Scripture: Philippians 3:1-14
Listen Link: Listen link: www.lcepc.org then look for “sermons” tab.
Don’t you love to hear a good personal testimony? For many of us our favorite day is when Teen Challenge comes. We appreciate hearing the stories of how the power of God is able to dramatically change a wasted life into a purposeful one through salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. We are amazed by how God can pick someone up out of the gutter and show them how to walk the straight and narrow path of righteousness.
But here, we just read Paul’s testimony, that he was fine upstanding citizen, from a good lineage and doing everything right, went to the best school and graduated with honors. He was a religious man, raised in church, so to speak. He was a success according to the world’s way of looking at things. Then he met Jesus! On the road to Damascus he may have been literally lying in the gutter when he fell before the risen Lord. And that is when he realized that his own life was really in the gutter too!
So the lesson we will get from today’s reading is this: Even if you were raised in church, and attended all your life, and have been very well behaved from student to adult, who never got into serious trouble and who earned a successful career, none of that means you are really a genuine born again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. A lot of people, who consider themselves sincere believers in the Lord Jesus, think they don’t have a great personal testimony to share because they have always been the same, always a believer, always lived like a Christian, and never had a dramatic conversion experience that they can remember.
But, if you can’t remember falling in love with Jesus as a person, how do you know that your Christianity is really a personal relationship with Jesus and not just another religion? This is important. Every religion in the world, even atheistic belief in no god, is an effort to be happy, or experience personal gain and blessing. Literal idol worshippers, that is every false faith, follow the gods of their choice in the hope that they can get God to do what they want him to do. Or else they do it out of fear of what that god will do to them if they don’t meet his requirements. But idolatry is way more insidious. Many people never realize they are idolatrous at all. And it is very easy for people who think they are Christian to be caught up in that same religious way of life, being good to get blessings and avoid punishment.
That’s how the Apostle Paul was living. He sincerely believed that he was being a good Jew and God would bless him for his faithful and zealous efforts to rid the world of those Christians that he, for a while, believed were in rebellion against the One True God. Then when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, he found out that he was very wrong about who he thought God was and what God wanted. With the real live Jesus now in his life, Paul changed from being a religious man to being in love with the person he met in Jesus.
If you can remember the parable of the prodigal son, we could put it in those terms. Paul lived like to older brother, who stayed home and served his father to earn his inheritance the right and legal way, but on the road to Damascus, Paul found out he had lot more in common with the prodigal son who wanted all the blessings of inheritance now, did things his own way to get it, and ended up squandering it all on the wrong kinds pursuits. Both sons in that story didn’t really love their father as much as they wanted his stuff. They just tried different strategies to get it. And today a lot of so-called Christians have lot more in common with the well-behaved older brother, just like Paul did before he met Jesus, loving the blessings from God more than the blesser himself, loving the gifts more than the giver.
But look how Paul changed once he met Jesus! A key statement is “whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.” And he said that as he began to explain to the Philippians why the Jewish rituals and laws are not required for them to know they are saved by faith in Jesus, even as Gentiles. First of all, the Jews in those days, who did not believe in Jesus, were absolutely one hundred percent sure that Gentiles were not going to be saved, or even blessed by God if they did not become as Jewish as possible, and that included circumcision. And even if they did all that, they could only get as far as the court of the Gentiles at the temple, and never really get as close to God as good Jews could. And that is what Paul believed, until he met Jesus.
How he has changed! Now to the Gentile believers in Philippi he says, “My brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord!” It is good, good news that God loves us just as we are! That is reason to rejoice! It is also reason to repeatedly affirm that good news, so Paul goes on to say: “It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.” That repetition is a safeguard because without it, we too easily fall back into living legalistically religious lives, even idolatrous to the degree that we are wrong about what God says about himself.
And Paul goes on to point out that at least for the Philippians there were still Jews around, who wanted to be followers of Jesus, but who were actively teaching that Gentiles must become as Jewish as possible in order to be saved by Jesus. That was a very serious and difficult issue for the Gentiles, and Paul used strong language to make his point. He said, “Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh.” In other places those folks are called Judaizers.
Did he call them dogs and evil doers just because they disagree with his views about salvation and circumcision? Did he call them mutilators of the flesh because of a legitimate Jewish ritual that he himself received when he was a baby? No! He used such strong language because they were disagreeing with what God himself had shown them through the events that happened with the new believers.
For example, when the Apostle Peter visited Cornelius, the Holy Spirit came upon everyone in that Roman household who believed in the gospel even though they had not been circumcised. That was divine proof that the rite of circumcision was no longer necessary and not to be included as a requirement for membership in the Church. That position correctly upholds the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith alone and not by works. The addition of works would disastrously undermine the value of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice. So that explains the strong language.
Paul goes on to say, and again this is a radical departure from his training as a Pharisee, that the true circumcision is of the heart. It is spiritual, not physical, “For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—though I myself have reasons for such confidence.”
Next, we come to why I called this message self-talk. Paul is going to talk about himself. But not in the self-esteem or confidence building way that has become popular in today’s culture. Paul’s self-talk will list everything he used to think was good about him and throw it out with the trash. But the things he lists aren’t really trash, they are just trash compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ.
Listen: “If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day,” The first thing he lists is that he himself was circumcised! He did that specifically to imply that those evil doing dogs have nothing on him. He wasn’t saying no circumcision so that he wouldn’t have to do it. And that’s just the beginning of his list. He probably had better credentials than any of those Judaizers. He pointed out that he was, “of the people of Israel,” That is of God’s chosen people. Paul was “of the tribe of Benjamin.”
That is prestigious because the first King, Saul, came from the same tribe. Also, it is one of the only two out of the twelve tribes that remained faithful to God for the longest time after Solomon. As a result, Paul may have had access to accurate genealogical records that could trace his family line clear back to Jacob’s son Benjamin. Many Jews, especially of the other ten tribes who went into exile centuries earlier could not prove their lineage. Paul said these things made him “a Hebrew of Hebrews;” one of the best of the best. Probably pure Hebrew too, and not mixed with pagan families as happened with so many of the exiled Jews.
And he went further than just the circumstances of his birth, next he talks about his efforts and training: “in regard to the law, a Pharisee;” The Pharisees were the highest and most respected class of the religious teachers. They were about as close as you could get to being a priest without actually coming from the priestly tribe of Levi. Then he spoke of his zeal and of all things boasts that he used to be proud of “persecuting the church!” Yes, before his salvation, he was really as dedicated to getting rid of the church as the Pharisees had been dedicated to getting rid of Jesus! That’s some serious dedication. He did way more than just mind his own business of making tents to earn a decent living.
And he caps it off with the highest possible self-praise, “as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.” Who would dare say he was faultless? We all know that nobody is perfect! But that’s what we say today. Back in Paul’s day, the Pharisees had ways of keeping track of outward behavior. They really did apply all the rules and regulations to themselves and some of them never made a mistake. It is possible to be that careful! Today we have athletes who offer flawless performances right? Same idea, only religious.
Paul probably used to bolster his own self-esteem with that stuff before he met Jesus. It’s probable that there were many Pharisees who prayed in the boastful way that Jesus pointed at when he told about the one who prayed, “Thank God I am not like this tax collector.” And in our own culture too, religious people just a couple of decades ago might congratulate themselves on perfect attendance in Sunday School and other correct social habits, like not drinking or smoking or gambling or whatever rules they employed to measure themselves and compare themselves favorably, looking down smugly on those who didn’t even try.
More recently, that kind of legalism is frowned upon even by the religious. But there are plenty who still do have this attitude, and for those who don’t, they’ve just changed the rules by which they proclaim themselves better than non-believers. They might drink, but they’ve never done drugs. They might have lied, but at least they’ve never been arrested, etc. So, it depends entirely on who you’re talking to and what’s being discussed. This issue is far from over in the church.
For many, the modern metrics are more likely, how nice we can be, how we mind our own business, how we’re not offensive by beating people over the head with the Bible, how tolerant we are of others, maybe even how hard we work at being generous, loving and kind. The religious people always figure out ways to know how good they are with the hope that God will like them better.
