Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for Whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ,
and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith:
that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death;
if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect: but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus.
Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before,
I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye are otherwise minded, this also shall God reveal unto you;
only, whereunto we have attained, by that same rule let us walk.
Brethren, be ye imitators together of me, and mark them that so walk even as ye have us for an ensample.
Every time I find it very difficult to share after the Lord’s table, because I feel that we have already arrived at the peak. We are in communion with Him, and through Him we are in the presence of God our Father, to behold His glory. And what more can you say?
But thank God, here is His Word.
In the letter to the Philippians, as you read it, you find that the apostle Paul seems to put much emphasis on this matter of the mind—nous, our mind—because our mind does occupy a very important place in our Christian walk and Christian service.
We mentioned last night the exhortation of the apostle to us: that we have the mind of Christ.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
And what is the mind of Christ? It is self-emptying, self-effacement, self-denial. Our Lord Jesus, being one with God, and yet He emptied Himself. He emptied Himself of all the glory, honor, and majesty associated with Him as God.
He emptied Himself of all those metaphysical attributes of God: His omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. He emptied Himself of all these things that He might take upon Himself the likeness of a man.
Of course, we mentioned last night that He could not empty Himself of His moral attributes, nor of His being as God, because even though He came to become a man, He is still God. He is God.
But what an emptying it must have been to Him. He came from the highest place, and He took the lowest place, even taking the form of a bondslave. He had every right as God, and yet He came to the place of having no right whatsoever. And it was all because He loves us. By that, He was able to go to the cross and accomplish the work of redemption for all of us.
And this is the mind of Christ. This is the mind that God wants every one of us to have, because only with such a mind are we able to comfort others, to console in love, and to fellowship in the Spirit.
We found last night that this mind of Christ is the mind of Paul. It is also the mind of Timothy and the mind of Epaphroditus. So it is possible for us to have the mind of Christ.
Now, after Paul had shared with the brethren there on this matter of the mind of Christ, it seems as if he was going to conclude his letter. Therefore, you find at the beginning of the third chapter that he says, “Finally, my brethren.”
He says, “Finally, rejoice in the Lord.” Joy in the Lord really is that which measures our spiritual condition. If your spiritual condition is right before the Lord, there is joy within you.
Now, when we talk about joy, it is different from what people usually call happiness. You may be very happy outwardly, or you may be happy because you get something, but it is passing and is given by outward circumstances.
But the joy of which Scripture speaks is an inward quality. It is something within us. It is not influenced by outward circumstances. Think of Paul. He was in prison in Rome, and yet you find joy just bubbling up within him. He had so much joy that he was able to share his joy with his brethren in Philippi.
They were in much better conditions. They were not in prison. As a matter of fact, you find that the church in Philippi was a very healthy church in one sense. From the very beginning, they were of one mind, one soul, and one spirit, striving together for the faith of the gospel.
Even up until the time Paul wrote this letter, they were still one in spirit, one in soul, and one in heart, striving together for the gospel of Jesus Christ. So it was a very healthy church; but even though they were in such good conditions, the joy was not there.
Somehow, you find there was an undercurrent, and that undercurrent came in through two sisters—two spiritual sisters, two workers. These two sisters were leading sisters. They had helped Paul in the preaching of the gospel, and they must have been very gifted and very effective in their ministry.
But somehow, these two sisters began to get into a kind of rivalry. They began to strive against each other. They sought fame and vain glory. They were still working together for the gospel of Jesus Christ with other brothers and sisters, and yet there was a rivalry there. Something was not quite right.
They lost the mind of Christ. They lost that humility and self-effacement, and they began to seek something for themselves. Because of such rivalry, a shadow came upon that whole church, and that church lost joy in the Lord.
Whether a person is spiritually healthy or not, you can measure it by the joy in that person. The same is true with a company of believers. When a company of believers is in a healthy spiritual situation, the joy of the Lord is their portion; the joy of the Lord is their strength.
But when a company of people is not in the right spiritual condition, you find something is missing there. The joy is missing there. That is the reason why, in the letter to the Philippians, Paul mentions so much about joy. In every chapter, he mentions joy. He wanted the church in Philippi to regain their joy in the Lord.
