Paul’s concern in Philippians chapter 3 is that the Philippian church would be firmly secure in their faith in all of their circumstances.
In chapter 1 he says Don’t let persecution divide you or spoil your worthy conduct.
In chapter 2 he says Don’t let pride divide you or spoil your worthy conduct he says.
And now, Paul, as their protective pastor, is warning them about imposters - pretenders. Don’t let those posers divide you or spoil your worthy conduct. Don’t let them poison your pure faith with their bad preaching. (By bad I mean the substance of what they’re preaching, not the style.)
The word for safeguard in verse 1 is a Greek word that when used here, it means to keep you from getting tripped up. (Google races, sprints, marathons, cartoons, of getting ‘tripped up’). To get tripped up, to be un-secure, to be un-safe and in danger. In the church it means to allow the false teachings from false teachers to have a place within the ministry of the church.
But, the word is also used several other times and each time it is used in the context of being under guard.
In chapter 16 Paul and Silas are in Philippi, and here we see their experience as they are beaten and thrown in to prison. Verse 23 says, “After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully.” There’s our word again, “carefully.” Make sure they are secured. Make sure there is no way for them to get out. Guarantee they do not get out and we do not lose them.
The most common way for this word to be used is in the context of putting something under a careful, safe, and secure guard. Let nothing get at what it is you are guarding. Paul uses this word in Philippians 3 verse 1 to say that he wants to keep them from getting tripped up. He wants to safely guard them so that they do not get tripped up in their faith.
That’s what Paul was seeking to prevent in the Philippian church. He knew there would be false teachers coming around and coming up within the church and they would be spreading their false doctrines. So, Paul wanted to safeguard them from such men.
We need to take Paul’s words to the Philippians to heart here today. We need to safeguard ourselves. It is imperative that we at Emmanuel Free Church are protecting ourselves from false teachers and teachings.
How do we do that? We see in our passage this morning several things that Paul mentions that are a safeguard for his church. And it would be wise on our account if we were to take heed to these as well.
First of all, repetition is key. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Look at verse 1. Paul says, “…it is no trouble for me to write these same things to you again …”
Paul didn’t want the Philippian’s to get spiritual amnesia. You know what amnesia is - it’s to have a loss of memory, or, to forget. It’s not forgetting where your keys are, or, your anniversary. Amnesia has to do with your identity. You forget who you are.
Paul didn‘t want the Philippians to forget who they were in Christ! He didn’t want them to forget the true message of salvation they heard and believed! The way he reminded them was to keep teaching them the same truths over and over again. He wanted them to hear and to read sound teaching again and again so as to continually reinforce their faith in the Lord and their understanding of their salvation. It was no trouble for him at all.
How many of you can remember one of your mom or dad’s repeated teachings? “My old man always taught me never to disrespect my elders.” “I can still hear my mom saying to me, ‘Don’t run with scissors.” How many of you parents know the necessity of repeating the same things to your kids? “Didn’t I tell you not to ____________?!” “How many times to I have to tell you to _________________?!” Repetition is fundamental to teaching.
Paul knew this. He was a Pharisee. You’ll remember from last week that the oral tradition was not written into a book until around 200AD. The Jewish Mishna was all the oral traditions from centuries before put into writing. Before the Mishna, traditions and the teachings of the rabbi’s were passed on orally. Rabbi’s would surround themselves with students and repeat things to them. For a rabbi, to teach meant to repeat. The students would commit the traditions and teachings to memory and then turn around and repeat them to the next generation. To teach meant to repeat.
Paul was a Pharisee, and that’s how he learned. And, that principle of repetition was applied in how he taught the truths of Jesus Christ. Later in Philippians 3, in verse 18, Paul says, “For as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears …” Paul constantly reinforced his teachings into his churches.
He commanded Timothy to do the same thing in 2 Timothy 2:14 when he said, “Keep reminding them of these things.” Keep telling them. Don’t let them go long without hearing these things again … and again. It’s for their own good.
