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December 7, 2003 |
"Philippians" |
Pastor Brian Shimer
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"Pressing toward the Goal"
Philippians 3:12-21
| I. |
Have the dreams God has had for you been fulfilled? Are you all God has
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intended that you become? Have you done all God has wanted you to do?
What do you think, Sally? Have you become everything God expects of you?
What about you Carl? How about you Willa? Have you become all you are to become in this life?
God has dreams of us. He has desires for us.
Ephesians 2:10 says we are to walk in works which "God in advance created for us to walk in."
Jeremiah 29:11 says "I know the plans I have for you… to prosper you… to give you a hope and a future."
Revelation 3:12 writes that those who are victorious will have crowns and become pillars in the Temple in heaven. That is a lofty picture of great service and usefulness, not a picture of becoming something inanimate!
In this passage of Scripture Paul says that God has a goal in mind for you and me, he has a purpose for your life. A divine plan just for you -- which is the thesis of Rick Warren's book: A Purpose Driven Life.
| | II. |
Here is verse 12 in the New Living Translation: "I don't mean
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to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection! But I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved me for and wants me to be."
The NIV said: "I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me."
What has God saved you to be? What are you saved for?
Paul says that when "Jesus Christ stopped him on the Damascus road, Jesus had a dream and a vision and a purpose for which he grasped Paul; and Paul felt that all his life he was bound to press on, lest… he in any way frustrate the dream and purpose for which Jesus had grasped him."
(Barclay, Philippians, p 82, c'59, ubp).
In order not to waste this life, we grasp onto this fact: God has a dream! And we enter the race of living day to day with that dream before us. If we are alive this dream God has for us, has not yet been achieved.
So, how do we run this race? Paul tells us in v 17 to follow his example. And he says in verse 13 that he does just one thing to run the race. That one thing has two parts and makes sense for any runner.
| | A. |
First, he says, "Forgetting what is behind…"
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No runner will stay in a race if he keeps looking behind him. Paul is referring here to the list of his achievements. These achievements do not mean it is time to retire and rest on his laurels.
No runner will stay in the race if he is carrying baggage. For us forgetting what is behind may mean shedding the bags that we are seeking to carry with us while running a race.
If every one of these suitcases represented an event in life, to be free of their weight on my life would mean asking Jesus into the event. We would need to walk through that event with Jesus. If they were people who have harmed us and we continue to hold onto in order to hurt them, it means to forgive and release our harsh judgments against them. It means to tell Jesus how their sin against us made us feel.
Jesus shows he cares about these pieces of luggage in our lives. "Forgetting what is behind," does not mean pretending it never happened. Pretense does not bring freedom. Jesus did not let Peter pretend he had never disowned Him. Instead, Jesus made Peter revisit his sin, and receive fullness of healing forgiveness. The denial of Christ had taken place by a coal fire in the courtyard of the High Priest, so Jesus laid the same kind of fire on the beach in John 21. Peter had denied Jesus three times, so Jesus has Peter affirm his love for him three times for every time he denied him.
Lay down the luggage. What are you carrying with you? Is there anything hindering your ability to run?
The author to the Hebrews says in chapter 12 of that book, "let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us…"
Don't let anything hinder you in the race. Baggage hinders. Sin entangles. Paul writes of those who have allowed sin to entangle them, who are living as enemies of the cross of Christ in v. 18 and 19.
But instead, we who are citizens of the place toward which we race, don't let the past hinder us, but forget it, and press on toward the goal.
| | B. |
Second, Paul says he strains toward what is ahead -- he runs toward the goal,
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to win the prize. That word is a picture of a runner in view of the ribbon who is running his hardest, leaning forward, reaching out for that finish line.
That is how I pursue the dream Jesus has for me, Paul says.
Jesus deserves all our passion and energy. To live life as if it is a race does not mean to be in the "rat race." It does not mean to be always busy, rushing here and there. If that were the case then those who are handicapped in any way would not be eligible. No, the race is run in our daily lives no matter whether we are able to walk around or not.
The race is in the choices we encounter day by day.
Do we watch this movie? Do we read this book? Do we engage in this conversation? Do we take this job?
Salvation is a daily walk with Jesus. It is the daily journey of God crafting and changing our lives.
Do we fly into a rage when the toddler has just dumped his cereal on the floor? Right then in the race, God has revealed our hearts.
Do we curse God when the car breaks down, or when the credit card bill exceeds what we anticipated and our ability to pay?
If Jesus really has a plan and purpose, one daily reality needs to be relationship with Him. It means listening to Him, praying, reading the Bible seeking His voice, being a student of life and of the word.
God desires to make us perfect in this life. Jesus said that: "You shall be perfect even as your heavenly father is perfect." That word there in the Sermon on the Mount is the same word Paul uses here when he says he has not been made perfect, yet. It is the same word he uses translated in verse 15: "All of us who are mature…" The perfection God plans for you and me is a completion, a reaching the goal, a maturity.
So, take such a view of your life.
You are a runner, not just a senior citizen or a young person. You are in a race that is worth all your energy and devotion. You are running toward a goal of grasping all that God has planned for you in this life.
| | C. |
Jacklyn Lucas was a young man with a burning desire not to serve Christ
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but to serve in the marines.
"He'd fast-talked his way into the Marines at fourteen, fooling the recruits with his muscled physique…. Assigned to drive a truck in Hawaii, he had grown frustrated; he wanted to fight. He stowed away on a transport out of Honolulu, surviving on food passed along to him by sympathetic leathernecks on board.
He landed on D-Day (at Iwo Jima) without a rifle. He grabbed one lying on the beach and fought his way inland.
Now, on (the next day), Jack and three comrades were crawling through a tranch when eight Japanese sprang in front of them. Jack shot one of them… Then his rifle jammed. As he strggled with it a grenade landed at his feet. He yelled a warning to the others and rammed the grenade into the soft ash. Immediately, another rolled in. Jack Lucas, seventeen, fell on both grenades. "Luke, you're gonna die," he remembered thinking…
Aboard the hospital ship Samaritan the doctors could scarcely believe it. "Maybe he was too damned young and too damned tough to die," one said. He endured twenty-one reconstructive operations and became the nation's youngest Medal of Honor winner-- and the only high school freshman to receive it" (don't Waste Your Life, by John Piper, p. 127).
Do you know you have someone to live for who is worthy of your entire life? You don't need to waste your days in a trance of insignificance.
There is one worth more glory and honor and passion than anything this world has to offer. And as we live this race for Him, we'll discover the calling He has upon us and the gifting he has given to us.
Your calling is a heavenly one!
Run the race!
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