following message was given at Grace Community Church in Mendon, Nevada. We're in Philippians chapter 3 and we will pick up at verse 12 through say 16. This is the reading of God's Word. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus had made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way. And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. It's a reading of God's word. Please have a seat. Saints, I love, I love this passage. This is a dear friend to me. And on top of that, I have a burden for you, for this passage. You put those things, those two things together, and I am so excited to be preaching to you this morning. I am rejoicing to be able to bring this good news to you this morning. You know, sometimes I think about the apostle Paul, and man, you just look at us, man, and you think, what were you made of? Right? Do you ever read about him and think, how do you do what you do? I mean, he's a man who was driven out of town by riots. He was a man who was stoned and left for dead. He was a man regularly imprisoned, regularly in fear of his life. And I just think, how did you do it? And a mistake we make sometimes is we just think the people in the Bible are superheroes, right? Like they didn't feel what we feel. Like they didn't know the weaknesses we know. And that's just the farthest thing from the truth. Just men at best, right? Men at best. There were absolutely times when the apostle must've just sat there, maybe he's bruised and bloody, having just been stoned again. And he's thinking, I am exhausted. How do I keep going? I mean, even a letter like this, it's a prison letter, right? There must have been the times when Paul is thinking, I would much rather not be in prison right now. Would much rather not have gotten locked up again. We know these kinds of things exist even from his own writings when there are times when he says, I was so pressed, I was so fearful that I despaired of life itself. He was a man. He was a man, just a man. And so as I asked the question, what's this man made of? How did he keep going? The answer must be within reach. It must be within reach of mere mortals like us. We find in a passage like this, what drove a man like Paul. What motivated a man who's bleeding and bruised to get up and go back into town to preach again. We find in this passage, the motivation of a man who says, great, I'm in prison, I'll preach to you too. We find in this passage, the motivation of a man who ran the race all the way to the end of his life. Now, the thing with a passage like this is you can't just start in chapter three. Every letter has a context, every passage has a context, and it takes just a little bit of building up to get where you can launch in to the passage at hand. And I'm just gonna do a lightning fast breeze through this book. This is a treasure trove of a book, and if I gave you it all, well, I'd just have to start preaching Philippians again. But what we have here is that church at Philippi is a solid church, a healthy church. You would have liked to have visited that church. Paul, when he writes them, you can hear how he writes them. He doesn't write them as the problem child. He writes them as those who are actually doing pretty well in the gospel. He sees in them this solidarity. He says, those people, those people, the Philippians, they stand in the gospel with me. And you can hear in his voice, he rejoices in them. You can hear how he loves these people, like a spiritual father who loves his children. He loves these people. And early in the letter, you see his core concern for all the issues he'll go on to talk about. Chapter one, verse 27, he just wants them to stand firm. He wants them to stay united in what they have and what they have accomplished. Because a healthy church doesn't just stay a healthy church. A healthy church has to fight for it. A healthy church is going to be attacked. A healthy church is still going to have weaknesses. And so these saints had to resist bad influences too. It wasn't just like things were easy all the time. You see Paul talking about that. He says, they've got bad preachers with bad motives. They just go out there preaching for selfish ambition. What a terrible reason to preach the word of God. He describes opponents who are threatening the church. And one particular threat that was so dangerous in the churches of the New Testament, and it continues today, but it's what we would call a Judaizing influence. A perspective that says, yeah, the gospel's great and all, but you just need the law first. You're not gonna just go and be a Christian, you gotta be a Jew first. You can't just receive the gospel, you need the law first. And what you had in these Judaizers is a people who elevates the law But, big but, they do it at the expense of Jesus Christ. They wouldn't say that's what they're doing, but that's the clear testimony of the scriptures, that they are demoting the work of Jesus Christ by the way they're treating the law, by the way they're treating obedience to the law, by the way they're treating things like circumcision. What ends up happening is you have this people who think they're so godly, but they're going to the Lord with a false righteousness. It's a righteousness that won't stand because it's their own. It belongs to them. It's just what they have done. On that last day, you don't want to be standing on what you have done. You have to be standing on what Christ has done. To go to the Lord with your own righteousness, not found from Christ, it's a death trap. But that's what they were preaching. That's what they were trying to persuade the church to fall into was this Judaizing emphasis. And so Paul, you really see him enter into the defense in chapter three. where he has this famous passage where he goes on to say, okay guys, you want to talk worldly righteousness? You want to talk externals? Let's do it. And Paul goes down this list, chapter three, like one through seven or so. And he can go on to say, yep, did that, did that, did that. Best of my class, cream of the crop. I was everything you could be by just doing the religious externals. Paul could say without a tremor in his voice, he was exemplary. when you measured him by those standards. But then what he has to say is I've got to let all of that go. I've got to forsake all of that. Every little bit I tried to build my own righteousness, I have to forsake it. All that I once thought was gain, I have to count as loss because I need Christ. I need Christ's righteousness. Mine won't do. And that's where he enters in. And we're going to consider this passage in three parts. We're going to consider it in the passion of Paul, the purpose of Paul and the path of Paul. You begin with that passion. And that's what you see in verses seven through 11. And I'm going to read those for you. And I want you to hear the passion that motivated Paul. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead. You hear the passion? There's no missing it. If you read that at all, there's no missing the passion. The passion of Paul is Jesus Christ. That's it. And he talks about the surpassing, great word, surpassing worth of knowing Christ. If you ask Paul, he would say nothing compares, nothing compares to knowing Christ. And he will give up everything, everything to gain Christ and to be found in Christ. He will forsake his own righteousness to take hold of the righteousness that only really exists in Jesus Christ. And you see, this is the picture. If you bring anything in your own hands, it just gets in the way so you can't cling to the cross. And that's Paul's perspective. I will shed it all. I will leave it all. I will lose it all so that I can gain Christ. You hear him say, I want to know Christ. Process for a second. This is a man who's been walking with the Lord for like 30 years. Do you think 30 years into his walk with the Lord, Paul would qualify as knowing the Lord? Right? He's not some 18 year old new convert. This is not youthful Paul. This is seasoned Paul. And he says, yeah, I know him, but I want to know him. I want to know him more and more. What I have is not enough. I want more. He says, I want to be transformed. Do you think people would recognize Paul as a transformed individual? The man who was set about trying to murder the church? Do you think the apostle who goes around planting churches is recognized as a transformed individual? Yeah. And yet he can say, I want to be transformed. I want to be transformed by the power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Not so that Paul can be powerful, but he wants that power applied to him so that he can be like Christ. So sold out, so buying in to this gospel is Paul that he can say, I want to share in the sufferings of Christ. Did any of you pray that this morning? We would actually, if you sat down with someone at a prayer meeting and they're like, I just really want to pray that I suffer with Christ. You would think that was weird. You would think that was at least unusual. Here Paul is saying, I want to suffer with Christ. It's not because suffering is fun. Do you think Paul thought any stone that struck him was fun? It's not because suffering is fun, but he's saying my master suffered. My master suffered, and I want to suffer like my master, at least so that I can know my master that much more truly. I want to be so close to him that I even share his sufferings. You hear in Paul, a man whose faith is so personal, Paul was not devoted to just like a lifestyle or just a way of thinking. Paul's life was devoted to Jesus Christ, a person, an individual, a real person. That's who he was devoted to. He saw the surpassing worth of Jesus Christ and he was never the same. Do you understand the surpassing worth of Jesus Christ? Do you? See, none of what we're going to say is going to make a whole lot of sense to you. It's not going to be very persuasive to you if you don't have that foundation of the surpassing worth of Jesus Christ. For Paul, one commentator said, the riches that are found in Christ are unending. Do you identify with that? Does that resonate with your heart? When you think of Christ, are you thinking riches that are unending? Do you understand the surpassing worth