There's a road that runs around the city of London. It's called the M25. It's a ring road like you'd find in any major city in the United States. There is something strange that happens on that road daily. Sometimes this phenomenon takes place two and three times in a day. What happens is the traffic is moving about 70 miles an hour. Over there, we drive between 70 and 80 miles an hour all the time. And you really don't drive at that speed. You aim. And you hope the person that's behind you is not aiming at you. And if you want a lesson on to be sure you're safe, just drive on that road. And anyhow, the traffic all at once starts to slow down. and it stops. Now, the British have been studying this problem for years. They don't know why it happens, but it occurs. I can tell you that I've been two miles from the airport getting ready to travel into Eastern Europe, and this has happened, and I've sat on the motorway, and I watched my airplane take off. And they don't know why it happens, but it occurs. Now, I believe that in the Christian life, this same kind of thing happens. You're motoring down the road. You're doing everything you're supposed to do. Only once you start slowing down. You really aren't into any type of sin. You're really not doing anything that really is grossly wrong. But you slow down. And then if you're not careful, you stop. Now, Paul, in our text today, was concerned about running the Christian race. And really, when Paul describes to us the Christian race, he often describes it using athletic terms. I want to share with you four things today that'll keep you from slowing down, that'll keep you from stopping. It's a tragedy that over in England, many of the people that I visited, and I must admit a fair share of them that claim to be born again Christians come to England backslidden. Many of them are no longer serving God long before they get to us. And the tragedy is many of them at one time in their life were very active. They're no longer active for God. And if you're not careful, this same thing will happen to you. So what do we do? How do we overcome this? Here's the first thing, be dissatisfied. Paul never in his life got to the point to where he was satisfied with his Christian growth. Notice carefully what the Apostle Paul said in verse number 12. The first part of that verse, he said, Not as though I had already attained or were already perfect. And by the way, perfect here, if you know anything about Greek, and I know very little about it, but I know this much, that word means mature. And Paul said this, Listen, after everything I've done for God, I'm still not mature. Now you think about this. Here is a man that God used greatly in the New Testament. And after all the things he'd done for God, he said, listen, he said, I'm not perfect yet. I haven't reached that place. And please listen to me. When you get satisfied, you're taking the first step towards backsliding. Whenever you look in the mirror and you say, how great I am, you're in trouble. And I can see it in Christians. And I can see where they get to the point where they're just pleased to be where they're at. Some of you probably are already there. You probably don't have a very difficult time working your way through school and everything's going well, and you're just kind of satisfied. I told my son when he left for college, I said, Troy, I said, when you go to college, never put yourself in a position just to get by. You need to study. You need to strive. You see, what happens is we get into a box and I call it our comfort zone. And if we're not careful, that's where we live and die. But you see, God operates outside the comfort zone. So Paul would never allow himself to be satisfied. He remained dissatisfied with his growth. And probably another thing that's very important here is that he always stayed behind Christ. Notice what your Bible says in verse number 12. He says, But I follow after. And you ought to underline that word after. Paul never got in front of Jesus. He says this, but I follow after that I may be apprehended for that which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. You know, years ago when I went over to England, I went in the ministry a strange way. But my whole life has been kind of strange. I like strange things. And you see, when I took over the church, we just had a little chapel. It used to belong to the Church of England. We had about 80 some people. And I had retired out of the military medically with a bad hip. And I went over there and I left England really, and I was called back to take the church. And within one year, my whole church rotated. In the military, you only keep them 36 months. So you better stay on the ball. If you ever slow down, you'll lose your ministry. And I remember thinking, I want a big church. I want everybody to come. The longer you're in the ministry, the more you reevaluate that thought. And can I tell you, if I would have known then what I know now with God, what it's going to do in my life, I'd have wrecked it. I'd have destroyed it. I mean, we now have properties over 1.5 million pounds. We're building another two story building. We've got land. The Lord is blessed. But if I would have known that that was going to take place, I would have got in trouble. And here's what I'm trying to get you to see. Stay behind Jesus. Let him go before you. Now, he is the example to follow. Listen to what it says in 1 Peter 2 21. He says, for even here to recall, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example. I listen to this, that we should follow his steps. Can I suggest something to you today? I live outside the United States some 20 years. And I come back once or twice a year. Sometimes through the course of the year, we have people travel into Europe and on into Eastern Europe. And this is what I'm seeing today in America. And I say this to try and help you. I see men following men. And I see Christians as they come in, they sort of blow their own horn to who they're following. And often I'm asked this question, in whose camp are you? I'm in Jesus's camp. And they say, whose boy are you? I'm Jesus' boy. Please listen to me. The only one that you ought to be following is Jesus Christ. And if you decide to follow this movement or that movement or whatever it is, you're going to get derailed. I have them in our church all the time. So Paul said, listen, I want to run this race. I don't want to stop, so I am never going to allow myself to become satisfied. Here's the second thought. Be devoted. You look at verse 13, the first part of that verse, Paul says this, but this one thing I do. He said, listen, I've got commitment in my life. And if you're not devoted to Christianity, the chances are that you're going to get derailed somewhere along the line. Somewhere along the line, something is going to catch your attention that's going to divert your devotion to that whatever it may be. You've got to settle it once and for all that I am devoted to Jesus Christ. And nothing can change that devotion. You see, the secret to running the Christian race is to never allow yourself to become double-minded. It's not to allow yourself to get caught between Jesus and the world, Jesus and your career, Jesus and many other things. James said this, A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. And I've met him. Boy, have I met him. They're here, they're there, they're everywhere. And one day they're thinking this way, the next day they're thinking that way. Let me suggest something to you young preacher boys here today. God doesn't dangle what he wants for you off in some cloud. If you ask God, he'll tell you. You don't have to hunt behind bushes and and peek here and there. But the problem today is many are not devoted. Statistically, the last statistic that I read on this, the average Christian serves no more than three and one half years consecutively in a ministry. Something's wrong. Something's wrong. You know what 9-11 showed me? It showed me that we're really not as dedicated as we think. Listen, if we have to run to the church house, something is wrong. We should have been in the church house. Our church filled up with a bunch of backsliders. And you know what I preached on? Backsliding. You know what I preach on Christmas? Backsliding. You know what I preach on Easter? About Easter lilies. When I get them, listen, I'm going to tell them. Now let me ask you, are you devoted today? Really, are you really devoted to your studies right now? Or maybe you just borrow notes from everybody else. Maybe you're the kind of person that says, hey, what was on the quiz? Can I tell you you'll never succeed if that's your plan in life? If you're not going to learn it for yourself, you're never going to learn a thing. You got to be devoted. You see, today, we're willing to stand for everything but Jesus. Paul was devoted. He always remained dissatisfied, he always remained devoted. Here's the third thing today. He was directional. You've got to be directional. Paul kept moving forward. In verse 13, he says this, "...and reaching forth unto those things which are before me." Paul said, listen, I am going to make progress. Now, I believe that in Christianity, you reach the point to where you get stagnant. I believe it's just part of the Christian life. And what you have to do is, you have to decide that you're going to move, and I'm careful when I say this, to the next level. You've got to say to yourself that I am going to move forward. Roy Rogers Sr. said this years ago. He said you can be on the right track, but if you stand still, eventually you get run over. You've got to keep going. You've got to keep studying. Listen, if you think when you're done with college, you're done studying, hello! Smell the coffee, you've just begun. Serving Christ is lifelong study. It's lifelong devotion. I can show you pastors who are preaching that aren't studying because you can see it in their messages. As a matter of fact, the easy thing to do now is get them off the Internet. There's a church up the road from us in England. And this particular pastor got into the purpose-driven church. And he stood up in his church just two weeks ago. Brother Joel, I tell you, this is where Joel go. He disappeared. What are you doing in there with my wife? No, I'm only kidding you. Listen to this. Listen to this. This is a Baptist church in England. Is what the guy said, don't bring a Bible to church any longer. That's what he said. Every Saturday morning, he gets on the Internet, told his church. gets his message off the internet from the purpose-driven church. Can I tell you what's the problem we're having today? Our methodology is eliminating the Holy Spirit. Our methodology is getting to the point that we have to do everything this