Transcript
Then y'all good. You looking good. We got that extra hour of sleep, so I'm expecting just a little bit more yell back participation for this morning cuz you have candy in your system and extra sleep, right. Like we got we got no excuse this morning, okay.
I hope you enjoyed it. I I have some extra energy because I I had a week off. So, if you were here last week, you got to hear from from Pastor Mark.
I hope you enjoyed that. And it was it was really great for me to have like just confidence in knowing that like I could trust the person that would be up here and giving the message. But, it was also like reaffirming to me as somebody whose love language is words. I'm not hinting, by the way. Somebody whose love language is words to hear all of his words the kind words that he said when he came up here because it kind of it fills me with confidence.
It fills us with confidence to know that there are people in other churches that are praying for us and rooting us on as we build his kingdom here. So, it was it was just a really good experience. And I and I hope it was for you, too.
The reason why I was gone, in full transparency, was not for a vacation or time off. My wife had a surgical a planned surgical procedure. And we if you've ever been in the situation, I have like several times with either my wife or even my son has had a surgery before.
And if you have ever been in that situation where you're the caregiver, it can be a little bit intimidating at one particular spot in the whole process. And that is the spot when you separate from that person as they go back into that procedure room, right. Because what you're thinking is they're about to go on anesthesia, and there is somebody that is literally keeping their breathing happening.
And that is just a really intimidating thing when you just let yourself kind of sit with that feeling, right. And I I'm just so thankful for doctors and nurses for being some of the most confident people. Because can you imagine, like by the way, can you imagine if they weren't confident. Like if they were just like, I don't know, we're just going to like knock them out and like cut them open and then we're going to see what happens.
Like you like I'm going to go to somewhere else, right. You they have to be confident. They have to portray that that confidence. And that confidence is so important to to be able to walk with, to put in other people. But in 2026, we've kind of came to this problem where our confidence is not as strong.
And when I say confidence, I don't mean like ego and pride. I mean like a confidence that comes from Jesus. And what happens is you toss in things like social media where we're comparing resumes and appearances and different things like that. You throw in marketing, endless information, our own pride, the past, whatever you throw in in the 2026 scope of things, you have a whole recipe of things that are trying to steal away any bit of God-centered confidence that you might have. And so where you're putting your confidence or what you're putting your confidence in is so important.
And how do we grow in our confidence. And that's what we're talking about today in the book of Philippians is where does confidence come from. And to do that, we're going to pull open the word of God.
We've been in the book of Philippians. It's on page 1012, by the way. As I said earlier, if you don't have a Bible, take this one home with you. It is our gift to you.
It is our joy to give out the word of God and and to let you experience that for yourself. But just a little bit of context as you're finding your place, we're in the book of Philippians. It's about four chapters long. We're at the beginning of chapter three.
And what this is is it's a letter wrote by this guy named Paul who is in prison and he's writing to a church that he planted 10 years prior. And he's writing with joy because of the ways that they have been growing as a church in their faith and thanking them for gifts that they've given. And now he's going to kind of shift into a language about how important it is to have confidence in Christ. He starts out in verse one by saying this, "Further my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.
>> Okay, I was just looking for any kind of smiles. Rejoice in the Lord. It's okay, Minnesotans, to show some emotion, to rejoice in the Lord. Paul reminds us of this multiple times.
Here's another time that he does. "Rejoice in the Lord. It is no trouble to me to write the same things to you again and again cuz apparently we forget.
And it is a safeguard for you. Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those manipulators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by the spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh.
So this is what Paul is teaching us, okay. The first thing that Paul is teaching us about God-centered confidence is to put confidence in your faith in Jesus, not in the flesh, okay. And so what Paul is doing is he's starting out this section of his letter by saying, "Hey, you need to watch out for things that are going to try and maybe take or steal or take any kind of confidence in Christ that you might have. He actually kind of gets colorful with his language during this particular part of Philippians.
