Turn in your Bibles, please, this morning to the book of Philippians, chapter 3. Book of Philippians, chapter 3. The way I learned to find it was, go eat popcorn. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, go eat popcorn. I learned the Ten Commandments by singing them, too, but I won't do that this morning. And the books of the Bible by singing. Except I forgot Esther, but never mind. Philippians chapter 3. And the preaching passage this morning starts, I think, in verse 7, really. But we'll read the whole chapter so that we get a sense of what's happening here. Philippians chapter 3, God's holy, inspired, inerrant, infallible, and unchanging word. Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. Look out for the dogs. Look out for the evildoers. Look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the real circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh, though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for 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. As to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him. Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ. The righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may to attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or are already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that to you also. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. Brothers, join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us, for many of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their God is their belly, and their glory is in their shame with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Thus far the reading of God's word. May he write this word on our hearts, and may he give us true faith to believe in. Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, this is that sort of in-between time between Christmas and New Year's. And the holiday season sort of has been extended if you're a sports fan, because of course the college football season doesn't end for days and weeks, it seems now. They've stretched it out. And so we're in this sort of strange cultural limbo, not quite back to work fully, but knowing that it's coming. This is also a time between Christmas and New Year's when we customarily, at least it used to be the custom children, I suppose your mom and dad have mentioned this, that we write thank you notes. My grandmother was a big proponent of thank you notes. And I was taught that a boy should take pen to hand, take a nice piece of paper, and actually write with your hand. I know that seems like a very strange thing to do now. But really, an email to grandma doesn't mean much. There's a good possibility grandma doesn't check her email very often. In some cases, she may not even have email. So if you want to say thank you to Grandma for the wonderful gift she sent, you actually have to write something on a piece of paper, make letters, and then put it in an envelope and address it properly and put a stamp on it. And send it off and say thank you for thinking of me, for remembering me, and I'm sure someday those trousers will fit. The Apostle Paul wrote a thank you note. I wonder if you knew that. It's in the Word of God. The book of Philippians is, in fact, a thank you note. He wrote a thank you note to a congregation because they had been helping him in his ministry. They had been supporting him. This congregation in Philippi was located in a Roman colony in a part of northern Greece. This community, this town, Philippi, was made up of retired Roman soldiers and officials. They had been there, and it was nice. It was sunny, it was pleasant. They liked it, and they stayed. I don't suppose you can imagine any place like that around here. And he writes to a congregation, as we read in the book of Acts, that had been planted through the witness that Paul had made to a few women who were outside the city. It didn't start in any auspicious way, any grand way, any glorious way. There was no Billy Graham crusade or harvest crusade or any such big adventure. There was just an apostle telling the law and the gospel to a couple of folks outside the city. One of those women who came to faith is a woman named Lydia who was a successful businesswoman, and we know that because she had a house that was large enough to house a congregation. And this congregation that likely met in that house or some other was facing temptation. And Paul gets to that in chapter 3. And he warns them, if you look at verse 2, he says, Beware, is the older way of translating this, look out for, beware the dogs. Now children, he's not talking about actual woof woof dogs. He's using what we call a figure of speech. And it's not a very nice figure of speech. And I don't recommend that you go around saying this about people, but the Apostle Paul said this about some people for a very good reason. Because dogs in the ancient world were not always friendly. Today, you know, we have dogs, we have pets. It's a very fast-growing thing. Pets seem to be replacing children in some respects, in some instances. And so the estimation with which we hold dogs is very different than the way they were viewed in the ancient world. I have a younger daughter, Emily, who is in Jerusalem. right now, and in Jerusalem they are not beset by dogs so much as they are beset by cats. There are cats everywhere. They are feral. They live out of the trash. No one particularly takes care of them, and they're in her dorm building. They're everywhere. They ride the elevators. They know how to get up and down in the building. Well, that's sort of the way it was in some respects with dogs then. So when he says beware of the dogs, he was saying, he wasn't saying beware of Fluffy, your little Pomeranian. He was saying beware of wild, dangerous creatures who could strike and who could harm you, who could attack you and do damage to you. But these dogs were people who were saying false things about Jesus and about Christians and about how we are accepted with God. They were saying that we are accepted with God or by God for the sake of faith in Jesus and circumcision and washing our hands and other things like that. And so the apostle wants to sort them out and he wants to warn them about the danger of being tempted to go backwards, as it were, in the history of redemption, to go backwards to the mosaic law, to go backwards to the circumcision as a sign and seal of the covenant, to go backwards to the hand-washing laws, all of which our Lord Jesus said he had fulfilled, and they were no more. But he also wants them to take a certain attitude, and he describes this explicitly in chapter 2, have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus. And he's elaborating on this attitude here in chapter 3. And there are three things that he wants us to see. And he wanted them to see. He wants them to think about leaving certain things behind. He wants them to think about leaning on someone or something. And he wants them to think about looking. Leaving, leaning, and looking. First of all, then, look at verse 8 where he describes leaving. And he puts this business of leaving in very personal terms because he describes himself. Well, we can start at verse 7. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Paul, from an earthly point of view, had attained a considerable degree of accomplishment. And I read that for you in the first part of chapter 3. He was circumcised. If anybody, he says, had reason to put confidence in their accomplishment, in their performance, no one had more reason to put confidence in performance than the Apostle Paul. Look at the list he gives. Circumcised on the eighth day, that's what the law says. He was of the people of Israel, and more than that, of the tribe of Benjamin. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Jew among Jews, a highly accomplished performer of the law. As to the law, he says, a Pharisee. Not a Sadducee, not an average, not a liberal, and not an average Jew, but kind of a super Jew. Not only did he keep the 613 commands that God had given, but he kept all of the regulations that the Pharisees had developed to keep us from breaking the law. So he was beyond, which is what super means. He was so zealous that he persecuted Christians because they weren't Jews. They were a threat to true religion and true piety and true godliness. And so zealous even he was there, present and consenting, possibly even giving the order by a signal when he laid his cloak down in the book of Acts, that may have been the signal to start stoning Stephen. So if that was the thing by which we commend ourselves to God, nobody had more of it than Paul. But then he says in verse 7, Whatever gain I had, I counted it as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. What a remarkable thing to say. For the sake of Christ, he was willing to set aside everything that had made him what he was. This is about identity. On television, you'll see the talking heads talking about identity politics. How do people identify themselves and how do we organize these groups and get these groups to do and say and think whatever we want? That's what the talking heads are always talking about. Well, here Paul is, in a sense, talking about identity theology. Who are we? What are we? How do we identify ourselves? Well, men, I know from sitting in counseling rooms and from playing golf and hanging around with you and men like you for now 25 years as a pastor, I know how you identify yourself. You identify yourself on the basis of what you do for a living. That's what makes you what you are. If I ask you, who are you? You'll say, I'm a carpenter. I'm a plumber. I'm an accountant. I'm a teacher. I'm a craftsman. I'm a fisherman. That's who I am. And they'll say, well, I understand what you mean, but that's not really true. But that's how we men identify ourselves. And the females in the congregation are likely to identify themselves not so much on what they do, but on the relations that they have. I'm the mother of this one, and that one, and the wife to this one, and aunt to that one, and sister to this one, and daughter to that one. And again, all of that's true, but there's more. If you'd asked Paul prior to knowing Christ, who are you, he would have given you this list. but now he's completely redefined himself. He has left his old identity behind. Now, I'm not saying you have to leave your relationships behind or your job behind, not at all. But we do have to re-identify ourselves. And the end of the old year and the beginning of the new year is just as good a time as any, but really this is a daily task. Wherever we are on the calendar, The Christian life is the business of dying to self and dying to the wrong kind of self-identification and living to Christ and accepting our new identification in Jesus Christ. Because men, there will come a time and some of you, I can see by the hair on your head, have already arrived at that time when you're no longer what you were. Now you are a retired craftsman or salesman or farmer. And for some men, that's a very difficult thing because their identity is so wrapped up. But really, Paul says, our identity is ultimately much more than what we do or to whom we are related, but who we are in Christ. We are related to God the Father for Jesus Christ. And so Paul says, I have left all of that behind. And don't imagine that it wasn't painful for him. That it was easy. Don't imagine that he himself wasn't tempted to sometimes think about the degree of accomplishment that he had. But that by God's grace he had learned that there was more. That he had learned to rest not on his accomplishment, but on Jesus' accomplishment for him. So we have to learn to leave. And particularly we have to learn to leave what Paul's worried about here, and that's works righteousness, commending ourselves to God on the basis of what we have done. When Paul became a Christian, he learned that he had nothing in himself or nothing that he had ever done by which he could commend himself to God. And that is something to which we need to die every single day. How often have you done something that you knew was wrong, that you knew was sin, contrary to God's will, and that you were struck in your conscience and you then thought, oh no, I bet God doesn't love me anymore. Well, you were right to be struck in your conscience, you were right to feel guilty, but you misinterpreted that sensation. That sensation is telling you that God is displeased with what you did, but that if you have trusted in Jesus Christ, he still loves you. And that's essential that you know that. Children, I really want you to get this. When you sin, not if, but when, God is displeased with that. And you should know that. And