Well, let's open our Bibles again
now to the passage Brother Jonathan just read for us, Philippians
chapter 3. I've titled the message this
morning, Pressing Toward the Mark. We have three verses in
our text this morning in the life story of every believer
summed up in these three verses beginning in verse 12. Not as
though I had already attained, either were already perfect,
but I follow after, if that I may apprehend, that for which also
I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself
to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those
things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which
are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high
calling of God in Christ Jesus. Now you may remember that last
week we looked at what Paul said, I want to know Christ and he
already knew Christ. But what he's saying is I want
to know him better. I want to be joined. I want to
know that I'm joined to Christ in union with him so that I am
what he is, that the father only sees me in Christ, never me by
myself. I want to know that I am in Christ. that Christ is my righteousness.
If I'm in him, then I obey the law when he obeyed the law. I
died to the law when he was in the law. I want to know I have
union with Christ, that I'm in him. Then Paul said, I want to
know the power of Christ's resurrection. He said, what he's saying is,
I want to experience that life-giving power of the Holy Spirit in giving
me life, spiritual life in the new birth. That takes the same
power it took to raise Christ from the dead. And the result
of Christ being raised from the dead is all of his people must
be given this new life and the new birth. Paul said, I don't
want to just know about that. I want to experience that in
my heart. I want the Holy Spirit to work that in me. And last
Paul said, I want to be made conformable unto the death of
Christ. I want to know that when Christ
died, he died for me. I don't want this just to be
a historical fact. Jesus of Nazareth died on a cross.
I want to know that when Christ died, I died in Him. That He died for all of my sin
so that I have all the benefits of Christ's death. If I died
in Christ, then I'm dead to the power of sin. Sin doesn't have
the power to condemn me anymore. Sin doesn't have the power to
keep me from seeing and believing Christ anymore. I'm dead to the
power of sin. I'm dead to the demands of the
law. I don't have to look to the law to see what to do to
make God happy with me. I'm dead to the demands of the
law. I'm accepted in the beloved. The Father's pleased with me
in Christ. I'm free from worry about condemnation
for my sin because my sin was already condemned in Christ my
substitute. And you know, every believer has all three of those
blessings. All three of them. Now, I recognize we enjoy them. at different amounts, at different
times in our life, but every believer has all three of those
blessings. We have them, but we don't have them perfectly,
do we? You'll notice I said that we enjoy these blessings at different
amounts, at different times in our lives. And the reason for
that is we have these blessings. We enjoy these blessings by faith
in Christ. These things are not in our hands
yet. They're by faith. And sometimes our faith is stronger.
Sometimes our faith is weaker, so we enjoy these things at different
amounts. And that's why Paul says here,
I haven't already attained. I've not arrived yet. When he
says I'm not perfect, the word is finished. I'm not a finished
product yet. As long as I live in this flesh,
I'm not a finished product. Now by God's grace, I'm not what
I once was. But brother, I got a long, long,
long, long way to go. Long way. I'm perfect in Christ. Perfect, perfectly holy, perfectly
righteous. Even in glory, I'll not be more
holy than I am right now. I'm perfect in Christ. I'm the
righteousness of God in Christ, but I haven't attained yet. I
haven't attained that body and soul. Not yet I haven't. I will
someday, but not yet. No, I'm far from perfect. I'm not perfect in my love. In
my love for God, or my love for you, I wish it would grow. I'm
not perfect in my conduct. I wish that would improve quite
a bit. I'm not perfect in an outward
righteousness. I'm not perfect in my preaching,
not perfect in my prayer, not perfect in worship. That new
man is there, but I got a lot of growing up to do. I need to
grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ my Savior. And if you
look at me in the flesh, There's not a person here who can argue
with that. When you look at me, you don't see a righteous man,
do you? You see a sinful man in sinful flesh. It does not
yet appear what we shall be. Now when Christ returns, we'll
be made just like him. Then we'll be perfect, won't
we? Body and soul, but not until then. I'm not a finished product
yet. And since I'm not a finished
product, I'm following after it. I'm following after it. I'm
not satisfied. No. I'm awfully thankful. Aren't you? I'm thankful for
God's grace. I'm thankful for his mercy. I'm thankful for the
sacrifice of Christ. I'm thankful for his blood. I'm
thankful. Just my human mind can't even
begin to comprehend what it means that God loves me. How and why
he could love me. Oh, I'm thankful. But I'm not
satisfied. I'll only be satisfied when I
awake in Christ's likeness. Then I'll be satisfied. Then
I'll have in full possession everything that Christ has purchased
for me, everything the Father purposed to give me. And until
then, I'm going to follow after Him. I'm going to follow after
Him. Now before we look at following after, let's look at the beginning. How does this thing start? How
does the life story of every believer start? Well, it begins
with this word, apprehended. The word means to arrest, to
take possession of. Now Paul knows what he's talking
about here, doesn't he? Isn't that exactly what happened to
Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus? Saul was on his way
to do some arresting of his own, wasn't he? He's going to arrest
men, women, and children who are of this way, in the way of
Christ. And instead the Lord arrested
Saul. He unhorsed him and he arrested.
He stopped him. He took possession of him and
took up residence in his heart. And he made Saul to become Paul,
the loving bond slave of Christ. And if you believe on Christ,
you'll say, I recognize that story. That's what God did for
me. He arrested me on my mad dash
to hell. He arrested me. I was just on
a mad dash to hell trusting in my own works and God arrested
me. He unhorsed me. He stopped me.
He took the pride out of me and made me trust in Christ. Made
me rest in Christ. Made me like Saul. Who are you? He made us his willing, loving
bond slaves, didn't he? And Christ became the king of
my life. Now that's the life of a believer.
I was going my way. I was insisting on having my
way and my will and God arrested me. He stopped me from having
my way. and put me in Christ's way. That's
the story of Saved by Grace. That's what God does for his
people. God stopped me cold in my tracks when I was his enemy.
When I was on his way to do as much harm as I could do, he rested
me. He washed me in the blood of his son. He revealed his son
to me and in me. He gave me a new nature. He made
me his friend. He made me his servant. And I've
been his ever since. That's the story of grace. God
arrested me. He reached down and He laid hold
on me. Now I want to lay hold on Him.
I want to lay hold back on Him. God has given me all these blessings
of grace, all these promises of grace. Now I want to lay hold
on them. I want to enjoy them. I want
to lay hold on all the spiritual blessings that are mine in Christ
and be in full possession of these. I want everything in my
possession that Christ purchased for me with his blood that he
shed on Calvary's tree. I want to lay hold upon God's
grace so that I quit trusting my works of the law, my works
of religion, and trust God. Trust Christ and his grace. I
want to lay hold on eternal life. Quit trying to earn it by my
works and lay hold on eternal life. I want to lay hold on righteousness
and lay hold on holiness. Tell you what I want to lay hold
on is Christ. If I can lay hold on Him. He's
laid hold on me. Now if I can lay hold on Him
and be just like Him, that is my heart's desire. That is the
single desire of my heart. Now if that describes you, then
you believe on Christ. You're one of His people. If
more than anything you want to be just like You want to be with
Him, and you want to be just like Him. That's the heart's
desire of every believer, and the new heart that God gives
His people. And God's put that desire in your heart. Then this
one thing, this one thing, not many things, one thing. It's easy to get distracted
when you try to look at four things at once, isn't it? Not
many things, one thing. I'm gonna follow after Christ.
That's verse 13. Paul said, my brethren, I count
not myself to have apprehended. I've not arrived yet. But this
one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching
forth unto those things which are before. I press toward the
mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Now Paul said, I haven't arrived.
I've not laid hold on everything that Christ purchased for me
yet. So I'm following after. I'm following after Him because
I have to have Him. I have to have Christ. There
are lots of things I can do without. I can't do without Christ. I
cannot do without Him. So I follow after Him. Now I
know that can sound pretty mysterious, doesn't it? How do I follow after
Christ? You know, false religion tells
you a lot of things. You follow after him by wearing a little
bracelet on your wrist. You know, what would Jesus do? And you just
do what Jesus would do. And that's following after Christ.
They tell you following after Christ is being more moral and
being following certain laws and all these things. What is
it really from the word of God? Now, I don't care what men think.
What is it from the word of God to follow after Christ? Well,
Paul gives us three keys. And the illustration that he
uses is the way that a runner runs a long distance race. We
follow after Christ with the same mindset that a distance
runner has when he's running a race. That distance runner
is not thinking about many things, is he? He's thinking about one
thing, that finish line. That's what he's thinking about.
And that's the mindset that the believer needs in this thing
of following after Christ and the life of faith that we live
till the Lord returns. It's not going to be over quickly.
So we need this long-term mindset like a runner has. So first of
all, to follow after Christ, we need to forget. Forget those
things which are behind. That's what Paul says in verse
13. I'm forgetting those things which are behind. Now whatever
it is that's behind you. Everybody's got a different story,
got some different things in your past. Whatever it is. Forget it. Just forget it. You can't run a race looking
behind you all the time. It's impossible. I used to run
a lot of road races. And I was like a middle of the
pack at best kind of guy. So there were a lot of people
out in front of me. But whenever somebody in front
of me started doing this business, I knew I was passing that person.
I may not pass anybody else, but I'm passing that person.
They're fading. They're fading. Quit looking back to see what's
behind you. Don't, just keep looking forwards. Forget your
sins of the past. Forget them. Forget them in two
ways. Doesn't it bother you when somebody
keeps looking back at their sins and saying how bad, you know,
I used to be and they talk about them like that's the good old
days. No, no, no, no. Those were not the good old days.
But forget those sins that are in the past, and this way too. Quit looking back at them with
fear. Quit being afraid of them. Quit
looking back afraid they're gonna catch up to you. Now, I say that,
you know we can never forget that we're sinners. Because only
sinners are gonna trust Christ, right? Remember the hole from
which you were digged. But always remember, we're a
sinner who's been saved by grace. Not because we're better than
anybody else now, but by God's grace. Forget the sins of your
past. We got enough sins of today to
deal with. A lot of times somebody talks
about their sins of the past like, well, that was so shameful,
like I'm better than that now. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. I know I'm actually just as bad.
Totally depraved. Just totally depraved. I mean,
you can't get worse. zero, right? But once I've been
born again to the new man, I think I'm worse than I used to be.
I think I see more sins than I used to see. No, my shameful
sins of the past are shameful. I tell you what, after the Lord's
revealed himself to me, actually, my sins of today are worse, aren't
they? Their sinning gets more light. Forget them. Forget those sins
of the past. Live right now. I don't know
who said this, but I heard it last week, a quote from a college
coach who told his players, live where your feet are. Don't be
back there. Live where your feet are. Live
right here. To the believer, I say this,
and you can't say this to everybody, but to the believer, I say this.
Forget your sins of the past, because Almighty God has. Isn't
that what he said? Their sins and their iniquities
will I remember no more. Now if God doesn't remember them,
why should I fear? Why should I fear they're gonna
catch up to me? If God doesn't remember them, do I wanna remind
him of them? No, God's put away the sin of
his people under the blood of Christ so they don't exist anymore. There's nothing to remember.
There's nothing to remember of your sins had been put under
the blood of Christ. If the Father's forgotten our
sins, then it's all right for us to forget them, isn't it?
Now I know, again, people say, oh, I regret the sins of my youth
so much. Well, I understand that. We can't
forget our sins of the past in the sense that, well, we don't
regret that we did them. I mean, if you don't learn from
your past mistakes, you're not learning. You're not growing,
are you? No, we regret. We regret the pain. and the harm
that our sins have caused others. We regret our sin against God,
and we ought to regret our sin against God, but we cannot live
fretting about those sins, because we've forgotten to realize Those
sins can't condemn us. Don't be worried. I used to have a dear friend
that did this. He's always afraid of the sins of his youth. He
said, you just don't know how bad I was. The sins of his youth,
God's going to get them for him. That sin's been punished in the
substitute. The blood of Christ blotted them
out. So quit fretting about them. Quit fretting that they're going
to condemn you. Don't forget you're a sinner, but don't fear
those sins are going to condemn you. If God has forgotten my
sins, really and truly, it's okay for me to forget about them
too. And you think, well, I can't forget them. They're still there.
Well, God says they're not. And the way God sees things,
that's the way they really are. God says they don't exist anymore.
