I want to think for a little
while with you, if I may, about what it is to win Christ. What it is to win Christ. The Apostle Paul speaking here
to the Philippians. He said that He would count all
things for loss. Yea, doubtless, verse 8, I count
all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count
them but dung, that I may win Christ. What is it to win Christ? What is it to win the Lord Jesus
Christ? When the Lord brings a man or
a woman to salvation, He is doing something amazing. He is doing
something wonderful. Something that is in its very
nature transforming. radical, far-reaching. It is as though God himself is
at work again in recreating that individual, making them a new
creation. We are transformed because God
works in us. We are his workmanship. We are his handiwork. and He
is pleased to make us something new, something different. That's
the meaning of convert, there is a change takes place. In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, we
read in verse 17, Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a
new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. And it's this newness that Paul
has in his mind here. Here is a conversion. Here is
a change that has occurred in his understanding and in his
knowledge. He writes to the Romans, be not
conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing
of your mind that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable
and perfect will of God. There is a transformation when
God converts, when God changes a man or a woman, there is a
transformation occurs in their life. And that change is a new
life. It's a new life in Christ and
it's a new life that brings new values. It brings new desires. It brings a new relationship. We have a different perspective
on our life. We are buried with Him in baptism. into His death. And as Christ
was raised from the dead, so we are raised with Him. And we
walk in that newness of life. He transforms us by giving us
a new life. And we walk in that newness of
life. There is a practical application. There is an alteration takes
place. Our walk, our conversation, our
desires, our perceptions are different. We are a new creation
and out of that newness flows a different view of the world. In, again, Corinthians the second,
the Apostle writes, understanding, in our perception,
in our awareness, we have an alteration that takes place that
begins and develops and is enhanced and grows and it is far-reaching. It's as far-reaching as you want
to think about. We are in the hand of God being
changed day by day. That conversion, that renewal
brings us a new life and then as our spiritual understanding
and awareness grows and deepens, so there is a far-reaching aspect
to this work of conversion. The Apostle said here in the
13th verse, Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended,
but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind
and reaching forth unto those things which are before. I press
toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in
Christ Jesus. For the prize of the high calling
of God in Christ Jesus. We're reaching for it. We see
that Christ has something for us. Something that we could never
have for ourselves. Something that was strange and
alien and unknown to us before. Something which this transformative
work has sparked in our life and we seek to be more and more
like the Lord Jesus Christ. We seek to be more and more conformed
to Him. That is our desire, to reach
for Him. Not that we've already apprehended.
These things are past. It's all behind us and we're
stretching, we're reaching forward and the Lord takes us and he
leads us and he develops us and he grows us and he nurtures us
and he brings us to a fruitfulness and he brings us to that place
that he would have us be. Our Christian life is not simply
a day's event. It is a life long experience. It is not a fad. It is not a
fashion. It is something which comes and
takes hold of us, takes grip of us and it stays with us for
the whole of our life. Fashions come and go. and in
a church or in an individual there'll be a new fashion, there'll
be a novelty which will come in and take people's interest
and their imagination and they will be enthusiastic about it
and then... A week, a month, a year later
it'll be something else, but not with the Lord's people. We
have been translated, we have been transformed, we have been
changed and we desire to be like Him. Indeed this is what our
conversion is. It is something that is transformative,
something that is changing, and something that is continually
reaching out for that which God has for His people. Presence of God in the life of
an individual cannot leave that individual unchanged. Cannot
leave that person unaltered. It must have an effect. It must
have a resulting change in the life of the person. And the Scriptures
would teach us that. The Scripture uses language which
is very emphatic with respect to this change. It talks about
moving from darkness into light. It talks about moving from death
to life, from the bondage of corruption into the glorious
liberty of the children of God. This is the change, this is the
transformation that occurs as the Lord is pleased to come into
an individual's life. What does it entail for us then?
Well, by nature we are all in darkness. That is our condition
as sinners before God. We are in death and we are in
corruption. That is the way we are born.
