Resting Is Not An Option

Sleep, rest, relaxation, vacation, retreat are all words that speak of slowing down and getting away from the hustle and bustle of life. Everyone in the auditorium and on our livestream live busy lives regardless of our stage in life. Our business will vary in type and frequency but we are all busy. It is often joked about that when a person retires is when their work life begins…or something like that.

Just this last week all of our kids in the church that go to Bethany had a “winter break” on Monday and Tuesday only to be extended and joined by all schools on Wednesday and Thursday due to our snow and rain. They had a break where I am sure our teenagers used to their advantage and got up early to do as much fun stuff as possible in the day…okay, so probably the opposite and chose to sleep a “few extra” hours.

All of this entails rest. Yes, God has designed our bodies to need and require rest. However, he did not design our spiritual lives in the same manner. For the Christian, there is no time to rest. Resting is not an option in the Christian life. We are going to see this fleshed out this morning.

Context

Paul in chapter 3 begins to share personal testimony about his own spiritual life. He describes his past, present, and future. He uses his own testimony to explain the whole of salvation—justification, sanctification, and glorification. He discusses justification by sharing what he was before salvation and the change that took place because of salvation. When it came to living on laurels and credentials, Paul had them. He as a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He was educated and well-to-do. He held to the law religiously, he described himself in light of the law as being blameless. He then moves back to his relationship with Christ. In Philippians 3:8

Philippians 3:8 NASB95

8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,

Paul declares that nothing compares to the immense value of knowing Christ. Even through the suffering and loss it was all to know Christ more personally and be found in him living out the righteousness through faith in Christ which comes from God. He then emphasizes emphatically his intense desire to know God. He counts all things loss so he can know Christ.

The Epistle to the Philippians (3. A Radical Change: Paul’s Present Values (3:7–11))

S. Kim is correct when he concludes: ‘the life of discipleship, which involves our participation in Christ’s sufferings and our being conformed to his death, is paradoxically the process in which we are being transformed into the image of Christ from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor 3:18) and in which the resurrection life of Jesus is being manifested in our mortal bodies (2 Cor 4:10f.; Phil 3:10).

Philippians—The Fellowship of the Gospel (His Power)

“The power of his resurrection” is God’s power, his life-giving power that he deployed in raising Christ from the dead, and the power that God uses to bring about and sustain the new life that the Christian receives from Christ and shares with him.

Philippians—The Fellowship of the Gospel (His Power)

Paul experienced this power when he was transformed from his self-righteous way of life to become a humble follower of Christ. And now he desired to live his present life in the same God-given power—“the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead” (Ephesians 1:19, 20)

It is from this declaration that Paul shifts to give a type of disclaimer and challenge for each Christian through his own testimony. His explanation is given in the face of Judaizers and false teaching that one can reach perfection. Today, we face similar teaching. One TV preaching personality had this to say, “The world’s shortages have no effect on someone who has already gone to heaven. Therefore, they should have no effect on us here who have made Jesus Lord of our lives.” (R. Kent Hughes, Philippians: The Fellowship of the Gospel, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2007), 146.)

The pressures of the surrounding pagan culture dampen and even extinguish the enthusiasm and determination of Christians to press on to maturity in their obedience to the call of God. Many succumbed to these pressures, gave up their commitment to Christ, and fell back into the popular immorality of their culture. In this section Paul seeks to inspire them to get back in the race and live up to their commitment to Christ. Paul’s dramatic imagery of his race cuts both ways: perfectionists who claim to have already arrived at the goal and libertines who have dropped out of the race are both called to get back on track and press on. (PNTC, Philippians)

It is here that Paul begins to explain that the Christian life is a race. It is a race run by God’s grace. It is run because of God’s grace to you and me. This race is a race that has no place to stop and rest.

As we walk through our text this morning we are going to see that Paul’s challenge to the Philippian believers is our challenge today and each day after. The question before us this morning is “What should dominate our thoughts and actions as genuine Christians?”

Main Truth: Proper thinking about spiritual maturity must dominate the Christian’s life.

Three ways we must think about our spiritual maturity.

