Philippians 3:10-4:1 – Philippians

Today's reading is from Philippians chapter 3, verse 10 to chapter 4, verse 1.

Philippians 3:10

So we're starting in the middle of a verse, continuing from last week.

That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus hath made me his own.

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have made it on my own, but one thing I do.

Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal of 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 what we have attained.

Brothers and sisters, 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 mindset on earthly things.

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform your our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that it enables him even to subject all things to himself.

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and I long for, my joy and my crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.

And so reads God's word.

Welcome to you.

If you join us while we're singing, my name's Mark.

I'm one of the leaders here at City Church.

It's great to be with you this morning.

It'd be good for you to have uh Philippians 3, verse 10.

Philippians 3:10

Young was right, we're starting in the middle of a sentence.

Hopefully that will become somewhat clear as to why.

It'd be good to have that in front of you.

Uh if you need a Bible, there's some Bibles down the front, you can run down and get one.

Uh, we read from the English Standard Version if you're kind of on an app, if you're looking through New Version, U version, you know, where what are they reading from?

It's from the ESV, so Philippians chapter three, uh, through to the end.

Uh we are nearing the conclusion of the book.

We'll finish it in the next couple of weeks.

I'm gonna tell you a shocking thing uh to begin with.

Uh, are you ready?

You all sitting down?

Uh I've never been an outdoorsy person.

I know, right?

Who knew?

Uh I've never been a particularly outdoorsy person.

I hear uh now of uh of people uh uh just passionate about running 5K's on a Saturday morning.

Um I get I get Strava runs shared with me.

I don't even know what Strava is.

Uh some people love to run in the rain for miles and miles.

They do it with other people, they find it exhilarating, and I don't get it.

Another thing that I don't get is camping.

Why would you voluntarily leave your house on holiday and go somewhere worse than your house?

Why but some people do?

Some people love to pack everything up and head out to some bog or sand dune to pitch their tent and to freeze, to have to go to the toilet outside to cook over some small insignificant camping stone stove to sleep badly on the ground, to wake up dirty and tired, and then say, I've had a holiday.

I'm not that guy.

Uh I am much more of a spa retreat sort of person.

Again, I like if I was a cat, I'd be an indoor cat.

I'd be a kind of lying by the fire type feline, probably.

Um again, probably not coming as a galloping shock to many of you.

And yeah, there's part of me that admires those people who have the dedication to want to do that.

There's almost part of me that wants to want that, because like, oh, like that's uh well, it's quite a manly thing to do for a start.

And you know, to to be running in that endurance and uh and to to to be braving the wild and lighting your own fire and cooking your own food.

And it's like I understand on some intellectual level the the dedication, the persistence, the patience that it takes.

I almost want to want it, but but I but I can't.

Uh it's just not for me.

Sometimes uh Christians can think a little bit like that when it comes to holiness.

It's something that the particularly dedicated Christians do.

Uh there's the Christians who believe the gospel and they've kind of been they've been tipped into the kingdom, they have their ticket to ride when they die.

But this idea of actually exerting yourself to pursue holiness and becoming more like like Jesus, well, that just sounds like camping to you.

It's like I understand that that I should want to want it, and I understand that I admire the people who do it, but again, I'm I'm much more of a I'm much more of a spa-treat kind of saint.

Uh, that's doesn't really uh ignite a passion in me.

And so you get Christians, some Christians who uh who are running hard to become like Jesus, and others who are a bit more like like lounge lizards, just kind of letting go and uh and letting God.

Is that the way that it that it should be?

Well, actually, I think I think not from this passage.

Everyone who's a follower of the Lord Jesus uh is supposed to be pursuing him, and you know in your own soul that there is a kind of tug of war.

If you're a follower of the Lord Jesus, one of the things that you know that has happened inside you is that the Holy Spirit has declared war against your old self, or put it in, you think about it the other way, your old self has declared war against the Holy Spirit.

And you feel this tension where you're pulled into into old ways, into old habits, into old patterns of thinking and acting.

But there's also this this there's this new man, this new woman that is uh that is being pulled towards the Lord Jesus.

No, I don't want that, I want to pursue this.

And we find ourselves in this in this civil war.

I mean, one of the things that I said in City Life on Wednesday night is that when you become a Christian, the first 60 years are the hardest.

It gets much easier after that.

Holiness is a is a destination, but it's a destination that's upstream from where you are now.

You can choose not to swim, but you won't drift towards holiness.

Holiness is upstream from where you are, and the Christian is called to swim, to swim against the uh the current of your old self, the current of uh of the world, the current of the expectations of other people around you, to swim against that and to pursue something greater.

And that's the thing.

I mean, maybe you're here this morning, and the whole idea of holiness, of conforming yourself to the image of Jesus, that that just doesn't quite compute.

And you say, well, why do this at all?

Why why swim at all?

Why pursue this discipline?

Well, I hope that actually the whole sermon will give you reasons for that.

But for now, uh, let me just say that the reason why Christians pursue holiness is because we believe that we were made in the image of God.

That we're made to look like him, we're made to resemble him, to mirror him to the world.

And so that that pursuit of holiness, that swim upstream, could also could be could be thought of in terms of it's like the restoration of the image of God in our lives.

It's like the it's like the work that somebody does when they find an old masterpiece that's all battered and worn, and they pour hours and hours and hours to bring it back to its former beauty, its former glory.

You may remember that you know about six or eight years ago, there was a um there was a Rembrandt that was found in the kitchen of a uh of an elderly woman in France, just sitting above her cooker, all grease-stained and uh and battered and worn and faded, and uh, and she had no idea that it was this priceless master.

And they spent lots of time stripping off the layers, all the layers of grease and muck and dirt, in order to bring it back.

Holiness is the restoration of God's image in your life.

That's who you were made to be, and so to strive towards that, well, there's no better call.

That is what you were made for.

Paul's desire uh back in chapter one was that he would remain with the Philippian Christians, that he would remain here on earth, executing his apostolic ministry, uh, for what purpose?

Well, uh, it's back there in chapter one, verse 25.

Let me remind you of it.

He says, Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for what?

For your progress and joy in the faith.

That there is a there is a progression, a developing, a growing that happens in the faith.

That the gospel is not just what tips you into the kingdom, like I said, or gives you your ticket for heaven.

It is something that grows you, it changes you.

That's why our mission at City Church uh says that we exist to connect people to Jesus and to grow them to spiritual maturity, that they might serve the community and go to the nations.

That there is a growth, an exertion, a swimming, a pursuit of the Lord Jesus that that happens, that should happen in the Christian life.

And Paul knows that that work has already begun, and he knows that God will complete it.

He's been teeing up what we're going to be looking at right from uh the sixth verse of his letter.

Let me remind you of Philippians 1, verse 6.

Philippians 1:6

He says, I'm sure of this, that he, that's God, who began a good work in you, will bring it to completion on the day of Jesus Christ.

What's Paul saying there?

Paul's saying is when you became a Christian, God began to work in your life by the Holy Spirit, began to change your desires, change your values, change the way you act, feel, think, emote.

God began to change and reform those things.

The gospel uh finds all of the cracks and seeps down into every part and portion of your personality and who you are.

And God began to change and demolge you.

And Paul is saying that he who began that work, he will bring it to completion.

He will make you holy on that last day, sanctified.

But now, in the in this middle portion, what Paul is saying is strive, swim, pursue that, be confident that he began it, that he'll finish it, and press on.

That's what we're going to be to be looking at.

He drills down now in this passage into the pursuit of holiness and tells us some things that we need to know in order that we might just might not just believe in Jesus, but become more like him and live for him day by day.

Let's begin with uh with holiness's beginning, because you need to uh to get your starting point right.

Because if your starting point is wrong, then uh, well, you'll go wrong very, very quickly.

