2025: Growing Through Goals, Pastor Drew Webb, Philippians 3:12-14

Well, good morning again.

If you would, turn in your Bibles to Philippians chapter 3.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

We'll be in Philippians chapter 3 this morning.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

I would encourage you to go ahead and find that as we'll be looking at a few different

verses in Philippians 3 this morning.

I'll give you a fair warning.

Every December I get a sinus infection.

And well, that happened this year.

True to every other year before that.

But sometimes it takes me a while to fully come out of it, residue, cough, junk in the

chest.

The more I talk, the worse it gets.

After preaching one sermon in Sunday school, I can feel maybe it's wanting to kick in.

Kick in here this morning.

So hopefully I won't have any coughing fits.

But we'll see how it goes.

When I was 12, my life was baseball.

I loved baseball and I was constantly practicing and playing baseball.

But you see, there was a problem at baseball.

I was quiet and shy, so that made me the perfect target to be bullied and picked on.

Because of this problem, my dad pulled me out of the sport that I loved.

And we began the search for a dojo where I could learn martial arts, toughen up a bit,

and perhaps even come out of my shell.

Finally we found a studio on the south side of Kansas City and at the age of 12, I began

my martial arts career.

I spent many years in karate and I worked hard to advance to each new level.

Attaining a new rank would always involve a very rigorous test as well as accumulating

a minimum number of hours of training, a minimum number of hours of teaching others, as well

as going to tournaments and fighting and doing katas or forms.

All these things would be taken into consideration and then you would go to have a test.

And now just because you took the test, didn't mean you passed.

You see, I went to take my first degree black belt test and men who had trained with me

for years didn't pass the test that night.

But that night, after three rigorous hours of a test, I got this.

And I can still recall the joy of kneeling down there in front of my sensei as he handed

me the belts.

I took the belts, wrapped it around me, putting it on.

I'd done it thousands of times with other belts before.

But this one.

This was different.

Because the goal I'd had for eight years, all the hard work and training had finally

come to fruition in that moment.

It was awesome to finally achieve that goal that I'd been working towards.

Now, yes, the new year started the other day.

Just a few days ago, the new year started and with it, some people, I know all the type

A's.

The type A's, you see the type A's, they already have set their goals.

They already have a plan.

They know exactly how everything is going to go and how they're going to achieve their

goals.

The whole year is lined out for them.

I'm sure we got somebody in here.

Anybody?

Okay, we got one.

Okay.

Okay.

I'm not sure he's a type A, but he's like, nope.

We had one in the first service who I know was a type A. But there's others of us.

The new year comes along, you're like, resolutions?

No.

We don't need to mess with those things.

I'm perfectly fine just floating through life, looking at the things behind me, the accomplishments

I've already had, don't need to mess with goals or anything like that.

Well, I find myself somewhere between the two extremes.

I'm not particularly gung-ho about goals for sure.

But obviously, I've learned the value of having a goal and sticking to it.

And I've used goals as an opportunity to catapult myself into growth on various occasions.

So this morning, as we look into the Word, we'll be in Philippians chapter 3, verses

Philippians 3:12–14

12 through 14, and I'd like to ask Cameron Freeman to go ahead and come on up.

She will be reading our Word for us this morning.

Would you stand as we read God's words this morning?

Philippians 3, verses 12 through 14.

Philippians 3:12–14

Not that I have already obtained this or I'm already perfect, but I press on to make it

my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting

what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal

for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Father God, we thank you for your Word.

We thank you that we can look into your Word and we can take it and we can apply it to

our lives.

God, I thank you for Cameron.

I thank you for her passion for you, her desire to know you more and more and to share you

with others around her.

And God, I pray that you would continue to grow that in her this year.

So thank you for this time.

Would you bless us now as we look into your Word?

In Jesus' name, amen.

Thank you, Cameron.

In the previous verses, Paul had just outlined his credentials and I'll go into all that

stuff a bit later.

But it would be easy to think that Paul had arrived, that he was fully mature in the faith

because he had been so instrumental in starting all these churches.

He'd taken all these missionary trips and he'd been instrumental in bringing all these

people into the kingdom of God.

So surely if someone deserved to just kick their feet up and lay back and just rest,

it would be Paul.

But no.

He says his own actions and his encouragement to us is to keep pressing on.

He says keep pressing on.

His point was that I haven't yet obtained what I'm most long for so I'm going to keep

pressing on until I reach the point of being united with my Savior.

But why?

Why is he going to do this?

He says that it's because Jesus has made me his own.

Paul wasn't pressing on for his own purposes.

He wasn't pressing on for his own glory, if you will.

He wasn't trying to earn his salvation.

The reality is that you can't earn your salvation.

No.

He was pressing on because of the gift of grace that had already been poured into his

heart.

So he was offering his life back as worship out of thanks because of what God had done

for him.

Now so God was at work in Paul and Paul wanted to continue to become more holy and you see

that process of becoming more holy and pressing on is something that we call progressive

sanctification.

Now progressive sanctification is a fancy theological phrase for meaning that we're

becoming more like Jesus Christ every day.

We don't find this point and we just coast.

No, the Holy Spirit continues speaking into our lives and causing us to grow in him.

Now, see each person comes from a different place.

One person may be working on their issues with anger.

Another might be working to remove bitterness from their life and learning to forgive someone.

Still another might be tackling issues of smoking or overeating or some other addiction.

The Holy Spirit speaks to everyone in different ways in this process of sanctification.

So if you're new to the faith, you need to understand that we need not get discouraged.

Don't get discouraged if you're fighting a sin that you thought you would have had a

handle on it by now and it would no longer be an issue.

Don't get discouraged if you're struggling with lust or with porn.

Don't get discouraged if you're trying to clean up your language a bit or you're trying

to have your speech impart grace to the hearers as it says in Scripture.

But really, well, you're not quite there yet.

Don't get discouraged if you find it hard to forgive someone who has deeply hurt you.

And if you find it hard to spend a couple minutes in prayer each day or to be in the

Word each day, don't get discouraged.

You seeking God and allowing him to grow you into the Christ follower that he wants you

to be.

I think the great theologian Dory said it best.

Just keep swimming.

Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.

Just keep going on.

Don't stop.

Don't quit.

So Paul, he kept pressing on to what was ahead of him.

He had lived a great life and surely Satan had wanted to completely stop him from his

ministry.

But Paul, Paul wanted to do more.

Now in order to press on, you can't, you can't keep looking back.

You have to forget those things that are behind you.

We have to forget what's behind.

Like many of you, I enjoy watching the Olympics.

Perhaps the most exciting races to watch at the summer Olympics are the 100 and 200 meter

sprints.

These races are over in less than 10 and 20 seconds and once the starting gun goes off,

it's an all out mad dash to that finish line.

In these races, everyone's attention is firmly fixed ahead.

They're not looking around.

They're not looking behind them because to look behind would cause them to lose their

momentum.

It would cause them to lose their balance.

It would cause them to lose focus and the one sure result of looking behind would be

failing to achieve the goal.

So they're fixing their eyes on what's ahead.

In the previous verses, Paul had listed some of his credentials, all the reasons that he

had to boast in himself.

Look if you will at verses five and six there in Philippians three reads there.

He was circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin,

the Hebrew of the Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the

church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Paul had the right pedigree.

He had all the right credentials.

It all started with his parents who had circumcised him on the eighth day according to the requirements

of the law.

So he was an Israelites.

But more than that, he knew what specific tribe he had come from.

He knew that he was descended from the tribe of Benjamin.

And well, he was come from Tarsus.

Tarsus is in modern day Turkey and in Tarsus they would speak Greek.

But Paul, Paul was not bound to just one language.

No, he also could speak Aramaic, the language of the Hebrew people, the language of Jesus

and his followers.

So this made Paul a Hebrew of Hebrews.

He had the right lineage.

He had the right background.

And he was also a Pharisee.

This was something that he would hold up as a trophy.

Look, look who I am.

I'm a Pharisee.

A Pharisee was someone who held to all the 613 laws that were in the Scriptures.

But not only that, the Pharisees had also put in place thousands of other laws that

they observed in order to keep them from coming close to violating the laws of Scripture.

They served as guardrails, if you will.

That was who the Pharisees were.

And Paul felt himself to be such a complete keeper of the law.

