That They May Know Him Phil. 3:10 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

Our text in Phil 3:10 says, That I may know him.  The key to this life is knowing Jesus Christ.  Jn 17:3 says, “this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ.”  And this knowledge of Jesus Christ is something that grows as you grow in Christ [2 Pet 3:18].  In Phil 3:8 Paul writes about “the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.”

The trouble with the Pharisees is that they didn’t know him [Jn 8:19].  Even Thomas, after over 3 years with Jesus, didn’t know him [Jn 14:5-7]; neither did Philip [Jn 14:8-9, compare Jn 1:43-46].   It’s one thing to know about him and another thing to know him.

So, we are going to examine the lives of some folks who knew him and see what we can learn about him from them.

Paul knew him – Phil 3:7-11 – when you know Jesus you know that all of your ambitions, aspirations and accomplishments are nothing in comparison to the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus – yet men and women will spend a lifetime building confidence in the flesh [Phil 3:4] and miss the knowledge of Jesus entirely.

Mary knew him – Lk 10:38-42 – when you know Jesus you know that he wants you to sit at his feet and hear his word more than he wants you fussing over serving – when we have fellowships there is more fuss over the serving than there is over the Savior.  If you really knew him you would know that hearing his word is more important that serving food.

John knew him – 1 Jn 1:3-4; 3:14; Jn 13:34-35 – John said that when you know Jesus you know that he wants you to love the brethren – love of the brethren is an integral part of our love of the Lord and fellowship with him – when we love the brethren we don’t forsake the assembling of ourselves together [Heb 10:25] – when we love the brethren we don’t have strife among ourselves.

Enoch knew him – Heb 11:5-6; Gen 5:24; Jude 14-15 – when you know Jesus you know his attitude about everything in this world – Enoch walked with God and “saw” the second coming of Jesus Christ – he knew the Lord’s attitude toward this ungodly world – Christians have a hard time discerning the line of separation from the world – if they knew Jesus they wouldn’t have a hard time with this line at all.

A Woman knew him – Lk 7:36-50 – when you know Jesus you know that all of your sins are forgiven – this should prompt you to love him – instead many forgiven sinners magnify the ugliness of their sins and diminish the love of their Saviour – if you really knew him you would be consumed with worshipping him and loving him rather than regretting your past.

Conclusion: the solution to a lot of our trouble in life is knowing Jesus – instead we assume that because we are saved we already know all that we need to know of him and we end up spending our time on everything besides really getting to know him.