Cast them out of my back. Then that's the way we should
look at things too. Living without fear, our past sins are going
to condemn us because Christ was condemned for us. But here's a bigger problem,
and it's something we need to forget that's in the past. We
need to forget those things in our past, both before and after
conversion. You know, we would really like
to forget all of our sins of the past, wouldn't we? I'd like
for you all to forget my sins of the past, too. But we don't
want to forget our good works, do we? All those things we did,
it was nice I did that. It was generous that I did that.
I went and helped this person. I gave this. I did this. I don't
want to forget that. I like to kind of reminisce on
that sometimes, how good I was. And we don't want anybody else
to forget those things either, do we? Our good works. Don't
you forget how kind I was to you. Maybe I'll thank me every
once in a while. Let's bring that up and talk
about how good I was. We don't want people to forget that. Now, by God's grace, the believer
has those things in your past. God's given you a heart for that.
A heart of generosity. A heart to reach out and help
others. He's given you a heart to do
these works of faith and love. I can say to this congregation,
you've been faithful. Oh, you've been so faithful.
You've given offerings. You've been a blessing to others.
You've been a blessing to each other. You've been a blessing
to this pastor. God made you do those things. That's why He
made us. And I thank God for you. But listen, forget him. Forget him. Forget him so that
you never trust him. And live where your feet are.
Do those words today. Have that attitude today. Do
those things today. Live where your feet are. Don't look to those things. A
lot of times when we don't want to forget those things that we've
done that we think are good, we're looking at those things
as evidence of our salvation. Don't look to what you've done.
If you did them for the glory of Christ, you did them to help
one of God, you did them out of a sincere heart, you wanted
to help somebody, that's a good work. That's what scripture says.
But don't look to those things as evidence of your salvation.
Keep looking to Christ. Our works, how we live, how well
we think we're living, that's not the evidence of salvation.
The one and only evidence of salvation we have is this. faith
in Christ. Not did you believe Christ 25
years ago. Do you believe him right now?
Are you trusting Christ right now? Are you resting in him right
now? That's the evidence of salvation.
You remember Matthew chapter 25, the Lord separated the sheep
on his right hand, the goats on his left. And He looks at
the sheep and He tells them all these good works that they've
done. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came
to me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was hungry and you fed
me. He lists all these good works
that the sheep had done. And you know what the righteous
said to the Lord? When did we do that? I don't remember seeing
you hungry. I don't remember seeing you sick
or in prison. I never saw you naked. When did
we do that? They didn't remember. because
they weren't keeping score. They weren't looking to those
words to save them. They were looking to Christ.
See, that's the difference. So the issue is not that I believe
Christ in the past. It's do I believe Him right now?
So quit looking back. Keep looking to Christ. That's
following Christ. Alright, secondly, to follow
Christ is reaching for those things which are ahead. That's
what Paul said. Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching.
You notice that's in the present tense. We're constantly forgetting.
And we're constantly reaching forward, aren't we? You know,
I try to remind us often, this life is not all that there is. And I tell you why I remind us
of that often. Because we're in this flesh, it's too easy
to get caught up in this world. And you just get right in it. So you think this is all that
there is, because you just can't see. You know, you're in the
weeds, and you just can't see out of them. And we have important
things to do in this life. I'm not minimizing the things
we've got to do in this life. If you've got a family, raise
them. I mean, teach them, and raise them, and educate them,
and clothe them, and teach them, and teach them, and teach them,
and teach them. If you've got a job, I mean, go make a living. I mean, work so hard at that
job, they just think you're the best employee that there is.
Whatever it is God's given you in this life, take care of it. Take care of it. It's your responsibility
to take care of it. But keep them in perspective.
Just hold on a minute and remember, all this is just temporary. Take
care of it, but in its right place, it's just temporary. The
believer has such a great blessing that the unbeliever could never
understand. You who believe, You're looking
forward to something a whole lot better than this life, aren't
you? Aren't you glad to be reminded
this life is not all there is? Aren't you glad that the heartache
and the pain and the worry and the suffering and the rat race
of this life, aren't you glad that's not all there is? Oh, believer, you think of the
precious promises. of God's grace, He's set before
us. He's promised that He will be
with His people every step we take. When He leadeth His sheep
out, He goeth before them. Every step we take, He's already
taken it. When we go through the valley, through the deep
water, when we go through the fire, and we walk along the beautiful
mountaintop, our God says, I'll be with you every step. And He's
promised us grace sufficient for every trial. Don't expect
a life without heartache. It's going to be full of it.
But reach forward and grab a hold of this promise. He's promised
us grace sufficient for every trial. He'll comfort your heart.
Forget those things which are behind and reach forward to these
precious promises. Forget yesterday's manna. Forget
yesterday's provisions. God's promised new supplies for
today. You know, I think how the Lord has blessed the preaching
of the gospel in the past, particularly in this town, to this congregation. And Brother Henry would be the
first to tell you, forget them. Forget dead preachers and dead
pastors. And you know, I'm not saying
that, but forget what the blessings of the past. And remember this,
God hadn't changed. God's still in the business of
feeding and saving his sheep today. Reach forward for the
gospel being preached today, in your day, to you. Go back
and listen to all those old messages and, you know, enjoy and be thankful.
But remember, God's feeding his sheep today through preachers
preaching today. Reach out for food for your soul
today. You can't live on yesterday's
manna. Reach forward for today's. In those things, we've enjoyed
God's presence. Oh, we've enjoyed God's presence
in the past. But I'm telling you what, that don't do me any
good today. Reach forward for God's presence today. Seek to
be in his presence today. God's promised, I will never
leave you nor forsake you. Now take God at his word and
reach out for that promise today. Reach out for his presence to
cheer, to lead, and to guide today. Hadn't God been merciful
to us in the past? And his mercies, they're past
finding out. And I'm thankful for it, but
I need new mercies today. I need it today. Cry out to God. Reach out for his mercy. His
mercies are new every morning. Reach out for him. And God has promised us, and
this is what Paul was talking about in the previous verses,
He's promised us resurrection glory with Him. Now reach out
for that every day. When you've got to get up before
the crack of dawn and you've got to go out to work and go
out to the salt mines and it's just... Well, take care of what
God's given you to do. But do it reaching forward to
that promise. God's promised to raise His people
in a perfect, glorified body. Take us out of this place and
give us a new body. Be with Him. Reach forward for
that blessing. Just remembering. It'll help
you. This is not all that there is.
There's something so much better coming. It's such a great blessing
God's given us. We don't have to live on yesterday's
blessings. God's still blessing His people
today. So reach forward for those things
today. And here's the third thing, to follow after Christ, we have
to press toward the mark. That's what Paul says in verse
14, I'm pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling
of God in Christ Jesus. Now that word press and follow
after, it's the same Greek word, and it means to run swiftly,
run swiftly after. There's a sense of urgency in
this thing, of following after Christ. I don't, want to become
lukewarm. There's an urgency in this thing. There's an urgency in following
after Christ. I tell you this, you don't win
or even finish a long distance race without at some point you
think, I want to quit. Or you think, I can't go on.
And you've got to press yourself to keep going. You're just going
to have to press yourself at some point. I thought when I
read that verse, I thought about when I was in seventh grade. When I was in seventh grade,
this is the first team you ever had to go try out for, you know,
and I made the Wheelersburg Pirate, seventh grade basketball team.
First time I got to put on that orange and black. I mean, we
even had orange shoes, black and orange socks. I mean, there's
a favorite team I was ever on, and I learned so much. It's the
same team Isaac Floyd coaches today. I learned so much from
that team. I mean, I learned about basketball,
but I learned life lessons from that team I still use today frequently. Our coach was Coach Smith, and
Coach Smith had a philosophy that you do everything that you
do as hard as you can possibly do it. If you're running a sprint
and you run this one faster than the last one, that doesn't mean
you did good on this one, that means you weren't giving your
maximum effort on the last one, right? And if you run this sprint
slower than the last one, being tired is no excuse. It's just
you weren't giving your most effort. I mean, I'm not kidding
you. Being tired, I mean, we'd run, I mean, sprints we'd run. It
didn't matter if you're tired. That's no excuse. You run this
one as fast as you did the last one. Maximum effort on everything.
When you're going from this drill to this drill, you run as fast
as you possibly can from here to there. And this is what he
would say. Isaac, you feel free to use this.
He'd say, push yourself. I get, push yourself, Tate. We're
running laps. Push yourself. And I still tell
myself that today. I get tired. Push yourself, Tate.
The life of faith requires some dedication to this thing and
a commitment. I will not quit. I will not quit. I will not quit
trusting Christ. And please understand me when
I say push yourself. I don't mean work harder. I don't mean
work harder to keep the law better and work harder to be more outwardly
moral. This is what I mean. Work harder
to quit working. Rest in Christ. Work to rest. Work to quit trusting in what
you're doing and trust Christ alone. I mean, by God's grace,
I refuse to quit preaching Christ alone. I refuse to quit trusting
Christ alone. I refuse to start trusting what
I'm doing. Thinking what I'm doing is adding
to Him. I refuse to. What an insult to Him. I just
refuse. I'm not going to go here preaching
that's not Christ alone. Life's too short. I'm wasting
my time with that. I absolutely, wholeheartedly
believe this truth. God will not let me go. If I'm
His, He will not let me go. But I'm telling you, I refuse
to let go of Him. I mean, I just utterly refuse.
Running this race that Christ, the Lord has set before us, requires
some persistence. And at some point in every believer's
life, our faith is going to be tried. It's the only way faith
can be, have the dross burned off of it. It's the only way
faith can be strengthened is if it's tried. When our faith
is tried, this is when we, Push yourself. Push yourself to seek
the Lord. Instead of wallowing around in
our pain and our suffering and in the darkness of the trial,
push yourself to rest in Christ. Be persistent to seek Him. Call
out to Him. Read His Word. Hear messages. If you don't see Him, if that
doesn't comfort your heart, be persistent. Cry out to the Lord
and read some more. Cry out to the Lord and hear
another message. Don't absence yourself from the Word of God.
Push yourself to rest. Don't work harder now. Don't
push yourself to work harder. Push yourself to rest. You as believers, I'm convinced
of this. This is our number one desire. It's to be just like Christ. I want to be holy as He is holy. I want to be righteous as He
is righteous. I want to know Christ perfectly. I mean, I want
to know everything that there is about Him. I long to have
perfect knowledge of the Scriptures. Wouldn't you love someday to
read a passage of Scripture and think, I don't know what that
means. I want to know what this means. Because I know this. It's pointing me to Christ. It's
revealing Christ somehow. I sure would like to know what
it means so I can see Christ. I want to have that perfect knowledge.
But as long as we're in this flesh, that's impossible. Well, don't use that for excuse.
Press towards it. Run swiftly towards it anyway.
I remember Brother Henry using this example. I thought it was
a real good one. He talked about it in a football game. You're
on the 20-yard line, 80 yards from the line of scrimmage, and
you call a fullback play up the middle. That play is going to
draw a lot of boos from the fans. It's not going to score a touchdown,
is it? Henry said, I want that running back to run as hard as
he can anyway. Yeah, we can't be perfect, but
follow after it anyway. Press towards the finish line,
knowing this. None of us are going to be perfect
in this side. but the moment by God's grace,
he brings us to the finish line, we'll be perfect. We'll have
what we desire to be made just like Christ, so press towards
it. Run this race with some patience
and some diligence. It's not gonna be over soon,
but it will be over someday. Run it looking unto Jesus, the
author and finisher of our faith. Run your race. Determined you'll
look nowhere and you'll trust no with nothing except Christ
alone And when he brings us to the finish line We'll be perfectly
conformed to Christ likeness We'll be in possession of everything. It is that God promised us and
we'll look back and we'll say our God did all things well,
and I'm sure that we'll say this too. It was worth every step It was worth every step to arrive,
being made just like Christ. Human language can't touch that,
so you just ponder that for a while, being made just like Christ.
That's worth pressing towards, isn't it? All right, let's bow
together. Our Father, how we thank you
for this revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ in your word and
this precious encouragement that you've given to your people.
Father, I beg of you that you would cause each of us to press,
to give diligence, to quit trusting in our works and trust and rest
in Christ alone. That we run our race looking
unto, depending upon, trusting in Christ our Savior, the author
and finisher of our faith. Father, it's in his name, for
his sake we pray, amen. All right, Sean.