“Press On Toward the Goal”
April 3, 2022
Dear brothers and sisters, grace and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.
You can be successful! And here’s how you can be successful! Here’s how, if you follow these simple steps, you can be successful in your school, your job, your marriage, your life, and, if you put in the right amount of effort and work, you can be successful in anything you want to be!
If we think about it honestly, sometimes we come to worship each week expecting to hear some kind of a motivational speech, emphasizing what we can accomplish, what we can achieve, what we can do to be successful in various parts of life. We expect to hear that God will bless us with success if we put in our best effort. Indeed, we hear readings from the Bible like today’s Second Lesson from Philippians, about pressing on towards the goal, and the first place we want to go is how to be successful in being a Christian: we would expect to hear a sermon about easy steps we need to follow in order to make sure we live a life pleasing to God so He blesses us. And we can think we have it all figured out – if we do this or that, or don’t do this or that, if we work hard enough and put in the right amount of effort, God will bless us, we will be successful, everything will work out, and everything will be under control. We’re also afraid, and anxious, that if we don’t follow everything the way we think we’re supposed to, God won’t bless us, things will go out of control, and we’ll end up failing and losing. And, since people tend to look down on people who appear to be failures and losers, that will be a terrible thing.
However, what do you do if things don’t go as planned, and you lose control? What do you do when you can’t put in the effort to achieve or accomplish what you set out to do? What do you when all your energy and desire is spent? Indeed, what do you do when you lose? What happens when you fail? What do you when your life doesn’t always work out the way you had thought, or the way you had planned? Does that mean you’re a loser? Does that mean you’re not a success? Does that mean you’re a failure? The reality is, things don’t always work out as planned, and things frequently happen that slip out of our control, and that are beyond our control. If anything, the whole experience with covid the past couple of years should have taught us that many things happen, indeed, almost everything, happens that causes things to be beyond our control, and causes things to happen in ways that didn’t work out the way we planned. But does that mean we’re not successful, and that we’ve failed? We can certainly think so. We can look back at things that have happened, and wonder if things could have turned out differently if we had put more effort into them. Fortunately, being a Christian is actually not about what we can achieve, how we can try to be successful, or how we can put in our efforts to live the best kind of life – it is all about what Jesus does for us. It is all about trusting in the effort and success of Jesus, and letting Him take control.
Even though I sort of hinted earlier this wasn’t going to be the kind of sermon which would tell you easy steps to living a successful Christian life, actually, this first point does, in a way, guarantee success: Let Jesus take control. But this is not an easy step. We want to be in control. We want to do everything by our own accomplishments. We want to put in the effort – and boast later that what we achieved was because of the hard work and effort we put into it. But we can’t always do so. Indeed, the more effort we put in, the more anxious, worried, and stressed we’re going to be, when things don’t work out the way we expect. Again, trusting in Jesus, and being a Christian, has nothing to do with the amount of effort we put into anything: it is entirely about letting Jesus take control. It is trusting Jesus to take control, and letting Him work things out in the way He knows is best for them to work out. It is not about us putting in a certain amount of effort, or following certain rules or guidelines, in order to be successful in life: it is about letting Jesus take control of us, changing us, transforming us, speaking to us, and guiding us. It is not about anything we do: it is everything about what Jesus does. It is a great comfort to believe that even when all your energy is spent, when you have no effort left, when you can’t go on any more, when you can’t press on any more, Jesus is carrying you. Jesus is carrying towards the goal. Your accomplishment, your victory, is already guaranteed, not because you are putting in the effort, but because Jesus is bringing you there Himself. He’s putting in the effort for you. That’s what He came down to earth for in the first place: to save us from sin and death by putting in the effort we could not, and accomplishing what we could not by dying on the cross and rising again. Even our sins being forgiven, our being saved, is nothing we can point to and say we accomplished it ourselves. Even now, we can’t say that anything we do, anything we accomplish, anything we try to do to cooperate with God, contributes to our being saved in any way. It is still all about the effort Jesus already put in, and what He already accomplished. I can say from experience that, when driving a vehicle, sometimes the least safest thing is to grip as tightly as possible on to the steering wheel, especially when in a difficult driving situation. But if you loosen your grip, the vehicle becomes easier to manage, and you become less stressed, and better able to drive. Trusting Jesus means going a step further. It is all about taking your hands off the steering wheel, and letting Jesus drive. You’re not driving the car getting you to your destination – Jesus is driving you there Himself. You’re simply a passenger, safe in Jesus’ car, trusting that He is bringing you all the way to where you need to be. This means:
Get to know Jesus and only Jesus. Again, not an easy step. We want to point to our achievements, even what we think are great spiritual achievements. We want to look for guidelines for how to be successful in every part of our lives, and we want to know how to achieve and accomplish. So that’s what we look for in being a Christian: how Jesus can help us be successful. We want Jesus to help us achieve what we think matters for accomplishment. We think that belonging to a certain group, following a certain lifestyle, appearing a certain way, will help us be successful. Paul himself had once thought that being circumcised, being a member of an Israelite tribe, being a member of one of the strictest traditions of his religion, and following the rules of his religion as closely and as perfectly as possible, was all that was important. He too had once thought that everything was about what he had achieved, the successes he could point to, the way he thought he was supposed to live his life, the things he had done which he thought would cause God to bless him. But then, as he says in verse 7, whatever he once thought was important, whatever he once thought was of greater worth, he realized was rubbish, was worthless, compared to the greater, more important value of knowing Jesus personally and trusting in Jesus. There are a lot of things which distract from focusing only on Jesus. For example, trying to figure out how Asking what the right way to think or believe about certain issues or things can only lead to taking the focus off of Jesus. But once you get to know Jesus for who He really is, everything else will become clear. And who is Jesus, really? He is your friend. He is the most faithful, trusted, loyal friend you could ever want. He is someone who will never let you down, who will always stick with you, and stick up for you. Also, we can help each other focus on Jesus – we can encourage each other, especially in times of struggle or crisis, to look past our worries, and focus on Jesus. We can pray for each other, and help each other turn control over to Jesus by praying. The most important thing is to focus on Jesus, and ignore everything else. If you follow the example of Paul, you can think of everything else as being of lesser worth or value, compared to the superior, better way of getting to know Jesus and following Jesus.
Getting to know Jesus, trusting in Jesus, and following Jesus also means you’re going to lose. Again, we’re constantly told nobody likes losers. But if you think about, following Jesus means following a loser: Jesus wasn’t exactly successful by the standards of His day. He didn’t have a home. He was poor. He had a relatively small amount of followers, who ended up running away from Him at His death. He was meek in His attitude and behavior, and He was put to death at the hands of His enemies. Not someone who would automatically be thought of as being a winner. It seemed like Jesus lost everything – even His life. But Jesus actually won: He defeated sin, death, and the devil, and won for everyone. He continues to win for us, because He overcomes all our struggles, our doubts, our problems, So if you want to be a winner, trust Jesus to help you win. But in the process, you’re going to be a loser. You’re going to lose who you used to be, especially anything that has kept you from living a life of peace that comes from trusting in Jesus. You’re also going to lose quite a bit of anxiety, as you realize that Jesus is in control, He cares for you, and He is helping you in power. You’re going to lose quite a bit of doubt, . You’re going to lose any idea of what it means to be a success, because you’re going to realize that what you have in life is not anything you have achieved entirely on your own, but it all is a blessing from God. You’re also going to lose any idea of what it means to be a failure, because you’re going to realize that, no matter what happens in your life, Jesus is still caring for you, providing for you, and helping you get back to where you need to be. And, you’re going to lose any notion of what it means to be a loser and a failure, which means you’re going to lose any desire to judge or look down on others because of apparent lack of what others might consider success. But even as you lose so much, think of everything you’re going to gain. You’re going to gain peace from trusting that Jesus has you, and everything you’re struggling with, well in hand, and He’s eventually going to defeat whatever is against you at that moment. You’re going to gain joy from experiencing Jesus’ power, and experiencing Jesus’ special care and concern for you. You’re going to gain contentment, because you’re going to experience the peace that comes from trusting that Jesus is providing for you, and everything you have is a blessing from Him. You’re also going to gain the peace that comes from being comforted by the fact that none of your efforts contribute to the victory Jesus is going to win for you – your victory is already guaranteed, because His victory is already guaranteed. You’re going to gain comfort from knowing that no matter what else might happen, Jesus is the most important relationship you will ever have, one that will last forever. Jesus will always love you, and no amount of effort you put in, or don’t put in, will ever change that – Jesus will always love you unconditionally.
So what’s the real secret for success? Trust Jesus. Keep pressing on, keep your eye on the goal – but don’t take your focus off of Jesus. Let Jesus keep carrying you toward the goal, and let Jesus carry you when you can’t press on and keep going. Don’t worry about what you should or shouldn’t be doing – trust Jesus to achieve and accomplish for you. Don’t worry if you’re spent, exhausted, discouraged, and can’t put in any effort – Jesus doesn’t need your effort, He’s already put in the effort for you. So don’t give up: trust Jesus – and you will win, because He has already won for you.
Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
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