Résumé for the Good Life

All right, well, now, if you got your Bibles, I want you to open them to Philippians 3, Philippians chapter 3. And if you will, can we all stand together for the reading of God's Word together? I will be reading the first 11 verses of Philippians 3 this morning. You listen as I read. Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. By the way, Paul says, finally, but he is nowhere near the end of this letter. Like any good Baptist preacher, he ends his sermon multiple times. He says, in conclusion, and he's got two more full chapters of stuff to say, so it's not just me, y'all, okay? To write the same things to you is no trouble at all for me. It's safe for you, in fact. I don't mind being repetitive. Look out for the dogs. Look out for the evildoers. Look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and we glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. How much confidence, church? Say it with me. No confidence in the flesh. Do I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also? If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more. 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. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 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 I count them as rubbish,

in order that I might gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ. The righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I might know Him. And the power of His resurrection, and may share in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead. This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. In the book of Philippians, Paul has been sharing with us his secret to the good life, demonstrating to us both what it is and how we can obtain it. And in chapter 3, Paul lays out an important component in our quest for the good life, and that is helping us identify what we think qualifies us for the good life. You see, Philippians 3 is Paul's resume, so to speak, of what Paul believed pre-Jesus, qualified him for the good life, and then how he sees things now after having met Jesus. A resume, when you think about it, is essentially an argument. It's an argument for why you deserve something. So, if you are applying for a job, your resume is your argument for why you belong in that job instead of other candidates. If you are applying to a school, your application for admission, which is a kind of resume, is your argument for why you should be admitted to that school instead of other people. I've heard it said that for most of us, the closest we will ever come to perfection in this life is our resume. You may not overtly lie on your resume, but you probably stretch the truth to its limits. One of my jobs in high school was mowing lawns.

So, somebody encouraged me to write that down on my college application as architectural landscaping engineer. If you babysat in high school, you might write down early childhood development supervisor. No, that wasn't just a couple of random things you sold on eBay. No, you were an entrepreneur and small business owner. You didn't just help grandma figure out her iPhone. You provided senior adult technology consulting. Oh, no, you didn't waste three hours every night playing Xbox online with your friends. No, you were founder and president of a strategic decision-making consortium. Now, hopefully, none of you stretch the truth that much, but if you've ever been in a position to review resumes, you know that what I just shared is not that much of an exaggeration. Bro, you said you handled financial transactions for a multi-billion dollar corporation. If that's what you want to call being a cashier at McDonald's, okay. People palace. that resume, and they make it look as good as possible, and that's because a resume is an argument for acceptance. Again, Philippians 3 is Paul's resume pre-Jesus of what he believed qualified him for the good life. Now, I'm gonna warn you. What Paul puts forward on his resume would be different from what you put forward on yours. Paul lived in a different era that valued different things, but the point is that all of us carry around a little internal resume that comprises our argument for why we believe we deserve the good life, and we are always subtly presenting that resume

to other people. We're always reviewing that resume in our heads. This internal resume is our source of personal confidence. By the way, notice that three times in verses three and four Paul calls this resume our confidence. Paul is asking you in this passage, he's asking you to consider, hey, where do you find your personal confidence? Where's your self-esteem? Where's your confidence that you deserve the good life? Where's your confidence that you will experience good things in the days to come? Now, one quick word of context before I walk you through Paul's pre-Jesus resume. Otherwise, some of what Paul says, his imagery is not gonna make sense. Paul's specific target in this passage, the ones against whom Paul is arguing is a group in the early church known as the Judaizers. Everybody say Judaizers. The Judaizers were a sect of Jewish Christians that professed faith in Christ, but they also had a long list of things that they believed made them more acceptable in God's eyes. Regulations on dress and diet and lifestyle. And the very first thing on their list was circumcision. You should, of course, believe in Jesus, they said, but you must also be circumcised. That is the first thing after faith in Christ that will boost your status in God's eyes.

And then they followed up that circumcision with a whole list of other Jewish laws and customs that they believed made you even more pleasing to God. Paul is thinking about them, the Judaizers, in verse two, when he says, look out for the dogs. Look out for the evildoers. Look out for those who mutilate the flesh. Paul does not mince words. People who teach that circumcision boosts your status with God are theological dogs, he says. Body mutilators. By the way, whenever I mentioned circumcision, anything about circumcision, I get so many questions that frankly, I got tired of answering. So I appointed one of our pastors on staff to become our resident expert on circumcision. It's John Mother, okay? And he has studied really diligently to answer all of your questions. He got a certificate in circumcision expertise. There's his email. He would love for you to ask him your most thoughtful, detailed questions about circumcision. He will answer all of them to your satisfaction. But here's the thing, okay? Here's the thing about circumcision. I would guess that none of you have ever thought about circumcision as an important element in pleasing God. None of you have ever been talking to a friend here at the Summit Church who said, you know,

I just feel really disconnected from God right now. And you were like, well, are you circumcised, right? I'm confident that conversation has never happened here at the Summit Church. And so, so you get to a passage like this one and you think, well, this just isn't that relevant for me because I'm not asking that question. But y'all get this, listen. Paul uses circumcision simply as an example of anything that we look to in our flesh or about our person or anything we might put on our resume that we think elevates our position above others or makes us more acceptable to God. And you, you have your own list full of those kinds of things. So that's the relevance to you. So as I review Paul's very Jewish resume, I want you to start thinking about what's on your very American resume. You ready? Here we go. Verse five, Paul starts his resume with circumcision. He says, I was circumcised on the eighth day, which was exactly the way the Mosaic law prescribed it. All Israelite boys were to be circumcised eight days after their birth. I was, Paul continues, I was also of the people of Israel. And the word he uses there for people is the word genos, which means ethnicity, which meant that Paul was true Jew. He was not a proselyte or a convert to Judaism.

No, Paul was homegrown. In fact, he says, I was of the tribe of Benjamin. That may not mean a lot to you, but the tribe of Benjamin had a very special status in those days because Benjamin was one of only two tribes in Israel that was still fully intact. Benjamin and Judah. Judah was the other one. The rest of the 12 tribes had been forced to intermarry with Gentiles, which meant. that most Jews in Paul's day were some mixture of Gentile and Jew. They were muggles to use the common term, but Paul says, I was pure blood. Furthermore, Paul's original name had been Saul, which means that he was named for the first king of Israel, who had also been from the tribe of Benjamin, suggesting that Paul may have been a direct descendant of King Saul. So Paul was saying, I'm not just pure blood, I'm blue blood, descended from royalty. I was a Hebrew of Hebrews, which meant that Paul had grown up in a Hebrew culture, Hebrew speaking household, Hebrew speaking as his first language. See about this point in history, the vast majority of Jews were what we call Hellenized, which meant they grew up speaking Greek because that was the majority language around them.

Paul said, not me, our family was committed to the old ways. I was uncut, unfiltered Jew, 200 proof Jew, USDA prime Jew. As to the law, I was a Pharisee. Now, Pharisee in our day usually carries the connotation of somebody who's self-righteous and hypocritical, but in those days, Pharisee was a badge of honor. The Pharisees were the moral and religious heroes of Israel. In fact, there was a common saying among Jews in Paul's day that if all Israelites would live like the Pharisees for even a single week, the Messiah would return immediately and set up his kingdom. Paul says, verse six, as to zeal, I was a persecutor of the church. And you might be tempted to think of this one as Paul slipping in a negative, you know, kind of shamefully acknowledging that he'd gotten carried away and killed some people. But in this context, Paul is presenting this as a positive. You see, there was a famous story from the Old Testament commonly told by the Pharisees during that time period. In fact, we find this story referenced all over rabbinical literature from the first century. It's a story from Numbers 25 in your Old Testament about a man named Phineas who lived during an era in Numbers 25 when all the men in Israel were corrupting themselves by taking pagan wives. And because of that, God had told them specifically not to do that. Because of that, God sent a curse on the people.

Well, this guy Phineas got so angry about one of his neighbors sleeping with a pagan woman that he took a javelin into their tent and pinned both of them to the bed while they were sleeping together. And for that act of zeal, God stopped the curse. That story is told in Numbers 25. And the Pharisees in Paul's day used that story as an example of the kind of zeal that they believed would bring God's blessing back into Israel. And so Paul is like, I was Phineas, persecuting to the point of bloodshed any that I saw bringing compromise to Israel. It was a messy job, but I was so committed to the law that I was willing to kill for it. Paul's point is nobody cared more about Jewish customs and laws more than he did. As to righteousness, he says, I was under the law blameless, blameless. I kept all the laws. I was in church every week. I had all the books of the Bible memorized. I tithed, I double tithed. I fasted twice a week. I only ever listened to Christian music. I never missed prayer meeting. I used my summers to go on mission trips. I saved sex for marriage. I knew all the motions of the Father Abraham song.

I carried a Bible so big it needed its own shoulder strap. I ate clean, I recycled. You put whatever in that list you want to put in there. I did it. Y'all, people in Israel would have killed for a resume like this. Paul was the best of the best. And so what Paul says next is absolutely shocking. Whatever gain I had in those things, eventually I counted them as loss for the sake of Christ. Not only were these things ultimately unhelpful, these things were actually harmful in my quest to obtain the true good life. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. Paul then uses the next few verses to give us, here's your outline. Number one, a new definition of what the good life actually is. Then number two, he's gonna help us establish a new resume, a new set of criteria for obtaining that good life. Then number three, he's gonna give us a warning about success. And then number four, he's gonna give us a promise about suffering. Here we go. Number one, a new definition. Let me make a really obvious statement. The most important question in pursuing the good life

is determining what it is. Paul says, my definition of the good life now, what I'm striving for is knowing Christ, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. That has verse nine, verse eight, excuse me, surpassing worth. to me. In fact, Paul says, verse eight, that compared to knowing Christ, everything else in my life now seems like rubbish. By the way, our ESV translation says rubbish here, but honestly, that word rubbish does not do justice to the Greek word. You see, the Greek word there is skubala. Everybody say skubala. Now, everybody look at your neighbor and say, oh, you just said a bad word. You just said a wordy dirt, okay? Skubala, skubala is the closest thing we have to an expletive in the New Testament. In fact, I can't even give you its closest English equivalent, because then I would be in some deep skubala with our elders, okay? Paul said, compared to knowing Christ, everything else in my life seems like skubala. And that's because for Paul, knowing Jesus was the essence of life. Get this, it's not that Jesus connected him to the good life,

or that Jesus could provide him with the good life, but knowing Jesus was itself the good life. Remember that from chapter one? Paul said, for me to live is Christ. Knowing Jesus is life itself. Everybody's into soccer right now, because of the World Cup. There's a really popular comedy that came out a few years ago about a redneck American football coach who went to coach a soccer team in England, and he just can't understand the European fascination with soccer, or football as they call it, and a lot of the customs around the game, and it's got a lot of hilarious moments in it. I'm talking, of course, about Ted Lasso. It's on Apple TV, but especially for you parents, I would suggest you watch it on VidAngel to cut out some of the vulgarity. But there's this one player who joins the team named Danny Rojas, who always has this huge smile on his face whenever he's playing soccer. And the only line he really says throughout the entire show is, football is life. He just loves the game of football. Danny Rojas is not into soccer for the money or the fame. He just loves playing. For Paul, knowing Jesus, being assured of his love, trusting in his promises, that was life.

Knowing Jesus was a source of joy for Paul that could lift him above any pain or disappointment he went through so that even when he found himself prisoned unjustly in between two smelly guards, he could say, yeah, I've learned in whatever state I am, even this one, to be content because I've got life already. It's just knowing Jesus. You see, one of the questions that you need to consider in your pursuit of the good life is how easily whatever you've established as your source of the good life could be taken away. In fact, that's a point even made in Ted Lasso. There's this point in the show where the team starts doing really terribly, and then Danny, Danny Rojas, misfires a penalty kick and inadvertently kills the team dog, Earl. And so Danny starts saying, football is death. And it's kind of sad, funny, but here's the thing. Most of the things we establish as life can turn into death. Money is life, yeah, until you lose it, or until it turns you into a shallow, materialistic person who alienates your family, or until you discover that she can't take it with you past the grave, and that it's kept you from focusing on the things that really matter, yeah, then it's death. Or other people's opinions or life, I live for likes on Instagram and follows, yeah, until those friends let you down, or one of them betrays you, or the group falls apart,

