Phil

Phil. 3:1-11

3/16/2008

“The Surpassing Worth of Knowing Christ”

At the beginning of this epistle Paul declared, “[I]t is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (1:20-21). This was no idle musing of a romantic idealist dreaming of a heroic life as he dozed off in a hammock while vacationing in Hawaii. Paul was in a Roman prison with a real possibility of being executed. He spoke of these words in all seriousness. His imprisonment for the gospel testified to the sincerity of his conviction.

But what of this philosophy of life, which Paul shared with the Philippians and with us? Was he reflecting a special mode of life, which was uniquely his? No doubt, there were some unique things that pertained only to him because he was an Apostle. But when Paul declared that for him to live was Christ and to die was gain, that his sole purpose in life was to honor Christ, whether by life or by death, was he sharing the unique way of the Apostle or the common way of the Christian? This question is easily answered when we ask the same question in this way: is it OK for us, for any Christian, not to live with the same philosophy of life? Having received God’s gracious salvation in Jesus Christ, can we ever say, “For me to live is still just me and my family and to die is a sad ending of it all”? Does the self-giving love of Christ so impact us and transform us and obligate us that we cannot but say, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain?” Paul answers in the affirmative. In fact, he plainly says in 2 Cor. 5:15, “He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.” That means you and me and all those, for whom Christ died and rose again.

And this new life of living for Christ is anything but a dreary, burdensome, oppressive, suffocating life. After all, we are called to live for Someone, who so loved us that He was willing to die for us and did die for us! Other people may be careless with our heart and trust. Others may take advantage of our loyalty and devotion. But not Christ, who died for us and rose again for us! So then, it is no accident that this epistle is called “the Epistle of Joy”. Repeatedly Paul says, “I rejoice” (1:18, etc.), and that despite the fact that he is in prison, possibly facing execution! Not only that, he calls the Philippians to share in his joy (2:18) and commands them to rejoice again and again (4:4). This is a powerful and living joy that even the dark, dismal, oppressive loneliness of the Roman prison cannot squelch! It is an undying joy, which enables the Christian to rejoice always, even in the most difficult times and trying situations and, yes, even in their deathbed!

So, on the one hand, we have this joy, which Paul possesses, which Paul enjoys so much that he wants all who would hear him to share in it and enjoy it as he does. Joy! On the other hand, we have his philosophy of life--“For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” I want to put forth before you that the two are inseparably connected. And how are they connected? What binds the two together--the deep, lasting, satisfying joy--and the life (and death!) that are thoroughly dedicated to exalting Christ? We have the answer in our passage. Simply put, the answer is the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord (3:8)! Doesn’t it make a perfect sense? Jesus Christ has the best, greatest and highest value. So knowing Christ--that is, living for Christ and dying for Christ and being consumed with Christ and being filled with Christ--produces the deepest and most satisfying joy!

Notice the superlative language he uses here: knowing Christ has the best, greatest and highest value above all things. These words presuppose that things have different values. Not everything is of equal value. Some things are more valuable than others.

This issue of value is crucial for our life. Much of our life is driven by what we value and how much we value it. We desire valuable things. We spend much of our time and energy salivating and pursuing after valuable things--from looking for a soul mate to collecting arts. To be rich is to have much of what is valuable and to be poor is to lack things that are valuable. We can even say that it is what we value, which determines the course of our action and decision and even the quality of our life.

But there is something much more at stake here than what road we take in our journey of life. This area of value is the battlefield of our spiritual warfare, the outcome of which is our eternal destiny. Just go back to where it all began. What was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil about? The tree was not a magical tree that somehow had the power to impart some special knowledge about good and evil. Rather, it was where the question of what is good and evil was to be determined. The test God put forth to Adam and Eve was ultimately all about the question of value: what is more valuable--God and His word and living in communion with Him or my curiosity and my desire and my self-determination and living (or at least attempting to live) independent of God? We know what Adam and Eve did at the prompting of Satan: they exchanged the truth of God for a lie; they exchanged the glory of God for a bite off the forbidden fruit; they exchanged the promise of eternal life for the momentary thrill of a forbidden pleasure; they raised their head in defiance against their Creator God and yet they gladly bowed down to a creature. In doing so, they denounced something so vital to their identity as God’s image bearers. This idea of value is crucial to what it means for us to be truly human and live as human. We are as good as what we value. Paul in our passage speaks of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. Therein lies our hope of restoration and salvation.

The surpassing worth of knowing Christ--this should be a most obvious point, which should require no proof. For Christ is God and what is more valuable than God? Paul refers to Jesus as “Christ Jesus our Lord”. We know that, when the early (Jewish) Christians referred to Jesus as their Lord, they meant nothing less than God. For they replaced the name of God (“YHWH”) with “Lord” (Adonai) so as not to take the name of the Lord in vain in any way. Even in this very letter we have what many people believe to be an early Church confession of faith: “[T]hough He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant….” (2:6-7). Jesus was in the form of God (that is, He had the divine nature of God) and He was equal with God. Therefore, He was and is God. So then, it is easy to see why knowing Jesus Christ the Lord is of supreme value: God is infinite in value and His infinite value surpasses infinitely the value of any finite creature or created thing. There is nothing nobler or more excellent that we can desire and value than God.

