Delivered October 2, 2011
A man was lost and walking in the desert in a foreign country for days. Suddenly, he sees the home of a missionary. Tired and weak, he crawls up to the house and collapses on the doorstep. The missionary finds him and nurses him back to health. Feeling better, the man asks the missionary for directions to the nearest town. On his way out the backdoor, he sees a horse. He goes back into the house and asks the missionary, "Could I borrow your horse and arrange to have it brought back to you when I reach the town?" The missionary says, "Sure but you need to know a couple of things about this horse. First, he has very bad eyesight, so he can’t really see where he is going. Second, he is a very religious horse. You have to say “Praise God” to make him go and 'Amen' to make him stop." The man says, "Sure, ok." So he gets on the horse and says, " Praise God" and the horse starts walking. He wants it to go faster so he says, " Praise God, Praise God," and the horse starts trotting. Feeling really brave, the man says, " Praise God, Praise God, Praise God, Praise God, Praise God" and the horse gallops very fast. Pretty soon the man sees a cliff coming up and he heading straight toward it. He's doing everything he can to make the horse stop so as not to go over the cliff. He pulls on the reins and yells, "Whoa, stop, hold on!!!!" But the horse keeps heading for the cliff. Finally he remembers, and he says, "Amen!!" The horse stops just inches from the edge of the cliff. The man leans back in the saddle, wipes his brow and says, " Praise God."
Today I am not going to talk about religious horses, but religious people. George Barna of the Barna Group is one of the most well-known researchers of religious trends in America. Every few years he comes out with a new book on the topic. His most recent one is entitled Futurecast, which tracks changes from 1991 to 2011 and projects these trends into the future. To sum up his findings, he found that involvement in churches and other religious organizations has declined rapidly in the last twenty years. In every subgroup of religion, race, gender, age and region of the country, the important markers of religious connection are fracturing. Dramatically less and less people go to church in America each year. More people than ever before say they haven't been to church in the past six months except for special occasions such as weddings or funerals. In 1991, 24% were in this category. Today, it's 37% and increasing. In certain parts of the country – such as New England the trend is more dramatic.
Yet he finds that more people claim Jesus as Lord and expect to go to heaven now than ever before. He attributes this contradiction between the decline of church attendance and the increase of personal faith to what he calls designer religion. "We are a designer society. We want everything customized to our personal needs — our clothing, our food, our education," he says. Now it's our religion. People pick and chose what they like and what they don’t like about religions. As he looks into the future Barna says, America is headed for "310 million people with 310 million religions." Clearly people are making a distinction between corporate religion and personal faith.
The apostle Paul made the distinction between religion and faith two thousand years ago in our scripture text for today. The early Christians were accused of rejecting the religions of their day. Not only did the earliest Christians reject Judaism with its synagogues and temple worship, they also rejected Roman religions and their practices. In fact, during the era of persecutions in the early centuries of the church, one of the charges brought against the Christians in the Roman courts was that they were atheists. By that it was meant that they rejected the Roman gods and Roman religion. This morning I want us to look at this passage in Philippians. In it the apostle Paul describes his own distinction between his experience of religion and his faith.
I. First let’s look at Religion. 3:4-9 “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;”
Paul was a very religious person all his life. Long before he came to faith in Christ he was religious. He calls himself “a Hebrew of the Hebrews.” He says here that he went through the ritual of circumcision as all Jews did. He undoubtedly practiced the Jewish ritual baths called mikveh. He says he was a Pharisee, and Pharisees were very concerned about ritual cleanliness. The Pharisees were very strict keepers of the religious law. In fact he says he was, “concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” In other words you could not get any more religious than he was. He said that he was so certain that his religion was right and others were wrong that he persecuted the church. The early Christian movement was an offshoot of the Jewish religion and was considered to be heresy by the strictest Jews.
Paul was very religious. As he looks back on that phase of his life later he realizes that he was also very wrong. He uses the phrase “confidence in the flesh” to describe his religion. He starts off our passage: “If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so.” I think the phrase “confidence in the flesh” sums up all religion. The term is very complex. His use of the word “flesh” partly has to do with his physical body insofar as he believed at that point that you had to be a physical descendant of Abraham, and more specifically of Israel, in order to be one of God’s people. But it was more than just genealogy. What Paul means by this phrase “confidence in the flesh” was that he was relying on his own human effort in his relationship with God.
Religion is the human effort to connect with the divine. In most cultures it is organized and institutional. We know these religions by names like Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and even Christianity; Christianity is a religion. These religions each have very different understandings of the divine, but they all share in the human attempt to relate to the divine. I would include Barna’s new phenomenon of “designer religion” as part of this same religious effort. Just because you have created your own private religion does not make it any less a religion. A lot of people today who reject organized religion and the institutional church are just as religious as any member of a church, mosque or temple. It is all “confidence in the flesh” to use Paul’s term. There is the assumption that one can – on our own or with others - connect with God. Given enough time and sincerity and perhaps discipline and effort, if we read enough spiritual books and hear enough spiritual teachers, then we can find out what is true and live it. In short, that we can do it on our own.
Paul calls this in verse 9 “having my own righteousness.” Righteousness is another very complex term. Basically it means the state of being right. Having right beliefs, right practices, right behavior, and being right with God. Paul was convinced that he had it right in every way. He says that he was “concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” He thought he was blameless! There is nothing more dangerous than a person who thinks he is right and blameless, especially a religious person who is convinced that he is right and righteous. This is what we would call self-righteousness.
