"Christ is Enough" by Pastor Sean Baker on Philippians 3:1-11 on August 11, 2024

1Further, my brothers and sisters, 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. 2 Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. 3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— 4 though I myself have reasons for such confidence. 

If someone else thinks they have 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 righteousness based on the law, faultless. 

7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, 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 on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 

You all know what a CV is? A Curriculum vee-tie? Like a resume but for really smart people. People like professors. You list all your degrees, PhD, MD, JD, ABCD; but also all the awards you’ve ever won, all the titles you’ve ever held, and all the books and articles you've ever published. CVs are meant to be long, impressive looking (and, to be honest, boring) documents. 

And Henri Nouwen’s CV was about as good as they get. 

Henri was a Catholic Priest: Born in Europe in 1932, ordained at age 25. He received his first doctorate at 32. 

He was promptly recruited to teach at U of Notre Dame. 

Two years later, a little school named Yale came calling—recruited him to be a full professor there by the age of 35. 

After he’d been at Yale a little while, he started getting requests from another little school, called Harvard—pleading with him to teach there.  Add to those professorships, he published 40 books in his lifetime about faith, spirituality and ministry. Henri Nouwen was widely regarded as one of the most important Christian thinkers of the 20th century. 

But if you’ve read any one of those 40 books you know that there is this one theme that comes up again and again and again in his writing: restlessness. 

This guy moved from Notre Dame to Yale, to Harvard, bouncing around the most prestigious institutions in the world, all before he was 40; everyone wanted him: yet Nouwen never felt satisfied. 

His books sold millions of copies, his accomplishments were unmatched. Yet Henri Nouwen rarely enjoyed them. As amazing as his accomplishments sound (at least to me) to him, they were not enough. 

Makes me think of Paul in our passage today. Paul’s got a pretty good CV himself. Especially for a Jewish teacher. 

Vs 5 Circumcised on the 8th day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, in regard to the law, a Pharisee, as for zeal, persecuting the church, as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. 

Each one of those lines is packed with meaning, but what Paul is really saying is this: as far as good Jewish credentials go—I’m really good. Any Jewish reader of that list would have been like—whoa—this guy is legit. 

But what does Paul say about all his achievements? 

He kind of dismissively refers to them as mere “confidence in the flesh” in verses 3 and 4…but that’s really just his warm up. By the time he gets to verse 7, now he’s really going… 

He says I consider all that stuff, all the stuff that made you say “whoa” I consider everything loss… 

He says I consider it all garbage 

The Greek word there is skubalon. 

Garbage is kind of a mild translation. I think our translation is trying to be polite. It is church, after all. 

When Martin Luther, famous pastor of the Protestant Reformation about 500 years ago, when he translated the Bible into German, he translated the word Shizah. Don’t know if you all know German… 

Excrement is probably a better word. Manure maybe? Or, to be honest, a better word in English is probably the word ‘crap.’ 

He considers all that he has accomplished skubalon. 

And I gotta tell you: this is a little strange: The Apostle Paul is not famous for foul language. But in vs. 8, he’s basically swearing and in vs 2, he calls those he disagrees with “dogs.” 

For an Apostle—this is like REALLY ticked off.

So what is Paul so mad about? What are these Philippians doing that has him so bent out of shape? 

Is there child trafficking going on? Is there a prostitution ring? Are they mistreating the poor? Are they blaspheming God? What is it? 

These dogs, these mutilators of the flesh, these evil doers… 

These people must be awful, right? 

Well, not really. It turns out that these dogs, these mutilators of the flesh, these evil doers…are actually pretty good people. 

This group is sometimes called Judaizers. They were a particular subgroup of Jewish Jesus followers. And they followed God’s law very closely, as you’d expect from a Jew, they tried to eat right, they followed all the Jewish customs, and they also believed in Jesus. 

Which, I don’t know, sounds pretty good to me. What was it about these good people that has Paul so wound up? 

Well you see, these dogs, these mutilators of the flesh–they had this interesting belief. They believed that in order to be a good Christian—you also had to be like them: you had to be a good Jew. In fact, they would say, if you weren’t a good Jew—if you didn’t eat a Jewish diet, if you didn’t follow Moses Law, if you weren’t circumcised—you were really just a 2nd class Christian. 

