...travels as an evangelist the past four years
with his wife, Melissa.
I want to introduce to you the evangelist,
Greg Block.
God bless you, brother Greg.
Thank you for coming.
If you have your Bible tonight, you can
turn to the book of Philippians, chapter number
3, and let me say, it would be
an understatement to say that this is a
blessing, this is a great honor and a
great privilege for me to be able to
come back to my church and my school
and preach the unsearchable riches of Christ.
What a blessing that is.
I'd like you to all stand, please, out
of respect for the Word of God.
As you follow along with your heart and
mind, as I read Philippians, chapter number 3,
and we're going to begin in verse number
7.
I had a phone call tonight before we
came from one of the seniors.
He said, keep it short, simple, and to
the point.
So that's what I'm going to do tonight.
I'm reminded of a young man who went
to school.
He came back home one day from Sunday
school, and his mother said, Son, do you
remember what you learned?
And he said, Yes, I do.
He said, As a matter of fact, we
learned about Moses, the great military commander.
And one day they came to the Red
Sea and said the Egyptians are after them.
And so Moses began to pray, and God
sent out the army and the navy, the
marines and the air force, and just about
everything you can imagine.
And all the artillery said they got the
land-to-sea bridge builders, said they brought
in the helicopters and they brought in the
tanks, they brought in all these things, and
said they began to build the bridge longer
and longer and longer, and eventually it spanned
miles and miles all the way across the
Red Sea.
And said they got to the other side,
and before they'd completed it, they'd put some
dynamite on the bottom of it so when
the Egyptians came across, it would detonate and
explode and throw all the Egyptians down to
the bottom of the Red Sea.
And said, sure enough, they got over there.
Moses got down and began to pray and
said, God, let the detonators go off.
He pushed the big red button, and kaplooey,
everybody fell into the Red Sea.
And his mother looked at him and said,
Junior, now is that really what you learned
in Sunday school?
He said, no, ma'am, but if you
won't believe a fact like that, you certainly
won't believe the way they told me, that's
for sure.
Amen.
And so I hope you young people never
forget what you've learned the past few years
that you've been in school.
Philippians chapter number 3, we begin our reading
in verse number 7.
The apostle Paul said, But what things were
gained to me, those I counted lost for
Christ.
Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but
lost for the excellency of the knowledge of
Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have
suffered the loss of all things, and do
counten but dung that I may win Christ.
And be found in him, not having mine
own 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
sufferings, being made conformable unto his death, if
by any means I may 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 am I 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 to
those things which are before, I press toward
the mark for the prize of the high
calling of God in Christ Jesus.
I'm preaching tonight to the entire congregation, but
especially to these in the first few rows,
and I had a simple message entitled, Keep
Your Eyes on the Prize.
Thank you very much.
You may be seated.
Let's bow our heads and hearts and have
a simple word of prayer tonight.
Father, I pray very humbly, very honestly, that
you would help me tonight as I preach
the wonderful word of God.
And Lord, just as much, if not more,
I pray that you would help these as
they listen.
Use the word of God as a great
hammer and as a great fire tonight, we
pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
In the four chapters of the book of
Philippians, the Apostle Paul is writing and telling
the church at Philippi how they can experience
joy.
Seventeen times the word joy or rejoice is
used in just these four short chapters.
As a matter of fact, a verse that
we've quoted many times.
Philippians chapter 4, verse number 4 of the
Bible says, Rejoice in the Lord always, and
again I say rejoice.
But in chapter number 3, the Apostle Paul
begins to tell you and I as God's
people how we can truly have joy in
our life.
Very simple outline tonight, if you have your
Bible open.
I want you to look please, if you
would, at verse number 4 of Philippians chapter
number 3.
I want you to see first of all
tonight what I call Paul's past.
Paul's past.
Philippians chapter 3 and verse 4.
Paul said, 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.
Now here's the reason.
Circumcised the eighth day of the stock of
Israel, of the triumph of Benjamin, and Hebrew
of the Hebrews, as touching the law of
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 lost for Christ.
The Apostle Paul begins to reminisce about his
past.
Now one thing that the Apostle Paul never
did with his past was gloat in it.
He was never happy about what he used
to be.
He was never excited about the fact that
as a religious lost man that he always
persecuted the church.
But something that I noticed, how God used
the Apostle Paul greatly, probably one of the
greatest pastors, missionaries, evangelists, and authors, the greatest
Christian for that matter, that ever walked the
face of God's green earth.
