Forget the Baloney

So don't misunderstand. It's a wonderful objective to be good and upstanding and moral. But as Charles Spurgeon said 150 plus years ago, good morals can keep a person out of jail, but only Jesus Christ can keep a person out of hell. For by grace you've been saved through faith.

What does that mean? Well, let me clear it up for you. Not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. We're not saved by the things we do. Of course, God wants us to live moral lives. He wants you to treat others well, be honest and remain pure. But contrary to what many people seem to think, being good does not save us. For that we need Jesus Christ. It's only through what Jesus Christ did for you that God can look at you with pleasure. And we receive the blessing of God's pleasure by faith. Paul wrote about this in Philippians chapter 3 and we're looking at that passage today.

This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Stephen is continuing through his series called Aiming Higher with this lesson that he's calling Forget the Bologna. If you are with us in our last Lord's Day study, Paul has severely warned the believers in Philippi of the Jewish false teachers who were wanting to add to grace. They were all wrapped up, so to speak, in their bologna sandwich and they were impressed by what they brought. It wasn't Jesus only, remember? It was Jesus plus. It would be Jesus plus, as the religions of the world today say, Jesus plus circumcision. Jesus plus baptism. Jesus plus devotion. Jesus plus good works.

They were trusting in the flesh. And you may remember that Paul minces no words. He calls them dogs. He calls them workers of evil. He calls them mutilators of the flesh, proud of their own picnic basket and what they could unpack and offer to God. Now what Paul does next is immediately follow that up.

He's still fired up, by the way. He is going to call these religious leaders out. It's going to be a showdown of religious credentials. In other words, let's just, let's compare what we're bringing to the table apart from grace. Notice the latter part of verse three to pick up a little steam. He says, put no confidence in the flesh. And now verse four, although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh, if anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more.

What Paul begins to do here is speak hypothetically for the sake of effect. In other words, he writes, if you really want to have a credentials contest, if you want to have a battle of the resume, if you really want to compare our stuff, let me tell you what I can bring to the picnic. Paul is going to rattle off seven things. Let's move through them fairly quickly. Well, we're going to take all morning actually, but let's move through these seven.

And I've broken them into three categories for the sake of an outline. Paul begins, first of all, by taking them through his pedigree. Let's take one at a time. Verse five, circumcised the eighth day.

Not so fast. It's a loaded introduction to his resume. He's clearly informing the Philippians and those who would read it, that he had been born into a home that honored the Old Testament scriptures. His parents had followed the law and the requirement of the covenant, circumcising their Jewish baby boy, in this case, Saul, his name before his conversion, according to Leviticus chapter 12, on the eighth day.

Paul is also in this. If this is all we knew about him, it would be clear to his readers that he was not a Gentile proselyte who had been circumcised later after converting to Judaism. No, he was born a Jew. He was born into a faithful Jewish home.

And the very first requirement of the law was met by his parents on his eighth day, as if to say, I started out at eight days in the right direction. Secondly, notice, he says, I'm of the nation of Israel. Israel was the name which had been given to Jacob after that all-night wrestling match. You may remember in Genesis 32, you've read the account. Whenever a Jew wanted to stress the special relationship to the covenant promise of God through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they would refer to Jacob's new name, Israel. The Ishmaelites could trace their descent to Abraham, because Ishmael was the son of Abraham through Hagar. The Edomites, though, could trace their descent to Abraham through Isaac. Esau, the founder of the Edomite nation, was Isaac's son, was Abraham's grandson. Ishmael and Esau were descendants of Abraham, but they were not the recipients of the covenant promise uniquely given through to and through Jacob, later called or named by God, Israel. So what Paul is saying in that little phrase is effectively, I'm not only a descendant of Abraham, but I'm a direct descendant of the one who received the covenant promise. I'm a descendant of Abraham through Israel. And by identifying himself as an Israelite, Paul is effectively stressing the absolute purity of his pedigree.

There's more. He writes, I'm also of the tribe of Benjamin. In other words, I didn't just descend from Jacob, one of his 12 sons, and the tribes would be named after the 12 sons of Jacob.

I belong to that one. I belong to the elite tribe of Benjamin. Benjamin and that tribe produced the first king of Israel, Saul, more than likely. Saul, later Paul, was named after him in honor of him.

There's another way here of implying that Paul had the right of favor treatment even within the nation. He's from the elite tribe. This was the aristocracy of the nation. You study your history of Israel and discover that Benjamin was the son of Jacob's beloved wife Rachel. Benjamin was the only patriarch of the 12 who was born in the promised land. The Benjamites were known for their courage. Their battle cry would be, men of Benjamin, go first.

And in other words, we'll follow your courageous lead. This was the aristocratic tribe of the nation. It would be like somebody in America today going on one of those sites and doing a little genealogical study and finding out that they are a descendant of one of the early pilgrim families.

And that would be neat. Maybe you've met someone who's a descendant and they've told you that they're related to a, you know, someone famous or wealthy. They're a descendant of Washington, a Washington, or a Kennedy, or a Rockefeller, or a Davy.

Just checking to see if you're awake, okay? No wealth or fame in that one. Our producer, by the way, Wisdom for the Heart, Rob Lincoln, is a distant relative of Abraham Lincoln.

And I think that's just neat. Paul is saying, if you want to match credential for credential, I'm off to a pretty good start. Paul adds to the list in verse 5, a Hebrew of Hebrews. What he's pointing out here is not only the fact that he was a Hebrew boy born to Hebrew parents, but he's more than likely pointing out the unique fact that he spoke Hebrew. There were millions of Jews who lived in Paul's day who couldn't. They spoke Greek.

They were Hellenists. They had adopted the Greek culture. They had adopted the Greek custom, and they spoke the Greek language.

Not Paul. Certainly, he could speak Greek, but he could have his devotions, so to speak, not out of the Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint, which he would quote from, as would the Lord, but he could have his devotions directly out of the Hebrew text. He knew the mother tongue.

That's impressive. I spent $200 an hour in seminary slugging through the Hebrew language. I wish I knew what Paul knew when I turned to the Old Testament. The truth is most Jews in Paul's day couldn't either. In fact, you go all the way back to Nehemiah, and one of the problems of needed revival was the fact that the nation no longer understood the Hebrew language. They could understand a little bit of what was spoken, but they couldn't read it and translate it, and so there was a wall, a barrier, so to speak, and so Ezra would come along, and he would literally read it and translate it and explain it and expound it so they could draw closer to God. Paul was effectively saying, I don't have to have anybody explaining the Old Testament scriptures in the mother tongue to me. I can study the scriptures by the very language in which God originally delivered the text.

It's impressive. Now Paul not only points to his resume and in his pedigree, in the second category he refers to his performance. Notice the last part of verse 5. As to the law of Pharisee.

I mentioned them in our last study. The Pharisees were sort of the Olympic athletes of Jewish culture and holy living. In our vocabulary to call somebody a Pharisee, more than likely you're calling somebody a hypocrite. That wasn't true in this day. They were the ones who were not hypocrites, so to speak, in the nation.

They were meticulously attempting to keep the law and all its nuances, all its variations, all its ordinances. One author commented that the Pharisee had reached the very summit of religious experience. If we lived back then, it would be the Pharisee that would get our attention.

You just sort of quiet down when one of those men showed up and you'd listen when they spoke. They were pursuing the highest ideal a Jew could ever hope to attain. In fact, the very name Pharisee means the separated ones.

They had one aim, one primary objective in life, and that was to keep the very smallest innuendo of the law and the ordinance and the ceremony and the festival and whatever, the tradition of their religious system. And Paul was among the most dedicated. He was sort of out Pharisee-ing the Pharisees.

He was advancing. He was a leader. And notice the last part of verse 6. I'm going to tie it back to this phrase, as to the righteousness which is in the law found blameless. Paul wasn't saying he was perfect. What he meant was that he never slacked off. It was clearly his objective to be conscientious and constant in his observance of the law. In other words, when it came out to living every tradition, when it came to living out every ceremony and every ordinance and every observance, Paul never, ever took a day off. Paul goes even further. He not only brings up his pedigree and his performance, but last, he highlights his personal passion. Notice the beginning of verse 6, as to zeal.

