Philippians 3:1-11 | The Worthless Resume of Works

Sunday Morning | October 26, 2025 | Colby Flowers | Louisville, KY

Colby Flowers continues the Philippians series in chapter 3:1-11, "The Worthless Resume of Works."

In Philippians 3:1–11, Paul urges believers to find their joy and confidence not in religious achievements or outward works, but in Christ alone. He warns against those who rely on human effort for righteousness and contrasts that with the true faith that comes through knowing Christ personally. Paul, once proud of his heritage and accomplishments, now counts them all as worthless compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus. His deepest desire is to gain Christ, to be clothed in His righteousness, to experience the power of His resurrection, and even to share in His sufferings—so that, in the end, he may fully share in the life that Christ gives.

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Transcript

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Good morning. Church. How are we doing? It's great to be with you. This morning it’s great to see you. Welcome to Valley View. I am the student pastor here and my name is Colby Flowers. I am preaching this morning. Thank you, John, for the opportunity to do that. And we are continuing in on our series here in the book of Philippians. So if you would turn in your Bibles to Philippians chapter three, we will have the the words on the screen for you. But we highly encourage you to get in the word yourself. So turn there with me. Philippians chapter three. We're going to cover 11 verses one through 11. And I'm really excited about the what the Lord has for us in this passage. Believe what we are going to look at is of crucial significance, important significance for the Christian faith as we see it all throughout Scripture. Before we jump in there, I don't know if you can relate with me, but when I was going through school, I had to take life skill classes. It was kind of our part of our requirement to go through school. I had to take classes on typing. I took a typing class where you had, you had a teacher telling you you had to stare at the screen and you couldn't look down at your fingers to to learn how to type. Now, I took another, home ec. That didn't help me much, but I have a I have a wife who's a great cook. But you had to learn the basics of cooking. And then I took a career class, which basically helped you figure out if you want to go to college, if you want to go into the workforce. It helped you, learn how to build a resume. And so this class I remember the importance they gave to resumes. And I think all of us can in some way, shape or form. We all relate to this because resumes were just a part of our life as a part of our society. It's a part of our culture that you're supposed to build a resume, to then reflect to a future employer if you should get the job or not. And my wife is actually in human resources, she, is a part of that process. And she's told me on several occasions how she sort of whittles down the large group of people down to a smaller pool of candidates, so that she can select them to take the next step in the hiring process. And the resume is crucial. But there's one thing that sometimes can outweigh the resume. There's there's one thing that sometimes can become trumpeted, so to speak. And the resume is not as important. And we sometimes say it this way. If you know somebody who knows somebody, right. So if you know somebody on the inside or you know somebody that is dealing, in the company, then you get an extra step, an extra leg that your resume might not be able to get you. And so often the best applicants for jobs don't have the best resumes, but they know somebody who knows somebody. And so we're going to see this morning. It's an important idea that we're going to see here in Scripture is this the value of knowing Christ infinitely surpasses your personal resumé of works. We're going to see these two ideas of knowing Christ and building or developing your own personal resumé of being good, and what Paul is going to do. He's going to address some opponents in the church, and they were going around basically attacking Christians and shaming them into believing something that they shouldn’t. And so we're going to be in Philippians chapter three. Turn there in verse one is where we're starting, and let's read what Paul has for us this morning. Philippians chapter three, verse one. It says this. Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. So Paul's making a transition even in this verse. He's about to start landing the plane of this, this letter that he's written to them. Finally, he's getting to the end and he tells them once again, rejoice! Rejoice not in your circumstances, but rejoice in the Lord. As he said over and over again in this book, he says, to write these same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. It's possible Paul could be hinting at a past letter that he wrote to the Philippians. It's possible he was even referring or talking about something that he already addressed with them, but he's writing something to them that he's already spoken of. So this is an important idea of what he's about to be about to get into that he's sharing again in this letter, and it's safe for him to write because he's in prison and he's sharing this important truth with them all the way in Philippi. And this is where we get to Paul's main point here. Verse two. He says, look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers. Look out for those who mutilate the flesh. Now Paul encountered some opponents, people who opposed him, and they were