of Jesus Christ? Because there is nothing ordinary about Jesus Christ. I hope you understand. There's nothing unremarkable about Jesus Christ. I hope you understand. You remember he's the son of God, right? I know we're going back to the basics, but that is the point here. The son of God, equal member of the Trinity. Somehow can enter into his creation. The one who created all can also enter into it and become a man. No idea how that works. That is the God who came for his people. That is the bridge he was willing to cross. the God who would become man. On top of that, do you realize that all of history, literally all of it, is just build up to Jesus Christ? He is the climactic person and event of all of history, not just biblical history, but he's that too, isn't he? Do you ever read the Bible and realize all of this, all of this is pointing to him? you realize that he is that long awaited Messiah. And so he is the fulfillment of Genesis. He's the fulfillment of the Psalms. He's the fulfillment of it all the way through. All of history was building to Christ. All the Bible was building to Christ. He is the point of it all. He is the one who could bear the curse for his people. It's a weight that you never could have imagined bearing. He says all the curse you deserve because of the way you've lived your life, all the sins that you have committed, all the death penalties that you deserve in eternity. Jesus Christ says, I can bear that curse. Who can do that? Who can do that? Christ alone. He is the one who comes and crushes the head of the serpent who had ensnared the world. The one that we couldn't defeat, he shows up and he destroys all his works. He crushes his head. He deals the death blow. And Satan's been dying ever since. He is the one who says, I know the enemy you have never beaten. It's the one who keeps making you close your eyes at the end of life. I know you've never made it past death, he says. And so the son of God says, I will handle death. He is the one who in dying killed death. He rises from the grave and death is conquered. There is nothing ordinary or unremarkable about Jesus Christ. He is the savior of his people from all the depths of their sin. And he is the judge of all humanity. There is none who will not stand before him. There is nothing ordinary about him. He is precious. He is magnificent. He is beautiful. He is glorious. That is who we are talking about. That is how you begin to see the surpassing worth of Jesus Christ, is soak on that. Think about that, meditate on that. And if you don't get that, not just this sermon, friends, you are not living out the purpose of your life. If you don't understand the surpassing value of Christ, you are missing out on the purpose of your life. Because our souls need Jesus like the earth needs the sun. Like the earth needs the sun. And when we're far from Jesus, it's like if the earth of its own willpower could break its orbit around the sun and just go wandering off into the cold depths of space. How would that work out? Cold and dead. And that's us when we are far from Christ. We need him like the earth needs the sun. We are made for him. We are made for Jesus and no one else will do. Nothing else will do. We are made for him. Christians and non-Christians both need this truth. There is nothing more valuable than Jesus Christ. Nothing. There's nothing more worthwhile than Christ. And if you don't believe that, if you're an unbeliever here today, whether you're one of our young people or whether you've been visiting or whatever it is, if you don't believe me when I say that, I pray stay for lunch and ask one of us who has tried out the world. Let's just give the visitor an easy access. Who's tried out the world and it didn't work out? Right? So look around, talk to one of those people. Right? We've tried it. We've tried it. We've run after the relationships. We've chased after the accomplishments and they never satisfied. And the best of them never last. And I think you know this, when we chase after the world, when we chase and chase and chase, our souls always seem to testify to us that we never arrive. That is what the world is like without Christ. We are meant to have Christ, and we are meant to have him alone, and Paul knew it, and Paul believed it, and Paul lived it. When Paul came into contact with Jesus, he realized what we are all meant to realize, that once you've glimpsed the glories of Christ, once you've tasted of that salvation, nothing else will do. you are ruined for this world, only Christ will do. That is the passion of Paul. And it's that passion that is Paul's foundation for all that is to come. The passion of Paul then leads to the purpose of Paul. Here, verse 12, Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. You have this giant of our faith. And the first thing he wants to say is, guys, by the way, I haven't arrived. I have not arrived. I have not accomplished everything there is to accomplish far from it. And what hasn't he obtained? The complete gaining of Christ. Whatever he has accomplished, whatever churches he has planted, whatever converts have come