Sermon August 22, 2010

Presented by our Missionary to Pakistan

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Sermon August 15, 2010

Philippians 4:6-7

Main slide used in sermon is below. Many asked for it so here you go! Keep in mind that I don’t believe this to be a total picture of anxiety in our lives but I do believe this to be an accurate top level overview.

Sermon August 8, 2010

Philippians 3:12-16

Full text of sermon below…
I want to start by telling you a story about one of the greatest running races in history.

Back in the spring of 1954 the fastest anyone had run the mile was in 4:01. The four minute barrier stood for nearly a decade and some wondered if it was even possible to break it. You see slowly but surely the world record in the mile went down but no one seemed to be able to crack the four minute mark.

That is until May of 1954, Roger Bannister of England ran the mile in 3:59 breaking the wall of four minutes. Only seven weeks later, John Landy of Australia broke Bannister’s record and set the new world mark at 3:58 and became the second person to go under four minutes in the mile.

This set them up for a race together later in the summer in Vancouver at the Commonwealth Games. This was a huge event because the only two men to run under the four minute mark were going to finally face off.

Some estimates I read said that more than 100 million people listened on the radio or watched it on TV. This was a massive sporting event and later was called “The Miracle Mile.” Everyone knew that one of these two men would win the race. The other competitors were competing for third place.

Landy was known for his very fast early and steady pace and Bannister was known for excellent speed in the final part of the race. True to expectations, Landy built a large lead of as much as 10 yards by the third of four laps. But then in the fourth lap Bannister began to close the gap with his great finishing kick. And in the final turn something happened that was the defining moment of this race. Landy, who was leading through the final turn, looked back over his left shoulder . . . but at that very moment Bannister was passing Landy on the right.

Here is a photo that captured Landy starting to look back as Bannister is passing him on the outside.

Landy, for just that moment, lost his rhythm which allowed Bannister to go on and win the race. Many say that if Landy had not looked and had remained focused on the finish line he would have had a greater chance at holding off Bannister and winning the race.

Not long after this great race a statue of this famous look was created and is in Vancouver.

After Landy first saw the statue he said this,
 “While Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt for looking back, I am probably the only one ever turned into bronze for looking back.”

This great race between the world’s best milers at the time will always be remembered for this look back. The look that quite possibly lost Landy the most highly anticipated race of his time.

You see what Landy did was take his eyes off the finish line. Instead of all of his body straining forward, he looked back and lost the race.

That is the picture that Paul gives us in our text today in Philippians 3:12-16. Paul tells us the one thing that he does: He forgets what is behind and he strains forward to what is ahead.

Verses 13 and 14 say: “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.”

And that is what we are going to be looking at this morning, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. How do we do this? What does this look like in our life? What are some of the things that we need to forget? How do strain forward and press on toward the goal?

Let’s pray…

Again, our text for this morning is Philippians 3:12-16. Let’s read it:

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. 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.

So starting off in verse 12 Paul says to the Philippian church: “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.”

What is Paul talking about here when he says “this”? “Not that I have already obtained this.”

Also in verse 13 Paul reiterates it again, “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own.”

What has he not yet obtained?

He’s talking about his relationship with Christ.

To fill in the details we need to go back and look at the context. What is Paul saying that he hasn’t obtained or isn’t perfect at?

Verses 10 and 11 tell us: “that I may know him 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.”

Knowing and being like Christ is where he is headed but he isn’t there yet, so what does he do? What does he do to stay focused on the finish line?

Paul gives the answer in the latter part of verse 13 and verse 14: “ 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.”

That’s the heart of verses 12-16 and hopefully this message.

But before we get into those details and the core of this text, I want to pause for a second on verses 12 and 13 and make some quick observations.

First, Salvation is something that God is working in our life over time. He promises to finish it but it isn’t instant and is a progression. The theological word for this is Sanctification. Sanctification is the process of through Christ becoming more holy over time and eventually like-Christ in holiness. Paul hadn’t yet arrived or obtained it yet, just like you and I.

It is something God has promised to complete. Look back to verse 6 of chapter 1: “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.”

He started it, he’ll finish it. He was the initiator in our relationship with him and he will complete the work he started.

We can have confidence in what God will do in the future because of what he’s done in the past. He initiated our relationship with him through his act of love on the cross and he’ll complete our transformation in the end.

The second observation is very important. The last part of verse 12 says: “but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”

You see we work and do our part BECAUSE Jesus did his work, past tense. We do our present and future work because Christ finished his work in the past.

The verse does not read like this: “I press on to make it my own so that Christ Jesus will make me his own.”

