Hope you're not getting tired of this, but we go back to the same chapter again this morning. Third chapter of Philippians. Might just as well not, because you're going through it anyway, whether you're tired of it or not. Chapter three of Philippians, we read from verse eight. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and to count them but done, that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. But I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering, being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead, not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Verben, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do. Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded, and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, as we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. As we've been considering a little bit the perils of the Christian life, and ye- yesterday the passion of the believer, as exemplified in Paul's own life. This morning, we might speak, think of this a little bit under the word, the purpose of the apostle, and the purpose was to, as he says in this, to, uh, press toward the mark, one thing I do. He had a definite purpose in life. Again, for a moment, in the ninth verse, he thinks of the start of that Christian life, and he says that he was found in him. When a person is found, that means, of course, they were lost to begin with. So he says he was lost, but now he's found in Christ. And again, in a certain sense, lost, because when you're in Christ, it's Christ that's seen, so to speak, and not you. Like that old hymn said, he used to sing, we are lost in wonder, love, and praise, once lost in our sins, but now lost in him. And he uses that familiar little, um, preposition he uses so often in his writings, in, be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, but the righteousness which through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. And he tells us the very simple story that divine righteousness is for those who are found in Christ. In Romans chapter eight, where the same writer is writing, he tells you in the opening verse, there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. There he speaks of it in the negative, and here in the positive. There he says there is no condemnation, and here he says there is righteousness. No judgment for the believer, but all the blessing of God's righteousness is now imputed to him, and it's because he's in Christ Jesus. You know, the little word in is perhaps the most expressive word in the Apostle Paul's ministry or in any language. You're saved, the Apostle Paul says, not because of who you are, not because of what you are, but because of where you are. You're saved if you're in Christ Jesus. You know, that little word in completely levels all humanity. When I say just now, Chris, that we are in this room, I'm not saying anything about us. We might be white or black, we might be ignorant or educated, we might be men or women, we might be alive or dead. If we say we're in this room, we are not talking about us. We're not saying one word about us. We're saying where we are, not who we are, what we are. Now, the natural man's idea is that his salvation depends on who he is, or what he is, or what he has done. But that little word in throws all that aside and says that your salvation depends on your position and not on your condition. It depends on where you are, in Christ Jesus, with all men on exactly the same level. Not so much anymore now, but for many years I've traveled considerably on the railroads, on the trains in this country, maybe twenty, thirty thousand miles a year. And as far as I can remember, not one of those conductors all during those years ever asked me, if he came down the aisle, asked me my name or my nationality, or whether I'd been to college or hadn't been to college. Didn't ask me whether I bought my ticket or stole my ticket or whether somebody gave it to me. All he said, your ticket. You know, if you're proud, those men make you feel very uncomfortable because they totally ignore you. They don't care to know who you are. They want to know whether you got a ticket. You might say, well, look who I am. I'm the Bishop of so and so. You probably say, I'm glad to meet you, bishop. You're second. That's all he wants. And God is exactly the same. It's of no consequence whatever to God who you are, who I am. It's simply a question of whether you're in Christ or not in Christ. If you're in Christ, you're saved, and you're not in Christ, you're lost. Paul said, I found myself once again, but in Christ, having the righteousness which is found for those who are in Christ Jesus. How beautifully simple that makes it. Now, how do you get in Christ Jesus? Well, how do you get into anything? By making a movement. You might stand outside of this room and say, well, this is a lovely auditorium, I believe in it, but that doesn't bring you into it. The way to get in it is to make a move. That's what I like about that word so often translated in our New Testament, the Gospel of John and elsewhere, believing in the Lord Jesus or on the Lord Jesus. The Greek word is the word heis, H-E-I-S, and any con- Bible, uh, uh, Greek lexicon will tell you the word literally means into. You