Christian sanctification is the pursuit of something outside myself, not something inside myself. It is the pursuit of Christ's likeness. And the more I know Him, and the more I am focused on Him, and the more I am in communion with Him, the more the Spirit makes me like Him. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. If you were to ask a group of Christians the question, How do I grow in godliness? and take a poll of their answers. They'll probably give you a list of things to do, like reading your Bible and praying and worshiping with other believers. And all of that is right and good, but sometimes it's more important to know what not to do, what to stay away from at all costs. With that in mind, John MacArthur is going to look at what the Bible says about fleeing your enemies, helping you recognize the influences in your life that will keep you from becoming more like Christ. It's part of John's current study called Reaching for the Prize.
And now here's John with a lesson. Let's open our Bibles then to Philippians chapter 3, Philippians chapter 3. And we are continuing our look at this wonderful subject of pursuing the prize.
You know from this particular text that the heart of the section is found in verse 14. Paul says, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Paul says, I pursue the prize.
I press toward the goal. We have noted all along that the prize and the goal is the same thing. It is to be like Jesus Christ. That was the single focus of Paul's life back in verse 8.
He says, I count everything else to be loss. I have one great quest to know Christ Jesus my Lord. He says down in verse 13, one thing I do.
And that one thing is forgetting the other things I press on toward the goal. So he had a life focus of knowing Jesus Christ so well, so deeply, so richly that He was becoming like Christ. That is the goal of every Christian's life. Now beloved, let me remind you that in all of the chaos, confusion, and all of the myriad of options and complexity of contemporary Christianity, everything in our Christian experience can be boiled down to this one great truth. The goal of my life is to be like Christ.
Everything else spins off of that. All my service, all my relationships, all my worship, everything spins off of being like Christ. If I am like Christ, I will worship God in the way He worshiped God. If I am like Christ, I will serve God in the way He served God.
If I am like Christ, I will relate to people in the love in which He related to people. In other words, the simple focus of my life is to be like Christ. That is why I must let the Word about Christ dwell in me richly, as Colossians 3.16 says. That is why I must gaze at the glory of Christ, 2 Corinthians 3.18, so that I can be changed into His image. That is why Christ must be fully formed in me, Galatians 4.19. That is why if I say I abide in Him, I ought to walk the way He walked, 1 John 2. I am to be like Christ.
This is the goal of my life. So the goal of my life as a Christian is outside of me. It is not in me. It is outside of me.
It is beyond me. I am not preoccupied with myself. I am preoccupied with becoming like Christ. And that is something that only the Holy Spirit can do as I focus on Christ.
I focus on Him and the Spirit transforms me into His image. As you well know, there are many devastating things that have encroached upon the pure understanding of this truth in the church, not the least of which is humanistic psychology. Humanistic psychology has had a devastating effect on Christians and on Christian theology for a number of reasons. But one of these reasons is built into the very basic humanistic philosophy that man exists for his own satisfaction. It is the very bottom line in humanism that man, to be happy, must have all of his perceived needs and desires met. And so humanism says that the goal of life is to have all of my wants fulfilled, all of my desires accomplished, all of my needs met. Man will be happy, say the psychologist, man will be content, man will be satisfied when his desires are met, when his longings are met, when his needs are met, when he is fulfilled. Contemporary presentations of the gospel have sucked up this humanistic psychology and philosophy unwittingly. And you have the good news of self-worth, the good news of the value of you as a person, the good news of security, the good news of significance, the good news of prosperity of health, wealth and happiness, the psychological gospel, the prosperity gospel.
And even contemporary sanctification is fraught with this humanistic needs mentality, that sanctification is a process by which all of my needs are being met so I can be an effective Christian. So if I've got a problem in my life, I have to discover that problem, iron out that problem, solve that problem. If I have some unfulfillment in my life, I've got to fill that pocket with fulfillment. If I have dissatisfaction in my life, I've got to get satisfaction in that area. If I am not able to accomplish everything that is in me, all my desires aren't being met.
Somehow I'll never be fulfilled until all of those perceived needs are met. That has encroached upon the church in a major way so that much of preaching, teaching, writing today has to do with problems and needs and satisfaction and fulfillment of one's own personal desires. Tony Walter has written a book entitled Need the New Religion... Need the New Religion. In it he says this, It is fashionable to follow the view of some psychologists that the self is a bundle of needs and that personal growth is the business of progressively meeting these needs.
Many Christians go along with such beliefs. Further he says, One mark of the almost total success of this new morality is that the Christian church traditionally keen on mortifying the desires of the flesh, on crucifying the needs of the self in pursuit of Christ-likeness, has eagerly adopted the language of needs for itself. We now hear that Jesus will meet your every need as though He were some kind of divine psychiatrist or divine detergent and as though God were simply to serve us." Now this kind of need mentality leads to a man-centered theology, a man-centered salvation, and a man-centered sanctification so that the goal of Christian living has become for many Christians getting my needs met, being fulfilled, being happy, having a good self-image, a high standard of self-worth, etc., etc.
Resolving all my conflict, eliminating all my problems, and I am focused on that. The satisfaction of my perceived need is the goal of my salvation and the goal of my sanctification. That's not true. That is diametrically opposed to what the Bible teaches. The satisfaction of human need is neither the goal of salvation nor is it the goal of sanctification. It's not the goal of either. The goal of salvation is that you might be conformed to the image of God's Son. Thus, that's the goal of sanctification. The goal of my life is not to make sure I'm satisfied but to make sure God is satisfied.
That's the goal of my life. But you see, humanistic need psychology has become quasi-Christian need theology and so you have a man-centered sanctification instead of a Christ-centered sanctification. Man becomes central rather than Christ.
This is a major change. All you need to do is look back, for example, to someone like A. W. Tozer who simply said, Faith looks out instead of in and the whole of life falls into line, end quote. Christian sanctification is the pursuit of something outside myself, not something inside myself. It is the pursuit of Christ-likeness. It is not a matter of assessing me. It is a matter of knowing Him deeply.
And the more I know Him and the more I am focused on Him and the more I am in communion with Him, the more the Spirit makes me like Him. The more I focus on myself, the more distracted I am from the proper path. Now, in the Christian life, we are pressing toward a goal. That goal is not the satisfaction of my own needs. That goal is not the satisfaction of my own desire for greater significance. That is not the goal of my life. The goal of my life is to be like Christ.
Now let me approach this from another angle as well. I have never met a successful person, an effective person, an impactful person in any realm of enterprise in the world who was not committed to reaching goals. The people who impact the world are pursuers. They're winners.
They're competitors. They know what it is, listen to this, to ignore personal comfort, to reach a goal outside themselves. They make incredible sacrifices for the wrong reasons to reach the wrong goals. But the people who impact society, the people who affect society, the people who leave an imprint on society are not the kind of people whose lives are consumed with making sure their own needs are met, even from a human viewpoint, to say nothing from a spiritual viewpoint. Those in the spiritual dimension, however, who leave an impact are equally competitors, winners.
I don't think people really understand that. I have read enough biographies of famous Christians. I have heard enough messages and lectures.
I have read enough articles. I have visited enough places in the world to see the memorabilia of famous Christian leaders to know this. There are no hidden secrets about an impactful life. It is the direct result of a maximum effort to reach a spiritual goal and in the process ignore your own personal situation. It is amazing what great preachers, great theologians, and great missionaries have suffered in the process of reaching a spiritual goal.
And they all have one thing in common. It was of little concern to them to consider their own human condition apart from the fact that they considered it theologically. It was of major concern to them that they follow Christ, pursue Christ.
There are no secrets. Effective lives belong to people who pursue goals that are outside of themselves and they pursue them almost blindly. The same is true spiritually. The people who live an impact on the church and the world are those who have a spiritual goal on which they are focused, that goal of being like Jesus Christ.
They pursue that with little thought of the conditions of their own human life. That's Paul. That's Paul. He says, I'm not interested in anything else, verse 8. I consider everything else a loss. All I want is one thing.
I want the prize, verse 14. That's what made him great. It was that ability to be so totally focused on a goal and that's what we're talking about.
That's what we're talking about. We all are called to pursue the goal. And again, the goal is to be conformed to the image of God's Son. We are pursuing that, let me say it simply, as our total Christian duty. Can I simplify the whole Christian life for you? The whole Christian life can be boiled down pursuing Christ's likeness. That's it. That's it.
If that helps you clear up the fog, then that alone is a great service to your spiritual progress. Now, what are the necessary elements in doing this? Now that will bring us to our text, verse 17. What are the necessary elements? We've already gone through the rest of the chapter.
That was just a review. What do we have to have? What will help us in pursuing the prize? Number one, we suggested last time that we must follow after examples. We must follow after examples.
