Pressing On

There are two ways the past can hold a person in place.

The first is familiar. The thing you did, or that was done to you. The failure, the wound, the season that went badly. The version of yourself you are not entirely sure you have outrun. This kind of past is heavy in an obvious way: you feel its weight, you know it is there, and some part of you is not sure the future is safe enough to step into.

But there is a second way the past holds people, and it is less obvious and no less powerful. It is not failure or harm, but former glory or success. The season when things were alive, when the room was full, when the momentum was unmistakable. The year everything seemed to work. The version of a community that people still talk about with a particular light in their eyes.

Both of these — the wound and the golden era — can become anchors that keep us from making the forward progress that God intends for us. Both can keep a person, or a church, living in the wrong tense. Thankfully, the Bible shows us the middle way between these equal and opposite errors.

Paul is running. He has just told us everything he has released — his credentials, his achievements, his standing before God based on his own performance. And now he tells us the direction he is running. Not backward and not in place. Forward. Straining toward what lies ahead. Forgetting what lies behind. Not because the past did not happen. But because the prize is ahead — not behind. And a runner who keeps looking over his shoulder will lose the race.

Read the passage through once. Notice the shift in focus from last week — Paul is no longer looking back. He is leaning forward.

Here is what Paul is doing in these ten verses — and why the sequence matters. He opens with something disarming (vv.12–14). After the heights of last week — everything counted loss, the surpassing worth of knowing Christ — Paul immediately says: not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect. He has not arrived. He is not done. He is still pressing toward. The great revaluation of chapter 3 does not produce a person who has it all worked out. It produces a person who is running with everything committed to the finish line, and no energy left over for looking backward.

The Greek word for straining forward (v.13) is a single compressed image — epekteinomenos — that pictures a runner whose whole body is reaching toward what lies ahead. It is not a casual jog. It is a total commitment of posture. Every muscle, every thought, every ounce of energy oriented in one direction. And the thing being pressed toward is not an achievement or a destination. It is a person — the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Then Paul names what must be released for that posture to be possible, “Forgetting what lies behind.” And here we need to be careful, because Paul does not mean only the obvious things — the failures, the sins, the seasons of disobedience. He has already left those behind. What he is also releasing is his résumé. His credentials. His former glory as the most zealous Pharisee of his generation. The discipline of forgetting covers both the wounds and the achievements. Both can anchor you. Both can keep you living in a tense that is no longer yours.

Then comes a moment that is easy to read past and should not be (vv.17–19). Paul warns about those who walk as enemies of the cross, and he does not do it with anger, “I tell you even with tears.” Paul weeps as he writes: their god is their appetite, their glory is their shame, their minds are fixed on earthly things. He feels grief over the lost. The pastoral heart that has learned to love the way Christ loves does not look at the wandering and feel contempt.

And then the horizon opens (vv.20–21), “Our citizenship is in heaven.” The context helps us appreciate the weight of this. Paul is writing to a Roman colony — a city of people who were proud of their Roman citizenship, who oriented their entire civic identity around their belonging to Rome. Paul offers them a counter-identity. A deeper, prior, more durable citizenship. Not one that negates their place in Philippi but one that reframes it entirely. They are a colony of heaven, living heaven’s customs in a Roman city. And their Savior is coming from that country to transform not just their souls but their bodies — to bring every part of what they are into conformity with His glory.

1. Paul says he has not yet obtained what he is pressing toward — and this comes immediately after describing the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. How do those two statements belong together? What does genuine Christian maturity look like when it holds both deep confidence in Christ and honest humility about how far there still is to go?
2. The discipline of forgetting covers more than we usually assume. It is not just our failures and sins that can hold us down — it is also our former seasons of fruitfulness, our past identities, the versions of ourselves or our communities that felt most alive. Is there a former glory in your life or in this church that has become an anchor holding you back rather than a foundation that you’re building upon? What is the difference between honoring your history and being restrained by it?
3. Paul weeps over the enemies of the cross. What produces that kind of grief in a person? Do you feel grief over the lostness of people around you, or something closer to indifference, irritation, or exhaustion? What does Paul’s weeping tell us about the heart that has been genuinely shaped by the love of Christ?
4. “Our citizenship is in heaven” — present tense. Paul is not describing a future hope only. He is describing a present identity. We already belong to that country. We are already living as its citizens here. What is the difference between a community that is oriented around its earthly address and one that is oriented around its heavenly citizenship? What does each one look like from the outside?
5. Philippi was a Roman colony — a little piece of Rome planted in Macedonia, living Roman customs, owing Roman allegiance. Paul says the church is a colony of heaven in the same way. What would a colony of heaven look like planted in Nashville in 2026? What customs, what way of life, what visible distinctiveness would mark it out to the people around it? 4400

What does God impress on your heart and mind when you observe Paul in the “straining forward” posture? Is there a conviction you need to hear? Is there a truth you need to trust? Is there a practical step you need to take?

Epekteinomenos — everything reaching forward.

BUT ONE THING I DO: FORGETTING WHAT LIES BEHIND AND STRAINING FORWARD TO WHAT LIES AHEAD, I PRESS ON TOWARD THE GOAL FOR THE PRIZE OF THE UPWARD CALL OF GOD IN CHRIST JESUS.

PHILIPPIANS 3:13B–14

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