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That they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mine earthly things. For our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
So we saw two weeks ago that Paul had a means of explaining the positive aspects of Christian life by setting them in the context of things we are to avoid. In chapter 2, he laid forth the church and how it was to avoid pride, how it was to avoid disunity, and he did so by pointing them to Christ's humility and to his servants, specifically Timothy and Epaphroditus.
Here we see how he exposes false Christianity by painting a picture of the true Christian that he himself desires to be. So verse 1, Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord, to write the same things to you to me is not grievous, but for you it is safe.
So with a beginning like finally, we could come to two conclusions. One, he's about to close out the letter with just a few final comments, or two, he is a true Baptist preacher who loves to tease his congregation to thinking that he is closing, only to go on to another half of the book.
It is as if he starts his sentence to probably conclude the letter and then he's like, hmm, oh yeah, I got something else to say, and I just remembered, and he tells them to rejoice. He says, have joy.
He says, be rejoicing of these things. These things have been said 11 times to this point already, although here, for the first time in this letter, it's joined with in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. It's not an ambiguous, all-encompassing joy that would relate it to circumstances of daily life, not a joy that's more like happiness, which can fade or disappear with the circumstances that may surround it.
Instead, it is a joy relating to this amazing, unchanging relationship with their Lord. With that said, and as if to prepare his readers before they could have a chance to say, but we've already heard all this before, he leads out with owning it.
He says he has written these things, these same things already, and will address them again as well. And he tells them it is no problem for him to do this, and in fact, it is for them, it is for their well-being and their good that they would continue to have to deal with their opponents and that men need to be told things twice.
Men need to be told things twice or three times. This matter of inculcation to impress upon through repetition has its roots in the importance of telling the reader what he's going to tell them, and then he tells them what he's going to tell them, and then he tells them what he told them.
Is that how they teach you in seminary? It may sound funny, but it's true. If you hear it, it's not just preachers, but speakers will do the same thing. Verse 2, beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of concision.
He describes these opponents with three very unfavorable words, and he leads with dogs. Now, we think of our dogs, if you have a dog, you're a dog owner, you think of Fufu or Rover or whatever, and you've got a warm fuzzy feeling about your dog, but that's not the way it was back then.
For the most part, even today in third world countries, dogs are seen in a different light. They're more dangerous, they're wild, they're filthy, they're scavengers, they're of little use, and in our texts they would be ritually unclean.
Instead, he's using the word such as his Jewish ancestors did in reference to who was referred to as dogs, the Gentiles, exactly. Except for here, Paul flips it. He flips the coin and refers to the Jews, false teachers most likely, more than likely Judaizers as dogs, to describe their sinful, their vicious actions.
But lest we deem Paul's words to be too harsh, who else describes someone as a dog in the New Testament? Do you remember our Lord described the Syrophoenician woman as such? And he does so both in Matthew's account as well as Mark's.
In Mark 7, he says, for a certain woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by nation, and she besought him that he would cast out the devil out of her daughter.
But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled, for it is not meat to take the children's bread and cast it unto the dogs. And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the children's crumbs.
And he said unto her, For this saying, go thy way. The devil is gone out of thy daughter. And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed.". So Paul goes on to say, call them evil workers.
Judaizers prided themselves on being workers of righteousness, and yet as they attempted to please God with their own works, they drew away from the finished work of the redemption through Jesus Christ.
He attributes the name of the wicked or evildoers to them. And lastly, he says concision, and here it's as if Paul is wanting to have a little bit of tongue-in-cheek with wordplay here. The Greek word used for concision is katatomi, and it means to cut downward, to mangle or mutilate, and it sounds much like the word peritone, which literally means to cut around.
So do you see a connection there? The King James reads, Beware of the concision, and verse 3 states who he is associated with, who Paul is associated with. He's associated with circumcision. The circumcision was ordained by the law of Moses and had a spiritual meaning, and it was meant to distinguish between Jew and Gentile.
Genesis 17 says, Then I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed and after thee and their generations for an everlasting covenant to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee. And he goes on to say, And this is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and thy seed and thee.
Every man child among you shall be circumcised and you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin and it shall take and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. And he that is a eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house or bought with money of any stranger which is not of thy seed.
