05-12-13 TESTS FOR TRUE FAITH

Phil. 3:2-3

Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision; for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh,...

Last week we began something

that we need to finish

or at least continue today.

We are studying the New Testament book

or letter of Philippians.

It is a short letter located about 3/4 of the way through the New Testament

which would put it fairly close to the

back of the entire Bible.

I might also mention for those of you who are interested

that for our studies together

I always use the New American Standard translation.

There are many different translations available,

and sometimes it can get a little frustrating to try to follow along in your own reading

when the wording may vary slightly

with what we do here on Sunday mornings.

If you have been with us through this study

you know that Philippians

was a letter written by the Apostle Paul,

written from his prison in Rome

to his fellow Christians in the city of Philippi.

Paul made it clear in his letter

that his trial before Caesar for treason against the Roman Government

could end in his own execution.

And Paul writes this letter to accomplish 3 things.

First, he wants his friends to know how he’s doing.

Second, through the example of his own life

he wants to share with them the tools that have equipped him

to thrive in his own life with the King even in prison.

And then third, he wants to offer them

the key principles they will need

in order to continue on in faithful life with Christ after he’s gone.

And the passage we’re studying today

from Philippians 3:2-3

falls into this third area.

We saw last week in verse 2 of chapter 3

that Paul urgently wants to warn his friends

about a potential a danger

every Christian must be on guard against.

In that verse he said,

Beware of the dogs,

beware of the evil workers,

beware of the false circumcision;

BEWARE, BEWARE, BEWARE...

That word BEWARE actually means

‟keep your eyes wide open”.

It is a call to stay alert

to a danger we likely will not be expecting

unless he prepares us for it.

We also saw last week

that Paul is warning us about

evil within the perimeter of the church.

He knows that entrance into the family of God brings with it

a tremendous sense of security

and protection.

When the Body of Christ is functioning

as God intended it to function

it becomes a very safe place to be -

a place where acceptance

is not tied to race

or nationality

or accent

or gender

or age

or economic level

or status in the community

or any other external factor.

The only qualification for membership

is personal submission to the Head of the Body - the Person of Jesus Christ.

By God’s design

His family is truly unique in all the world.

Everywhere else in life

we are both highly trained and highly skilled

in evaluating another person’s status and importance and significance

on the basis of rigid external social measures.

Where are they socially?

Who do they know?

What influence do they have?

What is they’re economic and social standing?

And then we give those who are higher on the social ladder

more value, more prominence, more importance in our minds and lives.

And we try to relate up the ladder

with the hope it will then raise our standing as well.

But when God’s Spirit enters our life,

if we will hear His voice

He begins to create within us a radically different approach

to evaluating the significance of those around us.

He calls us to look not at any of the social externals of those around us

but rather at their spirits,

to see what’s going on between them and their God,

and then what’s going on between them and people around them.

I’m making it too complicated...

do you know what we’re called to look for in those around us?

Do they love their God?

Do they reach out in love to those around them?

Mar 10:42 Calling them to Himself, Jesus said to them, "You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them.

Mar 10:43 "But it is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant;

Mar 10:44 and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all.

True greatness in the Kingdom of God

comes through our letting go of our addiction to the social trappings

that corrupt and control our lives in every other area

and then choosing to accept and honor those around us

on the basis of their heart response towards God and His people.

And to the degree that a group of believers

compromise that truth,

to that degree they cease to function as the Body of Christ

and become simply one more human religious organization.

But when we are functioning as God intends

the Church truly becomes a sanctuary -

a place that provides its members

with the security and protection they need in order to grow in Christ.

But it is because of that security

that Paul offers his friends this warning.

When he says to us, BEWARE, BEWARE, BEWARE,

he is saying in effect,

“My friends, I want you to be secure within the family of God,

but I don’t want you to be NAIVE!”

He does not want us fearful

but he does want us to know

that there will be those within the perimeter of the church

whose goals and influence and actions are EVIL.

Christ Himself illustrated this

in a dramatic way

with His own disciples.

There is a conversation between Christ

and His chosen 12 men

recorded for us in the Gospel of John 6:66-71.

It is a conversation

that Christ had with the 12

after a particularly hard day of non-communication with the masses.

Christ had said some things

that made the crowds angry,

things they didn’t understand,

things they didn’t want to hear.

