Future Joy - Present Striving -- Philippians 3:12-24 • Geoff Bradford

Hey, Christ the King. Before I launch into today's sermon, I want to make a brief note about the fact that starting next Sunday, June 21, we are trying an outdoor worship service that'll start at 9AM and be about 30 to 45 minutes. All the details have gone out this week in the e-newsletter that comes out on Thursdays. If you did not get that for some reason, please email our church, and we would be happy to make sure you have all the information about that.

We will be continuing to air these broadcasts of recordings of our worship even as we do outdoor services. Those will go concurrent because we want to make sure, one, we have a rain plan, but two, we know that there will be people who are not ready to come to a live service, and so we want to accommodate everybody.

We're going to look this morning at the book of Philippians. We're going through a series called The Case for Joy. Today, we're looking at Philippians chapter three, verses 12 through 21. Listen as I read God's word.

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. Brothers, I do not consider I have made it my own, but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way. And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to that to which we have attained. Brothers, join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their god is their belly, and their glory is in their shame, with their minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it, we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. — Philippians 3:12-21

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Now I want to ask you a question this morning as I start. It's one of the most important questions that I think you and I need to be asking ourselves, but we never seem to do so. And it's this one: Am I growing spiritually?

This is such a critical question that somehow never comes up. It's one we never seem to ask ourselves. I think that's because it's not a burning quality of life issue for most people. Very few of us lay awake at night asking ourselves, "Am I growing spiritually?" We have all kinds of other pots on the stove that are boiling over. We have all kinds of other worries. If I sat down with you and asked you what are the things that you are concerned about or losing sleep over, I'm guessing this is not on the list.

And yet, even though it's not a question we're asking a lot, it is a critical question. Here's why: all living things grow. Things that are not alive do not grow. A pile of rocks does not grow. Are you a pile of rocks spiritually speaking? That's the question. Are you a rock or a plant? Are you alive or not?

Jesus told us that a tree was known by its fruit. If there's nothing blooming in your life, if there's nothing being produced out of your life, no fruit—if you're not growing—you should ask yourself: Am I spiritually alive? Am I alive?

Think back on the last year of your life. If there's no discernible change or growth in you, what's wrong? Am I growing? Am I, in fact, alive?

We're going to listen this morning to the apostle Paul as we look at this passage on what it means to be alive, to be a person who's growing. It's been a major concern of this letter, and we're going to look at this outline.

First, running a different race. And second, living for a better country.

Running a Different Race

This is in verse 12. Look at what Paul says here, and it's not as simple as it sounds. In fact, his words sound kind of circular. He talks of pressing on. He calls us to press on. He describes how he is pressing on. And that word appears over and over in this chapter in Philippians three—at verse 12, verse 14. He's pressing on toward a goal.

But what we may not see actually in our English Bibles is that this is the same word that was used in verse six where Paul describes his actions toward the church of Jesus Christ before his conversion. And that's weird, isn't it? Literally in the Greek, the word means pounding. So when he was persecuting the church, he's literally saying, "I was pounding the church of Jesus Christ." And here, when he talks about pressing on, Paul shows us that he is a Carolina Panthers fan. So anybody else—anybody a Carolina Panthers fan?

Paul apparently is a Carolina Panthers fan because you could translate his words here in verse 12, verse 14 as keep pounding, straining, striving, sweating. The growth in the Christian life means all of these things: keep pounding. Now if you're not a Christian or if you're new to the Christian faith, this is a very common misunderstanding of how you become a Christian. A lot of people think that this is what it means to be a religious person. It's about your efforts. It's about what you do.

But notice this funny little verse. Listen to the last half of verse 12:

I keep pounding. I press on to make it my own.

Now what is he saying? Make it my own. You have to go back to verses ten and eleven to discover he's saying, "I'm pressing on. I'm keeping pounding to make sure the resurrection of life of Jesus is my own." But why? Because Christ Jesus has made me his own. This is absolutely essential. You get this? You can have my permission to tune out after this because you need to understand this: The only reason that you can press on to make it your own is because Christ Jesus has made you his own.

Dead People Can't Run

Imagine the Olympics. Imagine the track and field events, and the announcer comes on for the 100 meter dash. The 100 meter race. And he says this: "In lane one, representing Jamaica, Usain Bolt sprinting for the country of Jamaica. In lane two, Flo Jo, famous track star, racing for the United States. And in lane three, a dead person."

Absurd, right? Dead people can't run. I mean, you could pull out the paddles all you want. You could do CPR all you want, but that dead person is not going to move an inch once the starting gun goes off because the dead person is dead. Not a little dead, not partially dead—all the way dead.

Now here's what the Bible tells us: Unless Jesus has made you his own, you are not able to do one thing spiritually speaking. You are not able to do one thing with regard to spiritual growth because you are dead. Because a person, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ working in that person's life through the Holy Spirit, that person is dead. Dead people can't run. They can't grow. They can't keep pounding. All people are by nature spiritually unable to grow.

So listen to the statement again. The most important word in this statement is because. Listen to what Paul says:

I strive to make it my own, present tense, because Christ Jesus has made me his own, past tense.

I hear people talk all the time about what it means to be a spiritual person, about wanting to be a more spiritual person. But the truth is, you can no more make yourself sprout wings and fly than you can make yourself grow spiritually apart from Christ. Apart from the work of God in your life through the Holy Spirit, a person does not have free will to grow or to do things spiritually speaking.

I know that someone would want to reply, "What do you mean that I can't do anything I want to?" And I'm like, "Yes. Exactly right. You cannot do anything you want to." But I think you knew that already, right? You have free will to decide certain things. You can decide whether you're going to go to work on Monday or whether you're going to pretend to be sick. You have the freedom to decide whether you're going to have roast beef or turkey off the menu at a restaurant.

But with regard to your capabilities—your physical capabilities, your intellectual capabilities, and your spiritual capabilities—you don't have free will in this. I mean, you can study hard, but you have no ability to make your IQ jump 50 points. You can exercise a lot, but you have no ability to change your physical capabilities to make yourself go from being five foot ten to seven feet tall. And same thing spiritually. Spiritually, you do not have the free will to do that, naturally speaking. You can't make yourself spiritually alive if you're spiritually dead.

All people are dead unless the Holy Spirit comes and flips the light on—the new birth, making a person new. A dead person can't run laps. But when Jesus makes you alive, when he takes hold of you—as Paul says here, when he takes hold of you—he calls us and invites us into the race.

If you've been made alive with Jesus, he calls you into a life of following him that does involve pounding, striving, sweat, exertion, running. The fullness of the atoning work of Jesus in no way eclipses our need to obey him, to love him, to worship him, or to follow him. Rather, it's really the only way that we can. It's the only way that we can. If dead people are really dead, and if Jesus' atonement and the inward birth of the new birth of the spirit really makes us alive, then the only way that we could actually be able to run or do anything is if he took hold of me.

This is why Paul says, like a good Carolina Panthers fan, keep pounding people whom God has made alive by the spirit. So here's the first question: Christian, if you're a Christian, is your life marked by any kind of exertion? Is there a pressing on, a pounding, some sweat, a sense of exertion to your Christian life? I'm working at this.

I find that there's a common refrain in the Christian world that you've probably heard: "let go and let God." It's absolute hogwash. It is nowhere in the Bible. But I also find that there's a reformed and Presbyterian version of that, which also needs to be corrected. When we say Jesus paid it all, we say amen. We say there's nothing that we can do to add to our salvation, we say amen. We say that we're actually passive, entirely passive in our salvation, we say amen. Then we act like sometimes the Christian life is like tubing on the river. You're just laying there, right? You're just going along, floating along, drifting.

But that's a distortion of Scripture because God calls us in this letter—we've seen this—to:

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling — Philippians 2:12

And guess why? Why? Because it's God who works in you. Or as we read here:

I press on to make it my own. Why? Because Christ has made me his own.

Keep pounding. And then he gives us some directions to this. What does this mean? What does this life look like of pursuing a relationship with Jesus? It looks like two things. One is eyes forward, and second, don't look back.

Eyes Forward

See, here Paul says:

Forgetting what's behind, straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on for the goal of the prize, of the upward call in Christ Jesus. — Philippians 3:13-14

For a lot of years, I have jogged, but I have never run a race. And there's probably two good reasons for that. One is I've never entered a race, so I've never had a chance to win a race. But the second is that I've never had the kind of determination or training that someone who's going for the prize has when they're training to win. I've never had the kind of training regimen. I've never read running magazines. I've never timed myself. I've never really worked at this.