Paul speaks of the supreme value of knowing Christ in comparison specifically to man’s confidence in the flesh. And he lists certain things in his life to show that, if he wanted to, he could put confidence in his flesh as the false teachers did. This list can be divided into two categories.

The first is found in the front section of v. 5: “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews….” These may be grouped under the title, “pedigree”. These are the things that Paul was born with and had nothing to do with. It is amazing how proud people can be about things that they had nothing to do with. A good example is our looks. Is it something to be proud of? Yes, since we live in a fallen world, good looking people may experience some perks. But are they somehow better people because they are handsome or beautiful? And if we are not so attractive, is it something to be ashamed of? Oh, how many young people feel as though they are worthless because of their not-so-attractive appearance! How tragic! And equally, how vain it is for people to put so much confidence in their appearance and look down on others! If the looks is the basis of one’s confidence, what happens when someone more attractive walks in? Either she would feel worthless or become jealous and even hateful. But of course our outer appearance is not the only thing. It can be something like belonging to an affluent family and being born in a free, prosperous country and even having a high IQ or a high aptitude for something. These are the things that we should be grateful for, that should make us humble rather than proud, that should oblige us to use them in service of others, who are less fortunate, rather than be proud and arrogant!

Then, what about the things that we accomplish with our efforts? Paul has them too in his list of the boasting of the flesh: “as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness, under the law blameless” (vv. 5-6). Here, we are looking at some exceptional achievements of Paul’s: not every Jew was zealous enough to be a Pharisee; not every Jew could claim that he was blameless under the law.

But notice how much of these things are related to the first list of the things that Paul had nothing to do with. He could be a Pharisee because he was born a Jew. He had the law because he was born a Jew. We do not want to minimize the efforts and sacrifice he must have put in to accomplish these things. But could he have done all these things without the natural endowments that God bestowed on him?

And what did Paul exactly accomplish with his efforts? Paul declares that he was found blameless under the law. Does that mean that he obeyed the law perfectly? If we read the rest of Paul’s letters, that is simply not possible. Paul said in Rom. 3:20, “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.” Here, to be blameless under the law does not mean that he perfectly obeyed the law. According to Philip Francis Esler,

“Paul means to express his high socioreligious status in the period immediately prior to his conversion in relation to other Judeans, which would mean he is saying little more than ‘I advanced in the practices of the Judeans beyond many of my own age among my people’ (Gal. 1:14). The other instance of a;memptoj [amemptos] in Philippians itself corroborates this comparative sense of the word: ‘Do all things… that you may be blameless (a;memptoi [amemptoi]) and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world’ (2:14-15, RSV)” (Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul’s Letter, p. 233).

Yes, Paul excelled far beyond his contemporaries in personal righteousness and piety and religious zeal. It got him a measure of recognition and prestige among people. But was that enough? Would that bring happiness and joy, to sense the look of admiration, with which his friends and neighbors viewed him? Would that bring him eternal life? People might have admired him. But it was ultimately God, with whom he had to deal. God was the final Judge, not the people. Would God approve him, approve him enough to grant him a place in His everlasting kingdom? Paul’s own righteousness could never qualify him to stand before God and to withstand the scrutiny of the divine Judge--Paul knew this. Would he be able to defend himself to God for all of his actions, all of his words and all of his thoughts and feelings? No wonder he says in vv. 8-9, “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.”

How can we compare the confidence in the flesh with the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord? Even Paul, with all of his striving and devotion and zeal, dared not stand on his own righteousness. In fact, he considered his Jewish pedigree and his personal righteousness as rubbish--literally, refuse--in comparison to the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ! His own righteousness was not just worthless; it was rather odious and despicable when placed side by side with the supreme value of knowing Christ. What is more, think of what it is that he considered rubbish! It was not just the boastful pride of life in some generic sense. Rather, it was the boastful pride of the old covenant--the old covenant confidence in the flesh on account of the Jewish pedigree and adherence to the law! The old covenant that God Himself ordained! How could Paul refer to something, which God Himself ordained, as rubbish? Inasmuch as the old covenant is the shadow of the new covenant--what the cocoon is to the butterfly--all the glories of the old covenant lose their luster in the surpassing radiance of the new covenant in Jesus Christ! If the glories of the old covenant, which God Himself ordained, is to be considered rubbish, what about our worldly confidence in the flesh, our worldly accomplishments?

Why is the value of knowing Christ so great? Ask yourselves, who is the most powerful and influential person you know personally, who is close enough to be your friend? They say, “It is not what you know but whom you know!” Whom do you know? What is he compared to Jesus Christ--the almighty, sovereign, glorious and majestic Lord of all? Who is more valuable than Christ?

