#152- Joy That Gives Thanks As We Pursue Christ

What if everything you've been chasing—success, recognition, accomplishment—is actually keeping you from the one thing that truly satisfies?

The Apostle Paul had it all: the right heritage, the perfect credentials, blameless religious performance. Yet he counted it all as loss for one reason: knowing Christ Jesus. Not just knowing about Him, but truly knowing Him. Paul discovered that the world's blueprint for success is a counterfeit, while Christ's pattern of humility leading to resurrection is the real path to flourishing.

This week we're exploring Philippians 3:7-11, where Paul shares life's greatest open secret: true fulfillment comes from pursuing Jesus above everything else. He regarded everything as rubbish compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ. That's not weird—that's how we were always meant to live.

What are you counting as gain that might actually be keeping you from the joy of knowing Jesus?

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Transcript

Transcript: Joy in the Pursuit of Christ

 We're on week three in our series in Philippians.

The series is called A Joy That Gives Thanks.

And today we'll be in Philippians chapter three.

And in Philippians chapter three, we hear about the heart of Paul who just seeks to pursue Christ.

A bit of background again, we know that Paul's writing in the early 60s, his writing from a Roman prison,

 And what makes this book really interesting and fascinating is the fact that despite the dire situation that he finds himself in, he still happens to have the most incredible, positive, joyful outlook in life.

 And so we've been speaking about a joy that gives thanks in every circumstance, a joy that gives thanks in the humility that we find in Christ.

We see that in Philippians 2.

We'll visit that again today.

And today, a joy that gives thanks in the pursuit of Christ.

 As we come into Philippians chapter three, right in the beginning of the chapter, he will once again say, rejoice in the Lord.

Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.

And he will then tell us about his passion to pursue Christ, to know Christ, to count all things as lost to the surpassing knowledge of knowing Christ Jesus.

It's a strange thing for us to think like this.

 We often, well, we live in a world where people question how we can in fact enjoy and embrace and pursue Christ, even find it to be a joyful thing.

 For the most part, people paint Christianity and religion as boring, antiquated, out of date.

I remember somebody speaking and saying, you know, when I think about religion, I think about my grandmother.

In other words, he is dating it into the past.

 When I was young, about 14 years old, I kind of grew up in the church.

I saw the humdrum of church every week, go to church, do what you have to do, dress up, get in the car, go in, sing one or two songs, hear a sermon that I really didn't understand and go home again.

And to me, that was what I understood to be Christ, the faith, the pursuit of Christ, the pursuit of the Christian life.

 I then went on a camp and I had this incredible encounter with Jesus.

And I came back and the thought that struck me was this.

Why is it that nobody is giving us the real, exposing us to the real Jesus, that life-giving, joyful experience of who Christ truly is?

And so really, to be honest, I came back feeling like the church and Christians often misrepresent Jesus.

 and misrepresent what it means to be a Christ follower.

 And if I'm really honest, most of my life I've spent trying to show people the joy that can be found in Jesus.

If we have a true living relationship with Jesus, it is something absolutely beautiful.

Paul gives us a glimpse of this in our passage today from Philippians 3, verse 7 to 11.

He says this, yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.

More than that.

 I regard everything as lost because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.

 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his suffering by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

 What a powerful passage of scripture and a great passage for us to model our lives on.

To share that same passage is a beautiful thing.

I regard everything as lost because of the passing value of knowing Christ my Lord.

 I want to speak a little bit about that, but what I want to do is kind of bounce off Philippians chapter 2.

The reason is, and we have spoken about that last week, Philippians chapter 2 is giving us a pattern for Christian living, a pattern for how we as Christ followers can live in the pursuit of Christ and find joy in pursuing Christ.

 In Philippians chapter 2, verse 5 to 11, we are shown that the humility of Christ, how he lowers himself, the descent of Christ from this place of exaltation with God.

He then is incarnate into humanity, into a very humble existence where he lives and afterwards Christ exalts him.

 Let's hear that passage quickly again.

We can never hear it too much.

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited.

But he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness and being found in human form.

He humbled himself.

 became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him, gave him the name that is above every name, so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

 If you look at that model very clearly, this is an imperfect way of looking at it, but it helps us give an understanding of this rhythm and this movement in the life of Christ.

Christ starts in this highly exalted place.

He chooses.

 to humble himself he's not forced into that position he makes the choice to submit into humanity and to become into human form and even to submit to the point of death on the cross and so we see this downward movement where it's like he has lowered himself and then we see this kind of upward movement afterwards where he is in fact being lifted up

 by the Father and is exalted by the Father.

Christ's example in Philippians 2 is our blueprint for Christian living and for flourishing in this world, and it starts with a desire to pursue Christ and His ways.

 If we have a closer look at how Paul shifts his model, we see that he starts in a kind of secular, human, kind of the counterfeit way of humanity, but then he moves into this Christian model that we see modeled in Philippians 2.

Christ's example teaches us to humble ourselves

 that others might be lifted up.

And we spoke about this last week as well.

The humility and the biblical understanding of humility is that we humble ourselves that others might be lifted up, but the human counterfeit, humanity's counterfeit,

 teaches us to do whatever we need to do to elevate ourselves.

So often what we do is we seek the humiliation of others or the lowering of others that we might elevate ourselves.

That's a secular counterfeit form of living.

 Philippians 3 verse 4 to 6, we read about where Paul has come from.

We read about his previous way of life.

He says, even though I too have reason for confidence in the flesh.

Great comment right there.

Confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more.

 circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

 And so he lays out all his efforts, everything from his nationality, his heritage, his training, his belief system, even his alliance and allegiance to certain members of the religious ruling class, and said, if you're looking for a way to be elevated, if you feel there's a way to lift yourself up, if there's a way that you feel you can become better than, I have done all that,

 And quite honestly, you're going to go a long way to find somebody who's better than me at ticking the boxes to get to the top.

 Paul points to his formal ways where success and acceptance with God was based on confidence in the flesh.

This is what I do.

My doing gets me ahead.

My doing elevates me, pushes me to the top.

And it actually, in fact, it's my doing and my efforts by which I try to and really hope to enter into relationship with God and acceptance with God.

 And this really comes back to what Paul is doing is he's challenging kind of these Judaizers that are coming in, infiltrating Christian communities and saying to them, yes, you might have faith in Christ, but you need to fulfill the law.

Where's circumcision?

Where's the law of Moses?

Where's your heritage?

And they were imposing laws upon these people.

And Paul is pushing back and saying,

 I had all that, but that's not the way to Christ.

That's not how we attain to the resurrection.

There is another way.

And so if we go back and we see this and we look at this model and this movement, here Paul is saying this is human counterfeit.

This is the counterfeit model.

You know, for Christ, he was elevated by the Father.

For us, we want to be elevated by our own works, right?

 Question to us is what framework guides your life?

Is your framework based on Christ's model or on a human counterfeit that promises the world, but as we know, ultimately leads to emptiness?

 Humanity is known for its obsession in pursuits.

We're continually engaging in all sorts of pursuits to put a man on the moon, we did that, to colonize the moon, to colonize Mars, to build a bigger building.

There's all these pursuits that we have in life as a human race.

And even individually, we have pursuits

 for success, for the accumulation of wealth, for fame, for accomplishment.

And we continue to actually push into these things.

In fact, we actually are so obsessed with the things of this world that we would even die for them.

 People say, I have the pursuit.

I am determined that I will climb Mount Everest.

And there are bodies scattered all over that mountain of people who in the pursuit of these things found themselves dying.

 Some people in the pursuit of success destroy their families.

They eliminate, they undermine friendships and relationships.

We even see influencers in the pursuit of fame and the affection of people that they'll never meet do things to such an extent that they even end up dying because they do all sorts of stunts.

 Now, let's be honest, working hard in this life and trying to achieve and be successful is a good thing.

And honestly, as Christ followers, we should steward the gifts that God has given us and do the best that we can.

 However, here's the thing.

These things can become idols.

Good things, when we obsess over them and we pursue them at the expense of all things, including Christ, become idols.

Their importance should and can never supersede that of Christ.

In 1 Corinthians 9.25, Paul speaks and he uses the analogy of an athlete.

 It's a great analogy, and he actually speaks about how athletes exercise self-control in all things.

They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one.

And that sums up how the world works.

 We will give our lives to a cause, to a purpose, to an ambition, to a goal.

And ultimately, it really is just a wreath that will perish over time.

 when athletes go and they compete in the Olympics, they're given wreaths because there is something about that.

Today, you are the champion, but this wreath will fade.

It will go from being a beautiful green wreath, and it will become old, dry, and brittle, and that could just burn away in a flash.

 Because our efforts in this world, we have to keep trying, keep trying.

But ultimately, the things of this world actually do not persist into eternity.

Only the things of Christ in this world will carry with us into eternity.

 When we think about ambitions, the things that we do, we go back to Matthew 6, the good works that we do, trying to achieve things in our own strength.

Matthew 6, verse 2, this is the New Living Translation.

When you give to someone in need, don't do as the hypocrites do, blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to call attention to their acts of charity.

I tell you the truth.

They have received all the reward they will get.

 we follow human models, we get the reward of humanity.

When we try to impress humanity, try to seek the affection, we get the reward of humanity.

 Yet Jesus' teaching says, you know, they are not doing it to God where your treasure is in heaven and will be there forever.

You're doing it for people where everything is temporal and the reward you've received, the affection you've got.

Well, you've got it and you've climbed that little hill.

You've done what you need to do.

And guess what?

There's nothing else after.

 James chapter four says, humble yourselves before the Lord.

Why?

Because he has that model, the Philippians two model.

He will lift you up.

And so we have Paul who starts on this model and he gets to a point and he has done everything he needs to do.

He encounters Jesus and he realizes there is a different way.

And so Paul then, if we look carefully at the text, can see that he then shows in Philippians chapter three,

 How instead of leaning on his own understanding, trying to promote himself, lift himself up, he then follows the example of Christ where he humbles himself and therefore and puts his faith and trust in the resurrection saying that I may somehow attain the resurrection.

 Paul course corrected by choosing rather to pursue God and to stay focused on Christ rather than looking at the things of this world.

In Philippians 3, verse 7, here we see that image unfolding.

Yet whatever I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ alone.

 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For his sake I have suffered the loss.

There it is again, the loss, everything loss.

These things are loss.

 I have suffered the loss of all things.

Not only have I lost them, I regard them as rubbish.

In order that I may, there's been a shift in his priority.

His values have shifted from the things of the world to the things of heaven, the pursuit of Christ rather than the pursuit of the world.

In order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness of

 from God based on faith.

If we look there three times, whatever gains I had, what's he talking about?

My heritage, his Jewish accomplishments, his heritage, his titles, even his personal discipline, I am blameless.

All those things I count as lost.

Whatever gains I had, these things in my life,

 Count them as loss.

Very interesting.

Very interesting.

We have many things that we count as gains in life.

We count our spiritual heritage as gains.

We might see an ancestry of people who served God, which is wonderful and a blessing from God.

But the question is, we don't go to heaven on our parents' faith.

We go to heaven on our faith.

 And our faith is based on what we and how we relate to God.

We sometimes place a lot of emphasis in our lives on how often we go to church, how long we've been a Christian, how many Bible studies we've actually done, how much knowledge of the Bible, how much doctrine we have.

We even might look at things like titles.

And this is a problem, especially for people who are pastors.

There might be a sense of, look at the title I have, our spiritual accomplishments.

 will look at all these things and say they're all loss i count them as rubbish there's only one thing that's important that's knowing christ he says i regard everything he says these are the things in my life that i count as a loss but then more than that everything everything and everything's a big word everything means everything he can't think of anything that supersedes his pursuit

 Nothing compares.

Nothing is more important or more valuable than knowing Jesus.

Paul's life and priorities are now modeled on that of Christ.

 the loss of all things.

We see that Jesus humbles himself into the form of a man.

Paul suffers the loss of all things, but takes great joy in that and celebrates that.

And then he does it, why?

So that he might be found to be like Christ, to be in Christ and find the righteousness of Christ.

He says, I want to know Christ, the power of his resurrection, sharing in his sufferings by becoming like him in his death.

 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Christ's path of humility was to know, he wants to know the power of his resurrection.

This is the path that Christ took into humility.

Paul does the same thing, but then there's Christ's path of exaltation.

The father lifts him up.

He says, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Verses nine, be found in him.

 Not having a righteousness of my own, this is Pauline language, to be found in Christ, I am in Christ.

Therefore, the righteousness that I have is not Paul's works, Paul's good deeds, Paul's heritage, Paul's ancestry, Paul's knowledge.

No, it is the righteousness that comes from Christ.

Not having my own righteousness, but one that comes through faith in Christ.

 What a beautiful, beautiful picture we have.

And he says that I may attain the resurrection.

This is, once again, Paul's language.

We go back to Romans chapter 6 to die with Christ.

If we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

Big question for us is, is Paul onto something here?

 Is it possible that Paul has discovered what we might call the holy grail of human flourishing?

We believe the holy grail of human flourishing, the accumulation of things, success, fame, Hollywood, sports.

Is it possible that's a human counterfeit?

And Paul is kind of, here's the open secret.

You know, as a 14 year old boy,

 I knew of church, I knew of Jesus.

What changed my life was knowing Jesus.

And then when I knew Jesus, I went to my friends and said, you need to know Jesus.

It's the most incredible thing in the world.

And they looked at me like I joined a cult and like I'm strange and a weird person.

And this happens to so many people when you know God and you share, this is the thing that will change your life.

People don't understand it.

So many people just don't get it.

 Happens to many people in churches.

We find Jesus, people find Jesus, and it's a mystery.

Family look and say, he found religion, he's gone weird.

 then you start to do things like you give your time and you're going to church a lot and you're joining with christian people and you're singing songs together and then you're helping because you're going off on missions and you're serving and then other things happen you actually start to give money to the church and to god and to missions to see other people know jesus and then the people around you look at you and say my gosh this is weird he's joined a cult she's joined this weird group but i want to counter that and say maybe it's not weird

 Maybe this is the way it's always meant to be.

Maybe this is our spiritual DNA.

This is who we were called to be, followers of Christ, people who found our joy, our identity, and our fulfillment in the pursuit of knowing Jesus.

Paul is openly sharing one of life's greatest secrets.

He doesn't hide it, but somehow people don't see it.

True fulfillment and flourishing

 in this life, not only in this life, in the next life, comes from knowing Jesus Christ.

Let us pursue Christ with all our