Philippians 3:12-16
The Race
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12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
15 Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. 16 Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.
The New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982), Php 3:12–16.
Transcript
Welcome to God's Word For You, a Ministry of Sharon RP Church in Southeast Iowa. We want to thank you for listening today, and we pray that you'd be blessed by both hearing God's word as well as having it applied to your life and your heart.
Philippians chapter three and we'll be looking at verses 12 through 16. But when we read, we’ll read chapter three verses one through 16. It's been a few months since we've been in Philippians, or at least a month, so we're gonna re-read some of the things we've gone over to remind us. Philippians chapter three can be found on page 1044 of your Pew Bibles. God's Word from Philippians, chapter three:
“Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation! For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
“But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 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.
“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which lie behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead. I press on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call in Christ Jesus. Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.” The grass withers and the flower fades. But the word of our God endures forever.
When I was a kid, in the summertime, I would remember sitting on my grandparent's plaid couch. And above that plaid couch was a window letting in the golden sunshine of the summer. And every four years I remember sitting on that couch and my grandpa had a newspaper. And in that newspaper there was a time line in color, and it was the NBC schedule for the Olympics. And I remember looking at that colored schedule and searching it out and trying to figure out, okay, what time are the swimming races going to be on? And I don't know about you, but I love swimming races. Swimming races are some of the most fun races I think you can watch. Sometimes they're won by only a tenth of a second to 1/100 of a second, is the difference between gold and silver in Olympic swimming. It's you’re on your seat, trying to figure out who's going to win.
Well, Christian, you're also in a race, just like those swimmers are. And in your Christian race, you are to hold nothing back. Do not hold anything back from your Christian race. So our first step in learning how to run this race is you need to do a spiritual fitness test. Do a spiritually fitness test. Look with me at verses 12 and 13. Paul says, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting the things which lie behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.”
Any doctor is going to tell you, if you look online, and you want to start running, or you want to start doing an exercise regiment, it's always going to tell you, in a disclaimer somewhere, “check with your doctor first” to see if you're physically fit enough to do this exercise. Well, you need to give yourself a spiritual fitness test. You need to ask yourself, “Am I fit spiritually? Am I healthy spiritually?”
When I first got out of the Navy, I remember, I joined the swim team at the college and I thought, “You know, I'm in pretty good shape. I just got out of the Navy. I didn't have any problems with that.” But it had been four years since I had been in a pool swimming competitively. And I remember that embarrassing morning having to go to my coach, and he was a wise man, he let me do it before anybody else was there. And I remember, I thought, “Man, I'm gonna jump in the pool and it's just gonna be like the old days. I'm gonna swim as fast as I can.” And as fast as I can wasn't very fast. You find out pretty quick, when you put yourself to the test, how mature you are in a skill.
And the question for you is, how mature are you spiritually? How fit are you spiritually? And if we're honest with ourselves, we know that we're just like Paul. We haven't attained it yet. We're not there yet. Roman's chapter seven, when we read through that, we realize that this is us. “The things that we want to do, we do not do. And yet the things we do not want to do yet we still do. Oh wretched man that I am!” That's our heart. Often we find ourselves, we want to be spiritually fit, and yet we find ourselves falling and falling and falling. This is why the Westminster Confession of Faith when it is talking about us growing in our holiness, it says it “is throughout in the whole man, yet imperfect in this life: there abiding still some remnants of corruption in every part, from which arises a continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh.”
Don't you feel that in your own heart often? You haven't attained it yet? There's still that war between you and the flesh, that irreconcilable war that's always going on. And Paul knew Christ. It's clear, verse nine is absolutely clear, that Paul knows what it's like to have a righteousness that's not of his own. Paul knows that he has lost all things for Jesus. Paul knows what it means to be found in Jesus Christ. And yet, Paul, just like you, also knows what it's like to yearn for Christ, to want to know Him more. To desire to be in Him, to desire to know His righteousness and know the power of His resurrection. Don't you yearn for it? Don't you long for Jesus Christ? Don't you get tired of fighting and wanting to be made complete, wanting to be mature?
Paul hasn't arrived yet. His hands have not yet clinched on to the prize that he's been running for. Paul’s taken an inventory of his own soul, and he knows that there's progress to be made. Have you done the spiritual fitness test in your own heart? Have you examined yourself and found yourself wanting, lacking, needing more, needing to be more like Christ. Needing more of Christ. We all know that feeling. It's true in our heart, for the great promise of the Christian life is that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you can move forward. You're not meant Christian to stay stagnant in your Christian life, but you are meant to grow more and more like Christ, in love with Christ.
And so in that light, take aim of your goal. Your second point, take aim at your goal. Look with me at verse 14, “I press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Let me ask you, what's the point of your Christian walk? What's the point of your Christian race? What are you racing for? What's the prize at the end? What's the goal you're reaching for? What is it? Have you asked yourself, “Why do I wake up every single day fighting this fight, running this race?” What are you aiming for? Are you chasing after pleasure, wealth, power, experience, prestige? When all those you'll find, as the preacher of Ecclesiastes says, “Vanity of vanities.” It's worthless. It's empty. It’s hollow. You’re never gonna be satisfied with any of those goals.
There's a danger here. There are plenty of people who sit in the pews, week in and week out, and hear the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ Himself presented before them, and yet walk away chasing a different prize than the Son of God Himself.
Just recently, I was talking to an old farmer who, as I was reading the Bible to someone said, “Oh, I never had time for that.” He had raced his whole life towards a goal, an earthly goal, a healthy farm. At the end of his life, what's it worth? What's it worth? It's not the prize that God designed us to be running for. An old minister, one of my mentors told me, he said, “Bryan, You need to be careful. There are millions of young men in the church who are caught up with the goal of having the American dream, and they've missed the gospel. Give them the gospel.” This is the way of the world though. You need to be aware of this. We often think of the devil and his warfare against us and the ways of this world being against us, and we go to things like demons, and we go to things like persecution.
But one of the trickiest things that Satan tries to use in your life is to make you miss the mark, to make you divert your eyes away from Jesus Christ and to think about something else. Advertisers know this really well. How often do you turn on the Internet, turn on your TV, open the newspaper, drive down the road, and there's some new fandangled fancy doodad that somebody's trying to sell you. Some cruise that will make you happy. Some alcoholic drink that's going to make your life brilliant like Hollywood stars. In all reality, all these sayings just lead to misery. They might not be bad in and of themselves, but if that's your goal of happiness, the end's going to come and you're not going to be happy. What are you aiming for? What are you running towards?
Our pastor out in Pennsylvania one time was talking to me and he was saying about how he was doing a marriage counseling with a family. And he was asking the wife, “You know, it seems like you really don't want to follow your husband. It really feels like you're not wanting to go the way that you should be going towards Christianity.” And she looked dead straight in Pastor Micah's eyes, and she said, “It's kind of hard to follow a parked car.” Her point was, her husband's not moving towards holiness. She can't follow that path.
Are we moving towards Jesus Christ? What's your goal? Are you zeroed in on Jesus Christ as your prize? The goal must be Jesus Christ, all of Him, all of His love, all the joy He offers, all the righteousness He gives you, all the cleansing from your sin, all the power of His resurrection. Christ is your goal. Christ is your prize. Aim at that. Run at that. Go to Him.
But in this race, you gotta be careful. There's something that could trip you up, and that's looking over your shoulder. Don't look over your shoulder, that's your third point. Don't look over your shoulder. Look with me at verse 13. “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.” Paul says he's not looking behind him. He's forgetting those things behind him. There's a reason why he's able to forget those things behind him, because God has forgotten those failures behind him. It is because God has promised us in His word that He no longer remembers our sins and transgressions. He buries them beneath the sea. Stop looking over your shoulders at your faults, at where you stumbled, and keep your aim on Jesus Christ.
One running blogger, Hannah Hartzell, wrote about looking behind your shoulder while running a race and she said, “In 99% of racing situations, looking back is not a smart idea. Why? Because it signals a negative shift in the mindset of an athlete. When a runner looks backwards, it's typically because they are afraid of someone catching up with them. They're no longer running to win, they're running to avoid losing. Running to avoid losing strips you of all your enjoyment.”
Don't look behind. Don't look over your shoulder. Either you're gonna be plagued by the regrets and you cannot realize the depths of God's mercy to cleanse you from your past faults. You're gonna be stripped of your enjoyment. But there's another danger to looking back over your shoulder, and that's thinking that you've made it. It's easy to look back at the starting point of your Christian walk and to look at where you are and be like, “Man! Look how far I've made it. I've ran a good race!” And so you start slowing down. So you start getting prideful, you start getting puffed up. You think, “Yeah. Look at me. Look how far I've come.” And in all reality, the finish line is miles ahead of you. Don't look over your shoulder. Don't get bogged down by the sins and the faults of your past. And don't become complacent thinking that you've arrived. You aren't there yet. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus Christ. There's something better than you have right now, Christian. I promise you, the Scriptures offer a world of blessing beyond what you have in your grasp right now. You will know Jesus Christ fully. And you will know the power of His resurrection fully.
