The Surpassing Value of Knowing Christ

In this week’s message from Philippians 3, we see that a mind shaped by the Spirit learns to tell the dirt from the gold. Paul counted his own righteousness as rubbish next to the surpassing value of knowing Christ. We are called to put no confidence in the flesh and to dwell on what is excellent, which is ultimately Christ.

Well, we’re going to pick up where we left off last week. I intended to do a one-sermon survey last week and got through half of the book of Philippians, so I thought it might be appropriate to finish the book today to cover the other half. So, I want to read just one little portion here.

There is so much I could choose from to read to get the main idea of the book. But in the introduction Paul has a prayer for the Philippians, and for them, to us as well. And the prayer focuses really what he most desires as he writes this epistle. He’s praying for them, and he’s communicating in this prayer, the prayer that he’s offering to God, what he most wants to take place. So in chapter 1 and verse 9, he writes:

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ.

So I’m going to take that as the main idea that we want to communicate, and we’re going to explore that a little more this morning. Let me pray and ask God to bless his word to our hearts.

Father, we do thank you for the richness of your grace in Christ Jesus. Father, the love that you have shown us, and Father, the love that you give us, the ability to love that you have given and worked within us. We pray, Lord, that you answer this prayer of the Apostle Paul and us, that you give us a mighty love for you, that we would love Christ with all that we are and all that we have.

We pray, Father, that in doing and working this grace in us, that you would give us wisdom. You’d give us the ability to tell the good from the bad, that we’d be able to see what is really rich and truly valuable. And we ask, Father, for your helpful grace so that we would be able to live a life that is pleasing to you, not to merit anything, but simply out of our great gratitude for what we have already received in Christ Jesus. We thank you, Father, for that. And we ask your blessing today in Christ’s name.

Well, last week we began looking at this short survey of Philippians. The idea is to be able to get the overall view of the book so we don’t get caught up in the details of verse by verse, which is rich and wonderful. Every verse of this book is worth spending a great deal of time on. But sometimes in doing that, you lose sight of the whole meaning.

You know, the Bible is not, like a lot of people think about it, a collection. It’s not like a lot of beads. You take out this little pearl and you look at that pearl. It’s like the verses of the Bible. Well, God gives us these beads on a string. They come to us like a beautiful necklace.

And so there’s purpose in every book. Every book of the Bible has a purpose in why it was given and why it was written. And understanding the purpose of a book is really helpful. We need to be getting the overall messages. And so this prayer that Paul prays goes a long way to explaining the meaning of this book.

Now, last week we talked and pointed out that this is one of the most joyful books in all of the Bible. Paul writes the most joyful book in the New Testament, and he writes it from a Roman prison. It’s not because of his circumstances, which are really miserable, I mean physically miserable, but he is able to take great joy because the purpose that God has for the Apostle Paul is being fulfilled. What Paul most desires, he’s seeing come about, even though he’s in this terrible circumstance himself. In fact, the very circumstance he explains in chapter 2 is working to bring about the fulfillment of what he most wants, and that’s to see people come to faith in Christ, to have Christ glorified through the conversion and through the repentance and the salvation of many people.

And so, as we looked at this last week, we pointed out that the great theme, one of the themes is joy, which is mentioned 16 times in the book, but the great theme of the book is what we have been looking at, and that is the mindset of a Christian that is produced by the Spirit of God. That’s the great theme of the book of Philippians.

As you read through the book of Philippians, at least 28 times in this short book, it talks about thinking, about making judgments, about using the thoughts that you think, the knowledge that you are to know. It uses terms like that all through the book to talk about, for instance, gaining real knowledge and gaining discernment, the way you use your mind.

Ten times in this book, it uses the word mindset. Phroneō is the verbal form of that, to have the right mindset. And essentially the same word is used in that verse in Romans 8:6 that we’ve been studying.

The mindset of the Spirit, the mindset that is produced by the Holy Spirit of God, is life and peace.

And so we were looking at that last week. We pointed out that joy is mentioned many times in this book, and it’s a product of having such a mindset. It’s the product of having a mindset that is like Christ.

