Philippians chapter 3 and beginning
in verse 1 says, Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord.
To write the same things to you, to me indeed, is not grievous,
but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs, beware of evil
workers, beware of the concision or the cutters. For we are the
circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in
Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Though I might
also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that
he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more circumcise
the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin,
the Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee,
concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness
which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gained to
me, those I counted lost for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I
count all things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss
of all things, and do count them but done, that I may win Christ. and be found in him, not having
mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which
is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of
God, by faith, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection,
and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his
death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection
of the dead, not as though I had already attained either were
already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend
that for which I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I
count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting
those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those
things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us, therefore,
as many as be perfect, be thus minded. And if anything, be ye
otherwise minded, God shall reveal this unto you. Nevertheless,
whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule,
let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together
of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example.
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 mind earthly things. For our
conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it
may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the
working whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself." Now this is a passage of Scripture
that would do all of us well to read every day because we
are all by nature those that would rely upon the flesh. Now, we know enough having studied
the Scriptures to know that we should not rely upon the flesh.
I mean, if I asked anybody, should you rely upon the flesh, we would
all say no. We all know that. But that is
not the problem we have. Our problem is not in not knowing
what the Lord requires. Our problem is, because of the
nature that we have, is in actually not having confidence in the
flesh, because it is part of the fleshly nature to have confidence
in itself, most especially when it comes to spiritual things. I mean, the Lord gave us a mind,
we think, we say, We're not stupid. We can figure it out. We know
what we need to know. We've got this all in the right
way. Now you would think that such
a thing as the circumcision of the flesh would not even be a
problem among those who believed in the grace of God. Having sat
under the ministry of the Apostle Paul, who preached Jesus Christ
and Him crucified, you would think such an issue as that would
never come up. But the reason that it did come
up was because of the natural tendency of men to rely on the
flesh. Now those Jews that became believers,
they knew what Paul said, and they, in a measure, I suppose,
believed it. But many of them evidently resorted
back to some confidence in the flesh, because when he says here,
Beware of the concision, he said that word means cutters. It means
beware of those that cut the flesh, or beware of those that
say you must be circumcised. Now there certainly was nothing
wrong with circumcision, and Paul was not preaching against
circumcision as a surgical technique or surgical procedure. Certainly
nothing to be condemned about that, but the thing he was preaching
against were those who were preaching that other men must be circumcised
in order to be obedient to the Lord or had some confidence that
because they were circumcised that this gave them some place
of standing with the Lord. Now, it does not have to be something
as radical as circumcision because the flesh will find any little
thing that it possibly can to set it apart from something else
and give it some place to glory. whether it be a point of doctrine
or it doesn't really make any difference what it is. If the
flesh can find a place to glory, you can be sure that it will
capitalize on it. And every one of us will, if
left to ourselves, be in that same situation. And so Paul warns
them. He said, To write the same things
to you, to me indeed, is not grievous. He wasn't ashamed to
preach the same things over and over to them because he knew
this was the best thing. Now see, you'd think, and I used
to think this, that what God's people need to do, you know,
you teach them all how to be saved and then you just move
on. You just get better and better
and you all just start being more like Christ and everybody
is just doing the things they are supposed to do and walking
in obedience. And that is how it all works
out. That is how I used to think before I became acquainted with
what I was by nature. And then I understood exactly,
to some extent at least, what Paul said when he said, not as
though I had already attained. Now we need, it's necessary for
us to continually remind ourselves of the same things over and over
again because we have an innate tendency to move away from the
very simplest of truths and to rely upon the flesh. And our
flesh is subtle and it has learned our weaknesses over the years
and so it knows just right where to hit us and how to give us
a little jolt so that we find some place of pride or something
wherein we rely in a part from Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Paul said, We are the circumcision
which worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and
have no confidence in the flesh. No confidence in the flesh. I heard about a fellow one time,
he said he was so mean that he had to hold a gun on himself
when he was shaving to keep him from cutting his own throat.
And that's funny in a way to think about it, but that's exactly
how we are. I mean, that's exactly how we
are. We would destroy ourselves if
it was not that God, who is rich in mercy, did keep us from it. Because the flesh likes to tell
us we can rely on it a little bit. We know we can't rely on
the law, but we can rely on it a little bit. But he said, we
have no confidence in the flesh. We see ourselves in the mirror
and we say, you're a liar, you're a cheat, and you will bring me
away from Christ today if the Lord doesn't preserve me from
Him. That's having no confidence in
the flesh. It's taking nothing for granted.
