I invite you to turn with me in your copy of God's Word. First of all, to Isaiah chapter 42. Isaiah chapter 42, page 602 in the Church Bible. If you're using one of our Church Bibles, you'll find Isaiah 42 at page 602. It is good that you have a Bible open in front of you as we're going through the sermon. This is part of our worship. We've been worshiping God and we continue to worship God as we hear God's word proclaimed. And part of what we do is to follow along as he speaks to us and as his word is explained to us. So Isaiah chapter 42, one through four, verses one through four, I will read and then we'll turn to Philippians chapter three. Behold, my servant whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights. I put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for his law. And now Philippians chapter three. Philippians chapter three. This is on page 981 in the Church Bible. We read from verse 7 to verse 16. Philippians chapter 3. beginning to read a verse 7. The Apostle Paul has told us things about his background that he no longer depends on, and now he tells us what it is that he depends on. Verse 7, But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss, because of their surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this, or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way. And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together. Gracious Lord, draw near to us now in your faithfulness. Help us, we pray, that we would not hear the words of a mere man, but hear you yourself speaking to us. Give us ears to hear your voice, to sit at the feet of Jesus and to learn from you. So bless your word to our understanding. Help us by your spirit and by your grace. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. What do you gain when you gain the Lord Jesus Christ? When Jesus Christ makes you his friend, what do you gain from him? That's what Paul is interested in. Do you see that? In verse 7 he says, But whatever gain I had, I count that as loss because of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of their surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things. Count them like rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. So Paul, what is it that you gained when you gained Christ? What is it that this Christ gave to you? So put it this way, how rich does Christ make you when He is yours and you are His? So we're thinking about that question this morning. What gain do we gain when we gain Christ? What we're thinking about this morning is something that should give to the heart of every believer praise and thanksgiving for the great grace of Jesus Christ. Because he is a glorious friend. He is a friend who sticks closer than any brother. So let's think about three things that we gain from Christ that Paul talks about. There are many, many, many, many more things that we gain when we come to Christ. But three things that Paul highlights in the words that we just read together. We're looking at particularly verses 9, 10, and 11 this morning. That's all. 9, 10, and 11. but gifts that Christ gives, the gains that Christ gives when we gain Him. First, you gain union with Christ. The first thing you gain when you gain Christ is you gain union with Him. You see how He puts it in verse 9, and be found in Him. Verse 9, and be found in Him. That's it. union with Christ. This is the foundation blessing. Every other blessing in the Christian life flows from this being found in Christ. Right, the center of the Christian life. It isn't a particular blessing. It isn't a gift. It isn't a grace. Think sometimes think of the heart of the Christian life is justification by faith alone. No, it isn't. The very center of the Christian life and the Christian gospel is Christ Himself. When you believe the gospel, when you receive the gospel, you get Jesus Christ. That's what you are given. That's what you get. And in Him, every other blessing comes. He makes you His friend. and everything that is His becomes yours. Think about it this way. Imagine somebody, somebody becomes very, very rich, becomes very wealthy. They became rich by their brilliance, by their hard work, by sheer effort, overcoming incredible odds as they went along. But now they're rich, they're wealthy. And then that person meets somebody. And they marry that individual. Now the spouse is rich too. Now how are they rich? They are rich by legal union. Right? When it was pronounced. I pronounce, pronounce you husband and wife. Right? The riches of the one person now are over to the other person. Through legal union. So one person achieved everything. and the other person gets married and receives everything. But all of it is rightfully, legally, truly theirs. It belongs to them. So that's exactly what it is for the Christian, right? For the Christian, you are in union with the Lord Jesus Christ. It's like he came to you. And it's not just I want you to be my friend. I want you to be my bride. I want you to be my spouse. And everything that I have is yours. I achieved it all. You receive it all. Everything that is mine is yours. So that's the first thing, you gain union with Christ, to be found in Him. But the second thing is that you gain justification in Christ. That's what he goes on to say in verse 9. And be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ. The righteousness from God that depends on faith. Now what do we mean by justification? Justification means that we receive the gift of perfect standing with God. We are declared right before God that we have perfect standing before Him. Jesus saw that we could not stand before God ourselves, and so He came for us. Because of His sacrifice, because of His sacrifice on the cross, God forgives our sins. because of his perfect life. God sees that perfect life and God accepts us as if we did it for his sake. So the father does not count our sins against us, rather the father counts the perfect life of Jesus to us. And that's how we have perfect standing before God. Again, let me try to illustrate this just simply. Many of you know in a past life, it seems so long ago, it feels like a past life, I was a social worker. And you know, social workers can be a little interesting, let's say. There was a Christian Bible study that met once a month. And it was people in the whole region in which I lived, and we would all get together to encourage one another. And one day, the Bible study leader decided to teach a study on self-esteem. Right, you hear that word, self-esteem, social workers, you think, oh, this is going to be interesting. All right, and so what he did, he started off the class by handing out these cards, right? And he had these across the top, self-esteem. And he said, right, from 0 to 10, you need to rank yourself, right? 0 means terrible, right? Your sense of self-worth and value is a 0, right? Or on the other end, you're a 10. You're perfect. So everybody sat there with their cards looking for like two hours of the paper. What am I going to put on this thing? But most of the people came out and it was between four and six. I put a five. Just played it safe. I put a five in there. And then when he got all the cards, they all came back and he said to us all, no, no, no, no, no. You all should rate yourself a 10, because you're all perfect. You're just struggling with a low self-esteem. That's the problem. Now, why have I told you this? Very simply to show you this, right? That because of justification, Christ invites you, yes, to own your imperfection, that yes, you are probably a 4, a 5, or a 6. But what does He give you? What status does He actually give you? What does He declare you to be? He actually declares you to be that perfect 10. That's what He sees you as, right? He lays before you, right? Christ, I see you through Christ and in Christ you're perfect. Now, here's the next thing. As we go to the next point in a moment is that what he also promises to you is that I'll make you that perfect 10. I'll give you a nature that actually not just declared and a status of it, but I'll give you that perfect 10. I'll make you like the Lord Jesus Christ and make you like him. So, the third thing that we gain. We gain, first of all, union with Christ. We gain justification in Christ. And now thirdly, we gain sanctification with Christ. That's what He's going on to say here. That I may know Him, the power of His resurrection, and may share in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death. So what is sanctification? I've already said, right, that we have a status. God looks on us as if we're that 10. But he also promises that he'll make us that 10. that will be in nature perfect. And that's that process that he's begun. It's that he's made you, he's begun, he's made you a new creature. He's changed you by the Holy Spirit. A new life has begun. He's subduing things in your life. He's generating new longings and appetites. He's helping you to live gratefully for what Jesus Christ has done. Now, verse 10 tells us how that happens. And it happens in these three ways that I may know him, that I may know the power of his resurrection, that I may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. This is what I want to spend our time, most of our time on this morning. Paul says, first of all, I want to know Christ. What does he mean by that? It's a remarkable statement really. Paul says, I want to know Him. Paul knew Christ already, right? Paul's head was full of the Old Testament. I wouldn't be surprised if he could recite the whole of the Old Testament from memory. He knew all the Old Testament prophecies about Christ. But he still says, I want to know Him. See, Paul was powerfully converted. He met the risen Jesus Himself. And he still says, yet I want to know Him. This is the Paul, right? He's been living, at this point, when he wrote that verse, verse 10, he'd been living for Christ for 30 years. And yet he still says, I want to know Him. This is the Paul who was lifted up to the third heavens. And saw things, and heard things that he was told, you can't write those down. And yet he says, I want to know Him. That's very, very important. I want to know Christ. I want to know Him. I want to know Him in a way that I don't know Him now. What does that mean? Well, think about that marriage thing again, right? Think of somebody that met each other in a dating site, right? And you look at these dating sites, that person, right? And they send you a whole bunch of information. They send you a lot of information. You know more about that person than their mom knows. But here's the thing, you read it all and you say, OK, I want to know that person. Now, what do you mean you want to know them? You've got tons of information about them. I want to experience them. I want to have a relationship with them. That's exactly what the Apostle Paul means. I'm in union with Jesus and I want to know Him better. I want to know more and more the Lord Jesus Christ. More fully in this life and much more fully in the next. Hear me, loved ones, sanctification, the first ingredient of sanctification, the very heartbeat. If you want to grow as a Christian is you've got to have this. Do you want to know Jesus, to read his word, to have him speak to you, to read Christian, good, solid Christian books, to pray, to speak to the Lord Jesus? to ask Him for what you need. Not only that, but to draw near in worship with other Christians. You see, the point is this, there's no shortcuts. If you wanna grow in grace, there's this commitment to this lifelong delighting in Jesus Christ. I want to know Him. Now, how specifically does Paul want to experience Jesus? Well, he says, I want to know him and the power of his resurrection. So how do you get to know the Lord Jesus Christ? You get to know him by experiencing, first of all here, the power of his resurrection. Paul's not talking about here, the resurrection body. He's not looking to the future. I'm looking forward, right, I'll be laying in the grave, and I'm looking forward to that day when Jesus raises my body and gives me a new body, and I'm with Him forever. He's not thinking about that. He's thinking about now. He's thinking about the present. I want to know the power of the resurrection of Jesus in my life, day by day, right now. What does that mean? Well, let me explain for you just very briefly what the Christian gospel is and how this comes out of the heart of that gospel. Remember that for the Christian, the heart of the gospel is being united to Jesus Christ by faith. Trusting in His death for us. Trusting in His resurrection for us. See, that's the thing that changes us. That changes our relationship with God. It changes my relationship to life. Jesus Christ is our representative. He knew that we could not stand before God ourselves. And so he lived a perfect life and he said to the father, right? These people can't give you a perfect life. So receive my perfect life for them and treat it as if they were perfect and they live perfectly. And then he said, right, I'll die on the cross for you. And he died on the cross for you. And he came to the Father and he said, receive my death as if they paid the price, demanded for sin, they paid it fully and finally. And then he rose again from the dead. He saw you, right? He saw you in life, in the experience of life. And he saw that you and I, we live in a place where death reigns, where everything is moving towards death all the time. We're beset by weakness, powerlessness, frailty. He saw that. And so he said, you live your life in union with me and receive the power of my resurrection. so that you can live. Think about this. The Christian believes, right, by the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, that helps us, that alone helps us to overcome sin. Right? You Christian, struggling with sin, it may be a gradual overcoming. You may fall and fail many times, but it's his resurrection that helps change you. The resurrection helps you to overcome guilt, right? Past actions, present actions that lay heavy on your heart. Your conscience weighed down by them, right? You go back to Him. You receive His forgiveness and you receive the sense of His forgiveness. You forget, you're given grace to forget what's behind and to press on to what's forward. And it's the resurrection that helps you to do that. It's the resurrection that helps you overcome fear of other people. The resurrection helps you to overcome anxiety about life because you consider who he is. You consider what he's done. You serve him. Resurrection helps you to overcome this power that we're talking about here. It helps you overcome discouragement and the temptation to despair. It gives you endurance and the ability, the strength to keep pressing on. You see, the power of the resurrection has come into the lives of Christians and has helped them powerfully. It's helped you week by week, day by day. It's because of this that you have been helped. Some Christians have been given this power very strongly, particularly as they've experienced suffering. I've reminded you before of Johnny Erickson Tarder, young girl, 17 years old, who jumped into the Chesapeake Bay, broke her neck, quadriplegic to this very day. She, though, in that circumstance, in that experience, she's probably in her late 60s, 70 year old now. I'm not sure exactly, but in that area. But I've never met her, but I've read a lot of her books. I've heard people that have met her. And she is a person that has been given this power that we're talking about, right? Not just dealing with quadriplegia, she's also had cancer, a really serious battle with cancer. In recent decades, she's had severe pain, ongoing daily pain. And yet this lady, this sweet lady, what is she? She's full of joy, compassion for others, a perseverance in joy. A desire to see Christ formed in the lives of others. She would tell you, she would tell you it's Jesus in her, not her, but Jesus in her and through her. I could list you hundreds, right? Charles Simeon, Martin Luther, Spurgeon, others that the Lord has exhibited, right? Has put this resurrection power in them. Now, boys and girls, let me try to explain to you what it is that I'm talking about here. This isn't a very good illustration, but short notice, this was as good as I could get. This is a glove, right? And this is us without Christ. It is. This is us without Christ. Do you see that? Not very impressive, is it? You know, just kind of dangling there. Kind of very frail. Not much life to it, right? But this is us without the Lord Jesus Christ. But now watch. All right. Now, see, Christ comes into that life. And now what? Right now, there is a now there's life. Now, the strength. Right now. Now, it's not a it's not limp and hanging frailly. Right now, there's life in the glove. Now, there's strength in the glove. Now, there's purpose in the glove. And that's the Christian, right, you and me without Christ, it's like this. That's what it's like when you're trying to overcome sin. That's what it's like when you're trying to overcome anxiety. That's what it's like when you're trying to overcome suffering in your circumstances. But now he comes in and now that's what the Christian life is like. And that's exactly what Johnny experienced and many others also. So let me ask you, do you ask him for that power? Do you ask Him for that power, right? It's a very important reason for us to pray. We shouldn't feel, you know, out of guilt that I pray. No, you're asking Him for what you need. And it's His resurrection power to help you overcome the difficulties and the circumstances. Do you ask Him for it? He is seated at the right hand, waiting for you to ask Him right now. But there's another way, he says, right, I want to know Christ. I want to know him by experiencing his resurrection power. But I also. I want to know Him by sharing, by participating, by fellowshipping with Him in His sufferings and His death. See what Paul says? That I may know Him, the power of His resurrection, and may share in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death. What does Paul mean by that? Remember Jesus said, if you want to follow Me, If you want to follow me, to be my disciple, you must take up your cross daily and follow me." Now remember, the cross is an object of execution. And so Jesus is saying, if you want to be my follower, you must die on a daily basis to yourself. to your wishes, to your plans, to your agenda, and instead, you take my wishes, my plans, my agenda. And dear ones, if you don't know that already, that will feel like a death. But here's the promise. When you do that, With love in your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ, you receive his resurrection power daily at work in you. See, that's the sanctification process. That's how sanctification works. It's a daily dying and rising, rising and dying. It's a taking up the cross and rising again with the Lord Jesus Christ, moment by moment, day by day. Now, not any old suffering. but suffering for Christ, dying for Him that we might rise for Him. Now, don't think that you are paying, right, that you are paying down for your sins in your suffering, that Jesus did His 94% and you've got 6% to do in your life, or maybe you've got a 10% or a 12%, right? And you've got to pay it off by suffering in this life. Read again what Paul says in Philippians 3. He says, nothing you can do can make up for or cover your sin. Nothing. What Jesus has done has infinite value. Nothing we do has infinite value. So, what good does sharing in Christ's sufferings do? What good does it do? What good does suffering do? Well, there are many things I could highlight. I'm going to highlight one in particular, but many things that it brings, it brings people together. Right. If you, if you suffer and you maybe speak about it and suddenly you find is this other person that suffered in that way. And now suddenly there's a bond of friendship between those, a deep bond of friendship between those two individuals that was not present before. Because why? Because you've been in the valley of the shadow together in circumstances. Suffering also, so there's this bond of friendship that can happen because of it. There's also, it makes you considerate of others. Right? You may be speaking to someone and they're telling you about the struggles and difficulties they've experienced in life, but you're not really listening to them. But then you face difficulty and now somebody speaks to you. And now you're all ears, right? Now you're not harsh. Now you're not. You're considerate. You're thinking about, you know, somebody said that part of the lesson, the lesson of the book of Job is this. Men at ease have contempt for misfortune. What are the lessons of the Book of Job? Men at ease have contempt for misfortune. That's true. But when you're no longer at ease, now you have sympathy, now you have a bond of fellowship. Now you can minister to other people in your circumstance. It creates wisdom in us, suffering, sharing in the sufferings of Christ. It creates wisdom, it creates character, it creates endurance. But there's one other thing in particular. In our sharing in Christ's sufferings, we are the delivery people called to spread the good news of Christ's suffering and death and resurrection. Let me run that by you again, right? In our suffering, we are the delivery people called to spread the good news of his life and death and resurrection. In other words, his suffering purchases salvation and our suffering spreads it. Are going through the difficulties of life and are speaking to others, right? They go together. What do I mean? Well, think about it this way. There's different kinds of suffering, isn't there? There's the suffering of what we could call inconvenience. Missionaries, we've been talking about them this morning. Missionaries, right? They leave their own language. They leave their home. They leave the food that they've gotten used to eating. They leave their families and they go to a foreign culture. They go to a foreign people, food that they're not used to eating, a language that they're not used to hearing. See, that is difficult to do. But it's their suffering with Christ to spread the good news of his suffering and his death. It's a sacrifice, and it's not just missionaries, it's true among us. If you take up any work in the church for Christ, there's an element of sacrifice, there's an element of suffering to it, because there's a sacrifice being made for the spread of the gospel that the gospel might be seen and heard. So you commit to Sunday school teaching. for a quarter, for the year you do it. Or you commit to VBS, that takes time. It takes preparation. You commit to the music aspect of the life of our church. Again, that takes time, practice, the tech committee or the Salvation Army. There's going to be those times when you've got the preparation to do and everybody else is out in the sunshine. Or they're doing something else, but you've got to sit down and hear the books because you're going to do Sunday school tomorrow. It's the deacons and the elders also. The point is this. Christ sees all this, loved ones. He sees that you're motivated for him in pursuing it. You persevere in it for him. And he sees it all and he draws close to help us in doing all this for him. But he sees all of it. The other end, of course, there's that kind of suffering, but there's also persecution at the other end of the spectrum. You turn on the news, you hear about a bombing of a church on Palm Sunday in Egypt. Or you hear about 12-year-old Christian girls being kidnapped to be made wives of ISIS fighters. Or you hear about a couple being arrested in China because they're running a Christian bookstore. All of these, right, Jesus said this would happen if the world hates you know that it first hated me. The servant is not greater than his