Kerwin Baptist Church Daily Broadcast

Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ. Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church located in Kernersville, North Carolina. For the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I may win Christ and be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the law but that which is through the faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by faith verse 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death.

I would like to present a challenge to you for the new year is that you could focus and I'm going to try my best. I find that sometimes if I leave cards, three by five cards at different places you'll see it. It reminds you, kind of helps you stay focused on that in the mornings. Put it somewhere. Maybe where you shave, men, you know, kind of a thing.

Or ladies your makeup place where you get your makeup on or if you don't wear makeup that's great too. I'm just saying whatever. And put something in places where you can see it to remind you. And this is what I would like to challenge you this year that I would like to. I would love at the end of 2016 to know that I know my savior better. I want to know him.

I know him in salvation but I want to know him at a different level. That must be your focus. Now I'm going to show you from these verses this morning how that comes to be in your life and what that means.

How do I apply that to my daily life? But I find something interesting here. If you'll notice, look at these key words in these verses. Notice if you would, verse seven.

He says those I counted lost for Christ. Notice verse eight, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. Notice this at the end of verse eight, that I may win Christ. That means attain Christ. That means to obviously become closer to Christ.

That I may win him. I may attain him. Look at verse nine. Notice this, through the faith of Christ. Notice verse ten, that I may know him. Notice verse ten, the fellowship of his sufferings. Key word after key word for Christ, knowledge of Christ, win Christ, know him.

Listen to me, Paul's top priority was knowing Christ. Now we spend, listen, don't think I'm jumping on things because you know I'm not that type of preacher. But I'm going to tell you, we live in a society where all of our time is spent on media and connectivity. The way I would call it, I'm not going to use the term everybody else has used, but media that connects each other and we spend so much time getting to know each other. In fact, we spend too much time getting to know each other and we know things about each other we shouldn't even know. And one of these days, I'm warning you, I'm going to spend a message, I know the verses, I try to tell people when they ask, I'm going to tell you something not against things, but I'm telling you there is very great danger with social media. And you know what the Bible says, it is a shame to speak of those things which are done of them in private. And our media is just exposing everything in our life, we get mad one night, we just pour our little temper and put it on and we let everybody out there see that.

And dear friend, that shouldn't be. And I am telling you, we spend so much time getting to know this, we know about this person, this person, their family, what they went through, where they go to the bathroom, where they do this, where they go shopping, where they got their sale. And dear friend, I'm here to tell you, what we should be focusing on is knowing Christ.

I want to challenge you, and I'm challenging myself this year that I may know him, getting to know him, getting to know all about him. You say, preacher how is that done? Let's pray, we'll jump into it. Lord we love you, help us during this brief time this morning as we hopefully Lord motivate myself and these precious folks through the word of God that our focus this year would be to know Christ better. And Lord I just pray you'd help us to do that.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. How did Paul in these verses, and all through these verses, by the way all through this chapter, it's about knowing Christ, knowing Christ. So what did Paul do? How do you say, okay preacher I would like to know Christ but what is it that I put into my life to bring that to be? I don't understand, it's like some people say, hey you need to just be a better Christian. Well great, how do I do that?

What are the things that I'm supposed to do? Notice what Paul did, look at verse 9. I want you to know this first. Look at verse 9. And be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the what? Faith of Christ.

Number one this morning. How is it that I get to know God better? What is it that I have to put into my life so that I can get to know Christ in a different way? Listen to me, you have to have faith.

And I want to challenge you in 2016, now I'm going somewhere with this. I want to challenge you, faith is such a general word. It is very misunderstood. Everybody says you need to have more faith and the average Christian sits in church and says, yeah that sounds good, what does that mean? And we'll tell them what faith is, but what do you mean I have more faith? Living by faith, you know the Bible says, preacher what do you mean?

Now notice this. I want to read you this verse, Galatians chapter 2 verse 16. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ.

Exact same phrase. Even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ. And not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. So you say, preacher you're saying that I need to have the faith of Christ in order to get to know Christ.

Absolutely. So preacher what does that mean? Faith is our system of belief. Faith is a moral code of conduct. When we say faith it means the things I believe, the whole system, my whole code of beliefs. It's all right there and that's our faith.

And that dictates everything you do from then on. And what I am saying in 2016 is you need to get to know your faith. What do you believe? Not only that, what should you believe?

Can I tell you half the stuff we believe isn't even biblical. Now I'm going to bring back one from the past here that I used here and you all know. I could just ask you one question this morning and I'm going to tell you half of you would answer wrong and half of you might answer right and some of you wouldn't answer at all because you're sleeping. So I'm going to ask you this question this morning. What color is sin?

Don't answer out loud, don't answer out loud. What color is sin? Now I'm going to tell you there's a whole bunch of you said sin is black. No it's not.

