New York UBF - NY University Bible Fellowship

Philippians Lesson 3 by Missionary Daniel Chi

I want to know Christ

Philippians 3:1-21
Key Verse: 3:10 & 11

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

“Rejoice in the Lord!” “Philippians” is one of my favorite books in the Bible. When I need to be encouraged, I read “Philippians.” It encourages me to “Rejoice in the Lord!” But this time something else caught my attention. It is apparent that Paul was deeply concerned about the unity of the Philippian Church. In chapter 1, he said, “Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then … I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. (1:27-28) It’s not clear who the opposing people were. Whoever they were, Paul commanded them to stand firm in “one spirit as one man” by conducting themselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, in chapter 2, he commanded them to make his joy complete by “being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose (2:1-2).” Humility is an essential quality of Christians in order to build up such unity among the church members. And the humility of Jesus becomes our reference point for our conduct. How else can we promote the unity among Christians in the church? In chapter 3, Paul tells us to follow his example in having the same values and goals as Christians.

I. WHAT IS YOUR PROFIT AND LOSS? (V. 1- 9)

Our happiness or sense of joy greatly depends on our values. I would be more joyful if I found $100 rather than finding $1. Our values also influence our perception of personal gain (profit) or loss. And it determines our course of action. For example, should I go to Friday Leaders Meeting or not? Depending on your values, you would calculate the profit and loss of attending the meeting. Your course of action would be determined by the outcome. It’s interesting to note that Paul also evaluated his life – the past, the present, and the future – in terms of profit and loss.
Let’s read verse 7 and 8. “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ.” He said “whatever was to my profit I now consider loss.” What were the things that he thought was profit to him? We can find the answer to this question in verses 4-7.
(1) He was circumcised on the eighth day. Circumcision on the 8th day is strict accordance to the letter of the Law (Lev 12:3). The implication is that he grew up and was educated in an obedient Israelite family. (2) He was the people of Israel. This means he had a natural right to all the blessings and privileges promised to every Israelite. (3) He was of the tribe of Benjamin. Benjamin was the only son born in the promised land; Israel’s first king Saul came from the tribe of Benjamin; Jerusalem was within the borders owed to Benjamin; the tribe of Benjamin remained loyal to the house of David after the break up of the kingdom in 931 BC (1 King 12:21) (4) He was Hebrew of Hebrews. This means he was pure Jew. Look at what had he inherited! (5) He lived according to the law as a Pharisees. Paul was the son of a Pharisee (Act 23:6) and studied under the well known rabbi, Gamaliel (Acts 5:34; 22:3) The Pharisees were one of several Jewish sects developed around the middle of the second century BCE. They were known as “separated ones” due to the fact they resisted the influence of Hellenism to their culture and religion. They devoted themselves in keeping the law, even the oral tradition of the Law in order to prevent any violation of the standard of the Law of God. Paul was proud of his commitment to the Law of God. (6) Paul had great zeal for God. His zeal in persecuting the church had become well known. Ananias was afraid to go and see Paul because he knew of Paul’s reputation. (Acts 9:13) Many of the people throughout Damascus had heard of Paul’s brutality and were astonished when they learned that he had come to faith (Acts 9:21). He confessed in his own word in Galatians 3:13, “For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.” (7) As for righteousness, he obeyed the law without fault. What he meant by “legalistic righteousness” is that by the standard of external Law keeping he was without fault. He had invested enormous energy in keeping the details of the Law and was in the eyes of his Jewish and Pharisee friends, without fault. So far, his life was successful in every aspect from the point of his birth. Paul was the most promising young Jewish leader in Jerusalem, at least among the Pharisees. To those who were proud of their heritage, law-keeping, and seeking to persecute Christians, he was saying things like, “been there, done that” and “better than you.”
Let’s read v. 7 again. “Whatever was to my profit (assets) I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.” Why is he saying this? What’s wrong with his natural birth right as a true Israel? What’s wrong with his heritage as a Pharisee? What’s wrong with his zeal for God? What’s wrong with his law-keeping, law-abiding life? What’s wrong with them? What made his values upside down? It was Jesus. Jesus hit him hard with the sense of reality.
When Jesus confronted Paul on the road to Damascus, Paul’s life was turned upside down. He came to regard all of his religious works as a loss. While Paul may have excelled beyond other Jews in his performance, his religious zeal gained him nothing in terms of the righteousness that God requires. Paul’s encounter with the risen Christ caused him to completely reverse his values.
In 1Timothy 1:9, Paul confessed that the law was not given for a righteous man but for ungodly sinners. Then, he continued to mention that his salvation was the result of God’s abundant grace and unlimited patience, rather than his own hard work. “Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen. (1Timothy 1:13-17)”
God saved Paul, not because he was so good, but because he was so bad. No one could say ever again, “I am not good enough for God to save,” because Paul was the worst of all. If God could save a sinner like Paul – a man who persecuted the church, arresting Christians and dragging them off to jail or execution – then surely He can save anyone. And for this reason, we can rejoice in the Lord. Look at Paul’s joy: “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” Rejoice in the Lord.
Here is another secret of happy life: upside down our value system – the measurement of success and failure; the measurement of profit and loss. Paul’s conversion was a humbling experience, an experience that completely reversed his values. While verse 7 is written in past tense, verse 8 is written in present tense. Let’s read verse 8. “What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ.” Whether is past or present, all things other than Christ are a loss (liabilities).
What would be included in the all things? To begin with, there are material possessions – wealth, luxuries, and human comforts. There are other things like status, position, prestige, security, etc. These are not necessarily bad, but we should not pursue them as the greater good. If we do enjoy some of these things, we should not cling to them too strongly. I see the humility of Jesus here. Jesus is God and with God, but he didn’t think it was something to cling to. He emptied everything so that he became a servant of all. We need not to travel as Paul did to preach the gospel. We need not to do the ministry the same way as Paul did. We need not to become tentmakers. But we do need to embrace the same value. We need to view knowing Christ as the greatest good, and all other things as having no value. If we, with the help of His Spirit, embrace this value, I believe we can have a strong foundation for the unity among us in Christ.

II. WHAT IS YOUR GOAL?

Paul’s goal in life is to know Christ. What does it mean to know Christ? How can one know Christ in his life? He said “knowing Christ Jesus my Lord has the value of surpassing greatness. He also said in 2:1, “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion.” “To him, “to know Christ” means to experience Christ and to have intimate fellowship with Him. Initially, we come to know Christ by the saving faith as Paul described in verse 9. The question is how one can know Christ the way he described – personal, intimate, and experiential way? He tells us in verses 10 and 11. Let’s read verses 10 and 11. “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
(1) We “know Christ” as we “experience the power of His resurrection” How do we experience the “power of His resurrection’? Should we kill ourselves everyday? To have better understanding of the meaning, we need to go back to our Romans study. In chapter 6 of Romans, he explained why we Christians need to live a holy life, a righteous life or a different life from the world. The reason is that when we were baptized into Christ (meaning saved by faith), we were identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. We died to sin with Christ and were raised into a new life in Christ with His resurrection. We are new creation. So, our salvation calls for a new life style. But in Chapter 7, Paul explains that it was impossible for us to do so, because our flesh is weak. “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do … For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” (Romans 7:14-20) Then, he is crying out, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Romans 7:24)
Who can rescue me from a body that is powerless to do what is right? The answer to this question comes in Chapter 8. Like salvation, the process of growth toward spiritual maturity and godly living is impossible in our own strength. Like salvation, the solution to the problem of the powerless flesh is to be found in Christ. “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” (Romans 8:9-11) Paul was desperately depending on Jesus to experience His power of resurrection. Through his desperate dependence on His power, he could be with (united) Jesus and thus know Him more and more. Do we live a life worthy of the gospel? If not, how much more do we need to depend on him? Yet how much we do not? Let us pray that we may desperately rely on Christ and His Spirit so that we may experience the power of His resurrection everyday. Then, Paul’s joy would be our joy as Paul had: “Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord who rescues us from this body of death! (Romans 7:25)
(2) We “know Christ” by “sharing in His sufferings” We need to think about “His suffering” and then what it means by “sharing (or having fellowship)”. Jesus’ suffering comes from his humility. His suffering began when he chose to disown His right to be God and to be with God. He let go of everything to become a human being. His suffering is to serve us (the arrogant, ignorant, selfish, and ego-centric human being). His suffering is to take the sin of the world, not His own. His suffering is to be separated from His loving Father and died on the cross. Because His suffering I am saved and so are you.
Let’s see how Paul had fellowship in sharing Christ’s suffering as he testified in 2 Corinthians 11:24 – 29. 5 times he received from the Jews 39 lashes; 3 times he was beaten with a rod; Once he received a stoning; 3 times he suffered shipwreck; he spent day and night adrift in the open sea; he had been on journeys that were often in danger from rivers, robbers, his own countrymen, Gentiles, the city, the wilderness, the sea, and false brothers, in hard work and toil, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, many times without food, in cold and without enough clothing. On top of these suffering, his concern for all the churches pressured him everyday. Was he a strong man? No, he confessed that he was a weak and fearful man.
He was desperately depending on Christ in sharing His suffering so that he could face the sufferings rather than avoid or run away from them. He understood the nature of Jesus’ suffering, and he understood that sharing His suffering would bring him much more closely to Christ. Then, do we need to be beaten and move around as Paul did?
Let us look at what Jesus says about the having fellowship in His suffering. In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus illustrates with a parable the importance of sharing the suffering of Jesus. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’ Taking care of His flock of sheep and serving them is a way to sharing His suffering. It is clear that we have fellowship in His suffering as we imitate Jesus’ servant attitude in this world. To suffer for Christ is to suffer with Christ and thus we enter into deeper intimacy with Him.
(3) We “know Christ” when we are like Him in His death. How does this come about? Does it mean that the only way to “be like Him in His death” is to die on the cross? I don’t think so. It means we should have the same attitudes (toward God and others) and to conduct ourselves in a similar way to Jesus when He died. Jesus humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death – even death on the cross (Philippians 2:8) He obeyed to God’s will to the point of death! And even if the death meant to be on the cross, he obeyed. What does it mean? Why did it have to be on the cross? Jesus’ death on the cross means he died like a criminal. He died like a criminal even though he was perfect and pure in order to take away our sins and to heal our wounds (1 Peter 2:21-25) He took the responsibility of the sin of the world on His shoulder, and took away the sin of the world on the cross. Our attitude toward God must be “obedience to the point of death”. Our attitude toward others (whether Christian or non Christian because Jesus died for all) must be “taking responsibility of their sins” upon our hearts.
It’s easy for us to blame others and the surrounding situation for our unhappy, “Not-so” satisfying life. It’s easy for us to make excuses for our responsibilities. Eve did so for her sin by blaming the serpent; Adam made excuses for his sin by blaming Eve. Cain denied his sin, saying “Am I my brother’s keeper?” If you tell me to clean up the bathroom or empty the garbage can, I can do that without complaining. (Do you remember the command “Do everything without complaining?” How well did you obey the command this week?) But it is almost impossible for us to take the blame for other’s fault.
When I came home from the work, my desk was a mess with empty dishes and cups. I asked my son and daughter, “who did this and why wasn’t it cleaned up?” Both said, “I didn’t do it (so it was not my job to clean up)” What would you do in such a case? I punished both of them. I explained the reason. I really don’t want to know whose fault it is. What I expect them to learn is to take responsibility. I expect them to say, “I don’t know who did it but I will clean up.” It is difficult even for me to do. But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t die hard to do it. Of course, I do not mean that we should go around and incriminate ourselves for all the unsolved crimes in NY City. It is our attitude toward others. Before we go ahead to correct others and kick out incorrigible sinners, we must take their sins and wrong doings as our sins. Remember the Lord’s Prayer. “Forgive our sins.” Remember the payer of Moses. He used to pray that “Forgive their sin. But later he prayed that “Forgive our wickedness and our sins.” (Exodus 32:31-33; Exodus 34:8-10)
Paul uses the death of Christ as an example to us how we should live in a sacrificial way for the benefit of others. When our hearts and minds are ready to take and to die for others’ sin, we are imitating the true nature of Jesus’ humility and showing the mercy and forgiveness of Jesus to others. How can our lives be nothing but joy! What our Church can have is nothing but the unity in Christ!
Paul’s “profit and loss” statement expresses his eternal value system. It tells us what Paul considered precious (knowing Christ) and what he considered a loss (his good works as an unbeliever). It tells us what he gladly would put aside to gain Christ. And thus Paul’s goal was to know Christ in His sufferings, death, and resurrection. His desire was to live like Jesus. He commanded us to follow his example. When we have this value and goal, we all have the joy of knowing Christ. In this joy, we can face the difficulties and embrace our differences: we can build up a body of Christ.

III. Are we there yet?

By this time, some of us might be discouraged and say, “Oh, Man! I am spiritually bankrupt. This teaching is too hard to follow.” We need to learn what Paul did. Let’s read verses 13-14. He forgot the things that were behind, and reach out for what lay ahead. We would all like to forget our failures and to leave them in the past. We should also leave the failures of others in the past, particularly those which negatively impacted us. We should also leave our successes in the past – this may be the most important part of past to leave behind because it tempts us to be content and have vain conceit and to become complacent. Forgetting all these things, we should look ahead
Paul didn’t live in the past. He thought he obtained salvation in Judaism. But he realized that he was going completely opposite direction when he met Jesus. Having come to faith in Christ for his salvation, Paul knew that he was on the right path and going in the right direction. But he also realized he had not yet arrived, and there was a difficult course ahead, which required perseverance and discipline.
This is one thing Paul did “Straining toward what is ahead” and “pressing on toward the goals. Becoming number one or successful in this world is not the goal; neither is becoming a sinless, perfect person. Striving to know Christ perfectly and to love others purely; that is our goal. We know that this does not come without struggles. Paul appeals to all “mature” Christians to agree upon this. They (the “mature”) will agree that salvation is just the starting point. They will agree that no Christian arrives or obtained in this life but keep pressing on toward the goal. Whoever thinks otherwise, God will correct. “Now, a person who is put in charge as a manager must be faithful. As for me, it matters very little how I might be evaluated by you or by any human authority. I don’t even trust my own judgment on this point. My conscience is clear, but that doesn’t prove I’m right. It is the Lord himself who will examine me and decide. So don’t make judgments about anyone ahead of time—before the Lord returns. For he will bring our darkest secrets to light and will reveal our private motives. Then God will give to each one whatever praise is due. (1 Corinthians 4:2-5: NLT)
Paul’s life goal of knowing Christ is very closely tied to his goal of striving toward God’s calling. Paul always had a clear understanding on God’s calling upon him. It was very specific – a minister of the gospel to the Gentile. He said that God called him for that to win the prize. Does only Paul have such a calling? Are we just saved to keep us from hell and to assure us of heaven? No! Each and every Christian has been saved for a purpose, saved to fulfill a specific purpose. When we come to the NT teaching on spiritual gifts, we find that every Christian has been given at least one spiritual gift for building up the body of Christ. “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all (1 Corinthians 12:4-7: NKJV) If a Christian as a part of the whole body is neglecting to fulfill his or her stewardship upon his/her gift, the whole body suffers. On the other hand, if every member of the body is performing its part to the edification of the entire body, the whole body is functioning as it should. Paul explains this relationship in (Ephesians 4:11-13) “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ”.
Christ was everything to Paul. Paul’s conversion introduced him to know Jesus. It turned his life goal around; it turned his values upside down. Paul’s goal became to know Christ more personally and intimately in everyday of his life. His long-term goal was to fulfill the “heavenward calling of Christ” and to spend all eternity with Christ; when this happens, his joy and knowledge of Christ will be fully complete.
Let us pray that our merciful God gives us today this value and goal with full conviction of our heart through His Spirit: “I want to know Christ!”