Intro:
The Biggest loser is one of the hottest new reality shows. This is what TV.com had to say about the show, “this compelling new weight-loss reality drama in which two celebrity fitness trainers join with top health experts to help overweight contestants transform their bodies, health and ultimately, their lives.”
What was not said is that those contestants must be willing to loose more than just weight. They may have to radically alter their lives. Their eating habits, exercise, sleeping, free time, and on and on. But the contestants make the commitment to loose the weight regardless of what else they loose.
This morning I want to challenge you as individuals to become the Biggest Loser.
Let’s begin the year with a contest to see who will be the biggest loser.
Why would I want to encourage us as a church to have a contest to see who can become the biggest loser?
Because to live is Christ to die is gain.
Jesus said the greatest shall be come the least.
If you want to become great in the kingdom you will be a servant.
In the passage today as in the biggest loser the path to gain is loss.
I. Loosing all is the plan
A) We must ask why is this God’s way?
Isaiah 55.9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
1) God does not use popular opinion. God uses powerful omnipotence.
I can’t believe God would do that
Good thing your beliefs aren’t what make God, God.
2) God’s provision for our life is not based on our approval
B) We must ask what did Paul loose?
1) Lost His Pride (3.5-6)
Religious Pride
Family Pride (May have lost his family)
National Pride
Personal Pride (Paul counted it all as dung, rubbish)
2) Lost His Passion
His passion had been for the Law and not the Lord.
What passions do you have that keep you from Jesus?
C) We must ask ourselves what do we need to loose?
Illustration: DVD (Rat Race)
D. A Carson
I would like to buy about three dollars worth of gospel, please. Not too much – just enough to make me happy, but not so much that I get addicted. I don’t want so much gospel that I learn to really hate covetousness and lust. I certainly don’t want so much that I start to love my enemies, cherish self-denial, and contemplate missionary
service in some alien culture. I want ecstasy, not repentance; I want transcendence, not transformation. I would like to be cherished by some nice, forgiving, broad-minded people, but I myself don’t want to love those from different races – especially if they smell. I would like enough gospel to make my family secure and my children well behaved, but not so much that I find my ambitions redirected or my giving too greatly enlarged. I would like about three dollars worth of gospel, please.
A) Over weight Americans
1) Physical is seen easily
2) Spiritual is where the problem is
Being spiritually overweight is what will drag you down to the depths of hell.
Sin weighs us down and keeps us from knowing Christ.
B) Weight loss program
Unused potential.
Until we become the biggest loser. Christ will not be able to take our potential and use it for His Glory and His kingdom.
II. Gaining Christ (all) is the result
3.8 “ and count them but rubbish that I may gain Christ”
Col 1.16-20
Paul took his statement about gain to the extreme.
Philippians 1.21 “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
Christ had become Paul’s All in All
Listen to this powerful song
In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
Here in the love of Christ I stand.
In Christ alone! – who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save:
‘Til on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied –
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.
There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me,
For I am His and He is mine –
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.
No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
‘Til He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand!
A) The Goal (Christ My All)
1) In the biggest loser it is to shed pounds, at the same time totally changing your lifestyle in order to not return to it.
2) As Christians our goal is to loose all the things that hinder us from knowing Christ.
(Hebrews 12.1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside (lose) every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles us.)
a) In effect dieing to our old lifestyle
b) Being raised with Jesus in the resurrection to be a new creation.
B) The Gain
1) How can we loose and still gain
Loose private time by making it prayer time (gain = God)
Loose hobby time to study God’s Holy word (gain = Wisdom and knowledge of God)
Loose money by tithing, gain (eternal rewards, 100 fold return either spiritual, financial, etc. .
2) Knowing Christ
1) Eternal life
a) Eternal life is not simply endless existence
b) Eternal life is knowing Christ
John 17.3 This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent.
Loss is gain
Luke 18.29-30
“And He said to them, “Truly I say to you, there Is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God. “
30 who will not receive many times as much at this time and in the age to come, eternal life.”
1) Present Possession
Knowing Christ now
2) Future Possession
Knowing Christ as He is then
When we receive our glorified bodies
c) Quality of life
1) Abundant, promised by Jesus in John 10.10
If you have freely suffered loss there is nothing the thief can steal, kill, or destroy that The Lord Jesus will not give back ten fold
2) The Life of Christ (Col 1.27)
Christ in us the hope of glory
Christ living through us. (This will make us mission minded and mission active.)
2) Eternal rest
I don’t know how many of you are tired, but sometimes I feel as though I have a PhD in tired.
a) Promise of God
To those who come to Christ
b) Provision of God
He provides us rest when we are spiritually, emotionally, and physically exhausted.
Supernatural ability to continue even though your resources have come to an end.
True biblical rest means our sins are forgiven because of faith in Jesus Christ and ultimately we will enter into the eternal rest of God’s presence.
Conclusion: Jesus said that if you would be His disciple you would deny yourself, count everything in your life loss and follow Him! You present loss will lead to eternal gain.
What have you counted loss and taken the effort to remove it from you life. Christ gives us the strength to do all things. He doesn’t do all things for us. If there are things in our life that are unhealthy to us as Christians, that make us “overweight” we need to make the sacrifices necessary to loose the weight that hinders our relationship with Christ.
So how do we loose the unhealthy “weight?”
1) Count the unnecessary weight loss
2) Take steps to remove it from your life
3) Ask God to give you the strength, endurance and ability to loose it.
4) Don’t go back to the unhealthy lifestyle.
