Sermon Transcript
Well, good morning, everybody. I hope that your morning has gone well. You think we’ll get out before it rains? You think it’ll rain? You know, that’s probably the bigger question, right?
Will it actually rain here? This has been a great week again in the church. The basketball league started this week, a couple of teams, one on Monday nights, one on Thursday nights. Thursday nights. And I think there are, what, 11 teams?
I’m looking at a couple people here that are part of this, but I think around 11 teams. Steve’s nodding yes, so he knows more than I know about it. But we’re grateful. Again, just some good things happening. A lot of people that are playing on these nights are not a part of the church.
They are friends of friends or whatever. They just heard that we have a gym and They’re looking for a place to play, so really thankful for that. So keep that in your prayers. They’re going to go for a bit, and then at the end of it, they always have a presentation ceremony, and usually at the end there, somebody shares their testimony of faith in Christ. So it always has an impact on the lives of those who play in a variety of ways.
So we’re really grateful. A lot of good things happening. Last night, the college group started a new study together, and we’re excited about that. If you’re a college student and you didn’t hear about it, you can pick up a College Connect. Over on the table.
On Saturday nights we’re getting together here between now and the end of the year, so you’re invited to join us for that. So there are a number of things happening. A couple weeks back I got a— I don’t know, I think it was a posting actually from one of my friends who is a pastor, and he said, you just got to watch this, this video, you have to watch this. And so I decided to watch it, and it’s a video of a senior citizen who has just done the invocation at a senior event. And, you know, I didn’t know where this whole thing was going.
The event was a Home Instead event. And so the whole focus is instead of living in an old folks’ home, they come to your home and they care for you in those later years of life if you need it. And so she has just finished the invocation, and then this happens. So just watch the video for just a minute. And we ask you to continue to bless them and this food which we are about to receive.
Amen.
Uh-oh, sorry, God.
As long as I have the microphone, there are a few things I forgot to mention.
First of all, just to introduce myself a little. Over the years, I’ve noticed that the 2 things most people want to know about you are the 2 things they’re far too polite to ask. So let’s get that out of the way.
I’m 72 years old, and I weigh 145 pounds.
As you know, we seniors are sometimes not very likable, let alone lovable. So Lord, could you please continue to keep the people of Home Instead patient and aware of why we are the way we are?
And Lord, please remind them that the thing about old age is that you don’t get a chance to practice.
This is the first time I’ve ever been old, and it just sort of crept up on me.
There were signs— random hair growth, that’s special.
Particularly that first time you go to brush a hair off your lapel and discover it’s attached to your chin.
You turn your left turn signal on in the morning and leave it on all day.
Non-life-threatening skin growths large enough to name after deceased pets and relatives begin to appear, and neck tissue seems to develop a life of its own.
Last November, I was afraid to leave the house Thanksgiving week.
Aren’t you quick?
You do strange things as you age, like driving up to a curbside mailbox and ordering a cheeseburger and fries.
And Lord, I know you’re aware that one Sunday at church I put my Dillard’s bill in the collection basket by mistake.
Well, the reason why I show you that is, besides the fact that it’s humorous, is that this is a woman, 72 years old we found out, who’s continuing to go strong with the giftedness that God has given her, with the talents that God’s given her. She evidently has done comedy over the years, but here it is, a person who isn’t, you know, just pulling up a rocking chair and saying, I’m done, but she’s using the talents and the gifts that God has given us for as long as he will give those talents and gifts and the energy and the strength and the opportunity. She’s using them to go God’s glory. And I want us to think about, you know, where we are. Of course, this hour, probably nobody in here is 72.
If you are, then you’re going to identify a little bit with what she said. But, you know, we’re at different places in terms of our age, wherever we’re at in terms of our stage in life. And God has given us a life to live right now. And the matter of, you know, living it to its fullest and living it for as long as God gives us is the matter that comes into focus in Philippians chapter 3, where we are today. Apostle Paul is writing, and he kind of gives us a little insight into his frame of mind at this point in his life.
Now, if you did a little study on Paul’s life in terms of the chronology of his life, he’s probably, when he writes the book of Philippians, about 56 or 57 years of age. What we’re gonna see is that he’s still going strong. He’s still running as strong as he possibly can in the race that God has given to him. And the insights that he gives us in this little passage we’re going to look at can not only help us finish well, but they can also help us live well. So wherever you are in your life right now, I want you to just take what he’s gonna say in this passage And think of it in terms of where you are in this season of life.
You may have just come through a lot of, you know, good accomplishments, maybe things that you’ve done in school, you were recognized for certain things. Our oldest grandson Camden, 7 years of age, in addition to the other children we should inherit— I just totally said that wrong. Let me just say Camden, who’s 7, Camden, who is 7, just received some awards this week, and we got to be at the, you know, the awards ceremony. That was a lot of fun. We get that kind of thing in our life, but hopefully it’s not, you know, the end of our life.
It’s just another step forward in becoming the people that God wants us to be. The Apostle Paul, when he writes this section here in Philippians chapter 3, has already written 11 other letters. He’s been on 3 missionary journeys. He’s been a Christian now for 27-some years, but he’s still running strong. And that’s what I want us to hear.
I want us to realize that the perspective that he had is a perspective that if we have it, it will make a difference in how we live. It will make a difference in how we finish our life, however long God gives us to live our life. In the Apostle Paul’s case, he didn’t know that he would actually get out of prison this time. He would actually get out of jail or out of chains. He was in Rome.
He is ultimately released for a period of a few years, but then he dies at around the age of 62, 63 years of age that we would say is very young. But he didn’t know at the point that he was writing these words what was ahead for him. So, in light of all of that, look with me at Philippians chapter 3. If you got a message note sheet, you can follow along on that. But here’s what he says as he’s reflecting on this stage that he’s in and the perspective, the mindset that he has about this stage that he’s in.
He writes this: Not that I’ve already obtained all this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward. In Christ Jesus. 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. Let me just focus this passage in 3 matters, okay? 3 areas that could help us finish well or help us live well right now. The first one’s wrapped up in the first words there: not that I’ve already obtained all this or have already been made perfect. If you were with us last week, He’s going back to what he had just said about all this, and the all this was essentially connected to knowing God, knowing Jesus, knowing the power of His resurrection, knowing His sufferings, fellowshipping in His sufferings with Him.
The word that’s used a few times there in the passage just before this passage is the word know, which speaks about an intimate relationship or intimate knowledge. It’s the same word that’s used to describe a husband and wife, knowing each other. So there’s this oneness factor, or you’ve heard the 2 shall become one. And as a couple becomes one physically, spiritually, emotionally, relationally, they grow in intimacy. And so Paul has just said, you know, I haven’t already obtained all of that.
I want to be more and more intimate with God through Jesus Christ. He then says, And I’ve not already obtained perfection either, so I still sin, I still fall short, I’m still flawed, I still have fleshly desires, I’m still incomplete. So what’s Paul’s initial perspective here? He’s owning up to his shortcomings. That’s a simple statement to just summarize his perspective on this point in his life.
I haven’t yet arrived. I’m still in process. I’m not there yet. God is not done with me yet. The amazing thing is, is that he just recognizes this and even writes it down so that people at that time who are gonna hear the letter, but also people like us who are living, you know, years later, are going to be able to look at this and say, you know, I identify with that.
I’ve not yet arrived. I still have shortcomings in my life. Paul was willing to admit his shortcomings, even to the point you get in Romans chapter 7 where he says, The things that I want to do, I don’t do, and the things that I don’t want to do, I do. That’s the Apostle Paul. I mention that in our culture because one of the challenges that we have in living humbly is recognizing that we’ve not yet arrived, and when we fall short, it’s a willingness to own up to shortcomings, to admit them, to grow because of them.
I think about a woman who went in for some counseling, relational counseling. Her relationships were a mess. She had a rift in her relationship with her parents. They did not have a relationship. She had a rift with all the roommates she had ever lived with.
Every roommate moved out. Over the years. She had a rift in her relationships with men, 20 different men in her life. Every one of them couldn’t take it after a while, left her. So she went in for counseling with this therapist, and they were talking about, you know, what was going on in her life.
