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Chapter 1: joy in suffering.
Chapter 2: joy in serving.
Chapter 3: joy in believing.

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.
SAFEGUARDS TO KEEP YOUR JOY
1) RESIST LEGALISM.
• Legalism – substituting rules for relationship.
Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh.
For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh-though I myself have reasons for such confidence.
Paul’s Resume for Religious Success
If anyone else thinks he has 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;
Examples of Legalism:
• Rituals
• Religion
• Rules

2) REFOCUS YOUR AMBITIONS.
But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that
ginosko – (ghin-oce'-ko) equivalent of the Hebrew word yada – to know intimately.


…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 and is by faith.
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
3) REJECT COMPLACENCY.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.
But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Two Things to Forget

1) Failures
2) Successes

Questions for reflection:
1) Are you becoming legalistic? If so, what areas?
2) Are you closer to Christ today than yesterday?
3) Have you become complacent? In what areas?
4) What failures do you need to release?
5) What success is hindering your
skubala (skoo'-bal-a); what is thrown to the dogs, refuse, dung.