We want to thank you for listening to this week's sermon from Harvest Bible Chapel, Kansas City. We pray that you will be encouraged and challenged by God's word today. If you would like more information about Harvest, please visit our website at www.harvestkansascity.org. How many of you heard the phrase, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? Have you heard that phrase before? Yes. Caleb, my oldest son, he is all about imitating his older sister. Sometimes, he's also all about annoying her as well, which kind of, they kind of go together as well. But he will follow her around, he'll say the things that she says in the same manner, he'll do the same things that she does, because he wants to be like her in some form. And while, yes, we find this adorable, not so much on her end, not all the time anyways. Imitation really shows how much you value a person's lifestyle and a person's beliefs and their character. And so we're going to be looking at here this morning. I know this is a simple example, but we could really learn from this that there is something to be said for imitation. So our big idea today is this. Who and what you are imitating in Christ is a key factor to your growth in Christ. who and what you are imitating in Christ is a key factor to your growth in Christ. Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Philippians chapter three. Our ushers are coming down the aisle, they're gonna have Bibles for you. If you don't have a Bible, you can raise your hand and let us give you one. If you don't have a Bible at home or if you wanna take it home just because you like the ESV better, you can take it home, go ahead. So we're gonna be in verse 12 here to start through 14. It says this, not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining towards what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call in Christ Jesus. So our first point is that we are to imitate by pressing on. Imitate by pressing on. He says in verse 12, not that I've already obtained this. What's the this that he's talking about? Well, he's going back to chapter three, verses 10 and 11, which are actually my life verse. I love those verses, and I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him at his death. That's an amazing pursuit, and that is Paul's pursuit. That is his ultimate goal, to know Christ more, to love him more, to have fellowship with him, to be made perfect through the suffering, truly, that they have in common. And that's what happens in Paul's life. He experienced an incredible level of physical, emotional persecution and struggle. That marked Paul's life in many ways. but it caused him in the process to have greater fellowship with Christ. That's an amazing thing, that's what he wanted. So Paul is writing this book from a Roman prison, and though he's coming to the end of his life, we see that, his spiritual fervor, his excitement for the things of the Lord is never stronger as it is here. The idea of pressing on is clearly key in this section and also to my outline, so we'll take a look at that. And what it means to press on is to strive for, going after something with the intent to catch it, to do something with intense effort. It has kind of a hunting or a racing connotation to it. We have one little hunter who lives in our house. His name is Bosco. Bosco is a 25-pound Boston Terrier beagle. He's very cute, mildly annoying, but a great little dog. Bosco relentlessly pursues the bunny rabbits in our backyard. He wants to get them. He will not stop. He sees a rabbit out there, and boom, he's gone. He's chasing that thing. He doesn't do so well with the big bunnies. He's a little more lucky in the small bunny area, but that's a different story we're not gonna talk about, because it's gory. The big ones are just too fast for him, but yeah, it doesn't stop him from relentlessly pursuing those bunnies, and we are to press on in Christ with a similar kind of relentless intensity, unwilling to waver, unwilling to give up. It doesn't mean that there won't be speed bumps along the way, because there will be. One speed bump to imitation of pressing on is the past, the past. Look at verse 13, it says, forgetting what is behind and striving towards what is ahead. I could tell you that I am not great at walking. People aren't good at certain things, okay? I'm not good at walking. I literally just fall down sometimes when I walk. It happens. Now, I'm especially bad at looking at other things when I'm trying to walk. Like if I'm walking and looking this way, like watch out. You never know what's going to happen. I like fall down with children in my hands and whatever. You never know what's happened. That's my wife. But I'm especially bad when I'm trying to look behind, right? I can't look behind and try to walk forward. My progress will be stopped in some way. And the fact is that it's so easy to live in the past, to try to live while looking backwards. It doesn't work, especially if you have major past regrets. If anyone had a reason to struggle with the past, it was Paul. Paul had a very sordid past. He murdered Christians. He lived so zealously for his religion. He talks about it in the beginning of chapter three. So what is your past? What continual sin or mistake haunts your existence? Maybe it's a relationship between you and your kids. Maybe it's a past mistake in your current marriage or your former marriage. Maybe it's something you said you'd never do again, but you've done it. Our past works much like a ball and chain. Ball and chain was a medieval method for keeping control of prisoners that were being locked up. And so what it was, was it was an iron shackle that was on your ankle with a very, very heavy chain and a 17 pound kind of iron steel ball on the end of it. So that was all attached to your leg, and so when you would try to run away, you're not running very quickly, lest you are like Arnold Schwarzenegger or something, right, in a movie. So it would slow down the progress of the person trying to escape just enough to be caught. That's what our past does. It slows our growth, it