Philippians 3:15To: Philippians Main MenuTo: Grace Notes Home Page Philippians 3:15Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if anything you think otherwise, God will revbeal even this to you.Paul did not let anything deter or deflect him from the upward-call orientation (v.14), "I will not allow anything or anyone deter me from my goal." To be deterred is as bad as to be deflected. To be deterred is to be held back. To be deflected is to divert to a tangent. Either way, we miss the mark of the upward-call. These are the devil's booby traps. He tries to "sucker" us into some bargain other than the upward-call. The devil has a way to make a mountain out of a molehill to warp our perspective. If that does not work, then he will hold us back so that we run on a treadmill of no headway. THEREFORE LET US "Therefore" indicates an inference from the preceding paragraph. Those who no longer keep skeletons in the closet and have gone on to become Christ-centered should reorient their lives. This is a challenge to those who are "mature." The call is towards an attitude to the upward-call. This appeal is to those whose life-ambition is to live their lives with an upward-call orientation. The entreaty is towards an attitude of Christ-centeredness. A mark of maturity is the desire to continue with Christ. Most of us live in the backwoods of a dynamic relationship with Christ. We do not live near the exalted palace of our position in Christ. The challenge here is to appropriate positional truth to experience. Positional truth is our status quo before God in Christ. We hold the same status that Jesus enjoys before the Father. PRINCIPLE: It takes an attitude to live a life of the upward-call. APPLICATION: Is Jesus sweeter today than the day before? Are you deeper in love with the Lord this year than last year? AS MANY AS ARE MATURE Verses 15 and 16 submit the life that pleases God. A life that pleases God is one of maturity. Paul asks his audience to walk with him in the objective of Christlikeness. His goal for himself was his goal for them. Paul states in verse twelve that he was not "already perfected. Verse twelve conveys the idea of sinless perfection. He insists he never attained that. In this verse he uses the a similar term in the sense of spiritual adulthood, spiritual maturity. The first order of business after birth is nourishment, "As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious" (II Pet. 2:2,3). When a person is first born into the family of God he has life and that is all. He knows nothing about how to live the Christian life. He does not even know everything there is to know about his birth. He does not know about justification, reconciliation or propitiation. All this he will discover to his delight later in his spiritual life. For the moment all he knows is that he was lost without Christ and with confidence in Christ's death on the cross he owns a right relationship with God. New birth is the crisis that launches a process. The process is maturity in Christ. When parents bring a baby home from the hospital they are concerned with nourishment, not life. The baby received life at conception. They are not concerned with life but with development. It would be a tragedy if the baby still had a baby's body at five years of age. A baby needs nourishment. The proper formula is necessary if a baby is to receive the right vitamins and minerals. In II Peter 2:2 Peter challenges new believers to "desire the pure milk of the Word." The word "pure" means unadulterated. If a baby Christian is to grow, he needs to hear God's voice without distortion. We are long on devotionals (even such devotionals as Today's Word!!) and short on the Bible. If we use substitutes in place of the Bible we will lack spiritual nourishment. A baby must have pure milk. A new Christian cannot allow any spiritual substitute to displace the Word of God. Growth groups, fellowship and Christian books are no alternate to the unadulterated Word of God. The fundamental nourishment for growth is God's voice. PRINCIPLE: The Bible in its unadulterated form is the basis for Christian growth. APPLICATION: Have you substituted numerous complexities into your spiritual diet? Has that process blunted your spiritual growth? Have you taken a detour from the Word? Why not return to the unadulterated Word of God? Paul referred to the Corinthians, who had been Christians for some time, as "babes in Christ" (I Cor. 3:1). A baby is totally dependent upon someone else for nourishment. Paul could not speak to the Corinthians as people who could feed themselves. He spoke to them as babies dependent on others. They did not know how to feed themselves spiritually. They did not know the principles of the Word. They did not apply the Word to their experience. Therefore, they did not grow. They were ignorant of the Christian life. No one expects a baby to behave like a teenager. We do not expect much from a baby. A baby cannot chew steak. A baby must begin with milk. The formula increases gradually the weeks after birth. Eventually the baby begins to eat solid food. As a Christian grows, hopefully he eats the right kind of food (the Word of God) and the right amount. Eventually the baby grows out of babyhood into childhood. If all things are equal (eating and exercising well), they will grow into manhood or womanhood. Growth out of infancy means they no longer think and act as a new Christian. They no longer demand their own way most of the time. If they keep growing, they develop into spiritual fathers and mothers who have the ability to reproduce