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We get done in our chapter, we kind of talked in general terms, but is there a point where we should start?
I suggest we start at verse 10.
Olympians Chapter 3.
Beginning at 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 obtain unto the resurrection of the dead, notice though I had already attained, either were already perfect. But I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
Brethren, I can't not myself to have apprehended but this one thing I do for getting those things which are behind, and reaching forth, until those things which are before I press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded.
If in anything he be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, where to we have already attained? Let us walk by the same rule. Let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walked. So as we have us go in and sample for many walk, of whom I have told you often.
And now tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, whose mind earthly things. For our conversation is in heaven, From whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body.
According to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
You don't want to draw things back, but I would like to hear perhaps a little bit more, what does it mean at the end of verse 8?
That I may win Christ? What does it mean to win Christ?
The one verse that comes to mind, we know that when he shall appear, we shall see Him, for we shall be like Him as he is.
That seems to be winning Christ.
To learn by seeing him.
The translation reads game Christ Note says have Christ for my game.
Everything in this chapter is so beautiful. Everything centers in Christ Himself to have Him for one's gained not by anything he did or could do, but.
He is everything to Paul. He was nothing in the 1St place to solve.
It's so beautiful that God chose a man like that to be the he was the chief of sinners, and now he's the one that wanted to gain Christ, to have him for everything.
What a what a transformation took place. Don't ever say I'm so bad I could never be saved because this man said he was the chief of sinners saw Paul and he got saved. So no matter what you've done or how bad you've been.
00:05:07
The door can easily be opened for you.
That's the step.
To salvation is convincing. I'm not worthy.
I'm a center and I need help.
It's looked at here in this chapter as something that he was pressing towards, that I might have Christ for my game, and I suppose as we're born into a world.
We tend to be formed by the world we are growing up in, but when we are called into God's family, there's a totally different objective before us. We've been.
Predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. And it's something that through this world, as we pass through it, we are pressing towards to have Christ as our game.
And I suppose in our experience, this is an experience book. We have experiences where we show the futility of everything around us apart from Christ.
God's eternal purpose is to make us like Christ, not only morally and spiritually, but out of here is coming again. Like you say, Uncle Fleming, physically they're going to be like him.
So the prize attaining the prize is the other side, like you were saying.
More in Dawn than.
I wish, uh, we could get a little more handle on what that means to understand what it means to have Christ for our game. Is that in contrast with verse 7?
What things were gained to me?
As a Pharisee, as a Pharisee and there were things that were his by birth. He didn't plan on being a Benjamite, He didn't plan on being a Hebrew, He didn't plan on being circumcised the 8th day. Those things no way could he planned on. He could affect being a Hebrew of a Hebrews and ardent Pharisees and his zeal but.
The gospel has to be so simple because man is so lost.
God binds it all up in one blessed person.
Hello G And that site on the road to Damascus and those three days without sight.
Remembering that site was part of it.
He's ready to put it all his refuse.
I wanna be recognized for one thing.
Right from my game and pursue that in I think when you get.
Well, sometimes.
Families, as they grow, maybe they've moved and the day comes from the family goes visiting back to the old homestead and father takes the children said, well, this is the house where I grew up and this is where I played and this is.
So forth, and children may look around and try to take that in.
But with Paul it's much, maybe that's a pretty only example, but Paul wants to experience everything, tries to experience, including I believe here, so we can make spiritual application, including physical death, that he might know resurrection out from among the dead because Christ went there. He wants that experience too.
I'd like to go ahead to chapter verse 10 because for my own soul, the understanding of the end of that I may win Christ like for me it's.
From what it said in the beginning of verse 10 that I may know him.
I don't know how to say this.
I would like to as simply as I would like to, brethren, my.
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It's an incredible thing.
To get a hold of God and let our souls get a hold of it. The expression that I may know Him.
Two weeks ago at the detention center, there was a boy that made a statement like this. He said he lived a long time ago.
None of us have ever met him.
So we can only know about it.
There is something within us that tends to think that we can't know unless we've met the person.
Bill this afternoon when he was speaking referred to this kind of situation when he said I have had e-mail correspondence with this person.
And I forget your words exactly, Bill, but it was something like the best I can know him because I haven't met him.
It's extremely important thing because I'm speaking to my fellow believers in this room. All of us have heard facts about the Lord Jesus Christ.
And based upon those facts, we have put our faith in Him.
As our Savior, and we don't doubt that. We don't doubt His love, we don't doubt His work. Our lives, our eternity depends on it. And so we love Him.