Did you know that? Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow. Though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool. We've got people walking around, sin is black. No it's not. Well grandma told me it was. You know you've heard people say well the wordless book says it was. The wordless book doesn't say anything. It's wordless. The wordless book, the black page is meant to show the result of sin.

Darkness forever. Sin is red. I'm not going to go through the whole biblical reason why it's red because it's a wonderful story but I'm not going to go through all that. What am I saying? I'm saying that half the time there are people that believe things only because that's what they were told not because it's in the Bible. And I'm saying in 2016 you and I need to have the faith, the code of beliefs of Christ. And that means this you say well great preacher how do I do that? That means you've got to get into God's word more.

It means you've got to take every opportunity you can to get good solid biblical teaching. Let me tell you something. You better always notice and watch the source of what you're reading and the source of what you're watching. Now don't you take somebody that doesn't believe half of what we believe but they're very smart and I'm going to read their book. Let me tell you something you're going to get yourself in trouble. You're going to get so confused and so messed up and I've watched it happen to so many people. Because somebody that is very smart can end up changing from the simplicity of the Bible. You need to find out what the Bible has to say, what the Bible teaches and you need to figure out what is the faith of Christ.

And you know what I recommend? We do things here like our small group studies that we have during the week. Get into a Sunday school class. You need to be faithful to church. You need to get into your Bible. If you have a question about material, I'm not the guide of your life and you don't have to run everything by me but if you have a question and say is this a good source to read? Ask me. If I don't know I'll tell you and if I don't know I'll find out from somebody. But I'm going to tell you something.

Half the time you've got folks that are going to the wrong source to get their information and it's going to change everything about what they believe. And dear friend I'm here to tell you watch that. Be careful. The Bible gives clear warning about that.

In 2016 I want to challenge you. Get to know your faith. And you make sure that it's the faith of Christ. We have a lot of people here even in this church as much as we try to teach plainly and go through and they believe things and they don't know why, they don't know where, they don't know when, they don't know how. It's just what they've been told and it might be right but you need to know why. So get to know your faith.

I promise you it will be one of the best things that you will ever do. Number two. How did Paul say I want to know him better?

How do you do that? Well you've got to get in God's word, you've got to figure out what does Christ believe and that's my code of beliefs that I've got to obtain. Notice the second thing here is the righteousness of God.

Look at verse 9. And be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the law. Not having mine own righteousness. But that which is through the faith of Christ, notice this, the righteousness which is of God by faith.

Now faith is what we believe. Righteousness is what we do. Righteousness comes out when the faith, the code of beliefs is right. Faith is on the inside, righteousness shows up on the outside.

Now dear friend before you get confused let me say this. You and I have no righteousness of our own. The Bible says none is righteous, no not one. That's why you and I have to have the righteousness of God.

Now listen to me. When you and I appear before God one day we would be guilty and we would have no righteousness to represent ourselves on our own. The only reason when we appear before God one day and if you've been saved through the blood of Christ, the only reason when we appear before God one day that we will be welcomed into heaven, that we will be obviously rewarded as part of his family is not because of our righteousness but because of the righteousness of God that has been placed on us through the blood of Jesus Christ. Does that make sense? So if you and I, listen I want you to get this, if we are seen as righteous from God because of the blood of Christ then righteousness is how we should live. Does that make sense? You understand what I'm saying? So I've got to make sure that my beliefs are right and then I've got to put those beliefs into action in 2016. You say preacher what does this have to do with getting to know God? Everything. Let me tell you something, you can't go live in sin and get to know Christ better.

It just doesn't work that way. I've got to find out what God's word says. Look at me, get this, when I find out exactly what God's word says and then I incorporate that as my beliefs and my practices and then I apply that to my life, you will get to know Christ far better.

That's what Paul said. Listen, Paul didn't just get saved and say alright I'm done, I'm saved, I'm on my way to heaven, that's all I need to do. He was consumed with getting to know Christ better.

Number three, notice this, I thought this was interesting, the power of his resurrection. Verse 10, that I may know him. That I may know him. Everything before that statement was done so that I may know him. Everything after this statement is so that I may know Christ. It's all about that.

Now listen, I find this interesting and I found one commentator and I wanted to read this to you, I thought this was good. The apostle Paul was as ambitious of being sanctified as he was of being justified. Sanctified is spiritual growth. Paul was as passionate about growing as he was getting saved.

So should we. That's how we get to know Christ better. Listen to this, he was as desirous to know the power of Christ's death and resurrection, killing sin in him and raising him up to newness of life as he was to receive the benefit of Christ's death and resurrection in his justification. In other words this, knowing that salvation would take me to heaven, he wanted to know Christ how it would take him to different levels spiritually while he was here on earth. He was as passionate about that. You know what the average Christian we do now, we get saved then we're done. Alright I'm justified. And that's our passion.

Done. And dear friend I'm here to tell you, in 2016 wouldn't it be great if each one of us in this room said, I want to know Christ better this year. I mean I don't want to, and I hope that I am, it's not about the church or my friends, I want to know Christ better. You know what if your life is focused on knowing Christ you're not going to be offended every time somebody says something. Well that's not helping me to get to know Christ anyway. You know because so and so thought you were whatever in the foyer or so and so said I don't like the way you said, that's not really helping you to get to know Christ. Just leave it over there because my focus this year is I want to get to know Christ.

What is it that helps me get to know him? It's by knowing what I believe, by applying that to my life and trying to live righteous like Christ did and trying to figure out how I can apply that to my life. Now notice this number three, to experience and understand, feel and know the power of his resurrection. The average Christian has never understood, felt or experienced this power. In fact the average Christian won't even experience this until he comes back for them. Because when you're resurrected you'll understand the power of his resurrection.

The problem is you and I don't have to wait until then to experience this. Do you understand that the power that it took for Christ to raise from the dead, that is what changed everything about what we believe. He was born, he lived a sinless life, he died on the cross, he was buried in a tomb. All that would not have changed anything if he had not risen from the dead. But because he exercised such unbelievable power, resurrection power. That power that it took for him to defeat death is available to us now.

Isn't that amazing? I don't know about you but I've already started because I was studying this and I said I've got to focus on one thing this year. I want to know Christ better and I want to do the things that it takes and I'm going to fail and I'm going to fall short in different areas. But I'm going to tell you something, I'm determined that I'm just going to know Christ better and that personal walk with him this year. And I'm going to tell you something, I want to feel that power this year. I want to see it.

I want to experience it. I want to experience it and feel it right here in this church. Imagine if everybody in this building just decided this year I want to do what it takes to figure out, to get to know Christ so that I can be so clean and so pure and so righteous that the power, the resurrection power of God shows up in church. Let me tell you something, if just a fraction of resurrection power showed up in this church I couldn't even get up here and preach. Do you want that?

Let me tell you something, you start getting some unsaved family you want that. You'd want them to walk through these doors and feel that power. Let me tell you something, we're trying to do everything we can do to add to this ministry. Let me tell you something, there's nothing that replaces the power of God. If you've got everything and you don't have that, you've got nothing.

Excuse the English. The power of his resurrection. That's how we get to know Christ better. Let me tell you something, when you've experienced that power and I believe I've experienced it, I believe I've seen it, I've been in situations and some of them in church, some of them out of church and I can just see the precious powerful hand of God move in a situation. I have felt it I believe in a waiting room. I have felt it I believe outside of a surgical room. I have felt it in church.

I've seen God do things and you feel it and you don't even want to talk about it because you know how real and powerful it is. And when you want that, it changes everything. You're not satisfied with the average after that. You're not satisfied walking into church complaining because it's too hot. Complaining because it's too cold. Complaining because the piano is too loud. Complaining because the organ doesn't even get played.

Complaining because the keyboard added this. out of this, complaining because, well, the choir did this, complaining, well, my Sunday school teacher did this, complaining, well, I can't find a seat, I can't get this, I can't get that. Let me tell you something, when you want the power of God, none of that matters. We're complainers because we don't want the power of God.

When that's what you want, nothing else matters. That's all I want, I want to see God's power today. Number four, more I'd like to say to that, my time's quickly going, look at verse 10. That I may know him, second, that I may know the power of his resurrection, notice this next thing he says, and the fellowship of his sufferings. So you really want to know Christ, be careful. I must say, I think I vainly at times, just because it sounds good, and maybe in your heart you mean it, have said at times, man, I just want to get to know Christ better, I just want to. You will never know Christ on certain levels until you suffer. If you think about it, to get to know Christ who suffered more than any individual has ever suffered, there's no way you could get to know him without experiencing some of that. Unfortunately, what we have is a lot of times, and I'm guilty just like you, we have Christians like us that say, you know what, I want to know Christ, and the first little man we stub our toe, and we're, why did God allow that to happen?

First thing that happens in our life. Well, why does God put us through that? But can I tell you something, friend, you know what you and I need to do? Look at me, and I mean this with all my heart, you can tell I'm feisty today.

I got extra sleep, we didn't have Sunday school, I had Christmas Day off, and the day after that off, I'm feisty, I'm warning you, and I'm not preaching tonight, so you can come back, okay? Can I tell you something we all need to do? We need to give God a break. Can I tell you something we all need to do? Quit blaming him for everything.

Am I right? Let's just give him a little bit of a break in 2016. Let's just quit being on edge, and everything that happens is God's fault. God did this, why did God do that? Why does God put us through that? Hey, maybe it's our fault. Maybe it's Satan. Why don't we try to blame him a little bit?

Every once in a while. Let's take the Prince of Darkness and blame him some. The fellowship of his sufferings.

