Again, my name is Brian Robinson, and I'm one of the elders here at Christ the Redeemer, and I'm excited to be up here talking about Philippians.
Before I do, I'd love for us to pray.
Heavenly Father, I do pray for each of us, the speaker included, to know that you are here with us and to have some peace with that.
I pray that people would feel your presence through the communion, through the preaching the word, and through the songs that we sing.
In Jesus' name I pray.
Amen.
So these verses, Paul talks about pressing on towards the goal, kind of running the race, this idea of going after something, pressing into something.
And running is something I enjoy doing.
I like to run.
As I've gotten older, I've enjoyed it more.
I think it's a way to clear my mind.
It's a pretty efficient way to burn calories.
And it's also a good way to have a conversation with good friends.
And one of my favorite people to run with is right here on the front row.
And I want Brad to stand up and they'll have a little illustration.
Makes you a little nervous.
Come on up here.
Brad and I have had a lot of really good conversations.
Why don't you come right here?
Just make you uncomfortable?
Yes.
A little bit?
Yes.
I'm glad.
That was part of the reason I'm doing this.
Just make you a little uncomfortable.
Good thing I'm here.
Yeah, good.
I'm glad.
So when so Brad is very gracious to run with me, mostly because I am much slower than Brad.
Brad is a lot faster than I am.
So he kind of has to slow down when we run together, which is true in a lot of things in life.
So when Brad and I are running, if you see us running together, I want you to run in place for me.
Now please.
Yeah, for real.
So when Brad and I are running together, Brad's kind of right here, and I'm usually kind of right back here.
And one of us is trying to get the other to slow down a little bit.
That's me.
I'm like, slow down.
I can't go that fast.
And one of us, maybe Brad, is trying to get me to speed up a little bit.
Okay?
And uh keep going.
Keep going.
Um so I um I was very validated a few years ago.
Bo T, will you come up here with please?
Yeah.
Love the opportunity to stand up here and talk and embarrass my friends.
So we were uh in New York together and we went on a long run, and Bo Bo experienced this with me.
Bo, where were you in relation to Brad?
Yeah, yeah, and and I was here too.
We were both back here, and this guy was still up here running.
Simon says, Stop.
You can stop.
All right.
You can sit down now.
Thank you.
Good job.
Appreciate it.
Um so it reminds me a little bit of a Seinfeld quote.
I love Seinfeld, and Seinfeld says this about driving.
He says, Have you ever noticed that anyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone driving faster than you is a maniac.
You're the only person going the perfect speed.
And I am that way in many, in many parts of my life, I'm that way.
And I'm starting to learn that I can learn a lot from people that are faster than me, like Brad.
He also drives a lot faster than me, but that's a different illustration.
Um let's talk about Philippians now.
Um, the passage in Philippians is actually, I'm glad that I'm getting to teach on this because I think um it's a good illustration of why Manny and I and a few other families in Marietta felt compelled, felt like the Lord was calling us to help start a church in Marietta about five years ago.
Because in the past, when I would hear a message on these verses, it's usually centered around pressing on towards the goal.
What are you doing to press on towards the goal?
Like, and so you leave and you feel very emotional and you want to do something.
Um, and so I would leave, but by Tuesday afternoon, I would usually crash and burn.
Or maybe even, if you ask Manny, maybe Sunday on the way home from church I would crash and burn.
I couldn't do that.
And I think the reason why we can't do that is because there's no power.
I don't have any power in and of my own flesh.
The power is actually in verse 12, and I'll talk about that.
He says, I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own.
The power comes from Jesus and his life in us.
And when we first heard this teaching, it kind of felt like a waterfall of relief.
It felt like, oh man, that that's the secret because I've been failing over and over and over again on my own.
And so there was it felt like a big weight off my shoulders.
Um last week Russ talked about the beginning of chapter three, and that's where we are in my verses, um, and this is all centered on knowing Christ.
Um, the the beginning of chapter three, Paul is talking about um, I consider it all loss.
Like he he considers his whole life nothing to know Christ.
So this whole pressing on and running towards the goal is all about him knowing Christ.
And I'm gonna go through this passage verse by verse, but I'll spend most of my time on verses 12 and 13, the first couple of verses.
Um, verse 12 says, 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.
So what is the this?
Not that I've already obtained this.
The this he's talking about is knowing Christ.
Paul counts his whole life lost to know the Son of the living God.
And I would ask you, do you know him?
Like, not know about him, not not like, can you tell me some things about Jesus' life, but do you know him?
And I think that to know him, to really know Jesus, we have to know a little bit about ourselves and our brokenness.
And we say often here that we are loved as we are, not as we should be, because none of us are as we should be.
And that brokenness can sometimes look like uh failure, look like depression, but sometimes it can look like pride.
Like we think we're doing it all well, like my example of my driving.
