(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

God is proud, there is joy, joy, joy that never shall depart. On the second, there is joy in serving Jesus, joy that triumphs over pain, fills my soul with heaven's music, till I join the glad refrain. There is joy, joy, joy in serving Jesus, joy that robs within my heart. Every moment, every hour, as I draw upon his birth, there is joy, joy, joy that never shall depart. There is joy in serving Jesus, as I walk alone with God. Tis the joy of Christ my Savior, through the path of suffering trod. There is joy, joy, joy in serving Jesus, joy that robs within my heart. Every moment, every hour, as I draw upon his birth, there is joy, joy, joy that never shall depart. On the last, there is joy in serving Jesus, joy up in the darkest night, for I've learned the wondrous secret, and I'm walking in the light. There is joy, joy, joy in serving Jesus, joy that robs within my heart. Every moment, every hour, there is joy, joy that never shall depart. Amen. Great singing. Brother Eli, you want to open us with the word of prayer? We thank you for this Sunday morning. Father, I pray that you would repair our hearts and fill us with your own spirit so that we can understand your word, fill the past with your spirit more so that we can speak fully. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen. Let's turn to page 66. We're going to sing, Fairest Lord Jesus, page 66. Fairest Lord Jesus. Page 66 on the first. Fairest Lord Jesus, ruler of all nature, all thou of God and man the Son. He will I cherish, he will I honor, thou my soul's glory, joy in crown. There are the meadows, there are still the woodlands, roped in the blooming garb of spring. Jesus is fairer, Jesus is cooler, who makes the full heart to sing. There is a sunshine, there is still the blue light, and all the twinkling starry hosts. Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer than all the angels have composed. On the last, beautiful Savior, Lord of the nations, Son of God and Son of Man. Glory and honor, praise, adoration, now and forevermore be thine. And at this time we'll have our announcements. Good morning everybody. Welcome to Church Foundation Baptist Church. Thanks for starting your new year right. Yeah church this morning. Great to see everybody. You all look tired, you sound tired. I'm tired. Did everybody stay up late last night or what? Anyway if you need a bulletin just raise your hand and we're going to go through some announcements. One of the ushers will bring you a bulletin. And also we have the nine chapters a day handout sheet if anybody wants one of those we have those as well. On our front cover we have our verse of the week it says let the your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven. That's Matthew 5 16. Our service times are 10 30 a.m. for Sunday morning service. Of course today we started a half hour later just to make sure everybody was on time. It still didn't work but anyway I'm just kidding. Sunday evening service is 3 30 p.m. I'm not going to be in the book of Exodus tonight. I'm going to be preaching a standalone sermon tonight and it's Thursday Bible study. We started a new book, the book of Hebrews and we'll be in Hebrews chapter 2 this coming Thursday. Our soul winning times are listed below. 1 10 is the time to meet in the auditorium if you're going to be leaving from the church. Obviously we always put the address in the soul winning app that we have or the whatsapp group. So if you need to just meet on location then obviously you just show up at the the map location and we'll get you a partner. But today might be a little bit later than normal but I'm going to try to not make that the case. Let's see so yeah I wanted to start the new year out right with soul winning. I wanted to end it yesterday right and and start it right early so so if you can go solely today it'd be a great day to start off and just kick off your your year of soul winning by going out with us today. 1 10 we meet in the auditorium ish so we might have to push that up just a little bit because of our late start but other than that we should be able to be good to go. So it just depends on how long I preach. Anyway you're like no. Anyway the praise report obviously we haven't had any salvations or baptisms this year but hoping to to get those zeros into numbers. Last year we had 302 salvations and baptisms 97. And then last week's attendance you can see there below on our upcoming events you can see that it's all filled up again we have a lot of upcoming events but we have a big upcoming event year so I'll get into that right now. New Year's Day of course we have this altered schedule I was going to just do a 130 sermon but I wanted to fit soul winning in there. There will be a meal provided in between the services so I got domino's pizza coming that's the best I could do. It's not like anything else is open so let's have for 7-11 if you guys wanted some hot dogs or something but so that'll be here at 12 30 so if it interrupts my preaching to bring it in guys that's okay don't interrupt me but I'm just we're probably going to need some tables set up in the in the back room so I guess maybe sometime during the service if you guys could just close those doors and and set some tables up and we do have some leftover panda express from yesterday so of course we're starting off the the year nutritionally also with a bunch of junk food no I'm just kidding but I did order a few salads for people that can't eat pizza I think I ordered four so I know my wife needs one and then who else needed one slalani probably jazzy can't eat pizza can you okay I didn't think so all right so I got a few for people the salad so don't jump on the salads you you carditors um a lot of the people that aren't going to be eating that so some people are trying to eat right I hope you brought a lunch because it's not going to be today here but anyway uh sorry about that so we're gonna have our regular 3 30 church service time today begins the new testament challenge and uh I think there's a few people are trying to get it done one day but other all the normal people uh I'm just kidding um all the people uh that want to take this challenge obviously there's a couple grace period days but on the sheet there you can just check off every day that's kind of how my brain works the best is I get done and then I just check off the list so I know where I'm at um so anyway if you need one of those just ask one of the ushers and they'll make sure you get one and let's see we got the men's leadership class at 6 30 p.m on january 10th 6 30 p.m january 10th that's a tuesday uh be prepared to preach a short sermon the sermons are now going to be timed at 10 minutes if you're not done it's going to go and at that time it's over all right but anyway um I'm going to be a little more strict about it from now on it's a new year got new parameters going on here all right um and then january 15th we're going to have a guest preacher pastor dave burzins from stronghold baptist church will be here from atlanta georgia he'll be preaching both services for us on sunday he's going to get here saturday and leave monday so it's a quick trip for him it's a long way for him so um anyway just make sure that when he gets here you appreciate him tell him thank you for coming and he's a very good friend of mine i've known him for many years now and uh very excited about having him come preach for us uh january 17th is there's a sewing class here at the church and that will be at 4 p.m so that is on a tuesday also so if you have any questions ask mrs harrington all right and then january 29th is a potluck after the morning service that's a i'm going to try to do like a fifth sunday potluck so we'll see how that works out um but that's the 29th it'll be after the morning service and i don't know maybe we can do international so that we get some cabbage rolls up in here and some other stuff that's uh after you've already destroyed your after you've all your new year's resolutions are already out the window in 10 days or whatever it is um so we'll have a potluck and then there's gonna be a men's preaching night so if you're a man and you want to preach then we're going to have a men's preaching night that evening on the fifth sunday of the month so we'll probably do that every quarter so every quarter there's like a fifth sunday so that's uh we'll do a potluck and men's preaching night on those dates so anyway uh february 11th is the married couple's sweetheart banquet and of course it is what it says a married couple's sweetheart banquet so it's for married couples only and we'll have some food catered here and pastor he'll be preaching a short sermon that night he's bringing his whole family up here and he's gonna hang out with us for the weekend and he'll be preaching for us on sunday february 12th the next day too so we're looking forward to that pastor he is also a good friend of mine and very excited to have him come up and see us again march 5th i know this is a ways out but it's it's good to plan in advance so march 5th through 9th now those aren't the dates of the conference it's a youth conference i think it's the first youth conference that we've had kind of in our circle of churches here so it's in sacramento california at verity baptist church but i rented a van and i'm gonna drive a select amount of people that i like no i'm just kidding until the van's full well and then i'll drive everybody down there so me my wife is going to drive parents and children or not children it's for teens it's it's geared toward teens so if your child is 13 or older they can come with so anyway um we're gonna leave sunday night so sunday night i'm leaving after church so i want anybody that's coming to have their bags packed and all that you will use the bathroom before we leave and uh i'm not stopping five minutes outside of town so just fyi i drive it furiously but i'm trying to make it down to medford we're going to stay the night in medford and then we'll drive the rest of the way on monday and so the the conference is actually starting tuesday and ending wednesday and then we're going to spend the night a few nights there and then thursday we're going to drive back so that's the plan um but we'll we'll probably yeah maybe we might make some headway no i'll just do the whole trip in one day on thursday then i'll come and preach and be angry but anyway there's no talking in the van no singing no yelling anyway that's what old people are like right so anyway we're a family integrated church that means children infants are welcome during the church services please utilize those rooms for your convenience and um also if they're your children become super distracting or disruptive please take them in there calm them down then you can bring them back out and then no dads are allowed in the mother baby rooms and vice versa in the during the church services and please reserve the back rows for families with young children gliders and rockers are for pregnant nursing mothers and elders only please no uh unattended children in any area of the building and also no food in the assembly area that'll kind of go out the door today but if you can uh help out maybe after the meal especially if you're staying behind it's it's last night we cleaned the church up in less than 15 minutes so if everybody helps it makes it a lot easier on people that are just volunteering usually every single time so i would appreciate that and then um let's see escorts are available by the ushers to your vehicles they're the guys with the pins on their jacket that say usher please silence your cell phone so it's not a disruption during the service and online donations are available at our website and text giving numbers there um and then the the ties and offerings for last month are at the bottom of the page and we're going to sing some birthdays because apparently it's a lot of people's birthday today so kylie my daughter-in-law's birthday is today and she's being a traitor she's back down at uh very baptist church with rammy they've been out of town for a couple weeks i'm just kidding about the trader thing but uh anyway so i just want to say happy birthday to kylie and evan richie who is not here right this moment but um he'll probably be here tonight or something anyway happy birthday evan and molly is the third all right she's only going to be 29 no are you i'm going to shut up right now all right she might not even be 29 so i don't want to i don't want to make her older than she is uh anyway uh tony is his birthday is on the fifth and brother bill is on the fifth also so let's sing happy birthday to all the birthday people real quick happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday god bless you happy birthday to you all right that's all i have for announcements let's sing another song we'll receive the offering all right let's open up to page 70 we're going to sing holy holy holy lord god almighty page 70 in your blue hymn books holy holy holy lord god almighty all right page 70 sing it out loud on the first holy holy holy lord god almighty early in the morning our song shall rise to thee holy holy holy merciful and mighty god in three persons blessed trinity on the second holy holy holy all the saints adore thee casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea cherubim in seraphim calling now before thee which were ten or ten evermore shall be holy holy holy though the darkness hide thee though the eye of sinful man thy glory pay not see only thou art holy there is none beside me perfect and current love in purity on the last holy holy holy lord god almighty all thy works shall praise thy name in earth and sky and sea holy holy holy merciful and mighty god in three persons blessed trinity amen great singing this morning at this time we're going to receive our offering brother sean harington can you bless the offering for us thank you so so so so if i go and open your bibles to philippians chapter 3 philippians chapter number three if you don't have a bible you can raise you can raise your hand and one of the ushers will bring you one philippians chapter 3 philippians 3 the bible reads finally my brethren rejoice in the lord to write the same things to you to me indeed is not grievous but for you it is safe beware of dogs beware of evil workers beware of the concision for we are the circumcision which worship god in the spirit and rejoice in christ jesus and have no confidence in the flesh though i might also have confidence in the flesh if any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh i more circumcised the eighth day of the stock of israel of the tribe of benjamin and hebrew of the hebrews as touching the law a Pharisee concerning zeal persecuting the church touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless but what things were gained to me those i counted loss for christ yea doubtless and i count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of christ jesus my lord for whom i have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung that i may win christ and be found in him not having my known righteousness which is of the law but that which is through the faith of christ the righteousness which is of god by faith that i may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering being made conformable unto his death if by any means i might attain unto the resurrection of the dead 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 one 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 be ye otherwise minded god shall reveal even this unto you nevertheless whereto we have already attained let us walk by the same rule let us mind the same thing brethren be followers together of me and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensemble for many walk of whom i have told you often and now tell you even weeping that they are the enemies of the cross of christ whose end is destruction whose god is their belly and whose glory is in their shame who mind earthly things for our conversation is in heaven from whence also we looked for the savior the lord jesus christ who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself brother robert will you pray for us amen amen alright well i wanted to say one thing real quick before i get started uh kylie's birthday is in november so apparently i should have been wearing my glasses it's kyle alright so kyle's birthday they look similar alright and just before you start judging me on when what birthdays i know and what birthdays i don't know i have how many grandchildren seven six grandchildren seven grandchildren seven grandchildren seven see i don't even know how many grandchildren i have good night so anyway sorry kylie she's not a traitor kyle is a traitor no i'm just kidding anyway so the title of my sermon this morning is setting attainable goals setting attainable goals and this sermon hopefully will help you not just in 2023 but maybe just you know when you're starting to to try to attain and achieve goals in your life which everybody should have some kind of goal in your life you don't have any goals in your life you're probably a loser right so i don't want anybody to be a loser so you better have some kind of goals in your life because most people that don't know what they want to do with their life haven't set any goals right they don't they haven't thought it out or thought what they want to do with their lives you know i'm talking about people that don't know what vocation they want to be in they don't know what job they want to have and you know obviously sometimes you just don't know but you know if you it's good to set a goal to get some kind of good job especially if you're a man obviously so that you can support a family someday and so you can support yourself you know obviously you might be able to support yourself at mcdonalds nowadays because they pay like almost 40 bucks an hour but money's changed these days but anyway i don't want to get too far off topic here but i wanted to read you this statistic these statistics here so this place called sundry i don't know what that is but conducted a survey with a reach of 4,000 people and found that 43% of people expect to give up their goal their new year goal after just one month so they already expect that they're going to fail 43% that's almost half research shows that 95% of new year's resolutions are fitness related but after just three months only 10% of people think their resolution will last so the other you know the whole 95% already thinks they're going to fail after three months you see how that's a bad way to look at things if you already have if you have a goal and you're like i have some new year's resolutions i'm going to do this year but i know i'm not going to do it it's just like that's not a good way to look at setting goals so i want to help you today with just some points about setting attainable goals and hopefully you do have some goals for this year and you don't have to wait until the first of the year to set goals obviously and if you already have goals you're working on that are lifetime goals those should be things that you're still working toward but everybody should have goals everybody should have an accountability system within their selves and especially as Christians because 95% is fitness related 95% so that just shows you how worldly people are and how much they care obviously they don't care too much about their body because after three months they've already given up but people that's what people's focus is on because we live in a time right now where you know being a narcissist or being narcissistic i'm not saying that you are a you know anyway i'm just saying that people value looks more than they value spiritual things and as Christians we should have our number one thing should be to be more spiritual because the Bible says that bodily exercise profiteth little now obviously i'm not saying don't be healthy be healthy work out do your dead list get your gains bro you know go ahead do all that stuff eat organic so i'm not going to touch anything that's not organic for the whole year you know that could be those are good goals be healthy you know just make sure that your health is good but that shouldn't be your number one goal your number one goal should be to be more spiritual and to be a better Christian this year than you were last year if you're going to set up some goals for your life so that is like i said it's good to set personal betterment ideas for yourself and goals but take i just want to challenge you with this take stock of where your spiritual life is right now today and then you know analyze where you're at as a Christian because sometimes you know backsliding kind of comes in a in a you know it doesn't just happen right away it's something that you know you just start to begin to do you start missing a bunch of church or you start missing a bunch of soul winning times or you start missing your bible reading everyday you start missing prayer time and next thing you know you're backslidden and you're at a church or you're going through the motions and you're playing church either one is not good so we want to be better this year than we were last year we want our church to be better this year than it was last year so number one the first the first point to my sermon is number one we need to set goals that we can achieve set goals that we can achieve see a lot of times people will set new year's resolutions and goals and it's something that like i already said the statistic it's something that they already know that they can't do i'm going to lose 100 pounds i'm going to get ripped i'm going to have a six pack by the end of this year or whatever it's just like no you're probably not if you're that 95% that's already going to quit after three months now obviously there's people that take care of their body 100% of the time that's great but you need to set goals that you can achieve and not just long term goals but short term goals and a lot of times your short term goals are an ends to your long term goals so let's look down at verse number 8 in Philippians chapter 3 it says yea doubtless i count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom i have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung and what's his goal see Paul set goals what's his goal that i may win Christ that's his goal now let's look at verse number 10 and here's some other goals that he has that i may know him verse 10 and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings now if you know anything about the apostle Paul it seemed like the apostle Paul kind of knew Jesus didn't he it seemed like when he's writing these books to us that he understood the power of the resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings i mean we could read about the suffering that Paul went through because of the goal he was trying to attain and that what was his main goal that he may win Christ so look at verse 11 it says if by any means i might attain unto the resurrection of the dead so that word attain what does that mean well the word attain means succeed in achieving so what are we talking about today setting attainable goals so what was Paul what's Paul's first the first goal is to know Christ to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering those are some goals that he set for himself that he may win Christ so that attain he said that i might attain he wants to attain these things that means he's gonna he wants to succeed in achieving his goals right and so that's what we're talking about so you know and obviously goals or i mean attaining you know that word attain is gonna is gonna be here in a few different verses that we're gonna go through this morning but that word attain again means succeed in achieving something that one desires and has worked for and so again it's another way of saying that you've achieved your goals isn't it i mean that's what attain means so Paul set those three goals in verse 10 and obviously a lot of these are lifetime goals because in order to do these things don't you have to be steadfast unmovable always abounding in the work of the Lord always striving to to keep these goals in mind you're gonna try to live the best Christian life you can so if your goal is ultimately to be a complete Christian a perfect Christian and in the end you can say hey I finished my course I've kept the faith right that's the goal that we can get to the end and we're still serving God we're still loving God we're still improving our lives still improving our Christianity still improving all the aspects of the Christian life so Paul you know he was a goal setter and you know he's a goal achiever also so and when you set goals in order to attain and achieve these goals that you set in your life you have to have the mindset of absolute focus men are not good at multitasking I was talking with us about this to somebody else women could be on the phone nursing the baby stirring the food on the stove at the same time and you know with a vacuum in the other hand somehow using their foot or whatever they can multitask a lot better than men can in most cases now obviously there are some men that can multitask well but I think that we're kind of we're supposed to focus on one thing at a time right that's the best way to achieve goals is to you know instead of having all these irons in the fire at the same time because isn't it hard to read your Bible at the same time as you're praying at the same time as you're soul winning at the same time as you're going to it's hard for men especially but you know we're we're we're supposed to be focused on the on the goal at hand that that makes you more efficient because if your mind's someplace else who's ever read a chapter in the Bible and at the end you like I don't remember anything I just read who's done that before okay all God's people alright so it happens and why is that happening because somewhere in the scriptures you lost focus on what you were doing and you went out your mind went someplace else and that happens and that's why it's so important to have an absolute focus when you're trying to achieve your goals so and know what is what it's going to take to get it done and to take it seriously don't be like these people that's these 4,000 people 43% said after a month they're going to they're not even going to keep their goal what's the point of even making a new year resolution if you don't even plan on keeping it it's just weird that's just a weird way to think but that's the way the world thinks so we as Christians need to have we have the mind of Christ we have the mind of the new man we should use those things and not be like the world and not be not have you know fitness being our number one resolution as I drove up the hill up Andreessen Road I saw a man and a woman jogging together crossing the street and I just thought well they're starting off their year in what they think is most important but you know what you're here in church this morning so you're starting off the year for what you thought was most important and I appreciate that and I'm with you I like that goal so being here in church so let's look at Ecclesiastes chapter 9 verse 10 so number one the point the first point is we need to set goals that we can achieve and you need to be focused on that goal so don't bite off more than you can chew basically you know set a goal that's you know if you've only read the Bible one time cover to cover and you've been saved for five years to say my goal this year is to read the Bible six times that's probably biting off more than you're going to be able to chew some people it takes time to work up to those types of Bible reading structures some people never get to that Bible reading structure you know yourself and what you're capable of maybe you should just try to do a little more this year than you did last year not try to take off big giant chunks that you know you're not going to do just like the people you know with their fitness want to be the most fit person in the world or whatever and you know that any time you eat something it just makes it fatter so I mean you're going to be that person that you know sometimes you know people just have better metabolisms than other people don't they so and the older you get the harder it is to lose weight so anyway Ecclesiastes 9 10 it says whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might if you're going to set a goal the Bible says whatsoever anything that you're doing or trying to do whatever your hand is trying to find to do this labor or some kind of goal do it with thy might do it with all that you have and you know you set a goal put it in your mind that I'm going to keep this goal I'm not going to just wait for 10 days I'm not going to just do the New Testament challenge in 30 days and then not read the Bible for the rest of the year I'm done I've achieved my goal you know set another goal hey I'm going to read the rest of the Bible and you know maybe you set a goal that you're going to read Old Testament faster than you normally do but maybe you've never even read the Bible cover to cover one time you know how you start the goal of reading the whole Bible cover to cover? Genesis 1 Genesis 2, Genesis 3, Genesis 4 one chapter at a time one verse at a time, one chapter at a time, one day at a time, one week at a time one month at a time, and then you know if you just continue to to just chip away at that your goal for reading the whole Bible in one year is seven and a half minutes in the morning, seven and a half minutes at night. The Bible's the benchmark for Bible reading is what? Is that you read it morning and night and it's not just hear my cry oh God, attend to my prayer I've read the Bible, I'm done. That's lame okay. Obviously if you really are that crunched for time that day and you read that one verse it's going to be better than reading nothing but I mean if you're just giving God your garbage time all the time and you're never just putting him first how does God feel about it when we don't put him first? Does he like that? No he doesn't. He likes when we put him first and make time for him or at least make time for him. You know he's our heavenly father and you know obviously we should be praying to God, we should be reading his word and knowing what he wants from us, we should be going to church and being edified encouraging other believers and gaining. You want to talk about gains? Well let's talk about gaining your spiritual life and you do that by your might and obviously you want to do it in Christ. So don't just do everything by the flesh. You failed in that goal. So do you just like have a pity party for the rest of the year over that, that you didn't attain that goal? Maybe you just realize, hey I probably bit off more than I can chew instead of just saying I'm never going to reach my goal. Again, you know if you want to reach your ultimate goal sometimes you do that in bits and pieces. You do that over a course of time. So just like reading the Bible, you know some people had the thing, they were going to read the whole New Testament in one day. It's like fifteen hours. Okay, that is doable. Do you think you could read the whole Bible in fifteen hours? No. Do you think you could read, you know seventy-two hours is how long it takes to read the whole Bible if you're talking about reading time of your average time. Who's going to stay up for seventy-two hours? I mean you might have to be with the homeless people smoking crack or something in order to do that and then you're not going to get anything out of it anyway. And God's going to say you're not even sober so what are you doing? You can't stand for seventy-two hours just on coffee. Come on. Anyway so we need to set goals we can achieve but also don't dwell in past failures because we need to look ahead to be successful. Just put that stuff behind you. Look at verse twelve back in our text. We're going to come back to Philippians chapter three multiple times here so our text in Philippians chapter three verse twelve it says, so remember Paul's setting goals here. We already saw the goals that he set. Now look what it says in verse twelve not as though I had already attained remember attaining is succeeding or achieving in something, either were already perfect but I follow after if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ. So what's he saying? He's saying not as though I had already attained. See you don't just say I'm going to be perfect and then you are perfect for the rest of your Christian life. That's not how it works and when I say perfect I'm not talking about walking on water. I'm talking about having the balanced Christian life. Perfect means complete. Okay. It doesn't always mean that you're sinless or whatever. Perfect means you're complete so to the best of your ability you're living the Christian life and you're doing the things the Bible says and you know obviously that's the Christian life is being successful in it. So he's saying it's not that he already attained it either were already perfect that's a goal that you have to continue to work on and Paul's goals were lifetime goals. So it's something that you have to continuously work on. Right? Look what it says in verse thirteen, brethren I count not myself to have apprehended but this one thing I do. This is really important. This one thing I do. Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before. The past is the past let the past die. If you've done something and this can apply to you know a lot of people have hey you know I'm going to have this resolution to you know quit this sin or quit that sin. A lot of people quit smoking or quit drinking or whatever but whatever it is that your sin is that you want to work on and try to get that out of your life that's a good thing and once you forsake and confess that sin you need to let it go. God's let all your sins go because you've had faith in him and believed and trusted in him. Now obviously he still punishes us on earth in the present and in the future for things we've done in the past but God doesn't hold those ultimately against us when you're talking about eternity. He's not going to throw us in the oven. We're his children. He's not going to throw us in hell for any reason whatsoever. Don't you think Paul had some things in his past that he wanted to just overcome? You know if Paul just dwelled on all the things that he had done wrong do you think he would have been as successful as he was? He says this one thing I do. If God's not going to hold these things against you then why are you holding it against yourself and why are you allowing other people to hold it against you? Paul just said you know what I know I used to do this stuff but now I don't do this. I used to persecute Christians but when I got saved I realized I was wrong. But he obviously brings the story up of his of what he did but he's not dwelling there. He just let that stuff go. What's past is past don't dwell there. That's what Paul is saying. Don't dwell on your failures dwell on the things that are before you. Focus on the goals that you are still trying to keep or the new goals that you want to achieve. Don't just give up when you fail. Don't give up when you fail. Don't look back and dwell on those things. Look at Proverbs chapter 24. Proverbs chapter number 24. The Bible says in Proverbs 24 verse 16 For a just man followeth seven times and riseth up again. Who's the just man? The person saved isn't it? For a just man followeth seven times we might fall we're going to fall probably more than seven times really. But what's a just man do? They rise up again. Don't dwell on what they failed. They just get back on the term get back on the horse. Get back on the horse when it bucks you off and ride that thing and break that bronco. You want to rise up and do it again and don't dwell on your past failures. The wicked fall into mischief. They're like well I've already failed so I'm just going to keep doing it. That's a bad attitude. That's a wrong attitude. Paul said don't do that forget those things which are behind. Get back up dust yourself off and go forward and look to the future. So you've probably seen that poster and usually it's like in a workplace situation. I think that it was at a workplace that I used to work at. But it's this stork. And the stork is eating a frog. The frog is in its mouth almost down the gullet. But the frog's little hands are clenching the bird by the throat. And at the bottom it says never give up. That's a great poster. Like obviously it's such a great poster that I remember it. I've probably mentioned this before. But never give up. Don't give up on the goals that you set. Don't give up on trying to be a good Christian and trying to be the best Christian you can. We're going to fail. We're going to fall. But we need to rise up and don't give up. Grab that stork by the throat and keep going. And I think about this. I see my grandchildren growing up. I saw my children grow up and the things that, and maybe your kids are different, but my grandkids and my kids did this. Remy was the first one that I really noticed does this. If there's an uneven step maybe it's just like something in your house that maybe there's a little bump or something like that or anything outside, a crack that is uneven. When they're a little kid, when they're little toddlers and stuff and they're learning how to walk, he'd just practice going back and forth, falling down, but then getting back up and re-practicing, re-practicing, re-practicing. And my other grandkids do the same thing. And I'm sure everybody, probably everybody's kids do the same thing. But there's that will inside children and they want to get it right. They want to get it perfect, don't they? They fall down but they get back up, don't they? They're usually crying dusting themselves off or whatever. But kids will just, you know, I always say like, Emmy's trying to commit suicide because every time we take her to the park she's trying to climb up to the highest height. She's like about to walk, you know those poles that they have, like you have to reach out and grab it. Well, you know, she's only three years old. She thinks she can do that stuff. I'm just like, you know, off time she throws herself in the fire and, you know, whatever. But, because kids want to achieve what? Being the best they can be at walking or jumping or climbing or whatever they do. And, you know, kids have that drive in them but we need to be able to have that drive too of just practicing something over and over and over again until we get it right. So, you know, the person that never tried to do anything never accomplished anything. The person that never tries to do anything never accomplishes anything. It's a fact. Some people are, I'm afraid to try. I'm afraid to do this. I'm afraid I'm going to fail. You know, well, being afraid isn't going to make you any better. You need to conquer that fear. Whatever the fear is that you have in your life, conquer that fear. Conquer and get better. Human beings are really great at achieving goals. There are some people that do some amazing things in this world and, you know, you can do amazing things too. And you actually have the Holy Spirit of God to help you accomplish these things. So we are better off than the 95% of the race, the human race that is failing at doing their gym squats or whatever. Here's a quote that I like. Not necessarily like the player, but I like the quote. This is from Michael Jordan. It says, I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. That is why I succeed. See, Michael Jordan wasn't afraid to take the game-winning shot. And so he had all this, you know, Michael Jordan is probably the best basketball player I've ever seen play. And you're like, that's LeBron James. Just shut up. It's not LeBron James. He can't even make a three pointer. He passes it off to somebody else that can shoot better than him at the end of the game. Alright? I mean, he can make three pointers, but he was no Michael Jordan, okay? Michael