I’m gonna put a date up on the screen Friday. It’s this Friday, July 26th, 2024, 11:30 AM to 3:15 PM By show of hands, how do you know what that date represents? Alright, there are two people in the room that know that is the Olympic opening ceremony, which is happening this Friday. Three of you are very excited about it. The rest of you’re like, I didn’t know that. Had no clue that the Olympics were happening, but I love the Olympics. And, and here’s what’s to, to me, fascinating about the Olympics. For four years, I couldn’t tell you about a single one of these events. Like I, I couldn’t tell you any of the athletes that are participating. I couldn’t even name half of the events that are happening. They always add a new one in there. I’m like, that’s an Olympic event. Great. That’s fantastic. Probably the only Olympian I I could name other than the the basketball teams would be Simone Biles.

And so that’s probably it. But this next few weeks, man, I will be invested in their story and I’ll be watching, and there’s a grand irony that happens because the greatest athletes in the entire world will get together and I will watch them on TV while sitting on my couch eating potato chips. And just the difference between what’s happening there and what’s happening here is pretty, pretty stark in terms of athletic ability. But I, I remember back in the Olympics some key moments. I mean, I remember watching Michael Phelps and, and I remember watching Michael Johnson and Usain Bolt, and I remember watching Simone Biles multiple times. I I remember all the way back to Mary Lou Redden. It’s about as far back as I can go. I don’t remember anything beyond that <laugh>. But there are these key huge moments where people have dedicated their entire life.

For, for, for some people it’s a ten second event. It’s like that their whole life leads up to that moment. And what’s really cool about the Olympics is it’s been around for a really, really long time. Aristotle reckoned the date of the very first Olympics to be 7 76 bc. And you know, that’s true because it’s a direct quote from Wikipedia. So <laugh> but that means that the Olympics was occurring during the life of Jesus, during the life of Paul. The Olympics was something that we don’t know whether he ever attended or not, but truly he would’ve at least been somewhat aware of them. And we see this illusion, this metaphor that Paul uses about running over and over in his writings. Here’s what he says. Probably the, the most profound one that connects to something like the Olympics is Hebrews chapter 12 verse one. He says, therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which cleans so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

It’s, it’s this picture of this crowd of people that are watching. And you’ve got this runner who’s running and sees the finish line, sees the goal, and throws off all the things that might hinder them and presses on ahead. It goes on again. In First Corinthians chapter nine, verse 24, he says, do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Paul was not a fan of everybody gets a trophy. Clearly. He’s saying, Hey, there’s a winner and there’s a loser. And he’s saying, run said that you might be the winner. And then possibly the most famous verse that relates to this, this allegory of sports, he says, brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but 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 upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

The Olympics are all about having this gold. I want a gold medal. And they dedicate and they train their life for that moment. And Paul is saying, as Christians, we have the same thing, that we need to have a goal in mind that we are pressing on towards, that we are fighting towards trying to achieve the prize. And so here’s a question that I’ve pondered this week that I’d encourage you to ponder, and that is this. What are the goals you have in your life? If you were right now gonna say, okay, well these are the goals that I have. What would they be? Probably if you had some general goals that if you look at our culture, these tend to be the most common goals. That people wanna be more fit, they wanna have better finances, they want improved mental health. They wanna lose weight, they wanna improved diet, they wanna stop some bad habit that they have, don’t smoke or don’t drink or do these things.

And here’s how I know that those are the most common, because if you look up most common New Year’s resolutions, those are all of them in order of most common, the least come. And then if you’re a Christian, you probably have spiritual goals that look something like this, that, that, man, I really need to spend more time in the Bible and in scripture. And while I do, I do know that I need to pray more. And man, I just need to be a better spouse or a better parent or a better friend. And I, I need to serve more. I need to volunteer more, do more things for other people. And, and also I need to be more generous. But here’s the reality, and that is that we all have the same goals. Like both of those pages. You’re like, yep, yep, yep, sure, absolutely.

You see, the problem isn’t setting the goal. The problem is achieving them. Everybody’s got about the same goals. Christian, non-Christian alike, Hey, here are the things I want for my life. And then if you are a Christian, here are the things that I want. And pursuing God, the issue is not knowing what we want. The issue is achieving those things. Paul is a fascinating person to look at. If you’ve got a Bible term with me to Acts chapter nine we’re gonna look at the verse first nine verses. Paul’s a fascinating person to look at because he has this profound conversion experience. If you know a little bit about hi his backstory that in Acts we see him introduced as his name Saul. We first see him in Acts chapter seven at the stoning of Stephen. Steven is a follower of Jesus.

