Jesus. As we, I want to leave
the reading there. As we look then at this together,
at this chapter, I want to particularly focus our thoughts on verse 10,
the first clause in verse 10. Philippians 3 verse 10, that
I may know him. This was the great desire of
the Apostle Paul, that he would know the Lord Jesus Christ. And it has been said, if we have
everything but Christ, we have nothing. And if we have nothing
but Christ, we have everything. And Paul really here, he He comes
to realize the greatness of this desire, and really what we've
named here in that I May Know Him is really an ambition that
the Apostle Paul had, and it was a personal ambition. You
might think Paul often wrote to the churches and says, I pray
that this will be true of you, or that will be true of you,
or that you may know this. But here, this is something that
is true of himself, that I may know him. He's speaking personally
himself, and he's speaking as a believer. This is not an unbeliever
speaking, saying that an unbeliever might say, well, that I may know
him because I don't know him. But no, Paul has so many blessings
already, but you see, he has an ambition. to know Christ and
to know the Lord Jesus Christ. And though he had these blessings,
he still pressed forward. And that's important for us today. Whatever our ambitions are, and
we have ambitions, and it's good to a point to have those ambitions,
but this is the greatest ambition, that we may know him. because
this is something substantial. This is something that will be
a blessing. And it's something that Paul
had not yet realized. He had not gained it yet. And
he says later on that he hadn't laid hold on it. He was pressing
toward the mark. So this is not just something
to say if you said to somebody, do you know the Lord? Then you
might say, well, yes, I did. Five years ago, I was baptized.
I followed the Lord in believer's baptism. Well, Paul is saying,
It's an ongoing thing that I may know him. You see, in verse nine,
he speaks about how he came to be justified and to be found
in him not having mine own righteousness. And previously, he went through
all the things, the credentials that Paul found so precious because
he thought that they were his reason why he would get to heaven,
because of keeping the law and so forth. But when he realized
that that wasn't really, didn't really satisfy, it wasn't really
keeping the law, that sin was actually mixed with all that
he did, he had to realize that he needed a righteousness outside
of himself. And so in verse nine, to 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. So As we come together tonight,
and you think of your ambitions, what you're looking forward to,
what you're striving after, is this the overriding ambition
of your life? That I may know Him. Not just about Him, but know
Him. Know the Lord Jesus as that one
who has saved me. That one who communes with me. So this was Paul's own ambition. It was not just something he
prayed for others to experience. It was something that he was
desirous to experience himself. And the Apostle Paul was one
that had been caught up into the third heaven. He'd seen things
which it was unspeakable to see. He knew so much of Christ in
a way. He was a very godly person. And yet, this is his desire.
So it's not that any of us can say, well, yes, well, of course,
five years ago I did that. But it's an ongoing thing, and
it's something that we need to press towards. And we cannot,
you see, it's not just a case of knowing the doctrines. It's
knowing the one who the doctrines are about. that I may know him
and the power of his resurrection. You see, it's to do with the
Lord Jesus Christ, the person of Christ. You see, we need to, a true faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ is one that wants to know more of Christ. If we're Christians that say,
well, I know everything I need to know about the Lord Jesus
Christ, That's not what the Apostle Paul would have said, and that's
not a good sign. If you know enough about Christ
and don't want to know any more, you need to question whether
you know him at all. Because in a good relationship, there's
a growing, there's a development of that relationship between
Christ and his church. And so Paul was so desirous that
he would know more of Christ. One of the things you say if
you know somebody, you recognize them, wouldn't you? You recognize
somebody if you say you know them. If I said, do you know
who Boris Johnson is? Yes, I recognize him. If they
showed me a picture, I'd recognize him. But do you know him? How much do you know him? Do
you talk to him? Would he talk to you? What sort
of level of communication? There's different levels, isn't
there? You see, Jesus said to the disciples, whom say men that
I am? And then he said, whom say ye
that I am? And Peter said, thou art the
Christ, the son of the living God. He knew who Jesus was, but
he didn't know much about what he was going to do. Because Jesus
then told him that he was going to come and suffer, bleed and
die. And Peter, that wasn't what Peter wanted at all. Peter didn't
know that side. He didn't want that side. He
didn't know that about Christ at that time. And yet, he did
come to know it. He did come to love it. He did
come to embrace it. He did come to know that aspect
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he was not just come to this
earth to have an earthly kingdom, for his disciples to be on the
left and the right in the kingdom that they thought he was going
to set up on this earth. You see, they had to come to
know him as a humble servant. He came to serve. He came to
work out a righteousness for his people. He did not come to
deliver the Jews from the Roman Empire. He came to deliver His
people from their sins. This was the nature of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Do you know Him? Do you know
Him? And may that be an ambition for
each one of us, that I may know Him. Because, you see, the knowledge
of Christ is more precious than gold. You may have your ambitions.
