Word of Salvation – Vol. 47 No.31 – August 2002

 

I Want to know Christ

 

Sermon by Rev D K Baird on Philippians 3:10-11

Scripture Reading: Philippians 3:1-16

Suggested Hymns: Rej 323; 333; BOW 159; 303; 465; 85; 143

 

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I wonder: Do you have a “wish list”?  Things you would very much like to do; things you would like to happen.  Perhaps your dream is to take a year off and drive around Australia.  There may be something very special you’d love to buy, if only you could.  Maybe you’d like to get rid of a whole heap of stuff and lead a simple life.

On your wish list may be some very serious things.  Maybe they are too serious to talk about.  You would just love to find your life partner.  That would be the start of the rest of your life.  Perhaps you have some habit you would love to deal with.  Maybe it’s your anger, or fear; maybe it’s talking too much, or too little.  Getting rid of that habit is the first thing on your “wish list.”

Today I want to show you a “wish list” someone wrote.  This is the “wish list” of an older person who is, in fact, in gaol, and who may well not get out alive.  Even if you have never been in gaol, you could well identify with this.  In fact this is a “wish list” any of us could make our own.

| refer to the apostle Paul’s own “wish list” where he says, “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” (Phil.3:10-11).

The big thing on this “wish list” is simply: I want to know Christ.  The other things come with Christ: His resurrection power, sharing His sufferings, and the resurrection from the dead.  All that, comes with knowing Christ.  I want to itemise the four things on this “wish list”, but let’s remember the whole list expresses one desire, one longing: to know Christ.

1.  To know Christ

Of course Paul already knows Christ, and yet he says, “I want to know Christ”.  Does that strike you as strange?  It’s not, really.  If I said, “My desire for the rest of my life is that I know Christ, share the power of His resurrection, share the fellowship of His sufferings, and in the end attain to the resurrection from the dead”, that would not be so strange.  In fact, that’s what you would expect a Christian to say as he looks forward to the rest of his life.

And that is what Paul is doing here.  He has entered the last stage of his life.  He is in gaol.  He doesn’t know if he will get out alive.  Already he has been pondering which is better: to depart and be with Christ, or to stay on in the body and serve the church.  He concludes, “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (1:21).  That’s what’s on his mind: the last part of his life.  And so he says, “This is what I want for the rest of my life: I want to know Christ.  As I already know him, but I want this to keep being THE BIG THING.”

Paul has just been telling us of his relationship to Christ (verses 7-9).  Paul was a Jew of the highest order when Christ confronted him as he travelled along the road to Damascus.  That day Christ took hold of him and his life changed.  The persecutor of Christ became the preacher of Christ.  He became the preacher of the Christ he had come to know.  Not all of us are called to be preachers, but every Christian does know Christ.  A Christian is someone who has accepted Christ as the righteousness that is from God.

Paul explains it is verse 9.  Being a Christian means being found in Christ, “not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.”  This is wonderful: having the righteousness that comes from God!  As a free gift!  What more could you ask for?

The hard bit is putting pride aside and humbly accepting it.  Because accepting the righteousness that comes from God means giving up having a righteousness of my own.  Are you willing to dump your own goodness as a load of rubbish?  And instead embrace the righteousness of Jesus, which comes from God?  To know Christ, that we must do: that is the deal.  And as we start, so we continue: that remains the deal for the rest of our lives.

So, as Paul looks to the rest of his life, he says, I want to know Christ.  Indeed, I cannot contemplate living in any other way.  For me to live is Christ – having the righteousness of God.

This is his deep-seated desire and longing and ambition.  Is it ours?  Do we want this more than anything in life?  Yes, I think so, but that desire is competing with a lot of other stuff I want.  I want to know Christ.  Put that on the top of your wish list.

The other things on Paul’s “wish list” flow from knowing Christ.  So…

2.  The power of His resurrection

When Jesus rose from the dead, that was an act of incredible power!  I mean, who has the power to raise the dead?  Such mighty power!

Is that the sort of power Paul wants?  To leap tall buildings in a single bound?  To break out of that gaol, knocking the soldiers over on the way out?  He does want power; but power to do what?

If we were to read the whole letter (and it wouldn’t take long) we would discover what he wants to do with this power.  For example, “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do everything through him who gives me strength” (4:12).

A strength not his own: the strength of Christ.  But not to get rich, not to always be healed, not to always be smiling; rather to be content whatever the circumstances.  That’s what he wanted.

Think of Paul being there in gaol, expecting death.  Not just being content to miss out on the comforts of life, but content that this is the Lord’s purpose for him.  It means keeping the faith under pressure.

