The Journey of Spiritual Maturity

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Back before I used to have to sell my firstborn for gas, one of my hobbies used to be going on road trips. Not always necessarily to any place in particular. I like to just go.

I like to explore. I like to look around. I like driving through the country looking at things.

Even stuff that other people would find boring, I just love to drive and look at cows and old farmhouses and windmills. I don’t think I’ve ever been crankier than during the time periods when we were cooped up in downtown Oklahoma City all the time because of JoJo being in the hospital, either the heart surgery or when she was born. And I remember telling Charla, this is too much concrete.

I’ve got to get out of here. And as soon as she was out and good, I think at one point, when she was born, first thing I did once we were back home was I came down to Lawton and drove around the refuge. I just needed to get out and see things.

And used to, the kids have finally learned that there’s not always a particular destination in mind. They used to, when we’d get in the car, the older two especially, they’d get in the car and say, where are we going? And I’d say, nowhere.

And they thought I was lying to them or just didn’t want to give them an answer. but there was nowhere in particular we were going. Charlie learned that pretty early on in our dating life too.

Where are we headed today? North. You want to be more specific?

No, we’re headed north. Like, are we going to see something? I don’t know.

We’ll see when we get there. I just like to drive. Charlie is still learning that because we get in the car and he wants to know where we’re going.

And I don’t always have a place to tell him, and it just drives him crazy. Some of you, it would drive crazy too. Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about because you might be the same way.

Others of you are like my wife and have just learned to live with it and work around it. But there’s not always a destination in mind. At the risk of sounding like a hippie in a movie, the destination is the journey, man.

Sometimes that’s just what the whole point of it is just the journey. And our spiritual life can be the same way. We don’t get to a point where we say, I’m here.

This is where I was headed. The whole point of what we do as Christians is not that we in this life are ever going to get to where we’re supposed to be or where we’re going. The point of it is just being on the journey and making progress in the journey.

The Apostle Paul talks about this, about the journey being what matters. And we’re going to see that this morning as we continue our study of Philippians. He talks about how our spiritual life is like a journey.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. there is a destination. This is not all just pointless.

There is a destination, but the point is we don’t reach that destination in this life. You and I never get to a point on this side of eternity where we’ve learned everything we need to learn, where we’ve done everything that we need to do. If we get to a point where we’ve arrived and that’s all the growth that we’re ever going to incur, I think at that point God just takes you home because you’re done.

On this side of eternity, we don’t get to a point where we’ve arrived. The destination is spiritual maturity in Jesus Christ. And we should always be moving toward that, but we don’t come to a point where we say, I’m just like Him. If I stood here this morning and told you I’m just like Jesus Christ at every moment of my life, I’ve got this down perfectly, I would be lying to you, right?

And I think you would know that I’m lying to you if I told you that. Our destination is spiritual maturity. The prize waiting for us at the end is Jesus Himself.

The problem is that we don’t reach the finish line in this life, as I’ve already kind of pointed out. So from our perspective, the main thing here is to continue on the journey. And that’s what we’re going to see in Philippians 3 this morning.

If you would, turn with me in your Bibles to Philippians 3. If you don’t have a Bible with you, it’ll be on the screen. And once you’ve found it, if you’d stand with me, if you’re able to without too much trouble, as we read from God’s Word together.

We’re going to start in Philippians 3. 12. And we’re going to read through verse 16 this morning.

Here’s what Paul writes to the church at Philippi. He says, Not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore, let us, as many as are mature, have this in mind. And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.

And you may be seated. Now, when he’s talking here about attaining, if we go back to where we were last week in verse 11, he says, if by any means I may attain the resurrection of the dead, or resurrection from the dead. So he’s talking about that future where we are raised from the dead to be united with the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he comes in verse 12 and says, but I’m not there yet.

When he says, not that I’ve already attained, I keep wanting to say obtained. When he says, not that I have already attained, what he’s saying is, I’m not there yet. And that’s the whole point of what we just read.

In the previous section, in what we read last week, Paul wrote about his longing to know Jesus Christ. And here he tells us in what we just read today, how to pursue knowing Jesus Christ, how to pursue that deeper relationship with Jesus Christ that culminates in us having a forever fellowship with Him in eternity. And so we need to understand this morning from this passage that Paul compares the Christian life to a race. That’s one of Paul’s favorite metaphors for the Christian life.

There are several things that he describes the Christian life as New Testament. One of those, he describes it like being in the military. Sometimes he describes it like being a farmer.

In several cases, he describes our Christian life, our walk with Jesus Christ, once we belong to Him, as being a race. In 1 Corinthians 9, he compares the Christian life to a race because he’s talking about the need to train hard and to run hard. He’s talking about the commitment that’s involved.

And you have to be committed to run a race well. I think I’ve talked to you about my dad who’s a marathon runner. And he will go out and he will run on purpose to prepare for these races.

And I had to have been about 24 or 25 the last time he asked me to go with him. Now he’s asked me to drive him and that’s fine. But the last time he actually asked me to run with him somewhere.

I was about 24 or 25. He asked me to do a 5K with him. He’s like, do you want to train?

No, I’m young. It’s fine. It was not fine.

Sometime I will tell you about that story, but I may have mentioned it before, but I am the last person across the finish line who was not in a wheelchair or a stroller. They were yelling, clear the track. And I was even passed by some people.

I think it was passed by somebody on a walker. I’m not sure what they were doing on the course. But it was not fine.

Listen, I don’t care how young and in shape you think you are, you’ve got to train for 5Ks. I mean, they did the starter’s pistol or whatever, and I took off, and it was good for about the first K, whatever that is. But that didn’t last. To run a race and run it well, you’ve got to be committed, you’ve got to train, and that’s what Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians.

In 2 Timothy, though, 2 Timothy 4, he describes his approaching death. Paul knew that he was coming to the end of his life in 2 Timothy. He’s sort of writing a farewell letter to somebody who was very close to him.

And he describes that his race is completed and the finish line is in view. He knows he’s coming to the end. And so as he comes to the end of his race, he writes Timothy with some admonition, some suggestions, some encouragement for how to run well.

And so we see this as a recurring theme throughout Paul’s letters that he describes the Christian life as a race. And I think it’s helpful. It’s a helpful reminder for us to think about it that way, because I think sometimes we see the Christian life as it’s supposed to be easy.

It’s supposed to be carefree. One day when I lived in Arkansas, Dad ran the Bentonville Half Marathon. He’s out running 13.

1 miles on purpose again, on purpose, and I went to the Walmart Museum and sat in their little cafe and ate donuts and things like that. I think sometimes we think of the Christian life as being more like sitting in the cafe eating donuts than running the race. And so I need this reminder.

you probably need this reminder as well that Paul says, no, this is like a race. And it’s not a sprint. A lot of us could do well at a sprint.

Some of you are shaking your head saying no. I said a lot of us, not all of us. I mean, it might be a two-foot sprint. But a lot of us could do well at a sprint.

But a cross-country thing where you’ve got to stay the course, that takes commitment and it’s hard. And that’s how he describes the Christian life. Every Christian is a runner.

And by the way, this is an individual race. Not that we can’t help each other, not that we’re supposed to do this in isolation from each other, but I want to get across the point that it’s not a competition with each other. Anybody else competitive?

Your hand went up before mine. Very competitive. I have some competitive people that I live with, and they like to compete about everything.

And I won’t name names, but they like to compete about everything. I’m better than you at this. I’m better than you at that.

Oh, yeah, well, I didn’t get in trouble for this. And if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. it may be engraved on my tombstone one of these days, that the only person you’ve got to be better than is the one you were yesterday.

Number one, because it’s true, and number two, because it shuts up the arguing. We’re not in a race against our fellow believers. We’re in a race against where the flesh had us yesterday versus where the Spirit wants us to be tomorrow.

So this idea of a race, don’t look at it as you’re competing with one another. We’re all trying to run the race, and we should encourage one another. We are the people standing at the halfway point cheering on in each other’s races.

This is not a competition against each other. And verse 14 here tells us that Jesus Christ is the prize. Now to be very clear in that, it doesn’t mean that we earn Jesus Christ, that we earn a relationship with Him, that we earn our time with Him as the result of how well we run.

Instead, He’s the prize in the sense of being the motivation for running. In that same 5K, they were given away Chick-fil-A sandwiches at the end of the race. I just kept my eyes on their Chick-fil-A sandwiches at the end of this.

If I survive, there is Chick-fil-A. You know what? They weren’t checking your time.

You had the little things on your shoe that the computer records, so you can’t cheat the computer records, that you went the whole way and how long it took you. They weren’t checking your time. They weren’t even checking that you finished.

It wasn’t a prize for how. . .

I mean, there were medals and stuff for that. I didn’t care about the medals. I knew that wasn’t.

. . I knew very quickly that was off the table.

That Chick-fil-A sandwich wasn’t a prize based on how well I ran the race. But I tell you what, it was my motivation for finishing. Okay, two kilometers until Chick-fil-A.

