Stay On Mission – 17th June 2018

1. Preparation!
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12-14
If you live anywhere on planet earth you can hardly have failed to notice that the football (or as some say, soccer), world cup finals are now taking place in Russia. The world’s best have all flown in and are competing for the prize of being crowned as champions of the world.
If, like me, you have watched any of the build up to the finals, you will have seen that each team was spending all of their time in preparation. This included fitness, tactics, penalty taking (especially for the England Team), team bonding, etc etc. No team would ever turn up to the world cup without being as fully prepared as possible and, if they did, they would be flying home pretty quickly.
Paul, in his letter to the church at Philippi, talks about ‘winning the prize’ that awaits him in heaven. He is pressing on in anticipation of this prize because this, above all else, is his motivation. As he ‘strains toward what is ahead’ it is clear from his writings that he is constantly living for Jesus and making Him known – he is an effective member of Jesus ‘team’.
Tragically there are many Christians who are not so effective, we want to receive the prize but we are not actively engaged in being part of the team that is ‘Joining Jesus in His Mission’ and making Him known to the world. I want to suggest one simple but enormously significant reason that many Christians are not participating fully in Jesus’ mission: It is because we are not prepared!
Churches are filled with Christians who openly admit that they do not know how to talk about Jesus with others, and who do not know the gospel in such a way that they could tell it to somebody else. The antidote to this would be ‘preparation’, there are countless books, resources and materials available, free of charge, that will equip Christians to do this but, in spite of this, so many are not prepared.
This week, I encourage you to reflect on these words written by Paul and consider the question: “Am I prepared?”