A Vision for Your Work
Vision January 18, 2026 Philippians 3:7-14 Notes
People often find their identity in their work, in their resume or in their bio. If your vision for work is only about the “gain” on your resume, you will eventually hit a “Now what?” wall.
Two thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul showed us how to move past that wall. Writing from a Roman prison, the apostle Paul testified to the Philippian believers how he had counted his past achievements as “loss” and redirected his vision toward pursuing his upward calling in Christ Jesus. We can redirect our vision for our work toward pursuing our calling in Christ Jesus.
Audio
Good morning, church. It's great seeing all of you here this morning. We're happy to have you here on this day. I was up early this morning thinking if people would just panic because the weather said it was going to be bad. But you're here, and I'm thankful for you.
Good to see all of you here this morning. Before we continue our sermon series today, I want to address the bulletin insert that you see today from Choices Women's Center. Today is the third Sunday of January. It's a day that many churches, including ours, remember the sanctity of human life. It's the Sunday we call the “Sanctity of Human Life” Sunday.
And we remember what God's word teaches us in the book of Psalms 139 as we read, Psalm 139:13-14 (NIV) “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.” And so we believe in God's word, and we believe that we were made in God's image and that we believe the unborn deserve life. And so we support that. But we not only just support that as a theoretical thing, but we support the local Choices Women's Center, which is a service to those women who might have an unplanned pregnancy, and they need help with how to make a decision about that. And so our church supports them financially.
We also have people from our church that volunteer there. So we not only want to help women make a decision for life and support them financially and help them do that, but we also support women who may have gone through this earlier in life and made a different decision. And we recognize that there are women, even in my hearing right now, as I am preaching, that may have made a different decision about this. And often they have a brokenness about them that really needs forgiveness and healing so they can forgive themselves and receive forgiveness from the Lord.
And so Choices Women Center also offers counseling. And we care about both the mother and the unborn, and we care about the difficulty of that decision for many. And so we want to support you in that, and we want to support them. So if you want to know more about this, you can see the insert in your bulletin. You can also stop off at the table in the lobby where we have baby bottles there.
We do this every year where you can put loose change in the baby bottles and then turn them back in. We give this as financial support in addition to the support we normally do. So if you want to know more, stop off at the table. Our own Valerie Hawley is the director of the Choices Women's Center.
She's a member at our church. I was a little late in inviting her to come and speak for us today. She's speaking at another church this morning. But when you see Valerie, make sure you let her know that we support her hard and diligent work there. Well, let's dig in.
We're continuing going through the book of Philippians, pulling a little bit out of each of the four chapters in these four messages. We're in chapter three today, and we're continuing this series we're calling, “Vision - Seeing Yourself in God's Story.” Rather than seeking your own vision, but to seek rather a vision from God for your life. And many of us, as we think about our work, in the past weeks, we've talked about our heart and vision. For me personally, last week we talked about home, a vision for my family and my friends, my relationships.
But today I want us to kind of zero in about our vocation. And many of us view our vocation, our work, kind of like our identity. In fact, if men are talking to each other, I'm not sure if women do this, but men certainly do. We'll say, hey, what's your name? When we're meeting somebody, hey, I'm Gary.
Oh, nice to meet you, John. And then what do you do? That's like the second question after the name is that's your identity. What do you do? And so your vocation is very important.
And maybe women go from that to family. I'm not sure. I'll have to ask my wife when I get home. Hey, I forgot to ask you about this. What do women do when they first meet each other?
But men tend to do that. And so we get our identity often instead of from relationships, we get it from our resume. And so we care about that. And so how many of you remember having to turn in a resume applying for a job? Or in order to get into a certain college, you had to turn in an application along with your transcript from your high school. That's kind of scary, you know.
And so you turn in this record of your life hoping to get into a good school, to get a good job. Why? So that you can achieve your vision for life. Which is what? To have the biggest house, the biggest car, the biggest family, the most successful, the American dream.
And we aim at these things. We think that's what we need to do. And so we ultimately go, how much money can I make? What’s the best resume I can have in order to make the most money and the most success? So recently I was watching this documentary on Netflix.
It's about the life of the quarterback Aaron Rodgers, and it's called “Aaron Rodgers Enigma.” And I've only seen the first episode, but in this first episode, Rodgers reflects on the aftermath of winning Super Bowl 45 back in 2011, and it was his first and only super bowl win so far. And he had reached the literal pinnacle of success for an athlete. He won the Super Bowl.
Not only that, he was awarded the MVP, Most Valuable Player. So it's the pinnacle of the pinnacle. And at the after party, he noticed, he said he kind of got quiet and realized he wasn't feeling right. He wasn't feeling like he thought it would feel. And this is a quote from the documentary.
He says, "Now what?… Who am I? I’ve accomplished this thing that I always wanted to accomplish and I’m not as happy as I thought I was going to be, so what is missing?" And he kind of went through a season of being lost in his own head.
Since he was in the eighth grade, he had seen Joe Montana win a Super Bowl, and he turned to his dad. He was a California kid, turned to his dad and said, that's what I'm going to be. I'm going to be a quarterback, and I'm going to win a Super Bowl. And he said he got it. He hit the pinnacle, and it didn't feel like he thought it was going to feel.
Now what he said, if a Super bowl ring, a promotion, a bigger paycheck, a bigger house, a bigger car can't fulfill that need that you have inside for fulfillment, something meaningful, something lasting, what will happen if your vision is only for your resume? The word of God teaches us that it will always fall short. Because we were made, we were built for worship and for worship other than things of the creation instead, worship of the Creator.
We were made for it. So what do you do when you hit the wall? Well, about 2,000 years ago, a man named the Apostle Paul gave us the answer. We'll be in the book of Philippians this morning
in chapter three. Writing from a Roman prison, the Apostle Paul testified to the Philippian believers how he had counted his past achievements, his past vocation as loss, and redirected his vision toward pursuing his upward calling in Christ Jesus. And I believe today that we can do that through faith in Jesus, that we can redirect our vision to the upward call in Christ. And so that our vocation, whether it's in the shop, the classroom, the factory, the business, whatever it is we're doing, we can elevate our vision for our work to following Jesus in the workplace. And as we look at the text today, I think we'll see three essentials for this, for redirecting our vision on Jesus.
So let's go to chapter three. We're going to pick up at verse seven through 14. Philippians 3:7-14 (ESV) 7 “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
This is God's word. Amen. We're looking for three essentials for having God's vision, for our work, for our service, our vocation. Here's the first essential:
1. A new perspective.
Paul invites the church at Philippi and invites us today to get a new perspective on our work and on what we value and our purpose in life. Notice in the first couple of verses, in verses 7, 8, he has this phrase, “I counted” and then “I count.” It's there three times. Paul is using the language of a ledger. It's an accounting term.
In fact, it's a marketplace term. “I count.” “I counted.” He talks about gains and losses, except he's not talking about a business. He's talking about his spiritual life.
Here he's talking about how he has a new perspective because he has encountered the living God through the person of Jesus Christ, has a new way of looking at his purpose in life, his resume, his vocation. Everything he does, he now looks at it differently. “I count.” “I counted” back in verse seven. He says it in the past tense.
Notice what it says in verse seven, 7 “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.” In the past tense. In the Greek language, it's a verb form that we don't really have. In English, it's in the perfect tense. And the Greek perfect has this idea that there was an action that was completed in the past that has ongoing results.
Here's what Paul is saying when I encounter Jesus and he appears to me on the road to Damascus and speaks to me and even blinds me for three days. When I encountered Jesus, whenever Ananias was appointed to come and heal me of my blindness and to speak to me about Jesus, when my eyes were open to Jesus, I counted. At that very moment, I decided to value him above my resume, to value him above my pedigree, to count my former life as loss in order to gain Jesus. He says, I did it back there. Now, do you remember the story?
You would need to read the book of Acts in order to catch up with this story. But Paul wasn't always called Paul. He was called Saul. And he was a persecutor. He was Saul the persecutor in modern language.
He was a terrorist. He was a Jewish terrorist against Christians. And he was so adamant about dealing with this upstart group called Christianity that we know he guarded the garments as they stoned Stephen to death, the first martyr of the Christian Church. He was there approving that and that he was so adamant about it, so passionate about it, that he received letters from the authorities and he was headed to Damascus to arrest some more people, more Christians.