Jordan could fly through the air sideways and make a shot from three points and win the game. I mean, I'm sure you've all seen his dunk highlights. You know, he didn't even make the freshman, I think, he set the bench or something in his freshman year. But then he just practiced and practiced and practiced and practiced until he got good enough. And then, you know, even at North Carolina in a system where it's not designed to have superstars, it's a team effort, he still took the game-winning shot in the Final Four in the championship game and won the game with a three pointer. I mean, the point is, is that you've got to keep trying and you've got to keep working at it. And hey, you're going to fail. Like he said, I missed 9,000 shots in my career. That's a lot of shots to miss. But you know, it's a long career. Lost 300 games. You lost! No, but he won like six NBA championships, though. Not that that means anything, I'm just saying in a worldly perspective, he's given us a perspective that, hey, if I never tried anything, if I never failed at anything, I never would have been as successful as I am today. That's why he succeeded. Because he worked hard and tried his best, and obviously being able to jump from the foul line and dunk it was pretty impressive, too. But you've got to work on those things. There was a white guy I played with, and he was a great athlete, don't get me wrong, but he worked really hard, but he did have some natural talent, but he did 1,000 jump ropes a day so that he could dunk the ball. And you know that term, white people can't jump, it's true. It's just a fact. Most white people can't jump, you can't even slide a piece of paper underneath my feet, you know what I'm saying? So, it's like, did you jump? Yeah, didn't you see me? But he did 1,000 jump ropes a day, and that strengthened his calves so that he, I mean, the guy could sky through the air and jam it when he was a freshman in high school. I was like, if he can do it, then I can do it. I didn't do 1,000 jump ropes, but I did work at trying to dunk, and when I was a junior, I think I was a sophomore in high school, I could dunk the ball. But that's, you know, not that I could jump high, I was 6 foot 7 at the time, so that kind of helped me a little bit, but anyway, but it's goals. It's goals that you try to set forth, so you can do that in all aspects of life, but you've got to work hard to achieve the goals. Goals take work, and attaining and achieving goals take pressure. So, it takes pressure to, you've got to put pressure on yourself. And you've got to put pressure on yourself to get those goals done. So, look at verse number 14. It says, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling in God in Christ Jesus. What's the mark? That's the goal, isn't it? To meet that goal, what is the ultimate goal? For the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. We have a high calling in here. We're not just regular old folks, we're going to be ruling and reigning forever with Christ. We are special. You're like, well I don't feel special right now, you know, everybody hates us, blah, blah, blah. You know, who cares? Because we're going to be, we're beloved of the Father. How many of these people that are working out right now can say that? Obviously, God loves people, but like if they're going to put other things in front of them, then it's going to upset them. But you know what? We are the children of God, and Paul said that what he does is he presses toward the mark. What does that mean, press? Well, pressure. He applies pressure to himself to attain these goals. You can't just make a goal and then not have pressure on yourself to do it. Because if you just act like the 95% of this world, you're going to fail. If you're trying to take the New Testament challenge in 30 days, and you're like, oh man, I only got 8 chapters done today, I'm done. It's like, just read 10 tomorrow. You have a little bit of leeway here. Read more the next day, or catch up, say you get behind a few days. Well, then just catch up one chapter a day or maybe a couple chapters a day. Don't give up. And even if you don't get it done in 30 days, at least try to get that challenge done. Because a lot of times the challenges that we do, the goals, maybe we set unattainable goals to the time period that we put upon them or the however much time you're going to spend on them in a day. But don't just give up on the goal. Press toward that mark. Press toward that goal and put some pressure on yourself to actually get it done. Number 3 this morning, maintain your achievements. See, once you get some goals down, because Paul talked about in a few verses back about not that we have attained, but he does talk about people who are perfect here in verse 15. Look what it says. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, so it is possible to be perfect, isn't it? Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded. And if in any thing you be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. So if you're seeking God and seeking him first and seeking the kingdom of God, he's going to reveal to you where you're slipping. You know what? It's a good thing to ask God, hey God, where's my blind spots? What can I get better at? How can I be perfect? Maybe you got a bunch of things down, but you need to work on one other thing. Or it is. But it says, as many as be perfect, be thus minded, and if in any thing you be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, where unto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. So, see how it says we have already attained, these are your goals you've already met. But you need to maintain those things. You can't just read the Bible one time, and then, oh, I've attained the goal, I've read the Bible, I'm, look at how great I am, I've read the Bible one time for my whole life. See, anybody that knows, like just in Bible memorization, well I memorized ten pages of the Bible. But do you retain it? Because if you don't keep going, if you don't keep on it, you're going to lose what you don't use. That's just a fact. So the things that you've attained to, keep those things in your life while you're still going for the main goal, whatever that is. Don't just say, I've achieved, I'm done. I climbed Mount Everest, and now I'm never climbing again. You know what I mean? It's just, this is what Paul's saying, he's saying that there's some people that are perfect. Hey, once you get to that perfect place where you're a complete Christian, that's good, that's a good goal. But can you attain that goal before you die? The Bible says you can. Paul says there are people that are perfect. There are people that have already attained. And what does attained mean? You've met the goal. You've succeeded in doing that goal. So, you know, this is truly the hard part about continuing on in the Christian life is still maintaining all the things that you've learned and retaining the knowledge that you have of the Bible and retaining scriptures that you've memorized or things that you've been taught by the word of God or by preachers or whatever to maintain those things in your life and to keep it going while you're still going towards the ultimate goal of winning Christ, of having, you know, knowing Christ. I mean, isn't that really what it's all about, is knowing Christ and him being pleased with us? Well done, thou good and faithful servant. See, when we achieve our goals, he's either gonna, you know, he might not say, well done, thou good and faithful servant if you're not a good Christian, right? He might just be like, you made eternal life. There you go. I don't know how that's gonna work. Obviously, people that are gonna be cast in like a fire are gonna say, depart from me that work iniquity. I never knew you. But, so I guess anybody that's saved has done well. They kept that commandment. But, I mean, there's a lot of goals that God gives us in the New Testament to achieve. And it's not just one thing. It's not just one goal, but the ultimate goal is that we're gonna finish the race, we're gonna finish the work that God's given to us, and we have a good person to look forward to, the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at Titus chapter 3 verse 8. Because the temptation is there that once you attain a goal, then you're done. Well, I've lost 100 pounds. Now let me get this tub of ice cream and put in some work here. You know, I've, I've, I quit smoking. But now I'm drinking. You know, it's just like, don't replace, don't replace bad habits with other bad habits, okay? Replace bad habits with good habits, right? Isn't that what you should do? So, and I remember when I used to smoke a long time ago that I would, I had a reward system in place for me attaining my goals. And you might, if you've never smoked cigarettes, you probably don't understand this, and don't ever start smoking because they're very addictive and they're harmful to your body and it does a lot of damage, okay? But I would work really hard, and when it was time for me to take a break, I deserved a cigarette for that. Ching! You know, I started smoking a cigarette. But after a good meal, you know what I deserve after this good meal that my wife made for me? A cigarette. I'm driving and I'm the best driver on the road. I deserve lots of cigarettes. You know, it's a reward system. It's weird. It's like, you know, like that's what smokers do, is that they try, their goal becomes, when can I have my next cigarette? Right? What am I going to do to deserve my next cigarette? And then, you know, you work really hard. I need a smoke break. I've done all these achievements. You know, that's the prize, is to get another cigarette. I mean, now that I don't smoke and I haven't smoked for a long time, if I smoked one cigarette right now, I'd be re-hooked again. Just so you know. Some people, they're like, oh, I could casually smoke on the weekend or something. I was never that kind of a smoker. I had to smoke, I didn't smoke two packs a day, I smoked one pack a day. But that's bad enough. You know? But you give yourself achievement awards for doing dumb things, right? But you know, that's a bad temptation to fall into when you're setting goals for yourself and achieving goals. You want to maintain the goals that you've achieved. Look at what it says in Titus 3, it says, this is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly. See, when I bring up things over and over again, that's because the Bible says I'm supposed to. He's talking to Titus. This is a faithful saying and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men. So what's good? To maintain the good works. Whatever it is that you've achieved, as far as your good works are concerned, you don't go, I went soul winning, I've done my part one time. I was a silent partner and boy did I kick that dog away, you should have seen me. Or I got my first person saved, I've achieved the goal, now I've done the home run. I was saved, baptized, I went soul winning, I got someone saved. The tree has brought fruit. You don't stop going soul winning after getting one person saved. Most people want to get more people saved. In Titus it says we need to be careful, we need to take care that we maintain the good things that we accomplish. Number four, find someone to inspire you to meet your goals. Find someone to inspire you to meet your goals. If somebody does something and they're telling you the blueprint on how to do it right and how to do it good, wouldn't it make sense that you would follow that person's way of achieving that goal if it's the best way to achieve it? Or maybe there's a lot of different people that have different plans to do all kinds of different things. How to cook, how to clean, how to whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish, but find someone that you can get behind and pattern yourself after that. Try to do what they've done. If you want to meet a goal, how about someone that's already done it before? You don't go to people for marriage advice that haven't been married. That's just dumb. Or that have been divorced. You just don't go to the people. If you want to improve your marriage, don't go to the worst marriage in the church. Go to the people that have been married the longest and at least seem to get along in church for the most part. So find someone that you can get behind and inspire you to meet your goals. Look back in our text at Philippians chapter 3 verse 17. It says, So here's a time in the Bible when it's saying to mark people because most of the time when we say mark them, we're saying it's in a negative term. They've done something bad that we need to mark them for. But he's talking about when you're trying to achieve your goals, when you're trying to win Christ, when you're trying to attain unto the perfect Christian life or attain unto being the best Christian you can, that you need to mark those people that you see walking and doing what you want to be. So the best Christian in your church or the person that inspires you to go, maybe they just inspire you in one area, maybe they're a great soul winner, maybe they're just very good and comfortable at the door, maybe they're very successful in the way that they present the gospel, but there's nothing wrong with patting yourself after what somebody else has done. You know, everybody in this room that goes soul winning has probably watched Pastor Anderson's soul winning demonstrations that he put on for different types of things. The way I learned how to go soul winning what I feel the right way was listening to two sermons that he preached about soul winning instruction, one and two. And I just kind of wrote down all the verses, I wrote down all the notes, and then I just went out and was just like here we go. And I didn't really have the ability to be the silent partner. I was like knocking doors and I was just trying I was experimenting. I was just like how is this going to work? Well let's see. And then, you know, eventually I got to the point where I'm leading people to Christ and I'm teaching other people to lead people to Christ. So that's a good thing to pattern yourself after somebody that's already doing it good. They've already done it right and that person can inspire you to meet your goals. When somebody does something great, you're like hey I want to be like them. I'm not saying to be weird about it like you start doing your hair like them, you start dressing exactly like them, like hey I didn't know you were going to wear that. You got the same clothes I mean don't get weird with it. I'm just saying let them inspire you and pattern yourself after them. Isn't that what Paul says? Be followers together of me. Was Paul a good example to follow? He was. Then he said mark them which walk so as ye have us for an in-sample. Hey, who were they supposed to follow after Jesus left? They were supposed to follow the apostles weren't they? Jesus, the apostles. The apostles are built upon the teaching of Jesus. We're supposed to build upon that faith. So follow good examples though obviously. You don't want to follow the worst examples. Obviously that doesn't mean being mean to the bad examples. But just if you're like I'm going to find the worst soul winner in the church, I'm going to try to be just a little bit better than them so I'm going to follow them. No. Why would you have that goal? That's a weird goal. So try to be the best soul winner you can as an example and follow someone that you know. There's a lot of good soul winners in this church so you could pick from a variety of people to do that with but people you know set good goals are going to help you meet your goals. So be inspired by their success and pattern. Look at Hebrews chapter 12 verse number 1. Hebrews chapter 12 verse number 1. Hebrews 12 verse number 1. The Bible says, We also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. So we're compassed about. People in heaven can see what we're doing. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, all these different people that have come before us this is what it's saying. We're compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight in this sin which doth easily beset us. So he's saying get rid of that weight. You want to actually be successful? Well first thing you've got to do is try to cut some of that sin out of your life. Doesn't the Bible say in John 15 that he purges people so that he can bring forth more fruit in their lives? So the best thing we can do is get rid of that sin. So if you've got some New Year's resolution, getting sin out of your life is a good part of that resolution. So I've already preached whole sermons about how to do that but obviously nobody's going to be sinlessly perfect when Jesus comes. But you know what? We should be better than we were before. Don't you think? The day you get saved, say you're saved for 30 years and then you die and you go to heaven, you should be a better Christian and more complete than you were 30 years before, right? So look what it says in verse so I said we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witness 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. And this is important because we are in a race, a race against time to be the best Christian we can be, to get the most people the amount of save that we can and that race is set before us the race is the Christian life and there's an end to it okay? We can't save people in heaven everybody is going to be saved. Once we're done on this earth we can't achieve any more goals spiritually. We're done. We're going to be complete in Christ at that point so we need to run this race with patience and so if you've ever sprinted or been in any kind of track and field when I was in fourth grade I could run the mile faster than anybody in my school including the fifth graders and that was just elementary school, right? And how did I do that? Well I learned to pace myself. You've got to do four laps around the track but you've got to run it at a pace where you can beat everybody else so you know wherever you're at in your race if you're 50 years old you're not going to be able to run the race like you did when you were 20 years old. So keep this in mind and have some circumspect wisdom that if you're young now you're able you can walk the triple decker apartment complexes and I say that because it seems like every time I go soloing that's where we're going. Three weeks ago I was like why are my legs so sore and me and my wife did 18 flights of stairs. Well you know 18 flights of stairs that's a tall building isn't it? I don't know how many we did yesterday. Do you know Alex how many we did yesterday? How many flights? He's not sore. Yeah there was three floors I know that but we did like a whole long block you know I'm just saying that you know I don't know what I'm saying what was I saying? That yeah we've got to pace ourselves for the race. You can't burn yourself out in the Christian life and then think that it's going to be you know you're going to quit. So you don't want to quit the race or not finish the race. You want to pace yourself and have patience. You know run with patience. Don't the Christian life is not a sprint. It's a paced race isn't it? So it says run with patience the race that is set before us. That's another reason why I think Paul wrote Hebrews because he talks about you know running and all that. He uses those analogies but anyway that's another sermon. Hebrews 12 2 says looking unto Jesus. Who are we supposed to look unto? Jesus right? The author and finisher of our faith. He wrote the book. Who's the better excuse me who's the better pattern to follow? The best person to follow is the one that wrote the book. I got this self-help book. It's called the Bible. I know the author. I'm a fan of his. And you know the author is Jesus and he's the finisher of the faith. Not only did he teach us how to do it, he showed us how to do it didn't he? He showed us how to run with patience the race that is set before us. If you want to take an example of how to run the race and obviously Jesus' race finished before he would have been an old man or whatever. But he had his own goals too didn't he? Didn't he have a certain goal in mind? What was his goal for coming here? Seek and save that which was lost. Did he achieve the goal? Yes he did. So he gets the accolades. Because look what it says. Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. So he saw the joy that was set before him. He saw the goal. The goal is the joy of being the, basically Jesus is the hero of the story also. The plan that God designed for mankind to be redeemed. He's the hero of the story but he still had to do the work didn't he? And he had to endure suffering. He had to endure mocking. Despising the shame of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords to be reduced to being whipped by a bunch of people that he created. To being nailed to a cross and spit upon. He asked for water because he was thirsty. They gave him vinegar to drink. They mocked him. They punched him in the face. They put a crown of thorns on him. They hurt him really bad and then they killed him. He saw the joy though. The goal was what? To have that joy that he's going to save all mankind. And that his father was going to be pleased with him once he did it. Right? So now he is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. So the one that wrote the book and showed us how to do things, he had a goal. Jesus Christ had a goal. What was the goal? Save mankind. Did he do it? Yes he did. Because he saw and did what he was supposed to do to meet that goal. So in order to achieve that goal, again he had to have other little goals in place to do those things. Like what? Like living a perfect life? Like being tempted by the devil for forty days? Like doing and suffering humankind for three and a half years? Well actually for thirty-three years? I mean imagine being a sinless person and you see all the faults in everybody around you and yet still have a love for those people. Most people that lived around a bunch of people that were wicked would not have that attitude would they? But he still loved us with this great love and continued to do and accomplish the goals. The goal was a lifetime goal for him. He had to be sinless in order to be our redeemer. And then he had to preach in places where he knew people hated him. Every place he preached, they showed up to hate on him and accuse him falsely. I mean that would stink to be a preacher and every place you go, the Pharisees are there in the background. And then saying whatever they're going to say which is a bunch of garbage, right? So he was able to take ease in the ultimate goal that he made and then after he did all the work, he got to enjoy the joy of pleasing his father, getting all the work done, and we have that person that we look up to and say, hey, well if I'm going to try to achieve being a perfect Christian, being filled with faith and accomplishing my goal, well I'm going to look at the person that wrote the book about it and the person that actually did it to show us how it was done. He not only wrote the book, because a lot of people can say, well this is how you make a million dollars. But then if they've never made a million dollars, then how are they writing a book about it? Here's how to be a millionaire! Even though I'm not. Don't follow the wrong people, right? In 1 Corinthians 11 and 1 it says, be followers of me, even as I also am of Christ, the Apostle Paul said. So obviously Paul's following Jesus, you can follow Paul. People always go, I don't follow men! You don't? Every time you drive in a car, there's probably a man in front of you somewhere, you're following. Every time you work with somebody, obviously there's times when you're following the lead of somebody else, when you're training in a job. Don't you have to follow them and have them teach you how to do things? I mean that's just a weird thing to say, but it's a way of being ultra-spiritual and holier than thou. I don't follow men! You're following a man or whatever. Paul said to be follower of him, was he a man? But to do it because he was following Christ. We follow men if they're following Christ. And attaining goals is always rewarding. The Apostle Paul attained his goals at the end, didn't he? He writes about it. Look at 2 Timothy 4 verse 7. 2 Timothy 4 verse 7. It says in 2 Timothy 4 verse 7, it says, I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Did Paul achieve his goals? He did. Goal number 1, he has. He fought, he had, number 1, have. So that means goals met. Number 2, finished. That means he did it, right? I mean that's obvious. Kept. He did it unto the end, right? And completed the ultimate goal. Verse 8 says, Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearance. So, hey, when you're trying to meet and make a goal, just remember this. Yeah, the Apostle Paul, he got a crown of righteousness because he finished his course. He kept the faith. But you know, we can also achieve those goals. He's saying all them that love his appearing. So, if that's what you're looking forward to, what are we looking forward to? We're looking forward to the day of Christ where he comes back and changes our vile bodies into, basically, immortality. This flesh must put on immortality. That's going to be a great day. One of the greatest days of all mankind. The day that we have no more sin. The day that we are like Christ, we see him for what he is, and we enjoy everlasting life. The goal is to get there and still be intact. We don't want to have the Lord come back and we're not in church. We don't want the Lord to come back and we're not being faithful. We want to be steadfast until the end, right? So, and look, I know that I'm running out of time here. I had other points, so I'm going to skip through it, but you know, again, don't make goals you can't meet, and don't make excuses. You know, in Luke 14 verse 18 it says, and they, with one consent, began to make excuses. Excuse, excuse me. So, the Lord invites them to the dinner and they make excuses why they can't go, and you know what they're not going to get? Dinner. Right? At the end it says, for I say unto you that none of these men which were bidden shall taste of my supper. I'm inviting you to dinner. No, I can't make it. I got milk in the fridge, or whatever it is, your excuse is. You can make excuses for anything if you have goals and you're trying to make them, don't make excuses for why you didn't do it. Just like own it and move on from that. But also, don't make goals you can't meet and say them to other people. Because nothing's more embarrassing than saying, I'm going to do this! You'll watch! Hey, I'm going to make an announcement at the church to say I'm going to read my Bible in 30 days or whatever. It's like, no, that's a dumb thing to do because when you fail or if you fail you're going to look like an idiot. You're going to look like somebody, and you're going to get mocked for it, right? I'll just read these verses real quick. So, when it talks about counting the cost in Luke 14, it says, Don't start a building project and not be able to finish it unless you want to get mocked by your friends. That's what's going to happen. You're going to get mocked. It says, Hey, take heed lest you fall. Don't just sit there and brag about how great you are spiritually and then two years from now you're not even in church. Because what are they going to say? This man began to build and was not able to finish. We need to finish. So don't make excuses and don't go blasting your mouth off and being prideful about the accomplishments that you've already done because what's the important thing? What did Paul say? I've finished my course. I've kept the faith. He fought a good fight. He did his best and in the end he accomplished his goals and so don't make excuses and don't say that you're going to do things that you can't do. So, the pizza's here. I've got a few more minutes and then we'll be done here. But, obviously I always preach this. Prayer time, Bible reading, soul winning, church attendance. Those are your four balancers of having those are the best things you can put your umbrella on is how do I become a perfect Christian? Well, if you have all four of those things in balance you're going to be doing pretty good. So how is your church attendance? Is it spotty? Is it shoddy? Is it weak? Or are you actually trying your best to come to every church service that you can? How is your Bible reading? Are you reading the Bible every day? The benchmark is morning and evening. The benchmark should be really, it doesn't say how many times you have to read the Bible in a year, but if you're reading morning and evening and you're putting some time into it, you're going to probably read the Bible cover to cover one time. I would say that's a benchmark. Coming to church three times a week, benchmark. Every time the doors are open, be here if you can be. Obviously there's people that live out of town. I'm not talking about you. I'm just talking about the people. It's funny when people out of town have a better attendance than the people that live in town. Uh oh. It's starting to get quiet. But, I mean, I have to be here. You should be here too. But, you have to be, you're the pastor or you have to be, you're a Christian. So, your Bible reading, your attendance. How about your prayer time? When was the last time you actually prayed to God? When was the last time you got on your knees and asked God for something? Or just thanked Him for something? How many times did Daniel pray a day? Three times a day. How many times are you praying a day? See the benchmarks? That's where we got to get better. So, and then, what was the last one? Soul winning. If you haven't gone soul winning since Moses was in short pants, then you're failing. Get out there and get some soul winning done. You should have the goal of at least going at least once a week. Okay? That should be a benchmark. Because the longer you're out of it, the more love you're going to lose. You know how you get the first love back? Your love for Jesus? Go out and care about somebody else. Go out and see somebody else's plight. Go out and see other people that are sinking and going to hell. And then maybe you'll get your love back for God and your goal to be more spiritual will be, will happen for you. You get back, if you lost your first love, Jesus should be your first love. If you lost your first love, then go do the first works. Okay? So, and if you can't do it, you know when it's easy, how are you going to do it when it's hard? When the tribulation's here? You all believe that we're going to go through tribulation? How are you going to come to church? You don't even come to church when it's easy and nobody's trying to stop you, but then I'm going to be there every service for the tribulation. No, you won't. You probably will hide under the blankie. Whatever you're going to do. Don't be weak. You know, don't make excuses. Let's just get better. Right? And so, if you can't run with footmen, how are you going to contend with the horses? Oh, I'm going to race a horse this year! I'm going to beat this horse! And you can't even beat like, anybody in our church. The toddlers are running faster than you because they've been practicing. You know? So, you know, obviously, I just want, this sermon was designed to help us to meet goals. Alright? To help us to attain goals in our lives. And, you know, are you going to be perfect? Probably not, but you know, hopefully you got some things in here that can help you out. Galatians 6, 9 says, We want to be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. The prize is, you know, going to be attained by us not being, getting weary and fainting in our Christian life. We want to be doing well and not doing, not fainting. So, I just want to read some stats, the state of the union, real quick and we'll be done, okay? You know, obviously we have goals that we set every year at our church. I don't have salvation goals necessarily, but I know it's been tough around here, but you know what? We've been trying to hit the whole city. There's a lot of middle class neighborhoods we've been hitting. So, you can probably imagine that we're not going to have as many salvations that we had when we had first started the church, when we're hitting all the most receptive areas and things like that. So, you know, but we had 302 salvations this year. I thought we were at 297 and my goal was to get 300, you know, yesterday, but I didn't realize that we'd already had some salvations earlier in the week. So, we had 302 salvations for our church and 5 baptisms. So, that's definitely a low for me. But, you know, we have multiple churches that we that are satellites of us. So, we have the church in Surrey, we have the church in Spokane, we have the church in England, and now we have the church in Winnipeg. So, I just wanted to tell you kind of what they did. In Surrey, they had 262 salvations and 4 baptisms. In Spokane, they had 108 salvations and 1 baptism. In England, they had 877 salvations and 87 baptisms. I think Ian baptized 62 people in a day. So, England's, yeah, Winnipeg, sorry, 62 salvations for their year. So, but anyway, so, I think that's 97 total baptisms and 1549 plus 62, whatever that is, because I didn't know until this morning I forgot to add it in here. But anyway, over 1600 salvations and 97 baptisms. So, that's good. Is that 1611? See? And we're having a King James conference this year. How did that happen? I'm just kidding. But, you know, we did accomplish some things this year. You know, we did start that other church in Winnipeg, and, you know, we lost a building, but we gained a building in Spokane. We did a lot of things. We did a really successful trip in Detroit, and a lot of people saved. Now, Yakima wasn't exactly as successful as I wanted it to be, but we had a lot of fun. Ate some good food and had some good fellowship. But, you know, obviously I want our church to do greater works than we did last year. And that might be pretty easy to achieve that goal. But what are some of the goals that I have this year? Just really quickly go through this. I want to go back to Detroit. That's part of the plan. And so that's going to be in April. In May we have a conference, our first conference that we're going to be holding. We have an all-star lineup. It's going to be the King James Conference. That's in May. And we've got, of course, the youth rally in Sacramento. I'm planning on ordaining brother Ian as the pastor of the church over there in England. And, God willing, we're going to start a church in Belfast soon. Belfast, Ireland. And brother Ian's going to kind of head up leading that. And I'm going to do a soul winning seminar. I'm going to revamp all of our soul winning, hopefully with this new app. And if it doesn't work with that, maybe we'll just have to pay someone to design an app that works for us. But I think we might overload this app that we're trying to look into. But, anyway, I want our soul winning to be more organized. The better organized it is, the more efficient we can be. And we're going to take part in a soul winning marathon that is going to be like a nationwide marathon. It's not the mega marathon, but it is something similar to that. I'll have more details about that later on. And then we're going to do a grand opening launch for the Church of Winnipeg in June. And guest preachers galore. We have Pastor Dave Burzins coming, Pastor Mejia, Pastor Shelley, Pastor Anderson, Pastor Roger Jimenez, Pastor Joe Jones, Pastor Jared Pazarski is going to be preaching in Spokane. And Pastor Anderson again is going to be preaching in Spokane and in Vancouver again in July because he's doing another tour. So the tour is going to be the opposite direction. He's going to start on the east and end in the west. And so that means he's going to preach twice at our church this year. So lots of great stuff to look forward to in this new year. And I'm trying to have Pastor Enrique Reyes come back and see us. We have the Red Hot Preaching Conference, of course. And Pastor Paul Warringa, we've been kind of helping support them. He's over in Africa and he's going to make a trip over this way and we're hopefully going to be able to get him for a little bit in October. And so, you know, I'm hoping that this is the best year yet for Sure Foundation Baptist Church. That's my goal. That's the goals that I have is that our church would do the best and greatest works and that we'd be more spiritual this year than we are next year. And do many different things. Obviously, I want to go to Samoa. I want to go back to the islands at some point. I want to take a trip to Alaska. And this isn't this year. It's probably a year or two from now. But I definitely would like to go to Samoa and Tahiti and everybody's like, Tahiti? Oh, you're going to be suffering from Jesus over there. Well, we need people to speak French before we can go there. So, anyway, a trip to Alaska for soul winning at the uttermost end of civilization. I want to go to the most northern place we can. So what's the name of that town? Barrow? Barrow. Okay. He's corrected me. See that? Correcting his pastor. But anyway, thank you brother. I'm just kidding. I want more men trained for the ministry. I want more baptisms. I want to get more salvation. But obviously, God has to be in the details. God has to be the one that blesses our church. And that's my prayer for this year is that God blesses our church tremendously and that all the things that we are planning on doing come to pass. I want to go to Salem. I want to go to Eugene. I want to go to Longview. I want to go to Kelso and do some small town. Well, they're not really small, but smaller town soul winnings. And I'm just going to read one last verse and we're done. Jeremiah 29.11 says, For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. So if our heart is right with God, God is going to hearken to us and the things that we're trying to achieve. So achieve your goals this year and help this church have the best year that it ever had by being the most complete Christian you can possibly be. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, so much for this great church. And, Lord, I pray that this new year would be a great year for our church. Lord, I pray that every single person here would be more spiritual than they were last year. Lord, help us to achieve our goals. Help us to achieve the goals that we have set for our church. Help us to achieve our personal spiritual goals. And, Lord, even the things that will help our body in this life. Help us to learn more. Help us to be better at our jobs. And, Lord, help us to be balanced and complete, perfect Christians. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Oh, and bless the food. In Jesus' name, amen. I prayed with my eyes open. Is that a sin? Anyway. Follow on page 196. Follow on. So now on the first. Down in the valley with my Savior I will go Where the flowers are blooming and the sweet waters flow Everywhere He leads me I will follow, follow on. Walking in His footsteps till the valley runs. Follow, follow I will follow Jesus. Anywhere, everywhere I will follow on. Follow, follow I will follow Jesus. Everywhere He leads me I will follow on. Down in the valley with my Savior I will go Where the storms are sweeping and the dark waters flow. With His hand to lead me I will never, never fear. Danger cannot find me and my Lord is near. Follow, follow I will follow Jesus. Anywhere, everywhere I will follow on. Follow, follow I will follow Jesus. Everywhere He leads me I will follow on. Down in the valley or upon the mountain sea. Close beside my Savior what my soul ever gave. He will lead me safely in the path that He has gone. Up to where they gather on the hills of God. Follow, follow I will follow Jesus. Anywhere, everywhere I will follow on. Follow, follow I will follow Jesus. Everywhere He leads me I will follow on. Amen. Great singing. Let's enjoy some pizza. Brother Bill, would you bless the food and dismiss us? Amen.