Lay Hold on Your Calling
Philippians 3:
8 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
9 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;
10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,
11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12 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.
And so we don’t miss the point of this exhortation, we are told in verse 17, "Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern."
The greatest thing that can happen to us as Christians is that we become heavenly minded. To be heavenly minded is to live every part of your life with the goal of entering into heaven having completed the purpose for which God has called you. To be heavenly minded is not to wait for heaven, but to press on toward the goal of entering heaven having finished what God has called you to accomplish. This passage reveals three important principles in verse 12. We have not yet attained what we are called to take hold of, we have not reached perfection, and we are to press on, toward the call.
1. We have not yet attained – or literally, have not laid hold of the purpose of our calling. When we enter into fellowship with Christ by surrendering our lives to Him does not mean we automatically accomplish our mission. As a new Christian, you have not yet laid hold of your calling. Even as an older Christian, you may not have found the purpose in which you were called. Jesus is the door that we must enter in order to begin our new life and begin our journey toward Heaven but entering that door is not the finish line. It is a major error to think that once we get our ticket to heaven we have reached our goal. When we begin a new life in Christ without an understanding of our calling, our first purpose is to show ourselves to be faithful stewards and seek out God’s purpose. If I can’t pass the test of basic stewardship, I will never find the path God has called me find. In Jeremiah God asked the question, "If you can’t run with the footmen, how will you contend with the horsemen? If you were wearied in the land of peace, how can you expect to contend among the arrogant nations?" Our calling is not to get into heaven only, but to equip ourselves so that we can answer the call. We then begin to run the race knowing that God honors faithfulness.
2. We are not yet perfected. Before your spiritual life can take root, your flesh nature must be crucified. Our flesh does not die when we are born into the kingdom of God. We are set free from the bondage of sin and are no longer driven by the flesh, but it is our responsibility to bring our hearts and minds under subjection to Christ. Many of us leave a lifetime of engrained habits that will not die easily. A Christ-centered focus is required in order for us to become heavenly minded. Where my eyes are fixed, my feet will follow. Though perfection will never be achieved in this life, I am called to strive for that mark. Each time I look back on my life, I should be amazed at how far God has brought me. I should stand determined to never return to where I have been. My focus is not on my past, but on my goal of winning the race God has set before me. When I think I have arrived, I am as far as I can go. If God works in my life and I begin to grow, and I look back and think I have hit the mark, I will stop growing and eventually start sliding. If I compare myself to my mistakes or the mistakes of others, it is easy to be proud because I have lowered the bar. But when I look to Christ, I have the model of perfection that reveals my need to press on. In Christ, I am encouraged by my past and given the strength to reach ahead toward my calling. I can only overcome this life by His strength. Only He has the power to give me endurance to keep reaching ahead.
3. Press toward the call. "But I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me". My earthly goal is to press on so that I can take claim to the calling that God has for my life. I am to strive to find the purpose for which God transformed my life and equipped me to achieve. God did not change your life just so you can live anyway you desire. God called you for a purpose. If you allow yourself to believe the deception that God is there for your pleasure, you have missed the mark. You first must change your focus so that you can find your purpose. To find that path of life, you must be found faithful. Each step requires faithfulness to find the next step. As we press toward Christ-likeness, we should examine our lives and identify those things that tempt or lead us to temptation. God can only use a holy vessel. If I want to fulfill my calling, I must put off anything that holds me back. Sometimes those things aren’t sinful in themselves but the sin is that I value things more than I value God. When I hit those gray areas of scripture, then I have to choose in light of what is most important. Do I cast off what is excellent and take hold of the temporal, or do I reach for what carries into eternity? Sadly, most people cast off the eternal and cling to what will definitely pass away. Our selfish nature wants immediate gratification but Hebrews 6:12 tells us that the promises of God are inherited through faith and patience. If I am earthly minded, I will value worldly things because I don’t really believe God’s promises. I can’t grasp the concept of a small sacrifice with a great reward if my eyes are fixed on instant gratification.
So how do we get eternally minded and focus toward the calling of God? This passage reveals two critical areas that help give us that heavenly perspective. We must determine what is of value so that we can count all things worldly as loss in light of the excellence of the knowledge of Christ so that we may be found in Him and have His righteousness. We must determine what is of value and be found in Him.
1. Determine what is of value. "I count all things as rubbish" can literally be translated as detestable waste. Temptation only has appeal because of the value we put on it. A good example of deceptive values happened in a stock fraud that made headlines in 1997. BRE-X Minerals rose from nowhere to the most lucrative stock in history. This company had dug a mine in Indonesia and hit the jackpot. Their geologist reported gold content that made it the richest gold mine ever discovered. The companies stock soared from $2 a share to well over $280 a share almost overnight. Soon after it was discovered that the mine was a money making scam. The geologist had placed the gold in the core samples to taint the results and in reality the mine had no gold at all. Upon this discovery, the stock value plummeted to zero immediately. There was never anything of value so there was nothing to salvage from the loss and everyone who had invested lost everything. That is exactly what you will get from your investment in this world. On the day Christ returns, all the schemes of the devil will be revealed and everything invested will be shown to be worthless. Until you believe this, you will keep investing in worthless things. It is impossible to recognize that what the world presents as treasure is in fact waste without comparing it to what is of valuable. If you are looking to the world, you will only have earthly things to use as a measurement of value. A corrupted measurement will give corrupt results.
Looking to Jesus is the only way to reveal the true value – or lack of value found in the things of the world. When I see the God’s truth in light of eternity, I am able to measure everything based on that truth. You can’t count the trash of the world as trash until you can see what is truly valuable. Most Christians pick through the trash and cling to everything that offers anything resembling value, never realizing that we have been redeemed and can be abundantly satisfied with the fullness of His house. The error of the average Christian is that they aren’t willing to let go of the world unless they are able to first see what God offers. The error in this thinking is two-fold. First, you will never find the good things of God until you first trust God and live your life by faith. The Bible says, "how precious is the loving kindness of God, therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of your wings". If I believe the loving kindness of God, I will not have the faith to put my trust in Him. I can’t be satisfied with the abundance of His house until I trust Him enough to leave the world and enter His will. As I reach ahead, I lay hold of the path God is calling me to. Each step is a platform to reach ahead to the next breakthrough. I can’t see the path beyond each step, but I can see the goal of heaven. My only concern is to focus on where God is leading me each step.
Second, the blessings and the promises should not be my primary concern. If I am looking for a gold mine, I will miss my calling. If earthly fulfillment is all I want, I will be drawn to any false doctrine that promises the world to me. I am designed by God for God. If I try to fulfill my life with anything but God, then things will become my god. God is more than the means in which I fulfill my desires. God is the fulfillment of my desires. Promises and blessings are the means in which I use to fulfill my purpose of knowing God, worshipping God and fulfilling His purpose; they are not the purpose in themselves. I am in error if I look at God as the means of fulfilling promises and blessings. If His will is not my focus, I will not be satisfied with any amount of material goods.
Until I am able to recognize the immense value of my relationship with God, my value system will be misguided. Look at our relationships with people. I married my wife because I love her. I didn’t marry her so that she could give me her possessions. If someone cares for us only for what they can get from us, we would not call that love. We loose respect for the kinds of people who manipulate and use others just to get what they want. It is no different with God. He is our reward. The blessings and the promises are products of the relationship but are not the purpose of the relationship we have with God. The prize that is set before us is a motivation to reach deeper into our relationship with God and not something we use God to reach. Rewards are tokens of God’s love so that we can have a tangible image to draw inspiration from and to reach for. Blessings are for the purpose of blessing God. "A faithful man will abound with blessings" is a promise because those who are faithful will not seek their own, but have already shown that they have an Christ-centered focus. Someone who is faithful does not seek greed, but seeks to use what God provides to bring God glory.
2. Be found in Him. To be found in Him is to abide in your relationship with Christ. You must depart from God in order to pursue the things of the world. If you are living for yourself and not following God’s will, there is no way you can abide. Therefore you will not be found in Him. Look at 2 John 1:9, "Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son." 1 John 2:15 tells us that it is a transgression to love the world or the things in the world. This principle of abiding is the very reason why most Christians don’t experience the richness of God’s goodness and become discouraged. Until we recognize that the world has nothing to offer that is of value, we will not have the motivation to abide. The Bible tells us that we can’t love both masters. To love one is to hate the other.
To develop that longing and love for God can only come through knowing His word. It is a lack of knowledge that causes us to love the world. To abide is to develop a faithful and consistent walk with God. It is easy to grow and fall away, but developing a consistent pattern takes discipline. The pattern that we easily fall into is to make an effort to study the word and begin to grow, but when something challenges or distracts us, we don’t have the discipline to press on. We first miss a day, then a few days, and then we quit all together. We have good intentions to make time; we just never get back around to it. To abide, we must set aside consistent time for prayer, study and to just spend time with God.
To abide we must also put God’s word into action. Jesus said that if we are a hearer and a doer, our lives will be like a foundation that is rooted deep in a rock. We will weather the storms of life and will not be moved. Those who hear and do not apply it to their lifestyle will not have the power to stand in the storms of life. It is easy to compromise instead of applying the word when the rubber meets the road. God honors those who obey even when it calls for sacrifice. If we have not established trust, we won’t be willing to answer the call to personal sacrifice because we don’t believe God can fulfill His promises. It is usually the little things that hurt us the most because they set the patterns in our lives. If we don’t show ourselves worthy over little things, God can’t entrust us with the greater things. White lies, small dishonest decisions, cutting corners are all so easy to do that we can cheat and never think twice about it. We have to act consistently on the word of God if we want to abide in Christ.
To abide we must love one another. Throughout the New Testament, this command is stressed as a measurement of our relationship with God. Look at 1 John 3:10,
"In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother." We are commanded to practice righteousness. That is an active command. Also, anyone who is at war inside the church does not know God and can’t abide in Christ. When we are bitter toward fellow Christians it is a sign that our eyes are not on God. You can’t love God and seek God’s face while holding a grudge against someone else. Each time you try to grow, you will hit this barrier and God will not forgive you or grow you until you obey His command to love. If we are not burdened about our bitterness against another person, we should examine our lives and see if we are indeed His. God will not tolerate sin and if we can live with it without being convicted by the Holy Spirit, we may not have God’s Spirit within us. This applies to loving for our spouse, neighbors, church members and anyone else God puts in our path. God will not allow us to not forgive. He has wiped away our debt that is greater than any debt of wrong anyone can do to us. If we refuse to go to church because we are bitter, that is a sign that something is wrong in our spiritual lives that must be corrected.
The purpose of doing these things is so that we can let go and leave what is behind and press ahead for what God has laid before us. My passion should be to find God’s calling and achieve what God has set me apart to fulfill. The only way I can live this Christian life and fulfill God’s purpose is to reach ahead. When I lay hold of what God has revealed, I continue to press on to the next step. Your purpose is not fulfilled in one act of obedience, but in a lifestyle of continuously reaching for God’s purpose. As long as Jesus Christ is my goal, I can press ahead against obstacles and anything that demands my attention or attempts to draw me away. To press on is to live in complete obedience with a heaven minded focus. The commands of God build the foundation that enables me to forge ahead with God’s power. I become righteous because I am found in Him. There is no value in my righteousness but my righteousness is received through God and becomes part of my life when I remain in Him.
Jesus said that if anyone takes their hands to the plow and looks back, they are not worthy of the kingdom of God. I can’t reach ahead if I am looking back to see what I am missing. If my heart is back in the world, I will not have the passion to press ahead. If my heart is on what I am leaving behind, I will eventually become discouraged and quit. If you look back it is because you value what is behind. Failing is not trouble in itself; it is only a symptom of a world-centered mindset. People begin strong and fail because they charge ahead without building the foundation. To press ahead you must lay the foundation of obedience so you can stand by His power. Your strength is not enough. Your righteousness is of no value. God invests these things in your life when you abide. If you struggle to keep the course, go back and repair the foundation and then you will have God’s power in your life. Don’t accept failure as defeat. Use failure as instruction and examine why you fell, apply God’s word and press on. If you walk in obedience, you have God’s promises that will be fulfilled in your life. Build your life on obedience and run with the goal in mind and you will succeed in your calling. God wants you to succeed. Look to Jesus because He is the author and finisher of your faith. Press on to take hold of the purpose God redeemed you for the purpose of achieving.
*** This sermon can be downloaded as a Word document by following the link at http://www.exchangedlife.com/Sermons/sermons.htm
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