Through Faith in Christ, Philippians, 3:7-9
Philippians 3:7-9 · Vern Peterman · Sep 21, 2003
Philippians (2003), No. 32
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4826225975037

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

I'm really glad to be with you this morning. And some of you might know what I mean by this. We're just itching to get back into the study here. That's a little reference to my bout with poison oak while I was gone here. Anyway, the poison oaky has left me, so we'll get on with our study here.

We're into Philippians 3, 7 through 9, as Doug read for us. And as we look at this passage here, We just want to kind of keep in context, what's he been telling them? And as we look at this, remember, this is a part of Paul's warning. He had, in the first couple of chapters, covered some subjects he was talking about. In the beginning of chapter 3, he turns a corner. And as he's doing that, he begins telling them, here's a warning that I have for you. And we've noticed that some of the word patterns change. One of the things is this, out of this charis family of words, this family of words that speaks of grace. That family of words suddenly, after the first verse, just kind of disappears in chapter 3, because he's touching on other subjects. He'll return to it again in chapter 4.

So what we'll see here, he begins with, rejoice in the Lord always, in verse 1, and then he leaves that subject of rejoicing, which he's brought up so frequently before, and will return to, but right now he's got another subject to talk to him about, From Philippians 3.2 to the passage we're looking at this morning in 7-9, Paul is writing about the comparative value of things.

All right, what's more valuable, this or this? And the truth is we make those kind of judgments all the time, don't we? We make a judgment of, this is more valuable than this. As a matter of fact, we'll say, that's worthless. This is of great value. How many of you have ever had a fire in your house? Ever had that? We had that happen when I was a kid.

Fortunately we weren't in the house. But one of the things that firemen and others will tell you is don't go and grab for a bunch of things as you're leaving the house. Just get out. Especially don't grab for the trash. Because one of the things you do is you determine what's really important and one of the things you're deciding at that moment is what's really important is to get me out of here. You don't grab for the trash.

And so Paul makes that kind of comparison here. He's saying, this is something I'm not going to grab for. Now, he's making a value judgment, and we'll want to keep that in mind here. He will make a value judgment that's going to let us know his perspective on what's really important and what isn't very important, and what's comparatively worthless.

You remember when we talked last time, this was a few weeks back now, Paul listed his seven human credentials. He says, boy, am I qualified, okay? If there's anybody that can brag about anything, I've got them. So he puts down, he says, I was circumcised the eighth day, I was of the nation of Israel, I was of the tribe of Benjamin, the very select tribe with special qualifications, a Hebrew of Hebrews, the very epitome of what makes one a Hebrew, the top of the heap.

As to the law of Pharisee, famous for holding to the law. and coming up with extra rules to go along with it. And to zeal a persecutor of the church. If it isn't the law, they shouldn't live. And finally, as to the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless. All the other Pharisees were impressed, because I had those qualifications. Notice, we looked at it, the last time we were looking at it, there were kind of two groupings.

The first four were the credentials that he was born into, either his own birthing into or the way he was raised. The next set of credentials were things that Paul did by his own will and effort. These are the things that I did because I'm good. That's what Paul is saying. He says, I had it. All the right upbringing, all the right background, and I did all the right stuff. I had it all. One of the issues that Paul addresses here, and it's really important for us to take a look at, is this issue of, you know, when I look at myself, what do I see? That's what Paul's doing here. He says, when I look at myself in the mirror, and not just what do I see in a physical mirror, but in the mirror of what's behind the surface, when I look at myself, what do I see?

And, you know, it's interesting, in recent decades, this has become a big issue among us human beings, especially in our culture. is, what's my self-image? Do I have a good self-image or a bad self-image? And it's become a major consideration in people's minds and thinking. There are, along with that then, some very important questions that Paul's bringing up with this passage. Think about this for a minute. Before Paul was a believer, did he have a good self-image?

Does he have a good self-image? Good question. Is it more biblical for a person to have a good self-image or a bad self-image? If you go to a Christian counselor, are they going to counsel you towards having a good self-image or a bad self-image? What are they going to do? What image really matters eternally? What does God intend that our self-image should be like?

