Philippians 3:7-14
Can You Hear Me Now?
Woodlawn Missionary Baptist Church
February 26, 2006
Introduction
In the early ‘90s one of the great coaching phenomenons in the NFL was Jimmy Johnson. You remember how he came into the league and took the helm of a struggling, mediocre football team and turned it into one of NFL’s greatest success stories. In fact, it also began one of today’s coaching pitfalls. Some owner doesn’t like his team’s performance, so he hires the latest, greatest coach and puts him on the job. If he’s not delivering a playoff team in a couple of years he’s out the door.
When Jimmy Johnson was coaching on the college level, he had a wife and the appearance of a marriage. This was expected of college football coaches. The wife and family were needed for social occasions, but soon after he was named head coach of the Cowboys, he set out to rid himself of the excess baggage. He didn’t loose any time in loosing the wife and family, and later confessed that he never bought his boys birthday or Christmas presents. He didn’t have the time and they weren’t a priority. He single-mindedly threw himself into his football team, and in January of ’93 he made it to the top; the first of his three Super Bowl wins.
Whenever I think of Jimmy Johnson, I cannot help but think of the day we will stand before Jesus Christ. Hebrews 9:27 says that “it is appointed unto man once to die, and after this the judgment.” Coach Johnson took the NFL by storm, but unless he has trusted Jesus Christ as His personal Savior and then lived his life for Him all of his fame and fortune will mean nothing. It certainly won’t impress the Lord.
No doubt there are many great ambitions to pursue in life: pleasure, success, financial security, political power, or being the best at what you do. It may be being a good husband or wife, or any other number of things, but according to the apostle Paul in the text we will read this morning, the greatest pursuit in life is knowing with great intimacy the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul’s greatest ambition in life was to know Jesus Christ. Listen to me: there is all the difference in the world between meeting someone and knowing someone. When I lived in Mexia I had met George W. Bush. I had my picture taken with him, so I can say that I know him, but I don’t really know him. When I think of the word “know,” I think of the way the Bible uses the word. Adam knew his wife. Abraham knew Sarah. In other words, they enjoyed sexual intimacy. Think about it: I know all of you women in this room. I know some of you better than others. After this weekend in Texarkana, I know Liz and Della and Elizabeth and Jean and Shellie better than I did before, but there’s only one woman in this room that I really know.
Paul wanted to know Christ. To know Christ with great emotional and spiritual intimacy was his greatest pursuit in life. He wanted to know the One who created the earth and moon and stars. He wanted to know the One who lived and breathed our air, who died for our sins and rose again the third day. He wanted to know the One who experienced our life to the full, who tasted its joys, who felt its sorrows, who experienced its possibilities and pains. He wanted to know the One who fully understands, who loves and cares, who encourages and forgives, and who still calls out to us today to know Him.
That’s what I want, and I am confident that’s what you want too, else you wouldn’t be here. As I have considered our text, there are three invitations Jesus extends to each of us so we might know Him in greater ways. Let’s read Philippians 3:7-14 together and then consider these three invitations.
Salvation
Paul had mentioned in verses 1-6 all of his great credentials that made him the man he was. As a young man he was headed for fame and fortune you might say, but he very candidly says that he willingly threw them all away so he might know Christ.
Our greatest need is a relationship with God through a trust relationship with Jesus Christ. In spite of all he had going for him, Paul said his relationship with Jesus was better.
There is a relationship which makes life complete, and without that relationship, there is a void: a vacuum in life. Many people, even those who are well-known, can attest to that void. For example, H.G. Wells, famous historian and philosopher, said at age 61: "I have no peace. All life is at the end of the tether." The poet Byron said, "My days are in yellow leaf, the flowers and fruits of life are gone, the worm and the canker, and the grief are mine alone." The literary genius Thoreau said, "Most men live lives of quiet desperation." Ralph Barton, one of the top cartoonists of his day, left this note pinned to his pillow before taking his own life: "I have had few difficulties, many friends, great successes; I have gone from wife to wife, from house to house, visited great countries of the world, but I am fed up with inventing devices to fill up twenty-four hours of the day."
