Paul wrote a letter from his imprisonment in Rome to the church in Philippi. This is one of the most joy-filled books of the Bible, in which Paul was filled with praise because of His appreciation of what Jesus had accomplished. Despite his circumstances, Paul wrote, “Rejoice always; again I say, rejoice!” Professing that he was forgetting what was behind and straining toward what was ahead, acknowledging that he hadn’t reached the goal yet, he was pressing on with all his might. And what was that goal? Read his words in chapter 3 again with fresh amazement.
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. 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, 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 – 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.
To know Christ in this way will be the conscious longing of every heart that has been born again. These words, and these verses from Philippians 3, have led to an absolutely marvelous hymn, written in 1993 and released in a 1995 recording “Is Anyone Thirsty?”. The song is known by its title, “Knowing You, Jesus,” as well as by its opening line, “All I Once Held Dear. The composer, Graham Kendrick (b. 1950), has been described as a “father of modern worship music” whose songs are “crammed full of poetic, divine, biblical truth” that have “sculpted a view of God that has impacted generations.” In short, he writes songs that help the church to sing. Since the release of his first album in 1972 Graham has been at the forefront of contemporary Christian music in the UK, having written and recorded over 450 songs, many of which are sung around the world, including “Shine Jesus Shine,” “The Servant King,” “Amazing Love,” and “Knowing You.”
I first heard “Knowing You, Jesus” at the Promise Keeper Clergy Conference in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome in February, 1997. I was there with 40,000 other clergy! This song was part of the music in many of the Promise Keeper events over the next few years. It thrilled my soul and brought tears to my eyes then, and still does today. I can barely sing the words “You’re my all, You’re the best, You’re my joy, my righteousness; and I love You, Lord,” without choking up with emotion. I am amazed that it has not been included in more recent hymnals. It is an absolutely magnificent expression of the heart of a believer who wants to “love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength.” For the heart made alive by the Holy Spirit, that phrase is much more than a command; it is the instinctive passion of the depths of our being.
Graham Kendrick is the son of a Baptist minister in Northamptonshire. Beginning in the 1960s, he became one of the most prolific Christian singer-songwriters in the United Kingdom. He’s written music for over thirty years, and to date has released thirty-eight albums. Kendrick has received honorary doctorates in divinity from Brunel University and Wycliffe College. In 1987 he helped co-found the March for Jesus, which today is a global phenomenon in which Christians take their faith to the streets in a celebration of Christ. In 1995 Kendrick received a Dove Award for his international work, and he remains an active advocate for Compassion International, which is a Christian child sponsorship organization, operating in over 27 nations facilitating the support of more than 1.3 million children. It is dedicated to the long-term development of children living in poverty around the world. He is also a contributor to CompassionArt, an organization with the aim of generating income from works of art to assist in the relief of suffering around the planet. In addition to those, Kendrick was one of the founders and the songwriter behind the global phenomenon March for Jesus, which mobilized millions of Christians to “take the walls off the church” and bring praise, prayer and acts of goodwill and reconciliation on to the streets.
Here is a portion of Bert Holman’s tribute to Kendrick in “Reformed Worship” magazine.
Once upon a time (actually only a few decades ago) most Christian churches were engaged in their traditional practices of worship. For many Christians this meant going to church primarily to sit in what the Canadian commentator Pierre Berton called the “comfortable pew.” This “traditional” idea of worship is characterized by some Christians today (rightly or wrongly) as stiff or stilted, or only intellectually empowering.
Then in the 1960s came a renewal in worship, fueled in large part by the charismatic movement and in a smaller part by the fruits of academic study of worship. Changes swept through many churches, whether Roman Catholic, Protestant mainline, Protestant evangelical, or Reformed.
Scripture songs and praise choruses became the rage, and clapping, raised hands, and even dancing enriched the traditional postures of sitting or standing in church. Supporters claimed that this renewed style of worship was “whole person” oriented, that it offered an emotional component that was not sufficiently present in the traditional patterns of worship.
Important as these changes were, the results of charismatic renewal, Praise & Worship, and the liturgical movement primarily stayed within the church walls, often still tied to the “comfortable pew” that only too frequently characterizes North American Christianity.
Then God sent to his church an English musician named Graham Kendrick. Born in 1950, the son of a Baptist minister in Blisworth, Northamptonshire, Kendrick began his Christian ministry in London, England, serving with Youth with a Mission. When Kendrick joined the Ichthus Fellowship congregation in South London about twelve years ago, he started exploring a kind of church music that was meant to get people not only out of their pews but out into the streets.
Already a popular songwriter, in 1985 Kendrick began to compose an ever-increasing body of songs suitable for what the English came to call “Public Praise,” and what today is known as the “March for Jesus” phenomenon.
Since the first march was held in 1985 in London’s Soho district, Marches for Jesus have grown in popularity – from 15,000 in 1987 to more than 150,000 in 1989. The marches came to North America in 1991, and here the phenomenon has only continued to grow. For the first Global March on June 25, 1994, about ten million Christians sang through the streets of the cities around the whole world. Through these marches Christians have begun to move beyond their “comfortable pews” to proclaim Jesus as Lord in the public marketplaces, housing complexes, and thoroughfares of their urban settings.
Kendrick, other church leaders, and most participants in any March for Jesus point to the spirit of unity that envelops the churches and individual Christians who join in such an event, to a unity that overcomes the traditional boundaries of denominations, class, and race. Many have experienced these marches as a new mode of public Christian testimony and a great motivator for personal evangelism. Kendrick affirms these benefits but also adds that praise marches are one method of engaging in spiritual warfare. He says, “When churches unite, repent, witness, and evangelize through their city, and pray for the kingdom of God to come and for his will to be done – if that doesn’t have any effect on the kingdom of darkness, then what does?”
Processional music by the people of God is an old phenomenon, of course: after all, the body of Christ is to be a pilgrim people! Just think of the “psalms of ascent” (Psalms 120-134) in the Old Testament, the chants and hymns associated with the great Medieval crusades, or the penitential music used with Good Friday processions in Roman Catholic communities. And our church hymnals are still filled with some of the gospel hymns that originated in the outdoor camp meetings of the nineteenth century, which led to the modern mass evangelism crusades by Billy Graham and others, often conducted in open stadiums.
The lyrics of the song are directly and movingly drawn from Philippians 3, as quoted above in this study. Paul’s prison epistle to the church at Philippi contains many of the Christian’s best-known and most frequently quoted memory verses.
| Phil. 1:6 | … I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. | |
| Phil. 1:21 | … For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. | |
| Phil. 2:5-11 | … Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. | |
| Phil. 2:12-13 | … Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. | |
| Phil. 3:7-11 | as previously noted in this study, these verses are the basis for this hymn of Graham Kendrick | |
| Phil. 3:12-14 | … Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. | |
| Phil. 4:4-7 | … Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. |
|
| Phil. 4:11-13 | … Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned, in whatever situation I am, to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. | |
At the heart of this song is the title phrase, “Knowing You, Jesus.” Obviously, such knowledge is far, far richer and deeper than a mere intellectual knowledge. It is similar to the theme of J. I. Packer’s classic book, “Knowing God.” This concept of knowing Jesus is a profound love for and devotion to the Lord Jesus. It is based on an ever-increasing understanding of the vastness of His person and work, and is expansive in the believer’s heart and mind and will. That produces, in the heart of the redeemed, a passionate zeal that is expressed in prayer, song, praise, testimony, and service for the King of kings. along with great anticipation of the day when we will see Him, no longer through a glass, darkly, but face to face. Every believer should be experiencing this kind of fervor for the Savior as the soul grows in its grasp of the greatness of the one who sits enthroned in heaven and is destined to rule forever in the glory of the new heaven and new earth, the one who has conquered death and promised to return to take all of us into His eternal kingdom. We sing this song with that kind of joyful adoration.
The hymn text is written in the first person singular (“I”), so that when someone sings it, they are hopefully singing from their heart what they believe and feel about Jesus. In a sense, it’s a testimony to all who listen, a description of what is most foundational and essential about the center of their life.
Stanza 1 draws from Paul’s statement in Philippians 3:7 and 8 that everything that once meant so much to him is now not only useless, but is actually harmful in that it could tempt him to find his security and significance in things other than Christ. In fact, the Greek word skubalon refers to refuse, garbage, excrement, or manure, essentially meaning worthless, disgusting waste, often translated as “rubbish.” It denotes something thrown away, such as kitchen scraps or animal dung, emphasizing the utter worthlessness of things compared to knowing Christ. In Kendrick’s hymn, we recall all the things that we “once held dear” and built our life upon, things like job and career and power and position and possessions and privilege. These are things that “all this world reveres, and wars to own,” but which we now count as loss compared to this incredible joy and privilege of knowing Jesus.
All I once held dear, built my life upon
All this world reveres, and wars to own
All I once thought gain I have counted loss
Spent and worthless now, compared to this
The refrain repeatedly affirms what is now most valuable to us: “Knowing You, Jesus.” The fact that there is nothing greater is a powerful reality in our hearts. Then follows a series of four superlatives: we sing of Jesus that He is our all, the best, our joy, and our righteousness. To love the Lord with all our heart (the first and greatest commandment) is the greatest thing, because He is the greatest thing! He is our all; if we have Him and belong to Him, what more is there? Jesus is the one who promised that He has come that our joy might be full. And in the incredible imputation involved in our justification, He gives us His perfect righteousness as the spotless robe that enables us to be accepted before the justice of God.
Knowing You, Jesus
Knowing You, there is no greater thing
You’re my all, you’re the best
You’re my joy, my righteousness
And I love You, Lord
Stanza 2 shifts the attention to our future hope, which is not only to know Him more, but also to be found in Him and known as belonging to Him. Again, the language comes directly from Paul himself in Philippians 3. What a privilege it is that we can be known as being His precious possession! And from Paul’s letter, and the rest of the scriptures, we sing the essence of the gospel: that the eternal life we receive by faith is an “all-surpassing gift” which cannot be earned or deserved. As with the refrain, so here in this stanza, the words are directed to the Lord Himself. It’s not that we desire to know “Him” … it’s that we desire to know “You.”
Now my heart’s desire is to know You more
To be found in You and known as Yours
To possess by faith what I could not earn
All-surpassing gift of righteousness
Stanza 3 concludes by continuing to sing directly to the Lord, telling Him what it is that we want more than anything else. Once again, reflecting the language of Philippians 3, it is that we want “to know the power of Your risen life.” We need that power in order to overcome the remaining sin in our hearts. And we want to become like Jesus, so that as He suffered and died under the curse of the law in our place, that we might die to sin so that we might live for Him and never die.
Oh, to know the power of Your risen life
And to know You in Your sufferings
To become like You in Your death, my Lord
So with You to live and never die
Graham Kendrick, © 1993 Make Way Music
Here is a link to help you sing-along with Kendrick’s hymn.