And again, I don’t know. I get how the metric system works, but I’m American. I don’t know how it converts to miles and things.

That’s what you need to tell me. But two kilometers until Chick-fil-A. One kilometer to Chick-fil-A.

500 meters to Chick-fil-A. There it is. Same way with Jesus.

He’s the prize, not in the sense that we earn Him. Nothing in the Scriptures tell us that we have to earn a relationship with the Lord. We can’t.

Jesus did everything that was necessary to clear the obstacle of sin so that we could have that relationship with Him. Instead, Paul treats Him as the prize in the sense that He’s the motivation. He’s what we’re running toward.

The hardest I’ve ever run in my life was after one of the more tornadoes. and I was working up by Will Rogers Airport. I got within about four miles of my house, and the National Guard had shut down the roads, so I had to park my car, and just hearing the radio descriptions, I knew it had hit somewhere near my house.

My family was all there, couldn’t get a hold of them. Cell phone towers were down. This is back, I think I was in high school when this happened.

I had to run about four miles home. My prize, my motivation, was getting there and making sure my family and my neighbors were okay. Same thing, if that helps you understand this concept of a motivation.

That was why I ran. Jesus is the reason why we are supposed to run. Because as believers, we are supposed to be so deeply in love with Him and so longing to know Him more and have a deeper walk with Him that we’re willing to keep running through all of the stuff that comes at us.

And that’s why He says that Jesus Christ is the prize. And verse 13, verse 13 says, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to the things which are ahead, I press on. The runner also doesn’t focus on rehashing the course behind him, but on completing the course that’s in front of him.

One of the worst things you can do is look behind you at what everybody else is doing, everything else that’s going on. You just keep running. And all of this with this idea of the spiritual life, the Christian life being a race, is there for us to understand that spiritual maturity as a lifelong journey rather than a place we arrive.

If we’re looking at spiritual maturity as a place we arrive and then we’re done, we’ve missed the whole point. He says in verse 12, not that I have already attained. I’m not there yet.

And that’s coming from the Apostle Paul. That’s coming from a man who is steadfast in his faith and in ministering to others while he is in prison in Rome, not sure whether he’s going to live or die by the end of the day. And yet he says, I’m not there.

The Apostle Paul had a level of faith and commitment that I can only aspire to, that I think most of us would look at and say, what an incredible hero, I wish I could be like him. And even Paul’s saying, I’m not there yet. If the goal is to be just like Jesus, he says, I’m not there yet.

Not that I have already attained. Paul didn’t suddenly become spiritually mature at the moment of his conversion. And he says, or am already perfected.

Even at this end of his life, he couldn’t say he had arrived. Because spiritual maturity means coming to a place where we are conformed to the image of God’s Son, as Paul wrote elsewhere. And until we’re just like Him, we’re not already there.

And this is something important for us to understand, because I think it’ll clear up a lot of our frustrations with each other sometimes. Because we’ll do or say things that grate on each other’s nerves, and we’ll think, can you believe she said that? Can you believe He did that?

And He calls Himself a Christian. Folks, we all grow at different rates, at different speeds. We’re all at different places on the race course.

And yes, there is a change that takes place in us at the moment of conversion. But the moment we accept Christ, we don’t become everything in that moment that He wants us to be. It’s a process.

And even the Apostle Paul looked toward the end of his life and said, I’m not everything I’m supposed to be yet. So that’s not an excuse for sin, but it is a call for us to cut each other a little slack sometimes. I had a conversation with an old friend this week, and she was talking about somebody in her church, and she doesn’t name names, and so it’s okay.

And she said, why is he saying that? Why is he doing that? I said, well, do you remember, number one, do you remember how obnoxious we used to be when we were younger in the faith?

And I’m not saying I’m not obnoxious sometimes now, but I was a lot worse. Do you remember how obnoxious we were? I said, it just takes a little time to grow past that, and maybe he’s still growing through it.

That’s true. We all grow at different rates. We all grow at different speeds.

Sometimes we get to places in our spiritual life where it takes a little longer to grow through that than other places. So we need to cut each other a little slack and let the Lord do His work in us. Paul looked and said, I’m not everything I’m supposed to be yet.

That’s also a reminder to us to not say, here I am, I’m super spiritually mature. Have you ever been around somebody who thought they were the picture of spiritual maturity? That they were the most spiritual, godly person in the room?

I’ve got some faces going through my mind. nobody in this room. I’ve got some faces going through my mind of people that, if you’d asked them, probably would have said, I’m the most spiritual godly person in this room.

