You Can’t Run Looking Backwards

Philippians 3:12-14 (KJV) Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. 13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

I’ve seen a lot of horror movies, and found out one of the biggest problems people have is running away while looking backward. You can’t run looking backward. Well, you can, but you’ll fall and become a victim rather than a victor.

Running while looking backwards makes for victims, not victors.

Life is very much like a race – maybe that’s why we’re called the human race. It’s not a sprint. It’s a marathon. If you stop running, they throw dirt on you. People run their race pursuing all types of things. The run their race depending on their own power, on their ego, on the I can do all things.

Opening: The Rap singer Fifty Cent (Curtis James Jackson III) had an album called “Get Rich or Die Trying”. He’s rich – he has lots of money. His net worth is estimated at $60 million. Yet when you look at his life, what does he really have? He was shot 9 times in 2000 and said when he survived, he believed in “God”. But his faith is in himself, on the Irather than Jesus. In an interview with beliefnet he said:

“I believe in God. I didn’t survive being shot nine times for nothing. I didn’t claw my way out of the ‘hood just ’cause it was something to do. I know I‘ve got a purpose – a reason for being on this planet. I don’t think I‘ve done everything I‘m supposed to do yet. But I do know this: I ain’t going nowhere ’til I‘ve done it all.”

In this one paragraph the Rapper used the word “I” eleven times – but “God” only once”. I didn’t bring this out to put the Rapper down, but this is the mindset of many people in our world today. They want to be spiritual, but their focus is I. This man, like many others, run the race looking at the I, at themselves. This will wear you out.

You Can’t Run Looking Backward: I’m reminded of the singer “Whitney Houston”. Whitney believed in God. Raised a Baptist, she said “I learned to sing in church. Church is where I got my strength. … God is the source of my talent. I never thought it was mine. … I know He’s real, because He lives inside of me.” Yet Whitney died at just 48 years old, drowned in a bathtub with cocaine found in her system. I don’t know if Whitney was saved or not, but I do know that if she was saved, a Child of God, she tried running her race looking backward. I don’t doubt she was a child of God, but even children of God hurt themselves if their eyes are on the wrong thing. Our Jesus said:

Luke 9:62 (NKJV) No one, having put his hand to the plow, and LOOKING BACK, is fit for the kingdom of God.

If you are a Christian, God has called you into salvation to serve Him. You need to realize ….

Your Life – Both Physical As Well as Spiritual –
Is A Stewardship, A Gift Given By God

Philippians 3:12 (KJV) Not as though I had already ATTAINED {lambanō}, either were already PERFECT {teleioō}: but I FOLLOW AFTER {diōkō}

A lot of people looked at the life of the Apostle Paul and thought, “Paul, you’ve arrived! You’re at the top of your game! There’s nothing left for you to do. Jesus called you on the Damascus Road to go to the Gentiles to preach the Gospel. Yes, you have been persecuted. But you’ve started Churches all over the place. God has used you in wonderful ways to spread the Gospel. YOU ARE THE MAN!” Paul replies,

“No, I HAVE NOT reached the goal or seized the prize”
{lambanō}
“No, I am NOT PERFECT. This is NOT a finished product”
{teleioō}
“I am still STRIVING, RUNNING SWIFTLY toward the goal”

What was Paul’s goal? What did he want to achieve? The rest of verse 12 seems convoluted, but it’s not. He says:

I FOLLOW AFTER {strive, run swiftly with all my strength}, if that I may APPREHEND {katalambanō} that for which also I am APPREHEND {katalambanō} of Christ Jesus.

Word Study: The word “APPREHEND” {the Greek katalambanō} means “to grab so as to possess”. What’s he’s saying is that “Jesus laid hold on me for a purpose – and I want to find and achieve that purpose that Jesus has for me”. Let’s read this in other versions for clarity:

[NKJV] I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

[ESV] I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

Paul is saying “God made me for a purpose. God saved me for a purpose. I will keep striving, I will keep following Jesus until I fulfill His purpose for my life”

Those who are lost wander about, looking for purpose. If you have detached yourself from God Himself, then your life will be purposeless. It was not God’s purpose for Adam to destroy himself with sin, and to get himself banished from Paradise. Adam made this decision. God wants the very best for our lives.

When Israel disobeyed God for 70 Sabbatical years, the Lord had them exiled as a nation for 70 years. As Israel despaired under Babylonian captivity, the Lord told His people:

Jeremiah 29:10-13 (ESV) For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I WILL visit you, and I WILL fulfill to you My promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For I KNOW THE PLANS I HAVE FOR YOU, declares the LORD, plans for WELFARE and NOT FOR EVIL, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then YOU WILL CALL UPON ME AND COME AND PRAY TO ME, and I WILL HEAR YOU. 13 You will SEEK ME AND FIND ME, when you SEEK ME WITH ALL YOUR HEART.

God wants the best for each and every one of us. He gave us life. He purchased us salvation in Christ Jesus. What does God expect of us? He wants us to FOLLOW HIM, to FOCUS ON JESUS, to PURSUE THE MESSIAH. We are to realize that we are NOT COMPLETE, and will never be complete in this life. We are all imperfect. We know nothing. We understand nothing. God is all in all.

What Satan is constantly doing is trying to get us to follow the I. To make life about ourselves. To make ourselves the center of all things. Beloved, this type of life is destined to fail.

If You’re Still Breathing, You Haven’t Arrived

Philippians 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have APPREHENDED {katalambanō}

Paul says, “I’m not there yet. I’ve not arrived.” So many of you think, “When I was young I did these things, but now I’m older I have no purpose, no plan, no thing that I must do”. Beloved, if you are still on this earth, you HAVE NOT ARRIVED. The Apostle wasn’t done yet. God wasn’t done with him. Do you know when God is done with you? When the preacher says a few words over your empty shell. When they put your earthly body in a resting place. But while you are alive,

1 Jesus Christ wants to save you if you are yet lost. While Paul was Saul, he couldn’t really be used of God. Jesus must reach you. You must say yes to Him and Him alone. People say, “Why won’t God use me?” The answer is He will not use a dead thing. Every work you do apart from Jesus is a dead work. God is good, but you are not.

“No one is good – except God ALONE” (Mark 10:18, NIV)

The Bible tells us that “there is NO ONE RIGHTEOUS, no, not even one. There is no one who seeks after God, no one who understands. All have turned away from God, and have become worthless. There is no one who DOES GOOD, no, not even one” (Romans 3:10-12, AP). The lost person without Jesus cannot do even one good thing that God considers worthy. The lost person is enslaved to sinfulness. The saved person follows the Lord Jesus.

John 8:34-36 (NKJV) Jesus answered them, Most assuredly, I say to you, WHOEVER COMMITS SIN IS A SLAVE OF SIN. 35 And a slave does not abide in the house forever, [but] a son abides forever. 36 Therefore IF THE SON MAKES YOU FREE, YOU SHALL BE FREE INDEED.

You need Jesus. Jesus Christ came to save sinners, broken people like you and I. You are a child of the devil if you are not in love with Jesus. The father you have, is the one you will serve. Jesus said, “{if} you are of your father the DEVIL, and the desires of your father you want to do”. We are all born into this world lost and undone. But Jesus Christ came into this world to save you from your sins. He came to change you, from a servant of sin to a servant of God. When you receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, God changes you from the inside out. The Bible says:

Romans 6:16-18 (ESV) Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who WERE ONCE SLAVES OF SIN have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having BEEN SET FREE FROM SIN, have BECOME SLAVES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

The one God uses must be first saved by Grace in Christ.

Ephesians 2:8-10 (ESV) For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, CREATED IN CHRIST JESUS FOR GOOD WORKS, which God prepared beforehand, that WE SHOULD WALK IN THEM.

We are saved by casting our lives on God, by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. He made us on purpose. He remakes us on purpose.

2 Once saved, this is not the end of your journey. The saved spend the rest of their lives on this earth serving the Lord Who saved them. Our focus is to be on Jesus.

