Found In
Him
Philippians 3:9: 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.
In our last study, we heard Paul saying that he
had given up his past ambitious life in order to “Gain Christ.” To him, nothing
was of more importance than to be in possession of the Spirit and will of
Christ in his life. In this verse, we hear him speaking from the depths of his
soul of his desire is to be “In Christ.” Also, our study will point out his
strong obsession to Know Christ.
IN CHRIST....
Just what does it mean to be “IN” Christ?
“But in this section of his Epistle to the
Philippians he tells us how he is affected ‘towards’ Christ. The two things go
together like the sides of a coin. Both elements are present in the experience
of Christian people. And there exists a direct correspondence between the one
and the other. According as a man is affected ‘by’ Christ, so will he be
affected ‘towards’ Christ. ‘To whom little is
forgiven, the same loveth little.' That principle,
which our Lord enunciated at the table of Simon the pharisee,
has a wider application in reference to Himself. The
deeper and more varied our needs, and the richer and
more appreciated the satisfactions which we receive from Him, the greater will
be our gratitude to Him, and the harder will our souls follow after Him.”
May I say that to fulfill this condition is
dangerous! To be in Christ is to be in His will ‑ not our own. To be in
Christ is to be motivated by His love ‑ not our own selfish desires. To
be in Christ is to walk as He would have us walk ‑ not the places we wish
to walk according to the flesh.
When a person becomes one with Christ, and the life becomes His life to control and direct
wherever He wishes it to go, then a spiritual depth is experienced which can
never be known any other way.
Those who are satisfied with a Sunday morning
religion will never be found in Christ, and they who are satisfied with a
church membership religion will never be found in Christ.
Those who are satisfied with a mere religious
experience will never be found in Christ. To be found in Christ transcends the
societal idea of religion; they are likely on occasion to be labeled fanatics.
They will be called such because they are the ones who do not permit self to
hinder their obedience to the will of God. They place the highest priority on
their walk with Christ. Self, friends, occupation, society in general, must all
take a back seat to that person who will be found in Christ.
OUR
IDENTITIES OPPOSED
When one becomes in Christ he can expect to meet
with opposition from the world. Christ Himself was opposed by the world, and if
they hated Him, can we expect any less treatment for those of us who become
identified with Him! Paul, as well as the other Apostles, faced bitter
opposition to their message and lifestyles. While we may live in a period of
time and in a society which is more lenient toward differing religious beliefs,
we, as Jesus Name Apostolics, stand out uniquely
different from all the rest of the religious world.
Consequently, if there ever comes any opposition
due to religious conviction, it will likely be directed against one of our own.
Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:12: Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus
shall suffer persecution. We can imitate the majority of the Jews that must
have gathered in the plains of Dura and bowed to the
demands of the king, or we can emulate the three Hebrews and refuse to
surrender our convictions to save our lives.
To be in Christ will bring opposition, yet, at
the same time, it will bring glorious benefits and blessings from the One with
which we have become identified.
REDEMPTION
There is Redemption to those who are in Christ;
Romans 3:24: Being justified freely by his
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. To be redeemed, is to be liberated from servitude to sin and
Satan. We are no longer slaves. We now belong to Jesus Christ.
Redemption under the Law required that the one
doing the redeeming meet certain requirements;
1. He had to be a near‑kinsman. That is he had to be
closely related to the one he was seeking to redeem from servitude. We find
this law given in Leviticus 25. In this we can see one of the reasons God took
on the form of man when He manifested Himself to His creation through the
person, Jesus Christ. By doing this, He became man's near‑kinsman. He
suffered as a man. He was tempted as a man.
2. He had to be able to pay the price of
redemption.
Again, we see the price which our Lord paid for the redemption of mankind was
sufficient to meet the demand. Peter speaks of the price paid as the precious
blood of Christ, 1 Peter 1:19.
NO CONDEMNATION
To those who are in Christ, there is no
condemnation;
Romans 8:1: {There is} therefore now no
condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. To be in possession of such a wonderful feeling of
assurance is worth more than anything this world could ever offer.
John wrote in 1 John 3:21: Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, {then} have we confidence toward God.
There is nothing in this world, no possession nor position,
that can give one the feeling which being in Christ will give. To be
able to press your pillow at night and go to sleep with the feeling of
assurance that all is well with your soul; that if the Lord were to come for
you, either by death or the rapture, that all would be well with your soul, is
a feeling which only those who are in Christ can experience.
SECURITY
Paul, in his Epistle to the saints at
Paul enumerates seven things which may confront
us, being brought against us by this world and it's
system of evil and wickedness: tribulation, distress, persecution, famine,
nakedness, peril, sword. Then he lists ten things which may come against us
and over which we have no control. These do not come from this world's system:
death, life, angels, principalities, powers, things present, things to come,
height, depth, any creature. There is a security to those who are in Christ
which will keep them. The important thing here is to stay in Christ!
SANCTIFICATION
It is in Christ that we find sanctification.
Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:2: Unto the church of God which is at Corinth,
to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called {to be} saints, with all
that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs
and ours.
Sanctification comes about by being filled with
the Holy Ghost: That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the
Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles
might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost, (Romans
Only those in Christ may boast of being
sanctified.
A NEW
CREATION
By being filled with the Holy Ghost and being
baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, we take on a new nature. The old man is
crucified. A new man rises to walk in his stead. The natural man dies, the
spiritual man rises. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:17: Therefore if any man
{be} in Christ, {he is} a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. We don't think like
we used to, and we don't live like we used to. Our entire lifestyle was changed
when we experienced being placed in Christ.
MY
RIGHTEOUSNESS ‑ HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS
Paul goes on to say in our text verse: 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.
The prophet spoke of our self righteousness as
being filthy rags: But we are all as an unclean {thing}, and all our righteousnesses {are} as filthy rags; and we all do fade as
a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away, Isaiah 64:6.
No animal sacrifice can bring about this right‑with‑God
condition. No mere act on our part will bring about this transformation either.
It is not by our actions that we may stand righteous before God. It is by His
actions that this transformation takes place. We yield the vessel, He does the
work.
The words of Paul in Romans three speak of this
wonderful experience of righteousness which is given to the child of God: Whom
God hath set forth {to be} a propitiation through faith in his blood, to
declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the
forbearance of God; To declare, {I say}, at this time his righteousness: that
he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus, 3:25,26.
We are secure in His righteousness ‑ not
our righteousness. And to possess His righteousness is to be right with Him. To
be right with Him is to have obeyed His Word concerning salvation.
Spurgeon wrote concerning our salvation in
Christ: “A man had been condemned in a Spanish court to be shot, but being an
American citizen, and also of English birth, the consuls of the two countries
interposed, and declared that the Spanish authorities had no power to put him
to death. What did they do to secure his life when their protest was not sufficient?
They wrapped him up in their flags, they covered him
with the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack, and defied the executioners.
‘Now fire is you dare, for if you do, you defy the nations represented by those
flags, and you will bring the powers of those two great empires upon you.’
There stood the man, and before him the soldiery, and though a single shot
might have ended his life, yet he was as invulnerable as though encased in
triple steel.
Even so Jesus Christ has taken my poor guilty
soul ever since I believed in Him, and has wrapped around me the blood‑red
flag of His atoning sacrifice; and before God can destroy me or any other soul
that is wrapped in the atonement, He must insult His Son and dishonour His sacrifice, and that He will never do, blessed
be His name.”
My Hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus'
blood and righteousness.