Sermon Tone Analysis

Deuteronomy

Prayer

Introduction

When I was a kid, there was a football player for the Detroit Lions named Barry Sanders.

The guy was amazing.

He was literally one of the best running backs of all time.

He was poised to break virtually every record there was for a running back when suddenly while healthy, he retired seemingly out of the blue.

People were shocked.

No one could understand why a guy who was at the top of his game would suddenly quit.

Sanders was at the pinnacle, and he considered as nothing.

Barry really has never explained his reasoning for retiring when he did, but in our passage today we will see how Paul who was at his own pinnacle and considered it as nothing.

Scripture

Our passage this morning is .

If you are able, please stand for the reading of God’s Word.

We do this to show appreciation to God for His Word and in recognition of how precious of a gift it is.

says,

“Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.

To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.

Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.

For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— 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: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”

Thank you, you may be seated.

Sermon

In the movie, “The Princess Bride”, there is a scene where one character is attempting to catch a group of other characters.

As he is doing this, he has to overcome a series of obstacles and difficulties that he should not be able to do.

The group who he is chasing has one character who keeps saying, “Inconceivable” after the main character overcomes each of the obstacles.

After the third or fourth “Inconceivable”, another character named Inigo Montoya says, “You keep using that word, but I do not think it means what you think it means.”

In a similar way, I grew up in Baptist churches and I have sat through many sermons where the pastor said, “in closing” or “finally” 30 minutes before he finally closed.

At some point I started thinking, “You keep using that word, but I do not think it means what you think it means.”

So, when we look at our passage this morning, we see this word “Finally”.

You might notice that the word is situated pretty much in the middle of the letter to the Philippians – Hardly the end.

Naturally I started to wonder if Paul was in fact a Southern Baptist pastor who like those of my youth would claim to be closing, but were really just getting warmed up.

Ultimately, I discovered that Paul was not attempting to close his letter or impart some last minute piece of wisdom in the middle of it.

Instead, what is going on here is quite subtle and hard to notice to you and me because we are not the original recipients.

In the ancient, Greek-speaking world, there were certain conventions within letter writing.

We have certain conventions as well, but theirs were different and more complex.

Without going into too much detail and boring you to death, what Paul is using here is actually a well known convention called an “epistolary hesitation formula.”

The main point I am trying to make by telling you all this is that Paul is not seeking to close his letter or to give the Philippians one last piece of information.

What the Hesitation formula does is marks a change in topic.

There is a little more to it than that, but suffice it to say, Paul is not winding down his letter, but instead is simply changing gears to help the Philippians see more clearly the glory of Christ.

Paul does, in fact, change gears.

And the change can seem somewhat abrupt.

Paul goes from speaking highly of Timothy and Epaphroditus – telling the Philippians to honor such men and switches pretty quickly to name calling and derision.

But again, we shouldn’t get too distracted by that because the change is not really so drastic.

Throughout the book of Philippians, Paul has used comparisons as examples to make his point.

For one example, look at where some preach motivated by love and others motivated by their own selfish ambition.

This is a common way of making his point in this letter and it is what he is doing here.

Honor such men in 1:29, watch out for these other people.

The dogs and evildoers etc.

Paul is transitioning to a very serious and important warning about the influence of a bunch of dirty dogs.

Let’s take a second to understand who these folks are that Paul is adamant the Philippians look out for.

In one word, they are Judaizers.

Paul doesn’t actually use that name, but the picture he paints makes it clear that is who these people are.

Basically the Judaizers were a group of professing believers – I say professing because some of the consequences of their views makes it doubtful if they were actually true believers – they were professing believers who taught the Gentile believers that to truly be right with God, they had to not only believe in Christ the Jewish Messiah, but they also had to become Jewish and practice the Jewish customs and laws specifically circumcision.

In the Jewish world and in Jewish thought, non-Jews were considered inferior.

The Jews often compared Gentiles to dogs.

To understand that, you have to know that for a Jew, a dog is one of the most filthy and unclean animals there are.

Think wild, carcass eating, vomit returning, fur matted, flea ridden, snarling walking bags of filth.

Not exactly our cuddly Fido.

That is how the Jews viewed dogs – and honestly how they viewed Gentiles.

Paul is taking that incredible insult that the Jews typically use of Gentiles and putting it on the Jewish Judaizers.

They are the real dogs.

The Jews like to believe that they are righteous because of their relation to Abraham, but Paul calls them the evildoers.

Again, The Jews often made a point of how wicked the Gentiles were, but here Paul is putting it on the Judaizers.

And then to top it all off, he calls them mutilators of the flesh.

This is a real shot across the bow.

Jews put great stock in circumcision because it was the sign of the covenant.

It marked them out as “God’s people”.

Paul here calls it nothing but mutilation of the flesh.

In other words, it has no bearing.

In fact, to really understand this point, Paul is not just saying it isn’t helpful, he’s saying it is no better than pagan worship practices where priests would mutilate themselves and sometimes even emasculate themselves for their false gods.

Watch out for those dirty dogs who would have you believe that you need to become a Jew so that you can fully come to Christ.

These next two points on the outline: New Covenant Confidence vs.

Old Covenant Circumcision are really closely connected, so we will kinda jump back and forth between the two and compare and contrast.

What Paul does in verse 3 is truly astounding.

He says, we are the circumcision.

The Jews put so much stock in circumcision that they often called themselves “the circumcision”.

Again, it was a claim to be the people of God.

Paul even takes that away from the Judaizers and says that “we” – himself and those he is writing to who are largely Gentiles – we are really the people of God.

Paul takes all the pejoratives and mean names the Jews called the Gentiles and places it on the Judaizers and takes the proud title of “the circumcision” and applies it to people who aren’t physically circumcised.

So, who are the real people of God?

Those who worship God in the Spirit, who glory in Christ Jesus and who put no confidence in the flesh.

The true and real people of God are not those who are circumcised in the flesh, but are those who are circumcised of heart.

In Paul makes that clear where he says,

“But it is not as though the word of God has failed.

For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.”

We saw earlier in our Scripture reading from – specifically verse 16 that there has always been a concern with circumcision of the heart.

Or look at which says,

We also see this in which says,

“Circumcise yourselves to the LORD; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.”

Paul really sums up his point in saying,

“For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical.

But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter.

His praise is not from man but from God.”

You see, the Judaizers would have the Gentiles put trust and confidence in the old covenant signs, when really the only boasting and confidence is in Jesus Christ.

Again, the people of God glory in Christ.

The people of God worship in the Spirit.

The people of God put no confidence in the flesh.

Then Paul decides he is going to out Jew the Judaizers.

If anyone should be confident in the flesh, its Paul!