It is time to stop playing church during this most holy of weeks...

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Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. -- Philippians 3: 8-11 (NKJV)

We are in the middle of the holiest week in our faith. This week is supposed to really mean something to us. It ought to resonate in our Spirit. The work of the cross. The sacrifice of Christ. The sufferings; oh beloved, the sufferings. I remember being raised Catholic and not understanding why they called it "Good Friday." After all, what they did to Jesus sure didn't seem good. What He had to go through sure didn't seem good. Now as a born again believer I understand that it was supposed to be me on that old wooden cross. The scourging He took was supposed to be mine. The crown of thorns shoved into His brow was supposed to be mine. The spikes through the wrists and feet were supposed to be mine. The spear in the side was supposed to be mine. The sufferings were supposed to be mine but He took them for me and praise God that is good.

The Bible says that God wrote these things down in Scripture that we might learn from them. That the Word of God is good for all teaching and correcting. There are warnings after warnings in the Bible about these end times we live in. Warnings about the Great Apostasy we see occurring within the walls of the church today. Yet despite these we see the falling away intensify as man's defiance before God deepens. Of course they cannot see it. They get dressed up every Sunday and play church. They pay their money to support their apostate church. They deify their pastor and his heresies. They deify their church and worship at the altar of their new building fund. They throw 5% of the millions raked in towards missions so they can ease their souls about how much money is wasted on the esthetic carnality of their church production. I used to wonder how people can do it. How could they openly profess Christ yet participate in the corruption of His bride? Sure there are many who are falsely converted due to the flawed purpose driven model but how can someone genuinely converted be so deceived? Then I am reminded every year during this week how far removed the church is from the sufferings of Christ.

The sufferings of Christ? What are you talking about preacher? Exactly. Of all weeks in the year, this is the one we should hear about the crown of thorns and the blood dripping into the eyes of Christ. We ought to hear about the spear thrust into His side. We should be hearing about the scourging and the carrying of the cross down the Via Dolorosa. We won't however in the vast majority of churches in this country. We will not hear about it on Friday and we certainly will not hear about it on Sunday. We will dance and sing songs of merriment about the tomb being empty and Jesus being alive but nothing about how we got there because the church today is all about the crown of glory. The crown of thorns? Ehh"not so much. Why? Because you can sell the crown of glory. You can market that into a four part sermon series that will sell tapes and DVDs. You can convince the unsaved goats to come back and join your social club by promising them this fantastic crown of glory. That they are destined to reign. That this is their best life now. It is palatable. It is seeker friendly. But beloved, you do not get to the crown of glory without first sharing in the crown of thorns. We do not get to the empty tomb without first stopping at Calvary.

The apostle Paul understood this when he penned the Letter to the Church at Philippi through the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Our key verses today reflect these truths and provide further insight for us to consider during this most reverent of weeks. Let's take a closer look at the statements made:

Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

The church today is not about loss. It is all about gain. It is about promising all of the carnal desires of our flesh. You want to have your sin and pretend you are saved too? We have the hyper grace preaching of Joseph Prince for you. You want to believe that greed and money are godly? Prosperity preaching on the menu! You want to feel and act justified in the belief that you are actually God? Word faith preachers like Osteen and Meyer will line up for your attention. You want to be able to decide what is important based on your experiences and feelings instead of the Bible? The lying signs and wonders of Bethel and IHOP await you. This is clearly what we have been warned about:

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, - 2Timothy 4: 3 (ESV)

This verse says we will seek out and gather around us such teachers. Look how vociferously Christians defend their favorite false teacher. The Bible? Who cares? The slaughtered sheep? Hey, they should have known better. So what are Christians taught about loss? Sacrifice? Suffering? Nothing. That's for suckers. But look at what Paul is saying here beloved. The reason why the carnal things of this world Paul considers loss is that they cannot measure up in value to actually knowing Christ Jesus! I do not mean the superficial fake Jesus we see slickly marketed in churches today. Easter spectaculars to wow the senses and dull the Spirit. One mega church is starting a marriage series this week themed around James Bond. Yeah, that is really grasping the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus. We continue in the key verses:

