The Ultimate Prize

Believers must examine their motives for church attendance and embrace intentional spiritual growth, pressing through life’s pressures with Christlikeness as the ultimate prize.

Why do you do what you do? Is there a purpose in your activities, or do you engage in them perfunctorily—without any thoughtfulness? I pose these questions because I want to ask some people, “Why do you come to church?” But I can’t because I fear my words might help them to see what I see: their lives are not changing. They are just going through the motions. They have no apparent aim for their actions.

The institutional church was never meant to be a social club, though it is a social entity. The church is an incubator that assists the Holy Spirit in facilitating our spiritual growth and development. The problem is that many of us are not growing or developing spiritually. We attend church consistently and serve in the ministry, yet remain mired in drama. Someone recently asked me how a person can hear sermons and Bible studies on Christlike character, and it has no apparent effect.

This does not suggest that perfection will be achieved this side of heaven, but we should see some progress along the sinful to sanctified continuum. We had a saying when I was growing up in church: “I’m not what I ought to be, but thank God I’m not what I used to be.” It was an acknowledgment that spiritual formation is a process that we continue to pursue as we thank God for how far we’ve come and trust Him to assist us with getting to where we need to go.

Some may hurl charges of legalism, Pharisaism, or judgmentalism, but the fruit indicates the root (Matthew 7:16-20). Bad fruit, bad root. Good fruit, good root. To be sure, a bad tree can occasionally produce good fruit, and a good tree can occasionally produce bad fruit. However, the fruit that is produced consistently is the best evidence of the root in question.

The Tension of Spiritual Growth

The apostle Paul wrestled with this tension as he sought to rid himself of self-righteousness in pursuing Christ’s righteousness. His fruit was good, but he wanted to attain more of Christ. Thus, he wrote, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).

Two words stand out in this verse: a noun and a verb. They speak to the heart of what I have been discussing.

1. We must have a goal. Our Christian journey inherently has a predetermined destination. The fact that we are on a journey presupposes there is a terminus. That terminus is to be conformed into the image of Christ (Romans 8:29). Christlikeness, according to Paul, is knowing Jesus, His resurrection power, and His sufferings (Philippians 3:10).

To reach our goal, we will need to have a more intimate knowledge of Jesus by experiencing the suffering of sanctification so we can experience the power of resurrection. During the course of our journey, we will have to die to self so that Christ might live in and through us. As John the Baptizer explained, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

2. We must have a press. With our destination squarely in sight, we need the resolve to endure the sufferings we will experience. Whenever and wherever there is pressure, we will be required to press. Pressure is what we experience from the outside. Press is what we engender from the inside. It is “to strive energetically for some purpose.”^[1] Ultimately, we must press against the pressures that seek to deny us our goal.

Along the way, many distractions and deterrents will try to halt our progress. But it is the press that will determine whether or not we attain the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. The opportunity to turn back or tap out will always be before us, but the prize motivates our press. If we can look beyond the pain and pressure and see Christlikeness as the prize, we will persevere to attain the end of our faith.

Press for the Prize

So, let me ask, why do you come to church? Is it to hear good preaching or good singing? Is it to meet your spouse or to network? Or is it to press your way to God’s prize? Don’t let church become an activity that leads nowhere. Let it be a community of fellow pressers who are spurring one another on to Christ-conformity.

There is a prize at the end of the journey. We must be willing to see it for what it truly is—the ultimate prize.

Dr. Isaac Hayes is an Assistant Pastor at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago, Illinois, and author of Men After God’s Heart: 10 Principles of Brotherly Love. He also has a Doctor of Ministry degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Follow Dr. Hayes on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube at @RevIsaacHayes.

^[1] Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 783.