But here in our text, as this spiritual meaning has been lost, the circumcision simply just means butchery, a cutting of flesh. They had no spiritual value and so Paul calls them butchers because after the coming of Christ they still taught that the outward circumcision of the flesh was necessary for salvation while at the same time they were removed from this true circumcision of the heart.
These false teachers with their Jewish instructions had so twisted the truth of the gospel that they became like Gentile unbelievers since they didn't appreciate the salvation is founded in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
They insisted on legal observance as a qualification for grace which was in total opposition to what Paul continued to preach. Romans 3 20 says, therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
And still they went on teaching that circumcision was necessary for salvation, again against what the Apostle of God wrote. Galatians 5 says Paul wrote, stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Behold I, Paul, say unto you that if you be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing. So this this isn't to say that if that if you were converted and you were circumcised that you were somehow disqualified from your salvation, but if he's saying if your salvation is based on the act of circumcision it's void and it's nothing more than mutilation.
The ESV, that's what the ESV calls it, is mutilation. And as if to stress the point Paul sort of enters into a game of but if. Verse 4, though I might also have confidence in the flesh if any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh I more.
So what Paul had to contend with is that these Judaizers were claiming a certain religious upper hand as their practices they taught were older than than that of Paul's rendition of the gospel. So then Paul takes the opportunity to point them to the picture of his background and its superiority and then to theirs and yet he tells them that as great as his may be it profited him nothing.
So he begins to form this list in verse 5 and 6 consisting of seven marks that in their eyes would have made for a good reason for confidence in the flesh. Granted four of them would be he personally didn't have anything to do with as as a child or yeah and yet the last three would be his personal accomplishments.
Verse 5 he says circumcised the eighth day obviously that was something done to him not something he chose. Circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin and Hebrew of the Hebrews as touching the law a Pharisee.
Circumcised the eighth day. So circumcision was a part of the Jewish rite. Male children had it performed on them on the eighth day of life for Paul. His family held firmly to this tradition and it being a sign of his Jewish purity and it's interesting as an aside I think our last two sons were circumcised.
We had a rabbi at the house and he shared this with us. He was a mohel which is someone who does circumcisions on Jewish boys and for the right price he'd do it on a Gentiles too as long as there was wine.
So anyway circumcised the eighth day it's performed on it okay so for Paul his family would firmly held to this tradition and it being a sign of his Jewish purity. Remember we just read in Genesis it was God himself who had instituted this eighth-day matter and yet other than that listing that he said so there's no other knowledge as to why then other than God said so which is always a good reason why but however some 50 years ago or so it was found out by scientists that on the eighth day after birth that the vitamin K level in the child is at its peak you know vitamin K was being God's blessing of a coagulant in the body that minimizes bleeding and promotes healing so you would almost think that the God who had institute the covenant also created the bodies that there would be carried out on that was that was free.
Secondly of the stock of Israel Paul was not some religious proselyte he was not some converted someone converted from another race or religion and he was a descendant of the Old Testament patriarchs and as such to him those like him belonged the privileges of birthright.
Romans 9 says who who are Israelites to whom pertain at the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the service of God and the promises whose are the father's and of whom are concerning the flesh Christ came who is overall God blessed forever.
Amen. So good stuff. And he was by birth considered a partaker of the tribe of Benjamin. So in addition to being of a stock of Israel he was of the tribe of Benjamin something he also wrote of into the to the church in Rome in chapter 11 where he says.
I say then got half God cast away his people God forbid for I am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin. So this too apparently was a very big deal with the Jews as Benjamin was a special son of Jacob and Rachel in fact when she died burying him Jacob rather than naming him been been only her been and I son of my sorry names and Benjamin which is son of my right hand the first king of Israel came from this tribe.
And there is also a good chance that the Apostle Paul was his namesake was the king who the first king of Israel who was so and lastly he was in Hebrew of the Hebrews he was a native speaking Hebrew. He was of a speaking Hebrew speaking family despite being raised in Tarsus.
His family was so committed to Jewish orthodoxy that he he was sent to Jerusalem to learn at the feet of the great rabbi Gamaliel who would thoroughly train him in the law. He adopted the lifestyle of a Pharisee a Jewish sect that as their name implies considered themselves separated ones.
