What is your goal, your mission in life? Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People says that the first habit of highly effective people is that they have a clear sense of who they are and where they are going. They begin with the end in mind, he says. They have a goal, not in the sense of specific plans for the future. But they know their mission, their purpose. Today organizations, departments within organizations, and even individuals within departments have mission statements that remind them what their goal is, what is their deepest value?
Covey suggests that one way to get at what you want out of life (what your goal really is) is to go on an imaginary trip. Imagine, he says, that you are going to a funeral, a funeral of a loved one. You pull into the parking lot of the funeral chapel, you walk in and see many of your family members and friends, and walk forward to the casket. And you see yourself lying there. It is three years from today. Well, you take a seat and open the bulletin. You see four speakers listed. One will speak for your family; another will speak as a friend, another as a co—worker, and another as a member of your church. One way to get at what your goal in life is, is to ask: what would you want these people to say about you? How do you want to be remembered?
In Philippians 3 today Paul gives his personal mission statement, his goal.
Paul had shopped around. He’s tried a lot of things in his life. But in vs. 10—11 he states ever so clearly the conclusion he has come to, his goal after all of these different roads that he’s tried: it is to know Christ, to be united with Christ, to so identify with Christ, Paul says, that when I look at Christ, I see myself; and when I look at myself, I see Christ. Paul elaborates on that goal in v. 11:
I want to see in Christ’s death my own death——
death to sin, death to the old life;
I want to get rid of things in my character, my behavior
that hurt myself and others and God’s creation.
I want to see in Christ’s suffering my own suffering
what a comfort: to not suffer alone.
We share with Christ in our suffering.
And then I want to see in Christ’s resurrection my own resurrection— new life, new hope, new victory over sin. Yes, Paul says, that’s my goal:
I want to look at Christ and see myself in the mirror of Christ, and
I want to look at myself, and only see a reflection of Christ.
In other words, Paul’s goal in life is a character goal. It’s what he wants to be in his person, his character, his relationships.
When you thought about those four speakers at your imaginary funeral, I doubt any of you said, “Oh, I just want them to tell how much money I made, or how many books I wrote, or how many clothes I wowed people with.“ No, we want to be remembered for being selfless and kind and faithful, for being a person of character, a person (in Paul’s words) who knows his creator, the one in whose image he has been made, who knows Christ, who sees herself in Christ and Christ in herself.
Paul goes on to reflect on this goal, the end that he has in mind for his life.
He says three things that are so important as we seek to know Christ in our lives. First, he realizes he is not there yet. He hasn’t arrived. Paul says two different times in just the few verses we read: Verse 12 — “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect“ and verse 13 — “I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.“
I’m going to say something right now, and some of you are going to think,
“Oh no! How does he know me? He’s talking straight to me!“ And I am, but I want you to realize that there are thousands of you out there who are going to have that reaction. I can’t tell you how many times and with how many different people I have had this conversation. Someone says, “You know, I want to come to church. I like to come to church. But it’s so hard. Because I look around me and everyone always seems so happy. These nice families walk in. Nice kids. All those people have their life together.
I just feel like such a dud in the room full of spiritual fireworks.“
I want to tell you, all of you who are listening, a couple of secrets. First, things are not always as they appear. We all live at the edge of brokenness. Heartaches abound in life. As Rabbi Harold Kushner says (that’s the guy who lost an 11 year old child and later wrote a moving book about life’s pain and brokenness),
“Pain and anguish may not be distributed evenly
throughout the world, but they are distributed very widely.
Everyone gets his share. If we knew the facts we would
rarely find someone whose life was to be envied.“
Everyone has struggles. Believe that.
In the late 1980s, U.S. Senator John East of North Carolina committed suicide. Everyone in the Senate and in his home state was shocked. I still remember what Helms, East’s fellow senator from North Carolina, said upon the news of East’s suicide. “You never really know what’s inside another person.“ Indeed, things are not always what they appear.
The second secret (that comes directly out of v. 12) has to do with how we all stack up with each other spiritually. Paul has been a Christian, a Christian pastor, a Christian leader, a frontier breaking missionary, for over 30 years now. And he still says, “I’m a duffer. I’m an amateur. I haven’t attained what I want to attain.“ Many of us feel intimidated by other Christians and by the church because we think everyone else is a “9“ or a “10“ in their spiritual life, but we’re sure that we’d be the first “2“ to ever walk through the door of a church. Paul says, wrong.
It’s true that some people are further along the journey of maturity in Christ than others. But we’re all fellow travelers, and bunched up together in a very narrow range, at least from the perspective of perfection, of God. We’re all more like each other than unlike each other.
