Hooked in The Heart

HOOKED IN THE HEART

SERIES: THE SURPASSING VALUE OF KNOWING CHRIST

Scott Grant

One of my favorite novels is David James Duncan’s The River Why. It’s about a fly fisherman named Gus. Near the end of the book Gus hooks a giant salmon. His goal is not to land it, just to play it, so he hooks the salmon on a very light fishing line. Then Gus and the fish take a journey together up the river as the salmon pulls him along. They go seven miles. At the end the fish is tired out but somehow seems to have befriended Gus. Gus puts his head right into the freezing water and looks at the salmon face to face, and the salmon doesn’t bolt. He gently cradles his hand along the side of the fish, then with a quick tug on the line releases it. It slowly swims away. By now it is very late at night, and Gus begins to walk back to his cabin.

“The road was white with frost: it shone like a strip of moon surface in the early light, running from east to west like the horizontal bar of a cross. The entire valley hovered, still, before me. Somewhere a raven called.

And then I felt it--a sharp pain in the heart, like a hook being set. I whirled around: sunlight struck me full in the face. My eyes closed.

And then I saw it--the vertical bar--a line so subtle it must be made of nothing nameable. And it ran from my heart of earth and blood through my head, to the sky; ran like a beam of watery light; ran from the changing, flowing forms of world to a realm that light alone could enter.

But my pain grew sharper: mad with joy, I sank to my knees on the white road, and I felt the hand, resting like sunlight on my head. And I knew that the line of light led not to a realm but to a Being, and that the light and the hook were his, and that they were made of love alone. My heart was pierced. I began to weep. I felt the Ancient One drawing me toward him, coaxing me out of this autumn landscape, beckoning me on toward undying joy.” (1)

Christ hooks us with his love and draws us toward him. Many of us have felt the hook. We have seen where the line leads. We have felt the hand of the Ancient One. For us, there is no going back, only forward. We must “press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of us”--to know Christ fully. But sometimes we grow complacent. It is for us that Philippians 3:12-16 was written.

We are working our way through Philippians 3, and this is the third message in a series of four. In verses 1-6 (Discovery Paper 4787) we discovered our identity as the people of God. In verses 7-11 (Discovery Paper 4788) we discovered the great privilege we have as the people of God, which is to know Christ intimately. The passage that we are going to look at in this message, verses 12-16, continues on the latter subject, except that there is a decidedly future orientation to this passage. We look forward to the day when we’re going to know Christ completely, and we press on toward that goal. Once again we’ll tap into Paul’s own story, which he shares with us generously in this chapter.

We’re going to read verses 2-11 ahead of our text so we can get the whole picture of what Paul is saying:

“Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh--though I myself have reasons for such confidence.

If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, 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 is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

Now we come to verses 12-16:

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

Pursuing intimacy with Christ

Paul is probably speaking here against the pagans as well as certain Jews who advocated that you could be perfected in this life. They offered certain formulas by which you could attain perfection without suffering.

In addition, there was probably a certain amount of confusion regarding the nature of the kingdom of God at this time in the church, because the kingdom of God had been inaugurated but was not yet consummated. Some people were thinking they were complete now. Paul has to make clear, “Yes, the kingdom of God has arrived, but there is still more to come. I myself have not attained all that God has for me. I am not fully mature.” Paul himself presses on toward something in the future; he wants to take hold of something, and it is because Christ Jesus has first taken hold of him.

Paul says he forgets what is behind him. He doesn’t mean everything in the past. Contextually and grammatically this points to Paul’s past as an elite Jew, a “Hebrew of Hebrews.” On the one hand that part of his past could appeal to his pride. He had it all then. Now as a follower of Jesus he knows a lot of suffering. He is in prison as he writes this letter. Every once in a while he might wistfully think about the good old days when he didn’t have to worry about the suffering, and when he was considered top dog. Yet on the other hand, now that he is a follower of Jesus, he may be burdened with guilt about the past, because when he was an elite member of the nation of Israel, he was a persecutor of the church. So he wants to forget that part of his past in order to move on.

What is Paul pressing on for? He talks about a goal and the heavenward calling of God in Christ Jesus. He is using a picture of the games of the day in which there was a post at the finish line, and if you were the first to cross that, you would be called up in the stands by the president of the games, who would give you an award, quite possibly a wreath for your head. The heavenward call for Paul is Christ Jesus himself. We are left to imagine--perhaps Paul thinks he is going to get a wreath, or perhaps he thinks he is going to hear, as Jesus says in Matthew 25:21, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” Whatever it is, it’s the gift of Christ himself. We know he wants to be in the presence of Christ eternally.

