Pressing Toward The Mark

Mar. 01, 2026

Background:

There is a true blessing in pressing
Many don't have that push to press their way
Many make excuses about why they cannot make it
Excuses is a form of entitlement
Individuals often act like victims acting like they are owed special treatment and that others are responsible
There is no perfect church...if there were then Jesus would say so
Jesus deals with imperfect people and transforms their lives to be something different

Key Sermon Points:

1. We need proper awareness of who we are

We must know who we are in Christ
We must not put on a show or act holier than we are
We must not produce an atmosphere of apathy (a lack of enthusiasm or concern)
We must not settle, but continue to have the fire that we had when we first came to Christ
None of us have arrived...there is still much work to do
God is still working on us
We must have the zeal of moving in the direction of the prize...doing what we can for the Master
The Spirit working in us (2 Corinthians 3:18)
There is always room for improvement
If we think that we have done enough, then we are deceiving ourselves
We haven't arrived yet at full maturity, but we must continue to pursue the goal
We don't know Christ in His fullness...we only see glimpses of Him
Our knowledge of Christ is incomplete
Some of us realize that we don't know as much as we think we know...and God will put us in a little storm to show us

2. Pursuing the prize with maximum effort

True believers will not pursue the prize of spiritual perfection until we recognize the need to do something to improve our condition
We are all struggling, but we must cry out to Jesus to help us to overcome
To press means to run or follow after
We must give Him our all and not pieces and bits
Christ saved us to bring glory and honor to His name
We must be aggressive and energetic
We must press our way even when we are tired from work
Paul pursued the spiritual prize with all his might...and strained all of his spiritual muscles to win
Let go and let God is not in Paul's vocabulary...he was totally dependent on God
We have to give the things that we struggle with and give it to God
We can tell Him everything, and He won't tell anyone
People that put others down are often struggle with things that are worst
Christianity is a life-long pursuit to be more like Christ
We can never repay Jesus for all that He has done for us, but we should do what we can while we can
Nothing could distract or divert Paul from his pursuit
What is distracting us and causing us to not serve God like we ought? Whatever is distracting us is an idol...and God will tear it down
Find out what it is and give it to God

3. Having proper focus and concentration

A maximum effort without focus and concentration is useless
Every runner in a race must keep our eyes straight ahead
Too many people look in the small rear-view mirror instead of looking through the large windshield
To win the race, we must keep our eyes focus on the prize
Athletes are focused...some have a strong start and others have a strong finish...and are not focused on others in the race
Paul knew that he had not arrived (Philippians 3:7-11)
Paul was focused on the prize
Such concentration can be a negative and a positive:
- Forgetting the things in the past
- Those looking in the past can't run forward
- Performance in a past race doesn't mean a win in the future
- The past is irrelevant to what is in the now
- We can't live off of the past
- The church is filled with spiritual cripples because of grudges, bitterness, sin and triggers of the past
- Time is undefeated and will eventually catch all of us (Ecclesiastes 12)
- We must let go of anger and grudges
- Paul reaches forward to what lies ahead giving God his best

4. Having proper motivation