00:00:00:37 – 00:00:41:06
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Thanks for joining us. After a little bit of a break, some time off. Hope that everything is going well. As we jump back into Philippians we find ourselves in chapter three. We have been working our way through the first part of this chapter. We pick up today in verse seven. Just a very quick summary, Paul, though not answering any specific criticisms or particular opponents, has made reference to some people who, in his, estimate, put confidence in the flesh.

00:00:41:11 – 00:01:04:57
Clint Loveall
And so Paul has, in the verses preceding our passage today, given a quick rundown of his own credentials, saying, not only am I Jewish, I can trace my lineage back to a tribe. I’m a Pharisee. I’ve persecuted the church. I’m blameless under the law, righteous under the law. And today is what he goes on to do with that.

00:01:04:57 – 00:01:33:48
Clint Loveall
And I you know, this is a beloved section. I think, Michael, this is a part of Philippians that gets preached a lot, a lot of great devotional material. It is always fascinating. There’s only a couple of instances where Paul appears to pat himself on the back for his his resume, so to speak, and then what he does with that is often surprising.

00:01:33:48 – 00:02:03:42
Clint Loveall
And I think that’s the case here. So keep in mind that that Paul has just made a case that his checklist is more impressive than those who might disagree with him. Well, here’s what he goes on to do with that. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

00:02:03:46 – 00:02:28:52
Clint Loveall
For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I might gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death.

00:02:28:57 – 00:02:59:51
Clint Loveall
If somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. This is in my estimation, and that means nothing. But in in my opinion, these are some of the most beautiful words in the book. There’s there’s a wonderful poetic quality to this. As Paul says, you know, I had all those things I had I have that checklist, I have that lineage, I have those accolades.

00:02:59:56 – 00:03:26:34
Clint Loveall
But when I compare them to Christ, they mean nothing to me. In fact, they mean nothing at all. I would gladly give up all of those things in order that I may gain Christ and find not a righteousness of my own, but the gift that God provides through faith. This is a this is a very devotional kind of moment for Paul.

00:03:26:34 – 00:03:44:57
Clint Loveall
Michael, it it it’s beautifully written. It’s deeply spiritual. I think in many ways, at least for me, these words are one of the cornerstones of Philippians. And I think they’re just, just really well done.

00:03:45:01 – 00:04:31:37
Michael Gewecke
There is a beautiful spirituality that Paul is revealing here because and you have to connect this to the previous context. We if you have been joining us live, there’s a bit of a break here from our last study to where we are today. You’ve got to remember that this long list of items that Paul gave in just the preceding paragraph here is in many ways, the bona fides of a Pharisee, of the person who was recorded in the Gospels as showing up to Jesus and arguing vociferously with him, arguing against Jesus’s teaching and calling him a heretic.

00:04:31:37 – 00:04:58:39
Michael Gewecke
And there’s a sense in which Paul freely admits all of this pedigree, that he has that on its own, gave him a great deal of status amongst the people. But in the gospel accounts of Jesus’s life, it was those very people who tended to be the ones most likely to argue with Jesus, and most likely for Jesus to denounce to come back with strong words.

00:04:58:44 – 00:05:39:45
Michael Gewecke
Now look what happens. Whatever gains I had, these I’ve come to regard as loss because of Christ. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things. This is, in a way, is Paul showing that in order to come to Jesus, whether or not that was Jesus in the flesh, and you were a Pharisee arguing with Jesus over the letter of the law, or whether you come to Jesus after his resurrection, after his ascension, even, and you’re converted, there’s still some part of the pedigree, some part of the self earning, some part of the self-definition that you have to let go of.

00:05:39:45 – 00:06:04:55
Michael Gewecke
And if you don’t let go of it, then you do actually lose the most important thing, the surpassing value, which is knowing Christ himself. And I think, Clint, this makes incarnate. It makes practical a thing that might otherwise seem theological. No matter what our status is. Doesn’t matter if you’ve been a Christian, you grew up in a Christian home.

00:06:04:55 – 00:06:32:09
Michael Gewecke
You’ve been to church every Sunday that the church has been open. It doesn’t matter how much you’ve served or volunteered. It’s not what we have done. It is fundamentally the doorway, the pathway, the grace that’s been open to us, that allows us to know Jesus Christ, that is everything. And that’s what Paul’s saying. He’s saying it from his own context, but he’s saying it in a way that if we’re able to hear it resonates today as much as it would have at any time.

00:06:32:11 – 00:07:06:27
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think there’s an opportunity to dig here, and I want to be very careful that we don’t introduce our own ideas. But I do think there’s a sense in which Paul’s saying, when Paul says, I’ve come to regard these as loss, I think part of what that means is that in his former life, Paul trusted those things, and he believed that those things gave him some status, some meaning, that those things provided for him a sense of identity.

00:07:06:32 – 00:07:32:51
Clint Loveall
And what he now understands is that those things actually made it harder for him to understand the gospel. So I now regard them as a loss. In fact, I regard everything as a loss when I compare it, or because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ for his sake. I have suffered all things and regard them as rubbish.

00:07:32:56 – 00:07:57:09
Clint Loveall
And that can get a little rough, because it’s tempting. And there are those who would maybe even interpret the passage to say that those prior things are bad in themselves, and I don’t. I think actually Paul stopped short of that. I think what Paul’s saying instead is, if those are the things you put your faith in, they’re woefully inadequate.

00:07:57:14 – 00:08:33:40
Clint Loveall
They are as garbage for that purpose. But I think it must be also remembered that he’s saying those things in comparison to Christ. Can’t hold a candle. I don’t think he’s saying that his heritage is bad, that these previous designations are somehow in themselves wrong or unrighteous or misguided. I think we have to remember that, he says, in comparison to Christ, compared to Christ.

00:08:33:45 – 00:08:59:28
Clint Loveall
And I think that I, I think that that’s helpful because the things that we are tempted to chase in our own lives may not be bad things, as long as we’re able to keep them in their proper perspective and to whatever extent we would ever be tempted to let them share equal footing with Jesus, then they no longer help us.

00:08:59:32 – 00:09:23:13
Clint Loveall
They hurt us. They they count as loss. And so I, I, I think it’s it’s a subtle thing, Michael, but I think it’s important that I don’t think Paul is denouncing those things. He’s he’s not saying they’re bad. He’s just saying that they can’t compare with what he calls the surpassing greatness of Christ and I it’s a little point, but I think it’s an important one.

00:09:23:18 – 00:09:41:24
Michael Gewecke
And I think that you would bolster that by not just reading Philippians. I think you’d turn to Romans, where Paul makes a sustained argument along that line. And it very much supports that. I think that we make mistakes when we pigeonhole texts and we say, well, this is the only thing I think you have to read the Scripture more broadly.

00:09:41:26 – 00:10:10:08
Michael Gewecke
I think you would support that completely. And I also I want to be careful here, but it’s worth noting, I think Paul writes in verse ten and 11 specifically some words that can very frequently be misread because of the emphasis that we put on them. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. And that is a clarion call which every Christian of all time could agree with.

00:10:10:19 – 00:10:32:33
Michael Gewecke
In fact, the entire books I’ve been written about that alone, this idea that it is the the knowledge of who Christ is and the power of God at work in us, that this is the the goal, the telos, the end, the crux of the Christian life. And then we just stop reading. But you can’t do that in Philippians.

00:10:32:33 – 00:10:57:28
Michael Gewecke
You can’t read the Christ hymn without recognizing it has a momentum. Jesus Christ, he comes down from the heavenly places. He takes on flesh. He suffers, he dies. He is buried here. How do we know the power of the resurrection? The sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death? This is where Paul turns it all around.

00:10:57:28 – 00:11:34:15
Michael Gewecke
The stuff that Christians often make this center of our lives. This idea that the gospel is going to always cha. That’s a clear path that if we do the thing right, that’s always going to be easy. It’s always going to be clear sailing that we are going to be able to navigate life without undue pain or suffering. If you stopped right there in verse ten, maybe you get there, but you’ve got to keep reading and you have to see that what Paul has in mind when he looks at the life of Jesus, he sees that God has showed us the way of the universe, and the way of the universe requires that we have to

00:11:34:15 – 00:11:55:49
Michael Gewecke
give up all of the privilege that we would like to have. You will bring us through moments of great trial, tribulation, and even suffering. And in doing so, we’re not farther from God. We’re living in the very way that God lived when Jesus Christ Himself suffered. And Klint, this is kind of, I think, the key that you have to understand to understand Philippians.

00:11:55:49 – 00:12:23:37
Michael Gewecke
It’s beautiful that these turns of phrase, these prayers, these, these almost hymns that are offered up are gorgeous. But you’re going to miss what Paul is saying when he says this stuff is rubbish. What he’s saying is that compared to the knowledge of Christ, he would rather take on the sufferings of this world than he would to have all of the names and all of the capabilities and all the resources and all the titles.

00:12:23:42 – 00:12:48:49
Michael Gewecke
Paul would rather have the suffering. He’d rather give it all up so that he could know Christ, because that’s the value of knowing. And that requires something. It has a cost. This is the the two sided thing always happening in this letter. There’s always a tension between the power of God at work and what that actually means in the lives of the people who give up because of it.

00:12:48:54 – 00:13:10:57
Clint Loveall
I’m not sure that I’ve thought about it in this way before, Michael, but there’s a sense in which maybe this verse or this passage is a microcosm of Philippians. Right? Paul saying, look, I had all the status. I was up here, but I would rather have the power of Christ. And you think, oh, that would be up here.

00:13:11:02 – 00:13:50:17
Clint Loveall
But it turns out, no, that’s actually down here in service and in sacrifice, that this is not an elevation of Paul. This is a lowering, a humbling, a committing oneself to the kind of service we see in the Christ who empties himself and takes on the form of a servant. It I think it’s very interesting to put those two verses in conversation, and I do think maybe there’s a sense in which this short passage, becomes a summary of that larger theme.

00:13:50:22 – 00:13:52:03
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think that’s really good.

00:13:52:08 – 00:14:22:15
Michael Gewecke
I think that we also find a theme that’s not incredibly frequent in this book, but we find in other Pauline letters here in verse nine, the idea of not having a righteousness of our own that comes from the law, that this really gets fleshed out in other places. Romans would be a great example of that. But here in this letter, I think it is so important to remember that right standing with God is not something to be achieved, or to be earned, or even to be grasped.

00:14:22:26 – 00:15:05:52
Michael Gewecke
For to use the language of the Christ hymn earlier in this book, that fundamentally that all righteousness is given to us by God, and our participation in it is belief is faith. It’s that’s one of those New Testament words, Clint, that that we really it’s hard to get summed up in our mind because it’s a big word. But fundamentally, I think one of the most difficult parts of Philippians for us to get Ahold of is Paul is writing to these people so frequently, calling them this church to rejoice when Paul’s situation is one in which there’s no earthly reason to be rejoicing.

00:15:06:01 – 00:15:39:24
Michael Gewecke
And if you ask yourself how and why, why can he do that? How can he show up to this church in this way? Well, either he’s a hypocrite over here. What he’s saying is, you know, basically not what he’s experiencing. Or you look at him and see, you know, he’s a man who believes what he says, that fundamentally, Paul believes that in giving up his freedom and giving up the stability of a life in which he gets to live on his own merits, he gets to be right before God because of the things that he does.

00:15:39:28 – 00:15:58:06
Michael Gewecke
Paul realizes that the cost of discipleship requires giving that up, but when he gains in return is actual right standing before God, he stands in the grace of Jesus Christ. And compared to that, nothing else has any value at all. That’s an amazing insight.

00:15:58:06 – 00:16:20:27
Clint Loveall
Embedded in that. There’s another part of Paul’s writings where he says that his strength is found in his weakness. And I think, you know, we see a consistency often in the various things that Paul writes. So what does Paul say? That I want to know the power and the resurrection of Christ. And that’s not found in the accolades.

00:16:20:27 – 00:16:47:27
Clint Loveall
It’s not found in the titles. It’s not found in his lineage or in his work. It it is found in being like Jesus Christ. And so that becomes Paul’s guiding star. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. And Paul then essentially says, you know, you can keep whatever it is. You can have those who come compared to Jesus.

00:16:47:27 – 00:17:15:09
Clint Loveall
Those things have no value. They have no meaning. They they’re they’re without power. And the power that I want to know is Jesus. There’s a praise song, and I’m probably not going to get this exactly right, but it’s something like in the refrain, you can have all this world, but give me Jesus. And I think to some extent that’s the sentiment here that that Paul is trying to share with the church.

00:17:15:14 – 00:17:39:24
Clint Loveall
And again, we don’t need to pat Paul on the back. He doesn’t need our approval. But he’s doing that from a prison cell in which he questions what the outcome of his captivity and what he’s outcome of his life will be. And that’s not insignificant. I think you got to give Paul a little bit of credit for that.

00:17:39:28 – 00:17:58:57
Michael Gewecke
I think the only thing I have to add, and this is really a segue, it’s a bridge to tomorrow’s conversation. Clint, I really think that we’re coming up on a section of this text that’s among the most quoted from Philippians and highly quoted from the New Testament, and I think what you need to know, what we need to remember.

00:17:59:11 – 00:18:32:22
Michael Gewecke
This is essential reading to get to some of the words we’re about to get, because Paul is not a person who believes in conquering the world in the way that we often think of it. When Paul thinks about the task of knowing Christ, being connected to his righteousness, Paul conceives of that through the road of letting go, the road of experiencing suffering like Christ suffered, and realizing he is faithful.

00:18:32:27 – 00:18:50:15
Michael Gewecke
And his faithfulness can make us go higher and higher and higher like he did. That this is key, and I think that we’ve got to remember that as we turn our attention. Don’t miss tomorrow’s text. You’re not going to miss it. It’s it’s amazing. It’s oft quoted for very good reasons.

00:18:50:20 – 00:18:53:13
Clint Loveall
But some and some not good reasons.

00:18:53:18 – 00:18:57:23
Michael Gewecke
Yes. And I think that you have to take this medicine to be able to get there.

00:18:57:23 – 00:18:58:46
Clint Loveall
I would agree. Yeah.

00:18:58:51 – 00:19:07:28
Michael Gewecke
All right. Thanks for being with us. This been helpful. Give it a light. If you want more studies like this, subscribe. So you don’t miss, studies like this. We will see you all tomorrow.

00:19:07:30 – 00:19:08:06
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.