Sermon: "What Are You Confident About?"

Sixth in the "Philippians" series.
Delivered July 23, 2006 by Rev. Laura Crihfield.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9

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It has been fun to prepare for today. I love Paul's letter to the Philippians. I know its probably not politically correct and it might hurt the feelings of all of the other books of Bible, but I really love Philippians, probably more than most of the other books of the Bible simply because I love what Paul has to say. And so when I found out that we were working through Philippians in a sermon this summer I was really thrilled and what made this time of preparation even more rewarding for me as I got in to it this week and actually two weeks ago, was getting to sit down with Andy who will be preaching next week and working with him on what is in many ways a two-part sermon. So you have got to come next week; you've got to be here, okay? As we study the text it became clear that all of Chapter 3 really fits together as a whole and we needed to treat it that way and so today we are talking about the first half of the challenge that Paul puts before us in Chapter 3 and next week Andy is going to pick up with the second half, which is equally as challenging and in some ways perhaps more challenging. Today is about letting go and preparing ourselves for what God has in store for us. Next week is about taking up the challenge to pursue Jesus with all that we are. So with that said, let's turn or look at Philippians, Chapter 3, Verses 1 through 11. I am going to read 1 through 11 because they fit together nicely as a whole. I will actually only be talking about Verses 1 through 9 and Andy will pick up with 10 and 11 in his text next week.

The word of God from Philippians, Chapter 3: Paul says:

"Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.

Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh- though I myself have reasons for such confidence.

If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, 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 is through faith in Christ-the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."

Will you pray with me? Lord God as we open up your Word we thank you that it is as relevant and alive for us today and when it was written. God, we ask that you would take my words, that you would make them your words and that you would take the meditations of our hearts together, that they would be acceptable to you, that you would help us hear what you would have us hear, Come Holy Spirit come in the very powerful name of Jesus. Amen.

Letting go. Two little words that when put together I don't like very much. Anybody else? I don't know about you, but it's not something that I am particularly good at or as I said that I like. Whether its letting go of a dream or a goal, something from our past, perhaps bitterness or anger that we have been holding on to, maybe its letting go of - this is going to hurt - our right to be right. That one hurts. Or letting go of something maybe that we have placed our confidence in. Letting go no matter how good for us in the long run is often a tough thing to do. Yet it is exactly what Paul seems to be challenging us to do specifically letting go of false righteousness, that false sense of confidence that we can sometimes have, perhaps more often than not, in who we are and in what we have accomplished.

Now as I was studying this text, it really hit close to home. There have been a lot of times when God has challenged me to let go of whatever credentials I may have, whatever accomplishments I may have done, things I may have done and to really solely rely on Jesus. That has come up a lot for me throughout life as it does for all of us, but perhaps for me it's never been quite as direct as when I was in seminary starting in 1991. I entered Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California where its warm, not this warm, but warm all the time just about, not just because of the climate and the fact that it was close to my family, but more importantly because of Fuller's theology and the opportunity to complete two degrees. Some of you might be saying, 'opportunity to complete two degrees?' I was there to complete my Master's in Divinity and my Master's in Marriage and Family Therapy and when I applied to Fuller, I was accepted into both programs and that's what I intended to do: was to graduate with both degrees. It wasn't until three full years in to my time there that I realized that I was pursuing the marriage and family therapy degree for all the wrong reasons. Yes, I love psychology, that's what my bachelor's was in, but I wasn't pursuing a master's in that field out of a love for the discipline, I was pursuing it out of a fear and lack of confidence in my call. I knew God was calling me to the church to be a pastor. I knew that, but I doubted me. I didn't doubt God, but I doubted me. Simply put, my master's in marriage and family counseling was my security blanket. It was the one thing I thought that would put me a notch above all of the other candidates who were also graduating with the master's in divinity degree and who would also be applying to all the same jobs that I was applying to. It was my in, and it wasn't until I was honest with myself and with God when a friend got right in my face; (I hate it when friends do that), and said, "Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this? You are not having any fun. You don't really want to be doing this degree, why are you doing this?" I didn't even know myself that I wasn't having fun. Have you ever been in that situation? You are doing something and you think it is what you want to be doing, and then somebody says something and you go, "Right, why am I doing this?" That was exactly what happened to me and it was after that friend got in my face that I realized that I wasn't trusting God's call on my life and having confidence in that. I was trying to bolster my resume, create more titles for myself and get myself that job that I thought I wanted. I didn't know where it would be, but I had this kind of sense of what it would be.

After that friend got in my face it took me all of 18 hours for God to open my eyes as to what I was doing, for me to wrestle with what and why I was doing it and for me to ultimately let that degree go. I literally started this discussion with this friend at 6 o'clock in the evening and by the time I woke up in the morning, well actually by mid day I guess probably, I had let that degree go. Now you have to understand that I was halfway through the program. I only had one more year on that degree. I had finished half the course work and convincing my parents that letting this degree go when they were helping to fund it, that was going to be real interesting and fun and it turned out that they understood in the long run, but it did take a lot of energy. It is also important to understand for any of you who don't know me very well; I tend to be fairly driven. It's not going to surprise a lot of you. So to let that go and to say, 'you know what, God is calling me to not finish something that I started;' something huge that I thought I wanted and needed was enormous for me to let go of, but it was what I had to do in order to fully rely and learn another time what it means to rely on Jesus, not on me, not on my accomplishments. I didn't know it at the time, but I was being taught a direct lesson in Paul's challenge in Philippians Chapter 3 and if you will indulge me, let's look at it more in depth for a little bit.

After beginning with the familiar call to rejoice in the Lord, Paul says in Verse 2,

"It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again and it is a safeguard for you."

Now here comes the warning;

"Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh, for it is we who are the circumcision; we who worship by the Spirit of God who glory in Christ Jesus and who put no confidence in the flesh."

Yikes, do you get the tone of what he is saying here? Talk about getting straight to the point. Paul's choice of words is as direct and as colorful as anybody would have imagined them being at the time and if you want to play a little game, I will leave it up to you to fill in what words he might have used if he were writing today. Pretty colorful. Paul's words are harsh and there are a lot of subtle jabs kind of hidden in them, most of which unfortunately we don't have time to get to today, but without doing so it is really clear that Paul is angry, really angry at something that has happened and I think a little background information may be helpful so we know why he is so angry.

It's important to remember that Paul is writing to a group of believers at Philippi; these are a group of people who are following Jesus and here he is warning those believers against another group of believers; they are called the Judiazers; it is kind of a word that we don't use much anymore, but the Judiazers in a nutshell, very simplified, were Jews who also believed in Jesus, believed that he was Savior, but believed that he was savior only of the Jews of Israel, okay? So they believe in Jesus, they are following Jesus, but they have this misguided notion that only Israel is included in who Jesus has come to die for essentially. But that false belief led them to another, as is often the case in the domino effect with these kind of things. And that second belief, which was misguided was that Gentile believers could be saved, see they had to have an in for them, right? They had to have a way for them to get in, because they couldn't exclude them completely, but the only way they could be saved was if they essentially kind of became Jewish by following a lot of the Jewish laws and customs; one of which was circumcision. So we hear him talking about that in here.

Well Paul fights this claim with all that he has on the grounds that the love of God in believers is not seen in an outward sign, i.e. physical circumcision, but in an inward change of the heart. He believed strongly that belief in Christ provided true circumcision and entrance into the community and that it wasn't about what one did externally for the world to see or about how many Jewish laws one kind of followed and upheld, it was about what one did internally in terms of turning their life over to Jesus and it was more about what Jesus had done for them, rather than what they could do to prove themselves worthy. Paul is clearly angry with these Judiazers because they are in a sense undoing much of what he has taught, specifically about the notion, or the idea, or the reality we should say, of salvation by grace alone; justification by grace alone. If Paul were writing this today and he had the pleasure and the privilege of using the Bible, much of which he wrote, that's pretty handy, to like refer his readers back to, I think he would probably refer us to Ephesians Chapter 2, Verses 8 and 9 where he says,

"For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith and this is not from yourselves. It is a gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast."

Essentially what he is saying is be careful. Be careful not to mix up or confuse grace with works.

Continuing in that vein, Paul wraps up this warning with a reminder in Verse 3 that as believers, remember he is writing to believers, we are to put no confidence in the flesh. In other words, unlike what the Judiazers were suggesting, he is saying, don't rely on yourselves, don't rely on your accomplishments, don't rely on your religious zeal or your fervor, don't rely on your good works, rely only on Jesus. In a minute we will look at why Paul could make such a pointed challenge, but first let's think for just a minute about what it means to really take that challenge seriously.

What does it really mean to fully rely on Jesus? Well it gets us right back to letting go, doesn't it? Those two words that a lot of us don't like. I think that is really what it boils down to. Letting go of the misguided notion that it is what we do and who we are in the eyes of the world that matters. It's letting go of those security blankets that we often rely on; maybe it's our status at work, maybe its our success as a spouse or a parent or a friend, maybe its our titles and accomplishments that help define that success at least according to the world. Perhaps it is even letting go of the good that we do and maybe the pats on the back that we think we deserve because we have served and we have given of our time and our talents and our treasure. Now, don't hear me saying that I am suggesting that we let go of doing the good or let go of being in a relationship with the people that God has put in our lives or any of that, that is not what I am suggesting. What I am suggesting is that we need to learn more and more and I am talking to myself here about what it means to define ourselves according to what Jesus has done, rather than according to what we have done.

It is so easy even for us as believers to get so confident and to build up our sense of self around the things of the world. We are bombarded every day and it is all around us and in some ways there is no escaping it; whether it is on TV or the radio, whether it is messages that we hear in pop psychology, maybe its on the Internet, maybe its in books, maybe its through casual conversations with friends, believers, colleagues. Wherever it comes from the reality is that it hits us hard and it hits us constantly and it's easy to build our self-esteem up around how we measure up, right? The problem is we will never measure up. We will never ever measure up. Paul is clear in Romans 3:23 that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We all miss the mark. And no matter what we do, no matter how hard we try, no matter what we may hope for, that will never change, and that can be pretty depressing if we let it stand alone, right? To think that we will never measure up. But just like Verse 23 of Chapter 3 in Romans doesn't stand alone, that idea doesn't stand alone. If we back up one verse to Romans 3:22 and we read through Verse 24, rather than just having Verse 23 stand alone this is what we hear:

"Righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, i.e. between Jews and Gentiles. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

That familiar verse. Here is the rest.

"and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ."

Three little verses. The gospel in a nutshell. Oh to be so succinct, right? The bad news, we will never measure up. The good news, it's okay, ultimately, because Jesus does measure up and Jesus paid the price for us so that we can be with God. That's the gospel. And that is the gospel to all who believe. So that's in a nutshell. So this notion of letting go and relying only on this faith-based righteousness, this righteousness that only comes as we believe, of being confident in what Jesus has done, rather than what we can accomplish is a bold challenge for Paul to make. It would be bold challenge for anyone to make, but he does this from an insider's perspective and this gets back to why he can make such a bold challenge.

Picking up in Verse 4, Paul says in talking about confidence in the flesh,

"I myself have reasons for such confidence and if anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more."

And then he lists his pedigree. That is a pretty bold statement isn't it? If any of you think you have reason, I have more so don't try to compare yourselves with me on this one, because I will beat you. He says,

"circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless."

Faultless. That's a fairly bold claim isn't it? It's a huge list all pointing to his accomplishments and his status according to the world's point of view, his world at the time. He was a high-ranking leader of the laws who had all the right family and societal connections to get him basically anywhere he wanted. In addition, he himself was very zealous and committed to upholding the law, even to the point of persecuting Christians who were not upholding the Jewish law. He really did have it all, and society thought he had it all, but he didn't have the one thing that mattered.

And so he continues and we see in Verse 7. He says, "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, (he tried that - it didn't work) but that which is through faith in Christ-the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith." I love Paul because he is driving home his point by pointing to himself. And he says, "Listen friends I have tried it the world's way. I had it all. All the credentials, all the connections that any person could ever hope for, and my life was pointless. It was useless until I met Jesus face to face." That is when things started to make sense. That is when my life started to matter. You see salvation, he would go on to say, isn't our own. It's not on our own accomplishments, but on Jesus and his accomplishments. He is saying let it all go. Set it all aside. It is garbage compared to knowing Jesus personally. Whatever you think might be gained, not worth it. Paul challenges pretty directly, doesn't he?

And he is clearly challenging us to let go. God is challenging us through his writing to let go of all that we have placed our confidence in, to let go of everything other than Jesus and the righteousness that his life, his death and his resurrection represent for us. Now I want to be careful again, I know I said this before, but I just need to be careful so the Session does not come back at me, I am not saying to stop doing what God has called you to do. I am not saying let go all of the good things that you are doing. I am not saying let go of all of the relationships, but I want to say it again, I am saying that we and there is a me included in the we, need to learn how to let go of defining ourselves according to all of that and learn what it means to grab hold of Jesus' best for us, to pursue Jesus with all that we are, which is what Andy is going to be talking about next week. We can't do that until we are willing to let go. Like if we are holding on to something, I am holding tightly on to this, I can't grab a hold of something else, not till I let it down, let it go and then I am ready to grab something else. It's the same thing. That is what we are talking about. Letting go. Being prepared. Throwing it all away for the sake of Jesus.

