Rewriting Our Stories - 10/18/2026

My name's Jack.

I'm one of the pastors here at Alderwood.

So glad that you're joining us today.

We're in Philippians chapter three.

If you want to turn there in your Bible with me, and while you turn there, uh I want to talk a little bit about story.

Uh raise your hand if you don't like stories in some way, shape, or form.

No hands.

We all love stories.

We're story-receiving creatures.

It's how God has designed us.

And I was thinking this week when it think about the idea of story.

What are some of my favorite stories ever?

For me, uh, I'm going to share four examples and they cover different mediums.

They are done in different ways.

Uh, for me, one of my favorite stories, it's it's a movie, but it's not just one movie, it's actually three.

It's a long time ago in the galaxy far away, but it's not the one you think of.

It's actually far better.

It's Lord of the Rings, okay?

And uh, my wife thinks I'm a dork for liking Lord of the Rings, and I remind her she married me.

So, what does that make her?

And uh, and so I like Lord of the Rings.

It's a fantasy story, it's an amazing story, and J.R.

Tolkien, his books are incredible.

And so that's an example of story I like.

But another example of story I like that's completely different is a sitcom TV show called The Office.

Okay, not quite the same as Lord of the Rings, but again, it's a story nonetheless.

Uh, another movie that I like that's also different than either of these is from Member of the Titans, Denzel Washington, one of the best movies I've ever seen.

And then another story, if you've talked with me at all uh in the last five or six months, there's one story that's really gripped me in a way that neither of these have.

It's actually a novel.

It's a book called Theo of Golden.

Okay.

In fact, Theo of Golden, I think, is just such a remarkable story.

I've given away more copies of this than virtually any other book that I've ever read before.

And I love this story so much.

It's a story of an unassuming man from Portugal named Theo.

He moves to a small town in Georgia.

Don't worry, I'm not going to give away this, no spoilers here.

And uh, people are trying to figure out who this guy is.

But what's amazing is how counter-cultural this guy is.

He just sits with people and he asks questions and he listens to their stories, and people just unload some of the heaviest things that they've ever had to walk through.

As a pasture, for me, it was deeply moving and deeply convicting.

And for me, I was doing a lot of research and reading about the story, how people received it.

And often what I would hear from people is, I wish Theo was a real person, or I wish that I could be more like Theo.

And I found myself feeling both those things as well.

Because that's what a good story does.

A good story does one of two things it either draws you and compels you to a way that the world should be, or it critiques the way that things are right now.

Because stories are never just stories in the in and of themselves, they actually are meaning to accomplish something.

In fact, I would make the case that any story that is compelling to us is compelling because stories in general, they're frameworks that give our lives meaning.

When I look at the story of Theo of Golden, and I see this man, and by the way, the author is a Christian, and in many ways, Theo is a Christ-like figure meant to draw us to see Jesus.

And it's amazing how popular this book has been received, and uh, because people are hearing the gospel through this in many ways.

And so for me, I see this story, and it makes me want to be more like him or want more people to be like him.

And I realize that this story is a framework that helps me see how life should be.

But stories show themselves in more than just you know, novels and you know, character arcs and all of that.

We are inundated with stories all the time.

It's not just something you might read in a book, it's stuff that we experience or we feel.

Like, for example, an example of a story is if I have the perfect family, then I will have a good life.

I have a spouse, two and a half kids, a dog, a picket fence, like all of that stuff.

That's the good life.

That's a story.

Another one is you know what?

I want to have the perfect job.

This guy loves his job a little bit too much, apparently.

Get this guy a date because he needs to stop hugging his computer.

But if you have the perfect job, man, telling you what, like that, that's the good life, or perfect health.

You know, it's it.

I want to be super healthy, super health conscious.

My life is solely about, or what the most important thing for me is about being healthy or the perfect financial situation.

There's cool Benjamin Franklin for you, like a cool hundred dollar bill right there.

And all of these things are not bad.

So don't hear me in any way, shape, or form saying that if you have a family that you love, if you love your job, don't hug your computer.

But if you love your job, uh if you have good health, if you have a good financial situation, those aren't bad in and of themselves.

But what Paul is going to show us today is that anything we build our life around, all of these stories that we can be tempted to build our life around, they cannot actually hold the weight of who God has made us to be, because we're made in the image and likeness of God.

Only Jesus can do that.

And today, what Paul wants us to see is that if you want Jesus to be the one who writes your story and you want to enter into God's story, then being a part of God's story, it really rewrites our own.

It rewrites our stories.

And so we're in uh Philippians chapter three, and we're gonna be in verses two through eleven this morning.

And just a little bit of a background information here.

As Paul is approaching this passage, at the end of chapter two, he's saying, I'm sending two of my friends, Timothy and Epaphroditus.

I'm sending these men to you.

These are wonderful, godly, good men.

I'm sending them to you, so receive them with great joy.

And then Paul gives a warning in verse two.

He says, Watch out for the dogs, watch out for the evil workers, watch out for those who mutilate the flesh.

Now, you might be wondering, Kate, who are these people that Paul's talking about?

He's talking about people called the Judaizers.

Judaizers were people that said, Yeah, we're cool with Jesus, we're cool with placing your faith in Jesus, but there's one additional thing that you need besides him.

It's Jesus, plus, and I'm so sorry to the men here, it's Jesus and circumcision that you have to.

And the guys are like, huh?

Like, like what are you talking about?

And Paul hated this belief system.

Paul, he he could not stand this belief system.

In fact, in the book of Galatians, the whole book is a critique against the Judaizers and this idea that you need something along with Jesus to be saved.

Because Paul wants you to see it's a false story.

The false story is that Jesus plus anything at all equals salvation.

Jesus, in this case, they said Jesus plus circumcision equals salvation.

Because circumcision was the mark of God's people in the Old Testament.

So if you want to be part of God's people in the New Testament, you must have that physical mark.

And Paul says, No, that is a false story.

And for us, maybe it's not circumcision in the 21st century.

Maybe it's Jesus plus I go to church every week.

Maybe it's I read my Bible every day.

Maybe it's I do enough good things, I'm a good person.

And Paul would say, if we're adding anything else to our salvation, it's a false story.

And instead, the true story is that Jesus plus nothing is our salvation.

Jesus plus nothing equals salvation.

These people believed you needed circumcision, this physical mark to be saved.

And Paul says, No, we the church are the circumcision, and our mark is not a physical one.

Then here's our mark.

First, we worship by the Spirit of God.

We worship by the Spirit of God, that we give our lives as a living sacrifice, Romans 12 says, that it's not just through our singing that we give our lives, that we are fully committed to Jesus.

We worship him, we ascribe worth.

That's what worship literally means.

Giving him ultimate worship and allegiance.

Not to earn our salvation, but in light of our salvation.

But secondly, we also boast in Christ Jesus.

We boast in what he has done for us.

Our life is not about what we have done, but telling people constantly, look, can I tell you what Jesus has done for me?

And lastly, the third thing is that they don't put confidence in the flesh.

They put no confidence in what they have done.

Their life is not about their achievements, their goodness.

It is always about Jesus.

That's the mark of Christ.

Because Paul wants us to understand the verse 9 says that people who live this way, followers of Jesus, they don't have a righteousness of their own, from the law, from obedience, from anything.

Their righteousness is one that is through faith in Christ.

The righteousness from God based on faith.

That my goodness, it does not come from what I have done, it comes from what Jesus has done for me.

In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul says very, very succinctly that God made him, Jesus Christ, who knew no sin, lived a perfect, sinless life.

God made him who knew no sin my sin.

All of my failures, everything that I've done wrong, God, when Jesus dies on the cross, he puts it on Jesus.

So that when Jesus is suffering and dying, it's me.

It's I am paying the penalty in that moment.

Jesus is paying it for me.

God made him who knew no sin my sin, so that through him I may become the righteousness of Christ.

So I then receive in faith the righteousness of Jesus Christ, not based on anything that I have done, but based on what Jesus has done for me.

And this is the true story.

It's not based on anything, it's not Jesus plus this equals salvation.

No, it is Jesus plus nothing is salvation.

That is the means of how we are saved.

But then Paul he wants to share another false story.

From what you have achieved in your life.

Paul says in verse 4 if anyone thinks that he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more.

