Pursue the Prize

Sermon: FCC Afton 11-6-2022 Pursue the Prize! Scripture: Philippians 3:12-21 Recap: -Last week, we paused in our survey of the Philippians to examine the roots of controversy regarding Halloween, or All Hallow's Eve, and the church's rightful and needed place within that holiday. We looked at how the enemy is victorious when the church remains silent and neutral on the "devil days," even though all days belong to God and glorify Him- and the church is called to preach and imitate Christ every day and in every circumstance, especially when the world opposes it and tells us to be silent. The enemy doesn't get days of celebration; they are reserved for God, to honor and glorify Him, so the enemy has to steal them by trickery. And indeed, he has gotten the church to believe that Christians must be silent or that somehow we are glorifying paganism by being active on Halloween. Instead, we examined the Christian roots of All Hallow's Eve, the day before All Saint's Day- the day of remembrance of all the Believers who have given their lives in service of Christ. We looked at how their sacrifice should inspire us to mature in our faith and inspire us to live effective lives of making disciples for Jesus. This message about the example of the saints and how our faith is shaped by them slips perfectly like a puzzle piece right into our survey of Philippians. Two weeks ago, we ended with Paul's description of his ultimate goal in this life: to know Christ intimately, to know the power of the resurrection, to suffer on Christ's behalf, and even to be willing to die for Him- that is the message of every martyr that has been found worthy to die on Christ's behalf. It is the embodiment of Hebrews 12:2, to fix your eyes on Christ and to run the race before you with perseverance- and that is exactly where we find Paul today. Read Philippians 3:12-21 Pray here! -Main Idea: There is a race laid out before you that you are called to run. The race has a finish line, a goal line, that you are called to cross- and the prize lies just on the other side. -The athletic metaphor is one that transcends time and culture: training, strengthening bodies, and recreation are activities that everyone is familiar with, and this metaphor is one of Paul's favorites for the church. He often compared the Christian life to athletics, making an analogy to the Greek games, most notably to the races, boxing, and wrestling. Hebrews 12:1-2 "Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfector of our faith." 1 Cor. 9:24-27 "Don't you know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way to win the prize. Now everyone who competes exercises self-control in everything. However, they do it to receive a crown that will fade away, but we do it to receive a crown that will never fade away. Therefore, I do not run like one who runs aimlessly or box like one beating the air. Instead, I discipline my body and put it under strict control, so that after preaching the Gospel to others, I will not myself be disqualified." 2 Timothy 4:7 "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." Acts 20:24 "But I count my life of no value to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the Gospel of God's grace." Ephesians 6:12 "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rules, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." An important context to Paul's analogies is this: Paul references individual sports- there are some team aspects to racing today, but in the Greek Olympics, it was an individual achievement to win a race. While we are a Body of Believers and the church has a general purpose for which we all strive to achieve, this race in which we are all running is made up of individual competitors. More aptly, while we here today all have races that are overlapping to some degree, we are each running an individual race; victory is achieved on the merit of the individual; those who would win the Crown of Life that James talks about in James 1:12 must do it by being faithful to their own course. You cannot win your race on the coattails of your parents! The Greek Olympics that Paul is referencing were not for the casual athlete- it took diligent training and a high level of commitment, but victory came with great benefit. The metaphor used here is an apt one- in both the athletic event and the Christian life, both participants must be committed to their task; both must train to become more mature/ prepared; both must endure through trials in order to be considered eligible for the prize. But where the prize for the athlete might be honor, monetary gifts, an increase in social station, or the right to marry, the reward for the Believer is right relationship with the Father, holiness and sanctification, and eternal life beside our Savior. In the same way, dishonor awaited those who failed in their task, who cheated, who did not reach the level of training they had committed to, or who was disqualified in the midst of the race. There was a great level of cultural shame attached to be disqualified from the race. This brings much needed context to Jesus' statement in Matthew 24:13: "Only those who endure to the end will be saved." For the athlete, disqualification might come with dishonor and shame, but for the Believer, the consequences of being disqualified carry eternal implications! We find Paul in the midst of his race, striving to run to win the prize, disciplining his body to bring it under strict control so that he might not be disqualified. Paul, an Apostle who spoke directly to Christ, who would go on to become a martyr for Christ, who was the most profound, effective missionary and minister of the Gospel, described the goal line of his race: to know Christ intimately and to partner with Him in His suffering and death, and describes to us his desire that he might not stumble before the end because he wanted to cross the finish line and achieve his goal. He says, "I'm still running this race. I've not yet achieved the goal, nor achieved the prize. I've not reached maturity, but I am striving toward it because Christ Jesus has found me worthy to have taken hold of." We each have a difficult race to run, each with different specific tasks to accomplish along the way, in a world that hates the King that we represent and run for, with an enemy that wants to trip us up, to see us disqualified and not be able to endure through to the end. It's not going to be an easy race, nor is it one that is readily understood by the Church: "What do you mean there is more to this Christian life than just praying a prayer when you're a kid?" Paul uses this analogy specifically because everyone would have known what it meant- it's going to take work and training! Otherwise, Paul would have told us, "Just prayer the prayer and try to be a good person." Instead, he says, "Make every effort to finish well and reach the goal! Give it your all! Go all in!" Then he continues: "You who are spiritually mature should understand what I'm saying. If you're not understanding, ask God and He'll reveal it to you or He will give you opportunities to learn these truths." Truth #1: Pursue the prize! -Why do you think Paul chooses this verbiage? Pursue. It means to run after something, to seek