I once heard someone say that the trouble with taking a walk is that you don't know when you arrive! For some people the Christian life may seem that way or even worse. They may not even know where they are going. Or perhaps they have a long view that says, "I am going to heaven someday, I hope--that is, if I can hold on that long." I have entitled this sermon, "Planning to Win." It is based on a conviction I have--or at least the suspicion I have--that many people don't have a clear idea of what the Christian life is supposed to be, and if they have a faint inkling they are not always sure how to get there. They may very possibly adopt a Peter Pan approach, which is something like the equivalent of "when you wish upon a star."

I greatly suspect that for many the Christian life is like buying a house--something that is right to do, but with the thirty-year mortgage there is really no sense in ever thinking of getting it paid off. We say we own the house, but in actuality it is like being in a partnership with the bank. A partnership is probably not the best word, because the bank is in the driver's seat and gets first dibs if you should ever get the idea that you want to sell. So, for many people, the Christian life is like buying a house with a thirty-year mortgage. It's not really yours; you are actually only making payments month by month, but it is cheaper than paying rent.

The Christian life is not supposed to be a walk to nowhere or anywhere, but to somewhere. The Christian life is supposed to be a life with a purpose. It is not supposed to be just a walk we go on, but a journey we take that has a destination, and there are signs along the way to let us know how far along we have come. To the apostle Paul, who was one of the greatest Christians of all time, the gospel was not a Peter Pan thing. He knew where he was going and he could tell you or anybody else how to get there.

Although Paul had a past, for him the Christian life wasn't about the past--it was about the present and the future. I think one of the texts that tells it best is the one in Philippians 3:13, 14: "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." There is no doubt about it. To Paul the Christian life was about planning to win. He had a past but he did not waste time looking backward.

I don't know if you are aware of it or not, but we tend to move in the direction we are looking. This is why you hear the admonition, "Keep your eyes on the road." It stands to reason that a person who spends a lot of time looking at their past life will sooner or later end up going backward. This is why--and I reiterate--the Christian life is not about the past. Once we ask for and receive the gift of forgiveness and the gift of repentance, there is no reason to look back.

This is because repentance means we recognize our mistakes of the past and ask Jesus to forgive them and then determine by His strength not to repeat them. Forgiveness is that wonderful gift that allows us to forgive those who have wronged us in the past whether they are sorry or not. It allows us to rid ourselves of bitterness and resentment and lets us get on with our lives.

A few years ago I bought a new Lumina. I hadn't bought a new car in nearly ten years. Some might say that buying a new car is not the smartest idea. However, the last new car I had bought was a Nissan Sentra, and I have had it for more than ten years. My wife drives it now and is happy with it. Not long ago a mechanic told me that an engine will last a long time if you keep it cool and slippery. I had never heard it put that way, but I understood what he meant. Keeping the engine cool and the oil changed is what it is about.

This brings me to the point I want to make about the Christian life. When I bought the new Lumina it came with an owner's manual. The owner's manual is not so much about how to repair the car as how to keep it in good condition. I am sure there are also repair manuals for Luminas. We need those, but the focus in car ownership is how to keep the car out of the repair shop.

Do you see? Of course, in the Christian life the Bible serves as both a maintenance manual and a repair manual. The thing that gives me concern is that our focus seems to be more on the repair side than on the maintenance side of things. In plain language we are giving more attention to how to get out of trouble than to how to stay out of trouble. We seem to be focusing more on what to do when we run off the road than on how to keep our Christian lives on track.

If it is true that "what you see is what you hit," we often seem to be making plans to lose rather than to win, to go off the road rather than to stay on the road. Perhaps we need to get our lives beyond damage control and into some good, solid driving that makes us winners and not losers. I have often noted that we are more familiar with the David and Bathsheba story than with the Joseph and Potifer's wife story. This would lead one to believe that our role models in Scripture tend to be the losers rather than the winners.

This could be because in our walk with the Lord we see ourselves as losers rather than winners. There is no doubt we are weak and have a greater natural propensity to sin than to overcome. Yet we need to understand that the Christian life is based on the new birth. The more one contemplates the new birth the more powerful the concept becomes. Think about it just now. A newborn baby is just starting its life, and so the concept for the Christian is that when we are born again we get a new start at life. The apostle Paul said it best: "The former things are passed away, and behold, all things are become new."

I suspect that the reason so many are having heavy-duty problems in our lives is because, when we came to Jesus rather than being born again, we seem to have just taken up where we left off. I am not suggesting that being a Christian means we won't have problems anymore. Reality is that, not only will we have problems, but we may have even more problems than we had before we came to Jesus. Jesus Himself said that in this world we would have trouble.