That is a bold statement.

Do you think you've lived a good life?

You think you're a pretty good person?

I was better.

Like that is a bold statement that Paul is making right there, but he's about to back it up because he's going to share the things that he had built his story around.

This is the story that Paul was writing before he had met Jesus.

He said that he had the right family.

At verse 5, I was circumcised on the eighth day of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews.

I love one translation that says, a Hebrew if there ever was one.

Okay.

Like this is who he was, I was as Jewish as you could possibly imagine.

In Acts 22, Paul is surrounded by a mob that wants to kill him.

And Paul reminds us crowd.

He says, Look, I'm a Jew born in Tarshish of Sicilia, but I was brought up in Jerusalem, in this city.

I cut my teeth on these streets.

I know about life here as a Jewish man living in Jerusalem.

I had the right family, I had the right background, I had the right bloodline.

Like this is, I was as Jewish as you could imagine.

But along with that, I had the right training.

Paul continues that regarding the law, I was a Pharisee.

Now, some of you, maybe who are new to church, you might wonder what's a Pharisee?

A Pharisee is a religious sect within Judaism.

In fact, I would say the strictest of all the religious sects in Judaism in terms of how they viewed the laws that God had given in the Old Testament.

They there were groups that had different approaches to how they viewed the laws, but the Pharisees, they were the ones that had the strictest adherence to the law.

They would even put rules to make sure that you couldn't approach the actual rules written in the law.

Like they put barriers from the law so that you could be extra righteous.

And Paul, he was trained with this group, but not just that, he actually got the best of the best training.

In Acts 22, Paul talking to the mob, he said, I was educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strictness of our ancestral law.

You might wonder who's Gamaliel?

He was a Pharisee, according to Acts 5, a teacher of the law, who was respected by all the people.

So he had the right training.

Let me speak to the parents here just for a second.

Raise your hand if you're you want your kids to have bad training or education.

None of us do.

I want my girls to have the best, you do too.

And Paul received that because not only was Paul a Pharisee, he received teaching from one of the most famous ones in all of Judea.

He was a very famous man, and Paul he received the absolute best training possible.

But Paul was not just given a silver spoon in his life.

He'd want you to know also that he had the right passion.

Like he had drive.

He continues in verse 6 regarding zeal, persecuting the church.

Paul was there in the book of Acts when Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was killed.

Paul was there looking on to all of this and he approved of it.

In Acts chapter 9, before Paul encounters Christ and is met by him and is changed by him, Paul he has papers and he's on his way to go to Damascus.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

He has approval to go and find Christians and persecute them, imprison them.

And if some of them die along the way, well, that's just the cost of doing business.

But Paul was ready to do this.

He was zealous.

And again, in Acts 22, surrounded by this mob of people who want to kill him, he says, I get it.

I was zealous for God, just as all of you are today.

The same zeal that led you to want to kill me today, I felt the same way.

I had the right passion, the right drive.

And lastly, he had the right behaviors.

Going back to Philippians 3, verse 6, regarding the righteousness that's in the law, I was blameless.

Philippians 3:6

I was blameless.

Paul lived a good life.

You look at all of these things.

And for me, I just think about myself as a parent, okay?

And I know this is in the context of first century century Judaism, but I think about it as a 21st century American, and I think about my daughters, I want them to have all these things.

Like I want to be a good, I want them to have good family, I want to be a good dad, my wife wants to be a good mom.

I want them to have the right training and education.

I want them to have drive.

I want them to have passion.

I want them to really care about things.

I want them to have the right behaviors and do good things.

These are bad in and of itself.

But the problem with these things is that Paul was making them the foundation of his life.

They were the things that he boasted in.

When you talked with Paul before Jesus, it was all about these things.

It was about, look, I have the right family, the right training, I have drive and passion, and I don't care what it costs me, I am going to be passionate and I do all the right things.

And for me, that is convicting because I, as a dad, can want to frame my children's experience through this lens as well.

And Paul is saying, no, this is not the way you should live.

You should not live to boast on these things.

Man, for some of you, you probably are very successful, and you've done some great things in your life, and you've reached the pinnacle of your career or whatever it is that you've wanted, and you realize this doesn't satisfy as much as I thought it would.

