It's Life No.10 How to be a Christian

Let's go to Philippians in chapter three. Sometimes the reading comes with a particular freshness when you stray from the original authorized version which the Apostle Paul took with him around Isha Minor. Then you go to the preacher's favorite version which is the amplified version.

Because preachers tend to say quite a lot but maybe sometimes using too many words. But on the other hand, it's not too easy to get the original language directly into the vernacular, that is as far as we're concerned English. You don't always get one word in the Greek or the Aramaic or the Hebrew that you can hit with the opposite word or the equivalent word rather in the English.

So sometimes there's a variety of styles as people just try to bring out the emphasis and in the amplified version of the Bible, that's what you really get. An attempt to bring together two or three of the nuances, of the shades of meaning that the original will allow. Here is Paul and as you know, he's enraptured with our Lord Jesus.

If ever there was a man who was in love with a savior, it's Paul. If there's ever a man who could have taken the song of Solomon, sung it in terms of the Lord Jesus, then it is Paul. And indeed, I believe that that's one of the reasons why the song of Solomon was given because it tells us something of the perfections of Jesus, savior and the possibility of having an intimate experiential relationship with him for Christianity is not of the mind alone, it is also as Jonathan Edwards said, of the total affections, the total gamut of emotions.

So here is Paul speaking about his love for the savior. Verse 10, Philippians 3. For my determined purpose is that I may know him, that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of his person more strongly and more clearly. And that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from his resurrection, which it exerts over believers.

And that I may so share his sufferings as to be continually transformed in spirit into his likeness, even to his death in the hope that if possible, I may attain to the spiritual and moral resurrection that lifts me out from among the dead, even while in the body. We'll overflow to the next verse, though we're not highlighting that this morning. Not that I have now attained this ideal or I'm already made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of, to grasp and make my own that for which Christ Jesus the Messiah has laid hold of me and made me his own.

I'll keep your Bibles open at what is probably your rendering in the NIV, and let's enjoy reading that together, because the most important thing is not what I say. That's very much secondary. That's a human attempt to make plain what the Bible is teaching.

The most important thing is scripture itself, which has full inspiration. That's why in the tab here, we recognize the authority of the word of God. Give yourself to the public reading of scripture, says Paul, so let's do it.

Verse 10 and 11 together, if you've got the NIV, Philippians three. I want to know Christ and the powers of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead. I remember the conversation as I was thinking about the address this morning, respecting an incident back home in my city of Sheffield when I was born, and it really was one of these family discussions, you know, where sometimes a little bit of gossip comes out.

It so happened that we got an indirect relative, a relative about two or three removed from the actual family, give a few marriages and so on, and you got to him, and he was a counselor, and sometimes it can be good to have a friend who's a counselor, even if he didn't realize that he was a relative, you remind him of it, and the gossip was that one of my relatives had got the job that he secured, not because of his qualifications, but because of the contact. Thus, the quip which is often negatively expressed, in other words, it's a criticism, it's not what you know, it's who you know. Now, generally speaking, one wouldn't like to run with that because in the context I've just outlined, it's perhaps not the best thing to do.

But there is a sense, brothers and sisters, as far as Christianity is concerned, it's not what you know, it's who you know, not what you know, but who you know. Precepts without Christ are impossible demands. There's more to the teaching of Christianity than just the deposit of truth.

The teaching is essential, but knowledge of the teacher, even more so. Doctrine says Spurgeon, without Christ is like his empty tomb. Without Christ, without me, you can do nothing.

But Lord, we've engaged in lessons, I mean, we've listened to what you had to say, we've got 30 pages of notes on the Sermon on the Mount. Lord, you taught it in a sort of poetic form, and as a result of that, with a trained mind of Aramaic speaking, we've, it's impressed itself upon us, and yeah, we've got the Sermon on the Mount, we're pretty skilled in what you're saying. We listened to your Paschal Discourse, Lord, that was a rather long one, the longest sermon you preached, did you know that? And it's sunk in, Lord.

Why do you keep emphasizing the fact that without you we can do nothing? As though it's not sufficient for us to do what the rest of the educational groupings within Israel do, and that is just to attend to the rabbi, what he has to say, and listen, and learn, and that's it. But Lord, you really are quite curious. You say that the teacher, unknowing him, is more important than actually just the teaching itself.