This text tells us that we have not arrived, but sometimes we actually think that we have arrived at some comfortable place in our spiritual lives. Everything is easy; we lead our spiritual lives in much the same way as we would program our VCR, and with just about as much passion. We push a few buttons to keep things going; we go to church and Bible studies. We have a comfortable routine and we like it. We think maybe we’re doing okay. There is nothing more to be gained. But if that is the case, we have deadened our appetite for Christ. One of the marks of the followers of Jesus Christ is that they are not satisfied, at least not completely. Having tasted of Christ, they want more of him, and they press on. A.W. Tozer says:

“To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul’s paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily-satisfied religionist, but justified in the happy experience by the children of the burning heart.” (2)

Now, in Philippians 4:11 Paul says, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” But if here and elsewhere Paul is pressing on, passionately moving toward a goal, then what he must be speaking of in Philippians 4:11 is a contentment to seek that which is more valuable, to be passionate about the right thing, which is a relationship with Christ. This is not a stoic version of contentment in which you’ve deadened all your desires so that you don’t really want anything, so that you won’t be disappointed regardless of how things turn out. There is a kind of freedom in that, and it’s easy. But the Biblical version of contentment is full of passion. So as followers of Jesus we can always expect to experience a certain holy dissatisfaction with life. We are always going to want something more. And Christ Jesus has seized our hearts so that we might want that “something more” in him.

So are you dissatisfied in some sense today? Praise God! It’s supposed to be that way. Does it feel as if there is a hook in your heart? Perhaps it is Christ Jesus himself who has seized your heart so that you might seek him, so that you might pursue something more in him. You will be fulfilled only when you see Christ face to face. So Christ is calling you to run the race toward knowing him completely and eternally.

The language of goals and prizes resonates in our culture, particularly in Silicon Valley. How many times have we heard the term vision? Well, what is your goal in life? Everybody thinks he or she is here for a purpose. Why are you here? According to Paul, the purpose for our lives is to know Christ and to press on to know him fully. You may be thinking, “That’s all very well and good, but isn’t there something specific that I’m supposed to do? Isn’t there some kind of calling that I have from God, some kind of vision that God has for my life?” These are not insignificant questions, and I don’t want to dismiss them, but I think they are best addressed in the context of pursuing intimacy with Christ. We don’t need to get as concerned about them as we often do. If we devoted half of the emotional energy that we put into answering these specific vision questions, into moving toward intimacy with Christ, we’d be much better off, and these other issues would fall into place.

Forgetting and remembering the past

Perhaps you realize that something from the past is slowing you down in your pursuit of knowing Christ. Perhaps you want to dwell on the glory days of the past. You’re proud of accomplishments you had when you were younger, and you are drawn back toward those days. Or perhaps there were certain failures in your past, and you live with searing regret. Perhaps the sins of the past come back to haunt you, and you are weighed down with guilt. Well, sadly, the trophies from all those accomplishments are going to rust. If your failures could be overturned, it would bring you only fleeting glory. And the sins of the past have been washed away by Jesus Christ. You need to let go of the past and get back in the race.

Yet the Scriptures are filled with commandments to remember. The past is not to be thrown out completely. It’s only a particular part of the past that Paul says he is forgetting. In certain ways we need to remember in order to live in the present and move forward.

If traumatic events happened to us in the past, these may have colored the way we think about ourselves. We may have ended up forming patterns of thought and ways of relating based on these traumatic or sad events, so that we live in the present as if we were stuck in the past. Often what we need to do is go back and revisit those episodes, feel how much they hurt, understand how much they really color the way we think, perhaps forgive, and actually worship in those places, understanding that God was there, leading us forward.

And of course we want to remember God’s faithfulness in the past. When we are going through difficult times in the present, it helps to think back to when we went through something similar before, and we didn’t die--God was faithful and good. So of course God is going to be with us now, and we are going to move forward into the future. We remember God’s past faithfulness in order to connect with his present and future faithfulness.

There is also a certain mystical quality to the past, and if we connect with it, I think it can open up our thirst for God. Listen to what David says in Psalm 143:5-6:

“I remember the days of long ago;

I meditate on all your works

and consider what your hands have done.

I spread out my hands to you;

my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.”

When David remembers the days of long ago, it opens up something in his soul, and he understands that he thirsts for God. Time is a strange thing, when you think about it. We are fascinated by it, as evidenced by the appeal of science-fiction tales about time travel. God is the author of time. If we understand that this awesome God is writing his story and our stories in time, it can lead us into worshiping him.

So on the one hand we remember the past, and on the other hand we forget the past, but we do both in order to live in the present and lean into the future where Christ waits. Of course he is in the present with us, but he is also drawing us on toward the finish. That’s when the King will call us to come up and meet him. This is the heavenward calling of Christ Jesus. When we meet him face to face he will give us the gift of himself forever. That is the vision that Paul has for his life, and that is the vision that we can have. If we get that vision in our minds, especially in difficult times, it can carry us forward. If we don’t have a certain future orientation in life, we’re going to place a burden on the present that it cannot possibly bear. We are going to want the present to deliver everything.

Living up to what we have attained

Paul talks here about what mature people do. He has said on the one hand that in fact he is not mature; he is not perfect. And on the other hand he says, “If you are mature, here is what you do.” The mark of those who are mature is that they recognize that they are not mature, that there is more to gain, something to press on for. So those of us who are mature must press on to full maturity, knowing Christ completely and fully. Paul knows that his readers might not understand all of this completely, and so he leaves it to God to reveal the rest to them.

In verse 16 he says we must live up to what we have attained. This is notoriously difficult to interpret, but I think what Paul is saying is something like this: “You don’t yet understand some of the things that I’ve told you--leave them aside for now; I hope God will reveal them to you in his perfect timing. And for right now, live up to what you already know of the truth that I have taught you.” So if we think we have arrived at some spiritual destination in our lives, we must leave that place. (I don’t mean leave a location, although sometimes a change in location is helpful.) If we have gotten really comfortable and this has lasted for a long season, what that probably means is that we have just enough of Jesus to satisfy some spiritual responsibility but not so much that it threatens the way we live. We go to our church services and Bible studies, we might have some prayer routines, we connect with other believers, but it’s all rather comfortable and easy. The passion, if there ever was any, has really faded. We have settled for spiritual deadness. If that’s the case, it’s time to leave that place and go someplace else with the Lord. It’s time to let his passion ignite us.

If you have a great deal of anxiety in your life, you may be thinking, “One day I hope to get to a place of being spiritually comfortable.” You may have made that a goal. But if so, it’s the wrong goal. The goal, the prize is intimacy with Christ. So we press on, that we might “take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of us.”

I sometimes get a kick out of Parade magazine’s weekly cover story. When they feature celebrities, usually the formula for these stories is something like this: this celebrity has gone through something difficult in his or her life, but has moved through that, and has now arrived at some cool place and is really satisfied with life. The story has a rather instructional tone, because this is a celebrity and he or she must know what’s really going on. So if you can follow what the celebrity does, you too can arrive at a cool and comfortable place in life. The only problem with these stories is that they have repeat customers, if you will. The same people end up on the covers over and over again. “My previous eight marriages didn’t work, but now I’ve really found true love, and I’m comfortable at peace with myself and the world.”

Many of us are searching for the missing piece in life that will make our lives fit together, because we are in some sense dissatisfied. Some other people around seem to have arrived at some nice, comfortable spot and seem to be doing pretty well. Well, if you are looking for the missing piece in life, I have news for you: Paul has just given it to you. The missing piece is knowing Christ and pressing on to know him fully. That’s what life is all about. Although Paul teaches us here, he notes that it is God who gives us understanding. The insight that we receive from God, we don’t receive all at once. It tends to come in bits and pieces. God gives us what we need when we need it.

What is most important is that we live up to what we have attained, that we act on what we know, and at the same time stay open to new perspectives. Most of us don’t need to come to grips with what we don’t know as much as we need to come to grips with what we do know. We don’t need to come to grips with our doubts as much as with what we believe. We need the courage to act on what we believe.

The greatest adventure

For many of us, if we were to pick a controlling metaphor for our lives, it would be a puzzle. A puzzle is a controlled environment in which we can solve things, where all we have to do is rearrange the pieces, where we know what the picture is going to look like. When we’re working on a puzzle we never have to leave the room. A puzzle engages our minds, but leaves our hearts untouched. In short, a puzzle is an environment where we don’t need God. But Paul would have us consider a metaphor along the lines of an adventure to be lived. An adventure is wildly unpredictable. We are always on the move, seeing new things, meeting new people, encountering new challenges. An adventure not only engages the mind but stirs the heart. An adventure is full of risk and passion and heartache and hope, and yet we know it’s heading in a good direction. And in an adventure we might just have occasion to trust the Lord, because we don’t know exactly what’s around the bend!

In the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, one of the features of the starship Enterprise is the HoloDeck, a virtual-reality device in which anyone can experience almost any kind of a fantasy he wants by just programming it. In one of the episodes an alien comes to visit the Enterprise, and one of the crewmen offers him a chance to experience the HoloDeck. The alien doesn’t understand why he would want to do that. “Wouldn’t you like to have a great adventure?” asks the crewman. “I live the greatest adventure!” the alien replies.

That should be our response as followers of Jesus Christ. We live the greatest adventure! It is breathtaking because Jesus reveals himself at every turn, and we know that he is waiting at the end of the story to show us things about himself and the creation of God that are unimaginable.

You may have another day, another twenty years, or another eighty years to live. What is the rest of your story going to be like? Has Christ hooked you in the heart? If that has happened, you need to press on to know Christ fully. There is always more to know, more to gain, more to taste. Christ is now beckoning you toward the undying joy of appearing before him at the end of the story. If you have a hook in your heart, it hurts a little bit, but it is a good hurt, because it pulls you forward so that you press on toward knowing Christ.

NOTES:

Catalog No. 4789

Philippians 3:12-16

3rd Message

Scott Grant

February 9, 2003

previous message: The Journey Up the Mountain