Christ–Our Goal

Philippians 3:4-14

What drives you? What is it that you are really passionate about? What really pushes your buttons and gets you going?

All of us have things that really get us excited. We are passionate about some things and apathetic about other things. And those things can be different for each individual. Some people, mostly men, are passionate about sports. Other people, mostly women, are passionate about ballet. Every person is interested in some things more than other things, and that’s OK.

But what do our passions move us toward? Do they move us toward some worthy goal for our lives? Do our passions drive us toward becoming the people we want to be? Many people have never thought about this, but we all certainly should. We should examine both our goal in life and our passions in order to see whether we are traveling the right road.

The apostle Paul had one goal in life. His goal was Christ. Everything else in his life revolved around reaching that goal. Is Christ your goal? If he is, then we can learn from Paul the qualities he had that we need. There are three qualities that we see from our text today that we need to emulate. Like Paul, we must have...

An Unconditional Dedication to Christ.

In our text, Paul had been speaking against those who would put confidence in the flesh, that is, in their own position and achievements. He essentially tells us that trusting these things do not get us to our goal. And Paul is not speaking as one who had no personal knowledge of this. His personal position was noteworthy and his personal achievements were many. He says, "I myself have reasons for such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more." And then he goes on to list those things he could put confidence in.

He was circumcised on the eighth day. This indicated that he was born a Jew. He wasn’t a Gentile convert, who would have been circumcised later in life. He was of the people of Israel. All the promises of God made to Israel belong to Paul by the privilege of his birth. He was of the tribe of Benjamin. This tribe stood alone with Judah in loyalty to the Davidic covenant when the nation of Israel was divided into Southern and Northern Kingdoms. Within the territory of Benjamin sat the holy city of Jerusalem. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews. In other words, no one can claim to be more a part of God’s covenant people than Paul. He was in regard to the law, a Pharisee. This was the strictest sect in the Jewish religion. They were devoted to keep the law in its entirety. This was an elite group of totally devoted followers. He goes on to say that as for zeal, persecuting the church. Paul was so dedicated to keeping the Jewish religion pure that he sought to stamp out this new movement of Jesus followers. And finally, he points out that as for legalistic righteousness, he was faultless. In other words, he kept the ceremonial law, prescribed in the Torah, concerning Sabbath observance, food, and ritual cleanliness. He had no blemishes on his record along these lines.

These were impressive credentials. If Paul had wanted, he could have placed a great deal of confidence in who he was by race, religion, reputation, ritual, and rules. But he saw that none of that was enough. None of that brought him to know Christ. And he goes on to say something very significant:

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, 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 is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

Paul rejected human achievement as insufficient. It was nothing compared to knowing Christ. We see in Paul an unconditional dedication to Christ. There were no strings attached. He was totally committed and had burned his bridges behind him. He had learned an important lesson–– and this is the lesson we must also learn. It is this: Nothing is as important as Christ.

Jesus said, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." (Luke 12:15 NIV) He also said, And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul in the process? (Mark 8:36 NLT) Nothing this world has to offer is as important and valuable as a right relationship with God.

That brings us to an important question. Do I love Christ more than anything the world has to offer? In order to have an unconditional dedication to Christ, I must love him more than anything else. Ask yourself that question, and be honest. We need an unconditional dedication to Christ, and we must also have...

An Unquenchable Desire to Know Christ.

There’s no doubt that Paul desired to know Christ more than any other thing. That was his goal. Writing to the church in Corinth, he said: Our only goal is to please God… (2 Corinthians 5:9 NCV) Listen to what he says in verses 10-11:

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Can you believe it? Paul had written most of the New Testament by this time. I don’t know about you, but if I had written most of the New Testament, been called as an apostle, been caught up to the third heaven and shown sights so glorious God had to give me a thorn in the flesh to keep me humble, I would have thought I knew the Lord. But here Paul says that he has an unquenchable desire to know Christ.

Of course, Paul was a Christian. In that sense he did know the Lord. But the word that is translated "know" in this passage has the connotation of a highly intimate knowledge. It is used in other places in Scripture for the intimate personal knowledge of couples coming together in the marriage union. This is a deep knowing. This is a personal knowing. It is not knowing about God.

Paul had learned an important lesson. We need to learn it as well. It is this: The more you know Christ, the more you want to know him. As a matter of fact, the more you know Christ, the more you know that there is more to know. You will never come to the place where you know all there is to know about Christ. Paul had an unquenchable desire to know Christ personally.

Here is an important question for you and me. Do I passionately desire an intimate personal relationship with Christ? We cannot be content simply to know about Christ. We must desire to know him intimately and personally. That must be our passion.

Paul had an unconditional dedication to Christ, and an unquenchable desire to know Christ. There’s one final quality he had that we need. Like Paul, we must have...

An Unstoppable Determination to Follow Christ.