But there can still be in us a sense of I'm looking forward to the moment when I see him face to face because it will satisfy that thing that is in us that hinders us from his sense of really knowing him because we've never met him.
And in other relationships.
There's a brother in India that Bill told me about a year or two ago, and there was reasons to start to correspond with him by e-mail.
And in the last month another situation came up in this brothers umm Jonathan John's life. And I said to myself I'd really like to meet him because I'd really like to get to know him. And the sense was I really can't get to know him until I have met him.
And so we love the Lord Jesus. We.
Have absolute faith in Him as our Savior. We have no doubt that we're going to heaven and we're going to see Him and meet Him face to face.
But the point I wanna make and I don't know if I can.
Get it across.
Brethren, we do know him.
We know him now.
It's not a question of waiting until we get to heaven to see him face to face, to be able to say I know him.
I enjoyed recently thinking about it and saying I know his heart.
In many ways better than I know my own.
Think of that he is hard as expressed to me through the word of God. And you too is perfect without alloy, without corruption, without anything. It's it's a pure heart. And when I look upon him in the word of God and and see him, I can see in his heart better than I can see in my own within me there is.
Does the scripture says? Who can know it?
It's full of deceit and at times it's right and at times it's wrong, but with Him it's not. So when I say I and you say I know Him, this scripture says in John 17 this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God in Jesus Christ.
So that I can know him.
And I speak in the first person, but it's for all of us so that I can know him, he says. I give you my life.
Can you tell me I don't know a person whose life I share?
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I share his life, it's mine, it's my life. And in fact, the emphasis of this chapter is, uh, I don't know where to stop with this, but.
We don't know him after the flesh, and that's where Paul is going here.
He, some of them, knew him after the flesh. They saw him. They knew him face to face. They knew him as a man on earth, as part of, you might say, Adam's creation.
Although He was the head of a new creation, but it was in that way that they knew Him. When He has risen from the dead and Mary comes to Him, she has to learn to know Him in a new way, and instead henceforth know we Him no more after the flesh. I know, my Lord Jesus.
Not as a man in the flesh. I read in the Word of God, and I rejoice with all my heart and all. And tomorrow morning we will sit down in His presence and remember Him in death.
As he was here on earth. But the way Paul is Speaking of having Chrysler's gain and knowing him is that's not what he is today.
He is a man.
In heaven, who is part of a new creation?
And my knowing him is to lay hold of Him and he of me, or he already laid hold of me as he already says he's been. We've been taking possession of him. But it's to apprehend Him, it's to enjoy him. It's to know him in new creation that is on the apostles heart. How do you know somebody in one sense? Well, you have to have a similar life. I don't know ants. I know about him, but I don't share their nature. So I don't know an Ant in the sense that's talked about here.
God has given us a nature that we may know the Lord Jesus intimately and personally. Now, if you're going to really know somebody, you have to have shared experiences.
I want to know the Lord Jesus better and so do you. How do we know Him better? You have to walk in fellowship with Him so that together we may share and have experiences. How many times have you known somebody you thought and something happens in their life and you say I thought I knew that person?
But this helps such has happened and I guess I don't really know as well as I I thought I knew them.
Umm, I don't know my wife and some of the sisters here know my wife in the matter of childbirth. I can't. I've never shared with her that experience. And so it's a limitation in the sense of knowing what it means to her as other sisters here know her as I don't. In that RE relationship, the Apostle Paul said I want to know and he went through death.
If that experience shared with him will let me know him better, I would like to go through that.
And experience the power of resurrection from the dead as he experienced it. And in that way, I will know him in a way that I, I haven't experienced, I haven't expressed, I haven't, umm, I haven't gone through that. And so I, I don't know him in that way. Some of us may avoid persecution or something in our lives. It hinders us from knowing him because we, we are not sharing with him.
In that which it was his path through this world. Well, I wanna stop so that others can say but just don't wanna repeat the same point rather than we haven't met him face to face.
But we do know him, and when I see the Lord Jesus, I'm not looking in the face of the stranger. I am looking into the face of one that I know.
I talked to, I talked to I don't know how many times today.
And he, he knows me. His side of it is wonderful because he knows me perfectly.
And my side is learning to to get to know him better. And Paul, when he says I wanna have Christ for my game, to me is I don't know him completely as I want to. And I want to put absolutely everything else aside, treated as nothing of no value to me that I might have him.
00:20:14
Himself to my heart as to know Him as everything.
I'd like to add to what you said.
You can turn to it if you want. Matthew 16.
