If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn to Philippians chapter 2. It is also there in your worship guide. Sorry, Philippians 3. I should know what I'm preaching on on a day like today. Philippians 3.
Joel Brooks:If you remember a few weeks back as we were going through Philippians, I mentioned that we would finish looking at this text, come Easter. So here we are. We're not going to revisit everything that we've already talked about, but I do want us to look at this one phrase we had to pass over in which Paul talks about knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection. Philippians 3 beginning in verse 7, But whatever gain I had I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.
Joel Brooks:For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ. The righteousness from God that depends on faith. That I may know him in the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings becoming like him in his death that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. This is the word of the Lord. Amen.
Joel Brooks:Pray with me. Father, we ask now that through your spirit you would honor the very reading of your word. Open up our hearts and minds to receive it. Thank you for the word that we heard from Caleb, and I pray that even now that word would begin to bear fruit in us. Thank you that you are a God who will call us by name, that nothing not even death can pull us out of your hand.
Joel Brooks:And father in this moment, I ask that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus, amen. In Luke chapter 10, we have the familiar story of Mary and Martha. If you remember the story Martha was hosting a dinner at her house for Jesus and for all of his disciples.
Joel Brooks:I really have no idea how large her house was or how large her kitchen was, but preparing a dinner for such a large group of people had to be taxing. It would have been a challenge. Anyone who has ever hosted one of our home groups, knows the pressure that she was feeling both the blessing of having so many people over, but also the work that's involved in it. So after welcoming in Jesus, Martha, she got right to work. She worked in the kitchen, but her sister Mary just sat down at the feet of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And Luke who's writing the story, he makes it a point to say that she was sitting down listening while Martha, her sister was up and working. Actually, we read that Martha was distracted with much serving. Once again, who here, who has ever hosted a dinner cannot relate to what Martha is going through. I mean after all someone has to clean the house, someone has to put out the appetizers, someone has to make the dinner, someone has to constantly go around filling up everybody's glass with sweet tea. You're constantly going back and forth to the kitchen.
Joel Brooks:And this was happening all while her sister Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus. And with every passing moment, with every new glass that needed to be filled, every dish that needed to be clean, Martha begins getting angry. And this anger grows and grows in her. How can her sister leave her alone to do all of that work? Finally, she barges into the room where Jesus is and she says, Lord don't you care?
Joel Brooks:Don't you care that my sisters left me to serve all alone? Tell her to help me. There's actually a whole lot of irony there, I mean Martha is supposedly serving Jesus yet she's bossing him around now. And here we see that she really isn't serving Jesus. She's been serving herself.
Joel Brooks:She's been making making much of herself and Jesus responds by saying, Martha, Martha. You can always just hear that Martha, Martha. You're anxious and you're troubled about so many things, but only one thing is necessary, and Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken away from her. Alright, now I want you to fast forward to another dinner party. This one happens just a little later in time.
Joel Brooks:This time, the Apostle John records it in his gospel in chapter 12. Once again, it's at Martha's house. Once again Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus while her sister Martha is busy cooking and serving. For Jesus and once again for all of his disciples. But this time there is no anxiety.
Joel Brooks:There's no bitterness between her and her sister. There's no banging of the pots and the pans as a way of virtue signaling to everyone how hard she is working. You won't read that Martha was distracted with much serving, just that she's serving. And this time this, the atmosphere in the home is completely different. It seems to be one of immense joy, one of worship, And so you've got the exact same situation.
Joel Brooks:You have the same work, but nothing is the same. What was the difference? What brought about this change in this household? There was only one difference and it was that resurrection power had entered the room. Mary and Martha's brother Lazarus was in the room this time.
Joel Brooks:The same Lazarus whose lifeless body had just days earlier been wrapped up in a tomb until till Jesus had moved it away and commanded him to come forth. And now Lazarus was very much alive. He's sitting at the table with Jesus. He's eating, you know, Martha's famous green bean casserole. He's laughing.
Joel Brooks:He's breathing. And so instead of the stench of death, the room is now filled with the smell of perfume as Mary anoints Jesus' feet. Instead of weeping there is laughter. Martha is no longer distracted by her serving, she's joyfully worshiping Jesus through her cooking and through her cleaning, all because resurrection power has broken through into their lives. Now they had known Jesus before, they were actually friends.
Joel Brooks:They had heard Jesus teach, they had even seen some of His miracles, but they had yet to experience his resurrecting power. Once resurrecting power invaded their lives, they became new people, they were they were lighter, they were more joyful, they were energized in their service. And the words that we just read from Paul, he says that the goal of his entire life is that he might know Jesus and the power of His resurrection. You see Paul doesn't want to go on living some mundane Christian life. He wants to live a life that's been energized by the unimaginable power of Christ's own resurrection.
