Transcript: Christ's Resurrection: Power and Glory of Our God

Music Music Let's open our Bibles today to Philippians 3, verse 10. Philippians chapter 3, verse 10. Today we're going to discuss Paul's words in these verses when he says, Oh, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering, being conformed to his death, if by any means I may attain, I may achieve, grasp, gain, and accomplish to the resurrection from the dead. Now Paul is speaking about the power of Christ's resurrection in these verses, and my objective in this teaching today is to describe what the power of Christ's resurrection should mean to you. You see, many Christians want the first half of these words of Paul to really know Christ and the power of his resurrection, but they show very little interest in the second half, and that is, again, to learn what it means to suffer with him, sharing in his death. Now, true followers of the faith know these two verses go hand in hand. We have many throughout the ages of time who have given testimony, and yet many thousands and thousands whose testimonies have never been heard because they were unknown, went to the grave bloody, beaten, or burned alive as martyrs for their faith in Jesus Christ. And these words of Paul in Philippians 3, 10-11, really express that the power of Jesus Christ's resurrection affords us the ability to have our eyes opened up so that we may see the beauty of his salvation with our spiritual eyes and understand with supernatural insight the cost that our precious Savior paid for our redemption. Paul also informs us in Ephesians 2, verse 8, when he says, For it is by free grace, God's unmerited favor, that you are saved. You're delivered from judgment and made partakers of Christ's salvation through, hear this, through your faith. And this salvation is not of your own doing. It came not through your own striving, but it is the gift of God. Verse 9, not because of works, not the fulfillment of the law demands, lest any man should boast. It is not the result of what anyone can possibly do, so no one can pride himself in or take glory to himself. Now establishing the fact that this costly salvation is by Christ's death and by God's free grace, and listen to this, through your faith in these reality facts saves you from eternal judgment in hell. It is not by your good works that you are saved. Everywhere throughout Scripture we read that we are saved by the necessity and merit of Jesus Christ's precious blood and by the power of his resurrection. Scripture acknowledges that Jesus' death is the only sufficient means of redeeming man from eternal death, and his resurrection was vital to the restoration of eternal life to all who live in him through faith until the end of their lives. Christian faith is not only embraced throughout the whole Bible, but it is also the full reliance on the blood of Jesus. It is a trust in the excellency of his life, his death and resurrection from the dead. Our brother Paul, throughout these few verses, established the fact that he knew Christ by faith. He believed and therefore he knew him by experience and by the power of his resurrection. Dear Church, this knowledge is excellent. When the power of this understanding and fact is realized within and shown forth in your life as it was demonstrated in Paul's life. And get this, more than all of this, Paul's greatest ambition and aspiration in life was to know Christ more by growing in likeness to him. You see, this knowledge and this very attainable goal in our Christian life ought to be our highest desire, yet understand, it is not obtainable, but by the power and help of the Holy Spirit. the power of Christ's resurrection at work in your life raising you from the depths of sin and death will eventually show humility in your life instead of pride. It will show also by the victory that you have over sin and the sweetness that resides in your feelings, your actions and your words where you were once rough and rude in your words and you were mean-spirited and selfish in your demands. And lying is no longer a part of this life. Paul said that the world has nothing that he desired and nothing counted in life but Christ and his righteousness. He didn't regret or brood over what he'd lost. In fact, he considered them all dumb. Paul considered it a privilege to be Christ's prisoner for his sake. His aim and goal was to be found in Jesus Christ. Throughout these few verses, Paul in effect is saying, you will never be saved and know the power of Christ's resurrection until you lose all of your permitted or allowable hopes and aspirations. So many professing Christians, after many years in the church, continue with the same attitudes, the same mindsets and habits, and never really grow and flourish and mature because they have not lived their Christian life in Jesus Christ. They have never really been connected. They've only gone through the motions of Christianity. Church twice a week is their salvation. They never experience moving beyond the 30-fold regeneration of those spoken of by Jesus in the parable of the three castings of the seed. And we could liken the 30-fold to the little children explained by Apostle John in his account in 1 John 2 when he was speaking as a loving father to those who were new in the faith. he called them little children. And just a side note here, this term little children refers also to the apostles' authority, their spiritual father. The children's obligation to John as their spiritual oversight was to obey him as his spiritual children. John was not lording this authority over them, but by his teaching, he was informing and teaching them to sin not. He was encouraging them to live holy lives, which would lead them out of the darkness into the awesome and wonderful light of God's truth, and eventually to the place where they would be separated from sin altogether. Understand, you cannot