Will you open your Bibles to
Philippians chapter 3? Heavenly Father, bless us as
we look into this scripture and confirm in our hearts the truth
that we have believed for these many years. In Christ's name
we pray. Amen. Now, I've entitled this lesson,
The Garbage Heap of Fleshly Religion. And let's read verses 5 through
8. Well, actually, we've got to
start, I put 5 through 8, but it's verse 4 through 8. Though
I myself have reasons for such confidence, if someone else thinks
they have 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, the Hebrew
of Hebrews, in regard to the law of Pharisee, as for zeal,
persecuting the church, as for righteousness based on the law,
faultless. But whatever were gains to me,
I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider
everything a loss. because of the surpassing worth
of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all
things. I consider them garbage that
I may win Christ. Bonnie, it may be best to change
microphones after all, because I'm having a hard time not coughing. If I'm using this one, It'll
blast them good. So we'll just stick with the
pulpit microphone for today. Now Paul, probably more than
anyone else in the scriptures, emphasized the difference between
the flesh and the spirit. And in general, what he means
by this, the flesh is our natural selves, whatever we were when
we were born. The Lord Jesus says, flesh gives
birth to flesh. So that whatever we were when
we were born, our natural selves, that's the flesh. The spirit
is the part of us that is renewed by means of the new birth. Now Paul Ended verse 3. He had a threefold description
of the believer and the last one he says they put no confidence
in the flesh. That is they have no confidence
in their natural selves. Now then he goes on to say though
I myself have reasons for such confidence. Now he doesn't mean
there that he actually had done things that would merit him a
righteous standing with God. What he meant was, if anybody
has reasons for confidence in the flesh, I do. He says, if someone else thinks
they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more. He is saying that if it were
possible to merit a righteous standing based upon personal
achievement or credentials, no one could make a more valid claim
to it than him. If any man might declare or believe
that he had done what was necessary to establish a righteousness
before God, he, that is Paul, could make a better claim than
them. Now that's a pretty big boast.
And you know, that's one reason that God appointed Paul as an
apostle to the Gentiles. Now, he could have effectively
been an apostle to the Jews, though I don't think he would
have lasted long. I mean, not only would he have
been bringing a message to them that was strange to their ears,
he would have been considered a betrayer by them. And, you
know, they were kind of like the Islamists of our day. You don't agree with us, we kill
you. So the Lord sent him to the Gentiles. But that enabled
him, he went up there with massive amounts of the scriptures memorized,
because the Pharisees did that. He had a great grasp of the words
of the Old Testament. And then by grace, he found out
what they mean. Therefore, he could kind of go
as a walking Bible among the Gentiles. And of course, even though he
was in the Gentile nations, there were Jews there. So, as he went
out there, God had chosen this man who had been, you know, head
and shoulders above other Jewish people, even other Pharisees. He was a rising star among the
Pharisees. And he took this man and worked
in him, gave him spiritual life such that he came to the point
that he had contempt for all that he had done in the hope
of winning the favor of God. Now, he says, In verse 5, he
begins setting forth his pedigree, his claim to the kind of works
that at one time he thought would gain him God's favor. And also,
it's showing to everyone that no one can make a better claim
than he can. He says, I have reasons for such
confidence. And he sets forth seven things
about himself. I don't know if he was going
for seven as, you know, seven being the number of perfection,
or if it's just a coincidence. But here are the things he mentioned.
He was circumcised the eighth day after his birth. Now, you
know how important circumcision was to the Jews. I mean, that
was the be all and end all. Seeing that the Reformed churches
believe that baptism is a replacement for circumcision, you know what
emphasis they lay on children being baptized as soon as it's
practical. Well, to be within the covenant
people of Israel, A male had to be circumcised and for one
born into the Jewish nation it was supposed to be done on the
eighth day. So Paul is saying my obedience to the law began
even before I knew there was a law. He was building a legal argument
for being included among the blessed of God, even before he
knew that there was such a thing as the blessed people of God.
So from the very beginning, Paul was doing the right thing.
And then he says, and you find these things in verses five and
six, he was of the stock of Israel. Now, when Paul was describing
the condition of the Gentiles in Ephesians chapter two, he
says that they were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. Now, in our day, we can't appreciate
what that means. Because once the Lord Jesus Christ
came, the Word of God and the Gospel of Christ just exploded
and went all over the world. And it was made clear that in
Christ there's neither Jew nor Gentile. Under the Old Covenant,
there was a big difference between the Jew and the Gentile. Paul said in one place, what
advantage does the Jew have? Well, much in every way. They
had the prophets, they had the covenants of promise, they had
the temple and the worship associated with that. In other words, they
were the only people. And I use the word people as
a singular noun. Technically speaking, the word
people means a group of persons characterized by something. So
we talk about the American people. But they were the only people,
the only nation to whom God spoke, to whom God sent prophets. And so, if you were not born
in Israel or did not come in contact with some kind of evangelistic
Jews somewhere along the way. You never even heard of the God
of the Jews. Now there's still some people
like that today, but that's not because God has purposefully
withheld or told us to purposefully withhold the word of truth from
any national or racial group. The gospel is no longer confined.
And so, when he says, I was of the stock of Israel, that means
he was of that people with whom God had made a covenant and to
whom God had spoken and revealed himself. Now, not only was he
an Israelite, he was of the tribe of Benjamin. Now, the first king
of Israel came from the tribe of Benjamin. That was King Saul. And of course, Paul's Jewish
name was Saul. And so he was kind of the namesake
of Saul. It means, the word Saul actually
means sought after. And King Saul was sought after,
and Saul the Pharisee was sought after. You know, when issues
would come up, they would say, well, let's see what Saul has
to say about that. And so he was, of this tribe
of Benjamin from which the first king came and also Benjamin was
always known for its zeal and readiness readiness to defend
Israel they were fierce warriors when it came time to call troops
Benjamin which was actually a rather small tribe Benjamin, there'd
be lots of people coming from that tribe. And so they were
very dedicated and committed people. And then he says he was
a Hebrew of Hebrews. There was not a drop of Gentile
blood flowing in his veins. Now, I say that, and it's possible for him But
you know, there were, through the generations, Gentiles whom
God brought within the nation of Israel. I'll give you an example,
Ruth. Ruth was a Moabitess. She was a descendant of Lot,
and therefore kind of connected to Abraham. That is, the Moabites
came from Lot's incestuous relationships with one of his daughters. The
Moabite nation came from there, and Ruth came from there, but
really she was not of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So she was
a Gentile. But she had been married to a
Jewish man, and that man died. And so she and her mother-in-law
went back to Israel, and Ruth married Boaz, a Jewish man. And if you consider that the
genealogies in the Bible contain every generation, then Ruth was
the mother of Obed, who was the mother of Jesse, who was the
mother of David. And so you see, even Gentile
blood was in the bloodline of our Lord Jesus Christ, because
he descended from David. Nonetheless, the point is, he's
saying, I am a Hebrew, and I didn't become one by choice. I wasn't a Gentile who heard
about the Jewish God, and decided to align myself with them, because
under the law, if Gentiles came to the promised land and lived
there, I think it was after three generations, they were supposed
to be considered Jews, even though genetically they weren't. But
he said, that's not the way I am. I am a Hebrew of Hebrews. My mom and dad were Hebrews,
their moms and dads were Hebrews, and all like that. Now with regard
to the law, he was a Pharisee. The Pharisees were the strictest
sect of the Jews. Now in the days of the Lord Jesus,
there were four of these sects that I'm aware of. There were
the Pharisees, and they were the conservatives. They were
the ones that held closely to the scriptures. They didn't understand
them, but they were the defenders of the scriptures. And then,
secondly, you had the Sadducees. They were the liberals. They
didn't even believe in the resurrection of the dead. They were enamored
of Greek philosophy, which would have thought that resurrection
was a silly idea, because who wants to come back in a physical
form when they can dwell forever in a spiritual form? So they
didn't believe in the resurrection of dead. There were the Herodians,
and those were the political Jews. And then there were the
Essenes. Now you don't hear anything about
the Essenes in the scriptures, but archeological evidence has
found them. And they tended to be what you might call a conservative
group. They kind of kept to themselves.
