Wonderful to see so many brothers and sisters still here on Sunday evening. It has been a long weekend, but a wonderful time of sharing together: afternoon sessions with our brother David, and morning sessions with our brother Stephen, all on this matter of Christ, our vision—seeing Him, knowing Him, following Him.
Our theme verse is Colossians 1:17:
And He is before all things,
And in Him all things hold together.
Last night we spoke about knowing the Lord as our center, as our Head over us, and how we are to know Him deeper and deeper. Tonight, we want to read a few testimonies of those who desired to know the Lord and more of Him.
We begin in Exodus 33 with Moses’ prayer before the Lord, beginning in Exodus 33:13:
Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight,
Let me know Your ways that I may know You,
So that I may find favor in Your sight.
Consider too that this nation is Your people.
And He said, “My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.”
Then Moses said to Him, “If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here.”
Then, 2 Peter 1:2-3:
Grace and peace be multiplied to you
In the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord;
Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness,
Through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.
At the end of 2 Peter, this true knowledge is mentioned once again. Second Peter 3:18 says:
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
Finally, there is that familiar testimony of the apostle Paul in Philippians 3, beginning in Philippians 3:8:
More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord,
For whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,
And may be found in Him,
Not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law,
But that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,
That I may know Him,
And the power of His resurrection,
And the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,
In order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect,
But I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.
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,
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Our Father, we come to You once again tonight. We know that not only is it Your heart’s desire that we know more of Christ, but You have sent the Holy Spirit within us to lead us into all the truth, all the glory, all the reality that is in Christ.
We would ask, Father, that the Spirit, even again tonight, though we have heard so much, might once again disclose Your Son to us. We are so thankful for this Christ that we know. Oh, what a Christ we have, and we want to know Him more.
We want to give You this time with thanksgiving in our hearts. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
It is wonderful to be with people who want to know the Lord more. I remember back many years ago—I guess it was 1974—that I was a preacher in North Carolina. I was serving the Lord, teaching the Bible, preaching the gospel, and doing various things.
I went into this little house group, and our brother Stephen was there ministering for a weekend. I happened to go, and perhaps there were twelve or fifteen people there. But the first song they ever sang was this chorus that only the old people know, as Ben would say.
The first song I ever heard them sing was:
That we may know Him, wonderful Lord;
To know the power of His great resurrection,
And join in fellowship with that of His sufferings,
And in that be made conformable to His death.
That we may know Him, wonderful Lord.
I heard that chorus, and I started to cry, because I had never heard anybody ask for that before. In all the churches where I had ministered, and in my own ministrations, we wanted more power. We wanted to preach the gospel. We wanted people to get saved. We wanted them to be filled with the Spirit, and all kinds of things.
But I heard some people singing with such a deep desire in their hearts that they could know the Lord Himself—wonderful Lord. I had never heard that before.
So I met this crazy bunch of people, and Brother Kong was one of the gang leaders, who wanted to know the Lord more. There is something viral about being in that environment. You find yourself strangely hungering: “Well, yes, I would like to know the Lord more too. I just never thought about it before.”
Tonight I share these brief testimonies because they all have that same testimony of Paul: “That I may know Him.” The interesting thing about these testimonies—Moses, Peter, and Paul—is that ever since they knew the Lord, they were in an awful lot of trouble and had to go through an awful lot of stuff.
Yet the more they knew the Lord, the more they positively pursued Him. You would think there would come a moment of satiation, where we would say, “Thank You, Lord. I think I know You well enough now. Thank You very much.” But we find that those who have seen the Lord, who have had a vision of the Lord, pursue more.
That says to me that this may be our great hope: that the Holy Spirit would stir that fire within us, that desire to know more of our Lord. This is the great motivating force in our life.
Think about Moses. He goes up on the mountain, and what he wanted to say—and what he did say in that brief prayer—was, “Lord, these are Your people.” They had already been unfaithful to the Lord, and Moses was burdened for the children of Israel.
Oh, what a bunch of people. They did not know the Lord at all. They had made a golden calf after the Lord said, “Do not make any gods after Me.” “Oh yes, Lord—except this golden calf.”
Moses did not know what to do with these people. Moses had met the Lord in the burning bush and had gone through the trials of returning to Egypt. He had seen the miracles of the Lord and the sea opened. The children of Israel saw those things too, but they did not know the Lord.
When the Lord showed up on the mountain, the people said, “Please, Moses, you speak to the Lord. He scares us. We do not want to know Him.” Do you think there are any Christians who are like that? “You know what? I do not really want to get too close to the Lord. I am afraid He might burn me up or something.”
