'In Pursuit of Holiness'

Philippians 3: 8-16

'Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained'.

These are not the easiest verses to understand. When a Scripture is difficult, I always encourage people to first of all work out what it cannot be saying due to the abundantly clear message of the Glorious Gospel that is repeated countless times in different ways in the whole Bible before then attempting to work out what the Scripture is saying.

With that Glorious Gospel in mind, the writer of the verses above (the Apostle Paul) CANNOT be saying that he is in any way, shape or form going to earn his salvation or any part of his salvation. He knows full well that The Lord Jesus died upon the cross to pay for all the darkness in our hearts and lives (our sin) and conquered death for us so that those who believe in Him can be with Him forever BECAUSE we could not do either of these ourselves or even contribute to them!

The verses are referring to sanctification which in summary is all about becoming increasingly holy because the Glorious Gospel has both broke our hearts and changed our hearts. It has broke our hearts because we cannot believe that He loves us so much and that He suffered so much to offer us salvation and it changes our hearts because in love, worship and gratitude, we then want to live our lives for Him, avoiding sin as much as possible which essentially means our desire is to pursue holiness rather than sin.

The wonderful thing is that we do not do this because we want people to think we are holy or better than them or even because we want to feel holy, good about ourselves or better than others but simply and solely because we are captivated by THE HOLY ONE and His Holiness rubs off on as we seek Him and seek Him continually.

So life is not all about being happy! If it was, The Lord would not allow us to face any troubles or tough times.

Neither is life all about being miserable! Therefore, He often surrounds us with heavenly things to enjoy and to bless us including family and friends who we genuinely love and who genuinely love us.

Life is about pursuing holiness but what that really means is always pursuing THE HOLY ONE. Otherwise, we may well find that we have an addiction to holiness rather than a genuine love for THE HOLY ONE, our Holy Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Let us keep pursuing Him, following Him, recognising that the challenges we do face may be painful and even immensely painful at times but if we allow them to, they can create a pure holiness in us that times of joy never could.

Please do not hear me wrong, I am not saying that we should desire suffering or that suffering is good but I am saying that with God's help, we can bring good out of it!

Peace be with you because He is with you.

Pastor Steve Brunton