Live Like a Champion - Week 32 - First Baptist Church

Live Like a Champion – Week 32

Posted on Aug 8, 2021 by Jerry Ingalls in General, Live Like a Champion, Sermon Notes |

The Promise of Completion!

Last week at our “church in the park” service I introduced the promise of peace. That short message was so impactful that I’ve been asked to teach it in a fuller form this fall. People want to learn how God’s Word relates to their mental health. This message is another spiritual reality that facilitates your mental health. This entire series will help in this way.

If you want to live a victorious life, then learn to focus your mind on the promises of God—to trust in the character and activity of God! This is how we rest and have peace of mind!

The victory you have been given has a 100% guarantee; it will be brought to its fullness because God will persevere in you until you reach the intended finish line of your faith! This is your glorification, which is the fulness of your union with God. The process of completion in this life is your sanctification, which is the process of your ongoing transformation into a redeemed image bearer of God who represents Jesus better today than you did a year ago.

The invitation of God for you today is to learn to trust that God is at work to do what He says He will do. This is the “Promise of Completion” and our memory verse for this promise is Philippians 1:6:

“For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”

In other words, be convinced that your sanctification, which began at your justification, will be an ongoing process until the day of your glorification. This is your salvation.

Confidence is a determination to act! It is a conviction you have trained into your head and heart. When I was in the Army, I was convinced that my parachute would open after I stepped out of the airplane. So, even though I had normal human emotions about stepping out of a perfectly good airplane while it was in flight, I had the confidence to take the step!

Paul spoke of his confident resolve in Philippians 3:13-14, “Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

The confidence to act according to what you believe is a resolute commitment to take the next step in the process of being conformed to the image of Christ as a redeemed image bearer of God. Confidence has counted the cost, anticipated the sacrifices, and is submitted to running the marathon of life set before you—a long slow discipline in the same direction.

So often, our greatest ministry is found in our faithful and hopeful mindset through the painful process of everyday life. We stay the course because we are convinced that the prize is worth it. As Paul taught in Romans 8:18, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

As I have watched the Olympics this week, I often think of the sacrifices each of those athletes made to achieve that level of athletic success. Every one of them is a champion, even if they don’t act, sound, or look like it on the biggest stage of sport. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9:25,

“Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.”

To “perfect” is to complete, to accomplish the purpose, to bring to maturity, to bring to fullness, to receive the imperishable wreath on the day of Christ Jesus. God’s promise of completion teaches us that even if there are times you don’t act like a champion, you are still one. You don’t have to be perfect, that’s God’s job! Press on to the prize—take the next step—don’t quit!

When most people think they must be perfect, they shut down. We don’t have perfect lives, perfect bodies, or perfect attitudes. We don’t have perfect jobs, perfect marriages, or perfect children. Why? Because we are all human and we live in a broken world where there is sin and the effects of the fall upon every area of creation. Our lives are like I-70 or SR-3: well-traveled and in need of constant construction to repair the damage from the wear and tear of high mileage and bad weather.

Here’s the good news: We serve a perfect God who promises to bring us to completion as a part of His glorifying plan to brings all things under His rule in the New Heaven and New Earth. In fact, in this very process we are invited to partner with God in this perfecting work because God will use every pothole and storm to draw us and others closer to Him.

As Paul says in Philippians 2:12-13,

“So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

God invites us into partnership with Him, not to take over for Him. Just as you could not begin with Christ apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, you cannot be brought to maturity without the ministry of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 3:3). Paul confirms in 1 Corinthians 1:4-8,

I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you, so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Trust God and partner in the work He is doing—in and through you. God promises to not only complete His work in you, but to also provide for the work He has invited you to do with Him, every step of your race. Until you cross that finish line, trust Him to do what He promises to do.

(Tiffany shares her testimony and special music.)

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(This will become available this week.)

Live Like a Champion – Week 32