Grace to You Weekend

John MacArthur: Spiritual living, the Christian life is a process of pursuing Christlikeness. We must become more and more like Jesus Christ. Simply stated, that is the Christian life.

Phil Johnson: Welcome to Grace to You Weekend, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. I’m your host, Phil Johnson.

If you ask the average person about his goals in life, you’d probably get responses like, earn a promotion, exercise more, finally clean out that messy garage. And those answers make sense, money, health, comfort, things that the world seems to care about the most. But if you’re a Christian, you have higher priorities to keep in mind.

What are those priorities? How should you spend your time? What should you focus on and why? John MacArthur answers those questions today as he looks at the ultimate goal of the Christian life. It’s part of his current study called Reaching for the Prize. And now with the lesson, here’s John.

John MacArthur: Philippians chapter 3, verses 12 through 16. I am sure, in many ways, the most familiar portion in this whole Epistle. In this passage, we have six principles for pursuing the prize, and I want to share them with you. Six necessary elements if we are to effectively pursue the prize.

Number one, an awareness of the need to pursue a better condition. You start out of blessed discontent, a recognition you’re not what you ought to be. Number two principle, if you are going to pursue the prize effectively, you must give maximum effort to pursue that better condition. First, to know you need it. Secondly, to pursue it.

Third principle, in pursuing the prize, it is required that there be focused concentration to pursue that better condition. Not only maximum effort, but focused concentration. Any athlete knows that when you’re running in a race, you have to fix your eyes on something ahead of you. You cannot watch your feet or you’ll fall on your face.

You cannot watch the people around you or you will trip, or somebody will pass you on the other side. Your focus is straightforward on the goal that is ahead. And that is precisely what he is saying here. In making maximum effort, there’s a concentration point beyond you upon which you focus.

Look what he says in verse 13 about that. Brethren, and by the way, that’s a term of affection. I believe he uses it here as a gentle term of intimacy to move the hearts of the Philippians toward him because they’ve been moved toward the Judaizers who have been battling the church. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet. That’s the third time he’s said that. You say, why is he so repetitious? Because there’s a polemic nature to this passage.

That is to say it carries an an argument directed at people who are teaching error, so he wants to make his point abundantly clear because a lot is at stake. So he basically says it again, another disclaimer, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet. And I don’t care whether those Judaizers claim to have it or not, it’s not possible. Leads me again to believe that the Judaizers were claiming they had reached perfection through law-keeping and circumcision.

But he is saying, I do not think, I do not believe that I have laid hold of it yet. And then this, but one thing. And then the editors have added, I do, because it’s implied. But all he says in a staccato, brief, impassioned, abrupt way is, but one thing. One thing I do. Boy, there is the key, folks.

The man was so focused. The man had an unbelievable level of concentration. And the focus of his life was one thing. What was it, Paul? It was pursuing the prize, verse 14. This one thing. I press on toward the goal for the prize. That’s the one thing in my life. That’s what makes a great man.

Now, such focused concentration is the result of a negative and a positive. Notice the negative in verse 13. In order to will that one thing, Paul says, forgetting what lies behind. That’s the negative. And then he says, and reaching forward to what lies ahead. That’s the positive. Willing one thing means, number one, negative, you eliminate the past.

Don’t look back. Now, what does he mean by the past? He means the past, forgetting those things that are behind. What things? Everything. Now, follow this, okay? Good things and bad things. Achievements, virtuous deeds, great accomplishments, spiritual ministries, as well as bad things, sins, iniquities, failures, disasters. All of it.

You say, forget it all. That’s what. Right, why? Because it has nothing to do with the future. Did you understand that? Has nothing to do with what you’re doing right now. Absolutely nothing to do with it. You cannot live on past victories. You cannot celebrate your value by your past. You should never be debilitated by your past sins, iniquities, and burdens of guilt.

And yet most people are so much distracted by the past that they never get around to running the future. From a positive standpoint, well, you know, I remember, I used to teach and I, I used to study the Bible and I used to be in a Bible study and I had, I remember when I led a guy to the Lord. It’s all back there, and you can’t move forward that way. You’re anchored to the past. Or it’s all, you know, my life was so bad and I was so wretched and I was so immoral.

