Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

The Knowledge of God Pt.3

Hallelujah! It's great to see the kids hiding the Word in their hearts. Amen? A lot of us have trouble doing that well in front of all these people. It's exciting to see the little ones filling their lives with the Word, hiding it in their hearts so that they might not sin against Him. It's amazing. I know over at the house, just watching Hope at her age [Pastor's granddaughter]--the other day she sat there and quoted the whole 91^st Psalm and 23^rd Psalm. Four years old, praise God--just putting the Word of God into their hearts. It's an exciting thing. That's the heritage that we're desiring to leave for our children. If we can't leave them anything but the Word of God, we've left them victorious and prosperous beyond imagination. Amen?

Let's turn to Philippians. We want to continue with our study on the knowledge of God. What a great time to continue in this particular subject as we celebrate Resurrection Sunday, and the angels declared it that first Sunday morning as they came to the tomb--the angels declared, "...Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen..." (Luke 24:5-6). Amen? The good news is that He has not only risen and conquered death, hell and the grave, but it was for us. The Scriptures say that He's gone to prepare a place for us, and He said, "If I go and prepare a place for you, I'll doubtless come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there you may be also" (John 14:2-3). That's the good news of the resurrection, praise God. Jesus is risen, He's ascended, and He's coming soon. We're looking for Him. We're prayerfully saying, "Lord, even so, come quickly, praise God."

This resurrection power that we've been talking about is sufficient to cause us to stand in these last days. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead abides in us, and it's quickening our mortal bodies. That's not just talking about our bodily resurrection; it's making us alive in these earthly bodies today. It allows us to conquer sin in the flesh. It's that resurrection power that, really, brings healing to us in our bodies. That same power that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us and is making alive, constantly, these mortal bodies--alive to righteousness, alive to wholeness and healing, and alive in our expectation of taking up that new body one of these days real soon. Some of us may go the way of the grave, but the dead in Christ shall rise first--Amen?--but all of us will be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump--because Jesus is risen, praise God! (1 Corinthians 15:51-52) What a great time. What a celebration that we have, and a hope and an expectation of the benefits of that finished work.

Philippians, chapter 3. Let's take a look at that passage of Scripture; we want to continue in our study. Remember, in the context of this epistle, that the Apostle is contrasting self-righteousness with the righteousness that comes by faith and by grace. He was talking about the pseudo-righteousness of the law and that which the Pharisees had apprehended, and that which really is available to us through regeneration, through becoming, not whitewashed, but new creations where old things pass away and all things become new. Paul says in this 3^rd chapter of Philippians, "When it came to religion, nobody could surpass what I had attained. Beyond all of my contemporaries--" he said, "I had no one that could be compared to who I was."

Verse 4 said, "If any man thinks that he could have confidence in the flesh, I was that man; I more than anybody else." What a statement he was making. Do you know what? He really wasn't bragging. It's not bragging if you can back it up. This was a man who had attained what none of his contemporaries were able to attain in his pursuit of God. He was zealous for the holiness of the God that he knew in part. So zealous that he took it upon himself, as we know, to go and persecute the church and have some put to death and others imprisoned--a zeal to go hunt people down because he perceived them as blaspheming God. An appetite for God unsurpassed! Would to God that we had that today, with the full knowledge that we have of His resurrection and of His great redemptive work.

Paul said, "Regardless of all of this zeal, regardless of everything that I had attained, it was in vain because it was done in my own strength. It was done, really, in my own glory. I thought I was jealous for God, but it was really about me." So he goes on and says, "All of this that I had attained through discipline, through this personal zeal"--verse 6, he said, "Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless." What a discipline, what a prayer life he had--his systematic fasting, he was a tither, never missed church. Not very many Christians pulling that off today, are there? He said, "I was able to attain all of these things in the flesh." We've got people who can't even do it in the Spirit. "Blameless concerning the law, and then I came to know Jesus." When you get a touch, just a glimpse, of His glory, our righteousness does become as filthy rags in our own sight. Everything that we may have accomplished in our own strength, in our own pursuit, in our own zeal--when you really see Him as He is, there's a humbling that takes place and a gratitude for His finished work, knowing that without Him we could do nothing. We were lost in our own righteousness. All of our works: vanity. Every good deed: worthless. And finally we see Him and become emptied of self, and we appreciate, beyond measure, that free gift. He says in verse 7, "But what things were gain to me [what I used to boast in, what I used to strive for, he said, those things that used to be gain to me], those I counted loss for Christ."

