Sermon Tone Analysis

LESSON ONE

A Relationship with God

Philippians 3:10-14

Introduction

Salvation gives us the most wonderful relationship of life.

When someone receives Christ as Saviour, new life is birthed within.

It can never be taken away or lost.

It is a relationship that changes our eternity, but it also has the potential to change our immediate lives.

Salvation means that we are declared righteous before God.

In our court system, a judge will drop his gavel and declare his verdict on the defendant.

Likewise, God is our Judge.

When we come before Him, we are declared righteous if we are saved.

For those of us who have accepted Christ as our atonement, God declares us righteous by the merit of His Son's own blood.

Particularly in the culture of that day, one would have understood the significance of this agricultural parallel.

A branch without a vine would soon shrivel and die.

Likewise, without Christ, we have no strength or ability to bear fruit.

Salvation also makes Christ our cornerstone.

The Apostle Paul used this analogy in his letter to the church at Ephesus.

A Christian has the advantage of building his life on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ.

The hymn "My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less" written by Edward Mote adequately states, "On Christ the Solid Rock I stand.

All other ground is sinking sand."

The amazing thing about many Christian lives is that we have mastered the art of giving the illusion of success, all the while ignoring the foundation that is designed by God to support the structure of our lives.

It is possible to have the appearance of growing in Christ but have a crumbling foundation.

Illustration

Pisa, Italy, is the home of the well-known landmark, the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Though this tower draws tourists from all over the world, it is actually an embarrassing display of the ramifications of a faulty foundation.

Construction of the Tower of Pisa began in 1173.

It was built in soft soil and was given a foundation that was less than ten feet deep.

Even before its completion in 1372, its infamous tilt was noticeable to the naked eye.

The inadequate foundation was too unstable to support such a large structure.

From 1990 to 2001, the tower was closed to the public while a $25 million project was conducted to stabilize the structure and reduce its lean.

But even after these eleven years of reconstruction, the lean was only able to be reduced by sixteen inches.

Millions of people make their way to the Tower of Pisa and gaze with awe at the phenomenon of such a structure.

But every day, we cross paths with souls whose structures are just as much of a contradiction to functionality as that of the tower.

It does not matter how much effort is put into constructing a successful life.

If we only take care of the outside and do not put effort into the part that no one else sees—the foundation—our demise will eventually become obvious.

I.

The Foundation of this Relationship

Philippians 3:10

When the Apostle Paul penned these words, he was not speaking of a casual knowledge of God or of simply knowing Jesus as Saviour.

He was speaking of an intimate and deep knowledge of God.

The Greek word used for “know” used in this passage means "to understand, to grasp or ascertain; especially to be familiar or acquainted with a person or thing."

It is to really know Jesus in an abiding relationship.

Philippians 3:10 highlights three ways of knowing Jesus:

A. Know His Person

"... that I may know him.. ."

(Philippians 3:10).

This kind of knowledge of Jesus Christ is far more than intellectually knowing about Jesus.

It is knowing Him personally.

We have the opportunity to develop a relationship with Him.

Knowing the person of Jesus Christ means that we spend time with Him.

We are sensitive and obedient to His voice.

We set aside time to know Him.

Religion alone is satisfied with ornate rites, systems, and regulations and is willing to pass these off as "knowing" God.

But a Christian ought to desire to know Christ—intimately and personally.

One can know biblical boundaries and spiritual preferences and yet not know Christ.

Do you know Him? Do you know the sense of His conviction?

Do you know when He is burdening your heart to spend more time with Him? Do you know the prompting of the Holy Spirit to share the gospel with someone?

This is knowing Christ.

Consider these words by F.B. Meyer:

We may know Him personally intimately face to face.

Christ does not live back in the centuries, nor amid the clouds of heaven: He is near us, with us, compassing our path in our lying down, and acquainted with all our ways.

But we cannot know Him in this mortal life except through the illumination and teaching of the Holy Spirit....And we must surely know Christ, not as a stranger who turns in to visit for the night, or as the exalted king of men—there must be the inner knowledge as of those whom He counts His own familiar friends, whom He trusts with His secrets, who eat with Him of His own bread.—F.B.

Meyer

John Milton accurately stated,

"The end of all learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love and imitate Him."

Illustration

When a man and his wife have been married for a number of years, they know by instinct their spouse's likes and dislikes.

The husband knows what kind of flowers his wife loves, her favorite restaurant, and exactly how to brew her coffee.

The wife knows her husband's routine, how he likes to relax after work, and his favorite sports teams.

We would think it strange if a married person didn't know anything about their spouse.

But knowing one's spouse isn't developed merely by being married.

It is gained by spending time with each other.

It takes communication and making it a priority to get to know one's spouse.

Knowing the Person of Jesus Christ is like that.

If a Christian has been saved for a number of years but still does not know Jesus personally and intimately, there is a problem in his foundation.

Eventually, the structure of that Christian's life will crumble because no investment was made into building this foundation.

B. Know His Power

"...and the power of his resurrection..." (Philippians 3:10)

The Greek word for power is dunamis from which we get our English word dynamite.

It is a life changing power that comes through the Spirit of God living within us.

The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to you and me.

And here, we see that Paul states he wasn't content to merely know about this power; he wanted to personally experience it.

Thus, he gladly exchanged his human impotence for experiencing divine omnipotence.

He wanted to know the fullness of God's power.

Below the baseline of each of our lives there must be God's power at work.

We ought to be personally experiencing the manifestation of God's power working in us through our relationship with Him.

C. Know His Presence

... and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death" (Philippians 3:10).

The word fellowship speaks of communion.

It means to partake with Christ, to commune with Him.

Paul had such a deep abiding relationship with Christ that even as he penned these words from prison, he had come to realize that the sufferings of life gave him a venue of fellowship with Christ.

Rather than complaining about his problems and looking for a way out, he looked at those sufferings as tools to experience the presence of God Almighty.

The deepest moments of fellowship with Christ can be the times of our most intense suffering.

Suffering drives us to seek the presence of God.

We find in Him a merciful High Priest and a faithful Friend who feels our pain.

He is a sympathetic Companion who faced all the trials and temptations that we face.

We can boldly come to God's throne and find grace to help in time of need because He knows the feeling of our infirmities.

Paul didn't give up in his times of suffering because he recognized that it was through suffering that God's presence became most real.

"What I taught with my lips I now seal with my blood!