Sermon: "Wise Words for a Winning Church"

Philippians 3:10-14
October 2, 2011
World Communion Sunday/16th Sunday After Pentecost


I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.


I have a lot of sympathy for football coaches. The church we served in Dallas a few years ago was right across the street from the neighborhood high school – W.T. White, home of the Longhorns, where our son Austin attended and graduated.

The Longhorns, like most DISD high schools, except maybe Carter and Skyline, never had a lot of success on the gridiron. They did graduate a player named Jason Smith in 2005 who went on to a standout college career at Baylor as an offensive tackle and then was drafted #2 overall in the 2009 NFL draft by the St. Louis Rams.

Mike Zoffutto was the head football coach at White. He had started a tradition that the afternoon before every home game he would bring the team over to our church for a little chapel service and motivational talk.

Different pastors would take turns leading the service. It was my turn one year before the W.T. White – Thomas Jefferson (T.J.) game. I did my best to motivate, to inspire, to arouse the team to give their very best effort and go out and trounce those T.J. Patriots. I was certain I had chosen just the right words and delivered them in such a way that they would go out and win. Unfortunately, they didn’t.

So even though I might not have made such a great football coach myself, there are certain things that pastors and coaches have in common:
• We both try to motivate and inspire our team/congregation.
• We both try to help our team/congregation give their best effort.
• We both try to achieve “winning” results.
• We both can get blamed (and even fired!) when those results are not achieved.

The Apostle Paul was sort of a coach for his churches. He wanted them all to succeed in their mission.

Philippi would have been considered a “winning” church. It was the first church Paul founded on European soil and was always one of his favorites. Paul uses his own experience to encourage a winning attitude in the Philippians.

My hope and dream as your pastor is to help FUMC be a “winning” church. Winning means fulfilling our purpose, our mission; being all that God wants us to be; reaching our potential as a community of faith and as part of the body of Christ.

Paul offers wise words in Phil. 3 for becoming “winning” church…

...forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
(Phil. 3:12-14)

We can draw three important lessons from this passage if we want to be a “winning” church:

1) Learn from the past, but don’t live in the past.

Paul says in vs. 13…
“…forgetting what lies behind…”

Any good coach will tell their team if they want to be winners not to dwell on the past, whether you win or lose.

If you lose, you learn from your mistakes, but don’t get down on yourself. If you win, learn from your successes, but don’t get overconfident. Some teams have a “24-hour” rule. They give themselves 24 hours to celebrate a victory or mourn a defeat, but then they have to get ready for the next game.

These are also wise words for a church looking to develop a winning attitude.

Every church as old as ours (almost 160 years old) has its ups and downs. It as its successes and its failures. There are years when the church is flourishing and growing. And there are years when the church may struggle just to keep its doors open.

The important thing is that we learn from the past; we heed its lessons; but we don’t live back then. Some of the most deadly words for a church are: “We tried that 10 [20, 30, 40] years ago and it didn’t work.” Maybe it was just a bad idea. Or maybe it was a good idea whose time just hadn’t come.


2) Move forward or you’ll fall back.

Paul goes on to say…
“…straining forward to what lies ahead…” (Phil. 3:13)

A winning team always believes its best days lie ahead of them in the future, not behind them in the past.

They always have a goal, a vision that they’re working toward. If they lost every game the season before, then their goal is to win one game. If they just went through a losing season, then their goal is be at least one game over .500. If they won district the year before, well this year they’ll win state.

They’re always trying to improve. If you’re not moving forward, you’re falling back. If you’re not growing, you’re declining, whether you’re a football team or a church.

I believe that God has a special future in store for us as a church.

The words of the prophet Jeremiah were written just for us…
“For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” (Jer. 29:11)

Our job is to strain forward to grasp the special future God has planned for us – a future filled with hope and promise. The minute we begin to believe that as a church our best days are behind us, we’re in trouble.


3) Keep your eyes on the prize.

Paul says in vs. 14…
“…I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:14)

Coaches know it’s easier to motivate a team by focusing on their ultimate goal.

The slogan for Olympic athletes is “Go for the Gold,” not “Go for the 7 days a week, 5:30 in the morning practice.”

Two-a-days in the 100 degree heat of August are easier when you focus on getting to the state championship game in December.

Being a winning church is hard work. It requires our very best efforts. It takes more money, more time, more work, more invitations, more service, and more prayer than we might like to give.

Gone are the days when we could just put up a sign, open our doors, and the people flood in.

We have to offer something so life-transforming that we can’t wait to tell others about it and they can’t wait to get here and experience it for themselves.

Adam Hamilton, pastor of the one of the fastest-growing churches in United Methodism says, “The successful church will do the things an unsuccessful church is unwilling to do.”

That means going the extra mile, going out of our way to be friendly and welcoming, reaching out to the people that everyone else ignores or forgets.

But it’s all worth it when we keep our eyes on the prize; focus on our goal, our prize, as Paul says.

The ultimate goal is not a larger church, a bigger budget, more programs; or being written up in a magazine as one of “Best churches in USA.”

The prize, as Paul describes it, is:

“the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus” (3:14)

The prize of the winning church is a church that knows Jesus Christ, that lives for him, and that is actively sharing Christ with others and making disciples. It is making an eternal difference.

The prize is giving the lost (those who know they’re lost and those who don’t) new life in Jesus Christ and a family in the church.

That’s the prize that makes us a winning church, that keeps us from living in the past, and that keeps us always moving forward.

If we keep our eyes on that prize, God will bless us and use us to do great things for God’s glory. Let’s keep our eyes on that prize.