The Essentials: Priorities
Philippians 3:4-11
Have you ever had a bad experience with the GPS in your car? Like you had the right destination typed into the GPS, but the roads it would have you take just wouldn’t get you there or weren’t there? I’ve had GPS try to take me down roads that didn’t exist. I even had it take me into people’s driveways and told me to drive across their back lawn to get to where I needed to go. Sometimes when we have the right destination in mind, we can still be on a path that won’t get us there.
That’s where we start in this week’s text, but before we get there let’s be reminded of what we looked at last week. Last week we started a series entitled, “The Essentials”, and we started looking at things in the book of Philippians that are essential for our walk with God. We first looked at what should be our essential attitude and that was the attitude of Christ. Our attitude is the starting point in our walk with Him because our attitude shapes not only our actions and words, but our character as well. So, if we started with our attitude because of all it shapes, we need to look at what shapes another important part of our lives and that’s the thing that shapes our calendars - that would be our priorities.
1. The Non-Essentials – Philippians 3:4-7
4 though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more! 5 I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. 6 I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault. 7 I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done.
Paul starts this section of scripture by seemingly bragging about his accomplishments. He starts with a list of things that he had no control over - his birth, his nationality, and his heritage. All these things were bragging points for the Jews, and they believed it was a sign of God’s favor. He was born into the perfect situation, but that’s not all he has to brag about. He continues by listing the accomplishments that he could take credit for. He speaks of his unwavering orthodoxy, his upstanding morality, and his undying sincerity - all things that he thought would please God. He had the right destination (pleasing God) in mind, but he wasn’t bragging about it. Instead, he declared that the path he had taken was worthless.
He had everything you could want from a religious person’s point of view. He did all the right things, he said all the right things, and he had authority in the religious structure of the day. He calls it all worthless because of Jesus. These things (while looked up to by people, especially “religious” people) are nothing when compared to what Christ has done. He goes on to explain why, but before we move on to our next point, I want to share with you something that happened at youth camp.
While thinking about the things that are not essential priorities in our Christian lives, I was curious what students would say were essential priorities to a non-Christian world. They shared things like Money, Power, Position, etc. and as we spoke of these things it became very clear that they believed these things should be priorities in our Christian lives as well. So much so that there was anger being shown when we spoke of these things as non-essentials.
The truth is whether it’s things of this world or things of religion when compared to what Christ has done, it’s all worthless and we need to get our priorities straight.
2. It’s Essential to Know Christ - Philippians 3:8-11
8 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ 9 and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. 10 I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11 so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!
Paul continues in this letter to share with us what our priorities should be but not before reiterating his previous point. Not only does he say the things he thought were important to pleasing God were worthless, but he calls them garbage. It’s a word only used once in scripture and that’s here. When something is worthless it has a connotation that it is just worthless in the eyes of the person talking about it, but it might have value to someone else. You know, like the old saying, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”. When he calls it garbage, he is telling you that it should have no value to anyone. Now we need to understand that obedience does have its place in our Christian lives but trying to be righteous through obedience is the issue. Trying to work your way into heaven is the problem. You have the right destination in mind, but you have chosen the wrong path and it will never get you there. Paul tells us that these things are all trash when compared to the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
Paul lays out that our most important priority is to know God, not just know about Him. It’s to know Him as Lord, it’s to know Him as Savior, and it’s to know Him in ways that you can’t through studying. It’s to know Him through faith in your everyday life, it’s to know Him through trust and obedience, and it’s to know Him through suffering. It’s impossible to know God in a saving relationship without experiencing God through these things. We can know all the facts about Him. We can know all of His Word so that we are considered an expert scholar in the field of Biblical studies, but that will never save us. It’s only by grace we are saved through faith. Paul is telling us that the most important thing for him was to lose his “religion” in order to experience eternal life that only comes by faith. It was through faith he gets to know Jesus more deeply and more intimately than He ever did, even with all his religious accolades he shared with us earlier.
3. It’s Essential to Make Christ Known - 1 Corinthians 9:16b
How terrible for me if I didn’t preach the Good News!
It’s easy for us to say, wait a second. Paul didn’t say anything in his letter specifically about making Christ known, but we know that it was a priority to Paul. Why? Not only do we have this in his first letter to the church in Corinth, but we also see it throughout Acts, and we see it through his other letters (especially to Timothy). We also see it right here while he was in prison. There are probably hundreds of other things on his mind, but he takes the time to share Jesus with the Philippian church. This entire letter itself is his priority. Remember when we said our priorities are what dictate our calendars? This is exactly what we see here. Paul was working on his relationship with Jesus and then telling others about it. We know from the first of this letter that he is excited the Gospel is being preached even with motives that aren’t necessarily the best, but nevertheless the Gospel is being proclaimed. We know from Acts that he is preaching to the jailers that have him imprisoned and their lives are being changed. After his relationship with Christ, proclaiming Christ was his second most important priority because after everything he’d seen as a religious person and as a missionary, he knew one thing for certain. No matter where you are in life, everyone’s only hope is Jesus!
Priorities are very important in life and Paul lays out what should be the most important things in our lives and some things that shouldn’t be. This isn’t saying that those things don’t have a place, but they need to be in the right order. We have to make sure we keep the first things first and make sure to keep everything in the proper perspective. Take our jobs for example, while we can make those the utmost important thing in our lives, they were never meant to be that. It’s just a job and they will find someone to replace you. When we keep them under Christ, we start seeing those jobs as a way to show Christ to others and to know Christ more. Take a nurse for example, they get to be the agents of the compassion of Christ here on earth. They get to understand more about grace and mercy than many of us ever get a chance to. Or how about those who work with the law. God is just and they get the chance to be agents of justice here on earth. They get to see it carried out, but also see it’s short comings and our need for perfect justice. They see how incredible the death of Jesus is when it comes to the wrath of God that was deserved by us but taken willingly by Jesus. They get an insight that many never get to experience. All this to say, make a personal relationship with Jesus a priority, make telling others a priority, and make sure everything else comes after. This is essential in our walk with God.