But Jesus got a hold of him. And he said that when Jesus got a hold of him, he did an accounting. I went to my mental ledger and I counted him versus my whole life previous. And I counted one and done and it is still ongoing. And I count now he's got in present tense twice in verse eight,
“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” I keep on counting. Every time I look at this world and compare it to the beauty and wonder and tremendous supremacy and excellence of Jesus, I keep on counting him as greater than all things.
Now when he talks about what he let go of, he says that whatever gain I had. And then he goes on, indeed, everything. Verse eight, I count everything. But we have to remember what he had said earlier, what he used to count, his pedigree, his resume. Here's what he had said earlier.
He says, Philippians 3:4-6 (ESV) “ … If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”
He says, you think you're a good Jew? I'm a better Jew than you. He says to his people that have a Jewish background, he says, if you want to brag about worldly stuff, I've got three PhDs. I got one from Jewish Harvard from the Rabbi Gamaliel, the number one rabbi in Jerusalem.
He says, but you know what I decided? I decided to count that in my ledger as loss. In verse 8, he goes on to say, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”
I've looked at the beauty and wonder, the promise of Jesus is the best. It's better than everything. It's more excellent. Knowing him. Christ Jesus, my Lord. “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish…” Now, if you'd have been there in the church at Philippi when they first got this letter, the preacher got up and
said, hey, we got a new letter from the Apostle Paul straight from Rome, from a Roman cell. Would y' all want to hear it? And they were like, yeah, let's hear it. And he got to this part and he says, I count it all as rubbish. Except that's not what he said.
In the local language of that time, the King James comes closer to a correct translation. “I count it all as dung,” The King James version says, literally in the Greek, it's animal excrement. You know the word he said, right? You know the word he would have said today.
And here's what would have happened in the church at Philippi, and it probably would happen here if I would say it. I'm not going to, for those of you that are nervous, but I guarantee you there was an older gray haired woman that whenever the preacher read that letter from Paul, she gasped. Was Paul cursing?
No, he wasn't cursing. He was just describing, with as graphically as he could, how worthless a life without Jesus is.
To gain the whole world and to lose Christ would to gain only a thing that's as valuable as animal dung. That's what he says. Let's not forget what he says. He's done a new accounting. He has a new perspective.
He values Jesus above all things. Jesus has surpassing worth. And he goes on in verse nine and he says, “and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—” “and being found in him,” because by the way, Christ found Paul. Paul didn't find Christ. He was on his way to arrest people
when Jesus arrested him. He was on his way there. He says, “and being found in him, not having a righteousness of my own,” which I used to be aimed at, poised for righteousness under the law, he goes, not that kind of righteousness, because that's insufficient. Instead, I have the kind that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God. That depends on faith. Hey, I've got a new identity. I've got a new perspective now it's Christ in me, the hope of glory.
I've got a new way of looking at everything now. Everything in my former life I now count as rubbish compared to gaining Christ, knowing Christ being found in Christ. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:21 (ESV) “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
You see, whatever we treasure is what we truly worship. What you thought of probably right before you went to sleep last night, or maybe you got up this morning worrying about is probably closer to your treasure. That thing that you want, I really want this. I desire this. And the truth is, we're in a constant battle for our worship.
A constant accounting, a constant mental math needs to be done of reminding ourselves of the surpassing worth of Jesus. Because we are given to idolatry, our hearts are given to the things we can see. And so true worship, as someone has said, is really pulling our affections off of our idols and putting them on God. It's just this constant going, no, that's not worth my treasure. That's not worth my worship.
Jesus is the only one worthy of my worship, making this decision constantly, because we're constantly bombarded to do and worship lesser things. Recently, a member of our church asked me to pray for an opportunity he'd been offered. He didn't say more than that; he didn't give any detail. Later, he thanked me for the prayers and said he'd finally made his decision.
He said he'd been offered a huge promotion, but it would require moving.
And he said, I've moved many times for money. It's the first time I've made a decision based on prayer and asking God what to do. That's the first time I've made a decision based on God. He said, and after I prayed, and after I had you pray, and after I considered the way my wife and I have been so touched by being involved with this church family and how much we love this church family and how much we love our community group that we're in, and frankly, the way that we've grown closer to our children and our grandchildren because of Jesus. I decided not to take the promotion because when I weighed it against what Christ is doing in my life here, I made a decision based on Him rather than money.
This is the first time I've ever done that. I just want to be a better servant and witness to Jesus. What do you think is going to happen to this man's life? I think God's going to open up the heavens and bless him because he made a decision, like he said, for the first time in his life, based on valuing Christ above a promotion or money.
Christ could have told him something different. He could have made a different decision. What mattered was the way he made the decision. That's a new perspective, isn't it? Putting Jesus first in a work decision, saying, I'm going to put you first in the way I take this test at work.
I'm going to put you first in the way I make a decision about this potential promotion that I'm seeking. I'm going to put you first. This is a new, essential way of having God's vision for your life, for your vocation. Get a new perspective, valuing Christ above all things.
2. A sustaining power.
And that's a sustaining power that in Christ we have a new vision. The vision is to be filled with Jesus, aimed at Jesus, following him. But we have a new power to do it, and that's to be filled with Christ, to have him fully formed in our lives. Paul moves from accounting to empowerment.
And it isn't willpower. It isn't pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. It's resurrection power. Let's keep reading. We're at verse 10.
He says, “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,” I want to know him, and I want to know the power that comes from living in him and him living in me. The Greek word is dunamis. I want to know the dunamis of the resurrection.
That's where we get the word dynamite, dynamic. I want to know the explosive power, the resurrection power of Jesus in my life. The kind of power that raises dead things to life.
What's dead in your life today? What seems dead in your life today? Is it your marriage? Is it a relationship with your teenager? Is it your finances?
Is it your body? You've gotten bad news from the doctor. What seems hopeless? Paul says, “that I may know;” the word here is not intellectual knowledge so much as it is experiential knowledge.
I want to experience the resurrection power of Jesus in my life so that dead things come alive. That's what Paul says. I want a sustaining power that I can't produce myself. I want dunamis power, dynamite power. And then he goes on;
he surprises us. I'm surprised every time I read it because it afflicts my will. “and may share in his sufferings,” He says, I want to know his power that I might share in his sufferings. It's in the Greek subjunctive that means the possibility of.
Now, some of you may have made it your vision, your life's goal to avoid suffering, to stay in your comfort zone, to avoid hurt. That's a fearful place to live and you'll never achieve it. Jesus has promised in this world there will be trouble, there will be suffering. We live in a fallen world. There will be death, there will be suffering, there will be loss, there will be bad news.
He doesn't promise us as we come to faith in Jesus, he doesn't say, well, put on those rose colored glasses and just think positive about everything. He says, no, there'll be suffering. Paul says, I want to know you and I want to know you through suffering because you came and suffered for us and I want to know you. He really wants to know Jesus. And here's the thing.
Jesus doesn't promise that there won't be sufferings. In fact, he promises that there will be. But he does promise that “I'll never leave you nor forsake you,” and I'll be with you. And he's already been through it, so he knows what it's like and he can empower you through what you're going through today. And by the way, he has the power of resurrecting life so that dead things come alive.
I'm still in verse 10, “...becoming like him in his death.” Paul's in prison. He hasn't died yet. He's wrestling with it a little bit earlier in the book, he writes to the Church of Philippi, “To live is Christ, to die is gain.”
As if he's weighing that one, like,Lord, if it's time for me to come home, just come get me. But I guess if I'm still alive, if I'm still breathing, I guess there's something else for me to do. Let me kind of paraphrase, to live as Christ, I'm empowered by Christ to die as gain, which is even better. Boy, he's not afraid.
I haven't died yet. I feel fine, I'm still here, but as long as I'm alive, he goes, but what I'm really focused on is that by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Now, he's not saying this with doubt, as somehow he has to earn resurrection from the dead. No, he knows better than that. His language is more like the idea of I'm not there yet.
