THE GREAT JOY ROBBER
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on March 19, 2025 under AM Bible Study |
AM Bible Study Group: March 19, 2025 from Philippians 3:1-3
Theme: We must beware of the joy-robbing power of ‘religious legalism’.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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Already in this letter from Paul, we’ve seen that there are certain things we need to do to protect our precious gift of joy in Christ. In Philippians 1:12-18 for example, we’re taught that we protect our joy by not focusing on the trying circumstances we may be going through, but rather on what God is doing through them. While he was in prison, Paul wrote,
But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel, so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard, and to all the rest, that my chains are in Christ; and most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill: The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains; but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice (1:12-18).
So; if we focus on the circumstances alone—and take our eyes off of God’s purpose in them—we will lose our joy. Keeping our eyes on what God is doing through our trials will protect our joy. Another way that we are to protect the joy of Christ that God graciously gives to us is by making sure we are relating rightly to one another as fellow recipients of that joy. In 2:1-4, he wrote;
Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others (2:1-4).
We will lose our joy if we only focus on ourselves and not on our unity with one another. So, we must protect our joy in Christ by protecting our unity in Christ. And now; beginning in chapter three, Paul deals with yet another thing we must do to protect the joy that God has given us in Christ. And this has to do with believing correctly about the sufficiency of our salvation in Christ—and with not trying to supplement it with anything else. In 3:1-3, Paul wrote;
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. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation! For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh . . . (3:1-3).
The thing that Paul wants to protect his Philippian brothers and sisters from in this passage is something that is very dangerous to the soul. It’s something that can rob an individual Christian of joy—or even a whole church family of joy—faster and more thoroughly than just about anything. It’s a thing called “legalism”. And as this passage shows us, we must beware of the joy-robbing power of all forms of ‘legalism’ … but especially ‘religious legalism’.
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What is religious legalism? Simply put, it’s the belief that someone can be made righteous before God—or more righteous before God than they already are through faith in Christ—by carefully following the rules and regulations and ceremonies of religion. It’s the idea that the work of Jesus Christ alone is not sufficient to make us 100% acceptable in God’s sight; but that there’s more that one must do to be truly holy. It usually expresses itself in a list of religious ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’. “Don’t eat this food. Only eat that food; and only on these certain days. Make sure to observe these sacred holidays on the religious calendar. Don’t go here. Only go there. Wear this. Don’t wear that. Stay away from these activities. Do these activities instead—and do them all faithfully—you will become more holy before God.”
In Paul’s day, the problem was brought about by what we would call ‘Judaizers’. We should be careful not to simply say that they were ‘Jews’; because Paul himself was a Jew. Rather, the Judaizers were people who were getting into the churches and who were trying to convince the Gentiles a simple trust in Jesus alone could not make them as acceptable to God as they should be … that they must also carefully follow the religious and ceremonial rules and regulations of Judaism. One of the biggest concerns of the Judaizers was circumcision; that is that Gentile men—even men who had trusted in the cross of Jesus Christ—must also be circumcised according to the law of Moses in order to be fully accepted by God.
And legalism in any form—that is, being placed under the burdensome rules and regulations of any kind of religious ceremony in order to earn righteousness before God—is one of the greatest ‘joy-robbers’ that can ever afflict us as Christians. This is a significant theme in Philippians 3; where Paul tells his readers much about his own story of trust in the sufficiency of Jesus alone to make him 100% righteous in God’s sight. He wanted his readers to beware of the threat of legalism, so that their trust would remain in Christ alone with full confidence … and so that their joy in Christ would also be fully protected.
So; what does Paul tell them to do to protect their joy? In verse 1 we see …
1. WHERE OUR TRUE SOURCE OF JOY MUST ALWAYS BE (v. 1).
Paul begins by saying, “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.” When Paul begins by saying, “Finally, my brethren …”, he is introducing a new section of his letter that addresses some of the very important things he wants his readers to know. And even though they involve some things that he had already spoken to them about, he didn’t mind repeating himself. For him, it was no burden; and for them, it was an important and valuable security. The sufficiency of Jesus is one of the things he wanted to stress to them. We always need to be reminded of His sufficiency.
And notice the big command of this passage. It’s that they “rejoice in the Lord.” If we were to read on and see the things that Paul says in the rest of this chapter, we’d understand that Paul was placing particular emphasis—not just on the command to “rejoice”—but also on the Person in whom that joy was to be placed. He wants his readers to be very careful to rejoice not just anywhere and in any old way, but to very particularly rejoice “in the Lord”.
At the end of verse three, Paul said that we’re to put no confidence “in the flesh”—that is, in our outward ability to conform ourselves to religious rules and regulations, or to make ourselves righteous by our own efforts. And then, he went on from verse four to use himself as an example;
If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, 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 (Philippians 3:4b-7).
No one could have rejoiced in the confidence of his own flesh more than Paul. And in fact, for a long time, he did trust in the power of the flesh to make himself righteous before God. But he went on to say that he did so no longer. He wrote;
But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 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 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; 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 (vv. 8-11).
That’s the best explanation of what Paul meant when he said, “Finally brethren, rejoice in the Lord.” It was as if he was saying, “Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; make absolutely certain that what you rejoice in is in the finished work of Jesus Christ at the cross on your behalf, and in the fact that you have been made 100% accepted in the sight of God ‘in Him’. Don’t trust in your own works any longer. Don’t rest in your own righteousness through conformity to the law; but in a righteous standing before God which is your free gift by faith in Jesus. If you trust in Jesus completely—and in nothing else of your own—you’ll have all the reason to truly rejoice. So make very sure then that you truly rejoice in the Lord!”
By the way, what is it that you’re ultimately rejoicing in for your standing before God? Do you trust in your own efforts? Do you rejoice in your own conformity to the rules and regulations and ceremonies and rituals? Be very careful. Some people can even be very firm in their belief that we are not saved by our own works in any of those areas; and yet still have their trust in the fact that that’s what they believe—rather than in actually trusting in Jesus Himself. Make very sure that you truly are rejoicing “in the Lord”—that is, in the Person of Jesus and in His gracious sacrifice for us—and in nothing else for a righteous standing before God.
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So that’s where our true source of joy must be. Now, let’s look at verse 2 and see …
2. WHAT WE MUST DO TO PROTECT THIS JOY (v. 2).
Paul issues three warnings: “Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation!” These aren’t warnings about three different things. They are actually warnings about the same kind of legalists who manifest themselves in three different respects. The first warning has to do with the kind of person they are, the second with what they produce, and the third with what they trust.
First, notice that Paul says, “Beware of dogs”. And it’s important to understand that Paul isn’t talking about the kind of dog we would have as a family pet (which is usually described in Greek by the word kunarion—the kind of ‘little dogs’ we find in Matthew 15:26-27 that would eat the scraps that fell from the family table). The specific word he used here is kuōn, which referred to the kind of wild dogs that prowled around in packs in ancient cities—without a home and without an owner, feeding on the filth and garbage of the streets, attacking people and presenting a dangerous hazard to society. These kinds of dogs were despised by the Jewish people, and were sometimes used to describe false teachers in ancient times. I suspect that, when Paul wrote the words of verse 2, he was thinking of what it says in Isaiah 56:10-11 concerning the false teachers that plagued ancient Israel–
His watchmen are blind,
They are all ignorant;
They are all dumb dogs,
They cannot bark;
Sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.
Yes, they are greedy dogs
Which never have enough.
And they are shepherds
Who cannot understand;
They all look to their own way,
Every one for his own gain,
From his own territory (Isaiah 56:10-11).