Those are some important questions. You know what we're going to do? We're not going to answer them yet, okay? We'll get to them, okay? First, what we want to do is we want to look at the passage, and here's what we're going to do. We're going to break up the things that Paul says here into three categories. The first category, and the ones I've begun to highlight in red here, are the things that he had.

The things that he says, hey, I've been born into the right group and raised the right way and I have the right background and I did it all just right. I did all the right things on top of having the right background and the right upbringing and the right lineage and I had it all.

All those things are the things that he puts here in red. And a couple of times he just says all things. That's how he summarizes it. All those things. So he puts those, as we have here in the red, he puts those on the list of, this is all the things that I have as my human qualifications.

I've got it, and here it is. The next thing, the things that we've highlighted in blue here, he says, this is my judgment of it. This is how I now consider it. After I look at that and make a comparison, this is how I see it. And so those in blue, he's done that, and those that are in black then, and I'm going to underscore them to make them a little easier to stand out, that's what he's comparing them to.

He says, here's the old stuff, here's how I value it, compared to this new thing, compared to, for the sake of Christ, compared to knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, compared to gaining Christ. He makes the judgment of its value compared to the new. And that's the substance of the passage here. He's got the old, the comparison, and the new things.

And so we're going to take a deeper look at each one of those to gain some insight. One of the ways we're going to do that, as we typically do, and I've underscored it here, I think, in your handout, so you can track with me. There are certain words that Paul has used here that I think are valuable for us to take a look at and to take a deeper look at so that we understand them. And one of the things you're going to notice is that a few of those words are used more than once, sometimes even three times in this passage. So when we look at it and gain the insight from it, we'll gain two or three insights.

That's a lot of leverage. Okay, so that's what we'll do, one word at a time, and you have each one of the words also in your handout. The first one is gain. KERDAS. And basically this is a monetary term. This is a financial term. And he says, and this is how I measure things, there's this word gain.

Now, it's actually used in Titus 1.11 in a negative sense, but the only, aside from that Titus passage, the only place that this word is used here is here in Philippians, aside from that. He used the same word before in 1.21 where he wrote, for me to live is Christ, to die is gain. Same place where he's used that word previously with the church at Philippi. Now, the flip side of that is the loss, okay?

So here he's making a comparison between those two. Zemia, okay? Now, if you have an accident, small little fender bender, you can get out in front of the car and talk with the other driver and just tell them, ah, it's Zemia. They'll understand you. Yeah, okay.

But that's what he does, and he uses this word to describe this loss Paul used this word once before in Acts 27.10 to describe the total loss of the ship and the lives in the cargo. And this is a loss at sea. And he's telling them, this is all headed for loss, and he uses that same word. It's a financial loss. Just write it off. Again, he's using financial terms. Each of those terms is a term that was used in Paul's day. And he draws upon that word to give people a sense of, here's the value of it. Now, next word, surpassing value. King James Version has this excellency. Hooper Echo. Now, you have been here before. Notice that this is where we do this, right? And we go, and before you say, Vern, what are you doing? Remember this. It's that little thing here.

That gives it an H sound. Hooper Echo. It's a compound word like Paul is prone to use. And this is the idea of it's a value over and above. This who pair is where we get our word hyper. It's like over. The idea is it's expressing a superlative here. It's so much above, it can't even be fairly compared to what was before. The difference is so vast. It's beyond compare. It's the way we might say it in common vernacular.

So he's getting this point across surpassing value, not just, okay, you've got this and it's a little bit better. No, the scales are just lopsided. That's the point he's making here. The next word, and he actually uses this word three times, is this word that comes across counted, and this one is hegeomai. We've looked at this word before. He's used it before, and he uses it in this passage here, and this is the last time he's going to use it with Philippians, but it's very interesting. He uses it with the Philippians as if they know what it means.

They've got a good idea what it means, and the reason they know what it means, it relates to judgment, estimation, or appraisal. Frequently has to do with an official would make a judgment or decision on something. And they knew it well because Philippi was a Roman colony, and they had officials readily available there that were representing the Roman government, and they would do this, hegeomai, they would make a judgment. So he'd say, imagine, here's Paul writing, he says, I'll use a word they'll understand really well.

So that's what he did, and he used it twice here in this passage. What he's doing is he's saying, here's a conclusion I've reached about what's valuable, and I've not made it arbitrarily, we didn't just flip a coin I've made a decision about what is valuable after careful consideration, judgment including the gravity and seriousness of what's being weighed.

