This sermon was preached at Ascension Reformed Church in Moscow, Idaho on September 20, A.D. 2026. The video can be found here.
Philippians 3:1–14
1 Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe.
2 Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation! 3 For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, 4 though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: 5 circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; 6 concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
7 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (NKJV).
Introduction
“All of Christ, for All of Life, for All of Moscow.”
Here at Ascension, we have adopted that great mission and vision statement of Christ Church and King’s Cross as our own. We want the salvific fullness of Christ—all of His person and work—all of Christ—to flow into every nook and cranny of our lives—nothing untouched by Him—all of life. And we want this reality not just for ourselves, but for our whole town and for the world which He died for.
Therefore, in our church community, we put a big emphasis on living out the Christian life faithfully. We preach and teach a lot on marriage, family, Christian education, hospitality, culture-building, business, cultural issues, and more. We don’t have a private faith. A Sunday religion. No—if Christ is our Lord, then we must obediently submit to His will in all things every day of the week. And we also don’t have a “ticket to heaven” faith—where we have checked off a box, maybe said a prayer, and now cruise through life like anyone else until we die. We want our faith to permeate everything. We want Christ to sanctify it all. We want to work hard to see his kingdom advance here and now. We want to see generational faithfulness in our children’s children.
However—if you are not careful, you can actually get this all backward.
You can begin to make so much of your focus on the “All of Life” part, and leave the “All of Christ” somewhere in the distance behind. When this happens, pride creeps in, and you can begin to look upon your good works, your efforts, your family or ministries, as the center of it all. Without realizing it, you can easily substitute the centrality of Christ with the centrality of certain convictions or endeavors – making the activity or good thing itself your focus or confidence. And so you must resist any temptation to elevate your families, your theology, your politics, your culture-building, or any other good work to a place where they begin to eclipse simple faith and trust in Christ.
You cannot let these good works, these blessings, become the things you begin to point to, in your hearts and minds, as the center of your faith and your confidence. It must be All of Christ. Christ is indeed the foundation… But He’s also what holds the whole building together. We do not move on from the person Christ. We don’t start with Christ and then move on to the work. As the Apostle Paul says in Romans, everything is from Him, through Him, and to Him. Christ is all in all. Christ is supreme. Christ is primary. Christ is central.
And so here in our passage this morning, the Apostle Paul sets forth the knowledge of Christ as the most valuable possession in all the heavens and earth. Here Paul teaches that your greatest privilege in this life, and the life to come, is to know Christ and be known by Christ. If you were to live a thousand lifetimes, you would never even get close to exhausting the riches found in Him. In fact, if you indeed are in Christ, you will one day spend forever beholding Him perfectly as He is, face to face, and yet still not come to the end of knowing Him in all His glorious splendor. For the Christian, knowing Christ is everything, and it’s the only way of salvation.
So let’s first begin with the summary of the text, before walking through Paul’s main points for us to understand.
Summary of the Text
The Apostle Paul begins this new section of his letter with another call to rejoice—a theme throughout the whole epistle. He acknowledges this repetition, but does not apologize for it. Instead, he says that it’s not tedious or difficult to repeat himself and it is good or “safe” for them (v. 1). I’ll note that this is why pastors have no problem telling you the same things over and over again. We don’t mind and you shouldn’t either.
He then turns to a severe warning against false teachers who would threaten such joy, saying “beware” or “watch out” three times for the dogs, evil workers, and the mutilators (v. 2). In the original Greek, these three words start with the same letter, making a punchy alliteration. One commentator I read this past week said if you wanted to try to replicate it, you could say “Beware mutts, beware malefactors, beware mutilators.” These false teachers are what were known as the “Judaizers,” who were teaching that Gentiles must be circumcised in order to be made righteous—a teaching completely contrary to that of the Apostles.
