Knowing Christ Jesus my Lord #1

Well, this passage, as I mentioned, has quickly become one of my favorite, if not my favorite, in this book. It just summarizes everything that we've seen. Sometimes we've seen the truths of knowing Christ and being light-minded in Christ and being in Christ and these things. We've seen them in the passages, but sometimes it's nice just to see it very clearly very directly, very matter-of-factly, and I think that these verses really draw out just the heartbeat of what it means to be a believer in this age, and especially the heartbeat of Holly Hills, which should be that of all believers, but thankfully we get to enjoy the knowledge of identification truths, we get to enjoy the knowledge of of grace versus law and all that we see there in the New Testament. And this passage is kind of one of those banners that we might pick up and fly on the flag just because it's so clear. So let's go ahead and just start by reading. I'll read verses 8 and 9 and do a little review of what Jeremy covered last week and jump right into these. More than that, I count all things to be lost 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 but rubbish, so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a 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."

Very clear. Very clear statements by Paul. I mean, he has He's been driving home a lot of these truths all throughout the book of Philippians. We get to the third chapter and we have such a crystal clear perspective on how he views knowledge, how he views gain, how he views loss, how he views the righteousness applied to his account and where it comes from, the source of it. And so I'm just real thankful for very clear passages at times. I mean, it's great to be able to study and to be able to uncover truths that are not necessarily clear right at the beginning. It's very exciting also just to come across one of those passages that you can read to your children and they can grab hold of it and begin to think through the reality of who we are in Christ and where our righteousness comes from.

And that's what we've got here. So we're going to break it down just like we do every week. I think we need a little bit of a running start into it in that we think through verse 7 a little bit here in a minute and pick up with that in verse 8. So Paul has this warning. He's been working through the warning. Excuse me, I'm going to be coughing a little bit here. I've just got a little bit of a leftover. The more I talk, the more it comes out.

But Paul has the warning that he's been working through in this chapter, and we saw it in verse 1, chapter 3, verse 1, where he says, Rejoice in the Lord always, and he moves on in verse 2. The passage that we're studying this morning, Paul's writing about the comparative value of things. So if you go back to someone and want to just read chapter 3, verse 2 for me, just think about the value factor that Paul's placing on things. Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision. More than that, I count all things to be lost 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 but rubbish, so that I may gain Christ.

So he's talking about this idea of rejoicing and we talked about the idea of rejoicing in all circumstances. Again, circumstances producing rejoicing and joy and yet he has this value factor that he's been working through both in circumstances and now in things.

And he's placing the value in verse 8 here on what? We see in verse 7 he started looking at himself in terms of who he was. where he came from, what kinds of things that applied to him as a Jew, and also for the things that he personally accomplished. And so he sees those things and he starts to make value judgments about them.

And so you've studied in the last several weeks what Paul perceived himself as, both in his birthright and also in the works that he produced. And so let's just review that a little bit. You've got these things listed that you've all studied, again, in the past weeks here. And you see the top three here, circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, those three things were credentials, excuse me, that Paul was born into.

They were not works related, but they were things that he had value, had valued at a particular point in time, and extreme value, you might say. And he makes that clear. This was who he was. This was his image. This is where he found himself, and he was proud to be in that place. And you can see, as a comparison to the last four here, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness. So, he was the top of the threshold. I mean, he was at the creme de la creme, so to speak.

I mean, he was the Hebrew of Hebrews, and when it comes to the law, I was a Pharisee of all things. And so we looked at that. What about zeal? Did I have zeal? You bet I had zeal. I was a persecutor of the church. That shows how far I was zealous enough to go.

And then with righteousness, blameless. Perfect. I mean, Paul used that same term blameless, remember, in a previous passage as a result of being in Christ. Remember, found blameless. We also mentioned in chapter 2 that light of the world and so forth, he uses that term, but previously his value of blamelessness came from where? From accomplishing everything that the law had written. He was perfect, blameless. No one could say anything with regards to how Paul behaved himself under the law. And these were credentials that Paul had by his own efforts.

And so what we're seeing here is a value system that's shifted for a man. And he's making very clear this value system and he's recording it in the scripture so that we too can understand how value in the Christian life works. And I think that's really pretty cool because Paul, of all people, had such a unique and interesting background to be able to draw these kinds of value comparisons about who he was and how he saw himself.

And the thing is, is that you have them too. And I do too. And so as we work through these things, you might want to think about the things that you believe that you were born into, that you have the right to as an American, you know, born in this century, born with these privileges, born with these rights, you know, you have all of these things and these values that you, you know, get very excited about, especially when it comes time to vote. You hold them up and you encourage others to see them the same way, and there's nothing wrong with that, but yet the values that you place in your own mind by virtue of where you were born and when you were born, and also those things that you feel like you've accomplished, the things that separate you from other people, the things that you've done, the kinds of things that are the tick marks that you've marked off in life, the notches in your belt.

We all have those kinds of things, and I think that this passage would, and the previous passages that you've looked at, would encourage you to start thinking through how do you value those things? I mean, really? And how did Paul value them? Before Paul was a believer, did he have a good self-image?

Yes or no? Yes. Yes. I'm a zealot! I'm perfect! You've got nothing on me, he might say. you know, about Paul. That's how he felt. There's nothing you can say. And if you, maybe you've struggled with being that kind of, having that kind of arrogance or pride, or you know people that are just, they can do no wrong. I mean, anything you say, they can twist it around and they're blameless in the scenario. Not me. Not me either. A friend was talking about me. Oh, well. I'm sorry. Yeah, he was just touching me like, not me. It wasn't very helpful.

Well, it's something that, you know, even for myself, you know, it's very natural for me to feel that I'm right. You know, it takes time for me to wind down and think of things and really look at them from the basis of the scripture. And I'll tell you, that took a lot for me to do. Paul struggled with it even more.

You know, even more so, to the point that he made a big spectacle about how blameless that he was, and how zealous he was. And I noticed that, I was reading that in a book about Zacharias was considered blameless too, but you know they couldn't have kept the law perfectly, only the Lord did, so why would they be considered blameless, I wonder.

As a Pharisee, you have the laws to protect you from the laws, and so the blamelessness became very much a lifestyle. It wasn't so much that they measured every single detail, it was just the nature of who they thought themselves to be. So they were law keepers, I mean that was their thing. It was their hobby, it was their life, it was their occupation, so it's almost like saying, I'm an engineer. But I know the Bible says that Zacharias and I think it was the Balsam were considered blameless before the Lord. So I was wondering, just because of their heart, maybe it was their heart attitude. Because we know they couldn't have kept the law perfectly.

Well in their case, I mean there was a blamelessness applied to a believer before Christ. as a believer, right? So Abraham was blameless before the Lord because of faithing. We know that Zacharias was a believer as well. So we have to look at that more specifically. But there was the application of blamelessness to believers prior to Christ. But in this case, Paul's not talking about that.

He's talking about the blamelessness that he accomplished by carrying out the law and being perfect, so to speak. And I think that goes along too with their self-image. And it was so, I mean, that's how they saw themselves. Whether or not that's how they actually lived, they saw themselves as being perfect.

I think of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and said, of all these things I have kept, and Jesus said, okay, sell all your goods and come follow me. And he was able to expose what the real issue of the heart is. He saw himself as perfect, but Jesus was able to help him see that, no, it's not exactly as you see it. And I think that's the key here.

Paul saw himself as being perfect in reference to the law. What's interesting here, it's kind of ironic, in the identification truths of blamelessness, okay, we're going to talk about righteousness applied to our account. Are we to see ourselves that way too?

Even though conditionally... So it's not so much that the Pharisees had the wrong positional perspective of who they were. It's just that their position was tied to their condition. And so they saw themselves, even though they weren't blameless, they saw themselves as such.

And we're told to do that as well. We're told to see us. But our source of that blamelessness is found in a different place. Their source was found in the things that they did collectively as a group. But they believed it wholeheartedly. They lived it. They promoted it. And even when someone might call them out on it, no, that's not me. I'm blameless. You must be seeing it wrong, you know.

So they were convinced of their blamelessness. And so we too should be convinced of our blamelessness, but the source of it is far different. And that's what's so neat is that in the same way that Paul was convinced of being blameless as a Pharisee, I mean, there's no difference in terms of our being convinced in that same way. It's just that we find our source of that somewhere totally different. Somewhere totally different.

Is it more biblical for a person to have a good self-image or a bad self-image? I love this question. I really do. Because it just flies in the face of all the things that, I guess, early on in your young Christian life that you try to develop, you try to get clear. You know, how do I view myself? What do I look like? How do I value myself? And is it not the central tenet of all counseling? I mean, even Christian counseling. Let's deal with the self-image factor. How do you see yourself?