We press on not just to please God and hope that he’ll accept us, but because God IS pleased with us and HAS accepted us through the finished work of Christ.

We do good things in life because of what Jesus did for us and a desire to be ever closer to him, not in order to be accepted by God. Jesus did the work, not us.

Ok, so back to the heart of this message, So if you aren’t perfect, you haven’t arrived at the goal, you still sin and make mistakes in life, how do you stay focused on the finish line? Since perfection in this lifetime is not achievable, what can we do?

Again Paul gives us the answer in verses 13 and 14:  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.

Paul says there is “one thing I do” , “one thing I do” …

That one thing is to not look back and press forward to the goal. Think about John Landy who looked back and lost to Roger Bannister.

Have you ever watched the Charlie Rose show? When I read Paul saying a phrase like “the one thing I do” it makes me think of the Charlie Rose show because the interviews are so long and the questions are so long and the answers are so long.

I can imagine Charlie Rose interviewing the apostle Paul and asking him some really long question about what advice Paul would give to the average Christian out there.

“What five or six points of advice would you give him or her, Paul? Give us several ways that they should imitate you?”

Paul would say “I only have one thing. There is only one thing that they should do: Forget where you have been and strive forward with all your being toward the prize, the goal of Christ Jesus.”

Paul isn’t distracted by a bunch of different things. He has no distractions, “just one thing I do.”
The one thing Paul does is keeps his full gaze and attention on the goal and prize of God in Christ Jesus.
Just like with the example of John Landy, you can’t be putting all your body into straining forward if you are looking back. If you look back, you slow down or turn or stop.

You can’t look forward toward Christ while looking back at the past.

Jesus said it this way in Luke: “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

What Jesus is saying here is how can you follow me if you are looking back? The farmer who doesn’t look forward at his target he will veer off course and his rows will be crooked.

Now there are two parts to Paul’s “one thing I do.” Forgetting what is behind and pressing on toward the goal.

The first part of this “one thing” is to forget what is behind. Now this doesn’t mean that we erase our memories, what this means is to no longer be influenced by or affected by the past.

You see, if something from the past impacts you so much that you can’t go fully toward Christ then you are looking back. Again, you can’t look forward in this race if you are looking back.

So what should we forget? [slide: what should we forget?] Let me run through four particular things that we need to forget in order to press forward on to Christ.

First of all, Grudges and Bitterness toward others.

Scripture tells us that bitterness is something that grows and impacts your whole being. It also spreads virally within the church.

It starts as resentment and then leads to bitterness and hatred. It remembers details. It hangs on to them and rehearses them in your head.

If you remember the details of offenses against you from long ago you are probably bitter.

If you are bitter, take it to Christ and ask for forgiveness because it is sinful to be bitter. Bitterness is a sin.
If our focus is on the finish line of Christ, our response to wrongs or even just imagined wrongs against us will be love and forgiveness.

The second thing to forget is Personal accomplishments. This would be a righteousness of my own as Paul puts it.

When Paul looks back on his life he can brag about a lot of personal accomplishments that make him a very important person. But that isn’t where Paul’s confidence lies. He is confident in only Christ so he’s focused on the finish line of Christ.

Don’t forget that Paul calls all things other than Christ dung. They don’t pad your resume or add value on top of Christ. They aren’t neutral. They actually are negative. Christ is the only place where we can put our confidence.

And remember that as Christians we have already decided that those old things are now of no value to us. We’ve realized that we can’t earn our salvation or work our way into heaven. We’ve finally realized that it is only through Christ.

So if we go back to those things we are looking back to the old way.

If our focus is on the finish line of Christ, our personal value and importance and our confidence will come from knowing Christ, not our accomplishments in life.

The third thing we need to forget is Personal regrets. This is where we think back to what might have been. It’s like Uncle Rico from the movie Napoleon Dynamite: “Coach woulda put me in fourth quarter, we would’ve been state champions. No doubt. No doubt in my mind.”

Or if I had only chosen that other school, or finished school. Or taken that other job. Or maybe married someone else. This isn’t pressing forward.

What possibly could change in your life that would be better than knowing Christ? None of that stuff matters next to knowing him and the prize ahead.

If our focus is on the finish line of Christ, there aren’t regrets because we have and are getting what matters most, relationship with Christ.

Finally, we need to forget our sin. This is a big one. Satan constantly tries to deceive us into thinking we aren’t forgiven by God.

You are in the race and focused on Christ and Satan tells you that you shouldn’t be there. There are still things to do back there. Look back and get to work on fixing those things so that you can deserve to be with Christ later. These are all lies.

Watchman Nee, the great Chinese pastor said this about this kind of lie from Satan:

Our salvation lies in looking [ahead] to the Lord Jesus and in seeing that the blood of the Lamb has met the whole situation created by our sins and has answered it. That is the sure foundation on which we stand. Never should we try to answer Satan with our good conduct but always with the blood.

Again, this gets back to the purpose of the cross. Wasn’t that a settled issue? You finally gave up trying to work for yourself and decided to just go to Christ and the cross. Why go back?

But what do we do when we sin? And we are all still going to sin in this life.

The answer is to get it right with God and others quickly by repenting. Don’t waste time. Take that sin to the cross and ask God for forgiveness.

Reclaim the gospel in your life.

When we bring up old sin from long ago or refuse to go to God for forgiveness we choose to look back and stop pressing toward the goal.

A lot of times Satan can use sin in our life to get us to focus on personal accomplishments. Satan might allow you to achieve victory over something through your own strength and then exchange that old sin for the new sin of pride.

In Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis describes it this way:

Pride can often be used to beat down the simpler vices. Teachers, in fact, often appeal to a boy’s Pride, or, as they call it, his self-respect, to make him behave decently: many a man has overcome cowardice, or lust, or ill-temper, by learning to think that they are beneath his dignity – that is, by Pride. The devil laughs. He is perfectly content to see  you becoming chaste and brave and self-controlled provided, all the time, he is setting up in you the Dictatorship of Pride – just as he would be quite content to see your chilblains cured if he was allowed, in return, to give you cancer. For Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.

If our focus is on the finish line of Christ, we immediately recognize sin as something only Christ can fix.

I’m sure there are other things that can distract us and cause us to look back. But these are the ones that I think primarily distract us from running the race. And they all represent a direct challenge to Christ and his work. Remember you can’t press forward while looking back.

And then the second part of Paul’s “one thing I do” is to strain forward to what lies ahead and presses on toward the goal.

So how does Paul do this?

First, and this is the most basic and obvious, we need to change directions. What is our goal? It has to be Christ. We need the new ambition of Christ as opposed to his old ambitions in the flesh.

And that change in direction has to start with a humility that recognizes our need. Paul says, “I’m not perfect” and “I have not obtained it yet.”

Just think about how remarkable it is for a man of Paul’s spiritual stature to say something like “I’m not perfect.” This guy has an impressive spiritual resume. But he doesn’t slow down or take a break or consider himself already at the finish line.

But Paul recognized that he had not yet arrived and was not yet perfect.

So we start by changing directions and looking forward.

Second, strain forward. Every fibre in Paul’s being is pursuing this goal. He’s straining forward, he’s pressing on.

This is an athletic reference. This is raw determination. He’s giving us the picture of the athlete straining with all he has in a particular direction. Every ounce of his being is headed toward Christ.

This isn’t possible if part of us is looking back. Just like Landy who slowed down when he looked back for Bannister.

Third is God’s revelation. Verse 15 says: “Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.”

Paul is saying here that this is how a mature Christian will live his life. But even when that isn’t always the case, God will reveal it to us.

He’ll use his word and the Holy Spirit and prayer. Get into God’s word for yourself and study it. Learn and grow in it. Make it a habit to read the Bible every day and search for what God might be revealing to you.
And read the Bible in the context of Paul’s “one thing I do.” What could God be showing you that you are looking back at? Or how can you better look forward at Christ?

And he’ll reveal these things to you through other people in our life. Most of the time this will be those that are closest to us. Maybe a spouse or sibling or parent or child.

A lot of times it might not be expressed to you in a good way, but a mature Christian is someone who isn’t afraid of self-analysis and the critiques of others.

Don’t forget that God has equipped people in his body for the purpose of equipping you. We were designed by God to have gaps and needs in our lives that can only be filled by others in the body of Christ.
I believe that if we reject the body of Christ we reject the work that God wants to do in our life.

Finally, we press on toward Christ by holding true together to what we’ve attained. Verse 16 says: “Only let us hold true to what we have attained.”

You’ve turned forward, you are straining forward with all your might, you are allowing God to make corrections and then finally we aren’t to look back and go the opposite direction.

You’ve come this far, don’t go back. Think of it like rungs on a ladder. Hold true to the rung you are on and press on up the ladder. Don’t go backwards. Hold on to what you’ve attained.

Slowly but surely God is transforming us and making changes in our lives to make us holy. Don’t lose what you’ve already obtained by going backwards.