And they were not, almost as a rule. Those were some of the most spiritually immature people I’ve ever met in my life. Because the moment we come around to thinking, I’m spiritually mature, nope, still got room to grow.

Just proved it right there. It’s kind of like humility. If you walk into the room and say, I’m the most humble person here.

No, start again. Start What is it like Margaret Thatcher said about being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you’re not.

If we have to tell people we’re spiritually mature, we’re not. It just shows up. And so even Paul at the end of his life said, I don’t have this all figured out and I’m not going to pretend I do, but I press on.

He said, I haven’t already attained. I’m not already perfected, but I press on. He said there was still potential for growth ahead of him.

There was still work for him to do. There was still work for the Lord to do in him. And why did he do this?

He says in verse 12, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. He said, the Lord has called me for a purpose. Jesus got hold of me and called me to serve him, called me to follow him for a purpose.

And so I’m going to keep trying to fulfill that purpose every day. And that’s not unique to the Apostle Paul. Now, He was called to a specific work that is different from mine and different from yours, but He was not unique in having a calling and a purpose on His life.

When you were called out of darkness and you were called to follow Jesus Christ, He had a purpose in mind for you. Now, that doesn’t mean that you’re saved through fulfilling that purpose, but it does mean that there was more to God’s plan for you than just to have your ticket punched so you could go to heaven and then sit here and be exactly the same and do exactly the same as you’ve done all along. His intention all along was to grow you to be more like Jesus Christ. I think I’ve talked about this recently with Romans chapter 8 and some of the predestination talk in Romans chapter 8.

If you read that, he says that for whom he did foreknow he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. And I told you that while some people, many of whom are smarter than I’ll ever think about being, think that that means God predestined some to salvation and some to damnation, if you read that in context of saying being conformed to the image of his Son, I believe it means that God’s plan and purpose all along was for the believer to grow to be more like Jesus Christ. What He predestined, what He said this is going to happen, was for you and me to be sanctified, for us to be more like Jesus Christ. That’s His plan for you. How exactly that works out in your life, I don’t know.

What exact path you take for that, I don’t know, because I’m not the Holy Spirit. But whether He’s got you involved in this ministry or that, He’s got you being discipled by this person or discipling that person. I don’t know exactly how that works out.

But I do know that God has a purpose and a calling on each of us. And as long as we are still here, still breathing air, that purpose is not finished. Paul said, I’m going to continue to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

And he said, brethren, I do not count myself, verse 13, do not count myself to have apprehended. He didn’t believe he made it. He didn’t believe he had yet fulfilled everything he was supposed to do.

Here’s what he says in verse 13, the second part of it. But one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead. There’s this constant need that you and I have to refocus on where we’re going as opposed to where we’ve been.

Now, some of you may flit through life carefree and not be bothered by the past. Others of us are not that way. Others of us get jolted awake at 1 a. m.

and think about some stupid thing we said in the 10th grade, right? Anybody else in that boat? Okay, a few of us.

A few of us who need to learn to let things go. Folks, we can get so bogged down by things that have happened in the past that we lose sight of what God is doing in us and wants to do in us. But there’s a flip side of this too, where we can look at the successes, not just our failures.

I think we read that about forgetting what is behind, and we think of all the times we’ve failed the Lord, and we need to move past that and continue to grow. But we also can get bogged down in the successes to where we see, look at all I’ve learned. Look at how I’ve changed since I came to Christ. I’ve got 30 years of spiritual growth.

I am not the same person I was. I’m not the same person I was 10 years ago. I could look at that and say, I’ve come a long way.

I’ve come a long way. And I could congratulate myself and stop here. No, no, I need to move past that and press on.

It doesn’t mean that what happened in the past is irrelevant. God can use the successes and the failures. And He does use the successes and the failures to build upon and fulfill His work in us.

But folks, we can’t get so wrapped up in what’s happened in the past that we forget about the growth that He wants to create in us now. And so we continue after Jesus Christ. No matter where we are in our Christian walk, the need is the same. I don’t care if you’ve been following Jesus Christ for a day or if you’ve been following Him for 30 years.

I asked for a show of hands once upon a time what the longest was that anybody in here has been a Christian. I think it was 60 some odd years. I don’t care if you’ve been following Jesus Christ for 60 years or 60 seconds.

The need is still the same to move closer to Jesus Christ. That’s why I said, I press toward the goal. for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. And the great danger here is that we’re going to come to a point where we feel like we’ve arrived. I think part of that is just our human nature.

We like to think we’ve gotten to the point where it’s going to be easy now. But our goal here should be a daily pursuit of Jesus Christ. Not getting to a particular point where we think we can just stop, but to keep pursuing Jesus. Keep trying to know Him.