And at some point the therapist said to her, do you realize that you are responsible, at least to some degree, you are responsible for the rifts in your relationship? That offended her, so she never went back to this therapist again. I don’t see that in the Apostle Paul, do you? I see somebody in the Apostle Paul who’s willing to say, you know what, I’m not there yet, and I want you all to know at Philippi that I recognize that I have shortcomings. He was willing to admit his shortcomings.
Maybe you’ve heard of the name Randy Alcorn. Randy is a pastor, he’s an author. Some of us probably have read his book on heaven. It’s just an outstanding long book on heaven. He also recently wrote a brand new book called Happiness.
It’s a fascinating study. I’m going to see if we can dig into this a little bit in the next couple of messages that I preach a few weeks from now, but just an amazing study on happiness and joy and how all of that comes together in the scriptures. But anyway, Randy had taken his youngest daughter to a banquet at the church. It was a father-daughter banquet. And while they were eating dinner, one of the other persons, or a father or somebody at the table, asked Randy’s youngest daughter, what do you think is the number one thing that your dad has done that impresses you?
I mean, of all the things your dad has done, what impresses you the most? Her answer was simply this: well, there was a day where Dad was really harsh with me, and after a few minutes he came into my bedroom and he was crying and he said, honey, I’m so sorry for what I said, how I said it. Would you please forgive me? And this daughter said, you know, I’ve never forgotten that about my dad. Now there’s a person who, because he was willing to admit his shortcomings, made a great impact in his daughter’s life.
That’s what the Apostle Paul is doing here. I have a book that I read through, 350 pages, about a woman testifying about her love for alcohol. She just couldn’t get past her love for alcohol. For a long time, she minimized alcohol content in her life. She basically, you know, when people were concerned and talked to her about it, she ignored their counsel.
Finally, she came to grips with the fact that she had an alcohol problem and she asked for help. She wrote this book to tell her story. Her and her mother at one point after the book came out were on some kind of talk show and the question was asked with regard to, you know, what the relationship was like before all of this, you know, finally came to an end. But in this show, evidently the daughter— or excuse me, the mother at one point looked at her daughter, having now read the book, and said, honey, I did not realize. I wish there was something that I could have done.
I wish there was something I could have done. And the daughter said, well, you know, Mom, it wouldn’t have mattered because I wasn’t ready to listen anyway.
It wasn’t until she was willing to own up to the fact that she had a problem that she was actually going to move towards some kind of healing in her life, right? I mean, you’ve all heard this. If you know anything about, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous or any kind of recovery program, it begins with the first step. And the first step is always all about the willingness to admit, I got a problem, I really do, and I need some help, and I can’t do this on my own. And that’s where the Apostle Paul was.
He was a person who recognized that he still had room for improvement. Chuck Swindoll often— Pastor Chuck Swindoll used to be the president of Dallas Theological Seminary— usually answers people like we would answer people. You know, somebody who says, hey, how you doing? What’s the typical answer? Well, I’m doing fine.
But he’s also learned to answer people with this. He’ll often say when asked how he’s doing, I’m growing and I’m learning. That’s a great answer, isn’t it? I haven’t arrived. I’m still not there yet.
Maybe you know the name Ruth Graham. Ruth was the wife, former wife of Billy Graham. She died at 87 years of age. She lived with the awareness that she had not arrived. And so before she died, she asked that on her tombstone be placed these words: End of construction.
Thank you for your patience. Isn’t that good?
All the way up to the end of her life. I know I’m a construction project, and we’ve been walking through this construction project together. Thank you for being patient with me. That was the Apostle Paul. Not only was he aware of his shortcomings and he lived in light of the shortcomings and desired to continue to grow and to mature, But secondly, look at the last part of verse 12 and on.
It says, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I don’t consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. What’s he talking about here? Is he focused on his past or is he focused on his future? You tell me, past or future?
It’s the future. I mean, yeah, he’s taking into consideration the past, but he’s pressing on so that he can take hold of that for which he was taken hold of. Christ saved him. He’s given him a brand new life. So he’s reaching out to take hold of this new life.
But to take hold of it, he’s got to— notice the words press on. The words mean to run after something or follow after something. So he’s running into his future. The second point that you could use to kind of summarize what it’s going to take to finish it well is he’s running into his future. He’s following after his future.
There’s energy and effort given toward moving ahead so that he can take hold. And this word take hold has the picture of overtaking something or grabbing something or seizing something. You can think of it in light of education that after we finish high school, many of us will go on to college. And one of the reasons that we go on to college is because we think we need this college in order to give us some kind of a future. It’s also connected to our career.
It’s the path that, you know, we feel that we need to take, or it’s going to open up doors, or whatever it is. And so the moving on from high school to college is to take hold of that I don’t yet have. I’m going to go on so that I can take hold of something that I don’t already have. And the Apostle Paul says here, I’ve got to take hold of the life that I don’t yet have. I’m not perfect.
I’m not mature. I still need to be transformed. I still need to grow up into Jesus Christ. And for me to do that, there’s one thing I gotta do. Do you see the one thing there?
It’s interesting because when you look at it, the one thing really looks like 2 things, but he actually calls it one thing. So you might want to think of the one thing as a coin that has 2 sides, but it’s one thing. The one side would be I’ve gotta forget the past. I gotta forget what is behind. I’ve gotta just get that out of my mind.
And the picture that’s used here is of an athlete a runner who’s outrun another runner. Once you get by the other runner, you’re not thinking about the runner anymore that you’ve passed. You’re thinking about the finish line and sprinting toward the finish. And that’s the picture that Paul has in mind here. I am thinking now no longer about the past.
I’m moving past the past and I’m pressing on into the future. And the picture here is straining toward And so you get also an athletic picture here with hands and feet and body bent forward with maximum effort, energy, focus, determination. You’re just moving into the future. So don’t miss what he’s saying here because 2 things can wreak havoc on a runner’s race. The first thing that can wreak havoc on our race is living in the past, is to get stuck in the past.
It’s to always be about the past. It’s dwelling on past defeats. Or it’s dwelling on past victories. So if I’m dwelling on my past defeats, if I’m the Apostle Paul, I’m always thinking about, well, you know, I really don’t deserve to be a witness for Jesus Christ because I back then was persecuting Christians. I was endorsing their death.
I wanted nothing to do with Christianity. And if he’s focused on all of that, it’s going to divert his attention from what God wants to do through him in the future. He’s not living in a state of gloom. How could God save me? I mean, I’m just— I’m worthless.
How could he save me? If you stay in the past, you’ll never move into the future. But the other side of this is you could stay in the past related to your accomplishments. Paul could have stayed in the past connected to his accomplishments. Just take Philippi where he was just always talking about, you know, wasn’t it wonderful how God used me to lead Lydia to faith in Jesus?
And then after Lydia came to faith in Jesus, then it was the jailer that was listening to us and he came to faith in Christ. And then his whole family came to faith in Christ. And so there’s a victory, and you can get stuck in the victory where you’re always talking about the victories, you’re always focused on the victories, and every conversation you get into, you’re thinking about, hey, did you know about my trophies? Or did you know about my accomplishments? Or whatever it is.
Do you see what’s happening here? He’s not living in his failures, and he’s not living in his successes. He’s not living in his past for the way things used to be. Sometimes this happens in churches. Churches have a great past and they get stuck in their past.
We as a staff, several of us were down in San Diego a few weeks ago. While we were there, just happened to run into the staff, the staff that now is at the church that I was at in Southern California some years ago. But I was at this church for 25 years, for 25 years, 4 years as an associate pastor, 21 years as the lead pastor. And 2 times in conversations with them, they came up to me and they said, hey, Dave, do you know that you’re a legend at Agoura Bible Fellowship? I said, really?
They said, yeah, people talk about you in like the glory days. They talk about you as the pastor that had been the pastor of pastors at the church. Now, part of the reason they might say that is because, you know, I lasted so long. Just keep beating me and I’ll stay in there kind of thing. But they talk about you in that tone.
And I thought to myself, you gotta be kidding. Because see, I know what it was like. I know how hard it was. I know how many times we failed. I know how things didn’t go as like you wanted them to go.
I know how many times I wanted to quit. I know that, you know, it was a lot of hard work and some successes along the way, and there were some good things that happened, but it wasn’t like the glory days. I never thought of it as the glory days, but now they talk about it as the glory days. Dave, you know, we hope we can have you come back and speak. And I was thinking as I was working on this text, if I ever get to go back and speak, I want to speak about this passage.