Keep running towards that prize. And when you're running Christian, you need to strain towards that goal. That's your fourth point, strain towards the goal. Look with me at verses 13 and 14. “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” When you're running, you need to strain. Nobody runs a race by walking. Nobody wins a race by being lazy. Sometimes you have to strain yourself.
I remember when we were on the swim team, our coach would give us a “back to basics” lesson every single morning. And it was “Here's how you breathe, men.” And he would put us through an exercise called hypoxics. And as you were swimming the first length down the pool, that was pretty easy. You got to breathe every three strokes, and 1-2-3-breathe. And that's not too bad. Then you made a flip turn and you started going back, and then it was every five breaths. And then you went back the opposite way and he went down to seven breaths. And then you went the other way and it was every nine strokes. And then back the other way, and it was every 11 strokes. And by the time you were supposed to go back for the final leg, there was no breathing at all. And I'll tell you when you're swimming for that last leg where you're not allowed to breathe and your lungs are screaming out for air and your muscles are contracting and you're having a hard time fighting through it, and fighting through it, and fighting through it, because you want to touch that wall so badly that you can finally breathe. That's straining.
Are you fighting for the prize of Jesus Christ with all the breath in your lungs? Strain toward Jesus Christ. Lean forward. Early in the morning, when you're tired, open up your Bible. When it's hard for you to pray, and you just don't feel like it, get down on your knees and plead with God. Lunge, lunge at Christ with all your soul’s strength. Store up His word in your heart that you might have reserves for when you're tired and when you're weary and the pressures of the world zap your strength. Throw yourself at the finish line. Don't hold anything back. Jesus Christ is worth it. The prize is worth the strain.
But you're not in this alone, Christian. You're not in this alone. Your fifth point, remember, you're in a team race. Remember, you're in a team race. Look with me at verses 15 and 16. “Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even that to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.”
In swimming, you don't look back behind you because you're gonna lose your momentum going forward. But there is a helpful thing that happens when you're swimming is you're able to look to the left and to the right when you come up for air and your team members purposely sit there on the side of the pool deck. And they’ll beat on the cement cheering for you every time you take a breath. “Go, go, go! You can do it. You can do it. You can do it.” There are some of those in the room here who have ran this race for years. And us young people need you to keep running, and to keep cheering. Those of you in the room who are gray-haired and have been running this race for decades upon decades, we need you. We need to see the joy that you so have in salvation. You are our pacesetters. You're the ones who we learn, and how we've learned, to fight the good fight and to run the good raced. The church needs 80 and 90 year olds who are still running towards Jesus Christ.
There's a death nail in the congregation, in any congregation, and that death nail in any congregation will be when the people think that they have already arrived. Not just that they're mature. Some of you are far more mature in your Christian walks than others, but none of us are there yet. And when the church becomes a place where we think we're perfect, it's a death nail to the life of the congregation because people aren't running anymore. They think they've got the finish line, but you're not at the finish line until you breathe your last dying breath. Keep Christ in front of you. Keep running towards Him. Keep running with endurance.
But it's worth saying again. Your last point, never lose sight of the prize. Never lose sight of the prize. Look with me again at verse 14. “But I press toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Brothers and sisters, Christ is worth it. Christ is worth all of your strength. Christ is worth all of your effort. Christ is worth all of your straining, all of your long hours, all of the sleep that you might give up, that you might wake up earlier, go to bed late, because you want to pray and to be in His word, to be with His people and to be seeking His face. Christ is worth it. Cling to Him. Run to Him. Jesus is our king. Jesus is your joy. Jesus is your Lord. Jesus is our master. Jesus is the one who we find every fulfillment of every promise in. Jesus is our salvation. Jesus is our God. Jesus is your savior. And He is your great prize. Your eternal reward is to be with Jesus, perfectly, forever. Chase Him down. Spare no exertions. Push on towards the upward call of the prize that's in Jesus Christ. Strain yourself to lay hold of Him. For as our Shorter Catechism says, “On the day of your death, you will immediately pass into glory.” And on that great day of the resurrection, you will be openly acknowledged and acquitted. And you will be made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God for all eternity. It's worth it. It's worth it. Run the Christian race. Hold nothing back.
God, we thank you for the promise of the joy that is in Jesus Christ. Holy Spirit, please impress these truths on our hearts, that we would orient our whole lives around chasing down this goal. Father, please, we long to take hold of that great prize, Jesus Christ. Make it the purpose and the joy of our lives. In His name we pray, amen.
Thank you for listening, to God’s Word for You, a ministry of Sharon RP church in Morning Sun, Iowa. We pray that you would be blessed as you grow in your love for God, your love for His word as well as your love for His people. Until next week, God bless you.