Valuable Assets
Notes
Transcript
The year was 1848.
A man named James Marshall was working in California at a saw mill called Sutter’s Mill.
At the time, James was running the mill for the owner John Sutter. And if you don’t know much about logging, saw mills were situated generally on the river to power the saw.
And in the river, James looked down and saw some shiny flakes in the water. And these shiny flakes would indicate gold in the river.
So, John and James attempted to keep this a secret, but word spread very quickly, and in 1849, droves of people began travelling to California seeking wealth in the gold mines.
By 1852, the population of California exploded as the welcomed more than 200k newcomers.
There were promises of riches, that you could come to California to get rich quick, turn your life around, take heaps of gold back to your family.
But the reality was much different.
See, the miners, the ones doing the actual work, rarely made any money, most burying themselves in debt.
The work was extremely difficult. It was backbreaking, expensive, and if your health declined enough, you would just get sick from cholera or dysentery and die.
In fact, there’s a man named William Swain who kept a very detailed journal when he went to find gold, and wrote a lot of letters back home.
And if you read his journal entires, it starts hopeful. He planned to make this journey, make a bunch of money, excited about the success of finding veins of gold.
But the gold fields didn’t actually have much gold. There was a practice where people selling the land would put gold dust in their shotguns and blast the mine walls, it was called salting the mines, and they would sell the mine which had zero actual gold.
So, William continues his work, and if you read through the journal entires, they get sadder, shorter, there are more complaints, more setbacks.
You can read the obsession with finding gold, his mind becomes totally fixated on it, almost erratic.
He’s trapped with this promise of success that never panned out.
And his story is one of thousands of stories.
The gold rush ended up being a bust for the miners, because the only people making money were the ones preying off these poor guys, the people selling land and equipment, perpetuating “just one more scoop of dirt and you’ll find the treasure”.
What they thought would be a valuable asset to bring home, for many people, it cost them their lives.
What should have been great gain was great loss.
This is the basis of Philippians 3:7-11.
See, Paul has all these things he’s been pursuing - but it was at the cost of knowing and experiencing God.
He once regarded them as assets, as gains, but in the light of knowing Jesus, they’re losses. Liabilities.
What he thought was the pursuit of a good thing nearly ended costed Paul his soul.
So, what Paul starts off talking about here, how he frames his message, is with the context of…
Assets and Liabilities
Assets and Liabilities
7 But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ.
Okay, so pay attention to those words: gain and loss.
Now, gain. The Greek word behind that is kerdos, and the text says a gain, meaning we’re dealing with a noun.
A noun that indicated Paul had something that he calls kerdos, which is something like profit. It’s an advantage. Something of value.
We may know it today as an asset. Something you have that retains or increases in value over time.
Okay great, so what does Paul say he thought were gains, or assets?
Lets look back at what he said:
Basically, in verses 3-6 of chapter 3 here in Philippians, Paul makes the argument that we can’t rely on human achievement or credentials, instead, we rely on the Spirit of God and Jesus Christ.
He goes on to then list his own resume. Paul says “if anyone, I would be the one to rely on human credentials, it would be me!”
5 circumcised the eighth day; of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; regarding the law, a Pharisee; 6 regarding zeal, persecuting the church; regarding the righteousness that is in the law, blameless.
So, normally when a Greek or Gentile person would want to praise someone or to praise themselves, they first listed their background, their upbringing, and their education.
It’s not that much different than today, we take pride in all our achievements, even literally being born to family which we had no control over.
But I digress.
And this is what Paul does, as he’s writing at least partially to a Gentile audience, mixed of course with Jews, who would have understood each achievement listed here.
He was correctly circumcised. From birth, he was on right track. He wasn’t a convert, his family kept the Jewish tradition generationally.
He was born in Israel, and was directly in the tribe of Benjamin. That’s extremely significant because of the 12 tribes of Israel, only two remained loyal to God, Judah and Benjamin.
Those two tribes remained loyal to the Davidic line, King David’s line of rule, they remained in Jerusalem and therefore in the Temple, and actually enjoyed relative stability, despite some evil kings.
Ultimately, the Benjamin and Judah would end up preserving the the nation of Israel by ensuring the survival of an entire people group as their northern once-friendly tribes of Israel were slaughtered and deported.
Ultimately the promise was that the messiah would come out of the Judah alliance.
And what Paul is getting at is that’s his heritage, loyalty to King David and to God.
And if that wasn’t enough, Paul claims to be a Hebrew of Hebrews, he lived according to the law of the Pharisees, which he would have painstakingly studied his entire life, literally he would have dropped his normal life to follow around a Rabbi.
He was so zealous that anyone Paul caught claiming Christ would be murdered to preserve God’s law and to prevent blasphemy.
According to the law, Paul was blameless.
Wow, what a resume. There were thousands of Jews that attempted this life but either couldn’t commit or weren’t smart enough and dropped out.
Thousands of Jews that were jealous of what Paul had, and would trade their own lives in a second for even a few of these accolades.
So, if you’re a Philippian hearing this list, verse 7 would have made you sit down for a second. It would have caught you completely off guard…
7 But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ.
So, not only are these things not an asset anymore, they’re liabilities.
They aren’t advantageous, their disadvantageous. They’re loss.
This is the Greek word zemian. Damage, loss, forfeit, its the same word in
10 and told them, “Men, I can see that this voyage is headed toward disaster and heavy loss, not only of the cargo and the ship but also of our lives.”
It’s not just neutral, it’s a disaster. Not worth holding on to.
But Paul, as he does, takes it one step further:
8 More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ
If you take the Greek very literally, it can also say - I count all things to be loss.
Back in my business school days at ISU, I vividly remember my two accounting classes, mostly because I hated it and I barely passed both of them.
But even though I hated the class, I really enjoyed my professor, because he really loved what he did, and during tax time, he literally disappeared and was somehow never at class.
But one class, he was going over assets and liabilities, and how to balance them on a ledger.
Don’t ask me how to do that.
But, he says “class, give me an example of business assets and liabilities”.
And some meat head in the class raises his hand “I just bought a Dodge Charger” or something like that…So that’s an asset.
And you could see the hope and faith in our education drain from his body.
He goes “that’s a liability son”, which was a shock to the kid.
But think about it - cars are horrible investments. They depreciate year after year, they break down and the repairs don’t contribute at all to the value.
You put gas in the car which literally burns your money away.
Every mile you drive decreases the value.
It’s a sunk cost.
That’s what Paul is saying everything is. Everything is a loss, he regards everything as a liability compared to the far greater value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
Why?
Well, aside from killing Christians, I think even us today could get behind following God’s command, being born into a good family, being well-educated, all of those things seem inherently okay, if not honestly awesome.
But now, Paul regards them, as dung. Crap. Refuse. Trash.
That is language that is unmistakable and clear.
All of that stuff, human achievement and credentialing, is now dung to Paul.
And I think verse 9 clarifies why Paul feels this way:
8 More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God based on faith.
So, essentially, Paul is saying that all of his assets before, all of his amazing characteristics and accomplishments did nothing but shield him from seeing that his own righteousness was completley insufficient.
Paul Was Blinded of the Truth
Paul Was Blinded of the Truth
See, before, Paul had his own righteousness. It was obtained by him, specifically by following the law of Moses.
And this follows right along the Jewish thought of being righteous before God.
See, to the Jew, standing before a Holy God was actually impossible. And you can actually trace salvation by grace alone throughout the entire Old Testament. But that’s another topic for another day…
What the Pharisees did, which is who Paul was and was trained by, they created this thing, it was almost like another religion, where the strictest adherence to the Law of Moses was the defining factor of gaining God’s blessing.
They were so intent on following the law, in fact, that they created thousands of laws on top of the 613 Old Testament laws, almost as a hedge of protection so they couldn’t break any of God’s actual commands.
The problem became their religion was boiled down to not following God’s actual word, but following man-made, Pharisee-specific law.
This created what Jesus called a “brood of vipers”. Hypocrites, men who longed not to follow their good God, but to be exalted by how close to the letter they could live.
Pride blinded Paul from righteousness that only God could provide.
For this reason, all the things he once had, all the acts and the achievements, they actually eroded the real truth.
They caused Paul to hate the Christians, to hate the teachings of the apostles, and ultimately to hate Jesus Christ.
What Paul staked his life on actually blocked him from the full experience God had for him.
And what Paul realizes, especially after his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, is that Paul didn’t really know God.
Paul Didn’t Know God
Paul Didn’t Know God
Listen to this:
8 More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ
He then finished the section by writing this:
10 My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, 11 assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.
And let tell you, this is a little bit more nuanced than simply knowing about something.
Because the demons know about Jesus. Satan knows about Jesus, heck he probably knows Jesus pretty well.
What this means, ginosko in the Greek, it means to know intimately.
It’s not some kind of head knowledge, its not an academic knowledge, it’s experiential.
He says my aim, my goal, is to know Jesus Christ.
To know him. To know Jesus like he knows his father.
Like you know your spouse, like you know your best friend.
And I want to make it clear, this is not new. This knowing God thing, it isn’t new.
Paul knew this, but again, he was blinded from the truth because of how great he viewed himself as.
Jesus did not start a new religion, he came to perfect the religion of the one true God, God most High, the only name by which you can be saved.
