No Confidence in the flesh

Php 3:3  For we are the circumcision who worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh

1. The circumcision - this 'rite of passage' was entry into God's covenant of grace, a covenant made with Abraham, as head of God's elect nation, and also, symbolical of the elect church who will have the 'faith of Abraham' as believers of the LORD Jesus Christ.

The circumcision was symbolical of the removal of the heart of stone which Ezekiel prophesied in chapters 36 and 37 of his book. It pointed to the day when God's Messiah, through the ultimate sacrifice of Himself as an offering for the sins of God's elect, would now cause them to be acquitted of the charge of cosmic and infinite treason against a good and holy God, and not just acquittal, but with the ensuing justification providing the way for God's gift of righteousness, through the Divine Spirit to be granted to them.

2. The afore point then leads the way for God's elect to worship Him in the spirit. Worship of God is therefore no longer restricted to human categories merely, but God Himself takes His people into the 'abundant fatness of His house', and to 'drink from the rivers of His pleasures'. God never gives us any gift unworthy of Himself! This is more than sufficient cause to 'rejoice in Christ Jesus'. Our rejoicing is never in our feelings, moods and emotions of the moment, but solely and squarely in Christ Jesus, in Who He is, and what He has done for His chosen and elect, throughout all eternity. What confidence in Christ! What rejoicing in Christ! The believers' secret indeed to the abundant life in Christ. Living only unto Him, for His glory.

3. With such a beginning of life in the Spirit, through the sheer mercies and grace of our God, shown in and through Christ Jesus, we no longer 'have confidence in the flesh'. We just cannot live according to the natural values of the natural world. In other words, our confidence is no longer on the 'beggarly elements of the world', meaning, no more do we live our life driven by natural values.

Christ Jesus is truly our confidence. Even the going gets tough, and everything around us looks and seems really bleak, we have confidence in Christ Jesus, resting quietly in Him, as Sovereign over our lives and all of life. As those circumcised by His Spirit, we live by His Spirit, and not by might or by power of the flesh.

We are truly overcomers, in the face of unbelievable suffering or contrary circumstances!