Several times in the New Testament the Christian life is pictured as a race 1 Cor. 9:24-27 (ESV) says, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” Here, Paul talks about the discipline it takes to be a good runner, and we too must be disciplined in the spiritual life if we are going to win the spiritual race.
2 Tim. 4: 7 (ESV) says, “ 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” Heb. 12:1 (ESV) says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us”
In our text in Phil 3:12-16, Paul’s not telling us how to be saved. He’s telling us how to live now that we are saved. We are not saved BY good works but we are saved TO good works. Salvation is the work God does FOR us. Sanctification is the work God does IN us. Service is the work God does THROUGH us.
While I am preaching to you, I am preaching to myself. I want my life to count. I don’t want to waste my life. I don’t want to look back with regrets at the end and wish I would have done more for Christ. I want to hear my Savior say, “Well done thou good and faithful servant.” If that is to be, I need to do these four things.
First, we need to do an evaluation. Verse 12, 13a say, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own.” Paul does an honest evaluation of his life. He is an old man, and he is facing death in prison. And Paul says, “I am not there yet. I am not perfect. I want to grab hold of what Christ saved me for. I want to be just like Jesus. And I’m not, so I’ve got to keep striving and straining.”
At the end of the year as we get ready to head into a New Year, it is a good time for all of us to do a self evaluation. All of us should be satisfied with Christ but not with ourselves. Regardless of how spiritual we have become, we all have a long way to go to catch up with Jesus.
We all need to do an evaluation and realize where we are in our Christian life. I am nowhere near where I want to be and need to be and in reality, should be.
I have met Christians who think they have it all together. They are so arrogant, so proud, and they go around nit picking everyone else and acting like everyone else doesn’t measure up to them. Paul wasn’t like that, and he was probably the greatest Christian who ever lived. But he didn’t think he was. The more he grew to be like Christ, the more humble he became.
Before he was saved, Paul considered himself perfect, faultless. He was a proud Pharisee. But now that he is saved, he sees that he is far from where he would like to be. Paul said in Phil 3:8, “I count all those things that I gained as rubbish compared to knowing Christ.”
What makes people satisfied with their Christian life is they compare themselves with others instead of comparing themselves with Christ. When you compare yourself with others who have not grown to where you are, you feel better about yourself than you should. You get puffed up and proud. Don’t compare yourself with anyone. Compare yourself only with Jesus Christ. None of us measure up to Him.
Do you know what sin is? It is the distance between you and the glory of God. Romans 3:23 says “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Unless you have gotten to the place that you are glorifying God in everything you do, you have sin in your life.
What we need to do is spend more time looking in the mirror of God’s Word. God’s Word is a mirror that reveals the true condition of our heart. So this year, let’s spend more time looking in that mirror. And when we do, God will reveal things in our lives that are not pleasing to Him.
I have found the more like Christ I strive to be, the less like Him I think I really am. By that I mean, the more I am trying, the more I realize sins that I never realized before. They were always there, but I wasn’t concerned about them.
We all need a good dose of humility. We need to remember that it doesn’t matter if we have our doctrine all right if it doesn’t play out in the way we live, we are fooling ourselves. If you are satisfied with your Christian life, you are simply aiming too low.
Secondly, we need to have concentration. Verse 13 says, "But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.” The key to success in any area of life is concentration, burning focus. No matter what you attempt in life, you will not be successful without concentration. You have to avoid distractions.
This coming year, we need to find the one thing God wants us to concentrate on. And I think it is this - how can I be more like Jesus so that I can know Jesus more? Concentrate on that. James 1:8 says “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” Be single minded. Concentrate on one thing, being like Jesus.
Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters.” Paul said “One thing I do.” Listen to 1 Cor 10:23, “All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, but not all things build up.” When we allow good things to distract us from the best thing, they become bad things.
When Martha was upset with her sister Mary for not helping her in the kitchen because her sister was spending time with Jesus, Jesus told Martha, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, 42 but one thing is necessary.” (Luke 10:40, 41) Don’t get distracted. Concentrate on the one thing that is necessary.
Your job, your friends, your hobbies, are not bad in and of themselves. But if they keep you from growing in likeness to Christ, if they keep you from being holy, and being like Jesus, they become idols. I have seen so many people over the years that at one time were focused on being like Jesus. They were focused on that one thing. Then, they got a hobby and that hobby became their focus. Maybe it was golf, or it was traveling, or it was fishing or hunting, but it became their “one thing.” And it took them out of church and away from the fellowship of the saints. Sometimes, it is not a hobby but it is your career. We need to have laser focus this coming year. Don’t let Satan distract you. Concentrate on one thing - being like Jesus.
There are a hundred things we can do to be like Jesus - we need to read His Word, and pray, and be faithful to church, and fight sin, and worship Him daily. They all lead to one thing - being like Jesus.
Thirdly, we need to have determination. Verse 12 says “I press on.” Verse 13 says, “straining forward to what lies ahead.” Verse 14 says, “ I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” This is determination talk. Paul is relentlessly pursuing this goal. Paul is writing this as an old man in prison, but he has not quit trying to be holy. Most people would have quit after all he had been through, but not Paul.
And that is how it is in the Christian life. You can run the race faithfully for years but if you quit right at the end, you won’t win the race. You will be disqualified. You will still go to Heaven but you won’t have a reward. I don’t care how far ahead you are in a race - if you quit before the finish line, you will not win the race.