I'm still here, but I'm aiming at this goal of someday getting a new body. He's talking about the whole enchilada, if you will. He's not just talking about the resurrection, but being with Jesus. I think that's ultimately what he's really talking about. We see it more clearly in verse 14, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
He goes, the one I've been loving and adoring and worshiping. I want to be with him face to face for eternity.
That by any means possible, I'm going to lay aside every encumbrance, everything that would slow me down. I'm chasing after that goal. I want to be with you, Jesus. I want to have Christ fully formed in me.
In Galatians, he writes about this. He says, in Galatians 2:20 (ESV) “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” I've got the spirit of Christ that lives within me and empowers me.
My old life, I've counted it as dead. I've been crucified with Christ. I changed my name from Saul to Paul. I went from being the persecutor to the prophet. I went from the persecutor to being the preacher for Jesus.
This past year, in the 2025 Boston Marathon, we had a beautiful scene. A man, a runner, one of the elite runners named Pedro Arieta was near the end of the grueling 26.2 mile race. And just as he was approaching the finish line, there was a runner that was ahead of him who just collapsed and fell on the pavement. Maybe you've seen the video. You can Google it and see it.
And you've seen videos perhaps like this, where he was so spent that he got legs like rubber and his legs just wouldn't function. You could see him, and he just passed out, hit the pavement, and Pedro came up beside him. He was running well. He looked strong.
There's the finish line. And he stops and he lifts this man. It took great effort because the man could not regain his strength even to stand. He literally had to put his arms under his armpits and walk him across the finish line.
And as he's doing it, other runners are getting ahead of him and winning the race. But he's the one who really won the race.
What I see there, when I saw this little reel on Facebook, how I found out about this story and what I was thinking was how Jesus has put his arms around me and how when I think about the finish line and think about whether I'm worthy, I know I'm going to collapse, but I don't have to worry about it because he's already finished the race. And he finished the race in me and for me. And he'll have his arms around me and you.
And as the author of Hebrews writes in Hebrews 12:2 (ESV) “…let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith…” Oh, we're in a race. And like any race, there's suffering, there's difficulty, there's highs and lows, then there's the finish line. For some of us, the finish line is closer than it is for others.
You know who you are.
Have you got your vision set on Jesus? This is the second essential for God's vision. For your work is to depend on your service and on your effort, not on your own strength, but on the sustaining power of Christ in you. Which leads us to the third essential:
3. A focused pursuit.
We've talked about a new perspective, a sustaining power. And there's a focused pursuit now as we get to verse 12 and following. And you'll notice that he says this twice. He says, “I press on” twice.
If you were listening earlier as we were singing, I think it was the second song in our worship earlier today. That was a song my son Stephen wrote back, I think around 2007, 8 or 9, somewhere in there. I was preaching through Philippians then and we were calling the series, “One Thing.” We even made t-shirts. Some people call us the t-shirt church.
We have a lot of T-shirts here. We made T-shirts that said one thing. And he wrote the song and. And it was good to sing it again. We haven't sung that song in years.
I enjoyed it; we benefited by singing that together this morning. I press on. I will pursue. The press on has the idea to chase after in order to take hold of. Paul says it twice.
Here's what he says, “not that I have already obtained this.” What's this? Well, he's talking back there about the resurrection from the dead. He hasn't died yet.
He hasn't achieved being with Christ. He hasn't even achieved the fullness of Christ in him. Because he's still wanting to know more about Jesus, right? But he wants the fullness of Christ. And he knows that someday the fullness of Christ will be his.
But he's not going to be passive about it. He's admitting here to the Church of Philippi and us too, I'm still imperfect. I still haven’t got it.
There he goes, “not that I've already obtained this.” I haven't already been raised. I haven't already been perfected. I'm not already perfect, but I press on to make it my own.
That didn't stop me, because grace is opposed to earning, not effort. So you can't earn salvation, but having salvation is not opposed to you pressing on. In fact, it's encouraged, earnings, an attitude, thinking, I deserve this or I can earn this. Effort is an action. It's a response to what Jesus has done for us.
And so he says, “I'm pressing on.” I hadn't got it yet, but I'm pressing on to make it my own. The fullness of Christ fully formed in me seeing him face to face someday. I'm pressing on, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. I want to make him my own because he's already made me his own.
I was on the way to Damascus to arrest some Christians. Instead, I got arrested by Jesus. The King James says he was “apprehended.”
Jesus apprehended Paul. See, you thought you were looking for Jesus. You were looking for something. Actually, it was Jesus looking for you. He found you.
You thought you found him. He found you first, believer. He found Paul, and he says he's already apprehended me. And I want to fully apprehend him into every arena of my life.
Not partial, but the whole. Having surrendered every area of my life to him, counting it all as nothing, even as dung compared to the surpassing worth of having Jesus completely in my life.
Because I press on, brothers, verse 13, “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,” I do not consider that I have made it my own. He doesn't want you to think he's got the spiritual big head. He's just talking about his pursuit. But one thing I do; not these 100 things I dabble in.
One thing I do, he says, forgetting what lies behind. Paul doesn't drive his car while peering into the rear view mirror. That's how you end up in a ditch. He doesn't spend his whole life going, well, I can't believe God let that happen to me back there. And just constantly, woe is me because I had this loss. I went through this.
If only I'd have had a better… And no, Paul says, no forgetting it. But it's not finished. And straining forward to what lies ahead. Not just passively.
Like a runner straining so that at the finish line, he wins by a nose. He's straining for what? What's he straining for?
The upward call, verse 14, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” That's synonymous with verse 11, the resurrection of the dead and the upward call. He's repeating it with different language. That someday, not just the resurrection, but
the reunion, the whole thing of finally being with Jesus for eternity. He's longing for that now. He says in First Corinthians, chapter 13:12, “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
I want to know. I want to know it all in Jesus. I want to experience his presence for eternity. I want to chase after the upward call. One preacher says that it's God's sovereign summons to the believer, as if God is somehow summoning from heaven,
come home, come home. Come home. This is his pursuit. Everywhere he goes, whether he's making tents or whether he's preaching in a synagogue, wherever he goes, he's pursuing Jesus. Paul's pursuit is an echo of David's.
We read in Psalm 27, David writes, Psalm 27:4 (NIV) “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” David's pursuit and Paul's are the same. There's a story in the book of Luke where Jesus visited a household in a city called Bethany, about eight miles from Jerusalem. There was a family there that he dearly loved. He had a brother and two sisters, Lazarus, Martha and Mary.
Martha's the firstborn. You can tell I'm a firstborn. I can spot a firstborn.
Jesus pulls up in that house. He's in there with his twelve disciples and Lazarus, and he's teaching. Martha's in the kitchen. She had to order out for extra groceries. I'm sure she's cooking.
She's sweating. And she keeps looking for baby sister. I know it's my baby sister. I can tell. I can spot her, too.
Her name's Mary. Where is Mary? She looks in the room with the men folk and there she sits at the feet of Jesus.
Lord, don't you care that I'm in here working hard? And here's Mary. Tell her to come in here and help me. She tried to “sic” Jesus on her sister.
She couldn't get her sister to do what she said. She saved it. I think it's God's will for you to come in here and help me. She tried to get spiritual. It's hard to get little sisters to do what big sisters say sometimes.
Here's how Jesus responded, Luke 10:41-42 (NKJV) 41 And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. 42 But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” One thing is needed, and she chose the better thing.
She chose me.
And so even your work is not the goal work. And the Bible does say in Colossians 3:23 (ESV), “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,” So work hard, whatever God puts in front of you, but do it not for yourself, but for Jesus. Do it for one thing. Not ten things, not everything.
One thing. Our culture tells us to multitask. Our culture tells us not to put all your eggs in one basket, but the Bible says to put all your eggs in Jesus' basket. Put him as your one thing. He talks to us in this passage about how following Jesus is not about building a better resume.
It's about having a personal relationship with Jesus. Whether you work in an office, a classroom, a hospital, a home. He calls us to put him first in all that we do. We have a saying in our church. We have it on the wall as you're leaving.
You might notice it on the walls in the lobby. We say that we are a church that exists to make disciples of Jesus Christ who have a heart for God, heart for each other, and heart for our world. And I would draw your attention to that third statement, heart for our world, because we emphasize there in that statement that we have a heart for our world, emphasizing our personal evangelism and our sacrificial service. As you think about your workplace, I would leave you with a couple of thoughts. One is to think of your workplace as the place that God has given you a platform to declare the glory of Jesus and the gospel and the good news, that it's a blessing, that whatever he gives you, you're to use it for his glory.
And so if you're in the classroom, if you're in the workplace, and you get a promotion or you get noticed, tell people, I give God all the glory. Watch out, because some people will make fun of you and judge you, but others will come to you and say, can you tell me more about that? And when they do, be prepared to give them Jesus; to introduce them to Jesus. Would you think about Jesus being your one thing in your vocation? And then sacrificial service,
are you serving God's kingdom? Are you using what God has entrusted to you, your talent, your treasure, your time for Jesus? We have a saying in our church because we have two services. Serve one, attend one or attend one, serve one, depending on your preference. And so we say, hey, you can do all three heart statements in one Sunday morning.
It's like a one stop shop. You can come to first service and work in the children's department next door. You could work in the nursery. You could be on the greeter team, you could be on the tech team. I could go on through the list of things.
You could let us know if you're interested. We'll help you connect according to your talent, according to the service opportunities. But you don't even have to miss adult worship. You could do both. Serve one, attend one or attend one, serve one.
Have you tried that? You should try that. And guess what? You make more fellowship opportunities as you serve. And so I am just giving you some tidbits, some things to think about.
Why not offer your hands to the hands of Jesus and say, I want to serve you, I want to work for you wherever I go. And so I want a new perspective. I want your power to sustain me and I want to pursue Jesus in all things. This morning I got up early. This morning I woke up at 3am the first time, and I thought, that's too early.
And I said, lord, help me sleep a little longer. And I finally got up at 5 and I said, you know, Lord, I've prepared this sermon already, but if you don't show up, nothing happens. Would you tell me any additional information or how you want me to preach this, so it has your stamp of approval, not mine, that you would fill up the difference because there's a big gap between me and what the people need. And as I was praying, I felt myself starting to sing, which is how the Holy Spirit often works with me.
He works differently with different people, but He brings to mind songs I already know. It was already early and I started singing, “In the morning when I rise, in the morning when I rise…” That old spiritual song. “In the morning when I rise, give me, Jesus. Give me Jesus.
Give me Jesus. You can have all this world, but give me Jesus.” I was thinking about Paul as I was studying this morning. “And when I come to die.
Oh, and when I come to die. And when I come to die, Give me Jesus. Give me Jesus. Give me Jesus. You can have all this world, but give me Jesus.”
Can you say that now? I'm not there yet. I've not obtained it yet, but I'm pressing on. Will you press on with me? Let's press on and let's pray and let's talk to the God of the universe through his son, Jesus.
Dear Lord, we come to you now. We're thankful for your word. And we know that by your spirit you've been speaking to hearts and minds. And I pray for that one today that you are apprehending, that you're taking hold of. Because we know whenever your word is preached that your spirit moves.
Is it you, my friend, right in your seat? Is it you that he's taking hold of? He's stirring your heart, he's calling you to himself? Would you say yes, right where you're at? Pray with me, dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner.
Pray like that. Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. And I believe you died on the cross for my sin, that you were raised from the grave, that you live today. Come and live in me. Forgive me of my sin.
Adopt me into your family. Make me a child of God. I want to follow you all the days of my life as my Lord and Savior. If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing, confessing Jesus as Lord, believing in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Others are here today. You've given your life to Jesus, but there are certain areas of your life that you've held back. Maybe it's because of fear, because of desire for comfort. Maybe it's some area that you've treasured. Would you do mental accounting right now?
Would you do spiritual accounting and say, lord forgive me, I value you above all things. I put you first. I want you to be number one in my life in all areas. I surrender my life entirely to you, afresh, today.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Audio
All right. Good morning, church. So thankful for you today. Thank you for being a part of the work of God here in our city and what he's doing here in our church. Very thankful for you.
I pray this morning that this message would only encourage and push you all the more to be the people of God in our community. We're in a series right now called Vision and we've talked over the last few weeks about some very important topics. If you missed those, you can find them on the website. But we've talked about what it means to have a heart for God, a vision for our hearts, if you will, a vision for our homes, that we would be a praying people, that we would be a people who raise our children in the admonition of the Lord, that that's the kind of vision we might have for our church. But today I want to talk about something that I would imagine in some way applies to everybody.
I mean, I think all of those apply to everybody in the room, but this one I think will really speak to most in the room with having a vision for your work, having a vision not only for your workplace, but for the manner in which you do life. That even if you're in the room today and you've retired or you're in between jobs or in spite of that, that there's a God given vision for the things you do on a day to day. And I think he's got a powerful word for each and every one of us today. Because the thing is, most of us, so many of us folks, find our identity in what we do. In fact, it's one of the first questions you're often asked when you first meet somebody.
Hey, my name is Jonathan. Hey, what do you do? It's almost number two for me. A lot I'm interested in what people do. It's not just word salad.
I actually want to know what you do. I'm interested in what people are up to. And some of you have really cool jobs and I'm fascinated by them. Some of you do stuff that I would absolutely dread and I'm blown away by you being encouraged in it. Right.
Some of you are thinking the same thing of me right now. It would kill you to have to do this right now. And I understand that we have so much of our identity wrapped up in what we do. That's not necessarily wrong, but it could be, it could be way off target if our identity is in some way in our personal bio or in our resume. I think one of the most uncomfortable things that I ever Do.
Maybe this, maybe you feel this way too, is to actually write and turn in a resume. It makes me so uncomfortable. I feel unchristian doing it. I hate bragging. It's like maybe there are times when I'm with my brother or like certain people where I might, you know, brag about something in a certain, certain group of people.
All right, or brag about something I did in the military or something. But you want me to write down I love Jonathan letter and submit that. I'm like, I just want to tell them, you know, kind of a screw up. Like, I made a C in this class. I know you're not supposed to do any of that.
I have a hard time with writing a personal bio. Maybe you feel that too, like applying for a job. But then at the same time, maybe when we boil this down, who and what you really are is so much around your work and not necessarily in a Christian kind of way. That's where I want to spend some time today that we can really get stuck on this and that God has, I promise you he has an incredible plan for you right where you are, whether you're a stay at home mom. That is my friends hard work.
I know I've had to stay at home with my force sometimes I get it. It is very difficult. And to do it well is incredibly hard work. It really is. And some of you work incredibly difficult jobs.
But God has a great plan right where you're at today. Some of you are in a space right now where you're like, this is helping me get through this season. This is not what I'm doing long term. That might be a lot of you in the room. This is not who I'm going to be long term.
Okay, then get a perspective for the kingdom of God right where you're at. I think that can happen for you. Today I want to share something I recently saw. I haven't watched this whole documentary, so if it's total trash, I'm sorry. But I saw episode one of this documentary series on Aaron Rodgers.
I'm a sports guy. I like that kind of stuff. I liked him as a quarterback. Now I know he's kind of strange and there was one point where he was tripping on something. And anyway, you don't need to know all that.
But I watched a little bit of this Aaron Rodgers enigma and this is. This first episode is actually pretty incredible on this topic. See, early in his career he. He won the super bowl and he never won it again. He won it early in his career and was the MVP of the game, the packers beat the Steelers.
I remember watching that game. And he played incredible and he was an incredible athlete. He's probably going to retire. I don't know if he said that yet, but played for the Steelers this year anyway. He realized something, though, after all this.
Like he had worked and done all this stuff to get. And this is exactly what he says in an interview about after winning Super Bowl 45 and in the MVP of the game, here's what he said now. What who am I? This is what he said. Who am I?
I've accomplished this thing that I always wanted to accomplish, and I'm not as happy as I thought I was going to be. So what is missing now? I'm not saying everyone in the room has gotten to that place, but some of you have. Some of you finally got the promotion. Some of you finally got the girl.
Why am I not happy? Some of you, you finally finished school. I just, I'm confident I'm going to be happy when I don't have to do this goofy homework, huh? What if happiness has nothing to do with that? What if joy has nothing to do with getting through the next, getting to the next rung of the ladder?