When we talk about good and bad, especially in the context of this passage, it's all in your value system. You can say it's good and bad, but it's accurate. For us as believers, we see ourselves as who we are in Christ, and what he's done for us. And we place value on that. We say, that is good.

But you just ask somebody on the street, when you ask them about a good self-image, just like you're talking about with the Pharisees, the source, the basis of that value judgment is going to be totally different. So, in the context of who we are in Christ, yeah, we should have that good self-image, that accurate self-image of what Christ has done for us. I think that question leaves you in the tree of sin. We're not in the tree of life with that question. Okay, I think that's a good point. This is something that took me a long time to grab hold of. What's the presupposition with this question? It's loaded here. It's a loaded question.

That's what's really unique about this and it's something I've really had to work through because the idea of counseling and I'm talking in the Christian world here. I'm not talking about, I mean, it's biblical. Is it more biblical for a person? the question shouldn't be answered, see, because it's not a matter of having biblically a good self-image or a bad self-image, it's having a Christ image. And that's the only way to view the question, and so you have to rephrase the question before you answer it.

It just can't be answered in any other way. It presupposes that self has an image now. And that's not the case anymore for you. And that's what's really cool. When we go into biblical counseling, or we go into this idea of encouraging a person about who they are, it's not about you and your image anymore. It's about Christ in you. Not I, but Christ. Yeah. I was just going to relay that.

A lot of folks know this, but Hal Molloy, he went to be with Lord, but his counseling ministry was exactly that. To show people who they were in Christ. And what he found, he counseled a lot, and what he found was most people did not know who they were in Christ. So before he could start really addressing the problem, he had to teach them who they were in Christ. And that was his counseling ministry. It was a marvelous counseling ministry.

Because it was so different. Because most counselors don't start with, well don't you know who you are in Christ? We've got to help you understand who you are before we even get to your problem. It was marvelous. I mean, so different from the world's counseling. That's right. Donna?

Well, I think in conjunction with what Roger is saying and what, you know, Paul runs through all of the incredible things that he was, but a lot of people, I think, get hung up on bad things. Yeah, my parents did this, or I had this go wrong with me, or whatever, and they bring that along, they can't let go of that burden because they don't see them as they are.

Have you noticed, and again, we're privileged at Holly Hills, it's nothing in our own doing here, we're privileged by the grace of God to be where we are as a body. That being said, have you noticed that The classes and the opportunities that teachers have to open up the Word of God don't have you saying, do you feel downtrodden?

Do you feel burdened today? Do you feel destroyed by the week? Do you feel pain? To take, as a teacher, that approach would be to draw out this self-image and to draw out this idea of, how do you feel today? Well, if you ask me, I could probably come up with a lot of good things and a lot of bad things. I mean, we all have things we like and we don't like. So if you ask the question, you know, yeah, yeah, I mean, just today, there's things that I did that I like and I don't like. You know, if I'm going to evaluate my self-image, then I've already started off on a pretty, you know, crummy foot today.

But that's not what matters here and I think that that, let's just get back into the verse here because Paul drives home this idea of where I think counseling starts, where our own encouragement in the Lord starts with ourselves and how we view ourselves because at the end of the day it's an eternal perspective that matters more than a temporal conditional perspective.

And so that's what this first drives home. Let's look at the comparisons here. You can't see that in your notes, but up here on the board you can. We've got the red being one thing, the gain, the green being the loss, and the source of value being underlined here. And so there's a pretty clear pattern throughout these three verses. I bring up verse 7 again. But whatever things were gained to me, those things, okay, all things in verse 8, and then 9, righteousness of my own derived from the law.

So we have those things that were gained to him at one point, the value system that he had. And had he been in a Pharisee counseling session, these are the things they would have talked about. Oh, Paul, Paul, don't forget who you are. You are a Pharisee of Pharisees. You have all things in your birthright. You're a Hebrew of Hebrews. Remember, you persecuted the church yesterday. These are good things, Paul. So the counseling session would have pointed to all the things that are in red there. But he says no. That's not the session that I'm under anymore. That's not the perspective I have anymore.

If I'm going to value myself and start to look at who I am, I count those things as loss. He says, more than that, I count to be lost in view of the surpassing value of something else now. My value comes somewhere else. I've suffered the loss of all things and I count them rubbish. That word rubbish is a unique word. We'll look at that. And he says, not having them is where my value is now.

