Bible Passage: Philippians 3:4b-14
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: April 3, 2022

Bulletin April 3, 2022

Saul was “the man.”  He was born in Tarsus of Cilicia to a Gentile mother and a Jewish father.  His father was even a member of the respected party of the Pharisees.  His father was also from the small, but very proud, tribe of Benjamin.  In obedience to the Law of Moses, little Saul was circumcised dutifully and meticulously on the eighth day of his life.  Not only was young Saul born a “Jew,” but he was raised as a “Hebrew.”  He was taught, and spoke, the Aramaic language fluently.

Early in life, Saul moved to Jerusalem.  There he studied at the feet of the great rabbi, Gamaliel.  For us today that might be like saying he went to Harvard or Oxford.  Gamaliel was the grandson of the legendary rabbi, Rabbi Hillel.  Saul followed in the footsteps of dad and Rabbi Gamaliel and also became a Pharisee.  And in this party of men who were known for their zeal, Saul distinguished himself as even more zealous than the rest!  In his zeal for the Law of Moses, he made it his mission to squash this new religion called “The Way” and get rid of these followers of Jesus of Nazareth.

He was on the fast track.  Where would it all lead?  Would he be the next Gamaliel, with a waiting list of students who would give anything to study at his feet?  Would he become the next leading voice of the Great Sanhedrin?  The sky was the limit for a guy like Saul!

All that changed on the day when Jesus appeared to Saul on that road to Damascus.  And for all the impressive credentials in Saul’s life, it was only after Saul met Jesus that life for Saul…better known as Paul…really began to move Onward and Upward!

Have you ever known someone who just seems to live life in the past?  Every other comment is about some past achievement, some past “glory,”  some past accomplishment.  Paul is a guy who might be excused for being that way.  His life was impressive!  There’s some “gravity” to it!   But Paul says in our text whatever things were a profit for me, these things I have come to consider a loss… (v. 7)

Why would Paul take a distinguished life and crumble it up into a ball and throw it in the garbage can?  Because of Christ. (v. 7)  None of those things could give Paul what Christ could give Paul.  That “artery” that connected Paul to Benjamin and to Abraham didn’t make him righteous in God’s sight.  The cutting away of a little skin in circumcision didn’t make Paul righteous in God’s sight.  Graduating summa cum laude in Gamaliel’s school didn’t give Paul a righteousness that would get him into heaven.  Only Christ can do that!

So Paul confesses:  I consider everything to be a loss because of what is worth far more:  knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.  For his sake I have lost all things and consider them rubbish, so that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, which comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness comes from God by faith. (v. 8-9)  What was true for Paul is true for us, too.  In Christ, we have the one thing we need to enter heaven one day: righteousness.  A righteousness based not on our “credentials” but on Christ’s credentials.  A righteousness based not on what we have done, but on what Christ has done! His life, his death for sin, his glorious rising again!  A righteousness not earned, but given to the one who trusts in Christ.  It is an alien righteousness, a credited righteousness, a gifted righteousness, a faith-righteousness.  And it is the only righteousness good enough for God.  But it is righteousness GOOD ENOUGH FOR GOD!

And Christ’s work is so big, so significant, there isn’t room in the ledger for anything else.  When you are auditing your life and figuring out what goes in the “gain” column of things that “gain” heaven, you can’t put Christ and then what you are or do.  Next to “Christ” you put “and Grandpa was a pastor,” or “and I’ve been a lifelong member of this church,” or “and I’ll put my offerings up against anybody out there!”  I will try to say this as lovingly as I can:  get over yourself.  Only Christ matters.  Christ is so big, his forgiving love so wide and long and high and deep, there isn’t room for anything else in the ledger.  If Christ is “gain,” then he is the only “gain.”  Everything else is “loss.”

So Paul moves onward with the “gain” that is Christ.  Paul says he wants to know [Christ] and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, in the hope that in some way I may arrive at the resurrection from the dead. (v. 10)  Paul wants to experience all that it means to have the risen Jesus powerfully at work in his life.  He is willing to suffer and die like Christ so that he might one day also rise like Christ.  This is the “onward” thrust and movement of the Christian life.

But Paul is quick to add, he hasn’t arrived at the goal just yet.  The finish line is being with Christ.  We have to look “up” to see it.  [F]orgetting the things that are behind and straining toward the things that are ahead, I press on toward the goal, for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (v. 13-14)  Notice his word “straining.”  It takes tremendous strain to crucify and mortify your flesh and throw off the sin that so easily entangles (Hebrews 12:1)  But this is the upward call of God in Christ.

Remember, your calling in Christ is “upward,” not downward.  We are not called upon to live “down” to the standards of this world.  And there is a constant downward drag in this world, isn’t there?  To occupy ourselves with the lower things of existence.    This Academy Awards thing that so occupied our culture feels like a downward drag on my time.  Expending tremendous amounts of energy accumulating “stuff” that will be melted in the flames of Judgment Day feels a bit of a downward drag.  Christian, your call is “upward.”  Expend your time and energies on things that make you think “upward” thoughts, the things that center you on Christ and righteousness and heaven.

And with Christ as your greatest gain and heaven as your greatest goal…it’s onward, and upward!

Amen.

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