Philippians 3:12-14

The Olympics are going on today in Greece and I read that Iraq is in contention for a medal. Last week, in Guatemala, I heard that the United States had rigged the Olympics to let Iraq win over Costa Rica. And that was coming from a Christian. I can only say that the Iraqi team is a good example of our theme from the Bible today, Don’t Hold Back. We’re going to look today at how to respond when you are having trouble in life. And we even have an Olympic story to shows how one person responded. You are about to see a Japanese Olympian break his leg in the gymnastics competition while his team is ahead. For his team to stay in contention, he would have to keep competing with his broken leg. He decides to keep going with a shot of morphine to dull the pain

Most people just don’t respond well when life gives them a hard time. Maybe you had a teacher in school who didn’t like you and it didn’t go well. What do you do next? Maybe you are working for a boss who doesn’t appreciate you or has a favorite so your good work got passed over. What do you do?

 Paul writes some words to the Philippians that can be Olympic gold for our daily lives too. We are going to find three dumb ways that we get disqualified in life and three good ways to get hit in the game of life and still make Olympic gold.

 Three ways to get knocked out of the qualifying rounds. The first dumb way is to keep repeating what you did the last time you didn’t make it. We are people of habit. We all have a little bag of tricks that we have learned and we bring those out early under pressure. We began this Olympic series with the thought that we each had to know our gifts better. Your long term success in life is based on your gifts. But in times of pressure or failure, you reach for your gifts automatically and that may bring new failure. When I worked in campus ministry, I suddenly got a new boss who lived in Richmond, Virginia. I had never worked with him, but I like to work hard and make a good impression. When I started to meet him for supervision, he pushed and pressed very hard to get an idea of how the region was doing. I was surprised and threatened. Since I like to make a good impression, I worked even harder to show him that the region was safe in my stewardship. Oddly enough, that didn’t please him at all and we just did not have a good working relationship. Later on, I discovered that his gift was to find a weak part and help fix it. My gift was making a good impression. So every time he tried to ask questions and find a place where he could help, I went into overdrive to make sure that it looked like nothing was needed. How I wish now that I had the wisdom to say in one of those conversations, Bill, I really am not always sure that things are going well in the region. What is your perception? Laying down my gift would have allowed his gift to work and we would have been better in combination.

 When you are in trouble, you rarely succeed by using your primary gifts. When you are under pressure, and the old ways don’t seem to be working ask God to show you if you should win through weakness. Paul says, I forgot what lay behind. Paul had the power of multiple languages, the power of Roman citizenship and the all the strength of his gifts in leadership, but there are times when winning means laying that aside, and saying God come to me in my weakness.

 A second dumb way to get out of the qualifying round is to take the short term perspective. Paul says my desire and what I press on for is the resurrection of the dead. In other words, life truly begins at 80. We are living in a society where you have fun in your 20’s, get settled and stable in your 30’s and 40’s, build for retirement in your 50’s, and settle into secure living after that. That is short term perspective and the Bible says, God offers eternal life. The best description I know of for heaven is that our death is a doorway into the rest of our life. And you will not know satisfaction if you live life as though death was a grave instead of a door.

 Paul says, I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. John Adams, the second president of the United States was defeated after one term. He went back to the House of Representatives at age 60 and served for 24 years. He died on the House floor. He kept going because he not see his older age as the end of life.

 And the last way in which we defeat ourselves is in holding back. When you try hard and fail, the human temptation is to take it safer and easier after that. I was hit by a hard ball in one of my few pickup games of baseball. I don’t remember what position I was playing, but I got hit. I had no idea that pain was part of baseball. The only position I would play after that game was far outfield. I was so far out that people often thought I had gone home. I never got hit again. I never touched the ball again after that day.

 If you make your response a matter of prayer so that God is directing you on whether or not to use your gifts, and if you have the eternal perspective so that you know that one or two failures is going to be seen against the backdrop of eternity, not some short career, then you will have the energy to Don’t Hold Back. And that is so important. If you have had trouble in school, the most natural reaction is to sit in the last row and hope the teacher doesn’t call on you. That leads to more failure. We need to come at life again and again with the full knowledge that we are human. We may fail. But we trust God’s plan and we are determined to get to the prize of the heavenly calling.

 In a very real way, a prize winning life is offered to all of us. Many people trust only in their own strength, believe that life ends at 90 and play a safety position. You of course see why they never find the Olympic gold.

 Is that your life? Would you like it to be different? Perhaps you have never even have invited Christ to come into your life and guide you. I want to guide us in a prayer as we close today. If you want more wins that you have gotten lately, follow my prayer in your own heart.