So often we apply that statement to the things that we've apprehended in the carnal realm, in the natural realm: all of our material things or any position that we might have; any type of recognition that we might have received in our lives. We think, then, to become a Christian, we count all of those things loss that we might gain Christ. We could apply it to that, really, as we see the cost that there is in following Jesus, but Paul was taking it a step beyond that. He was talking about all the righteous things that he was doing in trying to keep the law, and he was contrasting the gift of grace and the power of faith with works--the ability to trust in God contrasted with the trusting in ourselves and our own righteousness.

As we talk about coming to know Him, in this study as we're going on, we have to go back to the teaching that we did on grace. Do you remember? We talked about the warfare that we're all in so many times--of the good-day, bad-day scenario. Have any of you had a bad day since that teaching six months ago or a year ago? What did you draw on? Did the understanding of grace sustain you through this time? Were you able, in the midst of the bad days, to understand that your position with Jesus was the same, your standing with God was just as sure and sound in the bad times as in the perceivable good times? This is what Paul is talking about here. This is the gift that he's wanting you and I to be able to finally apprehend by faith and understand the free gift of God's righteousness in Jesus Christ so that we'd stop relying upon outward circumcisions and let it be the circumcision of the heart to where we're finally liberated from works. We're liberated from self-righteousness, and we're able to, finally, by faith, apprehend the finished work in Jesus and realize that we truly are the sons of God, heirs and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. Have you come to know Him that way? That I might know Him! That I might understand that the work is finished!

Paul said, "I want to know Him and the power of His resurrection" (verse 10). Let me give you a couple of thoughts about the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We think of the power of His resurrection, and we think of that power over death and hell that He had accomplished--the power of His resurrection that some day, because of that, we're going to experience bodily resurrection ourselves. That is part of it, but don't limit it to the future. "That I could know Him and the power of His resurrection." What is the power of that resurrection? For you and me, it's the power to live a sinless life. "Sinless perfection? You mean where we will never sin again?" No, where sin no longer has dominion over you. Amen?

Turn over to Romans 6 for just a second. Keep your finger here in the Philippians passage; we'll be right back. This passage in Romans that we've referred to so many times in this study, I want you to see it again. "Knowing this, [verse 6] that our old man is crucified with him..." What Paul is saying is, "You'll never know the power of the resurrection without the fellowship of the suffering of personal crucifixion." That's what we want to talk about on this Easter Sunday: what it cost to know Him--what it cost Him and what it's going to cost us. This salvation that you and I enjoy and partake of is not free. There was a great cost--it bankrupted heaven. The torment that Jesus went through personally--what a cost! "For Him, Who knew no sin, to be made sin with our sin, so that we might be made righteous with His righteousness" (2 Corinthians 5:21). What a cost! We say it, beloved, but it's beyond the comprehension of our minds. This perfect, infinite, holy--you see, Jesus wasn't just pure; He was perfectly pure! He was eternally pure! He was pure beyond any imagination or definition of purity that your mind could comprehend. He not only became tainted, He became saturated with sin--your sin, my sin! The most vile, heinous acts of man were poured upon Him, and the greatest sin of all (independence--the rejection of God) He took upon Himself. Then He Himself experienced the rejection of God as He cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34).

Think about it for just a moment. Very God! Jesus: not just the Son of God--God! One with the Father--and He took upon Himself the form of man, and He came and dwelt in our midst. Through His sinless life He defeated the power of sin by fulfilling the law, and then willfully and purposely partook of the cup of being made sin with our sin. Don't make this thing easy on Jesus. "Oh, He was God. It was easy for God!" Then why did He sweat drops of blood in that garden when He agonized with the very purpose for which He came? He knew why He was here. He came for this purpose, but when it was the day of partaking, it was overwhelming as He cried in agony and prayed even more, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Your will be done. It's for this purpose that I came, but it's overwhelming Me! It's beyond anything that I could have even imagined!" Now, He's talking as a man at this particular time, not the infinite God. "I knew this is what I was supposed to do, but it's unthinkable that I would partake of sin. I've been eternally holy, but it was for this reason that I came. I don't want to do this, but I choose to bring glory to God!" That's knowing Him in the fellowship of His sufferings.

