NO ROOM FOR COMPLACENCY

Philippians 3:12-14
Bob Bonner
August 10, 2008

The 2008 Olympic games are here. As a swimmer, I’m naturally drawn to the US swim team and its outstanding athletes. As I look at these men and women, some of whom are in their 5^th Olympic games, I marvel at their accomplishments. Few people can truly appreciate what it takes to be an Olympic contestant, let alone a winner.  In most cases it takes some natural talent, hard work, and single-minded commitment to your sport; plus discipline, hard work, and single-minded commit-ment to your sport; plus a good coach, hard work, and single-minded commitment to your sport; plus good facilities/equipment, hard work, and single-minded commitment to your sport. You get the picture. The main ingredient is always a single-minded commitment to what you are doing and much hard work. There is absolutely no room for complacency if you want to win. Every Olympian brings one thing to their event: passion, a drivenness to succeed.

Do you have anything that you are passionate about? Is there anything that you would really dedicate your life to as do as these athletes? If so, what is your passion? What drives you? For what would you really die: your right to own your own home in a nice neighborhood, to have a really cool car that gets great gas mileage, to work at a dream job, to maintain political or patriotic rights? What truly has your focus? What helps you decide how you invest your life today? What passion determines what you will do with your time? Is there anything worth your investing time in your physical health? What determines what you choose to fill your mind with? What is the purpose behind developing relationships with your friends? If you take time off for vacation, what still remains on your heart and on the front burner of your mind?  Do you ever think about such things, or are you complacent about your life? Do you simply look for what is convenient, easy, or pleasurable? As it concerns your relationship with God, are you easy going in the sense that you just sort of float along in that relationship, like many do in their marriages, taking God or one another for granted and not striving to know and love more?

This morning as we look at God’s Word, we will see by Paul’s example what it is that drove him. We will see the target of his passion. As he asks us to imitate him in following Christ, we learn from his example that if we are going to find success and meaning in life, we cannot do so by being complacent and letting whatever happens happen. We must deliberately seek to know and walk with God.

Furthermore, we will see that Paul’s point is that our focus, the passion that motivates everything every follower of Christ does, should originate from our relationship with Christ and our desire to experientially know Him better. If the local church family to whom Paul was writing, the Philippians, imitated Paul in making their passion the same as his, their focus in life the same as his, then ultimately, that problem of dissension and disunity would begin to disappear. Behaviors would change. Believers would do Christ’s work out of love for Him rather than out of love for themselves. They would strive to make their relationships work and to ensure that their ministries to others be as successful as possible.

Our passage for this morning is found in Philippians 3:12-14. Let’s read it together and then work our way through it. Paul writes, “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on [This is literally a term that sometimes is used in hunting to describe a diligently active tracking down of something; but here, it is probably used as it is elsewhere in Greek literature to refer in an athletic sense to a runner running a race with dogged determination, consumed by great effort to finish the race and to win the prize.] so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ. [Again, that expression “lay hold of” is also an athletic term used of a runner in a race who might run so as to seize or win a prize after he crosses the finish line.] Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

As we examine these verses, you will see that Paul has two different goals in his life. He previously wrote about both of them in verses 7-11. Here he reminds us that one of those goals is his primary life goal, his passion, and that which drives him; the secondary goal is important to him also, but he realizes that if he seeks to fulfill his primary goal, the second one will be met in route.

Ever since verse 7, Paul’s first or primary goal has been mentioned by him several times in a couple of different ways. He tells us that he wants to be “found in Christ,” “to gain Christ,” and “to know Christ.” With each of these expressions, Paul is telling us that he is passionate about experientially knowing Christ, so that the very life of Christ would empower him and that Jesus would live through him. To know Christ’s presence and supernatural power at work in his life was Paul’s ultimate goal. That’s what drove Paul. To know Jesus was his passion. 

However, when referring to his passionate objective at the beginning of verse 12, he clearly tells us that he has not “obtained it”; he has not come to know Christ as intimately as he would like. But in the last part of the verse he once again restates his determination to press on until he does reach his objective, which he calls later in verse 14 “the prize”, which is knowing Christ in heaven one day, without all the fetters of sin, temptation, and the evil and selfishness that surrounds him in his world.

