28th July 2025

28th July 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Philippians 3:12-16 focus v12-13)


Message (Alan Burke) 


I’m not an athlete, far from it in fact but here Paul takes up imagery that we are all familiar with that seems more akin to someone putting on their track shoes and training for the race that lies ahead of them on the track or field and he uses it to speak of the Christian life. Now remember what he has been speaking about, context is always important and so often we take things out of context and then we can get things royally wrong. What has Paul been saying, well he had lost all things, he considered them rubbish that he may gain Christ (V8). Paul wasn’t looking back with rose tinted glasses to his life before Christ, nor was he looking back to his failings, his past sins, he’s not filled with regret because for him it is what lay ahead was of infinitely more worth to him than all this life had to offer. Paul had set Christ before him, he wasn’t looking back, it was Christ he looked to and the hope that he had in him.


But it’s not that he had already obtained the fullness of what he had in Christ, that he had been made before instead he was pressing on, he was straining forward to what lay ahead. Now these words might make you sweat just at the sound of them, ‘pressing on’, ‘straining forward’, seems like a lot of work already doesn’t it? Yet here is the thing, Paul was writing to the church, the LORD God was using him to help the church in Philippi and us to know that in the life of the believer it’s not that you get your ticket to heaven and you sit back with your feet up and indulge in all the sin your wicked heart desires. NO, instead when we come to saving faith we long to be like the Lord your God, we long to be perfect just as he is (Mt 5:48), we desire to sin no more because we know how heinous that sin is, it was our sin that was the reason why our Savour went to the cross and experienced every last dregs of the cup of the wrath of God. 


For us our desire should be to press on, to forget what is behind, knowing that what lies ahead of us, that when we breathe our last when we cross the finish line we will be made before as he is. Now here’s the thing, often we can instead of straining towards the goal, the prise for which God has called us heavenward we are looking back, looking to a time BC, before Christ in our lives. Brothers and sisters if your looking back longingly, if you’re thoughts would make a drunken sailor blush, if you’re living a life where you know that there is sin that needs to be dealt with then repent, and when you have repented, forget it and strain towards what is ahead. 


Remember who Paul is as he writes these words to the church, he is an apostle of Christ Jesus, he was one who was sent by Christ personally, commissioned by Christ to take out the gospel. It would have been easy for some in the church in Philippi to hold Paul up, to think that he has made it, that he was some kind of super Christian, and yet Paul here does not hold himself up, instead he hold Christ up. For he knew himself that he was a sinner saved by Grace, just as all those who have faith are, and his pastoral heart is clear to be seen in this as he himself identifies as being one who still has to press on, he is still not perfect. For all of us our goal as believers should be the strain forward to what lies ahead, to grow in our knowledge and love of the Lord, to become like Christ. Paul had not obtained this as he wrote to the Church in Philippi, nor would he attain it in this life but he has now obtained because of Christ. When we look back, when we fall into sin, pick yourself up and look once more to Christ and the wonderful forgiveness that there is in him for he has paid it all. It is never an excuse to sin willingly, thinking sure he will forgive me, but we know that we are repentant we have been forgiven. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q32 What benefits do they that are effectually called partake of in this life?
A. They that are effectually called do in this life partake of justification, adoption, sanctification, and the several benefits which, in this life, do either accompany or flow from them.