way. And I believe it was D.L. Moody said, if the Holy Spirit ever moved out of the church, most churches wouldn't know it. You be careful when you decide to make methodology the driving force of your church. And you better define what your goals are. You see, you must stay directional. You must keep moving forward. I'm going to suggest something to you today. I do this in my own life. I'm not sure that this will work for you. I got so tired of all the books on the market. I decided to do something. I studied the early church in England, especially the 1800s, 1600s, 1800s. I'm just fascinated with the revivals, the Welsh revivals and things, and the writers of that time. For many years, I would read after many of the contemporary folks that are around today or those who've just died. And I decided to do something because I could not agree with many of them. I decided to read after people that had two things in their favor. Remember when they had a walk with God, they wrote a book, and number two, the book is still on the market today because it's standing the test of time. And so what I decided to do is I had decided to start reading after the Puritans. And I've started reading many of the things of Spurgeon. I'm going to tell you right now, I'm not a Calvinist, so don't come ask me. I fight them guys all day long. What I've decided is I really want to learn from people who have a proven track record. And if you're going to follow the contemporary movement of today, when that thing gets derailed, so are you. So you have to keep moving forward, but you've got to be careful the direction in which you take. Listen, Paul set some goals for his life. Look at verse 14. This is what he says. He said this. I press toward the mark. And by the way, that word mark means goal. He says, I press towards the mark for the prize of a high calling of God in Christ Jesus. He said, listen, that's my goal in life. And by the way, if you don't aim at anything, you're not going to hit a thing. You better set some goals for your life. You better determine early on what you want to be if the Lord tarries and you live to be 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 years old. You better decide that this is where I'm headed. Now, the only way you can do that is to have an honest evaluation of your life. And let me tell you where that starts. That starts in your prayer life. And it starts something like this. God, I don't think I've ever prayed this way before, but God, I cheat in school. God, I don't study. God, I rob you of the time I ought to spend in the Bible. God, you know my heart. I want everything, but I don't want to put the effort into it. God, I'm pretty pathetic. I don't pray for what I ought to pray. I'm selfish. You want to start setting some goals, start there. And you start saying, God. I'm a facade. Because when you leave this honeycomb of a place, your facade will give you away. When you got to go out there and minister to real people with real problems, you better have the real goods. Let me tell you something, on 9-11, I had the biggest wake up in my life. I knew. Three conflicts, I pastored a military, I knew. But I want to tell you something, when I started seeing families come to church with a husband missing, some of them didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to their kids. You better have some goods because they're coming looking for help. I'm not bragging, I'm just telling you, in our church, we've got a two-star general. Third Air Force commander. He's in charge of all the assets that go up every day over Afghanistan. That man showed up to church. You better have something to tell him. Starts with a prayer life. I would suggest in a crowd this large, some of you are not even praying the way you ought to. You don't know God because you haven't been real with Him. He's personal. He's not abstract. He's real. He's alive. Some of you haven't seen him in a long time because all you see is yourself. Paul said, I'm going to set some goals for my life. I'm going to achieve something in this life. I don't know about this area, and I say this not to criticize. Please listen to me. I don't want to criticize. Trinity Baptist College in Jacksonville. My son goes there. He's been there for four years. There's something I've noticed in the five, six years that I've gone there. Everywhere you go in Jacksonville, there's a graduate of Trinity Baptist College. I've been to the preacher school. I've been in the missions program. And why are you selling pots and pans at Kmart? What's happened? We're hurting. I can take you to places in Europe alone that there's not a church for hundreds of miles. Kmart has them all. Walmart. You see, there's no gold. You see, when we talk about missions, we're talking about the real thing here. Do you pray that way? You see, if you're not serious with God while you're training now, you are not going to make it. You've got to change now. That's why you're in Bible college. Now listen, Paul removes some hindrances from his life. Look carefully what he says. He says, forgetting those things which are behind, verse 13. Here's what he said. There are some things in my life I'm going to get rid of. I'm just going to let them things behind me. Listen, I don't know what kind of upbringing you had, but if you're saved, some of that you gotta let go. I spent 18 years in a children's home. I