The way to regain it is to return to the mind of Christ. Because when you come to the mind of Christ, you find there is nothing that will deprive us of that joy.
So he was going to conclude this letter and said, “Rejoice in the Lord.” Let there be joy. If you come to have the mind of Christ, you will be of the same mind. These sisters will come into the same mind because they will not think of themselves anymore. They will think only of the Lord and of the brothers and sisters. They will forget themselves, and by doing so, they will be of the same mind.
You know, in chapter 2, Paul mentions thinking the same thing and having the same mind. Now, what does it mean? Does it mean that we have to control all the minds of the brothers and sisters by brainwashing them so that they will think exactly in the same line? You cannot get out of line; if you get out of the party line, then you are out. Does it mean that? No, certainly not.
This is what the world will do. But when Scripture mentions thinking the same thing and having the same mind, what does it mean? It means that we have the mind of Christ. That is what it means.
It does not mean that every thought is completely controlled and you have to think a certain way; otherwise, you are an outsider. It means that when we are filled with the mind of Christ, then we have the same mind, because it is neither yours nor mine: it is Christ.
It is love. It is giving. It is caring. It is trying to perfect one another. And so you come into the same mind. Brothers and sisters, here you find Paul saying, “Rejoice in the Lord. Let the joy return to the church.”
Even though he was trying to conclude, as a matter of fact, you find that he seems to start again. I remember years ago, Brother T. Austin-Sparks was with us once. He mentioned that the word translated “finally,” or “for the rest,” in the original means to gather up all that has been said before and push it up to a higher ground.
That is what the word “finally” means. It does not mean that this is the end of it. It means that we have already come to a certain level, and now everything is being gathered up: “Rejoice in the Lord,” and then he pushes up to another level.
So here in chapter 3, we come into another aspect of the mind. In chapter 2, Paul mentions the mind of Christ. In other words, we need to have the attitude of mind that is the mind of Christ.
But now, in chapter 3, he is going to speak about the object of the mind. In chapter 2, he is speaking about the atmosphere—how we need a certain atmosphere, and that atmosphere is the mind of Christ. In chapter 3, he is coming into the substance of the mind.
In chapter 2, it is nous, the mind. But in chapter 3, it is phroneō in the Greek. It is a verb. It means to think, to be minded in a certain way, to think of, or to be mindful of. If you put it into a verbal noun, it is minding.
In other words, you need to have a certain attitude of mind, and that attitude of mind is to empty yourself. But now, where will your mind be set? What will your mind be set on? What are you really mindful of?
So in chapter 3, Paul is speaking about this: What is the minding that we as believers should have? Where should our mind be set? What should we be thinking about?
Again, you find Paul using himself as an illustration. He gives us his past history. He tells us that he was circumcised on the eighth day. When God covenanted with Abraham, He told Abraham that every male born into the family must be circumcised on the eighth day. The eighth day is the day of resurrection.
Paul says, “I was circumcised the eighth day,” not like Ishmael, who was circumcised when he was thirteen years old. That was not according to the covenant. He was of the race of Israel—not from Esau, but from Jacob—and of the tribe of Benjamin.
Why was that important? When the twelve tribes, the nation of Israel, were divided into two parts, ten tribes went one way and two tribes continued on. Benjamin was the tribe that continued with Judah. In other words, they never left.
That was his pedigree—something to boast of, belonging to that privileged, chosen people, an Israelite indeed. When he came to his upbringing, he said, “I am a Pharisee. I was trained as a Pharisee.” That was the strictest sect in Judaism.
He studied the law, kept the law, and remembered the law. As to his conduct, according to the righteousness of the law, he was blameless and beyond reproach. He was not a hypocrite or a false Pharisee. He was a true Pharisee. He kept every letter of the law, and more than that, he kept the traditions of the fathers. It was a very strict life.
Not only that, he said, “I am zealous”—zealous for his religion to such a degree that he persecuted the church. According to the teaching of the fathers, the Lord Jesus seemed to be a rebel and an impostor to Judaism.
Paul was so zealous for his faith that he persecuted Christians, not only in Jerusalem and the cities of Judea, but even outside Judea. He asked for official documents from the priests that he might go to Damascus to seize believers and bring them to Jerusalem to be judged.
His zeal was above that of many people. As a matter of fact, he confessed that he was more advanced than his own contemporaries. He was proud of his birth, proud of his birthright as a Jew, proud of his upbringing, and proud of his attainments.
Because his mind was set on one thing: he wanted to be somebody in Judaism. If not the rabbi of the Jews, then surely one of the prominent, leading rabbis. That was his goal. That was where his mind was set.
After he set his mind on that, he pursued it with all his energy. Brothers and sisters, humanly speaking, if he had not been arrested by the Lord on the road to Damascus, he would have achieved what he had set his mind upon. He was such a man of iron will that he would certainly get what he wanted.
For the sake of getting that, he was willing to sacrifice many things. Just think of a young man keeping every letter of the law. What a disciplined life he must have lived. How many pleasures of youth, of the world, and of sin he had to give up. Yet he was willing to sacrifice everything. Why? Because he had his mind set on becoming a great rabbi.
Some people even say that though he was very young, he already sat in the council of the Jews—the Sanhedrin, the highest court. We do not know whether this is true or not. Some say he was; others say he was not, because he was not married. But traditionally, it was said that he had already arrived as one of the seventy in that council of the Jews.
That was his mind.
But thank God, on the road to Damascus, God arrested him. I often feel that God allows us to go as far as we can, as far as He allows us to go. God allowed Paul, at that time, to go as far as he wanted to go.
He was successful in persecuting Christians in Jerusalem, and now he was going to persecute Christians in Gentile cities. The Lord allowed him to go. But on his way to Damascus, before he arrived at the city, thank God, God arrested him.
A light shone upon him, brighter than the noonday sun. He was smitten by that light, fell upon the ground, and heard a voice:
Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? It is hard for thee to kick against the goads.
In other words, you find that we are like a stubborn mule or ox when we want to go our own way. Do you know that everyone born into this world is not free? You may think you are free. You may think that you can go anywhere you want to go and do anything you want to do. But God has His purpose in your life.
You are born into this world to serve His purpose. You are like an ox. You belong to a master, and the master uses you to plow his field that he may have a harvest. You are attached to a yoke, and there is Somebody who handles you. You may not know it, but He lets you go your way.
From time to time, He will use that goad. A farmer has a sharp instrument in his hand, and whenever the ox wants to wander off the path, he touches the leg of that ox very lightly. He does not thrust it through to hurt it. He just touches it and lets you feel it, so you know that you have a master.
But unfortunately, the ox often kicks against the goads. When you kick against the goads, it hurts. God does not want to hurt you; He only wants to remind you. But you hurt yourself because you kick against the goads. By being hurt repeatedly, you begin to learn that you are under Him. You begin to learn of Christ and to follow in the straight path.
So the Lord said to Saul, “Do not think that you are free or independent. Do not think that you can go your own way. I will let you go as far as you can, but no further. I have already touched you with a goad.”
Certainly, when Stephen was stoned, young Saul was guarding the clothes of those who stoned Stephen. When Stephen was dying, he saw the Lord standing there waiting for him. He said, “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing.” Before he died, he said, “Lord, forgive them.”
Saul was standing there watching. Evidently, that must have touched Saul’s conscience. The goad had touched him. But he kicked against the goads. He became worse; he hardened his conscience and persecuted Christians even more fiercely than before. Why? He wanted to silence his conscience.
The Lord reminded him, “Do not kick against the goads. Eventually, you will have to yield. Why not do it now?” And Saul said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” In other words, he yielded.
When Saul yielded himself to the risen Lord, there was a transformation. His mind was renewed. We mentioned last night that, in consecration, the Holy Spirit renews our mind.