from his preaching, he still has to say, I haven't arrived. He says, I'm not perfect, guys. And by the way, what he's probably doing is interacting with the opponents of the church who were very willing to say things like, we're perfect by the way. That sounds really arrogant and stuck up to us, but they were saying things like this, like we've arrived. We've got all of salvation. We've got all of those heavenly benefits. Yeah. Perfect is a good description of us. Paul, the apostle says, guys haven't arrived. I am not perfect. So how does he respond to that? How does he respond to not having arrived? I press on to make it my own. I press on. Don't you hear the zeal? He is burning with passion about this. I press on. strenuously I press forward to get what I don't have yet. That is my response to not being perfect yet. And what is his motivation? He says, I press on to make it my own because Christ made me his own. And you see the foundation, it's just the gospel. That's just the gospel. He's recalling how Christ grabbed him. Christ seized him. Christ transformed his life. Because you remember Paul's testimony, he wasn't seeking after salvation, remember? He was seeking, like I said, to murder Christians. That's not called seeking after salvation. But because he wouldn't seek after the Lord, the Lord said, I'll seek after you. And that's all of us. He has to seek after us. Christ entered in and he grabbed Paul's heart. He took it, that dead stony thing, and he gave him a new one. He gave him new life. He sparked a fire that would then never be put out. Christ entered into Paul's life. All the blood that was on his hands, all the sins that he had committed that stained his soul. And Christ enters in and says, I can cleanse you. I can wash you clean again. And he did. This is the drama of salvation. Not that Christ can save murderers, though we praise God that he can. The drama of salvation is that Christ can save sinners. That is the drama. Every sinner, every single one of you that believes, every single one of you that's going to, you need the same miracle that Paul experienced. Life from the dead, forgiveness from sin. If you know Christ, if you are a disciple of Christ, if you are following after Christ with all of your life, then you have a salvation that is every bit as miraculous as Paul's. And Paul was never the same after Christ made him his own. And you know what that means for you? You can never be the same because Christ has made you his own. You have the same motivation as Paul because you have the same salvation as Paul. You are his. You belong to your faithful redeemer. So just like Paul, you are able to say, you should say, so I press on. He keeps going, verses 13 and 14. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. You say, Paul, you just said that. He says, yeah, I know. He repeats it because he's gonna drive it home. He's going to make sure that we heard it. He wants you to hear, I am not there yet. He says, I have not fully gained Christ yet. And so what does he do? He says, I strain forward. He describes himself like a runner whose sole focus is that finish line. Whose sole focus is the prize that lies on the other side of that finish line. And so he runs and he runs without looking back. He runs without counting his accomplishments. He runs without saying, look how far I've come. No, he runs with his eyes on the finish line. I think of those who are in that incredible shape and they run marathons. And you could have someone in the middle of a marathon saying, hey, I've run 25 miles. That's pretty good, right? And I would say, yeah, that's good. I could never do that. But you know what? You still got about a mile and a quarter to go. You have not run a marathon at 25 miles. You've run a marathon at 26.2. The point of a race is not to run part of it and then stop. The point of the race is to finish. The point of the race is to cross that line. So for Paul, it's not about his past accomplishments. It's not about his past victories. For Paul, he's got this laser focus. It is about what lies ahead. It is about the finish line that I have not crossed yet. So I press on. He runs for the goal. He says he's got his focus. He's not purposeless. He's not wandering around. He's not taking the scenic route. He is on a mission to cross that line. Paul is not going to sit around purposeless and say, I don't know. I'll see what happens. Maybe I'll get there. Paul is not going to just say, you know what, growing in the Lord, it just kind of happens naturally. I'm not going to think about it too much. Paul fights for more of Christ. You hear that, how he's straining, how he's pushing. And if you've ever run at full speed, you know that feel where at some point your legs start getting heavy, your throat starts burning, your lungs, right? You're just straining, straining, straining. That's Paul. but it's Paul without a slave master. There's no one with a whip behind him. He's not checking some list saying, oh, I hate doing this, but I know I've got to do it. You hear Paul just has this eagerness to him. Even as he's straining with everything