[movie clip used to introduce the message was from “Seabiscuit”)
Finally, my brothers and sister, rejoice in the Lord.
To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me,
and for you it is a safeguard. Beware of the dogs,
beware of the evil workers, beware of those who
mutilate the flesh! For it is we who are the circumcision,
who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus
and have no confidence in the flesh –
Philippians 3:1-3 (New Revised Standard Version)
Judaizer – converts who must first follow all Old Testament Jewish rules, rituals, and regulations.
– even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh,
I have more: circumcised on the eighth day,
a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe
of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews;
as to the law, a righteousness under the law, blameless.
Philippians 3:4-6 (NRSV)
For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things,
and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
and be found in him, not having a righteousness
of my own that comes through faith in Christ,
the righteousness from God based on faith.
Philippians 3: 8b-9 (NRSV)
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection
and the sharing of his suffering by becoming like him
in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection
from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this
or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make
it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.
Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own;
but this 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 heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:10-14 (NRSV)
…I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:14 (NRSV)
What do you need to leave behind to press on toward the goal?
Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind;
and if you think differently about anything, this too God will
reveal to you. Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.
Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe
those who live according to the example you have in us.
For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ;
I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears.
Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory
is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.
But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there
that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be
conformed to the body of his glory,
by the power that also enables him
to make all things subject to himself.
Philippians 3:15-21 (NRSV)
Our joy comes from believing!