23 “ ‘This is what the Lord says: The wise person should not boast in his wisdom; the strong should not boast in his strength; the wealthy should not boast in his wealth. 24 But the one who boasts should boast in this: that he understands and knows me— that I am the Lord, showing faithful love, justice, and righteousness on the earth, for I delight in these things. This is the Lord’s declaration.
Sound familiar?
This is exactly what Paul says he missed as a Jew.
And now, his goals are realigned. This is directly from the teachings of the disciples as well:
3 This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent—Jesus Christ.
So the aim in our lives, then, what Paul is saying,
Is that we should strive to know Jesus.
Strive to Know Jesus
Strive to Know Jesus
Because here’s the thing:
God knows you. He knows you intimately and well.
13 For it was you who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made. Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well.
So, that part of the relationship is already done. Jesus, he knows you.
You are not a mystery to him. He created you, all the good parts of you, he made intentionally.
He knows your good parts, your bad parts, the reasons your’e motivated, the things you hide, the sin you partake in.
He knows the real you. The good and the bad.
And that’s scary. But it’s also comforting, because that is true freedom.
We don’t need to approach God assuming He doesn’t already know what’s going on, because he does.
And guess what? Even though he knows everything about you, he still stands at the door, just like the father of the prodigal son,
He still sees you from far off, and he takes off running to meet you, letting you jump into his arms.
He accepts you as you are, not because he’s let all of your sin and gunk, and dung, go free.
It’s because of the atonement of Jesus.
Look back at verses 10 and 11:
10 My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, 11 assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.
The power of the resurrection, the thing we just celebrated last week, that has the power over sin and death.
That’s what Paul wants, nay, needs, and that’s what we all need.
This is where relationship with Jesus comes into play, because it’s not our return to God that can take credit.
That’s exactly what Paul is speaking against, getting to God by our merit.
No, our relationship to Jesus comes because he came here.
He came to rescue us.
“All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me.”
― J.I. Packer, Knowing God
Our goal, then because of God wanting to know me, is a response to God that wants to know Him back.
It’s so similar to the original Jewish thought, where the Torah observance, the desire to follow the Law, it came from a love and affection to God.
Not out of some obligation or moral stance or need for righteousness,
But because God so loved.
And now, our response to Jesus, who came and died on the cross and was resurrected from the dead,
Our response should be the same.
Our natural response should be an affection for Jesus, a desire to know Him better.
19 We love because he first loved us.
So, the question is…
How Can We Know Jesus Better?
How Can We Know Jesus Better?
Well, for one,
We have to be in tune with the Spirit
We have to be in tune with the Spirit
13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears. He will also declare to you what is to come.
And this means repentance, trust, letting go.
It means we understand that God, like the temple, now dwells within us and permits our understanding and reveals truth to us.
It means truth doesn’t come from outside, but from God.
You have to understand that all wisdom, all truth, all good comes directly from God and no one else.
Second, you have to know the teachings of the apostles
Apostolic Teaching
Apostolic Teaching
Look, without a cornerstone of what the apostles said, the people who were literally with Jesus,
We don’t have much. And we start filling in gaps with information that isn’t correct.
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.
We have to take the lead of the Apostles, right from the source.
That means, as Psalm 1 says, meditating on God’s word day and night.
And it doesn’t mean reading the Bible or studying for better trivia knowledge, or to one up your friend at small group, although fun…
It means reading Scripture in the context of knowing Jesus better.
With the single goal of wanting to know what God wants.
I mean, what if every time we approached the Bible, we made it our main goal to know Jesus better?
To know God better? We searched the Scriptures for the wisdom of God, and how to better make him proud?
We have to get as close to the original teachings of Jesus and his disciples as possible, and understand the whole story of Scripture.
Third, is
Act Like Jesus
Act Like Jesus
If we want to know Jesus better we need to act like him.
We need to try, in every instance, to be led by the Spirit and to ask - how would Jesus handle this situation??
How would Jesus make this decision?
28 One of the scribes approached. When he heard them debating and saw that Jesus answered them well, he asked him, “Which command is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The most important is Listen, Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. 31 The second is, Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other command greater than these.”
Look, although Jesus may have followed the Old Testament law perfectly, that’s not the reason we worship Him.
The reason we call Jesus Lord is because we did two things flawlessly and therefore lived the perfect life.
He perfectly loved God, and he perfectly loved other people.
Perfectly.
This is what we need to strive for - loving God and loving people like Jesus did.
Being humble, compassionate, slow to anger.
Having time for both God and people, not rushing through life, but taking time for conversation and listening.
We need to do what Jesus did.
And when we do, we will find the treasure that Paul is talking about.
Because the treasure is Jesus, and He will never be a liability. He will never fade, or perish, or rust away.
He always will be, and if you cling to him as the most valuable thing in the universe, you will find life.
