Scripture: Philippians 3:1-11
When I first got here a couple of months ago, I shared with you a testimony about coming to faith in Christ in 1984, and the importance of my youth minister, Bill Bullard. To say the least, Bill was the most important and formative influence on my young Christian life. It’s very possible I wouldn’t even be a Christian today, much less a pastor, much less yourpastor, if not for Bill.
On this All Saints Sunday, I’m grateful to God for him…
So when Bill died two years ago, Lisa and I were eager to attend his memorial service, in Atlanta, at what used to be Briarcliff Baptist—the church I grew up in. It’s now “under new management” as a different church, with a different name—but the building is still there. And Bill’s service was held in the old sanctuary. There were a few hundred people there—including at least dozens of old friends and fellow youth group alumni.
During the funeral, many people eulogized Bill. And each of them talked a lot about “the good old days”— about various “youth group” outings and activities and antics that we were all part of… They talked about the crazy things that happened during youth camps, and on youth retreats, and during youth lock-ins. And of course, it was all made possible, they said, because of Bill, and his love and dedication. “Good old Bill! Thank you, Bill. We love you, Bill, and we will miss you.”
That was the tone of the service. But something was missing…
And here’s what it was: Everyone was talking about Bill. Almost no one said anything about Jesus!
What made this omission especially heartbreaking to me is that so many of my fellow youth group alumni at that service had long since dropped out of church. Many were lapsed Christians, or backslidden Christians, if they were still Christians at all. And at least one of them—a dear old friend whom I love—had long since become a professing atheist. And they were all there at this funeral!
No one invited me to speak, sadly, but if I could have, I would have reminded my fellow youth group alumni of events from 40 years earlier—but not mostly what Bill did for us 40 years earlier… but what God did for us, through Bill’s leadership, 40 years earlier—what God’s Son Jesus did for us through Bill. Because it wasn’t about Bill back then… Bill made sure it wasn’t about Bill back then…
All those times we shared tearful testimonies around campfires, or gathered in small groups for prayer, or attended Bible study, or sang and worshiped to songs like, “I’ve Got a River of Life Flowing Out of Me,” or “Victory in Jesus,” or “Pass It On”… That wasn’t about Bill… I was there. I remember. It was about Jesus… how amazing Jesus is… what Jesus has done in our lives. What Jesus is doing in our lives! To him be glory forever, amen!
So, all that to say, the funeral was slightly depressing… Not that funerals are usually a lot of fun… But it was depressing in an unexpected way: Because I left thinking, “How is it the case that so many people I grew up with in church—so many people whom I watched ‘walk down the aisle,’ profess the Christian faith, pray a sinner’s prayer, get baptized, ‘rededicate their lives to Christ,’ on many different occasions,”—because that’s what Baptists did back then! “But how is that so many of my brothers and sisters in Christ stopped having a living, vital, ongoing, life-giving, growing relationship with Christ?”
What went wrong?
I grew up in a church that emphasized, for instance, the importance of testimonies… of people coming to faith in Jesus—testimonies describing the sinful lifestyles they lived before Christ… And how they found Jesus, repented of their sins, gave their lives to Christ. These kinds of testimonies were an important feature in our youth group: One time, for instance, our youth group went to a summer youth camp that featured a nephew of Elvis Presley… a nephew through his marriage to Priscilla. And this nephew used to go on tour with Elvis; he became part of the so-called “Memphis Mafia,” Elvis’s entourage.
And this man didn’t spare the gory details of what it was like living on the road with Elvis—gory details of the rock and roll lifestyle that he lived for that period of time… We kids in youth group were really interested in the “gory details” of testimonies like this! “Please tell us more!”
Anyway, shortly after this rock and roll lifestyle caught up with Elvis himself, and he died at age 42, Elvis’ nephew found Jesus, he repented of his sins, he got saved… Praise God! And, he said, his life was never the same since.
And these testimonies predictably ended with words like that: “And my life has never been the same since…” The End.
Surely, even though many of you are probably lifelong Methodists, unlike me… surely you heard testimonies like this, right?
But maybe this is the problem with many of the kids in my youth group… Their own testimony reached “The End” just around the time it should have been getting started…
Because, while “becoming a Christian” is important and necessary, by all means… Everyone has to get started at some point… But “getting started” isn’t nearly as important and necessary as what? As continuing in a living, vital, ongoing, life-giving, growing relationship with Christ!
In many ways, however, continuing in the Christian life is the hard part. Jesus says so himself… Remember the Parable of the Sower? A farmer scatters seed all over the ground. Some falls on the hard footpath. So it never takes root. Birds come and eat the seed. That seed—which represents the gospel—never causes a person to even “get started” in the Christian life in the first place. They reject Jesus and the gospel immediately.
But then some seed falls on rocky ground. That seed does take root and starts to grow. The person receives the gospel, receives Christ, and “gets started” in living the Christian life. But that person then falls away as soon as trouble comes.[1]The same goes for the seed that falls among thorns. The person who receives it “gets started” in living the Christian life—before letting “the cares of this world,” Jesus says, “and the deceitfulness of wealth” ruin their newfound faith.[2]
Only the people represented by the fourth kind of soil—the fertile soil—become Christians and stick with it… and go on to produce a great harvest of faithful Christian living.
My point is, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that so many of my fellow youth group alumni abandoned the faith. Jesus implies that this happens all too frequently.
But not if a pastor like the apostle Paul can prevent it! In today’s scripture, Paul is rightly concerned about this danger of “falling away,” even among members of a healthy church like the church at Philippi. Paul has already seen the potential warning signs on the church’s horizon… There’s an increasing divisiveness and argumentativeness in the church, there’s increasing pride and self-centeredness. Worst of all, perhaps, is what Paul described back in chapter 1… Listen to verses 29 and 30:
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.
Paul is a man who suffered on account of his faith!
I point this out because of what Paul says in verse 8 of today’s scripture, yet another favorite verse of mine. But before we can understand what it means, let’s first notice what Paul says in verses 2 through 6—and why he says it. False teachers are trying to persuade these Philippians that Jesus Christ isn’t enough for salvation. They need to believe in Jesus, by all means… but they also need to add a few extra works of the law… like, for instance, having all Christian men get circumcised. He calls these teachers, “those who mutilate the flesh.” That’s harsh…
Paul has nothing against circumcision. His problem is with so-called teachers who insist that Christians have to get circumcised if they want to be saved.
As Paul repeatedly emphasizes, you don’t have to do anything to be saved, other than to repent and believe in Jesus. Why? Because the gospel means that Christ has done everything for us to save us.
Besides, if salvation were a matter of what we have to do, Paul ought to be the first one to say so… Before in his own life before Christ, he did all the stuff. He had all the credentials. He was as “righteous” as they come… assuming it were possible to become righteous through trying to obey the Law, which it’s not.
So verses 5 and 6 serve as a kind of résumé of Paul’s life before conversion: He was saying, “I followed God’s Law as strictly as anyone could. So you can trust me when I say, ‘Salvation doesn’t come from trying to follow God’s Law; it comes only through Christ… and nothing that we do to earn it or deserve it!”
But Paul doesn’t stop there… He doesn’t merely argue that Christ alone is enough for salvation—as incredibly important as that truth is; he goes on to say that Christ alone is enough for… life… for lasting happiness… for joy… for satisfaction in life… for contentment in life… for peace…
For anything that we could desire in this world, Jesus is enough! As Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Being in a relationship with Christ—knowing Christ— is everything!
It’s greater than any worldly treasure we could pursue or possess!
