When Your Memories Become Your Enemies:
Learn To Look To Jesus
INTRODUCTION
I want to talk with you today on the subject:
WHEN YOUR MEMORIES BECOME YOUR ENEMIES
Did you know that your mind is one of God’s greatest creations?
That’s why the mind is a terrible thing to waste, because God created it and made it so wonderfully.
Dr. Earl Radmacher says this about the human mind:
“The human mind is a fabulous computer. As a matter of fact, no one has been able to design a computer as intricate and efficient as the human mind. Consider this: your brain is capable of recording 800 memories per second for 75 years without ever getting tired.”
Now, that spells bad news for some people who say they can never memorize scripture.
Scientists tell us that human beings never use more than 2% of their total brainpower.
Now, obviously some people demonstrate this fact more than others.
But our mind is a wonderful thing. It stores information and keeps it on file so that at any moment you can retrieve a sensation you’ve experienced:
A familiar smell that brings back a memory
A familiar sound that triggers a memory.
A familiar sight that triggers your mind to replay mental movies.
Your memory is one of your mind’s highest functions.
But what happens when your memories are unpleasant or disturbing?
What do you do with them then?
You can’t delete them or erase them.
Dr. Earl Radmacher says:
“The brain is capable of an incredible amount of work and it retains everything it takes in. You never really forget anything; you just don’t recall it. Everything is on permanent file in your brain.”
Good memories are stored forever. Bad memories are stored forever.
Good memories we don’t mind so much.
But what are you and I to do with all of our bad memories?
How do we handle them?
Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about.
• You can recall some money somebody still owes you.
• You can recall a parent or boss being unfair to you.
• You can recall a time when prejudice or partiality caused you pain.
• A time when someone started a rumor that damaged your reputation.
• A time when someone you thought was your friend turned on you.
• Perhaps one of your children, now grown, is a disappointment to you or won’t speak to you.
• Perhaps a mate has been unfaithful to you.
• Perhaps the physicians made a terrible mistake and contributed to the death of your loved one.
Whatever it is that haunts your memory, how are you dealing with that?
A lot of Psychologists will tell you to revisit your childhood and attempt to discover what caused your pain.
We call this: REFLECTION
To reflect on something is to look back at it.
To let your mind take you back to a different place and a different time.
And reflection can be very helpful in making changes in our lives.
But it can also be very damaging if we aren’t careful in how we do it.
In Luke’s Gospel Chapter 9 and verse 62 Jesus cautions you and I against looking back.
Notice what he says in Luke 9:62.
Luke 9:62
“But Jesus said to him ‘No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God’.”
If you and I are going to follow Jesus Christ wholeheartedly, we must get a grip on this issue of LOOKING BACK.
I want to caution you this morning with “4 Warnings About Looking Back”.
What damage can the wrong kind of looking back do in our lives?
1. CAUTION! Looking Back At Past Failures May Cause You To Hold Back In the Present.
Let me ask you some questions:
• Are you capable of more than you are accomplishing?
• Do you feel like you’re stuck in a rut and can’t seem to get out of it?
• Do you feel that you are not fulfilling your potential?
If you feel this way, what’s holding you back? What’s keeping you down?
Could it be that you have been looking back at your past failures and that looking back at your past failures has caused you to be fearful to attempt anything new in the present?
Perhaps you think that because you’ve failed in the past, that means you will fail in the present.
• Maybe you’ve been trying to read the Bible through this year.
But instead of sticking with it, you quit.
Do you think that automatically means you can never do better in the future?
• Maybe you have been trying to get yourself and your family to church more often, but your attendance has dropped off.
Do you think that means you can’t do better next time?
• Perhaps you’ve wanted to start coming on Wednesday Nights but you still haven’t.
Does that mean you can’t do better?
Many, many people spend much of their time looking back over their lives at their past failures.
They’re constantly thinking about the time…
They did such and such and wish they hadn’t.
Said such and such and wish they could take it back.
Didn’t do such and such and wished they had.
Looking back makes you hold back.
John Maxwell says:
“Many people look at their past failures and fear the risk of pursuing a vision. Their motto is, ‘If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all the evidence that you’ve tried’.”
Romans 3:23 says:
“All (people) have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Every single one of us is a sinner by nature. So every single one of us can look back in our past and recall times when we’ve failed to do what was right.
But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t keeping trying.
I like the way Paul said it in Philippians 3:12-14 in the Living Bible.
He says:
“I don’t mean to say that I am perfect. I haven’t learned all I should even yet, but I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ saved me for and wants me to be. No, dear brothers, I am still not all I should be but I am bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us up to heaven because of what Christ Jesus did for us.”
Paul said, “Just because I may have failed in the past, doesn’t mean I am going to give up in the present.”
How could Paul adopt this never-say-die attitude?
Listen to I Timothy 1:13:
“Although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.”
Paul had his share of skeletons in his closet.
If he let himself, he could have spent all his time regretting his past.
But he chose to focus on the mercy of God.
And God is merciful.
If you’ve failed in the past or fallen away from the Lord then hear what God says to you today:
“ ‘Return, backsliding Israel’ says the Lord; ‘I will not cause my anger to fall on you. For I am merciful,’ says the Lord; ‘I will not remain angry forever’. Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the Lord your God’.” – Jeremiah 3:12-13a
Let me give you a second caution this morning.
2. CAUTION! Looking Back At Past Successes May Cause You To Sit Back In The Present.
Now, what’s interesting about the section of scripture I’ve been reading from in Philippians 3, is that in the context, when Paul talks about forgetting those things that are behind, in the context, he’s actually referring to his past successes.
Now, the wider application is the one I’ve just made, which is that you and I need to stop looking back all the time at our past failures.
But not only does God not want us to DWELL ON our past failures, neither does he want us to DWELL ON our past successes.
And there’s a good reason for this.
LOOKING BACK ON PAST SUCCESSES MAY BE CAUSING YOU TO SIT BACK IN THE PRESENT.
In Philippians 3 the Apostle Paul gave us quite an impressive resume for any day and time.
“If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” – Philippians 3:4b-6
Pastor and author Chuck Swindoll says:
“If you were looking for someone to give a testimony next Sunday, Paul would be a winner. (If he let himself, he could turn it into a bragimony).
Paul could have looked back on his past and concluded that he had accomplished everything he’d ever wanted to accomplish.
But then he says in verse 7:
“But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.”
Paul knew the danger in looking back and becoming prideful about one’s successes.
That’s why he says in verse 12 and 13 that the one thing he continues to do in the present is PRESS ON OR PRESS TOWARD.
“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on…” – V.12
“One thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal…” – V.13
Paul didn’t just look back and sit back, he looked forward and he leaned forward in his life.
It’s possible having once been a success, to stop being successful in the present because you sit back instead of press on.
In a Leadership magazine article, Lynn Anderson described what happens when people who once were successful sit back in the present.
About 370 years ago, a group of pilgrims landed on the shores of America. With great vision and courage they had come to settle in the new land.
• In the first year, they established a town.
• In the second year, they elected a town council.
• In the third year, the government proposed building a road five miles westward into the wilderness.
• But in the fourth year, the people tried to impeach the town council because the people thought such a road into the forest was a waste of public funds.
Somehow, those forward-looking people had lost their vision and had started sitting back.
At one time they had successfully sailed across the sea and established themselves, now they weren’t willing to travel five miles into the wilderness.
It can happen to the best of us. So be careful.
As we move along this issue of LOOKING BACK IN OUR LIVES, WE SOON LEARN THAT IT BECOMES MUCH MORE SERIOUS.
3. CAUTION! Looking Back At Past Injuries May Cause You To Strike Back In the Present.
I cannot over exaggerate how important this third caution is to your life.
STEWING OVER PAST INJURIES WILL DESTROY YOUR LIFE.
Here’s what I’ve learned about these injuries.
As you and I go through life, we inevitably get bumped and scratched and sometimes knocked down and bruised and even cut and deeply wounded at the hands of other people.
And those exchanges and interactions create wounds in each of us.
And continually looking back at how you’ve been mistreated will only create more pain for you in the present.
Listen to what the Psalmist said happened inside of him when he sat and stewed over a past hurt.
Psalm 39:2-3 says:
“I kept very quiet but I became even more upset. I became very angry inside, and as I thought about it, my anger burned.”
If you notice, it doesn’t say that thinking about that past hurt made him happy, it made him angry.
It made his blood boil and his temperature rise.
And what do people who are walking around with a chip on their shoulder often do?
They take it out on others.
Have you found this to be true in your life?
HURTING PEOPLE HURT OTHER PEOPLE.
Hebrews 12:15 says:
“A bitter spirit is not only bad in itself but can also poison the lives of many others.”
People who are bitter and resentful often take their anger out on innocent bystanders.
This is one of the main reasons for child abuse, spousal abuse, and all kinds of crime.
People are walking around with all kinds of anger bottled up inside of them and the reason they are is because they continually look back at what someone else did to them.
LOOKING BACK AT PAST INJURIES CAN CAUSE YOU TO STRIKE BACK IN THE PRESENT.
Pastor Kevin Myers illustrates it this way.
“If someone has a splinter in their finger and he allows it to remain there, his finger becomes swollen and infected. Then if another person barely brushes against it, the individual howls with pain and says, “You hurt me!” But the reality is that the problem isn’t with the person who innocently bumped the finger. It’s with the person who has the splinter but has neglected to address the injury.”
Romans 12:17-19 says:
“Never pay back evil for evil. Never avenge yourself. Leave that to God. For he has said He will repay those that deserve it.”
Some of you have come in here today with some splinters in your heart.
You need to let God remove it and heal you.
Psalm 147:3 says:
“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
4. CAUTION! Looking Back At The Past In General May Cause You To Turn Back From The Lord.
You know, we serve a God who looks forward.
He even created our bodies to prove it.
When God put our eyes in our head, did he put them in the front or the back? The front.
When God put our ears on our head, did he place them facing backward or forward?
When God put feet on your legs, did he attach them to face backward or forward?
You see, your body screams look forward.
You can’t look back without some part of you turning back.
And I think this is the essence of what Jesus wants you and I to understand about looking back.
Whenever you or I look back, there’s a little part of us that turns back.
We’re not giving our whole heart to the present, but just part of it.
But God doesn’t want a mere shadow of the man you think you used to be.
God doesn’t want a mere shadow of the woman you think you once were.
He wants the you you are now. And he wants all of you, right now, right here, in the present.
I think one of the saddest verses in all the bible is John 6:66 which says:
“From that time many of his disciples went back and walked with Him no more.”
What happened? Why did they turn back?
Well, it’s because they looked back and they thought that the past they once had would make them happier than the future Jesus was offering them.
How about you?
Do you feel your heart turning back from following the Lord?
I want you to know there’s hope this morning.
One of the greatest examples of overcoming the tendency to look back is the story of Joseph in the Old Testament.
Hated by his brothers, sold into slavery, falsely accused by Potipher’s wife, forgotten in a dungeon and considered dead by his own father.
Eventually Joseph was promoted to a high position in Egypt and here’s the amazing part.
He chose not to look back at all the offences done to him but to forget them.
When he and his wife had their first child, Joseph even named him the boy Manasseh, after a Hebrew word, which means ‘forget’.
Joseph explains the reason for why he chose that particular name:
“And Joseph named the firstborn Manasseh, ‘For’, he said, ‘God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household’.” – Genesis 41:51
Joseph brings out a great point.
For you and I to forget our past and quit looking back all the time, GOD has to be the one to comfort our hearts.
Isaiah, the prophet, put it in these terms.
“Fear not, for you will not be put to shame; neither feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced; but you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your husband is your Maker, whose name is the Lord of hosts; and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, who is called the God of all the earth.” – Isaiah 54:4-5
• To those of you who have a shameful youth
• To those of you who have lost your mate or a child
• To those of you who have been overlooked, mistreated, despised, rejected, the living Lord says to you that He will replace your hurtful memories with Himself.
For you to overcome your painful memories you have to stop focusing on your hurt and start focusing on your healer.
The Good news is that Jesus Christ wants to heal your painful memories.
Jesus knows about pain.
He looked pain and death in the face as he went to the cross to die for your sins and mine.
Isaiah 53:5 says:
“But he was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.”
Come to Jesus and let Him heal you this morning.
