Philippians 14-3:13 NIVUK
[13] Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, [14] I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus. https://bible.com/bible/113/php.3.13.NIVUK
I recently heard of a Scottish athlete who cheated in an ultra-marathon in one of the most incredible ways possible.
She was running in a 50-mile race. Now that is a very long way. But during the race she injured her leg. So she got into a car and had a friend drive her for two and a half miles, before getting out and continuing the race. She told investigators that she had informed a marshal and was planning to finish the race on a non-competitive way. But she not only finished it, she also took a trophy and boasted about her participation on social media.
She was discovered when the GPS tracker she had been wearing showed she had been moving faster in the car than it had been possible to run.
She was someone who was so focused on status in the race that it distracted her from competing fairly and by the rules.
Paul often likened the Christian life to a race:
1 Corinthians 25-9:24 NIVUK
[24] Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. [25] Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last for ever.
Galatians 5:7 NIVUK
[7] You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? https://bible.com/bible/113/gal.5.7.NIVUK
Hebrews 3-12:1 NIVUK
[1] Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, [2] fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. [3] Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. https://bible.com/bible/113/heb.12.1.NIVUK
2 Timothy 8-4:7 NIVUK
[7] I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. [8] Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day – and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
Now, in one of the most passionate passages he has ever written, Paul takes up that image for the Philippians.
And what an impact these verses have!
We are going to look at four aspects of this race, the first of which is The Team.
I should make you aware that in these verses Paul uses language that, in his day, may well have had a trigger warning, because it was probably as close to offensive as it could possibly be. Just look at it:
Philippians 3-3:1 NIVUK
[1] Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. [2] Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. [3] For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh – https://bible.com/bible/113/php.3.1.NIVUK
Verse 2 uses three terms towards Paul’s opponents that, although true, would have been taken as an insult. They were:
· Dogs – these were ritually unclean animals in Paul’s day. To call a Jew a dog was pretty serious. He is accusing them of being ritually unclean. More than that, he is accusing them of being brute beasts who only look out for themselves and their needs (see Psalm 59:6, 14-15).
· Evildoers – this, again, is highly controversial. Jews were, at least on the surface, scrupulously careful about following their laws. They saw themselves as workers of good, not evil. But the word Paul uses goes further: these aren’t just workers of evil, they are craftsmen in it – their evil is premeditated and deliberate, showing skill and precision and expertise (see also Jeremiah 4:22; Micah 7:3). In case we think this is some kind of anti-semitism, let me point out that Paul himself was a Jew, and that Jesus – also a Jew – levelled the same criticism at the Pharisees (Matthew 23:13-36).
· Mutilators. Wow! In the Greek this is a play on words as the word katatome used here to mean ‘mutilate’ sounds like peritome, the word for ‘circumcise’. But what a powerful play on words! This simple accusation completely robs the physical – and painful – act of circumcision of any spiritual power and leaves it as just a slicing of skin. Worse, as many commentators have pointed out, he is placing it on a par with pagan cutting and self-harm, which, likewise, is spiritually useless (see 1 Kings 18:28).
But here’s the thing: Paul would not have lined up with those who seek to ban male circumcision (female circumcision is completely another story – that is mutilation). He himself was circumcised (Philippians 3:5). He even had Timothy circumcised to avoid issues with Jewish believers (Acts 16:3).
We must understand this correctly. Paul is not against circumcision as a physical act. His issue with circumcision stems from a debate that had previously been held in Jerusalem, when certain believers who came from the same background as him tried to impose it on Gentile believers (Acts 15:1) – something that Paul sharply disputed (Acts 15:2).
But why was the dispute so sharp? And why is Paul’s language here, and also in Galatians 5:12) so very violent?
The reason is found here:
Galatians 2:21 NIVUK
[21] I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!’
Those who signed themselves up as Jews through the very act of circumcision, also signed themselves up to obey Jewish law (Galatians 5:3). By this step, they were saying that Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was not enough.
Now, tell me this: if you were stood below the cross, watching Jesus bleed out in unimaginable agony on the cross, would you have the temerity to say to Him, ‘Thank you for dying for me, Jesus, but I just don’t think it’s enough. I think that I still need to do good deeds, or join the right church, or wear the right clothes, or have the right ancestry, or come from the right social class. I love what you’re doing. I just think I need to top it up with something more.’?
How could you? How could anyone?
And that is why Paul is so angry and forceful here. What these men who taught Jesus-plus-circumcision were doing was an insult. It was blasphemy. It was plainly and obviously wrong.
But I do not think for one second that we have left those days behind.
One of my favourite places to visit in Romania is the city of Sighișoara. Horror fans know it as the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, who was the inspiration behind the Dracula movies. Everyone else loves it for its highly picturesque Germanic old town.
But from the train station to the old town, you have to walk past a Romanian Orthodox cathedral which has these words inscribed on an archway over its door ‘This is the gate to heaven’.
For Orthodox Christians, this is perfectly logical. They believe that to be saved, you have to be a member of their church, and if you are not a member of their church then you are going to hell. This is a belief also held by the Catholic church. And, to our deep shame, it also creeps into the thinking of some protestant churches too.
And it is nonsense. It is fake news. It is a lie. It is a con trick. There is no truth in it, because:
Acts 4:12 NIVUK
[12] Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.’
And that is what Paul is saying to the Philippians. They have to choose which team they are on. They are either on ‘Team Judaisers’, where they will undergo a painful procedure and try their utmost to follow an impossible law for the rest of their life with zero assurance of salvation, or they are on ‘Team Jesus’, where their salvation is paid for in full, once-for-all, on the cross.
There is no middle ground. It is either one or the other.
It is a binary choice.
And we move from the team to look at The Tactic: how you are going to get to where you want to be. Paul states plainly that for years he had the wrong tactic:
Philippians 7-3:4 NIVUK
[4] though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: [5] 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; [6] as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. [7] But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. https://bible.com/bible/113/php.3.4.NIVUK
If these verses read like Paul’s CV/resume, that is rather the point. These are all the elements of Paul’s life that were to his advantage: a Jew from the tribe of Benjamin (coincidentally, the same tribe as Saul – see 1 Samuel 9:1-2). That made him a particularly special Hebrew.
Paul also three other ‘P’s: Pharisee, persecutor and perfect. He was an arch-Jew, advancing rapidly past other Jews his age (Galatians 1:14), taught by the great Gamaliel (Acts 22:3, who, coincidentally, seems to be more moderate than Paul as he tried to persuade the Sanhedrin not to persecute the apostles in Acts 5:35-39). His obedience to Jewish law was beyond reproach.
So far, so good. No problems here, right?
But you see, right there in these verses is the big problem. Paul’s religion and his zeal were misguided. As he wrote earlier:
Galatians 4:18 NIVUK
[18] It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good. https://bible.com/bible/113/gal.4.18.NIVUK
Paul’s zeal turned his religion into a vicious weapon: a club with which to beat those who disagree with him. He had, in modern parlance, been radicalised. Since Christians dissented and believed that Jesus is the Messiah, starting with the murder of Stephen (Acts 7:54-8:1), Paul sought to destroy the church (Acts 8:1-3).
Let’s not miss the mark here: he sought to put them on trial where the sentence would likely be death.
This is always the problem with those who seek salvation through any form of moral, doctrinal or philosophical perfection: they always look down on other people, they always make enemies of those who do not subscribe to their beliefs. They always create an ‘us and them’ situation.
They are wide open to being radicalised.
And is this not what has happened time and again in history? Is it not still happening now?
Maybe this explains why Paul’s conversion in Acts 9:1-30 had to be so miraculous – was there any other way that a radicalised man like Paul could be converted?
And yet... and yet through that conversion, everything Paul once thought were gains for him – plusses in the accounting ledger of life – he now counts as losses, or minuses.
Even with this, he isn’t done:
Philippians 9-3:8 NIVUK
[8] What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ [9] and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.
The word Paul uses for ‘garbage’ is actually a pretty powerful word. It was used for kitchen scraps that were so useless they could only be fed to dogs. It was used for waste that was considered as ritually unclean.
Paul is not the only writer in the Bible who uses such strong language:
Isaiah 64:6 NIVUK
[6] All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. https://bible.com/bible/113/isa.64.6.NIVUK
The term for ‘filthy rags’ here refers, rather poetically, to a rag a woman would use to preserve her dignity during her period.
Why such impactful imagery?
Because knowing Christ, and being like Christ, is so utterly superior, and His character so pure, that nothing else even comes remotely close to it, and even our best and highest deeds cannot remotely compare with Him.
That is what Paul is saying.
If we choose the tactic of trying to get to God and be saved by our good deeds, we will ultimately fail badly, because they can never be good enough.
But if we confess our unworthiness and our sin and cling to His righteousness by faith in Him, then His blood will cover our sin and His Spirit will work with us to make us better.
The Marathon des Sables is probably the world's most difficult endurance race. It is a 251 km race through the Sahara Desert. In 1994, Mauro Prosperi had a chance of winning it. But he got lost during a sandstorm, ended up 300km off course and somehow emerged a week later, somehow still alive.
But the race to salvation is not like that.
We don’t need to nearly kill ourselves to finish it.
Not when Jesus has already died for us.
Paul now moves on from the team we should be part of and the tactics we should employ to thirdly The Target – what we should be aiming towards. After all, every race has a finish line.
And Paul’s is rather special:
Philippians 11-3:10 NIVUK
[10] I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, [11] and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Paul wants to know Christ – the Greek indicates that this knowledge should be deep and detailed. He outlines three areas in which he is seeking for this to happen:
· Power of His resurrection. There us a rule of resurrection: to be resurrected, you must first be dead. There is no other way. Paul wants to know, and to experience, the Divine power that defeated even death and raised up His Saviour Jesus Christ. But to know this power, as Paul explained to Peter and to the Galatians, you have to be dead (Galatians 2:19-20; see also Romans 6:1-14) – dead to the self-centredness of sin and alive to Christ. This happens once, of course, at our conversion, but ought to be the daily experience of every Christian. We ought to keep on considering ourselves as dead to sin and alive to Christ. It’s not a one shot deal.
· Participation in His sufferings. The word used here for ‘participation’ can also be translated as ‘fellowship’. In other words, Paul wants to suffer, not for Christ or because of Christ, but with Christ. He wants to feel intimately what it feels like to be persecuted because the light within you has stirred up the darkness in others (John 1:5, 3:19-21). For Paul, seeking to be like Christ involves putting himself in harms way for the sake of the Gospel and suffering, not because he provoked it in any way, but for the Gospel itself (1 Peter 4:12-16). His desire to be like Christ means that he must suffer like Christ. And in our very comfortable age, that is quite a challenge.
· Becoming like Him in His death. This is quite extraordinary. Paul is saying that His focus, now he has a worthy life from God, is to live that worthy life in the power of Christ’s resurrection, experience with Him what it means to suffer for the Gospel and then be martyred. He explained the same to Timothy, as his martyrdom approached (2 Timothy 4:7).
· To attain His resurrection. ‘Attain’ is probably not quite the correct word here. There ia a deeper nuance in the Greek – that of arriving at a place, like a journey’s end. Paul is talking
about the finish line after an arduous race – a welcome sight for any athlete, and an even more welcome sight for a weary Christian who will finally be home.
In essence, Paul’s target was to be like Christ: no matter what it took; no matter what it cost, knowing that it would cost him everything.
And it did.
That was his relentless focus. That was where he’d set his steely-eyed gaze.
If we are to truly be Christians, if we are to truly follow Christ, we must have the same level of focus.
Following the team, the tactics and the target, we now move on to The Track. That is, where it is that he runs and how he should run it.
I used to hate doing cross-country running when I was in high school. I am a nerd. I freely admit it. I was not built to run in cheap trainers down muddy pathways in woodland, past startled dog walkers and scared wildlife, before coming back to school in PE kit caked in mud and sweat.
Whoever thought that was anyone’s idea of a good time needs counselling.
