Philippians 3:10-21 May 25, 2008
Running the race.
Clip – Eric Liddell falling, getting up to win the race.
Paul has given up everything that should have made him proud in life. Why? He had a goal – to attain the resurrection.
Resurrection: not life after death, but life after life after death. The ultimate goal is not that we ascend to heaven, but that heaven descends to us.
Last week, Paul was using the analogy of the balance sheet – what is on the credit side and what is on the debit side. He now switches analogies to a race. He is running to win the prize
He says this with a great turn of phrase. He uses the same hard-to-translate word twice:
TNIV: I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
NLT: I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.
Message: reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me.
Wright: “I’m hurrying on, eager to overtake it, because King Jesus has overtaken me.
It is this great image that we are reaching for the prize that is the resurrection life that Jesus promises us, but Jesus was reaching for something too – he was reaching for you and for me that we might have this great resurrection life. We are racing toward each other with the same goal – to see the resurrection!
Or another way of reading it is that Jesus has recruited us to run on his Track team, so that we can win the prize that he has offered.
Goals in life – Rick Warren
Paul is shooting for a very achievable goal
1:6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
2:12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
God is on our side – he wants us to win the race, but we still have to run.
It’s like the coach telling his athlete that the race is in the bag…
Not that we have to attain the Resurrection by working ourselves into being worthy of it, but that we live by God’s grace and power so that when it happens, we are there to receive it.
A few years ago, I preached at a friend’s church while he was on holiday. The message I was going to give was one that I had given here, and God seemed to really use it. We invited people to come to the church for ministry after and most of the congregation came forward. When I got to this little church and talked with one of the leaders I asked him if they had a ministry team that could pray for people if we invited people forward for prayer after the sermon. He looked at me, and then looked at the congregation and assured me that he knew everyone there, that they were all Christians and therefore there would be no need to offer ministry after the sermon.
Clearly his idea was that once you crossed the line, and became a Christian, you were done.
Paul says this is not the case, even he has not arrived at the finish-line yet.
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.” 12-13
There must have been “mature” Christians in the church at Philippi who felt as if they had “Arrived.” Because Paul has the need to say, “All of us, then, who are “mature” should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently,(if you are truly mature) that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.” 15-16
Watch us, not them
- taking Jeff to the Tuesday MTB night race – the benefit of getting behind a better rider and following their line
- the disadvantage of getting behind a not-so-good rider and getting taken down some trails you would rather not take.
Paul says in verse 17, that he, and people like him, are veteran riders – they know the right lines to take. Follow their example and you will run well.
He says that there are some really lousy riders out there. If you follow them you might not just crash and burn, but it is likely that they will lead you right off the race course – far from resurrection, straight to destruction!
He says “For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.”
It is as if Paul has fast-forwarded to 2008 and is talking about those who preach a prosperity Gospel – “God wants to bless you and make you rich – if you give to me and my ministry” – their god is their stomach.
Or he might just be talking about Christians who are living in the hedonistic culture of his day, and of our day.
There is another passage that uses the race analogy to describe the Christian life, found in Hebrews 121-2:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. … so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
It says the same thing that Paul has been saying – If we are going to run the race well, we need to give up some things, just as a racer strips down to pretty close to his underwear to race, we need strip off the things that are going to get in our way.
Paul has already talked about getting rid of the things that we thought were to our advantage before Christ – you can’t run a race holding on to your past trophies!
Now he also talks about getting rid of the things that are wrong in our life – the stuff we call sin. In other places Paul says that the sins of the flesh are obvious – this is no secret sin that you are committing that even you are not aware of – this is something that is obvious to you, and possibly to those around you. As he mentions “Their belly” or their appetite being their god, he is referring to things like gluttony; lust and other sexual sins; general greed for more; and as he mentioned before, grumbling and arguing about the more that you do not have. I think that all of us have some sin in our appetite that we struggle with that if we are honest, is obvious to us. This is what he is talking about getting rid of.
The way both Paul and the writer to the Hebrews describe the sin in our lives, the emphasis is not something that condemns us (although it is that) as much as something that distracts us from the great goal that we are running toward. It is like a marathon runner out in front and winning the race deciding that it would be a good time for a stop at Burger King. He might be hungry, and Whopper might taste really good about now, but he has a race to run! Forget the distractions, leave them behind and get on with running the race!
In verse 20, he switches metaphors. He says “their minds are on things of the world, but our citizenship is in heaven.”
By saying this, it doesn’t mean that our “heads are in the clouds” – it means that we must be the embodiment of that section of the Lord’s prayer that says “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
It means that even if all the people around us are living for their own appetite for more of whatever, that is not how we behave because we do not belong.
It doesn’t mean that we are sitting around waiting to go to heaven – If you read what Paul is saying – we are waiting for heave to come to us! And we are to be part of its coming!
1 Peter 2:11-12
Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
It is our goal as citizens of Heaven to see the Kingdom of heaven made evident here. The kingdom is a kingdom of mercy, forgiveness, purity and justice. Because of this, we have no business allowing the ways of the world (greed, lust hate) overtake us, when we are supposed to overtake them!
What happens when you trip up like Eric Liddell?
You could sit on the sidelines and beat yourself up over tripping, and falling.
You could bemoan the fact that you’ve been taken out of the race.
Or you could hear Sam whispering “Get up lad, get up” and get up and get back into the race!
Paul says “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
If you fall – don’t stay down, get up, confess your sin and repent by getting back into the race and serving God.
People used to say of Eric Liddell that he ran with an interior power that could not be explained. We are the same. We do not run under our own steam, we do not live for the kingdom under our own steam, we do not attain the resurrection life under our own steam – it is the Holy Spirit within us that gives us the power to persevere to the end.
