Philippians 3:13-14

Enduring the Call

Alright tonight, what a beautiful night here in the mountains that we have the opportunity and privilege to spend with our friends, family and church family

out here in these mountains I have so many memories, for many years every summer my Dad would take me and my brother out here and we would explore all of these mountain ranges, shooting, Hunting , fishing , hiking and camping, we did everything out here man so this place is nostalgic for me, the only place that compares to being out here for me is Havasu, thats a different kind of fun

( share the story of the fishing Lure and the freezing cold water at Lake Sabrina ) the fishing Lures cost 3-5 dollars back when I was a kid and now they are like 10

Talk about how many you Lost throughout the week

talk about how many fish I caught

talk about the water temperature

talk about How I got the Lure caught on a log

talk about how your dad swore that he wouldn’t buy you any more

talk about swimming out to the edge of the log and grabbing the lure only to realize there was a diner up over by the Dam with people eating and a massive window watching me…. I have pictures

I Hope you guys are enjoying your time out here and I pray that your hearts continue to be open to what God has for you

Tonight we are going through the second Study out of the two verses our camp theme is On and That Is the Call,

Now the call is broken down into 3 different themes, Last night Josh shared with you Guys what it meant to Answer the call

Answering the call is the very first Part of our Identity in christ , Without Answering the call you wouldn’t be a christian, you wouldn’t be considered a believer because you haven’t come to the place in life where you realize you need Jesus ( let me tell you, you need Jesus )

The Apostle Paul is a great biblical example of a Man that was called out of His former life to live a new life for christ ( He answered the call )

for those of you that have never heard of Paul, He was the man who wrote the letters to all the churches in the new testament, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon.

Paul was a man that was a Jew, also known as a Pharisee who persecuted christians physically and violently, He hated Christians.

but In the Book of Acts we see that on the road to Damascus the Lord Struck Him blind, grabbed His attention and called Him to a life that served God, ( Paul responded by answering the call that the Lord had for Him )

Now many of us here today, you guys sitting in front of me, the leaders that are here helping us , have all been Called at some point in our life to Join the body of christ. ( we all have made the decision to answer the call )

And thats the beauty of the way God works, Now there are a-lot of you here obviously, some of you may have never been to church or may have never heard of the Gospel, but thats why you are here, you are here to Hear the call and make a decision to answer the call ( when someone calls you on the phone you have the decision to pick it up and answer it or to decline it )

theres a reason that you guys are all here this weekend, make no mistake that regardless of all the drama of Im not going to camp , its not Hume, mammoth is going to be boring , what ever shallow excuses you had for those of you that had them, those should all be squashed right now because God has a plan and a purpose for you to be here right now at this very moment

this is a divine appointment regardless of how it worked out for you all to be here and to listen to the words Josh spoke, and the words that the Lord has give me to speak right now, (tomorrow will be someone else speaking Coach Ron !)

for the people that aren’t here because of shallow reasons , well we can say that that is the way the Lord wanted it to be, He wanted you guys here without those other people so that you could hear from Him right now

God is revealing His calling to you and he wants you to make a decision ( he wants you to answer the call,

for some of you here the Call may be a realigning of your heart to Him, for others the call may be to accept Jesus into your life for the first time, for a-lot of you homeschool Kids, the call may simply be figuring out His will for your life and to follow Him on a deeper level)

Regardless, there is a call on your life that needs to be answered

Paul Says in the very first verse of our theme “ Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do , forgetting those things which are behind”

Paul made the decision and he answered The call, he took the opportunity that the Lord gave Him to leave behind his old Life for The new Life

Now if we were to follow the life of Paul after he became Paul, we all know or some of Us know that Pauls name Before, was Saul of Tarsus, that was the old Man, the New Man had become Paul but Paul after he made the decision to follow the Lord, had a really rough Life

Now during his difficult Life as a christian believer He wrote this Letter (that we are pulling these verses from) to the church of Phillipi

this whole letter, known as Philippians is all about His ability to find Joy in difficult circumstances

His focus in this letter was to keep His mind on eternal promises from the Lord, instead of circumstance and trials that should of brought Him down

So in this chapter, chapter 3 you have Pauls Spiritual Biography , His past in the first 11 verses, His present from verse 12-16, and His future in verse 17-21

We are focusing on The Present Part of His spiritual biography , verse 13-14

the first Part Yesterdays study was all about answering the call and tonight we are going to look at what Life is Like once we have answered.

Now when we become a christian, or when you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior , That is not the end, its not like this oh i’ve made it and i’m good now.

We all have heard hopefully the phrase “ I have not arrived or you have not arrived” the whole idea when it comes to our relationship with the lord is that we have not arrived

No one has ever reached perfection in the eyes of the lord

So Getting saved and accepting Jesus into your life is not the end, it is the beginning of a new Life

Now just like any new beginning, its not always an easy beginning. As christian believers, once we accept Jesus , we chose to follow Him and we chose to Lose our life for His sake

Matthew 10:39 “39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.”

Life is found and rooted in Jesus in his death and resurrection on the cross

so if we chose Him, we deny ourself and we answer this call that He has for our life

Lets read the 2 verses for our theme and then we will dig deeper into this Portion of the Study

Turn your Bibles over to Philippians 3

Philippians 3:13–14 “13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 3:13-14 NLT 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

So tonight the theme of this Part of our study is Enduring the call, We prayerfully will answer the call but now we endure the call

Enduring the call is much different than answering

the word Endure if we were to look at it and define it: means to persevere through hardship and difficulty with patience and steadfastness, remaining faithful to God's will.

It implies bearing suffering without giving in to despair or temptation. The concept emphasizes the importance of holding on to faith, hope, and love, even when faced with trials, persecution, or pain. 

in other words, for those of us, like me, that have a hard time with formal definitions,

it means that you never give up, it means that you continue to push forward even when it seems you cant, you push forward even when things get difficult

Navy Seals

if you guys look at navy seals , or any special operations group in the military, you will see men that have learned to endure

these men are bread to be battle ready and to adapt to what ever situation may happen

those guys train their minds every single day to not be weak so that they may endure the hardship that lies ahead of them

i don’t know if any of you have seen the movie Lone survivor ? Im a big war movie guy

but its about a squad of Guys in the mountains of Afghanistan that are on a mission to kill a taliban leader, and as they are in the mountains hiding collecting intel, a little boy herding his sheep and goats is out wandering around and just so happens to see the squad of Navy seals

Now these guys end up grabbing this kid and tying him up, they were left with a decision to continue the mission or Kill the Kid

they chose the moral high ground and they let Him Live, they un tied Him and they let Him go

Of course this kid had ties to these talaban leaders so he takes off as fast as he can and he runs through the forest to tell His buddies, ( Im sure he was screaming jihadi stuff )

but this small group of Seals was left in a really bad location, they were up on this mountain side with really nowhere to go

if they went down, they would run into a talaban group of probably a few hundred to a thousand , and if they go up, well you can only go so fast

so they decide to try and go up the face of this mountain and out run the taliban

heres the sucky part, those taliban that were from that area knew those mountains like the back of their hand

they knew of every hiding place and where they could and could not go

so eventually the story leads to them catching up with the seals where they would have this extremely intense fire fight that lasted a whole day and a whole night

they would get to the point in the fight where 3 out of 4 navy seals were killed on the side of this mountain and the Lone survivor Markus Luttrell was the last man standing

He miraculously didn’t die,

He was shot 11 times throughout His whole body ,

He broke His back and managed to crawl 7 miles to a village that he randomly found where they took him in based on a belief of Hospitality where they were to welcome strangers that were hurt or Injured

There He stayed 6 days before he again continued to battle along side the Pushtan people fighting the taliban

he had to continue fighting while also being taken care of

this dude is the epitome of the word Endure

this dude crawled 7 miles while most of us couldn’t even bear crawl 100 yards without vomiting or quitting and he did it after getting shot 11 times and breaking his back during the fire fight

and he survived and He endured

Jiu Jitsu

some of you here actually quite a few of you are very involved in Jiu Jitsu,

Im a big Fan of the UFC and I love watching all the fights, we have fight night at my house all of the time

but for you that do any kind of Mixed martial arts, you guys are training your mind to endure Hardship,

you have a tool that is used to refine you and that is what ever form of Mixed martial arts you practice

when you think about it, and you are rolling around in a match against another person you don’t want to lose

you are rolling around and around and the fight might get to a point where its very intense and some guy might have you in an ankle lock cranking on your little toothpick of a foot and it starts to hurt really bad, what do you do ?

Do you tap out ? do you give up and lose the match ? No you push through the pain and you welcome it and embrace it

you learn in those moments to endure

Having a relationship with Jesus teaches us to to endure

If your a believer of God and a person who knows the Gospel and you are not actively struggling to Endure hardship, you should think about why that is

The life of a believer Is not perfection and is most certainly not lived without Endurance

The Apostle Paul Was a Man that wan’t perfect but he was a man that learned to endure through His relationship with the Lord

The Beauty of endurance is that its not perfect but it doesn’t quit

Endure doesn’t mean perfection, I’m not asking you guys for perfection, josh isn’t asking you for perfection, Ron is not asking you guys for perfection

christianity a relationship with Jesus isn’t asking for perfection,

no one here is telling you to follow rules perfectly,

no one is asking you to live a life that is legalism, full of rules and dos and don’ts,

id be hypocritical to sit up here and tell you what to do, to just throw a book of rules at you

Endurance has everything to do with glorifying God. So you have to ask yourself. IS what I am doing glorifying God ?

now last night Ron and I had a pretty deep conversation about all of this and its funny How God works because sometimes he uses people to speak to us

you see christianity gets a bad rap by people who are caught up in rules

people who are caught up in thinking that they are in right standing with God by doing all the right things

I just want you to know that that is a load of crap

We are going to fail,

we are going to have seasons that are easier than others

we are going to have seasons that are dry

we are going to have seasons where we are on it with our walk

we are going to have seasons that are fruitful

we are going to have seasons where we hear from God and Seasons where we feel like we cant hear from Him

theres all these seasons that we go through that as a Follower of Christ we have to learn to Endure ( we have to learn to press on )

Paul was a man sitting in a Prison cell writing these letters to people he discipled and had relationships with and He was full of Joy

He wasn’t focused on His happiness, he had nothing to be happy about, He was beaten, tortured, stoned all for the Gospels Sake , but he had this incredible ability to endure all of it because He Had Christ in His heart

and thats really the only thing we need to understand when it comes to Endurance here

We only truly have the ability to endure anything because christ Lives inside of us, if he is not Living inside of you, you are going to be a miserable person

Let me Put it to you this way, you are all teenagers, Im just going to be super real with you

you teenage boys, most of you find happiness and success by filling your flesh , what does that Look Like ? Sex, money, drugs , and alcohol, pornography, many of you have already experienced it .

Let me tell you this if you’ve already experienced those things why have you not become a joyful person ?

If you’ve already experienced what our culture would call today the best of life , why is it that you are never satisfied ? Why is it that you are left wanting more and more ?

You get with a girl, you get what you want cool, that was done pretty fast now what ?

Most people would move on to the next and on to the next , and are left with an emptiness that this world will not fill or fix

Girls :

you ladies want to get married, you want to start a family, most of you want a man that makes good money to make you feel secure

well guess what boys and girls most of you wont get what you want for a very long time, your life becomes a life of emptiness and hardship because you are left wanting the things you can not have right now

Sure you can force them but ask yourself, why are they not satisfying me….

always wanting what you cant have at an age that were not supposed to have it…

So that leaves us with such an emptiness inside , a void that we feel is almost impossible to fulfill until it is the right time, which is Gods time but what if I told you that there is a way to satisfy your soul with the things of the Lord instead of the things of this world

after reading through and putting down all of my thoughts over the last few days and weeks as Josh and I prepared this , I was reminded to keep this as real as possible

Matthew 6:33 “33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

God will provide us with resources ,

he will provide us with a wife , ( boys that you get to enjoy a physical relationship with )

he will provide us with a husband, ( Ladies , he will provide you with a Godly man that loves you unconditionally that you can find security in)

He will provide us with a home over our head and food to eat

God will take care of His sheep, but we have been called (as the theme we are going through says,) to seek first the kingdom of God

If you put Jesus first in your life,

if you give Him space ,

if you build your relationship with Him, you better believe you are going to have endurance to run the race that seems so impossible to run

Thats all God wants, its not about the rules, its not about the do’s and dont’s, its not about anything other than doing all of Life with Jesus

the void in our heart will never be filled by the the things this world has to offer, It can only be filled with Jesus

He Gives us Hope,

He gives us Joy,

He gives us promises that are eternal that we get to meditate on , which gives us strength to endure the season of life we are in until he allows us to move on to another Season

The christian Life/ walk isn’t easy, its real. Its not about how good of a person you think you are, its about a relationship with Him

When you are younger , when you are a baby, you can not walk without the guidance of a Parent, our walk is the same, you can not walk without a relationship with Him

SO my encouragement to you guys, if you want to learn to endure the things of the world, Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven

Enduring trials: Facing hardships, persecution, and suffering with faith and hope. 

do it with Jesus

Enduring temptation: Resisting the allure of sin and remaining faithful to God's commands. 

do it with Jesus

Enduring in faith: Maintaining one's belief in God and His promises, even when circumstances are difficult. 

do it with Jesus

Enduring in love: Continuing to love God and others, even when it is challenging. 

Do it with Jesus

Thats all I got for you guys, Lets Pray

Pray to endure Life itself