Going All Out Series

Title: Going All Out

Text: Philippians 3:12-16

Introduction

Tom Toro is a noted cartoonist and writer. He lives in KS City, MO with his wife and family. But he was not always successful. At one point a few years ago he was so low he had to move back home to live with his parents. Depressed and feeling lost, one day while meandering through a used bookstore he happened upon a stack of old New Yorker magazines. As he flipped through the pages he noticed the cartoons were interesting… he liked them.

Something clicked and he decided to submit some of his own cartoons to the New Yorker. Shortly after that, he received a reply. It was his first rejection note.

A year and a half later, Toro had a pile of rejection letters. This continued until Bob Mankoff, the cartoon editor at The New Yorker, gave Toro some honest and specific feedback. Mankoff said he didn't see any joy in Toro's cartoons. So Toro threw everything that he had done previously out the door, sat down with a blank sheet of paper. Recalling Mankoff's advice, he tried to draw from the heart. He was still receiving rejection letters in the mail, but his cartoons were getting better. Toro was finding his style. And then, one day, he wandered into his office to check his email. He said, "I went in there, logged in, and there sitting at the top of my inbox was an email. The subject line read, 'Cartoon Sold.'" It was the 610th drawing Toro had submitted to The New Yorker. (Putting that in perspective, that is like me submitting my sermon every week for 12 years… that is a long time and a lot of rejection.)

Clearly one conclusion we can draw from Tom Toro’s experience is that tenacity and dogged determination eventually paid off.

As a follower of Jesus Christ I would safely “guesstimate” that I have failed in my pursuit of living a perfectly Christ-like life at least 610 times… In other words, I’m not there yet and neither was the Apostle Paul at the time he wrote our text today.

He readily confessed, “I’m not there yet!”

I. I’m Not There Yet

I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have reached perfection… Philippians 3:12

Perfection is the highest possible standard. You cannot improve on perfection. Perfection means to be free of flaws or defects. It means the most extreme degree of excellence and the Apostle Paul, despite his considerably noteworthy spiritual pedigree confesses… I’m not there yet.

On April 12, 2012, the White Sox's pitcher Philip Humber pitched a perfect game. That is, he retired 27 batters in a row. No walks, no hits. It's a feat that's been accomplished by only 18 other pitchers in Major League Baseball's 108-year-old history. But then in November of that same year, the White Sox cut him from their team roster.

An article in Sports Illustrated zeroed in on Humber's deadly character flaw—perfectionism. The article's subtitle read, "For one magical April afternoon, Philip Humber was flawless. But that random smile from the pitching gods came with a heavy burden: the pressure to live up to a standard no one can meet." The article continued: The biggest problem with Humber wasn't his talent. It was, according to those close to him, the unrealistic expectations he set for himself. "He's a perfectionist," says Robert Ellis, [a former mentor to Humber.]"

Perfectionism comes at a high price. Once you reach it, what then? You’ve nowhere to go but the pressure to maintain perfection is unbearable. Humanly speaking, it can’t be done. No baseball pitcher can do it and no Christian can, in this life, be perfectly Christ-like and if we go the route of flawless – sinlessness.

So what did Paul mean when he said, “I’m not there yet?”

Perfection in this sense does not mean, “perfect” as we think of perfect. It means to become complete or full-grown. It is a qualifier as in distinguishing between a man and a boy or a craftsman and an apprentice or a master and a student.

Paul’s confession essentially is his way of saying, “I’m not there yet but I am living into who I hope to become in Christ.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is credited with saying, “Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”

Interestingly, though not where and whom he wants to be, he is not where or whom he was either.

II. I’m Not Where I Was

I have not achieved it but I focus on one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead. Philippians 3:13

The thing that the Apostle Paul had not yet achieved is found in verse 10, “I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead.