Hello friends!

Welcome to our series, “A Letter From Prison: Choosing Jesus Over Our Circumstances”. During this series we will be taking a bird’s eye view of the letter of Philippians, exploring Paul’s imprisonment, his hardships and circumstances and his example of seeking and choosing Christ inspite of his burdens. Each week during the month of November we will tackle and work through a chapter of Philippians.

This week we are looking into Philippians 3 as Paul walks us through his own life and accomplishments and how it’s Jesus’s perfection, not ours, that helps us persevere through this life and find the goal that we are all seeking, whether we realize it or not!

Watch Out For Dogs

“Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— 4 though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more:” —Philippians 3: 1-4

Paul begins the last half of his letter with both an encouragement and a directive. He wants to encourage the people to find their hope and joy and worth in Christ, which is something we should never grow tired of hearing and practicing and preaching TO OURSELVES! But Paul is also sharing this thought again of finding ourselves in the Lord as a preface and preparation for the hard message he is about to share. Though the letter to the Philippians is one of Paul’s most positive and uplifting messages, (even being in the midst of difficult circumstances himself!), Paul is plunging straight into perhaps the main reason he writing the church.

Throughout the entirety of Paul and the other Apostles ministry, they had to contend with a group or perhaps several groups of “Judaizers”: Jews or even Jewish-Christians that believed and inforced on gentile converts that you still had to fulfill the Law and it’s many customs and practices to truly follow Jesus and have His grace. Jews believed anyone not born a Jew, God’s chosen people, were filthy, unpure, vicious, wild, and therefore unworthy of God. Like homeless dogs, gentiles were mixbreeds, amoral, and constantly watching and waiting to attack the true people of God. Worthless mutts. And so in the ancient world, to be called a dog was a grievous insult and one of the chosen names and images Jews used to describe Gentiles.

A particular trait of the 1st century Judaizers was to insist that Gentile-Christians not only had to still adhere to the over 600 statutes of the Law perfectly to find salvation, they would also have to be circumcised, no matter their age! I’m not going to get into the in’s and outs of circumcision as that is a particularly detailed and complex conversation, (plus you are adults, you don’t need me to explain that to you lol), but the brief overview is that it was a symbol of purity, a consecration of oneself to God. So for these new “Gentile/Christian/dogs”, they still needed to prove themselves, to mark and consecrate themselves to God’s service, to follow the letter of the Law perfectly to earn the approve of God and now, Jesus as well.

BUT PAUL WAS HAVING NONE OF THAT! To these Judaizers who watched and waited and doggedly pursued him and the people he lead so that they would be trapped into laboriously working to perfectly earn God’s love, Paul turned their own insult back on them! The Judaizers were the dogs to be watched for. They were the “evildoers”, literally workers of evil, who were viciously pursuing and attacking these new believers, perverting the purity of the gospel with dogged slavery instead of loving obedience. They “mutilated” the heart of the gospel the same way they mutilated their flesh by pushing the Philippians to mutilate themselves through circumcision (mutilate being a ironic play on the word circumcision). In a way, the Judaizers were placing their faith, their worship in their work, in their flesh, in their ability to follow God correctly, perfectly.

But Paul says the true people of God, the true “circumcised” and consecrated to Him worship by His Spirit not by their flesh. They are confident in the glory of Christ, not in the glory of their abilities. The people of God do not seek their own perfection, they live and walk in the perfection of the Savior. But just incase the Philippians (and us today) don’t quite get it, Paul explains this through the lens of his own “perfection”.

