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knowing Christ

Philippians 3: The Surpassing Value of Knowing Christ (pt3 of 3)

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This is what it means to be a Christian.  Our vocabulary falls short in trying to describe the surpassing value of knowing Christ so we use metaphors and we use strong comparative language like loss, filth, rubbish.   We’re reaching for words here.  For the Christian, you have found Christ to be like that treasure hidden in a field or like the priceless pearl and in order to gain the treasure or the pearl, you looked at everything in your hands and said, this stuff is junk compared to the treasure of surpassing value that I’ve found in Christ.  My money, my ambition, my dreams, my goals, my religion–I’ll give it all away, it’s all loss.  I want nothing except to gain Christ.

Phil 3
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.

Here, Paul again shares his personal testimony before he met Christ.  He tried so hard to be righteous on his own, by obeying the law and going to the synagogue week after week and teaching others, but when he met Christ, he realized that all of that effort, all of his supposed righteous acts were like filthy rags.  Nothing he did could merit salvation.  He had to surrender his life to Jesus and place his faith in Jesus and receive salvation as a gift.  Paul gave his sins to Christ in exchange for Christ’s perfect righteousness through faith.

How do you know that someone has truly met Jesus and been saved?  A Christian is clear about one thing, that the goal of life is to know Christ.

Phil 3
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.

Christ has to be the goal, not church, not evangelism, not service, but Christ, knowing Christ.  If He is the number one goal of your life, everything else–church, family, career–will fall into its proper place.  When you hear a salvation testimony, things are crystal clear.  Or when you think back to when you were first saved, I bet things were crystal clear back then in the moment.  You confessed with your own mouth that Christ was your greatest treasure.  You confessed that everything was a loss, filth, rubbish in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ.  New Christians often go through a honeymoon phase when you are so thrilled to pray to Jesus and open your Bible and hear from him.  And coming to a Bible study or coming to church to meet him was the highlight of your week.

But a strange thing happens as we live out our lives.  The clarity we enjoyed when we were first saved gets blurry.  We start losing our affection for Christ.  Things in Christian life become more routine and you do things out of habit or just because it’s the right thing to do.  You settle for religion, or church, or ministry instead of Jesus.

How can you know that a person is saved?  You can know whether or not a person is saved by asking them a simple question.  What is the goal of your life?  For Paul, after he was converted, he had only one goal.  My goal is to know Him, to know Jesus.  Brothers and sisters, is this the goal of your life?  Do you know and love him more today than you did when you first bowed the knee to Christ?  Is knowing Jesus something you value?  Is knowing Christ worth it to you?  Is Jesus worth your time?

I believe Jesus is worth it.  He loves you.  He knows everything about you.  He knows the number of hairs on his head.  He knows all the sins you’ve committed in thought or deed.  He knows everything about you–the good, the bad and the ugly.  Yet he still loves you and he loves me and he always will.  He died for you.  He wants you and me to come and lay everything else down.  Your sins, your burdens, your hopes, your dreams, your worries, your family, your career, your life.  Compared to Christ, whatever is in our hands is not worth it anyway.  You can have the whole world, but if you have not gained Christ, then you’ve lost everything.  But if you lose everything in the world, but you have gained Jesus, then you have everything you need.  Let’s pursue Jesus together as a church.  To know Him, may that be the highest and only worthwhile goal for our lives.  And once we know him, only then, can we go out and make Jesus known to the world.

Philippians 3: The Surpassing Value of Knowing Christ (pt2 of 3)

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Phil 3
3 For we are the circumcision, the ones who serve by the Spirit of God, boast in Christ Jesus, and do not put confidence in the flesh–4 although I ONCE ALSO had confidence in the flesh…

What is Paul saying?  He’s saying, you know those evil workers, I used to be one of them.  Basically, here, he’s sharing his own salvation testimony.

Phil 3
4 …If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 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.

Before he met Christ, Paul thought he was living for God.  After all, he was a Pharisee.  He was a religious professional.  He taught others about God at the local synagogue.  That was his day job.  He devoted his life for God.  He used to take pride in his spiritual heritage.  He was circumcised on the eighth day.  He knew the value of Jewish traditions.  He was zealous to the point that he persecuted and murdered people who did not adhere to his interpretation of Scripture.  He was working hard for God.  He staked his whole life in spreading his view of God and stamping out the Christians whom he labeled as heretics.

But his life took a dramatic turn in verse 7.

Phil 3
7 But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ. 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 filth, so that I may gain Christ…

On a dusty Damascus Road, the violent, self-righteous, proud Saul of Tarsus met a man named Jesus, and in an instant, he was born again, his blind eyes were opened, he was saved and his heart that was once filled with hatred and rage was changed.  As a result, he became known as Paul the Apostle.  After he met Christ, he could testify, you know the life I had before?  Everything I valued, everything that seemed to be gain such as the bullet point accomplishments I added to my resume, it was all loss, it was filth, it was rubbish, garbage.  What I used to value, it’s worthless to me now.

Why?  How can he say that?  How can he say that every single thing in life is like filth?  He can say this in view of the SURPASSING value of knowing Christ.  “Surpass” means to be beyond the limit, to transcend, to exceed.  Value refers to how much something is worth.  When you get a coupon for 50% off or you get a 2 for 1 deal, you are happy because you are getting more for your money.  You’re getting good value considering how much money you’ve invested.

What we consider valuable is important.  Most people value money.  Having more money is better than having less money.  But if you could place all the money in the world on one side of a scale and you put your spouse or your kids or your health on the other side of the scale, hopefully, you’d agree with me that there’s no contest.  There is no comparison because of course your family and your health is infinitely more valuable than wealth.

Paul is making a comparison.  And he is using strong language like filth or rubbish to make a point.  This world and everything this world has to offer cannot hold a candle to the surpassing value of Jesus Christ.  Jesus made a similar sort of comparison in the gospels.  He said, before you become one of my disciples, you need to hate your father and mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters and even your own life.  When I first read this, I was confused.  I thought we were supposed to love, even our enemies, but why does Jesus ask us to hate everyone who is dear to us?  It’s because Jesus is making a comparison.  Compared to your love for Jesus, your love for everyone else in your life is going to feel like hatred.  Because the gap is so immense.

The SURPASSING value of knowing Christ.  Your love for Jesus, you can’t put a price tag on it.  It’s like winning the lottery, but even that is too low of an evaluation.  Knowing Jesus surpasses our ability to put a value on it, it’s beyond human expression.

In the English language, our words fall miserably short.  We throw around the word “love” in so many contexts.  We say, we love our goldfish, we love ice cream, we love the Dodgers AND we use the same word when we say, we love our family and we love our God.  The range and intensity of what that word “love” means is vast depending on the context.  If the goldfish that I love dies and I flush it down the toilet, I might be sad, for about 2 seconds, as the fish is spinning down the bowl.  But if someone in my family or a close friend whom I LOVE dies, it’s a whole another story.  Because my love is so much greater in the latter.

Our words fall miserably short.  Our vocabulary can’t even describe how valuable it is to know Christ so the best way to describe it is to say, think of all the people you love, that’s nothing compared to your love for Jesus.  This doesn’t mean that your love for others is unimportant, but COMPARED to the SURPASSING value of knowing Jesus, it’s like filth, rubbish, garbage.  That’s the best way to describe it.

It’s like going to a yard sale and somebody put an old, dusty violin out on the lawn and sold it for $10 bucks.  Then, you go home and inside the sound hole, it says, “Made by Stradivarius.”  And you take the violin to be appraised and it’s a priceless, handcrafted original by Stradivarius himself and this violin is worth millions.  The original owner had no idea of the violin’s worth.  If it were a dusty old violin that you paid $10 for, you wouldn’t sweat it if you accidentally dropped it and it cracked open.  But if it is a Stradivarius, you would handle it with the utmost care.

What is Jesus worth to you?  Do you treat him like he is a priceless treasure, like a Stradivarius, or do you treat him like he is a yard sale throwaway?  Someone who is saved will say Amen along with Paul that knowing Christ is like discovering a treasure buried in a field.  And upon discovering this treasure, in his joy, you are like the man who goes and sells everything he has and buys that field.  Or knowing Christ is like a merchant in search of fine pearls.  When he found that one priceless pearl he has been searching for his whole life, he went and sold everything he had, and bought i

Philippians 2: Humility (pt3 of 3)

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Phil 2
9 For this reason God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth— 11 and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Christ humbled himself and God exalted Christ. And if you are following a risen Christ, Jesus will take you down the same path. We humble ourselves and connect to Jesus and we leave the rest to God. If God exalts us and uses our lives to save hundreds or thousands, then so be it. If God doesn’t and we see no visible results, so be it. If we are humble, God may not exalt us now, but He will eventually exalt us. Humble yourself and leave the rest to God. Let him exalt whom He wants to exalt when He wants to exalt. He is God and that’s his prerogative.

If you live this way, you will be free. Exalting ourselves all the time is so tiring. We don’t need to exalt ourselves. This is the complete opposite advice from the world. Everyone else is telling you, and you are telling yourself, to exalt yourself right now, every moment until the day you die. Prove to the world that you are worthy of respect by your accomplishments. Show others why they should take notice when you walk into a room because of your job title or because of your intellect or your bank account. Exalt yourself. Don’t wait. You got only one life. Go for it. This is worldly wisdom.

In Christian circles, it’s the same advice applied in a different context. Make your life count for Christ. Don’t be lazy. Serve. Work hard. Evangelize. Write books. Get invited to conferences. Become a Christian celebrity so that everyone knows your name and listens to your podcasts and watches you on youtube and looks up to your church as a model church. Exalt yourself because time is short and you got to make this one life count. Bigger is better, don’t you know. Make an eternal impact in your generation. That sounds so right, but it’s a deception.

Our only responsibility is to believe in the One whom God sent. John 6:29. We are children of God. We are disciples of Jesus. We need to humble ourselves and repent from the delusion that we have power to do anything. I can’t save you. This church can’t save you. Only Jesus can save. Church without Christ is empty religion and empty religion will lead you straight to hell.

