Enduring For The Prize - [Philippians 3:12-17]

Perfectionism, the Pharisees, and Paul’s Former Life

Father in Heaven, thank you for giving us this beautiful morning. Thank you for bringing all of us here today that we would sit underneath your Word. Father, today is a day that I think as Americans we'll always remember the events of ten years ago.

And I just thank you, Father, that you are a sovereign God. You are a God that controls everything. We know that as Christians that you have just been over all and that you've made all things happen for whatever reason that they may be.

And we just pray, Father, that through situations like this one that we would find ways to glorify you. Father, I pray that you would be with me this morning as I bring your Word. I just pray that you would guard my mouth, that I would not speak improperly.

And I just pray that you would bless everybody here with what I am going to teach on today. In your name we pray, amen. Alright, is anybody here a perfectionist? I am a perfectionist. I see a couple of hands here.

Alright, so I was poking around on the internet and I found a list of ten things that define a perfectionist. And so I want to read some of these to you. And I will say right now that this was very convicting to me that I read this and said, yep, that's me, yep, that's me, yep, that's me.

My wife made the joke to me when I was going through this and I was talking to her about it that this is one of those things like when Mike is preaching and he says, you know, beloved, I've been preaching this to myself all week and now you get to hear it.

And this is right up my alley, so to speak. So here we go. So ten definitions of a perfectionist. Number one, you are highly conscious and hypercritical of mistakes, hence you have an extremely sharp eye towards details.

I see, oh, that's me. Number two, you aim to be the best in everything you do, even if it is something that you are not interested in. Number three, you spend copious amounts of time down to the last moment to perfect something.

You would rather sacrifice your well-being, sleep, eating, whatever it might be, than let something be less than it could be. Number four, you set absolute ideals. There's only black and white and there's no gray in between.

Number five, you are the harshest critic of yourself. You would beat yourself up over the smallest thing that went wrong to the extent of being neurotic about it. That's me. Number six, you mull over outcomes that did not turn out as envisioned.

You wonder why it wasn't a different outcome and whether you could have done anything to prevent it. Number seven, you are defensive towards criticism and have a fear of failure because it suggests someone sees something in you that is not perfect.

Number eight, you have only the end goal in mind. If you don't achieve the goal, it really doesn't matter what happens in the process. Number nine, you are very self-conscious of any situation which might give others the perception that you are not perfect.

Number ten, you have an all or nothing approach. If the situation does not allow you to achieve the standard you've laid out, you'll abandon the task because it doesn't make sense to spend time on something that you aren't going to conquer.

Does anybody feel like I've been talking about them for the last two minutes? Why are you in the front row? All right. Can anybody think about anybody in church history or in the scriptures that these attributes would describe?

Other than God, because God is, I'm talking about man. Jonathan Edwards is in many ways a perfectionist, that's true. Anybody else? I thought of Martin Luther, right? You think about how he was tormented by his sin when he was in the monastery.

And, I mean, there is certainly, some of these are good things, right? Desiring perfection with an eye towards Christ is good. Remember I said this is sort of, these are, this is a secular focus when it describes these.

And so, one of the groups that this definitely describes a lot is the Pharisees, right? You have these Pharisees who are obsessed with this idea of perfection. Can anybody give me some examples of the Pharisees and the kinds of things that they would do or say to be perfect?

Absolutely. They would over-tithe to make themselves look good. Anything else? Right? Not working on the Sabbath. That's a huge one. I have that here. They're just obsessed with the letter of the law, over-caring for others.

When Jesus healed on the Sabbath, Mark 3, they berated him for that. Anything else? Yep, yep. They wanted to have perfect and non-polluted drinks, right? Anything else? Yep. They would say long prayers to please the people.

Jesus talked about how they were obsessed with looking the part. They had the long phylacteries. Think about the prayer of the Pharisees in Luke 18. Thank you, God, that I'm not like the tax collector.

And they were obsessed with the ceremonial washing, right? They would castigate Jesus for dining with sinners and prostitutes. Why don't your servants wash as they are supposed to before their meals? So we have these Pharisees that are obsessed with this image of perfection.

They are worldly perfectionists. We know of one particular Pharisee who was sort of a Pharisee of Pharisees in Paul. Paul exhibited almost a single-minded zeal and obsession for the persecution of the church before his Damascus road experience.

He was even more zealous than the Sadducees who were known for persecuting the church. He was the paragon of a Pharisee. He was the best of the best. He said he was the son of Pharisees, so he was at least second generation, probably more.

This was almost like a family business for him. He was probably a member of the Sanhedrin. Listen to what he said in Philippians 3, verses 4 to 6. Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also, if anyone thinks he has a reason for 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, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless or perfect.

Now, I mentioned it already. We know what happened to Paul on the road to Damascus. Jesus showed himself to Paul, and it completely changed Paul's mindset. It completely changed his focus. He was no longer the man that was completely focused, singularly focused on the perfection of works, but instead his focus was on the perfection of Jesus Christ.

Pressing On Toward the Prize in Philippians 3:12-17

So, if you'll open your Bibles to Philippians 3, verses 12 to 6, is what I'm going to be speaking on this morning. Philippians 3, 12 to 6, starting verse 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.

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 for the goal, 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. Now, in the beginning of verse 12, he says, Not that I have already obtained this, or am already perfect.

Now, of course, this is one of those things where, you know, you hear the phrase, what is the therefore, therefore, or any of these kinds of words that refer to something that has already been spoken about.

So, when we look at this, the first question we need to ask is, what is this? What is this? What is it that he has not already attained? Looking back to verse 11, immediately before it, he says, That by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Does that make sense? Is Paul dead? No, Paul is not dead. We have this idea of something that he wants to attain. Let's read verses 8 to 11, the previous verses. Indeed, I count everything, this is him talking about his life as a Pharisee, all the accomplishments that he had, as lost 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 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, 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.

Now looking a little bit forward, we see in verse 14 that he presses on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of Christ Jesus. Is Paul talking about salvation? This reminds me of youth group.

Right, right. Sure, yeah, in a way he is, right? We need to make our calling, our election sure, right? Let's look at what Warren Wiersbe said. This whole passage that I'm teaching on is often compared to a race, running a race, pressing on toward the goal.

And Warren Wiersbe says this, In order to participate in the Greek games, an athlete had to already be a citizen. He didn't run the race to gain citizenship. In verse 20, Paul reminds us that our citizenship is in heaven.

So we already have this citizenship. This is, when Paul talks about not that he's already obtained it or I'm already perfect, in a way he's talking about his salvation, but he's talking about full sanctification in Christ, most importantly.

This idea that even though, I'm getting ahead of myself with this one, even though he, as a Pharisee, considered himself blameless, now he knows that the perfection in Christ cannot completely and fully be obtained on this earth.

And so he says, not that I have already obtained this, because that complete sanctification in Christ that he will attain on the resurrection, when the dead are resurrected, he can't obtain that on this earth, and he will.

Does that make sense? Obviously I'm going to talk about that more. The process of pressing on that he talks about here is a post-salvation process. Our salvation is something that is done to us, and it is a gift from God.

So it's not something that we can't work to attain our salvation, it's a gift that's given to us from God. Once we're saved, our mind's eye shifts from our focus on self and personal perfection, as it did for Paul, and shifts to God, and we begin to live a life striving for that upward call.

Listen to what John Stott said, he says this, We have come here, to verse 12, to a stock-taking verse. Once upon a time Paul thought that he had arrived, for he judged himself as, to righteousness under the law, blameless.

But hear his estimate now. Not that I have already obtained this, or am already perfect. Sinless perfection is not the experience even of an apostle this side of glory. He sees himself with new eyes and has received a spiritual understanding.

There's a difference between what Paul the Pharisee and Paul the Christian, their understanding of themselves and where they are in perfection. Now here's the action, right, he's talked about a state and here's the action, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

Paul tells us what he's doing, why he's doing it. We, as Christians, we hear this for the whole, you know, let go and let God, right, just like, let everything go and God will carry us through and everything will be great.

Is that, is that what Paul's saying? Is he saying, we'll just kind of ride it out, you know, get on the surfboard and, you know, let the, let the water carry us? First of all, that's not how surfing works.

I can't surf and I know that much, but that's not what he's saying here. He's not saying, let go and let God. He's saying we're called to, we need to work through and for our salvation, our sanctification, excuse me, sorry.

In the previous chapter, Paul says to the Philippians, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. The Christian life is an active life.

Can anybody think of examples in scripture where we hear the description of the Christian life that maybe talks about how we're supposed to act? James, first John, good. First Timothy, the good fight of the faith, right?

Colossians, Paul describes the Christian life as labor and striving, right? James, absolutely, faith without works is dead. Absolutely, we definitely, right, living in a way that is befitting to Christ and denying those things that we want to do is not easy.

I'm not a student of the Greek per se, so textual criticism isn't my forte, but listen to the end of verse, does anybody have the New American Standard? Anybody else? Okay, so a couple of people, so you can fact check me.

Verse 12 says this in the NAS, the end of verse 12, it says, I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. It sounds kind of strange, and I think that's probably why the ESV translates it a little bit differently, but there's a parallel there, there's a comparison there that Paul is laying hold of something and that same thing was why he was laid hold of by Christ, does that make sense?

