Choose part 4 – Choosing Jesus above all things.
Philippians 3:1-2
- Paul starts out saying that you may know these things he’s about to say, but it’s a reminder, a safeguard, as they are things we need to be conscious and careful off.
Three questions Paul asks the Philippian church to consider and that we should consider too:
- Where do you put your confidence?
- Philippians 3:3-7
- Paul listed all the things he had done in his life and even though the majority of them were good things, they’re categorised as being of the flesh because they don’t point to Jesus.
- Are there some good things that we put our trust and confidence in? Do you put confidence in your work, in what you do for church? It can be unhelpful if we put so much confidence in them as they can distract us away from Jesus.
- The Jewish Christians are putting their focus on the meaningless act of circumcision, that they think is drawing them to God but is actually distracting them away from God, are there actions like that in our lives?
- Whose righteousness do you trust?
- Philippians 3:8-9
- In place of those things of the flesh, Paul says it’s Christ’s righteousness that we gain and it’s something external to ourselves that we need, as only Christ can give us what we need to have a relationship with God.
- Paul says it’s an active choice we have to make to choose to trust in God’s righteousness and not our own, but often our natural state is to have faith + what actions we can do.
- However, Paul says to think of all those things we put value and confidence in as nothing compared to God, we only need Christ’s righteousness. Whose righteousness do you trust? Christ’s alone? Or a bit of your own as well?
- Do you want to know Christ?
- Philippians 3:10-11
- John 16:33
- Is knowing Jesus valueable enough to you to expect trouble?
- Do you want to know Christ, not because of what we get out of it but in order to have a right relationship with him? There are things we gain in heaven from being a Christian, but we won’t always gain in this world.
- Grace is a wonderful gift from God, but it means there’s nothing we can do that will add to or take away from what Christ did, so God can ask anything from us.
- Do you want to know Christ like that?
Might be thinking this seems impossible, how do we do this? Remember we have the Holy Spirit, he is our helper, we can’t do this in our own strength.
Philippians 3:12
Paul says he hasn’t got this nailed down either, but that he continues to press on, everyday he chooses Jesus.
Where do you put your confidence?
Whose righteousness do you trust?
Do you want to know Christ?
Let’s press on and choose Jesus everyday, let’s press on into everything Christ has for us.