Holiness goes wrong when you think that it's about duty in order to get what you deserve.

Put it another way, when you obey in order to gain acceptance, when you obey in order to be loved.

But that was Paul's former life.

That's what we saw last week.

Paul gives his his CV, his resume, of all of the good things that he did, that he was, that he was blameless as as regards to the law.

He always kept the Jewish law.

He always offered every sacrifice, participated in every ritual, attended every feast, that he did all of the things that he thought was necessary in order for God to like him, in order for God to accept him.

But what we saw was that Paul actually looks at that CV, looks at his good works, his good life, and says that was all rubbish.

That was all loss.

Because that's not what makes us right with God.

That's not how somebody is declared innocent.

You see, being right with God is never gained, it is always gifted.

And so he says in chapter 3, verse 9, he says, and to be found in him that is in Christ, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ Jesus.

A righteousness that comes from God that depends on faith.

What's he saying?

He said, I cannot clean up my acts sufficiently for God to accept me.

I don't have righteousness, innocent goodness, perfection in and of myself.

I need to be gifted it by another, by a perfect law keeper, and that's the Lord Jesus.

And what Christians believe is that when Jesus died and rose again, that by faith in him, he has gifted you, clothed you, covered you in his perfections.

And so your starting point for holiness is not in order to gain acceptance, but because you already are in Christ.

You already are loved.

You already are made a son or daughter of the living God.

And so, as a member of his family, you begin to exhibit the family DNA, the family traits.

It's much more like that.

It's not in order to be loved, but because you are.

You do not obey in order to get a new heart, but because you have a new heart and it's yours as a gift of grace, you begin to live and think and act differently.

And again, experientially, if you are trusting in the Lord Jesus, one of the things that you may be cognizantly aware of in your own life, you think, oh gosh, I do think differently about certain things.

I actually I actually want to be with God's people.

I actually want to read the scriptures.

That's part of God's working in your life.

This is why Paul can speak in confident terms about what is God, what God has done in the past and what he'll do in the future, because it's not ultimately dependent on you cleaning up your act.

He's like, God's begun this work, he will bring it to completion on that last day when we see Jesus face to face.

And so if God, if God is, if God is at the at the beginning and the end of it, he's in that middle part as well, and so we can strive knowing that he'll bring it to to completion.

Or he could say, even in this passage with confidence, that our citizenship is in heaven.

It's not saying so, in order that you might gain heavenly citizenship, but that it is already yours.

That's three verse 20.

But our citizenship is in heaven, and we wait for a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

If you want to uh think about it in a slightly more technical way, Christian ethics, the way Christians are ought to live, is we can say that it is an indicative imperative ethic.

Indicative, this is who you are.

Imperative, so do this.

So what that means is you are this, so be this.

You are a child of God, so live as a child of God.

You are redeemed, adopted, forgiven, loved.

So live out of a heart of gratitude because you are redeemed, forgiven, adopted, loved.

Do you see?

It's not obey in order to get, it's obey because you have been lavishly blessed.

Holiness is holiness is a house that is built on the foundation of justification.

That is, that Jesus has made you his own, and so you can pursue him.

That's holiness's beginning.

What's holiness's purpose?

That's our second point.

If our beginning is that we have been justified, forgiven, set free, then our motive, our purpose can't be in order to attain, gain those things.

So what then uh motivates sanctification, that is the pursuit of holiness?

Well, there's a couple of reasons in this in this passage.

The first that Paul offers us is to know Jesus better, to know Christ.

Paul actually begins this thought in uh in verse 10.

Uh, that's this is why we picked up in the middle of a of a sentence, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection.

Now, this knowledge is uh it's not an intellectual, I want to know more facts about him.

It's a uh it's an intimate, uh, holistic uh pressing into that I might uh that I might be more and more connected with him, that he might more and more overwhelm and captivate me with his uh with his beauty, that I might experience the joy of of his person.

It's much less like studying a degree, and much more like falling in love.