And part of what I want to say to them is the same thing that a church like this needs to hear, and quite frankly, we need to hear in our lives. And that is, if we get stuck in the past, we’re not going to move into the future, because the other side of this coin is the future. And so many of us can just get stuck in the past and want everything to be like it was you know, back then when it was— we think it was great. The reality is we have short memories. It wasn’t always great, was it?
2 things will wreak havoc on a runner’s race. One is living in the past or living for the past, and the other is not moving into the future, not joining God in the work that he’s doing right now. So I could get stuck at school or wherever it is in my career in the past and not move into What is the Lord doing right now? And some of you are familiar with the Experiencing God study. What’s that all about?
Well, it’s all about watch and see where God is working and then join him in the work that he is doing. So jump into the present with what God is doing right now. The worst thing that could happen would be to have God working right now and for us still to be stuck over here and not to move over here and get into what he wants to do right now in a brand new way. One of the things that did happen when I was at Agoura Bible Fellowship was the Lord put around me some smart men, some wonderful godly men that became models to me. I was 27 years of age when I became the pastor, so I needed a lot of, you know, people helping me because I had no clue.
You know, a lot of you 20-something-year-olds, you get it. I didn’t get it. I didn’t know what I was doing. It was just You know, I was doing the best that I could. And so God put around me a lot of smart people that became models to me, and one of them was John Champ.
And I’ve talked about John Champ before, but I thought I would mention this again this morning. This is a picture of John and Cher. Became very close friends to us. John just a couple of years ago died at a pretty young age, 66, and that was a shock. But I had the privilege of ministering with John for just about that whole period of time while I was there.
Couple things that you need to know about John. One is you need to know that he had a former career. He was a professional golfer for 5 years on the PGA Tour. He had a wonderful golf swing and played a great golf game. And so we would go out with my interest in golf and we would play together.
Actually, he played and I clumsily, you know, went along and he watched me and tried to change my swing and it never really worked. But we, you know, did the best that we could out there. But John taught me a number of things. One of the things he taught me was about living in the present and letting go of the past. I still remember where the lesson came loud and clear.
I was caddying for him as he was playing in a club championship at a country club, and there came a point in the round where he was pretty much in the lead, and if he just continued, he’s going to win the tournament. And he hit a really bad shot, and the bad shot got him into trouble. And as we were walking to the shot, he said, Dave, that shot’s over. Let’s move on. And that’s how he lived his life.
That shot is over. Yeah, we messed up there, but we’re not going to stay there. We’re going to move into the future. And sometimes this even happens in relationships. We stay there and we don’t move on.
And, and he was able to move on. So he moved on from his 5 years on the PGA Tour to another occupation, another career that he stayed in. He gave his heart to that. He moved on with his family. God did some wonderful things and continues to do wonderful things in his family.
He was a guy that lived into his future, moved into his future. That’s what Paul’s saying here. Press into the future. So own up to your shortcomings, run into your future. And then one other matter he brings up, verses 14 and 16: I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Only let us live up to what we have already attained. So here’s this new life that we’ve been given, and part of this new life that we’ve been given is a calling. Do you notice the word called? The word called that’s used in verse 14? God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
And then verse 16 says, so let’s live up to what God has given to us Which includes this calling. And living to this, or living up to this calling, is ultimately going to result in us attaining the goal and attaining this prize, this prize that God has for us in heaven. So you’ve got this heavenly calling, you’ve got this heavenly target or this heavenly goal, you’ve got this prize that’s going to come in heaven, but it’s only going to come to those who live up to this calling. Now, we’re not talking about salvation here. We’re talking about the life after salvation.
And so the words live up are very important. They’re a military term that speaks of lining up. So in the military, you learn to line up or you learn to keep in step. Or if you’re in band, you learn to do this too. If you’re in a marching band, line up or keep in step.
But there’s another description of this term, and it is the word or the description of running in your lane. So you’ve been assigned a lane and God wants you to run in that lane. We run in that lane by fulfilling our calling. So God has placed on his children a calling, a unique calling, and he’s given us a unique lane. It’s not somebody else’s lane.
It’s our lane. It’s the lane that he wants us. And in living up to our potential, we realize our calling and there will be a prize. At the end of this. A prize is something that’s won.
