Philippians 03 Round Two: Think About What You Think About

What if joy didn’t bow to your circumstances? We open Philippians 3 and watch Paul write from a brutal prison with a voice full of life, then ask how that kind of resilience becomes real for us. The answer starts in the mind: think about what you think about. When performance, pedigree, and pressure set the terms, joy collapses. When Christ becomes the center, even our best trophies look small next to the surpassing worth of knowing him.

We dig into Paul’s startling revaluation—calling his spiritual résumé “garbage” compared to Christ—and explore why grace dismantles both pride and despair. Righteousness by faith is not a slogan; it’s a new operating system for the soul. From there, we trace Paul’s forward lean: forgetting what lies behind and pressing on toward the prize. That pursuit is not perfectionism; it’s a clear-eyed chase after a Person. Along the way, we talk about mental loops that steal joy, the subtle pull of appetites that shape our days, and the practical habits that reframe focus: gratitude, Scripture, honest prayer, and wise models worth imitating.

The heart of the conversation lands on identity. We are citizens of heaven, which changes how we carry today’s pain and tomorrow’s hopes. Bodies age, seasons shift, and outcomes wobble, but the resurrection promise holds steady. That vision doesn’t erase grief; it restores scale. Joy becomes durable because its source is not our mood or metrics but the risen Christ who will make all things new. If you’re weary of anxiety and hungry for peace that guards your heart and mind, this is a guide to choosing a better focus—and finding a deeper joy.

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The More We Dig. The More We Find.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Transcript