Verse 13 When Jesus came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man AM? And they said, some say Thou art John the Baptist, some Elias and others Jeremias are one of the prophets.
He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am now notice? And Simon Peter answered, and said, Thou art the Christ.
The Son of the living God.
And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee. But my Father, which is in heaven, I say unto thee, that thou art Peter. And upon this rock, that confession that he just made, as to who he is, I will build my church. And so on now, John 20.
Now it was Peter.
That confessed him, that knew him the Christ, the Son of the living God, and in John 20.
Verse 26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them.
And then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then say it to Thomas.
Reach it to thy finger, and behold my hands, and reach into thy hand, and thrust it into my side. And be not faithless, but believing.
Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord.
And my God.
Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Now this last part, so precious blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed, that you and me, we haven't seen it. Peter saw him, and he denied him with oaths and curses. I know not the man.
He has two apostles that went to the depth of of evil. Peter denied him three times in the Lord restores him and uses him, uses him the head of the apostles and the and Saul of Tarsus despised him, did everything he could to get rid of the Christians, and he is used.
By the Lord, I will show him how great things he will suffer for my sake. So those two men, Peter who denied him three times of those in curses and solid Tarsus who did everything in his power, Pharisee of the Pharisee, and all these things we've been reading about in Philippians. If there were any two men on the earth that could have said I, I'm ashamed for what I've done.
And they were the ones that he would reach down. This magnifies the grace of God like nothing else can.
He took the worst. He took the one that cursed and swore and then denied him three times and he took solitarsis and did everything he can to kill the Christians and to snuff out that hated name of Jesus. He said he's going to be. These are the two that will head up that which magnifies the grace of God like nothing else.
There are at least three words.
Regarding all we're discussing.
That are exceedingly precious and important.
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And they are.
Love. Respect.
And devotion.
Uh, what have I received?
That I do not deserve.
I'm not going to receive the Lake of Fire.
I deserve it.
Look at my Lord Jesus Christ received it at 12 noon on Friday on the cross of Calvary.
God laid on him the iniquity of us all believers.
And my, my eternity is positively secured by virtue of that suffering, that cup which he prayed that the Father would remove from him if it was his will. Not my will, but thy will be done so.
The Lord Jesus.
Stood in my place and death in judgment. Now then, what is the result in my heart?
That I may know him.
The power of his reservation, fellowship of his suffering and being made comfortable unto his image, and so forth. What I have I am thankful for, and I want to know him better and serve him more devotedly.
I think it's nice to see the same devotion that Paul has used as a pattern here and what man in the flesh could do and attain to by his being born of Hebrews and and being zealous beyond anybody else in his state. He used that same devotion and pursuit of knowing Christ after he was saved.
But it involves a totally different pathway. It wasn't what man could attain to and comprehend and appreciate anymore. It's rather a path of surrendering and learning what Christ was, the one He saw in glory. And when he got a glimpse of that, then he wanted to know Him better. And the way to know that better wasn't the way He had his past life had been.
It says about him when when his past life it is hard for thee to kick against the ******. There was something there in Paul's past life that he saw that he was resisting. God had given some wetness. Now he surrenders with a whole hearted life to pass through the ex experiences that led to Christ being exalted on high. And then he wanted to get to know that man.
By going through those experiences and learning what Christ was really like, because those are the things that the Lord went through when He was ascended up on high. The past to the glory was by way of the cross and by death and resurrection.
And so it's, it's so contrary to our own nature to travel that path, Brethren, we, we don't, we don't like it. It's against us. And we have to set aside our own wills.
And the devotion that Paul did to that, I think is the model here for us to, to do that, not my will. And even to suffering and death. He would, he would gladly walk that path experimentally, go through it, find out what it was like in order to know Christ. And so I believe we get a sense of that little by little as we go through life. And he made sure that we do surrender and obey.
It's worth it, brethren, we find it so who are happy Christians. It isn't the ones that have it easy.
Like to connect what we have before us with Second Corinthians chapter 5?
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2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 14.
For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead.
And that He died for all that they which lived should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh? Yeah, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.
All things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new.
These verses are directly, can I say doctrinally, underneath what Paul is expressing to us as to the experience of what's before his soul, and that is.
Man knew Christ after the flesh.
But when he man in his condition was dead, if he wasn't dead toward God, Christ would not have had to die. And so, as he says there in Second Corinthians, all are dead or all were dead. The Lord Jesus came into this world in the condition in which we were sent apart, a holy being.
Not tainted by our sin, but still truly a man. He lived here in the first creation as a man, but because before God it had no hope, he died.
