Reckoning that Counts

Okay, today we're going to talk about Philippians 3.10. Have you noticed the sequence in the scriptures that we've been studying? We did Romans 6, then we did 7, then we did 8, and we talked about the self-life, and then last week we did 2.20. You see the sequence there? Okay, what is the sequence there?

What does Romans 6 teach us? The old man, sin nature, right? And that we were crucified where the old sin nature was crucified and we were identified in Christ's death, burial and resurrection. Okay, Romans 7, what's it about? Struggle. Based on what principle? What causes the struggle in Romans 7? Law. So you have the pronouncement that we've been crucified, separated from, sin, the sin nature, and the law, but then in 7 we have the guy, our friend Paul, trying to live the Christian life by law anyway.

Then the reckoning of Romans 8. What's Romans 8 about? It was only two weeks ago, come on. What's Romans 8 about, basically? It's actually the first chapter in the book of Romans that begins to discuss what the Christian life really is. Romans 6 is just the mechanics of how God got you out of Adam and put you into Christ. Other than believing and reckoning, there's no discussion about what the Christian life is. Romans 7 is not the Christian life, that's for sure. But Romans 8 is.

There's no condemnation. There's a new principle of life. What the law couldn't do, God did by sending His Son. He condemned sin in the flesh. It talks a lot about how the Christian life begins to function on the believer who's still here on the earth. What praying's all about. God working all things together for good to those who love Him. And who can separate you from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus.

Last week we talked about Galatians 2.20.

What does Galatians 2.20 teach you? Don't you find it interesting? If you look at the language of Romans 6, it says, coming to know this, that my old man was crucified with him. Introduction. Here's the initial knowledge of your identification with Christ.

When you get to Galatians 2.20, what's the guy say? I'm crucified with Christ. He got it. He figured it out. He settled down in it. Nevertheless, I live. In the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. So, Romans 6 is the initial introduction to the identification truths.

Galatians 2.20 is a man understanding He has been crucified. I have been.

So today we're going to talk about Philippians 3.10. And I would say that for the walk of the believer, this is the other side of the cross. This is the resurrection side. With all believers, growing believers probably I should say, There's the dual information of dead unto sin, alive unto God.

Galatians 2.20 is death. The issue with self is death. Romans 6 is death.

But Philippians 3.10 is life.

Somebody quote Philippians 3.10 to me. So we've now come from being crucified, buried, resurrected, struggle with the law, learning about our life in Christ in Romans 8, and now we're in Philippians, where the desire of the heart of the new man comes into play. What's the thing that he wants more than anything else? To know Christ resurrected. Position or condition? Philippians 3, position or condition? How many think it's position? How many think it's condition? We only have a few chickens. That is, it's conditional.

And every growing believer will have this desire in their heart, that I may know him. Because from knowing him, everything else happens as a believer. And is it surprising to you to find out that within the confines of Paul's epistle, and the work of the Holy Spirit through Paul that the issue of actually knowing the God of the universe is a big deal?

Or is it just rhetoric? I mean, do you expect to have this ongoing relationship and fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ now? You really think that's what he's up to? What do you think? Yeah, that's exactly what he's up to. His desire for that is much greater than ours is, but He's made it all possible through everything we've studied so far. This is really sort of the logical conclusion. Why would God do all this? It's so we can hang out with Him. He likes our company. He wants us to have company with Him.

Having said that, true or false? We don't yield in order to become free from the power of sin, but because we are free in our risen Lord Jesus. True or false? Absolutely true. You can't yield unless you're free to do so. See that? If you're taken up with the struggle for freedom, you're not free. You're taken up with the struggle. See that? There's a difference from being free and struggling to be free.

So, we yield, and what's the word yield mean? To give way? Present. Present's a better word. Yield comes across as a passive word. This is really an aggressive word. Present, and the best description I know is how many in this room have ever been in the military? Am I the only one?

When you enlist or are inducted into the military, the first thing they do is you raise your right hand. And you present yourself to them. You hand yourself over to them. And you know what? They take that seriously. They say, thank you very much, follow me. Well, that's the same thing here. When we present ourselves or yield ourselves to God, we do it as those that are alive from the dead, not the old man. And you know what? God takes that really seriously. Thank you very much. You now belong to me.

And you can't go back. It's too late. I had a guy come to me one time when I was a young believer and he was complaining, I forget what the subject was, about his Christian life. And it dawned on me and I said to him, Well, it's too late for you." He said, what do you mean? I said, well, you're already a Christian. It's over. You can't go back. Sorry. So stop complaining.

