"Just Make Sure You Stretch"
Philippians 3:12-21 June 6, 2010
The first time I met with Mark Nee, my physical trainer at World Gym, he just wanted to give me
a simple fitness test. We did a number of exercises and he asked me a bunch of questions. As we
finished up he told me that as we age our body gets less limber and that our sedentary life style
ends up causing us to add more fat than muscle. I think he was trying to say that I had gotten fat
and was out of shape, in a nice way. The truth is that there aren’t many of us who can do what
George Foreman did at the age of 45.
Back in what was one of the great sports stories of the 90’s. George Foreman got back in the
boxing ring to face Michael Morrer, the heavyweight champion. He was more than a decade past
the prime of most prize fighters. But he trained and on November 5th 1994 he got in the ring and
reclaimed the heavyweight championship he had held 20 years earlier.
Almost immediately, advertisers flocked around him, wanting him to endorse their products
because, they said, “George Foreman has become the hero of every old, fat, and bald person in this
country.”
Now we often try to make our golden years sound romantic. I actually read a quote in Time
magazine that said that at age 50 our level of stress drops to unprecedented levels. I don’t know
who they were talking to. They must have asked a bunch of twenty year olds what they think.
The truth is that stress goes up. For example we start worrying about our appearance more. We
try to deny or disguise the fact that we’re getting older. So we go to the gym, we use anti-wrinkle
cream and get tummy tucks and face lifts and use oil of delay – all in an effort to disguise that we’
re getting older.
And certain slogans become popular with us: “You’re only as old as you feel.” “Life begins at 40.”
“Those really aren’t wrinkles, they’re expression lines.” Yeah right!
We also begin to fantasize about what will happen when we retire. Retirement always sounds
better when you are thirty than when you are sixty. I know one person wrote a little poem about it.
It goes like this.
“I’ll get up in the morning and dust off my wits. I’ll go out and get the paper and read the obits. If
my name is missing, I’ll know I’m not dead. So I’ll eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.”
Well the truth is that most of us feel that as we get older, we will do just fine. We may not be as
physically fit but we will be able to call upon our experience to get us through most of the
challenges.
That’s where I want to bring the apostle Paul into our discussion today. Paul wrote the letter to
the church at Philippi while he was sitting in prison. Time was passing quickly. Paul was getting
older. Who knows? He may have even been battling discourage-ment because his life had not taken
the path that he had hoped for. As we get older, we tend to get more philosophical. We tend to put
things in perspective. That’s what Paul is doing in the passage we are looking at today.
“But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind & straining toward what is ahead, I press on
toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
I love this verse because it sharpens our focus. I don’t know about you, but sometimes life moves
so fast that I feel like I am being carried along in a stream. It is not “row, row, row your boat
gently down the stream.” It is hang on for dear life because we are shooting the rapids.
If this feels like your story right now, then listen to the apostle Paul. He says something very
important.
First he says, forget about your past. The truth is that some of us have things in the past that
weigh us down. They are like anchors that drag us back and stop us from going and doing what
we are called to. Guilt and missed opportunities, failures and bad choices haunt us.
We let these things rob us of God’s calling. We tell ourselves we don’t deserve a break. We relive
our failures and let them dictate what we do. Paul says let go of them. Give them to God and get
moving again. You can get back on track.
Paul, who tells of his own sorrow over the fact that he persecuted the church, says that God can
forgive anything. In 1 Timothy 1:13-15 Paul writes, “Even though I was once a blasphemer and a
persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy The grace of our Lord was poured out on me
abundantly… Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst.”
Have you got a skeleton in your closet? Give it to Jesus and he will forgive you so you can move
on.
Forgetting the past doesn’t only apply to the bad things. Sometimes we find ourselves basking in
the glow of our past accomplishments. We have achieved some great things and now we are
resting on our laurels. We like to live in the past. Churches are famous for that. “Remember when
we used to have two hundred in worship?” Paul says, “Don’t let yourself be trapped by that. Don’t
relive the past over and over again.”
