Benefits of Being Believers - Part A

What was once shiny to Paul is now dull. What was once important to Paul is now unimportant. What was once super cool to be esteemed, to be aspired to, is now rubbish to this apostle.

Verse 7 of chapter 3. For what things were gained to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and I count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ. Believers around the world suffer for their faith, enduring imprisonment, harassment, and even death. But like Paul, they know that the benefits of following Christ far outweigh the consequences.

Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip shares how you can fully embrace the benefits of being a believer in Christ. Right now, we want to tell you about a resource that shines important light onto what's happening in the Middle East. The beating heart of Bible prophecy is the land of Israel and the Middle East. Joel Rosenberg has his finger on the pulse of the world-shaking changes happening right now, and he unveils them in his new nonfiction book, Enemies and Allies. This is the first book of its kind that takes you inside the Oval Office, inside the palaces of the kings and crown princes, the presidents and the prime ministers, in Israel and in the Arab world as we ask them, what do you think about religious freedom, about making peace with Israel, about the threat from Iran, about U.S.-Arab relations, U.S.-Israel relations? Enemies and Allies from multiple New York Times bestselling author, Joel Rosenberg takes you on an unforgettable journey inside the turbulent Middle East. You'll go behind closed doors to hear from the very kings and crown princes, presidents and prime ministers who are leading the charge. Enemies and Allies includes exclusive never before published quotes, insights and analysis from the author's conversations with some of the world's most controversial leaders. Your hardcover copy of Enemies and Allies is our thanks for your generous gift of $35 or more today.

To give, call 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskipp.com. Now, as we join Skipp Heights for today's teaching, we're in Philippians chapter 3. Every one of us makes choices every day, and the way choice works is that we make our choices and then our choices turn around and they make us. They define who we are as people. So that every decision that we make, it counts.

You know, it's sort of like flypaper, there's two sides to a piece of flypaper, but it makes a huge difference to the fly which side he chooses to land on. And when believing in Jesus means getting beat up and thrown into prison and being ridiculed and mocked, and when believing in Christ means a loss of freedom, being chased by assassins, having to hide out for your very life, when believing in Jesus means you get pain and sorrow and it even cost you your life. The question is, why do it? If believing in Christ and following his plan and being surrendered to him could possibly mean you losing everything, why make that choice? What are the benefits from making that kind of a decision?

Is there any payoff for that kind of pain? And I bring that up because typically when a person gives up something, they do it to gain something. If a person quits his job, usually it's because he's found a better job.

If a person marries someone, it's because they see the benefit of not being alone any longer. If you give something away, it's to replace it with something else, or you want to get the feeling of that altruistic love or sacrifice, whatever you have made. But let's just say you win the lottery, and it's a three million dollar ticket. You won.

Somebody comes to your door, knocks on the door and says, I have a check for three million dollars for you. If you were to say, nah, I'm good, I don't need it, I found something better. Well, everybody wants to know what could be better than that. Paul the Apostle made such a choice, and he now sees the world very, very differently than how he once saw the world. What was once shiny to Paul is now dull.

What was once important to Paul is now unimportant. What was once super cool to be esteemed, to be aspired to, is now rubbish to this apostle. Verse 7 of chapter 3, But what things were gained to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and I count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ. That's an incredible statement.

The reverse is also true. Those things that he once thought were dull and ordinary and despised, he now values. He says, continuing on in verse 9, And be found in him, not having my own righteousness which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.

That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. I venture to say this happened to you at some point in your life. You sort of figured out that all the things you thought were cool and important, they don't taste the same any longer.

They don't have the same appeal. Everybody who comes to Christ finds their appetites change. It certainly happened to me. I used to think the last thing I'd ever want to be in life is a Christian.

That's what I thought. I thought Christians are boring people who like boring things. For some odd reason they go to church a lot, I can't figure out why. But then I met Christ and everything changed. Everything radically changed the way I looked at life. And so my friends noticed the changes. And they said, Hey Heitzig, you're like different now. You know, we keep inviting you back to the parties.

You don't want to party anymore. What's the deal? And I said, Look, I don't know how to put it to you guys except just to say, I have something much better. Oh really? Well tell us about it.

Is it a better drug? I said, Well, it is a high but not like you think. And so when I started explaining what it is to believe in Jesus, you could just see their body language. You've seen it. They're just like, Please stop. Stop right there. And they were trying to figure me out and I said, Look, let me just put it to you this way.

The best way I can help you understand, it's like this. I've been eating TV dinners my whole life and somebody just gave me steak and lobster. It's sort of hard for me to go back to the TV dinners. I've tasted something much better than what I've been feeding on. Some of them got it, most of them didn't. Now it's funny. There are commonplace items, commonplace possessions that suddenly gain value when we discover they have been owned by famous people. So for example, Napoleon's toothbrush sold for $21,000. Would you pay $21,000 for a gnarly used, bacteria-ridden toothbrush?

Well, somebody did because it belonged to Napoleon. Hitler's car sold for $150,000. Winston Churchill's false teeth for $20,000. No, thank you.

