S. Winning Christ

WINNING CHRIST TEXT: That I may win Christ. Php 3:8, last clause. There are here today preachers who have been in the ministry a long time, and white-headed deacons who for a third of a century, perhaps, have held that office, and old men and women who for many years have been devoted followers of Jesus. But in all of this congregation I do not see one in whom this text is fulfilled, “That I may win Christ.” Not a man of you, not a woman of you, no matter what may be your spiritual attainments, can lay your hands on the heart and say in the sense of this Scripture, “I have won Christ.” And yet the winning of Christ is presented as an object of such great desirability that all of the things in this world estimated highly among men, when put in an opposite scale, are counted but as fine dust in the balances when compared to it. I do not mean to affirm, nor do you understand me to say that nobody here is a child of God. I do not mean to say that you have not found Christ as a Saviour, but I do mean to say that you have not won Christ in the sense of this text. I want to speak therefore to Christian people about winning Christ. If there - be any in this house today without a reasonable hope of salvation in Christ, my sermon cannot be anything to you unless by awful contrast it may suggest your condition and excite alarm concerning your distance from God. In order to get, the thought of this text before you I want to explain quite briefly, but I trust clearly, some of the passages of Scripture read to you in the introductory service, commencing with the thirteenth chapter of the first letter to the Corinthians, where the expression is used after this fashion: “We see through a glass darkly now, but then face to face. Now we know in part but then we shall know even as we are known.” Here the word “darkly” is an attempt to translate three Greek words, and none of them is an adverb. Literally it means “in an enigma,” for the word “enigma” is an anglicized Greek word. In an enigma; that is, “We see through a glass in an enigma.” What then is meant by “seeing through a glass”? It means a mirror, the word “glass” being not a correct rendering. We see through a mirror; that is, by means of a reflector. The mirrors in use in Paul’s time reflected but dimly the object before them. They were only polished metal. The thought of modern application is, We see not the real thing, but a dim reflection of it, a mere shadow. The modern photograph is a permanent shadow. Suppose I held before an orphan who had never known her mother a photograph of that parent and said, “Little girl, behold your mother,” and after a tearful contemplation of it, she should reply: “Now I see my mother by means of a shadow, but in heaven I shall see her face to face, she would express the meaning of this text. All the difference between a dim shadow and the reality is the thought presented. We know in part. Our knowledge of heaven is very imperfect, because so unreal. Again, the thought may be expressed: Now we know the truth about heaven as reflected in an obscure speech. That would make good English and would fairly convey the meaning of this Scripture. Now we behold the truth about what shall be, not face to face, not in a realizing sense, not as being in touch with it, but we know it is as imperfectly reflected in an obscure verbal description. I stand before you and I try to give you an idea of heaven, of Christ, of the world to come, and all I can do is to make a dim shadow. You look at that. It is a shadow in speech, in an enigma, not a reality, and you do not get the fulness of it, and the reality of it; but I say to you that then,, at the time referred to in the text, you shall see it itself, face to face. Consider attentively Paul’s illustration. He says, “When I was a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” Or “Now we know in part.” Who can make a child understand what life is at fifty years of age? The child listens to you, hears you as a child, thinks about it as a child, reasons about it as a child, but there is no realization. Children have only the vaguest idea concerning the realities of life in this world. So the most advanced Christian in the world, the one who has experienced the deepest joys and revelations from heaven, knows no more about heaven in its actuality and cannot understand any more about it than a five-year-old child can be made to understand the maturity of womanhood and manhood or the cares and joys and sorrows and responsibilities of adult life. But one other word needs exposition. Now we know in part, in a riddle, in an enigma; then we shall know even as we are known. The idea can be best conveyed by putting it in the past tense: “Then I shall know even as I was known, or as I have been known.” What does that mean? When I get to heaven, when I attain to the full felicity of that heavenly state, I shall then know, even as I was known. Known by whom? Let us so see that as never to forget it. Suppose we stand on a mountain-side where marble is being quarried, and a huge piece of this marble is put on a float. There is no realization on the part of this marble as to what it shall be. It is jagged on the edges, of unequal thickness, utterly unpolished. But somebody knows. There is one who knows. In his studio yonder is a sculptor. He selected that piece of marble and in his mind he saw in it the statue of an angel. From the beginning he saw it. It was all just as clear to him in the beginning as it was in the end. It is brought into that studio and work commences on it. At first, there seems to be no particular design in the work. There is a striking off here and there and shaping and chiseling and the hammer is still being used. But after a while there stands out a statue, leaning forward as if listening, as if about to speak, and as if breathing, with wings half-poised, as if about to fly. And as it thus stands, so it was in the beginning known on the part of the artist. Paul says, “I do not know, except in part, what I am going to be up yonder. I see a dim shadow of it conveyed in the revelations that are made to me. I do not know but in part, but then I shall know even as I was known.” Was known by whom? By the One who commenced the work of redemption in that soul. And “known unto God are all His works,” from the beginning. His knowledge when in eternity he was elected, is just as perfect as when after the resurrection the salvation is consummated, which was known then unto Him. In the second Scripture read, the thought is exactly the same. Paul, looking forward to that consummation, what he shall be, says, I have not attained to it. I am not perfect. Brethren, I do not count myself to have laid hold of the things for which Christ laid hold on me. When yonder at Damascus He laid hold on me He had a purpose. He knew what I would be in glory. He knew of my transition from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God. He knew of the conquest of the spirit over the flesh. He knew of the glory that should come to my beautiful spirit when it was released from the frail tabernacle of clay. He knew the power of the resurrection that should transform the body of my humiliation into the similitude of His own glorious. body. He knew it all when He laid hands on me, when He apprehended me. I, don’t know it all yet. I count myself to not know it. I know some of it. I see through a glass darkly,, imperfectly, as a shadow conveys the idea of reality that forecasts it. I get some ideas about it, but not yet, not yet do I know as I was known.” Now, is that thought clear to you? We shall know ultimately as we were known, as God knew us when He called us. Take a member of this congregation. Take him before the Holy Spirit had convinced him of his sins, while he is still the servant of sin, while oaths are falling from blasphemous lips. Take him when his mind is beclouded with dissipation, when his habits are habits of vice. Oh, how fallen a man! But God knew him then. God in eternity had elected him. God knew him as he will be at the Judgment Day, in all the brightness and perfection of a complete salvation. There comes a time when thoughtfulness comes over him, when the penitential tear courses down his cheek, when in the midnight hour anguish pierces his heart, when he bemoans himself, as he thinks of blighted life and opportunities lost and manhood degraded. We see him when in the midnight hour anguish pierces him, and then after accepting Christ he says, “Oh, how sweet to sit at Jesus’ feet! I have a foretaste of heaven.” But he does not know. He knows only in part. He knows like a child would know the mother by looking at the photograph. But I tell you the time shall come when he shall know as he is known; when he shall know face to face. But what does “face to face” mean? Let us see if we cannot grasp it. A child sees me digging a deep hole in the ground. “What are you doing?” “I am going to put a tree here.” “What kind of a tree?” “An apple tree.” He sees me putting that shrub into the ground and he says, “I see no apples on it.” “No, there are no apples yet, but there shall be apples if God wills, on this tree.” “Tell me about an apple; what is it?” And I get him a book and show him a picture of an apple. “There, you see that picture?” “Will there be things like that on that tree?” “Yes.” And I begin to tell him about how it comes. At first a blossom, then a little green ball on the end of a twig, and how it swells, and how at last it matures, and gathers color to itself from the sunlight, and gathers mellowness and aroma. And then I tell about the sweetness of it to the taste. “Do you know?” “Well, I know in an enigma. I know in a riddle. I know in a word picture.” “I tell you if you live long enough you shall know face to face.” So one day I take the child into that same garden, when that tree is mature and full of fruit, every bough bending down, laden with its joyous fruit, and I select the richest, ripest apple on it, and hold it right to his face. “Face to face.” “Now taste it.” He puts it to his mouth and bites it and tastes it. That is face to face. That is realization. That is experience. Now, let me carry this thought on by showing you that the same thing is in the mind of Paul in the second Scripture. He tells about the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. I heard a man preach about that once and he said that the excellency there referred to was reading the Bible and getting into your head a knowledge of the plan of salvation in Christ. Why, the Devil knows that much, and there is no excellency in it to him. The word “know” in the Bible frequently means more than information. It is employed oftentimes in the Bible to express approbation, and then it has a deeper meaning than that; it means realization, personal realization. When Paul here speaks of the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, as precious as the knowledge of conversion was, he is not talking about that; as precious as the knowledge of Jesus Christ was in justification, he is not talking about that. He is already a justified man, and yet says, “That I may know Him, that I may win Him,” the. excellency of a knowledge of the future, the excellency of a knowledge not yet attained, a knowledge face to face, a knowledge of realization, that is the knowledge he is talking about. He says not, “I counted all things but loss,” but, “I do now count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, that I may know Him, that I may win Christ.” What does it mean then to win Christ I What does it mean to know Christ in the sense of this text? You ask that child eating the apple what it is to know the apple now. He has knowledge that he could not get from a book nor from a picture, the knowledge, the realization by personal contact. Let us expound somewhat our third Scripture. John says, “Beloved we are the children of God now, and it doth not appear what we shall be.” That doesn’t appear yet, “but we know that when he is made manifest we shall be like him.” Like Him. Look at that ancient prophet, that sweet singer of Israel, and let me prove to you that there was a knowledge to which he had not yet attained, that there was a part of salvation that he had not known. We find him restless. We find him dissatisfied. Ask him, “David, were you ever converted?” “Yes, God created in me a new heart.” “After your conversion and you had lapsed into sin, did you ever know the joy of salvation to be restored to you?” “Yes, I know all about that.” “So, then, for yourself by faith you have taken hold of the salvation of God?” “Yes.” “And you have had this salvation confirmed to you by the restoration of the joys after you had lapsed into sin?” “Yes.” “Are you happy all the time?” “No.” “Got everything you want?” “No.” “Why, what is the matter?” “I shall be happy when I wake in thy likeness. I shall be satisfied when I awake in the likeness of my Lord.” He had not yet attained that. “We are the children of God, but it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him.” “I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness.” Now, we come back to that knowledge of God. Paul says, “That I may know him.” What do you mean by knowing HIM? “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection. If by any means I may attain unto the resurrection of the dead. I count not myself to have attained it. I have not that knowledge yet. I am here in the body that can be sick and full of pain, and that through its sickness will depress my mind. I am here in a land, cloud-covered and stormtossed, and I cannot be satisfied. I only know in part. I know in photographs. Oh, that I might know Him face to face! Oh, that I might realize in the fulfilment in my own body the power of the resurrection!” Now we see the meaning of our text. I have tried to lead up to the thought. I look over your faces today and I know that there is not a satisfied one in the house. I know you have not reached a stopping place. I know that you have not yet attained to a state where you can say, “Here is home.” You are all pilgrims. You are all strangers and sojourners. You are all seekers, seeking for a city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God. This is the precious thought of our text. Let us look at it in all of its context and see: “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ. For our conversation is in heaven; from whence we also look for the Saviour, 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 to subdue even all things unto himself.” This is to win Christ and having thus opened the subject, let us attend to the application. What that is I say you do not know. I do not mean to say you have no ideas about it. The Bible gives us many. But I mean to say that all the knowledge we have of it is very imperfect, and it is not realization-knowledge. We are looking at a photograph of it. We are looking at it in an enigma. We are looking at it as imperfectly reflected in obscure speech that cannot convey the fulness and the sweetness of the thing itself. This estate of the resurrection of the dead, which is called the knowing of Jesus Christ, which is called the winning of Christ, “That I may win Christ and be found in him,” which is called the “‘face-to-face” knowledge, that is the most desirable thing in all this world. Do you desire it? What will you put by the side of it? To what will you liken it? What thing of value can you compare to it? To be conformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ, to win Him, to be found in Him, to feel in yourself that all susceptibility of pain is gone, all weakness gone, all corruptness gone, to be swallowed up in immortality, to have the power to move as swift as thought and outspeeding the lightning. No sin, no sorrow, no pain, no death, and to be thrilled through and through with the joy of personal likeness to the Son of God, and to know it as a child knows when he eats the apple, to know it by experience, and to look back from that height of bliss, to look back from that unperishable and unfading inheritance down to the struggling cloud-covered shores of time and say, “I was yonder and groping my way, and knew so little and caught hold of things so imperfectly. Now I know face to face.” Ah! how attractive, how magnetic, how drawing is that consummation! For it I am willing to turn around to the world, rich with its honors, and its gifts and its pleasures and say, “Vain world, farewell. This is not my world. That is better. I am drawn yonder, yonder! I count all things but loss for the excellency of knowing Christ, winning Christ, being found in Christ, knowing Him face to face.” But let us make the application much more searching. Does one lie down and fold his hands and so glide into that state? Are you passive? I tell you, “No.” To get into that state is service, is activity, is sacrifice, is striving. How do you prove it! I prove it by those Scriptures that I read to you: “Work out your salvation. For it is God that worketh in you to will and to do of his own good pleasure.” “Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience, and to patience Godliness, and to Godliness brotherly kindness.” “Make your calling and election sure.” “Walk worthy of the vocation with which you are called.” “I press forward to the mark for the prize of the high calling of God.” He called me unto eternal life. He called me through His word. He called me through His providence. He called me through His Spirit. He called me by the example of Christians. He called me by the light of the church. He called me upward and I heard Him. “Now walk worthy of your vocation, your calling.” That is what John L. Dagg meant when he said that the only infallible proof that a man is a Christian is perseverance in holiness. That is the only infallible proof. I tell you that only those who over-came, only those who held out faithfully to the end, only those who persevered, were ever God’s children. Just as the upper side of conversion (and I mean by conversion in that use of the word, “conviction,” “repentance” and “faith”) is regeneration, so the upper side of perseverance is sanctification. Now, in conclusion, let us see what we do. Go back to the text. I do not want you to leave it. Let us see what we do: “I follow after.” That is one way. “I pursue, for that I may lay hold of Jesus Christ.” This one thing I do. Now the Greek of all that is just this “One thing.” The rest is supplied. “One thing.” What is the one thing? “Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press forward to the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” What is the picture here? There is a prize, and there is somebody reaching forth and pressing forward. What then is the picture? Why, you know it is the picture of the Grecian race. See the goal yonder. That is what the word “mark” means-goal. There is the prize, and here is a man running to that goal for that prize. What did he say? “I forget the ground I have gone over. I forget the exercise that was necessary to attain thus far. I do not stop to glory in the sacrifices that were made to bring me to this point. I forget all of that. One thing, one thing only, Forward! Forward!” And you see the runner. He is leaning forward, his attitude is that of one who anticipates, who reaches out after that which is ahead. Now my question: Is that a state of activity? Is that a state of work? Is that a state of motion? Answer the question for yourself. And I do say that when a man relies upon mere lifeless, unsacrificing orthodoxy, he is as dead as the seven sleepers. There is not one promise in God’s Word that shines on his estate. There is not one rational hope to which he can look and say, “That tells me of heaven.” Come we now to the climax of it. Listen at this, from the eighth chapter of the letter to the Romans: “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope. Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. ‘And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.” I said that the sluggard could not lay his hand upon one rational hope-the hope that comes to the man now groaning; the hope that he shall see that for which creation travaileth; the hope of the liberty that comes to the children of God; the hope of the glory of the manifestation when their bodies are redeemed from the power of the grave at the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us return to one of the Scriptures read. I want to clinch the thought. I want to show you that one who does not persevere in holiness has no hope. Listen at it: “Beloved, we are now the sons of God, but it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; and every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure.” Every man that has that hope is moving on in sanctification. Every man that has a rational hope in the redemption of his body is crucifying himself, is turning from the world, is consecrating his life, is praying, “Nearer, my God to Thee, nearer to Thee.” This hymn, then, expresses your condition. But if you are just resting on empty orthodoxy, then another hymn suits you better: “Mistaken souls who dream of heaven, when they are slaves to lust.” Mistaken souls! Who of us can endure eternal burning? I say to you, brethren, that if the principle of the real life of Christianity be in us, it is an active principle that rejoices to honor God, that says to the blessed Redeemer, “Let me work. Let me labor. Let me suffer. Oh, let me be made conformable to the sufferings of our Lord, and have fellowship with His suffering cause! I know that these sufferings are not to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us in that day. I reckon that these light afflictions, which endure but for a moment, shall work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” This is my sermon to you. I determined to give you an individual view of the state after the resurrection. Next Sunday I want to give you the social view, I mean the church view-not the view of one man saved, one man rejoicing, one man happy, but the view of the bride of Christ, the view of the whole body of Christ, the view of the new Jerusalem, the view of Matthew Zion, the view of the whole company of the redeemed after the resurrection. As I look in the faces that I have seen; for many years in this congregation, one of the sweetest thoughts that comes to me is that I will know you yonder, not imperfect, but face to face, like that child who-said, “Show me my mother,” but only a photograph could be shown. “little one, you shall see your mother, herself, face to face, in the glory world.” There are sad hearts here today because loved ones have been taken away. You never more will see them in time. You only know the shadow of them, a dim picture. But, Christians, I tell you that the time will come when, on the blissful shore of everlasting deliverance, you shall meet and greet and rejoice in the company of those from whom you have been parted here, meet in Christ, found in Him. But we are here yet, and I want us to be faithful. I want us as a church not to be discouraged because sometimes we are misunderstood, not to be discouraged because so many needy objects appeal to us for help. In heaven you will be glad because there were so many; you will be glad that your hand helped so many; you will be glad that God multiplied the opportunities of glorifying Him in your pathway. But none will gladden your heart like this one, that God gave you opportunity to lead sinners to repentance-none like that. And I am sad, sad, that opportunities are so far apart. Oh, that He honored us more, that He counted us more faithful! Oh, that He thought us worthy every Sunday, to bless our prayers and our preaching in leading souls to Christ! Let us be ashamed. Let us prostrate ourselves in humiliation. Let us wrap ourselves in spiritual sackcloth and scatter spiritual ashes on our heads and bemoan ourselves, that so long a time passes before this whole congregation leads a soul to Christ.