I want you to take God's Word.
You knew I'd say that. I want you to take your Bible
and turn with me to the book of Philippians, Philippians chapter
3. Today, I want to bring you a
message entitled, The Greatest Testimony Ever Given. Philippians chapter 3, and I
want to begin my reading in verse 3. We'll start our exposition
in the middle of verse 4, but I want to get a running start.
Philippians 3 beginning in verse 3, "'For we are the true circumcision,
who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus,
and put no confidence in the flesh. Although I myself might
have confidence even in the flesh, if anyone else has a mind to
put confidence in the flesh, I far more. circumcised the eighth
day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew
of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, as to Zeal, a persecutor
of the church, as to the righteousness which is in the law found blameless. But whatever things were gained
to me, those things I have counted as loss." for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things
to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus
my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count
them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ and may be found
in Him. not having a righteousness of
my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith
in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis
of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection
and the fellowship of His sufferings. being conformed to His death
in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." This is Paul's personal testimony. And I believe it is the greatest
testimony that has ever been given by any Christian. And the
reason that I say that is because arguably the Apostle Paul is
the greatest Christian who ever lived. And I think a case could
be made that the testimony of the greatest Christian who ever
lived would be giving the greatest testimony that there is. But
more than that, this is a testimony that is so full of the gospel. A testimony is not the gospel
per se. No one will ever be saved because
of your testimony. Your testimony is about you.
You're not the Savior. Christ is the Savior. And the
only way anyone will ever come into the kingdom of God is for
us to talk about Christ. But our testimony is a great
opportunity to talk about Christ. And what makes Paul's testimony
so powerful and so dynamic is that it's not about Paul. It's
about Christ. And the only thing that Paul
says about himself here really is his own failures and what
he was before he was converted. And he gives all honor and glory
to Christ. And as you and I give our testimony,
we need to be always pointing away from ourselves. pointing
people to Christ. And as we give our testimony,
we must make certain that it is full of the gospel, which
alone is the power of God unto salvation. Now, every great testimony
has three parts, and we see those three parts here in Philippians
chapter 3. What we see in anyone's testimony
is their life before conversion, then their life at conversion,
and then their life after conversion. And that's what we see. In verses
5 and 6, that's before conversion. In verses 7 through 9, that's
at conversion. In verses 10 and 11, and really
following, that is after conversion. conversion. So, what we have
in verses 5 and 6 is condemnation. In verses 7 through 9, justification. And in verses 10 and 11, sanctification. Paul is so linear in his thinking. He is so methodical and so well
organized. Even as he gives his testimony
here, it is like a systematic theology. It is all tightly worded
and logically laid out. So, let's look at the greatest
testimony. that has ever been given. And
I want you to note first, beginning in the middle of verse 4, this
first heading is just simply, before conversion. It's Paul's
life, we would call it his BC days, before conversion, before
Christ. And he says, beginning in the
middle of verse 4, if anyone else has a mind to put confidence
in the flesh, I far more. And what Paul is saying here
is that if anyone wants to put forth their own morality and
their own religious efforts in order to commend them to God,
everyone in the world is in line behind me, that no one can match
my credentials. If trusting in yourself would
get you to heaven, no one can check the boxes that I can check
in what my life was like before my conversion. And so, please
note this, Paul says seven things about his life before Christ,
and all of these were things that he once put his trust in
and his confidence in to gain approval with God. And so, he
begins in verse 5, he said, I had the right beginning. He said,
circumcise the eighth day. Circumcision was prescribed in
the Old Testament. It was performed on the eighth
day, a cutting of the foreskin of the male, and it signified
them being set apart unto God There was no redemptive value
in it whatsoever. It was simply a sign or a ritual
of what must take place in their heart one day later. And that
is what he was talking about in verse 3, the true circumcision,
that's a metaphor for the new birth, when your heart is pierced
and cut. But Paul says, I had the right
beginning. No one can give a better beginning
than me. I was circumcised on the eighth
day. And then he says, he had the
right nationality of the nation Israel. Paul says, I was born
into God's chosen people, into God's covenant people. And then he says, I had the right
tribe. So, within the nation, the tribe
of Benjamin was the elite nation. The tribe of Benjamin, when they
divided up the land, that's where Jerusalem is. That's where the
temple is. It's at the very epicenter of
the religious and spiritual life of Israel, where the land was
apportioned to the tribe of Benjamin. And the first king of Israel
came out of the tribe of Benjamin. In fact, Paul was named for him
King Saul. He was Saul of Tarsus, and Benjamin
was one of the two tribes that remained loyal to King David. So, what a pedigree, what a resume
Paul has going here for himself. And then he moves on, he says,
I had the right upbringing. He grew up going to Iwana, for
heaven's sakes. He was a VBS poster child. Look
what he says, a Hebrew of Hebrews. You can't be any more Hebrew
than a Hebrew of Hebrews. He probably ate Hebrew hot dogs.
I mean, who knows? Hebrew of Hebrews, that means
he was the son of Hebrew parents. He was raised in a Hebrew home.
He was taught the Hebrew language. He grew up with Hebrew tradition. He learned the Hebrew customs. He was a die-hard, card-carrying
Hebrew. You can't be any more Hebrew
than this. And then he said he had the right standard by which
he lived his life. Notice he says, to the law, a
Pharisee. Now, a Pharisee, these were the
arch-conservatives in the nation of Israel. If you weren't born
again, you probably would have been a Pharisee. because they
believed the Bible. They believed it cover to cover.
They believed in the sovereignty of God. They believed in the
supernatural. They believed in angels. They
believed in miracles. They believed in the resurrection.
They believed in life after death. They believed in heaven. They
believed in hell. They were as tightly orthodox
to a point as anyone could possibly be. They were the Bible-believing
sect. within Israel, and they were
so circumspect that they would not even fellowship with or rub
shoulders with other Jews. The word Pharisee simply means
a separatist. They had separated themselves,
not just from the Egyptians and the Babylonians and the Assyrians
and the others, they separated themselves from the other Jewish
people. They wanted to be the holy huddle. They were the inner circle. And
Paul was at the very center of the inner circle of this holy
club. You couldn't be any more striving
to be set apart from the world unto God than a Pharisee. And then, in verse 6, he had
the right passion. He says, as to zeal, a persecutor
of the church. Paul didn't have a dead orthodoxy.
He was fired up. That's what the word zeal means.
It means an excitement of mind. It means heat of soul. We could
put it this way, Paul was all in. in his religious attempt
to put confidence in his own flesh to commend himself to God. So much so, he was a persecutor
of the church. He wasn't passive. He was an
aggressor. He wasn't sitting up in the grandstands. He was down on the field in the
midst of trying to stamp out the name of Jesus Christ and
trying to literally destroy the church. So, he had the right
passion. He was on fire for what he was
committed to. And then finally, he had the
right morality. It says, "...as to the righteousness
which is in the law." Now, when Paul says that, he means external
rules keeping. He means legalistic righteousness. He means a works righteousness. And he goes, as to the righteousness
which is in the law, Paul says, I was found blameless. Now, he
would say blameless simply because he hadn't murdered anyone. He
hadn't committed physical adultery with anyone. He was outwardly
moral and externally upright. no one could match Paul before
his conversion concerning his efforts to commend himself, to
find acceptance with God. Everyone else was behind Paul,
he had everything going for him, the right beginning, circumcised,
the right nationality, Israel, the right tribe, Benjamin, the
right upbringing, Hebrew, the right standard of Pharisee, the
right passion, zeal, the right morality, blameless. Paul was
religious to his eyeballs. He had external religion, but
he had no internal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. He was like a man in quicksand.
The harder he tried, the deeper he sinks. Religion and morality
never saved anyone. Hell is full of sincere, religious,
good people. The fact is, there's only been
one good person, and that was Christ. Being good is never good
enough because God demands perfection. And there's not a person on planet
earth who has met the standard of perfection. We have all sinned
and fallen short of the glory of God, and so it was with Paul. Paul had everything except the
one thing. He had everything except Jesus
Christ, and so therefore He was perishing and He was lost. That was where He was. Maybe
you can relate to this. Maybe you grew up in church.
Maybe you grew up in a Christian family. Maybe you grew up in
a Christian school. And maybe you had Christian friends.