So we've died to the old, we are alive in the new, we're free in the new, so count it so. That's what reckoning is. We first know the mighty power of Christ's resurrection and ascension when we experience the change in our condition. True or false? So if it's false, what is the right answer? We're back to demonstrating how important knowing your position is. Knowing it is critical. Now the problem with position, to be frank with you, is that the news is so good, you don't buy it. Right? The news is so astounding, you think, no way would God do what he says he's done. Yeah, he did. Yeah, he did. Not gonna do. Yeah, he did. Already done.

So what's your job? Just believe him. Thank you very much. So it has nothing to do with how you feel about it or any change in your circumstances. If God said it, it's good enough for me. If he says it so, then it is. And he doesn't wait for you to prove it. But he is set about in your life as a believer to prove to you that what you are positionally is in fact true. so that your condition will begin to line up with your position. So if you don't believe him in the first place, you get real surprised when he starts to work. So, you count yourself alive unto God in Christ.

Now let me ask you about this principle. Is it important for you as a believer to recognize your position and to believe the facts of your position in order that the Holy Spirit may go to work and make those facts real to you and your condition. And the key question is, must you believe it before he'll work? What do you think? I'm sorry?

So he's constantly working to persuade you of the truth, of a positional truth about you that's true of you. If you don't believe it, up until the time he has persuaded you, I don't think he works that truth into you, conditionally. You understand what I'm saying? He'll show it to you, he'll try to persuade you through the word that specific truth A is true of you, but until you believe it, I don't think he goes to work and implements it into your condition. Do you think that's right? What do you think?

You think you just implement stuff in your life even though you don't know what's going on? I think you have to know. Isn't that, I mean, part of it is bringing you to the knowledge of it, and then it's not like, you know, you're kind of cutting it in the midstream. I think implementation is revealing it, understanding it, believing it, and then making it real in your life. I think that's right.

So you do have a role to play, and the role is your faith. As you have begun in the Lord Jesus, walk ye in Him. You've got to know what to believe. You'll learn from the Word of God, and as you believe it and walk in it, He's implementing, is maybe the way to do it. And the implementation is done by revealing the person of Christ to you. Do you see that?

Okay. The way that I have it in my mind, the implementation is to reveal the person of Christ. Oh, sequentially that way? Well, as a scientist, he's the continuum. But if I understand you correctly, he's the field. Okay. To know the person. I think we're saying the same thing, we're not different else. Because when I look at the pros and cons and we're dealing with the truths, it's all that we know him, the person else, it's not necessarily that person. Right. Becoming with true believers, that's just what happens when you know Him. Right. That's good. Let me ask you this question. Here we are in Philippians, you know, one of the prison epistles, right?

Paul's been humping down the road quite a few decades by now, hasn't he? How come he's wanting to know Christ now? Didn't he want to know Him before? How come it took him this long to say this? Did it just dawn on him? Hey, maybe I ought to want to know Christ. Is this some new revelation to him? What do you think? Here's the Apostle Paul, right? What's his introduction to Christ? Yeah, bang. And then he goes to Arabia, hangs out with them for several years, right? But here he is in Philippians saying that I may know him. So what's he mean? It's like, well, don't you know him now? Don't you already know him? Why is he saying this? He wants to know more. That's right.

And so the point is, is that as the Holy Spirit works and just begins to give you initially glimpses of Christ through the Word, It invigorates that hunger in you to know him greater and more. I put it like being married or having children. You love being around him. Absence does not make the heart grow fonder. It's the other way around. Hanging out with him is what makes your heart grow fonder.

If you love somebody, you say, well, I can see you on Thursday and that's it? Because I'm going to love you a lot more if I miss you than the other six days? Nonsense. You want to be with them all the time. It's the same with the Lord Jesus. The key to knowing the Lord Jesus here and now is the Word. What do you think? Yes? No? Maybe? Answer yes.

You know, it's interesting when, on Thursday night, we're studying the Gospel of John, and I forget if it's chapter 4 or 5, the Lord Jesus talks about, He tells these Jews, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you don't have any part with me. Imagine what they're thinking. But when you get to here, and you learn about this incredible intimacy and feeding on Him and the Word of God, that makes a lot of sense. Spiritual sense. Because it isn't physical, it's spiritual. So He is the very food of your life. And He is to be fed upon in the Word. God is not blessing when there is physical, mental or spiritual suffering. What do you think? Now, if we go down the street a couple of blocks, this is going to be true.

So, what role does suffering play? The answer is obviously false, so if it is false, what role does suffering play? Miles makes the statement that suffering is the lot of all men, right? I mean, we live in a sinful world. Everybody suffers. I've never met anybody who didn't. But then he makes this incredible statement, but it's the privilege of all believers to suffer. He's got to be kidding, right? It's a privilege for the believer to suffer. So what role does suffering play, if it's a privilege?