called Judaizers. You might even hear in the name Judah, the word Judah. Basically, this group of people were Jews who were claiming that you must become a Jew. Before you can become a Christian, you must keep the law. You must keep the ceremonies, you must keep the mosaic covenant and specifically, you must be circumcised before you can become a Christian. That's not a great, It's not a great method of getting new believers to come to your to your side. But this is what they would shame Christians into doing. But but Paul cleverly does something here. He reverses their own language because often they would use language like dogs. These Judaizers would call Gentiles dogs, uncivilized. Well, Paul switches it on them. He says, you all need to look out for these dogs. He calls them evil doers. This group of people were literally compromising and going against the core teachings of the gospel. So he says, look out for the evildoers. And finally he says, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. Now why that's interesting is because they really shamed people into getting circumcised. So Paul, in a negative way says, you are shaming people to mutilate the flesh just for the sake of becoming a Christian. But Paul says, listen, it's not about circumcision that makes you a Christian. He says it in verse three right here. He says, for we, that's the church believers in Christ, for we are the circumcision. We're the true circumcision. We have circumcised hearts, hearts that are devoted to God. It's not something that we have done something in our flesh by our own human effort that has made us good and right with God. But it's something that's happened in our heart. So he says, we are the circumcision. He says we are they who worship by the Spirit of God and glory. Or another word there could be. We boast in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. So Paul here is speaking to the church and saying, listen, we are the true circumcision. We worship by the Spirit of God, that is the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. And not only that, we boast in Jesus. We don't boast in ourselves, which is what this next line is. We put no confidence in the flesh. Now, if you've read Paul's letters or other things Paul has written, he uses this word flesh quite often and often. He doesn't mean it to be the physical skin that we have. He means something deeper, something spiritual. It's something that's equal to like your mind or your heart, your soul, something that's inside of us. So when he says the flesh here, he's talking about a place in us where sin still lingers, it still has an effect on us. The Bible has been his Bible is clear that even though we accept Christ, that we still have this ongoing issue with the flesh that's dwelling in us. So think of it this way. The flesh is a is a base of operations for sin, if you can think of it that way. It's where our pride boasts in our own human effort. It's the place where sin is moving. It's the place where sin is tempting us. It's the place where sin is getting in our in our minds and our hearts, tempting us to follow after sin. And so Paul is saying we don't put confidence in that. We don't put confidence in boasting in ourselves. We don't put confidence in our own human effort. So our flesh, the dangerous part about this is that our flesh is searching for ways to boast in ourselves. It's constantly looking for things to point out and say, look what I did there, look how good I am. Look at the the things that I've done, the things that I've achieved, the things that I've been born into. That's what our flesh is. It looks for ways to elevate you with pride in yourself. But instead, what we should do is we should remain rooted in the gospel. See, the gospel as the Bible shows us is the exact opposite of that. It's not about you. As I tell our students all the time, it's not about you, it's about Christ. And Paul's about to unpack that. But then he says something really interesting here in verse four. He says, though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. So it says we shouldn't put confidence in that. But just for the record, I kind of have some grounds and reason to put confidence in the flesh. It's kind of funny what Paul's doing here, but here's what he's about to do. This is so interesting. Paul is so clever. He's so wise. He's going to set up this argument that's going to dismantle these Judaizers, these people who would say, we need to put confidence in our own ability. And he's setting them up. Here's my first point for us this morning. We need to look out for false teachers. We need to look out for false teachers. I don't think that all of us, or any of us maybe are naive in this room to think that there are bad false teachers out there, but sometimes I think we can we can easily fall into the trap of listening to people that appear wise and appear godly, but they really aren't. From social media to Sunday morning pulpits, you can find false teachers everywhere, and often they'll have big followings. They dress really nicely, they communicate in engaging ways. They do outrageous things to get attention. All the while they disguise themselves as godly teachers. But if you really just stop to listen to them, they're actually teaching things that are not the gospel, which is so important for us today in a social media technological age that we have to be careful not to be naive, that there are false teachers all around us. And you're probably thinking to yourself, well, Colby, how do we know you're not a false teacher? That's a great question. Great question, and I hope you would be asking that. You would