But Paul focuses on the righteousness from God in Christ. As this righteousness comes from God, it is most perfect. How does it come from God? It couldn’t be just something that God casually tosses at His people. No, insofar as this righteousness was required of us, it had to be earned by someone else on our behalf. So Paul says that this righteousness “comes through faith in Christ” (v. 9). As it comes through faith, it is not of our works. As it is in Christ, it is not of us. It is through faith in Christ because Christ fulfilled the righteousness required of us by God through His perfect obedience: “being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (2:8). Christ’s life on earth, which He lived in our place, was one of total dedication to obeying the will of His Father. For Christ to live was the Father’s glory and to die was the Father’s glory. He obeyed the Father in all His thoughts, in all His words and in all His deeds. He obeyed right away, all the way and the happy way--without a moment of delay, without a tinge of hesitation and without a trace of resentment but with all promptness, thoroughness and gladness! So totally please and fully satisfied, God raised Him from the dead and exalted Him high above all names!

This righteousness is most amazing and perfect in its efficacy and power: it is able to cover us from the most meticulous, exhaustive, relentless scrutiny of God, to shield us from the just wrath of God against sinners! The security, which comes from this righteousness, can make us face death without fear. It can help us face our severest and most unmerciful critics with the serenity of heaven. It can enable us even to love our enemies and bless those who curse us! So great is the security we have in Jesus Christ! For He lived for us to fulfill our righteousness; He died for us to atone for our sins; and He rose again from the dead for our justification and the hope of resurrection! Oh, the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord!

So Paul says, “For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ…, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (vv. 8, 10-11). Do you see what Paul is saying? So supreme is the worth of knowing Jesus Christ that he not only desires to know the power of His resurrection but also share in His sufferings--he wants all of Christ, including His sufferings and even His death! So supreme is the worth of knowing Christ, so supreme is Christ, that sharing in His sufferings is so much better than all the things that he once considered gain in his life! That is why he was willing to suffer the loss of all things and consider them as rubbish! You see, after losing all things, Paul did not look back on them with wistful nostalgia. No, he considered them as rubbish, as though he were glad to be rid of them! So completely enthralled he was with the surpassing value of Christ, so fully convinced was he of it!

But Paul seems to say more. He sees between sharing Christ’s sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and knowing the power of His resurrection an inseparable bond. He expresses the similar idea in other passages: “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom. 8:16-17); “always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor. 4:10-11). Jesus provides the pattern for our life: suffering first and glory later.

Brothers and sisters, think about the Savior, whom you long to see at the time of resurrection. Though He is glorified, He still bears the scars of His crucifixion. How can we bear to meet Him without any scars?

In Shakespeare’s play, Henry V, King Henry delivers an inspiring speech to his army before the Battle of Agincourt against the French. His English army is outnumbered five to one. His cousin wishes that they had ten thousand more Englishmen there. But King Henry scorns the suggestion and says,

“O, do not wish one more! / Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, / That he which hath no stomach to this fight, / Let him depart; his passport shall be made, / And crowns for convoy put into his purse; / We would not die in that man’s company That fears his fellowship to die with us. / This day is call'd the feast of Crispian…. / He that shall live this day, and see old age, / Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, / And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.' / Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, / And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.' / Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, / But he'll remember, with advantages, / What feats he did that day. / Then shall our names, / Familiar in his mouth as household words--/ Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, / Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester--/ Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red. / This story shall the good man teach his son; / And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, / From this day to the ending of the world, / But we in it shall be remembered-- / We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; / For he to-day that sheds his blood with me / Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, / This day shall gentle his condition; / And gentlemen in England now-a-bed / Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, / And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks / That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.”

Are we willing to die with Christ? When we shall be raised unto glory, every wound we suffered for the sake of Christ will not be forgotten by God! This is why our victorious King promises, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on My account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matt. 5:11-12)! When you think of that glorious day, don’t you want to deny yourself and take up the cross and follow Him daily, even through the valley of the shadow of death, even through the mires of humiliation? What scars of glory do you have? How many? God has crowned us with numberless blessings and yet we suffer so little in comparison! Let us venture out under the banner of Christ deep into the enemy territory and fight glorious battles for our Savior’s sake! Let the world mock and humiliate us! Each word of mockery and jeer we receive for Christ’s sake will be rewarded with a thousand words of praise and commendation from our heavenly King! Each blow of humiliation we endure on account of Christ shall be rewarded with ten thousand crowns of glory!

Paul found himself in prison because he boldly proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ! Yet he rejoiced greatly! So great was his joy that he wanted the Philippians to share in that joy. His wish for you must be the same. This coming week, we have a special opportunity to share the good news of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We plan to go door to door and invite the people in La Jolla to our Good Friday and Easter services. And we have prepared personal invitation cards that you can pass out to your friends and colleagues. I invite you, I urge you, to take part in these efforts and declare the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus. Pass out the flyers and give out the invitation cards. Invite people to come and hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. What are their condescending looks and jeering words compared to God’s approval and praise! And if we should be cut and stabbed, what of it? Our scars will but add to the glory of Christ, on account of whose surpassing worth we can gladly suffer the loss of reputation and all things! And if we should suffer a hundred humiliations to win a soul for Christ, what glory and privilege are ours! There is no life more glorious and more joyous than a life devoted to exalting Christ. “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain”--this is the most blessed life and it is yours in Christ Jesus!