Falling in love is the pursuit of a person, not just to know facts about them, but to experience them in your life, to have them shape and change you, to know them in all the ways that it's possible to know someone and to find joy in knowing them.

And that's what motivates Christian obedience.

When you fall in love with someone, you voluntarily joyfully do the things that make that person that you have fallen in love with happy.

Because to give them pleasure brings you joy, to see them delighted gives you delight.

Christian obedience is much more like that.

If I interacted with my uh with my wife and I thought, well, I um I suppose I should.

I mean, it's been what three weeks since I bought her a bunch of flowers, so I suppose I should, but I'll get the I'll get the three euro ones from Tesco.

Actually, she quite likes the three euro ones from Tesco.

Or at least that's what she tells me.

And uh and I walk in with those and I I said, Here's your flowers.

Why'd you get them for me?

It's my duty, I suppose, is your husband.

I mean once a month would be about right for like buying your flowers.

Would that would that ruin the gift at all?

Husbands ever experience that ruining the gift at all?

If you're motivated by by duty.

Wow.

Okay.

Right, taking notes.

No, we do it because we love the person.

We do those things because we want to see them smile.

We love their delight.

We love to.

Bask in their affections.

Christian obedience is much more like that, to know Jesus.

The second purpose for pursuing holiness is, and we need to do a little bit of work to kind of find this in the passage.

So stick with me.

But the other purpose for holiness is that Paul has a desire, I think, to make sure that we are, that we're killing sin, that we are becoming more like Jesus, that we're putting to death the old self.

So come with me to verse 12, or to verse 11, rather.

So he starts, and this is a weird phrase.

So that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection of the dead.

Let's just pause there.

What Paul's not saying is after a whole chapter of it's not about me trying to gain it, he's then saying, and I want to gain the resurrection of the dead.

No, what Paul is saying is I don't know how this is going to work out.

And I can't believe that Jesus would want to resurrect me.

I'm the worst guy that I've ever met.

But somehow, some way, Jesus will transform my body.

By some means, I'll attain the resurrection from the dead.

That's that's what he's saying.

It's an expression of humility or of uncertainty around the mechanism for how that might come to pass, not kind of, oh, I don't know if I'll get it.

But by some means I may attain the resurrection of the dead.

Then he says, verse 12, not that I've already obtained this, or I'm already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

Now, verse 12, what's the this?

Now I have already obtained this.

Well, it's relating back to verse 11, isn't it?

This is why it's important for you to have it open in front of you.

Because we're doing some work here in the text, aren't we?

Not that I have already obtained this, well, what's the this?

It relates back up to verse 11.

The this is the resurrection from the dead.

So Paul saying, Not that I've already been resurrected.

And then he parallels it with the next clause in verse 12.

Or I'm already perfect.

These two things taken together.

So he's looking for so future resurrection is a time of resurrection, body, resurrection, existence, perfected, glorified.

That's parallel with perfection.

He's saying, I haven't achieved those things yet, but that's what I'm straining towards.

Do you see?

That's what's motivating me.

I'm going in that direction.

I'm swimming upstream in order to pursue that perfection, that Christ-likeness, that resurrection existence.

I want more of that to break into my life and my reality now.

I want to be killing sin now.

I'm not just kind of living how I like now and hoping that, well, God will kind of burn up all the old self at the last days.

Like, no, I'm I'm pursuing putting that to death.

The pursuit of holiness is to kill sin.

He strains for that, to be free from sin.

Oh, that day when freed from sinning, I shall see thy lovely face clothed then in bloodwashed linen.

I shall sing thy sovereign grace.

To be a follower of Jesus is to enter a war.

A war within our flesh, between our old self and our new.

Every Christian saint bears battle scars.

Sanctification, holiness, is not achieved by surrender, but by divinely enabled straining, that pursuit, that relentless desire to follow him and to put to death the misdeeds of the body.

That leads us very importantly to our third point to holiness's power.

Again, Christians sometimes wrongly believe that the gospel is about getting you saved.

You believe the gospel, Jesus cancels your debt, but then it's up to you to live a life that pleases him.

Some Christians think that.

But it's up to you to drive in ways that are good and that are holy in the right direction.

But the reality is that not only does Jesus' death and resurrection forgive you, justify you, set you free, but it also empowers your obedience.

It's not just, so going back to chapter 1, verse 6, that God's at work at the start, he's begun this good work in you, and at the end, he'll bring it to completion in the day of Christ Jesus.

So God's like, right, off you go, see at the finish line.

No, God's empowering it all.

And where do we get that from?

Well, we get that from um from verse 10.

That I may know him and what?

And the power of his resurrection, that his resurrection, that his glorified existence, that it culminates in the giving of the Holy Spirit poured out onto all flesh, that I might know that power infusing and enabling my obedience, that that power might be at work in his life, in my life, that when Jesus died and rose, he broke the power of sin and death over your life, and now you have his spirit working in you, becoming more and more like him.

So go back to the image of the Rembrandt hanging above the kitchen.

You think, who's the restorer?

Well, was you, and it's God.

It's empowered by the Holy Spirit to restore that image in your life.

Why do you strain for holiness?

Because you are free.

And in order to become like Christ, to kill sin and to know him better.

And how do you do it?

Through his power at work in you.

Brothers and sisters, you need to know that if you are a follower of the Lord Jesus, God the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in your life.

He is empowering your obedience, he is enabling you to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions.

That's what Titus 3 says.

In your former life, you could not you could not say no to sin because you were a slave.

That's what the Bible says.

But now you've been liberated.

But not just liberated, set free, and empowered.

Empowered by the Holy Spirit.

So what does that look like?

Well, it looks like determining to think differently, to say no to sin, to make the necessary changes, to doing what you should, to not doing what you shouldn't, to seeking to be self-controlled and disciplined, to fight for joy and love and generosity, compassion and graciousness, to turn to love instead of hate and bitterness.

And as you do those things, like you like training a muscle, you begin to uh to get strong and you think, wow, I I actually I actually did say no to that.

I didn't think that I could.

I didn't think that that sin was so habitual.

I didn't think that I had the possibility to say no to it.

You do it once, you think, oh, I can.

The spirit enabled that.

You begin to to make new pathways in your mind, new pathways in your heart, that as you walk along more and more and more, they become concrete tracks, different ways of journeying, different ways of thinking.

I actually said no, I actually made a change.

You look back and you realize that you took those steps and that the Spirit of God empowered every step that you took.

That's what's going on in the Christian life.

Paul says it uh in summary elsewhere.

I listen to these, uh, to this verse.

It's from Colossians 1.29, if you're taking notes.

Here's what Paul says He says, I toil, struggling with what?

With all his energy.

You see?

I toil, struggling with all his energy that powerfully works within me.

That's the Christian pursuit of holiness.

Toil, make war, fight against your own self, fight old self, fight for holiness, pursue Jesus, swim upstream and against the current, and know that every stroke you take and every step you take, it is empowered with his energy that is so powerfully at work within you.

Don't wait like a lunge lizard, like a spa retreat saint, for the sin-killing miracle to suddenly descend like some dove from above on top of your life.

Kill sin now and see God making that miracle come to light in your life.

Fourthly, holiness is outlook.

This is a short one.

It completely transforms how we per how we perceive our life.

So, for example, it changes how Paul sees his sufferings, verse 10, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.

What does suffering do in the Christian life?

Well, the first thing you need to know is when you become a Christian, there's a whole other sphere of suffering that happens.

Non-Christians only have the uh the natural consequences of living in a fallen world.

You become a Christian, you get a whole other category of suffering coming into your life.

You're welcome.

But what is what does it do?

Well, it makes you more like Jesus, drives you deeper into Him.

So Tim Keller has this illustration, he says that uh that suffering is like a nail being hammered that drives you deeper into Christ.