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him,

In this simple thought is the secret to the relationship between us and the world versus us and Christ Jesus. The Seeker Friendly Industrial Complex has sold the notion that you can have both. You can have your best life now and eternal life! You can be destined to reign now and in heaven! Except these are cleverly crafted lies beloved. If this is your best life now then by definition you are going to hell. The Bible speaks about the last being first so if you are destined to reign now, do not be surprised if you are not reigning in eternal life. Jesus cannot be any clearer:

And Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." -- Matthew 19: 23-24 (ESV)

Beloved this does not have to be material worth either. Anything we value more than Christ can prevent us from entering heaven. Look at the equation Paul outlines for us here. In order to gain Christ we must suffer the loss of all things in this world. Not only that, we must look upon the things of this world as utter garbage. That is what rubbish means! We cannot dance on the fence between the world and Christ. There has to be a clear delineation between the two. That is why the Bible says we can have no fellowship with darkness. We can have nothing in common with this world because it detracts from Christ. The more we are found in the world then the less we are found in Christ.

Yet what does the modern church strive for? Relevance. They seek to be relevant to the very people they need to be different from. They seek relevance with the world which distances Christ be default. They think that they can lure them in with the utter, shameless carnality of the world and them slip them a Jesus "mickey" at the end of service. It does not work that way. If you reached someone with carnality then only carnality will keep them. If you reached them with the Gospel, then Jesus keeps them. The more the church tries to mimic the world, the further Jesus Christ is from that church. The church needs to stop being a whore with the world and treat those things as utter garbage to be disdained. Then they gain Christ. Next in the key verses:

not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith --

When we strip the Gospel from the Bible we are left with the law. As we push Christ further and further away by embracing carnality, all we are left with is the law. Most seeker friendly, purpose driven teachings are nothing more than law lessons. There is no exegetical work being done. There is no seeking what God wants to say. Instead every story becomes about you instead of Jesus. Suddenly it is you at Jericho or Ziklag. Suddenly you have the smooth stone in your hand as you march out to face your giant. While these are meant to inspire they are absolutely heretical. The Bible is His story, not ours. Next time however pay close attention to the sermon points because they are usually things we must do in order to achieve something. That is by itself the definition the law. The other phenomena that occurs is these type of churches produce self-righteousness. It has to be default because there is no humility being conveyed and Christ is not being gained. I am sure we have either been to churches like this or seen the sermons. We are the hero of every story! How could we not develop a sense of self-righteousness? Even if we try to mask it in Jesus-speak. Have you ever dealt with a "super-spiritual?" Someone who is arrogant in how spiritual they are? Has to pray the loudest. Has to have their own section in church. The further they get from Christ the more arrogant they get in their spirituality. If they were getting closer then they would naturally become more humble. Paul continues to outline the correct equations. Our righteousness cannot from anything but God through faith in Christ. If it does then we are relying on the law and we know the law cannot save us. Remember this is all about being found in Christ, not in church. The key verse concludes:

that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

And so we come to it. The end of the equation. The reason for our faith. What our Christianity ought to be about. The goal is eternal life beloved. I know this is overlooked today and rarely preached about but from Genesis through Revelation it is all about eternal life. From Christmas through Resurrection Sunday it is all about eternal life. We were created to be in perpetual fellowship with our creator but sin separated us and threatened to do so permanently. We were destined all right but not for greatness. We were destined for eternal suffering and punishment. Yet somehow, in His infinite mercy and grace, God altered that destiny through the sacrifice of His only Son. That through Him we might attain the resurrection from the dead. To defeat the grave. To defeat Satan. To be reunited with the Lord in heaven. Through a separation from this world and unto Him. Through seeking His righteousness; not ours. By any means possible. Paul lists four specific means to this end.

