Where do you derive your value?.

Well, if we haven't met yet, my name is Nermalis, and I'm the associate pastor here at New Culture, and I'm super excited that you decided to join us today. We are continuing our sermon series on the book of Philippians. So today we're going to be jumping into Philippians chapter 3, verses 1 through 11.

Whatever happens, my dear brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. I never get tired of telling you these things, and I do it to safeguard your faith. Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved. For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort. Though I could have confidence in my own effort. If anyone could, indeed if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more. I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin, a real Hebrew if there ever was one. I was a member of the Pharisees who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church, and as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault. I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake, I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count my own righteousness through obeying the law. Rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I'll experience the resurrection from the dead.

Philippians 3:1-11

Paul always has strong things to say.

Our so what is to know Christ is to find the most valuable thing. Our now what is seek to know him above all else. Seek to know him above all else.

Paul's credentials

Really quick, I just want to talk about Paul and the people he's talking to. Paul is a Jewish man. He was born a Hebrew with a clear lineage to the tribe of Benjamin. This is a big deal.

For reference, talking about the tribe of Benjamin, way back in the Old Testament when Israel's being formed, it's being born. There are 12 brothers. Each brother gets a tribe. Benjamin is one of those tribes. This is a big deal to say that you're from the tribe of Benjamin. Moses is from the tribe of Benjamin. Esther is from the tribe of Benjamin. Like these big names in the Jewish faith are all from the tribe of Benjamin. This is something to flex about when you meet people. You know, this is like being like, my auntie is Queen Esther, you know, the one that like saved our entire people from mass genocide. That's my auntie. We spent Christmas together. You know, like this is a big deal.

In that culture, society would have viewed his ability to trace his lineage as being purely 100 percent Jewish as being like a big deal. Because racism. They weren't really into mixed breeding. That's how they viewed it. So the fact that he could be like, no, like I can trace my lineage. I am 100 percent Hebrew Jew. Big up for him.

Not only did he come from the right place and the right people, he also lived a very prestigious lifestyle. He was a Pharisee. The Pharisees were not priests. I think sometimes we get those mixed up in our heads because we go from the Old Testament where the only religious leaders are the priests or the prophets. Then we jump to the New Testament and there are Pharisees and Sadducees and all these different things.

The Pharisees are not priests. The Pharisees are basically a group of religiously trained and educated men who upheld the strictest and most fierce versions of Jewish law. They were both religious and political leaders and teachers of that law. They were the top of Jewish society, and Paul was among the top of the Pharisees.

Everything society and culture would hold in high esteem, everything that society would use to assign Paul value, he possessed and he had it in abundance. Like he wasn't just the top. He was the top of the top of the top. And then he says, we rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us and we put no confidence in human effort.

How we measure ourselves matters. What we derive our value in matters.

Where do you derive your value?

Let me ask you a question. Where in your life do you derive your value from? I'm not really asking that rhetorically, like, where do I get value? I'm also not looking for a Sunday school answer of like, Jesus. But like, legitimately, where in your life do you derive value from?

A good way to check that is what in your life, if it suddenly decided to reject you, would you suddenly feel less valuable because of it? Do you derive value from what people think of you and their opinions? Do you derive value from material things? Do you derive value from how well you perform in school or at your job?

I have a very dramatic version of this. I'm going to tell you my story.

My very first job ever was at a preschool. I was 14 years old. Looking back, I don't know why they put a 14-year-old in charge of a group of eight two-year-olds. But that was my first job. When I was 14, I got a job as an assistant teacher at a preschool. By the time I turned 16, I'd gotten promoted to closing supervisor. By the time I was 18, I was teaching Spanish for the after-school program. So for kindergarten all the way through fifth grade, I had all these different Spanish curriculums I was teaching.

Then I went away to college and I got a job at a church after-school program. I was teaching middle schoolers. Then when I moved here, I got a job right away at a preschool and I was working in an infant classroom. So I have worked with kids or had worked with kids for nine years. That is all I had ever done. My first job all the way through, that is what I did. I really enjoyed it. It was really, really great for the most part.

However, last year it just got to be too much. Last year I was working about 50 hours a week, like on the clock at the preschool. That didn't include any hours I was doing writing curriculum, writing evaluations, all these other different things that I had to do. We had mandatory continuing ed. All these different things that didn't count in my 50 hours a week.

Then I was also working here at the church doing different things. I also tried to have a social life because why not give it a shot? I had all these different things going on in my plate. I got to a place that wasn't great emotionally, mentally, but I was also physically exhausted and not super functional.

I got to that point and I remember talking to my dad on the phone. He's like, Nermalis, I think you need to get a new job. And I remember talking to Abbie, and she's like, Nermalis, I think you need to get a new job. And everyone I talked to was like, you need a new job. Like, you can't keep doing this.

But for some reason, as much as I knew this isn't sustainable, I was like, no. Like, what else would I do? What would I do other than working? Like, what else would I do? Then November 11th of last year, I went on my lunch break. On my way back to work from my lunch break, I looked at the clock. In my head, I was like, oh, I'm going to get back on time to laminate some stuff for my curriculum. Then I came a couple hundred feet down the road with my airbags in my face. Then somebody was calling an ambulance. Then I was being pulled out of my car. Then I was in the ambulance. Then I was at a hospital. Then a police officer was talking to me. Then a doctor came in and kicked everybody out and sat me down and said, hey, you had a panic attack behind the wheel and blacked out. You need to sleep.

That was her advice for me. You need to sleep. That set off a chain of events with me trying to figure that out. But you know what I didn't think I should do? Get a new job. That is not at all what I thought I should do. I had 10 million things of here's how I'm going to fix this issue. One of them was not, I'm overwhelmed and need to find something else to do.

It wasn't until five months later before I finally started putting out applications to get a different job that was more sustainable that I could actually manage. It wasn't until my very last day at the preschool when I clocked out, sat in my car. Am I the only person that likes to take pictures of myself when I cry? I have a photo of myself in my car in this moment sobbing. I sat in my car sobbing and I was like, is it because I'm going to miss the babies? Because I would. Is it because of this or that? Like why am I having a breakdown in my car leaving a job I don't want to have anymore?

Because I was good at it. At the time it honestly felt like it was the only thing I was good at doing. I was really scared that I wasn't going to be good at my new job. And then what? I just suck at everything?

I found so much value in the fact that I was good at my job. I was a good teacher. I wrote good curriculum. I got good evaluations. I had great relationships with the parents. I was really good at it and I really didn't have to try to be good at it. I found a lot of my value in how good at my job I was.

The risk of leaving that to do something else was really scary. I didn't even realize how much of my value I found in the fact that I was good at this. What if I'm not good at the next thing? I found so much value in it that I was more scared of leaving that job than I was scared of having another incident like the one I had had months prior.

So let me ask you that question again. Where do you derive your value from? I told you my version was really dramatic. Hoping you're not over here blacking out while you're driving, you know? But where do you derive your value from?

Growing up is changing your perspective

A sign that you've matured and grown is that your perspective on what is valuable changes.

Paul continues and says, I no longer count my own righteousness through obeying the law. Rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ and become one with him. I no longer count my own righteousness through obeying the law. Rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith.

There are a lot of things that looking back on, at one point or another, I thought were like the end all be all. Now I understand they were nothing less than kind of silly. I'll give you a really goofy example.

In middle school, I was a really big sneaker head. I had a sneaker obsession. I needed all of the nice shoes. I had like, and I kept them in their boxes and I used to line them up and I used to clean them. It was like a whole thing. It was a regimen. I was really into my sneakers.

I remember being so embarrassed because my mom used to like go to Belk's Outlet and Marshall's and she would like wear the knockoff versions of the shoes that I wanted. Like the real shoes that I wanted so bad. I was like, nah, that's not going to be me. When I'm grown, I'm going to have a whole shoe budget.

Fun fact, I'm grown now. No shoe budget. Because you know what's really valuable? My rent. And my groceries.

You know, like what we find valuable changes as we grow and as we mature. Don't get me wrong, I still have nice things. I like nice shoes. It's not like I no longer find any value in that. It's that I now understand it's not the most valuable thing. I now look back and I'm like, I have nothing to be embarrassed of.

Listen, I have this really cute pair of shoes that when I first got them, everyone kept complimenting me on. I told them all immediately, I know you think I'm wearing Yeezys. I'm not. They were 15 dollars. They're absolutely knockoff. And I am okay with that because again, rent.

What we consider valuable changes as we grow and as we change.

Immature Christianity

When you first enter into a relationship with Christ, we treat him like human relationships. You want to impress him. You want him to see all the shiny, sparkly parts of you because you value things that are young. Like you value how people perceive you. You value getting all the things done and showing up and serving and doing all these things to impress this Jesus that you're in a new relationship with.

Immature Christianity values performative righteousness over genuine faith. But only genuine faith can produce genuine righteousness. Only knowing Christ can produce genuine faith.

So in the beginning, we obsess over all the things we're doing because we think the goal in Christianity is righteousness. The goal in Christianity is not righteousness. It's knowing Christ. By knowing Christ, he makes us righteous.

Immature Christianity measures righteousness by how long you can stay in the prayer room. It measures Christianity by how pretty and well organized and thought out your journal looks. It measures righteousness by how many church events you jam pack your schedule with.

Immature Christianity produces Pharisees, whitewashed tombs, pretty on the outside but decaying on the inside.

Paul says, I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.

God's way of making us right depends on faith. That faith is fostered in the context of relationship with Jesus. Our faith is worked out in knowing Jesus.

Knowing someone changes things

Knowing someone changes things. But knowing Christ changes everything.

You can't experience someone or fully experience them unless you know them. I think the best way to kind of explain that is in terms of first impressions. Right? Like the first time you meet someone, you have an impression of them. That does not mean you now know this person. You have experienced a version of this person. Even if it was a very authentic version of them, it was just a first impression. You cannot experience who they are without knowing them.

One of my best friends in the world is Ashley. You've definitely heard me talk about her. When I first met her, I was like, she's funny. She's cool. We could be friends. That was pretty much my entire opinion of her.

However, it wasn't until I truly knew her that I got to experience her. It wasn't until I knew her weird habits and like strange things and how she has to fold her socks and like all the weird stuff that I got to experience the fullness of Ashley.

It wasn't until I knew the hard things and why she reacted certain ways and the experiences that she had had in her life that I was able to fully experience her. It wasn't until I knew why she loves the way she loves that I was able to fully experience being loved by her.

It wasn't until I knew her that I got to go from knowing her to having a friend that I love and a friend that is worth pursuing friendship within different time zones.

When we know someone and we prioritize knowing them, that's when things change. Knowing Christ changes everything.

I think so many of us are trying to do life with the Jesus that we met watching VeggieTales. We're trying to overcome hardships with the Jesus that we encountered just in that one sermon, that one time. We're trying to do life with like the Christian radio stations are on here. Ours was the Joy FM. Like we're trying to do Jesus with that one. We're trying to do life with what we heard and these are wonderful and they're true and they're authentic introductions to Jesus.

But we're trying to be married to someone we met yesterday and we're not getting to know him. Knowing Christ, truly knowing Christ changes everything because we're so busy trying to overcome the hardships of life. We're trying to reach people. We're trying to be good Christians with a morsel of who Jesus is.

The goal of the Christian faith is not to become righteous. The goal of the Christian faith is to know Jesus. By knowing him, we are transformed by him.

Closing: we become what we behold

I'm going to be closing with this.

Paul closes this statement and he says, I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience resurrection from the dead. I want to know Christ. I want to know Christ.

Maybe you've heard this said. Maybe you haven't. I feel like I've heard it said a million times, but it's a really true statement. We become what we behold. When our eyes are fixed on something, we become like it. It's literally like the first thing my dad taught me when he taught me how to drive was to look where I want to go, because when you look in a different direction without knowing it, your car starts going in that direction with you.

Where we fix our eyes not just determines where we go, but it determines who we are. It determines who we become. It changes us. When our eyes are fixed on something, we become like it. When we come to see knowing Christ as the most valuable thing, when we make seeking to know him our highest priority, we will become more like him.

Our so what today was to know Christ is to find the most valuable thing. Our now what is to seek him above all else.

Did you know that there's like one wild, supernatural miracle that we see in scripture that every single believer gets to experience? Every single believer gets to have this one insane miracle. You get to be resurrected from the dead.

That is the wild miracle that every single believer gets to experience. When we come to Christ, when we accept him as our Lord and Savior, we die to ourselves. The old passes away and Christ breathes new life in us, and we get to experience a resurrection.

This is what baptism symbolizes. A couple weeks ago, we had our fourth birthday and some members of our church got baptized and we got to celebrate that. But that's what it means to be buried with Christ and then to be raised to life with him. This fleshly thing, this life that I've lived, it's not just changed. It's dead. We get to have a new life. We all get to experience that.

Meeting Christ gives you resurrection life. But knowing Christ is how you live the fullness of resurrected life.

I'm going to invite you guys to go ahead and stand up on your feet. I'm going to have everyone close their eyes, bow your heads.

The goal of Christianity is not righteousness. The goal of Christianity is to know Christ. The best part of that is that it releases us from the burden of thinking that we have it in us to be righteous on our own. It releases us from the burden of consistently sitting in a cycle of failure and it gives us the freedom to walk in the grace. My job is to know Christ and in knowing him, he will transform me.

Today we're going to close really, really simple. I'm just going to ask that if you're in this room and you know in your heart of hearts that you need to shift the goal. You need to shift from I want to do these things or become this person or all these different things. You need to shift perspectives to I want to know more of Christ. Because this is an ongoing process. This is an everyday kind of thing.

If you're in this room and that's you and you just want to know Christ more, I'm just going to ask that you put your hands out in front of you as an act of surrender.

I have this thing called baby prayers. They're the most powerful prayers I've ever prayed and they're usually one to two sentences. I'm going to invite you guys to pray one of those with me today to close us out of service.

So if you'll just repeat after me. Jesus, I want to know you. Come and show me who you are. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

Alright, guys, we'll see you next week.