Those who were committed to pure religion in order to maintain a relationship with God they strictly observe mosaic law as well as additional list of requirements. With all that it would be hard to imagine anyone else with such an impressive pedigree.
And yet verse 6 concerning zeal persecuting the church touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless zeal was a big deal. Zeal was counted one of the single highest most highest prized virtues of the religion to the Jew.
And it was compromise of two strong matters you had on the one side love and on the other side hate there was not gray and because love Judaism there only stands to reason that he hated Christ Church and so he would do whatever he could to come up against this threat that was was was completely against the Jewish religion and so he's not passive in his approach to this fledgling church but he pursued her with a vigor and and he he's there he consents to Stephen's death which had the effect of dispersing the church he decided to destroy by either causing them to blaspheme or to recant their faith or taking them captive for the imprisonment or death is what laid in their future which led of course to where he first at least as far as he knew encountered the Christ or the Lord as he answers him on that Damascus Road the one who would radically change his life next touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless.
The Pharisees at least as far as externals were concerned were far and away the most strict when it came to adherence to religious rules mostly rules of their own making and again their name said it all Pharisees meant separate a separated ones.
Did Paul actually believe he was blameless in his righteousness which is in the law before his conversion. It seems to be without a doubt it was only after his conversion that he came to the real realization that all his works were for not.
And rather than be blameless he was now the self-proclaimed chief of sinners. Rules in and of themselves can make for a matter of great deception in our Lord. In speaking to the rich young ruler found another one at who as far as he knew was not lacking in righteousness concerning the law.
But our Lord looking past the rules these commandments he that they had laid out before him rules which he knew this man had not kept looked instead at the man's heart issue the idol of his stuff. And the Lord saying this gave him instructions to reveal to the man is need he says sell all you have give to the poor follow me and instructing the man.
Thus Jesus was merely revealing to him how his rules how his self-righteousness had left him without life eternal. And receiving this understanding he leaves the Lord sorrowful weeping says for his he's weeping for his stuff his idols because they took first place in his life.
Verse seven. But what things were gained to me those I count of loss for Christ. Paul's response in comparison with the rich young ruler when confronted by the Lord with his condition was totally different.
Instead of receiving the Lord's assessment of his condition as a persecutor of God remember Saul saw why persecute us thou me. And rejecting it he instead asked what wilt thou have me to do. So then it begs the question did the Lord fail.
The first man did his presentation come up wanting obviously not and yet one of the two one and yet only one of them comes to salvation the soil of their hearts being the difference and the doctrine of limited atonement was confirmed.
And so for us we should not think that we have somehow failed when faithfully presenting the gospel and yet not seeing fruit of God alone being the increase coming from I guess some more of a independent fundamental Baptist Church background.
Or it would come up that you must not be doing it right if you if you share the gospel. If you faithfully share the gospel and there wasn't a positive return on the investment of your time then obviously you did something wrong and that'll mess with you.
But thankful that that's not the case. We are called to be faithful. We are called to share the gospel as the Spirit leads us. But we got to trust that God's gonna save you guys can save. Exodus 33 says he said I will make all my goodness pass before thee and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.
Paul believed he had done everything right up to the point and yet upon having the scales as it were fall from his eyes he now counts all the self-righteous acts of his life as lost for the cause of Christ.
And yet what we don't want to read into this is that he hated those things because they were wrong. He was who he was and he did what he did not out of a wrong motive or a vain glory. Instead he did what he did as best as he knew to the glory of God.
And so now when he comes when he says he counts them all loss it's not a loss of something that meant nothing to him. It was a loss that cost him everything up to that point all gone for Christ's sake.
Unless we miss it. Looking unless we miss it. Let's look at the next verse to see verse 8. Yea doubtless. And I count all things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but done that I may win Christ.
Something that stood out to me here was not only are all those things from his life before Christ in his loss column here he states he I count all things but loss but not just those prior things that he had achieved and accomplished along with his family ties along with his religious ties along with his status as a Pharisee but now his status as an apostle now as as a church planner as an epistle writer as an evangelist the freedom he had prior to and after this letter is written all his giftedness all he says for loss.