Now, one of the things you see, here's the places that shows up. You have this also in your handout there. For those of you who are joining us maybe for the first time, this is to indicate what page on your handout it's located, keep you oriented a little better.

The idea being there is it's not only as he's saying, I've counted, I've made this estimation, but there are some verb, how do I describe them, verb characteristics that come out here. The first one there, I have counted, is a perfect middle indicative.

Perfect tense, remember, is it is a past action completed with ongoing results into the future. A completed past action, ongoing results into the future. So what does that mean here? It means that I have counted and it's still going on, but he has made a decision and it's final. I've made this value judgment and I've completed doing it, it's done, and it continues to have consequences even now. And those consequences will go on into the future.

It's a middle. He says he makes his own judgment, it's indicative, it's a statement of fact. The second two uses of count are similar except that they're present tense. They're right now ongoing. And so there's a distinction here in this. What he's telling us by indicating this is at one point in time he made a decision as to what was valuable and important and he is staying with that decision.

He continues to carry on that value. He's not fluctuating. He's not going back and forth. He's not changing his mind. He has made that decision, that decision is permanent, and he continues to have that perspective. You see that? And it's a statement of fact, and he says it's ongoing. So he's very emphatic about how he says this. Here's another key word.

Rubbish, as we see it, or the King James has dung. Scubalan. And by the way, this is the only place in the New Testament this word's used. It's a rare word in the New Testament, so you're going to see it in the only place here. This word is thought, and the reason I put it that way is because there are scholars who debate it, but just so you know what the debate's about. Some see it as a compound word of kouan. Remember we looked at that word kouan before?

It means a disgusting pack of mangy, roaming dogs that would go around town, ownerless. That word and balo, our word for ball, comes from this Greek word, throw. So the idea is dog throwings. Dog throwings, wild dog throwings, the kind of stuff you check out for the wild dogs, you don't even want to give it to your pet. That's the idea.

Now, this word is used in other secular writings of the time to describe, you know, they'd get the grain and the rest of the stuff left after they got the grain harvested. It's the rest of the junk, the chaff and the staff and everything. The things you throw from the table, table scraps. or animal parts left over you don't want to eat, or even of dung and sewage. That's why the King James translates it dung.

It's utter waste is the way we might think of it. He uses a word that the people in Philippi knew well. Why? This is the archaeological excavation. This was their public bathroom. and what did they have flowing that they had a system of sewage running from it. Everybody in Philippi used this and they knew what it was, and the stuff that flowed out of it was scubala. Sewage.

That's what Paul calls all those qualifications that he had before. I don't mean to be crude, just to make a point. The next word that we come to here is knowing. The knowledge is the King James. Gnosis. And the idea here is this refers to the personal knowledge of Christ and relationship with him. It is a knowledge that has this characteristic. It's a person who sees himself as beloved to the Lord and loves Christ in response to his love for us.

You see that? It's not, I know about the Lord, and here's three facts. That's the kind of word, and we'll see how that sews into the fabric of the rest of this passage here in a minute. One of the things to notice as you look at verses 7 through 9, it is a focal point of the comparison that he's making. He said, compared to knowing Christ, the rest of this stuff is... Anyway, we'll see that in a minute.

Now, righteousness is another word. He uses it twice here in the last part of this passage. Diakosene. The issue with this word isn't so much the Greek definition, okay? Sometimes that is real valuable. In this case, it's not so much the Greek definition. He makes the distinction here.

It's the source of the righteousness that matters, because he uses the same word righteousness for his own and for the Lord's righteousness, but the source is his focal point. Paul writes about not having the righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. That word translated but is the Greek word ala, which means in great contrast. And you'll find Paul frequently writes that way. The first part of Ephesians, he is telling believers, here is who you are in Christ. The last half, he is telling them, not this, but this. And he uses repeatedly this word.

Not this, but in sharp contrast, in great contrast, this other thing. That's what he's doing here. not the righteousness of my own derived from the law, which is skubalan, but instead that which is through faith in Christ. The righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. Not this, but in sharp contrast, this.

