Did you Mess Up? It's Time to Restart*

Have you ever played a video game and, when things weren’t going as planned, hit the RESTART button to try again? Did you know Jesus offers us the chance to restart in life? Living the Christian life can be challenging, and sometimes we mess up, but it’s never too late to begin again. No matter how messy your life—or your friend’s life—may be, God offers a fresh start.

Link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2285086/episodes/16335658

In this episode, Pastor Chris Teien unpacks Philippians 3:12-14, showing how to let go of the past, refocus your priorities, and press on toward the life God created you to live. Be inspired to move forward with hope and confidence and equipped to help others do the same.

Message Outline

1. Your Progress
   • Perfection isn’t the goal; progress is.
   • Paul says, “I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me” (Philippians 3:12).
   • Celebrate growth and trust that God is working in you, even when you feel far from perfect.
2. Your Past
   • Let go of failures and mistakes that hold you back.
   • Paul writes, “Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead” (Philippians 3:13).
   • Seek forgiveness, release regret, and move forward with hope.
3. Your Pursuits
   • Reevaluate priorities and focus on what truly matters.
   • “I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize” (Philippians 3:14).
   • Dedicate time to spiritual growth, relationships, and living for God’s glory.
4. Your Prize
   • Keep your eyes on eternity with Jesus as the ultimate goal.
   • “We will be like him, for we will see him as he really is” (1 John 3:2).
   • Let the promise of eternity motivate you to live with purpose today.

Personal Stories and Illustrations

• Restarting video games as an analogy for hitting “restart” in life.
• Examples of daily restarts, like Bible reading and health goals, and how God’s grace meets us there.
• Testimonies of how God turns past failures into stepping stones for His glory.

Quotes

• “Perfection isn’t the goal; progress in Christ is.”
• “You can’t change the past, but you can leave it behind and press forward.”
• “God’s grace gives you the power to restart, no matter how many times you’ve fallen.”
• “Run your race with purpose, focusing on what matters most—eternity with Jesus.”

Actionable Takeaways

• Reflect on one area where you need a restart—prayer, Bible reading, or relationships—and take action today.
• Practice forgiveness for yourself and others, freeing yourself from the weight of the past.
• Set realistic goals for spiritual growth, like 15 minutes of daily Bible reading or prayer.
• Focus on eternity and let it guide your daily decisions and priorities.

Scripture References

• Philippians 3:12-14
• 1 John 3:2
• 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
• 1 Corinthians 10:13

Keywords

Restart your faith, Christian growth, letting go of the past, pressing forward, grace, biblical priorities, spiritual renewal, perseverance, hope

18m0310de

The WELL Faith Podcast offers encouraging, Bible-based messages from Pastor Chris Teien and guests. New sermons are released every Sunday. Replay episodes are marked with an asterisk. Find us online at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.Church in Virginia, MN. Email comments to wellfaith24@gmail.com

Transcript

Chris T 0:00

Alright, so millennials, as you know, are those people that were born in 1980 or sometime mid-1990s, and so they're always in the news because they're the up-and-coming uh generation that is coming to your workplace, going to be the leaders in your city and schools. So people care about millennials and what they think and what they're into. Interestingly enough, they are really big into perfection to the point that it's almost unhealthy for them. A USA Today article from January of this year, Millennials Strive for Perfectionism More Than Past Generations, reports the American Psychological Association has published new research about the rise of perfectionism in young people compared to prior generations. Today's college students are harder on themselves, more demanding of others, and report higher levels of social pressure to be perfect. Study examined 40,000 college students, took these surveys between 1989 and 2016. The more recent students scored higher in all three forms of perfectionism. Between 1989 and 2016, the scores for socially prescribed perfectionism are perceiving the excessive expectations of others increased by 33%. Other oriented expectations, putting unrealistic expectations on others, went up 16%. And self-oriented perfectionism, our irrational desire to be perfect, increased by 10%. One of the local researchers concluded today's young people are competing with each other in order to meet societal pressures, to succeed, and they feel that perfectionism is necessary in order to feel safe, socially connected, and of worth. Unfortunately, perfectionism can lead to anxiety, clinical depression, anorexia, and other health issues. So here we have people that are trying to be perfect, look perfect, act perfect, have perfect grades, do everything perfect in a world that everything can be instantly put on a screen and shared with others, and it is not good for them. It is not healthy for them. And sometimes we feel that there's no reason to continue to try to serve Christ because we are not good enough. We feel that there's no reason for us to try to share our faith because we know the people around us know that we're not perfect. So we have this idea that Christians are perfect, therefore we should be perfect, and if we weren't perfect in the past, that we're disqualified, and we throw our hands up in the air and we say, Well, the world needs Jesus and God's gonna have to send somebody else to do it because I'm not good enough, but you are good enough. I uh have this message time to restart, and on the screen is a picture of an old pixelated video game, and you can tell it is not going well. The little guy is about to fall to his death. And if you ever played the old video games, uh, as you start playing some of the video games, I hear from some of the one of the students today don't have restart buttons anymore. But if you are playing and things aren't going your way, instead of watching yourself die and hearing that terrible music or whatever else, you can just hit the reset, restart button, and start again and be on your way. And sometimes we need to do that in the Christian life. Sometimes we need to restart, sometimes we need to look at where we're at and say, this isn't going so well. I need to make a change, I need to, I need to restart. How many of you are going through the Bible reading plan somehow? You started in January and you're you're plugging through with your anybody doing the Bible reading plan? Okay. So if you use the Bible.com or UVersion Bible reading plan, it allows you to actually push a catch-up button, which will slide the dates forward in case you've fallen behind. I compared the number of days there's been in the year to the number the day I'm on, and so I appear to be 12 days behind. So usually I read ahead. I'm struggling right now because uh in my devotions I got to hear excessively of what to do with mold and mildew and bodily discharge and all of these inappropriate relationships and things from Leviticus that I just wasn't feeling it. I didn't walk away and go, praise God, I feel so much better. Is that a white discharge you've got going there? You need to see the priest. I don't think you should be in the camp. So there's a New Testament portion too, but it's short. My plan is one of these days I'm just gonna plow through Leviticus. I'm gonna plow through 1st and 2 Chronicles and Numbers, and I'm just gonna go on like a really long walk and a really long listen so I can get back to the good stuff. Stuff is in there for a reason. I'm not gonna restart my Bible plan. I thought about restarting it and doing something that was a little better, a little more meeting my felt needs, but I can read in addition to what's on that schedule. So I'm gonna keep I'm not gonna restart that one, but I'm gonna keep pushing through. So uh I always come up with this great idea to get fit and lose weight and exercise and everything like that. And I I do exercise, but it makes me hungry, so I go home and eat, and then I feel bad, so I go exercise some more, and then it makes me tired, but I eat. So I don't know how to restart that one. I just restart every day and say, you gotta do better than yesterday. Oh look, they made cookies, homemade cookies. Oh look, somebody brought home pizza. I guess I should eat some. I'd be unsociable if I didn't. So I could restart that maybe every day. But you think about your life and you think about where you're at, where you're supposed to be at, the things that consume your time and your resources, and you have to ask yourself, do you need to reset, restart, get rid of some things, make some new priorities, change some things up. There's some things that you can change, like you can change your car, your car's not working out for you, you can go get a different one. Uh, if your marriage isn't working out for you, it's pretty hard. You don't dump your family and say, I don't like that family, I'm gonna go get a new one. It doesn't work that way. Uh, your job, you probably aren't gonna be able to restart or redo your job tomorrow, but you can take training and you can prepare for whatever it is that God has for you in your future by taking classes and training and things like that. So it's interesting at this stage of my life in ministry. I've been in ministry for like 20-some years, that some of my friends have continued on in education, and I'm starting to be surrounded by doctors. Not doctors that can write a prescription from the weird rash I have. No, doctors of theology. Now they don't run around and want to be called doctor, but some of them are just pushing on with education. Some days I wonder, you know, wouldn't it be great to have some more degrees? But on the other hand, I don't have a student loan to pay for. So I'm constantly learning, but I have to figure out, okay, what is it that God wants me to do with the rest of my life? So maybe I have 20 years or 30 years, or I can't imagine I have 50 years left of life, but time is limited, like your resources are limited. So you gotta figure out what it is that you're doing in life, what it is that you should be doing in life, what it is in the particular phase or stage of life. Like I watched uh a lady yesterday at the Alliance District prayer gathering, so all the churches gathered, or people from the churches gathered in in uh Apple Valley for prayer time yesterday for two hours. And I watched this lady with this um new mom with this, I don't know what she was, you know, year-old child or so, and uh little girl was like everywhere. And I thought to myself, I remember those days, and I know it's just a stage. It doesn't even seem to last, when you look back, it doesn't even seem to last that long. It's just a stage. So the most important thing for that mom to be right now is focused on that little bundle of energy that seems to be tearing all over the place and trying to escape and pull things down and stuff. That's the most important thing. There'll be another time in her life that she can, you know, focus on other things, but time. So if you look in the Bible in Philippians chapter three, I'll be using the New Living Translation today. It's interesting how many churches are jumping on to using the New Living Translation. There's all these different Bible translations out there, but uh this translation takes thought for thought instead of exact word for exact word. And uh one of the one of the big thoughts or questions is uh are you trying to reach lost people around you, or do you just want to continue to convey Bible knowledge? And we want to reach lost people around us. So the English Standard Version, now the Christian Standard Bible, the NIV, the New American Standard Bible, they're all good Bibles, and I use them all, but I compared them in a parallel. Maybe you put all the different Bible translations on the screen. This one just jumped out and said what it means. So Paul is writing in chapter 3, and he's talking about false teachers, and then he's talking about how he's trying to reach perfection, and then he kind of lists all the things in verse 5 of chapter 3. I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I'm pure, I'm a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin, a real Hebrew, if there ever was one. I was a member of the Pharisees who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault. Then he says, I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. And so he's talking about perfection. He's saying, you know, if you look at my resume, if you look at all the things that I did, I'm I was up there. I was a professional contender. But it's all worthless compared to Christ and the love of Christ and the grace in Christ and the salvation in Christ. Um you were to look in verse 9. I became righteous through faith in Christ. For God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead, and I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead. He's writing all these things. And then in verse 12, we're getting real close to the key passage here. I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things, that I have already reached perfection, that I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. Did anybody think when they came into a relationship with Jesus Christ that they were gonna be perfect? Did anybody say, okay, well, I believe in Jesus now, my sins are forgiven, and now my life should be perfect. I'm gonna be sinless, I'm gonna have it all together, I'm gonna do everything God wants me to do. If you thought that in the beginning, it probably didn't work out very well for you. You probably came to the conclusion that it's like, wow, I have a mess. And it seems like in the Christian life, it's not about being perfect, it's more about progressing in the Christian life. If you're growing in the Christian life, I would guess that you are farther along than you were last year, or hopefully even last month. That you're growing and continuing to move forward. So I think it was Socrates who said, the more I learn, the less I know. And I believe that's true, especially I for the Bible and theology stuff. The more I learn, the less I know. There are so many things to learn and to know and to be thinking of and praying through and doing. It's impossible. But we receive power through the Holy Spirit for progress. We will re perfect someday when Jesus Christ returns. We'll have glorified bodies, everything will be together. He'll complete the salvation he began in us. But is it time to restart? So verse 13. Dear brother, no, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing. Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead. I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God through Christ Jesus is calling us. So is it time to restart? Number one, your progress. So Paul writes, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing. So he hasn't achieved the perfect Christian life. He is not, he realizes that he's not perfect. A matter of fact, he feels really bad about the stuff he did in the past, the persecuting the church. Uh, you look at your progress and you think about, okay, what have you done? What have you accomplished? Maybe you've gone through Bible training or got Bible certificates. So I graduated from two Bible colleges. I graduated with honors, I got licensed in the Christian Missionary Alliance, I got ordained in the Christian Missionary Alliance. So I have, you know, all these things to fall back on, and you'd think that I would say, so I know enough, but I actually feel inadequate. I feel like I don't know enough. I would love to go continue to learn more. I always am learning more. Actually, I listen to a ton of audiobooks and read a ton of stuff, and I'm constantly growing. I just wish that I wouldn't forget what I learned. It's I don't know if it's when you sleep or what, but it seems like the knowledge kind of, I don't know if it falls out of your ear or if it evaporates on a hot day, or if it's just the busyness of life. But it's tough to say that I'm a self-satisfied Christian. I mean, Paul could have said, you know, I did all this stuff, I've got it all together, I'm perfect. What's wrong with you? So your progress. Sometimes you can look around and say, okay, I'm farther ahead than you are. And other times you look around and you go, whoa, wait, they're way farther ahead than I am. And I'm I must be defective. I must not be good enough because these people are way far ahead than I am. So I listen to my sermons. We actually edit them just a little bit sometimes, not a whole lot, but before we put them online, and some days I wonder why we even put them online, because I listen to myself and I think to myself, I'm not that good. But um, I was listening to someone else, another Alliance Church sermon, and I listened to it and it was textbook perfect. He had the perfect introduction, he had the perfect opening, he had the perfect point. And 10 minutes into it, I thought to myself, I am so bored. I feel like I'm listening to a Bible commentary. Um, but God can take what you do and use it for his glory. Sometimes those sermons that pastors think are so lame are the ones that God uses the most. Sometimes those discussions that you have with people where you're not really sharing this great depth of Bible knowledge, but you happen to read something in your devotions and you remembered it long enough to share with the person, and the person is eating it all up, and the Holy Spirit's using it, and you're helping that person discover or grow in their relationship with Christ, not because of your perfect progress, but because you're stepping up to the plate and you're willing to be used by God and you want to do what you can to make a difference, so you show up and the Holy Spirit helps you, so your progress is probably not all that you hoped it would be. Your Bible reading, your Bible memorization, the way that you pray for other people, the way that you share your faith and all the things that you do, you probably have in your mind all these things that you want to do, but then after the week is spent and you've done all the things that you have to do and the work things and all the things that consume your life, you probably walk away and you think to yourself, not good enough. Not good enough. And you look back on your life and you think to yourself, you know, where has the time gone? What has happened to the time? Maybe that's even the case with your New Year's resolution, if you made any. So statistically, if you made a New Year's resolution, you probably have forgotten it already, aren't tracking along with it. And I want to show you a video clip where uh people look back on their life. Think about that. Look back on your life, think about what it is that you want to change, what you want to be different, and what you're gonna do about it.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

That's not that wow.

SPEAKER_05 16:02

Which one of you guys did this?

SPEAKER_08 16:04

This is my journal in high school. Seriously. Have y'all been reading this?

SPEAKER_07 16:09

This is my channel diary. These are my new resolution list from last year.

SPEAKER_06 16:15

My uh my resolution list from 1992.

SPEAKER_08 16:21

I was a weird kid.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Figure out what global warming is and do something about it.

SPEAKER_04 16:30

Break the world record indeadly.

SPEAKER_06 16:35

Start flotting.

SPEAKER_08 16:37

Keep an eye on my thinning hair.

SPEAKER_05 16:40

Wow. First thing on the list.

SPEAKER_07 16:46

Um invite Gary the turkey. Nope. Invite a guy here to fire.

SPEAKER_05 16:54

Stock up on water and tons of twinky. Boy, the struggle was real.

SPEAKER_04 17:08

Topy is my little sister.

SPEAKER_06 17:10

Get a George Clooney teaser haircut to impress the light.

SPEAKER_07 17:24

Bandwalked last. Did it? Found out who was in the hat. But it'll let down.

SPEAKER_08 17:30

Love my mom more. Be kind to her and stop rolling my eyes. She was the first helicopter mom, probably in the in the 80s.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Move out of my parents' house. I'm gonna move it to the chair.