If a Super bowl ring can't give you a lasting vision for your life, I'm not sure what can. I'm so thankful for his saying this because I've experienced this. I've hit the next rung on several occasions and gone. This can't be it, because it's not. And Paul, as we dig into the letter today, Philippians chapter three, I think is one of the most powerful scriptures of all about this idea of having a godly perspective that can take you not only through the heights of your career, but through the lowest moments of your life.
This thing will help you to embrace them all with a godly vision. And I pray that will be the case for you today here writing in a Roman prison. This entire letter, as we've been going through the book of Philippians together, taking little bites of it, here's Paul writing from a Roman prison with what appears to me to be incredible encouragement. He seems in chapter one, in fact, he says, you know what? To live is Christ and to die is gain.
Chapter two. Maybe it's one of those two where he says that, but in chapter one I know for a fact he says, hey, and I'm hard pressed between the two. I'm having fun here on earth being a preacher, an apostle, being a letter writer, being a minister. I'm having fun. But to die is even better to be with Christ Jesus.
I'm hard pressed, he says, between the two. Some of you are not hard pressed. You're like, I am definitely not ready for that. And some of you are like, please send me. Funny how we can be.
He's in a place of contentment that I think we should desire from a Roman prison. Paul testified to the Philippian believers that he had counted his past achievements as loss. In fact, he'll say, as rubbish. And I'll get into that wonderful word, how is he this way? How can we be like this?
Direct our vision towards our work in such a way that we're pursuing, pursuing the calling of God. This is where Paul will finish this bite today of having this wonderful pursuit. Let's dig in. Chapter 3, Philippians, chapter 3, verses 7 through 14. Paul writes, but whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for his sake I have suffered the loss of all, all things and I count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, that depends on faith. Now. Not that I, excuse me, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Now. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my goal, to make it my own, he says, because Christ Jesus has made me his own brothers.
I don't consider that I have made it on my own. But one thing I do, we just sang about this church. Why we sang this old song that we wrote. 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. God bless the reading of his word.
Amen. I pray that this encourages you today because there's a wonderful way to live that Paul has understood by the power of the Holy Spirit. He's grasping it and we can too. Here's the first essential of having God's vision for your work. Whether you're a stay at home mom, whether you're out resting people, whatever it is you do, God has a vision for your workplace.
Some of you might need to arrest some of your kids at home, you know, might be part of what you need to do. The first one is this. The first essential. A new perspective. A new perspective.
All new set of eyes. I need to look at this altogether different. That's what Paul's saying here. He says in verse seven, something incredible. He says, I counted all that stuff I did as loss, as trash.
I counted it. This word counted here has to do with the idea of making a middle internal decision. He's made a decision on what he's done that no one can change. It's in the perfect tense. So he.
He's made this decision as a historical kind of change of mind. Now, let me tell you a little bit about what Paul means by this. I didn't read all this text because I didn't want to dive into every bit of this. I would encourage you to do a deeper dive on Philippians 3. It's a powerful text.
But just before the text we're studying today, he says in verses four through six, he says, if anyone else thinks he has a reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more. Alright, that sounds braggy there, Paul. He says, I was circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew, of Hebrews. As to the law, a Pharisee. As to zeal.
Hey, look, I used to persecute the church. That's how zealous I was. As to righteousness under the law, I was blameless. Hey, I had a lot to brag about. I could brag about some of my crazy great accolades.
Look who I was. I studied under the Rabbi Gamaliel. I'm an impressive person. People used to invite me to come speak at their things, Paul might say. But now he says, I count all that loss not just as waste.
No, no, he says, as loss. That's an interesting word to choose. The word loss here has to do with detriment or damage. Paul is making the argument here that if I waste my time considering my accolades, I will be less useful to the kingdom of God. I actually see it as a loss.
If I rest in this and say, look what I've done, then I become less useful. Now some of us are living this way. Hey, I did great things then. Then why are you still here, my friend? God did all his wonder here.
He's not doing it now. Really? I doubt that God's doing here's a better way to think. God's doing incredible things today and in my future. And I can't wait to see what he's up to.
Yeah, he did wonderful things in my past, sure, But I Can't wait to see tomorrow. This is an incredible way to think. He says, I've counted that stuff as loss. In fact, he goes on in verse eight to say, I've counted everything outside of what? The surpassing worth of knowing Christ.
This is a very helpful thing for me personally to hear today, but I bet it will be helpful for you to hear too, because in ministry, I think at times, hey, in order for me to be successful, it means a lot of people in my church have come to Christ this year, and that is a good thing. Like, I want to help everybody that comes in these doors not only get well, but get right with God. I want that so desperately. I want to see people take the step of baptism, take the step of faith, to begin to proclaim their faith to their friends, to be lighthouses in their community. I want that.
Paul must have wanted that. That's not what he says here. He says, in comparison to knowing God, everything else is rubbish. He doesn't here say, hey, I press on, that I might be the greatest missionary and might reach more nations. That's not what he says.
He says, I want to know God and the power of his resurrection. I'm so thankful for this Word today because I can get really in my head about stuff and be really in my head about, are we healthy as a church, how are we doing? And maybe you get this way, too. You forget the number one thing. Paul makes it clear here.
There's one priority to know Christ Jesus, the surpassing worth of knowing him. You will be a success, my friends, hear me. I'm not mincing words here. Hear me. You will be a success.
If every day you try to know Christ Jesus a little more. That's it. Now, should you work. Absolutely. Should you work hard as unto the Lord, Absolutely.
Should you have a vision for taking the next hill in your life? Absolutely. That is not your goal. Your goal is, I want to know him a little better today. And he will.
This is important. He will empower the work. This is why Paul carefully says, I want to know him and the power of his resurrection. I pray this is what we can grasp today. He goes on in verse 8 to say something more.
I would imagine when the Philippians read this letter, I'm just going to go out on a limb. When he says the word in the English, it's translated rubbish. In the King James, you might remember, it's translated, anyone know dung? The King James gets this more closely, right? The word there is the Greek word Skubalon.
Feel free to use that in your day. To day, Skubalon. Fun to say. I love little goofy words like that. I imagine when the Philippians received this letter and read that word, there might have been people going, I consider all of my past and every one of thing I've done, I consider it as refuse.
This word literally means the excrement of an animal. I didn't think the apostles talked like that. Oh, yes, they did. They said, I want you to understand something here. This junk is trash.
Or worse, it's dung. And then he goes on to say some really important stuff. Church. And we need to hear this afresh. We need to hear it afresh every single day.
He says in verse nine, it's not my righteousness. It's not even the work I did under the law. No, it is faith in Christ that it's all the more important to me that I know him in the power of his resurrection. Because all of it comes from simply putting my faith there and walking with Christ Jesus. I can't make me okay.
I'm not going to be all right on my own. I need him. And I need him all the more today than I did yesterday. I need him every bit more tomorrow. We don't get to some place in our life where we are so Christian that we don't need Christ.
It never happens. We just get acutely more aware of how we need Him.
We begin to realize that the iceberg is way deeper, though the iceberg of sin in our life is way deeper. We used to see it like this. Now we see it like this. And that's the power of the Holy Spirit. Part of his work in our life is conviction, friends.
It's part of his work.
And we're constantly given opportunities to do more on this. But the question is, what do you value? Jesus puts it plainly here in Matthew, chapter six. He says, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. What do you treasure most?
Paul says very plainly, the surpassing worth. The thing I value most is knowing God, knowing Christ Jesus. I've put that as my ultimate treasure. Everything else is not even in the ballpark. And we're given a lot of opportunities to do more, to make more, to have more.
This is the American way. It's what it's like to live in this culture. Some of you, hey, you're not making a lot more, you're not having a lot more, but you're doing a lot more. And somehow you summarize your life by the amount of stuff you're doing. If I'm doing a lot, I must be doing well, perhaps you're doing terrible because you're doing too much and God didn't call you to any of it.
If I do enough good for my kids, then I'm doing well. Well, what if that's also not true? What if the very things you're having them do are not somehow helping them become more like Christ Jesus? Then they're useless. They're actually the opposite of good.
Oh, this is the culture we live in. This is why the room has gotten quiet for the moment. I'm doing so much, Jonathan. Do less.
I can't meet with you. You know, Pastor, I'd love to have conversations about this and this, but look at my schedule. I'm like, your schedule is terrible.
One day I'll get to live my life when I'm almost dead. Is this how we're going to do it when I retire? I can live life. What happened to us now? Doing more is not at all the call of God on our life now.
Doing what's right. Doing. Doing what's great. Some of you can waste your whole lives doing good and miss great. You'll miss great entirely.
I'm afraid of this. In my life, above all things, there is so much good I could do as a pastor, but I could waste a lot of time doing good and miss entirely what God has called me to do. You hearing this? I could spend a lot of my time making more and having more and making sure everybody in my life has the nice shoes I could do and waste my time.
No, this is what Paul is saying. Most of us are given the opportunity, either in work, life or some of you even did this with your spouses. And I hope and pray you never showed them. But we'll do a pros and cons list. Some of you in the room did a pros and cons list on your spouse.
I pray you burned it and you tip the scales. Oh, you know, she loves Jesus and she can. And I think she's gonna be a good mom. How could you know? Who knows what'll happen?
I didn't make this. Honestly, I didn't, but I had it in my head. And there was a lot of pros for Nicole. There's a few cons. I really wanted a singer because that's so shallow.
You know what? I'd love to see your list. Like, I just. I want the shape of her eyes to be right, you know? Some of you had some crazy stuff going on.
I had a friend in college that was like, she has to be able to run well, and he Wasn't talking about speed or distance. No, he was talking about form. If she runs weird, I'm out. That's an interesting one to be on the list, but your list is your list, bro. Mine was.
I was kind of hoping, look what I'm doing in life. A singer would have been kind of helpful. Just saying, it's not what I got. But I got just about everything else on the list that was in my head. But I've made pros and cons lists for jobs I've taken, for the various things I've done in life.
Here's what Paul says here. Go ahead and make your pros and cons list. Make them. I just want you to know, as soon as you put Christ on one side of the scale, it goes wham. So I'm telling you, so don't weigh things like this.
Say Christ first. Every time, in everything, every job, every relationship, I am about knowing him and the power of his resurrection. He always tips the scales. Have you made that decision? Christian believer in the room.
Hey, if you've come today and you're a non believer, this is what we should be. We should be about Christ and Christ crucified above all things. Yes, we care about issues like sanctity of life. Yes, we care about things like that. But above all else, we preach Christ crucified.
Because without that, we are nothing. Has he tipped the scales of your life, friend? Has he tipped the scales? I'm still working on this, but every day I'm coming back to him with a fresh vision of like, I want to know you and the power of your resurrection. This is where Paul leans next.
The power of the resurrection. So the second essential. First, it's a new perspective. Second, it's a sustaining power. A sustaining power.
Guess what, friends? We're all in the same boat. If we try to do this right on our own, we're all in the same place. We will fail. I will.
You will. It doesn't matter how holy you are. Because guess what? All of us are in the same camp on this. We are useless without abiding in Christ Jesus.
He says this in his word plainly. He says, apart from me, you can do nothing. Oh, but that's so belittling. No, it's so true. Because guess what?
Old me will start taking over again, and old me is a fool and he has evil desires. Paul says it rightly. I want to know him and the power of his resurrection. A power that is sustaining, that will keep me, that will preserve me, that will guide me. It's Doing all of that.
He says, the power. What of your resurrection? There's a part of remembering that every single day that feeds me and molds me and makes me into the image of God. That every single day I'm running reminded that he had to die for me, but also that he conquered it for me. As we said earlier in that little interview, whatever the scenario you bring to the table today, and I have many, he has one.
He has victory. So it doesn't matter. We could come in here with our guilt and shame. I ask that you would do like I do every single Sunday, and I come and lay this at the feet of Jesus, lay this at the altar. Do you realize how humbling it can be to try to speak for Christ and know the depth of your sin?
I'm there. Paul was there. But look what he says. I want to know him in this power. And then he goes a step further, and I want to share in his sufferings.
Oh, okay. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I was good till we got there. I like I can know him.
I want the power.
Sufferings. Yuck. I don't want to. I don't. That I may attain the.
I want to be like him in his death. These are not. He's not toying around here. He says exactly what he says here when he says, I want to be like him in his death. That word literally means to morph into the Greek, is sum morphizo.
It's from where we get this idea of morphing or metamorphosis. He says, I want to become so like him that I'm like him in his death. What does he mean? Like, is he suicidal? Does he have a death wish?
What's going on with Paul? That's not what he's saying. Friend, come here with me. All right? This is what he's saying.
I want to so know Christ. That every part of me that is unholy, every part of me that isn't given over fully to Christ, that it would be hung on the cross with Christ, that what remains in me is Christ. And that's it.
That the way in which I parent, the way in which I am as a husband, the way in which I work, all of that would be the image of Christ to others.
I want to be conformed in such a way that when you look at me, you see the cross of Christ. When you look at me, you see the power of the resurrection. I'm not there. That's what Paul says, too. He says, I'm not telling you that I've attained this or have become perfect.
Thank you for saying that, Paul, because I was getting worried. You were starting to sound like the dude. No, we're in the same camp now. He's ahead of me on some things. I have to admit this.
Friends, Christians in the room. Hey, church, you can come to a text and go, I'm not there yet. That's okay. Have the same goal that I have. Have the same goal that the saints of old have had.
And that is, I'm not there yet, but I'm going to. This is what Paul is arguing for. Otherwise, he sounds really strange. In verse 11, he says that I might attain. That I may attain the resurrection.
Is Paul saying he's not sure about his salvation? Absolutely not. He's saying, I am running in such a way that I know even though my future is glory, my future is the resurrected body. I'm not there yet. And I'm going to run at it like I haven't gotten it yet.
I'm going to run this race in such a way that I see the finish line, but. But I'm not slowing down. A good runner knows this already. You don't slow down in the last few. You speed up, you give whatever's left.
Empty the tank. There's some Christians in the room that need to hear that. I gotta conserve energy. For what? Heaven is a place of rest and refreshment and glory.
And I think we get to fly. I don't know.
I don't know about the flying part, but it is going to be a place where there is no sin, there is no death, there is rest. Because apart, if there is no sin, then rest seems really possible. What are you hanging on to all this energy for? I got stuff to do. What kind of stuff?
I want to know the power of his resurrection and run the race in such a way that it looks like I don't know if I'm going to get there. That's the kind of urgency Paul is talking about here. When people look at my life, it's going to look kind of like I'm trying to earn a resurrection. Now, what he says in other places definitely refutes that. Don't hear me say that today you cannot earn your salvation.
It comes simply by faith in Christ Jesus. But in spite of that, you ought to run in such a way as if you're trying to earn something. You see that? I don't know if I have this in my notes, so I might butcher this. Yeah, it's not in here.
Good luck, y'. All. Here we go, I thought of a quote just now. I believe it's Dallas Willard. He says something like this.
And this could be restoration of the heart. I think that's right. Yeah. That book, he says grace is not opposed to effort, it's opposed to earning. I think that's right.
How I've said that. You can look that quote up. Dallas Willard. What he means by that is when we have sufficient grace in Christ Jesus, we ought to be putting forth great effort, not out of the result of earning, but as a result of. Look how awesome this is.
I long to run for Christ. It's a greater thing. I hope you sense that today. I saw just recently this amazing thing happen at the Boston Marathon. I watched some clips on this.
I didn't actually watch a four hour event. I'm just not that guy, but. And some of them are getting it done way before that. Marathon runners are incredible. But this young man named Pedro Arreta, I think is how you might say this name.
This was just last year in the Boston Marathon. He was trying to set kind of a new goal for himself. He was under the three hour mark, which is incredible. He was cooking. But as he's approaching the end, another competitor kind of fell out.
And if you've ever seen this before, maybe you've seen this. Sometimes you get so dehydrated or just so locked up. This poor guy just steps from the finish line and cannot get his legs to work right. You can watch this clip online, but he's literally doing one of these. He can't even get up.
And Pedro comes beside him and realizes, whoa, this guy's in real bad shape and kind of puts his arm around him and walks him through the line. And stuff like this happens a lot among runners. There's like. There's competition, sure, but there's like a shared. I would say it's like a shared suck factor.
I know you're not supposed to say stuff like that at church, but I couldn't think of a better word. The army in me comes out every once in a while. I apologize for that, church. But this is the idea of the Boston Marathon. Like these people are trying to finish together and there's a certain kind of camaraderie in it.
I saw that image and couldn't help but think that this is part of what Paul is speaking to here. He recognizes I cannot finish the race. I can't run the race well without the power of the resurrection. I see the goal in my head, but I cannot attain it apart from what Christ is doing in me. I need him desperately.
Do you need him like that? Because all of us are running life like this. This is how we're doing life. And we can tell those of us on the outside are watching you going holy moly like you do not have your footing, my friend. And I know how you might would get it.
You need a buddy.
This is why St. Patrick said something like this, that he was praying that Christ would be before me, Christ would be beside me, Christ would be behind me, Christ in every move I make. This is the prayer of St. Patrick. I get that man. I want Christ Jesus with me. I need the sustaining power.
This is what Paul writes to the Galatian Church. He says, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Jesus has already finished the race.
Friends, this is the good news of the gospel. If you've never heard it clearly, Christ Jesus died for you. In spite of what you've done. There's nothing too great that you could have done that he hasn't paid for. He's paid for it all.
That's the good news of the gospel. And he has already finished the race. He died for you. He rose from the grave. You're running the race all jagged leg, and so am I.
We have the power of the resurrection beside us. Would you yield to it as well? Like Paul is saying here, I've made it my goal to run the race in Christ Jesus. Here's the third essential.
He says, it's a focused pursuit.
Some of you are liking everything I'm saying up till here, but this one's where you get discouraged. It all sounds fine and dandy when things are going well. When I see God moving, when I see victories in my life and some of you see that kind of stuff, you know, it's a lot more fun to pastor a church when people's marriages are getting saved and when people are coming to Christ and when there's resurrection power in the building. That stuff's fun. You know, sometimes I have conversations with people and they say, you know what?
Forget you and forget all this. Those are tough. Those are moments where I go, what are you up to, God? Oh, he's up to something. Sometimes it's in me.
Sometimes I'm in the room because God's like, hey, I need to talk to you about some stuff. Yeah, I'm working on them. Don't you worry about them, Jonathan? I'm pretty good at that. I'm pretty good at worrying about other people.
Not so great about worrying about my own mess sometimes. Aren't you that way? Oh, I'm very good at seeing the log in someone else's eye or the stick. I don't see the log in mine very well. We're all that way, friend.
Paul says, I've made the decision that my whole pursuit is knowing Jesus and I'm going to press on towards it. And he says some stuff here, friend, that's going to help you today. He says, first of all, I've not already obtained it. Verse 12. I'm not perfect.
Verse 12. That's the heart of what it means to be a Christian, friend. That's part of the heart of it, is that we never at any point say, I've arrived.
That is not the humility of Christ Jesus in you. You've not arrived, not until glory. If you're here, you've not arrived. He's not done. There's work to be done in your life, in your sanctification, and in what he wants you to do.
He says, I've not obtained it. I'm not perfect. But I press on to make it my own. I'm living life in such a way that I am running for Jesus. Verse 12.
Then he goes on to say, and Jesus has made me his own. The wording underneath this is actually really sweet. In the King James, it puts it pretty well. It says, I am pressing on to apprehend it, just as Christ has apprehended me. The only time you ever hear the word apprehended in our modern language, and this has been true for a while, as if someone is being arrested.
I've been apprehended. Such and such got apprehended. This is like a. I don't know, is this a nicer way to say you straight up got arrested? I guess it's a nicer way of saying it. I believe this is part of what Paul is saying here.
The word here in the Greek has more to do with to grasp or to take or to grab. I'm running in such a way that I am reaching and I'm trying to grab. I'm reaching. I'm. I'm at the finish line.
I'm doing that final.
Just as Jesus first got ahold of me. Paul has every right to say something like this. I want to remind you of his story on the road to Damascus. Paul was going there to persecute Christians. He was on literally his high horse to go do such a thing.
And Jesus not only knocked him off his. Off his rocker and blinded him and all that good stuff, but he also, like, saved him in a desperate kind of way. He says, hey, you want to hear a little. Just. I'll give you a snippet of my testimony.
Jesus arrested me. Some of you have a gospel testimony like that. I was running this way in the spirit of evil and got handcuffed.
But I will say, I think all of us, our gospel testimony has something like that in it. I kind of have to come to this every single day. I think this is why Paul, in another scripture, says, I beat my body daily and make it my slave. He's not saying physically or literally. He's saying, I'm coming under the influence of God every single day.
Because otherwise I'm going to get back to my old mess. No, I'm going to humble myself before him in a fresh way every single day. And this is where Christ apprehends me often.
It's something to try to live in such a way as this. It's exciting. There are moments where I will scold my children or say something, and I'm not, I wouldn't say mean to my wife. There are moments where I'm short. I'm short with her.
And guess what? I don't get five minutes apiece from the Holy Spirit. He doesn't give me five minutes to be like, she deserved that. I get 30 seconds, maybe. I barely get out of the room before there's somebody on my shoulder going, dude, I don't give you permission.
I don't know if I like this Christian thing.
Hey, I want to be honest with you that the Holy Spirit of God is in my life, convicting constantly. There's never a dull moment in my walk with Christ Jesus. A thought will just dance across my mind, and somebody in there goes, no, I love it because I want to look more like him. I want to spend eternity with him. I want at the end of my days for Christ Jesus to say, well done, good and faithful servant.
That's what I want more than anything in this life. I just want to hear good news. You did well. Yeah, you messed up. Oh, yes, I did.
Well done. That's what it's like to follow him. He says, I was apprehended, I've been handcuffed, and I keep on doing it. He says in that this one thing, verses 13 and 14, the climax of this text. Forgetting what lies behind Some of you today, good friends, I Want you to hear this.
You made some terrible, terrible mistakes back there. There's stuff back there. You're like, there's no way God could use me. Oh, yes, he can. Here's a man who murdered Christians.
You didn't do that. If you did, we need to talk after. And he'll forgive you of that too. But I bet that's probably no one in the room. This was a man who did great evil in the sight of Jesus.
Great evil. And yet God gets miraculously ahold of him. And he writes most of the New Testament. Is that not astounding, friends?
He says one thing I do. And Paul above all needs to do this. Forgetting what's back there. Not just the good stuff, but definitely the bad stuff. He says, I count even the accolades as loss.
All this is dung that I might strain forward what lies ahead towards this upward call of God. Now, I think he quite literally means heaven bound call. Yes. He has a call on his life. Sure.
I think he means more surface than that. Here. He says, I want to know his power. I want to attain this resurrection. I know I haven't attained it yet, but I'm pressing on in such a way that one day heaven's in store.
That's the upward call that we're all going to receive. Church, the upward call of God. This should be good news to you today. It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow. Your time may not come for many years.
But there's great news. The upward call is upon your life. You get to spend an everlasting joy with the Father. That's great news. That's what Paul's saying here.
I'm going to run in such a way that any day, it could be any day, and I'm going to run with such reckless abandon that it looks like I'm actually running towards getting there sooner. That's crazy. I love it. Paul's pursuit echoes David's pursuit. This isn't the first time someone has written something like this.
Psalm, chapter 27. David writes, One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all my days to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. This is the song of the saints. This one thing I do. I want to spend time in your temple.
I want to spend time in your presence. Is that you, my friend? You're missing what it means to be a follower of Jesus. The ultimate pursuit is resting in peace in the temple of God.
I want to end with this really powerful story. I think there's a reason this story is in our text. It's not just to make us all the more like Mary or all the less like Martha. That's not the case at all here. There's this story, it's in several of the Gospels.
But I'm going to quote a moment here out of Luke chapter 10. But the moment goes such like this. Jesus is there teaching in Martha, Mary, Lazarus, home in Bethany. He's teaching there and he does this often, it seems in the Gospels. This is a place, kind of a hub for his ministry.
And he's there teaching the disciples and maybe others. I don't remember every element of the story, but Mary's in the room. Mary's in the room. I think if I remember right, she's at his feet listening intently. And Martha's in the back slaving, slaving over the food that needs to be made and need to be put out for them.
And there's a lot of Marthas in the room, men and women alike. There's a lot of you in here that you working hard and you've made the work. What's most important and not the knowing. Martha's doing a good thing, Church. We shouldn't read this story and belittle her.
She is feeding Jesus and the apostles and this is great work, but she can't do it with the right heart. She's not doing it out of a pursuit of loving and knowing Jesus. She's doing it out of a sense of obligation. And Mary, Jesus says, has chosen what is better. This is what it says in Luke chapter 10.
Jesus answered and said to her, martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed and Mary has chosen that good part which will not be taken away from her.
Some of you are working real hard, even in the name of Jesus. But is it obligation? Is it out of some strict sense of obedience rather than joy and pleasure? I fear this for my worship team especially. I mean, I work with them a lot.
I pray diligently for them that we would have joy in ministry. I pray this over you. I pray this over my staff here. But this is way bigger than what we're doing here at church. This is daily that we can make the decision every single day.
I'm going to get in my word and I'm going to walk with you and I'm going to say the right things and I'm going to be a good dad. And it's all out of strict obligation, not joy. I'm going to live right, and eventually I'm going to break. Because it's not the power of the resurrection. It's not a focused pursuit, because it's not even the right pursuit.
I've made work, the idol, even good work, friends, can be an idol. He says, no, Mary's chosen. What's better. There's a sweet story that happens later in the Gospels where Martha is yet again working, and she's not complaining. Because you know what?
It wasn't that Martha was doing the wrong work. She had the wrong heart. She was actually doing the very thing God had called and built her to do, and that is be hospitable and love the saints. And there's a later story where she serves them with cheer. Hey, do you have this kind of focused work?
Doesn't matter what you do in life. Doesn't matter what your job is. It doesn't get any easier either, by the way, if you're in ministry. Oh, if I did what Jonathan does, I bet I can have this focused pursuit. Don't assume that, friend.
You'd be very wrong. No, in every single job you do, in every single work in this life, you do, you have an opportunity to say, it's not this, it's that. I'm doing this because of that. It is my pursuit of knowing Jesus that makes me a better electrician, that makes me a better nurse. That makes me.
This is why Paul in other places can say so clearly. The work I do is unto the Lord and not unto men. Not even this man said to him, I pray that that can be the vision of our church. I pray that we take this a step further, too. So in a few weeks, I'm going to end with this.
This is kind of like some nuts and boltsy stuff, but I want to end with this. In just two weeks, we're going to start two services here. Now, look around the room. Feel free to do it. Look around the room.
There's room. I have more chairs in the corners. Hey, we could feel a lot more people in here. Why are we going to two services? That would be a great question.
Seems like more work. It will be. It will be more work. Okay, so what in the world are we doing this for? This is silly.
We have a few desires here that we want to actually meet. For several years, we've been saying, hey, we want to give the opportunity for our children's ministry workers to never miss the opportunity to worship. Been saying it for a long time. Guess what? We've not changed.
There are people that have served back there almost every Sunday for months now. They love it. Your children, we love your kids. Don't hear us say this. And I'm amazed by something that continues to be true, that people come to Christ before the age of 12.
Generally, it's still true. I came to Christ at 6 years old. Look at me now. There's a mess in the middle of there. But God's doing that kind of work right now back there with your kids.
I'm so thankful for them. But the way in which I can thank them is to say, hey, we're going to give you an opportunity to not miss church every single week.
And some of you are going to love this illustration. Some are not going to care much for it. I care not when you go. And this is a good house. Let's picture for a moment a good house where you come and Grandma's still there, right?
She's cooking, she's slaving like Martha, and she's happy to see you and she loves you. You get the big hug and you get the food that tastes so good. Only Grandma can make it this good. She puts her whole foot in it. It's amazing.
And at that meal, everybody eats and everybody dines. And in a good house, what happens? All the kids, the grandkids, they start picking up plates and taking them to the sink and doing a little bit of work. Poor Grandma better not have to cook and clean. That's how it rolls at my house, at the Combs house.
Whoever cooks, they don't clean. And I cook a lot. There's part of why I do love to cook, but there's more to it. I hate cleaning.
This is what it means to be a good family. This is what it looks like to be a sweet family. This is what it looks like to be the family of God is not just to receive, but to give.
And guess what? You miss something when all you do is get and you never give. I could probably get people up on stage right now that are serving in just minute capacity here. They might feel like their task is small, but I could get them up here and say, you know what? This is where I've made some of my closest friends.
This is where I feel like the glory of God's really shining in my ministry. Guarantee you, if I could get some of those teachers out right now, they're too busy. But if I could. Oh, you wouldn't believe what little one, little girl said today. Oh, it's thrilling.
Give and receive. That's the kind of church I want to be. So what we're doing is giving the opportunity to do that. Do we have room in here to blow it up? Absolutely.
But we're going to two services that we might learn how to give and receive, that we might be the kind of church that blesses one another. So I'm asking you, dear friends, certainly, if you're a member here, there's almost no excuse, like, please get involved. You say you belong, hey, this is my church. Prove it. I mean, what do you mean?
Because if I'm a part of the Combs family, I can tell you right now, we have to clean up sometimes, but we also give. But if you're a guest here, you're wondering, maybe today you're thinking, hey, I really enjoyed the service today. What's next? What do I do now? Your next step, my friend, is serve.
Well, that seems a little like a stretch. I promise you this. As soon as you start becoming a part of this ministry and meeting people and doing things, just simple things, like I'll be a part of the team that makes a good cup of coffee. That sounds cool. I'll do that.
Or I'll stand outside and just say hey to people as they come in. I mean, if you're like the most humdrum, ugh face, we're not gonna put you there. Alright? I'm sorry. We might put you on the tech team.
Not saying that about y'. All. I love y', all, but you can hide there. Maybe you've got a technical brain. There are places where you can immediately plug in here.
And I promise you, I promise you, you'll start to connect to the body of believers here. You may never connect well if you never do anything.
So church serve, get serious about your evangelism in your workplace. Some of you have told me stories lately that just thrill me, where you're praying with your co workers, where you're praying over your clients, where you've had opportunities to share your faith. I wish I could just give a shout out to some of these people, but I'm telling you, there's something amazing happening when you just go ahead and say, I'm Christ, and everywhere I go, I represent him, something amazing begins. Dear church, let me pray for you now. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the gospel.
Thank you for the good news that Christ Jesus, you died for us. You saved us from all of our brokenness and sin, that our guilt and shame is laid at your feet. All of us come in this place, Lord Jesus, with baggage. I'm thankful that we get to lay it down today and I'm praying for that person that showed up this morning and, and they've never taken that opportunity to go ahead and say, Lord Jesus, I am done with my mess. You have it.
Free me from it. If that's you, my friend, you've come today and you're hearing the good news maybe clearly for the first time. I want to give you an opportunity to receive Christ Jesus, to go ahead and say yes to the gospel. The faith is already building in you. You feel the Holy Spirit of God pulling you towards himself.
If that's you, don't fight it anymore. No more running. Take the opportunity today to say yes. So today if you would pray a simple prayer of confession with me. There's no mystery in these words.
This is what Paul says to the Romans. If you would confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Friend, if that's you today, would you pray simply this with me? Jesus, I believe today that you died for my sin. You died for me on the cross.
And God, I believe that you raised Christ Jesus from the dead. And Heavenly Father, I'm thankful for the sacrifice and the freedom I now can experience in you.
Dear friend, if you prayed that prayer, that's step one, step one and walking in obedience with Christ Jesus and would you now consider praying with our whole church as we all pray these words? Lord Jesus, help us to have a vision for our work that is solely and centrally on you, Lord Jesus, that we would have a perspective for our life that would be Christ centered. We would have a perspective for our work, our home, our families. All of it would be centered around a pursuit of Christ Jesus. Help us to know you and the power of your resurrection.
Help us to know what Paul means when he says I want to know him to the point of his sufferings. Help us to also run that race as the saints of old ran it. Some of our dear family ran it that way. They're with you now, Lord. Let us look to them as people who ran the race well and help us to run it too.
God, I pray for the believers in the room that we would clearly see the finish line and run as if we're going to get there swiftly. God, I love you. I pray for your people in Jesus name. Amen.