Christ's Church in Pursuit

Introduction

-I want you to consider today what it is that you are pursuing.----In this world, people pursue after a lot of different things. There are people who live to pursue money, so they do whatever they can to get it=spending long days and nights in the office away from family to pursue the almighty dollar.

-Some pursue after a goal of being the best in sports. They put in rigorous hours of training and practice—living, breathing, eating, sleeping either football or baseball or basketball or whatever.

-But we have to ask ourselves: WHAT IS IT THAT CHRISTIANS PURSUE—and more importantly for our purposes today: WHAT IS IT THAT THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH PURSUES

-I believe in this passage I’m about to read that Paul gives us an answer. He tells us that Christ saved him in order for him to constantly pursue growth toward Christ-likeness and Christian maturity, and Paul invited the Philippian church (and us by extension) to do the same.

-We have to ask ourselves: FOR WHAT PURPOSE DID CHRIST SAVE US? So we can go to heaven? No, that’s a result, not a purpose. We have been saved so that God is glorified through us as we pursue growth and maturity toward Christ-likeness, and then in turn lead others toward the same path of life.

-So what that means for us today is that: the church exists as a body of believers who disciple and encourage one another in the pursuit of spiritual growth and maturity toward Christ-likeness so that its mission of witnessing to the world is fulfilled. {REPEAT}

-And so I want to lead you to consider why you exist as a body of believers, and to see yourself as a community that is pursuing spiritual growth, maturity, and Christ-likeness who will then go out and invite others to do the same.

Philippians 3:12–16 ESV

12 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. 13 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, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. 16 Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

-Paul has a lot to say about Christ’s Church in Pursuit, and I want us to quickly consider five lessons about this pursuit:

I) There is only one way to join the pursuit

-Paul in essence says: LOOK, IF DOING FLESHLY THINGS COULD SAVE ANYBODY, I HAD EVERYBODY BEAT BECAUSE I EXCELLED AT LEGALISTIC LAW-KEEPING----but then Paul says that is no longer where his confidence lies.

-Look at vv. 7-9

7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith- (Phil. 3:7-9 ESV)

-Any other religious method of getting to God and getting to heaven and finding peace is worthless garbage. Paul says that there is only one way to God, one way to heaven, one way to peace, and that is through the finished work of Jesus Christ.

-Paul and the entire rest of the Bible is abundantly clear, there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead to give us eternal life—and that is it. No more and no less. You cannot pursue spiritual growth until you know where spiritual life lies—and it only comes through Jesus Christ, who Himself said there is a narrow gate to this pursuit.

-Many years ago a famous TV evangelist/motivational speaker was asked in an interview if Jews or Muslims would go to heaven without Christ, and this guy hemmed and hawed and finally said he didn’t know because it wasn’t for him to judge.

-I’m not sure what is unclear. We have no right standing before God on our own. We need Christ’s righteousness. That comes by faith and repentance in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, based on His accomplishment on the cross of Calvary and His resurrection from the dead. There is no other way to join the pursuit of spiritual growth. You cannot become like Christ without having Christ in your life.

II) The pursuit involves a continual progression

-In v. 12 Paul acknowledged that because Jesus Christ made Paul His own (or as some translations say: laid hold of Paul), Paul is therefore making Christ-likeness his own pursuit.

-Yet Paul acknowledges that he has not already attained Christ-likeness or spiritual maturity, and he recognizes that he is not yet perfect—something that would not come until his glorification.

-But knowing he still had a lot of growing to do, Paul didn’t throw his hands up in despair thinking there is no way he would ever reach his goal; neither did Paul think that he had done all the growing he was going to do, so that he stopped trying.

-What does he say? He says: I PRESS ON TO MAKE IT MY OWN. The word he uses there means to expend as much energy as possible to quickly move forward toward some goal.

-Here’s the thing: Paul knew he hadn’t reached spiritual maturity, and he knew that in this life he would never be perfectly Christ-like. And yet that wasn’t going to stop him—he was going to continue pressing forward all the days of his life.

-That means it takes work and effort. Now, don’t hear me wrong. This is NOT working FOR salvation. Rather, this is what Paul meant when he said earlier: work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, (Phil. 2:12 ESV).

-When one is made spiritually alive in Jesus Christ, one cooperates with God’s Holy Spirit in working out the salvation that Jesus Christ bought for us such that day by day there is a continual progression as one becomes more and more mature, and more and more like Christ.

-And it is the job of the church, as a body of believers, to be the place of learning and discipleship that equips the members of the body in a continual progression of growth.

-A church is not a country club for comfortable Christianity, but rather a church is the training ground, the boot camp, the spiritual university to help people to first come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and then help them along in this continual progression as they pursue spiritual maturity.

III) Beware of being distracted from the pursuit

-In vv. 13-14 Paul takes up the picture of a runner or sprinter in a race. The runner has his eyes on the goal (which is the finish line) and he has his eyes on the prize (which is an award). Paul pictures the pursuit of Christians and the church in this manner.

-We are in the race pursuing the goal of conformity to Christ, and we know that at the end of our race we have eternal life and eventually the resurrection of the body.

-But Paul warns us to forget what is behind, and instead we strain toward what is ahead—our spiritual eyes are staying forward and focused on our pursuit. We cannot look to our past, but are motivated by what lies in our future.

