THE EXCELLENCE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST – Philippians 3:8-11

Message preached Sunday, New Year’s Message; December 28, 2014 from Philippians 3:8-11

Theme: The excellence of the knowledge of Christ should motivate us to prioritize our relationship with Him above all else.

(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)

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Each Sunday before the beginning of the new year, I seek to present a ‘challenge’ to set before the church family—a passage from God’s word that encourages us toward a more committed and more obedient walk with our Lord. And I have felt led this week to turn to Philippians 3.

Philippians is a great New Testament letter. It was written by the apostle Paul—as he was in a Roman prison cell—mainly to say ‘thank you’ to his brothers and sisters in Christ in the ancient city of Philippi for the financial gift they sent him. But in the course of writing this Holy Spirit-inspired ‘thank you’ note, he gave us one of the greatest treatises ever written on how to experience a satisfying and sustaining joy in Christ in the midst of trials.

Real joy in Christ is a product of salvation through Christ. And so, in the third chapter, Paul writes a marvelous portion of his letter on the subject of salvation through faith in Christ. Some have said that this section of Philippians represents the "essence" of Paul’s theology. It’s found in Philippians 3:8-11; and the thing that stood out to me over the past week has been the phrase that we find early in it—"the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus".

Paul writes;

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 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; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:8-11).

Paul spoke here of the excellence of the knowledge of Christ; and showed us by his example how he sought—with all his heart—that he may “gain Christ”, and that he may “know Him". And it’s my hope that, in the coming year, we as a church family, and as individual believers, will follow Paul’s example.

Whatever other “New Year’s resolution” we may make in 2015, my prayer is that we will grow increasingly to pursue—above all else—the excellence of the knowledge of Christ.

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When you think of it, we all ‘pursue’ something. We can’t help doing so. It seems to be built into our nature to pursue something.

It might be that we pursue a better standard of living, or the possession of more and better material things. For those of us who have been bitten at one time or another by the "collector" bug, we often search the stores or shops, or scour the Internet; and try hard to find that one thing that is missing from the "set" of whatever it is that we are collecting. (Book lovers—ahem!—know all about this!) Others of us who already have something—or a set of ‘somethings’—chase after a "better version" of whatever it is we have. Some of us pursue a certain level of health or athletic ability. Others of us pursue a relationship of one kind or another. Others may pursue an ideal of justice, or to achieve a political goal for society. Still others of us may pursue personal respect, or influence, or power. Often, that pursuit overwhelms all other interests. In fact, even if we choose to sit around and do nothing, we’re pursuing ‘idleness’.

There are some religious systems or philosophies in which the devotee seeks to rid himself or herself of all "desires" and all "pursuits"—thinking that the loss of such a desire is the path to enlightenment and enrichment. But I would like to suggest to you that that’s not really the way it should work. It’s not the way we’re made. I believe that we have a built-in tendency to "pursue" something, whatever it may be—even if it’s the pursuit of the “loss of desire”. And the real secret to maturity and fulfillment and contentment is not found in trying to cease from pursuing anything, but rather in pursuing the "right" something—the "best" and most "superior" and most “worthy” something. Paul, I believe, hints at this in Philippians 1:10; where he tells the Philippians that he prays for them that, among other things, they may "approve" (that is, to discern, and discriminate, and desire) "the things that are excellent" (that is, the things that are the wisest and best and most worthy of being pursued).

For us as Christians, maturity is not found in ceasing to desire and pursue things. It’s found in increasingly weaning ourselves from what is unworthy of us as followers of Christ, changing the direction of our passions, and pursuing the things that truly are worthy of us as sons and daughters of God by faith—the things that are truly best. It’s a life-long enterprise. Even Paul—as we’ll see later in this third chapter of Philippians—made it his life-long ambition to actively "pursue" the right things.