You want to talk about zeal? A persecutor of the church. In other words, I didn't just believe my religion. I was willing to hunt down anybody who tampered with it, especially those Jews that had converted to this carpenter criminal. Paul would travel, if you study his life, hundreds of miles in order to find Christians and drag them back to Jerusalem in chains and cast a vote for their execution.

Paul will later on several occasions openly confess his past life and tell the church that he had indeed persecuted the Christians and it seemed to haunt him. He wrote to the Corinthians, I am the least of all the apostles. Why? I'm not fit to be called an apostle.

Why? Because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am today what I am. Maybe there's something about your past that haunts you. You think, oh, this is what I once did.

Make sure you don't live there. You move on, as he said, but by the grace of God, I am today what I am. Forgiven. One of my friends and I had decided to take an elective typing class our senior year. Guys didn't take the typing class. We were required to learn on both a manual and an electric typewriter and even learn how to use carbon. Some of you don't even know what a typewriter is and you need to thank God for that right now.

We'll wait, okay? But just for fun, in fact, it was really just kind of more like a prank. We had to fill in elective hour and our friend and I said, hey, let's take the typing class.

You know what, two guys in a class of 25 girls, that's strategic thinking as far as we were concerned. But without me trying, without me even really knowing, probably eight years of piano would help this out, I ended up typing faster and better than anybody in the class, 60 words a minute without any error. And now to my great embarrassment and shame, I was being called forward to win the typing award. You hold your applause. It's the only award I ever won. And I, boy, I never did live that one down. Oh, they had fun with that. Well, I don't know what you've won over the years, but maybe you've got some pretty neat stuff hanging on your wall. If Paul could effectively take us into his trophy room, which he has done, you just, your jaw is open.

It's just, you're amazed. He told the Galatians he was advancing. He's moving up. He's their leader in the highest echelon of spiritual leaders. I mean, if anybody's gonna get to heaven, it's that guy.

And that's his point as he moves now to his transition. And he tells us his personal testimony. Look at verse 7. But whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Wow. Paul goes even further. Notice the last part of verse 8 where he adds, I count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ. He's not disparaging his past, but he's saying in terms of winning salvation.

It's rubbish. He doesn't mean now that he's got to earn Christ. What he's trying to say is that he can't trust in his nationality, in his mother tongue, and his religious devotion, and the fact that he was at the top of the class, and he adheres to Jewish tradition, and custom, and ceremony, and festival, and at the same time trust Christ. You can't do both. To put it simply, in the words of this analogy, forget your bologna sandwich.

Forget it. You don't bring that to the table and expect God to say, wow. Paul says all of my trophies that I thought were really important are rubbish in terms of winning Jesus Christ as my Savior. Is that your testimony? Or would you, if I had a conversation with you, and I have many of these, say well Stephen I know I'm going to heaven. Well why? Well let me show you this certificate, and let me show you that event. Let me show you what I wanted. Let me show you my devotion, and let me, me, me, me, me.

Are you trusting Christ alone? Not the word Paul uses here, and I won't belabor it, but it would have, for rubbish, would have made the Philippian church probably blush, a little nervous, shiver. It's a crass word that is translated I think best by the King James translation as dung. Dung. The term can actually refer to excrement, human waste. It can also refer to food that's spoiled, food that's thrown away from the table.

Basically you put it all together and what it means is it refers to stuff that belongs in the sewer at in the trash can. Now somebody might say Paul you're being a little, you're being a little too blunt. I mean come on back off that a little bit. You're rash.

Maybe you've made a snap decision. Well Paul I think anticipates that criticism, and so he effectively says notice again in verse 8, I have counted them. I count them, but rubbish. The word count again is an accounting term. I have carefully added it all up, and I've thought about it.

Every phrase was significant. I know exactly what I'm saying, and I've added it to the plus column, and then I get to the bottom, and because of the gospel I count it all up, and it is rubbish. It doesn't belong at the table. It deserves to be thrown aside.

It's spoiled. It belongs in the trash can so to speak as it relates to salvation. See Paul now adds to his personal testimony. Here's what I've learned. Look at verse 9 and maybe found in him, not having a 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. This is what theologians refer to as the doctrine of imputation.