I value not having these things anymore. The things that you told me in that session were so important to me, if we're going to use that analogy, they don't matter at all to me. I've lost them all, they're completely removed from my value system altogether, and they've been replaced with something else. What have they been replaced with? Well, for the sake of Christ, knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom, that reason of valuing exchange, so that I may gain something else. My value is now in a gain of Christ and knowing him for his sake to be found in him.

I love that. Verse nine. And then finally, which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, all of my value comes in a different way, not by works but by faith, and it's found in a person of Christ, not in my person anymore.

And so that's the general flow that we have in these verses. And I almost just feel like these should be on the ends of our tongue on a regular basis because it's almost like a... it's just a fan. I don't know. It just finds itself to be so clear that way. Let's look at the word game.

The idea is here of profit. It's used in monetary terms to gain monetarily. Titus uses it also in verse 121. For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. There's an amount of gain that takes place as a result of these things. And so it's compared and contrasted to the idea of loss, that idea of damage or disadvantage. And I like the word disadvantage because it almost sets it It's not only that it's not there and it's gone, it's now viewed as a disadvantage to me. And so Paul would be saying, just in the fullness of this, I've gained something in a much, much more significant way than I ever have before, and I count the things in the past as a complete disadvantage to me. They're complete damage and loss, total loss. The damages are so severe that if I were to ever go back to that place, it would be an extreme disadvantage or total loss, total damage.

He uses the same word, loss, in Acts 27.10, for a total loss of cargo and lives at sea. just that comparison we talked about in the fires. It's a complete and total burnt to the ground. Nothing left there. In fact, it's a disadvantage to even go back and consider it. Is there value there? Everything that I once had is now completely ashes.

And that's how he views that. But he's gained something there too. So the value system has not been lost altogether, it's been re-evaluated. There's been an exchange. There's been a value exchange. This is an economical passage. It really is. It's an economics of your account in heaven. We all have that account. We use that illustration as we talk about the value system that a person has before knowing the Lord and after knowing the Lord. You know, we talk about how you have an account before the Lord and that's where justification comes in as a declaration of where your account now stands before God. And here he's saying, I got some perspective on that account. And part of that perspective is the complete and total damage or disadvantage that all those things that once were valuable to me now have to be.

What about the word surpassing value? Excellence. Anybody have another word for that? Excellency, I think, and maybe the new King James. Surpassing value. When was the last time you used that in a sentence? More than that, in verse 8, more than that, more than all the other things, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value or the excellence Have you used that word recently? These aren't words. How might we say that in a way that you value something greatly today?

Just to bring a little bit more to that question, the idea here is that this is a value that is over and above what was valued before. It's like your stocks just tripled or quadrupled. You got in at this, and then it went pfft. The value surpassed what you ever expected. Except in this case, it's an eternal value that surpasses beyond tripling or doubling in stocks.

But it's something that cannot even be fairly compared. It's like saying, I started with $100. It went to $10 billion. I mean, I can't even compare where it started, the value of where it started and the value of where it's at today. And then multiply that, because we're talking about something that is of even greater value than that. It's so vast. There's a vast difference here. And so, how do you say that? How do you view that in your mind? More than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value.

Mostly go over the top. Over the top! There's a good one. Extreme. Vern likes that. Extreme marriage. It's over the top. It's out of the world. It's out of this world. That's another. Out of this world. You know, it's kind of just something not even in the same way. Not even in the same world. And that's how he viewed it. You might say it that way.

In view of the out of this world value of knowing Christ. The surpassing value of knowing Christ. We've got this idea of counting. It was introduced, it's been introduced before, especially in chapter 2, 3, 6, and 25, and then in 7 last week, and 8. But this idea of counting something, reckoning something to be the case, it relates to that judgment, the way that you see something now.

And that term was often used in the way that an authority would count something as being such. Whether you were a criminal or whether you were free, the official authoritative view of who you were would be a similar word. I count you as a criminal or the law counts you as a free man today even though you were guilty, you served your time, you paid back. You paid back your debt to society and now you're counted as having been freed from this. And so it was an authoritative, official perspective on the way someone was viewed or something was viewed.

And so it communicates just a very matter-of-fact final conclusion. There's no doubt about it. This is how it is now. So, more than that, verse 8, I count all things to be loss. in view of the out-of-this-world, totally different value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.

So it's personal there, right? The value system is not based on something that is inward and accomplished on its own. It's based on a personal relationship with someone else. Is there anything else like that in this world, where you get value through your relationship with someone else?

