Pressing Towards The Mark

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. For a scripture reading this morning, I'd like to turn briefly to Philippians 3 and read several verses there. I think I'll begin reading in verse 13, and this is very familiar to us, and read to verse 16 here. [00:00:34] Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before I press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded, and if any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, [00:01:05] So, let us mind the same thing, and we could read more with profit, but that's as far as I've chosen to read there. Paul here, and he didn't look back, he didn't fret about the past. He could have thought about things like, wasn't he the one that held the clothes when they stoned Stephen? All kinds of things he could have thought back, but that's not what he was doing here. also he could have thought about the many times he was zealous maybe knocking on people's door and persecuting them [00:01:37] and saying all manner of evil against them but he didn't allow his past failures to hold him back and I think many times I get involved in that in my mind at least I go back and forth and in this he didn't He recognized that he didn't complain about his background. I just want to leave that with you. He had humility about his walk. He said, I count not myself to have apprehended. [00:02:11] But he did recognize that he laid a hole of something. He had gotten a hole of something that he really desired. He was very zealous about it. and he says that he wants to put those things behind him and move forward and I think that's what all of us should do. I think all of us can think back and can recognize that we've had failures in the past and probably will have in the future. [00:02:42] But I would like to focus in this morning on verse 14. He was not complacent and there are several things I would like to notice about this And I've titled this message, Pressing Toward the Mark, comes from the text that I read here. He was not complacent. He was pressing towards something and he was motivated. He wasn't just sitting around and thinking about how bad he was in the past or how bad things had been. [00:03:13] He was diligent. He had a goal. He was looking towards something. And I've recently I read Peter, the first and second Peter, and I noticed that Peter does kind of the same thing. He he calls the believer to diligence. And there's several verses that I would like to read here in second Peter one, verse 10 and 11. I'd like to read those were for the rather brother and give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you shall never fail. [00:03:49] They had diligence. He was calling them to diligence. For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And he says this right after he wrote about the character qualities that Christians should have. He's trying to stir up complacent believers. And I trust that we're not just complacent believers. We're here because we want to be here. We have a purpose. We have a goal. [00:04:23] The second thing I would like to notice in Philippians 3 is that he had a goal. He had a well-defined goal. And he wasn't going through life on an aimless course, just kind of whatever happens. I was born in this family, so I just kind of go with the flow. So he had a goal. He was reaching for something. And I believe we should have a goal in our life. We should have a goal. We have goals. Well, I'll just leave that for now. [00:05:00] Now, I trust that we have some of the same goals that Paul did back then. Maybe we're not called like Paul was, but I would like to devote my time this morning in examining some of those goals that we should have or shouldn't have. And part of my struggle here was terminology. And I'll just say this. What do you think is a goal? I think it's fairly simple. The Webster's Dictionary was very helpful in some of these things. [00:05:35] And of course, they have a list of different definitions. But one says this, it is an object or end that one strives to attain. And in my own words, I would say that it's something that we're reaching for, but we haven't quite made it. We're reaching for it. We're working for it. And heaven, of course, is probably the ultimate goal that we... I think we would agree this morning that we're reaching for that goal. But maybe a more functional or one of more immediate concern would be to be more Christ-like. [00:06:09] I think there would be, and we could make a whole list of things. But one thing is clear, the Bible supports measurable growth. And if we want growth, we're going to have to make some goals. And then we're going to have to stay with those goals. We're going to have to work towards that. Now, the other thing that I think Paul had here, and it doesn't really just come out and say it, but I believe he had this. He had a vision. [00:06:40] And I struggled between having a goal and having a vision. And I hope I'm not confusing you this morning, but I think there's a difference. And let me, just hear me out and be ready to share if you disagree with me. A vision, well we all know the verse in Proverbs, where there is no vision, the people perish. And if we have no vision, that's just the way it will be. The people will perish. But a vision, it has more to do with having a mental picture of something, [00:07:17] or an idea of what it should be like. and I think that we can't stop at just having a vision. Many people, many churches, many families have had a vision but they didn't do anything about it and eventually that vision died out. I think we need to make some goals to bring our vision into fruition. We need to work at that. Churches have failed because of misplaced goals. Probably families have too, in some sense. [00:07:51] And I think I'm kind of speaking this morning, I know we've heard many messages about the lost vision, or people have lost the vision, and I