Christian Maturity (Philippians 3:12-4:1)

Philippians chapter 3, starting in verse 12.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it, because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus.

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it.

But one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal, the prize promised by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus.

Therefore, let all of us who are mature think this way.

And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you.

In any case, we should live up to whatever truth we have attained.

Join in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and pay careful attention to those who live according to the example you have in us.

For I've often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.

Their end is destruction.

Their God is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame, and they are focused on earthly things.

Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.

He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject everything to himself.

So then, my dearly loved and longed for brothers and sisters, my joy and crown in this manner stand firm in the Lord, dear friends.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you so much for your word.

We thank you for this time that we get to take every Sunday to look at what you have to say in your word and to look at how you want to apply this to us as individuals, but also to our church as a whole.

So I pray that you would give us ears that are ready to hear.

Lord, minds that are ready to learn, hearts that are ready to be transformed by you.

Lord, would you do your perfect will and way in us?

And may you we just come in all humbleness, bow down before you and ask, Lord, what is it that you want to do in my life today to make me more like Jesus?

Lord, would you do that in each one of our hearts we pray?

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So today we're going to be talking a lot about our goal as Christians.

We're going to be talking about what the prize is as Christians, as we just saw in these verses.

And then we're going to be talking a lot about Christian maturity and what Christian maturity looks like in believers that have been following Jesus, you know, for a good amount of time.

And so I want to start off by saying, please hear me in this.

Please hear me.

If you don't hear anything else, hear this.

If we only look at these verses that we're looking at here this morning, that we just read, we can walk away thinking that our salvation needs to be earned.

But when we keep these verses in context, especially of what we've gone through last week in the first part of chapter three, you'll see that that is not the case at all.

You know, last week we looked at Paul counting everything in his past before coming to Christ, being counted as loss in comparison to knowing Christ.

And he had some accomplishments, didn't he?

He had some status in his life.

And his desire, as it says at the end of verse 8, if you want to look at verse 8 in chapter 3, he says, is to gain Christ and to be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.

Does that sound like he's trying to earn his salvation?

Not at all, right?

You know, if you look at these verses, verses eight and nine here alone, you know that salvation cannot be earned.

And that today's verses are not contradicting what Paul just said in chapter three.

You know, our righteousness, our salvation is in Christ.

It's by grace through faith, not our works.

But James tells us in the book of James that faith without works is dead.

You see, works do not earn our salvation, but rather they need to be a result of our salvation.

Paul already said that in chapter two, that we need to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

You know, and our verses today are really a continuation of how to live out that salvation in Jesus Christ.

And then look down at the next verse, verse 10 in chapter 3.

This is the goal that we're going to be talking about today for mature Christians.

He says, My goal is to know him, know Christ, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death.

His goal as he continues to mature in Christ is knowing Christ and becoming like him.

So remember that definition as we're talking about what a mature believer is, as we talk about what the goal is for Paul.

It's knowing Christ and becoming like him.

You know, this passage that we have today is to tell us that though Paul is perfectly righteous through faith in Christ, he isn't perfected on this earth.

He hasn't reached perfect Christian maturity, this side of heaven.

You know, he's come a long way if you think about his life.

Since the road to Damascus, you know, he's grown a ton in his faith.

He's grown a ton in his Christ-likeness.

God's changed the way that he thinks, he's changed the priorities of his life.

But Paul has not arrived yet.

He's still growing.

And he's encouraging this church in Philippi to do the same thing, to continue to grow, to continue to mature in Christ.

Which leads us back to actually what we talked a few weeks back about.

And that's the two types of sanctification.

This is going to come up a lot, so I want to redefine these terms for you.

You know, we have positional sanctification and we have progressive sanctification after coming to faith in Christ.

You know, perfection is only attainable through faith in Christ in our positional sanctification.

And I want to explain that a little bit.

We come to faith in Christ, and immediately God sees us as perfectly righteous and holy.

We hold that same position as Christ because it comes from Christ, and we will eternally if we've given our life to Christ.

But while we're on this earth, this side of heaven, we still sin.

We still struggle.

Each one of us is tempted by our flesh and by the world and by the enemy of our soul.

And we're in this process as followers of Christ, of this ongoing progressive sanctification.

You know, that's that process of daily becoming more and more like Jesus, daily growing in our Christian maturity.

And the first part of today, it's all about that progressive sanctification.

Anybody here know who John Wooden is?

There's got to be some of you, right?

That coach from the UCLA teams back in the 60s and 70s.

I really enjoyed reading his materials.

I've read a lot of his books, but he has a quote that he used to tell his players, and it goes like this.

