Title Slide

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Philippians 3:4b-14

It is an old story, but it bears retelling. A young stock broker was

opening his car when a large truck rumbled by. Before he realized what was
happening the truck ripped the door right off. “My Lexus,” he screamed,
“my beautiful new Lexus.”
A policeman who came on the scene chided the young stockbroker on
being so wrapped up in material things. “Forget about your Lexus,” said the
policeman, “can’t you see that the truck ripped off your left arm?”
The stockbroker looked down and screamed, “My Rolex, My
beautiful Rolex!”

Slide 2

An Air Force Colonel was in charge of a B-29 bomber that was hit
over Tokyo in World War II. The plane was a thousand miles from its base.
So, the colonel had the crew start throwing out everything which was not
essential, including ammunition and armor. The aircraft made it safely back
to base.
Imagine for a moment that your life is like that aircraft. You are about
to crash and burn if you do not lighten your load. You must jettison
everything that is not really important to you. Where would you begin?

Slide 3

St. Paul is in Rome under house arrest. And he is writing a letter to

friends in the church at Philippi, a church that he and Silas founded about ten
years earlier. Philippi held both fond and bitter memories for Paul. At
Philippi Paul and Silas were flogged and imprisoned. They succeeded in
starting a church, but at great cost to themselves.
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 Now it is ten years later. Paul is chained to a Roman guard day and
night. He does not know when the unpredictable Roman emperor Nero will
have him called out and put to death. And yet, Paul writes this joyful letter
to the Philippians. It is an amazing letter for a man who has experienced so
much opposition and hardship. It is a letter brimming with hope and
confidence. It also gives us insight into St. Paul’s heart and soul during this
critical time. I particularly draw your attention to verses 10-11.

Slide 4

Paul writes, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the
fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and
so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” (NIV)
What does St. Paul want more than anything else as he languishes
there in chains in Rome toward the end of his life? He wants to be like
Christ. He may be in chains, he may be executed at any moment, he may
never again get to visit his friends in the churches he has started, but one
passion fills his mind and heart. He wants to be like Jesus. “But one thing I
do . . .” he writes. This one thing consumed Paul and ultimately made him
the most influential man who ever lived, after Christ himself. “I want to
know Christ . . .”

Slide 5

Let me tell you how great Paul’s passion was for Christ. I mentioned
that a Roman soldier was chained to Paul day and night. These soldiers were
rotated on a regular basis, perhaps as often as every six hours. What do you
imagine Paul did with these hours of confinement? At least part of the time
he was talking to these young soldiers about their faith. We know this
because the book of Philippians ends with these words,

Slide 6

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“All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household.” (4:22)
Christians in Caesar’s household? Where did they come from? They came
from this man Paul’s irrepressible desire to share Christ.
Theologian Paul Tillich once said that whatever our ultimate concern
is, that is our God. Paul’s ultimate concern was to be like Jesus. What is
your greatest ultimate concern?

Slide 7

Several years ago, billionaire J. Paul Getty’s teenage grandson was

kidnaped and held for ransom. Getty refused to pay. The desperate kidnapers
finally sent Getty his grandson’s ear as a sign of their earnestness. He still
refused to pay but a fraction of the demand. The boy was finally released
after five months. Can you even imagine how terrifying this was? (1) I
believe we know what J. Paul Getty’s greatest priority was. It was not the
return of his grandson.
What is it that really matters to you? Your work? Your health?
Material possessions? Your family? If your plane was going down, what is
the last thing you would jettison?
One reason we are not as effective in our lives as we could be is that
we have never decided what is really important and focused on that one
thing.

Slide 8

Motivational speaker and author Zig Ziglar describes the typical

executive as one who spends his days at work thinking about being with his
family, and his time at home thinking about work: “No wonder he doesn’t
get anything done,” says Zig, “he’s always traveling!” (2)
♦
In one of Walt Kelly’s “Pogo” comic strips, Pogo is sitting on a log

¨♦Pogo was the title and central character of a long-running (1948-1975) daily comic strip
created by Walt Kelly and distributed by the Post-Hall Syndicate. Set in the Okefenokee
Swamp of the southeastern United States, the strip often engaged in social and political
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as his friend Rabbit runs by. Pogo asks where he is going in such a rush.
Rabbit says that he does not know, but he is responding to an emergency.
“What’s all the hurry if you don’t know where you are going?” Pogo asks.
“Man, that’s just it!” says Rabbit. “It’s when you don’t know where you’re
going that you gotta be in a hurry!” (3)
Do you know where you’re going? Do you have a clear-cut vision of
what a successful life would be for you? Have you cleared away all the
clutter in your life and focused on that which will really bring abundant life?
We know what mattered most to Paul. What is your ultimate concern? What
is your number one priority?
DO YOU HAVE A PURPOSE FOR LIFE? Rick Warren wrote that
wildly popular book, The Purpose-Driven Life. He must be on to something.
Millions of people bought his book. Could it be that most people have no
idea why they are on this earth?
Motivational books claim that success and fulfillment belong to those
who set and achieve their goals. Make a list of goals and then find a way to
achieve them--that’s the secret to happiness. But best-selling business
author Spencer Johnson disagrees with this theory.

Slide 9

In his book The One-Minute $ales Person, Johnson claims that true success
and fulfillment come from fulfilling your purpose in life. Once you’ve
discovered and stated your purpose, then you can choose goals that will
achieve that purpose. As Johnson writes, “The fastest way to achieve your
goals is to stay on purpose.” (4) He’s right. Do you have a purpose for your
life? The purpose-driven life is a life of meaning and vitality. When you find

satire through the adventures of its anthropomorphic funny animal characters.

Pogo combined both sophisticated wit and slapstick physical comedy in a heady mix of
allegory, Irish poetry, literary whimsy, puns and wordplay, lushly detailed artwork,
irresistible characters and broad burlesque humor. The same series of strips could be
enjoyed on different levels both by young children and by savvy adults. The strip earned
Kelly a Reuben Award in 1951.
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something magnificent to live for, it makes it much easier to live with a lot
of the headaches of life.

Slide 10

A few years ago, Robert Young was a successful businessman in

Seattle, WA. His main priorities were spending time with his new wife and
building up his fast-growing business. Then Young read a newspaper article
about extreme poverty among elderly Native Americans living on
reservations. Something about the story touched Robert Young. He called
the number listed in the paper to ask how he could help. Robert soon
enlisted in an “Adopt-a-Grandparent” program. He was matched with a 78-
year-old woman named Katherine Red Feather. Robert went to visit
Katherine. He was stunned by the poverty he saw all around him. Whole
families lived in broken-down cars. Plywood shacks passed for homes.
Many of the elderly people couldn’t afford basic necessities, much less
medicine. Robert decided to build his new “grandmother” a house. He
provided the materials; friends and neighbors on the reservation provided the
labor. In two weeks’ time, they had built Katherine Red Feather a new
home.
After this, Robert tried to return to his successful business, but his
heart wasn’t in it. He kept dreaming of helping other Native American
people build their own homes. Finally, Robert Young sold his business and
opened the Red Feather Development Group, an organization that designs
and builds low-cost housing on Native American reservations. (5)
Robert Young did this out of compassion for these desperately poor
people, but do you understand that he also did it for himself? He could not
go back to the old life of boredom and meaninglessness. Now he has a
purpose, something to get him out of bed in the morning.
If this group of people gathered here today is typical of most groups in
this country, there is at least one person who is desperately unhappy with
your life right now. It’s all right when you’re busy and surrounded by
people. But when no one else is around, when you are left with your own
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thoughts, there is an emptiness, a disappointment about life, a fear that you
have missed something that is vitally important. Do you have a sense of
purpose?

Slide 11

DO YOU HAVE SOMEONE IN YOUR LIFE FOR WHOM YOU

WOULD SACRIFICE YOUR LIFE? That’s the second important
question I have for you today. For those who are parents this is a question
that is easy to answer. Would you give your life for your child? Of course.
Would you give your life for your spouse? Some of you would. I ran across
a humorous piece by an unknown author about the differences between
women and men:
A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband; a man
never worries about the future until he gets a wife . . . To be happy with a
man you must understand him a lot and love him a little; to be happy with a
woman you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all. . . . A
woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't; a man
marries a woman expecting that she won't change and she does . . . A
woman has the last word in any argument; anything a man says after that is
the beginning of a new argument . . . There are two times when a man
doesn't understand a woman--before marriage and after.
We laugh about such things, but the truth of the matter is that a person
who is wrapped up in himself or herself will never be really happy. That
doesn’t mean you have to find a spouse or have children to find happiness.
Many single people live quite satisfying lives, but almost without exception
this is because they have developed other kinds of relationships--with
friends, co-workers, fellow church members, etc. No one can live a
successful life without reaching out to someone else. Our lives are meant for
community, fellowship. Is there anyone in this world you would die for?

Slide 12

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 SOME OF YOU HAVE FOUND SUCH A RELATIONSHIP IN
JESUS CHRIST. You have found what St. Paul found, that the most
satisfying relationship possible for human beings is a relationship with the
Divine Other.
Many people, particularly today, do not want a second-hand faith.
They want to experience Christ's joy, his peace, his love for themselves.
An old man was talking about a conversation he had once with his
grandfather. He said that coming home from school one spring afternoon, he
found his grandfather sitting on the front porch. The boy proudly shared the
somewhat lengthy information he had learned that day about our sixteenth
president, Abraham Lincoln. After allowing him to share the information,
his grandfather said to him, "Son, you definitely know more about Abraham
Lincoln than I do, but son," he added with a gleam in his eyes, "I knew
Abraham Lincoln." The grandson had information about Lincoln. The
grandfather knew Lincoln personally.
There is a difference between knowing about Christ and knowing him
personally.

Slide 13

Professional golfer Payne Stewart knew that difference. Before his

death in a plane crash a few years back, Stewart had found that one thing for
which he was searching. Sports Illustrated took notice. In its coverage of the
U.S. Open before Stewart's death they noted that Stewart had "turned to
religion, embracing Christianity with the fervor of a prison convert." He
wore a "What Would Jesus Do?" WWJD bracelet during the U. S. Open and
began each day by reading a devotional book, the magazine reported. "There
used to be a void in my life," Stewart told Sports Illustrated, which noted
that his mother, Bee, formerly had once described her outspoken son as
"rude”; his wife had used the word, "arrogant”; and his caddie, "impatient
and not very self confident." "The peace I have now is so wonderful,"
Stewart told Sports Illustrated. "I don't understand how I lived so long
without it.'" (6)
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Slide 14

Do you have that peace, a peace that comes from a first-hand faith?
St. Paul did. His priorities were in order. "This one thing I do . . ." Do you
have a purpose for your life? Do you have someone in your life for whom
you would give your life? Have you made peace with Christ and invited him
to become your Lord, your Savior, your friend?
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1. John C. Maxwell, Today Matters (New York: Warner Faith, 2004), pp.240-241.
2. Wisdom, Inc. by Seth Godin, HarperBusiness, New York, 1995, p. 53.
3. Daily Bread, August 4, 1992.
4. Spencer Johnson, The One-Minute $ales Person (New York: William Morrow, 1984), pp. 23-24.
5. “A House for Katherine Red Feather” by Robert Young, Guideposts, March 2004, pp. 63-66.
6. (http://usopen.lycos.com/news/interviews/062099_payne_stewart.html)

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