Knowing Christ
Notes
Transcript
Text: Philippians 3:7-11
7 But whatever was gain to me I count as loss for the sake of Christ.
8 More than that, I count all things as loss compared to the surpassing excellence of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God on the basis of faith.
10 I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death,
11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
PRAY
Introduction
What is most valuable to you? What do you consider as more important than anything else in your life? What would you never be willing to give up?
Family?
Friends?
Pleasures?
Possessions?
Reputation?
Work?
Church?
What things were “gain” for Paul? What did he consider most valuable?
See his resume in v. 5-6. Philippians 3:4-6
4 though I myself could have such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more:
5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin; a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;
6 as to zeal, persecuting the church; as to righteousness in the law, faultless.
Circumcised on the 8th day = not only he but also his parents were obedient to the Jewish law and practiced circumcision, which was the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham.
Of the people of Israel = belonging to the nation chosen by the Lord out of all the nations on earth to be His own special possession.
Of the tribe of Benjamin = the younger son of Jacob’s favored wife Rachel, an important tribe in Israel, since their first king, Saul was from that tribe (probably where Paul got his Jewish name Saul from); along with Judah, Benjamin was one of the more faithful tribes, in the southern kingdom along with Judah.
A Hebrew of Hebrews = “a real Hebrew if there ever was one” (NLT) a prime example or model of what a real Jew is.
As to the Law, a Pharisee = the pharisees were the strictest religious sect of their time - think fundamentalists today - very strict practices and interpretations of the Old Testament. He’s the religious conservative.
As to zeal, persecuting the church = before he met Christ, this was something he was proud of - that he persecuted those who confessed Jesus as the Messiah, dragging some to prison and even killing others because of their commitment to Christ. As Jesus told his apostles in John 16:2, Paul thought that he was offering service to God by persecuting and killing Christians, because he believed that THEY were the ones who were blaspheming and being unfaithful to God.
As to righteousness in the law, faultless = he carefully and meticulously followed all of God’s laws to the best of his ability, and at least in public, his testimony was that of perfect obedience to God’s law.
That’s quite a resume. And Paul probably planned to hand this resume to God when he died, and say, “Look at what I’ve done God. Aren’t you proud of me?”
But as we talked about last week, even the best things that we have to offer God are like filthy rags in His sight. Even our best works fail to impress God - in fact, they are disgusting to Him; not to mention the bad things we do.
Why were these things so important or valuable to him?
They were a reason to boast - he was better than the people around him, and this list gave him grounds for exalting himself. We all like to look good in front of other people and have them think well of us, and Paul was no different.
They were probably his hope of getting into heaven - obtaining the righteousness necessary for being in God’s presence forever. He thought he could work his way to God, and his resume of good works was probably better than anyone else Paul knew.
There was probably a sense of accomplishment in doing so well at something so hard. Keeping all the laws requires quite a bit of effort, and Paul was probably proud of himself for his hard work and accomplishment of doing so well in the righteousness department.
Maybe other reasons as well, but probably at least these three (self-exaltation before men, boasting before God, and personal pride in accomplishment)
What things are gain to you?
(What are you not willing to give up if God asked you to?)
Is it your reputation and what people think of you?
Is it money or possessions - your bank account or investments, house, car, property?
Is it relationships? A spouse, child, parent, or friend?
Is it your job or your hobbies?
Or like Paul, are you clinging to your personal accomplishments hoping they’ll gain you favor with God?
What are the most important things in your life? If you don’t know, consider what you spend most of your time on, what you spend time thinking about, what makes you feel happy, what you spend your money on. Those can be indicators of what is most important to us.
For example, if I spend a significant portion of my budget on going out to eat, I find myself thinking all day about how delicious that steak is going to be, and those few moments of the day that I’m eating the steak are my happiest moments of the day - then the pleasure of eating out is what is most valuable to me.
