Good morning, New City East Lake, and all of our friends watching around the world. Again, I usually suspect that there are people that are watching that we may not even know watching us, which is great. It's a wonderful thing. We continue this morning with our series, short season, The Book of Philippians, this letter, this beautiful letter that Paul writes to the church that he loves in Philippi. Last week we began looking at this glorious chapter, chapter three, where Paul makes a bold proclamation of how he has counted everything that he had gained as a loss for the sake of knowing Christ. And I think one of the things that we saw last week was how Paul describes to us through his own personal testimony, how God accepts us, not because of the things that we have, not because of our achievements, but only through his son Jesus Christ. And so Paul is going to continue that same thought, if you will, in verses 12 through 16, which is what we're going to be looking at. And so now that he's told us how we achieve or rather are accepted by God, what does that life look like? How do we walk in that life of being in Christ Jesus? And so Paul is offering some practical things for us to think about this morning. I will ask my sister Eunice, she's going to read the Spanish reading and then I'll read the English as well. My brother, I invite you to open your Bible in Philippians 3 to 12 to 16, Philippians 3 to 12 to 16. It's not that I have already achieved everything, or that I have already been perfected. However, I am going forward waiting to achieve what Jesus has achieved to me. My brother, I don't think I have achieved the same thing myself anymore. But it's good to do something, forgetting what is behind it and forcing me to achieve what is in front of me. I am going forward to the goal to win the award that God offers through His celestial calling in Christ Jesus. Brothers and sisters, now here the reading of God's Word, this morning reading from Philippians 3 to 12 to 16. Here's the Word of God. Not that I have already obtained this, or I'm already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me His own. Brothers and sisters of course, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do for getting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on 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 anything you think otherwise, God will review that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. This is the Word of God. Thanks be to God. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, we do come to you this day. Again, what a privilege it is for us to consider your Word that you've given to us, your Word that is alive, the bread of life for us. We are truly grateful that you speak to us through this Word. And so would you open our hearts and our minds that we may hear you today? May we be convicted, we be encouraged, may we be filled with hope as you speak to us. Use your servants who is weak, but your Word is strong and powerful. So use it for your glory we pray in Christ's name. Amen. As we've seen before in this letter, Paul loves the analogy of an athlete of a runner, a long distance runner. And in today's passage, it's not different that Paul begins this particular verse 12 speaking of the same or giving us the same analogy to describe the Christian journey in this life. A long distance runner who is pressing on Paul says running towards the finish line. And so Paul is reminding us to keep on keeping on in our Christian journey. As much as I think about this analogy, the Paul uses it as a two-edged sword, so to speak. On one hand, Paul is saying to us in this verses that we must reject the notion which says that we can achieve a sinless life on this side of Eden. That we can somehow achieve our death life now by obtaining a sick free, a pain free, prosperity-filled, and so-of-free life. Paul is saying that there are no five steps to achieving your best life now. But on the other hand, because it's a double-edged sword, Paul is saying that we must also reject the notion which says that because we've been served by grace and we've been served by grace alone from faith alone, let's just chill. Let's just relax and let go and let go and do absolutely nothing about our Christian walk with him. That the pursuit of becoming more Christ-like, of knowing him more and more, seems to be such a difficult thing. It is too hard for us, and since it is so hard for us to attain, let's be complacent in our walk with the Lord. Paul is saying there's a better way. There's a better way for us to run this race to press on, and he's saying the first thing I want you to do is we must keep our eyes on our progress. We must keep our eyes on our progress, and then we must keep our eyes on the prize. Let's first begin by looking at verses 12 and the first part of verses 13. He says, now that I've already obtained this or I'm already perfect, but I press on to making my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Paul, in the beginning of chapter 3, had made this staggering statement. We read in chapter 3 verses 8, where Paul tells us of what had happened to his life. He said, indeed, I count everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. He says, we seek. I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and he continues on and on. He's failing to us what had happened to him and how he was now in Christ and he counted all these things a loss. We saw that last week. And so just so that the church in Philippi doesn't begin to think that this man was achieved all this greatness is already sanctified, fully sanctified, and he doesn't need to know Christ anymore. He's glad of all those things. Paul wants to make sure that the church understands that he is still a pilgrim, that he is still on the road trying to run the rails. And he's not perfect yet. He has not reached where he wants to be. He wants the church to know that he still wants to know Christ ever more. He doesn't want the church to start thinking. I mean, think about this great apostle. The man that we're told in Acts, chapter 19, that his anchorships and an apron that touched his skin were used in care to the sick and to the demon possessed to bring healing to them. He wants them to see that he is still the tender-hearted humble pastor that seeks to know the Lord. The still wants to know Christ Jesus and be found blameless in his sight. He wants the church to know that even as a great apostle, he still finds himself falling short. While Paul relentlessly pursues Christ, he is admitting his own need to grow into maturity. He doesn't think too highly of himself. And this is against those who had come and were saying, you know, we are the super spiritual ones. We are the ones who are thoughtless by the law. The ones who were saying that they could imagine all the blessings of this life being heard now before the resurrection. And so by admitting that he is not perfect, he wants those that are weak. They said, feel that they are not quite there yet in this spiritual walk with the Lord to be encouraged, not to doubt their faith in Christ Jesus. And he wants them to know. He is still on the road. There is so much ground for him to cover because he still wants to know this Jesus. Paul also wants to make sure that the church doesn't get deceived into thinking that they have arrived. That, hey, you know, you've been saved by grace, so here you are, so you just stand, just sit and wait upon the Lord to return. And I know so many of us, we are wrong as Christians, right? For the day when we will stop struggling with sin and sickness and things like coronavirus, we want an end to all those things right now and here. But even Paul looking back at all the achievements and his experience with Christ so many years with him, Paul still recognizing that those things are not quite there yet. They were not quite there yet. We still have a long way to go until Christ returns. And so the experience of a genuine Christian is this. It is an understanding that Jesus has sought me, a sinner, that he has humbled me, that he has saved me. It is an understanding that I am a great sinner, but Christ is an even greater Savior. That's the first step for us to mature into Christianity, that our faith is an adventure, the lifetime adventure, not just something that happens now and we're done in the journeys over. And that our faith and our growth is not simply measured by the initial intensity that we had. You remember that time when you first became a believer if you did this and the adult, you know that you are passionate and excited about the gospel and not sometimes waned and phased with sin. And that the Christian life is not the ideal that everybody is expected to honor, but really no one can ever can ever attain it. That's not true. Paul's words here are a confession of the principles on how we achieve that ideal, the perfection or rather holiness is something that we ought to desire. Yes, we are not going to be perfect on the side of heaven, but that is what we ought to desire and long for. So press on towards that and look at how Paul is making this acknowledgement. He says, I've never obtained this or I'm not already perfect, but he says I press on to making my own and then he says it just Christ Jesus has made me his own. He acknowledges that it is God who called him. It is God who had a purpose for calling him and then for keeping him and that this calling in fact just put an obligation for him to follow Jesus, which is what he's calling pressing on. That's his obligation to press on. Now Jesus's call upon us is a powerful thing. Irresistible grace that brings us to him. I love this hymn that says, I heard the voice of Jesus say, come on to me and rest. Lay down all weary one. Lay down your head upon my breasts. Then the hymn writer says, I came to Jesus as I was so weary and worn and sad. But then he says, I found him a resting place and he Jesus has made me glad. That's the call. That's the purpose. That's the obligation that we have when Christ calls us. But at this call for us, that Jesus doesn't just simply call us and then leave us through our own. He keeps us. He keeps us. He lays a hold of us. He takes a hold of us. He preserves on our behalf as we listen to him and that God desires for us to enter into His presence through the work of His Son, Jesus Christ. And that the purpose of God calling us is to make us like His Son, to conform us into the image of Jesus Christ. So the reason why Jesus awakened you from your spiritual death into life eternal is so that you may be conformed into the image of His Son. Isn't that a glorious thing? But the God desires for you to be like His Son. That's what Paul is saying. He wants to press on so that he may become more and more like Jesus. You know, friends, a life of dissatisfaction is a blessed life. Uh-oh, what did I say? Yeah, I said it. A life of dissatisfaction is a blessed life. Listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 5-6. He says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be what? They shall be satisfied. See, the more we hunger for God, the more we want to know Him more and more, the more we'll find ourselves being satisfied. And so the call for us is that we should never be satisfied with where we are, with where we are, but we must find ourselves hungering and thirsting for righteousness. That holiness is not something that we should just think of at all. I will achieve holiness when I get to heaven. No holiness is actually something to be enjoyed. It's a privilege for us to enjoy on this side of heaven. Knowing Christ and experiencing Him now must be our desire, must be our hunger. Implications? Yes, it is personal, but it's also going to cost you. It will cost you your life. It will cost you everything. It will cost you abandoning your own sin and the way you live. You will pass, your personal gains, your plans and the times even family and friends. That we give up everything to Father Jesus, but Jesus gives even more to us. Again, listen to what Jesus says in Mark chapter 10 verse 29. He says, you know, Jesus said truly, I say to you there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive any hundredfold now in this time houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life. Again, we receive all these blessings, but I love the fact that Jesus adds on there with persecutions as well, because it's going to cost us something to follow Him. I think the question that we need to follow up even from last week who we're talking about, what has it cost us to follow Christ? I think that ought to be a question that we ask ourselves every day. What is Jesus asking us to lay aside so we can press on so that we can run this race of knowing Him and being known by Him and becoming more like Him every day? What are we giving up in our life? And this is not experiencing our best life now and something we want to say. Yes, God's blessings can be enjoyed here now, but our best is yet to come. What we have now and all the blessings that God gives to us is only a glimpse of what awaits us and I cannot wait for that day to be able to behold Christ to see Jesus Himself and to know that nothing on earth can compare to being with Christ. Absolutely nothing. See, true spiritual maturity is being aware of what we are not. Not just what we are, but being aware of what we are not. It is a life of humble consistency. The maturity rejects exaggerated claims that we can somehow attain superhuman, Christian status that elevates us to glory while we're still here on earth. Every one of us has heard the tale of the totals and the hair, right? The hair running so fast, you know, he's so quick, he's so fast and he can trip and fall because you know, you're not watching where you're going because you're so fast. The totals is kind of slow and steady and consistent. See, spiritual maturity is being a totals. You don't want to be the hair. Don't you sometimes just hate spiritual hairs that just seem to be so quick and bold and I'm going to arrive the morning there. I'm so quick. See, growing in a maturity in our Christian life is being slow and steady and consistent. That's how we grow. It's understanding that God isn't working us, that He has called us, that He's keeping us, and that He will keep on keeping, or whether He will keep on working or not so that we may become more like Him. It's a long race, not a sprint. One day we will make it, we'll attain it. And so I encourage you, friends, because I don't know where you are this morning and your spiritual walk with Jesus. To be reminded that Jesus has laid a hold on you and that He is, He's going to help you to persevere. Persevere all the way to the end of this race. He will keep you going. And yeah, I know. Because I'm on the same race as you are, but there are times that we are exhausted. There are times that we are so thirsty, we just need a drink of water. We are hungry, times will be injured, that we cannot even run, we cannot even walk. And those are the moments that He carries us. There are times that the terrain will be so difficult, days that we will need to cry out like the psalmist in Psalm 21 and ask, where will my help come from in friends? We must cry out and the answer for us must always be. Our help is from the Lord of our God, the miracles, the heavens and the earth, years of our help. I hope that will be your prayer and the answer to your question, where will my help come from? Because Jesus has laid a hold on you and because of that you have the assurance, you have the endurance and you have the joy to run this race. So keep on keeping on. So one, we must keep our eyes on our progress, knowing that we are not quite there yet. Finally, we must keep our eyes on the price. It is Gordon Fee, one commentator who said, quote, a good dose of memory about one's beginning in Christ can serve as the proper shot of adrenaline for continuing the race. It should serve us, it should help us to keep our eyes on the future, on the goal, not dwelling on the past. Because really we cannot look back and simultaneously keep our eyes fixed on Christ, right? And in the three ways that Paul kind of shows us here in verses 13 and 14 that we must forget the past, look ahead and then strive towards the price. Forget the past, look ahead and strive towards the price that is set before us. He says in verses 13, brothers and sisters, do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, for getting more lives behind and straining toward what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the price of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. See, the past year is spiritual successes and failures. That might tempt Paul to say, I could easily look back into my successes and further than might tempt me to think that I have somehow arrived. And the point is that we should not labor on past obedience, so to speak, but to labor onwards as we become more Christ-like until he returns. See, Paul is not in any way suggesting that we ought to forget God's mercy. They are new every morning and we need to remember God's mercy every day of our life. He's not saying we need to forget God's word, it is fresh every single day and we need to remember God's word. He's not saying that we forget what God has done for us. He has done marvelous things and we need to remember those things all the time. Paul is warning us against a forgetfulness that invites complacency by losing focus on the growing, growing on past achievements and successes and other things that have happened in the past. See, and we know it too well, right, that sometimes we really refuse to move on. We refuse to let go of the past, both the good and bad and the ugly. And that sometimes stops us from looking forward to the work that God still has for us, to work that God is doing in us. I've often quoted this passage to you in Numbers, chapter 11, every time I remember about the Israelites in the wilderness and how they forgot. Look was ahead of them, instead of keeping their eyes on the promised land, they started dreaming about Egypt. They were craving the fish, they had the costume, nothing. And they said, well, we remember the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic. Mmm, yum. Let us go back to slavery and let's forget our vision that lies ahead for us which is the promised land, a land that is flowing with milk and honey. Do you realize the foolishness of that and yet we do the same thing? That we should be thankful for the past blessing that God has given to us but we can err by merely looking at the past. And we can also err by merely just looking at the future not remembering what God is doing for us here in the present. Instead Paul is saying we need to have a balance, we need to press on by learning to look forward by faith, now building our lives on our past shrines and altars. Paul is here painting a picture of the runner. Again, it's a runner in the last stretch. I mean, even if you're not a runner, if you watch Olympics, you've seen this, right? His legs are drumming like pistons and feet pounding at the chorus with painful thunder. His throat dry and he gasped, her breath as he's running and stretching and yet he keeps his eyes on the finish line and must never look back on his sadness as he was coming behind him because if he dies, he's going to be distracted and lose rhythm and he could lose the race. But the vision of the end of the race is what directs and speeds his listening feet. He is running towards the goal towards the finish line. That must be a walk with the Lord pressing on toward the finish line and this is not necessarily perfectionism. Paul is not speaking of perfectionism here, he's speaking of perseverance. And I'm glad the Paul doesn't even tell us what the goal is, right? Does he say what the goal or the goal and the prizes? No, leaves it blank, there's a prize. I'm glad he doesn't tell us what it is because we should know what it is, right? As Christians, the prize is Jesus. The one Jesus the Paul could serve for me to live, this Christ and to die is gain. It is meeting and being with the one who knows him, who has loved him and called him his own. To fully know him as he knows, ask and be with him forever. And I love that it is what no eye and a scene, no ear has heard, no hearth of man conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. This is the goal and the prize. It is Christ. It is being with him. It is enjoying all the blessings and privileges of being in the presence of our glorious Savior, Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, here in America with our affluence, we've somehow lost that beautiful vision that awaits us in glory. We are trying to make the present eternal with our cosmetic surgeries and other things that we try to do so that we can keep the present to be the real thing. There is so much hopelessness for us in the future. We don't want to think about it because it's not faithful. And yet for the living God is the beginning and end of our thing. There is no any other that is purpose for His creation and not finished until He has brought our salvation into consummation, into completion. And that nothing else counts for much except this, my friends. It's knowing Christ, both now and with a clear and certain hope of the future. That is what matters in your life. Yet we know the truth of Satan. The evil one who keeps fighting us all the way. It's going to be hard. It's hard for us to keep our eyes on the prize. It really is hard. And yet we must have confidence that the outcome for us is already guaranteed. The outcome is already known. Yet Satan will tempt us to despair. He will tell us of the guilt within, but then friends what we ought to do is outward. We must look to see the one who made an end to our sin that by his death and resurrection Christ has already won the battle. And that is awesome. And the question then becomes for us. Then how shall we then live, now how shall we then walk and run this race to win the prize? Because our walk says everything about who we are. Paul, asian, verses 15 and 16, he says, let those of us who are mature think this way. And if anything you think otherwise God will review that also to you only let us hold true to what we have attained. See Paul is selling the church in Philippi that if some of them had a misunderstanding of what the Christian life looks like, the God would graciously correct them. He trusted the by the spirit of God that he would bring his people to the knowledge of the truth. This is what it looks for you to walk to run this race. Again, we will not attain perfection on this side of heaven. But Paul is saying that we must not be content to live in spiritual infancy or immaturity. We must keep growing. And when we begin to learn how to forget the past and press on, that's a clear sign that we are in fact maturing in Christ. And if we know the love of Jesus, if we know that He is at work in us, that must feel our pursuit of Him, of wanting to know Him more and more every single day. We cannot ease up on the race. We must keep on going until the very end. Not that we do it on our own and our own energy and power and ability but knowing that Jesus again has taken a hold of us and that He enables us to keep going. That's why we don't run halfway and then sit on the sidewalk and let's just sit and watch as everybody else runs the race. Yes, we don't do that and then we keep going because Jesus has gotten a hold of us that He will aid us until the very end. We need to remember as we run, as we gas, as we exhausted and thirsty and dry, that we must learn how to die running within for Jesus. And understanding that it is only the power that raised Jesus again from the dead. That is the power that is at work in us that will enable us to run the race. Friends, many of you know and have heard the news of Ravi Zacarias, the great Christian apologists who just passed away this week. He ran his race and he is not with Jesus. What a remarkable man and what a life that he lived. And if you know Ravi Zacarias, life, you know that he grew up as an atheist. As a 17-year-old boy, he tried to commit suicide until he read John 1419, which would become his life verse which says, because I live, you also will live. This verse changed his life. I was reading this week his daughter, Sarah Davis, as she wrote a moving tribute to her father. And she mentioned that on January the 4th, he had recited a hymn by Richard Baxter, not knowing that his life would come to an end. And he is the hymn that Ravi recited. The hymn goes like this. It says, Lord, it belongs not to my care, whether I die or live to love and serve thee is my share. And this die grace must give. Christ leads me through no darker rooms than he went through before. He, that into God's kingdom, comes must enter by this door. Come, Lord, when grace have made me meet thy blessed face to face, for if thy work on earth be sweet, what thy glory be? Then shall out ends my sad complaints and weary sinful days. And join with the triumphant saints that sing my Saviour's praise. And the last thing that says, my knowledge of that life is small. The eye of faith is dim, but this enough that Christ knows all. And I shall be with him. My knowledge of that life is small. The eye of faith is dim. But this enough that Christ knows all, and I shall be with him. Is that your prayer, fellow pilgrim, as you are pressing on, not by your own strength and ability? But because Jesus has called you first and made you his own, that we press on, because one day the race will be over the years and the months and the days of being trained and disciplined and grinding and all the work and art of your salvation with fear and trembling, the struggle with sin which I'm sure you tired, the suffering and the imperfections that you have to do with every day. When we arrive at the finish line, one day we will and Christ will make it work for us. When we stand on that finish line and he says, welcome my son and daughter, you have run the race. And that in the meantime, the glorious hope of being with him will be with Jesus, the one who died for our sins by giving his life on the cross that knowing him and running this race cannot compare to anything else that we can pursue on this life. So friends, keep on keeping on, run the race and Jesus will aid you to the end. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank you that you are our prize or goal. The one whom we yearn to meet at the finish line, when all is said and done, we will meet you in glory. Lord, we long for that day. In the meantime, the word we are pilgrims here on this side of heaven. And we need you. We need you every day. The race can at times be difficult, exhausting, the times that were tempted to give up. Lord, remind us today that you have taken a hold of us and you will not let us go. May that fuel or pursuit of you every single day of our life in Christ Jesus we pray. Amen. Amen.