He proclaims the gospel. They don’t like it. And so they take him outside the city and they stone him. And we see that Saul is there holding the coach, that he’s complicit in the stoning of Stephen. And then in chapter eight, at the very beginning, it tells us that Saul is going around and he is arresting Christians, and he’s ripping men and women out of their homes and taking them to jail. And so that same Saul who has this hatred towards the Christians, we see converted becomes a Christian. In Acts chapter nine, starting in verse one. This is what it says, but Saul still breathing the threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. Went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if you found any belonging to the way, that’s who they referred to as Christians.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. So they referred to themselves as the way Paul says. If I find anybody that’s part of the way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now, as he went on his way, he approached Damascus and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him and falling to the ground. He heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, who are you Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, but rise and enter the city, and you’ll be told what to do, what you are to do. The men who are traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one Saul rose from the ground. And although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.

And for three days he was without sight and neither ate nor drank. And now I want you to imagine that your Saul Saul’s background, his history is that he grew up a Jew. And later on in the New Testament, we see him give his credentials. And he was a Hebrew of the tribe of Benjamin, who from a very early age, his parents sent him off for the best training that was available. He ends up becoming a Pharisee. So he is someone who knew the law, who was religiously zealous, that he was passionate about his faith in God. And we see that and the evidence of his lifestyle, that why is he persecuting the Christians? He’s doing it out of a zeal that he has, that he feels like what he’s doing is right. What he’s doing is honoring God. And so he’s pursuing this path, and then he has this conversion moment where Jesus appears to him physically and speaks to him.

And he says, why are you persecuting? And then it says that he’s blind for three days and for three days he can’t see anything. It says for three days he doesn’t eat. It says for three days he doesn’t drink. And can you imagine the processing that’s happening in his heart, in his life, in those three days? And he said, I was pursuing God. I was doing exactly what I thought I was supposed to be doing. He had a goal in mind. He was chasing. After that goal, he was running hard. And then in a moment, he realizes in clarity, I had the wrong goal. And it’s not just that I was missing the mark, I was actually doing the opposite. I was harming God. I was harming Jesus. And so for three days, he’s just processing how his whole life has been turned upside down.

And then there’s this funny interaction where he goes and he finds anani. And the Lord speaks to an nice and says, I want you to go pray for Saul. And that Anani is like, no, Saul, I I’m not gonna pray for him. Are you crazy? I mean, he, he’s gonna kill me. He’s gonna arrest me. I I’m not touching that guy. But, but God tells anani to go pray for Saul, and he prays for Saul. It says that scales fall off of his eyes and he can see, he says that he gets baptized. And then it’s fascinating what happens a little bit later, acts chapter nine, skip down to verse 19, the second half of 19. And this is what happens after Anais prays for him. After he’s converted, it says, for some days he was with the disciples at Damascus. Now pause for a second.

‘Cause It’s slightly confusing. And this reference, when it talks about the disciples, it’s not talking about the, the 12 or or now 11 disciples that are alive, that followed after Jesus. It’s simply talking about followers of Jesus. So it refers to Ananias as a disciple, although he was not one of the original 12 disciples that really at this point in Acts going forward, we see when it’s talking about the original disciples, it refers to them as apostles. And it talks about disciples just being followers of Jesus, that that’s actually important contextually for what we see later on in Galatians. It says, he was with the disciples of Damascus, and immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues. Now, pause for a second. Just think how cool that is. I mean, he becomes a Christian, and how long does it take for him to go start proclaiming the name of Jesus?

I mean, like nothing like he’s just going. Now, how different is that oftentimes from, from our conversion experience, if your story is like most of us, including me, that you became a Christian at some point, and then really in that moment when you became a Christian, most of your life stayed the exact same. Your relationships stayed the same, your interactions stayed the same, your life stayed the same. Maybe there were some habit changes. Maybe you, you start gonna church on Sunday or did a few things different, but for the most part it was the same. Now, now compare that to ge to to Saul who becomes a follower of Jesus. And then imagine everybody else. I mean, imagine the Pharisees at the time, like Saul’s walking in. They’re like, there’s our boy, he’s zealous and he is the man, and he’s been shutting down what, what they saw as heresy and AOC cult.

