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Philippians
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Our family is in full summer swing. We took our annual family beach trip a couple weeks ago, and because we have four kids twelve and under, I use the word trip very intentionally—it isn't a vacation when you've got four kids twelve and under. But they're at these awesome golden years where, at least at the beach, you can hand them a boogie board and they're content for six straight hours.
My six-year-old is my only son, and he's at that wonderful age where he boasts with all the confidence in the world that a kid has. He rides a wave from here to here and says, "Dad, I rode that thing a mile." "Yeah, you did, buddy." He sees somebody jogging on the beach: "I could run faster than that guy—I'm faster than Sonic." I'm like, "I bet you are." He's completely detached from reality, and I love it, so I cheer him on.
When he's six, that kind of confidence is really cute. But if he were twenty-six and still making those claims, it would no longer be cute—it would start to be concerning. That's because at some point, we've all got to grow up.
When you're a new follower of Jesus, we tend to use a phrase to describe you—and it's in no way derogatory—we call you a baby Christian. It simply recognizes that you're brand new to this whole Christian life. And with that newness come struggles, blind spots, insecurities, and ignorances that honestly make sense for somebody who has just entered into new life with Jesus. If that's you, that's okay. Babies are supposed to act like babies.
But at some point, babies are also supposed to grow up.
Just as physical maturity has signs, spiritual maturity has signs too. That's what Paul is concerned about in the back half of Philippians 3. He wants to know if your life is showing the marks of someone who is growing up in Christ. And the way Paul frames spiritual maturity is not mainly about how much Bible knowledge you've accumulated, how long you've been in church, or how polished you look on the outside. For Paul, maturity shows up in a life that is being shaped to look more and more like Jesus Christ.
Last week we looked at the first eleven verses of chapter 3, where Paul lays out his religious resume. As we've gone through Philippians, it's easy to start looking at Paul like he's some kind of super-Christian—the Michael Jordan of Christianity. He counts everything as loss, treasures Christ above all, is willing to suffer, and continues on mission. He's the whole package.
And just when I'm ready to retire his jersey and assume Paul is in a different category than the rest of us, look what he says in verse 12:
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect.
When Paul says "obtain this," he's talking about knowing and becoming fully like Jesus Christ. Wrap your mind around this: the Apostle Paul is saying, "Lest you think too highly of me, I'm still a work in progress. I've still got a way to go. I have not arrived. I do not look like Jesus just yet."
This is church-planter Paul. Missionary Paul, who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament. Shipwrecked, beaten, imprisoned, but-kept-going-anyway Paul. And he says, "I ain't arrived."
I love this. For twenty-one years, even though I sat in the same seat you're in and called myself a Christian, I was not a Christian. And every Sunday when the pastor opened the words of Jesus or Paul, all I remember thinking was, "Pastor, thank you for this cute little message, but you have no idea what my life is like. Your life is perfect. Your family's perfect. Your finances are perfect. You've got it all figured out."
Paul, in his wisdom, anticipates that. He says, "No, bro. If you only knew the things I still struggle with. If you only knew that I still do things I don't want to do and don't do things I want to do." He's showing us that Paul and you and I are far more similar than we are different. His point is: nobody's perfect yet, and even though we haven't arrived, we've got to keep putting one spiritual foot in front of the other.
To drive this home, Paul uses the same Greek word three times in verse 12:
Not that I have already obtained this... but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own.
All three phrases come from the same root word meaning to obtain, to lay hold of, to seize—it's a hunting word, like catching something. Paul is saying, "Not that I've already obtained perfect maturity, but I press on to obtain it because Christ Jesus has obtained me."
Notice what Paul does not say. He doesn't say, "I press on so Christ will make me his own." He says, "I press on because Christ Jesus has made me his own." He's chasing after the God who has already found him.
Our entire lives are just a response to Jesus's love toward us. Strip away all the rules and regulations and religiosity, and to be a Christian at the end of the day is to be taken hold of by Christ in a way that permeates every little area of our lives. If you're a follower of Jesus, it's because Christ first made you his own.
That's good news—but while salvation is finished, our spiritual growth is not.
