Sermon: Sunday, 29th December, 2024
Speaker: John Johnstone
Scripture: Philippians 3:10-16
We’ve reached the last Lord’s Day of 2024, a natural time for us to both look back at the year gone by and to look ahead to 2025. Some of us like doing that kind of thing naturally. We make New Year’s resolutions, and we might even journal our progress through the year. However, the truth is many of us might not want to look back or look ahead. It might seem too painful or hopeless or uncomfortable to do so. It is easier just to take a day at a time and not think about things too much. We avoid the serious thing. We avoid assessing how things have been going and what we want in the coming year.
1. Stagnation versus growth
Imagine close friends meeting for a coffee and discussing their respective jobs. One tells how she feels she’s been stagnating in her job all year. Her skills remain untapped, and she’s not being given enough responsibility. Her boss takes little interest in her work. The other friends encourage her to look for a new job, even if that’s hard in the short-term. No one likes stagnation. It’s a negative word. Stagnant water, by definition, has no fresh water entering it, making it unhealthy and a breeding ground for bacteria and parasites. This friend longs for a job in which she can grow and develop and be nurtured and expand her skills. When it comes to work, we’d all choose an environment of growth over one of stagnation. What is true of the working world is also true of our spiritual lives. Each of us has a responsibility to look back and to look ahead and to ask ourselves, have I been growing as a Christian or have I been stagnating?
We’ve been weighing our week-old puppies daily to make sure they are gaining weight and are healthy. We have to do that. We must take responsibility for them. But the sad thing is that often we fail to spiritually ‘weigh’ ourselves and take time to check if there is spiritual health and growth. Do we have to? Really?
Paul instructs Timothy: ‘Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you. Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress.’ (1 Timothy 4:13-15)
Fiends, the Christian life is a pilgrimage in which we aim to see progress and not stagnation. Would others in your family or church family be able to see that you have made progress spiritually this year? Or is this stuff just for preachers like Timothy? No, it’s for all of us to work hard, in God’s power, to make progress.
Our passage today is full of teaching which helps to jolt us out of coasting along in the Christian life, if that is what we are doing. Paul wants us to follow his example as he follows Christ. He wants us to emulate him, and he is a man who has kept his desire to grow stronger and develop in the Christian life, seeking to know Christ and become like Christ. Paul says so plainly: ‘I want to know Christ — yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death…’ (Philippians 3:10) Paul has known Christ for decades now, so what does he mean that he wants to ‘know Christ?’ It simply means he wants to know Jesus more and more, just as a loving friend continues to want to know more about his friend after years of friendship. It’s a relationship. And when it comes to Christ, because he is God this means that we will never come to the end of knowing him. That’s thrilling! There is always more about Christ’s wisdom and love and grace for us to discover. We can never claim to have ‘arrived’ spiritually.
Paul wants us to know more of Christ’s power. Amazingly, this is the same power which raised Christ from the tomb. Who wouldn’t want to know more of this life-giving power from the Holy Spirit? It is so appealing. Don Carson reminds us that it is this power which enables us to grasp the dimensions of God’s love for us, and that gives us endurance, faith and gives rise to lives marked by thankfulness. Only God’s power can bring such changes to us. But Paul doesn’t stop there. He also wants us to participate in the sufferings of Christ. At first, that might sound much less appealing. What does it mean? That just as Christ’s life involved suffering in this life followed by glory, our lives must share this pattern.
In other words, Christ-likeness must lead us to Calvary. We too must take up our crosses and follow Jesus, and as we do that, he will be with us, he will fellowship with us. God often uses persecution and the sufferings of this life to bring us closer to himself and to bring growth in our lives. Consider the familiar image of pruning a bush in our garden; the pruning can be painful and seem severe, but it leads to growth and fruitfulness. We cannot look ahead to 2025 and say to God, ‘I want your power but not the suffering.’ We must have both. In fact, the amazing thing is that it is in those times of testing and suffering that’s God’s grace works in us all the more, and our lives bring more glory to God.
Paul prayed three times for the thorn in his flesh to be taken away, but God said: ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ (2 Corinthians 12:9) I have to be honest and say that I still struggle with the fact that so much Christian growth comes through our suffering. However, I also attest that it most certainly does. Here’s the heart of the matter: Paul is not stagnating in his faith but is growing in his knowledge of Christ and love of Christ, and he wants us to grow too.
D Carson: ‘It is a shocking thing for Christians to have to admit that they have grown little in their knowledge of Jesus Christ.’
May 2025 be a year of spiritual growth for us and not spiritual stagnation.
However, there’s a danger that we all leave church just feeling guilty today. We might wring our hands and think, ‘There’s no way I can make progress.’ We might leave discouraged. Instead, let’s take a closer look at these verses to learn from Paul what we need to do to see growth, and what God will do in us.
2. Press on in the race
In verses 9-11, Paul has been speaking about the past, present and future of the Christian life. He has been justified through faith in the past; in the present, he is far from perfect, but is being sanctified, becoming more like Jesus; and in the future he will be glorified, and only then will his struggle with sin be over. In Paul’s day, there were some false teachers who claimed to have reached perfection in this life, a state of holiness in which they no longer sinned. I’d want to get a hold of the wives of these false teachers and ask them if they agreed. I suspect not. Paul wants to be clear that he has not reached this point: ‘Not that I have already obtained all this or have already arrived at my goal…’ Paul, like all of us, had to fight against sin every day and strive towards holiness, knowing that perfection would only come in Heaven.
Here’s a question; why is it so dangerous to stagnate in our Christian pilgrimage? Because although we are justified by faith, we are still sinners.
John Owen: ‘Indwelling sin lives in us in some measure and degree while we are in this world, so that sin is always acting, always conceiving, always seducing, always tempting.’
That is so true. So, if we start to coast or switch off in our Christian lives, this indwelling sin will run riot. We cannot ever stop fighting against sin and we cannot stop asking God for help to become more like Jesus. We must do all we can in this fight against sin. When we are driving, we can never really switch off. We always need to be aware what’s behind us and in front of us and this changes all the time. There are obstacles and dangers which can come upon us quickly out on the road. Likewise, in the Christian life, we must be concentrating all the time, looking for dangers and watching and praying. Whether we are young Christians, or much older Christians, John Owen’s advice remains equally true: ‘be killing sin or sin will be killing you’.
What is Paul’s advice to us as we anticipate 2025 together? We must ‘press on’ in the life of faith. This is an image from the world of athletics. We are all in a marathon and need to keep on running. The language Paul uses involves us working really hard, running and sweating and stretching every muscle as we concentrate on the prize of eternal life with Christ. There’s nothing here of Paul being passive, just turning up in church when he feels like it, allowing his Bible to gather dust and not bothering serving in the local church, but leaving that to others. This is a race. Sins are put to death.
We pursue Christian growth through the usual channels: reading the Bible, spending quality time in prayer to God in stillness with our phones, Xboxes, televisions and radios switched off. We make time for Christian fellowship to keep ourselves accountable and to encourage others. We make church a priority. We confess our sins at the end of the day in prayer and think and think again about how we can root out the sins which keep tripping us up. This is pressing on.
I love that, in a positive sense, Paul is a monomaniac here. There’s one thing he wants to do. He’s focused on one thing like a laser beam. ‘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…’ (Philippians 3:13-14) What does Paul mean by ‘forgetting what is behind’? Well, all runners know that you can’t run effectively if you are looking back over your shoulder on the time. You must look ahead.
We can look back at past mistakes we’ve made and get stuck in the things we have done. However, if we have confessed those sins to God, and repented, then don’t keep looking back. Look ahead to Jesus. We could look back at things which have happened in our past and blame others or blame God. But we can’t make progress if we’re harbouring bitterness about past wrongs. Forget what is behind. That’s not always easy. I find it easy to be like a pig wallowing in the mud of my sins from the past. But God wants me to press on. Perhaps you’re not like a pig but a sloth. You look back at all you have achieved in your Christian life, years of service in Sunday School, creche, café, or the like. And you rest on your laurels. You look back and wrongly think you’ve done enough. To the sloths as well as the pigs, the Lord would say ‘press on’. Perhaps this is a danger to middle aged and older Christians. You want to ‘retire’ from Christian service, but God wants you to ‘press on’.
3. Press on, but with God’s help!
What do you hope to do in 2025? Perhaps you have some DIY projects or countries you’d like to visit. Of course, work and family will take up much of our time in the ordinariness of life, but all this we must do for the glory of God. What God is asking from you this morning is to focus on the main thing: ‘Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead…’ (Philippians 3:13) When I think of straining, I think of how much our dog used to strain on the leash when out for a walk. It would drive us crazy. But this is a positive straining. We are straining towards becoming more like Jesus. We will arrange our lives, and organise our diaries, and make plans with this one thing in mind. We won’t get too distracted by things that don’t really matter, like endless entertainment and money and pleasure. Sure, we’ll enjoy God’s good creation and be joyful Christians, savouring music and friendship and the positive things in our culture. But in a secondary way. ‘Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law. I am a stranger on earth; do not hide your commands from me.’ (Psalm 119:18-19) We are pilgrims on the earth. We’re just passing through. So, we’ll hold loosely to the stuff of this world. And we will strain towards the lasting heavenly prize.
Let’s end the year with some massive encouragements. Yes, we must ‘press on’. But there’s something else taking place which inspires us to keep on going, and that’s the knowledge that Christ has got a grip of us and will not let us go: ‘… but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.’ (Philippians 3:12) Because Jesus’ grip of us is unbreakable, we can run the race with joy, because we know that we cannot lose this race. Jesus himself enables us to keep on running.
We work, as God works. It’s not all about us. The hymn puts it well:
‘When I fear my faith will fail, Christ will hold me fast.
When the tempter would prevail, He will hold me fast.
I could never keep my hold through life’s fearful path,
for my love is often cold. He must hold me fast.’
We also hear this same wonderful note sounding in verse 14: ‘I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.’ (Philippians 3:14) God has ‘called’ us heavenward. Because God himself has called us in this direction, this means he is determined that we shall reach our destination. If God calls us to this race, and he does, you can be sure that he will provide all the grace we need to run, and we will finish.