“What A Bunch of Rubbish!”
Philippians 3:4b-14
4-6-2025
Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. I’m sure most of you have heard the old saying, “One man’s junk, is another man’s treasure.” In other words, what seems worthless to you might just be valuable to someone else. After all, why do you think Garage Sales and Flea Markets are so popular? I guess it proves that the value of an item all depends on your perspective.
Here’s an illustration of what I’m talking about. There was a kid in my neighborhood when I was growing up and his name—you’re gonna love this—was Genghis Hana Dingus. I am not pulling your leg. That was his real name. It almost makes you laugh as it rolls off your tongue, doesn’t it? Genghis Hana Dingus. Well, his Dad was a big, burly guy who was an immigrant from an Arab country and he had married an American woman. Anyway, Genghis was a sweet kid, but he was definitely gullible. One day, I saw him pulling his wagon down the street. And he was going door to door trying to sell the items in his wagon. Well, when he got to our house, I asked him what he was doing. He said, “I’m trying to sell these coconuts.” I looked in his wagon and it was filled with chunks of old asphalt. I tried not to bust out laughing. So, I asked him where he had gotten the idea to sell these “coconuts”? Turns out that one of the old guys on our block had told Genghis a whopper of a story. Well, I didn’t want to see Genghis get laughed at so I tried to tell him the truth. But he was convinced that all those chunks of asphalt were valuable coconuts that he was going to sell and make a million bucks from! Poor kid.
You see, from the perspective of Genghis, what you and I might have called worthless junk, was a valuable treasure to him. I suppose you could take that old saying and turn it around in this case. “One man’s treasure, is another man’s junk.” But you know what? That’s exactly the point that St. Paul is making in the Epistle Lesson for today. He says in verse 8 “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ...” Paul is saying that something which he used to consider a very valuable treasure, had become nothing more than worthless junk to him.
Now what’s he talking about? Well, in order to understand this, you need to know what Paul was calling “rubbish.” You see, he was battling a terrible heresy which was creeping into the Philippian church. There was a group of new Christians there who formerly had been devout Jews. The problem is that when they became Christians, they refused to leave behind the old ceremonial laws of the Jews. So, they insisted that if you want to be a good Christian, you had to first fulfill all of the old Jewish regulations. This included such things as avoiding eating certain kinds of meat as well as the rite of circumcision. If you didn’t follow their rules, then in their eyes you were a second-rate Christian—if you were a Christian at all.
This violated everything that St. Paul and the other apostles had been teaching to them. The doctrine that Paul had been teaching was that Jesus Christ came and fulfilled the Law for us, on our behalf, because none of us could ever get it right on our own. We could never live a life which was perfect and pleasing to God. Paul taught that it was through the perfect life and death of Jesus Christ that we have been freed from the condemning burden of the Law. And furthermore, all our hopes for eternal life are wrapped up in the holy righteousness of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. But in Philippi, there were false teachers who were persuading gullible people that by performing certain regulations of the Law you could be a better, more proper kind of Christian. These folks were exchanging the precious treasure of Christ’s righteousness for the worthless junk of their own self-righteousness.
In very strong language, Paul makes it clear that this is totally wrong. In opening verses that precede our text, Paul lays out his case. Paul knew exactly what these people believed... because he had been caught up in this false way of thinking earlier in his life. He says that if anyone wants to brag about their own self-righteousness, he could one-up them on every point. In verses 5& 6, he gives his list of impressive Jewish credentials. He was “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” In other words, when it came to fulfilling the Law, Paul was a Jew’s Jew. He was the best of the best. He met all the requirements and passed the test with flying colors. His credentials were impeccable. They were credentials that any Jew would cherish as very valuable.
But Paul says that all of this is worthless rubbish to him now. Actually, the Greek word there for rubbish is “skubalon.” To our ears, it may sound like a silly, playful word. In the Greek, though, it has a harsher meaning than you might think. In fact, this is the only place in all of Scripture that this word appears. It doesn’t just mean rubbish, as in, “garbage.” Literally translated, skubalon is what we call “manure.” Paul is saying that all of his self-righteous, Jewish credentials are a pile of manure to him now. The stuff that he used to treasure and cherish as being of the utmost importance was now worthless, stinking skubalon.
What caused this dramatic shift and change in Paul’s mind? It was the grace of God. The Lord had revealed to him that all of his accumulated degrees as a Jew, and all the earthly praise that went with it, were worthless in God’s sight. It was useless junk, skubalon, and he couldn’t buy his way into heaven with it. But in place of Paul’s worthless rubbish, God had given him a priceless treasure. God blessed him with faith in Jesus Christ. And through that faith, Paul received the priceless gift of salvation through the blood and merit of Jesus on the cross. To try and add the self-righteous works of a human being to that free gift of salvation was a disgusting thought to Paul. It would be like dropping gold coins into a manure pit at a hog site. It’s a disgusting waste of something priceless. Paul says he gladly gave up all that worthless rubbish in his life once he received the all-surpassing gift of knowing Jesus as his Savior.
Obviously, there is a clear but powerful lesson in this for us today. We need to examine our hearts and ask these hard questions: What is there in my life that I value the most? Is it my job or my career? Is it my farming operation? Is it the land or house that I own? Is it the money I have in the bank or stock market? Is it my spouse, or children, or family? Is it my reputation? Is it my physical appearance? Is it the college degree that’s hanging on my wall? The list could go on and on. Paul says that all of these things are worthless rubbish in comparison to the priceless treasure of your salvation through Jesus Christ.
Likewise, with all our good works. They can’t buy our way into heaven. They’re great if they are done out of faith in response to God’s great love. But if we’re ever fooled into believing that this somehow makes us a “better” or “more proper” Christian in God’s eyes, we’re mistaken. What really matters is knowing Jesus as your Savior. That’s the only requirement or “credential” that will make you worthy to enter into heaven.
There’s a famous quote from a Christian missionary named Jim Elliott which hits the nail right on the head: “He is no fool, who gives up what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose!” I’ll repeat it again in case you didn’t catch it the first time… Basically, that’s the same thing as St. Paul said. When you compare the worthless treasures of this life to the incomparable treasures of heaven, well, it’s no comparison at all. The things that our world views as precious and valuable are just rubbish when compared to our salvation in Jesus. And that precious treasure of Christ cannot be taken from us. It’s ours right now and on into eternity. So, by the power of the Holy Spirit, let’s hold firm to that valuable gift from God while releasing the rubbish of this life. The world may think we’re as silly or crazy as Genghis Hana Dingus. They may think we’re holding onto a worthless belief in Jesus. But when we share the truth about our treasure of salvation, we’re not peddling a wagon full of rubbish. Rather, we’re telling them about the priceless gift that God offers to everyone who will believe it. May the Lord inspire us to share that precious good news of the Gospel with all the lost sinners around us. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria!