philippians 3:14 sermon

His life was in the stars. We are apt to say, "At such and such a time I was converted and growing in Christian attainments. D.)An indomitable purposeLord Macaulay.On one bright summer day the boy, then just seven years old, lay on the bank of the rivulet which flows through the old domain of his house to join the Isis. These winter leaves that cherished and nourished our growth in grace must drop off from time to time, with each new attainment that we "may rise on stepping stones of our dead selves to nobler things."3. A perfect accordance in present action with the prospect of the great day.II. PAUL PRESSED EVEN TOWARD A DEFINITE WORK. 2. — every muscle strained and every vein starting — the quick and short heaving of his chest — the big drops gathered on his brow — his body bending forward, as if with frantic gesture he already clutched the goal — his eye, now glancing aside with a momentary sparkle at objects so rapidly disappearing behind him, and then fixing itself on the garland in eager anticipation. God has gone that way. Every one is familiar with the buds which tip the extremities of every branch in spring. )Concentration the secret of dispatchS. To insure success, all dead weights must be thrown off, all unnecessary hindrances avoided, all entangling alliances sacrificed, and "the sins which do so easily beset" or hinder us, put away.(G. PAUL'S MEANING AS TO THE PRIZE WAS A PERSONAL RESEMBLANCE TO CHRIST, AND A DESIRE TO BE NEAR HIM. Old forms ceased to have any hold upon his affections and homage. LET THAT BRIGHT, CERTAIN, INFINITE FUTURE DWARF FOR US THE NARROW AND STAINED PAST.1. And so it is, alas! Maclaren, D. D.You find some certain type of Christian character, or exercise of Christian grace, that is easy and natural to you, and you come to know how to do it. H. Spurgeon.A neighbour near my study persists in practising upon the flute. Martin. He would be Hastings of Daylesford. AS REGARDED HIS OWN IMPROVEMENT. Those who, like yourself, desire to do everything in one day, do nothing to the end of their lives, while others who steadily adhere to one pursuit find that they have accomplished their purpose. His example may be beyond us, but the spirit that moved him to work may be ours. We may all be trying to be like Jesus Christ, whatever may be the material at which we toil.(A. His one idea was a city. Macmillan, LL. THE GLORY OF GOD IS THE RIGHT END OF MAN, because —1. (1) They are apt to become food for complacency and every vain confidence. The memory of things behind —I. how civilization leans on morality? This cannot be adequately promoted by stationary religion. So it does. Yet there are those who prate of having reached a higher life than this. The wonderful phenomenon of grace. Spurgeon.! When means become ends, they encase us with a hard covering impervious to the tender influences of heaven.III. As a convert to Christianity he was the same man in singleness and intensity of purpose.4. It must mean something. He has a purpose that Augustine monk. The little child is telling what he intends when he is a man. Stop long enough to say, "Thank God for that"; but do not pause to congratulate yourselves, or it may be soon undone. In this sense the things that are behind are to be forgotten.2. Maclaren, D. D.The idea is that of a man stretching himself out towards something as a runner does, with his body straining forward, the hand and the eye drawn onward towards the goal. There are things before him.1. Conversion, justification, and peace are the first principles of the doctrine of Christ. And as the young green leaves within expand in the genial atmosphere, the services of the bud scales, or covering leaves, are no longer needed, and by and by they roll away, and fall one by one from the tree, strewing the ground beneath till it looks like a threshing floor. (3) There are two ideas in that notion of perfection. It is our privilege, if we are on our way to God, to keep steadily before us the thought of home. The bud must burst, the flower blow, the nest foul. Thoughts fly on wings toward the tomorrow. All that he had acquired, he laid on the altar.3. In a season of sorrow we are made more heavenly reminded. Supreme love to Christ and consecration to His service.2. If you want to be blessed you must be good; if you want to get to heaven you must be like Christ.3. Spurgeon. Paul having put the past and present in their proper places goes on to the FUTURE, ASPIRING EAGERLY TO MAKE IT GLORIOUS. The two objects of hope and effort are distinct though connected. The winter leaves or bud scales of a tree leave behind them when they drop off a peculiar mark or scar on the bark, just as the summer leaves do when they fall. Absolute assurance of forgiveness.3. They should be forgotten, and, whether you forget them or not (and some men never do), they are sure to get behind; and if you do not forget them you are behind also, and can never reach the goal.(W. And what is concentration? Every mineral is not a diamond. A. )Pressing forwardA. It works everywhere you sign in, even with the mobile app! Very many believers stop short at the very initial processes of grace, and imagine that these are the final ends — that nothing more can be desired or attained. It must mean something. The world neglected, neglects them. LET HOPES FOR THE FUTURE AND LESSONS FROM THE PAST LEAD TO STRENUOUS WORK FOR THE PRESENT. That whatever shape self-satisfaction may assume it is a shirking of the hardships of Christian soldierhood. Forget past failures. We may go on working the sum for years, and though each succeeding figure brings us nearer to it, we can never actually reach it.(H. But self-complacency is the mother of spiritual declension. There is a sense, indeed, in which we cannot forget the things that are behind, strive as we may. Forget past circumstances, whether sorrows or joys. Verse 7: But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Newton was the king of astronomers, not because his eye was keener as it scanned the heavens, nor because God gave him mighty wings to sweep through the empyrean, but because, with the power of an omnipresent dream, the constellations of heaven were flashing on his soul! Conversion, justification, and peace are the first principles of the doctrine of Christ. LET HOPES FOR THE FUTURE AND LESSONS FROM THE PAST LEAD TO STRENUOUS WORK FOR THE PRESENT. Maclaren, D. D.)Christian perfectionH. They lose the power of forgetting the things that are behind, because they are not reaching forth unto those things which are before. The world's building was prospective. In no other way than Paul won it.1. D.)The racer as charioteerArchdeacon Farrar.St. MAY LEAD TO DISCOURAGEMENT.1. V. FROM THE NATURE OF THE CHANGE ITSELF. Each is to help the others.3. Sacrifices may become a cause of pride — "Lord, we have left all and followed Thee." But we must not permit them to obliterate the appreciation of present mercies. And when the great crisis of his life came — the spring time of his conversion, a light exceeding the brightness of the noonday sun shone upon him; and in this warm genial atmosphere of grace, the germ of spiritual life unfolded itself within, and burst its wrappings. We must follow out his figure. Vaughan, M. To insure success, all dead weights must be thrown off, all unnecessary hindrances avoided, all entangling alliances sacrificed, and "the sins which do so easily beset" or hinder us, put away.(G. "This one thing I do."1. WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS WHICH PAUL LEFT BEHIND AND FORGOT.1. You served your master with good service. is it in the increase of the superior quality of material appliances? On the outside they are covered with dry, glossy scales, which are true leaves of the lowest type. "The power of a single aimC. THIS WAS ALSO THE PRIZE HE SOUGHT. )Practice necessary to perfectionC. TO MAKE LIFE, AS IT OUGHT TO BE, ONE, THE GREAT REQUISITE IS TO HAVE ONE FIXED AIM. The one are not without remedy, the other not perfect. W. Robertson, M. A.The life of man is a vagrant, changeful, desultoriness; like that of children sporting on an enameled meadow, chasing now a painted butterfly, which loses its charm by being caught — now a wreath of mist, which falls damp upon the hand with disappointment — now a feather of thistledown, which is crushed in the grasp. Live in the future for yourselves, and for the world. FROM THESE THOUGHTS WE MAY DRAW FRESH CONVICTIONS FOR THE REALIZATIONS OF THE SPIRITUAL CAPABILITIES OF OUR NATURE.1. F. Pentecost, D. D.I. Taking a comprehensive view of the universe, we find that everything has a special object to perform, and when that object is accomplished, the agency perishes. (2) But the one sort do not all live where civilization prevails, nor do the others in lands where barbarism is dominant. But brooding is no more to be encouraged than boasting. You can eat and drink to it, and do whatever you do to it.2. D.)An indomitable purposeLord Macaulay.On one bright summer day the boy, then just seven years old, lay on the bank of the rivulet which flows through the old domain of his house to join the Isis. He has turnpikes and stage coaches, but he must level or tunnel the mountain, and lay a pavement of iron, and chain his ear to a horse of fire. Spurgeon. But the day does come when the form should be lost to us in the reality, the letter lost in the spirit. Of course the figure is not strictly applicable to the reality. There is no time for self-elation or self-sufficiency. )Christian progress as it nears its endM. And if you stand there looking backwards instead of making the best of your way out of evil, the evil will catch you up. Each is in the depth of his personality a spiritual substance. )Forgetting the things that are behindW. There is strength in forgetting; "let the dead bury their dead." He sought —1. Paul speaks of the past as hurtful, a hindrance. He not only never repented these sacrifices, he forgot them. Maclaren, D. D.You find some certain type of Christian character, or exercise of Christian grace, that is easy and natural to you, and you come to know how to do it. In a season of sorrow we are made more heavenly reminded. This is to stretch forth unto the things before; to have not merely an ideal, but to work out our character, by God's help, more and more into the forms of that ideal.3. There are branches to spring from the ever-growing trees that have not yet even budded. "First the blade," etc. Why should you carry about parched corn when you dwell among fields white unto harvest? On the outside they are covered with dry, glossy scales, which are true leaves of the lowest type. Thus it is with the memories of past sorrows. THERE ARE THINGS BEFORE EVERY CHRISTIAN towards which he is proceeding. M. Punshon, LL. If our winter leaves — the experiences that contribute to form our character, and which are appropriate to the various stages of our growth — be allowed to remain unchanged and unforgotten, and to choke up our spiritual life so as to arrest its advancement, they will be changed into thorns. And evermore afterwards he journeyed towards that city. The winds are strong, hut the helm overrules the winds, and turns them to account. (J M. Whiton, Ph. The artist who is satisfied with his transcript of his ideal will never grow any more. S. Henson, D. D.Such was the language of the most masterful man that ever trod the earth, and this utterance is the keynote of his marvellously successful life.I. And many of us simply keep on doing the narrow round of things that we fancy we can do well, or have always been in the way of doing, like barrel organs, grinding our poor little set of tunes, without any notion of the great sea of music that stretches all round about us, and which is not pegged out upon our cylinders at all.(A. What a petty world such a man must live in; under what a low sky he must walk; in what, a muggy atmosphere he must breathe. All unimproveable life must sooner or later run out. Yet what does the "all" amount to.3. (1) They are apt to become food for complacency and every vain confidence. D. Hoge, D. D.)The sense in which the past cannot be forgottenM. Time given to such occupation is withdrawn from the actual work of life. And it was with a sore wrench that St. Paul tore himself away from all his former cherished associations.5. Of what avail, to such a mariner, is even distinct view of some distant point long since swept by, when his vessel is approaching some perilous pass, or passing through some vast and foaming estuary into the deep sea. Follow him out into the new world which that volume has flashed upon his soul. )Singleness of aimConfucius' son once said to him, "I apply myself with diligence to every kind of study, and neglect nothing that could render me clever and ingenious; but still I do not advance." But although worthless as grounds of justification, they had their own value in training and fitting him for his work. Jesus was a mine just opened; and he describes his prospects like a man almost bewildered by the sudden inheritance of wealth untold.2. Hubbard.We are as children taught as in a play; instructed by toys and pictures. The future is before you; the present is still yours.II. The young live mainly in the future; but by and by the vision fades away or becomes limited. 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