One Thing I Do

You might expect, after the soaring "that I may know him" of L18, that Paul would rest. He does the opposite. "Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect" (3:12). The greatest Christian who ever lived, near the end of his life, in prison, says plainly: I have not arrived. Then he shows what a mature Christian actually looks like. Not someone who has finished the race, but someone who is still running it, eyes forward, with a single burning focus. This is the famous "press on" passage, and it only makes sense pressed against 3:7-11. He counts all things loss in order to press on for the prize.

1. Holy dissatisfaction: I have not arrived

"Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect" (3:12). Paul is not pretending. He knows Christ, truly (3:8-10). He has the righteousness of God (3:9). And still he says: not yet, not fully, there is more. Rogers, who preached this text in at least three sermons ("Fix, Face, Forget, and Firm Up," "Sanctified Ambition," "That I May Know Him"), made it a lifeline for older believers: "If you are satisfied with your life now, you're aiming too low" (Rogers, "Sanctified Ambition," on 3:10-14). Satisfaction with Jesus, yes; satisfaction with our present state, never.

The danger is comparison. We lie down next to a hypocrite and measure ourselves longer. Rogers: "Stop lying down in the gutter and stretching ourselves alongside some hypocrite, saying, 'I'm a little longer than he is.'" The standard is not the next Christian; it is Christ. Measured against him, we all have infinite room to grow. A holy dissatisfaction is not a failure of faith; it is the evidence of it.

2. Why he presses on: Christ has made him his own

Here is the engine of all Christian effort. "I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own" (3:12). Murray suggests the sense is almost "I press on to make him my own, because he has made me his own." Either way the order is decisive. Paul does not press on in order to be loved; he presses on because he is loved. "Paul presses on for the prize of Christ because Christ pressed on for the prize of Paul" (Murray, "Plateau, or Press to the Peak?" on 3:12-16). Effort flows from grace, never the reverse.

This protects the whole chapter from becoming a second legalism. The same Paul who said "no confidence in the flesh" (3:3) now says "I press on" (3:12). Both are true because the pressing is fueled by being apprehended, not by apprehending. Murray: "Christless effort is doomed to plateau, but Christ-energized effort can climb Everest in triumph." This is effort that rests even as it strains.

3. One thing: forget, strain, press

"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" (3:13-14). The runner image is deliberate. Rogers, a former track athlete, returns to it again and again: "When you're in a race, how many things do you have on your mind? One" (Rogers, "Fix, Face, Forget, and Firm Up," on 3:10-14). "Concentration is the secret of power." Diffused light fills a room; concentrated, it becomes a laser. The Christian life is not a hobby among hobbies; it is the one thing that orders all the other things.

And the runner forgets. "Forgetting what lies behind" (3:13). Rogers lists what must go: past guilt (Paul had persecuted the church, 3:6), past glory (the resume of 3:5-6), past grief (wounds and betrayals), past grudges. None of it helps you run. "You cannot run a good race by looking over your shoulder" (Rogers). Victories behind breed false pride; failures behind breed false fear. Both get left at the starting line. The Olympic runner's rule: "Each race is a new beginning."

4. Maturity thinks this way

"Let those of us who are mature think this way" (3:15). Here is a paradox worth sitting in. The "mature" (teleioi) are precisely the ones who say "I am not already perfect" (3:12, same word root). Maturity in this chapter is not having arrived; it is knowing you have not arrived and pressing on anyway. Anyone who claims to have finished is the opposite of mature. And for anyone who does not yet see it, Paul is gentle: "God will reveal that also to you" (3:15). Keep what you have, "hold true to what we have attained" (3:16), and keep walking forward.

Paul has shown the prize. Now, in the closing verses of chapter 3, he shows the company we keep while we run: whom to imitate, whom to weep over, and where our true citizenship lies.