My text this morning is a familiar one, from Paul’s letter to the Philippian church, chapter three, verses twelve through fourteen. Let me set the context. Paul begins by listing his credentials as an authentic descendant of Abraham, in rebuttal to those who were attacking him and his message. Beginning in Philippians chapter three, verse four, and reading from the NIV translation:
“If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.”
In other words, anyone who claims that the reason Paul is preaching this gospel, this good news of a salvation that is available to all, with no requirement to keep the Law of Moses or be circumcised —anyone who thinks that Paul is preaching this gospel because he himself is somehow deficient in the essential marks of Judaism, is badly mistaken. On the contrary, he is a “Hebrew of Hebrews”, an Israelite of the highest caliber. Not only was he born into Judaism, he wholeheartedly embraced it. He zealously promoted the law as a Pharisee; and even persecuted Christians, whom he viewed as heretics and apostates. Nevertheless, since his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus, he has come to regard all of his supposed advantages as less than worthless. Continuing in verse seven:
“7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage,”
“Garbage”. Not things of great value, or significant value, or even any value at all. But actually a “loss”. An impediment. A hindrance. Why? Because they deceived him into thinking that righteousness was a matter of human effort, rather than what it is, a gracious gift from God on the basis of faith. Let’s continue:
“I consider them garbage, 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 on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.”
Whatever advantages Paul might have claimed as a result of his lineage, his heritage, his birth; whatever claims he could make on God as a result of his faithful service to Judaism; none of that mattered. It was all beside the point. The only thing that matters is the resurrection of Christ and the righteousness that comes through faith in him.
Perhaps some of us here this morning can relate to Paul’s experience. Perhaps at one point in your life, you thought that you had an advantage with respect to God; you thought that God would look favorably on you because of the religion you were born into, or because of your strict adherence to that religion. Perhaps you imagined that your personal conduct, your superior ethics and morals, your commitment to this cause or that, would commend you to God as a righteous person. But at some point in your life, you realized that was all false. As far as God was concerned, you were no better than anyone else; in fact, you were worse off, because all the things you were relying on to make you acceptable to God were actually preventing you from seeking and finding forgiveness for your sins.
That’s the background. And now we get to our point of focus this morning, verses 12-14:
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, 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.
As I said, this is a familiar passage. It is frequently referred to as an encouragement for us to strive, to persevere in the faith, to keep on seeking Christ. We are told that we should be like Paul, “straining toward what is ahead” and pressing on toward the goal.
And all of that is true. But what is frequently overlooked is what precedes all of that straining and striving. And what is that? Forgetting. “Forgetting what is behind,” Paul says, “I press on”. I fact, I would even say that “forgetting what is behind” is a prerequisite, a necessary precondition, for “pressing on toward the goal”. Because the reason that we so often struggle to persevere, so often struggle to keep our focus on the goal, is that we have never truly “forgotten” our past. As William Faulkner wrote, for many of us, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." It haunts us. It invades our present and weakens our resolve.
Now, this may seem counter-intuitive, to claim that “forgetting”, in some sense, is essential to moving forward in the Christian life. Because we know that remembering is at the core of our faith. For example, when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, the bread and the cup, we recall the words of our Lord, who told us to do those things “in remembrance of me”. And throughout the New Testament, we are told to remember – to remember what Christ did, and taught, and to remember the example of faith of those who have gone before us.
And yet, here Paul is saying that in order to “press on toward the goal” he must first forget what is behind. What does he mean by that, and how do we do it?
Let’s start by what he isn’t saying. He isn’t saying that we should, or could, literally forget, or wipe our memory banks clean. Although that does have a certain appeal, doesn’t it? I think that most of us, especially those who have lived into middle age or beyond, have experiences in our past that we would like to erase from our minds, if we could. Hurts we’ve suffered from other people. Betrayals by those we counted as friends. As well as hurts we’ve caused. Selfish, foolish, destructive things we’ve done. Losses we’ve suffered. Opportunities squandered, relationships damaged or lost. As Frank Sinatra sang in “My Way”, Regrets, we’ve had a few. Maybe more than a few.