So much so he was so zealous for the law that he sought the lives of Christians.

Why did he do this?

Because prior to his conversion he believed that Christians were breaking and perverting

the law.

So he was a Pharisee above all other Pharisees.

At this point in his life he could have placed his trust in his flesh.

He would be attempting to trust your own self-righteous past.

But after he met Jesus, he couldn't place his trust in those things.

See all those things that he had counted as assets, all those things that were his trophies

in life that he could hold up and say, look what I've accomplished.

He comes to this point and he says, they are worthless.

They mean nothing to me now compared to the joys of knowing Christ.

So Paul was pressing on.

He was forgetting those things that were behind.

He was not about to allow the things of the past to distract him from where he was headed.

So that brings us to reaching forward to what lies ahead.

He was reaching forward to what lies ahead.

Now when we hear the word reach, I think what usually comes to our mind is like a situation

in our household where my vertically challenged wife is trying to reach something on a shelf

that is just too high for her.

So she calls for Micah or I to come and get it for her because we can reach it.

Well, that's not what Paul has in mind here.

Paul loves athletic illustrations and when he uses this word reach, it's better for us

to actually think of it as straining.

Because what is actually pictured is a muscle being strained, a muscle being used to its

absolute limit.

Now when I think of straining, I can't help but think of those days at CrossFit where

at CrossFit we have what we call a one rep max day.

This is a day where the task before you is to lift heavier in a certain specific lift

than you ever have before.

And now there's no place where the straining is more apparent than in the deadlift.

The deadlift is the simplest of all lifts.

There's a barbell.

You reach down, you pick it up.

That's a deadlift.

Now there's a little bit more that's involved.

You step up to the barbell, your shoelaces under the barbell, your shins vertical, hinging

at your hips, pulling your shoulders back, squeezing your armpits as though you're squeezing

something between your armpits.

And you reach down with your back straight, you grab that bar and you pull it up to this

position completely extended at the top.

Now it's really simple.

So when you're doing a weight that is double your body weight or more, then it can be really,

really hard, really difficult.

You can watch somebody when they're going for a personal record, a personal best.

It can take them five, six, seven seconds sometimes to move that bar from here to here.

They're shaking the bars, bouncing around because they are straining with all their might.

Now, we can't just half-heartedly go into a one rep max day.

If you go into a one rep max day, you're like, yeah, I don't know.

We'll see what happens.

Guess what's going to happen.

You're not going to get that new max.

You will fall short of it because you're not focused on the task.

Now taking this into the spiritual world, Paul had literally poured everything he had

into his walk with God.

He was pouring himself out for the gospel.

He was straining forward.

So what was it that Paul was pressing on towards?

He was pressing on towards the goal, it says.

So press on towards the goal.

So what exactly was that goal?

The goal it says there in verse 14 is the upward call of God.

And this phrase, the upward call of God refers both to the source of the call as well as

the destination, the source of the call is God.

God was the one who had reached out to Paul and who reaches out to us and says, come,

follow.

And then God is also the destination of the call.

You see, our final destination is not this world as we know it.

We're just passing through the writer of Hebrews writes in Hebrews 11 is all about, we call

it the Hall of Faith and the Hall of Faith talks about all these Old Testament saints

who demonstrated such great faith in the midst of difficult trials.

And as the writer of Hebrews writes about them and by extension us, he says that they

were strangers and exiles on earth.

We're strangers, we're exiles here.

This is not our home.

We are headed for a different place, a place where we will be more live than we are at

this very moment.

So Paul's goal was heavenly.

He embodied what C.S. Lewis wrote in his bestseller, Mere Christianity.

If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world

were just those who thought most of the next.

The Christians who did most for the present world were those who thought most of the next

world.

Paul was looking forward to the day when he would be fully in God's presence.

He would be enjoying freedom from the presence and power of sin.

He looked forward to the moment when he would fully know God.

That is the goal Paul was striving for.

Just as someone who is doing a one rep max is completely focused in striving with all

that they are.

Paul was striving with all that he had.

He was striving towards that day when he would finally be united with God.

So that's Paul's admonition to us.

Press on.

Forget what's behind.

Keep reaching, keep straining forward towards that goal.

Now as we think about Paul's goal and his encouragement to us, it would be good for us

to also consider the goals in our lives.

This year is only a few days old.

This year has only started.

We haven't even finished the first week yet.

So we can consider what are some goals that we might want to implement in our lives.

The late Christian motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar said, if you aim at nothing, you will

hit it every time.

If we aim at nothing, we'll hit it.

We'll get nothing done.

And a lack of goals can be indicative of a lack of progress and complacency.

So it behooves us, regardless of your feelings and your predispositions regarding goals,

it behooves us to set some goals for ourselves.

So in the remaining moments this morning, I want to talk a little bit about that and

whether it be in our sanctification or in other areas of our lives.

But let's define a goal.

Gary Chapman, the well-known author of the Five Love Languages, he wrote in another book

that was titled Covenant Marriage.

He wrote this, our priorities are stated in broad categories and indicate what we believe

to be most important in life.

So you could say that our priorities, these categories, these are values that we have,

values that we uphold in life.

These things, this is the way we endeavor to live.

But then our goals, goals on the other hand are different.

Goals are the stepping stones that help us accomplish our priorities.

Goals are the action steps that we put in place to help us attain and uphold our values.

For example, most of us probably have a priority of wanting a close walk with God.

That's a priority, that's a value of mine is to walk closely with God.

But I wouldn't say I just want to walk closer with God this year.

It's hard to measure that.

What I would do is I would set goals, actual steps that help support that value.

Now for the sake of our discussion this morning, there are two main types of goals.

Sure there are lots of other types of goals that you can come up with.

But I'm just going to say there are two, make this simple.

There are personal and there are spiritual goals.

Personal goals, these are the things that help me grow as a person.

These are the things that you probably think of when you're considering resolutions each

year.

There's the infamous weight loss goal.

Perhaps reading goals.

My daughter had an insane number of books that she wanted to read this last year.

I don't know if she hit it.

Did you hit it?

No.

How many did you get?

70 books.

She's a reader.

Financial goals, career goals, relationship goals with your spouse, with your children

maybe having a date night with your spouse or taking your kids out for a date and spending

special time with them.

All sorts of things can fit under these personal goals.

Then there are spiritual goals.

These are the goals that are specifically drawn up to help us strengthen our relationship

with God.

The types of things that when lived out and enacted over 12 months will serve as a window

to see the type and how much spiritual growth we've experienced in that previous year.

Could be things like spending time in the Word or strengthening your prayer life, learning

perhaps to give a portion of your income back to God, these are spiritual goals.

So how do we determine the goals in our lives?

Do we just come up with something and write that down?

Sure, that's part of it.

Something comes to mind, oh hey, I'd like to do that thing, you take note of that.

I would suggest we pray about it, commit the matter to God.

I've been praying, what is it that God wants of me in 2025?

How is it that God wants to stretch and grow me this year?

Pray about your goals, try to determine what God wants of you.

And then as you seek to make goals, make them realistic.

Make sure your goals could be achievable.

Now we just got to spend Christmas with my parents in El Paso, Texas.

To be honest, the only time of year that I would want to visit El Paso, Texas, it was

about 70 degrees, the whole time we were there, we were wearing shorts.

Really cool, doesn't feel like Christmas there, but hey, it was a great time.

So one of the highlights of the trip, no doubt was for my dad, was getting to work out with

our son Micah.

My dad is insanely strong, crazy strong, he's always been strong.

He has a goal, like a realistic goal of deadlifting 500 pounds.

And this is like territory that like, you probably don't know anybody who can deadlift

500 pounds, but my dad is 74.

And so he actually is wanting to set a world record, he's very near 500 pounds.

At 74, 500 is not a world record.

But it's possible from what I can tell when he later this summer turns 75, if he can get

500, it might be a world record from what I can tell.

So that's a goal of his.

Me on the other hand, I know people like to think that I'm crazy strong, but y'all, I

am not.

I talk about CrossFit, that's just, that's how we work out, that's what we do to keep

fit, but I was not built to lift heavy things.

I was built for other things, like riding a bike.

So I had a high this year, I had a max of 365.

If you're doing the math, that's about 135 pounds difference between 365 and 500.

I am not about to set a goal of deadlifting 500 pounds this year.