And listen to the conversation

that takes place as a result.

John 6:66-71 As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew, and were not walking with Him anymore. Jesus said therefore to the twelve, "You do not want to go away also, do you?" Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God." Jesus answered them, "Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?" Now He meant Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray Him.

There is a tremendous amount of stuff

going on in these few verses,

but it’s that 70^th verse I want to point out.

John 6:70 Jesus answered them, "Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?"

Do you see what He’s doing?

He is saying, “Even when I hand pick 12 men there is one whose heart is evil.”

In other words,

establishing absolute purity of heart

within a body of Believers

is an impossibility in this life!

And one of the things that fascinates me

is that right up to the day of Christ’s death

the other 11 disciples had no idea

Judas’ heart was evil.

In fact, when the group selected the one man they all trusted

to take charge of the group’s money,

the man they felt had the most integrity,

and the strongest sense of responsibility

was Judas.

You know how we draw Judas in pictures today, don’t you?

He has this real thin

sharp-featured face

with beady little eyes

and EVIL written all over him.

Well, in real life Judas was one of those rare individuals

that everyone liked,

and everyone trusted.

‟Give Judas the money! I know we can trust him. What ever you do,

keep it away from Peter! Who knows what he’ll do with it?”

..."Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?"

Phil. 3:2 Beware of the dogs,

beware of the evil workers,

beware of the false circumcision;

But what good is a warning

without some means of recognizing

those we are suppose to BEWARE of?

And so, in verse 3 Paul gives us the knowledge we need.

But, rather than describing THEM...the evil ones,

he describes US!

He knows that the most effective way

to equip us to recognize the counterfeits

is to show us exactly what

the real thing looks like.

And so, in verse 3:3 he lists for us

three characteristics of the real thing.

Phil. 3:3 for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh...

Before we look at those three characteristics

let me just say a few words about this circumcision thing.

Paul sets up a contrast in verses 2 and 3

between “the false circumcision”

and “the true circumcision”.

Paul is picking up an imagery

that was well known to his readers

in the 1^st century church.

Prior to the establishment of the church

circumcision was a practice

that was identified exclusively with the nation of Israel.

It had its roots way back in the book of Genesis.

When God stepped into Abraham’s life

and made a covenant with him,

promising him a son

and promising to make of him a great nation,

along with that covenant God said:

Gen. 17:9 ... "Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.

Gen. 17:10 "This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised.

Gen. 17:11 "And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you.

Now initially Abraham and his descendants no doubt viewed this requirement of circumcision

as being a way in which

God established within His people a permanent,

constant reminder

that they are a special people,

chosen by God

and set apart by Him for Him.

It was His way of saying, “Because you are Mine, you are different from

all the other people around you.”

But even in the earliest writings of Moses,

in the book of Deuteronomy,

God began to make it clear

that the physical act of circumcision

was symbolic of what God really wanted -

not a change in their flesh,

but a change in their heart.

In Deut. 10:15-16 Moses writes,

"Yet on your fathers did the Lord set His affection to love them, and He chose their descendants after them, even you above all peoples, as it is this day. Circumcise then your heart, and stiffen your neck no more.

And in Deut. 30:6 Moses makes this remarkable prophetic statement

about God’s people:

"Moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live.”

Paul reinforces this in Rom. 2:28-29

when he says:

Rom. 2:25 For indeed circumcision is of value, if you practice the Law; but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

Rom. 2:28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh.

Rom. 2:29 But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.

He is saying, of course,

that what God has wanted from the very beginning is not a people

who simply take on an external sign

identifying themselves with their God.

What He has wanted from the very beginning

is a group of people

whose hearts are turned toward Him.

The TRUE circumcision

is not made up of those whose FLESH has changed,

the TRUE circumcision is made up of those whose HEARTS have changed.

That’s why he says in Philippians 3:3,

Phil. 3:3 for we are the true circumcision,...

And then he gives us the 3 characteristics of the real thing.

And #1 on the list is:

Phil. 3:3 for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God ...

And the first thing I need to say here

is that Paul is not talking about styles of public worship.

He is not talking about whether people

raise their hands

or don’t raise their hands,

or whether they stand up

or don’t stand up,

or whether they clap

or don’t clap.

In fact, he is saying nothing about corporate worship whatsoever.