And before God, his death is the end of anything that God is doing with respect to mankind.
Has to do with the original creation.
So he died, and he rose again, and now we are to know him as that man.
Who's who is on the other side of death in a creation that God is working with that will be permanent and eternal for the soul. So he said we didn't know him after the flesh, but we don't know him that way anymore.
Neither do we. We never knew him that way. We we study his life and we get to know him as a man on earth, as men on earth. But that's not what he is today. He's still a perfect man, but he's man in new creation to us. And it's in that way that Paul said, I haven't attained yet, but he's the one I want to know. And the beginning of you might say getting to know him in that way is through death.
And resurrection, because that's the beginning of it all, as to where He is today as a man at God's right hand in the glory. So if I'm to be in Christ, I'm part of a new creation, as he says here. Uh, I'm a new creature. All things are passed away. All the old is gone as far as our coming to really know Him as He now is. And that's what we want, brethren, to get to know Him as He now is.
And the only way we can know him as he now is, is like Paul said, he wasn't mentioning sins here, but he was mentioning things that had to do with the first creation, what he was in the flesh way he had been born, and so on. You and I each have our history in that way. But you can't know him that way. You're not going to know him. I'm not going to know him in those things. And so he says that's.
That's useless.
There's nothing in that. I I don't care about that anymore. I treat that as dumb because I want him as he is, and the only way I can know him is to see him with the eye of faith and to experience that fellowship with him as he is.
And so we, our hearts are drawn away from the first creation. We live here, we have to, we live in the body. There's a balance here.
But as to knowing Christ, it's to to be occupied with Him in a totally new world.
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And Paul said, I haven't attained to that price yet, and I won't. He knew he would, not until he was right there with him in his glorified body. And then he would say the prize here is mine. I have him where he is. And for us, we can't say we've arrived, but we can put everything else aside.
As it were in our hearts that we might focus on him and say, that's the priority of my life. I want to know Him and we can. And in our measure, each of us does.
I like to thank Don and uh, what you mentioned about Second Corinthians 5, that we know not Christ after the flesh is the reason why when the Lord Jesus rose, the first person to see him was.
Mary Magdalene.
She wanted him back as she had known him according to the flesh. But he says, touch me not. I have not yet ascended to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God. In other words, he was saying to Mary, Mary, you're not going to have me back as you knew me down here. You're going to know me in a far deeper and fuller way.
In new creation.
And create a new creation begins with Christ and resurrection. He's the head of that new creation and resurrection. And I suppose that's why it says the power of his resurrection. Oh, brethren, the power there is in that resurrection life. We already have resurrection life. That's the life we share that you were mentioning with Christ and glory. It's beautiful to look at the apostles in the book of the Acts.
What a marked difference there was when the Holy Spirit came down and they came into the realization of where they stood in relation to the Lord Jesus. Lord Jesus on high in the glory and the Holy Spirit down here to make it real to them. The power of resurrection, I've often thought.
To understand resurrection, you have to know what death is.
And when the apostles were preaching the gospel in the first days of the Acts.
The religious authorities threatened to kill him. Kill them. Can you scare a man that has already been dead and is enjoying resurrection life with threatening to kill him?
Has absolutely no effect. And that was just baffled. Those religious authorities, there's a power there that they didn't know how to touch.
I think that new creation is an important part of that.
There are two other scriptures that are expressed a little bit. We've already had that in a second, Corinthians 5, uh, 1415 and 16, no.
Yeah.
The uh checking current is 5/17. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, a new creation. And then you get it in Galatians chapter 5.
Chapter 6.
1St 15 were in praise. Jesus. Neither circumcision available anything nor uncircumcision.
But a new creation.
And then you get it in Laodicea in Revelation 3.
The Angel of the Church.
In the.
Revelation 3.
Hersh.
1414, yeah.
We're all starting the 13th heat.
You want to read it for me in the morning?
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He has half a new year. Let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches, and unto the Angel of the laid of the Church of the Laodiceans. Right these things say, Amen, the faithful and true witness.
Of the creation of God.
Jesus was the beginning of the creation of God.
He was both a beginner and the beginning. I think he had the power, but he personally was the beginning of the new creation.
That's what God revealed to Peter, I think. Uh, Chuck?
Reveal something special to Peter there.
The living or the Son of the living God?
New creation.
So for us that has never seen him, when he reveals himself to us, that's every bit as strong and good as those that accompanied him with him here on Earth. In fact, we know him now as the glorified man, the head of the new creation. They didn't know him that way yet when he was there on Earth, but now he's the head of a new creation.