Moses had been through so much. He got up on the mountain and said, “Lord, these people.” He felt in his heart that he had to intercede for them, or they were going to be wiped out. The Lord said, “You know what? I will send an angel, but I am not going with them.”
Moses went up there to intercede for the people, but as he got into that rarefied air and closer to the Lord, I guess he lost his notes. Suddenly, in the middle of his intercession, it became, “Lord, now I want to speak about You.”
“Lord, could I ask You something? If I have found favor in Your sight, would You show me Your ways so I could know You?” That was not part of the program, but that is what happens when you know the Lord and desire to have more of a vision of Him.
Psalm 103 tells us that the Lord showed His acts to the children of Israel, but He showed His ways to Moses. Here is somebody who knows the Lord—the one who knows why the Lord is doing what He is doing, and what the Lord is going to do. It almost makes you a prophet.
Do you know the ways of the Lord? This was Moses’ testimony up there on the mountain.
Now, do you think Peter qualified as a man who knew the Lord? He followed the Lord. You know he loved the Lord. But every time he opened his mouth, he put another foot in it. He knew the Lord, but he did not know the Lord.
The Lord would say something, and Peter would misinterpret it. He was always being corrected, always being stopped. Even when he saw the revelation of Jesus at Caesarea Philippi—“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God”—it was not ten minutes later that Jesus had to rebuke him.
Then, one week later, Peter saw the majestic glory on the mount. He saw a Lord he had never seen before, bright and shining. Peter had a great idea: “Let us build some tents, and we will have a shrine.” That is exactly what the Lord wants—a shrine on that mountain. No, no, no. Peter, Peter, Peter.
Then, as Jesus went to Calvary, Peter knew he was brave enough never to forsake Him. Oh, he did not know the Lord. But here is what he said at the end of his life: because we have grace and a true knowledge of Jesus Christ, we have all that we need for life and godliness.
If you know the Lord, you have all you need. One thing we know about Peter is that, at the end of his life, as he writes in 2 Peter, he knows the Lord. He has epignōsis. He has gone much deeper, much deeper.
We want to look at the apostle Paul tonight. We read a longer portion of his testimony. Again, we hear this testimony toward the end of his life. After receiving a heavenly vision of Christ on the road to Damascus, his whole life was destroyed—turned upside down—and, in a real sense, came to an end.
He spent the next thirty years being pursued by the Jews, persecuted in various places, stoned, shipwrecked, almost losing his life on a number of occasions, robbed, and especially facing the hostility of principalities and powers everywhere he went.
For all those thirty years of embattled life, he comes to Philippians and says, “Lord, I want to know You more.” There is a deep motivation in the life of a child of God who has seen the Lord to see Him more.
The Scriptures describe the Lord as altogether lovely. Have you discovered that about the Lord yet? Men like the apostle Paul found that the more they saw of the Lord, the more they wanted to know more of Him.
Before we read Paul’s testimony again, let us briefly review his life. Paul, just like the rest of us, had to come into a true knowledge of who Jesus was by the Holy Spirit guiding him in as he was able to bear it.
Why can we not bear it right away? Because there is too much in us of ourselves and of the world. Paul, when he got saved, had a real struggle with the world. You say, “Paul was not worldly at all.” Yes, he was. He was religiously worldly.
Paul was not interested in getting rich or being in government. Paul wanted to be a Jew of the Jews, a Benjamite of Benjamites, blameless according to the law, a Pharisee of the best order under Gamaliel. He wanted status. He wanted righteousness. He wanted God to be pleased with him for all his self-righteousness.
When he met the Lord on the road to Damascus and it was obvious that the Lord was not going to accept any of that, it was tough to throw away his world.
Our brother David was sharing this with the millennials today. I could almost hear the millennials saying, “Oh yeah, I bought into that package. I am working for a banker. I am doing this and that.” The older people say, “What is he talking about? What is this whole track?” You are on the track. You have to go to this school, take that job, take that promotion ladder.
All the millennials were going, “Ooh, ah, ooh, that hurts,” because the Lord is separating you from that world. Paul had to be separated from his world. All his friends were Jewish. All his friends were Pharisee wannabes. He had status, even in Jerusalem, and all of that had to become rubbish.
That is what prevented Paul from knowing the Lord more. But the more he could lay aside that stuff, the more the Holy Spirit could work.
The Holy Spirit had a real advantage with the apostle Paul because he knew the Scriptures so well already. So we see that the Word of God is so important to knowing the Lord.
Can you imagine what it must have been like for Paul when he got out in the desert of Arabia and spent a couple of years there with scrolls? As he read the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit opened his eyes, there must have been fireworks every night.
Paul was very clever, but when the Holy Spirit revealed all those passages in the Scriptures that revealed Jesus, Paul must have gone crazy. He probably talked to the goats one night and the sheep the next night, telling them about the Jesus he was discovering throughout the Old Testament.
It was a tremendous work of the Holy Spirit to bring all these things into Paul’s understanding. That is knowledge—even revealed knowledge.
But that religious background still had a hold on him. You know why? Because he still wanted to be perfect. He had no idea that he had a sin nature in him that just was not going to let him be perfect.
The more he tried, the further behind he got. Somewhere in his Christian life, he slipped right into Romans 7, where it is, “I, I, I. I want to do good. I know the law is good. I know God is good. But there is nothing good in me.”
He struggled in the “I” zone of Romans 7—defeated, defeated. “Okay, I am not going to sin,” and as soon as he said it, he sinned. “Okay, I am not going to covet,” and the next thing you know, he grabs something.
Just like David this afternoon: “Lord, I am going to spend time with You,” and then he checks his email. You say, “That iPhone has got sin in it.” No, no, no. It is fine. The sin is in here, you see.
Paul came to the end of himself over this, because the one thing he wanted to be was righteous, and that was the one thing he could not be, even as a Christian. He wanted to be perfect, and he was his biggest stumbling block.
It humbled him. It brought him down. “Oh, who will deliver me from this bondage of death?” Finally, the Holy Spirit showed him something that changed his life.
He had been buried with Christ. All that old man had been buried and crucified. He had now been raised with Christ—dead to sin, alive to God. Now he could present the members of his body as instruments of righteousness, and he began to learn how to walk by the power of the Holy Spirit.
My, my, my. What a revolution. “I have been crucified with Christ.” I am so glad that the Holy Spirit took Paul through that process; otherwise, we would not have it recorded. All of us Christians would be struggling and struggling in our self-life to be perfect.
But Paul taught us this amazing lesson because the Holy Spirit showed him that sanctification is being united with Christ. It was revolutionary for his life and for ours.
We saw last night in Paul’s letter to the Colossians that Paul kept seeing greater and greater things. It took a Jew to understand that Gentiles were now just as much a part of God’s sons and inheritors as the Jews.
Nobody had discovered that. Peter had not seen that. James—I do not know if he ever really saw that. Paul had to stand on ground all alone, saying, “No, no, no. My brother is a Jew; my brother is a Gentile. We are one, and there is no barrier between us. Jesus tore down that barrier.”
That was a radical understanding, but Paul saw it and had to declare it. The Spirit of God opened up more and more of these mysteries, as we saw in Colossians, Ephesians, and elsewhere: tremendous mysteries regarding the church, the life of Christ in us, Christ in us as the hope of glory, and all these things.
Although we do not know all the dealings that went along with that, I think we can assume that every time you see some precious truth, the Spirit has to lead you into that truth.
The Spirit had to deal with Paul. Every time he saw something—when he saw that the Gentiles were full inheritors—do not think it was easy for Paul to just shimmy up to Gentiles and start eating pulled pork.
He had to do some things deliberately to love the Gentiles, who were just not very classy according to Jewish customs. But he saw that the barriers were broken. Every time he saw something new about the boundaries of Christ and who He was, his life had to be adjusted to this new dimension.
So, brothers and sisters, we learn this principle: do we want to know the Lord? The Spirit will show Him to us, but it will cause a dealing in our lives at every level.
Paul was a vessel broken many times. He had to decrease every time he came into deeper knowledge. He received that humbling thorn. He was chased by the Jews as a fugitive. He faced opposition from within the church. Many times, he despaired of life.
Now, when we see him testifying in Philippians, he has been in jail for several years. In a real sense, his apostolic ministry—which means being sent out—is no longer happening, because he is not being sent out. He is in a jail.
A trial like that, being locked in jail, would crush any servant of God unless they knew the Lord. Although Paul was bound and surely prayed many times that he might be released, he had to wait and wait and wait. Much of his imprisonment was tied up with political business and was unnecessary.
Yet during that time, an even greater desire began to rise up within him. By the time we get to Philippians—written approximately at the same time as Ephesians and Colossians, the prison epistles, during the last four or five years of his life—we come to this marvelous testimony.
A dear Brethren brother named Brother Lincoln—whose first name I forget—wrote a very small book on Philippians. It is an absolute treasure, perhaps a hundred years old. You have to find it somewhere. It is simply a little book of meditations on Philippians.
He outlined the book in such a wonderful way. He said the theme of Philippians is Philippians 3:8: “I want to gain Christ.” That is the theme. Amid all the different things Paul is discussing, here is his testimony: “I want to gain Christ.”