really truly know or join in Paul's experience to where he said, I have suffered loss of all things unless your worldly comforts, your personal goals and pleasures in life have taken the back seat to Jesus Christ and his cause. And this is what I mean when I said Paul in effect is saying you will never be saved and know the power of Christ's resurrection until you lose all of your permitted or allowable hopes or aspirations. If Jesus Christ is so dear to you, are all other things considered dumb and dross to you? Do you not want Jesus for your children, your grandchildren, your family and friends? Well, let me tell you this. What you really value in life, you want others to have the same. the person of Jesus Christ is highly prized and is of costly value for those who truly know him the power of his resurrection has made it possible for you and me to positively set our affections our devotedness and passion on things above and not on the earth Jesus said in John 11 verses 25 and 26 he said I am the resurrection and the life he who believes in me though he may die he shall live And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die Jesus is our resurrection power He is the one on whom we should be seeking and setting our affections, our hopes and passions on. And this is truly an act of supernatural understanding and desire that comes by preference from within. This act of understanding is motivated by the Holy Spirit as he arouses our spiritual senses and witnesses the truth of this understanding to our spirits. Heaven and the way of getting there should be foremost and constantly in our thoughts. And there should be a clear preference for the things above compared to the things of the earth. When they become competition with one another, guess who loses? As partakers of the power of Christ's resurrection and affectionately seeking the things above, the Holy Spirit operates in the heart by influencing your affections against the allurements and the enticements of the world. These become secondary. They become like dung and dross to you, as Paul said. Paul's heart cry was that he might know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering. Faith is called knowledge. Knowing Christ and him crucified is believing in him. This is an experiential knowledge in the power of his resurrection. This knowledge has a deep-seated transforming capability and virtue that can raise even the worst criminal and persecutor of the brethren to the highest heights in Jesus Christ's sanctifying power. This was Apostle Paul's ambition in being sanctified and justified. He was desirous to know the resurrection dwells in the soul, And he knew the power of Christ's resurrection would raise him up to the newness of life, which it did in part while he lived, but he knew there was a greater perfection in this newness of life, of which I will explain later. Dear ones, we are made conformable to Jesus' death when we die to sin, just as Christ died for us. And when we are crucified with Christ, our flesh and its sinful affections and our attachments to the world are mortified. And the mortification of sin should not take years and years to be purged from our lives. And if this is so in your life, then you have never caught the reality of the cross. And without the mortification of our sinful practices and preferences, we will never grow into the perfection, or better called maturity, that Christ demands of us. All of these are the conformity to Christ's death that Paul was speaking about. And maybe this is a good place to provoke you by asking, how are you doing on your conformity process at this time? Where is your true happiness and joy in life? reside. Apostle Paul had his heart and affections upon heaven as his happiness and his sole desire. He said in verse 11, if by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead. The happiness or joy of heaven is called faithful when they depart from this earth are immediately with Christ. And yet their joy will not be complete until the last day when their body and their soul shall be united and glorified together. You see, Paul knew that his perfection in attainment of the resurrection of the dead would be at the end of his life, yet the completion of his joy would be when his body and soul would be united and glorified together with all of the saints who had their hearts and affections upon heaven as their happiness and his sole desire while they lived on this earth. By Paul's writings, we see that he had his eye upon this goal and he was inspiring his readers to do the same. There will be a resurrection of the unjust and those who refuse to live a God-centered life in Christ. They shall be raised to shame and everlasting contempt and will be cast into the eternal lake of fire for all of eternity. And to those who are faithful, this resurrection will indeed be a life of bliss and glory. While the resurrection of the wicked is merely coming out of the grave, but it will be a return to the second death and an unfathomable torture forever. Jesus said in John 5, verse 28, Do not be surprised and wonder at this, for the time is coming when all of those who are in the tomb shall hear his voice. They shall come out. Those who have practiced doing good will come out to the resurrection of new life, and those who have done evil will be raised for judgment, raised to meet their sentence. Paul's joyfulness in this resurrection is what he pressed on for. He was willing to do anything and suffer anything that he might attain this resurrection from the dead. In the verses after verses 10 and 11, which have been our discussion so far in this word today, we see in verse 12, Paul goes on to say, that's Philippians 3.12, Not that I have now attained this ideal, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay a hold of grass and make it my own, that for which Christ Jesus the Messiah has laid hold of me and made me his own. I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own yet, But one thing I do, it is by my one aspiration, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. Verse 14, I press on to the goal to win the supreme and heavenly prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward. So let those of us who are spiritually mature and full grown have this mind and hold these convictions. And if in any respect you have a different attitude of mind, God will make it clear to you also. Only let us hold true to what we have already attained and walk and order our lives by that. Verse 17. Brethren, together, follow my example and observe those who live after the pattern we have set for you. You see, in these latter verses, we see the apostle speaks as if his listeners were in danger of missing or coming short of this resurrection. having a holy fear of coming short of something eternal is desirable an excellent means of perseverance and steadfastness and this chosen apostle had no hope of attaining the resurrection from the dead on his own power or his own merit or righteousness he knew it would be by christ's alone and by faith he only said in effect let me be found in Christ that I may attain the resurrection of the dead be found a believer in him and interested in him by faith it said that st. Augustine who was an early Christian theologian and considered one of the most important church fathers stated that he wished to see three things before he died. He wanted to see Rome in its glory. He wanted to see Christ in the flesh. And he wanted to see Paul in his preaching. Well, many people have seen the first, Rome in her glory, without being any more righteous or holier or spiritually enlightened. And the second request to see Christ in the flesh, many saw him and were not any happier. And the third, to see Paul in his preaching, many did, and yet went to hell where they will have regrets because they did not pay attention to him. And you see, we can have many desires and wishes that we think will make us happier and more spiritual, but the truth lies in what you are presently doing with the knowledge of Christ's resurrection power in your life at this time. And if you are not heeding the words of Scripture and applying them, you too, like St. Augustine, can have many desires rather than having one main desire like that of Apostle Paul who said all he desired was to know Christ, crucified, and live in Him. Paul gives us seven desires, all of which are centered in Jesus Christ. This was his heart. He was Christ-centered. And these seven desires begin in verse 9 of Philippians chapter 3. He said, I may actually be found and known as in him, not having any self-achieved righteousness that can be called my own based on my obedience to the law's demands, ritualistic uprightness and supposed right standing with God thus acquired, but possessing that genuine righteousness which comes through faith in Christ the anointed one and truly right standing with God which comes from God by saving faith Verse 10, 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 some 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 the likeness even to his death in the hope. And as I said, we will find seven desires of Paul here that all center in Jesus Christ. One is that he might know Christ. The second is that he might win Christ. The third is that he might magnify Christ. The fourth is that he might be conformed to Christ. The fifth, that he might be found in Christ. Six, that he might rejoice in the day of Christ. And the seventh is that he may forever be with Christ. We can see without a doubt that this apostle is definitely Christ-centered. He lives and breathes Christ. He longed to increasingly know more of Jesus Christ. He didn't have all the experiences in Christ he knew existed, but the more he knew, the more he wanted to know. Paul knew Christ. He knew in Christ was everything worthy to be made known. And this kind of knowledge and experience in Christ never grows old or gets stale. The power of Christ's resurrection makes all the difference between a religious belief in the head versus true belief in the heart. The power of Jesus Christ's resurrection makes a big difference between actual possession of the knowledge and actual possession of Jesus Christ versus profession of him that is trite and empty of any power of renewal in the soul who takes the message of the cross lightly or flippantly. it is one thing to just have this knowledge rattling around in your head and another thing to have it vibrantly working eternal life in your soul that has been brought to action with raising you up in Jesus Christ as vast power dear church his resurrection has provided our justification His ransom of death and Hades on our part would not have been satisfied without His resurrection from the dead. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 17 declares, If Christ has not been raised, your faith is mere delusion, it's futile, it's fruitless, and you are still in your sins under the control and penalty of sin. so the power of the resurrection of jesus christ has provided the sanctification of our souls which is the renewing quality of nature and strengthening of our graces by the holy spirit who is the fruit and power of the resurrection that raised christ from the dead paul's desire in knowing christ in the fellowship of his suffering, not in his own merits, but by the partaking of trials and troubles that life brings in enduring to the end. Paul knew that by conforming to Christ's death would give him greater patience under suffering. Conforming to Christ's death would give him greater faith in this suffering and great compassion for dying men and women who would be willing to die a martyr's death for Christ's sake. Conformity to Christ's death also would cause a great love, a tenderness and humility in the heart and soul for repenting sinners. You see, dear one, Jesus Christ has divine life within himself. It is the same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus up from the dead out of that dark, dank grave. Now, since that time, Jesus is the only one who can raise up dead souls out of their dark graves of sin and wickedness. This is the true power of his resurrection. I ask, have you been truly raised with Christ? Do you really want Christ in this way? You can see that Paul's greatest desire in life was to know Jesus in this profound and intimate way. Those whom Christ raises by his almighty resurrection power, he also provides comfort for the hurting. He provides healing for the wounded soul. And he gives his peace and joy in untold abundance. Jesus Christ has ascended up into glory with his father and he has taken possession of his inheritance and he has opened up the kingdom of heaven to all true believers in the faith. He lives today to be our friend and he has given us a helper, a teacher and a guide in the person of his Holy Spirit. Do you know him? Do you really and truly know the Holy Spirit as your resurrection power today? Do you need him continually in your walk? There are those in the church who never give thought or teach the importance of the physical power of Christ's resurrection. They say that it was for the days of the disciples in their day. And these are only looking at this awesome and wonderful and marvelous accomplishment through the letter of the word. They are without the spiritual enlightenment that Paul had and regarded as supernatural and absolute and transcending in the life of the believer, as real and living power of God at work in the heart and soul of the individual, to transform and conform them into Christ's very image and likeness. no wonder there is no true supernatural and divine power work in the church today the resurrection power of jesus christ in your life your church is for the purpose of inspiring faith in christ as the son of god and this faith actually leads you to see and appreciate what jesus has done for you in his death his burial and resurrection from the dead It is a knowledge sort of thing. This leads to love, true love and appreciation of your Savior. This love leads to desiring righteousness in your life now, not pretending a righteousness which is self-righteousness. This kind of righteousness is absolutely not acceptable to God. God's righteousness then leads you to desire God's correction in your life. You see, without Jesus Christ, divine and supernatural resurrection, a power at work in your life, you will be offended at the correction or the rebuke of sin in your life. You will do things your way. You will not be open to correction. This means that you will not be changed or renewed within your heart and soul. You will not be teachable. You will continue to justify your sin. In fact, you will prefer your sin. You will see others as religious or extreme in their faith, and you will continue to compromise and pet your sinful practices. And you see, sanctification of our old nature can only be exercised and exerted by the Holy Spirit's purifying effect and power on our souls when we submit and humbly obey what Christ and His Word tells us to do. Turn, please, to Colossians 3, verse 1. if then you've been raised with Christ to a new life thus sharing his resurrection from the dead aim at and seek the rich eternal treasures that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God and set your mind and keep them set on what is the higher things not on the things that are on the earth verse 3 for as far as this world is concerned you've died and your new real life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with him in the splendor of his glory. So listen now, please, in verse 5, to what we are to do in order for this to be a reality, that if we have died with Christ, as we read in verse 3, and our new life is hidden in Christ, So listen to this, verse 5. So kill, deaden, deprive of power, the evil desire lurking in your members, those animal impulses and all that is earthly in you that is employed in sin, sexual vice, impurity, sexual appetites, unholy desires, and all greed and covetousness. That is idolatry, the deifying of self and other created things instead of God. Verse 6 It on account of these very sins that the holy anger of God is ever coming upon the sons of disobedience those who are obstinately opposed to the divine will So this is saying that we must identify ourselves with our risen Lord in the power of his resurrection for the purification of our souls from sin. And this is how our old nature will be renewed, dear ones. This is the only way. Death to sin inspires the hope of glory within us. Death to the eye of sense and reason is a mystery. It is like trying to figure out God's mysteries with mathematical equations. But death to the eye of faith is hope, joy, and life beyond, because these know that in life now, death to sin is just a decision of the will away. It's a determination within. It doesn't take years and years to mortify that sin. These know also that death, the end of our lives, and stepping into eternity cannot touch us because Jesus conquered death of the grave, and he is the first fruit of them that slept, and to receive the power to break the tyranny of death once and for all. Praise God. Hallelujah. Jesus Christ's resurrection brought life and immortality to light. You see, you can have a head knowledge of all that we have been discussing today, but to have an experimental knowledge of Christ's resurrection, his power at work in your heart and soul, is so great an eternal blessing that words and praying in an unknown tongue cannot explain it. And this is why Paul said that he counts all things for Christ's sake to gain this understanding. In this experimental or preparatory knowledge in your life, it is sometimes expressed as something that is tasted. Peter said in 1 Peter 2.3 since you've already tasted the goodness and kindness of the Lord so when you taste the Lord's goodness or feel his power at work you have had an experimental knowledge of Christ many many Christians know how to talk about him but have never had his power at work in their lives to cause them to desire him more intimately. Many thousands talk about Christ's salvation and even give testimonies, but they have never had the experimental knowledge firsthand to know its effects in their own lives. Many talk about the joy of his suffering and the comfort of his promises and the power of his resurrection, but do not have the fruit in their lives to back up that profession. You see, we will only know Jesus Christ experimentally in the power of his resurrection when we gain a more intimate knowledge of his truth and have the fruit in our lives to back up our profession. This won't be a profession, imaginations, but we will know them by experience and will have anointing in our lives what we confess according to the truth. We will only know Jesus Christ experimentally in the power of his resurrection when we give greater excitement to the love of Jesus Christ in his ways. The more you feel the necessity of Jesus Christ in your life and know his power in your life to bind up your wounds and broken heart, the more you will love him as your Savior. Scripture says we love him because he first loved us. You also will know Jesus Christ experimentally in the power of his resurrection when you engage in real zeal and diligence to experience the power of Christ's resurrection when you ponder upon heavenly things. Galatians 5.25 declares If we live by the Holy Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. If by the Holy Spirit we have our life in God, let us go forward walking in line, our conduct controlled by the Spirit. this life is gratified only with the rewards of obedience such as peace and comfort and love and joy when we learn to live and walk in the Spirit. And when your life is obstructed by foolishness and sin you will find more poverty in your life and displeasure in your heart and soul and you will only be a pretender of the faith empty and void of true joy and happiness. The power of Christ's resurrection is our faith. Faith must be turned into action. Faith in the blood of Jesus Christ and Christ's resurrection from the dead gives us the power to overcome all sin in our lives and to also fulfill God's divine purposes in our lives. now in wrapping up this word today I did tell you that I would explain Apostle Paul's ambition in being sanctified and justified and why he was desirous in knowing intimately the resurrection power of Jesus's death in killing sin that dwelt within the soul Paul knew the power of Christ's resurrection he would knew it would raise him up to the newness of life which it did impart while he lived and he knew there was a greater perfection of this newness of life and this is what I want to finish with and explain Apostle Paul had his heart and affections of heaven as his happiness and his soul desire he said in verse 11 if by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead the happiness or joy of heaven is called the resurrection of the dead because the faith or when they depart from this earth are immediately with Christ yet their joy will not be completed until the last day when their body and soul shall be united and glorified together Paul knew of the resurrection of the dead would be at the end of his life yet the completion of his joy would be as I said when his body and soul each together he knew that his happiness and soul desire while he lived on this earth would be wrapped up in this knowledge his statement in Philippians 312 in saying is where I wish to make a point here regarding his perfection and laying hold of it he says not that I have now attained this ideal or have already been made perfect but I lay 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 now Paul was not speaking here of any deficiency in his own grace or spiritual estate but does not mean by not yet being perfected that he had a body of sin and death holding on to him and or still polluted with indwelling sin as some think was his state but rather dear church Paul speaks of his not having finished his course or race by the martyrdom that he knew awaited him. This man considered martyrdom final perfection of his service to God and was led to view everything as imperfect or unfinished until this had taken place. He desired to apprehend those blessings to which he was called by Jesus Christ to complete this faith service he had in view that he may apprehend or lay hold of that for which he had been apprehended or taken, strengthened him, empowered him with the apostolic office that he was to finish fighting the good fight of faith and to lay hold on eternal life. This is the power of Christ's resurrection that Paul was laboring over throughout these verses, that I may share in his suffering as being placed in the rock who is Christ Jesus and being conformed to his death as willingly be ready to die for your profession of faith in Jesus Christ. I feel like I've only briefly touched upon this subject today because it is so rich and full in its meaning and symbolism. and only the Spirit of the Lord could witness the richness of the depth of the power of Christ's resurrection to your heart and soul you only have to be willing and hungry and passionate to know him in the zeal and the fervor that Apostle Paul displayed and desired to know him and be willing to die for him when he said that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering, being conformed to his death, and if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. This is the real power of Christ's resurrection at work in your life, and this is what it should mean to you. Thank you.