Philippians 3:4 “Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more:”

Are you trying to build a Christian resume? If so, what kind of resume could you possibly build… like… really?

If you don’t know what a resume is, first of all it’s written like this… “résumé”… it has the accents because of its French roots… but I’m just going to go with “resume” without the accent marks in this blog!

You probably have applied for a job before, and if you did, most likely you submitted a “resume” to the place you wanted to work at.

Resume essentially means “sum up”. When you write out your resume, you’re basically summing up a list of your achievements and credentials from past jobs so you can impress a prospective employer with it.

Basically put, you use a resume to tell a prospective employer why they should hire you. A resume outlines how good you are, and you put some referees at the end who you are confident in (they’re already in your corner) who will attest to how good you are when the employer rings up to try and corroborate the claims you are making about yourself… because they want to make sure you aren’t taking great liberties with the truth about yourself!

But as Christians, we can get into resume building mentality with our faith and Christian walk. And it really isn’t a good place to be. We start trying to build up our achievements and our “list” to impress other people, and we even think that we can impress God.

If you are trying to build a religious resume… who are you trying to impress with it? God? Will he be impressed with your resume? Could he not have done it without you? Or is it man you’re trying to impress? But should we be trying to impress man, don’t we live unto God?

It’s good to think about though isn’t it. It is important what we do and don’t do, and it adds stock to our life, it proves our words, but it is not resume building that we are trying to do. The Bible lists what people did and didn’t do, you have a chapter like Hebrews 11, but it’s not a resume. And you get into detail about these guys and the resume doesn’t look so great, the only plus in their corner is faith, and if we are honest about our life’s work to date, what could we really be audacious enough to put in our “pros” column to convince others of our super spirituality?

If we were really going to look over the resumes of Christians past… isn’t it Jesus Christ that was impressive in their life? Wasn’t it the faith of Jesus Christ that was impressive? Wasn’t it the grace and mercy of God? Paul said in Galatians 6:14 “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”

It’s instructive that he talked about the world here, because it’s quite a worldly concept, because resume building is not kingdom of God mentality. The world is all about resume building, like the resumes of actors, singers, sportsmen, businessmen, politicians and religious figures… trying to “out resume” each other… but we are not living to impress others or God, we are doing things to God’s glory, a life based on grace and charity… not trying to keep notes that we can use to con ourselves into an inflated view of ourselves or to “oneup” some other Christian who isn’t as brilliant as we are, or so we think.

At the Galatian church, people were building their religious resume. I’m circumcised, you’re not, I’m more godly than you. Like a resume has bullet points and boxes ticked, because you’re trying to “tick the right boxes” in the mind of the employer you’re trying to impress… they were ticking some religious boxes to elevate themselves above other people, and it was about their glory.

And it’s amazing how in resume building, we start to meet a criteria that God doesn’t even demand. Usually our resumes aren’t even about impressing God, they’re about looking good in the sight of man. Remember how you try to meet what you think the employer wants with your resume, well often our resumes are about living up to the expectations and “passing muster” in the sight of some human being who is elevated in your eyes, who’s validation you need for your Christianity to exist.

I quoted a verse from Philippians 3 at the start, it’d be good the read the context. Because in this chapter, Paul said he had a better religious resume than everyone else, and he did, look what he did, where he went, the sacrifices he made, the life he lived… but he didn’t glory in that, nor did he glory in it while hiding it in some kind of fake modesty.

And Paul only spoke about his resume… to prove that it’s not about resume building. Whatever side of salvation, his resume was outstanding. Before he got saved, he had a great religious resume. And after he got saved, he had a great religious resume. So if anyone could talk about resumes, he could. But he didn’t. Yes he did detail the things he did and went through, but it wasn’t designed to shame others and elevate himself ever.

What was important to Paul was knowing Jesus Christ. And if you don’t know Christ, and he doesn’t know you… it doesn’t matter how vast your accomplishments and achievements are… you’ve got nothing. We are putting all sorts of stuff on our resume often that does not even matter. It’s crazy what some Christians have on their resume.

These days, there are a lot of young Christians who are pressured into doing things because they’ve got to start ticking boxes or they aren’t quite right, or they aren’t quite in, or they didn’t quite get it. And then it becomes a who is and who isn’t doing it. It’s great and essential to obey God, but we gotta remember why we are doing it. What is the motivation? And remember, this world has no use for you using them to try and pad your Christian stats.

Remember David numbering the people? Why did he do that? And why was God so angry with him for doing it? Because David was building his resume. Look what I’ve done. Look what I’ve built. He was trying to put into figures just how good a king he was. It’s like how politicians detail all the figures and metrics that prove that they’ve done such a good job they deserve to get voted in again. The political campaign trail is just a “resume off” at the OK corral. Here’s why you should vote me based on x,y,z. Here’s why I’m better than the other candidate based on x,y,z.

Do what you gotta do. Be who God wants you to be. Do what God wants you to do. But it’s not about resume building, it’s about a relationship with God, it’s about being born again, it’s about walking by faith with your Lord and your God. If God uses you, then thank him that he did use you. Remember, anything we ever achieve is only because of Christ, through Christ, in Christ… it’s about Christ.

As soon as we enter this world of resume building, the glory of Christ is the first casualty. And we may say glory to God at the end, or tack it in there somewhere, but it’s really about how good we are. We may fake modesty, we may be fake humble, but God sees what it really is. And he resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

If you want to list off your resume, don’t list of how good you think you are, how well you think you’ve done… maybe list off what Jesus Christ has done, list off what he has achieved. Because really, truly, and honestly, if it was about resume building, we would be lying to put anything really that “pro” us in there. Just look at our hearts and minds and lives… it’s littered with sin, disobedience, rebellion, doubt, denial… you gonna put all that on your resume?

You know what people do with resumes? They don’t put on all the bad stuff, just all the good stuff. Watch out for that resume building, because it may just deceive yourself, because you’ll get to thinking that you’re pretty good… but while there’s plenty on the “other side of the ledger” that you conveniently left out. Resume building really builds a false confidence in who we are… and the only thing I can put on my resume to date is the faithfulness and mercy and longsuffering and grace of Christ. If he ever used me to do anything, it’s unbelievable that he could even do that.

And remember… who’s doing the “summing up” at the end? It won’t be you or I. God is going to do the summing up of our lives. Christ better be on your resume… and Christ alone. It better be his righteousness alone! That’s what Paul wrote about, read verse 9 of that chapter! Paul wasn’t talking about his righteousness, he was talking about being found in Christ’s righteousness. He wasn’t talking about his faith, he was talking about Christ’s faith. I can’t add to Christ. My resume is Christ plus nothing.

When your life is summed up, no matter what resume you think you’ve built, the only way your ledger will balance out if Christ is there. If Christ is not there, if truly being born again is not there, you’re not going to make it. And what impresses God on our resume? Hint: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Jesus is the only human being to walk this planet to impress God… so how about just look at Christ’s resume, stop building your own, and just live for him the best you can by the grace and power of God?

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