Living in the Future.
I. First, we may take this as the advice commended to us in the example here taught us: Live in the future. Our highest condition in this world is not the attainment of perfection, but the recognition of heights above us which are as yet unreached. From generation to generation, for the individual and the species, the condition of our progress is a distance beckoning us, and a feeling that we have not already attained, neither are already perfect.
II. Let the bright, certain, infinite future dwarf for us the narrow and stained past: "forgetting the things that are behind." (1) Forget past failures; they are apt to weaken you. (2) Be sure to forget past attainments; they are apt to become food for complacency, for every vain confidence. (3) Forget your past circumstances, whether they be sorrows or joys; the one are not without remedy, the other not perfect. "Forget the things that are behind."
III. Let hopes for the future and lessons from the past alike lead to strenuous work in the present. "This one thing I do." Be the past what it may, be the future what it may, I know that I cannot reach the one nor forget the other, except by setting myself with all my might and main to present duties, and by reducing all duties to various forms of one great life-purpose. Concentration of all our strength on a single aim, and that aim pursued through all our days, with their varying occupations what a grand ideal of life that is! We shall work hard and heartily at various tasks, and yet the good part shall not be taken away from us by outward activity, any more than our possession of it will sequester us from vigorous service of God and man.
A. Maclaren, Sermons in Manchester,3rd series, p. 39
The text shows
I. The greatness of Christian hope. Two things are suggested by the context as having been actually attained by Paul: a satisfying religious faith and a sufficient religious purpose. (1) He had attained a satisfying religious faith. This is the portion of all believers in the Gospel. In some it appears almost independently of experience; the reason of it is vouchsafed them in their conversion; they will speak, with no consciousness of exaggeration, of being brought out of darkness into marvellous light: in their joyousness they are new creatures. In others it grows and strengthens along the whole course of Christian fidelity; they have a peace which passeth all understanding. But out of this satisfaction there arises a special danger. Satisfaction with an ideal often so contents us that we make no effort to realise it. We have not attained when we have begun to trust. Faith is the means of Christian living, not the end, not the sum, of Christian life. (2) Paul had also attained a sufficient religious purpose. It was characteristic of him, as of all noble natures, that he valued his faith according to the energy with which it filled him, and that he estimated spiritual energy by the sacrifices it enabled him to make. The power of the Gospel is seen in that it not only inspires a Christlike passion of love and righteousness, but also transforms the passion into purpose. This is the true test of spiritual vigour: the energy of purpose with which we are inspired.
II. The method of Christian endeavour. "Forgetting those things that are behind." this is one of the conditions of manful Christian endeavour. The habit of brooding over the sins of the past must be laid aside, and also the habit of dwelling on our spiritual attainments. Our only contentment is in aspiration, for our true life and its issues are before us. The bliss of the imperfect is in their efforts after perfection. From the knowledge that we have not attained comes the hope of attain ing; nay, rather, it is the hope of larger blessedness which makes alt we have yet reached appear incomplete. We have not yet fathomed the Divine purpose, nor known the fulness of the grace of Christ.
A. Mackennal, The Life of Christian Consecration,p. 164.
Reference: Philippians 3:13; Philippians 3:14. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xix., No. 1114; G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons and Addresses in Mar thorough College,p. 341; C. H. Grundy, Church of England Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 87; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol; xvi., p. 210; Ibid.,vol. xvii., p. 92; H. P. Liddon, Ibid.,vol. xxvii., p. 257; Preacher's Monthly,vol. ix., p. 20; J. J. S. Perowne, Sermons,p. 104; W. M. Punshon, Sermons,p. 26; F. Temple, Rugby Sermons,1st series, p. 224; F. Case, Short Practical Sermons,p. 43.Philippians 3:13-15. W. Hay Aitken, Mission Sermons,vol. iii., p. 236. Philippians 3:14. Church of England Pulpit,vol. vii., p. 46; Christian World Pulpit,vol. v., p. 263; H. S. Hird, Ibid.,vol. xv., p. 278.