its privileges and observed its ceremonies since his birth for only pure-blooded Jews, like Paul, were circumcised on the eighth day. And not only was he a pure-blooded Jew, but he also came from the RIGHT JEWISH FAMILY. This is what he means when He says he was of the nation of ISRAEL, of the tribe of Benjamin.
You see, when the Jews wanted to really brag about their special relationship to God it was the word, Israelitethat they used because Israelwas the name which had been specially given to Jacob by God after his wrestling match with an angel. (Genesis 32:28 ) Now, the Ishmaelites could trace their ancestry to Abraham since Ishmael was Abraham’s son by Hagar. And, the Edomites could trace their descent to Isaac, since Esau, the founder of the Edomite nation, was also Isaac’s son but it was the Israelites alone who could trace their descent to Jacob, whom God had given the name of Israel. So by calling himself an Israelite, Paul was stressing the absolute purity of his race and his ancestors. In essence he was saying, My family came over on the Mayflower!
Note that He also said that his roots could be traced back to the TRIBE of Benjamin. I mean, not only was he an Israelite; Paul belonged to the ELITE of Israel because the tribe of Benjamin had a SPECIAL PLACE in the aristocracy of the Hebrew nation. You may remember from Sunday School lessons of the past that Benjamin was the child of Rachel, Jacob-or ISRAEL’S first love, his favorite wife. And that of all the twelve patriarchs, Benjamin alone had been born in the promised land. (Genesis 35:17-18 ) The tribe of Benjamin was one of the only two tribes that remained faithful to David when the kingdom of Israel split (I Kings 12:21 ). And, according to Ezra 4:1 , it was also one of the tribes which formed the nucleus of the new Israel restored after the Babylonian captivity (Ezra 4:1). When Israel went into battle, it was the tribe of Benjamin which held the post of honor. The battle-cry of Israel was: After thee, O Benjamin!
It was also from the tribe of Benjamin that Saul, the first king of Israel, came (I Samuel 9:1-2 ). No doubt…Paul-who had been SAUL before his conversion-was named after this first Jewish monarch.So Paul came from the best, most-respected tribe of Israel….
He goes on to say that he was aHebrew of the Hebrews.That is, his family retained its Hebrew culture and continued to speak the Hebrew language. Paul’s family wasn’t like other Jews of the Dispersion who, in a foreign land, had forgotten their own tongue. In his commentary on this passage Robert Roxburg, a citizen of Great Britain, writes of walking the streets of London and encountering people dressed as Indian Sikhs or looking like Pakistani or Hindu…but when these foreigners would open their mouths to speak out would come Scottish or cockney accents. They had obviously become acculturated to England. But Paul is saying here, Not me. My parents made sure we REALLY remained Jewish. We spoke the language along with the accent.So, what a family tree Paul had! He had the right bloodlines. He was a product of the right family. He had all the advantages that accompany such a position of importance. Not only was he a Jew, He was the best of the best when it came to the Jewish race.
2. The second thing he once treasured was HIS RELIGION.
In verse 5 Paul says I once was a Pharisee.Now, usually WE associate negative thoughts with that title but they didn’t do that in Paul’s day. No…Pharisees were admired. One reason they were is the fact that they went to only the finest schools. Acts 22:3 tells us that Paul himself studied under Gamaliel, one of the most sought-after private tutors of his day. Another thing that made being a PHARISEE a big deal is the fact that there were not very many of them. Think of them as religious marines for they were few and they were proud. Their name means The Separated Ones and they had separated themselves off from all common life and from all common tasks in order to make it the one aim and duty of their lives to keep every smallest detail of the Law.So it is Paul’s claim that not only was he a Jew who had retained his ancestral religion, but he had also devoted his whole life to the most rigorous and unbending observance of that religion. He was a card-carrying Pharisee and back then that was a big deal. He treasured his religion.
3. The third thing he lists among those things he used to value was His REPUTATION.
I mean he wasn’t JUST a Pharisee. He was very good at being a Pharisee, very Gung Ho! at doing his job. We see this in verse 6 where Paul says, …as to zeal: persecuting the church…
You know, in every group, some people are outstanding in their field while most of us are more average in our achievement. It was the same way with the Pharisees. Some were at the top level while most performed on a lower level. The top Pharisees were those who not only followed the law of God, but also relentlessly eliminated anything which challenged their understanding of the law of God. Paul says, That was me. I was a HIGH ACHIEVER.And he was. He militantly opposed any threat to the Hebrew faith. Remember…he helped in the stoning of Stephen. He also sought out, arrested, and imprisoned or executed Christians who in his Pharisaical mind set were disobeying or threatening the Law of God. He was VERY zealous in doing his job.
At the end of verse 6 Paul elaborates on this when he says that, As to the righteousness which is the Law,he was found blameless. He had a spotless reputation. You know, unfortunately we in America these days have become accustomed to the public life of some leaders not matching their personal life. They may be successful in the public eye, but their personal life doesn’t stand up to the light of close inspection. Not so with Paul. The actions of his life were so closely aligned with the expectations of the law that he could be called blameless. His legalistic walk matched his legalistic talk. He knew the law-every jot and tittle (even the man-made parts)-and he obeyed that law.
So…when Paul evaluated his life from the perspective of the world, he focused on his race, his religion, and his reputation.
And, the world of his day ALSO considered-or counted-these elements as great assets. In the eyes of his JEWISH peers, Paul had arrived. As A. T. Robertson summed up so eloquently, Paul had, …a marvelous record, scoring 100 -A+-in Judaism…So in today’s terms that proud Pharisee who had been known as Saul of Tarsus won all the marbles: the Pulitzer, the Medal of Honor, the Most Valuable Player, the Heisman Trophy, The Gold Medal…the Super-Bowl Ring. I mean. No one’s Judaic trophy case was bigger than Paul’s. He was a charter member of the MITTT club of his day for any way you look at it Paul had indeed M.ade I.t T.o T.he T.op. If they had newspapers or magazines back then, his picture would have been on the front page and the headlines would have read, RELIGIOUS ZEALOT OF THE DECADE. Saul’s was the name dropped by everybody who was anybody. AND THEN AT THIS POINT IN THE TEXT A LITTLE THREE LETTER WORD POPS UP. In vs 7 Paul says, But…
In other words something had happened in Paul’s life to change his way of COUNTING. And that something was Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus when he first met Jesus, the Christ, and learned first hand what God’s righteousness REALLY looked like. BEFORE that illuminating encounter, Paul had thought that he attained righteousness by keeping the law just like those legalistic judaizers. But when he saw Christ and got his first glimpse of truly, PERFECT righteousness…he realized that all HIS works-based righteousness was worth less than filthy rags. So in verse 7. Paul says, Whatever things WERE GAIN to me…those things I have COUNTED as LOSS for the sake of-or in comparison to-Christ.At that point, Paul re-evaluated the things his world considered important-his pedigree, his credentials, his success, his legalistic lifestyle and he decided these had no real value at all.
His experience up until this point in his life reminds me of Jesus’ words to the church at Laodicea, You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.Well, on that road to Damascus Paul suddenly realized how poor and wretched he really was. His entire frame of reference was altered. His whole perspective was changed. He saw the futility of the Jewish religion as he was practicing it. In essence he discovered that he had to LOSE his religion to FIND his salvation.
Now, how could he have been so mistaken? How could an educated guy like that have made such a big mistake when it comes to evaluating the things of life? Well, the answer is he was using the wrong measuring stick. As many of you know I’m a jogger. I log between 15 and 20 miles a week and when it’s cold outside I run INSIDE on my treadmill. The other day I was using it, running along watching the little red numbers record my distance and speed and I noted that I was racking up the miles pretty quick. I thought, I have arrived. I am really in shape. Look at those miles click off!but then I noticed that a little red light was on next to the kilometer sign. In other words, I had unknowingly set the machine to record kilometers, which are of course much shorter than miles. I was measuring my distance with the wrong tool.And this is the same mistake Paul had been doing when it came to evaluating his life-until he met Jesus on the road to Damascus.
Like the rich young ruler in Mark 10, Saul of Tarsus was looking at the outside and not the inside.
He was measuring his progress by the standards set by men, not by those set by God. He was comparing himself to other sinners and according to that comparison He WAS righteous. But when He met Jesus; when He compared Himself to the Holy, blameless Son of God. He realized how UN-righteous, how hopelessly sinful He really was. He then saw that all the things he HAD valued were worth no more than rubbish.
By the way, this Greek word for rubbish that appears in verse 8 literally meant that which is cast to the dogs. So Paul was saying that not only were these judaizers dogs. Their teachings-the things they valued-were worth nothing more than table scraps…DOG FOOD.
After his encounter on the Damascus road Paul realized that the ONLY THING that had true value was KNOWING Jesus Christ. In verse 8 Paul says that this has surpassing value. Now, do you realize we can know a person in four ways?
- We can know a them HISTORICALLY.We know Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Shakespeare in this way. All our knowledge of these men is drawn from history.
- We can know a person CONTEMPORANEOUSLY.We know our new President George Bush, Queen Elizabeth, and Michael Jordan in this way. These people live contemporaneously with us. New facts are being uncovered about them every day. But all of our knowledge of them is drawn from a distance.
- We can also know a person CONTACTUALLY.This is how we relate to the teller at the bank, the clerk in the store, and many of our neighbors. We have contact with these people; our lives touch, and we talk with them, but our relationship never moves beyond a surface kind of experience.
- Finally, we can know a person EXPERIENTIALLY.We know our husbands and wives, children, and special friends like Timothy and Epaphroditus in this way. This is that deep kind of knowledge that comes out of personal experience and intimate communion. And THIS is the kind of knowing Paul had in mind when he repeatedly referred to the KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST in verses 7-10. The Greek word here forknowledgeis gnosisand it refers to, knowledge gained through personal experience and intimate companionship.So this is a knowing that comes from a very close relationship.
