Sunday message · Defiant Joy series
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Message Summary
Continuing through Philippians, Pastor Phillip Santillan preaches Philippians 3:12–4:1 on how past successes can threaten a believer’s faith. He opens with a high school girls’ relay team he coaches. After missing state the year before, they broke a 12-year-old Minnesota all-time record at sectionals, then spent two more weeks dialed in, knowing they had not arrived, and smashed their own mark. Paul, Phil says, brings that same mindset to spiritual maturity: he has not arrived.
Paul says so twice, though the Philippians would have assumed he had arrived. Much preaching skips this for the inspiring call to press on, Phil notes. The admission rests on a simple principle: “The grip that matters isn’t yours.” In the Greek, Paul’s hold on Christ is a hope, while Christ’s hold on Paul, begun on the Damascus road, is a settled fact. Phil asks whether Christ’s hold on a life outweighs its other hopes.
In verse 13, forgetting what lies behind is not about Paul’s past as a persecutor. Citing a Bible scholar, Phil explains that Paul sets aside spiritual successes that might suggest he is already perfect. “Paul isn’t trying to forget his failures. He’s refusing to count his wins.” Some people are held back by their best years, not their worst. A life-changing mission trip or a meaningful small group season can become an idol, as God’s work through believers distracts them from knowing Christ and his work in them.
In verse 15 Paul insists the mature think this way, and God will reveal it to anyone who thinks otherwise. Verse 16 adds that believers should live up to what they have already attained. Phil recalls a favorite college professor who stood him before a tall mirror to say he was immature, then told him he already knew how to be mature. He hated that answer, but it changed his life. “Most of us are one act of obedience from the next insight.” Phil asks where listeners need to stop leaning on their accolades and admit they have not arrived.
Living up to that truth, Phil says, is nothing like living your own truth. In verse 17 Paul tells the Philippians to imitate him and watch those who follow his example, handing them people rather than a principle. Phil asks which two or three more mature believers listeners are watching; imitating only yourself makes you the standard. Paul then writes with tears, not anger, that many live as enemies of the cross. No one has arrived, Phil says, but there is no neutral ground: drifting has a direction.
Paul closes with one command for citizens of heaven awaiting a Savior who will transform their bodies: stand firm, not figure it all out. That, Phil says, is defiant joy: “Not joy because everything is resolved, but joy that refuses to wait for resolution.” Before winning anything, his relay team trained like people who knew what they could become. He asks who listeners are imitating and what one act of obedience they already know they owe God, urging them to do it and stand firm, because the reward is knowing Christ.
