Pressing on toward the goal
Phillippians3:12-14
Fathers Day 2008
* We had the sanctuary set up like the great outdoors. I had a canoe up front with all the boating needs, I had fishing and hunting equipment up front, I had camping things spread out. I had deer pictures around the front platform. It looked like a camp.
* I did a three minute skit
* Had special music that was geared toward men.
Intro-
Good morning everyone. I hope you enjoy that we have made our sanctuary a part of the great outdoors. I love the different fishing and hunting outfits your wearing. I believe we are outside of the box today and I am loving it. I know that we can worship God this morning even though most of us are not wearing ties and coats . I must admit it is different for me not to be up here in a suit, it feels like Saturday instead of Sunday.
Some of guys favorite characters would be uncle buck, Tim the tool man Taylor, Clint Eastwood (make my day...punk), James Bond. Of course we cannot forget our Nascar friends, baseball players, football players.
Why do we like them? We don’t personally know them, but we can relate to them. We share a same interest.
Illustration
two guys decide they are going to vacation in Mexico. They are going to go extreme bungy jump. The two are excited about it , get to Mexico, they go to the top of this little town where the bungy jumping equipment is located and the first guy gets strapped in and jumps down off this equipment and comes bouncing back up screaming but they cannot hear what he is saying. He again plummets and this time not only comes up screaming, but his friend can see that he is bruised and bleeding. After three attempts of falling and coming back up hurt, his friend reaches out and stops him from going down again. What happened ! Says the friend, “I don’t know why they were all hitting me” what is a pinata!
That is sometimes the way that we feel. We like to be different, we like to try different things. We like to take it to the extreme. We don’t like to be like everyone else. But we feel like we are everybody’s pinata.
Apostle Paul in this passage of scripture understands this-
He tells us that if it is about accomplishments- he is one of the best.
If it is about who you know and having a zeal, he was a pharasee. But when it comes to having a relationship with Christ, Paul tells us that these things don’t compare, that he counted it all loss, that he would give it all up to know Christ.
Question- How do you get there?
How do we love a man even if his name is Jesus?
How do we get past some of the churchy things to have a relationship with God.
How do we program ourselves to do things different than most in the world are doing?
Apostle Paul likens it to a race- Phillippians 3, he tells us that he puts no confidence in himself, but puts it in knowing Christ and the power of His resurrection.
Phillippians 3:12-14
I have one point this morning. Press on! Take hold of what Christ desires for you to have. In order to do that we must have devotion.
“This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark.”
Forgetting the past...reaching for the future!
There’s the target (have target up front) notice the arrows everywhere but in the bull’s eye. (Kid them that no animals were hurt in the making of the target.)
Everyone has a past!- apostle Paul had a past, he murdered Christians because he thought it was the right thing to do.
I forget the past
I forget the past failures
I forget the times that I missed the mark.
I realize I cannot move forward if I am always looking backward. (Living life looking in the rearview mirror)
The devil wants to discourage you by accusing you of things that Christ has already forgiven you for.
Sixty some days before the Olympics in China. These athletes are going with the intention of hitting the mark, but it didn’t come without a lot of practice and missing the mark quite a few times.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training . They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air.
Illustration-
It is like in the movie of Forrest Gump, he ran and ran and ran, for no reason, and after a long while, he just stopped and walked back to the way it was before.
Illustration-
In Milwaukee as a kid, I saw a large man built extremely well, in the middle of winter, with no shirt on, would stand out on the corner and wait for the bus, beating the air like he was in the middle of a fight. He was so big, no one dared let him know that he was beating the air. He would shadow box the mailbox on the corner, and sometimes he would hit it and send everyone in a panic.
Beating the air ! Missing the mark! Not able to keep his body under subjection.
Apostle Paul tells us that their has to be steadfast determination. To press forward and a determination not to let the past eat you up.
He did not quit
He did not turn back.
He would not give up.
He would not throw in the towel.
He would not slow down.
He pressed toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
It’s okay to be macho, men need to be men, but it’s okay to take Jesus on your journey also
Illustration-
two pastors of a local church were standing by the road and pounding a sign into the ground. The sign read “the end is near! Turn yourself around now, before it is too late” As a car sped past them, the driver leaned out the window and yelled “leave us alone, you religious nuts” from the curve they heard scretching tires and a big splash. The junior pastor said to the senior pastor, “do you think maybe the sign should just say “bridge out”
For some of us, the bridge is out and we are racing toward the end, and we are not slowing down.
The problem with an ice burg is that more of what we cannot see is what will hurt us.
As men, we are visual, we can see better than we can hear.
I need you to hear me this morning-
anyone that is going to succeed in the Christian life will have to be committed and hear what God is saying.
We don’t have time to grin about what we use to do
we don’t have time to set around and mope at what we haven’t done.
There is two many people depending on us not to finish the race and the goal is to finish strong.
Not be worrying about past defeats or things that we cannot change.
I’m going to close the service a little different this morning. In just a minute, I’m going to ask the men to meet me in the foyer, just outside these doors, for just a minute. Inside I’m asking my wife Becky and Grace to come up front to talk to you for a minute and then close the service.
(Out in the foyer, I talked to the men about missing the mark, the importance of being determined to finish strong for their families. I gave them a glass stone as a reminder to keep in their pocket to be praying that the Lord would allow them to hit the mark.) ( about three minutes)
(My wife and another lady took two minutes and talked about supporting their husbands and lead the remaining congregation in a closing prayer.)