In response to this, the Apostle Paul says that the true circumcision are those who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ, and place no confidence in their own flesh (v. 3). He knows this very well himself, for as an ethnic and religious Jew he had many things he once boasted in (vv. 4–6). But having encountered the living Christ, the Apostle Paul learned that what he once thought was gain he had to count as loss to know Christ as Lord (vv. 7–8). For true righteousness does not come through the law, but faith in Christ (v. 9).
This faith that Paul has now is a living and experiential faith, as he desires to know Christ, the present power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings—that he would be able to lay his life down and one day experience the final resurrection from the dead (vv. 10–11). Of course, Paul knows that he has not fully attained that which he seeks. He knows that he is not yet perfected, that he has not yet reached the full glory of the resurrection. But he presses on. He continues to move forward. He places one foot after another in that same direction, so that he would grab hold of Christ, just as Christ has laid hold of him (v. 12).
In this, Paul likens earthly life to a race. He says that he forgets what is behind him in order to reach forward to what is ahead—namely, the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (vv. 13–14). Paul is telling the Philippians that this is what he lives for. He is looking forward to the full reward of Christ in the age to come, to be in perfect fellowship with the Lord forever.
No Confidence in the Flesh
So now let’s look at the beginning of this passage again, starting in verse 2.
The Apostle Paul writes, “Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation! For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh” (vv. 2–3).
Here, echoing the harsh language of the prophets, Paul is talking about his ongoing adversaries – the Judaizers. These were false teachers who, as itinerant preachers or missionaries, were visiting new Gentile churches and teaching them that they must also become circumcised in order to be justified in the sight of God. Their teaching amounted to the understanding that in order to become a full Christian, a full participant in the covenant, one needs Christ plus circumcision.
This is one of the teachings that the Jerusalem Council declared to be an error in Acts 15. There Luke records that “men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.’” And after the apostles and elders debated at this Council, the Apostle Peter stood up and declared that the God of Israel had indeed revealed that Gentiles should hear and believe the gospel. That God makes no distinction between Jew and Gentile, giving both the Holy Spirit, cleansing both Jewish and Gentile hearts by faith. There Peter asks, “Why would we ever place a burden upon the Gentiles that us Jews have been unable to bear?” And he declares that Jewish Christians like himself “believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they, the Gentile Christians, will.”
And so Paul knows that these false teachers are harassing his flock in Philippi while he is 800 miles away in Rome under house arrest, and he has choice words to describe the men that are perverting the gospel and leading his sheep astray to their destruction.
First, he calls them “dogs.” To our American ears, in a land where dogs are elevated to the status of children, this term does not hit the same. But in Jewish culture, dogs were despised as both miserable and religiously unclean creatures. They were unclean because they were not picky with their food—dogs did not keep kosher… And the word dog became derogatory slang then for the unclean Gentile nations — who also were not picky with their food, eating what the Law said was unclean. So here Paul is throwing the term back on to them, saying they are the true dogs now. Not all Israel is Israel… some are filthy dogs.
He also calls them “evildoers” or “workers of evil.” This is a rejection of both their ministries and their specific teaching on circumcision. They boasted in their supposed good works, their circumcision, and Paul says no – these aren’t good works but evil ones.
And lastly, Paul calls them “the mutilation.” We don’t see it clearly in English, but there is a subtle play on words here. Instead of saying “the circumcision”—a similar word—he uses the word found in the Greek translation of the Old Testament for the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18 – who mutilated themselves with swords and spears.***
This is when the false prophets and the Prophet Joel were having their worship battle on Mount Carmel. And Elijah mocked them, saying their god must be either asleep or busy on the toilet. And so in response, the Baal worshipers cried aloud and cut themselves as they prophesied… and the text says, “But there was no voice; no one answered, no one paid attention.” And so Paul is saying just as these false prophets mutilated themselves in vain false worship, so too do the Judaizers.
Their circumcision is actually just mutilation. They not only unnecessarily make Gentiles physically cut off their flesh to earn salvation, but in doing so they are actually cutting them off from the pure gospel and the people of God.
