Joy in Knowing Christ | Philippians 3:1-11
What is your proudest accomplishment? What is the one thing you’ve done that makes you feel a sense of pride when you look back? If you could put one achievement on the top of your resume for everyone to see, what would it be? Many of us do things just so that we can say that we have done them so that we can impress others. Naples is filled with type A personalities who are at least moderately successful in life. We live in a day of extreme and constant competition. Students build resumes to get into the school of their dreams. (Harvard gets 54,000 applicants and only 1,970 are admitted) People pad their resumes to get the next job. (The average job posting gets 250 resumes but only one person gets hired). We tweak, edit, exaggerate and flat out lie to make ourselves look as good as possible to get an advantage. One study found that 4 out of 10 people lie on their resumes. Why? Because our resumes are how we prove that we matter. They’re how we show our worth. Every one of us has a spiritual resume. We polish it with good deeds, church attendance and being a good person. We compare ourselves with others and think, “I’m not perfect, but I’m better than that guy next to me.” If your standard of comparison is the person sitting next to you then you don’t have a very high standard. The problem with competition and comparison is that it is exhausting. There is always someone who is better, faster, stronger, smarter and holier than you are. It is a never-ending treadmill in futility that leads to misery not joy.
Paul from prison is writing to his friends in Philippi to encourage them to be united in the gospel and to choose joy not the shallow happy that the world offers. In Chapter 3, Paul shifts back to the theme of joy and shows us that the ultimate joy in this life and the life to come is knowing Jesus. It is not found in what we achieve, but in Who we know. Lasting joy does not come from your resume, but from a right relationship with God through Jesus.