The first step in realizing your spiritual goal of knowing Christ is realizing that you and all of us are in process. We’re on a journey. None of us has arrived or ever will fully arrive in this life. We’re all walking together toward one goal, on a journey that will last the rest of our lives.
The second thing that Paul says is so important in our goal of knowing Christ is I must forget what lies behind. Verse 13: I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind . . . “ The past can so easily be a prison that keeps us from going forward in life. And most of us have things in our past that can imprison us if we let them. They may be our failures and sins. Satan loves to accuse us, to hold over our heads what Christ has long ago forgiven and washed away with his blood. They may be things that have happened TO us and we are angry and bitter. And we won’t let go of it. We won’t forgive. And we know we’re only hurting ourselves by not letting go, but we can’t let go, or so we think. For some of us, the things we have to leave behind are successes and achievements, at least if they cause us to become complacent and lazy, too content with the way things are, no longer focused on the goal. For still others of us, we have to leave behind things in our past that were good things, but that simply are no more. You’ve moved from that town you loved, that job is over, or that stage of life or family is over. We often look like the person in Zechariah 2 who sets out to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, but who only wants to measure the ruins of the old Jerusalem, to make the bygone glories of the old city determine the dimensions of the future. No. It’s gone. It’s gone. Painful as it is.
“Forgetting what lies behind. . . “
Third, Press on. Paul says.
“I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
. . . straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.“
Paul uses two images to picture this pressing on. Both images come from the world of the Greek games First is the runner racing in the marathon, pushing himself and achieving ever higher goals. I’m always amazed at these statistics that tell us how much physical potential we really have——and what a small percentage of our lung capacity or our brain capacity we really use. And we’re all amazed when we see Olympic athletes who have set a goal of being the best in the world and pressed on to achieve it. This first image reminds us how much potential we have in Christ, how, as Paul will say later in this book, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. But it also reminds us that we’ve got to want it. We won’t just stumble into this excellence. We must desire it. We live in a society of instant gratification. We want everything now. And we want it painlessly. So advertisers promise us painless ways to everything from weight loss to wealth to quitting smoking to getting a college education.
Paul says, “Achieving the goal of being like Christ is not painless. You must press on to achieve this goal. And it is not without costs. In fact, it requires everything of you—giving your whole life to God.“
The second image is in verse 14, where Paul says he wants
to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ.
In the Greek games, like our own Olympic games, the winner came forward to the winner’s stand, and the judge gave the winner her prize.
What an emotional moment that is. In our world Olympics, the gold medal winner climbs the podium, the national anthem plays, and all the work and pain and sacrifice comes to a burning climax in this moment.
Paul says,
“I can’t wait to stand before God,
and hear him say,
‘Well done.
It was hard.
And a couple of times you fell.
You made some mistakes, a couple of big ones.
You could have quit.
But you ran the right race.
You fought the right fight.
You chose the right goal.
Well done.
Forgetting what lies behind, straining forward, pressing on to what lies ahead. . .
Awhile back, I preached a sermon on these verses in a small country church. After the service, a frail old lady, back humped over, pushing one of those four wheeled walkers, came through the line at the end of the service, shook my hand and said “thank you pastor, I’ll keep trying, I’ll keep trying.“ I cringed. I realized that at one level that is exactly what I had challenged her to do…press on, strain forward. But the irony, the mystery of Paul’s teaching today, is that this life in Christ in not first of all achievement—it is a gift. The wonderful irony is that knowing Christ is God’s gift to us, that we only need graciously receive. All these other things will flow out of the bounty of that gift.
One of the great things about the Christian faith is that there’s always a tomorrow, the road ahead, there’s always a chance to start over, always new possibilities. It’s never autumn in the Christian life, always spring.
Tomorrow with its possibilities is always stronger than yesterday with its pain or failures. The future beckons us more than the past can break us.
For our goal and our future rests in the one who has risen from the dead.
What is your goal in life? Keep your eye on the only worthy goal. For at the end of the day, at the end of life’s race, the only thing that will matter will be Christ.
Duane Kelderman
Rev. Duane Kelderman is the Vice President for Administration and an Associate Professor of Preaching at Calvin Seminary in Grand Rapids. Before his current position he served as pastor in Christian Reformed congregations in Toledo, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; and Grand Rapids, Michigan. Rev. Kelderman is married to Jeannette and has three children and two grandchildren. He was born and raised in Oskaloosa, Iowa and attended Calvin College and Calvin Seminary. He enjoys reading and carpentry.
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