know, we don't say, not say that way in English because we don't use it that way in English, but that's exactly what it says in the Greek language. He that believeth into the sun. Into is a movement. You move when you go into something. You don't move when you're in s- when you're in something. We're not moving now, comparatively speaking, but to get into the building, we had to move. And so that's the word the Bible is, he that believeth into the sun. You take a step, a movement, not of your feet, but of your soul. You take a movement of your soul. You can believe in the Bible and believe all it says and be damned with it. But you're saved when you do something about it, when you make a move. One step only, like we used to say, only a step to Jesus. Then why not take it now? One step will bring you from outside of this room into it. One movement of faith of your soul will bring you from outside of Christ into Christ. And there you are, and God sees you in Christ, and that's where all your blessing is found. It's not a question of your importance, it's a question of his importance. And Paul starts out with that once again and says in his ninth verse, I'm found now in Christ, and in Christ I have divine righteousness, not in myself. All that Christ is, all that Christ has done, God makes good for me when I simply come to him as my savior. Now he says, um, that being found in Christ and having his righteousness, he has a threefold ambition. He mentions again in verse ten, he knows you, he uses that word three quite frequently, that number three rather. He says in verse ten that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering, that I may know him. That's his ambition. He made up his mind to it. Now, in this chapter, you read four times over this word count or reckon. Four times over you read about the mind of the believer, and since you reckon with your mind, you have the idea of mind in this verse at least eight times, and I think more than that in an offhand way. The mind plays a great part in the believer's life. You remember it says in Colossians chapter three, set your affection on things above. But the word affection, as many of you know, actually is the Greek word mind. Set your mind on things above. A Christian has to make up his mind. You have to do that when you're a sinner. You have to make up your mind to come to Christ. The prodigal did. He says, I will arrive. And then he did arrive, and that's how he got blessed. He made up his mind to face the issue. And if you're not a Christian tonight, you need to, this morning, rather, you need to make up your mind to become a Christian. It doesn't just happen. It's something you make up your mind to do, and then do it. And so Paul says, I'm making up my mind now to do one thing in life, and that is, of course, as the whole context of the chapter shows, to live for the one who gave himself for me. The Christian is to make up his mind. In First Peter chapter one, the Apostle Peter tells you the same thing. He says, gird up the loins of your mind. Or not literally reading that, just read it in the past tense, having girded up your loins, the loins of your mind. You know, in the Old Testament, you remember when they started out marching through the wilderness, they had these long flowing garments, and they sure they wore girdles so those garments wouldn't be in the way of their feet and they'd trip over them. They girded themselves. Well, just like they girded their garments, the Apostle Peter says, I want you to gird your mind so you don't trip over it. Don't have it hang loose around you and so forth so you stumble. Just like an unmade bed, you know, you got to make up your bed. An unmade bed is a wretched looking thing, and an unmade mind is just exactly the same way. Make up your mind. Have some definite ambition in life, and the definite ambition of the Christian is to be like Christ. I read some time ago where a famous teacher said that you better be careful what you make up your mind about, because if you make it up true enough, you'll get what you make up your mind about. If you set your mind on something, you finally will realize it. If a man sets his mind on money, that's what he lives for, he'll get money eventually. If he sets his mind on sin, he'll get sin. If he sets up his mind, his mind on being like Christ, he'll become like Christ. There's such a thing as being definite and purposeful about something. Now, Paul, to that my mind. And one thing that's in my mind, one of the many things that all are compounded under the one thing, is that I may know him. We've mentioned, we've spoken of that before. Interesting to hear the Apostle Paul say that after having known Christ for many years. He doesn't say that I may know him better. He doesn't speak in a comparative way, he speaks in an absolute way, that I may know him, though he had already known Christ for all those years. He's saying as it were, though I've known him for those many years, I feel I don't know him at all yet. I want to know him, that I may know him. He has a little boy, he lives inland somewhere, and he visits some friends or grandparents or something at the ocean side, and he comes back and boasting to his companions inland who had never seen the ocean, he says, I've seen the ocean, I've