I thought this was gonna make me happy, but it didn't.

The great theologian Jim Carrey puts it this way: he says, I think everyone should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer.

Talk about a guy who has experienced everything.

I want you to experience all of this just so you can see it doesn't actually satisfy you.

Because your achievements, building your life around that, is a false story.

Your story's worth does not come from what you achieve.

Your story's worth comes from knowing Jesus.

That's the true story that Paul wants you to see.

Verse 7 everything that was a gain to me, having the right family, the right education and training, the right passion, the right behaviors, all of these things that I thought were worth bragging about and boasting about and making my life about.

Now that I've experienced Jesus, everything that was gained to me, I've considered to be a loss.

Why?

Because of Christ.

It's a loss.

And he doubles down more than that.

I consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Like that is, he's doubling down on this idea that I thought everything I had in my life was going to give me meaning and purpose and value.

And now I realize that only comes from Jesus.

But then he triples down.

He says, Because of Jesus, I've suffered the loss of all things and consider them to be dung, so that I may gain Christ to be found in him.

This picture that Paul has that suffering the loss of all things.

Like he lost probably relationships, his education, people thought he was flushing down the drain.

He was doing all of these things, and he was willing to walk away from all of it.

I was thinking about this.

I was thinking this week, uh, Elon Musk, he's in the news again with a flying car.

Okay, the guy's got more money than we could ever imagine.

But I was thinking about this, and what's often viewed as this is the good life, and yet I'm reminded he's got 14 kids spread out for multiple women.

And I remember a story that was done a few years ago on him, and he was saying, Yeah, I actually I just sleep in my office most nights.

I sleep on a couch in my office.

I'm thinking, is that the good life?

Like the world's spending billions of dollars convinced that this is what you should want in your life.

Meanwhile, I know missionaries that go to some of the most impoverished and destitute places in the world, and they talk with Christians that are suffering real persecution, that are very much lacking food and water and shelter and clothing.

And they talk with them and they ask, What are your thoughts on all of this?

And they smile and they say, Jesus is still worth it.

And there is a joy.

Immediately I have to ask myself, who's got the better life?

For me, that latter life, having the joy in the suffering, that sounds like a better life.

It's because if we build it on our achievements, we're building it on all of these things, it is a false story.

It does not give the satisfaction that it promises.

Paul says that these things are all lost to me.

I thought that they were a net positive.

It's like if you invest in your retirement account, but you're not checking to see what the balance is, and you finally you've been doing this for years and years and years, and then finally time for retirement comes.

You look at your account and you have a deficit.

You owe money.

And that's what Paul says it is.

I thought these things would give me value.

They don't.

It's only knowing Jesus to the point that I consider them dung.

And when for me, I have a hard time with this.

When I hear this, like, is this really what Paul thinks?

And then I'm reminded of myself, no, it's because I have too small of a picture of Jesus.

I have too small of a picture of him, recognizing that Jesus, compared to anything else in this world, as good as it can be, that is the difference.

In the book of Revelation, we're going through that study in midweek uh this uh this semester, and we did chapters four and five this last week.

And we, if you for those of you who are there, we saw this picture of God's glory, and we saw God's holiness, and you see the angels declaring, holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty, worshiping him, giving him glory.

And for John in that moment, as a man who was suffering in exile, that had to be incredibly clarifying for him.

Saying, Yeah, this suffering, it's worthwhile.

Paul saying, I am willing to suffer the loss of all the things I've built my life around, just so that I can have Christ.

But at least to the last false story that our culture, when they hear this, would say, No, no, no, don't do this.

Paul's willing to give all of these things up, but the world says, no, no, don't do this.

You only live once.

Your story ends here.

So protect your comfort at all costs.

Protect your comfort.

You worked hard for those things.

Is Jesus calling you to give them up, or is Jesus calling you to reprioritize some things or to make some changes?

Don't do that.

Be comfortable no matter what.

I love comfort, I like being comfortable, and I'm sure you can relate.

Comfort is a very high value for us here in America.

And for me, I was thinking about it this week, and I actually was confronted in terms of how much I love comfort in a specific way by my wife.

Uh, she let me know.

