Everything's Possible - Day 17

Philippians 3:2 Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved. 3 For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort,
 
In the previous verses, Paul warned them about this. We are to watch out for those who do evil and be careful of those who say we must conform to traditions over relationships. I know it says circumcision and called the mutilators, but Paul was making a greater point. He didn’t want his new converts to be caught in the lie that what was done before, in another tradition, was still reasonable for them to do or that it would be something that gave them or denied them access to eternal life.
 
Paul is making the argument that those who are converted are under no aegis to “mutilate” themselves or to perform circumcision on themselves or others in order to be part of the fellowship of believers. Obviously, this would have been something that would have brought great relief to those who were converted to Christianity from a pagan background.
However, this would have been pretty significant to those who were converted from Judaism, and they still felt that those older traditions should be kept. Circumcision would have been the sign of being “chosen” by God.(See the story of Abraham and the covenant with God)Therefore, they would have had a hard time seeing how these new converts could go without this circumcision. Paul is making the argument that circumcision is not what you think it is. He sees it as something other than circumcision of the body and has moved his understanding into a circumcision of the heart.
 
How does this relate to us today? Paul tells us that we should rely solely on what Jesus did for us, not on our own human efforts.
 
Have you ever heard a preacher who keeps saying you are “saved by grace,” but the message of the sermon still seems like he is trying to get you to do whatever you can do in order to make God love you? I have heard this my whole life. Preachers, particularly Adventist preachers, have a tendency to lean on their own understanding and forget to let the gospel speak. Paul understood that “his grace is sufficient” for us and we don’t need to keep working so hard to make God love us. God could not love us any more than he does right now.
 
But for some reason, it feels like that doesn’t preach nearly as well as scaring the “hell” out of people by holding their sins over their heads. We, as preachers, too often go back to the understanding that heaven is hard to get into, and if our congregations are not worried, then we are probably not doing our jobs.
 
I hope I am not that kind of preacher. I just want people to know how much God loves them and how that love propels us to love the world just a little bit better than we could have before we found God’s love for us.
 

1. Have you ever heard of a preacher like the ones mentioned above?
2. What did that preacher say to cause you trauma or to make the gospel unattractive? 
3. Do you believe that the grace of God is sufficient for your salvation and your sustenance?