Growing up in Christ

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See, for everybody in this room, if you’re a parent, if you’re a grandparent, that’s your goal. Whether you stop and think about it or not, or a teacher, that’s your goal for the kids that you work with. We’re not raising kids, we’re training adults. We’re trying to, that should be our goal is to train them for life, prepare them to do life and to do it well. We want them to be mature, and that’s the same thing that God as a father feels for us.

He didn’t just save us through Jesus Christ to remain little spiritual babies forever. Instead, God has a design, God has a purpose on our lives for us to grow to spiritual maturity. And that’s true, I don’t care how old you are, how long you’ve been walking with Jesus, that’s true for you, it’s as much true for you as somebody who has just trusted Christ and started that journey. A few weeks ago, I asked, I did that show of hands thing. Raise your hand if you’ve been walking with Christ for 40 years, 50 years.

I think we got to some that were 60 plus years. I don’t think we had anybody that said 70 plus. Maybe we did.

But anyway, up there in years. And they were the first to acknowledge they don’t know everything about following Jesus. They don’t know everything about Scripture. They’re not where they need to be yet.

So it doesn’t matter how many years we’ve been with Jesus, whether we just trusted Him and we’re still babies or whether we’ve been walking with Him a long time. There’s still a ways to go on our journey towards spiritual maturity. And that’s what we’re going to talk about this morning from Philippians chapter 3.

If you haven’t turned there with me, please go ahead and do so. And once you have it, if you’ll stand with me as we read together from God’s Word, Philippians chapter 3.

If you don’t have your Bible or can’t find Philippians 3, it’ll be on the screen for you to follow along there. But starting in verse 7, here’s what the Apostle Paul says about this.

But whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish, so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His death in order that I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which I also was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude, and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you.

However, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained. And you may be seated. What he’s talking about here in this passage is spiritual maturity. God has designed believers to grow to spiritual maturity. That’s not just his design for the super spiritual people.

That’s not just his design for church leaders or Christian celebrities. That’s his design for each and every believer is that we would grow to a place of spiritual maturity. Toward the end of this passage, he summarizes what he’s talking about and says, let us therefore as many as are perfect. We need to make sure we understand that word perfect. It doesn’t mean like we think of as perfect, being sinless, having it all together.

You don’t have any problems. You don’t have any shortcomings. That’s not what he’s talking about. That word perfect means something else when we see it in the Bible. It means that there’s an end, there’s a goal in mind.

We see this word, and it’s translated different ways throughout the passage, but it’s the same Greek word that means an end or a goal. When I started the middle school Bible study, Bible class at the beginning of the year, we started out talking about how do we know that there’s a God? How do we know He exists? And one of the things that I talked to the kids about was something called the teleological argument. and that’s just a big fancy word for design and we talked about how if something shows evidence of design it can’t have design without a okay if you’re in my bible class i need you to be paying attention if something shows evidence of design it can’t have that without a what a designer some of you even that weren’t in my bible class got that so good and it’s called the teleological argument because that Greek word telos means a design, something that it was, an end, a goal that it was created with that purpose in mind.

So all throughout this passage, when Paul’s talking about this telos for us, he’s saying that God designed us with a purpose. God designed us to get to a goal. And so when he says that word perfect, if anyone is perfect, As many as are perfect, what he means is as many as are pressing toward that goal, as many are trying to get there, describes being designed with this purpose. And the purpose that God has for us is spiritual maturity, becoming like Christ. That’s why elsewhere in Romans 8, Paul told us that believers are predestined to become conformed to the image of his Son.

God’s plan for each of us, if you’re a believer, if you belong to Jesus Christ, God’s design for you is that you grow throughout this life to be more like Jesus. That’s why he said in Ephesians that we’re to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ.

But in order to grow in that direction, he tells us that we have to cultivate the right mindset. That’s why here in verse 15, he says, let us have this attitude. this attitude he’s talking about our mindset the way we think a lot of times we come to Christianity and we think that it’s about our behavior we think it’s about rules now walking with Jesus does change our behavior over time but it starts with a change of our mindset it starts with a change in the way we think spiritual maturity is not just well I don’t drink I don’t cuss I go to church all of those are wonderful things but you can do those things and still be spiritually immature.

Spiritual maturity is our way of thinking, our way of acting, our way of perceiving the world coming more and more into line with who Jesus Christ is. And you and I are never going to be able to do that perfectly, but we can trust the promise that he gives us at the end of verse 15 that if in anything you have a different attitude, you know, those places where we fall short, no matter how mature we are, we all have those places, we all have those triggers where you can be Christ-like up until that switch is flipped and suddenly you’re not Christ-like anymore. We all have it. I have it. I’ve told the church too many stories about me being in traffic.

They know I have it. In any place where we don’t have that attitude, there’s this promise in verse 15 that God’s going to show it to you. That’s why when we’re walking with Christ and we’re not acting like Christ, He nails us right in the conscience in those moments. and we feel it and we sense it and we realize, okay, what I’m doing is not right. The way I’m thinking is not right.

So he’s given us this blueprint that we’re supposed to grow toward spiritual maturity. His goal for us is that we become more like Jesus Christ.

So how do we do that? We know that it’s the work of God. We know that he’s the one who matures us. We know that he’s the who shapes us, but at the same time, he tells us there’s a role that we play here. What is it?

How do we as believers grow towards spiritual maturity? It starts with what we prioritize. Okay, so in verse 15, he says, you want to have this attitude, and what he’s describing is going back to verse 7 and everything he’s just laid out for us. The attitude in verse 15 is described in verses 7 through 14. That’s what we’re going to look at in the remainder of our time this morning.

Spiritual maturity recognizes that Jesus outranks everything. How do we grow to spiritual maturity? Again, it’s the work of God, but the way that we cooperate and do what we’re supposed to do in that is first of all to prioritize Jesus and recognize that He outranks everything. Everything.

When we started this passage in verse 7, Paul had just finished giving a list of his credentials. All the things that made him special in his culture and his religious background. He talked about being from the right tribe, being circumcised on the right day, of being an expert in the law, of being so zealous, so committed to his religion previously that he was persecuting the church. All of these things. He lays out all of these things that make him special.

These were the things that he treasured. Think of something that you’ve worked for for years and years, and you finally get it, and you hold on to it because that’s a big part of how you see yourself and who you are. Sometimes we’ll do this with jobs. Sometimes we’ll do this with education. Sometimes we’ll do this with family.

How do you see yourself? Oh, I’m a banker. That’s my identity. Oh, I’ve got this and this degree. That’s who I am.

Oh, I’m a parent. we get our identity wrapped up in one of these in one of these areas and they’re not necessarily bad things but they’re things that we treasure and Paul looks at all of those things and in verse 7 he says that he has counted them as loss that means he has taken them and he has laid them down and not that the things that we have and that are our credentials not that they’re evil they just can’t outrank Jesus but he’s laid them down he says for the sake of Christ it’s this bedrock message that we as believers have to learn that it’s not about me and sometimes we are maybe not all of us maybe you don’t have this problem but for some of us we can get way more impressed with ourselves than we ought to be and we can want other people to be just as impressed. It’s nice when people recognize a job well done or something you’ve achieved, but we’ve got to keep it in the proper perspective. I remember earning a seminary degree a few years ago and people say, oh, you’re a doctor. You must be really smart.

And I had to tell them you wouldn’t think that if you saw us trying to line up in alphabetical order for graduation. The kindergartners up here do a better job. The things that we’re impressed by and want other people to be impressed by, they have their place, but we can’t build our identity around them.

Paul then expresses his willingness, not just to lay these things that he’s listed down for the sake of Christ. He expresses his willingness, he says in verse 8, more than that to count all things to be lost. That anything else he may encounter, he says, I’m willing to count it lost, meaning to lay it down, to put it aside. Why is he willing to do that?

He says in verse 8, for the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. He said, I’m willing to lay everything else aside if that’s what it takes for me to know Jesus. And he’s talking about knowing Jesus experientially, not just knowing who he is, but actually knowing him. You can know facts about somebody, but it’s not the same as knowing them. You can learn a lot of information about somebody.

I keep seeing ads online about these data brokers. that you can go online and you can find out way too much information about somebody. And you can know some things about a person.

But I know my wife because I’ve known her my entire life, and I’ve been married to her for many years at this point. And you really get to know somebody by spending day in and day out with them over a period of years. There’s a difference in knowing stuff about somebody and knowing them by experience. and Paul’s talking about wanting to know Jesus by experience. And not that you can’t know Jesus and have a career, not that you can’t know Jesus and have degrees, not that you can’t know Jesus and have whatever credentials, but if our attachment to those things keeps us from knowing Jesus because we’re so focused on those, Paul is telling us to put those things aside, at least to put our focus on those things aside.

Knowing Jesus for Paul has become the priority. And he says that everything else is rubbish. It’s junk. And this is because what Jesus offers to us is better than anything that we can earn or accomplish on our own. He talks in verse 9 about being found in him.

Paul wants to be found in him, meaning when he stands before God, he doesn’t want to stand before God with a handful of the stuff that he’s done. Because anything we, we as believers, are supposed to do good works to glorify Jesus.

But in comparison to the holiness of God, even the best things that we can do, are junk when it comes to standing before a holy God in judgment. We don’t want to come to Him and say, here’s a few good things I’ve done in my life, or here’s some things that I did with mostly good motives, but you know, I’m human, so my motives are still flawed. We don’t want to stand before a holy God offering just what we’ve done. We want to be found in Him. We want the Father to look at us and see the Son We want Him to see the righteousness of Christ That’s why we want to be found in Jesus And Paul knew all too well The reality of standing before God and saying Well, you know, you should be impressed with me Because I’m from the tribe of Benjamin I was circumcised the eighth day I persecuted the church No, no, God is not going to be impressed with that Paul wants to stand before God And have him see Jesus and as we go through verse 9 he says there’s this righteousness that he could present God this self-righteousness that he’s earned under the law taking all of the good that he could ever do all the things that he could ever earn and he could scoop those up together and try to present those to the Lord or that is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.

We can stand before God and say, here’s all the good that I’ve done, or we can stand before God and say, here’s all the righteousness of Christ that He’s given to me. And Paul’s point is, I know which one I’d rather give. I know which one I’d rather stand there and have. And so if knowing Jesus in that way, if walking with Jesus in that way requires Him to put everything else aside, is willing to do that. There’s nothing that matters more than Jesus in our lives.

And as a parent, as a dad, as a husband, that sounds so weird to our society to say, you love Jesus more than your kids, you love Jesus more than your wife, yes, and it helps me love them better than I could otherwise, because in my human nature, I’m selfish. But the more I love Jesus, the more He’s able to love them through me. And so He has to be our priority, but more than that, He’s also our pattern. We get to verses 10 and 11 here, and Paul points out that spiritual maturity recognizes that being like Jesus is our new goal. It’s not enough to just say, put this other stuff aside.

We actually have to have something that we’re running toward, or we’re just heading off aimlessly. Have you ever tried to go out in the wilderness, go hiking, and not go on a trail? You’re going to get lost. I know this from experience. You’re going to get lost.

You want a trail that you’re out there trying to follow. Paul wants to experience the power that Jesus proved at the resurrection. He said that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death. And when Paul says, I want to be conformed to his death, I want to know the fellowship of his sufferings. I want to know the power of his resurrection.

Paul is not saying that you and I become like Jesus in the sense that we do all the things that Jesus did. I’m not dying for anybody else’s sins. Sorry, if I die, it’s not going to help you with your sins because I’ve got my own. God raises me from the dead, it’s not going to help you because I’m nobody He’s not talking about us becoming Jesus But about following Jesus’ example When he talks about the fellowship of his sufferings Jesus suffered in obedience to the Father And Paul’s saying I want to do that too Whatever the cost, whatever it is that God has given me to do I want to do that and if I suffer, it just means I’m being like Jesus because Jesus came and went all the way to the cross in obedience to the Father. And since Jesus died for our sins in verse 10 and he says, I want to be conformed to his death.

Again, he’s not talking about us dying on the cross. He’s not talking about us paying for anybody else’s sins.

But elsewhere in Romans, he talks about us considering ourselves dead to sin because Jesus died, we’ve died with him and we’re now dead to sin. and we do all of this with our eyes on the fact that since jesus rose from the dead we can be confident in his promise to raise us as well he says i want to know the power of his resurrection and then again in verse 11 in order that i may attain the resurrection from the dead it’s a it’s a pretty big promise it’s a pretty big promise that jesus has given us that if we belong to Him, we’ll be raised to life in the future, that we’ll have eternal life with Him. It’s not unusual to go through the loss of a loved one or to be at a funeral or something and have that thought, that question in the back of your mind, how do I know it’s all true? How do I know I’m going to see that person again? You know, we say, oh, I know I’ll see him again.

How do we know? Because you and I don’t go there, and I know there are books about it. They have varying degrees of credibility.

But you and I have never been to heaven and come back and seen it. We can’t say for sure. How do we know? We know because 2,000 years ago, there was a man who predicted and accomplished his own resurrection from the dead. And it’s not just a Bible story.

It is a Bible story. But it’s not just a Bible story. It is among the best attested facts in all of ancient history. I have spent at this point legitimately 20 years studying the resurrection. Looking at every objection I could find, looking at every piece of data, and I am more convinced today of the truth of the resurrection.

And the eyewitness accounts by those who walked with Jesus tell us that at least nine times he predicted his own death and his own resurrection. And then he did it. If somebody tells me nine times, I’m going to die and I’m going to be raised from the dead, and then he does it, I’m going to listen to that guy. It doesn’t seem hard. I’m going to listen to him.

When he says, yeah, I’ve been raised and I’m going to raise you too, okay. I’m going to trust the one that’s been there I think it’s normal for us to have those questions and for us to have those doubts but for me it always comes back to the resurrection how do I know this is true? because Jesus has already been there he’s already done that he’s got the t-shirt and he’s promised us that he’ll raise us too and everything that he’s calling us to do he calls us to do recognizing the fact that we have that promise what do we have to be afraid of what cost is too high to follow him when we have that promise to assure us and that hope to look forward to we don’t become Jesus but our goal is to become like Jesus in the way we live in the world the way we interact with the world and it’s something we can do because of the hope that Jesus has given us and it’s a goal worth committing ourselves to the final thing this morning that I want to show you from this passage is that spiritual maturity recognizes that Jesus is worth pursuing relentlessly. He’s not something that we add on to our lives. He’s at the center of it.

He’s worth running toward with everything that we have. When we get to verse 12, Paul says, not that I have already obtained it or have already been made perfect.

Paul acknowledges that even he has not reached his goal. Now that might make you feel better. Hey, even Paul wasn’t where he needed to be.

So that gives me hope that he knows what he’s talking about and I just keep pursuing. Or it may make you feel worse. Even Paul didn’t reach where he was, you know, he didn’t reach this goal of spiritual maturity. What hope do I have?

But Paul wasn’t discouraged by it. He acknowledges that even he hasn’t reached his goal, but he doesn’t give up. He doesn’t give up.

He says in verse 12, I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Jesus Christ. The reason he hadn’t reached his goal is because the goal is to be like Jesus. As long as we are living on this earth, we’re never going to be exactly like Jesus. There’s always more room for growth. but growing a little more and a little more and a little more is worth the effort.

He says, I press on because I want to lay hold of that thing that is the reason why Jesus laid hold of me. He says, Jesus had a plan for him and a purpose in saving him, and until he fully lived out that purpose, he wasn’t going to stop running. My dad is a marathon runner. And it’s really, it’s a really challenging thing to do. Benjamin and I have talked about starting running.

You know what the hardest part of it is? To start. I keep hope alive that one day we’ll get there and just start.

But once dad started, I said, how did you get to five kilometers? How did you get to 13.1 miles? How did you get to 26.2? He said, I just kept running. I was already running, just kept going.

That’s what Paul’s talking about. I’m already running toward Jesus. I’m not at the finish line yet. Why not just keep running? Until I get to that finish line, until I get to where God has called me to be, I’m not going to stop running.

And he reiterates again in verse 13 that he’s not there yet. And since he’s not there yet, he does one thing. He said, this one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. forgetting the things that are behind and focusing instead on the things that are ahead. He keeps running.

Jesus saved every believer with a purpose and a plan in mind. If you belong to Jesus Christ, if you’ve trusted in Him, if you’ve trusted in Him as your Savior and you’ve been born again, He has a purpose and a plan in mind for you. and it is so easy for us to get bogged down on the things that are behind. Well, you don’t know where I’ve been. You don’t know how I’ve lived.

You don’t know the shortcuts I’ve taken. You don’t know the places I’ve fallen down. It doesn’t matter.

Paul called himself the chiefest of sinners, and still he said forgetting the things that are behind. Doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. Doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences, but it does mean that what happened before, what happened before those things that are behind, do not have to stand in the way of us continuing to run toward Jesus and continuing to run toward Jesus with everything that we have.

Instead of focusing on where we’ve been, it’s focus on where He is and who He is. He saved each of us with a purpose in mind, and that means becoming like Jesus. And it’s like a race. The miles behind us don’t matter as much as the miles in front of us.

So if you’re here this morning as a believer and you’re thinking, I’ve messed up too many times in the past. I’ll never be, I look around this building all the time and I see people who are role models of mine. I say all the time I want to be Brother Rick when I grow up, if I grow up. Could easily look and say, I don’t have it together like so and so. That’s not the point.

The point is he didn’t save us just to leave us spiritual babies forever. If you belong to him, he saved you with the purpose of you becoming more and more like Jesus Christ. You’ve just got to forget the things that were before. You’ve got to lay aside the weight that holds you back and run toward him. That’s where spiritual maturity lies, is in that race of running relentlessly toward Jesus.

And it’s something that each of us can do, not because we’re so wonderful, but because he designed us for it.

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