St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians: A Message of Joy – Part 6, from His Holiness Pope Tawadros II, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark
This message is also available in Arabic.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. One God. Amen. May His grace and mercy rest upon us, from now and forevermore. Amen.
Sermon Highlights:
~ 4 main reasons why we rejoice
~ St. Paul: Before and after Christ – all our past credentials become meaningless
~ 3 ways to attain personal, experiential knowledge of Christ
~ Our only goal and single purpose: to Know Him.
A Quick Review
Several weeks ago we began a series contemplating the subject of joy through a study of St. Paul the apostle’s Letter to the Philippians; a letter characterized not just by its words of joy, but by its message or spirit of joy. And the joy we speak of here is not a superficial joy but of a deep, Christian meaning of joy [which comes through] the life of the Lord Jesus Christ and the life of virtue – as we saw in the lives of the two disciples, Timothy and Epaphroditus. And despite his having written this Letter while he was in prison, Paul explains the life and state of joy, thus giving us a chance to also experience this emotion.
Today we will continue with the sixth contemplation in this series on the joy that St. Paul spoke of and experienced during his time in prison. Let us begin reading together from the 3rd Chapter of the Letter to the Philippians.
Philippians Chapter 3
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, boast 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 (dung, garbage), 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.
15 Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. 16 Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.
The grace of God the Father be with you all. Amen.
Discourse
Oftentimes when I contemplate this Letter, I feel that St. Paul was trying to make just one statement over and over again, that is: “Rejoice in the Lord at all times … rejoice in the Lord at all times,” (Phil 4:4)… over and over again, as if the only experience he wants to convey to us is joy, but he explains it to us in so many different ways and details.
In this section of the Letter which we just read together, the apostle begins to speak to us about his past; what his past and background were like.
1 Finally, my brethren. Notice that although we are only halfway through the Letter, he begins this chapter with the word “Finally.” Finally, because he wants to convey to the reader that a person who lives life with Christ can always abide in a state of joy, no matter what the external circumstances may be.
1 Finally, my brethren. Also notice his repetition in the words “my brethren” 3 times in this Letter, an indication of his great humility and sense of unworthiness to even be considered as one of their brothers, considering he came to know Christ much later in his life, when he was already in his thirties.
1 For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe. He is saying that the repetition of the writing, reading, and hearing of these things is for our own good. Such teachings keep us safe and give us the sense of assurance that we are always surrounded by the Hand of Christ, which will [ultimately] always bring us joy.
And when you read this Letter, always keep in mind that he is in prison, he is living in a prison, and we all know what that means – prison means suffering, darkness, trouble, loss of one’s freedom, pain, days passing by slowly and with a sense of heaviness throughout the day. All this, and yet he still speaks to us of joy! And so this proves to us that joy is not dependent on external circumstances but joy is [actually] within you; joy is found within a person. And so whether a person is put in prison or is outside of prison, the joy is within them because Christ is within them.
2 Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation (those who are circumcised)! Notice here his repetition of the word “beware.” The “dogs” here is a reference to the Gentiles, which is the term Jews referred to non-Jews with.
A story that can help us with this is that of the Canaanite woman who met with Christ and told Him, “My daughter is very ill and suffering greatly.” Christ answered her using the term the Jews used, He said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.” Christ spoke these words to her as a sort of test, and her response was a very good one, she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table” (cf. Mt 15:22-28).
And I want you to know that when Christ said “dogs” here, He was referring to the dogs on the street, but when the woman said “even the little dogs eat the crumbs,” she was referring to domesticated or house dogs; dogs which receive attention, support, food, and physical care from their owners – domesticated dogs are provided for and cared for by their owners, and this is why Christ said to her, “Great is your faith.”
And so the apostle here is repeating what Jews called Gentiles: “dogs and evil workers.” “Evil workers” is a way of referring to those who live in sin or set up snares and plots for others to fall into, but he also cautions them to “beware of the mutilation,” which is a reference to the Jews’ practice of circumcision. In Judaism, every male had to be circumcised, but in Christianity, circumcision has been interpreted into its spiritual meaning, which is baptism.
He repeats the word “beware” here several times in order to indicate the need to be careful, to avoid, to notice, to pay attention to, and he uses these warnings as an introduction because he is getting ready to speak to us about his own past and wrong or error understandings in which he used to live.
4 main reasons why we rejoice
1 Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. He tells us to rejoice and we do see people being joyful for all sorts of reasons, but we rejoice mainly because of 4 reasons.