I think I'm going the perfect speed.
We don't just need a little bit of help and a little bit of improvement.
We actually need a death to self and a resurrection.
And we have that in Christ.
2 Corinthians 5 says, we are new creations in Christ.
So on earth, our battle is between our flesh and the new life that Christ has given to us and remembering that he has given us that new life.
Um, my older daughters and Mandy and I have been watching this summer uh an HBO miniseries that I love.
Uh it's called Band of Brothers.
So it's about World War II, probably some of you have seen it, and it follows the 101st Airborne Unit, Easy Company, and uh follows them from Normandy and then Battle of the Bulge and then The Eagle's Nest.
And in episode three, which is called Carrington, it deals with fear.
Um and there's a private Blythe that it follows, and Private Blythe is terrified, and he has good reason to be terrified because people are trying to kill him.
Um and so there's a there's another soldier named Spears.
And if and if you've watched this and you're a man, you want to be Spears.
Like Spears is tough, he is courageous, he um he is going after it, he is he is victorious and killing Germans.
Um and so I have this quote printed in your bulletin from Spears.
So Spears is running around and he finds Blythe in a ditch hiding, and they're fighting.
And Blythe is hiding and not shooting anyone, not going after it, and Spears finds him in this ditch.
And Spears says to him, Blythe, what are you doing in this ditch?
Why are you here?
And Blythe says, I'm scared.
That's why I'm in here.
And we can all relate to this.
I would be scared if I was him too.
Um and Spears says to him, We're all scared.
You hid in that ditch because you think there's still hope.
But Blythe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead.
And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function.
All war depends on it.
What Spears is saying is, and I think the the relevancy to this talk is we don't we are new creations.
Our, you know, we are dead to self, and once we can forget about our reputations and stop trying to protect what we have and start stop trying to protect the things of this earth, we can live as if we're supposed to function.
Paul Zall, a priest and an author, I have this in your bulletin as well, says it this way.
You really have to start by being a dead man.
You have to have gone through the Red Sea and died.
Then you're in kind of a way Teflon because you're a living dead person.
This is protection in a human sense.
I've been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who lives.
That's Galatians 2.20.
These are not just ideas, these are actualities.
So our hope doesn't come from our gifts and our lives, it comes from Christ and what he has done for us, and now as believers, what he is doing in us and through us.
So the second part of that verse it says, to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own.
I think this is to me the linchpin of the verse of this section.
We have to understand the motive.
That's where the power is.
1 John 4.19 says, we love because he first loved us.
Every other religion and form of self-help doesn't start there.
It starts with us.
It tells us we have to be lovable to ourselves first before we can love other people.
It tells us, you know, do more, try harder.
It doesn't start with the power is in understanding that Christ Jesus has made me his own.
Me, the me that no one else knows, the broken me.
So what does this really look like on the ground?
Like these are big thoughts, but I had an experience a few weeks ago as I was preparing for this, where going through a stressful situation at work, and uh I woke up at about 4 a.m.
and I was just thinking about this situation.
And my stomach was kind of a knots.
I just had anxiety, that butterfly feeling, not a fun feeling.
Um and I was just thinking about it, I couldn't get it out of my head, finally got out of bed about six, uh, went to work, still had that anxiety, that feeling all day long.
And I went home, and as I was walking home, I was kind of thinking about it and praying, and I felt God say to me, not audibly, but I felt this and I know this.
I felt him say, I am going to take care of you.
And I felt like his hand, his arm was around my shoulders.
And he said, I have been taking care of you.
And that doesn't look like what I think it's going to look like always.
Um, usually it doesn't look like what I think it's going to look like, but I think it's true, and I think that is powerful, and that is my experience of because Christ Jesus has made me his own.
Let's go to verse 13.
Um, Paul says, but one thing I do, so the one thing Paul talks about doing is forgetting the things that lie behind.
You have to remember, Paul is in prison while he's writing this, and part of him probably wants to escape all this persecution and all this prison and go to heaven.
He actually says this in chapter one.
So we know from Paul, even Paul's life was hard.
Um there may be some of you that are going, there probably are some of us that are going through things that are hard.
Jesus says in John 16, there will be trials.
Um, you may be experiencing that right now through a child going wayward, through a divorce, through a death, just through work being hard or life being hard.
But our hope is to press on towards the goal for the prize to know Jesus more.
That is where our hope is.
Verse 15, let those of us who are mature think this way.
It's okay to actually talk about being mature in Christ.
In fact, it's biblical.
I think in our church, we do a great job talking about brokenness.
And I think that's awesome.
I think Russ does a great job from the pulpit talking about our sin and how we are not as we should be.
And I think this helps us not put on masks as often in this church.
But I also think it's okay to talk about being mature.
Paul says, let those of us who are mature, um, I think I think it's good to talk about maturity in Christ because it's encouraging to each other.
