::@:: Reality of Dreams ::@::

So this is the text of the sermon I gave tonight, well kinda, I added some bits and took away others but you can get the drift.

Tonight we still wonder our way through Philippians touching on the first nine verses of the third chapter.

I love knowledge, and finding out stuff, admittedly usually things most people couldn’t care less about, like, string theory, game theory, astrophysics, and so much more that just furthers my reputation as a geek, and almost a nerd… that an important difference, but another time.

Anyway, I thought I do some digging about this letter. So, first off, Philippi, this was the furthest away Macedonian city in the Roman empire, and was the first city that Paul arrived in when he travelled to Macedonia after his vision telling him to go there instead of Asia (Acts 16:6-10). As we know Paul was imprisoned in Rome at this time, as detailed in Acts 28, which seems to indicate that he was, for lack of better words, under house arrest. However it does seem that after the death of the Praetorian Prefect who was his defacto jailer died his interment became more restricted around about two years after he first arrived in Rome, it was about this time that this particular letter was written.

Ah, you gotta love biblical commentaries, they are a wealth of information that helps add a bit more colour to the black and white of the text… that and google and wikipedia.

The companion book that we are using along side the scripture has this section entitled “New Confidenceâ€?, so me being me, I went for “A Misplaced Confidenceâ€? as my theme, as Paul helps us see where we shouldn’t, and should, place our confidence. In these verses we can see four places to rest our confidence, in our heritage, in the law, in appearances, or in Christ. Tonight I want to look at these confidence’s and how placing our confidence in anything but Christ is ultimately futile. Of course these confidence’s are seldom separate and in truth flow and merge with each other to some degree depending on the person but for simplicity we’ll look at them individually.

What was interesting, to me at least, is that I discovered that some other languages have two words, for confidence one for self-confidence and the other for confidence in others. In English we only have the one, so what does the Cambridge dictionary define confidence as, well, it says that it is “the quality of being certain of your abilities or of having trust in people, plans, or the future�.

Confidence in Heritage

Anyway, firstly lets look at the confidence in heritage. Our birth rights, so to speak. Paul states that he is a Hebrew of Hebrews, basically of pure Jewish lineage. Not only that but of the Tribe of Benjamin. The Tribe of Benjamin was from where the first of the ill-fated Kings rose up, that of course was Saul, after which presumably Paul was named, well back before he changed his name that is.

Nowadays genealogy and the study of our heritage, is a growing past time and to some a business. I know some of my families history thanks to a distant relative who is looking at its past, on some level its quite interesting but really its nothing more important than that. In Jewish culture knowledge of ones past not just as a people but individual families genealogies was of great importance as it was used in disputes, land, and countless other facets of life.

So is it wrong to know ones heritage? Of course not but when we take pride in the past, and find security in it and place our confidence in it only disaster can follow. I can remember from when I was a kid, and still occasionally today, the proud stating of what generation Salvationist we were? Like it truly means something other than, well, to be honest I can’t see any point in such talk other than simple knowledge and information.

We have become obsessed by the past, we only remember past glories, things were better in my day, we had ten meetings every Sunday… that was all well and good but time flows in one direction, forward, much to the annoyance of many physicists. Remembering is not the problem, dwelling is. If we allow our confidence to be placed either in our genetic, social, or spiritual heritage then we will find our self looking back so much we ignore the future and the wall that we are about to hit. The past is a guide, a warning sometimes, of the folly of trusting in human knowledge and understanding.

This misplaced confidence in our x-th generation Salvationist heritage, or similar history obsessed vision, is that we can miss the need for an new, individual, and real encounter with God. We each need to seek God regardless of our heritage. In truth the only heritage that matters is that of the royal eternal family heritage of Christ, which we become adopted into when we believe and follow Him.

Confidence in the Law

So, confidence in the Law, that is of course not just Jewish Law but all man made laws and rules. In the scripture Paul states that he was circumcised on the eight day, fulling the law. Being circumcised as a baby, not as an adult or later convert, further emphasising his pure Jewish heritage. Paul also states that he was a Pharisee… impressive conditionals for the world and those concerned with such things.

The word Pharisee comes from the Hebrew meaning “separatedâ€?, that is separated for a life of purity. They were amazingly, almost mind numbingly, nit picky when it came to the law. There is good reason why Jesus spends his time tearing chunks out of them for their arrogance and complete missing of the point. If you want to look at some of Jesus’s thoughts on them read Matthew 23, entitled the Seven Woes, which Mars Hill, a US church that I listen to the podcasts of, is doing a good series on them.

Anyway, Paul was one of them, and was also fierce in his persecution of the early followers of Christ, as he believed they were heretics against Judaism. Then it all fell away as he encountered in a amazing way the true way, that is Christ. Everything Paul had confidence in slipped away, now he saw it meaninglessness when compared to the completeness of Christ.

But what of us, how can we be guilty of having false confidence in the law? We know through Christ that it is faith in Him that saves us, and not the law, either Jewish law or any other human made laws. That all we need to do, according to Christ on the cross, is believe in Him to have eternal life (Luke 23:39-43). Yet, we still heep on law after law, regulation after regulation burdening new Christians to breaking point. “Welcome to the family, here’s the manual, the order and regulations, the canon, the liturgy’s, the articles of faith, a song book, oh and a bible.â€? Snap!

I am not saying that we do not need rules and laws, what I am saying is that confidence in them leads to failure, and worse. What do I mean by worse, simply sinning against God. Has our over confidence in the regulations caused another to stumble? Have you or I pressured someone to follow rules and laws that they are not spiritually ready for and after swearing before God to follow these man made laws, slips and sins? Then in the words of Christian Luke 17 (verse 1 and 2), “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.â€? Has the Salvation Army committed this sin? Have we, either deliberately or through peer pressure, or through an inflexible obsession with regulations, made someone take on a vow they could not keep… I think we know that answer to be yes and if you disagree look around and see all the soldiers who have fallen away because they could not keep their promise.

Speaking personally I know that my best Army bandmaster wasn’t a Solider, not even a Christian, but through his leading the band he was drawing close to Christ, and then new officers who seemed to follow the letter and not the Holy Spirit of the law came and he slipped away from the band and worse from Christ. The thought of that burns my heart and spirit, yet I glad that hope is never lost and their remains hope, in Christ, for him.

We as an organisation, as a corps, as individual’s must repent of this misplaced confidence in regulations and laws to save us, when we know that human nature is to rebel and break laws. It really is such utter prideful folly. Like I said, I am not saying that there is anything wrong in our regulations, or those of any denomination, what I am saying is that caution, and consideration in their implementation and an allowance for Christ to work despite them is needed less we become guilty of setting up someone to fall.

Confidence in Appearances

Before I rant on into the night I venture forth into the next false confidence, which again contains false realities.

As mentioned already Paul was circumcised on the eighth day. Circumcision was an outward sign, in a manner of speaking, of God’s promise to the Jewish people. But now that sign was meaningless, Paul called it a mutilation, which is strong words, but as it says in the “Jamieson, Faussett, and Brownâ€? commentary:

“Circumcision had now lost its spiritual significance, and was now become to those who rested on it as any ground of justification, a senseless mutilation. Christians have the only true circumcision, namely, that of the heart; legalists have only “concision,” that is, the cutting off of the flesh. To make “cuttings in the flesh” was expressly prohibited by the law (Le 21:5): it was a Gentile-heathenish practice (1Ki 18:28); yet this, writes Paul indignantly, is what these legalists are virtually doing in violation of the law.â€?

Outward signs of faith still exist today, baptism, uniforms, badges, WWJD merchandising, whatever, all supposed outward signs of an internal conviction, however, just because we wear a uniform, or get submerged in water, it does not mean we are saved, it can give us a false confidence. Where we rely on the outward to cover up the true inner self. Again in the “Jamieson, Faussett, and Brown� commentary:

“…our religious service is rendered by the Spirit (Joh 4:23, 24). Legal worship was outward, and consisted in outward acts, restricted to certain times and places. Christian worship is spiritual, flowing from the inworkings of the Holy Spirit, not relating to certain isolated acts, but embracing the whole life (Ro 12:1). In the former, men trusted in something human, whether descent from the theocratic nation, or the righteousness of the law, or mortification of “the flesh”

Our worship, that is our life, is spiritual, and not restricted by law, nor by outer signs, we are free to follow Christ wherever, and however he leads. We are individual’s in Christ united by our love for Him, we are a family, and as we know from our earthly families that does not mean that we all think alike. I know I am on the much more alternative and experimental side of these establishments we call churches. There are others who prefer the, and I use this term loosely, traditional methods. Although to be honest “traditionalâ€? keeps changing as time moves forward. Everything we do is worship, or at least it should be.

Imagery in our worship of Christ is good, and needed, but what I am trying to say behind all this must lie a true worshipping of God and not doing something because it looks right, or for the sake of appearances. Take for example the two outer signs I have laid on this table, the bread and the wine, well grape juice, of the communion, and the water for washing. This is just bread, this is just juice, this is just water, and this is just a table. Until we approach in an open and right attitude of worship, then they become something else to us, but at the same time they still are just symbols, imagery.

Confidence in Christ

So, before I loose you completely, the final and only true confidence. That is our confidence in Christ.

Paul says that he considers everything he used to have confidence in as dross, or as the King James eloquently puts it, dung, quite literally from the Greek, refuse, dross, excrement… you get the drift. But it is worth making the distinction between loss, as in “a “loss” is of something having value, and loss as in “rubbishâ€? which is thrown away as not worthy of being any more touched or looked at. These things are now so meaningless and without value that compared to Christ they are garbage, the literal word is excrement, or rubbish.

Also notice how each of these previous misplaced confidence’s are transitory. Family heritage changes with births, marriages, and deaths, and is truly incredibly fragile. The law changes, develops, even the laws of Judaism changed and grew through the bible, our own regulations have changed since booths day, laws are human, and transitory. Appearances, doubly so, what is new today is old and discarded the next. Everything human, be it material, philosophical, or whatever is immaterial and bound by time and the length of human existence.

True confidence, true heritage, true law, and true self, are bound eternally with Christ and we become bound into that eternity. That should be the true residence of our confidence, not in man or things of man, but Christ and Christ alone. Confidence in Christ gives us confidence to do what He asks of us, it fuels us, sheilds us, and strengths us, in a way that no transitory confidence can.

Conclusions

I am not by my nature a confident person, I am too quick to look down on myself and my situation, yet what I must relearn from all this is that the only thing I should put my confidence in is Christ. For only then will Christ be free to lift me up and allow His plans to come to fruition, as Paul says:

“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.�

 

So, from all of this, what is our response? How do we go on from here? Well I think there are a few pointers we can take: Firstly we must repent for putting our confidence in anything but Christ and also for when that confidence has harmed either directly or indirectly another. If it has then we must also seek forgiveness from that person, wither they accept it or not. If we have been wronged in this way then we must forgive those responsible, for as Christ says we will be forgiven as we have forgiven.

Allowing Christ to be out full confidence, and the logical conclusion to our everything.

A tough one and one I believe is part of our journey and I one I need to relearn daily. We must regularly ensure that Christ is our confidence, and if not repent and try again. Christ is patient, forgiving and gracious beyond measure and He will help us if we allow Him and have confidence in Him.

I thought it would be good to have a time of response, and how you want to to respond is your choice. Remembering all the time that the confidence comes from Christ not these outward acts.