Moving on from the Past
Philippians 3:12-14
September 20, 2009
NOTE: THE ME/WE/GOD/YOU/WE FORMAT IS FROM ANDY STANLEY’S BOOK, "COMMUNICATING FOR A CHANGE."
Me: As was made painfully obvious last Sunday, I recently had a birthday.
I turned 45 on September 11th.
One of the things I find myself doing from time to time, and maybe a little bit more as I get a little bit older, is looking back and wondering if I’ve done anything of consequence up to this point.
Have I done anything that says I’ve made a difference, especially in the lives of my family. A positive difference, that is.
We: I think all of us would like to look back and hope we see something we can hang our hat on and smile.
We all hope that we find some successes, no matter how small, just so we can look back and not think our lives are a total waste.
But while we’re looking for successes, you know what else pops up, don’t you? Our failures.
We’ve all had them, we’ll all have some more.
Some of us, including myself, have had some colossal failures.
Isn’t it amazing how those come to our memories, even easier than the successes?
Folks, it’s good that we can remember our successes and failures, because we can be encouraged by both.
Because even our failures are used by God to teach us lessons and to make us more like Jesus.
But did you know that as important as our past is, it’s not supposed to define who we are, at least not in terms of our life in Christ and our service to Him.
God: Paul discusses that in this passage of Scripture for today.
Paul had a past, just like you and I do – he had stuff he could brag about and stuff he was ashamed of, just like you and I do.
But as we find out here, he did not let it determine who he was in Christ, and he didn’t let it determine his usefulness for the Kingdom.
Philippians 3:12-14 –
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Paul says, “I press on.”
I’m not the sharpest lightbulb in the toolbox, but one thing I’ve learned is that when Scripture repeats something, especially in a short span like this, it’s probably something we should listen to.
It’s important.
God is telling us something here through Paul.
So let’s look at what Paul is trying to stress.
He starts off by saying that he hadn’t “obtained all this.” What is “all this”? Back in verse 10 he lists it out:
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
He says that He hadn’t reached the level of intimate relationship with Jesus that he really wants. And he’s pressing on the take hold of that.
He wants it so bad that he’s willing to consider all his past accomplishments and failures as garbage in comparison.
I’d say he wants it pretty bad.
It would be great if everyone wanted that closeness with Christ that badly. But you know what? I don’t always want it that badly.
There are times when I let other things get in the way, I don’t press on like I should.
We all have records in our memory banks.
There are a couple records that can get in the way from us pressing on and getting that close to Jesus, and Paul had to let both of them go, just like we do.
In verse 13 he uses a key phrase: “Forgetting what is behind…”
That doesn’t mean he has some sort of mental lapse and actually forgets that stuff like most people forget where they put their car keys.
It means that he chooses to not dwell on your record of these things, and he chooses to not let them define who he is as a person who wants to follow Christ.
One of the records that can get in the way of a person being as close to Christ as they can be is…
* A record of failures.
Paul had a few of these, but the biggest was his persecution of the Christians early on.
I can imagine that he spent many days and nights over the years remembering that.
Remembering how excited he would get at arresting Christians and maybe hoping they’d be put to death, and he’d get the credit for making it happen.
And praying that God would override his actions and work through him in spite of his past.
Now something you need to keep in mind is that God had forgiven him already. But I’ll bet that the devil would take any opportunity he could to remind Paul of his failure and cause him to wonder if God could really use him.
But Paul chose to move on, with the help of God.
All of us have failures in our past.
At the beginning of the message I mentioned that some of us have had some colossal failures in our past.
And when I said that, some of you immediately remembered something you’d just as soon forget.
And you’re probably thinking, “Thanks a lot, Pastor Brian…”
As I look back on my nearly half-century of life, you know what stands out most clearly a lot of times? My failures.
I’ve done many, many things I’m not proud of. Stupid things, immoral things, even some criminal things.
But like Paul, I found Jesus and He took care of all that. I don’t have to let that stuff hold me back, and I don’t have to let that define me as a person who wants to follow and love Jesus.
I’ve had other failures since giving my life to Jesus. Nothing illegal that I can think of, but stuff that I’m not proud of.
Even since becoming a pastor almost 10 years ago, I’ve got some really beautiful failures on my resume.
And if I’m not careful, I can let those things bog me down and keep me from focusing the higher goal of knowing Christ like I want to.
And it’s the same with everyone in here today.
Before I move on the other thing that can keep us from that, let me mention something else that I picked up here.
Paul was writing this toward the end of his life, and was under house arrest. He still hadn’t attained what he really wanted – that deep, intimate knowledge of Christ.
And he could have said, “Well, now I’ll never get it.”
He never gave up hope. My point here is that you can’t look back on your life, no matter how far along you are in life and think, “Now I’ll never make that goal, have a successful career, have a great marriage, or have a fruitful ministry.”
You never know what God might do if you’ll persist in your desire to know Christ and to serve Him.
A record of failures can get in the way of us really knowing Christ – but only if we let them.
The second thing that can get in the way is (surprise)…
* A record of successes.
Paul had his share of those, too.
He was a model of Jewish devotion and zeal, especially in terms of trying to keep the faith pure from the nasty infection of Christianity.
He was an up and coming Pharisee, he obeyed the law, and he was zealous for the faith.
And even as a Christian he was wildly successful. Way more successful than as a Pharisee.
He planted about 10 gazillion churches, he was famous for healing people, and for surviving beatings, stonings, shipwrecks, and even a poisonous snakebite.
He could have just sat back and said, “You know what? I’ve had enough. I’ve done enough. No one has done as much as I have, or been as successful as I have, so I think I’ll just kick back and retire. Let some of these young whippersnappers do some of the heavy lifting from now on.”
But he didn’t do that. Even at the end of his life he was working to bring the gospel to as many people as possible.
Here’s something that came to my mind as I was working through this passage: I think that one of the things that drove Paul was that He felt that working for Christ was a key to knowing Him.
It wasn’t enough to just study about Christ, or to pray to Him. Paul needed to work for Christ.
And I can tell you that, at least in my own experience, that as I have given my life to working for Jesus, no matter what my job was, my knowledge of Him grew deeper.
Others here can say the same thing. Why is that?
Because as we work and apply the Scriptures to our own lives and help others do the same, our own understanding deepens, and so does our joy.
Like Paul, I’ve had a few successes.
I was a good trumpet player in high school and college (fairly mediocre now, after many years of not playing consistently).
I had cute girlfriends in high school and college.
I even lettered in high school. I lettered in girl’s basketball (I was the student manager).
I was semi-popular in college.
And I think my pastoring has been, on the whole, pretty successful. And Lord willing, I have a few decades of service left in me.
I could choose to live back in those glory days, just remembering the great times, the good friends, and the feeling of being liked by people I respected.
Anybody here see, “Napoleon Dynamite?” There was one character in that movie I could especially relate to: Napoleon Dynamite’s uncle Rico.
Rico was the star quarterback during high school, and he was obsessed with the year 1982, which by the way is the year I graduated from high school.
He missed the glory days of his youth, and he missed the attention he had. He was living in an RV and he would videotape himself throwing a football in hopes of recapturing all that.
He had faded both in physical shape and in the memories of the people.
In order to try to get all that back, he bought what he thought was a time machine so he could go back to 1982.
Well, the time machine didn’t work, but he still didn’t get the idea that time was moving along, and so should he.
It was sad. Actually, it was pathetic.
He had let his past determine who he was and it ruled his life.
It can happen to us as well. The reason it’s funny in the movie is because most everybody wishes at times to be back in the “good old days.” We can relate to Rico’s desire.
Folks, if we’re not careful, we can let both our successes and our failures keep us in the past, and get in the way of the great goal of knowing Christ as we can, if we’ll just go for it.
You: Let me give you three things you can do today and this week to help you in your efforts to press on for Christ.
1. Commit today to refuse to live in the past.
2. Ask God to help you press on from this day forward.
* In your knowledge of Christ.
* In your service to Christ.
Sound familiar? It’s also what I said we needed to press on toward last week.
3. Find something you can do this week (or even today!) to deepen these things.
If you want to move on, you need to ask yourself this question:
What can I do today to know Christ better so I can make Him known to more people?
The question is not, “What can I do, since my own past is so shot?”
The question is not, “What can I do, now that my good days are past?”
The question is not, “What can I do that I haven’t already done so wonderfully in the past?”
By the way, if that’s the question you’re asking yourself, then you need to ask another question: “Lord, can you work on my pride just a bit?”
And then when you’ve asked that question, do what God brings to mind.
Maybe that’s having a Quiet Time or developing a plan to become more consistent in having Quiet Times.
Maybe it’s taking advantage of the opportunities to grow in Christ that are offered through the church like Sunday School, the Wednesday night ministries, or the other things happening through the week.
Maybe it’s getting involved in service through the church, as a number of you are doing now, and as Paul did.
I’m not sure what that will be for you. But move on. For your sake, for the sake of Christ and His Kingdom, move on.
Press on from today. Refuse to live in the past.
When I mentioned looking back and maybe finding some successes to smile about, maybe you couldn’t really think of anything.
And that brings heartache to you.
So let me say to you: today’s a new day.
Today can be the beginning of a new chapter where God works in you and through you to bring you awesome success in your own relationship with
Christ and in the lives of those around you.
In either case, living in the past is a dead end, guys. It really is.
God uses our successes and even our failures to help us become mature in character and in our faith in Christ.
But that only works if we’re willing to press on, leaving the past behind.
Again, I’m not saying we try to give ourselves a memory lobotomy. There are things in our life that we will never really forget, both good and bad.
But we can choose, with the help of God, to not let those things get in the way of knowing Christ as deeply as possible, so He can make us more like Him, so we can me all the more useful for Him, no matter what we do for a living.
I love what Paul says about his past – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Listen to this from verses 8 and 9 from this same chapter –
I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
Folks, our past – all of it – the successes, the failures, and the just staying evens are garbage compared to the awesome privilege of knowing Christ, living in Him, and serving Him.
We need to move on from the past.
We: This goes for our church as well. We can choose to live the successes and failures of the past.
Every church has them, by the way.
Last week I shared with you some things your leadership and I believe God is leading us to do.
For those to happen, we have to determine that we’re not going to live in the past – the good past or the not so good past.
We need to determine that we’re going to press on to goal of knowing Christ more and serving Him more effectively.
It’s what Christ wants for us individually and as a church. May it happen – and may He be glorified in it.
Let’s pray.
