Pursue Perfection

                What are you pursuing in your life?  What are you pushing yourself towards, sacrificing for, and pressing on to reach?  We’re all pursuing something.  Some of you are pursuing a career.  You’re on the road by 7 and back just in time for the news.  You network, conference, and fill out reports because you are pursuing success.  Some of you are pursuing a spot on varsity.  Unlike the teens rolling out of bed just in time for lunch, you set your alarm, lift, run, train, practice, stretch, and sprint because you don’t want to sit on the bench this season.  Others of you are pursuing a significant other.  You email, text, chat, talk, stalk on Facebook, and pray without ceasing because you want a date, a boyfriend, a wife.  The finish line might be different for all of us—retirement, video game domination, relaxation, the perfect family—but all of us are pursuing something.

                Have you ever pursued God?  Strained yourself for him?  Pushed yourself to know him?  Pressed on to be like him?  Followed him when it was the hardest thing in the world to do?  Last week, the Apostle Paul told us that was his goal.  “I want to know Christ,” Paul declared.  “I want to know his power.  I want to become like him.”  But how do we do that?  What does a life like that look like?  What is the difference between showing up to church and pursuing God?

                God tells us.  Look at his Word from Philippians 3.  Paul writes, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect [reached the goal], but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.  Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.”  “Not just yet.”  Paul knew he was a work in progress.  His joy wasn’t perfect yet.  His trust in God’s power wasn’t flawless yet.  He was not living completely like God wanted him to yet.  Paul was a work in progress and progress meant pursuing God.

                According to your mother, you are a work in progress, too.  Has Jesus forgiven all of your sins?  Yes.  Has God declared you to be part of his family through faith in Christ?  Yes.  But does that mean your works are perfect?  Not yet.  Some of us are patient 97% of the time.  Others are only patient on the 2^nd Tuesday of the month.  Some of us never drink one too many.  Others of us call one too many the start of a good night.  Some of us reach out weekly and invite others to learn about Jesus.  Others have a stack of sermon invitation cards in the glove box.  We are all works in progress.

                It’s like life in a family.  My kids are my kids.  They are not on a trial run to become my kids.  I’ve never said to little Maya, “Okay, Maya, here’s the deal.  If you pick up all your princesses and stop being such a clepto and stealing your sister’s toys, I’ll maybe think about letting you into this family.”  No, they are not progressing their way into the Novotny name.  They are already my kids.  That’s their official status.  But are they perfect in the way daddy wants them to live? …Yes, actually, my children are perfect; onto v.13…No, the worn carpet on stair #3 in our house is proof the naughty spot is a favorite destination of my daughters.  Why?  Because they are works in progress.  They are pursuing obedience as Kim and I constantly correct, discipline, call them to repentance, and forgive them.

                That’s how every Christian is with God.  If you have repented of your sin and turned to Jesus for forgiveness, you are part of the family.  You are not on a trial run with God.  You are a son/daughter of God himself!  But does that mean our works are perfect?  Not just yet. 

So what do we do?  Listen to Paul.  “¹³Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.”  Do you hear the pursuit in Paul’s words?  “Straining towards what is ahead.”  Paul, the secure child of God, pursued God passionately.

How did he do it?  Like any good preacher, Paul says, “One thing I do” and then gives us two things!  “One thing I do,” Paul instructs, “forgetting what is behind.”  Remember Paul’s past?  Before God showed him the truth, Paul thought Jesus was a false prophet.  He murdered Christians.  He played the exterminator and pursued believers like pests.  His religion was his reason to murder.  In another one of his letters, Paul wrote, “I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man…Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.”  If Paul didn’t leave that behind at the cross, it would kill him worse than he had killed them.  His guilt would have been a two-ton brick around his neck.  He never could have pursued God.

Some of us aren’t pursuing God right now because we can’t forget what happened back then.  Maybe it was just a single act from the past.  The one night you wish you could take back.  The one thing you should have said before he died.  And that one thing has dragged you down with guilt.  Or maybe it was a past lifestyle.  The deadly speed with which you can return an insult.  The argumentative defense so you never had to deal with your own brokenness.  And that lifestyle has shaped the way you still live today.  Maybe it was a label someone stuck to you back then.  “Worthless.”  “Not as good as your sister.”  And like a self-fulfilling prophesy, that’s exactly what you turned out to be.  Maybe it was an experience.  You tried reading the Bible and it didn’t work.  You gave prayer a shot and you didn’t see results.  So you stopped trying.