that he has got, he belongs to Christ and now nothing but Christ will do. God has called him to the full and complete gaining of Christ and Paul will settle for nothing less. So he presses on. Paul's passion, do you see how it's connecting? Paul's passion flowed out of the surpassing value of Christ. And Paul's purpose flows naturally out of the passion that he then had. You want to know how you ruin this whole passage? You say, wow, Paul was something. Amen, let's go home. You blow up the whole thing and Paul won't let you. Verse 15 and 16, we are meant to walk the path of Paul. Let those of us who are mature think this way. And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. Paul refuses to be unique in his passion and his purpose. He absolutely refuses to let you put him on a pedestal and say, that is an amazing Christian, but I'm just me. He refuses. And he says godly ambition is the attitude of the mature. Again, remember who's saying this. This is 30 years into his walk, Paul. This is riots have stoned me before, Paul. This is people have beaten me, Paul. This is people make threats against my life, Paul. This is not youthful Paul who's talking like, you know, that person has just gotten their first taste of the gospel and they go around jumping up and down excited about it. This is the seasoned veteran who probably has some scars that won't go away, probably walks with a limp. And he is saying, godly ambition is the attitude of the mature. And sometimes Paul sets up an argument and there's just no way to disagree with it. So the apostle Paul, with all his history and experience, he then writes these people and he says, by the way, if you're mature, you agree with me. If you're mature, you agree with me. And well, if you're not mature, well, you should probably get mature now. All right, he says, if you're mature, this is the attitude you're going to have. If you are a mature believer, you are going to have this godly ambition that says, more Lord, more, I want more of you. But even as he makes it so that it's impossible to disagree, there's this grace about Paul because he can look at them, remember, like a spiritual father. And he says, okay, some of you might disagree, but you know what? God will help you with that. See, Paul's not like wondering if maybe he's wrong. He's not. But he says, you might not be there. You might not see it this way, but good news, your heavenly father is going to keep working on you. Some of you, you might just feel guilty. You might feel guilty because you look at yourself and you think you're just such a insignificant Christian compared to a guy like Paul. And you feel bad that you don't care more. You feel bad that you don't do more. You feel bad. And even then, Paul would look at you in grace and say, okay, here's the way of truth. It's God, the ambition, but child, God will work with you. God will grow you. There is grace and there is patience in God. So don't give up. God will get you there. But there is no missing, absolutely no missing Paul's conclusion for Christians. Every Christian, is meant to be filled with a godly ambition. Every single one. Not the zealous types, the enthusiastic types, the optimistic types. No, all of us. All of us are meant to have this godly ambition. Child of God, your godly ambition is meant to be Christ. Your godly ambition is meant to be Christ. Who can disagree with that? Paul puts before you a goal that's meant to be your same lifelong goal. And your goal is not a new lifestyle. Your goal is not new facts to fill your brain with. Your goal is not some new project to tackle. Your goal is to gain Christ. That's it. And so read your scriptures, but read them looking for Christ. Read them because you want to gain Christ. Pray, yes, pray, but pray not just because you're doing some spiritual right or duty, pray because you want to gain Christ. Be a part of your church, lift your voice in song, hear the word of God, but do it all because you want to gain Christ. That is your goal. See in all your efforts, the one who is your goal. It is Jesus Christ. Know him better than you've ever known him. Experience him more fully than you have ever experienced him. Be nearer to Christ than you have ever been to him. God in the scriptures, he is constantly showing us that he is ready and willing to bless us more than we have appetite to be blessed. And nowhere is that more obvious than when we realize that God is offering us Jesus Christ, the son of God himself. There's nothing you could offer more than that. He offers us a son of God himself. The Lord looks at you, child of God, and says, I will fill you. He says, I will perfect you. I will redeem you. I will transform you. I will complete all that is lacking about you. I will give you a purpose and a hope, not just today, but for all eternity. That is what the Lord is offering us. And you know what Godly ambition says to that? Yes, please, Lord. Amen, Lord. I just want that. I want all of that. Give me all of that. Godly ambition is not a to-do list. all the godly externals that you always felt you should do, but you never did. And so