God doesn’t want us resting on our laurels or cruising in our Christian life. He wants us pressing on to grow in our relationship with Christ and becoming more like Jesus!
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Pressing On!
Philippians 3:12-16
In our last study we looked at the excellency of knowing Christ. We saw that knowing Christ is Precious, Pardoning, Powerful, Painful, and Progressive.
Knowing Christ is precious. Paul says it is of surpassing value. There is nothing more valuable in this life than knowing Jesus.
Knowing Christ is pardoning. Paul says in verse 9 that when we come to know Christ, we receive a righteousness from God on the basis of faith. All our sins are gone, and God covers us with Christ’s righteousness.
Knowing Christ is Powerful. When we come to know Him we experience the power of His resurrection. We experience it initially in our regeneration, but then throughout our Christian life we experience Christ’s power to endure trials, to serve others, to love the unloveable, and to witness for Christ, among others.
Knowing Christ is Painful. When we come to know Him we enter into the fellowship of His sufferings. Christ suffered persecution at the hands of His enemies, and so will we. Not only that but we are also conformed to His death as we deny our own will, and choose His instead, just as Christ prayed, “Not my will, but Thine be done.”
Knowing Christ is Progressive. Coming to know Christ is the path that leads somewhere. Where does it lead? All the way to the resurrection of the dead.
But Paul doesn’t want to be misunderstood on that last point. He doesn’t want the Philippians to think that he has somehow reached the perfection that results at the resurrection of the dead. And his desire to clear up any confusion, launches him into this next paragraph. The central idea of this next paragraph is that Paul presses on.
As Paul speaks about pressing on mentions a
- Sanctified Dissatisfaction
- Single Determination
- Supreme Desire
1. Paul’s Sanctified Dissatisfaction
Three times Paul states his sanctified dissatisfaction.
“Not that I have already obtained it”
“Not that I have already become perfect”
“I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet”
In other words, Paul is clearly saying, “I have not arrived.” I have not reached my goal.
“Not that I have already obtained it.” What is the “it” that Paul had not already obtained. Well, the verse directly preceding that one speaks of attaining to the resurrection from the dead. When a Christian is raised from the dead, He will have reached spiritual perfection. His war with sin will be over. He will be like Christ. He will never sin again! Paul had not obtained spiritual perfection. We know that is what he has in mind because he says, “or have already become perfect.” Let no one think that I have no further spiritual growth to achieve. Not true! There is a Wesleyan doctrine called “Perfectionism” in which they teach that a believer can experience a crisis point in his life in which he experiences entire sanctification, and from that point on he does not sin any more. Or, if he does, at least it is not intentional sin. Paul knew of no such doctrine. Here Paul is 25 or 30 years into his Christian life, and he has certainly not reached perfection!
“I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” Now, what is Paul referring to? What was that for which he was laid hold of by Christ Jesus? Well, let’s take a look at other things he wrote:
Ephesians 1:4, “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.” There is the purpose for which God chose us. Have you ever wondered? He chose us that we would be holy and blameless before Him. That is God’s ultimate goal for us.
Ephesians 5:25-27, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.” Here we are given another answer to the question, “what did Christ lay hold of Paul for?” Let’s rephrase it in the words of Ephesians 5:25-27, “why did Christ love the church and give Himself up for her?”
- So that He might sanctify her
- That He might present to Himself the church in all her glory
- Having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing
- But that she would be holy and blameless.
Did you notice that Paul ends up with the very same reason that He already gave 4 chapters earlier? God chose us and Christ loved us and died for us, that we would be holy and blameless. That is what Christ laid hold of us for. That is what we will experience at the resurrection of the dead. That is what Paul meant by “perfect.”
Think with me of Romans 8:29, “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.”
God’s goal with every Christian, is to make them like His Son. He starts that work at the believer’s conversion, and continues that work throughout his life, but finishes that work when he dies and comes into the Lord’s presence.
Paul was not satisfied with where he was at spiritually. He knew he was still a work in progress. He would not rest on his laurels. If the great apostle was not satisfied with his spiritual state, how can we be?
Do you have a sanctified dissatisfaction with your relationship with the Lord? Or, are you completely content with your spiritual condition? Do you desire to have more love for God, more love for the church, more love for the lost, more zeal, more deadness to the world, more personal holiness? Yes, it is true, we should be content regarding our outward state, but not our spiritual state. Let’s determine in 2022 we are not going to slow down or stand still or slide backwards or become content with where we are at spiritually. Let’s long for more of Christ and conformity to Him!
2. Paul’s Single Determination
I press on. This is the main driving verb of the passage. Paul repeats it twice. In verse 12 he writes, “I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” In verse 14 he writes, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
This word can mean “pursue” or “follow after.” In fact, in 3:6, the very same Greek verb is translated as “persecute.” The verb is found 42 times in the New Testament, and 30 of those times it is translated as “persecute.” The idea behind persecute is that someone is pursuing another in order to do harm. Well, just as Paul used to persecute the church, now He is pursuing Christ and eternal glory. The word is used of a hunter chasing down his prey. “I press on” has the meaning of “I pursue, I chase after, I follow hard after God.”
To lay hold of. The idea here is to chase down in order to lay hold of and arrest. Jesus Christ chased down Paul on the Damascus Road and arrested him. Just like a policeman will chase down a criminal in order to arrest him, so too Christ chased Paul down until He got him! He apprehended him. He turned him from his old empty life, and turned him completely around to a new life. Well, now Paul is chasing down Jesus Christ and His holiness.