slows our ability to walk forward, to strain forward. I've said this before, I really can't say it enough. I spent years in bondage to my past. I had done some things and lived away in life. I had hurt my wife. I had walked away from really pursuing ministry in many ways. I was lost. And I lived for years. When I kind of snapped out of it finally, I understood. And I lived in regret for years because of that. It was about two years of really struggling. And it wasn't until the Dominican Republic in 2009, which is the same place we're going back to this year. Our student ministry is going there again. And I remember the room that we sat in. It was the same room that I sat in when God gripped my heart. It's a special place for me. God set me free of my past while I was there. or to imitate the example of pressing on by not walking in bondage to our past. And what that means, forgetting, is not literally like an obliteration of the past. It's not like, okay, like a bomb goes off in our past and it's gone, right? It's not that way. One commentary I was reading, it said that it doesn't mean destroying the past, but it's a conscious refusal to let the past absorb his attention and impede his progress. So it's a refusal to not let the past rule the future. You get that? It's a refusal to not let the past rule the future. Your past can either mess up your future or it could be used by God to his glory to people in similar situations. God has used my sin to sanctify me, to change my marriage and to be used in the marriages of other people. That's been our hope. So we're gonna do something a little bit different. I want you to, you have your notes right there. I want you to actually, I'm gonna ask you three questions and I want you to just write down an answer to these three questions. I want you to think about one hard thing that has happened in your life either by your choices or by circumstances. Write that down, write down that one thing. One hard thing in your life that's happened to you either by your choice or your circumstances. And then I want you to write down or think about how has God used that event or that thing to sanctify you. You write that down too, if you like. The third question is how has God used this event to help other people? How has he changed you so that you could help others through this situation? This is the lens by which we should look at the past, not with regret. And maybe you need to hear this truth spoken over you. Look up here, that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Do you believe that? Romans 8.1, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. One of the best remedies for forgetting the past, according to Paul, is straining towards the future. That word straining is an awesome word. It means to exert effort to the utmost, stretching out to the fullest length. It's literally somebody diving towards the finish line, constantly, all the time. It's the idea of maximal effort in the race. That's how Paul lived. He tells us in 1 Corinthians 9 to run in such a way as to get the prize, or to run with incredible, passionate exertion. So does that describe your life? Are you even running the race? I'm fully aware that not every person here is a believer. Are you in the race at all? We are to strain towards the prize, and we're gonna talk a little bit more about the prize later on, but the prize is worth running after, I promise you. Wherever you are at, we are to imitate Paul by pressing on towards knowing Christ and having fellowship with him in our suffering. Next, you are to imitate by pursuing maturity. Imitate by pursuing maturity. Verse 15 says, let those who are mature think this way. And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. So what does it mean to be spiritually mature? What does that actually mean? We're gonna look at that. I'm gonna give you kind of a working definition and we're gonna come back to it at the end of the point. But it means this, being at an advanced stage of spiritual development. usually as a result of three things, experience, teaching, and in most cases, time. Experience, teaching, and time. Maturity is shown in the way a person can forget what is behind and strive towards what is ahead. That's what Paul is referencing here. That's what shows our maturity in Christ. He says, let those who are mature think in this way. What does that sound like to you, right? I think we've heard the phrase before, right? Thinking leads to right living, right? That's what he's talking about, that maturity happens as God transforms our hearts, our minds are changed, we think rightly, and boom, our actions are changed. Our maturity in Christ will cause us to think rightly about God. But maturity is truly a byproduct of genuine repentance. Maturity is a byproduct of genuine repentance. Let's listen to this from John Piper. Repentance, in Jesus's message, is not behavior, but the inner change that gives rise to Christ-exalting behavior. You see the distinction there? That repentance is not about your behavior. You get that? It's not about the action that you are doing. It's about your heart being transformed, and in turn, your actions will change. When God gets your heart, everything else will be different. towards God, towards others, your life will look different. And truly, we're all gonna look different in this journey. It's not like spiritual maturity for me looks the same as it does for you. Some of you have been in Christ way longer, some of you for less time. We're all at different stages, but the passage says, you'll only hold true to what you have attained. I sometimes realize that I'm doing this with my own children, but I'm like, you know, stop yelling, stop running around, stop playing with the toys, don't make a mess. They're children, right? Like that's what they do. It's okay for a child to be a child, right? But we wanna encourage, we wanna push them to mature and to pick their things up and do the things we're supposed to. We kinda do, in the faith, it's the same thing. We're like, why aren't you reading your Bible? Why aren't you doing