After this, verse 13 of the same chapter says, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” In this book, some verses speak of Christ’s indwelling, one speaks of the bountiful supply of the Spirit, and here is a verse that says that God is working in us. Who then is working, God, Christ, or the Spirit? It is so simple: when the Spirit works, that is Christ working, and when Christ works, that is God working. They are three in one. We do not have three persons indwelling us. We have only one. God in Christ as the Spirit is indwelling us and working in us.
We all like Philippians 2:13 because it tells us that God is working in us. But the next verse is quite practical. We might think that it should tell us to do all things to glorify God. But it says, “Do all things without murmurings and disputings” (Phil. 2:14). This is a real test of whether we are enjoying the working of God in us or not. Are we murmuring or disputing? These two things are so practical and ordinary. If you would not murmur for one week, you would be the leading saint.
There are no high doctrines in this book. We only find some practical matters to help us in the church life. Have you ever seen a book in Christianity entitled, Without Murmuring ? We do need to publish such a book. This is not some great teaching, this is something very practical. Do you murmur about your wife or husband? Do you murmur about the brothers and sisters, or the church service? Paul was so wise; he knew that the biggest hindrance in the practical church was murmuring and disputing. This is especially true of the sisters. They don’t like to dispute outwardly, but they do it inwardly. They would not outwardly criticize anything announced by the elders, but still there is some disputing within. This is why Paul tells us to let God work in us without murmuring and disputing.
How can this be possible? Only by exchanging persons. We all have to be replaced in our thinking, our concepts, and our ideas. It is better not to know so much. We only need to learn to take Christ as our person and minister Him to others.
Now we come to chapter three. We all love this chapter because Paul tells us how absolute he was to gain Christ. “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may gain Christ. That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death” (Phil. 3:8, 10).
Paul says that he counted all the religious things as loss for Christ. When he compared his religion with Christ, he realized that every bit of his old religion was a loss. So he left it all for Christ. Not only so, but he counted all things loss for Christ. He counted not only the religious things, but all things. To count everything as loss means to count as loss the whole human culture. This includes religion and all the things of the human life. Paul counted all these things as dung. This word in our modern usage would mean trash or garbage. Paul counted all things as garbage that he might gain Christ.
All the religious things were quite precious to him in the past. But once he came to know Christ, he counted them all as loss. He even counted the whole human culture as trash that he might gain Christ. The way to gain Christ is to know Him. This means to experience Him in the power of His resurrection. This is something of His indwelling. We could never experience the power of Christ in resurrection without His indwelling. If He were merely in the heavens, how could we experience the power of His resurrection? It is similar to today’s electricity. Until it is installed in the building, we can never experience its power. Praise the Lord that Christ has been installed into us! Now we can experience His resurrection power, and by this we gain Christ.