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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\u2014though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 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;\xa0as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. (Philippians 3:3-7)

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No confidence in the flesh, Paul says.\xa0 As Pastor Michael talked about yesterday, Paul speaks here pretty firmly against any sort of \u201cJesus-and\u201d sort of faith.\xa0 Like a faith that says salvation comes by Jesus, and circumcision.\xa0 Or Jesus, and following the law.\xa0 Or Jesus, and good worship. \xa0Or Jesus, and good kid\u2019s programs.\xa0 Or Jesus, and good ethics.\xa0 Certainly some of these things have their place in the life of the church and the life of the Christian\u2014but they have no place in securing our salvation.

In frightening moments of culture and technological shift, we tend to reach for something more than Jesus\u2014something tangible we can hold on to to know we\u2019re safe and secure.\xa0\xa0We build up walls of policy and doctrine, or of research and knowledge, or of wealth and possessions, or of whatever else.\xa0 Something tangible that we can control so that we can keep the sky from falling down on us.\xa0 This has been going on since the beginning of the church\u2014like it does here in Philippians.\xa0 There\u2019s nothing new under the sun.\xa0

But, the Christian faith is not a \u201cJesus-and\u201d sort of faith.\xa0 It\u2019s just Jesus that saves us.\xa0 Him alone.\xa0 We put no confidence in the flesh.\xa0 No confidence in any of the things that we can see, achieve, hold on to, or control.\xa0

Paul gives an example.\xa0 As far as Judaism goes: Paul was at the top of the class.\xa0 Not only was he born into the privilege of a strong, practicing Jewish pedigree\u2014but he also had the smarts and the drive to pursue that Jewish faith to the Nth degree\u2014not content even just with the achievements of joining the legally righteous Pharisaical sect, but also pursuing an absolutely faultless life and a zealous persecution of all those who stepped outside it\u2014like Christians.\xa0 But now: all these things he once considered gain, he now counts as loss.

Mark this well: Paul does not see his previous privilege and achievements as garbage\u2014they were gains!\xa0 But in light of the surpassing greatness and sufficiency of Jesus and him alone\u2014he considers all else loss.\xa0 Even what he had previously considered as gains.\xa0

So it is for our wealth and our institutions, our success and our knowledge\u2014they may very well be gains in any other sense.\xa0 But they don\u2019t save us.\xa0 There\u2019s nothing there to put confidence in.\xa0 In fact, compared to the all surpassing sufficiency of Christ, they are a loss.\xa0 Or perhaps betters said, they are to be lost.\xa0 Our need for them has to die, such that we hold on to nothing else but Jesus.\xa0 This is what Paul\u2019s getting at.

What gains in the world of the flesh do you rest your understanding of your security, worth, and belonging upon?\xa0 That is, your salvation?\xa0 Does it rest on nothing but Jesus?\xa0 Or are there some Jesus-and sorts of things you hold on to that need to be lost for the sake of Christ?\xa0

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