Passage: Philippians 3:12-16 Speaker: Pastor Will Galkin Series: Joy Full - Fellowship in the Gospel
Speaker: Will Galkin - Throughout the book of Philippians Paul offers himself as a joyful example of Christian maturity (Phil. 3:17). That is why in Philippians 3 Paul looks at his life, takes all of his pre-conversion accomplishments, and wads them up into a ball and throws them into the trash can. None of his accomplishments mean anything to him when he compares his accomplishments to knowing Christ. Philippians 3:10–11 “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.” As we heard last week, Jesus plus anything equals nothing, but Jesus plus nothing equals everything. However, Paul does not want his intensity to communicate to the Philippians that he has somehow arrived to a place of sinless perfection. That is why Paul continues this autobiographical section of Philippians 3 with a disclaimer: he wants his Philippian friends to know that while he is not yet perfect, he is striving with all of his might to obtain the prize of knowing Jesus face-to-face. Additionally, Paul clearly explains that his pursuit of Christ is all of grace because Christ has first made Paul His own. After sharing his autobiographical past, Paul then invites his readers to join him in thinking this way about their own spiritual journey. Philippians 3:15 reads, “Let those of us who are mature think this way.” Paul wants his readers to have a mature thought process regarding the Christian journey. Christians are to think correctly about sanctification. Specifically, Paul desires that Christians would understand that they are still in the race and the goal of Philippians 3:10–11, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, will only be realized when the Christian sees Jesus face-to-face.