He’s been shutting down the way. And then he comes in and he starts preaching Jesus. Like, like Saul knew that all of his friends and all of his relationships and all of his history, that whole crowd would hate the message that he was saying. But he didn’t care why. ’cause Jesus, at that moment forward was everything. And so it says, he starts proclaiming Jesus in the synagogue, saying He is the son of God. And all who heard him were amazed and said, is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem, of those who called upon this name. Then it’s interesting, it says, and has he not come here for this purpose to bring them bound before the chief priest, but saw increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ. Now, this is a fascinating little phrase here.

It says, when many days had passed? Now in that moment, we don’t know how many days passed, we’re gonna find out later in the Book of Galatians, but you would read that and say, well, not very many days passed, but it says, when many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, but his disciples. Now it’s all of a sudden Saul has disciples. It says His disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket. Now, now there’s, there’s two things that I think most of us miss about Paul, that, that we just have a misunderstanding on. So the first one, and this maybe you’ve even taught this, but I’ll tell you the first one was this.

Scripture never says that he changes from Saul to Paul at his conversion. Like, like probably you’ve heard people preach that he was Saul on the road to Damascus, and he was Paul when he got there. And there’s this idea that he has a conversion moment. And in that moment when he starts becoming a follower, Jesus, his name transitions from Saul to Paul, and going forward, he’s always Paul. But, but scripture actually doesn’t say that in this passage after his conversion, it refers to him, him as Saul. And, and we see in the book of Acts that it kind of uses it interchangeably. So, so why? Well, really, Saul is his Hebrew name, and Paul is his Greek name. And so he goes by both depending upon the context. But for most of the New Testament, Paul is the apostle to the Gentiles, that means the Greeks.

And so in preaching to the Greeks, he’s using his Greek name, I i, that, that kinda makes the story sound less cool. But, but I I say it because we don’t need to add things to scripture to make it sound cool. Scripture’s pretty cool all by itself. We don’t need to throw things in there. Now, another example of the exact same thing would be the life of Peter, but you know that, that Peter is referred to by three different names in the New Testament, that Simon is his Hebrew name, Peter is his Greek name, and then PHAs is his Aramaic name. And we see all three of those names used at different times in the New Testament. So, so that’s one that, that maybe you’ve heard that maybe you’ve even taught that, but it’s scripture does not say that. And then the second one is fascinating.

The second one is that he spends three years in study after his conversion, before his ministry. That little gap, when it says many days later, we find out later that it’s three years. When do we find that out? Well, in Galatians, here’s what it says in chapter one, verse 15. It says, but this is Paul now talking about his conversion. And he says, but when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone, nor did I go to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me. But I went away into Arabia and returned again to Damascus. Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit with CFAs as Peter and remained with him 15 days.

And now why does that matter? Because here’s what we tend to do, especially in this season when we’re watching the Olympics, we really focus on the moment when they’re on the podium. We focus on the glory, the moment where everybody’s watching and they’re competing and they’re racing, and we don’t recognize all of the sacrifice, the pain, the energy, the effort that it took for them to get there. They say that the average Olympic athlete has spent 10,000 hours training for their moment, 10,000 hours training. And Paul, when he becomes a Christian, he does immediately, he’s not ashamed of the gospel, he’s immediately proclaiming the gospel. But then somewhere he recognizes, Hey, I have got to spend some time working on me. And so for three years he goes out into really if you look at a map, it’s the desert. And for three years, he’s spending that time in study.

Three years, he’s spending that time in preparation. Three years he’s spending that time in training. But here’s what we often do is we have a goal and we want the goal, but we ignore the training that it takes to get there. I had someone used this illustration with me this week, and it just hit me for this message there’s really two different things that we can focus on in life. We can focus on the speedometer or we can focus on the compass, but our culture tends to focus on the speedometer. How quickly can I get there? How fast can I get there? Yesterday in the mail we got a notification from the city of Morrison that our speedometer was not adequate to the speed that they said we were supposed to be going. Apparently, the speed limit in Morrison is 25 miles an hour.