So to summarize again, we press on toward the goal of Christ by first Changing Directions and turning from what is behind, second straining forward toward the goal, third listening for God’s voice of correction, and finally holding true to what we’ve attained.

In conclusion, if we think we can focus on our future while constantly looking back then like John Landy, we are going to fall behind.

Just like Paul, we aren’t perfect, we have a long way to go, but how do we focus fully on Christ and the finish line?

We take Paul’s advice and do one thing:  Forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead. Press on toward the goal for the prize of God in Christ Jesus.

Sermon July 18, 2010

Aaron Karr – Peru Missionary

Sermon July 11, 2010

Psalm 51 part 2

Sermon July 4, 2010

Philipians 3:2-11

Sermon June 27, 2010 – Rich Shipe

Philippians 2:1-11

Sermon June 20, 2010 – Jack Gill

Psalms 127

Sermon June 16, 2010 – Bill Parker

Psalm 51

Sermon June 6, 2010

Philippians 1:27-30

Sermon May 30, 2010

Philippians 1:18-26

Sermon May 23, 2010

Matthew 14:13-20

Sermon May 16, 2010

2 John 7-11

Sermon May 9, 2010 – Mother’s day

2 Kings 4:1-7

Sermon May 2, 2010

Luke 15:11-32

Bill Parker

Romans 8:28

Sermon April 25, 2010

Sermon April 18, 2010

2 John 4-6

Sermon April 11, 2010

2 John 1-3

Jack Gill

April 4, 2010

Sermon March 21, 2010

Nehemiah 4:11-13

Sermon March 14, 2010

Nehemiah 1:1-4

Sermon March 7, 2010

Book of Acts

Sermon February 28, 2010

Sermon February 21, 2010

Acts 28:7-31

Sermon February 14, 2010

Acts 27

Jack Gill

January 24, 2010

Sermon January 17, 2010

Acts 25:23-26:18

Sermon January 10, 2010

Acts 25:1-22

I was recently inspired by an article I read by a well-known pastor and his wife on parenting and the Sunday morning church service. In the article, they shared a vision for making the Sunday morning service meaningful for children rather than just an experience to be endured. They gave many practical tips to help parents mentor their children into a richer understanding of the service.

One of the ideas they shared was for parents to encourage their children  to  take notes during  the sermon.  My  first  thought was how hard  this would be  for my kids  (who are ages seven, nine, and ten) because it’s hard enough for me! But I decided to give it a  try.  I  gave  them  some basic  instructions  and  encouragement and we tried it out.

The first Sunday of note taking was a little rough. I had to remind them a few times to keep it up during the sermon, and they had trouble knowing what to write. Like I said, note‐taking isn’t easy. But one thing I did notice was that for the most part, they were paying attention during the whole sermon.  It felt like a small but significant step forward.

The  next  thing  I  did  that  really  helped was  create  a  one-page, note-taking form for them to use. The form  includes boxes that hopefully get them thinking about what to look for in the sermon. The boxes give  them  special places  to write down the main verse, other verses, big  idea or main point, what I should do, words I don’t know, and extra lines for additional notes.

As an  Easter gift  to  our  kids, Christy made them each a decorated three-ring binder in which they can keep their sermon notes. They loved the binders and are excited about writing down things on the form each week.

We’ve been using this form for a couple months now, and I’ve been really impressed with the results. It is incredible to me how quickly they’ve been able to learn this skill and how much they are able to write down. The other significant thing is they are doing their best to pay attention to the sermon now. Some weeks are better than others, and sometimes they give up or get frustrated, but we’ve found that they are really growing in it and
making  progress. They are learning important life skills in listening and note taking, and I want to deliberately help them grow in these areas.

Another great benefit we’ve found from the note taking is it gives us an opportunity to talk about the sermon as a family. At dinner on Mondays, we all get out our notes and walk through the  sermon. Christy and I help the kids fill in parts that they missed, and we explain the parts that were hard for them to understand. This also reinforces the big ideas for Christy and me too!

In the May newsletter, Jack talked about worship “preflight” and how important it is to get ready in advance to worship. That pre-worship preparation is important for success in teaching your children to take notes.
Ultimately, our family goal is to teach our children about the incredible value of worship and learning in a community of believers. As a parent, I also need to teach my kids through my actions about the exciting opportunity we  have  on  Sunday mornings  to  corporately worship our God and Savior. My kids need to see me truly excited about worshiping God in order to fully incorporate this lesson into their lives.

Download the pdf here:

January 3, 2010

1 Timothy 6:6-10, 17-19