Do you remember your first conscious “favorite song” as a child? Maybe it was a single, or an album, or a specific artist.
I remember hearing a particular song on the radio as a four- or five-year-old and saying out loud to my parents, “That’s my favorite song.”
Now, I realize I’m one of the older people in the room. So, I’ll ask, but I don’t expect many to raise a hand. Does anyone know the name Larnelle Harris?
Hands down, gospel singer Larnelle Harris was my first favorite singer. In January of 1985, Larnelle released an album called “I’ve Just Seen Jesus,” and the first song on the cassette was called “How Excellent Is Thy Name.” I loved that song.
The reason I mention Larnelle is that two years later, in 1987, he released another album, and tucked away fifth on the cassette was a song based on Philippians 3 called “I Want to Know Christ.” Still today, this song moves me deeply. Something about this song captured my six-year-old heart. I could tell its subject matter was unsurpassed. A song about “knowing Christ” felt so much bigger than your standard-fare Christian music of the 80s — or any decade. It went so clearly to the very heart of what God made us for.
I’ll read you the chorus, and you can hear our text this morning, as well as the “pressing on” we’ll look at next week in verses 12–14:
I want to know ChristI keep Him before meI lift up my eyesI drink in His gloryI press toward the goalHis goodness unfoldsMarch on, O my soulI want to knowI want to know Christ
Deep, Personal Knowing
At the end of the sermon last Sunday, Jonathan set the table so well for us for today. In fact, I hope this message will simply flesh out what he said near the end — that Philippians 3 doesn’t just want us to be right with God (which is penultimate) but to know Jesus. Knowing Christ is the final goal, the ultimate goal; it’s what makes heaven to be heaven:
Jesus is not just the means to get you what you want, but Jesus also becomes what you want. Jesus is means and end. To know Jesus is of surpassing worth. That is what is most valuable — to know “Christ Jesus my Lord.” . . . This is a deep, personal knowing. It’s real experience in real relationship. Intimacy.
I see three pieces here that map onto what we might call a (kind of) past aspect in verse 9, and a present aspect in verse 10, and a future aspect in verse 11.
So, here’s how we’ll proceed this morning: we’ll start by rehearsing what we saw last week in verse 9 (the penultimate), then jump to verse 11 and the future, and then come back to verse 10 and linger over what it means to “know Christ,” even now in this life, in the present. I hope to shoot as straight as I can about what it means to know Christ, and what that experience is like, and how we go about seeking to know him and enjoy him in our everyday Christian lives.
So, we start with the penultimate in verse 9.
1. We are fully accepted by God in Jesus.
I’m not sure we used the word “justification” in the last two weeks, but this is the reality we’ve been talking about. Verse 3 mentions “boasting in Christ Jesus” and “putting no confidence in the flesh.” This is justification talk. It raises the question, What is the grounds of your right-standing with God, your acceptance before God? How can an unrighteous sinner get right, and stay right, with the righteous, holy God?
Justification is God’s declaration over sinners like us, “You are righteous in my sight. I declare you to be in the right with me, fully accepted in my presence.” How? Not because of anything we’ve done to deserve God’s favor. But rather, because of what Jesus has done to win for us God’s favor and the verdict “Righteous!”
Start back in verse 7, and get the flow of thought into verse 9:
Whatever gain I had [and remember his amazing list of Jewish gains in verses 5–6], I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.
Three pieces here help us get clarity on this justification by faith alone.
First, what is not the grounds of Paul’s justification, and ours, before God: our own merit. He says, “not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law.” The problem is not the law; it is holy, righteous, and good. The problem is us. We are sinners through and through. We are not holy, righteous, and good, and so even our very best efforts at obeying God’s holy, righteous, and good law cannot win his righteous favor and get us right with him.
Second, then, what is the grounds of our justification? Answer: having the righteousness that “comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.” Faith in whom? Faith in Christ. Righteousness from whom? Righteousness from God, through our believing in Jesus.
But still, one piece is missing, and it’s easy to overlook, at the beginning of verse 9: “found in him.” This is relational language, and it’s part of an interaction or an exchange. Paul has been talking about gaining Christ, getting Christ, and now he talks about Christ getting him, his being found in Christ. It’s almost like, “I am my beloved’s, and he is mine,” from the Song of Solomon. I get Christ because he got me.
Which means the ground of our justification is Christ alone, not our doing. And the instrument that connects us to Jesus is faith alone, again not our doing. And the context or the location of that faith is our being “found in him,” our being united to him, by the Spirit, through faith.
So, justification, in verse 9, is our being fully accepted by God in Christ. United to Jesus by faith, his righteousness is ours, and the Father’s full acceptance of him is ours.
Brothers and sisters, to know, really know, the grace of justification by faith alone will make you want to stand on your head for joy — and remember, verse 9 is penultimate. Justification is not the end. It’s not the final goal or reality. Justification, amazing as it is, is the means — the means to knowing the one in whom we are justified.
So, number one, we are fully accepted by God in Jesus. Now bounce ahead to verse 11 and the ultimate goal.
2. One day we will fully know Jesus and be satisfied in him forever.
That is, we will live forever, together, in ever-increasing bliss, in the unobstructed presence of and ever-deepening relationship with Jesus.
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