That was point one in verse 17. Brethren, join in following my example and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. Remember I told you that Paul says, look, you've got to have somebody to show you the path.
Now listen again, let me repeat this truth that I mentioned to you. Christ is the perfect model. Christ is the pattern of perfection. But Paul and others are the pattern of the pursuit of that perfection. I see in Christ what I want to be, but I cannot see in Christ how to get there. Why? Because Christ didn't follow some path to perfection.
He was always perfect. You see? So if I look at Christ, I see what I am to be. And if I look at Paul and other believers, I can see how to move that direction.
As I see those who are able to deal with temptation and sin in the pursuit of the prize. So Paul says, you need an example. You need someone to follow. You need a model. So follow me and those who walk according to the pattern that you have seen in us. In other words, get some models and follow them. Now we're right into the heart of discipleship.
That's what we're all about. We need a human pattern to follow. Beloved, here is the essence of the matter of church leadership. What is church leadership?
I'll tell you simply what it is. It is not just speaking the Word and preaching the Word. It is being the model that people can follow in the pursuit of Christlikeness.
That's the high calling. That is why leadership in the church is so highly regarded in the Scripture. And that is why a person's life has to be above reproach and blameless. Because that person is the pattern of pursuing Christlikeness the people are asked to follow. And then they follow Him and others follow them and others follow them and that's how the church functions. That's why when a person fails to be the pattern, it isn't enough for them still to be the preacher. Because now you've split the whole thing right down the middle and you've got a preacher who isn't a pattern and all you have are words but nothing is demonstrated. So, Paul says, look, in this pursuing of the prize, follow the proper examples.
Find those godly pastors and leaders who are above reproach, whose lives are blameless, who are walking the way a believer should walk, who are being obedient. They're not perfect, but the direction of their life is right. They're pursuing the prize and follow them. Now, flip that over.
There's a negative side. That takes us to point two. Not only are we to follow after examples, but two, we are to flee enemies. We are to flee enemies.
Paul is always concerned about this. Look at verse 18. For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you, even weeping, they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.
Now, what's he saying? He's saying, follow my example and the people who live the way I live in the pursuit of the prize. You follow us because so many others are the enemies of the cross of Christ. He's simply saying, watch out that you don't follow them.
That's the idea. In the pursuit of Christ's likeness, there are some to be followed, listen carefully, and there are many to be avoided. He narrows it down. He says, follow me, verse 17, and those who follow the pattern that I have set. And then he says, many are the enemies of Christ. The word many, do you see at the beginning of verse 18? Not a few. Many.
They're everywhere. Now, beloved, here's the challenge in the church. Listen carefully. Here's the challenge, especially in a high-profile media society like ours. Do you realize the exposure that bad examples get today? Do you realize the exposure that enemies of the cross of Christ find for themselves today through radio, television, books, and so forth? You have to be very careful and very discerning not to follow someone who is masquerading as a friend and is really an enemy of the cross. So in verses 18 and 19, and I want us to focus on this, he introduces us to the enemies of the cross of Christ. Now let me suggest to you here that the implication of the text is that these people are not stated as enemies. They don't come down the road saying, we're against the cross, we're against Christ, we deny His work on the cross, we deny salvation by grace through faith, etc.
They don't do that. They're not subtle. Anybody who does that's not a threat, right? But these are people who say they are the friends of Christ and the cross of Christ, who advocate Christ, who identify with Christ, whose names are on the church roll, who want spiritual leadership, but they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. They're very subtle. It takes discernment to recognize them. Beloved, this is such a ringing, constant theme in the New Testament that you almost feel like you're in a revolving door on this subject. Jesus said it, beware of those who come to you in sheep's clothing and inwardly they are wolves.
Later on in Matthew 23, He described them again. He was concerned about the false teachers, the false leaders, the Antichrists in chapter 24. You find it all through the book of Acts, the false as against the true, the Simon Maguses, the Elamesses, the sorcerers, whoever they are, the false claiming in the name of God to cast out demons later on in the book of Acts. You find it in Paul's epistles as he warns, for example, stay away from endless genealogies, stay away from speculations, stay away from false teachers, no sound doctrine, pure doctrine.
Avoid the janglings and the harangings of those who are not true teachers. Peter gives an entire epistle, 2 Peter, to the unmasking of false teachers. Jude is concerned about it. John is concerned about it in his three epistles. It is all through the Scripture. We must beware of the enemies who masquerade as friends.