then other people's opinions are death. Last week, I listened to a podcast with this really popular German biotech engineer named Christian Angermeyer, who explained that real life is found in the promises of what they call human maxing, transhumanism, using supplements, and injections, and human enhancement drugs, and even the occasional psychedelic mushroom. And one day, fusing AI into us, all this will elevate our lived experience. He said, listen, we are now able to prescribe things that tangibly increase people's quality of life by 10 full years. People can feel younger, and look younger, and live 10 full years longer. And I kept thinking, that's awesome. But is 10 years really that long? I mean, what about after that? What happens in your awesome max life when your wife or one of your kids dies, or your marriage falls apart? Can human maxing save you then? In fact, in this podcast, he talked about dealing with suicidal thoughts. And my heart went out to him, but I thought, if your maxed up life still leaves you with suicidal thoughts, can you really say it's been that successful? Paul says, knowing Jesus gives me a joy and a fulfillment.

that nothing else rivals, and that disappointment and death cannot take away from me. Y'all saw an incredible illustration, testimony of this up close and personal right here at our church about a week and a half ago. Some of you know that Jacob Slavin, who's the defender for the Carolina Hurricanes, is a member here at the Summit Church. In fact, he and his wife, Kylie, usually come to our Thursday night service at the Capitol Hills campus. By the way, fun fact, Kylie is actually the fiercer competitor of the two. If you were ever playing board games with them and you have to choose a player to be on your team, always choose Kylie, okay? Take that from personal experience. Well, last week, Jacob became, or a week and a half ago, became one of only two people in history to ever win a gold medal in the Stanley Cup in the same year. I was over in Europe during the final round of playoffs, so I had to get up at 2 a.m. several nights to watch it, right, and set up a VPN, get a, it was a whole thing. I feel like I worked as hard watching the games as they did playing the game, but when they won that final game, when they won the final game, I texted Jacob, and I said, hey, man, congratulations. This is a huge deal.

I just want you to know, I said, don't worry about responding. I just want you to know how grateful I am that you are stewarding this moment for Jesus. I did not expect to hear back from him since I was sure they were up to their eyeballs in champagne, but he shortly texted back, and here's what he sent back. He's like, thanks, JD, what a ride. Really makes you understand when the Bible says the things of the world are fleeting now. Lay them at the feet of Jesus, A-G-T-G. You know what that is? All glory to God. By the way, I want you to notice the timestamp on this. 10 o'clock a.m., but that was my time in Spain, which is several hours ahead. This was 4 a.m. Jacob's time, so late Sunday night, just a few hours after they'd won the Stanley Cup. He hadn't even gone to bed yet, and yet already he's saying even this, the Stanley Cup, it's not life. Let me tell you what I love most about Jacob, by the way. I have a nearly identical text from him a couple of years ago after they lost in the semifinals and got knocked out of the playoffs. I was like, hey, man, you played a great game. I felt like you guys really deserve that win. He said something back like, man, I was disappointed to lose, but no big deal. Winning or losing, A-G-T-G.

All glory to God. So take it from those who've gotten the gold medals and gotten the trophies, even the Stanley Cup is scubala compared to the joy of knowing Jesus. Some of you have been in church a long time. Listen, you've never thought about Jesus this way. You've thought about Jesus primarily as somebody useful in your life. I mean, you can't get into heaven without him, right? You don't wanna go through life without him. You know you need him. He's somebody you want on your team, helping you with your family and your career, but listen to me. There's a difference between something being useful to you and something being beautiful to you. Something that is useful is helpful in obtaining something else you really want. For example, I have a tire iron in my car. I'm really glad I have it. I'm glad it's in there. I wouldn't wanna be without it. It's helped me out in some really bad situations. When I had a flat tire, if somebody were chasing me through a dark alley, I would want to have it nearby, right? But that tire iron, while very useful, is not beautiful to me. I don't take it out and look at it.

I don't carry around a picture of it. I don't show it off to my friends. If that tire iron breaks, I, without any thought, throw it away and buy a new one. That is different from how I feel about, say, my wife and my kids. They're not so much useful to me as much as they are beautiful to me. I don't love them because of all the other great things they bring into my life, like millions of dollars. In fact, they cost me millions of dollars, but I don't love them for what they bring into my life. I love them for them because they're beautiful to me. For some of you, Jesus is useful. You think he will help you obtain heaven and avoid hell. You're looking for him to provide you with a good marriage or give you help with your kids. You think Jesus is the gateway to the good life, but for Paul, Jesus was the good life. Jesus was beautiful, even when everything else in his life was falling apart. So which is it for you? You think Jesus can help you obtain the good life? Or do you think knowing him is the good life? Which brings me to number two, the qualifications for obtaining this kind of relationship with Jesus, and this is where it gets really good. A new resume. I want you to notice that Paul in this passage talks about his relationship with Christ with confidence.

He uses phrases, verse eight, like, I have gained Christ and I know him. Verse nine, I have been found in him. What gives Paul that confidence? I mean, you know, when you think about it, that's a pretty big boast, isn't it? I know Christ is mine. I know I'm his. I know he is in me. I am in him, I know I will go to heaven when I die, I know he's on my team, I know he's on my side in every situation, he is always working for my good. That is a huge boast. What qualifies Paul to say that? Is it his impressive resume? Is it all the things he's accomplished as an apostle? No, things like that used to be his source of confidence, but they are not any longer. Notice what he says, verse nine, not having a righteousness that comes from the law, but instead having one that comes only through faith in Christ. The righteousness of God that depends only on faith. There is a righteousness that God offers to the gospel, Paul says, that comes not from obedience to the law and not from any kind of human accomplishment. It comes only through faith in Christ, given as a gift to all who will receive it, and it gives you a confidence with God, Paul says, that nothing else can.

It is what we call gift righteousness. In fact, let me encourage you to write that down, gift righteousness, because this is the heart and center of the Christian message and what distinguishes the Christian message from every other religious message on earth. Christ's righteousness given to us as a gift, it is when Christ's record, his resume gets credited to your account. It is what the apostle Paul calls in his letter to the Romans, imputed righteousness. Imputed is a legal term that means something gets credited to you. A status gets conferred upon you. It is different, follow, it is different than you slowly becoming more and more righteous in your thoughts and behavior over a lifetime. That is called infused righteousness, and it is different from imputed righteousness. Imputed righteousness is when you are positionally put into Christ so that when God sees you, he counts Christ's righteousness as yours. Infused righteousness is the process of Christ's righteousness and his spirit slowly infiltrating you over a lifetime until it completely takes you over. Imputed righteousness happens to you all at once. Infused righteousness happens over a lifetime. In fact, here's a way to see it, because I thought this might be confusing. Let me let this jar of water here represent Jesus,

the righteousness of Christ. And let's let this represent you. You are baby Yoda, okay? When you put faith in Christ, when you put faith in Christ, it is when you accept him as your savior, you get put into Christ. That is the language Paul uses in Philippians 3. I've been found in him. So now when God sees you, he actually sees Christ first. He literally cannot see you without first seeing Christ. That is imputed righteousness. Oh, but something else is happening to baby Yoda when he's in the water, right? Slowly the water of Christ's righteousness is seeping into him. This is infused righteousness. The process of Christ's righteousness slowly seeping into you. That is called sanctification, and it is an important part of your spiritual growth too. But it is not the same as imputed righteousness. Imputed righteousness is a legal declaration that happens all at once the moment you put faith into Christ and you get put into Christ. I take pains to explain this because our Catholic friends often confuse the two, which is why so many of them, frankly,

