Philippians Chapter 3

• Philippians 3:1 Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe.

How many of us remember to continually rejoice in the Lord. How can we rejoice?

1. Be thankful for His free gift of salvation.
2. Be glad for His presence in our lives.
3. Rejoice in His power to change lives.
4. Rejoice in His promise to return again.
5. Rejoice that we have fellow believers to fellowship with.
6. Rejoice that He provided us with the written word.
7. Rejoice that He promised never to leave for forsake us.
8. Rejoice in song and praise.
9. Rejoice in obedience and gladness of heart.
10. Rejoice in the baptism of the Holy Spirit which is given to all who obey Him.

The list could go on and on.

• Philippians 3:2 Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision.

Here is the warning. To beware of those who lay aside the salvation by grace message which is trusting in the blood of Jesus to cleanse us from sin but then, add to it by saying that you have to be circumcised according to the law of Moses to be saved. In other words the new birth and Holy Spirit baptism was not enough for them but they tried to compel the Gentiles to observe Jewish customs and rituals to be saved.

They tried to turn an inward heart-changing conversation to an outward religion. Jesus Christ brings a change in the inner person. It is a spiritual birth and a change. It happens inside a person and transforms a life. Old things pass away. We come to Christ and turn from sin and allow His spirit to enter our lives. We become born again by the Holy Spirit.

If someone comes along and says that we not yet saved because we are not observing some religious tradition such as circumcision, the keeping of the feasts or any religious activity. those things may be great but it does not save and cannot change a life. We are saved by an act of God. God brings us salvation. We are not saved by something a man does or says on our behalf. We also are not saved by what someone says when we are baptized. 

True conversion comes before we are baptized in water. Baptism in water is an outward profession of our faith in Jesus Christ. The water alone has no power to save. We are baptized in water by being in obedience to the example Jesus set, but we are actually "born again" by the Spirit of God before the water baptism even takes place. Water baptism does not save a person if that person is not "born again."

Some Jewish believers couldn't understand why the Gentiles didn't have to observe the law of Moses. They didn't realize that Jesus Christ fulfilled all those old sacrifices and rituals by his death on the cross. Salvation now was not in outward religious rites but in the inner heart and soul of an individual believer. Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within you.

We are not saved by the intervention of a priest or prophet now, but by faith in Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter what a priest says over our grave when we die, we better be saved by faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ before that time comes. They cannot save a soul by their much praying if that soul wasn't saved before they died. Religion cannot save by it's outward observances and rituals. We are saved by something God does for us:

• John 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Jesus brought to us a new way, a new life, a life everlasting. And this is for everyone who receives and believes in Him.

• Acts 3:19 Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;
• 20 And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you:
• 21 Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.

Repent means to turn around. Stop going our own way and go God's way. We turn from sin and trust in Jesus for our salvation. Previously we followed our human instincts, good or bad. After we come to Christ we learn to follow His will and keep His word. Jesus will return when the gospel has been preached all over the world and God our Father sends Jesus back to set up the literal visible kingdom on earth.

• Philippians 3:3 For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.

Salvation is something invisible that the eye cannot see. It takes place in the inner spirit of each individual. It is not outward religious observances.

• John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Before we walked in the flesh; now we are to walk in the spirit given to us by God.

• Philippians 3:4 Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more:
• 5 Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;
• 6 Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
• 7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.

Paul speaks of his life before coming to Christ. He realizes that nothing he had before had any power to save him from sin. He recognizes that only faith and trust in Jesus saves the soul. He previously did everything right according to what he believed but it caused him to try to destroy the very works of God. Yet he thought he was doing God a service. He was wrong. That is the difference between religion and true salvation. Religion trusts in its own works to save. Salvation depends solely on receiving the salvation God provides for us through faith in Jesus. After coming to Jesus for salvation, we now live for God because we love Him; not to earn salvation.

• Philippians 3:8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,

Nothing he had before Christ was worth keeping.

• Philippians 3:9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

We are made righteous now by faith in Jesus Christ not in observing the law of God that was given to Moses for the children of Israel. Trying to go back under the law to make us righteous will only make one religious. The law was given to show us how serious sin was and how we needed a savior from that sin. The law could not save the soul. Only faith in Jesus Christ can save our souls from eternal death, which is eternity in Hell.

Through Christ we are made free from the condemnation that the law made toward all who did not keep the law. It condemned us to eternal hell. Through trusting Jesus for forgiveness of sins, we are made free from the curse of the law.

• Philippians 3:10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
• 11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

When we come to Christ we are dead to trespasses and sin so that we can be partakers of the resurrection of the dead at the coming of the Lord.

• Philippians 3:12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

We should seek to be perfected in Christ by walking with Him daily, not by going back under the bondage of the law.

• Philippians 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

The past is done away with when a person comes completely to Jesus Christ for salvation.

• Philippians 3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

It is a high calling far greater than any religion or outward show of religious rituals.

• Philippians 3:15 Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
• 16 Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.
• 17 Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample.
• 18 (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:
• 19 Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)

Enemies to the cross of Christ are those that are not sold out for Christ but may being using the Christian faith for their own profit. They live for themselves and mind earthly things. They may claim Christ but live like the world. They may claim Christ but live in outward religion and put on a front. They may claim Christ but hate their brothers and sisters in the Lord. This could cover anything that is not genuine conversion. The fruit of a true conversion  is being filled with and walking in the Sprit.

• Galatians 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
• 17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
• 18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
• 19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
• 20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
• 21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
• 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
• 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
• 24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
• 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

Oh how I love God's word. So great that God inspired and directed many writers to put God's word in a written form.

• Philippians 3:20 For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:

After coming to Christ by His Spirit, we no longer walk in the flesh and our true conversation is in heaven. Salvation has its base in Heaven. Our trust is in God and our treasure is in Heaven.

• Philippians 3:21 Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

At the first resurrection, all believers in Jesus Christ who were abiding in Him at the time of their natural death or at the time of His appearing, shall receive a new body that is incorruptible and cannot not ever die again. DC