And now in this sort of imaginary dialogue that I'm having with our Lord Jesus and the disciples, I'm emphasizing this because it's so very important. And maybe because actually we are brought up in, though you didn't know it, a sort of Grecian world, Grecian philosophical world, in which so much emphasis is put on reason, and information, and so on and so forth. We forget that our Lord was not Greek, and the Bible was not a Grecian book.

It's a Hebrew book. It's an Aramaic context. It's Middle East.

And when you talk about knowing someone in the Middle East, you don't just talk about knowing about them. You refer to knowing them. When God made Adam, and Adam wasn't overthrilled at the idea of having close companionship with an elephant or a rhinoceros, so God tailor-made him a partner who was more acceptable, the Bible tells us Adam knew Eve.

Now, he didn't just know her name, though obviously he knew that. He didn't just know about her form, though obviously he knew that. He knew her as a person, a total person, total personality.

And this is really what you've got to understand in terms of being a Christian. It's entering into a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Lots being said about a man, I'll quote him later, by the name of Jonathan Edwards these days.

Wonderful man, the best brain that America ever produced. They could do with a few more Jonathan Edwards, so could we for that matter. Now, Jonathan Edwards, he wrote a book called The Religious Affections.

And by affections, he means the same as you mean using the more modern word, emotions. And in this book, which runs for about 350 pages, very closely written, not too easy a read, but worth having a go, he argues demonstrably, you cannot but accept what he has to say, that religion for the Christian faith is a faith that affects emotions, it affects feeling. It affects the mind, yes, but it surpasses the mind.

The mind cannot take it all in. Who can understand God fully? The length, the breadth, the height, the depth of the love of Christ, it passes comprehension. You have a go, but you lose yourself in it.

And Edwards said that unless you can really enter into the very heart of being a Christian and knowing God experientially, then actually you don't really grasp the full significance and uniqueness of the Christian faith. John Kelvin was a man who lived before Edwards, Frenchman, asthmatic, died in his early 50s, had a pretty rough time, persecuted in France, eventually got to Geneva, and he compiled two of the most brilliant books, commentaries on the Bible known as the Institutes. Now Kelvin, though he was a great intellect, a great theologian and philosopher, he too would not allow into his church, membership of his church in Geneva, men and women who had not, who only had a theological grasp of the essentials of Christianity.

He wanted to know, had they a personal experience of Jesus Christ as Savior? Did they know something about what the Apostle Paul meant when he said of the Holy Spirit, he comes into your heart and he compels you to cry Abba, Father, a sort of knee-jerk reaction, a realization that because you belong to God, you can own him as your own, you can offer him your praises, you find yourself naturally at times engaged in doing that. Whatever you may have heard about the Puritans, most of which can be forgotten because it was wrong. The Puritans were some of the most feelingful, emotional, passionate people in expressing their faith in Jesus, not just the Puritans but those who lived in the aftermath of the Reformation.

Now, why am I saying all this? Well, you see, Tim suggested in working out this preaching agenda this morning, I worked out the evening's agenda for this particular series, that these verses that we're looking at really answer the question, what is a Christian? And he's dead right, actually, they do. But they do so at the level of the affections more than just at the level of the reason. What is a Christian, Paul? And he'll tell you.

He'll tell you the five aspects of being a Christian. There's the knowing, I want to know Christ. There's the empowering, the power of his resurrection.

There is the sharing in his sufferings. There is the conforming, being like him in his sacrificial attitude. And then there is the attaining, and so somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

The knowing, I want to know Christ. This is decisive and intuitive. Decisive because this is what the apostle Paul reckons is his lifelong wish.

You can know as much about the Lord Jesus as you want to. You can be as holy as you want to. You can be as spiritually mature as you want to.

So many times if we define this area of Christian experience from the pulpit, your actual access into the kingdom of God is God to determine. He brings you by the power of the spirit. But from that point onwards, so much depends on you.

And says, Paul, I'm determined. But it's not just determination, it's intuition. I am determined to know, to know him intuitively.

That's the reading from the Amplified Version. I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with him. Is that your desire? Is that what you're working for? Is that the desire of my own heart? These are questions I put to you and to put to myself and only you, of course, and only I can answer to be a Christian.

Involves a knowing. But, and I don't want to preach for a long time, so let's hasten on, it's not just a knowing, it's an empowering. Now isn't it interesting, those of you who study the Bible quite a lot, that Paul doesn't give you quite the run of logic that you might expect.

When he talks about the empowering, he doesn't make reference directly to the Holy Spirit, though it's there implicitly. He talks about the power of his resurrection. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection.

Now think it through, he can't just be speaking historically. I mean, my historically, he can't just be thinking about the power released to bring the Lord Jesus back from the dead. That is there naturally.

But what the apostle here is saying, if you crack open the text, that there is a continuation of that power that brought the Lord Jesus back from the dead, which is available to the redeemed community, to Christian people throughout the whole of the centuries. You see, it's not just power within the resurrection, it's the power without the resurrection. It's not just the power that inflowed into the body of Christ and brought him back from the dead in the tomb, it is that, but it's the overflowing of that selfsame power that so thrilled the disciples of our beloved Lord Jesus that turned them from frightened rabbits from being terrified squirrels into men of great maturity, prowess, and courage.

Ye shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you. What is the Holy Spirit? Well, the third person of the Trinity. There is a sense in which the Father sent the Son into the world and the Son sends the Spirit into the world.

When the Son returned to glory, he did not lose contact with his own community. That would have been disastrous. Peter would be an utter failure.

So would you. The only reason why the early church can be so successful is not just because of the knowing of the Christ, but the empowering of the Lord Jesus by the Holy Spirit. So when the apostle is writing to the Romans, he makes reference in a very experiential passage, referring to the Holy Spirit.

And he says, verse 11, Romans eight, if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead, you got that? The Spirit, the power that raised Jesus from the dead. If he is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who lives in you. In other words, the dynamic of God, the resurrection morning.

You know, I almost break as I think of this. That same dunamis, that same Holy Spirit's energies are at work within each one of us. We are resurrection people.

The knowing and the empowering. F.B. Meyer says, raised into a new atmosphere, breathing the ozone of eternity. That's the Christian.

That's what it means to be a Christian. The knowing, I want to know Christ. The empowering, the power of his resurrection.

And the sharing. The sharing in his sufferings. And now, this needs to be said increasingly in some evangelical circles, not so much here, but certainly in the United States, which doesn't really seem to have a theology of crucifixion.

The idea is that when you come to the Lord Jesus Christ, that all your problems are resolved and your material prosperity is actually guaranteed. And that, of course, is adulterating the gospel. It talks about the sharing in his sufferings.

But weren't the sufferings of Jesus complete? There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin. He only could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in. What is actually meant by the apostle when he writes, for instance, to the Colossians in the same area on the cross of Christ? And he talks about filling up the sufferings of our Lord Jesus.

Let me give you his words. I was there just quoting from memory and that's always a feeble thing. Colossians 124, now I rejoice in what was suffered for you and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, which is the church.

Well, that's got nothing to do with the finished work of our Lord Jesus on the cross. But you see, our savior, when he said that his death would avail to cancel your sin, and when he invites you to belong to him, he doesn't call you to a life that is utterly, exotically happy and free from all problems. He says, you take up your cross and follow me.

There is a cost factor. And now this is what Paul is here saying. For the total Christian community between the day of the resurrection of Christ and his return, there is this area of suffering, of deprivation, of taking the cross and following him, which will have to be responded to by all Christians of every century.

And so Paul, he says, in knowing the Lord Jesus, as I share in his sufferings, as my life corresponds in some degree to his life, so I will know him more and more. There were redeemable factors in the life of Jesus. He suffered, he was crucified, he died, he was buried, he was made alive, he was raised, and he was made an heir with the Father and he was enthroned.

Now there are unredeemable features in the Christian life which we duplicate. We suffer with Christ, we're crucified with Christ, we're raised with Christ, we're made joint heirs with Christ, we're glorified with Christ, we're enthroned with Christ. You see the close correspondence, and of course you would expect that on the premise that I tried to identify earlier on and took you into Greek and then into Hebrew thought and took you to Calvin and also to Jonathan Edwards, that Christianity is essentially experiential.

You are reflecting something of what he is. Ah, you say, but I'm only a pale resemblance. And you say, sometimes I look in the mirror and I can't even see it.

Then you join my club. I'm in the same dilemma. But this I know.

That his spirit does indwell me and however much resistance I may give with whatever lack of determination I apply myself to the Christian faith, nonetheless his will be done. He'll get me in the end. He'll get you.

Because you're one of his. Destined to know him. To be empowered by him.

To be a sharer in his suffering. To conform to his image. Being like him in his death.

How was Jesus in his death? Well, he was beaten, but he wasn't broken. He was bloodstained. But he was not annihilated by the cruelty of men.

How was he in his death? Oh, he was grieved. And not grieved for himself. Grieved for others.

That same grief that he had over Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that stonest the prophets and slayest all that comes to you. How often would I have gathered you under my wings as a hen gathereth her chicks, but you do not know, oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you shall be desolate.

And the context there seems to suggest that there's a choke in the voice of Jesus. Heartbroken at the effects of sin on his beloved Jerusalem that should have welcomed the king of kings. Jerusalem, joy of the earth, the city of God, in such a terrible condition.

And Jesus, just before his death, he grieves over Jerusalem. When you grieve over sin, your own and others, you become like him in his death. When you deliberately put your feet into the footprints that he left, you become like him.

Like him in his death. I've seen a lot of people do that. A lot of unknown Christians, prominent men and women in the estimate of God.

They never got a column in evangelicals now. The Church Times never did a letter. The BBC never gave a slot on their religious programs.

The ones who get the publicity actually, I speak with respect, are not always by any means the greatest sample of people who know Christ. I've seen them. Sometimes in the squalor of a refugee camp.

Sometimes some pastor eking out a living in the back end of India, conforming his, her feet carefully in the footprints of Jesus. And I tell you that very often what you hear from these people, never broadcasted as I indicate in the popular media, has a distilled spirituality about it, the like of which I rarely have known of others and have yet to experience myself. Conformed, like him in his death.

The knowing, the empowering, the sharing, the conforming, in order one day to know the attaining and so somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead. It seems a little clumsy, I'll unpack it in a moment. But what's he getting at basically? Well, he's getting at this, that you and I are only here for a little while.

Well, it's not easy to convince yourself of that. Oh, you'll do it philosophically in a church situation like this. But it's not easy, is it, on a Monday through to a Friday, Monday through to a Saturday.

Seems as though the cycle of living goes on and things that we know really are not terribly important. They do have an importance in our lives and we live for them more than what we very often live for our Christian faith. There is a sense in which we always ought to have our eyes on death because that would then be perhaps a controller of the way that we live, Monday through to Friday or Monday through to Saturday.

See, what Paul does, he has his eye on the resurrection because he's utterly convinced. You and I logically are, we agree with him. You know, this body is a vile body, isn't it? I mean, have you got the nose that you wanted? Would you like a sort of tuck-in under the chin, increasingly? Change and decay, I don't want to depress you, but even the body shop can only do a limited business that will benefit you.

You know that one day this body will cease supporting life and you'll go on. That which is you, the essential you, will not be extinguished. You cannot blow it out.

Because you have partaken of the immortality that God grants you through the gospel. And Paul says, I'm looking for that resurrection. I want to attain it.

And I want to live in the light of it. And so somehow, as though he's not too sure, no, you can't say that of Paul. Some idiot wrote a film on Martin Luther.

Hollywood needs to apologize to what it's done to some of the greats. At the end of this film, it's got Luther equivocating as to whether he really knows he's saved. I mean, historically, it's immoral to have done that with Luther.

Luther knows, Luther puts the thesis on the door. Luther will be able to say, here I stand, I can do no other. And here you see is the apostle Paul with that Lutheran faith, the anticipation of that absolute faith.

He knows in whom he has believed. He knows that absent from the body is present with the Lord. He's been on trial for his life.

You remember the context in chapter one of Philippians? And he's wondering, Caesar, perhaps bring in the death penalty so that I can go and be with him. So Paul, why put in a perhaps or a somehow here? And so somehow to attain to the resurrection. Well, you see, it's got nothing to do with whether he's going to be finally saved.

It's the uncertainty of the intervening days. And so whatever route, however long the journey may last, whatever may be the flows and the stops, the highs and the lows of my Christian pilgrims. And so somehow, at the end of all that, to attain to the resurrection.