think that's a real message. I'm not wanting to take away from this, I feel like I'm starting at the wrong end by speaking about having goals in fulfilling the vision that we have. But I think also that I'm blessed in being among a people that have a vision. It's not, I think, most of us or all of us have some type of mental idea of what we should be doing. [00:08:30] We know what truth is. I think I may take the liberty to say that this morning. Let's keep that vision alive by making some God-honoring goals. and working towards keeping the vision alive. I recognize also, and in my studying I found this coming out in quite a few places, that there are people, maybe not from our constituency necessarily, but there's many people that believe that we should not make any goals. [00:09:06] We shouldn't have goals. The Spirit of God directs us. We should not, we should just, well the Bible does say that we should walk in the Spirit, but even walking in the Spirit, if you're walking, you're moving towards something. So you have some type of goal, and actually I haven't personally known this person, but I do know of a man that moved his family out of state, and the family suffered tremendously because this man refused to work. [00:09:38] He would not do anything beyond what he needed to do that day. And the poor children had no clothes to wear and they had no food to eat. Well, you can imagine the rest. Well, I do believe we need to be mindful of the spirit. There's probably a balance in how we do this thing. On the flip side, there are people, and probably I am more towards that persuasion, where we have such a rigid goal that we cannot bend, or yeah, we're upset if things come up, we just cannot bend. [00:10:19] And I don't know that I have an answer, or a clear answer at least, to what we should do about that. But I do believe that James 4.15 gives a little bit of direction as to what we should do. And it says this, For you ought to say of the Lord's will, we shall live and do this or that. I think we do well to give our goal to God and let Him have His way in it at least. [00:10:50] Now, I recognize that as we think of making goals, I don't know what goes through your mind or what kind of goals you've made in the past, but when I started thinking about this, I have made many, many goals or had goals in my life, Most of them were not even worth mentioning, but they were basically made by default. Well, when we got married, we bought a house, so it was my goal to pay for that house. It was not something that I had premeditated much. [00:11:26] Of course, there's smaller goals within a larger goal that all fit into the big picture. But I think that all of us would agree that whether you're in a church setting, in a school, or whatever you're doing, even in a business, in order for us to succeed, we're going to need to make some goals. And may I just say this along with that, we need to evaluate the goals that we've made. [00:11:59] Sometimes we need to change those things and let the Lord lead us in what we have decided to do or the goals that we've made. Okay, the question now, how do we make God-inspired goals? And I will just admit to you that I don't have all the answers, but certainly I think we should think about it. The first thing that I thought of was, in order for us to make God-inspired goals, or have goals that are God-inspired, [00:12:35] the first thing that I think we need to do is get our thinking in line with God's thinking. And I believe we can do that by reading His Word, and goals that are pleasing to God are hardly ever pleasing to the flesh alone. You know, sometimes I do things and they feel good to me, but what really, do they bring honor to God is the question I would ask. And I know that if our thinking is in line with God's thinking, we can have both. [00:13:12] We can feel satisfaction in what we're doing and still be doing something that brings honor and glory to God. The blessings of pursuing God are great, but they're far greater if we do so with diligence, if we press toward it instead of a half-hearted attempt at it. I think we also need foundational truth, and I don't know what you think about foundational truth, but I think we need that, and foundational truth, I don't know if I can explain what I'm trying to say here. [00:13:50] But I think Brother Daniel preached an excellent message on Bible fundamentals. We need to have, well, in business, if we do business, if we have a business, we research that and we need to know the facts. If we're going to succeed, we need the facts in order for us to go forward. And if we have a church, we need to know the facts. [00:14:21] We need to know what God wants of us. And I think that's foundational truth. God, I think God requires that of us. If we are to make goals, we need to be in tune with God. And I thought of an analogy, and I don't know if it fits here or not. For some reason this struck me that, you know, if a ship was to take off, and they were, let's say they're taking off from London, and they're headed, they want to go to New York City, and of course that happens all the time. [00:14:57] They do that with no problem. But let me say that I think foundational truth in some way can be compared to the steering apparatus of that ship. If we don't have foundational truth guiding our life, our church life, our church, our families, You know, if their steering apparatus is gone, the rudder doesn't work or just is off just a little bit, they might end up in Greenland. [00:15:31] They might, they get so far off course that they wouldn't even know which direction to go anymore. And I believe that we have the same, we can make the same comparison here. We can get so far off course that we don't even know what truth is anymore. Now I want to say that carefully because there is such a thing as coming back, realizing that yes, I made a mistake or we have gone astray and coming back. So I want to say that carefully, put some thought into that. [00:16:03] That's not necessarily something that I got out of the scripture. Our goals must be more than personal ambition. If it's just personal ambition, then it's just what I think or what feels good. Another test that I think we should give our goals is the test of the brotherhood. We have this vision and we make a goal, but I think we do well to run it past our brothers and sisters in church, [00:16:34] or at least make them aware of what we're wanting to do. If we just go off on our own many times, it does not work out. I think we also need a broken and contrite spirit before the Lord. In order to make goals, we can all think of Paul's Damascus Road experience. He had a goal, and I think we talked about this in Sunday school this morning. He was very zealous. He was persecuting Christians. He wanted to get rid of those Christians, but you know what? [00:17:06] When God got a hold of him, his goal changed. He was no longer going that direction. He had a broken spirit. He was now being guided by God, by the Lord. I think that's the Holy Spirit directing us can help us to channel our energy in the right direction. Our goals go as they should. Or we have our focus in the right direction if we have a broken spirit before the Lord. [00:17:42] And again, I'll say that following Christ for the short term may not be necessarily pleasant always, but at the same time, following God or Christ is really the only logical goal that we can make if we look at the odds of it or where we're going to spend eternity. I would like for us to remember that this morning. Now, what about goals as individuals? We've talked quite a bit about goals for the church and as a body. [00:18:18] But goals as individuals is very important and they intertwine with the goals of the church. I would just like to look at some, and the Bible is full of men, great men of God that have had goals in the past. And I think I'm going to read, I've chosen to highlight several of these. I think I'm going to look at Caleb. If you want to, why don't you turn to Numbers 14. I'm going to read several verses there. This is familiar. This is not something that we're not familiar with. Why don't we stand as we read this. [00:18:54] In this passage, he is talking about, well, the spies went out and they came back. Let me just read, starting in verse 5. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel, and Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, Rent their clothes and they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel saying [00:19:24] The land which we pass through to search it is an exceedingly good land If the Lord delight in us then he will bring us into this land And give it us a land which floweth with milk and honey Only rebel not ye against the Lord neither fear ye the people of the land for they are bred for us their defense is departed from them and the Lord is with us fear them not but all the congregation bade stone them with stones [00:19:57] and the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel here they are pleading with the people not to rebel against the Lord you know they had a goal in mind and they knew that they were right in what they were doing But they would not, they wanted to stone him. And I think that sometimes when we make goals, we have to be willing to face opposition for them. [00:20:29] Let's be very careful though. The thing I would like to point out in Caleb here is, don't give up. If you know that this is what, and let's be careful, let's do it prayerfully. Let's faith our goal in prayer. But I think that God will provide the patience that we need to reach the end of that goal. And if I did my study right, it took 45 years for Caleb to tell Joshua, give me this mountain. [00:21:06] He still had that same goal. He was still striving for the same thing. Forty-five years is a long time. I haven't even lived that long. How persistent are we? How persistent are we in God's work? If we face opposition, give it to God. Pray about it. Maybe you've got a son or daughter that's lost. Pray about it. But be persistent. And there's another thing that I wanted to say about personal ambition. [00:21:38] And I missed it. I'll just say it now. Sometimes when I have a goal, I like to do something where people notice that he's made a goal and he's committed and he's working toward it. But you know what? There's many, many opportunities to work for the Lord behind the scenes. There might be a brother that's struggling, has a sin issue, or just maybe he's under stress. [00:22:15] Let's make a goal of praying for that brother, relating to him. We don't necessarily, now I was, this story about Caleb, we put Caleb up here because he was, we see him. But I think many times we have maybe a large goal of becoming more Christ-like, but at the same time there's little things that we can do in the process. Let's remember that. Let's not forget that. [00:22:47] Another individual was Nehemiah, and I'm currently reading that in my devotions. I'd like to read several verses there if you would like to turn there. Just some very familiar verses again about Nehemiah and when he built the wall there. I'm impressed by Nehemiah's work. In the second chapter of Nehemiah, verse 17 and 18, let me just read this. Then said I unto them, Ye see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burned with fire. [00:23:20] Come and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem that we be no more a reproach than I told them of the hand of my God which was good upon me as also the king's words that he had spoken unto me and they said, let us rise up and build so they strengthened their hands for this good work. You see, he was calling the children of Israel or the, I'm not sure, maybe it was the Jews I should have done my homework a little better here to rise up and build the wall around Jerusalem. [00:23:55] He had a vision. He had a vision. And because he had a vision, he made goals. And not only that, he inspired other people to make the same goal. And in this thing, I would like to encourage us to think about our goals, the things that we're striving for. Make sure that we're in line with what God wants us to do. But then, encourage and try to inspire others to work toward the same thing. [00:24:31] You know, sometimes, I'm not trying to provoke an individualistic spirit here, But sometimes one brother or one sister can encourage other brothers and sisters, let's start praying for revival. Let's put some shoe leather on this thing and can change the course of a church, even a community at times. And I would encourage us to keep that in mind. We might have a far greater impact than we just think that we will have in the end. [00:25:07] Now, I'd like to just briefly do a rundown here. And I have probably more questions than answers. But what about goals for our families? And what should they be? I heard someone or read somewhere recently that when we train and teach our children, now this looks like a tall order to me, but we should be putting enough godliness in our children to reach three generations [00:25:39] so that they not only teach our children, but teach our children to teach their children so that it goes on. If that's our goal, we have a lofty goal. I think we should remember that. We should probably be thinking about those things. I think we do well to make goals. What kind of goals should we have for our family? You know, it's easy to have, well, I shouldn't say it's easy. [00:26:11] We have a responsibility as fathers. But what about having a goal of spending time with our family? I fail in this. And probably what you're hearing this morning is some of the things that I'm struggling in. Or, you know, it's so easy for me. I finally get done with my work at the end of the day and I walk in. I like to read a book or do something else, you know. But we need to spend that time with our children. [00:26:41] I think that would be a goal that we should have. What's our goal for the next generation's nonconformity? Do we have goals? Do we have, are we concerned about it? Or what's our goal for our children or the next generation when we go buy clothes for them? I know all of these things are, I'm putting it to you as a question, but I challenge you to go home and think about those things. I think that I would do well to spend more time thinking about this. [00:27:14] And there could be a long list and I don't want to belabor this. What are our goals for the church? Do we have goals? I think we do. I think it's fair to say that we have goals. I think that we have been guided well in many different areas. What about promoting peace among the brotherhood? I think this comes back to individuals within the body. [00:27:47] And I think I just was made aware of another situation and I think that it probably happens a lot and it's not uncommon, but I was made aware again of a situation where a church parted ways because there were divisions there. Let's promote peace among the brotherhood. Almost always when a church cools off or falls into apostasy, there's probably at the heart of things, there's some misguided goals that individuals had and they started to bring this in and to push and move [00:28:25] until finally it falls apart. There's divisions. But I want to say this, that when we have the same goals as a brotherhood and we can come together The Bible talks about the one body concept. We're all as one body. And when we have the same goals, and everybody uses, I shouldn't say the same goals. We have different talents within the church. Different people can do different things. And I appreciate that. I have been blessed in seeing that. [00:29:03] but then we become like fingers reaching out in the community and helping other people but when we fight among us our testimony falls in the dust we're not able to do that well there's a lot more that could be said about that and I also, I'm just briefly going to mention this what about being the beneficiaries of goals that other people have had and I think especially, I'm involved in the school And of course here, people have had a vision before me. How do I carry that vision forward? How do I continue? How do we continue as a church here to carry that vision forward? I think we do well to give some thought to that. We need to do that. [00:29:50] There have been people in our past that have suffered and may I just add this in two of the workshops I was in very interesting they gave lectures on the Anabaptist history and of course that's something that I would like to do a lot more studying on there have been people that have given their life because they had a vision they had a goal for their children their family let's Let's build on the goal and the vision that other people had. I think we do well to do that. [00:30:27] And then in closing, I would like for us to consider what kind of goals that God would want us to make. Let's consider. Let's not leave God out of the equation. Let's make sure that we start with foundational truth. If we desire to serve, let's do it. Let's speak to God first. Then I think it's in order sometimes to express it publicly, maybe in a men's meeting, talk about it, maybe the sisters could do it at the sewing, in their sewing. [00:31:00] Sometimes I have goals, financial goals, if I can just be honest, but I don't say anything to my wife, but I wonder now, I had wanted to say this much, now where did that go? Well, that's just exposing my ignorance. But I think that if we do, if we express ourselves, then we're held accountable for that. And it helps us to bring those things in fruition. The last thing I would like to say is let's make our goals very carefully. [00:31:33] And then let's give them to God so that we can be a fruitful vessel in His hand or a channel. Thank you for watching!