And so Paul again says no — we are the true circumcision, the true cut off ones, “who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh” (v. 3). To have no confidence in the flesh means that with regard to circumcision, good works, pedigree, performance, or anything external to Christ—we do not look to them for our salvation. The Apostle Paul intimately knew the temptation to boast not in Christ, but in the confidence of his own flesh. He says if anyone else thinks that he has good reasons to boast, he certainly has more. And so he lists seven items.
He was:
1. “circumcised on the eighth day” – the eighth day being as soon as the Law allowed, demonstrating his parents’ meticulous and zealous observance of the Law
2. “of the people of Israel” – a native-born, a predestined Israelite.
3. “of the tribe of Benjamin” – one of the most faithful tribes
4. “Hebrew of Hebrews” – he spoke Aramaic and was raised as a Hebrew, not a Greek Hellenist
5. “As to the law, a Pharisee” – he was a leader who kept the Law in the most minute details with great devotion
6. “As to zeal, a persecutor of the church” – he had passion for what he thought was the cause of God and was intolerant of God’s supposed enemies
7. “As to righteousness under the law, blameless” – nobody could accuse him of an outward shortcoming. He kept the Law strictly.
Before coming to know Christ, Paul had it all.
He had every reason to boast in his flesh, until that fateful day on the road to Damascus, when he was blinded by the glorious Christ and humbly asked, “What shall I do, Lord?” So Paul now says, “Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord,” (vv. 7–8).
When Paul came to know Christ, everything he had just listed as an asset became a liability. His confidence in the flesh, his good works, his spiritual and family pedigree all became worthless, for they only served to hinder him from knowing Christ as his true righteousness. Now, clothed in the righteousness of Christ – Paul’s greatest boast was the same as the most freshly converted Gentile barbarian with his face still painted blue – and it’s the same exact boast for you and me – Christ and Christ alone.
If you were to place knowing Christ on one side of a cosmic scale and place all other good things in the world on the other side—your family, your good works, your church, whatever you can think of—it would not budge. For in knowing Christ, you have everything. Christ alone is your justification. He alone is your righteousness. And therefore Christ alone must be your confidence. All else simply pales in comparison.
Gaining Christ and His Righteousness
Now, let’s continue with Paul in verses 8–11. He writes,
“Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
What is Paul’s greatest desire in life? What is he striving after? What frees him to consider all of his past achievements, his self-righteousness, his good works, his fleshly confidence – as nothing more than rubbish or a pile of dung? What makes him willing to endure great suffering and loss?
Christ.
It is Christ who is worth more than it all. Paul wants to know Christ and be found in Him – not in his own vain efforts.
Here Paul sets forth two options in life. You and everyone in the world have two options. On that great and final day of judgment, where every person in this room will be, you can either be found clothed in your own self-righteousness by attempting to earn God’s favor —or—by the sheer grace of God, you can be found clothed in Christ’s righteousness, which comes through faith in Him alone.
The wicked mutilators Paul is writing against were instructing people to take the first option – a path that cuts off more than just flesh but utterly and eternally separates you from Christ.
So there’s righteousness through the law or righteousness through Christ. There’s confidence in the flesh, or confidence in Christ. Which do you want? Do you think you have what it takes to stand before God alone? What are you going to offer to him as evidence of your righteousness?
Nothing. You have nothing!
If the great Jew Paul had nothing, after that list of seven praiseworthy things, you have nothing… But this is simply the preface to the Good News then… because you can have it all in Christ. When you know Christ, you are united to him in faith, so that what is true of Him is now true of you. Therefore, if you share in His sufferings, if you become like Him in His death, if you pick up your cross and die daily, you too will share in the power of His resurrection both now in this life and ultimately attain the resurrection from the dead at the end of all things.
In Paul’s list were some good things. He was rightfully grateful for his heritage. He did not discard them lightly or dishonor them elsewhere in his writings. But he knew that they were worthless in comparison to knowing and having Christ alone as his righteousness.
And the question for you right now is this: What are you actually putting your trust in currently? Where is your confidence placed?
Now I’m not sure anyone here would say outrightly, “Oh yeah, I’m saved because of these good things I do.” You know better than that. But we are so easily deceived, and what we know to be the right answer on paper is not always reflected and held in our hearts.
When you consider your life, what are you tempted to rely on as your actual righteousness? What makes you feel like you’re better than that person over there? What good things, good works, good desires have actually begun to crowd out the simple love and thanksgiving for Christ and His righteousness in your heart?
Is it your family? Is it your church?** The fact that you don’t lie and cheat. That you don’t look at or read pornography? That you’re not a liberal? That at least your sins are the more private and polite kind? What is it that you glory in? That you make your great confidence? Is it simply the feeling that you’re a good guy deep down unlike some person over there? Is it your daily Bible reading? Your perfect Reformed theology and the books on your shelves? The fact that your kids get a Christian education unlike those public school kids? Your outwardly moral and upright life?
The list could go on and on…
Some of these might sound stupid. Some of them are wonderful and true good works that God is calling you to. But none of them offer you the righteousness that can only be found in Christ. And none of it compares to knowing Christ and being able to boast in His good works and not your own.
So what things are hindering you from knowing Christ as your righteousness? What good things should you consider actually rubbish in comparison to the all-surpassing beauty of Christ? Listen: Nothing under heaven—even the best of things—profits if it is divorced from Christ or replaces Christ as your true boast and righteousness.
Pressing On Toward the Goal
Let’s continue with Paul. He writes,
“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (vv. 12–14).
Here the Apostle Paul himself says that he has not already obtained all that has been promised to him in the gospel. He is not yet perfect – and so he presses on, he strives forward, to make Christ Jesus his own. You have not arrived. Your inheritance is secure, you are Christ’s, nobody can pluck you from the Father’s hand, but you are not yet in full possession of all that has been promised.
Paul compares this life to that of a race. He says he forgets what lies behind and strains forward to what lies ahead, pressing on toward the goal, where the prize is the heavenly call of God in Christ. Since that day on the Damascus Road, Paul has set himself in motion in one direction only – He wants to know Christ more and more.
When you’re in a race you don’t stop halfway and decide that you’ve won. You also don’t let obstacles or fatigue stop you, but instead you exert all your energy forward toward that finish line. In this race heavenward, there are all sorts of things set up along the way to sidetrack you.
Sin sidetracks, especially the sin of pride. Self-righteousness offers many detours or shortcuts – where you are tempted to rest in your own supposed righteousness rather than Christ’s.
But let’s make the metaphor concrete. What does this “running” look like? Is the act of knowing Christ just some mental exercise? Is it merely just more quiet times? Well, part of it is certainly responding to God’s gracious invitation to commune with Him in prayer and His Word.
Absolutely. We are to meditate on Christ as we continually renew our minds. And I’m sure everyone in this room ought to be applying themselves to these spiritual disciplines more and more. But we also know Christ by obeying His commands in all of life. Our good works, when done in simple faith in Christ, are actually good. They do delight God.
In Ephesians 2, we learn that God has prepared good works in advance for us to walk in them. Remember that the Apostle Paul in our passage this morning says that true believers worship God in spirit, rejoice in Christ, and put no confidence in the flesh. And so we are to confess our sins. Worship with God’s saints. Partake of the sacraments. Read the Word. Commune with God in prayer. Work diligently in our vocations. Honor our parents. Love our families. Enjoy God’s creation. Build a Christian community that will outlast our children. We must do all of that, and we must do it by faith in Christ and with His resurrection power. But it must be done without one ounce of self-righteousness or pride.
If we let pride get mixed into any of these great kingdom endeavors, or if we begin to rest on them as the source of our righteousness, they become worse than worthless. As the Puritan Richard Sibbes wrote, “Good works are in their proper nature good; but, if we rely on them, they stop the way to Christ.”
They stop the way to Christ. They simply get in the way.
So note that I am not preaching against good works. We know that faith without works is dead. It’s not a real, living faith. Christ says if you love Me you will keep my commandments. And so obedience and good works are an essential part of our faith. But we must distinguish what these good works are for, what their purpose is. Calvin talks about them this way. He says there is a difference between the substance of works and the quality. We do not argue against the substance of good works – they are good. But we are arguing against the quality that some impose on them – that we are justified by them. No – we are justified by Christ. And so Paul is not divesting himself of works. Paul is not anti-works. He is simply warning his readers to discard all mistaken confidence in works.
And so what we need to keep things properly oriented. First and foremost, “All of Christ.” He is our righteousness and He is central. And then, that faith in Christ flows into “All of Life.” It can never become the reverse. You can have a comfortable life and a family that, from the outside, looks righteous, faithful, morally good, put-together, but actually devoid of Christ. You can play by all the rules, you can know all the right things to say but actually be Christless. You can tell yourself that you are honest and just and have it all together – but if all you are doing is looking inward and seeing righteousness – if when you look in the mirror you see a perfect saint – you are in a very bad place.
For to know Christ more and more it to see ourselves more clearly. To have our senses heightened to our own failings, to know our need of Christ more deeply, and to find our rest in Him.
Heavenward Race
Consider the race heavenward this way. There are two ditches on either side of the track.
The first is the popular evangelical Gnosticism that we’ve been stuck in for a long time – where we’re just merely passing through this life, savings souls to just us as we wait for the rapture, and then everything here will burn and we get to spend an eternity in bliss.
We don’t want that. We want to build. We want to fight. We desire to lay foundations atop the ruins of our civilization that our children’s children can stand upon. We want generational faithfulness. We want our works to be the kind that are tested by fire on that final Day and are refined rather than burnt up.
But the other ditch that we must watch out for then is putting our hope, our trust, our focus all in here and now. And by doing so, we find that we no longer identify with Paul’s longing at the end of Chapter 3 here, where he says he is eagerly awaiting the Savior who will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body.
Do you identify with this way of speaking? Are you eagerly awaiting the Savior and the resurrection of the dead?
There is a way to become so consumed with the work of your hands that you fail to ever look up and consider the glory of heaven – the glory of coming to know Christ your Lord face to face. The way to stay out of these ditches as we run our heavenward race is to see all our works, all of our blessings, all of our kingdom-building efforts – along with all of our sufferings, trials and temptations – as steps in the race that are bringing us forward to that great and glorious Day—where we fill be found clothed in Christ’s righteousness alone. What we are doing here and now in this life is bringing us into deeper knowledge of Christ.
If you place the anchor of your hope in this age, in this life, in your family or church community… you will be let down. You will become downtrodden. You will become burdened and devoid of Christ’s resurrection power. But if you are pressing forward with eyes on the prize, with eyes set on knowing Christ more and more, you will receive that final reward of knowing Christ, beholding him face to face as you are transformed into His likeness completely. The more you know of Him here and now, the more you center your lives around this one Man, the sweeter your fellowship will be with Him in glory. Further up, further in, you must go in Christ.
Conclusion
Remember how the Apostle Paul began this passage—“Rejoice in the Lord.”
If you are going to have true joy in this life, and in the age to come, it must be in the Lord. If you look anywhere else for this sort of joy that all people long for—whether in yourself, in those around you, or in your circumstances—you will be disappointed. True and everlasting Christian joy can only come from being found in Jesus Christ. //
The false teachers that the Apostle Paul was so eagerly fighting against were joy-robbers. Instead of offering the free grace found in the gospel of Christ, they were placing another burden on the people that they could not keep. And so with the same earnestness as Paul, you must fight that false teacher in your own heart.
The one that says you must earn your place. That it is all up to you. That if you just try hard enough, the Lord would smile upon you. Or the one that looks around at all your work with prides, and begins to identify those things as your saving grace. That is a false gospel. So damn it to hell in your hearts and in your families. And look to Christ, your only hope, and your everlasting joy.