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Now coming out of verse 11 in the last lesson, Paul’s whole hope of everything is that out resurrection from among the dead. It’s amazing how that Paul’s tenure of speech has changed. In his early letters, he was expecting the Lord to come in his lifetime, he really was. In fact a lot of people accuse him of being against marriage and so forth back in I Corinthians chapter 7. Well it’s wasn’t that Paul was against marriage per say, but rather he thought the Lord was in such close proximity of coming, then why cumber it up with marriage responsibilities and so forth. Well I’m about getting to that place today myself. (as the audience laugh) Les says, now that’s got nothing to do with Iris. I’m talking about entering into marriage. Our television audience will love that one won’t they?

But anyway this was where Paul was looking, he just thought the Lord was coming any moment, but you see now by the time he writes Philippians and death is just around the corner, he doesn’t feel that way. So now he realizes that he will more than likely go through the valley of death, and will be waiting for that out resurrection from among the dead. Now verse 12.

Philippians 3:12a

“Not as though I had already attained, (in other words, you don’t immediately arrive) either were already perfect…”

The Christian life is not an instantaneous perfection, but rather we grow in Grace and knowledge. We begin our Christian life as a baby begins the physical life, and we feed on the milk of the Word, and then as we progress hopefully we get into the deeper things of Scripture and get to the meat of the Word. But it is a growth process from the beginning until the end, so that’s all Paul is saying here. He knew that even the great apostle that he was, he did not suddenly have it all. And of course after you study the writings of Paul and his life, we realize that his early letters of Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians did not have these deeper doctrines that we find in these later epistles.

I feel Paul picked up the deeper things while he was in prison in Caesarea, while most people would think those were wasted years for Paul. But I don’t think they were wasted at all, I think that while he was languishing there in prison waiting to go to Rome, the Holy Spirit unloaded all these truths on him, so that when he gets to that prison experience he’s ready to start unfolding these prison epistles. So looking at verse 12 again, Paul says, “he’s not already perfect.”

Philippians 3:12b

“…but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.”

Now let’s back up a few pages to the Book of Galatians chapter 1, and here is what I think Paul is making reference to in Philippians. In verse 14 we find that Paul was that religious Pharisees, keeping the tradition of the forefathers.

Galatians 1:15

“But when it pleased God, (the Sovereign God who’s in control of every life) who separated me from my mother’s womb, (so God put the finger on Paul before he was ever born.) and called me by his grace.”

Saul of Tarsus didn’t deserve what he got. Saul of Tarsus didn’t deserve the preeminent apostleship that he was given, but it’s all of Grace. I was so thrilled last Sunday at our Church. We had a guest preacher and he used the Book of Philippians for his text, and as he opened his sermon, he said, “never forget that the one greatest man that ever lived other than Christ Himself was the apostle Paul.” When he said that I almost stood up and shouted. I know not many people feel that way about Paul, but he is by far the greatest man that ever lived. Moses was great, and Abraham but I don’t think any of them can hold a candle to this man. And how he suffered for the sake of the Gospel, but it all begin when the Lord had His finger on him even while he was still in the womb. Then verse 16 is what he was apprehended for.
Galatians 1:16-17

“To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; (or Gentile or the non-Jewish world) immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood; 17. Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, (the exact opposite direction from Jerusalem) and returned again unto Damascus.”

What does this all show us? That here was a man now that wasn’t going to be the apostle of Israel as the twelve were, but he’s going to be the apostle of the Gentile world. And that’s why I’m always hammering away at the authority of his apostleship. Let’s go back a little further to Acts chapter 9, and this will be another reference of how he was apprehended by Christ Himself. He was stopped in his tracks because God had something special for the man to accomplish.

Acts 9:1-4

“And Saul, yet breathing out threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest,

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