FBC Morning Light – July 6, 2022

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, good Wednesday morning to you. Here we are in the middle of the week, and let me ask you this today.

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What are you after? What are you striving for? What are you pressing forward for?

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There is a tendency among some professing believers in Christ to sort of rest on their laurels.

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I've met a few people in my years of pastoral ministry who don't go to church, they don't read their

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Bibles, they don't have really any kind of a Christian life, if you will.

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They just live like everybody else lives. And I've talked to them and I've asked them, you know, do you think you're a

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Christian? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm definitely a Christian. What makes you think you're a

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Christian, I asked them. Well, because, they may say something like this, when I was a little kid

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I went to church and I remember I prayed a prayer one time. I talked to a lady one time, tried to get her and her children to come to church, and she said to me, oh yeah,

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I'm a Christian. I went to Sunday school on a bus, and she told me the church in northern

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Indiana where she went on this bus, and she said, after one of the bus rides,

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I prayed a prayer and asked Jesus into my heart. The woman hadn't been to church since she entered into adulthood, and she was now middle -aged and had several children.

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There was another individual, a woman I ran into years ago at the dry cleaners.

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She worked at the dry cleaners, and I got to talking with her and told her I was a pastor at such -and -such a church, and she said, oh yeah,

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I'm a member at such -and -such a Baptist church. I said, oh, you are, okay, I'm glad to hear that.

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And then she went on to explain that the job at the dry cleaner was just a part -time job.

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She had another part -time job. I said, oh, what's that? She said, well, I work at the Mouse's Ear, and I said, the what?

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What's that? I didn't have any idea what she was talking about. She said, oh, well, it's a strip club down by the airport.

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I said, oh, okay, and you're a

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Christian? She said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I go to church, I go to church. So there are far too many people who profess to be

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Christians who are like that. They're resting on the laurels of their past.

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They grew up in a Christian home. They graduated from a Christian school. They prayed a prayer as a child.

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They were baptized at one point or another, and they know all this stuff about the

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Bible because they went to Sunday school or whatever. They look at the past, and they're resting on their laurels.

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Well, the Apostle Paul didn't do that, and he tells us in Philippians 3, he says, look, it's not that I have already attained or I'm already perfected.

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I haven't arrived. In other words, Paul says, he says, but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which

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Christ Jesus has laid hold of me. He says, brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended.

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I do not consider myself to have arrived. But one thing I do, and then this is what he says, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward for those things which are ahead,

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I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

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He wasn't resting on his laurels. He wasn't looking back on some religious experience or some religious education that he received in the past.

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No, he says, I'm forgetting that. I know I'm a believer in Christ. I know

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I'm a follower of Christ. I'm pressing on to know him better. I'm pressing on to be made more and more into the image of Christ.

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I'm pressing on that I might apprehend that for which he has apprehended me. I'm reaching toward that goal.

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I'm pressing forward. So Paul had a forward look.

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He was pressing forward to some goal, some objective, and that goal and objective was complete

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Christlikeness. What are you pressing forward for? What are you pressing toward?

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When it comes to the Christian life, are you simply looking back and resting in your laurels?

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Or are you pressing on to know Christ better? Are you pressing forward to become more and more like the

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Lord Jesus Christ? What are you pressing? Our Father and our God, we thank you for this challenge today because,

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Lord, it can be the temptation on any of us to just be satisfied with our faith and our profession of faith and how far we have grown in that faith.

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We need to keep on growing. It doesn't matter whether we're seasoned saints who've been believers for 50 years or we were just converted two months ago.

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We need to keep on keeping on and keep on growing and pressing toward that mark of the upward call in Christ Jesus.

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May we press forward, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well have a good rest of your hump day, middle of the week day, and I trust