Becoming People of Pursuit One Holy Pursuit, One Holy Passion Phil.

3:12-4:9 This weekend we had a prayer retreat where our agenda was simply to wait on God. There wasn't any big agenda. We worshiped, we prayed, we talked about what the Spirit was speaking to us... and that was pretty much our cycle. It was a refreshing time of coming away and just really wanting to hear God. As we waited on God, I reflected on our passage for this morning, drawing my gaze back a little bit to Phil. 3:12 from last week. Through our prayer time I realized I was with people of pursuit. This is what the Spirit was speaking to us last week in our text. It is what he is speaking to us this week in our text as well. The call is one holy passion. One holy pursuit. Last week was the passion that drove that pursuit: THIS ONE THING I DO. This was something we came to sense in our prayer retreat. The pursuit is to KNOW CHRIST. Out of that pursuit we see so many rich and wonderful things happen. There is nothing greater in our lives than the pursuit of knowing Jesus. And it is a journey that is a lifetime. Paul, for all his experience in Christ, could STILL say, I haven't attained this. People of pursuit are that way. They PRESS ON. Whatever we discover in Christ we are so blown away by... and then we realize, THERE IS MORE! It's not about what Jesus does FOR us... it's about pursuing the knowledge of him. It's not about seeking his hand, but seeking his face. One great illustration of passion and pursuit from our world is Steve Jobs. The founder of Apple passed away this week. Our present generation probably lost the equivalent of Thomas Edison. Some are saying, Who is Steve Jobs? I didn't know he invented the apple! I thought the apple was older than THAT! Others are saying, Who is Thomas Edison? Becoming People of Pursuit 1

See why I like teaching history and am so passionate about it? Steve Jobs revolutionized the computer industry and the ability for individuals to have access to personal computers. He was actually run off from Apple for a time and they realized they couldn't survive without him. When he came back to Apple, the company has never looked back, and neither has our world. Through Steve Jobs we not only get the technology, but we get the entertainment. He invented Pixar Studios, creators of Toy Story. The Mac, the iPod, iPad, etc., were all part of what he left this world. He was a man of vision. He pursued advances in technology with a passion. It is said that in his last months, knowing he was losing his battle with pancreatic cancer, he worked furiously on new innovations for Apple. The rumor is he left enough ideas for four years worth of production for Apple. He was someone who said, There is more. His passions drove him. People of pursuit realize in pursuing Christ, THERE IS MORE. Our text this week, especially Philippians 4:4-9, give us the marks of those who are people of pursuit. Our call is to be people of pursuit. One holy passion. There is ONE GOAL: Knowing Christ. The call is to follow him. In that holy pursuit we will gain certain ID marks as people of pursuit. 1. People of Pursuit are People of Joy v. 4 REJOICE in the Lord. The sentence is a structure in the Greek that forms a greeting. It's like a form of saying, Peace with you. But it is an attitude. It is one of JOY. It is one that says, No matter what is going on in life, I wish you JOY. That is the attitude that always seems to accompany words like joy and rejoice in Scripture. It's not about the circumstance on the outside. It's the attitude on the INSIDE. Becoming People of Pursuit 2

We get admonitions like Jesus saying in the Sermon on the Mount: REJOICE in persecution! (Matt. 5:12) When the disciples are beaten in Acts 5, they leave rejoicing. You'd think there would be better things to shout about. The Vikings getting their first win this season might be one of them. There are just things we think about that say, THAT is worth shouting about! But for people of pursuit, it's not about the OUTSIDE. It's about the INSIDE. There's an old children's church song that says, I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart... WHERE? Joy comes from WITHIN. People of pursuit lock onto Christ and when that pursuit is in full gear, the outward just doesn't matter. An Iranian pastor sits in prison today awaiting execution because he is a Christian. In prison he writes letters to his church talking about the JOY of serving Christ. JOY realizes that God is on the throne PERIOD. He's not off the throne is the economy is tanking, or we're battling physical illness, or we're searching for a job. He's not suddenly on the throne if we have a great job, great pay, great house, great church, etc. JOY is the realization that is ALL circumstances we can REJOICE! It's because we are pursuing his face NOT his hand! 2. People of Pursuit let gentleness be their hallmark One translation puts v. 5 this way: Let your gentleness show in your treatment of all people. People of pursuit know that you don't follow Christ too long before you come to the understanding that he loved people. He made sure the margins of society were noticed. The ones the religious community was intent on ignoring, he looked to. In our self-absorbed world we tend toward conversations like this: Enough about me talking about me. How about you? Why don't YOU talk about ME now?

