1. Playing the Long Game: Grasping Spiritual Maturity
Philippians 3:12-17

2. Playing the Long Game
Philippians 1:3-6 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

3. Playing the Long Game
1. The Danger of Complacency

4. Playing the Long Game
Hebrews 5:11-14 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.

5. Playing the Long Game
Hebrews 5:11-14 You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

6. Playing the Long Game
1. The Danger of Complacency 2. The Call to Growth

7. Playing the Long Game
2 Peter 1:5-10 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.

8. Playing the Long Game
2 Peter 1:5-10 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

9. Playing the Long Game
2 Peter 1:5-10 Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.

10. Playing the Long Game
Ephesians 4:11-16 He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,

11. Playing the Long Game
Ephesians 4:11-16 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

12. Playing the Long Game
Ephesians 4:11-16 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

13. Playing the Long Game
1. The Danger of Complacency 2. The Call to Growth 3. The Lifelong Process of Growing Up

14. Playing the Long Game
Philippians 3:12-17 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.

15. Playing the Long Game
Philippians 3:12-17 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. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

16. Playing the Long Game
Philippians 3:10-11 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

17. Playing the Long Game
1. The Danger of Complacency 2. The Call to Growth 3. The Lifelong Process of Growing Up 4. The Method of Growing

18. Playing the Long Game
2 Corinthians 3:17-18 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever- increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.