What do you do when you face those kinds of decisions? How do we respond to our own personal crosses? How do we face up to the will of God as it's contrasted with our self-will? I've been going through some trials lately myself, and my self-will was just rising up. I didn't realize--I was sharing with Greer [Pastor's wife] this morning; I said, "I didn't realize that I was in such bondage and under the power of this thing to this degree. I'm having so much trouble dying to this thing, I can't believe it!" I don't like dying! This isn't fun! I'm not enjoying this death, this daily, this momentary, having to pull my will down! "I know what God wants of Me. I know the cup that's before Me, and it's for that reason that I've come. It's for that reason that I live: to do the will of My Father. Why is it so difficult?" You see, it's not an easy thing to do the will of God, because it's constant death to self so that I might know Him.

What I'm saying this morning is, beloved, don't think that Jesus just came and walked through this life, and it was no problem for Him to do the will of God. He was tempted in every way that you and I have been tempted, and He lived without sin, praise God! They were real temptations, and the Captain of our salvation proved His obedience, won His victory, fulfilled the will of the Father through a work called suffering, endurance, purification. The Captain of our salvation was made mature by the things that He--say it--suffered. Do you want to know Him? Do you really want to fellowship--do you want to hang out with the Crucified One? Do you want to know Him, really, and partake of this Man of sorrows Who was despised and rejected of men? Do you want your best friend and the prototype of your life to be the One of Whom the Prophet spoke and said, "And it pleased the Father to bruise Him" (Isaiah 53:10)? Do you want to be a son who has a Father Who delights in bruising you and chastening you for His own eternal purpose and glory? Is your concept of love a Father that just coddles and makes all of the hurts go away? Then you missed the concept of the love of God, because whom the Lord loves He chastens. No chastening is pleasant for the moment. In fact, it's grievous, but works in us, what? A far more eternal weight of glory--the peaceable fruit of righteousness (Hebrews 12:11)--that I may know Him in the fellowship of His suffering.

Great teaching, isn't it? Let's not cheapen this plan of salvation. Let's not cheapen Good Friday or Resurrection Sunday. Let's understand what it cost to break sin's power and to reconcile man back to God. This journey that you and I are on is not an easy journey. It is absolutely foreign to natural man. It will not be obtained in the flesh. It cannot be finished in our own strength, and so Father has to empty us of our self and all confidence in our own ability so that Jesus could be formed in us, praise God! The power of His resurrection. Do you want to know Him this morning? As the Apostle cries out in these epistles, we see what it's going to cost. Jesus revealed it in His own life, within that garden, as He sweat and agonized over the partaking of that cup. Then He finally makes resolve. See if you can identify with this sequence of events. He finally resolves: "...nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done." (Luke 22:42)

Have you ever been there? Isn't that a great place to be? In the midst of all of the turmoil, the confusion, the persecution, the fears, You finally come to that resolve, and it brings the peace to where You can rise up as the soldiers come to arrest You, and walk with them in absolute confidence: God is ordering My steps. That grace is sufficient, and it brings You through the trial and causes You to make statements like, "You can't take My life. I have to lay it down." It causes You to stand and take the mocking of men as they ridicule You and smite You and say, "Prophesy. Tell us who it was." And the power of that garden takes You through the torment of the judgment hall and the fact that You've been beaten beyond recognition and they've plucked Your beard, and the Prophet says that You've been marred--Your visage is to the place where You couldn't even be recognized any more as a Man. In ridicule, the cross is placed upon Your shoulders and You're walking through the streets where just shortly before that, they cried, "Hosanna! Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord" and now they cry, "Crucify Him!" Things can change quickly in our lives.

The grace of that garden sustains Him as they drive the nails in His hands and raise Him upon the cross, and you can hear the thud of that cross as it's lowered into the earth and all His weight comes down upon those nails that have been driven into Him, and the pain, the physical pain, that He experiences as His weight is sustained from those nails. The soldiers mock Him, the passersby mock Him, and the thieves that are hung on each side mock Him, and now those that are His fellowships are thieves. This Man of sorrows Who is going to be buried among the wicked, rejected of men--that's Who we're being called to identify with. But that grace was sustaining Him.