She said, Hey, I I really appreciate the fact that you are very present with us when it's just me and the girls around the house.

But I've noticed that when we have company over this.

Thing shows up a lot more that you just kind of zone out, just kind of do your thing.

And for me, I'd make all sorts of excuses to why.

Then everyone doesn't.

Everyone's everyone's on their phone.

I'm tired.

It's been a long day.

All this stuff the average American adult spends over seven hours a day looking at a screen.

So like I can't be that bad, right?

But I was I was confronted and convicted in this moment where I realized that she's right.

For me, I need to be more present with people, but I'm choosing for whatever reason to keep them at an arm's distance.

I want to stay comfortable.

I want to protect myself.

And for me, I'm realizing I'm still working through this.

I don't even have all the answers for me.

But for me, I'm recognizing I need to surrender my desire to be comfortable in that moment.

And what is it for you?

Is it, man, football's on this afternoon?

I'm just gonna kick my feet up and just ignore all the needs that are around me.

Maybe for you, there's a podcast, you pop an AirPod in, you listen to podcasts, and you just tune the world out.

For you, maybe it's that second, third, fourth glass of wine, just to kind of take the edge off just a little bit.

What is the thing that you go to to find comfort?

The world says that's fine, that's not that big of a deal.

But Paul says, No, your story is not just what happens here, there's more to it.

Resurrection is coming, so follow Jesus no matter the cost.

I love how the NLT renders the last two verses in our passage.

He says, I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead.

Me too.

I want to know Jesus like Moses did with God in the book of Exodus, that he saw God face to face and spoke to him like a friend.

Like I want to have that type of relationship with Jesus, and I want to experience the power of his resurrection.

I want to experience all of those things.

That sounds absolutely amazing, Paul.

I am all in on that.

So let's pray.

Oh, there's sorry, there's a little bit more here.

I want to suffer with him.

I should have stopped earlier.

I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death.

Why?

So that one way or another, I will experience the resurrection from the dead.

What's Paul saying?

Do you want to know Jesus?

Do you want to experience the power of the resurrection?

Both the resurrection life that God gives you now and the resurrection hope that we have in the future.

Do you want to have that?

That's awesome.

In order for something to be resurrected, it must first die.

And sometimes and oftentimes, with that death, there is pain, there is hardship.

But the only way to resurrection is through death.

And this is what Paul is saying.

I want to know Christ.

I want to be in that relationship with him, even if it means I have to die, even if it means that my story that I had built my whole life around has to change.

I will do whatever it takes.

I will follow Christ no matter the cost, not to earn my salvation, but as a response to what Jesus has done for me.

Because again, Paul, he had a big picture of God in Romans 8.

He says, I consider any suffering of this present time that they're not worth comparing to the glory that is going to be revealed in us.

Paul had a big picture of God.

He had a big picture of who he was and recognized that any discomfort, any pain, even if it costs me my life, to live is Christ, as he said earlier, Philippians, and to die is gain.

If I can know Christ, then no matter what happens to me this side of eternity, it's worth it.

I want to follow him and know him no matter what.

I was thinking this week, uh, my daughter, our oldest daughter Ella, turned seven this past Monday.

And whenever their birthdays roll around for me, I do a lot of reflecting and just thinking back to uh the hospital room when they were born and just thinking about this.

And my wife Allie, just what a rock star she was, uh, and just delivering our babies.

And for our first two, our we have three daughters, but our first two daughters, uh, Ali was going to get an epidural for both of them, and they both didn't work.

I still paid for them, and uh, but her body rejected them.

And so, but for her, she pushed through and she delivered them in that moment when the doctor says it's not working.

I'm so sorry, she didn't say cancel the pregnancy.

Okay.

She said no, mama bear mode.

She locked in, she was awesome.

She's like, I don't need it.

I want my babies, I want to be with my girls, I want to hold them, I want to know them, I want to place them on my chest, I want to be with them.

I don't care what the pain is.

And then for our third baby, when they said that your body doesn't receive the epidural, they actually gave her, the doctors did, lidocaine and fentanyl.

And I was just like, what on earth?

And she felt great for that pregnancy.

Regardless, though, even if that didn't work, she was willing to go through the pain because she wanted the joy on the other side.

