Text: Philippians 3:17-4:1
Focus: Holiness
Function: To help establish a balance between legalism and hedonism.
Form: Bible Study
Intro:
In two other places, Brother Paul calls on his readers to do what he says in the beginning of this passage: “Follow me as I follow Christ.”
I know it is scripture and it is just as inspired as the rest of the bible, so instead of thinking that he was bragging, I wrestle with it.
For many years, I would read that passage and say to myself, “I could never ask the congregation that I pastor to do the same thing.”
When I pray that prayer before the sermon, “forgive the sins…” I mean it.
We Brethren, pride ourselves in our humility (wait for it). At times I wonder if it is the false humility that Uriah Heap demonstrated in Dickens classic “David Copperfield.”
All the time talking about how low we are, but secretly wondering why we are so much better than others.
And I am not preaching this AT YOU, I often wonder this about myself.
(SHOW) We are taught that if there is any good in us, it comes from God who dwells inside of us. And if there is anything bad, it means that we have not fully surrendered, we are selfish, we are self-willed and we are insincere in our faith.
But then, I look at Brother Paul and I realize that he was a man just like us. As a matter of fact in the Bible, probably one of the greatest proofs of the Bible’s integrity, especially the Old Testament, is the litany of the failures of God’s people and their faith in God’s mercy brought them to this place where they could serve God.
Some people say that the Bible is God’s story of how He loves us in spite of our failures.
And Brother Paul, who writes this statement “follow my example” is no exception. He became angry and resentful toward John Mark. He was so angry that His best friend, partner and mentor broke company with him. And the truth is; he was just being stubborn.
The story, quickly, was that John Mark –the author of the Gospel of Mark- got homesick on their first journey and left the group. On the second journey, he wanted to redeem himself, but Paul was stubborn. Barnabbas is the Christian whose example I want to follow here. Barnabbas was all about grace and second chances. They disagreed so bitterly that they parted company.
The story has a good ending. Eventually, Paul forgives John Mark and he becomes a great apostle himself.
I love the letters, theology and writing of the Apostle Paul, but he wasn’t a perfect man.
Have you ever heard a preacher who just goes on and on and never seems to make a point, a preacher who isn’t sure that people get it, so he keeps coming at it from every angle?
Well, apparently Paul was a boring preacher. He actually bored a guy to death once. He was preaching for 4 hours, and a young man moved over to the window of the upstairs room to get some air, fell asleep, fell out the window and died. But that account also has a good ending, because Paul prayed for him and he came back to life!
And then there is the thorn in the flesh that he mentions in Romans. The nature of the thorn is left for debates among theologians. But it was an imperfection.
He was a man who prayed and performed great miracles of healing, but some think his thorn in the flesh was his very poor eyesight. –It seems a contradiction since he was this great healer. And there is a lot of evidence for that. The Thorn in the Flesh was a reminder that he was imperfect. When he first met Christ, he was on a journey to arrest, imprison and even kill Christians. He was stricken blind. He commends the Corinthians for their love by telling them if possible, they would have plucked out their eyes for him. So maybe it was blindness.
But most theologians think that his thorn in the flesh was a problem with a specific sin that he could never master. We aren’t really comfortable with thinking about that, but the fact is, God told him that God wouldn’t remove it because (SHOW) Paul needed to be reminded that he was far from perfect and his salvation was by grace alone.
So, he was a good man, but not perfect. His impatience with the failures of others is pretty common to our culture. His 4 hour sermons are not common with our culture.
We, like him, are far from perfect.
One would almost think that saying the statement: “Use me as an example for how to live” would mean that there could never be a breach of personal integrity.”
But we know better. He knew better. Oftentimes, he called himself the chief of sinners. He knew he needed grace.
So, I have always struggled with saying the same thing as him: “follow me as I follow Christ.”
I know that I have many failures. The longest I have ever preached is 1.5 hours. I am a lot like Barnabbas in my desire to give 2nd, 3rd, 4th and infinite chances. That scripture from Jesus “70 X 7” speaks to me about the depth and width of God’s grace.
And that will be the theme of my messages throughout this Lenten season.
Because if it is based on personal integrity, perfect sacrifice, complete surrender a completely trustworthy example, I know I am not good enough to say “follow me, as I follow Christ.” At times I have even questioned my own calling.
But Paul isn’t saying he is perfect and he has it all together.
He is talking about finding grace.
Now the verses we read, “their god is their appetite, they glory in their shame…” are verses about personal holiness and fleeing from the bondage of sin that keeps us from serving Christ. They are strong words. The entire passage is about holiness, a very good reminder, especially during the season of lent.
But let me establish from this passage that (SHOW) Paul is calling them to follow him as he receives grace in his own imperfections.
This is important, because this passage about holiness is not in the context of hedonism, but in the context of legalism.
I’ll explain those words. Merriam-Webster dictionary says: (SHOW) Hedonism: The doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the sole or chief good in life.
From our scripture, these two phrases are graphic images of people who serve the god of pleasure: (SHOW) “Their god is their belly (appetite, desire, lust and sex).”
(SHOW –same slide) “Their glory is their shame.”
Now, let me be clear, God created pleasure for the happiness of humanity. There is nothing wrong with pleasure, but when pleasure is our god, we are not following Christ.
The phrase “their god is their belly” is more commonly stated today as: “If it feels good, do it.”
And it takes on a similar form: “If it is good for me, then it is good.” The implication is that what is good for me is the moral choice.
There is an animal kind of logic behind it. 30 years ago, I went “wreck fishing.” That is a charter boat out of South Jersey that goes to the entrance to the Delaware Bay. During WWII, the Allies sunk a bunch of concrete ships in order to hinder the Axis submarines from coming into the Naval base in Philadelphia.
Guys would be there with tackle that would have 3-4 hooks on them, and literally, as fast as you dropped your line, you got a fish.
I caught a large Sea Bass. While I was taking the hook out of its mouth, I found a freshly cut piece of Sea Bass from a fish that was near the size of the fish I just caught. The fish hadn’t even swallowed his first meal before he took my bait.
I was shocked that fish would turn on their own kind.
Was what that fish did immoral, or sinful?
No, that is the way God created it. Was I wrong for catching fish? If I was, then Jesus was sinner for the several times He helped the apostles catch fish, which was their livelihood.
God didn’t give us these Canine teeth (point to my canines) for nothing.
But hedonism, serving the god of pleasure and believing that whatever is good for me is morally okay demonstrates that kind of animal behavior.
And Paul is preaching against Hedonism here. He condemns selfish living.
He goes on to talk about how serving pleasure leads us to perversity when he makes the statement: “Whose glory is their shame.”
The Bible talks about how that kind of mentality becomes abusive and is wicked in other places. Look at this from Proverbs about just one vice, the abuse of alcohol: (SHOW): Proverbs 31: 4-7 "Leaders can't afford to make fools of themselves, gulping wine and swilling beer, lest, hung over, they don't know right from wrong, and the people who depend on them are hurt. Use wine and beer only as sedatives, to kill the pain and dull the ache of the terminally ill, for whom life is a living death.
And another place he says, “Pity the land whose leaders eat and drink for pleasure instead of for the strength to govern.”
He talks about how disgraceful this is in one more passage: (SHOW) Isaiah 5:22 Woe to those who are "heroes" when it comes to drinking and boast about the liquor they can hold.
This isn’t preaching against mere vices. Turning to vices to find pleasure is the natural outcome of making pleasure your god. This is a message against overconsumption that does not take into account the welfare of others. I was searching my bible for the passage, woe to the land whose princes… using the key words “woe to the land” when I came across this phrase: (SHOW) Isaiah 5:8 Doom to you who buy up all the houses and grab all the land for yourselves—evicting the old owners, posting no trespassing signs, taking over the country, leaving everyone homeless and landless.
False heroes in this kind of culture are people who live only for themselves.
They glory in things they should be ashamed of.
And Isaiah is writing to God’s people, not pagans.
It is a stern warning to us to live simply so that others might simply live.
Pleasure is not the path to happiness. Being content with God’s peace is the path to happiness.
Now I know I went into an extensive description of sin after I introduced the thought that Paul isn’t writing to godless pagans who live hedonistic lives, but Paul is writing to Christians who are bound by legalism.
Again from Merriam-Webster: (SHOW) Legalism: strict, literal, or excessive conformity to the law or to a religious or moral code. For example: “the institutionalized legalism that restricts free choice.”
This stunning condemnation of people is directed at Judiazers. These people were saying that the grace of Jesus Christ, His death on the cross for us, is not enough to save us. We need to accept Jesus, and then adhere to a bunch of other rules.
Look at verses 2-4 (SHOW) 2-4Steer clear of the barking dogs, those religious busybodies, all bark and no bite. All they're interested in is appearances—knife-happy circumcisers, I call them. The real believers are the ones the Spirit of God leads to work away at this ministry, filling the air with Christ's praise as we do it.
He calls them Judiazers somewhere else. He is referring to a cult that was already starting up within Christianity that was focused on human ability to make God love them more. Grace was not good enough for these people. They had a mission to prove to everyone else that they were more faithful, more committed, more knowledgeable, and more Biblical than everyone else.
By making people follow all these rules, they were taking away from the work Jesus did for us on the Cross. They were directly contradicting Jesus’ words from two different places: (SHOW) “Here is the new command, Love others as you love yourself… …do this and you will fulfill the entire OT law.”
Paul picks it up in a similar vein in Romans 13 and 14 as he discusses the problem with legalism. He tells them in Chapter 13 that living for pleasure is sin. In 14, he tells them that (show): If you want to obey, even the 10 commandments, gauge every action, every word, every decision to spend money or time on the one principle, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
So, theologians argue about this chapter. They say this: “the Judiazers certainly didn’t go around womanizing, partying all the time without regard to how it impacts their bodies, their spiritual lives, and their ability to serve God.” The Judiazers were not hedonists.
And yet Paul, when talking about them, condemns Hedonism. These Judiazers were so legalistic that they made the Amish look like nudists.
So, there are a couple of questions that I think I have answers to in this passage.
(SHOW) How can Legalism be similar to Hedonism?
And the first question I asked: (SHOW-same slide) “How can Paul tell people to follow his example when he wasn’t perfect, he was even prone to hypocrisy.”
Legalism and Hedonism are more similar to each other than they are opposites because they both focus on mankind instead of God. They are both in it, for themselves. And that was true, because they were actively trying to discredit Paul’s ministry in order to gain a power advantage over these people. They were using religion to manipulate others. Listen, (SHOW): When we sin, the Holy Spirit tells us it is wrong and draws us IN HOPE to repentance. But false religion fills us with shame and focuses our efforts on making us try to make God love us.
And how can we tell others follow us as we follow Christ? We follow Christ by trusting in His mercy, glorifying Him instead of being proud of how faithful we are.
(SHOW) Do you trust in Christ your yourself?
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