Al , the famous shoe salesman from the irreverent sitcom, “Married with Children” would tell the
story of his famous exploits on the football field time after time: Four touchdowns in a single game.
It was his one moment of glory and he played it for all he could.
The apostle Paul says, “Don’t be satisfied with what you’ve done. God has more for you to do.
So don’t look back.
Second, Paul says accept the present. Take stock of where you are and embrace it. That brings
me back to my meeting with Mark Nee. When he told me that I had 29 percent body fat and was
below the scale in almost every category, I could have given up. What’s the point. I am an old, out
of shape, couch potato 50 something.
In vs. 12 Paul says, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect,
but I press on…” Other versions put it, “I continue to stretch forth, I continue to reach for the
prize that is before me.”
In other words Paul says once you have taken stock of where you are, you need to begin from
there. Mark tells me that I should stretch before I begin my routine. The truth is that moving
forward should always involve reaching beyond where we are. It should always in vole stretching
and trying to grasp what is out there in front of us. Once we stop doing that, we stop living.
It doesn’t matter where you are, you just need to begin there and start moving again. Paul looked
at himself and saw his own plight. But even while in prison, he says, “I’m still pressing on. I’m still
stretching forth. I’ve still got more to do for the glory of God.”
I’ve told this story a hundred times but when I was serving at Cross Mills I stopped in to visit one
of our retired pastors. He was in his nineties and crippled up with arthritis. I Felt sorry for him. I
asked him if he found it hard to cope with his inability to do ministry like he used to. He set me
straight that day. He said “This is my ministry now. I can’t move. I can’t get out and do much. But
three times a day I pray through this list. That’s my ministry now.”
You can do far more than you think if you invite Christ to be a part of your life. You and he
together, can accomplish great things. Don’t make excuses. Don’t wait until you have it all figured
out. Start from where you are. Stretch. Get ready and go.
Finally Paul says take hold of the future. Too often we can’t wait until we get there. We look at
the future as a destination. It is our last stop. Paul says that the future is not something you grab, it
is not a place you want to rest at, it is something you strive for.
Yet nothing in the Bible ever suggests that we are to retire in our service to God. In fact, it seems
that as people got older in the Bible they became more useful to God. God used them in the twilight
of life in ways that He wasn’t able to use them when they were younger.
When we retire from a secular occupation that just sets us free to be of more service to Him. In
the 14th chapter of the Book of Joshua, Caleb is 85 years old. He comes up to Joshua as they’re
conquering the Promised Land & he says, “I’ve still got it. See that mountain over there? I want it.
That’s where the Amalekites are and they are well fortified. But let me take the mountain.” At age
85, Caleb leads them up the mountain to victory!
Paul knew that he wanted to be used by God til the day he died. He encourages us to live with that
attitude. We need to establish goals all the way through life: To grow in our giving, to grow in our
knowledge of the Bible, to grow in our prayer life, to grow in kindness and love. “Press on” he says.
The truth is that people like you and me, can have a tremendous influence on others as we let our
faith show. I told you last week that watching Shawn work with Mark inspired me to do the same.
I was talking with someone else a few weeks ago and they heard that I was working with a trainer
and that inspired them to do the same. The truth is that you and I may never know the example and
inspiration we give to others when we live faithfully. People may never listen to us as we talk about
Jesus, but they will listen as they see what living with Christ in our hearts does for us.
When I turned 50 a couple of years ago I began thinking about my legacy. What is it that I will
leave behind. That’s what Paul was thinking here. That’s why a little later on he says that he wants
people to know that he ran the race, the whole race and finished. He wanted them to know that he
ran it well right up to the end. I think that is what I want too.
So if I got to stretch, and I know it’s not an “if” then I want to do it so that the glory of God can
be revealed. That’s our calling as disciples. We are called to press on.
You know what I like about working with Mark at the gym. He is an encourager. He pushes me
and then tells me how great I am doing. “Good job. Great.” I can do far more with him at my side.
The truth is Jesus is always at our side and he is the ultimate encourager. So listen for his voice.
Stretch, push and reach for the glory so that God can be revealed through you.
