Philippians 3:12-14

Philippians 3:12-14

Not as though I had already attained

I.

The imperfection of our attainments.

II. The grandeur of our calling.

III. The necessity of effort.

IV. The prospect of reward. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

Failure and progress

1. It is a painful feeling to look back on life and feel that a great object is unaccomplished. The philosopher has this, who in spite of brilliant prospects finds after hard effort the problems of life to be insoluble. The would be liberator of an oppressed nation feels the same when, after vast expenditure of time and money and suffering, he dies with a tyrant on the throne and the people no better for freedom than when he began. The Christian’s feeling is even more painful, when he measures what he has done with what he might or ought to have done.

2. This, too, has to be observed of the Christian that, as he advances in the Christian course, his standard of perfection rises, and what once satisfied him now fails to do so.

3. The feeling of not having attained is also disheartening. Is the past to be the criterion of the future?

4. The feeling is deepened by the thought of all the struggle and strife to attain perfection, and all seemingly to little purpose. And soon he must meet the Great Judge who, however merciful, commands him to be perfect.

5. The apostle withdraws our attention from this feeling about the past to the future.

I. It is not a healthy thing to brood over past sin.

1. There is such a thing as disturbing the balance between the two parts of repentance, sorrow for sin and active obedience.

(1) Sorrow for sin is foundation work. Should a man be employed all his life in laying foundations?

(2) It is subordinate work, for it has no value apart from its action on character.

2. Brooding over the past has a dangerous influence on character, and has a tendency to remorse or despair.

3. The natural course is from sorrow to pass to obedience, remembering gospel provisions and motives.

II. I must not infer what my religious future will be from the past. The doctrine of probabilities is a very good one to go upon in worldly matters, wherever a permanent law prevails. Here the rule would he “remembering” the things behind, etc. But there are factors in the spiritual life which can change the face of things. To say that it is improbable that the Spirit will give you more strength hereafter than now would be an impious restraint on the action of the freest of Beings. Such a habit, moreover, is destructive of faith and hope. Forget the past and believe that it is possible for you to grow faster in goodness in one year than you have grown in ten; and that there are resources inconceivably great within your reach.

III. We must not remember the past as our standard of action or character. Here we must draw a distinction. The man who is conscious of high purposes running through the web of life may be glad, as he takes his reviews of bygone days, that the grace of God has enabled him to live on the whole near to the level of Christian principles--but there must ever be a discontent with themselves in the minds of Christians. And he may well suspect himself of declension or something more who is content to live as he has lived. Hence to forget the past and to remember it in order to avoid its evils are the same thing.

IV. The soul must be so occupied with the future that the past shall only be subordinate and subsidiary. If I have been in wretchedness the remembrance is of no account except to help me to escape from it. If I have been poor exertion to gain is the main thing. Whatever the past, the Christian’s future has in it possibilities almost infinite. (Pres. Woolsey.)

Aspiration

I. The goal at which the apostle aimed was moral perfection. No man can define this moral perfection; but let no man object on that account. All the grandest things defy definition. Music, the perfection of sound; beauty, the perfection of form and colour; poetry, the perfection of thought--no one can define these, nor can any one the music, beauty, and poetry of our highest nature and life.

II. The apostle acknowledges that he has not reached this perfection.

1. Are we to understand that Paul felt unsubdued pride, selfishness, etc. No. That which is not perfect is imperfect; but sin is not imperfection; it is contradiction. The contradictory element was destroyed, but imperfection remained, the normal elements of his nature had not attained their fulness and strength and beauty.

2. Who of us has attained? We are told of young people who have “finished their education.” Think of having finished ones education with a world like this about us! Much more in the things of Christ.

III. The apostle tells us what he does to attain that moral perfection which is the prize of victory. “One thing I do,” etc. Scientists tell us of arrested developements in nature, but instances of that in spiritual life are more numerous. This is to a large extent because men are trammelled by the things behind.

1. There are the restrictions of habit. Terrible is the peril of routine, the benumbing influence of familiarity and commonplace. We must break away from this.

2. The discouragements of failure. Here the waters of forgetfulness are the waters of life. We are saved by hope, not by memory.

3. The tyranny of success. The success of many musicians, artists, preachers, masters, etc,, contents them, and instead of being an inspiration is a stultification. (W. L. Watkinson.)

Paul’s ideal of life

The whole doctrine of the Christian ideal is contained in this section of apostolic experience. An ideal is sometimes called a standard, and so, in some sense, it is; but a standard is something measured, whereas an ideal is changeable, ever mounting higher and higher. Men do not go on a journey or build a house aimlessly, much less should they live aimlessly. They should set before them a distinct idea of character. We call it an ideal because it proceeds from the faculty of ideality or imagination, and presents all subjects in their perfectness. It is a glorious element in the human mind, for there is so much to draw men down from what is noble. And an ideal should always run far beyond realization. The man whose standard is far beneath his power must inevitably go down.

I. There are three classes of men.

1. Those who have no ideal whatever. They are born Hottentots and they remain so. If they are born into mechanical life, mechanics they remain. These have food and raiment, and, being fired with no inspiration, they are contented.

2. There are those who have an ideal which is pure romancing. They are simple dreamers. They imagine themselves to be now a warrior, now an artist, now an orator, and fill up the hour of their dream with the fancied dignity. These things have no relation to practical life; on the contrary they come back with less nerve and a greater inclination to avoid the burdens of life.

3. There are those who have a clear conception of the possibilities of human development, and who bring enough of reason with their imagination to give definiteness and purpose to their ideals. In this class we should seek to be found.

II. There are many kinds of ideals.

1. Those which respect the external, secular condition of men. There are those who say, “I will not be a second workman to any man.” Their ideal lies in their trade. The ideal of others consists in being rich, or high up in society. These things are not wrong, if they are parts of a comprehensive scheme that includes everything--body and soul. It is better to have these as ideals than to be aimless. But it is imperfect and may be ruinous. A man may sacrifice his own life and moral well being for the purpose of pouring molten gold into his children’s throats that destroys him in making and them in taking.

2. There are those who rise higher and take in an ideal which includes secular character as well as secular condition; who propose to be honoured among men; some by art, some by literature, some by statesmanship, etc. They intend to be respected for integrity and known for power. But these aim at character only as a thing within the bounds of time, and necessarily dwarf themselves. For man is a creature of two worlds, and in this he is at his least estate.

3. Others include the whole manhood for both worlds--the apostle’s ideal. He substantially declared, “Nothing is done while anything remains undone.” “Not as though I had attained.”

III. This delineates the noblest form of ambition and the noblest ideal of life. Life is transformed by it.

1. Such an ideal unites and harmonizes life and redeems it from being a mere series of disconnected experiences and passages.

2. It stimulates and inspires the soul. A man may have no motive to life who merely has an ideal of wealth or ambition when these become impossible to him. You cannot make a man like Paul bankrupt. He has still, when all is gone, a house not made with hands.

3. It redeems men from indolence.

4. It is the cure for conceit.

5. It maintains spring and enterprise to the end of life, and fires men up at the very last with solemn purposes and noble resolves. Conclusion: Avoid one rock which is fatal to nobility. Because you have broken your purpose don’t let it go unmended: when you have failed to reach your ideal don’t despair but try again. (H. W. Beecher.)

The ideal and the actual

I. The ideal of Christian life and character. St. Paul was a most ambitious man, but his aim was to be something. So his ideal was personal, not something wrought out or imagined or embodied in a system or a creed. He wanted to be like Christ. That for him was perfection.

II. The apostle had not reached his mark.

1. He had a consciousness of incompletion which was forced upon him by a variety of experiences.

(1) His particular form of ambition--being as distinct from having--which, connected with Christ, was an egoism which promoted true humility. Hence he was keenly alive to his imperfections.

(2) His sense of limitations. The feeling would be forced upon him that he was capable of better things.

2. All this has its lessons.

(1) It gives us heart for ourselves and courage in our work for others.

(2) It rebukes self-satisfaction and complacency.

(3) It teaches us to recognize Christian character below perfection, and to cultivate charity for the imperfect.

III. But it was the fixed practical purpose of his life to reach it. Did he do nothing beside? Nothing. He did indeed many things, but the many made one. And had he been a Manchester man he would so have bought and sold, etc., that in doing it he would have been doing the one thing.

IV. His method of progress.

1. Forgetfulness of things which belong to immature and unripened states.

2. A gathering up of the totality of nature into purpose and effort. (W. Hubbard.)

Few believers perfect here

When Allston died he left many pictures which were mostly sketches, yet with here and there a part finished up with wonderful beauty. So I think Christians go to heaven with their virtues mostly in outline, only here and there a part completed. But “that which is in part shall be done away,” and God shall finish the pictures in His own forms and colours. (H. W. Beecher.)

Aim at perfection

I. Thy heed of it. Our actual attainments are small--we have much to learn and experience.

II. The means. A humble estimate of ourselves--leaving the things behind and reaching to those that are before--pressing to the goal.

III. The incentive. We would be perfect (see Barnes). In non-essentials we may differ, and God will in due time set us right--but in this we must have one rule and one mind. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

Christian progress

I. Wherein we may make progress.

1. In our views of the excellence of religion.

2. In our love to God and Christ.

3. In holiness.

4. In heavenly-mindedness.

II. The necessity of this progress. This is seen--

1. In the frequency with which the Christian life is compared to a warfare and a race.

2. In the urgent commands of God.

3. In the nature of religion to which progress is indispensable.

III. The means.

1. A firm belief that Divine influences may be obtained at all times, and to the full extent of our wants, by humble, earnest prayer.

2. Constant application to Divine ordinances.

3. A continual view of the Cross.

4. A constant vision of the prize.

5. A study of eminent examples. (T. Craig.)

The struggle for perfection

We go into a sculptor’s studio, and there stands a block of marble on which the sculptor is working; the marble is all white and pure, yet the image is imperfect; the hand is beginning to beckon, the foot to move, thought is gathering on the brow, the lips seem as if they would soon speak, yet the statue is still imperfect; nothing faulty in the material, but it is not yet wrought into the fulness of the sculptor’s ideal. So it was with the apostle; the vicious element was purged, but his deep soul had not yet been wrought into the fulness of the Divine ideal. He went out after larger measures, intenser experiences of love, power, light, fellowship, and blessedness, beyond all his past or present enjoyments. (W. L. Watkinson.)

Unrealized possibilities

You remember how the mightiest discoverer in natural science of modem times, Sir Isaac Newton, said, towards the close of his career, that he was but as a child who had gathered a few shells on the shores of an illimitable sea. He saw stretching before him a vast ocean of knowledge, which his life had been too short, which even his powers had been too weak, to explore. What he felt in things natural, St. Paul felt in things spiritual--that there were heights above him which he had never scaled, depths beneath him which he had never fathomed; that, rich as he was in Christ, there were yet hidden in that Lord treasures of wisdom and knowledge which would make him far richer still; that God was unsearchable, unfathomable, a shoreless sea, an ocean of perfections; of which he understood a little, of which he was understanding ever something more; but which man could no more take in than he could hold the sea and all its multitudinous waves in the hollow of his hand. Skirts of His glory St. Paul had seen, but not His train which filled the temple of the universe. Secrets of Christ’s power he had known, who in this very Epistle declared, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me;” and yet he felt that there was a power of Christ, transcending all which even he had known; and like some great earthly conqueror, who should esteem nothing won while anything remained to win, nothing accomplished while anything was yet possible to accomplish; who slighted, despised, trampled under foot all his old successes in the eager pursuit of new; even so this mighty spiritual athlete, this captain, commander, conqueror, leader of the hosts of the Lord, could not stay his steps, could not arrest his course. (Abp. Trench.)

More and yet more

You know what the general said when one of his officers rode up and cried, “Sir, we have taken a standard.” “Take another,” cried he. Another officer salutes him, and exclaims, “Sir, we have taken two guns.” “Take two more,” was the sole reply. This way lies the reward of holy service: you have done much; you shall do more. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

No retreat

It is said that at the battle of Alma, when one of the regiments was being beaten back by the Russians, the ensign in front stood his ground as the troops retreated. The captain shouted to him to bring back the colours. But the reply of the ensign was, “Bring up the men to the colours.” The dignity of Immanuel’s ministry can never be lowered to meet our littleness. The men must come up to the colours. (New Testament Anecdotes.)