But the track that Paul runs down towards knowing Jesus is way tougher than that:
Philippians 14-3:12 NIVUK
[12] Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. [13] Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, [14] I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus. https://bible.com/bible/113/php.3.12.NIVUK
Here Paul tells us how he runs, and this is both challenging and inspiring:
· Forgetting the past. I follow sports. It’s my hobby. I don’t do them. I just follow them. Like I said, I am a nerd. I have an app on my phone that tracks scores in football, tennis, rugby and European basketball competitions. That app also looks at form: how teams or players have competed in their last five matches, how they have compared to their current opponent. It’s there for one reason only: gambling. I don’t gamble. I can see how looking at past form could be useful, but ultimately, when the players cross the white line, form is irrelevant. What happens right here, right now is the issue.
It is like that with God. We all know that Paul had committed some horrendous sins against the church. He was open about that (Acts 22:4-5, 26:11; 1 Corinthians 15:9; Galatians 1:14; 1 Timothy 1:13). He made no attempt to hide it. In modern parlance, he owned it.
But in the race to become like Christ, he forget it. He left it behind. All the suffering, all the pain, all the agony he caused, as well as all the prestige he had as a Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrim – all gone. All forgotten.
· Straining towards what is ahead. Paul’s focus wasn’t in his rear view mirror, it was very much on the road ahead and on the end of his journey. He had that ‘in the zone’ tunnel vision that most athletes have: his focus was on winning, not on what happened the last time. He had a future – a bright, glittering future, grounds for unrelenting optimism, and that drove him to get up out of his bed each morning and continue the race.
Why?
Because this is why Christ Jesus took hold of him. Paul saw himself as called by Jesus not just to be a participant in the race, but to finish it.
· I press on. The Greek word doesn’t just mean ‘to endure’, like a marathon runner stumbling in agony towards the finish line, but ‘to earnestly and eagerly seek after’. In other words, Paul kept going with energy and enthusiasm and desire to reach the finish line.
These are awesome words. In other pastoral letters we see Paul’s theology, his philosophy, his logic.
In Philippians we see his heart: what it is that keeps this, by now elderly, man, in prison and contemplating his own martyrdom, enthusiastically and energetically faithful to Christ, even if it is this very faithfulness that has brought his suffering upon him.
And it’s truly inspiring. As well as deeply, deeply challenging.
We see here why it is important to choose which team we are on: whether we will seek in vain to achieve our salvation through good deeds, or whether it will come through the cross.
We see that we should choose our tactics well, and seek to be saved through Christ, not our own credentials.
We see that it is critical that we set our sights on the target of becoming like Christ, no matter what.
We see that we must make sure we make our track one where we forget the past, set our sights on our glorious future, and press on.
I was born in Glasgow. Glasgow has recently had the privilege of hosting some pretty big events, one of which was the UCL World Cup Cycling competition. It was quite something to stand on the street and watch these cyclists, at the very top of their sport, come whizzing past us at great speed.
Glasgow is a brilliant city. However, even if I could cycle, I don’t think I would choose to cycle there. It's very hilly. If you’re doing laps round a street circuit, sooner or later it will really hurt.
Seeking to become like Christ is not always an easy race. More often than not, it is an uphill struggle and a painful slog. We often make it harder for ourselves by placing burdens on our backs that should not be there, such as a performance-based view of salvation, or our own past failings, or other people’s past failings.
Paul is absolutely clear on how we should deal with those burdens:
We should take them off. Then we should run with everything we have, no matter the cost, because what we will gain as a result will far outweigh anything we lose.
Because gaining Christ, knowing Christ, becoming like Christ is everything. There is nothing more important or valuable than that.
It is truly worthy of our singular focus.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, these verses are both inspiring and challenging. Help me to realise what it will mean for me to focus on the goal of knowing, being like and following You. I want that more than anything. Amen.
Questions
1. What things do you need to follow Jesus more closely? What things stand in your way?
2. What did it cost Paul to follow Jesus? What will it cost you? Is it worth it? Why?
3. What things do you need to forget from your past to follow Jesus more closely? How does your future with Jesus compare to your past?
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