Religion VS Relationship
Drawing from Philippians 3:7-14, Tom Shrader contrasts Paul's pre-conversion confidence in religious achievement with the surpassing value of knowing Christ personally. He argues that righteousness before God cannot be earned through human effort or ritual, but is received through faith and expressed in an ongoing, living relationship with Him. Using J.I. Packer's four marks of someone who knows God—energy, great thoughts, boldness, and contentment—Tom challenges listeners to pursue genuine relationship rather than allowing spiritual disciplines to harden into a new form of religion.
“Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life's problems fall into place of their own accord.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Philippians
Recorded: 2008 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 38 min
Themes: religion vs relationship, knowing god, faith, righteousness, spiritual disciplines, grace, pride, contentment, feeling religious but empty, new believer, struggling with legalism, lifelong churchgoer, young adult, feeling unworthy, spiritual plateau, raised in church
Scripture: Philippians 3:4-14, Philippians 2:12-13, Daniel 11:32, Daniel 4:34, Jeremiah 9, Matthew 22, Deuteronomy 6, John 3:16, John 17:3, Romans 6:23, Acts 5:29
Theological Themes: justification by faith, imputed righteousness, sanctification, soteriology, works righteousness, union with christ, becoming holy, saving faith
Full Transcript
Introduction: A New Bookkeeping System
Open your Bibles to Philippians chapter 3. Paul said there were things that were important to him — we are going to call them religion — and they are not important to him anymore. Now what is important to him is to know Christ — we are going to call that relationship — and that is more important than religion. I want to try to unpack that and then operate on a basis that potentially doesn't apply to you, but I think it does to most of us. Paul didn't say he moved from religion to relationship so he could turn that relationship back into religion.
Look at chapter 3, verse 7. Paul told us last week that he is adjusting his bookkeeping system. He said, "Whatever things were gained to me, these things I now count as loss." There were things that were assets to him that are now liabilities. There were things that were credits that are now debits. He has a whole new way of looking at God.
Paul is saying he used to look at God through the prism of religion — of what he would do. That is what he says in verse 4. If anybody should have had confidence in religion, it would have been him, because of all the things that he did. He lists seven characteristics in verses 5 and 6: four that he inherited, and three that were things he did himself.
He said those were all the things he was counting as gain — all the things he saw as having value when it came to knowing God and knowing who He is. But he doesn't count them that way anymore. Now they are in the way. He desired to know Christ and have a relationship with Him, and those religious things were obstacles. They weren't doing what he had hoped they would do. They weren't allowing him to enter into a relationship. They were getting in the way.
The Surpassing Value of Knowing Christ
Look at verse 8: "More than that, I count all things to be loss." Now he is talking about all things as they relate to any sort of human effort to make himself right with God. They were loss compared to the surpassing knowledge — a phrase that carries with it this sense of incomparable value. If you were to put them on scales, he says, you could put the knowledge of Christ on one side and no matter what you stacked up on the other side you could never get it balanced. Knowing Christ is supreme to everything else.
He said, "I count all these to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and I count them but rubbish." Remember, we saw last week that word literally means waste. The King James translates it as "dung." All of that — so that he may gain Christ.
Then verse 9 — it sounds a little complicated, but we can break this apart clearly. "That I may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him." James Boyce says Philippians chapter 3, verse 9 is the summary of the entire book of Romans, for it deals with the very heart of salvation in one verse. We had better get our arms around verse 9.
Religion Cannot Make Us Right With God
Paul says he doesn't have a righteousness of his own. He is talking about a right standing before God — being right with God. His righteousness before God is not found in his own righteousness derived from the law. In other words, he cannot make himself right with God. He said that is what he used to be all about. Those are the things he used to count as value, the things that used to be important to him. If you had asked him before how he was doing with God, he would have said he was doing really well — he had inherited all these things, he was a zealot when it came to persecuting the church, he followed the law, he was a Pharisee. But he said all those things are but dung compared to knowing Christ.
His righteousness is not found in the law. His righteousness is not found in religion. So let's put it in our terms. If you are here today and you sense that something is wrong between you and God, and you think you are going to make it right yourself — Paul says that is religion, and it is dung. You cannot do that.
Imagine you are at home this afternoon playing Monopoly, and you look down and it is 5:30. The mall closes at 6, and you need a new pair of shoes for tomorrow. You race over to the mall, park by Nordstrom's, run in, find the shoes you want, take them up to the counter — and what you have in your pocket is Monopoly money. You say, "That's $120." And they say, "No, no, no. You cannot bring Monopoly money in here. We don't take Monopoly money at Nordstrom's." God says the same thing. When you come to Him with religion, God is saying: don't bring your religion in here. Your religion has no currency or value here.
