For the Journey
The Christian life is a journey.
This means that if you’re a Christian, even this morning, you are on the way somewhere. From the moment you first put your faith in Jesus you’ve been on the way to meeting Jesus one day face-to-face. You are on a journey and today’s passage tells us three things we need to remember for this journey.
And Paul really is saying this for us. Now Paul is still giving us some autobiography in this passage — he’s continuing to talk about himself — except that in verse 15 he concludes by saying that we should think like him. Skip to verse 15 for a minute.
He says: “Let those of us who are mature think this way” — and if you don’t — if this does not make sense to you or if you disagree — well, God will clear that up for you. Eventually you’ll get there.
This is for every Christian, but for those who have ears to hear, this is especially for you. We should think the way Paul is thinking in these verses. This is for your journey, called the Christian life, and here’s the first thing to remember.
1. You’re Not There Yet
Now that should be intuitive — because to be on a journey means you’ve not yet arrived at your destination — so we should know this, but it’s something that Paul wants to make abundantly clear right away.
We see this first in the first part of verse 12, and then Paul repeats it again in the first part of verse 13. Look at verse 12. Pauls says:
“Not that I’ve already obtained this or am already perfect …”
“Obtained what?” What is Paul talking about?
One Train of Thought
Well verse 12 is connected back to verse 11. So we need to look backwards for a minute. And in fact, this thing goes all the way back to verse 3. Over the last three weeks we’ve been looking at just one train of thought. Paul set the train in motion in verse 3 when he said that we, Christians, are the real people of God — we who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.
And then, beginning in verse 4, he explains more of what that means.
He says that although he has some impressive things in his past (according to one scorecard), all of his past religious achievements are now rubbish/garbage.
“He counts everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ.”
That is what Paul wants — he wants to gain Christ and be found in Christ that he may know Christ, verse 10, “and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” — Paul has the death-conquering power of Christ at work in him as he walks in the valley of the shadow of death with Christ, like Christ, verse 11, “that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”
What a Day It Will Be!
Now what does that mean? There are three parts here:
What does Paul mean by “any means possible”?
What’s he mean by “attain”?
What’s he mean by “resurrection from the dead”?
Let’s start with the last first.
When Paul mentions the resurrection here, he’s talking about the end-time resurrection, when everything’s all said and done — the dead in Christ are raised first, and those who are alive and remain are gathered together to meet Christ and to always be with Christ (see 1 Thessalonians 4:14ff). Now Paul is not focused so much on the logistics of the resurrection, but he’s thinking more about the state of resurrection. He’s thinking: What a day that will be!
Y’all know we like to talk about old songs around here, here’s one I heard a lot as a kid. It goes like this:
“What a day that will be
When my Jesus I shall see
And I look upon his face
The one who saved me by his grace
When he takes me by the hand
And leads me through the Promised Land
What a day, glorious day that will be!”
That’s a real day that’s coming, and it will be glorious. But what makes it glorious?
It’s that we will be with Jesus. We will have a deeper experience of knowing Jesus than we do now in this world. That’s what Paul is thinking about. That’s what is on his mind.
One Way or Another
Notice that word “attain.” It could also be translated to “arrive” or “to come to.” Paul wants to arrive to that day — and he says: “by any means possible.” Some English translations put this as the word “somehow.”
Here’s what Paul means: he is certain there’s a day coming when he’s going to see Jesus, but he’s not certain about the literal way he’s going to get there. Remember, he’s in prison right now. He’s awaiting a trial. He could be executed! Which means: maybe the route that Paul will take to that day is martyrdom; Or maybe Paul will end up dying another way; Or maybe Paul will stay alive until Jesus comes back and raises those who have fallen asleep!
Paul doesn’t know how. He just knows he wants to get there. Paul is saying:
One way or another, somehow, whether Caesar executes me or I die of cancer or I remain here until Jesus returns, I just wanna get there. I want to arrive at that glorious day. I want to see Jesus and I want to know him more clearly and fully! (see 1 Corinthians 13:12)
Homesickness for Heaven
And see, all that explains verse 12.
Because in verse 12 Paul says: I’m not there yet. I’ve not already obtained this. I’m not already perfect or complete — that’s what Paul means by “perfect” here. He’s saying I’ve not yet reached the end. It’s all the same idea.
And he’s really making sure we get this, because in verse 13 he says it again:
“Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own.”
I do not consider that I have taken hold of it yet. I don’t yet know Jesus as fully now as I will know him then.
Church, do we know that’s also true of us? Did you know that we’ve not yet arrived? We’re still on the journey. And some of us really need to hear this: You’re not there yet.
And that means sometimes you’re gonna feel a little frustrated. You’re going to feel disappointed — hey, you might even feel a little weary from the journey in this world. I think a lot of times all that stuff we feel is really just a homesickness for heaven. Because you’re not there yet.
So what do we do? This is the second thing to remember for the journey.
2. You Keep Pressing On.
Look at verse 13 again:
“Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own.”
Now does that mean we quit? Because we can’t have it all to the fullest right now, do we throw the whole thing away?
Some people think like that. And that’s a sign of immaturity. One of the facts of immaturity is the inability to delay gratification. You must have it all right now or it’s like it doesn’t exist. You know that’s one of the reasons we sin. If you keep falling into the same sin, it’s not just that you’re a sinner, it’s that you’re immature.
What do you do when you want something, but you can’t have it right now? What do you do? You don’t abandon the pursuit, you don’t settle for cheap knock-offs, but you keep going until you get there. That’s what Paul says: I’ve not taken hold of it yet — 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.
And you can hear in this Paul’s radical singularity. This is the one thing. One thing. That’s the character of his pursuit.
Another way to say “one thing” is the phrase there in verse 13: “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.” You can hear in this that Paul is clearing away everything else. He is pushing everything else aside for the one thing of pursuing the prize.
Eternal-Goal Oriented
And verse 14 is a little bit of a clunky English phrase: there’s toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God …
It can get a little jumbled for us, but it makes more sense if we keep the “the goal” part with verse 13. Paul says, literally,
“forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, toward the goal, I press on for the prize …”
Paul mentions the goal here still as a way to characterize his pursuit. He’s headed in a direction. He’s eternal-goal-oriented. That’s how he pursues this prize. And what is this prize?
It’s the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul once again is talking about knowing Christ more clearly and fully. It’s the same thing he was talking about in verse 8, “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” It’s the same thing he had in mind in verse 11 when he mentioned the resurrection.
That’s the goal he’s looking forward to. That’s what he’s pressing on for, it’s to know Jesus more clearly and fully.
Compelled to Press On
Listen: that’s what compels Paul to press on. Does that compel you?
Look, I’m preaching to myself here as much as anybody else. As I was preparing the sermon this past week, I came to this part and I was challenged. Here’s the question:
Does the fact of knowing Christ more fully one day compel my radical pursuit of him now? Have I had a foretaste of the glory of Christ salient enough in this life to make me want more?
And my best answer is sometimes.
I love Jesus, but I don’t love him enough. And there are times when I feel bombarded and busied with the stuff of life, which is mostly good things, but I’m so busied with them that honestly a lot of times it feels like I’m just trying to make it through the day without sinning (and sometimes I can’t even do that!)
How do we radically pursue Jesus in this world when there’s so much other stuff going on?
That’s the question we must answer, and as I’ve tried to figure this out, there are at least three ways we could go about this. There are three ways we might navigate pursuing Jesus along with the existence of everything else. The first way says:
“I want everything else (and Jesus too).”
This is what you might call the typical “American Gospel.” We want all the extras. Whatever the world is selling as the next best thing, we want that — but we don’t realize that all these shiny things are actually the thorns Jesus talks about in his parable of the sower in Mark 4. We want all these things that are actually choking our pursuit of Christ. They are cutting the oxygen off of us having more of Jesus, but we want them and we allow them in because we’ve grown accustomed to a life that doesn’t bear much fruit.
“I want everything else (and Jesus too)” — that’s one way.
Now here’s another way on the other side:
“I want Jesus, therefore nothing else matters.”
This is what you might call the “Monastic Ideal.” It’s that you love Jesus more than anything. You want him more than anything, and you’re pressing on to know him, but what about … people … we still need other people and they need us. Chip Dodd just told us yesterday that God created us for relationship. We can’t live without them. So in your pursuit of Christ, what do you do about the other people around you in normal life?
It’s not an easy question. There is a tension here. Do you ever feel like other people make it harder for you to pursue Jesus? Kinda like this:
A few Sundays ago, on Easter, I was driving down Snelling and I had a load of kids with me — gifts, arrows, a full quiver, I’m a blessed man — and as I’m driving I’m listening to this song about the resurrection that I listen to every Easter. It’s a powerful song. It moves me every time and fuels my imagination. And I am close to Jesus listening to this song. And then right as the song is about to get to the best part, someone in the back says, “Dad!”
And you know, sometimes as a parent, you think: Maybe they think I didn’t hear them and they’ll stop. So I just turn up the radio. You know I got tears in my eyes. “Dad!” But I’m still in this moment. I turn it up a little bit more. It just gets louder: “Dad! Dad! Dad!” So I’m with the Lord, but finally I’m just like “What?!”
“Can we get Chipotle for lunch?”
And I’m thinking, Yeah, I think I could be a monk.
In case you didn’t know, I have eight children and I live in a modest-sized house — each person gets approximately 218 square feet to themselves. And if I’m honest, I love it, and sometimes I wanna be in a desert.
Is it right to say “I want Jesus, therefore nothing else matters”? No — it might sound good, but it’s an illusion. It’s not real life in this world. It’s less than what God wants for us.
So it’s neither American Gospel nor Monastic Ideal — it’s not “I want everything else (and Jesus too)” and it’s not “I want Jesus therefore nothing else matters.”
Instead, it should be:
“I want Jesus, therefore everything else matters.”
And of course the mattering comes in different degrees. This does not mean that everything else matters equally. It does not. Certain things are more important than others, and we need Christian wisdom to know what they are.
But if we truly want Jesus and we are surrendered to him, everything else in our lives, every other detail, is brought to him and — if it’s a thing, we ask: Will this thing help me get more of Jesus, or will it distract me from him? And if it’s a person, we ask: Can we pursue Jesus together? Can we do the journey together? Can I bring this person along with me so that we can have more of Jesus together?
I want Jesus, therefore everything else matters — and everything else is viewed through the lens of wanting more of him.
That’s how we radically pursue Jesus in this world.
Here’s how I’ve tried to put that into a question that I’ve been praying everyday for the last several weeks. The question is:
How can I have as much of Jesus as is possible for a forgiven sinner this side of heaven and do that with others?
I want us all to ask that question. I want that to be a question that Cities Church figures out. Let’s keep pressing on.
You gotta remember this on the journey. You’re not there yet. You keep pressing on.
3. You Were Made for This.
Okay, so what if you’re hearing all this, you read Philippians 3, and you think: “This is just too much for me”? … what you really want is just some sunshine and Netflix, and this “advanced Christianity” stuff is too much …
First, I’d say, if you call this “advanced Christianity” your wrong. This is just biblical faith. It’s maturity.
And the next thing I’d say is to look back at verse 12. We’ve focused on that the first half of verse 12, but now I want us to focus on the second half. Let’s read the whole thing again:
“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, [remember Paul is talking about knowing Christ more clearly and fully, which he will on that glorious day when he meets Jesus face-to-face. So I’ve not already obtained this, I’m not there yet —] but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”
The word we translate here “make it my own” is connected to the same verb for “obtain.” Another way to translate it is to say “to lay hold of.” I press on to lay hold of it.
This is important because Paul uses that same verb again in the last line of verse 12, but the verb is in the passive. Y’all look at the end of verse 12. The last line there in the ESV, “Christ Jesus has made me his own.” It’s literally: “I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.”
Paul is saying:
Not that I have already taken it or am already at the end, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.
Paul wants to take hold of knowing Jesus more clearly and fully, and that is actually why Jesus has taken hold of him. I want to take hold of Jesus because I was taken hold of by Jesus.
Christian, do you know that? You have been taken hold of by Jesus. That’s why in verse 14 Paul calls the prize of knowing Christ “the upward call of God.” It’s your calling. Your purpose. You were made for this.
If you are a Christian, you were made to know Christ. Christ has taken hold of you for that.
And there’s an amazing story for how this happened. It starts before the foundations of the world, when God the Father chose you in Christ, and Ephesians 1:4 says that he chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless before him. The Father chose you in Christ, before the world began, to be like Christ. That’s your purpose, from before you were born.
And then, in around 4BC, God the Father sent Jesus into the world, to be truly human in our place, to overcome all temptation, to bear our sins on the cross, to suffer the punishment we deserve.
Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried, and then raised from the dead, to save you and bring you back to the purpose you were made.
It’s good news. And in God’s timing, we’ve all heard that news, and what God does, upon us hearing that news, is he takes away our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh. He effectually draws us to Jesus by his free and special grace alone. We were dead, but he makes us alive, to begin the journey of knowing Christ, and he keeps us and preserves us — through all the ups and downs, through all the valleys and hard places — he keeps us until that glorious day when the good work he began in us is brought to completion. We will see Jesus and we will know him. Jesus has taken hold of you for that day.
“Never Knew My Mother Could Hug So Tight”
April 8, 1974 — we just celebrated that date last week. It’s the golden anniversary of when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s career home-run record.
Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth were baseball players — and one of the great things about baseball is that it’s a game with a journey element to it.
Think about this, how do you get points in baseball (we call them runs)? You get runs by by going where?
Home.
That’s the point of the game. You’re trying to go home, and you have to journey through these milestones: first base, second base, and third base. And you’ve got nine opponents out there trying to keep you from doing that. They are working together to stop you from going home. What a game!
But see, in the game, there’s this thing called a home-run. It’s when you hit the ball over the fence, and it’s the only hit you can get that guarantees you’re gonna make it home safely. You still have to run through those same milestones, but your opponents can’t touch you. You start the journey knowing you will make it home. That’s a home-run.
And well, anyways, Babe Ruth hit 714 of them, which was a crazy number. Nobody thought that record would be broken. In the 1973 season, Hank Aaron tied the record, season ended. But in 1974, in Hank Aaron’s 20th season, at 40 years old — he keeps playing and everyone knows it’s gonna happen. He’s gonna hit at least one home-run and break the record. And a lot of people did not like it. The racism was intense — they didn’t like that a black man was gonna beat Babe Ruth’s record. Babe Ruth was a legend — people were pulling against Hank Aaron. He received death threats and boxes of hate mail. He was under incredible pressure. Security was increased for every game. It was wearing him down.
And then on April 8, 1974, in Atlanta, against the Dodgers, Al Downing was the pitcher, Hank Aaron is up … I’ve watched the Ken Burns Baseball documentary so many times, I can hear the call…
He’s sittin’ on 714. Here’s the pitch by Downing. Swinging. There’s a drive into left-center field. That ball is gonna be-eee ... Outta here! It’s gone! It’s 715! There’s a new home run champion of all time, and it’s Henry Aaron.
And he runs the bases, the fans are going crazy, some are running on the field. But the most amazing moment is when Hank Aaron touched home. His whole team is crowded around the plate, cameras, and his mom was there waiting for him. And after he touched home, she laid hold him and just hugged him. It’s an iconic photo. Photographers couldn’t get a great photo of Hank Aaron because his mom has got him. You can Google it. She’s just squeezing him. Hank Aaron said after the game, “I never knew my mother could hug so tight.”
Hey, Christian, you’re gonna make it home one day, and I think you might say the same thing about Jesus. You never knew he could hug so tight. And remember, he chose you for that. And in terms of what Jesus can see, there’s no question for him. He’s already got us. We have been laid hold of by Jesus.
1) You’re not there yet.
2) You keep pressing on.
3) You were made for this.
And that’s what brings us to the Table.
The Table
This Table is for everyone on the journey. It’s for Christians.
If you’re here this morning and you’re not a Christian, it means you’re not on the journey … yet … but you can be. You can begin the journey today. Turn from your sin, put your faith in Jesus. Tell Jesus: I’m done with trying to save myself, I trust you to save me.