The picture is good. Jackie Onassis' fake pearls, they weren't even real, fake pearls sold for $211,000. JFK's golf club sold for $772,000. Now what changed the value? Ownership. Source changed the value.

It's where they come from that changes the value. So what Paul does here, he says this, I used to think these are gain, now they're loss, I've got something better. Paul assigns value to five areas of life, all of which come from Christ and hence they're valuable. Those five areas we'll briefly look at today, they are knowledge, position, righteousness, fellowship, and glory. Or to be more specific, the knowledge of Christ, position in Christ, righteousness by Christ, fellowship with Christ, and glory like Christ. Would you go back with me to verse 8?

We looked at that last time, but there's a particular word that shows a benefit. In verse 8 he speaks of knowledge. Yet indeed I count all things loss. Why, Paul, why are you saying no to those things? What could be better than all that you had attained?

Here it is. For the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ. Now do you know that the Bible describes believers as people who know God? That's how the Bible describes us.

We know God. I have two books by that name. One is called Knowing God by J.I.

Packer. Fabulous book. Changed my life. The other book is called Knowing the Face of God by Tim Stafford. Both excellent books.

What sold me on them was the title. Knowing God. It describes the Christian life. Jesus himself spoke of this when he said, I am the good shepherd.

I know my own and my own know me. When Jesus prayed to the Father in John chapter 17, he said, this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. The apostle John tells us this is the whole reason Jesus came. 1 John chapter 5 verse 20. And we know that the Son of God has come and He has given us understanding so that we can know the true God.

And Jeremiah the prophet in predicting the new covenant that we enjoy said this would be the key element. He said, no more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest. Now all of this language is where we get the notion of having a personal relationship with God.

I know God. Years ago I had a mailman, a mail carrier who brought me mail every day and I don't know why but somebody once asked me, hey, do you know your mailman? And so I started describing him. Well, he's about this tall, has this kind of a build, kind of walks a little funny, usually wears these gray mailman shorts. And I was describing him but it dawned on me I'd never met him. I didn't know him. I knew facts about him. And what I was telling my friend when he asked me, do you know him?

Is I was answering his question with the wrong answer. I was saying, well, I know certain attributes about him. But then there came a day when I thought, I'm going to introduce myself to him. I introduced myself to him, got to know a little bit about him, his background, his family. Now I knew him.

I've met him. Well, that's how it is so often when it comes to God. You ask somebody, do you know God? And they can spout off or spout out knowledge tidbits. They know certain attributes of God, certain doctrines of God. They tell you a lot about him. They know a lot about him but they do not know him. Paul the apostle who used to be Saul of Tarsus certainly knew a lot about his God, the Jewish God. But it wasn't until the Damascus Road experience when Jesus so abruptly introduced himself to Saul of Tarsus that he began really knowing him. So we have a knowledge.

That's a benefit. We know God. Now, this is like the ultimate name drop. You know how people like to drop names? Well, you know, the president of the company, you know, we're friends. Or the mayor, yeah, we're really close.

We play golf once a week dropping names. You have the ultimate. You can say, really? I know God. God and I, we're like this.

In fact, I just spoke to him this morning. Now, when Paul says knowledge here or knowing God, it's a word that means a personalized experience, personal involvement or personal familiarity. It is the word ginosko. It means far more than intellectual knowledge. It means far more than theological knowledge.

You can just look at Paul the apostle. This dude before he was Paul the apostle knew a lot already. He knew Greco-Roman culture. He knew several languages. He knew theology. He could debate and converse with rabbis.

He knew secular philosophy so he could stand on the Areopagus in Athens and freely quote their authors. Brilliant, knowledgeable man. But nothing, nothing in Paul's mind compared to knowing Christ. That's why he calls it, look at what he calls it, he doesn't say just knowledge, but I've counted all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge. The word excellence means surpassing worth, inestimable value. It is excellent knowledge.

It is more valuable than JFK's golf clubs or Napoleon's toothbrush. It is an excellence of knowledge. And notice how he refers to the Lord. He didn't call him Christ the Lord or our Lord, but what? My Lord.

That's personal. You know some people like to talk, it's like a dead giveaway that they don't know the Lord. Oh yes, you know that big guy in the sky, the good Lord. Well the good Lord, is he your good Lord?

Paul calls him personally my Lord. Question, how do you get to know God? I like to answer it this way, how did you get to know your parents? You had to be born, right? Officially you met your parents the day you were born.

You don't remember it, you were too young, but it happened. Okay, so you got to know your parents first of all by being born. You get to know God by being born again.

Jesus said you must be born again. And so our first birth was physical and it brought life. Our second birth is spiritual, it brings salvation, and this is what enables you to know God, the new birth. And so the first benefit is knowledge, the knowledge of Christ. Second benefit is position. We have position. Verse 9, Paul says, and be found in him.

Now stop right there. One of Paul's favorite things to do in his writings is to describe Christian believers as people who are in Christ. That's how he describes us. Which makes Christians unique from all of their belief systems. Because a Buddhist never speaks of being in Buddha. You'll never hear a Buddhist say that. I am in Buddha. You'll never hear a Muslim say they are in Mohammed. You'll never hear a Hindu say I am in Vishnu, or in Shiva, or in Ganesha, or any of the other 330 million gods they believe in.

If you were in all of them you'd be disintegrated I suppose. But we are in Christ. 87 times the New Testament says we are in Christ.

What does that mean? We are united to him in his life, his death, his resurrection. His life is in us. Galatians 2.20, Paul describes it by saying, I am crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me in the life I now live in the flesh.

I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and who gave himself for me. That's him describing what it is to be in Christ. But let's drill down a little further.

Let's make it a little more practical. What does it mean to be in Christ? It means this, that when God looks at you, when you are before God, you are identified with Jesus Christ.

Let me illustrate it. When you get into your car, if I were to follow you to the parking lot, when you get into your car, when I look at you, I see your car. I might see you through the windshield if it's not too tinted. You're in it, but I see the car.

You're in that car. If you then drive home and step into your house, you might wave at me through the kitchen window, but when I look at you, I see the home, the edifice that you are now in. If you decide to travel to another city and get in an airplane and fly away, I look up in the sky.

You're up there, but I see the plane. So to be in Christ means this, when God looks at you now, he sees Christ. He sees Christ. He no longer sees your imperfections, your failures, and your sins. He sees the Savior who died for them. So you can't go 60 miles an hour on your own, but in a car you can.

You can't fly through the air at 500 miles an hour, but in a plane you can. You can't get to heaven by yourself, but in Christ you can. You are in Christ. That position is a monumental benefit. So we have knowledge. We know God.

We have position. We're in Christ. A third benefit is righteousness. Verse 9, he says, Be found in him, not having my own righteousness. He talked about how he worked hard for his own righteousness in previous verses. Not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that, that is that righteousness, which is through faith in Christ. The righteousness which is from God by faith. The happiest day of Paul's life is when he stopped trying to be righteous and believed that he was righteous because he was in Christ.

It's like he's been patting hard his whole life trying to work for him, and he realized, I'm accepted. I've been given a righteousness. God has made me that way. Now, the word righteousness, would you agree, is a pretty important Bible word, right? It's used a lot in the Scriptures. The New Testament uses that word a lot.

Let me tell you what it means. Righteousness is the word dikaiosune, which means to have right standing before God, or to be right with God. Righteousness is being right with God, having a right standing or being accepted by God.

Now, think of it. Paul spent his whole adult life trying to manufacture a righteousness before God. How? By externals, by rituals, by works.

We read the list already. He tried to get right with God by keeping the rules. He tried to get right with God by leaning on his religious heritage. He tried to get right with God by practicing legalism as a Jewish Pharisee. And he failed. And the day he discovered that failure was the happiest day of his life because he found that true righteousness can't be produced.

True righteousness must be provided. He tried to produce it. He tried to manufacture it.

And the Damascus Road experience, that whole experience made him realize, I can't produce it, but it has been provided for me. There's this cool little thing that's been going on since the 1990s in malls across America called Build-A-Bear. Have you seen the Build-A-Bear workshop, Build-A-Bear experience? Okay, so it's a great idea.

But the thought behind it, and they put out 160 million of these things, so it's pretty successful. But the idea is simply forget somebody else's idea of what a teddy bear ought to be. Make your own.

Size, ears, eyes, look, skin. You can even get away from the teddy bear, get a Pokemon figure if you want, or a Star Wars figure if you want. You build your own bear.

It's incredibly a genius idea. But when it comes to spiritual matters, I have discovered the world is absolutely fixated on this approach with God. It's a Build-A-Bear approach. It's build your own way to God approach. Build your own road to heaven.

Build your own righteousness. That's Skip Heitzig with a message from the series Technicolor Joy. Now, reading the stories of the Bible is a very good thing. Walking where these stories took place is at a whole other level. Skip Heitzig is planning his next tour, and you can be on it.

Here's the invitation from Skip. You're in for an incredible time as we travel throughout Israel and experience the culture that's so unique to that country. Now, I've been to Israel a number of times over the years, and I can honestly say that visiting the places where the events of the Scriptures unfolded, where Jesus lived, taught, and healed, it just never gets old. We'll start on the Mediterranean Sea and head north, seeing places like Caesarea and Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, and the Jordan River. We'll spend several days in and around Jerusalem and see the Temple Mount, Calvary, the Garden of Gethsemane, and the Mount of Olives, and much more. This remarkable itinerary is made richer with times of worship, Bible study, and lots of fellowship.

The Bible will come alive to you in a way it never has before. I hope you'll join Lenny and me on what is always an unforgettable trip. I can't wait to see you in Israel. This dream can come true for you. Start planning and saving now to tour Israel with Skip Heitzig. Information at inspirationcruises.com slash C-A-B-Q.

That's inspirationcruises.com slash C-A-B-Q. Tune in tomorrow as Skip Heitzig explores what it means for you to have fellowship with God and experience His glory. You don't want to miss that. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on His Word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.