The Righteousness Man Needs Doesn't Come From Himself

God Centered Theology

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Today, we want to talk about the fact that the righteousness that man needs can't be found in himself.

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So the righteousness that Andy needs, Ronnie needs, Mary needs, Russell, go all around the room here, name off everybody's name, the righteousness that we need to stand before God justified and righteous and clean and holy to enter his kingdom can't be found in ourselves and the

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Apostle Paul himself makes that abundantly clear in this chapter, chapter that righteousness comes through Christ and not through selves.

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Notice in verse one, he says, finally, my brothers rejoice in the Lord to write the same things again is no trouble to me and it is a safeguard for you.

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Now this is just a simple statement. He's just simply, this is, this is the sort of thing we would say, you know, if I'm having to repeat some level of instruction or something to someone, it doesn't mean that we're, he's thinking that they never heard it before or that they necessarily need to hear it.

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He undoubtedly has wrote about some of these things to them before in other letters that probably weren't, obviously were not included in inspired scripture and so now as he's writing this letter to the

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Philippians, he's saying, look, to write the same thing, see what he's saying here is I've wrote some of these things to you before and there's no trouble to him because it's a safeguard.

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And this word safeguard literally means not to trip.

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So if you think about like a minefield or if you're going through some, you know, think about if you were in this room by yourself, right?

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And not just the lights being cut off, but there were mechanisms to hide light from the outside.

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I mean, it was, I'm talking pitch black, can't see your hand in front of your face dark.

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And then you were told to walk from this side to the other side. Chances are you're going to trip over something because there's going to be things in your way you were not aware of and things you were not ready for.

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Safeguards, the safeguard of scripture helps us navigate life and helps us walk and live without having to worry about anything like a table or a chair or anything you could potentially trip over because scripture becomes the light that illuminates those things for us.

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And so that's what he's saying, to write these things, to teach you these things, to make known these things to you, become safeguard for you.

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And so he has a summary statement here, sort of, he's looking at everything he's written in chapter one and two.

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And this is sort of like his summary stamp of saying, look, I'm about to get into some heavy stuff here.

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This might not sit well, especially with the Judaizers. Ain't going to sit well, some of you.

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So I'm just going to go ahead and kind of ease into it because he goes right on into verse two and he says, beware of the dogs.

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Like, I really hope he's not talking about me. Now, whole sermons for other days, but just in summary fashion,

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Psalm 22, 16 references the psalmist references that he's out in the wilderness surrounded by dogs.

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These were not your cute little Jack Russell's or a little poodle or a cute little pug dog that can barely breathe, but they're really cute and you want to pet them and love them and their little household domesticated pets.

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These were wild scavenger dogs. These were dogs that were not domesticated.

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They would eat you in a heartbeat. They were on the same level of like, you think of like,

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I think we had a raccoon or something getting to our trash can out back like a week or two ago and it's tore up bags.

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I mean, these were destructive animals. They were mean animals. They did not trust people or anything like that.

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And so for him to say this, they knew what he was talking about. But furthermore, to call someone a dog in this day,

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I'm sure you could think of a modern day equivalent, but it'd be like calling somebody something today that if you use a certain term to call them this, they'd know you're not telling them that you like them.

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You're telling them that they're bad and horrible and I don't want to be around you and all this, that and the other.

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So I actually have a really good note here in the

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ESV study Bible, which I use for just for study and different things.

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But they had a really good note here and since it was so good, I didn't want to just kind of paraphrase it.

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I want to read it as it is. In reference to this term of beware of the dogs, it says dogs was not only a general term of derision in the ancient world.

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It was particularly a word used by some Jews in reference to Gentiles.

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So if you think about all that's going on in the New Testament, and we've dealt with this in Sunday school.

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Talk about the law breaking down the dividing wall. In Christ, there's no Jew. There's no

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Gentile. There's no ethnic divisions. There's none of this. You're all one in Christ. Jews had a huge issue of hatred in their hearts for Gentiles because they've always been told, you know, they're pagans.

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They don't have the law. They don't have this. They don't have that. So they were called dogs, unclean dogs.

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But notice they were considered, these Gentiles that Jews would call dogs because they were considered ritually unclean.

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They didn't have the law. They didn't have the ceremonies. They didn't have all these things that they could do like they did in Judaism to make themselves ritually clean, like circumcision, like animal sacrifices, all these things, that and the other.

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So with biting irony, and yes, pun intended, biting irony,

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Paul says that the Judaizers, not the Gentiles, deserve that label.

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That's the irony here. And he says, beware of the dogs. He's telling these

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Philippian believers to beware, not of Gentiles, but to beware of the

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Judaizers. These Judaizers that were telling you, you must be circumcised.

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You must follow the law to be saved. We saw this in our Sunday school a couple weeks back. Remember when we looked at Acts 15 and it said that some men came down and they were trying to, they said, you must be circumcised according to the law of Moses.

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You're not saved. This was a huge issue in the early church, a group they had to deal with a lot.

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And in this context and in this situation, when he's writing to these Philippian believers, this was a group he was having to deal with.

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And he says, beware of the dogs. So the irony here is he's using this term of derision that was normally aimed at Gentiles, and he's turning around and aiming it right back at these

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Judaizers, these Jewish people. And he says, or with, with biting irony,

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Paul says that the Judaizers, not the Gentiles deserve that label. Paul's irony continues as he labels those who extol good works of the law as evildoers.

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So you'll notice here, he says, beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers.

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So he attaches to these Judaizers, not just that they're dogs, but they're also evil workers.

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And think about this, how, how mean is it to say to someone, to their face, you are a literally a worker of evil?

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I would hope it would not say like to somebody, unless we actually meant to. Not just that you meant it,

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I mean, sincerity can be misplaced. Actually had good evidence and reason to say so. You don't want to just throw around this reason.

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We shouldn't be, you shouldn't go around calling people names or being mean because you shouldn't do these things.

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He attaches this and he's not doing this in a sinful way. He's calling them out because of their, their false doctrine and false teaching that they're actually workers of evil.

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By telling these Philippian believers, you've got to be circumcised. You got to follow the law.

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You got to keep law or you're not saved. He says, beware of the mutilation. So these were not only those that would extol good works of law, he called them evildoers, but also those who mutilate the flesh.

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Now we're not going to get too deep in the weeds on this, but there's two different words that are used here.

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Okay. In verse two, he says, beware of the mutilation.

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It's a word catatonin in Greek. It literally means mutilation or false cutting or cutting for no purpose.

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It's, it's a, it's a, it's a mutilated mutilating of the flesh for no reason.

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And then right there. Um, now the legacy standard used the word mutilation, but a lot of translations in this verse will say, beware of the false circumcision.

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I think the, I think the King James, new King James, I think even the ESV might do this and say, beware of the evil, evil workers.

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Beware of the false circumcision. Because what the translators they are doing is supplying some of the interpretive meaning in their translation.

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The word just literally means mutilation, but mutilation in the sense that it's false circumcision.

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You turn right around in verse three, notice he says for we, meaning we as believers are the circumcision, the

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Greek word paratome. Now that Greek word that he uses is translated for.

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We are the circumcision in verse three is the word that they used when they were talking about the actual official circumcision, like what was instructed.

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I believe it's Vic is 12 three. We would talk about how a newborn boy at age,

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I think it's eight days old would go and have his flesh circumcised. That's what he's talking about.

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Verse three says we are the circumcision, not those that are working evil and see these

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Judaizers would say, you've got to be circumcised, you know, and they'd go and circumcise themselves because we're circumcised.

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We follow the law. So Paul's not saying that they cut themselves in some fashion different than what you would do in circumcision.

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They did the same thing. But what Paul is saying here is that they're out there running around getting circumcised saying they're somehow good with God.

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He says what they've done to themselves is no different and no better than they just mutilated themselves.

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So in a. It comes across a little harsh, a little prude, little kind of maybe a little too direct in a sense.

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What Paul's essentially saying here is you think because you went and got circumcised, you're somehow good with God.

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You've been better off if you had to just cut certain things off altogether.

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If you catch my drift, it's always basically saying because it does nothing for you.

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You think because you're circumcised because you this, that, no, you've been better off just mutilating yourselves fully than trying to go around, pretend like you're of God's household because you did that.

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He says no, because we are the circumcision. Notice the deeper contrast here, not because they're physically circumcised.

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But he says, because we worship in the spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.

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So it's a play on words. So this last phrase, when he says mutilation, he's playing on words is you think it's your badge.

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You think it's a badge of pride. You think it's something to be held up. He says, but it's a sign of your destruction.

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Any person that ever thinks they'll stand before God with any level of works or self righteousness as a badge of honor or pride to say, look at what

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I've done. It ends up being a sign of your own destruction. It's meaningless.

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And so now he has set up what is coming. By using this example, because it's going to show in just a minute that just as circumcision is completely useless to you, if you think that's your justification, so is anything else that is that you have or are that you think justifies you before God.

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Because if you remember, I'll say in passing real quickly, we actually have, it's very interesting that a lot of Sunday school lessons are going in concert with what we're looking at here in Philippians because we had a lesson a couple of weeks ago where we looked at Romans 2 and the same writer of Romans is the writer here.

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It's Paul. And he talked to Romans 2 about how the true circumcision is a circumcision of the heart.

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It's the same Paul that wrote 2 Corinthians 5 when he says you're a new creation in Christ. All the

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Pauline letters are consistent in that what man needs is a change of heart.

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He needs a new heart. He needs to be raised to spiritual life. And so now to show that righteousness, the righteousness that man needs can't be found himself, he makes this point about how dogs are unclean and so are these false teachers.

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And then he moves on to verse 4 and he's going to show here if anyone, if any person have achieved salvation by self -effort, it would have been

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Paul. It wouldn't have been me. It wouldn't have been you. It would have been

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Paul. Our Sunday school lesson referenced this at one point a couple weeks back too.

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It talked about how if work salvation were possible, the law or Christ dying would be unnecessary.

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We dealt with this when the Sunday school lesson looked at Galatians 2 and 3. And I think it was in Galatians 3 specifically where it said, you know, if the law can save, will

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Christ die needlessly? What's the point of having a sacrifice die for you to do what you can't do if you can do it on your own?

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So no matter how good you think you are or how good someone out there thinks they are, nobody in terms of religion and ritual and God fears and follow the law, no one that's ever lived would have stacked up to what

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Paul did in the eyes of the beholder, in the eyes of other people. But even

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Paul's going to say it's worthless. So notice here, and we're going to move through these quickly.

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There's seven things here. We're not going to spend a whole lot of time. It's going to be sort of rapid fire here. But I want you to know some things.

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Salvation, he deals with first, salvation is not certain things.

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And he uses his own example to show what salvation is not. Notice number one, salvation is not a ritual.

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Salvation is not a ritual, hence being circumcised on the eighth day.

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Notice verse four. He says, although I, Paul myself, might have confidence in the flesh, he didn't say that he did because he's already established the true worshipers of God don't put confidence in the flesh.

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He said what he's saying here is he's putting out a hypothetical. Although if it were possible,

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I might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh,

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I far more. So he's saying it directly to them. No matter how much you think you're good, no matter how much you think your works could save you,

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I've done far more than you have. And I'm about to tell you, my works are nothing. Verse five, circumcised the eighth day.

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Circumcised the eighth day. He followed the ritual. He followed the law. He was supposed to be circumcised the eighth day.

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He did, but salvation is not a ritual. Leviticus 12, three, getting circumcised on the eighth day doesn't save you.

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Number two, salvation is not by race or ethnicity. Notice verse five of the nation of Israel.

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He was a physical descendant of Abraham, a physical descendant.

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He wasn't just that he was a spiritual descendant because we've dealt with this, that true

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Israel is spiritual Israel. The true people of God are those that have been raised to life in Christ.

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He was a physical descendant of Abraham. Salvation is also not by rank or class.

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Notice here, he says circumcised the eighth day, nation of Israel. He was of the tribe of Benjamin.

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And the tribe of Benjamin was a very prominent tribe in the

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Jewish community. And when you study about this time and place here, many of the

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Jews living in this day didn't even know what tribe they were a part of. They didn't have a way of tracing it to know, was

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I of the tribe of Benjamin? Was I of this tribe? Many of them didn't know. So for Paul to just to even know what tribe he had physically descended from, made him a little bit more important.

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But then on top of that, he's of the tribe of Benjamin, one of the more prominent tribes.

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So he's doubly cool, right? Oh, he's doubly important for sure.

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No, it's not that. It's also salvation is not by tradition or strict adherence.

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Notice he says in verse five, the next phrase, I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews. He strictly maintained his

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Jewish law following heritage without deviating.

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So, you know, we think about, you know, kids that grow up and, you know, maybe a rebellious teenager, or maybe they get to a point in life where they kind of run away from God and come back.

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He said, no, I never deviated. I never ran away. I stuck to it the whole time.

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But it's not that either. It's also not by religion. He says as to the law of Pharisee.

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Well, that was a supreme devotion to religion. If there ever was one of these Pharisees for sure.