When he offered himself to the Lord, he capitulated; he surrendered himself to the Lord and gave himself completely to the Lord. He said, “Lord, what shall I do? I knew what I should do in the past. Nobody needed to tell me; I told people. But now I am lost. I cannot live one day. I do not know where to go. I do not know what to do. You have to tell me. I am Yours.”
Brothers and sisters, here you find his mind renewed.
The apostle Paul said that, for the sake of Christ, things that had been gain to him in the past he now counted as loss. What a change of mind. His mind had been set on these things. These were the things he treasured, was proud of, and pursued relentlessly. He almost got them.
But now he said, “I consider all these gains as loss.” Why? Because they hindered him from knowing Christ.
More than that, he said, “I count all things as loss”—not just the things that he had attained, but everything, all things, as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus. The more he had them, the less he knew the Lord.
Position, whatever it may be—I count all things as loss that I may gain Christ. What a change in his mind. But more than that, he said, “I have suffered the loss of all things.” He allowed them to be lost.
It was not only a psychological change: “I count all things as loss.” It was practical. He let everything go. Why? Because he said these things were refuse. Are you not glad to get rid of refuse? If you consider these things as refuse, why keep them in your home? Let them go.
What a change in his mind. Now you find that his mind was set on another object. Formerly, his mind was set on Judaism. But now his mind was set on Christ.
“To gain Christ”—that became his passion. “I have only one passion in this world, and from now on my one passion is Christ. I want to gain Him.”
I always remember that man, Count Zinzendorf. He came from a noble family. When he was a little boy, probably four or five years old, he came to know the Lord. He lived in a castle, of course, and he loved the Lord so much that sometimes he would sit at the window of the castle, write on a sheet of paper, “Jesus loves you,” and throw it out, to show his love for Christ.
As a young man, he was very well educated, but he loved the Lord. When he was in school, the Lord used him. Before he left school, more than ten Bible groups had already been started by him.
As a young man in Europe, to complete his education he had to travel around Europe and learn more. He traveled to Paris. Other young men came to Paris and lost their heads, but he went to Paris and found nothing there.
When he came to Düsseldorf in Germany, he went to a museum. There was a picture painted by an artist. The artist had been commissioned by various people and by the Catholic Church to paint religious subjects.
One day the artist used a gypsy girl as a model. While she was in his studio, her attention was attracted by an unfinished painting of Christ crucified on the cross. She began to ask him questions: “Who is that Man? Why did they crucify Him?”
The painter was a nominal Christian, but he knew the story. He said, “That is Jesus, and they crucified Him on the cross.” But the girl continued to ask questions, and finally he had to tell her the whole story.
After he had finished the story, the gypsy girl said, “Well, you must love that Person very much.” That touched his heart. He was soundly converted.
After he was converted, he put all his talent into painting a picture of the head of Christ. Of course, it was imagination; nobody knows exactly what He looked like. But he painted a picture of the head of Christ, and underneath it he wrote:
I have done all this for thee; what hast thou done for Me?
He gave it as a gift to the museum. The picture was hanging there, and every day he would go to that museum, stand far away, and pray that someone who saw that picture might be touched.
One day, that young man Zinzendorf came to the museum. He stood before that picture, and he could not go away. The janitor came and said, “We are closing now. You have to go.” He went to his hotel and gave his whole life to the Lord.
That was the beginning of the Moravian mission. He said, “I have only one passion: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”
So here you find the apostle Paul. From then on, he had only one passion: Christ. Nothing else. He counted and suffered the loss of all things as refuse. He just wanted to gain Christ. That was his minding.
In Romans 8, it says, “The minding of the Spirit is life and peace.” Brothers and sisters, what is our minding? Where do we put our mind? What are we seeking after?
“To know Him”—that is the passion of the apostle Paul.
Formerly, Paul tried to establish his own righteousness, righteousness according to the law. He tried to keep every letter of the law. But he found that even so, his righteousness before God was as filthy rags. It could not cover his nakedness.
But now he had experienced the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. He accepted Jesus as his righteousness. Dear brothers and sisters, how we thank God that we are now clothed with Christ as our righteousness.
That gives us standing before God. Otherwise, no one could come into the presence of God. Anyone who dared to come into the presence of God would be smitten to death, because our God is holy.
But thank God, we are clothed with Christ as our righteousness. So we can stand before God. Thank God, our righteousness never changes. We may change, but our righteousness never changes, because it is Christ. He never changes.
Paul said, “After I have experienced the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, after I have known what Christ has done for me, I want to know the One who so loves me. I want to know Him.”
Knowing His work should give us a desire to know Him. It is not enough just to know what He has done for you. Christ has done so much for us, and we thank God for that. But, brothers and sisters, within that there should somehow be created a longing to know the One who has given so much to you, the One who loves you so much, the One who gives you such favor and such grace.
Do you have that longing within you? If you experience His finished work, then, brothers and sisters, I think it is natural and spontaneous that you want to know Him.
Paul says, “I want to know Him.” It is not enough just to know His work—what He has done for me. I want to know Him. I want to have an intimate relationship with Him. I want to know His character. I want to know what He likes and what He does not like.
I want to know His feelings. How does He feel about things? I want to know His thoughts, His mind. I want to know His being. I want to know Him. And that became the minding of the apostle.
Dear brothers and sisters, is that our mind? Is that what we set our mind on—to know Him and the power of His resurrection?
To know Him is to know His life, and His life is resurrection life. His resurrection life is powerful. Formerly, we lived by our natural life. Of course, in our natural life, not everything is bad from the human standpoint. The flesh is not all bad. There is bad flesh, and there is good flesh.
Here you find Saul, in his good flesh, trying to be perfect, keeping all the law and the traditions of the fathers. That is good flesh. But even so, he lived by his old life, and that is not the way God wants us to live.
How can we live the Christian life? Now you are a believer. Now the righteousness of God has come upon you. You have been clothed with Christ. From now on, you need to live as a Christian, to live a Christlike life. How are you going to live it?
You cannot live it by your own natural life, no matter how good that life is. You cannot make it. You may try, but the more you try, the more you find it impossible; sooner or later, you will give up.
I read a book called Nervous Christians. Nervous Christians are good Christians, because if you are not a good Christian, you will never be nervous. You do not care whether you please God or not. So you are not nervous.
But if you are a good Christian and you want to please the Lord, you will get very nervous. Why? Because you find that you just cannot do it. You try and try, and you cannot do it. That is a nervous Christian.
But God does not want us to be nervous Christians. You are nervous because you are trying to live a Christian life by your natural life. There is only one way you can live a Christian life: it is to live by the life of Christ.
Christ is your life. If you want to know Him, that is what He is. He is your life. He lives in you. He is your life, and this life is resurrection life. In other words, it is a life that overcomes everything.
There is no power greater than death, but resurrection life overcomes death. It is a powerful life. Brothers and sisters, we have dynamite within us. It is powerful within us, and by that power you can live a Christian life, live a life like Christ, because it is Christ who lives; it is not you.
Not I, but Christ liveth in me.
That is the power of His resurrection. Thank God, Paul came into that. He knew the power of His resurrection because he said, “For me to live is Christ.” It is not me; it is Christ who is living in me. That is how I can live a Christian life.
And then, “the fellowship of His sufferings.” You cannot have fellowship with His sufferings before you know the power of His resurrection life.
Brothers and sisters, we do suffer. But we suffer for our own faults, our own sins, our own ignorance, and because of our flesh. We did suffer in the past, but that is not fellowship with His sufferings. If you suffer because you do something bad, you are not having fellowship with the sufferings of Christ—not at all.
You begin to have fellowship with His sufferings only after you know the power of His resurrection, not before that.
The sufferings of Christ are of two kinds. One is His vicarious suffering, or His atoning suffering. That is suffering with which you cannot have fellowship. You cannot partake in it or have a part in it, because our Lord Jesus trod the winepress alone.
So far as suffering for atonement is concerned, to atone for our sins, He suffered alone. By one Man, by His sufferings, we are redeemed. We receive the benefit of His suffering, but we cannot have a part in that suffering.