I. The Christian has not yet finished the race. 12-14

Explanation

Paul desired every Christian to grow in spiritual maturity. It was Paul’s heartbeat himself. Paul moves into verses 12-14 after discussing his passion for knowing Christ. This knowing Christ came through the amazing salvific work Christ did on the road to Damascus. Paul now wants to reassure the Christians in Philippi that though he counted all loss for Christ, he did not claim spiritual perfectness but rather growing maturity. The enemy and false teaching was communicating the false teaching of spiritual perfection. The false thinking encouraged others to have this idea that they can reach a level of completeness spiritually this side of eternity. He was combatting this idea of spiritual perfectionism. He had not arrived at the goal, at the finish line. He was gaining distance in this race/journey of the Christian life but had not reached it.

Paul states in verse 12 that he has not arrived spiritually and has more growing to take place in his life. He gives a disclaimer to the level of spiritual maturity in his life. He presses on. It is of surpassing value to know Christ press on more each day and grow in spiritual maturity. The word for press carries the idea of pursuing with pain. It has been translated in places persecute.

What is it that Paul so desperatly wants to pursue with a great amount of energy? It is that thing that God had “siezed” him by…by His grace God seized Paul and did so to have a ever growing relationship with God. When something is seized or grasped it is:

take hold of suddenly and forcibly; take (an opportunity or initiative) eagerly and decisively; (of a feeling or pain) affect (someone) suddenly or acutely.

Philippians—The Fellowship of the Gospel (Resolve)

HERE PAUL EXPRESSED HIS DESIRE TO “KNOW” THE RISEN CHRIST BECAUSE HE WAS IN THE GRIP OF CHRIST’S GRACE! PAUL’S WHOLE PURSUIT OF CHRIST WAS CHRIST-ORIGINATED, CHRIST-MOTIVATED, AND CHRIST-PROPELLED.

One person said that receiving Christ is a lifelong adventure. It is a lifelong journey for every Christian. The perfection Paul mentions in verse 12 is the completion of the lifelong process of sanctification (Saxon, class notes, p. 30). Until we reach the end of our life here on this earth, our race has not finished! In this race that is not finished, the goal is to lay hold of knowing Christ.

Philippians—The Fellowship of the Gospel (Resolve)

The present tense Paul used describes an ongoing, grasping, strenuous pursuit. It is a gritty, “I will not be denied,” rough-and-tumble pursuit—a sublime violence—which Christ approved and approves of.

The adversative conjunction but reveals Paul’s unrelenting determination to press on despite the limitations caused by his present imperfection. Rather than causing him to give up and quit, Paul’s sense of incompleteness compels him to press on (Hansen, PNTC, 251).

In verse 13, Paul again reiterates, with a familial tone, to the Philippians Christians that he has not arrived spiritually yet. He has not yet achieved perfection. Paul states through testimony that in the midst of his imperfection he focuses on doing one thing—forget what lies behind and reach toward what is ahead. He pursues and strains to reach what lies ahead. He keeps on running the race. He does not rest on what has taken place in the past but with singular focus strives for what is ahead.

Paul uses the word regard to describe his mindset about how he views his pursuit. He gives himself a self-evaluation and understood that he had not arrived to full spiritual maturity. He had not yet arrived where he desired to be in his relationship with Christ. The passion of Philippians 3:10 had not been fully achieved yet. He was motivated by God’s grace in his life as it had grasped him and given him eternal life and victory over sin and a personal relationship with Christ, God’s only son, the God-man who died on the cross for his sins and the sins of the entire world.

Paul was determined to reach and strain forward and not allow the past to encumber him from taking the next step in his journey of spiritual maturity. This imagery Paul uses is that of a runner in a race. What portrait does this paint for the Christian?

A good runner knows not to look over their shoulder to see where their competition is at but rather focus straight ahead on the finish line. He is straining every fiber in every muscle forward to reach the goal.

Philippians—The Fellowship of the Gospel (Past)

On August 7, 1954, during the British Empire Games in Vancouver, Canada, the greatest mile-run matchup ever took place. It was touted as the “miracle mile” because Britisher Roger Bannister and Australian John Landy were the only two sub-four-minute milers in the world. Bannister had been the first man ever to run a four-minute mile. Both runners were in peak condition. I remember as a junior high boy carefully turning the pages, examining the photos of the famous runners in Life magazine, and absorbing the statistics and predictions. Roger Bannister, M.D., who became Sir Roger Bannister and master of an Oxford college, strategized that he would relax during the third lap and save everything for his finishing drive. But as they began that third lap, the Australian poured it on, stretching his already substantial lead. Immediately Bannister adjusted his strategy, increasing his pace and gaining on Landy.