Paul mentions his secondary goal, which is closely tied to his primary objective, when he states, “Nor have I already become perfect.”  Once upon a time Paul thought that, spiritually speaking, he had arrived, he had become “perfect”, or more accurately, as that word’s intended meaning dictates, he had become “spiritually mature.”

If you remember Paul’s resume given to us in verses 4-6, you will recall that he finished it with the statement that he was “blameless as to righteousness under the Law.” At one time, Paul believed that he had arrived spiritually. However, since his encounter with Jesus Christ, Paul realized that he was far from having attained true righteousness or Christ-likeness. And he clearly acknowledges that here, in verses 12 and 13, and states that his secondary goal is to become mature, perfect, or like Christ. Hence, Paul is admitting that even as an apostle, he had not reached full spiritual maturity. He, too, was still growing up. 

Sinless perfection was not the experience even of an apostle this side of glory and wouldn’t be while he was alive on earth. He still had areas in his life in which he failed. His behavior was not entirely exemplary. Like many of us, he may still have gotten cranky or hostile at times when the ministry didn’t go as planned, when other people maybe did not do their job or were shortsighted, or perhaps when he had been inconvenienced. He may have momentarily held a grudge, been resentful, or gotten irritable and frustrated with others. But unlike many, when those areas showed up in his life, Paul wouldn’t rationalize them away or become complacent with his level of maturity. He was dissatisfied with his lack of maturity and wanted to continue to grow up in Christ. That’s why he continued to press on, walking as closely as he could with the Lord, believing that Jesus would continue to transform his life, making him more like Christ.

The end of verse 12 raises an important question for the reader to ask and answer if one is going to understand the meaning of these verses. The question is, “For what purpose does Jesus Christ lay hold of anyone’s life? What did Christ have in mind when he took hold of me?” For every person there is an identical answer, and that answer is the “prize” which Paul so desired. Christ lays hold of our lives because He desires to maintain an intimate relationship with us. And one way or another, through blessing or discipline in our lives, Christ is going to bring about an intimate relationship between Him and us. From our perspective, it would seem to be more joyful to get to know Him better through His blessing us, which comes from being obedient to Him, than it would through His discipline, even though His discipline is motivated by love.

Some would suggest that Christ laid hold of us so that He could transform our lives. But that transforming of our lives into His likeness is not the objective of Christ laying hold of our lives, but a result of Christ’s loving fellowship with each of us.

In verses 13-14, Paul uses a metaphor to further explain what he meant in verse 12. This athletic metaphor describes a focused runner, straining with all of his might, every nerve and muscle firing with the purpose to reach the goal, the tape at the end of the race, so that he can win the race and receive his prize. In this metaphor, the race is the present manner of living; the goal is the end of his life; the prize is an unfettered, complete knowing and seeing Jesus, face to face, without any of the hindrances of this life.

If Paul is going to win the prize, he tells us in verse 13, there are two things he must do to know Christ more intimately. He says, “Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead . . .”  First, like any runner in a race, if he plans to succeed he can’t keep looking over his shoulder. If he does, he puts himself in danger of tripping and falling down; or as he looks over one shoulder, he risks getting passed up on his blind side by a competitor. Furthermore, looking over one’s shoulder will twist the body just enough that one cannot take advantage of a full stride, therefore losing potential distance to a competitor. A good runner must not concern himself with some awkward mistake or misstep at the beginning of the race or how poorly he broke from the blocks or how splendidly he covered the first few yards. That kind of lack of focus will surely cost him in the end. He must concentrate on what is up ahead and how he can make the distance between point A and point B the shortest and quickest route.

Likewise, we are not to look at our past. What’s done is done. How we started no longer matters. What matters is that we keep going and finish the race. For Paul, in his past life as a Pharisee, an elite Jew holding a position of prestige, a “Hebrew of Hebrews,” he had it all. Now, as a follower of Jesus, he knows a lot of suffering, presently finding himself in prison. In a real sense, others would have said, he had lost it all.  Every once in a while, Paul might have wistfully thought about the good old days when he was top dog. Now, look at him. Those thoughts could have been a real downer. He had to forget his past and focus on what lay ahead.

Maybe you are looking back at some of the negative things in your life. Maybe your past decisions have resulted in negative present circumstances, and you are paralyzed with thoughts of, “If only I had . . .” or, “I should not have done . . .” Maybe it was a past dream or expectation that got foiled or never came true that has left you despondent or bitter. Maybe it was an unexpected tragic event. As long as you keep looking back, you can’t effectively or efficiently run forward. Maybe you are clinging to a past hurt against you, harboring bitterness. Maybe you were highly regarded and held a prominent position, but you have been replaced by another. Maybe those past failures or events have colored how you see yourself. If Paul were here, he would tell you to “Get over it! Forget it! Let it go! It is the past. Look forward to your opportunity to get to know Jesus, all the while seeing yourself as Jesus sees you.” That term “forgetting”, in verse 13, means “absolute and complete forgetting.”

Neither are we to dwell on positive things of our past: our past religious accomplishments, good works, successes, or times of feeling emotionally close to the Lord. Paul says he forgot all of that stuff. That’s in the past. You need to live today with your eye on the future and where you are going and Who it is that you will spend eternity with.

And that’s the second thing Paul says we are to do: rather than looking back we are to “reach forward.” Literally that word means to “strain, stretching forward.” It pictures a stretched out neck, with every muscle straining to do its best to get forward and to the finish line marking the end of the race. This term pictures the ceaseless personal exertion, the intensity of the desire to win.  It points to a singularly focused person whose eye is zeroed in on the goal line. There is no complacency in this runner. Those who succeed in athletics and in other pursuits of life, such as knowing Christ, are singularly focused. 

This picture of a singularly focused, reaching forward athlete does not portray the way many Christians live their lives today. We are not giving our best effort to know Him. Instead, we are living our lives complacently. We are taking the comfortable pace. Everything is easy, at one’s leisure, convenient, pleasurable, with little risk, and showing very little of the pain that a true runner will endure to win the prize. We have to enjoy our comfortable routine. We will go to church regularly, but maybe not too regularly. We’ll show up sometimes at Bible Studies or some sort of small group. But we will not invest the time necessary to study or examine God’s love letter to us, His Word, so that we might know Him better. 

Many people dabble in much of life, including their spiritual life, but succeed at nothing. Despite all the energy they expend, they accomplish little. Their lives are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. They have no consistent ministry in reaching out to others to encourage or build them up; they make no attempt at personally reaching the lost. Oh, they will tell you how their church should be run, but where and when have they put their life on the line, proving over the long haul that they are committed to serving and knowing Him?  James, in 1:8, called them “double-minded . . . unstable in all their ways.” They do not, as Paul says in verse 12 and 14, “press on” or exert any extra energy to cross the finish line  to win the prize of knowing Christ more intimately. They are complacent, comfortable to cruise to the finish, but they are not hungry for the prize and the “upward call of God.”

The “upward call of God” is another allusion to the original foot races during the first century Olympian games. After each event they had a herald announce the name of the winner, the city from which he came, his father’s name, and his country. After that, the athlete would come up to the winners stand and receive a palm branch from the dignitaries overseeing the games. This is the call to which Paul is now alluding. This means that this upward call is not the prize, but the calling up of the winner in a fashion of honor. The grammar of this verse stresses that this prize was made possible for Paul only because of God’s upward call. God initiated the call and predestined Paul to know Him “in Christ” so that Paul would one day be raised up into heaven, meet face to face with Jesus Christ, and know and enjoy Him fully, without distraction, forever. This is that same glorification of the Christian that Paul referred to in verse 11, which takes place after the resurrection of the dead.  Along with that, Paul would realize his second goal, to finally become like Christ (1 John 3:2).