And if he were here with us today in person (and of course, I would very quickly get out of the way and letting him preach the New Year’s message!), I believe he would be exhorting us to—above all else—pursue the excellence of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. That’s the most worthy thing of all to pursue; and he would be urging us to give our all to the effort; to even be, in the eyes of the people of this world, obsessive and overboard about it; and to consider all other things a waste of time, and a loss, and a detriment to us, in comparison to the overwhelming pursuit of the excellence of the knowledge of Jesus Christ and His love in our lives.

And that is what I hope to encourage us to do in the coming year. It certainly doesn’t mean that we don’t pursue other things that are also important and necessary. But it means that whatever else we pursue in life is made to serve and support the greatest and most worthy of all pursuits—our whole-hearted pursuit of the knowledge of Christ.

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Now; there’s something that is absolutely essential to the pursuit of the excellence of the knowledge of Christ. In fact, we can’t even take the first step in this highest, and wisest, and most worthy of all pursuits without it. And that is the absolute necessity of the new birth. We must be born-again.

Jesus Himself has said that this is so. The Gospel of John tells us about a man who sought to know Jesus better. His name was Nicodemus; and he was a brilliant scholar and a ruler of the Jewish people. He came to Jesus by night—to this great Prophet of God—in order to interview Him and to get to know Him better. He told Jesus, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him" (John 3:2).

Jesus knew however that this man Nicodemus—who clearly wanted to know more about Him—could go no further. Jesus perhaps surprised him when He told him bluntly,

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (v. 3).

Jesus said that a man or woman who is not “born again” can’t even get into heaven—let alone know more about Himself. And Nicodemus was confused by this. How could such a thing as being “born again” come about? He asked Jesus, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (v. 4). He was thinking, of course, only of the physical birth. But Jesus was speaking of a ‘birth’ of a completely different kind. He told the man,

"Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again’” (vv. 5-7).

It’s possible to translate Jesus’ words to mean that we must be born “by water—even by the Spirit” (as if “water” and the Holy Spirit are meant to be seen as the same thing; a reasonable idea because “water” is often used as a figure for the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament); or to mean that we must be born “by the water of baptism by faith, and by the work of the Holy Spirit” (since one of the key references to “water” in John’s Gospel has been with respect to baptism; in which case the idea would be that we must, on our part, have personal faith, and—at the same time—be the recipients of the enabling power of the Holy Spirit). Either views are possible. But one thing is sure; it is impossible to experience "the excellency of the knowledge of Christ" without being born again. That’s the only way to enter into a relationship with Him; and it’s only by a relationship with Him that we can know Him.

We become "born again"—literally “born from above”—as an act of God’s grace when we place a sincere and intelligent faith in Jesus’ sacrifice for us on the cross; and willingly receive Him as our Savior. As the apostle John wrote earlier in the Gospel of John,

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:12-13).

So; this is a good time to ask—have you placed your faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior, and are you born again? You really can’t go another step with Him—you really can’t “know” Him—unless you have done so.

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Now; for those of us who have placed our faith in Him, and have been born again, there’s another thing that’s essential. It’s something that Paul speaks of in verses 4-7. And though he wrote of it with respect to his own experience before having been born again, I fear that it’s something that can get in the way of someone pursuing the excellence of the knowledge of Christ even after they have professed a faith in Him.

It’s the danger of hindering our ability to pursue our knowledge of Christ through trusting in the power of ‘the flesh’. Paul wrote in verse 3 of those who place "no confidence in the flesh" (and we can understand "flesh" here to refer to anything of our own efforts or qualities that we may trust in for righteousness before God apart from Christ—any of our own ‘good works’ or ‘religious efforts’).

Paul used to trust in such things completely before he came to Christ. In fact, he could have trusted in such things more than anyone else could. He wrote;

though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless (vv. 4-6).

Paul wasn’t saying that he had been fooling himself in the things of which he once boasted. He hadn’t been bragging about a bunch of things that were not true of him. These things truly were real things that he could boast in—if such things could save him. And no one could make a bigger boast of them than he could. Others may boast in good works and religious performances of other kinds. Perhaps someone could boast in their perfect attendance at their church and their involvement in its ministry. Others might boast in the ways they have given themselves over to good deeds and to acts of service to their fellow man. Others may boast in their care for the environment and for the ways that they have helped improve the planet. Others may even trust in simply "believing" the right things and in having a commitment to the right doctrinal truths.

And none of those things are wrong in and of themselves—any more than Paul’s devoted Jewishness was wrong. But they end up being very wrong when they become what we trust in to make ourselves righteous before God. And when it came to boasting in such things for righteousness before God, Paul—who once trusted in them—had now made a complete break from them and had forsaken them all. He met Jesus; and now he—who said that no one could boast in the works of the flesh more than he could—no longer trusted in any of those things. He was genuinely "converted" in terms of where he had placed his trust. He wrote, “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ” (v. 7).

And note this carefully: It wasn’t that Paul had “converted” from one religion to another. He didn’t simply “convert” from Judaism to Christianity. Rather, what he did was convert in his trust from one “person” to “Another”. He no longer trusted in his own works in the principle of the flesh. Rather he ceased completely from trusting in such aspects of his own being, and had cast them from himself, and now trusted only in Jesus.

And you and I cannot grow in our knowledge of the excellence of Christ unless we do the same. We cannot have it both ways—trusting in our own works of the flesh to make ourselves righteous before God and acceptable in His sight, and trusting in Jesus at the same time. You might say that one trust, “displaces” the other. Paul put it in a very strong way elsewhere in Scripture. He spoke of misguided Christians who had placed their trust that what we might call the quintessential Jewish symbol of all religious ‘works’ of the law, and wrote;

Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace (Galatians 5:2-4).

If you or I choose to trust in our own religious works of righteousness to make ourselves acceptable before God, then we need to know that—by the authority of no less than the apostle Paul himself—Jesus Christ can profit us nothing. You and I cannot pursue the excellence of the knowledge of Christ if we choose to trust in the works of the flesh. Obviously, there must be good works in our lives—otherwise we’re not truly followers of Jesus. But those good works come as a result of our life with Jesus—and not as a substitute for trust in Jesus.

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So; with those things in mind, look now at what Paul says in our passage this morning about the excellence of the knowledge of Christ.

In verse 8, he writes;

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 . . .” (v. 8).

Do you notice that he doesn’t just say that he rejects only the things that he could do in the flesh to make himself righteous before God? Far more than that, he says that he suffers “the loss of all things”, and counts them “as rubbish”. The word that he uses to describe how he looks at all other things in comparison to the knowledge of Christ is one that may refer to the kind of stinking garbage that someone might throw out into a back alley for the wild dogs to eat. Or, as you may discover if you have the King James Bible, it can be translated into something even more repulsive than that. This isn’t speaking of a mere “disinterest” in other things. It meant a complete, deliberate sense of repulsion toward anything other than Christ that may take a primary place in his affections. Think of the most disgusting and wretched thing you can think of—and that’s how he now views “all things” in comparison to Christ. He utterly rejects the things that might otherwise be gain to him, so that he could make Christ Jesus his all consuming passion instead.

And why? He goes on to say,

that I may gain Christ 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 (v. 9).

What wonderful words those are! They are expressing the essence of Paul’s great burden in his preaching; the message that he traveled around the Roman world to declare; the message that was the great theme of his letter to the Romans, and of his letter to the Galatians, and that is a thread that runs through every other letter that he wrote—the great doctrine of justification by faith. Paul now no longer trusted in any aspect of his own efforts to make himself righteous before God. He wouldn’t dare be found by God clothed in a righteousness of his own making through the law! Instead, he trusted in the righteousness that is freely given by God as a gracious gift to those who place their faith in His Son Jesus Christ—"the righteousness which is from God by faith".

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Verse nine speaks of Paul’s justification in Christ. That is the product of his “born again” experience. But in verse 10, he goes on to speak of his sanctification—his ongoing experience in life right then and there of enjoying the glorious benefits of a living relationship of love with Jesus. He says, first, that he has rejected all those other things he used to trust in, and trusts in a righteousness by faith in Christ alone, ". . . that I may know Him . . ."

