"Loss and Gain" (May 10, 2026 Sermon)

Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing

Text: Philippians 3

If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing everything right and still falling behind, you’re not alone and you’re not broken. We’re talking about the hidden “ledger” so many of us carry: the internal scorecard that measures our worth by achievement, productivity, spiritual credentials, or how well we keep up with everyone else. It feels motivating for a minute, then it quietly turns life into a rat race where the finish line keeps moving. 

We spend time in Philippians 3, where Paul lays out an impressive resume and then uses one small word to undo it: “Yet.” What once looked like gain becomes loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ and being known by him. We also name an important guardrail, because this text has been mishandled before: Paul is not attacking Judaism or covenant practices. He’s exposing the human impulse to trust any badge of belonging or performance as the basis of righteousness, instead of receiving righteousness from God by faith as a gift. 

From there, the conversation gets painfully practical: degrees on the wall, bank accounts, reputations, parenting pressure, grief, and that exhausting feeling of being stretched too thin. A surprising moment from Bluey’s “Baby Race” brings the point home with a line that hits like mercy: “You’re doing great.” The good news is simple and life-changing: Christ is not auditing your accomplishments. You are found in him, and that freedom empowers real love and service without fear. 

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Transcript

Prayer And Scripture Opening

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Please listen for the prayer of elimination. God of all wisdom, give us your word and send us your spirit, so that we may know Christ. Amen. The first lesson this morning is from Philip Philippians chapter three, verses one through eleven. 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 the 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 of the circumcision who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Jesus in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh. If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more. Circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a pr a prosecutor, prosecutor, sorry, of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as lost because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as lost because of the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ, my 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 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ. The righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Holy wisdom, holy word. Thanks be to God.