Although he did not gloat in his past,
Paul never forgot where he came from.
As a matter of fact, he stood before
Herod.
He stood before Agrippa and some great magistrates
and presidents and men of high degree.
And he would stand before them and they
would say, All right, big boy, what's your
story?
And he'd say, Well, let me tell you
then.
I don't have much to say, but one
day I was on the road to Damascus
to go persecute the Christians.
And he said, All of a sudden a
light brighter than the new day sun smote
me off my horse and put me on
the ground and my face was in the
dirt.
And I heard a voice that said, Saul,
Saul, it's hard for thee to kick against
the pricks.
And he said, Lord, who art thou?
And the moment he got saved by the
grace of God, he said, Lord, what wilt
thou have me to do?
They thought that's an interesting story, but they
still put him in jail.
Two chapters later, Acts chapter number 16, he's
standing before another man.
And he comes and says, Listen, you're fixing
to go to jail.
Which, by the way, the Apostle Paul was
accustomed to jail because he spent most of
his writing time and most of his preaching
time there.
And they said, What's your story?
He said, You won't believe it, but let
me tell you this for a minute.
He said, One day I was on my
way to Damascus to persecute the Christians.
And he said, All of a sudden a
light brighter than the new day sun smote
me off my horse and down to the
ground and my face was in the dirt.
And he told everybody, everywhere he went, that
story of how God saved him and miraculously
delivered him on the road.
And he did not gloat in it, but
Paul never got over his past.
That's why he could say in 1 Corinthians
chapter number 15, I am what I am
by the grace of God.
And by the way, ladies and gentlemen, tall,
short, fat, skinny, hairy headed, bald headed, makes
no difference, red, yellow, black and white, we
all are what we are by the grace
of God.
And young people, don't you ever forget your
past.
It's not your own whims.
It's not your own smarts.
It's not what got you here today.
It is the glorious grace of almighty God.
And Paul never got over what God did
for him.
And we ought not to either.
But also, I don't only want you to
see Paul's past.
I'll tell you what kept Paul going.
Paul had a passion.
His passion is in verse number 10 of
Philippians chapter 3.
Would you look there?
He says very simply that I may know
him.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, we could preach a
long time, although we will not.
We could preach a long time on that
one little phrase that Paul said, I may
know him.
He did not say, I want to be
a fancy-dancy preacher.
He did not say, I want to be
known by the world.
He did not say, I want fame, fortune,
money, family, finances, or a paddle in the
back.
He said, I want one thing, and that
one thing is to know God like I've
never known him before.
The apostle Paul had one passion, and that
ought to be the passion of every blood
-bought, born-again child of God, especially you
young people as you embark on life's highway.
That passion ought to be able to know
God and have the power of God upon
your life and upon your Christian testimony.
If you watch TV, you're going to come
across a fellow one day by the name
of Bill Gates.
Now, I don't know any other way to
say this except for this, being as nice
as I can.
Bill Gates is the richest man in the
world, but I'm going to be honest with
you, Bill Gates is a geek, all right?
If you ever see Bill Gates on TV,
he's the most interesting case to study in
the world.
Here's a man that has trillions and billions
and googolillions of dollars, I mean, just money
flowing out.
He's having trouble giving a million dollars away
every single day.
He can't find enough organizations that want a
million dollars a day.
Now, friend, I got news for you.
I believe I can think of a few
things I could do with a million dollars,
and I think there's probably some organizations and
ministries I could think of.
But here's a man that gets up on
TV.
His hair looks like he hasn't combed it
in three weeks, like he just got out
of bed and has cowlicks all over it.
His tie is always way over here, and
he gets up and he's worth billions and
billions of dollars, and so I watched him
on CNN about six weeks ago.
A Korean fellow raised his hand at a
press conference in Washington, D.C., and said,
Mr. Gates, he said, what does it feel
like to be not the richest man in
America but to be the richest man in
the entire world, to have money in banks
all over the world?
He said, what is that like?
And Bill Gates, with his own mouth, got
close to the microphone and looked at that
man and said, Sir, this is just the
tip of the iceberg.
He said, I want more, more, more.
And you know what I think about Bill
Gates' statement?
And you know what I think about Bill
Gates' big bucks?
He can have every cotton-picking dime.
He can have it all.
I'm not interested in his money.
I'm interested in one thing, that I may
know him and the power of his resurrection
and have the power and glory of God
upon my life, and that should be your
passion as well.
And by the way, let me just remind
you and remind Mr. Bill Gates that the
Bible says in the book of Psalms, chapter
number 32, that riches make themselves wings and
fly away with the morning.
And bless God, you're not taking a dime
with you to heaven.
I'll promise you that right now.
And here was a man that had a
path that he never got over, and here
was a man that had a great passion
that I may know him.
But I want you to look now, please,
if you would, at verse number 12.
The Apostle Paul in verse number 12 says,
Not as though I had already attained.
Now, if Paul said he's not arrived, I
don't know why some of us many times
think that we have because we have not.
You see, here's a man that was the
greatest Christian, no doubt, that's ever lived, but
he said, Listen, I've not arrived.
He said, I'm not sinlessly perfect to that
point until I catch up glory dust on
the streets of gold.
I remember when I first started traveling evangelists
and my wife and I would pull in
and I'd hold a meeting and a dear
old sweet lady would come to me after
the service and she'd shake my hand and
she'd say, Brother Locke, she'd say that was
the best message I've ever heard in my
life and my head would swell up like
a watermelon I couldn't get in the minivan.
And I was so proud until one day
it dawned on me she told that to
the last 35 speakers that came through that
church as well.
You see, friends, we all put on our
socks the same way.
There's nobody arrived, there's nobody perfect, and there's
no peripheral supermans in the world.
Paul said he's not arrived.
And he goes on to say, Not as
though I had already attained.
Either were I already perfect, but I follow
after, if that I may apprehend that for
which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
Brethren, God's people, 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.
Number one, his past.
Number two, his passion that he may know
God.
But number three, I like what I call
his pressing.
The Apostle Paul said that he was a
man that pressed toward the mark.
The word press is the Greek word agonisima
from where we get our word agonized.
The Apostle Paul said, Listen, it cost me
something to serve God.
He was a man that was spit upon.
He was a man that in the book
of Acts, he was stoned outside the city
of Lystra.
He was left for dead.
He just picked up his Bible, dust the
blood off, fixed himself up a little bit,
got himself a few stitches, walked right back
in there and just kept on preaching the
word of God.
They could not get this man down.
I mean, they cursed him, they put him
in jail, they spit on him.
In Acts chapter 28, he floated around on
a board for a night and a day
in the deep like a toothpick in a
bathtub.
And he was a man that just could
not be put down.
He continually pressed, pressed, pressed, and he strained
to serve the Lord.
And some of you young people, I don't
know if you're going to go to a
secular school, I don't know if you're going
to go to a Bible college, but you're
going to get in a Bible college and
you're going to get yourself some mealy mouth
job flipping hamburgers this, that and the other,
and you're going to get discouraged and you're
going to run out of money and you're
going to seem like the heavens are brass
and you've been praying for money and it's
not coming down your school bill and you're
thinking to yourself, I want my mama back,
I want my daddy back.
You say, well, that won't happen to me.
You just wait till you get to college,
you'll find out that it will.
And you're laying there in that lonely bed
and you're miles and miles and centuries away
from home and you think to yourself, man,
I've just got to go home, I've just
got to call mama, I don't care if
I get a thousand demerits, get me kicked
out of here, let me say to you,
just keep on pressing, just keep on fighting,
just keep on straining, just keep on going
because God will use those that sweat for
His glory.
Can I announce to you tonight that we
have it real easy when it comes to
serving God in America, but also may I
announce to you that it may not always
be this easy.
And I think, my dear friend, that we
will press then if we are pressing now.
I read an article when I was in
Bible college whenever the Olympics came to Atlanta,
Georgia.
I mean, hotels were filling up everywhere and
I believe it was the 100-meter dash.
I'm not sure, don't quote me on that.
But I was reading and it had this
article about these ladies that were running in
this 100-meter dash and I looked at
the front cover and I can't remember the
young lady so we'll call her John Doe
or so-and-so, all right?
And so I remember looking at the front
cover and there were three ladies all side
by side and they had the finish line
all going across their stomachs and it looked
like they were all going across at the
same time.
All of their hands were behind them, they
were on their tiptoes, their necks were outstretched
like a bunch of giraffes and I mean
they were pressing and they were straining and
they were doing their dead-level best to
get across that line.
And you know what the caption on the
front page of the Atlanta Times was at
the bottom of that picture of that race?
It said, so-and-so wins by an
eyelash.
And some of you ladies say, hey, thank
God for Maybelline, huh?
