Resurrection & Relationship

Introduction

Good morning and welcome to Cornerstone Church. Today I will not be shot out of a cannon, neither will we drop eggs out of a helicopter. We don’t have smog machines and this isn’t a show. I have but one message today and it’s the same message that’s been proclaimed by Christians for 2000 years…He has risen! He is alive!

For 2000 years, the message of the cross and the resurrection has been the cornerstone of the Christian faith. It is what God has built his church upon. Whereas other gods and goddesses said, you must die for me, Jesus says, I will die for you.

The glory of the message though is not just found in the cross, but it is found in the resurrection! The empty tomb proclaims that Jesus didn’t just die for our sins, but that on the third day, he was raised up by the power of God as is now seated at the right hand of the Father forevermore!

Today we celebrate this message not with some corny gimmicks or marvelous pageantry, but with the proclamation of the gospel, the good news that Jesus has risen, defeating death, hell and the grave and that He lives forevermore. Amen.

Today our text is found in Philippians 3. The words will be on the screen and notes are loaded into your app.

Main Text

Philippians 3:7–11 ESV

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order 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 comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

We pick our text up today in the middle of Paul’s letter and in my opinion one of the most important parts of the letter. Paul is encouraging the Christians in Philippi to watch out for dogs (false teachers), those that mutilate the flesh.

This was a group of people commonly called Judiazers, they believed that in order to be truly a Christian, you needed to add works of the law to faith in Christ. In other words, they taught that to be saved, you needed to be circumcised (which is why he calls them mutilators of the flesh).

Paul was 100% against this idea. This idea is known as works righteousness. Paul, however, preached a salvation so free that you only needed to believe to receive it. You simply put your faith in Jesus and only Jesus and you would be saved, Paul preached.

For Paul, there was only one way to overcome death and be resurrected. He believed that to be resurrected with Jesus you need to die with Him, which was his way of saying you need to surrender your entire life in faith to Jesus Christ. This to Paul, was symbolized most clearly in the act of baptism.

Romans 6:4–5 ESV

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Paul in Philippians tells us his main goal is to obtain the resurrection from the dead and he says he is willing to do that by any means possible, which is verse 11.

Today I’m going to focus in on verse 10 and we are going to look at in reverse to build up to the ultimate point today. Let’s look at the last point Paul makes, which ties us to the cross.

We Must Die With Him

Like I read in Romans, Paul believed that we need to die. This wasn’t necessarily a physical death though, it may include that. Remember most of the early Christians literally died for their faith and that may be what God asks of you as well.

But Paul says that we must be united with him in a death like his in Romans, and he says we must become like Him in his death to the Philippians. Both of them are similar statements and what I think he is saying here is reminiscent of the call of discipleship from Jesus - You must deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.

Jesus expects the same of us, that we would follow him even unto our own death. We must lay down our lives, our dreams, our expectations of this world and put those things to death to see what God may resurrect.

The story of the cross cannot be separated from the story of the resurrection. We don’t die just to die, we die in order that we may live!

Galatians 2:20 ESV

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

The cross killed Jesus, but God’s power raised him up again and he is now seated at the right hand of the Father, with all authority and power given to Him. In Christ, we must die, we must lay down our lives for his sake so that we may truly live.

What is God asking you to lay down today? Where is God asking you to crucify your flesh? We must be willing to follow him to the cross if we hope to enjoy enjoy the resurrection with Him.

We Must Suffer Well

Next Paul tells us that he wants to share in the sufferings of Christ. Now I want you to understand, when he says this, this is coming from a man, who most certainly experienced his share of suffering.

Paul had been beaten and flogged. Paul, in his life, experienced shipwrecks, torture and jail. He would eventually die for his faith. So this wasn’t just empty words to the Apostle, this was his hearts cry.

Contrary to how many of us feel when we suffer things, he felt that his sufferings meant something. They weren’t just bad days, they served a purpose. Paul even looked at them as small things in light of eternity.

2 Corinthians 4:16–18 ESV

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Paul knew how to suffer well. And it was because of the model of Jesus. Jesus suffered on the cross. He suffered through persecution and torture. He was a man of sorrows and well acquainted with grief. But he never opened his mouth to complain.

Jesus suffered well. Paul learned from Jesus how to suffer and today, we can learn from both of them on how to suffer well.

• Do not lose heart.

• Our suffering prepares us for glory

• Focus on the unseen, not the seen, because the unseen is eternal.

Suffering is the mark of every life on this planet. We all suffer in various ways. Don’t let your suffering go to waste. Allow God to use it in your life to produce character, endurance and hope in you.

Suffering dispels the illusion that we have the strength and competence to rule our own lives and save ourselves. People “become nothing through suffering” so that they can be filled with God and his grace.

Timothy Keller

Keller here says we cannot save ourselves and suffering helps us realize that. We can only throw ourselves at the feet of Jesus and ask him to bring meaning to the suffering by his grace and mercy. He does that by saving us and using our suffering for his glory. He also says that we become nothing through suffering, which is another way of saying we have to die to ourselves.

Godly people learn to suffer well because we know that through suffering God will produce in us a vessel that he can use to bless others.