SPEAKER_07 17:47

Work out. Get the last budget. That's a big dead.

SPEAKER_08 17:56

Hey mom! I got you on the speaker phone.

SPEAKER_07 17:59

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 18:06

Be at Autumn and mommy. That's my mommy wants to be. If only I would know how difficult that would be. You pretty much raised at my hotel, so I don't think I I can be near as good as he was.

SPEAKER_06 18:26

He promised to grandma to watch Matlock each week and then call her to discuss it. He loved that show. I didn't.

SPEAKER_08 18:42

Invites Steve Church. He went with me. Uh that night he said he wanted to have nothing to do with God. Three years later, I get this call. It's like midnight, one in the morning. He calls me and says, Ed, Ed, Ed, you're never gonna believe this. But I accepted Christ. It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_05 19:00

Tell Dahlia how much I really love her.

SPEAKER_07 19:04

Be a better dad. Quit yelling. Don't work on that one.

SPEAKER_08 19:12

Read the Bible more.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Start taking my faith seriously. I have done this. It's scary, but I'm yeah. I'm doing this one.

SPEAKER_05 19:30

Get to know God better. I know one thing. He loves me. Jesus loves me. I'm living proof.

SPEAKER_07 19:42

Surrender my life to God. Fully.

SPEAKER_06 19:50

Spend more time with God. That's been on my resolution list for as long as I can remember. I've been a believer for 40 years. And I always want to spend more time with him. It's one of the most important things, and it's always one of the hardest things to just get done, you know.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

Oh, love Jesus more.

Chris T 20:29

Alright, so what could you restart? What could you change in your day so that you, if you look back on your life and you think about, okay, how have I spent my time? What have I done with my life? Uh, what have I done? What can you change? What can you do? Sometimes it's hard to get beyond your past. Number two, your past. Forget the past. It doesn't mean that you totally like the Bible's not saying that you forget everything that ever happened to you in the past, but you choose not to hold on to it. You choose to move on from it. Kind of like Joseph in the Old Testament. He was mistreated by his brothers and he could have held on to that, but he didn't. Instead, he showed forgiveness, he moved on. He was mistreated, but he didn't sit there and say, Oh, you don't know what I've been through. I can't do that. No, instead he trusted God, even though he had gone through hard things, and he pushed on. He forgot about the past and he continued on. We need to work at forgetting the past. Those failures and shortcomings. And we need to make a difference. Sometimes we can use those failures and shortcomings as a reminder that we fell into that sin in the past and we don't want to do it again, and there's no temptation that seized us except what's common to man, and God's faithful, he'll provide a way out. So if we come to the temptation again, we can look for a way out. No, there's a way out. No, we don't have to make that same mistake again. We can move forward. We need to be able to forgive stuff. From the past. Again, you might not be able to forget it, but you can choose to move forward and not let it hold you back. Paul is saying that he's forgetting the past and he's pressing forward, looking forward, straining towards what's in the future for what's left. Sometimes you can use those hard things of the past to share with other people that are going through hard things and tell them how God has gotten you through. Tell them how God has forgiven you. Tell them how God has given you hope and encouraged you and helped you find healing and helped you even forgive that other person. We need to get beyond the difficulties of the past and the failures of the past. And sometimes it's so hard. Sometimes we look at what we did. Maybe no one even knows what we did, but we know we did it. And it was, you know, years and years and years ago. But all we can do is dwell on that and think about that. And think about how messed up we are and how defective we are and how imperfect we are. But we're forgiven in Christ and we can move forward. We can ask the Lord to forgive us of whatever it is. If the Holy Spirit brings to mind some sin, you know, ask to be forgiven of that. Lord Jesus, I know I did that wrong. Please forgive me, help me not to do it again and to move forward, accept that forgiveness and move forward and try not to do it again. Try to avoid falling into that pit, that that trap, that whatever it is. Don't go that direction if you know you're gonna fall into temptation. So forget your past. Move on from your past. Number three, your pursuits. Maybe you need a reset on your pursuits. Paul writes, looking forward to what lies ahead. I press on to reach the end of the race. The Greeks used the pressing on or following after. The Greek word describes the hunter eagerly pursuing his prey. Paul also talks about in athletics being a champion, pursuing. So on one hand, you could say that I must do it all. I've got to do all these things for God. You know, God's counting on me to get it all done. And other people just sit back and they say, well, God's gonna have to do it all because I can't do anything. And it has to be in the middle of you showing up and saying, I need to show up, and God's got to show up and make the big stuff, the good stuff happen, your pursuits. So there's all sorts of things that you can do to spend your time, but if you focus on doing some of the simple things, some of the some of the priorities in your life will make a huge difference. Like you want to read through your Bible, and it is a big Bible, and over a period of time, maybe you'll read through the whole thing. But maybe you just want to focus on reading through the New Testament. And instead of saying, I'm going to read five chapters a day, maybe you just make a commitment to say, when I get up in the morning, I'm going to spend 15 minutes a day in God's Word. I'm going to spend 15 minutes, and then sometimes that 15 minutes gets, as you're really interested, gets longer. So your commitment was 15 minutes, and then you find yourself a half an hour, 45 minutes. But your commitment is to repeatedly show up, making a habit to spend time in God's Word, spend time praying. Sometimes you can stack these things too. So you can listen to the Bible while you're driving to work. Some of you have really long commutes. You can listen to audiobooks that help you to grow in the Christian life. You can walk and exercise and pray at the same time. Sometimes you can listen to audiobooks and Bible stuff too. But you can stack stuff. You can work and pray. Sometimes, you know, praying is you know praying for people in need and being proactive in prayer, and your relationship with God allows you to continue praying throughout the day. Stephen Curtis Chapman had a song that said, just because you say the words amen doesn't mean the conversation needs to end. So let us pray. But your pursuits, okay, so there might be other things that you're into that you do. So maybe it's fantasy football or something like that. And it can be good, but maybe you need to give up something to prioritize and pursue the more important things. So you can do all of these different things, but you got to choose to do the most important things if you want to have the correct results, the right results. You know, if you want to share your faith with lost people, you've got to find some lost people to get around, to be around. So that can be tough sometimes. The church people are all focused on being around church people, and they're like, I want to share my faith, but I don't know any non-Christians. So you need to do all that you can to pray and look for opportunity and be pursuing the right things. Looking forward to what lies ahead. Press on to reach the end of the race, to know that you have spent your life doing what God has called you to do and to focus on that. You know, in the Olympics, people specialize in things, you know. So, like when the Summer Olympics come along, you don't see the guy that's the discus, the guy that throws the discus or the shot put. You know, they're not supposed to be running around the track doing sprints, going over the hurdles to train. That's not their deal. They focus on throwing the discus or their their shot put and that stuff. And the sprinters sprint, they do do a ton of long distance running uh all the time when they're practicing. So they focus on certain things. And in your life, you want to be a champion. You need to focus on certain things. You need to focus on the things that God has called you to do and focus on doing those things well for his glory. He's called you to worship him, he's called you to evangelize and to keep learning and keep loving. Like that live life well thing there. Your pursuits. Maybe you need to reset your pursuits and get rid of some stuff. Quit doing some stuff. It's not the best use of your time. It's a good thing, but it's not the best thing. Think about that. What is it that you need to reset on your pursuits? And then think about your prize. Receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. Uh, Paul didn't describe exactly what that prize is. Uh he talked about crowns. In those days, if you were like win the Olympics, you would get like a wreath that you would, it's a perishable wreath, but that's what you would win. You didn't even get a gold medal. But you were honored and recognized as the winner at that time. And so your prize is you get to spend eternity with the Lord. Your prize is that he will make you perfect. Your prize is that you may have made a huge difference in the world for God's glory. Your prize is that God used you and it was part of the greatest adventure of your life. You look back on your life and you think to yourself, true living was when I was following Jesus and He allowed me to do this and He allowed me to do that. Your prize is having the Lord say, Well done, good and faithful servant, when He analyzes your life, when He looks over your life. 1 John 3 2 says, Dear friends, we are already God's children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. So the prize is being with Jesus, recognizing Jesus and making a difference in the world. So in 1 Corinthians 9 22, Paul writes, When I am with those who are weak, I share their weaknesses, for I want to bring the weak to Christ. Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone, doing everything I can to save some. I do everything to spread the good news, the gospel, and share in its blessings. Don't you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win. All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. I'm not just shadow boxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others, I myself might be disqualified. So Paul is saying that we've got to live life on purpose, that we've got to pursue our relationship with Christ and others on purpose, that we need to come alongside others with weak people to share in their weakness, to show them sympathy and encouragement and love. And he says, I discipline my body like an athlete. So we need to be self-disciplined in our spiritual pursuits and in the way that we grow in the Christian life, training it to do what it should. Being disqualified, I don't think that means that you lose your salvation, but I think what it means for him is that if he were to fall into sin, who's gonna listen to his message? He's writing these people, he's preaching Christ, he's going to talk to the ruler of the world about Christ. And if Paul were to fall into sin or be a hypocrite, then he might be disqualified from that opportunity that he has, and we need to be wary of that. So we're out of time, but I want to want to show you one resource. I wanted to I want to continue to give you resources. So a new, maybe not a new phenomena, but uh yeah, a pretty new phenomena, I guess, with all this technology stuff, is that when you hand out invite cards, some people don't want the card. They want to take a picture of the card and put it on their phone. They don't want to carry anything away. I've actually done that sometimes with business cards. So now we've got the New Believer New Testament Bibles, and some people want those, but other people want an app. They're like, well, uh, do you have an app? I just want to carry it on my phone. There's a million apps, but I want to show you one that's free. It actually comes from the Gideons in Canada, and it's the New Life Bible app, and you can get it for free and share it for free. It's got a full downloadable Bible and a ton of question-answer things, and a complete plan of salvation, and a lot of the things you'd see in the New Believers New Testament that we give away, but it's in a free app, and I'm gonna show it to you, and we put a link on the website, and then we'll pray and be done. So, app dot new life. So here's the video clip.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