But Paul wasn’t the only New Testament writer who new that the churches needed to be have truth reminded to them and repeated in teachings. The apostle Peter says 4 times in his second letter that he is reminding them of things they already know and that it is good for them! Chapter 1 verse 12, 13, and 15 say, “So I will always remind you of these things … even though you already know them… I think it is right to refresh your memory….And I will make every effort to see that .. You will always be able to remember these things.”
“Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders … I want you to recall the words spoken in the past…”
The apostle John said, “I am not writing to you a new command but an old one which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard.” He’s not saying much new to them. He’s repeating old truths.
Listen, if the apostles thought it was important to repeat themselves in their teachings then there must be a reason. The reason is that men are forgetful! We forget! We get spiritual amnesia. We get distracted, lazy, neglectful, complacent, and pretty soon the sound truths of Scripture that we’ve heard and learned become less and less important. They become less and less valued. And we become less and less vigilant to guard those truths. And when that happens is people forget the sound truths they learned and become opened up to so-called “new truth.” New teachings that are different and faddish and stylish. Satan sends false teachers along to come in and sow these false teachings and God’s people fall into danger. They become vulnerable.
Forgetting God and His Word is the first step in apostasy. It is the first sign of a lost love for God. It is no accident that God gives warnings to remember His commands right after He gives the greatest command, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength.” To keep this command of all out love for God, we must continually keep before us the word of God.
If the only time you open the word of God is when I ask you to on Sunday morning here for the message - that’s not enough!
And that’s why God says, “These commandments I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.” Decorate, saturate, fill up, furnish all of your life with the word of God so as to keep it in your mind and in your heart. If we do that then we will not forget. And like Paul said, it will be a safeguard for us as we are continually reminded of the truth that saved us. It is a safeguard for us in our faith.
So, repetition of sound biblical truth is needed. Secondly, we need to watch out. Look at verse 2. “Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh.”
Paul is giving a warning. The word for watch out means to keep an eye out - to be on guard. The same word is used by Jesus when he says in Matthew 7, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” Paul is using the same word Jesus used to warn the Philippians of false teachers the same way Jesus warned of false prophets. They will come looking very religious. They will have an appearance of righteousness, but, they are frauds. They do not speak the truth, it only appears true. Watch out for them!
Paul is very intense about these men. Who are they? Who are these men that Paul insults and warns the Philippians to watch out for? They are the Judaizers. Judaizers are the bane of Paul’s ministry. They are the thorn in his side and the stone in his shoe. They dog him on the trail of his ministry everywhere he goes.
These are men that teach that in order to be saved, a man must be circumcised and he must obey the law of Moses. He must do an external physical rite, and he must do works. He must do these in addition to believing in Jesus Christ in order to be saved. (In Acts 15 ……)
He calls them dogs. In our society today dogs are lovable pets we often keep in the house. However, in Paul’s day and in Paul’s world, dogs were filthy, rabid outcast animals that wandered city streets and caused trouble. They got into garbage, they were mean and often attacked humans. Many Jews referred to Gentiles as dogs, referring to their inherent religious uncleanliness and their status of being outside of the covenants of God. But Paul calls these Jews dogs in verse 2. He turns the table and says that it is they who are the dogs. They are the ones who are unclean and they are the ones who are outsiders.
He also calls them evil workers. This is another reversal on them. The Judaizers thought they were the “good-workers” because they were doing all kinds of religious works. But, there is no good works that are acceptable to God apart from the work of Christ. No man can earn his way to heaven; no man can earn his salvation by being good, moral, ethical, and upstanding. That is self-righteous. That is being righteous all by your self. It is trying to be righteous apart from the righteousness that comes from Christ. That’s what the Judaizers were doing and that’s why it was evil. Any righteousness other than Christ’s is nothing less than evil.
