A Vote of No Confidence
Philippians 3:1-11

Intro:
Good morning.
We are continuing our study on the book of Philippians and I would like to begin with a story about George M. Pullman. You may recall him as the creator of the Pullman rail car in the 1800’s. He was once asked, "How does it feel to be a millionaire?"

"I have never thought about that," replied the maker of Pullman cars and owner of Pullman city; "but, now that you mention it, I believe that I am no better off—certainly not happier, than when I did not have a dollar to my name, and had to work from daylight till dark. I wore a good suit of clothes then, and I only wear one suit now. I relished three meals a day then a good deal more than I do the three meals a day now. I had fewer cares I slept better, and may add generally, that I believe I was far happier in those days than I have been many times since I became a millionaire.'

I suspect that sometimes people are not as rich as we think they are. Some people may have a lot of things that we would call valuable, but there can be a time in their lives when something happens and all their values are reshuffled. Their priorities are recalibrated. Suddenly those things that they thought were so important, so valuable are no longer of value.

A day like that happened in the life of a Jew from Tarsus named Saul, and it changed his life forever. He once thought he was rich in so many different ways, but because of that one day, he realized he was not that rich at all. His value system was completely reoriented. He learned that you are never going to have true joy, lasting joy until you discover what true treasure is.

I. Today I want to share with you what he learned. Philippians 3:1-11 -. “Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation! For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so:” Here Paul goes on to describe himself - “Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. But indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” [NKJ]
a. Remember Paul is writing to a church in need of a joy transfusion. He says to them, “finally brothers”. Notice that it is Biblical for a preacher to say, “Finally” then go on for a long time. Paul says, “Finally” in the middle of a book and then goes on for 2 more chapters. “Finally my brothers, rejoice in the Lord, this is a safe guard for you.”
b. Paul wants the Philippians to have a lasting, permanent joy. That depends on proper doctrine. In other words, it depends on them having the proper understanding of the gospel of grace.
c. Grace and joy go together. We will never going to have lasting joy until we embrace the gospel of grace. If our righteousness depends on our performance, we will be full of anxiety. There’s always one more Bible study you could have gone to, one more chapter you could have memorized, one more good deed you could have done, or one more dollar you could have given to a good cause.
II. If you’re salvation depends on your performance, you’re never going to have lasting joy. This is the problem of legalism—the making human righteousness, the following of rules, the basis of our salvation. Paul wrote to the Galatian churches about this very problem—people wanting to add salvation by works to the salvation by grace.
a. Paul said in Philippians 4:15 “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!” Paul wants the Philippians to have joy and the best way to safe guard your joy, is to learn to rejoice in the Lord—and not in yourself. The problem is that Satan wants to plant in good, healthy churches, people that want to advocate a “grace plus works” gospel.
b. That’s what happening in Philippi. The Judaizers came and said, “Yes, Jesus is good and Jesus is great. We believe in grace. We believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus—and circumcision. They are saying “just be circumcised and add that to the gospel and you’ll be saved.”
c. In every single generation there are people who want to add to God’s word. It was true in the Old Testament times and it is true now. In our study of NT history we will see it showing up in the church at the close of the first century. People want to add to the gospel of grace and if you let them, your joy will go right out the window. Paul says in Philippians 3:2 - “Watch out for these dogs, these doers of evil, these mutilators of the flesh.” [para]
d. That’s pretty strong language, but Paul was tired of these people who had been dogging him and hindering his mission for years. It is interesting that Jews at that time called the Gentiles dogs. Paul turns it around and says, “They’re the dogs.” He says, “they do evil and mutilate the flesh”.
e. I heard this story about a street preacher who was giving a lesson. A man stopped and listened for awhile then went up to the street preacher to ask a question. He said, “there are hundreds of religions in the US and everyone says they have the truth, how are we supposed to know what’s right?” The street preacher said, “Did I hear you say there are hundreds of religions, I thought there are only 2? “Now granted there are different variations, but there are only 2 religions in the world.” The man said, “What do you mean?” The preacher said, “Well, there is one religion based on what you have to do, and there is one religion that’s based on what God has done.”
III. Paul does not have a problem with circumcision, but he has a big problem with requiring any “religious activity” to supplement the work that Jesus Christ did on the cross.
a. When we misplace our confidence we are going to miss out on joy. If you put your confidence in your ability to do things to please God, you’re going to loose your joy. We might say that Paul had learned to give his flesh a “vote of no confidence”. You know what a “vote of no confidence” is, don’t you? In a parliamentary system it is a vote which states that a person, in a position of responsibility, is no longer deemed fit to hold that position, perhaps because they are inadequate in some respect, are failing to carry out obligations, or are making decisions that other members feel are detrimental.
b. I want us to understand when Paul talks about placing no confidence in the flesh; he’s not just talking about the worst of man. When we think of the flesh, we think about drunkenness, and immorality and greed and idolatry. That’s part of the flesh, but he’s not just talking about the worst that is in man; he’s talking about the best that is in man.
c. The part of man that tries to do good, the part of man that studies his Bible, the part of man that shares his faith, the part of man that goes to church. Paul says, “I don’t place any confidence in that either.” None.
d. We could say that “flesh” is that self-confident spirit that says, “I have the capacity to please God by myself.” That’s an expression of flesh. It is flesh that makes us think we are richer than we really are. Nobody learned this lesson better than Paul did.
IV. I want to share with you today 2 radical ideas that Paul learned that changed his life. The 1st was the radical idea that our righteousness gains nothing. In the text Paul says, “There are 2 types of righteousness that are available to us today”.
a. There is divine righteousness that is the gift of God and there is human righteousness that accumulates as you do religious things. Most people prefer the 2nd kind of righteousness. We tend to trust anything that we can make a contribution in completing.
b. Let me give an example. Quite some time ago there was a cake mix company that came up with a new way to make cakes. The cake was very moist and very tasty. It was so easy, everything was in the package. All you had to do was open the box, pour it into a bowl, add water, stir and bake and you get a nice cake.
i. It all started with a Pittsburgh company called P. Duff and Sons. On Dec. 10, 1930, the company’s owner, John D. Duff applied for a patent for an “invention [that] relates to a dehydrated flour for use in making pastry products, and to a process of making the same.” In the application, Duff’s mix for gingerbread involved creating a powder of wheat flour, molasses, sugar, shortening, salt, baking soda, powdered whole egg, ginger, and cinnamon that the home cook would rehydrate with water, and then bake. Then in 1933 the Duff Company was granted a patent which expanded the process to nut bread, bran muffins, fruit cake, devil’s food and spice cake.
ii. The Duff Company kept trying to tweak the formula and improve sales. On June 13, 1933, the company informed the U.S. Patent Office that it had made a major breakthrough, arguably the biggest, in cake-mix history—a cake mix that required the home baker to add—fresh eggs.
iii. In his application Duff wrote; “The housewife and the purchasing public in general seem to prefer fresh eggs and hence the use of dried or powdered eggs is somewhat of a handicap from a psychological standpoint”. Finally in 1935 Duff received a patent for this method.
iv. And we are told it sold like crazy. Do you know why? They learned people didn’t trust the initial mix if they couldn’t add to it.