that, right? We kinda have this like, you should be doing that by this stage, right? It's like this air of superiority in some way. But no, we're supposed to hold to the measure of which we have attained. I've noticed that in my own life, the way that I process sin, the way that I process God's word is different than it was five years ago, 10 years ago, even 20 years ago. It's been that long. What's awesome is that when our minds are changed, when God changes our minds, I love this, it says, let us hold true to what we have attained. What that means is that there's a, it says us, let us hold true. This word means a battle formation. Meaning we come together and we have the ability to fight wrong thinking. We come together in that. We are holding true to what we have attained together. We can go to war together. We stand together pursuing maturity, helping each other pursue maturity as believers in Christ. But we must never grow stagnant, content. Paul would never allow himself to be content with his level of desire for Christ or with the sin that was in him. He waged war against his sin. and we should imitate his desire to pursue maturity, holiness, and keep confronting the sin in our lives. See, the reality is the Holy Spirit will never stop digging into our hearts, digging deeper and deeper and deeper to the sins that we have within us. We sometimes think, well, all right, that big sin is gone, I am set, right? That's not the way that it is. What happens is, as that big sin, big sin, is eliminated, all that we see is that there's a lot more little ones lying around that need to be dealt with, right? God keeps digging, he keeps digging. And if you've ever dug a hole, any hole diggers out there, dug a hole? Sounds pretty fun, right? What you'll notice is that the deeper you go, like the ground gets more rocky, there's clay, there's power lines, there's things you don't wanna run into, right? That make it much more difficult to dig, and that's what happens in us as we grow in our faith in Christ, as we are changed, and as the Holy Spirit probes us, it gets more and more difficult to dig deeper and deeper into our hearts. Because those sins run deep. But occasionally, God breaks out the jackhammer on our hearts, right? Like, that's a jackhammer, apparently. And he breaks it up even fat, like really quickly, all at once. But he relentlessly will never stop digging. Paul realized, maybe more than anyone else, that he was not perfectly mature. He got that, like, it's pretty obvious here. He goes out of his way to display his shortcomings. He kind of gives a laundry list of his accomplishments, if you will, but really the only point of him doing that is just to show that it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough. Paul is speaking in part to a group of people who had thought that they had arrived. Paul mentions his Jewish upbringing, his instruction, his zeal for the law, Most Christians will be the first to say that they are not totally mature in their faith, but when it comes to having conversations with each other, honest conversations, it's like, man, everything's good. Purity, nailed it. Devotions, good. Family, oh, I'm good, everything's good. Is that the way it is in your accountability times? Our sin, it goes much deeper than that, and we must allow the Holy Spirit to reveal it to us. So before we move on to our third point, let's look at those areas of spiritual maturity that I defined earlier. The example was, we are mature through experience, teaching, and time. So I'm gonna encourage you to write these down. So experience, let's look at that. What experiences cause spiritual maturity? And these are all D words. I was able to do it, how about that? Dedicating experiences. Dedicating experiences. What I mean by that is times that you say, I'm going to set apart this time, I'm going to go to this place, I'm going to serve in this way, whether that's a mission trip, whether that's a conference. I've been supremely impacted by this conference called Linger, the Linger Conference. A bunch of people went this last time, and it's available to all. Amazing times of worship, teaching, It's great, it's good stuff. I've heard that the GCC is gonna be doing something similar to the Harvest U type of conference, so there's talks about that as well. But those are opportunities to go and dedicate your time to either serve God or learn about Him. When you do that, if you're open to the Holy Spirit, like what God's doing, you'll be changed. I found that in my own life. The second experience that will mature us are devoting experiences. So what I mean by that is daily scripture reading, prayer, doing the things that the saints of old have done for thousands of years, spending time with their God, writing to Him, writing about Him. And the third experience that causes spiritual maturity is devastating experiences. Devastating experiences. death, sickness, divorce, loss of job. If you're open and if you're working, you're working things out with the Lord, you're with him, he's gonna mature you through that, he will. Next, we are matured through teaching, through teaching, dividing the word. Meaning when you have opportunities to speak forth God's word, you're studying it, you're examining it. There are lots of tools available for you to study God's word, to dive into it. It's truly a treasure trove, a lot of T's. Next is delving into the word in church. So being in a church, if you're not from this church, if you're visiting, we examine the word of God. We're gonna do that, we're gonna study it. But being in a church that does that, Do it in your small groups, study the word together. Third area that he matures us through is time. And that's, we're gonna spend time doing these things again and again. There's kind of a rinse repeat thing going on, right? Like we just, we do the things that have been done and we keep doing them and we're consistent and God grows us. Next there's time discipling. Being poured out for other people, pouring into others having those relationships. God uses so many other areas to mature us as