That's the idea here. He has to tell the Philippians that they are enemies of the cross of Christ because they're very subtle. And frankly, folks, the church lacks discernment. I continue to be absolutely astounded at the stuff and at the people that Christians will follow because they are so undiscerning. If you have a lack of precise biblical teaching as we do today, if you have a lack of precise, clear doctrine as we do today, you have a lack of precise, clear thinking.
And if you have a lack of precise, clear thinking, you cannot have discernment. And so people are victimized by the widespread exposure of those who in truth are enemies of the cross of Christ. Now let's go back to verse 18 and look a little more particularly at what he says. For many walk, walk being the idea of daily conduct, manner of life, course of living.
This is their pattern. He says, many walk of whom I often told you. Some see this as a reference back to chapter 1 verse 28 where he mentions not being alarmed by your enemies or your opponents, but that doesn't seem to be the best interpretation of that phrase. The fact that he says of whom I often told you probably refers to times when he was with the Philippians. And he was repeatedly telling them about people who would come along outwardly identifying with Christ, but who would be enemies of the true gospel.
Paul was ever and always in a warning mode. Do you remember back in Acts that very familiar 20th chapter where Paul gives so much teaching on ministry? He says in verse 31 to the Ephesian elders, be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I didn't cease to warn each one with tears. What an amazing statement. For three years, night and day, I warned each individual with tears about false teachers, false leaders, false doctrine. And then he says the only thing I can do is commend you to his word which will build you up. You're protected by the word.
If you don't know the word, you're not protected. That's John MacArthur, chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, outlining a practical guide for running the race of the Christian life. John's current study is called Reaching for the Prize, Year on Grace to You.
Well, John, here we are with a new year just hours away, maybe even less than that depending on when people are hearing this. And before the calendar turns to the year 2025, you have some encouragement for our listeners who would like to have an active role in our ministry. Well, in fact, unless listeners have an active role in this ministry, this ministry will not exist. It is completely dependent on the support, the giving of those to whom this ministry delivers blessing and they respond in their generosity. Grace to You is available in this community you're hearing it in. It's available across this country and even around the world because there are people who regularly support this ministry. We don't have any other means of support than the consistent donations of those who want to be partners with us in spreading the word of God across the globe. And I think you know because you know the nature of this ministry and you understand the power of the word of God. That people are coming to know the Lord, they're being saved, they're growing in their relationship with Him as they listen to Grace to You.
And that includes people in your neighborhood, maybe it includes you. We're committed to living within our financial means, so we're only able to do what you allow us to do in your giving. We're not aggressive about fundraising. For years I've said, we'll take care of the depth of this ministry and we'll let the Lord take care of the breadth of it. We're careful stewards of your support, we don't take that stewardship lightly. We know it comes really from the Lord through you and our stewardship is both to you and to Him. It's important to have you standing with us as we move into 2025.
This is a tough world we live in and getting worse seems like every day. Your prayers are what we need most, your support obviously critical. So thank you for interceding for us, for praying and thank you for giving. And if you are benefiting from Grace to You and you want to take a strategic part in what the Lord is doing. And I can say biblically, be a participant in heavenly reward. You can send us a year-end gift that will allow this ministry to go into 2025 with strength and developing new outlets. There's still time to make a tax-deductible donation.
You can do that by mail or go to gty.org. Thank you and a blessed new year to you and yours. Thanks, John. And friend, if you're thankful for John's verse-by-verse teaching and you'd like to partner with us, make a year-end gift and help send us into 2025 with a strong financial foundation. Get in touch with us today. You can mail your gift to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. Or you can express your support online at gty.org. And just a reminder, for your gift to be tax-deductible for 2024, you need to complete your donation online by 1159 tonight. Again, go to gty.org or you can send a check if you get it postmarked today, December 31st.
The address one more time, Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. Now, if something John said today or any time this year has strengthened you or given you practical biblical guidance for your Christian life, would you let us know? Your letter is an encouragement reminding us of why we do what we do, broadcasting biblical truth that changes lives. And even a short email will encourage us more than you know. Our email address, letters at gty.org. One more time, that's letters at gty.org. Now, for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson, wishing you a blessed New Year. And we hope you'll start 2025 with us tomorrow when John helps you recognize some influences in your life that can stunt your spiritual growth. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Grace to You.
