I've been talking lately with a friend of mine who's been visiting churches. He moved into a new area and so he's been going to a different church every week, just checking out the options he has. And every week, he talks to me and gives me the update from his latest church visit. And the thing I've noticed is that almost everything he says is negative. So far, his report is always the same: the music was bad, the preaching was boring, the ministries were lacking, the people were cold and unfriendly. And the thing is, I know this guy pretty well. And in this case, I'm pretty sure the problem is not him. He's not an overly critical person. He's not just out to be entertained. He really wants to find God and be challenged and encouraged in his faith in God, but he's not finding it anywhere.

I'm sure that many of you can relate to my friend's experience. We all have experiences like this from time to time. We look at the church and say, "Good grief! How in the world did THIS captivate and change human history?" And the obvious answer is that it didn't! We've lost something. Somehow along the way, we've drifted and we've turned Christianity into just another safe religion with our own set of rites and rituals, but we've lost sight of the radical message of Jesus Christ. This new sermon series we're starting today is titled, "Counter-Culture Christianity", and the idea behind it is to try and point us back, back to the way Christianity was in the beginning, back to the real message of Jesus, the message that captured hearts and changed lives and ultimately, changed the world.

Our text for today from Philippians 3 is a great place to start this journey. Paul says, in verse 10, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection!" Sounds like my friend. And you really see passion in this early follower of Jesus—the kind of passion that seems to be so lacking in so many churches today. Paul says in verse seven, "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things." Now, that's passionate faith. In fact, Paul goes on and gets so passionate that Bible translators don't really know how to handle it. He goes on and says, "I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him." That's actually not the best translation of what Paul says there and the reason it's not is because Paul's real words are actually pretty vulgar. The word translated "rubbish" is actually the word for human excrement. (Can I say that in church?) The King James Bible actually translates Paul's words better: "I count them but dung." That's pretty gross, but it's actually much closer to the original Greek than "rubbish" is.

But what is he talking about? Well, he's talking about his life before he knew Jesus and comparing it to his life now, now that he does know Jesus. And notice carefully how he describes the change he's seen in his own life. It's not his sin that's changed. He's not saying, "You know, I used to lie and cheat and steal, but now that I know Jesus I don't do that anymore." No, in fact, he goes to great lengths to not say that. In verse 12, for example, he says, "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect." No, no, no! Not at all.

And this is very important to see because many people get this wrong—both inside and outside the church. People often get the wrong idea that somehow being a Christian is supposed to make you morally superior. And so, we're shocked when we hear things like statistics that say that people inside the church get divorced just as much as non-Christians do. Or, we hear about a brother or sister in Christ who's given in to temptation and we say, "How on earth did that happen?!" Well, I can tell you how those things happen. They happen because Christians are sinners! They happen because we mess up too—sometimes badly. The thing that defines us as a people is not our moral superiority, it's grace.

This is what Paul is trying to say here. The truth is, not much has changed in his life in the area of sin. For example, Paul would probably admit that in his old life, he knew lying was wrong and he tried really hard not to do it, but sometimes he did anyway. And now that he knows Jesus, Paul still knows that lying is wrong and he tries really hard not to do it, but sometimes he does anyway. See what I mean? That's not where he saw the big change.

The big change was not in how he viewed sin, but in how he viewed something else—something he calls "righteousness." What is that? Well, righteousness is "the stuff that makes me right." And so Paul gives us this great list. It's a list of what he used to think made him right. And it's a pretty impressive list. It starts in verse five.

He says he was "circumcised on the eighth day." Understand, that's not just biographical information, like a birth date, or something like that. What Paul is telling you is that he was born a Jew. He wasn't an adult convert. He was an insider from the very beginning. This kind of thing still happens today. I know of pastors who have been called to little churches in tiny towns in rural America who, even after serving there faithfully for say, ten years, still say, "People still think of me as an outsider, because I wasn't born here." Paul says, I was born into this. I was an insider.

More than that, he was "of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin." Now, if you look on one of your Bible maps you'll see that Benjamin was the tribe that included Jerusalem and the Temple. It was also the tribe that produced Israel's first King, who, by the way, Paul was apparently named after: King Saul. So, Paul wasn't only born into the Jewish faith, he was part of the most prestigious tribe.

He goes on and says he was "a Hebrew of Hebrews." In the fourth century there was a Christian preacher and leader named John Chrysostom. And in some of his writings that have been preserved for today he comments on those words and he says that what Paul meant by that was that he spoke Hebrew and Aramaic, not just Greek. In other words, he spoke the "mother-tongues" of the Jewish faith. Again, if Chrysostom was right, this would be another way Paul could demonstrate his insider credentials.

Then he says he was a Pharisee. In other words, he was highly educated. To say you were a Pharisee is like the ancient version of saying, "I got a Ph.D. from Harvard."

"As for zeal," he says, "persecuting the church." In other words, he was radically committed. And again, we admire this kind of thing today. All Christians today, for example, say we care about the poor, and we do. But then there's Mother Theresa! See, zeal and commitment is a credential that brings admiration also.

So, put all this together and what do you have? What you have here is not just a list from Paul. It's not just biographical data. What he's giving you is something we might today call a resume. What's a resume? It's not just a description, right? It's a list of accomplishments that is designed to impress.

When you apply for a job today and you present your resume, let's be honest, you're not giving a balanced view of yourself, right? No, resumes are all good. You don't write on your resume, "I'm very proficient on all the Microsoft Office programs, but I have a tendency to micro-manage people." That might very well be true, but you're not gonna put that on your resume, because you're not just giving information. You're trying to impress someone. You're trying to get someone to think highly of you.

That's what Paul is saying here. He's saying, "This isn't just what I used to be. This is what my righteousness was before I knew Jesus. This is what I thought would impress God and others. And this is where my life has changed the most since I've come to know Jesus. My sinfulness isn't what's changed most. What's really changed is how I view my resume."

I cannot overstate how important this is for all of us today. It seems so far removed from our lives at first, doesn't it? Circumcision, Pharisees, Tribe of Benjamin—what does any of that have to do with our lives today? But do you see now how incredibly relevant this stuff is? The truth is, we're all putting out our resumes all the time, and not just when we we're applying for jobs.

You want another great example? Christmas letters! You know those form letters your friends write and put in their Christmas cards to you? Have you ever noticed that for some people those things are resumes? Every year we get a few at our house that are not just conveying information. They are clearly designed to impress. You ever feel guilty when you read some of those, because it seems like your friend's family really has it together and you don't? Have you ever considered the possibility that it was designed, intentionally or unintentionally, to make you feel that way? This is what we do! We are obsessed with the need to impress people.

I'll tell you another place where I see it. From time to time, I get asked to do an outside speaking engagement somewhere—at a camp or a seminar somewhere. And when that happens, I often get asked to put together a little bio of myself that they can publish. And I hate doing these things, because what you find out pretty quickly is that they're really not bios. They're resumes. And I always feel like a loser when I read the other ones. Because the other guy is the author of "more than thirty books" or he's "the distinguished professor of such and such" at some prestigious university. And I got nothin'! One time I looked at a conference brochure and laughed because this is what it said, "Pastor X has never written or published anything that he can boast about or that makes him appear smarter than he really is." Isn't that great? But then I realized something. That's a resume too. He's basically trying to impress you with his humility, isn't he?

You see what I mean? We can't get away from this. We can't stop ourselves. We're like Andy on "the Office" who always has to say, "I graduated from Cornell... ever heard of it?" We just can't stop putting our resumes out, trying to convince people how important we are. And the problem isn't just that it's wrong. It doesn't even work anyway. All of Paul's insider status didn't make him godly. It made him smug and self-righteous. All of his great education didn't make him more spiritual. It made him prideful and arrogant. He had all kinds of zeal, but his great zeal blinded him to the fact that it was all pointed in the wrong direction.

Paul is teaching us something very important. If we really want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection; if we really want to experience authentic Christianity, we need to not only repent of our sins, but of our righteousness too. We need to confess to God all of the ways that we seek to find value and importance apart from Him. The power comes when we embrace a new resume—the same one Paul embraced. It's a very short resume, but it's the only one that really matters. It's in verse 12 where he says, "Christ Jesus took hold of me." That's it! That's his new resume. "Christ Jesus took hold me." Despite all the dumb things I've done, despite all the ways I've failed and still fail, "Christ Jesus took hold of me." He loved me and He died for me and He forgave me and He lives in me. You want to be impressed? There's something to be impressed about! "Christ Jesus took hold of me." Do you realize that He's done the same thing for you? And if so, do you also realize that if that's true, then you don't need anything else to make you feel valuable and significant? You don't need to keep putting your resume out.

In your bulletin today is an insert. I'd like you to take it out now and read it with me. It's a quote from a book titled, The Reason For God, from one of my favorite authors, Pastor Timothy Keller. My assignment for you this week is to put this insert somewhere you will see it regularly and I want you to read every day this week. It's a great, thought-provoking summary, of everything Paul is trying to say to us today.

Keller says, "When my own personal grasp of the gospel was very weak, my self-view swung wildly between two poles. When I was performing up to my standards—in academic work, professional achievement, or relationships—I felt confident but not humble. I was likely to be proud and unsympathetic to failing people. When I was not living up to standards, I felt humble, but not confident, a failure. I discovered, however, that the gospel contained the resources to build a unique identity. In Christ, I could know I was accepted by grace not only despite my flaws, but because I was willing to admit them. The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less." [Keller, Timothy, The Reason For God, Dutton, 2008, p. 180.] Let's bow our heads and pray...