Mark Twain shortly before his death wrote, "A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and struggle;...they squabble and scold and fight; they scramble for little mean advantages over each other; age creeps upon them; infirmities follow; ...those they love are taken from them, and the joy of life is turned to aching grief. It (the release) comes at last--the only unpoisoned gift earth ever had for them--and they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence,...a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever."
The world is filled with sad testimonies of men and women who never knew the joys of a relationship with Jesus Christ, but I don’t want to kid you, I am perfectly aware that there are many other people who not only do not feel any sort of emptiness or sorrow; while they may be lost, they are perfectly happy and content with their lives. Don’t make the mistake of saying that all lost people are miserable. That’s a lie! There are plenty of lost people having a great time – but their end is a devil’s hell where they will experience an eternity of sorrow.
Have you been born again? Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I am not asking you if you are a Christian. Everybody and their dog is a Christian in America. Have you ever repented of your sin and placed your faith in Christ? If not, that is your greatest need. Why? Because God created you to bring Him glory. You were placed on planet earth to glorify God, but you can’t glorify God because you’re a sinner. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” In fact, the very fact that you don’t care whether you glorify God or not testifies to your sinful nature.
You need to understand today that the wages, or the payment for your sin is death. You are separated from God today and one day you’ll die and go the way of the grave and you’ll spend eternity separated from God, but not just from God – you’ll suffer and eternity of sorrow and isolation thinking about this moment when I asked you to put your faith in Christ.
“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man comes to the Father but by me.” There is only one way to heaven. It’s not the Baptist way, the Methodist way, the Catholic way or any other way but the way of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. You must turn away from sin, from self, from denial, from disbelief and doubt and turn to trust in the only begotten Son of God.
Christlikeness
Verse 9 tells us that Paul’s righteousness meant nothing to him. The only righteousness acceptable to God was Christ’s righteousness in him. This is more than the righteousness of Christ that comes to the believer when he is saved, but it is also the righteous character of Christ that is to become our character as we are transformed into His likeness. It was this that Paul had in mind in Philippians 2:12 when he said, “work out your salvation in fear and trembling.”
Paul was consumed with Christ, knowing Him and becoming like Him. He wanted to act like Jesus, think like Jesus, see like Jesus, feel like Jesus, sacrifice like Jesus, love like Jesus, and serve like Jesus. In verse 8 Paul said that the knowledge of Christ was the most excellent thing there was, that the knowledge of Him surpassed all else.
He wanted to know Him. Verse 10 said that he wanted to know the power of His resurrection. There is no power in a dead Savior. This is the One who was crucified for our sins, suffered and died, was buried and three days later got up out of the grave! It wasn’t a dead man Paul met on the Damascus Road that day, but a risen Messiah. It wasn’t a dead lunatic that Thomas had doubts about, but a triumphant Lord. It wasn’t a defeated fool that Peter turned his back on and later spoke with on the shores of Galilee, but the Faithful and True! Paul served a risen Savior and there’s something experiential about knowing Christ that gives us the power to overcome sin and follow after Him and do what He says.
Verse 10 also says that he wanted to know the fellowship of His sufferings. If ever a man suffered it was Christ. Isaiah said he endured things that no other man has endured. Yet while He suffered the rejection, the betrayals, the mockery, the beatings, the whippings and the cross, He was thinking about people like you and me. Paul wanted to know that. It is a wonder how suffering for Christ can move a man closer to Him, how the love of God moves in a man’s heart to make him love and have compassion for those who hate him. That’s the result of knowing the fellowship of His sufferings.
He wanted to be made comformable to His death. Christ gave His life for those He loved, and Paul wanted to know that kind of love: that kind of passion. He wanted to know of dying to self for the sake of others and what it meant to deny himself daily, take up his cross and follow after Christ.
He wanted to attain to the resurrection of the dead. Paul looked forward with great anticipation to the day when he would meet Jesus face to face. There would come a day when the dead in Christ would rise, when Paul would exchange his old sinful, beaten, worn out body for a new, heavenly, immortal, glorified body.
He wanted to apprehend that for which he had been apprehended. While he waited for the Lord’s return, Paul knew he had been saved for a purpose, and he wanted to fulfill that purpose. His life had been changed and he was going to give it doing what he had been saved to do.
Surely there could be no greater ambition in all the world than to know Christ. We’re not called to have a relationship with a book. The Bible doesn’t tell us to give our lives to some great cause, but to knowing and experiencing Jesus Christ in all His fullness. When we begin to do that, we’re going to find that we’re living up to our reason for being here, which I’ve already told you is to glorify God.
Not only must we be saved, but we must be growing in Christlikeness. There ought to be a constant state of spiritual soreness as we allow God to stretch us to new heights in our walk with Christ. Have you accepted God’s invitation to Christlikeness? Are you becoming more and more like Him? Do you even really want to be like Him? The invitation is open to you today.
Ministry
Though I won’t spend as much time here today, I think it is important to not that you will never be effective in answering God’s call to ministry if you have not been faithful in answering God’s other two calls. Each builds on the last. Your willingness to answer the call to ministry, whatever that ministry is, is the outflow of the intimate relationship you have with Christ.
Every child of God has a ministry in His church. Yes, you have a personal ministry to your family and friends, but as a child of God and as a member of this church, God has placed you here for a specific purpose, and I’ll go so far as to say that if you have never found your place of ministry, it is highly likely that you still need to answer God’s invitation to salvation and / or Christlikeness.
To know Him, to be in tune with His heart, with His passions, with His love is to begin to see people as He did, and you cannot see people as Jesus did and be content letting someone else reach them.
For some of you, that may mean that you need to finally surrender to God’s call to preach His Word. God may be calling you to mission work. But this much we can be sure of: every believer has been given talents and abilities by God so you might further His kingdom work.
There is no doubt that God had a special work in mind when He saved Paul, and although your name may not be well known or remembered at all, He has a specific work for you to do today. Do not be content today to sit in the pew. Do not be content with complacency. I am not here for you to pay me to do your work. God has placed everyone of us here to do the work together. He is inviting you to join Him in ministry.
Conclusion
Remember the cell phone commercials where the man walked all over the world with the phone to his ear asking, “Can you hear me now?” Whether you know it or not, everywhere you go, in everything you do, God calls out to you, “Can you hear me now?” You may not want to admit it, but many of you know that feeling you get when the cell phone rings and you answer it, but then don’t really want to talk to the guy on the other end. A little bit of static comes through the phone, it gets a little hard to hear, and you start bailing out on the conversation. “What! I can’t hear you!” and with a little more eagerness than is Christian, we hang up and pretend we really did have bad reception.
Do we do that with God when He calls? I want to assure you that the signal is never bad. The reception may be bad, but the call comes through loud and clear, and more often than you know we play those same games with God.
Paul said, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” How was Paul able to press toward the mark? He counted all things loss. Until you make that same decision you will have trouble wherever you are with Christ. If you are lost today, you must let go of all you are clinging to. You must realize that Christ is the only way.
If you are struggling with following Him daily and becoming like Him, again you must let go, count it all loss and reach out to Him. If you know God is calling you to some place of ministry, answer that call.
Throughout the Bible, you and I are called from labor to rest; from death to life, from bondage to liberty, from darkness to light, from anxiety to peace, to the fellowship of His Son, and today, to simply know Him better than you did yesterday.
I told you earlier that I know all of you women in here. We would think it repulsive if today I wanted to know one of you, then later I wanted to know another. I could spend my days going from woman to woman trying to know you all, and in so doing I would not only never know any one of you, but I would also lose out on my wife’s invitation to really know her. We don’t have a problem recognizing that, so why can’t we see that that’s precisely what we do with Christ?
Today I want to know this dream. Tomorrow it will be something else, and we spend our lives skirting around the one relationship that will give us the greatest fulfillment in life: a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. He has extended the invitation to you today – will you turn from all the others, will you turn from everything else, will you count it all but loss, and know Him? Today He is calling. Can you hear Him now?
