Paul says the first thing is:

“But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for 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 win Christ” (Phil. 3:7, 8). Now that’s the first thing and that’s in verse eight. “Well, isn’t he saved? Isn’t he trying to win Christ and get saved?”

How many know he is already saved? He wouldn’t be writing this if he weren’t saved. Well then what is he saying about winning Christ? There is a reception of Christ as the Savior, which is the gift of God; and there is the winning of Christ: you win Him through the mechanism that Paul is going to present to you here. He is like a prize. Now you don’t WIN Him as a prize in salvation, but you can WIN Him in the DEEPER UNFOLDING of the CHRIST, with the treasures, which are hidden within Him. Didn’t I tell you the other day that the treasures that our hearts so long for are never exhibited? Salvation is exhibited. The gifts are exhibited. All the things which belong to the external life; they are all in public; they are manifested in meetings and everywhere. Those are the external manifestations of the Christ whom you receive. But he says, “The TREASURES are not out there. The treasures are hidden IN this Christ.” Now that’s all interior; that is what he wants to win. “I want to get that; I want to know that; I want to have that, and I can’t get it as a gift.”

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We can’t just say, “Oh God please give me that.” He can’t , because that is not the method by which it is obtained. You get it by earning it through diligent seeking, seeking, seeking. And he says, “I count everything that before has been my meat and drink and life just refuse. All the things that constituted what I thought was living; it’s just nothing; it’s nothing; it’s nothing compared with the thing that I see in this Christ. And I am willing to let the whole thing go, if I can earn that; if I can get it; if I can obtain it; if I can discover it, for it is hidden.” I may speak on the question of asking and seeking and knocking while I am here (somebody has asked me to do that), because that is suggestive right here in this eighth verse, absolutely, it’s suggestive. In the teaching of Christ concerning prayer, He didn’t say, “Oh precious children, I have so many things for you, and heaven is so big, and salvation has so much. Just ask Me plenty and I will give you anything, and you can have it all and we will all rejoice!” He never said anything in the world like that; He never did! Now that is singing book theology; that’s popular preaching; to make it easy and enticing to people, which I think is disastrous. How many times they have said to the beginner, “Come to Jesus and have a little heaven to go to heaven in!” Have you ever heard that? How many know the bottom gets knocked out of it before you get very far? Well then why hold those, I call them “deceitful things,” they are not true. You don’t get a little heaven to go to

heaven in; the bottom will fall out of that thing, and before long it does. Then where are they hanging? That’s why I don’t take up with a lot of those funny traditional things, because they are not real and they are not scriptural. They deceive the person and then when the bottom falls out he doesn’t know where he is. Jesus never said anything like it. Jesus was continually saying, “Come unto Me … and I will give you rest.” That is all right. But in the very next verse He says, “You have to.find a rest.” Didn’t He say it right in the next verse? Before He lets them loose on that, “I will give,” He says, “but there is something else, you have to find a rest” (Matt. 11:28, 29). “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, (poor dear broken humanity) come to Me, I can give you rest. But, I’ll tell you something;

don’t run off with that; that’s not the end of it! You take My yoke upon you, you learn of Me, you walk with Me, then you will find rest.” Now what is that? The first is the immediate possession, the “rest” that we have when our sins are gone and we find Jesus in our hearts and lives; our hearts rejoice; He has given me rest. “I will give you that.” That’s your salvation. But listen! Something morel Now, entering into this unique fellowship: ‘‘Take My yoke and follow, learn of Me, get in there, and you shall.find, you shall discover a rest." That is still deeper and still deeper. What is it? I call that ‘‘progressive discovery." What is your first immediate possession? I’ll give you rest; 111 give you salvation; I’ll give you the baptism; I’ll give you all those things because they are all gifts. Salvation is a gift. The baptism of the Spirit is a gift. Divine healing is a gift.

Wisdom; it’s a gift. I will give, give, give. That’s all the “give.” But there are a lot of things that never come by giving. He says, “Ask and ye shall receive, for I can give you on that level;” but before they can get away from Him, He says, “Now listen! that isn’t all of it. Seek, and I will ‘give’?” No, no. “Seek and you shall discover; seek and ye shall find.” Because the finding, the discovery rests upon a seeking process, the seeking attitude, not the asking attitude. You can sit before Him and ask until you are blue in the face; you can only get certain things that way. There are other things you cannot get that way, because that is not the technique; it is not the method; it is not the procedure. He says there are things hidden away in Christ which are only found by discovery, and the seeking process will release it; that will bring it. Now seek - that’s this: “… And I have been willing to give everything,” Paul says, “if I can win that and discover it, and I can find the fulness of what this Christ really is. Who is He? What is He? What is this impact upon the world? What does it mean, that He has come and brought this great and glorious release; this glorious thing? I want to know that. I will give anything if I can win that. Oh, I have Him now as my gift, but Oh, there is something that I must win. I win it by my seeking. I win it by this consecration. I win it by this absolute surrender. I win it by the strange devotion to it; I am dedicated to it. I am married to it. I am surrendered to it. I am given to it.

It becomes a part of me, and I will discover.” How many know you will discover something in there? Yes, you will discover it; you will finally win it. So Paul sees (in this vision) the very first thing is, to win the thing that Christ holds out. That is, I think, the great inheritance that belongs to us. Now the other thing I jotted down is: