Paul was no slacker. The apostle who wrote nearly all of the books within the New Testomony appears by no means to have finished something midway. We see that profoundly in Philippians 3, the place he describes the worth he paid to comply with Christ: “I depend the whole lot as loss due to the surpassing value of realizing Christ Jesus my Lord … that by any means attainable I could attain the resurrection from the lifeless” (Phil. 3:8, 11). In his discipleship, he made an unmitigated dedication—and he caught to it.
Paul’s instance sure units a excessive bar. What a aid we really feel, then, after we come to the following verse: “Not that I’ve already obtained this or am already good” (Phil. 3:12)! If we cease at verse 11, we could be tempted to suppose our hope rests on having a zeal like Paul’s. Some hope that might be! However the apostle gently reminds us that even all his zeal just isn’t sufficient. As a substitute, he rejoices in the one positive hope: “I press on to make it my very own, as a result of Christ Jesus has made me his personal” (v. 12). Or, because the NIV places it, “I press on to seize that for which Christ Jesus took maintain of me.”
Finally, Christian religion just isn’t a query of women and men reaching out and taking maintain of God. The Gospel is nice information a few God who reaches out and takes maintain of us. Like infants, we might eagerly grasp Him again, however it’s His energy and His initiative—not ours—that attracts us shut.
Jesus Takes Maintain of Us Personally
In his life-changing encounter on highway to Damascus, Paul himself, who had been an enemy of the Gospel, heard a voice from heaven calling him by his Hebrew title: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:4; 22.7; 26:14). He was not searching for Jesus—however in His mercy, Jesus reached out and grasped him within the midst of his revolt. That’s what He does for us as nicely! With out His laying maintain of us, we’d stay strangers to Him, “having no hope and with out God on the earth” (Eph. 2:12).
The angle of women and men in faith so typically is “I can deal with this. I’m self-sufficient. I’ll discover phrases of empowerment from someplace, and I will take care of this.” Previous to his conversion, that was actually Paul’s angle, and he had all of the marks on his spiritual report card to go together with it: “circumcised on the eighth day, of the folks of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the regulation, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness beneath the regulation, innocent” (Phil. 3:5–6). He didn’t but notice his labors to earn favor with God had been really in useless.
Christianity just isn’t a do-it-yourself undertaking. The perfect of our efforts go away us nonetheless separated from God. As Isaiah 64:6 says, “All our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.” If we may “do it ourselves,” there would have been no purpose for the incarnation and no function in Jesus’ demise, resurrection, and ascension. God the Son got here to do for us what we couldn’t do ourselves, dwelling an ideal life and dying to take the penalty of sin in order that we may very well be His forgiven folks. To imagine in Christ is to imagine this: After we may do nothing to avoid wasting ourselves, He took maintain of us.
Jesus Takes Maintain of Us Completely
Real religion doesn’t start with our efforts—and, after all, it doesn’t go on by them both. Paul has mentioned earlier, in Philippians 1:6, “He who started a very good work in you’ll deliver it to completion on the day of Jesus Christ.”
In Christ, we don’t stay questioning if the misdeeds of at the moment have snatched us from God’s hand (John 10:28–29). The one who took maintain of us additionally carries us on, with all the identical energy and function with which He took maintain of us within the first place. The energizing energy of God that redeems us from corruption and fills us with His Spirit just isn’t there in matches and begins however sustains us all through life’s journey.
Christianity just isn’t a do-it-yourself undertaking. The perfect of our efforts go away us nonetheless separated from God. .
In theological phrases, this actuality is usually known as the perseverance of the saints, however one other time period could also be extra useful: the preservation of the saints. It’s God’s faithfulness, not ours, that lays the inspiration upon which our ongoing faithfulness exists. We persevere as a result of He preserves us. He’s constant amidst all our inconsistency. This doctrine leaves no room for a believer’s smugness. He took maintain of us.
Jesus Takes Maintain of Us Purposefully
Despite these realities, Paul nonetheless believed there was an element for him to play. God took maintain of Paul, and due to this fact, Paul strove to seize Him: “Forgetting what lies behind and straining ahead to what lies forward, I press on towards the aim for the prize of the upward name of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13–14).
God’s plan to redeem us just isn’t static. It’s not merely to deliver us right into a place of forgiveness whereby we will sit down and say, “What a aid! Now I feel I’ll go discover a hill someplace to stay on, away from all these depraved folks and away from all of the foolish nonsense that surrounds me.”
If we’re going to get pleasure from all the advantages and blessings that God intends for us in Christ, then we’re going to wish to do not forget that we had been saved for a function.
When God took maintain of Paul, He despatched Ananias to evangelise the Gospel to him. God instructed Ananias about Paul, “He’s a selected instrument of mine to hold my title earlier than the Gentiles and kings and the kids of Israel” (Acts 9:15). Paul tells us that when God takes maintain of us by grace, He does so as a result of “we’re his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God ready beforehand, that we should always stroll in them” (Eph. 2:10).
If we’re going to get pleasure from all the advantages and blessings that God intends for us in Christ, then we’re going to wish to do not forget that we had been saved for a function: that we would develop into like Christ—the very factor Paul was striving to do (Phil. 3:10–11).
The Christian life just isn’t one among resting on our laurels as a result of “Christ Jesus took maintain of me.” No, Christ Jesus took maintain of us in order that we would stay for Him in newness of life. With Paul we will say, “I press on to seize that for which Christ Jesus took maintain of me.” Religion zealously reaches out to seize Christ—but it all the time rests securely within the sturdy hand of our Lord.
This text was tailored from the sermon “‘Christ Jesus Took Maintain of Me’” by Alistair Begg.