He says, Perfection is what you are striving for.

But perfection is an impossibility.

However, striving for perfection is not an impossibility.

Do the best you can under the conditions that exist.

That is what counts.

That's what he used to tell us basketball players about practicing basketball.

But that reminds me a lot of what we are called to in progressive sanctification.

So, like Coach Wooden's basketball players, Paul says he makes every effort for perfection on this earth, knowing Christ and becoming like him.

But he's fully realizing at the same time, as we see in these verses, that he's not going to be able to attain that perfection this side of heaven.

But that's still the goal.

And it should be our goal as well.

So let's start off by looking at verse 12.

It says, not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus.

You know, that's the phrase right there, every effort is where people, I think, get tripped up a little bit on thinking that they need to earn their salvation.

You see, as Christians, we're in this interesting position because there has to be desire, there has to be effort on our part to become like Jesus.

But at the same time, we have to realize that it's only by the power of Christ in us that we can even try to become more like Jesus.

You know, if you don't have the desire or you don't put in the effort, he's not going to force us to become like him.

You can't pray, you know, Lord, while I'm asleep tonight, will you make me more like Jesus?

Will you download Scripture into my memory and heart without me reading it?

Will you make it to where I wake up more loving in the morning and more disciplined and hating my sin even more?

You know, to where I have a heart for the lost all by morning, please, God?

You know, that's not how it works, right?

The prayer needs to be, Jesus, will you help me to be more like you as I have the opportunity to?

You know, as I have the opportunity to read scripture and let it soak in.

As I have the opportunity to be more loving, Jesus, will you help me to be more loving to my family, to my coworkers, to my neighbors?

As I have the opportunity to become more disciplined, Jesus, will you help me?

Will you empower me to be more disciplined?

As I have the opportunity to share the gospel, Jesus, would you empower me to be able to do that?

And he will help, and he will empower you to do so by the power of the Holy Spirit that's in each side, that's inside of each and every believer in Christ.

And now I think the question becomes, why?

Why should we put every effort into this, as Paul is saying here, to be like Jesus, to know him more?

Well, look at the end of verse 12.

He says, Because all I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus.

Jesus knows Paul perfectly.

He loves Paul perfectly.

He's taken hold of Paul perfectly.

And Paul simply wants to do the same thing in return.

You know, that phrase that we have here, have been taken hold of.

I want to give you the Greek definition of this word that we're looking at.

That's one word in the Greek.

For us, it's have been taken hold of.

But the definition says to lay hold of, to lay hold of so as to make one's own.

But look at this next part.

In a good sense, of Christ by his holy power and influence, laying hold of the human mind and will in order to prompt and govern it.

So why should we make every effort for perfection in Christian maturity?

Because that's a sign that Jesus has taken hold of us.

You know, if we're submitting our mind and our will to Christ, that means we will be doing what He desires.

Which is always best for us as well, isn't it?

You know, the more that we submit to God's will for us, the more that more mature that we become in our faith, and the closer to Christ-likeness we become.

And the closer to Christ we become, the more we hate sin.

Both the sin that we see in the world, but I think more importantly, the more we hate the sin that we see in our own life.

It's easy to hate other people's sin, isn't it?

It's really easy to justify our own, though, isn't it?

True maturity in Christ means that we come to a place of finding our own sin and struggles absolutely disgusting.

Now look at what Paul says in verse 13.

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it, of the goal to be like Jesus, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus.

You know, I think this statement of forgetting what is behind, I think it's twofold for believers.

First, you know, not looking back longingly at the world that we left behind when we came to Christ, you know, that old life, like Paul mentioned in the beginning of this chapter.

You know, when I think of this, I think of Lot's wife in the Old Testament being called out of evil by the Lord, but looking back longingly at what she was leaving.

Or when Jesus called his larger group of disciples in Luke 9, 62, Jesus said, No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.

Now, the second thing I think as believers that we need to not look back at, as Paul is saying here, I think this has to do with regrets.

You know, we talked about some of those last week as well.

Paul wasn't immune to waking up in the middle of the night to be reminded of his biggest mistakes.

You know, I'm sure that the enemy worked overtime on Paul because of the effectiveness of his ministry and because of the egregiousness of his sins in the past.

You know, I'm sure he was just constantly bombarded with those fiery arrows of the enemy all the time.

I'm sure the enemy was trying to fill him with guilt and fill him with regret just to make him as ineffective for the gospel as possible.

Just those lies of you're not worthy, you're not qualified.

Paul, you're still guilty.

God can never forgive you for those things that you did.

But a question for you today what good does it do anybody to live in regret?

You know, I'm not saying that you don't make amends where amends need to happen.

You absolutely should do that.

But living in regret benefits nobody.

Especially when you've been washed by the cleansing blood of Jesus and you're the bearer of his righteousness, where you are positionally, eternally holy because of him.

There is now no condemnation in Jesus Christ.

And if he's not condemning you, don't let the enemy condemn you.

In chapter 4, which we're gonna be covering in next week's sermon, he's gonna tell us how to not dwell on the past, how to not live in regret, how to not live in worry and fear of the future.

But he's gonna tell us rather how to pray, what to set our minds on.

But don't miss this this morning.

You know, part of how Paul makes every effort to be perfected in Christ is by, as he says, forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead.

I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus.

This right here is what mature Christians do.

This is what Paul does, this is what he's encouraging this Philippian church to do.

And there are a lot of different thoughts here when you try to define what the prize is.

When you look at that word, there's a lot of commentators that come up with a lot of different ideas of what this might be.

You know, some commentators say that the prize is the call itself, simply the call on your life to come to Christ.

Others say it's when Christ returns and we are literally called home and we sit before the judgment seat where we're gonna be rewarded as Christians, crowned with an imperishable crown.

Others say that the prize is an eternity of perfection and holiness in heaven with Christ Jesus.

Some say the prize is simply Jesus Himself.

I say it could be all of those things.

Because the commonality that we see in all of those things is Christ and the result of faith in him.

So our prize in running this race to completion is Jesus and being with him forever.

I think that's a good definition for that.

I don't know if we're gonna try and find out exactly which one that is this morning, but the prize is Jesus.

That's the commonality and in all of those different thoughts.

That's why we run this race.

It's for the prize of Jesus Christ.

That's why we pursue Christ.

That's actually what it says here in verse 14.

And that word pursue means exactly what you think.

It means to go after, to run after, to reach out toward, to pursue Christ in that way.

And he's waiting at the finish line with open arms for those that love him.

You know, think about what's ahead for every Christian.

Think about heaven.

I think God wants us to dream about heaven a little bit and what it's going to be like.

You know, when we're finally face to face in the arms of Jesus, and he's saying, Well done, good and faithful servant.

Where we won't have to deal with progressive sanctification anymore, but instead we'll forever get to dwell in positional sanctification with him.

That sounds glorious, doesn't it?

I did not have to deal with that progressive sanctification anymore.

No more sin, no more struggles, no more pain, no more sorrow, no more regrets and guilt and failure, just living in the positional righteousness and holiness of Jesus.

That's what's waiting for us.

So Paul's simply saying, just pursue Jesus faithfully till the end.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul actually says, uh, chapter 9, verses 24 and 25, he says, Don't you know that the runners in his stadium all race, but only one receives the prize.

Run in such a way to win the prize.

Now everyone who competes exercises self-control in everything.

They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we, the Christ pursuers, we an imperishable crown.

You know, like I said earlier, we cannot earn our salvation.

This is not what he's talking about.

But at the same time, God desires us to live in a way as to win the prize, to strain forward for that prize.

Now look at verse 15.

Therefore, let all of us who are mature think this way.

You know, this is just as applicable for us here today in Atascadero as it was to the Philippian church 2,000 years ago.

Let all that are mature think this way.

Not in the past, leaving that behind, as he said, but living in the moment and reaching toward the goal in Jesus Christ.

Another question for you.

When's the only time we are physically able to do something for the Lord?

In the moment, right?

You could have done something for the Lord ten seconds ago, but you can't change whether you did that or not ten seconds ago, right?

You might be able to do something for the Lord in ten seconds, but you can't do that now, can you?

This is a call to live in the moment for Christ, pursuing him with everything you've got.

You know, we can't live in or change the past.

But we like to act like we can, right?

Through regret and guilt.

We can't live in the future, though we try to through fear and worry, don't we?

So mature.

Sure, believers are to live in the present, in the moment that God has given us right now.

And in this moment, we are to reach for that goal.

We're to reach for that prize and finish the race strong.

Now look at the second half of verse 15.

And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you.

I think this is Paul's kind of gentle way of saying, even if you don't agree with me, you're gonna.

God's gonna show you as he showed me.

If you're truly pursuing him, you're gonna come to the same understanding that I have right now and that I'm sharing with you.

Verse 16.

In any case, we should live up to whatever truth we have attained.

Have you ever participated in something sinful and you didn't even know?

Maybe when you first came to the Lord.

And then God gently showed you, hey, you can't do that anymore.

Either through Scripture or the voice of the Holy Spirit inside of you.

And once you know its sin, you can't play dumb anymore, can you?

We should live up to whatever truth we have attained.

You know, as we mature and as we know more and as we discern more, we need to live up to that.

That's simply what this is saying here.

The enduring word commentary says, what we don't know can never excuse us from failing to fulfill what we do know to do.

So, for the mature Christians in the room, the longer you follow Christ and you get to know Him and the Word of God, and the longer that you walk by the Spirit, the more you will know what to do and what not to do.

And you're responsible for that.

Now look at verse 17.

Join in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and pay careful attention to those who live according to the example you have in us.

Basically saying, pay attention to the more mature believers and imitate them as they imitate Christ.

Again, for those younger in the faith, we've said this before in this church, look around.

Look at those that you admire in the faith and just start observing.

Just start asking them questions.

And for those of you with kids, look at the parents of the kids that you want your kids to be like.

And start asking questions and start observing what they are doing so that you can imitate them as they imitate Christ.

Verse 17 is really all about discipleship.

You know, I love that this church is multi-generational.

For the younger believers and the younger parents, take advantage of the experience of the more mature believers that are in this church.

There is a lot of experience in this church.

Now, Paul's going to shift gears a little bit here in verse 18.

Look at it with me.

For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.

Their end is destruction, their God is their stomach, their glory is in their shame, and they are focused on earthly things.

And I feel like at any time we can turn on the news and find all of this, right?

All over the place.

Daily, we could just turn it on.

We could, oh, there's that list that Paul gave us.

But I think this is most likely talking about the Judaizers of the day.

Those were the people in this time that were saying, you need Jesus and you need the Mosaic law.

You need Jesus and you need to be circumcised.

You need Jesus and you have to follow this certain diet.

And here's why I think this: because it says, enemies of the cross.

You know, the Judaizers didn't believe Jesus' sacrifice on the cross was enough for the forgiveness of sin and for the salvation of man.

They would say, yeah, yeah, Jesus, that's good, but the law, too.

You need to add this to your salvation.

And this is how Paul's words would line up with the Judaizers.

He says, their God is their stomach.

You know, the dietary law was something that the Judaizers took great pride in.

And many of their daily decisions were dictated by their stomach.

Their God was their stomach.

It says they glory in their shame.

They celebrate their close following of the law.

They celebrated their discipline.

They celebrated their circumcision.

But they missed God completely in all of those things.

Their pride was in their work.

Their works, plural.

And it says in their focus is on earthly things.

Their focus wasn't on Jesus, the goal, the prize.

It was on earthly works.

It was on rituals and following those rituals.

It was really on what they could do for God as opposed to what Jesus did for them.

And the end of these people, as it says, the end of 19, is destruction.

And this made Paul weep.

This is one of the reasons I think we're specifically talking about the Judaizers.

Paul wept because they were deceived.

Just like he used to be.

Before Jesus called him.

So why would Paul have talked to them so often about it?

As he says here, because that's expected behavior of the world.

But for this to take place from people claiming to follow God, but then to be so off as the Judaizers were, that is what made Paul weep.

And then those Judaizers didn't stop there.

They were going, they were trying to deceive others by saying Jesus is not sufficient.

And that you needed Jesus and.

Whenever it's Jesus and anything else, we're off the mark.

Just remember that for our lives as well.

It's never Jesus and, it's just Jesus.

You know, and that deception in their heart and the deception they were leading others down that road as well, and convincing them that made Paul weep.

You know, the Judaizers were the epitome of trying to earn salvation.

But Paul says, no, that leads to destruction.

But for the followers of Christ, look at verse 20.

Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a savior from there.

The Lord Jesus Christ.

Not from anywhere else.

Not from Rome or anywhere else in Philippi.

Because the word Savior here is a word or a title, rather, that was used for the ruling Caesar in Rome at that time.

So he tells them here in verse 20 about their true citizenship and their true savior, neither of which was coming from Rome.

You know, Paul's learned that anything that is of this world, including citizenship, including rulers, he counts as lost and dung, as we saw last week, right?

Compared to knowing Christ.

He doesn't live enamored by this world and what the world has to offer, get sucked into the cares of this world, but he casts his cares rather upon Jesus.

Paul realized that we are currently living in the kingdom of Satan on this earth.

So Paul himself, and he's encouraging this church to keep their eyes fixed on their true citizenship and to keep their eyes fixed on their true Savior.

You know, remember, as we talked about when we introduced this book, those that lived in Philippi, they were granted Roman citizenship, even though they were in a foreign land.

And that came with a lot of benefits for them to be able to claim that Roman citizenship.

And a lot of Philippians were proud of that.

