BROADCASTS.com

Welcome to Day 2334 of Wisdom-Trek. Thank you for joining me. This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to\xa0Wisdom Philippians-9 Hanging Tough and Looking Up \u2013 Daily Wisdom Putnam Church Message \u2013 02/04/2023 Joy in Sharing \u2013 Hanging Tough and Looking Up \u2013 Philippians 3:12-21 Last week, our focus was a comparison message titled Human Rubbish vs. Divine Righteousness. We learned that all human efforts to live a life pleasing to God apart from Christ are pointless and fruitless. Today, we focus on Standing Firm without Standing Still in a message titled Hanging Tough and Looking Up. Today's scripture passage is Philippians 3:12-21 on page 1829, in your Pew Bibles. 12\xa0Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal,\xa0but I press on to take hold\xa0of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.\xa013\xa0Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind\xa0and straining toward what is ahead,\xa014\xa0I press on\xa0toward the goal to win the prize\xa0for which God has called\xa0me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 15\xa0All of us, then, who are mature\xa0should take such a view of things.\xa0And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.\xa016\xa0Only let us live up to what we have already attained. 17\xa0Join together in following my example,\xa0brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do.\xa018\xa0For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears,\xa0many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.\xa019\xa0Their destiny\xa0is destruction, their god is their stomach,\xa0and their glory is in their shame.\xa0Their mind is set on earthly things.\xa020\xa0But our citizenship\xa0is in heaven.\xa0And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,\xa021\xa0who, by the power\xa0that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies\xa0so that they will be like his glorious body. In a predominantly humanistic society like ours, it\u2019s not uncommon to hear the glories of humanity exalted in exaggerated terms. Our \u201copen-minded\u201d media parades before our eyes immoral living as a virtue. They promise social progress through secular and even anti-Christian means. From politics to education, from spirituality to ethics, our sophisticated, twenty-first-century world functions on the presupposition that the only thing standing in the way is backward-thinking Neanderthals who can\u2019t pull their noses out of an ancient, outdated book like the Bible. \xa0 Yet God has chosen to leave believers on this earth, not to retreat from its pain and suffering, but to engage it\u2014up close and personal. This calling requires us to strap in for a bumpy ride, to hang tough for the long haul. On this rough road between Christ's first and second comings, we must keep our heads up, our eyes forward, and our hearts heavenward. The Christian life is a marathon\u2014not through the level, paved streets of a clean and friendly city, but across rocky, strenuous, dangerous terrain filled with pitfalls and predators. \xa0 It\u2019s comforting to know that we\u2019re not the first Christians to make this journey through a wicked, hostile world. In many ways, the world is much better...