I found that sometimes the first Sunday of the year a lot of
people are still gone often so decided we'd focus on things
related to the new year. So Philippians Chapter 3 is
where we'll be next week. We will be back in the book of
Genesis, slowly working our way through the book.
We'll, we'll pick it up eventually, maybe around chapter
12, We'll, we'll pick up the pace as things start moving a
little faster. But Philippians chapter 3, if
you're using one of our Bibles there in front of you, it's on
page 981. Now I get the sense that many
people are ready to put 2025 behind them.
In some ways, it feels a little bit similar to when we left 2020
behind. There's increasing political and
societal turmoil, which I honestly don't think will end
anytime in the next few years. There's continued talk about
COVID that has some people feeling apprehensive.
Inflation that's making a significant impact in our lives,
catastrophic flooding, concern over the situation in the Near
East. Even in the midst of the Gaza
peace plan. There are also senseless attacks
on innocent people. Not to mention the now entirely
rational fear that you can't trust anything you read or see
online due to the presence and inundation of artificial
intelligence. Each year when the calendar
ticks over, we naturally think of it as a clean slate.
The last years in the past. Now it's time to forge a better
path forward and perhaps you can resonate with this.
And as 2025 fades into the rearview mirror, your only
thought is good riddance. Personally, I look back on 2025
the same way I did 2020, with fondness in witnessing God's
working in our lives as we sit here on this fourth day of the
year. I know that some of you,
probably the more type A's, have already set resolutions and
goals and you're already on your way to achieving those and
making those happen. But others of us, the more laid
back personalities, don't have that same drive to set goals.
And in all honesty, you might have a tendency to actually push
back against the idea of setting goals.
I naturally land somewhere in the middle of these two
extremes. I'm not overly driven to set
lots of goals and go gung ho each year when the first hits,
but then I'm also not entirely prone to just sit back and do
nothing. I find myself somewhere in the
middle and and occasionally I've I've seen setting goals as a
catapult to growth. So this morning we'll consider
how Paul can speak to us on this topic.
Philippians 3 chapter. Philippians chapter 3 verses 12
through 14. Would you stand, if you are
able? Verse 12 Not that I have already
obtained this, or I'm already perfect, but I press on to make
it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own brothers.
I do not consider that that I have made it my own.
But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining
forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the
prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
You may be seated. The first thing we see here that
Paul is doing and his encouragement to us is to keep
pressing on. We keep pressing on.
See the church in Corinth held the belief that Paul should have
already arrived by now. He should be complete.
He should be fully mature by now.
And Paul didn't want that that notion to take roots and and
Philippi as well. Why does this matter?
Why does it matter if they thought he should be more
mature? Why did he feel the need to keep
pressing on? Well, there are two reasons And
Paul was compelled to keep pressing on.
First, he said because Jesus has made me his own.
Paul wasn't pressing on for his own purposes or for his own
glory, if you will. He was pressing on because Jesus
had chosen and called him. He'd been the recipient of God's
grace, and in response to the gift of grace offered to him,
Paul was offering his life back in worship.
He wasn't trying to earn his way into heaven.
No, he simply want to make sure that his life was continually
being transformed by God working in and through him.
The second Paul was pressing on because he wasn't fully mature
yet, verse 12 read. Not that I've already obtained
this or am already perfect. Paul wasn't fully mature there.
There were still areas of life that that needed to be further
shaped to be like Christ. And this process is what we call
progressive sanctification. This is progressive
sanctification. I like how Vines, Expository
Dictionary of New Testament words defines progressive
sanctification as a separation of the believer from evil.
It's a separation of the believer from evil.
We are separated from the works of the devil in both a passive
and an active manner. Passively we trust God to
sanctify us as we yield to His will.
And then actively we choose to do what's right and and to put
away the works of the flesh. We are making decisions that
glorify God. That is the active part of it.
And this, all this, both the passive and and active part,
this progressive sanctification, it's all a big fancy theological
way of saying that we are becoming more and more like
Jesus. But not everyone's at the same
place as the Holy Spirit speaks to each person in different
ways. One person may be working on
their anger, while another works on bitterness and and learning
how to forgive someone who hurt them.
Still another might be tackling the issue of smoking or
overeating, while someone else seeks to be more responsive to
the Holy Spirit's promptings in sharing the Gospel with someone.
Yet another may be convicted of their language and wanting to
bring that into conformity to Jesus Christ.
If you new to the faith, you need to understand that
Christians come from many different walks of life, are in
and we're all in different places of spiritual growth.
Don't be discouraged if you're fighting a sin that you thought
would be easier to conquer. Don't be discouraged if you
struggle with lust, if you struggle with your language, if
your temper gets the best of you sometimes.
Don't be discouraged if you find it hard to forgive someone who
has deeply offended you. Don't be discouraged if you find
it hard to spend a few minutes in prayer each day or or to
spend time in the Word each day. Continue seeking God and
allowing Him to grow you into the Christ follower that He
wants you to be. I think the great theologian
Dory said it best. Just keep swimming.
Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.
Should I have adopted Dory's voice?
Would that have been better? Just keep swim.
No. Last, I digress.
There are things to learn from from movies, and there are
things that we don't want to emulate.
But just keep going. Keep responding to what the Holy
Spirit is convicting you of. Don't quit Paul.
Paul kept pressing on. He wanted to do more and he was
convicted by the Holy Spirit that he had not yet arrived.
Now in order to press on, we have to forget what is behind.
We have to forget what's behind. Like many of you, I enjoy
watching the Olympics and and I'll watch as much of it as I
can when it comes on next month, you know, trying to catch the
the prime time, you know, highlights reel, if you will.
But perhaps the most exciting races to watch actually occur
during the Summer Olympics with the 100 and 200 meter sprints.
These races are over in 10 and 20 seconds.
There's no room or margin for error in these races.
Once the starting gun goes off, it's an all out sprints to the
finish line. In these races everyone's
attention is firmly fixed ahead. The runners can't look behind
they they can't look at the other runners and see where
they're at. They can't look at the ground
that they've already covered. If they were to do that, there
would be 1 sure conclusion. They would fail to run the best
race they possibly could. They would stumble.
They would lose their momentum, their balance.
And when you're running at 2627 miles an hour, which I can't
imagine when you're running at these speeds, you can't look
behind because if you look elsewhere now, they start
looking up at this at the big monitor.
That's kind of a nifty little trick, huh?
They can look up to see, oh, on the screen, where am I?
Oh, they're all back there. No, you can't do that.
If you look around, you'll stumble, you'll fall, you'll
lose that momentum, and you will not run the best race that you
possibly could. So we need to fix our eyes on
what's ahead and forget what's behind.
In the previous verses, Paul listed some of his credentials,
all the reasons that he had to boast in himself.
If your Bible's still open or your phone is still on, whatever
the case may be, look, look at verses 5 and 6 of Philippians 3.
Verses 5 and 6, It says he was circumcised on the eighth day of
the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of
the Hebrews as to the law, a Pharisee as to Zeal, a
persecutor of the church as to righteousness under the law.
Blameless. Paul had the right pedigree.
He had all the right credentials.
It all started with his parents, who had circumcised him on the
8th day according to the requirements of the law.
Now he was an Israelite. Not only that, but he knew
exactly which tribe he was descended from.
It was the tribe of Benjamin, and while he came from a Greek
speaking place, he came from Tarsus.
He didn't only speak Greek, he also spoke Aramaic, making him a
Hebrew of Hebrews, being able to speak the language of the people
of Judea. He had the right lineage, he had
the right background, and he was also a Pharisee.
The Pharisees had taken taken the 613 laws that were written
down in Scripture and they'd put in thousands of other laws as
guard rails around the law so that they would essentially not
even come close in their minds to to violating what was written
down in the Torah. And he was a Pharisee, power,
excellence. He kept the law so perfectly, he
says. And he was so good at keeping
the law. He even sought to persecute
Christians because because he felt that these Christians, they
were, they were breaking the Torah.
And so he sought to persecute them.
Then at the end of verse 6, he said he was blameless under the
law. He's saying essentially that he
was a righteous person. He was a Pharisee of all
Pharisees. But he refused to let his his
past heritage and and his achievements dictate his present
actions and his standing, All those things that that he
formerly would have counted as as assets as as his trophies in
life. Look how well I have lived, he
now says. They're worthless.
They mean nothing to me now. In fact, they mean so little to
him that he uses a colorful word to describe them as fecal
matter. These things are just rubbish,
especially compared to knowing Christ.
So Paul was pressing on and and forgetting his old life, his old
accomplishments, the things that were behind.
He wasn't about to let those those things in the past
distract him. And that brings us to straining
forward. Straining forward.
It's possible when when you hear this, you might have a picture
perhaps of trying to to strain to reach something on the top
shelf, like like when my vertically challenged wife is
trying to reach something on the top shelf and she has to.
Is this funny? No, and she has to call Micah or
I to come get it. But that is not the type of
straining that is in view here. It's not just trying to reach
something straining for something like that.
No, what is in view here is the straining is pulling a muscle to
its absolute limit, stretching it to its absolute limit.
And why when I think of straining, I can't help but
think of at CrossFit our our deadlift one Rep Max day.
You see, this day is, is where you pick up as heavy of a
barbell as you possibly can. It's very simple, really just
pick up the weight. But you see, it's going to take
a lot of straining to do this. Now you have to, you have to set
yourself up right. You set your feet under the
barbell. You, you hinge your hips back
and you make sure everything is set up right.
Your, your shins are, are vertical, your hips are, your
hips are pulled back, your shoulders are back and in tight.
You reach down for the barbell and you start to, instead of
trying to stand up, we actually say push your feet away into the
ground. So you start to pull, push your
feet into the ground and you stand up.
And sometimes it might take 10 seconds to do it because there's
a lot of straining. And you'll see people bouncing
the bar some because they are straining with all their might
using everything that they have. That is what straining is.
Paul loves his athletic metaphors and that is what he is
doing here. He had literally poured
everything he had into his walk with God.
So what was it that he was pressing on towards?
He was pressing on towards the goal.
So we press on towards the goal Paul was pressing on towards the
goal that it says in verse 14 is the upward call of God.
The upward call of God refers to first of all, the source of the
call. God is the source of the call.
He's the one who is who had called out to Paul.
He's the one who calls out to us and says come follow me.
The second, the upward call of God, also refers to the
destination. It's a heavenly directed call.
It's an upward call. Hebrews 11 tells us about
numerous Old Testament Saints who who demonstrated their faith
in the midst of hard times. In Hebrews 11/13, the writer
refers to those who are listed in what we refer to as the the
Hall of Faith. He, he refers to them, and by
extension us as strangers in exiles on the earth.
Strangers in exiles on the earth.
So that means our home isn't here.
We're just passing through this world knowing that our true
homes in a place that that is much, much better than this
place. It's not like this place.
It's not tarnished by sin, a place where we will be more
alive than we are even at this very moment, CS Lewis wrote in
his bestseller Mere Christianity.
If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did
most for the present world were just those who thought most of
the next World. Paul embodied Lewis's statements
and he was looking for forward to the day when when he would
fully experience God's presence, enjoying freedom from the
penalty and presence and power of sin.
He looked forward to a day when sin would no longer prevent him
from being united with and knowing God fully.
So that's the goal that Paul was striving for here in this
passage. Paul has told us to press on and
forget what lies behind, straining forward with all our
might as our eyes are fixed on that goal.
So as we think about Paul's goal and encouragement to us, it
would be good for us to also consider goals in our lives.
What goals can can we implement to help us make progress and and
press forward? The late Christian motivational
speaker Zig Ziglar said if you aim at nothing, you will hit it
every time. Profound words.
If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.
So a lack of goals can be indicative of complacency.
So it behooves us, regardless of our feelings and predispositions
towards goals, to go ahead and set goals for ourselves.
