Philippians 3:4-8: When Your Diploma Doesn't Fit The Job

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. - Philippians 3:4b-6

I spent a week in downtown San Jose recently, right next to San Jose State and a few blocks from where I received my college diploma. What is strange to me now is I have never worked in a job related to either one of my diplomas. None of the skills, none of the rights and privileges pertaining thereto has ever been listed in more than a footnote on my resumés.

So, if I was to go around and wave my credentials, it would do no good. Not applicable. I better not rely on them for a job interview.

Yet that is exactly what we do with all of our accomplishments. We wave them around to other people. We wave them around to God. Hoping to establish credibility. Look, we say. Look at what I've done. I must be valuable because of X. 

But God says, its not your accomplishments that makes you ready to take on his kingdom. It is Jesus. Just like a piece of paper--a diploma--never got me a job, neither do a LinkedIn catalog of all we have done establish our credibility in the kingdom of heaven. Instead it is the experience we have with the king that makes us ready to appreciate the kingdom and gears us to be ready to serve him. 

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. - Philippians 3:7-9