Hunger

Our relationship with God will not be growing if our relationship with His Word is casual, if our obedience to Him is partial, if our communion with Him is seasonal or occasional. Paul is passionately informing us that what he really hungers for, if you boil it down, is a relationship with Christ that is marked not by the partial or the occasional or the casual but the perpetual and the habitual and the continual. God creates spiritual growth in some but stagnation in others. Is it personality, circumstances or effort?

Well, the Bible points to one crucial factor, its appetite. Paul's personal testimony in Philippians 3 reveals his insatiable hunger to know Christ more deeply, live for Him more dynamically and even suffer with Him more dependently. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Today Stephen unpacks how Paul's transformed desires led him to count everything else as loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ. Keep listening to reignite your passion for God.

Whenever Marcia and I can catch a few minutes in the morning out on the deck with a cup of coffee, which is a great way to start the day, in our view it's a great vacation. We recently been listening to a nest of little birds nearby about 20 yards away, a little clutch of newborn wrens and everything over there is quiet until one of the adults arrives with delivery service and then it is absolute pandemonium. Squawking, squealing, mouths wide open, pushing, longing, reaching for another morsel, another morsel. Instinctively knowing by the design and creative work of God that if it does not open its mouth, it does not get fed. Likewise, God is not in the business of forcing open, closed mouths and pushing food down our throats. He feeds us in response to our appetite. Now in his personal testimony, the apostle Paul has testified that he filled his life, his mouth, his heart, if you will, with accolades and accomplishments and zeal and devotion and the law and everything else. And then he comes to the end of that list as we studied and with rather shocking brutal transparency to his world, he writes that it is all to me now rubbish. I have no appetite for that anymore. It's like spoiled food.

It's pride and it belongs in the sewer. Now he reaches in his personal testimony to that Himalayan moment, that climactic mountain peak and that text that you all know that preachers dread to preach because it is so freighted and we feel so unworthy. In verse 10, let's pick it up there, he says this, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Now if I can sort of unpack this portion of Paul's testimony into four separate thoughts, I believe what Paul is saying is that he hungers to know Christ more deeply. And what that means is he wants to live for Christ more dynamically. He wants to suffer for and with Christ more dependently and ultimately he wants to look for the day when he is with Christ and he desires that even greater than ever.

Now let's take a look at the first. He wants to know Christ more deeply. That I may know him.

Would you notice the personal language? He isn't saying I want all of you there in the church in Philippi to know him. You ought to know him and you really ought to work at it so you know, go for it. He isn't saying I want my friends to know him. This isn't someone saying I want my husband to know him or my wife to know him or my family to know him. If only my boss knew him, that would make life so much better. No, I, that I may know him. I want to know him. And you read that and you think as I did, Paul wait, you already do.

You already do. What do you mean? Everybody who comes by faith understanding the gospel into a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ knows him then as Lord and Savior. But see Paul isn't here talking about salvation. He is talking about transformation, growing. He is talking about his appetite and his hunger. See listen, becoming a Christian isn't the end of your Christian appetite. It is the beginning. It doesn't end your hunger.

It ends it. And as for Paul, and as for Paul what he had tasted so far of Christ had only whetted his appetite for more and he writes that I, that I may know him. That verb is instructive to know and Silva's wonderful new dictionary published a few months ago, he writes pages on this.

I read them. I'll boil it down to a few sentences. This verb ganovsko changed my thinking a little. In Paul's day the goal of knowledge he brings out was seeing. It wasn't just seeing what comes and goes, but it's seeing what is lasting, what's real. It's personally seeking to grasp the reality of the object you are studying.

Throughout the Bible this idea is observable so let me remind you of some of those ways that we can better understand this. The idea of knowing is the idea of caring for. It's having regard for. It is having personal contact with what is real.

It isn't something at a distance, it's close. Illustrated so well by one of my commentary friends who told of a mother running into a bedroom after hearing her son, you know, shouting, screaming in pain and his two-year-old sister had gotten a handful of his hair and wouldn't let go and so she came in and pried one finger at a time off and as she was doing it she was telling him, you know, she doesn't mean anything by that. She doesn't know what it feels like and said she's causing you pain and she left. She wasn't even halfway down the hallway and she heard a little girl cry out in pain. She rushes back and asks her son what happened and he said, now she knows. Now she knows.

This is learning not at a time at a distance but up close. This overrules, by the way, as he pointed out in this wonderful treatment of the verb, the idea of an impersonal, uncaring God who really doesn't care about knowing us. That's foreign to Scripture. He's not watching us from a distance.

It might be a song, but it's horrible and it's theology. The idea of an impersonal, unfeeling God is foreign. God is actually portrayed in the Greek translation of the Old Testament as someone who knows – same verb – the one who seeks refuge in Him, nay, in the prophet, chapter 1, verse 7.

The Lord knows the way of those rightly related to Him, Psalm 1.6. God told Jeremiah, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. I knew you. In fact, David will even describe ever more, even more the formation period of an embryo in the womb as deeply personal. You, he writes God, you formed my inward parts. You wove me in my mother's womb. How precious are your thoughts of me? Your thoughts of me. You're thinking about me. David just kind of blew his mind.

That's too wonderful for me, he writes. The unbeliever will be found guilty for not wanting to know him. The believer is commanded to be still and know that he is God. Like one day in the final judgment there will stand before Christ preachers and prophets and miracle workers and healers who are denied entrance into heaven even though they did everything in the name of Jesus, everything under the auspices of God and Jesus Christ will say to them, I never knew you. He certainly knew about them.

He knew everything about them. And they knew some things evidently about Him, but they were never personally related by means of the new birth. In other words, Jesus is saying you don't belong to me. Throughout the Old Testament, the Greek translation of it, this is the verb for sexual intimacy the Bible simply records in its wonderful discretion, simply this, he knew her. This is more than intellect, though it involves that.

This is intimacy. And by the way, it explains in the New Testament where we're told that Christ did not know sin. Second Corinthians 521. Christ certainly knew about sin. He could describe sin. He was tempted by sin. He knew a lot of sinners and he hung around them. But he wasn't intimately related to any personal sin of his own. He never knew.

He was never personally engaged in it. He didn't then in this way know sin. So when Paul writes here that he wants to know Christ, what he's saying is that he wants to know Christ intimately. He wants to have regard for him. He wants to care about him. He wants to commune with him. He wants to follow him. He wants to be led by him as his shepherd of which we have sung. Paul wants to know Christ more intimately or deeply. Secondly, Paul wants to live for Christ more dynamically.

He writes that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. I couldn't help but think of the analogy here. So often I think, I don't know how you are, but I think, you know, something's blocking my path. Something's in the way.

You know, there's a doorway. I want to get through it. I want to do something with it, but I can't. Something's wrong. You know, I'm not getting out of my life what I ought to get.

I'm not progressing like I want to progress, and I think it's hidden. It's a problem with power. There isn't a steady flow. I'm not plugging in. The problem isn't the manufacturer. Never a problem with him.

It isn't the hardware. I have the Spirit of God within me. The problem is some hidden obstruction to the dynamic of God's power being demonstrated in and through my life like it ought to be.

Call it a kink in the choir. It might be laziness, selfishness, disobedience, apathy, callousness. It unplugs me from holy power. Jerry Bridges puts it into convicting terms when he writes, it's time for Christians to face up to our responsibility. Too often we say that we are defeated by this or that sin. No, we are not defeated. We are disobedient.

It might be better if we stopped using the terms victory and defeat to describe our progress. Rather, we should use the terms obedience and disobedience. So resurrection, power, and what Paul is hungering for is living life in light of the fact that the Spirit of God has given him the power to live out his commands and as he desires to do that, there is resurrection power. Paul hungered for more of it, which meant he hungered to obediently demonstrate the power of Christ within him, sort of to face life then with conscious awareness that the stone has been rolled away, has everything in ease for life and godliness. The Spirit of God dwells within him and in light of that, recognize he is not dependent upon the power of Rome.

He is dependent upon the power of the resurrected Christ as a citizen of the kingdom of God. And that realization and awareness daily changes everything. No matter what the evidence, it changes the end goal. It changes our perspective. Sam Gordon of the United Kingdom writes in his commentary of this Frenchman who became an Englishman. It doesn't happen often, but after a long process, he so admired the British Empire and the British way of life, he finally became a citizen, went through the process, got his citizenship and when a friend of his asked, you know, what significant difference does his British citizenship make to him, he kind of laughed. He said, well among other things, I find that now instead of losing the battle of Waterloo, I have won it. Living in the power of the resurrection means that you are living in light of the fact that as a citizen of heaven, no matter what the evidence seems to indicate, you are on the winning side and that is forever. But before you demand that God give you the benefits of the kingdom as preachers do today, just watch them on TV, before you claim the throne through some secret, some mantra, some principle, Paul says, no, no, no, reach for the cross.

You notice what he says. He not only hungers to know Christ deeply and to live for Christ more dynamically, but thirdly, to suffer with Christ more dependently. That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering being made conformable to his death, Christ's likeness leads to a cross. It's interesting that Paul reverses the normal order, going from that which is difficult to that which is wonderful, that which is painful to that which is joyful. He reverses it. We don't know exactly what Paul is thinking of here when he talks about suffering.

I read all the different opinions. He might be referring to his incarceration and the fact that it's more than likely going to lead to martyrdom. He might be referring, one author said, to a life of dying to sin so that he can demonstrate the power of Christ. He might be referring to simply suffering as a whole experienced not only by him but the church in any generation, in any culture to some degree for the gospel.

It could actually be all of the above and more. But I want you to notice that even though Paul has spoken already of suffering in chapter 1 and verse 29, he adds here that this is – I love his language – this is a koinonia, this is a fellowship of suffering. He emphasizes the idea that this is a fellowship, a sharing. It's not the churchy kind of idea when you think of koinonia or fellowship that's around a potluck or a wonderful conversation.

Those things are wonderful and have their place. This is a fellowship, but it is a fellowship of suffering where we're gathering because we have adopted, we have embraced, we are pursuing a life that brings suffering. I mean what church would ever be entitled that? The Church of the Suffering. Hey, I heard that church over there has some good suffering going on.

Let's go join it. Hardly. See, Paul isn't talking about fellowshipping around a castle. He's talking about fellowshipping around a cross. More modern days I think an illustration of this would be Tolkien's classic work The Lord of the Rings. Maybe you've read the books or you've spent a few weeks watching the movies. There are several men in The Lord of the Ring which bind themselves together on destroying the power of this dark kingdom, the dark lord. And they bind themselves together in what they call the fellowship of the ring. The fellowship of the ring has nothing to do with the fact that now they're going to enjoy the great outdoors together, and they do for hours and hours and hours.

Beautiful scenery, isn't it? It means they're going to struggle together. It means they're going to battle together.

It means they have the same objective. See, Paul is hungering for the fellowship of the Redeemer and those like him who are willing to carry a cross. Now the good news is that suffering for Christ is suffering with Christ because you're sharing. Don't miss that. In other words, you're not alone.

There are many who have not bowed their knee to Baal. You're not alone. Furthermore, you're not on your own. You are sharing this, and the order is so significant.

Why? The power of his resurrection precedes the fellowship of his sufferings, which is critical because we will not be able to handle the fellowship of suffering without the power of resurrection. Suffering is not the end goal. Paul isn't saying, I just love to suffer.

Give me more of it. He's hungering to suffer in the sharing of Christ's suffering for the glory of Christ and the advancement of the gospel. And like Christ, who for the joy set before him endured the cross. Being plugged in and dependent upon enables you to press onward, which he'll bring up in a few verses later on. Paul hungered to know Christ more deeply, to live for Christ more dynamically, to suffer with Christ more dependently, one more forth, to look for Christ more desirously. Verse 11, in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

What would that mean? That he would be with Christ forever. Your translation might read that somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Paul isn't expressing uncertainty as to his future in heaven.

He is expressing uncertainty of the route whereby God will take him there somehow. I don't know how. I don't know what's going to come. I don't know what's going to happen. Martyrdom, release, I'll visit you again.

I'd still like to get over to Spain. I don't know. But I do know this. I will be raised from among the dead. This is Paul's abiding hunger to be in the immediate presence of Christ, the one he hungers to love and live for and obey. He had tasted Christ and he wanted more.

Paul never got over that taste. Like the psalmist, you can almost hear him saying, oh, taste and see that the Lord is what is good. Psalm 34, 8. What are you hungry for? How hungry are you? What robs your affection for Christ? What unplugs you from godly desire? What seems then on the other hand to stir up your affections? What seems to increase your hunger?

And then what are you going to do about it? In other words, will you surround yourself with things that will stir up hunger for God or whittle away your time staying away from things that rob your appetite and you never do pull up the table and eat like you should? Our relationship with God will not be growing if our relationship with His Word is casual, if our obedience to Him is partial, if our communion with Him is seasonal or occasional. Paul is passionately informing us that what he really hungers for, if you boil it down, is a relationship with Christ that is marked not by the partial or the occasional or the casual but the perpetual and the habitual and the continual. And so you pray, if you pray, Lord you're going to need to, if you will, please increase hunger. I'm ready.

My mouth's open. As I'm in your Word, give me a hunger for your Word. As I talk with you, give me a longing to talk with you more. Jonathan Edwards, the mid-1700s wrote, this is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. Fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, children, even the company of friends, they are but shadows. God is the substance. Family and friends are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. They are all but streams, but God is the fountain. They are but droplets, but God is the ocean.

We tend to focus on and live for and pursue watery droplets which have their place and scattered beams. Let's remember and long for and hunger after the fountain, the sun, the ocean. Thanks for joining us today here on Wisdom for the Heart. I hope this time in God's Word has been a blessing and an encouragement to you today. This is the Bible teaching ministry of Stephen Davey. You can learn more about us if you visit our website, which is wisdomonline.org, and we'd love to hear from you. Has the teaching ministry of Wisdom International impacted your spiritual life? Do you have a story or testimony of how these daily messages are guiding you in wisdom or deepening your faith or helping you apply God's Word in your everyday life? Your experiences not only encourage our team but also inspire others who are listening.

We truly love hearing how God's at work through this ministry. We're also here if you have a question or a comment or if you'd simply like to know more about any of our resources or teachings. Whatever your need may be, there are several convenient ways to connect with us. You can email us anytime at info at wisdomonline.org. That's info at wisdom online dot org. We invite you to share your story, ask questions, or request information through email. If you prefer speaking with someone directly, please feel free to call us at 866-48-Bible. That's 866-482-4253.

Our team is available in the office weekdays from 8 o'clock a.m. to 4 o'clock p.m. Eastern Time, and we'd be delighted to talk with you, answer your questions, and assist you in any way we can. You can also write to us by regular mail. Send your letters to Wisdom International, P.O.

Box 37297, Raleigh, North Carolina 27627. We really appreciate receiving your notes and testimonies through the mail as well. However you choose to reach out, whether it's to share a story of blessing, ask a question, request prayer, or simply make a comment, your voice matters to us, so please don't hesitate. Connect with us today by email, phone, or mail. We're looking forward to hearing from you soon, and I'm glad you joined us today. Stephen will continue through this section of Philippians next time, so join us then here on Wisdom for the Heart. Thank you.