Too many Christians have quit trying. They have quit fighting sin. They have quit praying. They have quit witnessing. They have quit serving.
I think about Ruth in the Old Testament. She was a Moabite woman and her husbad, a Jew, had died. And her mother in law, Naomi, was going back to Bethlehem to live and Ruth wanted to go with her. She had come to believe in the true and living God. But Naomi tried to discourage her from going with her back to Bethlehem, because she was single and it would not be easy. But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” 18 And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more. (Ruth 1:16)
Ruth was determined. And we need that kind of determination in this new year to be like Jesus. We need to determine no matter what happens this year, I will not quit. I am going to press on. I am going to strain. I won’t be deterred.
I think about Nehemiah. He went back to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls. And that was the one thing he was focused on. He had done an evaluation and knew this needed to be done. He had concentration. There was one thing he was focused on. And he had determination. Listen to what God’s Word says, “Now when Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies heard that I had built the wall and that there was no breach left in it (although up to that time I had not set up the doors in the gates), 2 Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, “Come and let us meet together at Hakkephirim in the plain of Ono.” But they intended to do me harm. 3 And I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?” (Nehemiah 6:1-3)
May God give us that kind of determination this year to walk with God and grow in holiness and become like Jesus. I like what David said in Psalm 119:10, “With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments!” That ought to be our prayer today, “Let me not wander from your commandments, Lord.” Like Robert Robinson wrote in the song “Come Thou Fount”, he said, “Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart O take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above.” I hope that is your prayer, this year. “Here is my heart - seal it for you. Don’t let the world get in my heart, don’t let anything keep me from serving you.” If you have quit, then get back in the race and determine to keep going regardless this year.
Fourthly, we need a liberation. Verse 13 says, “Forgetting what lies behind.” Paul had to forget some things. Paul refused to be enslaved to the past. He knew he needed to be liberated from the past. There are many people here who are shackled to the past. God’s Word tells us to forget those things that lie behind us. Don’t look back. Don’t live in the past. Learn from it, but don’t live in it.
The rearview mirror in your car is much smaller than the windshield. You know why? Because what is in front of you is more important than what is behind you. Many Christians I have met are too busy looking out the rearview mirror, and if you look at it too long, you will crash. You will wreck your life. You have to keep your eyes on what is ahead.
Many people need to be liberated from guilt of the past. Paul could have wallowed in guilt. He could have focused on his failures in the past, but he didn’t. He knew God had forgiven him, and He refused to think about his past sins. There’s not one of us who is not ashamed of something in your past. And the Devil reminds you of it all the time. And if you choose to live in the past, and beat yourself up over sin you have already confessed and been forgiven of, you are enslaved.
Whenever Satan reminds you of your past, remind him of his future. Remind yourself of God’s grace. And stop wallowing in your guilt and start wallowing in Christ’s grace. You may not be able to forget what you did, but you can choose not to think about it. God says he forgets our sins. That doesn’t mean he can’t remember them. It means he chooses not to bring them up to us again. And we need to leave our sins buried in God’s sea of forgetfulness.
Many people need to be liberated from the glory of the past. They think about all they have accomplished for the Lord and so they think, “I will slow down now and let someone else do the work.” Paul never did that. If any one could have rested on his laurels, it would have been Paul. No, he said, “I have to do more. I have to grow more. I have not arrived. I have not yet grasped what God has for me.”
Are you still holding on to the glories of the past? Are you living in the good ole days? The good ole days are in the past. You can either sit around wishing for the good ole days or you can do something about today and tomorrow. I think this is the greatest time ever to be alive and to serve the Lord. The darker the world gets around us the more we can let our light shine for the Lord.
Many people need to be liberated from the grief of the past. Maybe someone you loved passed away. You lost something or someone very dear to you. It is time to move on. You need to focus your eyes on Jesus and not that loss from the past. Some people are stuck like a truck in mud. They can’t get out of the grief of the past. I don’t mean to be insensitive. I know it hurts. And more importantly, God knows. He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. The Devil will use that grief to paralyze you and keep you from ever doing anything else for the Lord.
Many people need to be liberated from the grudges of the past. Someone hurt you. Someone did you wrong. And you can’t get past it. You can’t put it in the past. It has distracted you from what is most important. Paul had been hurt by many people, but he didn’t hold a grudge. He let it go. He forgot about it. He focused on the future.
Conclusion:
Before you can win the race, you have to get in the race. Maybe you have not yet began a relationship with Christ. You haven’t been saved yet. And what a better time to begin that relationship than right here before the New Year?
Salvation is not complicated. It is very easy. Just believe the Gospel. Believe that Jesus is God. Believe that He died to pay for your sins. Trust in Him to save you. Turn away from the person you used to be and the sin you have been doing and follow Jesus. You can’t trust in infant baptism or being a church member or doing good deeds. You have to trust in Christ alone.
If you are in the race, seek to win the race. Don’t you want to hear Jesus say “Well done thou good and faithful servant.” If you are going to hear those wonderful words, you need to do these four things.
Do an evaluation of yourself and realize you are not where you want to be. Then give yourself to concentrate on one thing. That one purpose in life - to be like Jesus. Then be determined not to quit no matter how difficult things get. Then get liberated from the past. Let Jesus set you free from the guilt of the past, the glory of the past, the grief of the past, and the grudges of the past.