And many people do what they can to purge those memories, or at least dull them somewhat. With drugs or alcohol, for example. But those only deaden the pain for a while, they only push away the memories for a short time before they come back. Some throw themselves into work, or exercise, or having a good time. In the song Hotel California, one of the lines is that “some dance to remember, some dance to forget”. Some try to avoid places, or people, or activities that remind them of painful memories. Some even try hypnotherapy. There was a movie out several years ago, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in which Jim Carrey played a man who was trying to overcome the pain of a failed relationship, and who sought the assistance of a company which promised to erase those memories. Science fiction, of course, at least for now, but the film struck a chord with many who have thought how nice it would be if they could simply eliminate their painful memories altogether.
But that’s not what Paul is talking about here. And one reason that I don’t think Paul is referring to literally wiping our memories clean is that he draws on his own past, and the lessons he has learned from it, as inspiration for his work and ministry as a preacher of the gospel. For example, in 1 Timothy 1:12-16, he writes,
“12 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service. 13 Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. 14 The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. 16 But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.”
Paul hasn’t forgotten his violent, ugly, arrogant past. Not at all. On the contrary, he marvels at the fact that in spite of his past, God called him and saved him. And he praises God for that. In the same way, many of us can praise God for what he saved us out of.
So no, Paul isn’t instructing us to somehow delete our memories, if that were even possible. What does he mean, then? The passage we just read in First Timothy I think gives us an indication of what Paul means by “forgetting”. First of all, it means not letting your past define you. And not letting your past dictate your future. Note that Paul doesn’t say, I am a blasphemer, or a persecutor, or a violent man. He says, “I was once” those things. Nor does he say, since I was those things, therefore, my future is narrow and limited. My future is empty. My future is hopeless. What he says instead is that God overcame who he was. God overcame what he had done. God changed him and changed his future. So that Paul was no longer defined, no longer limited, by who he had been and what he had done. God gave him a future that was not determined by the failures of his past.
Second, I think that “forgetting” the past means not dwelling on it. Not meditating on it. Not reviewing in your mind, over and over, what you did and said, what others did and said, what you wish you had done differently, what you wish others had done differently. That doesn’t accomplish anything. And more importantly, it robs you of the comfort that comes from knowing that even in the midst of those painful, and difficult, and even devastating circumstances, God was working out his plan for your life; his good, and perfect, and wise, and loving plan for your life. I won’t pretend that this is easy to accept or easy to come to terms with, the idea that God brought those painful experiences into your life, brought those destructive people into your life, because he loves you. Intuitively, that makes no sense. Because when people love you, they do good things for you, right? They try to protect you from pain and loss. And it’s true, God does bless us in many ways; in fact, James tells us that every one of the good things we enjoy in life comes from God. He brings good things into our lives because He loves us. But it’s also true that God allows us to experience suffering, and loss, and heartbreak, and betrayal, and confusion, and disappointment, for the same reason — because he loves us. A very familiar passage, Romans 8:28, tells us that,
“we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
Let me give you another example: James 1:2-4
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Why does God bring good things into our lives? Because he loves us. Why does God bring suffering, and trials, and difficulties into our lives? Also, because he loves us. Not because he has forgotten about us. Not because he is unable to prevent them. Not because he is upset with us. Not because the power of evil in this world is greater than His power. But he brings hard things into our lives because he loves us. You may remember a few weeks ago that our group discussion question asked us to reflect on what events or experiences in our lives we considered to be evidence of God’s love. And we all listed blessings, positive experiences. Certainly that’s true; those are manifestations of God’s love. But so are the hard times, the unpleasant experiences. Those are also evidence of God’s love. Because God is sovereign, all the time. And he loves us, all the time.
