Preached May 24, 2009
Philippians 3:7-14
Theme: Paul’s experience teaches us how to be set free from our past so that we can move on toward all that Jesus Christ saved us to be.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
I invite you to turn with me this morning to the third chapter of the book of Philippians. I find that it’s a portion of Scripture that I’m drawn to preach from frequently. And there’s a very good reason. I believe it is one of the most liberating passages in all of Scripture.
It’s a passage in which apostle Paul warns his Philippian brothers and sisters to be on the alert against those who would seek to obligate them to outward, ceremonial acts of religion—particularly circumcision—in order to be made ‘perfect’ or declared ‘righteous’ in God’s sight. Paul writes;
Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation! For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind (Philippians 3:1-16).
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If you’ll look at verse 12, you’ll see a wonderful view of the daily goal of the Christian life. Paul said, “I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.”
The single word in the original language that’s translated “lay hold” is one that refers to an aggressive, almost ‘violent’ seizing-hold of a thing. It’s found in 1 Corinthians 9:24; where Paul writes, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.” This word describes an action in which the one, singular goal is to grasp hold of a thing in order to take full possession of it.
And this was Paul’s view of progress in the Christian life. And notice carefully the order of events. It was Christ who first—as an act of grace—laid hold of Paul. Jesus first purchased Paul to Himself at the cost of His own precious blood on the cross. And with that in mind, Paul’s whole Christian life on this earth became a matter of actively, persistently, joyfully ‘pressing on’ to ‘lay hold’ of—with the same aggressive sort of ‘grasping’—that glorious destiny for which Christ Jesus also graciously ‘laid hold’ of him.
And that ought to be our own view of the daily goal of the Christian life, dear brothers and sisters. But the fact is that few of us ever press on to the sort of progress that Paul is describing. And I believe that one reason that many of us do not move forward in the Christian life because we’re still stuck in a kind of self-imposed ‘bondage’ to what we once were. I fear that too many of us allow ourselves to be so ‘shackled’ to the past that we will not move forward into what Christ wants us to be.
It’s as if Jesus Christ comes to us and says, “Dear one; I have loved you before you ever loved Me. I have liberated you by My grace! I have given My all for you! I have set you free from all the guilt of your past, washed you clean in the sight of My Father by My own blood, and purchased for you a glorious share in My own inheritance! I love you so; and I have so much to give you. And it’s all yours! All you have to do is rise up in my power, press forward, and lay hold of it!”
But no sooner do we rise up to do so than we hear other voices speaking to us. Sometimes, the voice is our own. Sometimes, it’s the voices of other people in our lives. Almost always—behind them all—is the voice of the devil. And these voices counter the invitation of our Savior; and say to us, “Stop! How dare you rise up! How dare you extend your hand to the prize! What makes you think you can grow? What makes you think you can go forward? What makes you think you can have any share in the inheritance of Christ? Have you forgotten what you have done? Have you forgotten what others have done to you? Have you forgotten what you are?”
If any of those voices sound familiar to you, then I hope you’ll pay careful attention to our passage this morning. It affirms to us that, in Christ, we are no longer what He saved us from, but rather what He saved us to be! Paul’s own experience, as it’s set out before us in this passage, teaches to be genuinely, authentically free from our past—so that we can truly move forward to become all that Jesus Christ has saved us to be.
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Now; there’s a place that Paul begins in explaining his experience to us. And it’s the place at which most people fail to begin. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that, if you and I don’t start off rightly—that is, in the place where himself Paul begins in this passage—then we will not be able to make progress in the liberty with which he pressed forward, nor will we finish the race in the victory with which he finished.
And the place at which we all must begin is to make absolutely sure that we . . .
1. TRUST EXCLUSIVELY IN CHRIST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS BEFORE GOD (vv. 7-11).
When I say ‘exclusively’, I mean that His finished work on the cross is to be the only thing we trust in for righteousness before God. Nothing else. That—as this passage shows us—was how Paul sought to be declared righteous in the sight of God.
