August 1, 2010
Dr. Ron Sumners
Philippians # 11
Updating Our Resumé
Philippians 3:1-9
I have a confession to make. I have been
working on my resumé this week. Now, before you begin to wonder whether I’m
looking for another church or that I am frustrated here, I need to tell you
what I mean by a resumé.
If you were concerned or even excited
when I said I was working on my resumé, please know that I have no plans to go
anywhere. I am too old to move anywhere else and even if someone came seeking,
I am not looking. If the Lord and Meadow Brook Baptist allow, I will be here
serving until retirement. Of course, that is always subject to change in a
A resumé is a list of your merits, all
the good things about you, your accomplishments, your skills, your
qualifications. The resumé is your card of admittance into a position or a
place to which you did not previously have access. It is a case made for your
acceptance.
If you apply to a college, you fill out
an application form; you create a resumé to describe your extra-curricular
activities, your worthwhile qualities which will make you an asset to that
institution.
When you go for a job, your resumé lists
your qualifications, tells what you have done, and how you could benefit the
company or business. It is a catalogue of your merits with the purpose of
getting a new job. A resumé is meant to open doors.
We use resumés for friendships, maybe
not a written one, but we size people up and determine if we want to associate
with them or not. We look at their assets and their negatives and use that unwritten,
but very real, resumé to choose our associations.
You use a resumé on yourself. You will
shut the door on yourself if you don’t measure up to what you think you should
be and do. How often do you beat yourself up, allow those voices in your head
to tell you that you’re not good enough. Your resumé is talking when you feel
you have to defend yourself, or when you attempt to build yourself up to get
the approval of others.
So, when I say “I’ve been working on my
resumé,” what I am really saying is: I’ve been trying to assess my strengths
and weaknesses and attempt to make myself a better person and servant of the
Lord. I’m trying to bolster my ego, lift my self-esteem. That can be a problem.
Paul is combating this issue in Philippians 3. It is an issue we don’t often
consider. We know that God is never pleased with our sin, but is God pleased
when we try to improve ourselves, trying to boost our resumés?
Another way to talk about our resumé is to
talk about our righteousness. Are we right with God? Are we acceptable? Paul
understood this dilemma when he gave his resumé in Philippians 3.
Righteousness is our greatest need.
Paul outlines an impressive list of qualifications. He
has a drop-dead resumé. He lists his advantages at birth and those acquired
later in life.
He was born a Jew. He was a member of
the special tribe of Benjamin. Benjamin, along with Joseph, was the son of
Rachel, Jacob’s beloved wife. Benjamin was the only child born in the Promised
Land. Saul, the first King of Israel was a member of the tribe of Benjamin.
This clan remained loyal to King David’s line. The Holy City of Jerusalem was
located in their land.
Paul was a Hebrew of Hebrews, a badge of
untainted blood line as well as untainted by Greek culture. Many Jews in the
first century were thoroughly Hellenized; affected by Greek culture. Paul’s
ancestry and upbringing gave evidence to a strong Jewish heritage.
Paul was a Pharisee. This group was very
careful to obey the Mosaic Law. Zeal was their well-known characteristic. They
traced their linage back to the Maccabeus; the leaders of the rebellion against
the Seleucids that won independence for
Paul followed all the laws that a good Jew
should. He presents a resumé that makes him look pretty good.
What’s
on your resumé?
Life is full of all sorts of resumés. They speak of
our friendships, status, home, reputation, and moral standing. Our resumé might
list a good home, good upbringing, a quality education, a good job. Our resumé
will certainly include time spent reading God’s Word, telling others about
Christ. It will list all the moral qualities we have been taught that are right
and proper.
Mothers have resumés which include
well-behaved children, clean house, and happy husband. Is there anything
inherently evil about those things? Of course there’s not.
Men’s resumés list the hours they spend
at work earning a living for their family; time they spend with the kids; the
fact that they bring their family to church and are good to their wife.
Pastor’s resumés list the hours they
spend studying God’s Word; the people they have counseled and a growing church;
the influence and successes they have had in Kingdom work.
We all want to have a good resumé. We
all need righteousness! We all want to feel right with God and the world. We
are all trying to live up to something.
Notice what Paul does. He trashes his
resumé! What everyone would see as gain and profit – he says is loss. He is so
intent on dumping his resumé, on rejecting this wonderful pedigree that he
calls it “rubbish.” The translators were more polite than Paul. Paul actually
said it was “excrement.”
Why does Paul trash such an impressive
resumé? Because he knows that this resumé, his listing of his good qualities is
his greatest problem.
Paul
warns us about good people.
In verse 2, Paul issues a threefold
warning: “Watch out for dogs! Watch out for evil workers! Watch out for mutilators
of the flesh!” He was talking about the Pharisees and Judiazers.
To call someone a dog was a biting
metaphor in the first century. Canines were the zoological low lives of that
day. Paul is not referring to a cuddly lap dog or your faithful pet, but the
vicious scavengers which all ancient people considered unclean. It was the dogs
that consumed the body of Jezebel. It was the dogs that licked the sore on
Lazarus’ body and tormented him.
Next, he calls people evil doers, which was normally
used of those who broke God’s law. But then the final cutting remark designates
these people as “mutilators of the flesh.”
Again, Paul’s terms were made more
acceptable by translators. What Paul is objecting to is that these people he is
referring to are trying to make Gentiles be circumcised. The Judiasers were
trying to undermine Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles by insisting that they had
to become Jews before they could become Christians.
Paul was insistent that the sign of circumcision
does not equate with the reality of being adopted by God. Paul had come a long
way from his Rabbinic Judaism. He called faith in Christ the “circumcision of
the heart!” (Rom. 2:29)
Paul tells the Philippians that those
who are demanding that they obey God’s Law, who say that faith in Christ
demands obedience to the Law, are mutilators. They are evil because they demand
that you work for God’s favor. They are dogs because they scavenge to create a
good resumé for themselves. Doing good in order to make yourself pleasing to
God or to be accepted by God makes one an evil-doer!
Why is Paul attacking good people?
Pharisees were the most meticulously religious people who have ever lived. How
could Paul call them dogs or evil doers? The fact is that their “goodness” had
replaced God. Their rules had replaced the Cross! Paul’s adversaries were not
immoral – and that is a huge problem, not only for Paul, but for you and me. We
still equate personal morality, a good resumé, with Christianity.
What is most dangerous to our
relationship to God as well as others is not our sin, but our morality. There
is nothing so deadening than to think that we are good. Repenting of self-righteousness,
ripping up your resumé and ceasing to present yourself as good, are crucial to
being a Christian. There is nothing that stands in our way more than those
resumés! There is nothing more deadly than that list of good attributes you
possess and hold up to others, to yourself and to God.
Paul’s concern here is not for the sin
of the Philippians, but rather for their righteousness. Their sins, and ours,
have been covered by the blood of Jesus Christ, the penalty has been paid. The
issue for us is this: do our lives reflect Christ living in us? Are we in right
relationship with God and man?
Sin is not the problem for us. It is
often not our sin that keeps us from God. It is our righteousness! It is our
attitude toward our own goodness that causes us to miss the mark of the high
calling of God.
There are plenty of people who know they
are sinners. But that knowledge is not enough. That’s why Paul was a Pharisee
before he knew Jesus. That is why so many people are religious, without a true
knowledge of Jesus. When Paul met Jesus on the road to
Here is the Gospel: you come to realize
that those who are irreligious as well as those who are very religious are in
control of their lives and assume that they are their own saviors. They are all
trying to write their own resumés. We all want to keep control of our lives. We
do not want to give God control.
We become true Christians when we repent
of our righteousness! We often use Jesus as an example, a role model, a hero,
but we are our own savior. We believe that we save ourselves through our own
goodness. Of course, the only person we are fooling is our self. We thought our
resumé was good enough. We thought we were doing everything we could to be
considered a follower of Jesus.
A true Christian is the one who says, “I
used to repent of my sins, but now I repent of my righteousness as well.” We
have to come to the place that we understand that we can never get good enough
to earn God’s favor. We already have it! It is the righteousness of Jesus that
saves us; not our own, because ours is as filthy rags, according to God’s word.
(Isaiah, 64:6)
Righteousness
is our greatest gift.
Why does Paul trash his resumé? Why does
he call moral, good people who call for personal obedience to God’s Word “dogs,
evil, mutilators”? Because there is good news for me and you. It is the best
news in the entire world. It is the Gospel. Instead of constantly trying to
update our resumés, rather than always applying duct tape to our sinful hearts,
and covering the holes in our souls with spackle, there is a resumé that is
offered to us as a gift.
That is why Paul begins with the command
to rejoice in the Lord!
That is where our joy must be found!
This chapter opens with a call to rejoice, to have joy, but the place of joy is
critical. He is not telling the Philippians to be happy, but points them to the
place where real satisfaction and joy can be found. It is not found in trying
to make yourself presentable or acceptable, but it is found in Jesus alone.
Paul finds it necessary to repeat this truth again and again because we forget
it again and again.
Paul elaborates on this in 3:8-9. As
Paul looks at his resumé, he willingly throws out the tattered shambles of his
own accomplishments and acknowledges the surpassing glory of Jesus Christ. Paul
does not think of Christ as the ultimate prize after a series of other
achievements. The gift of righteousness comes not to those who do their best
and then look for God’s grace, but for those who have abandoned all hope of
ever getting good enough to please God. The gift of God’s resumé comes to those
who not only turn from their sin, but turn from their own righteousness!
The gaining of Christ requires the loss
of all former things, because to be rich in Christ means to be rich in Him
alone, not in Him plus other things. For Paul, grace and self-righteousness are
a radical antithesis. Grace plus anything else cancels out grace!
What does this all mean for you and me?
If our resumés are not about us and our performance; our good qualities, our
obedience to the Law; but are about Christ’s perfect keeping of the Law for us,
then our lives will be different. No matter what happens, no matter if life
trashes my accomplishments; if everything I have and have done comes crashing down
around my ears, my life is safe in my relationship with Jesus. His resumé is
now mine! I am a child of the King!
Things no longer have control of us.
They no longer jerk us around; we can lose something now and not be devastated.
That does not mean that we won’t weep over the loss, but we will not be
devastated! If you are found in Christ, if your resumé is His, then your life
is secure.