Welcome & Big Idea: Choose Joy

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Welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. Every day, we take one chapter of the Bible, dig deeper, and discover that the more we dig, the more we find. You can find out more at the BibleBreakdown.com. Now let's grow in God's Word together. Well hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Philippians chapter 3. And today's title is Think About What You Think About. It's important to think about what you're thinking about. Like, like if you sometimes can pause and step back and go, wait a minute, then you realize that's ridiculous. Like it reminds me of one time that I was getting ready to, I was so honored with the opportunity to go and speak at this certain thing. I was I was really excited about it, but at the same time, I was getting in my own head about it. I was like, oh no, this is gonna be, this is hard, is this too hard? I can't do this, can't do whatever. I was just, I was getting so in my head about it that it went from being a wonderful honor to being a nightmare, right? And I was talking to a friend of mine and I was telling him all the bad things. And he like stopped me and he was like, Brandon, do you realize what an honor it is to get to do that? Do you realize what a blessing that is? And I'd forgotten. I'd forgot completely, you know? And he was like, like, you really need to check what you're thinking about here, man. You're you're losing the joy of it because of whatever. And he was, he was right. And so I had to switch my thinking and it just, and I had to keep on focusing. The more I focused on how bad it was, the more bad it was. Man, I started to wait, but what an honor. It and I can't tell you how many times in my life I've had to just be very focused on what I'm focusing on. And I wonder if you've been like that too. Well, if so, God's word is gonna help us today, and we're gonna jump into that together. But before we do that, as always, if you like what we're doing here, make sure you like, share, and subscribe to the YouTube channel and to the podcast. Leave us a five-star review. It really does help us get the word out. And also make sure you join us at the Bible breakdown discussion on Facebook. And you can also go to the Biblebreakdown.com and get all the information about everything that's going on. And at some point, we're gonna put everything there. And so I can just say Biblebreakdown.com instead of all the other things. But that is not today. So please go to all those places. If you have your Bible, you want to open up with me to Philippians chapter three. Remember, Paul is writing this, inspired by the Holy Spirit, to a wonderful church that he loves while he's in prison. It's dark, ugly, disgusting prison. But he's writing what scholars call the book of joy. So that even in this horrible place, he's writing about something glorious. And he's teaching us that your outward reality doesn't have to determine your inner joy. That your outward reality may look bad, it may look terrible, maybe the worst thing ever. But it doesn't have to change your inward joy. But you have to make sure you focus on what you focus on. Because at any given time, there's going to be a thousand reasons to lose your joy, but you only need one to keep it. So let's jump into God's word and let's see what it has to say to us today. Verse one says this Whatever happens, dear brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. I never get tired of telling you these things, and I do it to safeguard your faith. Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved. For they worship, for we worship by the Spirit of God. And the ones who are truly circumcised, we rely on Christ Jesus and what he has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort. Though I have come uh to have confidence in my, excuse me, though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could, indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their efforts, I have even more. And so what he's about to do is he's about to say, now, first of all, what he said was, is man, we are not who we are in Christ because of anything that we have done. We are who we are in Christ because of what Christ has done in us. And he's saying, we don't need to think we're better than anybody else because what we've achieved on this earth, we think that we are better than we would be without him because of what Christ has done. And he's saying, look, if anybody has a reason to be proud in what they have done, I do. And watch what he says. He's about to kind of give us his, give us his um his resume real quick. He says this I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a purebloeded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin, a real Hebrew if there ever was one. I was a member of the Pharisees who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault. I thought, I once thought that these things were valuable, but now I consider them as worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake, I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count my own righteousness through obeying the law. Rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God's way of making us right with him depends on faith. I want you, I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or the other, I will experience the resurrection of the dead. Now pause for a second. What Paul was saying is in his world, if you were circumcised and you're eight days old, you're a full-blooded Israelite, you are from the tribe of Benjamin, if you had all these different things, man, you were the top of the top. You were like if you like if you were in the United States, man, you graduated from the finest colleges, you were born to the right families, you had a silver spoon in your mouth, you had everything going for you. He's saying, I had everything going for me. I had all the degrees, I had everything. But all of that peles, matter of fact, he said, I call it garbage. Now that word, that the Greek word for that is scubula. You know, it some people call it skebala, but scoobula. And that literally means dung, d-U-N-G, poo. You know, it is, it's it, it is a it is a kind of a rash word that when he would have, when someone would have read this out loud, which is the way that these letters were written, they were written to be read out loud, when he said that, people would have started laughing like crazy. They would have been like, he just said what? Oh yeah, Paul just went there. He just called it scoobla. Can we say that word in church? Well, Paul just did. He's saying all of it is scubula. You you figure out the English word for scubla, all right? Compared to, he's like, I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying it is bad when you consider how great knowing Christ is. He says, I, he said, here's here's my goal. I want to know him. I just don't, I don't want to just know about him. I want a relationship with him. And you know what? I don't just want the good things, I want the bad things. I want everything in between. It reminds me of, this is not a good example. It reminds me of Lady Gaga's song, Bad Romance. I want all of it. I want the good things, I want the bad things. I'm not, I'm not saying I shouldn't even use that example, but there it is. But in in the song, she's saying, I want all of it. I want, I want the good things, I want the bad things, I want, I want everything there is to know about you. That's what Paul in a much holier way is saying about God. He's like, I want it all. I want to know him in the good things, I want to know him in his sufferings. If if it comes with God, I want all of it. But then look what he says right here in verse 12. He says, I don't mean to say that I've already achieved these things or that I've already reached perfection. No, no, no, no. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus has first possessed me. In other words, I when I see God, I want it. And I want to move straight for him. He's saying, No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it. But I focus on this one thing, forgetting the past and looking to what lies ahead. I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly price for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. So in other words, he's saying I focus on what I'm focusing on. I'm thinking about what I'm thinking about, and I'm moving forward to have all of God that I can get. And he says this let all who are spiritually mature agree on these things. And if you disagree at some point, I believe God will make it plain to you. But we must hold on to the progress that we have already made. In other words, he said, if you disagree with me, it's okay to be wrong. I'm believing God's going to fix it. Verse 17, dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine and learn from those who follow my example. In other words, so and he's not being, he's not being like arrogant. He's saying, Remember what I just told you? That I've given everything for Christ, you do that too. Verse 18, for I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows that they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. They are headed for destruction. Their God is their appetites. They brag about shameful things and they think only about this life here on earth. But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives, and we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. And we take our weak mortal bodies and change them, uh, he will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power for which he will bring everything under his control. In other words, if you get that picture of who God is, you get that picture of what Jesus is going to do, and you focus on that, that's how you can have joy no matter what your outward reality looks like. Is he saying we gotta remember, and it's really hard as we finish our time together, it's really hard for us as finite beings to get eternity in our minds. Maybe you can think of eternity and have no problem. But can I tell you as a finite in you know individual, it is really hard for me to get eternity in my mind. But Jesus Jesus has promised that when we die, that's only the beginning. That for a Christ follower, death is a doorway that enters into his presence. And that eternity doesn't start when we die, eternity starts now. We receive Christ, we're already experiencing eternity with him. We're just experiencing eternity while in our finite being. And if that doesn't hurt your head, you're not thinking deeply enough about it, right? And so Paul says, I focus on what I'm focusing on. And I'm not getting down about the fact that I'm in prison. I'm not getting down that I'm starting to hear whispers that I may not ever be getting out of here. I'm I'm not getting down about the fact that that it's difficult and it's struggling, and if I see one more rat, I'm on, I'm gonna hurt something. I he's like, I got all I got 99 problems, but Jesus ain't one. And I'm focusing on what I'm focusing on. I'm focusing on Jesus. Can I tell you, you may have 99 problems, but Jesus ain't one. I haven't heard anybody say that there's anybody listening to this that's in prison right now. So I'm gonna assume that even though we have people listening now from all over the world, which I'm so, so completely thankful for, that we're all free. So Paul's having a worse day than us when the Holy Spirit, you know, inspired him to write this. But that doesn't mean that what you're going through is not difficult, it doesn't mean it's not horrible, doesn't mean it's not terrible, and it doesn't mean that you don't have every right to be praying for God to deliver you at any moment. But can I tell you something? Whatever that horrible outer reality is, it doesn't have to determine your inner joy. Because Christ is for you and that he loves you, and that you can't even begin to understand the amount of love he has for you. You've never been more loved than you are right now. And that while we think in finite moments, we think in minutes and hours and seconds and days and weeks and years, Christ thinks in eternity. And when we see through eternity, it doesn't mean that it doesn't take a that it takes away the pain, but it does help us to realize that this pain is for a moment, but the glory of Christ in us and what he's gonna do in our lives lasts forever. So I want to encourage you today. No matter what difficult struggle you have, no matter what horrible situation you're having to endure and walk through, take a moment, turn off the phone, turn off the TV, don't scroll on social media for a moment, find find a place and just think about how big God is, how he sits outside of time, and his glory is overwhelming. He is omnipresent, omniscient, on omnipotent, omnibenevolent uh benevolent, which means he just explodes all of our expectations. He's even greater than we can imagine. And that God is in love with you. Wow. There's no reason you should ever allow any bad day to determine your joy because you are loved by the King of Kings. Let's pray together. God, thank you so much for today. Thank you, God, that you are so much greater than we can imagine. Lord, we can't even put into words how great you are. Lord, I feel slightly frustrated right now because I I don't have the ability to express how thankful I am that you would love us. But you do. I pray today that we will feel just a little bit more of that love and it will cause us to have joy on the inside that has nothing to do with whatever reality, whatever situation we're facing on the outside. Because that joy doesn't come from us, it comes from you. And because it comes from you, nothing we face in this life can distinct can extinguish it. We celebrate you today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Well, God's Word says that He wants you to live in joy, not in anxiety, when He says in Philippians 4, verse 6 and 7, don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done, and then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and your minds as you live in Christ Jesus. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for the grand finale of one of my favorite books of the Bible, Philippians, chapter four.