Paul already has a lot of Christ, would you not say? He is not at the ABC level. I do not know where he is between Alpha and Omega, but somewhere around Chi. He knows a lot about Christ, and here is his desire: “I want to gain Christ.”
The outline begins with Philippians 1:21:
For to me, to live is Christ.
That is saying something profound, do you not think? If we do not know much about the Lord, it may sound like preacher hyperbole—just exaggeration. “For to me, to live is Christ.” But Paul really means it. He goes on to say, “And to die is gain.”
So, in chapter 1: Christ is my life. What a testimony.
Then chapter 2, Philippians 2:5: having the mind of Christ. Paul not only told the Philippians to have this mind which was also in Christ Jesus, as our brother Stephen shared so wonderfully this morning. Paul himself had that mind.
He had become a bondservant, the least. He was there to serve the church and serve the saints. He had that mind of Christ.
Then chapter 3, Philippians 3:14:
I press on toward the goal.
Christ, my goal. Is this just spiritual mysticism? What does that mean? “Christ, my goal. I press on toward the goal.”
Then chapter 4, Philippians 4:13:
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Christ, my supply. Christ my life, Christ my mind, Christ my goal, Christ my supply. Do you think Paul is pretty much centered in Christ?
Oh, what a Christ he had come to know through his life. Indeed, for Paul, Christ is the center and circumference of his life.
Listen to the phrase Paul uses in Philippians 3:8:
More than that, I count all things to be loss
In view of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord,
For whom I have suffered the loss of all things,
And count them rubbish so that I may gain Christ.
The excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. Have you ever thought that knowledge could reach excellency? Some translations say “the surpassing greatness of the knowledge of Christ.” All of this is proper.
I happen to like “the excellency of the knowledge,” because now we are talking about precious knowledge. We are talking about profound knowledge. Paul says, “The more I have gone on with Christ, the more I am willing to jettison anything just for more of this excellent knowledge.”
How he saw and must have known Christ, and what he must have learned about the Father through Christ. For the excellency of that knowledge, he was willing to pay a great cost.
When we look at Paul’s testimony, “that I may know Him,” let us consider some of the phrases he uses in Philippians 3:9-14. These are aspects of knowing the Lord.
He says, “I want to gain Christ and be found in Him.” Now stop and think for a minute. Do you not think Paul is already in Christ? All Christians are already in Christ, but what does he mean: “I want to be found in Him”?
“Not having a righteousness which is according to the law, but that which is through faith in Jesus Christ.” “I want to be found in Him.” It is speaking of something more.
In Philippians 3:10, Paul says, “I want to know Him,” but specifically, “in the power of His resurrection.” Paul found that this is a way of discovering more about the Lord: through the power of His resurrection.
But so excellent is the knowledge of Christ that he also says, “I want to know Christ through the fellowship of His sufferings.” What does that mean? As he goes through his sufferings, he has fellowship with Christ in those sufferings. He learns more of Christ.
So, “Let me have it, Lord, because I want to know You more.”
Then Paul says, “Being conformed to His death.” He has discovered that, even as his life is given over to death—as it were, a life laid down—he comes to understand more about Jesus, whose life was laid down.
If you are a person bent on preserving your own life, it is hard to understand the life of somebody laying down his life. But as your life becomes a life poured out for the sake of the Lord, you begin to understand Jesus as He laid down His life.
Paul says, “I am willing to go deep into these things for the excellency of knowing this most wonderful Person I have ever met.”
Then Paul says that there are things to be gained by knowing Christ. “I want to gain Him.” In Philippians 3:11, he says:
If by any means I might attain to the resurrection from among the dead.
Maybe your version simply says “attain to the resurrection of the dead,” but all saints are going to be raised from the dead—everybody in Christ. So what does Paul mean? There is something more.
Then in Philippians 3:12, he says:
I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.
How do you lay hold of the Lord who has laid hold of you? There must be some skill in that.
Then in Philippians 3:14, Paul says there is a goal, there is a prize, and there is an upward calling of God in Christ Jesus. All these phrases are ways in which we come to know the Lord more.
What does Paul know about the Lord through all these phrases? There are three things I want to say as an introduction, and then we will look at two simple matters. By then, everybody will be ready for bed at ten o’clock—lights out, right?
First, all these phrases—to gain Christ, to be found in Him, the fellowship of His sufferings, to attain to the out-resurrection—all more fully define what it means to know Christ.
Second, these things must be available to all Christians, not just some super-Christians, not just an elite or apostles. These things are available to all of us if we would know the Lord more.
Third, these things all involve knowing the Lord beyond initial experience. Do you agree with me on that? It is pretty self-evident. Paul says, “My desire is to go deeper,” and I hope those who are like-minded want to go deeper as well.