The Ledgers We Keep

Paul’s Resume And The Rat Race

The Trapdoor Word Yet

Modern Versions Of Righteousness

When Self-Standards Crush Us

Bluey And Running Your Race

Found In Christ Not Performance

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Alright, friends. Let's listen again from what God is saying to God's church. Picking up, Relisa left off at verse 12 through 21 of chapter 3 of Philippians. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have laid hold of it, but one thing I have laid hold of, forgetting what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us then who are mature think this way, and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. Only let us hold fast to what we have attained. Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their minds are set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself. Friends, holy wisdom, holy word. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. Amen. Friends, we all keep ledgers, both literal and emotional. I think you know what I'm talking about, the different ways that we try to measure our own worth, these internal scorecards that track what we've done, what we've achieved, and how we stack up against other people we've been taught to envy. And as I was thinking about this passage this week, it occurred to me that those ledgers that we keep for ourselves can be dangerous things. Because while they often do provide short-term gratification, they often leave behind long-term resentment and a diminished capacity for gratitude and generosity. Walter Brugman, the recently deceased titan of biblical scholarship, called this ledger keeping the rat race. This never-ending marathon where we take one step toward the finish line only to watch itself move two steps further away. And the danger of the rat race is that you and I are all caught up in it, but sometimes we have no idea that we are. And that is part of what I think makes Philippians 3 so powerful. Because Paul has some time on his hands to take a long, honest look at the ledger that he once trusted. And then he discovers in this chapter that Christ has changed the math. As I said, Paul had a lot of time to think, because such is the case when you are a prisoner of the Roman Empire. So from the isolation of his cell, Paul has been pulled out of that rat race by forces beyond his control. And he takes this opportunity to take stock of what he has relied on so far in his life to feel righteous or successful or accomplished. Look at me, he says to his friends in the Philippian church. I bear the sign of the covenant. I belong to the people of Israel, and I'm a member of the tribe of Benjamin to boot, and my spiritual credentials don't stop there. I'm a Pharisee, and therefore I know the law of God inside and out. Some might even call me blameless. Paul knows how seductive this self-congratulatory liturgy of ledgers can be. After all, such ledgers often sound pretty good in our own heads, but they often sound very different to those around us who are listening to them. One can imagine the first hearer of Paul's letter, this third chapter in his letters, nodding along, maybe feeling a little bit impressed themselves, because they are some of those things, before realizing that Paul is about to tear down the walls of self-righteousness that he is sort of making, poking fun of. These walls of self-righteousness that you and I are so tempted to build. And that's exactly what it does. And it all starts with this little inconspicuous word that Lisa read for us that Paul says he lists off all of those accomplishments that he has and then says one dangerous little word. Yet, yet gets us into trouble. Yet is a bit of a trapdoor word. Yet is this word that lets us know that Paul is kind of building a platform beneath his accomplishments, but all along he's actually kind of sawing a hole in the floor. And in verse 7, when he says, yet, or hold on, or just wait a minute, he pulls the cord. He says, Yet, whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. He goes on to say, more than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish. All of those things, Paul says, are rubbish. Now, in the interest of sermonic modesty, I will not give you the literal translation of that word in Greek. Let's just say in the original Greek, it's a little bit more earthy than most English Bibles present. If you want to know the Stephen Fearing translation of it, come find me after the worship service and I'll whisper it to you in your ear. But just suffice it to say that Paul wants his hearers to understand in no uncertain terms how Christ has reversed the calculus that you and I have come to depend on in a world where comparing ourselves to one another has become this country's favorite pastime. All that other stuff, he says, is insufficient, is maybe a good word, compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord. Now, to be sure, all those ledger items he calls insufficient in comparison to what he sees as the most important thing, knowing Christ, or perhaps more importantly, being known by Christ. And I want to be very clear here so as not to veer into any anti-Semitic interpretations of this passage. It's not that he's saying that things like circumcision are bad or that these covenantal practices of Judaism are useless or unnecessary. We must remember that Paul himself considered, he considered himself a Jew, so he's not mocking Judaism. He's not dismissing those important practices as meaningless, but what he is saying is that even the holiest parts of his own resume cannot do what only Christ can do. Circumcision is not the problem. Trusting any identity marker, achievement, or badge of belonging as the basis of righteousness, Paul says, that's the problem. So while circumcision may not be for most of us a particularly relevant modern example, we don't have to work very hard to imagine our own versions of Paul's ledger. Ours may look less like tribal belonging and Torah observance and more like resumes or reputations, bank accounts, degrees on the wall, stripes on our robes, children who perform well, opinions that we're proud to hold, or carefully curated senses that we are one of the good ones. We all have our own ways of saying, look at me, see why I matter, see why I'm righteous, see why I'm enough. And I think in this chapter of Philippians, Paul is just saying, be careful. The things that we use to prove ourselves can quietly become the things that we trust more than grace. And last week may have been one of those weeks for me, because last week