Philippians 3:4b-14 "Pressing On"

When I was in high school I spent my Wednesday nights much differently than I do now, particularly each spring. You see, we didn’t have Wednesday night activities at our church and I wasn’t much into the normal team sports that are usually offered at school. Oh, I did play basketball, but I wasn’t very good at it. The sports that I was interested in were snow skiing and water skiing, neither of which were offered at our school. You could say that perhaps part of my problem was that I wasn’t into team sports, but I was. You see, I also participated in another team sport that also wasn’t offered at our school: sailboat racing. There was a group that my parents got together with that would race sailboats on Wednesday nights in Puget Sound. And I started participating in these races my junior and senior years in high school.

In all honesty, I didn’t do much, for I was the only one on our boat who wasn’t an adult, and there were also long times where everybody’s just sitting in between tacks and jibes. But I did get to help in some ways and I really enjoyed these races.

The interesting thing about sailboat racing is that you are so beholden to the wind. Though the course was the same every week, it was never raced the same way. The direction of the wind, the amount of wind and the current all affected the way we would race.

Sometimes we would get ahead of others by being the first boat to get the anchor in the water when the wind died as we watched the other boats get pushed backwards by the current and we stayed stationary, waiting for wind to pick up again. Other times it was about watching the water for areas where the wind was greater and working your way towards those gusts without letting the other boats see where you were going. And sometimes it was just an all out race that was won or lost because of the speed of our boats and the fluid transitions that we made.

No matter what the evening brought, we learned to press on towards the goal. With the changes in the weather that could come, it didn’t really matter what you had done up to that point, what mattered was what you did from that point forward. It didn’t matter whether you had a bad tack with a fowled line on your last turn, what mattered was what you would do on your next turn.

Paul uses the imagery of a race in today’s scripture to talk about our spiritual lives. And he reminds us that what is important is not what we have already done, rather it is what lies before us. So let us look at what is before us today and see where it is that this race will take us.

1. Behind us

In today’s scripture, Paul tells us to get our priorities strait. Paul sees that some people like to lord it over those around them because they live better lives than those around them. They follow the law better. They don’t sin as much. They’re better people and therefore better Christians. Paul tells us that by acting this way, by feeling this way, by being all superior, we are missing the point of what the gospel is all about.

Now it is easy for someone who does not live the life we are called to to complain about those who are living the life and to look down on them for looking down on you. If you’re living a life of sin, and you feel that you are being judged by people who are living holier lives than you, you are going to feel sour grapes and you are going to say some of the things that Paul says here. You’re going to tell them not to hold it against you that you are in sin. You’re going to tell them that it isn’t important that you follow all the laws and such because that is not really what the gospel is about. You’re going to make excuses for your misbehavior.

But what happens when someone who has lived the life we are called to then says that it is meaningless. Now we need to listen to this message, because it isn’t coming from sour grapes; it isn’t coming out of a dismissal of that which you don’t feel you can attain.

And so, Paul begins to list the things that he has done right in his life. He begins to talk about how good a person he is. He begins to boast about himself and his innate goodness. And then he says this amazingly horrible thing. All of the good that he has done is worthless; it’s garbage. Everything that sets him apart from the lowliest sinner is nothing. His own goodness pales in comparison to God’s great goodness.

When I was in grade school and we were studying the solar system, we did a little hands-on project to help us to see the size and scope of the solar system. We went out to the field and one of my classmates stood out near the school and they were the sun. Then someone else stood a small distance from them and they were Mercury, the first planet. We then each got assigned as a planet and were told how far away from the sun we were to stand. Compared to Mercury, earth was quite a ways away from the sun. I had to walk quite a distance to get far enough out to be the earth. But then Mars was twice the distance away from the sun that earth was, the girl representing Mars had to walk twice as far as I did, and when we came to Pluto, we couldn’t even have someone go out to the field because it would be a couple miles away, that’s right, miles. When we pay attention to our goodness and someone else’s, we sometimes feel like Earth compared to Mercury. We sit there and talk about how much farther away from sin we are than that other person. We’re four times farther away than them, we’re twenty yards past them. Twenty yards seems like so much to us and it seems like something that we can be proud of. But Paul then tells us that when God enters the picture we see everything in a new perspective. When measuring things in yards, twenty yards seems like a whole lot, when measuring things in miles, twenty yards is nothing. The difference between us and the worst sinner may seem like so much, but it is nothing compared to the difference between our goodness and God’s.

Now this may seem like bad news. For it is basically telling us that we can never be as good as we’d like to be, we can never come close to what God really desires from us. But then Paul tells us the good news that is in this. Our goodness doesn’t need to come from us, instead it can come from faith in Jesus. There is a righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. It has nothing to do with how good we are, it comes purely from our faith in Christ. Good news, cause for us to rejoice, cause for us to celebrate. We don’t have to do it on our own. We can have Christ to help us. And then Paul begins with his race imagery. We aren’t there yet, he says, we are still running the race. We are still striving forward towards the goal that God has set for us. We may be twenty yards ahead, but we’ve still got miles to go.

2. Running a Race

There is a parable, not in the Bible, but one that we need to hear anyway, and it tunes in to this imagery that Paul uses about a race. This parable is from the book Adventures in Missing the Point by Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo (pg 26 – 27) and the parable reads as follows:

Once upon a time, in a land of boredom and drudgery, exciting news spread: “There is going to be a race! And all who run this race will grow strong and they’ll never be bored again!” Exciting news like this had not been heard for many a year, for people experienced little adventure in this ho-hum land, beyond attending committee meetings, waiting in lines, sorting socks, and watching sitcom reruns.

Excitement grew as the day of the race drew near. Thousands gathered in the appointed town, at the appointed place. Most came to observe, skeptical about the news. “It’s too good to be true,” they said. “It’s just a silly rumor started by some teenaged troublemakers. But lets stick around and see what happens anyway.”

Others could not resist the invitation, arriving in their running shorts and shoes. As they waited for the appointed time, they stretched and jogged in place and chattered among themselves with nervous excitement. At the appointed time they gathered at the starting line, heard the gun go off, and knew that it was time to run. Then something very curious happened. The runners took a step or two or three across the starting line, and then abruptly stopped. One man fell to his knees, crying, “I have crossed the starting line! This is the happiest day of my life!” He repeated this again and again, and even began singing a song about how happy this day was for him.

Another woman started jumping for joy. “Yes!” she shouted, raising her fist in the air. “I am a race-runner! I am finally a race-runner!” She ran around jumping and dancing, getting and giving high fives to others who shared her joy at being in the race. Several people formed a circle and prayed, quietly thanking God for the privilege of crossing the starting line, and thanking God that they were not like the skeptics who didn’t come dressed for the race.

An hour passed, and two. Spectators began muttering; some laughed. “So what do they think this race is?” they said. “Two or three strides, then a celebration? And why do they feel superior to us? They’re treating the starting line as if it were a finish line. They’ve completely missed the point.”

A few more minutes of this silliness passed. “You know,” a spectator said to the person next to her, “if they’re not going to run the race, maybe we should.”

“Why not? It’s getting boring watching them hang around just beyond the starting line. I’ve had enough boredom for one life.”

Others heard them, and soon many were kicking off their dress shoes, slipping out of their jackets, throwing all this unneeded clothing on the grass. And they ran—past the praying huddles and past the crying individuals and past the jumping high-fivers. And they found hope and joy in every step, and they grew stronger with every mile and hill. To their surprise, the path never ended—because in this race, there was no finish line. So they were never bored again.

Do we sometimes forget the race that we are running? Do we think that it’s enough to call ourselves Christians and leave it at that? Or do we realize that there is a race, a journey that we are on when we enter into this Christian life? Do we realize that becoming a Christian isn’t the finish line, rather it is the starting line? Do we allow ourselves to move forward in our faith and in our journey to see where God will lead us next?

We aren’t much farther along in this race than those who have not even crossed the starting line. Instead of looking back at them and scoffing, we should be encouraging them to join in with us and move forward on this great adventure that God has put before us. We too are called to forget all that is behind and strain toward what is ahead. We too can press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus. We too can run the race, leaving that life of boredom and sameness and following the path that God leads us on. Amen.