1st August 2025

1st August 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Philippians 3:12-16 focus v15-16)


Message (Alan Burke)


If something is mine if I have attained it then it means it is mine. Like I can look back to my sole sports day victory in the three legged race when I was at Bready Primary school and say that I had attained the victory it is mine and no one can take that away from me and the other fella I ran with. There are lots of things that I have acquired along the way, many things that I have since lost or disposed of, I have lost much of the fitness that I once attained but my three legged race victory it is mine and I will never loose it. You know if you are in Christ, if you are my brother or sister then you have already attained salvation, you cannot loose it, Jesus will loose none of those the Father has given him (Jn 6:39). Yet while it is ours, while we have already attained this glorious salvation Paul wants us to be pressing on, straining on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called us heavenwards in Christ Jesus. 


We aren't going to reach the perfection that Paul longed for in this life but it will be ours in the next. Paul had a righteous that comes by faith, if anyone is righteous before God it is by faith alone in Christ alone and as we will be made perfect immediately made righteous when we die and go to be with him. And this Paul as continues on he wants us to press on to what is already ours. And in verse 15 he characterises Christian maturity. Those who are mature in the faith, they forget what lies behind, they aren't looking longingly back nor are they looking back filled with guilt of past sin, wishing that they could do it all again or do it differently, instead there are those who are streaming forward, pressing on. 


Those who are mature in Christ, see the goat of the Christian life is the pursuit of Christ himself. And that pursuit of Christ himself is going to be seen us, as we die to sin, as we leave behind what we once were, for we are straining towards the goal of what lies ahead. We thought a few weeks ago how in the walk of the believer, we are not passive in our walk with the Lord and here as he tells us to stain on towards what lies ahead, pressing towards the goal he makes it clear that that is the case. 


If we are mature that will be seen in us as we are those who are straining towards what lies ahead, the goal, the prize, the upward call of God in Christ Jesus, but for those who are immature, who think differently then Paul is confident that the Lord will show them the truth. There are times that people need to get there themselves and Paul knows it, for those to whom he wrote to in Philippi he knew that some of them were straining towards what lay ahead, pressing on to the goal, the prize, the upward call of God in Christ. While he also know that there were others who were spiritually immature, who either believed that everything had been done for them, they were already perfected by Christ or simply not seeing the impetus the upward call of God and he importance of how we are to strain towards what lies ahead.


When we do not take what God has done for us seriously, when we allow sin to go unchecked, not seeing the need to mortify it in their lives, ignoring the need of sanctification where we die to sin, mortify it, and live more and more for God, we will suffer. But when take it seriously straining towards what lies ahead, the goal, the prize, the upward call of God in Christ Jesus we will grow into the image of Christ our elder brother, where increase in our holiness, we become Holy for our God is Holy. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q36 What are the benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification?
A. The benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification, are, assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance therein to the end.
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