Our job is to go to Jesus and point others to Jesus. Then, they, too, can be yoked to the Jesus we have come to know and cherish. This is ministry–we go out to the world and introduce others to the one who is gentle and humble in heart and who takes my burdens away and who has set me free. Live this way and leave the results to God. Humble yourself and leave the rest in God’s good hands. You don’t have to exalt yourself. Let God exalt your life.

Paul begins this chapter by telling us to be humble and he unpacks what humility looks like relationally. Earlier we talked about gentleness as flowing out of an inner character of humility. Here’s another way humility is expressed in our relationships.

Phil 2
1 If then there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, 2 fulfill my joy by thinking the same way, having the same love, sharing the same feelings, focusing on one goal. 3 Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 4 Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

Humility is defined plainly here. It is not thinking really lowly of yourself. It is actually to stop thinking about yourself period. Stop thinking about how you can exalt yourself. Instead, consider others more important than yourselves. Don’t be critical of others, or judgmental of others, or feel superior or inferior to others. If you do this, you are really thinking about yourself and trying to exalt yourself. If you are a church leader and you lead this way and you are at the center of the ministry, when people sin against you or diss you, it’s no surprise that you respond very harshly with them.

Harshness stems from a heart that is striving to exalt oneself. A proud heart leads to harsh treatment of others. Paul is saying, drop all of that way of thinking. Just consider the person in front of you as more important than you. Their needs, their issues matter, put your issues aside, humble yourself, stop thinking about yourself. Now be free and serve the person in front of you.

Imagine if every one of us here stopped thinking about ourselves and considered the person in front of us as more important. Now that would be radically different, wouldn’t it? Christ would be exalted in our midst, right? There would be spiritual power and a special filling of the Holy Spirit if we lived this way corporately.

How do we get there? Verse 5 – “Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus.” The actions flow from attitude. You can’t will yourself to stop thinking about yourself and considering others as more important. Spiritual life doesn’t work that way. Whenever you feel proud and you begin to exalt yourself and put others down, you can’t beat yourself and say, why am I like this, I got to try harder. Humility doesn’t work this way. Humility is not a skill you can master through brute force. You need an attitude adjustment. Then, the actions of considering others more important will follow.

How can you and I change our attitudes? Only one way. You have to be with Jesus. You have to spend time with Jesus. You can’t fake humility. People can smell pride or self-exaltation from a mile away. Only Jesus can change your attitude from the inside so that on the outside, you can genuinely consider others more important than yourself.

There are many churchgoers who, to be frank, are very proud, critical, judgmental and just plain nasty. But they might be working really hard for Christ and the church. How can you explain this? I think there are two explanations. One, they are not spending time with Jesus. If Jesus is this gentle and humble and we are spending time with Jesus who describes himself as gentle and humble, how can His character not rub off on us? It’s impossible. We will become like Christ and his attitude will become our attitude and his actions will become our actions, provided that we are really fellowshipping with Jesus moment by moment. A lack of time spent with Jesus is one explanation as to why Christians might work really hard for God’s kingdom and not be changed into Christ-likeness.

Or, two, Christians who are harsh and proud might be spending time in prayer, but they are using Jesus as a means to some other end. They are seeking the blessings of Christ, not the Blesser. They are seeking the salvation of others rather than the Savior. They are seeking to advance the kingdom of God instead of desiring to have the King reign in their own hearts. Are you seeing the difference?

Knowing Christ has to be the final goal. If you use Christ to become an effective minister and to be fruitful in ministry, then the minister might have be able to gather a following, but their harsh treatment of others and their lack of humility condemns them because they’ve missed the point. We got to get back to the fundamentals of our faith. We are followers of Jesus. Meaning, we have to spend time with Jesus, not to check it off a list and go on our merry way, but to connect because we want to be with Jesus. No other agenda than to be in His presence. And as we fellowship, we allow His character to rub off on us and we become more and more like Christ. Then, in terms of our relationships with one another, we can be gentle because we are free to point others to Jesus. Such ministers are not possessive, they are not out to use others to feel useful or needed or to have people join their group. We don’t have to work so hard to get people to be loyal to us. We are free to serve others with no ulterior motive. Our only aim in ministry is to get others connected with Jesus.

When we are free from the temptation to exalt ourselves, we are free to consider others better than ourselves and to serve them and point them to the Jesus and not ourselves. We are free to leave the results to God. And if he exalts us, we rejoice. If he doesn’t, we are content. The outcome of our lives, personally, vocationally, in terms of family, ministry, everything doesn’t ultimately define our joy. We are free to follow Jesus and enjoy Jesus and leave the results in God’s hands.

Don’t settle for information about Jesus. Don’t settle for an experience of Jesus many years ago. I’m preaching to myself–don’t settle for church and service to others and ministry. I pray that you can discover for the first time, or together, we can rediscover the Savior and lover of our souls. Live to know Christ and leave the rest to God. Humble yourself. Focus only on Jesus. You don’t have to exalt yourself. Leave the exalting to God. Do you know this Jesus? Let’s get to know this Jesus together and help each other get to know Him.