Run Your Race with Your Eyes on the Goal/Finish Line

Philippians 3:12-14

This passage can replace wrong thinking about your race with right thinking.

1. “I have arrived”

a) “not that I have already obtained it/have already become perfect”- the full knowledge & perfection, which comes with the future resurrection. No one will arrive at this point before his or her race is completed.

b) Those who claim they have arrived & become perfect ignore reality and clear verses, and redefine sin or perfection. They become proud, arrogant people demonstrating their sinfulness.

2. “I will coast”

a) Some who accept they will not become perfect in this life, do so in a way that justifies a lackadaisical attitude. They coast along and take sin lightly.

b) “Press on”- used in v6 “persecutor/church”. He is eagerly running towards perfection as swiftly as he can. He will not accept lukewarm Christianity.

3. “It’s all on my own”

a) One can despair thinking you are on your own to keep pressing on & striving for perfection.

b) “may lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus”- Lay hold of to make one’s own. There is beautiful balance of God’s involvement & ours (1:19, 2:12-13). Christ initiated & laid hold of me at salvation & will not let me go. I embrace whatever He wants to bring into my life.

4. “I cannot get out of my past”

a) “one thing”- has a negative & positive aspect. “forgetting”- present continuous & deliberate. We cannot erase the past from our minds (v5-7), but we can ignore it (James 1:24) so that for all practical purposes we have forgotten it (not dwelling on & controlled by). This includes past failures & successes as a non-Christian & Christian.

b) “reaching forward”- stretching, straining forward like a runner straining with all his/her effort to get to the finish line. What awaits us replaces the regrets & distraction of what is behind us.

5. “I am a loser”

a) “press on”- (v12). One’s eyes are on the goal & thoughts on the prize. Even if you have never won anything, you can be a victor that has overcome this fallen world. At the end of your race/life, you enter into  your heavenly reward.

b) It is an upward call from heaven to heaven. There we will enjoy fullness of life. We will experience the fullness Christ has for His own in sinless perfection.