be taking what I'm saying and lifting it up against God's Word and say, does this make sense? If my words don't don't come from God's Word, don't listen to me. You heard it from me. And I mean you say that, Pastor John, if Pastor John says things that are not in God's word, don't listen to them because we want to get everything we know from God's Word. So you know how you can tell who's a false teacher? Are they preaching God, God's word? Are they coming from God's Word? And are they centered in what God has said? Period. But I love what Paul's about to do. He's going to dismantle these Judaizers. Look what he says at the second part of verse four. He says, if anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more. Paul's like, listen, if anyone thinks that they can boast in themselves, I've got more. If anyone can boast, it's me. If anyone in this place, any Judaizers, says that they can boast. I have a greater ground and greater ability to do it because I'm better than them. And what Paul's about to do is so clever. And he he does it in a way that would be very applicable to these people. So we've talked throughout this series that these Philippians had a Roman, they were fixated on the Roman culture and Roman government, the Roman Empire, and there were a lot of people from Rome who moved to Philippi. So what Paul's about to do is, is he's about to give a Roman version of the career ladder. You know, what the career ladder is right? Like, you take this step, you get you get a promotion, you get promoted, and you keep climbing the the ladder up until you reach the highest point. And what Paul's about to do is, is doing the same thing. It was called a cursus, honorary, literally meaning course of honors. And what they would do in the Roman government. Roman officials would have to start out at the lowest rung. As a centurion in the army. But then once they they got their time in, they would move up the next rank and then the next, and they would go through, training and leadership and speaking. They would they would work in athletics. They would work in all the various parts of society. And step by step, they would work their way up. And so what Paul's about to do is about to give his own Jewish version of that. So these people would know what he's saying. So I want you to catch what Paul's about to do here. Paul is about to say, better than everybody. Look at this. In verse five. He says, I've been circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. Paul is saying here, these are things that I've inherited. I was circumcised on the eighth day. God told Abraham, Genesis 17, when your sons are born, you need to circumcise them on the eighth day. Paul's like, that was me. I did it, I got it. Next thing he was of the people of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin. I'm as Jewish as you can be, a Jew. I'm the Hebrew. I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews. I'm the pristine example of what it means to be a Jew. He's already showing I have inherited everything that I could possibly need to be the best Jew possible. But then he talks about things that he's achieved, that he's done. He says, as to the law, I was a Pharisee. I was a strict adherence to the law. I always kept the law. In fact, I kept things that weren't even in the law, that were outside of it. I was strict, I was rigorous, I was religious. Then, he says, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, he was so zealous and so passionate about being a Jew that he persecuted the people who supposedly were their enemies. That's how much he was. He was there at the the death of Stephen. And I'm sure as many other Christians. But then he says, finally, probably the highest of honors, he says, as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Paul saying, externally I was perfect. I kept all the laws, I kept all the ceremonies, I kept all the standards. I kept all the things that I needed to do to be a good Jew. You see what Paul's doing? He's saying I did everything perfectly externally. I inherited all the honors I could, I achieved all the honors that I could. I was at the top of my game. Now, see, for us, it's not too big of a step to see how we do that today. Isn't. I was born in a Christian family. I attend church regularly. I've read my Bible. I've been baptized. I had an emotional response at a at a worship service or at a camp or at a revival. I walked the aisle. I gave some money. I served in this ministry, and we developed what we might call a resume, a resume of works, a resume of righteousness, saying in my head, in my flesh, that is why I'm saved, because of what I've done in the family I've been born into. I have achieved it. I have done it. I am saved because what I've done. Friends, I hope you listen to me very carefully this morning. It is possible to be disguised as a Christian, but continue to place confidence in your flesh. It is possible to have the banner of Christianity over you, while you still think to yourself, I can earn my way to God. If I can only do enough, and I can only be enough, if I can only have this, the certain honors and qualifications, if I can only develop and build a great resume for God to look at, and then God is going to look down and say, that's a good person, they're getting into heaven. That is one of the greatest deceptions we have in the American church today. So what does Paul do? He says, I'm the most perfect Jew that you can find. But look what he says in verse seven, church, listen. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Whatever gain, whatever reputation, whatever resume, whatever qualification, whatever certification, whatever thing that I could have accumulated is a loss for the sake of Christ. I want you to hear what he's saying. All our inherited and achieved honors do not compare to what Christ offers us. You can spend a lifetime seeking to qualify yourself to be a Christian, and it won't come anywhere close to what Christ offers you. So my second point for us this morning stop trying to build a resume of righteousness. Stop trying to formulate and build a resume that you can maybe show God and say, God, look at how good of a person I am. Look at all the things that I do. I'm here before the church starts. I'm here after the church ends. I attend regularly. I read my Bible, I pray. I was baptized, all the things that we could possibly come up with friends is... that is not your identity as a Christian. Don't turn a good thing into a God thing by saying, I can be good enough. You can't. Neither can I. And Paul is dismantling this idea that was present in the early church. But, friends, it's still present today. He goes on here in verse eight. He continues to elaborate what he's saying. Indeed, I count everything as loss indeed mean more than that. Furthermore, I count everything is lost because of the surpassing worth of --here it is. Catch this-- knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. So he puts these things in opposition to each other, working for God and knowing God, being good enough and knowing the one who is good. Now, I'm not going to stand up here and say that we shouldn't obey God and live a life of obedience. But our salvation has nothing to do with what we've done, but simply by knowing. That's where salvation begins. So listen. Knowing Jesus is infinitely more valuable than the best righteous resume that you can build. And by knowing I don't just mean knowing about Jesus, I mean knowing Jesus in a personal, ongoing relationship. That's what the word means. It is an intimate relationship between what I'm knowing and not just that, but I know theologically who Jesus is, I know what the story is. I know the Bible. So to know Jesus in that sense is infinitely more valuable than anything you can do. And friends, isn't that more comforting? Jesus even said, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Rest from your labors, rest from your work, rest from trying to be good enough. Rest from trying to present yourself in such a way that God will accept you. No, it's by knowing Christ.

It’s why John 17: 22:42

3 is so important this is eternal life that they know God and that they know His Son Jesus. Knowing. So the question you have to ask yourself this morning is not whether you've been attending church lately is it do you know God? Do you know him? Because Paul says that is salvation, but he keeps going. Second part of verse eight. He keeps elaborating. He keeps pressing this forward. For his sake---that's Christ--- I have suffered the loss of all things. I count them as rubbish. Another word for that is dumb human waste. All those things that accumulated, my resume, nothing. Why? In order that, so that, because. I may gain Christ. Notice you have to lose something before you gain something. I think there might just be this myth or false teaching today that if I can do like 50% of the work then Jesus can do the rest of the 50. If I can be 70% good enough, then Jesus can fulfill my 30. If I can fulfill 99% of good enough, and then Jesus, you can take the rest of the 1%. That's not the way it works. Paul says you have to lose yourself before you can gain Christ. How important is that? Before I can know, or before I can take a step of faith, I've got to lose myself. It's not based off of my righteousness, what I can do, it's based off of what Christ has done, which he elaborates on here in verse nine again, And be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, this is crucial, that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ. You see the difference, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. So Paul gives us two forms of righteousness here. There's a fake form that really doesn't get you anywhere, and that's a righteousness from the law. But then there's true righteousness, perfect righteousness that comes through faith in Jesus. That is the true righteousness. So here's if I can bring this to a point. And this is the crux of the message right here. Here it is. Faith strips us naked of our pride in self righteousness. Faith literally takes all of the things that you can probably say, God, I've been good enough. Faith takes all away so that God can clothe us with his perfect righteousness that comes through Jesus. That's what faith does faith in. God says, I can't be good enough, but Jesus was. I can't do enough. But Jesus did. There is no amount of good that I can do to reach the perfection that God requires of us, but someone already did on my behalf. And faith strips you down and says, I can't trust in myself. I'm at a zero and Christ is the hundred. That's the picture. Paul is saying everything that I have, I have to count as a loss so that I can gain Jesus, that you can gain Christ until you lose yourself. Luke 923 and 24 says it so clearly. Jesus says, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever would save his life or try to keep his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. Are you willing to lose yours so that you can have Jesus? Paul says he counted all his rubbish, worthless. Last two verses of our passage this morning. Verse ten. Paul continuing to push this idea, and he's got a goal in mind that I may know him. Christ, there's the knowledge again that I may know him personally, but also to know