But it wasn’t always so for Paul. He tells us in verses 4-6 that his confidence used to be in his own efforts to make himself righteous and worthy in God’s sight. He boasted that he was circumcised when he was only eight days old. He boasted that he was of the stock of Israel—and more specifically, of the tribe of Benjamin. He boasted that he was a Hebrew of Hebrews; that is, that there was no mixture of Gentile blood in him, but that he was a pure-bred Jewish man through and through. As far as being devoted to the law, he boasted that he was a Pharisee. As far as being zealous for the Judaistic religion, he boasted that he was a persecutor of the Christians. And as far as being righteous on the basis of strict conformity to the letter of the law, he boasted that no human being could find fault in him.
Now; these things were the things that he once considered to be a great advantage to himself. He counted on these things to make himself righteous before God. And if those things were the standard by which ‘righteousness’ before God was awarded, none of us would have been able to match him. But all of that had changed. In verse 7, he tells us, “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.”
Paul goes on to speak in even bolder terms about his old efforts in the flesh to make himself righteous. He says, “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ” (v. 8). He now calls those things he used to trust in “rubbish”. And in reality, what Paul says here is really quite shocking. Translating it with the word “rubbish” really doesn’t do it justice. The King James Version translates it correctly when it has him say that he counted those things “dung”.
I don’t wish to dwell too long on such things in a nice Sunday morning worship service. But what is your typical reaction to dung? You’re disgusted with it. You want it as far away from you as it can be. Now; it’s true that there are some people who are grateful for the good things dung does in their flower garden. But while they may bring the flowers they grow inside to decorate the house, they still keep the dung outside!
And that’s what Paul’s attitude now was toward those things that he used to count on for righteousness before God. He counted those things to be as repulsive as dung. He wanted to be as far from them as he could be. Those things kept him from a pure trust in Christ. Instead, he wanted to “be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead” (vv. 9-12).
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Now; that’s the place at which Paul started in his pursuit of the Christian life. His heart had been transformed; and he had planted his feet firmly in an exclusive trust in Jesus Christ for righteousness before God. He utterly rejected any works of the flesh to make him righteous before God.
And is that where you have begun in your pursuit of the Christian life?
Many people cannot move on to maturity in the Christian life because they have never really even begun! They think that they have entered into the Christian life because they go to church, and participate in religious activities, and do good deeds, and give money, and try to live good lives and read the Bible. They even have some advanced theological knowledge and familiarity with Scripture. But if they are trusting in those things to make them acceptable in the sight of God, then those things are, ultimately, works of the flesh.
I can’t stress this enough. Are you trusting in your own works of righteousness to make you acceptable to God—in any degree? It may even be that you have prayed to receive Jesus as your Savior; but a sense of guilt over the past still so overwhelms you that you feel you need to do a lot of good deeds in order to compensate for it all. And until you have completely abandoned all trust in anything else but the finished work of Jesus on the cross, and rest in Him alone for righteousness before God—just as Paul did—then you really haven’t begun in the right place at all.
Leaving your past behind, and moving forward to what lies ahead, depends on first trusting exclusively on the work of Jesus on the cross. This is because it’s only through faith in the cross of Jesus that our sins are truly taken care of in the sight of God. As Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” And as Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus . . .”
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Now; that’s what Paul did. He trusted exclusively in the cross of Jesus Christ for righteousness before God. He wanted to be found, not in his own righteousness through the flesh, in the righteousness of God that came through faith in Christ alone.
But this didn’t mean that Paul was now perfect. Far from it! He even admits this himself—”Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected” (v. 12). I’m very glad he said that, aren’t you? He still had progress to make; and we do too. But he was pressing on; and so can we.
And that leads us to the second thing we find in Paul’s words. If we want to make progress, and press on to maturity as he did, then—trusting only and fully in the finished work of Jesus on our behalf—we must now do as he did and . . .
2. FORGET THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE BEHIND (v. 13).
Those cords that tangle our feet with the sins of the past must now be cut. Those shackles that bind us to our guilt must now be taken off. The past’s ungodly hold on us must be broken. We must forget what is behind.
And thanks to our wonderful Savior, we can legitimately do so! Our past is fully atoned for in Christ; and God Himself now promises, “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jeremiah 31:34).
Why should we be held in bondage to what God Himself has forgiven and forgotten?
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Now; when I think of this, I can’t help but think of the things that Paul himself had to leave behind. You and I have some things in our lives that we wish never happened. But none of them could be as bad as some of the things Paul did.
He already hinted at some of it. In verse 6, he said that one of the things he used to boast in for righteousness before God—if you can imagine making this a boast—is that he persecuted the church! He had such a burning zeal for his Judaism that he actively persecuted innocent Christians, arrested them, and dragged them away to their trials and executions. He once testified that he was “formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man” (1 Timothy 1:13). When Paul speaks of the need to forget “those things which are behind”, he knew what he was talking about.
And yet, he was grateful that the same Jesus Christ, whom he used to blaspheme, had now put him in ministry (v. 14). He went on to say;
This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life (1 Timothy 1:15-16).
And dear brothers and sisters; if “the chief of sinners” was able to forget those things which are behind, so can you and me.
Now; of course, this will mean that there are things we still have to do to make things right with the people we may have harmed in the past. We have a moral duty before God to seek forgiveness from those we’ve wronged, and make things as right with them as we can. But doing so is a manifest demonstration of the fact that we’re no longer a prisoner to those things, and that we truly have—by God’s grace—moved on from them!
Dear brothers and sisters; if you have placed your trust in Jesus Christ, it’s high-time to leave the past behind. Don’t let those things continue to hold you in bondage. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
The devil will tell you that you are still whatever it was that Christ saved you from. But he’s a liar. You are now what Christ saved you to be. Forget those things that are behind!
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That leads us to the next thing that Paul’s example teaches us; and that is to . . .
3. FOCUS ON THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE AHEAD (v. 13).
We are to cease letting those “behind” things have their former hold over us. It’s true that we can’t completely “forget” them. But we’ve been set free from them, and we no longer have to let them be the controlling focus of our lives. Instead, our controlling focus is to be on the glorious inheritance of Jesus Christ that He has purchased for us, and that He now promises to shares with us throughout all eternity. We forget what is behind, and reach forth to what lies ahead!
The Bible tells us, in lots of ways, to keep our constant focus on what lies ahead for us in Christ—because that focus will transform us and help move us on to maturity. Peter wrote;
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice . . . (1 Peter 1:3-6a).
Similarly, John wrote;
Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure (1 John 3:2-3).
And Paul also wrote;
If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory (Colossians 3:1-4).
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Now; so far, everything we’ve found in Paul’s example has been a matter of an attitude of the heart. He first rejected all the false-trusts he used to depend on for righteousness before God; and set himself to trust only in the finished work of Jesus. Then, on the basis of his righteousness in the sight of God on the basis of faith in Jesus, he forgot what was behind. But forgetting what was behind was not enough; because he also set his focus on what was ahead—and on the glorious inheritance that is his in Christ.
And now—with all of those attitudes in proper place—Paul took action. His example shows us that we need to then . . .
4. PRESS PERSISTENTLY TOWARD THE GOAL (vv. 12, 14).
“I press on”, Paul says, “that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me” (v. 12). The single verb in the original language that’s translated “press on” is in the present tense—indicating an ongoing, progressive habit of Paul’s life. In verse 13, it’s the “one thing” he says that he constantly does. Forgetting what is behind, and reaching forward to what lies ahead, are the necessary conditions in which he does this “one thing”; but that “one thing” is clearly stated for us in those victorious words of verse 14: “I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”.
It’s as if the Lord Jesus came to Paul and said, “Paul; I have loved you before you loved Me. You used to persecute My people and fight against those who trusted Me. But I have given My all for you and have set you free. Gone is all the guilt of your past. You are now clean before My Father. And what’s more, I have purchased for you a glorious share in My own inheritance! And now it’s all now yours! Rise up in my power, press forward, and lay hold of it!”
And Paul—the chief of sinners—did so! He rose up and moved on! He spent the rest of his life laying hold of that for which Christ laid hold of him! Trusting only in Jesus, forgetting the past, focusing only on what lied ahead, he pressed on to the goal.
And listen to what he had to say at the end of his life:
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing (2 Timothy 4:6-8).
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Dear brothers and sisters; let’s always remember that, in Christ, we are no longer what He saved us from, but rather what He saved us to be! Don’t be a prisoner any longer to your past. Rise up now; and for the rest of your life—in the power that God Himself supplies—press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus!