Philippians 3:13-21
Put Your Behind In The Past
Woodlawn Baptist Church
January 7, 2007
Introduction
Have you ever heard of or taken the time to read the resolutions of the preacher Jonathan Edwards who was made famous in the Great Awakening? Over a period of time, he wrote…
1. Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humble entreat Him, by His grace, to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to His will, for Christ’s sake. [I will] remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.
2. Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God, and my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration; without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved, to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general.
3. Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can.
4. Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.
5. Resolved, Never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.
6. Resolved, Never to do anything out of revenge.
7. Resolved, Never to speak evil of any one, so that it shall tend to his dishonour, more or less, upon no account except for some real good.
8. Resolved, To study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive, myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.
9. Resolved, Never to count that a prayer, nor to let that pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so made, that I cannot hope that God will answer it; nor that as a confession which I cannot hope God will accept.
10. Resolved, To ask myself, at the end of every day, week, month, and year, wherein I could possibly, in any respect, have done better.
11. Resolved, Never to give over, nor in the least to slacken, my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be.
12. Resolved, After afflictions, to inquire, what I am the better for them; what good I have got by them, and what I might have got by them.
13. Resolved, Always to do that which I shall wish I had done when I see others do it. Let there be something of benevolence in all that I speak.
In what have become possibly among the most well known resolutions ever made, Jonathon Edwards expressed a simple desire to live a life in pursuit of God. Whether you choose to be so eloquent or not, anything short of that desire in your own life is going to cause you to miss God’s very best for you. A God entranced life, or a life consumed with the pursuit of God isn’t just the stuff of our favorite Bible heroes, nor is it a life that ought to be relegated to a handful of preachers. Every life, each of your lives and mine ought to be marked by the passionate pursuit of God and His kingdom.
The apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:13-14,
“Brethren, I count no myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
“This one thing I do…I press toward the mark.” If the apostle Paul was anything in life, he was driven. There are three words in that little phrase we ought to learn from. First of all, “I press.” The word press comes from a Greek word that’s used over 40 times in the Bible, and 31 of those times it is translated persecute. It has to do with purpose, and more specifically, intensity of purpose. “I press toward…” meaning that he is moving in a chosen direction, and thirdly, “I press toward with great intensity and purpose the mark.” Toward what? I’m pressing toward the mark, the goal, the one thing at which I have taken aim. Nothing else matters, nothing else has any importance for me – I am driven with great intensity toward this one thing – God, the things of God, and the kingdom of God.
I want to issue forth a simple challenge today and throughout this year – and that is that we begin to see ourselves as people of the kingdom of God and that we begin to live in hot pursuit of a relationship with God which reflects that God and His kingdom really are the most important things in our lives. The challenge is for us to live like people of the kingdom, to love like people of the kingdom, to have kingdom values, to have kingdom desires, and that we set our sights on that one thing and run after it with great intensity. My challenge to you today…God’s challenge to you today is to life a God entranced life, a God consumed life, a God centered life.
Paul lived such a life – and if you would live such a life then today I want you to drive a milepost down in the ground so that as you reflect on your journey with Christ you’d be able to look back to this day as a day when something real and significant changed in your life. You’ll recognize this milepost by four distinguishing marks – four essential choices you will make as you press toward God.
Take Inventory
Many of you have worked places where you had to take inventory. The goal was to reconcile what the books showed you had with what you actually had. It never failed in the places I worked like Wal-Mart, or at the state school, that the numbers were never right. Once when working at a small company with just a few employees, our annual inventory showed discrepancies in the two sets of numbers.
In verse 13, Paul says, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended.” The word count is that accounting term that means to reconcile or to take inventory. What Paul was saying was that as he took account of his life in terms of his relationship with God and in terms of his spiritual maturity he had not yet arrived. He had not yet apprehended, seized, or possessed what he was after.
It is a natural thing for you and me to grow complacent and content with our spirituality. It is quite natural for us to think that we are doing okay in our walk with the Lord and with our religion, but in terms of taking inventory that is what the books say. That is what the computer says is in stock. But what about when you actually walk back to the warehouse and look on the shelf? It matters not what you think or feel. What does your life really say?
From time to time we must take inventory. Have we stopped growing? Are we still experiencing the good things of God as though they were new each day? Are we still pressing forward? Are we still looking for the blessed Redeemer? Are we loving unlovable people like Christ would? Are we demonstrating grace and mercy like He would have us to? Has Christ really changed our hearts? You thought you had that anger under control, but what about that blowup you had?
I know people who never balance their checkbook. They have no idea what they have. They leave it up to the bank to tell them what they have. They trust someone else with their money. What about with your spiritual life? Do you know what you really are? Do you know what you really have? Do you really want to trust other people telling you what a good Christian you are when you could stop, take inventory and allow the Holy Spirit to give you a much more accurate count? You’ll never see the need to press toward the mark if you never take inventory of where you are today. That’s the first identifying mark on today’s spiritual milestone.
Put Your Past Behind You
You may identify with Simba from the kid’s movie, The Lion King. Show video clip.
Simba was down and out because of what he believed to be a messed up past. We allow what we did to stop us. We allow what we didn’t do to stop us. If anyone had a messed up past it was Paul, but he says this in verse 13: “Brethren, I have taken inventory of my life, and I know I have not yet arrived at where I want to be: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind.”
We joke around all the time about what it’s like to forget things. Some of you are bothered by your forgetfulness, but that’s not the kind of forgetting Paul is talking about here. This word forget means to put out of your mind, or to neglect something. In other words, he purposely and deliberately chose not to remember something, and maybe more accurately, not to let something in his past influence his future.
Your past may be pretty messed up. Maybe you’ve got some skeletons in your closet. We all have moments in life that we’d like to put behind us. In fact it’s not just certain moments we’d like to put behind us, there are habits, decisions, mistakes, problems, relationships, lost time and more that we’d like to forget about; that we’d like to put in the past. I wonder how many people have changed jobs, marriages, moved to different towns, and swapped churches all hoping that a fresh start will change everything. Most of the time though little changes except the scenery. Maybe this is a bit of an oversimplification, but forget it all, make a deliberate choice to neglect the influence those things have over your life and press forward.
The flip side of that is that you may have had a great past. You did great things for God. You lived for Him. You used to teach and witness and go here and there and do this and that in the church and people far and wide sang your praises. If that’s the case, I praise God for you. But you know what? As glorious as your past is it could be stopping you from pressing forward to an even greater relationship with God.
No matter who you are, what you have or haven’t done, where you’ve been and how much longer you have on this earth, put your past behind you and make this a defining moment in your life so that one day, a year from now or ten you can look back and see this second identifying mark on today’s milepost. As you press toward the mark today put your past behind you.
Yoke Up With Likeminded Believers
In verses 15-17, Paul says,
“Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together of me.”
First Paul says that those of us who are perfect, or in this case have the spiritual maturity, or the spiritual wherewithal to do so, be thus minded. It’s like this…the challenge today is to purpose in your hearts to lay everything aside and live in hot pursuit of a God centered life. Many, maybe even most people will not do so. Like the sower and the seed, the cares of this life will choke out the desire and will drown out the voice of God calling us to come ever closer to the heart of God. But some will hear. Some will lay it all down. Some will take inventory, put the past behind them and press forward. For those who will do so, living with that one aim must be our mindset – it must be the thing that drives us.
Here is the good news – that God knows our desires. The fact is that while I have purposed in my heart to take this challenge, I will get distracted. I will not always have this mindset. I will not always be thus minded. In those moments when I am not, if my heart is right with God and He knows my desire is to be so, Paul says that “God shall reveal even this unto you.”
You may as well know that God’s not going to chase you all around trying to change your minds if your desire really isn’t to live such a life. If you want to live in the dark then that’s exactly where you’ll stay.
So Paul says, “whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule…” In other words, regardless of where you are in the race…regardless of where you are on the journey, no matter how far you have come in your pursuit of God, let’s walk or run or travel by the same rule, minding the same thing – having the same purpose of heart.
You and I may be in two completely different places in our spiritual journey, even at two different places of spiritual maturity, but we want the same things. If I want to love like Jesus loved and you want to love like Jesus loved, then we can encourage one another to live in pursuit of that. If you want to be a God-honoring husband and I want to be a God-honoring husband, then we can encourage one another to be those things.
As we live in pursuit of God we must yoke up with other believers who are also in pursuit of that one thing, and before I leave this third identifying mark on our milestones I must say that we do not do this in this sanctuary. We really only yoke up with one another on a relational basis outside these four walls. The disciples didn’t yoke up with Jesus as He preached sermons, but as He walked from town to town, as He attended weddings and funerals, as He touched lepers and blind people, as He walked through corn fields and ate meals together. If you want to yoke up with likeminded believers, start looking for ways to make that happen on Monday, not Sunday.
Avoid Those Who Aren’t In Pursuit Of God
Let’s pick up again in verse 17.
“Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)
When we mark those who are proper role models for our spiritual journey, then those we ought not follow will grow more and more obvious. It is a fact that many people, even inside the Lord’s churches have no desire or interest in living in pursuit of God. Paul says they are enemies of the cross of Christ. Statistically speaking, many Christians we personally know are enemies of the cross of Christ, even within our own church.
How do you know someone is an enemy of the cross of Christ?
• Their God is their belly. That doesn’t necessarily mean they eat too much, but their lives are marked by self-indulgence and self-gratification. They get what they want. Their marriages are about them. Their relationships are about them. This church is here for them. We make our decisions because of them. God isn’t the Lord of their life – their own fleshly appetites are.
• Their glory is in their shame. In other words the things that draw attention to them are things they ought to be ashamed of. When you think of them you think of things unbecoming of a child of God. This isn’t about bellies hanging out of clothes that are too small, its about someone claiming to love God but having a foul mouth, telling foul jokes, making fun of those less fortunate. It’s about someone claiming to love their church but can barely make one service a week. It’s about someone claiming to live for the glory of God but when you look at their life away from church you wouldn’t know they knew God. Their glory is in their shame.
• They mind earthly things. Put very simply, they have never set their hearts on God or the kingdom of God. They don’t have time or concern for prayer. They don’t have time or concern for the Word of God. They don’t have time or concern for ministry. They don’t have a dollar to spare for the work of God, but they drive a new car. They don’t have a dollar to spare for spreading the gospel, but they’ve seen the latest movies and own the latest gadgets. They mind earthly things.
Not only are these people enemies of the cross, whether they are church members or not Paul tells us we are to avoid them. The Scripture makes it clear, bad company corrupts good character. If you want to live in pursuit of a deeper, better, growing, more meaningful relationship with God, then you can’t follow people who are enemies of the cross of Christ, no matter how fun and friendly they are. Even if they are the most revered people in the church, if they aren’t living in pursuit of God…if they aren’t concerned with living for the glory of God, then you mark them and don’t follow them.
Conclusion
Now Paul has told us what his one aim is. “This one thing I do…” But why? The answer to that question is found in verses 20-21.
“For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”
Why should we live in pursuit of God? Why should we take aim on our relationship with Him? Why should we take inventory, forget those things which are behind, yoke up with like-minded believers and press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus? Because we are people of the kingdom! Our conversation, our citizenship is in heaven. That’s where I belong! He’s the One to whom I belong! He’s the One who is returning for me! We’re so worried about our vile bodies being changed into His glorious image that we forget He has told us to work out our salvation and be transformed into His image here and now!
Why should we press on? Because one day there is a prize – the victor’s crown for those who answer the call. Why should I strive to apprehend Christ? Because according to verse 12 that’s why He apprehended me. He reached out to me in order that I might reach out and know Him.
I told you the challenge to day really is simple, and it is, but it’s not easy. The challenge is to live in hot pursuit of God and His kingdom this year, not just with a bunch of empty words, but with your life. It won’t take a lot of resolutions – just one.
Will you make that resolution today? Will you drive down that milepost today? Will you, regardless of anything that’s happened up to this day, good or bad, strike out with me today in pursuit of something better from God? Let it begin with you.
