Word of Salvation – Vol.44 No.22 – June 1999
A Strong Caution Against Legalism
Sermon by Rev P Kossen
on Philippians 3:1-7
Scripture Readings: Matthew 16:5-12; Philippians 3:1-7
Suggested Hymns: BoW 9:1-3; 398, 402
Brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Boys and girls…. Some years ago, during a big storm, we had a big Macrocarpa tree fall down at the manse, crushing the back part of the house. When later on we went down to see why it had fallen, we found that the tree had not broken, but that the roots were planted in a muddy stream bed, and with all the rain over those weeks, when a strong wind came, the roots just popped themselves out of the ground.
If nothing else, that tree has provided a very strong object lesson. You need firm roots if you want to stay standing. And if this is true for a tree, it is also certainly true for us as Christians. For us as Christians to remain standing strong, our roots need to be firmly planted in our Christian faith.
Now this matter of roots, or firm foundations, is, I believe, a vitally important message for the Christian church today. Many Christians are, I believe, struggling in their Christian lives as a result of not having understood the foundations properly. 500 years ago, the church (and the world) was turned upside down, inside out, and set on fire in the Great Reformation. Only one thing really happened then. The church rediscovered its foundations. And the Gospel they rediscovered at that time, was fire in their belly. But many Christians today again, have no fire in their belly. The Gospel is cold within them. And what we need is proper foundations, because if the foundation is right, the fire will be there. The Gospel is the power of God, and if it is not power for us, we simply have not understood it!
As we begin looking at Philippians chapter 3, we see that this whole chapter deals with Christian foundations. For now we are going to look at verses 1-7, and from these verses we see:
- To have a firm foundation, we must be very careful of legalism
What is legalism, boys and girls? Legalism is a way of thinking that I am going to make myself right with God. It is the idea that somehow we have to achieve a righteousness, by the way of the law. In Philippi at this time, there was a group you would call the “circumcision group”. And they said that in order to be right with God, you have to put yourself under, and keep, the Old Testament law. Paul speaks of these people in verse 2, when he says: “Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh.” In other words, he is urgently warning the Philippians to beware of this legalism.
I think that as Christians we all reject this open sort of legalism. We know that you cannot make yourself right with God. And yet, at the same time, I think that legalism can affect us more than we like to think. Jesus Himself said to His disciples: “beware the yeast of the Pharisees.” And I believe that the yeast of the Pharisees is something that affects us more than we would like to think. In other words, even though we reject the legalism of the Pharisees, yet at the same time we can be very badly influenced by their thinking.
Let me demonstrate this with a very simple question. “When you think of the Lord Jesus Christ, and what He has done, does your heart tremble with joy? Are you completely and thoroughly overwhelmed with the knowledge of what Jesus Christ has done for you? Or when you think of Jesus Christ, is this knowledge a little bit cold in your heart?”
If your heart is cold towards Him, and you are not characterised by this overwhelming joy in Jesus Christ, it is very likely, that you don’t yet understand the fullness of what Jesus Christ has done for you!! You see the very reason we often lack joy, is because we look within our own hearts, and we find so little there to be joyful about! We want to love the Lord, and read the Bible and pray. We desperately want to be holy people, with holy desires. And yet, these things are so difficult for us, that in the end, we can throw our hands up in despair, and wonder, whether we are Christians at all. We want to be good Christians, and yet, it is so hard to do. You see then that often we may find that our own sinful failures as Christians are destroying our joy.
But if this is what is happening to you, you are building your life on the sand. If you can find any reason for joy from within yourself, then Jesus died for nothing. If there is any reason why you can be joyful, just by looking at yourself, why did Jesus come? He did not come to help us with our salvation, did He? No, He came as our Saviour!! And so I need to stress to you, our second point, that:
- To have a firm foundation, we need to put away all confidence in the flesh
Look at the next verse where Paul talks about the very essence of what it means to be a Christian! He says: “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.” And you see here, that there are only two foundations. Either we glory in Christ Jesus, or we put confidence in the flesh. One of these is the house built on the rock and the other is the house built on sand. And if you build on the rock of Christ, your life will be strong. But if you build on the sand of your own flesh, of course your house is going to be weak, and one day, it will come crashing down. And look again at how Paul describes the very essence of being a Christian: “We glory in Christ Jesus, and we put no confidence in the flesh.”
À moment ago I asked why are we sometimes still so miserable as Christians? Why aren’t we leaping around and jumping around for joy because of what Jesus has done for us? And again, we are often sapped of our spiritual joy and energy, because we feel ourselves to be such terrible failures. All our attempts, to love, to serve, to read, to pray, we find that they all eventually come to nothing. Our very weakness makes us miserable, and like the little red engine, we keep on persevering – I think I can, I think I can. I am going to achieve holiness, if it kills me. And it usually does. No matter how great your desires may be to please God, your sinful nature is always there, dragging you down.
And so, your life is a little red engine life, a life of struggle, a life of lack of joy, lack of assurance, lack of success, and then finally, lack of zeal and spiritual energy, because no matter how hard you have tried, you have been unable to make the grade. And you convince yourself that you are just a hypocrite and you just can’t be bothered with the struggle anymore! And how many Christians go through this process? How many Christians are living their lives in this miserable, struggling way? How many have eventually given up the struggle completely? And it is all so wrong! Because that’s not Christianity. You see, it’s the wrong foundation. That’s just religion. Humanistic religion. All human religions start in the same way, at the bottom of the hill, trying to fight their way up. But Christianity has a different foundation, it starts at the top of the hill. And where you start makes all the difference in the world.
If you think you can find any reasons for confidence within your flesh, then consider for a moment, the apostle Paul. If there is anyone who had reasons for confidence in the flesh, it was him. If anyone at all in the world could have made it up the hill on his own steam, it would have been the apostle Paul. He was from the right covenant family, he had the right theological education; he was filled with a spirit of zeal for God, and had a love for the commandments. Here was a man who, even before he became a Christian, was on fire for God.
But now in our text, look at what he says, in verse 7. “Whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” All of my credentials, everything within, I count this whole foundation as nothing, compared to the far more excellent foundation of Jesus Christ.
You see, before his conversion, Paul was just like Martin Luther before his conversion. Martin Luther was a man who, when he was young, was nearly struck by lightning, and it put the fear of God into him. From that moment on he spent his life trying to make himself right with God. And in the monastery he would spend hours every day confessing his sins. The priest there actually got very upset with him, over the sins he was confessing. Come on Luther, he said, don’t confess these little things which are no sins at all. If you want to confess yours sins, go and do something wrong first. But no matter how much Luther confessed his sins, he couldn’t find the assurance of being right with God.
But then he discovered the Gospel – that righteousness was not a human achievement, but totally and fully, a gift of God. And so, Martin Luther came to see that he did not need to fight his way to the top of the hill anymore. No, through believing in what Jesus had done, he was on the top of the hill. His sins were forgiven. And he was clothed fully with the righteousness of Christ. Luther did not have to be a righteous man anymore. Because he was righteous, through Jesus Christ. And, understanding this made all the difference. It set him, and the church, and the world on fire again, with the power of the Gospel of the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
- In order for our foundations to be strong, we must glory in Christ Jesus alone
I want you to know that the righteousness of Jesus Christ which is given to us is a very powerful foundation for Christian living. You see, as human beings, we don’t stop being human beings. Our sinful nature remains within us. And the Pharisee within us will always say: “but look at you, you miserable failure, you sinner, you man with the wrong thoughts and actions! You are not worthy to be a Christian”. And do you know what we should say to this Pharisee within us? We should agree with him. “Yes, I am just what you say I am. I am a miserable failure. And I alone know how weak and how sinful I am. And yet, my being a Christian is not based on what I am. I put no confidence in this sick flesh of mine which has no spiritual health in it. No, my being a Christian is based on the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, where He died to save sinful people like me, where he died to purchase for us a righteousness”.
Many years ago there was that film at the movies, “Crocodile Dundee”. And Paul Hogan is challenged by an American teenager with a little flick knife. And tough man Hogan says to this teenager, “You call that a knife? That’s not a knife! This is a knife.” And he pulls out his huge hunting knife which sends the teenager running.
And in the same way we look at our own achieved righteousness within us and we say, “Call that righteousness? That’s not righteousness? That’s just filth and mess. No, this is righteousness” – and we point to the righteousness which Jesus won on the cross for us. “This is righteousness. This is my righteousness. Because Jesus died for me, his sinful child.”
Do we understand this fully, brothers and sisters? Our righteousness as Christians is locked up in heaven. And in this life we are going to face failure as Christians over and over again. And we are going to be disappointed with ourselves over and over again. But then we pull the Ace of the Gospel from out of our sleeves. And we say, but that’s not righteousness. This is righteousness. This is mine. He died for me, and I am His, and His banner over me is love. And I know that I shall live forever with Him in heaven. Not because of what I have done or accomplished for Him. But because He loved me, and gave Himself for me.
And in conclusion, may I say again, that it makes all the difference where you start. If you are like the little red engine, starting at the bottom, you are going to go up and back, up and back, up and back. That is the house built on the sand.
But, says Paul, that’s not Christianity. We are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh.
As you read on in this chapter, you will see how powerful a foundation this righteousness of Christ really is. In the verses that follow, you find that Paul has, from now on, only one aim in life. He considers everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ his Lord.
Now please remember, Paul in himself, is just a person, like you and I, with all the struggles that we face day by day. But the difference is, he has lost all confidence in the flesh. Paul doesn’t trust Paul at all. He knows himself too well. But he has found a higher ground on which to base his salvation. And having discovered this goldmine above, this precious fountain of life, which doesn’t depend on him, you see that the whole of his life is geared towards knowing better and better, the full extent of what Jesus has done for him.
Do you see what I am saying? Paul has found the most precious pearl that a man could ever find. He has found the pearl of life, and it is his, and he just can’t stop turning this precious stone over and over again in his mind, thinking about the depths of the riches of Jesus Christ. He considers everything else rubbish compared to this knowledge of Jesus Christ. More and more he wants to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection.
And then the miracle begins. The more that Paul sets his heart upon the glory and the majesty of Jesus Christ, the more he finds himself being inwardly transformed into this glory. Paul is not focussing anymore on being a good Christian. He has given that up. Now all he is doing is focussing on Christ Jesus who is the only hope of his life.
Paul is no longer the little red engine chugging up the hill, but he is at the top. And the power of the gift of righteousness – the power of the Holy Spirit – is doing in him what he could not do himself. This, then, is the house which is built on the rock of the Lord Jesus Christ: the person who glories in Christ and puts no confidence in the flesh.
Brothers and sisters, may this be the foundation on which our lives are built, too. Taste and see that the Lord is good!
Amen.