Pressing on to possess that for which Christ Jesus first possessed me
Phil 3:12-21 Feb 13, 2011
Intro:
I don’t really consider myself a “runner”, though I guess that since I run most days on the treadmill for fitness I suppose I should. But I just don’t see myself that way, it doesn’t fit my identity, I don’t read running magazines or know all about the best shoes or love to defy icy sidewalks and -20C temperatures so that I can “run”. I do it because it is a discipline, and because since I love to eat I have to run to burn off all the calories I love to consume! I guess what I’m saying is it is something I do because I should, not because I love it.
While that is fine for running, it is not fine when it comes to our relationships, and particularly our relationship with God. God’s love for us is so powerful and consuming, when we let it, that if our response is to live as we think we should, rather than because we love God in response to His love for us, it is an insult to God, just like buying a dozen roses for your wife on Valentine’s day would be an insult if you did it because you had to and not because you actually wanted to express your love for your wife. And while I suppose you might be able to pretend well enough in your marriage, let us not forget God sees, God knows, God looks past the surface and into our hearts.
We’ve been learning in Philippians that this inner transformation, this love that must well up within us and become the source of our actions, is the Gospel. Last Sunday, as we studied the first half of chapter 3, we saw Paul looking at his life, at all the things he had pursued in his own effort and strength, and how he sees them as worthless, worthless garbage now that he has known the love of God. He used strong, powerful words completely rejecting any notion of working to earn the love of God.
But now this week, in the last half of chapter 3, he starts talking about effort again, and it might be confusing for us unless we grasp this critical truth: the effort is motivated by love and is a response to God’s love – it flows out of the relationship and is in NO WAY the basis for the relationship.
I’m going to take the time to read all of chapter 3, the part we studied last week and the part we are going to study this week, so that we have the whole piece in context.
Phil 3 (NLT):
1 Whatever happens, my dear brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. I never get tired of telling you these things, and I do it to safeguard your faith.
2 Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved. 3 For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort, 4 though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more!
5 I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. 6 I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault.
7 I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. 8 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ 9 and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. 10 I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11 so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!
12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.
15 Let all who are spiritually mature agree on these things. If you disagree on some point, I believe God will make it plain to you. 16 But we must hold on to the progress we have already made.
17 Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example. 18 For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth. 20 But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. 21 He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control.
On The Way… (vs 12-14):
After the beautiful passage about becoming righteous through faith, and Paul’s deep heart cry “I want to know Christ!”, he continues to clarify for his friends that He has not arrived. He is still “on the way”… “I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.”
“I press on”… here comes the effort. Here comes the work, the hard work, flowing out of the faith that begins the relationship. We hear Paul’s impassioned words, saying (if I may elaborate somewhat), “I want to know Christ!! I want to experience His power!! God has made me right with himself through faith, and I have been so deeply moved by God’s love for me that I desperately want to be all that I can for Him… so I’m going to try my hardest, I am going to press on, I’m going to focus, I’m going to keep the goal before me and run hard to get there… when I think of how much Jesus loves me, how could I do any less?”
Notice this beautiful, insightful phrase: “I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.” See it? Jesus “possessed” Paul, for something incredible (“perfection”), and that happened “first”, so now Paul is going to “go for it”, and keep “going for it”. See how clearly if flows out of, as a response to, what God has done first? Critical point here to understanding this whole idea of Christian effort – it must be a response to God’s love, not any attempt to earn God’s love. That is what has to be the inner motivation of our hearts, or we become like the Pharisees Jesus was always confronting who did all the “right stuff” on the outside but whose hearts were hard and far from God.
There is also some very practical instruction Paul gives in making this way of living sustainable. First, “forgetting the past…” then “pressing on to reach the end of the race”. Forgetting the past – why is that critical? Because the hurts and disappointments and sins of the past are like cement shoes. They are these heavy things that get us stuck, where we can’t move forward, and so Paul says we have to forget them. Leave them in the past. Take those cement shoes off, even if it takes a sledge hammer, because it will kill you to leave them there – emotionally and spiritually at the very least. Now, neither Paul nor I intend to be callous, or to minimize the hurts and disappointments of the past, or to suggest that it is just as simple as “forgetting” and moving on. I understand the process, and I affirm that it takes work to “forget” and move on – the cement shoes don’t slip off like a 5 year old pair of threadbare socks that barely stay on. But there does come a time when we have to choose to let go. Stop letting those things in the past control us in the present, no matter how painful and hard. Because of this: God is not in the past. He was there, with us, in the good and the bad, but He isn’t there now so stop looking there. God is in the now, seek Him in the now, let Him heal you in the now, so you can get moving again.
The second piece of instruction Paul gives relates to our focus: “press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” Now, when I get on the treadmill I have a goal in mind, usually to run until my machine tells me I have burned a certain number of calories. And let me tell you, I keep my eye on that number. It is the goal, it is the end point, it is when I can stop and get off. And I’m doing that math… “ok, 20% there… alright, 50%!!, (pant, pant) 80%... only a little further…”. It keeps me going. Paul instructs us to do the same – to press on to reach the end, “the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us”. In other words, until the very end of our lives and we “arrive” in heaven. Dory the fish in the movie “Finding Nemo” always said “just keep swimming”; Paul says “just keep running”. Don’t give up, don’t quit, don’t run at an un-sustainable pace, but keep going. Until you reach “that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed” us.
Examples and Identity (vs. 17-21):
The last paragraph gives two examples (one positive and one negative), and then Paul roots the whole passage once again in our identity and (thus) our promise. “17 Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example. 18 For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth. 20 But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. 21 He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control.”
The positive example is Paul’s own life, which he sets before the Philippians as one worthy of following. In context, Paul is not saying “be like me because I’ve got it all together and I’ve arrived” – he has just said the opposite “not that I have already achieved these things”. He is saying “be like me and don’t give up… keep pressing on…”. Then he turns, with great emotion, to some bad examples, “those whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ”. It doesn’t sound to me like false teachers or the violent persecutors, it sounds to me more like people who claim to be followers of Jesus but don’t live like it – they “think only about this life” and are consumed with all the stuff that feels nice and that makes life comfortable and happy, instead of those who claim to follow Jesus and then “press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me”. And that begs the question for you and me today – who do we more resemble – Paul/Jesus, willing to do anything and everything to glorify God; or these people who bring tears to Paul’s eyes as he sees them pursuing only the temporary pleasures of this life?
The paragraph ends with a return to our identity and (thus) our promise. “But we are citizens of heaven”. Here is that theme again, which we first saw clearly in chapter 1:27, and which is so central to how we must live that Paul returns to it again here. It is especially important and it rounds out this section on our effort, which flows out of our restored relationship and not as a way of earning our way into that relationship. We do all these things, live this way of life, because of who we are. We have been claimed. We have been adopted. Though we used to be citizens of a country at war with God, seeking the complete destruction of His Kingdom, we have emigrated, switched sides, been welcomed, and granted complete citizenship. We belong, this is our new country, our new Lord, our new home, and it is good. And so we live and serve not because we are forced to on fear of expulsion, and not because we have to earn our way in. But because we are so deeply grateful to be here. So deeply moved to belong. So overwhelmed that we were not begrudgingly accepted and shoved into some refugee camp and treated with suspicion, contempt, and at arms-length, but welcomed in to the very home of the King, where there are many rooms, and where the banquet table has been set and we have a seat in the King’s dining room, and where the deepest delight of the King is to share His love with us and know our love in return.
That transforms us from the inside. Then we go out and live, and work, and seek the good of the Kingdom, out of our deep love and deep gratitude and deep devotion to this love that we have found in this new home – so much so that we would gladly give our lives, knowing that we only have them in the first place because they have been redeemed and given to us to enjoy by the King Himself.
And we “eagerly await” that time promised in the future, when God will take over completely once again, and we will know His amazing power restoring everything.
Conclusion:
So… what do we do with all of this? Let me suggest this: Figure out where you are right now. Are you growing in your faith? Are you living out of love or out of a list of “shoulds”? Are you genuinely living as a citizen of heaven and not of our culture? Then, if you’ve been stuck or complacent or moving backwards, “forget the past”. Work with Jesus to take off the cement shoes and get moving again, and do that just by seeking to find out (or rediscover afresh) the central truth that you really, honestly are loved by God. And create space for that love to transform you.
If you are moving/growing, then keep “Pressing on to possess that for which Christ Jesus first possessed me”. Don’t stop, don’t get distracted, keep pressing on to reach the end of the race. Don’t let the discouragements, setbacks, disappointments, hurts, or petty distractions get in the way of seeing the love in Jesus’ eyes and hearing the love in His voice as He cheers us on. Yes it is work, yes it is effort. Let that flow out of our love for Jesus in response to His love for us, and yes, it will be worth it. This is life to the full, this is living the gospel, and this is when we see His Kingdom come and His will being done.