seen the sea. Wonderful. And when he says that, he speaks the truth, he at the same time, he speaks a lie. He's seen the ocean, but how much of it? Just as far as little vision can reach, Six or eight or ten miles. That's not the ocean, that's just the fringe of the ocean, and yet it is the ocean. But beyond the six or eight or ten miles lie thousands of miles of ocean. And you see Christ, you've been seen the fringe, but beyond that lies an unending, an eternal path of discovery, adventure, and wonder. You know him, and yet you don't. I often have tell that to people. They say to me, I say to them, do you know my wife? They say yes. Well, it says you're lucky. I've lived with her for forty years, and I don't know her yet. They know her that matter what. I'm all the time making discoveries. Almost every day I say to her, I'll never get to know you. You've got ideas and notions I'll never get to know. And she says the same thing about me. You know, this constant discovery, even in everyday life, that's what makes it so spicy. And there are discoveries in spiritual life that are unending. That I may know him, as we said the other day, throughout the ages that come, God will show us the exceeding riches of his grace. Now, this is merely knowing for the sake of knowing, but it goes on to say the power of his resurrection, that is to know Christ so that the Christ life will become seen in me, will be translated through me. The power of his resurrection. Now, Christ rose physically from the dead. We haven't. We've risen spiritually from the dead. When you accept Christ as Savior, you've experienced spiritual resurrection, like that simple verse Romans five and 24 tells us. It says that he shall not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life. That's spiritual resurrection. Now, Paul, I want to know the power of Christ's resurrection. When Christ was here on earth, he had something to do with sin. Not that he sinned himself, but he had something to do with sin. But the Apostle Paul says that in Romans chapter six. He says in verse thirteen of that chapter that Christ died unto sin once, but now he lives unto God. Likewise, reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin and alive unto God. He uses the fact that Christ died physically, and when he died physically on the cross, he never had anything more to do with sin. He did before. It cuts him all around. He was in the midst of a sinful world, and on the cross he was loaded down with our sin. He had something to do with sin, but never again after he died. Now Paul applies that, he says, you apply that to your spiritual life. When you're saved, when you're resurrected spiritually, live a new life, and henceforth you have nothing in order to do with sin, just like Christ did. He says, likewise, reckon yourself to be dead unto sin and alive unto God. And that's what Paul means when he says the power of his resurrection. He says, I want to live so that not only I know Christ as my Savior, people can see that I know Christ as my Savior. The power of his resurrection life is now to be seen in me. I take that pictures the believer's life in relation to his responsibility or his attitude towards God. Life was likely to be dedicated now live unto God. Of course, others see it, but the, the, uh, object of our life is to please him, as Paul says later in this chapter. In the power of his resurrection, and you have the changed life of a believer lived in relation to God, in response to God's matchless love. Then secondly, the fellowship of his suffering, and then you have the other side. Spiritually, as I said just now, we're not in this world anymore. Spiritually, we're in another world. We've been raised from the dead. We've been separated from this world, but physically we're in it. And so the next sentence says the fellowship of his suffering, because we're in a world that's full of sin as far as our bodies are concerned, and we touch suffering on every hand, on every side, like Christ did. Now, he suffered, that says. He didn't suffer because of sin in himself, he suffered because of sin all around him. We suffer doubly because there's sin in us. We suffer because of that very often, our own foolishness and sinfulness. Christ never did that, but he suffered because of the sins of others, and we do that all around. Christians know something of suffering because of this affliction and sorrow and trial and even persecution and even martyrdom for Christ's sake, as the Apostle Paul eventually experienced. That's the fellowship of his suffering. That's our life in relation to the world around us, just like the first, the power of resurrection is our life in relation to God. Here it's in relation to men. We're in a world that, generally speaking, has no use for Christ. And the more you do to Christ, the more you'll feel you're in a world where you suffer. Even if they don't persecute you, just to be in a world of sin is suffering to a Christian. You hear a man sitting next to you, swear, use some bylaw, it's like a s- a knife is stabbed into your heart. You suffer because of what that man is doing. And it's that that God wants us to feel. He wants us to feel that in this world, and Paul said, I want to feel it. I want to have fellowship with this suffering. I don't want only to be a Christian and get whatever I can get out of being a Christian. I want to share in the trials and pains and suffering that it brings. Paul wrote that to Timothy, remember, in the first chapter of Second Timothy says, be thou a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel. Many people are very ready to be partakers of the blessings of the gospel, but what about the affliction? What about the trials and suffering and sorrow that it brings? Then third, he said, and conformable unto his death. Quite a sentence. I looked this up in Mr. Weest's crit- critical Greek notes, who is the teacher at the Moody Bible Institute, and he said something like this. Conformable, the Greek word means to give outward expression to one's inner nature. Paul wanted the inner life and the outer expression of his life to be like the Lord with respect to the Lord's death. And he has conformed to his death, that doesn't mean the death of Christ on the cross. It can't be conformable to that. That means Christ's death during his life. He died unto sin. It says in Isaiah chapter fifty three, he poured out his soul unto death. All his life long, Christ poured out his soul, climaxing it at the cross. And to be made conformable to his death means, the Apostle Paul, I think, means to indicate that the source of our life is to be a constant denial of everything that we might want for ourselves. It is something like you have in Philippians chapter two and verse seven, where it says of the Lord Jesus that he made himself of no reputation, or as the more correct idea is given, he emptied himself of all that was his by right. You know, Christ had no sin to lay aside. He had no evil to deny, but he did deny himself everything that's good. That's why it says in second Corinthians chapter eight number nine, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. What is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ? Though he was rich, he became poor. He laid aside everything that was his by right so that we could be blessed. And I understand, without going into any more detail, that conformable unto his death means something like that. It means that you and I, in our scripture, are not only to deny sin in our life, but we are to deny the good things of our life. We are to deny ourselves that others might be blessed. Suppose Christ had never denied his riches, would he stayed in heaven? All of us would have gone to hell. Our salvation depends on the fact that Christ laid aside all that was his by right. And Paul says, that's what I want to do. I want to lay aside all that I might have for myself, that as a result, others might be blessed. I think that's what it would mean in general to be made conformable unto his death, to deny ourselves goodly, like money for him. That's a good thing. You could spend it on yourself. You can always find ways of spending your money. If you made ten thousand you make a hundred thousand, you can still find ways to spend it on yourself, and most people do that too. That's a good thing, money. It can be used in the service of the Lord. Well, deny yourself the money for yourself. Instead of buying everything for yourself, give it for the service of the Lord. See to it that others are blessed. You may spend five dollars, and the result may be that the soul is saved by the grace of God. That five dollars is worth more than five billion dollars spent that way. You spend it on yourself, you're wasting it. The time you have, you can spend on yourself. You can always find time, you can always use time and spend it on your own interests. How about spending a little of it on the interests of others? All that you can consider, and it's the denial of self. You know, self-denial is not a very easy thing. Somewhat like the little boy who said to his mother he wanted some money to put it in the mission box, mission offering, and his mother says, well, if I give it to you, then you are not given it. You want to deny yourself, sacrifice something, then that will be worth something. His mother says, for instance, do without some things, and what you save on that, put that in the mission office. And he didn't know what, what it was, what he should do, so his mother says, how about laying aside candy? You spent at least a quarter of a week on candy. Quit eating candy and put that quarter in the mission office. The boy says, that would be nice. A couple hours later, he came back and says, mother, does it have to be candy? She says, well, not necessarily. What else would you like? The boy says, how about laying aside soap? He could do without that. And we find that something like that in our own experience. We don't mind laying aside that which doesn't bother us particularly. That is not a special sorrow to us. The Lord Jesus laid aside everything. He became poor. Not physically poor alone, of course, but that doesn't make us rich. It is poverty of the cross that made us. But anyway, to be conformable unto his death, I think it would be then the believer's life in relation to others, especially relation to Christians, I would think. Then the Apostle Paul says, by any means I might attain unto resurrection from among the dead. Now, you can't be thinking of the resurrection as a time when we go home to heaven, because that's not an attainment. And yet I think in the way he's thinking of that. He's thinking of the fact that at the resurrection from the dead, of course, all that's of this world will be a past thing forever, and he wants to attain to that now in a spiritual sense. He wants to live so now that his life is completely taken out of the world, which shall actually be when the Lord Jesus Christ comes to take us home. Then he says, not as though I had already attained, but that again proves he's not talking about physical resurrection, because we know we hadn't attained that, of course, or nobody else. He says, I'm not attained, neither are already perfect, but I follow after that I may apprehend that which also am apprehended of Christ Jesus. You know the word apprehend, we use it commonly, it's to arrest the person. When a person is apprehended, he's arrested, and Paul says Christ has arrested me. He's made me his prisoner. He's arrested me for a purpose, and he says, and I want to lay hold upon that which Christ has laid hold of me. I want to really respond to what he wants for me. He arrested me not merely to take me to heaven, though it's blessed to go there. He arrested me not merely to forgive me my sins. He arrested me that now I might glorify him, that he might get from me that which God got from his own beloved son, that which honors and magnifies his name. He says, that's what I want. Now he says, I'm not yet perfect, and yet in the fifteenth verse he says he is perfect. Let as many of us as be perfect, be that minded. Now I'd like to stop for a moment to consider briefly the idea of this perfect. I'd like to call your attention to at least three perfects the Bible speaks about, and they're all different. The one, of course, you know, we use it very often in our preaching. It's our positional perfection. We are perfect in the sight of God the moment we believe in Christ. Hebrews chapter ten talks about that in verse fourteen when it says, um, that by one offering he has perfected forever them that are sanctified. When you're saved by the grace of God, God sees us, as we said a little while ago, in Christ, and since there's no fault in Christ, he doesn't see any in us. We are perfect in the sight of God. Now, that purpose is not found in this chapter. It's the one that isn't here. Then there is the practical perfection, and that's what you have in verse twelve and Paul says, I am not yet perfect. He has not yet attained the practical. That is the perfection that's seen in our life. Writing in the epistles of the Hebrews, chapter six, the opening verses, let us go on unto perfection, showing we haven't reached it. There's nothing perfect in this world, a Christian or anybody else. Nothing. One young fellow one time made a rather foolish remark, and he said to his lady friend, he says, suppose you think me a perfect fool? And very sweetly she says, none of us are perfect. See, there is no such thing as perfection. We are just failures down here in every department of life. We are not yet perfect. That's what Paul says in verse twelve. Now, we need to keep those two in mind, the perfection of God imparts to us, and the perfection as we are working out ourselves by a daily response to God's grace. In that sense, we are not yet perfect. When I lived in the Bahamas, at least at those times, m forty years ago, you could have a conversation of spiritual things anywhere you stopped. On the public street, you'd get fifty, sixty people standing around you. You talk to one man, people would start gathering around. They're very interested. One time I was in the fish market out of a smelly place, but the subject, well, the subject was a little smelly too. But anyway, there was a man standing there who I knew well. He was a colored preacher, and he was telling his audience, I knew him very well, and he says, uh, just as I happened to get there, about a hundred people standing around, and he said, I am just as perfect as Christ himself, which is I haven't sinned for years, he said. So I brought it in and I said, I don't believe a word of it. And he turned around, I was behind him, and he says, why do you say that? I said, for two reasons. First of all, I said, because I happen to know you, and secondly, because I happen to know something of the scripture. He said, but didn't God say of Job that Job was a perfect man? I said, yes, he did. But Job had the gall to flatly contradict God when the first chapter, God said he served. In the forty second chapter, Job said to God, you're mistaken. I am vile and repent and dust and ashes. I said to this preacher that Job, God was, God was talking about Job in the first chapter, and Job was talking about himself in the forty second chapter. Now, just now you were doing God's talking instead of your own. When you said you were firm, that was God's, only you had the brass to put it in your own. Job spoke the truth with his own mouth when he said, I'm bound to repent and dust the nation. He, the one is God's perfection in Christ Jesus, the other one is our own imperfection. But we have to aim after perfection. Paul says, I'm not yet perfect, but I'm striving. I'm seeking to live so that I may become more like Christ, and it's something that you never reach as long as you're down here, because it says in Hebrews, let us go on. It's strange, I heard a holiness preacher use that very text that refutes his theory to try and prove it. He used that text about the week at the perfect, and that very text says you can get perfect because it says go on. Now you can't go on to a thing you've reached, so it proves you haven't reached it yet, and you never will reach it, not on earth, but that's to be the ambition of the Christian. We shouldn't be satisfied with anything short of perfection. Not that we may reach it, but that's the standard that God in his grace sets before. Then in verse fifteen, the Apostle Paul says, as many as be perfect. Now that's perfect in a third way. First is perfection in position, secondly, perfection in practice, which we haven't reached, and third is perfection in purpose. That's what Paul is speaking about in verse fifteen. As many of us as are perfect, he means that have the perfect ambition. Their purpose is perfect, even though there's a conflict in it. That's exactly what the Bible means when it uses the word playable. It says we should be found unplayable. That doesn't mean faultless. Faultless is perfection of being, but blameless is perfection of ambition, of aim. Here is a little girl. She comes to her mother, and she says to her mother, I'd like to help you dance sax. And, well, I'm, I talk like an old man, I don't dance sax anymore, but anyway, say I want to help you to dance sax, and the mother says, all right, here's an old sax. Her mother knows she's no good, she can't do it. She's never done it. She gives her a sock and gives her some dining cart, and this girl goes along, along and darn for about um five minutes, and then the whole ambition is gone, and she drops it and goes away, and her mother hugs her and says, thank you very much for helping, mother. And after she goes out, the mother takes it all apart again. It's no good whatever. She doesn't blame the girl, she praises her, but that doesn't mean to say that the work is right. The ambition was right. The child's desire to please the mother, that was an absolutely perfect one. But the work itself was very imperfect. That's what Paul is saying. So I'm not yet perfect as far as my work is concerned, as far as my life is concerned, but I am perfect as far as my ambition is concerned. Am I? That's the question. Am I? Christians have so many other ambitions. We spread ourselves so thin that oftentimes we get no one. As Christians, we have one consuming passion. And I, for myself, must confess so often or completely short of it. We have one consuming passion. That's what Paul had, to press toward the mark for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus. That's what he pursues, that for which he's been apprehended by Christ. Now, we all have different attainments. None of us have reached the same spiritual degree of conformity to Christ or devotion to his will, and I think Paul comments on that in that fifteenth and sixteenth verses when he says, let us therefore as many as be perfect be thus minded, if at anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. I think he's saying something like this. Now, this Christian is more devoted to Christ than others. He might have truly said of himself, I am more devoted to Christ than anybody else on earth, and I believe that's the truth. He didn't say it, but he could have. They're all different degrees, but he said, let's walk together. Let's walk by the same road. Just because you are more devoted to Christ, don't look with contempt on somebody else in heaven. Just because you have advanced spiritually, don't become proud. Walk with honesty, humility, and loyalty. Alone, you have the perfect right to strive to perfect conformity to Christ, but with others, it behooves you to walk humble and lowly in perfect fellowship with them, instead of putting, taking a superior place to seek to be a help, to lift others in the same path, to seek to encourage them in the life that is for the glory of God. That is Paul's purpose in this chapter, and it's God's purpose for every one of us, forever for you and me, to realize that the highest honor in this world is to live so that Christ is glorified, and as the result, the inevitable result will be that souls are blessed, are drawn to Christ, are helped and encouraged by you, by your example. Our God and our Father, we now commend to thee again thy precious words, and as we've been looking at the general principles of scripture, we pray our God that thou wilt use our meditation on thy word to enable us to carry these principles into daily practice. We know it's easy to say the words, it's not so easy to live them out. And yet we thank you that we're not left to ourselves to do so. This very epistle which we've been reading says it's God that worketh in you, not only to do his will, but even to want to do his will. God that worketh in you both to will and to do his good pleasure. We thank you we're not left to ourselves, but by thy Holy Spirit, out of work in us and through us, in us for conformity to Christ and through us for blessing to those around us. We pray thy blessing rest upon thy word, and God be pleased to use it in some measure to help us to live, so that we may get joy out of our own Christian life and that our base get on.