No matter what your rules or standards of behavior are, what kind of self-talk do you engage in? Do you congratulate yourself for being so good? Do you berate yourself for being so bad and hope that God might forgive you because you’re so sorry? Or, instead, do you believe the gospel so that you can talk about yourself the way Paul talks about himself after he met Jesus?
“But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.” Is knowing Jesus the person really the most important thing in the world to you? “What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.” In what way can you affirm that you have lost all things? Paul said, “I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.” Can you look at all your worldly possessions and all your personal accomplishments and literally throw them all away if they were keeping you from knowing Jesus? Or is your heart a little closer to that of the rich young ruler, who went away sad? (pause)
Paul wanted nothing more than “to be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.” Is that what you want? Really will you go as far as Paul was willing to go and say. “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection” So far so good, but what about this part? “and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.”
We tend to shy away from suffering, even though we know this saying, “No pain, no gain.” We most often put up with “no gain” because we really don’t like pain. That goes for dieting and exercise in the physical. But spiritually too, we can easily get stuck in our growth and discipleship if we are not willing to do the hard work of putting our faith into practice.
But maybe something else is going on under the surface too. Many of us are hindered by an assortment of hurts that haven’t healed, hang-ups that we developed early in life to cope with people or adversity, and sometimes, bad habits or unhealthy addictions to behaviors, that started out as means of coping, but that grab hold of us and take control. Hang-ups and habits are always a response to hurts in our early lives. We’re just trying to cope with pain, but if we were never taught healthy ways of coping, we tend to default to whatever works in the moment. Our bodies make us deal with it later, after we start to learn better ways of coping, if we learn them.
There are obvious coping failures, we call them drug addicts and alcoholics. But most of the rest of us, who may look a lot healthier on the outside, tend to look down on “those” people. However, most of the rest of us are also hiding slightly less debilitating insecurities and weaknesses, and maybe some hidden bad habits of thinking and behavior that we’re afraid to be honest about because of what other people would think of us. We’re afraid of being labeled and lumped in with “those” people.
Self-talk is touted in modern psychology as one of the healthiest coping skills we can develop, to stop repeating all the negative things we already believe about ourselves and start saying all the true things that are supposed to be good about us so we think more highly of ourselves. I have to give a few examples.
“Turn down the volume of your negative inner voice and create a nurturing inner voice to take its place. When you make a mistake, forgive yourself, learn from it, and move on instead of obsessing about it. Equally important, don’t allow anyone else to dwell on your mistakes or shortcomings or to expect perfection from you.”
“Positive self-talk is to emotional pain as pain pill is to physical pain.”
“The way you choose to think and speak about yourself (to yourself and others), IS A CHOICE! You may have spent your whole life talking about yourself in a negative way, but that doesn't mean you have to continue that path.”
Christians are naturally troubled by this kind of thing. We know Romans 12:3, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment.” But there is a true kind of self-talk that Paul encourages us to engage in, to remember how much we are loved by God, filled with the Holy Spirit and taught by him how to grow into mature believers. Romans 12:3 ends with this encouragement, “in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.”
And then the rest of our text that we’re looking at today is a very honest Paul, not boasting, not congratulating himself for a job well done, but honestly admitting that he is still developing. He says, “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 toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
If the great Apostle Paul was still developing and still pressing on, even as he wrote this great letter to one his more successful churches, surely we too can take heart, and say that we too will press on, because we want to know and love Jesus Christ personally, for that special one-with-him relationship that He desires, and secured for us on the cross! Then realize that, though we are imperfect and still sin, God doesn’t stop loving us. You might think, “I can’t serve you God. I’m not good enough.” That’s the wrong kind of self-talk. God will only say, “I know. I will be glorified if you let me use you to do what you can’t do without me.” Even the desire to please God pleases God. We can even become willing to suffer for the faith, because the love of Jesus makes it all worthwhile! That’s the good and godly kind of self-talk that is effective in the lives of maturing disciples. Let us pray.
Listen Link: Listen link: www.lcepc.org then look for “sermons” tab.
Don’t you love to hear a good personal testimony? For many of us our favorite day is when Teen Challenge comes. We appreciate hearing the stories of how the power of God is able to dramatically change a wasted life into a purposeful one through salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. We are amazed by how God can pick someone up out of the gutter and show them how to walk the straight and narrow path of righteousness.
But here, we just read Paul’s testimony, that he was fine upstanding citizen, from a good lineage and doing everything right, went to the best school and graduated with honors. He was a religious man, raised in church, so to speak. He was a success according to the world’s way of looking at things. Then he met Jesus! On the road to Damascus he may have been literally lying in the gutter when he fell before the risen Lord. And that is when he realized that his own life was really in the gutter too!
So the lesson we will get from today’s reading is this: Even if you were raised in church, and attended all your life, and have been very well behaved from student to adult, who never got into serious trouble and who earned a successful career, none of that means you are really a genuine born again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. A lot of people, who consider themselves sincere believers in the Lord Jesus, think they don’t have a great personal testimony to share because they have always been the same, always a believer, always lived like a Christian, and never had a dramatic conversion experience that they can remember.
But, if you can’t remember falling in love with Jesus as a person, how do you know that your Christianity is really a personal relationship with Jesus and not just another religion? This is important. Every religion in the world, even atheistic belief in no god, is an effort to be happy, or experience personal gain and blessing. Literal idol worshippers, that is every false faith, follow the gods of their choice in the hope that they can get God to do what they want him to do. Or else they do it out of fear of what that god will do to them if they don’t meet his requirements. But idolatry is way more insidious. Many people never realize they are idolatrous at all. And it is very easy for people who think they are Christian to be caught up in that same religious way of life, being good to get blessings and avoid punishment.
That’s how the Apostle Paul was living. He sincerely believed that he was being a good Jew and God would bless him for his faithful and zealous efforts to rid the world of those Christians that he, for a while, believed were in rebellion against the One True God. Then when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, he found out that he was very wrong about who he thought God was and what God wanted. With the real live Jesus now in his life, Paul changed from being a religious man to being in love with the person he met in Jesus.
If you can remember the parable of the prodigal son, we could put it in those terms. Paul lived like to older brother, who stayed home and served his father to earn his inheritance the right and legal way, but on the road to Damascus, Paul found out he had lot more in common with the prodigal son who wanted all the blessings of inheritance now, did things his own way to get it, and ended up squandering it all on the wrong kinds pursuits. Both sons in that story didn’t really love their father as much as they wanted his stuff. They just tried different strategies to get it. And today a lot of so-called Christians have lot more in common with the well-behaved older brother, just like Paul did before he met Jesus, loving the blessings from God more than the blesser himself, loving the gifts more than the giver.
But look how Paul changed once he met Jesus! A key statement is “whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.” And he said that as he began to explain to the Philippians why the Jewish rituals and laws are not required for them to know they are saved by faith in Jesus, even as Gentiles. First of all, the Jews in those days, who did not believe in Jesus, were absolutely one hundred percent sure that Gentiles were not going to be saved, or even blessed by God if they did not become as Jewish as possible, and that included circumcision. And even if they did all that, they could only get as far as the court of the Gentiles at the temple, and never really get as close to God as good Jews could. And that is what Paul believed, until he met Jesus.
How he has changed! Now to the Gentile believers in Philippi he says, “My brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord!” It is good, good news that God loves us just as we are! That is reason to rejoice! It is also reason to repeatedly affirm that good news, so Paul goes on to say: “It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.” That repetition is a safeguard because without it, we too easily fall back into living legalistically religious lives, even idolatrous to the degree that we are wrong about what God says about himself.
And Paul goes on to point out that at least for the Philippians there were still Jews around, who wanted to be followers of Jesus, but who were actively teaching that Gentiles must become as Jewish as possible in order to be saved by Jesus. That was a very serious and difficult issue for the Gentiles, and Paul used strong language to make his point. He said, “Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh.” In other places those folks are called Judaizers.
Did he call them dogs and evil doers just because they disagree with his views about salvation and circumcision? Did he call them mutilators of the flesh because of a legitimate Jewish ritual that he himself received when he was a baby? No! He used such strong language because they were disagreeing with what God himself had shown them through the events that happened with the new believers.
For example, when the Apostle Peter visited Cornelius, the Holy Spirit came upon everyone in that Roman household who believed in the gospel even though they had not been circumcised. That was divine proof that the rite of circumcision was no longer necessary and not to be included as a requirement for membership in the Church. That position correctly upholds the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith alone and not by works. The addition of works would disastrously undermine the value of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice. So that explains the strong language.
Paul goes on to say, and again this is a radical departure from his training as a Pharisee, that the true circumcision is of the heart. It is spiritual, not physical, “For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—though I myself have reasons for such confidence.”
Next, we come to why I called this message self-talk. Paul is going to talk about himself. But not in the self-esteem or confidence building way that has become popular in today’s culture. Paul’s self-talk will list everything he used to think was good about him and throw it out with the trash. But the things he lists aren’t really trash, they are just trash compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ.
Listen: “If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day,” The first thing he lists is that he himself was circumcised! He did that specifically to imply that those evil doing dogs have nothing on him. He wasn’t saying no circumcision so that he wouldn’t have to do it. And that’s just the beginning of his list. He probably had better credentials than any of those Judaizers. He pointed out that he was, “of the people of Israel,” That is of God’s chosen people. Paul was “of the tribe of Benjamin.”
That is prestigious because the first King, Saul, came from the same tribe. Also, it is one of the only two out of the twelve tribes that remained faithful to God for the longest time after Solomon. As a result, Paul may have had access to accurate genealogical records that could trace his family line clear back to Jacob’s son Benjamin. Many Jews, especially of the other ten tribes who went into exile centuries earlier could not prove their lineage. Paul said these things made him “a Hebrew of Hebrews;” one of the best of the best. Probably pure Hebrew too, and not mixed with pagan families as happened with so many of the exiled Jews.
And he went further than just the circumstances of his birth, next he talks about his efforts and training: “in regard to the law, a Pharisee;” The Pharisees were the highest and most respected class of the religious teachers. They were about as close as you could get to being a priest without actually coming from the priestly tribe of Levi. Then he spoke of his zeal and of all things boasts that he used to be proud of “persecuting the church!” Yes, before his salvation, he was really as dedicated to getting rid of the church as the Pharisees had been dedicated to getting rid of Jesus! That’s some serious dedication. He did way more than just mind his own business of making tents to earn a decent living.
And he caps it off with the highest possible self-praise, “as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.” Who would dare say he was faultless? We all know that nobody is perfect! But that’s what we say today. Back in Paul’s day, the Pharisees had ways of keeping track of outward behavior. They really did apply all the rules and regulations to themselves and some of them never made a mistake. It is possible to be that careful! Today we have athletes who offer flawless performances right? Same idea, only religious.
Paul probably used to bolster his own self-esteem with that stuff before he met Jesus. It’s probable that there were many Pharisees who prayed in the boastful way that Jesus pointed at when he told about the one who prayed, “Thank God I am not like this tax collector.” And in our own culture too, religious people just a couple of decades ago might congratulate themselves on perfect attendance in Sunday School and other correct social habits, like not drinking or smoking or gambling or whatever rules they employed to measure themselves and compare themselves favorably, looking down smugly on those who didn’t even try.
More recently, that kind of legalism is frowned upon even by the religious. But there are plenty who still do have this attitude, and for those who don’t, they’ve just changed the rules by which they proclaim themselves better than non-believers. They might drink, but they’ve never done drugs. They might have lied, but at least they’ve never been arrested, etc. So, it depends entirely on who you’re talking to and what’s being discussed. This issue is far from over in the church.
For many, the modern metrics are more likely, how nice we can be, how we mind our own business, how we’re not offensive by beating people over the head with the Bible, how tolerant we are of others, maybe even how hard we work at being generous, loving and kind. The religious people always figure out ways to know how good they are with the hope that God will like them better.
