YouTube video sermon
Philippians 3:12-16
As always, let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Two weeks ago, when I was in Charleston for my 25th college reunion, Lauren and I were walking in Hampton Park (next to The Citadel). As we were walking and talking and enjoying each other’s company, we encountered all of the typical sites that you associate with a city park – families taking photos, a rental company setting up chairs and tents for a wedding, couples sitting on park benches enjoying the outdoors, folks of all ages getting in a bicycle ride or jogging or walking their pets, and all of a sudden, we encountered the most unusual thing. Watch this (show video of man walking his pet tortoise).
Of course, I couldn’t help but think about the old fable of “The Tortoise and the Hare.” You remember it, I’m sure. The hare challenges the tortoise to a foot race. The gun fires and the hare goes flying off into the distance, while the tortoise begins his slow and methodical pace. The hare is so convinced that he’s got this race won that he decides he’ll sit down and rest and relax and fall asleep. And lo and behold, the tortoise comes along with the same slow pace and eventually wins the race and the hare is nowhere in sight.
Well, since we’ve been in Philippians and I’ve been reading and praying over these verses, that encounter in the park was the perfect introduction to today’s text. Remember, now, that we’ve just finished hearing Paul make this remarkable statement, “I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (vss. 10-11). It’s an amazing affirmation and aspiration. Paul says, “I want to know Christ – not only personally, but I want to know Him progressively, and I want to know Him with a passionate commitment.” And then we read these words. Follow along with me:
12 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. 13 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, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. 16 Only let us hold true to what we have attained.
“Father, we pray that with our Bibles open before us, that in the mystery of Your purposes, beyond the voice of a mere man we might hear Your voice through Your Word, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit’s power. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.”
One of the things that endears me to this passage is the humility that I hear from Paul. Honestly, most of the time, when we read something that Paul wrote or we think about him what comes to mind? The world’s greatest theologian? The world’s greatest church planter? The world’s greatest missionary? Many might even say he’s the world’s greatest Christian, but here, he’s admitting he doesn’t have it all together. And that’s so encouraging to me.
See, listen to me, one of the dangers in being a pastor or a teacher is that we can set before our churches and congregations such idealistic standards and cause you to believe that we’re actually living them. And to make matters worse, sometimes we can make the disparity between pastor and parishioner so great that we delude both you and ourselves into believing something that isn’t true – that we’re always faithful and obedient.
C. S. Lewis describes this perfectly in his little book The Four Loves. He’s in the midst of writing about familial love, brotherly love, romantic love and God’s love and he finally draws it all to a close with this wonderful statement: “And with this, where a better book would begin, mine must end. I dare not proceed. God knows – not I – whether I have ever tasted this love. Those like myself whose imagination far exceeds their obedience are subject to a just penalty; we easily imagine conditions far higher than any we have really reached. If we describe what we have imagined we may make others, and make ourselves, believe that we have really been there.”
So, you think that because you taught it, you, did it? You think that because you understand it, you’re living it? You think that because you can write it on your wall, or stick it in your wallet, or quote it in your car, or announce it to the people around you, that that’s actually your experience, when, in fact, it may be nothing other than your imagination?
Back to the tortoise. Do you know what a pain in the neck it is to be surrounded by spiritual rabbits? Always leaping and bounding about, always making great aspirations, always saying where they’re going, what they’re doing, what they’re achieving, how well they’re doing, quoting all the various verses they learned, letting everybody know how well it’s all going, and as a tortoise how dispiriting it is as you just try and keep going along the Christian life. Sometimes you find yourself saying, “I don’t even know if I’m in this Christian life. I don’t even know if I want to wear this uniform. I don’t know if I want to step up to the plate.”
But the wonderful wisdom of the apostle Paul! He says, “Now listen, guys, let me just tell you how I do it.” And I want to summarize Paul’s plan for us this way: “called,” “kept,” “pressing on.” Just a word or two on each.
Called By God
Where does the “call” come from? It comes from God. Look at what he says (v. 14): “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me.” God is the One who calls. Unlike my call as a parent or an uncle, God’s call is an authoritative call. My brother and sister-in-law had some plans on Thursday night and their normal babysitter called in sick, so they called their last resort (uncle Lee). Anyway, I had to take my 11-year-old niece to a high school basketball game that she was cheering for, and in tow were my 7-year-old niece and my 4-year-old nephew. Oh how quickly I had forgotten what it’s like with young ones. When will we be there? How much longer? Can we leave? Can we get popcorn? I wanna go to the bathroom. I’m starving. Talk about a humbling experience. My voice goes from semi-authoritative in church settings to having no influence, no life, no animation whatsoever. But not God. His call is a life-giving call. It’s the voice of Jesus outside the tomb of Lazarus in John 11: “Lazarus, come out!” And what happens? Does Lazarus roll over and go back to sleep like so many of us on a cold and rainy morning? No; he comes out!
God’s call is Romans 8:28: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose… And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.” In Galatians 1:6 we read: “I am [very surprised] that you are so quickly deserting the One who [has] called you.” First Thessalonians 2: “[I urge] you,” Paul writes, “to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into His kingdom and glory.” Second Timothy 1:9: “[Timothy, let us bless God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,] who has saved us and called us to a holy life.”
And the call of God came to Saul of Tarsus on that famed Damascus Road. Paul reiterated this truth many times as he gave his testimony; he says, “And I heard a voice… And I heard a voice from heaven saying…” You see, you never begin the Christian journey until you hear God’s voice. I’m not suggesting an audible voice (necessarily), but rather a voice that’s heard when the Word of God is preached and the Holy Spirit writes it upon our hearts. Horatius Bonar, the hymn writer, put it this way in his hymn I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say:
I heard the voice of Jesus say,
“Come unto me and rest;
Lay down, [thou] weary one, lay down
Your head upon my breast.”
[And] I came to Jesus as I was,
Weary and worn and sad;
[And] I found in him a resting place,
And he has made me glad.
He’s describing his experience of conversion. He’d heard sermons many times; just like you, just like me. He’d known about Christ from earlier days. He’d been able to sit and absorb it all. And then, one day, he heard the voice of God. He heard the call of God. And it reached into his soul, and it was an irresistible call. There was nothing he could do except say yes, except follow, except embrace it. Have you heard God’s call that way? Has God called out to you? Hebrews 3:15 says “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.”
Called heavenward in Christ Jesus – called upward, called on. Secondly, “kept.”
Kept By Christ
That’s the emphasis on this phraseology in verse 12: “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” To be a Christian is to be taken hold of by Christ. That’s the real kind of question we need to be asking. Not “Am I enjoying religious pursuits?” Plenty of people do that. Not “Am I attending religious observances and functions?” Many people do that. But “Have I responded to God’s call, and am I kept by Christ?” If we can explain our lives in relationship to “called” and “kept,” then we’ll know that what we’re experiencing is genuine Christian faith.
Jesus says in John chapter 10, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” How do you know if you’re a Christian? You listen to His voice, and you follow Him. I mean, why would you think you’re in the flock if, when the shepherd comes by and says, “Come on now, sheep, come on now.” The rest of the sheep listen and follow and you’re like, “Stranger danger.”
When Peter describes the experience of being born again in 1 Peter 1:4-5, he describes it in the exact same terminology; he says we’ve been born again to “a living hope [by] the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable and undefiled, kept in heaven for you who through faith are shielded by God’s power.”
There’s an old Scottish hymn that Keith and Krystin Getty have reworked lately. I bumped into it about a year ago and the lyrics go like this:
Verse 1:
When I fear my faith will fail
Christ will hold me fast
When the tempter would prevail
He will hold me fast
I could never keep my hold
Through life’s fearful path
For my love is often cold
He must hold me fast
Chorus:
He will hold me fast
He will hold me fast
For my Savior loves me so
He will hold me fast
Verse 2:
Those He saves are His delight
Christ will hold me fast
Precious in His holy sight
He will hold me fast
He’ll not let my soul be lost
His promises shall last
Bought by Him at such a cost
He will hold me fast
Is that not a great encouragement to us this morning? So prone to wander. So easy to stumble. So neglectful of the things of grace. So dull. So ineffectual. So cold. So hard-hearted. So poor about sharing our faith. How in the world are we even still here? Do you ever say that to yourself, as you drag yourself to worship? I do. And the only explanation I have for it is that He called me heavenward in Christ Jesus, and because He called me heavenward in Christ Jesus, He keeps me. And that’s amazing. The great mystery is this: that He calls sinners to Himself, and what’s more is He keeps us. “Called by God!” “Kept by Christ!”
