What is the goal?

If you are going to “press on” you must know what you are pressing toward - what is the goal? If you take your eyes off of that goal you will wander from your course. You may even loose focus or loose sight of what you are doing. Paul is not just talking about his personal goal, but the goal of faith, the goal of ministry and the goal of his life. To understand what that goal is, we will begin wide and narrow it down to the mark that we are to be looking at.

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The theme of our conference is “Press On”

This is a time to come together to be strengthened and encouraged in you faith.

I hope that through our time here you will have fresh vision, fresh courage and fresh ideas with which to serve the Lord.

When I hear the words “press on” I think of Paul’s exhortation to the Philippians.

Philippians 3:12–14 ESV

12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 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, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

When I am studying a passage of scripture, I ask questions as I am reading and then through prayer and further reading of the scripture, I seek to answer them.

As I am reading this passage, I have three questions:

What is the goal that Paul is talking about? What am I pressing toward?

What is my motivation? If I am to press on like Paul, why would I do this? What is compelling me?

What does it mean to press on? It reminds me of where Paul speaks about running a race. So how do I run that race well?

As you can see, I am not just treating these as Paul’s words, but I am seeing myself in the scripture.

What Paul says for himself is meant to be an example to all of us.

So lets see ourselves in this text and answer the questions together.

What is the goal? - fresh vision

What is my motivation? - fresh courage.

How do we run? - fresh ideas.

What is the goal?

A goal is a mark or a target that you aim for.

I grew up on a farm and learned to drive the tractor from a young age. When my father was teaching me to plow, he would make the first row through the field to make sure it is straight.

Then when he saw that I could follow his row, he taught me how to make the first row. “pick an object on the opposite side of the field, maybe a tree or a large rock and drive straight toward it, keeping your eye only on that object. If you look at anything else, you will wander.

If you are going to “press on” you must know what you are pressing toward - what is the goal?

If you take your eyes off of that goal you will wander from your course.

You may even loose focus or loose sight of what you are doing.

Paul is not just talking about his personal goal, but the goal of faith, the goal of ministry and the goal of his life.

To understand what that goal is, we will begin wide and narrow it down to the mark that we are to be looking at.

The goal of God is redemption.

The story of the Bible is the story of God redeeming mankind.

The first two chapters of the Bible show a perfect creation.

And the last two chapters of the Bible show a restored creation.

Everything in between shows God preparing the world to receive His redemption.

God chooses a man - Abraham and teaches him to walk by faith.

God chooses a people - Israel and delivers them from bondage and teaches them how to live in relationship with him.

That people wanted a king, so God chose David, a man after his heart to be their leader and to establish a family line from which he would send the true king - the messiah.

Do you see how God chooses individuals and them works through them to multiply and establish a movement?

Going back to creation, that has always been God’s plan.

God created the world out of nothing, light out of darkness, beauty and order out of chaos.

He blessed it and said that what he created is good.

And then he made everything to reproduce after its kind.

And the idea was that His beauty and goodness would multiply and fill the earth.

Each good seed producing good fruit after its kind.

Then He created man in his image.

Genesis 1:26–27 ESV

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

The image of God means that man is designated to represent God and to reflect God’s goodness.

Mankind was supposed to reproduce and fill the earth with God’s goodness, beauty and order.

You know what happened - man chose to disobey.

Now there is evil in the world along with the good.

The good seed and the bad seed are all mixed together and we cannot tell them apart.

Only God can judge, we must wait for the harvest at the end of time.

But what we do judge is the good and evil in our own hearts.

We must learn to recognize that because of sin, we are now divided.

We have both the image of God and the sinful nature at work in each of us.

That is why Jesus came, died and rose again - to give us the possibility of regeneration -

literally dis-empowering the sinful nature.

overcoming sin, sickness and death.

defeating the powers of darkness and taking back authority on earth.

This is the story of redemption

Paying the price for sin with the death of God’s son.

Reversing the curse that was upon mankind and the world.

Turning the tide in the spiritual battle which surrounds us.

If you understand the struggle that we are engaged in as humanity, then you should also know that God’s goal is redemption through Jesus Christ.

Our goal then, it to align with God as His people in his work of redemption.

The goal of the church is restoration.

So if the story of the Bible is redemption, then where are we in that story?

I told you that God chose a man - Abraham.

And from Abraham, He chose a people - Israel

And from Israel He chose a family - David

And Jesus the Messiah is the long awaited fulfilment of God’s promise to redeem His people.

But which people - only some people?

many of the Jews made the mistake of thinking that because they were chosen by God, that God was being exclusive.

But they were chosen so that God could reach the whole world.

God’s plan from the beginning was to fill the earth with His goodness.

But evil is multiplying right along with the good.

In order for His plan of redemption to be accomplished his focus became narrower until we come to Jesus Christ, then from Jesus it becomes broader as sin is dealt with, the multiplying begins again.

Jesus entrusted his message and his authority to 12 people.

But then in the Upper room there were 120 filled with the Holy Spirit.

That was the birth of the church, which soon numbered in the thousands.

Jesus also told his disciples to multiply geographically, not just in numbers.

Acts 1:8 ESV

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

And they are to multiply, not just numerically and geographically, but now they are also going to the Gentiles.

The people of God now describes not just Israel, but people from every tribe, tongue and nation on earth!

1 Peter 2:9–10 ESV

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

The church is God’s means of restoration.

Do you see what has happened?

Through Jesus Christ you participate in the promise of God - the promise of redemption.

The promise to Abraham - as a chosen race you belong to God.

The promise to Moses and Israel - as a royal priesthood you can come into the presence of God.

The promise to David - as a holy nation under the rule of Messiah.

What about all of the divisions?

It is difficult to imagine the church bringing about God’s restoration when we are so divided.

There are over 40,000 different denominations of Christianity in the world today.

Even among those denominations there are many cultural differences, language differences and even differences of practice.

It makes it even more difficult when we disagree even as to the sinful nature and what is good or evil.

There is only one way that the church will accomplish its God-given goal of restoration - through Jesus Christ.

To the extend that Jesus Christ is the head of the church and we are his body we are able to be restored and to restore.

When we try to do the work of Jesus without connection to the head and without His Spirit in us and working through us, we accomplish nothing.

Jesus is Lord! and His Spirit is in us to empower us to do his work.

Ephesians 1:9–10 ESV

9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

The purpose of the church is to bring everything under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

We used to interpret that as dominating, colonizing and making people obey the Bible or the Church.

But Given what we know about God’s plan from the beginning

And how sin messed thing up

And that sinful nature is in all of us dividing us.

Rather than start with the sin outside, why not start with the sin inside?

First, I bring myself, my own heart and its desires under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Then from a heart that is renewed in the love of God, with mercy and compassion, I bring what is under my influence under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

As a church, we do not seek to dominate and control people, because that is not how God treats us.

We seek to restore people with the same love and mercy that we have received from God.

We come into relationship with God through the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit does His work in us first, then from the overflow of the Spirit in our lives, we minister to others.

It is out of our relationship with God that we are able to restore others to relationship with God.

It is out of our own personal deliverance that we are able to deliver others from darkness to light and to overcome the enemy.

It is out of our own healing that we are able to comfort others in their sorrow and suffering and bring the peace of christ to them.

It is out of our own victory over doubt and fear and knowing who we are in christ that we now convey his power to a dying world.

The goal of the church is restoration, first inside, but then impacting the communities in which we live and extending to the ends of the earth.

The goal for each of us is representation.

If redemption and restoration starts with each person, then what should my personal goal be?

My goal is to be like Jesus.

And not just to act like Jesus but to be in Him.

Let Jesus be Lord, let Jesus help me to be who He created me to be.

Jesus restores us to the image of God.

2 Corinthians 4:3–6 ESV

3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

We are made in God’s image.

Like a coin is stamped with the image of a ruler.

We were made to represent his rule and authority.

But we are worn and tarnished by sin.

Sometimes the God’s image is barely recognizable.

Jesus shows us what that image should look like.

Colossians 1:15 ESV

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

Jesus is not just another coin, he is the die with which the coin is pressed.

The way to be restored to the image of God is to be “impressed” with the original die.

When you become “impressed” with Jesus, you begin to look like Jesus.

My goal personally is to be “impressed” with Jesus!

I want to be impressed with who Jesus is, more than who I am.

I want to be impressed with His love for humanity, more than the hatred and division that is all around me.

I want to be impressed with his power, more than my doubts and my fears.

I want to be impressed with his purpose in reconciling the world to Himself, more than my concern of what other people think.

How will I represent him until I am thoroughly impressed with him?

There is more! Not only is Jesus restoring me to look like Him, but he has put His Spirit in me to act like Him.

Ezekiel 36:26–27 ESV

26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

When God made man in His image, he breathed into him.

The words, breath, wind and spirit are the same word in both Hebrew and Greek..

God’s breath is His Spirit.

It is the life force of God which makes us truly alive.

Sin dulled that life within us - yes, we are alive, but not like God intended.

When Jesus ascended into heaven he sent the Holy Spirit to indwell believers.

It is that same breath of God, renewing, re-energizing and restoring us to the life that God intended for us.

We cannot carry out the mission of God without the Spirit of God.

The Spirit is given to us to empower us to do what God has for us to do.

The Spirit will also lead me to becoming more like Jesus.

Galatians 5:25 ESV

25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

So part of understanding God’s goal is following Holy Spirit.

That is how I align myself with God’s purpose.

That is how I do the work of restoration.

That is how we function as people who are in Christ.

Do you want to know where the goal is?