For what. For the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. I don't think I'm reading in into this either because if you look back at verse 7 he says those I counted loss past tense. But here he says what do we see.
He doesn't rest in the counting of loss of things past but he says here and I count so at now at this time all things lost present. That's right for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.
So he comes to a climax concerning loss moving from counted to count to suffer. I have suffered the loss of all things. It's all of of one together in the Greek and it means to experience to your detriment.
And again this isn't just academics this is this is real life. And if he had simply said that and it's just and just stop there we would see that it seemed like he's missing something. I think the ESV hits it with knowing.
Indeed I count everything as lost because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. He doesn't just know about Christ intellectually just like he didn't just count hit this loss as a piece of information to store.
Everyone knew about him about Christ but he he knew him experientially. He personally this is my Lord. Again in Exodus he says. Moses said unto the Lord see thou sayest unto me bring up this people. And thou hast not let me know whom thou will send me yet.
Thou hast said I know thee by name and thou hast also found grace in my sight now. Therefore I pray thee if I have found grace in thy sight show me now thy way that I may know thee that I may find grace in thy sight and consider that this nation is thy people.
God knew Moses. Moses desired to know God and know him more deeply and counted it all else but loss in light of Paul's personal knowledge of Christ. He says that he says I counted it all garbage. I counted it all done that that's that's of no comparison at all even something to be despised.
And with all that all this talk of loss what purpose is there in it. But to win or to gain Christ whom to have his life eternal. So do you remember the words of our Lord in regards to this profit and loss.
Ledger Jesus said of Matthew. Then Jesus said it to his disciples. If any man will come after me let him deny himself take up his cross and follow me. For he that will save his life shall lose it. He that shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.
For what doth it profit a man if he gained the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul. Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul. Paul understood the matter of profit and loss. He had his P &L columns there and and he wanted his readers to do the same to know the same verse 9.
He says. And be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the law but that which is through the faith of Christ. The righteousness which is of God by faith. Paul is done with his own righteousness as now he is in Christ found in him.
And he is there not by means of anything apart from Christ including any self-righteous deeds of the law. He is there by righteousness by faith through Christ. He fully realizes that this union with Christ is only possible because God imputed Christ's righteousness to him.
He he has declared him a righteous he has is a legal transaction. And he has imputed this righteousness of Christ to him. The power and message of the gospel are his only confidence now Romans 1 16. For I am ashamed not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
For it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone that believe it to the Jew first and also to the to the Greek. For therein is a righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written the just shall live by faith.
We as the body of Christ and sovereign grace family church must fully believe that it's not words or deeds nor self-righteousness or religion but it is a yielding by faith that's not of our own to an irresistible call from one who died in our place that we might have an alien righteousness imputed to us that was not of our own to save us from sins that were all our own to the glory of one by whom we are owned.
Only then will we like Paul be able to say with assurance of verse 10 and 11 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death.
If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Paul's not in a state of salvific doubt. This is if the justified the justification he now enjoys is a is a righteousness which is of God by faith.
And since it is by what Christ has done and he has nothing to do with it in his works then they are complete. It's final. He can't add to it. He can't take away from it any more than he could take away from Christ's resurrection.
No Paul knows his Lord. He just wants to know him more. And that should be each of our desires. He wants his fellowship to be deeper and sweeter. In reading verse 10 it seemed a bit odd to me at kind of out of order as it were that he says that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death.
And you would think that death would precede resurrection. But that's not what what he's saying because he is leading us to understand a central element in the Christian experience that it is as we live in Christ our risen Savior that he leads us on to the fellowship of sharing his sufferings.
Paul must have known God wasn't through with him yet and so he confesses he wants to know more of his life transforming God verse 11. And we'll close if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Paul desires a transforming that he understands in whatever shape that takes will lead him to a glorification that he looks forward to a resurrection in that day from the dead when he will experience despite all the imperfections and weaknesses his salvation in its fullest in its final form.
Brother Dan would you close us in prayer. Yes.
We already so easily by God as a correctness your mercy and kindness on us preaching he speaks on those things that you thank you for Jesus.