PRESSING ON (Philippians 3: 4b-14) 3/17/13

          I really should have called this “Cindy’s Sermon,” or maybe  “Kathryn’s Sermon.” I have known my wife Cindy almost 20 years now. If there is one phrase by which she could be identified, it would be “Press On.” She gives all the credit to her mother Kathryn. According to Cindy, that was not only her mother’s mantra; it was also her advice to her children whenever they were in a pickle. Look for the answer, but don’t stand still. Press on. Don’t give up. Don’t quit. Keep moving and things will get better.

          Kathryin McCabe Scott had a good idea. It worked well for her daughters and it works well in life. It you’re looking for a creed to live by, you could do a lot worse. Press on. Now that Kathryn is a member of the Church Triumphant, I suspect that she has been able to compare notes with the apostle Paul and that they have had some stories to swap about what happens when you “press on.”  

I’ve gotten and given plenty of that sort of advice in my life. It’s practical and it’s perfect advice for someone who needs to shut down the pity party and get moving again. But here, Paul takes the principle a giant step further. He makes it a mantra by which to live the Christian life. When Paul gives us that advice, he finishes the thought with words that will not only show us the road, but also give us the reason why to take it. They are some of the most famous words ever uttered, certainly some of the most quoted in all of Scripture.

          Paul says: “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”          “Forgetting what lies behind…” Paul had a lot to forget. He was the Jew of Jews, the Pharisee of Pharisees, a persecutor of Christians. He was hardly the stuff of which Christians were made.  If they were giving out awards for the people who most despise Christianity, Paul would have been the grand prize winner. When Paul came to town, Christians hid in their homes.  Yes, Paul had plenty to forget.    

          “Straining forward to what lies ahead…” Paul also had plenty of reason not to strain forward. He wrote these words sitting in prison, most likely in Rome. The days ahead for anyone else but Paul would have been marked by only the certainty that life as he had known it and the freedom that he was used to, were over. His fate would be decided by the powers of Rome. But Paul came to Rome for a purpose. That purpose would cost him his life. He had had his chance at Caesarea to walk away, but chose instead to appeal to Caesar as a Roman citizen. Paul walked to the sound of a different drummer.

So about 32 A.D., Jesus stopped this man Saul in his persecuting tracks, turned him inside out and made him Paul. Three missionary journeys and twenty five years later, Paul sits in prison and writes to his beloved church in Philippi. His message is positive, upbeat. He is still a man in a hurry. His Savior is coming and he wants to be found ready.

Paul had everything. His family tree was pure. He was Jewish through and through. He was an Israelite, with roots all the way back to Jacob. He was of the favored tribe of Benjamin. You will remember Benjamin as  the only child of Rachel actually born in the Promised Land. Saul’s (Paul’s) namesake was of the same tribe and was the first king of Israel. There were only about six thousand Pharisees in Israel and Paul was among the most prominent. His was a rising star.  And then Jesus called.

Isn’t it ironic the way we work so hard, travel so far, piling up credentials, working and climbing to claw out our place in the world, striving to carve our name on the wall, only to find out that that for which we have worked so hard is of little value.  I once knew a fellow who was really driven. He worked hard to educate himself, went to prominent universities. He served in the military. Although he was a small town fella, he took job after job in big cities, moving up the ranks. He went to Law School and started his own law practice. He built a strong law firm. He went to church, became a deacon, then an elder. He joined all the clubs. He did all the right things to move up in the world. He got elected to the school board and was about to become President of the Chamber of Commerce---when it all came to a halt. His wife was beset with mental problems that were out of control. His four children were the silent victims of all that dysfunction.

That fella realized one thing. He had to protect his children. That decision changed everything. It cost him his marriage, his law partners, his community standing. Even his church began to murmur about who was at fault. He had nowhere to turn, no one to turn to. Like Paul, one decision changed his life.

And Paul tells us the “whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.” He goes on to say that all that he gave up, he now counts as rubbish. He counts all the achievements of his life to that point as so much more garbage, because they stood in the way of gaining Christ.

That fella I mentioned, he thought he knew Christ. Paul had a communication straight from Jesus on the road to Damascus. This fella didn’t have that. He just walked around the block a few thousand times and prayed. He would have walked somewhere else but his children were in the house asleep and he needed to stay close. So he walked round his house. He pressed on. He kept on going to church, although it was awkward. He dropped everything else except his job so he could raise his children. He didn’t have an epiphany, like Paul did. He just tried to pray and keep going. Over time, he too got the answers for which he prayed.

Paul tells the Philippians from his jail cell that he wants to be found in him, meaning Christ. Paul wants to be found in Christ. We usually think of Christ, or the Holy Spirit, being found in us. But Paul says he wants to be found in Jesus Christ. Perhaps he is thinking of standing before the judgment seat of God and wanting to be found in Jesus. I don’t know for sure what Paul means, but I am sure that he wants his life to be so wrapped up in Jesus that when you look at the one, you can’t help but see the other.

Paul says his righteousness does not come from him. His righteousness is spun from the threads of faith that life in Jesus has taught him. Faith is Paul’s answer to gaining Christ, and Christ is not only the object of faith; he is also the path to faith. Jesus says it like this in the Gospel of John: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (Jn. 15: 4).  If Paul were living today, he might say “that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

Did Paul get there in this life? Paul certainly didn’t think so. He spent the rest of his life in devotion to Jesus, preaching the good news from the hills of Athens to the prisons of Rome. He preached on riverbanks, in synagogues, on highways and in house churches. He pressed on.

Paul wanted resurrection. He believed in the resurrection of the body and he wanted to obtain that which his Savior had promised. He never took it for granted that he had done enough. He never believed that he had done enough. This is not a “works” doctrine. It is a love doctrine of the highest order. He tells the Philippians that “I press on to make it my own, because Christ has made me his own.” Even in prison, Paul exhorts himself and other Christians to stay in the race, to press on.

I was recently at a lecture series in which Robert Cooley was the featured speaker. Dr. Cooley has a storied fifty year career as a seminary professor and scholar as well as being quite an archeologist. After the lecture we spoke for a moment. I encouraged him not to quit, to which he remarked that the word retirement is not in the Bible.

Certainly retirement never occurred to Paul. He had too much to do, too many people to whom to carry the Gospel. Paul had God’s work to do, not only because it needed doing in other people’s lives, but because it needed doing in his own life.

That fella I mentioned? Twenty five years later, he enrolled in seminary, answering a call that had come in the shape of catastrophe and was formed in the stillness of midnight prayers. He didn’t have an epiphany like Paul, but the call was just as unmistakable. Long ago, he found that shedding baggage is the necessary task of service to the Master. That task still continues for him, too, as he tries to press on. I know that to be true, because I am that fella.

We press on. We press on toward the goal. What is the goal? It’s the prize, of course. So what is the prize? Listen now. Listen. Do you hear? You can hear it in the rustle of leaves in the wind. You can see it in small ripples of water as they make their way upstream. You can touch it in the innocence of a child’s hand. You can taste it in the breath of spring that now knocks on the doors of this community.

What is it? It is Jesus calling. Paul says it is the upward call of God---in Christ Jesus. Do you have something standing in the way of gaining Jesus Christ? Shed that baggage. Count it garbage and get rid of it. Press on toward that upward call.

 Listen. You can hear it and see it and touch it and taste it. Jesus is calling you. He called Paul. He called this messenger. He’s calling you too. He wants to make you “his own.”

Amen.