And make no mistake, in verses 5 and 6—as Paul describes the things that he valued before his conversion—he is describing what for him, in his particular culture—as a zealous young Jewish man living in the first century—represents the greatest worldly treasure imaginable. From a first-century Jewish perspective, Paul had it all… He had everything someone like him could want in this world. This was the greatest treasure he thought he could possess when he was a young man!
Yet what does he say about that treasure now… in verse 8, one of my favorite verses in all of the Bible?
He says, “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 count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”
Paul says, in other words, that literally everything else, in comparison to having living, vital, ongoing, life-giving, growing relationship with Christ is utter garbage. Our English Standard Version politely translates it “rubbish,” but that feels too sanitized. Paul is saying that these things are trash that you literally throw out onto the streets and let mangy dogs scavenge through… It may even rightly be translated—as the King James famously calls it—“dung.”
Paul now says he doesn’t need anything… except Christ. Paul now has nothing to show for himself… except Christ… Paul has now lost everything… except Christ.
And get this… Paul couldn’t be happier… He couldn’t be more joyful…
Christ was enough for Paul! Christ is enough for us! We don’t need to look anywhere else for our treasure! He’s enough!
In his sermon on this scripture, pastor Tim Keller said that over the course of his decades-long career as a pastor, he would occasionally face a crisis at his church—as we pastors sometimes do. And he would get upset, worried, nervous, panicky. And he said that during those times his wife, Kathy, would be a far better Christian than he was… far calmer… far more peaceful. Far more faithful. And she would remind him, “Tim, we just have to trust in the Lord.” It wounded his pride that he needed this reminder!
Over that same time period, however, whenever one of their thee kids was going through some crisis in their lives, the roles suddenly reversed. Suddenly Tim was a “much better” Christian than Kathy; suddenly he would be the calm in the midst of the storm; he would be the faithful one: “Kathy,” he’d say, “We just need to trust in the Lord.”
What was going on here?
While both Kathy and Tim loved their church, Tim alone made the church his treasure… in addition to Christ. In other words, being regarded as a successful pastor was a treasure to him. Which meant he would get upset when things were going wrong at his church—because those things threatened his success.
Meanwhile, while both Kathy and Tim loved their kids, Kathy alone made parenting success her treasure… in addition to Christ. She placed great value on thinking of herself as a successful mother. Therefore, when something was going wrong with her kids, and she didn’t know how to prevent it or fix it or control it, she, and not her husband, would be the one to fall apart.
Why was this happening to both of them? Because they were treasuring things in addition to Christ. They were looking to things in addition to Christ to fill them up, to satisfy them, to make them feel good about themselves, to bring them happiness… to bring them joy.
And the truth is, Paul says, in comparison to the treasure that we possess in a living, vital, ongoing, life-giving, growing relationship with Christ, any other treasure is garbage.
There was a thought experiment that made the rounds several years ago involving Microsoft founder Bill Gates, when he was the world’s richest man. But it could apply to any number of people today. It went like this: Imagine someone like Bill Gates walking down the street and seeing a small piece of currency—say a $100 bill—lying there on the sidewalk.
For most of us, picking up that $100 bill would feel like a win. I would immediately go to Amazon and buy five vinyl records. But consider this: some estimates showed that at one time Bill Gates earned on the order of $110 to $120 dollars per second from his investments and salary.
Which meant that by the time he’d finished picking up that $100 bill—assuming it took him even a few seconds to bend down, secure the bill, and stand back up— he might have earned more than that $100 just by virtue of his usual income.
In that sense, why on earth would Bill Gates ever bother to stoop down and pick up $100 bill lying on the sidewalk? It doesn’t mean anything to him!
Now think about what the apostle Paul says in Philippians 3:8. Paul is saying: I’ve found something—someone—so infinitely valuable that everything else—status, comfort, wealth, even suffering—is like “loose change on the sidewalk” compared to Christ. It’s trivial… Just as the billionaire might regard $100 as trivial—because his benchmark of value is so high.
Similarly, we are invited to see that knowing Christ sets our benchmark of value so high that everything else falls far short.
If Christ is our treasure, the things of this world become “rubbish,” not because they’re necessarily bad in and of themselves—they might be very good—but because they’re overwhelmingly out-classed by the value of knowing Christ.
Remember the old hymn: “And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace”? That’s exactly right!
So when you hesitate to let go of some worldly treasure—be it comfort, possessions, relationships, reputation, money—ask yourself: relative to what I have in Christ, is this one “$100 bill” worth all the trouble, the time, the distraction from what’s really valuable, which is a relationship with Christ? Paul says: No—what we’ve gained in knowing Christ farexceeds it.
And this brings back to the recurring theme of the letter: joy. Let’s look briefly at verse 1: “Finally, my brothers [and sisters], rejoice in the Lord.” To rejoice in the Lord literally means, “to find joy in the Lord.” It means to treasure Christ above all. He goes on, “To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.”
Paul is aware that he risks repeating himself when he talks about the importance of joy throughout this letter, but he says it’s worth repeating himself. Why? Because, he says, it “is safe for you.”
That’s literally what he says, but that’s not much help: What does that mean? “It is safe for you.” It means what nearly every other modern Bible translation says it means: “It is safe for you” means, “it is a safeguard for you.”
A safeguard for what? A safeguard for continuing in a living, vital, ongoing, life-giving, growing relationship with Christ. A safeguard against backsliding… A safeguard against losing one’s faith.
Remember what I said earlier about my fellow youth group alumni? Those whose Christian faith at one time took root… who at one time received the gospel and accepted Christ as their Savior only to fall away later…?
I wonder… If they had looked for and found their lasting happiness and joy in Christ alone—and continued to look to Christ alone as their source of joy—rather than to be tempted to find their joy in any other worldly treasure… would so many of my youth group alumni have fallen away?
Because make no mistake: Paul implies that to lose one’s joy in Christ is to risk losing one’s faith.
If you read my devotional booklet a couple of weeks ago, I hope you at least smiled at the part where I said that I wanted to be a rock star back when I was a teenager. It’s true! As I said, my lack of both natural talent and a desire to practice my instrument the way I needed to foiled that dream!
According to God’s Word, however, even being a rock star pales in comparison to what you and I have in Christ. Being a rock star is rubbish, garbage, dung… If you don’t believe it, ask a genuine rock star who knows from whence he speaks… A rock star like Alice Cooper, for instance. Yes, the same guy who sang, “School’s out for the summer.” Like so many rock stars, at one time he was killing himself through addictions to alcohol and drugs. Jesus got hold of him, though, back in the late-’80s, and he has been an outspoken Christian since then.
I mean, he still loves music and continues in his career, but he loves Jesus much, much more. He’s always a great witness for Christ! Listen to what he told a TBN interviewer not long ago:
I think if you don’t have the Lord in your life, you’re always going to be trying to fill that hole with… something. It’s either going to be drugs, or it’s going to be Ferraris, or it’s going to be houses or wives or this or that… or fame. And you’re never going to achieve it because there’s that inner thing [within] us… when we’re born… of reconnecting with God… that [impulse is] there. And even if you’re denying it… that’s what you’re searching for. And so they’ll go, “So the new fad is this… I’ll go be a Buddhist… [I’ll go be a] a vegetarian goat yoga person… And they go through everything and still don’t find it. And the last place they look is the Lord… When you give yourself fully to him, that’s where the fulfillment comes from.[3]
Are you finding your joy in Christ? Or are you trying to find it somewhere else?
Take it from a formerly frustrated teenage wannabe rock star: All the joy, all the fulfillment, all the satisfaction, all the happiness you need in life is found in Christ!
[Prayer… transition to Communion…]
[1] Matthew 13:20-21
[2] Matthew 13:22
[3] Alice Cooper, interview, facebook.com. Accessed 1 November 2025.