It's not saying, oh, well, you know, I don't need anything today. Lord, I can make it on my own.
No, we have no confidence in the flesh. Now, Paul could have
had confidence in the flesh. Could he not? I mean, if you
were going by religious pedigrees, he had it. He said, I was circumcised
eighth day. of the nation of Israel. I was
of the tribe of Benjamin. I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. If the church doors was open,
I was there. I was there at prayer meeting.
I was there at visitation. I sang in the choir. I preached. I taught Sunday school. He says,
I did everything that you could possibly do. I was right there
in the midst of it. as touching the law? A Pharisee. Now, the Pharisees on the one
hand have gotten a bad rap. Now, what I mean by that is a
lot of times people think of the Pharisees as being wicked
men running around doing wicked stuff. Now, they were wicked
men, don't get me wrong, because the Lord showed, but the wickedness
that they were was not an outward wickedness. In other words, if
you'd have seen one of them, you wouldn't have thought he
was wicked. That's why his disciples were just amazed when he told
them the things that he did about the Pharisees, because these
were the upright pillars of the community. They were the people
whom you could rely on if you needed something done for the
community or whatever. These were the men you went to.
They were the ones who were sitting on the front row at church. They
were the ones that were doing the right things. They weren't
going behind closed doors and doing things there. Hypocrisy
was not immorality. Their hypocrisy was that they
had confidence in their own selves and they did not see themselves
to be sinners because they thought themselves to be righteous men.
That was their hypocrisy. Their hypocrisy was not that
they did not pray, that they did not study the Scripture,
that they did not do many righteous deeds. That was not their problem. And so Paul says, as touching
the law, I was a Pharisee. The Pharisees were known as men
who kept the law. They did it to the jot and tittle
insofar as men can do that sort of thing. But listen to what
he said. But what things were gain to
me, those things that I thought were valuable, he said, all of
those things, he said, I counted as nothing. I counted it as lost. I just cast it away. In other
words, he didn't say, I counted up and said, oh, woe is me, I've
lost these things. No, he said, I counted it as
being nothing. He said, I just, it's nothing. I'm moving on. Yea, doubtless,
and I count all things, not just what I was religiously, but all
things. It doesn't matter what it is,
he said. It does not matter that I am walking faithfully, preaching
the gospel day by day. He said I count all things in
the same fashion. They do not mean anything for
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. He said
that is the thing that I count as value. That is what I want. Nothing else matters. for whom
I have suffered the loss of all things. And I lay awake at night
and think about how much I have sacrificed for the Lord." Now, what did he say? He said,
It does not matter to me what I have lost. He said, It does
not make any difference because I count all those things as dung. Now, we all know what dung is.
And there are many names for dung. But dung is dung. I mean, it doesn't matter what
name you call it. By all people in all languages,
if you speak about dung, they know what that is. There is no
value in that. I have never known of anybody
that went around collecting it. Well, there are, but I'm speaking
about in the sense that they want it to put it on display. I mean, it does have its uses,
of course, but it's not a thing that we're going to display in
the polite company. He said, I count, that's how
I count it, the lowest of the low. I mean, that's the last
thing on earth that a man would place value in. And he said,
that's what I count all things that would in any measure prevent
me from the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ and
to be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness which
is of the law. Now that's where he wanted to
be found. was in Christ, not having his
own righteousness. Now a lot of people want to be
found in Christ with their own righteousness. Isn't that a more comfortable
place to be? We are going to be in Christ and we are going
to actually be those that are obedient. We are going to be
obedient. Now obedience is a good thing. I hope you have a desire
to be obedient. But the last thing on earth that
I would ever want is for you to think that somehow your obedience
can be compared in any fashion to the perfect obedience of Jesus
Christ or that in some measure your obedience could somehow
make you more pleasant unto the Lord or cause you to earn some
special favor in His sight. That's what he says here. I want
to be found in Him not having mine own righteousness. Because
in reality, if a man is in Christ, he cannot have his own righteousness. Because one rules out the other. And apart from having all our
righteousness in Christ, we can have none. This is the problem
that the Pharisees had. The problem with the Jews is
they went about to establish their own righteousness. They
had something. that they could find a little
bit of comfort and help in. But he said, "...to be found
in him not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which
is of God by faith." Now what is faith? Faith is the gift of
God. It's the faith of Christ, is
what he said. It's through the faith of Christ.
It's not through our own faith. It's not through the faith of
the flesh. It's not that where when we tell people, oh, you
need to believe. No, you see, the faith of Christ
is that which comes to a man and he can't do anything else. See, when a man has been given
the faith of Christ, he can't do anything else but believe. It's not a matter of how much
does he believe. It's a matter of that he does
believe. You see, when that woman who had the daughter who was
possessed by a demon and she came to the Lord and she said,
Lord, heal my daughter, and she was a Canaanite woman, he said,
what are you doing? He said, I'm sent to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel. What are you doing coming in
here? She said, that's a true thing. He said, well, you think
it's good to take the food that's made for the children and give
it to the dogs? She said, no, it's not a good
thing, but Lord, even the dogs get to eat the crumbs that fall
from the master's table. And the Lord said, hey, grace
is this woman's faith. Why? Because she believed that
He was the One The only one that could do her any good. And she
said, I believe. Lord, help my daughter. And you
see, the Lord said that from the days of John the Baptist
until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence. But He said,
now the violent take the kingdom by force. Now what did he mean? He meant that the faith that
he gives to his people is that which causes them to tenaciously
seek after him. And they cannot be turned aside,
but they must have him and him alone and that righteousness
which they want and which they will not be satisfied with any
less is his righteousness. And this is what Paul speaks
about here. He said that I may know him and the power of His
resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings being made
conformable unto His death, if by any means I might attain to
the resurrection of Christ." He said that I might win Christ. If I might win Christ. Now, how
can you win Christ? You can't win it like you win
a race, can you? But yet the tenacity, the faith
of Christ causes a man to run the race with the desire to win
the race, does it not? I mean, will we be satisfied
to come in second place? No, because you see, there is
only one winning place. There is only one place that
a man can be declared the winner, and that is in Christ. And we
want to win Christ. We want to be in Him. We don't
want to come up dragging up the end and saying, well, we knew
some things about Christ. We went to church. We did most
of the stuff the preacher talked about. No, I want to win Christ. He says, I want to be found in
Him. I won't be satisfied with anything less. I can't be. Lord,
thou hast the words of eternal life, like Peter said. Will you
also go away? Every day you need to ask yourself
that question, will you also go away? Is today the day that
you will deny Christ? He said, examine yourself to
see if you be in the faith. That is what Paul is talking
about here. He said, I run in this race.
He said, I do not count myself to have apprehended. I have not
arrived any place. I cannot say, oh brother, yeah,
I am saved. You know, it's amazing. You can
run up and down the road and you can ask just about anybody,
they'll say, yeah, brother, I'm saved. Paul said, I don't count
myself to have apprehended. I don't count myself to have
arrived. But he said, here's the one thing
that I have by the grace of God, passing to the mark for the prize
of the high calling of God in Christ. Jesus, he said, I want
to win Christ. I don't want to come up short.
I don't want to be found in any other place than the perfect
righteousness of Christ. I don't want to be found some
little old place over here where I'm trusting in something other
than Christ or I'm satisfied with something less than Christ. It's Christ or nothing. That's what he said. I pressed toward the mark. perfect,
or that is, be of a mature mind, be thus minded. And if any thing
be otherwise minded, God shall reveal this unto you. May the Lord give us such a mind,
because He says, I have told you often, I tell you now even
weeping, that there are many enemies of the cross of Christ.
And I'm telling you, a man's an enemy of the cross of Christ
that will tell you to trust anything other than the righteousness
of Jesus Christ. Whether it be baptism, whether
it be some kind of faith that you can work up, whether it be
some kind of obedient task that you can perform or whatever it
is, if a man comes telling you that it's anything other than
Jesus Christ and Him crucified, flee. That's what he says here,
I'm telling you. He says, I've told you often.
He says, I'm begging you to listen to me. He said, I'll tell you even weeping,
that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. Nothing but dumb. It's the cross
of Christ and everything else is dumb. I mean, there's just
nothing else. It's the cross of Christ and
all else is done. That's what Paul said. What a blessed hope is given
to the children of God. My dear brethren, it's not by
the power of the flesh that a man counts all things but loss, that he might win Christ. It
is the work of the Spirit of God. Anything less is not the
work of the Spirit of God. There are all sorts of religions
with which men are perfectly satisfied. They certainly don't
want to hear somebody tell them that all their glittering things
are done. But those who have been taught
by the Spirit of God to know the righteousness of Christ cannot
see it in any other fashion. May the Lord help us.