The call of God in Christ Jesus part 2

We're up to number 28 in the Lesson series here on Philippians. We're covering still the portion that is verses 12 through 16 in chapter 3. And I'm going to cover the last two verses there. I'll put a link when we get to it. But I thought what we'd do is just take a little trip back through the verses here to, and I said to him, listen to what God says in his words, okay? So let's do that now together. Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble for me. And it is a safeguard to you and for you. Beware of the gods. Beware of the evil workers. Beware of the false circumcision, for we are the true circumcision who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. Although I myself may have confidence even in the flesh, if anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I am more.

And then he begins to list all the things that in his background He had confidence in him, and circumcised the eighth day of the nation of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, the Hebrew of the Hebrews, and as per the law of the Pharisee. As to Zeu, the persecutor of the church, as to the righteousness which is in the one, found blameless. But whatever things were gained through the knee, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

And we covered a lot in those verses, didn't we? Now let's look at verse 8 through 11. More than that, I count all things to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish. so that I might gain Christ, and may be found in him, not having the righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, and that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Verse 11 is a focal point in my mind in the study. We'll cover a little bit of it here today. And so I just want you to know that that's a key verse. Now let's take a look at an overview real quick. Going right back to the beginning.

First we had the salutation in verses 1 and 2. Then we had God's work in believers being perfect 3 through 11. 12 through 18 it says God spreads his gospel even in adversity. Remember that? Remember how God worked through all his time in prison? And in the process, the good news spread a whole bunch. That's something, isn't it?

Believers are united to Christ forever in verses 19 through 30. What a precious area that is. And that, by the way, is whether we are living in the flesh like we are right now or when we die. Both. Believers now should be united to each other in verses 1 through 4 of chapter 2. Being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit and intent on one purpose. This I think is in a small form the overall thinking that God put in the mind of Paul when he wrote the Philippian letter. Why? Because two ladies, we'll get to that later, were arguing with each other. They didn't have the same mind.

In verse 5 through 18 of chapter 2, believers now should be revealing Christ. That's in In contrast to the being of one mind or arguing, that's looking at it from our perspective, from God's perspective, believers should be revealing Christ. And this is really important, why? It's the purpose of God, to reveal Christ. In verses 19-24, Timothy has revealed Christ's focus on others.

In fact, he's the only one that Paul mentions that has the same thinking that Paul has. Interesting, isn't it? He then goes to Epaphroditus in verses 25-30, and he is revealed for being faithful. He has that truth of the Holy Spirit in his life, faithfulness. My brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, notice this word, who is also your messenger. That's Apostolos, that's Apostle. Wow. Man of authority from that church. Tikalpaw. Isn't that something?

Yet, he was life to Timothy's life because I put all citizens in that section. There's false and true circumcision in the first of the verses of chapter 3. That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death is the capstone of that in the warning and explanation of what is the true and the false circumcision.

So that's where we have been. Here's where we're going today. Verse 12, last week we had not that I have already obtained or have already become perfect but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I don't regard myself as having laid hold yet, but one thing I am doing, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal or the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. I don't know if you've thought about it, but I've sort of wondered, what's the prize? Interesting, huh? And what does it mean by upward call? We went over that a little bit last week, didn't we? This week we're going to cover these last two verses in this section.

Verse 15, let us therefore as many as are perfect have this attitude, as in, and in any other attitude, I'm sorry, and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you. Notice who knows the word in that phrase. It's important. Verse 16, That's verse for today. However, let us keep living it by that same standard to which we have attained. I'm going to give you some observations first from last week's introduction that took off from verse 11. And this was by way of review. Andrew gave us, and I think this is really great Andrew, I appreciate this, the six purpose clauses in this form, that in a gain Christ, that I may be found in him, discovered to be by fellow men, to be in him.

And how are they going to discover that? When I look at you, do I see Christ? Or do you have a family? Do you see Christ? Isn't it not the focus of that statement? Okay? To know Him, and this is experiential knowledge of His person. If you remember, this is not just knowledge textbook.

This is knowledge that says, when I walk up and down the aisle here, when I stand here, who is in me? Who is living through me? in this room, and who's living in each of you? So when I look at you, and whatever the action is, whatever the circumstance is, you speak, or you listen, or you look out the window, whatever, is it a indication to me that I see Christ in you? What is that about Christ that we're looking at? Is it not the manifold parts that the Holy Spirit gives each of us?

Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Isn't that something? Those are the things Number four, know the power of his resurrection. And Andrew really went into that, that's really great. The power, the newness of God's power that raised him from the dead. It is that power that we are coming to know in our daily walk, isn't it?

It's hard for me to put that into words, because I'm just standing here and I'm speaking. But technically, from God's perspective, what am I counting on when these words are spoken? What are you counting on when you speak words? Are you counting on the power that was used to raise Christ from the dead? Because that's what these verses tell us we have a share of. To know by experience. that when we speak, God is speaking. It's his power. Can we count on that?

Something to think about, isn't it? And then the last one here, attained to the resurrection of the dead. We're going to cover that a little bit more. One of the things that probably has led to a lot of confusion is, what does that mean? Okay, how do you attain the resurrection that is mentioned here of the dead? Well, I hope I'll have something more to add to that. Say, Roy? Yes, Bob? Don't forget the fellowship of his suffering. I'm sorry, did I forget about it? Yeah, I think you did. I didn't intend to. Thank you, Bob. I appreciate that. And by the way, it's that he has appointed us to those in the text, isn't it? He has designed it so that we will suffer like he suffered. And how did he suffer?

Well, when he came to Paul and he said, Paul, it's hard for you to kick against the goads that I'm laying in your path to believe in me. And he says, who are you, Lord? I am he whom you are persecuting. Now, had Paul persecuted Christ directly? No, he persecuted me, fellow believers, his body, Christ's body. And Christ says, you're persecuting me when you do that. That's the fellowship of his suffering. We are in common or in partnership, but we are sharing in our lives the very sufferings that Christ is going through right now. If there's something in your life that you're suffering under, so is Christ. Isn't that something? I'm sorry, I'm getting distracted by thinking about it. Bob, appreciate the reminder though. Sorry, Roy? Yes, Bob.

Also, the power of the resurrection, that was done by the Holy Spirit. You got it. And we have that same Holy Spirit dwelling within us. Yes. I think I told you this little bit of the story as an illustration of that in my life. This is personal, so forgive me. I'm at Biola.

I'm sitting in the church, the open door, underneath the balcony, in the back, and here's Christian Foundations class, and Dr. Stanton said, that the Holy Spirit is right now in you?" And Roy is saying, what? Okay, that was a floor jerker for me. To know that God would actually be inside my body at that moment. So much so that I said, you mean he's in me right now? And he says, yep. That's what the scripture says. Do you believe it?

Yeah, I looked around at everybody else. I gotta leave. This is too much. I put my books down and walked out. I went down to Pershing Square, which was like a center of California on the downtown of LA. I told a number of people about it. I was just gloating. And to this day, I remember that. Why? Because it was the power of God that the professor had when he spoke it. based on the verbal words he spoke that were the very words of the Holy Spirit from Scripture. Do you understand? That's the power that is in Rome.

I'm sorry, I'm getting a little tingly when I think of this, okay? I'm sorry, we're a little weird. We're in 10th or 12th generation. And this is by way of observation from last week's lesson. What's in these? What is he wanting to fully obtain in these verses? And it refers to verse 10 and 11. And Andrew gave us these to know him, to know the power of his resurrection, to have fellowship of his suffering. By the way, that's not on the cross. That's here and now. within it, and conformity with his death.

I appreciate those so succinctly put out, Andrew. That's really good. The next observation I'd like to make is in verse 12 here, that I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. What is he wanting to obtain? Well, we got those things right. But how is this fully obtained? By pressing onward to take that for which I was taken up by Christ. One is active, I take. One is passive, I was taken.