Religion tends to produce self-righteousness. It was Jesus chief criticism of the religious Pharisees and Sadducees of his day. That is why we have to be so careful as Christians. Our faith in Jesus can easily become self-righteous. There is nothing more ugly than a self-righteous Christian. A Christian who thinks that his religious views are the only right ones, who thinks that his/her standards of morality are the only right ones, that his/her interpretation of scripture is the only right one, that his or her political and social views stemming from his religion are the only right ones, is not only self-righteous but self-deceived. And I am talking of both liberal and conservative and even moderate Christians. All have sinned in this area.
Of course Christians are not the only ones who fall into this danger. Those who are not Christians and self-righteously condemn Christians for their self-righteousness are just as dangerous. Perhaps even more so these days. Anti-Christian prejudice is a very pervasive and unexamined form of bigotry in our American society. Some people are using the word Christophobia now to describe this prejudice against Christians, especially prejudice against evangelical Christians. It is a real form of intolerance that is not being acknowledged or addressed in the mainstream media; in fact the news media are themselves guilty of it. But I am getting off topic now.
Paul was so religious and so certain that he was right that he persecuted the followers of Jesus. He had them imprisoned and killed. He seems to have been the ring leader of the execution of the first Christian martyr Stephen. Then something happened. While on a trip to Damascus, Syria, to arrest some more Christians, he had an encounter with the living Spirit of Jesus Christ, and his life changed. He says that he considered his whole religious life up to that point as rubbish. He says in verses 7-8 “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.” The old King James Version is much more accurate here. It doesn’t say rubbish; it says “and do count them [but] dung.” Even that is a very polite way of translating what Paul really wrote. Paul is using the strongest words he can think of to describe his opinion of his religiousness before he came to faith.
II. Now let’s talk about faith. If faith is not religion, then what is it? Paul tells us in this passage. He says in verse 8 “8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.” Just like he couldn’t have used stronger words to describe religion, he could not more glorious words to describe faith in Christ: “the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.” Faith is first of all a knowledge of Christ Jesus. By knowledge Paul is not talking about facts. It is important to have your facts straight when it comes to Jesus of Nazareth, but he is not talking about historical knowledge. He is talking about personal firsthand knowledge. He is talking about what happened to him on the Damascus Road. His experience of Christ happened years after Jesus of Nazareth died. Paul never met Jesus in the flesh during his lifetime. He probably knew very few facts about Jesus’ life and ministry. At least he refers to very few in his letters. We know that he had heard Stephen preach the gospel. But you can be sure that everything he had heard was twisted and warped by his hatred of Christians. When Paul talks about “the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord” he is speaking of personal knowledge.
I do lots of funerals. Most times I know the person who died. Some I know very well. Others I have never met. A family will ask me to do a funeral for their loved one, and I never knew them. But I have to give a eulogy. So I get as much information as I can from the family members and try to make it as personal and meaningful as possible. But I know the difference between talking about someone I knew and someone I didn’t know. When a family member comes to the pulpit and describes their beloved with tears and a cracking voice, it is clear that they KNOW him. I just know about him. When Paul is talking about the knowledge of Jesus, is not talking about knowing about him; he is talking about knowing Christ. That is faith.
Faith is also trusting in the righteousness of God. He says in verse 9 “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.” There is self-righteousness and there is “the righteousness which is from God by faith.” Religion tends to produce self-righteousness; faith trusts God’s righteousness. Faith admits we have nothing to bring to the table. It is all God. Religion thinks it knows and understands and can reach God. Faith knows that really cannot understand nor can we reach God by anything we know or do. Faith throws itself entirely on the grace of God. Faith trusts itself entirely to the righteousness of God, “not having my own righteousness… but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.”
Faith knows Christ and the power of the cross and the resurrection. Verse 10-11 “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.” Religion makes the cross and the resurrection into doctrines to be believed about Jesus. Faith experiences them as the power of life in Jesus given to us. To know Christ is not just to believe some things about his death and resurrection. Even though that is helpful, it is not enough. Faith is to experience the power of his death. Faith is to know the power of his resurrection.
Faith is a journey. He says in verse 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.” We never arrive – at least not this side of heaven. We are not perfect. We do not understand it all. In fact in my spiritual journey, the more I learn, the more I know I don’t know. The more I discover my ignorance, the more God fills me with his knowledge. The less righteous I feel, the more the righteousness of God is sufficient for me. It is when you are completely undone that God can make you whole. Faith is being nothing and inheriting everything. Faith is being no one, and because of that being filled with Christ. Faith is everything that religion wants to be. And the only way to receive this faith is to give up and give ourselves into the hands of God.
Just so I am not misunderstood, let me make it clear that our faith can be expressed through religion, as long as faith is in control. You can have religion without faith, and faith without religion. But we can also have faith expressed through religion. That is what true Christianity is about. That is what my life is committed to, and what I desire this church to be about. I hope that this church might know Christ and the power of his death and resurrection, and that it may be expressed authentically through religious expression. That is why I called this message not “Faith or Religion,” or “Faith versus Religion,” but “Faith and Religion.” Or better yet “Faith expressed through religion.” But let us remember that faith is the key. As the old hymn says, “Faith is the Victory.”
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