How does it do that? Romans 5, 2 or 3? Yes, let me look it up quickly. What's that? James 1. Yeah, exactly the same thing. Miles makes a statement that there's no growth in or fellowship with the crucified Lord without suffering, physical, mental and spiritual. I think it's Romans 5, 2, isn't it? Three? Okay. And that character, whose character? So what's that character there? Better question is, whose character is it? Yours? So you get to be a really cool Christian? whose character is Christ himself.

So suffering has this, death works in us, so there might be life in you, death to the old, so that the life of the new can be brought forward. That's why the Christian rejoices in his sufferings, because he knows what's going on. That's why I say if you're ignorant about what's going on, you're not rejoicing, because you don't know what God's up to. You don't know what He's doing. All you know is it hurts, and think, You know, how much can't we go to Plan B or something? I've had enough of this.

When people don't know why they're suffering, do they also try and catch up to the advantages of being blind? Maybe a good example is John chapter 9, the Lord Jesus and the blind man. And he seeks out this blind man and his disciples and says, Is this guy blind because he sinned or his parents sinned? What was the answer? Neither.

He's blind solely so that God can be glorified. So the next time you suffer, you suffer solely so that God can be glorified in you. See that? See, there isn't any circumstance that comes in your life that isn't designed specifically to glorify God in you. Not one. Not one. Is that the only purpose?

I mean, I think for us too, through suffering too, is taking dependency on self and focusing on... I mean, I heard what suffering usually does is, can I get out of this myself? It brings me to the point that no, that it's not me, it's only through Christ and understanding the sovereignty of pure death that we can go home to things that were so great. So I mean, I think it's...

If the end game is that God glorifies himself in everything that he does, the reason he created, the bottom line reason he does everything is to glorify himself, right? So how could he possibly figure out a way to glorify himself through a sinner like me? How could he do it? How's he going to do it? It's exactly right. God glorifies himself. And the reason it's that way is he's the only one that can do it. Because he's the one that has the attributes of glory to demonstrate his own.

Well, if you look at the sequence of events that we've studied over the last six weeks, you can see how God moves along that trail. As you behold the Lord Jesus, you get conformed to His very image. Guess what happens? The life of the Lord Jesus begins to be manifested through you. Who gets the glory? And God is glorifying Himself through you by the manifestation of the life of His own Son through you.

Very cool. It's a good plan. So, He's always moving in that direction. Now, what are you doing? while all of this is going on, you get the cool thing to behold Christ. And you discover that the sole desire of your entire being is God. He's the One. Even in place of your own self. Too bad. So with regards to suffering, he always uses that to glorify him.

Two weeks ago, we talked about three categories. This guy's got too good of a memory. We talked about three categories of suffering, right? Yeah. I'm trying to remember what they were. One was because there's natural consequences to sin. We're living in a sinful world. When we sin, we suffer. Yes. And the other one was that the day-by-day emancipation of the influence of the self-life. As our old man dies, there's kind of a loss there. The one I'm curious about is that sin one. We all suffer when we sin.

And it's hard to look at that and say God's glorifying himself through that suffering. You know what I mean? Yeah, I do know. And I think the answer is probably in James chapter 1. Because we brought it on ourselves. Yeah, it's interesting what God is able to do. You know, in James chapter 1, starting in verse 13, he says, Let no man say, when he is tempted, I am tempted of God.

I hope I get the words right. That is paradzo. The Greek word paradzo means to be tempted to failure, condemnation. So when your sin nature tempts you to sin, it's designed specifically to get you to be condemned. It's an invitation, right? Now, and you can't say, and what James says is you cannot say that God initiates parado. puts you in a position for you to fail or to be condemned. For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed. Then when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, brings forth debt.

Do not err, my beloved, So you understand the sequence, right? As your dad would say, here's the bait. You take the bait. Now you've sinned. When you've sinned, a conception takes place. When a conception takes place, then there's going to be a birth. When the baby's born, what is born? Death. Separation.

So what does God do about that in a believer's life? Here comes the temptation. the solicitation to sin, what is he going to do? Just let you go off and be condemned? No, he's going to do this other Greek word thing called dokimas, which means that he's in the process of that whole thing, even your sinning, he will use it for your approval. He's not the author of sin, but if you sin, in the restoration process, he will approve you. even though you've sinned, and he used your very sin to do it. Make sense?

What do you suffer? You suffer tremendously because not only do you suffer the consequences of your sinning, the death part, but you, as a believer, when you realize that when you took the bait, that it wasn't what you thought it was, and you recognize that it separated you from God, That's suffering that a non-believer doesn't know anything about. And then there's the work of the Holy Spirit in you because once you sin, you're abiding in Adam. The Holy Spirit intervenes there to restore you to fellowship. And I dare say that the more mature believer is more concerned about the loss of fellowship than he is about the sin that he committed.

Do you understand what I mean by that? It's like in any relationship sometimes, like my wife and I, I'll do something that will dim the fellowship and I'm not really sure what I've done. But it's important to me to find out so that the fellowship can continue. Do you see what I'm saying? And I don't mean that from a kind of a wussy standpoint that my wife is hen-pecking me. I don't mean that at all.

Two human beings, believers, living in the same house, both of them with sin natures, going down the road every day, something happens and it's like, whoa, there went the fellowship. I think as you walk with the Lord, that same thing happens. And you become sensitive to the loss of fellowship more than you do committing sins. Do you understand what I mean by that?

And there's suffering involved in that. And so you begin to rely, I think, more and more on the fact that, wait a minute, crucifying me with your son was a really good thing to do because it solves the problem. I'm the problem. Not what I do. I am the problem. My sin nature is the problem. And the only proper thing to do with it was to crucify it. That was a good thing. Well, that takes a while. to come to where he agreed with God about that one. We can only get to know the Lord Jesus personally by feeding upon Him in the Word of God.

True? False. I would say this. How many of you, at least for 15 minutes in your Christian life, at least that long, have studied your Bible to learn a bunch of facts. How many of you spent 15 minutes in the Word of God just to hang out with Him? If you've never done that, try it today. It's different.

This vehicle that God created, His Word, is designed specifically for that purpose. For you and me to know personally and intimately Christ Himself. And the job of the Holy Spirit is to reveal Christ to you through this Word. That's why it's so important.

Not so that you can be a theologian. We've got too many of those already. What the body of Christ needs is a whole bunch of people that know Christ intimately. See? Then it isn't theology. It's not religion. It's life. Do you see that? So, as you study your Bible, in your hearts, think about that, that I'm here to hang out with the Lord Jesus. That's what I'm doing here. That's the only reason I'm here. And you'll find that the facts line up with the person that you know. And they never contradict each other. Never. Fill in. Suffering is the what of all men. And it's the what of believers.

Okay, we blank the power of His resurrection in our... We know the power of His resurrection in what? In our position. We are what? Realizing that power in our spiritual growth. We will forever know His mighty power in our resurrected bodies. Don't you find it interesting that you don't have to wait to find out the power of the Holy Spirit and you don't have to wait to enter into this intimacy with Christ. It started the day, the second that you were saved. Malloy talks about this too, all these theologians in heaven with the books under their arms, walking down the street and here comes Christ and they go, walk right around him because they don't know him. So the issue is knowing him. As we remain within the influence of what? We are what? Freed to abide in the life-giving influence of the resurrected one. Do you see how Both sides of the cross are implemented together. There isn't one side and the other.

I think one of the things to learn as a growing believer, there's a real emphasis early on when you know identification, to be on the crucifying side of the cross and kind of stay there. But it's probably even more important to be on the resurrection side. The crucifying side keeps that old man from being active. But you don't just sit there and be crucified. That's not what God has in mind. What he has in mind is the resurrected side. The death holds in place the old man so that you're free to what? To know Christ and get on.

Our reckoning is to be based on our position. We count ourselves what under God? Through our faith in this fact, what happens? In our condition, our growth. We abide in him above and he manifests himself in us below. This is the principle I brought up a little while ago. Do you need to first believe before the Holy Spirit is operative? Our reckoning is based on our position, so you do know things. You know your position. We count ourselves alive unto God in Christ. Why? Because it's true. Through our faith, in this fact, the Holy Spirit makes this truth real in our condition.

See, the Holy Spirit, one of the things that he is, is he's very judicious with his time. He's not going to try to implement something into you that you're not aware of. You've got to know what's up. My son says, what's up dad? You've got to know what's up. And when you know what's up and you believe what's up, the Holy Spirit is implementing what's up in your life. See that?

So there aren't any spectators in Christian growth. Everybody's in the game. Intimately in the game. All the time. No time outs. It's really cool. I think that's right. And I think what you discover after a time is that this whole thing is the work of the Holy Spirit. All of it is. You know, He's proactive, but He's got a certain... He functions based on certain principles. and in sequence.

He doesn't get you all involved in Romans 8 until you've been through 6 and 7. You don't get to jump from 6 to 8. You don't get to go from Romans 8 to Ephesians 5. It's a sequence. And He's very precise. And one of the brethren guys in one of those hungry hearts said one day, He'll keep you at your lessons until you learn them. We abide in Him above and He manifests Himself here below. Tell me about that abiding in Him above. What's that about? Why is that important to know? What do you think about that?

If Christ is going to be made known to you by the Holy Spirit, then this is my real estate training, location is everything, right? Because a growing believer for a while thinks that Christ is going to come into his environment and fix it and that he's going to come in and reveal himself in my study. No, no. What's the job of the Holy Spirit? It's to take the believer to where Christ is in the heavenlies now. That's where the revelation takes place. That's what the power of the resurrection is all about.

In reckoning we are what? Presenting, yielding. Our faith rests upon the fact that God has done what? Yeah. As this enables us to what? Yield ourselves unto God. Yeah, as those that are alive from the dead. Do you see the privilege in that? I mean, is that not just the coolest thing? That God would... we're yielding by faith to God, and what is He doing?

He's showing us and convincing us that He raised us together with Christ. That's just not a theological fact. You know, it's just not a platitude or something that you write up on. This is really what happened to me. And because of that, We yield ourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, so that God can get on doing with us what he has intended to do all along. Matching. Our bodies will someday be resurrected. Where does that come from? I kind of made these easier this week. What do you think? Is it A? Which one is it? What's that?

E. Okay. Romans 8-11. Okay. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him. Now what does that mean? If you're not suffering, you don't get to reign? What does it mean? It means the suffering is the privilege of every believer and because you suffer, you're going to reign.

Very cool. If we die with him, we shall be resurrected with him. Where does that one come from? Only those that did their homework get to answer. Which one is it? Our attitude should be like his, to serve others, be humble. Where does that come from? By the way, where does your attitude to serve come from? Just somebody tells you you better have a serving attitude and let's get with it?

Yeah, that's what his life is. He's a suffering servant. So, not a big surprise. We are being changed into his image. We have trouble in order to comfort others in their trouble. So suffering, being a privilege, God will use your suffering for what? For the benefit of others. When you know that, you recognize that if you're suffering today, that at some point God is going to use that for the edification of some other believer. So you're never outside the loop. You always get the memo.

Lists the fruit of our fellowship in Christ's sufferings include the verses. The first one is what? In suffering we what? We learn something of the process of growth. And knowing that our tribulation works patience and patience experience. He child trains us for our profit. And this is the part that I love. That we might be partakers of His holiness. Imagine God doing that. making you a partaker of His very holiness and accomplished through suffering. Two, in suffering we also learn what? Yeah, more of Him. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. In suffering we learn about what? Yeah, the needs of others.

We are so self-centered that if we didn't suffer, we wouldn't care about anybody else. Blessed be God, the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. So if God comforts you in a certain area, He's not going to bring somebody who's suffering in an area you know nothing about so that you can comfort them. It isn't going to happen. But if you have had a circumstance with God where you have suffered and He has comforted you, then He will bring other souls to you just like He brought somebody to you so that you can comfort them there. Do you see that? So those of you who think you're not busy in God's work, yeah you are.

This is a really cool thing to be involved in. Explain the principle of assimilation. That's a highly spiritual one. What does it mean? Do you ever notice People that have been married for like 50 or 60 years, they kind of look like each other. That's the principle of assimilation. You and Craig, it's going to be funny to see. But what they adopt, the mannerisms are the same, the expressions are the same. Or your children. You look at your children and, who was it?

We were at dinner a Friday night with Bob Eccle. Bob Eccle is a diabetic and he had a little bit of an insulin overreaction. He was in insulin shock for about 15 minutes. I swear Peter was acting and not Bob. He looked and acted just like his son Peter. And Donna said, that's Peter. Have you ever seen anybody who's in a little bit of insulin shock? It's like they've been drinking too much. Not that Peter's a drinker. But he was being really silly, and his expressions, his facial expressions, his body movements, even his voice was like Peter's. The process of assimilation. You behold the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ through the process of assimilation.

What happens? His life is manifested through you. It's your person and your character, but it's his life. And so as you grow as a believer, you run into another believer, like you run into Gary and you get to talk and you find out he knows the same Christ you know. He manifests the same. He isn't different in Gary than he is in me. He's the same Christ. and his characteristics are the same.

It may be manifested different in the fact that it came through his personhood, but it's the same life. See that? It doesn't take long to sense that. No, it doesn't. It really doesn't. And it doesn't take long to sense that it's being faked or isn't there at all. Okay, let's close.

Our dear Father, I guess my prayer is the same, that we might know your dear son and the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his suffering being conformed unto his death. That's my prayer for everybody in this room all the time. And I do pray in your son's name. Amen.