And so, when we dwell on the past, and feed our regrets, and think about what we wish we or others had done differently, we are refusing to accept that a sovereign God meant those things for us, for a good reason, even though we may never understand it this side of heaven. That doesn’t deny that evil people do evil things, or that foolish people do foolish things. It doesn’t deny that we ourselves have likely done foolish things, and even evil, or at least sinful, things. But what it does is affirm that God can transcend the foolishness and evil of men; God can overcome the foolishness and evil of men; and he can, and does, even use their foolish and evil intentions to accomplish his good and perfect purposes. Even if they have no intention of serving God, even if they are badly mistaken and misguided, they end up serving God’s purposes nonetheless. As the patriarch Joseph said when he finally was able to confront his wicked brothers, years after they had sold him into slavery in Egypt, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.” And it was God’s intentions that ultimately prevailed.
Joseph was able to say that, and to believe it, because in the years since their betrayal, the years he spent in prison, the years since he had been elevated to Pharaoh’s right hand, Joseph had “forgotten” what they did to him. In other words, he had forgiven them. He was able to do that, not because he somehow glossed over, or made excuses for their sin, but because he knew that they were not powerful enough to thwart God’s purpose for his life. Joseph wasn’t obsessing over the injustice and cruelty he suffered at their hands. He wasn’t mourning the loss of those years. He had let go of his resentments. He had “forgotten” what they did. It didn’t define him. It didn’t limit his future. Because his future was in God’s hands, not theirs. His future was the future that a loving and wise God had chosen for him. Even if God had to use their wickedness and selfishness to bring that future about.
What is it then, that we are to forget? We are to “forget” the sins of others. That means that we forgive them. We don’t hold it against them. We don’t require them to make amends. We don’t hold a grudge, or consider that they owe us something to atone for what they did. We simply wipe the slate clean. We are able to do that, as Joseph did, because we know that whatever their intent or purpose may have been, they never had the ability to thwart God’s good purpose in our life. The pain that they caused us was a part of God’s good plan for us, even if they did not mean it to be.
And not only are we able to forgive because we trust God’s sovereign purpose in our lives, we are also able to forgive because we have been forgiven. The Lord’s prayer in the NIV contains this phrase: “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors”. Other translations are more explicit; “forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” Think about that for a moment. How many times have you prayed those words? Did you really mean it? Do you really want God to forgive you, to forgive the debt of your sin, in the same way that you forgive others? That’s a dangerous thing to pray if you are holding a grudge; it’s a dangerous thing to pray if you are nurturing animosity or hatred against someone who has wronged you. In Colossians 3:13, Paul writes this:
“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”
How did the Lord forgive you? Partially? Grudgingly? Reluctantly? Temporarily? No. Not at all. His forgiveness was total, willing, and permanent. He forgave us freely and gladly. He wiped the slate clean, so that nothing of your sin remained. Psalm 103:12 tells us that, “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” And that is how we are to forgive. That is what it means to “forget” the sins of others.
All right. Is there anything else we need to forget? Yes. Not only the sins of others, but also our own sins. I’m including under that category of “sins” wicked and malevolent acts, lies, deceit, moral transgressions — but also, mistakes, errors, foolish words and actions, wrong turns, missed opportunities — all the things that, piled up in a huge, ugly heap, you wish you could take back. All the things for which you wish you had a “do-over”. Why should we do that? Why should we “forget” our sins? Because God has. God sees us as forgiven. Not as guilty sinners, but as pure, guiltless, and without stain of any kind. He is able to do that because he sees us, not as we were in ourselves, but as we are in Christ. And in God’s eyes, and in truth, what Christ is, we are. As Paul wrote in Philippians three, as we read earlier, to be “in him” — that is, to be in Christ — is to have the righteousness of Christ. A righteousness that is complete, absolute, and without flaw or blemish. Again, a few verses later in Ephesians 3:12, Paul writes, “In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.” Yes. We can stand in God’s presence, we can approach him in freedom and confidence rather than fear or dread, because we are “in him”. Because we have the righteousness of Christ. And because God has forgiven our sins. In Hebrews 8:12 he states it very clearly, “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
God has forgotten your sins. And you should do the same. Stop holding your sins against yourself. Stop berating yourself, over and over, for the mistakes and errors of your past. Stop punishing yourself for those things. Christ has already taken the punishment for you. Was his sacrifice not sufficient? Is there something you can add to the value of his death by continuing to blame yourself, by continuing to condemn and belittle yourself for your past sins? No. Not at all. Let me make this clear: to condemn yourself for your past sins, to continue beating yourself up for them, is to reject the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice. It is to say that what he did wasn’t enough, and that you have to make up for what he wasn’t able to accomplish by punishing yourself. And that is simply false. Can you atone for your sins by punishing yourself? No. You can’t. But Christ can, and did. So confess your sins to God, accept that payment as full and complete, do what is needed to make things right with others, and then move on. Continuing to condemn yourself accomplishes nothing.
