Reaching Forward to God's Goal
Philippians • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Rearview Mirror’s are not Directional Guidance
Rearview Mirror’s are not Directional Guidance
Good morning Brothers and Sisters, Family and friends......How is everyone today on Palm Sunday!!!?? It is indeed great again to be here in Larned with you all and to be worshiping with you on such a great day....
Palm Sunday...one week away from the event that changes all of the non believers and story tellers and takes us from being sinners with no way out to ...… “Jesus paid a debt he didn't owe because we owed a debt we couldn't pay”
The Death, the burial, and the resurrection. The entire process we didn't believe in, the process that we didn't understand, and the process that one day let us down because we believed we had a king in place that was going to set us earthly free but instead we got the King that set us Eternally free!!
Last week and today i have been just covered in the thought of what today is. Jesus riding into town on the back of the donkey. People upon people lining the streets yelling.…
9 Then the crowds who went ahead of him and those who followed shouted: Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!
We find that verse in Matthew 21:9 and yet Everyone is overjoyed at the coming...Everyone but Jesus. He rides in and he is weeping for He knows what this week ahead is. What this week will be. Ultimately what this week will end in and that is the passing of His cup back to the Father to fulfill the prophecy's of what has been told.
Last week i was in dodge city preaching the five things Jesus did not say and in one part of the sermon at the first i was talking about the “ As long as your happy” part and then at the end of one of the top five things reminded them, “ Think about the weight of the cross that Friday he walked it up the the final place it would stand and he would give it all for us.” Do you think he was “happy” to be there. Yet he did it anyways. “not my will Father But Yours!”
So important to remember what today is, what this week brings in the meaning of the life of Jesus, and how it changed us for ever! He did that for you and me so we can be with our Father the creator in His splendid heavens for all of eternity. As much as i love it here on earth and do want to live a great life here i am excited about what it will be like to dwell in the place He has prepared for me.
As we continue on in our series of Philippians i just wanted to highlight today being the day it is and give the light to that path that it should. Some day ill return and dive in even deeper on Palm Sunday....But today we have a focus on our series and see what God has intended for us with that.
But first before we study Gods inherent word i want to introduce my family......(wife...finally!, kids
Is there any guest today?? welcome!!!
This is the week where each of us needs to be out in the mission field doing what we are called to do. Inviting people to service so Gods voice can be heard and the gospel can reach those that it is intended to reach. All of that happens because you and I are displaying that in the world with the intention of growing the kingdom. So big task this coming week. Really it shouldn't be. Nothing was greater then what Jesus did for us this week so really if inviting people to come to church to hear from God should be a small and easy task. Do not make it difficult this week. Just get all uncomfortable and get to spreading the message like spreading the news!!
Every week have the thought that we are in the last days and every soul we come across isn't saved and is our task to make the effort to help guide them to Gods kingdom. Be a tool this week, be the spiritual river someone's needs to drink form.
So our focus has been Philippians and this week for me we are finishing up chapter 3. So far this past couple of months of deeper diving into this book we have been presented with the “Joy of Knowing Christ” The book can be overall summed up with the word “joy”
C.S. Lewis said it famously and i quote, “Joy is the serious business of heaven”! I can only imagine as he gave that saying and the look on his face being dead serious but to come alive in the end with a great smile and the warmth of what the joy is in heaven! Joy in knowing Christ
(read the excerpt in the knowing God Bible on Joy pg 1737 second half)
That verse about the vine....does anyone know that one by memory........?
5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me.
What a mountain of joy that comes form knowing when i remain in Him he remains in me and i will produce fruit according to his growing of me! makes me fill warm, feels good to know i am protected on the vine. That
i am cared for and nurtured by my father that grows me.
Chapter 3 Donnie covered the first half from verses 1-11 and we will pick up in 12 and go thru it till the end of the chapter 3.
Let us pray for the message together and seek The guidance and wisdom of the Holy Spirt today
If you are able to stand with me to read Gods word please do. If not that is absolutely ok. I am reding out of the CSB edition and i know you have yours in front of you.
12 Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, 14 I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus. 15 Therefore, let all of us who are mature think this way. And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you. 16 In any case, we should live up to whatever truth we have attained. 17 Join in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and pay careful attention to those who live according to the example you have in us. 18 For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their end is destruction; their god is their stomach; their glory is in their shame; and they are focused on earthly things, 20 Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject everything to himself.
You may be seated.
Wow! Not even half way thru the first verse and here is Paul telling us he hasn't reached the goal. IF you come in just looking at this set of verses we have to ask what is the goal, but thru expanding out the search we see Paul laid it out in verses 1-11 with a big answer in verse 10. verses 10, 11, and 12 make the half way thru this chapter but also is the top of the mountain in what Paul is telling/teaching us.
Thru those verses you see the shift he is making to prepare us for what comes next in 13-21.
13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead,
have we heard some of this before in previous text....?
62 But Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
or
31 On that day, a man on the housetop, whose belongings are in the house, must not come down to get them. Likewise the man who is in the field must not turn back.
Many, Many times we have been told not to look back and where we have been, but to keep agaze to the future or the bow of the ship and it speeds ahead.
But why is it as humans and a society all we do is focus on what is behind us. Where we have been instead of where we can go. To the fact that the world around us wants to hinge our lives on the mistakes that we may have made in the past and then tell us that is who we are and who defines us!
My favorite word in this text in verse 13 is forgetting...not like the husband forgetting to get milk at the store....or their child playing video games and mom comes home and the chores are not done....you know those famous words...” i forgot mom” yea never heard that before!
But forgetting the faults that you may have had before. When I'm reaching forward to Gods goal He is reminding me that my sins are yesterday and that i am new today because of my salvation in what has been paid for me. The debt that i couldn't pay. The big bucket of sin that i carried around.
We forget so fast that you are not your past let downs, you are not your past bad decisions, you are not your past addiction to drugs, you are not your failed married or divorce, you are not your abortion or adoption, you are not .............go ahead and fill in the blank with what you may be carrying today as i say this. YOU ARE NOT ANY OF THAT!
vs 14
Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3
14 I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
When i let that rearview mirror be my gps to where i am headed i will drive backwards into the same mess that Jesus just pulled me out of. How can i move forward to Gods goal if I'm driving backwards....HOW?
we are in the drivers seat to Gods goal and gazing out that front windshield. Now is there cracks in it....prob....has a couple rocks and other objects smashed it and left a mark. Sure! Does that windshield still have integrity to it and will last another 100 thousand miles. You bet it does.
vs 17
Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3
Join in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and pay careful attention to those who live according to the example you have in us.
Paul is telling you there is those that live according to the example you have in us, pointing to the life he has lived so far....worthy to note just look at what “Saul” was doing before the road to Damascus and then when “Paul” came out of that city the fire he had for Gods goal....it sure wasn't what was behind but what was forward.
Now will the secular world question you and me on this reaching forward.....yea they will. They did to Paul because they couldn't believe that you could be a punisher of the word and turn over to be a preacher of the word.
vs 18 once again points out the “enemies” of the cross. We remember earlier when Paul warned us about the others preaching of christ for the wrong intent. The tears that flow from Paul as he says it tells you about the heaviness that comes with constantly thinking about having to tell us again and again about that message. It pains him to remind us of what we forget so fast. But it SHOULDNT surprise us, we make the rearview mirror bigger then the windshield!!
The ones that live as “enemies of the cross of Christ” end in destruction, there god is there stomach...(ouch...my lack of obedience to my body, mind, and soul), their glory is in there shame..one commentator put it,
“
Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians & Colossians D. Knowing Christ Exposes Reckless Living (vv. 17–21)
For the Greek such shame would be meaningless rituals for all their gods, rituals often involving sexual practices and prostitution. For the Jew such shame would be in their attention to the “shameful” body parts, namely their preoccupation with circumcision as a requirement for perfection with God. All such pride is misplaced, for it centers on human achievement. For Paul all glory is in Christ and what he has done”
They stay focused on earthy things. That in its self is a whole boat load of trouble that you and i both know will consume you.
Heres the part i love the most! Paul tells us very plain....
20 Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject everything to himself.
Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians & Colossians D. Knowing Christ Exposes Reckless Living (vv. 17–21)
the Christian’s citizenship is in heaven. Earthly goals and self-centered desires fade in importance. Mature, godly believers live in anticipation not in participation. Believers know the Lord Jesus Christ is coming back from heaven. He will fully establish the kingdom of heaven, where we have citizenship. While we wait, we participate in kingdom activities, not worldly activities.
What more do you want!!? What more do we need!!!!? Mother Teresa said it best.....”This life, in light of eternity, will be nothing more than a bad night in a cheap hotel” If we dwell on that and find it to be in our life, then when we look at how we apply all of this to our life we must put our faith in Christ now. We view suffering as the opportunity to know Christ better.
Lastly be in deep soaking prayer that you close your eyes and visualize heaven. See Jesus, see your loved ones, see heavens peace with beauty. Now ask God to change your priorities by this vison of your future that you see in the windshield and stop watching the rearview mirror.
lets us pray in closing.