To "know" Jesus in this way isn’t speaking of mere head-knowledge about Him. It speaks of a deep, personal, experiential relationship of love. And can you see now what is meant by saying that true ‘conversion’ isn’t simply a change from one religion to another? It’s a change from trust in one ‘person’ to ‘Another’. It’s that we enter into a saving relationship with a wonderful Person named Jesus Christ—a relationship of love in which we forsake our own efforts and rest instead in the complete work of our Savior and Lord, who is also our dearest Friend; a personal relationship that grows deeper every day; a relationship in which He fellowships with us, and strengthens us, and supports us in our trials; a relationship of dependence in which He shares all of His divine resources with us; a relationship in which the more of Him we get to know, the more like Him we grow to be. No amount of religious ‘good works’ through the flesh could ever give us that! It’s one wonderful aspect of the on-going excellence of knowing Him.

But there is another. Paul also speaks of knowing "the power of His resurrection . . ." To know Christ is to experience the impact of His resurrection in our own lives every day. I’m quite sure this is what Paul was speaking of in Ephesians 1:19-23; when he prayed that his readers would know what is the exceeding greatness of God’s power toward us who believe,

according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Ephesians 1:19b-23).

Having “the power of His resurrection” predominant in our lives means that we live and walk and work on this earth as people who have been resurrected from the dead with Jesus. It means that there is now no sinful habit or addicting practice that He cannot overcome in us; and no necessary change in our lives that He cannot bring about for us; and no command of obedience He could give us that He does not empower us to perform—if we will but trust Him. How much better it is to forsake our trust in our own works, so that we can experience the exceeding excellence of the resurrection-power of Jesus Christ in our daily lives!

Paul also speaks of knowing “the fellowship of His suffering”. One of the aspects of being in a relationship with Jesus is that we will suffer with Him. He Himself said so. He said;

If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also” (John 15:18-20).

But isn’t it interesting that Paul actually considered that fact to be a part of the “excellence” of knowing Christ?—to have the privilege of sharing in His suffering? Paul knew that if he shared in the suffering of Christ now, he would also share in the glory of Christ later. And I appreciate what one good brother pointed out to me recently; that it’s a “fellowship”. We who share in Christ’s suffering with Him also share in it with our fellow believers. We are able to support one another, and pray for one another, and help one another stand strong in Him.

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Now; verses 8-9 speak of justification—a declaration from God of righteousness in His sight through Christ alone! What an excellency that is in knowing Christ! And verse 10 speaks of the process of sanctification—daily growing in a relationship with Him, and being progressively identified with Him, and with His power, and with His suffering, and being made like Him in the way we live. This too is a great excellency!

But there’s one more excellency; and it’s the promise of future glory. Paul talked about forsaking his own works of the flesh and gain Christ so that he could be "being conformed to His death . . . (v. 10); that is, to follow Jesus daily by denying ‘self’, take up our cross, and follow Him. Paul is being honest about that—and certainly, he was also a great example of the truth of it in his own life. Forsaking his own works as his trust led to great suffering in his life for the cause of the gospel. It’s truly hard, in fact, to think of anyone who suffered more for Christ than he did.

But I think what he says in verse 10 about the fellowship of Christ’s suffering is meant to go along with what he says in verse 11; ". . . if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." He uses a word that is used only here in the New Testament—a word that roughly means "out-resurrection"; and I believe what he means by it is that he pursued a whole-hearted knowledge of the death of Christ in this world so that, as he walked about in this world, he would look forward to an "out-resurrected" life. He willingly suffered daily for Jesus as someone who expected to—one day—be raised from the dead and completely glorified in Christ.

It’s as the apostle John wrote in 1 John 3:2; “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” That was Paul’s confident expectation. And I believe it explains why he said what he said in verses 12-14;

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (vv. 12-14).

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The assurance of justification! The progress of sanctification! The promise of glorification! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ—there isn’t anything more worthy to pursue than the excellence of the knowledge of Christ! Let’s commit together, in the coming year, to pursue our knowledge of Him!