Pressing on

philippians 3:12-16

When we are in the middle of something troubling or challenging, We can lose our focus, right? the passage we are looking at today is about our faith in Jesus. there are times here as well that we can have challenges and struggles.

New Living Translation (Chapter 3)

12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.

Q perfection is mentioned twice here . What do you think this perfection means ?

A. vs. 21 says to bring everything under his control. being wholly surrendered

New Living Translation Chapter 3

13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

I’m going to tell a story from decades ago from the movie Chariots of Fire. One of the final races was left to be run: the 440 yards (the old version of today’s 400 metres). The athletes were bunched together as they came to the first bend, and one of them was pushed over and fell right off the track. Quick as a flash he was back on his feet, and, as though electrically charged by the incident, caught the other runners with a few paces to go and overtook them to win on the line. It was a famous victory, which features a biography of Eric Liddell

Q. What would you have done?

Most of us, I suspect, would have accepted from the moment we fell over that we were out of the race, with no hope left. We might have been angry, but there would be nothing we could do about it. What had in fact just happened would keep us enslaved, with no hope of going on to what might have happened. With the athlete in question—the famous Eric Liddell—it was just the opposite. It was as though he had been reading this passage of Paul: forget what’s behind, strain every nerve to go after what’s ahead, and chase on towards the finishing post

Paul, USED an athletic metaphor for . This is partly because he ended the previous paragraph with talk of the resurrection which lies still in the future, and towards which, therefore, all Christians are drawn like athletes sprinting towards the end of the race. As he stresses in verse 13, it’s important to concentrate on the one aim in view: keeping on going forward towards that goal.

New Living Translation Chapter 3

15 Let all who are spiritually mature agree on these things. If you disagree on some point, I believe God will make it plain to you. 16 But we must hold on to the progress we have already made.

This same message was stated in vs.12-13. There is a thing of focusing here. we have to narrow our thinking and our activities. I am learning this lesson right now with this counseling course I am taking…. I enjoy being involved in many ministries, but have had to quit doing some things for now to make room to focus and act on the Counseling course-work I’m doing . I have wanted to quit at times, and am having to delay my graduation from May to December. But Im am pressing on to the prize. why? because I know it’s the right thing for me to do. Also what Paul says next:

New Living Translation Chapter 3

17 Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example. 18 For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ

Paul is using his own path of discipleship as an example for the Philippian church to follow, he wants to head off any idea that once you have become a mature Christian you have ‘arrived’, in the sense that there is no more travelling to do. He is gently warning against any tendency to have a super-spiritual view of Christianity which imagines that the full life of the age to come can be had in the present, without waiting for the resurrection itself.

He has said that he hasn’t arrived yet and we shouldn’t think this either. It’s a pride trap.

New Living Translation (Chapter 3)

17 Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example. 18 For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth.

New Living Translation (Chapter 3)

20 But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. 21 He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control.

Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters Citizens of Heaven (Philippians 3:17–4:1)

That is the picture Paul has in mind in verses 20 and 21. The church is at present a colony of heaven, with the responsibility (as we say in the Lord’s Prayer) for bringing the life and rule of heaven to bear on earth. We are not, of course, very good at doing this; we often find ourselves weak and helpless, and our physical bodies themselves are growing old and tired, decaying and ready to die. But our hope is that the true saviour, the true Lord, King Jesus himself will come from heaven and change all that. He is going to transform the entire world so that it is full of his glory, full of the life and power of heaven. And, as part of that, he is going to transform our bodies so that they are like his glorious body, the body which was itself transformed after his cruel death so that it became wonderfully alive again with a life that death and decay could never touch again.

Chapter 4

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stay true to the Lord. I love you and long to see you, dear friends, for you are my joy and the crown I receive for my work.

Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters (Citizens of Heaven (Philippians 4:1))

Knowing this will help us to ‘stand firm in the Lord’ (4:1); and now we can see more clearly what that means. It doesn’t just mean remaining constant in faith. It means giving allegiance to Jesus, rather than to Caesar, as the true Lord. Paul has described the church, and its Lord, in such a way that the Philippians could hardly miss the allusion to Rome and Caesar. This is the greatest challenge of the letter: that the Christians in Philippi, whether or not they were themselves Roman citizens (some probably were, many probably weren’t), would think out what it means to give their primary allegiance not to Rome but to heaven, not to Caesar but to Jesus—and to trust that Jesus would in due time bring the life and rule of heaven to bear on the whole world, themselves included.

New Living Translation Chapter 4

2 Now I appeal to Euodia and Syntyche. Please, because you belong to the Lord, settle your disagreement. 3 And I ask you, my true partner, to help these two women, for they worked hard with me in telling others the Good News. They worked along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are written in the Book of Life.

You never know when it’s going to happen. Two people who one day are good friends, working alongside each other in the church or community, can suddenly change . A sharp word from one, half-heard by the other; a bitter response, said hastily and without quite meaning it; then the slamming of doors, the face turned away in the street, the sense (on both sides) of hurt so great, and offence so deep, that nothing can mend it. this has happened more than once in my family. Paul asked Timothy to “help the two women”

Q. what should “paul’s true partner “do to help these women?

It is particularly sad and tragic when it occurs within a Christian community where the whole whole attitude should be one of mutual love, forgiveness and support; but the chances are that theywill accuse the other of being the first to break this code, neither is prepared to back down.

But a word addressed to both parties might just break the deadlock (though you’d have to know what you were doing; it might make it worse). We assume from verse 2 that Paul knew what he was doing. Two women in Philippi, Euodia and Syntyche, have fallen out, and he’s appealing publicly for them to come to agreement. The commands of 2:1–4 were not, then, simply addressed to the church in general, though that was true as well; they had a particular case in mind.

back to philippians 2:1-4

Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters Unity in Everything (Philippians 2:1–4)

1 So if our shared life in the king brings you any comfort; if love still has the power to make you cheerful; if we really do have a partnership in the spirit; if your hearts are at all moved with affection and sympathy—2 then make my joy complete! Bring your thinking into line with one another.

Here’s how to do it. Hold on to the same love; bring your innermost lives into harmony; fix your minds on the same object. 3 Never act out of selfish ambition or vanity; instead, regard everybody else as your superior. 4 Look after each other’s best interests, not your own.

These women might have had theological differences, resentments from past events long ago, and really different preferences in styles of worship. There are also plain personality disagreements, arguments on issues of moral behaviour, politics, and so on. How can we even begin to think that it might be possible to live the way Paul indicates here—thinking the same, loving each other completely, regarding everyone else (and their opinions!) as superior to you and your own?

If they decide to live by what these passages say, they could work it out.

that would be a reason to rejoice, but Paul calls us to rejoice anyway.

New Living Translation Chapter 4

4 Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! 5 Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon.