One of the pronounced themes about the book of Philippians is this whole idea of joy and rejoicing.
But why? I think this is a book, if you will, about having the mind of Christ. Thinking about real life circumstances in light of the thinking of Christ. I need to live with a gospel transformed mind. My perspective on the circumstances of life must be shaped by the gospel.
We are living in a day where we are blitzed with information all the time. And our brain is designed that in one way, shape, or form, it does process that information. And when it does, it informs or it transforms our perspective.
And I am here to challenge us today that there are things in life that we need to at least understand whether my perspective on those things is informed or transformed. And so I believe in this book as we study it together. What is God saying should be my perspective on that.
And if I make the change from one to the other, will it result in me living a life that is marked by a peaceful, settled joy in God. Welcome to The Daily Platform, a radio program featuring chapel messages from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Today, Dr. Alan Benson is continuing the study series called The Mind of Christ from the book of Philippians. Take your Bibles and turn with me this morning to Philippians chapter three, Philippians chapter three. We are continuing through the book of Philippians, but I don't want you to feel out of place as we come to this passage of scripture. It is a whole thought passage. And so while it's a continuation for us, it is God's inspired word for you. The apostle Paul writing, and I'm going to pick up in verse nine of chapter three, says this, and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness, which is of God by faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering being made conformable unto his death.
If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead, not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. I'm going to end our reading there this morning, though we're going to work through the rest of the passage. We've been looking at different facets of life really in this book, as Paul addresses them, and as we have been, we've been contemplating this theme, learning the mind of Christ. We've seen throughout this book that a recurrent theme throughout the book is the mind and thinking.
It goes to the inner man. We know very famous passages where that is spoken of specifically, but one of the things that we looked at was really this little phrase that also we see repeated. In fact, we see the word joy or rejoicing about 25 times throughout this book. And I think because of that recurrence, it is a superimposed theme on actually the whole of the book that makes it theologically lighter than we actually should be grasping it to be. This isn't a book where Paul is simply saying, look, be happy. He actually is driving a theological truth that changes how we view life, and through that kind of change, that kind of perspective-altering thinking, we actually can have joy in the Lord. And this idea of, at the beginning of chapter three, to rejoice in the Lord is actually a call to reset our thinking that way.
Oh wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I have to think differently. That results in an evaluation that causes me to view my circumstances differently. And so, at the beginning of chapter three, we talked about the mind of Christ on my circumstances.
How should I just be thinking about my present circumstances? And I think a natural corollary or outgrowth of that is what we're going to talk about today, and that is the mind of Christ on finishing well. There's a doctrine, it's the doctrine of perseverance, and I'm actually not going to unpack that this morning, but theologically understand that Paul is talking about living his life with the end in mind, and thus living every day with a perspective on finishing well. You know, I think that is a great perspective to have on anything that I am doing, that I ought to do it with the end in mind. Whether you're here and you're in high school, or whether you're here and you're in college, you are coming to the end of a school year. And if you haven't been living this semester with the thought, ah, you know what? I need to make sure I finish well. You better get started. But most of us have, and yet we come to this stretch and there's something — for us, there's three weeks left.
It's like, man, you know what? Exams are coming, I'm going to do well on exams, but in these last couple of weeks, I just don't have the heart for it. Friends, finish well. Determined to give your all, to give your best at this season.
Finish well. Have you ever come to the end of a journey where you used Google Maps for the entire journey? And you get to where you're going. Can anybody tell me what Google Maps says at that moment? Say it loud. You know what Paul's saying in this passage of Scripture?
Google's wrong. There's nobody here that's arrived, I'm sorry to tell you. I've met some people that live like they think they've arrived.
All these expressions, right? God's gift to mankind, they're the cat's meow, like there's all kinds of statements about that. And the reality is, friends, as Paul comes to this passage of Scripture, if we're going to finish well, the one thing that he wants us all to get is this. You haven't arrived.
God's not done with you yet, so you shouldn't act like he is. Whether that's a negative evaluation of who you are or whether that's a positive one. I'm a Boston Celtics fan. Glad for the other ten of you.
It's not bad out of about five and a half thousand. But you know, I'm nervous. Boston Celtics are, they're confirmed number one in the NBA, going into the NBA playoffs.
But I am nervous, why? Because this is not a team that finishes well. Earlier this season, they played a game where they had a 30-point lead and lost. They don't finish well.
That's not a reputation anybody wants to have. There's now a known story, I'm very sorry to all of you Denver Bronco fans. But they had a defensive back, Danny Trevathan, and he picked off Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco and ran the ball back 47 yards, dropped the ball, and began celebrating.
There was only one problem. Danny didn't realize that he was actually 48 yards from the end zone. So he dropped the ball a yard early. He did not finish well. I ran cross-country in high school.
I know you find that hard to believe. I got here to Bob Jones and back in those days, one of the events that we did as part of society sports was we would do a track meet. It's just one night, you didn't prepare very much, and that was obvious. But we would do all kinds of track and field events and that sort of thing. And so I'd never done it before, but they asked me to run the 800.
I thought, wow, I've never done that, but when playing soccer, I can do that. Well, I decided as we ran that wise people talk about the fact you don't want to be in the lead. Well, I don't know how it happened. We started out, and before I noticed anything, everybody else obviously knew something I didn't. I tried not to be in the lead, and I was.
So I thought, okay, well, here I am. What am I going to do? I know what they are all planning. They're going to stay behind me, and they're going to pass me at the end.
That is not going to happen. So I'm thinking this while we run all these laps of the track. I think there was, I don't remember, but anyway, I think we did eight laps of the track.
So whether or not that's an 800 shows you how much I know. But while I'm running, I'm thinking about none of these people are going to pass me, and I get it, so I'm going to run really fast so that they can't. Well, apparently, running a race that long, somewhere you actually need to breathe.
And apparently, in all my thinking, I — if I did breathe, I didn't breathe very much. And all I remember about that race was the days and days and days of road rash that I had, because apparently as I got to the end of this race, I took two stumbles and supermanned across the finish line. If you look up on the internet, Google finish well, because people are sitting here already making memes of this, I know. You might find a picture that looks like me supermanning that says definition, not finishing well.
I have your attention. The Apostle Paul says in 2 Timothy chapter 4, in describing his own life at its end, he says, I've fought a good fight, I've run a good race, kept the faith. Right? He finished his course, he says. He's not bragging. And I think in that little statement, he actually is saying that finishing well looked for him like keeping the faith. And thus he could say in verse 8 of that passage, henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.
This is for all of us. You see, the reality is this, a race well run is only one that is run until the race is done. A race well run is only one that is run until the race is done. Paul's describing his life in this passage of Scripture, and he's describing it in a way that is not braggadocious.
He's not trying to draw attention to himself. And because of that, he actually is able later in this passage to say, look, you have me as an example. And there's all kinds of bad examples. There's trouble in this world. There are people who are described as having their belly as their God. They live for themselves, and they live for their pleasures. And these are ones that are heading to destruction, and they're ever present, and you see them.
He warns about them. And Paul is actually saying, you know what? I could have lived that way. I had every reason to glory in my flesh, but I didn't because of something. He's not pointing to himself. He's actually saying there's a purpose and a reason for all of this. Paul's life, he tells us, is a case study worth repeating because of how clear it was what God did in his life. Paul's life was so clearly a religious life, a self-righteous life.
Paul had religious pedigree and religious position and religious privilege and religious power. He describes all of those things, and he actually looks at them, and he doesn't merely say that that was refuse. He doesn't merely say that it was dung. He actually goes further than that. He actually says, that which I counted as a gain, that which I looked at and said, that's an asset to me.
Look how good it makes my life. He said I actually had to come to the place where I realized that it was actually a liability. It was a demerit.
Why? Because the more of me was in the quotient, the less of Christ that could be. And the purpose was that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his suffering, be made conformable unto his death, that by any means I might attain under the resurrection of the dead. So Paul looks at his losses, if you will, these liabilities and he says these were actually things that were keeping me from knowing Christ. And that would first and foremost be in the area of what you and I would know as salvation. Paul throughout this book will use that as a concept to describe every part of salvation. You and I would talk about justification or redemption, that initial transaction whereby someone goes from death to life, where they go from being a child of Satan to being a child of God, where they become a genuine believer, one who has placed their unreserved faith and trust in the cross-work of Jesus Christ, plus or minus nothing. Paul is actually going to address that.
See, Paul's prior status, his religious life, his religious attainments, his own self-righteousness was a liability in that as he rested in those things, they would keep him from ever coming to Christ. You know, there's some of you here and living in a world like we live in, a world that's becoming increasingly dark, increasingly reprobate, where the issues that you and I have known as commonplace morality, definitions of marriage, definitions of life, definitions of gender, all of these are becoming askew and the culture is becoming darker and darker and darker. And there are many people that live in our world and look at that and what has become pronounced to them in their own thinking is their own moral standing. Well, I know what marriage is and I do it right. I know what gender is and I do it right. And they look at the darkness of the world around them and they compare themselves and they think, you know what?
I'm pretty good. And the reality is there is none that are good. There's none righteous, no, not one. Romans describes for us in court case form from chapter one giving us a general description of the downward spiral of depravity that happens in the heart of every man who starts with the thought, I'm not thankful for who God is.
That leads them to rejecting the knowledge of God and causes them to worship the creation rather than the creator. And thus we see that the righteous man, the self-righteous man, the religious man is one of these categories that we find in our religiosity, in our own moral standing, a means of trying to attain unto God without Christ. Young person, if you're here today and your moral standing, your church background, your baptism, your comparative goodness to your culture or even to others that are in your small world is a status for you that you think gives you standing with God. Hear me, without Jesus Christ you have no standing with God. Without the cross work of Jesus Christ, a man like Paul who had it all with regard to religion said it was a liability to me. No man will see God's heaven because of his own goodness, not even Paul. And so in light of that, Paul's understanding of salvation grips him. His understanding of the gospel that he proclaimed to himself over and over and over then framed his thinking about all things. And so in light of that truth, I want us to see two simple truths in this passage of Scripture with regard to finishing well.
The first of them is this, a formulated evaluation. Notice what he says in verse 9. Paul coming out of this understanding of the gospel transaction says, and be found in him.
That would be my status. Someone comes and evaluates who I am. They're not going to find me in my religion, they're not going to find me in my goodness, they're not going to find me in my standing in my church, they're going to find me and they're going to find me in him. Paul's favorite word to describe his own salvation.
In Christ. Not having my own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by works. And out of that then, Paul goes through this evaluation of how he's going to live, that I may know him and the power of resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death, if by any means.
Paul is not saying I'm going to now do all kinds of good works. What he is saying is this is the only place to rest. This is the only status that matters that I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. And he says, not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect. There's a process, a process of growing and changing. And as we come to the end of this passage, he recounts as the working of God in us because he says, who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. So God is doing this work in us and there's a process where my position in salvation is now growing in maturity as my practice is changing to match my position. God's at work in my life. God is working to change me. It's then that he can take us back to chapter one in verse 27 where he says, only let your conversation be as it become at the gospel of Christ. In other words, the way that I live speaks well of the gospel that I claim. He said, God's doing this work in my life. So what's my mindset about that? Let go and let God?
Is it feudalistic? Well, it is what it is. Life happens. God does what he does. If he wants to change me, he'll change me. Oh no, look at what Paul says. He says, but I follow after verse 12, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ.
You know what Paul is saying? He's saying there's a race that I'm running, a work that I am doing, a goal that I am pursuing. And that goal looks like understanding what Christ was after in saving me and living that way. I want to apprehend. I want to attain.