A prize is something that we work toward, we live toward. So, you have passages in the Scripture like 2 Corinthians 5:10 that say, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. There’s going to be a judgment throne. It’s called the Bema Seat. And Christians are going to stand before God not to be judged for their salvation, but they’re going to be judged for their works.
And at that moment, God is going to give prizes. He’s going to give awards, rewards to his children. Now let me ask you a question. If the Lord wants to reward us, should we want his reward? Answer, yeah.
I mean, he wants to award us or reward us. If he wants to give us something more than a wreath or a garland or a medal or whatever it is that, you know, a person would get here on the earth, we should want the award. Well, how are we going to get the award? By finishing well, by living up to our calling, by living in our lane. So let me ask you a question.
Do you want to finish well? Do you want to live well? Do you know what your heavenly calling is? You say, I have no idea what my heavenly calling is. Well, I think part of discovering what your heavenly calling is, is just to take— and Steve talks often about this, I appreciate this perspective— it’s just to take the next step.
What’s the next step God has for you? What’s the door that God’s opening right now? Because as God opens these doors for us, if we’ll go through those doors, he’ll continue to reveal his will to us. In this series already about not knowing his unrevealed will. We don’t know what his unrevealed will is.
We know his revealed will. It’s found in the Scriptures. But if we’ll live according to his revealed will, the will found in the Scriptures, he’ll reveal to us his unrevealed will. And oftentimes he’ll do that through the promptings and leadings of the Holy Spirit. In fact, Paul is so certain about this, if you look at verse 15, he in essence says to the people that he’s writing to, Listen, God will make the whole thing clear.
Even if I haven’t made the thing clear, God will make it clear for you. He says all of us who are mature should take such a view of things. What kind of things? The life that we’re living, the things that God’s called us to. We should take such a view of these things.
And if at some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. I mean, if you don’t agree that you should be seeking to improve from where you are right now and move on in your life, fine, God will make it clear to you what you should do. And if you don’t agree that you should be running into the future, fine, God will make it clear to you. And if you don’t believe that you should be living out your calling, fine, God will make it clear to you. What’s he saying?
He’s saying the Holy Spirit will work in you in such a way that he will reveal to you his will if you just pay attention. That’s what he’s saying. And I trust that God will do that for each one of you, Paul says to the church at Philippi. Well, in the same way, if you want to know your calling, just pay attention. What’s God doing in you right now?
What’s the next step? What’s the door that he’s opened? The problem comes when we say no to the doors God has closed, or we say no to the doors he’s opened, right? It’s a no problem. We say no to the doors he’s closed, and we try to knock the door down, or we find— try to find, you know, I think I’ll find some other way to do this, even though God’s closed the door, I’m gonna— I will make a way.
Well, that may not be the lane that God has for you. Or we say no when God’s opened the door and he’s trying to take us through a door and he’s leading, but we just shut the work of the Holy Spirit down. That’s called grieving the Holy Spirit, grieving the Holy Spirit, or quenching the Holy Spirit. We just shut it down and and ignore what it is that God wants to say to us. It could be that you want to move forward with God’s calling, but the fact of the matter is, is that it’s just been a dream for you.
It’s been a nice thought for you, but there hasn’t been the discipline. There hasn’t been the single-mindedness. There hasn’t been effort put to all of this. And so you’re still where you were some years ago. Things haven’t changed.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge has an interesting story in terms of his not getting where God was trying to take him.
Barclay, William Barclay, who’s a historian, writes of Coleridge’s life, and he says this: Never did so great a mind produce so little. He left Cambridge University to join the army, but he left the army because in spite of all of his erudition, he could not rub down a horse. He returned to Oxford and left without a degree. He began a paper called The Watchman, which lived for 10 numbers and then died. It’s been said of him, he lost himself in visions of work to be done that always remained to be done.
Don’t miss that line. It’s been said of him that he lost himself in visions of work to be done that always remained to be done. Coleridge, had every poetic gift but one, the gift of sustained and concentrated effort. In his head and in his mind, he had all kinds of books, as he said himself, completed save for transcription. I’m on the eve, he says, of sending to the press 2 octavo volumes.