One pastor I read for this sermon compared the Judaizers to a game of tag. You all play much tag? I’ve got a 5, 6, and 8-year old, so I play a lot of tag. And when the Bakers play tag, there’s usually something on the playground that’s safe: the swings are safe or the slides are safe or the dinosaur is safe (it’s not a real dinosaur: real dinosaurs are not safe…it’s like plastic) anyway… 

The idea is, if you are touching the swings—you can’t be it. You’re safe. Well the gospel that Paul preaches throughout this letter and in other parts of the Bible has made this basic argument—if you’re touching Jesus—if you put your faith in Jesus—you’re safe. 

The Judaizers, though, played a more complicated game of tag—they said, basically, if you put your faith in Jesus PLUS do the food thing, PLUS follow Jewish law, PLUS get circumcised, then you’re safe. 

In other words—if you’re touching the swings AND the slide AND the dinosaur AND the merry go round—if you’re touching all of those at the same time—then you’re safe. Paul turns to these Judaizers and he’s like “Guy, your game stinks! That’s a terrible game.” 

But it’s interesting how he responds: Paul doesn’t just say “your game stinks.” (that would be kind of fun if he did) instead, he’s like, listen: I’m very good at your game. If you want to, we can play by those rules, but you should know: I will win. You want hoops? I can jump through hoops, I can touch the slide and the swings and the dinosaur and the merry-go-round ALL AT THE SAME TIME: I’m good at your game. You say a Christian needs to be a good Jew—I’m a better Jew than you! I’m as good as they get! 

But then he says, you know what I think of all my mad tag-playing skills? Skubalon. I consider it all a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ. He says—my game is so much better. 

You see, Paul is getting at something that is really at the heart of the Christian faith. A commentator I read for this sermon said it this way, he said: “Sin is not the main thing that keeps us from God. Righteousness is.” 

Image: anyone ever seen this-- 

There’s two sides divided by this big pit. 

The way this is usually explained goes something like this—we humans are all living over on this side—and the other side is where God is, that’s like heaven…but there’s something in between us and God—something that gets in the way— And what is that something? And what is the pit? 

Sin. All the bad things we do. That’s what keeps us from getting to the side where God is. 

The idea is—God sent his son to die on the cross—so that we could use that Cross to bridge the gap and get to him. Follow me? 

Normally—we think the big thing keeping us from God is sin. 

But Paul’s got a different idea working here—he says—listen the biggest thing keeping us from God is not our sin—it’s our righteousness. 

What is righteousness? Righteousness is an old word, it's really just a way of saying—stuff that makes you good enough. 

What are the things that make us good enough? Be a good neighbor. Work hard. Make good choices. Go to church. Don’t cheat. Don’t be a bully. 

You do those things—you’re a good person. 

Those things are righteousness. 

And some of us are pretty righteous: we do a lot of good stuff. 

Some of you show up at every church event; you’re honest at work, you’re nice at school, you’re a good neighbor, a good student. 

Some of us have a lot of righteousness to our credit. We’re decent people. We’re good people. 

But what does Paul say about all this righteousness? What does he say about all these accomplishments? 

Skubalon. Compared to knowing Christ. 

The biggest thing that keeps us from God is not our sin, it is our righteousness. See, Sinners, when they realize they’re sinners—they start looking for help. Sinners know they need a savior.  It’s not sinners who have the most trouble getting to God—it’s good people. Cause good people, people who make good choices and live in nice houses and have happy families—good people who vote for the right party and have the right opinions and keep the right yard signs in front of their house; good people aren’t always sure what they’d even need a savior for. 

Good people think: I’m pretty good. They’re not looking for a savior. Cause they’re not really sure they need one. 

Not a savior, anyway. If you’re a good person, the cross maybe doesn’t make much sense. Good grief, this guy had to die? He did it for me? I mean, sure, maybe I need a hand from time to time, I need a boost: some spiritual inspiration, but the cross? Isn’t that kind of overkill: surely I don’t need God to send his Son to die to save me. 