And maybe you're surrounded by Christian influences. And maybe
you're trying to live by Christian values. But despite all of this,
none of that will save you. There is only one who can save
you, and that is Jesus Christ our Lord. And so, Paul begins
his testimony, and he doesn't glory in it, he puts it out there
to show us that if anyone could put confidence in the flesh,
it would be Paul. If anyone could work their way
to heaven, it would be Paul. Paul had to come to the place
where he realized that the cross is the only way of salvation. It's not a ladder, it's a cross. So this leads us now to verse
7, at conversion. There came that day, that moment,
that time when everything changed with the Apostle Paul. And you
can read about it in Acts chapter 9 as he was on the road to Damascus
with letters in hand to arrest the Christians and to drag them
back to Jerusalem and no doubt oversee them being put to death. when suddenly on this Damascus
road, Jesus Christ appeared to him in the glory of the blazing
of the light of His holiness and knocked him off his high
horse. And in that moment, Paul met
the risen, living Christ. And Paul was born again. Paul
had his heart circumcised and he entered into the kingdom of
heaven. And he talks about it now in theological terms. verses 7 through 9. That's what
makes this testimony more valuable than gold because he frames it
not about Paul, he frames it about Christ. So, in verse 7, butt. Stop right there. Martin Lloyd-Jones
says, praise God for the butts in the Bible. Praise God for
this butt. You need a butt in your life. but God. Verse 7, "'But whatever things
were gained to me.'" Now, what were those things? We just walked
through them. Everything in verses 5 and 6,
those were things that Paul took stock in, that Paul considered
to be of great value by which he would obtain acceptance with
God. He says, "'Whatever things were
gained to me.'" Now, the emphasis is on to me. They were dung to God. They were
only of value to a lost man who would be clinging to them but
has no power in them whatsoever to take away sin or to give the
righteousness of Christ. But whatever things were gained
to me, those things." And when he says, those things, he means
all of those things, from His circumcision all the way down
to being blameless under the law and everything in between,
just the whole mess, all of that external religion, all of that
supposed morality, all of that rules-keeping, all of those self-efforts,
Paul says in verse 7, I have counted as loss. The word loss
here means to suffer loss by violent damage. It's only used
four times in the New Testament, and the first two times it's
used in Acts chapter 27 when Paul was on a shipwreck, and
the ship was wrecked, and the cargo was lost, and everything
went under. And that's the word that's used
twice in this particular passage. And what Paul once put his trust
in became a shipwreck that went down to the bottom of the ocean,
never to be seen again, having no value. But Paul realized that
none of that could buy one ounce of forgiveness out of the vaults
of heaven, that none of that could acquire any righteousness
from the storehouse of heaven above." He says, I've counted
all things as loss for the sake of Christ. To gain Christ, Paul
says, is to gain everything that I need to be able to stand faultless
before God in heaven. Because when you have Christ,
you have everything. You have forgiveness of sin. You have
reconciliation with God. You have the righteousness of
Jesus Christ. You have redemption. You have
everything is in Christ. When Paul met the risen Christ,
everything radically changed. And Paul saw his life, he uses
the terms gain and loss, loss and gain. These are financial
terms. These are accounting terms. And
Paul thought of his life as what we would call a T-square. And
on the left side of a T-square, you put your assets. And on the
right side, you put your liabilities. And so, on the left side is everything
that is capital, everything that has value, and then on the other
side is really everything you owe that has no redeeming value
whatsoever. And Paul says before his conversion,
he could just line up on the left side of this T square under
assets. Circumcised the eighth day. born
of the nation Israel, born of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew
of Hebrews, all the way down to blameless. It was all there
on the asset side. That was what he put stock and
confidence in. And on the liability side was
just Jesus Christ who means nothing to me. I'm a persecutor of Jesus
Christ. He is a total failure and loss. And in that moment, that defining
moment when Paul met the risen Christ, everything became changed. And he removed everything from
this side of the ledger that was an asset, he moved it over
here to the liability side, and he says later in verse 8 and
9, it's all just rubbish. And there's only one journal
entry. just one into the assets side of the account, and it is
Jesus Christ in whom are hidden all of the treasures of righteousness
and redemption and sanctification and wisdom and knowledge and
everything. Is this not true in your life?
Have you come to meet the risen Christ? Do you know Him? And in that moment, when you
come to see Jesus Christ is exactly who He claimed to be, and you
call upon His name for salvation, in that moment, everything that
was once of any value to you, of a spiritual, moral, religious
matter, it was just all transferred from the asset side to the liability
side, and it's just nothing. It is rubbish. And now there
is only one thing in your life that matters? For me to live
is Christ and to die is gain." That is what Paul is saying.
And if you have Christ, you have everything. And if you don't
have Christ, you have nothing. So look at verse 8. More than that. And when Paul
says that, he's really going to repeat everything he just
said. He's like a carpenter driving the nail into the board, yet
deeper and deeper into our understanding. More than that, I count all things
to be lost, and that's that same word, to suffer violent damage
as in a shipwreck where everything is lost. in view of the surpassing value
of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." I have to bring this to your
attention. Surpassing value, do you see
that? It's just one word in the original language. It's a compound
word, and the prefix is huper, which we say hyper. What Paul
is saying that Christ is of a hyper value. He is of an extreme worth. He is of a value that is so far
surpassing of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. That's what conversion is. You
come to know Christ. It's not just that you come to
know a plan, you come to know a person. Now, you need to know
the plan in order to know the person, but you can't stop with
the plan. That's just in the head. You've
got to know Christ in the heart and in the soul. And that's what
Paul is saying here. He doesn't merely know about
Christ, he actually knows Christ. And to emphasize this, notice
he says, Christ Jesus my Lord. He uses all three names, really
one name, two titles. Jesus is His saving name. Christ
is His strong name. Lord is His sovereign name. And
Paul just stacks it up to draw the attention away from himself
to Christ. And not just Christ, but Christ
Jesus. Not just Christ Jesus, but Christ Jesus my Lord. This is what it is to become
a true believer in Jesus Christ. You enter into an experiential,
personal, loving relationship with Christ that is marked by
intimacy in the heart. Jesus said in John 10 verse 14,
"'I know My own, and My own know Me.'" Jesus prayed in John 17
verse 3, this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. This is what it
is to be converted. It is to enter into the personal
knowledge of Christ. that is an experiential knowledge,
not just a cognitive awareness of facts, but to actually know
the person of Christ who becomes more real to you than anyone
else in your life, more real to you than who's sitting on
your left or on your right or who is at home. Notice what he goes on to say
in verse 8, "...for whom I have suffered the loss of all things." Every conversion involves suffering
loss. Suffering loss is one word in
the original language and it just means to be burned up. It's
what's used in 1 Corinthians 3.15, the wood, the hay, and
the stubble is just burned up on the last day in the judgment.
It's just...there's nothing left. It's reduced to ashes. And everything
that Paul was once clinging to and putting his trust in and
his hope in, he suffered the loss of it all. He suffered deep
conviction of sin. He suffered a shattered self-righteousness. Every conversion involves this
suffering. No one giggles into the kingdom
of God. No one skips through the narrow
gate. We all come with a heart wound.
as we have suffered the loss of all things as they are now
discarded from us. Everything I had once lived for
and everything I had once trusted in, now to come to the point
that my life has been, spiritually speaking, a total failure to
this moment. Paul suffered this loss of all
things, and to drive this home, he says, and count them but rubbish. Do you see that at the end of
verse 8? It's the only time in the New Testament this word rubbish
is used, and I'll be very discreet, but the word means manure. It means refuse. It means excrement. It's a very
graphic word, and I'll let the Bible speak for itself. It's referring to that which
is utterly offensive and detestable. It refers to that which now to
you is loathsome and grotesque. It is that to you which now has
the foul odor of that which is repugnant to you. Paul is not glorying in his pre-conversion
days. Paul is...he is so devastated
of suffering this loss, he says it as discreetly as it can be
said, that you cannot gain Christ until you have suffered the loss
of all things. You cannot gain Christ and hold
on to anything else to save you. You cannot gain Christ and cling
to any good work. You cannot gain Christ and cling
to one drop of water baptism. You cannot gain Christ and rely
upon church membership or your own morality or your own religiosity. You cannot play all ends into
the middle to cover your bases. It's Christ and Christ only or
you will not have Christ. And there are some people who
think, well, I have Christ in one hand, but I'll still put
trust in the church or in knowing the pastor or that I've been
baptized or that I'm serving. And there is no conversion at
that point. The only way to come to faith
in Christ is to consider all of this as excrement. Let it
go and to cling only to Christ. who is Savior. That is what Paul
is telling us. Now listen, if salvation was
99.9 percent God working through Christ and only 0.1 percent you
and me, we would all be perishing and we would all be damned forever.