lack an assurance of salvation. They teach that righteousness gets put into us little by little by means of the sacraments. It's infused into us over a lifetime. That literally is the language they use, infused. God's righteousness, they believe, is like a medicine. The more you go to church, the more you go to confession, the more you take the Eucharist, the more righteousness comes into you. So they're always going to mass or confession, but the problem is they never know if they have enough righteousness inside of them to really say they fully belong to Jesus and that they're assured of heaven, which is why when you ask many of them if they're sure they're going to go to heaven, then they'll tell you they don't know and they assume they'll probably have to finish the righteousness saturation project in purgatory. And that is because they confuse infused righteousness with imputed righteousness. In this passage, Paul is talking about that moment where positionally we are put into Christ all at once, where Christ's resume literally becomes mine. Martin Luther had a great way of expressing this. He says, when you get put into Christ, he said, you are simultaneously righteous and a sinner. That is simultaneously, I'm fully righteous in God's eyes, even while I'm still sinful and dry on the inside. Right now, even before I'm soaked all the way through

with Christ's righteousness, when God sees me, he sees Christ first. and he sees Christ's full record as belonging to me. And like I said, y'all, that gives me a confidence in him that nothing else can. Imagine, you are applying for entrance into Duke University. Now, the average SAT score for incoming freshmen at Duke last year was something like 1550. Duke has got a 5% acceptance rate, which means 19 out of 20 applicants get a no response. But you, for whatever reason, you really want to become a blue devil. The problem is you got straight D's in high school and your SAT score was so low that when you tell people what it is, they think you're telling them your ACT score. By the way, if you don't get that joke, I'm not gonna explain it to you, okay? So you turn in your application. You're pretty nervous about your chances of acceptance, but you find out at the last minute that the admissions committee has decided that as the basis of your admission, they're gonna consider Albert Einstein's resume instead of yours. They're literally gonna take Einstein's resume and credit it to you as the basis of your application. So now you're feeling pretty good. You're not really that nervous. Other applicants are like,

well, I got a 1570 in the SAT. And you're like, yeah, but I came up with E equals MC squared. They're like, well, I wrote a killer Common App essay about my grandmother's impact on my life. And you're like, yeah, but I developed a theory of relativity. Albert Einstein's resume makes everything else on your resume seem like scubala. This is what God invites us to do with the resume of Christ. Christ's resume counts as mine, gift, righteousness, Jesus in my place. Friend, I often tell you that I am sure of my salvation. I am sure that I will go to heaven. And it is not because I have an impressive resume. In fact, that's the point. It's not about my resume at all anymore. Christ's resume is now counted in my place. And that brings me to number three, how Paul uses his insight to give us a warning about our successes, a warning about success. I pointed out that when we were walking through this passage, pointed out that Paul said in verse seven, that his accomplishments were not just neutral to him anymore. They actually became a loss for him. Listen, that's because one of the most, listen, the most distorted things about our sinful hearts is how we use our accomplishments

to elevate ourselves in the eyes of God and others and how our pride in those accomplishments, listen, keeps us from receiving the grace, which is offered only as a gift to those who know they can't earn it. That's why Billy Graham always said, it's not people's sin that usually keeps them out of heaven. It's usually their good works. In a few weeks, we're all, excuse me, in a few days, we're all gonna be celebrating America's 250th birthday, which is gonna be awesome. I got my American flag Crocs and my Toby Keith and Lee Greenwood playlist, and I'm ready to go, okay? And we're gonna hear a lot about the founding fathers and the Declaration of Independence, and it's all gonna be awesome. But maybe more significant to me is that all of this happened 250 years ago in the wake of what historians call the Great Awakening, the greatest spiritual revival in Western history. Christian scholars say the Great Awakening preaching, basically only had two points. Every sermon you heard had two points. First, Great Awakening preachers told people across the American countryside that they needed to repent of their sins. That made sense, of course. You gotta stop your sinful rebellion. Second, they said, and this is where it got surprising. They said, you also gotta repent of your religious deeds.

Because your self-righteousness in those deeds deludes you with false confidence and keeps you from gift righteousness, from grace. In fact, there was a man who was saved during the Great Awakening named Nathan Cole. He was a poor farmer, but he kept a journal that you can still see in a museum up in Connecticut. And in this journal, Nathan Cole recounts hearing one of the famous Great Awakening evangelists. Here's what he wrote in his journal that day, and I love this. As I heard him preach, it gave me a heart wound. By God's blessing, my old foundation was broken up and I saw that my righteousness would not save me. Notice Nathan Cole did not say, as I heard him preach, I got motivated to be a better man. I decided to be a better dad and a better husband. I decided to stop my sinful habit. I decided to become more moral. No, what he said is, when I heard him preach, my foundation was broken up. True gospel preaching wounds the very thing that we're trusting in to make us good enough for God. True gospel preaching shreds your resume. My old foundation was broken up and I saw that my righteousness would not save me. By the way. breaking up of our foundation. That's not something that happens only one time in salvation.

