Power For Pain - Philippians 3:10-11 Series

Philippians 3:10 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, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Introduction

It stands to reason that if you are living in God’s universe, the most important thing is to know God. J. I. Packer put it well: “Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life’s problems fall into place of their own accord.” We have been studying through the book of Philippians and we are in the middle of chapter 3, which is all about knowing Christ. See if you can pick up on any particular theme in this paragraph:

Philippians 3:8 … I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ … for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in [Christ], … through faith in Christ … 10 I want to know Christ in the power of [Christ’s] resurrection and the fellowship of [Christ’s] sufferings, becoming like [Christ] in his death

I am going to go way out on a limb and say this paragraph has something to do with knowing Christ. And as I told you before, this not just information about Jesus; it is experiential, relational knowledge. Just as you can only know the taste of great food by eating it, or the glory of great music by hearing it, or the magnificence of a sunset by seeing it – so it is with knowing Christ. He must be known by experience or he is not known.

In fact, the illustrations of seeing light and tasting food and hearing music – all those fall short of this kind of knowing, because knowing a person is so complex and multifaceted. There are so many different levels and facets to knowing a person. You can know his history. You can know his characteristics. You can know his thoughts and feelings. You can know his attitudes, motives, inclinations, preferences, desires, dreams, aspirations, failures, successes, values, beliefs. You can experience what that person is like in a thousand different contexts. When he is laughing, or when he is scared, or excited, angry, perplexed, discouraged, hopeful, irritable, exhausted, asleep, interested, uninterested. So many ways to know a person. You can know a person in the sense of experiencing what they do. So if someone asks you, “Do you know Dr. So-and-so?” and you say, “Yeah, in fact, he’s my doctor. He has treated me many times.” Then you not only know that he is a doctor, but you have experienced him as a doctor. You know firsthand what his doctoring is like. It’s one thing to know a judge personally; it’s another to experience him as your judge. It’s one thing to know a man who is a father; it’s another to experience him as your father. The more deeply you know someone, the more enmeshed you become in that person’s life.

Now, you apply all of that to knowing Christ, and the depth and richness and complexity of it increases exponentially. First, because unlike any other person, Christ is infinite. And second, because Christ is the only person who is always with you. In fact, he is with you and paying attention to you even when you’re not even paying attention to yourself – all night while you’re asleep. And we have all had different experiences with Christ. Some of you know Christ very deeply and intimately in many different ways, but you haven’t yet come to know him as the God of all comfort. You have read about his comfort, but you have no idea what it feels like to be racked with pain and then receive sweet, satisfying, joy-giving comfort from him even while the pain is as severe as ever. Some are just now being introduced to that side of Christ.

Some of you know him intimately as a comforter – you have experienced him that way many times, but you have only a superficial knowledge of him as the awesome judge. Some of you know him as one who can redeem anything – make something beautiful out of the most horrific mess. Others have heard about that, but haven’t experienced that side of Jesus yet. I have heard about him being a father to the fatherless, but I’ve never really experienced much of that side of him since I had a loving earthly father. But some of you have experienced him as a caretaker and protector and guide and disciplinarian and role model and provider in times when your earthly father was falling miserably short in those areas. Some of you have known him as a husband to the widow. Some of you have known him as the father in the story of the Prodigal Son, who ran to you and embraced you when you returned to him after a time of rebellion that you thought was unrecoverable and unforgivable. Others haven’t really known much of that side of him because you were saved at an early age and never had a period of extreme rebellion.