The Lord is Ruler over all things
The first reason we rejoice is that we know the Lord is ruling over all things and all things are in Divine order. All this life you see before you is under the Lord’s control and order – the universe, nature, the planets, the suns, the stars, our own planet earth, time itself … all these things are in perfect, Divine order, and this is why you can rejoice, because the Lord is Keeping all things in perfect order. We are not living in chaos, we are not living in nothingness, but no, everything is under control and life runs in good, Divine order.
And the Lord is not just governing and controlling the large things and the great systems, but even the smallest cells in your body with all their details, those too are controlled and organized by God. Universities sometimes spend large amounts of time studying a single cell, and they have discovered that the cell moves in accordance to the clock, to the minute and in an exact order … in fact, saying that cells work by the minute is an understatement because they actually work in split-seconds and nanoseconds … a marvelous thing indeed!
If we were to just study the components of a cell – its nucleus, its cytoplasm, its walls, its contents, and the movements that take place within it, and then consider that the human body is composed of millions and millions of these cells and in so many different varieties, each one having its own job, each one being a part of a different system!
And so, rejoice that the Lord is the Ruler ruling over all things. You are living in an orderly universe; this is an orderly system.
God loves every human being
The second reason we rejoice is because our God loves all people … all humans, all people, as He said [in the Sermon on the Mount], “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good” (Mt 5:45), and the gift of the sun is a great gift, like the gift of air and the gift of water. The greatest gifts God gives the world, He gives them to all humanity, to every person, righteous or unrighteous.
God loves all people, everyone. Okay then, what about sinners and those who fall into weaknesses? God loves the human as a person, but He does not love his or her sin. God does not love sin, but when He sees that someone is sinning, He is very, very patient, waiting to see when that person will repent and return, and God’s longsuffering and gentleness is limitless; God will patiently remain with a person.
For example, let me remind you of the thief on the right hand, the Lord continued to be patient with him despite all his crimes, troubles, and all the wrong things he had done, even to the day of his punishment, when he was hung on a cross. And on that day and moment the thief offered repentance, he offered a prayer, a very short sentence but a sentence that was so fully charged with emotion: “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom,” (Lk 23:42) and the resulting response was, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Lk 23:43).
And so we rejoice because we know that God loves every person. And never listen to the whispers of Satan that enter into the ear and say, “The Lord doesn’t love you,” or “The Lord has forgotten about you,” or “This world with its billions of people, what are you among all that? He does not even remember you.” Not so at all! God knows, remembers, sees, cares for, and forgives every person.
God cares for our cares
A third cause for our rejoicing is that God cares about and attends to our concerns. God works with us and His Hand is present and at work in our lives. For example, there are many times we can look back at our lives and say, “I just don’t know how that issue worked out! It was the Lord’s Hand that facilitated the matter and made it to pass or to succeed.”
And when the apostle Paul was in prison, although he suffered the bitterness of prison life, yet he was joyous, why? Because his eye – not his physical eye but the eye of his heart – could see that God’s Hand was at work. God’s care and provision in our lives is obvious and good - whether by His providing us with air, with water, with growing plants, with the many blessings of food and animals, fish in the waters and birds in the sky - all our needs are before Him and He knows them; He cares for our concerns and provides us with all these things to meet our needs.
God is working and able to do what we cannot
Another cause for our rejoicing and for our loving God is that He is able to accomplish, intervene in, and resolve what we humans do not know how to do or resolve for ourselves. “What is impossible with man is possible with God” (Lk 18:27 NIV). I want you to know that the only place where you can cast the worries, troubles, burdens and sorrows of your heart, or any emotions that may arise within you in response to people or to life-circumstances or events, is at the Feet of Christ.
You go to Him and say, Lord, “When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your comfort delights my soul” (Ps 94:19). He is the only One who can comfort you, He is the only One who will stand beside you, He is the only One who will never forget about you, He is the only One who is [truly] faithful to you. Everything He does is for the good, and I am certain that you all know the verse that says, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God” (Rom 8:28). He is also the One who said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28 NIV).
And so it is for these reasons that we love You Lord. We love that You care for us and watch over our lives, that You meet our every need by providing for us all things, even this very joy, You are continually offering it to us. And this is why the apostle Paul can say it over and over again and say it with power: “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!” (Phil 4:4)
St. Paul: Before and after Christ
Moving on to his next point, the apostle Paul now wishes to make a comparison between who he was and who he has now become, in Christ. Listen to what he says:
3 For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, boast in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Boast in Christ?! You’re in prison Paul, and it was your faith that got you here!! You’re in prison because of your faith and yet you say “we boast in Christ Jesus”!