That is what we are in our nature. And there is a helplessness,
an inability which attaches to that. It is as though we are
alive in our flesh, but we are dead in our souls. It is as though
we are incapable of moving out of this bondage that we are in
and coming into the light of life. No man can, by their wisdom,
by their works, or by their will, change themselves in their nature. It's an impossibility. But when
God brings that converting work, when He transforms, when He recreates,
when He brings that alteration into the life of an individual,
then we see that great transformation taking place. We talk about sovereign
grace. That's not a word or a phrase
that you'll read in your Bible. Grace is what is talked about
in Scripture. And if it were that there were
not so much confusion about grace, and so many false teachings about
grace, then we would simply use the word grace to describe what
God does for the individual. But we have so many false teachers
today who tell us that we must combine with God's grace and
our efforts, our labours, our works in order to produce a synergy. In order to bring out of our
nature and God's goodness that which is well pleasing to Him.
But that's not the way scripture teaches it at all. When it speaks
about grace, it is speaking about God's work alone. It is speaking
about this transformation taking place, not because of our wisdom,
our works or our will, but because of His goodness, His desire to
bless His people. And it is Sovereign grace. A grace which works by God alone
in the life of an individual. It is His gift. It is His gift
of salvation and it is given discriminately at His will. He is pleased to give the gift
of salvation. He is pleased to transformatively
work upon the soul of individuals according to His own will. and purpose. Paul says in Ephesians
chapter 2 verse 8, by grace are ye saved through faith, that
not of yourself, it is the gift of God. People read these verses
and yet they are blinded to what the scriptures actually say. nor of yourself, by grace are
ye saved. It is the gift of God. Ephesians
2, 5. When we were dead in sins, he
hath quickened us together with Christ. Trouble is, that doesn't stop
men from trying to work this synergy. They are trying. Their efforts are perceived to
be useful in this process and they are taught. They are taught
for purposes of control. They are taught from pulpits
by ministers who take these words, who take this book, who take
the doctrines of God, who take the Christian faith and they
pervert it and they They change it and they present it in a way
which will do them the most good. Them the most good. Not the hearer
the most good. Them the most good. Will do their
church the most good. And they are looking for effort.
They are looking for activity. They are looking for engagement.
They are looking for contribution. They are looking for resources.
They are looking for power over the individual. And they get
that power by setting themselves up as the judge and the arbiter
of the conduct of men and women. And they take away from God the
right to choose a people for Himself and to bring that people
to salvation. And they say that it's man's
choice. And they say that man can work
together with God in order to be well-pleasing to himself. It's not a new activity. In the Garden of Eden, Adam sewed
together fig leaves to hide his nakedness. And that same activity
of trying to do something, be it ever so simple, be it ever
so basic, trying to do something that will make our presence in
God's presence more acceptable is what men and women have been
following in religion ever since, the fig leaf of self-righteousness. We see that Paul took occasion
in this third chapter, excuse me a moment, Paul took occasion
in this third chapter to speak of the way in which he had followed
this same course. He had been a Hebrew of the Hebrews. He had been a Pharisee of the
Pharisees. He was of Israel. He was of the
tribe of Benjamin. He had a fantastic pedigree. Whatever. We talk about, as far
as works is concerned, whatever is told to us is going to make
us acceptable, make us righteous before God. Paul had it honed
down to perfection. He says, That which God had given,
the law of the Old Testament. We're not talking about some
neo-Nomianism here. We're not talking about some
new law, some diluted law, some law which is taken and said to
be the standard of life that God now requires. We're talking
about the Ten Commandments. We're talking about the Law of
Moses. We're talking about the highest order of revelation that
God had made with respect to the way of life that He looked
for in the lives of His chosen people. And Paul said, you know
what? I was there. I had attained to that. I had that righteousness which
is of the Law. It was there. Concerning zeal,
I persecuted the Church. Touching the righteousness which
is in the Law, blameless. He couldn't be faulted. Even
if his peers, even if his superiors had taken his life and examined
it against the law as they understood it, he would have come out with
flying colours. He was there. So we can't speak
to anyone about law and come short of the standard that Paul
had. Then he says in verse 7, But
what things were gained to me, those I counted loss for Christ. He had a confidence in the flesh. He had an awareness that there
was in his heritage, in his upbringing, a way in which he could present
himself in his own mind before God. But he knew that when he
looked at the Lord Jesus Christ, when he saw the One who was truly
perfect, when he saw what Jesus Christ had done, he understood
that these things, this righteousness which he had worked up, it was
not worth a thing. It was completely useless to
him. And we're not making comparisons
here between denominations or between religions. It doesn't
matter whether you're born in one country and follow one religion
or brought up in one church and follow that pattern of worship.
