Pressing toward the goal

By Derek Miller - My Dad’s family is quite large.  His mother was one of twelve children who grew up in Southeast Alabama and each of them had many children and grandchildren.  One of my Dad’s cousins, Sidney Brown, had a child named Ashley who was one of the meanest troublemakers out there.  On one of our family trips to Dothan, my parents told me that I “should not taken anything off of Ashley and if he caused any trouble, I had permission to knock the tar out of him.”  To me, being about 11 years old, that was like saying that I had a “Get out of Jail” free card.  So, as we arrived, I looked for my opportunity to knock Ashley out.  My grandmother lived near a grave yard and my cousins, Ashley and I went off to “go play” in the cemetery.  Ashley started acting up and even though it was not major issue, I took my opportunity to bloody Ashley up.  He went home screaming that I had beaten him up.  When my parents asked me why I had done this in the middle of everyone, I simply replied, “Because you told me that if he gave me any trouble, I had your permission to beat the tar out of him.”  You could have heard a pin drop in the middle of that room.

I have to admit that I took a lot of pleasure in beating Ashley up.  But, I also have to admit that this is sin.  That is the way that sin works.  It is something that can feel good and is easy to do.  Man is sinful by nature and it is why we are separated from God.  That separation from God is exactly why I need Jesus to be my Savior.  In Romans 5:8, it says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  I accepted Christ as my Savior at a backyard Bible club at our neighbor Nancy Puffer’s house at the age of 12.  That was an acknowledgment that I was a sinner and needed salvation through Jesus Christ.  We cannot save ourselves and God cannot look on our sin without Christ’s intervening on our behalf.  Therefore, God provided a path for us to gain salvation.  Have you ever really stopped to think about that?  God sent His Son to die for our sins.  Why would He do that?  Why would Jesus have to come to earth in the form of a human?  The following story sums it up very well. 

The Man and the Birds by Paul Harvey

The man to whom I’m going to introduce you was not a scrooge; he was a kind decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn’t believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas Time. It just didn’t make sense and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn’t swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man.

“I’m truly sorry to distress you,” he told his wife, “but I’m not going with you to church this Christmas Eve.” He said he’d feel like a hypocrite. That he’d much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. And so he stayed and they went to the midnight service.

Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound…Then another, and then another. Sort of a thump or a thud…At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They’d been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window.

Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it.

Quickly he put on a coat, galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them…He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms…Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.

And then, he realized that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me…That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him.

“If only I could be a bird,” he thought to himself, “and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to safe, warm…to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear and understand.”

At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells – Adeste Fidelis – listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas.

And he sank to his knees in the snow.

While accepting Christ is the most important step in our Christian walk, it is by no means the only step.  We are then called upon to love and serve both God and other people.  This is more than a cliché for our class.  God gives the command in Deuteronomy and several other locations in the Old Testament to love God with all your heart, soul and mind.  Leviticus tells us that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Jesus answers questions from the Pharisees in the New Testament when they ask Him what the greatest commandments are.  In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus answers that we are to love God and others.  When we love and serve God and love and serve others, we are demonstrating Jesus living in us.  Deeds alone will not provide our salvation, but they are a testimony to Jesus living in us.  Throughout the Gospels, Jesus provides many examples of loving and serving God and others.  We should do likewise.

Next on our Faith journey and very intertwined with loving and serving God and others is being on Mission for God.  We have to look for opportunities to be on Mission for God and then take those opportunities.  In his book, “When the Game is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box”, author John Ortberg talks about “shadow missions.”  He defines a “shadow mission” this way.  “My shadow mission is what I will do with my life if I drift on autopilot.  It consists of the activities toward which I will gravitate if I allow my natural temptations and selfishness to take over.  Everybody has a shadow mission.”  We have to figure out what our “true mission” is and go toward it.

In the Old Testament book of Esther, we are told of the many twists and turns that allow a young Jewish girl to become queen of the nation.  She has been raised by her cousin Mordecai who continues to provide her with advice.  As the king’s chief of staff, Haman, has been offended by Mordecai and has the king issue an edict that will essentially kill all the Jews in the land.  Esther must take the chance of going before the king when she has not been summoned, an offense which can result in death.  In chapter 4, verse 14, Mordecai says that “who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” 

Esther is able to turn the tables on Haman and save her people.  Her shadow mission was to live in the lap of luxury as queen, but her true mission was to be in the right place at the right time to be used by God to save her people.  How often are we brought into circumstances simply because of other events, but our true mission is to do the work of our Lord?  Have you ever thought that where you are today is no accident?  Who knows but that you have come to your position for such a time as this?  I was brought to South Carolina by my job.    That is not my true mission.  My true mission is to be an instrument for the Lord.  I purchased a house in a neighborhood.  Was I simply there to live in the house and not do anything for God?  My children attended school here.  Were their interactions only to learn and not do anything else?  My wife’s job was here.  Was she simply to sit on the sidelines and not teach her 4 year old classes while she was here?

A good illustration of this principle is captured in the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life”.  In that movie, George Bailey wants to travel the world and become rich and famous.  As the story plays out, however, he learns that his true mission is to help other people.   This is evidenced by what he learns when Clarence the angel shows him what would have happened if he had never been born.  How are you positively influencing those around you and being on Mission for God?  In other words, what are you doing in the place and position that you find yourself in to further God’s kingdom?

Lastly, we have to recognize that our Christian journey is just that—a journey.  We will reach our destination when we go to heaven, but on this side of heaven, we are called to keep on working.  Jesus never talks about retirement from Christian work.  Even the apostle Paul talks about the need to press on in Philippians 3:12-14.  We must keep pressing on.  We are to accept Christ as Savior, we are to love and serve god and others, we are to remain on Mission for God’s purposes and we are to keep doing these last two and continuing to help others know and accept Christ as Savior all of the days we are on this earth. 

I have learned many things on a pilgrim on this journey during our nearly six years in Lexington and I know that God’s work continues as we go forward.  Although we will be laboring in different areas, we are to continue pressing on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus.  Thanks to all of you for what you mean to me and my family and the work that we will continue to do in Christ Jesus.  Blessings to each of you and I leave with the verses in Philippians 1:2-6.  May we continue to press on and God bless each of you!