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 in 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 Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. If you have 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 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 are citizens of Jesus' 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 three, 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 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 two. 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 evil doers? These mutilators of the flesh? Well, they're not the mafia. They're not your local drug pushes. They're false teachers. You 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 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 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 manage 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 cause. 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 2000 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 three, 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 these 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 eighth 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 six, Paul served with zeal to the point where he persecuted the church who he thought were breaking God's law and they worshiped 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 seven astounding. But whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. The impressive CV now for Paul are losses for the sake of Christ. He counts them as nothing. Verse eight 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. For 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 uncircumcised. 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 Paul? What external works might we put on them? Maybe we could say I was baptized 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 was 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'll 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. 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. He has to know the power of his resurrection. Do you want to know Christ? When you become a Christian, you do. You get to know Christ. You're born into a relationship with him. But as 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. He has to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his 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 has enabled 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, you gatorate, drink or probably red bull or like. You drink it and you think, everything's going to go well for me now. Like a magic potion. But actually that's not what the 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 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 depart from? It's a 5K run. At the Botanic Gardens you come up the hill in 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. 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. Notice Paul's language here. It's not passive language. 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. We're 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? 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 chat GPT 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 their faith will to the Bible. If you're reading a commentary or a devotional, make sure that their aim and state of desire is that you put your confidence in Jesus for salvation. I also would encourage you to join a growth group or 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. So we need to be as Paul who says in verse 14, and 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 mott 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 and 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 for 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, who died on the cross for our sin, was raised on the third 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. Amen.