Practically Perfect In Every Way

“circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” —Philippians 3: 5-6

Paul gives us this laundry list of accomplishments and achievements and accolades that all add up to him basically being the perfect Jew. Being circumcised on the 8th day means Paul wasn’t simply some convert, he was a Jew by heritage, consecrated to God from the beginning, purely of the people of Israel. Being of the tribe of Benjamin would have been particularly note-worthy, since that tribe’s patriarch was one of Jacob’s favored sons, gave Israel its first king and was loyal to David’s throne during the division of the kingdom. A Hebrew of Hebrews could be simply be re-affirming Paul’s Jewish heritage but also could point to him being so deeply of Israelite descent that He speaks both Hebrew and Aramaic, which could have been odd since he was from typically greek-speaking Tarsus. As a Pharisee, Paul was descipled by one of the greatest rabbi’s of Jews at that time which allowed him to belong to the ruling class of the Jews and the most aggressively legalistic interpreters and followers of the Law. So legalistic and potent was Paul’s cleaving to the Law that he viciously persecuted a sect of people that violated that Law by believing in a man named Jesus. Truly, in the eyes of Paul, looking and interpreting the Law through the lens of the old covenant, he was practically perfect in every way! No one could have found fault in him in his exhaustive list of working for God. Except for Jesus.

Perseverance Over Perfection

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” —Philippians 3: 7-11

You see, our flesh isn’t perfect. It can’t be. God knew this. The Law is too complete. God is too perfect and nothing we can ever do will ever measure up to Him. Even in Paul’s following the Law “perfectly”, it wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t perfect. Remember who Paul was. He was a Pharisee, the most scrupulous at following the Law. And they were the people that Jesus had the most frustation for. They worked so hard to please God, they focused on their flesh, trying to train it to perfection and use it to gain God approval. Instead of seeking the heart of God, they sought their own hearts, sought to change it themselves in order to be perfect enough by the Law to gain the prize of God.

This is what the “dogs” do. The Judaizers dogs of Philippians, the very similar dogs that still exist in the Church today that insist on moral and ethical perfection to be apart of the Church, the great dog or roaring lion that prowls around seeking whom he can devour. Even the dogs in our own minds and hearts that convince us to keep pursuing perfection in order to gain God’s acceptance or contentment and happiness in life and then leaving us hurt and broken when we can’t achievement that perfection.

This is why Paul counts all of his achievements and perfection as loss. They don’t give him fulfillment and approval from God. It’s not enough. This perfection by our own means is an illusion, a counterfeit; it isn’t real. And it will always inevitably leave us empty and downtrodden. This perfection is impossible without knowing God.

So Paul throws his perfection away to the dogs, even so far as to call it “rubbish”: trash, worthless, literally “crap”. He counts his perfection as loss and trades it in for knowing Christ. It is in knowing God that we find contentment, faith that leads to righteousness, and perfection. His perfection. Knowing God isn’t an intellectual pursuit, it is a deep and intimate relationship and connection. Knowing God like this is finding yourself and your worth in Jesus. Knowing God like this is covering ourselves in Jesus’s perfection and so gaining Jesus’s righteousness. Knowing God is abiding in Him, remaining in Him, living in Him, and walking with Him. When we know God, we walk with Him, we advance with Him, we progress in Him, inspite of our circumstances. And walking with God through our circumstances requires perseverance. By persevering through our circumstances alongside God, we know Him more and more each passing day. We walk with Him and so we begin to walk like Him. We become like Him in death and like Him in His resurrected life. We persevere with His perfection.

The Goal of Perseverance

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.” —Philippians 3: 12-16

Perseverance is the goal. Not perfection. Even Paul had not achieved this yet. And this is the guy who wrote most of the New Testament and almost single-handedly spread the gospel all across the world! But Paul presses on, progresses in his faith, advancing in his knowing of Jesus, He perseveres towards the goal, the goal of walking with God and slowly becoming more and more like Him! This perseveance isn’t about being perfect for God. It is about walking with Jesus’s perfection and allowing Him to approve of us and transform us. Jesus sets us free from having to be perfect!

Here are some questions to ponder this week:

1.) What are the “dogs” in your life forcing you to work for your value and worth and love in Jesus?

2.) Do you find confidence and contentment and love in knowing God? Why and how?

3.) What are your “goals” for your life? Do they line up with Jesus? If not, should they? Why?

Perseverance is tough. It is very difficult. But it is worth it. Because Jesus is worthy it. And so are you.

You are loved, Believe it!