Pressing toward the mark for the prize (Quality: Poor)

[0:00] Chapter and the 14th verse.

[0:15] The Epistle to the Philippians, Chapter 3, verse 14. I press toward the mark for the praise of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

[0:39] In writing to the church at Philippians, Paul reminds us, of the standing that all the people of God have in Christ Jesus.

[1:17] That it is an everlasting standing. That there is not that can ever prevail against the life of the individual, who from all eternity has been enfolded in the divine grace which is his Christ.

[1:44] Therefore, much of his epistle is taken up of the language of rejoice. He rejoiced.

[1:57] He rejoiced is in the demonstration and the evidence of that truth as it is made so plain in the life of the experience of the child of God.

[2:16] But while every child of God has that eternal standing given to him in a precious place, that does not mean that there is no continual work of advancement in grace operating within their souls.

[2:43] The Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the remuner of sin, the revealer of the righteousness which is in Christ, the giver of that wherein that the faith is so apprehended in Jesus that salvation ever has a constant movement, ever has a constant movement, so what prayer?

[3:14] Here is to be brought through the divine power and efficacy of the Spirit in the operation within the soul.

[3:25] There will be no satisfaction the general of God save as he shall find himself to be perfect and complete, not simply in Christ which he is in his standing, but in the image of Christ, that he may be like him.

[3:57] And therefore, in this it does not, while we have the language of rejoice, there is the constant theme that the church should ever be going onward and upward, that there should be the continual pressing toward the law for the price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

[4:36] We have come across characters who have spoken of their faith in Christ. And he has spoken as though in that day, wherein they believed in the Lord who saved Jesus Christ, they had everything, that there need be no more concern, that there was no reason to this to where there should be any anxiety or any anxiety or any anxiety or any anxiety or any anxiety.

[5:12] They believed and therefore they are saved. But my friends, salvation, brought to the soul through the power of the divine Spirit, actively, activate, energize, the soul.

[5:42] And therefore, far from everything being settled, there is that wherein there is the constant, the consciousness of resistance, of opposition.

[5:57] within our own nature, which is still corrupt and formed, to everything that is good and holy and pure, that the Holy Spirit aspires unto you within thee.

[6:16] Yes, faith without words is death. James said, I will show thee my faith by my words.

[6:34] How necessary it is that there should be the evidences of the testematives in our lives of the saving power of God, effecting within us that which is well pleasing unto God.

[6:53] For as we are remaining in this day in the day, it is God which worketh in you to do and to will, by his good pleasure.

[7:05] Therefore, there is the working out of your own salvation with fear and tremor.

[7:17] There are other characters who may take up a very good self-conflation attitude. They are so satisfied with their attainment.

[7:31] They can talk with faith upon fine theological points. They can talk to you of their own experience.

[7:46] They can talk to you too of all that they have known, of what they profess God has done for them.

[7:58] And there they stop. Oh, it's hardly as though there were anybody else that had come to such a pleasant pitch of perfection as they have.

[8:11] They can talk about him because it's almost as though they know everything about him.

[8:23] And when we listen to them, we feel like frogs in their presence. Oh, how humble and abased we become because we cannot aspire to the same heights of experience which they are professing.

[8:44] And we've left long enough to watch those characters. And we are reminded to pray to us that God has followed us. And we have seen wherein much which they have declared unto us has been utterly inconsistent with life's practice.

[9:09] their life has been a contradiction to what they have professed to testify unto us.

[9:24] Yes. Rather would we be found numbered amongst that number at whom Paul writing to the church of Valley to the five declares to be brethren.

[9:41] Brethren, he says, whom are gifted, whom are blessed and false.

[9:54] He had heard things that it was impossible to speak among, even as he was exalted to the third heaven. What he had been enabled to do for his Lord and his Master, outstrips all that we could possibly recall to mind concerning others.

[10:20] Look where we may, what a giant he is in the means of God. And yet, what attitude does poor Jacob in this matter?

[10:40] He says this, He says, I count not myself to have a friend. Whatever I know, whatever I have to take, it falls far short of that which is to be known of him.

[11:04] Oh, that I may do. Oh, that I may win, Christ.

[11:15] But Paul, I watched him, what is Christ? Paul, I thought, everything that related unto the glorious grace of Christ, in all its sufficiency, had been known and experienced by you.

[11:28] No, he says, Oh, that I may win, Christ, and be found in him. Paul was conscious, in all that related unto himself, that when it was brought into comparison with the revelation of that grace which is to be brought unto us of the appearance of Jesus Christ, how infinitely shocked he fell off the perfection.

[12:01] How the fact was relative to the likeness, the man in the spirit of Christ, who seemed as it were to be beyond his grasp.

[12:13] And there's one who so well strips us, for as such a change in the things of God comes down, it is as brethren.

[12:27] I am in the same position as you are. I am in the very same place and experience that you are passing through. I can't not make so, to have apprehension.

[12:43] It's a good thing to press towards the mark in the consciousness, of that wherein there is a beginning.

[12:54] And the beginning is in the consciousness of our own being. It's in the consciousness of our own being.

[13:13] It's in the consciousness of the vastness and the magnitude of that which is to be obtained, whereby, in that wherein my own ignorance is confessed, and that wherein I am so at all in these matters which are for the after he has been in heaven.

[13:36] Yet, it is the spur, it is the energizer, every motive and desire among my soul, to be the first hope to press towards the mark, to obtain the reality, to reach unto the finality of that which is contained in the calling of God, in Christ Jesus.

[14:03] Oh yes, how small are our perceptions of the glory which is raised in Christ.

[14:21] But if we are conscious of how small our perceptions are, then there will be a desire in your heart to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

[14:38] In the last, it's as he appears in your view. Is he the altogether only one to you? You know the Spirit's testimony is to that even.

[14:53] Is he the chief, Mr. Mountain Paul's, the Spirit of the witness is one to you, to that effect. And he so testifies and witnesses, that there may be that key within your heart which is found in the heart of the bride, and she said, draw on you, we will run after thee.

[15:16] And Paul is here likewise looking upon that which is relative to a race. There is the cause. He would gird up his voice.

[15:28] He would be so exercised unto that race, that he may obtain the bride. So run, that he may obtain the bride.

[15:44] I pray, the Lord the Lord. But he longs against this. Living on the cross.

[15:56] He says, in my present, toward the mark, I forget those things which are behind me. Yet it's right to call to mind that which is relative to his calling in the first place.

[16:14] It's right to remember both that wherein the afternoons, and that wherein the greatness of the Savior has been made evident unto us.

[16:26] But my friend, we can't live on past experiences. You can go back and you can say, the Lord blessed me there.

[16:39] I can go back and you say, the place where God put a prayer into my heart and he answered that prayer. I can go back to places where there are just of an issue, say, and any difference of the Lord's goodness and mercy to me.

[16:57] Yet it was through those experiences that you knew of the Lord and the excellency of the marriage of Christ Jesus your Lord.

[17:10] But can you stop there? Are you content, if it were so, to stay there in the whole contentment of what you possess in the past?

[17:23] Surely if that is relative to the gifts of his own blessings that make evident in you, they are but an inspiration to greater effort and more fervent endeavours, so the rest of all the Lord.

[17:43] That you may have fresh understanding, renewed enlightenment in the knowledge of your Lord. Yet forgetting those things which are behind you, that they shall not be a hindrance to me or a conquer in the wills, that there may be a continual, unmerced pressure exerted in my heart and in my soul toward him.

[18:17] Because when I am confronted with this truth, then I realize the necessity of pressing the one above. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, with all thy strength, and thy neighbor as thy soul.

[18:40] Have you reached that yet? Have you got to that point yet? Are you so utterly swallowed up in that truth, that you as it were have become extinct?

[18:57] Christ is everything we dare not say. We cannot say. And that is why we want fresh revelation, fresh enlightenment in the truth.

[19:11] The good news! We shall see. But? See, who will be DDU in the future? If the rich news vesc updating? The good news on earth, Do your yahoo happen to us.

[19:24] Part 22. nel New England We shall still damn it and show this quel comportments by아니um. But the rest of us believe in the past.ъ planetary creation is another great element that is. and hath been poured out in profusion upon them.

[19:39] Yes, and a church can look back and it can say, how the Lord wrought wonderfully in those days, how he manifested his power and army, how he was pleased to make himself known to so many individuals, calling them in that high calling into Christ.

[20:05] Yes, of course we can. It's hard to be a church which has any beginning in truth, that is founded upon the rock, but what it can look back to it is to see the good days, the days of when the Lord was in the middle.

