Pursuing the Jesus Who First Pursued Us
Life can be hard, it can be stressful, and it can be overwhelming. This past year has been that on steroids. Often, we forget why we are even doing things and realize that we are just going through the motions. We can easily embrace a check list mentality to life, where we move from one thing to the next often merely out of a sense of duty. Sadly, this can even extend to our relationship with Jesus and the ways we seek to serve him.
Pastor Keith reminded us of this a couple Sundays ago in a sermon encouraging us to stand firm in the faith. We looked at the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians. In the letter Paul is exhorting the Philippian church to pursue Jesus. Paul shares his own pursuit of Jesus with the Philippians by saying,
“12 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. 13 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, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”- Phil. 3:12-14
What’s amazing is the intensity with which Paul continues to seek after Jesus. Paul’s devotion to the Lord couldn’t be questioned. He was converted dramatically on the road to Damascus while he was in the midst of persecuting the church. He spread the gospel all over the Roman empire, preaching and planting churches. He was slandered, beaten, shipwrecked, and imprisoned for the gospel of Jesus. In fact, he was writing this very letter to Philippi from prison. You might think with this resume that he has everything figured out. However, he clearly didn’t see it that way. He freely confesses that he doesn’t have it all figured out, and that there is more of Christ to know. Because of this he presses on, to know Jesus more and more. He even says that he is straining forward, straining for the ultimate prize of being with Jesus. Out of the security of knowing the Christ Jesus who has made Paul His own, he passionately pursues a relationship with this Jesus who loved Him and gave His life for him. He knows that while on this earth there will always be more of Jesus that he can know and more of His love that he can experience.
This wasn’t only a desire that he had for himself, but all of his brothers and sisters in the churches he ministered to. Look at this prayer for the church in Ephesus from his letter to the Ephesians:
“14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”- Eph. 3:14-19
What an incredible prayer! His deepest desire for this church is that Christ would dwell in their hearts through faith and that they together rooted in love would more and more begin to comprehend the love of Christ demonstrated in the gospel. A love so great that it surpasses human knowledge!
For Paul, salvation isn’t merely a transaction to secure eternity. While he would definitely agree that faith in Jesus secures us a glorious eternity in God’s Kingdom, his definition of eternal life would be deeper than that. It would look like Jesus’ own definition that we see in John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” So eternal life is eternal in sense that it will go on forever. However, it’s also eternal in the sense that it is an incredible life-giving relationship with the Father and the Son. So, for Paul, faith in Jesus didn’t mean fire insurance for the future and an earthly life devoted to the pleasures of the world and serving himself. It meant the knowledge that through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that he had been reconciled to God by pure grace and now the door was flung wide open for Him to pursue a relationship with Jesus, growing in the knowledge of his love day by day, with the assurance that when he failed his sins were dealt with on the cross and he could get up, look forward and keep pursing the Jesus that had first pursued and continued to pursue him.
What a beautiful picture of what it means to be saved and have eternal life with God. What’s incredible about this gift is that it is inexhaustible, and it isn’t dependent on circumstances. Remember, Paul was continuing to pursue Jesus and experience his love from prison! Everything else in this world that we seek ultimate satisfaction from can be taken away from us, but not the love of Christ!
Is this the way you see faith in Jesus? An opportunity to know Him and His love? Why settle for something less, whether that is a purely transactional view of faith that is only concerned with the future, or a purely duty-bound life of doing things for God without truly living with God and the experience of His love in Christ. May we pursue Jesus like Paul, in the midst of trying circumstances in the confidence that He has made us His own. What a beautiful picture it would paint for a world embroiled in frustration, turmoil, and despair to see a people who’s joy wasn’t circumstantial and that overflowed with love because of the knowledge surpassing love they have received in Christ!