She wanted that.

And Paul is saying the same thing.

You know what?

Your life is not all about comfort.

Your life is not all about how can I just make it pleasant for myself.

No, resurrection is coming.

So no matter what the cost is to following Jesus, it's worth it.

It is worth it.

Pursue the life with Christ, even if it leads to your death, because it leads ultimately to resurrection.

And so, as we've been thinking about all of these things this morning, Paul sharing how his story has changed, he recognizes, he wants us to recognize that man, being a part of God's story, it rewrites our own stories.

That if I want to truly be a part of God's story, then I have to hand the pen of my life over to him and allow him to rewrite our story.

And so as we finish up this morning, I want to just speak to two people.

First, I want to speak to those of you that maybe you've climbed to the mountaintop of whatever success looks like for you.

Perfect family, perfect health situation, perfect job, perfect whatever.

And you have achieved everything in this life that you've been told this is where purpose and value come from.

And you realize, like Jim Carrey said, it's not enough.

It's not enough.

What I want to tell you is this that Jesus gives us a better story.

He is ready to give you a better story.

Because those things are not bad.

Those are not bad things.

I hope you all enjoy them and experience them, but if you build your life around them, they cannot hold up the weight of your life.

Why is that?

Because you are made in the image and likeness of God and have infinite value.

You have such glorious value because you are made in the image of the eternal God, and nothing but a relationship with Him can satisfy you.

The early church father Augustine put it this way: Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

Why is the next paycheck, the next promotion, the next accomplishment, why is it never enough?

It's because we were not made to be satisfied with those things.

Those things are not bad, but our satisfaction needs to come from knowing Jesus.

And he writes a better story, and he wants to give you a better story.

But the second person I want to speak to this morning are those who are on the opposite end.

That they're not at the top of the mountain, they're at rock bottom.

And you're here today.

Maybe you're thinking, I don't even know why I'm here.

I have messed up my life in more ways than I can count.

If I told you all of the ways that I've screwed up my life, you wouldn't even want to speak to me.

And what I want to tell you today is that Jesus can rewrite anyone's story, including yours.

Paul persecuted Christians, he arrested Christians, he approved of the murdering of Christians.

And Jesus rewrote his story.

And the same is true for you.

Jesus can rewrite your story.

Man, the mistakes that you have, those things do not have to be what identifies you and marks your life anymore, but what Jesus has done for you, giving you new meaning and purpose.

You built your life around your family, and your family fell apart.

You built your life around your job, you lost your job, you built your life around your health, and you don't have the perfect health anymore.

You had the perfect financial situation and it all collapsed, and you're sitting here thinking, what is the purpose?

And Jesus is here to say, I can give you the better story, I can rewrite your story, and he is ready.

Jesus is ready to rewrite anyone's story, no matter who you are.

Whether you come to church every Sunday, or like I said, you're in here today and you have no clue why you are here.

Paul says this if anyone is in Christ, anyone means anyone.

He is a new creation, the old is passed away, and see the new has come.

A new story awaits you.

Jesus is ready and he is willing and he is wanting to change your story.

Will you let him?

If you're ready to make that decision today, at the end of the service, we're gonna have some folks over here in our family room to my left, your right, and they're gonna be ready to pray with you today.

Maybe you showed up today, October 18th, not thinking that today was gonna be anything special, but you're realizing now I need to have my story changed.

They would love to share with you how you can allow Jesus to change your story.

Will you let Jesus do it today?

Let's pray.

Father, thank you so much that you are a gracious God.

Lord, we're so tempted, I know I am, to want to build my life around things that are so temporal, things that I want to think would give me meaning and value, but they don't.

And just reminding myself of what Augustine says that we were made to know you.

That's why we're made in your image and likeness of God.

And our heart is restless until we finally rest in you.

So, Father, for every person in this room, I pray that they would give up the pen of their life trying to control the things that they want their life to be about.

Instead, recognize that Jesus, you give a better story, you give better purpose, you give better meaning.

You don't give an easier story, but you give a better one.

And you promise to walk alongside us every step of the way.

You will never leave us or forsake us.

Thank you for that promise, Jesus.

Pray this in your name.

Amen.