if you just get a good to-do list, then maybe you could check off your way to godliness. No, godly ambition. And you will never come up with a higher goal than this. It is to gain the son of God himself. And if you're afraid I'm just being too theological for you, if it's not practical enough for you, I promise you godly ambition will show itself in your life. Godly ambition will translate into things that people can see. When Paul exhorted Timothy in first Timothy four, he would tell him that as he grew, all would be able to see Timothy's progress. as you pursue Christ. Yeah, you will know his word more because you'll be in his word more. You'll pray more fervently. You'll be more believing. You will worship more purely. You will forgive more readily. You will have peace more often, grace more often, joy more often. Your growth in the Lord will certainly show. Absolutely it will show. Straining after the Lord, will produce fruit, but don't get it mixed up. We're not aiming for the achievements. We aim for Christ himself. Just like Paul, you are meant to say, I want Christ. I want to gain Christ. I want to know him more and more. That is your mission. That is your goal. I want to enjoy and experience the full unity of being in Christ. That is what you're marching forward for. That is what you're pressing on for. Paul's passion, we may look at it and think, whoa, he was intense, but Paul's passion was just proportionate to the prize. Paul's passion, it was proportionate to the prize. The prize was Jesus, the son of God himself. So Paul refused to stop until he had fully gained Christ. That's the only thing that makes sense. That's the only thing he could do. If the prize is this glorious, if I need it this bad, then I will press on Paul was the type of man who refused to plateau. You know what I mean by that, right? You climb and climb and then you just kind of level off. Paul was the type of man who refused to coast. He refused to kick back. Child of God, you've been taking a break lately. You've been kicking back lately. You've been coasting lately. Maybe you've taken some time off of pressing forward. You say, oh yeah, I remember when I did that. That was a great six months. But it's been a while. Is that you today? Today is the day to get back in the race. Today is the day to press on. Because Christ is always deeper. His blessings are always deeper. There's always further to go into the blessings of Jesus Christ. You are meant to have the passion of Paul. You are meant to have the purpose of Paul. You are meant to walk the very same path of Paul. Child of God, God has made us his own. Child of God, you have been bought with a stunning price. The one who is life itself laid down his life to die for you. You've been bought with a stunning price. So strive to live worthy of that calling, worthy of that privilege. And for every step that you take, for every step that you take, you are meant to cry out, I want more. And some of you feel burdened by the baggage you bear, by the sins that you have committed, but good news, the cross has medicine for your soul. If you think your baggage is holding you back, your sins have held you back, go to the cross. Your sins won't be able to stand up to the washing grace of Jesus Christ. You look at yourself today and you say, how could I possibly press on? Do you know how weak I am? Well, good news. God saw that one coming too. And he said, I will give you my very Holy Spirit so that you can press on. And let's be honest. Sometimes you're going to be sitting back facing the trial and saying, why do I keep going again? That is when you were supposed to remember that the prize is worth pressing on for, that the prize is Jesus Christ himself. And so with the grace of God, the Holy Spirit of God, the purpose of God, we look at our lives and we say, I want more, Lord. I wanna know you more, experience you more, understand you more, love you more, serve you more, obey you more. I want more, Lord. And yesterday's grace won't do. I need grace today. I need more grace today. My hunger is insatiable until I cross that line. I need more. Child of God, until the day we die, our resolution must be this. more of Christ. And so until that day, until that day, we cross that line, child of God, press on. Let's pray. Our father, we thank you for our Lord, Jesus Christ, the one who is worth pressing on for. Lord, we pray that you would give us either a new sight or a renewed sight of how precious he is, of that incredible work he did on the cross, of the glories that are offered to the children of God. Lord, may we be enthralled with Christ. May our goal, our all-consuming goal, be Christ. Lord, may we settle for nothing less. If we have been taken abreak, Lord, by your Holy Spirit, will you spur us on. May this be a family of Christians straining forward to cross that line. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. We hope that you were edified by this message. For additional sermons as well as information on giving to the ministry of Grace Community Church, please visit us online at gracenevada.com. That's gracenevada.com.