That's what suffering does.

When you become a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit working in your life, it changes your eye look.

It's not that you kind of walk into all suffering and think, oh great, more suffering.

No, no, this is purposeful.

This is going to make me more like Jesus.

I can't see it right now.

But I'll look back, and you do, you look back over your life and think, gosh, actually, I'm a different person because of that path that God took me through.

And then Paul says uh these words.

He talks about uh how he how he is straining forward, forgetting all that is past, and straining forward for the upward call.

Um, I there it is, verse 14.

I press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of Christ Jesus.

Uh verse 13, forgetting what lies behind, straining forward for what lies ahead.

Should have written it down in my notes.

Verses 13 and 14.

That he forgets the past, forgets his past self-righteousness, forgets his past failures, forgets his past shame.

No, new beginning.

I'm looking forward.

Home is in sight for Paul.

He's like a runner, I'm reliably told.

Like a runner who sees the finish line at the end of a marathon, and her pace quickens, his stride lengthens, the arms pump faster.

The wall of mile 16 or mile twenty is far behind.

Why?

Because the finish line is in view, and you get that extra burst of energy.

There's one thing that he can see.

It's the medal.

It's completing the race and knowing that you have run it to completion.

That's holiness's outlook.

Finally, holiness is helpers.

We'll do this very quickly.

There are helpers when it comes to holiness.

Well, put it another way.

There are mentors, but there are also monsters.

The monsters are those who he talks about in verses uh 18 and 19, those who walk as enemies of the cross, their end is destruction.

He says their God is their belly.

They glory in their shame.

Their minds are set on earthly things.

The monsters are the people who would pull you back into legalism, into old ways of thinking, who would pull you back into shame.

Who would pull you back into cold, joyless obedience?

Paul says, avoid those people.

Remember how he started this out of look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who would mutilate the flesh.

There are monsters about, but there are also mentors.

They're there in verse 17.

Brothers, join in imitating me.

Keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example that you have in us.

You're not alone in the race.

You're not alone in your swim, in your fight.

There are monsters on the sidelines, but there are mentors running with you and cheering you on, setting your pace.

People who have fun run a few extra miles, suffering etched upon their faces, a love for Jesus deeper in their hearts.

When you're with them, you want to be like them.

When you speak to them, it's like there's nobody else in the room.

They don't live, as far as the world is concerned, extraordinary lives.

It's ordinary, long obedience in the same direction.

Paul says, find those people.

In City Church, we're young.

One of my prayers is that we would have older saints.

I want older brothers and sisters for you.

Give me time and I'll get there.

When we started City Church 10 years ago, I was kind of the peer of most of the people.

I'm now a big brother to a lot of you.

I'm not yet father, and I know that.

Let's pray for older saints, but also let's let's also know that even though chronologically you might not have more years, that there are more spiritual miles, relatively speaking, in this room.

There are there are more mature, maturing Christians, there's baby Christians.

And so we can kind of we can look to one another in that sort of rubric.

But also, could I set a vision before you all while while you're mostly young to aspire to be a mentor?

To aspire to be someone who has a life that is worth imitating, that's worth following, that's worth running a few miles with.

Being older chronologically doesn't necessarily lead to wisdom.

We all know that.

But to aspire to be those who can run a few miles with young Christians as they pursue Jesus, what a great thing that would be to be known for at City Church.

Avoid the monsters, find mentors.

Folks, holiness matters.

We don't talk about it enough.

We don't talk about your exertion.

We're a reformed church.

We're all we're all about it's faith alone, grace alone.

And so that kind of could sometimes kind of tip us.

Well, oh, one way where we don't talk about the exertion.

And that verse from Colossians is really helpful.

I toil, struggling with all his energy.

That's the Christian life.

It's not let go and let God, it's not lounge lizard spirituality, it's not spa retreat saints.

It's those who run hard for the glory of Jesus, for the good of the community around us, and for the glory of Jesus amongst the nations.

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