Philippians 3:4b-14
The Fifth Sunday in Lent Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke Sunday, April 6, 2025
“Knowing Christ Is Worth Far More”
“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Since at least the 1800s, people have realized, recognized, and written about this truth. There are lots of value judgments in life that are quite individual and subjective. You might visit a yard sale or a garage sale, and some of the items out for sale are just things that the sellers want out of their house. They want the space back. They want the clutter out of the way. But maybe you could use that desk or that dresser or that pot or pan. Maybe its something that needs a little work and with the right attention given to it, it can be transformed from trash to treasure, but it takes someone to realize it.
The theme of our service this morning talks about God, our loving Father, putting the greatest treasures of all in the trash, where they hide. But the point isn’t quite the same as the yard sale example. It’s not that you can make treasure out of someone else’s trash by your efforts or skill or wisdom. The point is really that our whole idea of what is trash and what is treasure is changed by God giving us true insight. Some things appear to be trash. The people of the world treat them as such: they ignore and reject them. The Christian whose heart and soul and life have been changed by God’s Holy Spirit working through Word and Sacrament recognizes them as true treasure. The Christian realizes that even and especially when God’s gifts don’t seem appealing and don’t capture the attention of the world, they have unspeakable value. There is real treasure hiding in what so many consider trash.
Paul’s letter to the Philippians itself exemplifies this truth. From prison he writes to the Christian congregation in Philippi about joy. He finds treasure to be rejoiced over even in his trashy circumstances. But he also writes to warn about false teachers who were attacking and threatening the Philippians. There were people insisting that the Philippians needed to do certain things in order to be true Christians and to be saved. They wanted the Philippians to obey Old Testament laws and rules. These teachers expected Christians to be circumcised like Old Testament believers were. They viewed this physical thing to be incredibly important. They thought people should look to themselves and fleshly things for their confidence.
Paul starts the section of God’s Word in front of us today by explaining that if people wanted to focus on these outward things, wanted to focus on the Jewish religious priorities, he could play that game better than anyone. In fact, he had. He had been a zealous Jew to the point of persecuting Christianity. That’s how he first came to the attention of most people. He lists his qualifications that the false teachers would have considered treasure: he was circumcised as a child, on the eighth day, just as the regulations required. He could trace his line to the original sons of Israel, specifically to Benjamin. He had been a member of the strictly law-abiding Pharisees. He could say with honest confidence: If anyone else thinks that he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more.
But God had led him to realize that what he viewed as important, what he viewed as profit, what he viewed as treasure, was really loss. It was trash. All of the confidence that he placed on these things was misplaced. All of it was worthless. Every reason for confidence in the flesh was loss because of Christ. All of Paul’s confidence should have been in Christ, none of it should have ever been on fleshly or earthly things.
But that’s not an easy lesson to learn, is it? Our flesh is powerful. Our sinful nature is strong. It thinks that physical and earthly and fleshly things are true treasure. It says that these are the things on which we should place our confidence. So, at times, we do. We look for the things that we need to do in order to have confidence that God loves us, that we are saved. We focus less on Christ, our true treasure, and at so many times on things that are ultimately trash. We focus on money and our bank accounts and our retirement savings. We focus on the president and his colleagues and opponents as if
the things that affect us most are the decisions that are made in Washington, DC. We think we’ve done something important in the lives of others when we’ve convinced them to share our opinions or our convictions. We think that we are closer to God because we do the work of showing up at church and because we put money in the offering plates or in church treasury through our automatic offerings. And all of that, and so much more, is skin-deep, surface level, earthly, fleshly. At best, it lasts only a short time. The reality is we should recognize it as trash.
We have something much better, much deeper, much more lasting. We have true treasure. We know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. He was viewed as trash by so many. He was rejected by peers, rejected by the powerful. But knowing him is worth far more than anything else. He not just better than any of those fleshly or earthly things on which we might place our confidence. He is better than anything else. Everything—even real blessings—everything pales in comparison to knowing him. No exceptions. In comparison to this true treasure, everything else is trash.
And what a beautiful summary Paul offers to explain why! In him we have righteousness. We are righteous, right with God. We have a renewed and restored relationship with God not because of what we have done, not because of the law. No, that righteousness belongs to Jesus. He earned it. He made it happen. He doesn’t wait for us to do anything. He gives it to us as a free gift. No strings attached. We have this righteousness through faith. It comes to us as God gives us confidence in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord.
We understand why this looks like trash to those who do not have such confidence. This relationship comes with suffering like his. This relationship comes with death. Our sinful nature is put to death. Every bit of credit that we want to take for our own salvation needs to be given up and rejected. Knowing Jesus does not mean automatic wealth and prosperity. In fact, it may well require the opposite of us. It may feel more like embracing the trash as we know the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings and as we are conformed to his death. But there is eternal treasure, eternal hope here: the resurrection from the dead. Just as Jesus died and rose again, his people will follow him out of death to life and into eternal glory.
This is the goal for Paul and for every Christian. He had not taken hold of it as he wrote to the Philippians. He was still in this world of pain and confusion. He was still in a place where so many mistake trash for treasure and reject true treasure as trash. He still had to deal constantly with his own sinful nature, pushing him toward the earthly and fleshly and not the holy and spiritual. So he had to be constantly striving for the things that lay ahead: for the goal, the upward call, the promise of heaven. And his goal was also that he could share that with as many as possible.
He wanted the Philippians to join him in the straining only after true treasure and pressing on toward the true goal. He wanted that even as he sat in chains and saw in himself what so many would reject as trash.
This is our Lenten calling, too. Strive for true treasure. Focus on the things that matter most. Press on toward the prize that Jesus won for you. Let go of anything that is behind and might hold you back. Knowing Christ is worth far more than anything in which we might put our confidence. Knowing Christ is worth far more that anything else at all. Knowing Christ is an eternal treasure.
One man’s trash may be another man’s treasure, but from an eternal perspective, there is only one true treasure. The truths that Paul relates to all of us were captured beautifully in our opening hymn this morning: “When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died, my richest gain I count but loss and pour contempt on all my pride. Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast save in the death of Christ, my God. All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to his blood” (Christian Worship 407).
The Text: Philippians 3:4–14 (EHV)
If anyone else thinks that he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6in regard to zeal, persecuting the church; in regard to the righteousness that is in the law, blameless.
7But, whatever things were a profit for me, these things I have come to consider a loss because of Christ. 8But even more than that, I consider everything to be a loss because of what is worth far more: knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake, I have lost all things and consider them rubbish, so that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, which comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God by faith. 10I do this so that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, 11in the hope that in some way I may arrive at the resurrection from the dead.
12Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus also took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it yet, but there is one thing I do: Forgetting the things that are behind and straining toward the things that are ahead, 14I press on toward the goal, for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.