That stinks!
Paul compared his religious life without Christ to rotten rubbish!
He then tells us how to abandon the religious rubbish and replace it with radiant relationship, with Life itself, from “do do” living to “Resurrection living.” We will follow Paul’s path to not just knowing about God, but abundant, overflowing, lavish, relational Resurrection living!
This life is fragrant!
Come and Smell the Life!
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Buddy Hoffman
Series: Philippians: The “What Ifs” of Faith
November 17, 2013
What If We Kept Our Eyes On the Prize?
Philippians 3:10-21
Philippians is in what is often referred to as the Prison Epistles. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what the Prison Epistles are about. He writes them while he is in prison. The reason they call it epistle… I don’t know why they don’t just say letter, because some people hear the word epistle and think that’s the wife of an apostle. Not a lot of people use the word epistle anymore. “I will send you an epistle when I get a chance.” But it’s Bible, so we have to think of some kind of fancy word for it.
We’re going to look at verses 10-21, and I’m going to give you the answer to the question I’m about to ask you so you know the answer in advance and I don’t feel really bad you didn’t get it at all like the first service. The word is joy. Can you say that with me? Joy. Now the book of Philippians is about… Oh my goodness! I gave you the answer. Okay, I’m going to try this again. The book of Philippians is about…joy. Yes. It’s a strange kind of setting for such an amazing truth that Paul is writing from prison about joy.
Now remember, it’s not about happiness. It’s not about the things that are happening around you right now. It’s not dependent upon the events of the moment; it’s really about something that is inside of you that the Holy Spirit does. We’ve been asking these questions as we have walked through Philippians.
What if we targeted people centers? In the city of Philippi, they went out and they prayed and they were going to go one place, and God says in a dream, “No, I want you to go to this other place. I want you to go to Philippi.” That’s where the gospel crossed over into Europe. We asked the question, “What if we targeted the people centers with the kingdom gospel?” The answer to that is, I promise you, joy!
We said, “Let’s go to downtown Atlanta. Let’s target those colleges.” (There are about 80,000 college kids who live downtown.) The result of that target of really the passionate sowing of the gospel into that community… I can’t tell you how much joy that has brought. When we talked about targeting Brookwood and Parkview, and now we’re talking about targeting Archer and Grayson and those schools out there, I’m going to tell you, when fruit comes, when we target those people centers with the gospel, with the kingdom message, you’ll have joy.
John wrote this in the book of 3 John (or we could call it the epistle of 3 John), “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” (3 John 1:4) It’s true! It’s true of our own children; it’s true of our spiritual children. When you have spiritual children and they’re growing and they call you up on the phone and they go, “Man, I’m learning this in the Word and God is teaching me this…”
How many of you have grandchildren? I have news for you. As fun as it is to have children, grandchildren are better. Yeah. You who are grandparents get with me on this. It’s true. You just spoil them and send them home. You don’t worry about when they go to bed. Having grandchildren is like God’s reward for not killing your kids.
Now I will tell you something else. Having spiritual grandchildren is just the same kind of joy you have, when you see those who you have spiritually mentored are now spiritually mentoring others. We’ve used this phraseology for a long time. Making disciple-makers. We don’t want to just make disciples; we want to make disciple-makers. That’s what Paul is talking about here and this is what he’s engaged in.
We talked about, “What if trouble is God’s ways of just trailblazing?” and, “What if death really is gain?” and, “What if we really thought like Jesus?” and, “What if we lit up the darkness?” and, “What if we trained Timothys?” and, “What if we abandoned religion and ran after relationship?” That’s really where we left off. Paul speaks of those things he thought were amazing and things he treasured, his accomplishments religion wise. He says, “I now count them as dung.”
I won’t go back into this because it bothered some of you so badly last week, about “do-do” religion being doo-doo. I am using a kind word compared to what Paul uses here, this rubbish religion, this religion that says, “This is how we’re right with God, by doing and doing and doing.” Let’s start right there at verse 10. I’m going to try to read through here and then come back and do the commenting, but I haven’t been very good at it today.
Philippians 3:10. Look at this phrase. “…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.” (Philippians 3:10-11)
Now this phrase right here in verse 10 and verse 11 is exceedingly simple and exceedingly profound. He opens it up with a simple statement, “That I may know him,” and then he digs under the surface what it means to know him, the power of his resurrection, sharing in his suffering, becoming like him in his death, and attaining the resurrection from the dead.
Now he moves on in verse 12, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” (Philippians 3:12) So what you see is this importance that is stressed of just knowing God. I’m going to say that several times through this message because this is the central thing, this knowing God. Not just knowing about God, not just knowing the stories and history of God, but what he’s describing there is an experiential knowledge of God, knowing God personally.
But not settling for that knowing God, in verse 14 he says, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:14) In verse 13 he says, “I do not consider that I have made it my own.” (Philippians 3:13) Do you see what he’s saying? He says, “I’m not telling you that I have arrived at a fullness of this knowledge. I’m not saying I have arrived at my own satisfaction of this knowledge.”
But he says, “…forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14) Now look at verse 15. “Let those of us who are mature think this way…” (Philippians 3:15) So that word he uses here in mature gives us an idea of what he’s describing there, and what he has been describing is that really our goal needs to grow.
As we talk through here, we’re going to talk about knowing God, but the idea is wherever we are in that intimacy with God it should be our passion and it is Paul’s passion that we grow into a deeper intimacy with God, that our intimacy with God becomes more intimate, that we know him better and we continue to grow.
I love the graciousness in Paul’s statement here. He says, “…if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.” (Philippians 3:15) God will show you that. Sometimes we think we need to be spiritual policemen of other people’s spiritual attainment…kind of fruit inspectors. “How’s your fruit? I’m going to find out. I’m going to watch you. How are things going in your life?”
The reality is that doesn’t work because you can’t actually see what’s going on in somebody else’s heart. God may be doing magnificent things under the surface that you don’t really see. Paul just says, “Listen, if you don’t see this the way I see it, trust God. He’ll show that to you. He’ll reveal that to you.”
Does God talk to you, speak to you? Raise your hand. All of you who didn’t raise your hand, God talks to you too. You may not realize it because it may sound like your own voice. It may sound like you’re just kind of talking to yourself, but let me tell you something, you’re probably not saying to yourself, “Self, read the Bible more. Self, why don’t you be kind to your enemies? Self, I have this great idea. Why don’t you lay down your life sacrificially for your mate?”
Do you know what your self says? “I’m not being treated well. They don’t deserve it.” Your self says manure to you. The Spirit says truth to you. One of the things we need to do as mature believers is learn to recognize the Spirit’s voice in our lives. He says, “He will speak to you.”
He says, “Only let us hold true to what we have attained.” (Philippians 3:16) He says something great here. We all ought to pray that we could be capable of saying this kind of thing in verse 17. He says, “Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.” (Philippians 3:17)
What Paul is saying here is, “I am following Jesus, and as I follow Jesus in the ways I follow Jesus, follow me in those ways.” Now he goes to this third reality (if you have notes there). There are three things we’re going to look at. What is the prize? How do we define a win? How do we define a loss? If you’re looking at the Scriptures there, verses 18 and 19 really give us five ways…
I’m going to start with how we define a loss because I think that I really want to take the majority of our time on the prize and the win. Notice what he says. He says, “For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears…” (Philippians 3:18) It’s really, really important that we know that Paul is writing this not as some angry, screamy, fingernails-on-a-chalkboard kind of sound. Have you ever had people who try to correct you and their very voice is nauseating?
