The Grace Race
Philippians 3:12-16

INTRO:
Good Morning. Our text for today is Philippians 3:12-16. As an introduction to our thoughts for today I would like to share with you a list of some answers from a science test taken by teenagers. I thought you would find them interesting.

One student wrote: “You can listen for the thunder after the lightening flashes and tell how close you came to getting hit. If you don’t hear it, you got hit, so never mind”.
Another wrote: “When people run around and around in circles, we say they’re crazy. When planets do it we say they’re orbiting”.
Then: “A vacuum is nothing. We only mention it, to let it know that we know it is there”.
And: “We say the cause of perfume disappearing is evaporation. Evaporation gets blamed for a lot of things when people forget to put the top on.”
Finally this one: “I am not sure how clouds get formed, but the clouds know how to do it and that’s the important thing.”

I think that we would all agree that there are areas of our lives, where we haven’t learned it all. Despite years of study, our knowledge of a subject can still be imperfect. I can’t imagine a lawyer saying after many years of practicing law, “I know every law in the book I’ve studied every case that’s been tried.” Or a doctor saying after years of practicing medicine, “I know everything you need to know about medicine.” It is difficult to imagine that those who have dedicated many years to something would not realize much is still to be learned.

Even though people have been preaching and studying the Bible for many years, they still don’t know everything they need to know about the Bible. Maybe the beginning of wisdom is the recognition that we don’t have all the knowledge.

Let me remind you of what Paul said last time, “That my great passion is to know Christ, (remember he said that?) everything I had in the past, that I used to value, I call it rubbish, that I might have the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” All he wanted to know was Christ. That was his quest. It was this quest that was going to take up the rest of his life. He was determined that nothing was going to keep him from knowing more and more and more about Christ, and he’s called upon us to join him in his quest.

The title of this sermon is “The Grace Race”. If you would turn with me in your bibles to Philippians 3:12-16 and read with me there you’ll understand why. Paul has just finished saying; “anything is rubbish except this, knowing Christ.” Then he writes: - “12. 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. 13. 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, 14. I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15. Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. 16. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.”
Paul knows that he is not perfect. He knows there is more of which he needs to take hold. Paul says “Brothers, I do not consider myself, yet, to have taken hold of it.”

That might seem to be a little confusing to us. Paul has just said, as we saw last week, so strongly, “that anything you do to get human righteousness is rubbish, we are not saved by our effort or by our merit.” We are saved by putting faith in the work of Christ and when we put faith in Christ, we receive divine righteousness. Was Paul saying that human righteousness is rubbish, and is now saying, “That salvation is the product of human effort?” Is he contradicting himself? No indeed, we need to understand what Paul writes.

Paul is not saying, “You need to strain to be saved.” He is not saying that at all. He is describing the activity of somebody who has abandoned all the claim of merit. He is describing what we might call the “Grace Race”—the way people live who have received divine righteousness through their faith in Christ. Paul knows he’s saved. He says, “I strive to take hold of Him who... who what...? who has taken hold of me.” He knows that Christ holds him. He knows that Christ has embraced him.

What Paul is saying is, “because Christ has embraced me, because Christ has pursued me, I’m going to spend the rest of my life pursuing Christ.” The way you live in grace is by pursuing the one who pursued you. Jesus Christ came and paid the ultimate sacrifice. Why? So that he could take hold of you. How then do you spend the rest of your life? You spend the rest of your life doing what Paul was doing. Paul was trying to take hold, more and more of Christ and the knowledge of Him.

In others words what you’re trying to do is what Paul said back in chapter 2. “You try to work out that salvation, God has worked in.”

