Title: To be found in Christ is great joy!
Text: Phil. 3:4b-14
Facebook live: To be found in Christ is great joy!
8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order 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 comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
The Law of God is good.
The Law tell us what God expects.
Have no other Gods
Do not miss use his name
keep Holy the sabbath day – The Lord’s Day
Honor you father and mother
Do not kill – do murder - or be angry with your brother
Do not commit adultery
Do not steal
Do not bear false witness against your neighbor
Do not covet things of this life
Do not covet your neighbor’s wife or other people
This is all good for us.
We teach about the Law as a curb, mirror, and guide for daily living in confirmation. It gives us boundaries, shows us who we are as sinners and gives us a path forward in what God desires.
Because if we actually believe that we can keep and follow the Law, we fall victim to sin and the Law becomes our destruction, casting us into the deep abyss of Hell and away from our loving God.
Paul begins with this warning in Vs 2
2 Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.
In another place Paul calls them Judaizers.
The Judaizers were a faction of the Jewish Christians, both of Jewish and non-Jewish origins, who regarded the Levitical laws of the Old Testament as still binding on all Christians. They tried to enforce Jewish circumcision upon the Gentile converts to early Christianity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaizers
The Jews in Paul’s day, even if they followed Christ, demanded adherence to the Law - and that began with circumcision, saying: as Israel was marked in the flesh – you too need to be marked!
Jesus - plus something. Do this, and you will be saved they say.
Paul counters in Vs 3:
Jesus plus something equals nothing!
3 For we are the circumcision, Paul says, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh
Saying in essence that circumcision doesn’t save me, and the works of the Law doesn’t save me - but faith in Christ Jesus and his work, does!
Paul then brings his credentials to bear for the Philippians who may be being led astray by those who are placing themselves above Paul in authority and credentials.
If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more:
Saying:
5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
If you want to have confidence in the flesh – match this!
Circumcised
Israel
Benjamin
Hebrew
Law
Pharisee
Zeal
Persecutor of the church
Righteous under the Law
Blameless
Paul could also add – Dead to God.
And he does, saying:
7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
We too. When we look to that which we do and trust that instead of seeing that which we do - as a fruit produced in Christ - break the First commandment and our trusting a god made in our image.
8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
Here is where Paul says to you and me keeping us mindful to that which we have as a gift.
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
Remining us that we are a new creation in Christ and as such we have nothing to prove or to win but only to live in faith – to who God has made us in Christ!
11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
This is simple trust in the promise.
Paul’s one hope, is not the good life but the Good News!
10 that I may know Jesus and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Or, to go from death in sin to life in Christ!
Through the word of God proclaimed or the word united to the waters of Holy Baptism which now saves you! The work of God - as St. Peter declares in chapter 3 of his first epistle saying:
… not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.
The work of God continues to draw you to him in his word to repent and to receive forgiveness and the remember that we have been bought with a price and are his children having died and risen with him in Baptism and continue to remain in him as we live a life of faith in the work which God in Christ has done on our behalf.
13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
It has been made our own by God’s work on our behalf and it is by the work of the Spirit that we remain focused on Christ and remain in him.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit!
Amen
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