I mean, how could this be perceived? Sometimes it's really easy to see these things as a believer, but how do you see this kind of thing as an unbeliever? What are some of the things that come to your mind? If you try to read this, put yourself in a situation where you perceive Christianity as a works-based system, because that's how they perceive us, as having to do certain things in order to achieve certain you know, standings before God, it's the karmicist, and that's how most unbelievers view it. What does this verse do to some of those concepts of Christian living and Christian works perceived by the world?

Maybe that, the name it, claim it sort of thing? Like, I know him, and so this is how it's going to be, you know, I trust the Lord's Okay, so if you've ever heard of the name-it-claim-it thing, that's a view of faith that's incorrect, right? That's a system of Christianity that takes biblical faith and converts it into a humanistic faith that accomplishes things because of your great faith, right? Do we see an amount of greatness applied to Paul's faith here? especially in verse 9. Is there a difference between huge faith and small faith? And that's what's interesting is that the Bible doesn't actually go into huge faith and small faith, which is what the name of the claimant system does.

So there's one perspective that's not here at all. What about this idea of God is separated from us and He's only concerned about the way scales of your life. Because at the end of the day, you drive by, you see the homeless guy on the street, you've got to give him the dollar. And I'm not saying you don't give him a dollar based on grace. I'm saying that if you give him the dollar based on karma, Christian karma, It's a totally different system. And that's how the world sees us, right?

And so Paul's saying, it's not about any of those things that I've ever accomplished. Look, if you want to talk about what I've accomplished, we could go down that path, but it's not about that anymore. It's about a personal relationship with someone. And so the question here, if Paul was being questioned about his Christian faith at this point, it would be based on who Christ is and not himself. Well, Paul, you did this the other day. Well, it's not about me. It's about who I know. It's about the surpassing value of who I know. Forget what I do.

And it's not that what I do shouldn't come from who I am, but there are failures in my life and all of our lives that don't point to Christ. But Paul's relationship with Christ in this particular verse is something of a final, complete and total statement about who he is. His entire self-image is not wrapped up in his failures of the day, previously to writing this that day. You know, had he probably not walked with God at portions of the week before he wrote this to the Philippians? Just like the rest of us. In fact, he says, if you say that you don't, in 1 John, if we say that we don't sin, we're liars, right? And so, that being said, we all have this sin, but it's not about our sin, it's about who we know. And it's about the surpassing value of that. And again, this is economics. He's exchanging.

And, you know, we'll never find ourselves in a place of being a Pharisee. We're just not going to have that problem. We're not going to have this perfection concept, but we do have a Christian version of it, and it's that works system. It's the Christian law system. And we don't call ourselves Pharisees, we call ourselves committed to Christ. truly having made him Lord of our lives. So those are the terms that we use for the pharisaical version of today's life. You see what I'm saying? There's a Pharisee perspective on value that's in the church today. And it's that, you know, making him Lord of your life.

It's making total commitment. Have you committed yourself completely to the Lord? If not, you need to come up and redo it. Start over, because you haven't made that total and complete commitment. Have you known people like that? Have you been trapped in that system before?

That's not what Paul's trapped in. In fact, he finds himself free from having lost everything, which is a complete ironic and backwards way of thinking. But again, it's loss that produces gain for Paul. In fact, the way he views that total devastating loss, actually not devastating, I meant to say the disadvantage, the complete disadvantage of loss that he claims there, he uses that word. rubbish or scuba line and Verne points out here that this is the only time that this word is used and it's a combination of other words. It's the only time it's used in the New Testament.

It's a combination of words here where you would throw something out to a roaming pack of dogs and wild dogs at that. Biblically speaking, these dogs were not the kind of dogs that are tame. These are wild, eating the trash, going through the leftovers from the previous day.

And this is the rubbish that Paul talks about, the things that he had in the past. My work system? Rubbish. It's the kind of things you throw out to the dogs. And it's used in secular writings as what's pulled out from the grain. The stuff that gets completely trashed, that has no value to go into any of the food at all, any of the offerings at all. It's dung. It's sewage. And that's how that word is used in other New Testament times writings. Scubalong. That's how we use it. It's scubalong. How do we say it?

I'm not going to ask you to say that, but you know the point. That's what he thought of the old value system and the things that accomplished that value. He thought of it as sewage. And that's exactly what he says. That's where that took place in Philippi. Thank you, Vern. He's so good at finding that stuff. That's a Philippian bathroom, public. But that's where Skoubalan was collected.

That's where his old value system was now seen. for winning Christ? For what? Because he says he counted it all loss that I may win Christ. Is that an either or? Well, the word, I think, in your translation, what translation is that? So, when the word gain is used in the New American Standard, I don't believe that the gaining of Christ is a result of counting something as rubbish. but counting it as loss. You can name it, you can call it what it is, and that is what it is, but I do think that there is a perspective on, in this case, is this a salvation passage? No. This is a Christian growth passage, this is a self-image passage. And so it's not about gaining or having to do something in order to gain Christ for salvation, is it?

Right. It is a recognizing the things that you valued in the past that brought my complete and totally value, perspective, this high and mighty, out of this, we use this word differently earlier, but this, I'm the Pharisee of Pharisees. It's this system that he now has said, that means nothing to me. It's equivalent to what's collected in the bottom of this thing. You know, it's scuba line. And because of that value exchange, he has gained Christ as a result of that, and his perspective as a Christian has now grown.

The identification that he has with Christ has now, he's now taken on a new perspective in his mind, he has now grown in a way that he has, you know, that he's encouraging the Philippians to do as well. Does that make sense? Am I tracking with you okay on that? You got a perspective there? Well, I think there is a binary aspect in that. Can you explain binary?

It's either or. It is one or all. One or all. If Christ is going to be the base of our value system, we can't have any measurement of our own works. bring that into it. It's either Christ is the basis and we gain that perspective where we have that surpassing value of Christ. And in order to do that, everything else has to be cast aside. We can't have any other value system. We can't say Christ is my all in all, and yet I also have these little things on the side. Let me ask you this though. So that's an interesting perspective.

Is that the way your mind works through the day? Do you have an on or off, or is it a growth pattern? Is it being convinced over time of these things, and each person is being conformed at different paces to this reality? I think that while the truth positionally is on or off. Conditionally, we're all dealing with it at different places. And we're dealing with it at different magnitudes, right?

You're counting certain things as loss and gaining Christ in certain areas. I'm counting things as certain loss and gaining Christ in certain areas. Now, positionally, is Christ the only value system that there is? Yes. But that's what the whole idea of being conformed and transformed happens. All of these circumstances that we find ourselves, the things that we're born with, the things that we valued in the past, We are losing value in those things as we choose to place that value in Christ.

It's by faith, right? And what I'm trying to point out is that while it is an on or off perspective of faith, It happens in varying degrees in our lives over time. And I think that's one of the reasons why he's encouraging, rejoice always. This is an on perspective, completely on for Paul. This is who we are in Christ. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

But I think there's also a number of passages that point us to the ongoing growth nature of reckoning on these things. And so that would be the only thing I'd add to that is just that I don't think that there is a requirement for salvation to view things as a loss in this way.

But in order to view your self-esteem properly, you have to know, to use your word, the binary perspective of my value is no longer here, it is here. And it's a surpassing value. It's not just an off and out of this world. It's that radical of a shift in value. And for you to know it is one thing. For you to believe it and trust it in faith in your life is something that's at the identification level.

It's a conditional being conformed, being transformed perspective. Thoughts? I welcome anything there. Looking at verse 8, it kind of appears that the gain is actually a result of the knowing earlier in the verse, which is, I guess, what you're saying, the growth process of gain. That's right. It's interesting. Very good point. Thanks for bringing that up. But the knowing here, the gnosis, it refers to that personal knowledge. This isn't about, I know about him. The gain comes from a personal relationship.

And that's why I ask you, if you were to bring this passage up with an unbeliever, you would have to say, look, my value system, you can't understand my value system because you don't know personally this person. If you knew this person, you can know where my value is. It's 100% placed in Him. Everything else is counted as rubbish. And I'm growing in that trust over time. And you can't see that, only the Lord sees that. But my value system is completely and totally different than yours.

Is there sadness when I lose something physical? Yeah, I mean, we all have sadness when we lose certain things that are physical. But at our heart, biblically speaking, these things that we have, all things, that Paul uses that word, more than that I count all things. He's covering the spectrum there. He counts them to be lost in view of. So it's not that they're lost by themselves, but when you set them next to Christ, there's no comparison here.

When you set that perfect job that you just got, that's a good thing for your family. Now you can support your family. You know, is this supposed to be considered rubbish? Well, not in and of itself, but when you compare it to knowing Christ and the eternal value, yes, that's the value system that he's asking us to have. And I think that it's interesting is that you don't just, all things are rubbish. You know, and you just lock yourself up or I don't know, whatever you might do to take this to an extreme.