And then Paul calls them the mutilation. They thought they were God’s people because they were physically circumcised. But, because they failed to carry out the law - which required physical circumcision - then their circumcision meant nothing. In fact, Paul says in Romans 2 that circumcision has no value if break the law, and since all men are lawbreakers, circumcision has no value for salvation or righteousness for any man. In essence, without perfect obedience to the law, their physical circumcision amounted to mutilation.
Which brings us to our third point, our Identification. Look at verse 3, “For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh -”
Paul says that we as believers are the true circumcision. Judaizers remember said that a man had to be circumcised according to the law before he could be saved. Physical circumcision they say is the means to righteousness and was the sign of their position as the people of God. But, Paul is saying that they are not the true circumcision just because they have been physically circumcised.
Physical circumcision was given to Abraham by God in Genesis 17 as a sign of God’s covenant with him. Later, God made it law for the Israelites through Moses. It was to mark them out as God’s chosen people. Circumcision became the physical sign that distinguished them from all other nations as God’s chosen covenant people.
But, over time, circumcision had been reduced to an outward religion and was neglected as a heart condition. God never meant for the external act to be all there was. It was a sign of more, of a circumcised heart. In Deuteronomy 10:16; 30:6; Leviticus 26:41; Jeremiah 4:4; 9:25; and Ezekiel 44:7, God said He wants circumcised hearts. What does that mean? It means that the cutting away of skin that was done in the body was a symbol of the cutting away of sin in the heart. God wants the sin that is in men’s hearts to be cut out so that they have circumcised, purified, cleansed hearts. God does in the heart what man does in the body. Colossians 2:11 says that “In Him we were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision don by Christ.” In the heart!
The point is is that our identification as God’s people in Christ comes from having circumcised hearts - hearts whose sinful nature has been put off by Christ.
The Judaizers were confusing things by saying that physical circumcision and following the law were required in addition to believing in Christ and that is what would save them.
They were religious in body, but, irreligious and unrighteous in heart. We can do that today you know. We can do ceremonies in church and think were doing the right thing when the whole time.
---Taking communion when you don’t believe in the crucifixion and resurrection.
---Being baptized when you reject Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior
It’s like Giving flowers because it’s a holiday and not because it comes from your heart.
Now there are 3 characteristics here about the truly circumcised. He mentions them in verse 3, they worship by the Spirit of God, glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh.
When we worship by the Spirit it means we worship in the Spirit. When we place our trust in Christ Jesus, He gives us the Holy Spirit inside of us. He lives in us, and we worship at the prompting of the Holy Spirit. He creates in us a longing to worship God. There is a hunger and a thirsting to worship God by those who have God’s Spirit in them.
And according to John 4, all the true worshipers of God will worship Him in Spirit and in truth. Those are the kind of worshipers that God seeks it says. God seeks and saves people to worship Him in spirit and in truth. It’s not where you worship. It’s not a building. It’s not a geographical place you go TO worship. When you have received the Spirit inside of you when you trusted Christ, all of your life becomes worship. Wherever you go is the place to worship.
Secondly, we glory in Christ. The word for glory means to boast. It means to boast with an exultant joy. You would use this word when you were describing the thing you were most proud of. It is used about 35 times in the NT and Paul uses it almost all of those times.
It can be used in bad ways - in Galatians 6:13 he says some boast in the flesh. But in verse 14 he says he boasts in the cross of Jesus Christ. His exultant, proud and joyful boast was in the cross of Christ and it will be for every true believer who is a part of the true heart circumcision and worships God by the Spirit. We glory in Christ in everything. Nothing is credited to self, because without Christ, we would be nothing. Everything we are is in Christ, so He gets the credit. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me…” It’s all Christ. I died, He lives. My life is in Him. Glorying in Christ safeguards our faith because it focuses on Christ’s work and credits Him and never allows self to get credit or merit for salvation. First Corinthians 1 Paul says, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Thirdly, we put no confidence in the flesh. The flesh is anything of me apart from God. It is all that a man is and does apart from Jesus Christ.