Are you with me so far? All right. There is something else that we need to “forget”. And that is our successes and our failures. We’ve already talked about the failures. How about our successes, our accomplishments? Do we need to forget those also? Yes. Not in the sense that we should fail to give thanks for them. We should thank God for the achievements and blessings he has given us. But we need to forget them in the sense that we should take no credit for them. Because no matter what we may have done, or attained, it was all by God’s power and grace. And so he deserves all of the praise, not you or I.
Let me show you. In 1 Corinthians 4:7, Paul asks this question: “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” Exactly. What do we have that we did not receive from God? Nothing. What have we accomplished that was not enabled by God’s grace, and mercy, and power? Nothing. Whether it involves fruitfulness in Christian ministry, or career achievements, or positive relationships, it is all a gift of God.
In 1 Peter 4:11, we read this: “If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.” Who should be praised? Us? Us and God? No. “In all things” it is God who should be “praised through Jesus Christ”. Whatever our part in past successes may have been, we should forget that and focus on praising God.
Not only should we “forget” our past successes in favor of praising God for them; we should also forget them lest we rest on our laurels. The temptation is to say, “you know, God, I’ve served you faithfully for many years now. I’ve seen fruit in ministry. I’ve enjoyed quite a bit of success. I think I’ll just relax and take it easy for a bit”. OK. If that’s your mindset, let me ask you: have you accomplished more than the apostle Paul? Have you suffered more than Paul? Have you endured more than Paul? Have you served more faithfully than Paul? I’ll give you a hint: No. But what does Paul say? “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal.” If ever there was someone who had earned the right to rest, to take it easy, to retire and enjoy life, it was Paul. But whatever he had done for Christ, he put it behind him. He “forgot” it. He didn’t look back, but looked forward and continued to press on. And that is what we need to do.
Let’s pause here for a moment and take a breath. This is hard. It’s hard to accept that all the rotten things in your past could somehow be redeemed. It’s easier to dwell on the past, to feed your resentments, to make excuses, to blame everything you don’t like about your situation on things that people did to you in the past. It’s easier to stop trying to accomplish anything worthwhile for God, to blame your mistakes or the mistakes of others for your inability to make a difference. That’s easier. It’s hard to forget the past, to accept what happened as a part of God’s plan for you, and to start now, today, by faith to serve him.
Because there is one last thing from the past that we need to forget. And that’s the vision we had when we were younger of how our life was going to work out. How our career was going to work out; how our family was going to work out; how our friendships were going to work out; how our finances were going to work out, how our health was going to work out. We all had them, and have them; dreams, hopes, visions of our future. And rarely, perhaps never, really, does life cooperate with our vision of the future. Sometimes good things happen that we didn’t anticipate. Sometimes we suffer losses, or setbacks, or apparent detours. And we can spend years trying to get back on that path that we had envisioned for ourselves.
But what I want you to consider, to accept, is that although your life probably hasn’t turned out the way you expected, you are, right now, exactly where God wants you to be. And so you need to forget those visions you had in the past of what your future — which is now your present — would look like. Leave them behind. Abandon them. There’s a reason that your life didn’t play out the way you expected. It’s because God had a different plan. Don’t believe me? Consider what James writes in chapter four of his epistle, verses 13-15.
