Goal!!!!!!!!!!!!

I actually try to keep a clean email inbox and sometimes I do well at it and most of the time I do not. Something caught my eye recently, This email from a favorite author, Jon Acuff, but what got me so alert is he said he has a product that could help achieve goals. I’m not sure if it can or it can’t. Acuff is a good writer but this isn’t a product endorsement. I loved the thought of achieving goals, guaranteed achieving of goals. So much would change if all goals could get done. Let’s pretend. Let’s say this product were to work, wouldn’t that be great? What would happen in your life? I want to access a question, if someone told you that

you could achieve your top 3 goals what would they be?

I really want you to think about it for a minute.

You have a 3 * 5 card. I want you to write them down or put them in your phone. 3 goals, any three goals, but they are your 3 goals. They are going to be achieved, guaranteed. What would your goals be. Improving health, losing weight, achieving some diploma or something?

Keep thinking about them. I’m going to keep on talking but I want you to finish this task, write them down. Keep working on those 3 goals, not like the goals were your like I know I could make my bed. I mean your real big 3, you don’t even know how you are going to do it but those 3. Ok, keep going, and I am going to keep talking.

There was a podcast I listened to a few years back and in this podcast someone gave an example of what they called a bar conversation question. They could be sitting at a bar and strike up a conversation by asking two questions. It’s fun but really insightful. Reminds me of the question about the 3 goals, hope you still will finish writing those.

The first question in the bar question is

Which superpower would you rather have invisibility or flying?

Think superheroes like the comics, superman or the invisible woman from fantastic four because people of course start asking about the rules for each of the abilities. So take whatever their rules are, Flying or invisibility. You can use them as you wish and flying is fast like superman.

The podcaster went on and said he had asked many, many people this question, but what was interesting was not the answer to this question. It really didn’t matter to him which superpower they chose. What he cared about was the answer to the next question.

Here it is:

What would you do with the superpower after you get it?

Again lots of people answered the question and the shocking thing to him was not the super power but that almost everyone who answered what they would do with their power had immediate plans with what they would do it. Reduce their travel time for work or leisure, get inside information they could use if they were invisible. Almost no one, no one, said they would help someone with it. Almost all came up with something to help themselves. Sometimes even steal. Almost every answer would be selfish.

Superman flies around and saves people from burning buildings but most people are like, I would have a 2 minute commute!

Take a step back and look at your three goals.

What do your goals say about you? What do they say about what you really believe?

As a church we gather every week and say a portion of scripture together. With a powerful vision of who we should be and in the middle we make the statement that we should be,

Philippians 2:2 (HCSB)

focusing on one goal.

I wonder if we take our three goals, combine them all together what kind of focus we would generate. Think anyone else has the exact same goal as you? My daughters might have written get a college degree. That is a great goal. Did you write get Deborah a college degree. Did you name someone else’s goals? Probably not.

Yet in this verse we are challenged to focus on one goal, actually to be fair that is just one of the ways we can get to translate this phrase from the Greek into English. This part of the Bible when it was first written says,

Nestle Aland 26th Edition Greek New Testament Morphological Edition Chapter 2

τὸ ἓν φρονοῦντες

To in Frron-ewn-tes

But you probably remember this from earlier when I spoke about 4 weeks ago when we looked at

Nestle Aland 26th Edition Greek New Testament Morphological Edition Chapter 2

τὸ αὐτὸ φρονῆτε

To auto Frronete

which is from earlier in Phil 2:2 but of course you recognize what the difference is, while the Frronete is from the same root word and they are both present active that the previous word Frronete is subjunctive second person plural and our word today is Frron-ewn-tes is present active participle plural nominative masculine. I am sure that completely clears up a lot for you, mostly on why I got a D in my first semester of Greek.

Does anyone understand what I just said?

It matters but it really doesn’t matter. Greek is hard what is important is

Philippians 2:2 (HCSB)

2 fulfill my joy by thinking the same way, having the same love, sharing the same feelings, focusing on one goal.

these two underlined spots are from the same root word but different parts of speech in the greek language.

Why does it matter? Because it shows us that the way we think about these two phrases should be related to one another. When we say thinking the same way, it isn’t like we are saying a rah rah comment like “we all love democracy.” It’s like all football players of a team should be thinking about winning the game by having a goal of more points at the end of the game. The thinking should be about the goal. The goal for a team is to win.

But when it comes to followers of Jesus, Jesus already won. He paid the price for our sins on the cross, he rose again, and He is coming back again for all of us.

So then what are we doing now?

What is the goal?

Would you believe this part of scripture, the letter of Philippians is not exactly clear. It’s not like simple directions we give to our dog, like sit, or on the freeway, Speed Limit 55. You won’t read, “the goal is ...”

Think about the verses we read

Philippians 2:1–4 HCSB

1 If then there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, 2 fulfill my joy by thinking the same way, having the same love, sharing the same feelings, focusing on one goal. 3 Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 4 Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

There is no goal there, only the importance of being united on the goal. Unity. Everything in the first four verses is a call and the way to remain united. In the 5th verse we start to get what the goal is

Philippians 2:5–8 (HCSB)

5 Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus,

6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage.

7 Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a man in His external form,

8 He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross.

Jesus went just in line with the first four verses. He sought unity. He didn’t push his deity, his God-ness. He humbled himself.

We are to be like Christ. His attitude is Humble.

By the way

What is the opposite of humble?

Think about it for a second. The opposite is a very popular word in June.

We are different. We are to take on the attitude of Christ Jesus that our own happiness is not the greatest importance. Our own pleasure is not the focus of our life.

On this father’s day, when sadly many children are frustrated by their lack of a father and other men are frustrated by the fact that they chose their own happiness, as they were told by advertisers, musicians, artists, and teachers to do. To take pride in who they are, to do life their own way only to discover that it comes with a cost. The cost might even be their own children.

But instead of Pride when we take humility we put our children before ourselves. When we would rather do many other things we take the responsibility of caring for our children as vital. The reward is serving our purpose as fathers, that is it.

We see this example in Jesus

Philippians 2:8 CSB

8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross.

Jesus obedience cost him everything. His goal was obedience to God. His goal for his own self-care, the time he took for himself, was to increase his obedience to God.

The cross was the fulfillment of that singular goal.

I am personally challenged everyday that the goal for Jesus is a focus on God. I don’t have time to get into what the trinity means, but we worship a divine mystery, a God that is impossible to explain but easy to accept. God is three in one, God the father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. And even in these names they don’t come close to explaining the mystery of what the Trinity means because God never created the Son, there was not a time when the Father, Son, and Spirit did not exist. Some explanations are water, being steam, liquid, and solid; another the understanding of a person can be a daughter, mother, and grandmother, but all of these fall short of who God is. So for now, please allow us to accept the majesty of the Trinity as it is. God the father, Jesus the Son who is the Christ, and the Holy Spirt

While God the Son walked the earth as Jesus, he gave us the example of how we are to relate to God. What are goal is to be, obedience.

Jesus lived out that obedience and is rewarded.

Philippians 2:8–10 CSB

8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross. 9 For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth—

Jesus’ lived out example shows faith in a future promise lived out in radical obedience in the present.

Intense humble obedience.

We celebrate and love Jesus for this, it’s why if people know a few verses one verse they might know is

John 3:16 CSB

16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

That is the responsible, loving, amazing, incredible obedience of Jesus as His goal was about saving us from condemnation in agreement with God the Father’s story of love

John 3:17 CSB

17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

You are saved because Jesus had one goal: Incredible obedience to God.

If that is Jesus’ goal What is our role, what is our goal?

What is the goal that we should be thinking in the same way about?

We find it later in the letter in verses 12-13.

You can know it’s a big deal because it begins with the words “Therefore” which is a word that means everything that I said earlier, this is why it matters. If this was a long math problem therefore would be the equal sign. Two + Two is therefore 4. So what comes next is important.

Christian Standard Bible (Chapter 2)

12 Therefore, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 13 For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to his good purpose.

We are saved for a purpose, a goal, to obey God. Just like Jesus we are to put God first in our lives. Incredibly committed to God first. But there is work to this. You see because following God is not a list of rules but there are rules. The rules are just the baseline. The amazingness comes in the relationship based on obedience of Jesus to his loving Father. His obedience took him from miracle to miracle all the way to resurrection.

It is not very likely that any of you will have to die by the hand of your government but working out your salvation means living a life of radically following Jesus as you are, in your place, with your family, your relationships, your profession, your retirement, your time.

I do not know what that looks like for you. Hear me. I can’t tell you how many hours you should work or who you should call. Working out our salvation means living in the Holy Spirit with such attributes as being loving, peaceful, kind, generous, joyful, pateint, faithful and self-controlled, understanding that God can specifically interupt our lives with moments of going out of our way for someone. Saying right things when we might prefer to do our own thing.

Most importantly working out our salvation means that we embrace the relationship we have with God as is seen in verse 13

13 For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to his good purpose.

Do you see that when I say you are working out your salvation, it is in partnership, or actually submission to God.

It is often repeated when I said with really bad grammar a message we can’t forget. That in life,

God got this

When problems come our way

God got this.

So hear a new one.

Working out our own salvation means when I am driving, working, with family, alone, trying to figure out my day

God work me.

Regardless of how I feel, God work me.

So I can step out of my own selfish goals, God work me.

So I can be the father, mother, brother, sister, person, I am supposed to be, God work me.

So I can rest as God rests, God work me.

So I can have the right goals, God work me.

So I can have the attitude of Christ Jesus, God work me.

So I can be me. God work me.

Look at the goals, you wrote at the beginning of this message.

I bet some of those are good goals. Many who saw them might give you a pat on the back for those goals.

Yet the scripture says we together are to have one goal. I shared that it is highly unlikely that any of us share goals.

For example, If I wrote down, lose weight as a goal, and you wrote down, Bill to lose weight, first off your mean. That is messed up to think about my weight that much unless your my wife, and even if she wrote Bill to lose weight, it’s still hurtful. Anyways, if you did write your goals as Bill lose weight we would share the same goal.

But if we both wrote lose weight for ourselves. You want to lose weight and I want to lose weight that is not the same goal. We are separate. So I bet that many of our goals would be similar thinking but self centered in mind set.

The scripture says:

Philippians 2:2 (HCSB)

2 fulfill my joy by thinking the same way, having the same love, sharing the same feelings, focusing on one goal.

How many goals? One goal. A shared goal. The same goal for you, and you and me. Look around the room, all in the same goal.

The one goal isn’t for you to have an amazing prayer life. Again it would be weird for me to write in my 3 goals to achieve, Phil have an amazing prayer life. It’s nice but not our one goal

Our one goal, the shared goal for all of us.

The goal is Obedience to Christ Jesus

A life where our salvation is worked out in our unique lives. Where all of our personal goals are shaped by our commitment to live a life together obedient to Christ.

What does that look like for you and for me as individuals. We each can say.

God work me.

Any other goals fall under my specific individual setting, and individual goals, lesser goals that go towards obedience to God are great goals. Maybe your 3 goals look like that. But above all those little goals for your self must be

God work me.

My health goal is so I can say, God work me.

My job goal is so I can say, God work me.

Today let us all be able to say, God work me.

Will you commit to a radical obedience to God.

Will you commit in prayer

God work me?