Never Give In

I. Introduction

A. It took Winston Churchill 3 years to get through 8th grade because he had trouble learning Latin and consistently finished at the very bottom of his class. Ironically, years later, in the midst of WW2, he was asked to speak at the Oxford University commencement exercises. The popular myth is that he spoke only the three words, “Never give up,” repeated once more, before sitting down.

The truth is that his speech was a bit longer, about 20 minutes, during which he made the following statement: “But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period — I am addressing myself to the School — surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.”

B. Unfortunately, when it comes to spiritual matters, we all know others who have given up. Some give up when the path just gets to seem too difficult, and the trials overwhelm them. Some give up when the path gets too easy, and they simply forget about God. Some give up not due to external influences at all, but because they lose faith in their own ability to endure.

C. In the third chapter of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, while Paul doesn’t come right out and say “don’t give up,” he gives us a great guide for how to avoid doing so.

1. In the beginning of Philippians 3, Paul reminds us that through faith we can have a blessing that is so great as to make everything else in this world mere rubbish in comparison. Phil 3:8-11 reads in the NKJV, “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.”

He says that our righteousness comes “from God by faith.” It is a gift of God. In contrast, he said in verse 3 that we are to have “no confidence in the flesh,” that is, in God owing us salvation due to our innate goodness or our righteous actions.

2. Yet, even though our righteousness and salvation come as God’s gift and not as our just wages, there is still the need for us to conduct ourselves carefully in order to be eligible for that gift, as Paul warned in Phil 2:12. “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling….”

3. In the next section of chapter 3, as Paul tells us how he goes about seeking to attain the resurrection, he really gives us the key to never giving up. This key can be summarized in three things:

•How we deal with the past.

•How we deal with the future.

•How we deal with the present.

Let’s read what he says there in Phil 3:12-16. “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. 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 toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God 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.”

II. Paul first addresses how we deal with the past.

A. Paul says he is willing to lose everything, considering it as only trash that he had more than willingly dumped, so that he might “attain to the resurrection from the dead.” He then goes on in verses 12-13a to say, “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. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended….”