Well, let's pray. Hey, before we pray, I want to ask you a question, though. When we come and pray and we talk to the Lord, do you believe that God hears you? He does. The Bible tells us that we could approach the throne of grace with boldness because of Christ. So I want to ask you today, let's approach the throne of grace and let's ask God, do a work in my life today. Let not today just be something that I hear that you teach me, but Lord, let today be something that changes me from right now forever. Can we do that? Can we agree upon it? Let's do that. And father, I come before you and Lord, we so desperately need you. For Lord, I cannot open the minds of anybody here. Lord, I could only teach with my best ability, which is nothing. Lord, I come before you and I'm asking you, Spirit of God, to illuminate minds for you to breathe upon here, that your people would be built up, exhorted, And that Father, that Christ would be magnified, that we would lift up our Savior. Lord, I come before you, help me. In Jesus' name, amen. We're gonna be reading Philippians chapter three. We're gonna be looking at the text of verses eight through 14. Eight through 14. We will talk briefly about verses one through seven to get a little context Into this passage, but let's let's read verses 8 through 14. The word of god says yea doubtless I counted all things but lost for the exitly of the knowledge of christ jesus My lord for whom I have suffered the lost of all things and I do count them, but done That I may win christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. and the fellowship of his suffering, being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I have already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I also am apprehended for Christ Jesus. And brethren, I don't count myself to apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward to those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." My title of the message today is, Passionately Pursuing Jesus Christ. To those of you who have been here in International Baptist College and Seminary, this is something that is not new to you. This is something that should be the heartbeat of every Christian that is walking with Him daily. If I was to ask you today, What is passion and what is pursuing? How would you identify it? We see passion illustrated in many, many different ways. For example, we could see passion demonstrated when we see someone playing a basketball game. When we look at March Madness, to my best of my knowledge, everybody who goes out there and plays for March Madness wants to win. And so if they want to win, they give it everything they got. We see passion in sports. We also see passion in academics. Many times people who study rigorously want to achieve a great 4.0 or sometimes even overachievers will go beyond that. And for the purpose of obtaining scholarships. So what do they do? They passionately pursue that. And how do they do it? They stay up till three o'clock at night drinking caffeine and waking up at five o'clock in the morning to come to school like everybody does here, right? We see it in sports. We see it in academics. But we also see it in work. Many times, what we can go, we can look at the corporate world. We see a lot of people who want to achieve. And we see a lot of people who want to be attained to a form of leadership. And so what they'll do, they will talk about stories of how they started at the very bottom and how they worked their way up the assembly line. And now they own the company. That's passion. Passion is constantly as a focus. Passion has an object. Pursuing and passion, when you put them two together, it's like a coin. It's like heads and tails. Because pursuing is going after. It carries the idea of, if you were to think about, if you watch National Geographic's channel, I love animals. And you see a lot of times, you know, I watch it, I remember one time me and my daughters and my, well, it was my daughters, our whole family, it was family night, we were watching this and we were watching how, I forgot what animal it was, but I think it was a lizard and how these lizards hatched. But I felt bad for these lizards because these lizards hatched like in death because as they hatched, there was all kinds of snakes just waiting for them. You know exactly what I'm talking about. And I was watching that and I was thinking to myself, my daughters are right there, they're like, daddy, and I'm like, run lizard, run. Don't get caught, run for your life, man. And I'm gonna tell you something, that lizard was pursuing, pursuing freedom. He was giving it all he had. And when we come to the scripture texts, I believe that we see passion and pursuing. And we see this with the life of Paul. In verse one, we look at Paul begins by talking to people whom he has a heart for, the church. And he gives them a warning and he tells them that they need to be careful of those who desire to preach and to, another way of putting it would be to destruct the gospel, which saves us. But it's interesting right here, as we go to verse four, he starts talking about it because these were people who were putting their trust, their confidence, and their abilities outside of Jesus Christ. I really don't have time to really expound upon this right now, but I am 110% confident that your professors here could expound more upon this. So you have to understand what I'm coming through with this. I have a really big message that I preached probably for four to five weeks that I'm trying to condense right now, just for right here. What Paul is doing, so he gives an example, and this is where we're gonna start with here today. I wanna give you three points, and three points simply. I wanna talk to you about the birth of passionately pursuing Jesus Christ. I wanna talk to you about the journey of passionately pursuing Jesus Christ. And I wanna talk to you about the prize of passionately pursuing Jesus Christ. We look at verse five, if we had some time, we could see that Paul right here got saved about 33 years old. Imagine that. Paul was about 33 years old. Paul lived for 33 years trying to win the justice of God. But as we come here, what changed Paul? What changed 33 years at a moment? Well, my friends, the Bible tells us, God's word tells us, it has the answers for us. It may not always be easy, it may take some time, but God's word always has the answer. We don't have time here today, but if we had time, we could expound upon Paul's salvation. But I'm gonna go really quickly here just to go to Acts. If you wanna go to Acts chapter nine with me real quickly, we're gonna only read two verses in Acts chapter nine. In Acts chapter nine, verse four and five, we're gonna see what happened. The Bible says, and he fell to the earth, and he heard a voice saying unto them, Saul, Saul, why persecute thou me? And he said, who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said to him, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutes. Is it hard for thee to kick against the pricks? We go to verse 20, 21, and look at what happened to him. And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he was the son of God. but all that heard him were amazed and said, is this not he that destroyed them which called on this name in Jerusalem and came hither for the intent that he might bring them bound unto the chief priests? When Paul met Christ, Jesus saved Paul. I'm gonna say this again, my friends. When Paul met Jesus Christ, Jesus saved Paul. But we need to see what happened in this scripture passage. And I want to bring this into your attention right here. We see Paul in verse five, given this whole list. He says, circumcised on the eighth day, the stock of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew Hebrews as touching the law, Pharisee concerning the zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness, which is in the law blameless. But what things were gained to me, I count lost for Christ. Now stop. What happened right there? We see Paul just giving this massive list, but all of a sudden there's this subtle change right here, and something Paul says, but all of what I just said is worthless. What happened to Paul right here, my friends, is that Paul's mind was enlightened. If we're gonna be people who passionately pursue Jesus Christ, we must realize that it begins by understanding that Jesus Christ did everything. It's interesting to note the great changes in Paul's life. The first change we notice is his view. Paul, in this scripture text right here, was spiritually blind. See, Paul read God's word, but he did not understand it. Paul was a Pharisee. Paul was a man who studied the word of God. Paul was a man who was in the word of God. But the word of God was not in Paul. See, Paul was spiritually blind. And God opened his eyes to reveal and to understand the truth. And please listen, for someone to appreciate sight, you have to realize that you're blind. And many of us can see physically today, but many of us do not appreciate the beautiful world that's outside that door. And what we need today, we need God's illumination. And we can have God's illumination. We can experience this in our life today by the Spirit of God. You know, it was kind of humbling to Paul right here to realize that 33 years of works had no value. Imagine this my friends, 33 years of trying every single day from the moment you woke up to the moment you went to sleep trying to gain the favor and justice of God. 33 years! And what God did in a moment when he said, Saul, Saul, why thou persecutes me? God opened his eyes and showed him something. God showed Paul that what he required was the perfection of God and not man. God showed Paul that Jesus Christ was the Messiah and paid for all of his sin. And when Paul embraced Jesus as a savior, he realized that everything or anything else we could prove or do is worth nothing. And this only came to Paul, my friends, through the enlightenment. Paul saw that he needed to lose everything to gain everything. My friends, Jesus was precious to Paul because Paul saw that Jesus loved him by paying for his sins. And when it comes to our lives at the time of salvation, the Holy Spirit did a great miracle in our lives. He opened our eyes. He still opens our eyes when we're in the word of God. To see and to understand that Jesus Christ did it all. Today, I personally think that we need our eyes open again to appreciate what we have. We don't need to work for our salvation. Jesus did it all. Today, I believe what we need is the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to appreciate Jesus Christ as our Savior, as we once did in our life. We need the Holy Spirit to help us appreciate what we have. Today, if you realize that Christ has paid for your sins, I ask you today to praise Him, not just here, but praise Him when you're out there. Praise Him when you're at work. Praise Him when you're at the car. Praise Him with your friends. Praise Jesus everywhere. Let's be a people who are grateful. And do not forget what God has done for us. We need to be grateful for the Holy Spirit who opened our eyes. We must be like that blind man who came back to Jesus and thanked Him for opening his eyes. There was only one who came back. My friends, passion has an object. And that object is Jesus Christ. We begin by passionately pursuing Jesus by realizing that Jesus paid for our sins and he opened our eyes to understand. And this is where the journey began with Paul. Right there in verse seven, what things were gained for me, those I count loss, yet doubtless I count all things for the loss of the excellency of knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, of whom I suffered loss for all things, and I do count them but done that I may win Christ. Are you on this journey? I believe you guys are you wouldn't be here When we look at this you got to look at this as a race and you're gonna get there at the end but we were not on the race and and God saved us and he placed us and we began and we're on the track and That and the beginning part was Jesus saving us But the second thing we see right here let's read in verses 9 through 10 we see the journey of passionately pursuing Jesus Christ. And God's word says, and being found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but just through the faith of Christ, the righteousness, which is of God by faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering being made conformable unto his death. Another truth that we see in this passage is dependence upon the finished work of Christ produces freedom in our souls by teaching us that we have a new identity. See, the journey began by passionately pursuing Jesus Christ and we live this by our new identity in Christ. Look at verse nine, please. What is the word of God said and being found in? Damn, there's so much truth in that. Those two words could radically change your life. Those two words could radically put you somewhere where you'll never expect it in your life. If those two words right there, those two words in him is what we have in the Bible. Richness. We all have a new identity. For some of us in this room, We have the identity of a brother or a sister, some a father. Identity is what defines us. Many times you could go talk to somebody, you could say, how are you doing today? And if you talk with men, men will say, hey, how are you doing today? My name's this. Hey, what are you? And the first thing they say, what do you do for a living? Men at times identify themselves with their work. But see, in the word of God, we see that Paul received the new identity. As we're reading through the scriptures, God revealed to Paul that his works had no value. When Paul turned away from his works and trusted Jesus Christ as a savior, he received salvation. And at that moment, Paul became one in Christ and being one in Christ gave Paul this new identity. Listen, this new identity right here gave Paul Christ righteousness. This means, my brothers and sisters, that Paul learned that God no longer sees Paul. And if you're in Christ today, God does not see you. He sees His Son. And as He sees His Son, He sees the one whom He loves. When God looked at Paul, he sees Jesus. Because Jesus fulfilled all the righteous requirements of the law. And when we trust Jesus as our Savior, we receive justification. We had time, we could read Romans 3.25. We could go to Galatians 2.20, but we don't. But my friends, today, at this moment, if Jesus Christ is your Savior, you have a new identity. You know what your new name is? Your new name is Child of God. You should put that on your phone. When your phone says your name, put, no, my name is Child of God, and let that go off in public. And people go, oh, what? Yeah, I am a child of God. Now you are part of God's family. At this moment, when God looks at you, he sees Jesus Christ. At this moment, we have the righteousness and justice of Jesus. We have the righteousness through faith. And we learn this because it only comes through dependence upon the finished work of Christ. Guys, listen, there are many of you who may say, we already know this, we know that we can only be saved by faith. Can I tell you, I meet people who, when I've asked them, I've asked them, I said, are you 100% sure if you'll be on your way to heaven? And they'll say, I don't know, I hope so. And I say, well, what are you trusting? Some of them, I remember a man that I talked to, he's trusting his works. We can never do good enough. If we trust any of our works, and this is what I'm trying to say, why am I telling you this? You may say, I already know this. You know why I'm telling you this? So you can talk to other people and tell them. You know, this same person told me that I was talking to about the gospel. This is what he told me. If this is true, how come there's not people going over there talking to other people about Jesus who don't know him? And I looked at him, I said, you're right. God calls. But it's all about Jesus. Saving faith. Faith has an object, and that object is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died on the cross for our sins, for my sins. And by looking to Jesus, placing my faith, my everything, dependence upon the finished work of Christ, and trusting his finished work, Jesus saved me, he saves me. But sometimes I, as God's people, I think that we forget that we have a new identity. Sometimes we stop living for Jesus and we start living for ourselves. Since we're in Christ, let Christ live through us. Let's be grateful. Allow Christ to live his life and look for opportunities to share the good news. But this journey, this journey, right, of passionately pursuing Jesus Christ has lived through a new identity in Christ, but it's also lived through a new focus. And I don't think I'm gonna have time to finish all of this, but we will do our best. Look at what this scripture verse says, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his suffering being made conformable unto his death. You know whose life verse that is? It's Dr. Sproul's. We look at this Paul. Do you see what God did to Paul? God changed Paul. See, Paul was a man of passion. Paul was passionately pursuing, killing, going after Christians. But see, it's interesting that when God saved Paul, God did not take his passion away. All that God did was redirect it. I remember one time a man of God told me, Randy, I'd rather have a Mustang than a dead horse. He says, a Mustang, I could direct it. It has life. A dead horse, I can't do nothing with. And what I'm trying to challenge us here today is that the way that this