Maybe the best hymnology that has been written in that song we just sang, right? It is well with my soul. So many verses come to mind when you sing that, right? I bear the sin no more, right? Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Many promises in the Word that God gives to His people about that. Well, let's turn in our Bibles to Philippians chapter 3. We have the amazing, amazing privilege of hearing from God tonight. God is with us. God is here. God is among the gathering of His people. Revelation 1, the Lord dwells among the lampstands, among the churches. He is here. He is with us tonight. And I trust that He will be with me as I preach and He will be with you as we hear the word together and as we apply it. So let me read Philippians 3. I want to read verse 9. We looked at it last week. And then I want to read verses 10 and 11. That's what we're going to look at tonight. Verses 10 and 11. But follow with me as I start reading in Philippians 3 and verse 9. and I 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, so 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. We ask, O Lord, again, that as Jesus said it in the Gospel of Luke, let these words sink deep into your ears. We don't want to be the kind of soil that is by the road, the seed thrown by the road and the seed thrown on the rock and the seed thrown on the thorns, all of which are unconverted. No, our desire, O God, is that we would be the good soil, that we would hear the word, that we would receive it, that we would hold fast, that we would persevere and that we would bear fruit. thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold. So take your eternal truth and plant it deep in our hearts. In Jesus' name, Amen. I want to read for you to begin what Samuel Rutherford wrote in a letter regarding this Savior whom he loved, this Savior whom he cherished. It's in your outline. Follow along as I read what this Puritan preacher said about Christ. He said, put the beauty of ten thousand thousand worlds of paradises like the Garden of Eden in one. Gather all the trees and the flowers and the smells, the colors, the tastes, the joys, the sweetnesses, all loveliness in one. Oh, what a What a fair and excellent thing that would be. And yet he says, it would be less than the fair and dearest well-beloved Christ. It would be less than one drop of rain to all the seas and rivers and lakes and fountains of 10,000 earths. What's he saying? He says, put all the pleasures of life together. Put all the pleasures of life together. Your family, your job, your recreation, the music, the sports, the entertainment, the cuisine, the nature, the technology. Gather it all and put it into one big giant bundle of joy. And yet, when you have all of that joy gathered together, that can't even begin to compare with the delight of knowing this Christ. He wrote a letter to his congregation, and here's what he counseled others. You have this in your outline. Rutherford said, I counsel you to think highly of Christ and of free, free grace more than you did before. I think I see more of Christ than I ever saw before, and yet I see but little of what may be seen. Oh, that He would draw by the curtains, and that the King would come out of His gallery and His palace, that I might see Him. Oh, what price can be given for Him. Oh, His weight, His worth, His sweetness, His overpassing beauty. If 10,000 worlds of angels were created, they might all tire themselves in wondering at considering his beauty. Oh, that I could come near to kiss his feet, to hear his voice, to feel the smell of his ointments. But oh, alas, I have little, little of him. Yet I long for more. Wherever you are in your Christian journey of walking with Christ, you can relate to these words. Now, maybe you're like me and we can't quite eloquently write or preach like this in such poetic, illustrative beauty. But the way that Rutherford says, I have little of Christ, but I long for more. That's the heart cry of every Christian. I have Christ, I know He's mine, and I've been walking with Him, and yet I long for more of Christ. How do we get this knowledge? How do we learn more of this Christ? I think number one, by the initial converting work of God, it has to begin there. It has to begin with conversion that God must save us and convert us. Number two, by the internal workings of the Holy Spirit, we can't muster ourselves up by our own PhD or our own MA or our own degrees and say, I'm going to know more. It must be by the internal workings of the Spirit of God that teaches us. Number three, we get this knowledge about Christ by the continual study of the Word of Christ in God's Word. Number four, we get the knowledge by the grace and mercy of God to reveal Himself to us. We would be groping in the darkness, never able to find God unless He were to reveal Himself to us. And fifth, we get this knowledge by the endurance and the continual obedience with Christ. The more that we walk and obey Him, the more that we walk with and obey Him, the more that we know Him. To know Jesus, to not know about Jesus, but to know Jesus, there's a world of difference. But to really know Jesus is a privilege. It's a privilege. It's a protection. It's a protection in this dark world in which we live. It is a provision that God gives to all of his people. And to know Christ is a lifelong pursuit. It's not something that we attain the moment of salvation. It's not something that we have to get to a super spiritual condition. It's an ongoing pursuit that we all endeavor to pursue this Christ together. And it's a most fulfilling pleasure. It's most fulfilling. I have a book on my shelf and I pulled it off in my study for this by Ralph Venning. Ralph Venning wrote a book entitled Learning in Christ's School. It's a great book. It's a great book. And he goes through the book of 1 John and he talks about how we as believers learn from the Lord Jesus Christ. How do we learn in the school of Christ? Here's what Ralph Venning says. One of the greatest advantages of knowing God the Father and knowing Jesus the Son is the great relief and comfort it brings in the saddest times in your life. It helps when you're misjudged. It helps when you're misunderstood. He writes, it helps when we are fearful, when we are forsaken, when we are forgotten, when we are near death, when we are unsure of how to pray, when you don't know what choice to make. He says, we can say with Paul, I want to intimately really know Christ. You see, knowing God and knowing Christ is not just head knowledge. It is practical. daily comfort that helps us through all the trials of life. And that's what Paul is going to write about tonight. Because in the text that we're looking at tonight, in Philippians chapter 3, verses 10 and 11, let us not forget Paul's in jail. He is in jail in the city of Rome and he's writing to the congregation that he loves back in the city of Philippi. And last week we looked at verse 9. And we looked at verse 9, which is all about justification. What does that mean? How can I be righteous before God? That's the point of verse 9. How can I and you, sinners, how can we be just before God? Answer, you need to be righteous. absolutely, perfectly righteous, like God is righteous. Problem? None of us can attain it. Solution? It's found in Jesus Christ and in His perfect righteousness that is credited to you by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. That's salvation. That's how somebody becomes a Christian, by faith alone in Christ. Now, in verses 10, Paul is now going to talk about the doctrine of sanctification. So, for somebody who's now righteous in Christ, how do I live? What do I pursue? How do I live my life? How do I conduct myself? That's verse 10. Verse 11 is glorification, the future hope in heaven. So verse nine, salvation, verse 10, sanctification, verse 11, future glorification. Paul is just summing up all theology right here in these verses. Like, like elsewhere in Philippians, all of Paul's goals are just totally Christ-centered. Christ-centered. It's, it's like at a wedding. how at a wedding our eyes are riveted, and rightly so, on the bride. We follow the bride. We watch the bride. We're observing the bride. We're wowed by the bride. We are centered on the bride and where she's standing and what she's doing. And so it is with Paul. He is so riveted to his Christ He's glued to Christ, and his words are directed to the centrality of Jesus Christ. Paul can't get far without bringing up Jesus Christ. And it's no different in our verses tonight. So, as a Christian, If you're in this room and verse 9 is true of you, that you are righteous in Christ, not having a righteousness of your own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ. If that's true of you, then how do you grow in sanctification? What is the great pursuit of the Christian? Paul's going to say three things. In fact, he's going to give these parallel thoughts that all flesh out, I want to know something. I want to know something. I want to know. So the Christian journey is about knowledge. It's about more than just knowledge about something, but experiential living. for the glory of God. That's what Paul's going to bring out. And he wants us to know three things. Number one, he says, I want to know Jesus Christ. Number two, I want to know spiritual power. Number three, I want to know fellowship in suffering. So let's walk through these three items together. What is the pursuit of your life, of my life, of Paul's life as a Christian? who is righteous, robed in the merits of Christ by faith alone, what is the way and the path and the journey of sanctification? Number one, I want to know Jesus Christ. Many people love verse 10. Maybe you're one of them, and rightly so. I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection. Many people love verse 10, and they've memorized verse 10, and they appreciate verse 10. I want to know Christ, and rightly so. But let us not forget, what is so astonishing to me about this verse is that it was written by a man who had been walking with Jesus for almost 30 years. Paul had been a follower of Christ. He had been converted for nearly 30 years. And as he's writing, he says, I want to know this Christ. This is not a man who's converted last week. And he does know Christ. He does. But he wants to know him better. He wants to know him better. It's like a dating couple. You know them, and you really know them, at least in measure, but your love for them is the more that you get to know them, and the more that your love grows, it's just, you could say, I want to know them more. I want to spend more time with them. I want to know more about that person. I'm growing in my knowledge of them, but I want to know more about that person. Paul views Jesus in such a way that the riches that are bound up and found in Jesus Christ, it's like Paul says, they are unending. They are boundless riches. That's why he says, I want to know the love of Christ, Ephesians 3. But it surpasses knowledge. But we want to know that love of Christ. Paul is bringing out in verse 10, I want to know Him. Like the prophet Hosea, Let us know. Let us press on to know God. Hosea 6. So what does it mean to know God? We must talk about that for just a couple of minutes. What does it mean to know God? Mark Jones wrote a book not too long ago entitled Knowing Christ. It's a very good book. And Mark Jones said, to know means to know with particular interest or to set your affections upon something. Look, it's one thing for you to say, yeah, I know my boss. I know my coworker. I know the guy, the neighbor at the end of the block. I know him. But that's a different kind of knowledge than this. Because the knowledge here is that you have a growing knowledge and you've got a particular interest in someone and you have set your loving affection upon somebody. That's the kind of knowledge that Paul's talking about. I want to know Christ in this way. And I come up with a different, a number of different ways this knowledge shows itself. Number one, it's an intimate knowledge. It's intimate. It's a deep knowledge. It's a special, it's a profound knowledge. It's a very experiential knowledge. You always say, well, what do you mean by that, Jeff? Well, it means that it's more than just intellectual data. Your knowledge and your love and your pursuit of this Christ has now affected the experience of your life. It's a very practical knowledge. Third, it is an obedient knowledge. The more that we know this Christ, the more that we are compelled to obey our Christ. Number four, it's a heart-stirring knowledge. The more that you know Christ, you just want to know Him more. The more that we learn about Christ, we want to learn more. The more that we see and observe about Christ, we want more. It's like imparting of God's fatherly love and His comforting countenance. The more that we see it, it wins us. It woos us. It draws us. It grips our heart and it draws us close to Him. It's an anticipatory knowledge. You say, I'm longing for that day when I will be with him. It leads number six to an assured knowledge where the more that we know Christ, the more that our hope in heaven is strengthened. It gives comfort the more that we learn and know and see and understand our Christ. Number seven, it is an unshakable knowledge. Our Christ cannot be shaken. And our love for him cannot be taken. Really, all of this knowledge is really summed up in Psalm 34 and verse 8. Taste and see that the Lord is good. That's the point. Paul says, I'm not interested in just an academic degree about Jesus. I want to taste and I want to see that Christ is good. So we consider the more that we see the vanity of all things without Christ, and in comparison with Christ, the more we rely totally on Him. We will gain a real life, an experiential, an experimental, as it were, knowledge, and we will live in the worth and the power of this great Christ. How did Paul get this? How did He say, I want to know Christ? How do we say that? Maybe one way is just briefly to meditate on the cross of Christ, the propitiation. Jesus died for me. He took the judgment, my judgment. He took the sin, my sin. He took the wrath, my wrath. Which leads us to meditate on His compassion. that He loved me and He gave Himself up for me, which then leads to the protection that we have in this Christ. Because if He died for me and He satisfied God's wrath, then that means that I'm protected from the eternal wrath because He took it for me. So we are eternally secure. And then we're reminded that even as we sin, we have a praying High Priest, an interceding, loving, merciful, advocate and mediator. Paul says, I want to know Christ. May that be my prayer and your prayer tonight, tomorrow, the next day. I'm righteous in Christ, verse 9. I'm saved, but I want to know Christ. And that's Christianity. Christianity is not a whole bunch of rules that you have to try to keep to earn some position before God. Christianity is the knowledge and the pursuit and the love and the obsession with Christ. May that be true of us. Number two, Paul says, I want to know Jesus Christ. Number two, he says, I want to know spiritual power. I want to know spiritual power. Notice in verse 10, he says, I want to know him and the power of his resurrection. This is a phrase that is subordinate to the verb know. I want to know the power of his resurrection. I want to know spiritual power. Ephesians 3, maybe it's a verse that you remember. Verse 20, now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that you could ever ask or imagine. And then it says this, according to the power that works within us. Ephesians 3 20 is a magnificent verse that, that God is able to do far more than you could even