See that? So the key there is not some Greek definition for righteousness. He uses the same word, but the sharp contrast that he's making between the righteousness that you and I can cook up by conforming to some set of outside rules, and the righteousness which comes from the Lord Himself, because He is righteousness. See the difference? Okay. Let's look at another one here, faith. Pistis.

Now it's interesting, we have these different words in English, faith, belief, and trust, and we kind of use them with different shades of meaning. Most of the time, Greek is a language that's very specific. A number of us are familiar with the fact, for example, that there are different words in Greek for different kinds of love. This is a word, very interestingly, where we have different words in English, but just one in the Greek.

It has that idea. Righteousness does not come through generalized faith in just anything, and that's something I think is very important. Our culture has lost sight of that. We think that it's very good if somebody is sincere. The Lord doesn't care about sincerity. What he says is that faith must be specifically in Christ. He makes that clear in this passage and in others as well. Specifically in Christ. Christ has to be the object of our faith.

God isn't happy with people just being people of faith. You ever hear that term? People of faith? God says, that doesn't count. It's faith in Christ. Scripture is specific on that point. Something real interesting, 2 Thessalonians 2, 1-14 talks about the people during the tribulation period putting their faith in the Antichrist. Faith. Here is the point that I wish to make. All human beings have faith. We all put our faith in something. Have you ever heard it said that human beings are incurably religious? Ever heard that?

It is only faith in Christ that saves and only faith in Christ that grows the believer. That's why Paul is making this point. It is only by faith in Christ that His righteousness is counted as our own. In Philippians 3, 7-9, we have this expanded and explained.

But whatever things were in the past, backside, page two of your handout, if you want to follow along there. But whatever things were in the past entered in my personal ledger, remember this is a financial term he's using, right? Being valued as gain from my perspective, that is for Paul, that's being his Jewish lineage, heritage, and accomplishments as measured by Mosaic law and the tradition of the Pharisees. Those things I have now, after careful consideration, completely valued and entered in my personal ledger as a total loss for the sake of Christ. Total loss. Write it off. Forget it. That's verse 7. Verse 8.

Beyond that, I have a perspective such that I now continually count all things to be entered in my personal ledger as a loss in view of realizing the surpassing value above all present and former things of the personal knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things I once valued as gains. in my personal ledger, and now continue to count them in value only a totally worthless waste on the basis that I have in the past gained Christ."

He says, everything that I counted as so valuable, important, and defining me as righteous is now no better than street sweepings. Now in verse 9, not then or now having a righteousness of my own self-efforts, which has been achieved by keeping the Mosaic Law and human traditions added to it by the Pharisees, but in sharp contrast, that righteousness which is completely through faith, trust and confidence in the person and work of Christ, that is the very eternally established measure of absolute righteousness, which is Christ himself, which comes from God only on the basis of faith in Christ.

I think that's an important point to make here this morning. That if you happen to be here and you're not quite convinced that your faith is in Christ, that this is an issue you need to deal with. Paul makes it very clear. It is not our standing before the Lord someday and saying, eh, when it all balances out, I think we'll have more good than bad. That's not going to cut it. It is only the righteousness of Christ on the basis of faith in Him that will count. Pure and simple. Now, we've come back to the questions.

Before we get there, though, there's a friend of mine who is a crime investigator for the state of California. It's real interesting, he has a job digging up all the dirty details on various crimes. One of the things he said, of course, he goes through various training programs and he gets involved with criminals. Many career criminals have, are you ready for this?

A very good self-image. Isn't that nice? Doesn't that help you a lot? This is this investigator, his name is Karl Poppenweider. I think it's amazing that just having a good self-image is not what is needed. It's not going to get you there. It's just like having faith by itself isn't going to get you there. That's not the issue.

And Paul is really getting at the point. Paul is making the value judgment and telling us, look, I had everything that comes on the top of the stack by human measure. Right upbringing, all the right accomplishments. I look really good. It counts for nothing. So let's look at these questions.

Is it more biblical for a person to have a good self-image or a bad self-image? What image really matters, eternally? What does God intend that our self-image should look like? Let's take a look at a couple of verses, I think, that will make a major impact on how we answer those questions.