The flesh is the weak, self-centered, rebellious, and impassioned nature that is opposed to God. It’s all the desires, ambitions, strivings, motivations that are born independent of a relationship with God through Christ. In other words, everything about a man from the time he is born until the time he trusts Christ as Savior is all flesh. He is separate, apart from, outside of a knowledge of God.
When you are truly saved, you don’t trust in yourself to accomplish righteousness on our own. We don’t put one ounce, or one penny’s worth of trust in our fleshly, sinful nature and what we can do apart from Christ. This point goes with the first two. If all our trust is in Christ, there’s none leftover to put into ourselves. Our baptism, our communion, our attendance, our service in the church, our good morals ….. These are good things, but, none of it saves. That’s because these are things we do. If we are trusting these things for salvation we are trusting in our flesh - we are trusting what we do apart from God to earn it.
CONCLUSION
If you read on through verses 4-6 you will see that Paul gives his resume. He says that if any man has a reason to boast in what he does to make himself righteous, I have more. He is more righteous in the flesh, apart from God, than any other man. No one else compared with him.
But, he also says in his letter to Timothy that he is the chief of all sinners. Amazing. The man who had more reason to boast about himself in the flesh, more reason to boast about all his religion, more than anyone else, was the worst of sinners.
What’s more, he says in verses 7 and 8 that all his religion was all a loss. All that he worked for counted for nothing more than a pile of trash when compared to the righteousness of Christ.
Until a man looks at his life and sees that all he does on his own is as a pile of trash compared to the righteousness of Christ, he is looking at his trash as if it were a saving treasure. He is looking at his religion as if it can save him. It can’t. That’s what Paul wanted to protect the Philippians from.
Paul’s concern was that the Philippians were safeguarded from false teachings. He repeated the same sound truths to them so they were continually reminded. He warned them to watch out, to actively be on guard for false teachers. And he affirmed them of their identity as the true circumcision that had been done in the heart.
In chapter 1 he says Don’t let persecution divide you or spoil your worthy conduct.
In chapter 2 he says Don’t let pride divide you or spoil your worthy conduct he says.
And now, Paul, as their protective pastor, is warning them about imposters - pretenders. Don’t let those posers divide you or spoil your worthy conduct. Don’t let them poison your pure faith with their bad preaching. (By bad I mean the substance of what they’re preaching, not the style.)
The word for safeguard in verse 1 is a Greek word that when used here, it means to keep you from getting tripped up. (Google races, sprints, marathons, cartoons, of getting ‘tripped up’). To get tripped up, to be un-secure, to be un-safe and in danger. In the church it means to allow the false teachings from false teachers to have a place within the ministry of the church.
But, the word is also used several other times and each time it is used in the context of being under guard.
In chapter 16 Paul and Silas are in Philippi, and here we see their experience as they are beaten and thrown in to prison. Verse 23 says, “After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully.” There’s our word again, “carefully.” Make sure they are secured. Make sure there is no way for them to get out. Guarantee they do not get out and we do not lose them.
The most common way for this word to be used is in the context of putting something under a careful, safe, and secure guard. Let nothing get at what it is you are guarding. Paul uses this word in Philippians 3 verse 1 to say that he wants to keep them from getting tripped up. He wants to safely guard them so that they do not get tripped up in their faith.
That’s what Paul was seeking to prevent in the Philippian church. He knew there would be false teachers coming around and coming up within the church and they would be spreading their false doctrines. So, Paul wanted to safeguard them from such men.
We need to take Paul’s words to the Philippians to heart here today. We need to safeguard ourselves. It is imperative that we at Emmanuel Free Church are protecting ourselves from false teachers and teachings.
How do we do that? We see in our passage this morning several things that Paul mentions that are a safeguard for his church. And it would be wise on our account if we were to take heed to these as well.