Or if I spend all day thinking about my favorite baseball team, and I spend a significant portion of my money on watching baseball games or even traveling to go to games in person and buy jerseys and baseball caps, and the happiest moment of my day was when my team hit that home run and won the game - then my hobby of baseball is gain to me.
When it comes to relationships, it can be harder to evaluate if the relationship is too important to us or if we’re just valuing people like God wants us to. For parents, there’s a certain amount of attention you have to give to your kids. You have to spend money on them and spend time thinking about them, and hopefully it makes you happy to have them around. Same with a spouse if you’re married. Maybe a better question to ask to evaluate our relationships would be, would I still love God and trust Him if He took this person away from me? And if the answer is anything other than a wholehearted “yes”, that person is “gain” to you, and you value that relationship more than you should.
When you’ve answered the question “what things are gain to you?,” then consider this:
Why are those things so important or valuable to you?
Why do you consider your family to be so important?
Why does money matter so much to you?
Why do you care so much about what people think of you?
If anything other than Jesus Christ is most important to us, we have a problem with our priorities. The problem is ultimately with our hearts, because we are valuing as most important things that are not most important, and we are treating what is most important as not a big deal. Our problem is that we love this world and what it has to offer more than we love God. But if anything else is most important to us, we will be disappointed.
Family members can die or leave us or disappoint us
Money can disappear or lose its value quickly
Your reputation can change in an instant
You can lose your job
Your sports team can have a terrible season
Your house could burn down
You could lose your car in an accident
Anything and everything in this world that you place the highest value on can and will disappoint you, because they are temporary and they will change and let you down.
There is only one Treasure that never changes, and His name is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
His value never changes. Once you have Him, you can’t ever lose Him. Only He can make you happy forever. He is the greatest Treasure. And we ought to value Him above all else.
What did Paul learn to do with the things that he used to consider gain?
But whatever was gain to me I count as loss for the sake of Christ.
He chose to count them as loss. These things were no longer gain - they were loss.
Anything that you cling to instead of Christ is a loss - it is keeping you from what is really most important and valuable.
Why did he choose to regard them as loss?
For the sake of Christ. Because of Christ - who He is and what He has done. In His Person and His Work, Jesus Christ is more valuable than anything, and Paul learned to love Jesus more than anything, to value Him above all else.
And not only the things that used to be most valuable for Paul, but also everything else is equally “loss” compared to having Christ and knowing Him:
More than that, I count all things as loss compared to the surpassing excellence of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
Compared to the value of knowing Christ, everything else is loss.
What does it mean to know Christ?
To know a person is not the same as merely knowing about a person. For example, I know a good bit about the president of the U.S., but I do not know him. What do I mean? There is no relationship there. We’ve never met, I’ve never spent time with him, we’ve never talked. I don’t know him.
Because Jesus Christ is a Person, to know Him is more than simply knowing about Him. There are many people who know a whole lot about Jesus, and maybe they even consider themselves Christians, but they don’t truly know Him. To know Him is to have a relationship with Him - to spend time with Him reading His Word, listening to His voice, talking to Him, trusting Him, and loving Him.
Another thing Paul means is that he now acknowledges Jesus Christ as his Lord, his Master, and he embraces Him as God. To truly know Christ is to receive Him for who He truly is - the Lord of all, and to submit your life to Him. He sets the course, He makes the rules, He tells you what to do, and you follow Him and obey. Paul had acknowledged Jesus Christ as his Lord and Master, and he had submitted his whole life to serving and obeying Him.
To truly know Christ is to trust Him, love Him, and obey Him.
Why is knowing Christ better or more valuable than anything else?
Paul says he regards everything else as loss compared to the surpassing excellence of knowing Christ Jesus [his] Lord. Knowing Jesus Christ, being in a relationship with Him by faith, is worth more than anything in the world. Those who know Christ have found the greatest treasure, because in His presence is fullness of joy, and at His right hand are pleasures forevermore. Once you have Him, you can’t lose Him, and He will satisfy your soul forever. Everything else in this world will fail to satisfy you, and it will all fade away. But Jesus Christ is forever, and those who know Him will enjoy Him forever.