v. Cake mix sales ground to a halt in the 1950’s. Companies racked their brains to find a solution. It took psychologist Ernest Dichter, the man who coined the term “focus group,” to propose that housewives needed to feel like a more integral part of the creative process. He was right. However the innovation that saved the cake mix wasn't the egg—it was the icing on the cake. The cake decorating fad soared and cake mix sales skyrocketed.
vi. Now even though a “mix” was being used, the person making the cake was “involved” and felt they could call it theirs.
c. We are the same way with our salvation. We like that kind of righteousness that needs to be added to. The more we add, the more trust worthy we think it is. Paul knows about that. You might say he was the No. 1 draft pick of the Jewish religion. He was a model example of how you acquire those things that make you rich in terms of human righteousness.
d. Listen again to what he says in Philippians 3:3-4 – “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” “Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more:”. Paul is saying; “Those who worship God in spirit and rejoice in Jesus Christ are truly the circumcision and do not rely on the flesh. If anyone thought that he would have a reason to save himself, it would be I.” Paul had those things that would make you rich in human righteousness. First he had what I would call, inheritance advantages.
e. He says, “I was circumcised on the 8th day, I wasn’t some Johnny come lately to the Jewish religion, I was of the stock of Israel, I was of the elite tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, I spoke the Hebrew language when most of you didn’t even know it anymore.”
f. He says, “Look at my heritage”. People do that today, don’t they? They’ll say “I’ve been going to church for 60 years.” Maybe their father was a preacher. Perhaps they say their granddad was an elder, or their great granddad was one of the first members of the church. We boast, and place our confidence in our heritage.
g. You might say secondly Paul had performance advantages. He says, “Check me out, I was a Pharisee. There were only 6000 allowed in that club and I was one of them.” He said, “not only that, but according to my zeal, I loved Judaism so much I travelled all over to persecuting people that opposed the Law.” Then he says “check out my legalistic righteousness—try to find one thing I was doing wrong in the Law of Moses.”
i. When Paul says, “I was blameless or faultless”, he doesn’t mean he never sinned, he means that even when he sinned, he did exactly what the Law of Moses told him to do. Listen again to verse 6, “No one could find fault with the way I obeyed the Law of Moses” is what it says.
ii. People do that today as well, don’t they? They brag about their performance. I’ve been teaching Bible class 33 years. I’ve been an elder of the church 20 years. I’ve been this and I’ve been that, I’ve been here, I’ve been there. I’ve given this, I’ve built that, I wrote this, and I did this.
iii. We do this in the workplace. When I was working I remember being told that if you don’t make noise no one will notice you. You have to tell about the things you do or others will take the credit.
V. When Paul is criticizing human righteousness, he’s not doing it as an outsider. He didn’t write as a have-not. He wrote as somebody who had everything. Then he realized one day, he had nothing. One day changed his life. One day on the road to Damascus, he was on his way to persecute more Christians and add some more human righteousness to his bank account. Then suddenly he encountered a blinding light and he fell to the ground.
a. Sometimes, you’ve need to have your eyes blinded before you see straight. What happened that day? When Paul met Jesus Christ for the first time in his life, he got a glimpse of perfect righteousness, and he suddenly realized he was on the wrong road in more ways than one.
b. One glimpse of the perfect righteousness of Jesus, and suddenly he realized all of his righteousness had gained him nothing. Now he understood what the Old Testament said when he quoted it in Romans 3:10 - “As it is written: there is no one righteous, not even one.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20) He might have added, “Not even me”.
c. Paul is trying to say, “I worked my fingers to the bone, I piled up one credit after another of human righteousness. Now I realize that all of it gained me—nothing.”
VI. I would note that this text stands as a strong warning to anybody today who thinks that God is just looking for moral living and some strong convictions. I’m going to be as blunt as I can. Hell is going to be full of nice people with strong convictions. As far as human righteousness goes nobody had more credits than Paul, and he was on the wrong road.
a. God is looking for more than a moral life and some strong convictions. God is looking for surrender. Paul says later, after he said in Romans 3:10 - “No one is righteous” down in verse 20-21 of Romans 3 – “Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets” That is to say - a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known to which the prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
b. The righteousness of God demands a vote of “no confidence” in the flesh. We’ve got to turn away from our view of our goodness and we’ve must accept God’s view of our goodness. Then we must turn from our goodness to God’s. We’ve must understand that our righteousness gains nothing.
VII. That leads to the 2nd really radical idea that changed Paul’s life. That is, “my faith gains His righteousness”.
a. When somebody asks you what the good news is, don’t tell that they can be saved. Many religions in world say that. That’s not the good news. The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is not only that people can be saved, it is that people can be saved by faith, instead of by works.
b. The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that salvation is not a matter of climbing up stairs. It is a lift from almighty God, Himself. Peter says in 1 Peter 3:18 – “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit,” “For Christ died for our sins once for all, the righteous, for the unrighteous to bring us to God.”
c. We don’t climb our way to God with human righteousness; we receive righteousness when Christ brings us by faith. 2 Corinthians 5:21 – says; ”For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
VIII. Once Paul got a glimpse of perfect righteousness, that day on the road to Damascus, he never again preached anything except Jesus and His plan of salvation. He could afford to surrender everything else except Christ.
a. In fact, once he found the real treasure, it’s amazing how unimportant all those other riches were. He said in Philippians 3:7-8 – “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,” “What was once to my profit, I now consider trash for the sake of knowing Jesus. What is more, I consider everything a loss for the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ, my Lord. I count it as rubbish.”
b. Paul says, “It’s just garbage, and I’m happy to call it garbage because I don’t desire any more the righteousness that comes from keeping the laws. I want the righteousness that comes by faith in Jesus Christ.” The message says, “I’ve dumped it all in the trash, so that I could embrace Christ.”
IX. Paul tells us something that is radical from the way many think about the gospel. It is not radical from our wanting to embrace Christ. It is radical from the fact that people don’t want to embrace Christ only. People want to add something to the gospel. When Paul tells us this, some might say, “You have just made it sound too easy, you make the gospel sound too cheap.”
a. Let me tell you a story out of West Virginia about a miner at a revival. When the revival came to a close, the miner came up to the preacher and said, “I would love to believe that God could forgive my sins, if I would just trust Christ but that just sounds easy, too cheap.” The preacher asked him, “Were you working in the mines today?” The man said, “Yes”. Then the preacher asked, “How did you get out of the mine?” The miner replied, “I got in the cage which lifted me up.” To which the preacher responded, “How much did you have to pay for that?” He said, “I didn’t have to pay anything, it was free.” Finally the preacher said, “it was free, well weren’t you afraid it was too cheap to be safe?” The miner said, “Oh, no, they spent a lot of money to build that shaft and put that cage down there.” And then suddenly the miner realized that just because something is free, doesn’t mean it’s cheap.
b. It is an affront to God, that He would shed the blood of His perfect, righteous Son for us then to say, “That’s too cheap to believe in, to trust.” Never tell God the gospel is cheap. It’s free, but it comes at a great price. That’s the only way righteousness comes. Jesus Christ did not come to contribute our salvation; he came to pay for it.
c. Look again at Philippians 3:9 with me, “that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;” It says; “God’s way of making us right with him depends on faith”. What is faith? It’s counting on Christ alone. Faith is placing confidence in Christ’s work and acknowledging no confidence in our flesh.
d. It is having no confidence in my ability to obtain righteousness and total confidence in Christ’s ability to give me righteousness, when I trust him.

CONCLUSION:
Finally then, there was a missionary who went to the Pacific islands. He was teaching God’s word, and he realized that he did not have a way to communicate the idea of faith to the natives because he couldn’t find a word in their language. One day this native had a crisis and said to him, “Please, may I come and lean heavily on you?” the missionary then realized he knew their word for faith.

Faith in Christ means no confidence in my flesh. It means I’m leaning heavily on Christ for my salvation. I want to ask you, are you doing that today? You’re not going to have lasting joy, until you learn to do that. Let me show you what that is going to mean for you. It’s going to mean first, rejoicing solely in the work of Christ.

What makes us happy, the Lord or what we do for the Lord? I mean when we do things for the Lord, when we serve the Lord, we get joy from that. That is true and that’s good, but I’m asking what makes us ultimately happy, what we do for God, or what God’s done for us?

Paul knew what he was saying when he said, “Rejoice in the Lord, it is a safe guard for you”. It’s the only way to keep that joy lasting and permanent, it’s when that joy is in the Lord.

Let me tell you a practical way to know if we are rejoicing solely in the work of Christ. It’s our passion for worship. Paul said back in verse 3, “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus”.

What he means is, whenever it dawns on our minds, whenever it breaks through, when we finally understand that we are righteous in the eyes of God because of the gift of Jesus Christ. Do you know what is going to happen? The Holy Spirit is going to prompt our hearts to burst out in worship in our life.

We’re going to love to worship. We can’t wait for church to start. We won’t ever want church to end. Not just on Sundays. We could be driving in the car and start to think about what Christ has done for us. We might find we need to pull over on the side of the road and worship for a minute.

Legalists go to church because they have to, but grace centered Christians can’t wait to get to church, because they want worship by the Spirit of God. That’s us. We’re leaning heavily on Christ.
If we don’t get excited about worship then maybe we’re putting our confidence in the wrong place.

Grace and joy go together. It means we’re leaning solely on the work of Christ and it’s going to mean releasing anything that competes with Christ. As Paul says, “I count it all a loss”.

That same word is used back in Acts 27. Remember when Paul was on a ship, and it had all this valuable cargo, then there was a storm at sea and suddenly they had to throw stuff over board to save their lives. That cargo that was so valuable, then all of a sudden it’s just rubbish. It doesn’t count so much anymore when you are trying to save your life.

That’s the word that Paul uses here. What he’s saying is, “You need to throw away anything that is hindering your relationship to Christ. Notice Paul didn’t just throw away junk for Jesus. He threw away stuff that once was of tremendous importance to him.
Christ is not just better than the worse stuff in life, he’s better than the best stuff in life. What we need to hear, is people say they threw away things that the world said was of great value because it is rubbish when they compare it to Christ. That’s what it means to lean heavily on Christ.

Finally, it will mean rehearsing daily the death and resurrection of Christ. Do you remember when they brought out a the game called trivial pursuit? I think Paul would say that is how many people live their lives today, in trivial pursuits.

Paul would tell us, “I did not know it was trivial. I thought what I was going after in my life was really valuable, but one day I saw Jesus Christ. Now I realize that all that stuff I was trying to get, is just rubbish.” “I have a new passion now, and my new passion is to know Jesus Christ my Lord. Nothing competes with that”.

How do we know Jesus Christ as Lord? We know Jesus Christ as Lord, when we’re willing, every day, to die or live for him. That’s what Paul said in verse 10, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering.” He says, “I want Jesus Christ so bad, I want to live like him and wherever Jesus lives, that’s where I want to be.”

Notice he put resurrection first. Do you know why? Because you see, the resurrection is not just a doctrine, it’s an event. It’s so powerful to the Christian today that when you know the power of the living Christ, you are increasingly more willing to go into places and suffer for Christ.

When the living Christ is inside us and the power that raised him from the dead is filling our life suddenly we are willing to go anywhere and do anything to suffer for Christ. Because all we really care about is living and dying for Christ every day.

Are you willing to put away whatever it is that is standing between you and Christ? Folks, if you’re not a Christian this morning then consider, you too can live for Christ. You can live for Christ by dying with Christ in the waters of baptism, and accepting His grace.

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We learn from the New Testament how to be saved. We need to hear the word; believe in Jesus; repent of our sins; we must confess our belief that Jesus is the Son of God; and be baptized for the remission of our sins... If we follow these steps, the Lord adds us to His church.

Perhaps there is someone in the assembly today with the need to be buried with Christ in baptism. If you have never done these things, we urge you to do so today. If anyone has this need or desires the prayers of faithful Christians on their behalf, we encourage them to come forward while we stand and sing.

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Reference Sermon
Mike Glover