Joy in Sacrifice
"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." (Philippians 3:7-9, English Standard Version)
What are some of the things we hold dear? Here's a partial list: Our family; our children; our jobs; our
homes; our reputations; our hobbies; money; power; prestige; etc. If I were to ask you what is the one thing
you hold most dear—the one thing that
you would search "heaven and earth" for—what would it be? This is a question we all need to ask
ourselves—especially Christians. There
are two parables from the gospel of Matthew I want to draw on before launching
into today's passage. In Matthew 13,
Jesus tells two short parables to illustrate a very important point: “The
kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and
covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that
field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is
like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great
value, went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Matthew 13:44-46). In both
parables, the kingdom of heaven (i.e., eternal salvation) is pictured as
something of great value—something
far above any earthly treasure. So
valuable is the kingdom of heaven that in each parable the person who finds it
is willing to sell everything else he owns to obtain it.
Now, let’s look at today’s passage from
Philippians 3. The context of this
passage is Paul’s warning to the Philippian believers to watch out for legalistic
people who want to boast about their religious activity. Paul then launches into a “religious
inventory” of his own. In verse 4, he
says, “If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I
have more.” In other words, Paul
is in effect saying, “These legalistic people think they can boast about their
accomplishments, I can boast more!” And
the amazing thing was, it was true. Paul did have an impressive résumé, according
to Jewish standards. There were not many
people who could top Paul in religious achievement. BUT… (this is the most important word in the
Bible). Everything Paul had at one time
counted in the “plus” column, he now placed in the “minus” column ("But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the
sake of Christ”). The word “counted” in this verse is an
accounting term. Prior to his
conversion, Paul considered all his religious achievement as assets. Now after his conversion, they were
liabilities. So much so that he calls
all his pre-conversion religious activity “rubbish.” In the original Greek, this is a nasty word
which literally means “dung” or “manure.”
What Paul did was what the guy in
Jesus’ parables did. He gave up
everything for “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” He saw Jesus as offering something far more
valuable than anything he could achieve on his own, so he scrapped his
self-righteousness program and got on to the righteousness of Christ program (“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”).
So, returning
to the question posed earlier: What is
the one thing you hold most
dear? If you’re a Christian, and the
answer is not Jesus Christ, then I
challenge you to re-think your priorities!
Jesus said, “No one can
serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he
will be devoted to the one and despise the other” (Matthew