Knowing the Lord is near!  It means continuing to rejoice in the Lord, continuing to show gentleness to his enemies, continuing to pray, to have the peace of Christ.  He has learnt how to do it; he encourages us to do it.  Whatever you have seen in me – put it into practice.  And we can, because we have access to the resurrection power of Christ.

Rejoice in the Lord always.  We may not always be happy, we may not always be singing (we may be weeping and grieving) but we may have a deep-seated joy in the Lord.

Let your gentleness be evident to all.  We do not have to accept that males are always impatient and aggressive.  Or that females are… whatever it is they can be.  We have access to the resurrection power of Christ!  We show we know Christ, by displaying His grace and His power.  That’s what we want, isn’t it?  That’s what we want in life!

When Christ rose from the dead, the power of God became accessible to those for whom He died.  Christ didn’t just rise to show off the raw power of God.  He rose from paying for our sins.  He rose with power over those sins: for us, for whom He died.  We want to know Christ and that power of His resurrection.

3.  The fellowship of his sufferings

There’s a Graham Kendrick song (Rejoicing 457] in which we sing:

O Lord, the clouds are gathering,
the fire of judgment burns,
how we have fallen!

We deplore hunger and war and violence and plead with the Lord…

Have mercy Lord; forgive us, Lord
restore us Lord, revive your church again…

And then, finally, in the last verse, we confidently declare…

Yet, O Lord, Your glorious cross shall tower
triumphant in our world, evil confounding.

Sounds great!  Churches full of people again; Christian values appreciated by government.  Not necessarily.  That last triumphant verse ends like this…

Through the fire your suffering church display
The glories of her Christ: praises resounding!

The church will suffer, and in the fire of that suffering will display the glories of Christ, and in that way the cross will triumph!

And this, too, is on Paul’s “wish list”: I want to know the fellowship of his sufferings.  The power and the sufferings go together.  For Christ himself they went together; for Christians they go together.

Remember this bit from chapter 2: “He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.  Therefore God exalted him to the highest place…! (Phil.2:8-9).

Paul longs to share in that.  He longs that we share in that: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus…”  The fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death…!

That’s the hard bit: could we possibly want that?  Paul did.  We want to know Christ.  Sure!  And the power: great!  But the sufferings…?  I’m not so sure about the sufferings.  We like Jesus’ sufferings, because it takes our sin away.  But do we want to share in those sufferings?  Not if we can help it!  But the suffering is integral to knowing Christ, and it’s central to the gospel.

There’s a challenge there for us, isn’t there.  If our attitude is, “Well, if I have to; if I can’t get out of it, I suppose so”, then our wish list is not yet in line with the apostle’s.  We need to consider this.  If we could adopt a positive attitude to sharing in His sufferings – if we could see it as a choice – fellowship with Jesus – then we would be on the way to having…

Your suffering church display
The glories of her Christ.
Praises resounding!

4.   The resurrection from the dead

Any decent “wish list” will not only include things we want in this life, but things in the next, as well.  After all, eternity is a long, long time!  Any “wish list” based on knowing Christ has to include the resurrection of our bodies because only in the resurrection is Christ’s work complete; only then have we arrived.

One benefit of not being so young is that you start wishing for a new body.  Maybe it’s your eyesight, maybe it’s your knee, but a Christian can always say, “Ah, well, in the resurrection I get a new one.” So it’s not surprising to find the apostle, nursing a few old war wounds, thinking a new body would be great.

A new body in which you no longer suffer; a new body which cannot be locked in gaol; a new body immune from the process of dying.  So, of course, the last item on his “wish list” is: “and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

The word ‘somehow’ does not express a doubt; it’s just he doesn’t know in what way he will pass through death: maybe by execution, maybe through illness – he doesn’t know.  Nor does he know if Jesus will first return.  He longs for the resurrection of the body, whichever way he gets to it.  And he is sure of the resurrection: it is the climax of knowing Christ.

Conclusion

When we know Christ, we share in His resurrection power.  When we know Christ, we share in His sufferings.  When we know Christ, we share in the resurrection from the dead.  It’s all integrated.  You can’t pick and choose.  You can’t select one or two for your “wish list” and leave the others out.  You can’t pick the power and the resurrection, but not the sufferings.  You can’t choose the resurrection from the dead but leave out the power of Christ in the meantime.  It’s all integrated: it’s a package.

That’s what is so wonderful about the apostle’s “wish list”.  He desires it all; he longs for it all.  He longs to know Christ and all that that involves: the power, the suffering, and the completion.  It expresses the Christian desire to know Christ in every way.  That’s why I said that this is a “wish list” we could all make our own.  Praying that the Lord would, in time, create such deep longings within us, too.

“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.”

Amen.