Sermon Series: Jesus-Everything We Need 

Are You Truly Satisfied? 

Philippians 3:4-14

CBC 7-6-03

In a nutshell: True satisfaction in life involves an unconditional dedication to Christ; an unquenchable desire to know Christ; and an unstoppable determination to follow Christ. (My thanks to Pastor J. David Hoke for his help in the outline of this message.)

I. Introduction

A. Quaker Story

A Quaker once posted a sign on one of the choicest fields of his farm. It stated, "This land will be given to the first truly satisfied person who passes this way" .

He no sooner arrived back at his house than a man knocked at his door. "Sir," he said, "I just saw your sign and I want you to know that I am a completely satisfied man. I have a devoted family, a successful business, financial security for the future and I am in excellent health."

The old Quaker looked his visitor over very carefully and then said "Pray tell me, friend, if thou art a completely satisfied man, why dost thou want my land?"

B. Transition to this morning's section

Well, that story brings up a very good question this morning…Are you satisfied with your life?

And we're going to see this morning that real satisfaction depends on what you're passionate about. If you have your Bibles, please turn to Philippians 3. We're going to start reading about half way into the 4th verse…

Philippians 3:4b-14 4b …If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 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; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.

C. What Are You Passionate About?

What turns your crank? I mean, what is it that you're really passionate about?

All of us have things that excite us. And those things are different for each individual. I'm passionate about motorcycling and woodworking. Some people are passionate about fishing or golf. Other people are passionate about ballet or cheerleading. Still others are passionate about drama or books. Every person is interested in some things more than other things-that's a fact of life.

But do our passions work in our favor? -Do they move us toward truly satisfying lives? -Do our passions move us toward becoming the people we want to be?

The apostle Paul, who wrote this letter to the Philippians, had a passion in his life. That passion was Jesus Christ. Everything else in his life revolved around that one thing. Now, if you're finding your life somewhat dis-satisfying right now, then maybe you need to hear the advice that Paul has in these verses this morning. He answers the question, "How do you have a truly satisfied life?" with three pieces of advice…

II. Three Pieces of Advice for a Satisfying Life

A. Unconditional Dedication to Christ.

First, we must have...an unconditional dedication to Christ. Last week we learned that Paul spoke critically about people who were putting their confidence in their own flesh. In other words, he said that being passionate about things like position, religious acts, and personal accomplishments…hoping that they'd bring satisfaction to life, was dumb. He essentially says in verses 1-3, that trusting these things will not satisfy you. And Paul speaks as someone who had personal knowledge of this. Paul was a significant man in his day.

He says in the second half of verse 4…

Philippians 3:4-6 4b If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:

Then he goes on to list those things that he could put his confidence in.

-He was circumcised on the eighth day. This meant that he was born a Jew. He wasn't a Gentile convert, who would have been circumcised later in life.

-He was of the people of Israel. That meant that all the promises God made to Israel belonged to him by the privilege of his birth.

-He was of the tribe of Benjamin. Benjamin was the tribe that stood alone with Judah in loyalty to God when the nation of Israel was divided into the Southern and Northern Kingdoms. And within the territory of Benjamin was the holy city of Jerusalem.

-He was a Hebrew of Hebrews. In other words, no one could claim to be more a part of God's covenant people than Paul.

-He was in regard to the law, a Pharisee. This was the strictest sect in the Jewish religion. These guys were totally devoted to keeping the law right down to it's very letter. In other words, this was an elite group.

-He goes on to say that as for zeal, persecuting the church. Paul was so dedicated to keeping the Jewish religion pure that he single-handedly tried to stamp out the new movement of Jesus-followers.

-And finally, he points out that as for legalistic righteousness, he was faultless. In other words, he kept the ceremonial law prescribed in the Torah, concerning Sabbath observance, eating the right foods, and ritual cleanliness… to a tee. He had no blemishes on his record.

These were impressive credentials. If Paul had wanted to, he could have placed a great deal of confidence in who he was by his race, religion, reputation, and how he followed rituals and rules. But he understood that none of that was enough. None of that brought him to know Christ. And he goes on to say something very significant:

Philippians 3:7-9 7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 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 9 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.

Paul is saying that human achievement doesn't produce true satisfaction. All human achievement is nothing compared to knowing Christ. This guy was unconditionally dedicated to Jesus Christ, with no strings attached.

This is exactly what Jesus was saying was necessary when He made the statement…

Mark 8:36 36 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?

Friends, nothing you could spend your time doing is as important and valuable as developing a right relationship with Jesus Christ. Let me ask you a question, "Do you love Jesus more than anything else in the world?" If any of us want a our lives to be satisfying then Jesus must have our unconditional dedication.

B. Unquenchable Desire to Know Christ.

There's a second piece of advice that Paul gives us if we want a truly satisfying life. We have to have an unquenchable desire to know Christ. There's no doubt that Paul desired to know Jesus more than any thing else. That was his goal in life. In another letter he wrote in the New Testament, he said:

2 Corinthians 5:9 9 …we make it our goal to please God

Look at what he says in verses 10-11…

Philippians 3:10-11 10 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, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

By this time in his life, Paul had written most of the New Testament. I don't know about you, but… …if I had written most of the New Testament, …and had been called by Jesus, Himself, to be His apostle, …and had been shown sights so glorious that God had to give me a thorn in the flesh to keep me humble… …I would have thought I knew Jesus pretty well. But in verse 10, Paul says, "I want to know…" Beyond what he knew then, he wants to know more. Friends, that's an unquenchable desire to know Christ.

Now, the word that's translated "know" in verse 10, means a whole lot more than just "head knowledge". This word "know" means a highly intimate and continually deeper knowledge. In fact, this word is used in other places in the Bible for the intimate personal knowledge that a man and woman have of each other when they come together in the marriage union. We're talking about a deep personal knowing of God-Not just a knowing about God.

John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach at UCLA recognized that the greatest obstacle to deep knowledge wasn't ignorance-it was just possessing some knowledge. He said the words I put on the front of your worship folders this morning…

"It's what you learn after you know it all, that counts."

Too many of us know a lot of facts and stories about God, which makes us think we know Him. But that's only the beginning. To develop an intimacy with God requires we go beyond just facts and the stories…to a deep, intimate and personal connection with God-where we know what's important to Him. And those things become important to us.

Friends, we can't be content with just coming to church or Adult Enrichment, or home Bible studies and simply gaining more knowledge about Jesus. We must strive to know Him intimately and personally.

Paul was a man who, even though he was in prison when he wrote this letter, was a man who was truly satisfied. That's because he had an unconditional dedication to Christ, and an unquenchable desire to know Christ. But there was one other piece of advice he has for us in order that we'd have a satisfying life.

C. Unstoppable Determination to Follow Christ.

We must have an unstoppable determination to follow Christ. Paul was a man who was committed to do whatever he needed to do, in order to fully follow Christ. You could say he was determined. You can see this determination in verses 12-14:

Philippians 3:12-14 12 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. 13 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, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

He was determined to follow Jesus Christ. Nothing was going to stop him. And in verses 12-14, he tells us what we need to do if we're going to have this same unstoppable determination to follow Christ.

He says we must… …deal with our past effectively; …live our present lives actively; and …reach for the future intentionally. Let's look at each one of these briefly…

1. Past

Let's face it, we all have a past. We all have memories from our "past." For most of us, the past holds a lot of good memories. -We remember times when we were happy and enjoying life; times when we were with someone special. -We remember special events: birthdays, graduations, weddings and anniversaries. Good memories are wonderful things.

But for most of us, if not all of us, our past also has a dark side. And some of our past events can act like a prison. You see, it's possible for the past to put us in bondage. Because, along with the good memories, there are the memories of times of failure and hurt. Sometimes our memories can haunt us. Our past can cause us to see ourselves as failures, or as unworthy. We can stereotype ourselves, and put ourselves in a box. Maybe you're one of so many people who are living today, plagued by their past. That was me, several years ago.

Illustration: In 1988, I resigned as one of the pastors at Scottsdale Bible Church. I had stolen money from a locked cabinet at the church in order to pay for some medical expenses that our insurance didn't cover. After I was caught, I confessed to a number of times when I had taken small and large amounts of cash over a period of a couple of years. The elder board asked me to make a public confession, then resign as a pastor, get some professional counseling, and stay at the church as a layman for a year. After that, they would take a look at my life and decide if I was qualified to go back into ministry. After that year, they said I was restored. But I was too ashamed to go back into the ministry. It took three more years after that for me finally deal with that dark time, and feel God's call back into full-time pastoral ministry.

What I learned during those four years was that you get over those dark times from your past by doing three things:

(a) First, you have to recognize the past for what it is-it's the past. It is over, done, gone, finished, and ended. You can't change one thing that happened back then, whether back then was years ago or yesterday.

(b) The second thing is to recognize that one of Satan's most effective strategies is to render you ineffective in doing God's will by reminding you of your past. His goal is to discourage you and defeat you.

(c) The third thing is to develop a "divine amnesia." Look again at what Paul says in verse 13, "But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind..."

When Paul speaks about forgetting the past, he means that we must forget it in the sense that we no longer allow it to control our lives. Unless we do that, we will always be on a leash. We will attempt to move forward in life, only to be snatched back time and time again.

You may be saying, "Well, that's easier said than done," and you're right. But, by God's grace and His power, it can be done. You see, Christ can liberate us from the past. The reason Jesus Christ came to this earth was to offer His life on the Cross so that our sins-past, present and future might be forgiven.

The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ can release us from sin and the guilt of sin. -There is nothing in your past too great for God to handle. -There is no sin too big for God to forgive. -Jesus Christ can enable us to release the past and move on. He can enable us to avoid living in the "what has been" and live, instead, in the "what can be."

2. Present

But not only must we deal well with our past, we must live our present lives, actively. Listen to Paul's words again in the last part of verse 13, "But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead…." Straining is talking about deliberate and intentional action.

Illustration: I had a friend who went through a serious bout with depression a few years ago. He was depressed over his past business failures, how his kids had rejected the Christian faith, and how he was making his living now. His past trapped him by discouraging him to the point where he was so exhausted he didn't want to try anymore. He finally couldn't even get out of bed, he was so depressed. He sat around in his pajamas all day long and did nothing but watch TV for hours on end. What finally got him on the road to recovery was taking a first step of faith. He had to willfully get out of bed, put on his clothes, and do something intentional that involved his faith in God. For him, he had to start singing again.

Paul was in prison when he wrote those words… "I strain toward what lies ahead." He wasn't content to just take from others. He took what action he could, even though he was chained to a guard-he wrote, talked and counseled. And friends, if we want a significant present, then we must take some action as well.

Someone once said, "It's impossible to steer a parked car." That's true! You could turn the steering wheel all you want, but a parked car doesn't change its direction. Only as we begin to move are we able to accomplish the things we would like to see come to pass. We must be active. Jesus calls us to follow Him. The Christian life is a commitment to do something as well as be something.

The Christian life has been compared to a walk, a race, and a fight. Those are all action terms. When Jesus calls us, He calls us not simply to believe in Him intellectually, but to follow Him in the way we live our lives-no matter what age we are.

Illustration: Gen DeGrafenried is a long time member of this church family. Her physical condition doesn't allow her to get out of her house very often any more, and consequently she seldom comes to church. But that lady prays! Many of you she's never met, but she prays for you and for the ministries you're involved in. Her "present" isn't all that rosy at first glance. But let me tell you, she is active and intentionally moving forward in her present situation.

You are never too old or too young to be doing something for God's kingdom advancement!

3. Future

Finally, we're to reach for the future intentionally. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth:

1 Corinthians 9:24 24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.

That's what he was doing-running to win. He was giving his all…for the future. Here's the lesson…To win the race in the future, we must give it our all now. -Fifty percent will not do. -Seventy-five percent is not nearly enough. -Ninety percent is ten percent short. We must give it our all.

Illustration: Last season, my alma mater, Wheaton College won their league championship, and got to within one game of the Division 3 National Championship game in football. They did it with a determined group of senior men who worked for that goal for four straight years. They worked during every off seasons to get stronger and faster. They worked during each of their four seasons together to play as a team and improve their football skills. And what resulted was that they came closer than any other football team in that school's history, of winning a national championship. They never took their eyes off their goal. Everything they did was an intentional reach for their goal.

If people are going to know Jesus Christ in the Owens Valley, and if our church family is going to be involved in God's Harvest, then we have to be doing something to that will bring about that end. We have to be reaching for the future intentionally, right now.

III. Conclusion

So, a truly satisfying life isn't the result of a 100th anniversary Harley in the garage, or a new four-wheel drive SUV, or losing 30 pounds of unwanted fat, or having a bigger house, or having a more powerful stereo, or having the latest clothes in your closet, or winning a competition, or being a successful business person. They're not bad things, but if that's what you're depending on for satisfaction, then they won't help. All those things lead to wanting more, not satisfaction. If you get on that path, it's like trying to eat just one M&M chocolate candy. One just doesn't satisfy. You always want more.

The great theologian, F. B. Meyer once wrote, "God has set Eternity in our heart, and man's infinite capacity cannot be filled or satisfied with the things of time and sense."

But, Paul tells us what it does take for true satisfaction. -Unconditional dedication to Christ. -Unquenchable desire to Know Christ -Unstoppable determination to follow Christ.

Amen.