The lead was quickly cut in half, and at the bell for the final lap they were even. Landy began running even faster, and Bannister followed suit. Both men were flying. Bannister felt he was going to lose if Landy did not slow down. Then came the famous moment (replayed thousands of times in print and flickering black and white celluloid) as at the last stride before the home stretch the crowds roared. Landy could not hear Bannister’s footfall and looked back, a fatal lapse of concentration. Bannister launched his attack and won the Empire Games that day by five yards.

John Landy’s lapse was as old as antiquity. The sports-knowledgeable Apostle Paul would have seen Landy’s mistake in a flash because he knew that to be successful a runner must not look back over his shoulder—he must “forget what lies behind”—because when a runner turns even slightly to glance back, there is a momentary loss of focus and rhythm, incurring the critical loss of a fraction of a second or even seconds.

The apostle Paul here in verse 13 is not telling us to forget the past but rather not live and allow the past to control the present. It is to not soak yourself in past accomplishments and failures to where complacency sets in.

The Bible Exposition Commentary (Chapter Eight: Let’s Win the Race! (Philippians 3:12–16))

Too many Christians are shackled by regrets of the past. They are trying to run the race by looking backward! No wonder they stumble and fall and get in the way of other Christians! Some Christian runners are being distracted by the successes of the past, not the failures; and this is just as bad. “The things which are behind” must be set aside and “the things which are before” must take their place.

Philippians—The Fellowship of the Gospel (Past)

Paul chose not to look back on his accomplishments lest they diminish his focus or lull him into complacency or indifference. And we must also understand that he did not allow his failures to turn his head to the fatal backward look. To be sure, there were many sad episodes there for Paul to recollect if he let himself.

Application

So what about you? Do you find yourself pondering and resting on your past accomplishments and/or failures? Has the race gotten hard and you would rather think about the good ole days of your Christian life?

Are you as the runner John Landy? You have been running--running well and for whatever reason you relaxed your singular focus, you “one thing I do” and begin looking back at the accomplishments, struggles, or failures. It is here that your Christian life becomes bogged down and sin begins to creep closer to you on the race track that is called life. Pride, selfishness, apathy, complacency, discouragement, fatigue, or folly come up to you like the negative elements did to Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress.

Stop living in the past and start living in the present for the future!

Transition: So, okay, Paul admonishes through his own testimony to keep on straining, to press on and pursue spiritual maturity by pursuing a ever growing and closer relationship with Christ. We are still running in a race but we cannot focus on the past. What are we to do?

Keep on running! Paul gives again a statement related to a goal—the high calling of Jesus Christ. What is this upward call Paul says that he is pressing onward to? The best way of putting this is as Paul put it in Philippians 3:8, 10. It is to fully know Christ for whom Paul counted all things as loss to gain Christ. It is to fully know Christ and his power even amid suffering.

II. The Christian must keep on running the race. 14

Explanation

In verse 13b in conjunction with 14 lay out the truth that we must be thinking and remembering to keep on running because the race is not done! What do we strain toward? What purpose do we run?

Experiencing perfect fellowship with Christ (3:10-11, 14). This is truly the greatest reward!

Philippians—The Fellowship of the Gospel (Present)

The year was 1923, and the competing track teams of Scotland and France were neck and neck. But among the events remaining was the 440. As the runners, clad in traditional 1920s white, came to the first turn, they were bunched tight, shoulder to shoulder, when one of them was pushed to the ground and off the track. For a second he was down—and then up again, running (though twenty meters behind), his knees high, his head back—flying. And as the leaders sprinted to the finish line, he emerged ahead to win! It was a famous win, immortalized in the movie Chariots of Fire.

When the runner fell down he did not stay down but with his eyes still on the prize. With a mindset of this one thing I do, he got up and strained and pursued the goal, the finish line. Amazingly, at the end of the race the runner was the first person to cross!

