Go For the Gold

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ. The righteousness from God, that depends on faith. That's where we stopped 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 if possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I've already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own brethren. I do not consider that I've made it my own. But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature be thus minded. And if in anything you are otherwise minded, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. The timing of God for the message this morning is one of those little marvels that he so often surprises us with. Fred already asked how many of you are watching parts of the Olympics? And it's pretty much inevitable that if you're at all in touch with what's coming over the media today, Olympic talk is part of the daily diet of your conversation at the table or at the office or wherever you might be. It just so happens that today's passage of scripture has its principal metaphor as being a runner in a race who's going all out for a particular goal. And I just love the way God has the timing so that really there's no way I could have avoided using the Olympic metaphor today as much as I maybe wanted to. And you know, the Olympics talk about fairness. We say, well, if we work hard, everything will go right or whatever. And you write about the United States bicycling team that just as they were ready to run for the gold medal, the guy's shoe strap broke a ten dollar strap and the whole team had to settle for a second place because of that. And then you see this little gal, Mary Lou Retton, and you see, well, she said, all I've sacrificed and all I've given up. She's 16, she's 16 years old and you look at her and say, well, I really appreciate all you've given up. I'm 63 and I haven't gotten my gold yet. But God has his ways. And that which we're going to look at today has far more significance as a race than winning a gold medal that the Bible says someday will perish and pass away. Now, last week we talked about what Paul said in response to those who had come to rob the Philippian Church of its joy. And we've been seeing and establishing once again our foundations and recognizing that our standing before God, our righteousness with God, our relationship with God is a free gift. A free gift received by faith. Having clearly established now that positional righteousness, that positional standing, God has said, if you've received his son Jesus by faith, you are declared righteous. That's a position. Today we're going to look at the experience of that position. How many of you know, because you have a position doesn't necessarily mean you're receiving the benefits of it. Dan Watts, who is serving as sort of a fresh green missionary with Operation Mobilization on their ship Doulos. And we'll be hearing a lot more about that as the months go by. Dan had a tremendous story to share. He arrived over at, I think it was Finland or someplace off of the coast over there in northern Europe. And he was to arrive as a second mate, a ship's officer, and had the credentials to be a captain. And assumed that that was going to take place when he arrived. Somehow he got lumped in with all of the people who were coming as summer help to work in the kitchen and that kind of thing. And so he arrived with this credential and this expectation. And they got him off. And they said, well, here's the peeler, here's the pot. And they had the position, but he sure wasn't experiencing any of the benefits. And he writes and says how God used that first 36 hours or so to remind him of his humble roots. And you probably know as well what it's like to have a position but not experiencing the benefits of it. I would say, by and large, beloved, that the church, Jesus Christ in this nation, let alone the rest of the world, is living just like that, living far under their position in Christ. Do you believe that? Far under what God supplied for them, far under what God's purposed for them. And I want to see this morning in these words of Paul, a crown that's promised and a caution that's issued. There's an exaltation that's out there, but there's an exhortation that's given as well. There's a way to win, but there's also a warning that's tied in with these verses. And beloved, we have to set ourselves, set ourselves to live in the full measure of what God has provided in Jesus Christ. Or I'm convinced, particularly based on the events of this last couple of weeks, that we will be plundered, shredded and torn apart. There is no option in the Christian life but setting ourselves on, moving in the fullness of the experience that Jesus has won for us on the cross. Now, I want us to look at this, and I'm going to do it briefly this morning, because we do have communion, we want to have ample time to share in ministry together. Now, if the illustration is offensive to you, if you're not interested in athletics, bear with it. Anyhow, just based on the strength of what Paul says in these verses, let's talk about this morning, going for the goal in the Christian life. Alright, first of all, what are some of the potential imitators Paul warns about? Now, Paul does something here. If you look down, beginning in verse 17, he warns about another group of people that are in the area. They're called the antiminious. I can't even say it right. Antinominious. Those who are against the law. Now, I've had one of the chief North Way artists draw a little diagram here about what we're talking about. Salvation is like a stream, and when you're saved, you're plucked in the stream of life on the one side, on the right bank, and if you can follow along on that side as well, is legalism. The Jesus plus people, the people that would add to what's needed for salvation and power. We talked about that last week. The Judaizers, the ones who insisted on circumcision, going through other rituals in order to be secure. On the other bank are those who were against the law. That's what antinominianism means. Against anti nomist is the word for law. Enniism is just the suffix. Against the law. Those who are against any kind of definition or restriction. And so Paul is warning, these verses come in between two errors that would plague the Church. Salvation, beloved, plucks us in this stream. But let me say something clear this morning. If you don't establish a direction and pursue a direction in your Christian life, you will drift in that stream and eventually find yourself on one bank or the other. You will either find yourself pursuing something in addition to Jesus because you don't know the measure of grace that he's given, or you'll find yourself on the other stream, kind of ignoring the commandments and the summons and all that God requires of us. There's a quote that I jotted down from here. It is, Yeah, I really appreciated this quote by Chip Ward. Either we fervently pursue the greatness that is our destiny in God, or we drift in the ever increasing frustration of mediocrity. That's what it is, isn't it, beloved? It's ever increasing the frustration that we feel when we're not really moving in God's purpose in our life. It gets deeper and deeper. You don't stay the same, you just drift more and more. You get more and more frustrated until finally you're overcome and it doesn't matter anymore. So what is this goal that Paul's calling the Philippian Church to? Is it eternal life? Is he saying press on in order to secure eternal life? Look at verse 11 here in your scripture, would you? Verse 10 and 11. You need your Bibles in order to track with us here, so take a look at this. That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. That if possible, my translation says I may attain the resurrection from the dead. How many would say that's one of those jump over scriptures? I'd like to jump over that one because it doesn't really fit in with everything else. I think I know that if possible, I may attain it. You mean I've got to do things? Is Paul saying here that there's some doubt about being raised from the dead? Well, the answer to that has to be no. The answer to that has to be no. For Paul is sure that we who have been baptized with Christ will too be raised with him. Remember Romans 6:4. There's no doubt in his mind. Second Timothy chapter 1, verse 12 talks about Paul's confidence that God would complete that which he'd begun in him. That's Philippians 1:6 and 2 Timothy 1:12 also confirms that Paul had every assurance that God was fulfilling what he called him to be and do and would raise him up on the last day. Is Paul talking about some sort of special knowledge here? Is that the goal that we're pursuing? First Corinthians 8:1 says that knowledge puffs up. Is he talking about some mighty works that we're supposed to be able to do? No. He says in 1 Corinthians 13, if I have the faith to move mountains, don't have love, I'm nothing. What is the goal? What is the goal of the Christian life? What is it that he's pressing on toward. What's your goal this morning? The word for goal in Greek means that which your eyes are fixed upon. Do you have a goal or are you basically drifting, hoping that you'll be bouncing into other rafts in the stream that are going the right direction? How many of us would confess that most of our growth comes because somebody nudged us, not because we fixed ourself on it? Are you aimless this morning? I don't say this lovelessly, beloved, but I know what it's like to kind of drift from one plateau to another in your Christian walk. And I know that there's got to be some here today that are doing just that. If you were honest with God, you'd say, I've been in the same place for two years. Some of you say my only goal is to get out of the mess I'm in now. What if the Lord God were to appear to you as he did to Solomon, and say, what would. What one thing would you ask me to give you? What would you say? What is your goal? What do you want God to do? Well, here's the meaning that I came up with. The second point of the outline, the precise meaning the goal of the Christian life is in verse 11. Let's look at that. That, if possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead. See, Paul in verse 12 goes on and says, not that I've