Trinity Baptist Church - Reaching for the Prize #4

"Reaching for the Prize--Part 4"

Philippians 3:20-21

Let's open our Bibles this morning to Philippians chapter 3 for part four of our series on "Reaching for the Prize."

Philippians 3:13-21

Now as we’ve noted the focus of the passage is verse 14 where Paul says, "I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." We're talking about pursuing the prize, pursuing the goal, living your Christian life in such a way that it demonstrates that your single great passion is to be like Jesus Christ.

In fact, if you go back in to verse 8 he said, "I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ." In verse 10 he said, "I want to know Him. I want to know the power of His resurrection. I want to know the fellowship of His sufferings.

I want to be conformed to His death." In verse 11 he said, "I want to attain to the resurrection from the dead." And that brought him in verse 13 to say, "There's only one thing I do," verse 14, "I press on toward the goal."

You see, Paul lived a life pursuing Christ's likeness. That's what we've been noting in this passage. Christ's likeness must be the pursuit of every believer. It is the basic of every Christian’s life.

Now after stating that goal, Paul suggests for us, beginning in verse 17, three necessary elements in this pursuit. He says, if you will be successful in reaching the prize, if you're going to be pursuing Christ's likeness, you've got to have somebody to follow, somebody who shows you how to pursue that. Therefore, follow your examples.

The second thing is to flee from your enemies. Verses 18 and 19 introduce us to the enemies of the cross of Christ. They must be avoided at all costs because their end is destruction, their God is their appetite, their glory is in their shame and they set their minds on earthly things, they cannot lead you in the right path.

And we identified our enemies as anyone who minimizes the centrality of the cross. They might overemphasize legalism or underemphasize the power of God, but either way, they miss the significance of the cross alone.

And then tonight, we come to the last two verses, and there we hear Paul saying, you need to “Focus Your Expectations”.

Here we find

1.The Motivation

for Reaching the Prize. What is it that makes us pursue the prize? It is the coming of Jesus Christ who will change us to be like Him. We have to keep that focus clear.

Notice how obvious that is in verses 20 and 21.

Paul says our citizenship is in heaven and we are eagerly waiting for the return of the Lord Jesus because when He comes He'll transform us to be like Him and He's got the power to do it.

Therefore, we are to have an heavenly perspective. We are to be pre-occupied with heaven. This is what motivates us. We're concerned to see the Savior. We're concerned to hear "Well done" from the Savior. We're concerned to be rewarded by the Savior. We're concerned for eternal glory.

Think about that from Paul’s perspective: He knew very little about creature comforts. He knew very little of pleasant emotions. He was uncomfortable most of the time, beaten, shipwrecked, stoned, left for dead, on and on and on, always sorrowful, always weeping over one thing or another, tearful, always in some kind of pain or another, disappointment, difficulties, deprivation.

But those didn’t really matter because he was moving toward a goal and that goal was all tied to heaven. So his preoccupation was heavenly. That's why he could say, "Far better to depart and be with Christ." That’s why he could say his life was just filled with temporary setbacks and light afflictions. They aren’t any big deal when heaven is in sight.

And if we are going to effectively pursue Christ-likeness, this must become our focus also. And by the way, to simplify that, it just means being consumed with Christ. Christ is a heavenly being. Christ is of heaven, from heaven, in heaven, heaven is His place, He is ours, heaven is our place.

So if we are preoccupied with Him, we're preoccupied with heaven. It matters little to us what happens here, it matters a lot to us what happens there.

So in verse 20 he says our citizenship is in heaven from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Back in verse 14 he called it the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. The time is coming when...when the Lord calls us up to meet Him and will be forever with Christ. That's our focus.

And Paul says, "I long for that." And the only reason he stuck around here was to do his work, to finish his ministry. And when he came to the end in 2 Timothy he said, "I've finished my course, I've kept the faith." And now he says, "I'm ready to get out of here, I'm ready to get the crown of life which the Lord the righteous judge should give to me, and not to me only but to all them that love His appearing." He wanted out when the work was done because that was a better place. He wanted to be with his Savior.

Think about how far removed that is from the way the average Baptist lives today. We have this emphasis on prosperity, health-wealth gospel, solve all your problems, fix up your life, have a happy marriage, have a happy home, be successful.

God just exists to make us happy hear and heal all our diseases and fix all our money problems. If you don’t believe that, just listen to our prayer requests.

This has become our place, even though it shouldn't be.

We're into this world. And we are into instant gratification. So when the Lord says, "One of these days I'll give you a reward," we say, “No thanks. I’ll take what I canget right now.”

When we talk about heaven someday, it doesn't interest anybody because we're into instantaneous gratification. Therefore, heaven is pretty much ignored. We put very little emphasis on heavenly things, very little concern about the life to come. In fact, we almost kind of dread it. We hate to thnk about dying, and life coming to an end here. We must avoid it at all costs.

And what has developed is this preoccupation, not with heaven, but with earth; this world, this life, how I feel, how I get along, how I succeed, how I prosper, on and on and on and on, so that death becomes the enemy because we assume that this is the best, when it isn't.

But if you're going to pursue Christ's likeness and maybe this is the reason so few do, you're going to have to get your focus out of this world and into the next.

So let's see what Paul has to say about it.

Look at verse 20, "Our citizenship is in heaven."

That's where we have to start. We are not citizens of this world. The word "citizenship," by the way, only used here, this particular word, means a colony of foreigners. It is used in a secular source to speak about a capital city that kept the names of its citizens on a register.

In other words, we're registered citizens of another place. We are registered citizens of heaven. Our names are there, our father is there, our Savior is there, our home is there, our fellow saints are there, our inheritance is there, that's our place, that's our place. And Paul says we have to have that perspective.

Now the Philippians could understand that because the Philippians were a colony of Roman citizens far from Rome. So they would understand what it was to have citizenship somewhere other than where you're living. They were citizens of Rome but they were in the colony of Philippi. We are citizens of heaven living here in the earth.

Now he doesn't stop at that point. He says, "From which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ."

So what he's telling us the Lord is in heaven and He's coming back.

We know that: In John 14 He said, "I'm going away and if I go I will come again to receive you unto Myself that where I am you may be also."

Now catch that: We’re not waiting on an event; we’re waiting on a person.

Let me sidetrack here for a moment:

One of the clearest biblical teachings concerning the end-times is a pre-tribulation rapture. That means one of these days, Jesus will call the church out. What will follow on this earth is a seven-year period known as the Great Tribulation.

During that time, Anti-Christ will take over. At it’s conclusion, Jesus returns with His saints to set up His Kingdom.

Now it seems to me that teaching doesn’t get nearly as much attention as it used to. More and more are now preaching and teaching that the church will go through the tribulation.

And even though it has very little scriptural support, it’s popular. What’s driving that shift? I think in some kind of twisted way, it is a reflection of this attachment that we have to the world.

The Charismatic theology of fighting demons and binding Satan plays in to that. And so what has emerged is this thought that says we'd sort of like to hang around and see the Antichrist.

And so I think the church has sort of a new preoccupation. We're no longer longing for heaven and longing for Christ. We'd kind of like to hang around the world as long as possible, and we're so much a part of it we'd like to see how the whole thing comes out in the end. We'd like to step on a few demons and watch some of the action in the Tribulation.

But let me remind you, our citizenship is in heaven. And I don't know about you, but I'm not waiting for the Antichrist, I'm waiting for Christ. And I'm not waiting for the Tribulation, I really could care less about being around, I want to be with Christ. Why do I want to be in a devil-filled world when I can be in a holy heaven with my Savior? Heaven is our home and we wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So we aren’t waiting for an event, we wait on, verse 20, "The Lord Jesus Christ." We wait for a person. That's the prize. Beloved, the goal we pursue all our life is to be like Christ, the prize we get is to be like Him when we see Him, 1 John 3:3.

Now let's go to verse 21. Why are we waiting for Christ? Why do we want Him to come?

