Don't Quit
Don’t Quit
Philippians 3:10-16
Introduction:
1) The record for the shortest major league baseball career probably belongs to a member of the old Brooklyn Dodgers, a pitcher named Harry Hartman. He was a gifted young ballplayer whose day of glory arrived in 1918 when he was called up from the minors to pitch against the Pittsburgh Pirates. This was the moment he’d dreamed about, the beginning of a great career, but his dreams began to fade when his first pitch was hit for a single. The next batter tripled. Rattled, he walked the next batter on four straight pitches, and when he did throw a strike to the next hitter, it went for a single. At that point, Hartman had had enough. He headed for the showers, dressed, and walked out of the stadium to a naval recruiting office, where he enlisted. The next day, he was in a military uniform, never to be heard from in professional baseball again. (Gary Inrig, A Call to Excellence, p. 62)
2) Have you ever felt like quitting? It is easy to get discouraged and want to give up. You may feel like quitting work or school. You may feel like quitting on your family. You may have felt like quitting on life.
3) There is an old saying that says, “Quitters never win.” One of the few things I have learned in life is this: if you stay in the game you just might come back. Philippians 3:10-16 gives you a strategy for staying in the game.
I. Focus on the right goal.
a. Your ability to keep on going is directly tied to what you are going for in the first place. What are you living for? If you are living for wealth, a down turn in the economy will really deal you a blow. If you are living for pleasure, then sickness and pain will completely knock you off your feet. If you are living for success, then a job loss will take the wind out of your sails. What is your goal in life? What are you living for?
b. Paul articulates his goal in verses 10 and 11: “My goal is to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.” (Philippians 3:10-11 HCSB)
c. What was Paul’s goal? It was to know Jesus Christ and to join Him in His resurrection from the dead. These were the two things that Paul was all about. Now if these were his goals how would a down turn in the economy affect him? Or sickness or suffering? Or the loss of a job? Would these things discourage him and hinder him from reaching his goal. No. He would see each situation as an opportunity to grow in His relationship with Christ.
d. What is your goal in life? Do you see what I mean when I say your ability to keep on going is directly ties to what you are going for in the first place? The old hymn points out this truth: My hope is build on nothing less that Jesus blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand.” If your goal in life is anything else besides knowing Jesus Christ and joining Him in His resurrection you are on sinking sand. You need to make sure you have the right goal in life. That, in itself, will keep you from quitting.
II. Know where you are.
a. Look at verses 12 and 13: “Not that I have already reached the goal or am already fully mature, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it.” (Philippians 3:12-13 HCSB)
b. Paul took inventory of his present situation. You need to look at where you are at right now in terms of your goal.
c. Notice Paul’s assessment of the present:
i. He knew he was saved. He said that Jesus Christ had taken hold of him. He was in the grip of God’s grace. Jesus had captured his heart. He was on his way to the goal of knowing Christ and joining Him in His resurrection.
1. Do you remember when your heart was captured? When someone gets hold of your heart, you know it. I remember when Deb captured mine. I knew she was the right person for me. I don’t know all of how I knew, but I knew spiritually. I had been in love before, but I had never before known spiritually that I was in the right relationship. But I knew it with Deb.
2. I remember when Jesus captured my heart. I understood the depth of my sin and my inability to make it to heaven on my own. Then Jesus revealed Himself to me. I understood that He died so that I could be forgiven, and that He resurrected so that I could be saved. When I came to realize that Jesus wanted to give me the gift of eternal life and heaven His love captured my heart.
3. Do you know that Jesus Christ has taken hold of you?
ii. Paul knew he was on the way to the goal, but he also knew that he had not yet reached it.
1. Christ had taken hold of Him, but He was in the process of taking full hold of Christ. He wasn’t there yet. He knew he wasn’t perfect or fully mature.
