A Long Way To Go: A Holy Desire
Philippians: 3:1-21
PD was listening to the shepherds’ testimonies from the conference and this passage came across his mind. Philippians is a letter Paul wrote to encourage people in Philippi to live their life according to God’s teaching. We can summarize three main points of Philippians chapter 3:
1. Let’s not put confidence in flesh or earthly things:
Confidence means trusting yourself, relying on yourself, and proud of yourself
We can think about our non Christian friends, where do they put their confidence in? They are confident in their appearance, education, career, etc.
What about people who are not that worldly, those who try to become righteous? They put their confidence in their moral life (for example: they are confident in their character by thinking that they are better than others because they are kind) they are confident in their ethical life by thinking they are not selfish because they help others.
Christian think it is wrong to put our confidence in earthly things or moral things, so we decide to put our confidence in our religious life by serving in ministries, building the church, and being proud to be a part of a religious community.
Where should we put our confidence? We all have mixed versions of putting our confidence in those three categories. However, in Philippians 3:4-6, Paul clearly says we should not put our trust in earthly things, moral or righteous life, or religious life. Moreover, in verse 19, Paul says we should not live our life to do whatever we like or to do shameful things in order to achieve our own glory. Why? Because all this will lead us to destruction.
2. Let’s have a better goal: to know Christ more:
Philippians 3:7-8, Paul gave up and threw his life in other aspects away because he had another desire: Philippians 3:7-11: to gain Christ, to be found in Him, to know the power of resurrection, to suffer, etc. He wants to know Christ more, this is his one clear desire.
We all have desires to serve God and serve the church but do we have personal relationships with Jesus if we only serve Him and don’t know Him? Jesus would be happy if we want to know him more, not to serve him more. Without knowing him, how can we have righteousness and how can we stand before God?
After more than 30 years of following Jesus Christ, this is still Paul’s one desire: to know Christ more. By putting confidence in Christ we can stand before God, possibly experience the resurrection from the dead, and to be transformed in life.
3. Let’s forget what is behind and do best to reach what is ahead (recommended book: long obedience in the same direction):
After more than 30 years, this is what he wants to achieve (to know Christ more) but Paul hasn’t achieved yet. We need to have this mindset: we still have a long way to go.
Sometimes we misunderstand that we have done enough, that we have served enough or too much. Even Paul confessed that he didn’t obtain it, so we can’t say that we achieved this goal, we still have a long way to go. if we think we have achieved this goal already we will become jaded, complacent, arrogant, unmotivated, and go astray from the path that God wants us to go.
We need to do one thing: to forget what is behind. We need to forget our mistakes and failure, forget what happened in the past, and also however much we have done and our sacrifices for Christ in the past. We need to humble ourselves and forget what is behind because we still have a long way to go.
Two types of life:
Earthly mindset vs heavenly citizenship
Glory in shame vs sharing Christ’s glory
Destruction vs transformation at the end
Reflection Questions:
Where do you put your confidence?
Do you have the desire to know Christ more?
What are practical ways to know God more?