No matter what your rules or standards of behavior are, what kind of self-talk do you engage in? Do you congratulate yourself for being so good? Do you berate yourself for being so bad and hope that God might forgive you because you’re so sorry? Or, instead, do you believe the gospel so that you can talk about yourself the way Paul talks about himself after he met Jesus?
“But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.” Is knowing Jesus the person really the most important thing in the world to you? “What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.” In what way can you affirm that you have lost all things? Paul said, “I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.” Can you look at all your worldly possessions and all your personal accomplishments and literally throw them all away if they were keeping you from knowing Jesus? Or is your heart a little closer to that of the rich young ruler, who went away sad? (pause)
Paul wanted nothing more than “to be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.” Is that what you want? Really will you go as far as Paul was willing to go and say. “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection” So far so good, but what about this part? “and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.”
We tend to shy away from suffering, even though we know this saying, “No pain, no gain.” We most often put up with “no gain” because we really don’t like pain. That goes for dieting and exercise in the physical. But spiritually too, we can easily get stuck in our growth and discipleship if we are not willing to do the hard work of putting our faith into practice.
But maybe something else is going on under the surface too. Many of us are hindered by an assortment of hurts that haven’t healed, hang-ups that we developed early in life to cope with people or adversity, and sometimes, bad habits or unhealthy addictions to behaviors, that started out as means of coping, but that grab hold of us and take control. Hang-ups and habits are always a response to hurts in our early lives. We’re just trying to cope with pain, but if we were never taught healthy ways of coping, we tend to default to whatever works in the moment. Our bodies make us deal with it later, after we start to learn better ways of coping, if we learn them.
There are obvious coping failures, we call them drug addicts and alcoholics. But most of the rest of us, who may look a lot healthier on the outside, tend to look down on “those” people. However, most of the rest of us are also hiding slightly less debilitating insecurities and weaknesses, and maybe some hidden bad habits of thinking and behavior that we’re afraid to be honest about because of what other people would think of us. We’re afraid of being labeled and lumped in with “those” people.
Self-talk is touted in modern psychology as one of the healthiest coping skills we can develop, to stop repeating all the negative things we already believe about ourselves and start saying all the true things that are supposed to be good about us so we think more highly of ourselves. I have to give a few examples.
“Turn down the volume of your negative inner voice and create a nurturing inner voice to take its place. When you make a mistake, forgive yourself, learn from it, and move on instead of obsessing about it. Equally important, don’t allow anyone else to dwell on your mistakes or shortcomings or to expect perfection from you.”
“Positive self-talk is to emotional pain as pain pill is to physical pain.”
“The way you choose to think and speak about yourself (to yourself and others), IS A CHOICE! You may have spent your whole life talking about yourself in a negative way, but that doesn't mean you have to continue that path.”
Christians are naturally troubled by this kind of thing. We know Romans 12:3, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment.” But there is a true kind of self-talk that Paul encourages us to engage in, to remember how much we are loved by God, filled with the Holy Spirit and taught by him how to grow into mature believers. Romans 12:3 ends with this encouragement, “in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.”
And then the rest of our text that we’re looking at today is a very honest Paul, not boasting, not congratulating himself for a job well done, but honestly admitting that he is still developing. He says, “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 toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
If the great Apostle Paul was still developing and still pressing on, even as he wrote this great letter to one his more successful churches, surely we too can take heart, and say that we too will press on, because we want to know and love Jesus Christ personally, for that special one-with-him relationship that He desires, and secured for us on the cross! Then realize that, though we are imperfect and still sin, God doesn’t stop loving us. You might think, “I can’t serve you God. I’m not good enough.” That’s the wrong kind of self-talk. God will only say, “I know. I will be glorified if you let me use you to do what you can’t do without me.” Even the desire to please God pleases God. We can even become willing to suffer for the faith, because the love of Jesus makes it all worthwhile! That’s the good and godly kind of self-talk that is effective in the lives of maturing disciples. Let us pray.
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