Philippians 3:10-14 February 7, 1999
Pursuing the Prize

Dog racing is a popular gambling sport in some states. Greyhound racing is different from horse racing in that there are no jockeys, so they have to use some other means of keeping the dogs running in the right direction. The greyhounds are trained to chase a mechanical rabbit that runs on a little track. The remote-control rabbit goes just fast enough to stay ahead of the dogs.

A few years ago at a racetrack in Florida, a funny thing happened. The dogs were all crouched in their cages, waiting for the start of the race. The starting gun sounded. The cage doors dropped open and the dogs took off after the mechanical rabbit. As the rabbit rounded the first turn, however, an electrical short caused it to explode and catch on fire. In seconds, all that was left of the rabbit was some black stuff hanging on a bit of wire. The dogs were so confused they didn't know what to do. Most stopped running. Some of them just lay down on the track with their tongues hanging out. A couple of them went on around the track at top speed, but without the rabbit to chase they ran into a wall and broke several ribs. Several of the greyhounds just started howling at the crowd. Not one dog finished the race.

People are a lot like greyhounds. We're all chasing something. We need some reason for living. What would happen to you if your goal, your reason for running the race, suddenly caught fire? What if what you're chasing is an illusion - something that is attractive but eventually will prove to be of no lasting value? It is an important question for each of us to face.

In Philippians 3 Paul describes how what he was chasing, the status of moral perfection, the honor of having confidence in personal purity - was nothing but rubbish. It was nothing more than a burned out mechanical rabbit. That which he pursued, which he thought was so important in his life was overshadowed by something else. That something else we read of in Philippians 3:10-14.

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

The Pursuit of Christ’s Power

As we saw last week, Paul recognized that all the benefits attained by personal effort, any advantage from obedience to God’s moral law, becomes nothing but yesterday’s garbage when compared to trusting in another person’s perfection. Verse 9 summarizes his hope when he says, "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 and is by faith." Paul then launches into an explanation of his pursuit.

The pursuit of resurrection power - (verse 10a)

Throughout this passage Paul talks about knowing Christ (verse 8), gaining Christ (verse 8), and being found in him (verse 9). What does all this mean? It is easy to talk about knowing someone as an acquaintance, of gaining something as a possession. But for Paul the pursuit is more than just a hobby; it is more than just a passing interest that occupies a portion of his time. It is an all-consuming drive to so resemble the one who has given His life as an exchange that his passion is to become like Christ.

What Paul wants is the power of His resurrection. The reason Paul counts all his efforts as garbage in light of the surpassing greatness of Christ is because what Christ offers exceeds his own moral attainment. What Christ offers is nothing less than resurrection power. The same divine energy which took Jesus’s dead body and raised it up on the third day is the power which is now available to those who make Christ the pursuit of their life.

This resurrection power is what Paul exchanged for his own moral improvement. It is what is available to you and me right now. In Romans 6 Paul reminds us that in Jesus’s death on the Cross we too have died to sin. What is more, just as Jesus rose from the dead on the third day, we too are now raised. That resurrection power is now ours. In Colossians 3:1 the assumption is that the power is now given to us so that we can live in the way God calls us to live.

What is the dead stuff in your life?

Look at the anger in your life; how is that going to be changed into forgiveness? Look at the insecurity; how is that going to be turned into confidence? Self-centeredness, turned to generosity? How?

The answer is found in pursuing Christ. When He is your hope, your ambition, the truth of the resurrection moves from just being a historical fact, held at arm’s length, to become the all-persuasive control of your life. Rather than your agenda being your personal success, the real agenda of your life becomes looking to Christ for everything.

In a cemetery in Hanover, Germany, is a grave on which were placed huge slabs of granite and marble cemented together and fastened with heavy steel clasps. It belongs to a woman who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. Yet strangely, she directed in her will that her grave be made so secure that if there were a resurrection, it could not reach her. On the marker were inscribed these words: "This burial place must never be opened." In time, an acorn, covered over by the stones, began to grow. Slowly it pushed its way through the soil and out from beneath them. As the trunk enlarged, the great slabs were gradually shifted so that the steel clasps were wrenched from their sockets. A tiny seed had become a tree that had pushed aside the stones.

The dynamic life force contained in that little seed is a faint reflection of the tremendous power which not only raised Christ from the dead, but which also promises to change your life. What do you think the acorn of God’s resurrection power can do? If His power comes into your life, what are the immovable slabs in your life? Your bitterness, security, fears, self-doubts - those things can be split and rolled away.

The pursuit of suffering power - (verses 10b-11)

This is a costly pursuit, but one which Paul knows is far better than the pursuit of all that which he had chased for so many years. If we are honest, though, this is one of those verses we wish God never included in our Bibles. We don’t like the idea of chasing after suffering. It all sounds a bit masochistic.

What is more, the order seems all wrong. Resurrection and then suffering? We like to think resurrection and then glory. It is far too easy to fall into the trap of imagining that God empowers us to rise above suffering, to be so transformed that evil no longer affects us. But Paul is quite clear that suffering is part and parcel to our life, that it is part of being a Christian.

The power of the Resurrection comes with the cost. When you go out into the world resembling Jesus, you will find His sufferings reenacted in your life. Jesus was mistreated; why would you be any different? What is more, suffering becomes the garbage dump where all that which we pursue for our own record, our own consumption, finds itself in the dumpster.

This is where most of us get tripped up when it comes to the Christian life.

We love the image of power, of victory. But we are not so keen on suffering. So when suffering comes, when we’ve considered the pursuit of personal effort to be rubbish and look to Christ, and then suffering comes, we imagine God has tricked us. As much as we reject a "health and wealth" theology, as much as we consider it foolish to think God guarantees us a perfect life if we only believe strong enough, we still fall into that trap.

But this is all a part of the process; this is all a part of what it means to know Christ. As we are found in Him, as we trust His death is sufficient for our sins, as His life is credited to our account, as God looks on us as righteous because of Jesus, then we have both the dying and rising to be a part of our life. And all of this looks forward to, at some point in time, the resurrection from the dead.

Paul is not wishy washy about this in verse 11. The ambiguity is only that he does not know when or how. But he is certain that it will come. He will attain it. It is a goal which will be reached. The word "attain" means to arrive at the end of a journey, and represents the figure of a pilgrimage, a journey.

Your career will never satisfy, your love life will never satisfy, your diets will never satisfy - what you are after is glory, what you are wired to need is the power of the Resurrection. Here you are messing around with sex and ambition and money but there is real joy to be found.

We are like little kids playing in a mud puddle and our parents come along and tell us to leave, because we’re going to the beach. We say, "No!" because all we know is the mud puddle.

The Pursuit of Christ’s Prize

The pursuit of the prize is a process - (verse 12)

While Paul understands the necessity to be in Christ, to have His righteousness, to apply the truth of justification, he knows, and we must know too, that this never means we are done. While the power of the Resurrection is now his, the final resurrection is still to come. While the perfect record of Christ’s righteousness is now his, his perfection is still a long way off.

Those Paul warned the Philippians about in verse 2 may well have fed the lie to the believers in Philippi that spiritual perfection was available if they would just be circumcised and keep the Law. It was not unheard of then or now for traveling teachers to propagate the idea that one could reach a certain level of knowledge in which perfection was attained.

But Paul is clear: he has not reached that goal. Although he is a new creation, although he is in Christ, he has a long way to go. The Christian life is still a process.

This is what the old Puritans called "being converted." We interchange the terms regeneration and conversion today, and so confuse the imputation of righteousness with the transformation by God’s grace. But we need to understand that while we are positionally "in Christ" and have His righteousness, we all still need to grow; we need to press on. Are you being converted - are you able to see that you have not obtained any sense of perfection - and that you are moving in that direction? Are you dissatisfied with where you are, but rather than give up, continue to look in faith to Christ for Him to make you what He commands you to be?

In verse 12 we see that great relationship to which we are called: We must press on to take hold. It sounds like effort which we must conjure up within ourselves. But then notice the rest: Take hold of that for which Christ took hold of me. Paul knows he has not arrived, but he is pursuing the goal.

Just as we saw back in 2:12-13 where we are to work out what God has worked in, here we take hold of that which Christ has taken hold of us.

The pursuit of the prize is process moving forward - (verses 13-14)

During the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles Greg Foster was the favorite to win the 110 meter high hurdles. "ABC" even did one of those three minute biographies on him. The gun went off and the runners charged toward the hurdles. Greg Foster was nervous but he kept the lead. But just as he vaulted over the last hurdle, he turned his head ever-so-slightly to see where everyone was. Big mistake. The move cost him only hundredths of a second, but that was enough to lose the race to another American, Tom Jefferson.

Paul knows that our lives are but a race, a race in which we must keep our focus on what is important. Too often, we, like Greg Foster, ever so slightly glance back to see where we’ve been. But in that moment, we easily lose our step in the race. For that reason he makes it clear what governs his life: "This thing - forgetting what is behind&ldots;"

For most of us, the past holds many good memories. We remember the good times: times when we were happy and enjoying life; times when we were with someone special. We remember the special events: birthdays, graduations, weddings and anniversaries. Good memories are a wonderful thing. It’s great to be able to tune them in and play them back. It brings a smile to our face. We can certainly thank God for the good memories.

But the past also has a dark side. The past can be a prison. You see, it’s possible for the past to put us in bondage. Along with the good memories, there are the memories of times of failure. Sometimes our memory can serve to haunt us. Our failures can cause us to see ourselves as failures, or as unable to break the patterns of failure in our lives. We stereotype ourselves, and thereby put ourselves in bondage. Many people live today plagued by their past. They are trapped by the things that have been, and can’t seem to see beyond them.

How often in your life, when things didn’t turn out right, do you replay the tape of those events and say, "If only I had done it differently." Kids in their games get "do-overs," golf has a mulligan, even Word Perfect gives you an Undo button. But for you and me, we can’t go back to high school to take it more seriously than when we were 15. We can’t undo that damaged relationship or fix the poor career decision. As much as we muse over those situations, there is nothing we can do to change them.

Paul understands though, that when it comes to our past, to those sins we committed against God’s Law, that this is where the Gospel speaks loud and clear. As you trust in Christ’s record instead of your own, as you have willingly acknowledged that His death took the punishment for your sins, those sins are not just in the past; they are forever removed. There is nothing to go back to, nothing to beat yourself with self-imposed guilt over.

But even good memories can bind us, as memories of past successes and attainments may detain us from more splendid triumphs. Like the 40-year-old jock who still lives in the glory days, it is too easy to recount a time when you sense spiritual triumph, when you saw a victory over a sin. But that was some time ago. Trusting Christ in the past never gives you license to forget Him today.

William Sloan Coffin said once, "The church is full of people who are seeking that which they have already found and only want to become that which they already are."

We are far too at ease with our own comfort, far too cozy with coasting.

Instead of looking to the past, we are to be straining forward, with our focus on the future.

The straining here is a word used of the sprinter who thrusts his body toward the finish line, whose one goal is to get to the end. The word here, "straining toward," epekteinomi, takes the basic word to stretch a muscle and uses a double preposition epek meaning to stretch and stretch further. This is a runner stretching every muscle to reach what is in front of him, the prize. Focused concentration, nothing with the past, just looking at the goal, moving as fast as possible.

Paul continues this image in verse 14 as he speaks of pressing toward the goal. This is an aggressive energetic endeavor. There is no quietism here. Nothing about "let go and let God." Every spiritual muscle must be pushed to its limit.

This is the life to which we have been called. Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:11 to "flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith." He remarks of his own life in 2 Timothy 4:7 "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." It is to this life we are called as Hebrews 12:1-2 tells us, that 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." How? "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

This kind of straining Paul commands here does not take us back to the moral purity offered up in verses 4-8, but rather it seeks the final goal of the prize God has for you and me. What is that prize, what is the goal of our pursuit? What Paul stated earlier was his chief concern: to be found in Christ, to gain Christ, to know Christ.

Again, the effort in the Christian life is not your righteousness, but Christ’s. We must not miss this: the race of the Christian life, the pursuit to which God calls us, the effort where we must put forth everything that is within us is this: renounce your own self-effort and look to Christ.

If you think that is overly simplistic or far too easy, you haven’t tried it.

Like those dogs going around the track in a meaningless race, you and I all too often chase mechanical rabbits, thinking they are real. But when they blow up in our faces, we are left with our tongues hanging out, our aim misdirected. We are unable to finish the race.

What are you chasing this week? To earn a few more bucks to increase your security, to find happiness, to be safe? If what you pursue is not of eternal value, if what you are chasing is not the prize of being found in Christ, then you will be no better than those greyhounds.

There is a race God gives us, but He also supplies us the means to sustain ourselves for the marathon of the Christian life. What we are to feed on is found here at this table. In the Lord’s Supper we have the simple nourishing meal of bread and wine, and here Christ will enable us to strain toward what is ahead.