Sunday message · Defiant Joy series
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Message Summary
Continuing through Philippians, Pastor Phillip Santillan preaches Philippians 3:1–11 and opens with a familiar habit: seeing how a fellow Christian posts or votes and quietly doubting they are as serious about Jesus. Believers size up each other’s theology, parenting, schooling and spending too, always keeping score, even with God: confident after a good week, distant after a bad one, though his grace never changes. Phil asks, “What are the things I am using to convince myself that I am okay with God?”
In verse 1 Paul calls repetition no trouble and a safeguard: routine maintenance, Phil explains, like a doctor giving the same advice at every checkup. Whoever the dogs and mutilators of verse 2 were, they represent a temptation no church outgrows: adding something to simply repenting and trusting in Jesus. Phil imagines the Philippians cheering when verse 3 says they put no confidence in the flesh, just before Paul shows he could outdo them all.
Paul’s own record follows: circumcised on the eighth day, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee, zealous enough to persecute the church, blameless under the law. Everyone has some version of verses 5 and 6: “You have a list. I have a list.” Some lean on pedigree, like a Christian upbringing; some on devotion, like a Bible degree; some on zeal for hard truths; some on a scorecard of sins they avoid.
Yet Paul counts every gain as loss, even dung, compared with knowing Christ and having a righteousness from God through faith. Phil’s Bible college paper on verse 8 had a title so blunt his professor laughed: Paul’s word, skubala, was a known vulgarity for excrement. In Luke 14 Jesus says disciples must, by comparison, hate even family and their own lives. Nothing noble or spiritual may outrank knowing Christ; God delights when people live by his standards, but that never earns his acceptance. Growing believers eventually ask, “What would it actually cost me to call my list a loss?”
Phil recalls a jazz guitar lesson that was all demonstration and no teaching; good teachers start where a student is. Verse 3 speaks in the plural, and churches build lists too: how long people have attended, how visibly they serve, how much theology they know. James told the Jerusalem Council not to make it difficult for Gentiles turning to God, yet churches can still measure newcomers against a finished faith instead of helping with their next step. The goal is not merely acting like Jesus but knowing him, as verse 10 says.
Phil challenges listeners to name their list, call it a loss compared to Jesus this week, and tell someone. Anyone still trusting that list can rest today in what Jesus has already finished. Even asking whether one is okay with God keeps score; Paul wanted people out of the scoring business entirely. The real question is, “Is my passion for Christ greater than the things I’m being asked to let go of?” He urges the church to keep its first love; whoever lacks that passion should find it, because Christ never lets anyone down.
