“Religion, Finance, Sports and Politics”
Philippians 3:1-20
No, I’m not crazy.
I know that common wisdom says that you don’t talk about
Religion, Money or Politics in
polite company.
It’s not my idea- it’s Paul’s idea
And he throws some sports analogies in there as
well
Just for good measure.
It is Paul’s way of lifting up that the gospel is real,
relevant,
Life changing and even world
changing.
The gospel speaks in the language we
speak
To the issues we seem to care
about daily.
And so in Philippians 3 Paul uses analogies and images
From the world of religion, finance, sports and
politics
To speak of the Gospel that breaks into
And ultimately redefines that
world.
And he does it all with the introduction:
Finally, my
brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.”
First Paul says to the
Philippians
“You can’t religion you way into right
relationship with God.”
Paul is speaking to those
people in his day
Who think that they
(or we) can achieve
A right
relationship with God
By
being as good as we possibly can be.
That if we set up
numerous rules and regulations
And follow
them to the best of our ability
That we will be right with God.
Paul cites his own life as an
example when he says
If you want to
compare religious righteousness
Look at
me- circumcised on 8th day,
Natural
born Hebrew, Tribe of Benjamin
And a Pharisee- the
Pharisees were the layman
The Saducees were the clergy but the Pharisees
Were
the best law keepers on the law.
So in financial terms,
(This
is where he brings in the financial analogy.)
Paul had a
great religious balance sheet.
His assets far
outweighed his liabilities.
And yet
what does Paul say?
“Whatever gains I had, these I have come
to regard as loss
because of Christ.”
His religious assets
have become liabilities.
He even goes farther in saying:
“I regard
them as rubbish,
in order that I might
gain Christ.”
The translators are actually using polite language
The
word skular actually means “dung”.
That is
powerful language to describe his
Religious
credentials but he means it.
The more
we rely on our own works,
The
farther we are from God.
We have a tendency
toward works righteousness.
That’s why
Paul starts this discussion
with the startling words:
“Beware of the dogs,
beware of the evil workers,
beware of
those who mutilate the flesh!
By evil workers he means religious workaholics,
And
flesh mutilation is referring to
Those who claims that circumcision
Is
necessary to complete
The work of Christ.
Karl
Barth in his Church Dogmatics
wrote an astonishing Chapter
called “Revelation
of God as The Abolition of Religion”
In it he writes:
“Jesus Christ does not fill out and improve
all the different attempts of man to think of God and to represent Him
according to our own standards…”
“The revelation of God in Jesus Christ maintains that
our justification and sanctification, our conversion and salvation, have been
brought about and achieved once and or all in Jesus Christ. And our faith in
Jesus Christ consists in our recognizing and admitting and affirming and
accepting that fact that everything has been done for us once and for all in
Jesus Christ.”
Church Dogmatics, Doctrine
of the Word of God.
What
Barth and Paul are both saying is that it’s not our
work
That saves us and that when we focus so
much on our work
It actually gets in the way
of our receiving the
Freely
offered grace of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul
says all that works righteousness stuff is dung.
Any works righteousness we lift us is
actually a liability
In our
receiving the grace of God.
But
that doesn’t let us off the hook.
Here Paul shifts to a sport analogy.
“Not that I already have obtained this or have already
reached the goal;
but I press onward to make it my own,
because Christ Jesus
has made me his own.”
This whole section is written in sports language:
Goals, prize, straining
forward to what lies ahead.
Paul is not for a
minute suggesting that we
As
Christians, lay done and quit the race.
What he is saying that we now run for
a different prize,
Our prize is to glorify God
in Christ.
The movie “Chariots
of Fire” was a great illustration
The hero was a runner from
Much was made about
his refusal to run on Saturday
Because of his faith.
One could have perceived it
as an act of works
righteousness-
trying to earn his way into God’s grace.
But
he saw it as an act of joyful obedience that reminded him
That he was not in control and was not
the star.
Even his running was a gift
from God
And his running
should always glorify God.
Now he was Jewish so he would not have
expressed it as Paul
But he is very close to
Paul’s understanding of works
“Beloved, I do not consider that I have made
it my
own: but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind
and
straining for what lies ahead.I
press onward toward the
heavenly call of God in Jesus Christ.”
Paul
is not saying that we shouldn’t offer the very best we have
But rather that offering is reoriented
not to ourselves
But to God who has already
won the most important
And
lastly Paul talks politics.
He takes one more shot at the works
righteous faction
Since they were the ones tied to the dietary laws
He says: “Their end is destruction, their god is their
belly
Their glory
is in their shame;
Their minds
are set on earthly things.”
And Paul offers an alternative
“But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there
we are
expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The Philippians knew about citizenship.
They received a lot of
benefits from being Roman citizens.
But Paul is saying
that that is a secondary citizenship.
It might
deal with a few earthly things
But
our real citizenship is heaven.
And that citizenship is not a future
promise, it is a present reality.
Our citizenship defines who we offer
our absolute allegiance to.
Our absolute allegiance is to
God revealed in Jesus Christ.
That
is a radical and even dangerous affirmation for Paul to make.
We can see in our own world the possible
dangers.
The leaders of Hezbollah or Alchaida believe
that their allegiance is to their god, Allah
And not to any nation
state and we can easily see
How
destructive that can be
and how it can be misunderstood.
As I talk with Muslim leaders here in
the Allah
and the Koran that these terrorist groups follow
is not the true Allah
nor the true teaching of the Koran.
So theology and interpretation of
scripture really is important.
And that is why Paul is
writing to the Church at
And to us today to
make sure that our theology
Is a
theology firmly rooted in the grace of God
And not our own works righteousness.
So
when Paul says that our citizenship is in heaven
He does not mean that
“We
are citizen of heaven and therefore better than anyone else.”
He means that we are humble, dependent
on God,
Saved and loved by our Lord
Jesus Christ,
So that we might
love each other,
That we might
love God and our neighbor,
The
stranger in our midst,
And
even our enemy.
At
least those are the words of Jesus in all the Gospels
John 15:17; Luke 10:27; Matthew 5:44; Mark
And in
the end it is never our work
But the work of God in Jesus Christ.
“In this is
love, not that we loved God
but that he
loved us and sent his Son
to
be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
(1 Jn. 4:10)
So
religion, finance, sports and politics of the Gospel are:
1.
We can’t religion
our way to God. God reveals himself to
us in Christ and we see, receive and affirm that gift through faith.
2.
The balance sheet
of our life is upside down. The gains
are losses and yet we are made whole, and right in
Christ.
3.
We are spiritual
athletes striving to run the good race, not because we want our own glory but
because we play for an owner we love and who loves us.
4.
And we are
citizens and patriots of heaven first of all.
Every other allegiance and loyalty grows out of our allegiance and
loyalty to God.