A Solution to Your Resolution Part 3

Becoming more Christlike Philippians 3:12-14 (12) Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. (13) Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, (14) I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Just to refresh your memory, the first two parts of our sermon titled a solution to your resolution Dealt with number" One" our priorities, getting our priorities right. That involved "1"-Putting God first, others second and, ourselves last. 2- Making peace with our past. We're going to be talking about the third and final instruction that Paul gives us in the message today that we are to live in the present. But first; I want to pick up where we left off last week when we were discussing how God can use people who have made some very poor choices in life, to later on become champions of the faith! Anybody have a junk room in their house, or a junk drawer? You know what I'm talking about; its the room you close the door to when people come over! When I first started my business we ran it out of our house and my office eventually turned into a junk room. It was a room where stuff just piled up. It looked so bad, because it's where I put all the stuff that I didn't want to deal with. One day I got so discouraged with the junk room that I decided I was going to clean it out, I didn't just clean it out, after I cleaned it out I painted it, and bought some nice furniture to put in it. Now, a room that I was ashamed of I am now proud of. Dealing with your past is like cleaning out your junk room, once you clean out the junk you're not ashamed anymore, and you can go on to be all that God has called you to be! Some of the greatest men and women in the Bible are people who had to clean out some junk. We talked about Abraham and the poor choices he made, then we talked about Moses and how he had murdered a man while in Egypt. We discussed David and the adulterous affair he had with Bathsheba. We talked about Paul and how he had tried to stomp out the church, and then we talked about Peter and how he had denied Christ three times. We finished off talking about Mary Magdalene and how she had been demon possessed and even a prostitute, but yet Christ appeared to her first after his resurrection and told her to go tell the disciples that he had risen. I'm sure many people had given up on Mary Magdalene, but Jesus never did. That's why Mary was there at Jesus's tomb that Sunday morning, she could never forget how much Jesus loved her and where she had come from!

When the American hostages came home from Iran on January 20, 1981, the first thing they did when they got off the plane was kiss the ground. No matter what star or achievement they had earned in the armed services, when they hit the ground from Iran, They bowed down. Home sweet home! Putting their clean lips on that dirty tarmac they kissed it. They went down because they knew where they had been and they knew where they were now. Do you know why people stop bowing? Because they forget where they've come from. They forget that they have been hostages in Satan's territory, and now they have been made free. Just Like those that have come before us, like these heroes of the faith, we as Christians are to understand that God is in the business of delivering us from our past and setting us free. He is our deliver, He is our strong tower, He is our shield and He is our strength. Hasn't God delivered you? Aren't you now a new creature in Christ? I bet you don't talk like you use too! I bet you can't sin like you used too! Why? Because God has delivered you. God is in the business of setting people free, to give you a peace that passes all understanding. That's why you never give up, and you continue to pray for the black sheep in your family, or for that wayward son or daughter. God has the power to change peoples lives. The Bible says the prayers of a righteous man availeth much! Satan wants us to believe that God cant use us, because of our past mistakes. That's a lie. Here's one of the ways that Satan works. He works through people. Just as God Works through people, Satan also works through people. Satan will send discouragers your way. These are people that tell you what you can't do. Satan will work through people to tell you that you're never going to amount to anything. They want you to believe that your past determines your future. Sometimes these are even people in your own family, but we need to cling to the truth, and remember that we have been bought with a price and that we are now children of God. That we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us! The Bible says that we're a royal priesthood, those that have put their faith in Christ are identified as Saints in the Bible. The Bible says that we are clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The Bible says in the book of Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. This is in the past tense; it's something that's already occurred. God has already given us everything He's going to give us in the spiritual realm, all we have to do is claim what He's already gave us! We were spiritually bankrupt but now we are rich in Christ. Not only did Christ take away our sins but he went a step further and imputed his righteousness towards us in, other words he put his righteousness to our account. When God sees us now He sees us as perfect, He sees us clothed in the righteousness of His Son, the Bible says that we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. He sees us standing before His throne worshipping Him; God has the capacity to see us in our

finished state. At one time we were at war with God but now we re at peace with God. The Bible says in Romans 5:1 Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Let me tell you something, people who try to hold you down by continually bringing up your past, are trying to exercise control over your life. They don't want you to experience the peace of God. They're miserable and they want you to be miserable with them. We need to pray for those types of people, because if they were right with God they would be thanking God that you're not like you used to be. That God has delivered you. People that are right with God are encouragers not Discouragers. People that know God, forgive people because they understand how much they have been forgiven. They understand Grace. Jesus teaches us that forgiving others is very important, because He says; forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. For some of us to be able to make peace with our past we need to forgive someone whos hurt us. Alfred Nobel, a Swedish physicist, created dynamite. His intentions were awesome when he created dynamite. He wanted to create an explosive that could move rock to build roads and get things out of the way to build buildings. He wanted to create a force that was powerful and that would make life better. The problem is that people took his creation and used it for destructive purposes, to kill people and to make war. So depressed was Mr. Nobel that his good intention was being used in a wrong, destructive way, that he took $9 million dollars put it in an account, and begin to award people for promoting peace. We call it the Nobel peace prize. What motivated him was the fact that what he intended for good was being used for wrong. He wanted to award those who were doing what his intentions were. When these people get the award, they become internationally known as Nobel peace prize winners. They are called by that name because they make peace instead of making war. God is looking for some Nobel peace prize winners, folks that are looking to promote peace instead of war, folks that are willing to forgive people of their trespasses, folks that are willing to turn the other cheek. Remember Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers for theirs is the kingdom of God. When you hold resentment and forgiveness towards someone it's like you taking poison and hoping they get sick. It only destroys you! Let me share something with you as we conclude this point of the importance of making peace with your past. Please consider this monumental TRUTH, if you weren't worth anything to God, if He wasn't capable of forgiving us of our sins, He would not have created us in the first place, and Jesus Christ would not have hung on the cross and died for Us! God loves you and don't you ever forget that! That's the truth John 3:16 I love 1st Corinthians 1:27-29 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, And God's chosen the weak, things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, And the base things of the world and the things which are

