“But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.” Philippians 3:7
Main Readings: Acts 15:1-11 & Philippians 2:19 – 3 9
Related Readings: Acts 9:1-22 & Matthew 13:44-46
Philippians 3 is a very personal account – It’s Paul’s story. One of radical change. Change that happened on the day Paul saw Jesus. And saw the truth about Jesus. And. The truth about himself. Before - Paul’d been wrong. He thought of himself as a follower – the follower! - of the one true and living God. He valued – really valued – what he was. And what he was doing for God. He was confident of where he stood in God’s view of people. But Paul was wrong – utterly wrong!
When Paul came to faith in Christ he changed. To have a relationship with God - Paul no longer valued what he was. His confidence - not there! But he valued Christ. And was confident in him.
Value and confidence. That’s what this chapter’s about. It asks questions of us. What’s our relationship with God really based on? Where is our hope for heaven placed? Do I place value on what I’m doing for God? Does it have some part to play in me being saved? Do I have confidence that the way I’ve been this week has got me one step closer to heaven? Or do I lack confidence – the way I’ve been this week has taken me two steps back? Or is my hope simply in my Saviour?
So, a recap – how’d we get here? Well, in Philippians 1 and 2, Paul was pushing believers towards a new mindset. He said, ‘have the same mindset as Christ… he made himself nothing.’ He tells them this kinda life will shine - in a dark world. Living a life that pictures Christ-thinking will be visible to others. People will see the picture of Christ in your life.
I recently painted a picture. Of Arthington Viaduct – a magnificent structure, north of Leeds. Given my low-quality paintbrush - and lower quality talent - I was rather pleased with how the picture turned out. I decided to frame it and put it with the other pictures in our box room. Cos I valued it! But then I behaved in a way that undermined my valuation. On ebay, I bought the cheapest frame I could find! The way I framed that picture didn’t make it look well. But well bad!
And that’s what Paul’s been driving at. Believers in Christ – how much value do you really place on what God has done for you in his Son? God’s work in your heart and life is his beautiful picture of love and forgiveness painted in you. But your life now will frame that picture. And put on display God’s work. How your life is framed will show your value on what God has done for you.
And Paul gave two examples of lives lived for Christ - Timothy and Epaphroditus. Their lives framed the picture of God’s love in Christ. And framed it so well. And Paul told the church to ‘honour people’ with lives ‘like’ that.
But it’s so easy to get this wrong. Those first two chapters promoting the Christ-life lived in a certain way. We can easily start to think that we must – cos that’s what’ll get us to heaven. We can then focus on our lives – and ongoing failure – and think maybe we’re not actually heading for heaven. Or. We can think worse!
Yes, we can start to be pleased with what we’re doing - focus on our hard shift, in church life. Working harder than him or her. Our efforts. We’re confident. In what we’re doing. And where we’re going. Cos of what we’re doing. Cos - surely – there’s some heavenly value in what we’re doing?
Paul knows. There’s danger. Believers might miss the point. But he’s not been telling them to live Christ-minded lives because that type of life’ll get you to heaven. No. In Christ, heaven is got. Live this new life in Christ not to get you to heaven. But because that’s where you’re going. Paul knows. We might get this wrong. There’s a danger. We might read Chapters 1 and 2 and add them up wrong. What’s the answer? Well, what’s the answer – to adding 1 & 2? It’s 3. And the answer to adding up Philippians 1 and 2 is Philippians 3. Get Philippians 3 and you’ll be right.
It’s a wonderful chapter. It’s the very heart of the good news about Jesus. Our NIV bible translation gives it a title – ‘No confidence in the flesh’ – words we find in verse 3. What’s ‘the flesh’? It’s us. It describes what we’re made of – skin and bits. But, it’s not actually meaning what we’re made of. Rather it means the essence of what we are. So, how we think and the way we act. It means our own fleshly efforts at being gooduns! Right from the start, the NIV translators want us to know what it’s about. Our efforts to be good people – how much confidence should we have in them? No confidence. How much getting-me-to-heaven value should I place on what I do? None.
Other Bible translations choose slightly different titles. Because this chapter is like a coin. We might call it heaven’s coin. This coin has two sides. ‘No confidence in me’, is on one side. But no confidence in me isn’t the full story. That would just leave me with no confidence. Empty. With nothing of value. The NLT chooses a title which looks at the flip-side of heaven’s coin. Their title is ‘The priceless value of knowing Christ.’ Those titles, taken together, we’ve got heaven’s full coin. No confidence in what I’m doing for him. But knowing him – and what he’s done for me - priceless.
At the end of your life are you gunna stand at heaven’s gate, hoping to get in? Will you? If you’ve got this coin, you will! Both sides, mind you - No confidence in you. All confidence in Christ. Confidence in you – you’re out. Confident only in him – you’ll be in. Forever in.
Paul believes it’s important to tell the Philippian believers this. Not just tell them. But tell them again. In verse 1 he says, ‘it is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again…’ He’s evidently told them before. Why the repeat? Why do we sometimes choose to tell a friend something just the once? And sometimes choose to tell them, and then tell them, and then tell them the same thing again? It’s all based on how important the thing is. This was really important to Paul. He calls it a ‘safeguard’ in verse 1.
A safeguard is like a protective barrier. Say I go for a walk along a clifftop path. It’s a beautiful day and I’m admiring the scenery. The deep blue sea. And the big blue sky. My mind’s set free. I’m relaxed. Except I’m not. Cos to my left is a 100-metre drop. And if I sky-gaze too long, I’m gunna do that 100 metres faster than Usain Bolt! There’s great danger.
But what a difference if there was a safeguard. One of those metal tubed barriers so loved by local authorities. It would transform my journey. Cos I’d feel so much safer. But where would I want that barrier? Just a short section at the beginning of the path. No. I’d want it repeated – again and again to keep me from danger? Paul knows - we need these repeated safeguards as we go on the Christian journey.
And there’s another reason why Paul feels the need to write these words. Not only was there the danger of these Christians developing a misplaced confidence in their own efforts. That danger was being made more dangerous. Cos there were religion-minded people doing the opposite of what Paul was doing. Paul was focussed on safeguarding their faith. These religious busybodies were actually pushing believers towards the danger.
What did they look like? Here they looked rather Jewish. We first gather that from verses 2 and 3 where Paul uses a wordplay about circumcision – which was a particularly Jewish thing. How interesting though. We’ve seen this before. What’s described here is the same issue as in Acts 15. There we had people who’d a Pharisee background. A Pharisee was the strictest type of religious person. It was all rules and regulation. Not just rules and regulation for them. But rules and regulation for everyone!
These people had that background. In Acts 15, they’d kinda received the message about Jesus. But they hadn’t embraced it fully. What do I mean? Well, imagine - you do your weekly shop at Asda. And you’re walking home with your 6 carrier bags. Of baked beans. And you meet a long-lost friend. And your overwhelming instinct is to give-em a massive hug – to embrace them fully. What wouldya have to do first? Put down ya bags! But these people hadn’t. They couldn’t embrace Christ. Cos they were unwilling to put down their religious baggage.
And they wanted other people to carry the same baggage as them. They were telling believers with totally different back-stories – you must change and become like me. What they actually said in Acts 15 was you ‘must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.’ You ‘must be.’ The implication was, if you don’t do this you aren’t really saved. Believing in Jesus wasn’t enough. To be saved – and be a proper Christian – to be certain of getting to heaven – there was stuff to be done. And effort to be made.
But hold on! - that was Acts 15. When Paul writes Philippians, it’s nearly 15 years later. How come? - the same issue – the same danger - is facing the Church of Christ in Philippi. Why hasn’t it gone away? Because – until God calls time on this broken world – it never will. This threat. This major danger - to Christ’s people - will always need safeguarding against.
It may not take the same form as here. But it may. It may be religious busybodies telling us that we must rip certain ceremonies out of the Old Covenant. And remould them for the Christ-life. But it may take other forms. It may be someone telling us that because they read 7 chapters of the bible a day – so must we. The suggestion being that if we don’t then we’re not kinda proppa. But what if our capacity’s only 7 verses. Or - today - 7 words. Or none. How’re we gunna feel? It undermines our confidence. Cos it makes us feel our confidence depends on our doing. Which it never should do.
How should we view such behaviour? Like Paul did. In verse 2 he didn’t say, ‘well, they’ve goddit a bit wrong.’ He calls them ‘evildoers’ and ‘dogs.’ Paul’d no intention of playing this down. Neither should we. Anyone who undermines your confidence in Christ alone – treat them like you would a barking dog. And move out of earshot.
