Get Over It

PHIL.3:13-14 “GET OVER IT!”

A) So, here you sit tonight, as a child of God, and the Bible says that you are to forget

everything behind you! * You should be reaching forward!

* This is why people are failing in life! * We are either living in the past, or we are living

for now, and we are not obeying what the Bible says!

* We must learn how to let go of the past! * Paul says, “Forgetting those things which are ...”

* To forget something means that we no longer are influenced or affected by it!

* There are some of you here tonight that will tell me that you forgot some incident long ago,

but you haven’t, because you’re still affected and influenced by it, and you won’t let it go!

B) Until you learn to come to the place in your life where you’re not affected or influenced

by it, you have not really forgotten anything from the past!

* The Bible says that we ought to “Forget those things in the past and then reach forth unto .......”

* Paul goes on and says in v.14, that in reaching forth, “We press toward the mark for the .......”

* This means we put our greatest efforts into the future, not in the past!

C) When Paul wrote this, he was 60 years old and in prison!

* He didn’t know if he was gonna be acquitted or lose his life, but he had a desire to serve God!

* Our age or our circumstances should not affect our desire to serve God!

* No matter who your are, there ought to be a future in your life tonight!

* I don’t care who you are, there ought to be something out there in front of you, that makes you

get up in the morning, drives you, motivates you and moves you!

D) If you’re gonna find victory in this life you live now, you’re going to have to forget the past!

* And ... You’re gonna have to do what Paul did in our text!

* Paul warns us here of some things! * He tells us in v.3, that we had better .......

(1) WATCH OUT FOR THE FLESH! * Your flesh will discourage you!

A) Your flesh will tell you that you can’t do it!

* Your flesh will tell you the same thing happened to you in the past will happen to you again!

* The same thing that hurt you before is going to hurt you again!

* The flesh will rob you of your future and victory for God! * We must watch out for the flesh!

(2) WATCH OUT FOR OUR FRIENDS – V.17-19!

* You have to be very careful about who your friends are!

A) You don’t need friends who are not going anywhere!

* You don’t need friends who say their best days are behind them!

* You don’t need friends who’ve decided that this is it, and all they can do is be miserable, and

sit around sharing their misery together and talking how bad and hard it is for all of us!

* You don’t need friends like that!

* Those kind of friends may try to keep you from serving God! * Choose the right friends!

* So, watch out for the flesh and watch out for our friends!

(3) THEN PAUL GOES ON TO SAY WE NEED TO WATCH OUT FOR FAILURE – V.12!

A) I may have failed in the past, but I do not have to fail now!

* Your life may be one miserable story of failure after failure after failure .......

* But your life doesn’t have to be a failure if you put the past behind you!

* Get a future and press toward the mark as hard as you can with all your strength!

B) Then he said that the future drives him!

* What would make an old man in jail say, “Let ‘em cut off my head, I still have a future?”

* What would make anyone that had been beaten like Paul had all these years, that would make

him say that he still had a future? * Look at v.20-21.

* That sounds like a pretty good future, don’t it? * That’s your future if you’re saved tonight!

* You are supposed to be looking at life the same way that Paul looked at life!

C) You’re not supposed to be sitting here mad tonight at what somebody did to you 5 years ago!

* You’re not supposed to be sitting here tonight upset at something that happened in your past!

* You’re not supposed to be sitting here tonight feeling unappreciated for something you’ve done!

* You have to put the past behind you! * Forget people of the past!