This may be a little tedious. I'll go very quickly, but you need to understand it, and by the way our forefathers died for this. They had their heads cut off because they believed this doctrine. It means to put to someone's account. It means to not merit grace. It means to not earn salvation. In other words, what it means is Paul's looking at his life ledger, and he recognizes that he's actually bankrupt, and then he looks over at Christ's ledger, and he sees nothing but perfection, and then by faith he believes the gospel where God the Father puts Christ's perfection and imputes it without it being earned or deserved, transfers it to our bankrupt account and takes our sinful account and attributes it to Christ, and he dies for it, and he pays the penalty for it.

Suffering in his death, victorious in his resurrection, and then able to give us his righteousness that he alone can give, and you claim the righteousness of Christ for yourself. Notice the last part of verse 9, which comes from God on the basis of faith. It isn't faith plus ceremony. It isn't faith plus pedigree. It isn't faith plus faithfully attending Roman Catholic mass. It isn't faith plus being baptized in some Protestant church. It isn't faith plus zealous devotion to whatever your definition of God happens to be. It isn't faith plus keeping the golden rule or trying to never commit the dirty dozen. Listen, don't misunderstand. It's a wonderful objective to be good and upstanding and moral, but as Charles Spurgeon said 150 plus years ago, good morals can keep a person out of jail, but only Jesus Christ can keep a person out of hell. Here's the gospel, for by grace you've been saved through faith.

What does that mean? Well, let me clear it up for you. Not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works. Look at what I've got in my picnic basket, because if it was, we would all boast with what we've brought to the table. It isn't grace. I mean, can you imagine coming to the banquet feast of grace and saying, Lord, you know, I'm so grateful. Have a bite of my bologna sandwich as my thanks. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, we have been redeemed through his blood according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us.

I love that. He lavishes his grace upon us. I like to think of grace as gift giving that can hardly wait, excited. God isn't doling out this offer of grace with resentment, bitterness, reluctance. He loves to lavish it upon us. In fact, he's lavished it upon us in ways we have no comprehension. He has flooded us with grace this week. He'll flood it again tomorrow, our lives with grace that we must ask him to allow us to recognize.

And he isn't doing it because our sandwich met the standard, but his son did. I think gifts of grace and grace giving is probably more evident at anniversaries and Christmas and birthdays. It's probably when we get the closest to this understanding, because you don't give a gift to your child, perhaps, or your loved one and list on that card, now you did this and this and this and this and this and this and you deserve this. You might be thinking it, but you're not writing it. A couple of weeks ago I had a birthday.

The exact number of candles is no longer important. It's been a while. I received some cards from folks in the church, very kind, and some were mailed, some were dropped off, and you know, it struck me. Listen, every one of them, just about every single card I got, had a picture of a cat on the cover. It warmed my heart. One person actually sent me a paperback book of cartoons.

Here it is. The book title caught my attention, 101 ways to use a dead cat. I think that's out of line, actually. I read it for devotions. No, I'm teasing.

I really love it. Birthday cards, gifts, at Christmas, whatever, they're not given to be repaid. That's not grace. And for Paul, he's clear that that's not salvation either. He offered me, Paul effectively says, in the place of what I had to offer him, stale bread, a banquet of forgiveness. And by faith, that is, by personal trust in the truth of his invitation, I took my seat there at that table.

Have you? By faith, I sat down. I accepted his invitation.

And you know what? As soon as I was seated there, I forgot all about that stale sandwich and old baloney. I began to feast at the table of grace. Today's lesson was good news, wasn't it?

If our standing before God was based on what we had to offer him, we'd all fall infinitely short. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Today's lesson is called Forget the Baloney, and it comes from a series aiming higher. Our ministry is rooted in the desire to help you know and understand God's Word so that you can live a life of obedience and joy. In addition to these daily lessons, we have a monthly magazine we call Heart to Heart. If you don't receive it, please call us because we want to send you the next three issues. Call 866-48-BIBLE for information. Please join us for our next lesson tomorrow, right here on Wisdom for the Heart.