We're not talking about the way in which men say that this is
a good life, this is an acceptable life. go to funerals and we hear
these eulogies presented by ministers of religion from whatever denomination
about those who have passed on into eternity and there is almost
universally the will to believe that those who have died were
good people. And the ministers seem to search
through the life to find things that are commendable and things
that can be stated with regard to this individual to give those
who are left some hope that whatever might be in the future there
will be an acceptance with God. The Apostle Paul says, I had
all that. I had everything. What we are
talking about is a difference between that which is physical
and carnal and that which is spiritual. That which is natural
and that which is supernatural. That which is of self-righteousness. and that which is of the righteousness
of God. And we can have as much as we
like of that carnal, that natural, that self-righteousness. We can
be as good as it gets as far as our peers are concerned, as
far as our churches are concerned, as far as we stand in our own
estimation. And it isn't worth a pile of
dung. He's fairly graphic, right? This is something that you would
clean your shoes if you stood on it. And he says, that's all
it was worth. It was completely useless. It
was stuff that was just dung. It was just excrement. Here is nothing of value at all
in everything that I had strived for, everything that I had learned,
everything that I had labored for. It was worthless. Paul was
a man, or Saul in his time, was a man who religiously speaking
had everything right. What things were gained to me,
he said, those I counted loss for Christ. All of his racial
purity, all of his national heritage, all of his respected good works. It was just a big pile of cow
muck. That's all it was. There was
nothing in it that was enduring, nothing in it that was satisfying
and pleasing to God. Everything had to be given up
as waste and worthless for three things. And these are the three
things that Paul goes on to speak about. Firstly, the knowledge
of Christ. Secondly, winning Christ. And thirdly, being found in Him. Those were the three things that
He got. when he realised that all of
this self-righteousness was of no value whatsoever. So what
I'm going to do as we are enabled is just take each of these three
points very briefly and just sketch out what the apostle is
telling us here about what he gained when he gave up this self-righteousness. The knowledge of Christ the winning
of Christ and being found in Him. Firstly then, the knowledge
of Christ. Many claim to know the Lord Jesus
Christ. Many tell us that they have an
interest in the Lord Jesus Christ. But there is a difference between
claiming to know Christ and experiencing a knowledge of Christ. And you
can tell me whatever you want. you can tell me whatever you
like. You can tell yourself whatever
you like with respect to knowing Christ. But you cannot kid God. There is a day of reckoning coming. There is a time when we will
either be in that darkness, in that death, and in that bondage
of self-righteousness, works righteousness, or we will be
in the light and the life and the liberty of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And you need to know the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the mark. That's the criteria
that needs to be looked at. John 17 verse 3 says, And this
is life eternal, that ye, they might know Thee, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. The knowledge of Christ
is eternal life. What is that knowledge of Christ?