[20:24] Are you going to be legislated with that? If so, you know, the spiritual life of the church is going to be stoned to you, there won't be any growth.

[20:38] There won't be any going forward. And that church eventually dies up. It's gone. The church that lives is the church that is animated and enlightened by the Holy Spirit to push forward to the mark.

[20:57] Not living in the past, forgetting the things which are behind you, the looking of that which is relevant to the presence of sinners, let there be the manifestation of the outpouring of greater blessings in the midst.

[21:13] Let us realize the effective work and power of the Holy Spirit of greater measure within our hearts. For all there is still so much more land to be possessed.

[21:28] For we know so little what the Lord actually do for us in these things. Yet we press toward the past.

[21:41] It's the same of denominations. Denominations are by evoking or to live in the past. Take care of denominations.

[21:54] How inclined we are to talk about Pupon, Gatsby, Kershaw, and Dublin.

[22:08] Those who are the faith of the blessed of God in that where in the life of the denomination cruises they've gone from the sea.

[22:21] They've stirred their generation. And thus they have fallen asleep. What brotherhood is that to us? Only this.

[22:36] That in that where in the years of denomination, we can look back to the past and see that when God wrought so efficiently and effectively through the lives and the labors of those servants of his, surely this God is ours.

[22:54] And because they have gone that which is relative to the life of true religion has been gone, God abides in the midst of his church.

[23:08] Then may that which is relative to the very life of the denomination be so centered in Christ, so looking continually toward him in that where no power is his, that we may ever be pressing for a grain of lust, pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

[23:38] Oh, let us never rest in the past. No, lest then you misunderstand me, we're not taking away from that which is relative to all that God hath done for us and all the blessings that have been received by us in consequence of their labor.

[24:01] no, we're not taking away from it. But surely that which is relative to them should be the very inspiration of our own hearts and the possession of the Spirit so to possess for ourselves and to obtain for ourselves the same of points and manifestations of the Divine Spirit in Christ Jesus.

[24:29] I press toward the mark. Thus, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching unto those things which are before, I press toward.

[24:47] Yes, it is an active thing. it is the mercy. It is the mercy. It is the resultant fruit of the power of the divine salvation both in the individual and within the church.

[25:07] and it is now a continual experience. There must be no that you know.

[25:23] No cessation. Pressure it means that that which is relative to the very fact of what we say about letting up and giving up and cessation and so forth or demand their losses against such a pressure.

[25:47] The more headway I make the greater is the pressure of the wind against me in my cause. The more bounce I make in the way of grace the more I shall realize the winds of heaven.

[26:06] The more I shall realize that wherein the Lord may seek as it were to divert me from my cause. It is against this that I have to lay and to tire impressing toward the mass.

[26:25] Now that brings me to this. A continual experience you may often say in the realization of that experience why should I have to pass through these married ways and pathways.

[26:47] There is depression the consciousness of darkness of man. There is that where you feel overwhelmed at times.

[27:03] Or it may be even with you as it was a case that I met with you in the past week who said to me, he said, sometimes I feel so utterly hope to go to the house of God's God.

[27:14] But I keep on going and I keep on wanting and wanting to receive something and I never get a need. and he very all seems that your hope is tough.

[27:28] And yet the individual can't give up going. And though there is doubt, and though there are all these various things brought to bear upon us to impede us and hinder us in our thoughts, yet if we are in Christ, there is that blessed pressure that keeps the man spirit within us all, still strengthening us and enabling us to press on further down this chapter we read.

[28:06] How poor the will for saying that truth when he declared, I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.

[28:18] To press then against these things is no work of nature. It's not the action of a carnal mind or reason. If you got the pressure on, it's because of the divine spirit working effectively within you the fruit of that salvation which is in Christ.

[28:46] No rather let us fear and tremble when that which is relative under the pressure seems to be on. When we are not concerned, when we are not anxious, God's need to be on the knowledge of Christ as your savior, you should never have to take a knowledge.

[29:12] You should never be the subject of any fears. But you see, the press is to contend with difficulties and some other difficulties of ease, the unbelief of the natural heart, the doubts and fears that come through the intense consciousness of the infirmities of our own flesh.

[29:36] you see, the storm of Jesus that would cry down that which is the work of the spirit. We have grown within us, within our own flesh, unto every who's evil, and never forget it.

[30:00] The old man is still alive in every one. He will never be dead until his body is laid in the grave. And that is why Paul says in the last part of this chapter, who shall change our body, he realizes that body of death.

[30:23] And that which is relative to the body of death is simply a muscle of them. And you know, I wouldn't keep a thank you for a person who professes to be a Christian and never knows the attacks and the assault of that fearful whole unbelief.

[30:46] But why are we subject to these contenders with so many things? They may come from Satan, they may come from the powers of the world, yet from whatever source they come, they are beneficial to the Christian.

[31:06] We're not proud of unbelief. We don't set it up as a mark, as it were, or a standard for a Christian. God knows we would rather have all that which is a remedy to the description of such a case taken from us.

[31:24] But if we're truthful, and if we're honest, and if we're sincere in the light of God, we know that we have these things in us, and that our eyes are often blind, yet no thing seems to be aware of over our percentage.

[31:43] And yet it's beneficial, why it's beneficial, to the strengthening of the manifestation of what God is doing for you and in you of this present goal.

[31:55] I trust that our very presence here this morning, that our tending unto the things of God, betokens that we have in the possession of our soul a pressure which nothing can overcome.

[32:20] And if it is not overcome, and you are found so in fire and seeking, longing, fasting, hungry, to know more of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, you may defend it, you're a child if not, you've got the work of the Spirit in your heart, and that which is relative unto the goal shall eventually be obtained, but that which is relative to it cause it no will stay in the flesh.

[32:55] we're going to be the most of all. Well, that is our most. It's in Christ Jesus who by his divine spirit in the mind and the spirit of Christ drowning us is confonds us unto the divine power.

[33:18] Listen, unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ. And you know, he's been talking about the adversaries. Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him but also to stop for his sake having the same conflict which he saw in me and now here to be in me.

[33:44] But you see how the pressure is of what put on if there be there for any consolation in Christ any comfort of love any fellowship of the spirit any vows of mercy for feel he my joy to achieve like my day having the same love being one God of one mind I say these things are very efficient for the strength of that when the work of grace offerings will be not just go in here in the way of remember pressure there's always growth you got the baby there are the little children there are the young men there are the fathers you got first the brain then the ear then the full corn in the ear the whole matter is a matter of growth and that is what is operating under the divine watching of

[34:55] God those visits when we are made so conscious of his presence that we can do all things through him which strength in his heart and we press toward the mark for the price of the high God of God in Christ Jesus earth or other thoughts not only do we have to contend with difficulties but we abandon out in the pressure made conscious of the opposition which arises from the fact of our own infirmities where Paul is constantly exhorting the church to multiply the deeds of the mind it's a practical work it isn't something that we talk about which is operating in us if it operates in us it will work out in our lives working out your salvation and my friends the attitude to retaliate the temptation to remain in return the various things that lay hold upon us the hot temper and so we all in some measure nowhere in our own special weaknesses do consist if we press to hold the mark we shall be very watched and that which is relative to the outraising and the infirmities of the flesh we shall seek to overcome even as we look towards the mark of the praise and the glory of

[36:43] God in grace Jesus giants yes yes it is we may have the life of Christ in these things who when he was reviled he reviled not again so let them that spirit of pride so thread in my heart that in the exhortation of the gospel I may so give heed unto them that prove that I may know the blessings of the mortification of the deeds of my body.

[37:23] Not only to know in English but to give the testimony I press towards the mark to the obtaining of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

[37:40] Then we shall know what Paul meant when he said for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

[37:52] We must leave the subject. May the matter in the sky possess our hearts continually until we reach the perfection of the poor stature of the Lord who is in Christ Jesus.

[38:16] Till then I pray towards the mark. Amen. Our closing hymn is in number 474.

[38:35] 474. When I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies I beat their oil to every fear and light my weeping eyes.

[38:59] Hymn number 474. Music Tech vjodian John John John John John John John John The End

[40:00] The End The End The End

[41:02] The End The End The End The End The End The End The End The End The End The End The End The End The End The End The End The End The End With the Mind Of the Lord Jesus Christ Full of God Good the Father and the communion of God of the Holy Ghost Abide with each one of us.

[42:01] Now and evermore. Amen. Amen.

[42:54] Amen.