What is at the center of your life?
Hard question to answer… some of us may be honestly divided … some of us may know what
we believe should be… but the longer we reflect on the question…. The more we realize that
we may not be as centered as we’d like to believe.
Show me a centered life… and you’ll discover an effective life… show me a life with the
most appropriate center and you’ll discover a spiritually vital life.
> That is what we discover in Paul…
Review:
Paul is sharing the most personal expression of a life who engaged the risen Christ… and who
was changed… and is now living out the reality.
This section began with his accounting of what mattered… … he was able to really assess
all he had put confidence in… concludes that knowing Christ who holds the power of eternal
risen life… and even to share in his sufferings as part of knowing him… was the greatest
purpose and pleasure life offered.
For some of us this may sound fanatical… he may sound like the first ‘Jesus freak’ and for
some that raises mixed feeling. But I think the discomfort with a fanatic is generally because of
two things… the feeling that they aren’t able to deal with everyday responsibility… and Paul
chooses to be a tentmaker… so he is not saying nothing else matters… and more importantly…
we may feel someone is being impulsive. While such can come with a shallowness… Paul had
evaluated deeply… so he was devoted deeply. This is not a life off center… but actually a call
to become centered.
Now he states…
Philippians 3:12 – 21
12
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on
to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, I do not consider myself
yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward
what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me
heavenward in Christ Jesus.
15
All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think
differently, that too God will make clear to you. 16 Only let us live up to what we have already
attained.
17
Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live
according to the pattern we gave you. 18 For, as I have often told you before and now say again
even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their destiny is destruction, their
god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. 20 But
our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21
who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our
lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
> Life of extraordinary devotion.. focus…determination…resolution… VITALITY.
Keys to spiritual vitality… (a life well centered / a life of focused devotion…)
1. Concentration - Embrace the call of Christ as a defining pursuit
“ONE THING”
Spend so much of lives wondering what is worthwhile… drawn to so much that seeks to draw
us into it’s merits… people, products, etc.
> Paul is a liberated man… most free because he has one overriding devotion / focus.
Paul says vitality flows from purpose… if the purpose and only one purpose will offer
lasting vitality… to know Christ… to become like him…
And it doesn’t center around us & OUR needs, OUR family, OUR personal fulfillment. It
centers around Jesus Christ.
Not that this ‘one thing’ denies all other matters of life… but that it DEFINES all other
matters:
· taking care of our families,
· taking care of our needs
· having various earthly ambitions and accomplishments…
As good and worthy as these aspects of our lives may be – they are not what should ultimately
motivate us. Those goals are NOT BIG ENOUGH for us.
“PURSUIT”… critical to understand
12 “
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press
on…”
• Live with a healthy humility that is neither presumptuous nor passive in it’s devotion
• Not presumptuous because he isn’t trying to be as good or better than others… but to be
like Christ
• Nor passive… because he sees goal
• Man in motion… ‘but I press on’
• Paul was a one-track man, but ‘you can go a long way on one track!
• He says that he is trying to grasp that for which he has been grasped by Christ. That is a
wonderful thought. Paul felt that when Christ stopped him on the Damascus Road, he had a
vision and a purpose for Paul; and Paul felt that all his life he was bound to press on, lest he
fail Jesus and frustrate his dream. Every man is grasped by Christ for some purpose; and,
therefore, every man should all his life press on so that he may grasp that purpose for which
Christ grasped him.
—Barclay’s Daily Study Bible (NT)
Notice that Paul did not say, "one thing I will do." He didn’t say, "one thing I’m going to
do," or "one thing I will get around to someday." He said, "one thing I do."
Paul was living and acting in the present. Many people today try to live in the future.
Do you know what the busiest day in the world is going to be? It’s not the day after
Thanksgiving. It’s not Christmas…. Or New Years. It is "someday." Everyone in the world has
something scheduled to do "someday."
I’m sure that we’ve all made plans for "someday," but the fact is, SOMETIMES "someday"
never come through. (From John Santos – Straining towards the Future – SC )
Paul is the ultimate example of living each day to the fullest -- living each day as if it were your
last. When he was imprisoned in Rome, he didn’t sit there resting, thinking about all the things
he would do when he got out of jail. He wrote letters to churches, sang praises to God, and even
converted some of the people who had imprisoned him! Paul used everyday to the uttermost.
2. Cancellation - Let go of the past… regrets and successes
“Forgetting what is behind…”
Paul understands the past itself is not a bad thing… he doesn’t think for a minute that we can
literally forget it nor that we should. What he understands is that our past can become our
greatest source of bondage and defeat… the unseen enemy of the present… when it is given a
power that it shouldn’t have / doesn’t have.
Three ways that the past can bind us…
• Bondage of Regret - by the limits we internalize from our past
Paul had persecuted the church. He used his authority to kill Christians. By his own admission
he said, "I am chief of sinners." He could have walked around all his life with this tremendous
burden of guilt crippling him & he would never have become the great apostle we know & love
today.
Get a revelation. It’s over. It’s done. It’s gone. It can’t hurt you anymore. There’s nothing you
can do to change it.
• Bondage of Rest – past successes that we still define ourselves by
To be so enamored with what God used to do in our lives, or to be mesmerized by a spiritual
mountaintop experience of yesteryear is to miss the new and exciting victories God wants you
to experience today.
• Bondage of Resentment - comparing the present to a past that no longer
exists
Israelites became fond of Egypt.
Many look back upon their first loves and lose perspective because they don’t come to terms
with the fact tt first loves are first loves… it is different by nature. The same is true with our
youth… can look back and want to get it back. But our youth was our youth… with feelings
unique to the fresh and formative point in life. The same is true with our earliest years of
knowing Jesus.
Analyze your conversation about spiritual matters. Is your conversation in the past tense
or the present tense? Is God at work in your life now? If not, you are probably hung up
on the accomplishments, hurts, and failures of your past.
Luke 9:62 (CEV)
Jesus answered, “Anyone who starts plowing and keeps looking back isn’t worth a thing
to God’s kingdom!”
We are presented with the call to live like an athlete… a runner who knows how distracting and
destructive a backward glance can be… we should live so forward looking that it is like one
coming to that finish line… who exerts every effort to press forward at the finish line… with
the winning of the race at hand.
Isn’t it true what is often said… that life is more like a marathon than a sprint? Yes… very true
in terms of managing physical vitality… but this is about spiritual vitality… not managing a
temporal body… but an eternal life.
‘The goal’ is a term that was used to describe the mark at the end of he race track.. .to which
the participating athlete directed his eye.
Same word used earlier when Paul said we should look to the interest of others (2:4) …
therefore this is not a pressing on from humanity… it is a maturing before God that happens IN
our relationship to others.
What is the goal in it all? … ‘to win the prize’… all that lies in the eternal realm…
heaven.
The prize of the Olympic games was a crown that was worn. This prize brought great honor on
the victor.
3. Consciousness - Focus on the eternal reality and rewards which are
already yours
• Verse 12 - ‘ … for which Christ took hold of me’
• Verse 16 - … let us live up to what we have already obtained…’
> Lives according to what God has already done… Paul is defined not by what he simply
hopes to be but what he already has…
He sees those living for the glory of earth… but he chooses to live for the glory of heaven.
Most see Paul as addressing Gnostics (Martin, Beare, Gaffin, FF Bruce, Barclay, NIV
Study… only Barth thinks Judaizers.) These were those who wrongly accepted a view that
there was no relationship between the physical and spiritual realities so that any indulgence of
the body was good.
So he describes how their “appetite is their god” – could be literal but it’s the whole of
sensuality. We are sensual… God took on a body… he was sensual… body is not evil… every
hunger and pleasure…but Paul is getting at when the sensuality becomes god.
Notes ads that note god-like quality.
Elle magazine ads –
• Vodka – Absolute Perfection
• Perfume – called Eternity
Article in mag has Mick Jagger stating that after highest success “ I can’t get no
satisfaction’… Keith Richards notes that 99% of male population would give a limb to
live the life of Mick Jagger. Yet article ends stating. “Nearly 30 years after the Rolling
Stones most defining song “ I Can’t …”… one thing is still clear about Mick…he is
still unsatisfied. For all that all that he possesses and has done… he tries and he tries
and he tries.”
>And that is true of all who try to satisfy those desires.
They boast of their conquests…. But we should be ashamed if these have become our god.
Their minds are on earthly things.
> But our citizenship is in heaven. Jesus said where your treasure is your heart will be.
Our bodies are lowly… we are all in decline if past age 18. So it’s absurd to make them a
god… but if you make Jesus your God… he will transform it into an eternal body. Seek first te
kingdom of God… and all these things will be yours.
Their destiny is destruction… separation from God….they are heading for destruction
With tears … knowing such thinking leads to being an enemy of God.
There are only two paths. Either your destination is the transformation of your body (self) to
be like his… or destruction. One is the path of the Holy Spirit… the other your appetite. Either
you want to know him as the closest friend… or you’re an enemy. (Drawn from Nicky
Gumbel)
So confident is Paul that he says he’s confident God will make this known to all.
• This reflects what Paul wrote earlier in this letter - “Work out your salvation with fear and
trembling” Philippians 2:12-13
• Not trying to earn… but fulfilling what you already have.
“This the critical difference between being driven and being called. If we are
trying to earn our worth and meaning through success… we become driven in
ways that can never be fulfilled. Through Christ humanity can be restored to
our true calling, worth, and meaning… and life is simply about discovering
and developing it.”
Hebrews 12:1-2 (NIV)
“….let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus,
the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross,
scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Closing Story:
You may recognize the name of Florence Chadwick. In 1952, Florence was the first woman
to attempt to swim the 26 miles between Catalina Island and the California coastline. As she
began this historical journey, she was flanked by small boats that watched for sharks and were
prepared to help her if she got hurt or grew tired. Hour after hour Florence swam, but after
about 15 hours, a thick, heavy fog set in. Florence began to doubt her ability, and she told her
mother, who was in one of the boats, that she didn’t think she could make it. She swam for one
more hour before asking to be pulled out. As she sat in the boat, Florence found out she had
stopped swimming just one mile away from the California shoreline, her destination. Florence
explained that she quit because she could no longer see the coastline-there was too much fog.
She couldn’t see her goal.
Two months later, Florence got back in the water to try her task once more. This time was
different. She swam from Catalina Island to the shore of California in a straight path for 26
miles. The same thick fog set in, but Florence made it because she said that while she swam,
she kept a mental image of the shoreline in her mind. She didn’t lose sight of the shore because
she focused on that image of the coast in her mind, and in this way, she reached her goal.
As you walk this Christian walk, it’s going to get foggy. You’re going to wonder how you
will make it. But God tells us that if we pursue Him, Jesus Christ will give us a glimpse of
heaven that will help us keep our eyes focused on the goal. We can persevere in His strength
Linus – race in
It does no good to run well for half the race… the race is defined by it’s end
There will be times of exhaustion that will make you want to quit.
There will be times when other runners make you mad enough to quit.
There will be times when you feel that you can’t win anyway so you might as well quit.
When you have internalized the end… when it becomes the ONE THING… that you are
centered in … concentrated on… you will finish the race set before you.