Philippians 3:13-14 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this ONE THING {heîs} I DO, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I PRESS TOWARD THE MARK FOR THE PRIZE of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Paul says that this is the “ONE THING {heîs} I DO”, that is, this is his focal point. He keeps his focus on “the PRIZE”. What is the prize the Christ follower seeks? To discover what it is that God wants us to do, then to DO IT. We are not to be hindered by our failures, our stumbles, but keep looking to Jesus. Paul said that he keeps …

FORGETTING those things which are BEHIND

We all fall. We all fail. Put the failures in the rear view mirror – and don’t dwell on it. You as a Christian are a creature in transition. You are a caterpillar God is changing into a butterfly. We are children of God, sons of God through Christ Jesus. The Bible says of the believer that I am a …

“new creature in Christ: OLD THINGS are PASSED AWAY; behold, ALL THINGS are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Your past should not define your present. This is what destroyed Israel.

When Israel was in Egypt, they were a nation of slaves. God told Israel:

Exodus 6:6 (ESV) … I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I WILL DELIVER YOU FROM SLAVERY to them, and I WILL REDEEM YOU with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.

and once Israel was freed, God reminded them …

Leviticus 26:13 (ESV) … I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that YOU SHOULD NOT BE THEIR SLAVES. And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

God said “OUT OF EGYPT I Called MY SON” (Matthew 2:15). Egypt is a picture of the lost, pagan, godless world. When God saves us, He calls us OUT OF EGYPT. What is it that God has said?

2 Corinthians 6:17-18 (NKJV) Therefore “Come out from among them And be separate, says the Lord. DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN, And I will receive you.” 18 “I will be a Father to you, And YOU SHALL BE MY SONS AND DAUGHTERS, Says the LORD Almighty.

Israel was saved from Egypt. They PHYSICALLY came out of Egypt. But SPIRITUALLY they stayed in Egypt. Any time things got tough Israel didn’t look forward to Jesus, but looked BACK TO EGYPT. When they were trapped at the edge of the Red Sea with the armies of Egypt coming upon them, they cried out to Moses:

Exodus 14:11-12 (NKJV) … Because [there were] no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt? 12 [Is] this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘LET US ALONE THAT WE MAY SERVE THE EGYPTIANS’? For [it would have been] better for us to SERVE THE EGYPTIANS than that we should die in the wilderness.”

Rather than look UP to God, they looked BACK to Egypt. Though God saved Israel by parting the waters and by destroying the armies of Egypt, they continued to look to Egypt. In the wilderness of Sin they cried out:

Exodus 16:3 (NKJV) And the children of Israel said to them, “Oh, that we had died by the hand of the LORD IN THE LAND OF EGYPT, when we sat by the pots of meat [and] when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

God gave them manna from Heaven, yet their minds were locked on Egypt. In Rephidim they found no water. Rather than look to God, they cried out:

Exodus 17:3 (NKJV) And the people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moses, and said, “WHY IS IT THAT YOU HAVE BROUGHT US UP OUT OF EGYPT, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?

Is it any wonder that when Israel got to the base of Mount Sinai that they demanded of Aaron:

Exodus 32:1 (NKJV) Come, MAKE US GODS THAT SHALL GO BEFORE US; for [as for] this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.

God saved them, but their minds were in Egypt. They quickly made “GODS” that they could worship, rather than turn to the God Who saved them from Egypt. God has said,

Isaiah 42:8 (NKJV) I [am] the LORD, that [is] My name; And MY GLORY I WILL NOT GIVE TO ANOTHER, Nor My praise to carved images.

If you are a Christian, you are to be in constant transition. Keep following Jesus. Keep your eyes on the Lord. Don’t let your failures define you.

You do not belong to Egypt any more, dear Christian. You are God’s possession. You are not slaves of sin, and of darkness. This is the land of the lost, not the Promised Land of the Christian.

forgetting those things which are behind, and REACHING FORTH unto those things which are before

Had the first generation kept their mind on the lord Who saved them, they could have gone into the Promised Land. But they didn’t. They kept looking backward. You cannot run the race set before you looking backward. If you do, you will stumble. You will fail. The Apostle Paul looked back over his past life, and learned from his mistakes. But he did not allow those mistakes to define him.

1 Timothy 1:12-17 (NKJV) And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting [me] into the ministry, 13 although I WAS FORMERLY A BLASPHEMER, a PERSECUTOR, and an INSOLENT MAN; but I obtained mercy because I DID IT IGNORANTLY IN UNBELIEF. 14 And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. 15 This [is] a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that CHRIST JESUS CAME INTO THE WORLD TO SAVE SINNERS, OF WHOM I AM CHIEF. 16 However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life. 17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, [be] honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Paul said “I am the LEAST OF THE APOSTLES. I am NOT WORTHY TO BE CALLED AN APOSTLE, because I PERSECUTED THE CHURCH OF GOD” (1 Corinthians 15:9; Galatians 1:13). He remembered, I am sure, the Christians he had murdered in his unbelieving ignorance. He remembered the bad things he did. But Paul remembered that Jesus brought him out of Egypt. He remembered that it was BY GRACE He was saved:

1 Corinthians 15:10 (NKJV) But BY THE GRACE OF GOD I AM WHAT I AM, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, YET NOT I, BUT THE GRACE OF GOD WHICH WAS WITH ME.

Paul remembered where he came from – and learned by it. Paul got his mind out of Egypt, and into the kingdom of Christ. His focus was on following Jesus.

reaching forth unto those things which are before

Beloved, you have not finished what God has planned for your life until you get to glory.

Immature Christians Focus On Egypt – And Lose The Prize Of The Victorious Life!

Philippians 3:15 (KJV) Let us therefore, as many as BE PERFECT {teleios, mature}, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.

Paul has already told us in verse 12 that he is not PERFECT {teleioō, Perfect Passive Indicative} or COMPLETE. So unless Paul is contradicting himself, Paul is not talking about perfection in verse 15. The word here is the Greek teleios which means “to be mature, of full age”. The NKJV renders this verse:

Therefore let us, as many as are MATURE, have this mind

If you are a Christian, if God the Holy Spirit lives inside you, then you will stop looking back to Egypt. If you are otherwise minded – that is, if you don’t agree with this, then if you are a Christian “God shall reveal even this unto you”. Those who are Christians, though they may deceive themselves for a while, will eventually be brought to a right and a righteous mind by God. Here’s the truth:

You cannot be a joyful Christian and wallow in Egypt!

To those who say, “I’m a Christian – but I think thus and so sin (as the Bible defines sin) is fine”, if you’re really a Christian God will change your mind.

God does not give one set of rules for one Christian, and another set of rules for another. This is hogwash!

Philippians 3:16-17 Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, LET US WALK BY THE SAME RULE, LET US MIND THE SAME THING. 17 Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample.

If you are a Christian, you are a child of God, a member of the kingdom of God. You do NOT get to make your own rules. You must follow God’s directives. Jesus said, “If you love Me, you keep My commandments”:

John 14:15, 21 (KJV) If YE LOVE ME, KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS. … 21 He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, HE IT IS THAT LOVETH ME: and HE THAT LOVETH ME SHALL BE LOVED OF MY FATHER, and I WILL LOVE HIM, and will MANIFEST MYSELF TO HIM.

You don’t get to make your own rules. You are members of the kingdom of God. Even in the early Church, there were people who PROFESSED to be Christian …. but walked with their hearts in Egypt. Paul says of these:

Philippians 3:18 (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST: 19 Whose END IS DESTRUCTION, whose GOD IS THEIR BELLY, and whose glory is in their shame, who MIND EARTHLY THINGS.)

Those who run looking backward are not children of God. They are enemies of the cross. Jesus Christ came to save us from our sins – not to enable us to revel in them. Those who love Jesus – love Jesus. Those who love Jesus – look for Jesus.

Philippians 3:20-21 For our CONVERSATION {politeuma, community, commonwealth, citizenship} is in heaven; from whence also we LOOK FOR THE SAVIOR, the LORD JESUS CHRIST: 21 Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.

We live for Jesus, not for ourselves. May God move on your hearts! The great Pastor and Preacher C.H. Spurgeon wrote of the false Christian, saying:

“These professors have… learned to sleep over the mouth of Hell and dream of Heaven while damnation is denounced upon them.”

And the great Evangelist Billy Graham said,

“Millions of professing Christians are only just that — ‘professing.’ They have never possessed Christ. They live lives characterized by the flesh.”

If you are saved, you will desire Jesus. You will love God’s Word. You will want to grow into what He wants you to be. May God lead you to His side daily! Amen.