We can see Jesus working in others' lives, not just our own or our spouses.
Um the second part of verse 15, if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that to you also.
I love this idea of unity among believers.
And Philippians talks about this a lot in chapters 1 and 2.
Um I love it that Paul says, if in anything you he says, if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that to you.
He doesn't say, if you think otherwise, I'm going to show you how you're wrong.
He trusts that the Lord will reveal that.
Um this idea of unity among believers, I think is best captured.
Um, Jesus before he was crucified in John 17 says the high priestly prayer, which is in your bulletin, um, says, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
The glory that you have given me, and I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one, I and them, and you and me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them, even as you love me.
Um sometimes I think as believers we like to differentiate ourselves because we think that our theology is superior to other people's theology.
I do this very often.
Um, and that's what these verses are about is our unity in Christ.
Um, Pastor Scotty Smith has a commentary for those verses that I just read, and this is one of my favorite things I've read on unity in Christ.
Jesus prays for the unity, not the uniformity of his believers.
God is praised, and the world takes notice when Christians demonstrate a spirit-given unity.
Our fallen instincts encourage us to build our identity on what distinguishes us even from other believers.
But Jesus exposes the self-centeredness of such a mindset.
Our union with Christ brings a unity in Christ that transcends all secondary disagreements.
I love that last sentence.
Our union with Christ brings a unity in Christ that transcends all secondary disagreements.
Um I love that Paul is talking about that.
If you think otherwise, God will reveal that to you.
Um, it's not his job.
The next verse in Philippians 3, uh, verse 17 join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.
Paul is talking about surrounding yourselves with other believers and building each other up in Christ.
As I've mentioned before, that encourages each other.
It's encouraging to hear what Jesus is doing in other people's lives.
Verse 18 and 19 Many walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.
Their end is destruction, their God is their belly, and they glory in their shame with minds set on earthly things.
Watchman Need, the author, says, When we live with our bodies or our flesh controlling what we do, we live as beasts.
Paul has serious language for this.
He says their end is destruction.
Um when we have our minds set on earthly things, and that can be a whole lot of different things.
It could be a vacation is an earthly thing, alcohol is an earthly thing, tobacco, it could be our reputation.
There's so many things that we make into idols.
I think even gossip, just having that little bit of knowledge that you want to share with someone else to make yourself feel powerful, those are earthly things, and the end of that is destruction.
There's no life there, there's no rest there.
Verses 20 and 21.
Our citizenship is in heaven.
C.S.
Lewis says if we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.
I went to a funeral not too long ago, and it was an older, seasoned pastor that gave the eulogy.
And he said that the reason why he thinks that the Bible doesn't talk specifically more about heaven is because we would all want to go there.
Um, and I think that's probably true.
Um he said the four words that we will not say or hear when we get to heaven are, I had hoped that.
Um, because I think the heaven is the end of hope.
Um later in verse 21, he says, Paul says, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself.
Again, it's this whole idea of the power doesn't come from me, the power comes from God and his son and his spirit.
And then the last verse, um, chapter four, verse one, therefore, my brothers, whom I long who I love and long for, my joy and crown.
Stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.
So the word there he used for stand firm means to be stationary, to persevere, to persist.
It's not us out there getting it done.
That may be the fruit of standing firm.
Um and then beloved is the indicative.
That tells us who we are in Christ.
That means esteemed, dear, favorite, or worthy of love.
I had a friend recently tell me that he had gone on vacation and it just didn't, he had been looking forward to this vacation, and it just didn't, just didn't live up to what he thought it was going to be.
It just kind of let him down.
And he went back to his work life and he's working lots of hours, and he's on Instagram or on social media, and he's seeing all these people doing all these things that he's not doing, and his own vacation just let him down, and so now he's just he's kind of depressed.
And uh he was asking me about you know, how do you get out of this?
And I can relate to this very well.
I'm I'm the same.
And um I happen to be reading through this passage, and I think when we are in the midst of that comparison game, um stand firm in his love one day at a time is the answer to that.
Sam's been singing a song, and he's gonna sing it later, that has meant a lot to me, and I think this is what Paul talks about.
Um is called Build My Life, and I'm gonna close just by reading the main lines in the song.
It says, I will build my life upon your love.
It is a firm foundation.
I will put my trust in you alone, and I will not be shaken.
Let's pray.
I'll close.
Heavenly Father, um, we're so thankful for what you're doing at this church and what you're doing in Marietta.
I do pray that um we would all know that you as belie that you have made us your own, as believers in you, that you have called us your adopted sons and your adopted daughters, and I pray that would seep into the crevices of our hearts that don't believe that, and that we would leave here today and this week just reminding ourselves that that's who we are in you, and that that would lead to some fruit.
I pray all these things in your son's name.
Amen.