TOWARD EMOTIONAL-SPIRITUAL HEALTH: RESOLVE

TOWARD EMOTIONAL-SPIRITUAL HEALTH: RESOLVE Philippians 3:10-14 December  5, 1999 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introductory We have been studying through Paul's teaching in Philippians, looking at things that lead us to mental and emotional health. Thus far we have seen that GOD- CENTEREDNESS is important and foundational to being healthy emotionally and mentally. Then, Paul teaches us in the mid-section of chapter 3 that genuine, biblical SELF-ESTEEM is important to our health as human beings. Last week we looked at 3:12-14 and saw how central to mental and emotional health it is to have VISION. Many of you responded with enthusiasm to the encouragement to create own your personal mission statement. In fact, there was not only great interest in this exhortation--there were also a lot of questions as to how a person goes about finding and committing to paper one's personal mission statement. For those who are serious, I would like to offer a two hour workshop on creating your personal mission statement. It will be offered Saturday, January 8. We'll sit down together and go over a few important principles, then kick-start you in the direction of writing your own personal mission statement. Watch for that opportunity. Today, our teaching will focus on the text at Philippians 3:15-16. In this teaching I would like to focus on another important principle of mental and emotional health: RESOLVE. Resolve is such a great word. The dictionary defines the noun form of this word as: "A fixed intention; a firm determination; a settled purpose; a resolution (just in time for new years)." It is not enough to say that I have a purpose, a vision for my life. There must be added to that vision a RESOLVE to direct my energies toward attaining that vision. I must be willing to do what it takes to attain the vision or it is not really a controlling vision in my life. Let me translate this idea into spiritual terms. Paul said that his conversion brought about in his life a new assessment of his purpose for living. Jesus put into him a new vision, just as he does for each of us when we commit our lives to him. It is NOT the will of God that we make a one-time confession of faith, go through baptism and then continue on with life as usual. Paul said he is now radically committed to this new vision/goal in his life, and he describes it in these now-familiar terms: "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings. I want to become like him in his death, and I want to attain to the resurrection from the dead." He says he is absolutely committed to the goal "to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." To get there, he was willing to "forget what is behind" and "strain toward what is ahead." In a word, Paul had "resolve". He was determined to reach his goal in Christ. But now, in verses 15 and 16, he turns the spotlight on his Christian readers, and he says, "and you should feel the same way!" Here is how he words it: All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained. In a nutshell, once we have been apprehended by Christ, we are not to say that our human will has been put out of action--that now Christ is in control and he will do it all for us. Paul begins to speak here in imperatives. That is, if you are in Christ, and committed to maturity (or perfection), you MUST... And this is where the idea of resolve comes in. If you want to be a healthy Christian, you must, like Paul set this "one thing" before you and make it the consuming passion of your life. You must be resolved. The mature person is resolved to maintain a godly attitude First, let's clear up a little apparent contradiction. In verse 12, Paul writes, "Not that I have already attained all this, or have already been made perfect," and in verse 13 - "I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it." The word he uses for "perfect" or "mature" is the Greek word TELEIOS. So he says he has not reached this state of TELEIOS. Now he turns right around and says, "All of us who are mature (TELEIOS) should take such a view of things..." Now, is Paul in a state of TELEIOS-maturity or is he not? When our children were born, I can remember comments to the effect of "Oh, she's perfect!" Or "What a perfectly healthy child" or "she is perfectly adorable!" When a baby is born, it IS perfect in all parts, although not perfectly mature in all its future stages of development. That is, a baby, when he is first born, is perfectly human, and has everything he needs to grow up into mature adulthood. But you would hardly say he is a mature adult--that will take some time, and some work. This is the difference between Paul being able to say he is not yet perfect, but he has a maturity about him. He is already perfected in Christ, but he is equipped to move into full maturity. 1. Positive, forward-looking attitude Paul has taught: Learn from the past and then forget it; obey in the present and press on; Lean into the future with godly confidence. Jose Ortega y Gasset made this statement: "Life is a series of collisions with the future; it is not a sum of what we have been, but what we yearn to be." Wayne Gretsky's name is well-known now, but back in the 80's, while he was first playing with the Edmonton Oilers, the brash and brilliant young star was interviewed on Canadian  television by a sportscaster, who asked him, "What is the secret to your success on the ice?" he replied, "I never play to where the puck is; I play to where the puck is going to be...I try to get to where the puck is going to be on the ice long before anyone else arrives." This is what Paul meant when he said he "strains toward what is ahead." Friends in Christ, if you want to be sharp, healthy and resolved to maturity, you must lean into your future in God. Don't let your primary focus be on what is going on right now, and certainly not on what has passed. Trust in God's best for the future, then you will have the resolve to work through temporary setbacks and contrary issues. 2. Attitude of humility - Paul said "I have not attained perfection..." But what about "All of us who are mature..."? Humility puts a question mark next to our own ability, but an exclamation point next to God's ability. 