That's why Paul says in verse 12, "We press on." When the Philippians read that phrase, it would have made them think of the Isthmian Games—their version of the Olympics. It conjured the image of an athlete straining toward the finish line with vigorous, determined effort.
The Christian life is like that. Christ has made you his own, and now your job is to press on to become fully what he's already declared you to be. The Christian life is a journey of becoming what Christ has already made us.
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.
When an Olympic runner strains for the finish line, they're not looking side to side. They're not checking where everybody else is. Every muscle is aimed in one direction. That's the picture of Christian maturity—a determined, holy focus to reach the goal of becoming what Christ has made us.
Paul says, "Let those of us who are mature think this way." It's his polite way of saying, "This is how grown-up Christians think." Then he adds, "Join in imitating me. Keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us."
This isn't Paul being arrogant. He's not saying, "I'm the standard"—only Jesus is the standard. He's saying we need examples. We need more than sermons, books, and podcasts. We need living examples up close, people you can sit across the table from and say, "I want a faith like that. I want a marriage like that. I want that transparency, generosity, humility, courage, and joy."
Whether you realize it or not, you are always being discipled by somebody. So choose good examples.
Then Paul gives us the flip side:
For many of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.
Paul says this with tears because these are not just bad influences. These are people fooling themselves and confusing others. They're close enough to Christianity to sound convincing, but their lives are moving in the opposite direction of the cross. You have to learn to spot them—not just what they're doing, but where their lives are headed.
Verse 19 tells us where their lives are headed:
These are folks who know the church language, the songs, the verses—they have the Christian veneer. But when you look at the direction of their lives, they are not being satisfied in Christ; they are gratifying the flesh. They might say Jesus is Lord, but their browser history says lust is lord. Their spending says status is lord. Their anger says control is lord. Their mouths say, "I belong to Jesus," but their lifestyle says, "I belong to this earth."
Paul isn't just warning about people outside the church who openly reject the cross, but people around the church who use Christian language while living cross-resistant lives.
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body.
Philippi had become a Roman colony, and its citizens were proud of it. Rome was the great superpower, so Roman laws, values, lifestyles, and identity flowed into Philippi. When Paul tells them, "Our citizenship is in heaven," he's making a bold statement: your deepest identity doesn't come from Rome, your resume, your appetites, or this world. It comes from heaven.
Then chapter 4:1 pulls it all together:
Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.
Because your citizenship is in heaven, because Jesus is coming back, because this world is temporary, and because there are real dangers pulling your heart toward earthly things—you've got to grow up. You've got to mature in Christ and stand firm in the Lord.
To help us, Paul gives four ways we grow up spiritually.
The first sign of spiritual maturity is admitting that you are not as mature as you think you are.
If anyone could claim to be mature in Christ, it would be Paul. But he says in verse 12, "Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect." Maturity doesn't begin by finally getting your whole life together. Maturity begins when you stop lying about the fact that you don't have it all together.
Some of you are stuck in your spiritual growth—not because Jesus doesn't want to help you grow, but because you won't be honest about the places you need to grow. So you keep excusing your immaturity by calling it your personality. You excuse your lust problem by calling it "a struggle." You excuse your selfishness in the name of "setting boundaries." You blame your anger on your stress, your schedule, your kids—anybody and anything except your own heart. Whatever diagnostic tool helps you sound self-aware without actually having to change, that's what you run to first. These are copouts, and you know it.
One of the clearest signs of spiritual immaturity is not that you still struggle. Hear me: it's that you've made peace with the struggle and become fine with it.
So let me ask you:
You will never mature beyond the truth you refuse to face or the secret you refuse to confess. Maturity begins when you tell the truth about where you are and stop defending the very sins Jesus died to deliver you from.
Find somebody close to you, somebody you trust, and ask: "Where do you see immaturity in me? If I were to look more like Jesus a year from now than I do today, what's one area I need to look at?"
And here's the key: when they answer, don't get mad, don't defend, don't justify. Just receive it. Submit it to the Holy Spirit and say, "God, what do you want me to do with this?"
Paul doesn't just say, "I'm not where I should be." He says, "But one thing I do." Maturity doesn't stop at confession; maturity moves in a particular direction.