Paul is not trying to be judgmental here; he’s weeping. He says, “For man, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears…” Notice what he says. “…walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.” (Philippians 3:18) What is an enemy of the cross? An enemy of the cross is one who does exactly the opposite of what he’s going to talk about of laying down your life. They don’t want to have anything to do with the cross of Jesus. The whole concept of laying down their life doesn’t fit with them at all.
He says, “Their end is destruction…” They want to live their lives so badly, but the direction this goes is destruction. Then he says, “…their god is their belly…” They really live for their own selfish desires. The only thing that matters to them is their own passions, their own appetites. He says, “…and they glory in their shame…” (Philippians 3:19) Things that should be considered disgraceful they exalt.
We have come into a place in the culture that we live today that really exalts things that we should be embarrassed about…things that 50 years ago even people who wouldn’t consider themselves Christians and didn’t even go to church and might even be atheist would look at and go, “That’s disgusting. That’s disgraceful.”
Again, I don’t want to pile on, but this is really important, particularly you who are parents, that you recognize you are up against a media machine that exalts disgraceful behavior. I’m going to tell you right now. I empathize with what Paul is saying here. He says, “I tell you this with tears.” This Miley Cyrus girl. Here we have seen her go from Hannah Montana to this twerking…whatever that is.
Somebody who cares about that child should go, “Don’t do that. That’s not for public consumption. You’re better than that. You don’t have to prostitute yourself.” Let me tell you something. She’s not just prostituting herself; we’re paying for that. America is cultivating that. We’ve come to a culture where people glory in their shame. How are we to deal with that?
Well, let me just say this. We need to be careful that we just don’t become angry, bitter yellers because that doesn’t change anybody. How many people really get changed because somebody yelled at them? How many of you have ever said, “I went up, I saw this guy, I yelled at him, and now he’s just loving Jesus”? That doesn’t really work. It doesn’t work with me. It doesn’t work with you. We need to pray for a nation and a culture that has just radically turned upside-down what it glories in. Amen, Buddy.
Here’s what he says. He says, “…with minds set on earthly things.” (Philippians 3:19) Now he’s not advocating an asceticism of life where you go out in the desert and live in a hole somewhere. That’s not what he’s talking about when he says, “Mind earthly things.” He’s talking about where their mind is completely bound in this earth. The only thing that really matters is from here to death.
I hear people say sometimes, “What’s on your bucket list?” There’s nothing wrong with having a bucket list. That’s a wonderful thing. But let me just say this to you. In the new heavens and the new earth, we’re going to have like a barrel list. That song we were singing earlier, “This is Amazing Grace,” do you understand we serve an openhanded Father who loves to give, who loves to reward?
One of the disciples asked Jesus, “We’ve given up all kinds of things in your name. What are we going to get out of it?” I’m afraid if he’d been my disciple, I would’ve said, “You’re not being my disciple anymore. You just completely don’t get it. We’re going to demote you. You’re going to be like a sub-disciple.”
Do you know what Jesus says? Jesus says, “Listen, you haven’t lost anything that you won’t get more of. Anything that is worth having that is good, you’re going to have that, and then you’re going to have more of it.” We can’t just mind earthly things. I’m going to come back to that when we go back to the top.
In verses 20 and 21 is a summation statement. “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ…” I love this. “…who will transform our lowly body…” (Philippians 3:20-21) The older I get the more that means to me. I had polio when I was a kid so I’ve lived with somewhat of a broken body my whole life. When I had this heart dissection, this thing…
There’s going to come a time that not only my legs and my circulatory system will work right; I’ll have my hair back. Ha! I’m growing a ponytail. When I used to have a lot of hair I used to threaten Jody I was growing out a ponytail. I told her the other day, “I think I’m going to grow a ponytail.” She said, “In your dreams. That’s not going to happen. You have a cul-de-sac.”
I’m doing a funeral this afternoon for a lady…a real lady. Her name was Jean Crabtree. Most of you don’t know Jean because she hasn’t been in these services for a long, long time. She had Lou Gehrig’s disease. I went to see her last week, and she could still communicate with an iPad. She could type out notes to you.
But I remember her when she was younger…her and Rex. Rex worked for Delta Airlines, and she was some kind of accountant or something. I can remember always when they would walk in they would be holding hands. If she had lived this month, they would’ve been married 60 years. Rex died about 10 months ago. He reminded me of Santa Claus. He had these rosy cheeks and smiled. Every time they would walk out the back door, they would both say, “I love you, Buddy.”
Last week when I was just seeing Jean’s wrecked body, as I pulled out of the driveway, I just couldn’t help but think, “Right now her body is not broken anymore.” Some of you have grandmothers or mothers or sisters or brothers and they’re just making it in these broken bodies. Listen. God is going at the resurrection to transform these broken bodies. You do know we’re going to have a heavenly body, and I’m going to have hair. It’s going to be absolutely amazing. “…by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” (Philippians 3:21)
So let’s go back. I really want to unpack that verse 10 and 11. It’s so important. “…that I may know him…” (Philippians 3:10) In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, this is the same word that is used in Genesis when it describes Adam knew Eve. It’s the strongest word for intimacy you find in Scripture. It’s genuine, real intimacy. It’s not just knowing about somebody. It’s not just knowing the facts about someone.
The prize. This is what he presses in on. “This is the one thing I do.” This is the eyes-on-the-prize idea. This deep pounding in his heart is that he’s going to know God and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering. Now what does he mean by those phrases? I don’t have time to take you through this, but Acts 9 speaks of Paul’s coming to faith. When you read that account, Paul absolutely hated the church.
He believed the church was a heresy and those who were propounding the Way, as they called it… He was so engaged in snuffing that out that he went to the legal authorities and got warrants for those who were up in Damascus. He took those warrants to bring back in chains those who were known to be part of the Way, those who had run from the persecution that was taking place in Jerusalem.
On his way, he’s riding along, and he is blinded by a vision, and he is knocked off the donkey he’s riding. He’s lying there blind and knocked off by this blinding light. It’s an interesting question he asks. He says, “Who are you, Lord?” He knew this was God. “Who are you? Who are you, God? Who are you, Lord?”
Do you remember what Jesus said? Jesus said, “Why do you persecute me?” Now wait a minute. Jesus is already resurrected, but he says, “Why do you persecute me?” Do you know what he was talking about? He was talking about…listen…when you persecute the church you persecute Jesus. Jesus, the body of Christ. The church is the body of Christ. When you hurt the church, when you persecute the church, the very body of Christ is persecuted with that.
I don’t think we think in these terms. Do you realize that God does not just see us individualistic? He sees us collectively also. That we as a church, when we don’t care about one another, it matters to God. When a church in Pakistan is blown up, that’s not just another country that doesn’t matter to us. Those are our brothers and sisters. We should care about that.
Don’t you remember what Jesus says when they are standing before the throne of God? He says to the ones standing before the throne, “You gave me water when I was thirsty. You clothed me when I had no clothes. You gave me food when I was hungry.” The ones standing before the throne of God say, “When did we see you without clothes? When did we see you when you were thirsty? When did we see you when you were hungry?” Do you remember what Jesus said? “Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these my brethren, you’ve done it to me.”
We like to separate our Christianity and make it kind of just a privatized thing, but here’s what Christ cares about: He cares about his church. The kind of knowledge Paul speaks of is not academic. It’s not simply informational. It’s experiential. Paul’s encounter with the resurrected Jesus fired a passion for knowing Jesus that captured his entire being. Paul’s passion extended to living the kind of life that hungered to enter into that experience of the resurrection.
Our passions define us. Our passions direct us. Our passions develop us. Our passions draw us. If you can identify a person’s true passion, you will know that person. The question we all ought to ask ourselves…What is it we’re really passionate about? Are we passionate about knowing God? Do we really want deeply an authentic longing of the soul to experience the unseen power of knowing the resurrected Lord?