I. Remember when the Bible says, “We’re saved by faith not by works”? In the Bible we find that faith is described as a walk. When we live by faith, we’re moving, we’re active, and we’re going somewhere.
A. A great example of faith in the Bible is Abraham, the Father of the faithful. Remember he spent his whole life in a tent. He spent his whole life on the move. Following the lead of God.
B. When Paul says; “you are saved by faith” he doesn’t mean you become a spiritual couch potato. You are supposed to be active in your pursuit of the goal that God has for you. When Paul says, “I’m pursuing that goal.” He’s not talking about salvation; he’s already got that in Christ. The goal he’s talking about is Christ-likeness. Christ-likeness. He is pursuing an increasing knowledge of Christ so that he could become more and more like Christ. In other words, the “Grace Race” is a quest to morph if you will.
C. Do you remember the kid’s TV show with the mighty morphing power rangers? How they morphed from youths into these Power Rangers? Do you know that, the word morph comes right out of our Bible? The Greek word morphė is defined in Strong’s concordance as “form (outward expression) that embodies essential (inner) substance so that the form is in complete harmony with the inner essence.”
D. The Bible says it is possible for us to morph. To become increasingly more like Jesus Christ. To think and feel and act more and more like Jesus Christ. Are we going to receive that perfection in this life? No. We are not going to receive that perfect morphing until He comes back.
E. In fact Paul says, “I haven’t already obtained it, I haven’t been made perfect yet, I don’t consider myself yet as having obtained.” In other words, Paul was never going to say, “some day I’ll come to Philippi and stand up and say, “I’ve arrived, I’ve made it. I’m as mature and complete and perfect in knowledge of Christ as anyone could possibly be.” Paul tells us “I’ll never be able to say that”.
II. In thinking about this, we will realize that before Paul became a Christian he thought he had arrived spiritually. Once we start knowing Jesus Christ though, we understand that there is always more to know, there is always more growing to do. We never arrive at our perfect knowledge of Christ. We do come to an understanding though, that God’s purpose for us in this life is to aim, and even strain for increasing Christ-likeness, to desire to morph if you will.
A. Turn with me for a moment to Romans 8:28. Here is a verse we know very well. We have quoted that verse many times and it says, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” Usually we stop right there and don’t read the next verse, which tells what the purpose we have been called for is. Why has God called us? Why does He make all things work out? Because He foreknew and predestined that we are conformed to the likeness of His Son. That word ‘conform’ is our word ‘morph.’
B. God’s plan for us was not just to give us fire insurance. God’s plan when He saved us and took hold of us is that we would morph into the likeness of Christ. The same verse in the Message says, “God knew what He was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love Him, along the same lines as the life of His Son.” That’s God’s plan, that’s God’s purpose, that’s what Paul says, “I’m straining for”.
C. “Christ has taken hold of me, now I’m straining to take hold of Christ. I’m straining to grow in my knowledge of Christ, so I can be more like Christ”. Paul is telling us that, “Jesus Christ came and died for our freedom, so that we could be free from sin and go to heaven.”
1. Understand this, when we talk about Jesus, when we tell people of the gospel, people will wonder and ask, “What’s He like, who is He, tell me more this Jesus?”
2. Do you know what God wants to be able to say? “Just so happens I have some of Jesus’ relatives who look a whole lot like him sitting right in this building.”
D. That’s what God wants to say. That’s why we were called, that’s our purpose. That’s why God works all things out, so that He can make us look more and more like Jesus and represent Him.
E. That’s why Paul said in Galatians 4:19, “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed (there is the word again, morphed) in you.” [para]
III. Paul is writing to the Galatians about the problem they are dealing with, the problem of legalism. We need to understand that legalists for the most part have good hearts. They see people that aren’t growing spiritually, and they want to help them. The way they want to help them is by giving them a bunch of rules to follow.
A. It all starts with good intentions. The legalist in Paul’s day said, “Be circumcised, eat this food but don’t eat that food, don’t go here but go there, honor this day but don’t honor that day.” By giving them these rules they were going to help them be more righteous, look more like Jesus. The problem with that is, if you are going to look more like Jesus you’ve got to change on the inside and the outside rules just can’t do that.
B. People do the same thing today. Read out of this Bible but not out of that Bible. Go over here but don’t go over there. Worship like this, but don’t worship like that. They believe if we give people rules to conform to, people will change on the inside to be like Jesus. The only way a person will change on the inside, the only way they can really morph is if they listen and obey the Holy Spirit.
C. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “We, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being morphed into his likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”[para] Paul’s point; when Jesus Christ came He took hold of us and now God’s purpose and goal is that we’ll take hold of Christ and morph into the image of Christ as we follow the Spirit. When we follow the Spirit, folks, we don’t become a spiritual couch potato. We get up and get on the move. When we listen to the Spirit, we’re alive, and we are going to be active and growing and striving and yes, straining as Paul says.
D. I wonder this morning, is that us? Are we making progress in the ‘Grace race’? I also wonder why some people can be Christians for 5 or 10 or 50 years and they don’t look anymore like Jesus than they did the day they accepted him. The reason is, of course, they’re not running the race. They’re not answering the call. They’re not fulfilling the purpose. Some of us get a little bit lazy in our desire to change you see.
E. Why is that? Oh, perhaps when we were younger, we were active. We were active and reading our Bible every day, involved in church. Then along came marriage and a couple of kids and life just go so busy and times got really hard. Then perhaps we just kind of started coasting. I know I thought when I retired I could just start coasting. Let me tell you something, folks. The only way we can coast is if we are going down hill. We have been called heavenward, not down hill. We have not been called to coast in the Lord. Trust me on this We do not want to be spiritually coasting.
F. There was an article about John Stephen Akhwari (ah-query) representing his country, Tanzania by competing in the marathon of the 1968 Mexican Olympics. In the early parts of the race, Akhwari cramped up due to the high altitude of the city. At the 19 kilometer point during the 42 kilometer race, he collided with another runner and fell, badly cutting and dislocating his knee. He also hurt his shoulder when he hit the ground. A narrator next describes it this way: “It was almost 7 pm in Mexico City, October 1968. One hour earlier the winners of the 26 mile Olympic marathon had crossed the finish line. It had been a grueling hot day and the high altitude affected all the athletes. The sky was beginning to darken and most of the stadium was empty. As the last few spectators were preparing to leave, police sirens and flashing lights caught their attention. A lone runner, wearing the colors of Tanzania had just emerged through the stadium gate. Limping, with his leg bandaged he found the last of his endurance to step up his pace and finish the race. His name was John Stephen Akhwari.” When interviewed later and asked why he continued running despite his injuries, he simply said, “My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race; they sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race.”
IV. Thinking about what Paul is telling us, Jesus Christ came all the way from heaven to earth. Why? To get you to start it? No. To get you to finish it. He has a purpose for us, a goal for us. He wants us crossing that finish line and morphing into His image. Let’s look at what Paul says that can help us run the race today. I’m going to give you 3 pieces of advice, which came from Paul who knew how to run.
A. First Paul says; “forgetting those things which are behind” He tells us to Forget the past. If you’re going to run the ‘Grace Race’ you need to forget the past. Looking back never helped anyone complete a race. He says, “forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead,” In a race it can actually be dangerous to look backwards.
B. When he says, “forget”, he doesn’t mean we’re going to forget our knowledge of scripture, our Christian friends, or our experiences of God’s grace. We're to remember who and who’s we are. The central act of Christian worship is memory. “Do this in remembrance of me.”
C. We often do have a problem though. Our problem is we like to remember what we ought to forget and we forget what we ought to remember. What Paul is saying is, “You don’t let anything in you’re past impede you’re progress, in becoming more like Jesus.”[para]
D. What kind of things could impede our progress? Well, our sins could. We need to forget them. I dare say that we all have some things in our past that we are not proud of. A sin, if we let it, can weigh heavily upon us.
1. Satan likes to accuse us and remind us, so that we’ll slow down and stop growing like Jesus. We need to forget that.
2. Look at Paul. Paul had some ugly stuff in his past too and he didn’t forget in the sense that he couldn’t remember what happened, what he used to do. He forgot in the sense that he didn’t let it control him anymore and keep him from running the race.
3. It is a funny thing that we slow down because we keep remembering what God chose to forget.
E. There was a little girl who said she talked to God, but nobody believed her. Her folks took her to see the preacher and he said, “Do you really talk to God?” “Every week” she said. He didn’t believe her and said, “I’ll tell you what, next week before you come back, talk to God, you ask Him to tell you the sin I confessed last week.” “I confessed a real big sin to God.” He said, “If you’re talking to God, He knows it. Come back and tell me.” The girl went home and came back the next week. The preacher asked, “Did you talk to God last week? “I sure did,” she said. “Did you ask God about that big sin I confessed to him? She said, “I did ask.” “What did God say?” asked the preacher. She said, “Well God said,” ‘I forgot’.
V. We don’t want to let our life get side-lined by sins God can’t remember. We need to forget those sins and get back on the track and start growing into the image of Jesus. Some of us also need to forget our successes, strange as that might sound. Paul had to do that as well. He could talk about all the churches he planted. All the sermons he preached. All the letters he wrote.
A. Let me tell you something about living on the past. The mercy God gave you for yesterday was good for yesterday. Today the devil is after you in a brand new day. The good news is that God’s mercies are new every day as well. God’s got mercy to give us today for our run today.
B. Paul’s lesson is telling us that we need to forget about the good old days, and we need to forget about the bad old days because we need to run today. God has got some growing and learning for us in this day.
C. That word ‘forget’ means you do it daily. It’s a part of you’re training as a Christian.
1. Forgetting is one of the few things as I get older I find I get better at. We all do this every day don’t we? We forget.
2. However I’m not talking about the forgetfulness of old age that we all experience. What Paul is saying is we need to forget all the stuff in the past, good and bad that would keep us from running hard today.
3. We need to do that because, people don’t remember how you started; they remember how you finished.
VI. That’s the first thing we ought to do, forget the past and run today. The second thing is we need to listen to the coach. If we want to run a good race, we listen to the coach. We are all on this path to perfection in Christ but we are all at different stages of progress. One of the things that can bog us down is the question, “What are we going to do about all those people who aren’t running very fast?”
A. There are people we know and care about who don’t seem to be advancing as they should. How should we help people run? We can help them by encouraging them.
B. We can set a good example for them by the way that we run. We can pray for them and ask God to bless them. There are some things though that we should not do.
C. What we cannot do is to set up a bunch of legalistic rules to help them run the race. That is not going to help anybody run. How are we going to get them back to running again, they are slowing down, what are we going to do?
D. It will not be easy, but we need to do what Paul did. Trust God and leave it to him. Paul said in Philippians 3:15 – “Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.” Paul says those of us who are mature think like I do about the race, but if you are not thinking this way, God will make it clear to you. We’ve got to let God make it clear to those falling behind that they are supposed to be running.
E. How does God make it clear to people, that they need to be running the race? God has many ways. One way He does it is through Christian friends and counseling. Another way He does it is through sermons. Maybe He’s using this sermon right now. Maybe the Holy Spirit is going cause somebody in this room to start running again. One way God does it is through circumstances. Yet another way God does it is through the scriptures and reading the Bible. Still another way God makes it clear to us, is by the prompting of the Holy Spirit. What I’m trying to tell you is this—God is more committed to our maturity than we tend to be.
VII. We can see this in every chapter of Philippians. Back in chapter 1:6- “I am persuaded that God is able to complete the good work he started in you.” In chapter 2:13 - “God is at work in you.” In chapter 4:13 - “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” In chapter 3:15 - “God will make it clear to you.”
A. In every chapter in Philippians Paul tells us that God is interested in us growing into Christ, sometimes more than we are, and He’s at work doing it.
B. Let God do His work and listen to the coach. That’s one reason we are told why God lets us have trials, isn’t it? Remember back in Romans 8:28 - “All things work for good.” The Bible doesn’t say, “All things are good.” “But God works all things for good according to his purpose that you become like Jesus.
C. Not that this is going to be comfortable. Why does God let sharp and painful things into our lives? Perhaps it is because God knows that we sometimes get lazy spiritually and God wants us moving and straining to reach new heights. God lets hard things happen so that He could speak to us and coach us and get us back out there running the race, the way He wants us to run it. Temper us if you will. God is committed to us being more like Jesus.
D. Do we listen to the coach? Are we staying in touch with the Holy Spirit? The Bible says in Galatians 5:25 – “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” , “... let us keep in step with the Spirit.” We must run every time the Spirit tells us run. We must obey every time the Spirit says obey. When we do that, do you know what is going to happen? Every time we obey the Spirit’s leading, God will reveal more to us and we can run further the next day. 2 Corinthians 3:18 – “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” “As the Spirit of the Lord works within us we become more and more like Him.”

