What Do We Need to Do to Be Acceptable to God?

2008-02-24

What do we need to do to be acceptable to God? Think about the following: which of these make you acceptable to God: Incessant prayers? Reading your Bible a lot? Being involved in your church? Tithing? Your spiritual gift? What do we really believe makes us acceptable to God?

How many Scriptures can give us the answer to this question! The particular one we will look at today will be Philippians 3:1-11.

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.

The idea of “rejoice” cannot be disconnected from the object, which is “the Lord.” There are people he will warn of, who have confidence in something other than the Lord. Paul is repeating this word “rejoice,” but this time he is emphasizing that the Lord is the one in whom we rejoice. He has great need and even urgency in repeating this to the people because of the rampant problem of what are often called Judaizers in the church at that time. These people are alluded to in verse 2.

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

Judaizers were people who were insistent that people must “become Jewish” before one could trust Christ for salvation. This meant circumcision of the Abrahamic Covenant, and also keeping parts of the Mosaic Covenant. This is very much the same as all religious thought since the eviction of humankind from the Garden of Eden. If I do this, this, and this, God will be happy with me. Not only will He be happy with me, I will also be able to control Him. I obligate God to do what I want (whether it be salvation or something else) because I did these things for Him.

People of various religions will say, “I have fulfilled So-and-so’s religious teaching.” The American says, “I have been a good, charitable person. I have been baptized in such-and-such church; God must be pleased with me.” The Jewish man says, “I have kept the 618 Levitical laws, I must be okay.”

They all have it wrong. It was once illustrated for me this way: The Law in the Old Testament is like a thermometer. You do not use the thermometer to get better; you use it to see how high your fever is. You take the medicine to get well. The thermometer has no power to heal. But these Judaizers thought that the thermometer would cure their sickness!

Instead, using irony, Paul calls these Judaizers dogs, evil workers, and the concision. Dogs were what the Jews called Gentiles. The Judaizers thought their works were good, but they were not. They thought the act of circumcision was keeping the Abrahamic Covenant, but it was as if they were mutilating themselves.

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.

Paul says that “we are the circumcision.” All the promises of the Old Testament, given to the saints of that age, including Abraham, come through fulfillment in Christ. The ritual of circumcision is the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant. All covenants have signs. The Noahic Covenant had the rainbow. The Mosaic Covenant had the Sabbath day. The Abrahamic Covenant had circumcision. Members of the Covenant keep the sign of the Covenant.

But we who are not Jewish would not have been members of the Abrahamic Covenant before Christ came. However, because of Jesus, we now know God. We are not only considered circumcised when we are in Christ, we are considered the circumcision. This is entirely what happens to us in Christ; this is not something that we did on our own. We are now “insiders” with God. He did it. Our hearts are circumcised.

Paul, however, in answering Judaizers’ alleged abilities to please and appease God on their own, he puts forth his own credentials.

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:
3:5: 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;
3:6: Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

This is a man who was the pinnacle of religious perfection. We would say the same thing of someone today. Paul as a Pharisee believed in the whole Old Testament, unlike the Sadducees. He was highly educated and had likely memorized the entire Old Testament, just as someone like him in his day would have done. He was full of zeal, defending his religion. Some of these things we probably would look for in a pastor or leader in the church. But read on...

Philippians 3:7: But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.

Paul counts these things he could have boasted in as a loss. He recognizes that all of his personal assets add nothing to his stature. God sees Paul in Jesus Christ. And this goes for all of us as well. This is where our thinking needs to be as well. Think about this: It is often the very things we like the most about ourselves from which Jesus came to save us.

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,

These things, which he now counts as loss, are at odds with knowing Christ. This knowledge here is not simply knowledge of Jesus Christ in that He exists on some theoretical level. This knowledge is on a very personal level.

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:

In verse 9, it opens with Paul’s desire to “be found in Him.” It is important to say that Paul is in Christ. Paul’s desire here is to be seen by others as being in Christ. He wants his life to demonstrate this. This righteousness is not from the law, either the Law of the Old Testament or a law we created in our minds (as false religions do). This righteousness is from God. It is the same as the “righteousness of God” introduced in Romans 3. Here, Paul spells this out so it is clear: righteousness, which is from God by faith.

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;
3:11: If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

Our lives are in His life. Colossians 3:3 says that our life is hidden in Christ with God. Our power for living and for real life is in Jesus Christ. When we try to live up to standards of self-inflicted law, we are not letting Him live through us. When we are convinced in our minds that we are in Christ and that we cannot take away from or add to what He did at Calvary, then we are empowered to live the life of servitude to Him. We know Him better when we are in this mind, and suffer for His sake since His life was characterized by suffering while He was on earth.

This is what I challenge you with today. Nothing you do makes you acceptable to God. It is what you are, namely, a new creation in Christ that makes you acceptable as a son of the living God.