To have everything except Christ is to have nothing. To have Christ and nothing else is to have everything.
This is the attitude of the Psalmist in Psalm 73:25
25 Whom have I in heaven but You? And on earth I desire no one besides You.
What things keep you from valuing Christ in this way?
Do you know Christ in this way? Have you found Him to be an all-satisfying Treasure? Or are there things in this world that you value more than Him? What in your life is distracting you from wholehearted devotion to Christ? What is keeping you from loving Him as you ought to?
Have you consciously chosen to give up anything and everything because of Christ? Is there anything you’re holding onto that is keeping you from greater intimacy with Christ?
“I have lost all things”
8 More than that, I count all things as loss compared to the surpassing excellence of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
When Paul says “I have lost all things”, some translations use the expression “I have suffered the loss of all things”, but that makes it sound like it’s something that just happened to Paul. Maybe like losing your car keys. You don’t choose to lose your car keys, they’re just not where they’re supposed to be - you’ve suffered the loss of your car keys. That’s not what’s going on here. The verb in Greek is in the active voice, which means that it is an intentional action that Paul has taken - he has chosen this loss; he has chosen to give up these things.
Rubbish - skubala
More than that, Paul says, not only do I consider them to be loss, I consider them rubbish.
The word “loss” might indicate that it’s something you want back at some point. The word translated “rubbish” is not something you ever want back. In fact, you may pay someone to get rid of it. The KJV translators were right to use the word “dung” here, because the Greek word means that. This is what goes in the toilet, and you don’t want it back. That’s how Paul now views his own righteousness - his attempt to gain favor with God. It’s less than worthless.
And Christ is gain
Everything else is a loss and even less than worthless now, because Paul now has Christ. To have Christ is to have the greatest Treasure.
Is Christ gain to you?
What does it mean to be found in Christ?
and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God on the basis of faith.
To be found in Christ is to be united to Christ by faith - to truly trust Him in a saving way. And Paul’s focus is not on his past or present experience here, but rather on his future hope of standing before God, at the day of Christ. When he stands to give an account of his life, he wants to be found in Christ. This is both a present experience and a future hope for the believer. Even right now you enjoy communion with Christ by faith, but one day our fellowship will be much greater and sweeter.
On what basis can someone stand before God?
Not based on personal righteousness - keeping God’s law.
Rather, by receiving Christ’s righteousness through faith in Him. When we trust in Christ, He removes our sin and gives us His righteousness. God credits us with the good things that Jesus did, and He credited Jesus with the bad things we’ve done. So we can stand before God, dressed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Identifying with Christ in His Death and Resurrection
I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death,
Part of what it means to know Christ is to identify with Him in His death and resurrection. Probably some of our closest relationships are with people that we have gone through suffering with together. When we go through difficult times together, we grow in our knowledge of each other and our trust and love for each other.
For example, the last couple of months have been extremely difficult for our family. From being out of our house due to the mold, to difficulties here at church, to the changes that an additional child brings to our family, it has been one of the most difficult times we’ve gone through. During this time though, as we’ve been living with my in-laws, John and Jackie, my relationship with them has grown deeper in the last 2 months than it had in several years previous. We’re going through these difficult times, this suffering, together, and we have grown in our knowledge of each other and trust and love for one another because of the difficulties we’re going through.
I think that’s the experience that Paul is longing for here. Paul already knows Christ, he’s in a relationship with Him, yet he wants to know Him more. He wants the relationship to grow deeper and more intimate, and Paul knows that the way that will happen is through suffering. Suffering provides the greatest opportunity to experience what Christ experienced, to identify with Him in His suffering, and to enjoy more intimate fellowship with Him because of that.
Do you know Christ? Do you want to know Him more? Even if it means suffering? Your greatest opportunities to grow deeper in your relationship with Christ will come in your most difficult times of life. It is when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death that we find our Shepherd to be all we need and more, and we grow to know Him more, trust Him more fully, and love Him and follow Him more closely.
The suffering we endure in this life, and especially suffering for His sake, brings us to a fuller experience of Christ, to know Him more intimately. That’s the fellowship of His sufferings that Paul talks about here. Paul wants to share in suffering with Christ, to have the privilege of suffering for His sake, in order to know Christ more intimately. He had the same attitude as the Apostles in Acts 5:40-41:
Acts 5:40–41 (BSB)
40 … They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and released them.
41 The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing that they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.
Like them, Paul rejoiced to be counted worthy of suffering for the name of Christ, as he worked hard to make Christ known as far and wide as he could.
Conformed to Him in His Death
10 I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death,
But Paul goes one step further. Not only is he willing and even eager to suffer for the sake of Christ, he is ready to die for Christ. He says that he wants to be conformed to Him in His death. Not only is Paul ready to suffer for Christ, he is ready to die in service to Christ. This again is with the goal of knowing Him, of experiencing the greatest possible intimacy with Jesus Christ. Paul says that his desire is that God would let him not only suffer for Christ, but also die for His sake and the Gospel’s, in order to know Christ more fully and have the deepest possible relationship with Him.
It is this desire that he expresses that helps us makes sense of v. 11. Verse 11 seems to express some kind of doubt.
Did Paul doubt that he was really saved or that he would be resurrected?
and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Paul’s uncertainty here is not about whether he would be saved and spend eternity with Christ. Rather, he is uncertain whether he will have died or still be alive when Christ returns. He knows that either way he will receive a new body, but he doesn’t know whether he will be transformed while still alive or raised from the dead and transformed. He talks about these two possibilities in a couple of other passages, 1 Thessalonians 4 and 1 Corinthians 15.
51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—
52 in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
53 For the perishable must be clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.
Paul’s concern is whether Christ will return before or after Paul has died.
And what Paul is saying is that he hopes that he has the opportunity to die for Christ before He comes back so that he can experience the resurrection from the dead like Jesus did. Those who are alive when Christ comes back will not experience resurrection in the same way as those who have died. Paul wants to experience resurrection like Christ, and he knows that he has to die in order for that to happen.
11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
That’s probably why he uses a different word for resurrection here. The usual word in Greek for resurrection is ἀνάστασις (anastasis), but here Paul uses a different word, only used here in the NT, ἐξανάστασις (exanastasis). By adding the prefix, ex, he is emphasizing what he hopes to be raised from, namely, the dead. He wants to be among the dead who are raised.
Paul would rather die and experience bodily resurrection like Jesus than be caught up with Him in the clouds and escape death. Because of his love for Christ, Paul wanted to experience death and resurrection like Jesus, in order to identify more closely with His dear Savior and Lord.
And all of this goes back to Paul’s intense desire to know Christ more fully. More than anything, Paul wants to have a deep relationship with Jesus Christ, to know Him, to trust Him, to love and obey Him.
Knowing Christ is more valuable than anything. It is more valuable than all of our achievements. It’s more valuable than anything in this world. It’s more valuable than life itself.
If you have not yet come to know Jesus Christ in this intimate personal way, I urge you to come to Him today, look to Him, trust in Him, and you will find Him to be an all-satisfying Treasure.
If you do know Christ, check your priorities today. Is it your highest priority to grow in your knowledge of Christ, to grow deeper in your relationship with Him? If not, take time even today to consider what changes you need to make so that this is your highest goal and priority.
Knowing you, Jesus, knowing you
There is no greater thing
You’re my all, You’re the best
You’re my joy, my righteousness,
And I love You, Lord.
May that be true for each one of us.
PRAY