-So, Christians cannot look to past sins and allow them to slow us down or trip us up. If we have confessed and repented, those sins have been taken care of, and we are back in fellowship with God and those sins are no longer a factor----we keep straining forward.

-That being said, however, we need to remember that unconfessed sin will slow us down. The writer of Hebrews tells us: let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, (Heb. 12:1 ESV)

-But we also need to forget any past accomplishments or spiritual victories we have, somehow thinking that they will propel us to the end. We just got done saying that we never actually make it in this life, so we cannot stop the pursuit. One victory in our spiritual life does not mean we have reached the pinnacle and there’s no more to go. There is always room for more progression, but we cannot progress looking backwards at past sin or past victories.

-Imagine if a champion sprinter would try to run a 200m Olympic race while constantly looking at what is behind him. He’ll eventually trip up, or run into something or someone. He cannot finish a race, and he cannot win a medal, by looking backwards. His eye is constantly forward, looking at the finish line, thinking of another gold medal.

-Christians, we cannot allow the past to distract us from our pursuit. With eyes looking forward toward continual conformity to Christ, knowing that one day we want to hear Him say: WELL DONE MY GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT, we strain forward to what lies ahead, and we press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

IV) The church must stand united in this pursuit

-In v. 15 Paul exhorts Christians to think in harmony with what he has just said—in essence, those who are mature realize they haven’t reached full maturity, so they know that together as a church body they can spur one another on to greater growth and progress. There is a plea here on Paul’s part that a church stand united.

-Jesus was quite right when He said that a house divided against itself will not stand. If the parts of the body of Christ are not in agreement with the purposes of His church, that body will not stand. A church must come together as a body working toward one purpose.

-Now, we know that a church does so much more than just learn and grow through discipleship. There are times of prayer, there are times of fellowship, there are times of ministry to those within the church body, there are times of ministry to those outside of the church body, and most importantly there is the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

-But I submit to you today that those other activities of the church are born out of this pursuit—the more we grow like Christ, the more we see our need to go off into lonely places and pray like He did. The more we grow like Christ, the more compassion we have on others like He did and we minister to them in their need.

-The more we grow like Christ, the more seriously we take the Great Commission which tells us to GO AND MAKE DISCIPLES, BAPTIZING AND TEACHING THEM EVERYTHING CHRIST COMMANDED—that is, the Great Commission is going and making disciples who will grow and mature and then, in turn, they themselves will go out and make disciples…

-However, those who are not pursuing spiritual growth will in no wise pursue these other activities. Spiritual growth spurs the church to ministry.

-But a church must be united in this. Imagine if in your physical body that each different part of your body decided to do its own thing. {Some of you are thinking, ACTUALLY, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT MY BODY DOES. MY BRAIN GOES ONE WAY, BUT MY FEET AND LEGS GO ANOTHER.} Well it doesn’t function right when it does that.

-Neither can a church body. If the children’s ministry is doing its own thing, and the youth ministry is doing its own thing, and the senior adult ministry is doing its own thing, a church cannot function.

-What we do is bring all the ministries of the church together, united in the pursuit of growing kids, youth, and adults toward greater Christ-likeness.

V) The pursuit is not easy, but we choose to persevere

-In v. 16 Paul gives a final encouragement to hold true to what we gave attained. That is, you have made progress in your spiritual growth, now it is time to hold the line and make sure you don’t give up ground and make sure that you don’t give up completely even in the face of difficulties.

-Paul knows that this pursuit isn’t easy—it includes suffering and trials and tribulations. This is a fallen, cursed world with spiritual powers of darkness working against us. With these obstacles ahead of us, there will be times when we feel like we cannot go any further. But Paul says HOLD TRUE TO WHAT YOU’VE ATTAINED.

-I think I found a picture or a metaphor for this. One day we took a hike up a mountain, 5 miles up to a beautiful lake, and 5 miles down. Not sure what I was thinking being a part of this, but we did. And then two days later it was 3.5 miles up and 3.5 miles down.

~On these hikes there were rocks that made us trip, there were inclines and high altitudes that slowed us down. On our way up I wanted to turn around, but Trish kept encouraging to keep going. And we made it to the top and saw great beauty. And then on the way down, we tripped and slipped some more, and then we turned a corner and saw a bear (who thankfully was as afraid of us as we were of it).

-That’s a picture of this journey. That’s this pursuit. There’s places where we will trip and slip, and there are enemies around the corner. But we don’t give up. We work and we fight with every ounce of energy we have because we have a goal and we have a prize. We are going to be like Christ. The road isn’t easy, but it’s worth it.

Conclusion

-Boulevard Baptist Church, what are you pursuing? Toward what purpose are you working? When you work together to pursue growth and maturity and Christ-likeness, all other aspects of church ministry fall into their place. But if we don’t work toward this, then we remain immature, and the ministry suffers.

-There may be some here today who mistakenly thought that Christianity was just about doing religious stuff or going to church or doing nice things. No, Christianity is about knowing Christ and being like Christ. He died on the cross and rose from the grave to give you the gift of life, and there is no other way to accept the gift than to trust in what He did by faith and repentance. I invite you to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.

-Maybe your spiritual life has grown stagnant and you want to join the pursuit again. I will be up here to pray with you if you want, or the altar will be open, I invite you to come forward for prayer.