When we look at Philippians 3:12 again—
I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus—
The first thing we want to say about knowing the Lord is obvious: Paul loved the Lord. This is a love statement: “I want to lay hold of the One who laid hold of me.”
There is a love story behind that. There is no pursuing more of the Lord if you do not really love Him. Our brother David gave another definition of love: “Do you revere the Lord?” Well, it has the same end. It is another angle of respectful love.
But this is a love story. There is a heart that has been captured by the Lord and is pursuing the Lord to know more of Him—the excellency of Christ, the intimacy of knowing Christ.
Everybody here probably has choruses that say, “Lord, I want to know You more. Deep within my soul, I want to know You.” There are many choruses about this. “I want to know You. All that the world holds dear, just to know Jesus.”
But do you really want to know Him? This is a question of love. Why do we have to be led deeper into this love? Because loving the Lord becomes more and more an exclusive matter. It means we have to divest ourselves of anything which stands in the way.
It is the world that keeps us from knowing the Lord. Our brother said it so well this afternoon: we love the Lord, and we love the world. If we want to know the Lord and love Him more, something has to go. Which one do you think?
There is a divesting of things, a simplification of things. Our life was—and probably still is—a juggling match. Some people are juggling an iPad, an iPhone, and one of those crummy PC copies of an iPad—whatever those things are—juggling all that stuff at the same time and trying to love the Lord and read the Bible.
They have the Bible in so many translations that everybody is confused. People have so many translations in English now that nobody can quote a verse anymore. Sometimes somebody reads an English or American translation, and I say, “What Scripture is that?”
We have a lot of things we are juggling. The Lord says, “You want to know Me?” We have to see it as a love story.
Let us go back to the Song of Solomon. What did Solomon say to that Shulammite woman? Song of Solomon 2:10 says:
My beloved spoke to me and said,
“Rise up, my love, my fair one,
And come away.”
Do you remember what the Shulammite said? Paul is in the position of the Shulammite woman here. The story of the Song of Solomon opens, and we have missed what just happened.
Solomon came down, jumped off his big white steed, and here was this Shulammite woman. He walked over, gave her a big smack on the lips, said, “Bye-bye,” jumped on the horse, and took off.
The woman was in love. She had been laid hold of. “Oh, the kisses of his mouth. Oh, let me have more. I am lovesick. He came. I did not expect it. I was not worthy of it. How could a Shulammite and a king ever? But he came and kissed me. Now I cannot stop thinking about him.”
What does the Shulammite say back to Him who says, “Come away, my beloved”? She says:
Draw me after You, and we will run together.
The Shulammite realizes, “Well, my mom wants me to do the cooking tonight. My dad does not trust anybody who rides on a white horse.” But she is going to have to leave something behind to pursue this One whom she loves.
“Come away, my beloved.” In a symbolic way, that is talking about the fact that when we want to know the Lord, many times it is when we have had to leave something behind. Sometimes it is something treasured, even if it is a hope or a plan.
Something has to be laid aside, and then it enables us to come after the Lord. The Shulammite was ready to be kissed by the King, and now she said, “Would You please draw me? And we will run together.”
This is what Paul means when he says, “I want to pursue, that I may lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of.”
Philippians 3:9—to be found in Him, not having a righteousness of the law but that which is through faith in Christ—also sounds like another description of being found in the way that a bride is found in her bridegroom.
We have been captured. There are many Christians who perhaps have not been captured yet, because they are still juggling some things. Well, I have good news for you: the Holy Spirit will knock a few balls out of your juggling match so that you can know the Lord.
In eternity, you will be so glad that those balls were taken out of your juggle.
Do you love Him? Do you want to know Him? We have a precious hymn:
Hast thou heard Him, seen Him, known Him?
Is not thine a captive heart?
Do we have a captive heart yet? When you have a captive heart, now you are pursuing the Lord. With Paul, I am sure that part of “I want to lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of” has to do with the heart-to-heart love Paul had for Jesus, the One he met on the road to Damascus.
The second thing, which is more drawn out in this passage than the first, is that Paul has come to know the Lord as his King—the King of the kingdom.
Paul has come to understand that he is a servant, a bondservant, of a King. He is pursuing both the King’s presence and the kingdom rewards.
Philippians 3:14 says:
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul is pursuing because he hears God calling him upward—an on-high calling. There is a high calling for him, and he is pressing toward it. He sees a goal line ahead. There is actually a goal, and on the other side of that goal, there is a prize.
The upward calling is called the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus. If we have to surmise what Paul is talking about, it is what is spoken of in other parts of Scripture: the prize of a faithful servant in the kingdom is to sit with Christ on His throne in the kingdom.
