Pressing On: The Pursuit of Knowing Christ

1. "But now because of Christ, what he's going to reveal to us in this passage is that he believes that he has attained something, but then there is still within him this profound and continuous need for more of Christ. It's this incredible tension inside of what he reveals to us in this passage, and the way that you and I live as we follow Jesus Christ. It's this powerful and profound paradox within our lives that we know Christ and we have been saved. We have attained a certain life in Jesus Christ. But the more that we know that, the more we want of it, the more we realize that there is to live in and to know." [01:34] (48 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "So we see in what Paul is writing to us, and we see often inside of our own lives, that without Jesus Christ, we can so easily fall into the trap of working for our own sense of success or meaning or accomplishment or identity. We go through this life seeing things that are important to us, seeing people that we think have achieved what we want or gotten to where we want to go. We see this life and we go, well, wouldn't it be great if I could get to that level, if I could have that kind of life? And so we tend to cobble together our own sense of meaning." [03:10] (38 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "Paul was never just saved from his sins. He was saved for a calling that's higher than he could have ever imagined before Jesus. Does that describe us? Does that describe you this morning? Does that attract us this morning about Jesus Christ? So in our passage today, a couple of things that are going to help us hold this together. First of all, Paul has not yet attained what he was called to do. He repeats this twice. The first two verses in our passage today, actually have a very similar pattern. And he says it twice. He says it once in verse 12 and once in verse 13. I haven't yet achieved what I was called to do. I haven't yet attained it." [06:15] (51 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "Paul's humility stands out in this passage of scripture, especially in relationship to all of the boasting that he used to do. All you have to do is go back to verse four. As he describes his previous life, and he said, look, if any man thought he had reason to boast, I had more. If any Pharisee thought they had done it right that day, I had done it better than they had. If they thought they had memorized more scripture, I memorized more than they did. He had all this reason for pride, for boasting. Now his humility comes to the forefront. He says, Christ has gotten a hold of me. All of that is a loss. And now there's a calling that is so high that I know I cannot attain it unless God does it through me." [09:26] (49 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. It's a beautiful way of hearing what the apostle Paul says. He says, listen, I was a sinner. I was literally on the way to make life difficult for Christians and Christ got a hold of me. And it's not just that he pulled me into himself, saved me of my sins, made me his son, but he's taken hold of me so that now I can take hold of something that is important to him. That now I can strive and press on to make it my own. I'm going to take hold of this son to do what he's called me and built me and made me to do." [18:43] (40 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "Friends, God saved you and God empowered you to be an active part of building his kingdom. Whatever set of gifts and whatever set of priorities, wherever it is, God has put you in life. He has saved you. He's taken hold of you and he's empowered you so that you now can take hold of that for which he took hold of you so that you and I can now be valuable and productive parts of building the kingdom of God, wherever we are in life, whatever Christ has placed in your hand to do, whatever is in your heart to do, we've been called to do it for the glory of God." [20:18] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "The powerful simplicity of the baseline, the foundation of my relationship with Jesus Christ. The one thing I do is I put all of that behind me. I turn my eyes toward Jesus Christ. That, friends, if you've done nothing else, this is what you need to do. Lay all that aside, put all that behind, forgive, forget, strain forward to get to know Jesus Christ. I don't need to have Paul's kind of life to see this way. On one level, we might read a passage of scripture like this and we think, well, the apostle Paul is a very energetic, very dynamic man. He's probably very hard to keep up with. That's why he's got a team of people who try to keep up with him." [23:42] (47 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8. "I know Christ. But friends, there is so much more about him to know in our lives. For example, friends, if you don't know the word of God this way, I want to encourage you. There is so much, so much to the word of God. It does not matter how many times you've read it. Same passage, the same thought. It doesn't matter how many times you've heard the same verses over and over again. I guarantee you, if you take this thing seriously and you deal with it prayerfully and you deal with it in the presence of God's Holy Spirit and in the presence of the body of Christ and a faithful church, it will never cease to amaze you. So read it again. Read it more. Spend time in the word of God." [25:17] (58 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9. "Paul says, we forget while we run. The writer of Hebrews says something very similar, chapter 12, verse 1. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us, with endurance, the race that is set before us. Heavenly Father, I want to pray right now for everyone who hears this, who feels weighed down, who feels broken, who feels incomplete, who feels insecure because of their past, who feels as if their past does nothing but wait for them when they wake up in the morning. Their past does nothing but sit on their shoulders like a backpack. They can never take off." [28:45] (61 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10. "Friends, we recognize that the Christian life requires effort. It just does. We don't work to receive God's favor. We receive his love and forgiveness, and then we strive to live the life that he makes available to us. To take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. So we run so as to attain it. In the book of Revelation, Jesus writes seven letters to seven churches in Revelations chapter 2 and 3. And at the end of every one of those letters, Christ gives some version of, to those who overcome, I will give. To those who conquer, I will give. To those who conquer, I will give. And here's one of those moments in Revelation 3, verses 20 through 22." [32:18] (47 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)