Joy Beyond Performance
- Stephen Phelan
- Jul 26, 2009
- Series: Joy
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Joy Beyond Performance
Mid-City Philippians 3: 1-11, 7/26/09
We’re in a series on joy and this week we’re going to look at how joy relates to performance. For most of us, joy is only experienced in the midst of our success; yet, when we fail or blow it royally, joy sails off into the sunset. So we’re going to look at 2 things this morning—the absence of joy and what leads to it and then the presence of joy and what leads to it.
(1) Absence of joy
So let’s begin by thinking about what causes joy to sail off into the sunset. According to our text, here is the bid idea: If you are not experiencing joy, then it is because your confidence is in the wrong thing (v3-4 call this the flesh). Putting your confidence in your flesh, or your ability, is a surefire way to have joy set sail out of the harbor of your heart.
Let me put this in modern terms. Paul says the way to live a joyless life is to put your trust in your resume. See he effectively gives you his resume in v5-6 and says I use to trust in this and think God liked me b/c of this. But that was before I met Jesus—that was when I was religious, and then Jesus showed me how much he hated religion and now I do too.
You see this in v2. Paul says, “Watch out for those dogs.” The dogs were a group of religious people opposing Paul’s work. Everywhere he planted a church they would go and oppose his work. He preached a message; they would counter his message. He preached grace; they preached works. He preached Jesus; they preached resume-building. And so he says, “These are religious dogs.”
And don’t think golden doodles, labs, and little lap dogs—no, these were ravenous, mangy, rabies-infested dogs that roamed the street fought over scraps of food. And he says—this is what religious people are like. They are harmful. They will kill you. My friends, you need to know this. The God of the Bible hates religion. He says religion or religious people are like ravenous street dogs that want to mame and harm you. Ironic, isn’t it, that on the subject of religion, the God of the Bible agrees wholeheartedly with the New Atheists like Dawkins and Sam Harris who scream so loudly against religion and point out how dangerous religion is. God agrees.
And Paul says I know how dangerous religious people are because that is exactly what I was. I was a religious dog myself. The dog of dogs. I barked with the best of them. I was a religious resume junkie and my resume was impeccable. No one could beat it. And he lists his resume for you in v5-6. “Circumcised on the 8th day (means he was Jew from beginning (not convert);
“of the tribe of Benjamin”—was one of 2 tribes of Israel that were true to house of David, which meant he came from the best family line you could have;
“Hebrew of Hebrews” (many Jews were Hebrew on the surface, but underneath they were Greek, they had been Hellenized culturally and Greek was the mother tongue—not Paul;
“as for zeal, persecuting the church (activist in religious movement—he wasn’t all talk, look at his record);
“as for legalistic righteousness, faultless” (amazing—OT has in its first 5 books more than 600 commandments and Paul says he is faultless on 600 counts)….BUT…then he met Jesus and Jesus redefined what true righteousness was in the sermon on the mount & other places. And I realized I was just trying to make a legal case so that God had to approve of me.
Paul says I was a religious person who felt that I had to have a resume to impress God. I thought my legalistic righteousness—my resume, my performance—was going to bring me into relationship with God but in reality my righteousness (or self-righteousness) was the very thing keeping me from a joy-inducing relationship with God. Now, according to
v8--I consider it all rubbish and I have one thing on my resume and that is the name of Jesus Christ.
Now rubbish is a really, really tame translation of the Greek word there. In some translations they use (NLT) garbage, KJV (dung), Message (dog dung), WNT (turd). One 17th century translation more accustomed to agricultural settings actually translates this using a four letter word that begins with s. I will let you use your imagination. I loved what Marc Driscoll had to say about this. He said, “When you go to the bathroom remind yourself that what you are looking at is religion in the eye of God.” That is what he thinks of religious behavior done to impress or bind him. It stinks to him because it keeps you from trusting in a Savior named Jesus b/c instead you are trusting in yourself and your resume.
See Driscoll says this, and I think he is right. He says, “Jesus+ anything ruins everything.” Jesus+ church attendance; Jesus+home schooling; Jesus+political affiliation; Jesus+sexual orientation; Jesus+social justice; Jesus+teaching in children’s church. Rubbish, garbage, a four letter word beginning with s. If you are putting anything else on your resume and expecting God to like you or forgive you or let you into heaven, then you are not a Christian. You’re religious, but not a Christian.
Nathan Coles realized this very late in his life. He was an illiterate farmer in Middelbury CN that heard George Whitfield preach in 1741 and he wrote in broken grammar, “My hearing him preach gave me a heart wound and by god’s grace my old foundation was broken up and I saw that my righteousness could not save me.” This is the day he became a Christian—he had been religious for years. He had been trusting in his righteousness—his efforts, his resume. And he finally realized his resume wasn’t enough, his righteousness couldn’t save him, and he repented of putting his v3 confidence in the flesh as Paul says here in v3. He put his trust in Jesus. He deleted his religious resume and put one thing on it: Jesus. And Jesus is enough. And Jesus brings joy.
Religious resume building only brings pride when you are successful because you made it, you have the best resume, you’re a good, moral person and so of course God likes you; or it brings despair when you blow it. You can’t go to God b/c, well, he would never want to be with an addict like me, with a miserable failure. On the contrary, Jesus came to heal the sick, not those already in good shape.
Eating disorders are rampant on the college campus and beyond. Why? B/c girls are using their bodies as resumes to give to guys so that they can be accepted and loved. Your joy is in the hands of 20 yr old males—a dangerous thing.