You know, unfortunately there are a lot of people out there who know ABOUT Jesus; I mean He is a very popular individual. I don’t think any one person has ever been featured on the cover of TIMEmagazine as often as Jesus. But there is a great difference between knowing ABOUT Jesus and KNOWING Jesus: talking to Him…relating to Him…listening to and obeying His voice. This relationship…this kind of KNOWING…has infinite value. Paul had discovered as he says in verse 10 that his friendship with Jesus provided him with TRUE righteousness, for through His death on the cross Jesus took our sinfulness on Himself. This is what Paul was saying in II Corinthians 5:21 when he wrote that, God made Him, Jesus, Who had not sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.He also had learned as he alludes to in verse 11 that this relationship provides us with eternal life. In I Corinthians 15:22-23 he wrote, Since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a Man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
But you know, the thing that Paul says HE MOST VALUED was this RELATIONSHIP with Jesus, the day-to-day FELLOWSHIP he shared with our Lord. None of the glittering jewels of his race, religion, or reputation could compare with this. Having met Christ…having given his life to Christ…having walked through the past few years WITH Christ…Paul had seen the infinite value of that relationship. Knowing Jesus, relating to Him, had become the consuming ambition of his life…the focal point around which his world turned.In his commentary on this text Charles Swindoll writes,Rather than being driven by confidence in the flesh, Paul’s consuming passion was to spend the balance of his years on earth KNOWING CHRIST more intimately,
drawing upon His resurrection power more increasingly, entering into His sufferings more personally, and being conformed to His image more completely.
Charles Templeton pastored a large church in Toronto back in the 50’s and helped found Youth for Christ. Our own Naomi and Lloyd Linn heard Templeton speak several times back then for they too were part of the beginnings of that special part of the kingdom of God.Templeton’s close friend-co-worker-back then was non other than Billy Graham, but in the 1960’s Templeton left the ministry-not because of some moral failure but due to a denial of his faith. He couldn’t understand how God would allow suffering in the world and this dilemma led him to eventually become an atheist. Templeton went on to become the editor of two of Canada’s largest newspapers and even ran for prime minister. While interviewing Templeton, now in his 80’s, Lee Strobel asked him about his denial of a belief in God. Templeton was unmoved and spoke of why he could not accept the God of the Old Testament. Strobel then asked him what he thought of Jesus. At this point Templeton bowed his head and wept. Through his sobs he said, I…miss…Him…Recently Templeton’s old friend Billy Graham was also interviewed. Joe Stowell asked him what he had valued most in his many years of ministry. You might think he would have cited his times with and influence on presidents and heads of state over five decades or perhaps his preaching the gospel to great throngs around the world. But Graham said with a determined softness in his voice, Beyond a doubt it has been my fellowship with the Lord. To be able to talk with Him, to hear from Him, and to have His guidance and presence in my life has been my greatest joy.
Think about it. One man chose to stay with Jesus, and in his later years he finds his greatest joy in the relationship that he has cultivated with Christ all through life. The other, having denied Jesus, in spite of a celebrated life, feels the loss deeply. Like Paul both men saw the great value in knowing Jesus.
What about you? If you were to evaluate your life; if you were to look back and list those things you COUNT as being valuable what would they be?
- A respected position in the community…a nice-sounding job title?
- A good salary with enviable perks?
- Growing popularity among your peers?
- A wall in your office covered with awards?
- A fine automobile
- A wardrobe full of elegant and stylishly expensive clothes?
- A nice home-maybe a summer place as well?
Now, granted those are all wonderful things but they don’t fill the emptiness and loneliness that all people feel who don’t KNOW Jesus experientially. And none of those things on this list prepare a person for eternity. Last Friday I buried a good man someone I truly enjoyed getting to know as I visited with him in the hospital over the past six months while he struggled with leukemia. And his one asset that turned his funeral into a service of hope and even joy was his relationship, his friendship with Jesus Christ. I mean no one said, He died…but that’s okay because he had a great career. None of the friends of family comforted themselves with the knowledge that he came from a great family or owned a nice home. No the one fact we all clung to was the fact that He KNEW Jesus personally. You see death changes the calculation. Whatever seemed so important during life, job or money or house or success, none of these things matter when life ends. At that point all that COUNTS is whether or not we knew Jesus Christ. Only that relationship has any real value.
If you don’t know Jesus personally then I invite you to begin that relationship with Him right now. Ask Him to forgive your sin and come into your life as Savior and Lord. And then come and share that decision with all of us by walking an aisle and talking with me. But, make sure that you really KNOW Jesus, not just know ABOUT Him. The Bible warns us of this when it says that at the end of time…when we all stand before Jesus some people will expect to enter heaven and He will say, Depart from me, I never knew you.
And then, maybe you do KNOW Jesus but today you feel a need to know Him more, to walk more closely with Him through life and you want to rededicate yourself to building that all-important relationship. Perhaps you feel led to make some other decision such as committing to get your priorities in life more in line with God’s will. You may feel led to join our church. Whatever decision you have to make come as we stand now and sing.