“And have no confidence in the flesh” – this referring to the matter of circumcision
4 though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so. What he is saying here is that if a Jewish person were to come along boasting about their flesh being circumcised, well, St. Paul would have just as much right to do so, “I more so because I have these 7 credentials, all of them, which other Jews may not even have all of them, and so I am all the more qualified than anyone else.”
And so he begins to list and describe the credentials that qualify him to be a Jewish man of foremost standing, a most excellent Jew – not even an ordinary Jew. He gives the list of his 7 credentials in verses 5 and 6, he says:
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.
Let’s go through them one by one:
“Circumcised the eighth day,
of the stock of Israel,
of the tribe of Benjamin,
a Hebrew of the Hebrews;
concerning the law, a Pharisee; (the word ‘Pharisee’ means ‘separate, set apart,’ the New Testament equivalent of a person who is “consecrated”). And so in referring to himself as “a Pharisee,” Paul is letting us know that he is one who has studied the Law very well, attained very high credentials, and understands the Law and the Jewish traditions to the very utmost.
Also, the Pharisees were the chief sect, which is why we find them appearing at so many of the events and miracles of Christ; they appear, play a role, and [often] object.
concerning zeal, persecuting the church; Paul is saying, “How much more Jewish can you be?! Not only was I a Jewish man, but I was so zealous concerning Judaism and the Law that I went as far as persecuting the Church, and moreover, I was violent toward them.” And we know that the apostle Paul even came to know Christ while he was in the very depths of his persecuting the Church and on his way to arrest Christians who had escaped from Jerusalem to Damascus; it was along that road that Christ appeared to him.
concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. He is saying, “Nobody can hold anything against me, not one wrong thing.”
Again, “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.”
And so in conclusion, no Jew can rival or match him regarding his Jewishness. But why is he telling us all of this? He wants to convey to us how great his advantages and life were, but that when he came to know Christ, he considered all of these advantages to be as rubbish, or as some translations put it, “worthless garbage” or “dung”.
He says, 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 (dung, garbage), that I may gain Christ.
Rubbish is the garbage of the garbage, in other words, it is the garbage that is leftover even after people have gone through the garbage to take out anything that may be reusable or recyclable. And so the apostle Paul is likening all his credentials to that leftover garbage that is absolutely good for nothing at all.
He is also giving us all these details to let us know the extent to how greatly immersed he was in that lifestyle. Oftentimes a person is far from the Lord and is so drowning in a sea of so many things, so many other things. A person may be drowning in being busy with projects or with work, or with their position or its responsibilities, or, or, or, give it any title or category you like, but he feels as if he is drowning. And then you come to speak to this person of joy and he says, “Joy? What joy? Where is this joy you speak of?
But let us go back and listen to the apostle Paul’s experience and what he has to say. First he tells us to boast only in Christ, then he gives us a list of his credentials and says that they are as rubbish, worthless, and now he makes the transition, he says, “7 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.”
Let us pause for a moment at the word “counted” because he mentions it several times, and this indicates that a process of self-accounting is going on here, and this is a key transitional word because it transitions us from the condition he used to be in as a Jew; he began to take some kind of internal accounting and discovered that all these things were as rubbish, garbage.
So again, “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.” Wonderful! Simply wonderful! He placed his old way and its credentials in one hand, and Christ in the other hand, and discovered that the better hand was the one of his knowledge of Christ Jesus.
Jesus had graciously met him along his journey on the road to Damascus and asked him, “Paul, Paul, why do you persecute Me?” a question intended to awaken the conscience, as we read in Acts Chapter 9, and the apostle Paul’s response to that question was, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” (Acts 9:6), as if to say, “Lord, I surrender. I surrender, my heart has opened.”
You may be able to count the many things in your life, but anything that is far from Christ is to be a considered a loss; you gain nothing at all from it, or as I have told you in the past, it is all dust to dust. And so what about all the credentials you mentioned Paul, that you were “Circumcised, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless”? He said, “All those things are a loss, meaningless, of no value.”
So Paul, what did you discover? He said, “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 (dung, garbage), that I may gain Christ. He is a smart merchant, a smart trader! And this, my brethren, can help us answer the question of how he was able to be so joyous while in prison.
We can understand if someone wrote about joy during moments of quiet, or in places surrounded by greenery and nature, or while at a beautiful seaside, but to write about joy while in prison, this is a marvel, truly a marvel, but this is the marvel we attain from faith in 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.” I want you to know that “the counting” here is not a past tense. In the original Greek, the word “count” here is a continuous verb, continuous. So it’s not that I counted it once, made a decision, and that’s it, no, it’s that I count it again and again.
Every single day I reconsider the matter and find that I am still better off and the winner “for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus.” This continuity also means that a moment never comes to him where he finds himself regretting this path he has chosen, the path of Christ, and wishing he had chosen another path, no. The counting is continuous, always ongoing.
What Paul is saying is that he is now inhabiting a new life, a life where all these things of the past, no matter how great they may have once been or seem to be, are now worthless and have no place in his new life; the old things are not part of this new equation.
Paul wrote the words of this Letter with a sense of jubilance and joy, he said, “3 … we boast in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” Do not ever depend on the flesh, in any way or another. My confidence, my dependence, my very self, are all to be found in Christ Jesus Himself, alone, and this [attitude of] complete dependence on Christ may help us answer our question of how Paul was able to experience and write about joy from within the confines of a prison.
We may have personally experienced the discomfort of being in prisons of fear or worry or depression or the like, as some have with the recent confinements due to the Corona virus pandemic, but the answer is found in verse 10. I want you to pay attention to this verse and to memorize it with me; Philippians 3:10. In this verse, Paul gives us the true reason behind his joy. Listen to not just what he says, but how he says it:
“10 that I may know Him and the power of His. resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” There are four components here, as the four sides of the cross. The first is about complete and total awareness and comprehension; to Know Him, that is, to know Christ, as if Paul were saying, “You see, He appeared to me on the road to Damascus and now I want to know Him [more].” And keep in mind that after the incident on the road to Damascus, Paul spent 3 years in Arabia, in solitude, a form of servant preparation, you could say, “that I may know Him.”
And brethren, the knowledge Paul speaks of here is not the kind of knowledge that comes by hearing, but the knowledge that comes by experience. If you were to say to me, “We pray a lot, we go to Church a lot, we read the lives of the saints a lot, we contemplate the Bible a lot, what is the purpose of our doing all of these spiritual practices?” I would tell you, “We do it all for one purpose and goal: to know Him. We do all these things in order that both your relationship and your trust in Christ would increase.”
We call this kind of knowledge “direct experience,” or “experiential” knowledge. It is when a person personally experiences the Presence of Christ being with him/her. Listen to what the prophet David says in the Psalm of the Shepherd, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil” (Ps 23:4), why not? “For You are with me.” Please notice the construction here: Even if I go through any difficulty, even if I am in prison, I will fear no evil, why not? Because You are with me, present with me, which is the equivalent of Paul’s “that I may Know Him.”
I want to bring this to your attention, that all that the world sets before us does not satisfy our souls. Nothing the world offers us can satisfy us, never, not at all. We take it, we use it, and it gets used up. The end. And you can apply this to anything; any material or emotionally meaningful thing that the world gives to a person cannot satisfy them.
There was a person who was called to the priesthood and this person was very well-liked in his workplace, very well-liked. One day he went into his manager’s office and said, “I am giving my resignation because I will be serving as a priest in the Church.” Of course not knowing, his manager thought that the Church had made this man an offer that was better than the offer he was receiving at his current workplace, so the manager asked him, “Is the Church’s offer more than the salary you are receiving here?”
The man smiled and at this the manager said, “We are ready to increase your salary, only tell us what the Church’s offer is and we will go above it. We do not want to lose you or let you go because you are a very important person here and you are very good at what you do.”
And so the man began to gently explain to the manager that it was not a matter of offers, on the contrary, the Church’s offer was even less, and the manager was of course puzzled by this. The heart of the matter is that in the world a person is never satisfied, it is only when we sense the Presence and Hand of Christ in our lives that we feel satisfied. This [is the only thing] that can give us a sense of satisfaction, a sense of comfort to the innermost heart, very much so.
A very nice children’s story tells of a very rainy day and a young child who lived with his grandmother. They were very poor and lived in a small hut. This hut had no roof and so when it rained, this would be a difficult situation. So the grandmother would remove the door of the hut and put it as a roof on the hut in order to reduce the incoming rain, and with complete simplicity the young child said to her, “Grandmother, what are the people who don’t have a door going to do in this rain?” This is an example of one who is so satisfied and content, one who has an inner sense of sufficiency, that he lacks nothing.
3 ways to attain personal, experiential knowledge of Christ
The apostle Paul here tells us that our only need is to know Christ and that this need can only be satisfied in and with Christ – “That I may know Him”. Become satiated with Christ. This knowledge is experiential knowledge and it comes through 3 ways: your prayers, your time with the Bible, and your spiritual practices.
1-Prayers – which is why our Church has so many prayers …
short prayers- like “Lord have mercy,” and “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner,”
moderately long prayers- like the Agpeya and the Psalms,
long prayers- like Liturgies, Vespers, hymns, doxologies, praises, and so on
These are all different forms of prayer …
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