Amen
Philippians 3:12-21 June 6, 2010
The first time I met with Mark Nee, my physical trainer at World Gym, he just wanted to give me
a simple fitness test. We did a number of exercises and he asked me a bunch of questions. As we
finished up he told me that as we age our body gets less limber and that our sedentary life style
ends up causing us to add more fat than muscle. I think he was trying to say that I had gotten fat
and was out of shape, in a nice way. The truth is that there aren’t many of us who can do what
George Foreman did at the age of 45.
Back in what was one of the great sports stories of the 90’s. George Foreman got back in the
boxing ring to face Michael Morrer, the heavyweight champion. He was more than a decade past
the prime of most prize fighters. But he trained and on November 5th 1994 he got in the ring and
reclaimed the heavyweight championship he had held 20 years earlier.
Almost immediately, advertisers flocked around him, wanting him to endorse their products
because, they said, “George Foreman has become the hero of every old, fat, and bald person in this
country.”
Now we often try to make our golden years sound romantic. I actually read a quote in Time
magazine that said that at age 50 our level of stress drops to unprecedented levels. I don’t know
who they were talking to. They must have asked a bunch of twenty year olds what they think.
The truth is that stress goes up. For example we start worrying about our appearance more. We
try to deny or disguise the fact that we’re getting older. So we go to the gym, we use anti-wrinkle
cream and get tummy tucks and face lifts and use oil of delay – all in an effort to disguise that we’
re getting older.
And certain slogans become popular with us: “You’re only as old as you feel.” “Life begins at 40.”
“Those really aren’t wrinkles, they’re expression lines.” Yeah right!
We also begin to fantasize about what will happen when we retire. Retirement always sounds
better when you are thirty than when you are sixty. I know one person wrote a little poem about it.
It goes like this.
“I’ll get up in the morning and dust off my wits. I’ll go out and get the paper and read the obits. If
my name is missing, I’ll know I’m not dead. So I’ll eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.”
Well the truth is that most of us feel that as we get older, we will do just fine. We may not be as
physically fit but we will be able to call upon our experience to get us through most of the
challenges.
That’s where I want to bring the apostle Paul into our discussion today. Paul wrote the letter to
the church at Philippi while he was sitting in prison. Time was passing quickly. Paul was getting
older. Who knows? He may have even been battling discourage-ment because his life had not taken
the path that he had hoped for. As we get older, we tend to get more philosophical. We tend to put
things in perspective. That’s what Paul is doing in the passage we are looking at today.
“But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind & straining toward what is ahead, I press on
toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
I love this verse because it sharpens our focus. I don’t know about you, but sometimes life moves
so fast that I feel like I am being carried along in a stream. It is not “row, row, row your boat
gently down the stream.” It is hang on for dear life because we are shooting the rapids.
If this feels like your story right now, then listen to the apostle Paul. He says something very
important.
First he says, forget about your past. The truth is that some of us have things in the past that
weigh us down. They are like anchors that drag us back and stop us from going and doing what
we are called to. Guilt and missed opportunities, failures and bad choices haunt us.
We let these things rob us of God’s calling. We tell ourselves we don’t deserve a break. We relive
our failures and let them dictate what we do. Paul says let go of them. Give them to God and get
moving again. You can get back on track.
Paul, who tells of his own sorrow over the fact that he persecuted the church, says that God can
forgive anything. In 1 Timothy 1:13-15 Paul writes, “Even though I was once a blasphemer and a
persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy The grace of our Lord was poured out on me
abundantly… Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst.”
Have you got a skeleton in your closet? Give it to Jesus and he will forgive you so you can move
on.
Forgetting the past doesn’t only apply to the bad things. Sometimes we find ourselves basking in
the glow of our past accomplishments. We have achieved some great things and now we are
resting on our laurels. We like to live in the past. Churches are famous for that. “Remember when
we used to have two hundred in worship?” Paul says, “Don’t let yourself be trapped by that. Don’t
relive the past over and over again.”
Al , the famous shoe salesman from the irreverent sitcom, “Married with Children” would tell the
story of his famous exploits on the football field time after time: Four touchdowns in a single game.
It was his one moment of glory and he played it for all he could.
The apostle Paul says, “Don’t be satisfied with what you’ve done. God has more for you to do.
So don’t look back.
Second, Paul says accept the present. Take stock of where you are and embrace it. That brings
me back to my meeting with Mark Nee. When he told me that I had 29 percent body fat and was
below the scale in almost every category, I could have given up. What’s the point. I am an old, out
of shape, couch potato 50 something.
In vs. 12 Paul says, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect,
but I press on…” Other versions put it, “I continue to stretch forth, I continue to reach for the
prize that is before me.”
In other words Paul says once you have taken stock of where you are, you need to begin from
there. Mark tells me that I should stretch before I begin my routine. The truth is that moving
forward should always involve reaching beyond where we are. It should always in vole stretching
and trying to grasp what is out there in front of us. Once we stop doing that, we stop living.
It doesn’t matter where you are, you just need to begin there and start moving again. Paul looked
at himself and saw his own plight. But even while in prison, he says, “I’m still pressing on. I’m still
stretching forth. I’ve still got more to do for the glory of God.”
I’ve told this story a hundred times but when I was serving at Cross Mills I stopped in to visit one
of our retired pastors. He was in his nineties and crippled up with arthritis. I Felt sorry for him. I
asked him if he found it hard to cope with his inability to do ministry like he used to. He set me
straight that day. He said “This is my ministry now. I can’t move. I can’t get out and do much. But
three times a day I pray through this list. That’s my ministry now.”
You can do far more than you think if you invite Christ to be a part of your life. You and he
together, can accomplish great things. Don’t make excuses. Don’t wait until you have it all figured
out. Start from where you are. Stretch. Get ready and go.
Finally Paul says take hold of the future. Too often we can’t wait until we get there. We look at
the future as a destination. It is our last stop. Paul says that the future is not something you grab, it
is not a place you want to rest at, it is something you strive for.
Yet nothing in the Bible ever suggests that we are to retire in our service to God. In fact, it seems
that as people got older in the Bible they became more useful to God. God used them in the twilight
of life in ways that He wasn’t able to use them when they were younger.
When we retire from a secular occupation that just sets us free to be of more service to Him. In
the 14th chapter of the Book of Joshua, Caleb is 85 years old. He comes up to Joshua as they’re
conquering the Promised Land & he says, “I’ve still got it. See that mountain over there? I want it.
That’s where the Amalekites are and they are well fortified. But let me take the mountain.” At age
85, Caleb leads them up the mountain to victory!
Paul knew that he wanted to be used by God til the day he died. He encourages us to live with that
attitude. We need to establish goals all the way through life: To grow in our giving, to grow in our
knowledge of the Bible, to grow in our prayer life, to grow in kindness and love. “Press on” he says.
The truth is that people like you and me, can have a tremendous influence on others as we let our
faith show. I told you last week that watching Shawn work with Mark inspired me to do the same.
I was talking with someone else a few weeks ago and they heard that I was working with a trainer
and that inspired them to do the same. The truth is that you and I may never know the example and
inspiration we give to others when we live faithfully. People may never listen to us as we talk about
Jesus, but they will listen as they see what living with Christ in our hearts does for us.
When I turned 50 a couple of years ago I began thinking about my legacy. What is it that I will
leave behind. That’s what Paul was thinking here. That’s why a little later on he says that he wants
people to know that he ran the race, the whole race and finished. He wanted them to know that he
ran it well right up to the end. I think that is what I want too.
So if I got to stretch, and I know it’s not an “if” then I want to do it so that the glory of God can
be revealed. That’s our calling as disciples. We are called to press on.
You know what I like about working with Mark at the gym. He is an encourager. He pushes me
and then tells me how great I am doing. “Good job. Great.” I can do far more with him at my side.
The truth is Jesus is always at our side and he is the ultimate encourager. So listen for his voice.
Stretch, push and reach for the glory so that God can be revealed through you.
Amen
Pastor Cal Lord's Recent Sermons
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