the power of his resurrection. Don't you want to know that today? To know Jesus personally into one day, know the power and experience his resurrection, his will, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death? Paul was not naive to think that following Jesus means everything is going to be easy, but following Jesus is worth the cost of suffering and eventually death, because he would suffer for his faith and eventually die. But he understood that the goal in mind is to know Jesus and His resurrection forever. And then verse 11, this is his his conviction right here. He says that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Sold out, whatever it takes, whatever I've got to say no to, I'm willing. And often the things that we aren't willing to say no to, for Christ's sake, is an idol. But Paul says, I. I don't want any of it. I just want to know Christ in the power of his resurrection. So for you and I, we must maintain a firm conviction to press on, and that is toward the goal to know Christ and attain his resurrection. That's what we should daily strive and keep in mind as we're pressing forward. My final point for this this morning is this it's as simple as I can make it. Know and trust Christ. If I can make it any more simple. If you want to know salvation, if you want to experience life change. It's not about being good enough. It's not about mustering enough energy, doing enough good things. We encourage you to come and know Jesus. We encourage you to come and trust Christ. That is what we're called to do. That's what Jesus invites us to do. But as we begin to close the barns, going to come back up and there to play another song for us, it's a song called In Christ Alone. A song that I believe highlights and shows the exact message of this passage. But let's not get to our challenge. I want you to consider this for yourself. Does your righteousness depend on your resume of works or knowing and trusting Christ alone? Not me. Plus, Jesus. It's Jesus 100%. Can you say today that you know Jesus in a personal relationship, and that he 100% is the reason why you can stand before a holy, perfect God? I want to give you a hypothetical question. As I close. Hypothetical situation. This isn't the most biblical understanding of heaven, but what if then of your life you go to heaven, you approach the heavenly gates and you see Saint Peter standing there welcoming people in and turning people away. And you finally get up to the point where you're meeting Peter face to face and he asks you a question, who are you? And why should I let you in? Now, some of us might say, I mean, I speak for myself here. I might say, well, I'm Colby Flowers, I'm the pastor on Earth. It's pretty good, dad. It's pretty good husband. On some days. Had a couple kids. I've worked really hard. I actually went around to different places on Earth, and I shared my faith with people. I even found myself on stage time preaching the gospel. I did discipleship with students. I discipled teenagers and adults. So I guess looking at my life, I've got a pretty good resume. I think I'm a pretty good person. I think I should get in. I can imagine Peter pausing and thinking for himself just for a second and saying, that resume, as good as it is, will never be good enough to get into heaven. Never. And I can't let you in. But what if we took Paul's approach? And when Peter asked us that question, we say, I'm a sinner. I'm broken. I've lived a life of sin seeking to rebel against God, of. I've done horrible things in my life, let alone the things that have crossed my mind and the things that have entered my heart. I've spent my money sinfully. I've acted sinfully. And so if I look at my life and you ask me that question, should I be led in? No, you shouldn't let me in. But I met someone named Jesus. And he said I could come. Not based off of what I could do, but what he did for me. And I placed my faith in him. That's why I think I should get in. And Peter opens the door. Come to the father. Come see your glorious Savior. If there's anyone in this room who doesn't know and trust in Jesus, I plead with you, take that step of faith today and stop trying to be good enough. I'll live most of my life trying to be good enough. They didn't get me anywhere but the day I met Jesus. That opened up the gates of heaven to me. Not because I deserved it. I'm sure everyone in this room can say I'm the worst of sinners. But because of what Jesus did. I get to go and be with my Savior forever. If that is you today, but you take a step of faith to say, I want to know and trust in Christ. But I'll also say to you, as a Christian who were tempted to go back to put confidence in your flesh, did you say no to it? I'm not going back to that. I can't be good enough. The guilt that I'm experiencing that's not from God, that's from my flesh. You're saved today. Not because of what you do or who you are. You're saved because of what Jesus has done and who he is. So as we sing this song, I ask for one of two things for you. If you don't know Christ yet, I pray that you would join in singing this song for the first time and to say that Christ alone. My hope is found. He is my light, my strength, my song, this cornerstone, this solid ground firm to the fiercest drought and storm. What heights of love with depths of peace. So much beauty in this song that you would sing that for the first time. And you wouldn't mean it. But if you're a Christian and you've been a Christian for a long time, that you would sing this as a reminder that it's Christ alone that has saved you, and I encourage you to stand to your feet. And now he's going to lead us in a song.