I’ve got a few problems, but I mean, “that sounds serious”. 

And so Jesus goes from being your savior, to being, I don’t know, like your inspiration. Your guide. You don’t need his blood; you need, like, his quotes to put in your instagram feed. 

And that’s the problem. See, the biggest thing keeping us from God is our belief that we’re not sinners. Or at least not that bad of sinners. For most of us: it’s the belief that we’re really pretty close to being good enough. 

And I know this is a little confusing—cause you’re thinking—Sean, I thought it was good to be good. 

True. Absolutely. Paul himself he’s constantly telling people to be good-what did he say in vs. 12–he’s pressing on; vs. 13, he’s straining for the prize—(Paul is not at all opposed to effort). for him, wanting to do what’s right and obeying God is the natural consequence of putting your faith in God. 

If someone didn’t want to be good or didn’t care about obeying God, that would be weird. You’d expect faith in God to lead to someone wanting to be good. So yeah, it’s good to be good. But this is the critical question: 

Where do you find your righteousness? 

What makes you confident that you’re safe? 

Are you confident cause you’re touching all the right things at all the right times—I go to church and I volunteer. I’ve got the right bumper stickers. And I like the right causes on facebook and I give to the right charities. “I’m a good person!” Are you confident cause you’re touching all the right things at all the right times? 

Or are you confident cause you’re touching Jesus? 

Paul feared these Judaizers looked to all the things they were touching: their Jewishness—the laws they kept, the customs they observed—Paul feared they trusted their own goodness to keep them safe. 

The problem is, as you’ve probably noticed–what the world says we need to do or believe to be good–is always changing…there’s always another cause we need to be excited about, another banner we need to put behind our profile picture, another sign to put in the front yard…as far as the world’s concerned, you’re never good enough. You can always be trying harder. You can always be doing more. 

And so instead we slip into comparing–we may not be really good people, but hey we know who the bad people are. We know what signs they put in their yards and what things they say on facebook. At least I’m better than those people. 

But Paul is like: No. The Christian faith is not about comparing. 

He says the only place he wants to look for his righteousness. The only reason he knows he’s safe—Jesus. 

Paul does good things—but he doesn’t worry whether those things are good enough because Paul knows that Christ is totally enough—Christ is so completely enough that Paul considers these other good things in his life to be skubalon compared to Christ. He’s not against that stuff-he’s not against trying hard, he just knows, when it comes to God— he doesn’t need it. 

Which brings me back to Henri Nouwen—after he’d been teaching at Harvard for a while, he was burned out. He had never been more popular, he had never been more successful and he had never been less happy. 

And then a friend invited him to check out and eventually move into a L’arche community. L’arche is a group of homes all around the world where people with severe disabilities live together in Christian community with live-in caretakers. 

Nouwen found his way to a L’arche community just outside Toronto. Part of his job every day was to take care of Adam—Adam couldn’t speak. Adam couldn’t read. Adam couldn’t feed himself. Couldn’t dress himself. Couldn’t bath himself. Couldn’t skubalon himself. Just about everything Adam did, he needed Henri’s help. 

In other words—Nouwen went to about the only community in the world that really couldn’t appreciate his righteousness. They didn’t know or really care about Yale and Harvard. They just cared—will you help me put on my pants? Will you help me to the bathroom? 

But you know what, it was in that community that Nouwen began to understand something he could have just read in Philippians—it’s this: when Henri put his trust in Jesus Christ—Henri plus not a single accomplishment in the world—not a single book published, not a single professorship or ordination—when Henri put his hope in Jesus Christ Henri plus nothing else was completely enough for God. 

It’s not till you see your accomplishments as skubalon that you can realize “I need a savior”. And it’s not until you realize I need a savior that you can appreciate how ENOUGH Jesus is. 

It’s not that we don’t still do good things, and it’s not that accomplishments are bad—but when you put your faith in Jesus—all those accomplishments are gravy: all those accomplishments can be taken away and forgotten; frankly, you can be a failure to everyone around you—but when you put your faith in Jesus Christ—you plus nothing else will be completely enough for God.