Press On

Introduction

Our hearts are certainly affected and heavy this morning at the news of Sister Jessie’s passing. But I want us to realize that though yesterday she lost her battle with leukemia, it’s our confident hope that she won the war. Would you join me in a word of prayer for Jesse and her family? Dear God and Father in Heaven, the God of the universe, the giver of every good and perfect gift. We trust in you, God. We trust in your ways and in your promises. Though, Father, there are too many times when we don’t understand.

An example of joy and of optimism. We’re so thankful that we were privileged to learn from her. We commit her sweet spirit into your hands. We pray that you’ll be with her family that are feeling such a loss at this time. That not only are they grieving, but they are saddened and confused. We pray, Father, that their sorrow and their tears will be mingled with smiles and happiness as they remember the good times. We pray most of all that their sorrow will be mingled with hope. We’re thankful, surely, for the example of Jesse, but we’re most thankful for her faith in you. The decision that she made to put on Christ. The forgiveness of her sins that were made possible through the blood of your son that we’ve just remembered.

We pray that with this passing, as with all passings, that we will use them as a lesson. A lesson in how we need to order our lives and to live our lives with the knowledge that we too will pass. Bless her family. Bless us through all the difficulties, confusion, and suffering of this life as we trust in you. Through Christ’s sacrifice in His name, we pray. Amen.

Would you turn with me to the book of Philippians, chapter three? Philippians chapter three will be the text for our study this morning. And I make a slight apology because I’m beginning this lesson in a negative way, but this lesson is going to be a positive lesson, just so hang with me. But the negative way we begin this positive lesson is with a question, and that question is why don’t you just give up?

And I don’t mean that as a flippant way or as necessarily as a source of discouragement, but as a question of introspection. Because I know you haven’t given up. In fact, I know you won’t give up. And so the question is a probing one, why not? Why haven’t you given up up until this point? And why won’t you give up? Think about that for a moment.

Of going through difficulties and hardships and strains, that my observation has been that life is largely doing what we have to do. We do what we have to do. We do what we have to do to pay the bills. We do what we have to do in our marriages and in our families. We fulfill our obligations and our duties. Because that’s what we have to do. When tragedy strikes and we have to put life on hold to help a sick or infirm family member. We do what we have to do. When national tragedy strikes, and it affects us personally, we do what we have to do. And I don’t intend to take the heart and the meaning out of our religion, but in our relationship to God and Jesus Christ and living the Christian lives, we do what we have to do.

And that’s life. And in viewed through the proper perspective and in the proper lens, that’s not just life, that’s a good life of doing what we have to do. Because we have to do it. There are numerous examples and heroes that we can look to, some in our own lives, our own acquaintances and family members and brothers and sisters in Christ. There’s biblical heroes. We looked just recently in our study of the book of Hebrews at a long list of those, didn’t we? In Hebrews chapter 11. We think of New Testament heroes as well. I think of the Apostle Paul who pinned this letter in the Philippians chapter 3, and what he went through, the change that he went through, the conversion that happened, and what he went through after that conversion.

And Paul’s simple letter to these people. Near the end of his life and Christian experience here on earth, Paul talks about him doing what he had to do. Look with me in Philippians 3, verse 12, beginning, he says, not that I’ve already attained or am already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind and reaching forward to the things which are ahead, I press.

Paul said, I press on.

I want to encourage you and thank you for pressing on. Now, what does it mean to press on? And specifically, we’ll look at this very narrowly this morning. I mean press on in your Christianity. Press on in your relationship to God. Press on, as Paul said, to the upward prize to press on to heaven. What does that mean? Well, let’s look at another passage from the Apostle Paul. Look in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. In 1 Corinthians chapter 13, that familiar text, we see a grouping, a triplet of words. And it’s a triplet of words that we see over and over again in the New Testament. Now understand this. If God says something once, we better pay attention to it. But if God says something a bunch of times, it should catch our eye.

And there’s a grouping of three words that are repeated over and over again in the New Testament that in some sense sum up the essence of Christianity. You may already have guessed what those three words are. 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 33. Or excuse me, verse 13. You’re looking for verse 33, there’s not one. 1 Corinthians 13, verse 13, and now abide faith, hope, love. These three.

1. Press On in Love for Me

Now abide faith, hope, and love. I would argue before you this morning that pressing on in Christianity means and demands that we press on in faith, hope, and love. And so let’s talk about that. How we can press on and how we need to press on in those three categories, and not only encourage you to do so, but again, thanking you for doing so. And so, first of all, let’s take these three out of their order a little bit, but let’s take these three one by one. First of all, I want to encourage you to press on in love for me. Because I need you. And I need the love that you show toward me. Look in 1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 8. Christianity, you know this, Christianity is a one another business.

You cannot separate Christianity, live rightly and properly. You cannot separate Christianity from other people, particularly from your brethren. And so the concept of you pressing on in love is for others’ sake. Because other people need what you’re doing and what you’re supplying to the body of Christ and what you’re doing and what you’re supplying to my spiritual strength. In a sentence, I need you. Now, I guess theoretically, academically, it would be possible for me to obey the gospel. It’d be possible for me to live on a deserted island and a Bible wash ashore and me read what I need to do in order to be saved. I guess it’s possible to live in some ungodly city, state, or country, and to be the only Christian there.

And to live a faithful, long Christian life. I guess that’s academically possible. But I don’t want to try it. Because I need you. 1 Peter chapter 5. Notice the warning that he’s giving here when he says in verse 8, you’re familiar with this text, 1 Peter 5, verse 8, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. But notice what he says in verse 9. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. Focus in on that last phrase. Knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. Why is that there? What does that offer to the whole concept of me being sober and vigilant and resisting the devil, that roaring lion.

There’s something innate within the knowledge that I’m not in this alone. That I’m not suffering this alone. That helps me resist him. I need to know that you’re fighting along with me. I need to know that we’re in this together. And that we can help one another. Isn’t that comforting to know? That every time I come together and assemble with you, I see the faces of those who are not giving up. The faces of those who this past week have fought the same fight I’m fighting. And you’re right back here on the Lord’s Day, reenlisting in the battle. And that’s what I need to carry on this next week is to know that you’re on the battlefield with me. That you haven’t given up, and that you won’t give up.

And that you have my back. That I have your support and your encouragement, and I have your understanding when I stumble and fall on that battlefield. And I have your admonition when I turn to retreat. Look at another passage of Scripture in 1 Thessalonians chapter 3. First Thessalonians chapter 3. Paul had talked in our beginning text in Philippians chapter 3 about what he was doing, pressing on. Now notice what he says others were doing and how it affected him. 1 Thessalonians 3, a letter to a congregation that he praises for the faith, hope, and love. Notice what he says in 1 Thessalonians 3, beginning in verse 6, he says, but now, 1 Thessalonians 3, verse 6, but now that Timothy has come to us from you and brought us good news of your faith and love.

And that you always have a good remembrance of us, desiring to see us as we also to see you. Therefore, brethren, in all our affliction and distress, we were comforted concerning your faith. Verse 8, for now we live. If you stand fast in the faith.

Don’t ever, don’t ever underestimate the power of your positive influence. Paul said it was his life to hear that they were standing fast in the faith. You push me forward. You encourage me not to give up. You are my life. Now, a word of caution. The opposite is also true, is it not? If Paul could say, I live because you stand fast in the faith, what do you think the Apostle Paul would have pinned if he had heard bad news when Timothy came from them? That they were not standing fast in their faith and in their love. Would Paul, could Paul have written, I die because you don’t stand fast in the faith. Every conscientious elder, gospel preacher, and every conscientious church member has experienced that death when someone walks away from their faith.