Paul was God’s chosen instrument. He was the right tool for this job. He shows why in verses 4-6. These people who opposed freedom in Christ. Paul used to be one of them. Before he found faith – and freedom and confidence in Christ – Paul thought he was the best of the best of the religiously rigid. He gives us his pre-faith CV – It looks impressive!
There’s lots of Jewish religious detail in verses 4-6. But it ends with Paul’s view of himself at that pre-Christ period of his life. He believed that he obeyed the religious rules without fault. How did it make him think about himself? He believed he was certain of heaven. His own efforts enough. He was confident in the flesh - himself. More than anyone else had right to be. In verse 4 he says, ‘If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more.’ The best of the best. And in order to defend (v.6) what he saw as the need of religious purity ‘he persecuted the church.’ Ready to challenge anyone who thought different. Until that day - on the road to Damascus - when Christ challenged him.
His whole value system collapsed. The best of the best became the worst of sinners. For the first time in his privileged life, he saw the reality of one side of heaven’s coin. His flesh. Him. The way he thought and behaved revealed for what it really was. His confidence - gone. What an awful moment that must’ve been. What now? Christ. Christ Jesus - who came into the world to save sinners. Did just that.
Christ turned heaven’s coin over and showed Paul the other side. The priceless value of knowing Christ. And Paul knew him as Lord. And believed in him as Saviour. And so was saved.
Have we done what Paul did? No! I mean have we really done what Paul did? So comprehensively as he did? Everything from his old value system - gone. It makes me wanna go to that road to Damascus just to check. I wonder whether Paul’s religious baggage is still there by the roadside. He was carrying more than most. But when he embraced Christ. He left it all behind.
It was a total transformation. Verse 7-8 tell us. ‘Whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.’ He presents it like a balance sheet – a set of accounts. When we do accounts – whether personal banking, or in business, or church accounts - we have two columns – income and outgoings – gain or loss. Each item listed is in one of two columns. It’s adding value to what we have. Or it’s taking away. There’s no in-between. It’s one or the other.
Here, it’s like Paul has a Will-I-Get-To-Heaven balance sheet. Before he found Christ, it looked like this – all that religious stuff in verses 5-6 – they were gains. Full of confidence in his own value. All this going for him and he was going to heaven. But God’s balance sheet looked different. Paul was actually hopeless, and hell bound. There’s only one thing of value in God’s account - one thing that will get us to heaven – and that’s knowing Christ. As Lord and Saviour. Through faith.
After coming to faith in Christ, Paul’s Will-I-Get-To-Heaven balance sheet looked so different. ‘Everything’ changed. That’s the word he uses in verse 8 – ‘everything’. Everything got moved. To the loss side of the accounts. Everything Paul had going for him. That must go. Cos of what had replaced it.
It’s just a name. But it’s found in verse 7. And verse 8. And verse 9. And so on. Just a name. But a name that’s so important that Paul repeated it – as a safeguard - in everything he wrote. The name of Christ. What did Paul now have going for him? Christ. Going to the cross for the sin of that man’s life of religious ruin.
All that religion now chucked in the bin. Verse 8 – ‘I consider (it) garbage.’ A great clear out and clean up. Actually, the NIV here, maybe does its own clean-up job. Cos the original NT Greek word is perhaps stronger than ‘garbage.’ And it smells stronger! It means excrement – literally poop. Dung. One of the other English Bible translations calls it ‘dog dung.’
You ever taken a dog for a walk? You’ve had that experience – carrying a bag of dog poop! And then you see it. The waste bin. What do you do? Do you go, ‘Actually I’m quite happy carrying this - I’ll keep it!’ Of course you don’t! Cos it’s worthless. And it stinks!
If our hope for heaven – that we’re carrying around – is anything other than Christ. Then we must know. To God it stinks. And so - it should - to us too. Get rid! Get rid now!
The end of verse 8, through verse 9, shows us the right way. Gain. Really gain. Paul says, ‘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 on the basis of faith.’
Paul was not made right by his religious rule-keeping. His doing was his undoing. True rightness with God is always. Only. Based on faith. Based on believing in and ‘knowing’ Christ.
As verse 8 tells us, ‘knowing Christ’ is ‘of… surpassing worth.’ That means it’s worth more than anything! Cos it’s of ‘infinite value’ (as NLT)!
You can’t add to something that’s infinite. You can’t add value to Christ. By God’s ongoing grace, may we as believers value him more completely. May our confidence be in him only. Not misplaced. But well-placed. In Christ. And. In Christ alone.