we imitate Christ. Third, we're to imitate by practicing righteousness, by practicing righteousness. Verse 17, look at the text, brothers, join in imitating me. And keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example that you have in us. For many, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their God is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. What we see in this section is two different actions that a person can choose to imitate. He says, join in imitating me. Paul says this a lot. It kind of sounds a little bit prideful. You're like, hey, look at me and do what I do, you know? But the difference is Paul was imitating Christ. Paul was pursuing Christ and following his example, copying his actions, being like Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 1 talks about how Paul said to imitate him, 1 Corinthians 11, also here in Philippians 3. We are to practice Paul's righteousness. And so what I'm gonna give you here is four different ways, four different areas of Paul's righteousness that we are to imitate. The first one is this, his doctrine, righteous doctrine. Read the book of Romans. There's some seriously righteous doctrine within that book. Number two, righteous resolve. 1 Corinthians 2.2, he says, I resolve to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We resolve to know Him. Next is righteous perseverance. Write down 2 Corinthians 12. That man was persevering righteously through suffering. He kind of gives this whole laundry list of all of his different areas that he suffered in. Next is this, righteous confidence. And that's everything he writes, right? So who in your life exemplifies these same righteous actions and beliefs? Because you have them, you have them in your life. He says, keep your eyes on those people. The Greek word there is skopio, which means scoping it out. So it means to contemplate, examine, inspect, constantly think about. Tim Challies in his book, Do More Better, encourages us to be curious. When you meet someone who appears to be especially productive or organized, ask him or her for tips. I've learned a lot from reading great books and more, but even more by asking others how they manage their time, how they built a system, and how they learn to be successful in their tasks. Now he's referencing a productive work environment, being glorifying to God within that, but doesn't that sound like our Christian lives? That we should be meeting with each other, we should be curious, we should be pursuing them to find out how they've grown away from their addictions, how they've grown in their marriages, how they've overcome the obstacles of life, how they've led their kids, how they've led their families, how they've cultivated greater love for God. You all have examples that you can choose to follow, examples that show you the way. Our church is mature in many awesome ways, and I think that's much in large part to our elders, don't you? They lead the way in teaching us. They show us how to worship in many ways. We are mature as a body because of them. Kent Hughes says it this way, he says, over a period of time, a congregation will often come to resemble and imitate its leaders. I think that's why we are the way we are, because we're imitating our leaders, and our leaders are awesome. So give him a pat on the back when you see him. So is that who you are, imitating, or is it something or someone else? Remember, there's a second contrast here. Look at verses 18 and 19. He says, for many of whom I have often told you and now tell you, even with tears walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their God is their belly and their glory in their shame with minds set on earthly things. So who are these enemies that he's speaking about? Well, generally it's anybody who walks or lives in a godless manner. The word defined, enemies, is alienated, at war, refusing to be reconciled. In Paul's context, it is likely that they were actually professed believers that have turned away. And now they're refusing to be reconciled to God. Either way, there are people that don't believe, whether that's openly or whether that's secretly. And I truly do believe that there are people here that are playing the game. It's maybe not as evident as within our student ministry that they're playing the game, but you know how to play it well, you've been doing it longer. is that you sit here and refuse to be reconciled to God. Your life is truly at war with Him. As a believer, I've lived in that state before. Paul makes it clear to us what that state of refusal means. He says their end is destruction. Their God is their belly, their glory and their shame. The word used for destruction here is the same as in Matthew 7.13 where Jesus says, enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate that leads to destruction and there are many who find it. Their object of worship is that which fills their belly, that which satisfies their physical desires. The very things that bring glory bring shame. not directed in the right ways. So easily, we begin imitating the world around us, imitating its passions and desires, finding our contentment in the filling of our bellies and our bank accounts. I believe that a majority of you here do have a genuine faith in Christ, but the question I must ask you is how are you relating to the world that is headed for destruction? How are you relating to the people in your life that don't know him? You see them heading down a path, but what are you doing about it? Paul's emotion is so evident here in verse 18. It says that he often talks about with tears. He is so passionate about the lost. He says in 1 Corinthians 9, I've become all things to all people that I might save some. He would spend himself and be spent for the souls of the people he was ministering to. He experienced great sorrow and unceasing anguish for his people, the Jews. His passion for people that don't know Christ was incredible. Do you have that kind of passion for the lost people in your life? Do you relentlessly cry out to God for them? Do you weep for