So in the remaining moments of our time this morning, I want to
talk a little bit about goals, about progressing, whether it be
in our sanctification really is what we really are focusing on
here this morning is our sanctification or walk with
Christ or even in other areas of our lives.
But before we do that, I want to help us understand what goals
are. In his book Covenant Marriage,
Gary Chapman said this our priorities are stated in broad
categories and indicate what we believe to be most important in
life. So our priorities are stated in
broad categories and indicate what we believe to most be most
important, right? This makes sense.
Our priorities are the things that are important in life.
So you could say these are principles and values that we
try to live by. And then he goes on to say
goals. Goals, on the other hand, are
stepping stones that help us accomplish our priorities.
Goals are the action steps that the steps that we take to help
us accomplish the priorities and and live by the values in our
lives. For the sake of our discussion
today, there are two main types of goals.
First of all, there are personal goals.
There are personal goals. These are the types of goals
that you're probably think thinking of each year when
January 1st comes around. These are the types of things
that just help you grow as a person.
These are the things that you want to accomplish in the coming
year. There is of course the infamous
weight loss goal. Perhaps reading goals, career
goals, financial goals, or even relationship goals with your
spouse or children or friends. There are many different
categories of of personal goals and and these can all be good
things. But then what we want to focus
on is spiritual goals. Spiritual goals are are
specifically drawn up to help strengthen our relationship with
God. These are the types of things
that will cause us to be closer to Him and to hear Him better.
These could be areas like scripture reading, your prayer
life for learning to give back to God a percentage of your
income. So how do we determine what
exactly the goals are in our lives?
First of all, pray. You may not have expected that,
but pray. Clothe each step in prayer.
This may sound weird for for some, but this is important.
It may be that there are some aspects or areas of your life
that are clearly off track and need to be changed.
And so you already know, hey, this needs to be changed.
Like if you have a drug addiction, that might be a
foregone conclusion that needs to change, right?
But praying is saying, God, I need your help with this.
And praying also says, God, help me to know what you want me to
do so that I'm not just going after whatever it is that I want
to do, but I am doing what He wants.
We need His wisdom and help in addressing all these areas of
concern. So pray.
Next, define your values. Define your values or or your
priorities. What is it that you prioritize
in your life? I'm going to guess due to your
presence here this morning, you prioritize being in God's house.
Most of you are here each and every week.
That's a, that's a priority, right?
And so to be close to God, to be in God's house.
So you have taken a step to be here.
Now pray and ask God to reveal to you the right areas of value.
You see, sometimes we might have values or priorities that God
needs to chip out, that he needs to shape and mold.
You may need to take something away for a season and and shift
those priorities to something else.
So do an authentic searching of your heart and listen to God as
you define your values. This can be hard to stop because
first of all it requires us to stop.
We have to stop. We have to rest for a moment and
think what is it that I value? What is it that God wants me to
value? It requires some thought and
thinking through these things. Praying.
Take inventory of what you what you value is.
This will then help you in the next step as you actually
establish your goals. Remember, these goals are set up
to help you achieve and support your values.
So how does God want to stretch and grow me in the coming year?
Is is the question. When it comes to goals, don't
simply come up with a few things that you want to do.
Sure, that might be part of it, but actually pray about it and
ask God what the goals in your life should be.
So as you do that, first of all, make them realistic, make them
realistic. Make sure that it's something,
hey, in 365 days, I think I could accomplish this.
For example, for some time now my dad has had a goal of dead
lifting 500 lbs for a few years. He has been progressively
working towards towards that goal and it and is nearly right
at the doorstep of that, which I think would be pretty close to a
world record to lift £500 off of the ground at 75 years of age.
There's a very small group of people in this territory.
So that was literally part of his goal was to set a world
record for his age group. He's right there, right there.
But so he's been working on that.
But to be honest, I would never set a goal to deadlift £500 this
year. Why?
Because it's not realistic. I am nowhere near that.
The most I lifted pulled off the ground this last year I think
was around 355, which is a long ways from 500, right.
