Grow Up! Philippians 3

May the mumbling commence!

Grow up!  At one point in our life or another, we have all heard this imperative.  Grow up!  What does it mean for a Christian?  Paul speaks to this issue in Philippians chapter three.  Read a large portion of it below:

If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. 

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.  I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, 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. But 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. 

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. (Verses 4b-16)

How many of us put confidence in “the flesh?”  From reading this passage, we are not talking about athletes who praise God in being made the way they were.  Confidence in the flesh has more to do with circumcision.  Do we put confidence in our circumcision? 

If most Protestant church members would talk about confidence in circumcision, it would sound a little something like this:  I was baptized (or confirmed) when I was eighteen.  My mother and father were Christians.  So were both set of my grandparents.  As a matter of fact, my entire genealogy, as far back as we know, were members in good standing with <Fill in a denomination here>.   In fact, I have followed in my parents’ footsteps and become a ordained minister.  I faithfully attend church and am considered a pillar of the church…

This is putting confidence in the flesh of circumcision.  Paul tells us that confidence in this is rubbish if we fail to know Christ as more than just an acquaintance.  Confidence in circumcision is not maturity in and of itself.  These evidences of our faith walk cannot save us. 

These evidences must be growing out of faith in Jesus.  How are we to know Jesus to mature?  To grow up?  We are to know and share the sufferings of Christ Jesus.  We are to take up the suffering and totally leave behind our former lives – to die to them.  Then, somehow, through the miracle of faith in Jesus, we will join in the glory of resurrection.  Talk about growing pains!

Maybe the hardest pill for me and many other people is that we never arrive as Christians.  If you think you’ve arrived as a Christian, grow up!  The Christian life is a journey, a marathon, a struggle, a hotly contested wrestling match of active prayer.  During this journey, we will meander and wander.  That is why we must listen for the voice of Jesus as it speaks through the Holy Spirit, who is at work in the church and in the world about us.

Because of this marathon of faith, we must forget what is behind and strive toward the goal ahead – knowing Christ who alone can call us heavenward.  And sometimes Christ Jesus comes in the guise of a stranger who is really strange to us.  May we encourage one another in our own painful processes of growing up – as individuals and as a corporate body.

No matter how old you are or how far along you think you are in your Christian walk… grow up!  It is a message I need to hear over and over again.  That is why I continue to read the Scriptures over and over again.  That is why I earnestly wrestle in prayer for myself and all Christians I know.  That is why I remain in fellowship with a portion of the body of Christ at Community Church. 

Enough mumbling for now… 

Peace Out