Knowing Him — Anton Bosch

Counting Religious Credentials as Loss

Let's turn to the book of Philippians again, Philippians chapter 3 and I'm going to begin to speak from verse 8 but I'm going to read from verse 1. So Philippians chapter 3, reading from verse 1, speaking from verse 8.

Finally my brethren rejoice in the Lord for me to write the same things to you is not tedious but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation. We are the circumcision who worship God in the spirit rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh though I also may have confidence in the flesh if anyone else thinks that he may have confidence in the flesh.

I'm also circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, concerning the law of Pharisee concerning zeal, persecuting the church concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless but what things were gained to me these I have counted lost for Christ.

Yet indeed I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him not having my own righteousness which is from the law but that which is through faith in Christ the righteousness which is from God by faith that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

And so if we go back the Paul has been speaking about his credentials the things that he may be able to lay claim on to righteousness and so he speaks about his circumcision. He speaks about the fact that he is a Jew.

He speaks about the fact that not only is he a Jew but he comes from the best tribe that he has the best education that he is zealous to the point of having persecuted the church. And yet he says all of these things I count them as rubbish.

I count them as nothing. I count them as lost literally. And he's using those bookkeeping terms those things that I thought was profitable or profit in terms of my accounts with God. And so if God was to keep a set of accounts concerning my righteousness what I thought was profit as far as God is concerned I now understand not only are they not profit not only do I need to remove them from the profit side from the credit side but I need to put them in the lost side.

So they are not just not profit they are actually negative. So in what sense then can these things be negative in our relationship with God. We say well isn't it good then to be religious because that's really what he is saying.

And and of course our form of being religious may be a little different to to his form of being religious because he was a Jew and we may be something else. But so is it possible that being religious is a negative thing.

That it is not just something that does not help me but in fact it is a lost thing. It's a debit thing. It's a something on the on the negative side. Yes it is because it gives us a false sense of security.

We believe that because we are religious and that's really what Paul believed. And we've seen that as we've been going through the book of Acts how that Paul relied on his religious pedigree and on his deeds and his keeping of the law he relied on those things and those were the very things that kept him from believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's easier for a non-religious person to come to faith. Then for a religious person to come to faith you say well that doesn't make any sense. Yes it does because the religious person puts his confidence in his religion and doesn't think he needs the law.

But the irreligious person understands that he has no hope. And so it's a very real problem for those people and those young people who grow up in Christian homes because they so easily rely on their Christian heritage for their salvation.

I say well my parents and my grandparents maybe were Christians. I've grown up in church I went to Sunday school I know the Bible or I know about the Bible and so it can become something that prevents me from becoming a true Christian.

We speak about being inoculated against the gospel. Now as you know we we get shots to prevent us from getting certain diseases and we call those inoculations and what they do is that they really just give us a little bit of that disease.

So if it is measles then we we get a little bit of the measles. So when measles wants to develop within our bodies they don't develop because there's already signs that it is there and so we just get enough of the disease.

We get enough measles or mumps or whatever else it may be so that we don't get the real thing. That's the whole basis. And I know my explanation of the medicine is maybe a little lacking but that's the principle and it's the same principle that we can get just enough religion that we don't get the real thing and that's the problem now Paul didn't have just a little bit of religion.

He had a lot of religion and it was a lot of inoculation against the reality. And so when he heard about the Lord Jesus when he heard about the gospel he turned against it because he says I have the true religion.

And so he says I've counted these things as loss. I've counted them as as negative. Then verse 8 is where we are this morning. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.

Everything Is Loss Compared With Knowing Christ

So in the previous verse in verse 7 he says I counted those things my heritage and my religious deeds. I counted that as loss. But now he says I count all things. So he is now going beyond his heritage and beyond his religious deeds.

And he's saying everything and remember we've had these profound studies on this very complicated word all and of course all means all. It's really very simple. You don't need to understand Greek or Hebrew to understand all.

All means everything. And so everything in Paul's life his material possessions his relationships his education his religious stuff which we've spoken about whatever Paul had he says I counted everything loss not just my religious activities not just my heritage but everything loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.

Now I think that that's a very profound statement. And in fact Paul says I don't just think that way but I have done that. If you look a little bit further down if we jump down to verse sorry the the end of verse 8 sorry for whom I have suffered the loss of all things.

So he's not he's he's not just saying I reckon everything that I have as loss he says I have suffered the loss of those things. In other words everything that I had. And and we don't know much about Paul's background other than his religious background.

We don't know whether he had an inheritance coming to him because it seems that he comes from an important family. We don't know. And there's a there's a possibility that he may have been married and that his wife turned against him because he became a Christian.

There are signs there's a little bit of evidence here and there that Paul may indeed have been married. And of course we're guessing we can't say that for sure. Um but it's possible that he was married and that his wife left him because he became a Christian.

But whatever it was Paul says everything I have I've lost it that I may gain Jesus Christ now here's exactly the problem with modern Christianity in the West is we want Jesus Christ plus everything else.

Isn't that the basis on which the gospel is preached today that you don't have to change anything about your life. Just add Jesus to your existing mix and so you can have your riches you can have your entertainment you can have your worldly pleasures you can have your sin.

All you need is you need to just add Jesus to all of that and your life will be complete. And Paul says no sir it doesn't work that way. You can't have everything plus Jesus. And remember we spoke a little bit about the word of God.

You cannot have the word of God plus anything else. You can only have the word of God. And you say well there's other stuff that's very helpful. There's the the the teachings of the church fathers. There are the creeds.

They're the teachings of this guru or that teacher. And so we we're just helping the word of God. We're just putting a little bit more clarity. No no no. The moment you go beyond the word of God you have negated the power of the word of God.

It's as simple as that. And the same way you cannot have Jesus and your life. Paul says I've suffered the loss of all things. And when Paul says I've suffered the loss of all things he is not just talking about things in the sense of material things or relationships.

And remember Paul lost all of his relationships with his former colleagues. Having been he says I I really was at the forefront of my faith. So people respected Paul for his zeal and for his knowledge and for his education.

He lost all of those people. Not only did they that did he lose them as friends but they became his enemies. But it goes beyond that. Paul had lost his life. Paul had lost his life not just in a in a theoretical sense or in a in an abstract sense.

But he had lost his life in a physical sense. He says I carry daily in my body the death of the Lord Jesus. He says I die daily and Paul nearly died many many times. And remember where he gives us another list where he speaks about the things that he has suffered that he had been stoned and left for dead.

He had been beaten near to death countless times. He'd been shipwrecked all of these things. One of those things was a death sentence. And so Paul says I'm willing and I've given up my life. And we know that that would be the way he would die in the end.

And so he says I've counted everything rubbish for the excellence of Christ. Now folk here's the thing unless Jesus becomes excellent unless he becomes the most wonderful and the most precious thing to us we will not be willing to sacrifice everything for him.

You see it's just a matter of you're willing to pay whatever price you think or whatever value you attach to a thing. And so if I had a useless piece of wood here and I said how much would you pay for it.

Well I won't pay very much for it. Why. Because what I'm getting is not worth very much. But if I had a diamond that was a hundred carats diamond would you pay more for that. Of course because that's worth getting.

So the price we're willing to pray the sacrifice we're willing to make is commensurate with the value of that which we seek to gain. And so what we seek to gain Paul says is Jesus. Now we understand that we I'm not speaking about how we get saved.

We understand that he paid the price we just we don't pay anything to get saved and to gain him in that sense. But Paul is saying there's more to it than that. And Henry's been speaking to us about sanctification and that's what he's speaking about here it's more than just coming and inviting Jesus into your heart as we speak sometimes.

But he says I need to know him and I need to know him in a very real sense. And you'll see that he uses that word know or knowledge twice in that passage. So I count all things last. Verse 8 for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I've suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish so my gain Christ be found in him.

Verse 9 not having my own righteousness but that which is through faith in Christ. Verse 10 that I may know him that I may know him now remember at this point and we heard this morning in Sunday school that Paul had met Jesus on that road to Damascus and that beyond that he had been taught by the Lord Jesus Christ.

He says I know a man and he's speaking of himself who was caught up into the third heaven received things and heard things that are unutterable and he's very specific. We saw this morning and from the book of Galatians that I wasn't taught these things by man I was taught them by the Lord Jesus Christ.

And even to today we marvel at the depth of Paul's teachings. I have spent 45 years studying the Bible and particularly studying Paul's teachings and I don't understand half of what Paul says. So you can begin to understand what Paul understood when we don't even get half of what he got.

And yet Paul is near the end of his experience at the end of his life. And he still says I want to know him. And here's the wonderful thing is that there is no point at which you can say well I've got it.

I know Jesus because there is so much about him there is so much breadth and depth and height about in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus that you can spend your lifetime and only have scratched the surface.

And that's what Paul is saying. He says even though and he's not saying that but I'm saying that even though Paul probably had the clearest understanding about who Jesus is had the greatest revelation of who Jesus is greater even than the apostles because remember the apostles don't see him in the same way as Paul sees him the other 12.

But in spite of all of that he says I counted everything rubbish that I may know him that I may really know Jesus. Now this word know here is not just the way that it is used here is not just an intellectual knowledge it is an experiential knowledge.

In other words that I know him through experience. Now I want you to listen very carefully because this is where we get into all sorts of heresy people speak. Some people say well all I need to know is I need to know what the Bible says about him.

That's all there is to it. So you need to study the scriptures and if you study the scriptures you'll get to know him because he's revealed through the word and that's true. But you can know whatever what all of the scriptures say and remember it's not just the New Testament because Jesus himself said you search the scriptures meaning the Old Testament because in them you think you have life.

But it is they that speak of me. So don't think that if you know the New Testament you know all there is about Jesus because a lot of about the Lord Jesus is revealed in the Old Testament or it's hidden in the Old Testament.

Once we get the key of the New Testament we can go back to the Old Testament unlock the Old Testament and understand more about Jesus. But it's more than that it's knowing him experientially. But here's the problem.

So on the one side there are those who say well you just need to study. You just need to know the Bible and understand that and you'll know Jesus. On the other hand there are those who are promoting some kind of mystical experience some kind of emotional experience where you say well I know Jesus.

You say how do you know Jesus. Well you know I feel him. No it's I don't believe that. That's where it's at either. And I don't believe that it is a combination of those two either you see because the one is knowledge about him and Paul is not speaking here about knowledge about him it's about knowing him.

I think we all have our opinions about the president Obama and the what is he called the president elect Trump. I think we all have some ideas as to where they come from and some ideas as to who they are and what they are and what they believe.

But can any of us here say that we know them either of them. No who can say that they know president Obama who's the most likely person his wife his wife. And maybe she doesn't even know but she's the best bet.

Does that knowledge go beyond knowing his history where he was born when he was born where he went to school what he did how he got elected what he did what she knows about him is go beyond that goes beyond that.

And how does she know that. Because she went to university and did a course on Obama or read his book whatever. I can't remember what it was but read. No it comes from living with him and living with him.

She's come to understand how he acts how he thinks how he reacts what his values are. And that's what Paul is speaking about here you see. And that kind of knowledge cannot come just by observation. I suppose that if anybody is under scrutiny is that it's the president of the United States who lives in a fishbowl as it were the whole world looking at him every move he takes.

And you probably may have become aware recently that there have been all sorts of photographs that they're showing and that there is a full-time photographer the White House photographer whose job it is to photograph almost every minute of the man's life.

But you can look at every one of those pictures you can listen to every one of his speeches. And you can still not know the man. The only way you will know him is if you live with him. And you can study about the Lord Jesus Christ.

And you can hear sermons about him and you can hear testimonies about him. But unless you live with him and as Paul says in him we live and move and have our being. And unless you are intimately related to the Lord Jesus Christ and you begin to understand what the scripture means about his love what the scripture really means about his holiness and the list goes on and on and on all the attributes about the Lord Jesus Christ unless you've come to see that in reality as you live your life in him in relationship with him in fellowship with him you're never going to know him.

There are theologians we've spoken about that many times. There are theologians who've written entire books about Jesus Christ. One of those theologians is a man called Karl Barth. Karl Barth or Barth depending how you want to pronounce it German theologian you have to read books that explain what Barth says because he's so complicated.

But I can tell you one thing that while he has written countless books incredible depth and knowledge I can tell you with absolute assurance that he does not know Jesus Christ because he has never met him he has never had a relationship with him.

He has studied him but he does not know him. And yet when you look at Paul's life you see a man who walks with Jesus whose every moment he's in communion with the Lord Jesus. And we see this in Jesus' relationship with his father.

And so as we walk in communion as we walk in relationship and in obedience and as we look at the word of God and as we deal with our issues in life and we see Jesus ministering to us in those things teaching us various lessons we begin to get to know him.

Knowing Christ Through His Faithfulness

How did Paul know that Jesus is faithful? Because he read that in the Bible. Well I suppose that that gives you a level of understanding that he is faithful. And you can hear sermons and preach sermons and say well he is faithful.

But you see until that truth becomes real until it becomes more than an intellectual knowledge it has very little value. So how did Jesus know. How did Paul know that he is faithful? Because he had never failed him.

And Paul says when everything else had failed and when everyone else had turned away from me. Remember the book of Timothy as we're going through Timothy all have forsaken me. But he says one stood with me.

Who is that one? The Lord Jesus. And so he says I know from experience that he is faithful. In fact I just wrote this on Friday to a couple of brothers and it was just something that had become very real to me on Friday many years ago I wrote my statement of faith which you'll find on my website.

And we use the same statement of faith for the church's statement of faith you go there you'll find what we believe. One of the things that I said at that time and when I say many years ago I'm talking 20 years ago maybe 20 years ago I said that the word of God is the thing by which.

And I had a whole lot of other things there but amongst other things all creeds must be measured. In other words the creeds of the church that they are subject to the word of God. The only way we can evaluate those creeds is not on their own basis but as we compare them to the word of God that becomes the basis of our faith.

And so the degree to which the creeds match the word of God we agree with them. The degree to which the creeds do not marry to or match the word of God we do not agree with them now that's fine in theory.

And I'm not going to go through the whole detail but through these last few months as I've contended for the faith and come to understand in practical reality that there are aspects and elements of the creeds and folk.

I'm not talking about the Trinity. I'm not talking about denying any of the essences or the essentials of the faith. But there are details in the creeds which are established by Arians at the time. And don't worry about that now.

But in these last three months I've had to come to a decision for myself in real reality am I willing to subject the creeds? You see because the creeds become holy we say you can't question the creeds.

The creeds are above question. And yet 20 years ago I wrote that the creeds are not above question. They are subject to the word of God. Now having gone through various experiences over these last few months I've come to a place where I've had to subject the creeds to the word of God and I've had to stand on that truth and say that I do not hold to the creeds.

I hold to the word of God. And where the creeds deviate from the word of God we will reject those aspects of the creeds. And I know that you may be concerned about what I'm saying now let me assure you that I've not gone beyond the word of God.

I've not gone outside of the word of God. But now I know that which I wrote 20 years ago was theory. Now it is reality that the word supersedes all man-made creeds. The word of God supersedes all traditions of man that I do not know by theory anymore.

I know that by reality and by experience. And so Paul is speaking about Jesus. We can know him by theory or we can know him in reality. And he says I want to know him in a real way not just the theory about the Lord Jesus Christ.

A Life Transformed by Meeting Jesus

Now folks let me just jump outside of the text here a little bit for a brief moment and say well you know here's the thing that there are so many people so-called Christians in the world today. And every second person on the street if you ask them they'll tell you I'm a Christian.

In fact Henry told us this morning about someone that he had breakfast with the other day and who said that they were a Christian. But do they really know Jesus? Have they met Jesus the way that Paul met him on the road to Damascus.

And obviously we don't get that same kind of experience that Paul had. And I'm not talking about some kind of out-of-body experience but a relationship where you know that he is real that you know who he is and where that which is theory in the word of God has been translated into practical experience.

And we can say I know his love I know his faithfulness I know his gentleness I know his holiness I know his righteousness. I know these things not just because I've learned them from the word of God but because he's demonstrated them to me through my experience.

And here's the bottom line that is a life-changing experience. You cannot have met Jesus and you cannot know Jesus and remain unchanged in that process. And as you'll see as we go through the book of Acts as Henry goes through the book of Acts you'll see how that there were many Christians who were still afraid of Paul and they said we don't know who this man is because he was formerly a persecutor of the church.

And yet Paul's life changed like that after he met Jesus Christ we saw this morning that he began to preach in the synagogue Jesus Christ Jesus as the Christ the very thing for which he was persecuting people three days before that three days later he's in the synagogue where the Jews are where his former friends are and he's preaching Jesus as the Christ.

That kind of change does not come from just saying well let me I'm going to change my view on this. That change came because he had met Jesus Christ and Jesus had become real to him. And yet here is Paul many years later and he says I count everything rubbish that I may for the excellency of the knowledge the excellency of the knowledge.

And look at the comparison of those two words rubbish and excellency. There is no excellency in rubbish. I suppose there's some people who collect junk who may think that rubbish is excellent but in the normal line of thinking there is no excellency in rubbish.

Rubbish is just that it is rubbish. It's to be discarded it's to be thrown away. And so he says that everything that I had before and everything that this life has to offer is rubbish. But on the other side there is the excellency.

And the excellency excellent means above, beyond the greatness of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. Now here's exactly the problem why do we want to hold on to rubbish when we have on the other hand the offer of the excellency of the knowledge the excellency of knowing Jesus.

And yet that's exactly the problem that we have. There are people right now not just in this church but in every other church where the gospel is being preached today there are people who have chosen their pleasures their sins their whatever it is over the knowledge of the Lord Jesus and being in his presence and being in his house.

