Our confidence for salvation

Faithful God, you caused all the Holy Scriptures to

be written for our learning. Help us to hear them,

mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience

and the comfort of your holy word we may embrace and always

hold firmly to the blessed hope of everlasting life which

you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

If you've ever had the privilege of being able to travel overseas,

You know the importance of a passport. You can lose

your money, you can lose your luggage, but not

your passport. You keep it safe. You go to great lengths

to keep it safe. Secret hiding places, locked boxes at hotels, little plastic

sleeves that you keep on your body.

Why? Well, when you're crossing international

borders, you can't rely on wily charms and sweet smiles.

To convince border security that you're legitimate.

You need your passport. It proves your citizenship.

My passport tells me I'm a legitimate Australian citizen

with the photo and the passport number to prove it.

I can get it out in another country and say with confidence,

I'm an Australian citizen.

Well, in Philippians, Paul has been talking about how he and the Philippians

citizens of Jesus's kingdom.

And that through faith in Jesus, we have

a passport that gives us resurrection

life with Jesus, entry into his kingdom.

And as we come to Philippians chapter 3,

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

what we see is that there are a group of false teachers trying

to undermine the Philippians' confidence in Jesus.

They're trying to turn them away from trusting Jesus for their

salvation by saying that the Jesus passport isn't enough,

that they need more. And so Paul writes

to encourage the Philippians, to remind them of where their

confidence lies and that they need to keep their confidence

in Jesus. And this makes sense, doesn't it? Last week

we looked at how Jesus came into our world,

the eternal God entering creation to die on a cross,

to serve us, to die for our sins,

and then was raised as Lord of all, where one day every tongue will

bow, every tongue will confess the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so it's as a people whose confidence is in Jesus,

Paul encourages the Philippians to watch out,

to gain Christ, and to know Christ.

Watch out. Now, Paul begins this

section with another reminder to rejoice in the Lord.

The news of our salvation in Jesus Christ is so good we should rejoice.

We're going to spend some more time thinking about that next week.

But then Paul quickly moves on to give the Philippians a safeguard in verse

2. Watch out, watch out, watch out.

Watch out for those dogs, watch out for those doers of evil, watch out

for those mutilators. Sounds ominous, doesn't it?

It's meant to grab your attention.

Who are these dogs, these evildoers,

these mutilators of the flesh?

Well, they're not the mafia. They're not your local drug

pushers. They're false teachers who

want to undermine the Philippians' faith in Christ.

These false teachers might have an air of respectability,

come across with some authority.

They might sound convincing and persuasive,

but they are dangerous. They're more dangerous than

the mafia because they want

to move people's confidence away from Jesus.

They want to move people from thinking that Jesus and

only Jesus is the way to eternal salvation.

Now, context tells us here that these dogs were likely part

of a group that was teaching that you need to be circumcised to be saved.

Jesus and circumcision. You can imagine

them saying, oh sure, you've got faith in Jesus,

But that doesn't mean anything unless you're circumcised.

What's the most important thing is that you're circumcised.

Now circumcision is a practice where the flesh

of the male anatomy, part of the flesh of your male anatomy, is cut off.

But for more than that, in the first century, for many, it became the

means of salvation instead of faith in God.

But God, right back in Deuteronomy chapter 10, he made it very clear that

Deuteronomy 10 · chapter mention

physical circumcision did not deal with the problem of the sinful

heart. But actually, we need circumcised hearts.

Circumcision was an external sign of an inward reality,

a reality of faith in God who keeps his promises.

And so these false teachers, their confidence for salvation is in an outward

action Not in God.

And this is dangerous. Imagine for

a moment that you get to be on a boat like the Titanic and

it's sinking, and you're one of those few people who managed

to get into the lifeboats. And yet there's someone on the

Titanic saying, what are you doing getting onto a lifeboat?

Get back on the Titanic! Get back on the Titanic!

Well, that would be foolish, wouldn't it?

But that's what these false teachers are doing. The Philippians have

their eternal salvation secured by trusting in Jesus,

and these false teachers are saying, no, jump back on the Titanic.

Stop trusting Jesus. Start trusting yourself and your external actions.

And Paul uses such strong language here because eternal

life is at stake.

Today, people will sneak in and they will

want to tell us that our confidence is misplaced and

say that Jesus is not enough, that we need to do

something. And this is tempting.

It's tempting because we're sinful. It's tempting because we like the idea

of earning our status before God, earning our salvation.

And so people might come in and say, well, you have to do this program.

You have to read this part of the Bible. You have to do this course.

Watch out. If someone comes

in and says, oh, you've got this whole Christianity thing wrong. There's this

new interpretation of the Bible that Christians have been misunderstanding the

Bible for 2,000 years.

Watch out.

As discerning members of the church, we need

to watch out. YouTube talking

heads— watch out.

Books— there's plenty of books that say that they're Christian

books, but actually what they do is you read through

them and they actually take your confidence away from Jesus.

Watch out. Be discerning.

Eternal life is too good to be led astray,

to have our confidence shifted from Jesus.

Jesus is just too good.

And this is what Paul reminds the Philippians of. Their confidence is

in the fact that it is Jesus who

died and was raised for them. Verse 3, for it is we who are the

circumcision, We who serve God by his Spirit,

who boast in Christ Jesus and put no

confidence in the flesh. Our boast as Christians is

Jesus. So watch out.

Then Paul goes on to talk about gaining Christ.

This is what happens when we put our confidence in Jesus.

And Paul takes a little bit of a different tact here.

He writes this next little— next few verses as if Jesus

wasn't his confidence. If Paul was going to stand before God and rely

on his external works, the things that he did,

these are some of the things that he would say.

He writes, if someone else thinks they have reasons to put

confidence in the flesh, I have more. Circumcised on the

8th day, an Israelite, a tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews.

In regard to God's law, he was a Pharisee,

known to be devoted to learning and teaching the commandments of God.

In verse 6, Paul served with zeal to the point

where he persecuted the church who he thought were breaking God's law

and they worshipped Jesus. This was obviously before his conversion.

He was a law keeper.

Paul's CV of relying on external works is impressive.

If anyone could stand before God on the Day of

Judgment and say, hey God, look at all these things that I have done,

Paul would be up there as the cream of the crop.

He is impressive.

This makes the but in verse 7

astounding. But whatever

were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.

Gains to loss.

The impressive CV now for Paul are losses

for the sake of Christ. He counts them as nothing. Verse 8 expands on

this. What is more, I consider everything a loss Because

of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,

for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them

garbage, that I may gain Christ and

be found in him. Paul knows

that Jesus is so valuable, that the salvation

and grace that he offers is worth more than anything in this

world. And he's given up everything

for the sake of knowing Christ. He uses the language of garbage.

Think about what you throw in the garbage,

not what you put aside to take to the op shop, what you throw in

the garbage that you deem worthless.

Well, Paul's impressive list of human achievements

he says, are garbage, not something that you put

your confidence in for eternal life.

Now, at this point, we do want to make sure we don't downplay Paul's Jewish

heritage and his circumcision.

Jesus too was Jewish and circumcised.

Being Jewish is not what Paul is getting at. Rather,

Paul's point is that when it comes to his confidence for eternal

life, these things count for nothing.

And it's because he's found something so much more valuable,

knowing Christ Jesus his Lord,

gaining him.

Because when we gain him, our eternal life becomes secure.

Verse 9 spells this out for us. Being 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's confidence is no longer in his outward righteousness,

the things that he does, but it's in the righteousness

that comes from God through faith, the righteousness of Christ

that we gain when we place our faith in him.

Now I want us to pause and think for a moment. What would our

list look like? What would our CV look like if we were going to do

a poll? What external works might we put on there?

Maybe we could say, I was baptised,

or I go to church, I take communion,

I give some of my money to good causes. I helped Edna with her lawn.

I served on parish council. I was sincere.

I was zealous.

I'm a minister. I work in a church. Maybe I could add,

I've gone to Bible college. I help other people come

to know Jesus.

Now don't get me wrong, all those things can be good things.

But the problem with relying on them for salvation is one

word: I.

I did this. I did that. I am

this.

It's confidence in me and what I have done, not confidence in

Jesus and what he has done. See, the Christian faith is not about what I

do. It's about what Jesus has done.

And what has Jesus done? Jesus, who never sinned,

who is perfectly righteous, he died on the cross for our

sin. He paid the judgment from God for our sin.

Jesus humbled himself to serve us for our rebellion

against God, and he takes our sin He

forgives us, he cleanses us, and he

gives us his righteousness. This happens

through faith.

And so our confidence for salvation then rests on Christ and

his death, not us and our works.

And it means That on the day that you

stand before God, God will judge you based

on the righteousness of Christ, which he has given you

through faith in him.

You will stand perfect, forgiven,

righteous. That is worth

gaining.

See, if our confidence on the day we stand before God is even anything

that we have done, it's going to be like bringing a green bin to the

gates of heaven. And saying, God, this is what I've

got. Let me in. And He's going to look at it and go, oh,

that's garbage. Don't put your confidence in that.

Your confidence needs to be in Jesus.

And so no matter what we've done, whether good or bad, Jesus gives

us His righteousness. That is the confidence which

we will stand before God That

is the confidence that we have to be citizens of his kingdom.

Faith in Jesus is our heavenly passport.

And so with our faith in Jesus, we gain him and we gain the benefits

of his death and resurrection.

We also get to know Christ.

Now Paul has this treasure of immense value in Jesus Christ

and his life has been transformed,

changed. His old goals that built up

his human CV, he doesn't care about anymore. He's got new goals.

He's no longer striving for external recognition but he wants to

know Christ. And he says that in verse

10, I want to know Christ, yes,

to know the power of his resurrection.

Do you want to know Christ?

It's— when you become a Christian, you do. You get to know Christ. You're brought

into a relationship with him. But as in with all relationships,

you grow in that relationship. You grow in that knowledge.

Maybe you've heard an old couple say, oh, we're still getting to know each

other, and they've been married for 60 years.

It's a bit like that with us and Jesus.

The riches of God's glory are so abundant we can spend an entire lifetime

getting to know Christ and know him better.

And particularly what Paul wants to know of Christ

is the power of the resurrected Jesus in his life.

Verse 10, I want to know Christ, yes, to know the power of his resurrection

and participation in his sufferings. Sufferings, becoming like

him in his death and so somehow attaining to

the resurrection from the dead.

He wants to know Christ and his power.

The Lord Jesus has given him his Holy Spirit, which is enabling him

to live for Jesus now.

And even in the midst of suffering,

Paul is suffering. He is in prison as he writes this letter.

And this is going to be the case until through Christ's power we

are raised from the grave. We live in a world of suffering, of pain.

A common misunderstanding of the power of the resurrection is to think of it like

a dose of energy. You know, Gatorade drink or

probably Red Bull more like. Where you drink it and

you think, wow, everything's going to go well for me now, like a

magic potion.

But actually, that's not what living in the power of the resurrection

means. The power of the resurrection enables us to

live for Jesus now, even in the midst of suffering, where we know Jesus

is with us while we wait

for the glorious resurrection where we get— where he

returns and we get to be with him forever.

And we look forward knowing that we will be

raised as Jesus was. Our bodies will be

transformed. We see that in verse 21.

And so Paul's goals are now different. He's not striving for the things of this

world but the things of the world to come. He writes in verse 12,

I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus

took hold of me. Christ has grabbed Paul

and saved him, and Paul is now trying to take hold of Jesus in all

things. He says he

hasn't done it yet, in that he's not resurrected, he's not yet with Jesus

in glory, but he's looking

heavenward.

Have you ever had the opportunity to do the parkrun?

It's a 5K run at the Botanic

Gardens. You come up the hill and the last leg you turn the corner,

you see the finish line. When I see

that finish line, I'm not looking back at the hill that

I've just come up. I'm looking towards that finish line. I want to cross it.

That's how Paul is living his Christian life.

He's looking towards the finish line,

to being in glory with Jesus.

And that's the perspective that we are to have, that is to shape our lives,

to shape our goals, knowing that we have this great

treasure and that there's so much more to come. We're heaven-bound.