This matters because honesty without direction becomes self-awareness without growth—another form of navel-gazing, which is rampant today. We know our issues. We can name all our dysfunctions and then some. We have language for trauma, triggers, generational diagnoses, and personality types—Enneagram numbers, love languages, Myers-Briggs, and Hogwarts houses. We are not short on self-awareness.
But self-awareness by itself does not make you mature. At some point you've got to aim that self-awareness somewhere. Stop using it as a hiding place and start using it as a doorway to growth.
Paul shows us how in verse 13: "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." Direction and focus means: I leave what is behind, I lean toward what is ahead, and I live for what is eternal.
Forgetting what is behind is not about erasing your past or pretending bad things never happened. We're not people with spiritual amnesia—nobody heals by lying to themselves. It means refusing to let your past have the only thing Jesus gets to have: authority over your identity.
Paul had to forget his successes—all his resume, achievements, and religious accomplishments. But he also had to leave behind his failures. Before he was Paul, he was Saul, a persecutor of the church. He had to leave behind the shame, the regret, the sins that could have kept him stuck.
You can never move forward if you're busy staring backward. There's a reason your windshield is bigger than your rearview mirror. You need the rearview mirror—to learn from your past and remember God's faithfulness—but while your past may explain you, it does not get to define you.
Some of you are trying to follow Jesus with your eyes fixed on the rearview mirror, replaying old shames, old failures, old wounds, old relationships, old what-ifs. But the good news of the gospel is that if you are in Christ, your sin isn't just behind you—it's beneath the blood of Jesus.
The record of debt that stood against you was cancelled when it was nailed to the cross. (Colossians 2:14)
If Jesus buried that thing, quit resurrecting it. You can't sing "Jesus paid it all" and then keep punishing yourself for the very sin you say he cleared. Your shame is not your name anymore. Your failures are not your future. Your worst day and worst decision do not get to define you, because whom the Son sets free is free indeed. And if Jesus says you are free, then by the grace of God, walk forward and live like you are free.
What's ahead for the Christian isn't just a slightly upgraded version of this life with a little less stress. It's not just streets of gold, fluffy clouds, and unlimited free Chick-fil-A—though hopefully it's not less than glorious. It's so much more.
What lies ahead is that we get to see Jesus face to face. The day our faith becomes sight. The day that sin you hate is finally gone. When the disease that holds sway over your body is no more. When anxiety is no longer crippling. No more lust twisting your desires, no more bitterness replaying old wounds, no more fractured relationships, no more divided heart that wants Jesus but also desperately wants this world. We get to see Christ and become like him—our lowly, sin-infected bodies transformed to be like his glorious body.
Paul says, "I'm leaning toward that day. I'm straining toward that future. I'm not there yet, but I can see the finish line."
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
In the games, the winner would ascend the steps, stand before the judge, and the judge would pronounce his name, his father's name, and his country before placing a wreath on his head. Paul says, "That's how I want to live. I want to run toward the day I stand before the true Judge, the eternal King, and receive the prize."
And the prize is not just heaven. The prize is Christ—seeing him, knowing him, becoming like him. That future should give us focus and direction for how we live today.
Tomorrow morning, ask yourself three questions:
Join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.
One of the biggest lies of Paul's age and ours is that we can observe things without being affected by them.
A few years ago, I read a 2021 article about American parents who suddenly realized their kids were speaking with British accents—saying "Mommy, why are we getting petrol?" instead of gas, or "tomahto" instead of tomato, or "Mommy, let's give it a go." These parents were baffled until they realized their kids had been watching too much Peppa Pig. They called it the "Peppa effect."
You don't have to consciously choose something for it to shape you deeply. What you behold, you eventually become. What you watch, who you follow, what you listen to—those things are not neutral. They're windows into the kind of person you're becoming.
We try to fool ourselves: "I'm not becoming that—I'm just listening, just watching, just hanging out, just scrolling. I'm not participating." But as you do it, you're being formed. You don't have to call someone your mentor for them to form you:
The question is not am I being formed? The question is who and what is forming me? Every single person you follow is preaching a version of what to love, what to chase, what to envy, and what should be normal—a version of the good life, usually one they claim can be found right here in this world.