13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
What does that passage tell us? Well, first, that we all have ideas about our future. We all have plans, and expectations about what we are going to do. But second, if those plans don’t work out, why was it? Because we made a mistake, took a wrong turn? Because other people got in our way, let us down, betrayed us? No. All of that may be true. But fundamentally, if our plans didn’t work out as we expected, it is because it wasn’t God’s will that they should do so. It is because God had something better in mind. It may not seem better to us now, looking at things from our limited perspective. But it is. And someday we will understand that. For now, we need to take it on faith.
I’ll give you one more reason why we need to “forget” our vision of how we thought our lives would turn out. What is the most significant aspect of your present? It is the fact that you know God, that you are united with Christ, that your sins are forgiven. And what is the most significant aspect of your future? The fact that you will be reunited with Christ when he returns. Let me ask you: is there anything you could have done or not done, anything that anyone else could have done or not done, that would have improved upon those two realities? No, nothing. That’s what matters. The rest is details.
OK. Now, some of you (some of us, I should say) are older. And you might say, all of this is fine, but realistically, I’ve lived a good portion of my life already. More of my life is past than future. Whatever I was going to accomplish in this life, I’ve pretty much done. So what difference does this all make, really?
Again, let me ask you a question. How old was Paul when he wrote Philippians? Likely in his late fifties. Only a few years before his death. By the standards of his day and age, he was an old man. In his letter to Philemon about this same time, he refers to himself as “Paul, the aged”. This was a time of life when we would be expecting him to be looking back more than forward. Reflecting on a lifetime of ministry. But it was at this time in his life that he wrote those words, “Forgetting what is behind”. Does that surprise you? It surprises me. Most people, as they age, find themselves weighed down by the past, and more and more as the years accumulate. Weighed down by regrets, by grudges, by painful memories. Or distracted by happy memories of days gone by that they wish they could live again. They spend a lot of time reminiscing, reliving the past.
But that was not the case with Paul. Not at all. Yes, there was much in his own history that he was not proud of, as we have seen. He had suffered a great deal, at the hands of faithless and treacherous men, including some professing believers. He had also accomplished a great deal, establishing churches across Asia Minor. Winning thousands to Christ. And yet, none of this held him back, none of it dragged him down. Because he had chosen to forget it rather than dwell on it. He was focused on the future, and what God still had in store for him. He was still “straining” toward what was ahead, he was still “pressing on” toward the goal. Age had nothing to do with it.
Is that your attitude as well? Or are you saying, well, my best days are behind me. I can’t (fill in the blank) like I used to; I don’t have the same energy I had when I was younger; I don’t have the same drive. I don’t have the same opportunities that I had earlier in life.
And perhaps that’s true. Perhaps you have experienced losses due to the aging process. But what I want to say to you this morning is that it doesn’t matter. It may alter what God has for you to do; God may have a different type of work for you now than he did years ago. But it doesn’t change the fact that God has something for you to do, something worthwhile, something that matters. If he didn’t, you wouldn’t be here.
The fact that you are still around means that he has a job for you to do. And the reality is that your usefulness to God never did depend on your health, or your strength, or your razor-sharp mind, or your energy. The power that matters is his, not yours. And just as God is able to take a tiny mustard-seed amount of faith and do great things with it, so also is he able to take even a small amount of energy, or strength, or health and do great things with it, if it is offered up to him in faith. Jesus fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish. He can do great things with whatever you have to offer him.
In closing, I’d like to both encourage and challenge you. Perhaps some of you here today have been handicapped by resentments and regrets. Weighed down by disappointments, failures, sins. And what I want to encourage you with is the assurance that nothing — nothing — that anyone has done to you in the past can thwart God’s good, and wise, and loving plan for your life. Nothing. His intentions are what matters, not theirs. And likewise, no failure or sin on your part can prevent God from making your life a testimony to his grace and forgiveness, an example of his power to transform. And so what I’m challenging you to do this morning is to follow Paul’s example and simply “forget”. Forget all of it. Let go of regrets and resentments. Forgive those who have wronged you. Forgive yourself for your mistakes and failures. Forget your successes and failures, both your accomplishments and your missed opportunities. Forget your past visions for the future. And give it all to God. Shake off those chains, drop the burden of the past. And look ahead to the future, to “the prize for which God has called [you] heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Amen.