Paul was speaking of the false teachers who are hostile to God’s grace and who sought to bring people under the bondage of religious rituals. And the perfect analogy to use to describe them was as a pack of wild and dangerous scavenger dogs. This parallels the modern idea of the cults. They, too, sneak in and try to captivate Christians with false teachings and bring them under the bondage of religious rules and regulations that they make up—thus utterly robbing them of the joy of being “in the Lord”. We must ‘beware of dogs’ who try to tell us that our faith in Jesus alone is not enough, so that we will turn to them for whatever it is that they are trying to sell us.
Next, Paul warned the Philippians to “beware of evil workers”. Some translations have it that they were “evildoers”—as if they were known by the fact that they do evil. Others have it that they were “evil workers”—as if what they did, even if it seemed to look good, ended up producing evil. Either way, Paul is warning against those whose end product is evil.
One of the things that’s deceitful about them is that they don’t always look like “evil workers”. In fact, they look like they come to bring about that which is good. They want to make people more “religious”—which on the surface seems like a good thing. But in the Sermon on The Mount, our Lord warned us,
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:15-20).
What Jesus said is a very apt description of the burdensome atmosphere that legalism produces whenever it gets into the household of God. It bears the bad fruit of pride, divisiveness, discontent, envy, jealousy, bitterness, and profound joylessness. Those who try to enforce religious rules and regulations on God’s people—whatever else their motives may be—are “evil workers” who bring about evil results.
And finally, Paul warned his readers to “beware of the mutilation”—or, as some translations have it, “the concision”; which describes the practice they trust in and that they try to force others into trusting.
The practice that the Judaizers were trying to enforce on the Gentile believers in Paul’s day was the ancient Jewish practice of circumcision. According to the Old Testament law, it was the covenant sign that God commanded for the Jewish people. But here, Paul doesn’t even honor what they did with the name “circumcision”; because they themselves weren’t seeking to honor God with it. They were, in fact, rebelling against the very God Who sent His Son to fulfill all the requirements of the law on our behalf and to die on the cross for our sins. Circumcision was no longer the requirement it once was; so in the end, these Judaizers were simply going around advocating “mutilation”—a practice that only advanced themselves and that did nothing to advance anyone else’s standing before God. As Paul warned in Galatians 5:2-4;
Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace (Galatians 5:2-4).
Now, Paul speaks these harsh words—”Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation!” But as we will see as we look ahead in this chapter, he himself was once one of them. He went roaming around to arrest Christians and drag them to their deaths. He was a proud Judaizer who sought to bring the Gentile believers under the burden of the Old Testament ceremonial laws. But his heart was changed by Christ; and he now trusted in Jesus alone for his righteousness before God.
And that helps remind us that the emphasis of this passage really isn’t about what to beware of but rather about what to protect. Its key theme is not “beware”, but rather “rejoice in the Lord”. And that leads us finally to notice …
3. WHY THIS IS A JOY WORTH PROTECTING (v. 3).
Paul writes, “For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh …”
Even though the Judaizers sought to bring the Philippian believers under an outward ritual that amounted to nothing more than “mutilation”, Paul stressed that he and his brothers and sisters in Christ were now the true “circumcision”. They had entered into a true “new covenant” relationship with God through Christ and not through the Old Testament rituals of the law. They worship God, not according to outward ceremonies and regulations, but “in the Spirit”. They, like Paul, now truly rejoice that they have been made 100% acceptable in the sight of God through faith in Jesus Christ alone. They don’t trust in the works of the flesh any longer to make them righteous. They truly do go forth to live righteously before God—but not in order to become righteous. Rather, it’s because they have already been made righteous.
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This is the basis of our joy in Christ, dear brothers and sisters. It’s not a joy that is ours to make, but it is most definitely a joy that is ours to protect and defend. And so, let’s carefully preserve it by making sure we keep our joy centered in what Christ has done for us—and not let anyone steal it away.
As Paul put it in Colossians 2:6-10;
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power (Colossians 2:6-10).
AE
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