Now when I think about someone living out Paul's challenge, this challenge that we are facing today in Philippians, someone who was willing to throw it all for the sake of knowing Christ, Frank Alton comes to mind. Anybody know him? Nope, okay. Well I haven't seen or talked to Frank since 1993, but his story is absolutely worth sharing. You see, like Paul Frank had a lot to be confident about. As a Presbyterian minister Frank was serving as an associate pastor at Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles where ministry was tough and challenging and very demanding, but it came with a lot of benefits, and for Frank life was good. In fact, it was very good. He had a job he loved. He had a wife he loved with a daughter he loved. They loved their house. They loved - we are back to the climate thing again - they loved living in Los Angeles, the climate it was warm. They loved being close to the beach. They loved their life in Los Angeles. Frank was well respected and loved by the congregation and they took really good care of him. They had a comfortable life and they could have stayed there comfortably, basically indefinitely. I got a taste of just how comfortable life in Bel Air could be when I served as an intern there during college and seminary, but you might be surprised to know that it wasn't at Bel Air that I met Frank. In fact, it was far from the comforts of Bel Air Presbyterian Church. You see, I met Frank at his home, that's important to know; it's at his home in a hillside slum on the outskirts of Mexico City. I was on a mission trip with a group from Bel Air and Frank was essentially our guide. He was walking us through our two weeks in Mexico and as we sat in his two-room home, not bedroom, two rooms with a bathroom you had to go outside, down the stairs and around the corner to get to with no plumbing, I found myself wondering just how he got from the comforts of Bel Air, California, living and working among the richest of the rich to the slums of Mexico City living among the poorestof the poor. Just what made him and his wife make that kind of a radical move?

Well we sat with Frank and we listened. We didn't do a lot of talking because he had a story worth listening to and we listened to him and to what boiled down to the simply statement that Frank and his wife took Paul's challenge in Philippians seriously. They wanted to give up everything, I shouldn't say it that way, they didn't want to give up everything, they knew they were being called to give up everything for the sake of knowing of Christ, the sake of sharing in his suffering, the sake of understanding the power of his resurrection. They refused to get caught up in what the world around them believed to be important and they fought off the temptation to remain comfortable. That is such a temptation isn't it? They willingly let go of what for them was preventing them from grabbing hold of the best that God had for them and the best that God wanted to do in them. They simply put, lived Philippians 3 and for them it meant literally letting go. So they ignored all the questioning looks of all of the members of Bel Air Presbyterian when they told them what they were doing. They ignored the same questioning looks from a lot of their family, many of their friends, "what on earth would possess you to do this?" Those kind of looks and they packed what they could in their Volkswagen van, it was a late 70's version of the Volkswagen van. Some of you may have owned one of those. Anybody want to fess up to owning a Volkswagen van in the late 70's? A few hands. And they moved their family to Mexico City to the slums where they discovered the joy of serving Jesus among the poorest of the poor and found their identity not in what they had or in what they did or in their titles, because they gave all of those up, but they found their identity in who Jesus is and in what Jesus wanted them to do.

And Frank's story is radical, very radical and I am not suggesting that for most of us that is what God is calling us to do. Perhaps God is calling you to do that and if he is that is something for you to wrestle with. But for most of us that is not what we are being called to do, but the challenge that was before Frank and his wife is the same challenge that is before us today. It's a challenge I think ultimately to be honest with ourselves and with God, about how we define ourselves, about where our sense of self comes from and about how just willing we are or maybe aren't to set aside or let go of whatever it is that's keeping us from God's best for us. Perhaps there is one thing standing in your way. One thing that you struggle to let go of, your security blanket if you will. The one thing that God has been kind of nudging you and asking you to surrender to him. I don't what it is for you, but whatever it is, please don't run from it. Don't ignore it. Don't ignore God on this one, because God wants the best for you. God wants the best for you as you pursue Jesus and that is never going to be a reality if we are not willing to let go of those things that are holding us back from it.

There is no doubt that being confident and being assured as human beings is important for our well-being, for our emotional well-being and for all of that. What's more crucial though is making sure that our confidence is in the right place and the only right place is in Jesus, in his accomplishments, not in ourselves and what we have accomplished. As we willingly accept Paul's challenge, as we willingly do what he did and let it all go for the sake of knowing Christ, I think we will discover that its not really as much about letting go and an end of something, as it is a beginning of something that is amazing. We will get in to that next week. Will you pray with me?

Lord, you call us to let go and sometimes more often than not that is very very hard. God it's a challenge for us to willingly sacrifice what we think is important for what you know is important. God help us to do that, help us to trust that you are enough, help us to trust that it is in your credentials that we should base our confidence not in what we have done, not in what we have accomplished, but in who Jesus is and what he has accomplished on our behalf. God you are indeed enough. I pray that you would give us the grace to believe it and the confidence to live it; in the name of Jesus. Amen.

© 2006, Rev. Laura Crihfield
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org