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It's not religion. It's not titles. He said, I was Pharisee. I had the title. I was great.

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No, it's not by sincerity. Notice he says, as to zeal,

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I was a persecutor of the church. Why is zeal and sincerity not necessarily a means of salvation?

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Because honest zeal and sincerity can be misplaced. If being zealous for God was the key, well, then

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Paul wins. Nobody was more zealous than that man, but he was zealous for the wrong reasons. He was zealous in persecuting the church.

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And thus he goes from the great persecutor and he becomes the great persecuted for Christ.

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So he goes from persecuting the people of Christ to getting persecuted for Christ. Oh, what a change that was.

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And then also we see it's not legalism or fundamentalism. As to the righteousness, which is in the law found blameless.

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Now we already know this, but we must point it out in passing. Paul's not saying that there's righteousness to be found in the law.

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It's another sort of play on words here. He's saying almost like he's holding up his fingers doing the quotation marks.

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As to the righteousness, which is found in the law, which we know there is none, but it's according to everybody else.

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I'm blameless. I got it together. I'm doing everything I'm supposed to. As far as everybody else is concerned,

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I'm perfectly righteous and great and good and doing everything I'm supposed to be doing. Nope, doesn't save you.

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Because false religion and false self -righteousness deceives the mind of the person pursuing it.

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Have you ever wondered why people that are so far gone into sin, so far gone into evil and unrighteousness, you think about someone that may end up being like a serial killer or just,

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I mean, just evil people. You ever wonder why they don't start out that way? What do we say about serial killers?

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You watch them when they're children, right? Well, it's one of the typical things we look for. They're hurt animals or they'll do these things.

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There's signs you look for and that's usually an indicator of what's not here, but what's coming.

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Sin, false religion, a false sense of self -righteousness, which is focused on yourself, deceives the mind over time.

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Because the person pursuing this is warped in their thinking and it builds over time and grows.

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See, we have to grow in righteousness and Christ's likeness. The lost person, the sinful person, doesn't start out as sinful as they possibly could be.

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They grow in that too. They mature in their ability to sin. Being lost isn't a default position that's neutral.

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It's active in its pursuit of sin. Just like the one who's been saved is going to be active in their pursuit of Christ.

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And so what we have here at the end of verse, excuse me, at the end of verse six is an accounting equation.

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If you picture in your mind, you know, the line and you got the two tables, one is gain, one is loss.

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Paul said at one time in my life when I was doing my accounting, I looked at being circumcised of the nation of Israel, physical descendant, being a

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Hebrew of Hebrews, tribe of Benjamin, as to zeal, persecutor of the church, as to the law, the righteousness which is found in the law, blameless.

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Look at all of those things as being in my gain column. I'm going to stand before God and I'm going to be in front of the line in front of everybody else because I'm this and this and this and this and this and they're not.

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I am, I'm cool. But then he turns the corner, doesn't he?

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Verse seven, but whatever things were past tense were gained to me, those things

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I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

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So now the whole equation is flipped. The loss column, circumcised on the eighth day, physical descendant of Abraham, Hebrew of Hebrews, tribe of Benjamin, persecutor of the church, blameless.

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All of its loss, meaningless, does nothing for me. And in the gain column stands one word,

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Christ. All counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

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So now we looked at what salvation is not. Now to end this message, we want to look at, okay, well,

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Paul's now said that these things were lost. So the question we're going to answer is what is more valuable?

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What is more valuable than self -righteousness? And we're going to find that Christ is far superior and far more valuable than any level of self -righteousness.

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So now let's notice what he says. Verse eight, the first thing we see, what is more valuable than self -righteousness?

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Knowing Christ. He says in verse eight, more than that, I count all things to be lost because or in light of the surpassing value of knowing

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Christ Jesus, my Lord. You don't have to turn there, but I'll turn,

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I'll read it for you. But in Jeremiah chapter nine, verses 23 and 24, it says, thus says

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Yahweh, let not a wise man boast in his wisdom. How appropriate to go along with what we're looking at here.

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Let not the actual wise man, the one who thinks he's wise may boast in his wisdom, but the actual wise man does not boast in his own wisdom.

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And let not the mighty man boast in his might. Meaning if you have might, whether it's military might or whatever, let you not boast in your might.

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Let not a rich man boast in his riches. Notice the similarity here, what

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Paul was, what he thought was good. Don't, wisdom, riches, no.

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But let him who boasts, boast in this, that he understands and knows me,

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God, that I am Yahweh, who shows loving kindness, justice, and righteousness on the earth.