passion gets fueled, the way that it grows, is by understanding this. See, when the word of God says right here, and that I may know him, that carries the idea of knowing Jesus Christ in a personal, intimate way that is obtained through personal experience by being in Christ. This is obtained by walking with him. What Paul was saying here is that there's a difference between knowing about somebody versus knowing somebody. We all know the President of the United States, but there's no one in this room who could say that you're his best friend. And some of you would say, I'm glad of that. And to those of you who would say that, I would say pray for the man instead of always attacking the man. And you want biblical credence for that, read Timothy. I say that with love. Because it's true. We're God's people. We don't have to be praying for one another. My friends, Paul was a student, and Paul was a very intelligent one. He spent time in the Word of God. He memorized the Word of God, but none of this had value until the Spirit of the living God brought it to life. What does this teach us now? Today as a child of God, the word of God tells us we have a teacher and his name is the Holy Spirit. And do you realize that this very moment he's with us right now? With us. He delights to teach us. He delights to raise up Jesus Christ. And what we can do today is that we could personally know Jesus Christ in an intimate, personal, living relationship. Another area we see is when Paul talks about the power of the resurrection. When Paul speaks of the power of the resurrection, I believe he's declaring that he wants to experience the power of God daily. Daily. Daily. The same power who rose Jesus Christ from the grave. Great power was demonstrated when we became the children of God. But for many of us, it stops there. We experienced a spiritual resurrection when we trusted Jesus as our Savior. But my friends, today, what we could have in our life is experience the power of the resurrection today. Can I ask you a question please? Is there anything too difficult for God? I think we've forgotten that. I think we've forgotten that. There's nothing too difficult for God. The answer is no. With God, the Word of God says that all things are possible. There is no limits with God. If there's any limit, it's because we set limits with our sin or our unbelief. Remember Jesus healed a man Possessed by a demon Jesus walked on water Jesus controlled the storm Jesus gave life to Lazarus Jesus healed the sick Jesus rose a person from the grave Jesus rose from the grave Jesus gave you salvation through the power of the Holy Spirit. I ask you today. Is there anything too hard for the Lord? Apply that when you're in there studying You know, I apply that when I preach Go in there and you study and say, God, I can't do it. God, I don't understand it. God, I need your help. God, you promised me. You told me you'll never leave me nor forsake me. You told me, call unto me and I'll show me great and mighty things which thou knowest not. Lord, I'm here, I'm waiting. You told me, God. You told me and I'm waiting for you. Let the power of the resurrection come through. And then when God gives you, when God lifts you up, you give him glory. You know, sometimes for us at work, we should go to work saying, God, help me do a good job. So when I do a good job and they may say, you did a great job today, or we should say, God, help me. When I play an instrument that when they say you did a great job today, at that moment, we could be like a mirror and let it bounce off of us and say, it's all Jesus. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Can I remind you something? You can say, well, I practice, I did all this. This is my work. Absolutely. But can I remind you of something? With love, who gave you your fingers? And with love, who gave you your mind? It's all Jesus, guys. When it comes to the scripture verse saying, and the fellowship of the suffering that carries the idea of my friends of saying, Paul was saying, I want to follow Christ so much that if me walking with him brings me problems, then I'm going to walk with him. I'm not going to leave him. I love that. I love that because Jesus never leaves me. Jesus doesn't go. Yeah. Oh yeah. Him. I can't, you know, when you guys go to heaven, Jesus is not, Jesus is not going to say, Oh, you know, um, yeah, sit back here. No, Jesus is going to say, welcome. I've been waiting for you. We see this practice. Unfortunately, sometimes at work, we could be, well, I'm a Christian and people treat us bad. We, you know, sometimes I've seen it. People know that you're a believer. They purposely, they purposely purposely go after you. I've seen it. And a lot of times, unfortunately, we know brothers and sisters who know Jesus Christ, who have offered their bodies for the Lord as a martyr. And when God's word says, and being made conformable to his death, you know what I think Paul's saying? He's saying, I want to be so much like Jesus that that old Paul, I want to die to that old Paul. There's no more Paul. It's all about Jesus. He's dying to the old man. And you know something, my friends? I think if you look at this scripture verse, you never hear Paul talking about himself. It's all about Jesus. It's all about Jesus. And I'm going to make it here, Lord willing, with five minutes, okay? The last thing I want to show you is the prize. Oh, this is so precious to me. This is precious to me. The prize. Look at verse 10, the Bible says that we'll start, no, let's start at verse 12, I'm sorry. It says, not though I have already attained or either made perfect, but I follow after, if I may apprehend for that also, I'm apprehended in Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count myself not to apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things that you're behind and reaching forward for those things that are ahead, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus. You know, it's interesting here when I look at verse 11, he says, if by any means I may attain verse 12, I'm sorry, not as though I have already obtained or either I'm already perfected. I think what Paul's talking about, he's, he's talking about verse 10. He's saying, I haven't perfectly known Jesus Christ. I have not, I have not experienced all the resurrection. I mean, there is a lot more. And when I think of the price of passionately pursuing Jesus Christ, one thing I think about is the price is not yesterday's blessings. I know so much people who live with yesterday's blessings. There's a whole group of people who talk about yesterday's blessings. You know, as we read this, we see that Paul changed. Paul wanted to know Jesus Christ, but Paul wanted to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. Paul is saying here that though he was knowing Jesus Christ and experiencing the resurrection, he was not content with remaining yesterday. You know, a lot of us today, you know why I think we struggle. This is just a personal application right here, guys. I think a lot of times it's because we live on yesterday's blessing. We spend time in God's word. God does a work in our soul and our life, and we're content with that. But spiritually, we're starving people. We live on yesterday's manna. I don't know why that came to my mind But it was it was daily. Am I right? Give us today our daily bread and man shall not live by bread alone But by every word that proceed out of the mouth of the Living God What we need today my friends is fresh water But also the prize of actually pursuing Jesus Christ is, another point I want to add to that is the prize is ahead. Look at what the verse says. I do not count myself to apprehend it, but one thing I do is forgetting those things which are behind. Forgetting and advancing. But what should Paul forget? I believe that Paul is forgetting past sins. Sins for those whom Jesus paid for before becoming a Christian. I also believe that Paul is forgetting sins that he confessed to God as a Christian. Can I explain something to you? Guilt, my brothers and sisters, will prevent a Christian from advancing like no tomorrow. And Paul puts them underneath the blood of Jesus Christ. He puts them underneath Hebrews 9, verse 14. He puts them under 1 John 1, 9. And another area I believe that Paul is forgetting is past sufferings. There's a whole list of what Paul went through. Paul could have chose to cling to those things. He could have been a bitter man. But you know something, Paul says, I am going forward. It's not about past success either. God used him for great things. God showed him things that nobody saw, but he also gave Paul a thorn. And this is what I've been waiting for the whole, this is the end. Can I have just like a couple more minutes guys? I know 40, just a couple more minutes. This is it. All this sermon came to this right here. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus. I know if you guys seen the Olympic games and it's amazing how much training they go into that. And what are these people training for? A gold medal that will disappear when they die. They will have a bunch of them hanging up, they'll all disappear. For Paul and us, our reward is something we enjoy or should have been enjoying and that we will enjoy for forever. It's not a crown, it's a savior. It's Jesus Christ. Jesus is my prize. He's your prize. Is Jesus your reward? I try to, I remember one time I was trying to do some running and I'm not, I can't really run really well. I just, I just do it, you know, just run. And as I was running, I remember a lot of times when you run and what happens as you run, you hurt, right? I'll tell you something, you get older, it just progresses. I mean, it just climbs. And I was running. And I had to go. And I remember my arm was hurting here. And my body was telling me, stop, stop, just stop. And I'll never forget that. I had done this before. But I looked at the very end and I said, one of my children are there. I think I said, I don't remember. I think it was Josh. I don't remember exactly, but I say Joshie and he's waiting there for me. And I say, I can't quit. My boy's there waiting for me. I got to keep on going. I kept on running. And you know something, my friends, Jesus is our goal. This whole text is all about Jesus. It begins with Jesus, we live with Jesus, and we end living eternally with Jesus. It's all Jesus, it will always be Jesus, it's all about Jesus Christ. For many of us in this room, we don't have this passion, and can I tell you, it's because we don't know him. You can't be passionate about someone you don't know. But you can, am I right? There are times I, I take God's word and I love Hebrews where it says that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. I say, God, I'm clinging to that. Lord, you told me, you told me. And you know, sometimes why God doesn't give it to us so quickly is because God's growing us. He's maturing us. He wants us to be a mature people. We cannot be the same. He's changing us. We are changed into the image of Christ. We cannot be the same and you know the beautiful thing I thought about this as I was coming here I said man Paul's pursuing Jesus Christ, but who pursued Paul And you know something who still pursues us Now pastor said in Philippians is it 1 6? Now persuaded that he who has begun a good work in you You guys know the verse Will complete or finish it. Am I right? I Thank God that he doesn't leave us If it's okay with you, may I close with an invitation, please? Will you guys close your eyes, please? This is not for me, this is for you. And you know, I'm not even gonna ask you to raise up your hands. But only you know where you're at with Jesus Christ. And I wanna ask you today, is Jesus your everything?