And maybe you could figure there was one other sect, the Zealots,
and they were the militant Jews, the ones who were trying to drive
Rome out by military force. Interestingly enough, you know,
you had two apostles named Simon. You had Simon Peter and you had
Simon the Zealot. And so the Lord had, you know,
he gets his people from all corners. But Paul says, I was a Pharisee. You couldn't get more Jewish-like,
you couldn't get more devoted to the law and to the scriptures
than a Pharisee. He was as pure as the driven
snow, and he had the clothes to prove it. And he wasn't timid
about letting folks know that. In the society, in the culture,
in the religion of his day, he was kind of a rock star. And
then, sixly, his zeal, his commitment, his energetic commitment to his
religion was unquestionable. He went about seeking to destroy
any challenge to his religion, employing the threat of death
or prison to any and all who disagreed with him. I remember
Henry saying this remark, he said, you think you're willing
to die for your religion? Saul was willing to kill for
his. Now, we don't approve of that
kind of thing, but it sure shows you how zealous he was. When
this, what they considered a new religion of Christianity popped
up, man, it wasn't long, Paul was on it. And Paul was, well,
Saul was what he went by then, Saul did everything he could
to destroy the church. And actually, it's for that very
reason he was so amazed that God made him an apostle. He said, I'm not even worthy
to be called an apostle, for I persecuted the church of God.
Then he goes on to say, but by the grace of God, I am what I
am. And what was it? He was an apostle. It stunned him, but he didn't
back away from the claims of an apostle because he knew it
came to him by grace. But his zeal as a Pharisee was
unmatched. And then, here's the most remarkable
thing. Concerning the righteousness
that is in the law, that is, the righteous works that the
law requires in order to obtain favor with God, He was blameless,
free from fault or defect. Now, we understand that he was
looking at the law only on the surface. For the scriptures say,
he that does these things shall live by them. And Paul did not
live through the law, but outwardly speaking, He did everything the law commanded. You wouldn't be able to find
him breaking any of the Ten Commandments. Now, when it came to stealing,
there's probably some things he did that we would call stealing
because it was, well, the Lord accused the Pharisees of devouring
widows' houses. And I think what he meant by
that, because the Pharisees tended to be wealthy, when widows would
become destitute and need money, you know, the only asset they
might have is their house. And in distress, you know, people
will sell things for below market value because they need cash
right away. And they take advantage of that. And that's really kind of a theft.
If you have money to pay someone a fair price for something, you need to do it, even if they're
offering it for less. Especially if you know they're
offering it for less because they're under distress. You ought
to give them the full price so they get the most benefit. But
you wouldn't have ever found Paul seeing something and wanting
it and then grabbing it and going, it didn't steal like that. He
never committed adultery. We don't even know that he was
ever married or anything like that, but he was not guilty of
that. Never took the Lord's name in
vain in the sense of cursing. The ceremonial law, all that
was required of a man, he did it. He brought all the sacrifices. This is one of the scriptures
that taught me that the law is not the ruling guide for Christian
living. Because if a man can do it, and Paul said I was blameless,
if a man can do it and still be lost, then that's not the ruling guide
for anything. As Brother Scott Richardson said,
it's not a way of life, it's a way of death. And that's true. I'm not saying that to put the
law down. The law is just, holy, righteous,
and good. But in one sense, it's no good
to us. Because in order to fulfill the
law in such a way that God would grant you life, eternal life
because of it, it has to be not only an outward observance of
it, but an inward Now, in his life as a Pharisee,
he did all of those things and thought they were all profitable. Verse 7, but whatever were gains
to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. Now, whatever
he had been doing, he had been doing under the energy of the
flesh, his natural self. And he had considered these things
to be helping him, actually advancing his cause in the sight of God. But having met Christ and learned
the gospel, he now counted those things to
be a loss. All that he had boasted of in
