©1998 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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9/27/98
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That I May Know Christ
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Phil. 3:10
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This morning we are going to return
to the study of a book
we began on a very cold, dark January
Sunday morning in 1996.
It is the book of Philippians.
When we began our study of Philippians
I told you that this was a very special book,
a book written by Paul
for the January's in our lives.
I know its not January.
Right now when we step outside
we find ourselves surrounded
by the beauty of Autumn in Alaska.
But the real Januarys in our lives
have nothing to do with the calendar
or the temperature.
The worst ones
are brought on
not by what's happening around us
but by what's happening inside us.
Sometimes January is brought on
by a son or a daughter
who is going through some deep struggles in
their life.
You can't change it for them -
all you can do is pray
and hope
and wait.
Sometimes Januarys come from
having someone we love very much
suddenly yanked out of our life
leaving a huge,
cold,
empty hole into which we fall
every morning when we step out of bed.
Sometimes Januarys come in the form of
loneliness
or fear
or stress that blankets our life
like a heavy fog,
making it impossible for us
to see more than a few hours
or a few minutes ahead.
Sometimes January comes in the form
of loosing a job we love,
or finding a job we hate.
January is brought on by anything
that makes us feel trapped,
or isolated,
or imprisoned,
or empty
or hurt
or afraid.
Paul wrote the book of Philippians
in his own personal January,
sitting in prison
very possibly waiting
for his own execution.
And in it he shares with us
the attitudes that equipped him
not only to survive
but actually to thrive
in the month of January.
It is a remarkable letter
not only for what it says,
but all the more for what it says
given where Paul was at when he wrote it.
At least 16 times in these 4 chapters
Paul uses the words "Joy" and "rejoice".
And even more important,
he gives a basis for it.
Most of the books in the Bible
I read for information,
for knowledge,
for truth.
The book of Philippians
provides all of those.
But that's not why I read it -
I read it for encouragement.
When my daughter was heading off to college
she wanted to know
if she could take with her
the down quilt from off of her bed.
This quilt has been in our family
for more than 20 years.
It has gone through several generations of new
covers being sewn on it.
It weighs a ton.
We told her we'd get her a new quilt if she wanted,
but she said she liked that old one
because she loved the feeling of its weight
pressing on her,
surrounding her,
hugging her when she crawled
into bed.
The book of Philippians
has some things in common
with that quilt Joni took to school with her.
It has the ability to surround us
with a sense of security
and warmth
and protection,
the kind of security
and warmth
and protection that can only come
from discovering
that the arms of our God
are wrapped around us,
holding us,
protecting us,
sharing His love with us.
The world in which we live
has become an increasingly hostile place during
the past few weeks.
We cannot change that.
This is the world
and the time
and the place
in which our Lord has chosen for us to live.
But in such a time
and such a place
it is easy to get confused.
It is easy to fall into the trap of believing
that what we need to endure
is more and more knowledge
about what is happening
in the world around us.
The truth is
what we need most of all
is more and more knowledge
about our God
and His sufficiency for us
no matter what may come our way.
We left our study
of the book of Philippians
in the middle of one of the most wonderful
passages in all of Scripture.
The passage begins in Phil. 3:8
and runs through verse 14.
We had studied our way through
Philippians 3:9
but it's been a while since we were there,
so I'll read the passage as a whole
before we resume our study
where we left off.
Phil. 3:8 More than that, I count all things
to be loss in view of the surpassing value
of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for
whom I have suffered the loss of all
things, and count them but rubbish in
order that I may gain Christ,
Phil. 3:9 and may be found in Him, not
having a righteousness of my own derived
from the Law, but that which is through
faith in Christ, the righteousness which
comes from God on the basis of faith,
Phil. 3:10 that I may know Him, and the
power of His resurrection and the
fellowship of His sufferings, being
conformed to His death;
Phil. 3:11 in order that I may attain to the
resurrection from the dead.
Phil. 3:12 Not that I have already obtained
it, or have already become perfect, but I
press on in order that I may lay hold of
that for which also I was laid hold of by
Christ Jesus.
Phil. 3:13 Brethren, I do not regard myself
as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing
I do: forgetting what lies behind and
reaching forward to what lies ahead,
Phil. 3:14 I press on toward the goal for
the prize of the upward call of God in
Christ Jesus.
As I recall,
we spent six weeks on that one phrase,
the righteousness which comes from God
on the basis of faith...
Obviously,
I thought it was an extremely important phrase.
There is a danger in dissecting this passage
and examining it phrase by phrase.
It is the danger
of loosing sight of the power
and the passion with which
Paul wrote the passage.
During the past 30 years
I believe I have spent
more time studying the writings of Paul
than I have with all the other New
Testament writers combined.
I believe this passage,
these 7 verses better express
Paul's heart philosophy of life
than any other passage he ever wrote.
These words are intensely personal.
He isn't teaching.
He isn't preaching.
He's simply sharing himself,
allowing us to look into his soul
and see him at the deepest level.
To take a statement like that
and turn it into an academic exercise
is a dangerous thing to do.
It's a little bit like
a young man
at a crisis point in his life
saying to the young lady he has been dating,
"Listen! I don't know what the future holds for me.
I don't even have a clear idea
what kind of work I want to do,
or where I'll end up living.
I just know I need you,
and I can't face the future without you by my
side.
I love you.
I want you with me forever.
I want us to share the good times
and the bad times,
I want my future to by our future together.
Will you marry me?"
and then the young lady
responds to what he has just said
by saying,
"Now, let me see if I have understood
what you just said correctly.
You began by stating 3 areas of ignorance:
1. You don't know the future.
2. You don't know what career field you will enter.
3. You are uncertain as to where you will establish
a permanent residence.
Then,
following those three areas of ignorance,
you expressed love for me,
and then submitted a request
that I give consideration
to the possibility of marriage.
Does that correctly summarize
what you have just said?"
And technically yes, it does.
But in another sense
breaking the message into tiny pieces
and examining each piece individually
runs the risk of destroying
the heart of what is being said.
The central message Paul wants to communicate in
these verses is clear:
There is nothing we can ever pursue,
ever attain,
ever possess,
ever achieve
that can even remotely compare
with the value of gaining Christ.
In fact,
he says that, by comparison,
anything else I might have obtained
or achieved
when set next to the value of gaining Christ
is like rubbish by comparison.
The King James version
translates that word "rubbish"
in Phil. 3:8
with an even more descriptive word.
It uses the word "dung".
What is it you've set your heart on right now?
To be one of the starting 5 in basketball this year?
To achieve a 4.0 average?
To be class president?
To make that great career change you've been
striving for?
To get that certain person to notice you?
To get that new car,
or that new house,
or that new snow machine?
Paul says that,
if we saw correctly what it meant
for us to "gain Christ" correctly,
all those other things we think we want
would be about as valuable to us
as a little pile of dung by comparison.
We don't believe it, do we?
And the reason we don't
is because we have no idea
what it really means
for us to gain Christ.
Now, at the risk of destroying
the power of the whole,
I want us to drop back into
the list of seven elements Paul offers
in his attempt to describe
what it means to gain Christ.
We have looked at the first two:
1. That I may be found in Him,
2. and that I may obtain
the righteousness that comes from God
on the basis of faith.
And I want us to pick up with #3
which is found in the first phrase
of Phil 3:10: that I may know Him.
Now we're just going to start this today,
but I do want to leave you
with at least one aspect
of what's really going on in this phrase.
Paul has just told us
that he would gladly exchange
anything else he could ever possess
for the privilege of knowing Christ.
And I really do not want you to do
what I think you may be doing right now.
When we don't understand
something that our Lord has said to us
rather than wrestling with it
we tend to spiritualize it.
We turn it into "God words",
religious babble
that has no real contact with practical living,
but sounds good in a mystical, religious sort of
way.
"Oh, yes! Just to know the blessed Savior is worth
all that I've ever possessed and more!!"
That is not what Paul is doing here.
He is not just offering God-words.
He is communicating a practical,
foundation principle of human existence.
And I really hope you'll stay with me
during these final few minutes.
1. Paul says that knowing Christ
is of greater value to him personally
than all the other things
he had been pursing in life.
2. He makes that statement, in part,
because knowing Christ
is the only accurate way
we will ever have
of knowing ourselves
and finding true peace with
ourselves.
Now look at this...
everything Paul had attempted to achieve
in the Jewish community
outside of Christ,
the status, the recognition, the credentials -
he had sought all of them
for the same reason we want to be one of the
starting 5 on the basketball team,
for the same reason we want that 4.0,
or want to be president,
or salesman of the year,
or the strongest or funniest or
sharpest man on the crew.
We want those things
so that we can feel good about ourselves
and secure about our future.
Apart from Christ
the only way we have
of figuring out who we are
and whether or not we have value
is through listening to the voices of those around us.
Do they like us?
Do they cheer us?
Do the applaud us?
Do the envy us?
Do they wish they had what we had?
Then surly that proves we have value.
The problem, of course, is that it never works.
It can't work
because no other human being
or group of human beings
can ever provide us with an absolute
reference point
by which we can know ourselves
and our own value with certainty.
Want an example?
Why would a man
who has been declared by the vast majority of
Americans
as being worthy of holding
the most powerful political office in the
world
still be driven to try and validate himself
and his own masculinity
through petty little conquering sexual
relationships?
Why? Because no human being
can ever validate another human being
in a way that brings true inner peace.
But when we begin
to know Christ, our Creator,
we also begin to know ourselves.
When we begin to hear Him say,
"I formed you in your mother's womb,
I carefully designed you and you are
fearfully and wonderfully made by My hand.
I know you totally,
and love you eternally.
You are my son, my daughter,
and you possess great worth,
great dignity,
and great significance."
In other words,
when we begin to know our God's heart
attitude towards us,
for the first time we are freed
to begin to find peace with ourselves,
and all those other things
we were clinging to so desperately,
trying to prove our worth to ourselves
suddenly can be seen as nothing
compared to the sure and certain voice
of God Himself.
Phil. 3:8 More than that, I count all things
to be loss in view of the surpassing value
of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord ...and
count them but rubbish in order that I may
gain Christ...