Look at me, dear friend. I've suffered, you've suffered, all God's children have suffered. But in 2016, you've gotta understand that if I suffer, I've got to look at it through the eyes of this is a way for me to know Christ better. Now, we will always see people that go through suffering, some handle it great, some don't.

What's the difference? Those normally that really handle it well, they end up becoming better instead of bitter, you've heard us say. Why is that? Because they looked at it as a way to get to know Christ. They looked at it as a way to glorify Christ, somehow, some way. But when you look at your sufferings automatically as something that's against you, this isn't fair, this isn't right.

Listen to me, dear friend. You're not gonna get to know Christ better through that. But when you look at it that God's sovereign, God's will is perfect, and I wanna get to know Christ through this, you would be shocked. And by the way, of all the things listed here that you can do to get to know Christ better, I do not know of anything that helps you to get to know Christ better, more and faster than suffering. It is the missing piece that helps you get to know Christ better than anything here that I know, is suffering. Because when you suffer, you need him. The fellowship of his sufferings. Notice the next thing in verse 10, he says that I may know him first, I may know the power of his resurrection, that I may know the fellowship of his sufferings. This is all part of getting to know Christ. Notice this last thing.

And this is interesting. Being made conformable unto his death. Conforming to his death. Now, this is a very confusing phrase, that just sounds like one of those general spiritual phrases that nobody understands. So preacher, you're saying for me to get to know Christ, that I have to conform to his death.

Yes, absolutely. Say preacher, what does that mean? Listen to me, I want you to get this. We are made conformable to his death when you and I die to sin.

Now listen to me. Christ died for sin, you and I are now to die to sin. Christ died for our sin to free us from sin.

We were enslaved to sin. And so now for me to be conformable to his death means I've got to do the same thing that his death did. His death died for my sin, so that now as a Christian, I've gotta make the choice to die to sin. Let me put it this way. He died for the world, you and I have to die to the world. Let me put it this way. He was victorious over sin, so that you and I should be victorious over the flesh.

Look at me. For me to be conformable to his death, what did his death do? His death conquered sin. So for me to be conformable to his death, I've gotta conquer sin. He conquered sin for the whole world, I've gotta conquer sin for my life.

That's how I am made conformable to his death. And dear friend, what are you saying? What are you saying, preacher?

Well how does this, what does this have to do with getting to know Christ? Oh dear friend, look at me. Every time temptation comes and knocks on your door, and you say no, Satan. You flee. I reject you. I'm not gonna do it. I'm gonna keep my life right. You get to know Christ better.

Look at me. Every time you crucify sin in your life, you get to know Christ better. Every time sin has victory over you, you get to know him less. Every time sin enters, we move further away from Christ.

And that's why he says you draw nigh to me, I'll draw nigh to you. Every time that we say no to sin, we take a step towards Christ, he takes a step towards us. Every time we get victory over the flesh, we take a step closer, he takes a step closer to us. But dear friend, half the time, Christians aren't even fighting that battle. They come to church on Sundays, and thank God you do.

And we live like the devil the rest of the week. And dear friend, I'm here to tell you, you're not gonna get to know Christ that way. To get to know Christ, you've gotta be conformable to his death. That means you've got to put sin to death as he did.

Last but not least, and I saved this one for last, number seven, there must be the release of material attachment. Notice if you would, verse seven. Paul says, but what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge, he says, all these things, I count them but loss, so that I can get to know Christ in an excellent way.

Notice this, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, why? That I may win Christ. Look at me, I want you to get this.

I've gotta learn this, you've gotta learn this. All of us struggle with this. You and I will never get to know Christ the way we could as long as material things have attached themself to us. Does not mean it's wrong to have things, as you've heard me say a hundred times, it just means it's wrong for things to have you. Paul was so desperate to get to know Christ better that he was willing to let go of everything if that's what it took to get to know Christ.

May I ask you this, and this is an unfair question because it immediately acts, it looks as if I'm looking at you and saying, well let me tell you what you wanna do, let me tell you something, I could not answer this question either in the right way. So I'm just asking all of us a question. If God just came and said, you know what, if you really wanna know Christ, you just need to let go of everything you have and you have nothing and you'll get to know me, would you be willing to do that? Paul said, I am literally willing to let everything go that I may win Christ. And dear friend, I wonder sometimes if you and I, part of the inward struggle is we want so much of what this world has to offer, and then we want so much of what Christ has to offer. And if you and I want to get to know Christ, he has to be more important to us than anything in our life. You agree with that?

Do you also agree that's a very difficult thing to do? Your pastor does too. Thank you for listening today. We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The Kirtland Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina. You may also contact us by phone at 336-993-5192 or via the web at kirtlandbaptistchurch.com. Enjoy our services live and all our media on our website and church app. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin broadcast today. God bless you. God bless you, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you.