you may feel that displeasure in your life. There may be times in your life when it feels as if God is far away and there may be a connection between the sin that you're committing and that sense, that perception that God is far away. But the truth is God is not far away. He still loves you in Jesus Christ and that what we need to do is admit what we've done, confess it before God honestly, accept his free acceptance, his grace in Jesus Christ and re-identify ourselves as those for whom Christ died, those who have been cleansed and washed by the righteousness and blood of Jesus, who are full of the Holy Spirit and loved by God. So we have to leave behind the old way of identifying ourselves and with it our sins on a daily basis. And then we have to lean. If you look at the second part of verse 8 And then going on through verse 11, Paul explains then, having left the past, we lean. He says he counts it all as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him. What an interesting expression. Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law. We could translate that as performance from doing, my doing. but a righteousness, he says, that comes through faith in Christ. What does he mean here when he says faith in Christ? He means trusting. That's why I chose the participle leaning. It's one of the words that we use in our confessions to define or characterize faith. It's leaning, it's trusting, it's resting. That's what we mean by faith when it comes to acceptance with God. Brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus, on what are you leaning this morning? If everything that you counted to be valuable was taken away from you this morning, if, God forbid, you should come home after church and see that your house had burned down and that you hadn't been notified because your cell was on vibrate during the service, as it should be, Yes, you'd be sad and maybe even distraught to think of the photographs and all of the things that you value in this life are gone. But on what would you be leaning? I trust this morning that you would be leaning on Jesus. I'm not saying you shouldn't grieve and that you shouldn't be frustrated and shouldn't go through all the stages that are normal for humans. But at the end of the day, on what are you leaning? Paul learned to lean on Jesus. And not having a righteousness, he says, that comes from performance, not having a righteousness that's inside of him. This is so important. By the way, this is what the whole Reformation was about. In these words right here. This is the core concern of the Reformation. Over a course of about a thousand years, the church came to believe that God accepts us because we have a righteousness that is inside of us that's created by grace and our performance. It's a combination of God's gift and our performance. And your Roman neighbor who is at Mass this morning is intending to present himself or herself to God on the basis of grace and performance, their own performance and the righteousness they have within. But we agree with the Apostle Paul who says, not having a righteousness that's inside me, but a righteousness that comes through faith, through trusting, through resting, through leaning on Christ. The righteousness from God, he says, in verse 9, that depends on faith. We're leaving behind the old identity and we're leaning on Christ in our new identity. And he goes on to say that I may know him, that's Christ, And the power of his resurrection. God has given us a new life and he's at work in us and he's conforming us to Christ. And the goal of our new life is to be conformed to him and to have the power of the Holy Spirit, which is what he's really thinking about here, the power of his resurrection, the power of his new life. Jesus was dead. They laid his cold dead body in the ground and the Holy Spirit raised up Jesus from death to life. And everyone who is believing in Jesus, also has been raised by a wonderful miracle from death to life by the power of the Holy Spirit. Again, children, if you believe in Jesus, it's not because you were clever or even because you were born necessarily in a covenant home, although that's a great blessing and God does operate through our covenant families. We expect Him to do that. But it's not magic. At the end of the day, God the Holy Spirit has made you alive and given you faith and through that faith connected you to the risen Christ. That's what Paul's saying here. And as a consequence of all of those benefits, Paul says he wants now to share in Jesus' sufferings, becoming like Jesus in his death. The paradox of our new life is that we've been made alive in order that we may die. The Christian faith is, in some ways, not a very sensible thing. which is why people have had so much trouble with it. If the Christian faith were a sensible thing, it would be much easier to communicate to people and to mark it. But it's not a sensible thing as we count those things. It's a paradoxical thing as we see things. And so Paul, and here's the paradox. We've been made alive with Jesus in order that we may also be like him in his death. What does that mean? It means to be dying to our sins. That by any means possible I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. This life is a business of leaving and leaning. Leaving the old and leaning on the new and entailed in the leaning is a recognition that the struggle is ongoing. And a prayer, a constant prayer, really, from the Christian, Lord, let me put to death and put to death in me those things that belong to the old self and let me live as one who has been made new in Jesus Christ. And yet the struggle goes on because we're not yet raised from the dead. Here we are. Jesus has not come. The dead have not been raised. And we are not in glory, and therefore we are in the midst of an ongoing struggle. The goal is the resurrection, but we're not there yet. And that's what Paul goes on to say in the last part of our passage. And so we're looking, not backwards, and not at ourselves, really, and not even forward. Maybe you thought this morning I was going to talk to you about leaving last year behind, leaving, and looking forward to next year. If you want that, you can go to the Kiwanis. Because I'm sure, those are good folks at the Kiwanis. I used to be a Kiwanian. It's not a secret thing. It's just a social community business group. And Kiwanians are great for, don't look backward, look forward. But that's not what Jesus is saying. That's not what Paul is saying. Look at what he says in verse 12. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect. I take some comfort in that. The Apostle Paul recognized that he was not perfect, so if Paul wasn't perfect, neither are we. But he says, I press on to make it my own. I don't stop because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Do you see how Paul constantly grounds the Christian life in the good news. He just keeps reminding us. We press on to make the new life our own because Christ has made us his own. That would be a good memory verse if you were thinking of something that you wanted to memorize, children. Philippians 3.12 would be a good thing to put to memory. Brothers, I do not consider, he says in verse 13, that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind his old life and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call. Not a backward. We're not looking backwards. We're not looking forwards. We're not looking inward. What happens when you look inward? As someone said, it's like making a U-turn to a garbage dump. Your heart is full of corruption and malice and deceit by nature. You can't look inward to see what you are or what you should be or what you will be. You look upward. Why do you look upward? I press on, he says in verse 14, Toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. The metaphor that he's been invoking here in this section is probably the metaphor of a foot race. Leaving behind and straining for the prize. Not that's ahead, but that's upward. We're being conformed to Jesus who is bodily seated at the right hand of God the Father. We're being conformed to him by the power of the Holy Spirit. And we're being drawn in a mysterious way, moment by moment, day by day, upward to him. We're headed not just forward, but to heaven. Our goal, our orientation, is heavenward. I think that's a really important thing. I don't know how it's been for you. I've heard it in the pastor's voice for the last couple of weeks, and I suppose he speaks for all of us when he thinks about all of the really awful things that we have been witnessing over the last few weeks and sort of put a damper on the holidays. And I found this verse particularly comforting and encouraging. Because it's easy when you look around now, we're surrounded by news constantly. First thing I do in the morning is I look at my phone to see what bad things happened while I was sleeping. And it's harder and harder to get away, to get disconnect from all of that. But Paul reminds us here, particularly later on in verse 20, he says, but our citizenship is in heaven. Now, it's not to say we don't have a citizenship here on earth. We certainly do. And we need to fulfill that vocation before the Lord with industry. But at the end of the day, finally, we have a citizenship in heaven that transcends whatever happens in this earth. I'm not saying we're polishing brass on a sinking ship. I'm not saying that at all. This is God's world, and we need to fulfill our vocation in God's world to his glory and to the well-being of our neighbor. That's a holy calling. In that sense, we are all priests. but we're still citizens of a heavenly kingdom. And the kingdoms of this world, they belong to Jesus, but in his providence, they do come and they do go. The Roman Empire doesn't exist anymore. And one day, the American Empire, if the Lord tarries, won't exist anymore. And Jesus' kingdom will continue. And he will still be ruling the nations with a rod of iron. And that's why we press upward for the prize. What is that prize? That is eternal life with Jesus in the presence of God in Christ. And so he says in verse 15, Let those of us who are mature think this way. Maturity, Christian maturity starts with thinking a certain way. Well, what way? The way Paul just said. And if any of you think otherwise, well, God will reveal that to you. I've always thought that that's a very interesting thing for Paul to say. Of course, he's an apostle. He knows things that certainly we didn't know. And he received revelation, and they were receiving revelation in that time in a way that we do not. We have scripture, but it's still true. God will reveal that to you if you think differently. But there's no need for you to think differently. We have the inspired and air and infallible word of God. It's clear as day. This isn't complicated. You can think this way. And one day you will think this way. Only, he says finally at the end, only let us hold true to what we have attained. Well, what have we attained? We've attained righteousness in Jesus Christ. We've attained acceptance with God. We've attained fellowship with the brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ. We've attained a citizenship that is in heaven. We've attained a new life and a new identity and an upward call in Jesus Christ. So as we think about the end of this year and the beginning of another, That's how we ought to orient ourselves. That we ought daily to be leaving, to be leaning, and to be looking. Let us be sure that we understand what we're leaving, to know with confidence on what we're leaning, and to know that we are looking for those things for which the Apostle Paul and God the Holy Spirit would have us look. God grant us grace this morning to continue that process for the beginning. let's pray Almighty God and Heavenly Father we confess that many times we have not left behind the old identity and embraced the new in Jesus Christ many times we have not leaned on Jesus and on his finished work for us and too often we have looked not for that upward calling and the prize that is in it but to other things that are passing, fading, and ultimately disappointing. But we are grateful this morning that you are not finished with us, and you are at work drawing us to yourself, drawing us upward, conforming us to Christ. And so we leave this service this morning, not sad, but thankful for your mercy to us, Because you have loved us so dearly and so deeply. And you have promised to complete the work that you have begun in us. And so we give you thanks. Hear our prayer and make this scripture true of us that we might have the same mind that the Apostle Paul had. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.