Philippians 3: 10-11            WHAT IT MEANS TO KNOW CHRIST

Paul’s desire is to know Jesus, and I mean by that, to know the power of His Resurrection, and the fellow­ship of His sufferings, while I continue to be made like Him in His death, if by any chance I may attain to the resurrection of the dead.

Paul has already spoken of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ and the surpassing value of the knowledge of Christ. He now returns to that thought, and he defines it more closely

The word he uses almost always indicates personal knowledge. It is not simply intellectual knowledge; it is not the knowledge of certain facts or theories or even principles. It is the personal experience of another person that grows out of a close relationship. The verb used indicates the closest and the most intimate and the most personal knowledge of another person. So, then, it is not Paul's aim to know about Christ. It is Paul's aim to personally know Christ. The knowledge he writes about is not knowledge of any fact or any theory or any theology; it is knowledge of a person.

  To know Christ means  a number of things for Paul.

  (i) It means to know the power of His Resurrection. For Paul the Resurrection was not a past event in history, however amazing. It was not simply something which happened to Jesus, however important it was for Him. It was a living dynamic power. The word translated "power" is the word from which we get the word dynamite. This is the power which operates in the life of each individual Christian. We cannot know everything that Paul meant by this phrase, but the Resurrection of Christ is the great dynamic in at least three different directions,

  It is the guarantee of the importance of this life and of this body in which we live.

  It was in the body that Christ arose, and it is this body which He sanctifies. 1 Cor 6:19-20 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your body.

(a) The fact of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is the guarantee of the importance of the human body, and of the present life which we live,

(b) It is the guarantee of immortality and of the life to come. Because He lives, we shall live also. His conquest is our conquest, and His victory is our victory,

(c) It is the guarantee that in life and in death and beyond death the presence of the Risen Lord is always with us. It is the proof that His promise to be with us always even unto the end of the world is true. The Resurrection of Christ is the guarantee that this life is worth living, and that the physical body is sacred to God. It is the guarantee that death is not the end of life but that there is a world beyond.

It is the guarantee that nothing in life or in death can separate us from Him.

  (ii) It means to know the fellowship of His sufferings. Again and again Paul returns to the thought that when the Christian has to suffer, he is in some strange way sharing the very suffering of Christ, and is even filling up the suffer­ing of Christ.

2 Cor 1:3-6Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.

  Whenever a Christian suffers, whenever he has to bear a cross, he is sharing in the suffering of Christ, and helping to carry the Cross of Christ. To suffer for the faith is not a penalty, it is a privilege, for through this we share the very work and task of Christ.

  (iii) It means to be so united with Christ that day by day we come more to share in His death, so that finally we share in His Resurrection, To know Christ is to become so one with Him that we share His every experience. It means that we share the way He walked; that we share the Cross He bore; that we share the death He died; and that finally we share the life He lives for evermore.

To know Christ is not to be skilled in any theoretical or theological knowledge. It is so to experience Him, and so to know Him with such intimacy that in the end we are as united with Him as we are with those whom we love on earth; and that, just as we share their experiences, so we also share His.

  Becoming like Him, Sharing in His death that we might share in His Power, Fellowship, Likeness.

  Gal 2:16-20

Know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no-one will be justified. If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a law-breaker. For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Gal 2:16-20                               

                          Dying with Jesus by death reckoned mine;                                

                            Living with Jesus a new life divine;                                                               

                         Looking to Jesus ‘til glory doth shine;                            

Moment by moment, O Lord, I am thine.