2 Corinthians 3.18 says, But we all, speaking of believers, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord the Spirit. What's the image we're being transformed into? The Lord's. That's very different from having a good self-image all by itself, isn't it? Let's look at another one.

People are very fond of quoting Romans 8.28, but 29 is just as important, if not more so. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Verse 29, for those whom He foreknew, He also predestined, what? To become conformed to the image of His Son. Ah, big impact. So that He would be the firstborn among many brethren. So now we get back to our questions.

Before Paul was a believer, did he have a good self-image? Yes, he did. but once he was in Christ, he came to see that that good self-image was worthless. The next one is, is it more biblical for a person to have a good self-image or a bad self-image? What's the constant exhortation of Scripture is to see yourself as being in Christ, being conformed to his image as we behold him through his word. It's not our self-image or the image of ourself at all. It's not the focal point.

Who are we beholding? Ourself? Him, right? Beholding the Lord. That's the focal point of Scripture, not self. Let's take a look at this next one. What image really matters is beholding Christ, so being transformed into the very image of Christ, not self-image improvement, Christ-image improvement. God's doing, not our doing. He's the one doing the conforming. I can sit here and go... Does it improve me? Probably not. Still itch. Okay. Next one there.

What does God intend that our self-image should be like? In Christ, whom we behold through His Word. It is not what I look like to myself. I'm beholding Him. Forget about me. Forget about me. There's no massaging of our self-image that's going to fix it.

Ask those criminals, okay? So now we've looked at this very important question. One of the things, if we were to look at those underlined parts, and you have it on the first page, the first part of your handout there, if you look at those underlined parts, that's really where we end up here, is what is a value? And you have this list on the second side of your handout as well. I think that's where we need to end up with this thing, is obviously we've been looking at, okay, this isn't very valuable, and here's his kind of ranking of, here's how things are valued. The bottom line is we have to end up with understanding what's of value, isn't it?

That's where we have to look at it and have our perspective. He makes it very clear, and he lists it this way, if we pluck those out of the passage. What is of value is the sake of Christ, first thing. How does it look in the whole perspective of where things stand with Christ. That's the measuring point. That's the measuring point. Knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, not just about Him, not a lot of things. You can get a Ph.D. at some university and study Christ throughout the whole doctoral program.

That's not what he's talking about. This is personal knowledge of Him. to be found in Him. Now, interesting that being found in Him is passive. It's not my finding Him, it's being found in Him. And notice the focal point? In Him. We are in Him. We've been placed in Him. It is the Lord that makes the determination. We're in Him. It's not whether we feel like we're in Him or whether we feel like we've worked hard enough to be there. We are found in Him because we've been placed in Him. It's God's doing. And finally, the point he makes, righteousness, which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. That's his final statement of this is valuable. God's righteousness, not my own.

Not a checklist. Okay, I've been to church this many times. Not a checklist. I helped so many old ladies across the road. Not a checklist. I didn't spit the bubble gum on the sidewalk, whatever it is. It's none of those things. It is the very righteousness, a positive attribute, the very righteousness of Christ, instead of anything we try to cook up.

It's not, is God happy with the stuff that I did? That's not going to cut it. It is the very righteousness and life of Christ, instead of our own. And Paul makes that very clear, how amazing it is that so many Christians somehow lose sight of that. It's not how good I can be. That's not going to do it. It is the very righteousness which is an eternal and infinite characteristic of Christ Himself. That's what God's going to be happy with, and it is only gained by faith. Okay.

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, as we look at this passage, We thank You that Paul has made such a clear value judgment, given it all an eternal perspective. And Lord, we sure are inclined to depend upon our human qualifications, the right upbringing, or even to curse that we didn't have the right one. Or we're inclined to measure ourselves and say, look, I did this and did that. Or even try to claim that the good outweighs the bad. But Lord, You're not even looking at that. Lord, you're looking at the person of Christ, and Lord, we want to behold him as well.

And we ask that you would draw our hearts to that very thing. Lord, as you have so clearly laid out through Paul's words here what is valuable, we pray that each day, each moment, we might be learning that very same thing, that we would have, as Paul came to have, that perspective of what is eternally and infinitely and surpassingly more valuable. Give you thanks for it all, for your accomplishment. We thank you that we, indeed, can be found in you, by faith in you. In Jesus' name, Amen.