Rev. Dr. Brent Russett — Asbury Free Methodist
February 20, 2022 — Philippians 3:7-15
We are continuing our walk through Philippians today by looking at Philippians 3:7-15.
I love to hear testimonies of how God has worked or is working in a person’s life. I love to hear how God met a person and turned their life around. I love to hear about how God is teaching a follower of Jesus how to live in the present. I love testimonies.
The passage that we are looking at today is Paul’s testimony. It is not the story of who he got saved. It is the story of how he is learning to live out his Christian life. Paul’s testimony can help us with our lives as well. Paul is going to teach us about what is important in our Christian journey.
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You may remember last week, when we looked at the first 7 verses of this chapter, Paul told us about his background. He said
Philippians 3:5–6 (NLT)
5 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. 6 I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault.
If there was anyone who could claim righteousness because of human effort – it was Paul. He did all the right things; he was born into the right family. He zealously obeyed the law.
But Paul says
Philippians 3:7 (NLT)
7 I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done.
There is the testimony. I once thought these things that I did before were valuable – now I see them as worthless. That is a change of heart. Paul goes on.
Philippians 3:8 (NLT)
8 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
The Greek in verse 8 is a little more earthy – the Message paraphrase catches it better
Philippians 3:8 (The Message)
Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ
What I did to gain righteousness before – I count as dog dung. I have dumped those things in the trash so that I could embrace Christ.
He is going to go on from here and tell us how he embraces Christ. We are going to come back to that.
What Paul is demonstrating here is the truth of the parables that Jesus told.
Matthew 13:44–46 (NLT)
44 “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field.
45 “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for choice pearls. 46 When he discovered a pearl of great value, he sold everything he owned and bought it!
He gave up all he thought was valuable for the treasure of knowing Christ.
Philippians 3:7–8 (NLT)
7 I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. 8 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
He sold it all to find the treasure. He sold it all to buy the pearl of great price.
Look how he defines the treasure.
Philippians 3:9b–11 (NLT)
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. 10 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!
The treasure is righteousness, but not righteousness for the sake of itself. It is about making us right with God. It goes on to define the treasure further. It is about knowing Christ and being made alive in Christ and with Christ.
Paul says that is a treasure worth pursuing. I need to be reminded of this from time to time. From time to time, we ask ourselves the question, why follow Jesus?
For some, it is about heaven. They look forward to walking those streets of gold and living in that mansion that Jesus has prepared for them. For he did say – I go to prepare a place for you.
For others it is about the peace and joy that Christ brings. Jesus combats the anxiety and the worries of this world. Jesus said,
John 14:27 (NIV)
27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
Why follow Jesus? For some is his community. The family of God gives us a place to belong. For others, it is his love. Because I am loved by him, my identity is firm and sure. For others, it is his grace – I have been forgiven. I know where I have been – but God has forgiven me, and this allows me to forgive myself.
These are all wonderful benefits of following Jesus. But these are side benefits. The real treasure is about being right with God. The real treasure is knowing Christ. It is about being plugged into Christ. He is the vine, and we are the branches. It is about abiding in Christ.
This is really important to get straight in your own mind. If you miss the main point of the journey – you will miss so much.
Here is the problem with making the side benefits the treasure. When we do that, our salvation becomes all about us and about what God can do for me. In that equation between you and God, God becomes a means to an end to get to what I want. The most important person is you and not God.
Now I recognize that when most of us started off in the Christian life, it was about us. I don’t know why you came to Christ – but for most of us, it was about what Christ could do for us. We wanted heaven, or we knew we needed forgiveness, or we knew that we had made a mess of our lives, and we were hoping God could fix it. That is all good.
We all come to Christ because one, the father was drawing us, and two, we knew we needed was Christ was offering.
But there comes a time in our spiritual journey when we come to the realization that life is not all about me. Salvation is not all about me. There comes a time when we say – it’s about you, Jesus. It is about knowing you and being found in you. It is about being in a right relationship with God. It is all about the relationship. When you are moving there, that is when you are moving towards spiritual maturity.
If you wait too long in your spiritual journey, then it becomes problematic in that you make an idol of yourself. Your relationship becomes all about you. When that happens, your spiritual growth really plateaus.
We pursue the gifts and not the giver. We pursue peace and joy and forgiveness, but we don’t pursue God himself. When we do that, it stunts our growth and holds us back from all that God wants to do in our lives.
Those of you who have been married for a while will get this. I don’t know what first attracted you to your spouse – but you are attracted to them; they make me feel so good. I love the feeling that I get when I am with them. They encourage me. They keep me grounded. Each person has their own list.
And that is great – for a while. But when you have been married for a while, feelings come and feelings go. Oh, they still do things for you and you for them, but it is about the relationship, the friendship. If a spouse is continually asking the question – what’s in it for me – then the relationship will go to a pretty dark place. For a marriage to work, you have to connect with the other person and serve the other person’s needs.
That is a helpful but inadequate illustration of what is going on between you and God. Your spouse is not God. But if you make marriage all about you – you know it is not going to go very well.
If you make your relationship with God all about you, it is not going to go very well. So, the question to ask yourself periodically is, is my spiritual life about God or about me? I say periodically because if you are asking yourself that all the time, you will drive yourself crazy. Because all of us have mixed motives. So, this question isn’t about any point in time; it is about your overall mindset. Is my spiritual life about God or about me?
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Paul says
Philippians 3:10–11 (NLT)
10 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!
We are going to come back to that in a moment. But I want to move this from Paul’s testimony to what it means to you.
One of the areas that I am interested in is what does it take to be successful. The winter Olympics end today. What kind of mindset do you need to win a gold medal? It is about training. It is about a mindset that allows you to push yourself to the limit. It is about performance under pressure. The Russians think it is about harsh coaching. Others think it is about visualizing the win.
I am a football fan. The L.A. Chargers won the super bowl last week. I watched a documentary on their team before the season. The coach was all about creating a winning mindset.
I read books on wealthy people and their attitude towards money compared to those of us who earn a salary for a living. Their attitude is different. Your attitude your mindset in life matters. How you view life matters.
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What I am most interested in, however, is how to follow Jesus well? How do you live the Christian life well?
Come with me to verse 15 – I will use the NRSV for this verse because I think it catches better what is going on.
Philippians 3:15 (NRSV)
15 Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you.
That phrase, be of the same mind, or the NIV “take such a view of things” is the same root word as what we looked at in chapter 2, verse 5 – Your mindset or your attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus.
Paul is saying that if you are spiritually mature, you are going to have the same underlying attitude towards life. You will take the same mindset into life. What is the attitude?
The start of the attitude is
Philippians 3:10–11 (NLT)
10 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!
The attitude is I want to know Christ and his power. That word is “know” is to experientially know. It is written in a tense which means it happens continually. When I know Christ that way – the way the verse is written, I will experience his resurrection power, his suffering and will have resurrection life.
Paul says this in a tense that indicates that his has happened, and is happening and will happen. This is not something that happens once, and then it is done. Paul says,
Philippians 3:13a (NIV)
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.
Paul says I know Christ by experience, but I don’t consider myself to have accomplished knowing Christ or his suffering or his resurrection. This is something I am striving for. This is the treasure that I seek.
That is something coming from Paul, isn’t it? This is the guy who met Jesus on the road to Damascus. This is the guy who was taken up into the third heaven and shown things too sacred to utter. This is the guy who preached a long sermon, and someone fell out of the window and was killed, and he prayed, and the guy was resurrected from the dead. This is the guy who was arrested and was singing hymns when God sent an earthquake, and he was freed, and he led the jailor and his family to Jesus.
Paul says I don’t consider myself to have taken hold of it. I know Jesus – but I have come nowhere close to plumbing the depth of knowing Jesus.
For those of you who have got to the point in your faith where you feel like there is nothing new – it is the same old, same old – you might be missing something in your journey.
Here is what Paul goes on to say,
Philippians 3:13b–14 (NIV)
But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Paul says, whatever my success and whatever my failures – I am leaving those behind. I am not going to dwell on them. I am not going to recount them. That is not where my mind and my heart are fixed.
He says I am straining forward to what is ahead. Note the mindset. Note the attitude. Something better is coming.
I am pressing on towards the goal. What is the goal – to know Jesus – to experience Jesus – to experience the power of the resurrection that brings life. If I need to experience death – death to the old nature – so I can somehow attain to the resurrection of the dead.
This is the goal. This is what God is calling us heavenward for. We are going heavenward to know Christ and be found in him.
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Some of us continually live in the past. Some of the past is good. Sometimes we can get stuck in the hard places of the past. Paul says I forget what is behind. That is helpful advice to those of you who are living in the past.
Some of us live in the future. Paul says I am straining towards what is ahead. I know what my goal is. I know where I am headed. But in the here and now, I press towards the goal. I am in the moment, but I am reaching beyond the moment.
Again, what is he reaching for? I want to know Christ. That serves me well now and in the future.
Then he says
Philippians 3:15 (NRSV)
15 Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you
This is how spiritually mature people live.
How about you? Do you know what your treasure is? Are you pursuing Jesus or just the things that he can do for you? Are you pressing toward that goal of knowing Jesus? It will serve you well to imitate Paul in this.
Sermon Questions for February 20, 2022
Philippians 3:7-15
Introduction
1. What made your gratitude list this week?
2. What are you praying for this week?
Digging in
3. Read Philippians 3:5-15
4. Re-read verses 7 and 8. How do these verses reflect Jesus’ words in Matthew 13:44-46?
5. Read Philippians 3:9-11. How does Paul define the treasure that he is seeking? Explain in your own words the various parts of the treasure.
6. As followers of Jesus, do we sometimes seek after different treasures? If so, what are those treasures? How does this change as we mature spiritually?
7. What would a marriage be like if one spouse made it all about them? How does this translate to our spiritual life?
8. Read verses 13-14. What is Paul pressing on for? What does this tell us about the Christian journey?
9. Read verse 15. What are the mature to have the same mind about?
Application
10. Have you ever made following Jesus all about you? If you have, is it time to move on from that?
11. Do you of the same mind as Paul?