Did you ever set yourselves any goals in life? Perhaps in your career as you left school or university. How did you get on with reaching them or changing them for better ones as life went on.
I knew when I left school that I wanted to play with aeroplanes as an engineer, most importantly as a Concorde engineer. I achieved this to some degree as I did my apprenticeship at BAC Weybridge, where part of Concorde was built. It was on the Brooklands site. I went to Fairford and Filton on the flight test programme and then joined BA. However, they did not put me on Concorde as I had hoped but on other aircraft, which did not make me that happy. Still, it was playing with aircraft which was my goal. It just didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. I changed my goal and joined the BA Engineering Commercial Team, selling engineering services to other airlines. I travelled around the world and had a great time. It is good to have goals in our secular life and we get to choose them most of the time, whether they work out is down to a lot of factors with ourselves and outside influences.
Not so in the church as God has set the goal that he expects us all to reach as we walk and talk to him on our journey of life.
Paul recognised that the greatest goal is to ‘know Jesus Christ and be found in him’ Paul knew he, like us, are a work in progress and will take a lifetime to achieve it. To achieve, what God called him to do, he knew he had to forget the past and be totally focussed on what Jesus wanted him to do. He became a servant like Jesus, participating in his suffering and sacrificial love. Paul does it all in the hope that the grace and love of Jesus will carry him through death and out the other side into resurrection life.
For those who are nervous and a bit fearful about what the future holds and what God is calling you to do, then we have to put our trust in God and be assured he knows what he is doing. Paul knew God wanted him to live out his Christian faith as effectively as possible, making an impact with those who do not know the great news about Jesus Christ. We should be of the same mind and share that good news of Jesus, equip people in their faith journey and see them live their faith out, in the world.
Jesus gives the same commission to all of us:
Matthew 28 v 18 to 20: Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’
Two things from this passage:
- Forgetting our past
- Press on to be imitators of Christ
- Forgetting our past
Philippians 3 v 13b to 14: But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.
Paul writes in this passage to the Philippians to forget what has gone before now and press onwards. Paul is saying that he considers all that he has done in the past, including persecuting Christians, is in the past and he is now moving on. Jesus has become so important to him that he counts everything in his past life as rubbish compared to knowing Jesus. I know that he is right, nothing can compare or even come close to knowing Jesus.
The Songwriters: Ben Fielding / Brooke Ligertwood in their song ‘What A Beautiful Name’ penned ‘You have no rival, you have no equal’. There is no other god who can even come close to our God. He has no rival on the same level he is; they are all so much more inferior. Paul knew this and wants to follow the only true God. His old life has gone and is in the past. He is being taken out of his comfort zone and into a new life following Christ and his call on his life.
Paul had a lot to boast about in his former life:
Philippians 3 v 4b to 6: If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.
if anyone could lay claim to pleasing God by law-keeping and the works of the flesh, it was Paul. He was far more qualified than his legalising opponents were to make such a claim.
Now that he had come into contact with the risen Jesus, whatever were gains to him he now consider loss for the sake of Christ. We all have a past, full of good and not so good, following Jesus or following the things of the world. We need to not dwell on the past but look forward to what God has in store for us.
- Press on to be imitators of Christ
Philippians 3 v 17: Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do.
Paul knows that he was not a sinless or perfect example, yet he was still a good example to follow. He could say as he also did to the church at Corinth:
1 Corinthians 11 v 1: Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.
By following Paul’s example, they will also follow Christ’s example. Paul has a lot to say about following Jesus’s example to the churches he wrote to. You would have covered imitating Christ’s humility in Philippians chapter 2. Here is one from the letter to the Ephesians:
Ephesians 5 v 1 and 2: Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Paul knows this and wants God to be pleased with how he lives his life, how he uses his time, his gifts, his talents, his resources in serving him. Paul does not want fame or glory for himself but wants it all to go to God and God alone. Everything he did was motivated by honouring God and doing what he was called to do, giving the glory to God and bringing people into the kingdom.
Whenever God calls anyone to serve him, whether as a pastor or someone helping with serving teas and coffees, he equips them and blesses them. Because of their obedience others are blessed through them. We should serve with love and humility without grumbling or complaining.
We are called to love one another as Christ has loved us. Jesus said:
John 13 v 34 to 35: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
The command is ‘Love one another’ Full stop. How do we do that ‘as I have loved you’ Agape love. God loved us when we were at our worst and really not worth loving, but he does.
We do not know what the future holds for you at KBC or us at HBC, but we do know who holds the future. We know his plans for us are to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us hope and a future. If his plans are to prosper us then we know he will pour out new blessings on us all as individuals and as a fellowship, as well as this community.
At some point you will enter into a new chapter in God’s service, with a new pastor. Wouldn’t it be amazing if when they come that they say, ‘I can see how much you love one another and the community you serve’. As an outsider I can see that you do love one another and serve one another and the community. You are following Christ’s example.
Paul finishes the chapter with a warning about some of Philippians behaving in a non-Christ way:
Philippians 3 v 18 and 19: For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.
There are those who profess faith in Jesus but do not follow his example in their daily living. They live for worldly pleasures rather than serving the one who died for them.
Paul had to contend with people like this in other churches, who thought that salvation comes without repentance and conversion, and who thought that as long as your soul was saved, it didn’t matter what you did with your body. These people, Paul says are enemies of the biblical truth of the atonement Jesus made for us on the cross and its ongoing power and effect in our life. In other words, using modern day language, they did not walk the talk. It was just talk and their actions did not match. They lived for themselves and not for Christ.
They live for worldly pleasure, while true followers of Christ live for him alone, whose citizenship is in heaven with our saviour for eternity. I know which one I prefer.
Live a life worthy of the calling we have received. This is the message for us today.