Keep Your Eye On The Goal

[00:00:00] Philippians chapter 3 If you remember, our theme for the year is fulfilling God's purpose in our life. And this morning I would like to think about some goals. Goals. Goals are really important for us. Now, people have various kinds of goals in life. And some people are very goal-oriented. [00:00:37] I don't know if every day they start out with a certain goal or not, but it just seems almost like it. And they're very goal-oriented. They can just organize and look at a goal and just go after that for that day. Some people are goal-oriented as far as their whole life. It seems like, you know, sometimes I talk to young people, and they know exactly what they're going to be doing 30 years from now. I always chuckle a little bit when I hear that. Because while it's good to have some goals, I've noticed that sometimes things have a way of changing. [00:01:15] And what really interests us is that when we're very young, that has a way of changing over the years. But not always. Sometimes people know exactly what they want to do down the road. Some people, especially when it comes to athletics, they have a goal, and someday they're going to be pro-something. Pro-football, pro-basketball, pro-soccer, I don't know what it is, but someday that's what they're going to do, and they're going to make their living by that. [00:01:46] And they'll take and they'll spend their, from little up, and often times it's parents that are behind that And they spend every day practicing and they hire trainers and go to everything they can in order to be the very best And it almost can destroy a childhood sometimes when people get over emphasis into some of those areas Or perhaps it's playing some kind of a musical instrument or singing And people can put a lot of effort and expense and all those things, time, into those goals that they have. [00:02:25] Maybe people say, I have determined by the age of 40 that I'm going to be worth so many million dollars. And sometimes people have those kind of goals in life. Well, I'm not so concerned about those goals this morning because I believe that the Lord has some goals for us. And I think it's important for us to take the goals that God has for us and to adopt them into our lives. Because after all, who knows better what's best for us than the Lord himself? [00:02:59] Self. And I think that we need to look at some of those goals. Now, I just happen to think, do we have the outlines for the children? Did they get, did those all get passed out? I was going to start that at the beginning and I forgot. Any of the children need an outline yet? Okay, there's a few around yet. There's still some out there that were on the... Now one thing I... I made kind of a last minute change in my plans, and I'm going to divide this message up into two parts instead of trying to do it all in one. [00:03:45] One thing I've noticed sometimes is that sometimes we can try to cover too much. And so there was one, I think there was one over way across in the other aisle too, Will. Alexis? Needs one. Okay. So this outline, the first part will be okay, but if you get into the second part, it may not get covered here this morning. All right. I'd like to go to Philippians chapter 3. [00:04:23] The first part of that chapter is talking about Paul, is talking about his background and how that would be easy for him to kind of look at that as his righteousness and his standing with God and realizing and he's saying that all those things, all those benefits and advantages he had in life are really nothing, they're worth nothing when it comes to having Christ. [00:04:55] I'd like to go into verse 10. I'm going to read from verse 10 through verse 14. I think there's just five verses that I want to look at here this morning. And just think about the goals that are there for us. There's four main goals and then some things that it says about them. In verse 10 it says that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being made conformable unto His death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. [00:05:36] Now, right there I see four goals that are there. And I want to think about those first of all. Those four goals that I see in those two verses. The first one it says, that I may know Him. Of course, that's obviously referring to Christ Himself. That I may know Him. And we say, well, how can I know Jesus? I've never met Him. I've never seen Him. As far as in the same way that we would learn to know someone here that we can see and hear and so on. [00:06:12] But we realize we learn to know him by faith. We need to learn to know him through our communication with him, prayer and so on. And we need to learn to know him through the knowledge of him and also the experience of him. Both of those are necessary. Now I realize sometimes we talk about this thing of there's a difference between a head knowledge and a heart knowledge and that's true. But we have to begin with a head knowledge. [00:06:46] There has to be a head knowledge of Christ before we can have that what we call a heart knowledge. And I'm not so sure how different or how far apart those really are. But I think we understand what that is. And so we begin with that real knowledge of Christ, backing up into verse 8. He says, Yea, doubtless I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. And so we need to have that knowledge. [00:07:17] Who is Jesus? And the fact that He is the Son of God, and that He is God, and just all about Him. That's important that we have that knowledge within us. But here again, it needs to go beyond that. Let's go over to John chapter 17. And let's look at some of these verses. If you can, turn with me to these verses. [00:07:51] In John 17, Jesus himself is speaking these words. But notice what he says. And Jesus is praying here. And he says, These words spake Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. This is talking about his crucifixion. Glorify thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee, as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. [00:08:25] Now notice verse 3, And this is life eternal, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. And the way that we can come to know God is to know Christ. Jesus said, You've seen Me, You've seen the Father. And He's saying, Life eternal is to really know Christ. And so this knowing Him is really, really important that we really know our Lord Jesus Christ. [00:08:58] Now go over to Ephesians chapter 3. Ephesians chapter 3 verse 17. that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith and here again I talked about that that we know Christ by faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all saints [00:09:31] what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. And that is what it's talking about, really knowing Christ and to know His love. Now there's two things I believe that's involved in knowing the love of Christ. And that is knowing that He loves us, experiencing that love that He has for us. [00:10:03] But it's also for us having our love for Christ and our love for each other. That is also a very important part of knowing the love of Christ. And then he says that death is something that passes knowledge. So in this thing of really knowing Christ, really knowing Him, it even gets past knowledge. And in knowing His love. So that's the experience, I believe, in really knowing Christ. [00:10:35] Not just a head knowledge, but the experience of really knowing Him, and we might say, from our hearts. So that is really important. And that leads to having the fullness of God in our lives. You know, that's something that doesn't happen just one time. Here again, I said, these things are goals that we need to have. And it's a continual goal that is to take place. It's a daily goal. And that is that I can know Christ and know Him more fully. [00:11:08] You know, there's no end to learning to know our Lord. There's no end to that. And if we think that we've come to that place where we've arrived at that, then we're going to be hurting. But we learn to know Him more and more. So that's the first one. The first goal that we see here in this passage. The second one then we see in verse 10, and that is that we can know the power of his resurrection. The power of his resurrection. [00:11:41] And here again, this is a very important goal, and one that needs to be continuous as we live our Christian life. There's no greater power than the power to give life. Now you think about it, if we don't have life, we have nothing. But I believe that the greatest power of all is the power to give life. Recently we saw a film, or whatever you want to call it, on the Hubble Telescope that is up and orbiting forever. [00:12:21] It is orbiting now, and it's got a tremendous camera on it, and able to take pictures. And it showed some of these pictures that are of galaxies and they were saying that there are so many galaxies out beyond us that they can't count them anymore. They're way beyond what we can count. And each one could be trillions of miles apart, I mean, within these galaxies. [00:12:54] And as they were talking about these things, and one thing that surprised me, so many of these things often times are talked about from an evolutionary standpoint. And this one didn't seem to have a lot of that in it. But as I watched those pictures, and they showed actual pictures of some of these things that they see way out there, I just thought, how great is our God. How marvelous and beyond anything. [00:13:26] But you know, still the greatest thing of all, the fact that he gives us life. Comes right back down to that. The power of the resurrection, he has power over life. And so, that resurrection, not only is it the power over physical life, but that resurrection includes the power of regeneration the power of taking a life that is destroyed [00:13:58] a power of taking a life that is dead in trespasses and sins and bringing new life out of that that's where the real power of the resurrection takes place go to Romans chapter 6 and here in Romans chapter 6 is a passage that we use in a baptism Anabaptism, and not all of it, but we use part of this, and I think sometimes we use it without really stopping to think what it's saying. But in Romans chapter 6 verse 4, it says, [00:14:31] Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. And so we are buried with him, we die with him, we identify with his death, but it doesn't stop there. We are to walk in newness of life. He raises us from the dead that we should walk in newness of life. And we could go down and say a lot of things there, but the main point is there that the power of Christ to work in us. [00:15:12] You know, sometimes we can get kind of discouraged in our lives. And maybe we're struggling with something, maybe it's a habit of some kind, or thoughts, or whatever it is. We can get kind of discouraged, we say, this seems like I can't get victory over this. But I believe there is victory. I believe that when we avail ourselves of the resurrection power of Jesus Christ that he can raise us out of that grave [00:15:44] he can raise us out of those things that can torment us and give us victory over them and I believe that's the message of our Lord Jesus Christ you know the great message that over the years of the church was the fact that Jesus rose from the dead And that's been really one of our main messages. And we take that away and we really have nothing. But the fact that it gives that life is the fact that he raises us from the dead and gives us new life. [00:16:18] And so that is the goal that I want to encourage us to have. And that is the goal of the resurrected life where we are continually growing and where we're experiencing new life. daily and growing in our walk with Him. I believe that's so important that we are able to do that and that's our desire that we have that kind of a goal. Now the third goal that I see here is one that is kind of easy to skip over. [00:16:52] And one that we say, well, why did He drop this in here? You know, it's nice to talk about knowing Christ and the power of His resurrection and so on. But what about this goal, the fellowship of His suffering? Do we really consciously stop and say, you know, I have a goal that I want to suffer with Christ? That's not a goal we very often really think about, is it? And especially, you know, to think, you know, I'd really like to suffer with Christ. [00:17:26] But that's what he says. That's what he's saying that is a goal for us. The fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death. Identifying him with his death. And just having that that's able to suffer for him. Let's go to Romans chapter 8. And here again, suffering. This is quite contrary to really what is thought so often with the Christian life. [00:18:01] So often people think the Christian life is just one of everything going well, once we give our hearts to the Lord, everything goes fine, and we just don't have any problems anymore. I don't know if anybody here thinks that's the way it is or not, but I think most of us realize that's not the case. And we are going to face difficulties and sufferings. In Romans chapter 8 verse 16, it says that the Spirit of self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. [00:18:34] And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. There again, we like that. We're comfortable with that. Now, but it says then, if so be that we suffer with him. You know, we can't really be joint heirs with him, and so on, if we don't suffer. We're not willing to suffer with him. That we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. [00:19:09] And while suffering is real, and here again, suffering comes in a lot of different ways, in a lot of different forms. But we realize it's going to be a part of our walk with the Lord, and we can't avoid it. Go to 1 Peter chapter 4. 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 13. It says, But rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings, even rejoice about it, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. [00:19:54] If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye. Do we find that? We are reproached for who we are, for who we believe and what we believe. and we're mocked, we're looked at as a bunch of oddballs. Do we rejoice in that? Is that something we're glad for? Kind of goes against us, doesn't it? We don't like to stand out as oddballs. But it says, happy are ye for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you. [00:20:30] On their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified. It says, But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf. So, let's think about suffering is normal. It's not abnormal. Things that are going to be uncomfortable for us [00:21:02] And things that don't really please us, please our flesh That's going to be, that is a part of the Christian life The early church experienced this over in Acts chapter 5 Acts chapter 5 verse 41 I thought it was interesting to see their perspective of suffering. In Acts 5.41 it says that they departed from the presence of the council. [00:21:33] They'd been, I think they were beaten if I remember right there and given a lot of trouble. And they departed from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And he's talking here of suffering shame. You ever feel ashamed sometimes of who you are? Afraid people are going to find out who you are or what you stand for? He says rejoice. Be glad that we can. [00:22:06] And the Lord will reward us for that. Over in 1 Corinthians chapter 4, we see Paul's perspective on suffering. 1 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 10. He's comparing himself here with themselves as apostles and kind of compared to the rest of the church. [00:22:37] But he says here, we are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ. We are weak, but ye are strong. Ye are honorable, but we are despised. Even unto this present hour we both hunger and thirst and are naked and are buffeted and have no certain dwelling place and labor working with our own hands being reviled we bless being persecuted we suffer it being defamed we entreat we are made as the filth of the world [00:23:08] and are the offscoring of all things unto this day I write not these things to shame you but as beloved sons I warn you And he goes on and says other things there. But it's such a different perspective of what too often we think about as the Christian life. And we don't like to accept that or to think about the fact that suffering can be a part of that. [00:23:41] All right, that's the third thing, the third goal that we see here, the fellowship of his suffering. And then the fourth one we see in verse 11. And that is, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. I think our ultimate goal is that we are going to have a part of that resurrection on that final day. The resurrection of the dead. And, you know, if we don't have that, nothing else really matters, does it? [00:24:21] You stop and think about it. Nothing else really matters if we're not going to experience that resurrection from the dead. In Luke 14, 13 and 14, Jesus talks about that. And he just kind of, in a sense, mentions it in passing, but it just shows how much he taught it. Luke 14, 13 And when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind, and thou shalt be blessed, for they cannot recompense thee. [00:25:01] for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the dead. That wasn't his main point there, but he's just saying, you know, take care of these other things and make a feast, call them, and you may not get any return for it, but he says you will at the resurrection of the dead. You will be rewarded for those things. So it is a very important goal that we need to look at. Martha believed it. [00:25:33] Do you ever notice what Martha says over in John chapter 11? Martha gets a lot of bad press. Everybody always thinks of Martha as one that was so involved and so on. And she was, and it was a good lesson. But something that Martha says over in John chapter 11, verse 24. Jesus had said, in verse 23, Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. And Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection of the last day. [00:26:09] She had that faith and confidence that there was going to be a resurrection. And even though we all die, the time's going to come when we're going to be resurrected and be forever with the Lord. She had that confidence and she had that faith. But you know, there were some other people around her that didn't. And that was the Sadducees. I'm not going to turn to a passage on that, but if you remember those terms, the Pharisees and the Sadducees there in the time of Jesus, and that was one of the things the Sadducees did not believe in a resurrection. [00:26:42] And I just cannot conceive that of someone actually rejecting the resurrection. I believe you just take away all that you believe and destroy everything you believe when you take away the resurrection. So, there again, that number four, that we believe that there is a resurrection and we need to keep that goal in focus in our lives. [00:27:14] Now, how do we get there? Going back to Philippians chapter 3, how do we get there? It's one thing to have a goal, but another thing is how do we get to it? And we all know that any goal that's worthwhile is going to take some effort and it's going to take some work. Paul set the example in this, and one thing he clears up there, and we get into verse 12. And he says, I want to make it clear to you, he says, I don't want you to think that because I'm saying these things, that I'm saying them because I have arrived, that I'm perfect. [00:27:57] And he uses this word apprehend here. That's not a common word that we use. But that word apprehend means to lay hold on. And he says, you know, I haven't arrived at all of these things. But he says, the thing that I do is that I follow after. I follow after. And that's what we need to do when it comes to these goals that are here, these four goals that are stated. [00:28:30] None of us here have kept those goals perfectly. None of us here have arrived in a perfect sense as we have strived to keep those goals and to meet those goals. But he says, I follow after it. That's my goal in life is to aim toward that. And I need to lay hold on that and to follow after it. [00:29:00] Psalm 42 talks about, as a deer pants after the water brook, so pants my soul after the old God. And we need to have that kind of desire for the things that the Lord wants for us. And then he goes to verse 13. And he says, Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended or to laid hold on. I haven't done all that. But this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before. [00:29:32] And he's saying, first of all, if we're going to meet these goals, we're going to have to forget those things that have went on before us. And you know, those things are difficult sometimes. You know, I don't care who we are, we've got a past, don't we? We've got things in our past that we regret. We've got things in our past that we wish would never have happened. And those things we need to take and we need to bring them to the cross. Lord, you take care of these things. I'm going to give those to you. And just take them and leave them there with the Lord at the cross. And Lord, I want to reach on. I want to reach beyond this now. I want to go beyond and just take and reach out to what you want for me now. I think that's what he's saying. And it's so important. [00:30:27] You know, when we kind of live in the past, we always think about what happened before now. Whether it's a year, or two years, or 20 years, or 40 years, or whatever it is. If we keep our minds back there, it's always going to cloud the future. We're not going to be able to really live for now. When we always have our minds on what happened in the past. And so he's saying, you know, in order to reach those goals, I'm going to have to leave those things, forget those things which are behind, and reach forward. [00:31:05] And then he says in verse 14, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus. Well, he's talking here about a race, giving the picture of a race, of a runner running the race. And, you know, the Bible does that, uses some of those illustrations and how that we live this Christian life. And we know that if you're going to run a race, it's going to take an effort. It's going to take determination. It's going to take, you're going to have to stick to it if you're going to do it. [00:31:40] And it's going to be important that we can. You know, at the end of the race, there was a prize that was to be given to them. And this is what those that ran, you know, they were looking for that prize. And so he says, I pressed toward the mark for the prize. Kind of interesting, I was looking in a concordance and doing some study on that verse and just seeing what some others had to say on it. And one of them said that pressing toward the mark, you know, we think that mark is that finish line. [00:32:20] And it is. I think that's really the main thing that it's talking about here. But he said that that original word in there also has the idea of not just the finish line, but he said as a runner runs, they had certain boundaries that they were to stay in as they ran. And he said they were to run lawfully, and they were to run and stay within those marks in order to run this race. And he said he thinks that that was included in this. [00:32:54] But we know for sure that he's talking here that he's pressing toward the mark, pressing toward that finish line when we reach that line. And it says that for the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, we receive that crown that the Lord has waiting for us. You know, I found that the Lord has three different crowns that he talks about. [00:33:25] And I don't know how many, maybe there's some others that I missed. But over in, I'm not going to turn to these, but over in 2 Timothy 4, he talks about a crown of righteousness that he's giving to us at that day. A crown of righteousness. Over in Revelation 2.10, he says, he's giving a crown of life to us. Those that overcome and so on, he says, I'll give them a crown of life. [00:33:55] And then over in 1 Peter 5, I'm going to turn to that one because there was something that I thought was interesting there. In 1 Peter 5, verse 4. It says, And when the chief shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. Now that's not there where, I thought that was in that, but I might be wrong. [00:34:27] But somewhere it was saying that not only we get that crown, but all those that love his appearing. Was that back in Philippians? I don't see that right now. But that just stood out to me, because sometimes we think of a person winning a race, And the Bible talks about that as only one person receiving, you know, the prize. But I noticed this one that I read talks about that all those that run and are faithful and reach that finish line will receive that crown. [00:35:09] And so I appreciated that very much to see that. Well, next time, I want to continue on with this passage, because it goes into areas that are saying that there are some dangers as we run this race. And he has some warnings for us, and things that can distract us from running it the way that we should. But I'd like to just think this morning about these goals, especially these four goals that are there. And are these the goals that we are really looking at? [00:35:41] Are they the goals that we really want? Is that what we're really desiring? Or do we have goals that are just pretty much here on earth? Not really thinking a whole lot about what's for eternity. Now there's nothing wrong with setting some goals here on earth. And we need to do that. But overall, we need to have those goals that are going to have eternal results, eternal consequences. Lord bless you, and I trust that we can be encouraged, and let's stand for closing prayer. [00:36:25] Father, we thank you for your word again this morning. We thank you, Lord, for these goals that you have given to us. And Father, I pray that we can take them seriously. That they would not be something we can just say, oh, that's good, and just forget it. But Lord, help us to take those goals seriously for our lives. I just pray that you would work in each one of us. [00:36:56] Lord, whatever the needs are that each of us experience, we just ask that your Holy Spirit would really work in us. Father, I just pray, I just pray that we can be what you want us to be in all that we do and say. I just ask that you would dismiss us with your blessing, and Lord, help us to be serious about walking with you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen