A Resolution for the Christian Life

Today, we’ll explore a text for the new year from one of the Apostle Paul’s letters. You’re probably familiar with it, and perhaps you even know it by heart. But even if you don’t know it, I think you’ll be able to remember it quite easily. It’s Paul’s personal resolution in Philippians 3:10–14:

That I may know him [Christ] and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

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. 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, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

At the beginning of Philippians, Paul indicates that his young colleague Timothy was with him. Paul often dictated his letters, and I’ve sometimes wondered if he mentions Timothy because he served as his secretary for this letter. It begins with the words “Paul and Timothy,” and I wonder if he gave his son in the faith a slight smile when he told him to write his own name down.

But if that were the case, I’m pretty sure that as Paul came to this passage, “But one thing I do,” Timothy might well have looked up at Paul with a quizzical stare. And if Paul asked if he’d said something that Timothy didn’t understand, perhaps he would have had the courage to respond: “Paul, do you really want me to say that you do only one thing? As long as I’ve known you, you’ve always been doing many things, and at the same time. You’re the ultimate multitasking Apostle. You’re always traveling; you’re always preaching; you’re always praying; you’re always visiting; you’re always counseling. I’ve never seen you do just one thing.”

This is what will give you direction. This is what will help you answer the great question, “What am I really here for?”

I think Paul would have smiled back to his young friend Timothy and said: “I know what you mean, Timothy. No one knows better than you what I do and how busy I am. But you need to understand that I’m not busy doing many different things. I’m busy doing one thing in many different ways. And all of them are about getting to know the Lord Jesus Christ better, sharing His life and becoming like Him. That is the heart—in some ways it’s the secret—of everything I do, in every waking hour and every different activity. They are all simply different ways of doing this one thing.”

When I was a small boy in Scotland, each New Year’s Eve (Hogmanay, as it’s called), my parents would tell me to go to my room and write out ten New Year’s resolutions for the year to come. Looking back, I laugh now when I remember how hard I thought it was to find ten ways that I needed to improve. I could write them out much more easily today, I suspect.

But if you are a Christian, you really need only one New Year’s resolution, and Paul’s will be a great help to you. Especially if you’re a younger Christian or a younger person, few things can be more helpful to you than to understand that this is the way to both simplify and integrate your life. This is what will give you direction. This is what will help you answer the great question, “What am I really here for?”

As one of the older translations puts it,

All I care for is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection, to share the fellowship of his sufferings and be made like him, that one day I may attain to the resurrection. (Phil. 3:10–14)

What a great New Year’s resolution. This one thing I do: I want to know Christ.

Read more from Dr. Sinclair Ferguson in Things Unseen.