2. The Transformation

Verse 21

Why are we waiting for Him? Because we want to be transformed. We want to get rid of this sinful flesh. We want to be like Christ, perfect. Now if you don't want to be, then you like your imperfection. And if you like your imperfection the way it is, that’s because you like your sin. That's how warped our thinking can get. He will make us like Himself. He will transform the body of our humble state. That's our unredeemed flesh.

You see, we've already been made a new creation in the inner man. But the inner man is incarcerated in unredeemed flesh. We're a prisoner locked in unredeemed flesh. And that's not just epidermis and tissue, that's the mind of the flesh and the flesh's lusts.

There is an unredeemed humanness in which this new creation dwells. And the new creation longs to be liberated. That's why it's called the glorious liberation of the children of God in Romans 8. We want to be set free. Paul called it the body of this death from which he longed to be liberated.

So we're waiting for that redemption. And He will transform the body of our humble state.

And you say, "When does this happen?" Listen carefully. If you die now or any time before Christ comes for His own, your body goes into the grave. Your spirit goes immediately to be with the Lord, 2 Corinthians 5, "Absent from the body, present with the Lord." Earlier in this letter, Paul said, Philippians 1, "Far better to depart and be with Christ."

So when you die, your spirit goes immediately to be with Christ. You become one of the spirits of just men made perfect. According to Hebrews 12:23. Heaven is now occupied by spirits of just men made perfect. They're waiting for their bodies. The bodies are awaiting the coming of Christ.

The Bible says when He comes for His church, the dead in Christ will rise first, and the ones that are alive, they'll just go up and be transformed on the way. But the bodies are going to be resurrected in the future.

So what happens when you die as a Christian? Your spirit goes immediately to be with the Lord, but your body has to be changed. When Jesus comes, it says in verse 21, we're waiting for Him, He will transform the body and we will be given a whole new body adapted to an eternal holy heaven.

What will it be like? Look at Christ after His resurrection. He ate, He talked, He walked, He also appeared and disappeared, He also flew through space from earth to heaven. He was recognizable. He was identifiable. And yet He was transcendent.

All of that, perfect, holy glory adapted to the new environment.

Listen, take the time to read your Bible and see if you aren’t thrilled as you think about what you are and what you shall be.

We are corruptible, we will be raised incorruptible. We are sinful, we will be raised perfect in every aspect. Where now you’ve got a perfect inner part and a sinful outer part, there you will have a perfect inner part and a perfect outer part.

The combination of which will perfectly manifest the glory of God. There will be the elimination of all the sin that remained in us. There will be the elimination of everything that inhibited us from doing exactly what God wanted. There will be perfect freedom from all evil. There will be no sin, no sorrow, no pain, no disappointment, no doubt, no fear, no temptation, no weakness, no failure, no hate, no anger, no quarrel, no more prayer, no more repentance, no more confession, perfect pleasure, perfect knowledge, perfect comfort, perfect love, perfect joy.

You say, "I like it better here." No you don't. That's how warped our thinking gets. So, that's what we wait for.

First John 3:2 says we'll be like Him for we'll see Him as He is. You know, it would be enough if God just saved us from hell. It would be enough if God just saved us from hell and more than enough if He gave us heaven. But beyond that, He makes us like His Son and He does it all by grace, and we don't deserve any of it.

When Christ comes, the bodies are raised and we are made instantly into perfect form of Christ as a perfect holy instrument for service, worship and praise with never an evil impulse, never an errant movement, with a mind full of the pure light of God's truth, a brain of undilluted love, undilluted joy, undilluted peace, undilluted goodness, emotions in perfect expression at their fullest and yet in perfect balance. We ought to long for that with all our hearts.

You say, "Are you sure He can do it?"

Look at the end of verse 21 because there you will find

3. The Authorization

He's going to do it by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

He's going to use the same power that He has to subject the whole universe to Himself. If He can subject the entire universe under His sovereign control, then He can certainly raise your body. That's the point.

He has the power to order the universe. He has the power to line it all up. He has the power to manage it. Listen, our Lord had the power to create the world, He has the power to providentially control the world, He has the power to miraculously overrule natural law, He has the power to give life, He has the power to take life, He has the power to save, He has the power to subdue, He certainly has the power to raise from the dead.

