Knowing Jesus in his Resurrection

Who is God? The Quest to Know God's Glory What does "God" mean? "We seek to worship and glorify God." Sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, glorious beyond imagination. Does that carry over to his people? Paul is in a center of emperor worship: God is real power, Augustus, Rome, empire.

Philippians 2:12-13; 3:7-16

Jesus – Resurrected but Unrecognized

Paul writes to the believers in Philippi from a hard situation: he’s in prison and they’refacing persecution. It focuses the mind. He helps them think about life and death. He takes them into the core reality that brought him to them and changed their lives:
In Jesus God showed his self-giving love concretely. By raising the human Jesus from death, God shouted that Jesus taking our suffering is God’s very identity LORD/Yahweh.

But really grasping the meaning of resurrection has always been hard. The Gospel resurrection narratives point to this by recounting how disciples often could not recognize Jesus. Road to Emmaus: prod, scripture, bread. Mary Magdalene: name! We live with death. New glorious physical life beyond death is challenging. What does it mean? We snap back into old fears, old priorities. We lose who we are in Jesus. Paul leads the Philippians into knowing Jesus in his resurrection by modeling the path.