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For I delight in these things, declares Yahweh. Why do you think the book of Proverbs, I think it's chapter one, verse seven, says the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the

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Lord. Do you ever stop and meditate over that and really think about that? I mean, really think about it.

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You know, we don't have time for this. I'm not going to get into it, but I could do a whole discussion on, we just read the

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Bible and don't actually think about what it's saying. The Bible, God did not inspire these words to be written by all these different authors just to say pithy things or have something interesting to say.

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There is meaning and reason behind it. Why is it that the true wisdom begins with the fear of the

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Lord? Jeremiah just answered it for us because man thinks himself so wise and so great and so rich in what he can produce.

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And God said, it's nothing because any wisdom you have, any might you might have, or any riches you might have still came from stuff that you had to rely on a creator to make so that you can have it.

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That's why the beginning of wisdom is a recognition, as Jeremiah said, who God is and what he provides, loving kindness, justice, righteousness, the very breath in your bones.

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And that's what Paul's saying here in Philippians 3, 8, that what's more valuable than all that is knowing

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Christ. This is more than just intellectual facts or knowledge of who

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Christ is. It's knowing that he's the Messiah, that he's the Lord and master of all things.

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It's having a personal relationship with him where we obey him and get to know him.

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But also what is more valuable than self -righteousness? To be found in him. Notice he says,

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The surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus is my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish, so that I may gain

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Christ and be found in him. Meaning I am united with Christ, my identity is in Christ.

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I'm, as Romans 6 says, I've been baptized or immersed into Christ. What is more valuable?

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Having God's righteousness, which is through faith. Notice he says, Found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, which is from the law, which we've already established as can't happen, but that which is through faith in Christ.

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Notice this. The righteousness which is from God or comes from God on the basis or upon faith is far more valuable to have the righteousness that comes from God than to have your own righteousness.

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Because your own righteousness is nothing. Why? Well, because the only actual, real, true, legitimate righteousness that exists anywhere in this universe is

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God's righteousness to begin with. That's why it says all your self -righteousness, your works are fantasy, fairy tale.

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It will not justify you before God. That's why it's more valuable to have

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God's righteousness. Also, it's more valuable to have to know the power of his resurrection, which is the hope of every believer.

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Notice in verse 10, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection.

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Resurrection is something that in their day that seemed fanciful or made up.

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But the resurrection of the body is the great hope of the Christian. Notice lastly, what is more valuable to self -righteousness?

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In verse 10, we also see that to participate or have fellowship in the sufferings of Christ.

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He says that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death.

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Nobody likes to suffer. Nobody enjoys suffering.

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I don't. I really hope you don't because it doesn't feel good. We have a name for things like that when you enjoy suffering and it's usually involved with sexual perversion.

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It's not a good thing. It's sinful. It's perversion. You shouldn't enjoy it to inflict it or have it afflicted upon you because it's unnatural.

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However, that's a whole different set of circumstances from the suffering we talk about in suffering for Christ.

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All God's people that love him and serve him can expect to suffer for him.

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And when we suffer like Christ and for Christ, this verse is telling us that it's actually an assurance to us that we belong to him.

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Because notice he says that I may know him, the power of his resurrection, and in knowing him and the power of his resurrection, we will participate in his sufferings because it is conforming us to his death or conforming us to Christ's likeness.

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So if you serve God and obey God or live for God and you suffer because of it, don't, in the other scripture like James deals with this, the fiery trials, don't think it's something that's crazy or foreign.

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So when suffering comes because of your life for Christ, don't look at it as something foreign or wrong or like in some of the false teaching that, you know,

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God only wants you to be healthy and rich and happy and nothing every bad will happen to you. If that's the case, why does

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Paul talk about participating in the sufferings of Christ? It's because you're going to. And when it happens, you can know, hey,

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I belong to God. I'm one of God's children because otherwise I wouldn't be suffering than living for him.

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It's an assurance. It's an evidence that we belong to him and that we are and have the hope of his resurrection because we're participating in his sufferings.

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And yes, that is more valuable than doing it on your own, having some level of self -righteousness in order that I may attain to the resurrection of the dead.

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So when you stand before God, will you boast in your own self -righteousness, which will gain you nothing and lose you everything.

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Or will you, as Paul does, boast in Christ and stand justified by faith, having given up all your works to gain everything by Christ.

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The only righteousness that can save a man doesn't come from himself, but from the