He's saying in comparison, in view of. When you set this next to the personal relationship you have with Christ, these things don't matter. And if they do matter in your heart, you see an area where you're counting something of value when Christ is saying, the value is right here with us.

And that's his perspective on that. The initial focal point of Paul's value comparison is in this knowledge thing. How do you know Christ? How do you know him? We're going to talk about that. 2 Corinthians 3.18 As you behold him, you know him. And knowing him causes a comparative value in your mind. And that's what Paul is dealing with here.

Let's look at the righteousness seen in verse 9. I'm just going to read 8 and 9 again just so that we keep the text itself in front of us and not just these keywords. More than that, I count all things to be lost 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 but rubbish, so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ Jesus, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. It's used twice in verse 9, and it carries this source again.

How many times have we talked about it, even in 1st and 2nd John, if you guys were in 3rd John when you guys were with us in that class? I mean, the source of everything matters, biblically speaking. Where does this come from? Where do I get this? In the Law of Grace series that we're going through in the main service, The source. Where's the source in these things?

Paul drives this home very, very clearly here. It's not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law. Had he had that in the past, he had that perspective. So let me ask you a question. Have you ever perceived your righteousness, or let's use another word, your perfection, your goodness, the things that are valued by whoever evaluates them, have you ever viewed them as being accomplished by something that you did?

That's what Paul's saying here. That's not where it comes from. This is a very, very clear verse on the source of righteousness, which is kind of the central tenet of the gospel, the Christian faith. And that's so contrary to what the world thinks. You mean you're going to be righteous just because you know this person?

Give me a break. I want to see it in There's nothing out there like this where you gain goodness in a value system by who you know and who did it on your behalf. Buddhism. Hinduism. As Middle Eastern and as popular as it is today, it's all based on works. Nirvana is not accomplished by knowing someone. It's accomplished by you. Karma is a fate-based system. It's works. Everything is works.

Paul is saying this is not works. It's not righteousness by the law. Does somebody have a question right there? And that but right there is significant because it means incomplete and total contrast. not having righteousness of my own derived from the law, but in complete and total contrast, great contrast, that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. It just reminds me, if you read a lot of atheists and evolutionists that say, well, we know God doesn't exist because we can't measure it, we don't have any scientific proof of it, To me it's ridiculous because God exists. He's outside of nature. So how are you going to be able to measure something that's supernatural? But they're stuck within this metric system and they can't see beyond it. Well, it doesn't make sense. And the same thing with this work. They're stuck within this work system where everything is measurable by some standard.

Everyone has a different standard, but it's the standard of I've done this much good. And to see that it's something different. It's what one ought to call a qualitative leap. We're going to something of different quality. It's a different kind. It's not just more and more of this one thing. It's we're leaping to something different.

And they don't understand it, because they're stuck within this metric of how much worse can I accomplish? When they see it, and what we're trying to describe, it does not compute. It doesn't make sense to them at all. Well, it's foolish not to know that. In fact, they'll put it down. They'll say, that faith thing, that's and they'll disdain it, they'll say that's, that can't be. Would that be grace?

Yeah, it's qualitatively different. It's the creator-creature distinction here. We're talking about a creator's perspective versus a creature's perspective and they are totally different. What's interesting though is that the ability to measure and have a works system presupposes that there is an evaluation of things in the first place, and that there is also constants that can be viewed in ways of evaluation and measurement. So, I would say, your ability to measure at all presupposes that God exists.

And this is what's interesting. What is God's standard? What do we call that? Holiness. Okay? God's holiness is known by every unbeliever. Romans 1, right? They're taking advantage of being created in the image of God, and having His holiness in their heart, and evaluating the things that they can perceive and see in this world, and using it to say that He is not valuable enough. You couldn't value anything if it weren't for the ability to measure, and to see, and to observe, and to think this way. Your ability to think mathematically or scientifically at all presupposes the God of the Bible. And only the God of the Bible accounts for the world of measurement, the world of standards, the worlds of value. That is our God. Now has it gone awry? I love that word. I never use it except for in Bible teaching. Awry! It's gone awry! Aidan! The day is awry! Did you say a fly?

Yeah, I think we got off on a little rabbit trail, but the value system that the world uses is a perverted perspective of being created in the image of God and having a value at all. The fact that we do value things good and bad presupposes something. Where does it come from? These are questions that we have to answer.

At the end of the day, just like Roger said, it is foolishness to them only because they don't believe. That's the only reason. It's not foolish because they can't understand it or they're not able to understand it. Romans 1 tells us that they very much do know him and have denied him. And that denial, that hardening of heart that Romans talks about, Paul talks about there, has produced in them a foolishness. And that foolishness can be reversed through faith. And that's the next word. belief, trust, faith. It seems like every time I bring this up, Al Molloy's study comes up, so refer to that great and in-depth study of this.

But righteousness does not come through generalized faith in just anything, but specifically through faith in Christ. Christ must be the object of our faith. 2 Thessalonians makes it clear that human beings can place faith in false things. but only faith in Christ, who is the truth, results in righteousness in us. That great exchange between sin and righteousness that we call the heavenly courtroom, the declaration of justification, all that takes place by who you know and who, by faith, did it on your behalf.

I think something that, in verse 9, the idea of, it talks about being found in him. I love the way he puts it there, and it reads, be found in Christ, because that's where your righteousness is. Now that's a positional perspective. Let's take that conditionally. Find yourself in Christ, so that He does the living through you. How do you find yourself in Christ? It's by faith. And I love that idea. Where are you? Where are you in your walk? Find yourself in Christ.

That's where the righteousness is. That's where the source is. How is it accomplished? It's by faith. Is that passage, you found it in Christ? Let me look. Yeah. Yeah, it's not a matter of doing something, it's a matter of being somewhere, positionally. Realizing the fact, that's the word. That's right, realize where you are, and where you are is righteousness, and that's where it is, and it's through faith, and it's on the basis of faith. Let's read the expanded version of both these verses here. Again, thanks to Vern for this.

Beyond that, I have a perspective such that I now continually count all things to be entered in my personal ledger as a loss, in view of realizing the surpassing value above all present and former things of the personal knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all the things I once valued as gain in my personal ledger, and now continue to count them in value only In value only a totally worthless waste on the basis that I have in the past gained Christ in the past That's something that we didn't look at is when that when was the gaining done it's a past perspective so good Verse 9 and in order that I will will be found in him passive. We know that now and I will be found by him in him, not then or now having a righteousness from my own self-efforts, which has been achieved by keeping the Mosaic Law, and the human traditions added to it by the Pharisees, but in sharp contrast, that righteousness which is completely through faith, trust and confidence in the person and work of Christ, that is, the very eternally established measure of absolute righteousness which is Christ himself, which comes from God, only on the basis of faith in Christ. rich, rich words by Paul to the Philippians.

Is this going to produce unity amongst the body? Are we all a bunch of different people? Yeah, in one sense we are. But when it comes to self-image, when it comes to who we really are, are we all that different? We're not. We're each found in Christ. That's where we are.

And that's the unity that Paul is driving home here. There's a lot going on about where righteousness comes from, the source of it. There's a lot going on with the value system. But the Philippians would have no doubt been excited to just continue to talk about this after having read it.

This is the stuff that unites us. We're in Christ and we're all in Christ. It's not about these teachers coming in here and confusing the issue and doing it out of works motives You know preaching Christ based on works based on their own gain. Our gain is in Christ. I kept those things lost We've got unity and that and that would have been you know, the running dialogue from this letter. I think with the Philippians Any final thoughts you got two minutes?

But this also helps us in our worldly occupation, not to over doctor, lawyer, Indian chief, whatever he might be. In Christ, we're the same. We've been found in him. And that's what we're to glory in, the fact that whatever earthly abilities the Lord has given us and whatever he may be is fine, but it's not to be spotlighted. The spotlight is to be on him and who we are in him.

It works wonders for unity. It really does. The hierarchy is squished radically in this perspective. It's not like, Christian, super-Christian, super-super-Christian. Heavy duty. There's Christ, and then there is his bride. It's personal. It's intimate. It's real.

And it changes everything according to Paul. It changes everything of value. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much that your word clarifies where our system of value is and on the basis of not our own works but on trust in you and the righteousness that's applied to our account positionally because you love us. And this is all intimate, it's all personal. It's not a stark economic system that's impersonal. We've got this love and this grace that carries through every bit of the value system that we have of ourselves and also the value system that we place on others, Lauren.

Thank you for that, and I just pray that we as the believers here in Holly Hills would find unity in these things, and ultimately that it might cause us to behold you in ways that transform and conform us, conditionally speaking, to your image, that we might find ourselves doing. allowing you to do the living through us rather, and that there might be things accomplished through us because you take great pleasure in doing the work through us, and I pray that that might be where we find ourselves. In your name we pray. Amen.