Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Weekly sermons from our Central Lutheran Church preaching team plus quick reflections from Pastor Ryan Braley.
Real talk, ancient wisdom, and honest questions — all designed to help you learn, grow, and find encouragement when you need it most.
At Central, our mission is simple: FOLLOW Jesus together, be a community where you BELONG, and LOVE our neighbors across the street and around the world.
Think deeper. Live freer. Share an episode with a friend and visit us in person anytime — you’re always welcome here in Elk River, MN.
Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Rubbish to Righteousness with Ben Carruthers
Where do you find your joy? Is it in delicious food, exciting vacations, meaningful relationships, or good health? These sources of happiness seem natural—but what happens when they're taken away?
In this eye-opening exploration of Philippians 3, Ben Carruthers guides us through the Apostle Paul's radical perspective on joy. Writing from a Roman prison, Paul makes a shocking claim: all his impressive credentials and accomplishments—his perfect religious pedigree, his authority, his blameless law-keeping—he now considers "rubbish" compared to knowing Christ.
What makes this perspective even more remarkable is Paul's life after coming to Christ. Rather than prosperity and comfort, he experienced beatings, imprisonments, shipwrecks, hunger, and constant danger. Yet from these circumstances came a letter overflowing with references to joy.
This apparent contradiction reveals the heart of the gospel message. True joy isn't dependent on favorable circumstances or personal achievements. It persists through hardship because it's rooted in who we are in Christ, not what we do. Our righteousness isn't earned through a spiritual checklist—it's a gift received through relationship.
Ben reminds us that while earthly sources of joy can disappear in an instant, the joy found in Christ remains constant. Through powerful personal stories and biblical insights, he demonstrates that God established relationship before rules, desiring connection above compliance.
Listen as we discover the freedom of finding our worth in Christ alone, and learn how to experience "Joy Anyway"—a joy that persists regardless of circumstances because it's grounded in an unshakable relationship with the God of the universe who desires to know you.
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Well, good morning. I'm Ben Carruthers. I'm the director of student and family ministry here. It's great to be worshiping with you this morning. And I had to laugh. I had to just go up to Sonia and I was like during the baptism. I said did you know that Jack Reacher is a godfather? You look just like Jack Reacher, matthew, holy smokes. I saw you in the hall. I was like Jack Reacher, oh my gosh, I love you. Glad you're here. Come on back. Yeah, so my name's Ben.
Speaker 1:I'm super excited to be here and to talk about this sermon series, called Joy, anyway, which we've been diving into the book of Philippians over the past three weeks, and so we're talking about joy and, as you read this passage, there wasn't a lot of joy to be found in there. So the goal of this morning is to really have our eyes open, because it really is littered with the theme of joy and, being that this sermon is around the idea of joy, I'm making you a promise that I will not mention Disney World once in this whole sermon. I'm going to get through it. I'm going to do it, I believe. But there is joy in this passage. What did you say? Well, now, all right, from now on, I get one, but we're going to dive into this passage, and so this is probably something that you maybe have been asking yourself over the past three weeks. But this question of where do you find joy? Where do you find joy? Perhaps for some of you, it's in food. Maybe it's in food A big juicy cheeseburger, which, let's be honest, no matter what anyone says, is way better than a Chipotle burrito, way better, way better Big old juicy Lucy, no problem, right? Maybe that's where you find joy. Maybe it's vacation to a theme park in Orlando. I don't know, maybe that's it. Maybe vacation is where you find your joy. Maybe in relationships Relationships to your kids, to your wife, to your husband, to the people here, to family, to friends. Maybe it's in relationships is where you find your joy. Maybe in health. Maybe you just find great joy in being healthy and eating healthy and probably not eating all the Juicy Lucys that you want to and being active.
Speaker 1:There's a men's group that every Sunday, at 1 o'clock, plays pickleball, and I love it. I come out on Sundays and I get my butt whooped by men 20 years older than me. It's pretty humbling, but maybe that's what brings you joy. What I'd like to do is we're going to pray, and as we pray, I want you to think about that question what brings you joy? And that picture, or whatever it is that comes to mind. I want you to hold on to that to the end of the message this morning, because we're going to come back to it as we dive into this passage. That, I think, gives us a pretty clear idea of what joy looks like and where true joy comes from. So will you pray with me, god, we give you thanks and praise for this morning, for the gift of baptism and for the gift of Scripture, scripture that talks about joy, this letter from Paul, written in prison to a church just starting up in Philippi, of a message of joy on where we get our joy. For some of us, lord, that's a hard question to answer right now, and so, lord, I pray for clarity of this passage. I pray that you speak clearly this morning and that we leave this place with a new idea of what joy looks like. In your name, we pray Amen.
Speaker 1:Last week, if you were here, ryan had a ton of glasses that he weaved into his sermon, and I think he cursed me because I can't read what's on my paper without these bad boys. Now, this is something new, so I'll be going back and forth. So, this idea of fluence, we have to kind of understand the greater context of what's going on in this letter. Yeah, paul wrote it when he was in prison in Rome, to this new church, which is not a building that we think of church today. It's a group of believers, believers in this new movement of Christianity. This is something new, and so he's writing to these young believers about something very specific, about something very specific that's going on within the church at that moment.
Speaker 1:Philippians 1 through 3, so our passage started at 4, so we got to go back a little bit to verses 1 through 3, so you can pop that up there for me Philippians 3, 1 through 4. Finally, my brothers and sisters which, by the way, there are four very long chapters in the book of Philippians, and he's not even halfway through and he's already saying finally, which proves that he was a pastor right off the bat. Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me and for you it is a source of steadfastness. Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh, for it is we who are the circumcision. So here Paul starts off by writing this message of beware, beware of these dogs, beware of what they are teaching and preaching, because this is what's going on.
Speaker 1:Paul had missionary journeys, right, he went all to these different places and he spoke and preached the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and people started to gain momentum with this message, started to believe in this message that it's just Jesus. Right Now, this is a really difficult message for many people. If you were Jewish, you lived by a certain set of laws. This is what it meant to be in relationship with God by following these laws. Now you're told that it's this Jesus guy, that believing in him, finding a relationship with him, is what brings righteousness and salvation. So it's a confusing time. At the same time, it's even more confusing for a group of people called the Gentiles. The Gentiles were people who were not of the Jewish faith, who did not follow the Jewish law, and so now they hear this message of this guy named Jesus, who lived and died and was resurrected by the power of God and by the Holy Spirit, and that they have a relationship with him in this way that it's Jesus is the way to righteousness and Jesus is the way to life. And so they hear this message and they start to follow this new gospel.
Speaker 1:Well, at the time, there were a group of people called the Judaizers, and the Judaizers were Jewish Christians who believed in the resurrection of Jesus, in the relationship with him, but also believed that you had to follow the law, the Jewish law. You see, it just wasn't about a relationship with God, with Christ, but you still had to follow the Jewish law, which, for men, meant circumcision, which means that you had to follow the Jewish law, which, for men, meant circumcision, which means that you had to follow dietary restrictions, which meant that you had to worship on all the Jewish holidays and festivals and follow all of the Jewish law. And Paul is referring to this as dogs, they are saying this is not the gospel. The gospel is Jesus. Only Now, throughout this whole message, we're going to refer to the law, and Paul talks about it in great length here.
Speaker 1:But I want you to know and we'll come back to this that the law is not bad, that Paul is not bashing the law. So keep that in mind. So Paul's writing this church and saying man. People are coming around and telling you something different, telling you a different gospel, so be aware, be aware of what they're doing and continue to preach. And then he goes on to say that if it was about the law, if it was about keeping all of these things and a checklist of doing all the right things, there was no one really more than me that have confidence in their ability.
Speaker 1:You see the word flesh in that passage. We often use it as sinful desire or sinful nature, but that's not what Paul is saying here. Paul is using human nature here In our ability or inability to follow the law. Can we do enough? Paul is saying if there's anyone who could have confidence in doing enough, it's me. So Philippians 3, or the next part of Philippians says this Once it popped there we go Philippians 3, 4 through 6. Even though I too have reason for confidence in the flesh, which means I have reason to believe in the confidence of my human nature, my ability to do things, if anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, which means I have reason to believe in the confidence of my human nature, my ability to do things, if anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh. I have more.
Speaker 1:Circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews. As to the law, a Pharisee as to zeal, a persecutor of the church. As to righteousness under the law, blameless, he's saying. If anyone has confidence in their ability, it would be me. The Jewish word for confidence, which also means trust or faith, is pepoithesis. It's up here on the screen, pepoithesis. Everyone say pepoithesis. Yeah, now, if you're like me and horrible at Greek, I remembered it by saying Pepoy's thesis. So there you go, you can remember that now, pepoy's thesis. This word, which he uses a couple times in the passage, means confidence, trust or faith. He's saying, man, if there's anyone that could have faith in his abilities to be found righteous, it's him. And then Paul goes on to give us a list of reasons why. So can you go back to that scripture? I think I jumped on you, but go back to that scripture for me. He says this he says reason to be confident. I was circumcised on the eighth day, which in Jewish faith meant that was the day you were supposed to be circumcised. A week, seven days represented creation. God rest on the seventh day. Eighth day is new life, and so he was circumc. Rests on the seventh day. Eighth day is new life, and so he was circumcised on the eighth day.
Speaker 1:A member of the people of Israel, a true Hebrew, a member of the people of our tribe of Benjamin. Benjamin was a tribe that had some prestige about it. It was the only tribe that stayed with Judah when Israel split and divided. It was where the first king was from, King Saul of Israel. Benjamin had some prestige to it. So he's giving you a background into his family. Look at it. If it's family family tree, I'm set. I got that. And then he goes.
Speaker 1:As for a Pharisee, someone who follows the law, I was a Pharisee, not just a Pharisee, but he's stunted under Gamal, which is Gamal the elder. Like the Pharisee of Pharisee, the teacher, a high-ranking teacher and official. He's stuttered under him. Persecutor of the church, righteousness under the law, blameless, in other words. Paul is saying I'm the man. That's what he's saying. That's Paul the man, olivia, who does an awesome job with our slides.
Speaker 1:I said, olivia, can you find a picture of Paul like being the man? Like what does it look like to be the man? And she asked me. She's like do you mind if I use AI, and she asked me that because I don't like AI. It kind of freaks me out a little bit. I've seen Terminator 2 way too much. I know how it it ends, I'm a little bit freaked out about it. So she did. So. This is Paul AI, paul as being the man he looks kind of like that fun uncle that comes to the party. Right, he had everything going for him. He had everything. He lists everything in which he could have confidence in. He was the man. He had it all. There might be a moment or two in your life when you know what this feels like, to kind of be on the mountaintop. For one of those instances in my life I don't have many, but one I can remember very clearly was right out of high school I think I was probably 19 years old.
Speaker 1:A buddy of mine, brad, and I started a band and that band was called Two Minute Warning and we put out a CD and that's it. Right, there I am the handsome fellow on the right wearing flip-flops for our CD cover. We put this CD out and Brad, my buddy, he wrote all the music. He played guitar, lead, guitar, my buddy, he wrote all the music. He played guitar, lead guitar, acoustic guitar. He played bass. I drummed. That was my contribution to the band. I just drummed, but it was fun, man.
Speaker 1:We got to go into a recording studio and record these songs and then we sold the CD, mainly to people like in our youth group and my mom who bought over half of the coffees. Okay, and it was awesome. We'd sell these CDs and these kids would come up and want us to sign it and we'd be playing out somewhere and they'd be like play Two Minute Warning, play Two Minute Warning. So we'd bust out a Two Minute Warning song. It was awesome. I felt like the man. And then about a week later came and no one cared about Two Minute Warning. I don't know if any of you have two-minute warning hits on your iPod playlists or are still rocking two-minute warning. I highly doubt it. No one remembers this, but I can tell you for that day or two when kids were asking to buy CDs and asking for us to sign them, I felt like the man and then it was gone. It was gone.
Speaker 1:See, we put confidence in things like this and Paul is saying if there was anyone to put confidence in their abilities and their righteousness to be found in doing all the right things. It's me Paul was the man, and their righteousness to be found in doing all the right things. It's me Paul was the man. But this part of Scripture is not about him bragging about his ability to be found righteous in the law. It's not about him boasting himself up. A matter of fact, it's just the opposite, because after that he tells you exactly what he thinks about those moments.
Speaker 1:Go to the next passage for me. In Philippians 3, 7 through 8, he continues. So, after he lists his resume for you, which is pretty impressive, he says Yet, whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, and it's not just knowing of, like I know of some of you, or I know of all this, it's this relationship that he has with Christ Jesus as his Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and I regard them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. He looks at his resume, at all of those things that the world would say yep, you have power, you have prestige, you have authority, the world would say yep, you hit it. He looks at all of that and he says I find no confidence in any of that. None hit it. He looks at all of that and he says I find no confidence in any of that. None of it. Not only that, but he calls it a loss. Not only that is, he calls it rubbish.
Speaker 1:Now, another Greek word for you today is skubala. Everyone say skubala. Much easier. I got no rhyming for you on that one, but skubala, scubala. It's interesting. Who you talk to Depends on the scholar that you read. There's a couple different ideas of what this word means. One is that we find it in a lot of ancient writings when talking about farming, where they would clear a field and take all of the good grain and all of the good food and then there would be the droppings left for the dogs or the animals. They would refer to that as waste or skubala. Now, when I took Greek in seminary, the way that you learn it because it's a lot more fun is that skubala means like dung. It means like a big pile of bull, scubula, right, they love teaching this because it makes a point.
Speaker 1:Now, both, whatever you want to view it, as Paul is making a very clear point here that all of that is worth nothing if not in Christ. All of the accomplishments is scubala compared to knowing Christ. This is a dramatic change in what people would view. It's a dramatic change in the world today, the way that we view things. Because let's go back to his list of all these things, that accomplishments that he had, man, if that was his life before knowing Jesus, and he says that that's a bunch of scubala compared to knowing Christ. Well then, what was his life like after knowing Christ man, if he had power and if he had prestige and if he had authority? What in the world did his life look like? And he tells us in the book of Acts and also in his letter to the Corinthian church in the second book. He tells us, he tells us what his life was like. Are there ministers of Christ? I'm talking like a madman.
Speaker 1:I am a better one, with far greater labors, far more imprisonments with countless floggings and often near death. Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Don't know why I just put thirty-nine. He made us do math, I don't know. Three times I was beaten with rods Once. I received a stoning Three times. I was shipwrecked. For a night and a day I was adrift at sea on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters in toil and hardship through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked. That doesn't seem better. Well, there's more, so maybe it does get better.
Speaker 1:So the next passage in corinthians. It continues on. And, besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak? And I am not weak. Who is made to stumble? And I am not ignorant. Not only has all this physical stuff happened to him, but Paul is full of worry and anxiety for these young, new churches holding on to this new gospel of what it means to live in life with Christ, to be found righteous in Christ. He has worry and anxiety. Okay, well, maybe it gets better. We got one more. Let's see if it finally turns around for Paul, even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated or too proud, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me.
Speaker 1:This is Paul after Christ. Paul before Christ. The resume looked pretty good. Power, prestige, authority. Walked into a room. People knew who he was.
Speaker 1:Post-christ. This. That doesn't make sense. So it might look a little bit like this the fun uncle on the left makes more sense. Joy is found in Christ right. The joy of the Lord is my strength. Joy is found in Christ. Then why does Paul on the right look like a man who's never seen joy or experienced joy?
