Pressing On
Notes
Transcript
This morning, we are continuiing our study in the book of Philippians and we want to look at the important topic of how we can grow into mature believers. Sadly, we live in a world that is filled with all sorts of examples of immaturity. We have full grown adults throwing tantrums on airplanes, getting into arguments and fights with one another. Social media has become the new playground where people can say whatever they want and voice every juvenile thought and opinion with no regard for the negative impact it may have. Even our leaders and politicians show very little signs of maturity as they escalate the culture wars and constantly bicker among themselves like children fighting over a toy. And far from being benign and harmless, when adults fail to mature, the consequences are steep as we have witnessed through the pandemic and now deal with the aftermath. The fragmenting of our society, the folly of war, and the failure to live in peace, are all the inevitable results of those who have power but lack the maturity to use it wisely. We think of what’s happening in the Ukraine as well as many other places of human conflct and it should grieve us because all of these situations could have been avoided with even an ounce of maturity. Unfortunately, this is the condition of our world and growing into maturity seems to be the exception and not the rule. But it is precisely against this backdrop of immaturity, where our growth as Christians can make a difference in the world. It’s amazing how many verses in the Bible, spur us onto to spiritual maturity and teach us how to attain it. We are going to look at one of those key passages today.
Passage
Passage
that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.
Introduction
Introduction
There are two interrelated T-Shirt cliches that I’ve seen to describe immaturity from a secular perspective:
Immature is what boring people call fun people.
And as a rebuttal, there is a second cliche:
Boring is what stupid people called people who are smarter than them.
Hopefully you find this funny but underneath these types of cliches, there is some element of truth. Mature people can seem more serious, more boring, and unable to have fun. And I don’t about you but when I’m surrounded by people who are much smarter than me, I do find them to be kind of boring. (Although intelligence and maturity are not really that closely related from what I’ve seen.) In a city where youthfulness is idolized and 50 year old men still ride scooters and skateboards trying to remain relevant to their 30 year CEOs, the case for maturity seems to have been lost long ago but this passage gives us every reason we need to pursue maturity and to press on towards that goal. There are 3 key points that I want us to look at as we consider what the apostle Paul writes here.
The pursuit of maturity is serious
Maturity requires a particular way of thinking
The rewards for this pursuit are glorious
From the Christian perspective, maturity can be defined as growing into the likeness of Christ. You’ll notice that Paul doesn’t ever use the qualifying term, spiritually mature versus just good old fashioned life maturity. And the reason for this is found in Paul’s understanding of who Jesus is.
Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
For the Christian, Jesus is the last Adam, the redeemer of the human race and the perfect example of a new and better humanity. In fact, he is the only example of what it truly means to be a mature human being. So to be conformed into the likeness of Christ doesn’t just describe spiritual maturity, it is the very definition of maturity. This is the reason that Pauls writes this in his letter to the Colossians.
Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.
But as you read verses 10-11, the path of maturity is not an easy one. In the first half of verse 10, we are given the beginning and the end of our journey of faith. Our desire to know Chirst is the starting point and last week, we talked about what it means to know Christ experientially. As opposed to just knowing the right doctrines and facts about Jesus, your knowledge of of Him must be intimate and personal so that it leads you into a deeper relationship with Him based on faith. The end point is experiencing the glory of the resurrection and that’s what we have to look forward to but as we know everything else is in the details. And what are the deails that are found between point A and B: the fellowship of suffering, becoming like Him in his death, so that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Sharing in Christ’s suffering and becoming like Him in his death seems to be pretty serious business to me. Definitely doesn’t feel like a laughing matter. So the pursuit of maturity, becoming like Christ is a serious matter because it involves suffering and being changed by the cycles of death and life in our world. This is precisely why we need to press on because the pursuit of maturity is hard labor and we need to have the mindset of Paul, by any means possible even if means suffering.
I kow what some of us might be thinking, “I can’t suffer for Christ, I can’t pay that price to follow Him.” Guess what, if you haven’t noticed, you’re already suffering. We are going on two years of a world-wide pandemic that has killed millions of people. We stand on the precipice of war in Europe that looks eerily like the beginning of the last two world wars. And gas freaking costs $5 dollars gallon. As I have said to myself countless times and now to you, don’t waste this crises because if you allow the Spirit of the Lord to work in your life, all of this suffering that surrounds us can be used to conform us into the likeness of our Savior. Don’t hide yourself from the dangers or pretend that it’s not there. A child puts a blanket over his/her head and then thinks no one can see them and that they are safe from the world outside. As we have seen, some adults are no better, no smarter, the only difference is what you use for your security blanket. The attitude towards our suffering and how we choose to think about it, can either make us more like Christ or really stunt our growth.