Those of you in the marketplace. You are coming home at night and you can’t sleep. You are ripped up by anxiety because you are not succeeding at work. You can’t stop thinking about your sales quota; you’re desperately afraid that you boss won’t recommend your for a promotion or, even worse, that you will get caught up in all of the layoffs that are going on. You want your resume to be enough at work. Your joy is dependent upon in your performance, and ultimately, how your boss views your performance.
Or let me talk to those of you whose career has shifted to your kids and you are a stay-at home mom or dad. One danger is when your resume becomes your kids. If Rex or Ronda does well in school and behaves and gets into a good school, then you are somebody. But the problem is that your joy is dependent on the performance of your child.
See in each case joy follows performance & perception. If the guy tells the girl that she is thin and beautiful and sexy, then joy is their for a moment that then pops like balloon being pricked with a pen when he doesn’t call her back. Same thing when your boss doesn’t approve of your work resume or other parents don’t approve of your parenting resume. See Paul says in v8 rubbish, they compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus. And you wont know joy or Jesus until you stop building your life around them and start building your life around Jesus. For joy is found in Him and being found in Him.
Well, this leads us to our 2nd point
2. Presence of Joy
Main idea: If you want to experience joy, then you must be continually found in Jesus (v9). I consider them (my resume building) rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him.” That is what your heart is longing for—to gain Christ and be found in him.
When I was young my mom and I went to Kmart. Kmart was big in those days. And they had the racks of clothes that were circular. As a kid this was a dream because you could hop in the middle and it was great for hide-and-seek. Well, hide-and-seek went a little too far one time and I lost my mom. Panic set in. And I did what all other kids do who lose their parents—I started crying. And the lady got on the microphone and within seconds my mom was hugging me. She came and found me. This is the best way I know how to describe what Paul is talking about. You have tried so hard, either to build a secular or religious resume that impresses others and brings joy to you and really your efforts are much like the little boy hiding in Kmart. You’re trying to hide your failures and you want your successes to be found—you pop those out of the clothes rack. At some point, you pop out of the clothes rack and nobody is there. Your alone in the world and you feel lost and the people you were hiding things from are gone altogether. And you cry just like the lost child in Kmart and you call his name—Jesus—and he comes and finds you hugs you and says you’re enough and joy explodes.
Finally, You don’t have to keep trying to impress God with your resume. Rather, he is impressed with you b/c of what His Son Jesus has done for you, and you are found in Him. You are enough because Jesus is enough, and you are in Him. You are a son or daughter of God because Jesus is the Son of God, and you are in Him. You are loved by the Father b/c Jesus is loved by the Father, and you are in Him.
See this is what Paul means when he says in v8-9, “that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law (or my resume), but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.” Gift righteousness my friends. Your righteousness—your resume—comes to you as a gift. You swap resumes with Jesus. He takes yours to the cross, and he gives you his perfect resume. And as a result of you trusting in the perfect resume of Jesus, you are found in him; his righteousness becomes yours. You are enough. The Father is pleased with you.
Will you forget this? Yes. Will your joy leave you. Yes. That is why I said If you want to experience joy, then you must be CONTINUALLY be found in Jesus. Continually is the key word. See even after trusting in Jesus and being found in him, you’ll go back to resume building. Now you don’t fall out of relationship with Jesus when you do this, you basically just tell him that you don’t need him right now. You’re going to trust in the flesh—in your abilities to make it in the world. Again, your joy will leave b/c What you’re doing is wandering away from the source of joy. and what a Christian does—what a follower of Jesus does—is they recognize this and repent b/c repentance brings you back to Jesus. Jesus, I need you again, today, this minute, b/c I started trusting in myself or in someone else or my boss or a friend and their approval meant more to me than yours.
Let me give you an example. I will get a little spiritually naked with you. When I was in law school, I used to have this recurring dream. Normally I don’t remember my dreams, but when you have them over and over finally you remember it. Here was my dream. For some strange reason, I couldn’t remember to go to class. And then when I would remember I couldn’t find the class. All semester long this went on until I finally found the class and I got their and to my horror the professor was handing out the final exam. I was toast. I hadn’t been too class all semester. I knew nothing. I was going to fail and everyone would know that I wasn’t even smart enough to remember to go to class or find the class.
I never told anybody except my wife about this dream. Then one day I was reading John Eldredge and he talked about the common phenomenon of having a recurring dream of not going to class and not being able to find class. And I thought, “What. You mean others are like me. Man, what a messed up world we live in.” See, unfortunately, lots of us are resume builders and we want to be found by others to be enough. See for me, at that point in my life, Jesus wasn’t enough—I had to have what I deemed to be success in school and the respect of my peers. And as I repented and in faith came back to Jesus and put my trust in him then the dreams began to leave. I placed my future in his hands, my grades in his hands, resolved to do my best and let him get me wherever he wanted me with those grades. But I knew that I was enough—not because of my grades, but because of the surpassing greatness of being found in Christ. God looked at me and saw the greatness of His Son Jesus, and I was enough. Joy returned.
See friends I have resisted giving you a neat and tidy little definition of joy. Not that there is anything wrong with a definition, but rather than giving you a definition, I want to give you Jesus. Joy is a person. Jesus said so in John 15:11. He said, “I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you & your joy complete.” Joy is Jesus. True joy is continually being found in Jesus, that his joy may be in you, making your joy complete.
