To Know, Attain, Take Hold Of
St. Peter Lutheran Church, Doss, TX
Philippians 3:8-14 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ–the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
This text could be shown as hands reaching for the sky. Take one of your hands and reach straight up as if grasping for something just beyond¼ except according to Paul, it is not just beyond but is in your grasp as a believer and friend of Jesus Christ.
Let’s examine this text in some detail and see what the Holy Spirit might teach us through it. Verse 8 says, “What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ. All else is loss as on Matthew 16.26 What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? Then from Luke 14.26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters‑‑yes, even his own life‑‑he cannot be my disciple. And 14.33 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple. This song from Promise keepers focuses in on this verse.
1) All I once held dear built my life upon All this world reveres, and wars to own All I once thought gain I have counted loss Spent and worthless now, compared to this.
(Chorus:) Knowing you, Jesus knowing you There is no greater thing. You’re my all you’re the best; You’re my joy, my righteousness and I love you, Lord
2) Now my heart’s desire is to know you more, to be found in you, and known as yours, to possess by faith what I could not earn- all surpassing gift of righteousness.
3) Oh, to know the power of your risen life and to know you in your suffering, to become like you in your death my Lord so with You to live and never die. (Chorus)
A good picture of this is Jesus’ parable about the pearl of great price and field of great treasure from Matthew 13(44-46) The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.
Layman’s Bible Commentary defines “knowing Jesus” in this way: To “gain Christ.”(V.9) first means being “found” in Christ-being united to him by the closest of bonds. Paul further explains: “Not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.”
Here is the doctrine of justification by faith. It is the heart’s desire of every person to “get right” with God. But how? There is a choice of ways: law-righteousness or faith-righteousness. As a practicing Pharisee, Paul tried the first of these, believing that by doing the works prescribed by the Law of Moses he could put himself right with God and find peace. But Paul found by bitter experience that this way does not work. It leads only to failure and despair. Then he met Christ-and found the true answer. To get right with God you must give up all hope of earning your salvation by laying up a credit balance of good deeds in the ledgers of heaven. Instead, you must confess yourself a sinner and cast yourself on God’s mercy offered to you in Christ, Who by God’s appointing has died to save you from your sins. When you do this, God accepts you for Christ’s sake, forgives you, sets you among his people, and offers you salvation.
We will come back to this while noting Paul saying to the Colossians (2:2), “My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ…” and Peter in his letter (2,3:18), “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen” and John in his letter, (I,5:20), “We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true‑‑even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.”
The world of unbelievers is blinded as Paul says to the church at Corinth (II,4:4), “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” The Holy Spirit’s task is to challenge us as Jesus defines the Spirit’s role in John’s Gospel (16:8-11) When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: In regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; In regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; And in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.”
Secondly, Paul speaks about attaining Christ, His righteousness and the resurrection. Paul seeks Christ who is the source of his righteousness. When we look at the scriptures, such as Psalms (14.3 and 130.3), Ecclesiastes (7:20), Isaiah (64:6) and the New Testament as well in 1 John (1:8-9), we see ourselves in need of goodness. For we are not the source of goodness. Humanism has to have a goodness in mankind for without it, they have nothing. Our righteousness as Christians is not our own doing, says Paul. Barclay’s commentary says it this way: “¼Let us try to see what Paul thinks about when he speaks about righteousness. The great basic problem of life is to find fellowship with God, to be in a right relationship with God, not to disregard God nor to forget Him, not to fear God nor to seek to escape Him, but to be at peace and in friendship and in real fellowship with God. The way to that fellowship is through righteousness, through the kind of life and conduct, spirit, heart and attitude which God desires.
Paul says in essence, ” All my life I have been trying to get into a right relationship with God. I tried to find it by strict adherence to the Jewish Law; I tried to find it by keeping every smallest detail of the Law; I tried to please and to satisfy God in that way, and thus to get into the right relationship for which my heart and soul were longing. I found the Law and all its ways worse than useless to achieve that. I found it no better than¼ dung ¼ So I gave up trying to build up a goodness of my own; I gave up trying to achieve this relationship; and I came to God in humble faith, as Jesus told me to do, and I found that fellowship I had sought so long and had never found.” Layman’s commentary goes on to say, “¼true righteousness comes “from God” and “depends on faith,” that is, on man’s unreserved response to God’s gracious dealing with him in Christ.” It is Christ’s righteousness because of John 3:16, and Isaiah 53.6.
