“CARPE DIEM”
10/10/10 New Liberty Christian Church, Veedersburg, IN. Rich McQuinn, Pastor
TEXT: PHILIPPIANS 3:1-21
A new movie was released to the theaters Friday, October 8, 2010. The title of the movie is called “Secretariat”. It is a neat movie about a horse name Secretariat. As many of you may remember this horse won the Triple Crown horse racing derby in 1973. The same horse ran the three best horse races in the United States and won all three of them. He broke the track record and to this date has never been broken.
A horse of courage. A horse of talent and more than that a horse with ambition and drive. I liked the horses’ heart and willingness to absolutely do what ever it took to win the race not only for himself but for his owner. I am sure by the end of the year; this film will be nominated for several awards.
It was like the horse knew what was going on in his world. He soaked up the competition. He studied each one presumably. Each time he ran it was like he seized the moment or as we say Carpe Diem. It simply means seize the opportunity while you still have the time to do it.
Paul now writes in chapter 3 of Philippians about all of us seizing up our opportunities to promote Christ.
Not a one of us wants our lives to be just average Joe. We all think that we are better than the average. We work harder, play harder, spend harder and try to out do each other. We are far from being just average. Even if we were, we do not want to admit it. All of us want to live exciting fulfilled lives that count for something.
The Apostle Paul’s is about to give us all his own philosophy of life. What is it that drives him? What keeps him going each and every day? Why doesn’t he just stop and give in. Just like Secretariat, the man is driven. He has a purpose for living. He has a purpose for writing. He has a purpose for witnessing.
No matter how hectic your life is. No matter what comes your way and you think that no one understands or cares, then you must stop and study chapter 3 as Paul writes to his beloved church. You will have a fuller life if you do.
Here we see the former Pastor giving his first established church some good sound advice. He knows that his time is just about up in this life. He knows that he can pass on some wisdom to the next generation who will listen and he delivers to them in three simple ways how to have a more fulfilling life.
WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE FOR LIVING?
If I were to ask everyone in this room today “What is your purpose in life?” I would probably get several different answers. “Be a good wife or husband, be a good mother or father, do my job better, be a good teacher, nurse, mechanic, salesperson, and so on.”
Those answers would be good, but they are all secondary purposes. The question is what is your primary purpose in life? In other words, what is your reason for living? Everything in creation has a primary purpose, or a reason for existing. For anyone or anything to be successful, it must fulfill that purpose. Paul states his reason for living in verses 10-11.
Paul is saying “I want to know Christ so that I may be like Him.” Simply put, Paul’s reason for living was to be like Jesus. This is also to be our reason for living. Pretty simple isn’t it? Yes I know we all say that we want to be more like Christ. We think that is the right answer we have to come up with all the time. But---how long does it take you to really understand what that really means to be more like Christ and then to really want it.
To those who have no relationship with God, the idea of serving him seems like drudgery, as if he just wants to steal all of your fun. But to those who have seen the ugliness of sin and the beauty of the Lord, serving and worshiping him is the highest calling and the most wonderful delight. What ever we sacrifice in the process of doing his will is just worthless trash.
I have seen the trash that this world has to offer. I have seen the heartaches; I have seen the missed opportunities of a pure life. I have seen the families utterly destroyed the bankrupt society. I have seen the fall of too many men in their convictions. I have seen the other side of Glory and I know that it is better to live FOR Christ than to ever live as if I do not know HIM.
Paul is telling us in this 3rd chapter how to Seize the Day—Carpe Diem. You no longer can be idle. If you are not marching forward, you are not making progress and you will only fall behind. That is the way that satan sees it.
The Apostle Paul writes about his ministry. He was born of Hebrew, Jewish parents. He was raised in a nice well to do home. He was circumcised on the 8th day as the tradition for all Jewish boys. He went to school and studied under Gamaliel and was a sharp student. As a smart man, he knew every inch of the law and finally became a Pharisee. It was his zeal for doing the right thing in Pharisee customs that got him into trouble with the Lord. Why are you persecuting me Paul! How do I know you Lord?
Then Paul tells his church that he can live without all of the trophies he has obtained. He regards them as trash, they mean nothing. Then he gives them three simple rules to go through life with:
I. DEAL WITH YOUR PAST
Verse 13, spells it out to us.
Each of us this morning has walked through hell so to speak. We all have had bad stuff happen to us. Bad stuff. Stuff that should never have happened, but it did. Now we have a choice to lie down and wade in it and milk it for all it is worth or we can set an example for others watching us and get over us.
You know I come from a family of six kids. You know my mother took her own life at age 31 making the front page of the Dallas morning news paper. You know that my youngest sister was not my dads. You know already that we lived a life of insecurity and doubt and self worth and you know that because of all of the junk that was piled on us and our inability to not deal with reality that all six of us, my brothers and sisters and I all have gotten divorced. Go figure. Many families have three children and just maybe one child gets a divorce, and in a rare case maybe two children in that family get divorced. But you have to realize that all six of us----every one of the McQuinn children got chopped up.
We all could have stayed in the mud and the disrespect from others. We could have swallowed the advice from many that we would never amount to anything. We could have been defeated before any of us reached our 16th birthday, but we didn’t. We did know any better except someone was in back of us watching out for us. Today we know, yesterday we didn’t.
Any hurt that you have had dealt to you. Any heartaches that have split you in two. Any relationships that were not your fault but you could not mend them and they still bother you. Any things in your life that you failed in, any of the junk that happened was a direct result of your actions, then for Gods sake let it go! It will continue to eat you up and you will not be able to Rejoice as Paul tells us in his opening verse.
You have to ask God to help you. You can not do it on your own. It is too big of a problem. Do not carry it around your neck.
Ok, you fell down someplace. You made a great mistake either by accident or on purpose. It cost you plenty and you still may be paying for it, but you do not have to make your bed there. You are not the same person you were when that happened. If you asked, then you were forgiven. You can’t stay there. It is your death bed for joy if you allow yourself to stay in that bed.
I know that there are people out there that love to make you continually suffer for what you did. They will remind you of it. How does that make you feel? You paid the price, but it is like you having to continue to pay the price over and over again and you do not seem to get rid of it. Right?
Take a shower! A full body shower! Walk into that shower as a beat up person, dirty, and no joy or song in your heart. Have a little talk with Jesus---he will answer your lonely prayer and clean you up like you have never been before. Come out of the shower singing and then be determined that no one is ever going to steal your joy anymore.
We six brothers and sisters did the walking through hell only to come through it a better person. It was our worst night in our lives, but it proved to be a determining night as well. We recovered. We can not erase the past, but we do not have to relive it over and over again and we don’t. Christ has had us look deeply into our past and our selves and each of us can sing for the glory of the Lord today.
Paul, just like all of us had a past to forget. He had tortured and murdered many innocent people. He had caused a lot of pain and had done much damage to the cause of Christ. Now he was faced with a choice. He could either dwell on his mistakes or let them ruin his life and his chance for effective ministry, or he could forget all about them and move on with his life.
Just like Paul had to make a choice, so do we. Maybe you’ve had a bad experience just lately or maybe you did something long ago that you regret. Maybe the memories keep coming back to haunt you from living a full life today.
Well guess what? Many people have, but we must forget the past!!! Get a revelation. It’s over. It’s done. It’s gone. It can’t hurt you anymore. There’s nothing you can do to change it. The only thing that you can do is, “Forget it and move on.” It will continue to drag you to the bottom and you will never fully recover to do the job that you are capable of doing for the Lord. You have to do it. No one else can do it for you.
On January 1, 1929, the Golden Bears faced the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. Midway through the second quarter, Riegels, who played center, picked up a fumble by Tech's Jack "Stumpy" Thomason. Just 30 yards away from the Yellow Jackets' end zone, Riegels was somehow turned around and ran 65 yards in the wrong direction. He could have scored a touch down for his own team but life turned him around and he was confused on the direction he should travel. Ever been there?
Teammate and quarterback Benny Lom chased Riegels, screaming at him to stop. Known for his speed, Lom finally caught up with Riegels at California's 3-yard line and tried to turn him around, but he was immediately hit by a wave of Tech players and tackled back to the 1-yard line. The Bears chose to punt rather than risk a play so close to their own end zone, but Tech's Vance Maree blocked Lom's punt for a safety, giving Georgia Tech a 2-0 lead.
Riegels was so distraught that he had to be talked into returning to the game for the second half. Riegels turned in a stellar second half performance, including blocking a Tech punt. Lom passed for a touchdown and kicked the extra point, but Tech would ultimately win the game—and their second national championship—by a final score of 8-7. The example of how the distraught Riegels was persuaded to pick himself up, return to the field and play so hard during the second half is sometimes used by motivational speakers to illustrate overcoming setbacks.[2]
Despite the nationwide mockery that followed, Riegels went on to live a normal life, serving in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, coaching high school,[3] and college football—including time at Cal—and running his own chemical company. In 1991, Riegels was inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame.[4] Riegels died in 1993, at the age of 84. In 1998, he was posthumously elected to Cal's Hall of Fame.[5]
In the locker room at half time, Roy Riegels sat in the corner with his face buried in his hands, crying. The room was silent. The Coach didn’t make his usual half - time speech, but shortly before the team was to take the field for the second half, he said, “The starting team is going back onto the field to begin the second half.”
The whole team left the locker room except for Riegels, who remained in the corner with his face in his hands. “I can’t do it Coach,” he said. “I can’t play. I ruined the team.” The Coach said, “Get up Riegels. The game is only half over. You belong on the field.”
Guess what? Our game is only half over. Regardless of the past, we still have the rest of the game to play. So what if the enemy scored off of you in the past! God is willing to forget about the mistakes of the first half. And He expects us to do the same!!!
Remember that the game is only half over!
In Isaiah 43:25 it says, “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake; And I will not remember your sins.”
In Jeremiah 31:34 it says, “For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more.”
Now in forgetting the past. We must not only forget the bad, but we must also:
II. DEAL WITH THE GOOD YOU HAVE DONE
I hope there are not too many folks in your life that all they have to talk about is their achievements in life-----their past life----their only life. You get tired of hearing the same stories and accomplishments. We all know that time slips away from us and leaves you with nothing but boring stories of Glory Days.”
Many people zero in on one good period of time in their life - and spend the rest of their lives trying to relive the past. Maybe it was high school, college, when you first got married, when the kids were young, and etc. Paul says I forget all that is behind.
If we get all caught up on what we did, we can never really do what God wants us to be doing today.
I traveled thousands of miles to Jamaica, India, and Hawaii and spent a great deal of time preaching, teaching, witnessing and leading people to the Lordship of Jesus. The over 1000 confessions of belief in Christ are not notches on my Bible belt. It tells where I have been not where I am going. If I stay in the results of India, I will never be able to lead another person to Christ.
It doesn’t matter to me if I am able to preach to one thousand on Sunday morning in a worship service, what matters is that I am obedient to His Word and what was done yesterday is just that. It is yesterday’s news and I am busy making new good news for the Lord today.
Verse #7 “I will not live in the past. My reason for living is to be like Jesus, and whatever happened yesterday, good or bad, is now ancient history. I will live for Jesus today.”
One thing we can know for certain is this, “God never consults your past to determine your future.”
III. DEAL WITH THE REALITY OF YOUR LIFE
It is easy to live in the past. And it is easy to dream away the future. It’s a real challenge to face the present, because it means we can no longer allow ourselves the luxury of saying, “One of these days I’ll do something about my temper ... my commitment to God ... my health ... my responsibility to my family ... and so on.
In the 11th chapter of John, there is a story I believe must of us are familiar with, that is the story when Jesus’ good friend Lazarus died. When Jesus arrived at the tomb, Lazarus had been dead for four days.
Lazarus’ sister, Martha, came to Jesus and spoke that classic phrase used by people who live in the past: “IF ONLY” She said, “Jesus, if only you had been here my brother would not have died”.
Jesus said to Martha, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha began dreaming about the future and said, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
She knew that Jesus had the power in the past, and she knew that He would have the power in the future, but Martha, like so many of us at times, isn’t quite sure about His Power in the Present Circumstance.
We have no problem believing that Christ performed many miracles in the past, and the greatest one of them all dying on the cross, and raising from the dead on the third day.
We also have no problem believing, that in the future He is coming back again to take us home with Him. But, Why is it we have such a problem believing Him at His Word in the Present Day???
Martha said “Yes Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God.” By this confession she was saying “Not Just Yesterday, Not Just Tomorrow, But Today I believe that you are the Christ.
It was at that moment that Martha began to face the present and put her faith into action. We need to say Yes Lord, we believe and put our faith into action.
Yes Lord, I believe you’re still coming back for me,
Yes Lord, I believe you’re still answering my prayers.
Yes Lord, I Believe you promised me life after death.
Yes Lord, I Believe you still calm the stormy waters and forgive our past.
Yes Lord, I Believe you still raise the dead, heal the blind, deaf, mute, lame, broken hearted, cast out demons, and etc.
Facing the present, means that we put our faith in Jesus Christ, and trust Him to be involved in every part of our lives.
Facing the present means that we choose to live life as it comes to us day by day. Not in the past, not in the future, but right here and right now.
God does not want us to waste our lives away. He wants us to “seize the moment” and live every day of our lives with a purpose. He’s given us a reason for living; to be like Jesus.
Take the advice of the Apostle Paul. Finish this race you are in right now. Get up each morning with a prayer in your heart. No matter what happens, this day belongs to the Lord and I am His Doulos---His Servant. I may muff it up, I may stumble, I might even make a mess of it, but at the end of the day I will go to my Heavenly Father and asked Him to forgive me of my blunders of the day and help me to do better tomorrow. Deliver me from evil; I want to dwell in your house forever.
If you do not know Jesus as your personal Lord and Saviour then I invite all of you to make a stand and ask Him to come into your life today. Right now. Carpe Diem---Seize the moment to do right.
Amen and Amen
Credit is give to Greg McDonald who sparked the idea.