Questions They are what send us into the deepest parts of our planet, our university, and ourselves. We spend our lives searching everywhere, anywhere to find answers. We strive to answer the unanswerable big questions, the ones that really matter. Everyone is searching for purpose, meaning identity. Download the free.

Chris T 33:26

So that's a free app that you can share with people that you can send them a link to that can help them as they question things. You can use the resources. Uh, it is, like I said, free. And I've been using it for a while, and it works really good, and it is a great app. Um, next week we're going to talk about our abundant supply in Christ. So, what I want you to take away from this is that your life is limited, your time is limited, you're in a spiritual battle, and there's all sorts of distractions in your life. And you have to figure out what the priorities are supposed to be and what Christ wants you to accomplish with your life, and you need to pursue that. You need to maybe look at your schedule and say, how am I gonna accomplish the things God wants me to accomplish? How am I gonna rearrange my time? Or what am I gonna give up to focus more on Christ? Or what relationship am I going to establish to meet more lost people so I can lead them to Christ? And how am I gonna get past my past? How can I look beyond the things of the things that I've done that are wrong? I can ask God for forgiveness, I can ask other people to forgive me, but we need to reach a point where we say, on this day, I ask God to forgive me. It's in the past, and I'm moving on. And we need to look forward to the prize and look to the end of our life and think, okay, if I live my life this way, when my life is spent, I will be satisfied and God will be pleased. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would help us to restart the things in our life that need to be restarted so that we can be winners, so that we can be victorious, so that we can make a difference, so that we can make a difference for eternity. Lord, we pray that our relationship would be marked not by duty but by love, and not by fear, but by the opportunity that we have to proclaim your forgiveness and the relationship we have in you, that uh it's not fear but future, Lord, a great future with you. So help us to do this. Help us to be your your workers for your kingdom and your evangelists. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.