“One thing I do,” Paul pleads with us, “forgetting what is behind.”  How is that possible?  We can forget “that” if we remember “this”—God doesn’t define us by our past.  Because Jesus pursued us.  He left heaven itself to search for us in those dark places.  He pressed on towards the cross, the place where he would die to free you from the punishment, the guilt, and the identity of your past sins.  “Christ Jesus took hold of” us.  Because of him, the sins of your past have passed.  God doesn’t define you by your sin.  Instead, in his love, he chose to forget what was behind.  So we can stop remembering who we were and start remembering who God says we are.  Who says you cannot forgive or love or pray or read this Book?  Does not the God who saved you live within you so that nothing is impossible?  Forget what is behind you.  God left that on the cross.

But to pursue God, you need more than to forget the past.  You also have to push on towards the future.  I and six others from church just ran a crazy race called the Tough Mudder.  It’s a 10-mile obstacle course designed by a guy with too much testosterone and a twisted love of watching people get hurt.  You know it’s bad when every runner is required to sign a liability form, which is lovingly called “The Death Waiver”.  But three Saturdays ago, we ran it.  We marched up mile-long ski hills, gasping for breath.  We scaled 12 foot walls, scraping arms and knees as we scurried to the top.  We spit out mud as we crawled under barbed wire through a soupy mess of sharp stones.  We swam through the Chernobyl Jacuzzi, which the website claimed would help us grow a third arm before the end of the race.  And then we ran through the Electroshock Therapy, a gauntlet of wires, which were charged with 10,000 volts of electricity.  But, after four grueling hours, we finished.  And for our cuts, cramps, and weary bodies, we each got…an orange headband.  (Wait…why did we do that?)

The Tough Mudder was exhilarating, but can you imagine just stopping in the middle of it?  Just plop down at mile 8 and decide not to finish?  “You guys keep running.  I’m just going to head back to the car.”  Not a chance!  Forgetting the pain of the first seven miles wasn’t enough.  We had to finish the last three.  The joy of finishing the race made us press on.  Now listen to Paul, “One thing I do:  forgetting what is behind and 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.”  God has more than an orange headband for us.  He has heaven.  He has lined up for us more than a crazy experience of watching a friend get knocked out by electric shocks.  He has joyful service for us to do before the finish line—people to love; gifts to give; prayers to pray; a message to share.  That’s why Paul strained ahead and pursued God.

This is our challenge—to not sit down at mile 8 of our race.  I visited a woman once who was drifting away from the church.  “Don’t worry, pastor,” she assured, “I still believe.”  But God hasn’t called us to “just believe”.  He has called us to pursue perfection.  Like an athlete pursues a starting spot and gives up everything she has to to get it.  Like a boy who pursues a girl and will give up his time and money to win her heart.  God wants to be pursued.  One of the subtlest dangers to our faith is when we don’t feel stretched or pressed—when following Christ seems…easy.

“All of us who are mature should take such a view of things.  And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.  Only let us live up to what we have already attained.”  These closing words contain both God’s grace and our goal.  Don’t forget God’s grace.  “Let us live up to what we have already attained.”  What have you already attained?  Christ!  Salvation!  Forgiveness!  Unconditional love!  These things are all yours because God is a pursuing God.  As we just sang, “Come, Spirit, come/Put strength in every stride/ Give grace for hurdle/That we may run with faith to win the prize/Of a servant good and faithful.”  The Holy Spirit has come.  Right here he points us to what we have attained through Jesus.  Love.  Mercy. Grace. 

With that grace, the goal is to be a mature pursuer of God.  “Let us live up” to our calling, our status, as forgiven people.  So what goal will you pursue this week?  Maybe to memorize these five verses by next Sunday.  Maybe to pray each day for God’s help in leaving your past in the past.  Maybe to read Philippians each day for the next 7 days.  Maybe to pick up the phone and let go of the grudge you have held for too long.  How will you live up to your calling?  How will you pursue God?  What’s your goal?

As you stretch and strain and sprint, never forget the “prize” that is coming.  An orange headband can’t compare to it.  One day, when we die or Jesus returns, God’s pursuing people will cross the finish line.  One day, we will open our eyes and see Christ.  One day, our backs will stop aching and our joints will stop throbbing.  One day, the nerves that knot our stomachs and the stress that presses down our lungs will be extinct.  One day, the frustrations of marriage and the loneliness of widowhood will say goodbye forever.  One day, the tempting voice that sounds so sweet, but leads to such bitter places will be silenced.  One day, death will be dead and we will live forever.  One day, everything I want to be and everything I want you to be will come to be.  And there will be no reason not to rejoice.  But we are not there just yet.  So run.  Press on.  Pursue the God who, for all your life, has been pursuing you.  Amen.