You might say, you don't know what my ambitions are. I've got
great ambitions in life. I've got great things that I'm
looking forward to attaining and to achieving. Well, you might
have. But you see, how big are your
ambitions? Jesus said, what shall it profit
a man if he gain the whole The whole of Rigate? The whole
of Surrey? The whole of England? No. What shall it profit a man if
he gained the whole world? That's probably bigger than your
ambitions, isn't it? To gain the whole world. What
will it profit a man if he gained the whole world and lose his
own soul? What will it profit? You see,
Paul's desire was that I may know him. And there's a satisfaction. You see, you might know, as you
do with these politicians sometimes, when they come into power, you
find out about what were their lives and what's been going on
in their lives and what they've done and what they haven't done.
And often you find there's areas that are not good, things that
are not good about them. And that's true of each of us.
We each come short. But you see, if you that I may
know him, as we search to know more of Christ, we would never
come across those aspects. Well, there's failure here. The
sin here. No, he was holy, harmless, undefiled,
separate than sinners. Although, of course, there are
things that we find out about the Lord Jesus, which we don't
always find easy. The Apostle Peter didn't find
the suffering aspect of Christ to be easy. He didn't want that
aspect. He didn't think he needed it.
And yet when he wrote his epistle, he spoke about the precious blood
of Christ. Oh, he came to know Christ. He
came to embrace him. He came to love him. And you
see, how do we get to know somebody? We speak to them. And as we come
to the Lord in prayer, we communicate with him. You see, our salvation
is not just an insurance policy that gives us safety when we
die, and then we don't have any more relationship with the policy
apart from knowing where it is. No, the Lord Jesus is one that
is to be known and to be experienced. And sometimes I've likened it
to that. When we come into the kingdom of God as Christians,
we can We can just be content that we've come into the Kingdom
of God, but not actually to enjoy all the blessings and the privileges
of being a child of God, but just content. likened it to being
left a great estate and a great stately home and you just buy
a two-man tent and put it on the edge of the land and live
in that tent. And somebody says, you're not
really enjoying all that estate that's been left to you. You're
just camping on the edge. Yes, you're just there, but not
really using and enjoying what it is. And Christ, you see, has
called his people to fellowship. He brought me into his banqueting
house, and his banner over me was love. Not to camp in a two-man
tent at the edge of the inheritance, but to come into fellowship. And you see, this was Paul's
desire, that I may know him, not just have this acquaintance,
not just have this Christ's righteousness, but not know him. because all
these benefits you see there, I came across a story of a missionary
who went to a far country with his family, four children, and
after a little while, a few years, they receive birthday presents
and each member of the of their family, year by year. And they
didn't know who it came from. They kept coming, year after
year. And in the end, they really wanted to know who it was that
was sending them these lovely presents. And you see, when we
come into God's kingdom, there's so many blessings, and there
must be a desire. There should be a desire. Who
is this one? Who is he? We sing that at Christmas
time. Who is he in yonder stall? At
his feet we humbly fall. Tis the Lord, the King of glory.
You see, this is the one. And we want to know him, not
just about him, but know him ourselves. And you see, there's
no more rewarding pursuit. You can have ambitions of climbing
Everest or something like that, some great ambition, but when
you get to the top, what's then? You see, it loses its greatness. But you see, if your ambition
is to know Him, there's a fullness in Christ. There's a satisfaction
in Christ. You see, all that we know here
below are foretastes. It's described in the Bible as
like the firstfruits. God's people, as it were, know
something of the firstfruits, the fortes. And they celebrated
the firstfruits. But it was only a handful of
grain. It wasn't the whole harvest.
And that's what it is with the Lord's people when we seek to
know Him. Here below we only know the handfuls,
as it were, just a foretaste. Until glory, you see, we then
know Him as we are known. We know Him and love Him and
praise Him. And you see, this is, we read
in the Song of Solomon, He kissed me with the kisses of his love.
He brought me into his banqueting house. And there's a picture
of fellowship, you see, and indeed the relationship between Christ
and his church is pictured as the closest union here below,
which is of husband to wife, and wife to husband. That intimacy,
that love, and that's, you see, to know him, and to love him,
and that we may know these blessings. Well in Daniel chapter 11 verse
32 it says these words, but the people that do know their God
shall be strong and do exploits. You see if we know him, if we
don't, if we're not interested in this ambition we'll be chasing
the other things and we'll be disappointed and we'll be upset
that this isn't going and we're not progressing in this and that
way. But you see, if we're satisfied to know Him, that I may know
Him, there's a satisfaction in there. I have everything. I have
Christ. I have everything for time and
for eternity. Well, may we be amongst those
then that have that true desire after Christ, that I may know
Him. This was the Apostle Paul's.
And this is the true desire of every child of God, that he may
know Him. that there may be fellowship
and union, and that as we know him we will love him. Often when
we don't love him it's because we don't know him, we don't know
him as we should, we don't understand him, we don't follow him as we
should, and so we need In the Bible it says, Open thou
mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law, to show
Christ as to be precious to his people. And may the Lord add
his