Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
(Phil. 3:7-9)
September 30, 2018
Mt 5; Gal 4; Rom 3
Read Phil 3:4-9 – Anybody here attained perfection? Hard to come by, isn’t
it? One guy told his date, “I want to marry a smart woman, a good woman, a
sensitive woman, a woman who will make me happy.” His date replied,
“Make up your mind, Buddy. Nobody’s perfect.” She was right, wasn’t she?
Yet, listen to Jesus! Matt 5:20: “For I tell you, unless your righteousness
exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of
heaven.” Morally, outwardly the Pharisees were unbeatable. And Jesus says,
“You gotta be better than that.” In fact, He says in Mt 5: 48 You therefore
must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” It requires the perfection
of God to reach heaven? That’s crushing, isn’t it? No one can do that.
But before you panic, I’ve got good news. Paul tells us how to obtain (not
attain) perfection. He uses 3 terms -- “knowing Christ” – “gaining Christ” –
and being “found in him” -- 3 ways to express what it means to have “the
righteousness from God” of v. 9. The term “righteous” isn’t in vogue these
days, but it means to be accepted by God as perfect! Paul’s going to tell us
how to get that, seeing clearly beyond time, into eternity.
What he says is the exact opposite of what we would naturally do. Our first
impulse is – I better get my act together. I’m not so bad, but I gotta get better.
That’s human nature. And it is exactly the wrong thing to do.
Then there are those rationalizations. Temper tantrums justified because I’m
right. Grudges held and relationships broken because my rights were violated.
Flirtations enjoyed because my spouse doesn’t understand me. Cheating on
expense reports or taxes justified because “they owe me.” The list is long.
They show up on the asset side as “standing up for my rights.”
But all selfishness of whatever sort is sin to God. It belongs on the debit side
of the ledger. All our rationalizations, justifications, accommodations – they
have to go. Not covered up. Not ignored, but consciously sent to the liability
side. That’s repentance – hating our sin like God does.
Our natural bent is like the guy who wrote the IRS: “I cheated on my taxes;
It’s keeping me awake at night. Here’s $500. If I still can’t sleep -- I’ll send
you the rest.” That’s not confession. That’s self-deception. I Jn 1:8-9: “If we
say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we
confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness.” Let me tell you – being clean inside is better than
any guilty pleasure, besetting sin or grudge we’re hanging onto. So we must
move it to the liability column and let the blood of Jesus cover it all. That’s
renouncing the garbage of me. But believe it or not, that’s the easy part!
But to gain Christ, he has to lose something. What? His sin? Yes. But that’s
not what this verse teaches. This verse says “7 But whatever gain I had, I
counted as loss for the sake of Christ.” “Whatever gain I had.” Not my sin..
Not my compromises – but whatever gain I had. That carefully cultivated list
of assets. It has to go. Years of work – had to go. What a startling realization.
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And look at the wording. It doesn’t just get moved out. V. 7, it gets “counted
as loss.” In v. 8, “I count everything as loss.” In v. 8b: “I have suffered the
loss of all things and count them as rubbish.” The translators are being gentle.
The word is excrement. “All those assets in 4-6, things I worked years to
achieve, things I knew would endear me to God; all those well-intentioned,
exceptionally credible assets – I finally saw them for what they were – a pile
of you know what. Not just useless for gaining eternal life – a detriment to
gaining eternal life. I didn’t just erase them as assets. I moved them to the
liability side. They weren’t helping; they were hindering me from Christ.”
Human goodness is rubbish because we use it to placate God. To buy Him off.
But that is like offering your hard-earned $100,000 home in exchange for
Windsor Castle. Good luck with that! Neither will our righteousness ever
count with God. As long as we trust in it as an asset, it is keeping us from the
very thing we seek. So it has to move from asset to liability.
A girl was away at college when a letter from the bank came to her home.
Mom called and asked what she should do. The girl said, “Open it and see
what it is.” “It says your account has insufficient funds.” “That’s got to be a
mistake. I still have plenty of checks left.” That’s us offering our goodness to
an infinitely holy God. We are morally bankrupt, insufficient funds – but
insisting that our blank checks of goodness are good enough. They are not.
That’s why I must renounce not only the garbage but also the goodness of me.
Everything I’ve got on the asset page – it all has to go. Lock, stock and barrel.
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A. It’s Perfect – From God – 9 and be found in him, not having a
righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes
through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.”
Paul’s righteousness is diametrically contrasted with that of God. We are
clothed in one or the other but not both. Given the requirement to be “perfect,
as your heavenly Father is perfect” whose righteousness would you rather
have – yours or His? Your decrepit, ragged, mixed bag of good intentions,
poor performance and selfish motivation – or His pristine, glorious robe of
righteousness? We’ll all meet Him one day soon in one or the other.
Before time began, God had a plan for what He knew would happen. When
the time came, He enacted His plan. Gal 4:4 But when the fullness of time had
come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem
those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”
Here’s the overview: God sent His Son – 2nd person of the Trinity – to take on
humanity -- 100% God and 100% man in one unique person – but living only
thru His human nature for 33 years on earth. During that time, He was tested
every way, but whereas the first Adam failed the easiest of tests, Jesus passed
them all. Heb 4:15b: He “in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet
without sin.” Not one slip in word, thought or deed thru extreme temptation. A
perfect life. That was critical. Note in v. 9 we get righteousness “through faith
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in Christ.” Well, that would be true, but that’s not what that phrase says. It
literally reads: “through faith of Christ.” It is not our faith in Christ, but the
faith of Christ that led to His perfect life that is emphasized here.
God solved the problem of making us righteous while still having all sin paid
for. Speaking of Christ’s death, Paul says in Rom 3:26: “It was to show his
righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of
the one who has faith in Jesus.” This is all about God’s righteousness – what
we all need. You can’t see it in English but it’s mentioned 3 times in this one
verse. Follow with me. Christ’s death was “to show his righteousness at the
present time, so that he might be [righteous – same word] and the justifier
[righteousness giver] of the one who has faith Jesus.” God can both be
righteous and the righteousness provider because of the death of Jesus Christ
in our place. It’s an incredible plan – an amazing plan.
On August 16, 1985 NW 225 crashed just after takeoff from Detroit killing
155 people. One survived – 4-year-old Cecilia of Tempe, AZ. Rescuers
originally didn’t believe she’d been on the plane – thought she must have been
a passenger in a car on the highway where the plane crashed. But when they
checked the manifest there she was. Cecilia survived because as the plane was
falling her mother unbuckled her own seat belt, got down on her knees in front
of her daughter, wrapped her arms and body around Cecilia and would not let
her go. Nothing could separate Cecilia from her mother’s love – not the fall,
the flames or the chaos that ensued. Such is the sacrifice Jesus made so that
we could have the righteousness of God – bought and paid for by Him. Can
you see why it’s such a travesty to turn it down?
The moment you pray, renouncing your sin and even your righteousness and
ask for His mercy – that very moment, his righteousness becomes your
righteousness. The dirty rags come off; the glorious robe of Christ’s righteous
life goes on. II Cor 5:21 is marvelous: “For our sake he made him to be sin
who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
How? By faith! When? The moment you ask from the bottom of your heart.
At that instant, across the asset ledger of your life one word gets written:
Christ. And when you’ve got Him – Jesus; you’ve got it – eternal life.
Conc – If you go to Scotland at the right time you may see a strange sight – a
little lamb with extra fleece tied to its back with holes for its legs and one for
its head. It’s a lamb whose mother has died. And it will die too without proper
nourishment. But another mother will not accept an orphaned lamb. She won’t
recognize its scent and will butt it away. She will know it’s not hers.
But if there is a ewe who has lost her baby, the shepherd will skin the dead
lamb and make a covering for the orphaned lamb. Now when the mother sniffs
the orphaned lamb she smells her own and accepts it. That’s what it means to
“be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the
law, but that which comes through faith [of] Christ, the righteousness from
God that depends on faith.” So what does your ledger look like this morning?
Let’s pray.