This one Thing Phil 3

This one Thing   Phil 3:13  EBC   3/22/09

  A maximum effort without focused concentration is useless. Every athlete knows that runners in a race must fix their eyes ahead of them; those who watch the crowd or their own feet are likely to trip and fall. To make a maximum effort in any athletic endeavor requires the participants to concentrate on a point straight ahead. Ex. My mother in hosp. this week- saw pulmonary dr. his concentration was the lung. Show projector- “Brethren, I  count  not myself  to have apprehended:  but  this one thing I do I press towards the mark for the high calling of God in Christ Jesus”. The apostle’s goal is the one thing Paul is zeroing in one.

  People who focus in life are the ones who succeed. Many dabble with many things but succeed at none. Warren Wiersbe- concentration is the secret of power. The winners are those who concentrate, who keep their eyes on the goal and let nothing distract them.

I. Impelling Motive (forgetting)

  A. Paul had seen Christ and in seeing Him he had seen the possibilities of his own life. When Paul became a Christian he broke with all the past in his life- both the good and bad. What a start for his Christian life- Acts 9:6-

    1. Paul 3:7-8-

  B. We only forget past blessings in the sense that we don’t rest on them. We need to break the power of the past and not be governed by them- both good and bad.

    1. Many today are resting on past accomplishments. Your best running in the past is nothing if you are slacking in the race now. Heb. 12:1. Some Christians are shackled by the past and their failures, some are shackled by the past successes- both are wrong.

    2. John MacArthur- Churches are full of spiritual cripples, paralyzed by the grudges, bitterness, sins, and tragedies of the past. Others try to survive in the present by reliving past successes. They must break with that past if they are to pursue the spiritual prize.  

  C. Prov. 4:25-27- when believers have but one goal in life and that goal is to be like Him, they will move forward in their Christ likeness.

    1. Most of the time we don’t move forward because we are too entangled- 2 Tim. 2:4-

   D. Psa. 86:11-

II. Resulting Attitude

  A. The narrowness of the motive- narrowness is important- if a knife wasn’t narrow on one side it would be of no use. In the Christian life we have many privileges but we also have responsibilities. We don’t have the freedoms to live life as we ought- we need to live life as we should.

    1. Narrowness of exclusion-

     a. The narrowness that will compel men to lay aside every weight (Heb. 12:1).

     b. The narrowness that will find no excuse for allowing anything in my life that would blur my vision of Him.

     c. This is the way of devotion to Him

     d. Luke 8:14; 8:59-62-  

    2. Narrowness of consistency-  

     a. Press- to pursue on. Present tense- I am constantly in pursuit of

     b. 1 Cor. 15:57-

     c. goal- (mark)- the finish line

     d. Greeks described this word as a hunter tracking his prey. A man does not become a winning athlete by listening to lectures, watching movies, reading books, or cheering at the games. He becomes a winning athlete by getting into the game and determining to win.

     e. Mark- target

     f. high calling-  a call from Heaven in which we must heed.