have no parents. And I meet people all the time, and all they do is they blame everybody else. And all they do is they moan about their mother and their father and their upbringing. Listen, if you're a new creature in Christ, forget those things. Start moving forward. Don't live in yesterday. You can't get it back. As a matter of fact, we're not even promised tomorrow. We've got to live the here and now. And some just hold on and hold on. I know what many young people have problems with because for 15 years I've counseled them in my office. And the majority of them just can't let the past go. They're holding on for pity, for out of laziness. Well, my mommy and daddy didn't teach me to cook. Well, buy a cookbook. Man, I'm going to tell you, grow up. And buddy, the way I'm preaching to you is the way I preach every day. I'm just telling you. And well, you know, I'm just a poor boy. Oh, be quiet. You know, you can pay a GI a million bucks a month and you'd still be poor. Some of you, too. Can I tell you, money's not everything. Go to Eastern Europe. Have you got some goals for your life? Have you put some things behind you? Are you still holding on to them? Here's a last thought. You must be disciplined. You must be disciplined. Now there's some rules we have to follow. Not man-made rules, but the rules of the Bible. Notice what he says in verse 16. He says, let us walk by the same rule. Let us mind the same thing. Can I tell you, when I travel into Eastern Europe, and sometimes I've traveled up into villages, I mean out in the middle of nowhere. Let me tell you how we start a church over there when we go over there sometimes. We'll go out in the middle of nowhere and we'll take two trash lids and just start pounding them together. And they're curious like anybody else that's come out. I've preached in fields. And I've preached where there's no buildings. Listen, we took our choir over there and they started singing under an apple tree and the apple started falling on their heads one day. I mean, everything happens when you go out there trying to do something like that for the Lord. And and what I noticed is when when you get around the right people, they're following the same rule. Hey, can I tell you something? God didn't ask your advice on the Bible. And either you're doing one or two things today, either you're debating the Bible, or you're living the Bible. And if you're living the Bible, you don't have time to debate it. Please don't put a question mark where God has put a period. And the problem today is we have too many theologians. I call them, over there in England, I call them barracks preachers. They know the answer to everything, but do nothing. You see, this Bible on your lap today will do you no good if you don't live it. Because God will not reveal Himself to you any other way than by following the rule. For those of you in the military... How many military people do we have here today? Alright, let me ask you a question. How many Air Force? Not too bad. Army? How about the Marine Corps? We pray for you guys. God knows you need help. No. We always pick on the Marine Corps, but when I go around a place where there's Marines, they get us. So I have to give that shot to them. Here's the thing. In the military, if you're in any type of skilled career, I worked with airplanes. You've got to follow the rule book to find the problem. You've got to follow the tech orders. Folks, it's the same way in your life today. It seems today that what we have are gurus. Oh, I got a problem. Let me call the guru. Let me get on the blower and see what they got. Listen, get in the book. That's what you need to do is get in the book. And by the way, God will show you quicker in the book than anywhere else. And so what you've got to do is you've got to discipline yourself. You've got to follow the Bible. Too many today are not following the Bible. 2 Timothy 2.5 says this, and he says, If a man also strive for the mastery, yet he is not crowned, except he strive lawfully. You see, you can't get to a shortcut to get to God. We all go in the same direction. And so you got to know the book. I tell our people all the time, listen, don't come to church without a Bible. Bring a Bible. It seems more and more people are coming to church and they're just believing what the preacher's saying. Listen, I put Jacob in the ark already and I've had Noah all over the place. And so will you. You'll get to going along and things will come out of your mouth and you'll say, hey, hold up, but you don't get it back. And so bring a Bible and listen to this. Don't be afraid to write in it. I had a British couple used to come to their church and I used to say, now underline this in your Bible or write a little note here. Do that, it's holy. I wanted to turn their head around and see if they had holes in their heads. Now I believe the Bible from cover to cover. Listen, I'm going to show you how narrow minded I am. This narrow right there. That's how narrow I am. Don't be afraid to write in that thing. Listen, I see people open it up and they fold it over and they put it in the box. Good night, read the thing. It won't bite. And by the way, a worn out Bible is a sign of a Christian who's not worn out. Here's the last thing on this. In order to be disciplined, you must be teachable. You've got to be teachable. I I I'm telling you I run into Christians all the time that are not teachable The moment that you think you know, everything is just a moment. You know, nothing. I Remember some years ago traveling over to Warsaw Poland and I was Speaking in churches every night. I was going down towards the Czech border And I had a birdie. I mean, um, I had a Polish pastor with me Jan Twinsky Good brother in the Lord, we've supported him for years. He said he led these two college boys to the Lord down at the Czech border a couple of years ago. And so these fellas got excited for the Lord. They had no Bibles. It was during the communist days. And so they rented a movie theater. And they put a sign out front. They made a sign that said, come here, Jesus preached. And to be honest with you, they didn't expect anybody to come. Well, they filled up this movie theater with about 500 people. And so this one boy gets up and he said, my friend here is going to preach to you. Now, that's a real good deal. You know, even you have a Bible. And so he stood up and this is what he said. He said, there's only one verse I know, John 3, 16. And he repeated that verse. He repeated that verse. He repeated that verse. And sooner or later, people just start getting up out of their seats. And they got saved. You see, if you believe it, it works. The same pastor told me a story. He had a friend of his that was on his way into what was then called Kiev. And he was trying to witness to a Russian scientist. And he decided as they headed into the terminal that he was going to leave his Bible lay at his coach here in the coach booth, and he laid his Bible down. He thought maybe the atheists would read it. And so he went to the bathroom. When he came back, he noticed the Bible was gone. And so he said, what happened to my Bible? He said, I'll tell you what happened to your Bible. If you think this is the way to live and all that, he said, I threw it out the window. He said, now go live for Jesus. And so this man made his way home and about two months later, There was a knock on his door. Thought it was the secret police. And a man said, Are you such and such? He said, he said, Well, how do you know me? He said, Is this your Bible? He said, Oh, this is my Bible. He said, Where did you find it? He said, Well, the strangest thing happened. He said, I was working in the train yard and it hit me in the back of the head when the train went by. And he. Yeah. That's what it did. He said it opened up the Romans and he read it. Let me tell you what he did. He got saved at the train tracks. And he said, well, he said, well, why did you bring the Bible back? He said, because I've got a real problem with this book. He said, just about two towns over, I led everybody to Christ. I know, but I don't understand this thing about baptism. He said, would you come baptize us? God's word does not come back void. Just talked to a man that came out of Up above Romania, I can't think of the name of the state right now up there Say glad more you can say if there goes my notes. Go ahead the Ukraine Listen to this the Ukrainian people were buying They were buying The New Testament's off the black market to roll them up to make cigarettes out of And so the American missionary said this, he said, he said, listen, he said, I'll give you this Bible. Hey, thank you, brother. I appreciate that. Almost done anyhow. And he said, I'll give you this Bible. He said, I know what you're going to do. He said, but will you promise me something? Will you read every page of it before you roll it up in smoke? He said, you got a deal. He said on Sunday, he said he was in a church. He said, this man came to the back of the church. So he said, come on down. He said, listen, I said, I started, he said, I ripped out John the first chapter. He said, I read it, rolled it up and smoked it. He said, I pulled out John the second chapter, rolled it up and smoked it. He said, when I got to John 3, 16, I stopped. That man got saved. We hear stories like this and people come to church. Why? God's word is powerful. It works. And what you have to come to the point in your life is simply this, that you're going to have a teachable spirit. Now probably the greatest teacher that you'll ever have is found in verse 15. Notice what he says. In verse 15 he says this, Let us therefore as many as be perfect be thus minded, and in anything ye be otherwise minded, notice this, underline this, God shall reveal even this unto you. Paul said, listen, God will teach you. Can I tell you the greatest lessons I've learned in life have come from God? I've heard a lot of great preaching. I've seen a lot of things take place. But the greatest lessons that I have learned in life have been one-on-one with God. And by the way, a lot of those lessons you can't even tell somebody about. They don't come out in words. Let me ask you today. Who's teaching you? Who are you listening to? My son, his first year in college, he always used to go over to his fellow's room and he used to tell me, oh, this fellow here knows everything. I said, Troy, you better stop listening to him because you can only rise as high as he rises. You got to listen to God. Some of you here and you're not listening to God. You're listening to everybody else. The greatest people that ever walked the face of this earth are simply people who listen to God. Let's bow our heads and close our eyes. Just a moment, we're going to have an invitation here.