If we possessed and are possessed by that deep longing of the soul, it will chart a course of our lives. This knowledge of God should be the primary consideration of every person in every community of faith. It should be a deep awareness and a cultivation of the knowledge of God. God created us for this kind of God consciousness.
The enemy of most of us is not just downright evil behavior. I seriously doubt anybody is sitting here in church thinking about robbing a Del Taco on the way home. There are probably none of our missional community groups who are secretly terrorists. Most of us are not involved in that kind of malicious, purposeful evil. The enemy of life for most of us is not that evil thing we recognize; it’s emptiness. It’s the lack of knowing God. An inadequate knowledge of God. An inadequate passion for God. We can even know Scripture. We can know stories.
There are a couple of passages, and I’m going to tie this up. You might want to jot these references down. Exodus 33:11-15. Verse 11 says, “So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” (Exodus 33:11) You know how that is when you talk to a friend. So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face.
Moses said to God, “…show me now your way, that I may know you…” (Exodus 33:13) God says, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” (Exodus 33:14) Here’s what Moses says. “If your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here.” (Exodus 33:15) Do you know what he’s saying? He says, “I’ve heard all about the Promised Land. I’m excited about the Promised Land. I’m excited about the water and I’m excited about the land flowing with milk and honey. I want to go the Promised Land.”
But he says, “Listen, if your presence isn’t there. I would rather dwell in the desert than to go where there’s no presence of you, where I can’t experience this kind of intimacy.” Psalm 103:7 says, “He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the children of Israel.” (Psalm 103:7) Do you hear those two different words? He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the children of Israel.
The acts of God are, “We know God. Yeah, sure. He’s the One who took us out of Egypt. He opened the Red Sea. He brought us through the desert. He gave us this land. We know about God. We know his acts. We know the stories. We know what he did. But the word that is used there, his ways, it’s more than acts. It’s his bents, his nature.
There’s a verse in Proverbs that says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6) Do you know what that means? It doesn’t mean if you’ll just cram a lot of Bible and Sunday school into a kid when he’s older he’ll rebel but then he’ll come back to God. That’s not what that verse means.
What that verse means, the ways, it’s the same word that is used for the bending of a bow, like a bow and an arrow. There’s a way, there’s a grain in which that piece of wood is grown and made. You bend it according to the grain. When it is bent the way it was grown, the way it was designed by God, it’s a natural reality.
So many times we want to rubberstamp our kids to be whatever we want them to be. I’m going to tell you something. That’s not how kids are, amen? Part of raising kids is discovering who they are, listening to them, watching them, getting a feel for what God has put in them, and then cultivating what God has put in them.
But here, this is incredibly important. Moses knew God’s nature. He knew not just what God did but what God would do. He knew God was a God of mercy and a God of grace and a covenant God. He knew God with this intimacy that was more than information. Here’s what Paul says, “I want to grasp that which I have been grasped by. I want to grasp back.”
Here is where we land. You may be here this morning and you’re going, “Wow, this is like over my head. It rings with me, but I don’t know what to do. It’s a real simple to do. Grow. Grow. Face forward. Reach out. Spend time. Listen. Love. Like you get to know anyone, you can’t do that without time. We clutter our lives with so much doing that we don’t spend time with the God who created everything. What does God want from us? He wants us! Let’s pray.
Lord, thank you so much for you. Lord, we love you. We don’t love you like we should. We want to love you better. Lord, there are all kinds of situations we could talk about here this morning, but there is nothing we could talk about that is more important than just knowing you.
This community needs all kinds of stuff, but what this community needs and what Midtown teams and what Monroe needs and what New Hope needs and what every neighborhood in this community needs is homes and dads and moms and kids who are faced forward, leaning in. Intimacy. Seeking and knowing God. Lord, we want that of this fellowship. In your holy name we pray, amen.