You and I must have thought process that lives knowing and admitting we are in a race and that we cannot stop running until we reach the goal of our sanctification—complete glorification! We are to pursue unrelenting the goal, the finish line of our Christian life. This text tells us that this side of eternity we are to always be focused on the one thing Paul was—an ever growing and deepening relationship with Christ. Christ has grasped and seized you through his atoning sacrifice. Why are you not making knowing Christ your life’s pursuit? How hard are you truly pursuing Christ?

Do not allow possessions, circumstances, people, material gain or loss—plainly put—anything to stop you or divert you from the one singular focus of which you are pressing on toward and relinquishing control of the past so that you may know Christ! Run your race, travel your journey with a singular focus—Jesus Christ!!

The Epistle to the Philippians (4. Pressing on toward the Goal (3:12–16) Obrien, 429)

But he does not recall the things God has achieved through him in order to encourage self-satisfaction or relaxation of effort. He will not allow either the achievements of the past (which God has wrought) or, for that matter, his failures as a Christian to prevent his gaze from being fixed firmly on the finish line. In this sense he forgets as he runs

The Bible Exposition Commentary (Chapter Eight: Let’s Win the Race! (Philippians 3:12–16))

There are two extremes to avoid here: (1) “I must do it all” and (2) “God must do it all!” The first describes the activist, the second the quietist, and both are heading for failure. “Let go and let God!” is a clever slogan, but it does not fully describe the process of Christian living. What quarterback would say to his team, “OK, men, just let go and let the coach do it all!” On the other hand, no quarterback would say, “Listen to me and forget what the coach says!” Both extremes are wrong.

The Bible Exposition Commentary Chapter Eight: Let’s Win the Race! (Philippians 3:12–16)

The Christian runner with the spiritual mind realizes that God must work in him if he is going to win the race (Phil. 2:12–13). “Without Me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5). God works in us that He might work through us. As we apply ourselves to the things of the spiritual life, God is able to mature us and strengthen us for the race. “Exercise thyself rather unto godliness!” (1 Tim. 4:7–8)

Paul understood that it was because of God’s grace that he was who he was and why he was able to do what he did (1 Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.). Paul knew that he would not reach total perfection this side of eternity, of heaven. This pursuit is not just for any certain age group but every Christian!

Application

The Bible Exposition Commentary Chapter Eight: Let’s Win the Race! (Philippians 3:12–16)

Some Christians are so busy “dying to self” that they never come back to life again to run the race! And others are so sure they can make it on their own that they never stop to read the Word, pray, or ask for the power of the Lord.

In the course of a person’s race events and circumstances take place that provide us with choices. Sometimes these choices are hard, sometimes they are easy. Sometimes you may feel like you have a 75 lb weight on your back, your legs are burning, your heart rate is racing, and it seems so much easier to just stop. You tell your self you just need a short break and once you are rested you will get back up and start running again. The beauty of the Christian race is that you have God’s grace that has seized you. God has grasped you and never lets go. The weight you think is weighing you down is truly their for you to see more of God’s grace in your life. Paul continued to press on! For him Christ was his life (1:21). We need to live with a persevering and purposed mindset…a mindset that is driven to do ONE THING—Strain forward and keep on pursuing knowing everything we can about our wonderful Savior Jesus Christ!

We keep on pressing because one day the race will be complete. One day we will cross the finish line and be with our Savior!

III. The Christian will one day finish the race. 15-16, 20-21

Explanation

How does this race finish? Paul discusses that finishing the race entails having the same mindset as him. IN any area that you do not have this singular mindset, God will help to reveal it to you. We are citizens of heaven (20-21) whose obligation and desire should be to know Christ more personally! The Christian needs to have and live with the same heart and desire and passion that Paul had.

If areas do exist, and they more than not do, revealing their spiritual immaturity or imperfectness or all too often sin, God would through grace reveal them to you. God will reveal the areas in your life that are not single-focused. God will direct you to have more and more of your life focused and driven to know him more.

We can never ease up or stop running. We must keep on living by the same singular standard—Christ! Paul wanted the Philippians to in unity pursue Christ together. We see this by Paul’s usage of the pronoun us. He does not say you or me. He states the plural us with the present active keep living. AS Paul admonished the Philippian believers, you and I are to keep on living according to God’s graciousness in saving us.