pray or even imagine. And there's spiritual power that's working in you. Paul prayed in Ephesians 1, he said, I want to know the power of His resurrection. I want to know this power of God that raised Jesus from the dead. That same power that raised Jesus, Paul said in Ephesians 1. Please hear this. It's the same power that lives in you right now. That same divine power. that raised up Jesus bodily, literally from the dead is the same spiritual power that is at work in us today. It takes extraordinary power to do that. It takes supernatural power to do that. And Paul says, if you see it in verse 10, I want to know the power of His resurrection. He doesn't say, I want to be a powerful man. That's very different. He doesn't say, I want to be a powerful man. He says, I want to know God's power. Why? So that I can be conformed to Christ. So that I can do the will of God and live for His glory. This is the power that God gives to you in your Christian life. This is the power. Paul had it. but he wants to know more of it. He had the triune God living in him, just like you and I do, but he wants to know more of that power. It's like Colossians 1 verse 11, when the apostle Paul is praying for the church in Colossae, and he says, I want you to be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might. Colossians 1 29, I preach Christ admonishing every man, teaching every man why I'm striving according to God's power, which mightily works within me. Look, if you're a Christian, you're the most powerful thing in the world. Humanly speaking, earthly speaking, you've got the word of God, that supernatural, but you've got divine power working in and working through you. That helps. as we're facing daunting things in our lives and living for Christ. How can I do this? How can I respond a certain way? How can I live for Christ? How can I be courageous? How can I be bold? We have the power of God in us. This is sufficient power. It is sanctifying power. It's sustaining power. This is supernatural power. So what does it do? What does this power do for us? This resurrection power allows us to, number one, obey God. You can obey God. That's Paul's point in Romans 6. That you're a new person. You're a new creation if you're a Christian by faith. That means you can read the Bible and obey it. A non-believer can't. But you can. You can please God. Those that are in the flesh can't, but you can. Number two, resurrection power gives us the ability to love unconditionally. You say, how am I supposed to love that person? Whoever that person may be. How do I love them unconditionally? That's going to take a lot more than my power. You're right. But God gives us the spiritual power to do it. The resurrection power enables us to rejoice continually. How do you rejoice when you're seeing the news headlines this week? How do you rejoice when you're seeing what's going on globally around the world? How am I supposed to rejoice when I'm going through trials? Well, because we have resurrection power at work in us. And our resurrection power that we have from God allows us to endure hardships, to endure. Not just to brush it aside and conquer it in a moment, but to endure and to persevere and to keep fighting the good fight. And I think part of this, guys, for us as a congregation is to pray for revival. I think that's what Paul's doing. Oh, I've got spiritual power. Paul knows it. He says, but I want to know more of the spiritual power. What if we all prayed like that? God, I know that you're working in me. I know you are. But I want to know more of this power. God, bring revival and bring it in me and bring it through me. And may I be bold for you. Let me live with spiritual power for your glory. What's that one thing that it's hard to do? What's that one sin that it's hard to overcome? What's that one person that you want to evangelize? What is that one habit that you want to cultivate in your life? You can do it because we have spiritual power. And Paul said, I want to know more of it. I want to know more of it. And so as we prepare for prayer, what a good way to pray. God, I want to know more of this power. So, number one, I want to know Jesus Christ. Number two, I want to know spiritual power. But Paul is such a realistic guy. Number three, I want to know fellowship in suffering. I want to know how to suffer well, Paul says. I want to know fellowship in the times of suffering. Like master, like servant, we follow in Christ's steps. End of verse 10. I want to know the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death. What is Paul saying? He says, Jesus, I want to identify with you in my life. I want to identify with you in my life. I want to know Christ better so that in the way that I am experiencing sufferings, that I am going through them in the same manner as Jesus went through them. Paul knows that as he suffers, he's identifying with Christ, because as Jesus suffered, so we will also suffer. But I think Paul is looking for something even more than that. He says, when I'm going through suffering, I want to know I want to know that I have a deep partnership. I've got a sharing. I've got a fellowship. I've got a commonality with Jesus Christ while I'm going through the suffering. Does that make sense? So he says, I want to know the fellowship, the partnership that I have in my suffering. I want to know that somebody is going through it with me. And that's Christ. Christ is going through it with him. Paul rejoices in his sufferings. He said that elsewhere. He's not like a, he's not, he's not a man eager to be a martyr. That's not the point. He's not hungry to die, but he knows that as he suffers, it's like God is bringing evidences of his intimate, of his, of his true salvation in his life. He says, as I suffer, I want to know that I have a partner in the suffering with me. And that's Christ. And as I'm suffering, I want to suffer like Jesus suffered. And I want to react like Jesus reacted. And I want to respond like Jesus responded to suffering. And I want to love like Jesus loved. And I want to trust God like Jesus trusted God. So he says, I want to know this sharing, this fellowship, all of this in my suffering. and I want to be conformed to His death." Very end of verse 10. It's amazing. I want to be conformed to His death. There's a whole lot of discussion about what this means. I think in the context of Philippians, especially with chapter 2, the same language is used of Jesus. Humbled Himself, took the form of a servant, became obedient to the point of death. What does that mean? Jesus was totally, totally, totally and fully obedient to the Father, even to the point of death. I think that's what Paul's saying. I want to share in these sufferings so that, like Jesus, I will be conformed, like Jesus, and I will be obedient all the way to my death, just like Jesus was all the way to His death, even death on a cross. I think that's what Paul is saying. He said, I want to be like Christ completely. I want to be conformed to the way that Jesus lived an obedient life, even to his death. But thankfully, he doesn't end there. Because look at verse 11. All of this, all of this Paul says, I want to know Christ and I, I want to know the power and I want to know fellowship all of this verse 11 so that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. That's his hope. We want to know Christ. Yes. But what is this resurrection? It is perfection at every level. It's the culmination of our spiritual journey. It's the blessed hope. It's when we see Christ and we will be made like Him and we will have new bodies. We will have immortal bodies. We will be like God. We will be with God. We will see God. And all of this glory, all of this hope that Paul has is bound up with the persevering knowledge of Christ. It's bound up with the power that is at work in us. It's bound up with the fellowship of his sufferings. And Paul says, I want to pursue this life of knowing Christ until I'm resurrected, until I'm taken home to glory. Verse 11 is our hope. Verse 10 is our pursuit. May it be true of every one of us here that we could make verse 10 our prayer tonight. I want to know Jesus Christ. I want to know Christ. Number two, I want to know spiritual power. Jesus, give me more power. I want to know the power. Number three, I want to know the fellowship, the sharing, this commonality in suffering. We can pursue that knowledge of Christ and that life with Christ together. You have, in the conclusion of your outline there, A word that comes from John Owen, and it needs to be said even before I read this, that this is true of a Christian. If there's somebody here who's not a follower of Christ, if there's somebody here who's not a Christian, you're not righteous in Christ, this paragraph is not true of you. Because you're beholding the beauty of the things of this world. You're beholding the beauty of yourself or of money or of pleasure or of power, of status, of success, of fame, of popularity. But for the Christian, there's something far greater, far more lasting. And that's the way that John Owen puts it right here. John Owen says this, beholding the glory of Christ is one of the greatest privileges and advantages that believers are capable of in this world or that which is to come. It is that whereby they are first gradually conformed unto it and then fixed in the eternal enjoyment of it. For here in this life, beholding his glory They are changed or transformed into the likeness of Christ. And hereafter we shall forever be like him because we will see him as he is. This is the life and the reward of our souls. Knowing Christ begins now and it continues in glory. That's the hope of the believer. So may this be our prayer tonight. I want to know Christ. I want to know spiritual power. And I want to know this fellowship that I have in my sufferings. If someone is here without Christ, let it be said, there is a righteousness available. There is a perfect robe available. And the Savior has His arms out and He says, come and take by faith, by faith alone in Me. You can be spotless. You can be blameless. You can have the wedding garments. You can be acceptable in God's eyes. Only in the merits of Christ. And then when God does that work in saving us, we have this pursuit like Paul. I want to know Christ. So, let's pursue Him together. Father, thank you for this truth in Philippians chapter 3. Help us now as we pray. that we would be caught up in worship as we pour out our hearts to God. In Jesus name. Amen.