Introduction

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been examining the importance of humility in promoting unity. This is crucial because when pride creeps into a community, small cracks between people can turn into gaping ruptures. Let me illustrate this with a story:

A mid-sized city decided to turn a vacant lot into a community garden. At first, things started to go well, but as the project grew, friction developed between the individuals who had begun volunteering at the outset—they referred to themselves as the founders—and those who had joined the project later on. The founders thought that they should be the ones to direct the project. They loudly shared their opinions about how they thought the garden should develop. 

Over time, some people with professional landscaping backgrounds also started working in the community garden. They didn’t have the seniority, but they did have the expertise. They openly criticized the choices that the previous volunteers had made. While they hadn’t been there as long, they felt their experience made them the most suitable people to manage the project. When it was time to build a communal shed to store the tools, things really blew up. The founders wanted a rustic shed in line with their vision of what the garden should be. The experts wanted something modern and high-tech to reflect their technical expertise. The disagreement over the shed’s design prevented tool sharing, and the project’s purpose was lost. Instead of uniting the community, the conflict caused such division that the city cancelled the project, leading to the garden’s closure.

When certain people or groups need everyone to acknowledge how important they are, the whole community spirals into factions. Paul is aware that this tendency can take root in the church, and so he works to nip it in the bud. If the individuals in the church compete for status, the church will fracture, but if everyone’s status is grounded in something they all equally share, then it can be held together. What is Paul’s prescription? Today we’re looking at Philippians chapter 3, so we’ll start with verse 1

Whatever happens, my dear brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. I never get tired of telling you these things, and I do it to safeguard your faith (Philippians 3:1, NLT).

The admonition to rejoice in the Lord isn’t just a religious platitude; it’s the heart of the whole chapter of Philippians 3. Rejoicing in the Lord means that our hope, our confidence and our sense of identity are not grounded in how we compare to one another, but in what Jesus has done for us. We know this is the key because Paul says, “I never get tired of telling you these things.” This is obviously something Paul has told them often. And the reason for this is that it is a safeguard for their faith. Paul obviously thinks rejoicing in the Lord is absolutely essential. Why it is essential becomes clear as we continue in the text. So let’s continue with verse 2-3

I. No Confidence in the Flesh

A. Relying on What Jesus has done (2-3)

Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved. For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort, (Philippians 3:2–3, NLT)

At the time Paul wrote this letter, Christianity was still considered a sect of Judaism. What Jesus had done exploded Jewish understanding of their unique place before God. It had created a great deal of tension as Christian leaders wrestled with the implications of what Jesus had done. Some felt that since Jesus represented the fulfillment of God’s promises to the Jews, those who wanted to receive the benefits of those promises had to become Jews. This meant adopting cultural symbols from the Jewish law that set apart Jews from other people; the most controversial of these was circumcision.

Other Christians, like Paul, reasoned that former pagans didn’t have to become culturally Jewish to receive God’s promises. They believed that practices like circumcision were like signposts pointing towards a future hope that had finally arrived. Now that the hope had arrived, the signposts had become obsolete. If you’re driving to North Bay on the highway, you might see a sign on the roadside that says, “North Bay 153 km.” That’s helpful because it lets you know you’re headed towards North Bay. But there’s no need for a sign in downtown North Bay pointing towards North Bay. In the same way, circumcision had pointed to God’s future work of transformation, when that work became a present reality, the signpost became pointless.

When God gave the sign to Abraham, it was after he had tried, in his own strength, to make God’s promise come true by sexually exploiting his wife’s servant. As a consequence, God had him cut a small piece off the part of his body that got him into trouble. So circumcision points towards the work that God does to…um… separate us from our past sinful selves. But now that Jesus had been glorified and the Spirit was sent, the signpost had become irrelevant.

Even though circumcision had become irrelevant, it still had importance in the minds of some Jewish believers. They thought that to be saved, you had to become like them. They thought they served as a pattern for what pleased God. This kind of pride is as toxic in the church as it was in our opening anecdote about the community garden. That’s why it is so important that our sense of belonging in the group can’t be based on a hierarchical system that treats some people as ‘spiritual elites’ and others as ‘spiritual commoners.’ When everyone knows their belonging comes from what God has done for all of us, then we can all humbly stand on level ground. We’re all here because God has been so gracious to us. But when we base our identity on what we have accomplished, when we start to compare ourselves to each other, watch out, because things will get fractious in a hurry.

B. A Résumé of Pride (4-9)

Of course, it’s always easy to say that something isn’t important for self-serving reasons. If a poor person is always saying, “money is the root of all evil,” cynical people might say, “You just think that because you don’t have any!” Paul wants the Philippians to know that he’s not discounting the importance of the Jewish Law because he can’t measure up to it. In fact, by the standards of the Jewish Law, he’s the GOAT:

We put no confidence in human effort, though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more! I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault. (Philippians 3:3–6, NLT).

I…I…I… Paul indulges in some pseudo-bragging not to call attention to himself but to show that his position on the law is principled rather than self-serving. He establishes that, even by the standards of his opponents, his résumé is above reproach. His opposition isn’t because by the standard of the law, he doesn’t measure up. Now that he’s gone to the effort of piling up his accomplishments, he does the unexpected and burns the whole pile down to the ground:

I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith (Philippians 3:7–9, NLT).

Paul, in his previous life as a Pharisee, had poured everything he was into becoming the most righteous person imaginable. But when he encountered the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus, he had to face the reality that it was all for nothing. All of his righteous rule-following hadn’t stopped him from fighting against God and persecuting God’s people. For Paul, this was the ultimate proof that allegiance to a legal code can’t make someone right with God. 

What he had considered his greatest asset just went to zero. He must feel like someone who had invested his life savings in shares in Blockbuster Video, only for Netflix to come along and make the whole business model unworkable. What had once seemed so profitable was now worthless; He now considers it garbage. The word in Greek translated as ‘Garbage’ might be better translated as ‘excrement’. An unsettling image, but one that gets across the point that Paul is trying to make: that what was most valuable to him has become, not just worthless, but completely revolting.

Parting with something that was important to you at one time is hard to do, even when it becomes obsolete. My wife knows this well, every time she asks me to start throwing out stuff from my box of old tech treasures. “I know I replaced that camera body and then replaced the replacement, but what if I need it?” It would be understandable for Paul to hold on to the old standard of righteousness that puts him in a privileged position. But he realizes that for him and others like him, holding onto this old righteousness sabotages church unity. It would be like the founding gardeners demanding the first place in the community garden.

Of course, all of this stuff about the Jewish law may seem strange to us. I don’t know anyone who thinks Christians need to get all bothered by who among them is circumcised or not (it does not come up in polite conversation!). No one I know feels morally superior for not eating pork or choosing to take Saturday as their Sabbath Day. The particulars have changed, but the underlying temptation is one we still deal with today. Do we act as if certain things about us greater status in the church? Maybe I consider myself more worthy of status than those who don’t read their Bible as much as I do. Or maybe I consider myself more worthy of status than those who spend less time in prayer, or those who converted to Christianity later in life than I did. Of course, I don’t mean to say there’s anything wrong with reading your Bible, or prayer, or coming to faith early in life, but if we are pious for self-serving reasons, then our piety may be doing more harm than good, as Paul’s did prior to his conversion.

When we rejoice in the Lord, we’re staying, “Our standing in the church is based on Jesus’ righteousness, not on what we’ve done.” When we try to build an identity based on our accomplishments, when we build a system that encourages us to compare ourselves to each other, we make church unity impossible. But rejoicing in the Lord, repairs those differences.