But the books were never composed outside of Coleridge’s mind because he could not face the discipline of sitting down to write them out.
Now here’s a lane, and God puts you in the lane and says, run hard. This is the lane I want you in. Get out of the past, get into the present. Recognize the fact that no, you haven’t arrived. That’s okay.
Nobody’s arrived. We’re not gonna arrive for as long as we live here. Which is fine. Own it, admit it, live in light of it, but don’t let that stop you from moving into the future that God has for you. It’s been said, if you’re not dead, you’re not done.
And I think that’s really a good summary of this passage. Here’s the Apostle Paul. You might think, well, the guy, you know, It was a good life. You know, all of those books that he wrote and all of the epistles and all the things that he did and all the missionary journeys and all the people he led to faith in Jesus Christ. You know, he could have at this point just said, you know what, I already did enough.
And so I’m just, I’m just sitting back. I’m going to get the rocking chair and me and the Roman soldier that I’m chained to, we’re just going to sit here and I’m not going to share the gospel with him. And I’m just going to live out the rest of my life for however long it is. And And that’s it. But that wasn’t Paul.
That was not Paul at all. For as long as God gave him breath, as long as God gave him an opportunity, as long as God gave him an idea— I think I’ll write the church at Philippi— he did. He did it. He just took advantage of it. He did it.
So as long as God gives us life, the point here is let’s make the most of the life that God has given us. And if we’ll do that, Who knows, maybe when we’re 72 some day we’ll be doing an invocation and, you know, probably not, but who knows where God will use us. Have no idea what that could be, but I got to believe it can be wonderful. Keep running strong, finish well. That’s what the Apostle Paul was doing.
That’s what the Lord wants for us. Let’s pray. Lord, thanks for the encouragement from scriptures this morning. We’re all at different places. We’re all different ages sitting here in this building.
We all have different opportunities. We all have different lanes. What a thought though, that you have given us a new life. It’s found in your Son Jesus. And we’re so grateful for the calling that comes when we’re placed into your family, a calling that in no way separates itself from the unique people that you’ve made us even before coming to Christ, the abilities that you’ve given us, the experiences you’ve given us.
But on top of all of that, once we come to faith in you, you give us a unique giftedness spiritually. You continue to endow us with the talents and treasures that you want to use through us. All of this, Lord, so that we would step into the future that you have for us. Thank you for how the Apostle Paul made the most of his circumstances, just as we can make the most of our circumstances or, really, the blessings that are ours. And so help us do that.
I pray for everybody who’s here this morning that, God, you would just help each one of us know in our spirit what it is that you want us to do, so that if what we focused on isn’t what you want us to focus on, you will make that clear, even as the Apostle Paul trusted that would happen for the church at Philippi. It would happen for Bridges Community Church too. And we pray for anybody who’s here, Lord, that is not yet in your family. They don’t know that special calling that you give to your children. And we pray that they would say yes to Jesus as their Savior and begin to experience life with him instead of apart from him.
In fact, if you’ve never received the Lord, even right now he is stirring, he’s working in this world to draw people to himself. And if God is working in your heart right now, don’t shut that down. Respond to his work. Say, yes, Lord, I, I want to know you. And maybe the prayer for you today would just be a prayer of, Lord, if you’re there, show it to me.
Help me get to know you. Or maybe the prayer would be, I’m ready to know you as my Savior. Thank you for sending your Son to die on the cross for me, and I ask that you’d forgive me of my sins. If that’s what’s in your heart, tell God that. Respond to his, his work.
He longs to have a relationship with you personally and for you to know him and for that to lead and change your life. That relationship. And so if that’s your desire, just express that to the Lord this morning. He’ll hear your prayer. You don’t even have to say it out loud.
He’ll hear your prayer, and you’ll be adopted into his family. And, and he’s going to give you the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s going to work in your heart to help you know his will. Lord, thank you that you hear prayers like that. And if you make a decision like that this morning, before you leave, speak to one of us.
We’d love to pray with you. We’d love to help you and be an encouragement to you. God, thanks for this time to encourage each other and to move into the next future that you have for us, whatever that be. And so we pray that today in some way can help us take that next step, for we pray this in Jesus’ name. Everybody said, amen.