Could I eventually get it some other year?

I don't know, but when you've been working out as long as I have, you're not going to

make a jump of 135 pounds in one year, at least not by doing it through legal means,

if you get my drift.

Perhaps I could deadlift 400 by the end of the year.

If I really put a lot of work into it, I have not set this goal, just to be clear, I have

not set a goal of pulling 400 pounds by the end of the year, but if I put a lot of work

into it, that could be, that could be attainable.

So make sure that your goals are realistic, make them attainable.

Next, make them specific and measurable.

Set specific goals so you can actually tell if you've achieved them.

When you set specific goals, it tells you where you're going, and it's easier to know

if you've arrived.

Where goals help move us towards our priorities.

These are the steps we take to help support the values in our lives.

For example, if you want to lose weight, don't set a goal that simply says, lose weight this

year.

Be specific about what you would like to lose while also being realistic.

Don't set a goal for yourself that you can't achieve.

Don't push yourself, but make it something achievable and measurable.

But let's take this into the spiritual realm, because that's what we're most concerned with

here.

If you want to be strengthened in your walk with God, don't just say, walk closer with

God.

That's very nebulous.

It's hard to know if you've arrived, if you've accomplished that.

God developed one or two realistic and measurable ways to move you towards that value of walking

closely with God.

Perhaps it's spending time in the Word every day.

And on that matter, if you can't spend time in the Word every day, I would encourage you

to try to at least hit four days a week in the Word.

The power of four is this idea that when we spend four days a week in the Word, it has

a profound impact on our walk and our faith in Jesus.

So that's one practical thing that you can do.

Now it's possible.

Like if you make a goal to spend every day in the Word or to spend four days in the Word

or whatever step you come up with, it's possible that you'll fall.

When you fall, get up, get back on the train and keep going down the tracks.

Don't stop.

Just keep moving forward.

I guarantee you that you will get more done in your falling, trying to reach that goal

than you will in not attempting to strive forward towards anything.

An anonymous author writing about achieving goals offered this advice.

It's kind of like baking a cake or something.

It's kind of like the lingo here.

It says, take 12 fine, full-grown months.

See that these are thoroughly free from old memories of bitterness, rancor, and hate.

Cleanse them completely from every cleaning spiked.

Pick off all specks of pettiness and littleness.

In short, see that these months are freed from all the past.

Save them fresh and clean as when they first came from the great storehouse of time.

Cut these months into 30 or 31 equal parts.

Do not attempt to make up the whole batch at one time.

So many persons spoil the entire lot this way.

But prepare one day at a time.

To each day put equal parts of faith, patience, courage, work.

Some people omit this ingredient and so spoil the flavor of the rest.

Hope, fidelity, liberality, kindness, rest.

Leaving this out is like leaving the oil out of the salad dressing.

Don't do it.

Prepare meditation and one well-selected resolution.

Take your goals one day at a time with a pure heart and focused mind.

I would like to encourage you this morning to commit to praying over the next few days

about what God would have for you.

How does he want to challenge you?

How does he want to grow you in this coming year?

It's not too late.

The year has only just begun.

So make your goals realistic, make them specific, write them down and go after them.

You won't casually succeed at meeting goals.

It will take intentionality.

It will take sacrifice.

But if you make the required sacrifices, then at the end of the year you'll be able to look

back and see where you were and see what God has done in this year.

Let's bow our heads and close our eyes.

This morning my encouragement to you is to consider, first of all, what are the values,

what are the priorities, the broad categories of your life?

Your faith with God?

Any other things, financial categories, emotional, spiritual?

Consider the broad categories and then work to develop what are the action steps to support

those categories?

How can I live out what God has called me to reach that next level that God wants?

It's easy for us to want to just sit and be comfortable.

But growth happens when we're uncomfortable.

When we step out of the boat, step onto the water, we enact our faith, push ourselves

to places we didn't think were possible, we trust in God to lead us and guide us.

So consider what God might have for you this year.

God, we thank you for your word to us.

Thank you for Paul's example that though he had done much, he didn't rest, he didn't

stop.

He kept pressing on for your kingdom, pressing on for the sake of the gospel.

So God, would we press on for you?

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Paul invites the elders and deacons who are serving communion to come forward.