Philippians 3:13-14 - Pursuing The Prize
Main Idea: Join your Christian brothers and sisters in pursuing Jesus and His goals for His church.
The Prize We’re Pursuing.
Jesus is our prize.
Eternal life is our prize.
Heaven’s work is our prize.
The Location of the Prize.
Your prize isn’t in the past.
The prize must be pursued.
Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)
So for this morning, as I mentioned, gonna try and be as brief as the Lord would have as we consider this thought today, pursuing the prize.
Last year, we started off the year in the Book of Philippians and walked through verse by verse throughout the entirety of that letter from Paul to the church that was at the location of Philippi.
And Philippi was a little, was a Greek town that after a great Roman battle victory, Rome said, hey, we're gonna set aside some land right around this city of Philippi, kind of by Macedonia, Greece.
And we're gonna set aside some land for all of our like soldiers and officers, and this will be their bonus that they get. It's their, if you will, their retirement bonus. And they're gonna get this.
And so the town of Philippi was a very patriotic town. It was a town that knew about citizenship and what it meant. Many of them were not born Roman citizens, but earned their citizenship through how they had served in the Roman army.
And it made for a very interesting dynamic in that church. There was at times a lot of infighting between them. As you might imagine, a bunch of soldiers might not always have been the most even keeled people.
And as Paul writes to them, he encourages them in their unity. But in chapter 3, he goes after one specific goal. And that goal is a centering of the church on the person and plan of Jesus Christ.
He talks about his own background and how he had grown up in the Jewish faith, how he was a Pharisee. He was one of the ones that knew the Jewish law and the laws on laws the best out of anyone.
That he was so dedicated to his purpose as a Jewish individual in first century Israel, that he actually went around finding Christians who he thought were blaspheming this God of Israel, and he was bringing them into prison.
And in fact, he was so dedicated to it that he was actually traveling, if you will, internationally to Syria, to the city of Damascus, so that he could find even more individuals that he would then bring back to Jerusalem, where they would stand
trial for being Christians. And he tells the believers there, everything that I was once so proud about, my heritage, my pedigree, all of my accomplishments, my extreme zealousness for the God of Israel.
He says, everything that I used to count as good things, I have now counted loss because of how good it is to know Jesus and to be chasing after him. And he tells them this in Philippians 3 verses 13 and 14.
He says, brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. That is, I haven't yet grasped the full reason for why God saved me.
He says, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal, the prize promised by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus. Pursuing the prize. As many of you know, I'm originally from Colorado.
And so my football team by default is the Denver Broncos, who sadly lost tragically last week.
But the quarterback for the Denver Broncos, Bo Nix, through the end of the regular season, he played professional level football with three process fractures in his back because he was in pursuit of something.
For some of us, you know, we sleep weird and we don't get up or we don't go to work that day because of just sleeping weird. But this man with multiple fractures in his back said, there is a goal that I am pursuing.
And so it doesn't matter how I'm feeling, I am chasing after it. I think of those guys that are in love and they'll spend thousands of dollars on a shiny rock because they are in pursuit of someone.
Paul here calls the Philippian Church to pursue something with their lives as he had given his life to pursue it.
He actually uses in this phrase, I'm pursuing the prize is the same exact word that he used earlier in the chapter to say, hey, you know when I was hunting down Christians to bring them and to put them on trial for being Christians?
It's that exact same word. And he says, I am chasing after something with an intent to take a hold of it. And now he is encouraging the church to pursue something.
And today, I'm echoing that same call to us as Tabernacle. Join your Christian brothers and sisters in pursuing Jesus and his goals for his church. Join your Christian brothers and sisters in pursuing Jesus and his goals for his church.
You see, we today, though we celebrate 75 years that God has allowed Tabernacle to exist, 75 years since for the very first time the church constituted together, went from Tabernacle Baptist mission that they had been for three years into a
full-fledged church. And since that time, Tabernacle has had a mission from the word of God that God has called them to. And it's the same mission that Paul mentioned to the Philippians, and it's the same mission that we have to have going forward.
That is, pursuing the prize, the call of God in Christ Jesus. Let's pray, and we'll look at more at what this prize is and how we are to attain it. Dear Jesus, thank you for today.
God, thank you for the testimonies that we have heard. Lord, for the songs that we have sung.
Lord, to thank you for everything that you have done for us, for the comfort of knowing that this life is not the end, but there is another day coming when either you return or you call us home.
And God, we want to be faithful, to be following you no matter what that circumstance might be. No matter whether you come, you would find us faithful or whether we pass, that we would hear, well done, you good and faithful servant.
Lord, may we pursue the prize as you have called us to. In Jesus' name, amen. I want us to look first this morning at the prize that we are pursuing.
As Paul says there, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus. So what is it that God has promised us in his call in Christ Jesus? Well, first, this prize that we are pursuing is Jesus Christ himself.
He is our prize. He is our savior, the one who paid the price in his body so that we would not be alienated or condemned, but that we would be reconciled to God, that we would be a part of his family. He is our savior.
He is our Lord.
He is the one that through every moment of our life is cognizant of where you're at, is cognizant of the struggles that you're facing, of the difficulties that you're encountering, of the tears that you have, of your failures and your sins.
And through all of it, he is orchestrating it into a beautiful plan so that at the end of your life and as you enter eternity, you are able to look back and to see that God has been good to you.
Not every moment itself felt good, but at the end of it, we are made more like the son of God, that we see the beautiful tapestry that he is weaving.
And not at every moment as he is painting that, as he's weaving it together, not every moment feels good. But at the end of it, we will know Jesus, our Lord, and we will be able to thank him for what he has done.
He is our bridegroom, that Scripture talks about the church as the bride of Christ.
He is the one who loves your soul, that for many people today, they feel as though they are unloved and unwanted, that if anyone truly knew them, knew all of their thoughts, knew everything that they'd done, that they would be completely unloved by
anyone, but the truth is that Jesus is the one that knows and loves your soul. Charles Wesley would write in the old hymn, Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly, while the near waters roll, while the tempest still is high.
Hide me, oh my Savior, hide, till the storm of life is past, safe into the haven guide, or receive my soul at last. We are pursuing Jesus, our bridegroom, the one who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.
We are pursuing the moment when we are finally reunited with the one who has known and loved us from all eternity past, the one who knew our broken, sinful, condemned, flawed state before time itself began and pledged himself to be killed so that he
We are his prize and he is ours.
We're not looking for, if you will, a mansion over the hilltop apart from anyone else, or we can just party with all of the gold in the streets.
That's not our prize. Our prize is Jesus himself. But then not only is Jesus our prize, but eternal life is our prize.
Though we do not pursue Jesus to earn eternal life, eternal life is one of the bonus prizes that comes with being reunited with our Creator and Savior, the one who is life himself. He cannot give us anything except eternal life.
There is coming a day when there is no more crying, no death, no disease, no sin, no fear, no corruption, where everything, always, forever, is the way that God intended it at the beginning.
We pursue God's way and his work, his way of life, knowing that every tear is known and treasured by our God.
And when we get to heaven, what a day that will be, forever and always in the presence of the one that we were created for, free to accomplish everything that he created us individually and intentionally to do.
Know this, that your, many of your passions, your things that you love, that in some sense you feel that God has created you for. When you pass, that's not the end of your pursuit of those things.
Everything that God has placed in us, in the resurrection, we are able to, in that new heaven and that new earth that we will live in forever, as the book of Revelation tells us, we are able, in that time, to accomplish everything that God has placed
in us. There is life beyond the grave. And it's not just life playing harps for 300 million years. God has created us physically for a purpose and realized that eternal life is right around the corner.
So today, if you're wishing that your life is, it currently is, with sickness and disease and aging, if you're wishing, I don't really want to live forever like this, know that a day is coming when God makes all things new. I'm looking forward to it.
There's coming a day when you're not gonna have to deal with the sciatica anymore.
There's coming a day when you no longer have to deal with your anxiety and your depression, but that God will remake you, remold you into who you were always truly intended to be, created in his image for his glory and for your good.
Then not only is Jesus our prize and eternal life our prize, but heaven's work is our prize. I've heard it said before that only two things will make it into eternity, the word of God and the souls of humanity.
If that's all that's making it, what are we spending our time and our energy talking and thinking about? What are we giving ourselves over to?
For us today, we can spend our time on tons of different things, but the most important things are the word of God and the souls of those around you.
What could be of more value to you in 100 million years than your family members, your co-worker, your best friend? The prize that we are pursuing is Jesus Christ himself. It is eternal life that comes as we enter into a relationship with him.
And then it's heaven's work, those things that God most values and the only things that will enter eternity. It's a good thing to work. The Bible tells us that if we don't work, we shouldn't eat.
That is, if we have physical capability to be able to provide for our needs and provide for the needs of those in our households, we ought to do so as long as God gives us the strength to be able to do that.
But your 401k isn't making it past the pearly gates. Your boat might be a great way to spend time with people and to witness and to care for and to disciple others, but the boat's not making it into eternity. So what is your focus?