They parted His garments, and He says, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). The grace sustains Him, but the trial continues, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the weight of this temptation comes back upon Him again. It cycles, beloved. And He Who reconciled to the will of God in Gethsemane, and He Who walked in that grace through Pilot's judgment hall and up that avenue to Golgotha's hill, He Who walked willingly to please and to do the will of the Father, hanging upon that cross between two thieves, mocked, chosen to die while Barabbas was loosed--hangs in the perfect will of God, sustained by the grace of God. Then we hear these words--not, "Father, forgive them" and not His final testimony, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit"--but between those two Fathers, a cry of agony, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

There's nothing intimate about that statement. There's no loving declaration of Fatherhood. That statement is not even a reconciling to the will of God. It's a personal agony. It's a declaration of being emptied. And that's what it means to take the fellowship of His sufferings. Do you really want to be crucified with Christ? As the Apostle cried out, "I want to know Him"--do you understand the cost to know Him? Do you understand that the veil never opened in that temple (that veil was not rent) until that last breath came from His body? Until the moment He sighed for the last time and said, "It is finished," it was impossible to know God, and until you can say about yourself, "I am finished," you'll never really know Him. We know about Him. We've had times of great resolve to do His will; we've left the garden, and we've had resolution. We've been sustained in grace, but beloved, there's coming a lonely time upon that cross when the awareness of His presence will be gone. You'll hang there alone and confused, and Father will now be God, and you have to reach back, deep, to that one anchor: was it not for this purpose that I've been chosen and sent? When you can say, "I don't really understand it. All I know is that it's pleasing my God to bruise me," you can finish with, "Father, Abba, into Your hands I commit my spirit."

Do you want to know Him this morning in the power of His resurrection? Then you have to be crucified with Him. Oh, we want to make declarations of crucifixion: "Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that God raised Jesus from the dead. You're saved! Praise God. Hallelujah!" Oh, yes, it is that simple to enter in, but it's not that simple to be conformed to His image. It's not that simple to be able to take upon ourselves the mantle of discipleship to where we can become those epistles that are read of men, that bring glory to our God. We celebrate the Easter season--it was an ugly time. It was a bloody time. It was a time of agony. It was a time of fear. It was a time of confusion. As we look back, we celebrate, but those who where with Him in that day didn't understand the full significance of that empty tomb. We've been given that revelation. We're without excuse as we begin to choose and place value on the temporal versus the eternal. We know what happened that day, and we know the victory that's been won. We know the full expression of the love of God toward us in finishing that work.

"That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection..." Do you know what the resurrection power is all about? It's not just about victory of physical death, but the power of the resurrection is the understanding of God having reconciled man back to Himself. The power of the resurrection is the understanding of reconciliation. The veil has been rent. Access has been given to Father through the blood of Jesus Christ. We're now in right standing with God; we're in fellowship with Him. We're no longer overpowered by sin; sin no longer has dominion over us. So, therefore, our departure from the cross, our departure from the Holy of Holies, our departure from the heavenly places, is not a matter of being overpowered; it's willful, because sin no longer has dominion. Oh, the temptations are there; the propensity is still in our members to sin. Sin is in our members, and it is very active, but there's a place of knowing Him when the price is paid, when there's a willingness to suffer with Him, to die with Him. The willful apprehending of the cross will free you from the power of sin so that you can know Him and the power of His resurrection, but you have to know what it's going to cost to be crucified.

This crucifixion isn't just, "Well, praise God. I'm going to legally see myself crucified with Christ." It's a legality; it's a theological legality, and we understand that legally we acknowledge by faith that we have been crucified with Him so that we can then legally be resurrected with Him. There is a literal crucifixion; there is a daily dying to self! Paul said, "...I die daily" (1 Corinthians 15:31). There is a daily cross of death to self-will that has to be apprehended if we're going to walk in the power of His resurrection. So Romans 6:6 says it this way, "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." No longer under its power. Tempted? Yes, but not dominated. Fail? Potentially, but not necessary--not dominated. Committing of sin? Yes. Willful commission of sin? Yes. Justification of our actions? Not when you've been crucified. Delighting in our sin? Not when you know Him. The acceptance of sin in others? Not in the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings--you know, those people you want to try to make excuses for and the people you want to try to make life easy on and the people you want to try to justify their behavior?--not when you realize that to do that is to keep them from knowing Him. Because until we've partaken of the fellowship of His sufferings, we'll never come to the knowledge of the power of His resurrection. We will never be able to, as Paul goes on to say in this 3^rd chapter of Philippians, apprehend those things for which we've been apprehended.

Do you want to know Him this morning, really? I wonder how many of us would start this journey if we knew what it really was going to cost. That's why God just reveals things to us day by day. But to be able to taste the goodness of God--sometimes we lose sight, in the midst of this, of the compassion that God has. He knows we're but dust; He knows our frame. He pities us as a father does his son, but He doesn't lift His hand off of us in His chastening. And He won't allow you to be tempted past that which you're able to stand, and with every temptation He makes the way of escape. Amen? Are you able to endure until that place of escape, because you've come to know Him?

What kept Jesus on that cross? The knowledge of God. You see, that knowledge doesn't mean that you understand everything that's going on. Listen, listen! "My God, my God, [What's the next word?] why..." You see, knowing God doesn't mean we have knowledge of everything He's doing--why He's doing it and what He's doing. We just have knowledge of His person and that He's good and that He's infinite in His mercies and His lovingkindness, and in His righteousness, that the Judge of all the earth does right, praise God! Because of that, I can say, "Why have You forsaken me? I don't understand why You've forsaken me. I don't understand why I'm where I am in my spiritual position." Now, listen. "I don't understand. God, why have You put Me in this place? Why have You allowed Me to come here? Why have You forsaken Me? Into Your hands I commit My Spirit." You see, the questioning of the knowledge is not the questioning of the character of God. The questioning of the works is not the questioning of the purpose of God. We can only be brought to that place by the continuation of purification, pruning, chastening, and suffering in our lives.

Do you want to know Him today in the power of His resurrection? Do you want to come to a place of obedience beyond understanding? "I don't have to know. I'm just going to do what God tells me to do. I don't have to know why He's asking me to do it. I don't have to know what the consequences of doing this are. I know this is God and I'm going to do it." The power of His resurrection. "It was for this purpose that I came," Jesus said, "and yet now it's here, and I don't want to do it." That's Jesus talking. "God told Me to come and drink of this cup, and everything I've done in My earthly ministry has been for this moment. Everything from eternity past was for this moment, and here I am and here's the cup, and I don't want it." Aren't you glad He gave us that glimpse into humanity? A perfect Human, a sinless Man--and He said, "I don't want to do this. This is going to hurt!" But there's a protection around us.

It reminds me of when we messed up the racecar not too long ago. I can still remember, as that thing came back down and hit the ground, it was like somebody dropping you from about four stories high, right on you butt, on the cement. I was shorter for weeks. I really was. I can remember, as that thing hit and I nailed the throttle again, it pulled the wheels up in the air again. As it did, the body went straight up in the air--and this thing weighs hundreds of pounds. As I saw it--it's amazing what your mind does. I saw that thing go up in the air, and the first thing that entered my mind was, "This is going to hurt!" I forgot that I was sitting in a roll cage, that I was protected.

When that cup is put before you, and you think to drink this--to obey, to do this--is going to hurt, there's an unseen protection where He said, "I'll never leave you nor forsake you. I'll not leave you comfortless. I've given my angels charge over you." Praise God. "I've given you all things that pertain to life and godliness in Christ Jesus. I'm working in you to will and to do of My good pleasure." It may hurt, and this process of dying to our own desires and our own ambitions and our own appetites is not an easy thing.

I was telling Greer this morning, "I just can't believe how hard it is to die to this particular thing." It's just a power of selfishness. As I said that to her, my mind flashed back to a statement that Janet [Pastor's former wife] had made: "Can you help me, because I don't know how to die," she told that nurse. "What can I do to die more quickly, so I can be removed so they can get on with their lives?" What a selflessness. If we could approach the temptations and death to self with that kind of a spirit of, "What can I do to hurry up and die so the fruit of this thing could bless the people around me and I could continue in the ministry that You've called me to? Can you help me hurry up, Father, in emptying myself of self so that we can finish this task for which we've been called to effect Your will?"

When you read the 3^rd chapter of Philippians, that's what Paul is talking about here. We've studied this so many times. As I said, it's applied to material things and natural circumstances. Paul is applying it to a spirit of self-righteousness. That's what the context is. The things that were gain to him, the things that he counted as treasures, were his own self-righteousness, the effecting of his own will, the things that he could boast in, in his accomplishments--the fact that he was above his contemporaries, that He was the most spiritual dude around. All we're doing is comparing ourselves by ourselves. Okay, so big deal! You're the most spiritual person in this group, in this county, in this state, on this planet. How do you measure up to Jesus, in light of what He has called us to be?

So, as we look at Paul and his cry to know Him--you see, in the context of this, his cry to know Him was already after knowing Him. It was seeing that his righteousness was not sufficient. He said all of this other stuff was dung! He said, "I counted them loss [verse 8] for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. I've realized that I'm going to have to put my own agenda down to win the knowledge of Christ, and everything that I was doing to serve God has to cease. God has another plan. Oh, I was working for God; He wants to work through me. I was working for God, and I need to be working the works of God." Paul is being stripped of everything that he was comfortable in, in his knowledge of God. That's a frightening place to be. That's where Jesus was on that cross when He said, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

As Paul speaks here concerning the conforming to the image of Jesus, he says, "...I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ...[and then he talks about the motivation of this thing] for whom [it's for Jesus] I have suffered the loss..." When you understand Who you're doing it for, the motivation, then, becomes supernatural. When you see the end of this death, the fruit that it's going to bring--"Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone" (John 12:24), but if we'll die, it's going to bring forth multiplied fruit to the Kingdom of God.

"It's for Jesus that I've suffered the loss of all these things." What things? The things of Job. Did you notice that Job didn't seem to emphasize--he was a wealthy man--did you notice that he didn't seem to emphasize the loss of the material things? Do you know what bothered Job more than anything? His reputation--the loss of his reputation of how spiritual he was. Are you willing to lose your reputation of how spiritual you are that you might win Christ? You see, these are the things that Paul was warring with and things that you and I are going to have to face as we come to the knowledge of God. "I've suffered the loss of these things to come to the knowledge." Paul is speaking, and he puts a new value upon them. He said, "[In fact, I] do count them but dung, that I may win Christ." Well, what's the big deal about giving up dung? He didn't say they were dung; he said, "I count them dung." You know, there's a value in that reputation. There was a value in people that honored Job at the gates. There were benefits to all of that--the internal benefits that he had, the way he was able to conduct himself, and the way others perceived him and responded to him--and it was all gone. That's why he kept trying to justify himself. He wanted that reputation back. He wanted people to know that he had his act together.

I was telling Greer, "I feel sorry for you in having to, in your marriage, see your husband at his worst." I can't think of any time when I've ever been in worse shape, but I believe it's because God is bringing me to the knowledge of Himself. The restructuring of our values, the loss of our reputation, the death of personal vision--Janet was so strong she almost couldn't die. I remember back in 1980 they said she couldn't live. They said she had zero immune system, and they couldn't do anything because they thought she would die. They gave her that one test, and she just reacted violently. They said, "We have no explanation for what's in you that's fighting all of this." I kind of have that same thing, but the only problem is, it's flesh. I can't believe how hard I am to kill, but I have confidence that Father can do it.

This is what Paul is saying to us in this particular passage. He said, "You see, these things used to be important." Then he doesn't back off of the fact that there's a natural value to them. He just says, "I've reevaluated, and I say now that I count them dung.] Now, listen to the contrast. "[I]...count them but dung, that I may win Christ." In other words, "Until these things are changed in my perception, I'll never win Christ. I have to recognize how valuable they were in my life, and I have to reevaluate them that I might win Christ. I choose to do that," he says. "And be found in him, [verse 9] 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." And then that classic Scripture that we're all so very familiar with--my goodness! I forgot we have our little blessings this morning. I have an internal clock. I know what most of you are thinking: "Yeah, you don't keep it plugged in." [Laughter] But as he says to us in verse 10, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, 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, [verse 12] if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus."

What is it that Jesus--apprehending. We know what that means: to take into one's possession, to arrest, to lay hold upon. What have we been apprehended for, of Christ? Why did He apprehend us? The Scripture tells us: that men might see the works, and glorify our Father which is in heaven (Matthew 5:16)--that the plan of reconciliation, the power of the resurrection, the effecting of reconciliation--that man could come back into communion with his God. The children might be reconciled to their Father, that those of us who have been blinded to Who our Father really is and the love that He has for us could have our eyes opened again at how loved we are. It's for that, that we've been apprehended, that He might be all-in-all.

The tomb is empty. Sin's power is broken. The Master has ascended to the right hand of the Father, and He ever lives to make intercession for us. "Satan desires to sift you, but I've prayed for you," Jesus said. "I will not leave you comfortless. I've gone to prepare a place, and I will doubtless come again. Look up, for your redemption is drawing nigh, but occupy until I come."

That's where we find ourselves, as His church: an occupying army in a hostile world, warring against principalities and powers, against the internal powers of sin in the flesh; admonished to fear, more than anything, a static life but to press on toward the full knowledge of Christ, because to become static is to die. To fail to press on is to be defeated, and so the admonition to provoke one another to love and good works remains the hallmark of our call. What a testimony to be able to stand and say, "Follow me as I follow Christ." "But it looks like we're headed into a furnace. It looks like we're headed toward a cross. It looks like we're in a state of not knowing." "His grace is sufficient. Into Your hands we commit our spirit." That's the fruit of the empty tomb: absolute confidence in the person of our Father. Commitment to obey without knowledge, assurance that He is ever present--the rest that belongs to the people of God (the ceasing of our own labors that we might know Him.)

Father, make it a reality, we ask in Jesus' name. As You continue to bring us into that place, into the conforming to the image of Jesus, give us the grace sufficient to endure, for without the grace we will flee from Gethsemane. Without Gethsemane we can never walk up Golgotha's hill, and without Golgotha there is no resurrection. We need the sufficient grace to press on toward the mark, the prize, the high calling of God. We ask for an appetite for a full knowledge of Yourself. Now knowing the cost, we ask. In fear? Yes, but also in faith. Be glorified in us, Father, and prepare us to hear, "Enter in. Well done, thou good and faithful servant." Then will we have partaken of the greatest treasure: the satisfaction of our Father. It's our heart's desire that You would be glorified, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's stand before the Lord as we celebrate His presence, the victory of that empty tomb, the effectual working of His Spirit in us, and the blood that cleanses us. As Gary plays and we meditate in the presence of God, as Father is ordering our steps, we ask that you would pray. We're not talking about things--there's no telling what's going on in your minds. I'm not talking about perceivable, gross sin, or anything that would be categorized on our humanistic scale of sin. I'm just talking about the strength of self-will.

As the Lord has been dealing us, some of you may have seen that the big truck is gone, as the Lord spoke to us and we sold that last week. We're liquidating different things. [Pastor is referring to items connected with the Finish the Race ministry.] We're returning to Bethel in a number of areas just to reaffirm the voice of God and to make sure of the course in this last day--to let Him finish His work in us, to redirect the energies and to press on toward the mark, to choose the way of the supernatural, and having come through a year of weariness, just wanting to rest and relax some in the natural. In the process of it, Father is just putting His hand heavy on us and just beating the tar out of us every time I move toward something in the natural. As I spoke out to Him in frustration--"What do You want from me?"--He just so matter-of-factly and consistently, in His immutability, said, "I just want you to die." I said, "It looks like I'm not very good at suicide. You're going to have to kill me." So He is. I feel like one of those cheap westerns, staggering around the street--shot, then taking 20 minutes to fall. I'm sure that once I hit the ground my leg will probably twitch 20 or 30 times. But I want to die, because I do so want to know Him.

Oh, I've known Him. I've tasted the goodness of our Father, and I've tasted the severity of our God--but there's so much more to know. In the hour that we're entering, when the very elect themselves can be deceived, I want to finish this course. I want to be safe from the false doctrines and from the cares of the world, because there are no guarantees. The Apostle said, "Lest having preached to others, I'd be lost." I want to be careful as he was. Do you want to know Him today? There's a price.

Let's sing it together and worship Him. "Jesus, draw me..." Let's sing it again and magnify Him this morning. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! It's our heart's desire, Father, as a people, and we ask that You would be glorified in our midst. We ask, Father, that as a people we could finish this course and that Your name would be glorified, and we'll give You all the praise, Father, in Jesus' name. Hallelujah! We thank You, Father.

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