His work, right? So how did that happen? By His work, got it? We reach out to take what God in Christ purposed for us and live it that we take. And what is it that He gives us? His kind of life. His resurrection life. I've come that you might have life and that you might have it abundantly. And right now, And we're clay vessels. I didn't cover that very well. Let me back up that last one.

We are clay vessels designed by God to have this life inside. What's a clay vessel? How does it become made? It gets molded. It's clay, isn't it? I mean, there's moody stuff called clay. Put on a spinning wheel. with hands of a father that are skillful, that mold it, put a design on it, and then it's burned, it's fixed. Isn't that a pretty good picture of us? We are clay vessels in the hands of God on the wheel of time, spinning out in such a way that he can draw himself through us. So that when people look at us, they see him. When they hear us, they hear Him.

Have you ever seen some crystal on your table? Ding! The other ones go, dong! Ding! That's hearing, isn't it? Have you ever walked into the room and experienced, because a believer is speaking the fragrance of Christ. Corinthians says that wherever we go, We are his fragrance. We radiate an odor of him. Isn't that something? By the way, some people radiate an odor of his honor, don't they? By their eyes. Anyway, those are sensual things, aren't they? But it is through these clay vessels that God is molding that he uses my eyes, my smelling, my taste, My hearing and my touch, all of those things. But those are all human, aren't they? What's the spiritual side of that? Can we hear His voice when we read a word of scripture by the Holy Spirit saying, I wrote that for you, Roy. Isn't that something?

I'm sorry, I'm taking too much time here. Now let's take a look at verse 13. Paul's use of the running or race metaphor here. A metaphor, what is that? It's a truth associated with reality. It's a story related to something that's true. And his metaphor is, I'm running a race and I want to get to the finish line. And I want to receive the prize if I get there first, don't I? That's what he uses here.

Don't look back, keep your eyes forward. What lies behind is a distraction. And even good things or accomplishments can be a distraction. How long last year? How long a year ago? Whatever. That doesn't help you get to the finish line. Your steps going forward can be slowed down by looking back. Don't carry excess baggage. In other words, drop it. Just like a jet fighter, when he's in the battle, he might jettison things that slow him down, like extra gas tanks or something, so that he can shoot better.

That was the illustration Andrew used. Keep your eyes focused on the finish line, and that means keep your direction straight. stretch or reach for the finish line tape. You ever seen runners at their very last moment do this? They're stretching to be first across the line.

By the way, that word there is only used here in the New Testament. Merriman says, this is a mende construction, in verse 13, on the one hand I forget what's behind and on the other hand I reach forward to what's ahead. Then there are two untranslated words, but they carry that kind of a meaning. It's clear why Merriam calls this the metal dynamics of the Christian life.

Boy, I don't know what time it is, but 9.30. I'm sorry, verse 14, I press on toward the gold for the prize of the implacable God in Christ Jesus. Now, the race is the life here on earth. It didn't look like I was running when we walked in the room, right? But we're all of us in this race, aren't we? This is a metaphor for the way of living. The goal is the finish line in verse 11, it is the out-resurrection of the dead.

Interesting. It is the rapture for those alive in Christ, is the perspective that was taught to us last week. The prize is the actual possession of Christ Jesus, himself, in glory, in joy, his presence in our glorified bodies with no low sin nature. Wow. That's the prize. I want to say that this is coming up and I'll repeat it in a minute but what is the prize in the sense of association with God?

Is it not a citizenship in heaven? a dwelling place that's made specifically for each of us and all of us at the same time. It's like I've got a home that's in a home that has a head that I listen to that functions through me and I'm so willing for him to do that because I know he loves me. It's not like our earthly father here. It's not like Let's say an earthly savior here.

It is much more than that because Jesus is God and he's perfect. And the Father is God and he is perfect. And the Holy Spirit we already have in us. And because we have the Spirit and they are the unit of one God, we also have the Father and the Son in agreement with the Spirit.

Isn't that neat? I don't know the answer to this, but is it possible to run in such a way that we don't receive the prize? No, and I'll tell you why. The prize is a citizenship designed by God for corporately His body and individually His body, not dependent on anything regarding our pressing forward, all we did was thank you, Jesus, for being a substitute for my sins, and thank you, Jesus, for taking me and crucifying this old sin nature so that my Adamic nature no longer is my master. I'm no longer a slave to it. Now I'm a slave to you, God. And it is that that we're focusing on and you look at the prize, it's a citizenship relationship governed by God of which we are citizens, willing citizens, not like our government today. Do you understand what I'm saying? So what about those who are saved but then decide, I'm not going to live by faith, I know I'm going to heaven, I'm just going to go out and enjoy my life here on earth and live the way I want.

Glad you asked Bob, we'll get to that. There's an upward call, it's a high calling, it's from heaven and it is to heaven. We reviewed all of this last week, So let me go on a little bit further and get to verse 15. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, and that means mature, have this attitude, and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you. Bob, I think that's a partial answer. Could that include divine discipline?

Yes, sure can. But that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be positive to it. It never has anything to do with your citizenship. No. It has to do with your walking now in or out of fellowship, in or out of harmony with His will. And His will is that you get mature. His will is that you enjoy His life that He's given you and me. So if we aren't positive to what God is revealing to us. Is it possible that towards the end of our life, if we are negative towards God as a believer, we would, as in 1 John says, we could experience the sin and the death?

Yes. And how is that applied? Way before being an old person. As is illustrated in the New Testament, I forget their name, but the couple that came and said, here's what we sold the land for, and the Lord took them. Is that what you received for the land? Yep. Bang! Both husband and wife, sent unto death. You understand? Why did he do that? Why did God do that? great fear fell on the rest of the people's cousins.

It just seems to indicate to me that there's a possibility that we will not mature in Christ and we will not receive the prize. No, but that's just the opposite because if maturity is a work that we are rewarded with what is an absolute prize, then that prize is gained by works. And that's not true, even if it's Christ works in us. It's by grace, by unmerited, in any way, by us. Now, what do we deserve?

Eternity separate from him. But why, you say, is God unjust? Hasn't he made me a particular way? No, he didn't make you that way. We got made that way, number one, because we inherited that old sin nature from Adam, but number two, we have chosen to agree with Adam's nature. In fact, we're a slave to agree to that nature until we put our faith in Christ and his word. And then we are crucified with Christ, sin nature was, so that he is no longer a slave master and we're free to liberally enjoy the slavery of God.

Okay? And this verse adds to that. If you have a different attitude, that you don't want to be made perfect, you don't want to be made mature, you don't want to walk with God, whatever that means, okay? And enjoy Him. You don't want to do that. You want to go your way, the old sin nature way, the old way that you're used to.

Who is going to be involved to solve that? It's God. He says he's going to reveal that to you. Why are you persecuting me? So, he did it to an unbeliever, didn't he? Is he not capable of doing that to believers too? believe this, but it kind of sounds like God is violating your own volition.

Well, there's a verse that says, we are not saved by will. The verse says, not by the will of man. It is by unmerited favor, by grace you are saved through the agency that God has given all of us, which is faith. in objects, whatever they are, through that ability they had given to us, the ability to trust something other than ourselves, put in Him. So that when He died on the cross, our sin nature was deposed as our master, along with our sins, death, being faithful, the penalty of our sins, being faithful. He took that penalty on Himself. God said he's satisfied. The Father said, and the Son said, and the Holy Spirit said, we're satisfied. The debt's been paid. There's no more debt penalty sitting on top of us. That sounds like justification, and I'm talking about sanctification. I am too.

And we'll get a little bit further into that if you can be patient here. I'm sorry that I'm so slow this morning, but I'll get going. Don't be sorry, this is great. Therefore, as many as are mature, this way, the way of God, should think. The mature people are the ones who are thinking here. We'll get a little bit deeper into it in a minute. And if anything different than that you are thinking, If you're not doing what you should be in your thinking process, also this way the God to you will reveal.

That's a literal word for word translation from the Greek. And look at verse 16, which is small. We're going to get to it next to explain this a little bit more. But what I want to do here is give a summary, just a summary of this central message in Philippians.

Our spiritual maturity, our spiritual growth, this process of us coming to understand His glory and our walk in Him in the sense of being dependent on Him. to live his life through us, that's God's goal for us. Now, his goal is not the rapture. His goal is not a mansion in heaven that we're going to dwell in. His goal is that we see Christ correctly as God himself sees his Son. And to magnify that glory, that our thinking becomes a true harmony with him.

Might be bass, might be tenor, might be alto, might be whatever, but it is in harmony with his thinking. That's what God's goal is. And that's what spiritual maturity is. That's what it says here. As many as are mature this way, the way of God, they should be thinking. Because that's what God has in mind. That's what maturity is from God's perspective.

Let me go on. Our thinking can now be persuaded by God to be His thinking. I don't know if you remember way back then, I taught some verses in the early part of Philippians, and we went over this. We did. We'll look at that in a minute. And also, in summary form, we can have different thoughts than God's.

Has God cut off our will? No. That means, here's the deep close nature of Adam that we have, and here's the exalted and high nature of Christ that we have. It is not our will, if we're immature, to submit to our oaths in nature or to submit to God. Whose will is it? It is God's will that we submit to Him because He has what's good for us and we've got to learn that. It's impossible. We already know that if we go into slavery to this in nature, there's consequences. No fellowship with Him. So that He has to discipline us. And if he doesn't discipline us, he wouldn't love us. He does discipline us.

Okay, I'm sorry. You're doing better. I like it. Spiritual maturity is reached by God's pathway, a forward-looking progress. And that's what these verses are teaching us. God is the one who will reveal His pathway, methods, and goal to each of us. We talked a little bit about the mansions in heaven.

They have nothing to do with us. That's his gift. But that's a prize. Did we create the prize when we were running a race here on earth? The metaphor falls down when we apply it to the reality of our running the race with God. He just wants us to look at the gold, and that gold is appreciating and magnifying Him to the ultimate, the exceeding value.

We've already covered that. Do you remember covering that? The exceeding value of Christ in contrast to the ways of the flesh. Well, we've got one more verse here. However, I'm going to go into the last verse here. However, toward, and I've put in brackets What does that refer to? It is the goal of God which we have attained. And that's an irrespective. That means it is real. It's a fact. It is not a point of time. It is a factual fact that is being looked at here.

It's active in that we attain it. Isn't that something? We attain this actively, we do this by that, by the actual goal of God. What is that goal of God? Maturity. That's God's pathway. So then he gives us to be in, as the present active infinitive, it means to be in the progress of harmony. He wants us to harmonize with his thinking. Is that simple? Isn't that wonderful? We get to sing with God. Well, you said you were going to sing today.

I didn't know what you were talking about. I thought about putting the song here, but I haven't done it, so that's for sure. That very thing, the goal of God, be, and this is an active indicative infinitive again, be in the process of thinking. And so, two infinitives here describe a harmony and a thinking process. Got it? I didn't do it. I thought seriously of doing it, a little chart.

It's at the cross. We were crucified with him, right? And we became alive at that point, didn't we? From God's perspective, it's all done. We go to position. From our perspective, we're looking at that what's already done, and we're going to understand it every day, a little bit more and more. And that's the sanctification now, in this time, the progress of being matured. of walking with him every step that we take.

What's the ultimate goal? Get rid of that sin nature completely, right? And receive the prize, what he's prepared for us in the future. Did we merit that? No. Did we merit taking the sin nature upon himself? No. Did we merit Him giving us this process of getting to know His goal, to know Him and to know that what He's going to do is give us the very nature of Christ fully with no sin nature in the future? Do we have that nature now?

Potentially, yes. And what is the potential? Believing that God is actually doing it. I'm sorry, it's my weakness too, but I didn't bring it along with me. Boy, we probably should wrap it up here. The conclusions to this central message are that the call of God is to progressively mature us. And that is his goal for us. The call of God includes us learning to let God show and honor just Christ. And one of the biggest downfalls that happens in the ministry is when we are communicating to one another or in a group like a church, that we take the glory that God wants to be on Christ to ourselves.

And we say, yeah, when people come up to us and say, boy, I really enjoyed that. No, that is not what should happen. They should see Christ in those words. They should hear If the power of the Holy Spirit is working, Christ will be built up in your minds, in my mind, whenever we hear words.

And then the last thing, the call of God includes us living in harmony with God's goal. The call of God includes us thinking His thoughts, those two things. Now, way back there in verse 13 of chapter 1, has become well-known is what we focused on. Did well-known give us the focus of has become?

Yes. This tells us that God has revealed on Eros, made visible that his imprisonment is different from human normal imprisonments. Why? Because the good news spread. This was divine. It's something that even unbelievers could see was different. This guy's in prison for something other than a crime. This well-known is key to understanding many passages about God's way, because his goal is to consistently communicate with men about himself. And he reveals himself in creation, doesn't he? In scriptures we see him repeatedly showing man his presence, like the star in his world. Men saw that. In fact, The guys coming from the east made all of Jerusalem upset. The shepherds were told of his birthplace and where they could go to see him.

Now the abode is repeated for us in chapters 3, 18 through 16. Here it's a progressing teaching of God that his goal is to reveal Christ in us, his vessels of blood. And finally in the review of verse 14, That is, what is the significance of the word most here? You're talking about most of the brethren. It indicates that most, but not all, of the brethren reacted correctly to Christ in presence.

The word trusting translated consistently in Philippians, is that true? No. There are six places that this word in Philippians, it means persuade. I'm giving you those verses and there are 52 other uses. God persuades, he prods us just like he prodded Saul when he was persecuting him in the church. And he arranges the circumstances to get us to think in harmony with his thoughts. So we like Paul can rejoice in whatever the suffering is.

Why does God do this instead of making us do his will? Could he do that? Yeah, I think he could. But he doesn't. His ways are to have his thinking about revealing his glory and his plan for us so that we can learn and share in his sufferings and be prepared to be vessels of clay that another person who is suffering can say, this is how God helped me when I had that happen. Why don't you look at him? And look at that, that's part of his plan for you too. You wouldn't say it that way, but I think that he is. There's an empathy built in when we suffer.

God persuades us to having his thinking. God says that we now have his spirit and nature so that we can grow and experience both his joy and his pain, knowing that each thing he brings to us is for our good and that his goal is to reveal and exalt Christ. The emphasis today is the repeated lesson of God, to have His thinking during all circumstances, to allow Him to reveal to us and to show through us Christ's glory. This is God's grace, that we may now live in harmony with God's supreme purpose, that all may acknowledge the perfection of His Son. By the way, that is the ultimate goal, isn't it?

Not just in us, but in heaven, In the earth and every knee will bow under the earth. By the way, in Ephesians the passage does not say in fullness of time under the earth. There is a period of time when there will be no consideration of under the earth. They're already separated.

What are you considering is just the beautiful of the new heavens and the new earth. Touching on that, coming up is a prize for us in the coming weeks, Bob's going to teach that, both citizenship and a personal home in heaven. And then I end this by telling you all the rest of the stuff, and that's how I find it, it's online by the way, is by way of preparation. So it's for you to look at if you want to.

I won't go into it now, but there are several things there. First, there are shoguns. Expanded translations, both of Liszt and, believe it or not, von Biedermann. I stuck that in there. And then I went through each verse, gave you the grammatical research that was done. And finally, I did a little review of verse 11, and I gave you the two views of that verse.

One view, which by the way, the majority of believers hold, is that it has to do with the resurrection. And the other view is, because of the context, it has to do with us entering into the resurrection life of Christ. And, boy, are there a lot of arguments from Scripture for that view. That's good. I'll leave you to look it up. This is Jim. That's great. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for this time together.

Thank you for The very fact that you're here, that you're working and managing everyone here, and that you multiply yourself because of that, and that your essence is so focused, like Timothy, on the benefit of those that you're ministering to, that you suffer with us, and that you enjoy things with us, that it is you yourself that we have this harmony with, that we in each moment of the day know you are walking and we are appreciating