Well, the Apostle Paul is very helpful. It's always great when
they give us the answer to the questions that we ask. In verse 10, he tells us, that
I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, the fellowship
of His sufferings, and being made conformable unto His death. that I may know him. The knowledge
of Christ by faith. He knew Christ for himself. It wasn't second hand. He knew
Christ as a personal relationship. He had an interest in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he knew Christ in the matter
of his personal salvation. He knew the power of the resurrection. When the Lord Jesus Christ died,
He died for the sins of His people. The sins of His people were laid
upon Him. He carried the sins of His people
in His own body on the tree. And He died for those sins. This is the One who was life. This is the One who spoke to
the woman at the well of the life which He could give that
would spring up within her and would never cease. He was the
life, the way, the truth and the life and yet he died. but
that death was a representative death. That death, though it
was actual, though it was physical, had a significance and a meaning
because he was in the sight of God, carrying the sins of his
people and carrying them away. He was dying for them as their
substitute and as their representative. And he was raised again for their
peace. He was raised again for their
justification to show that that work of taking away, carrying
away their sins had been accepted by God and they who were in Him,
they who would be given a knowledge of Him, they who would have that
power of His resurrection would be be seen by God to be a changed
people, because their sins had been paid for, their iniquities
had been dealt with, their transgression had been removed, as the Lord
Jesus Christ bore it away in His own body. He was raised for
their justification. In Romans 4 verse 25 we read,
who was delivered for our offences and was raised again for our
justification. This is the divine manifestation
of life-giving power. Here we see the saints' resurrection
hope. This is what thrilled and inspired
the apostles after the death of the Saviour. They were devastated. They huddled together in a little
room, they locked the doors, they were fearful for their lives,
their world had crashed about them. The Lord had explained
to them for three years what was going to happen and what
would be the result of his death and yet they were unable to see
it. But then a change took place
and that change resulted from the open tomb. That change resulted
from the empty grave clothes. That change, that transformation,
that alteration in their thinking was seen in the fact that Jesus
Christ was risen from the dead and that life-giving hope invigorated
them and sent them into the world with a message of salvation for
sinners. The fellowship of His suffering.
He knew the power of the resurrection and He knew something of the
fellowship of the sufferings of Christ. That work which the
Lord Jesus Christ had accomplished on the cross, His own sufferings,
brought a reconciliation between God and man, brought a reconciliation
between the Divine Judge and the sinner. There was peace forged
by the death of Jesus Christ. There was unity brought about
where there had been separation. There was a fellowship that was
found between God and man because of the mediator's work in the
covenant of grace. Peace with God, pardon for sins,
cleansing by the blood of Jesus Christ, nearness to God in his
personal walk and in the way that he lived. This is what it
was to have the fellowship of his sufferings, for it was the
sufferings of Christ that secured this union and fellowship for
him. And he says, conformity to his
death. What is it to know the Lord Jesus
Christ? It is to know the power of his
resurrection. What is it to know the Lord Jesus
Christ? It is to be in a fellowship with God through the sufferings
of the Saviour. What is it to know the Lord Jesus
Christ? It is to be in conformity to
His death. Now we can think about that in
the spiritual sense of what it is to die daily as a believer
in this life. To die daily unto sin, to be
recognizing that sin has no longer any hold on us. Satan has no
longer any dominion of us. That's not to say we're perfect
in our work. In fact, the reality is that
a believer who has been born again from above has a greater
knowledge of and awareness of his personal unworthiness than
anyone ever does prior to conversion. Their eyes are blinded, they
are dead to the realities of their sin and their domination.
They think they have liberty but they are bound in darkness.
But those who are Christ's own, who have that life given to them,
they know that they are unworthy of His presence because of their
willfulness, because of their works, because of their thoughts,
because of their words, because of the things that they look
at, because of the things that speak to their heart and the
desires after temptation that is all around about us. We know
that we are not conformed to Christ, but we also know that
this is the great work of God in our lives. That He has predestinated
us to conformity with His Son. He is making us to be like Him. We are brought into a newness
of life. We are conformed to His death. In that spiritual sense, we die
daily to sin. Physically, we have to endure
the trials of this world. As that blood-bought people,
as that justified people, as that reconciled people, as that
people who have been born again, we have to deal with the realities
of this life. We have to live in this world.
We have to face the trials and the temptations of every day. And we have to bear that hardship. And we have to be ready to suffer
when called to it. And we have to go through the
experiences of this life. We spent a little while in Isabel's
presence yesterday and we saw the hurt in the faces of her
friends and her family and we saw the trials that she's enduring
also at this time. And we pray that the Lord will
be pleased to bless her as she goes through this trying experience. But it's the reality of our life.