First of all, he says we should know Him. There's a novel idea. While this may seem trite, how many self-professing Christians spend any time knowing their Lord and Savior? An hour and a half on Sundays does not make a relationship, especially when that hour and a half you actually spend no time with Him anyway. False doctrine presents a false Christ. Emotionalism is not a move of the Spirit. Signs and wonders do not automatically mean they are from God. The Bible explains that God is His Word. The primary way we get to know Jesus is by reading His Word. This also highlights why false teaching is so vile. It is essentially lying about what God has and has not said. If your friend was trying to set you up with someone and told you they do not care if you date other people but that was not actually true, would you be offended? Angry? Would you trust that friend again? Yet that is what we see each week in churches. The man behind the pulpit lies about the God he is talking about and people like the lie so much they keep coming back. Playing church. In the end though, they do not know Him. They know of Him. They have heard of Him. They may have even sung songs vaguely about Him. But they do not know Him. And while this may seem like it is not a big deal now, let's fast forward to judgment day:

On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.' -- Matthew 7: 22-23 (ESV)

I never knew you. Secondly, Paul is teaching us that we need to know the power of His resurrection! We talk about the resurrection. We sing songs about it too. But we rarely teach or preach about it anymore because it is not seeker friendly. You cannot get to the resurrection without going through the cross and you cannot get to the cross without discussing sin. These are topics that are not on the agendas of purpose driven pastors, especially not on Resurrection Sunday because they are trying to trick the unsaved people to come back the next week. We need real resurrection power beloved! Not this cheap knock off we see in church today. Resurrection power to overcome sin in our lives. To live more holy. To reject the carnality of the world. To value the eternal over the temporal.

Thirdly, we ought to strive to fellowship in His sufferings. Talk about an unseeker friendly message! We want a nice, clean and bloodless Christianity. We want the Vidal Sassoon Jesus from the Bible Miniseries debacle. Deep blue eyes and flowing white robes. We do not want our delicate sensibilities shaken by seeing His beard ripped out. We do not want to see the mocking and spitting. We do not want to see the scourge strokes tear His flesh away. We do not want to see the spikes being hammered into His wrists. We do not want to see any of this because we do not want to face the reality that it should have been us. This is why we seek a bloodless Christianity. Because it requires nothing from us. Nothing has to change. We can continue to sleep with the world while pledging fidelity to Christ. Heck, we do not even need to do it in secret anymore! Now the church brings the carnality of the world right inside for us! Club lighting and smoke machines, secular songs as worship, and 20 minutes of preaching assuring me that I am the beez-knees. Oh and a shout out to my favorite wing man -- Jesus! Everyone close by singing Friend of God and go back to your previously scheduled sin.

Look at what Paul is saying here though to combat this. We do not need to merely know His sufferings. We do not need to have an understanding of them. We do not need to gain a better perspective about His sufferings. No beloved. We need to fellowship in them. We need to get to know them on a personal level. We need to get them deep down on the inside of us. We need to try on that crown of thorns and see how it fits and feels. We need to own the anguish in His voice when He cries out why has the Father forsaken Him? Why? Because without His sufferings there is no resurrection power! His sufferings keep our flesh in check. They remind us of our true state without His shed blood. They keep us humble. They prepare us to discern false teaching because now we see it for what it is. Anathema. An insult to the sufferings. Jesus did not walk to Via Dolorosa so that some mega church pastor can have a 70 million dollar Learjet! He did not have spikes driven through His feet so that preachers could live in palatial mansions while His Gospel goes un-preached. He did not have the crown of thorns buried in His brow so that Joseph Prince could teach you that God doesn't care about His own law anymore. It is beyond insulting beloved. It is anathema. That is what fellowshipping in His sufferings brings us. That is why it is so important.

Lastly, that we might become like Him in His death. How was Jesus in His own death? Two words come to my mind. Humble and triumphant. These two words do not often go together. Most triumphant people find it difficult to remain humble. Yet here was Jesus Christ, who had the command of heaven's hosts at His disposal yet was led like a sheep to slaughter. Humble to the point of forgiving the very people crucifying Him as they were driving the spikes through His torn body. Yet completely and utterly triumphant. When we truly grasp the fellowship of His sufferings and the value of being found in Christ versus the complete worthlessness of the things we hold dear on this world, then we can understand humble triumphalism. The world views that word as a negative. As a proud and arrogant statement. Yet we do not embody a triumphal nature because of anything we have done but because of everything He has done. The world hates Christianity because of the exclusivity of Christ but here is the dilemma they face. Everyone cannot be right. Jesus Christ said He was the way the truth and the life and none come to the Father except through Him. This is the week He proved it. Good Friday is the day He suffered for us all. Fellowship in those sufferings beloved and you will find the proper reverence for the empty tomb that lies ahead.

Reverend Anthony Wade -- March 23, 2016

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.