Paul is actually drawing our attention back to a conversation that Christ Himself

had with a Samaritan woman

during His earthly ministry.

That conversation is recorded for us

in the Gospel of John chapter 4.

The Samaritans were the descendants

of Jews who had intermarried with non-Jews.

They were despised by the Jews,

the product of traitors who had corrupted the blood line of Abraham.

But in this 4^th chapter of John

Jesus gets into a conversation with a Samaritan woman

who was less than a sterling member of the community.

In the course of their conversation

(John 4:16-19) Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." The woman answered and said, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You have well said, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly. " The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet...

Now here in one sentence Jesus has just

laid her whole life wide open,

with all of its pain and failure and confusion,

and she does

what we often do in that kind of situation,

she looks for a hiding place.

And she comes up with a brilliant one.

She thinks to herself,

“This guy is a prophet - hey! Let’s get the attention off of me

and onto some roaring doctrinal debate.”

And so the next thing she says is,

John 4:20 "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship."

Lets discuss where the proper place is

for a person to go and worship God.

Today, in our culture, she would have said,

“You know, you’re obviously a prophet,

so you’d know the answer to this...which church do YOU think is the right church?”

Prophets love to talk about things like that,

and I can get this conversation away from me and my disastrous life.

And then Jesus responded to her by saying,

"Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall you worship the Father... But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.”

And when Paul begins his list of the 3 characteristics

that mark the true Christian

the first one is right from the mouth of Christ:

Phil. 3:3 for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God ...

Now let me try to explain to you

what I see going on here with this first characteristic of the real thing.

We are going to see this pattern carried out throughout all three of these characteristics,

but Paul is calling us to do something

that does not come natural.

He is calling us set aside all of the externals,

all of the structure

and form

and organization

and words

and doctrine

and ideas

that encase our Christianity

and listen to what is going on

at the spirit level.

Prior to the work of Christ in our life

the only way a person can understand worship

is through external acts

designed to appease God’s wrath

or earn His forgiveness or approval.

All such actions are futile, of course,

but it’s all we know.

Whether those actions take the form of

throwing the virgin sacrifice

into the volcano,

or making a generous contribution

to some religious organization,

or making a bold public display

of prayer, or praise, or worship in the public gathering,

the root attitude is the same:

it is an external action

designed to help close the gap

between myself and my God,

or at the very least

to create the appearance of my close union with my Creator.

But when a person turns to Christ

and places their sins...

their sinfulness into His hands

Christ takes that sin upon Himself,

declares the payment for that sin

to be made in full through His own death,

and REMOVES FOREVER THAT BARRIER OF SIN between us and Himself.

From that point on

we become pure, holy, righteous beings,

His HOLY ONES (saints),

and He is freed to literally take up residence within each of us,

placing His Holy Spirit within us,

and He then begins transforming us

from the INSIDE OUT.

Now what Paul and Christ are saying here,

is that the first great characteristic

of the true believer

is that his or her life is now being lived

from the inside out,

that God’s Spirit indwells us at the deepest level,

and that we will be able to recognize that inner Spirit in other believers.

Now this is a dangerous thing for me to say,

because in our dingy new-age world

it will be misunderstood by some,

but Paul is telling us

that the beginning of recognizing

THE REAL THING

is to learn to listen to the SPIRIT of a person

rather than listening to their words

or looking at their doctrinal system

or examining the externals of their religious practices.

Now, we’re out of time,

and I think maybe I need to say more about this,

so we’ll pick it up here next week

and look a little more closely

at how we go about that.

But I can’t end without offering just one guideline,

and here again this one comes to us directly from the mouth of our King,

about how we go about that.

How do we see what’s really going on

in the spirit of another person?

Joh 13:35 "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

When you’re with another person

do you come away from them

with a sense that they love you,

that they value you,

and honor you as God’s unique creation?

The Spirit of God within a person

will forever move that person

toward real practical love and compassion and kindness towards the people in their life.

Now of course I know

that everyone of us

have...well, lets call them difficult relationships in our life,

relationships where choosing love

and then figuring out how to live out that love within that relationship

is really hard stuff.

But my point here is simply

that one of the clearest windows we will ever have

into the spirit of another person

is the degree to which they long for and then seek to build

love relationships with the people God has placed into their life.

We need more time on this stuff,

so we’ll come back to it next week.