Sometimes we meet a person who says,
“I don’t plan or hope for anything. That way I am never disappointed!”
But is that how life is meant to be?
We solve our problems by denial. We end up achieving very little.
No, it is important that we have
aims and goals. Not just any aims and goals, of course, but the right ones! And
it is important that we adopt those strategies that will enable us to achieve
them! That is a commonsense approach to most of the ordinary tasks of our life.
Things don't get done by themselves without our conscious thought, planning and
effort.
This same principle applies to our
spiritual life too. In a large measure, our spiritual goals and how we
endeavour to achieve them are a sign of where we are
in our relationship with the Lord.
In
Philippians 3, Paul reveals how he had thought of himself as a good-living Jew.
He could point to all his good credentials with truthfulness and pride. Surely
God must be pleased with him!
He was
circumcised when he was a week old, as every Jewish boy was. His parents had
been careful about all that should follow too... He was an Israelite by birth,
of the tribe of Benjamin, a pure-blooded Hebrew. Following the great
persecution of Jews in the time of the Maccabees in
which many devout Jews lost their lives, a number of people from other races
began to take a great interest in the Jewish religion – there must be something
in it if people are prepared to die for it. Some of these people attended the
synagogue services as “God-fearers”. Others became “proselytes” – undergoing
instruction, circumcision and baptism and being permitted to offer sacrifices
in the
So he born into the right nation and family. And he took his
religious upbringing with the utmost seriousness. As far as keeping the Jewish
Law was concerned, he was a Pharisee. We tend to regard the Pharisees as harsh
extremists. We need to understand something of the background of the Maccabean period – between the Testaments – in which they
developed.
Alexander
the Great had campaigned to spread the Greek language and culture throughout
the whole of the ancient world. Following his death, the Hellenistic Empire was
divided among his generals. Antiochus Epiphanes had
control over the section which included
Little
wonder that the Pharisee sect arose with a strong determination to ensure that
the whole Law be kept, no matter what. So Paul is saying,
I had a strong and very particular concern to observe all the Law. And I was so
zealous that I persecuted the church. His persecution of Christians arose from
this background. After all that we have gone through, we don’t want anyone
bringing in new doctrines to lead us away from a strict observance of the Law.
Paul
could even claim that, as far as a person can be righteous by obeying the
commands of the Law, he was without fault. That’s a rather bold claim to make!
“But”, he
says, “whatever was to my profit I now consider
loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss
compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord”.
So what
is important for Paul now? Knowing Christ, gaining Christ and being completely
united to him, having a right relationship (or righteousness) with God on the
sole basis of faith in Christ...
In the
previous chapter, Paul had spoken about the mind of Christ and a time when “at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Now here is Paul doing just that –
laying all his personal credentials aside and acknowledging the sole Lordship
of Christ. No longer will he plead where he has come from or what he has done.
From now on his sole glory is what Christ has done for him.
And his goal in life? “I want to know
Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his
sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the
resurrection from the dead.” No longer his spiritual credentials but knowing Christ – restored into
personal relationship with Christ because of his death for our sins on the
cross. Paul extends this by going on to speak of sharing his sufferings and
becoming like him in his death. On the one hand we
share his sufferings when we receive for ourselves what he alone can do for us
by his sufferings. And we become like him in his death when the principle of
sin is rooted out of our lives.
On the
other, Paul had suffered as a disciple of Christ. Listen to his record from 2
Corinthians 11 – “Five
times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was
beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a
night and a day in the open sea, I have been
constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from
bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger
in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from
false brothers...” (vv. 24-26). Jesus did warn us, “In the world you will have
trouble” (Jn 16.33). He did say, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say
all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great
is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who
were before you"
(Mt 5.11-12).
But Paul
is not one of those queer people who enjoy suffering. He accepts that he has
suffered and will suffer for the cause of Christ. But his confident goal is
that he will experience the power of his resurrection and that he will be
raised from death to life. Christ died for my sin. I am forgiven. But I want to
experience the resurrection – the complete overcoming of sin in my present
life. I suffer for the cause of Christ. But my confident hope is that beyond
suffering and death I will experience a resurrection into the life to come.
So Paul has told us what he wants in
life – the “all I want” as the Good News Bible puts it. How far has he gone
towards achieving it?
He tells us plainly, “Not that I have already obtained all
this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that
for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet
to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and
straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win
the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
As long as this life continues, Paul
knows that his great quest is not complete. He needs to know Christ more. He
knows he is forgiven, but longs for more of the redeeming grace of Christ in
all areas of his life. He may be in prison for his faith, but knows that he has
still to serve his Lord, no matter what the cost. He affirms that he belongs to
Christ – Christ Jesus has already taken hold of him. But he knows that he still
has a race to run, a prize to attain, and he will continue to press forward to
reach it.
Life isn’t a sprint but a marathon.
It is easy to get distracted. We have seen on television the marathon runner
who glances over his shoulder, only to be passed at that very moment. We don’t
deny the past – either the negatives of our own sins and failures and hurts
that others have done to us or the positively amazing grace of God towards us.
But God calls us forward – forward to a life transformed into what he always
meant us to be.
To be spiritually mature, Paul says,
is to have this attitude that continually strives to go forward.
Sadly, Paul knows some who call themselves
Christians but whose lives make them enemies of Christ’s death on the cross.
They are not moving forward in a disciplined way. Their destiny, Paul is
saying, is destruction, because their god is their stomach – their bodily
desires... they think only of the things of this world.
But, Paul says, we are citizens of
heaven. We know where we belong. We know our destiny and our goal. We know our
Saviour and long for the time when he will change our weak mortal bodies and
make them like his own glorious body. We are not proud of the evidences of our
weakness. Our desire and goal is that these be overcome through the power of
Christ within us.
In this
chapter Paul has given us two important focal points for our lives – all I
want... and the one thing I do...
All I
want is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of
sharing his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so to attain
resurrection from the dead. This is the goal of Paul's life.
The one
thing I do... forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards
the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Paul is actively pursuing his goal
by the grace of God in Christ Jesus and in the power of his Spirit.
Where are you now in the spiritual race? Never forget that your goal is to know Christ! And don’t forget that the finishing line is up ahead! Christ has redeemed you. Christ is with you. But he is also there at the finishing line waiting to give you the prize! Keep pressing forward!
© Peter J. Blackburn, Kennedy, 24
March 2007
Except where otherwise noted, Scripture
quotations are from the New International Version, © International Bible
Society, 1984.
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