back to indexWed Bible Study Philippians Lesson 8
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Alright God, we pray Lord that you would day to day grant to us your spiritual strength. 00:00:12.760 |
God, I know that a lot of us Lord after a full day's work come in and try to do Bible 00:00:21.720 |
We love it, at the same time Lord sometimes we're in fatigue. 00:00:26.360 |
And what's more, we absolutely need perseverance because God we want to not just simply do 00:00:31.520 |
this week to week, but we want to apply what we're learning. 00:00:35.600 |
To exercise our faith in the eternity you promise, to exercise our faith in preaching 00:00:43.720 |
that the kingdom to come, to exercise our faith to fight our flesh, and what's more 00:00:49.720 |
God to continue Lord to live according to what you've shown us. 00:00:54.800 |
And we recognize God that requires so much spiritual strength. 00:00:59.400 |
And so we pray Lord that you would grant to us God your conviction, that you grant to 00:01:04.760 |
us awareness of your spirit, and what's more you would grant to us just a recollection, 00:01:10.360 |
a remembrance of your word that day to day God we might walk abiding by your truth. 00:01:16.840 |
And especially Lord as we have been walking through the book of Philippians, there's so 00:01:21.480 |
much Father God that challenges our faith of how we view the entire world. 00:01:27.120 |
And I pray for the exact same thing tonight, that as we study your word you would challenge 00:01:32.760 |
our world view, our value system, how we assess and judge everything. 00:01:38.520 |
God we thank you it's in Christ name we pray, amen. 00:01:44.840 |
Now, before we jump into just reading the passage and going forward, I want to do a 00:01:55.120 |
Remember that all that Apostle Paul is saying to some degree connects. 00:02:00.360 |
Sometimes especially here he will transition and say, you know what finally this and then 00:02:06.840 |
Sometimes you know in some of these epistles he'll give a large section of doctrinal teaching. 00:02:12.120 |
You know this is the truth about eternity, this is the truth about gospel of Jesus, and 00:02:17.400 |
then he'll move into exhortation and say therefore, right? 00:02:21.400 |
With Philippians what's really clear is that his mentality, the faith as to which he is 00:02:27.880 |
interpreting all of his life circumstances including his imprisonment, including the 00:02:36.200 |
And recall that in chapter one Apostle Paul had this hope, this faith, and he said this 00:02:41.640 |
is his inner desire, sorry, earnest expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in 00:02:46.440 |
anything but that with all boldness Christ will even now as always be exalted in my body 00:02:54.360 |
For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. 00:02:58.840 |
Now as we think about what he says there, he says this particular privilege to have 00:03:06.760 |
Christ be modeled, to have Christ be shown, to have Christ be the explanation of all that 00:03:14.400 |
we're going through, that's to him his great joy. 00:03:17.680 |
And what he says is I want you to have that joy with me, right? 00:03:21.320 |
And he talked about how he wanted us to make his joy complete by being united yes, but 00:03:28.720 |
also he said join my endeavor, rejoice with me, share my joy which meant actually do what 00:03:42.040 |
It was a euphemism almost to say endure the suffering with me for the sake of Christ and 00:03:46.080 |
the exaltation of Christ, join with me in this amazing privilege of magnifying and glorifying 00:03:54.120 |
And so what we saw last week were two model examples of that in Timothy and in Paphroditus, 00:04:04.320 |
Here he picks up the idea again and then now we're going to walk through the passage a 00:04:10.080 |
With the command a summary saying finally rejoice in the Lord. 00:04:17.120 |
That is your main command in verses 1 through 11. 00:04:22.240 |
So what that means is the rest of the passage that's talking about the bewares and the example 00:04:27.480 |
even of his own potential bragging rights and then how he sees Christ, all of that is 00:04:34.000 |
in the context of commanding you rejoice, right? 00:04:40.040 |
And it still then has the sentiment, it still has the residual sound of Apostle Paul saying 00:04:49.260 |
It's upon Christ, not my circumstances, not an eager expectation that I'm going to be 00:04:55.040 |
free from jail, not this great hope that all things give it time and will go right, but 00:05:02.480 |
it's his desire that Christ would be exalted either in his body now or even in his death, 00:05:11.240 |
As we think about that, I'm going to walk through this passage together with you guys 00:05:18.440 |
So what he says is finally my brethren rejoice in the Lord, to write the same thing again 00:05:24.440 |
is no trouble for me and it is a safeguard to you. 00:05:28.880 |
What I want to say there is I put that in parentheses because Apostle Paul gives a bit 00:05:33.000 |
of his own kind of parenthetical thought as to why he's repeating the same concept over 00:05:38.280 |
and over again and what he's saying is this is to guard you, okay? 00:05:42.960 |
And so he says beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision, 00:05:48.420 |
for we are the true circumcision who worship in the spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus 00:05:58.280 |
So what I'm saying is the command is rejoice in the Lord, he wants to safeguard you and 00:06:04.480 |
so that rejoicing in the Lord is going to guard you from this, whatever the dogs, the 00:06:09.160 |
evil workers, and the false circumcision are trying to do to you, right? 00:06:13.300 |
And what he says is we're the true circumcision and so here I highlight for you the main command 00:06:20.560 |
and what I show you is there is this contrast. 00:06:23.360 |
There is going to be these, the efforts of, I'm just going to say the evil doers, right? 00:06:28.740 |
The evil doers who are trying to influence the community and Apostle Paul saying look, 00:06:34.800 |
we have the spirit of God and the glory of Christ, we're the true circumcision. 00:06:40.200 |
From here, the next passage is really him giving a rationale, right? 00:06:45.500 |
And the way he gives this rationale is by doing a self-example because even for me, 00:06:51.420 |
if I were to buy into the system of the evil doers, I have tons. 00:06:55.460 |
He says in verse 4, although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh, if anyone 00:07:00.440 |
else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more. 00:07:05.220 |
Circumcised the eighth day of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of the Benjamin, the 00:07:09.500 |
Hebrew of Hebrews as to the law of Pharisee as to zeal of persecutor of the church as 00:07:14.300 |
to righteousness which is in the law found blameless. 00:07:18.580 |
But whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake 00:07:23.620 |
More than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing 00:07:29.020 |
Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but 00:07:36.700 |
And what he's doing there then is just as he just a moment ago contrasted false circumcision 00:07:41.980 |
to circumcision, he's using himself as a self-example, flesh, false confidence, true confidence, 00:07:51.980 |
Now, from there, what I like to do is just the last portion of it then, Apostle Paul 00:07:59.020 |
And he says, "So that I may gain Christ and may be found in him, not having a righteousness 00:08:05.620 |
of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness 00:08:13.620 |
That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering being 00:08:18.500 |
conformed to his death in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." 00:08:25.700 |
Now, I walk through the passage together with you guys because it's good to just review 00:08:33.380 |
Eleven verses is quite a lot when you're doing inductive Bible study, right? 00:08:37.540 |
But I want to walk through that with you and on your packet, I delineated it like that 00:08:40.900 |
because in Apostle Paul's writing, sometimes it may feel like there is a disconnect. 00:08:47.700 |
Like, why in the world would he be like, "Look at, I love Timothy. 00:09:00.680 |
But actually what he's doing is, there is this thought of rejoicing in the Lord that 00:09:09.260 |
And if there were these two individuals he brought up, those two individuals were models 00:09:13.440 |
because by faith, they had Christ's attitude. 00:09:28.840 |
And so he comes back and says, "In summary, finally, I'm telling you, rejoice. 00:09:35.320 |
Because yes, there are things, horrible things. 00:09:37.080 |
They're in a situation where they're being persecuted. 00:09:39.460 |
The whole church is being persecuted, not just Apostle Paul. 00:09:46.240 |
And so what Apostle Paul's going to do is going to give them this challenge again. 00:09:50.120 |
I'm trying to safeguard you, not just by telling you like, "Don't worry. 00:09:56.960 |
But he's actually trying to give them what is true encouragement. 00:10:02.160 |
So this is, again, an outline that I've made. 00:10:08.840 |
But what I found was that there was a clear command that kind of directed the rest of 00:10:15.680 |
And this, rejoicing in the Lord, is your safeguard. 00:10:19.440 |
To all the hard scenarios you're experiencing, this is your safeguard. 00:10:23.640 |
And then within that, he says, "Beware of the dogs who want you to glory in the flesh." 00:10:30.560 |
People who do not have faith in the eternal, faith in the eternal God, are going to glory 00:10:36.520 |
in whatever they have, and the totality of what they have is their flesh. 00:10:41.440 |
The totality of all you have is all you have, which is, for the unbeliever, all you have 00:10:47.480 |
So you're going to eat, be merry, and then you're going to pass, right? 00:10:52.440 |
In fighting that, verse 7 through 8 says, "All gain is rubbish compared to Christ." 00:10:58.840 |
To rejoice in Christ is to see the value of Christ. 00:11:04.960 |
And then verse 9 through 11 is going to be, "The purpose of all this, then, is Christ 00:11:10.040 |
All the experiences, the power of his resurrection, future glory, resurrection, all of that, all 00:11:22.440 |
Because it's a longer passage, we're going to break it down into four sections and cover 00:11:29.400 |
So here, in section 1, I call it, "This is your safeguard," right? 00:11:39.220 |
And the reason why I did this is because I found it really interesting that, yes, Apostle 00:11:44.120 |
Paul is coming back to this idea, and then he's exhorting them through way of command, 00:11:54.480 |
So I mean, to say that the book of Philippians is about you rejoicing in Christ is like an 00:12:05.280 |
But to appreciate that, I was thinking of that question that I asked you, how is causing 00:12:11.480 |
somebody to be rejoicing in Christ an actual safeguard for them? 00:12:15.400 |
In what way is it going to be an actual encouragement, a bolstering, a strengthening to say, "You 00:12:24.880 |
I mean, sometimes I worry, when you say lofty statements like that, let's say someone's 00:12:28.520 |
having a hard day, they come and they pour out their heart to you, and it's like, "You 00:12:33.240 |
And then they start to, you know, be vulnerable and reveal everything, and then you're like, 00:12:37.480 |
"You know, you just really got to rejoice in Christ," right? 00:12:41.800 |
Don't you sometimes fear saying that because you fear sounding cliche? 00:12:46.920 |
You almost fear the response of like, "Sure, of course," right? 00:12:51.160 |
Throwing that, you know, cliche terms around again. 00:12:54.320 |
But Apostle Paul is absolutely convinced that is their safeguard, even to a specific scenario 00:13:01.520 |
where clearly there are either false teachers, bad influences, distractions, maybe even an 00:13:08.640 |
entire culture that is trying to dissuade them, yes? 00:13:13.600 |
To that, Apostle Paul's answer is, "You know what you guys need? 00:13:17.720 |
Apostle Paul's actual encouragement to them is, safeguard to them, "You need to be so 00:13:25.440 |
"You're rejoicing in Christ is to be your safeguard." 00:13:28.160 |
And I started thinking, what kind of example can I give to this? 00:13:33.560 |
You know, when I see grandparents dealing with little kids, it's pretty hilarious. 00:13:37.280 |
For example, you know, we had a little family gathering, and then there's this -- I have 00:13:42.360 |
a little niece, she's like the cutest little thing. 00:13:46.360 |
And you know when little babies, like, they don't get what they want, immediately they 00:13:52.800 |
Now, parents were sitting there like, "Oh my gosh, what a drama baby," you know? 00:13:57.080 |
And when they see that, they're like, "Who did it?" 00:14:05.360 |
They'll actually discipline somebody to make baby feel better. 00:14:10.240 |
Or like baby cries because they didn't get a sweet treat or whatever, and it's just like, 00:14:15.600 |
They just literally shove everything the parents are like trying to, you know, control, they 00:14:19.520 |
like shove it in their mouth, it's like, "No, eat this, eat this, eat this." 00:14:22.440 |
And people are sitting there like, "Oh my goodness, you're going to spoil this baby," 00:14:26.440 |
And I bring this example up is because what's really interesting about all that philosophy 00:14:32.960 |
Because this baby is crying, the world is wrong. 00:14:43.580 |
When we have difficulties, our immediate thing typically is like, "This world is messed up 00:14:52.560 |
And what's more, we will very readily complain, "I don't have this, I don't have that," and 00:15:00.040 |
Whereas Apostle Paul now is going to say, "No, I want to build you up in the inner man, 00:15:10.040 |
Your happiness and joy is never going to come from just all your circumstances being rectified, 00:15:16.040 |
but rather there is going to be an immovable joy that I will give to you, rejoicing Christ," 00:15:25.760 |
And so when he says, "This is to your safeguard," there is an immediate challenge to you. 00:15:34.960 |
Pastor Peter on Sunday, this past Sunday, man, very emphatically he asked this question 00:15:43.360 |
Your circumstances are going to readily change to your life. 00:15:47.320 |
Every season, whenever you go through graduations, you go through major life changes, even certain 00:15:53.800 |
There is going to be a question within those things, very few of your preferences are going 00:16:06.560 |
Because no matter the circumstance, you have plenty. 00:16:10.360 |
Beyond plenty, you have what can produce in your heart incredible, satisfactory joy. 00:16:23.680 |
And then he says, okay, then in section two, along with that, "Then beware of the dogs, 00:16:32.040 |
beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision." 00:16:39.600 |
So as we think about the safeguard, there's more to think about that there is, yes, negative, 00:16:47.080 |
dangerous influences that potentially can come our way. 00:16:50.320 |
I mean, he says it in a kind of a very interesting way, "Beware of dogs." 00:16:56.520 |
So whenever you see that, you should take note of, one, there's a list, yes? 00:17:05.560 |
Do dogs, evil workers, and false circumcision, do they represent like different categories 00:17:14.040 |
Are they like one group of people that are just really, really heinous? 00:17:19.760 |
And I'm not going to get to all that now, but clearly there are these individuals who 00:17:30.160 |
Now, the question I asked you was, who are we supposed to be aware of? 00:17:34.160 |
Who are we supposed to look out for and make sure that we are in a sober, sober sight of 00:17:41.960 |
And one of the things I asked was, you definitely have to look at the context. 00:17:45.100 |
So in chapter two, I'm sorry, starting from verse two, there are several indicators that 00:17:50.340 |
can show us what type of people that we're talking about. 00:17:54.100 |
And we are talking about, yes, very first giveaway is the term false circumcision. 00:17:59.140 |
If you compare different translations, another translation will say mutilator of the flesh, 00:18:06.380 |
Because the Greek term there is actually literally mutilation, self-harm, okay? 00:18:12.940 |
And when we think about that, we go on and say, in contrast, we are the true circumcision 00:18:17.940 |
who worship the spirit of God versus, let's say, external, right? 00:18:22.020 |
We're worshiping in the spirit versus whatever they're influencing is an external. 00:18:26.540 |
What's more, for us, we put our confidence in the glory of Christ and put no confidence 00:18:33.620 |
And then even when he's giving the example of himself, he talks about the confidence 00:18:37.580 |
of the flesh, circumcised the eighth day, nation of Israel, tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew 00:18:42.740 |
of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisees, zeal of persecutor of the church, and as to the 00:18:48.180 |
righteousness which is in the law found blameless. 00:18:51.420 |
Now on that laundry list of accomplishments, who would that impress? 00:19:02.460 |
And what I'd like you to remember is within certain contexts, the pressure, the cultural 00:19:13.420 |
You know what's really interesting is a long time ago back in college, I went to a mission 00:19:17.800 |
The Orthodox Church has so much control over the society, you couldn't get married outside 00:19:24.380 |
You couldn't bury a family member outside of the Orthodox Church. 00:19:27.420 |
A lot of, if foreigners came and they had translations, do you know who would do the 00:19:33.300 |
So not only in terms of family, not only in terms of certain important things, your whole 00:19:39.820 |
kind of general life, it goes through the church. 00:19:44.220 |
Now think about this in this kind of culture, the pressures. 00:19:48.140 |
Whenever you had a baby, they had rituals for that, right? 00:19:51.220 |
Whenever you had, they had annual ceremonies, your daily like, the commerce went through 00:19:57.060 |
So the merchants, who are controlling the like the merchandise, almost the economy within 00:20:04.860 |
So I want you to think about that because even as a corollary to us, if there are certain 00:20:09.540 |
things that are social norms, high level social pressures, do we have any of that? 00:20:19.500 |
When it comes to certain education, when it comes to wanting to live in a certain area, 00:20:24.860 |
when it comes to certain family status, we have various things that we can point to as 00:20:31.300 |
Now, just for the sake of time, I'm going to say, I'm going to highlight those things 00:20:35.660 |
for you because it's important for us to know, yes, we're supposed to be aware and because 00:20:41.700 |
of all these various points, clearly it is the Jewish influence, Judaizers, who are telling 00:20:47.900 |
Christians you still have to do these things in order to be righteous and accepted by God. 00:20:53.540 |
But the importance of that, what's the content, what's the content that's actually dangerous 00:21:05.220 |
I mean, it's like in eight winanas to always selfishly and pridefully establish our own, 00:21:17.340 |
We are so prone to want to make sure that there is some kind of merit for me. 00:21:29.540 |
You think about people struggle to be accepted. 00:21:32.620 |
You think about people struggle to have self-worth, their own value in the society. 00:21:38.540 |
I mean, it just goes without saying, we absolutely on a universal level struggle with this stuff. 00:21:45.220 |
What I want to highlight too is not only who are we supposed to be aware of, what are they 00:21:51.260 |
trying to influence us with, but let's observe the contrast and its severity. 00:21:57.380 |
Because as we study that passage, I mean, for Apostle Paul, who was a prime Jewish individual, 00:22:05.660 |
he was like a model candidate, to look at that and say, "Evildoers." 00:22:11.180 |
To look at that and say, "Mutilators and dogs." 00:22:20.180 |
I mean, it almost sounds like, I guess someone's bitter, right? 00:22:25.300 |
Like, I guess you're really bitter about this, but that's not actually the case. 00:22:28.620 |
He's actually using this to contrast two concepts. 00:22:33.180 |
And the contrast that he's saying is, in comparison to what we do in the Spirit of God and what 00:22:37.300 |
we have in the glory of Christ, yes, all of that which was previously seen as righteous 00:22:43.460 |
acts, all of that which was previously seen as holy, sanctified living, Apostle Paul is 00:22:57.300 |
We have to pay attention to the contrast because this passage has so much for us in terms of 00:23:02.380 |
contrast between what we have in the Spirit of God versus what is only possible as a cap 00:23:11.860 |
So to expand on that, let's turn to the rationale of the self-example. 00:23:23.780 |
He says, "Although I myself have confidence even in the flesh, if anyone else has a mind 00:23:29.580 |
to put confidence in the flesh, I have far more circumcised the eighth day, the nation 00:23:33.180 |
of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, the Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, as 00:23:37.300 |
to zeal of persecutor of the church, as to righteousness, which is in the law, found 00:23:42.980 |
And so he says, "But whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted 00:23:49.140 |
More than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing 00:23:53.940 |
Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but 00:24:01.700 |
What we have to see here is Apostle Paul's mentality, where he considers all things rubbish 00:24:10.500 |
And what I've highlighted for you there is whenever there is repetition in the passage, 00:24:17.540 |
And what's really interesting is he highlights and does an all-inclusive statement, "Whatever 00:24:21.700 |
things were gained to me, those things from before, even the things like blamelessness, 00:24:27.780 |
zeal, status, excellence, heritage, tradition, all those things he counts as lost, right? 00:24:38.260 |
If there was anything that could be potentially even a bragging right, Apostle Paul says, 00:24:48.100 |
Let's take a moment to think about that a little bit. 00:24:51.380 |
As I show you this list of the various things that Apostle Paul could potentially brag about, 00:25:00.660 |
Are you one of those people where you're like, "You know, by personality I'm a perfectionist." 00:25:08.180 |
It could be your personality, it could be your pride that you want to brag about it. 00:25:15.140 |
Could it be those of you who really pride yourself on being a moral individual? 00:25:25.300 |
Could it be certain status that you're searching for? 00:25:30.900 |
You could be doing the exact same work at your office, but you just want that title. 00:25:36.780 |
You sometimes say like, "I don't know why it's so important to me." 00:25:43.740 |
Because we all struggle with wanting some level of confidence in my flesh. 00:26:07.660 |
But let's take a moment to think about that a little bit. 00:26:10.140 |
What does he mean when he says, "These are a loss?" 00:26:13.820 |
You know what's really interesting is not only does he repeat the term loss several 00:26:28.420 |
I'm sure if you guys have heard sermons about this passage, you guys have heard this Greek 00:26:35.380 |
And you guys have probably heard, "It means excrement," right? 00:26:43.900 |
It means the stuff that's supposed to be discarded. 00:26:51.260 |
The whole idea is this is utterly trash, right? 00:26:56.300 |
But then here's the struggle, because if we're honest, here's the struggle that we have. 00:27:02.340 |
Apostle Paul is revealing to us a value system where he puts all these things, and we should 00:27:08.860 |
As a matter of fact, some of you guys in here, when you do a lateral comparison, meaning 00:27:14.580 |
like, let's say we just took a survey, and then we started surveying how successful you 00:27:21.060 |
And that's not to shame you, and it's not to put you up on a pedestal, but you can objectively 00:27:25.780 |
say when I compare somebody to myself, you could be better than me. 00:27:33.180 |
Better memory, better intellect, better looks. 00:27:36.220 |
More accomplished through the however many years of your life. 00:27:43.220 |
But to those things, the question is how do you currently judge that in value? 00:27:53.660 |
I think that sometimes we get into this weird situation in life where we look at some of 00:28:01.100 |
the things that we've accomplished, and we could look at some of the things that we have. 00:28:05.860 |
And when we compare that to Christ, we're supposed to say, "Wow, look at the chasm," 00:28:13.860 |
This is here, and Christ is so large, so great, he's way over there, and trying to compare 00:28:25.180 |
But in actuality, a lot of times our struggle is we compare the two, and then we do one 00:28:30.740 |
of these things where it's like, "Well, gosh, I don't know." 00:28:40.860 |
And if I had it my way, I would just have both, right? 00:28:44.460 |
When you do a compare and contrast, the challenge here is not to simply see these things as 00:28:57.000 |
When he says something is a loss, it's not to say that, "Oh, gosh, it's just pale as 00:29:09.460 |
And so that's what I meant earlier when I said, "Do you notice and see the intensity 00:29:19.660 |
When things are compared to Christ, they don't become, "Oh, yeah, nice things that I could 00:29:33.200 |
Especially in this specific context, Apostle Paul is saying, "You know, if I actually held 00:29:37.360 |
on to my Hebrew of Hebrew stature, can you imagine if I actually held on to some of those 00:29:42.740 |
things that I bragged about and saw it like some kind of badge of honor?" 00:29:56.160 |
And so this passage to us is a massive paradigm shift, massive paradigm shift, right? 00:30:04.180 |
It's how you are valuing and how are you judging. 00:30:07.620 |
When you see things in your life that is competing with Christ, those things in your life that 00:30:12.780 |
you feel like you just can't let go, once you realize that, how are you judging them? 00:30:18.860 |
Are you sitting there saying, "You know, I just got to learn to live with... 00:30:22.260 |
All I need is just a little bit more discipline." 00:30:25.180 |
How are you judging and assessing where you are when you have things competing in your 00:30:32.500 |
That is at the core of what he's trying to show us is a value system. 00:30:37.500 |
In order to press this home a little bit more, I started thinking about what are the various 00:30:58.220 |
Some of us have lust for honor and respect at home. 00:31:01.860 |
Some of us have lust for pleasure and just being able to have leisure and peace in your 00:31:07.020 |
life and some of us have lust for whatever it may be. 00:31:14.140 |
When your flesh is constant, when your mind is just so easily duped for those things, 00:31:23.740 |
You have to see the surpassing value of Christ. 00:31:27.020 |
Tonight, I didn't want to talk about how everything in your life is just simply rubbish. 00:31:32.340 |
I wanted to make sure to highlight for you the point here is rejoice in Christ. 00:31:40.580 |
The point here is see, experience, be humbled by the incredible value of the Lord Jesus 00:31:49.380 |
who is perfect in righteousness and is desiring to give you that righteousness. 00:31:54.580 |
Who is absolutely sacrificial in love, intimate in character, compassionate in heart and He 00:32:08.260 |
He said, "God, the love which you had for me, give to them." 00:32:23.180 |
I didn't know how else to make this even more emphatic so guess what? 00:32:25.780 |
I used a little bit of arrow and stars on my PowerPoint. 00:32:30.300 |
If we're going to get something from this passage, it's the command, rejoice. 00:32:37.940 |
And unless you see that, I'm not sure how you're going to fight. 00:32:42.260 |
Unless you have the surpassing value of Christ, I don't know how you're going to fight these 00:32:47.340 |
Because by confession, how many of us have fallen? 00:32:54.620 |
How many times have we fallen to the exact same thing? 00:32:59.220 |
So when Apostle Paul says, "This is to you, your safeguard," I believe it. 00:33:06.220 |
Unless Christ is the overwhelming treasure, the greatest value, no little discipline, 00:33:15.060 |
no little exercise of the mind, it's not going to work. 00:33:19.540 |
And so, Apostle Paul says, "This then to him is his great comparison. 00:33:26.660 |
This to him, having the glory of Christ, is everything." 00:33:32.680 |
He desires that he will conclude, decisively conclude, that all things are rubbish. 00:33:42.700 |
That he might gain Christ and be maybe found in him. 00:33:45.780 |
That he might not have any righteousness of his own, but the righteousness that comes 00:33:49.660 |
through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 00:33:54.500 |
And then he says, "That I might know him, that I might know the power of his resurrection, 00:33:58.920 |
the fellowship of his suffering, being conformed to his death, in order that I may attain to 00:34:07.700 |
We could camp out here and ask the question, "What does that mean, the power of his resurrection? 00:34:11.500 |
What does that mean, the fellowship of his suffering?" 00:34:13.820 |
I hope you have time to reflect on that, but I want to say this. 00:34:17.380 |
You should think of this as a collective whole. 00:34:20.220 |
Starting from, "So that I may gain Christ," and all the way to the verse 11, "In order 00:34:24.260 |
that I may attain to the resurrection of the dead." 00:34:29.900 |
Apostle Paul is saying, "I want to experience the full gamut, the goal and objective here. 00:34:40.500 |
And no, there is no skip-biddy-bop, like just bypassing all this stuff to get to glory. 00:34:51.540 |
I want to know Christ in the power that he exercises. 00:34:55.140 |
And so that's why I labeled this portion, "Christ All the Way." 00:35:00.140 |
Again, I really pray that some of the things that we're learning about, I want to call 00:35:11.980 |
To have a rejoicing in Christ, a value system in Christ, all those conceptually are major 00:35:18.740 |
But the question is going to be for you, very specifically, especially in the moments where 00:35:24.500 |
your heart is getting pulled to want and desire certain things to be realized in your life, 00:35:34.240 |
This clearly is rubbish compared to Christ, right? 00:35:38.180 |
And unless you see the surpassing value of the Lord, this chart is always going to be 00:35:43.300 |
And so I pray that every time we're doing study, your own Bible reading, your own prayer, 00:35:49.300 |
more and more we should be growing in an intimate, intimate knowledge of Christ. 00:35:53.740 |
Let's take a moment to pray, and then you guys can jump into your discussion. 00:36:02.460 |
Heavenly Father, we want to thank you, God, because Lord, you are maturing us as your 00:36:11.300 |
And we recognize, Father God, that you as our Father, you're not just simply doing minor 00:36:16.940 |
tweaks in our lives, but God, you are fully in control, and yet in the midst of that, 00:36:25.700 |
you're causing us to mature in our thought, in our understanding, and in our faith. 00:36:32.420 |
And I hope, Lord, that every single one of us will be challenged to question, do we have 00:36:38.500 |
a view of the great glory of Christ that we might understand who we have in the Lord? 00:36:45.380 |
And what's more, I pray that if any of us here have not experienced what it means to, 00:36:50.260 |
yes, struggle and wrestle in this life, to suffer and go through hardship, but ultimately 00:36:55.540 |
to find true joy in knowing and serving our Lord, I pray, Father God, that they would 00:37:02.660 |
And Father, we pray that even in the day-to-day, in the mundane, and even in, again, some of 00:37:07.540 |
the fatigue, I do ask, Lord, that you would also grant to us this faith, God, that we