And when you've been lifting as long as I have, you're not going
to make 150 LB jump in one year. 20 maybe.
I don't, you know, I would have to really prioritize that.
It is not realistic for me to even try to make that a goal to
pull £500 off the ground. If I really wanted, I could make
a goal to pull £400 off the ground this year, but that would
take a lot of work and I'm not going to prioritize that either.
That's simply not my goal right now.
So make it realistic. Next, be specific and
measurable. Be specific and measurable.
So set specific goals that you can actually tell if you
achieved it. If you're not specific with your
goals, then it's hard to know where you're headed and if
you've made it to the destination.
For example, if you would like to lose weight, don't set a goal
that simply says lose weight this year.
Be specific about what you would like to lose so you know when
you have achieved it. I have my own goals here.
And then last year I set a specific goal.
I said become a lead pastor in 2025.
Well, that was a very specific goal, right?
And we can now look back and say that was achieved because it was
a specific goal. Taking all this into the
spiritual realm, if you want to be strengthened your walk with
God, then then don't just leave it at that.
Develop several realistic and measurable goals to help you
move towards that value of wanting to grow spiritually.
A couple weeks ago, a few weeks ago, I don't remember when it
was I mentioned the the power of four.
And this is spending time in the word for times a week and that
when we spend at least four days a week in the Word, that's
begins to make a significant impact and change in our
spiritual life and health. So if you're wanting to be
closer to God this year, perhaps you commit to being in the Word
4 times a week. Perhaps you're already doing
that. Maybe you say 5 times, maybe you
say 6, maybe you make a commitment.
I remember what transformed my life was one year I said I'm
going to be in the word every single day.
Whether it's 5 minutes or whether it's 35 minutes is
better than zero. I made a commitment to be in the
word every single day. It completely transformed my
life. So be specific about what you
want to do. Set that goal, and I guarantee
you that you're going after that goal even should you fail in
reaching that goal. If you're still going after that
goal, you're still making progress and accomplishing more
by going after that goal than if you hadn't set that goal at all.
In Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Alice comes to a
fork in the road and sees the Cheshire Cat in the tree and
asks, Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from
here? The cat responds, That depends a
good deal on where you want to get to.
I don't much care, said Alice. Then it doesn't matter which way
you go, said the Cat, so long as I get somewhere, Alice added.
Oh, you're sure to do that, said the cat.
If you only walk long enough. Far too many people live like
Alice. We walk long enough, we're busy,
we're tired, and we'll inevitably end up somewhere.
But is it where God intends? If we don't have clear,
sanctified goals, then any path will do.
We'll be tossed to and fro by whatever urgency pops up on our
phone or in our schedule today. So stop drifting.
Let's ask God where He wants us to go.
And I include myself in that. I'm still working out what are
my goals this year. Let's ask God where He wants to
go. Then choose the path that
actually leads there. Not just any path will do.
Pray over your values. Set goals that are realistic,
specific, and measurable. Then start taking the steps to
reach them. It's taking one day at a time.
Don't fixate on the end that might, that might seem a little
overwhelming, but look at those those steps, those those goals
that you can take to achieve upholding that value you won't
casually succeed at meeting. Your goals are progressing in
life. It takes intentionality and
sacrifice. It will cost something, it costs
us something, but if you make the sacrifices and you follow
through on your steps to achieve your goals, then at the end of
the year, you'll be able to look back at your life and you can
see what God has done. Let's bow our heads and close
our eyes. Let's just take a moment this
morning as we as we close out this portion of our service to
consider what is it that God would want us to do in this
year? What are the values?
Kind of start thinking through some of those values, those
priorities of your life that you need to set goals for upholding.
Let's just take a moment of quiet.
God, as we consider this next year, would you illuminate our
our hearts and minds to understand what you would desire
of each of us that we would not wander through this year
carelessly in the sense that Alice was doing.
Because it does matter which way we go.
Some ways will bring us closer to you, others will not.
So God, help us to understand what you would desire of us in
this year. It's in Jesus name we pray,
Amen.