“Forgetting the Past”
2 Corinthians 5:17
"So, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new" (NRSV)
Welcome to this first Sunday of the New Year! I trust since you are in worship that one of your intentions for this New Year is to be in church regularly. That is one resolution that you have kept for at least one week. Only 51 more to go toward perfect attendance. Seriously, I am glad to be here in 2014, and I am glad you are here.
Is there anything worse than being chained down by your past? You and I probably have some regrets from last year that we had just as soon erase. It may not be some horrible sin that we have committed that we fear God will not forgive us for. Maybe it is a small thing. A setback. Or something we wish we could do over again.
Did you know that God is not a God of just the past, but more importantly, a God of the present and the future? Some of us let our past define who we are in the present.
There have been interesting contrasts of individuals who have faced very similar odds in life, reaping very different results. I like the story of the two brothers who were separated at a young age, and placed in different foster care facilities. They had both come from an abusive family, where their father was an alcoholic. After the parent's divorce the brothers were removed from the family.
Thirty years later, the two brothers, not knowing one another, met in a downtown subway. One brother was dressed distinctively; having a career in the legal profession, and the other was obviously without work or a place to live.
Somehow the two men began a discussion, and the conversation led to their upbringing and how this had affected their current life situations. The disheveled man recounted to the other his miserable story of growing up in an abusive home, where his father had been a heavy drinker, and how he had been from foster home to foster home. He looked to the other man, as if this explained his current lot in life.
Interestingly, the other man said, "I too grew up in a similar environment as you have described, but it has inspired me to move forward and move ahead in life." Interesting, is it not? We see here two men with similar past-times and one was blaming his failure in life and the other his success in life on a virtually identical upbringing. We all know that life is more complicated than this story, don't we?
We have issues like heredity, environment, personality and biology to consider. I suppose the story has a grain of truth to it as well, for perhaps it is the element of CHOICE that may make all the difference in the world.
The NRSV proclaims, "Everything has passed away; see, everything has become new." The Apostle Paul is saying that our rap sheets have been erased in Christ. In Him we are made new creations. Paul should have known. Remember when the Apostle was converted to Christianity after years of oppressing Jewish-Christians?
Even with the testimony of his good friend Barnabas, and the disciples as character references, Jewish-Christians were not all that convinced of the sincerity of Paul. They thought the Apostle's conversion was a secret plot to infiltrate the Jewish-Christian movement even more, and further persecute them. They did not trust Paul. Can you blame them?
Even though the Apostle Paul had been converted, his crimes against Jewish Christians could not easily be forgotten or forgiven. Paul was probably haunted by a “less than-perfect past,” but this did not stop his new mission. In his letter to the Church at Philippi, Paul says: "But this one thing I do; forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Jesus Christ." (NRSV)
Whatever hand has been dealt us, a new set of cards is always being dealt. In Christ, the Bible promises that our past, as blemished as it may be, is erased. But to begin again, we must be present and future minded people of faith, believing that God indeed has a plan for our lives. We are part of his majestic plan. God calls us from the prisons of the past to the freedoms of the future.
There is a terrible belief that people cannot change. Being a minister, I have seen how terribly untrue that is. The truth is that people can change. You and I don’t have to be defined by our past. Yet how many times have you said in your mind: “I am forever defined by this course of action I took?” Or we put that on someone we know – maybe even a member of our family. “They will always be like that.” We define people by their past mistakes.
That is unbiblical. What if God defined people by their past and refused to use them because of their mistakes? We certainly would miss out on some major characters in the history of the Bible. Think about Moses and the man he killed when he was young to stop him from killing a fellow Jew. He felt so bad about this that Moses ran to a foreign land to hide.
But God forgot his past and prepared Moses to be a great leader of the Jewish nation. He led the people from the land of Egypt across the Red Sea freeing them forever from the hands of the Egyptians, toward the Land of Promise. And even though Moses only got to see the Land of Promise from afar, he still proved to have been a great leader.
What about King David? He is considered to be Israel’s finest king. Yet he committed adultery and had the husband of the woman who served in his army put on the front line and killed. Now those are major sins and there were consequences but God still loved and used David. And David wept and asked God’s forgiveness.
What about Peter? Jesus called Peter the “Rock.” Yet he was tempermental, a man that wore his emotions on his sleeve, always speaking his mind, not always thinking before he spoke. And what about his betrayal of Jesus before Jesus was crucified? He denied to foreigners that he even knew Jesus on three occasions for fear of what would happen to him.
And yet at the end of the Gospel of John, Jesus asked Peter if he loved him, not once, but three times to mark the three times Peter had denied him. And after Jesus death, Peter became the main spokesman for the new band of believers.
Isn’t this proof that God uses men and women that come from imperfect pasts? He doesn’t carry a grudge and throw someone away simply because they have grossly sinned in their lives. Neither should we throw away people who have sinned in our lives. We should never define ourselves or others by the past.
The past is just that – the past. God says forget it; don’t let it stop you from being useful to his kingdom. Don’t define yourself by the past. God is about the present and future. So we are to be present and future-minded followers of God.
God is a God of second chances. God is a God of new beginnings. God is ready to do something new in someone who has a blemished past. Maybe that someone is you. Maybe that someone is a person you know. Maybe that someone is a part of your family. Maybe that person is a loser in the world’s mind. Maybe that person is someone that you have given up on.
God doesn’t give up on us. He didn’t give up on Saul who became Paul. He gave him a new name and a new present and future. Why? Because Paul was open to change. Open to letting go of the past. Open to a new future. Open to beginning again. God honors people who are willing to change. He never gives up on anyone.
What are you telling yourself this morning? I am too broken to be used by God? I have a blemished past. I am defined by a less than perfect record. God responds, “Join the club. Remember Moses, David, Peter, and Paul?” And so many others who were able to change and let go of their past with the help of God.
God is ready to do something new in your life. All you have to do is make yourself open to change. Open to forgetting the past. Open to not letting the past define you. Open to being defined by God. Put today’s Scripture to memory. "So, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new" (NRSV)
And begin this New Year with a new you. I promise God will use you in the most unexpected places at the most unexpected times. Let this New Year be a year of New Beginnings. He is waiting for you to respond. Won’t you give him the chance to remold you? Let’s each make that a resolution for this New Year. I think we will be amazed at the outcome. Forgetting the past – living in the present – and hoping for a bright future. How about it?