master. Remember, he said to he said to Saul, Saul of Tarsus, before he became a Christian, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Jesus sees all of it, sees all that is going on, and he marks all that is going on. He sees those sufferings for the spreading of the good news of his suffering and his death. How do you and I experience the power of Christ's resurrection and the sharing in his sufferings? Listen, when you live your life for the Lord Jesus Christ and day by day you live it out for him, the sufferings that you have in this life of yours, Christ takes them and takes them all for his sake. And he uses them for his sake. Again, let me illustrate for a moment. And I use this illustration because many of you do this, right? Here's a person and they're asked to house it for other people. And so they take it on, you know, these other people that are going out of town, maybe the Caribbean or something, right? And you're just asked, this person is asked to house it. And it's right, the job is to walk the dog, feed the goldfish, go get the mail, right? And that's it. That's what you're asked to do while you're out sitting for these folks. And they go away, right? And suddenly, really cold weather descends, and you're out walking the dog, and you get really, really sick. And then there's a big snowstorm that comes, right? And you have to go out, and you have to shovel, and you get a snowblower, it breaks down. And you have to shovel the whole thing, right? And then not only that, in the middle of the storm, storm, storm, a tree falls and takes out the neighbor's fence. And then the dog escapes and gets hit by a car on the street, right? And here it is, right? So you get sick. You have to shovel the snow. The tree falls, right? You have to get the tree and cut up the tree and build up the neighbor's fence, repair it all. The dog escaped. You've got to take him to the vet, get him all clear and clear. You know, all these things that happen. And then the homeowners return. Now, here's the point of the illustration. There are some experiences, for this illustration here, there are some inconveniences that this person experienced, that they expected to experience. They were told, I've got to walk the dog, I've got to feed the goldfish, and I've got to get the mail. I expected those inconveniences to happen. But there was a whole bunch of other inconveniences that happened that I did not expect. Not for a moment. They threw me for a loop. And Christian, listen. You know, in your Christian experience in life, that there's much of what you experience, you expect it. That when you became a Christian, you did certain things and you expected them to happen. You went to college, you expected it to be hard work. You knew that marriage would have its ups and downs. You knew that having children would have its difficulties, right? You expect a certain amount of inconvenience. But, there are other things that happen in our life. that we did not expect. Some of those things threw us for a loop that were hard. Again, the illustration. Think about this. Most of what happened to this person was incidental. It wasn't part of the mission that they had. Right? They were there to walk the dog, feed the goldfish, and do the mail. There was a whole bunch of things, like snowstorm, and fixing a fence, and so on. But loved ones, listen to this. Do you think that when those homeowners came, that they weren't deeply, deeply, deeply appreciative of what that person did for them? Man, I heard you were sick. You did the snow, but it broke down. You dug out the pavement, right? You did all those things. They were amazed. They're thankful. Why? Because of the attitude of service and love, responding to the expected and responding to the unexpected as they all unfolded. Again, the point is this, you expected difficulties in life, Christian. When you became a Christian, you knew that there would be obstacles, there would be trials. But others arose, very unexpected things that came. But Christ sees all of them and he sees your response to all of them. And none of them, you see, none of them are lost to Him. And none of them are a loss at all. You see, you go through these things, you go through them to spread the good news of His life, of His sufferings, and of His death. And He says to us, Because you stood with me in these things, the expected and the unexpected. Because you made my service your care. Because you made my suffering your sufferings. Now your cares will be my cares. I'll restore all things to you in heaven. Absolutely. Many of them I'll restore in this life for you. But his love for you and your love for him in this life and in the life to come will continue to increase and grow and abound. Why? Because he sees your service and your love for him in the expected and in the unexpected too. So let me ask you this. Do you want to know Christ? Do you want to know him better? Do you want to know the power of his resurrection in your life? And my dear friend, don't fight him. Embrace the fellowship of his sufferings. Learn to embrace his death doing its work in your life. that you may rise day by day, moment by moment. May God bless these thoughts from his word to us. Let's pray together. Our Lord and our God, we thank you for the promise of your presence with us, Lord Jesus, that we are in union with you. Thank you that you have given us perfect standing with almighty God. that our status is sure and fixed and certain, that our title to heaven is sure and certain. But thank you, Lord Jesus, that you are with us day by day. And we pray, Lord, that we indeed would experience your work sanctifying us, making us holy, making us like the Lord Jesus Christ. You have put us in your school, Lord Jesus, to learn from you. So may we, may we in great measure experience your power at work and your death at work in us, that we might live Give us grace in your sight. Bless your word to our understanding. For Jesus' sake, amen.