We must let go of even 0.1 percent, 0.001 in order to have Christ. In my
hands, no price I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. Have you
suffered the loss of everything that was once precious and dear
to you in a previous life in order that you might have Christ?
You cannot have Christ until you let it all go and come by
faith and by faith alone to the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice at the end of verse 8,
it says, "...so that I may gain Christ." Just this one possession
of Christ is worth more than all the fortunes of this world.
Just to gain Christ is to gain everything. Christ is the treasure
hidden in the field that a man would sell all of his possessions
to gain this one prize. He says in verse 9, "...and may
be found in Him." Paul understood he had to be found by Christ
before he could be found in Christ. To be found in Him means to be
now in a vital, living union with Christ. Those two little
words, in Him, are found seventy-five times in Paul's thirteen epistles. and it represents this union
and communion with Christ. By being in Christ, listen to
this, all of the assets of Christ are transferred to your account. All of His righteousness is imputed
to you, reckoned to you, credited to you, deposited into your account
the moment you trust Christ. It's the great exchange of the
cross. All of my sin laid upon Christ. His perfect righteousness laid
on me. That's what Paul is saying. in
the middle of verse 9, not having a righteousness of my own derived
from the law. Paul understood what Isaiah said
in Isaiah 64 verse 6, that all of our righteousness is as filthy
garments in His sight. The best about us, the best that
we have to offer God is but filthy garments, odious rags to God. not having a righteousness of
my own derived from the law, but that which comes from God."
The righteousness that we so desperately need in order to
stand faultless before the throne of God is the righteousness that
God Himself must provide. And the righteousness that He
provides is the righteousness that Jesus Christ Himself achieved
and secured through an entire life of obedience to God. Galatians 4 verse 4 says, Jesus
was born under the law. He was born under the law that
He might live under the law. and live in perfect obedience
to the law of God. And the final act of his obedience
to God was to go to the cross and to there give his life a
ransom for many. And the whole way from the beginning
of his life to the end of his life, it was all one life of
obedience to God. We have been disobedient to God
our entire life. But Jesus lived the life that
none of us could ever live. He lived in perfect obedience
to the law of God. And now because of my faith in
Christ, His perfect obedience is reckoned to me as righteousness. That's what Paul is telling us
and is acknowledging. For the first Adam disobeyed
and failed, the second Adam, Jesus Christ, obeyed and triumphed. In Romans 5 verse 19, it says,
for as through the one man's disobedience, referring to Adam,
the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the
one, the many will be made righteous. The one man Christ acting on
behalf of all of His people lived in our place. He died in our
place. All of it together is a comprehensive
righteousness that is credited to us, declared to be ours when
we believe in Jesus Christ. There are three metaphors that
are used in the New Testament for this transaction. One is
a legal courtroom in which we stand before God, condemn sinners,
the books are open, they're the entire record of our life. We
have no basis to find acceptance with God who demands perfection.
Standing next to me is Jesus Christ, the only One who has
ever lived a perfect righteous life and who died in my place. And because of my faith in Christ,
God the Father declares you and me as believers in Christ to
be righteous in the courtroom of heaven, though we have never
lived perfectly righteous one millisecond of our life. The
second metaphor is that of a banking institution, a financial institution. We stand before the Lord Jesus.
We stand before God the Father. We are spiritually bankrupt.
We have no spiritual capital. The wages of our sin is death.
It is compounding interest by the moment. We have no basis
to pay off our debt to God by our breaking His law. Standing
next to us is Jesus Christ who has perfectly obeyed the law
of God. And because of my faith in Christ,
The vast treasures of Christ's forgiveness and righteousness
are now deposited into my account. I didn't work for it. I didn't
earn it. I don't merit it. But it is given to me on the
basis of faith in Christ. And then the third metaphor is
that of a clothing merchant. I stand before God. with all
of the foul rags of my filthy garments, loathsome and repugnant
to God, covering the spiritual leprosy of my own body, standing
next to me is Jesus Christ. And because of my faith in Jesus
Christ, God the Father takes the perfect robes of His righteousness
and clothes me from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet,
such that as God looks at me, He sees only the perfect garments
of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. I still continue to sin,
I still continue to break His law, but God sees me clothed
with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. This is exactly what
happened to Paul on the Damascus Road, but rather than talk about
the road and those who were traveling with him, and the bright light
that appeared, and Damascus and where it was, and all the circumstances
of his conversion, Paul cuts to the chase. Paul goes right
to the truth of the gospel. Let me tell you what happened
in my life that split second that I met Jesus Christ. I gave
it all up. I suffered the loss of all things
and I found Christ. I was found by Christ and I was
found to be in Christ. Has this happened in your life? We all have a BC day. Have you
ever come to faith in Christ? Have you ever put your trust
in Him? Because until you do, you are standing in the filthy
garments of your own self-righteousness, and you are a spiritual leper
in the sight of God, and you are crying out, unclean, unclean,
unclean. There is only one way to be made
pure, and that is to be washed in the blood of the Lamb, and
to be clothed with His perfect righteousness. Well, this leads
finally now to after conversion, verses 10 and 11. And as soon
as Paul was converted, he immediately began to live for Christ. And
he says in verse 10, he had a new purpose, that I may know Him. We might say, now wait a minute,
Paul, you just told us earlier in verse 8 that you've come to
know Christ. And now you're telling us that
the purpose in your life is that you may know Him. How can you
come to know Him if you already know Him? And the answer to that
is in verse 10, he is saying, yes, I came to know Him in verse
8, but I must know more of Christ. I must draw closer to Christ.
I must fellowship with Christ. I must grow in the grace and
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, 2 Peter 3.18. He wants to know
more of Christ. Is that not the new purpose in
your life? Listen to the words of the hymn.
more about Jesus would I know, more of His grace to others show,
more of His saving fullness see, more of His love who died for
me." More, more about Jesus. More, more about Jesus. More of His saving fullness see,
more of His love who died for me. We've only just begun to
know the Lord Jesus Christ, the height, the depth, the breadth,
the length of the infinite eternal Son of God. It will take all
eternity future to begin to even grow closer and closer and we'll
never come to the end of knowing Him fully and completely. So,
Paul is on a new path. He has a new purpose. He also
has a new power. Notice in verse 10, and the power
of His resurrection. That word, and, is very important
because it makes these two inseparably connected. He wants to know Christ
and the power of His resurrection. This power is the very power
of God that raised Jesus from the dead, Paul understands, must
be operative in his Christian life in order to live the Christian
life. Listen, the Christian life's
not hard. It's impossible. You can't do it. I can't do it
in our own strength. It is only by the power of His
resurrection that we can put one foot in front of the other
in the morning as we arise and live for Christ in this fallen
world. We must have the power of the
resurrection. Now, you may say, how could I
have more of this power in my life? Surely, every one of us
here today would say, I want more power. to resist temptation,
more power to obey, more power to serve, more power to deny
the flesh. It's right here in this text.
There is a...Paul is so linear, he's so logical, he's so theological. The way to know the power of
His resurrection is to grow to know Christ more intimately and
more personally. The more you grow to know Christ,
the more the power of His resurrection is released in your life. Grow
to know Christ. He will say later in this book,
I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Everything
that God calls you to do for the rest of your life, He will
give you the power to do it if it's in His will. but you must
know His Son to know this power." And then he goes on to talk about,
in verse 10, a new pain. There's another and, and these
are all coupled together. It's not a multiple choice. And
the fellowship of His suffering. This is talking about persecution
and opposition and rejection from the world. He is talking
about paying the price to be a follower of Christ. He is talking
about suffering for Christ. And he's wanting the Philippians
to know and for you and me to know that it's all a package
deal, that as you grow to know Christ more closely, you will
stand up and make Him known more fully. And as you make Christ
known more fully, there will be a price to pay for your witness
and for your testimony for Christ, and it is sure to come. Second
Timothy 3 verse 12, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus
shall suffer persecution. And so, it's hard to live...oh,
and at the end of...no, at the end of verse 10, being conformed
to His death. What that is saying is, as the
world is rejecting us and opposing
us, we are being conformed to the death of Christ. And it is
the means by which we die to self, and we die to the world's
approval, and we die to the world's applause, and we die to this
evil world system. It's hard to live for this world
when this world is persecuting you. It's hard to be worldly
when the world is persecuting you. And so, there is a sanctifying
effect that comes from this persecution. And he concludes in verse 11,
and we'll wrap this up with a new prospect. He says, in order that
I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. This is glorification. Verse 9 was justification. Verse
10 was sanctification. Verse 11 is glorification. Paul is such a systematic theologian
that even as he gives his testimony, he is walking us through almost
a table of contents of a body of divinity. The resurrection
from the dead refers to the resurrection unto life. John 5, 28, at the
end of the age. And for Paul, this is very real
because he is imprisoned in Rome and he is facing his own death.
He is awaiting his trial before Caesar who has the power of life
and death over him. And so for Paul, this is not
just a philosophical discussion, this is as real to life as it
could possibly be as he's facing his own death. And Paul understands
that at His death He will graduate to glory, to be absent from the
body, to be present with the Lord, for me to live as Christ
and to die as Gain. And my body, Paul says, will
be placed in the grave. My soul and spirit will go immediately
into the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And at the end
of this age, the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with
a shout. the trumpet of God and the voice of the archangel, and
the dead in Christ shall rise first. And we who are alive and
remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and
thus we shall always be with the Lord." Paul understands that
at the time of his death, that his inner person, his soul, and
his spirit will immediately translate to glory, that his body will
be put into the grave. But that will not be the end
of it because Christ wants it all. He wants not only our soul
and our spirit to be immediately with Him, but at the end of the
age, He wants even our body. And there will be a resurrection
and our body will be raised incorruptible. It will be sown in corruption.
It will be raised incorruptible. It will be sown as a perishable
body. It will be raised as an imperishable
body. And it will be in our glorified
body, we will be in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ forever
and ever and ever. So as I bring this to conclusion,
is this your testimony? Is this like your testimony?
Certainly the theology is the same. Can you say, I once was
lost but now am found? Can you say, I once was blind,
but now I see? Do you give your testimony? Do
you use it as a platform to tell others not about yourself, but
about Christ and what He has done for you? Do you put the
gospel into your testimony? And let me ask you this, do you
have a testimony? Have you come to know Christ
as Lord and Savior? If you have never believed upon
Jesus Christ, for whatever reason known only to God, He has brought
you to this house of worship today. And the Bible says, seek
the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near.
This is a divine moment for your life. And if you have never believed
upon Jesus Christ, I call you on behalf of Christ to come to
Him, to believe upon Him, to confess your sin, to throw yourself
upon the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the friend of sinners. He says, "'Him who comes unto
Me, I will in no wise cast out.'" Come to Christ. Believe upon
the Lord Jesus Christ. Put your trust in Christ. No
longer trust yourself. Your life has been a failure.
Why would you trust yourself? It's like trusting the Titanic.
What a fool you are to trust yourself. You're perishing. You're lost without Christ. But
He is the Savior. He is the Savior of those who
will come unto Him. Come to Him by faith. Trust Him
who says, come unto Me, all you who are weary and heavy laden,
and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn
of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. You shall find rest
for your soul. He says, if any man thirsts,
let him come unto Me and drink, and out of his innermost being
shall flow rivers of living water. How could you refuse such an
invitation? How could you refuse such an
offer? You would be giving up dirt for diamonds to give up
your life to receive His righteousness, and it is offered to you this
very moment as a free gift that can only be received with the
empty hand of faith. May you stretch forth that hand
with the faith that He alone can give you to lay hold of Christ. And if you will lay hold of Christ,
He will never let you go. My sheep hear My voice, and I
know them, and they follow Me, and I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
from My hand. For My Father who has given them
to Me is greater than all, Give your life to Christ and
He will keep you and save you and hold you forever. Let us
pray. Father, thank You that as Paul
in that Roman prison would write his own testimony into this epistle,
it is preserved here for us today. see what a true conversion looks
like. Lord, thank You for all of the
doctrinal truth about Christ that is in this testimony. May
this be our testimony. May this be the truth of our
own spiritual life. And Father, for any here today
who do not know Christ, may this be the day of salvation. God,
do what only You can do in every heart here today. In Jesus' name,
amen.