The third chapter of the book of Philippians is good to apply as we approach the end of one year and the beginning of a new year, and more particularly as we are facing the end of one era of existence and the golden era of fulfillment that is coming. From it we can draw encouragement and incentive to press into what God has for us in the days just before us.
In this chapter, Paul reviewed and evaluated his past life. He showed where he placed the emphasis out of all the things that had befallen him and where he was going to place the emphasis out of everything that he was. The Apostle Paul had a glorious way of having the right emphasis, of evaluating things in a correct way. He presented before the Church, for all time, the clearest, purest vision and driving passion of a saint of God that we have anywhere in the Scripture.
Philippians 3:1: Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not irksome, but for you it is safe. What did Paul mean, “the same things”? Paul meant he wasn’t trying to have something original and new to say each time, but he was aware he sometimes had to repeat the same things to people, again and again, because it was safe for them if essential truths were reviewed in their minds often enough.
Paul continued: Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the concision (he was talking about the apostate Jews who were persecuting the Church at that time): for we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence even in the flesh (this is the real circumcision that God honors): though I myself might have confidence even in the flesh: if any other man thinketh to have confidence in the flesh, I yet more: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; as touching zeal, persecuting the church; as touching the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless. Philippians 3:2–6.
This is what his evaluation of himself was as a man in the past. He didn’t say he was blameless; he said he was found blameless. He had all the appearances; he had everything there. This is the path of a man who could, under discipline and effort, attain almost any goal he ever set his mind to attain. There are a few people like that in the world. There are people who have purpose and will, and if they don’t have the ability, no one would ever know it because they bluff their way through; they find the way to do what they set out to do to accomplish certain things. Paul had that. But I want to point to a highlight of what he says next.
Verse 7: Howbeit what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ… “The things that were gain for me, cross them all out; not one of them means anything to me.”
“But Paul, you had attained so many wonderful things.” Did Paul have anything to glory in?
“Yes, if anybody had reason to glory in what they were in the flesh, I had more reason then they. If anyone thinks he can boast, I can boast as much as he can.” The achievements, the disciplines, the accomplishments in the flesh, in the natural plane, were unequaled. “When it comes right down to it, we are the circumcision who worship by the Spirit of God, who rejoice in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.” He said there was no way you could find anything lacking: “I excelled even above my brethren in zeal for the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Not anything that he was, after the natural, was of any value in his thinking. His evaluation of it was important. It is important, because this chapter is dealing with a man evaluating what is important in his life, and Paul does a better job of it than any other man. No one in the entire history of the Church has ever put in words a better evaluation of what is important, and putting the emphasis where it belongs in a man’s life, than Paul did in the third chapter of Philippians. The evaluation of things by a lot of good people may be terrible. Not so with Paul. He knew what was important. He knew what was not important.
“Paul, all of these things—weren’t they important?”
“I count them all but loss.” … yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ… Philippians 3:8.
These are hard words. To understand this word, “refuse,” you would have to understand those times. The Greek was a little more blunt. In this day, outside of stables are manure piles. In Paul’s day, outside the cities were refuse piles. That was the day of emptying the slop-jar into the street. That was the day before plumbing and bathrooms to flush away human refuse. To walk through the streets in an ancient city, before the days of modern plumbing, was sometimes an unpleasant experience. Paul said, “This is what I count it!” That is why they had foot-washing, and the most menial of servants washed the feet of those who came in the house, or they were unable to live within the house. You can begin to understand what it would be like. Paul said, “This is my evaluation of everything else. I count all of these things but loss. I count them but refuse.” Paul was using blunt language when he said, “My past is mere refuse. I count my past to be nothing but a stinking mess, an unsavory thing.”
“Don’t you cherish it?”
“No. For the things that were counted gain to me, I’ve counted them loss for Christ. Everything is loss, except one thing: that I can win Christ and be found in Him.” Bold, hard thoughts were in his thinking; he was a man who was hardheaded about what he decided was important. This is the man who had achieved what he had sought after in almost every field of endeavor. And when he had achieved it, Christ met his life, and he finally realized that all of his efforts were nothing. It is what Christ had become in his life that was really important, and that opened up a whole new emphasis to him.
Talk about instant change, he was the man who knew what it meant. There is no man in the New Testament that had such instant grace, instant growth, and instant change as the Apostle Paul on his way to Damascus, breathing out threatenings and slaughter as his heart was filled with rage against the Church, until the Light came from heaven. He fell under it and he said, “Who art thou, Lord?” And He answered, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. It is hard for you to kick against the pricks.”
“What do You want me to do, Lord?” This was instant change. God stopped him and he was converted immediately. Before the week was out, he was in the synagogue teaching and testifying of Christ. This was the man who had everything going for him: influence, power, position. But it was nothing. It was instant change because he suddenly saw the folly of everything else.
When we have such a moment of truth, suddenly everything clears up for us, and it is wonderful. Usually it takes Christ to do this. Very few people can come into a crisis that jars them into a decision and an evaluation like Paul had. There are people who never begin to evaluate what is important. They never come to an instant change because the things working upon them are so gradual and so deadly that they do not realize they are drifting, drifting, drifting, and nothing ever brings them to a real, clear-cut decision as to what they should do and what is important in their lives. Even though they do come to it, it is not a wholehearted thing.
A person can have a habit that is bad: “Oh, I know this smoking is a nasty, dirty habit, and I shouldn’t do it.” Once-in-awhile they read reports about lung cancer, and it gives them a start, but nothing jars them. They do nothing about it until the day there is a diagnosis of cancer in the lung. Then begins the intense fear and worship. People know they ought to do the right thing, but they keep indulging themselves and following the ways of the world until suddenly they are caught in it. They are never brought to any good, clear-cut decision as to what they ought to do and ought not to do. As long as they can get along, they will come right up to a disaster without making a decision. They are never called to an evaluation.
“Well, a little drink doesn’t hurt anyone, and my nerves are bad.” It is surprising how well equipped people are for snake bites in these days. It can sneak up on them before they know it and finally become something that is deadly, but still the decision doesn’t come. The emphasis and evaluation doesn’t come because people are not brought face to face with what is really happening to them—no instant change like that which came for the life of Paul, finally standing with his eyes blind from the Light, groping and wanting someone to lead him into the city of Damascus. “Now what do I do? What’s important to me now? What’s going to be important to my life? Where shall the emphasis be placed now?” The Lord healed him, saved him, baptized him in water, filled him with the Holy Spirit, and the next Sabbath he was in the synagogue disputing that Jesus was the Christ.
“Paul, didn’t you have some other business?”
“No other business now, but one—the business of Christ. What things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ. Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do not count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith: that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection of the dead (the simple evaluation of where he stood). Not that I have already obtained, or am already perfect: but I press on … (I like that: “I press on”). Philippians 3:7–12.
What is really happening to your life, to your spirit? What is happening down deep within you? Are you drifting, drifting, beyond recall? Are you coming closer to the falls, to the precipice, than you know? The things that you do may not be evil, except they are occupying your time and energy until you are missing the great thing that God has for your life. Nothing could be more tragic.
Paul was suddenly brought face to face with something: “Who art Thou, Lord?”
“I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.”
“What would Thou have me to do?” That’s it! And God told him what to do. Instant change!
And Paul was asked afterward, “What do you think about your past?” But Paul didn’t say, “Well, it was quite a past. I know that I’m not going to be a member of the Sanhedrin anymore, but I think I’ll go everywhere, still dressed in the Sanhedrin robes, and say that I’m going to give lectures on what it was like to be in the Sanhedrin.” Nothing doing! He forgot that—forgetting those things which are behind—he forgot those things.
“I press on. I press on.” He couldn’t be stopped. He was a salty old character—he had been soaked in the brine long enough—remember the shipwrecks he had been in, the days and nights he had spent in the deep? He didn’t have arrogance, but he had a kind of crustiness. He said in one epistle, From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus (scars from head to foot, marks of the lash that were there). Galatians 6:17. Fairweather Christians came along, not yet dry behind the ears, trying to tell him what it was all about, and he said, “Don’t anyone bother me. I have, from head to foot, the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul the Apostle, pressing in, thought it was glorious to be a partaker of the sufferings of Christ.
“What are you going to do now, Paul? Are you looking forward to retirement? Isn’t it a shame that the Church isn’t organized well enough for some retirement benefits for you?”