3. Attitude is very important. To be mature is to have the right attitude--one of optimism in God and humility in yourself--and having the right attitude leads to maturity. Your attitude determines your altitude. In his book Awake, My Heart, J. Sidlow Baxter wrote, "What is the difference between an obstacle and an opportunity? Our attitude toward it. Every opportunity has a difficulty and every difficulty has an opportunity!" With the right attitude, you will look at your life and circumstances differently, and you will begin to see, with God's help, not so much what isn't being done, but what can be done. Early in life, Napoleon's school mates made fun of him because of his humble origin and poverty. But he devoted himself entirely to his books and his study. He quickly rose above his classmates in scholarship and soon commanded their respect, and then he went on to notorious leadership. John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress in t he Bedford jail. Sir Walter Raleigh wrote The History of the World during a thirteen year imprisonment. Luther translated the Bible while confined in the castle of Wartburg. Beethoven was almost completely deaf and deeply burdened with sorrow when he produced his greatest works. How? Attitude. There is a story about a Scotsman who was an extremely hard worker and expected all the men under him to be the same. His men would tease him, "Scotty, you know Rome wasn't built in a day!" "Yes, I know that," he would answer, "But then, I wasn't foreman on that job!" The mature person is resolved to remain open to God 1. Openness = listening to God Hebrews 11:6 says that you can never please God without faith in Him; and if you want to become close to Him, you must first believe that He IS, and then you must also believe that He does reward those who diligently seek Him. Trust God to speak, then avail yourself of every opportunity you can to listen to Him. Develop a life habit of going into your "Listening Room" every day, expectant to hear from the Lord. But when you hear from God, you must learn to let it make a difference in the way you live. If you tell a person there are over 300 billion stars he will believe you, but tell him that a bench has just been painted, and he has to touch it to be sure. Learn to take God at His word. 2. Openness = readiness for change God always leads one step at a time. Aren't you glad for that? What if God's policy were to wake you every morning, have you stand at attention, then list everything in your life that didn't measure up to His standards? But His approach is to bring one or two things to your attention at a time, and say to you, "See this, Rich? Now this is what we're going to be working on for now. Don't worry about anything else for the time being, because we're going to get this right in your life, and then move on to the next thing." That's what Paul means when he says, "If on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you." 3. Openness = commitment to growth [I want to highly recommend this book to you middle age men - Half Time, by Bob Buford.] In this wonderful little book, Buford writes, "Everything seems to conspire to keep us where we are. That is why so many people flounder in a perpetual halftime. Life seems more comfortable in known, familiar territory, even when we are fairly certain something better awaits us out there. Take the Israelites, for instance. They were forever talking about the Promised Land, but they couldn't bring themselves to leave the familiar...." Sometimes the familiar, even though it may be a desert, becomes "home" and we just don't want to leave. Paul says we must learn to love growth more than inertia. We must be absolutely sold out to the principle of moving on toward more maturity. We must make a friend of change. Now, remember, our growth is God's work--it is His power at work within us that alone can effect genuine change for the better [that truth will keep you humble while you grow]. But you must cooperate with God by committing your effort. We set the sail--God makes the wind [that truth will keep you working while you're humble]. The mature person is resolved to be obedient in the present 1. Dreams of obedience won't do One thing I believe many of us need to learn is this: promises are not enough for God. Paul says, "let us live up to what we already know." What he means there in verse 16 is that we must obey God in the current command. Whatever God is telling you NOW is what is most important to Him in your life. Your obedience to God is not a matter of a New Year's resolution to become the greatest evangelist the St. Louis area has ever known. It is a matter of you taking care of that secret sin the Holy Spirit has been bringing you conviction about, then moving on to more for God. 2. Waiting for the next spiritual wave Many Christians are duped into believing that all they need to get their gumption up to obey God and do great things for Him is the next great conference, or the next "touch" from the Lord, or the next great testimony they hear from someone else that will "get them going". But obedience before the living God is not a matter of getting inspired by some event outside your self. Listen, the last conference you attended didn't make you obedient; why would the next one? The last time you received prayer by that prophet you didn't suddenly become super-Christian; what makes you think that will work the next round of personal ministry on you. Listen, "carpet time" is not your answer to becoming obedient. It is your personal decision before almighty God to stop playing around with His Word in your life, and to get busy getting it obeyed. That's the stuff of spiritual maturity. Maturity isn't like instant oatmeal. It comes to those who by constant effort are being made perfect. Don't wait for the next spiritual high to get you moving. Obey God now, and create your own spiritual high. Don't wait on someone else's testimony, create you own testimony by obeying God in the little things and watching His power make something big of it. Hebrews 5 gets down and dirty, doing business with our lethargy: "..though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. you need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Let me give you a one word definition of "solid food" - OBEDIENCE! 3. Definition of maturity - living up to what we already know There is no deep, mysterious secret to the fulfilled Christian life. It's just to OBEY what we know the Lord has given us. Moment by moment. When I am asked who is the "mature" person, I always respond that it is the person who is walking in no unconfessed sin, and is instantly obedient to the Holy Spirit. Do you notice, that definition has nothing to do with how "old" you are in the Lord? Or how many years you've been in Sunday School?! Maturity is obedience. Only let us live up to what we have already attained. Now, couple this principle with the principle we mentioned earlier-- that, if we are growing, God promises to bring to our attention anything wrong in us that needs our attention-- and you have a great plan for life in the Holy Spirit. To grow to the kind of maturity Paul is talking about, listen to God's Spirit (through the Word and anything or anyone else He will use), and do what he says! I think that we believers need to develop an attitude of discovery. This will make your life a true adventure. Determine now to get out of old, unconfessed sinful patterns that the Lord has been convicting you about. Then, resolve to maintain an attitude of openness to Him, listening to what He is making clear to you that needs your attention, and plan to be instantly obedient to whatever He tells you to do. By the way, this is "walking in the Holy Spirit" and this is Christian maturity. What an adventure!                   [Back to Top]