The Biggest Loser

Intro:

The Biggest loser is one of the hottest new reality shows. This is what TV.com had to say about the show, “this compelling new weight-loss reality drama in which two celebrity fitness trainers join with top health experts to help overweight contestants transform their bodies, health and ultimately, their lives.”

What was not said is that those contestants must be willing to loose more than just weight. They may have to radically alter their lives. Their eating habits, exercise, sleeping, free time, and on and on. But the contestants make the commitment to loose the weight regardless of what else they loose.

This morning I want to challenge you as individuals to become the Biggest Loser.

Let’s begin the year with a contest to see who will be the biggest loser.

Why would I want to encourage us as a church to have a contest to see who can become the biggest loser?

Because to live is Christ to die is gain.

Jesus said the greatest shall be come the least.

If you want to become great in the kingdom you will be a servant.

In the passage today as in the biggest loser the path to gain is loss.

I. Loosing all is the plan

A) We must ask why is this God’s way?

Isaiah 55.9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

1) God does not use popular opinion. God uses powerful omnipotence.

I can’t believe God would do that

Good thing your beliefs aren’t what make God, God.

2) God’s provision for our life is not based on our approval

B) We must ask what did Paul loose?

1) Lost His Pride (3.5-6)

Religious Pride

Family Pride (May have lost his family)

National Pride

Personal Pride (Paul counted it all as dung, rubbish)

2) Lost His Passion

His passion had been for the Law and not the Lord.

What passions do you have that keep you from Jesus?

C) We must ask ourselves what do we need to loose?

Illustration: DVD (Rat Race)

D. A Carson

I would like to buy about three dollars worth of gospel, please. Not too much – just enough to make me happy, but not so much that I get addicted. I don’t want so much gospel that I learn to really hate covetousness and lust. I certainly don’t want so much that I start to love my enemies, cherish self-denial, and contemplate missionary

service in some alien culture. I want ecstasy, not repentance; I want transcendence, not transformation. I would like to be cherished by some nice, forgiving, broad-minded people, but I myself don’t want to love those from different races – especially if they smell. I would like enough gospel to make my family secure and my children well behaved, but not so much that I find my ambitions redirected or my giving too greatly enlarged. I would like about three dollars worth of gospel, please.

A) Over weight Americans

1) Physical is seen easily

2) Spiritual is where the problem is

Being spiritually overweight is what will drag you down to the depths of hell.

Sin weighs us down and keeps us from knowing Christ.

B) Weight loss program

Unused potential.

Until we become the biggest loser. Christ will not be able to take our potential and use it for His Glory and His kingdom.

II. Gaining Christ (all) is the result

3.8 “ and count them but rubbish that I may gain Christ”

Col 1.16-20

Paul took his statement about gain to the extreme.

Philippians 1.21 “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

Christ had become Paul’s All in All

Listen to this powerful song

In Christ alone my hope is found,

He is my light, my strength, my song;

This Cornerstone, this solid Ground,

Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.

What heights of love, what depths of peace,

When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!

My Comforter, my All in All,

Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone! – who took on flesh,

Fullness of God in helpless babe!

This gift of love and righteousness,

Scorned by the ones He came to save:

‘Til on that cross as Jesus died,

The wrath of God was satisfied –

For every sin on Him was laid;

Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,

Light of the world by darkness slain:

Then bursting forth in glorious Day

Up from the grave He rose again!

And as He stands in victory

Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me,

For I am His and He is mine –

Bought with the precious blood of Christ.