THE PRIZE TO KNOW CHRIST
MF Blume
August 14, 2016
The cross is central to all of our faith.
• Jesus started it all off with the end of his life on the cross.
• He died for sinners.
• That’s how much He loved us.
Last week we preached about the world’s inability to believe
there is a love for sinners, while they are considered sinners in their
sinful activities.
• But Christians have a hard time with that as well.
• There are many problems Christians face.
They say there are likely more Christians who don’t attend a
church anywhere and stay home because they had a fuss with someone and
were offended.
• Consider how silly it sounds to not be
involved in a Christian church, that’s based upon Christ’s
sacrifice of Himself for us, when he was treated unfairly and murdered,
because we were treated unfairly and hurt.
• We’re taught to love others as God loved us.
• And he loved us when we did him harm and hurt.
• In effect, people stay away from church
because they don’t want to see the one who treated them unfairly,
when church is supposed to be about forgiving people who treated us
unfairly and loving the way Jesus loved.
If someone hurt us and we stopped involvement in a church, it’s
like Jesus saying he would not go to the cross because it’s
unfair and they’re hurting us.
• This doesn’t mean church is supposed to
hurt you or treat you unfair, so take up your cross and attend!
• But it does mean we’re human and make
mistakes, and if we truly carried our crosses we would not let the
mistakes that happen now and then stop us!
THE PRIZE – TO “KNOW” CHRIST
Phil 3:7 - 4:1 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, 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: 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. 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. Let us therefore, as many as
be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded,
God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have
already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same
thing. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk
so as ye have us for an ensample. (For many walk, of whom I have told
you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of
the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their
belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.) For
our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it
may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working
whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. Therefore,
my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand
fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.
After saying all of this, Paul, said “So stand fast in the Lord.”
• What’s that mean?
• In this manner you will stand solid and firm in Jesus.
• I want to be solid and firm in Jesus.
He said the same thing here:
Colossians 1:28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and
teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect
in Christ Jesus:
Colossians 1:23 If ye continue in the faith grounded and
settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye
have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under
heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;
Colossians 2:7 Rooted and built up in him, and stablished
in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with
thanksgiving.
1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye
stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,
forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
Romans 16:25 Now to him that is of power to stablish you
according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to
the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world
began,
Paul wanted to KNOW, or unite, with Jesus Christ above everything else in his life.
Notice that he was already saved, but that was only the beginning.
• He did not say “I’m saved and I have arrived.”
• He said that there is a place in union with Jesus that he did not yet have.
Verse 12 says that he has not yet attained this union.
• He used the word perfect.
• He said he was not yet made perfect.
Notice his goals.
He wanted to know Christ.
• He had not yet attained or was not yet made perfect.
“Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect:”
Perfect means complete.
• If a man and woman is one flesh, then each of them is incomplete without the other.
• A man is driven to his wife because she is his flesh.
• He will leave father and mother and go to his wife.
• His peace will not be made until he finds her.
• He is incomplete
Deep within Jesus was something special.
• Before the foundation OF THE WORLD WE WERE IN HIM.
• And from his side we were taken on the cross.
Adam laid down to rest and God took a rib and built the woman.
Gen 2:21-24 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon
Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the
flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from
man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This
is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called
Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave
his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they
shall be one flesh.
MADE in Hebrew is BUILDED.
The woman was taken from man.
• Man was no longer complete.
• He was no longer one.
• He would go to his wife and they would unite as one flesh again.
• The most intimate act of the flesh united a man and woman as one flesh.
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Ephesians 5:30-32 For we are members of his body, of his
flesh, and of his bones. (31) For this cause shall a man
leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and
they two shall be one flesh. (32) This is a great mystery:
but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
Like Adam yearned to be one with Eve because she was of his bones and flesh, Jesus and the church yearn to be one.
• Paul said the same way Eve was bone of
Adam’s bones is the way the church – us – are bone of
Jesus’ bones.
John 19:33-34 But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was
dead already, they brake not his legs: But one of the soldiers with a
spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.
Our union with Jesus is spiritual.
• The church came from His side like Eve from Adam’s side.
• Jesus said He would build His church.
Matt 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and
upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it.
As God literally built Eve, God built the church.
1Pet 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual
house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable
to God by Jesus Christ.
Paul said that as a christian, part of the church, there was a drawing inside him to want to know the Lord.
• He was saved.
• That is like Eve being made.
• But after God built the woman, the woman and the man each were incomplete without the other.
• The only way to satisfy the longing for being
complete is for the church and the christian to want to unite with
Jesus.
After Paul came from the cross as part of the bride from Jesus’
side, he pursued to become one with Jesus, like Adam and Eve became one.
Salvation is the creation of a Christian.
• But that is not the end of the story.
• Now there must be a union with Christ again, after salvation.
Paul said this longing in him was so strong that he counted all things
that distinguished him, things sought to satisfy him, and things that
IMPRESSED PEOPLE ABOUT HIM as loss.
Paul told us to walk as he walked.
• How did he walk?
• He sought to know Jesus.
• He pressed towards the mark for the prize of the high calling.
Phil 3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
• What was the prize?
• What was the HIGH CALLING?
Phil 3:8 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,
Everything about Jesus is meant to be ours because we are made from Him.
And only when we resurrect in body will we be one with Him forever.
• Paul said there is a union I am not going to miss.
Everything inside me as a christian is pointing me to this union.
Phil 3:12 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.
He said he wants to apprehend the very thing that he was apprehended for... to unite with Christ forever.
• To experience the day we resurrect from this life into eternity.
Paul so eagerly sought this union with Jesus.
• He was so driven to it.
He said that THIS ONE THING I DO.
• REACHING FORWARD
• Picture Paul running with his hands reaching out before him, in such desire to win Christ.
Phil 3:13 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,
His eye was on the goal and he pressed through every obstacle to reach it.
• We are called to this goal.
• This is the high calling.
• Every child of God must recognize the high calling.
• The ultimate glory.
• The only place of completion and perfection.
• We are never going to be satisfied until we are totally one with Him.
Here is why loving Christ like this establishes you in the gospel.
• Everything about SELF that protects self and
defends self is shown to actually destroy our relationship with Christ.
• Paul realized that everything that exalted him, robbed him of his desired union with Jesus.
• He started to love Jesus more than himself!
• And he realized these things that exalted his self image robbed his true love, Jesus, of his attention.
• So he sacrificed these things in order to win Jesus instead.
By the same token, our SELF love ruins our relationship with Jesus when
SELF gets so hurt and offended by others that we stop serving Jesus!
• Paul realized self can be our biggest enemy in this sense.
• And once Paul saw how SELF did this to his relationship with Jesus, he realized the need to deny SELF.
• And THAT is how we get established.
No one can do anything to offend us enough to stop serving God.
• Satan can do nothing.
• All that the devil can do is appeal to your SELF to distract you away from God.
• So when you DENY SELF, you deny the devil any chance to use SELF against you.
No one is going to get hold of God for me and I am not going to benefit
from others actions as far as my relationship with God is concerned.
• I have to get hold of God for myself.
• I determine how far I am going with this, and
it’s a ridiculous excuse to say someone MADE ME lose out.
• Jesus warned us we can only follow him by
denying ourselves and taking up our crosses and following him.
• So, if I get offended and quit, it
wasn’t because this faith has nothing to do with teaching me to
let those things go and stop worrying about myself so much that I stop
serving God because of what someone did or said to me.
Genesis 3:5-6 For God doth know that in the day ye eat
thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods,
knowing good and evil. (6) And when the woman saw that the
tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a
tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and
did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
Satan got the woman to THINK OF HERSELF.
• And he ruined her relationship with God.
• I must not—you must not let the devil do that with us.
“If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.”
Php 3:20 For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:
21 Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto
his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to
subdue all things unto himself.
Before this resurrection comes, satan will hunt you down and try to appeal to your SELF like a mad man.
But get emptied of yourself!
John 14:30-31 Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince
of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. (31) But that
the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me
commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.
Luke 6:27 But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies,
do good to them which hate you, (28) Bless them that curse
you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. (29) And
unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and
him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also.
(30) Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that
taketh away thy goods ask them not again. (31) And as ye
would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.