Over the past several weeks we’ve been working our way through Paul’s letter to the Philippians and we’ve discovered how joy isn’t something that simply happens to us. It’s a deliberate response to the realities of who Christ is and what He’s done in our lives.
We've explored how joy can flourish in our lives in many different ways. Joy flourishes when we share in God’s mission together. Joy flourishes when Christ is exalted even in hardship. Joy flourishes when we embrace Christlike humility. And joy flourishes when we obey God with faithfulness and serve others in love.
But now, as we come to Week 5, I want to ask you something: What is the one thing you treasure most in life?
For many of us, the things we treasure are often tied to our accomplishments, relationships, or experiences — things that bring us a sense of fulfillment or happiness. For example, I remember hearing the story of a man who had spent years saving up for the perfect car. He dreamt of it for years, and finally, after many sacrifices, he drove it off the lot. To him, this was the culmination of years of hard work and discipline. It was everything he imagined it to be. But within six months of owning the car, he realized something: it didn’t bring the lasting joy he had imagined. The thrill of the new car wore off, and in its place was that same gnawing emptiness in his life.
It’s easy to see how we place our joy in things that fade. Whether it’s a possession, a position, or a place we hope to be in life, there’s always something new that promises fulfillment. But true, lasting joy doesn’t come from what we acquire or achieve. It’s not about our next big thing or our highest achievement. True and lasting joy comes from something far more secure — It comes from truly knowing Christ – it comes from placing our hope and our trust in Christ, and in Him alone.
This is the challenge Paul presents to us in Philippians 3. He shows us that the only thing worthy of being the highest treasure in our lives is Christ Himself. Everything else pales in comparison to knowing Him. And when Christ becomes our greatest treasure, joy flourishes in ways we can’t even begin to imagine.
Here’s the core truth from this passage today: joy flourishes when we treasure knowing Christ above all else. This truth transforms the way we live, it anchors our joy, and it frees us from the things that so often steal our attention and affection. So, I want to challenge you this morning, as we unpack this text: reflect on that question — “What do you treasure most?” Because what you treasure most will shape where you seek joy — and only Christ can give the joy that truly lasts.
Let’s turn our attention to our key text for today: Philippians 3:1-11. Verse 1 opens with a challenge for us all to …
I. Rejoice in the Lord: Anchor Your Joy in Christ (vs. 1)
Paul begins this passage with a powerful and familiar exhortation: "Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you."
This isn’t just a passing encouragement — it’s a command. Paul doesn’t say, “Rejoice when life is going well” or “Rejoice when you feel like it.” He simply says, “Rejoice in the Lord.” No qualifiers. No exceptions.
It reminds me of Paul’s words to the Thessalonians: “Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess. 5:16-18). Joy in Christ isn’t optional. It’s essential.
And what makes this command even more striking is Paul’s situation. He’s writing from prison, facing uncertainty, opposition, hardship, and suffering. Yet, his words aren’t filled with self-pity or despair. Instead, he urges believers to rejoice — not in their circumstances, not in their accomplishments, not in fleeting pleasures, but in the unshakable reality of Christ.
Choose Joy in Christ! This is a deliberate decision, not a passive emotion. Paul isn’t calling us to chase a feeling but to anchor our hearts in a truth that transcends our experiences. Joy in Christ is rooted in who He is and what He has done for us. That’s why Paul keeps repeating this theme throughout Philippians — because he knows how easy it is for us to tie our joy to temporary things: our success, our comfort, our circumstances.
But here’s the problem — if our joy is attached to things that shift and fade, then our joy will be unstable at best and non-existent at worst.
Paul’s call to rejoice in the Lord is a call to stability. He’s telling us that when our joy is in Christ, we won’t be tossed around by life’s highs and lows. We won’t be easily discouraged, easily swayed, or easily shaken. Because Christ is constant. He is unchanging. He is the firm foundation of our lives. And when we fix our joy in Him, we become spiritually grounded in Him.