And notice Paul's language here. It's not passive language. It's not

just, I'm just going to sit, take a back seat, and let the world happen

around me. It's active. Take hold,

press on. We're to actively live for Jesus.

We're to actively pursue Jesus, actively get to know him

and his power.

Now, what does that look like? Well, first it means

trusting in Jesus as both Savior and Lord.

If our confidence is going to be in him

for our eternal salvation, we have to trust him. We have to put our faith

in him. And then we have to live

trusting him with our faith in him.

We have to be like Mary of Bethany who

sat at Jesus' feet listening to Jesus' words.

Then we need to put those words into practice.

I opened this sermon with an old prayer that said—

that asked that we would hear, mark, learn, and inwardly digest

God's Word.

This is how we get to know Jesus.

We saw it again in our Psalm reading, Psalm 19.

The psalmist meditated on God's Word and then he knew

how to live for God.

And we can do this by reading a bit of God's Word prayerfully each day,

asking God to teach us.

In our day and age, maybe you prefer to listen to the Bible rather than

read the Bible. That's fine. But let me encourage

you to set aside some time each day to

read or listen to God's Word.

As a family, it's a good practice to

set aside a little bit of time each day to open up God's Word and

read and pray together. Now, what do you do when

you open the Bible? Well, apart from read it, there's freedom here and

lots of different people do different things.

You might like to just open your Bible and work your way through a book,

say the Gospel of Mark or the letter to the Philippians.

Read a bit each day. You might find it helpful to

have a pen and notepad with you. Jot down what you notice.

Write down what you find confusing.

Because the great thing about reading the Bible is that we

actually don't just do it on our own. We do it with a community of

Christians, the church. And so you can write down

your questions and you can come to church or your fellow brother and sister Christian

and ask, hey, I've been reading this, what do you think this means?

You could ask yourself a series of questions as you

read the Bible.

What is the message of this part of the Bible? What does it

teach me about God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit?

How does it point me to have my confidence in Jesus

and the salvation that he gives? Is there anything I need to

do in response to this part of the Bible?

Now, you might not know the answers, and that's okay,

but the temptation will be to do a Google search or a ChatGPT,

uh, to find the answers. And can I repeat

Paul's warning here? Watch out.

There was a study done of all the large language models and

of their theological biases. And most of

them, if you ask a question about Christianity,

will lead you away from putting your confidence in Jesus.

So watch out.

If you're going to use external resources, make sure that you know where they're coming

from. And that they're faithful to the Bible. If you're reading a commentary or

a devotional, make sure that their aim and stated desire is that you

put your confidence in Jesus for salvation.

I also would encourage you to join a growth group or a Bible study,

to meet with others and read the Bible together. And then

as we learn, as we read God's Word and we get to know Christ,

there's also an experiential side of knowing Christ too, isn't it? The side

where we live trusting God Where we grow in our confidence

that God's Word is true and that God's promises are good.

And this happens as we participate in Jesus's death and live

in the power of his resurrection with the Spirit of God.

Faith isn't just intellectual, it's lived as we put God's Word into practice.

So press on,

take hold, of Jesus.

So we've seen today that Jesus is of great worth.

Everything else is garbage when it comes to our confidence

before God for salvation.

And so we need to be as Paul, who says in verse 14, I press

on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward

in Christ Jesus. We need to live with that finish line in mind.

Our goal is to be with Jesus forever, where we will know

him so much more than we do now. We will know

the riches of God's grace so much more than we do now.

But we can live now confident of our

citizenship of Jesus's kingdom through faith

in him. We don't have that pressure of having to rely on

our works salvation because we

rely on Jesus. So we press on living

for Jesus. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your grace towards us.

We thank you that while we were not righteous and we

could never earn our righteousness by the things that we do,

you sent your Son who lived a perfect life and Who

died on the cross for our sin, was raised on the

3rd day so that we can have his righteousness.

So Lord, we ask this morning that you would help our confidence to be in

Jesus and in him alone. And we ask that

you would help us to live this life with

a heavenward perspective. Looking forward to

that day when we will be with Jesus in glory. And let that shape our

life goals now as we press on and take hold of

Jesus Christ. We pray this in his name.