Joel Brooks:He doesn't wanna spend his days serving God through a grumbling or through a distracted heart. He wants to be energized. Joy filled. Filled with power. And when Paul talks about resurrection power here, he's actually talking about something far greater than the resurrecting power that affected Lazarus.
Joel Brooks:Something far greater than the resurrection power that invaded the room of Mary and Martha. As powerful as the resurrection of Lazarus had been, had it essentially been nothing more than Jesus putting a band aid on an age old problem. Yes. Lazarus had been raised from the dead, but you know what? Lazarus would die again.
Joel Brooks:His resurrection was nothing more than a temporary reprieve from the bondage of sin and death. Think of it this way, yes, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, but Lazarus still had the cancer of sin ravaging his body. Yes, he had been raised from the dead but he had not been healed of the deadly condition of his soul. This deadly disease of sin still had a hold on him and as a result he would die again. In order for Lazarus to be truly healed, that cancer of sin that was ravaging his body, that would have to be dealt with.
Joel Brooks:The very powers of sin and death itself would have to be defeated. And Jesus became acutely aware of this as he approached the tomb of Lazarus that day. It's actually in this story just before Jesus commanded Lazarus to come forth from that tomb, that we read the shortest verse in all of the Bible. Jesus wept. All of you at least have that verse memorized.
Joel Brooks:Jesus wept, but he did not weep because Lazarus was dead. No. He knew he was just about to command Lazarus to come forth. And just a few seconds he was going to do that. That's not why he was weeping.
Joel Brooks:He was weeping because everywhere he looked around at that moment all He could see were the effects of a broken and fallen world. Devastation was everywhere. People were overwhelmed with sorrow. Mary and Martha were filled with doubt and accusatory questions to God. The grip of sin and death over mankind was firm and it was unrelenting, and it was as Jesus was looking around and he was taking in all of this that he wept.
Joel Brooks:And it was this scene that galvanized Jesus to go straight to the cross, in order to do something about what he was seeing. We see, we read that Jesus he approached the tomb of Lazarus and as he was approaching that tomb, we read that he was deeply moved. That word deeply moved it actually comes from the Greek word that's used to describe the snorting of horses. It could best be translated as outraged. As Jesus was looking around at all the devastation of sin and death in this broken world, he approaches the tomb of Lazarus and he He's outraged.
Joel Brooks:He's gonna do something about it. And so he commands Lazarus to come forth. And then right after he commanded Lazarus to come forth, he went straight to Jerusalem. This time to enter into a tomb in order to take on sin and death itself. Whatever you think about Jesus dying on the cross, don't think of it as some senseless tragedy that happened to a really good man.
Joel Brooks:It wasn't a tragedy. It was a cosmic battle that was taking place. It was there that Jesus who knew no sin, he took on our sin. It was there that Jesus decided to go to death, since death would never come to Him. And He went to death all in order to defeat it.
Joel Brooks:And he did. 3 days later rising victoriously over his enemy. We celebrate that today. We celebrate that every day as a believer. 2000 years ago, the cold lifeless body of Jesus lay on a slab of stone.
Joel Brooks:His heart was still, his blood congealed in his veins, his body wrapped tight with spices and grave cloths, and then those vacant eyes blinked open, and breath entered into what became a transformed body. And Jesus arose with power unimaginable. That is the power of the resurrection. That is the power that Paul is talking about. That is the power that he wants to know.
Joel Brooks:That's the power that can defeat sin and death for good and for all. It's the power that leads to eternal life. It's the power that can turn a heart of stone into a heart of flesh. It's the power that will someday transform Paul's lowly body into a spiritual body like Christ. A body that unlike Lazarus', will never die again.
Joel Brooks:This is what Paul wants to know, That I might know him and the power of his resurrection. Now of course, Paul already knew Jesus. He already knew him. I mean he had first met the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus 30 years earlier, and it forever changed his life. It was at that moment that the resurrecting power of Jesus first entered into his life, first making him into a new man.
Joel Brooks:Before that encounter Paul was dead, after that encounter he was very much alive. And this is what we mean as Christians when we say we are born again. This is what happened to Paul. This is what happened to Caleb as he was sharing his testimony. This is what happens to everyone who has had an encounter with the risen Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Paul writes about it this way in Ephesians 2. He says that we were dead. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. The God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. Every conversion is a resurrection and it provides us with the foretaste of the greater resurrection to come.
Joel Brooks:So so Paul's already experienced this to some degree. He already knew Jesus, he had already experienced some of the power of the resurrection. So why is he saying now that the goal of his life, his ambition is that he might know Jesus and know the power of his resurrection. Doesn't he already know these things? Yes, But they can never be exhausted.
Joel Brooks:His life is to be spent experiencing these things every day. The more you know of Jesus, the more you want to know. The more you experience resurrection power, the more you want to experience it. And good news for us as believers, there is an endless supply at our disposal. You see there's a danger for us as Christians though.
Joel Brooks:We we can meet Jesus. We meet him for the first time and we're born again, and then you've seen the danger. We begin to settle down. We begin to enter into a life of service that more resembles Martha than what Paul is talking about. We look like Martha, we're distracted with our serving.
Joel Brooks:Serving Jesus becomes so hard and wearisome. It's not joyful, but it was not meant to be this way. Do you remember the first time you met Jesus? Do you remember? I I do.
Joel Brooks:I I was 9 years old, but I can still remember it vividly. I grew up in a Christian home, I must have heard the gospel a 100 times, but as you know there's a difference between hearing the gospel and hearing the gospel. I was exposed to the gospel a 100 times but apparently I had not really heard it. But finally one time it was shared and it gripped me. For the first time in my life, I became intensely aware of my sins.
Joel Brooks:I could feel this ugliness in my heart, and I heard Jesus calling me out of that. Now, I was 9 years old, so I didn't understand everything, I still don't. But I certainly at the time didn't understand everything about the gospel, I didn't understand everything about Jesus' atoning work at the cross, everything Jesus' resurrection has accomplished, I didn't understand that, but I understood enough. And the Spirit of God came inside me and gave me life. I was born again.
Joel Brooks:Now, because I had grown up in church, I had already believed that Jesus was the son of God. I had already believed that he died on a cross and he rose from the grave. I believed the information, but those things did not make me born again. Believing those things didn't change my heart. James he says that even the demons believe those things.
Joel Brooks:Conversion happens when through the spirit of God, you suddenly become aware that Jesus did those things for you. I became aware that Jesus did those things for me. And that's when I moved from death to life. Jesus didn't just die for sins, he died for my sins. Jesus didn't just rise from the dead to bring new life.
Joel Brooks:He rose from the dead to give me life. It became personal. Remember we actually looked at this a few weeks back when we were going through Philippians and we came to verse 8 in chapter 3, when Paul says, he counts all things as loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. And that title he gives, Christ Jesus my Lord, it is the first and only time Paul ever uses that title. Every other time he says, Christ Jesus the Lord.
Joel Brooks:But as he's sharing his testimony says, Christ Jesus, my Lord. He's my Lord. And moving from Christ Jesus being the Lord to Christ Jesus being my Lord makes all the difference in the world. It's moving from death to life. It's when you're born again.
Joel Brooks:Paul here is talking about a personal relationship with Jesus. When I was 9, I came to know Jesus as my Lord who died for my sins and rose that I might have life. And after I gave my life to Christ, I felt like I was floating on air. I mean I'd never experienced such happiness. Christmas morning had nothing on that day.
Joel Brooks:Could not compare to the joy that had flooded my heart in that moment as I was experiencing the power of resurrection. And what Paul is telling us here is that that moment is the beginning of the journey, not the end. Your conversion was to be the beginning not the end of resurrection power. You will never find in Paul a hint of him trying to just get back to the joy he once had when he first came to know Christ. No, this entire passage is about Paul saying, I want to forget what lies behind.
Joel Brooks:I wanna reach forward to what lies ahead and I wanna press on to know him because there is always more to know of Jesus. There is always more resurrection power to receive, which is why this entire letter was not filled with drudgery of service, but with joy that comes from the life Jesus gives. This is the life that is available to us all. Do you know Jesus? Have you experienced the power of his resurrection?
Joel Brooks:If not, this is available to you today. It's available in this moment. Right now, our risen savior Jesus is calling. And if you have already come to know Jesus and experience the power, know that this is the beginning. It is not the end of the joy to come.
Joel Brooks:So keep pressing on. Pray with me. Lord Jesus, we believe with all our hearts that a day is coming in which we will hear you call our name like Lazarus heard his name called. But this time we will not be called to rise from the grave and be given a body that will once again perish, we will be given a body imperishable like yours, Jesus. For you have defeated sin and death forever.
Joel Brooks:And you have made that resurrection power available to us now. It breaks into our life now giving us new hearts, new joy, new life. We thank you. And Lord, for those here who only know you as the Lord, but not as their Lord, I pray they would hear you calling them in this moment. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus, our savior.
Joel Brooks:Amen.