Philippians: Portrait of a Mature Christian
Part 7
21st June 2014
In our consideration of what Paul's letter to the church in Philippi can teach us about Christian maturity, we now move forward to:
Philippians 3v4b-7
If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:
circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in
regard to the law, a Pharisee;
as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.
But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
A good, solid, respectable religious upbringing, a heritage going back many generations, a strong sense of national identity, a sense of belonging, membership of a religious and political movement, a sense of purpose, a confident self-righteousness. You would have thought Paul's life before he met Jesus was pretty good. But he says that he considers it loss for the sake of Christ.
I think Paul meant that all these things gave him self-confidence and pride, which made it more difficult to accept that Jesus Christ is Lord, that Paul needed to be forgiven and saved, that there was more to life than he'd previously realised.
And there are so many people like that today: so sure of their beliefs, so committed to some non-Christian world-view, some political or social program, so conformed to the ideas of the people around them, so confident that they don't need Jesus in their lives, not yet aware that all this is loss, not gain.
Paul was profoundly grateful that Jesus showed him how wrong he was, so grateful that he lived the rest of his life in Jesus's service, telling anybody who would listen that the best life we can have is life with Jesus Christ.
He was so glad to inherit real life - life reconciled to God through faith in Jesus - that he gladly discarded all the things that had previously given him his sense of self-worth: the respect of his countrymen, his purpose-driven life, his political and religious zeal. He now had real self-worth, which comes from experiencing the love of God.
He went on to say:
Philippians 3v8-9
What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my
Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through
faith in Christ - the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
Paul says that compared to his relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, everything else is rubbish. He says he's lost all things for Christ's sake, and he's glad about it! The mature Christian knows that:
A person who has Jesus Christ and nothing else has infinitely more than a person who has everything else but doesn't have Jesus Christ
To experience the reality of that, we must invest in our relationship with Jesus. And knowing that it's true makes us want to know Jesus as well as we possibly can. For a mature Christian, prayer is the most important activity and the greatest pleasure a person can experience. As Paul said next:
Philippians 3v10a
I want to know Christ
Of course, when Paul wrote this letter he did know Christ. When he said "I want to know Christ" I think he meant, firstly, that knowing Christ is the most important thing in his life and, secondly, that he wanted to know Christ a great deal better than he did. The complete sentence reads:
Philippians 3v10-11
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings,
becoming like him in his death,
and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
To know Jesus Christ as well as possible is a mature Christian's greatest ambition - whatever it takes. Paul wasn't satisfied with doctrine; he wanted to experience Christ's power, to know Christ's presence by the Holy Spirit, even to share in Christ's sufferings. Paul wanted to know Jesus Christ so well that he would become like Him - for all eternity. And he wanted that process to proceed as quickly as possible.
Do we?