Therefore, the goal is not that a Christian will have no problems, but instead of being a loser to their problems, as they grow in grace, they will more and more become a winner. After all, the Word promises that there is no trial that has come or will come to us but that God will get us through it somehow if we want it that way.

Could it be that many of us have not yet experienced what Jesus called being born again? We often come to Him with an enormous amount of baggage, and instead of leaving the baggage in the past we bring it on board. Some actually seem to enjoy rummaging through the old stuff. Many come to the Lord with their past life full of mistakes and failures and, believe it or not, continue to do the same type of things although now in a different context.

When we come to Jesus, unless we repent from the heart and unless we forgive those who have wronged us, we will, in spite of our profession of faith in Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, no matter that we say He did it all for us on the cross and we have salvation, we will remain with the same problems we had before we came to Jesus. We might even end up worse than before because the Scripture says that people who know to do right and don't do it are worse off than if they hadn't come to the Lord in the first place.

The Christian life is not supposed to be a junkyard where we scrounge around for used pieces to try to get our life back together. Rather it is a place where we start all over again. We must acknowledge that when a person is born again it may not change their spouse and children, but it will definitely change the person himself, and that is for the better and not the worse.

If the proof of the pudding, as grandma used to say, is in the eating, then we Christians ought to have homes that are considerably different from homes where the people aren't particularly religious. It is very sad that the rate of divorce among professed Christians is nearly the same as for non-Christians. This has to be laid at the door of the fact that we are simply not living the faith that we profess.

We must not, in fact, be repenting and forgiving each other. If we were, a broken home would be rare. In a home where the spouse admits they have made a mistake and asks for forgiveness and in turn forgives the other, even before the other asks for forgiveness, it would be nearly impossible for a head of steam to be worked up that would blow the marriage apart. Keeping our marriages together is not so much a matter of doing right as it is in being right.

These days we seem to try to reduce everything to a checklist. We have fifteen ways to do this or ten things we must never forget about that. We know that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but what good does that do you if we are bitter and resentful people? How can we do things right if our hearts are not right? The only way our hearts can be right is by being born again.

Have you noticed we don't hear much about the new birth these days? We hear talk about getting saved but we may see very little evidence of it. I heard one person say he had been saved twenty-three times.

Returning to the idea of the new birth, we know what a newborn baby is like. It is helpless and one hundred percent dependent on someone else to take care of it. A person who is born again is like that; this means they need Jesus one hundred percent of the time to take care of them.

On the other hand, being born again in the spiritual sense is different from the natural sense, because when a baby is born and develops, it progresses from complete dependence increasingly toward independence. In the spiritual sense the new birth is just the opposite. After we are born again we progress from independence to complete and total dependence on Jesus through the Holy Spirit. That is what it means when the Bible says, "In Him we live and move and have our being."

From this perspective we cannot say enough about the devotional life. The devotional life is where we connect with Jesus. The Bible says that God wasn't in the wind or in the fire but He was in the still, small voice.

These days we hear a lot about having a relationship with God. I believe that what we need is not so much a relationship as a commitment. A commitment is a relationship but a relationship is not necessarily a commitment. Do you see? In this life we have all types of relationships but we don't make many commitments. Someone suggested that we take it even a step further and that is to define commitment as surrender. I like that. That fits the commitment that Jesus had with the heavenly Father when He said, "Not my will, but thine, be done."

"Not my will, but thine, be done." Catch this concept because it is very important. The bottom line of the born-again life is obedience to the will of God.

In a sermon I heard not long ago the preacher told a story that I thought made the point about obedience in a way I had never considered before. He said there was a man who had several sons. Apparently the man had a lot of money. One day he called his sons and told them he was going on a long trip. The sons must have been building contractors because he said that while he was gone he wanted them to build him a house.

This was not going to be your ordinary run-of-the-mill house; it was going to be more like what we would call an estate. Most of us don't live in the environment of really fancy houses. A tile setter once told me he has worked in houses where the marble in the entranceway cost $75,000. Someone else told me he was in an estate house under construction and the indoor painting of the rooms was going to cost $150,000.

Apparently the man in the story was asking his contractor sons to build him a really big house and all that would go with the estate, including the stables for the horses and right down to the chicken coop. The father told his boys he wanted them to follow his directions and do the job exactly as he told them and to make no exceptions. They agreed they would do just as he said. He told them that if they would follow his instructions he would give them the estate as a gift. And so when the time came he left on his trip.

The boys went to work. They found an architect, let out the bids, and did whatever you do to get a large building project underway. Everything went well and there were few problems. Finally the house was almost finished. The stable was laid out and started, and then they began to think of the details including building a chicken house. It was the chicken house that brought up a problem.

The boys had no difficulty with the construction but the problem was where to put it. Their dad had said he wanted it in a certain place, but as the boys discussed the location they felt the place their father had told them to put it was not the best place because it took the full sun especially during the hottest part of the day. Although their father had told them to put it in a certain place, they came to the conclusion he must not have taken into account the matter of the sun and felt it would be better to move it to a location that would provide a better atmosphere for the chickens. So they agreed to make the change and after a time the project was complete. Not long after that their father came home.

Of course, after greeting them the father was anxious to see the estate and the boys were anxious to show it to him. It had turned out exquisite. It was grand and magnificent. Only the very best materials had been used and only the best workmanship had been employed. As they walked around and showed their father all they had done they were pleased and hoped he would be also.

After inspecting the mansion, they took him to the stables. They noticed he had a questioning look on his face. He asked, "Boys, where is the chicken house? It was supposed to be right over there."

"Oh, that's all right, Dad," one of them said. "It's on the other side of that little grove of trees. We figured that would be the best place for it. I don't know if you had noticed or not, but the spot you had chosen was in the full sun."

The father replied, "But, boys, I told you I wanted it over there. When I left I asked you to follow my instructions exactly. You have not done as I asked you to do."

"But we did obey you, Father. We did everything you wanted us to do except for the chicken house."

"No," said the father, "you did not do what I asked you to do. You did only what you wanted to do. You only obeyed me where you agreed with me, but when you disagreed with me you did what you wanted to do."

The bottom line of the born-again Christian life is obedience, and that doesn't mean just in the things where we happen to agree. The life of faith is doing what God has asked us to do whether we happen to agree or understand all the implications. I am not particularly into sports, but I think the people who are take seriously what the coach has to say. The people who win the metals in the Olympics are the people who have trainers, and the trainers are the ones who call the shots.

Somehow we have decided that in the area of faith and morals our way or your way or any way is OK as long as we are sincere. But winners are not only sincere, they are committed and they are disciplined. It is amazing that in the Christian life we would have trouble with the one word that make us winners. Whether it be in a military campaign or in a play-off game, the winning word is obedience .

I made a trip to Germany last year to the SDA servicemen's center in Frankfurt . It was a wonderful weekend. I was impressed with the commitment our young men and women have to God and country. One of the servicemen told me that in the Army they are really hard on you when it comes to the matter of obedience. They will discipline you for walking on the grass when the sign says, "Keep off the grass." I asked the young man why he thought they are that way, and he explained that, when you are in a battle, your life and the lives of the others depend on obeying orders. So their training is not only about learning certain skills, but underlying it all is the discipline of obedience.

One of the primary reasons many people are more into losing than into winning in the Christian life is they have somehow become hostile to the concept of obedience. You can imagine how ridiculous it would be in military training if, when the first sergeant was telling the soldiers how absolutely necessary it was for them to obey orders, an enlisted man would raise his hand and say, "Sir, but that is legalism." The next thing the recruit would learn would be how to do 100 push-ups.

Many Christians are losing the war of the Christian life because they are somehow against all the concepts that make winners. There is no area of life where obedience is not a necessary element and the Christian life is no exception. Somehow a ridiculous and impossible notion has become accepted by many that obedience is unnecessary if you are a Christian. Nothing could be further from reality.

Let's do a reality check. Sin is about disobedience and expresses itself as disobedience. Salvation is about obedience and expresses itself as obedience to the will of God. I am puzzled when I hear labels like "legalist," "Pharisee," or "we shouldn't judge." These are not the words of the winners but of the losers. When you hear someone use these words, don't be intimidated. If a person is not convinced they want to do the will of God in their lives or they will decide where to put the chicken coop, that is their choice, but don't let that affect your commitment or deceive you. The words "legalist," "Pharisee," or "we shouldn't judge" are words that are used to try to make you give up the race--an "if you can't stop them, intimidate them" tactic.

I am committed to doing the will of God in my life and to do it in every detail. That doesn't make me a legalist, because a legalist is a person who tries to obey God in their own strength. I know that it is only by the power of the Holy Spirit of a crucified and risen Savior that I am able to do as He requires.

I am not a Pharisee either, because a Pharisee is a sinner in denial, and my prayer is, "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner." It doesn't bother me if they try to stop me from discerning between right and wrong by chanting "we shouldn't judge." I agree. Judging is trying to read what is in a person's heart and only God can do that. It is not judging to say that a person who robs a bank is a thief. It is judging to say that he robbed the bank because his mother wouldn't buy him the toys he wanted on Christmas, so please excuse him. Do you see the difference?

If we are going win in this life and be prepared for the life to come, we are going to have to start having the mind-set of winners and not losers. Winners are not afraid of words like "overcoming sin." They don't feel intimidated when people talk about holiness or the victorious Christian life. Those who are alive here at the beginning of the third millennium are aware that the signs are telling us the coming of Jesus is near. They know that before this happens probation will close, and those who are not winning when that happens will be permanent losers.

You remember the Scripture says that one day Jesus will say, He that is holy let him be holy still and he that is unholy will just have to stay that way. We must be aware that where sin abounds grace much more abounds. But at the same time we must not be presumptuous because the Word also says that God's Spirit will not always strive with men and women.

There are people who don't like to talk about repentance because they consider the concept to be unaffirming and unaccepting. It is curious that there are many people who don't like to talk about repentance, but they do like to talk about spiritual gifts. We had better think clearly about the matter of spiritual gifts. You are aware that you don't have to be born again to be hospitable or a philanthropist or even to be able to sing or preach. Spiritual gifts can be imitated. Spiritual gifts are just that--they are not necessarily evidence of a new birth.

We must not forget that the first step toward the new birth--the first step toward being a winner--is to repent. If we don't take that step we will not in fact be born again. If we have not repented and been born again, whatever gifts we may have are either what might be called natural talents, or worse, they may even be sponsored by another spirit. Jesus Himself said that He would send the Spirit, and the first thing the Spirit would do is to convict of sin.

A moment ago I mentioned that there are those who don't like to talk about repentance because it is not affirming and accepting. I don't know if you have thought about it or not, but the idea of always affirming each other can very well become a disincentive to change. The gospel is about change. If we are persuaded that I'm OK and you're OK, we tend to perpetuate our weaknesses or we try to build a new life on top of the old, which as we mentioned earlier is not what salvation is all about. Jesus said we have to be born again. The labor pain of the new birth is repentance.

Another hindrance to the new birth is we don't like to talk about guilt. Guilt is seen by many as the cause of all our problems. Supposing a man and woman start an adulterous relationship. Of course, the natural thing is to feel guilty, so they go to see a counselor. The person will probably not tell them to break off the adultery but rather to stop feeling guilty.

A born-again Christian will not avoid the importance of guilt. It is as necessary for me to feel guilty when I do something wrong as it is for my finger to hurt when I put it on a hot iron. Contrary to popular belief, guilt is not our problem--sin is our problem. Guilt is God's way of alerting us that something is not right.

I appreciate guilt as I grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Guilt is what tells me when I have missed the mark. Now I realize there is such a thing as toxic guilt. If guilt is the gauge God has given to tell us when something is wrong, it would not be out of the character of things if the gauge went bad once in a while. Our guilt gauge must be kept calibrated by the Word of God.

So I am thankful for the guilt that keeps me on track. Guilt will tell us when we are off the road before we actually hit something and do permanent damage to our lives or the life of someone else. If we would value guilt and heed its warnings we wouldn't be hurting nearly as much as we are.

It is the feeling of guilt that sends me to my knees. How thankful I am that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Sometimes when I miss the mark and I know I have not glorified God, I ask Him to forgive me, and then I say, "Lord, let's try that again. Give me another go at it!" If you are into affirming, let me warn you. Guilt is not affirming; it is humiliating. But humility in the Christian life is not a put-down. It is the way to let God put you back on track.

Listen to these texts: Matthew 18:4, "Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 23:12, "And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted." Here are more: James 4:6, "But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble." And finally, James 4:10, "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up."

In the Christian life humility is not a put-down but actually the way that we grow. It could be put this way--Christians do not grow up, they actually grow down. The more we are humbled before God the closer to Him we become. This is why the cult of self so evident in society today is undermining the very foundation on which the gospel rests. The philosophy of building up one's self and loving one's self first is shorting out what the Holy Spirit is trying to do in our lives.

I don't believe any of us could have imagined how the devil would operate in these last days. We somehow thought he would try to persuade us that Sunday is the Sabbath, and since we were ready for that one we felt we didn't have anything to worry about. Of course, the Sabbath/Sunday issue is in our future, but in our present it is who shall we love first--ourselves or our Maker, and who shall we put first--ourselves or others. If we love ourselves first and are living selfish lives, we might not get the Mark of the Beast in our forehead, but we will definitely get it in our hand.

Those who are lost will be those who decided to do it all themselves according to the way they saw it instead of doing it God's way by the power of Jesus Christ dwelling in the heart.

The old spiritual was right when it said that everyone who was talking about going to heaven wouldn't be going there. Though we may be talking about winning a crown someday, what many are doing in the here and now will result in anything but a crown. If we plan to win the crown we must take steps here that will make it possible for us to win. Salvation is not a civil right. Jesus paid a price for our salvation and so must we. Being saved is not the easiest thing we will ever do; rather it will be that for which we had to pay a price. And that price is, we had to die to the old life and be born again to a new one in Christ Jesus. Although being saved is not easy, thank God it is possible for all who undertake it with their whole heart. The Word says we will find Him if we search for Him with all our hearts.

Heaven is for winners. Those who don't make heaven will be those who copped out of the race. Everyone who runs the race of salvation and stays in the race will win. But we have to stay in the race. I like the text in Hebrews12:1-4:

"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.

"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin."

Have you ever been impressed when you see someone able to do something well? We use the expression that it seems to come natural to that person. There is no doubt that we are all born with certain talents, but we should make no mistake that those who do something particularly well are those who have taken their talents and employed them to the best of their ability.

One of my college professors was an expert in Biblical languages. He made it clear to us he was not happy to hear people say that languages come naturally to him. He said he had spent his whole life studying and applying himself to learn these languages. It was by no means something that came naturally.

The growing Christian life is not natural either. It is a mixture of the supernatural with a serious commitment on the part of the person who has been born again. I like what I heard someone ask one time and have repeated it often: Which is most important, being born or staying alive?

How many Christians have had the miracle of the new birth, but then have made no effort to move forward and grow in grace? I know there are some who say we don't need to make an effort, only "let go and let God."

Down in Florida where I live, I try to keep some variety of flowers growing most of the year. I don't make the flowers grow, God does. But how I care for them is a big factor in how they grow and if they survive. "Let go and let God" is to understate what the Christian life is all about. It would be like saying when you want to grow petunias, just stick them in the ground and you don't have to do anything more. Just a word here about what I call living the Christian life by adrenaline. Using the gardening illustration again, the water that gives life to a plant can also drown it, and the sun that makes the plant function can also scorch it, and the fertilizer that can contribute to its growth can also kill it.

There is a tendency on the part of some to try to force feed the Christian life. As in nature this is not expedient. A man who had just become a Christian about six months before called me on the telephone. He was full of zeal. Fortunately his family was encouraging him in his new birth experience. His question to me, if I remember rightly, was whether or not he should quit his job and move to the country. He was completely immersed in his new faith and wanted to make sure he lived it to the smallest degree. You may not agree with my counsel, but I suggested he slow down and let his life catch up with his heart and mind. We must not forget that the new life in Christ must be nourished. We must put our roots down deep. Often there are some serious spiritual amputations that must take place and these will often take time to heal.

A baby may be born in a day but it doesn't grow up in a day. There was a time when evangelistic meetings where conducted over a period of months. By the time the person took the big step to be baptized and become a member of the church they had gone a ways down the road toward a new lifestyle and the change of culture that is necessarily required. Unfortunately, we now have much shorter campaigns, sometimes lasting only three weeks. A person who tries to go from zero to sixty in three weeks will often not have enough speed to get their new lives off the ground and one of two things happens: They either become spiritually disabled, or simply the old life never drops away and what should be a new life in Christ becomes an extension of the old life but now in a religious context.

There are those who believe a person should be baptized when they want to be baptized and then decide later whether they want to join the church. To hold to that, one must believe that baptism is meritorious in itself, that is, a sacrament. But Jesus admonishes his church to baptize, " . . . teaching them to observe those things which I have commanded unto you." The emphasis is less on baptizing and more on observing. Therefore, baptism is like a marriage ceremony in which one makes a public statement before God and those present that they will love, honor, and cherish until death do them part. And so when a person is baptized they are making a statement before God and in the presence of the body of Christ that they have been crucified with Christ and resurrected with Him to newness of life. No serious-minded person would say, "I am crucified and resurrected with Christ, but I do not want to be a part of the body; and after I am baptized I will decide if I want to live the life God has commanded those who are in Him must live." When we stand before the minister and the congregation and take our marriage vows, we are not pledging that we will decide whether we will be faithful to our spouse after the honeymoon is over.

We are often stalling and crashing in the Christian life and saying the devil made us do it when the truth is we took our hands off the wheel on a curve while watching the portable TV we have built into the dashboard of the car. We were not being serious drivers.

If we were just half as serious about living a victorious Christian life as some men are about their golf game or some women are about making sure their hairdo is in place, we would find that we would be continually growing in grace and our failures would tend not to be the monumental catastrophe they so often are.

Let us keep looking to Him, who is the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2). Let us remember that we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us, and that He that is in us is stronger than he that is in the world. Let's make plans to win!