Men's Luncheon - Pastor Greg Addison - November 18, 2025

Hey, it is good to see you all this morning and uh glad you're here.

It's always fun to get together.

It's especially good when there's chocolate pie, apple pie, and taco salad.

I mean, come on now, we're taking care of you today, so that's really good.

Uh let me pray for us and we'll get rolling.

Lord, we thank you for today.

Thank you for a chance to get together and fellowship with each other.

We thank you for the meal and the food and the environment of fellowship it provides and the sustenance it provides.

We pray your blessings on the folks that uh make um lunch for us.

They are such a blessing and they make this work and make it fun so we can come and fellowship together.

So we thank you for them.

We ask your blessings on them.

Thank you for our time together.

You've fed us uh physically today.

We pray that now you'll feed us spiritually from your word.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

And everybody said, Amen.

All right, well, um, we uh a little something different I've been working on today, so I'm gonna guinea pig on you guys today.

You love it when I do that, right?

Um we uh birthed at our business meeting Sunday night a couple of visions for 2026, and one of those uh that we birthed was a uh was a theme for the year 2026.

And so we birthed the theme, we're calling it forward, and it's the idea that we are moving forward.

Here's a scripture that we used.

Uh, it is familiar to you if you have been in church any amount of time.

In Philippians chapter 3, beginning in uh verse 13.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

Uh here's what oh reminds you, Thanksgiving week, right?

You guys know that.

I know some of you already started swapping where you're gonna be.

How to move forward spiritually, that idea of forward.

So, this passage of scripture in Philippians chapter 3, you guys will be familiar to you if you've been in church.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, that's where we got the theme for forward.

And so this is Paul talking about, even though Paul at that time in his life, he had already planted churches and been a missionary things around the world.

He had he's describing that he's a Jew of Jews, he's a Pharisee, he's all these things, he's passionate, zealous, all that, but he has given up everything to pursue Christ and to know him.

And then he says, after having planted churches and everything else he's done, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of Jesus and all that Jesus has for him in his life.

He says, one thing I do, forgetting what is behind, I reach forward to what is ahead.

And then he gives a better definition of that.

I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus.

And then he says, the verse we're going to look at.

That first part of that we all look at.

If you've been teaching Sunday school, you've taught that.

I've preached that part, all that.

I don't know that we ever really dig into this next part.

He says, therefore, all who are mature should think the same way.

That we are pressing forward for what Jesus has saved us to be and saved us for.

It is the priority in our lives.

But then he gives this statement all who are mature should think this way.

This is not just Paul's character of moving forward spiritually, but everyone who is a mature believer should have the same mindset.

And then he says, if you think differently than that, God will reveal this to you.

In any case, we should live up to whatever truth we have attained.

And so, whatever level of maturity that you have in the Christian life, you're supposed to live fully up to that full knowledge of who God is and what he's doing in your life.

If we are not pressing forward spiritually, if we are not engaged to grow in every way that we possibly can, to move forward spiritually in every way that we possibly can, literally the verse says, God will reveal to you that you're not doing that.

And so here's a couple of thoughts that I've been working through as I get prepared to cast the vision for this idea forward, moving forward.

Here's a verse I want to focus on.

All who are mature should think this way, and if you don't think that way in any area of your life, God is going to reveal to you that you are not pressing forward for what Jesus has saved you to be and what he's saved for you in your life.

Now that's a pretty astounding thought process if you think about it.

It's one thing to describe that I'm pressing forward and I've counted all things as rubbish and to know passing knowledge of who gives us.

It's one thing to cast a vision for all that, but it's another thing when you slow down and realize in your life, God is your accountability partner, and He is literally going to speak into your life and tell you where you're not pressing forward for all you can be that He saved you to be.

And that's pretty incredible.

So here's some thoughts I had, I'm working through.

First of all, is just that true.

I can get this thing to turn.

God is the one that holds us accountable.

He is our accountability partner, literally.

He is the one that looks into our lives, measures our lives, speaks into our lives, understands what's in our life, and challenge us in those things.

Again, listen to what that scripture says.

All who are mature should think this way.

That is the standard for us.

Maturity in Christ, pursuing Him is the standard.

And if you think differently, God will reveal this to you also.

Reveal what?

That you think differently than that mature standard.

And so God literally is our accountability partner.

And I don't know that a lot of times we think of it that way.

Many times as pastors and teachers, you know, we're trying to encourage people and we're trying to encourage people to live up to where they're supposed to be and all that, like that verse says, but a lot of times we don't take seriously the accountability part of that.

And what the Bible is telling us, Paul is telling us, listen, if you are pursuing moving forward in your spiritual life, what that means.

If you are pursuing to be all that Christ has saved you to be, and there's some area in your life where it is not pressing forward, God's going to tell you, hey, you are not pressing forward.

You are not living up to what I saved you to live up to.

You are not pursuing the prize of the heavenly call of Christ.

You have not counted all things rubbish for the surpassing knowledge of Jesus.

You are not, Greg, doing that.

This area of your life, you are thinking differently than you're supposed to.

I mean, he calls it out in our lives.

Um, you think about in church, I had conversations Sunday after church.

It's just amazing when you're teaching in church, you're preaching the word, and then you have this line of people come up and they go, Man, Pastor, God said this to me, and you're thinking, that wasn't what the sermon was about at all.

Where did that come from?

And then somebody else comes up and goes, Man, God said this to me this morning.

I'm thinking, well, that wasn't the sermon, and it also wasn't the sermon that the last person heard.

Like, where are y'all getting all this from?

Well, you know where they're getting it from.

It is the living and powerful word of God, and they're sitting in this setting where the Holy Spirit is speaking, and what's happening is the Holy Spirit is speaking to all these people, and that's exactly what's supposed to be happening.

That's exactly what's supposed to be happening.

I've had people come up and say things like, Well, Pastor, man, I didn't get the last two points.

I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention, but man, God just grabbed hold of me after this one thing, and I just stalked to him the rest of the service, and I said, Praise the Lord, you win the prize for being the best church member today.

That's exactly what's supposed to happen.

You're not supposed to be listening to me, you're supposed to be listening to what the Holy Spirit is telling you through the word of God and everything else.

That's exactly how that happens.

God steps into our lives and he speaks to us and he engages that.

And that's exactly what Paul is saying.

If you are thinking differently, God speaks to you and reveals that to you.

He is our accountability partner.

He is the one who is pointing those things out.

He is the one who is stirring us up in an area in our life where we are not pursuing passionately and as a priority moving forward in our spiritual life, in our relationship with Jesus, and our engagement with him.

And Paul writes this at the end of his life.

He's already done all his, you know, missionary journey.

He's already been there and done all that.

He has already been through everything that a Christian minister, missionary, teacher, deacon, leader in the church, whatever, he's already done it all.

And he's in prison going to what eventually will be his death in prison.

And yet, in that setting, Paul is saying, man, I'm still pressing forward with everything I've got to be who Jesus saved me to be.

There is never a point.

I've talked about my dad on occasion, and one of the things I love about my dad is he never quit growing.

He taught fifth and sixth grade boys' Sunday school for 35 consecutive years.

35 consecutive years.

I mean, never missed unless we were on vacation.

Mom was there most of the time, and every now and then she'd get a little tired of him, and she'd go to a ladies' class for about six or eight months, and then she'd come back.

So she probably had 30 of those years, you know, with a break every now and then.

But he was 35 consecutive years.

In fact, when he retired professionally, he retired at 58 and just an opportunity to do that, been successful, and so he retired.

So they were going to travel, they were gonna do stuff.

They he loved to travel, traveled the world, he was going to do all that.

So he finally resigned from that responsibility because if you are teaching Sunday school, then you only get two weeks' vacation just like a regular job.

That's the house I was raised in.

So he he needed to travel more than that.

And if you're gonna be a teacher, you're not in and out, you teach all the time.

So if you're a deacon, you deak, and if you're a teacher, you teach, right?

And so he didn't want to not meet that commitment.

So he retired and they started going and traveling.

And he said, Son, I'm a little bit excited.

We're gonna go into a married Sunday school class for the first time in our married life.