That they actually had that citizenship.

So Paul tells them about where their true citizenship is coming from and where that actually lies.

You know, the correlation here that Paul is drawing for this community is actually incredible.

Philippi is a Roman colony in a foreign land.

The church is a heavenly colony, so to speak, in a foreign land here on earth.

When we came to salvation in Christ, our citizenship papers changed immediately.

We just haven't gotten to visit our home country yet.

And when we do get called home, look at verse 21.

He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject everything to himself.

This is what awaits us: a resurrected life with Jesus.

Living in, as we've been saying, living in our positional sanctification forever.

And our resurrected bodies that are just like the one that Jesus resurrected into.

You know, take a moment to think of Paul and to think of all that his body, his physical earthly body, his humble body, as he says, suffered while he was on this earth.

Think of the beatings and the lashings and the humiliation, the imprisonments, the shipwrecks, the stoning that he went through.

I can't imagine what his body looks like.

I can't imagine the scars that he had, the physical ailments that he probably continually had from everything that his body had gone through through persecution.

He was probably looking forward to his resurrected body when Christ returns more than anybody, you know, maybe ever that walked this earth.

You know, I told you I think it's good to dream a little bit about heaven and what's to come.

Whenever somebody asks me if you could have any superpower, what would it be?

You guys had that question before?

For me, it's always teleportation.

You know, just being able to be in one spot one time and then to be in the next spot whenever you want.

You know, if I could go to Italy for lunch today and be back by one, that'd be pretty sweet, wouldn't it?

I was in Oregon last week, 15-hour drive both ways.

If I could skip that, that would be amazing.

But from what I could tell, Jesus in his resurrected body could teleport.

He was showing up in rooms that had locked doors, he disappeared on the road to Emmaus.

You know, we will be made into the likeness of his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject everything to himself.

I can't wait.

I don't know about you guys, but I just cannot wait for that.

Now we're gonna dip in to one verse in chapter 4.

It says, So then, my dearly loved and longed for brothers and sisters, my joy and crown, in this manner stand firm in the Lord, dear friends.

Paul looks at these people as part of his imperishable crown, his heavenly reward for running this race faithfully.

So he encourages them to stand firm in the Lord.

Hey, church and Philippi, don't give up.

Don't be influenced by the world, don't be influenced by the legalistic Judaizers.

Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and run the race with endurance.

And that's our encouragement as well here today.

Stand firm in the Lord.

You know, it's so easy to get consumed with the things of this earth, to get consumed with regrets and guilt from the past.

To get consumed with the fear and worry of the future, to get consumed with different winds of doctrines.

To start taking pride in our own legalism, to get consumed with this earthly kingdom, or maybe our own kingdom, whatever that might be.

Our kingdom of acquiring things, acquiring the next best thing, looking for happiness in consumerism.

You know, we live in Satan's kingdom.

Scripture tells us that.

And it's only getting worse, this earth.

But the Holy Spirit encourages us through Paul's writing here in these verses to make every effort toward Christian maturity, to forget what is behind it, to reach forward for the prize of Jesus Christ.

As mature believers, to live up to the truth that we have attained, to imitate the mature Christians that we have around us as they imitate Christ.

And then he ends by encouraging us to know where our citizenship is, that it's in heaven in Christ.

And that we're gonna all one day be resurrected just like Jesus, to live with him in positional righteousness and positional holiness and Jesus' positional righteousness and holiness forever.

You know, as I was going through this, I kept getting reminded of that old song.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus and look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

Will you please pray with me?

Oh Lord, would you teach us how to do this?

Lord, would you teach us how to grow more mature in Christ on a daily basis?

Would you give us that desire and the power, Lord, to make every effort to do so?

We realize we cannot do this on our own.

We realize we cannot earn our salvation through works.

But it's only the power of your spirit inside of us that we're able to do these things.

But Lord, would you give us that desire in the first place to be more like Jesus on a daily basis?

Would you give us that desire to sit down with the more mature in Christ and just start asking questions and just start observing and for the more mature in Christ, Lord, to be available to do that for the younger generation.

Lord, I pray that you would have your perfect will and way inside each one of us and as a church body here as a whole this morning.

Lord, we want to become more like you.

We want to be a church that's known for abiding in you, for submitting to your will, for walking by your spirit.

Lord, so would you do those things in each and every one of us?

Lord, I pray that there would be an excitement for what's next, our citizenship in heaven, living in that positional sanctification forever and ever.

Lord, get us excited about what's to come.

Lord, help us to run this race with endurance and to finish strong, keeping our eyes on the goal and our eyes on the prize.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.