How are you utilizing what God has given you? The ability, the words, the time, the friendships, are you utilizing it for pursuing the prize of heaven's work? And second today, the location of the prize.
Where is this prize located?
And first, I think of what Paul says in verse number 13, that he says, forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead.
Where is this prize located?
It's not located in the past. We are to forget what is behind.
For too many people today, behind is the only direction that we are looking.
We're either looking back with regret at all the ways that we've messed up, and that stops us from turning around to pursue a new life in Jesus, or we're looking back with envy, wishing that we could do what we used to do, how we used to do it, with
In either case, that is not where the prize is located.
If you're going to pursue Jesus personally, if you're going to pursue heaven's prize, then it means that we must forget what is behind and look forward to what is ahead.
I'm grateful for every person that's accepted the Lord at Tabernacle over the past 75 years, and for those that have publicly declared that through baptism.
On the back wall there, there's a little book that has the membership role or the membership record for the first, I think it might be two decades or so after the church was created.
But as I've looked through those old records, I've noticed that despite the hundreds that there have been that have come to know the Lord, or that have become members of the church, or that have been baptized throughout the years, there's about 10 or
so names that I recognize that are still at Tabernacle itself. The past is wonderful, and God has worked in the past. But God is not stuck there, and he's not staying there. God isn't just the God of the 50s through the 70s.
God wasn't just the God of the 90s.
He is the God who is yesterday, today, and forever.
God is not stuck in any time period in the past, or stuck in any one method, other than the faithful proclamation of the gospel.
Over the past 70 years here at Tabernacle, he has worked through bus ministries, through VBSs, through Billy Graham Crusades, through Embrace Baltimore Missionaries, through old-timey invitations, through block parties, and a thousand other avenues.
But he's not dead, and he's not done. The one who said, I am with you until the end of the age, is with us today, and he wants to work in and through you. God has a plan for you to reach out and to love and to minister to those around you.
God's plan is not just through like a general thing of, okay, well, Tabernacle will do this, and hopefully something that the church does as a whole will make a difference.
God wants to make a difference through your life personally.
He is big enough to be present in programs, and outreaches, and special services. But what he's commanded us to do is to individually tell others, to be a witness to them of what you have seen and heard from Jesus Christ in your life.
He wants to use you to see his kingdom built. So why it's mentioned in the Lord's Prayer, may your kingdom come and may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
And as we sing that song, the Lord's Prayer together as a church, begin that right here in my heart. If Tabernacle is to continue pursuing the prize, then we can't look to the past, to what was or to what God did in someone five, 15 or 50 years ago.
We must look to what God wants us to do now. To hear God's call to personal ownership of and responsibility for the gospel and pursue that prize until we stand before him. Think of what the Lord said in Isaiah 43.
Do not remember the past events. Pay no attention to things of old. Look, I am about to do something new.
Even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.
Wild animals, jackals and ostriches will honor me because I provide water in the wilderness and rivers in the desert to give drink to my chosen people. The people I formed for myself will declare my praise.
God wants your life to be a beacon that shines out into your family, into your household, into your workplace, into your neighborhood, for some of you, into your bowling team.
God wants you to shine out wherever you are, so that we would continue to move forward for the gospel. Because Jesus is our prize, so we tell other people about the prize.
We know that eternal life is the prize, and so we tell others so that they too may not be condemned, but may have everlasting life.
And because people are the prize to be won, that Jesus died for people that we love and care for and share the gospel with others. But not only is the prize not in our past, but the prize must be pursued. How did Paul do this?
How are we supposed to do it today?
Well, thankfully, the same things that Christians were doing 2,000 years ago are the same way that we pursue the Lord today.
We pursue him through the Bible, through personally spending time with God in his word, through spending time with our families, with our spouses, with our friends, time spent in the word of God, time spent in personal prayer.
I've heard it said before, I believe from a pastor in about the mid 20th century, he says, when we work, we work, but when we pray, God works.
So often we can neglect that all important pursuit that we have, that we ask the Lord Almighty to do what we as feeble humans cannot. So we are to pursue the Lord in the word, pursue the Lord in prayer, pursue the Lord in our singing.
There are more commands to sing in scripture than even to give. And certainly we would think, okay, well, if I love the Lord, then there'll be some aspect of me that I'm devoting to him.
But God wants to hear you sing.
And I think I mentioned it last week. Even if you don't have the world's greatest voice, God still wants to hear you sing. Your voice is important to the Lord.
It's one of the ways that we communicate the word of God to one another, as Ephesians 5 and verse 19 tells us, as we're to be filled with the Spirit, we sing to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in our
hearts to the Lord. We're to pursue the Lord through his church, that the church is the bride of Christ. The church is what he died for, as Ephesians 5 would tell us. The church is the glory of Christ, as 2 Corinthians would tell us.
And if we are to pursue Jesus, then that means pursuing alongside our brothers and sisters within the local church.
We're to pursue the Lord through the ordinances, that if you have accepted the Lord and you have never been baptized, I would invite you right after the service, talk with me and I would love to help you pursue the Lord in Believers Baptism.
For those of you that have been baptized, one of the ways that we pursue the Lord is through the Lord's Supper, which actually we'll be observing next week as a church family.
That it's a time when we remember what Jesus has accomplished for us once and for all on the cross.
We consider if right now we are pursuing Jesus or if we are running away from him and we are to bring our mind and our obedience back to the place where it should be in the Lord. And then we look forward to the day when we are reunited with him.
We also pursue the Lord through evangelism.
That Jesus shouldn't be the dirty little secret that we keep away from everyone else in our life, but we should let others know about who Jesus is and what he has done for us and what he wants to do for them. We are to pursue the Lord through giving.
I think of what Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount. He says, where your treasure is, that is where your heart will be also.
And certainly there's an element of that that we give to God's work in the local church, but we also give to help those that are less fortunate. The Book of Proverbs deals with that over and over and over again.
That all of our finances are at the Lord's disposal and he doesn't have all of it to go to perhaps just one location, but he wants you to be a blessing to as many people as he gives you the opportunity to bless.
And then we are to pursue through discipleship. Jesus' command in Matthew 28, his final words were not, hey, gather together and have a great time and sing and just talk about how great God has been to you personally.
No, the very last command that he gave us was to make disciples of all nations. That each of us individually are called to as far along in our walk as God has brought us, we're called to bring someone else along.
We're called to, as Paul tells the Corinthian Church, he says, imitate me as I imitate Christ. That we both help to disciple others and we are being discipled by others.
But that is only able to take place as we enter into relationship with one another.
That we say, okay, God, I don't know right now if my personality like totally meshes with Roger or with Bob, but God's call on my life is both like, hey, disciple and be discipled. Spend time with other believers.
Not just shoot in the breeze that we can certainly do that, but through intentionally thinking and talking about the Lord. It's how we pursue him. It was his last command and it ought to be our first priority.
That we make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe everything that Jesus commanded us.
We do all of this so that our life becomes saturated with the communication and presence of God himself, so that when we talk, his word comes out. When we pray, it's his word that we're praying.
When we have to make tough decisions, his wisdom is pouring out of us. And when someone needs comfort, it is God's comfort that we are giving them. Today, if we're to pursue the prize, we need to realize what the prize is.
We need to have something that, like Paul persecuting the Christians, something we are chasing after. We're chasing after Jesus as our prize. That we want to hear, well done, you good and faithful servant.
We want to, as the song that we sang said, we want to win the prize of a servant, good and faithful. We want to get to that moment and not feel shame that we did not pursue him through our life.
But we want to have joy knowing that the one that we have given our life to know and declare and think about, that we have finally, if you will, gotten him, taken a hold of him as Paul would tell us. Jesus is our prize. Eternal life is our prize.
That we can go through the hard times of today knowing that this is not the end and the struggles and temptations and trials that we face right now are not forever. And there's coming a day of joy, and so we are pursuing the prize of eternal life.
And that heaven's work is our prize, that we will give ourselves to the only everlasting things, the word of God and the souls of humanity. And then how do we find this? Where's the location of those prizes?
It's not found in the past. It's not found in just reminiscing about yesteryear. It's not found in carrying over our grief and shame from our own past, but it's found as we pursue Jesus, as we realize that he has saved us for a purpose.
As Paul would tell the Ephesian Church, he says, for we are his workmanship, his masterpiece created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God preordained that we would walk in them. God has a plan and a purpose for your life.
And so the prize isn't in the past. And instead, the prize must be pursued. And we pursue it through just those simple actions of that everyday walk of faith, both personally and with our brothers and sisters in the Lord, that we pursue it together.
Tabernacle, for 75 years, has existed to pursue the prize of the high call of God in Christ Jesus. Question for you is, over the next six or seven days, what are you going to pursue with your life?
No matter what life stage you're in, you can pursue this prize. This prize is not the prize, perhaps, of full-time ministry. This is not the prize of being able to check off like, hey, 37 people prayed the sinner's prayer with me.
That's not the prize that God has for you. The prize is to know and to walk with Jesus and to invite others into that walk.
Will you pursue that prize this week?
Will you join your Christian brothers and sisters in pursuing Jesus and his goals for his church?