Paul was committed to do whatever he needed in order to fully follow Christ. You can see his focused attitude in verses 12-14:

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

He was focused on the one thing, Christ–– his goal. And he tells us what we are going to need to do to reach that goal. We must deal with the past effectively, live in the present actively, and reach for the future deliberately.

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

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

So how do we deal with the past? There are basically three things you must do to effectively conquer your past. (1) The first is that you must recognize the past for what it is, the past. It is over, done, gone, finished, ended, passed. You can’t change one thing that happened back then, whether back then was years ago or yesterday. (2) The second thing that you must do is recognize the satanic strategy in reminding you of the past. His strategy is to discourage you and defeat you. (3) The third thing you must recognize is what you can do about the past. While you can’t change the past, you can change the way you respond to the memories of the past.

Listen to what Paul says, "But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind..." Paul is saying that the way to deal with the past is to forget it. We must develop what I call a "divine amnesia."

When I speak about forgetting the past, of course, I’m not talking about forgetting it mentally. Although there are many things I wish I could forget, unfortunately, God created our minds to be incredibly powerful. Even though we might not remember something consciously, sub-consciously it is always there. Every act, word, event, situation and circumstance is imbedded forever in our minds. When Paul speaks about forgetting the past, he means that we must forget it in the sense that we no longer allow it to control our lives. Unless we do, we will always be on a leash. We will attempt to move forward in life, only to be snatched back time and again.

You may be saying, "Well, it’s easier said than done," and you’re right. But, by God’s grace it can be done. You see, Christ can liberate us from the past. The reason Christ came to this earth was to offer His life on the Cross so that our sins might be forgiven. Christ can forgive our past. The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ can release us from sin and the guilt of sin. There is nothing in your past too great for God to handle. There is no sin too big for God to forgive. Christ can enable us to release the past and move on to what can be in the present. He can enable us to avoid living in the "what has been" and live, instead, in the "what can be."

We must not only develop a divine amnesia in terms of forgetting the past; but also engage in a deliberate activity in the present. Listen to the words of the Apostle, "But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead…." In order to deal with the past effectively, we must live in the present actively.

One of the keys to living in the present is the need to replace pessimism with optimism. Most pessimism is unhealthy. It creates a cycle of despair. Many times, we become locked into pessimistic ways of thinking, and we end up bound mentally by these patterns of thought. Past failures may suggest to us that we will never succeed. After all, we have tried and failed. But often that is not the reality of the situation, it is only what we have experience living in our own strength.

God is an optimist. I know that because when Jesus ascended into heaven, He put His disciples in charge of winning the world! But we can be optimists too, when we come to understand that God truly has a plan for our lives. We can begin to look to the future with hope. An eager anticipation of what are the possibilities for our life can replace those negative patterns of thought which bind us. We must replace pessimism with optimism. There are good things that lie ahead.

But we must also replace passivism with activism. The past seeks to trap us by discouraging us to the point where we are just so exhausted we don’t want to try anymore. Depressed people don’t even like to get out of bed. They sit around in their pajamas all day long or engage in hours of mind-numbing television. Sometimes the first step out of that situation is to get out of bed, put your clothes on and do something. You see, we need to act on faith in what God can do. Paul says that he strains toward what lies ahead. Here is someone who is involved with the living of life. He is not merely content to be acted upon. He must act himself. And if we would succeed, we must act as well. Someone has said that it’s hard to steer a parked car. In other words, parked cars go nowhere. You could turn the steering wheel all you like, but it doesn’t change its direction. Only as we begin to move are we able to accomplish those things we would like to see come to pass. We must be active.

Jesus calls us to follow Him. The Christian life is a commitment to do something as well as be something. The Christian life has been compared to a walk, a race, a fight. Those are all action terms. When Jesus calls us, He calls us not simply to believe in Him intellectually, but to follow Him in the way we live our lives. You can hold an intellectual belief without making a life commitment to it. But that is not biblical faith. Faith means we trust Him with our lives as we commit to live for Him daily.

Paul said he was straining toward what is ahead. The picture here is of someone stretching forward, like a runner in a race, seeking to win, not merely to finish. As we stretch forward, we must possess the quality of a determined attitude. Here is a man who is not content with being in the race. He is giving his all to the endeavor. He is determined that nothing will deter him. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth: Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. (1 Corinthians 9:24 NIV) That’s what he was doing, running to win, giving his all.

Here is the lesson: To win the race, we must give it our all. Fifty percent will not do. Seventy-five percent is not nearly enough. Ninety percent is ten percent short. We must, not just be willing, but also actually give it our all.

Here is an important question: Do I live with a determined focus to do what is necessary to fully follow Christ?

Like Paul, we must have an unconditional dedication to Christ, and unquenchable desire to know Christ personally and intimately, and an unstoppable determination to fully follow Christ, whatever it takes. Christ is our goal. Let’s run to win until we cross the finish line.

Copyright © 2001 J. David Hoke. This data file is the sole property of the copyright holder and may be copied only in its entirety for circulation freely without charge. All copies of this data file must contain the above copyright notice.

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