This is the ongoing secret of the Christian life. Just as you look to Christ's righteousness to save you, you start to learn to look to Christ's power to sustain you. Hear me, you don't have what it takes to live the Christian life. You don't have what it takes to overcome temptation. You don't have what it takes to accomplish the will of God, and the sooner you learn that, the better. The more you know of Christ, the more you're gonna say with Nathan Cole, my old foundation is broken up, and I see that just like my righteousness could never save me, my own power could never keep me. It's his righteousness, not mine, that saves me. It's his resurrection power, not mine, that sustains me, Jesus, in my place. Learn this, Christian, learn this. All the gospel's blessings come not through accomplishing, they come through receiving. Not through our impressive resume, but through humbly receiving gift righteousness and gift power. And by the way, that means there's hope for you. Because that means that no matter how messed up you feel, it is not about your power for God, it's about his power in you. So to the husband who feels like he's made a mess out of his family, I'm not telling you, be a better man. My message to the drug addict is not,

hey, look at what a mess you've made, try harder. I'm telling you there's an empty tomb in Jerusalem that's been opened for you. From which the power of new life flows to all who will receive it as a gift. That brings us lastly to number four, promise about suffering. Maybe the most surprising thing for the Philippians is what Paul says there right at the end. Paul says, verse 10, because my goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection. Therefore, I'm happy to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death, because that's the means by which I attained the resurrection, the power of resurrection. The gateway to resurrection power, Paul says, it's through weakness and suffering. And so my own failure, Paul says, it helps me. It helps me trust in Jesus instead of me. And when something blows up on me, when something falls apart, when something really disappoints me, he gives me a chance to tell myself and others, my hope is not in that thing, my hope is in Jesus. That's Stanley Cup, a rush, but Jesus is eternal. Here's what's more. When I suffer unjustly, when I'm persecuted, that becomes a gateway to spiritual power. Think about it, Paul says, God brought salvation into the world through Jesus dying unfairly

in weakness and in shame. God did not bring the power of resurrection into the world through Christ's perfect resume. No, God brought resurrection power through Christ's unjust suffering. And so that means when I suffer unjustly, when I feel like I'm bearing a cross, when I feel weak, I got access to that same power. That doesn't mean I seek out crosses. It doesn't mean I don't try to avoid them. Just that I recognize that when I can't avoid them, that they're giving me access to God's resurrection power. I was talking with a really good friend of mine, really godly friend of mine about a month or so ago. Both of us have gone through something similar that felt unfair and it's been really painful. And I will not go into all the details, but it had to do with lies and false accusations spread about us, lies that we just can't fully clear up. Not because the truth isn't clear, but because the lies are too widespread. And so I asked my friend how he coped with those people who continue to believe false things about him. And he paused for a minute and then he just said, you know, JD, he said, this is one of those places where the Lord has said to me, in this one, you get to experience what Jesus experienced. You get to bear his shame. And that's the portal through which I'm gonna pour resurrection power.

Listen to me, nobody likes suffering. And God wants you to do all you can to avoid it. And I wanna make this abundantly clear. If you were in an abusive situation, I'm not saying you should stay there. No, contact us today, contact somebody. We wanna help you. I'm just saying that when you've done all you can do to avoid suffering and all you can do to clear your name and stop the lies, and you can't, just know that Jesus says, blessed are you when you suffer wrongly, even unfairly, because then yours is the kingdom and the power of heaven. If you share my sufferings, you're gonna share my resurrection power. When they put upon you the cross of false accusations, you're gonna become like him in his death. And that means his resurrection power is gonna start flowing through you. And while I hate suffering, y'all, that's a pretty good trait. Because here's what I've learned after 25 years in ministry. It is not J.D. Greer's impressive resume that you. need, it's resurrection power. You don't need a man up here standing up showing off. You need a man up here who knows what it's like to be broken and weak and suffer and fail because I can point you to the power of an empty tomb. And that's a power that can help you just like it can help me

and that comes through my failures. Realize that I'm not that impressive. It comes through my suffering, which allows me to partake of the suffering of Christ so that I can experience the power of resurrection. Some of you are suffering right now, I know it. You're suffering in a marriage. You're suffering at your workplace. Friends are unkind to you. Hear me, you need to do everything you can to clear it up. But I'm just telling you through that suffering, if you go through it with faith, God is pouring resurrection power into you. He's pouring it through you into those people around you. By sharing in his sufferings, you partake of his power. The apostle Paul in one of the greatest passages that he ever penned. He asked you to consider three very fundamental questions in your whole life and this is what I want to leave you with. He says, what's your ultimate goal? How do you define the good life? Do you see Jesus as useful for getting you to the good life? Or do you see knowing him as the good life? Friend, listen to me. If the good life for you is anything except knowing Christ, it's going to leave you empty and broken. Here's the second question. What qualifications entitle you to the good life? What resume are you carrying around in your heart? Are you still trying to prove yourself to God and others?

Or have you accepted the gift righteousness of Christ given to all who simply receive it by faith because they know they can't earn it? Third, is there a failure or frustration you might see as an invitation to experience the power of resurrection? Maybe something you brought into here this morning. It's right now the Holy Spirit is just saying, I'm doing this. I'm doing this because the world needs less of you and they need more of me. And I just want to invite you to submit to it this morning. I'm gonna put these questions on the screen at all of our campuses and I'm gonna give you just 60 seconds, 90 seconds. I want you to just let the Holy Spirit use these, pick out one that the Holy Spirit draws your attention to and just press into it. Let him work in your heart and then I'll come back up and I'll lead us in the time just to invitation and worship. You do that for the next minute and then I'll come back. You do that for the next minute and then I'll come back. Thank you. May I ask you at all of our campuses, I want you to stand to your feet with me if you will. Our worship teams are here. They're gonna lead us in a time where we declare the name of Jesus. I had a really strong sense this morning that there were gonna be two or three groups in this room when I got done.

I'm gonna call you out specifically. I'm gonna invite you to come and pray around these altars. That's what we just call the area at the front of our auditoriums. You can always pray in your seat, of course. I'm saying there's something significant, something defining about this moment. There are those of you who have never received the gift righteousness of Christ. Your whole life's been trying to be good enough, good at church enough, moral enough. I'm gonna invite you to come down here and switch Christ's righteousness for yours. It's just a gift, you receive it. You surrender your life to him and say, Jesus, I can't save myself. Jesus, in my place, I receive gift righteousness. There's just some of you that are dealing with a situation right now, and it's been all about your power to resolve the situation, and you are exhausted. You are frustrated, and Christ this morning is inviting you to say, hey, come and lay that down. Put that burden on my feet, and let me pick that up. And I wanna invite you to come down and lay that down for Him and say, Jesus, I can't. I need you to do this through me. Maybe you're a parent. Maybe there's just some struggle. I don't know what it is, but I just sense there's some of you in here that need to come down

and make that switch. Christ, power for mine. Lastly, I believe there are some of you in here that you're going through some kind of suffering. I'm not telling you to stop resisting. I'm, keep trying to get out of it, okay? But I'm saying Christ is telling you right now, I need you to submit to me in this. I need you to stop raging against me. And realize that I'm doing something good in this. And yeah, you can pray right there at your seat, but I'm telling you, you come up here and you get down on your knees and you say, Jesus, have your way. It'll be something really powerful. As always, I'm gonna put our prayer teams and our elders on the sides at every campus. They're there to pray with you if you would like somebody to pray with you. If not, you can just fill down this little front section at every front of every campus and just receive. You come right now at all of our campuses. Go to the sides if you want prayer. Come down here if you want to pray. Bring a friend down here if you want. Pray there on your own. And we're gonna sing about the power in the name of Jesus and celebrate his surpassing worth, surpassing worth. Let's enter into this time. Let's welcome in the spirit of God.