Unstoppable Determination Phillippians 3.8-14
Years ago the Florida State University football team recruited a place kicker named Scott Brantley. Brantley lived in Colorado and was considered the premier high school place kicker in the country at the time.
According to a report in Sports Illustrated one of the Florida State coaches asked Brantley how he would react if, in the biggest game of the year on the opening kickoff against Miami the only player they sent out on the field was himself, leaving the other ten players on the sidelines.
Brantley thought for a moment and then replied, “If I couldn’t kick it out of the end zone, I’d make the tackle.” (1)
That’s determination. If he was the only Florida State player on the field, he would kick it out of the end zone or he would go against the entire Miami team to make the tackle.
It reminds me of the story told about the great halfback, George Cafego. Cafego, a former University of Tennessee star also was a standout in the early days of professional football. Playing for the old Brooklyn Dodgers against the New York Giants one game, Cafego brought the ball upfield practically by himself. Just before the half ended, he broke away over left tackle. First one man hit him, then another. But Cafego kept going. Finally, about five Giants ganged up on him, and still he plowed goalward. At last he started down just as the timer’s gun exploded.
“My gosh!” a spectator shouted. “They had to shoot him to stop him!” (2)
That, too, is determination.
St. Paul had that kind of determination. Listen to his words: “What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
There it is determination. “I press on toward the goal . . .” Could anyone stop St. Paul from serving Christ except by shooting him? Or crucifying him? Imprisonment would not stop him. Beating him would not stop him. Ridiculing him would not stop him. In fact only death would ever silence his voice. “I press toward the mark . . .” “I struggle for the goal line . . .” “If I’m the only player on the field, I will kick it into the end zone or I will make the tackle.” A person with that kind of determination will succeed at whatever he or she attempts.
There are three keys to this kind of determination focus, forgetting and faith.
Notice, first of all, Paul’s ability to focus on what really matters. “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
There was only one thing that mattered to St. Paul and that was to live for Jesus Christ. That’s focus. Focus is essential if you are going to be successful in any worthwhile endeavor.
Business speaker Mark Sanborn in his book, You Don’t Need a Title to Be a Leader, tells about a friend of his named Bill who lives just outside of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Several years ago, Bill bought a new house on the edge of a lush wooded area. Bill likes to feed birds, so upon moving in, Bill put a bird feeder up in his backyard. But before the sun set that evening, squirrels were swinging off the bird feeder and chasing the birds away. Bill realized that he had to do something or the birds would soon be too scared to come near the feeder. So, for the next two weeks he declared war on the squirrels. Bill isn’t a mean guy and wouldn’t do anything to hurt the squirrels, but he was willing to use any peaceful means necessary to keep them out of his bird feeder.
He tried greasing the post the bird feeder was on, but that didn’t work. Stumped, Bill visited his local hardware store and bought a “squirrel‑proof bird feeder,” an odd‑looking feeder with wire mesh wrapped around it. The label said it was guaranteed, so Bill took it home and put it in his backyard. By sunset, squirrels were once again swinging off the bird feeder. Now Bill was really upset, and the next day he took the feeder back to the hardware store. He asked to see the manager, demanding a refund.
“Calm down,” the store manager told him. “I could have told you when you bought it that there is no such thing as a squirrel‑proof bird feeder.”
Bill looked at him in disbelief. “You mean,” said Bill, “we can land a man on the moon and send instantaneous messages via satellite to anywhere around the world, but our best and brightest scientists and engineers can’t design and manufacture a bird feeder that can outsmart an animal with a brain the size of a pea?”
“Yep,” said the retailer.
“Why not?” Bill persisted.
“Let me ask you something, sir,” the man replied. “How much time on average have you spent in the last two weeks trying to keep the squirrels out of your bird feeder?”
Bill thought it over for a moment and responded, “Maybe ten to fifteen minutes a day.”
“And how much time do you think the squirrels spend each day trying to get in?”
The answer, Bill learned, is almost every waking squirrel moment; squirrels spend 98 percent of their waking hours looking for food. The moral of this story is this, says Mark Sanborn: “Focus and determination beat brains and intellect every time.” (3) To be successful at any enterprise you need to, first of all, be focused on what is important.
Kenn Gangel tells of watching a football game between the Green Bay Packers and the San Francisco 49ers a few years ago at Candlestick Park. One of the cameras zoomed in on the Green Bay bench. The team’s captain, the late Reggie White, screamed over the crowd noise at his teammates on the bench: “Keep focused on the game. Don’t you think about nothin’ else. Be ready to play. Be ready to come in when we need you.” (4) That’s focus.
It reminds me of a story about ten‑year‑old Taylor Touchstone who survived four days alone in the waters of Turtle Swamp, Florida, swimming and floating without food or shelter, until he was rescued by a fisherman some 14 miles from where he disappeared. So dangerous is the swamp, which is used by the U.S. Army for jungle training, that four recruits had disappeared and died the previous year in a training exercise. What perhaps saved Taylor is the fact that he is autistic. It is speculated that what saved him may have been that he fixated so completely on one detail in his situation that he managed to block out fear and hunger, and consequently did not panic. None of the dangers or distractions‑-wild animals, mosquitoes, heat, darkness, loneliness or frightening sounds‑-could cause him to do anything that would worsen his situation and prohibit his eventual rescue. (5)
Focus. Ask any athlete about its importance or any successful business person. It’s also critical to the disciple of Christ. Most of us have never settled in our own mind that serving Christ is the most important single thing in our lives. St. Paul had that piece of business already settled. He writes, “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him . . .” Paul stayed focused on what really mattered.
Notice, also, Paul’s ability to forget what needed to be forgotten. He writes, “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal . . .”
Neither the present nor the past would cause Paul to stumble. Some people cannot be successful in the present because they are still living in the past.
Pastor and author James W. Moore was in a workshop one summer at Lake Junaluska in North Carolina. The leader was the nationally known writer and consultant Lyle Schaller. One morning Schaller put before the group this fascinating question: “What is the single most powerful influence in the decision-making process? For example, if you are in a group, trying to make a decision about something, or trying to plan an event or a course of action, what is the most powerful influence in the room?” James W. Moore asks, “How would you answer that?” When a group is trying to make a decision, what is the most powerful influence in the room? After Moore’s group discussed this question at length, Lyle Schaller gave them his answer. He said, “No question about it, the most powerful influence in decision making is the past.” (6)
Schaller is right. Churches are haunted by their past. “We tried that once and it didn’t work . . .” Or, “But we’ve never done it that way before . . .”
St. Paul had a past. He had been a loyal Jew, a Pharisee, so loyal to his faith that he persecuted the first Christians. He was present and gave his assent to the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Then Paul met Christ on the road to Damascus and became a follower of Christ. Not too surprisingly, the church at first rejected him. They were afraid it was a trick. After he was finally accepted by the church, though, he was persecuted by his fellow Jews and his fellow Roman citizens for his new-found faith. There was a lot that St. Paul had to get past. There were many emotions guilt, anger, fear associated with his earlier experiences that he needed to let go of if he were to serve Christ effectively. “Forgetting what is behind . . .”
Futurist Faith Popcorn tells about a new guiding principle in sociology which is emerging called the “Second‑Chance Theory.” According to this sociological hypothesis, one of the most important differences between the children of the so-called underclass and the children of the middle‑class and upper-class is that more fortunate children are invariably granted a second chance. “If a kid from the inner city is arrested for shoplifting, or drunk driving, or smoking a joint, it’s just about impossible for him or her to bounce back. But if a kid with assets and influence goes astray, an armada of lawyers and psychologists rushes to his or her aid.” Based on this theory, she predicts that in the future a number of nonprofit groups will emerge to take on the challenge of giving deserving kids of all economic groups a second chance. (7) That sounds like a great mission for the church.
St. Paul worshipped a God who always grants second chances. “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal . . .” St. Paul focused on the things that really mattered. He forgot about all those things in life that might hold him back. Focus . . . Forgetting . . .
Finally, notice Paul’s faith. “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” St. Paul believed the Gospel. He believed that life has meaning and purpose. He believed his work was not in vain. He believed that through Christ he could do all things.
You and I want to believe those same things. We want to believe in a loving God who watches over us and provides for our every need, but sometimes life is very hard.
Professor Charles A. Beard, a famous historian, was asked what major lessons he had learned from history, and he answered that he had learned four. Here they are: “First, whom the gods would destroy they first make mad with power. Second, the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small. Third, the bee fertilizes the flower it robs. Fourth, when it is dark enough you can see the stars.”
There may be a darkness over your life right now. You may be facing problems in your marriage or family, with your health, or with your family finances. St. Paul knew what it was to go through trying times. Listen as he writes about his experience: “They say they serve Christ? But I have served him far more! . . . I have worked harder, been put in jail oftener, been whipped times without number, and faced death again and again and again. Five different times the Jews gave me their terrible thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. Once I was in the open sea all night and the whole next day. I have traveled many weary miles and have been often in great danger from flooded rivers, and from robbers, and from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the hands of the Gentiles. I have faced grave dangers from mobs in the cities and from death in the deserts and in the stormy seas and from men who claim to be brothers in Christ but are not. I have lived with weariness and pain and sleepless nights. Often I have been hungry and thirsty and have gone without food; often I have shivered with cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm” (II Corinthians 11: 23-27).
St. Paul knew about personal adversity to the extreme. Most people would have turned back if they had faced what he had faced while serving Christ, but he kept pressing onward. How did he do it? Focus, forgetting and faith. He knew Christ was with him and so he was able to hang on.
I read somewhere that those who ride bicycles say that it is easier to ride up a hill at night than it is during daylight. Hills that are practically impossible to ascend in daylight may be negotiated more easily at night. At night the cyclist can see but a few feet in front of him, and the faint light of his lantern gives him the illusion that the hill is either level or not steep. Whereas in the daytime the hill would overwhelm him, at night he feels that he can go the few feet more than his light shows, and in this manner keeps on and on. (8)
That’s what St. Paul did. And so can you. A few feet at a time. Like the football halfback with opposing players hanging all over him, you can keep plunging toward the goal line. St. Paul could not be stopped because of his faith in Christ. Indeed, he wrote, “I live, but not I, but Christ Jesus liveth in me.” (Galatians 2:20).
Pressing toward the mark. Struggling toward the goal line. “You’ll have to shoot me to stop me.” Not giving up in the face of any obstacle. “If I couldn’t kick it out of the end zone, I’d make the tackle.” Out of such persistence are purposeful lives made.
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1. Dan L. Flanagan, http://www.asiweb.com/community/churches/stpaulsumc-sermons/stpaul06-22-03.asp.
2. Herman L. Masin, For Laughing Out Loud (New York: Scholastic Book Services, 1954).
3. (Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2006), pp. 43-44.
4. Coaching Ministry Teams (Nashville: Word Publishing, 2000).
5. Emphasis, Ronald H. Guettler, Jul/Aug 2001, p. 55.
6. Seizing The Moments (Nashville, TN: Dimensions For Living, 2001), pp. 43-46.
7. Faith Popcorn and Adam Hanft, Dictionary of the Future (New York, NY: Hyperion, 2001), p. 54.
8. Daniel C. Steere, I Am, I Can (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1973).