But there is another aspect of the sufferings of Christ: He calls us to suffer with Him. What is the suffering He causes us to be partakers of? Scripture tells us that if we follow the Lord, we will suffer for righteousness’ sake.
When our Lord was on earth, He suffered because He was right. People suffer because they are wrong, but He suffered because He was right. If you follow the Lord, strangely, you also will suffer for righteousness’ sake.
Because you want to do the right thing, to be right in the sight of God, you are against the current of the world, and you suffer because of that. You may suffer loss. You may be ridiculed by people as being foolish. You have to suffer for righteousness’ sake, and that is fellowship with His sufferings.
Blessed are such sufferings. You may suffer because you are a Christian. The Bible says in 1 Peter that if you suffer because you are a Christian, blessed are you. You confess yourself as a Christian, a Christ-man, and because of that people ridicule you and look down upon you, thinking you are out of fashion with the times of this world.
Well, thank God for that: fellowship with His sufferings.
You also suffer because, in order to follow Him, you have to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Him. Our Lord Jesus, while He was on earth, learned obedience through the things which He suffered.
Strangely, with God obedience is not found in the same way, because God is the authority of the universe. He commands. But when the Son of God came to become a man, He had to learn obedience, because it was not there in human character.
He learned obedience through the things which He suffered. Our Lord had human flesh just as we do, but in that human flesh there was no sin. Ours is sinful flesh, but His flesh was pure. Even so, He had to lay down His flesh.
Not My will, but Thine, be done.
He had to deny Himself, take up His cross, and be crucified. How much more, brothers and sisters, in our Christian life.
There are many occasions every day when you find crosses before you. You find that your will, the will of the flesh, is against the will of God. You find your old mind coming back against the mind of Christ. You find that your natural love and feelings are against divine love and divine feeling.
Every day, you have many crosses that you can bear. But whether you take up these crosses or not depends on whether you deny yourself. If you deny yourself, then you take the cross and limit, as it were, your self-life, bringing in Christ’s life.
But if you do not deny yourself, then you do not take up that cross. You go your own way. Brothers and sisters, there is no pain more painful than the death of the flesh. That is fellowship with His sufferings. Are you willing to go through that?
The Lord is calling us to have fellowship with His sufferings. But, dear brothers and sisters, if you do not know the power of His resurrection, how can you go through this fellowship of His sufferings? You cannot.
Then he says, “Being conformed to His death.” Sufferings lead to death—not just any kind of death, but His death. The death of Christ is like a mold. It is a death to all death.
By His death, He put to death everything that is dead. By His death, He put to death sin. By His death, He put to death the world. By His death, He put to death even death itself. His death swallowed up every death.
He said that we are to be conformed. In other words, we are to be poured into that mold. We are to be molded after Him, so that we may be delivered from the power of sin. We die to sin. We are delivered from the world.
The world is crucified so far as I am concerned, and I am crucified so far as the world is concerned. We are dead to death. We never die anymore. Death is swallowed up in life.
Even daily, we may be quickened by the Spirit in our mortal body. Brothers and sisters, it is an all-inclusive death. When we have fellowship with His sufferings, we begin to be poured into that mold.
But remember: death is not the end. If death were the end, that would be very negative. It would be Buddhism—empty, empty, nothing. No. Death is a means to an end.
So the apostle Paul says that he may attain unto the out-resurrection from among the dead. He had already experienced the power of the resurrection life of Christ. Now he was looking forward to that out-resurrection from among the dead.
We know that all the dead will eventually be raised, even the wicked. In John, the Lord Jesus said that the good will be raised, and even the evil will be raised for judgment. But there is a resurrection called the out-resurrection.
This out-resurrection is the first resurrection mentioned in Scripture. Those who have part in the first resurrection are blessed, because they shall reign with Christ for a thousand years. That is what Paul was looking forward to.
His death brings us to that out-resurrection, the first resurrection, to reigning with Christ. That is what it is all about.
If you asked Paul, “Have you arrived?” he would say, “No.” When he wrote the letter to the Philippians, he had been serving the Lord faithfully for many years, and he had suffered much for the Lord. Yet the apostle Paul said, “I have not arrived yet. I am still pursuing.”
“I forget the things behind. Forget it. Whether I have succeeded or not, I forget everything in the past. I do not dwell on the past—not even yesterday. I fix my eyes upon the goal. I pursue. I stretch myself out.”
Just like an athlete, you have to stretch yourself beyond your measure in order that there may be improvement. You have to stretch yourself beyond your measure in order to attain that goal.
What is that goal? The prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. What is the goal? The goal is Christ. To gain Christ—that is the goal. And what is the prize? The out-resurrection. That is the prize.
The apostle says that all who are perfect should be thus minded. Now, the word perfect in Scripture does not mean sinless perfection. There is only one Man who is sinlessly perfect: our Lord Jesus.
But the word perfect in Scripture means mature: grown into maturity. God’s purpose for us is that we may be sons of God—grown-up sons and daughters, not merely babes in Christ.
We have to begin as babes, but God’s purpose concerning us is that we should grow into maturity, into perfection, and be conformed to the image of God’s Son, Jesus Christ.
Brothers and sisters, if that is what we want to be, if you really seek to be mature, the apostle Paul says, “Let us be thus minded.” Let us set our minds upon Christ as our goal.
This is the only mind you can have if you want to arrive. Do we set our mind on Christ—the fullness of Christ?
Paul says, “I want to apprehend all that for which I have been apprehended by God.” God has apprehended us. He has a purpose for each one of us. He wants us to arrive at a certain measure. That is what God wants us to be.
But do you want to be what He wants you to be? Or do you set a lower goal and become content with less than what God has apprehended you for? God has apprehended you for glory, and are you willing merely to be saved?
Do not be otherwise minded. Be thus minded. Your mind must be set on Christ, the fullness of Christ, to be conformed to Him. Your goal must be that absolute goal.
But in your walk, you have to walk a step at a time. Our mind gives direction to our walk. Your mind must be set on the goal, the fullness of Christ; but in order to walk, you have to walk step by step.
You do not get to the goal in one step. So, brothers and sisters, set your goal high, but be content to walk one day at a time. That is the way it should be.
In Philippians 3, Paul tells us what it means to be otherwise minded. He says, “Let us be thus minded,” but there are those who are otherwise minded. Fortunately, he puts them in parenthesis. That is not normal. That is not the will of God.
Unfortunately, there are some people like that. Who are the people Paul is talking about—unbelievers? No. He is talking about believers. Think of that.
In Philippians 3:18, he says:
For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:
whose end is perdition, whose god is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.
Paul wept for these believers because he had the same heart as the heart of Christ. He was jealous for Christ. He wanted to see every believer thus minded, but he saw many who were otherwise minded.
They are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is the belly, and whose glory is their shame—who mind earthly things.
Brothers and sisters, our citizenship is in heaven. We are heavenly people. We should set our mind on the things above, not on things on earth. That is what it should be.
But unfortunately, there are believers who mind earthly things. Their minds are not renewed. They walk by their old mind. They still evaluate things according to the world’s standard. They treasure what the world treasures, and they despise what God desires.
They are enemies of the cross of Christ. They refuse to let the cross work in their lives, cutting off the flesh so that Christ may increase in them. They try to gratify their flesh. Their god is their belly, and the result is destruction.
Now, this destruction must be understood in context. It is not eternal destruction. The destruction here is in contrast with the prize of the high calling.
In other words, such ones will have no part in the kingdom when the kingdom comes upon this earth. When Christ reigns upon this earth, they will not be able to reign with Him. That is destruction.
Does it worth it?
Paul said that when he thought of the light affliction—the temporary light affliction—that he was going through, which would work for him an eternal weight of glory, he counted these things as nothing.
So, dear brothers and sisters, let us be thus minded.
Dear Lord, Thou hast called us with Thine own high calling. We want to respond to Thee through Thy grace. We want to be thus minded. We want to set Thee as our whole goal. We want to forget all that is behind, and we want to stretch ourselves, by Thy grace, toward Thyself.
We want to gain Thee, O Lord. Enable us to let all things go, that we may gain Christ. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.