verses five and six were moved from the asset column to the
liability column. Now notice that. He did not say,
but what things I once thought were gain to me, well, I realized
they weren't helping me to salvation, but they were good for me, you
know, and they helped me. No. He said, they were not only
not helpful, They were a hindrance. They were no longer credits,
they were debits. Everything he had done actually
put him in a worse condition than before. He made it crystal
clear that having met Christ, he had no confidence in anything
that he was or anything that he did before he met Christ. Now, nearly every believer would
agree that nothing they did or avoided doing, and before they
met Christ, was of any value in establishing a righteousness
before God. This principle would get a resounding
amen from nearly everyone who names the name of Christ. But
unfortunately, this is as far as they go with it. Discounting our fleshly works
in the past is easy. And it's fodder for the testimony
meetings. And you all may not be familiar
with them. I don't know if they ever did
them. Well, if you came from reform background, I don't know
if they did this kind of thing, but people were given the opportunity
to give their so-called testimony where they would recount how
sinful they used to be. I remember one friend saying, I'm
getting sick and tired of hearing from X sinners. You know, I'm
an ex-drug addict, I'm an ex-this, I'm an ex-that. And they are
ready to show contempt for their sinfulness in times past, but most of what travels under
the umbrella of what is called Christianity believes that after
meeting Christ, the flesh has somehow been changed, is capable
of doing something good, something helpful, something that actually
makes a little progress towards God. They believe that fallen
human nature does improve or at least can improve by the disciplined
application of the power and commitment of individual men. Men readily and heartily confess
that what they did before knowing Christ is of no value, but they
somehow harbor notions that what they do now is meritorious. They might call it sanctification,
progressive sanctification, or something like that, but it's
neither one. Neither one of them is making
them closer to God. Not all the works, you know,
and everybody here's been a believer for a good many years. Do you
realize we've done nothing in all of this to improve our relationship
with God? Nothing. Because in Christ, we already
had a perfect relationship with God. Now I understand we may
not experience it perfectly, but we have that. perfect relationship. We are
in Him. As the old hymn writer said,
near, so near to God, nearer I cannot be, for in the person
of His Son, I'm as near as He. Dear, so dear to God, dearer
I cannot be, for in the person of His Son, I'm as dear as He. Now what are you going to do
to improve on that? Paul discounts everything he
did before believing, and he also, he said, in verse eight,
what is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing
worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I have
lost all things. I consider them garbage. Now,
in the King James, it says dung. The meaning of the word dung
has changed over the years. We think of dung now as manure. But that's not what the word
means. Interestingly, and I looked it up just to confirm this, it's made up of the word for
dog and the word to cast. In other words, it's like food
and scraps that you throw the dogs to eat. It's not good for
human consumption. When you realize how hard they
had to work to just scrape together enough to stay alive, anything
they would throw to a dog would have to be worthless. So essentially,
it's garbage. It says, excuse me, Hannah, in
her prayer said that, and this is the King James Version, he
has taken the man from the dung heap and set him among the princes. He wasn't sitting on a mountain
of manure. He was at the garbage dump. That's
where he was. He was maybe at the garbage dump
trying to get something to eat, just like dumpster divers of
our day. And it's interesting, too, When
you consider that he says, I count them but stuff you cast to dogs. Remember what he called the legalists
in last week's lessons? Beware of dogs. You see, natural righteousness
is suitable for those dogs. And that's all it's suitable
for. And he says, I did this that I may win Christ. Not win Christ by a meritorious
effort, but simply by abandoning all hope in himself, he gained
Christ. And the implication is very clear. He said, I did this that I may
win Christ. You cannot hold on to your righteousness
and lay hold of Christ at the same time. You've got to let
go of the one to lay hold of the other. All right, we'll pick
up there next week.