First of all, repetition is key. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Look at verse 1. Paul says, “…it is no trouble for me to write these same things to you again …”
Paul didn’t want the Philippian’s to get spiritual amnesia. You know what amnesia is - it’s to have a loss of memory, or, to forget. It’s not forgetting where your keys are, or, your anniversary. Amnesia has to do with your identity. You forget who you are.
Paul didn‘t want the Philippians to forget who they were in Christ! He didn’t want them to forget the true message of salvation they heard and believed! The way he reminded them was to keep teaching them the same truths over and over again. He wanted them to hear and to read sound teaching again and again so as to continually reinforce their faith in the Lord and their understanding of their salvation. It was no trouble for him at all.
How many of you can remember one of your mom or dad’s repeated teachings? “My old man always taught me never to disrespect my elders.” “I can still hear my mom saying to me, ‘Don’t run with scissors.” How many of you parents know the necessity of repeating the same things to your kids? “Didn’t I tell you not to ____________?!” “How many times to I have to tell you to _________________?!” Repetition is fundamental to teaching.
Paul knew this. He was a Pharisee. You’ll remember from last week that the oral tradition was not written into a book until around 200AD. The Jewish Mishna was all the oral traditions from centuries before put into writing. Before the Mishna, traditions and the teachings of the rabbi’s were passed on orally. Rabbi’s would surround themselves with students and repeat things to them. For a rabbi, to teach meant to repeat. The students would commit the traditions and teachings to memory and then turn around and repeat them to the next generation. To teach meant to repeat.
Paul was a Pharisee, and that’s how he learned. And, that principle of repetition was applied in how he taught the truths of Jesus Christ. Later in Philippians 3, in verse 18, Paul says, “For as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears …” Paul constantly reinforced his teachings into his churches.
He commanded Timothy to do the same thing in 2 Timothy 2:14 when he said, “Keep reminding them of these things.” Keep telling them. Don’t let them go long without hearing these things again … and again. It’s for their own good.
But Paul wasn’t the only New Testament writer who new that the churches needed to be have truth reminded to them and repeated in teachings. The apostle Peter says 4 times in his second letter that he is reminding them of things they already know and that it is good for them! Chapter 1 verse 12, 13, and 15 say, “So I will always remind you of these things … even though you already know them… I think it is right to refresh your memory….And I will make every effort to see that .. You will always be able to remember these things.”
“Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders … I want you to recall the words spoken in the past…”
The apostle John said, “I am not writing to you a new command but an old one which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard.” He’s not saying much new to them. He’s repeating old truths.
Listen, if the apostles thought it was important to repeat themselves in their teachings then there must be a reason. The reason is that men are forgetful! We forget! We get spiritual amnesia. We get distracted, lazy, neglectful, complacent, and pretty soon the sound truths of Scripture that we’ve heard and learned become less and less important. They become less and less valued. And we become less and less vigilant to guard those truths. And when that happens is people forget the sound truths they learned and become opened up to so-called “new truth.” New teachings that are different and faddish and stylish. Satan sends false teachers along to come in and sow these false teachings and God’s people fall into danger. They become vulnerable.
Forgetting God and His Word is the first step in apostasy. It is the first sign of a lost love for God. It is no accident that God gives warnings to remember His commands right after He gives the greatest command, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength.” To keep this command of all out love for God, we must continually keep before us the word of God.
If the only time you open the word of God is when I ask you to on Sunday morning here for the message - that’s not enough!
And that’s why God says, “These commandments I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.” Decorate, saturate, fill up, furnish all of your life with the word of God so as to keep it in your mind and in your heart. If we do that then we will not forget. And like Paul said, it will be a safeguard for us as we are continually reminded of the truth that saved us. It is a safeguard for us in our faith.
So, repetition of sound biblical truth is needed. Secondly, we need to watch out. Look at verse 2. “Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh.”
Paul is giving a warning. The word for watch out means to keep an eye out - to be on guard. The same word is used by Jesus when he says in Matthew 7, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” Paul is using the same word Jesus used to warn the Philippians of false teachers the same way Jesus warned of false prophets. They will come looking very religious. They will have an appearance of righteousness, but, they are frauds. They do not speak the truth, it only appears true. Watch out for them!
Paul is very intense about these men. Who are they? Who are these men that Paul insults and warns the Philippians to watch out for? They are the Judaizers. Judaizers are the bane of Paul’s ministry. They are the thorn in his side and the stone in his shoe. They dog him on the trail of his ministry everywhere he goes.
These are men that teach that in order to be saved, a man must be circumcised and he must obey the law of Moses. He must do an external physical rite, and he must do works. He must do these in addition to believing in Jesus Christ in order to be saved. (In Acts 15 ……)
He calls them dogs. In our society today dogs are lovable pets we often keep in the house. However, in Paul’s day and in Paul’s world, dogs were filthy, rabid outcast animals that wandered city streets and caused trouble. They got into garbage, they were mean and often attacked humans. Many Jews referred to Gentiles as dogs, referring to their inherent religious uncleanliness and their status of being outside of the covenants of God. But Paul calls these Jews dogs in verse 2. He turns the table and says that it is they who are the dogs. They are the ones who are unclean and they are the ones who are outsiders.
He also calls them evil workers. This is another reversal on them. The Judaizers thought they were the “good-workers” because they were doing all kinds of religious works. But, there is no good works that are acceptable to God apart from the work of Christ. No man can earn his way to heaven; no man can earn his salvation by being good, moral, ethical, and upstanding. That is self-righteous. That is being righteous all by your self. It is trying to be righteous apart from the righteousness that comes from Christ. That’s what the Judaizers were doing and that’s why it was evil. Any righteousness other than Christ’s is nothing less than evil.
And then Paul calls them the mutilation. They thought they were God’s people because they were physically circumcised. But, because they failed to carry out the law - which required physical circumcision - then their circumcision meant nothing. In fact, Paul says in Romans 2 that circumcision has no value if break the law, and since all men are lawbreakers, circumcision has no value for salvation or righteousness for any man. In essence, without perfect obedience to the law, their physical circumcision amounted to mutilation.
Which brings us to our third point, our Identification. Look at verse 3, “For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh -”
Paul says that we as believers are the true circumcision. Judaizers remember said that a man had to be circumcised according to the law before he could be saved. Physical circumcision they say is the means to righteousness and was the sign of their position as the people of God. But, Paul is saying that they are not the true circumcision just because they have been physically circumcised.
Physical circumcision was given to Abraham by God in Genesis 17 as a sign of God’s covenant with him. Later, God made it law for the Israelites through Moses. It was to mark them out as God’s chosen people. Circumcision became the physical sign that distinguished them from all other nations as God’s chosen covenant people.
But, over time, circumcision had been reduced to an outward religion and was neglected as a heart condition. God never meant for the external act to be all there was. It was a sign of more, of a circumcised heart. In Deuteronomy 10:16; 30:6; Leviticus 26:41; Jeremiah 4:4; 9:25; and Ezekiel 44:7, God said He wants circumcised hearts. What does that mean? It means that the cutting away of skin that was done in the body was a symbol of the cutting away of sin in the heart. God wants the sin that is in men’s hearts to be cut out so that they have circumcised, purified, cleansed hearts. God does in the heart what man does in the body. Colossians 2:11 says that “In Him we were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision don by Christ.” In the heart!
The point is is that our identification as God’s people in Christ comes from having circumcised hearts - hearts whose sinful nature has been put off by Christ.
The Judaizers were confusing things by saying that physical circumcision and following the law were required in addition to believing in Christ and that is what would save them.
They were religious in body, but, irreligious and unrighteous in heart. We can do that today you know. We can do ceremonies in church and think were doing the right thing when the whole time.
---Taking communion when you don’t believe in the crucifixion and resurrection.
---Being baptized when you reject Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior
It’s like Giving flowers because it’s a holiday and not because it comes from your heart.
Now there are 3 characteristics here about the truly circumcised. He mentions them in verse 3, they worship by the Spirit of God, glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh.
When we worship by the Spirit it means we worship in the Spirit. When we place our trust in Christ Jesus, He gives us the Holy Spirit inside of us. He lives in us, and we worship at the prompting of the Holy Spirit. He creates in us a longing to worship God. There is a hunger and a thirsting to worship God by those who have God’s Spirit in them.
And according to John 4, all the true worshipers of God will worship Him in Spirit and in truth. Those are the kind of worshipers that God seeks it says. God seeks and saves people to worship Him in spirit and in truth. It’s not where you worship. It’s not a building. It’s not a geographical place you go TO worship. When you have received the Spirit inside of you when you trusted Christ, all of your life becomes worship. Wherever you go is the place to worship.
Secondly, we glory in Christ. The word for glory means to boast. It means to boast with an exultant joy. You would use this word when you were describing the thing you were most proud of. It is used about 35 times in the NT and Paul uses it almost all of those times.
It can be used in bad ways - in Galatians 6:13 he says some boast in the flesh. But in verse 14 he says he boasts in the cross of Jesus Christ. His exultant, proud and joyful boast was in the cross of Christ and it will be for every true believer who is a part of the true heart circumcision and worships God by the Spirit. We glory in Christ in everything. Nothing is credited to self, because without Christ, we would be nothing. Everything we are is in Christ, so He gets the credit. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me…” It’s all Christ. I died, He lives. My life is in Him. Glorying in Christ safeguards our faith because it focuses on Christ’s work and credits Him and never allows self to get credit or merit for salvation. First Corinthians 1 Paul says, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Thirdly, we put no confidence in the flesh. The flesh is anything of me apart from God. It is all that a man is and does apart from Jesus Christ.
The flesh is the weak, self-centered, rebellious, and impassioned nature that is opposed to God. It’s all the desires, ambitions, strivings, motivations that are born independent of a relationship with God through Christ. In other words, everything about a man from the time he is born until the time he trusts Christ as Savior is all flesh. He is separate, apart from, outside of a knowledge of God.
When you are truly saved, you don’t trust in yourself to accomplish righteousness on our own. We don’t put one ounce, or one penny’s worth of trust in our fleshly, sinful nature and what we can do apart from Christ. This point goes with the first two. If all our trust is in Christ, there’s none leftover to put into ourselves. Our baptism, our communion, our attendance, our service in the church, our good morals ….. These are good things, but, none of it saves. That’s because these are things we do. If we are trusting these things for salvation we are trusting in our flesh - we are trusting what we do apart from God to earn it.
CONCLUSION
If you read on through verses 4-6 you will see that Paul gives his resume. He says that if any man has a reason to boast in what he does to make himself righteous, I have more. He is more righteous in the flesh, apart from God, than any other man. No one else compared with him.
But, he also says in his letter to Timothy that he is the chief of all sinners. Amazing. The man who had more reason to boast about himself in the flesh, more reason to boast about all his religion, more than anyone else, was the worst of sinners.
What’s more, he says in verses 7 and 8 that all his religion was all a loss. All that he worked for counted for nothing more than a pile of trash when compared to the righteousness of Christ.
Until a man looks at his life and sees that all he does on his own is as a pile of trash compared to the righteousness of Christ, he is looking at his trash as if it were a saving treasure. He is looking at his religion as if it can save him. It can’t. That’s what Paul wanted to protect the Philippians from.
Paul’s concern was that the Philippians were safeguarded from false teachings. He repeated the same sound truths to them so they were continually reminded. He warned them to watch out, to actively be on guard for false teachers. And he affirmed them of their identity as the true circumcision that had been done in the heart.
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