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KOBE BRYANT, THE BAD BASKETBALL PLAYER

One of the keenest of writers in my own denomination is a seminary professor named Norman Gulley. He teaches systematic theology at Southern Adventist University in Tennessee, and has just written a powerful Christian book entitled very simply: Christ Is Coming!
In a chapter where he discusses the doctrine of purgatory, he tells the story of a university exam he had to take way back in the old days, at Newbold College in England. It was one of those where the professor gives you what they call a "blue book," a booklet with maybe 30 blank pages in it. And you simply write and write, as fast and as furiously as you can on the assigned topics.
Well, he sat down to take this semester test along with his fellow persecut-ees, and began to write. There were five tough theological questions there, and his pen skimmed rapidly across the blank pages, filling them in with every insight, every key text, every doctrinal argument he could think of.
And he was really cooking. In his gut, he knew he was successfully hitting the high points. Unfortunately, he was racing the clock; there just weren't very many minutes left by the time he got to numbers four and five. What's worse, those were the two topics he actually knew the best. He could really have waxed eloquent on them, and nailed a couple of A+ scores onto his total. But he comforted himself with the knowledge that, overall, he'd done pretty well.
Just as the closing bell rang, though, he noticed to his horror a line of instruction he'd completely missed. Right at the top it said this: "Pick any THREE questions to answer."
What?! Any three? Why, he could have done just one of the first three and then really given a blue-ribbon essay on numbers four and five, the two that he knew cold. And in a flash he realized that what he thought was his great advantage, his skill and knowledge, had actually been working against him these past two hours. All that prosy writing, the flowery words, the extra-long illustrations he'd crammed in there on the first three questions . . . instead of helping, had cost him big-time.
And here in the book of Philippians chapter three, the Apostle Paul reminds us that the very same thing can happen to the person seeking salvation. A man or woman can pile up what look like advantage points, great resumé fillers. Paul himself had a curriculum vitae second to no one in the religious world. In terms of orthodoxy, he'd been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and gone on to add a whole place setting.

But then, as we mentioned yesterday, he shreds his resumé and announces: "All of this counts for zero. Knowing Jesus Christ is everything, and what I had before in terms of my own personal qualifications for salvation . . . are nothing." In fact, he takes it down even farther. All of his advantages, his pluses - are really hindrances! They're minuses! Here are verses seven and eight:

"But whatever was to my profit I now consider LOSS for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things."

In this world we live in, think of the things that we normally consider assets. Money, for instance. In fact, financial institutions CALL your bank accounts and your possessions exactly that: assets. But how often does a person discover that in terms of seeking Christ, of desiring fellowship with God in heaven, money can often be a liability rather than a blessing? Most of us don't need First Timothy 6:10 to tell us that the love of money is the root of all evil; we know that already. For the journey to heaven, money can sometimes be the biggest negative you pack along.
How about power? Usually that's a plus. We list the jobs we've held, the numbers of employees we've supervised. And true, sometimes godly people can use power to lead themselves and others to Christ. But how often does it go the other way?
Here in the U.S., those who like to watch C-SPAN were stunned at some political upheaval in our nation's capital back in 1998, right at the end of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. A man named Bob Livingston ascended very rapidly, abruptly, to become Speaker of the House in the U.S. Congress. He suddenly had visibility, influence, a high profile. What an advantage, he must have thought to himself. "This is wonderful!" The voters in his district must have been ecstatic; his aides were no doubt giddy with anticipation over their sudden newfound fortunes. Being Speaker, the top man in the House, was sure to be a great plus in all their futures.
But not so. Because a certain magazine editor, looking for dirt and gossip and sexual peccadilloes, immediately targeted HIM for destruction. Instead of looking for motel receipts and proof of improper liaisons in the lives of other, less-noticed politicians, Larry Flynt now went after Bob Livingston. And the new speaker discovered that fame and power, instead of being his advantages, were the twin nightmares of his entire political life.
It's no wonder that Paul looks back to his past, at all the perks he once had. He was in the Sanhedrin; he had mastered the highest levels of orthodoxy. In terms of obedience, he was a black-belt believer. And now in verse eight, he pulls out of his thesaurus just about the strongest language you'll find anywhere in the Word of God. How does he feel now about his former so-called "advantages"?

"I consider them rubbish," he writes, "that I may gain Christ."

Now is where we may almost have to invite the Apostle Paul to go and stand in the corner for the rest of this broadcast. Because did you know that when he wrote this incredible confession, he actually pulled out this Greek word - skubala? The New International Version is very nice and radio-sensitive in translating it as "rubbish," but the actual meaning is this: "Waste products of both humans and animals, and of food thrown from the table." In fact, I'll get up my courage and point you to the King James English, where it says it right there:

"[I] do count them but DUNG, that I may win Christ."

We might be more comfortable staying with the metaphor of bad food thrown off the table, but the implication is still here. These things that the world considers the great blessings, the star points on our fact sheets, are often negatives if we're seeking Christ and a friendship with Him. Theologian Karl Barth, in a German commentary for Philippians, Erklärung des Philipperbriefes, describes Paul's reaction this way:

"He rejects them with horror [his past good points], and treats them as liabilities."

Commentator Ralph Martin puts Paul's reaction this way:
"The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I'm tearing up and throwing out with the trash - along with everything else I used to take credit for."

You know, that's hard to do, isn't it? And for each of us here today, Ken and me here in the studio, and you listening, it may be a different treasured temptation, a slice of identity that has always given us our self-worth. It's hard to let go of it.
Let's move on to verse nine and get back on a positive track, shall we?

"I consider them rubbish," Paul writes, "that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ - the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith."

All of his past accomplishments, remember, had to do with righteousness and obedience . . . which are good things, to be sure. But they were HIS! He was obeying - or trying to - in his own power. All his goodness - after all, he was capable of persecuting, even killing, and being proud of it - was separate from Calvary. It was his own little pile of bricks trying to reach up to heaven.

Friend, this is so very tricky, so sobering, so slippery for all of us because we're talking about "good rubbish." These are attractive things we're proud of. Obedience. Keeping the law. Doing good deeds. Being in church each week. Memorizing Bible verses. These are all gold-star activities, but if they're done to earn salvation, if they're performed to earn a home in heaven apart from Jesus and His death for us, then these things are negatives. They're way below zero.
It would be as if all of Mr. Kobe Bryant's legendary skills on the basketball court were suddenly negatives because the rules had changed. What if jumping high were the worst thing a player could do, high-flying dunk shots always brought a penalty, and putting the ball in the basket gave two points to the opposing team? Everything that had, up till now, made him a multi-million-dollar franchise man for the Lakers would instantly be negatives. You'd have to start over, consult your rule book, and ask, "What does it say here is important NOW?" And in the rule book we always study here on this program, The Voice of Prophecy, we find THE one spiritual rule for the 21st century: "The surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord."