The Future Church
Philippians 3:12-16
New Barna Research has discovered that a person’s lifelong behaviors and views are generally developed when they are young – usually prior to reaching teen years. The research showed 4 critical outcomes:
First, a person’s moral foundations are generally in place by the time they reach 9. Their fundamental perspectives on truth, integrity, meaning, justice, morality, and ethics are formed early in life.
Second, responses to the meaning and personal value of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is usually determined before age 18.
Third, most spiritual beliefs are irrevocably formed by the pre-teens. “In essence,” George Barna notes, “what you believe by the time you are 13 is what you will die believing.
Finally, the research revealed adult church leaders usually have serious involvement in church life and training when they are young. Churches experiencing great influence in children’s lives realize that children are of special significance to God. Consequently, effective churches employ long-term, multi-pronged strategy that they tirelessly execute to facilitate the spiritual growth of children. (Barna Online)
I believe the church must see that all believers matter in church life but children really are the future church and the decisions we make in the present impact the Future church. I believe in order to be a productive happy Christian you must focus on the future. You can’t look back and relive failures or shortcomings. I also believe in order to be a successful, blessed church you must have forward thinking. You can’t go forward looking back.
In our text the apostle Paul explains forward thinking. He was a spiritual giant in the eyes of the Philippian saints, he wanted them to know that he had not yet attained the goals stated in verse 10. He was still actively pressing on toward them. He had by no means reached the final stage of his sanctification.
Paul’s salvation experience had taken place about 30 years before he wrote to the Philippians. He had won many spiritual battles in that time but he still had more spiritual heights to climb. This testimony of the apostle reminded the saints at Philippi—and it serves to remind us today—that there must never be a stalemate in their spiritual growth or a plateau beyond which they cannot climb.
Why must we as Christians and as churches keep going forward? Thom Rainer the president of SBC Lifeway, our educational arm of the SBC writes, “80% of the approximately 400,000 churches in the U.S. are either declining or at a plateau.” Breakout Churches, Thom Rainer, Zondervan.
The Reason we must be have a Future church mentality is it keeps us focused on our Devotion to God, Focused on our Direction, it gives us a Spiritual Determination and motivates us on in Spiritual Discipline. **12**
There are ways in which Christians should remember the acts of God in the past, but Paul knew that he must not dwell on the past; its failures and sins have been forgiven, and its achievements in the service of Christ must not allow him to rest on his laurels. He wanted rather to be found straining towards what lay ahead, and to express this he uses another very strong word, applicable to an athletic context or a chariot race; every fibre of his being was set on the goal and purpose of his Christian life he was focused on the future.
The Future church mentality
I. Is Not Satisfied with Status Quo (v.12-13)
Paul is telling the church at Philippi not to rest on its laurels. This was a great church and Paul said don’t be satisfied with the way things are and except the status quo because this won’t get the job done.
Again in the book Breakout Churches, Thom Rainer and his team researched over 50,000 churches. One of the churches that was a “Breakout Church,” Central Christian Church, in Beloit Wisconsin, had this statement written in their church history; “Central Christian Church has never been satisfied with being satisfied.”
The problem churches have and any large organization for that matter is the danger of being adequate. Nothing really wrong just bogged down in not being great. Bureaucracy abounds and creativity is criticized.
“Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.” Laurence J. Peter
“Creativity is bound to stir up controversy because its ultimate impact always is to change the status quo.” O.A. Battista
Church we have a daunting task of evangelizing 25,000 people in a ten mile radius. Doing things how we always do them is not going to get the job done we must have:
A. Focused Devotion (v.13a) “this one thing I do.” Be focused on our call as Christians and as a church. No athlete succeeds by competing in ever sport, their focused on their best one. They give all their energy and preparation to what they do best.
That’s how it is in our spiritual lives. We focus on what God has called us to do and then we do it with everything we have to glorify God.
Warren Weirsbe writes, “If a river is allowed to overflow its banks, the area around it becomes a swamp. But if that river is damned and controlled, it becomes a source of power. It is wholly a matter of values and priorities, living for that which matters most.” Be Joyful, page 108.
When we as Christians are focused on what God has called us to do we don’t feel swamped in our spiritual walk we feel refreshed as we allow God’s power to flow through us. What is the one thing God has called you to do?
B. Focused Direction (v.13b) In the book Good To Great, Jim Collins writes, “You have to get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.” You also have to determine where to drive the bus.
Paul is saying go forward in the direction that God has for you. Know what you are called to do and do it. Paul states hey church don’t look back—go forward. Forgetting here in v.13 means to neglect to give them any thought. It means to give them over to oblivion.
Ahead means the thing that is in front of us to do the matter at hand. You know what really hinders us in life? We waste time thinking about what we should do and fail to do the work that is right there in front of us. God if this is really what you want me to do send the angel Gabriel, or at least let him blow his trumpet.
I get so frustrated in life with people that know that they should do the thing in front of them but fail to do it. You ever work with people who will stand around and watch everyone work? You’ve probably seen those commercials where the people are stranded on a sky lift and one man says think positive the girl is coming here hair, and another man hits the reset button. The commercial says, “Less talk more action.”
We’re never going to go forward as Christians and as churches if we don’t go in the direction God has for us and get to work. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 9:10, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might,” (NIV)
The Future Church does what God calls it to do and heads in the direction God has for it, it is Not Satisfied With the Status quo:
II. Is Not Stagnant in Spiritual Growth (v.14-16)
Now the apostle Paul declares that he is pressing onward and also upward. He’s saying whatever holds us back from glorifying God and causes us to get held back from the call God has on our lives will hinder us in the race. God is telling us through Paul to grow up spiritually. He even uses the word “mature,” in v.15.
But how do we become mature Christians and churches? What do we need to do or to know in order to be Spiritually mature in our faith in Jesus Christ? During Superbowl XXXVII, FedEx ran a commercial that spoofed the movie Castaway, in which Tom Hanks played a FedEx worker whose company plane went down, stranding him on a desert island for years. Looking like the bedraggled Hanks in the movie, the FedEx employee in the commercial goes up to the door of a suburban home, package in hand. When the lady comes to the door, he explains that he survived five years on a deserted island, and during that whole time he kept this package in order to deliver it to her. She gives a simple, "Thank you." But he is curious about what is in the package that he has been protecting for years. He says, "If I may ask, what was in that package after all?" She opens it and shows him the contents, saying, "Oh, nothing really. Just a satellite telephone, a global positioning device, a compass, a water purifier, and some seeds."
Like the contents in this package, the resources for growth are available for every Christian who will take advantage of them. Notice what it takes to grow in our faith:
A. Spiritual Determination (v.14) “I press toward the goal for the prize.” The Greek word means an intense endeavor. To be a mature Christian we must work at it through prayer and following God’s Word.
Press on. Nothing in the world Can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; Nothing is more common Than unsuccessful men With talent. Genius will not: Unrewarded genius Is almost a proverb. Education will not; The world is full of Educated derelicts. Persistence and determination Alone are important Charles Swindoll, Living Above the Level of Mediocrity, p.93.
Folks anyone can be average. Any church can be average I for one refuse to be average. I pray, church family you don’t want His church to be average often times that means giving up something good in order to do something else great.
Here’s why that is. It takes Spiritual Determination. The second way we grow spiritually is through:
B. Spiritual Discipline (v.15-16) It is not enough to run hard and win the race; the runner must also obey the rules. In the Greek games, the judges were very strict about this. Any infringement of the rules disqualified the athlete. Paul emphasizes the importance of the Christian remembering the “spiritual rules” laid down in the Word.
One of the greatest athletes ever to come out of the United States was Jim Thorpe. At the 1912 Olympics at Stockholm, he won the pentathlon and the decathlon, and was undoubtedly the hero of the games. But the next year officials found that Thorpe had played semiprofessional baseball and therefore had forfeited his amateur standing. This meant that he had to return his gold medals and his trophy, and that his Olympic achievements were erased from the records. It was a high price to pay for breaking the rules. (Thorpe’s medals were reinstated in 1985 by the Olympic Committee.)
Too many Christians have disqualified themselves for areas of service some have even forsaken their call because they failed to develop Spiritual discipline in their lives. The key indicator for your spiritual temperature is this quote from one of the greatest men of God:
Watchman Nee “Our spirit is released according to the degree of our brokenness. The one who has accepted the most discipline is the one who can best serve. The more one is broken, the more sensitive he is.”
When dear Christian was the last time you were broken over the Word of God and how it pricked your heart. When was the last time in your talk with God that you wept for someone? The disciplined heart is a tender heart because through discipline we have a heart for the things God cares for.
Conclusion: In using the message title Future Church we really have to ask ourselves church family what is our future? I think this story really defines Future Church. When the book Breakout churches was written a certain pastor was interviewed who had an average church. He said he used to have a dream, and somewhere he got distracted. He didn’t know if it was listening to the critics, or mixed up priorities but after 27 years of ministry he wondered if he and the churches he pastored really made a difference. He said, “I don’t want to go through this life without making a difference for God.
Dr Rainer then writes, “It’s not the size of a church or the budget it carries. What makes a church great is a congregation of God’s people making a difference for His glory.”
If we refuse to accept the Status quo and focus our devotion our priority in fulfilling God’s call and focus our direction by serving Him. If we refuse to be Stagnant in our Spiritual growth and have a determination to grow and develop spiritual discipline in our lives then we will have a Future.
I’m excited about being the church God wants us to be. I love you all and I’m very thankful God gave me a church family that accepts change as part of a growing body. Let’s determine to make a difference for His Glory. Let’s build a Future that our children can enjoy.
PRAY