Paul not only calls us to choose joy in Christ, but also to Safeguard Your Soul. He gives us a reason why this is so important. Look at the last phrase of verse 1 – He says, “... it is a safeguard for you.” In other words, joy in Christ is a spiritual safeguard — a protection for our hearts and minds.
Why? Because the moment our joy drifts from Christ, it starts attaching itself to something else — our achievements, our performance, our circumstances, our religious efforts. And that’s dangerous.
The early church faced constant attacks from legalistic teachers – false teachers – who insisted that faith in Jesus wasn’t enough — that believers needed to add works, rituals, and human effort to their faith in order to be truly accepted by God. Paul knew that once believers started placing confidence in these external things, they would lose sight of the freedom and sufficiency found in Christ alone.
And that same danger exists today. It may not come in the form of Judaizers telling us we need to first convert to Judaism in order to be a Christian, but it still creeps in when we start measuring our spiritual worth by our religious performance — how much we read our Bible, how often we serve, how long we pray, how much we do for God. And while these things are good and necessary, they were never meant to be the source of our confidence.
Paul’s warning is clear: If we don’t rejoice in Christ, we will rejoice in something else. And when our joy is misplaced, we become vulnerable to pride, discouragement, and deception. That’s why rejoicing in the Lord isn’t just about having a positive outlook — it’s about spiritual survival … it is a safeguard to our soul.
And so, Paul challenges us to Rejoice in the Lord: Anchor Your Joy in Christ, and secondly …
II. Reject False Pride: Lay Down Your Misplaced Trust (vs. 2-6)
Follow along with me beginning at verse 2 – Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision; for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh, although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation 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 the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.
Paul moves from calling us to rejoice in Christ to warning us against placing our confidence in the wrong things. Look again at what Paul says in verse 2: “Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision.”
These are strong words of warning. They’re like a flashing warning light: “BEWARE! BEWARE! BEWARE!.”
“Dogs” was a term often used by Jews to describe Gentiles as unclean outsiders, but here Paul flips the insult on the Judaizers – those who insisted that Gentile believers had to follow Jewish customs, like circumcision, in order to be truly saved. Paul calls them “evil workers” because, instead of bringing people into the freedom of Christ, they were leading them into bondage. And he refers to them as “the false circumcision” — literally, a mutilation — because they had reduced what was meant to be a sign of God’s covenant to a meaningless religious ritual.
Paul’s warning is clear: Beware of False Confidence. The greatest danger to the Philippians’ faith wasn’t external persecution – although that was very real for them – but the greatest danger was the subtle temptation to trust in something other than Christ alone.
False teachers promoted a salvation that depended on outward performance, not on inward transformation by the Spirit. But Paul makes it clear in verse 3: “We are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.”
The mark of a true believer isn’t physical circumcision – it’s not our religious performance — it’s worship that flows from the Spirit, a heart that boasts only in Christ, and a faith that refuses to place confidence in human effort.
This is where we must examine our own hearts. Where is your confidence? Is it in your religious habits? Your moral record? Your spiritual disciplines? Now listen, don’t get me wrong. These things are good things! These things demonstrate the fruit of our salvation, but they are not the source of our salvation.
It’s so easy to subtly place our trust in how much we do for God rather than in what Christ has done for us. But legalism creates a false sense of security, measuring spiritual success by external effort rather than internal surrender.
Paul doesn’t just warn against this misplaced trust — he dismantles it with his own testimony, showing us why we must Abandon Self-Reliance. Look again at verses 4-6: “Although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation 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 the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.”
If religious credentials could earn righteousness; that is, make us right before God, Paul had every reason to boast. He was born into the right family, raised in the strictest traditions, and lived with unmatched zeal for his faith. If anyone could stand before God on the basis of their own merit, it was Paul. Yet, as we’ll see in the next section, he came to realize that all of it was worthless – it meant nothing – compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ.