Righteousness Through Faith
Paul said he doesn't find righteousness in the law — and here is the contrast, still in verse 9: "but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith." We instinctively know something is wrong between man and God, and God is the one who made it right. The instrument is faith. We find our righteousness — our right standing with God — through faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God.
So what do we mean? What do we believe? Because that is all faith is — faith is simply a belief. We admit that we are who the Bible says we are. Have you come to that point yet — that understanding of what the Bible says we are?
God's Non-Negotiable Remedy
We live in a world filled with negotiation. Say a house is listed for $200,000 and you're interested. You offer $112,000. The seller counters at $180,000. You come back at $140,000, then $160,000, then $150,000, then $166,000, then $164,000, and finally you meet at $165,000. Deal. We negotiate like that all the time.
Then we come to God and think, "Okay, God, here's what You want. That looks pretty good, but three, seven, and nine don't work for me, so I'm going to initial this and send it back to You." And God says: are you nuts? God is non-negotiable. We accept His remedy. And His remedy is relationship, not religion.
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life." The wage of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. That is how we enter into this thing called eternal life — through belief, through an understanding of who He is.
Continuing in Faith
It's not just that we come in through faith, but that we continue in faith. We continue to believe He is who He said He was. We continue to believe the promises He gives us. We continue to see the world around us as He sees it, and we continue to accept His agenda for our lives rather than our own.
We understand that there are competing values out there, and His is right and all else is wrong. We take that by faith. We believe His promises. We have a confident expectation — a hope — in the certainty that what He says is real and true: that Jesus Christ was born 2,000 years ago, lived, died, was buried, and rose again, and is alive today.
Knowing Him, Not Just Knowing About Him
Here is where this gets really powerful: it's not just that we can believe it in some abstract way. We can know Him in a personal, intimate, practical, experiential way.
A couple of years ago I was home during the fall for a college football game. My best friend back there has two big televisions so we can divide the screens into thirds and fourths and watch six or seven games simultaneously — a bit overstimulated. At halftime of the Iowa game, he pulled up the internet and typed in prioritylivingaz.org, the website I teach on through the week. The next thing I knew, I was sitting with six or seven guys I went to high school and college with, and there it was on the screen — the website, my name, a little picture, a little testimony. "Tom was born and raised in Davenport, Iowa. In 1980, Tom met Jesus."
One of the guys went, "Tom met Jesus? How did that work? Hi, I'm Tom. Jesus, good to see You. How have You been? Where have You been all my life?" They had fun with it, and we had fun. I wasn't embarrassed by it. But driving home, I kept thinking: that is an incredible thought. Because religion never allows me to meet God. He's almost like the wizard behind the curtain — the minute you think you're having fun, he tries to stop you. But relationship is about knowing Him.
It's not just knowing about Him — it's knowing Him. I can know a lot about somebody and not know them at all. You might know a lot about George W. Bush, but you probably don't know him. You may know a lot about Michael Jordan, but you don't know him. You may know a lot about Fergie, but you don't know her. There is a difference. God is saying, "I don't want you to know about Me. I want you to know Me."
Created for This
Augustine said that God has made us for Himself, and our heart is restless until it finds rest in Him. You were created for this — for knowing Him.
How important is it? Jesus said, "This is eternal life." Whatever comes next after those words is pretty important. Here it is: "This is eternal life, that they might know You, the one true God."
In Jeremiah 9, Jeremiah records the words of God: "Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me."
And this is not merely a head knowledge. In Matthew 22, a lawyer comes to Jesus and asks, "What is the great commandment?" And Jesus says, "Here is the —"
Great Energy for God
Alistair McGrath, writing in his book *Knowing Christ*, writes this: "I can now see that my virtually exclusive focus on the mind led to a form of spiritual impoverishment." In other words, all he is saying is that he was only studying with the mind, wanting to get to know God intellectually. Christ is indeed to be known in the mind, but also far deeper. McGrath continues: "I read the Bible as a source of information, where others who were wiser than I read it as a source of formation, of being shaped and formed by what they read as they followed it." It impacted their hearts, their minds, and their emotions.
You were made to know God — on His terms. So how do we know Him? The principal instrument He has given us to reveal Himself to us is His Word. He demonstrates His power through creation. He demonstrated His love and revealed more of Himself to us through Christ, and He speaks to us today through His Word. It is important to begin to unpack this Word so we begin to see who He is, what He is all about, how He thinks, how He operates, and how He desires relationship with us.
In his classic work *Knowing God*, J.I. Packer identifies four characteristics in the life of a person who truly knows God. The first is that they will have great energy for God. Daniel 11:32 says, "The people who knew their God displayed strength and took action." There will be action in our lives — genuine energy for God.
Great Thoughts of God
The second characteristic is that they will have great thoughts of God. This does not mean that their thoughts are themselves great, but that their subject matter is great. It is not that they possess these profound insights on their own — it is that the subject of their thoughts, God Himself, is great and profound.
Nebuchadnezzar illustrates this in Daniel 4. After his wandering period, he comes to his senses. Daniel 4:34 records: "At the end of that period, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven and my reason returned to me and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever, for His dominion is an everlasting dominion and His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth and no one can ward off His hand and no one can say to Him, 'What have you done?'" We begin to think about the awesome power, might, majesty, and holiness of God. If I know God, I begin to have great thoughts of God.
Boldness for God
The third characteristic is boldness for Him. It is not just that I have energy for God and great thoughts of God — I also have boldness for Him. Packer writes about Daniel and his friends: "Daniel and his friends were men who stuck their necks out. They were not foolhardy. They knew what they were doing. They counted the cost. They measured the risk. They knew and were well aware of what the outcome of their action would be unless God intervened. But these things didn't move them. Once they were convinced that their stand was right and their loyalty to God required them to take that stand, then in Oswald Chambers' phrase, they smilingly washed their hands of the consequences." In other words, they trusted God. That is what Peter declares in Acts 5:29: "We ought to obey God rather than men."
Contentment in God
The fourth and final characteristic is that those who know God will have great contentment in God. You were made to find contentment in Him — and in no one and nothing else. That is a struggle for us, because we always think we are going to find contentment or satisfaction in a person, a place, or a thing.
A year and a half or two years ago, there were people who saw their dreams fulfilled as they moved into their dream house. Today, that dream has become a nightmare. When they moved in, there was excitement about new lending vehicles that allowed people to get into houses for less money — bigger houses, better houses. People said, "We'll be happy in those," and even expressed a sense of peace about it, as though God had created the subprime mortgage for that very moment. How is that working out now? People violated basic fundamental economics because they believed happiness was just one purchase away. And the truth is, you never will find it there.
Changing spouses is not going to make you happy. Changing jobs is not going to make you happy. You are not designed to be happy with a person, place, or thing other than Christ. Anything else is simply deficient.
Everything Falls Into Place
In chapter three of *Knowing God*, tucked away in the second paragraph, Packer writes a sentence that stops you in your tracks: "Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life's problems fall into place of their own accord." He is not saying everything becomes smooth. He is simply saying that now you understand what is truly important.
So when someone asks how things are going, you can say, "Everything that is important is okay — because God is in control." Even when it does not feel like He is. We are here to know Him, to experience Him in our hearts, our souls, and our minds — intellectually, emotionally, and experientially — to have this relationship with Him.
Pressing On in the Journey
"Not that I have already obtained it, or already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it." Paul is saying he is not there yet, and this is about a lifelong process. He hasn't arrived, but he presses on. He strives, he continues to press on, knowing that Christ laid hold of him for a purpose.
"I haven't already obtained it, but one thing I do, I forget what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." God saved Paul for this reason and this purpose — to have a relationship with Him, to know Him. And that is supreme.
Paul said, "one thing I do." What do you think that one thing is? Here is what I think: it is to know God, and then to live a life with passion in the area of His giftedness. Paul was not describing a balanced life, and frankly, I have no interest in the idea of living a balanced life. Life is not balanced. My day is not balanced, my life is not balanced, and your whole scheme of life is not balanced either.
If you are a mother staying at home with three little kids, what balance do you have in your life? As they get older and go to school, you enter a new season. Then high school brings another season. Then they get married and you have yet another season. Life is not static, and circumstances are not constant. What is constant is your relationship with Him.
The Danger of Measuring Relationship by Religious Practice
So if you asked me, "Tom, did you have a quiet time today?" I would tell you — not even close. There has not been anything quiet about this morning. I got up at four o'clock, I got here at four forty-five, and I am still trying to catch my breath. There has not been anything constant or quiet about this time, and I am okay with that.
I remember when I had not been a Christian very long and people started asking, "Do you have a quiet time?" I thought, I had better have a quiet time — I suppose that is what you do if you are a Christian. So I started having a quiet time, and I knew it was not very good. I got a lot more out of a whole bunch of other things I did.
When somebody asks me, "Do you have a quiet time?" I resist the question. You know why people ask it? So you will ask them back how their quiet time was. I never ask that in return — I would not get any satisfaction out of asking that question back in four hundred million years. I could not care less how your quiet time was. I always thought it was between you and God, so let us keep it that way.
Now, is there anything wrong with a quiet time? There is nothing wrong with a quiet time — until you make your quiet time my thing. Do I memorize Scripture? I used to do a lot of it. I do not do much anymore, because it was really vibrant for a while and then it just went flat. If it is not working, it is not working. If it works for you, do it. I need to know the Word of God, but memorizing it is not the only way to get there.
Coming Out of Religion, Not Into a New One
What Paul is saying — and I understand this is stretching a little beyond the text — is that he came out of religion into relationship, not so that we would put him back into religion. And that is a real danger in a place like ours, where everybody is studying the Word of God and we are a Bible church. We are never going to move away from that, so do not run out thinking we are losing it. But the expression of that looks different for different people.
Yesterday morning, right up in the barrio, there were about two hundred people from 710 working in the community alongside the police department and others. And right here at nine o'clock in the commons, there was a meeting on foster care. Here is what would be wrong: if we began to measure your relationship with God based on attendance at that kind of activity. I read this bulletin and it wears me out — there is so much going on that you would be out of your mind trying to do all of it. God did not free you from religion to place you in some other form of religion.
Some of you are really smart and inquisitive. You want to go deep into the things of God, read Jonathan Edwards, and unpack all of it. That is great. But just as I do not want my thing to become your thing, I do not want your thing to become my thing. We need to be very careful in all of this.
Religion Feeds the Ego
Religion is so appealing because it feeds your ego. Just think about the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the fundamentalists of their day. They had their quiet time. They memorized Scripture in large volumes. They prayed, they fasted, they gave. But it was all ritual. And when Jesus finally deals with them, He says, "You think you are introducing people to God? You are in the way of people knowing God." Because it is not about ritual — it is about relationship. It is important for us to keep that distinction forever in front of us.
Forgetting What Lies Behind
Paul says, "I forget what lies behind." I think of that in two ways: I think of the bad things and the guilt, and I think of the good things. The guilt in which —
The Trap of Comparison
There is an experience many of us have had: you are dealing with somebody and God is really working in their life, really convicting them of materialism. They are into compassion for hurting people. They have decided to downsize, gotten rid of their cars, and done all of this. Then you meet with them and you drive away feeling guilty — because you were not over there in the barrio like they were.
Or consider this: you are with somebody who is really into evangelism and you are going to dinner together. There are two of you, and as you walk to your table, they are already trying to lead the hostess to the Lord. Meanwhile, you are trying to decide between scalloped potatoes or baked potato. You walk away and listen to them talking and you feel guilty.
Then you realize — that is their thing. And that does not mean we do not evangelize. It does not mean we do not care about hurting people. It does not mean we can live any lifestyle we want. But it does mean God has wired you in a certain way, and He saved you by grace and you live by grace.
Religion Versus Relationship
A helpful book by Larry Osborne contrasts the ideas of relationship and religion. He says religion places an emphasis on rules and rituals that are supposed to either manipulate God or earn His favor. The telltale sign of religion, he argues, is that it is one size fits all — follow our rules, fulfill our rituals, and God will be happy with you.
Relationship is completely different. It is not one size fits all. Whether we are talking about husband, wife, close friends, co-workers, parents, or children, every relationship is different — and that is true of our relationship with God as well. Some of you He is going to move in such a way that you will have an extraordinary desire to be part of a compassion ministry, and you should do that. But it becomes religion the moment we say everybody needs to do that.
Religion is far easier than relationship. Religion says check, check, check, check. Relationship says love God with all your heart. Paul is careful about this. He says there is this one thing he does — he forgets what lies behind. He is not held captive by past failure, and he is not deceived by past successes.
The Ball and Chain
We have this great freedom in Christ. Religion always leaves you feeling either guilty or self-righteous and arrogant. We walk through life dragging a ball and chain, and religion just keeps heaping weight onto it. Then all of a sudden you understand forgiveness in Christ, and it is as if Christ reaches down and cuts that ball and chain free — but some people reach over and pick it back up and carry it with them everywhere they go for the rest of their life.
