Framework of the Knowledge of Christ

Introduction: The Sum and Substance of Christian Faith

0:04 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, October 18th, 1981, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now will you follow, please, as I read this morning a portion of the Word of God which I trust by now is at least partially committed to memory. Philippians chapter 3, and I shall read verses 1 through 11.

0:33 Philippians chapter 3, beginning with verse 1. Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed, is not irksome, but for you it is safe. Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the mutilators.

0:58 For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no fear. We have no confidence in the flesh. Though I myself might have confidence even in the flesh, if any other man thinks to have confidence in the flesh, I yet more circumcise the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, the Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law, a Pharisee, as touching zeal, persecuting the church, as touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

1:38 How be it, what things were gains to me, these have I counted loss for Christ. Yea, verily, and I count all things to be loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection,

2:23 and the fellowship of His sufferings becoming conformed unto His death, if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead. Let us again unite our hearts in prayer, pleading that God the Spirit would give us understanding in this His own holy word. Our Father, we remember Your own word which says, The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them.

3:05 And we come very conscious that there are those sitting here this morning to whom the language of this text, the text will be a foreign tongue, unless you are pleased by the Holy Spirit to open their blinded eyes. And our Father, we who have been given the Spirit, are very conscious that though we have been given the gift of illumination by Him, we still see through a glass darkly. We thank You that we see, but, O God, we long to see, with greater clarity.

3:46 And so we pray that You would grant us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Your dear Son. Open our eyes, that we may behold wondrous things out of Your law. Minister Christ to us through the preaching of the word this morning. We plead in His name.

4:08 Amen. It is neither exaggeration nor oversimplification to assert that Jesus Christ in the perfection of His work and in the glory of His person is the sum and substance of the Christian faith.

4:35 Jesus Christ in the glory of His person and the perfection of His work is the sum and substance of all true and biblical religion.

4:48 Now as always, the two most religious, revealing questions with respect to any professed expression of truth and saving religion are, who is Christ and what place does His work have in your scheme of things?

5:07 Whenever there is an attack upon the Christian faith, it will generally be found to consist in either a denial or distortion of some dimension of the biblical witness to the person and to the work of Christ. This being so, the antidote or corrective consists in clear assertions relative to the person and work of our Lord. For this very reason, some of the richest passages with respect to setting forth the glory of Christ's person and work are passages couched in the midst of pastoral corrective to doctrinal or practical errors

Context of Philippians 3: Paul's Spiritual Autobiography

5:51 which existed in the early church. And it's an amazing thing how God has taken error and controversy and made them the handmaidens of truth. And in this passage before us, Philippians chapter 3, these principles are clearly illustrated. The apostle begins with this warning against the influence of the Judaizers in verse 2.

6:18 Then he sets forth the marks in a positive way of the true people of God in verse 3. And then in verses 4 to 14, he gives us a bit of spiritual autobiography in which he demonstrates that the errors of the Judaizers set in contrast with the truth of the gospel are most clearly exemplified in his own spiritual experience. And in the process of doing that, he tells us his assessment of all the carnal advantages, being paraded by the Judaizers and forced upon unsuspecting

7:01 and at times very simple young converts. He says, I had all of these things and more, but I count them but loss for Christ. And in verse 8, he expands that assessment and says it is his continuous judgment with respect to all of those things. And then in verses 9 and 10, as you have been, he says, I am told on several occasions he sets forth the wonderful privileges he has come to possess by virtue of union with Christ, counting all things but loss to gain Christ and be found in Him.

7:39 The two great blessings he has received in Christ are the blessings of verse 9, an objective provision of a perfect righteousness, and verse 10, the subjective privilege of an eternal life. An intimate knowledge and communion with God. Now we saw last Lord's Day as we began to examine this second great blessing that comes to those who repudiate all carnal advantages, whether inherited or attained, and seek to apprehend Christ and be found in Him alone. We saw that this second great blessing, namely the subjective privilege of an intimate knowledge

8:23 of and communion with God, has as its focus of this knowledge the person of Christ Himself, that I may know Him. But in the second place, the Apostle gives us the framework of this knowledge and communion with Christ in these words, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His death, and then in verse 11, the fruition of this knowledge and communion with God in Christ, namely the final resurrection by Christ. And so we have the focus of this knowledge,

9:07 the person of Christ, the framework of this knowledge, the redemptive activity of Christ, and the fruition of this knowledge, the final resurrection by Christ. Now all we'll have time to do today is to open up, and it will only be a cursory examination of what is one of the most profound statements of Christian experience, what the Apostle tells us about the framework of this knowledge and communion with God, of which the person of Christ is the focus, but concerning which the redemptive activity of Christ is the framework.