If we are going to suffer and you will regardless of your wealth or position in life, you might as well suffer correctly so that you receive the priceless reward of Christ. Don’t waste your suffering, it is too vaulable of a thing to simply ignore or dismiss as unimportant. Of all the things that Paul could have said regarding the path to spiritual matutity, he tells us that there is the one thing that he does, he strains forward to what lies ahead, forgetting what He has left behind so that he can press on towards the goal of knowing Chirst. He then adds, let the mature think in this way because if there is one great obstacle to our growth, it is being bound by our past which then paralyzes us from moving forward into the future.
The last two years have been difficult, if not traumatic for many of us. These events have impacted us more than we realize and there is an uneasiness becasue we know that the world has changed dramatically. But as the world is being turned upside, some of us are finding it incredibly difficult to find our bearing and discerning how we can move forward. There is a book that I’ve been reading recently on how to navigate difficult changes in life and the author, William Bridges, gives some helpful tips on how to respond to these changes. The first thing that he suggests is to distinguish the between change and transitions. Change is something that is situational and life situations can change quickly and abruptly. People, you and I, cannot change that quickly, we need more time to adjust. (Use examples of children changing schools, having a baby.) This is why the idea of tranisitions is a better way of thinking about the changes that we have to undergo emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually to adapt to this new world. All of us have been thrown into a time of great transition and Bridges writes aboutr 3 stages of transition that we have to navigate.
An ending.
A period of lostness
A new beginning
To feel as though everything is “up in the air,” as one so often does during times of personal transition, is endurable if it means something-if it is a part of a movement toward a desired end. But if it is not related to some larger and beneficial pattern, it simply becomes distressing.
As Christians, we have a desired end that is guaranteed and we are all part of a much larger and beneficial pattern or what this generation calles narrative. We are all part of the greater story of death and resurrection.
Buddhists tell us that, “Life is suffering” and the ultimate purpose of our existence is Nirvana, the cessation of all suffering and all the evil desires that our suffering creates. Not to throw any shade, but that sounds like no reward to me, no real prize to pursue. The purpose of the Christian life, on the other hand, is to press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. At the end of our pursuit for maturity, we know that the living Christ awaits us, ready to welcome us into eternity and to share His glory with us, the glory of the resurrection. And I know that this may all seem like a child’s fairy tale, wishful thinking that is completely detached from reality. But what if that future is the true reality and everything that we think is real in this world is actually the mirage. If you use Christianity just to try and make your life better here on earth, it is rather dulll and ineffecitve. There is much easier ways to make your existence on earth more pleasant, there are countless podcasts and self-help books that will guide you through this life. Christianity was meant to give us so much more. It alone can open a door into a new and greater reality. If you have read the CS Lewis children’s books, it’s the wardrobe that leads us into Narnia, into Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.
That type of Christianity seems to so far from the one that we are use to experiencing but all around us, God has left us clues and signs of the great resurrection. The dead of winter, gives way to the new life of spring. The darkness of night gives way to the light of a new day. Even the sorrow of death is dimmed in the joy of a new birth. In the hands of God, every loss is somehow turned into gain. This is why we can press on through suffering and loss because we know that something glorious awaits us around the corner. Jesus understood this about the goodness of His Father in relations to His own death and He gives us this beautiful assurance in the gospel of John:
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
From one man’s death, countless souls have been saved from their sin and there is incredible fruit that has been born through the seed of Christ’s death on the cross. Through his death, the power of the resurrection has been given to all who believe and a door has been opened to eternal life, not in the distant future but here and now. Yes, our present suffering is important for our character development but its greatest benefit is that it gives us an opportunity to experience the power of the resurrection in this life and to show the world the difference that God’s power makes in our lives.
In order to get us to mature, God allows us to go through sufferings of many kinds. A famous evangelist shared the following incident: I have a friend who in a time of business recession lost his job, a sizable fortune, and his beautiful home. To add to his sorrow, his precious wife died; yet he tenaciously held to his faith -- the only thing he had left. One day when he was out walking in search of employment, he stopped to watch some men who were doing stonework on a large church. One of them was chiseling a triangular piece of rock. 'Where are you going to put that?' he asked. The workman said, 'Do you see that little opening up there near the spire? Well, I'm shaping this stone down here so that it will fit in up there.' Tears filled my friend's eyes as he walked away, for the Lord had spoken to him through that laborer whose words gave new meaning to his troubled situation.
In Isaiah 48:10, the Lord makes this statement to his people “Behold, I have refined but not like silver, I have tested you through the furnace of affliction.” But testing is not the end of our story.
Rejoice not over me, O my enemy;
when I fall, I shall rise;
when I sit in darkness,
the Lord will be a light to me.
Yes there will be times when it feels like the enemy has the upper hand and in the course of life, we will all fall at one point or another and find ourselves in the darkness. But when you fall, you will rise again through the immeasurable power that is at work in you. (Tell the account of Paul)