There is a prize. Paul is striving for the prize. This sounds foreign to so many Christians who believe that any sense of reward must be selfish. Well, if that is the case, Paul is selfish—except that he knows his prize is only that which Jesus the King has marked out for him.
Those cities, that territory, if you want to be local in your understanding of it—He has a prize appointed for every one of His people. But it is as they pursue their upward call faithfully, see that there is a goal, see that there is a prize, and reach out for it until they attain it.
Kingdom rewards. The greatest reward is being with the King on His throne.
The second verse in this section that shows us Paul understands there is a reward and a kingdom matter involved is where he speaks of attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
At first, we wonder what he means, because every Christian is going to be raised from the dead. Paul has made that clear. But when we look into the Greek, it gets more specific: “that I may attain to the out-resurrection from among the dead.”
I do not want to go into too much detail, but this speaks of a resurrection of those in the kingdom who have been faithful. There is a first resurrection, as the Bible calls it, and it is those who are raptured to the Lord for their faithfulness.
Paul is striving and pursuing that he might be one of those who would attain to that first resurrection. For the sake of those who have never heard this before and think I am totally crazy, let us look at Revelation 20.
Revelation 20:4-6 says:
Then I saw thrones,
And they sat on them, and judgment was given to them.
And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God,
And those who had not worshiped the beast or his image,
And had not received the mark on their forehead or on their hand;
And they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed.
This is the first resurrection.
Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection;
Over these the second death has no power,
But they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.
If that is too complicated to take in, do you see that it says twice that there is a first resurrection? Furthermore, blessed is the one who attains to that first resurrection.
This involves pursuing your kingdom servanthood, both personally as one pursuing Him in love and also as a company of believers.
Are we pursuing the Lord in such a way that we may receive these prizes, as it were? It is really a great tragedy today that most Christians do not know Jesus as King.
We sing about it, and we know Him as our Savior. We know Jesus as the One we love. Perhaps we could say, in one sense, that we are pursuing the One we love. But do we know Jesus the King, the One before whom we bow down?
The only way we get to know the King is when we deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. Now we are talking about kingdom service and kingdom living. Paul wants to be faithful in these things.
If we do not take up the cross, even as our brother suggested this morning, we will not come to have that mind of Christ that is willing to empty ourselves, willing to become a simple servant, willing to have our lives poured out.
When we get to Revelation, the rewards are for those bondservants who have been faithful. We need to ask this question seriously.
Many Christians are ignorant of this whole matter of serving faithfully in the kingdom. They say, “Praise God, I am saved by His grace, but I do not know about this really denying myself and serving Him.” No, no, you cannot have it that way.
That is a false message in Christianity today. We are saved by grace, but we have become servants of a King. Do we take that service seriously as we take up our cross?
Otherwise, Jesus says there will come a day when you will come before the Lord, and it will be a question of the fact that we know Him so little that He says, “I never knew you.”
That would be a terrible fate—to stand before the Lord and hear, “I never knew you,” while we say, “But Lord, I tried to live a Christian life. I tried to be good. I did this and I did that.”
He says, “You have not been pursuing Me as a servant. You have not been obeying Me when I called you. You have not denied yourself at crucial moments, and I do not know you.”
Paul put his kingdom calling in three simple phrases at the end of his life. Here is what it means to live as a servant of the kingdom: to fight the good fight, to finish the race, and to keep the faith.
Second Timothy 4:7-8 says:
I have fought the good fight,
I have finished the course,
I have kept the faith;
In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness,
Which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day;
And not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.
Paul understood that his life was a fight. If we are going to serve the Lord, there is going to be a good fight. Are we fighting?
These are the last days. I think it is almost impossible truly to be a Christian and not face the opposition of the enemy. Paul was very aware that he had a fight on his hands all through his life.
He told the Christians in Ephesians that we are not wrestling against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, world rulers of darkness. You need to put on Christ as your full armor, because you are going to face opposition.
As an assembly of God’s people, if you simply gather and put the Lord’s table in your midst and desire to worship the Lord alone, you will face opposition. Have you realized that in your life together?
In your own life, if you decide you want to witness for the Lord or do anything for Him, you will face flak, opposition, and things that seek to prevent you from doing what the Lord has called you to do.
We do not have to go through everything Paul went through in serving the King, but he says, “I have fought the good fight.”
When you fight the good fight, you learn Christ in the power of His resurrection. I can say with confidence that everybody here who has truly denied yourself and has been serving the Lord because you love your King has touched and come to know Him in His resurrection power.
Sometimes it is an anointing He gives you to do something you normally do not think you could do. Sometimes it is the Lord giving you life as you witness to somebody. Sometimes you sense the manifestation of His kingdom resurrection life as you pray and somebody is healed, or as you preach the gospel to them.
Really, His resurrection power is one way that you come to know Him. That is why Paul says, “I want to know Him in the power of His resurrection.” When I am serving Him, there is His life, His arrangement, His going before, and the power of His conviction.
In Paul’s own personal life, resurrection power protected him and, even when he was stoned, revived him when they thought he was dead. The resurrection power of Christ is tremendous.
The wonderful thing is that you get to know the Lord behind that resurrection power as you serve. Anybody who has served the Lord to any degree will testify, “I have gotten to know the Lord a lot better as I have been serving Him.”
I remember I was maybe six months old as a Christian, and I went to my first witnessing clinic. How many of you have been to a witnessing clinic? You learn how to witness, and you get Bible verses.
I had this Roman Road New Testament, and they told me how to do the thing. But the man leading it had been witnessing for many years and had brought many people to the Lord. Here is what he said:
“Go out and witness. With what you know right now, go out and witness. When you go, people will ask you questions you do not know, and it will drive you to the Bible.”
“When you find your answers in the Bible, it will drive you to your knees to pray for the power to be a witness. Then you will go out and witness. When you go out and witness, it will drive you back to the Bible, then back to your knees, and then you can go out again and witness.”
I found that to be exactly the truth. You do not have to go to a graduate-level witnessing clinic before you can go witness. You are a witness. Now be faithful, and you will find that you get closer and closer to the Lord.
You start witnessing to worldly people, and a whole lot of Pandora’s boxes are going to open up. You are going to have to counsel people, pray with people, and take that three o’clock in the morning phone call. It will drive you to your knees. It will drive you to the Word. You will get to know the Lord.
That simple lesson I learned as a Christian of six months is true in every avenue of endeavor.
If you minister the Word—even if you are simply ministering among the brethren on Sunday after breaking bread, opening a time with a Scripture—do that long enough and you will sense your own emptiness.
You will find yourself coming to the Lord saying, “Lord, Lord, You have got to help me. What do You want to say?” After you have said everything you know—“I have got my twelve favorite sermons”—after that, you do not know quite what to say.
Then it would be a good idea to forget about what you want to say and say, “Lord, what do You want to say?” Because that is really the key.
Denying yourself, taking up your cross, and following the Lord—wow. You get to know Him in the power of His resurrection. You also get to know Him in the fellowship of His sufferings.
As you identify with Him as a witness and stand for the Lord, you will be persecuted for righteousness’ sake and for His name’s sake. There is suffering in obedience and suffering for the sake of the body—filling up that which is lacking, and all these kinds of things.
But in all of them, the Lord comes by your side. There are a couple of occasions in the book of Acts where Paul gets into a very difficult situation, and did you notice that the Lord would show up in the night?
“Paul, do not worry. I am with you. You are going to have to go to Rome and testify for Me.” When you need the Lord, He is there.
When you are serving in His name in the kingdom, whether it is a time of suffering or a time when you experience and learn Him in His power, all these things are precious—even when you are being made conformable to His death.
If we serve in the kingdom, sometimes we are brought to zero in ourselves. We discover resurrection life as we lay down our lives. Sometimes, as Paul says, you feel like there is death in you, but life in others.
You come to know the Lord as you go through such experiences. You come to a time where the Lord really has you sacrifice for the sake of somebody else.
In my experience in the body of Christ, there are many people who are not the known people in any assembly. They are not the ones teaching, but there are people who consistently lay down their lives for their brothers and sisters, serving in some kind of thankless way.
They come to know the Lord. Those who have that desire to serve with the mind of Christ come to know His way and His heart as they go through these kinds of things.
Paul says, “I have finished the race.” We have a race. We have a course to run, every one of us, and it is tailor-made and very specific.
But the key is to run the race looking unto Jesus, because as we are running the race looking unto Jesus, we learn how to run.
My wife and I used to live in Manhattan, near a park on the west side. We used to go sit on a bench. This was our exercise: we sat on a bench and watched people running by.
I should have taken photographs, because you could learn the do’s and do nots of running. Occasionally, you would see somebody come by who looked like the Road Runner—smooth. Their head was not bobbing up and down. They were not gyrating. They were just running.
Then the next person comes along: boom, boom, boom. They are wearing hard shoes. They are bent over backward. You know they are going to get killed within a mile.
If we are going to run the race, we have to look unto Jesus. He has style in His race. He is the author and finisher of racing. He ran His race.
If we look to Him, we will discover an awful lot while we are running our race. Paul says, “Now I have finished my race.”
Even more wonderful, because this has to do with overcoming, Paul says, “I have kept the faith.”
For somebody who has only been a born-again Christian for one month, it is a real challenge to say, “Wow, one month now, I kept the faith.” Doubts come. The darts of the enemy come. Your friends give you a hard time. Standing for a month is tough enough.
But after thirty years, Paul says, “I have kept the faith. I have despaired of life. I have gotten discouraged. I have been at the end of my rope. But I kept the faith.”
When the book of Revelation describes the overcomer, one description is: the called, the chosen, the faithful.
In this kingdom life, there is a lot of opposition and a lot of battle to be done. There is far too much to try to describe what that means, but I hope that wherever you assemble, you spend some time in your prayer meeting doing kingdom battle.
In the name of the Lord Jesus, stand the ground of the kingdom in some specific place where you want to see the Lord open the door.
In a few weeks, my wife and I and some brothers and sisters from Manhattan are going to Israel. The prayer is already in my heart as we join a few brothers and sisters in Jerusalem: “Lord, we want to stand in Jerusalem for Your testimony.”
“Jesus Christ is Lord. He has a people here who are open to all believers joining them. We want to stand there.” There is battle in Jerusalem for anybody to take such a stand, but the Lord wants a testimony in Jerusalem now.
That is part of the reason we are in New York City—partly because it is impossible to have a testimony in New York City. But we want to stand that ground. As much as we get shuffled around, we say, “Lord, here we are in a different place now, but we are standing for You and Your testimony here in New York City.”
We need to understand that there is a fight to fight, a faith to keep, and a reward to be had.
Paul was confident of it. What I am trying to say is this: to know the Lord is to know that you have a reward, that you have a calling, that you have a course, that you have a fight, and that you have a faith to keep.
It is not some nebulous thing: “I am a Christian. Now I am just going to wait until I die, and I will see what my reward is.” From the moment you are saved, there are good works prepared before the foundation of time for you to do. You need to get to those and be faithful. Keep the faith.
Paul wants all of us to know the Lord. He says there is a crown of righteousness in the future waiting for him because he has done these three things. The crown is also waiting for all those who love His appearing.
The last thing I want to say about knowing the Lord is this: when we come to a certain place of knowing the Lord, we start to hear the clock ticking, and we know the Lord is very near.
I know there were saints back in the sixteenth century who said, “The Lord is very near.” They were not wrong. They loved His appearing.
There is something about knowing the Lord as you anticipate His appearing that allows you to know more of the Lord. We want to know Him more.
I am so glad I had a chance to share with you, because I know it is like preaching to the choir. This group wants to know Jesus more.
Oh, there is so much to discover in that upward call. There is so much to discover as you run after Him. I loved what our brother David said this afternoon: we have no idea how much it means to the Lord when we show Him the least little bit of love, because He loves us so much.
Will you run after Him? Are you one of those people where others say, “Yeah, she is a good kid, but she is a little crazy because she is always talking about Jesus”? I hope you are accused of that.
But when you are in the closet, in the secret place, are you still pursuing the Lord—not just asking Him for stuff, but pursuing Him and worshiping Him?
“I want to know You, Lord. I have got a husband, or I have got a wife. I have got a job. But more than that, I want to know You. So let me find You on the job, through my wife, and with the kids.”
See how the Lord will reveal Himself to you. Paul’s testimony was that the more he was tied down, the more he desired to know the Lord.
I hope that the Lord, by His Spirit, is leading you more deeply into a love for your Savior Jesus, and into a greater fullness of service, that you would be prepared and waiting for the King when He comes for you.
Let us pray.
We have many people here tonight, from many different backgrounds, experiences, and levels of life. But one thing we can all say together is, “Lord, I want to know You more.”
Lord, we pray that this desire in our hearts would not just be sentimental—something religious or emotional, or something that makes us feel nice and warm and fuzzy.
We know that if we mean that we want to know You, there is a stripping away from the world. There is a denial of self and a taking up of the cross. There is a learning of You in active service. There is a learning of You even through warfare that will not be denied.
Lord, we are so thankful for having been saved, and we believe that You are calling us with an upward, on-high calling. We want to see You on the throne and find ourselves as those who have overcome, joined with You on Your throne, reigning with You.
Oh, what a reward. What a worthwhile and excellent bit of knowledge to have: that Jesus wants us on His throne. Jesus wants us sharing the kingdom. It is important to Him, and it is important to our own destiny.
Lord, we want to be there, and we say, “Lord, I want to know You more.” Through service, know You more. Through fighting the good fight, know You more. Through running the race, know You more. Through keeping the faith, know You more.
O Lord, we love Your appearing. We pray that You would find us ready when You come. This is our prayer in Jesus’ name. Amen.