Sermon Tone Analysis

What kind of goals do you have in your life?

There are all kinds of goals- financial goals (freedom from debt), physical goals (finally get into shape), family goals (take a vacation, be a better father / mother, spend more time together).

Then there are spiritual goals.

What kind of spiritual goals do you have in place in your life?

Bible reading (through the bible in a year), prayer (intercede more often for my church family), church (be more active in my local church), evangelism (build redemptive relationships in my community).

What is your ultimate spiritual goal?

What is your eternal why?

You do a lot of stuff in your spiritual life.

Why?

What is your why? Do you teach Sunday School?

Why? Do you faithfully read your Bible?

Why? Do you desire to win a soul to Christ in your lifetime?

Why? Do you desire to spiritually reproduce yourself in the life of another person?

Why?

What is your why?

What is your ultimate spiritual goal?

Paul shares his eternal why in our text this morning.

Sense: ‘not that I have already reached (the goal) or have already been completely successful’ (i.e.

I have not been made perfect, I have not arrived at my spiritual goal)

What is Paul’s ultimate spiritual goal in this text?

Not that I have already obtained THIS.

What is the this?

Paul’s ultimate spiritual goal was to attain the resurrection from the dead.

Why? Was glorification Paul’s ultimate spiritual goal?

I don’t think so.

We have to keep backing up in our context.

Paul’s ultimate goal was knowing Christ.

We can know Christ now through salvation (justification), we can continue to grow in the knowledge and grace of Jesus every day of our lives (sanctification), but when one day we receive our glorification we will know Christ in an unparalleled way.

This is the yearning of Paul’s heart!

To see Christ face to face- to know Christ fully, even as Christ fully knows me!

This is Paul’s ultimate spiritual goal!

To know Christ!

More and more, and one day to be glorified so that he could know Christ fully!

Our love to Him should begin on earth, as it shall be in heaven; for the bride taketh not by a thousand degrees so much delight in her wedding garment as she doth in her bridegroom; so we, in the life to come, howbeit clothed with glory as with a robe, shall not be so much affected with the glory that goeth about us, as with the Bridegroom’s joyful face and presence.

—Samuel Rutherford

Is this the ultimate spiritual goal in your life?

To know Christ!

Is there a yearning in your heart for that knowledge?

Is there a devotion to Christ in your soul that is the fuel drives all of the rest of your spiritual life?

What is your eternal why?

What is your ultimate spiritual goal?

How do I do that?

How do you become a spiritually mature believer with the proper spiritual goal in your life?

Paul gives us two ways to help us become spiritually mature people who have the proper spiritual goal in our lives.

I.

You must become spiritually minded

13ἀδελφοί, ἐγὼ ἐμαυτὸν οὐ λογίζομαι κατειληφέναι·

Brothers, I never consider myself to have taken hold of it,

What is the it?

Glorification / perfection / full spiritual maturity

Paul knew that while he was positionally perfect in Christ, practically there was always room to grow in Christlikeness.

ἓν δέ,

but one (thing I do) / instead I am single-minded

What was the one thing?

How was Paul single minded?

Illustration: single-minded- Example (early morning bow hunting).

What is it in your life that makes you single minded?

Food?

Hobbies?

Exercise?

In what way was Paul single minded?

τὰ μὲν ὀπίσω ἐπιλανθανόμενος

on the one hand I keep on forgetting what is behind

What are things that are behind?

His old life (vv.

5-6)

Keep on forgetting!

Keep on fleeing!

Daily process of repentance for the believer.

This is how you become spiritually minded.

The things of this earth, of this life, they are not worth living for anymore.

They have no true value!

They have no eternal value!

So I must keep on forgetting them.

This is a lifelong process.

This is not something you do once.

This is not a crisis decision that you make during an alter call.

This is not a camp decision.

This is a discipline that you develop in your life over years and years of spiritual growth.

If you want to become spiritually mature, if you want to have the proper eternal why you must keep on forgetting what is behind.

τοῖς δὲ ἔμπροσθεν ἐπεκτεινόμενος,

and on the other hand I keep on straining myself to the utmost toward what lies ahead

What lies ahead?

What does really matter?

What does have eternal value?

14κατὰ σκοπὸν

With this goal in mind

διώκω

I keep on striving

εἰς τὸ βραβεῖον

toward the prize

What is the prize?

What really has value?

τῆς ἄνω κλήσεως τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ.

the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Our future glorification!

The resurrection from the dead- so that we might stand face to face with Jesus!

This is the way spiritually mature people think!

We must become spiritually minded people through a lifetime of practice.

Constantly forgetting what lies behind and instead straining toward what lies ahead.

Standing firm does not mean standing still, holding true does not mean holding back.

Spiritual mature people are constantly straining forward to what lies ahead.

Spiritually mature people are constantly yearning to know Christ more and more.

They do this by having the proper thought processes in place in their lives.

How about you this morning?

Have you allowed yourself to become spiritually lazy in your thinking?

Have you gone back to setting your mind on the youthful passions of your old life?

Are you developing a mindset that is constantly forgetting, but also straining forward to know Christ more and more?

Is this the eternal why of your life?