How can God ever forgive me? And they’re all hung up on the guilt of the past. Forget it all. Put your hand to the plow, don’t look back and move, pursue the prize. And that takes us to the positive in verse 13. Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. Let’s go, let’s move.

The word here, reaching forward, I love it. Epiktanamai. Ektenes means to stretch a muscle to its limit. Ek is double prepositions added to it. It means to, I don’t know what, stretch, stretch. Out after would be ek out, ep after. Out after. I mean your extreme effort is in view here. This is a runner stretching every muscle to reach what is in front of him, the prize.

Focused concentration, nothing to, nothing with the past, just looking at the goal, moving as fast as possible. So what does it take to effectively pursue the prize and grow spiritually? One, recognition of the need for a better condition. Two, maximum effort in pursuit of that better condition. Three, focused concentration on the one goal of that better condition. Number four principle, spiritual motivation to pursue that better condition.

Spiritual motivation. We’ve already alluded to this and Paul is very repetitious. Notice verse 14, the heart of the passage. I press or I pursue, continuous effort, present, active, indicative verb. I continually pursue toward, marvelous word, Kata means down. It means to bear down on. I continuously bear down on what? The goal.

I continuously bear down on the goal. What’s the goal? What did we say it was? To be what? Like Christ. The same thing he saved you for is what you pursue. So you bear down on that goal with that focused concentration, that maximum effort. Why do you do that? Why do you bear down on that?

I’ll tell you why. Look at it, verse 14. Here’s the motive. For the prize. You say, well, isn’t that a little crass? No. You do it for the prize. Run to win. You say, well, that’s wonderful. So you, you bear down on the goal for, for the sake of the prize. That’s right. What’s the goal? What do we say the goal was?

To be what? Like Christ. What’s the prize? To be made like Christ. That’s why he says, you bear down on the prize, which is the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. What’s going to happen when that upward call comes? You’re going to be like what? Like Christ. The goal is the prize, the prize is the goal.

So Paul says, look, the goal of my life is to be like Christ and that’s also the reward of my race. You say, you’re going to reach that goal in this life? No, but it’s still the goal. It’s still the goal. But someday I will be like Christ. That’s the prize that God gives to the one who runs the race. The goal is to be like Christ, perfection in Christ.

The prize is to be like Christ, perfection in Christ. Someday it will be like him for we shall see him as he is. First John 3 says. What motivates me? What motivates you? The upward call. We have to live in the light of the rapture, don’t we? I’m waiting for perfection which God’s going to give me the day I see him. That’s the prize.

So pursuing the prize means realizing your need. Means making a maximum effort, it means focused concentration, and it means being motivated by the greatness of the prize itself. Number five. This too is a very important principle. In pursuing the prize, we must recognize divine resources to pursue that better condition.

I’m so grateful for this verse. It gets overlooked a lot. Verse 15. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude and if anything, if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you. Now, follow this thought here. Very important. You say, why would Paul throw that word perfect in there? That just confuses the clarity of the text. I’ll tell you why. I think it’s sarcastic.

And again, I think in this polemic against the Judaizers, he’s dealing with the fact that the Judaizers were talking that they were, talking to the, to the Philippians as if they were perfect, saying, you know, we’ve reached perfection. So there’s a sort of sarcasm in there that bites a little bit at the claims of the Judaizers. But he says, as many of us who are truly perfect need to have this attitude.

He, he feels that and every pastor would. My prayer for you is that you’d have that attitude. That if you’re a true Christian, your desire would be to pursue the prize. That you’d see your own need, that you’d make maximum effort, that you’d have focused concentration, that you’d be motivated by the great prize, and that you would pursue with all your might that prize.

By the way, that phrase, have this attitude, literally in the Greek means to think this way. Or be intent on this or set one’s mind on this. On what? Pursuing the prize. But Paul’s not stupid. So look what else he says. But if in anything you have a different attitude. Do you think that’s a remote possibility?

Sure. Church is full of people who aren’t interested in pursuing the prize. They’re interested in looking at the past. They’re content with where they are and so they want to spend the rest of their life justifying the level of their attainment and convincing everybody around them that they’re really very spiritual. Instead of recognizing their need, instead of making a maximum effort with focused concentration and motivation, they just are content with where they are and they want to spend their life justifying where they are.

Or they’re so hung up on the past, they can’t move. Paul says, look, if in any of this stuff you have a different attitude, you don’t see the importance of pursuing in this way, or you believe you’ve already arrived wherever you would like to be, you’ve settled there. Or some of you even believe that now that you’re saved, you can live any old wretched way you want, like those described in verses 17 to 21, who were supposedly Christians, whose end was destruction and their God was appetite.

If you think anything other than what I’ve said about pursuing the prize, and you won’t listen to me, look what he says. Then God will reveal that also to you. He simply says, I have to leave you to God. If you’re ever going to get the message, and you won’t get it from me, then you’ll have to get it from God.

So Paul says, look, you’ll have to recognize that in this pursuing the prize, you’re dependent on divine resources. And for all of us, for all of us, there will be those times when we won’t have this attitude and the Lord will have to discipline us to move us along, right? Sure, all of us. So that’s what he says.

Paul, I know this for me and I know this for you that there are times when we have a different attitude and only God can move us. And so he’s saying, I want God to do that. I want God to bring into your life whatever it takes to move you on the path of pursuing the prize. What does it take?

It takes recognition of need, effort, concentration, motivation, and divine help for those times when we fail to have that right attitude. And lastly, there is one more element in pursuing the prize. Let’s call it conformity necessary to pursue that better condition. Conformity necessary to pursue that better condition. We’re really talking about consistency, which might be a better word.

It doesn’t happen by intermittent effort. It demands a consistency. Look at verse 16. However, that really means nevertheless or better, one more thing. It’s often used at the end of a paragraph to express a final thought. One more thing, by the way. Let us keep living by that same to which we have attained.

In other words, look, keep moving along the path that has brought you to where you are in your spiritual progress. That’s the idea. You’ll be interested to know that the verb here is translated keep living. It actually means to follow in line, to line up. That’s what it means. So what he’s saying is, spiritually stay in line and keep moving from where you have arrived by the same standard or principle that got you where you are.

Fall in step. It’s used of armies marching in battle order. Stay in line, stay in step. Keep moving. Wherever you are spiritually, by the same principles that got you there, keep moving ahead. Consistency, conformity. Live up to the level of your present understanding and by the principles that brought you there, keep moving ahead.

Stay in line, hold the principle tightly and move down the track. Stay in your lane if you will, and move as fast as you can from where you are. Whatever strength and energy got you where you are, use it to move ahead. If we were talking about the runner metaphor, we would say, you’ve run this far in your lane with great effort. It’s gotten you so far. Keep that same effort up in that same lane until you hit the finish, pursuing the prize.

Now, what are the ingredients that help us do that? Four of them. One is the word. As newborn babes desire the pure milk of the Word that you may grow. Constantly in the Word, constantly in the Word will keep you consistent. It’ll keep you on track. It’ll keep you moving. It’ll keep you pursuing the prize. Number two is prayer.

Prayer. Paul in writing to the Thessalonians illustrates this point when he says, We night and day keep praying most earnestly that we may see your face and complete what is lacking in your faith. We’re praying that your faith will be complete. Stay in the Word, be in prayer. Third principle, follow an example.

Look at verse 17, the following verse in our text. Brethren, join in following my example and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. Find somebody to pattern your life after. Get a discipler, a spiritual mentor who can help you pursue the prize consistently. It takes the Word, it takes prayer, it takes a model to follow, and one more thing, it takes trials.

First Peter 5:10, after you have suffered a while, the Lord make you perfect. James 1, trials have their perfect work. So in the pursuit of the prize, the Word, prayer, following a spiritual model, you move along, and God brings enough trials into your life to perfect you, to knock the dross off so that you’re pure.

Paul says, look, in Christ I have much. I have great gain, but I have no perfection in terms of my practical living. That I must pursue with all my might. Ask yourself the question, are you pursuing the prize? Are you growing? Or are you standing in one spot looking backwards and spending most of your time defending yourself?

Are you willing to say, I’m not what I ought to be, but I’m moving? A lot of people have died climbing the Alps, fallen off of precipices. At the foot of one of the many mountains that has been attempted a number of times is a little grave. It’s the grave of a man who tried to climb to the pinnacle and fell off a precipice to his death.

The tombstone there is very simple. It gives his name and then it says, he died climbing. That really should be the epitaph on the tomb of every Christian. He died climbing. Let’s pray together. Would you in your heart just pray silently before the Lord and perhaps refresh your commitment to pursue the prize, to climb, to run the race?

If you don’t know the Lord Jesus Christ as personal Savior, at this very moment, would you say, I want to start the race? Would you receive Jesus Christ into your life? If he’s already there but you’ve obviously reached a point of spiritual satisfaction, you think you know enough, you’ve heard enough, you’ve done enough, and now it’s just about time for you to stop the process of pursuit.

Would you ask God to forgive you and to move you along toward the prize?

Phil Johnson: You’re listening to Grace to You Weekend, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. John’s current series is titled Reaching for the Prize. Well, friend, what John said today about deliberate concentration, that’s helpful stuff. A part of what it means to pursue Christ is to avoid distractions. And that’s not easy these days. In our fast-paced, media-saturated world, diversions are everywhere.

With that in mind, we asked John some years ago, how do you weed out distractions and keep your focus where it should be, where God wants it to be? Here’s what John said.

John MacArthur: I think it’s an intentional thing to, to realize in your mind that you’re going to simply go back to the old original sort of computer idea, GIGO, garbage in, garbage out. The computer can only spit back what’s put into it. And, and I think that’s why Paul the Apostle in Philippians 4:8 says things of virtue, things of good report, things that are noble, things that are right, think on these things.

And that’s why the Old Testament says as a man thinks in his heart, so he is. So, to control your thinking, you have to feed your mind the kinds of things that you want your brain to ruminate on. So, it’s a matter of intake. David said, your word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against you.

I, I think, it’s not just a question of reading the Bible all the time, it’s, it’s a question of being so biblically saturated that even if you don’t have a Bible handy, scriptures rise up in your mind at all points in your life. This is one of the things that I grieve over a lot in our contemporary church scene, is people going to make a churches that are all entertainment.

You know, lights and smoke and mirrors and contemporary music and they’re given nothing other than an experience. They’re given nothing for the mind. They’re, they’re giving nothing to, uh, basically control their thinking, which controls their speaking, which controls their living. So the word of God must be taught, it must be taught systematically, continually, the Bible must be read.

We must understand the word of God. We must read the kind of literature that explains the Bible, that calls us to obedience to the Bible, so that our thoughts are constantly saturated. I even think that’s why singing hymns and worship songs is so important because they, they are in our minds all the time. I, I’ve said this many times. There’s rarely a time in any day in my life when there’s not hymns going through my head because I sing them all the time.

And they’re full of doctrinal truth. So it’s all a matter of controlling your thinking. Uh, and controlling your thinking is going to make you not only able to withstand temptation, but it’s going to make you discerning.

Phil Johnson: That’s right, friend, and to help you grow in discernment, we want to send you a free copy of John’s booklet titled Developing Your Discernment. This booklet answers questions like, why is discernment lacking in churches today? And how can I make decisions that glorify God? It’s a quick read, but it really helps you apply scripture to any circumstance in your life.

To get your free copy of John’s booklet called Developing Your Discernment, contact us today. You can call us here at 800-55-GRACE. You can also request your copy from our website, GTY.org. The title of John’s booklet again is Developing Your Discernment. It’s ideal for a new believer or for anyone who wants to help in making decisions, particularly in the gray areas.

This would be a great booklet to go through with someone you’re discipling or to use as part of your family devotions. Again, we’ll send you Developing Your Discernment for free. All you have to do is ask for it when you call 800-55-GRACE or when you go to our website, GTY.org. When you visit our website, GTY.org, be sure to take advantage of all the other free resources you’ll find there.

That includes daily devotionals, the Grace to You blog, and more than 3600 sermons from John MacArthur. All of them free to download at GTY.org. Now for our entire staff, I’m Phil Johnson. Watch Grace to You Television Sundays on Direct TV Channel 378. And be here next week as John MacArthur helps you recognize influences in your life that will stunt your spiritual growth, perhaps without your even knowing about it.

It’s another half hour of unleashing God’s truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You Weekend.