Rejoice in the Lord as you protect your joy

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Think of some of things you do to protect your possessions. Perhaps you have a regular evening routine of locking the door or you lock the door right after someone leaves your house. You may have a house dog to scare people away when you are gone. You may have purchased an alarm system to protect your home and your possessions. It is amazing how willing we can be to protect what is dear to us. Other people may underestimate our tenacity to protect what is precious to us. New Castle, Pennsylvania's Jerry Brown Jr. dismissed an 89-year-old woman when he stole her friend's purse. His was also a big mistake. Now it's true, this lady didn't have a gun or a knife. On the other hand, she did have her cane. This lady rather than standing there looking all frail and helpless gave a whack to Brown's getaway car. She gave it such a whack she scratched the paint and left a dent in the vehicle. Between the dent, the scratch and the description of the robbers, the New Castle police were soon able to arrest Brown and an accomplice, Tatiana Vargas.

The Apostle Paul understood his most valuable possession. He used all his zeal and energy to protect that possession. He wrote the Philippians congregation the same things so that they might protect their greatest possession.  Can you pick out what in verse one of our text what that great possession was that Paul wanted to protect with all his energy? “Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.”   The great possession that Paul clung to and protected with all his zeal and energy was his joy in the Lord. That joy in the Lord for Paul and his readers at Philippi was constantly being attacked by false teachers. These false teachers wanted to focus the faith of the Philippians on their works and their obedience to the law of God and ceremony.

Paul uses strong words. Imagine the elderly lady with her cane defending her friend’s purse. What was at stake for the Apostle was the joy of knowing Jesus and all that he had done freely for them: “ ² Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. ³ For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— ⁴ though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: ⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.  ⁷ But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.

Paul wants the Philippians, whom he affectionately refers to as “my brothers,” to find their real joy in the Lord alone and in their union with him in faith. He wants them to reject all teachings that would direct them to any other source of confidence or joy. The false teachers who clung to the ceremonies of the Old Testament  placed special emphasis on the rite of circumcision, the Old Testament sign of God’s covenant with Israel by their insistence on the outward observance of laws and ceremonies as a necessity for salvation in addition to faith.

 Paul applied harsh terms to these  false teachers, because they were attacking the very heart of the gospel. They were seeking to substitute it with a mixture of divine grace and human works. “Dogs” is what Paul called the false teachers. In the apostle’s world, dogs generally were not pets. They were large, ugly beasts that roamed the streets and lived on garbage. Paul took that insulting term the they so often applied to others and hurled it right back at them. The attackers of our joy in the Lord are just as real as those who try to rob little old ladies of their purse. Protect your joy in the Lord with all your might and energy. It is important for us also to realize that some of the things we might regard as advantage or gain can actually be loss for us if they stand in the way of our knowing and trusting in Jesus. Being born into a Christian home, being instructed and confirmed, receiving a Christian education, and being members of a Christian congregation are all great blessings and advantages in themselves, but we cannot regard them as tickets to eternal life. Likewise, other legitimate blessings of the Lord—like intelligence, money, charm, education, even our own personal moral victories—can actually become hindrances to our salvation, if for any reason we regard them as more important than knowing Christ or put our trust in them instead of placing our whole confidence in Christ.

The Apostle Paul understood his Jewish heritage and his work as a Pharisee yet nothing of that meant anything to him.  “ ⁸ What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. ¹⁰ I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. All the things he had formerly regarded as profit he now regarded as less than useless, not because all of them were wrong in themselves but because he had wrongly regarded them as tickets to eternal life. He considered them rubbish actually a pile of human excrement. So, like a ship’s captain tossing baggage off a foundering ship so that the ship would not sink, Paul ridded himself of all the things that had been so important to him. In that sense, he lost everything. Yet in his heart he knew that his “loss” was really not loss at all. All the things he had discarded were nothing but garbage, rubbish, a worthless mess, for they had stood in the way of his knowing and trusting in Christ. In losing those earthly things as the object of his trust, Paul had, through the Holy Spirit’s work in his heart, gained Christ.

Through Christ, we obtained a righteousness that enables us sinners to stand before the judgment seat of God.  Throughout the Scriptures this word righteousness is pictured for us as a white robe or being dressed as a bride for a bridegroom.  In Christ we have this righteousness. Jesus earned this righteousness for sinners by his work as mankind’s substitute. God freely gives that righteousness to sinners through the gospel. We personally receive this righteousness by faith, which the Holy Spirit kindles in our hearts through the very gospel message that announces and offers this righteousness. From beginning to end, the righteousness that saves is God’s free gift to sinners. On the basis of this righteousness alone, God accepts us sinful human beings as his children. By grace you know that in Christ you possess that marvelous righteousness from God. Rejoice in the Lord as you protect you joy more zealously than the 89 year old lady trying to protect her friend’s purse with a cane.