Paul says he has been freed from that. He has been delivered from that. For others, God has done extraordinary things in their lives, and the fallacy there is thinking that past successes determine future results. Paul says it is a day-to-day thing. He has not arrived — but he presses on.
Working Out What God Works In
I keep coming back to chapter 2, verses 12 and 13: "So then, beloved, just as you've always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure."
God is at work in your life. God has given you great freedom. God is the One who initiates this. God is the One who says, "Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened and heavy-laden — come to Me and have a relationship with Me."
What a Real Relationship Looks Like
What is a relationship actually like? Think of someone you have a good relationship with. I think of Susan. Our relationship began very casually, and then I really determined that I wanted to know her. For me to know her, I had to spend time with her, listen to her, and communicate with her. Honestly, sometimes our relationship is really good, and sometimes it is not so good. Sometimes it is vibrant, and sometimes it is not. That is what a relationship is.
I think it is okay to be honest and say that is sometimes the way it is with God as well. There are moments when — to use a sports term — you are in the zone. A hitter steps up and says the pitch looks like a beach ball coming in; he can count the seams on it. A basketball player says the basket looks enormous. A golfer feels that the hole looks wide open. Sometimes you are just in the zone with God. He is so real to you and the relationship is so vibrant. Those moments are real, and they are there as you walk along.
When Doing Replaces Being
I did a message in another venue, and the most response I have ever gotten from a message among Christian people was on how sometimes we are just stale with God. I think there are a lot of people — and some of their names are on our website and in these bulletins — who are just stale with God. And we tend to say, "I don't get it. I'm doing all the right things." Stop right there. That's the problem. You're doing, rather than just being — being the person He created you to be.
It is okay to recognize that there are times in your life when it is more important to coach Little League than to be in some men's group studying Bible verses. If you are a mom at home with three little kids, you are barely getting by. We had a picnic yesterday with the kids, and when we got there, Haley was already there. Then Sarah came with Timmy, and when they left, Haley was there with Brayden, with Yale, hauling all her things around. Brayden is a little boy now, and there was a puddle of water and he was just standing in it, jumping. I don't fully understand it, but I'm fairly certain I did the same thing once.
I'm watching her and I'm thinking, can you imagine me walking over and saying, "Hey Haley, how was your quiet time today?" She has to keep Yale awake the whole way home because if he falls asleep in the car he thinks that counts as his nap. Tyler is in China for two weeks working on his PhD, so she is running the whole ship and keeping everything going. That is not the moment for her to be working through Jonathan Edwards' explanation of the Trinity — not to say that isn't important, but you see the point.
Vibrancy Over Obligation
So where are you in your life right now? I am more concerned that your relationship with Him is vibrant than that you can point to a list of everything you are doing. I keep coming back to the Pharisees, because that is exactly what they were doing. And I will tell you, I have been around a lot of people who have been Christians for a long time, and they are worn out. They are tired.
I was talking with a guy from another church and asked what he was doing that evening. He said, "Oh my gosh, it's small group night." I asked if he wanted to go, and he said, "I lead it — and I'm tired of it. I tried to quit and they wouldn't let me because they don't have anyone else." That is a real problem. And I know that probably makes some people nervous right now, but hear me out.
When I truly understand what relationship with God means, it does not push me into guilt where I feel compelled to perform. It brings a vibrancy to what I want to do. God is doing great things in and around this church and other ministries, and you need to be part of that. But you will not find your deepest meaning there, because that is religion. Religion is not what pours fuel on your soul. What pours fuel on your soul is relationship — it is love in Jesus. When you are serving from that place, you may still get tired, but it is a good tired. That is the difference.
Saved From Religion, Not Into a New One
I do not believe God brought us into relationship with Him so that we would end up exhausted, miserable, stale, and not wanting to do it anymore. God brought us into relationship. And there are times when you simply need to sit before Him, and it is okay to say, "I just don't want to read this today." Now, if that goes on indefinitely, there are other issues to address. But I do not want anyone to think that God saved us from religion only for us to do what so many churches do — turn relationship back into religion. I do not want that for us.
Father, thank You for this truth. God, thank You for Jesus, for the life that we find in Him. Thank You for the relationship in which we can know You, the one true God. Father, thank You for that wonderful truth. We pray to You in Christ's name, Amen.