It's one thing to train for a race; it's another thing to go for a jog. The Christian life, Paul says, and this appears in many places in the New Testament, is a race. It's a marathon. It's a lifelong run. It's a distance runner. You have to train for this. We work toward this. It's looking ahead at the prize and going for it. But Paul says it's not just looking ahead, it's also not looking backwards.

On May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister became the first man ever to break the four-minute mile, running it in three minutes, fifty-nine point four seconds at Oxford University's Iffley Road Track. He was 25 years old, living in England, studying in med school. But his record only lasted 46 days. An Australian man, John Landy, ran the mile in three minutes, fifty-seven point nine seconds on June 21. They called an international meet for this. In August 1954, the men faced off in what was known as the miracle mile or the mile of the century at the Empire Games in Vancouver, Canada.

On the last lap, Landy is leading. He's so nervous. He knows he's going to get this under four minutes, but he's unsure where Roger Bannister is. At the last second, he looks over his shoulder, and of course, when he does so, Bannister passes him. Bannister passes him and wins the prize, and Landy comes in second place.

So what does it mean for us? Paul is saying, forget what's behind you. Eyes forward. Strain on for what's ahead. What does it mean to forget what's behind us? Because we don't want to miss out on the prize.

Living for a Better Country

Look at verses 20 through 21. Here, he shifts metaphors away from running a race to talking about a citizen in relationship to his or her homeland, to their country. And he says here something about what it means to be a Christian:

Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it, we await a savior. — Philippians 3:20-21

It's like we're looking ahead to our true citizenship in heaven. Now I want you to imagine this. Imagine two young men in their twenties. One of them has access to education. One of them has a really nice car, and lots of clothes in the closet, and has many choices available to him, a comfortable apartment, opportunity for advancement. Another man.

Another man lives only 20 miles away, and yet lives in a shack with a dirt floor, has just a few clothes, very little opportunity for advancement in his life, very little access to education, very little choice in what his future is gonna look like. What's the difference between those two men? It's citizenship. Now I've been to where both of those people would live. One is San Diego, California, and the other is Tijuana, Mexico. Those two cities are only 20 miles apart, and yet people who live in those places live worlds apart. And what's the difference? Citizenship.

Citizenship was a remarkably big deal for the people to whom Paul is writing, these Philippians. And it's kind of different than it is in our modern day. So let me describe this. The mention of citizenship for the first time comes up in Acts chapter 16 in relationship to this group of people, those people who lived in the ancient city of Philippi. Being a citizen of Rome, of the Roman Empire, was actually really rare in the first century and also incredibly expensive. So we find out in the book of Acts that Paul himself was a Roman citizen. This is kind of a big deal. And among the Philippians, they particularly would have noticed this and taken note of it.

The city of Philippi was refounded in 42 BC as a Roman colony for the training place for soldiers, and the city had a really hierarchical view of who you were in society based on your affiliations and your background. And so to be a Roman citizen in that culture, in that city in particular, of all the cities we read about in the New Testament, this was a big deal here in Philippi, and it meant you were at the very top of the heap. And yet, look what Paul says here. He's been talking already in this chapter about what he had before: "I consider to be rubbish, I consider to be trash compared to the all surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus my Lord." And then here, he talks about citizenship, and he actually downplays his Roman citizenship, which they would have been in awe of, and says, "No. What really matters is my citizenship in heaven."

This goes back to the first chapter where he calls them to live a life worthy, literally, as of a citizen of heaven. And here, now in verse 20, when he says to them, "Your citizenship is in heaven," he's reminding them: you have a real country. You have a true homeland. You have a better home.

And so here's Paul, and he's saying, look, we've talked about this—being in Christ for Paul is so much more important than even being in Roman citizenship. This is what is to be valued. This is what is to be longed for and treated as most precious to us: being a citizen of heaven. So he's calling them, if you're a citizen of heaven, live as if your values and your lifestyle reflect your true homeland, not the place that you happen to call your address right now, not where you live right now. Fix your eyes on what is to come. And though the Philippian Christians may live just a few miles apart from others who call themselves Philippians in the same city, Paul is reminding them that to be a citizen of heaven is a world apart from being a citizen just of this world—just like those two men I gave the example of in San Diego and Tijuana.