From the dead. He knows that at the end of his earthly life, he'll be there with the Lord. So that's being a Christian.

It's a participation in the life of Christ to the extent that you not only know him intellectually, you feel his power experientially. And being a Christian is not always being a success. I wish to God I could say that it was.

Being a Christian is to be open to those hallowed, remarkable experiences when God can move over, move upon you in great power, causing you to be lost in wonder, love and praise. I, says Paul, I knew a man in Christ. Paul's speaking of himself.

And he was caught up into the heavenlies and he heard things so wonderful, he couldn't even write them. That overwhelming of God's spirit, not just for the Apostle Paul, sometimes within the grace of God, available unusually to his children in every age. Jeshurun Edwards, Mrs. Jonathan Edwards' wife, knew what it was to be caught up.

One occasion for around 10 days, knowing the glory of God. The French philosopher to whom Tim and I sometimes refer, Pascal, one of the greatest brains, turns away from his mathematics and from his philosophy. He's had an experience of God.

Tells the time, writes his testimony, seals it in the lining of his waistcoat because the experience was so wonderful and he wanted evidence to live on after his death. The great Catholic theologian, Thomas Aquinas, never completed his systematic theology. When asked why, he said, I was caught up into the presence of God and I experienced things that are so wonderful that everything else that I've done up to this point is utterly inconsequential.

You see, when you know him, you know the Lord Jesus. You know something of your destiny, to where you're bound, to where you're gonna spend eternity. You see, some of the things that became a problem and a worry to you here, they no longer have an importance.

I know him. That's enough. Fellowship with him, sharing in his suffering, so conformed to fit my feet into his footprints.

Knowing that the day will dawn, however torturous the path, whether health or prosperity, sickness or distress, come wind, come weather, one day I'll attain to the resurrection and be with him forever. My brother, my Lord who died for me on the cross, the sinner's friend, Jesus, my savior, my lover, my Lord. Listen to a tune to the hymn, How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds.

It was written in the honor of a man who became a friend of mine in the last few days. In the honor of his Down's Syndrome child, who quite recently had a most remarkable experience of the overwhelming of God's spirit in her life. When we've got the tune, we'll stand and sing the hymn and we're gonna come around communion.

Weak is the effort of my heart, and cold my warmest thought, but when I see thee as thou art, I'll praise thee as I ought. Till then I would thy love proclaim, with every fleeting breath, may the music of thy name refresh my soul in death. I was at a meeting just in these last few days when this hymn felled men in a way that I've never seen anything quite like it before.

As they entered into the thought of what Jesus Christ had done for them. Let's sing it devotionally, passionately, realizing that everything that we are and everything that we ever will be is as a result of our friendship with Jesus still. How sweet the name of Jesus Christ, in the believers' ear.

Victors and sorrows, fears his wounds, and joys await his king. In the days of old his spirit will hold, his praise to song and to the weary. May the glory of his shining shield and mighty angel souls appraise.

My shepherd, brother, friend, peace and peace. Accept the praise I bring. Accept the praise I bring.

Please be seated, ladies and gentlemen. We kiss thee ever, for thy mercy has won. May every breeze be blessed, all thy day be blessed.

Verse three and four. Dear name, the rock on which Jesus my shepherd laid. That I might know him, ask that right now.

If what I've emphasized is not true to you in the degree that you want it to be, and there's a sense in which you and I call the shots, ask for him now, right now. Jesus my shepherd, savior, king. Lord, catch the whole of this church up in a wave of your blessing, dealing with us, cleaning out the cobwebs, and making us be a people whose God is Lord.

Amen. ♪ Holy, holy grace, heavenly angel ♪ ♪ Holy, holy grace, heavenly sound ♪ ♪ How I love you, Mary, dear ♪ ♪ How I love the Father, the Lamb ♪ ♪ Angel of presence, hear us, hear us, hear us ♪ ♪ To God we come ♪ ♪ Our transgressions, who would stand? ♪ ♪ Our transgressions, who would stand? ♪ ♪ Now let's see your grace, we are bent on loving Him ♪ ♪ Lord, we give all our transgressions to stand ♪ ♪ Now let's see your grace, we are bent on loving Him ♪ ♪ Now let's see your grace, we are bent on loving Him ♪