Joy/Full | Never Quit – Philippians 3:12-21

Never Quit | Philippians 3:12-21

Acts 16:25 “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.”

Philippians 3:14 “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Paul encourages the church to “press on” which means “to keep moving forward forcefully or steadily.”

Paul’s coaching insights to keep on keeping on:

1. If you’re in this race: Keep going

Philippians 3:10-14 “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, 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, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

John 15:20 “Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.”

Paul’s strategy:

1. Forget the past
2. Keep pushing forward

Philippians 3:14a “I press on toward the goal to win the prize”

2. If you’re in this race: Stick with the plan.

Philippians 3:15-16 “All of us, then, 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. 16 Only let us live up to what we have already attained.”

3. If you’re in this race: Let’s run together.

Philippians 3:17-21 “Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do.18 For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”

If you are in this race:

1. Don’t stop running,
2. Follow the strategy
     a. Forget the past
     b. Keep pushing forward
3. Run with those who model Jesus.

Philippians 3:14 “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”