We looked at chapter 2, and the point of that chapter is that a mind patterned after Christ’s humility brings about unity. It brings about a work of humility in the heart. You prefer others just like Christ preferred others.

You have this mindset in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

You could say that that’s the theme of the book. If you just took that phrase:

Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

The mindset of the Spirit, that the Spirit produces, will be a mindset that’s perfectly in harmony with God’s purpose, with the purpose of Jesus Christ. And the example in chapter 2 of Christ is all that he gave up. It’s a picture of him leaving all the glory of heaven in order to work salvation, to do a perfect work to bring about the salvation of all God’s people.

And so, as you look at that and as we think about it, this is the purpose. This purpose is what’s to frame and shape our mindset. And the result of that, if you’re thinking about what Christ has done for us in chapter 2, if we’re imitating that, if that’s our heart, if that is the mindset that we have, then we’re going to be doing the kinds of things that Christ did, in a much lesser way, of course. But we’re going to be preferring others as being better than ourselves. We’re not going to be out to seek our greatest glory.

I don’t know, all of us have had a lot of experience with lots of preachers in various circumstances. We just have. And some preachers, you may have noticed, are kind of in it for themselves. Maybe you’ve experienced that. I don’t know.

If not, you’ve probably run across people who, it’s just really obvious if you’re looking at their ministry, that the person most glorified is the preacher. If you have a preacher like that, then you know that that preacher doesn’t have a mindset of Christ, because Christ’s mindset wasn’t like that at all.

Standing Next to the Cross

One of the books that I was studying in regard to this a week or so ago was a book that was written by D. A. Carson on Philippians. And in that book, Don Carson had the opportunity to interview two theologians, Carl F. H. Henry and Dr. Kenneth Kantzer. And Dr. Kenneth Kantzer and Dr. Henry were both powerfully influential men of God who influenced the world in wonderful ways for the Lord.

And they were both in their 80s when Carson interviewed them. And it was after some conference, and at this conference, he sits down and he’s going to ask them questions. And his first question is, he’s given a lot of thought, and he says:

You two men have been extraordinarily influential for almost half a century. Without wanting to indulge in cheap flattery, I must say that what’s attractive about your ministries is that you have retained integrity. Both of you are strong, yet neither of you is egotistical. You’ve not succumbed to eccentricities in doctrine nor to individualistic empire building. In God’s grace, what has been instrumental in preserving you in these areas?

And when he asked that question, he said they both sputtered and they were both embarrassed by the question. And then one of them, and he says in a kind of gentle outrage, says:

How on earth can anyone be arrogant when they’re standing next to the cross?

A true minister of the gospel sees Jesus and his glory and the sacrifice that he has and the great love that he has for us. He sees his humility and all that he went through. How can you be arrogant in the light of all that Christ has done for us? How can you do that?

It was a clarifying moment. And I think just because of the candor that is especially worth mentioning.

Last week, as we were looking at this, the last thing we talked about was the two examples that Paul gives us, Timothy and Epaphroditus. And I have to say, when I was talking about Epaphroditus last week, I noticed a couple of things in your response.

Epaphroditus, the text says that he gambled his life. That’s basically what it says. He gambled his life. And I kind of interrupted the sermon to say, I don’t know if you know this, but nowhere in the Bible does it say that gambling is a sin. And I remember the gasp that I heard when I said that. Some of you people were a little surprised that I said that.

The Lottery

And the other thing that I remember as I was talking about that is, a little later I was talking about what has happened a week or so before with the lottery, the $2 billion lottery, and the conversation that I had with some relatives the week before, and how one of them was really talking about how great it would be to win that wonderful prize of nearly $2 billion. You wouldn’t get nearly that. You wouldn’t get a billion dollars or probably too close to it.

But that’s the way you think about these things. That’s the way he was thinking about it. And I said, “I think that that would cause an awful lot of problems.” And he said, “Well, those are the kinds of problems I’d like to have.”

That was when I noticed the second response from you guys. Because a lot of you were thinking the same thing, and it was obvious. Well, we can tend to think that way.

The point of the gambling thing that I was bringing up and talking about, and the point in this text: Epaphroditus is commended for the risk that he takes for the sake of the gospel and the blessing of the Apostle Paul and the blessing of the people of Philippi. He’s commended because he puts his very life at risk. And so he’s commended for that.

That’s gambling. Gambling with your very life. And that’s commended. But it wouldn’t have been commended if he was gambling for the wrong things.

Approve the Things That Are Excellent

Remember that prayer that we mentioned a few moments ago of Paul? What’s the prayer about? He’s praying for them so that they may abound more and more in real knowledge and all discernment. Wisdom. Wisdom for what?

So that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless.

Approve the things that are excellent. There are things in life that are worth gambling for. In fact, every one of us will put ourselves at risk. We will put our money at risk. We will do all sorts of things in order to gain something.

A man gets up in the morning, he gets ready and goes to work, and he goes out and gets in his car, he’s taking a risk. There’s a certain gamble whether you’re going to make it to work or not, just in driving an automobile on the highway. You take risks. You do that for something that you think is going to be valuable and worthwhile.

Not Worth the Risk

It’s not the lottery. It shouldn’t be the lottery. Why not? Because it’s not worth the risk. It’s not. It’s not worth the risk on any level.

I’m going to get distracted if I go there, but it’s not. I can’t help it. If you take the prize, the $2 billion prize, and then you subtract what you’d actually get, and then you subtract out the taxes out of that, and divide it by the chances of winning, it’s going to be way less than the $2 you paid for the ticket. It’s not worth it. It’s a fool’s tax. It’s not worth it.

And even if it was, even if it’s a fair thing, what are you going to get out of it? Are you really going to be blessed if you won that thing? Well, the majority of people who do win it, the majority of them are all that blessed. Seventy percent of them don’t even have the money a few years later. And a few decades later, none of them have it.

It’s not worth the risk. It’s not the right thing. When you look at these things, the material things and the things that are worth risking your life on, you can come to the place where you say, well, obviously, it’s not going to be in this life exactly. It has to be about spiritual things. It has to be about the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is the place where we’re to risk.

And when you get to that place and you come to chapter 3, the people are here, his mindset is here: we’re going to take the right risks now. We’re going to risk in things that are eternal and significant and worthwhile. I want to make sure that I make it to heaven. That’s part of it. I want to invest in the things that are eternal.

Beware the Dogs

And the first thing that Paul does in verse 2, he says, I’ll just read the first couple verses:

Finally, my brother, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things is no trouble to me. It’s a safeguard for you. Beware the dogs. Beware the evil workers. Beware the false circumcision.

He’s talking about people, heretics on the outside of the church, who come in and influence the people in the church. In particular, what was going on in that day throughout the whole, not particularly happening in the Philippian church at that point, but in other churches, groups of people who had a Jewish background, who were now claiming to be Christians, were influencing the church and adding on to the gospel.

They were saying, you need to keep the gospel. You need to embrace the gospel. Jesus is good. We need Jesus, of course. But you also need the Mosaic law.

• You need to keep all those things in the Old Testament.
• You need to be able to keep all the feasts.
• You need to keep the Sabbath.
• You need to follow the dietary laws.
• You need to be doing all these things.

And through those things, you’re going to be sanctified and made holy. You’ll be right with God if you do all these things. Paul says that’s not it. He says, verse 3:

We are the true circumcision. We are the true believers. We’re the true children of God who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.

So what are you going to bet on? When you’re going to make your bet, you’re going to risk what’s going to bring you into the kingdom of God. If that’s the goal, then that’s the reward. And Paul says:

We put no confidence in the flesh.

The flesh, in this verse, the flesh is what we’ve been talking about. The flesh, though, in this verse, is doing the things that you are doing in yourself. That’s the idea. The things that you yourself muster up to do without the grace of God operative, really, is the idea.

Put no confidence in the flesh.

If Anybody Could, It’s Paul

But Paul says, if there’s anybody that could put confidence in the flesh, it’s me. And then he makes an argument for it. And his argument for this is actually pretty good. He makes a pretty good argument. If flesh is human effort, then Paul knew what human effort was. And he begins to list all those things.

He had exactly the right background. God had singled out the Jewish people, and he was Jewish. He was circumcised on the eighth day. From the very time that he came into this world, all the Old Testament law, they had meticulously observed from his birth. He had followed all these things from birth.

• He was circumcised the eighth day, placing him firmly in the covenant.
• He belonged to the nation of Israel.
• He was of one of the royal tribes of Israel. He was a Benjaminite.
• He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. That is, of the Jewish people who are faithful, he’s among the most faithful. He’s among the most faithful.

And as to the law, he was a Baptist. No, it doesn’t say Baptist. No, it says a Pharisee. What?

You know why I said Baptist? I said Baptist because when we think of Pharisee, we think of somebody with a black hat. We don’t think of somebody who was really good.

The party of the Pharisees were the conservatives of the day. They were the ones who believed that the Old Testament was the inspired word of God. They were the ones that was meticulous about being obedient to the word of God.

And Paul is saying, I was in that group. I was the one that was looking forward to the resurrection. I’m the one who had got all these things. All these things are right. See, I’m getting it all right. I’m a Pharisee.

And he’s zealous for the Lord. He’s meticulously zealous. And he achieved moral perfection in the eyes of men. That’s the next thing he says:

As to the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless.

You know what he’s saying there? He’s saying something that probably, I don’t know if any of us could say. Paul is saying, when people looked at me, when my friends and my family looked at me, there wasn’t a place where they could say, you messed up here. You remember that time five years ago when you told that lie? He lived a meticulously moral life.

It was his work. It was what he was doing. It was what he was counting on. If I can do all these things, then I’m good enough. I’m going to be good enough. I’m going to make it.

He’s betting his first major part of his life. He’s betting that if I do these things, it’s going to be enough. I’m gambling. I’m putting everything at risk in order to achieve these things. And that’s his bet.

The Prospector

And as I was thinking about risking, I don’t know, I didn’t really develop this, but I’m going to just throw it out. It’s kind of like, if you think of any work situation, there’s certain risks you take.

Imagine a prospector, and he’s found a few nuggets of gold in this particular spot. And he’s relatively confident that if he dug here, he might find a vein of gold. And so he begins to dig, and he’s staked out his claim, he’s done all the legal work, and he comes back here and he starts digging and he starts building a mine.

And when you build a mine, you deal with a great deal of dirt. There’s a lot of dirt in the mine. And among some of the dirt and the rocks and the worthless things you pull out are some really shiny things that might be very attractive. Some of those things look like gold itself.

It’s really critical. It’s critical that in all the work that you do and dealing with all the dirt, you can tell the difference between the dirt and the gold. You’re going to mostly be dealing with dirt. And every now and then, you’re going to find some real gold. You better be able to recognize it when you see it and know the difference.

I Count All Things to Be Loss

The Apostle Paul was mining. He had spent his life doing all these things, which he was confident. He believed. He certainly believed that if anybody was good with God, it was him. He was doing all the right things, all these things.

And then something happens. Tells us about it in Acts chapter 9. He’s approaching Damascus, and he sees Christ in his glory. Christ himself appears to him, a light that is so bright that it literally left him blind for days, a light that shows up all of the sins that is in his heart. All of those things within his heart that he had hidden from other people, hidden from himself, all of a sudden it’s exposed to him.

And he recognizes that all of these orthodox traditions and all these things are worthless to him. It’s worthless. He counts it as worthless. And he sees the perfection of Jesus Christ. Christ in his glory and Christ in his purity. Christ and all of his beauty.

And for the first time in his life, Paul recognizes the difference between the dirt and the gold. He sees the difference. What is truly real and what is significant? He says in 3:7:

The TextPhilippians 3:1–4:9

Whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ the Lord.

He literally says, these things are the skybalon. These things are like less than dung.