2. That is important for us to realize. We have not arrived. We have not yet reached the goal.
3. Sally Robbins was a member of Australia's 2004 Olympic rowing team, competing in the women's eight final. With approximately 400 meters left in the race, the 23-year-old suddenly quit. Robbins slumped and let her oar dip into the water. Australia dropped from third to last place in the event. "I just rowed my guts out in the first 1,500 and didn't have anything left, and that's all I could have done for today," Robbins explained. She gave up before she reached the goal.
4. Martin Luther wrote: “Farewell to those who want an entirely pure and purified church. This is plainly wanting no church at all.” (Martin Luther, "Martin Luther--The Early Years," Christian History, no. 34) What did he mean by that? He meant, don’t expect to have a completely pure church on earth. Why? Because we have not yet attained the goal. None of us are perfect or completely mature. We are all a work in progress.
5. Gigi Graham Tchividjian wrote: “For years I never felt I measured up to all I thought the Lord wanted me to be, or all I thought I should be. Satan convinced me that since I wasn't "perfect," I had no right to minister to others. Then one day, my children brought me a bouquet of flowers they had picked. I hugged each child with joy. As I tried to arrange the flowers in a vase, I discovered my children had picked no stems, just blossoms. I laughed--I had been blessed with their gift of love, however imperfect. It was then I realized we don't have to be perfect to be a blessing. We are asked only to be real, trusting in Christ's perfection to cover our imperfection.” (Gigi Graham Tchividjian, "Heart to Heart," Today's Christian Woman)
III. Forget the past.
a. Look at verses 13-14: “Brothers, 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, 14I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14 HCSB)
b. To forget” in the Bible doesn’t mean to be unable to recall. It means to “no longer to be influenced by or affected by.” The Bible says God forgets our sin. Does that mean He has a bad memory? No. It means that He will not let that sin influence or affect His relationship with us.
c. So when Paul says he forgets the past he means that he does not allow the past to control the present. The sad truth is that many of us do.
d. In his book Teaching the Elephant to Dance, James Belasco describes how trainers shackle young elephants with heavy chains to deeply embedded stakes. The young elephant soon learns that he cannot break free. He is conditioned to limit his movements. When the elephant is older he could easily pull the stake out of the ground and walk away, but he doesn’t because his experience in the past controls the present. He still thinks that he is a captive. Now a trainer can simply put a small metal bracelet around his ankle and the elephant will stay in place, even though the stakes are actually gone. He is no longer chained to the stake. He is chained to the past.
e. Some people are chained to the sins of the past. Guilt from something in the past holds us captive. A man who has had an affair. A woman who has had an abortion. It could be anything.
i. Paul had a past. He had been a persecutor of the church. He had given consent to the death of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. He could have been haunted by his past. But he said, “I forget the past.”
ii. Listen, if you have confessed your sin to God, God has forgiven your sin and forgotten it. You need to accept His forgiveness and, like Paul, forget past sins.
iii. In C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Aslan, the Great Lion who represents Jesus Christ, says to Edmond, the young son of Adam who had betrayed his brothers and sisters, “What is done is done. There is no reason to speak any more of it.”
f. Some people are held captive to the victories of the past. We live in the glory days of when we used to. When we used to serve God. When we used to walk with God. Resting on past laurels keeps them from being effective today.
i. Paul certainly had past victories. He had traveled to far away places preaching the gospel. He had won people to Christ, started churches, endured persecution, and had fantastic revelations. If anyone could have rested on the laurels of the past, it was Paul. But he said, “I forget the past so I can press on to the future.”
ii. Listen, what you were or have done in the past is great, but what are you doing right now? Where are you headed right now? That is what counts. Like Paul, forget past victories.
g. Some people are held captive to the hurts of the past. Someone hurt you, and the pain of that hurt, and anger towards the one who hurt you, consumes your present.
i. There were certainly people who had hurt Paul. He had been criticized, slandered, physically stoned and beaten. He had been arrested and was now in prison. He could have been consumed with bitterness. But he chose to forgive because Christ had forgiven him.
ii. You have got to let go of the pain of the past. All it does is make you miserable, keep you from making progress in the Christian life, and keep you from enjoying the life God has for you. Forget the hurts of the past.
h. The past, whether it is past sins, past victories, or past hurts, will make you quit. Forget it. Don’t let it control your present and future.
IV. Focus your efforts.
a. Go back to verses 13-14: “Brothers, 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, 14I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14 HCSB)
b. Notice Paul talks about being single-minded. He says, “One thing I do.”
i. You ever heard of someone being a “Jack of all trades.” What is the second part of that: Jack of all trades – master of none?
ii. Most people who try to do everything do nothing really well. No athlete succeeds by doing everything; he succeeds by specializing. Pro football players don’t play multiple possessions on the field. They do one thing.
iii. Paul was only interested in one thing: knowing Christ and joining Him in His resurrection from the dead. And so he put all of his energies into that.
iv. The way to keep from quitting is to focus on one thing: Getting to the goal.
v. I’ve learned that if I want to succeed in tennis and win matches I’ve got to focus on one thing: hitting the ball in the court. If I want to succeed at golf and shoot low scores I’ve got to focus on one thing: getting the ball to the green. If I want to know Christ and join Him in His resurrection, I’ve got to focus my energies on that one thing.
c. But look also at how Paul talks about pursuing the goal. He said, “I reach forward…I pursue…my goal.”
i. Reaching the goal of knowing Christ and joining Him in His resurrection was Paul’s one pursuit, so He gave everything to it. Where verse 13 talks about “reaching forward,” it is the picture of a runner straining every muscle to reach the finish line. Paul said, “I am giving it my all.”
ii. Let me ask you a question: are you giving it your all? Are you giving your all to know Christ and join Him in His resurrection, or is Jesus just one of many things in your life. Are you reaching forward? Are you pursuing the goal? If other people looked at your life, what would they say? Would they say you are you are giving your all to know Christ?
Paul said, “I haven’t got there yet, but I am on the way. What is behind me is behind me, both good and bad. But that is not what is important. What is important is what is in front of me: the high and heavenly call of Jesus Christ. And I am giving my all to that.”
V. Celebrate progress.
a. Look at verses 15-16: “Therefore, all who are mature should think this way. And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this to you also. 16In any case, we should live up to whatever truth we have attained.” (Philippians 3:15-16 HCSB)
b. In other words, Paul said, “I am not there yet, but I am this far along. If you haven’t made it this far yet, keep at it. God will bring you along. But whatever maturity you have attained, live up to that.”
c. To put it in two words, celebrate progress. Don’t stress that you are not there. But strive to make progress. If you can know Christ or serve Christ a little better today than you did yesterday, that is worth celebrating.
d. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: “The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving. To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it--but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.” (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Leadership, Vol. 10, no. 2)
Conclusion:
Pastor Mark Coleman loves to hike, and he passed on that love to his son, Peter. When Peter was only 5 years old, Coleman planned an easy hike on the northern part of the Appalachian Trail. Coleman would lead them around a mountain to a lake in Vermont where they would spend the night. He made thorough preparation for the trip, including coaching his son. Over and over he told him that it would be tough, and it was okay to be tired, but they had to keep on walking. They had to keep on walking. Unfortunately, the walking was longer and tougher than expected because Coleman…led them over the mountain, not around it. The trail was steep and broken. Little Peter stumbled time after time on loose rocks, but they kept on walking. The hike was a burden, not a joy, but they kept on walking. Peter fell so many times that he ripped the knees of his jeans, but he kept on walking. Finally, after one fall too many, he sat and cried. As Mark approached him and began to speak, Peter cut him off: "I know, Dad. It's okay to cry, as long as I keep on walking." (From a sermon by Mark Coleman (3-16-03)
Don’t quit.