He says watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, right. It's his way of saying, "Look, there are really bad people and they're going to try and steal your joy, they're going to try and steal your confidence and steal any type of confidence in Christ that you can walk in and through life with. " And so what he does is he kind of gives us just to start out and get our minds and our hearts right three things on how we can have confidence in our faith and not in the flesh. The first one is this is by staying in your Bible.
Now, you might be like, "Wait a minute, Josh. Where is that in the text. Where does it say stay in your Bible. " It says rejoice in the Lord, okay.
And then he says, "I'm reminding you of this and I have no trouble reminding you of this because it is a safeguard to you, okay. " He is repeating himself. He is repeating himself. He is repeating He's following me.
He's repeating himself here because he wants you to know that having the word of God, the rejoicing of God wrote on your heart is going to give you this confidence that can no longer be stolen. So guess what. When you pick up this book this week, just waiting for the whole room to feel the conviction. When you pick up this book this week, it is not a have to, it is a get to.
Because as you pick this book up and you read the words that are the inspired truth of God, it is going to fill you up as a safeguard with joy and confidence. And that is what Paul is saying. But here's what research centers have found just to even psychologically back us up that Bible engagement they tracked Bible engagement. The Barna research group tracked it. And what they said is reading this Bible about one time a week, there's really no change.
Two times a week, not really any change. Three times a week, not so much there. But, four or more times in a week, and this is what happened. That things dramatically started to shift.
Loneliness became lower. Feelings of being stuck or bitter or unforgiveness or anything or being spiritually stuck and even there was a rise in being confident in sharing your faith. And so, psychologically the research is out there that shows that this isn't just something that we check off a list and read like a novel on a bookshelf. This is the inspired word of God.
And it fills us up with that kind of confidence. And that is what Paul wants to remind us of. The safeguard that we have in the joy of Jesus. And then Paul goes on to talk about the dogs and the evildoers.
And then he says this in verse three. For it is we who are the circumcision. This is the fun in preaching verse by verse. I just can't skip this, okay. So, here's what we're going to do.
If you want to know about what circumcision is, I'm going to tell you to ask your growth group leader, okay. So, that's what you're going to do. I'm kidding, okay. If you if you want to ask about the particulars, you can go ahead and do that.
But, here's what circumcision is, okay. Circumcision is in Jewish tradition one of these things that kind of like expressed this this outward expression of faith, okay. It was they were all about like rules and rituals and making sure that the outward appearance was there for everybody to kind of see, okay.
And this wasn't just in circumcision, this was in many different things, okay. And how we translate that into 2026 is not necessarily through circumcision, it is through our outward appearance, okay. A lot of us will lose our confidence because we are focused much more on our outward appearance than our inward heart.
And that what that is the point that Paul is making here. He says, "For it is we who are the circumcision. " So, what he is saying is that there is an inward heart that is much more important than that outward appearance, okay.
And so, let me just let me give you a biblical parallel here. Let's look at an Old Testament story. There is this guy by the name of David, you might have heard of him. He was the the little kid that slung the stone and knocked down Goliath, okay. And when when Samuel went to the house of Jesse, which was David's dad, he went and he asked Jesse, "Hey, line up all of your boys.
I'm going to anoint one of them as the king. " And so, Jesse lines up all of his sons except for David because David is scrawny, he's out with the sheep, he doesn't he doesn't make the cut in Jesse's eyes. And so, what happens is Samuel is looking at some of these these boys and he's not getting this this anointing from the Lord of like which one should I go for. And so, he says this, it'll be in the screen in 1 Samuel , he says, "But the Lord said to Samuel, do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at things that people look at.
People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. And so for us, this means more than our resume, more than the makeup in the mirror, we need to be focused on the inward heart. And that is where we keep in confidence.
Number three, he says, "Not only is it keeping that they are the circumcision, but he says, "For it is we who serve God by his spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus. " And so if we want to keep this faithful confidence, we need to follow the Holy Spirit. And this is so important even as a I think about it from the perspective of a pastor. Pastors come across very confident, almost like the the doctor, nurse kind of thing.
But here's what I'm going to say. Of those three things, you can put all three on the screen. Of those three things, if I don't keep in those three things, I'm going to lose my confidence to stand up here.
And this one, as important as the other two are, they are very important, but this one is of the utmost importance that I am keeping in step with the Holy Spirit. And it isn't so vitally important for you, too. Let me give you a a a metaphor of kind of what this looks like. If we were to go down to the Mississippi River right now, and let's say it's high tide, it's high current, it's you know, there Where does the Mississippi end up. In the ocean, right.
And there's this current that pulls through the river. What Paul is kind of saying here is that for us to keep in step in the spirit, it is going to feel like walking upstream through the current of that river. Now, is that difficult when it is really strong. Of course it is.
But here's the catch. Is when we have the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit becomes our strength to walk against the current of the world. And a lot of us, if we are not in step with the spirit, here is what is going to happen. We will go along with the current or the tide of the world.
You see what I'm saying here, okay. You tracking with us here. So, for us, we need to stay in step with the spirit to be walking in those ways with the spirit against the current of the world.
Now, a little bit about Paul here. Paul could have floated with the current and been completely okay. And that's the danger for you and I is that sometimes we can go with the current of the world and it's like, oh, we're not hurting anybody. It's not It's not a big deal. But if anybody had that excuse, it was Paul.
Paul had every excuse to just keep going with the current because he had everything in the world playing for him. Look at verse four. Let's continue on.
Let's Let's look at what Paul has going for him. He says, though I myself have reasons for such confidence, if anyone thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, guess what. That's what he says. I was circumcised on the eighth day. You want to talk about circumcision.
On the eighth day. Of the people of Israel. Of the tribe of Benjamin.
I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews. In regard to the law, a Pharisee. As for zeal, persecuting the church. As for righteousness based on the law, I'm faultless, okay. He's like giving the best rap verse that you've ever heard about just gloating right here, okay.
But here's the thing. Paul is not doing that to brag about his resume, okay. Paul is doing that because he has a reason that is better than his resume. And so your confidence does not come from your resume, it comes from your reason.
Now, let me explain what I mean. I don't have time to get into all of the biblical particulars here, but if we were to break down Paul's resume here, if we were to break down all of those things that Paul is saying, here's here's essentially the 2026 translated version. Paul was a straight-A student, a valid victorian.
He did all of the right things. He went to Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. He did all of the right things. He had all of the right jobs, got all of the right right awards, and he's saying none of it matters. Now, in 2026, man, this is a hard one.
In 2026, this is what we do. We often times will give our resume as our reason instead of giving Jesus as our reason. And so what ends up happening is we think that by our works, we are then saved.
And so God, I I prayed, so that means you're going to do this for me. Or God, I gave, or God, I did this, or God, I served at church, and so you're going to do this for me. It's almost like we're giving God some kind of resume, a checklist of things that we've done right. And what Paul is saying is, "Look, if anybody's got a reason to brag, I've got it.
And none of it matters. Because real confidence doesn't come from your resume. Because honestly, things can change. Let's think about it from like a job perspective, okay. We've We could do a study of American history and see that through our history that there have been people that have worked in manufacturing or in some kind of factory, right.
And they're doing a job with their hands. And then all of a sudden, a machine comes over and and takes over, and that person's job is irrelevant, right. We don't know anything about this with AI, right. But there like something happens, and then all of a sudden, all of the years of experience that that person has is not irrelevant, but the value has changed. You see, the value of your resume, of your accomplishments can change.
But the reason that we have in Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And so we can rejoice in that. And so what Paul is saying here is that my confidence doesn't come from my accomplishments. It comes from the reason I can accomplish anything in the first place. And that reason is Jesus.
And so he gives us Oh man, this is my favorite part of the message. You're ready for this. He gives us where our confidence should be. Our confidence is in Christ, okay.
Verse 7 is man, one of my favorites in Philippians. It's such an underrated verse. Verse 7 says, "But whatever But whatever in life, whatever were gains to me, whatever I had, whatever I've been talking about here, whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
What is more, I consider everything a loss because of what. The surpassing worth of just knowing Christ, Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things, I consider them garbage. " I want to stop there.
When Paul is saying garbage, this is a hilarious word to do a word study of at some point because it's translated in many different ways. Bob knows where I'm going with this. The real translation, this is the closest that the Bible comes to saying the word crap, okay. That's all I'm going to say, okay.
If you want to know what the actual word could be, ask the setup team. They'll throw it around at you. But not not your pastor. I'm good, okay.
>> >> Basically, what he's saying is it's all dog poop, okay. It's all crap compared to Jesus. Everything that you have.
So, let me break that down for you. Anything you've accomplished, anything you've done, everything that you would add to your resume, all of that has no value in comparison to your relationship with Jesus. And so, whatever you gained, you need to now It's almost like what Paul is saying is, "Look, you If you want to follow Jesus, you need to get in a new game.
You need to get in a new league, and you need to like change your mindset to match this. " Let me illustrate this for you, okay. In 10th grade, I was on a bowling team, okay. And as a perk to being a part of this bowling team, we'd get 50% off of games. And so, our parents would just drop us off, and we'd just sit there and bowl.
But, here's the thing. When you bowl game after game after game after game, it gets kind of boring as as a as a 10th grader, okay. So, we came up with this game.
You have full permission to play this game, okay. It's called Bolowana, okay. And what the game is is you put up the bumpers for every single player, and you try to get the lowest score possible, okay. And you can't throw it into the gutter. The gutter will count as a strike, okay.
So, we're playing, and we have these dangerously low scores, okay. And just know, if you play this, you're going to get a lot of looks, and we got a lot of looks. And so, this guy walks by us, and I'll never forget the look that he was giving me. He was like looking at the scoreboard and like looking back to at me, and he said, "Wow, you guys are not playing to win.
And I looked back at him, and I said this, "We're playing a different game. " And that is what you're doing. If you are following Jesus, you are playing a different game.
Some things that you see as gains, the world will be like, "Why are you giving your money. Why are you spending your time there. Why are you preparing a meal for somebody. What What are you doing there.
What That doesn't make any sense, right. " The world would consider as a loss. But, the opposite is true. Some of the things where the world is saying, "Hey, chase this, do this, have this, look like this. " Whatever they're saying, you're saying, "No, no, no, hold on.
That's not what this says, okay. That's not what God says. " And so, you are playing a different game because everything that you once had or could gloat about is now considered garbage to knowing Jesus.
Now, it doesn't mean that none of that stuff does like has any no value whatsoever. It just means in comparison to your relationship with Jesus, it is nothing. Because you can't take any of that stuff with you anyways, right.
And so, your relationship with Jesus is so important. So, Paul goes on to say, "I consider them all garbage that I may gain Christ. " Verse 9, "and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ, yes, to know the power of his resurrection and the participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow obtaining the righteousness from the dead.
" Here's what Paul is saying here. That's a a lot of like Bible language to take in, but this is this is what he's saying. His confidence is not in how good he is, but how good Christ is.
So, not only is his confidence in Christ, but the confidence that he has is from Christ. And so, if you have a life that has been transformed by Jesus, which by the way, if you don't feel like you have, you're invited to that today. But if you feel like you have a life that's transformed by Jesus, what's really great about where your confidence comes from is it's not in what you have done, it is in what he has done.
And so that confidence can start to play out in and through your life. Let me give you an example of this. There was a famous preacher or theologian, you might have heard of him before, his name was Charles Spurgeon.
And he tells a story from about 130 years ago where he was sitting with an old man in the park and Spurgeon was having a conversation with him and he said, "Well, I hope that" at the end of the conversation, he said, "I hope that when you die, you'll go to heaven. " And the man's response was, "Well, I never did anything, so why would I go anywhere else. " In other words, what he was saying is, "Well, I've been a good guy, so where else would I go. " And Spurgeon kind of observed in this in this particular book and it's kind of something that we've seen, right. Is that at the end of people's life or even through their life, they'll say, "Well, I've never really hurt anybody.
I'm I'm better than most people or, you know, God will let me in when it comes to the subject of heaven. " And it kind of gives this impression like God is like a bouncer at a nightclub. Like, "Hey, you're cool enough, you can come in.
Hey, you did enough, you can come in. Hey, you slipped me some money, you can come in. " But that's not confidence in and from Christ. And so how do you walk with that kind of confidence. Paul tells us here.
He says, "Look, it's not about how good of a person you are, it is about how God is good and that you are a God-centered person. And so he says we can walk ready destination. This is the good news of this message. You, Destination Church, can walk in confidence confidence because of the righteousness of Christ. That is where if you don't know what that means, righteousness is the right standing of Jesus.
That means that Jesus stands in your imperfections all the way to the cross. And he stands in that imperfection and says, "I'm going to take all the hit for all of the places where they are not good enough, okay. " What Paul is saying here is we can walk in confidence because guess what.
You can have a relationship with Jesus. You can have a relationship with that person who is righteous and stood in your place. And we can walk in confidence because not only is he present in our everyday, but he is present in our sufferings.
And so all of the stuff that we go through that tries to steal and take and destroy our confidence, what Paul is saying is look, Jesus sits with you in that. And that you can walk with confidence by the power of his spirit with you and his death and resurrection. Destination, this is good news.
This is news to rejoice over that we can walk with confidence in a world that tries to steal and kill and destroy your confidence. And so in the beginning I asked, "How do you know if you're putting your confidence in the right thing. " How do you know if your confidence is in Christ.
And the truth is if your confidence is in your appearance, your performance, your resume, all of those things are in jeopardy of being stolen. Things can change. People can change.
But the confidence that you have in Christ cannot be taken from you. And so real confidence comes only from Christ. And so hear me, if you're in here today and you are feeling man, I every week, Josh, is a battle for me. Every week I'm in my own head about, you know, being the provider of my family and not feeling good enough as a husband, as a father.
Maybe you're a woman in here and every week you're looking at the mirror and every imperfection is the first thing that you think about. I want to tell you that Jesus wants to meet you in that moment and give you the Christ-centered confidence. And let me just illustrate how vitally important this is. Remember the surgery thing from the very beginning. Here's how I had confidence in what was happening behind those closed doors.
Because the truth is I didn't understand how everything was happening. I didn't understand the fullness of the of every detail of the procedure. But here's the thing, I knew who.
Each time I knew the surgeon. I had met with the surgeon. We had have conversations with the surgeon.
Here's the good news for you. You can walk in confidence not because you know how, but because you know who. And your who is in Christ, is in Jesus.
So here's how I want you to respond. Just take a moment of reflection here to bow your heads and close your eyes. We'll bring the worship team up, but this is just a moment where you can just shut off some of the noise and ask God just how he how you should respond to today. Maybe God's been speaking to you because maybe you've looked for confidence in all of the hows. You've tried to get confidence in your appearance, in your performance, in your speech, in your resume, and whatever it is, and nothing seems to be working.
And maybe the first step for you today is to put your confidence and faith in Christ. Paul tells us that all of the other stuff of this life is garbage compared to knowing Christ. So, if you're here and that's you, your first step might be to make a decision for Jesus.
And so, mark it on a card, go to the prayer table after, don't leave here without starting a relationship with Jesus. He wants to meet you in those moments. And for the rest of us, maybe you're here and you feel like your confidence has been stolen.
That it's stolen by your appearance, by not feeling good enough, that you really resonate with those feelings. Here's what I want to tell you. Christ wants to restore your confidence this morning. And so, come confidently before Christ believing and knowing that he can and he will.
And that's why we can rejoice. That's why we can rejoice in Jesus. Let me pray for you. Jesus, I thank you so much for the confidence that you give us. That we can come confidently before your throne and that we can say with confidence that you won't put us away, that you won't throw us out, but God, because we are your children, we can come to you.
God, we can mourn and cry about all of the the ways that we feel like we're falling short of this world, but God, help us to remember that we are playing a different game. God, that all of it is a loss compared to a relationship with you. And so God, we come to you boldly for your confidence, to walk with your confidence, to walk with your spirit as we go forth this week. In Jesus' name.