themselves. It takes some Christians thirty years to grow into maturity. Others reach spiritual adulthood in just a few years. We have all seen new Christians who have been believers for only a few months outstrip others who have been Christians for decades. All along the highway Christians are pegged by God for their progress toward their destination of maturity. If a baby does not increase in weight and length after a few weeks, something stunts its growth. Lack of nourishment is likely the cause. Christians stunt their growth due to lack of subsistence. They may not know the grace of Christ. Their knowledge of Jesus the Lord is embryonic and undeveloped, "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (II Pet. 3:18). They need to become stronger in their faith (what God has revealed in his Word), "But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith (Scripture)" (Jude 20). PRINCIPLE: Growth into maturity takes a regular diet of the unadulterated Word of God. APPLICATION: Are you growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus the Lord? Are you stronger in your faith today than you were a few months ago? Are you getting nourishment from the Word? A mature person is a person who has grown up spiritually. He/she is no longer a baby (cf. I Cor 2:6; 14:20; Heb. 5:13-14). We all know aged Christians who think like children and act like children. We have heard the expression--"dumb but happy." There are people who have been Christians for 25 years and they still think like a child. Why? They are ignorant of how Christianity applies to their life situations. This characterizes Christianity at the end of the twentieth century. So many Christians today think and act like children. The church is full of children attempting to think and act like adults. They are dumb but happy. Every Christian should "Grow and grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" (II Pet. 3:18) immediately from the point of conversion. Grace, simply put, is God's provision for our spiritual needs. Grace also connotes that God gives with no strings attached. Grace means we orient to what God does for us, not what we do for him. Many people stay in the crib of the Christian life for nearly all their Christian experience. A person can live the Spirit-filled life and may persist in immaturity. Spirituality is not the same as maturity. Spirituality is an absolute--either we are in fellowship with God or we are not. Maturity is relative--it is a matter of degree to which we appropriate God's truth. Growth in the Christian life is a process from babyhood, to adolescence to maturity. At maturity an orientation to the upward-call takes effect. A baby will not constantly and regularly orient to the upward-call (v.14). Occasionally he may think of the upward-call. The upward-call is an isolated thought from time to time. An attitude is life-orientation to the upward-call. This is the challenge of the next phrase--" have this in mind (attitude)." PRINCIPLE: Maturity is growth in God's grace to the point where an orientation to the upward-call takes place. APPLICATION: A good indication whether we are mature in Christ is our orientation to the upward-call. The upward-call is the life orientation towards living for and meeting our Lord. Are you mature in your life-orientation? Maturity does not come from logging in numerous years as a Christian. There are Christians who have known Christ for many years and they are still spiritual babies. It is possible to register substantial time in the Christian life and it does not mean a thing except that person is getting old. Many people offend easily. They wear their feelings on their sleeves. This person is obviously still a baby. They do not understand the principles of God's Word nor how to apply them. Maturity is maximum application of truth to experience. If we apply God's truth regularly to our sin and failure, we will grow. If Christ becomes the center of our choices for living, we mature. Maturity comes from two areas: 1. Growth in grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ (the truth of the Word). 2. Application of truth. The application of what you know about God makes the difference. Two people can know the same amount of the Word. One applies one percent of what he knows and the other applies ninety percent. The one who applies 90% will grow; the other will lie dormant. The one who applies 1 % remains in babyhood. Others who occasionally apply truth to experience may reach adolescence. The believer who regularly applies truth to experience will move rapidly toward maturity. Another characteristic of maturity is the faith factor. This is the course whereby we chose to believe the principles of God's Word. We believe that the Word can change our lives. We believe that the principle we learn from Scripture is relevant to the situation we face. A maximum utilization of faith in God's Word produces maximum growth. The conditions to that are 1. whether we have a knowledge of the principles of the Word for that situation and, 2. whether we are exercising regular application of those principles to our life situations. Faith relates to our confidence in God and his Word to alter our lives. Faith is the central issue in application. The reason we do not apply is we do not believe God's Word contains the answer for our problem. We believe we control the answer. We are of the opinion that by some system of operation bootstraps we can solve our problems. A mature believer is also one who has mutual exclusive confidence in God's provisions in his Word. Many hold a