already obtained this, referring to verse 11, am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own. What is the this? What is the it? What is the perfection he's talking about? Well, this verse, verse 11, which is one we often just pass over, is very interesting in the original language. It is the only place in the entire New Testament where Paul uses this form of the Greek word for resurrection. To the normal word for resurrection, Anastasis, he puts the Greek prefix ek. Ek Ek anastasis. And then for the word death, he puts ek also eknefrus. So what he's saying is, I want to be raised out from among the dead. What he's saying is I want the out resurrection. That's the literal translation, the out resurrection out of the dead. I want to be able to live the resurrection life now up out of the death that I see all around me. And so I've translated that passage, what I believe to be inaccurate agreement with the New Testament Greek. Read it in your pink sheet now, would you read your pink sheet? This is my little paraphrase. I have given up all lesser things in order to really know him. That's basically, verse 8, 9, sharing his resurrection power, his sufferings, even his death. So that here it is, verse 11. If possible, I might experience his resurrection life in every way in the here and now. Now, I haven't attained this perfection as yet, but because Jesus has already won my heart, I know it's what I want to pursue. No, I've not gotten there yet, but if I don't do anything else, I'm going to do this. Forgetting my former attempts and accomplishments, I'll strain forward to what lies ahead, pressing on toward the goal of receiving the prize of the upward call of living the resurrection life in Christ Jesus. If you're mature, you'll want this too. This is what Paul is calling us to, living the resurrection life. This, beloved listen, is the perfection. This is what perfection means. You know, the word perfection in, in Greek doesn't mean what we think of in terms of having no blemishes whatsoever. It means maturing, it means full as opposed to partial. It means well rounded as opposed to not yet filled out. You see, a 13 year old is not perfect in that sense until they fill out and become perfectly mature, well rounded, completely the way they were designed to be when they reached their high point. Now, what is this resurrection life? And here I want to be practical. Beloved, what is it that Paul is saying that we're supposed to pursue with all of our hearts? What is the experience of the position? I want to submit to you that the resurrection life is simply moving in the power of God through your life in total confidence that God has set himself to bring to pass in you all that would please him and to use you as an instrument of bringing the kingdom rule wherever you go. Resurrection life, beloved, isn't being somehow weird and mystical and having words of God for people. And I want to shatter the image that some of us are just so willing to jump on that to be spiritual and that resurrection life means that you see things that no one else sees and you call out things that no one else calls out. That's not the resurrection life that I believe Paul's calling us to or that Jesus lived. Resurrection life is touching and feeling and caring and sacrificing and giving. Resurrection life as Jesus lived it was serving and pouring out and going the extra mile. Resurrection life takes a man out of self serving business practices and gives him a generous heart. Like some men in this room. Resurrection life is what takes a man out of crime and drug abuse and gives him a heart of compassion and concern for another. Just like some men in this room. Resurrection life is what makes a man who's always watched out for himself and used people for his own ends get right next to someone and sweat, just like some of the men and women in this room. Resurrection life, beloved, is what it makes a person who walked right by you in the past stop and kneel down and weep with you. This is the kind of life that Jesus lived. You say, well, didn't Jesus have the power to do this and the power to do that? And beloved, to the degree to which God wants to flow power through you, he will. And yes, power is released to change situations and circumstances. But more important than that, resurrection life changes you in those circumstances. And power, Resurrection life is what enables you to see God in everything that takes place and to rejoice in your identification with Jesus. Resurrection life is healing the sick and visiting the imprisoned and loving the ugly and forgiving is spiteful and giving until you are lesser. Paul's life is a demonstration of this. Read him, read about what he did, how he gave, how he served, how he sacrificed. There's people here today who've done that very thing. And this is the stream that we're called to flow in. Beloved, resurrection life. Paul's saying, I want to come up out of the death that surrounds me. And if we're honest today, beloved, we would admit that God has by his grace, plucked many of us right out of death, right out of situations that were absolutely leading to death, to nothingness, that would in the end produce nothing but plaque. And God is right now, by his resurrection life, moving to lift some of you out of death dealing situations. And Paul's saying, I want that. I want to be there. I want to be the one that's lifted up, if possible, to spiritual perfection, living in the full measure of resurrection life. Do you want that this morning? I believe you do. I know I do, beloved. I don't want to find myself compromising in death. I want to live in the fullness that God's provided. How do we pursue it? What's the pursuit? It's necessary to live like this. Is it? Is it necessary? Or can we somehow just accept Jesus and kind of hang on? There's a lot of folks that would like us to believe that, that we can simply just hang on. I was encouraged by Derek Prince. I want to read a little thing that I picked up as he was on vacation. Some of you haven't taken your vacations yet. Maybe God would want to use that time to speak to you. And he said he went out and walked by a cliff near the Ocean praying. And the Lord unexpectedly just spoke to his heart. He says here, as clearly and specifically as at any time in my life, the Lord reminded me of my past and my achievements in ministry. Principal of a college for training African American missionaries. Just thing after thing after Cambridge graduate and all these kinds of things, he said, it was a very thorough and brief overview of my life. Comprehensive enough that whatever he said next would be based on clear understanding of who I was. Having said all that, God posed this question to me. Are you satisfied or do you want to go further? He says, I must confess with embarrassment that until that moment, I didn't think there was any further to go. I was saved. I was baptized in the Spirit. I was rather confident in my understanding of doctrine. I'd been successful in my ministry. And then he goes on to detail how God penetrated his heart and showed him that if he chose to stay where he was, that he would be consumed and overtaken by the adversary. And he yielded that day. And God gave him two things to do. And we're going to just talk about what God gives us to do in those situations. Beloved, self satisfaction is the most dangerous position I know of in the Christian life. I'm going to say that again. Self satisfaction, being satisfied where you are is the most dangerous attitude I know in the Christian life. Believers adrift in the sea of mediocrity. Do you know someone like that that hasn't really changed at all in the last few years? If you were to sit down and talk with them, there'd be no more vitality. They wouldn't have seen God doing anything. They wouldn't have been bearing fruit. They wouldn't have been instruments of change. They stopped. That's why they stopped pursuing the goal. They got adrift in that stream. And this is what Paul is warning against. And he says, this pursuit is the key. Look at with me now. I press on to make it my goal. You see, the desire is the beginning of it. You got to want it first of all, but then you've got to pursue it. Do you remember in the the movie Chariots of Fire, since we're on the Olympic theme, do you remember Harold Abrahams, who was sort of the constant challenger to Eric Little as they went along and he arrived, I guess it was, at Cambridge, and immediately he was seen for his athletic prowess. And a professor challenged him as a Jewish to seize the opportunity that had been placed before him on behalf of his people. And Chariots of Fire is as much a story of his pursuit of his goal as it was the dealings of God in Eric Liddell. And in the end we know that because he set himself and worked so diligently. What happened? He won that sprint and won the gold medal. But he pursued it diligently. He went after it, driven perhaps by a motive that was less than perfect and pure and beloved. We cannot just say, God, I want your best, and then just drift around. We as a people cannot do that. North Way cannot do that. What can we do? I want to share with you in conclusion. How do we pursue? How do we press on? The Greek word there, dioko, means to pursue as a hunter. How many of you men hunt? How many men hunt? How many women hunt? All right. What does a hunter do when they set out? They look for evidence and they freeze in the woods. That's true. But they look, they set themselves and they're pursuing one thing. They're looking for that deer. They're not looking for anything else. They're not. Just look at the snow. Look how wet my feet. They're looking for the deer. They're pursuing it. That word in Greek is the word to pursue as a hunter or secondly as a runner who's going after the goal. And we're going to talk in conclusion about what that means. Now, how do we pursue this thing? Here it is. First of all, the first thing you've got to do is seen in verse 12. Not that I've already obtained this resurrection life, this perfection, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. The first thing you've got to do is to recognize your standing, okay? Recognize that you have been apprehended by Jesus. If you don't have that, the rest of life will be a search for some kind of security that you'll never gain. Number two, Brethren, I do not consider that I've made it. That is resurrection, living my own. But one thing I do. The second thing is to be single minded. One thing I do. If I could share with you one of the greatest stumbling blocks to growth. It's this. We shoot with shotguns and not with rifles. And on your pink sheet there's a few questions that you can ask one another. If you came with your spouse or some friends, ways that you can begin to narrow down. What is God saying that I need to do to pursue this? Christian walk. Number three, verse 13. Forgetting what lies behind. This could be an entire teaching in its own. What lies behind. For you, it might be your heritage as a Lutheran. It might be your involvement in another church that went down it might be the fact that you were once a speaker that had a ministry around the country. It might be that your children are all grown up and in the ministry. It might be any number of things. But Paul says, I forget it. Now there's a good thing in that for us all because not only is he saying to forget your failures, but he's saying to forget your accomplishments. Forget it. See yourself as new today. Aren't you glad that we can forget those things by the blood of Jesus, that we failed God in that we don't have to go to God and say, lord, I know I'm the one that's promised to get up every morning at 6:30, but I haven't done it in 10 years. We don't have to go in and start apologizing, but by the blood of Jesus, we accept forgiveness and we begin to press on afresh. Forget what lies behind. And beloved, I need to say here, this is so true for North Way. This is so true for this people. We need to forget what lies behind. We need to forget the things that God's used us to do and only let them be there, as would be a reminder of our faith and not to revel in them and say, well, isn't it great not to throw it out the window and despise it, but only to let it be a reminder of faith. The second thing, the fourth thing rather that we're to do, is to strain forward, strain forward to what lies ahead. Listen to this. The word for strain forward, Barclay says it's a word which is used of a racer going hard for the tape. It describes him with eyes for nothing but that goal. It describes him with arms clawing the air, with head forward and the body bent angled to the goal. If you've watched the Olympics, isn't that what they do? They lean forward like that, to be the first one across the tape they want more than anything, straining, every muscle tensed. I thought we were supposed to just rest in Jesus and praise God. You see, we rest in the security of our salvation, but we strain forward to live this resurrection life. You say, well, that's going to tire me out. Beloved, please hear this. It's only in the Christian life that the more you strain forward, the more strength you receive. And rather than being weakened, as you strain, you're strengthened. It's almost as if that's the posture that lets God pour his life into you. You say, well, I'm tired. If you'll lean forward and begin to pursue God, strength will be imparted and if you're really exhausted, ask a brother or sister to pick you up. They'll race with you. They'll carry you until you're able to strain on your own. You see, it's that posture that Jacob adopted when he wrestled with God in the book of Genesis. It's the wrestling posture of David that we see in the Psalms when he cries out to God and says, God, I've blown it. Psalm 32 and Psalm 50. It's Jeremiah straining to reach God. When he calls out in his prophecy, it's Paul, it's the disciples. It's the posture of every person who's walked the walk of faith, straining forward to what lies ahead. There is a fifth thing, and it's persevering in faith. Persevere. Once you started, beloved, don't give up, don't chuck it, but persevere. Let me conclude the option is this. Press on or pass out, you say? You mean I'm losing my salvation. No. You mean we'll no longer be a church here? No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if we choose to simply just get comfortable where we are, we will slip out of the main stream of resurrection life and begin to drift in the sea of mediocrity and miss the destiny of God for your life and our corporate lives together. And I pray, beloved, that today you will do what Paul says. Be thus minded. You'll take this attitude and take it to heart. Because I think it will make all the difference as to whether or not we become what God wants us to be. And I'm for that. Aren't you? Let's pray, Father, as we come now and prepare our hearts for communion. Lord, we thank you that therein lies your covenant promise to be all that we need to be. Lord, where we have not been able to see your goal clearly, where we've not been able to embrace what you've wanted to do in us, move in us now, Lord, as we share communion together. That it would be an expression of our life as a people dependent upon you to enable us to press on. For you are the God over all things, in whom we trust and rest in Jesus name. As the deacons prepare to serve us.