So the truth of the matter is, here's
some people, every one of them were straining,
every one of them were pressing, I mean
they were sweating to get across that line
but only one of them won.
You say, yeah, but she only won by
an eyelash.
Doesn't make any difference, she still won.
And here was a picture in the secular
field of people that were straining, of people
that were agonizing, people that had disciplined themselves
to press toward the march.
And friend, let me say tonight, we need
some pressers.
We need some people that are willing to
sweat and that are willing to strain.
But if you would look at verse number
14, we'll be through it in just a
moment.
The Bible says in verse 14, Paul did
I press toward the march for the want,
the prize of the high calling of God
in Christ Jesus.
You got it?
Lastly, we see what I call Paul's prize.
Paul did not serve God for what he
could get out of it.
Let me tell you what Paul served God
for.
He said in 2 Timothy chapter 4 and
verse number 1, I charge you therefore before
God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge
both the quick and the dead as his
appearing, preach the word, talking to young Timothy.
Preach the word, be in season, out of
season, reproof and rebuke of all longsuffering and
doctrine.
For the time will come, and by the
way, already has come.
For the time will come when they will
not endure sound doctrine, but heed to themselves
teachers having itching ears, and shall turn their
hearts away from the truth, and shall be
turned unto fables, but watch not all things.
Endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist.
Make full proof of thy ministry, for I
am now ready to be offered, and the
time of my departure is at hand.
I have fought a good fight.
I have kept the faith.
I have finished the course.
He says in verse number 10, henceforth, because
of this, 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 unto me only, but unto
them also, that love is appearing.
And the apostle Paul told young Timothy, hey,
listen, the Romans are about to take me
out.
They're going to put me on my knees
and put a potato sack over my head,
and they're going to chop my head off
via the guillotine, and down the palace steps
my head's going to roll.
He said, but that's all right, because God's
going to pick it up and put a
crown on it.
He said, Timothy, you just keep on preaching.
He said, you keep on sweating, and you
keep on straining.
He said, because it's not in vain.
1 Corinthians 15, 58, Bible says, Be steadfast,
unmovable, always abounding in the work of the
Lord.
Why?
For as much as you know that your
labor is not in vain in the Lord.
And Paul was working for the prize.
He never got distracted.
He never got to the place where he
was so discouraged that he dropped out of
the race.
But he continually ran, keeping his eyes focused
ahead of him, not to the left, not
to the right, not putting his hand to
the plow and turning back, but keeping his
eyes focused on the prize.
And so you say, all right, the reason
I should live for God then, or the
reason that Paul lived for God, is so
we can get a bunch of crowns one
day.
And everybody can look at us and say,
look at what great Christians we were.
No sirree bob, because you know what the
Bible says in Revelation chapter 5?
And they cast their crowns at the feet
of the Lamb and said, Thou art worthy,
he that was slain, redeemeth back to God
again out of every nation, out of every
kindred, out of every tongue, and out of
every people.
And Paul said, the reason I am striving
for a prize is not so I can
get it and you can look at Paul,
but so I can get it and you
can look at Jesus.
And friend, we need to sweat tonight.
We need to strain.
You young people need to get to the
place where you are working towards the prize
that in all things he might have the
preeminence.
That Mr. Mr. John the Baptist, the greatest
man that ever walked the face of God's
great earth.
Jesus said, the greatest man that ever came
forth of a woman.
He said in John 3.30, He must
increase and I must decrease.
And friend, there's a great prize.
There's a great need for people to stand
up and have a passion to know God.
Listen, I'm through.
There was a man in church history by
the name of Christmas Evans.
Christmas Evans was an evangelist.
He was a unique fella.
He weighed about 355 pounds.
He outlived three wives and had about 15
different children.
Here's a man that had a patch over
one of his eyes.
He had a broken shoulder most of his
life that doctors could not mend.
He was a man that was in and
out of pain and always in pain, but
yet he preached over 75,000 different gospel
sermons around the world.
On his death bed, his son came to
him and said, Father, I've got your diary
and I want to make one last entry
in your diary.
I'd like you to know what you'd like
to tell Christianity down through the years and
down through the centuries now that you're dying.
And he said simply these words.
He said goodbye and go on.
And young people, tonight at this graduation ceremony,
our hats spiritually are off to you.
And we say tonight to you, thank God
for all that you've done.
And tonight might I say to you goodbye,
but go on for the glory of God.
And Paul said, just keep pressing.