It has been God’s desire that we come to know Him intimately ever since He created us. After the Fall, God communicated this to the human race by calling out Abraham, from the Ur of the Chaldees, to become the father of the nation of Israel. He wanted a people to know and love him intimately. God went to great lengths to prove to Israel his love for them. But they responded much like the church does today. They were complacent in their response to God’s love, and in the end, it led to their destruction.

As I was preparing this message, in my devotional reading God reminded me that it has always been His desire for us to know Him intimately and to enjoy Him. He showed me a parallel to what His desire is for us today, and a warning against becoming complacent in seeking to know Christ with all of our hearts. He made me aware of the failure of the nation of Israel, what it cost them, and warned me that this is where we the church are headed if we don’t stop being complacent about knowing Christ, and press on, focused to do so. 

I’d like to quickly but briefly walk you through a regretful period of Israel’s history, the period of the judges found in Judges 17-18. Chapter 17 through chapter 21 make up the end of the book of Judges. The beginning of chapter 17 and the last verse of chapter 21 repeat the same statement, which summarized the complacency of the believers of this period. That statement is, “Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” That statement means much more than some have stated, that people simply disobeyed God. It means that they became complacent about Him. They no longer sought Him out to know Him and to live for Him. Instead, they sought after their own interests: what gave them pleasure, a sense of importance, and what enabled them to live a life of ease with the least amount of work. Regardless of whether something was right or wrong, they sought after it if it made them feel good or significant. But for sure, they were still Israel, and hence they continued to put on a facade of having a relationship with God. It resulted in the first civil war in the history of the nation of Israel and the near extinction of one of the 12 tribes. It led later to the downfall of the entire nation.

Judges 17 begins with an adult son named Micah, whose father is presumed dead, and who is now living with his widowed mother. They are quite wealthy, living in the hill country of Ephraim. We are not told why, but Micah stole 1100 pieces of silver, quite a sum of money, from his mother. She sets out a curse against the person who stole it. Micah then comes to her and says, “I took it. Here, you can have it back.” Rather than disciplining or correcting her son, she praises him for returning it, and then, because she really has no need of it to live on, dedicates it to God--supposedly, but not really. For she instructs her son to build a shrine, take 200 pieces of the silver, make an idol of it, and worship it in their house. Micah does so, and makes his own son the priest, knowing that this was forbidden, and that only those who were Levites could be a priest. Now obviously, this flies in the face of what God’s Law says about knowing Him, serving Him, and worshiping Him. But they did not care. Complacency says, “It doesn’t really matter if it was done rightly or wrongly, as long as the intention is good.”

At this point, scene two takes place. Enter a young Levite, whom we later learn to be named Jonathan. Levites were to live in the specified Levitical cities to minister to the people of Israel, calling them to obey God’s laws, and to continue to seek after and know God. That was their sole function in the nation of Israel. But this young man, seeking after purpose, fame, personal comfort, and prestige, leaves a Levitical city to find his fortune or job that would bring him personal fulfillment. Never mind that God has not led him to do so. Never mind that he already had a job and a Levite city in which to live and serve, even it there was no personal glory in it for him. So, he heads up north, stumbles upon Micah’s home, and is discovered to be a Levite. Micah, realizing that his son couldn’t really be a priest, offers the job to Jonathan with wages, clothing, and a position of prestige. Jonathan jumps at the opportunity, even though as a Levite he knew that he was forbidden to participate in the worship of idols. But God couldn’t really object, could he? This would make Jonathan happy and fulfilled, and certainly God would want Jonathan happy, right? Wrong, as we will see. The scene closes with Micah rejoicing and believing that because he has a Levitical priest looking after his family’s interests, God for sure would bless him.

The scene changes in chapter 18 to what was going on in the tribe of Dan. This tribe, like all of the 11 other tribes, had been allotted a section of land in which to dwell. The land was big enough to support this smaller tribe; however, they had not conquered all of the Canaanite people in the area, so they couldn’t take advantage of all that was theirs. Why hadn’t they cleared out the Canaanites? Basically, it took too much effort, hard work, and risk. Complacent about knowing God and fulfilling His commands, they began to look for an easier solution for land for their families. They sent out five spies to the north to check out an area that was noted for its good land and its inoccupation. On their way north, they came upon Micah’s home and Jonathan the Levitical priest, serving over the family worship center filled with idols. They asked him to check with God as to whether their venture north was going to be a good thing. Without any hesitation, this “yes” man, wanting to tell them what they wanted to hear and without any confirmation from God, responded, “Oh yes, God will bless you. Go for it!” This was in spite of the fact that they knew it was a violation of God’s directive for them to not finish taking possession of their designated land. So they left Jonathan and checked out the land around the city of Laish. They discover that indeed the land was fertile, large enough to house them. The people were peace loving folks, with no allies for protection. So they raced back home, grabbed those folks who believed the grass was greener on the other side, and they headed for what they believed to be their promise land. On the way back up to fight and take Laish, they stopped off at Micah’s house. They took his idols, worship instruments, and Jonathan the priest. At first, Jonathan objected. But then the Danites offered him a job with a more prestigious position. Would you rather be a priest over a family or would you rather be a priest over a whole tribe? It’s a numbers game. Bigger is better--more status, more wealth. So, without hesitation, Jonathan joined them. 

The Danites conquer Laish, rename it, and think they have done well. But 18:30 gives us a hint to the rest of the story. This move of the tribe of Dan will eventually mean the destruction and end of the tribe. For you see, Laish is on the major highway at the northern entrance to the land of Canaan. Any invading army that wanted to take Canaan or attack it would have to come through Laish, or Dan. Remember, Dan was a small tribe whose warriors were too complacent, too afraid of hard work, and lacked the commitment to get rid of the relatively weak armies of the Canaanites. And now they have exposed themselves to get wiped out by the powerful Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans who would eventually raid Israel. Their complacency about obeying God, their lack of commitment to “press on” to know God, ended up with their losing everything.

You see, there is no difference in what complacency in knowing God and seeking to serve God resulted in for Micah, Jonathan, or the tribe of Dan, and what was happening to the complacent, self-seeking church at Philippi, and what is happening among Christians today. Refusal to “press on” to know Christ, to win the prize, leads to disappointment if not ultimate loss or destruction during this life. Keep in mind, like Israel, the Philippians knew God’s word, but they didn’t allow His word to change or direct their lives. They were complacent to apply it to their lives. They were comfortable to know that they were saved but showed little or no desire to seek after Him to know Him better.

Paul’s picture of himself and the healthy believer as a well trained, disciplined, committed runner that could forget what was behind, strain forward with all he had to get to the finish line of life, and only seek after knowing Christ despite hurts, pains, and obstacles stands out in my mind. So much so that I have to wonder that, as you or I look in the mirror, do we see this same picture looking back at us? What are the evidences of the strain, pain, commitment, discipline, and hard work in your life to know Christ? To what degree have you become complacent? To what degree have you made your plans and goals the big deal, without ever really asking, “Lord, is this what you want me to being doing with my life? Will this help me know you better?” To the Philippians, Paul has been asking and we would be wise to ask ourselves, “To what degree have self interests taken precedence over my ministries, marriage, and work. How has God called me to know Him as we work together?”

At the foot of one of the Swiss Alps, at Chamounix, France, is a marker honoring a man who fell to his death attempting the ascent. The marker gives his name and this brief epitaph: “He died climbing.” The epitaph of every Christian should be that they died climbing the upward path toward the prize of knowing Christ.

 The Bible warns us that the world, the flesh, and Satan are constantly waging war against us to distract us from knowing, following, and enjoying our relationship with Christ. Because of this trinity of opposition, what are you doing to fight back complacency in getting to know Christ better?What steps can you see are necessary for you to take so that you can better “press on” to the “prize” of knowing Christ? Are there some spiritual disciplines you can implement this week, such as committing to reading your Bible for 15 more minutes per day? Are their some activities you can forsake to better invest your time in knowing and honoring Christ? For example, watch 2 fewer hours of TV, and instead serve someone else in the name of Christ.

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