2. Press On in Your Faith for Jesus Christ

But thanks be to God, every one of us has experienced that life. Because others are standing fast. And so press on in love, a pillar of Christianity, press on in love for me. And press on in your faith for Jesus Christ. Jesus to his disciples, after they had observed that the fig tree that he had cursed had now died, Jesus gave these simple instructions. Have faith in God. Have faith in God. The Apostle Paul, in his encouraging words to the Corinthian brethren, said, stand fast in the faith. The source of our own personal faith. Stand fast in that.

He is so powerful that he’s not dependent upon us for his being.

God doesn’t need us to supply something that He’s lacking. But there’s another sense in which God, through his infinite sovereign power, has made it to where he wants us. Why else did he create us? Why else does he seek to have fellowship? And when that fellowship is broken by our own doing, seek to have it restored. Because there’s a sense in which God is wanting, and dare we even say needing us to do what he’s called upon us to do. Look at this passage in John chapter 15. Jesus, in speaking to his apostles, makes a point that I think that we can make an application in our own life, though he was specifically talking to his twelve apostles here. Is there not an application to us in the vine and the branches illustration in John 15, where he says, I’m the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser.

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that he bears fruit that bears fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. You’re already clean because of the word that I’ve spoken to you. Abide in me, Jesus says, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him bears much fruit. For without me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he’s cast out as a branch and it’s withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. But if you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.

But notice verse 8. After talking about this relationship, you abide in me, and I in you. Verse 8 says, by this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, so you will be my disciples. Jesus said, If I’m abiding in you, and you do my will, and you’re bearing fruit, by that my Father is glorified. God needs us to glorify him. And we do so in our faith. Similar to the words that Jesus used in the Sermon on the Mount when He said, You be the right type of light and the right salt of the earth, so that they may see your good works and what? Glorify your Father who is in heaven. And so God, Jesus Christ, is depending on you to bring glory to the God who is in heaven by your faith.

3. Press On in Hope for You

And so, in that qualified sense, Christ needs you to abide in him and to glorify the Father. And so press on in your faith for Christ’s sake. And then lastly, faith, hope, and love, these three. Press on in hope for you. Do what you have to do. Keep doing what you have to do to get through this life and to get through this life, glorifying the Father through your faith in Jesus Christ by showing your love to one another because of the hope that you have. Jesus said, rejoice and be exceedingly glad. For great is your reward in heaven. Hope is what keeps us going, isn’t it? The book of Hebrews has been on my mind lately because of our studying it, but look at Hebrews chapter 6.

I love this connection. Hebrews chapter 6. The apostle, or excuse me, the author of the book of Hebrews, we don’t know who that is, the author of the book of Hebrews has just given a scathing rebuke of his audience. You are spiritually immature. You ought to be teachers, and yet you’re eating milk, drinking milk rather than eating the solid. He has rebuked them for their spiritual immaturity, for their lack of growth. He says, your dull of hearing. That translation maybe loses a little bit of the insult in the translation to our English language. When he says, you’re dull of hearing. We would say you’re kind of thick headed. And after that scathing rebuke, notice what he says in Hebrews chapter six, beginning in verse nine. But beloved, we’re confident of better things concerning you.

Conclusion

Yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this matter. For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you’ve shown toward his name, and in that you’ve ministered to the saints and do minister. And we desire that each of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end. That you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end. Don’t give up on hope. For your sake, press on to the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. I want to thank you for pressing on. I want to thank you for pressing on in love.

Because it’s helped me. I live because of your faith in Christ Jesus. I want to thank you for pressing on in faith. For Christ’s sake. I thank you for glorifying the Father by bearing fruit and being the salt of the earth and the light of the world. And I want to thank you for pressing on in hope for your sake. For the full assurance of hope to the end, of never taking your eye off the prize. That no matter what this life or Satan throws at you, you do what you have to do. You press on. Would you begin that journey today? Would you, based upon what you’ve heard, what you’ve read of the gospel of Jesus Christ, would you believe in Him, repent of your sins, confess your faith, and be baptized for the remission of your sins and begin to press on in faith, hope, and love.

These three.