great deal of confidence in money. Others believe status symbols bestow happiness such as a house or bank account. Security depends upon whether "I get my stipend every week from the government." All these trifle the maturity process. PRINCIPLE: Faith in God's Word is central to the maturity process. APPLICATION: If we believe that God's Word holds the power to change us, we will utilize it to our daily experience. Does your lack of appropriation of God's principles to experience indicate lack of trust in the Word? Now Paul turns to the reason he wants the Philippians to mature. Only mature Christians can carry mature attitudes. The Philippians were hurting each other. The bitter battle went on so long they developed negative attitudes toward each other. When a sin reaches the attitude stage it is much more difficult to correct. It takes maturity in God's Word to change an attitude. A momentum of the application of truth to experience will correct deeply rooted negative attitudes. HAVE THIS MIND The word "mind" is the word attitude (cf. 2:5). This phrase is an invitation to the mature Philippians to realign their thinking orientation. A manifestation of whether we have reached maturity is whether we change attitudes and actions. Paul challenges our attitudes. If we keep tabs on the making of our lives, we can measure our growth. For example, the attitude "joy" can characterize the Christian life. Joy is not happiness. Happiness depends upon circumstances. Joy is an inner animation of soul regardless of circumstance. Joy is independent of circumstance. An immature Christian is a slave to his/her circumstances. If circumstances are positive, they are happy. If not, then they go down with the circumstance. Their lives undulate like a roller coaster. There is no attitude of joy. A stable attitude comes from the application of truth to experience. This allows us to break loose from circumstances. A mature attitude means someone you love can jilt you but you will still have resources within which stabilizes you in the loss. A mature believer moves above circumstance. PRINCIPLE: A biblical attitude is a habit of thinking like God thinks. Thinking like God thinks will displace negative attitudes. It will make us independent from circumstance. APPLICATION: Are you independent from your circumstances? Do the set backs of your life control you? Are you controlled by hurts others have perpetrated upon you? Are your attitudes formed from Scripture rather than experience? Having appealed to the mature Christians at Philippi to structure their attitudes around God's Word, Paul now challenges the contrary thinkers. If we let them, the contrary thinkers will hold us back from what God wants us to be. It may be our husband or wife. It might be our in-laws or team members in ministry. They do not want us to catch fire. They are afraid a spark might fall on them. They will call out the bucket brigade to douse us with water. They will do anything to cool us off spiritually. AND IF ANYTHING YOU THINK OTHERWISE The word "think" means to think subjectively. It simply means to hold an opinion. Here it means a contrary opinion. It is the opposite of "have this mind (attitude)." Many Christians are contrary in their thinking. They even hold contrary opinions to the Word of God. They are born inside out. They are on the negative side of every positive question and on the positive side of every negative question. GOD WILL REVEAL EVEN THIS TO YOU There is a point where Paul cannot straighten out contrary thinkers. Some people will never accept human authority. He simply commits them to God. God will reveal to them the importance of maturing in attitude. There is a point where we have to let the contrary people in our lives go. If we have tried our best to correct the relationship, that is all we can do. There is only one way to go with the Christian life--forward. God's revelation is the Word of God. Eventually God will straighten out the opposition if they bring their thinking into alignment with the Word. The Word can do what no human can do. PRINCIPLE: There are two types of thinking, one negative and the other positive. The Word of God can reorient our thinking toward a positive bearing towards people even if they do not change. APPLICATION: Paul said that he was pressing toward the goal of the upward-call. His whole life revolved around his future meeting with the Lord Jesus. He was not going to let anything get him off track. We empower negative thinkers by allowing them to keep us from our goal. Do you let other Christians get you off your goal? Do you stumble over other runners on the track of spirituality? When others try to deter you from your goal, do you get up off the track, brush off the cinders and move on? Do you lie there angry because someone caused you to stumble? Do you have the attitude, "I do not care who may try to hinder me. I am getting back into the race. I am moving on." "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses (the heroes of faith listed in chapter 11), let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb. 12:1,2). ---------- Copyright © 1995, Dr. Grant Richison. All rights reserved. There is no charge for Grace Notes Materials. You can help further this work by your prayer and by sending a contribution to: Grace Notes 1705 Aggie Lane Austin, Texas 78757 wdoud@bga.com Grace Notes Web site: http://www.realtime.net/~wdoud/ Anonymous FTP site: ftp://ftp.bga.com/vendors/wdoud/ Grace Notes is a ministry of Village Missions International. |
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