CONCLUSION:
God is absolutely determined to accomplish His purpose in us. He wants us to morph into the image of Jesus. Finally the third thing we need to do is focus on the goal. I have heard it said that a Christian is supposed to be like a postage stamp. Let me explain. A postage stamp has one job. The one job a postage stamp has is to stick to something until it gets to its destination. That’s its job. Some postage stamps have to stick to heavy loads and some to light loads but their task to get something to its destination is the same.

That’s our job. We are supposed to stick to it until we get there. “One thing I do”, Paul says. He does not say “many things I dabble in.” “One thing I do, I press on toward the goal, for the prize which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

One goal should be easy to keep in sight right? Yet, I think a great stumbling block in the church today is fragmentation. It’s not that we want to sin and rebel against God. It’s that we are distracted with so many agendas—that the one thing which is God’s purpose doesn’t get our best energy, our focus.

We need to be like Paul and keep evaluating our life, continue to recalibrate our life. We need to be willing to re-order our life. If we are going to let anything into our life, it’s going to have to pass this test... Is it going to help us be like Jesus? If it’s not going to help us be like Jesus, we need to throw it in the garbage, because we are going to do one thing with our life and that is press on to the goal.

Ask Mark or any good coach. If you are going to run a good race, you can’t stop and look at the audience. You can’t go over and look at the guy doing the pole vault. If you want to run a good race, you put you’re eye on that finish line and you keep your focus on it until you get there. Paul says, “One thing dominates my life, pressing on for the goal of being like Christ.”

Our goal should be knowing Him. We are never going to get it perfect in this life, but we want to strain for it, if we do that, someday, we will attain that perfect knowledge of Christ. We are going to finish the race and He’s going to give us a perfect crown of righteousness.

2 Timothy 4:7-8 – “7. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

Paul would not let anything take his eye off that goal. If you’re not a Christian this morning let me challenge you to have a new goal. Let go of the past and look to Christ. Let our goal become your goal which is to become more and more like our savior Jesus Christ. Let us help you in your challenge We have a number of studies from God’s word which will help you become more Christ like. Or just speak to someone today and they will share with you how to begin your challenge of Christ-likeness.

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We learn from the New Testament how to be saved. We need to hear the word; believe in Jesus; repent of our sins; we must confess our belief that Jesus is the Son of God; and be baptized for the remission of our sins... If we follow these steps, the Lord adds us to His church.

Perhaps there is someone in the assembly today with the need to be buried with Christ in baptism. If you have never done these things, we urge you to do so today. If anyone has this need or desires the prayers of faithful Christians on their behalf, we encourage them to come forward while we stand and sing.

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Reference Sermon
Mike Glover