“Ah, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). That is the whole feeling of the epistle of Philippians. “It is better for me to die.” I was thinking about that and meditating on the resurrection: thinking how wonderful the resurrection will be, because I struggle with so many limitations on a psychic and spiritual level. Do you realize those will all be gone on the day of resurrection? It will be wonderful.
Paul knew what it was: “Oh, to depart and be with the Lord would be far better for me, but for you it is imperative that I stay here and help you. So I’ll stay.” He was willing to forego it, but he wanted them to know that he did it reluctantly, for only one reason, that he still loved them and wanted to minister to them. What an attitude he had! “I’m pressing on.” I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12. In other words, “I want to lay hold upon that which God had in mind when He laid hold upon me.” God had something in mind for Paul’s life when He reached down and took hold of him. Paul asked, “What is it that You want?” And the Lord showed him what He had for him, so Paul was pressing on to lay hold on that which God had in mind when He laid hold upon Paul.
What are we reaching for, Paul? We are reaching for those things that God had planned for us before the foundation of the world. We are pressing into them. There is no fatalism; Paul is a predestinarian all the way. He is always talking about being predestined to certain things. God had a plan and a foreknowledge, and He predestined man to Himself, but it is never in a fatalistic, Calvinistic sense. Paul was never fatalistic. He believed God had a plan and a purpose, a blueprint for his life, things God planned for him in ages past, but he always had it by faith, never a fatalism in his thinking. “I’m pressing toward it. God had it for me, and I’m going to have it.” That was his attitude.
Many things where standing in Paul’s way. He was never bothered by that. He was the one who wrote the epistle to the Corinthians and said, “A great door and effectual is open to me of the Lord at Ephesus and there are many adversaries” (I Corinthians 16:9). That goes along with every open door. The Lord never opens a door but what there are a lot of devilish dogs barking and nipping at your heels every step that you go. On the farm, when a good team of horses were putting their backs to it and really pulling a load, dogs would go along barking at them. That always bothered me. You may have a dog that you love very dearly, and I have had in my lifetime a few dogs that were very close to us, but as far as most dogs are concerned, I hold almost to the Scriptural version of them. The Bible’s opinion of dogs is low. Certain people are called dogs. They seldom pull the load. Dogs wag their tails to be fed and are called man’s best friend. It is not so; they do very little for man except eat his food and bark. Pulling the load is what counts.
“Paul, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to press on!” There are two classes of people in every church: people who represent the problem, and people who represent the solution to the problem. There are always those who are barking, murmuring, complaining, and then there are the peacemakers who make the Body adhere into what God wants it to be. Paul said, “I know what is important; I know what I’m going to do; I’m going to press on with all my heart; I’m going to do the will of God. I press on!”
Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward (stretching is a paraphrase of the Greek word meaning “living on tip-toe”)to the things which are before… Verse 13. Oh, to live with that kind of zest for life! You witness this in runners. A track shoe has spikes under the ball of the foot, but little or nothing under the heel. Why? Because they run on their toes. That is where the spring is. “I’m pressing forward. I’m reaching up for the thing God has for me.” Paul was sprinting for it.
“What about the past?”
“Forget it.”
“Well, I’ve got to take a year out and write about the great revival I had at Ephesus!” Ha, not Paul! He was too busy having more revivals in other places than to do that. Probably the one reason the Lord put him in jail the last five years of his life, at least the last five recorded years we have in the Bible, was so he would sit down and write some epistles to the Church and we would have a New Testament; so that it would be glorious for us. He was an active man: forgetting the things which were behind—forgetting those things.
There are people who are completely changed by their past, not their past defeats on a conscious level, but those defeats which go to a subconscious level and hang them up in other ways. Sometimes they are very much limited by their past victories and experiences. You can always recognize an aggressive soul. I recall testimony meetings in which some would be bubbling and praising God, not much about experiences of the past, but just bubbling over and sharing in a wonderful way. Then someone would get up, “I thank the Lord I’ve been in the way for over forty years. Way back there the Lord met me; He blessed me.”
Has He done anything for you lately?
“I don’t know, nothing much lately. That was such a wonderful blessing that I’ve lived in it ever since.”
Some of these blessings have a way of evaporating. You can have a glorious experience in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, yet it is important to understand the Holy Spirit as an experience of the Spirit of God coming within you and opening the door to a walk with God, a walk in the Spirit, and a walk in the supernatural realm of the Spirit. But I can remember this danger from my youth: the baptism of the Holy Spirit was presented as an experience of such finality. A person would tarry and tarry, and seek and seek. It had to be something special: “Thank God, I received the Holy Spirit—I prayed through!” (then he was through; that was it; he would look back, but there were no other experiences to look forward to). “I talked in tongues for six hours, and I saw twenty-four angels in vision. It was marvelous!” That is what he would tell about in testimony services for the next twenty years—those twenty-four angels he had seen. He would keep remembering that, but it would grow dimmer and dimmer until it became an experience he was defending.
Instead of it being that, people must see the Holy Spirit, not only as One who brings an experience, but as God himself opening the door to us for a Spirit-filled life. That is what Paul saw. Those experiences opened the door. What about all of those things in the past, Paul? “Forget them, forget everything. Let’s press on, press on, press on—reaching, stretching forth to those things which are before; anticipating, because within our hearts is the right emphasis. We know the right goals to shoot for; we’ve evaluated it carefully; we know what’s important; we know what is not important.” I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
That is what I’m doing. The greatest thing you can do at the end of the year, and one of the most difficult, is to forget the things that are behind, and reach forward to the things that are before. We are handicapped by our past more than we know. We carry in our subconscious, attitudes that were beaten into us because of past defeats, attitudes during circumstances, and we never quite get over them as we go along. Going down the road you see someone you have never before seen, yet something in you bristles. You have a feeling of anger because he looks just like someone who cheated you twenty-five years ago, who borrowed money and never paid it back, or something of that nature. Perhaps someone stole something from you. You knew he did it but you could never prove it. You look at another man, but he reaps something out of your subconscious. There is an association. He has the wrong shaped face. He looks like a man that did something wrong. Those impressions keep coming up. How we carry prejudices and feelings from the past! It does not take much to trigger them off, and you realize how many little pools of resentment and bitterness are buried with your heart.
How wonderful it would be to become like Paul: so well organized as an individual and so completely set upon God that you could say, “I’m pressing for the mark and forgetting the things that are past. I’m reaching forward to the things that are before.”
“Paul, don’t you ever want to sit down and think about the great things that are before?”
“Forget them!”
“I thought you only forgot about your troubles and defeats and your problems.”
No. In fact, if you remember anything, it is better to remember your troubles than it is to remember your victories. Many people are limited in what they will ever attain, because they are limited by past victories. A man writes one book that goes over; the rest of his life he may be hung up and never do anything more because he is living in the past, unless he can forget past victories and press on to the things that are before.
We must understand what is important and what should have the emphasis. Some people wash their cars twice a week, polish them, and do their daily obeisance to the gods of metal. Why do we set our hearts on so many little things that we have? Why are we giving such emphasis to them when there is a great walk in the Spirit? What is going to be important to you this next year? What are you working for? What do you want? Do you want to move in gifts of the Holy Spirit? Do you want to move into the realm of God? Do you want to tackle a Goliath and watch him fall, watch him hit, all nine feet to the ground? Do you want to see the will of God wrought in people’s lives? Do you want to have a glow in your spirit because every time you see some of the families in the church and bless them, you know that you helped them weather through the storms; you helped them in the hours of their need until God had rooted them into a walk with God? Is this what you want? Are these the things that are important? That is the way one of our young mothers lives, and her husband blesses her in every bit of it. They have their home looking nice for Bible study, yet she doesn’t worry when the youngsters mess it up during meetings. Why? Because she is dedicated that people are going to be blessed. Have people been blessed? Yes. We have family after family who have come in, soaking up everything God is doing because of that, because someone places a higher premium on the things that are important, the things that are not seen, the things that are down in the hearts of the people. Paul said, “I have evaluated it; I’ve decided where the emphasis should be. This is what I work for. I’m pressing on.” What else did he say?
Verse 12: Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect: but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus. God has hold of you too. He has His hand on your life. He loves you very much. There is so much He wants to do for you. Paul said, “Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold, but one thing I do, and this is it.” I doubt the old saying that you can kill two birds with one stone. Birds being what they are and stones being what they are, it is almost impossible to kill two birds with one stone. Better to hit one big bird with the stone. “I, Paul, understand the worthwhile goal of saying, ‘This one thing I do—one thing.’ ” Many things are good; many other things are necessary; many other things will take sleep away from you, but there is always the one thing that is needful—the one thing.
A girl came to Jesus saying, “Do you see my lazy sister sitting at your feet listening to all that you have to say, and do you not care that I have the dinner to cook and serve all by myself?”
“O Martha, Martha, you are careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful—one thing. Mary has chosen that; it will not be taken from her. You have to decide.”
A woman walked into a penny candy store exclaiming, “Oh, I haven’t seen anything like this since I was a kid.” She pulled a dollar bill out of her purse and said, “Give me four of those and five of these…” until she finally had a sackful of penny candy. “Oh, that is delightful; I haven’t had so much fun since I was a kid!” The wise old storekeeper said, “The next time you come in, if you want to have some fun, bring just one penny—one penny!”
Do you grasp the wisdom of the old fellow? Watch the little children: in their grimy hands they have one penny or one nickel. They can’t get much for a penny, but they look it all over and they drool. Finally they point to the one they want. If it is a jawbreaker, that is what they are going to get. One penny.
You have to decide when you come into life what is important to you. You have only twenty-four hours each day. What are you going to be? What are you going to do? “Ah, this one thing I do. One thing I do: forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forth to the things that are before, I press toward the goal of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. I have it; I know what I’m after. I’m after this goal in God. It is more important than anything else. I’ll get it.”
“Suppose I seek first the Kingdom of God, what will happen to me? Will my family be neglected; will my business be neglected; will everything else fall to pieces?”
All of these other things will be added to you. He has already assured you. It will be in His hands. To evaluate and to emphasize correctly is the secret of great living. You can become many, many things. Maybe you sell furniture on the side to pay expenses, but you are doing the will of God first. That’s what we are going to do.
The greatest favor the Lord did for me when I came into this glorious walk was to kill the past. Like an old rooster moulting, I wasn’t flying high, and I was loosing all my feathers. I could not preach or pray, or do anything. All the things I had been able to do to move congregations were gone. All I had left was an experience with God, and I was aware of an emptying out. That was the best thing that ever happened to me, because I was enabled to forget a past ministry, and the Lord brought something that was far better. “He taketh away the old that He might establish the new” (Hebrews 10:9). That’s what the Lord wants to do.
Some of you need a new year, a new life, and new experiences. Past resentments, past compulsions, past fears, past associations, and all the things that have been harmful, need to buried under the blood of Jesus Christ. You can say, “Hallelujah, it’s full steam ahead: a new day, a new life, a whole new year!” Let’s live it without carrying the burden of the past upon our shoulders. No man is wise enough to beat the problems of today plus the recriminations of yesterday and the problems of tomorrow at the same time. Jesus tried to teach people to live in day-tight compartments. He said, Sufficient unto the day is the evil therof. Matthew 6:34. You are not to take any thought of tomorrow: what you will eat, what you will wear. For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. Verses 31–32.
What was He trying to tell people? Live in day-tight compartments. Yesterday is gone. Don’t try to live it again today. It probably wasn’t worth being relived. Live it once and forget it. Live it today, and live it with all of your heart. Live it like Paul did—pressing on. The secret of attaining great goals is to put forth the effort and the living of today to the utmost in God. Do not live tomorrow until you get to it. A man may worry about the mountain and how he is going to climb that last peak, but he should be more concerned about the step he is going to take right now, because the trip to the mountain is made, one step after another.
The way to attain the things in God is to glance up and see those things that are before us, yet give attention every day that we are going to live pressing on. Forget the things that are behind. Nothing is more dangerous than for a runner to look back. He will break his stride almost every time. Don’t look back. Press on. Jesus said, “If any man puts his hand to the plow and looks back, he isn’t fit for the Kingdom of God.” We don’t want to do that. We want to press on.
There is a great day before us. “Lord, yesterday, and all the days before it, let it be buried under the blood of Jesus Christ.” Let us do today what God wants us to do: serve the Lord with all our hearts.