despised God has chosen and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, That no flesh should glory in His presence. As you consider your past I would like you to consider this. Nothing in your life ever happened without God first allowing it to happen. It has to pass by God first, he has to approve it. The Bible says that all things work together for the good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose. Our God is a sovereign God, That means He is all knowing and all powerful. The Bible says that God knew you before you were in your mothers womb, God allowed everything that happened in your life to happen for a reason, that he might make you the man or woman that you are today, that we might worship him and bring honor and glory to his name. As a Christian we need to understand that the scars that we carry are "wounds that have been healed, a scar is a place where there used to be a wound, its a place where healing has occurred, God allows us to remember our past failures to remind us of the great healing power of Jesus Christ. But God doesn't want us to live in the past. He saved us to a glorious future, and for the furtherance of His kingdom. This brings us to our third Key point that Paul teaches us about progressing in our spiritual life. 3- Paul teaches us to live in the present, He says this one thing I do; Paul doesn't say this one thing I have done. Or this one thing I am going to do, No, he says this one thing I do, speaking of the present. Remember what Jesus said in the Lords Prayer give us this day our daily bread. God wants us to live one day at a time. None of us are promised tomorrow. God wants us to live in the present, how many of us have worried about things that rob us of life, things that never came to pass? What good comes out of worry? Nothing. Worrying about tomorrow robs you of today. Jesus said take no thought for tomorrow for tomorrow will take thoughts of the things of itself. Where there's worry there's a lack of faith. What is worry? Worry is a feeling of helplessness, the feeling of losing control. People worry when they feel like they've lost control, or could lose control. People that are right with God understand they've never been in control, and furthermore they don't have to be. Therefor they don't sweat the small stuff. After all any problem we have is small stuff to God, right? People that are right with God don't worry because they know that God is in control. Let me share this with you, you're never going to be all that God's called you to be until you come to understand that You're not in control. You have got to come to a place of surrender in your life. Trust Him!

I love what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, He said, Consider the lilies of the field how they grow they toil not neither do they spin, yet I say to you, that even Solomon arrayed in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these. Then he says, If God so clothes the Grass of the field, Which today is and tomorrow is cast into the fire, Shall He not much more clothe ye, oh ye of little faith? Jesus is saying look around you, look at these wildflowers, nobody planted them, nobody waters them but they come up every year, because I take care of them, and arent you more important than a bunch of flowers, after all I created e verything for you to enjoy. I gave you dominion over all the earth. Jesus is trying to teach us to quit worrying that he's in control. God also wants us to live in the present, so that we're good stewards of our time and quit putting things off till tomorrow that could be done today. Do you know what the busiest day of the year is? Some people think it's Christmas, some people think it's Thanksgiving, some people think it's Black Friday but the busiest day of the year is Someday! You'll never find someday on any calendar, because someday never comes it never exist. Many people that are confronted with the gospel message respond to themselves by saying, someday I'll make a decision for Christ. The problem with that type of thinking is that nowhere in the Bible are you promised tomorrow. The Bible says today is the day of salvation. Let's sum up the message we've been on for three weeks,, The apostle Paul taught us that number one, that we need to have Our priorities right Seeking to understand God's will for our lives and we do that primarily by spending time in his Holy Word which Leads us to become more Christlike. Secondly Paul taught us to make peace with our past. We make peace with our past first by asking God to forgive us of our sins, secondly, whenever possible, we ask those that we have offended to forgive us as well. You can't drive a car looking out the rear view mirror. God wants you to look through the windshield of life. If God was finished with you, you wouldn't still be here breathing His air. God's not finished with you yet, we need to focus on finishing the race well, Paul says I press on; Like Paul we need to strive to be all that Christ has called us to be. You'll never see a sprinter looking backwards while running. Why? Because he wants to finish well, because he wants to win the race. Number three Paul teaches us to live in the present, Were not to worry about the past and we're not to worry about the future. Paul is the one who said that he counted it all joy. Paul while he was in prison with Silas in that Philippian jail would sing praises to God. He could write incredible letters of encouragement while he was in prison. We need to learn like Paul to give thanks in all things, and we need to remember that this is the day the Lord has made and I will rejoice and be glad in it! Right priorities, reconciling with the past, and remaining in the present these are the

three keys to spiritual growth and becoming more Christlike. These three keys are the solution to your resolution if your resolution is right this year. To become more like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!