Becoming People of Pursuit

People of pursuit live with less antagonism in their lives because the Lord is near. It is the understanding that it's not just about Jesus is coming soon but the Lord is NEAR... literally. Why live with antagonism toward others when the Lord is near? When we are getting after the knowledge of Christ, the attitudes of others don't matter as much. If we allow the antagonists of this world get to us, we lose focus on our pursuit. The enemy will send plenty of opportunities our way to get our eyes off the prize. We'll get upset about something and come to the realization somewhere down the road how little that really meant in the scope of things. This is a tough one the Lord has to deal with ME on quite a bit. I let certain things antagonize me. When that happens, my pursuit of Christ is thrown off. It's not someone else's fault. It is MY OWN. Let our lives spent in pursuit be marked with perspective. That perspective gives us a more gentle attitude toward others. 3. People of Pursuit aren't eaten up by anxiety. We so often allow the cares of life eat us up. When the anxiousness of life creeps in, it drains us of time and passion in our holy pursuit. People of pursuit release their anxiety to the Lord through prayer, petitions, and thanksgiving. It's like this backpack. I watch my kids through their school years carry around these backpacks just crammed full of stuff. How they were able to lift it, I have no idea. We get like that with the anxieties of life. We walk around with this huge load and think about this weight ALL THE TIME. If we're REALLY spiritual, we'll stop from time to time and think, I need to give some of this to God. So we take out one thing. Sometimes we actually put that thing down. Other times we look at it for awhile, then just put it right back in our backpack and trudge on. Think of this. It's hard enough for me to run... period. But with THIS THING on my back? Becoming People of Pursuit 4

Would I want this thing on my back if I were running an Olympic race? Why not? IT WEIGHS ME DOWN. People of pursuit aren't weighed down. It's not a matter of just giving one thing over to God at a time. It's a matter of taking off the pack and saying, HERE! Take this! And the Lord says, Good! That's what I've wanted you to do all along! There is no great heroics in carrying some heavy pack all the time. Some people take it as a badge of honor to have long faces and just carry the burdens of the world. People of pursuit realize Jesus wants that pack. HE carries those burdens and worries. He is the One calling out, Come to ME all who are weary and worn down. I will give you REST. People of pursuit are people of PRAYER. They let God know what weighs them down... and then leave those things with Christ. 4. People of Pursuit know the incredible peace of God There is this joy in people of pursuit because they don't have to know EVERYTHING. There is an understanding we can't know everything, so we take joy in the pursuit. In all things there will be a place of finding the peace of God that just doesn't make sense. You'd think sitting in a prison awaiting execution would be the final tipping point into insanity. Instead, we find a pastor filled with peace. People of pursuit release the vanity of trying to understand everything and let GOD blow them away. They find PEACE in their storms. Their hearts and minds are fixed on the pursuit of Christ. HIS presence makes all the difference.

Becoming People of Pursuit

5. People of Pursuit know how to THINK This is probably at the root of passionate pursuit. It is the mind fixed on Christ. When are busy shoving in what DOES belong... it naturally shoves out what DOESN'T belong! Paul was a man who knew how to THINK. We need to be people who stuff in good things. We too often worry about what is already IN our minds. If we think on THOSE things... we keep them in! If we begin to put in what is RIGHT, we will eventually shove out what is WRONG. The pursuit of Christ is in the MIND as well as in the HEART. We seek out what is true. That which is based in REALITY. The REALITY is CHRIST. Too often the battles in our minds are IMAGINARY, that which the enemy conjures up. We soak in the WORD to understand GOD'S view of things... and we find TRUTH. We soak in the stuff of this world and we only find smoke and mirrors at times. We understand this world through the truth of God. We need our minds trained on the TRUTH of the Kingdom of God. In our thinking, we seek out what is NOBLE. What is worthy of RESPECT... what is worthy of HONOR. We spend SO little time on this anymore! We celebrate the inane. We lift up the vulgar. That may be true of our world and our culture, but let that NOT be said of the body of Christ! People of pursuit aren't consumed with the vulgar. They lift up what is HONORABLE. Every once in awhile, even the culture will lift up something honorable. Last year on one TV show about a family of cops, the detective in the family was investigating a homicide near a hot club in Manhattan. The owner of the club was an attractive woman and kept hitting on the detective. In a day where the easiest thing to portray was a cop taking a fall, this show played it differently. The woman couldn't understand why this married cop wasn't taking up her offers. Finally she asked the cop, Look, I've got all this going for me. What could your wife have that I don't? To which the cop answered, Me. and he walked away. There are times we see HONOR lifted up. It's rare in our culture. Let it NOT be rare in our church. Pursue what is NOBLE. Look for what is worthy of RESPECT. And get your cues from Becoming People of Pursuit 6

God's Word, not this world. We THINK on what is RIGHT, PURE, LOVELY... ADMIRABLE. We stuff into our minds what is GOOD and the junk we've stored there gets shoved out. People of pursuit know how to THINK! There is so much to unpack out of these verses, but the invitation is given to us: WILL WE BE PEOPLE OF PURSUIT? Will we CHOOSE to lay aside all other things of this world that distract and give ourselves as the people of God to THIS ONE THING? The place I sense the Spirit has us today is on the issue of anxiety. Too many of us carry around this backpack full of weight. Sometimes we must admit it is our source of pride. We want to be noticed carrying around the weight of the world. We may need to confess that issue to the Lord here. We carry the anxieties and we think we're doing God a favor. We think we're doing the world a favor. We're not. We're weighing down our pursuit of what is GOOD. Don't just take out one brick today and say, Lord, will you please take this? Lay the whole thing down! As we come to the table of the Lord today, we need our minds renewed. We need our thinking readjusted. We must give ourselves to this holy pursuit. Will you recommit to the pursuit? Will you join the pursuit? When you give yourselves to this holy pursuit, those marks of the pursuer will come into your life. Joy. Gentleness. Freedom from anxiety. Peace. Right thinking. We come with our hearts ready. Let's prepare our hearts today through reflection on this psalm:

Becoming People of Pursuit

10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. (Psalm 51)

Becoming People of Pursuit