Next Paul says that he wants to know the power of Christ’s resurrection, so my third point is this…

The Resurrection Is Our Hope

Most people during the time of Jesus did not believe in a resurrection of the dead. This life was all there was, so they fought and manipulated and deceived others to get some sort of power or meaning or influence out of this life.

I’m afraid during our day the resurrection has lost its luster. Even in Christianity, there’s not a whole lot written or said about the resurrection anymore. Many are enamored with the cross and for good reason, but let me say something that may be surprising to you…

The cross is meaningless without the resurrection.

Anyone could die on the cross. In fact, many many people did die on crosses during the time of Jesus. The cross was an instrument of torture and death for criminals, but even then, there were probably some fairly innocent people who may have found themselves on the cross.

Dying by government execution is not special. In fact, we still have those means of punishment today - whether it is lethal injection or the electric chair. There is nothing glorious about being put to death by the government.

The cross has no meaning in that sense. It’s a death sentence intended for criminals. But the story of the cross doesn’t end with the cross, it starts there. The resurrection is what brings meaning to the cross.

It’s through the power of the resurrection that we see the power of the cross. Without the resurrection, the cross has no power, but because of the resurrection, the message of the cross has the power to save.

Why is that?

Because in the resurrection, Jesus is shown to be God. He is shown to be King of Kings and Lord of Lord and it shows that he has power over death.

Romans 1:1–4 ESV

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,

Jesus was declared to be God because of the resurrection. Many men had done great things throughout history. Moses has parted the sea. Elijah had called down fire from heaven and was taken to heaven in a whirlwind. Noah’s faith saved mankind, but no one had defeated death. All of those great men had done amazing acts, but none of them died and was raised again.

That is the miracle of Easter. That is what we celebrate. We celebrate that Jesus Christ died on the cross, sure, but we really celebrate that he has risen! He didn’t just die for you, but by the power of God he was raised from the dead and now we have hope for that same power to raise us up on the last day! Amen!

And as awesome as this is, I want to end with Paul’s main point of this passage. There is something that is worth more than anything else in this life to Paul. There’s something worth giving up everything for, and that is the right to know Jesus. In other words…

Knowing Jesus Is Worth Everything

Paul starts this passage in Philippians with the statement about counting it all as loss. He starts this chapter by talking about his qualifications. He was circumcised on the eighth day, he was an Israelite from the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law he was a Pharisee (meaning he knew his stuff), as to zeal towards that law, he was a persecutor of the church and as to righteousness under the law, he says he is blameless.

All of those things, all of those credentials, a life built around being the best jew he could be, he counts it all as rubbish. It’s nothing to him.

There’s only one thing that really matters in this life church and that is that you know him. Everything God does is based in relationship. He desires relationship with you. He wants to be with you.

Jesus Christ never asks anyone to define his position or to understand a creed, but “Who am I to you?” Jesus Christ makes the whole of human destiny depend on a man’s relationship to himself.

Oswald Chambers

Who is Jesus to you? Is he a friend closer than a brother?

This isn’t about “knowing about” him, this is knowing Him.

Paul says that everything is counted as loss compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. He’s saying knowing Jesus is more valuable than anything else on this planet.

This past week we had a bunch of women shoot themselves into space at an estimated cost of more than 28 million per seat (the last time it was auctioned off) for about 10 minutes of time in space. Knowing Jesus is infinitely more valuable than that.

There is nothing in this world that compares to knowing Him.

The cross and the resurrection bring us into that relationship. We are adopted into the family of God and now we can call God Father and Jesus friend. There is nothing more valuable than that.

And the truth of this passage is that Paul contrasts knowing him with having a righteousness that comes from ourselves. In other words, he says we are either justifying ourselves, justifying our actions (or as the book of Judges says, doing what is right in our own eyes) or we are trusting our relationship with Him.

In other words, if you were at our home group this week (yes, this is a shameless plug for our homegroups), we talked about how this has always been the case. We are still choosing between two trees - The Tree of Life, that the author of Life died on so that we could have relationship with him, or the Tree of Knowledge where we determine right and wrong in our own eyes.

This Tree of Life is what we celebrate at Easter. This ability to be with God eating the fruit of his work is worth everything. It’s worth our dying to self in order to follow him. It’s worth the suffering that we endure in this lifetime to have an eternity with Him. It’s worth everything that we have just to know Him.

Conclusion

Church, the message of Easter is not just that Jesus died, but that He rose, defeating death and opening the way for us to know Him—to truly know Him. Paul’s words in our passage today remind us that nothing in this world compares to the surpassing worth of a relationship with Jesus Christ. Everything else pales in comparison.

So I ask again, Do YOU know Him? Today I want to give you the opportunity to meet him. We are going to stand and sing together this morning and the invitation is for you to come and meet Jesus.

If you’ve never surrendered your life to Him, today is the day to say, “I want to know You.” If you’ve been holding back, clinging to something God is asking you to lay down, come and release it at the foot of the cross. And if you’re weary from suffering, come find hope in the power of His resurrection.

Let’s stand and sing.

Titles

The Power of the Resurrection: Trading Everything for Christ

Why The Resurrection Changes Everything