One thing I do. This reveals a lot about the apostle. He had narrowed down all of the important things in his life into a laser focus. When I was a kid, we used to drive up to Washington where my parent’s relatives lived. We would go to my Grandma’s house, and take a magnifying glass, and hold it just right so the rays of the sun shining through it would focus on a point on a board. By holding it real still, the heat of the sun would pour into a single point until it began to burn. By doing that, we would use that magnifying glass to burn our initials into a board. Well, Paul had learned to take everything else in his life and focus it down to one essential thing. What was it? Pressing on toward the goal. We might be involved in many different Christian activities. But can you say, “one thing I do”? The secret of spiritual progress is to concentrate on one thing. It is to be a person of one great aim. It describes the man or woman of God who has decided what the greatest priority of life is, and is pressing on toward that priority come what may.
Forgetting what lies behind. If you are an athlete running in a race, it is disastrous to always be looking behind you. So too, in our Christian life we must not be looking back. When Paul spoke of forgetting, he was not talking about failing to remember what he did in his past. He was talking about refusing to be affected by the past. So, just what are we to forget?
Our Failures. These are our personal regrets. Many Christians have been paralyzed in their Christian life because of personal regrets. They are always looking back to that time when they failed the Lord, or got involved in sin. Here’s the deal – there is nothing we can do to change the past. So, dwelling on it only hinders our present. Sometimes we look back at the sins of others. Maybe someone sinned against you and hurt you or abused you, and you find yourself resentful and bitter and unwilling to forgive. That will only hurt you in your present.
Our Successes. If we find ourselves looking back on our successes and the good old days, and the times when we were really walking with the Lord, what effect does that have? It can cause us to become complacent about our present. When we focus on our past, we can’t be focusing on our present, and thus will not make spiritual progress currently.
Reaching forward to what lies ahead. The idea here is “stretching forward, straining forward.” This is the picture of a runner in a race who is straining every muscle and nerve as he strives to reach the finish line first. Does this describe you?
My friends, do you have a single determination? Are you determined not look back at your failures or successes, but to strain forward to win the race? I pray we can all answer “Yes”!
3. A Supreme Desire
What was Paul pressing on for?
The goal. What is he talking about? The finish line. In 2 Timothy 4:7 Paul says as he is about to die, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.” The goal is to finish the course. He didn’t want to be disqualified. He wanted to finish well, and hear “Well done!”
For the prize. When Paul died in Christ and heard “well done”, he would receive the prize. What was it?
The upward call of God in Christ Jesus. I believe Paul is talking about being received into Christ’s eternal kingdom. He’s talking about being resurrected, attaining to sinless perfection, seeing Christ face to face, worshiping and serving Him forever. He’s talking about what he says in 3:20-21, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.”
Conclusion
- Pressing On is the duty of Every Christian: In verse 15 Paul writes, “Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you.” Now, when he mentions “as many as are perfect” of course he doesn’t mean morally perfect, because Jesus is the only man who has ever been perfect or ever will be! He means “as many as are mature or complete.” What are they to do? Have the same attitude that Paul has. Which is what? Pressing on toward perfection. And even if there were some who did not agree with him, Paul knew that the Lord would reveal the truth to them. So, this aggressive pressing on toward perfection in the Christian life is something that every Christian should be pursuing. It is not just for the spiritual elite, the Rambo’s of the faith. This is for you. God’s will is for you to press on toward Christlikeness every day. This is your marching orders from King Jesus!
- Pressing On is the Remedy against Backsliding: In verse 16, Paul says, “however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.” In other words, don’t slip backwards in your standard of living. Don’t backslide. Don’t give hard earned ground back to the devil! Well, how can we keep from doing that? We must continue pressing on toward the goal for the prize. We must make holiness of life our daily aim, and seek after it with all our might.
- Pressing On Involves Faith and Action: In the process of sanctification, there are some things that God does, and there is also some things we do. The one extreme is pietism, where we see the Christian life as all up to me. We see the Christian life as a list of things we must do, and we go to work to do them. The other extreme is quietism. This is the view that sees the Christian life as passive. “Let go and let God.” This view says that the Christian life is all up to God. He feels he must never take the initiative in the Christian life for fear that he might be acting in the flesh.
Notice how the Bible words things. “I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” “The upward call of God.” Christ laid hold of Paul. God had called Paul. God was actively working in Paul’s life. But then notice the other side – “I press on”; “one thing I do”; “forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead.” Paul is working and God is working. That is the Biblical description of sanctification. There is a role God plays and a role we play. We are active and dependent.
Remember when Amalek came and fought against Israel in Exodus 17? In order to win the battle, they needed both Moses on top of the hill, and Joshua down on the battlefield. Moses lifting up the staff of God represents faith, dependence, prayer. Joshua down on the battlefield represents action, choices, effort. It was not one OR the other. It was one AND the other. The Christian life is not only about trusting God to make you holy. It is also about you putting action to your faith and deciding you will not let sin reign in your mortal body. It is about disciplining your body to get up early so you have time before work to read the Scriptures and journal and pray and worship.
So, brothers and sisters, will you press on this week, this month, this year? Will you make it your aim to grow in Christlikeness? Will you war against your sin, and do all in your power to cultivate the fruit of the Spirit? These are very important and very serious matters. May God make it so for Jesus’ sake.
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