Discarding Religious Performance For A Relationship...

This week, we are looking at a section of a letter that is recorded for us in the Bible called the book of Philippians. Yesterday we looked on  as the Apostle Paul for us the timeless truth that our joy is found in a growing relationship with Jesus, not religious performance. We saw Paul reveal for us the reality that we are to watch out for religious performance because it opposes the gospel. Religious performance promotes serving God in the power of the flesh instead of the power of the Holy Spirit. Religious performance trusts in our performance for God and our physical circumstances instead of God’s performance for us.

Then in Philippians 3:4, we saw Paul begin to hammer his point home by beginning to share his religious resume. Paul’s point was that as followers of Jesus, we are to watch out for these false teachers because their teaching is tempting to follow. Paul’s point is that the religion of legalism, the desire to earn a relationship with God through religious performance, is tempting to follow, even for Paul.

We also saw that Paul did believe that he was better than anyone else. Paul did believe that his religious performance was better than anyone else’s religious performance. And as we will see today, Paul was not being arrogant; Paul was being accurate. We see the accuracy of Paul’s statement by looking at his religious resume, which Paul shares with us beginning in the last half of Philippians 3:4:

If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.

Now if Paul was giving out his resume in the language we use in our culture today, these verses would have sounded like this: “If anyone could consider it possible to trust in my performance for God in order to be right with God, it would be me. If anyone thought that trusting in one’s performance for God through religious legalism would bring joy, it was me. After all, I was born into the right family and ethnicity. And I once trusted in my nationality as a Jew that resulted in me being born into the right family. I was a Pharisee who graduated at the top of my Torah class. I was trained by the greatest rabbi around. So there was a time when I trusted in my academic training that resulted in my going to the right schools and being at the top of Torah class. I was someone who kept all the rules and I was someone who once helped enforce the rules because I was the best at keeping all the rules. And because of how great my performance was for God, I had always trusted in my performance for God. I was such a great legalist that I even harassed and harmed early followers of Jesus. I was such a great legalist, that no one could find fault with my performance for God. I was perfectly blameless when it came to my performance for God as a legalist who kept a list of rules for God.”  You see there was no one better than Paul when it came to performing for God. But notice what Paul says next in verse 7:

But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

In other words, Paul basically says “But whatever I thought that I had earned from God as a result of my religious performance for God; regardless of how great my religious resume appears to be, all of those things that I thought I had earned from God I now consider to be a disadvantage to rid myself of in order that I may experience a relationship with Jesus that comes as a result of faith in Jesus and in trusting in Jesus performance for me.

You see, while Paul once thought that trusting on ones’ performance for God would bring him joy, he now considered trusting in one’s performance for God through religious legalism to be a disadvantage to be discarded so that he would experience the joy that comes from knowing Jesus. And because of that reality, Paul discarded religious legalism because he considered a relationship with Jesus as far more important. We see Paul further unpack this reality beginning in verse 8:

 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

In this single sentence, we see Paul reveal for us three different reasons why he discarded religious legalism for a relationship with Jesus. First, in verse 8, Paul explained that he discarded religious legalism because he counted all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Paul’s point here is that he discarded everything else in life because he considered a relationship with Jesus as being of supreme importance.

However, that was not easy, because as Paul pointed out, the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus resulted in him suffering the loss of all things. In other words, Paul discarded everything else except his relationship with Jesus as being secondary, which resulted in suffering and hardship. Paul then explained that the reason that he was able to discard everything else as being secondary was due to the fact that he counted them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.

Now while our English Bibles attempt to clean up what Paul is saying here, in doing so we lose the true significance of what Paul is saying here. You see, the word rubbish, in the language that this letter was originally written in, literally refers to human excrement. Paul here is revealing for us the reality that he viewed all that he had thought that he had earned from God as a result of his religious performance for God as a steaming pile of crap. Paul discarded everything else as a steaming pile of excrement so that he could experience a relationship with Jesus.

Second, in verse 9, Paul explained that he discarded religious legalism because he wanted to be “found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith”. Paul’s point here is that he discarded everything else in life because he considered a relationship with Jesus as the way one becomes right with God. When Paul uses the phrase not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, he is referring to experiencing a right relationship with God as a result of perfectly keeping all of God’s commands that are recorded for us in the Law, which are the first five letters that are recorded for us in the Bible today.

Paul’s point is that being right with God does not come through our performance for God by keeping the Law. Instead, being right with God is through faith in Christ. Being right with God comes by placing our confident trust in what God did for us through Jesus. Being right with God is based on trusting in the faith that comes from God and that is based on Jesus performance for us and not our performance for Jesus. And because of that reality, Paul had come to discard religious performance as the means by which one experiences true joy.

Third, in verses 10-11, Paul explained that he discarded religious legalism because he wanted to “know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. When Paul uses the phrase power of His resurrection, this phrase refers to the power of God that raised Jesus from the dead. In addition, when Paul uses the word fellowship, this word refers to a close association involving mutual interests. Paul wanted to follow Jesus so closely and know Jesus so deeply that he would experience the same suffering and rejection that Jesus experienced.

Now a natural question that arises here is “Why would anyone want that? Why would anyone want to experience the suffering and rejection that Jesus experienced?” Paul provided the answer to that question with the phrase being conformed to His death, which literally means to take on the same form. You see, Paul wanted the readers of his letter throughout history to understand that he discarded everything else in life as being secondary because he considered a growing relationship with Jesus the way to experience eternal life with Jesus.

Paul desired to experience God’s power in his life. Paul desired to experience a close connection with the sufferings that Jesus experienced. And Paul desired to experience a life that revealed and reflected Christ, even to his death, so that he would also experience eternal life with Jesus.

 

Friday, we will see Paul reveal a fourth reason why he discarded religious legalism for a relationship with Jesus...