And folks this is not about church attendance. This is about where my heart is where my values are. How do I keep account of things. And so there are people who are esteeming rubbish as worth having. And folks let me just be plain anything this world has to offer the greatest pleasures the greatest riches the most wonderful friends the fame the fortune the whatever this world has to offer.

Paul says it is rubbish. In fact he'll go further and he'll say I count these things done. That's a very politically correct word for the word that Paul used he says it's to be thrown out. It's to be looked on with contempt for Jesus Christ.

Counting the Cost of Knowing Christ

And folks here's really the question this morning what are you willing to give up that you may gain Christ. You see you can't have Jesus and everything else you want. Now remember we're not buying him.

I'm not suggesting for one moment that the more you give up the more you'll get him. It doesn't work that way around. There are many religions that teach that. But the question let me come back to where we began and I'm going to close on this.

Unless Jesus has become the most precious and the most valuable thing to you you will not be able to turn away from those other things. And so it's really not a matter of saying let me just somehow just find it in my heart to give up on this when Jesus has become who he is to you when you've come to understand how precious he really is.

It won't be a question it won't be hard because you'll understand that what I'm gaining exceeds a billion times what I'm losing. But it's what we put our values. What value you put on Jesus. Is he everything to me.

Is he everything to you. Are you willing like Paul to say I'm willing to suffer the loss of everything. And so this is real. Are you willing to lose your friends for Jesus. Are you willing to lose your hobbies your money your job your family.

Remember Jesus said that if you're not willing to lose father and mother for my sake you're not worthy of me. And folks we've looked at the we're writing our letters to the missionaries this morning. Those people have turned their backs on everything literally given up their families given up their homes given up their comfortable lifestyle given up their friends.

They've lost everything for the sake of Christ that's very real for them. He's not asking you to do that but he is asking you to put a higher value on the Lord Jesus than on whatever else it is that gets you excited whatever else it is that has your attention.

And so here's the question is he and knowing him the most important thing in your life. Can you say that with the truth. And folks I join with Paul in saying that there is nothing worth more than knowing Jesus.

And I am really willing. And I think I've demonstrated that to some degree maybe not to the degree that Paul has but to some degree I'm willing to suffer the loss of everything that I may grab hold of Jesus Christ.

And even to this day I'm willing to lose my ministry. I'm willing to lose this church. I'm willing to lose my health. If that's what it takes to get to know him in a deeper and in a richer and in a more wonderful way.

Is that the thing that drives you. We're going to be on this theme for a while because Paul is going into this in much more detail. So if you think you've heard the end of this this is not the end. So you better stay away the next few weeks then if you didn't like this but here's the reality Paul is saying here is where the rubber meets the road.

Loving God Above Everything Else

What is it that you love now. This is not a new thing. Remember the law right. At the very beginning the law said you will love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your strength. This is the first and the greatest commandment.

The Bible almost opens with those words and it closes almost with those words. You remember in the letter to the Ephesians in Revelation chapter 2 you have left your first love. Now folk the problem is that for many folk they haven't just left their first love because he never became their first love.

He always was second or third or fourth to other more important things in their lives. Father we pray that you'd help us help us Lord to be honest with ourselves help us to be to be real. And Lord to evaluate our lives and say what is the most important thing is knowing Jesus more important than everything else.

Lord forgive us for our self-sufficiency. Lord because we so easily come to a place we say well we're fine. We know something about the Bible we know about Jesus we know the gospel. But Lord we pray that you would create within each one of us an insatiable desire and a hunger and a thirst of saying we need more of Jesus not just in knowing him in theory but knowing him as he lives himself through our lives.

And as we know him as that friend that sticks closer than a brother. And so Lord we pray that you'd help us today. Help us Lord to be honest about our bankruptcy. Help us to be honest Lord about our deficiency in knowledge.

Help us Lord to be honest about our need for you. And Lord more than that I pray that you would help us to put action to our thoughts and our words. And Lord to maybe scale down or maybe even get rid of things in our lives that are interfering with our relationship with you.

We pray that you'd help us Lord because this is the first and the greatest command. This is the thing that you're looking for from us above everything else that we love you. Lord we can never love you in the way you loved us.

And Lord you demonstrated your love for us in Christ dying for us on the cross. But Lord we pray that you'd help us to love you just a little bit in the way that you loved us. And we're willing to give up the glories in heaven.

Give up your position. Humble yourself to the death of the cross. And so Lord we pray that you we may respond to that love and that we may love you in return. Help us. We pray in Jesus name. We pray that you'd go with us Lord keep us protect us.

Bring us together again safely on Thursday in Jesus name we pray amen.