ES/PHIL/23 Philippians 3:9-11
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1 Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. 2 Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. 3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—4 though I myself have reasons for such confidence.
If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.
7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, 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 on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Review
We return back to this passage once more. For in this passage we are to realise that Paul did not hold onto anything of worth, or at least, he did not hold onto anything the world would count as worth something. We would generally avoid the kind of language Paul for in verse 8 he speaks of counting all the past, his heritage, his credentials, his accolades, his achievements he counts them all as rubbish. What is wrong with that as language? All is not as it seems! Now the word ‘rubbish’ is put in our translations to avoid seeming to be rude though I wish they would simply translate it as it should be. So, sorry to be crass – but, quite simply, he is saying that all these things he counts the same as our deposits in the loo. He uses the word for faeces or dung. And to be honest there is not one of us who counts those as valuable and are quite glad to see the back of them – we don’t ever want them back. Paul is saying that we should not be holding onto anything else in the light of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. We are never sorry that we cannot get back what we have lost from our bodies! The things we think are valuable are, in reality, less than nothing when put alongside knowing Jesus. This is where we have to get to do in both our thinking and in our action - and we have some ways to go, don’t we?
9
We are to count all things loss because all the things mentioned already cannot put us in a better position with God or make us right with Him. For we had, in the Divine exchange, our sin taken away and nailed to the cross in Jesus and instead have been given His righteousness. And when I say ‘sin’ I also mean all those things that we counted as valuable; all those things that we think can make us right with God but were, in fact, dead works; these were also crucified with Him.
As I have said before but is worth repeating and repeating; it is a tendency of people to think that somehow we can in some way improve our state with God, even after becoming Christians. This was the problem of the Galatians. Paul says: you started with faith – do you think you can now finish it or make it better with works?
This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?—Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
It is faith that saves us not obedience to the law. The righteousness that we have comes from God Himself. Good works follow as a result.
10
Then we read in verse 10:
that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,
Paul overwhelmingly desires these things. He was confronted by Jesus, whom he was persecuting, on the Damascus Rd and from that day on was a fanatic for Him. All that went before was dung to him and instead new desires were formed. And this desire was to know Christ and it became
‘the overarching and unfolding ambition of Paul’s life…the apostle’s intense longing was born of love because love makes us want to know another more and more.’ Hughes 2007.
I don’t know about you but I would like to desire in the same way that Paul desires to know Him more and more. What is it going to take? I think it takes a realisation of what great sinners we really are and how much greater is our Saviour who loves us and gave Himself for us.
I love the lyrics to that new song ‘What a beautiful name’ where it says:
You didn't want heaven without us
So Jesus, You brought heaven down
My sin was great, Your love was greater
What could separate us now
So, let us look at these two things that Paul commends to us as a way to know Jesus:
First, the power of His resurrection. Great – this sounds brilliant! What does that mean? What did Jesus’ resurrection prove? It showed His power over sin and over death. And this is a gift to us. Jesus didn’t stay dead and as a result we have been given His life. We rightly concentrate upon His sacrifice, His death, His sufferings but all this would be meaningless if He hadn’t been raised from the dead. The resurrection is the proof that sin, death and Satan were defeated. We no longer need to be afraid of death and judgement. We are no longer slaves to sin. We can have total confidence in the cross of Christ that He has done all that needed to be done. And for it we have received an inheritance as we are now sons of righteousness, sons of God, Heaven is our home. Besides all this we have been given so many other things both now and for the future and every spiritual blessing is ours. The slate has been wiped clean.
The promise verse on the bulletin for this week says:
1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
This is only possible because of Christ’s resurrection and the new life He give us:
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
The power of His Resurrection—wow! We can know it. Here is a hint of it: Artur Rubinstein, even at eighty, reached greater heights than he had known in his long career as a peerless artist. In an interview he was asked how, after all the long years of perfection, he still kept his interpretations fresh and inspiring. Rubinstein answered, “Every day I am a new man and every occasion is a new moment for me. When I play, it is no longer I but a secret power takes over.”
If that is true of a great artist, as certainly it is, it should be even more so for a Christian who knows the power of Christ’s Resurrection.
Secondly, alongside knowing the power of the resurrection Paul added that to know Jesus you need to know the fellowship of His sufferings. If we identify with Him in His resurrection we also identify ourselves with Him in His humble obedience to death. Which is why Paul declares in
But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
We know the power of the resurrection if we let the Spirit have control but as a result of Christ living in us we soon discover that the world about will not appreciate us so much…in fact, if we are truly living out our lives for Christ then we will find that the world will treat us as it did Jesus:
It is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher, and a servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his household!
“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.
To know the fellowship of His sufferings is to share in the persecution that should come our way. But is this all that is meant by ‘the fellowship of His sufferings’?
To fellowship in His sufferings means to identify with Jesus who identified with the human condition. He knew suffering, rejection, loneliness, pain and even fear. His love for people led Him to take their place and this is where we can know the fellowship of His sufferings for we are also called to this. We cannot always take the place of someone else but we can, at the very least, intercede for them and we can also empathise with people; we can be with people in the midst of their trials.
But even this does not quite get to the heart of it all. Remember that God so loved the world and therefore each person is special to God Who desires that they be saved. We suffer for the sake of the Gospel, therefore, for the sake of others.
But even this does not quite get to the heart of it all. It is all these things but it is a whole lot more and, perhaps, most importantly I think this is the crux of knowing Jesus in knowing the fellowship of His sufferings:
We are called to share in what happened on Good Friday, to suffer for knowing Him, to suffer for being like Him for suffering is the lot of the believer. Paul, when travelling back through the Churches he had planted;
22 strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, “We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.”
Earlier in Philippians we read:
29 For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake,
Preaching the Word: Philippians—The Fellowship of the Gospel His Fellowship
Suffering for Christ then is a divine gift. It is a sign of sacred intimacy with Christ.
You see, this is a fundamental shift in our faith: we move from receiving the benefits of Jesus’ suffering to sharing in His suffering. Thus the more we know Him the more we will suffer for Him.
Then Paul goes on to say that he wants to be conformed to His death. There is no higher calling than to become like Jesus. Paul so wants those to whom he is writing to get the message clearly. This is Paul throughout his Christian life. 30 years after he first met Jesus he is still about what he wrote in
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
And in
For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
And again in:
Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
He wanted to be like Jesus and so he was going to take up his cross and become like Jesus who was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief and this is part of what it is to know Him.
11
Paul then says something that seems strange to our ears: if possible, to attain resurrection from the dead. Did he have doubts about his eternal destiny? Not at all. But that he would gain more power in being conformed to His death. It was also his hope that while he was alive that Jesus would come back. He knew salvation was a gift but that resurrection was the goal. He lived his whole life with the resurrection in view. Why? Because that is when he would finally meet and be with Jesus forever.
Concluding remarks
We know that Jesus is risen from the dead and we are in Christ but that knowledge has to change into knowing and being. As a result we will be transformed. We are to be sharers in His sufferings which He did on behalf of this world and in the process He did not revile or try to gain revenge but was silent as a sheep to slaughter. We are to be conformed to His death for it is not longer ‘I’ who live but Christ who lives in me. And after this life comes the resurrection from the dead. This is our hope as it was Paul’s. This was not a vain or uncertain hope as some understand hope to be but hope that is steadfast and certain. Paul demonstrates how totally Christ-focused he is. For him the Christian life is ultimately a matter of knowing Christ. So too with resurrection; Paul’s focus is not on “everlasting life” or anything else. The goal of the resurrection, the “prize” for which Paul strains every effort in the present, is Christ himself. What is our goal? Into what do we put our effort? How do we compare with Paul?
Benediction
Benediction
but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Dunnam, M. D., & Ogilvie, L. J. (1982). Galatians / Ephesians / Philippians / Colossians / Philemon (Vol. 31). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.
Hughes, R. K. (2007). Philippians: the fellowship of the gospel. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.
Leadership Ministries Worldwide. (1996). Galatians–Colossians. Chattanooga, TN: Leadership Ministries Worldwide.
Osborne, G. R. (2017). Philippians: Verse by Verse. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Runge, S. E. (2011). High Definition Commentary: Philippians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Walvoord, J. F., & Zuck, R. B., Dallas Theological Seminary. (1985). The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
Exported from Logos Bible Software, 09:35 21 July 2018.