All these things that I was betting my life on, that I thought was so precious and significant, and was going to do it for me. He says, it’s all the stuff that’s only worth throwing away. It’s worthless. And what is worthwhile is Jesus Christ. He says in verse 10:

That I may know him, that I may know him and the power of the resurrection.

He said, verse 8:

I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ, my Lord.

Yeah, we’re to do that. We’re to quit fooling around with the trinkets and the nonsense and reach for the heavenly prize. But in doing that, it’s only in Christ that there is value, that there is anything of worth at all. And everything that we offer to God is tainted by our own sinfulness, tainted by our sinful thoughts.

I Press On Toward the Goal

I want to call your attention to verse 13, because he’s talking about the Christian life as he’s living it at the moment. And he says:

Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

That’s the Christian life. That’s the Christian life.

I wanted to read that verse because he’s saying, I don’t credit myself with having achieved it all now. God is still at work in me, he’s saying.

God has saved me. He transformed my life. I’m radically different than I was before, but I’m still in that process. I haven’t achieved it all. I don’t reckon myself to have achieved it all. I don’t credit myself with having achieved it all.

Now, I emphasize that word credit there because that’s the word I want us to think about. The word is logizomai, and it’s an important word in this book.

It has to do with crediting. It’s an accounting word. It’s a word that you do in accounting. You credit this account. You put in that account. You write down what’s actually there, the reality of the thing.

Because God works in us in order that we are able to have our mind changed, transformed, so that we value those things that are precious and good, and we see as dirt those things that don’t measure up. See the difference between the gold and the dirt. We need to be able to credit the things that are good. So that’s what that word logizomai means: credit.

And it’s used a couple times in this book, but because this is a survey and we’ve got ten minutes left, I can only do this one more thing. That’s in chapter 4.

Chapter 4 begins with urging Euodia and Syntyche, who apparently have some little tensions between themselves, to have that settled. And how do they settle it? They settle it by having a spiritual mindset.

Help these women who share the struggle in the cause of the gospel together with the rest.

He says, when it says live in harmony, that’s our word, mindset. Have the same mindset. That’s exactly the same word that’s used in Greek in that passage. So it’s interesting. If you have the same mindset, you’re going to be in harmony. So there’s that.

But as we move down this chapter, he talks about the peace of God that surpasses comprehension. How do you get that?

The mindset of the Spirit is life and peace.

Verse 8:

Finally, brother, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there’s any excellence, if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

What does that verse mean? It’s an important verse. If you want to deal with anxiety in life, here’s an important verse. If you want to deal with the Christian life and know what it’s about, this is a crucial verse. What does it mean? Does this verse mean that we’re to be thinking good thoughts all the time?

More Than Thinking Good Thoughts

Think about the mining analogy. When you’re digging that mine, you’re digging out all that dirt. You’re going to be thinking about dirt, aren’t you? You’re not going to be looking to the dirt for anything, but you’re going to be thinking about it. There’s no way to not think about the dirt.

That’s not what this verse means. It doesn’t mean I’m going to think about these good thoughts and push out all the bad thoughts. I want to think about these good thoughts. It does mean I’m going to dwell on these good thoughts regularly. But it means more than that.

Credit These Things

Because that word in this translation, dwell on, or King James, think on, it’s the same word I was talking about, it’s logizomai. It means credit. It’s a root idea. And it’s like a lot of things.

This translation, to dwell on these things, that’s a good translation. The King James translation, think about, that’s a good translation. It’s good. It’s a great translation. The only problem is there’s more than any of these single words convey in that idea.

Because when you read think about these things, or think on these things, you’re thinking, the way I normally would think about it is, I need to think about this thing and not this thing. But it’s actually saying:

• credit these things,
• evaluate these things,
• reckon these things,
• think critically about these things,
• evaluate these things.

Here’s something that is true. Spend a significant amount of time about this thing that you’ve just discovered true in the Word of God, or where you discovered it. Think about the value of this thing. That’s what it’s talking about, valuing it. How do you value it? Understand the value of this precious thing that you’re thinking about, this good thing, this excellent thing.