And if you have any question about it, look what He did for Himself in raising from the dead. .

And He who has the power to raise from the dead and rule the universe will use the same power to raise your body and mine out of the grave. He has the power to give us the prize. He has the power to make us like Christ. That's the promise part.

So, in this hope that we have in the coming of Christ, there's motivation, there's transformation and there's authorization.

Where's your focus? I hope it's on heaven.

I want to close by sharing with you a little story that really moved my heart. It's a story of man who really lived. His name is Phocas, P-h-o-c-a-s. He lived in the fourth century in Asia Minor. He has been revered through the years as a saint of God. He lived in Asia Minor in the city of Sinope. He had a little cottage outside the city gate in which he grew a garden. The whole story of the man is recorded by one of the ancient bishops and somehow has found its way down through history.

The story goes something like this. Travelers passed his door almost all hours of the day and night as they went in and out of the city gate. And just motivated by move, he would stop them and inquire, “Were they not weary? Let them rest themselves, sitting in his well-tended garden. Were they in need of a friendly word? He would speak it to them in the dear Master's name.

But then quite suddenly one day life was all changed for Phocas. Orders went out from Emperor Diocletian that the Christians must be put to death. When the persecutors entered Sinope they were under orders to find a man by the name of Phocas and kill him.

About to enter the city one hot afternoon, they passed in front of the old man's cottage and garden by the gate. In his innocence, he treated them as though they were his warmest friends, begging them to pause a while and rest themselves. They consented. So warm and gracious was the hospitality they received that when their host invited them to stay the night and go on their way refreshed the next day, they agreed to do so.

"And what is your business?" said Phocas unsuspectingly. And then they told him that they would answer his question if he would regard it as a secret. Well it was obvious to them by now that he was a man to be trusted. Who were they? Why they were the soldiers of Rome searching for a certain Phocas who was a Christian. And please, if their kind host knew him, would he be so good as to help them identify him? After all, he was a dangerous follower of this Jesus about whom the Christians talked and he must be executed immediately.

"Oh, I know him well," said Phocas quietly. "And by the way, he's quite near. Let's attend to it in the morning." His guests having retired, Phocas sat thinking. Escape? That would be easy. He had only to leave under cover of darkness and at daybreak he could be at least 20 miles away and he knew fellow Christians who would give him hospitality by hiding him. And when the persecution had passed, he could reappear and once again cultivate his little garden.

The decision to flee into safety or stay unto death was apparently made without struggle or delay. We can only imagine what he was thinking. Out in his garden Phocas went and began digging in the middle of the night. Was there any earthly thing he loved better than this little plot of ground, the odor of the humus, the feel of the soil, the miracle of fertility?

What were his thoughts as he went on digging? Well, there was still time to run away but the Savior didn't run. He didn't run from Gethsemane and He didn't run from Calvary. Or perhaps he thought of his fellow Christians to whom he might go for rest, would not his coming endanger them? And as for these executioners that now were soundly sleeping under his roof, they were, after all, only men who were carrying out orders, and if they failed to find their man, their own lives likely as not would be taken and they would die in their sins.

Deeper and deeper Phocas dug. Before dawn he was done and there it was, his own grave. Morning came and with it the waking of the executioners. "I am Phocas," he said calmly. And we have it on the word of the Christian bishop who recorded the story that the men stood motionless in astonishment. They couldn't believe it.

And when they did believe it, they obviously were reluctant to perform an execution without mercy on a man who had shown them nothing but mercy. But it was a duty, he reminded them, that they were required to perform. And he was not bitter at them.

Besides, death did not terrify him, his heart was filled with hope of heaven. Toward them he bore nothing but the love of Christ and moments later it was all over.

The sword had done its work and the body of Christ's love-mastered man lay in the stillness of death in the garden he loved so dearly in the grave his own hands had dug.

How could he do it? I would suggest this:

“this one thing he did, forgetting those things which were behind and reaching forward to those things which were ahead, He pressed toward the goal for the prize of the upward high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

The hope of heaven removes fear. I hope we can live a little more like that and a little less the way we are prone to live in pursuing the prize.

Let's pray.