Limiting Your Liability - Philippians 3:1–11

Well, I know we have some NASCAR fans here, and even if you aren’t a fan, you’ve probably heard of the late Dale Earnhardt. Earnhardt passed away many years ago in a racing accident, and he is arguably the best stock car driver to ever live.

Not long ago I stumbled onto a podcast hosted by one of his sons: Dale Earnhardt Jr. “Junior” as they call him, was also a successful driver, but he’s retired now, and among other things, he has this podcast. When I was a kid in the 1980s and early 90s, I followed NASCAR some, so I’m familiar with the drivers from that time period.

“Junior” will often have these old guys on his show. They’ll tell stories about racing and about the late Dale Earnhardt, and I find it fascinating, particularly because many of these drivers who come on Junior’s show are legendary, and you may hear a short interview with one of them here and there, but it’s rare to be able to listen to these racing legends tell stories for an hour or two. 

I got to thinking about it: these men come on the podcast and speak so freely in large part because of who Dale Jr. is and what he’s done in his own life. Drivers both past and present  have great respect for Dale Jr. for a couple of reasons. One, his family name. Dale Earnhardt is still revered by these guys, and they love to tell their own stories about when they tangled with “the Intimidator” on the race track or when he did some kind favor for them. But also, they respect Junior because he’s a racing legend in his own rite. He had success, albeit not as much as his dad. So Junior has this good standing with any and everyone in the NASCAR world because of his birthright and his accomplishments. He can rely on those credentials and approach anyone in NASCAR about coming onto his podcast.

All people naturally do something very similar when we approach God. It’s natural to rely on who we are by birth or what we’ve done in our lives to estimate where we stand with God. We think that God must take into account things like family history, rituals and accomplishments to make us right with Him.

But we can see in this passage of Scripture today that according to the gospel of Jesus Christ,  none of that matters. Only Jesus, through His humble life and death and His glorious resurrection, could secure good standing with God.

So we should rely only on who Jesus is and what He has done to make us right with God. But how does that reliance on Jesus work itself out in our daily lives? How does that look? How do you proactively do it? It’s easy to give lip-service to it. Talk is cheap, right? How do we live it out? 

Well, Paul says earlier in Philippians that we must do it with fear and trembling, with humility, but what he says here clarifies it for us even more. And Paul uses this language of gains and losses, advantages and disadvantages, assets and liabilities to help us understand what it means to rely only on Jesus. I provided an outline for you there in the WG, and it will make more sense as I explain.

In verse 1, Paul says, “To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.” It seems that this is something he has told them before. He wants to safeguard them, to protect them from something. There were some (maybe they were truly Christians, maybe not) who were trying to persuade the believers who were not ethnically Jewish and not raised up in Judaism that they needed to receive the Old Covenant sign of circumcision.

They argued that it was necessary for these people to truly please God. These former Jews boasted in having received this external sign, as if it made them “more-Christian.” They said these Gentiles needed to receive that sign to be full-fledged.

And so Paul refutes that idea, saying that doing this would be nothing more than unnecessary mutilation. It would have zero value and it would cause great harm, not just physically, but spiritually as well. So Paul says, verse 2, [2] Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. And he says, “[3] For we are the circumcision.” Which is to say that the true people of God are those not who have received an outward sign, but, verse 3 “who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.” Literally, who don’t believe or trust the flesh. 

Trust it how? As a sign of true salvation. That OC sign was never meant to carry the weight that it carried for so many. In the OT book of Deuteronomy, God says that it is the heart that must be circumcised or transformed. The outward ritual was only meant to signify the inward need. It has always been the sinful nature and self-centered ways of man that must be cut away. Circumcision was never intended as a badge of salvation, something to believe or trust. The true people of God must not put their confidence in rituals.

But notice what Paul says next, verse [4] though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: If the dogs, as Paul calls them, want to check off a list of credentials, they should see Paul’s list. He had some by birth, verse [5] circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. 

Paul had received the OC sign, as any boy in a devout Jewish family would. According to the law of Moses, he received it eight days after birth. Paul’s ancestors were the respectable tribe of Benjamin. Paul was a bonafide Israelite by birthright. In addition, as an adult Paul had chosen to become a Pharisee. Among Jews, the Pharisees were the ones who strictly adhered to the OT laws. 

Not only was Paul devoted in word, but also in deed. Verse 6, “as to zeal, a persecutor of the church.” Paul didn’t just talk the talk as a devout Israelite, he walked the walk. He was so zealous for Judaism that he hunted down Christians to imprison and even kill them. And Paul adds that, “as to righteousness under the law” he was “blameless.” Paul’s outward obedience the OT moral and ceremonial law was impeccable. But Paul makes this stunning statement in verse [7] But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 

I’ve been familiar with this verse for a long time, and I always understood Paul simply to mean that he gave up all these things to follow Jesus. That isn’t wrong, but it’s not complete. In fact, it misses the main point that he’s making here.

Let me make a comparison. Let’s say you have a property. A piece of land or a building. Your goal and your expectation is that the property will generate income for you. It will be an asset. It will bring in monetary gain. 

But let’s imagine that through a turn of events, the property doesn’t make money for you. Nor does it sit dormant. It ends up costing you money. Rather than being an asset, it becomes a liability. Rather than producing gain for you, it produces loss. Rather than providing you an advantage, it puts you at a disadvantage.

You see, Paul says here that he always thought that all these things he listed were producing gain for him in the sight of God. When it came to being righteous before God, accepted by God, having good standing with God, all those things were assets.

But now, in light of his knowledge of the gospel, he sees his birthright and accomplishments for what they really are: liabilities. He recognizes that things like his lineage and his credentials tempt him to trust in them, to “put confidence” in them, and he realizes that doing so will cost him faith in Jesus Christ alone. His long list of advantages with God were disadvantages when it came to faith.

To trust in Jesus, Paul had to identify those things as liabilities to saving faith. Those things put him in danger of trusting in them to make him right with God. When it came to his standing with God, these things did not serve to help him, they stood to hurt him because he naturally put confidence in them, and you can’t put confidence in the flesh and in Jesus Christ.

What similar things are you tempted to put your confidence in? Is it the faith and life of your parents or grandparents? Is it your baptism? Is it your public profession of faith? Is it the life you’ve lived, what you’ve done or kept yourself from doing? Is it your accomplishments? Should you have good standing with God based on your hard work, your ethics, your morals, your self-control? According to what Paul says, those things don’t give you leverage with God. They hamstring you. They put you in danger of missing Jesus.

I can give you a personal example from my own life. Somewhere I’m tempted to put my confidence that God loves me and is pleased with me. There are many in my life, but I’m thinking of one in particular. It’s this church. Good Shepherd is a tremendous blessing to me. What God has done for us brings me so much joy. But like anything, it can be an idol. It is, for me, an accomplishment that could draw me away from daily trust in Christ alone. 

And in that regard, it is, as Paul describes here, a liability. In fact, what we translate “loss” in verse 7 in literally “damage” or “penalty.” The good things in life can lure away from Jesus, even if with your lips you would never renounce Jesus. You see, this is an issue of the heart.

What are your liabilities? In what things are you tempted to put confidence? You must identify those things as Paul does here, and then, you must confess those things. Notice verse 8. [8] 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.

All things. If you would truly know Jesus and follow Him, there can be nothing else beside him. The good things, the blessings in your life, are of no comparison with Jesus. They get you zero leverage with God. Back to my property analogy, if during the course of the year, you lose money, your property costs you money, you would say, “Well, that place was not an asset this year. I had to count it as a loss. It was a liability.”

Are you willing to confess to God that you’ve put confidence in other things? Because that’s what it means to truly receive Jesus Christ, and we must revisit that confession each day. Not that you get saved again each day, but you return to that place of reliance only on Jesus. We identify our liabilities, we confess them, and we surrender them to God. Let’s look at these final verses.

What Paul describes here are three subcategories of salvation in Jesus. Verse 9 is Justification, Verse 10, is Sanctification, and Verse 11 is Glorification. Let me explain.

Verse [9] 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.Paul counts all other things a liability, he puts faith only in Jesus, and he is justified before God. He is made just or right with God, he is restored in relationship with God, he is a child of God. This is what the Bible calls “justification” before God. 

Now look at verse [10] that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. What follows the moment of justification is this process of being made more like Jesus. It’s a transformation of how a person thinks and desires and lives. The Bible calls it “sanctification,” being set apart by God and made holy. Don’t be mistaken - how you live does matter. We must obey God and accomplish things for God and plant churches and so on. But we put our confidence only in the Lord Jesus!

And notice verse [11] that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

In other words, I’ll obey Jesus and go where he leads me - I’ll count all other things loss - I just want to be in good standing with him on the Last Day, the day of Judgment. I just want to rise with him to life immortal and eternal. I just want to be with God forever. And I will surrender every liability to God in order that I may have Jesus Christ.

In the present day, we often hear about “limiting liability.” As we sing this final song, “Resting Place,” you must understand that if you trust in these other things, Jesus cannot be a resting place for you. He must stand alone.

Let’s bow in prayer.