Philippians chapter 3, here we
are in that which I read this morning. And if you'll notice,
sometimes just in our simple study of the Word of God, just
in the preaching, just in the reading of Scripture, we can
get lost in trying to figure out what it is that God would
have us to see. There's many schools of thought
when it comes to understanding the Word of God. And there are
some people who think that there's a lot of mystery hidden beneath
the pages. that it should be uncovered,
that it takes high scholarship to grasp and to hold on to and
to unpeel. There are some people who think
that Scripture is so simplistic that all you've got to do is
read it, and if the Word is there, then read the Word and know the
Word. And then there are many other thoughts in between. But
I'll say to you today that God's people are given understanding
of God's Word. And I want you to understand
this because it is a supernatural thing. It is not something that
we have to be trained in to such a degree that we become scholars
of Scripture. Now, I believe we ought to be
students and scholars of Scripture because in doing so, we are proving
that we have a desire to know Christ more. And in knowing Christ
more, we celebrate the joy that comes from that intimacy and
that joy is that which we long for fully. Paul is no different. All that he knew for his entire
life was Judaism. He knew the law of Moses. He
knew the scripture front and back. He knew the precepts of
Moses. He had an understanding to the
best of his scholarship of everything that he did throughout his life
was for the sake of the glory of the name of God. He lived
with zeal and with passion. He lived with such a zeal that
when the Christian message began to come, when Christ's followers
began to show themselves in Palestine, he, with zeal and with somewhat
of an angry passion, went after them to such a degree that he
had them put to death, he had them imprisoned, he had them
tortured, if you will, by the Roman government. so that they
would renounce their faith in Jesus Christ. This wasn't because
he was a hateful man. In his own confession, it was
because he was a man that loved with a zeal the God of heaven. that in all of His scholarship,
in all of His passion, in all of His living, in all of His
experience, these things did not produce a new birth. Even the understanding of the
expression of the Old Testament who clearly teaches us that Jesus
Christ is Messiah. The very Savior that the Jews
were looking for came before them and they knew it with every
fiber of their mind. but they rejected Christ because
they were blinded. Now see, when we think about
these things, we might say, well, okay, so what does it have to
do with me? Well friends, I think that though there is nothing
wrong with really pursuing the Word of God as a student, we
should do that. When we pursue the Word of God
as a learner, it is not so that we know stuff about the Bible.
It's that we are intimate with the God of the Bible. And the
Holy Spirit of God teaches His children, and as I prayed before
our service began, that you would have discernment. I pray that
for you now. We are lacking discernment in
our nation. We are lacking discernment amongst
the people of God. We are lacking discernment. And
discernment, the root of understanding what that means, it's a spiritual
term that gets thrown around over and over again, but for
a quick and easy way of understanding what it means, is discernment
is learning to discriminate between what is good and bad. right and
wrong, truth and error. Are you able to do that? is what
you believe provable to you by the Word of God within its context?
Are you able to say that God is this way because He shows
me He is this way by what His Word reveals? In the fullness
of it. If you were to say, and I've
had this conversation with some of my children the last week,
when we memorize Scripture, we ought to memorize passages, not
just verses. We ought to say to someone, well,
I know Romans 1. I know John 1. Well, that's just
a lot of text. Let me tell you something. You
can take the entire first or second chapter of John and put it on
the front of a note card. It's a third of the length of
most songs. I guess the question is, what's
the most passionate thing in our lives? Our music or our Messiah? We ought to hide the Word of
God in our hearts because when we do, when we do it is there
for us and the Lord is there in the fullness of His power
to when other things creep into our lives, when other things
come into our eyes and our ears and our minds, we automatically
are able to see the difference between truth and error. And
though there are some areas of faith, there are some areas of
teaching doctrine, there are some areas of theology, understanding
God, knowing God, that can be complex, mostly on the implications
of things. If God is immutable, then how
does... You see what I mean? If God is
all-loving, then what does His wrath look like? I mean, those
are good questions, but those are rare in their complexities. Most of the time, the reality
of who God is in the Word of God is clear to us. And not only
is it clear to us, it is clear to every human being with a cognitive
ability to any scale that we can see that the Bible teaches
that Jesus says that He is the God of Heaven. We can see that
the Bible teaches that Jesus proclaims to be from the Father. Jesus clearly teaches that no
one can come to the Father. No one can have eternal life
except by Him and through Him. And so that's not hard to discern. And if someone comes up teaching
something else, teaching another way, teaching another method,
teaching another, as Paul would say to the Galatians, another
gospel, he says it is no gospel. So therefore, our discernment
should be the same as Paul's discernment, should be the same
as John's discernment, should be the same as anyone's discernment
that there is something wrong with what we just heard. As I
teach to you week in and week out, two times, sometimes more
a week, you want to have discernment with what I say. Don't sit there
with your ears wide open and just take what I give you and,
oh, James said it, so it must be right. Friends, I am a fallible
human being just like you. And when I find mistakes, we
will correct them. And if I don't find them, we'll
all walk in agreement in error sometimes. That sounds right. And I've even done that before
in such a way that I've said something completely off base,
not to you, but to California, on purpose, and then I saw a
hundred people go... I said, isn't that right, church?
And they just shook their heads. And three or four of the brothers
on the front row were going... text messaging each other, you
know, the sound booth guy comes out, and I'm like, I'm just joking,
I'm just joking. But that's how easy it is to
just... Not even on purpose. Follow the
leader. Well, friends, follow the leader
as he follows the leader. That's the point. When you're
in a single file line, you are following the one in front of
you. And guess what? When they step to the side, you
can see who to follow. And when everybody steps out
of the way, what we should see is Christ. Who we should see
is Christ. So how do we watch Christ, though
we cannot see Him? We love Him, as Peter would say. Though we
cannot see Him now, we know Him, we love Him. How do we follow
Christ? We follow Christ by following
His Word. And we follow His Word to the best of our ability. And
I'm going to tell you, this is where Paul is going right now.
Paul is talking about righteousness in two ways. In chapter 3, he
gets to the place here where he talks that he would do anything.
He says, I pray that I may do anything. I would love to gain
Christ and I'm going to gain Christ. And so I am going to
do anything so that I may gain Christ. And it's not a wishful
thinking. He has a certainty. We know that
Paul has a certainty. So just because his language
in our English translations can become a little frustrating doesn't
mean that we just decide, okay, then Paul is working for his
own salvation when Paul has clearly told us that he can't work for
his own salvation. Paul's already said that if anybody
could work for his own salvation, he has the best case of anybody
in the world. Paul says that he could, then
come to the place where he could stand against any other person
that claims to be able to work for their salvation, and that
he could do it better. And so if this is true, and then
Paul would say, but I am not, even in all my goodness and all
my betterness, able to what? Attain salvation through the
works that I have and the knowledge that I have and the holiness
that I have and the righteous works that I do. If I can't do
it and I'm better than all of y'all, then y'all surely aren't
gonna get it. That's what Paul says here, Philippians. So we
know that when Paul talks about trying to gain Christ at any
cost, it doesn't mean that he's working for salvation. It means
that the salvation that was given to him is so precious and so
worthy and so powerful and so clear and so beautiful that he
is willing to walk away from anything that he has, everything
that he is, and anything that gets in his way between him and
Christ will be stepped upon in the pursuit of Christ. So that
in turn, Christ alone is glorified, but Paul is proving his election,
and we use that term because that's the Bible's term for salvation,
that he was chosen by God to be saved by grace on the road
to Damascus. This is where Paul gets this
theology, gets this teaching. And so if this is the case, then
we need to really understand moving into this as he closes
his argument here in verses 10 and 11 of chapter 3. And even
before, he talks about this righteousness that comes from God. And I could
really take a minute, and I'd like to, maybe in the weeks to
come, as we get further into this letter, show you what the
Bible teaches about imputation, and show you what the Bible teaches
about justification, and show you what the Bible teaches about
sanctification. And you think, well, what are
all these words? Well, they're important words for the reason
that they are listed in the New Testament. These aren't our words. These aren't our, as some people
say, preacher words, theological words, seminary words. These
are words that Paul has written in the Greek that are translated
into English so we can understand them. And the word propitiation,
justification, sanctification, glorification, these are words
that are in every version that's worth anything of the English
Bible. I mean, if they're not in there,
then that Bible should probably, I'm not a book burner, but it
wouldn't hurt my feelings. Because they're there, it's important.
We need to see that the Bible teaches about these things, so
we need to know what they are. When we talk about righteousness,
we know that the righteousness comes from God. It is Christ's
righteousness, and we are declared and made righteous at the point
of salvation by the work and the power of God. And there is
nothing more that we have to do to be righteous. But then
Paul comes to the place of saying, I will do whatever I need to
do by any means possible that I may attain the resurrection
from the dead. And so see how that's confusing. Is this not
confusing to you? It can get confusing. He might
say, so what's Paul saying? He's earning that? No. But Paul's
saying that in his life that God has created, in the beauty
of the gospel that has empowered him to live, it is the proof
of his life in Christ that he would do whatever it took to
make sure he stands before Christ. And by God's grace, it's not
up to him. So that there is a... And friends,
let me tell you something. And I've seen somebody even this
morning post on Facebook that has... I won't say anything. But there are a lot of people
who like what we call hyper grace. You know what hyper grace is?
It's not grace that doesn't sit still. It's not grace that can't
pay attention. It's grace that's so extreme. I'm sorry. That's my ADD kicking
in. It's grace that's so extreme.
I said what grace is it is extreme, but it's so extreme to the far
end of unbiblical teaching that tells people That if you're saved
by grace, you just forget about sin for the rest of your life
Don't think about it. Don't look at it. Don't talk
about it. Don't worry about it They would tell someone who came
to them and counsel and said I'm struggling with sin in my
life. It's okay Just keep doing it and God will get you out of
that sin when he's ready. That's wicked y'all and That's
wicked because the command of Paul just to the Philippians
church, just to the Philippian Christian, has said to have the
mind of Christ, to obey in my absence as much as you obey in
my presence. To love each other, to adhere
to the teaching, to have, what, one mind, one soul, one spirit,
have a focused unity in the theology and the doctrine, the teaching.
Watch out for what? Evildoers, manipulators, people
who mutilate the flesh, wicked men who are destructive. I mean,
why would we think that prior is true if Paul is commanding
this of us? Because it's not true. And it
is a ploy of the enemy, just like he, and I'm saying this
and I know it sounds harsh, but just like people, can see in
the Genesis account, just like the devil tempted Adam and Eve
with some extra knowledge, with some twisted thing of the truth,
took the truth and then twisted a little bit for their benefit,
the same thing happens in our world today, in our church today,
in our churches today. By the Lord's grace, pray not
here among us, but it could. Some of us could get a book in
the mail or a neighbor and sit down and we start thinking about
it and we go, that makes some sense. That's why we need to have discernment.
That's why we need to walk together in our pursuit of righteousness,
in our pursuit of Christ and the Word of God, so that I'm
not an island unto myself and you aren't an island unto yourself.
So that when we are looking, as God teaches you, he may through
you teach me. He made through you correct me
and vice versa. We are to sharpen each other
as iron sharpens iron. It is our role and responsibility
that we are to look after each other's interests. Do you remember
Paul saying that in this very letter? Not only our own interests,
but the interests of each other. Why? And what are those interests?
This is all review. That we may look after each other's
joy, we may look after each other's unity, we may look after each
other's spiritual discernment, He talks about that, that you
may know and understand and discern that which is good and pleasing
and holy and righteous. Why? Because the name of God
is at stake. If we claim Christ and we walk
around with all this false doctrine, we just live like we want to
live, and we walk around just good moralistic people, but we
aren't sound in the truth, then we're actually defaming the name
of Christ. Because we're presenting Christ
from a teaching way, we're presenting Christ from an affection way.
So in our affections, we're presenting Christ in a way that we don't
work together and we don't have unity, we don't have affection
for each other, and we're just presenting Christ in a way to
the world that's not Christ. So who is it? It's the God of
this world, who loves to take the name of Christ as his own,
the title of Christ, the office of Christ, if you will. The devil
loves to have a group of people who call themselves Christians
who live the way he likes for them to live. Well, that's really
harsh. Well, Jesus is the one who said
it. Jesus is the one who went to the Pharisees who were the
most elite spiritual people in this day, in the first century. Jesus is the one who went to
them and said to them, you are doing the will of your father,
the devil. All your prayers, all your teaching,
all your Bible reading, all your sacrifices, all your stuff, everything
that you're doing is the will of your father, the devil. Now
that's harsh, but that's what Jesus said to them. What would
Jesus say to us? What would Jesus say to you?
If he were going to compare your life and the profession that
you have by faith alone in Christ alone against the things that
you do and how you exercise and live that faith, what would Jesus
say about who your Father is? Friends, I pray that we can stand
before Christ one day, just like Paul says, and be proud, not
of what we've done, but of what God has done in us. That we could
say, praise you for your glorious grace. Thank you, Father, for
creating in me this. So Paul gets to this place and
he's saying that I'm not righteous because of my works. It's obvious.
This righteousness is the work of God and the gift of God. This
faith is a gift of God. And I know Christ and I want
to know the power of his resurrection. I want to know him and his sufferings. I want to share in his death. I want to be a new creation.
This is what Paul's teaching. at any means possible. And then
in verse 12, this is where we are. There's your introduction.
In verse 12, not that I have already obtained this. Now, even
in English, this has to have something to identify it, doesn't
it? What is he talking about? Well,
he just said that I may attain the resurrection from the dead,
that I may share in his sufferings, that I may become like him in
his death, that I may know him. So who's he talking about? I
have not obtained this already, Paul says. What is he obtaining?
Christlikeness. Paul is saying, I have not obtained
Christlikeness. So in that sense, then, all of
a sudden, he says, I have a righteousness, but I have not obtained Christ's
likeness. So this shows us something there,
church. This is what it shows us. It shows us that though we
are justified, though we are fully sanctified, we are still
in the process of this life being sanctified. See how confusing
that is? And this is where some people
who would Perpetrate some of this hyper grace mindset would
get stuck. Well, I don't want to think about
the sanctification process in this world If I'm holy, I'm holy.
Well, we're holy. We're holy by creation. We're
holy by God's work of salvation We're holy by Christ alone But
because we're holy, God has prepared good works for us to work out
that holiness, to work into that holiness, to start to display
that holiness. And even when we live, if we
were 50 billion years old in this life, I would not want to
live that long. But if we were, and we had not
sinned in like a million of those years, we still would not be
anywhere close to the righteousness of Christ in our flesh. We'd
still be far fallen from the glory of God. So that's why God
has to snatch us out of darkness and put us in Christ. This is
the point. He puts us in Christ. We don't
put ourselves there. But because He's put us there,
He has prepared for us a life that would give glory and honor
to Him forever. And so that we're, what, forever
fighting against the flesh so that we might please God? We're
forever putting to death the, what, old man that has, what,
has died in Christ so that we might live for Christ? We are
striving, we are running, we are fighting. Are these passive
verbs? No! So that our walk in Christ
is not a walk of passiveness, we're not passively holy, we're
actively holy. Though we are passively holy
in Christ, we also then work in our lives to obtain that which
we've been promised. Not working toward it, but working
through it. Working to it. I don't know how
to say that. I'm starting to start hooping
up here or something. You know what I'm saying. That might have
been inappropriate. So then I have not obtained Christ
yet. I have not become that which
Christ has made me to be. I have not become perfect yet.
But Paul's life was not marked, listen, Paul's life was not marked
by a struggle with sin, was it? We don't look at the record of
Paul and we don't see a plethora of writings of Paul that said,
oh, woe is me. We see that in one place, and
it's a time of teaching an example that the hope that we have is
in Christ, who shall what? Who shall save me? Oh, wretched
man, that I am Christ. Now there's no condemnation for
those who are in Christ Jesus, but listen, we don't see the
writings here of the apostles who were, we see some sin. We
see Peter with a little bit of, Sin, a little bit of idolatry.
We see all the other apostles running off after their arrest
of Jesus, but once they were appointed to take the gospel,
we no longer see that. We don't see John writing in
prison about his burden of his selfishness. We don't see Paul's
writing in his personal journals about how he wishes somebody
would love on him. We don't see it. So what's the
point? The point is, is that When we
are in Christ, our lives should be marked when people look at
them and they should say, that person is striving after Christ.
That person is running after Christ. You know what we run
after? Let me just put it to you this
way. What would you run after? Somebody
said something about running the other day. I said, listen,
I don't run unless somebody's chasing me or my meal's running
away. I mean, I might run after those two, away or to those two
things, and being funny. But what do we run for? We run
to compete. We run for health, some people.
We run to escape death. But what would we really run
after? What would have to walk by this building to get us all
to get up and just run down the highway as fast as we could? Look at the world. Look at what
the world runs after. Wealth, fame, honor, glory, and
it's all worthless. Paul says it's all garbage. I
tell you, it's a scary thing when we see in Christendom, and
I use that realm lightly, people who claim to be ministers of
the gospel who are more popular than pop
stars. You hear me? And one of the most
disgusting things I've ever seen in my life, most disgusting thing
I've ever seen in my life is at a conference where a pastor
was signing autographs. It's deplorable. And I've had
people at conferences bring their Bible up and say, would you write
in here? Would you sign this? I said, oh yeah, I'll put something
in your Bible. It's usually 1 John 5, last few
words. And Soledad Gloria or something
like that. Put my name in there. What does that say? Keep yourself
from idols. I could go to Leviticus and really
make it pointed, but you see what I mean? And I'm not saying
that to sound... But guys, we've got a problem. When it comes
to what people who profess to be Christians are doing, even
people who are leading the preaching of churches, they are popular. Why are they popular? Because
we are idolaters at the core. How many people idolize Paul?
We see the Corinthian people having a problem with Apollos
and Paul. They had a problem, not with
them directly, but amongst themselves. Some of them were esteemed in
their own hearts. Paul is the apostle through whom
I came to Christ. Oh, I'm the product of Paul's
ministry. You think, well, that's a little,
that's really wicked to say. Who says that? Everybody. You
get a bunch of preachers in the room, You start having some conversation,
you start getting to know some people and friends, and one thing
comes out. There's three things that come
out. Who we know, what names we can drop, who we've sat under,
trained us, where we went to school. You know, in 1750, the
school I graduated from, John Edwards, Jonathan Edwards had
come from, you know what I mean? Oh, really? Well I bet some people
in New England have used the same sewer system that Jonathan
Edwards used too. Woo. I bet people over there in London
have used the same potty system that Spurgeon has used. Now what's
that tabernacle do now? They have a seeker service. for people who want to come see
the tabernacle where St. Spurgeon so eloquently preached. Paul is showing a whole different
picture here. He's saying, I've not already
obtained Christ. I have not already obtained Christ
and I'm not already perfect. But I, listen, but I press on
to make Christ it, righteousness it, my own. Paul knew that his
righteousness was faith alone and Christ alone. And Paul understood
that the power of God and the love of Christ compelled him
and that all he desired was to be like Christ. Is that our desire,
beloved? Listen, nobody in this room,
including me, is gonna sit here and go, absolutely, man, we got
it, damn. Please don't be that blind. But Paul said he had it,
damn. And then Paul said he didn't
have it, damn. We're striving. I wanna make Christ my own, why? Do you want Christ to be your
own? So back to the question that I was asking, then I got
off on that little rant. What would we run after? We run after
that which we want to catch. We run after that which has the
greatest of value. We run after, we do, we put time
in anything that our heart fully loves. What is it that we run after?
What are we running after, beloved? What are we really looking to
catch? Now, see, we could stop there
and we could easily say, oh, now you're teaching us we've
got to run after Christ, we've got to catch Him. Yeah, I'm teaching
you that. But look at what Paul says is
why he runs after Christ. Because Christ Jesus has made
me His own. So let's put it into terms that
Paul, that we can understand. I'm running after Christ because
Christ has already caught me. I'm catching Christ because Christ
has already made me his. And I want to live that I may
prove that I am his. This area of living church is something that people are
scared to talk about. This area of churchmanship, and
I hate to use that word, but living as the church, churchmanship
really isn't, it's not a biblical thing. This area of Christianity,
this area of faith, this area of focus, we like to ignore it. Go online and just go look and
see if you can find sermons from anybody. Anybody right here in
this part of Philippians chapter 3 and then see what they have
to say about it if you can find them Because it is not a popular message
you think it was popular for the Philippians to hear The message
that hey You're gonna die if you follow after Christ so follow
after Christ because Christ has already bought you and You think that they went home
warm and fuzzy? Handing out stickers with their church's name on them
to put on their bumpers? Nothing wrong with that, I got one. Hey,
let's all go eat together and let's be sure we pray in the
name of Jesus before we eat. No, they didn't do that. They
weren't living in an incredibly sound social atmosphere with
Christ at the center. was thought to be somewhere in
your proximity, in your mind or in your mouth or in your heart.
You were persecuted for it. So to run after Christ was a
race of death. Paul even said that I may become
like Him in His death. I'm willing to die because to
die is gain. He knows that because Christ
has bought him, that Christ will live through
him. He says that. It's not I who
live, but Christ who lives within me. I live this life by faith
in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So I
guess the question would be then for us, beloved, is has Christ
bought you? Has Christ died for you? Has Christ saved you? And if
so, are you striving to that end? Are you running to that
end? Why does Paul use the term run
or press, strive? He goes back to this language
several times, not just with the Philippians, but he uses
the same language with Timothy. He uses some language about farming
and he uses some language about competing. And in some sense,
we sort of understand, but do we really understand what the
goal of the Christian should truly be? The goal of the Christian,
and I know this may not apply to everybody, but I think it
will if you just listen. The goal of the Christian is
not to build a ministry for themselves. The goal of the Christian is
not to prepare the world to see their view of things. The goal
of the Christian is not to be able to stand and give a report
of all the people that they've led to Jesus. The goal of a Christian
is not to write books. The goal of the Christian is
none of these things. The goal of the Christian is
because Christ has laid hold of me, He is my greatest prize. And I will live my life fighting
tooth and nail, running every race up, down, through the snow,
uphill, both ways. You know those stories. So that
I may obtain the higher prize of Christ. This is the goal of
the church. And friends, we each individually
have to evaluate our own living. so that we then can evaluate
each other's living. That's where Jesus gets into
the analogy of a speck and a log in our eyes. Let us look at our
own lives that we might see those logs so that we could clearly
see the specks in our brothers that we may help them. Do you
know what a speck in the eye is? It's pain. It's not striving for Christ,
it's sinfulness. And we have a responsibility
to strive for holiness. All these things are peripheral
that I'm about to talk about. Not just church attendance, not
just fellowship, not just ministering to each other's needs. Before
we can minister to each other, we ought to daily be looking
at our lives from a perspective of righteousness that we are
working in because of Christ, that we're striving for. Now
what does that look like? Well, look, there's two areas
of righteousness that we need to be looking at. We fight against
sin that comes as temptation. We fight against it. We see it
and we say, no. Now, people are going, well,
that's too easy. You don't know my temptation.
I bet y'all do because Christ knew your temptation. Hebrews
says that we have a high priest that can sympathize with us because
he's been tempted in every way that any man or woman has ever
been tempted. through any means. So anytime, and they might be
the specific thing. You may like to pick your nose
and it may not be something that I might be tempted to do, but
there might be something close. That was inappropriate too. Strike
two today. But are we dealing with that
sin? Are we able to say that is offering me temporary joy. That is offering me, that temptation
is offering me a temporary joy that is actually pain, that is
actually suffering, because I'm going to take that and I'm going
to touch that, I'm going to reach out to that fleshly desire and
it is going to affect my joy for months. You don't believe me? When's
the last time you lost your temper? And maybe you got it under control
like I did and learned to keep it in, but you still lost it.
You can be a ranting lunatic in your heart and smile like
this. But your heart was still angry. And all of a sudden, then you
feel guilty. It hurts your intimacy with Christ. And you think, I need to pray.
And you go, I'm not going to pray. God don't want to hear from me
right now. I need to get in the Word. And you're like, I'm not
going to get in the Word. I'll just watch the news and get my mind off of it. I'll
take a walk. I'll go drive. I'll go outside
and kung fu something. Kill some kittens. Strike three. I'm done. Golly. I'm joking. But we get there,
and then our intimacy with Christ is hurt, and then we sit there,
and we go to bed that night. Oh, Lord, please forgive me. You've
got to stop me from ever sinning. You ever pray that? Change my
heart to never be tempted again. It's never going to happen. Wasted
prayer. God, when those temptations arise,
lead me out of them. Isn't that what Jesus told us
to pray? And you know when we ought to pray that more? When
they're right there. Leave me away from this. And
what is our temptation? I mean, they're all there. And
some of us can sit and feel pretty confident. I don't know the last
time I was tempted. Better pay attention. Better pay attention. Because it's not just about those
sins that we do, those evil things, those evil thoughts, those evil
expressions, those things that we are obvious if we put them
up here, like you know how you get a name on the board when
you talk in school for those of us who went? What if they,
they put their name on the board for something we did, but what
if they wrote out what we did? What if every Sunday we'd had a board
and all of our temptations and our sins were sort of listed
up there? How embarrassing would that be? It'd be like one person
here, it'd be me. And I'd be in the back hoping
none of y'all showed up, because my name's, you know, the doors
would be locked. Hello? But when we get down to it, I
don't even know what it's talking about now. Oh, those temptations. It's not just about those temptations
to do wrong. It's about the temptation to
fail to strive after Christ. And I'll be honest with you,
I think that's the biggest thing that Paul is showing us here
is that living the moral high road is not fulfilled Christian
living. That's what we're supposed to
do. Even unbelievers are bound by the law of righteousness.
and they're guilty, so condemned by that same law. Jesus is the
fulfillment of all the law of God as a human being, fully human,
so that everything Jesus did was constantly not just righteous
and moral and wise, but dedicated to the highest glory, which was
to give honor to God, the Father. Do you hear that? You may not
can. And that's how our lives, if
we are to be like Christ in life, be like Christ in death, be like
Christ because Christ is our righteousness, then our lives
ought to be the picture of striving for such living. We ought to
strive, not that we obtain it on our own, but that Christ has
seized us. He has captured us. He has embraced
us. He has restrained us. Friends, that's the grace of
God. We are no longer, Romans 6, slaves to the flesh and slaves
to sin and slaves to the world, but we are slaves to Christ and
His righteousness. Jesus Christ made Himself a slave,
according to Philippians 2, and became What? A lamb. He was a slave to righteousness.
He was a slave to the Father's will. He became a slave at the
hands of the slaves of the flesh who put Him to death by the will
of the Father so that He could redeem His people. We ought to
be striving in that way. What is it that we are to be
doing? Are we striving? See, let's stop,
church. Let's stop measuring our faith
and our sanctification by the lack of sinful things that we
do. Let's start measuring our sanctification
by the evidence of spiritual things that we do. You want me to say that again? Let's stop
measuring our spiritual lives and our sanctification by the
lack of evil. Let's put it that way, the lack
of sin. Oh, look at that, haven't done that in a while, haven't
done that in a while. Isn't that the way we operate though as
people? And let's measure the way Paul says to measure our
lives. Am I striving for Christ? Am I living for Christ? Is my
spiritual life full? Now see, it's easy to say, well,
man, we've got a lot of junk going on in our lives. Fine,
then strive for Christ in the midst of it. Because I'll promise
you this, you will never be as holy in this life as you are
when you are suffering. And if you think, if you think
that when the suffering gets gone and you're able to kick
back with a barbecue grill, that you're going to think about Jesus
as often, you're not. You won't, I promise. Even if
we're out there having Bible study on your patio, it'll be
such a good time, and we'll think, man, it doesn't get any better
than this. But when the hammer falls, when
the cliff falls off, when the house falls down, it's then that
we're able to see Christ in a greater way. It's then that we're able
to take all the things of the world, that take away our time,
that take away our heart, that take away our mind, and seize
it. When we've been seized and caught
by Christ, we ought to let the world go. And that's a tall order. But it's an order that is done
in the power of Christ. It's an order that is done by
faith. Faith. Because when we grab after the
world, what we are doing there is not living out our faith.
We're not believing that Christ is more beautiful than that temptation.
When we fail to study our Word or to pray, it's because we feel
like what we have to do today is more important than being
with Christ. I hate to quote people, but Spurgeon
in lectures to my students when he first started his pastor's
college. He talks, has a whole chapter on prayer, and he opens
this up for upcoming pastors. And in a paraphrase, he says
this, that the pastor that is not praying should leave the
pastoral. And I would suggest that the
church that doesn't pray, are they the church? Are you the
Christian? And he answers the argument rhetorically,
because nobody's going to give him lip, but he answers it anyway
in his writing. What do we do then if we're so
busy? And Spurgeon is quoted to say, roughly, that when I
had a day that I knew I had no time, I would take two to three
more hours that day to pray. So I don't have enough time to
do what I need to get done, so I'm going to block out another two
hours to pray. Yes. You know what that shows
us? what Paul showed us in Philippians
1. That the prayer of Paul could do far more abundantly than what
Paul could do. Why? Because God is the effective
agent of answering prayer, not man. So we can say, oh, I don't have
time. I don't have time to be spiritual. I don't have time
to grow. You don't want time. What's more important? Your TV
show? Your sporting event, your kids'
extracurricular activities, your hobbies, your interests, and
our hobbies, our interests, our extracurricular activities, I'm
not preaching to you. I'm sharing with you, I'm talking to us.
We're eat up with it, aren't we? And then we feel entitled. It's Friday, hallelujah! Time
off. Is it time off? I told a sister
yesterday, we don't need time off, we need time on. We need time on with Christ.
What is leisure time? My grandmother Tiffin used to
always say the old adage that an idle hand is the devil's workshop.
Well, I think a leisurely mind is just the same. And so even when we do have leisure,
we ought to have opportunity to meditate on the Lord, to meditate
on His word. But let me tell you something.
I've said this a thousand times, I can guarantee it. If we don't
have the Word of God in us freshly this day, it is not going to
be there. It is not going to be there when
we need it today. We cannot say, well, you know,
I had a good Bible study a year ago. I had a good prayer life
last year. I had a wonderful time at that
conference. I had a great time at that church
meeting. I had a wonderful Sunday. Look, Sunday's over. This service
is almost done. Is the Word of God gonna be fed
on later? I don't know about you, but if
I'm not in the Word, my flesh loves to raise its hand. It's like, excuse me, I got a
question. Hey, just tap you on the shoulder. You hate to be
tapped on the shoulder? I hate to be tapped on the shoulder. especially
by my flesh. You know what that looks like?
For you to say, I'm admitting my craziness now. I think, I
talk to myself in my head. I think through stuff. I converse
with myself. I have conversations with some
of you. I wonder what they're gonna say about that. When I should just be talking
to my Lord and hearing from Him. Because my ability to even deal
with my own problems is impossible. How am I going to deal with yours?
I'm not God-willed. And when we strive to be in Christ,
even though we have not laid hold of Him yet, friends, He
has laid hold of us. Paul uses this analogy, this
imagery of running a race. Brothers, I do not consider that
I have made it on my own. Think about that for a minute.
If you're in a competition and you're striving to receive the
prize, you want to be the crown winner. Usually the one who thinks
they've got it in the bag doesn't make it. Like the tortoise and
the hare. The hare was so fast, he knew
he could outrun that tortoise, so he just took his time and
did what he wanted to do. Friends, don't treat your fate that way.
Be steady. Be consistent. Be pressing. How does Paul deal with the running
of his race? Here it is. Look at the second
part of verse 13. Forgetting what lies behind. That's the first part. Second
part, straining forward to what lies ahead. There's two ways to look at this.
There's the ways to look at it, because every time of us, we
think about what lies behind, most of us go, oh yeah, all that
bad stuff that's happened. I'm not going to worry about
that. Paul's talking about all the good stuff he'd completed. Paul's
talking about all the successes in ministry. Paul's talking about
his extreme success of planting the church in Philippi. I'm not looking back at what
I did in your place. I'm not celebrating Christ for
what... I'm celebrating the Lord for what He's doing now. For
what He's going to do in your heart tomorrow. That I pray that
you may be filled with joy and that you may have a heart that
grows increasingly in the knowledge and the wisdom of Christ. These
are the words of Paul that we've already read here in this letter.
I'm not looking at what you were yesterday, because what you were
yesterday is no proof except that you had faith in Christ
yesterday. What are you this moment? I'm not going to look
back at my successes in the ministry. I'm going to look ahead at what
God is going to do, even though I may be in chains. Paul would
later say, the Word of God is not bound. So I look ahead, not
behind. We don't reminisce. We strive. We move on. We press on. And Paul further explains that
by showing. He says in verse 14, I look forward, I strain
forward, I look. What is it straining to be? Got
my new glasses and my left eye was blurred today, even with
the glasses, I don't know what's going on. But when you strain, you're trying
to see what is that. We were in Savannah last Wednesday
and trying to get out of town 45 minutes, hadn't even made
it like a mile. I'm looking and looking I can't
see a break in the traffic. So I just like driving in the
marsh I mean, you know, I'm just gonna go let's go swimming rather
go the wrong I'm gonna go to Hilton head before we just sit
still Straining could not see the end. But Paul was saying
quit looking at the success of your past Don't look at how you
walk with Christ yesterday look at where you're going today and
that person is Jesus put him at the point of your Entire existence
put him at the stern of your boat. That is the front row Right?
Okay. The bow. Not the stern. Put him in both
places. He's omnipresent anyway. So, there we are. I'm not a Navy
guy. I do not like water. Put Christ
at the front. Strain to see that which Christ
is. So I'm looking there while I'm not, while I hold in fond
memory of what we've done and accomplished thus far. He doesn't
do that. He says, while forgetting all
that lays behind me. Now think about the Old Testament
account of Lot. And God, by His miraculous grace,
went in there and allowed Lot and his family salvation. Physical,
material, bodily salvation. And He says, don't tell not,
look back. Don't look back. Don't love that which is back
there. So it could be inclusive. That's a good lesson about our
sins and the past failures. But most importantly, Paul's
context here is to look ahead for what God is doing and where
God has called us to, not where we were. But look at Lot's wife. What did she do? She didn't want
to forget what laid behind her. She loved that which was behind
her. And she turned around and God
judged her and turned her to salt and killed her. Probably
killed her as she turned to salt. So, we strain forward. What is it that God has called
me to, Paul says? I strain to see that I might
be a long ways from it. Here we go. but I will be like
Christ one day. And so I'm looking there. I'm not getting distracted. I'm
looking so far ahead to the day when I'm glorified. And I want
to strive this day to be like that. Though I may have been
closer yesterday than I am today, I'm not going to go on yesterday.
I want to look ahead of where I'm heading. And he says, I press
on toward the goal. Look at this. This is why I live.
For my goal, Paul says, for the prize not an earthly prize, not
a crown that fades, of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. And that might be a sermon in
itself. The upward call of God in Christ
Jesus. Friends, listen, there's so much there. Yeah, we're going
to talk about that next week. It's not on the earth. It's not
of the earth, it's not of the flesh, it is not of this world,
and neither are we. And the upward call of Jesus
Christ is that all that we do and accomplish, whether we're
cutting our grass or preaching to 10,000 people, is for the
sake of His glory. And we ought to have our minds,
as he says there on verse 15, let those of us who are mature
think this way. And if any of you think otherwise,
God will reveal that also to you. Let us hold only to what
we know is true, to what we have attained. We're holding. Are you holding? on to Christ? Are you striving to Christ? You see, this is a different
Christianity than most people here on Sunday mornings. This
is a different sermon. This isn't a sermon for me to
give you three things to stick on your refrigerator to practice
this week. This is a sermon with one point, and the point is this,
that you live your life straining to see the righteousness of Christ
in every fiber of your soul, and for whatever it costs you,
you strain to obtain that prize. Knowing full well that it is
not your righteousness and that it is not your efforts that give
it to you, but it is Christ. Do I dare say this in closing?
Friends, if we aren't straining for the righteousness of Christ,
we are not caught by Him. If I didn't love you, I wouldn't say that. But because I do, I say that.
If you aren't striving for the righteousness of Christ, Christ
does not have a hold of you. Why is it that you're not striving?
Could it be that Christ doesn't have a hold of you? Or are you
in such misery because you know that you're not striving? You
feel defeated because you're not in fellowship with His Word.
You're not in fellowship in prayer. You're not in fellowship with
the saints who can help you, who can grow you, who can pray
for you. You're not... Maybe you're quenching the Spirit
of God. I say that's a dangerous place to be, friends. When we see the Old Testament,
Tell us that today is the day of salvation. It means it. Salvation wasn't yesterday, and
salvation can't wait till tomorrow. It's today. And if we're going
to hold out on what we've always been, oh, you know, I used to
walk with Christ back then. Our friends, Hebrews 10 says
there are many people who will walk with Christ. John 6 shows
evidence of it in the historical narrative that tens of, excuse
me, probably 25,000 people followed him that day. And when he refused
to give them something else to eat, but said, I am the only
bread that's gonna give you eternal life, so come after me. Give
up eating food and follow me, they left him. This man is crazy. They weren't in Him. Many believed
in the name of Christ, according to the latter parts of John 2,
but Christ Himself did not believe in them, for He knew what was
in the heart of man. Friends, do you truly have faith
in Christ? Simple, honest, zealous, heartfelt,
supernatural, regenerative faith. You believe on Jesus Christ,
you were born again. But in our culture, we think
faith is just, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. What's right? The Bible says
everybody knows what's right. Yep, Jesus, Nicodemus believed
in Jesus. Everybody believes Jesus, yep,
you're Messiah. But faith means that you've put
your trust in him. as your only hope for righteousness,
as the only answer to how you're going to satisfy God's judgment
against you, as the only power in your life to help you strive
for righteousness, as the only hope that you have in overcoming
temptation. And the list goes on and on and
on. Believing on Jesus Christ brings
a striving to be like Him. True faith produces holy zeal,
holy affections and devotion toward the cause of Christ. Do
you believe in Christ today? Put your faith in Christ today. Let's pray. Lord, it is good, it is so good to hear Your Word and to contemplate
Your grace in our lives. Father, I pray for all of us
today, Lord, as simple but as hazardous as this type of Scripture
can be. Lord, would You guide us and
give us wisdom and discernment on how we are to process this?
Would You help us not to make light of it, at the same time
not to be discouraged, but to be encouraged that Your power
is at work within us? And Father, I pray for all of
us here, Lord, and I pray for those who could not make it today,
and I pray for those who may not want to be in the church
this morning. Lord, that there is a seed there
planted of even something that was long ago, Lord, would You
bring it to recollection that You would bring to faith those
who are running from the gospel? And Lord, we who hear Your Word
today, would You put urgency in our hearts to believe and
not to tarry and wait, but to trust in Christ fully today?
And Father, those of us who surely know we are in Christ and have
been captured by Him and taken hold of by His power, Lord, help
us to rest in the sufficiency of His righteousness as we fight
and race and run to live for His name. And it's in His name
we pray. Amen.