One of the sobering realities that we have to deal with as we get older is that we’re not physically capable of doing many of the things that we could do when we were younger. As we age, our bodies start to wear down—we’re not as strong as we used to be or as flexible as we used to be. But of course, we usually don’t realize this until we’re out on the softball field trying to re-live our old glory days and we end up tearing something! It seems like our minds are always about 10 years behind our bodies. Our minds remember what we could do, and they haven’t quite come to terms yet with what we can do right now!
This has all kind of hit home for me lately because I’ve been trying to build up my muscles a bit in anticipation of holding my baby. I’ve discovered from holding other babies that it can get pretty tiring after a while, so I thought I would try to beef up a little bit to prepare for my own baby. Now I’m still a young man, so—as I thought—this should still be pretty easy, right? Yeah, right! My mind is still ten years in the past—back then I could look at a set of weights and put on five pounds! But now I actually have to pick them up and work out, and not just once a week, but three or four times a week. It’s like I’m on some kind of treadmill, and if I don’t keep moving forward, I immediately start to lose ground.
You know, that same kind of feeling holds true in our relationship with God, doesn’t it? It’s hard to grow spiritually in areas where we are weak, and sometimes we let down for just a moment—maybe we give in to a temptation that we’ve said “no” to a dozen times—and suddenly its like we’ve lost all that ground that we had gained.
This morning as we study the book of Philippians, we are going to read as Paul describes the mindset that we need to have in order to keep moving forward in the Christian life, to keep growing more and more like Jesus in every way. We will also discover that there is a prize to be won by those who faithfully serve Jesus and carry out His will for their lives. What we will learn today is this:
The prize for faithfulness is won through a continuous pursuit of maturity.
I think this lesson is so important for us to take to heart, especially for churches like ours that believe in the doctrine of eternal security. According to our doctrinal statement, we believe the Bible tells us that once a person is saved, their salvation cannot be lost. In other words, once a person has placed his or her faith in Jesus and has thus received forgiveness from God and has been adopted into God’s family, that person is absolutely secure in that position; it can never be lost.
I think that is an absolutely glorious doctrine that should bring us a tremendous amount of comfort. But sometimes that doctrine can lead to an attitude that sounds something like this: “Well, it sure is nice to be saved! Now that I’ve got that settled, I guess there’s not much else to do but wait around until I can go to heaven.”
Obviously, that is a far cry from the attitude that we should have, because what we have to realize is that even after you have been saved, there is still an aspect of your future destiny that has not been settled. It doesn’t have to do with where you will spend eternity; rather, it has to do with the role that you will play after Jesus returns and sets up His kingdom on earth. There is a very real possibility that you might miss out on a reward that God wants you to have, so that is why we need to take this lesson to heart today.
Let’s read our passage for today, and then we’ll see what it has to teach us [READ 3:12–16]. Let’s study what Scripture has to tell us about pressing forward in our relationship with Christ.
I. We must continually press forward in pursuit of the prize for faithfulness (vv. 12–14)
In v. 12, Paul states that he does not feel that he had yet achieved the goal that he mentioned in v. 11, which was to know Christ intimately so that he could become part of that unique group of resurrected believers that will hear Jesus say on the day of judgment, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” That was Paul’s goal, but he didn’t think he had achieved it yet, so he writes in the rest of v. 12, “but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” Paul reminds us here that when Jesus saved us, He did so with the goal that we would grow spiritually and reflect his character. Let me take you on a quick tour of the book of Ephesians and I’ll show you what I mean:
[READ Eph. 1:3–4, 2:8–9, 4:12–13, 5:25–27]
So Jesus has the goal in mind for us that we would be spiritually mature, and in v. 12 Paul says that he is “pressing on” toward that goal. The Greek word that is translated “pressing on” here has an interesting connection to Paul’s former life before he was a Christian. This word refers to running after something or chasing something, and its often used in a literal way to refer to persecuting someone. In fact, in the book of Acts when Paul described how he used to hunt down Christians to throw them in prison, he used this word. Now it obviously has a much different application for Paul, but by using it its like he’s saying, “I’ve taken the same intensity with which I used to hunt down Christians, and now I’m using it to chase after spiritual maturity.” What a word picture!
Paul’s wording tells us that spiritual growth is an active process. It is not something that you passively receive by sitting in a pew on Sunday morning. Growing spiritually is not like catching a cold—it doesn’t happen by accident. It is something that requires action on your part; an intense, focused exertion of effort to deny your own sinful desires, to take the attitude of Jesus for yourself, and to follow Him. Nor will it come through casual effort. There must be a pursuit of spiritual growth if we are to lay hold of it.
And to describe this pursuit, Paul uses the image of running a race in vv. 13–14. He writes, [READ v. 13–14]. Now, I never ran track when I was in school. I tried when I was in 7th grade, but I got shin splints after two weeks and decided I had better things to do with my time. So I may not have run track, but even I know that you don’t run a race with your head turned back, looking over your shoulder.
Paul uses this rule of running to make an important spiritual point—the proper mindset for spiritual growth is not one that is focused on the past. Focusing on our past is a distraction, a hindrance, because the goal is still on ahead of us. Like many lessons in the Christian life, I think this one is both a comfort and a challenge. I think it is a tremendous comfort because it means that we don’t have to be shackled by what we’ve done in the past. It is so easy to allow our past failures and disappointments to continue weighing us down. We allow ourselves to be haunted by the sins that we’ve committed in the past, but the glorious message of the Gospel is that those sins have been forgiven. As Rom. 8:1 says, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Psalm 103:12 says, “as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us,” and Micah 7:19 says that God has cast all of our sins into the depths of the sea.
So we don’t need to let our past sins continue to be a hindrance to our spiritual growth today. We don’t have to think that God can’t use us today because of what we’ve done in the past. It would have been very easy for Paul to think that way, but he chose not to. When God called him to preach almost immediately after his conversion, he could have said, “God, surely I’m not fit to do this! I was opposing you just days ago; I’m not the right one for this task.” But instead, Paul chose the perspective that he describes here—he didn’t look back, but chose instead to look ahead and press on to grow spiritually.
But this lesson also provides a challenge for us, because if our focus is not supposed to be on what we’ve done in the past, then that means we can’t rest on our past spiritual accomplishments, either. Even if we’ve been serving the Lord and growing as a Christian for years, we can’t look back and say, “Well, that’s good enough,” and then stop pressing forward to grow as a Christian.
But I fear that there is a growing trend to do just that today, especially as people approach and enter the retirement years. It seems like more and more people are also retiring from church when they retire from their jobs—not that they necessarily stop attending church, but they stop serving, they stop pressing forward in order to grow. It’s almost as if people are saying, “Well, I’ve put in my time at the church. Let’s just let the younger generations take over.” Then these folks go buy an RV and their churches hardly ever see them anymore!
If I can speak to our senior saints for just a moment, I urge you not to stop pressing forward in your spiritual growth and your service for Christ in the world and in this church. I understand you may not have the energy or the physical endurance that you used to have and that’s fine, because your physical strength isn’t your greatest asset anyway—its your wisdom! If you’ve been growing in Christ throughout your life, then you have a wisdom that these young people around you badly need. So focus on building relationships with them. Find some kids who don’t have grandparents nearby and be grandparents to them. Go to their games; buy them presents on their birthday; pray for them and then tell them how you prayed for them. Tell them what you’re asking God to do in their lives. Please don’t look back and say, “That’s good enough.” Keep pressing forward!
And for all of us as we think about how we might spend the latter years of life—let’s focus our thoughts on how we can center that time around service for Christ. Don’t focus on how you can spend the last 15, 20, or 25 years of your life focusing on yourself. Keep pressing forward, because as Paul reminds us here in v. 14, there is a prize waiting for those who will press on toward the finish line!
Over the years people have debated a bit over what Paul is talking about here in v. 14. Some people have said that he is talking about the Rapture, but that doesn’t make sense to me because of the language that Paul uses here. The Rapture is not a prize that we have to win—it is a guarantee, a promise from God for all of his children. So because Paul speaks of a prize here I think he is talking about the rewards that are held out to us in Christ’s millennial kingdom—specifically the reward of serving in a position of leadership and authority in Christ’s kingdom on earth.
I think Paul is continuing the imagery of a runner here by drawing on the picture of a victorious athlete in the Greek athletic competitions. The person who won the race would be called to appear before the judges in order to receive the prize, and I think that’s what Paul is talking about here. When he stands before God to be judged for his deeds in the Christian life, he wants to be called up to receive the prize, to hear Jesus say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” and to serve under Jesus to reign in his kingdom.
That is why Paul won’t look back, but keeps pressing forward, keeps striving to win the prize. And of course, if we are going to press forward, that tells us that…
II. We must not slip back on the path of spiritual growth (vv. 15–16)
In the final two verses of this paragraph, Paul writes, [READ vv. 15–16]. Now v. 15 introduces a little bit of confusion because Paul seems to be contradicting what he said in v. 12 about being perfect. In that verse he had said that he has not already become perfect, but then in v. 15 it sounds like he’s saying that he is perfect. Your translation in v. 15 might say “mature,” which is an accurate translation, but it in Greek, Paul uses the same word in v. 12 as he does in v. 15. So what are we to make of all of this?
Well, we need to make note of the verb tense that Paul uses in v. 12. We can see that he’s using a tense that talks about a completed action that has led to a settled state. He writes, “not that I have already become perfect,” as though he had become perfect and some point in the past and was now settled in some kind of state of perfection. As we see, Paul believes that he needs to keep pressing forward to know Christ better, so it seems that what he is saying in v. 15 is that those who are perfect (or mature, or complete) in the Christian life are those who realize that they are not perfect, those who understand that they are still a work in progress. So I think Paul is simply adjusting our perspective of what it means to be mature as a Christian—it means that we understand that we still have work to do. In other words, if we think we’ve arrived at some kind of final state of Christian maturity, that attitude is proof that we haven’t!
But notice that Paul does acknowledge in v. 16 that as we grow in the Christian life, we really do make progress. He says, [READ v. 16]. Even though we still need to grow, its not as though we’re on some kind of spiritual treadmill, where we strive and strive for spiritual growth but end up stuck in the same place. We really do grow and mature; we really will find ourselves getting the upper hand on temptations that plague us right now. We really will find our knowledge increasing and our love for God growing, and what Paul is telling us is to make sure that that progress doesn’t slip away once we’ve attained it.
If I can use a military metaphor here, what Paul is saying is that once we have gained ground spiritually, we must never give up that ground. We must hold that position and then press forward to new territory. We must always be on the advance, never on the retreat, never yielding the spiritual growth that we have already obtained.
And so, what remains for us today is to take to heart Paul’s command in v. 15 to adopt this attitude as our own. And notice that he offers something a promise with that as well when he says “and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you.” It is not an easy thing to tell if our attitude is off-base. As the Lord said through Jeremiah, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart, I test the mind (Jer. 17:9–10).”
So let’s ask the Lord to do exactly what Paul said here, to show us if our attitude is not what it should be, to show us if we’ve let up in our pursuit of knowing Him. Let’s ask God to show us if we are keeping ourselves shackled by the past—if we’re allowing ourselves to be held back by unnecessary guilt or an unhealthy sense of satisfaction over what we’ve already done. May we keep our eyes on the reward that God offers us for faithfulness to Christ, and press forward to win the prize.
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