Make It a Habit

How do you evaluate that? Make it a habit.

The King James says think, and the New American Standard says dwell on. The reason the New American Standard says dwell on is because it’s pulling the tense of the verb out. It’s in a present tense, and present tense in Greek means that it is a progressive thing. Here it’s something that would likely be iterative. It’s something that you’re to do over and over and over again. This is a daily thing that we’re to be doing.

We come across the gold nuggets of life. You know what, you want to hear some of them? The things that are true. The things that are honorable. The things that are right and pure. These are the gold nuggets that we should meditate on and think about in life and value to be precious, as opposed to the temptation to value other things.

They Set Their Minds on the Dirt

Back in chapter 3, he warns them. There are people who identify with Jesus Christ. They claim to be Christians. They live among us in our churches. And what happens to them? He says:

For many walk, of whom I’ve told you, and now tell you weeping, that they’re enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.

You see the difference? They set their minds on the dirt.

And you know what? That’s an evidence that they don’t have a transformed mind. That’s an evidence that their mind hasn’t been changed by the Holy Spirit of God. And so their end is destruction. And he’s weeping over that.

Whatever’s true, whatever’s honorable, whatever’s right, whatever’s pure.

And ultimately, that’s God himself. That’s Jesus, and all the gifts that come from him that have these things. But it’s particularly true with Jesus.

Whatever Is True

Jesus said:

I’m the way and the truth.

He’s the truth.

Whatever Is Honorable

He’s the one who’s honorable.

Worthy are you, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power.

Revelation 4:11.

Whatever Is Right

Jesus is just. He’s right. He’s righteous.

Jesus Christ the righteous.

1 John 2.

Whatever Is Pure

He’s pure.

In him there’s no sin.

Whatever Is Lovely

He’s lovely.

You’re fairer than the sons of mankind. Grace is poured upon your lips.

Psalm 45:2.

Whatever Is of Good Repute

He’s of good repute, reputation.

The crowds were amazed and saying, “This man can’t be the Son of David, can he?”

Couldn’t say anything.

If There Is Any Excellence

He’s so excellent in every way. He’s excellent. Virtue.

Seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of him. Through these, he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature.

That’s the preciousness, the excellency of Christ, that when we, by the power of the Holy Spirit, cooperate with the Holy Spirit, the very mind of Christ becomes our mind, and we see the beauty of Christ like we’ve never seen it before. We recognize the beauty of the good things that God has created in this world and separate those things out rightly from the rest of the dirt that is around us, touched by sin in so many ways.

And we’re to work on this faithfully, in step with the Spirit of God, who changes us and transforms our minds through the Word of God. So our prayer really should be what we sang a little earlier this morning:

May the mind of Christ, my Savior, live in me from day to day, and by his love and power controlling all I think and do and say.

Let’s pray.

Father, we’re grateful for the love that you’ve shown us in Christ. And I thank you, Father, for giving us this wonderful book of Philippians. Father, I thank you for giving us Christ our Savior. I thank you for the perfection that is in him, that we see in everything that he has done, in everything.

He is a creator God who created a perfect world. He is a redeemer God who came to redeem the world tainted by sin. He is glorious in all that he is, sinlessly perfect, wise beyond any comprehension of man ever. And we just thank you, Father, for all his perfections. We thank you for the righteous and perfect life that he lived.

And Father, we pray, recognizing with Paul that I’m going to give up any trust in my own righteousness and receive by faith that perfect righteousness which Jesus has wrought for me. I receive the work that Christ has done for me. And Father, we can only thank you for that grace. We praise you for it.

And we ask this, that by the power of your Spirit, we see the true value of these precious treasures we have in Christ. And Father, that they become more to us than any of the trappings of this world. Far more to us. As different as the dirt is from the gold. Far more than that.

Help us, Father, to see the glory of our Savior, the Lord Jesus. Please work this in us, and help us this week. Help us today and for the rest of our life to value you for all that you are. We ask this in the name of our Savior to his glory. Amen.