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Advent Productions

Benjamin Ng

Pressing Forward

Father in heaven, thank you for this time that we have to study your Word this morning.

Thank you Lord for seeing us safely through the night.

Thank you for health and strength and life itself.

And as now Lord we come to study your Word together, please guide us once more with your Holy Spirit.

You give us ears to hear your voice and a heart to understand the message and a willingness to apply the things that we study this morning, if it be truth.

Please guide us, O Lord, to that end, is our earnest plea and prayer.

A new year, a time to look back at our New Year's resolutions from the previous year, to see whether we have achieved them and accomplished them, a time to look back to see what we need to improve, a time to reflect, and a time also to look forward and make New Year's resolutions.

You know, last night after we finished our sermon, we still had our group outside here and we went around and shared 1 thing that we wanted to make as a New Year's resolution and we're going to hold each other accountable to that and we're going to revisit it in 1 year and I hope and pray that all of us we will be able to accomplish those goals by God's grace.

And you know in the Bible Paul he takes also a spiritual inventory of himself that he wrote down for all of us.

Something for us to reflect upon as well as we read these scriptures found starting here in Philippians 3 verses 12 through 15.

This is what Paul says, not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended but this 1 thing I do.

Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Let us therefore as many as be perfect be thus minded and if in anything ye otherwise be minded God shall reveal even this unto you." So Paul, he talks about how he wants to press forward toward the mark or the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus.

But before he could do that, there were 2 steps that he had to understand and that we have to understand today before we can move forward in 2021.

The first thing is that he didn't think himself perfect.

He didn't look to the past to say, I was perfect, but in fact, when he looked to the past, he said, it's not as if I was perfect.

If he was perfect, Christ would have come already.

He didn't consider that he had already obtained or reached the stature or standard to which Christ wanted him to reach.

In order to know this, He must have had a keen sense of understanding of self in order to make such a statement, not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, in order to make such a statement as that.

He must have seen the areas in his life where he had fallen short or where he could definitely improve.

I know what the rest of the text says, okay, to forget those things which are behind, And we'll look at that in a second, but it's not what you think.

You see, in order to understand where you haven't attained, you have to look back into the past.

And before we jump with joy into 2021, that God has actually brought us here, We have to look back at 2020 and not the pandemic, but your personal life, where we've come short, where we failed, where we've come short of His glory.

Paul, look, he wasn't just saying, oh I'm not perfect and you know that he hadn't attained just from a sense of that's what we should do as Christians.

You know sometimes we tell ourselves, oh yeah surely I'm a sinner.

I don't know where I've sinned but you know I'm a sinner for sure and I must have sinned today.

He wasn't saying that and this ambiguous statement where he didn't know where he'd fallen short but he had looked back to his past.

He had taken an inventory of his life and he could see where his past experience was not matching up to the stature of the fullness of Christ.

He could see where he needed to improve and in order to do that he had to look to the past.

And so friends, you got to look back into 2020 with me this morning, that you have to reflect upon where you have to improve, where you need to come up higher again.

And friends, if you can't identify that, if you aren't able to see the defects in the areas of your life from 2020, look I'm not trying to do this to make you feel bad, to get you to whip yourself all over again and get you depressed or you know, it's not that.

But in order to know where to press forward on, You got to know where you came from.

And if you don't know, this is a serious spiritual flaw.

The closer you come to Jesus, the more faulty you will appear in your own eyes, for your vision will be clearer and your imperfections will be seen in broad and distinct contrast to His perfect nature.

This is evidence that Satan's delusions have lost their power, that the vivifying influence of the Spirit of God is arousing you.

The more we walk with Christ, The closer we grow to Christ, the more in holiness we become, the more we will realize we are not holy.

We'll compare ourselves with Jesus Christ, the 1 that we've been walking with every day and we will realize How short we come of His glory every single day.

Look, notice it does not say the more closely you walk with Christ, the more imperfections you will see in other people.

No, friends, you've got to hold the mirror up to yourself to see where you are falling short of the glory of God.

This is really important in our first step of being able to move forward.

But look at this in the next paragraph of Steps to Christ, 65 paragraph 1.

No deep seated love for Christ can dwell in the heart that does not realize its own sinfulness.

You can't truly love Jesus fully and entirely if you do not realize how sinful you really are.

The soul that is transformed by the grace of Christ will admire his divine character, but if we do not see our own moral deformity.

It is unmistakable evidence that we have not had a view of the beauty and excellence of Christ.

Friends if you've been walking with Jesus this past year you will definitely see where you can improve.

You will definitely see where you've fallen short and it's not just as you sit here right now thinking about it like where have I fallen short and surely I must fall in short somewhere and oh Ben I'm gonna wait for you to tell me where I've fallen short.

No, if you have been walking with Jesus, you will say with Paul, it's not as if I've already attained or as if I was perfect.

You will be able to see your moral defects, you will be able to see your moral defects, you will be able to see your sinfulness.

And this is the foundation in a sense to help us to understand true love towards Jesus, our Savior.

So friends, if you realize this, it's because you are having a consistent devotional time with Jesus Christ, our Savior.

So number 1, we've got to realize, hey, I wasn't perfect.

You got to forget the things that are behind.

Look, Christ wants you to forget the past, but he doesn't want you to forget it like it never happened.

He doesn't want you to carry the burdens of the past, of your failures, of your mistakes, of your sins into 2021.

He wants you to forget it ultimately so it doesn't define you today.

But don't let Christ give you a clean slate, a blank paper for this year, only to repeat the mistakes of last year, right?

He wants you to forget the past so you're not burdened by it.

He wants to give you a heart full of joy and freedom to do his will and his work.

But he doesn't want you to keep repeating the same mistakes again and again and again.

Friends, you got to believe that, you know, when Jesus says in 1 John 1, 9, if you confess your sins, I am faithful to forgive you and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

You got to believe that with all your heart.

He wants to cleanse all that away but he doesn't want you to keep repeating it and going back to it.

Too many of us, we carry our past mistakes into the following year and we allow those past sins to define us.

Well I've been struggling with this the whole year and I didn't have victory, well you know there's no chance that I'm gonna have victory this year.

We don't want to bring the sins of 2020 into 2021.

Look at what Christ says in Isaiah 44 22, I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions and as a cloud thy sins return unto me for I have redeemed thee.

Friends don't let your mind be burdened with the problems of the past year and its perplexities that it stops you moving forward with hope and with courage in this new year.

We like to take our burdens and our guilts and make it define us.

Too often we define ourselves by our past failures and our past mistakes and past problems.

We bring it into the new year and let it burn on us, burden us and change us and make us think negative thoughts.

But then look at what Christ says to us in Hebrews 12.1, wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.

Friends, we got to lay aside every weight.

Don't let the past weigh you down so that you can run this race with patience.

When you reflect on this past year, understand where you've fallen.

Understand where you've come short, Where you haven't reflected Christ's character, where you've been doing the things that you shouldn't have been doing, where you've fallen short in how you spent your time or your money, where you've spoken words that no human being should have ever heard, never mind Jesus Christ or God Himself.

We've got to ask God to give us His Spirit to help us to move beyond those past failures.

Don't let it burden you down and crush your spirit.

The fact that you've made it alive till the end of this year, this past year and into this new year is evidence that Christ is merciful, that He's gracious and that he still wants to work on your heart.

Don't tell yourself, Oh, Christ doesn't want to have anything to do with me.

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Pressing Forward

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