I want to accomplish. I want to be doing that which I was apprehended of Christ for. Have you ever stopped, looked at your life and say, why did Jesus save me anyway? What was it God was after? What was God's purpose in my salvation? You know, so often we turn that around and we talk about salvation about my escape from hell. Praise God. About what God does for me and salvation. Praise God.
Cause it's all true. But if you ever asked, why did God do it? What was God after? What was his purpose? Because friends, if we will come to a place where we root ourselves in the thinking that answers God's purpose for my salvation, we'll get really, really close to living God's purpose for our life. And so I want you to see that Paul carries out this formulated evaluation of his own life. That I need to think about finishing well in light of answering the question, what was it that, as he mentions in chapter one, Christ was after? That he who began a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. What was it he is after? And my life's purpose should be to live out whatever that is he wants to accomplish.
And to get there, he gives us just one second point and that is a focused effort. This entire passage is built off an extended illustration, a metaphor of the marathon. You need to go back and research that. I won't take our time to do that, but the language that's used here is tying back into the marathon. And so when you hear things like the upward call of God in Christ Jesus or the high calling of God, there's all kinds of authors that attribute all kinds of things to that. And I think really it is about what happens when you finish the marathon. They were looking for that acknowledgement that they had won and it was an incredible accomplish, whether it was a city state race, like what happened in the games in Athens or what eventually became the Olympics.
And the whole illustration is built off of that. So when he says this, in order to do that, there has to be, first of all, a forgetting. What he is talking about is the life change that comes when somebody decided, I am going to be a participant in the marathon. They would be selected uniquely by their city state and when they were and when they accepted, the whole of their life changed. They stopped their occupation, their eating habits, their sleeping habits, their training habits, all of it changed.
Why? Because their life became focused on not just running the marathon, but finishing it and winning. It was this race. And so if they're training and they're thinking, man, I just wish I could go back to my old job. Dude, I realize I got to do this so I can run better, but I sure wish I could just eat pizza like I used to.
I sure miss my family. Like what he is talking about here is that illustration. And he's saying in light of the priority of finishing well, there must be a foundational forgetting. That I put aside my own attainments, that's part of the forgetting. That I also put aside my past failures, that's part of the forgetting. Paul has to forget his religious accomplishments and Paul also has to forget that he was that guy that oversaw the stoning of Stephen. This is a man that does readily acknowledge that he actually was the chief of sinners.
And you know what? The author of Hebrews says it right when he says that if we're going to run focused on Jesus, we must lay aside the sin and the weight that does so easily beset us and run with endurance the race that sat before us looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our face. There is a foundational forgetting that must happen in a process. If I'm going to run well to finish today, I must not get up thinking about what I did yesterday.
I must ask, how should I run today? And then the other side of that is a persistent forging ahead. I press, and you know, this is from the marathon, what does this look like? You see it in the Olympics, you'll see it this summer, you come to an end of a race and they want to strain with every part of them they can to get some part of their body across that line first.
This is the press to the end. And it's a focusing on finishing well. Young person, I want to challenge you, whether it's in your academics right now or something you've committed yourself to just in real terms, stop today and ask yourself, if I do what I do every day, will I finish well? If not, change something.
But a much bigger question than that is the one that Paul is addressing. How are you living spiritually? And you know, that's not a question that when you get to be my age or older, you say, wow, I'm looking at the end of the finish line. I better start thinking about finishing well.
It's actually a means of running every day of the race. It's your life today. We ought to start every day in the spiritual journey of pursuing Christ's likeness with this thought. If I live this way today, will I finish well? If not, I need to forget and forge ahead and allow God's work in me to enable my work with him to make me more like Christ.
Young people, finish well. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word and we thank you for the work of your spirit in us.
None of this would be possible. We ask for you to finish the work in us, but give us a heart that longs to be so apprehending your purpose in saving us. Help us to finish well for your glory. In Jesus' name. Amen. You've been listening to a sermon preached by Dr. Alan Benson from the study series in the book of Philippians called The Mind of Christ. Thanks for listening and join us again tomorrow as we conclude the study preached from the Bob Jones University Chapel Platform.
