Let This Mind Be in You
Champions for God
[Presentation 5 of 6] Knowing Him (Philippians 3:7-14)

Larry Kirkpatrick, Weimar Institute Retreat, Sabbath, October 18pm
Monterey Bay Academy, Gymnasium.

Winning Christ

Paul became a champion for God. Funny thing is, he had thought before that he was a champion of God. Before, when he had been the hard-line Pharisee, he was a terror to the church. He was on the move, up the ecclesiastical ladder, distinguishing himself by his zeal in persecuting the young Christian church. He then looked at his obedience to the torah as his passkey to heaven. Touching the law, he says his obedience was exceptional, “blameless.” Things were going well, Paul was on the way. Much was riding on what Paul did. When he converted to Christianity, he became virtually an outcast from Judaism. He gave up his rising-stardom for torture and prison and to be targeted as an heretic, to be stoned and beaten and at last martyred. But what did he say about that? The answer is found in Philippians 3:7, 8:

But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.

When Paul really became a champion for God, he had to make serious changes to his value-system. “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.” What had before ruled his motivations, filled his ambitious thoughts, now was set aside. He had to rebuild the structure of his life all over again from the ground up. But as he was rebuilding, shut away from his former associates, parked somewhere out in the desert with God, the massive changes become more and more secure.

An Exchange of Value-Systems

He was glad to lose those things that before had driven him, and find those things that today could build him. His thirst for truth and righteousness was slaked by God's goodness. In great droughts Paul drank from the cup of truth. Closer and still closer it cut, until he could say, “Doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.” Far more fulfilling than knocking-in the heads of Christians, was learning more about Jesus and living with the presence of the Holy Spirit in His heart. A peace he had never known was now his own. Yes, he had suffered the loss of basically everything. But did he look back on that with regret? It would seem that he must have had at least some. But that is not what we hear. Instead, he said that he counted all that he before had surrounded his life with, as dung. We are looking at a complete change here.

How much has your value-system changed since you came to Jesus? What do you value today, what do you open the door for and put into your mind? What does your heart reach out for—today? I believe that 100% of us here present (yes, by all means myself too!), need to be more converted than we are. James warns that the double-minded person is unstable in all his ways, and his instability keeps him from being able to receive the blessings of God (James 1:6-8).

We can learn something here from Paul. Notice what he says about leaving behind everything for Jesus: “For whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ” (Philippians 3:8).

“That I may win Christ.” To do mighty things for the kingdom, Paul knew that he would have to become entirely consecrated to God. Paul had been a proud man, I don't think it was easy for him to change, to leave behind his preeminence in Judaism. Yes, in value that was nothing compared to Jesus, but I believe there were years of struggle, combat with self, moments of horrible failure, times when he wondered whether he could be saved. But he emerged from the desert and never stopped telling about Jesus until his experience closed in Rome.

Our purpose here today is not to call into question our experience, but to build on it. Is it our first purpose, our unalterable goal, the craving of our life purpose, to win Christ? Well may we ask ourselves, Who has our heart? With whom are our thoughts? Of whom do we love to converse? Who has our warmest affections and our best energies? If we are Christ's, our thoughts are with Him and our sweetest thoughts are of Him. All we have and are is consecrated to Him. We long to bear His image, breath His Spirit, do His will, and please Him in all things. [SC 58]. In a nutshell, we are surrendering all so that with Paul, we may win Christ.

In this passage, Paul is comparing the Christian experience with running in a race. His talk about winning Christ and reaching toward the mark all go together. And right in the middle he places the issue of righteousness by faith!

The Righteous Which is of God By Faith

Listen to Paul:

And be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. (Philippians 3:9).

There is a way to be found in Jesus, and we all want to know what it is. Remember now, this is the same Paul who but one chapter before has urged the reader, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do according to His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12, 13). Now he says that key to being found in Jesus Christ is “not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law.”

Here is something that we are not to have, not to permit, not to cultivate; something that will prevent our being connected with Christ. Now let's watch for help in the context. What is Paul talking about? Go back to Philippians 3:4-6. There we find Paul pointing back to his pre-conversion religious value-system. Notice its elements:

He was a proud Jew, with all the goods. Raised in a proper Jewish home, circumcised on the eighth day as are all good little Jewish children raised in good little Jewish homes. He has a good solid lineage, able to trace back his ancestry in a clear line to the tribe of Benjamin. More than this, Paul had been a Pharisee, one of the select elect. He was a persecutor of the church, standing at the forefront of the defenders of Judaism. All of these things have an extraordinary importance to a Jew like Paul. But his crowning mark of distinction was the last item on his list: “Touching the righteousness which is in the law, [Paul held himself to be] blameless” (Philippians 3:6).

Notice here that Paul is linking the law and Judaism together. Remember, this was his former way of thinking. This is probably not firstly a reference to the law, as in the Ten Commandments, but a reference to the Torah in general, God's things blurred together in a kind of racial glorying, an expectation that said that the Hebrew way of life and the Hebrew religion was better than every other, that all others were dogs and Philistines. This attitude Paul has put behind him. He does not want to have his own righteousness which is based upon a system of religion that had become such a tangled blend of God's teachings with man's teachings, that it had been set aside by Jesus. He wants nothing to do any longer with such a religion, such a righteousness.

To win Christ he has learned the answer. Instead of being caught in the combination of the truth of God with the traditions of men, one must live their life with a righteousness that comes “through the faith of Christ,” which he calls “the righteousness of God by faith.” Notice, that winning Christ involves having righteousness in your life. But it cannot be your own only. It cannot stem from any racial or cultural superiority. Nor can it come from any law-keeping or obedience that is accomplished on one's own apart from God. If God is not in it, strength is not in it, faith is not in it, and Romans 14:23 said that “whatsoever is not of faith is sin.”

Without faith you are inevitably caught in a catch-22. You can't really obey. But you must. Yet your nature does not have the strength for that. We cannot generate an acceptable righteousness on our own, we can never meet the deep claims of God's law. Remember, Romans 8:3 pointed out that there was something the law could not do for us “in that it was weak through the flesh.” But what the law could not do for us, God did for us by sending His Son for us. What was gained by the successful earthly sojourn of Christ? It now became possible through Jesus, Romans 8:4 says, that the righteousness of the law could be counted to us. But wait—is that what Romans 8:4 says? No, but “that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us.”

Any attempt to fulfill the letter of the law merely from our own strength, will be unsuccessful. But we must have the righteousness of Christ. We must have it counted for us, a title to heaven, His life in place of my life; just as we must have it fulfilled in us, His life in my life, a continuous work of re-creation going forward, carpenter Jesus sawing and hammering, working the wood, preparing my life, bringing it to a fitness that only He can. Having the righteousness which is through the faith of Christ will mean spiritual life and vitality, obedience in both letter and spirit, empowerment from above, operational faith, even righteousness!

There is a real cooperation between God and man, with man's active submission. This is what we need if we would run the race, if we would win Christ. Our own righteousness is a handicap, it creates drag, it slows us down, makes us liable to trip, to fall, to veer off the race-course and take our own strange pathway to doom. Rather we need to run with Jesus. We must be working out our own salvation with Him working in us, doing His good pleasure, achieving His good will. That is the righteousness that we must have; and we can claim in it not one whit of self-glorification because there is none. That's what it takes to win Christ.

The Knowing-Christ Triad

Philippians 3:10, 11 comes next, standing tall with truth:

That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

Many claim to know Jesus, but when the question comes down to more than an appearance of religion, pleasant words and hugs all around, their faith becomes suspiciously suspicious. There are always paper tigers, supposed soldiers. Paul is going to place three things side by side that are sure to root out some false pretenders.

It takes some effort to “win” Christ (Philippians 3:8); by no means is it an effortless project to be a Christian. Faith must be activated in the life. Not a righteousness of shallow goodness that is what we do on our own apart from God, but a life alive with faith—that is what is authentic. When faith is active and operational in our life, then it becomes possible for us to see it live in its strongest degree. Three things then go together.

First, knowing Christ. This is not a profession that you know Him, but the reality of such a relationship. But how can we tell if it is the real thing? Because of two other points that always accompany the authentic experience: (1) the power of Jesus' resurrection, and (2) the fellowship of His sufferings.

There are two main words used in the New Testament that are translated into the English “power.” One is the word for authority and the other the word for raw strength, like dynamo, dynamite, and so forth. Which one is used here? Here, the power of Jesus' resurrection is the raw strength, the sheer energy necessary to raise one who is dead to life. It is this power that we are to experience! Nor do we attain to it by dying for it as Christ did. Jesus died and earned the right to exercise this power. He is willing and able to exercise this very power in our behalf when we request it of Him and we actively submit to Him. As we meet the conditions set out, we will receive it from Him.

And yet there is a death for us nonetheless. But it is a death to self. Self would prefer to rise up and run away off the track, finding its own finish line somewhere far from Jesus. But when we learn to die daily, submitting to God every day, not with inactivity, but an active submission to His will, we'll learn to run the race. Our spiritual stamina will become strong, our second-wind prayer capacity will become greater and greater. And we'll push toward the mark.

But there is another crucial thought here. Notice that it is not only “knowing,” Jesus, not only experiencing “the power” of His resurrection, but joining Him in fellowship with His sufferings. “Fellowship” here is koinonia, “togetherness, fellowship, being together, joining together in a common activity or experience.” “Sufferings” is pathaymetwn, where we derive the words, pathos, and pathetic. The meaning, is to experience pain.

On the cross Jesus tasted death for every man (Hebrews 2:9, 14). We did not die on the cross for our sins; He died on the cross for ,em>our sins. But what some are taught is, rise up off your knees straight-away and go and sin some more. Make Jesus pay the penalty for a new list of transgressions. No, people aren't actually told to go and sin, but they are told that if they do (and in their theology, doing so is always more or less inevitable), then that's OK. Jesus will offer His hands for crucifixion afresh. The nails can go in the same old holes as before, and before, and before.

Now it is true that along the journey of our lives we will often fail and return to the feet of Jesus to ask His forgiveness. But the life will be an active struggle, an active war with sin. We keep on the move until our failures are unintentional, non-willful. There will be little premeditation. We are walking, we are striving, with Christ. We are chopping away with sword and shield in battle. We are not passively sitting streamside hoisting a beer as we watch Jesus fighting the battle for us.

The true Christian will know Jesus; he will experience in his life the power of Jesus' resurrection from death to life. But more, He will join in the fellowship of Jesus' sufferings. He will take on Jesus' hatred for sin. As He begins to sense in some shrunken measure a bit of the tasting of death Jesus experienced, his hard heart will be melted. He knows that it was his sins that Jesus suffered for. You cannot have fellowship in Jesus' sufferings—His experiencing something akin to the second death—without loving Him for His goodness, and hating self for its badness. The true Christian never takes sin lightly, for it cost the price that Jesus paid. The realization of this wounds us. We have to either accept this meaning or leap onto the passing iceberg of some other false, supposed-gospel philosophy about Jesus and about what salvation means.

Pressing Toward the Mark

Our passage of Scripture closes with verses 12-14:

Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Look here at the humility of Paul. We find in him no boasting, no claim of spiritual maturity or superiority. Yet here was a giant, a tiger; of course, just another regular human like you or me. But how the gospel of Jesus changed him! Let us beware of claiming spiritual superiority in any way. Our capacity for self-deception is very high, our readiness to accept it, dangerously immediate. How easily we fool ourselves into thinking that we have piously avoided falling into the pit of claiming it! But every claim of spiritual superiority is not always voiced. Many of them run quietly just behind our face.

Paul says not that he has already obtained perfection, but that he presses on to make it his own, because Christ Jesus has made Paul his own. If Paul had no claims of arrival to make, shall we? Of course not. We are not the measure of whether we have “arrived” spiritually. We can let God do any of that that needs doing. Our task is simple: I keep going forward with Jesus; I press toward the finish line.

What is the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus? How can I make it there and be a champion for God? The champion for God is one as he runs the race, not as he crosses the finish line. “He that overcometh” obtains gifts from God, but His overcoming is at every step, His champion character is active from the beginning until the day of Christ.

Conclusion

So where have we been in this talk? We saw that a complete change of value-systems is to be expected when one turns to Jesus. It is time to wallpaper our mind with Scripture and with inspired writings. This will help us experience a change in our values. We saw that Paul reevaluated everything and then counted those things that had been at the top of his list before, as nothingness. Winning Christ became his healthy obsession, and it must become ours.

A change in value-systems will almost certainly mean a change in our view of righteousness by faith. We must avoid tainting Jesus' righteousness with any of our own self-generated spiritual toxins, even as we are commanded to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. We must find the line so that we do not embark upon a legal religion any more than that we would embark upon a religion that has been emptied of the power of the cross by philosophical systems built upon strange pillars and ideas.

We saw that knowing Jesus is linked to experiencing the power of His resurrection, that God's plan for us is victory now. We saw that with victory now it is going to have in it some measure of suffering now too. Even so, we mustn't shrink back, but let us honor Christ when we do suffer, knowing that we are joining in some tiny way with His sufferings.

All these things are to be part of our experience with Jesus. Do you know Jesus? Then watch and pray, because He only gives package-deals, and truly knowing Christ means experiencing the spiritual vigor of new life within, victory now, even as it means embarking on the most trying battle you will ever fight: the subduing of self. But this we know—Jesus stands ready to help you, to defeat every hereditary or cultivated trait of character, and every sin that is unclean, and to become more like Him. This work cannot be deferred. Today is the day of opportunity, but we are not alone. Jesus is ready to help us. And He will.

Just ask.