He is Worthy
EnduringWord on Philippians 3:8-9
- In Philippians 3:7 Paul said that he counted; in this verse he said I also count. This first counting was at his conversion; the second ā some 30 years later ā was in his Roman prison. After all he had experienced, he still counted it worthy to give everything up for the sake of following Jesus.
- āAfter twenty years or more of experience Paul had an opportunity of revising his balance-sheet, and looking again at his estimates, and seeing whether or not his counting was correct. What was the issue of his latest search? How do matters stand at his last stocktaking? He exclaims with very special emphasis, āYea doubtless; and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.āā (Spurgeon)
Craig Keener on Philippians 3:8-9
As in 3:6, the problem is not the law but that the righteousness is Paulās own, hence inadequate. Both biblical psalmists and later Jewish ones whose hymns appear in the Dead Sea Scrolls waited on God for their vindication or acquittal, and Paul likewise had to receive his justification, or righteousness, from God alone, but Paul understands that this is found in Christ.
Spurgeon on James 5:7-8
Sermon link With regard to the result of Christian obedience, the lesson is no less striking. The first thing that a farmer does by way of seeking gain on his farm is to make a sacrifice which could seem immediately to entail on him a loss. He has some good wheat in the granary, and he takes out sacks full of it and buries it. He is so much the poorer, is he not? At any rate, there is so much the less to make bread for his household. He cannot get it again. It is under the clods, and there it must die, for except it die, it brings not forth fruit.
You must not expect, as soon as you become a Christian, that you shall obtain all the gains of your religion, perhaps you may lose all that you have for Christās sake. Some have lost their lives. They have sown their house and land, relatives, comfort, ease, and at last they have sown life itself in Christās field, and they seemed for the time to be losers. But verily I say unto you, this day, if you could see them in their white robes before the throne of God, rejoicing, you would see how rich a harvest they have reaped, and how the sowing which seemed a loss at first has ended, through Godās abundant grace, in the greatest eternal gain.
Have patience, brother, have patience. That is a false religion that aims at present worldly advantage. He who becomes religious for the loaves and fishes, when he has eaten his loaves and fishes, has devoured his religion. There is nothing in such piety but pretension. If you can be bought, you can be sold. If you have taken it up for gain, you will lay it down for what promises you a better bargain. Be willing to be a loser for Christ, and so prove you are His genuine follower.
Maclaren on 2 Thessalonians 1:11)
If it were Paulās supreme prayer, should it not be our supreme aim, that we may be worthy of Him that hath called us, and āwalk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are calledā?
Two things, then, we may hope that God will do for usāHe will fulfil every yearning after righteousness and purity in our hearts, and will perfect the active energy which faith puts forth in our lives.
Paul says, in effect, first, that God will fulfil every desire that longs for goodness. He is scarcely deserving of being called good who does not desire to be better. Aspiration must always be ahead of performance in a growing life, such as every Christian life ought to be. To long for any righteousness and beauty of goodness is, in some imperfect and incipient measure, to possess the good for which we long. š„This is the very signature of a Christian lifeāyearning after unaccomplished perfection. If you know nothing of that desire that stings and impels you onwards; if you do not know what it is to say, āOh! wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?ā if you do not know what it is to follow the fair ideal realised in Jesus Christ with infinite longing, what right have you to call yourself a Christian? The very essence of the Christian life is yearning for completeness, and restlessness as long as sin has any power over us. We live not only by admiration, faith, and love, but we live by hope; and he who does not hunger and thirst after righteousness has yet to learn what are the first principles of the Gospel of Christ.
If there be not the desire after goodness, the restlessness and dissatisfaction with every present good, the brave ambition that says, āForgetting the things that are behind, I reach forth unto the things that are before,ā there is nothing in a man to which Godās grace can attach itself. God cannot make you better if you do not wish to be better. There is no point upon which His hallowing and ennobling grace can lay hold in your hearts without such desire. āOpen thy mouth wide and I will fill it.ā If, as is too often the case with hosts of professing Christians, you shut your mouths tight and lock your teeth, how can God put any food between your lips? There must, first of all, be the aspiration, and then there will be the satisfaction.
I look out upon my congregation, or, better still, I look into my own heart, and I say, If I, if you, dear brethren, are not worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called, we have not because we ask not. If there be no desire after goodness in our hearts, God cannot make us good. Our wishes are the mould into which the molten metal from the great furnace of His love will run. If we bring but a little vessel we cannot get a large supply. The manna lies round our tents; it is for us to determine how much we will gather.