Sermons By Ken Trivette from the Living Word
The Book of Philippians
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO KNOW CHRIST?
Philippians 3:10
1. Eliza Edmunds Hewitt was an invalid for an extended period of her life. Out of this experience she developed an intimate relationship with the Lord. She had a great desire to share her feelings with others and often expressed her feelings in poems. Many of her poems were set to music such as, There Is Sunshine In My Soul Today, Will There Be Any Stars In My Crown, and When We All Get To Heaven. It was based on our text that she gave us the great hymn More About Jesus:
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.
2. The Apostle Paul tells us that the great passion of his life was to know more about Jesus. His prayer was, "That I may know Him." The knowledge of Christ that he sought was more than a theological, intellectual, or theoretical. He sought an experiential knowledge of Christ. He wanted to know him in a very personal way.
3. A mother ran into the bedroom when she heard her son scream and found his two-year-old sister pulling his hair. She gently released the little girls grip and said comfortingly to her son, "There, there; she didn't mean it. She doesn't know that it hurts when she pulls your hair." The mother was barely out of the room when she heard the little girl scream. Rushing back into the room she asked, "What happened?" Her son said, "She knows now!"
4. All believers have met Christ but not all believers know Christ. All believers know about Christ but yet may not know him in an close, intimate, and personal way. It was this experiential knowledge that Paul sought. But what does it mean to know Christ in such a way? As we look at our text we find what will be experience when we know Christ in an intimate way. What does it mean to know Christ:
1. IT IS TO EXPERIENCE A LIFE OF SUFFICIENCY!
1. Paul says that to know Christ is to also know, "the power of His resurrection." When a person knows Christ in a very personal way, His resurrection becomes very meaningful. It becomes more than a fact. It becomes a force in the believers life. When a believer knows Christ in a very personal way they also experience the power of His resurrection in their life.
2. A teacher gave her class the assignment of writing an essay on the world's greatest living man. Some wrote about the president. Others wrote about members of Congress. While others wrote about people in the entertainment or sports business. There was one little boy that wrote about Jesus Christ. When the teacher received the paper she said, "Son, this is a nice paper, but you misunderstood the assignment. You were to write on the world's greatest living man." The little boy answered, "But teacher, He is alive!"
3. Praise God Jesus is alive! His resurrection is a glorious truth we celebrate weekly. When we meet on Sunday, the first day of the week, we are declaring that Jesus is alive! However, the problem is Monday through Saturday. We assemble on Sunday because He is alive, but on Monday we act as if He were dead. His resurrection is a fact we proclaim but not always a factor that we practice. Think with me:
A. THE HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF HIS RESURRECTION POWER.
1. Paul spoke of the "power of His resurrection." If you had visited the garden tomb on the morning of the third day you would have found four power outside of the tomb. There was a religious power. There were the Pharisees and Sadducees that exerted all their influence to see that the body of Jesus was kept in the tomb.
2. There was also a civil power. There was the seal placed on the tomb by the governmental leaders prohibiting and preventing anyone from taking the body of the Lord Jesus. Behind that seal was the power of the Roman government. There was also a military power. Soldiers were placed there as guards to make sure that nothing or no one disturbed the tomb.
3. Of course, there was a Satanic power. You can be sure that demons danced in the garden with glee. Jesus was dead and in combined force they were going to do all in their power to see that he stayed that way.
4. There were the allied powers outside the tomb but there was the Almighty power in the tomb. All the powers on the outside could not contain, control, and confine the Power on the inside. When the first rays of sunlight broke through the eastern sky:
Up from the grave He arose
With a mighty triumph ore His foes
5. The story is told of a poor London boy gazing into a store window in which was displayed a large picture of Jesus hanging on the cross. His small eyes were riveted on the scene. A gentleman passing by was attracted by the intense interest the boy was showing in the picture. He walked over to the little boy and asked, "Who's that and what is being done to that man hanging there?" The little boy said, "Don't you know, sir, that's Jesus. Bad men took him and hanged Him there to die." "Terrible, terrible," said the man as he patted the boy on the head and walked on down the street. He had not gone very far when he heard someone running behind him. Turning he saw that it was the little boy he had just left. The boy ran up to him and excitedly said, "I forgot to tell you, sir, they put Him in a grave, but He got up again!"
6. Praise God the religious, civil, military, and satanic powers could not keep Him in the grave. He rose again from the dead.
B. The Personal Appropriation Of His Resurrection Power.
1. Paul knew the power of the resurrection as a fact, but in knowing Christ in a personal way, he found it to be a factor in his life. It was more than a doctrinal and historical fact. It became a personal factor in his life. Paul was saying that knowing Christ in a personal and intimate way would allow a believer to experience the power of the resurrection in their life.
2. Paul said in Ephesians 1:19-20, "And what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, Which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places." Paul tells us that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power that can be experienced in the life of the believer.
3. Do you realize that the same power that enabled Jesus to overcome death is the same power that enables us to overcome in life. The same power of a victorious Saviour is the same power available to be a victorious saint.
4. I read about a Frenchman who became an Englishman because he admired the British way of life. He decided to become an English citizen. Someone asked him what a difference it made. He said, "Well, among other things, I find that now, instead of losing the Battle of Waterloo, I've won it."
5. The power of the resurrection makes us winners! We do not have to live enslaved to a life of sin, lust, failure, and defeat. Just as Jesus was a conqueror over death, hell, and the grave; by His resurrection power we can be conquerors over the world, the flesh, and the devil. We can know the sufficiency of His resurrection power.
1. To Know Christ Is To Experience A Life Of Sufficiency!
2. IT IS TO EXPERIENCE A LIFE OF SUFFERING!
1. Paul said that to know Christ also involved "the fellowship of His sufferings." The life of the Lord Jesus was one of suffering from the cradle to the cross. His life was marked by suffering. The longer He lived and the further He went, greater was His suffering. The word "fellowship" speaks of "a joint participation." Paul was saying that to be close to Christ was to become a joint-participant in His sufferings.
2. Paul personally knew what it was to suffering. He alluded to his sufferings in Colossians 1:24: "Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body's sake, which is the Church." Paul found that to know Christ was also to experience what He knew and that was suffering.
3. When we think of knowing Christ the thought of suffering may not be the most appealing thing. None of us want to suffer, yet it is a part of knowing Christ. Let me explain.
A. Suffering May Come In The Form Of Persecution.
1. Paul stated in 2 Timothy 3:12, "Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." If you recall, earlier Paul had said, "For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake" (Phil. 1:29).
2. The history of the Church is one of persecution. Many suffered persecution and some even paid the ultimate price, to serve the Lord. Probably no book has had greater influence on the Church of Jesus Christ, apart from the Bible, than Pilgrim's Progress. It was written by John Bunyan while a prisoner in the Bedford Jail. He had been arrested for the crime of preaching the gospel without a license. He was preaching to a large crowd in a wooded area when officers broke up the meeting and placed him in jail. He would spend the next 13 years in jail. When his trial came up, he was given a sentence of three months. After that time, if he promised that he would never preached again, they would release him. But, if he would not make that promise, he would be hanged. He replied, "If I were out of prison today, I would preach again tomorrow, so help me God." Bunyan knew something about persecution.
3. As American's in this present age, Christians do not live under the fear of being jailed for their faith, yet around this world, there are those who are paying a high price to know Christ. To know Christ means to suffer and suffering may come in the form of persecution.
B. Suffering Will Come In The Form Of Preparation.
1. I can't say that a Christian will suffer persecution, but I can say with full assurance that every Christian will suffer in the form of preparation. What am I saying? Listen to 1 Peter 5:10: "But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you."
2. When I speak of suffering in the form of preparation, I am speaking of the trials that every believer will go through that has the divine purpose of preparing us and molding us into the person God can bless and use. If we are to know Christ in an intimate way, trials will come.
3. I read about a boy with a badly deformed foot. When he was 8, he was operated on twice to try and straighten the foot, but to no avail. The doctor said his foot would never be straight. The family searched for another doctor and finally found one that believed he could correct the foot. He performed surgery on the little boy and after surgery put the boy's foot into a strange looking box. The box had adjustable screws that pressed against the foot. For months the boy's foot was kept in the box and the screws were adjusted each day. The pain and suffering were almost unbearable for the little boy and he begged his dad to take off the box. The father, mingling his tears with his son's, would just tighten the screws tighter while the child screamed in pain. Finally the day came when the box was removed. The boy stood up for the first time in his life and he stood with a straight foot.
4. The believer that knows Christ and experiences the life of Christ is one which the screws will be tightened. Yet the purpose of those painful experiences is that we might walk straight and be all that God intends our life to be. It is for this reason James said, "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations" (James 1:2). No one wants to suffer, but the result causes us to rejoice. The darkest clouds bring the heaviest showers of blessings. To know Christ is to be a joint-participant in suffering.
1. To Know Christ Is To Experience A Life
Of Sufficiency!
2. To Know Christ Is To Experience A Life Of Suffering!
3. IT IS TO EXPERIENCE A LIFE OF SELFLESSNESS!
1. The third thing Paul tells us about knowing Christ in an intimate way involves, "being made conformable unto His death." Paul was telling us that the more we know Christ, the more we will be like Him. An intimate knowledge of Christ produces a likeness in our life.
A. There Is A Likeness That Is Gained.
1. The word "conformable" means to "bring to the same form with some other person." Paul was saying that if we know Christ we will be like Him. He had this same thought in mind in 2 Corinthians 3:18: "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
2. One of the objectives of God's continuing work in the believer's life is to make us like Jesus. Our lives are to be conformed to His image. Our life is to be a reflection of the life He lived on earth.
3. We read in 1 Peter 1:21, "For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow in His footsteps." The word "example" describes the method by which children were taught to read and write. The teacher would make an impression of letters and words on paper and the student would trace over them. Peter was saying that as believers, we are to follow every line and curve of His life. He is our model and example. We are to be like Him.
B. There Is A Life That Is Given.
1. Notice carefully, Paul stated that the death of the Lord Jesus was the specific thing in which we are to be conformed. Paul was not saying that we should go to Jerusalem and be crucified. He was not saying that we should die on a cross. The death that he was referring to was a death that exemplified total selflessness. There was to be a death to self.
2. In case, it is not a death for sin, but a death to self. Just as Jesus became obedient unto death, we are to die to self. A death to self means that we die to what we want and to our wills. It is not longer I but Christ. It is dying to any plans we may have and being obedient to whatever the Father has planned for our life.
3. Paul's personal testimony was: "I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily" (1 Cor. 15:31). He also testified in Galatians 2:20, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."
4. Andrew Murray said, "It is easy for man's wisdom to win men to a cross that leaves them uncrucified." There was a cross in our Lord's life, and if we are to know Christ in an intimate way, there will be a cross in ours.
5. George Mueller was once asked the secret of his life. He replied, "There was a day when I died. Died to George Mueller, his opinions, preferences, tastes, and will; died to the world, its approval or censure; died to the approval or blame even of my brethren or friends; and since then I have studied only to show myself approved unto God."
6. If we are to know Christ, there must be an enthronement of the Saviour and a dethronement of self. It is to be made conformable unto His death.
7. What does it mean to know Christ? It means that by His resurrection power we live a life of sufficiency. It means that by the fellowship of His sufferings we live a life of suffering. It means being made conformable unto His death and living a life of selflessness.
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