Philippians 3:7-9 III; In Jesus

“But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, 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 is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.”

There is so much in this passage that I can’t leave it just yet!  Today I want to talk about the phrase, “that I may gain Christ and be found in him”.  The phrase “to gain Christ” is in contrast to “consider everything a loss” – a well-worded phrase.  Christ is not “gained” by giving everything away – He is gained through grace by faith alone.  But once we have Christ we discover that Christ IS gain and everything else is loss. 

“To be found in him,” or “in Christ” has become church-speak at its finest.  We kind of know what it means, but not really.  Being “in Christ” implies a complete reliance and dependency on Him.  Think of Wren before she was born, Wren was literally “in Lynda” and completely dependent upon Lynda for sustenance, protection, housing and everything else. 

Do you realize that you are dependent on Jesus for absolutely everything?  In the physical realm: the next breath you take, your next heartbeat, your next thought, the earth’s next rotation, that photosynthesis is occurring – all of that is dependent upon Jesus.  In the spiritual realm: grace, mercy, forgiveness, sanctification, justification, glorification, righteousness, prayers on our behalf, advocating for us before the Father – everything!

We are righteous in the eyes of the Father not because we worked really hard and were super disciplined, but because Christ gave us His righteousness.  This is called imputed righteousness, we don’t earn it or grow into it; it is His righteousness that becomes ours at salvation.  We wear His righteousness like a cloak that completely covers us – we are in Him.

One last picture, when God flooded the earth, the only people to survive were the people who were in the ark.  Only those IN the ark survived God’s judgment.  Which is a perfect illustration of Christ; only those IN Christ will survive God’s judgment.  “In the ark” really helps me picture “in Christ”. You are either floating along, safe in the ark or not; just as you are either in Christ or not.

How about you?  Is Jesus your only hope for…everything?  Or as we talked last week, are you still trying to earn your forgiveness, to pay your own way, or to put God in your debt?  Are your decisions today placing you more firmly in Christ, or are they drawing you out of Christ?  Good questions to ponder…

“Christ is not valued at all unless He is valued above all.” – Augustine