It's where we all are. It's where you are and where
I am in our experience every day. And this is the conformity
to his death. This is what it is to be in this
life as a believer, as one who is born again and yet one who
is called to follow after Him, to bear our cross and to follow
after Him. And believers constantly have
to deal with these trials. that we have this desire to know
more of the Lord Jesus Christ, that we might know Him and to
know more of Him. That means that we have a willingness
to understand the teaching of the significance of His death.
We want to hear about what Jesus Christ has accomplished for us
in His death. We want to be under that teaching. We want to be informed about
that message and we value it and we love it when we hear it.
And it means that we want to have that fellowship with Him
in His sufferings. and we want to have that conformity
to him in his death and we are aware that these things are the
privileges of sonship as we follow him in this alien world. The Apostle Paul said that he
desired to know the Lord Jesus Christ. 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. The second thing is that he would
win Christ. That he wanted to win the Lord
Jesus Christ. Winning Christ is experiencing
the goodness and the grace of God to us every day. It is the knowledge of these
things. which we see in the work of Jesus
Christ, being personally applied, being brought by the Holy Spirit
into our experience. It is what is happening when
we realise that we don't hold as tightly to the things that
we once valued, that we are holding them more lightly than we once
did for the sake of Christ. That we have a desire after relationships
that will honour the Lord rather than please our flesh. That we
seek to serve Him even when that service is, to our flesh, prickly. and awkward and wearisome and
tiring because we desire for the sake of Christ's witness
to honour Him having been called into that service. Winning Christ
is giving up willingly those things which we once eagerly
sought after. It is possessing Christ and all
the blessings that come from Him, all the sufficiency in this
life. It is being able to say, you
know what? That thing that I've worked for all these years, if
the Lord wants to take it away, let Him. It is being able to
say that those things which we once held dear, those things
we are willing to forgo for the sake of Christ. That is winning
Him. It is selling all for the peril of great price. It is knowing that for me to
live is Christ and to die is gain. The Apostle writes to the
Romans in chapter 8, we use the verse very often when we're speaking
about the hardships that come upon our lives and we say that
all things work together for good to those who love the Lord,
to those who are called according to His purpose, all things work
together for good. And we take comfort in that,
don't we? You know what the Apostle Paul says about that at the beginning
of Philippians, it's lovely. He says, it's chapter 1 verse
21, he says, for me to live is Christ. But to die is gain. And then in verse 23 he says,
I'm in a strait betwixt two. I've got a dilemma. I want to
be with the Lord. I don't want to be here. I want
to be with the Lord. But having a desire to depart
and to be with Christ, which is far better, nevertheless,
to abide in the flesh is more needful to you. And what was
Paul saying here? He was saying, I know what I
want. I want to know Christ in that intimacy that I am actually
in his presence. But you know what? I'm still
here. So that must mean that it's better
for the church that I'm still here. It's better for my fellowship
with other believers that I'm still here. Why? Because all
things work together for good to those who love the Lord. For
the church was better for having Paul with them than it was that
his desire to be with the Lord should be fulfilled. And there's
a thing that we ought to think about. The very fact that you're
still here is because the church is enhanced by your presence. The church is blessed and a better
place for your presence because the greater good is being accomplished
by your presence here than it would be if you had been translated
into the presence of God. And I know that because had you
been translated, then that's what would have been the greater
good. But since that hasn't happened, Paul says, I know what I want
nevertheless. For the sake of the church, I
am still here. The third point, and with this
we're drawing it to an end, to be found in him, to have a knowledge
of him. to win Him and to be found in
Him. That's the culmination, if you
like, the peak of our salvation. That's what it is to be saved,
is to be found in the Lord Jesus Christ. Truly and really to be
in Him. And we can think about that union
that we have with Him in many different ways. I'm not going
to go into too much. Maybe there's another sermon
in that sometime. But to be in Him is to be in
Him from eternity. It is to be in Him in the covenant
of God's purposes. It is to be in Him in that great
transaction that took place where the Lord Jesus Christ said, as
it were, here am I, send me. That the Word stood in the presence
of God in the holy courts of heaven and said, I will go. and I will represent that people
of your love and your grace and your mercy. That people whom
thou hast chosen, that people whom thou hast elected, where
is their Redeemer to be found? Where is their Saviour to be
had? I will go. And the Lord Jesus
Christ stepped up and He took the place there in the eternal
covenant of God's people and they were eternally in Him. That's what we mean when we talk
about our justification from eternity. People laugh at us
when we say that. The theologians would mock us
when we say that we have a hope, a faith, that our interest in
Christ is from way before we were ever born, way before the
world was ever created and in the eternal counsel of God that
people of His choice had a place and had a standing. That's what
it is to be in Him. and to be in Him is to be in
His death. It is to be united to Him, that
everlasting love that He had for His people, that preservation
and representation that the Lord Jesus Christ undertook for them,
finding its fulfilment in the cross, finding in that substitutionary
atoning work that we were seen by God in Him, that we were crucified
with Him, that we were raised together with Him and that all
of the blessings that come to the Lord Jesus Christ as our
representative and in the mediation of the covenant fall to His people. He the head, we the body and
that great blessing which is His flowing also to His people
to be in Him, called to Him. by quickening grace. In time,
a people translated, brought into an awareness of union with
Him by the work of the Holy Spirit, our eyes opened, our ears unstopped,
our souls and spirits quickened together, and we see that union
that we have together with Him. So Paul says in verse 9, not
having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, not my own
righteousness, but that righteousness which comes from God, that righteousness
which is received and enjoyed by trusting in the sufficiency
of our substitute and that work and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ, that which is Through the faith of Christ. The righteous obedience of the
Lord Jesus Christ is the ground of our justification. The grace
of God is its cause. God's goodness to his people.
We are not saved by our faith. We merely apprehend, we understand
what God has accomplished for us in Christ as he is pleased
to give us eyes to see and ears to hear. We are saved by the
grace of God and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and we
apprehend and understand it by the eyes of faith as the Holy
Spirit opens that to us. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
the source of that faith to us. He who first trusted his father. He who believed that his father
would accept the blood offering that he was making. He that believed
that these people for whom he died would be vindicated and
justified in his father's sight by the sacrifice that he made. He who took our sins into His
own body and made satisfaction for those sins before His Father. Romans 5 verse 19 says, For as
by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, that was Adam
in the fall, so by the obedience of one, or we could say by one
act of obedience, by that sacrifice upon the cross, by that shedding
of perfect sinless blood, shall many be made righteous. Being found in fashion as a man,
he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the
death of the cross, believing as the God-man that this is what
the Father required and satisfying that work that was set to him. The blessings of salvation come
to us through faith apprehending, receiving and embracing all that
Christ has done for us in His life and death. That is the righteousness
which is of God by faith. Friends, that's the righteousness
that we need. Not the righteousness of the
law. Not the righteousness of some new law. Not the righteousness which comes
by a man or some other organization determining how we should live.
But rather the righteousness which comes freely, liberally,
from the Lord Jesus Christ. His righteousness. That righteousness
which the Father approves of. That righteousness which He is
well pleased with. That righteousness which He graciously
bestows and freely imputes without works. That's the righteousness
that we must have to stand in the presence of God. Knowing
Christ is knowing our personal interest in Him and knowing that
righteousness for ourselves. It is knowing that His blood
has been shed for the remission of our sins. It is knowing that
we have won Him as He is pleased to give us every grace and blessing
that we need in this life and walk and pilgrimage. It is to
know that we have, through His intercession, peace with God
as we have been reconciled to Him. It is being found in Him,
justified. It is being found in Him, sanctified,
glorified by all that He has done and accomplished for us. To be found in Him now and to
be found in Him in that day of judgment, when we stand before
the throne of God and He stands for us and He says, this is one
of mine. This is one for whom I have died. This is one for whom my righteousness
takes the place. This is safety. This is security. This is the everlasting preservation
that we have by the grace of God. May the great God be pleased
to open the eyes of His people, that they might know Him, that
they might win Him, and that they might rest complete in Him,
today, tomorrow, and for eternity. Amen.