Paul also speaks in v.11 about attaining the resurrection. 11 And so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Here he is speaking of the resurrection of the just, not the general resurrection to final judgment. Mathew 19:27-29 says: 27 Then Peter said to him, “We’ve given up everything to follow you. What will we get?” 28 Jesus replied, “I assure you that when the world is made new[a] and the Son of Man sits upon his glorious throne, you who have been my followers will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or property, for my sake, will receive a hundred times as much in return and will inherit eternal life. John 5(24-25) goes on to say “I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life. 25 “And I assure you that the time is coming, indeed it’s here now, when the dead will hear my voice—the voice of the Son of God. And those who listen will live. But this righteousness is ours by faith as Romans 3:22 says, “We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. 2 Cor.5(17) adds, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” and finally, Paul says to the Romans (6:4-11) 4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. 5 Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. 6 We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. 7 For when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin. 8 And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. 9 We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. 10 When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. 11 So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.
The final section of our lesson is to take hold of eternal life through knowing Jesus, pressing on toward Him, and simply taking hold of Jesus himself. First, take hold of eternal life through knowing Jesus and the power of his resurrection. Barclay in his commentary says: It is not simply intellectual knowledge; it is not the knowledge of certain facts or theories or even principles. It is the personal experience of another person. This verb indicates the closest and the most intimate and the most personal knowledge of another person. So, then, it is not Paul’s aim to know about Christ; it is Paul’s aim personally to know Christ.
It also means to know the Power of His Resurrection. For Paul, the Resurrection was not a past event in history, however amazing. It was not simply something which happened to Jesus, however important it was for Him. It was a living dynamic power which operated on the life of the individual Christian. We cannot know everything that Paul meant by this phrase; but the Resurrection of Christ is the great dynamic in at least three different directions.
It is the guarantee of the importance of this life and of this body in which we live, the guarantee of the importance of the human body and the guarantee of immortality. (Romans 8: II; I Corinthians 15: I4 ff). Because He lives, we shall live also. His conquest is our conquest, and His victory is our victory. It is the guarantee that in life and in death and beyond death, the presence of the Risen Lord is always with us. Nothing in life or in death can separate us from Him.
But there is another side to “knowing Christ.” It means also sharing his sufferings. Paul is not thinking of martyrdom, but of a man’s dying with Christ to his old sin-filled life (Rom. 6:4-8). Before you can “rise with Christ” into newness of life ( Col. 3:1), you must undergo an experience a dying to sin. This is what Paul means in verse 10 by “becoming like him in his death.”
The Psalms speak of this desire to know God. Take Psalm 42(1), “As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God.”
We also know Jesus in the fellowship of suffering. Whenever a Christian suffers, whenever he has to bear a cross, he is sharing in the suffering of Christ, and helping to carry the Cross of Christ. To suffer for the faith is not a penalty, it is a privilege, for thereby we share the very work and task of Christ.
The next section is to take hold of Christ and eternal life by pressing or straining forward as in the final lap of a race toward the finish line. Barclay says, To that end Paul says two things. He is forgetting the things which are behind. That is to say, he will never glory in any of his achievements; he will never use any task that he has achieved or any deed that he has done as an excuse for relaxation in the future. In effect Paul is saying that the Christian must forget all that he has done and remember only that which he has still to do. In the Christian life there is no room for a person or a Church which desires to rest upon its laurels. Then he says that he is reaching out for the things which are in front¼.” Paul wrote the Corinthians (II,4:18) 18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
Verses 13 and 14 of our text say: 13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Paul says forgetting what’s behind. But we are not the only ones straining forward. Jesus strains toward us to take our hand.
Paul told the Galatians (2:20), My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So, I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. To the Colossians, he wrote, “Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand.”
What would Paul say to us today? It would be what he told the Hebrews, “Now may the God of peace Who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood 21 equip you with all you need for doing his will. May he produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to him.