Pressing On In the Spirit
The first step you have to take to move forward is quit looking backward. Look at verse 13 (again), “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind…” (NIV).
Too many people never get to where they need to go today or tomorrow, because they’re still living in yesterday. Truth is you can’t focus on where you’re going until you stop looking in the rearview mirror. Someone once said, “You can’t sail the ship of your life into the seas of the future if your anchor is stuck in the mud of the past.” And yet, it’s so easy to look backward, isn’t it? There are a lot of things I wish I could do over again: as a father, as a husband, as a pastor, as a son, as a friend. There are words I said that I wish I could take back. Sir Winston Churchill said it perfectly, “if the past quarrels with the present there can be no future.”
Don’t misunderstand that word “forget.” It doesn’t mean to “fail to remember.” I mean, there’s no way you can ever totally erase the past from your memory. Right there, that word literally means “not to be influenced or affected by.” For example, God says in Isaiah 43:25, “I, [even] I am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (ESV). When God says, “I will remember your sins no more,” it doesn’t mean that all of a sudden God gets amnesia. Remember, God is omniscient. He’s all-knowing and all-wise. No, it simply means that God will no longer allow your past to affect your present relationship and your future fellowship with Him.
Forget your past failures. Forget your past mistakes – the things you didn’t do that you should’ve done and the things you did do that you shouldn’t have done. Confess them. Repent of them. Agree with God that you broke covenant with Him and where it involves other people try to make amends. Learn from the mistakes, but move on. And the second thing you have to forget are your past successes. That sounds counterintuitive, I know. But think about it. Today is another day. The success of yesterday may have some residual impact, particularly as it relates to your marriage or being a parent or doing your job, but how well you did yesterday is over. It’s water under the bridge and you have to get up and press on to do it again. Paul says, “Don’t allow your regrets to be debilitating, and don’t allow your achievements to drag your neck down.” Rather, put that behind you and “press on toward the goal.”
The Greek word for “goal” is skopos, and it means “to focus on.” If you’re a hunter you know this word. It’s where we get our word “telescope.” It means to fix your eye on a small target. Paul’s eyes were on the prize. He was focused on this one thing which he called “the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” What is that?
God has called every one of us to accomplish one goal. If you accomplish this one goal in your life on a daily basis, you’ll maximize the influence you have in your business, in your home, in your neighborhood, in your family and every other area of your life. This is the one thing we must seek daily – to know God and glorify Him. No matter what other goals you achieve in life it doesn’t matter how many ladders you climb and how high you climb them. If you don’t know God and glorify Him with everything you are and everything you have, your life is a waste and you chased the wrong goal.
That means that every waking moment of every day you don’t dwell on the past and you don’t dread the future. Rather, you devote yourself to the present and you make it your one goal to know God and to glorify Him. Keep your eyes on the prize. What would it mean for you if you finally got your eyes on the right prize and “pressed on” towards that prize? For some of you, it would mean for the first time in your life, you would read your Bible every day and read it completely through. For others of you, it would mean you would begin to manage your money in a way that honors God. For others, you would realize that God didn’t put you here to be served, but to serve, and you would find a way to serve God’s church and God’s people.
God didn’t put us here to run the rat race. He put us here to run the real race. He didn’t put us here to run for the approval of this world, but to run for His glory. The prize is not the gold of this world; it is the glory of God. When you get your eyes on the prize and you have one goal every day to know God and to give Him glory, He will make sure all the other things will fall into place.