was a week when I felt, as J.R.R. Tolkien once put it in The Lord of the Rings, I think Bilbo said the line, like too little butter spread over too much bread. Anyone know that feeling? I'm guessing that you do. I was juggling the ordinary chaos of family life. I was preparing to preach at Trisha's grandmother's funeral up in Richmond while navigating my own grief. I was staring down the particular madness that some of us parents call the month of May Simber, when the end of the school year calendar starts to take a toll on your sanity. The girls were having a rough time, they were grieving as well, and all of this left both Trisha and myself feeling stretched a little bit too thin. And as I was throwing this sermon together yesterday, what I realized is that what was making the week so heavy was not the busyness itself, although it wasn't helping. What I think was making the week so heavy was the ledger that I kept pulling out of my own head or dangling above it, so to speak. To be clear, no one else in this world was telling me that I was failing. No one was giving me a hard time, but I was quietly measuring myself against the standards I carry around for what a good pastor, a good husband, a good father, what any reasonably functional human being ought to look like. I'm guessing I'm in a room full of people who knows what that feeling feels like in one way or another. And y'all, that ledger is not kind. It's not a kind thing that we do to ourselves or to each other. Because Paul is not just talking about anxious religious credentials, he's talking about the deeply human impulse to build an identity out of achievement, performance, and self-justification. And I know that impulse because I carried it around last week. And I also learned that beautiful things happen when we let the ledger go. We might just discover that Christ does not love us because we have managed to keep all the plates spinning. Christ does not claim us because we have finally become impressive enough, or productive enough, or put together enough. Christ meets us not at the end of our accomplishments, but right in the middle of our need and right in the middle of our mess. And I think that is what Paul means when he says he wants to gain Christ and be found in him. Not with a righteousness of his own, but with a righteousness that comes from God as a gift, a free gift. And the gospel message is that this is not only a truth that we receive for ourselves, it's also a truth that we are given the blessing to share with others. It's been a couple months since I have used a Bluey episode as a sermon illustration. I apologize for that. I'm overdue, so here you go. Forgive me if I've mentioned this episode of Bluey before. If I have, too bad. It's one of my favorites. It's a Bluey episode called Baby Race. If you had Disney Plus, take seven minutes out of your day this afternoon and watch Baby Race on Bluey. The episode begins when Bluey and Bingo are arguing over who is the best at something. I don't remember what it was. It doesn't matter. But they're arguing about who's the best at something, and they go to their mom, Chili, and it prompts Chili to remember when Bluey was learning how to walk as an infant. So the episode has a series of flashbacks, and it goes back to when Bluey starts by rolling over, right? And then next comes crawling, and then something that Australians call bum shuffling, which is pretty self-explanatory. And after every new milestone, from rolling over, crawling, couch surfing, you may call it, is all of these are accompanied by Chili, the mother's joy, but also by comparison. Chili feels that pang of comparison because the other babies in her mom circle appear to be getting there faster. All the other moms appear more relaxed. And before long, Chili is carrying around a parenting ledger. And by the time Bluey still isn't walking, another one of the moms can see that Chili is carrying the weight of that ledger. And she comes and she sits down, she shows her a picture of her like nine children and says, I've seen a thing or two, and I need you to know something. She looks directly at Chili, looks her directly in the eye, and says, You need to know that you're doing great. Any parent that has watched that episode of Bluey has just absolutely broken down crying at that point in the episode. Because it is a beautiful message that we all, whether we're parents or not, need to hear. You're doing great. And I think those are words that are enough to help us loosen our grip on the ledger. And in that episode of Bluey, then Chili turns to Bluey and Bingo and says, you know what, kids, run your own race. In other words, put down the ledger, stop keeping store, don't let comparison be the thief of joy, as Teddy Roosevelt once said. I love that episode because once Chili is able to let go of the ledger herself, she then becomes more free to encourage the people around us, in this case her daughters, to do the same. And I think that that's what Paul is trying to share with the Philippians and what God's trying to share with us today. Because Christ is our salvation, friends. We don't have to keep searching for it in our performance, in our accomplishments, in our ability to keep up. We can let go of that rat race. We can be found in Christ, and you and I can work together as neighbors to help each other do the same. So maybe the invitation this morning is not to balance the ledger one more time. Maybe the invitation is to let Christ close the book, so to speak. To let go of the need to prove that we're enough, righteous enough, productive enough, faithful or good enough. And to trust in Jesus, to trust the one who has laid hold of us, who is not waiting for us at the finish line with the red pen. Christ is not auditing our accomplishments. Christ is not measuring our worth by the columns that you and I so faithfully keep. Instead, Christ is saying to all of us, you are found in me. Say that with me. You are found in me. And when that good news begins to sink in, it might just change our lives. We don't get lazy, we won't get passive. No, we will still press on. We'll still love and serve and feed our neighbors, but we don't do it as some measure of trying to earn God's grace. Because grace has already found us, Christ has already laid hold of us. The rat race is not required. So, friends, wherever you are in this busy week, remember that good news for yourself and share that good news with your neighbor. In the name of God, the creator, redeemer, and sustainer, may all of us, God's beloved children, say. Amen.