Joy Explained: Press On
Notes
Transcript
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
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,
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.
Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.
On May 20, 2000, John Piper spoke at the fourth passion conference outside to 40,000 college students in a make shift tent city with portable toilets and concession trucks on a foggy, windy day in Memphis Tennessee. He began his message with what has become known as the seashell story.
“You don’t have to know a lot of things for your life to make a lasting difference in the world. But you do have to know the few great things that matter, and then be willing to live for them and die for them. The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by a few great things.
If you want your life to count, if you want the ripple effect of the pebbles you drop to become waves that reach the ends of the earth and roll on for centuries and into eternity, you don’t have to have a high IQ or a high EQ. You don’t have to have good looks or riches. You don’t have to come from a fine family or a fine school. You just have to know a few great, majestic, unchanging, obvious, simple, glorious things, and be set on fire by them.
Piper: “Not everybody wants their life to make a lasting difference — you just want to be liked. That’s a tragedy.” But I know that not everybody in this crowd wants their life to make a difference. There are hundreds of you — you don’t care whether you make a lasting difference for something great, you just want people to like you. If people would just like you, you’d be satisfied. Or if you could just have a good job with a good wife and a couple good kids and a nice car and long weekends and a few good friends, a fun retirement, and quick and easy death and no hell — if you could have that, you’d be satisfied even without God.
That is a tragedy in the making.
Three weeks ago, we got word at our church that Ruby Eliason and Laura Edwards had both been killed in Cameroon. Ruby was over eighty. Single all her life, she poured it out for one great thing: to make Jesus Christ known among the unreached, the poor, and the sick. Laura was a widow, a medical doctor, pushing eighty years old, and serving at Ruby’s side in Cameroon.
The brakes give way, over the cliff they go, and they’re gone — killed instantly.
And I asked my people: was that a tragedy? Two lives, driven by one great vision, spent in unheralded service to the perishing poor for the glory of Jesus Christ — two decades after almost all their American counterparts have retired to throw their lives away on trifles in Florida or New Mexico. No. That is not a tragedy. That is a glory.
“To make a difference in the world, you just have to know a few great, unchanging, simple, glorious things, and be set on fire by them.”
I tell you what a tragedy is. I’ll read to you from Reader’s Digest what a tragedy is. “Bob and Penny . . . took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their thirty foot trawler, playing softball and collecting shells.”
That’s a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. And I get forty minutes to plead with you: don’t buy it. With all my heart I plead with you: don’t buy that dream. The American Dream: a nice house, a nice car, a nice job, a nice family, a nice retirement, collecting shells as the last chapter before you stand before the Creator of the universe to give an account of what you did: “Here it is Lord — my shell collection! And I’ve got a nice swing, and look at my boat!”
“Don’t waste your life; don’t waste it.”
Today, I want to invite you to make your life count.
Main Idea: God desires for us to strive for maturity in our faith.
Main Idea: God desires for us to strive for maturity in our faith.
Key Question: Are you seeking a deeper faith?
Key Question: Are you seeking a deeper faith?
1. Press on with humility. (v. 12-13)
1. Press on with humility. (v. 12-13)
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
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,
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time,
Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.
2. Press on with focus. (v. 13)
2. Press on with focus. (v. 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,
But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,
3. Press on with vision. (v. 14)
3. Press on with vision. (v. 14)
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,
while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
4. Press on with determination. (v. 15-16)
4. Press on with determination. (v. 15-16)
Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.
Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.
but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.