We have part in that, nothing higher.
They have never, they never saw him.
In the way that you have to know Him now. So we are not one tiny bit behind them when it comes to knowing Him as He now is. Because they had to come to know Him in a new way that they did not know Him when He was among them until His resurrection. And then they get to start to know Him in a new way. The end of the old is His death.
And Paul emphasizes that in this chapter, as he says in verse 10, the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death.
Tomorrow morning, the Lord willing, we will sit down with the Lord Jesus at His table to remember Him in that death.
And.
When we do so, in the sense of you do announce the Lord's death till he come, in that expression, we are going to identify ourselves with Him as the one who was put out of this world in death.
We are going to say, as it were, I identify myself with this man.
In his relationship to this world as crucified.
And I stand with him on that's, that's my relationship with the world.
I am crucified to the world, and the world is crucified to me, and if you will, I announce it when I remember Him in his death. And so we too have no longer an association with this world.
Where our associations are the other side of the cross, He died, He rises from the dead, and now our relationship with Him is there where He is in the glory of His resurrection.
That puts us there.
And so it's, it's a blessing thing, but if it's if the Spirit of God lays hold of us in it, then it helps us to say, I don't care about the things of this world.
Yes, I have to live here. I have to make a living here. Yes, I'm still in the body and I'm in nature and I have to take care of of those things of nature as long as I live here. But my heart, my life is not here anymore.
It's with himself in the glory and I am livingly associated with Him where he is.
And we live in the spirit of that, in the enjoyment of that, and Paul is telling his brethren, the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, as he now is, is everything to me, he said. I treat that as such a wonderful thing that I don't care about the rest anymore.
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Let the man that's got only the Earth worry about the earth.
Yes, it doesn't set aside wanting to to.
Help other people go, come join us if you will, and leave the world. But Paul here is focusing on on something else and it's not here in this world.
We're there in position, but he says not as though I had already attained.
Either we're already perfect, but I follow after is that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. He's laid hold upon me, upon you brought us into that new creation, and now we're to apprehend that we haven't fully done it, not yet. We're not home yet.
But it's ours.
So it's looked at as a thing that we are striving to attain.
It's uh, presented here as a race and it's, it's a beautiful verse. UH-13I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do just one thing for getting those things which are behind and reaching forth into those things which are before I press towards the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Remember Mr. Chapter Brown mentioning this and.
He he translated verse 14 this way, He says, down to the goal. I press.
And he gave the word picture of a athlete getting close to the goal and putting every ounce of strength he had to get to that goal. That's the picture we have here.
Is there something else?
Worth striving for in this world? Is there something? And I think that's what we have here. We have displacement of this world because of something we have found.
A far greater value. Sometimes they've given the illustration of.
Latin brethren, here's a dog. He has a bone. I'm gonna see if I can pull that bone away from that dog.
He doesn't wanna let loose of it. He's gonna wrestle to keep his bone. Now I'm gonna go out in a different way. I'll take a great big chunk of meat and flop that down in front of the dog. Now, does he let go of his bone? He sure does. Why is there something so much supremely better?
What is going to liberate us from worldly mindedness that we have later in this chapter?
His brother and seeing the supreme value of that which we have been laid hold so that we can lay hold on ourselves, presented as something to be run towards, to be running towards.
If we could put it in perhaps practical terms, and I'm not excited, I'm not suggesting what we have had isn't practical, It's very practical. But we were talking earlier in this morning's meeting about how we can have all kinds of other goals. There are those, for example, with some athletic ability, as we've been mentioning. And for them the goal is to get into the Olympics and to win that gold medal and everything for that period of time, perhaps several years.
Is made subservient to that goal or some would start out perhaps to make money and for them everything becomes subservient to that making money. And there can be any number of other things that could capture our imagination and our desire, whether it's to travel, whether it's to attain a position of prestige and power in this world or whatever it might be but all through man's history men and women have.
Gotten something before them and have made everything subservient to that.
And then what happens? Sometimes they get it, sometimes they don't. But even those that get it will find to their sorrow that it does not satisfy. Their heart is too big. As we get an Ecclesiastes freely translated, Thou hast set the world in their heart. And our hearts are so big that no matter whether we do get what we set out together or not.
00:50:23
Were not satisfied but then God says now I'm going to set something before you an object that is so large so satisfying that instead of it's not being big enough to satisfy your heart. The problem will be in the other direction. Your heart will not be big enough to enjoy the object to the full. And so if we could put it this way and I I it's not really brought in in this chapter so much but.
