Reaching Forth in the New Year
Chuck Sligh
January 3, 2010 (AM) / January 4, 2015 (PM)
TEXT: Philippians 3:12-14– “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. 13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
INTRODUCTION
A few days ago we began a new year. Traditionally, we make New Years Resolutions, but we don’t always do so well, do we?
Joke – Dan Mahan was quoted as saying, “It’s time to make New Year resolutions. Have you made yours yet? Last New Years I made 6 resolutions and I am proud to say that I kept them all year long. I kept them in an envelope in the top drawer of my desk!”
Illus. – I read this week about a high school principal who decided to post his teachers’ new year’s resolutions on the bulletin board. As the teachers gathered around the bulletin board, a great commotion started. One of the teachers was complaining.
“Why weren’t my resolutions posted?” she protested.
She was throwing such a temper tantrum that the principal hurried to his office to see if he had overlooked her resolutions. Sure enough, he had mislaid them on his desk. As he read her resolutions he was astounded. This teacher’s first resolution was not to let little things upset her in the New Year!
Well, why do we make New Year’s resolutions? We do them because we recognize that we need to improve on some areas in our lives. We can’t change the previous year, but we can do something about a new year.
But I hope your resolutions this year are a little deeper than “I resolve to lose 20 pounds.” There’d be nothing wrong with those kinds of resolutions, of course. In fact, I could stand to make that resolution this year myself after packing on a few pounds myself during the Christmas season.
Illus. – Katina Fisher writes about helping one another with their New Year’s diets: “My friend Kimberly announced that she had started a diet to lose some pounds she had put on recently. ‘Good!’ I exclaimed. ‘I’m ready to start a diet too. We can be dieting buddies and help each other out. When I feel the urge to drive out and get a burger and fries, I’ll call you first.’ ‘Great!’ she replied. ‘I'll ride with you.’”
Nothing wrong with that kind of resolution, but as I said, I hope you went a little deeper than that and had some loftier goals than merely physical goals.
I don’t know about you, but as I enter a new year, I want to make my life count for God. I hope you have some goals that encompass making your life count more for God in 2010. I don’t suppose anyone was more successful at making his life count for God than the Apostle Paul, other than the Lord Jesus Himself.
In our text, Paul tells the secret to his extraordinary success at making his life count for God.
Let’s look and see how he did it:
I. PAUL HAD A PURPOSE – Verse 12 –“Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.”
What was Paul’s goal? I think Paul was saying he had not arrived spiritually, so he sought for spiritual growth and maturity Peter tell us in 2 Peter 3:18 to “…grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
This was Paul’s main desire—to grow in the Lord. In order to make your life count, you, like Paul, should have some spiritual goals or purposes for your Christian life, what you might call “resolutions.”
The beginning of a New Year is an excellent time to think about some goals to turn into resolutions to help you grow in the Lord.
As you do that, let me give you some guidelines on goal-setting and resolution-making:
1) First, our goals need to be RIGHT goals.
Paul said that he desired spiritual growth. What about you? What do you want to see happen in your life for the Lord in 2010?
• If you’re not sure if you are saved, you need to get some answers and get this matter of your eternal destiny squared away once and for all.
• If you’re struggling with a bad habit, make some decisions to conquer it.
• If you haven’t fellowshipped regularly with believers, resolve to become faithful to church and get involved in a homegroup.
• If you haven’t tried to reach your friends, neighbors and co-workers with the Gospel, resolve to STOP doing things that detract from you testimony and START speaking up for the Lord.
• If you’ve not been faithful to have a Quiet Time or time of Bible reading and prayer with the Lord this past year, then make up your mind to address that failure in the new year.
• If you haven’t been a tither, decide that your resources do not belong to you, that EVERYTHING you own belongs to THE LORD and if He, the true owner of your resources, tells you to turn back in to Him 10% of His money, you will simply obey because you love Him.
• If you haven’t been the husband or wife or son or daughter you ought to have been, then set a goal to correct those deficiencies.
Whatever it may be, decide to set some godly goals in 2010.
2) Second, our goals need to be SPECIFIC.
• Don’t say something general, like “I want to be a better person next year.” Rather, determine some specific areas that you know the Holy Spirit wants you to change, and name that specific area to change. For instance, “Lord, I need to show the love of Christ better,” or “I need to stop worrying about things.”
• Don’t simply say, “I want to read more of the Bible next year.” You need to be specific. Say, “I want to read through the entire Bible in the next year.” Or “I’m going to read at least one chapter every morning.” Or “I am going to read the Bible at least 15 minutes each day.”
• Don’t say, “I want to be a better witness for the Lord.” That’s too general.Say, “I’m going to share the Lord with at least one person each day. I won’t let a single day go by without witnessing to at least one person.”
Successful goal-making begins by having specific, achievable goals.
3) Third, our goals need to be WRITTEN DOWN….for two reasons:
• First, to solidify our resolutions in our mind. – We remember better when we use more of our senses.
• Second, writing goals down is a means of personal accountability. Once you write your goals down, keep them posted in a conspicuous place to remind you of your commitment. Examine yourself from time to time to see if you’ve kept your commitments.
4) Fourth, our goals should be REALISTIC.
It would be foolish to say that you want to read through the Bible ten times next year because that’s probably not a realistic goal unless you are a speed reader, don’t have a job, or are going to be in the hospital for the next 6 months!
Set REALISTIC goals that would be a challenge, yet are obtainable.
• To resolve to pray three hours a day is laudable, but an unrealistic goal for most anybody here today.
• To say that you’re going to give to God 60% of your income is probably not a realistic goal for the majority of us here today. Besides, when your spouse found out, you’d never live to fulfill the goal. Or you might inadvertently kill the pastor in the process.
JOKE – Once a man with a heart condition inherited $1 million. His wife found out first and was concerned that in his fragile state, the news might trigger a heart attack. So she called her pastor and explained the situation and said, “Since you have such tact and diplomacy, could you figure out a way to tell him the news without him having a heart attack.” He came over and thought a round about way would be the best approach. So he began, “Bill, if you were to inherit a million dollars, what would you do with it?”
Bill said, “Why Pastor, I’d give it all to the church.” Suddenly the pastor fell over with a heart attack!
¿What determines whether or not a goal is realistic?—Not the number or the size, but how willing and how able you are to work for that goal.
5) Lastly, our goals should be BALANCED – Have goals for each of the areas of your life: SPIRITUAL goals; PERSONAL goals; FAMILY goals and WORK goals.
Yes, if you need to lose weight like I do, God is as concerned about that because the body of the believer is a temple that belongs to God and God says we’re to be good stewards of His temple. But it’s easy to just get focused on the physical, and neglect resolutions we need to make in our relationship with God, our relationship with our family members or our responsibility to be productive members of society.
Not only did Paul have a PURPOSE, also…
II. PAUL HAD A PLAN – Verse 13 – “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before. 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
1) Paul had a plan—a strategy—to accomplish his goals.
What was Paul’s plan?—It was two-fold:
First, to FORGET the past and reached for the future.
You can live in a cloud of past failure and regret, or you can put the past behind you, where God has put it, and go on and serve God in the future.
The first strategy will only lead to more failure.
The second strategy will not guarantee success, but is a necessary ingredient.
2) Second, Paul PRESSED toward the mark of the high calling of God, the calling to reach the goal of spiritual growth.
The point is that Paul had a plan to achieve his goal of growing in Christ. He knew what his goal was and he formulated a plan to carry it out. Paul recounts in verse 6 how he had persecuted the church before he was saved. Paul apparently carried a lot of guilt for things he had done before his conversion. So conquering that guilt was part of his plan to achieve his goal to grow in Christ.
He said, “I’ve not arrived spiritually. But I’ve identified my goal—spiritual growth; and I know the barrier that has kept me back in the past—guilt from my past life. So here’s what I’m going to do: 1) I’m going to put the past behind me once and for all so I can reach for the future God has for me and 2) I’m going to PRESS toward that mark with persistence and fortitude.”
I’m coming back to that last part in just a moment, but here’s where we fail so often in following through on our resolutions: WE DON’T HAVE A PLAN.
The first step in goal-setting is setting right, specific, reasonable, balanced goals, but YOU HAVE TO ALSO COME UP WITH A PLAN TO REACH THEM.
• So you don’t just say, “Lord, I want to read the Bible through in 2010.” You come up with a plan. You say, “Lord, I’ll read 5 chapters every day in order to reach my goal.”
• You don’t say, “Lord, I’m going to CONTROL MY TEMPER better in 2010.” – You come up with a plan with strategies to control your anger in stressful situations: Like asking God what to say in those situations before you spout off; counting to 10; memorizing Scripture on anger to quote in the time of stress.
• You don’t just say, “Lord, I’m not going to WORRY as much in 2010.” You come up with a plan. You find and memorize Scriptures that deal with worry and fear to quote when you’re tempted to worry. You resolve to Google for Christian books that deal with worry and fear. You plan to stay in God’s Word. You discover the strategies that others have used to conquer these things.
So we see that Paul had a PURPOSE and Paul had a PLAN.…
III. LASTLY, NOTICE THAT PAUL HAD PERSISTENCE.
Note the following evidences of Paul’s persistence in these verses:
• In verse 12 Paul said, “...but I follow after...”
The words “follow after” are from a Greek word meaning “to pursue, to follow eagerly, to endeavor earnestly to acquire.”
Paul has in mind the image of a Greek runner sprinting down the race course.
He’s “keeping up the chase,” so to speak.
He’s pressing on toward a fixed goal.
He’s pushing to completion and success with all his might.
• In Verse 13 Paul says, “...this one thing I do...” – indicating single-minded determination and steadfastness.
• And in Verse 13b Paul says he was “...reaching forth...” – Dr. Kenneth Wuest, the famous Greek scholar states in his book on Philippians:
• The phrase, “reaching forth” is from another Greek athletic term which describes the runner whose “eye outstrips and draws onward the hand, and the hand the foot.” The word means “to stretch forth after.” (p. 98)
Then in verse 14, Paul said, “I press toward the mark...” – “Press” is the same Greek word found in verse 12 translated “follow after” —which I said means “to pursue, to follow eagerly, to endeavor earnestly to acquire.”
Paul was determined! He was persistent! We too must have that same iron-willed determination to reach our goals! We must learn to master discouragement and to keep on pursuing our goals even when we’re down or discouraged.
Someone once said that “Great people are not really naturally great people. They are just ordinary people with an extraordinary amount of persistence.” How true that is.
POEM: – Two Frogs In Cream:
Two frogs fell into a can of cream,
Or so I’ve heard it told;
The sides of the can were shiny and steep,
The cream was deep and cold.
“O, what’s the use?” croaked Number 1.
“Tis fate; no help’s around.
Goodbye, my friends! Goodbye, sad world!”
And weeping still [PAUSE…] he drowned.
But Number 2, or sterner stuff,
Dog-paddled in surprise.
The while he wiped his creamy face
And dried his creamy eyes.
“I’ll swim awhile, at least,” he said—
Or so I’ve heard he said;
“It really wouldn’t help the world
If one more frog were dead.”
An hour or two he kicked and swam,
Not once he stopped to mutter,
But kicked and kicked and swam and kicked,
Then hopped out, via butter!
— T.C. Hamlet
Illus. – Thomas Edison didn’t give up when his first efforts to find an effective filament for the carbon incandescent lamp failed. He did countless experiments with countless kinds of materials. As each failed, he would toss it out the window. The pile reached to the second story of his house. (Think about that!) Then he sent men to China, Japan, South America, Asia, Jamaica, Ceylon and Burma in search of fibers and grasses to be tested in his laboratory.
One weary day on October 21, 1879—after thirteen months of repeated failures—he succeeded in his search for a filament that would stand the stress of electric current. Listen to how it happened:
“Casually picking up a bit of lampblack, he mixed it with tar and rolled it into a thin thread. Then the thought occurred: Why not try a carbonized cotton fiber? For five hours he worked, but it broke before he could remove the mold. Two spools of thread were used up. At last a perfect strand emerged—only to be ruined when trying to place it in a glass tube. Edison refused to admit defeat. He continued without sleep for two days and nights. Finally, he managed to slip one of the carbonized threads into a vacuum-sealed bulb. Then he turned on the current. Later he said, regarding that spectacular moment: “The sight we had so long desired to see finally met our eyes.” Edison’s persistence amid such discouraging odds has given the world the wonderful electric light!”
CONCLUSION – Have people go through the handout and 1) make resolutions and 2) formulate a plan to do them.