At 58, first time they'd gone to a married couples class.

Now we got some folks in our church, they've been in a married couples class for 50 years, right?

Like graduate from Sunday school and go teach somewhere.

Okay.

Well, they had taught, and it was an opportunity.

So he goes in there and they sit in this class, and within a couple of weeks, the teacher was gone, and he had my dad substitute, and a lot of their friends were in that class, that's why they'd gone there, and then he started substituting some.

And within six months, that that teacher retired and he got my dad to start teaching.

So he was teaching again.

In his retired life, he started teaching in, and he taught another 17 years.

After retiring, after 35 years of teaching, he taught another 17 years.

He never quit.

He never quit.

We were approaching Thanksgiving.

My father, it'll be the fourth year anniversary that he died on the Monday before Thanksgiving.

Because of some physical health problems with my mom, he had finally retired again from an ongoing every week basis because he was helping her take her, but he still substituted.

And the Monday before he died, he taught Sunday school.

That uh that Sunday before that Monday.

Never quit.

There is never an excuse to quit.

We never retire from pursuing what Christ has saved us to be and what he wants us to do in our lives.

And anytime we slow down or we retire, if you're listening, God will speak to you and hold you accountable to that.

He will challenge your walk and my walk.

Truth number two, he speaks into our mindset.

This is what I like.

We've talked here often about renewing your mind and thinking on the things of the Lord.

And when we're studying Scripture, we are engaging our minds.

And when Jesus said, love the Lord your heart with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And what happens is if we think anything differently, if we think differently, if we set in our minds a focus or if we have a life view or a perspective view that I am not 100% sold out pursuing Jesus, I am moving forward.

If my mindset changes, that's what triggers God to speak to us.

And he speaks directly to us in our minds and our hearts.

He steps in and he says, son, you're going to listen to me.

You're not there.

You're not where you're supposed to be.

Where's the pursuit in this part of your life?

And he speaks directly into that.

And he speaks into our perspective of how we view things, how we see things, how we make decisions, how we set priorities, how we process.

You have not checked your brain at the door when you've become a Christian.

You have surrendered it to God's working in us to make us and grow us to think like He thinks and to think like Jesus thinks.

Our mind should be affected.

We live in a modern culture where we categorize life and we get used to categorizing life.

We have our church life and our Christian life, we have our politics life, we have our money life, we have our family life.

It's not how it works.

It's the same brain that evaluates everything.

It's the same brain that makes the decision, it's the same mindset that creates a perspective of life.

It's the same mind that makes choices.

And we may think we have categorized them, and I'm doing my Jesus things great, but I can do my money how I want to, or I can do my political thought process or whatever like I want to.

And what should happen in our minds is we should be hearing that God is intervening and telling us that's wrong, that is different.

He speaks into how we view and how we see things and how we set priorities and how we understand life.

He steps into that and he speaks to that and he says, that's not right.

We on Sunday also began a vision for 2026 that we're going to do a study of the chronological study of Scripture.

So we're going to start the first Sunday in January, and we're going to go all the way to the last Sunday in December, and we're going to do the Bible in chronological order all the way through.

And so one of the things that we like about the format that we have chosen, they have a little card that you approach each day when you're reading your scripture.

Here's five things that you ask the Lord to do in your life.

And one of those is, Lord, show me things where I have been wrong about who you are or I've misunderstood your truth.

Man, that's an incredible prayer.

When we bring ourselves to the Lord, we say, okay, if there's something in here that I've misunderstood about you or about me or about how life works, Lord, that's why I'm here for you to teach me from your word.

It's pretty incredible.

If you're in God's word, it is impossible for you to truly come to God's word and be open to God's word and God not speak to you through that.

Challenge you with a thought, with a question, challenge a paradigm of how you have of life.

He speaks to us.

In the book of Hebrews, the Bible says about itself, verse that we quote often, his word is living and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword, to the dividing asunder of the bones and marrow, the soul and the spirit.

It is a what?

Discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

What we think, how we view things, God intervenes into that and speaks directly to us, and he is trying to challenge us to set our minds on him to learn what he wants us to learn, to view life the way he wants us to view it, to have the worldview and the mindset that he wants us to have.

And what this verse says is, man, is you don't get any straightforward than that.

If you think differently than this mature standard, he reveals it to you.

He speaks into your time with him and points out where we're not thinking as we should.

I mean, it's pretty, it's a pretty pointed verse here, and I'm still kind of working through a lot of it, but I mean, it really gets it as clear as you can possibly get.

When you come to God's word, we do more than just affirm the word.

We do that.

But when we go to the word of God, we submit ourselves to him and to what he wants to say to us and what he's speaking to us when we come to his word.

I am submitting myself to what you're going to teach me.

Again, the Bible says about itself.

It is every scripture, all of Scripture is God inspired or God breathed, and it is profitable for what?

Doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped to every good work.

It is a part of reproving and correcting.

It is a part of speaking into our minds and saying, you are looking at this wrong, son.

That is the wrong perspective.

I remember one time I was working with, I was talking to my dad, and he's on my mind because Thanksgiving coming up, and our church was a lot like this.

Our church in Memphis was downtown, it was a big church, but in Memphis is so geographically spread out.

It cracks me up when people in Chaffee go, man, I can't drive all the way downtown.

Seriously, it's a 22-minute drive on Sunday mornings because I now drive it every Sunday morning.

It's a 22-minute drive, and I'm driving under the speed limit, so no one will ever accuse me of getting a speeding ticket on Sunday mornings.

Now I'll tell you, it's very likely I may get one some other time somewhere else.

But between Festivity Hall and First Baptist Church on Sunday mornings, I will never get a speeding ticket, all right?

And so I can just tell you this 22-minute Memphis is so large, we drove an hour one way to church downtown.

So eventually, we we couldn't buy any more property, we couldn't build any more buildings, we were landlocked, we were in three worship services, they were all already full, there wasn't anything else to do.

So we bought property, much like here, out where everybody lives, and so we moved our church.

Now we're not doing that here, we're doing multi-site, but back then, so they moved it.

And so what happened was when you drove an hour to church, man, you had to want to be there.

So there was a natural commitment filter for the DNA of our church because it took you an hour just to get there.

And so at that point, why not serve and give yourself devoted to church and all that?

If you were working that hard, you were committed.

That makes sense.

And so everybody waited, and we had heard that.

We're waiting until y'all move out here and then we're gonna go.

We're waiting until you move out and we're gonna go.

And so we were running about 3,500 downtown.

We moved out where everybody lived, and within a year we were in 6,000 in Sunday school.

I mean, we were trying to catch up, you grow that fast, you can't catch up with all that.

And I remember I was serving, I was working, my dad was serving, we were trying to catch, and I'm just in the car and I thought I'm sound and spiritual, and I start telling my dad, man, this is frustrating.

I mean, this is our church.

And all these lazy people come here just because it's convenient and all they want to do is hear Dr.

Rogers, and they waited until we got 10 minutes from their house, and we built this church, and we've been doing all that, and now I got all these people in the way, and I got to do the good, and I'm just mad.

Y'all with me?

Now come on, be honest.

You don't have to raise your hand, but we've all thought that kind of thing, right?

All these lazy people, and I'm doing this and giving this chart, and that kind of thing.

And man, my dad cleaned my clock.

And he said, Son, why do you think we built this church out here where all these lost people are?

Son, we're gonna build more buildings because there's thousands of more people that need Jesus, and we came out here because this is where the people are.

It's not uh it's not your church.

Church.

You didn't die for the church.

Jesus died for the church.

It's his church.

And he put it where all these lost people are.

And people who don't understand commitment are the ones that need to come.

And if they're not here, you can't teach them how to be mature.

And so you need to fix your mindset.

He was a little more pointed than that, because that's who my dad was.

But that's kind of the mindset, a mindset.

And in those moments like that, we all have them.

And what the Bible says is if we are walking with him and we are pursuing him, then that means we have opened our hearts and minds into that conversation and direction from him.

And we have submitted ourselves to him in the pursuit of him.

And in that, he is going to reveal to us things in our perspective and our mindset that are wrong.

If your mindset has not changed in recent days, you should ask yourself why.

If we are, listen to what he says, I make every effort to take hold of this, and he's talking about the surpassing knowledge of Jesus and knowing him and all of that.

He says in verse 7, everything that was a gain to me I have considered to be lost because of Christ.

I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as garbage so that I may gain Christ.

And that's when he says, not that I have reached that goal or am already complete, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I've been taken hold of that by Christ Jesus for that purpose.

I do not consider to myself and have taken hold, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead.

If there are not things that we have forgotten, that we have let go of, that we have changed, that we have said, Lord, that is yours, and I surrender that to you because He's pointed out, you have got to get more pursuit of who I am.

Son, I want to do this in your life, and you don't have that mindset.

If that has not happened to us recently, we got to ask a question.

Why have I not heard God reveal something in my life that's different than the mistake, than the standard of the maturity of a believer walking with Jesus?

Because the Bible says this is what he does.

And he speaks into that mindset.

My dad said, son, you got to change your mindset.

It doesn't mean that you're throwing out things, it doesn't mean that there's not a place for tradition and all those other kinds of things.

But what it means is in our minds, we will never get rid of everything out of the way that we need to get rid of.

To be as close to Jesus as we can and to be transformed in his image as much as we can.

So there is never a point where there is not things that God needs to reveal for us to move forward.

And finally, here's his pattern.

You see it.

He reveals it to us.

There's a revelation there.

Son, you think differently, and you need to pursue me in this part of your life.

And so I make a change.

I start doing something I wasn't doing.

I restart something I used to do that I quit doing.

I take something out of my life that's creeped in that shouldn't be there.

Whatever it is, I'm making an obedient response to what he's revealed in my life, and that revelation is going to cause me to make a choice.

Remember what he says.

Every person who's mature should think this way.

If you are thinking differently than that, then I'm going to reveal that to you, which means by definition, there is a change involved.

Does that know what that means?

You're supposed to be this, you're thinking differently.

I need to realign you with how you're supposed to be thinking, that means there's a change.

And so there is a revelation, there is obedience by faith to whatever that call of change is that elevates our level of maturity.

That's where maturity comes from.

And then he says, okay, A plus on that homework.

Now we're going to go to the next lesson, son, and he's going to reveal something else.

And we start the process again.

There is a revelation where we're thinking differently.

There is a choice of faith to make a change.

There is a maturity that results from that.

And now as we are mature, those who are mature should think this way, forgetting all things, laying them aside, pursuing Christ, trying to move forward in my faith to be who God has saved me to be.

And so now he's going to point out another area, and that's going to be the pattern of how God works: revelation, faith, obedience, choices, maturity that results, and then there's another revelation, and we go to the next lesson.

So I've been working through that.

That's probably not as elegant or deep as it should be, but it has been on my heart and my mind.

I just want to share it with you guys, and it's a good time to start thinking forward for those of us who are here, First Baptist folks, and hope it's a blessing to all of our other chosen folks that are here with us today.

Let me pray for us.

Lord, we thank you for today.

We thank you for your word.

It just is astounding, just how incredibly deep, challenging, practical, easy to understand, all in once.

It's all of those things in once.

And I thank you that every time we come to it, there's something new.

And so, right here tucked on the backside of this incredible call to live for Jesus that we've seen so many times, you have this incredible verse that teaches us how you do that.

So, Father, I pray for these men that it'll be a blessing to them.

It'll open up their minds and thoughts.

It'll cause all of us to have another level of surrender to say, Lord, I do want to pursue you the way I should.

I want to be moving forward.

Reveal to me, I am open to that revelation where I need to change my mindset, where I need to see a different perspective, where I need to think the way you want me to think, where I need to see what Jesus sees, where I need to understand in my life or in the lives of people around me how I can make that step of faith to be that person that Jesus has laid hold of my life to be.

Lord, I pray you bless these guys.

Give them a great afternoon, give them a great rest of the week.

As we move towards Thanksgiving, I pray you'll continue to give us a great heart of gratitude for salvation in Jesus and what that means to us in our lives.

In his name we pray today, and everybody sit.

Great to see you guys today.

Thank you all for being here.