Here’s an important truth: The greatest threat to faith isn’t failure — it’s pride. Failure can drive us to Christ, but pride keeps us from seeing our need for Him. As long as we think we’re good enough, strong enough, or righteous enough, we’ll never truly depend on Christ. But when we lay down our misplaced trust and recognize our absolute need for Him, that’s when we experience true joy, true freedom, and true righteousness.
Paul challenges us, first of all, to Rejoice in the Lord: Anchor Your Joy in Christ, secondly, to Reject False Pride: Lay Down Your Misplaced Trust, and that leads us to his ultimate conclusion in verses 7-11 …
III. Receive Christ’s Gain: Treasure Him Above All (vs. 7-11)
Follow along with me starting at verse 7 – But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
The challenge for us is clear: Count It All As Loss. Look again at what Paul says in verse 7, “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.” Paul completely redefines what is truly valuable. Everything that once seemed like an advantage — his status, his heritage, his achievements — he now considers it all as loss in light of the surpassing value of knowing Christ.
This isn’t just a shift in priorities; it’s a total transformation in how he evaluates worth. Paul’s entire identity is no longer tied to what he’s done but to whom he belongs.
He takes it even further in verse 8: “More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ …”
Everything apart from Christ is loss. Not just his religious credentials, but “all things” — anything that competes for his devotion to Christ. Paul calls all of it "rubbish" (s??ßa???), a word could be translated as garbage, filth, or even excrement. That’s how worthless everything else is compared to the treasure of knowing Christ. When Christ is your greatest gain, nothing else can compare, and nothing else can satisfy.
We are challenged not only to count it all as loss, but to Cling to Christ Alone. Paul continues in verse 9: “... so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.”
True righteousness is received, not achieved. Paul once believed righteousness was something he could earn, but now he sees that it is only given by grace through faith in Christ. His confidence is no longer in himself but in Christ alone. The gospel declares that our standing before God isn’t based on our works but on Christ’s finished work. This is why Paul can rejoice so fully — his righteousness is secure in Jesus.
But Paul’s longing goes deeper than just being declared righteous — he yearns for deeper intimacy with Christ. Look at verses 10-11: “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
To know Christ is to experience both His power and His suffering. Paul wants to know the power of Christ’s resurrection — not just as a future hope but as a present reality, a power that transforms his life now. But he also embraces the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings in the now, because suffering with Christ is part of walking with Christ. The path to resurrection hope always leads through the cross.
This is the heart of defiant joy — treasuring Christ above all, counting everything else as loss, and resting in His righteousness alone. When Christ is our greatest gain, nothing the world offers can compare, and nothing we lose can rob us of our joy.
This isn’t just Paul’s testimony; it’s a call to every one of us. The question isn’t whether Christ is worth it — the question is whether we will count everything as loss to gain Him.
But, listen, Paul’s words demand more than just agreement — they call for a response. So where is your confidence? What are you clinging to that keeps you from fully treasuring Christ? Is your trust in your own efforts, your background, your achievements? Or have you surrendered it all to Christ, counting everything else as loss so that you may gain Him?
Paul had everything – his status, his heritage, his achievements – yet he joyfully let it all go to gain what mattered most. He didn’t just add Jesus to his life — he laid everything else down so that Christ would be his life. This is the call of the gospel: to turn from self-reliance and place our trust fully in Jesus, to be clothed in His righteousness rather than our own.
If you have never surrendered to Christ, let today be the day. Trust in Him alone. Stop striving to be good enough — Christ has already done what you could never do. Be baptized into Him that you might be clothed in His righteousness, not your own. This is the response of faith — laying down all that we once held dear, counting it all as loss to receive the surpassing value of knowing Christ.
And listen, if you are already in Christ, then live in this joy. Let go of the things that compete for your affections. Treasure Christ above all, because there is no greater gain, no deeper joy, and no truer righteousness than what is found in Him.