The Framework of Knowledge: Christ's Redemptive Activity

9:51 And so we will examine this morning the framework of this knowledge and communion with God, which is the portion of every justified person, every believer, who in counting all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ is found in Christ with a perfect righteousness answering to all of the demands of the court of heaven will also be found a man or woman who longs to hold communion with this God, a communion which focuses upon Christ's person they desire to know Him,

10:32 but a communion which always has as its framework the redemptive activity of Christ. They long to know Him and the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His death. Now let me seek to open up these words, in your hearing this morning. The verb to know is obviously understood with respect to this matter of the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.

11:05 There is this desire on the part of the apostle that he may not only know Christ in His person, but know Him also in the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His death. Now what are the sufferings of Christ culminating in His death and the resurrection of Christ, but the central events by which He redeemed His people? And if you have any acquaintance with your Bible, you know this to be a fact. In the words of our Lord Himself in Luke 24, 46, it says that He opened their understanding

11:48 that they might understand the Scriptures and He showed them, how He must suffer and be raised from the dead on the third day. Then and only then could repentance unto remission of sins be preached among all the nations. Our Lord Himself underscores His sufferings unto death and His resurrection as His pivotal redemptive activities. In a passage such as 1 Corinthians 15, 1-4, the apostle Paul does this.

12:19 He says, the gospel we preach to you, the gospel by which you are saved is this. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried. He was raised again the third day according to the Scriptures.

12:35 And so when I use the terminology that the framework of our knowledge and communion with God is the redemptive activity of Christ, I'm not piling up big words to impress you. I'm simply trying to articulate in language, that will communicate the burden of the text, that which the text does indeed assert. Now what do these words mean? Well, we know from the immediate context and the universal testimony of Scripture what they do not mean.

13:09 And they do not in any way suggest that the apostle understood that God had made a bridge from sinful man to himself that went nine-tenths of the way, constructed of the raw materials of the doing and the dying of Christ, and that somehow Paul must suffer a little bit and Paul must experience some kind of a participation in the redemptive suffering of Christ that would fill up the last one-tenth and thereby give him access to God. Now we know that is not true from the very context. For he has described the true people of God as those who have no concept of confidence whatever in the flesh

13:53 and who glory only in Christ. All the raw materials of the bridge that goes across the chasm between sinful man and a holy God, all of the raw materials and all of the work of construction are holy of God and in Christ. He already asserted that in verse 9. And furthermore, when he speaks of wanting to experience the power of his resurrection, he is not speaking as one who sees in the resurrection of Christ nine-tenths of the provision for newness of life and he must somehow complete it with some mystical inward experience of his own.

14:37 No, we know that that cannot be the meaning of the text. Christ's death for sinners was the full and final payment for sin. His words upon the cross were to Telestai, it has been accomplished and it remains accomplished. The scripture tells us by one offering, he hath perfected forever those that are sanctified.

15:06 Likewise with his resurrection, it was the complete and final vindication of his person and the validation of his work. Romans 4.25, delivered up for our offenses, raised for our justification. And so the very point of this passage would be undermined if Paul is in any way speaking of knowing Christ in the power of his resurrection, fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death.

15:37 If he were speaking in any way so as to suggest that this experience contributed to the grounds of his acceptance, he would not only be contradicting the universal testimony of the Bible, he would be contradicting the very burden of this passage.

Knowing Christ in the Power of His Resurrection

15:56 Well then, what do the words mean? He says that he desires to hold communion with God in Christ that not only focuses upon the person of Christ, but is held in the framework of the redemptive activity of Christ, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. Well, let me attempt to unpack that. Let's start with that statement.

16:26 The redemptive acts of our Lord are set before us in Scripture as multi-dimensional and multi-faceted. Now, one of the present crazes is the Rubik's Cube. Anyone who hasn't seen a Rubik's Cube? And as I was reflecting on this, I thought things were a lot simpler when I was a kid.

16:49 The only kind of puzzle that even was close to a Rubik's Cube was the one that had maybe numbers 1 to 20. And it was a flat, one-dimensional plastic thing with an empty space and you had to arrange all the numbers 1 to 21. Well, that was a one-dimensional puzzle. You see, the problem with a Rubik's Cube, it's three-dimensional.

17:10 And it's got six sides. And this kid who does it now in close to 21, 22 seconds, may be the world champ. He said, you can't do it until you learn to think in three dimensions. And he said, the problem with most people, they work on the cube, thinking only in terms of one dimension.

17:26 They say, well, if I get all the yellow there, I'll be all fixed. And lo and behold, they got all the yellows there and then they find the reds and the greens and everything's all botched up. But they can't go to fix them because they're going to mess up the yellows. So he says, until you think in three dimensions, you cannot, as it were, resolve the problem of the Rubik's Cube.

17:44 Well, in the same way, unless we think in more than one dimension, we cannot understand these central, redemptive acts of our Lord Jesus, for they are not presented to us in one dimension in the Scripture. They are three. They are multi-dimensional realities. And so when we come to examine this matter of the resurrection of Christ, we discover that His resurrection is not only set before us as the validation of all His claims, not only the validation of His work in paying for our sins, but His resurrection constituted His entrance

18:27 into a new mode of existence and into a new phase of His work. Romans 1.4 says He is declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. Acts 2.33 says

18:43 He being by the right hand of God exalted and having received the promise of the Spirit has shed forth this which you now see and hear. And so the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ became as it were the open door into this new mode of existence and into this new facet of His ministry. And in this statement I want to know Him and the power of His resurrection, the Apostle is not suggesting that he has some doubts as to whether or not he is truly justified. Now he's the, the very one who wrote he was delivered up for our offenses,

19:27 raised for our justification. So whatever overtones of justification may be in the passage, the strong emphasis is not upon the resurrection with respect to its provisions for our justification, but the resurrection of Christ with reference to securing our sanctification. For it is only as Christ sends His Spirit into the hearts of His people, thereby uniting them to Himself and constantly supplying to them as the branch, as the vine supplies its life to the branch, only in this way do His people make progress

20:12 in sanctifying grace. And so the power of His resurrection is nothing less than the liberating power from the dominion of sin, Romans 6, the enabling power in the midst of weakness, 2 Corinthians 12, the sanctifying power in granting victory over specific sin in the life, Romans 8, in particular passage such as verse 13. So Paul is saying this, I long to know Christ. I want a knowledge and a communion with God of which Christ in His person is the focus, yes, but one in which the framework of that knowledge

20:54 is an ever-increasing personal, inward, real experience of the dynamism of His resurrection. I want to be, says the Apostle, a living, walking, thinking, feeling monument to the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Not only in quieting my conscience when it tries, troubles me about sin in the past or the present, but more specifically, I want to be a living, thinking, walking, feeling monument of the power of Christ's resurrection to enable a man to live the kind of life

21:39 he cannot live of himself. To react to situations in a way that no man left to himself will ever react. To have a perspective on life that no man has a part from the very power that brought Christ from the tomb operating in the heart and upon the affections and in the judgment of a man. I want to know Him in the power of His resurrection.

Knowing Christ in the Fellowship of His Sufferings and Conformity to His Death

22:10 Then he says he wants to know Him in the fellowship of His sufferings becoming conformed to His death. Now you will notice I've grouped those two ideas for the simple reason that the grammar with which Paul originally wrote or dictated these words groups them as one basic unit of thought. Now what do these words mean? I want to know Him in the fellowship, the communion of His sufferings continually being conformed to His death.

22:50 Now we've already established that this doesn't mean that we're going to have reference to the objective work of Christ satisfying the demands of divine justice. And you and I will never grasp what is said unless we have come to grips with the fact that the sufferings and death of Christ are set before us in the New Testament in two basic categories. The first and foundational is the category of objective accomplishment. 1 Corinthians 15 Christ died for our sins.

23:26 2 Corinthians 5 God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. The death of Christ is set before us as an act of objective accomplishment. Christ satisfied divine justice. And we are to have no part in that dimension except by representation Christ was in our hearts, our place, dying, and by the appropriation of faith.

23:59 Any other dealings with Christ's objective work upon the cross are ruinous to the soul.

24:08 Christ's death for us is ours to be touched only as by faith we see Him in our room instead dying for us and appropriate to ourselves the Savior, who is offered in the gospel. But now Christ's sufferings or death are set before us in another totally different category in the Bible. And it is the category of the subjective spirit in which He underwent His sufferings and His death. Not only objective accomplishment dying for us,

24:52 but in the subjective spirit in which Christ died for us. In which Christ underwent His sufferings even to the death of the cross. Christ is now set before us as an example to us. Philippians 2.

