Introduction
Last year, Kathie and I were in the audience for an evening with Sir Ranulph Fiennes at the Darlington Hippodrome.
At the grand old age of 80, he talked about his life as an undercover SAS officer, intrepid adventurer and explorer. This is a man who, aged 59, completed seven marathons, in seven days, on seven continents, just four months after double coronary bypass surgery following a heart attack.
He climbed to the summit of Mount Everest at the age of 65 and he remains the oldest person ever to achieve that feat. He is the first person to visit both the North and South poles, and also the first to completely cross Antarctica on foot.
It wasn’t a talk for the squeamish. In one of his polar expeditions, he sustained severe frostbite on all the fingers on his left hand, prompting him to sever his own fingertips with an electric saw to prevent gangrene. And he talked about all this quite matter-of-factly, as if it was a speech about how to put the bins out for the dustmen.
I don’t think I can think of anyone, living or dead, with quite his level of determination and tenaciousness and single-mindedness.
But if anyone in the Bible could run him close, or indeed exceed him, it is the Apostle Paul. In one summary of his life, Paul listed hard work, (“harder than anyone else” he said which tells you how competitive he was), constant travel, frequent imprisonment, severe floggings, sleep deprivation, hunger, thirst, cold, repeated exposure to death, being pelted with stones, danger from rivers, danger at sea, peril from bandits, three shipwrecks and more.
How did he keep going despite constant discouragements and resistance? Well, the second half of Philippians 3, which we’re looking at today, gives us some clues. We’re picking up from last week at v12.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.
All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.
But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
Last Sunday, in the first half of chapter 3, Paul told us that the foundation for your Christian growth and maturity is taking all your advantages of birth and upbringing and all your human achievements - and considering them as less than useless compared to knowing Christ.
As we sang last Sunday, “it’s all about Jesus for his glory and fame, it’s not about me as if God should do things my way.” That’s the foundation.
And in the second half of Philippians 3, Paul lists five really useful tools to help us build on that foundation. So our focus this morning is what I’m going to call five vital keys for growth and maturity in our Christian lives.
If you want to grow in faith, and in stature, as a believer, if you are not content to coast and just drift along, if you’re ambitious to go places with God, then this passage of scripture is for you, and God wants to speak to you through it, and it is no accident that you are here this morning.
1. Acknowledge a need for growth
The first key to advancing in faith is to acknowledge a need for growth. To acknowledge a need for growth.
No matter how far on you are in your Christian journey, there are always new things to learn, more spiritual gifts to eagerly desire, other rough character edges to sand down and fresh faith challenges to meet. The path of growing more like Christ is a long one; it is in fact life-long.
How do you think you’re doing? Do you ever think, “Well, I’ve been a Christian a long time now, I’ve pretty well worked it out”?
Paul’s self-assessment here is that he is not there yet. “Not that I have already obtained this,” (that is, what he described in v8-11, about knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings), “not that I have already obtained this, or have already arrived at my goal” he says in v12.
And in case that isn't sufficiently clear, he repeats himself in v13 when he says, “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.”
Paul - a guy who had, I remind you, met the risen Christ in person, led apostolic teams, planted churches, miraculously broken out of prison, healed the sick and raised the dead - he cannot yet say, ‘I’ve been there, done that and got the T-shirt.’
What a contrast this is incidentally from his pre-conversion self-assessment that we saw last week. In v6, he says that he used to regard himself as blameless, faultless. Nothing to learn, no improvement possible.
But now, having had his world turned upside down by his encounter with Christ, he’s saying, years later, “I haven’t arrived yet.”
So there’s the first key. Is it my honest confession today that there is plenty of room for growth in my Christian life? Am I truthfully saying, “I’m not there yet”?
2. Forget the past and strain ahead
The second key growing in faith is pursuing more of God, v12-14. Twice in these verses the divinely inspired author of this letter says, “I press on,” and once he says, “I am straining toward to what is ahead.”
Paul often uses the metaphor of athletic competition to describe Christian living, and this is one example. He compares himself here to a long-distance runner.
And note his distinctive running style. Two words; forgetting and straining. Forgetting is about his past. And straining is about the future.
When runners look back, we’ve all seen this, when they turn their heads, they disrupt their own momentum and slow themselves down. Many an Olympic medal has been lost because a runner gave in to the temptation to glance behind, only to be beaten to the tape by a competitor.
Paul had good reason to want to forget what was behind him. He held the coats, remember, of the men who murdered a Christian in cold blood. He describes himself elsewhere as the worst of sinners because he had once persecuted the church.
We all live to some extent with shame and regret. How many “if onlys” do we carry into this meeting today as we look back on our lives? Every one of us here carries baggage from the past. What’s holding you back?
Listen, because of Christ, who gives you his righteousness as a free gift, you can let go of past guilt and you can look ahead with complete freedom to what you will be in Christ.
Don’t let your past failures define you. Don’t let them become a prison. In Isaiah 43 God says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.” In Christ, you are a new creation. It’s over. You are forgiven. You can move on! In his amazing grace, Christ has made you new.
This is no time to wallow in the past. It’s time to strain towards what God has for us in the future. “One thing I do”, Paul says. He’s a single-minded “one thing” type of guy. What are you most passionate about in life? What do you think those who know you best would say is your “one thing?”
The great Olympic decathlete Daley Thompson used to love Christmas Day more than any other day – do you know why? Because no one else trained then. He would exercise extra hard on December 25th, knowing that he would gain a tiny margin on his competitors because they were all taking a day off, eating turkey and stuffing.
Thompson was a man who devoted himself, heart and soul, to being the best decathlete on earth. For him, coming second was the same as coming last. He, like the apostle Paul, was completely focused and absolutely committed. That’s why both were high achievers.
And look, Paul sets the bar very high. And the last thing I would want is to discourage you by holding him up as the benchmark that you could never model yourself on. Please don’t feel condemned by comparing yourself to Paul - but do please be provoked. Be inspired.
If you are feeling a bit discouraged today, there’s a story I like to tell, whether it’s a true story or not, I don’t know. It’s about an athlete who is given a particularly strict training regime by his coach.
He is shown this giant boulder, and he is told to push against it with all his might. “You must use all your strength, every muscle, against the boulder, and let’s see how far you get,” says his coach.
For months, the athlete trains hard. Every day, he gives everything. He uses all his strength trying to move this rock. He lines his shoulder hard up against it, parallel to the ground, day after day he pushes with all his might - and it never once moves an inch.
Every evening, he goes back home deflated, tired, and starting to wonder if he isn’t wasting his time. After each session he aches all over. He begins to doubt; “Here I am, pushing that rock every day and it never even moves. I’m getting nowhere. It’s too heavy.”
So he goes back to his trainer and says, “Why are you wasting my time with this training routine? Do you want to ingrain in me the feeling of being a loser? I’ve had enough.”
But his trainer says with a smile, “Wait a minute. Did I ever say you have to move the rock? I did not. And I never expected you to. Your task was to push, that’s all. And now you come and tell me you’ve failed. Well, have you? Take a look in the mirror. Your biceps are firm, your back is strong, your shoulders are broad, and your legs are solid. That’s down to this training and now you are ready to take on the best in the world and win.”
If your heart is growing faint, and your first love feels diminished, grab key number 2 today and passionately pursue Christ, forgetting what is behind and letting the Holy Spirit reignite the fire in your soul.
3. Hold on to spiritual ground you have already gained
Third key, and more briefly, is in v16 where it says, “Let us live up to what we have already attained.” If you want to make ground in faith, make sure you hold the spiritual ground you have already gained.
I suspect we all know people who became Christians in a flurry of excitement, were super keen for a short while, only to fade out, never to be seen again.
We shouldn’t be surprised that this happens; Jesus told us it would. He said people like this are like seeds that fall on rocky soil, springing up quickly, only to wither and die because their roots are shallow.
The important thing for all of us here is not that we started excitedly but that we finish strong. Paul says here, in effect, what we have we hold. I’m not going to regress; I’m not going to let myself backslide.
4. Find and follow godly role models
The fourth key to progressing in faith is to find and follow good role models – and avoid bad ones.
“Many live as enemies of the cross of Christ,” says Paul in v18-19. “Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.”
There are plenty of examples of that in the political world, on social media, in popular entertainment; this is not where we get our values from.
But in v17, Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, invites this young church to follow in his footsteps and those like him. He says, “Join together in following my example, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do.”
Does he have an inflated ego? Not really. In 1 Corinthians 11.1 he expands on this, telling us what he means; “Follow my example,” he says, “as I follow Christ.”
Is it because Paul thinks he is perfect? No. In v12 he states clearly that he knows he isn’t. He is flawed, and he knows it. But man, is he is focused!
In Hebrews 12, the writer points to Christians we can look up to and says, “Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.”
What kind of follower would a new Christian become if he or she imitated your focus and your faith? And who, as a Christian, can you look to as a role model, who has a track record behind them of faith and love, who is still standing, no matter many battles they’ve fought?
Follow their example, as they follow Christ. That is the fourth key to advancing in faith.
5. Keep an eternal perspective
The fifth and final key is to keep an eternal perspective. “Our citizenship” says v20, “is in heaven.”
In many ways, we are strangers here. Misfits. We don’t quite belong. The values and lifestyles and ideals that our culture celebrates are different from, and sometimes opposite to, the values and lifestyles and ideals that are commended in God’s word.
Christians often feel excluded. Unable to partake or participate. Out of it. That’s because we are not at home here. Our real home is in heaven.
Though we may appropriately feel patriotism and gratitude for the country we come from, our heavenly citizenship takes precedent over our belonging to whatever nation features on the front of our passport.
Our country may celebrate cultural events or pass laws that we cannot accept or agree with.
The apostle John puts it this way: “Do not love the world or anything in the world… For everything in the world - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life - comes not from the Father but from the world.”
Because our citizenship lies elsewhere. We are all foreigners here. Our real home is heaven. So keep an eternal perspective and don’t let the world dictate your standards.
Ending
I want to finish with another athlete story. A canoeist called Bill Havens was a member of the US Olympic canoeing team for the 1924 Games in Paris.
About six months before the Olympics, he realised that his wife was due to give birth to their first child right in the middle of the Games. In those days of course there were no commercial airlines running transatlantic; flights; there were only cruise ships which took days to cross the ocean.
Bill Havens had a dilemma; go to Paris and risk missing out on supporting his wife while she gave birth for the first time? Or withdraw from the Olympic team and forego all hope of the gold medal he had dreamed of since childhood?
His wife insisted that he go. He had trained so hard for so many years. But, in the end, Bill decided to stand down from the team to be with his wife.
That summer, as expected, the US canoe team won Olympic gold. Bill missed out. And guess what? The birth of Frank Havens was overdue. So overdue that dad could have gone to Paris and returned in time for the birth.
Everyone said, “Oh, what a shame.” But Bill Havens always said he had no regrets. After all, his wife and family were of much greater value than a bit of gold plate and a ribbon.
But that’s not the end of the story. 28 years later, Bill Havens received a telegram from Helsinki, Finland. It was from his son Frank and this is what it said: “Dad. I won! And I’m coming home with the medal you should have won while waiting for me to be born.” Frank had just won canoeing gold in the 1952 Games.
Like Bill Havens, let’s forget the past and live a life others want to emulate. Like Frank Havens, let’s strain ahead and win the prize.
May God give us grace to keep pressing on – and win the prize for which God calls us heavenwards. And oh, how much more eternally glorious will be the prize in the race for all of us here who forget what is behind and press on all the way to the finish line.
Sermon preached at King's Darlington, 29 June 2025.
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