Paul’s passionate plea to his Christian brethren seeks and desires from the church to live out the example of those who have and are running before you and do not ever rest and stop.

Philippians—The Fellowship of the Gospel (Paul’s Advice (vv. 15, 16))

Eric Liddell, “the Flying Scotsman,” was already famous when he made his phenomenal comeback to win the 440 in the Scotland-France meet. And his fame increased as a runner and a Christian, especially at the Paris Olympics in 1924 where he refused to run in his best events (the 100 meters and the 4 × 100 relay) because they were run on Sunday. Chariots of Fire inaccurately portrays this as a last-minute decision in Paris, whereas he actually decided well in advance and began to train for the 200 and 400 meter races.13 Liddell took a bronze in the 200 and amazed the world by winning the 400 in the world-record time of 47.6 seconds, five meters ahead of the silver medalist—he was truly flying!

Runner he was, but that was only one manifestation of his devotion to Christ. In 1925, having completed his degree in science at Edinburgh and a degree in divinity, he set sail as a missionary to China with the China Inland Mission. In 1932, during his first furlough, he married Florence Mackenzie. In 1941, facing the growing threat of Japanese occupation, he sent his wife and three daughters to Canada to stay with her family while he stayed on to serve among the poor. Liddell suffered many hardships but kept on running hard after Christ. And then in 1943 he was interned in the Weihsien Internment Camp where he again cheerfully served those around him. In 1945, at the age of forty-three, Eric Liddell died of a brain tumor that may have been caused by his malnourishment and overwork. Liddell’s grave was marked by a simple wooden cross, with his name written in boot polish. He is interred in the Mausoleum of Martyrs in Shijiazhuang, China.

One commentator said that if he could imagine an inscription on his tombstone, it would say “he died running.”

Application

What about you? What would your tombstone read? What would be written on your grave stone? They ran well but just not long enough…They missed out on the race of a lifetime...

Would there be unsaved people at your funeral? What type of thinking do you have on your journey toward spiritual maturity? One day we will see Christ face to face as a citizen of His kingdom!

We run in a race that was authored and will be finished by Jesus Christ (Hebrews 12:1-2 “1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”)

The prospect of the goal being reached—the goal of knowing and being with Christ should be the ONE THING you and I do! It is God’s grace that keeps us running and helps us cross the finish line with all our ability. IT is the straining forward to reach that line!

“Don’t take your eyes off of Christ because of persecution, internal dissension, or the existence of minor differences of opinion. None of us has yet attained the goal. Keep striving!” (Saxon, class notes, 32)

Conclusion

How do you view your Christian life? How do you think about your spiritual maturity, your Christian journey?

Christian, we have not yet finished your race. We need to be focused, driven, straining to attain the goal because one day when our race is finished and our with our Lord, he may say well-done thou good and faithful servant.

The results of a singular focus driven and straining to know Christ more intimately manifests in consistent ministry for the sake of the gospel. It results in a deeper love for those around you—saved and unsaved. It results in looking at the church as the focal point of life and not ancillary. It views church ministry as people not a duty or inconvenience when things are just not right. It results in seeking to pour your life into ministering to others not for a moment but for the rest of your life.

It results in opening yourself up to sharing your spiritual burdens and challenges God is doing in your life to by his grace draw you closer to himself. It results in living a life of communing with God not only a few days a week but every day. It results in soaking up what God has to say to you from His inerrant Word preserved for you. It manifests itself in selfless living for God and others. It lives walking worthy of the gospel. It lives excited to talk about the gospel with anyone. It lives excited to serve because by serving it helps to understand more about our great Savior who lived service.

If the Spirit of God has brought conviction this morning, do not ignore it. Confess and repent of your sin and commit to living as Paul testifies here in Philippians 3—it is all about Christ!

Living and seeking spiritual spiritual maturity—a more intimate relationship with Christ is not done all on your own or all on God but an amazing combination of God’s grace and power in your life with our submission to the Holy Spirit. Will you today properly think about your Christian life? About your spiritual sanctification!?

Remember ONE THING I DO! Forget the things that are before and strain forward pressing on to achieve the goal of knowing Christ for one day we will be with Christ! We will receive a reward.