25:10 Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus and that mind finds its climactic expression in His obedience unto death even the death of the cross. 1 Peter 2.21 Christ suffered Christ suffered leaving you an example that you should follow His steps. So the category here is that of imitation, participation, assimilation of the very spirit and disposition with which our Lord suffered and died.

25:45 Now you see in this passage it's obvious what the Apostle is referring to. When he says that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings becoming increasingly conformed to His death he is not thinking of some kind of a mystical identification with Christ that will spill over in terms of adding virtue to the sufferings of Christ. No, not at all. He's saying I long to know Him and hold communion with Him not only in the dynamism and power of His resurrection but in the communion of His sufferings that is

26:28 becoming conformed to His death. The meaning then seems to me to be this. Paul is saying I long to know Him in an increasing conformity to the spirit and character in which He suffered and ultimately died. And what was that spirit and character?

26:52 It was nothing less than this. He actively chose the will of the Father though it resulted in rejection grief pain and sorrow though it cut a path through the bloody sweat of Gethsemane the forsakenness of Golgotha and the very darkness and horrors of hell the scripture says as though He were a son yet learned He obediently by the things which He suffered.

27:33 And one has written and I believe with great perception that knowing Christ in the fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His death consists in spiritual harmony with the dying Lord's state of will. Spiritual harmony with the dying Lord's state of will. And what was that state of will? We see it coming to an expression that staggers us in Gethsemane.

28:08 For here the Father not only unfolds that which had been previously unfolded He knew that He must go to Jerusalem, He must suffer He must be abused and die and be raised again on the third day. But now in a manner that hitherto He had not experienced what it would actually mean to drink the cup of divine wrath unmixed with mercy. What it would mean to put the cup to His lips and swallow every last dark drop. And as our Lord had as it were a preview, a foretaste of the agony and the abandonment of Golgotha He shrinks and

28:53 cries, O my Father if it be possible let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless not my will but Thine be done. What was the state of His will? It was that state of will that said I am determined actively to embrace the will of my Father, the path of righteousness no matter what the price may be to me.

29:23 Even the temporary relinquishment of my dearest possession. Conscious delightful communion with my Father.

29:38 Our Lord Jesus Christ in the days of His humiliation had no greater possession than the consciousness expressed in the words I do always the things that please my Father. And amidst all of the rejection amidst all of the maligning and I was struck again and I was struck again and I was struck again with the depths of it this week in my own reading in the New Testament. Say we not well that Thou art a Samaritan and hast a demon. Amidst all of that the unbelief of His own half-brothers and sisters mentioned in John 7

30:20 to have the self-consciousness of His Father's smile was more compensation than was needed. But now in Gethsemane it becomes evident that His greatest possession must temporarily be relinquished to me says oh my Father. My Father if it be possible if the cup can pass any other way at any lesser price oh Lord may it pass nevertheless not my will but Thine be done. Now the amazing thing is the Apostle says I've counted all that I once regarded as gains to me all of my inherited privileges all of my inherited privileges

31:04 all of my attainments in religion I count them all but loss that I may gain Christ and be found in Him not only having an objective righteousness that answers to all the demands of God's law but that I might experience loving intimate real communion with the person who thus provided that righteousness and I want to know Him not in some detached flight submissive stick experience but within the framework within which alone I can know Him. I want to know Him in the power of His resurrection and in the fellowship

31:46 the communion of His sufferings being conformed to His death. Now why in the world would the Apostle long for such experience? Isn't this morbid? Isn't this monkish moroseness?

32:05 Isn't this something out of medieval times when people had nothing to do but sit around and think about the wounds of Christ and try to feel something of fellowship and communion with the suffering Lord? No, not this man who was such a realist who was such a practical man whose heart was suffused with large and manifold concerns whose life was marked by insecurity and incessant activity. Why in the world would he say I long to know Him in the fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His death?

The Purpose of Suffering: Deeper Communion with Christ

32:49 Well, the ultimate answer will be unfolded in verse 11 next week God willing but one aspect lies in the fact that as one has very perceptively written to suffer together creates a purer fellow feeling than to labor together companionship in sorrow forms the most enduring of all ties. Let me illustrate it. Here are two young mothers in the providence of God placed in the same neighborhood. They have both gone through the joys and then the discomforts of nine months of carrying a little one

33:33 in their wombs. They've gone through the trauma of childbirth. They've gone through the pain and the disruption of sleepless nights as they've nursed their little ones through their colicky times and cutting teeth and every shared experience of motherhood knits their hearts more and more as one. But then a sad, dark day comes when in the life of one of these mothers God is pleased in His inscrutable wisdom to take away the life of her little one and she goes through the indescribable atmosphere and agony of having to lay that little one whose kicks and punches she felt in her womb

34:18 upon whose face she looked with adoring amazement and wonder as it nursed at her breast. She has to lay that little one in the cold, damp earth and she's gone through the indescribable agony of the death of a child.

34:39 And now there's a dimension in the communion between those two women that was never there before.

34:47 And the one mother who still has her little one seeks as best she can especially if she's a Christian to weep with her sister who weeps as well as to rejoice as she has in the past but tries she may she cannot fully enter in and her dear sister in Christ senses that she's doing her best and loves her for it. But there is now as it were a change a chamber of felt pain and grief into which her sister cannot enter. Try as she may six months later in the inscrutable wisdom of God her sister in Christ loses a little one.

35:33 Now she comes to her neighbor and not a word is passed they simply fall into each other's arms and they weep. And do you know what happens in that moment of weeping? Something goes forth from the heart of both of those mothers and they are enmeshed in a communion of sorrow known only to those who have passed through that dark night of weeping.

36:05 That's true. Some of you sit here and know it to be so. And the apostle recognized that principle and I don't understand it in the psychology of it and I don't care to. But it's a fact.

36:20 And he knew that if indeed his passion was to know Christ in ever increasing intimacy of felt realized communion he could only know him in that framework of the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death having his will more and more molded like unto the will of his Savior in which the will of God is embraced even through the darkness may I say it without being irreverent of our own personal Gethsemane even through the darkness

37:03 of our own non-redemptive Golgotha when it seems as though heaven itself has turned against us.

37:13 God himself mocks the agonizing cries that are wrung from our hearts when in such a circumstance we can say my Father I do not passively nor stoically resign myself to your will I embrace it not my will but thine be done. That's the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death.

The Order of Experience: Resurrection Power Precedes Suffering

37:52 Now but someone says Pastor isn't the order mixed up in the text? Look at it. Doesn't the suffering and death come before you? Before the resurrection?

38:03 Why did Paul say I long to know him in a framework of his redemptive activity in which the resurrection is put first in his own life history? Did not the suffering come first? My friend listen and listen carefully. Though those of you who are strangers to grace and who play with the Christian faith will think I'm talking Chinese I believe there are some to whom this will indeed be a word from God.

38:34 Listen. Paul was not mixed up in his order. He understood this profound principle that it is only in those who are experiencing the liberating power of Christ's resurrection liberation from self-centeredness. 2 Corinthians 5.15

38:56 He died for all that they who live should no longer henceforth live unto themselves but unto him. Only those whose hearts and minds and spirits know the liberating power of Christ's resurrection from cursed self-centeredness and self-will and self-aggrandizement only such are in a position to long to know him in the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death and to the extent that the power of his resurrection lifts up his heart to us above our native aversion to suffering our native spirit

39:41 of self-indulgence our native spirit of compromise in which we run from agony and suffering and hardship even at the expense of violating God's law it is only when we live in the dynamism of his resurrection that we can embrace from the heart all that is involved in the life of Christ in the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death it's only resurrected people that can suffer and die with him and that's why the order is what it is and it's very interesting

40:25 that in the list of those who are going to go to hell in Revelation 21.8 you know it's put at the top of the list but the fearful the fearful you see those who see that the Christ the Christian life is a commitment to God to Christ and to righteousness in an ungodly and unrighteous world and that there will of necessity be opposition there will be the maligning of our character the agony of rejection and scorn the inward pain that comes with those realities and they back off and they're afraid why? because they've never known the power of his resurrection

41:09 and it's only in the power of his resurrection of Christ resurrection lifting us above that concern to protect ourselves to coddle ourselves to indulge ourselves that there will be any measure of the abandonment of faith to Christ to be his wholly his only his his no matter what the cost may be well having sought to open up the meaning of these words let me in closing try to bring them home to you to the theater of your own conscience by way of application and first of all I would ask you to note with me

Application: Relevance, Dissection, and Instruction

41:53 the burning relevance of these words to the main burden of this part of the epistle now can you pull the argument together you see Paul was not just running off here as it were at the mouth giving his testimony every line is calculated to strike at the heart of the Judaizers he says who are the true circumcision those who are to glory in Christ Jesus now along came the Judaizers saying alright you've got Christ that's a good starting point now let's go on to something else Paul says no anything you'd go on to I've already had and I've left it we don't merely start with Christ and go on to something else we start with Christ

42:37 we go on with Christ and we finish with Christ that I may know him well don't you know him yes I do but I long to know him and I want to know him how in the power of his resurrection in the fellowship of his sufferings in other words his redemptive activity does not only constitute the beginning and the starting point of the Christian life it constitutes the framework for its entire outworking even to its consummation so anything that moves me from Christ crucified and risen becomes beginning middle or end it's not of God oh how he was

43:21 striking at the heart of the Judaizing tendency what was the motive of the Judaizers well you read about it in Galatians 6 12 and 13 Paul says two motives they want you to get circumcised namely he says for this motive number one verse 12 that they might avoid suffering persecution for the cross of Christ they wanted to avoid the fellowship of his sufferings then in verse 13 he says they do this that they might glory in your flesh that was their motive now you see what Paul says ah when the Judaizer comes along what's he doing he's trying to strip away the reproach of Christ which in the face of Judaism was saying look

44:06 all of your ritual all of your privilege all of your activity means nothing before God when it comes to the great question how shall I a sinner find acceptance with a holy God you must repudiate it all as having anything to do with the grounds of your acceptance then he struck at the heart you see of this matter of glorying in the flesh Paul goes on to glory in nothing save Jesus Christ and him crucified and as then so now the mark of all man made substitutes for biblical religion give people some quarter to glory

44:50 in the flesh and to glory and to avoid the sufferings attached to true discipleship always false religion avoids the reproach of the cross and leaves room for carnal boasting always always and so Paul was addressing himself to the very relevant issue in the passage but note with me further how this text acts as a skillful surgeon it's a dissector of the human heart and I would ask you this morning to dare to bring your heart to this text and I can do no better

45:34 than to read a couple of paragraphs from John Stone who said on this very text I do not know that there is any passage of scripture which more clearly and strikingly than this exhibits the peculiarities of true religion as contrasted with the views and purposes of man's and by nature the transcendentalism as we may call it of genuine Christianity it's passing out beyond the range of merely natural thought and desire to a totally new and strange sphere is here very prominent speak to a non-Christian man of any intelligence

46:18 about Christ's moral teaching and of your aim as a Christian to diminish crime and wretchedness which is not which abound all around us and he will understand to some extent what you are saying and will even sympathize with you but say that your aims are to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformed to his death and that you believe this knowledge to be life eternal then worldly wisdom can but stand by and wonder that sane men should thus babble in an unknown place tongue have you been sitting here this morning saying what in the name

47:03 of all common sense is that preacher babbling about my friend if so this text has been a divine surgeon which has dissected your heart and shown it to be utterly devoid of grace have you not found at times when you're talking with someone and they're describing a certain experience that you've had or a certain sight that you've seen that when they're done you say well you know what I never thought of it in quite those words but that expresses exactly what I feel I never could express it that way but you know that's exactly how I look at it you've had that experience haven't you where someone says something and immediately the words as they register

47:47 on the brain strike a note of response an echo in your own heart and you say ah that's it that's me that's the way I look at it that's the way I feel toward it now follow me what's been your response to this text I'm not asking if in your times alone with God you could have written Philippians 3.10 I'm not asking that but I'm asking this as it's been unpacked this morning have you found your heart running out saying Lord I could never have expressed it the way the apostle did I could never have seen that delicate relationship between having the power of his resurrection and thereby being enabled to enter into the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed

48:32 to his death but Lord though I couldn't in a thousand years express it oh Lord thou knowest if my heart's deepest now has that been your response to this text man woman boy or girl be honest in the presence of God if you're a Christian it is it may be faint this morning it may be coming out at just five tenths of a decibel wherein the apostle it came out in a hundred decibels but that's the pulse beat that's the echo of your heart now where's your heart

49:16 this morning you've got all kinds of knowledge about Christ and his cross and his death and imputed righteousness and justification but faith and all the rest but can you say you long to know him in a framework that involves the power of his resurrection negating by the dynamism of new life in Christ that's self-centered hyper-sensitive self-seeking life of yours so that now you are free to have a heart that runs out in longing to know the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed

50:01 to his death but then the text is not only a buttressing of Paul's argument a skillful surgeon to perform as it were surgery on our hearts but it's also a wise teacher it tells us dear children of God what the path will be if we would know our Lord better there's only one framework within which to know him and that's the power of his resurrection the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death child of God don't fight the pain inward or outward don't fight the suffering don't reject it

50:45 don't resent it embrace it embrace it so that in that suffering there may be a communion with Christ that otherwise you would never know God has made this experience very real to me in recent days a man who is one of my closest friends upon the face of the earth whom I would count as one of my three most intimate friends we've spent hours talking praying laughing together and we've spent hours sharing the many facets of life that develop friendships some of the experiences of recent weeks

51:29 brought me into an orbit of experience in which he's lived for five years and the moment I was brought into that orbit even though there were hundreds of miles between us something happened in our friendship there was a communion of suffering that has made the friendship qualitatively different at certain levels from what it ever was before now if that's true between human beings how much more with our glorious infinitely blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ child of God do you want to know your Savior then you'll know him in this framework alone

Application: The Call of the Gospel and Prayer

52:13 and there is no suffering like the suffering of rejection that was our Lord's suffering you want to know him then child of God embrace the rejection with all of its pain for that's the framework in which you'll be conformed to his death and then finally this text is not only a surgeon not only a teacher not only an MD and a PhD this text is also a powerful evangelist and you see how this text calls us into the fellowship of Christ for that is the call of the gospel God is faithful

52:56 Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1-9 by whom you were called into the fellowship of Jesus Christ into the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ our Lord to become a Christian is not to snatch its unbenefit that Christ is wrought on behalf of sinners detached from his person no no to become a Christian is to embrace him and all the benefits of his work in him and to be called into the fellowship of Christ is to be called into the framework of knowing him in the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering my friend if you're unconverted I would be less than honest if I set before you a way of faith and discipleship that meant anything less than becoming identified with Christ

53:41 in the power of his resurrection leading to a life of the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death Jesus never hid the cross behind the drapes to sneak it out on unsuspecting disciples would be disciples when they weren't looking he stuck the cross right under their noses and said if any man will come after me let him deny himself take up his cross what was the cross the symbol of suffering rejection and death when society in Roman days said we can no longer tolerate

54:26 this individual away with him the cross was the ultimate symbol of that total rejection Jesus said you want to be mine get in line with the cross that's biblical Christianity this trust Jesus and let's go play games business that's heresy that will take you straight to hell biblical Christianity offers you all the privileges and all of the marvelous provisions of grace but it sets before you all of the demands of identification with Christ and it's honest about both

55:08 you come to the Lord Jesus and you will have a righteousness that will answer to all the demands of God's law now and in the last day but you'll also come to a Savior who puts a cross and says take it and follow me enter into the fellowship of rejection of suffering of choosing the will of the Father against every inclination of the natural man now dear people I didn't write this if you want some other kind of Christianity there are a lot of places you can get it but remember where it will take you

55:52 it won't find you as we'll see next week with Jesus at the resurrection of the just in the last day Paul said the fruition of all of this is if by any means I may attain to the resurrection of the dead and if you want to stand with bliss with the people of God with Christ in the last day my friend you've got to come this way no matter no other way may God help us to be honest with ourselves with our souls and with the God with whom we have to do let us pray

56:33 our Father we marvel that you would ever open a way of access to yourself when we had rebelled in Adam and forever forfeited any claim to access to you we bless you that you have taken the initiative to open up a way not only of acceptance and pardon but a way of communion oh how we thank you we thank you for your dear

57:18 son who is that way and we pray that you would so work into our hearts and into our affections the truths to which we've been exposed this morning that we may count no price too great to no increase in our love and our love and our love we pray that you may be with us in the spirit of your dear son oh God we confess that we are fearful we confess that we have an aversion to the pain of rejection but we thank you that in the power of his resurrection we can be raised above the crippling

58:03 influence of those fears and those aversions give us then copious measures of the spirit of Christ work in us to will and to work for your good pleasure we pray for those that are strangers to your grace to whom this text has indeed been a strange tongue oh God give them no rest nor peace until they come to the knowledge of yourself through the Lord Jesus Christ hear then our prayer and seal the word to our prophet we plead in the name of your beloved son amen