Living with Eyes on October

Reggie Jackson, famous baseball player, had the nickname Mister October, and this is because he was known to shine in the postseason. He was known to shine in those games leading up to the World Series. Reggie Jackson once said in an interview that he lived for the postseason because he knew that was his time to turn it up. And when he would come to bat during the postseason, you knew something—that game was gonna go over the fence. But Reggie Jackson, in order to get to the postseason, had to endure all those games throughout the long summer, throughout the spring and the long summer. He had to get through there, and his secret to getting through the regular season was that he had eyes for the postseason. He was looking ahead to October.

I think the Lord Jesus is looking for Mister and Missus Oktobers among us. People who have eyes that are so fixed on what is to come that we play the regular season with faithfulness because we're looking forward to postseason glory.

Here's my question for you: How real is this to you? Are you a person who longs for heaven, who longs for the life that is to come? I think among a lot of American Christians, our goal is so much more about making heaven here than it is striving for what is to come. See, here's the call: fix your eyes. Live in line with your true citizenship.

Isn't this what we pray? I mean, David just led us in this prayer, the Lord's prayer where we pray, "Lord, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." What is it?

What is it like in heaven, our true homeland? It's the way things ought to be. It's Jesus' agenda all the time. I mean, don't you long for that? Do you know the name C.S. Lewis? He's an Oxford scholar and professor who wrote in the nineteen fifties and taught and wrote several books. There was a complaint during his lifetime about Christians. He said that the complaint during his day was that they were so heavenly minded that they were of little earthly use. Now Lewis hated that phrase. And this is what he wrote about that. He said, yes, I've heard the charge that some are, quote, so heavenly minded, they're of no earthly use. But my problem is I've never met one of those people. And I suspect if I did meet one, the problem would not be that his mind is so full of the glories of heaven, but that his mind is empty and his mouth is full of platitudes.

I suspect that for every professing believer who is useless in this world because of other worldliness, there are a hundred who are useless because of this worldliness. A continual looking forward to the eternal life is not, as some modern people think, a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history, you will find the Christians who did most for the present world are just those who thought the most of the next. Rather, it is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they've become so ineffective in this one.

Lewis is saying, man, I long for some Mister Octobers and for some Miss Octobers. People who, like Reggie Jackson, are most effective in this life because they're pressing forward, eyes fixed on the next one. Are you? Are you striving and longing for the future home because your eyes are fixed on the citizenship that's there?

What "Forgetting What's Behind" Really Means

Being a citizen of heaven also helps us to understand what Paul meant about forgetting what's behind back in verse 13. It would be really easy to rip that little phrase, forgetting what's behind, out of context and just sort of plaster this on all kinds of things in our lives. For example, people could use this as a justification for not dealing with past hurts or past sins, past experiences, broken relationships that are shaping them in the present. You could just use this as a get out of jail free card. You could use this as the get out of jail free card for not going to counseling. You know, my past is my past. Bygones be bygones. No. That is really, really unhelpful, and that's a misapplication of this. In fact, a failure to look at our past is often what keeps us stuck in our present.

Another application, sadly, the American church, particularly white congregations, I think have justified not looking backward, not dealing with the sins of our past, our racial past, and failures in this country. You could use verse 13, again, as proof text for not talking about race, not dealing with a four hundred year history of bias and bigotry and Jim Crow and white privilege in our country. And you might think, really? Did somebody say that? Yeah. They do. Again, misapplication of this verse.

In fact, being a citizen of heaven means just the opposite, looking for, praying for God's kingdom to come and God's will being done as it is in heaven, and thus, a willingness to look at the past to confront our racial history, our American mess, and see that made right.

Here's my question. Are you avoiding something? Is there something from your past that you actually need to confront, a relationship that needs to be mended, past hurts that need to be dealt with? Is there a storyline or narrative out of your past that's controlling your present? And is this something that we need to talk about as a church with regard to our own racial history in this country?

If that's not what forgetting what is past means, then what does it mean? What is forgetting and leaving behind? It's the values of this world. It's the values of this world.

Notice what Paul says about citizens of this world in verses 18 and 19. To live as citizens of this world is to be, quote, an enemy of the cross of Christ. And what does citizenship of the world look like? What are the defining characteristics of people whose lives are rooted here? He says two things. He says, their God is their stomach, and their glory is their shame.

You know, I think we don't need a whole lot of help to know what that looks like. We live in a world where we know a lot about our god is our stomach. You know, consumerism. I just want the next thing. I just want the next fix. I'm looking for more stuff. I'm looking for more experiences. I'm just taking, taking, taking. Our glory is our shame. We live in a highly pornographic culture.

There are things which we should be ashamed of, practices that degrade ourselves and other people. Glory is in our shame. God is our stomach. You know, we live in a culture that treats people like things as if they're just expendable, like trash you throw away, and things like their people, like overvalued.

See, here's my question for you. Are you looking back? What in your life is really too important to you? Are there treasures? Are there prizes that really, in light of eternity, are trinkets? Costume jewelry that don't really matter. Are we fixated on things that are really more of this world—our stuff, gaining, consuming?

What do you need? Here's my question: What do you need to surrender to the Lord today? For you to really grow as a Christian, there may be things that you're holding on to that are causing you to look backward. Remember my story about the two men running? Are you looking back and stumbling? It's causing you to get off course. You're losing ground. You're not growing. What do you need to let go of today?

The Story of Lion

One of my favorite films of the last few years was the 2016 film Lion. It's about a young man named Saru who's looking for his home. It's based on a true story. Saru was orphaned in India at a very young age and later adopted by an Australian family. The story starts in his adult life. He's in his twenties, with a bunch of friends at a dinner party, and they're having food together. He comes across jalebi, a delicacy that he remembers from his childhood back in India.

You know, a sound, a particular strain of music, a taste, a smell can take you back to your past. This is what happens to Saru in that moment. He reveals to his friends that he'd been lost over twenty years ago, become an orphan in India, and was adopted by this family. As they listen, his friends are taken in by this. "We've gotta help you find your family. We gotta help you find your homeland."

So begins a long and difficult journey for Saru emotionally. He almost gives up the search at several points. It costs him a great deal. It's very painful. He's struggling to find even little snippets of his memory to figure out where he came from. One night, he's searching on Google Earth through India, and he comes across an image of a rock formation that rings a bell with him. Immediately, he's like, "I think that's it." He uncovers a trail that leads him back to this village, and eventually a reunion with his birth mother, who had thought that he was dead for over twenty years. It's a tear jerker.

But there's something more. In this process, Saru discovers that he has mispronounced his name all his life. In fact, Saru doesn't mean anything in Hindi. It's not a real Hindi word. It's nonsense. But when he reunites with his mother, he discovers that his real name is in fact Sharu, which means lion in Hindi.

The Christian Life as Trajectory

I think about the apostle Paul. At this point in his life, Paul has been converted for over twenty-five years. There's no question that he's one of the most outstanding believers of all time in the New Testament. And yet, he says things like this:

I not that I've already obtained it. I've not yet come to know the fullness of Christ and the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, and conformity to his death in a total way. I don't consider myself to have laid hold of it yet. — Philippians 3:12

Twice he says, "Press on. I keep on pounding." He's still reaching forward, not looking back. He's still running for the prize twenty-five years later.

One of the things that this holds up to me is that the Christian life is not so much about arrival at a destination as it is movement along a trajectory. Constantly going, searching, living for that homeland. If you keep pounding, if you keep longing for your homeland like Saru, this is going to reveal to you more and more of who you really are. As you imitate and follow the Lion of Judah, you are becoming more and more a lion yourself. You're no longer Saru, but Sharu.

May God make it so in us. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Would you pray with me? Father, we come before you this morning, and we thank you for your word. There is nothing like your word. Lord, I pray that if there is anyone who is listening this morning who does not know you, by the power of your spirit that you would give him or her the new birth.

Lord, this question about am I growing would haunt them, Father, until they turn to you and surrender themselves to you. Father, I pray that you would lay hold of him or her for them that they might lay hold of you.

Lord, I pray for Christians who are watching, participating this morning. Father, I pray that you would encourage us. Lord, for some, we are beaten down and discouraged this morning. And we need to remember, Father, that we have a citizenship. Lord, that you have taken hold of us, and you are taking us in a direction. Father, give us hope. Give us encouragement.

Lord, I pray, Father, that we would find energy today and encouragement to run the race. Lord, I pray, Father, that you would help us to let go of the things that have to do with this world and this life. To forget what's behind and to press on toward what's ahead. Lord, I pray, Father, for this kind of faith today in Jesus' name. Amen.