Christ Is Worth More: Pursue Him Above All

Right? Forgetting lesser things to gain Christ. Pressing forward because Christ has taken hold of us and standing firm because we know that he's coming back. We know that he's coming to make all things new. Graduates, the world is about to hand you a thousand different places to place your hope. Right? It's gonna say, hey, place your hope in your career, in your degree, in your income, in your reputation, in your freedom, in your political beliefs, in your future plans. Right? But and it's not just for you guys. This is for all of us. Our citizenship is in heaven. Our hope is not in earthly things. Our hope is in the savior that comes from heaven, and he's coming to make all things new. [00:51:03] (63 seconds)  #CitizensOfHeaven

So Paul's he's talking about his resume. Paul, he doesn't wanna stand before God with his own resume in his hands. That's not where he wants to be found. He wants to be found in Christ because he knows if if I have a righteousness of my own from the law, it's not gonna be enough. He needs a righteousness that is outside of himself. He needs a righteousness that is through faith in Christ, that comes from God, and that is based on faith. [00:31:03] (33 seconds)  #RighteousnessByFaith

Because when we see what he gave up to take hold of us we can't sit still. Paul is not pursuing Jesus out of insecurity or out of trying to earn that favor. He's pursuing Jesus because he's in awe of what he's been shown. He's in awe of that grace. Jesus stopped Paul when he was running full speed in the wrong direction and he took hold of him and he completely turned his life around. That is what grace does for each of us. [00:41:47] (40 seconds)  #GraceThatTransforms

Everything that used to define him gets reevaluated in light of Jesus. Right? None of the things that he used to place his confidence in can provide what Jesus has provided. They cannot make him righteous. They cannot save him. They cannot give him resurrection life. Only Jesus can. And so if Christ is worth more, right, if we believe that that is true, then that old pattern of thinking can be done away with. [00:34:27] (34 seconds)  #ReevaluatedByChrist

He says everything else is like garbage. Verse 80 says, because of him I've suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung so that I may gain Christ. Now that's that's not a really polite word that he uses there. Right? He's saying if anything is competing with Christ as my ultimate source of confidence, I have to throw it out. I have to I have to get it away from me. It stinks. It smells bad. [00:29:55] (27 seconds)  #ChristOverEverything

Alright? Nothing else compares. I I just want to know him. He wants to know the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings, and to be conformed to his death. Alright? And that sounds backwards at first. We we would expect Paul to say first suffering and then death and then resurrection. Right? He puts resurrection power first to make a point here. Right? And it is that Christ and his resurrection power enable us to endure suffering and to die to self. [00:32:13] (35 seconds)  #ResurrectionPowerFirst

He wants them to finish in this manner, right the manner of those who lay aside all things for the sake of Christ. Those who pursue him from a place of gratitude for what Jesus has already done for them and those who recognize that our citizenship is in heaven, that this world is not our home. And so our last point Christ is our hope. There's there's two different opposing ways that to live that he lays out in his passage. He says you can live with your mind set on earthly things. You can live for your appetite and for your comfort and your status and your success, or you can live as a citizen of heaven. [00:50:15] (48 seconds)  #LiveAsHeavenlyCitizen

Right? This would have made a lot of sense to the church at Philippi because they cared a lot about their citizenship. Philippi was a Roman colony. They knew how important it was to be a Roman citizen, what that meant. And so Paul's saying, hey, your truest allegiance is not to Caesar. Caesar is not king, Jesus is king. Right? We wait for our savior from heaven. And when our savior comes it says he will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject everything to himself. [00:48:39] (38 seconds)  #JesusNotCaesar