I've become obsessed with the work of sociologist Arthur Brooks. In one interview, he explored why happiness in the United States keeps decreasing year over year, even as comfort, options, and entertainment keep increasing. His conclusion: people are unhappy because they're living by what he calls a dark, worldly formula—the dark triad:
Tell me that isn't Philippians 3:19—their god is their belly, they glory in their shame, their minds set on earthly things. The world says: accumulate as many things as you can, use people to get ahead, and worship yourself—be the true you, it's all about you. But it's not working.
Brooks says we find joy only when we reverse it into the light formula:
Enjoy things—God is the giver of every good gift. Enjoy the steak, the pool, the boat. Use things, as long as they don't use you. Love people—love one another. And worship God. Tell me that isn't the way of Christ.
The problem is this way of life isn't natural to us, and it's certainly not what the world promises will bring joy. So it has to be modeled. You've got to see somebody living it out. That's why Paul says, "Keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us."
The question isn't simply, "Do I like this person?" but, "Do I want to become like this person? What am I taking in, and what is it forming me into?"
Audit three things:
Because whoever has your ear, eyes, and calendar probably has the future version of you.
Paul ends by saying there's actually nothing you need to do except wait for the right Savior.
This weekend our country celebrated its 250th birthday, and I hope you went all out—I've got the bald eagle hat, the America shirt, and the cutoff jean shorts my wife simultaneously hates and loves. There is so much to be grateful for: freedoms, opportunities, protections, and blessings much of the world has never known. We can build businesses, raise our kids, speak freely, vote our conscience, and gather together. I can open this book and stand on top of this building and shout the name of Jesus without fear. Those freedoms are rare, and they were purchased at a tremendous price.
Yet even with all that, Philippians 3 reminds us that America is not our ultimate home. Our citizenship is in heaven. The Bible does not end with stars and stripes; it ends with every tribe, tongue, and nation gathered around the throne of the Lamb.
Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Rome, Caesar was the one everybody called savior and lord—the one they thought would bring peace, protection, joy, identity, and security. Paul says, "No. Your savior is not Rome. Your savior is not Caesar. Your savior does not come from any earthly empire."
This world can only offer saviors who in the end need saving themselves. No political savior, career savior, relationship savior, body-image savior, or comfort savior can carry the weight that only Jesus can carry. If your hope rises or falls with elections, markets, a scale, your kid's success, or your reputation, then functionally you are worshiping the wrong savior—and one day that savior will crumble.
But as heavenly citizens, we await a Savior, and Paul names him: the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord Jesus Christ is not fragile, temporary, corruptible, or limited—and he ain't up for reelection.
No army can come against him. No election can dethrone him. No government can overrule him. No market can bankrupt him. No disease can outlast him. No demon can overpower him. No weakness can exhaust him. No sin can surprise him. No sorrow can intimidate him. No enemy can stop him—not even death.
He is not pacing heaven worried about the future, his approval ratings, or how the vote turns out. Right now he is the risen, reigning, ruling, and one day returning King. That is the King we wait on.
He will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body... by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
The same power that will one day bring every enemy under the feet of Jesus is the same power he'll use to make you whole. That means we can stand firm now, knowing no earthly weakness gets the final word:
He's not coming to manage the decay and slap some paint on the walls. He's coming to transform it all and make all things new. If he can hold the entire universe together, surely he can hold you together until the day he comes.
That's the good life. The good life is not pretending you're perfect. It's not feeding the flesh and calling it freedom. It's not staring in the rearview mirror ruminating on all that's happened. It's not being formed by all the ways the world tells you to find joy and peace. It's not waiting for some earthly savior to make your life whole.
The good life is living now like heaven is your home—not earth, not even America. The good life is pursuing Jesus here until we get to see him and become like him there.
For now, we've got to start growing up. And that happens as we:
And until that day, church, by grace, we press on.
Father God, I thank you for the blood of Jesus. I thank you that because of it, we are no longer strangers of God, but citizens of heaven. Remind us that this world is not our permanent home. Give us the faith to look forward to our heavenly home and to live according to those values. But for now, we press on. We await our Savior. In his precious and holy name we pray. Amen.