So just a couple of verses that kind of talk about that, Romans 8 .29, for those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

And then 2 Thessalonians 2 .14 says, To this he called you through our gospels so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So he predestined us for confirmation to his Son, and he called us to obtain the glory of Christ.

Christ laid hold of Paul so that Paul could obtain his glory, the glory of Christ. And similarly, Paul, with the mind of Christ, 1 Corinthians 2 .16, seeks to obtain that glory for which he was laid hold of.

Does that make sense? So Paul has the mind of Christ in the sense that Christ has grabbed Paul and said, you need to work towards my glory, and that is what Paul is doing. Maybe this analogy is going to break down, but it's the first thing that I thought of when I was trying to paint this picture.

If my wife prepares a meal for me with the intention for me to eat it, right, that is her focus, I want you to eat this meal. And I sit down and I have a desire to eat that meal. We are of the same mind with regard to that meal, right?

Plus it works really well for me when I get home from work. So we have the same perspective towards this thing. In these verses, it's the salvation of Paul and the glorification of Christ, but in my example, my food.

Gordon Fee said this, Paul's point, as always, is that Christ's work is the prior one and that all his own effort is simply in response to and for the sake of that prior apprehension of him by Christ Jesus, my Lord.

Okay, I know that's confusing. Do we have any questions? Does that make sense? Brothers, says Paul in verse 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.

Again, in the New American Standard, there's an extra word in that verse. It says, brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet. Right? The word's not there in the ESV, but it is there in the New American Standard.

And what does that mean? What's the difference? I haven't laid hold of this or I haven't laid hold of this yet. Right? We think about it like this. I haven't gone to the mall. Okay, great. You haven't gone to the mall.

I haven't gone to the mall yet. Okay, now all of a sudden it changes the understanding a little bit. Now it's, oh, you want to go shopping. Okay. We know this thing is going to happen. I just think you lose a little bit in the ESV there.

So it is the same thing that Paul's talking about in verse 12. But here, I mean, there's a lot of parallel between 12 and 13. I think that's pretty obvious. We see the confidence that he hasn't obtained that perfect sanctification, but he will.

Right? I haven't obtained it yet. Paul wants it to be obvious, and it's pretty obvious, that he isn't claiming that he's perfect like he used to. But he does want it to be made clear that we have an obligation to pursue that perfection as Christians.

Running the Christian Race with Single-Minded Focus

Anybody watch a horse race? It's not as popular as it used to be. Anybody ever watch one? A couple people? Okay. I mean, maybe live, maybe on TV, but whatever. Not for gambling purposes. That's not what I'm saying.

What are those things they have on the side of their heads? Blinders? Okay, great. Why do they have them? They won't be distracted by the other horses. I was reading, I was actually studying horse blinders, and it turns out, I know, right?

I know. It turns out that some horses are so dumb that even if they're running as fast as they can, and they see something out of the corner of their eye, they'll stop dead and look at it. They throw the jockey off.

They probably break their front legs. You'd think that a horse would be smart enough to maybe say, maybe I want to slow down first. But no. It's actually not only to help them in the race, but it's also for their own safety that they have these little cup blinder things.

Horses are crazy. All right. So for the next two verses, the end of verse 13 and verse 14, Paul conjures up the imagery of an athlete running in a race. We can also think about driving in a race or anything like that.

Some commentators talked about how maybe he's referring to chariot races. It doesn't really matter, but the idea here is that we're talking about a race and the racer who's in that race. One thing I do, Paul says, this is a singular focus.

These are, Paul now has the little blinders on, right? And he's ignoring everything other than what his primary focus is, not allowing himself to be distracted by anything going on around him as he focuses on whatever that thing is that lies ahead.

One commentator said, the believer must devote himself to running the Christian race. No athlete succeeds by doing everything. He succeeds by specializing. That's true, right? I mean, specialization is the key.

They say it takes 10 hours of repetition on something to truly master it. I don't remember what it was. I think I was watching ESPN. I don't really remember. But the announcers on there were talking about Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders.

And if you don't know who they are, come see me after. And they said, well, all right. I guess Deion Sanders was a pretty good football player. So Bo Jackson, I'll use him as an example, played professional football, professional baseball.

And they said, well, you knew Bo Jackson. If he had focused on football or on baseball, would he have been an all-star? I mean, he was pretty popular in his day, but it was almost more because he played both sports.

And the guy said, absolutely. If he had focused on one of those sports, he would have been at the top of it. He would have been maybe even in the Hall of Fame, whatever it might be. But because he split himself between these two sports, he wasn't in that truly upper echelon.

So even some of the best athletes of our day, without that kind of specialization, cannot really truly exceed to the highest level as if they had focused on just that one thing. So with that singular focus, Paul describes what he did, right?

He said this one thing. And then he said, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward toward what lies ahead, just like the beginning of verse 13 parallels verse 12, so the end does. So let's think about Paul.

We already talked about this a little bit. Consider what he left behind. He was a Pharisee, right? He was in the Sanhedrin. He was at really the height of the Jewish theocratic world, right? I mean, there wasn't a whole lot more that he could achieve.

He had more or less everything. He achieved that perfection. He had that blamelessness in the law. I mean, he was basically bred to be a perfect Pharisee. But keep in mind those verses that I quoted before, verses 8 to 11.

He counts all of that as rubbish. But notice what he doesn't say. He says he forgets what lies behind, right? He doesn't say, you know, I'm not going to think about my failures, right? I mean, that's what we hear, right, in this world.

It's like, well, you know, maybe I didn't do everything right before, but just forget about that and think about the good things, right? And that's not what Paul says. He says, forgetting what lies behind everything.

Warren Rearsby said, Too many Christians are shackled by regrets of the past. Some Christian runners are being distracted by the successes of the past, not the failures, and this is just as bad, right?

If we become content in our success, it dulls our resolve to press forward. If we think that we've achieved everything, then we're not going to desire for righteousness because we're like, pfft, I've arrived, whatever, I'm done.

MacArthur put it another way. He said that perfectionists and legalists look to their past achievements to validate their supposed spiritual status. Well, that's not what Paul is saying here. Paul is saying, forgetting everything that lies behind me.

We've been talking about races. Anybody here race? Running, riding, whatever, a couple people, okay. What do you focus on when you're in a race? What's that? The finish line, good, right? The image I always think about is like Boston Marathon, Heartbreak Hill.

You're like thinking about what's on the other side of that hill, right? You're not thinking about the fact that you've got to run up the hill to get to the other side of the hill, right? Do you watch the people behind you?

You're like, ha, ha, ha, ha, look at me, you know? No? So you don't, you have a singular focus. You keep your eyes fixed on what's ahead of you. Now, if you have two points, right? You're thinking two-dimensional here.

What is the shortest distance between two points? A straight line. So in any kind of race like that, like, you know, I don't know, sprints or drag races, I think drag races because, hey, drag races are fun, there's no turning, you know?

Do you see, you know, when a drag racer is swerving back and forth, that usually means something terrible is about to happen, right? It doesn't mean that they're going to win the race. They might be exploding.

But they're going straight from point A, beginning, to point B, the shortest route. If any of you have driven a clunker, you know that basically all you want to do is go from point A to point B, and you don't want to go anywhere in between because you might not make it there.

Now, I have driven a clunker. Now, listen to the wise words of Solomon in Proverbs 4, verses 25 to 27. Let your eyes, he's talking to his son here, let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you.

Ponder the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil. Run that you may obtain it, Paul says. Exert effort. Strain forward with the singular focus of what lies ahead.

The Prize of the Upward Call and the Meaning of Christian Maturity

Now, moving to verse 14. 14 is sort of the core verse, I think, for this passage. It's five verses. It's almost befitting that the one in the middle is the core verse. 12 and 13 lead up to this and support it.

15 and 16 reference it. Paul says this, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Now, what do people say the father of learning is? Repetition is the father of learning.

I think Paul knew that. This is the third time that he's saying this, right? And maybe that it's important that he's saying it three times. He's hammering this idea home. All over the scriptures, Paul talks about pressing on with the singular focus.

1 Timothy 4, 7 says train yourself a godliness. Verse 10 of the same chapter says, For to this end we toil and strive because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the savior of all people, especially those who believe.

1 Corinthians 9, 24 to 26. Do you not know that in a race all of the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

Excuse me. So I do not run aimlessly. I do not box as one beating the air. See, there it is again. I have this focus. I don't just kind of like, oh, I'm running a race. Oh, I wonder if I'm going to win.

He has a singular focus. And he doesn't box as if he's beating the air. I really wanted to look it up, but I remember reading a while back there was a boxing match between two guys. And the guy who won, won without even throwing a punch because he was bigger.

So he just stood there, and the other guy was running around the ring. And eventually he just wore himself out, just laid down and lost. Stranger things. I can't make this stuff up. He does not box as one beating the air.

He's got this singular focus. And finally, I think probably if you're like me, this is the first thought you thought of when you found out what the passage was, Hebrews 12, 1 and 2. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely.

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. There's that singular focus. For who the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

We talked about the prize of the upward call in the end of this verse, in verse 14. But listen to what John Stott said about this. The prize towards which he is drawn in disciplined and concentrated activity is described as belonging to the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

A study of the idea of calling in the epistles of Paul will reveal that its meaning is not invitation into gospel privileges, but the power of God over the wills of his people. It is not God's invitation to be saved.

It is God's determination to save. The prize is part of and is guaranteed by God's saving purposes at work in Paul. And it all is called children. It is for this reason that in the other passage where he mentions a prize, which I had just read, 1 Corinthians 9 .26, Paul depicts himself as fighting not aimlessly or uncertainly.

His final salvation, with all the glories of its rewards, was secured for him by and with God's calling of him in Christ. Now we move on to verse 15. So we sort of have the commands, right, verses 1, 2, and 3.

Paul says, this is what I do, right? This is the example, not the command. The example. Verse 15 says, let those of you who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that to you.

Now, another one of those word studies that is pretty interesting here. What does the New American Standard translate that word mature as? Perfect. Perfect. Good. Perfect. If you look at the Greek, it turns out that in verse 12 when it says perfect, and here in verse 15 where it says perfect, it's the same word.

So, like, what's the deal here? Psalm 19, Eric Johanson taught on Psalm 19 last week. He talked about the word perfect. Does anybody remember? Perfect is one of those words that can have a bunch of different definitions, right?

It can mean some different things. Does anybody remember what some of those might be? Complete. Right? Anything else? Finished. Right? Sort of a similar idea. I mean, all of these are obviously going to be similar ideas.

You know, we think about the perfect work of Christ as the complete and the finished work of Christ. Right? I mean, obviously there's this idea of, like, a perfect diamond, right? It's flawless. Right?

Or, you know, Jesus obeyed perfectly. Right? He obeyed with, there was no fault in him. So we have flawlessness, blamelessness. We have completeness. And we have this idea of a finished work. And we have this idea of maturity.

In verse 12, he is using this word to mean flawless. Right? I'll flip back here so I can read it. He says, not that I have already obtained this, or I'm already perfect. Not that I'm already perfect. Not that I'm already complete.

Not that I'm already flawless in everything. You know, of course, the word that we use for that is perfect. So it sounds silly for me to say, not that I'm already perfect, and try and describe perfect.

But Paul cannot mean perfect here. He said, let those of you who are mature think this way. Those of you who are perfect think this way. Well, he just basically said that nobody can be perfect on this side of glory.

So that can't be what he means. Right? Instead, the ESV, I think, probably translates it right. It means complete or mature. It talks about positional perfection. Jay Verner McGee sort of paints this picture to help to explain it.

Suppose we have a baby here, 17 months old. My, what a wonderful baby he is. He wins a blue ribbon. But if you see him 17 years later and he is still saying, da-da. Of course, when I think of da-da-da-da, I think of Asher because he is just starting to say da-da.

There is something radically wrong, right? If you see a 17-year-old walking around, da-da-da-da. You know that that's not right. There is something wrong with that baby. But at 17 months old, that's perfect.

This baby is perfect. You look at a tree with fruit growing on it, maybe apples. You look at them in early summer, midsummer. Apples are still green. They are not red yet. They are not ready to be picked.

Man, can you imagine what those are going to be like in three months? Those apples are perfect. Three months later, you go to that same tree. You still have a tree full of green apples. You are like, these are not perfect apples.

These are bad apples. So perfection here, in the way that Paul is talking about it, is not this sort of final attained state. It is positional perfection. As we move along in our Christian walk, we are all at different points in our walk.

A mature believer is one who lives in keeping what they have already attained at that point in their Christian life. Every believer is at a different point. A recent convert is not going to understand something that a Christian who has been a Christian for 30 years should understand.

They are at different points, but that does not invalidate the worth of the recent convert, the new Christian. They can still be positionally perfect in Christ. Maybe positionally perfect is not the best term, but it is the best I can come up with.

So remember this contrast we have between Paul the Pharisee and Paul the Christian. F .F. Bruce said this, Having attained spiritual maturity, he no longer frets about weaknesses, failures, and frustrations, whether in himself or others.

You think back to those definitions of perfection, of a perfectionist. That is on the list. Somebody who is obsessed with their failures and obsessed with the failures of others. And Paul is no longer like that.

He has painted a picture of the direction and the effort of the mature Christian. And he has been clear in saying that mature Christians have this focus. Let those of you who are mature think this way.

So the question is this. Do you have that kind of unflinching focus and commitment towards the upward call? If not, that is okay. Paul is confident that the truth he is writing about will be made clear through the workings of God.