“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” Philippians 3:8 ESV
Reflection: how can you “gain” Christ?
You have probably noticed that life consists of continuous decisions and trade offs, having to choose one thing over another. If you think of the simple example of how we spend our time, such as this past weekend, we can think back to see what we chose to do, which actually demonstrates our priorities. Perhaps sleep in on Saturday? Doing some housework? Having friends over? Perhaps we had intended to exercise, but instead chose to relax with a movie and a pizza. Interestingly, it is easy to say something is important to us, but our actions demonstrate what we actually believe, what principles we follow. Exercise or pizza, which are quite diabolical.
In our verse today, we read of Paul’s beliefs and principles, based on the choices he has made. “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” Philippians 3:8b ESV. What “all things” is he referring to here? In the previous paragraph, we read of Paul’s pedigree in the law, “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”Philippians 3:5-6 ESV. And even if he could claim this, he considers all his own efforts “rubbish”, trading that off for knowing and gaining Christ. Because he has, as David said, tasted life. “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!” Psalm 34:8 ESV.
Now, why does Paul use the two words 1) know, and then 2) gain Christ? If you know Christ, isn’t that already enough? The word used for “gain” here is very interesting, and is used 17 times in the NT, and has three meanings. To 1) the gain (benefit) of escaping evil, 2) the gain of bringing others into the kingdom, and 3) the gain of Christ favor. To get some additional context of what Paul was talking about, let’s look at a few examples of where this word is used by Jesus.
The first example, perhaps very familiar, “Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” Matthew 16:24-26 ESV. Here we see the tradeoff of gaining the world, but losing the soul, losing life for eternity.
The second example, perhaps also familiar, is the parable of the talents, found in Matthew 25:14-30. It starts out with ““For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.” Matthew 25:14-15 ESV. I recommend spending a minute to read through the whole parable. And we see in the end, how these three servants have managed their talents, either gained more, or as with the last one just kept the one talent for himself. His master is furious with him, calls him worthless for not using his talent to gain, to increase the value. “And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’” Matthew 25:30 ESV.
To “gain” Christ, as Paul calls it, is therefore to increase the “value” of the “talents” we have received, in escaping evil, in bringing more into the kingdom, and in gaining knowledge and favor with Christ. We are to increase the value of what God has so generously entrusted with us, not just hide or bury our faith. Let’s follow Paul’s example, and tradeoff the worthless of this world to gain Christ. To gain life.