Being the Church (19)

Philippians 3.1-11

The Hypocritically Dangerous

Some other ‘dogs’ you must look out for are those who claim to be Christians and yet live in a way that brings shame on Jesus. These are the evil-doers (v2). They have an appearance of Christianity and use the language of faith – but they permit themselves to do the very things that are hateful to Christ and for which he suffered and died. They are lightweight people who seem to breeze along without any guilty feelings, doing the very same things that the world does and yet keeping up a charade of Christian talk. These people are VERY dangerous to your spiritual health. They are VERY dangerous to the Church. They are stray and dangerous dogs who will rip young lives to pieces. They may be seen in church gatherings enthusiastically singing or supporting events, but they may also be seen intoxicated in a nightclub or in an intimate relationship with a person who has no interest in obeying Christ.

Be careful least you slide away to become a person who can speak Christian language but cannot live a Christ-like life.

How do you keep safe from attacks of religion and attacks of worldliness?

• Stay close to the church fellowship – don’t give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.

• Keep feeding on the Bible – God’s Word – know the truth which can set you free – the truth as it is in Jesus.

• Keep in step with the Holy Spirit – pray about everything - make it your aim to please God in everything.

Finally, Paul shows us the safe way by explaining what his personal ambition is.

V8-11 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 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— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

He wants to personally know Christ. He wants to live by the same power that motivated Christ – he calls it ‘resurrection power’.

No religious routine will reproduce THAT power in us. It was Christ’s life that dissolved the chains of death and brought life back into his cold, dead body. It is that life – HIS LIFE – that produces death-defying and sin-shaming life in us. To get that life – his life – you need to KNOW HIM. This is personal – not religious.

The defence against attacks is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. With that power you will be strong enough to share his sufferings, become like him in his death and attain the resurrection from the dead!

Being the Church (18)

Philippians 3.1-11

The Religiously Dangerous

Some of you will have religious relatives who have strong family ties and traditions in churches long dead. These fossilized churches still exert a strong influence on people. The Spirit of God has long gone. There is no joy, no power, no life – just rituals, routines, special days, hierarchies, rules and obligations. Just an imprint of what used to be there. People are trapped in such systems by guilt and fear that if they let go of their traditions God will judge them. They fail to notice that lifeless religion IS God’s judgement and that they need to flee from it into the freedom in Christ. And some of them, usually your family, will expect you to feel the same guilty obligation they do.

They will exert pressure on you to tow the family line. Resist such guilty pressure. Don’t get drawn into the thinking that God will only bless and accept you if you perform religious tasks.

If you have received new birth, you have already gained Christ. Like Paul, you have laid aside any personal credits and received HIM as your total credit in God’s eyes. You are no longer trying to build a righteousness of your own that comes from keeping rules, but that which is by faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on FAITH (v9). The righteousness that comes from keeping rules and traditions is a standard way too low – it is just people comparing themselves against each other.

Elsewhere, when addressing this problem of religious effort, Paul said:

Galatians 2.1-21 For if I rebuild what I tore down (i.e. if I try to build a reputation based on religious effort), I prove myself to be a transgressor (because I can’t even keep my own standard). For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

And…

Gal 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

You must not submit to the slavery of religious duty – even though your family demands it.

However, we are not called to insult these religious people or family members – and although Paul calls them ‘dogs’ he is not using the term as people use bad language to ‘dis’ others they hate. It is the danger that their actions and beliefs pose to your spiritual life that Paul is warning you against. Jesus called Peter ‘Satan’ once. He didn’t do it because he hated Peter or was trying to use the ultimate insult against him. He saw that Satan was at work confusing and tempting Peter’s weakness. Likewise, we are not to call those who trouble us insulting names – but we also mustn't be ignorant fools who fail to recognise the danger when others try to draw us back into religious efforts.

Being the Church (17)

Philippians 3.1-11

3.1 - Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord …

Now THAT is a summary of Christian living and the church’s experience: Rejoice in the Lord! If you can come to understand all that Christ has done for you and the exciting, everlasting future he has prepared for you, and his power and wisdom at work to make sure it all turns out according to his plan – you will rejoice in the Lord. Paul says he never gets tired of telling them these things.

Then, wham! Look out! Verse 2:

Look out for the dogs!

Look out for the evildoers!

Look out for those who mutilate the flesh!

A sudden change of tone – a serious warning.

Is he warning about intruders, gangsters, thugs, terrorists, criminals? It sounds like it: dogs – evildoers – mutilators of the flesh! But no - as shocking as it may seem - he is warning them against religious people. It is not physical violence he has in mind, but he is warning against the spiritual carnage that religious people can bring upon Christians and the church. Paul is not given to using overly dramatic language (hyperbole), so this warning is serious. What, exactly IS the issue?

In the first place, Paul is warning Philippi Christians about particular Jewish religious activists who were going around disturbing the churches he had planted, such as the one in Philippi. Now it is important to understand that it is not Jews as an ethnic group Paul is speaking so strongly against – he is himself a Jew! He is not anti-Semitic. He is speaking against those Jews who were denying Christ as the only way to acceptance with God.

Actually, Paul had himself been one of these very activists – even to the point of dragging Christians out of their homes and having some put before the court and then executed by stoning. So Paul knows VERY well the methods, the ferocity and the spiritual danger that these men posed. He calls them dogs because they were roaming about doing violence to the gospel. And when you take chunks out of the gospel you ruin people’s chances of being rescued by it. You rob it of its power and there are eternal consequences for those deceived by a wrong version of it. The tactic of these enemies was to use the church as a hunting ground. These were men who prowled around the fringes of the church to try and get non-Jewish (Gentile) persons, many of whom were being drawn to faith in Christ, to believe that they first had to become Jews, if God would accept them. It was cultural pride that drove them and the desire to control people. They hated that Christians were breaking free of their religious control. This meant a loss of status and money to them.

Jesus warned against these people, too. Matthew 23.13,15 But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

So here we have religious people leading believers astray into rules-based religion rather than faith in Jesus Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit – who Jesus called the Counsellor.

Jesus used the same term to describe them in Matthew 7.6: Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.

Jesus is warning about those who take advantage of Christians and use against us the truths that we treasure. For example, the insincere person who knows that Christians are to be forgiving and uses that to repeatedly rip them off. Or the person who knows that Christians are supposed to be generous and tries to take advantage of that by expecting, or even demanding, Christian’s money for their own use. You see this kind of thing when people who should be supporting themselves, expect Christians to provide for them. You see it when men make rich comfortable lives running church on the backs of the poor who are expected to scrape their meagre earnings together and give them to the pastor and his wife!

So the 'dogs' Paul and Jesus describe are people who, having got some ‘inside knowledge’ of the Christian gospel, try to use it for their personal advantage and in doing so cause trouble for genuine Christians.

Paul goes on, to explain his own experience, to emphasise why it is so important not to be sucked into a religious pattern of living. In effect he says, “You want religious rules and manners – I’ll give you those!” And he lists his religious credentials (v4-7):

He was circumcised

He had Israelite heritage

He belonged to the tribe of Benjamin

He was a Hebrew of Hebrews – i.e. Jewish to the bone!

He was a Pharisee – highly educated in the Scriptures and the law

He was a fanatic persecutor of the church

He was a perfect keeper of all the demands of the law…compared to others

… then he sweeps it all to one side with single blow. He calls all this a deficit or liability rather than a credit or asset in knowing God! Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord v.8. You can keep all the shallow credibility I built up in my life through religion - just give me Jesus!

He goes so far as to say that anything he previously had through his own efforts is rubbish compared to the opportunity of gaining Christ.

[A short explanation is needed here. Paul is not saying that his upbringing and his learning of the Scriptures and all his experiences before becoming a Christian were worthless. God was working in all these circumstance to make Paul the man he wanted him to become. What Paul IS saying that he had made the fatal error of DEPENDING on these privileges as if he was EARNING God’s approval. That is the rubbish – the idea that we could dump a load of our personal experiences and efforts at God’s feet and say – “Here, Lord, I have achieved all this and I offer it to you as my righteousness!” Such righteousness is filthy rags to God. Yes our prior-to-becoming-a-Christian experiences are used by God to wisely prepare us for faith in Jesus, BUT they are of absolutely no value as a hiding place from the wrath of God against our sin. Only Jesus Christ is such a hiding place.]

What should we make of all this? How does all this apply to us? How does this help us to BE the church? How do Paul’s warnings about dogs keep us from danger? What danger? After all, there is no one here demanding that we use circumcision as a sign of our religious efforts to please God. No, but there are many other subtle ways that we are in danger of been ripped to bits by religious dogs.

There are two main classes of dogs we have to watch out for:

1. Those who would trap us in religious efforts to keep up appearances.

2. Those who talk like Christians but live like the world – wolves in sheep’s clothing.