Speaker 1:But Paul says everything before knowing Christ is scubala. It doesn't compare to knowing Christ Jesus. How can this be, how can this be a message of joy when it looks like this? Because Paul is preaching the gospel here, because Paul is giving us good news, because it should be good news for us to hear that our righteousness, our salvation, is not built into a checklist of following a certain set of rules, that if we check every box, this is how we're made righteous. If we do enough good things, this is our ticket to heaven, paul is saying that is scubala, that is rubbish. Now again, the law is important. I'm going to come back to it. So make sure we know that the law is important.
Speaker 1:But when people are saying it's jesus and that's when he has a problem, that's when we should have a problem, because it's not about jesus and the good works you do, it's not about the salvation that comes and the righteousness that is found in Jesus and making sure you're following all these risks. It's just Jesus and praise God for that Because, like Paul is saying, man, if there was one person who had confidence in the things that he did to earn his righteousness, it would be him. I can't hold a candle to Paul and so praise God that our righteousness is not found in the things that we do. And there's a flip side to this, the flip side that our righteousness, our salvation, our forgiveness of sins is not found in the things that we do. And it's also not found in the mistakes we make. There is no mistake that you can make that can take you away from the love that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. That can take you away from the love that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. We can take those and we lay them at the feet of the cross.
Speaker 1:Man, some of you might think it's way too big. I've hurt too many people. It can't be that easy and I can tell you from personal experience. There's nothing that you can't lay down there, that Christ won't forgive, and that's good news. You see, we have these two images up here the cross, where we go and lay down our mistakes. We lay down those sins in our lives, those things that we've done to hurt ourselves and hurt other people, the mistakes that we make. We can go and freely lay them down at the feet of the cross and know that we have forgiveness.
Speaker 1:Why? Because of what we just saw here the promises in baptism. We'll baptize anybody infants, teenagers, adults, whatever but the purpose behind it is the same. But the purpose behind it is the same. The babies don't come to this water and receive these promises of forgiveness of sins, of eternal life, because of anything that they have done. They're babies, they haven't done anything, but yet these promises are given to them because they are a child of God. When an adult comes here, when a teenager comes to the font, it's not because that they have now done enough to deserve these promises. It's because of who they are that they receive the promises that are in this water and not really even in this water. This is a sign that we use a symbol of God's promises of forgiveness of sins, of life. This is good news and it's in this good news message that we find joy, and it might not be a joy that puts a fun uncle smile on our face. It's that joy that, when Paul was in prison, writing to the Philippians having gone to being shipwrecked, being beaten, being arrested falsely wrecked, being beaten, being arrested falsely that he can write about joy that is found in Christ Jesus. This is the good news of the gospel. This is the joy that is found here in this passage. This is how we bring it back to joy.
Speaker 1:So what did you picture when I asked you what brings you joy? What did you think about After seeing that picture of the burger? Did you think about food? Probably, come on, now someone did. I love burgers. I know you're thinking we can tell, but it's okay. I love Juicy Lucy. They're incredible.
Speaker 1:And when you get a Juicy Lucy man with just ketchup and just mayo which is the only way to have a Juicy Lucy and you bite into it and the first thing you feel are pickles, it's horrible, absolutely horrible. Why? Because it taints the whole burger. You can't get rid of pickle juice. It ruins everything. And so something that brings me great joy is taken away by a horrible pickle.
Speaker 1:Maybe it was food that you thought of, maybe it was that vacation to that destination that will rename nameless, or to an island, or to a hotel getaway. Maybe vacation brings you joy, but the reality is about that vacation. Is you come back? You never leave the problems they're waiting for you and, a matter of fact, sometimes when you take a vacation from work and you're gone a week, you come back to a million emails and more work than you had before, and that thing that brought you great joy now brings you a little misery.
Speaker 1:What about relationships with your son, your daughter, your husband, your wife? Arlo is my son and he had to come up. He had to get up early because he accoladed the first service and I said, buddy, you're going to hang out and listen to dad's sermon, and he's like, probably, but I I'm probably gonna sleep through the whole thing. I said, thanks, buddy. A relationship that can bring you great joy can sometimes bring you no joy. Matter of fact, those relationships can be broken and they can bring a lot of pain. Was it health? Was it health that brings you great joy? I think everyone in this room can understand that this can be taken away from you.
Speaker 1:After the sermon today we're going to sing a little bit and then we're going to invite Ray up. We're going to pray for Ray. Ray is one of our worship leaders that's been doing it for a while and she has an incredible story and we asked her to share a little bit of it because her story fits really well with the message today. Raised up with lupus for many years and it hasn't gotten any better. Matter of fact, it's getting worse and there are more things now that she deals with health-wise and it's a scary time for her and her family and something that we all think we have. Health can be taken away and if we ask her to share her story a little bit and she wrote something in here that I want to read After all of this going on in her body immune system, shutting down, immune system, attacking blood cells, feeling with physical pain, weakness, extreme exhaustion she wrote this she is reminded that if you look hard enough, you can find the blessings in the trials and use it as a testimony for the goodness of God.
Speaker 1:See, even though health, vacations, relationships, things that bring us joy can also bring us great pain, there can also be joy found there. What about for some of you? When I asked what brings you joy, you had a blank slate Nothing, because right now you can't think of anything that brings you joy. The joy that we have is not of the things of this world, because they can be gone like that. The joy that we have is in the promises of Christ, of being found righteous in him, of, for some reason, not because of the things that we do that are good or the things that we do that are bad. For some reason, god still says I love you, you're my son, you're my daughter, and the life is a gift that I give to you.
Speaker 1:So finally and I mean finally, I'll end here is I want to talk a little bit about this law, because sometimes passages like this are used in a way to say we don't need the Old Testament, we don't need the law, and that's not what's going on here. Paul, a matter of fact, is using this to understand how important the law is. The law is not just a list of rules that we need to follow, or else, a matter of fact, if you go back to when we were given the law, the Jews were given the law. In Exodus it says this, and this is really important because we think about the Ten Commandments and we think that this starts off right with commandment number one, and that's not the case. Commandment one starts in verse three, starts in verse 3. But God has this to say first, and God spoke all these words I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. God reminds us that before the law came, there was relationship, that he is our God, that freed us from slavery. There's the relationship. This is really the last part.
Speaker 1:Now, about five years ago, my wife and I moved into our house in Zimmerman and I love movies. It's like I love movies a lot, it's my thing and so I wanted to buy a nice TV. I hadn't had a nice TV for a long, long time, and so I bought a big 80-inch. I hadn't had a nice TV for a long, long time, and so I bought a big 80-inch television for a basement, which totally didn't fit, but I didn't care, it was beautiful and I had it mounted on the wall. It was awesome. Man, I'd watch my action movies, I watched Jack Reacher, all this stuff I'd watch it. It was incredible.
Speaker 1:And I get a phone call on the way home from work and it was my wife and she said are you on your way home from work? I said yep, and she's like I want you to prepare yourself. I said well, that's never a good thing to hear, like what, what's going on? And she said Ezra, which is our youngest at the time, was probably two, two and a half. He said he got a hold of the video game controller I and he threw it and I was like, well, that's not good at your television.
Speaker 1:And it broke and it cracked and there was just silence. And I don't know silence on my part because I didn't know what was. I was like shocked, right. Silence on her part, because I'm sure she was scared for Ezra's life, right, and I was halfway home and so I said, all right, I'll be home in a little bit, and I hang up the phone and I had half the drive to get all my yells, all my scuba out and everything before I got home, because when I got home I encountered a two-and-a-half-year-old scared boy who was my son, and what he was waiting for, even at two and a half, was probably a punishment because he had broken a rule, but before that rule was ever in place, there was a relationship that goes far beyond the rules. See, rules are set up. The law was given to us for us to understand how to be in relationship with God, not for a checklist to follow. So, central Lutheran Church, may you find joy in that that the God of the universe, the creator of all things, desires a relationship with you. Amen.
