Philippians 3:8-11 (NKJV) 8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
We have been studying the two kinds of knowledge or information available to the believer. One type comes through our senses. The second is knowledge that is revealed to us by God. As we grow in our Christian life it is vital that we understand and access the knowledge God wants to reveal to us. This knowledge can be a deeper understanding of the Word of God. It can be knowledge about who God is and who we are in Christ. These are many areas in which revealed knowledge from God will help us.
In our last post we talked about developing our ability to receive and walk in this “inside out” knowledge. The most important key to this whole process is quite simply relationship. The deeper our relationship with God, the more freely revealed knowledge will flow in our lives. I illustrated this by using my marriage as an example. Between the 5 years we “went steady” and were engaged and the 50 years of marriage we will celebrate in August of this year, we have gone from complete strangers to people who know each other completely. That is what you and I need to have with the Lord.
How did I develop that with my wife? I made a commitment to her first. We backed up our commitment with effort. We did go through some times of misunderstanding early on. We worked at finding out why and corrected the problem. Each time we did, it strengthened our commitment and our relationship. It also took spending time together. I know couples who have been married many years but they both had jobs and developed separate interests. They never spent time together, so they really did not know one another. Such a marriage will not last.
If we are going to know God well enough to discern the knowledge he wants to share with us, we must understand that we need this kind of relationship with him as well. That comes in the same way my relationship with my wife did. It comes through commitment, time together and communication. It is by committing to cultivate this kind of relationship that you will be able to hear and see what God wants to show you. The amount and level of revealed knowledge you walk in will be directly proportionate to how well you know him. Paul walked in more revelation knowledge than anyone since Jesus. In 2 Corinthain 12 he says that there was one who was taken to the third heaven and shown things he was not allowed to speak about. Todays scripture shows Paul’s heart of commitment to know God.
First, he says that he counts all things as loss compared to knowing Christ Jesus. The New Living Translation says that “everything else is worthless compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ.” That speaks of the commitment Paul had to his relationship with knowing his Lord. What value do you and I place on this relationship? Do not allow the devil to cause you to look at Paul or anyone else and condemn you. You are who you are and you are where you are in your life and commitment to relationship with Jesus. However, do not be afraid of God’s conviction either. He is only letting you know that there is more for you, and He will help you along the way.
If we are not willing to admit our need, how can we ever grow? The Spirit of God is within you and his Word is available to you. You may not feel a driving commitment to relationship with the Lord but ask him to help you develop one. I am not talking about our commitment to serve God. I am not talking about our commitment to continue to live as Christians or attend church. I am talking about our commitment to grow and develop our active relationship with Jesus.
The first thing Paul says is that he had decided to make developing this relationship the most important thing in life. I know that our lives are complicated. We have families, work and many other responsibilities. We are inundated with the availability and perceived need of recreation and distraction. This is something we must do by faith and not feeling. We must believe that God is there, and he will bring us along. That cannot happen if we do not make a commitment based on decision and faith instead of feeling.
Paul’s next statement is extreme to our ears. The NLT says this in a way we can relate to. “For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ.” I doubt many of us have discarded everything in our lives so we can better know Jesus. I know I have not. Nevertheless, we can use this as a gage to determine where we are and what we might need to do to improve.
There are necessities of life that cannot be avoided. There are also things we want to do and like to do that are optional. Paul chose to eliminate all of those things. If we try to do that, we will fail. We cannot go from being consumed with the “stuff” of modern life to what Paul is talking about immediately. The truth is we will likely never get there. What we can do is say, “Lord, I see what Paul says and I want to know you like he did. I just don’t think I can do that. I ask you to help me see what I can do.” As you start from where you are, take steps to minimize the unnecessary entanglements of the world and replace them with more time with the Lord.
The point of this is that we may “gain Christ.” The NLT says that “I might become one with him.” That must be our goal. Paul adds something in verse 9 that can make all the difference if we let it. Paul is not right with God by doing anything in himself. He is right with God because of what Jesus did and because of his relationship with him. We often try to do the right things for the wrong reasons. I am talking about building relationship. You cannot do that if you do not have relationship. I married by wife on August 5, 1972. At that moment, I was her husband, and she was my wife. For the last 50 years we have been building that relationship. If we were not married, we could not do that. If you do not already have relationship with Jesus, you cannot build and strengthen it.
You are righteous, right with God, already if you are born again. You do not have to spend time in the Word, in prayer and in fellowship with him to obtain relationship. You already have one because of what Jesus did to provide redemption. Nevertheless, doing those things will deepen and strengthen that relationship. Just as building life together does not make you married, building your relationship with the Lord does not make you saved. It does, however, make the benefits of relationship, including revealed knowledge, more accessible, powerful and just better in every way. .
Finally, verse 10 tells us that Paul wanted to experience the power that was released in Jesus’ resurrection. That power is not limited to raising dead bodies. It is available to raise us up to a better life. It is available to help us extend the relationship we have in Christ to those around us. We must be willing to enter into his suffering. That is not the suffering of his death burial and resurrection. We cannot experience that, nor should we try. It is to enter into the suffering of his rejection by the world. It is to enter into the suffering of laying down our flesh so we may give more priority to knowing him. The result is that we will experience the power of this “resurrection” life now and in the endless future. Part of that package is to know things that we cannot know by our senses as we live in harmony with God and his ways.
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