C. Knowing Jesus (10-11)

Having thrown away his own legalistic piety as the basis for his identity, Paul refocuses our attention on the importance of keeping Jesus, and what he’s done for us, at the centre of our identity. Paul says God making himself right with us depends on faith. The Greek word we translate as faith means both our belief (or trust) and faithfulness. We could say our righteousness is based on our trust in God’s faithfulness

Paul goes on:

I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11 so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead! (Philippians 3:10–11, NLT)

Paul’s ambition isn’t to be holier than thou, but to know Christ. Before his Damascus Road experience, Paul thought he knew God. But his encounter with the risen Jesus changed everything in his life. He had to reconsider his ideas about strength and weakness, about wisdom and foolishness, and about the scope of God’s forgiveness. For Paul, knowing Jesus was like putting on a set of glasses that allowed him, for the first time, to see the world as it actually is.

Paul wants to experience the power that raised Jesus. The power of the Spirit raised Jesus’ physical body from death to life. This same spirit can bring us new life spiritually (in places where were were spiritually dead) And the same spirit will also give us new physical life when Jesus returns.

For Paul, this new life, animated by the spirit, involved intense suffering. Paul had to endure the pain of relegating all of his past successes to the dung heap, not to mention the physical suffering of beatings, shipwrecks and imprisonments. But in spite of all of that, Paul wants to know Jesus more. He can endure the pain knowing that the pain doesn’t get the last word. Even if Paul has to surrender his life (which eventually he did), He knows that his future hope has been made secure by the promise of the resurrection.

II. Living Out the Faith

A. Reckoning with Our Shortcomings (12-16)

To this point, Paul has been focusing on our need to live with an identity grounded in what Jesus has done. For the sake of our status before God, our righteous acts are meaningless. But this doesn’t mean that our conduct is unimportant. Now Paul begins to address this, to head off the charge that rejoicing in the Lord means we can indulge in sin.

I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. Let all who are spiritually mature agree on these things. If you disagree on some point, I believe God will make it plain to you. But we must hold on to the progress we have already made (Philippians 3:12–16, NLT).

His Damascus Road experience showed him that even he was a failure in need of God’s grace. He could respond to this realization by living a life of regret for those past failures, but he realizes that God has wiped the slate clean and given him a new life. Living this new life means unlearning his old ways of living, ways that led to death, in favour of a new life that pleases God.

We know that Paul used to be a sinner, prior to his conversion, but his admission that he still hasn’t achieved perfection should be an encouragement. Even those who have sincerely walked with God for a long time still have more to learn. So if you feel like you still haven’t ‘arrived,’ You’re in good company. At the same time, though, the realization that we won’t be complete this side of eternity can’t lead us to complacency. Perfection in this life may not be something we can achieve, but it must be something we aim at. We must do our best, trusting in God’s grace to help us grow and in God’s mercy to pardon us in the places where we fall short.

But we can find joy because our past failures don’t need to determine our future. Of course, we should be wise, not unnecessarily putting ourselves in situations where we have been weak in the past, but we have permission to move on from the guilt our past sins. This forgiveness doesn’t mean we’ll be free from all consequences of our past sins (if you burned down someone’s house, receiving God’s forgiveness doesn’t mean you won’t be spending time in jail for arson), but it does mean that you can let go of the guilt, because, as the Psalmist says,

He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve. For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:10–12, NLT).

We are unencumbered by our past sins and free to live a new life in obedience to God. When Paul says let all who are spiritually mature agree with these things, he’s saying that we must all agree to find our joy and our identity in what Jesus has done for us, not in our works, based on righteousness.

But this raises the question, “If my salvation isn’t because of my righteousness, then why can’t I just behave any way I want?”

Paul says we must hold on to the progress we’ve already made.

We’ve been made right with God on account God’s grace through faith,

But we’re not right with God if we abuse that grace. Remember the word ‘faith’ in the Greek also means ‘faithfulness’.

God is gracious to forgive us when we fall short, but not if we’re living in a pattern of defiant sin.

That transitions us into the final section of this chapter.

B. Living for Heaven (17-21)

Philippians 3:17–21

NLT

17 Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example. 18 For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth. 20 But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. 21 He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control.

We are saved by God’s grace, but this doesn’t mean God has given us carte blanche to indulge our basest appetites. Paul uses himself as an example. He was dead in sin, and now God’s grace set him free. But now that he’s free, he doesn’t live a wild life in pursuit of every passing pleasure, but instead, he lives to please God. Paul is saying look at the lives of Spiritually mature people and imitate them. Because there will always be people who presume that God’s grace means they can get away with sin. We all fall short and need mercy. But is God’s grace must be a tool to learn to live better, not an excuse to live worse. God’s grace allows us to become new when in the past we’ve been sinful. But it is not a license to sin.

The person whose desire is to sin and use God’s grace as a get-out-of-jail-free card hasn’t come to know God’s grace. That person is, as Paul says, an enemy of the cross. They’ve chosen a way that will destroy them, because they’re living with willful blindness toward eternity. Now it’s natural for our focus to be on the goods in this world: wealth, status, pleasure. But this world is something we will enjoy (or not) for a mere lifetime. The resurrection to eternal life means that our lives here and now are an infinitesimal blip in the overall lives we will experience. Investing everything we have in earthly treasures is like squandering a treasure that could last you a lifetime on a momentary pleasure. It’s short-sighted in the extreme. Paul wants the Philippians to remember that their citizenship is in heaven. They’re strangers and foreigners here in this life, longing for their true home: the life of the age to come. Heavenly rewards are things that bear fruit in the age to come, while earthly treasures are vulnerable and temporary. As Jesus reminds us,

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:19–21, NIV).

When we set our hearts on things of this world, we don’t invest in the eternal blessings that God wants us to enjoy. Yes, a new toy is nice, but if my life is lived solely for toys, then it isn’t being lived in pursuit of eternal goods. If we remember that we’re citizens of heaven, then our focus can be on building treasures that we will enjoy forever, and this pleases God.

Sometimes we have to do hard things in this life to enjoy prizes that we can enjoy eternally. Learning patience is a challenge now, but it bears fruit later on Learning to forgive the person who wronged you is hard work now, but learning to live at peace with others bears fruit later on. If we really believe in the promise of the resurrection, it must reorder our priorities away from pleasures here and now and towards treasures that will last.

Conclusion

So let’s go back one last time to that community garden. What killed it wasn’t weeds, or a lack of funding, or even disagreement about what kind of shed to build. What killed it was this insistence that someone needed to be recognized as more important than someone else. the moment the garden became a place to prove worth instead of a place to share life, it stopped being a garden at all.

Paul knows the church can die the same way. That’s why he keeps saying it. That’s why he never gets tired of telling them to rejoice in the Lord. Because rejoicing in the Lord pulls the plug on the whole status game. If my life, my righteousness, my future, and my hope are grounded in what Jesus has done, then I don’t need to prove myself over you. And you don’t need to compete with me. We’re standing on the same ground, receiving the same grace, moving toward the same resurrection.

Paul had every reason to demand status. He had the résumé. He had the credentials. He had the seniority. And he calls it all garbage, not because those things were evil, but because they were no longer the foundation of his life. He found something better. He found someone better. And that changes how we live. It frees us from despair over our past, because our failures don’t define us anymore. It frees us from pride in the present, because our achievements don’t elevate us above one another. And it reorients our future, because our citizenship is not here. We are people living now in light of what is coming.

So the invitation of Philippians 3 is not to try harder so God will like us. It’s to loosen our grip on the things we’ve been using to prop ourselves up. To stop measuring our worth by comparison. To stop building sheds designed to show off our importance. And instead, to fix our eyes on Jesus. To know him. To trust him. To let the power of his resurrection reshape what we love, what we pursue, and how we treat one another. Because a church grounded in Christ’s righteousness doesn’t fracture into factions. It becomes a place where grace grows. Where humility takes root. And where, together, we learn to live not for what fades, but for what lasts forever.