Have You Got it?

In today’s sermon we are going to be looking at being perfect or mature as a Christian as Paul would have us to understand it. We will look at it in three steps which I lay out now so that you can follow along and know where you are on this journey we are calling a sermon. 1) we will look at the example of one who would have never claimed perfection, 2) we will look at what Paul was actually saying in the text, 3) we will apply it to our lives today.

Our text is Philippians 3:12-16

No one ever claimed that John Newton had an easy life. He was born July 24, 1725 in Wapping London. Six years later his mother died of Tuberculosis and he spent several years with relatives and in boarding school as his father continued the shipping business. Then when he was 11 he began sailing with his father on the slave ships - learning the family trade.
By the time he was 18 he had become a Slave Ship Captain, only to be pressed into the service of the Royal Navy as a Midshipman. After he attempted to desert the Navy, his Naval Captain humiliated him in front of the other 350 sailors, reduced him in rank to common seaman, and eventually released him from duty to work as a servant to a slave trader in Sierra Leone.
In 1748 he was rescued by a friend of his father and he began his long journey back to England.
But more importantly, this trip marked the beginning of his journey to Christ.
While he was at sea a storm came upon the ship and he finally cried out to God. He then began reading his Bible and accepted the Christian doctrine as his own. This journey to Christ continued in stages but he also continued in the slaving business. But now, he encouraged the sailors under his care to pray and treat the human cargo with humanity and compassion. Later he would denounce slavery all together and realize the horrors of the industry.

In 1755 he began working at a port in Liverpool and in his spare time he studied Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac. Then in 1757 he applied to the Anglican Priesthood and was finally ordained a priest in 1764.

History would one day show that two of Newton’s greatest accomplishments were:
1) preventing the noted abolitionist and politician William Wilberforce from resigning his post in Parliament to become a minister. The result of which led to the abolition of the slave trade in England and her colonies
2) Penning the sermon/poem/hymn “Faith’s Review and Expectations” for a New Years service in 1767.

As a minister Newton was well known for his pastoral care but it was his evangelical preaching that drew the crowds of hundreds and thousands. Many lauded him as a great leader yet, he often dismissed their praise as he claimed to be far from perfect. He knew who he was and what he had been a part of. Every night he went to bed with the haunting memory of the voices of the 20,000 slaves that died while aboard his ships.
Newton knew the prize he was striving for, and he also knew that he had not attained it. It was as though God had plucked him from his life of sin and prepared him for a purpose, a purpose he would work his entire life in. In this respect he was much like Paul in our text today.

Key to understanding our text is the understanding of the Greek word Telios. Often this word is translated as Perfect but it is used in our passage today in verses 12 and 15 with a slightly different meaning in each.

In verse 12 many versions translate it as “perfect” but it isn’t to mean some sort of abstract perfection but rather qualified, fully prepared, complete. As though to say that Paul was not a complete Christian but he was pressing on to become one. You see, Paul could never see himself as complete because Christ changed him so dramatically that day on the road to Damascus. To be blinded by the light of Christ and to hear the voice of the Lord should change any of us. It was that day that Paul knew that he had been grasped by God for a reason, for a purpose.

Realizing this Paul knew that he must press on to achieve the goal for which he was grasped that day. That brings us to a question, For what goal did Christ grasp you? Do you even know the goal? Maybe you are pressing on toward realizing that goal. Maybe you are pressing on toward that goal.

Either way, it leads us on to the 2nd meaning of the work Telios found in verse 15. Here it is often translated as “mature” or “fully mature” as if to say that those who are full grown Christians will agree.
These are the ones who press on toward the goal.
These are the ones, young and old, who seek to become telios, seek to become perfect, seek to become full and complete.
These fully mature Christians are the ones that realize that the Christian journey is no respecter of age. The Christian journey is for everyone at every age. Paul is telling us that we must press on until the end.

As William Barclay puts it, “[One] must never relax [their] efforts or lower [their] standards but must press on toward the goal, until the end.”

How then do we press on toward the goal? Through the disciplines of the faith
John Wesley would call these the Means of Grace. Bishop Rueben Job would say that these are the ways we stay in love with God. I will say that these are the ways that we press on toward the goal we have yet to attain.
The study of Scripture, Private worship
Corporate worship, Charity,
Helping others in need, Tithing,
Prayer, Fasting,
These are also the foci of Lent. It is customary for us to “give something up” for Lent, i.e. fasting, so that we can remember the sacrifice of Christ as we journey through Lent toward the Cross of Christ and the empty tomb.

The practice of these disciples is not meant to become a law or a requirement for our faith. Instead they are a means to achieve God’s grace. They lead us to grace, and yet it is from the grace of God that they come to us.

It is amazing that it comes back to grace.

As we remembered John Newton earlier I told you of what history has said was one of his greatest achievements, the penning of the sermon/poem/hymn, “Faith’s Review & Expectation.”

But you know that hymn by another name, “Amazing Grace”

It is a song about a man touched by God’s amazing grace.
It is a song about a man at the center of the sin of slave trade.
It is a song about a man grasped for the purpose of ending that sin.
It is a song about a man who overcame a stroke to press on to achieve the goal before him.
It is a song about a man reaching out and reaching up.
It is a song about God’s amazing grace being poured out upon him and upon all who will come to it.

Have we achieved the goal for which we have been grasped? I think not.
Are we striving towards it? Through God’s amazing grace, I hope so.