Keep trying to be more obedient. Keep trying to follow Him. And I know that sounds really hard, Because it is.

I also don’t want to make it sound like this is all totally dependent on us. This is the work of God that He does in us. I cannot make myself be more like Jesus.

You cannot make yourself be more like Jesus. That’s the work that the Holy Spirit does in us. Our job is to be willing and be on board.

And so warning against this danger of thinking we’ve arrived and trying to convince the Philippians to continue their daily pursuit of Jesus Christ, Paul says, let us therefore as many as are mature have this in mind. And I pointed this out already that if you think you’re mature, you’ve just pointed out there’s lots of room for growth. Now it’s okay to say I’m more mature than I used to be, but if you think you’re all the way there, there’s a blind spot.

There’s still room for more growth. So it’s kind of a paradox. The more we grow, the more we see how much more room we have to grow.

When I graduated high school, I thought I knew almost everything. Many of you were that way. You thought you knew everything about life.

You know what? Even when it comes to. .

. I’ll just narrow it down to the very small area of being able to answer objections to Christianity. Because I was interested in apologetics even in high school.

And I went off to OU thinking, I’m going to have an answer for all these atheist professors. I started college, and the more I learned, the more I realized I did not know. And the more room I had to learn.

And even now, after all these years of study, as I’ve learned more things, as this pile of things that I know has grown a little bit bigger, it helps me see that the pile of things I don’t know just gets bigger exponentially. And our spiritual maturity is like that. The more mature we actually do become, the more we see the need to grow even more.

That’s part of the mark of spiritual maturity. To recognize the need to press on. It’s the spiritually immature believer who thinks he’s arrived where he’s supposed to be.

That’s why Paul said, if you’re mature, you get this. You get that you haven’t arrived. And I love what he says in verse 15, if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.

Paul recognized that we’re all in the same boat, and there were going to be some spiritually immature believers who think, I’ve grown plenty. I’ve grown plenty. And Paul recognized he couldn’t change their mind.

He said, God will deal with you about that. If you’re to that point that you think you’ve got it all figured out, I’m just going to let the Lord reveal to you that you don’t. And boy, does the Lord reveal that to us when we think we’ve got it all figured out.

He’s glad to reveal that we don’t. God would show them their need. But he says in verse 16, Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, what we have already figured out, where we have already grown in those areas where the Lord has built in us and done a great work in us, in those areas, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.

He says, no matter how far we’ve come, this is what we as Christians need to be doing. We need to be seeking daily to walk with Jesus Christ. We need to be seeking daily to understand Him better, to know more about Him, to grow to be more like Him. And then I press toward the goal of the prize of the upward call in Jesus Christ. It’s a race, and so we find our motivation for this.

Not in all the good that’s going to come our way, not in all the blessings we’re going to receive, but in the fact that we’re wanting to grow closer to Jesus Christ. What He has done for us is the most incredible motivator. I had a conversation with somebody this week about the judgments, and the judgments at the end times, and the rewards we receive. And one of the things we discussed was just the grace of God, that Jesus Christ, what we have already received is the greatest reward we could ever receive.

That’s not to say that heaven’s not going to be great and wonderful And that’s not to say that there’s not incredible rewards that are going to be given. But I think the most important motivation we could ever have is the ability to be close to the Lord who loved us so much when we were so unlovable that He was willing to give His life to pay for our sins. Jesus did that for us.

And that ought to be enough to spur us on each day to run, to try to grow closer to Him until we get there in eternity. He’s the finish line. He’s the prize.

And the starting point on this race is trusting Him as your Savior. None of what I’ve talked about this morning is something that’s going to get us to heaven, that is going to get us a relationship with Jesus Christ. This is how you build the relationship that’s already there. The starting point on this race is faith.

That we have to come to a point where we recognize that you and I have sinned. We have fallen short. We have disobeyed God.

All the various things that the Bible calls it. But we have been separated from God because of our sin. and no matter what good we do, we can never erase the wrong that we’ve done.

That sin has to be punished. It has to be paid for. And we have to recognize, we have to believe that Jesus Christ did go to the cross to pay for our sins.

He did take responsibility for every sin we’ve committed. He did shed His blood there. He did die there to pay for those sins in full.

And then He rose again three days later to prove it. And because of that, He offers us a relationship with God. He offers us forgiveness and a clean slate, and that is the starting point of the race.

Once we’re forgiven, once we have that relationship, once our eternity is secure, that’s where the race begins.