them? Unfortunately, our theology sometimes puts a wrench in the works of us being faithful to what God's word has called us to do. For example, we believe in the sovereignty of God, right? We believe that God is gonna save, he's gonna save who he saves, we know that, they're called. But does that stop you from praying? Because you're like, well, God's gonna save him anyway, why do I need to pray? I mean, why, right? If your theology is causing you to not do something that God has called you to do, then your theology is being applied wrongly. Do you understand that? He calls us to cry out for those that are lost. Do not ever give up hope that God can and does save some of the hardest hearts you could ever imagine. He saved yours, didn't he? I'm gonna tell you a story that I love. For over 10 years, a man named Christopher Yuan, he lived as a homosexual, drug dealing, drug using party of a lifer. Eventually he ended up arrested because his drug dealing had got out of control. And then while he's in prison, he finds out that he's HIV positive. But what Christopher didn't know was that his mom, Angela, never stopped praying for him. Never stopped praying for him. For years, she had been earnestly pleading with God to save her son. She had converted an unused prayer closet, a shower, into a prayer closet in her house. She spent so many hours praying and studying God's word that her knees were calloused and bloody. She committed every Monday to prayer and fasting, and once she even fasted for 39 straight days. She enlisted hundreds of friends to join her in interceding for her son. While Christopher was partying, she was praying. So as he's sitting in prison, HIV infected, felon, God intervenes. He finds a New Testament. He begins reading. Christopher goes on to be saved while he's in prison. He applies to Moody Bible Institute while he's sitting in his prison cell. He gets accepted somehow, right? He gets his master's and his doctorate from Moody and now he teaches there. He travels around the world talking about the prayerful mom that he has. They travel together, they speak together. God can save your wayward brother, your hard-hearted father, your vulgar boss, your alcoholic spouse. We get the opportunity to passionately pray for them to persistently cry out like that widow who cried out for justice again and again and again to ask in faith to believe that God will answer and he can do it. You believe that? Onto our last point of imitation and that's that we are to imitate by pondering heaven. Verse 20 says, Citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself." It's a very emphatic our. He says our citizenship is in heaven. He's contrasting What we have as believers in Christ versus what these folks that glory in their shame are doing. This idea of citizenship is that we are registered citizens of another place. The Jews would understand that pretty well because they remember stories of Israel being in Egypt, right? The Jews were in Egypt under a yoke of slavery. They were not citizens of Egypt. They were citizens of a promised land of a God. We relate in this that this world is not our home. Our future is with Christ in glory, do you realize that? The key word here is await. Expect anxiously, look forward eagerly. It's the same word that's used in Romans 8 numerous times for the hope that we have in Christ. We are to ponder heaven. We are to put our hope in the fact that this world is not our home. Colossians 3, 1 and 2, if then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth. Paul not only thought about heaven, he longed for heaven. Philippians 1, 21 to 23, for me to live as Christ and to die is gain. His desire was to be with Christ. He was not afraid of death. He welcomed death. That is not the way that we operate in 21st century American church land, do we? Listen to this from John MacArthur. Isn't that true? Paul's desire was so different. He wanted to finish the race because he knew that by finishing the race, he knew where he was gonna go. And he knew it was better than here. Often, we don't imitate this pondering of heaven seen in Paul's life because we are simply too content with our lives here. Listen to John MacArthur again. you have in the church today, this far-reaching emphasis on prosperity. Solve all your problems, fix up your life, have a happy marriage, have a happy home, be successful. We are living in not only a man-centered theology, but an earthbound kind of perspective. We choose to milk the world for all it's worth. This has become our place, even though it shouldn't be. We are meant to be aliens and strangers here. This is not meant to be a place of comfort. This is meant to be a place of longing, a place of groaning. Heaven is better than our comfortable lives here in Johnson County. It's better than our families. It's better than our job. And you're like, yeah. It's better than our vacations. Do you believe it? Our perspective would drastically change if we did. See, often we miss the fact that heaven is better until later in life when our bodies begin to decay. Age, circumstances, illness make us think differently about the future, about heaven. This is a week. where pondering heaven has become more real. We found out that my dad has a large tumor around his pancreas this week on Thursday afternoon, preaching on Sunday, there you go. Preaching on this on Sunday too, God knows, doesn't he? We don't know if it's cancerous yet, we're gonna find out next week, so we appreciate your prayers with that. But how glorious is it that Christ will return? And that he will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body. He will remove this body of loneliness, disease, sickness, sin, and death, it will be no more. Amen? Go ahead and bow your heads. We have this hope, hope of a savior who will come again. He has defeated death. So who are you imitating? Maybe your struggle is with the past. No mistake, no sin is greater than the grace of God. Ask God for freedom from your past. But know and believe that we have hope in Christ, hope of a future. Our home is not here. It is with our risen King.