When we pursue after Christ.
We have the enjoyment of him right now, but in a measure because we're pursuing after him and there's a day coming when we'll be able to say, now I have him and Paul says I don't care what it costs. His brother Dawn was bringing out. Even if I have to go through death, whatever experience it takes, I want to know him better. But then what will it be when we get to the glory?
Oh, I remember reading in a book once.
Uh, the author was saying.
Don't marry someone that you can live with. Rather marry someone you can't live without. Marry someone that it takes a lifetime to get to know.
Is it possible? Yes, it is. You can have someone who is so interesting that you find out more about them all the time.
Now I hope that's not being irreverent, but we will enjoy and learn more of the glories of Christ for all eternity. We say, how is that possible? How can there be someone whose person is so vast that.
We will be all eternity learning Him, and yet we will. But Paul says that I may know him because God wants us to enjoy it here and now. Now you can. Now you can never be able to say, now I'm satisfied.
You know, I've had enough. I don't need any more. You know, keep going.
You'll always be satisfied, but you'll always get more anyway.
In the races of men.
There's always a winner and all the rest are losers. Or there's a team that wins and all the other teams wish they had with that one team has the whole structure of sports is set up to ultimately get down to one winner and everybody else wishes they won and they're ready to try next year to try to be the number one football team, the number one baseball team, and all the major sports and all the minor sports are always organized toward.
Somebody to win and everybody else.
Toulouse and wish they were the winner, but you have a sports event and if it's half of the fans are one team and half represent the other, half to home happy and half to home sad. It's the nature of everything that man sets up. But the 14th verse is a wonderful contrast to that. This is talking about a race and at the end of a race there's a prize.
And this 14th verse tells us what the prize is for the race that we've been talking about. It says the prize of the high calling, or Mr. Darby translates it, the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus. That's the prize, the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus, if we don't look at it from our side for a moment, but we stop and sort of see it from God's side of it.
God said I want all of you to have a prize.
I'm gonna take you right up here where I am.
And I'm going to sit you down with me and together we are going to enjoy my son.
The son of my love.
And we're gonna do so for eternity, and you're gonna be perfectly eternally satisfied. And we'll never stop enjoying more of what we have. That is a price. And that's the price of God. And every single believer in this room is gonna have that price.
00:55:16
There's not gonna be winners and losers in that. Some of us may be more like the Apostle Paul, some of us less.
In that we are getting to enjoy the prize ahead of time and in and entering into a fuller knowledge in our hearts of an of our relationship, our personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus and to know him. But at the other side of it, every one of us is going to have this price. We are going to be called upon high by God to forever enjoy our relationship with him without hindrance as it says in verse 21.
In order to fully get enjoy and we couldn't enjoy having completely as we are in our present condition and so when the.
Up call comes, then our bodies will be changed to be like unto His body of glory, so that we will be without any hindrance in order to be perfectly morally like Him and physically like Him. And God sing children to us, and in Christ Jesus we look upon Him as our Father and our God. And we have the price.
As the the, uh, calling on high in Christ Jesus.
Is that the beginning with the rapture and that which follows them?
Yes, that's when it'll take place for us at the rapture. We will be called on high at the rapture and we will then, and that from that point onward, uh, enjoy the prize in its fullest extent. Now we wanna put everything else aside so that we can, you might say, make as much progress as it's possible to make in the enjoyment of those things. But God apprehends us. He, he, he says, I know what I'm planning.
I understand perfectly what my plans are for you. And Paul says I want to know him too, Let me enter more into them. And he wants to enter into the enjoyment of that for which God has purposed him. And that is the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus without being in Christ Jesus without him in the picture where there's nothing.
Everything that God purposes is with centered in His Son and so in all of heaven will be will be totally delivered from self occupation.
When the prize is realized.
All things are of God at that time, but it begins with the gospel calling. It's nice to take that and look at the 1St chapter First Corinthians.
The ninth verse so simple and so beautiful and expresses that calling.
Wonderful verse to the assembly at heart and all in every place, calling the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. He says God is faithful by whom he were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ. It'll be fully developed in that scene that day when all but the new creationists, all things are of God.
Call the heavenly calling to or call to heavenly things, aren't we? And that's what we have here to the calling, the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus. We're called the heavenly thing. We are passing through this world, but we're called to it. And the measure that we apprehended, brother, and it, it really makes us run properly as a Christian ought to in this world.
Not getting snared and things down here, not getting tangled up with them, but running towards this price.
It's not the focus of this chapter. We're looking at the chapter as it is, but perhaps as a side point, it's well to recognize.
All that we've been talking about is in heaven. It's it's where Christ is, but it's well to understand that in other scriptures he has interest in this world right now himself. The Lord Jesus God has interests presently in this world too. And our lives are to be as relating to this world occupied with those things that are his interest in this world now.
01:00:14
And so God is seeking.
Souls, that's his interest in this world. He's seeking souls to take him out of it for the glory. And so should we be interested in and fellow laborers with in that servants of God. In addition, God is forming a habitation by the spirit of a body which is to be the bride of Christ. And so the Lord Jesus is interested in every member of his body.
Ministering to it, just as this afternoon he is ministering to us to build us up in that body that we are members of. And so we ourselves should be interested in that as well. So it's there's another side of these things that has to do with the earth. But it's like the Apostle Paul, as it were, God took him.
Associated him with heaven.
And then does it work? Said to Paul, this is your home, this is your focus, this is your glory. But Paul, you're going to have to go back to earth, as it were. I have some work for you to do there until the time. And so Paul is a pattern. Christian had the experience of going into the glory that totally spoiled him for anything in this world except to be here as a servant.
Of the Kingdom that is to be fully enjoyed in that which is future. And so he came back to suffer and to serve as it were, uh, until the Lord says, now you can have the better part.
And you may be absent from the body and present with me, which is the better part. But Paul knew that for a time it was more needful for him for the Lord's sake, to be here in the place of suffering and service, until the Lord gave him. You might say, OK, now you can come.
And you can be with me until the moment of the resurrection for all. And so we have interest here too. But our interests here are those things that God is presently interested in, in the world that he has judged.
And then it's just waiting the carrying out of my sentence of judgment.
I'd like to ask a question just so that it's clear. The word perfect is used in verse 12.
Or as the Darby puts a perfect touch, and then further down in verse 15, the apostle says, Let us therefore as many as be perfect. Be thus minded. In chapter and verse 12 he says, not as though I had already attained.
Either we're already perfect or perfect. But then in verse 15 he says, let us therefore as many as be perfect. Be thus minded. Is there a difference in those two words or the meaning of them as they occur in those two different verses? I think they mean the tour and total growing, and we haven't arrived at that point yet.
Does the one in verse 12 mean that too?
Either we're already perfect, we're we're on the way, but we haven't been made perfect yet.
You have a different thought.
Look on your face. Say yes.
Well, in verse.
15 he implies that he is perfect, and in verse 12 he says I'm not there yet.
So I asked the question, so I'm just like brother, Clem said this morning. I'm listening.
Verse 15 The goal is set right.
Yes, it's Christ himself and he says.
Oh, as many as are perfect. This is the way you want, and if there's anything contrary, finding yourself that'll reveal that to you. Because I know you'll want to go on with that one precious goal in mind.
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N.
Again, I'm listening.
If you'd be in anything otherwise minded, I mean who can know our own parts but the the spiritual life we have?
The character God has given us in the new life.
It wants nothing but Christ and we often hear the quotation of Harry Hango. You can have as much of Christ as you want, and your life shows how much you want.
But then.
RL Hunt writes in his little book.
You can have as much of Christ as you want, and God knows you want him all.
There is that perfection that has him as its goal and you'll surely want to know anything else contrary and judge that and go on with that goal.
We're not fully there yet, right? Right, astronomers. There's one little section in the 1St Corinthians 13 at the end of the 12Th verse that satisfies me, and that's about as far as I can go. It just says then.
Shall I know even as also I am known?
That's when all things are of God. I believe. Then shall I know, even as also I am known, for God knows me perfectly.
Verse 12 is still future.
We make progress in one sense toward it, but.
Paul says not as if I were already perfect with respect to himself or already perfected. The perfection that he refers to in verse 12 awaits the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus. Then he will be at what you have in first Corinthians. The brother Clem just read it awaits that time.
And that will be the time of. That's referred to in verse 12.
But in verse 15, he's referring to himself and others, and he says as be perfect. And in that sense Paul was speaking in the present tense as someone who as well as others to whom this verse could be said. And the expression that's commonly used, and I think myself that helps us to understand it is full grown.
But it has the sense in it as this.
Paul had put aside everything that Christ may be everything, as Lemoyne just said. And in that sense, if you have put aside everything that Christ might be all to you, you can stand with the apostle Paul and say.
As let us as many as be perfect.
And he was referring to himself, and he was speaking in that sense. It's not the sense of the word today which means without flaw. It doesn't have that sense of perfection in the sense of being without a flaw. It is in the sense of Paul had no other object before his soul but the man in the glory and others he would include with himself.
And say, if you are with me in that, brethren, then let's walk.
And if others are not, if we fall within the class of of, uh, those that.
Can't say that if we're otherwise minded, then God is able to reveal to our souls that we have other motives to our lives. We have other things that are drawing us away from that simple pure object, and God will work in our lives to reveal to us what those things are that are hindering us from the practical.
Carrying out an enjoyment of that which was Paul speaking to us and exhorting us to do. And then he goes on in the verses which follow in verse UH-17, he says, brethren, you've got to mark those. There are those who are going to try to keep you from going on to this.
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Who are going to?
Introduced to you other objectives, other purposes, other activities than this that are really enemies of the cross, because the cross is the starting point, if you will. It's the end of the old creation. And when Christ rises from the dead, their enemies, they want something still of this world and of the flesh and of that creation which God has judged.
To be part of the Christian life. And he said it's really an enemy of the cross and it's really a hindrance. You can't be perfect in the sense of verse 16 or full grown of a simple one object like Paul didn't sound perfect in everything I have done, but he had a pure motive and he knew it and he rejoiced in it. And he said there's no other motive. It's a pure one. It's it's a perfect one.
And it's mine, The last verse of Hebrews 11.
I think is very wonderful in this sense.
He's got that list of heroes of faith right through the chapter, and then it mentions them and mentions us in the last verse. And what does it say? The last verse of Hebrews 11.
Well, I'll read the 939th verse to get a start. These all these heroes of faith having obtained a good report through page.
God having provided some better things for us who are living.
The day without us should not be perfect. You're going to get the new body all at the same time. Paul doesn't have his new body yet.
It's wonderful to be with Christ, but to be have a new body, you gotta wait for it. Don't get it at the same time. That's the end of the race.
Right, so there is that which we will obtain when the Lord comes, and the apostle refers to that, but.
As Dawn says, I believe we're right in saying that there is a sense in which.
The Word of God looks upon the believer as being perfect in the sense of being full grown. If as far as he is aware, his motives, his heart, his life are following after Christ. Paul could say in 2nd Corinthians 4 I know nothing by myself, meaning that he wasn't aware of any other motives in his life. But he says thereby I'm not thereby justified, but he that judges me as the Lord.
There might be something there that he wasn't aware of, but even in the Old Testament, God could say to Abraham, Walk before me and be thou perfect. Was Abraham perfect in the sense that he never made a mistake? No, he was not, but his heart was in tune with what the Lord was doing during that time of God's dealing with man. He had responded to God's call. He had given up everything in order to follow the call of the Lord.
And the Lord says, Abraham, you walk before me and be thou perfect. So it's the sense perhaps of having clear and definite purpose in my soul relative to the time in which God has placed me, the dispensation I am in. And as we said earlier, Paul had, as far as he knew, thrown aside everything that might be a hindrance to him in winning Christ, and so he can include himself and others in that.
Character of being full grown are we, are we?
Association associating this full grown or condition of being made perfect with the position that Paul's doctor brings us into as as related to Christ and glory and not just the Lord. The Lord Jesus is an earthly man doing good things here on earth, but really full grown Christian position is knowing a man in the glory and that he's taking us there and he's preparing us. Is is that right?
01:15:22
Actually, I would see it, yes.
It's right if it goes beyond knowledge. If it's only a knowledge of what you just said, that's not enough. But if you have that knowledge and in a practical sense are acting or living on it, of having one object before your soul, then you can say you, you, you. Well, I don't know anybody want to say about themselves.
So maybe Paul, but you, you, you can be put into the the position practically of verse 15. So if we if we only know these things in our head and don't walk it, we're not perfect in that sense. We're not full grown, we're not enjoying it.
Exactly.
It's this chapter is not the doctrine side, but it's the practical side.
Side of it.
It's not that we wanna focus on how we're doing. It's good enough just to have him before the soul and run toward him. But at the same time, Paul couldn't say I know that's what I'm doing. And he did not have the world he didn't have on his objective list other things added to it. Yes, I want that. I know that that's my position. But I also want this, that, and the other until I get there.
We do have to know it before we can learn to walk into it though, right?
Him it says there no stranger God shall reach stranger thou in courts above I I can't find it. 76 OK, could we say part of that?
Well, that's the last verse, so you tell us how much we should sing.
Maybe she's the last two.
About the first two and the last two.
Prize my soul, thy God, thy right.