it, or search for it aggressively. Discuss: Temple Run or Subway Surfer- you run and run and run, and dodge things in the way, and deal with traps, and try not to crash, because then your run is over. -This Christian life is the same, except far too many of us have believed the lie from the enemy that this race we are running is just some kind of leisurely jog! This is not some afternoon pleasure stroll. This is more like running the gauntlet behind enemy lines, pursuing the most important prize, but also dodging all the attacks and traps that the enemy throws at us to knock us out of the race. Paul shares this metaphor of being a runner, knowing that all of his readers would understand instinctively what he was talking about: they would have understood that when Paul calls himself a runner that he was also saying that he had spent a considerable amount of time maturing and preparing for the race itself; they would have understood his desire to persevere and not be disqualified in the race- indeed, Paul already bore the shame of having persecuted the church, so he was keenly aware of bearing more shame from stumbling in his Christian walk. Paul says, "I do not consider myself to have taken hold of my goal, but one thing I do [consider]: forgetting what is behind, I become a man of one singular purpose, getting that prize!" Paul has already explained that he considered everything about his past and his old self as rubbish and as a loss; he called them worthless- now he says, I disregard those things so thoroughly that I have even forgotten what they were- "I have so little regard for my own self-identity, I have forgotten who I used to be." Instead, I reach for things ahead: the privileges and responsibilities of the Christian faith, the opportunity to worship the Father, the opportunity to serve others so that I can tell them about Jesus, and the personal development of Christian character. I forget who I use to be so that I can focus instead on becoming more like Christ and becoming a better example of who He is. "Forgetting the things of the past and reaching toward becoming more like Jesus, I run this race and pursue the prize set before me!" The goal line toward which Paul is running is, of course, the finish line of life and then judgment beyond- the prize would be the Crown of Life described by James and the Crown of Righteousness that Paul describes in 2 Timothy 4:8 as the prize for those who run the race well- referencing the laurel crown worn by the winner of the Olympic Games, which itself was a reference to the crowns worn by ancient rulers, crowns of leaves in gold- also referenced by the Romans when they put the crown of thorns on the head of Jesus to mock Him as the King of the Jews. We receive a crown that signifies that we are victorious in succeeding in this life of trials and that we have been adopted into the Royal Family as a Child of God- that also signifies that we have endured as Christ endured till the end. The Heavenly Call that Paul references here is God's purpose that He has for us: salvation and reconciliation, conformity to Christ's example, joint inheritance with Christ, right relationship with God, and a home for eternity with Him. God has called you to run this race well and to pursue the prize that He offers: the entry fee is salvation; the starting line is reconciliation; preparation and endurance along the way is spiritual maturity and becoming more and more like Christ; your goal is intimacy with Christ and sharing in His suffering; the finish line is resting in God's peace; the prize is the Crown of Life and eternity beside Him in Heaven. Are you striving in this life race to get to the prize? Maybe you're at the starting line today; maybe you've never surrendered your life to Christ and haven't started the race yet, but you can begin today- you can leave your old life behind and start becoming more like Jesus. You can begin pursuing the prize that God has for you! Truth #2: An exhortation to live a Godly life! -Now moves on from his athletics analogy to exhortation for the church. He says, "I just wanted you to be aware of where I am; you should already know the rest of this! You should have this as a foundational understanding!" Now he encourages the Philippians to be imitators of him as he is an imitator of Christ, to use him as their model for how to be like Christ, echoing what he told the Corinthian church in 1 Cor. 11:11, "Imitate me as I imitate Christ." Paul says, "Watch how I run; watch how I train and mature; watch how I pursue the prize! And then follow my example!" He continues: We have been given truth from Christ; now we need to live up to its standard. Where he had just said, Imitate me, now he expounds upon the idea to include: watch and imitate those who are already living up to the truth that they have been given. You have been given plenty of examples of this Christian faith to examine and imitate. Each of those examples will have a different level of maturity for you to learn from as you mature; some that you imitated early in your maturation you will pass by as you learn more about Jesus and grow closer to Him; they may not have grown much, but that is your task: to grow closer to Jesus and become more and more like Him. Your faith journey is one of growth; it cannot remain stagnant. Remaining stagnant means you stop running, and you can't stop running for too long without being disqualified from the race. You will not know or understand everything at the beginning of the race, but how much you know and understand at the end of the race depends on how much you seek to know Christ and become more like Him, how much you study His Word, and how much you watch and examine those with more maturity than you. Paul then sets a line of demarcation: there are those whose lives you should watch and imitate- everyone else is an enemy of Christ: their end will not be a crown of life, but rather destruction and separation from God for eternity. Notice that these enemies of Christ include everyone who does not live according to the example we see in Pail, or does not live according to the truths of Christ that we have received from God. This could include many in the Church, many who call themselves Believers of Jesus- if they do not follow His truth, then Paul calls them Christ's enemy and says, "Do NOT imitate them!" Their end is destruction; they are living only to fulfill their own desires and are focused on earthly matters. But for us, those of us living for Christ and following His teaching, our citizenship is in Heaven. We eagerly await our Savior, who will transform this rundown earthen vessel into the likeness of His glory. Friends, the race that we are running will one day come to an end- Paul asks a pretty clear question here: will you end your race with the Crown of Righteousness atop your brow, and gain the citizenship of Heaven? Or will you seek your own will and find an end of destruction? The way of Christ may be a tough road to run on now, but the goal line is fantastic and the prize is eternal life with Jesus; your own way may seem the better and easier way now, but the end will be destruction. Invitation: Are you living your life to serve Christ today? Are you setting an example for others to follow?