We, we were going 34, which 25 is less than the speed limit in my neighborhood, by the way. But so, so we got the picture with the license plate in the car that came in the mail. And my wife and I are looking at it. I’m like, what’s the date? Is that me or is that you? I’m not sure <laugh>, but one of us was not paying attention to this pedometer and we were going too fast. And so often in life, that’s what we do. We just go fast. Now, why do most New Year’s resolutions fail? Because we want to see results immediately. They say that 92% of all New Year’s resolutions fail by February. By February. Why? Because if you go to the gym that first week in January, man, it is packed. There’s all kinds of people. They’re lifting weights. They, they’re on the treadmill, they’re doing all kinds of different things.

But by week two and week three and week four, what do people start doing? They start going home. And they start saying, well, I start gonna the gym ’cause I wanna lose weight. And I’m looking at the mirror and I’m like, it’s not working. I mean, I’ve been in the gym three times last week, two times this week. I, I was trying to lose 30 pounds. I’m stand on the scale and is the exact same, and we wanna see results fast. And when we don’t, we say, yeah, it’s not worth it. And how often does that same thing happen and the spiritual side in our relationship with God? But you get fired up. I, I mean, who knows in here that you’ve started a reading plan once or two times that you did not finish all right? That, that you start in January, I’m gonna read through the whole Bible and May, you’re cruising until you get to Leviticus.

And then it’s like, whoa, that is, that is rough. And maybe you’ll just start skipping past when they, when they’re talking about all the, the giant names and the lineage. I’ll just get past that. Maybe I’ll just get past that part and then eventually get to a point where you just give up because I i the knowledge of scripture to come into my life, but it is really hard. It’s challenging to go through the journey of sacrifice it takes to get there. I want the results, but man, the habits are difficult. But instead, really what we need to focus on in life is the compass. Then it needs to not be about how quickly I get there, but about every day saying, what is the direction that I am going? What’s the goal for today? And am I headed that direction? Hey, here’s one thing that every Olympian has in common. Olympians all have one thing in common sacrifice. Every single one of ’em, they sacrifice. I I love this quote from Craig Rochelle, pastor of Life church. He says, successful people do consistently what other people do occasionally.

Here’s the truth. We all know the goals we want to achieve, but why don’t we achieve them? What what is it that Paul says in Philippians chapter three? He says, brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. Hey, he’s saying, Hey, I’m, I’m not telling you from the gold medal stand that I’m already there. I’ve already achieved it. He said, I’m, I’m still in this journey with you, but one thing I do forgetting what lies behind and now recognize who’s saying it, Paul, who, who over and over again talks about how he’s the least, he’s the worst of sinners. He recognizes how how terrible his life was before Jesus. He persecuted Christians. He said, but I leave all of that behind all the baggage, all the junk, all of who I was, all of the labels that the world might place on me.

He says, I leave that behind and I strain forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. And he’s saying every day he’s got this compass. And this compass is saying that’s the direction that my life needs to go in order to pursue Jesus. That, that he wants to be able to, at the end of his life, look back and say, I ran the race that God called me to run. I finished strong. I stayed on target. And he’s encouraging each and every one of us to do the same thing. But, but here’s the challenge that we all face, especially in 2024. There are so many things that are vying for our time. We have more choices and more options than ever before. And the history of the world, I, I’ve got a kid that has been sick.

And so yesterday he, he was just on screens the whole time. Which we allow when they’re sick. But, but it’s fascinating ’cause kids will get bored on screens. And my kids have told me before, there’s just nothing to watch. There’s nothing on, we can’t find anything. And I try and say, when I was your age, we had four channels and that was it. And if you didn’t catch it live while it was happening, you never knew what happened for the rest of your life. There shows that I’m still like, I wonder if they lived or died. I don’t know. We’ll never know. That’s how TV was. And now you have an infinite amount of content before you and you’re still not happy. There’s a fascinating Ted talk about the paradox of choice by Malcolm Gladwell. And here’s just some fascinating stats. Did you know that there have been more than 85 flavors of Oreo cookies?

85, I could probably name five. You know, this is regular. There’s double stuffed, there’s triple stuffed, there’s mega stuffed, so all different layers of filling. But, but then they’ve got these other 80 flavors where they’ve got a, a vanilla cookie and a chocolate cookie, and they’ve got a, a, a red velvet cookie and they’ve got some that have candy corn as the filling, and they’ve got one that has popcorn flavor kettle corn as the filling, which sounds absolutely disgusting to me, but the all kinds of different flavors of Oreos. And did you know that Crest toothpaste comes in almost 40 different varieties? I mean, I know of Mint, but man, that’s a lot. There are over 60 versions of Head and Shoulders shampoo that Coke’s freestyle machine allows the user to have 125 different flavors of soda. So we have all these options, and you would think that the more options we have, the happier we become as a result of it.

But science says no. Science says it’s actually the opposite. This is what science says. We think more choices will make us more happy, right? Wrong. The more choices we have, the more anxiety it causes. Our brains suffer from fear of missing out. If there are numerous options, then no matter what you pick, there’s a part of your brain that thinks one of the other options would have been better. This leads to an overall diminished satisfaction that when there’s just one flavor of Oreo cookie, it’s like, all right, it’s a pretty easy choice and I’m happy with that choice. But when there’s 85 flavors and you can only choose one, the rest of the time you’re eating that cookie, you’re like, I wonder if one of those 84 was better. Am I using my calories the right way or the wrong way? And see, here’s the challenge. We live in a world that has so many different choices with our time, and it causes diminished overall satisfaction. And so what do we do? Because it’d be easy to hear this message and say, Hey, the goal is this, and so tomorrow you need to do this and do that. And that’s how you get there. The book Atomic Habits actually paints it out differently. He says, focus less on what you want to achieve and more on

Who you want to become. And studies have found that when people focus on dos and don’ts, they struggle. But if people focus on the who, they find more success when they take school age children and they tell them don’t cheat, it doesn’t make a lick of difference, they still cheat. But instead, if they rephrase it and they focus on, don’t be a cheater, that’s not who you want to become. It causes children to rethink and make different choices as a result. Hey, here’s what Paul’s trying to get us to say Paul is, is trying to say, Hey, focus on who you want to become. That’s the goal. Focus on chasing after Jesus. The dos and the don’ts will result from the who. If I’m chasing after Jesus, then my lifestyle will start to look different. The actions will come into place. Hey, here’s the truth just in life that my direction will be determined by my affection. And so if I love Jesus, if that is my affection, then the direction of my life, the habits of my life, the dos and don’ts of my life will go that direction. If my affection is for my spouse, then we’re gonna be pursuing each other and have a healthy relationship. If my affection is for my kids, then I’m gonna follow them well. But what is dangerous is when my affection goes a different direction.

What’s the goal that you have in mind? A year ago, July 4th, 2023 bury Ferry she was a runner in Georgia. It was the Peachtree 10 K. And their, their 10 K was giving out $10,000 to the winner for the men’s side and the women’s side. And she came in, she’s an international runner, professional runner. She came in to Georgia to run the race in order to win $10,000. And she was smoking everybody. She was at the front for over nine K of the 10 K. And the whole time she was falling after a, essentially a motorcycle that was in front of her that was helping kind of guide the direction. And then right at the very end of the race that that motorbike takes a turn and you’ve got the home stretch. You got the big ribbon, you got people lined up on both sides, but that motorbike not wanting to be in the way, the motorbike doesn’t wanna break the ribbon.

So the motorbike takes a turn and goes off of the track of the race. And the runner, instead of turning towards the finish line, follows that motorbike goes the wrong direction. By the time she figures it out and gets back on track, instead of winning first, she ends up winning. Third, if you’re a runner, that just sounds awful. I mean, she was winning by a long shot. She had the whole thing, but she went the wrong direction. And, and here’s the danger, I think for us as Christians, that how easy would it be to wake up at the end of your life and to have achieved so many things and accomplish so much stuff, but in an eternal moment to recognize that I had the wrong goals.

I didn’t achieve the thing that was the most important. And in the same way for us as a church, if we’re gonna be a church that achieves all that God calls us to be, we’ve got to have the right goals in front of us. Heavenly Father, oh, we pray that we as a church can have the right goal, that we can lift high the name of Jesus. We cannot get on side streets, we cannot be distracted, but focus on you. And in the same way, Lord, I pray that each one of us individually, Lord, that we can focus on who we are becoming. Not how fast we get there, but each day with a compass saying, am I on track? Am I becoming who you want me to be? Lord, just as, as Paul over and over again reinforces help us just like a runner to run the race that you’ve called us to run. Help us to have the right goal out in front of us. Help us to not get distracted by all the different choices, all the different distractions, all the different worthless things that are in front of us in 2024. Help us our, help our eyes to be fixed on you. It’s the name of the Lord Jesus we pray. Amen.