Restoring the Joy
Sermon # 8
“JOY IS FOUNDING IN DEALING WITH THE PAST”
Philippians 3:12-14
Since Paul met Christ on the road to Damascus he has had a new passion and a new purpose in his life which he has previously summed up in verse ten, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection….” Yet there was a powerful obstacle in his path, his past!
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, by some miracle, we could live life in reverse? You know begin again, only knowing what we know now. Things would be different wouldn’t they? If that were the case, you could use some of the knowledge you have gained to avoid the mistakes that you ultimately regretted later. But, that is not the way life is lived. In fact, I suppose you have to make the mistakes to gain the knowledge. And we all have made our share of mistakes, right?
There have been times in my life when things didn’t turn out exactly right. During those times I wanted to start over again. These events occur every day and no one is exempt from them. Thing of the things in your life you would like to change? We call those memories “the past” and obviously you can not turn back the hands of time. So can be done? The mistakes that have been made are there and there is nothing we can do to change them. But there is hope. The good news of the Gospel is that it is possible to begin again. There is forgiveness for the past in Christ. That’s the good news.
For most of us, the past holds many good memories as well. We remember the good times, times when we were happy and enjoying life. We remember the special events; birthdays, weddings, graduations and anniversaries. Good memories are a wonderful thing. It’s great to be able to tune them in and play them back. It brings a smile to our face and joy to our hearts. We can thank God for the good memories.
The past can also give us some perspective. The past can teach us many thing about living in the present. The past is like the rear view mirror in our car. As we move forward we regularly glance back to keep us aware of what is behind us. When the past helps us to be more knowledgeable and wiser, it is a good thing.
But the past can also be a prison. You see it’s possible to allow the past to put us in bondage. Along with the good memories, there can be memories of past failures. Some times our memory can serve to haunt us. Our failures can cause us to see ourselves as failures who are unable to break the pattern of failure in our lives. We stereotype ourselves, and thereby put ourselves in bondage. Many people live today plagued by their past. So how do we deal with the past?
There are three principle ways we deal with the past.
First, we can relive the past. People caught in this pattern recount the past in great detail in their minds over and over again. All the negative emotions which they felt then, they feel all over again. These individuals continue to beat themselves up for events that are forever gone.
The story is told read of one case where
a woman went to a lawyer to take out paper against her ex-husband. She was haggard with emotion, nervous and upset to the point that she seemed ill. Trembling, she related at length how bad her ex-husband was, how ever since their divorce he had been poisoning her son’s mind against her and was constantly interfering with their relationship. She seemed a bit old to have a young child at home, so the attorney interrupted and asked the age of her son. "He’s just turned 32," she said. "Oh," said the attorney, "And how long ago was the divorce?" "About 17 years," she said. This woman had made her divorce a career, a way of life!
Secondly, we can resign to the past. Some people surrender to the past. They decide that they will never rise above the past and resign themselves to be what the past has made them. They believe that they can never be more than a product of their past.
Third, we can refuse to be dominated by the past. Recognize that while the past is unchangeable part of our history, we are more than what the past has revealed about us and we do have a choice about how we deal with the memories of the past.
LIVE WITH THE PAST (3:13a)
Paul tells us that way to deal with the past is to “forget” it. Listen to what he says in verse thirteen, “… but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind.” Paul says that the past is to be forgotten. But what does Paul mean when he says forget the past? When he is speaking of forgetting the past he is not talking about amnesia, the inability to remember it at all. Although there may be things in our past that we would like to erase from our memories, unfortunately God created our minds to be incredibly powerful. Even when we cannot remember something consciously, sub-consciously it is always there. Every act, word, event, situation and circumstance is imbedded forever in our minds. So when Paul speaks of forgetting the past, he means that we must forget it in the sense that we no longer allow it to control our lives. I believe Paul is saying to forget about the past in the sense that we do not allow past failure, hurts and disappointments to keep us from experiencing God’s best for our lives today. For many the past is holding them hostage. They are held hostage to past failures, mistakes and disappointments.
You may be saying, “Well, that’s easier said than done!” and you would be absolutely right. But by God’s grace it can be done. You see Christ can liberate us from the past. The reason that Christ came to earth was to offer His life on the Cross so that our sins might be forgiven. Christ can forgive our past. The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ can release us from our sin and the guilt of sin. There is nothing in your past too great for God to handle. There is no sin too big for God to forgive. Christ can enable us to release the past and move one to what can be in the present. He can enable us to avoid living in the “what has been” and live, instead, in the “what can be.”
Paul himself is an example of this truth. Despite his misguided persecution of the Church, which could have been the source of immense debilitating guilt in his life, yet He did not give in to its power to hold him hostage. In 1 Timothy1:12-14 we read, “And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, (13) although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. (14) And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.”
Paul’s personal testimony holds out hope to all who would believe that they can never rise above their past. In a very real sense a Christian can look at their life and say, “I have failed in the past and I know it! But this is not the best that I will be. What you see is not what by the grace of God, I will one day be!”
WE ARE CALLED NOT ONLY TO LIVE WITH THE PAST BUT TOO…
LIVE IN THE PRESENT (3:13b)
“….reaching forward to those things which are ahead”
Paul says that we must not only forget the past but we must also actively engage ourselves in the present.
One way that we can do this is by replacing pessimism with optimism. It is hard to deal with defeat and failure in our past and come away with a positive attitude.
But pessimism is decidedly unhealthy, because it creates a cycle of depression and despair. We can become locked into a pessimistic way of thinking. The pessimist believes, “When things are going well, something will go wrong. When things just can’t get any worse, they will. And anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.” When we begin to think this way we have convinced ourselves that the good things of life are always just beyond our reach.
“An assistant of Thomas Edison once tried to console the inventor over the failure to achieve in a series of experiments what he had set out to find. ‘It’s too bad’ he said, ‘to do all that work without results.’ ‘oh’ said Mr. Edison, we have lots of results, we know seven hundred things that won’t work.’ ” [Charles Swindoll. The Tale of the Tardy Oxcart: and 1501 other Stories. (Nashville: Word, 1999)p. 194]
We can be optimist however, when we come to understand that God truly has a plan for our lives. We can begin to look to the future with hope. If we want to live successfully in the present we must not only put aside the past, but we must replace pessimism with optimism.
Another thing that we can do to live success-fully in the present is to get busy. The past seeks to trap us by discouraging us to the point that we are just to depressed and exhausted to try anymore. It is ordeal for a truly depressed person to even get out of bed. The temptation is to sit around all day and engage in hours of mind-numbing Television. Sometimes the first step in the restoring joy in our lives is for us is to get out of bed and do something.
Paul says that he is reaching forward to what lies ahead. The word he uses here (epekteinomi) is a word picture of a footrace. The Christian life is a commitment to do something as well as be something. In other places Paul likens the Christian life to,
A Wrestling match - Ephesians 6:12
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
A Foot Race - Hebrews 12:1
“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,”
A Boxing Match - 1 Timothy 6:12
“Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”
Those are all action terms. When Jesus calls us, it is not merely an invitation to believe in him intellectually, but to follow Him. Verse twelve, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
WE ARE CALLED NOT ONLY TO LIVE IN THE PRESENT BUT TOO…
LIVE FOR THE FUTURE (3:14)
“I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Paul is determined to focus on the future not the past. He is not simply “reaching” forward he is giving his all to the endeavor. Paul tells us that he “presses on.” This is the same word used in verse six when Paul talked about his zealousness in persecution of the early Church. He now has the same intensity and determination in pursuing God’s plan for his life. We must have this kind of determination to focus on the future if we are to overcome the demons of the past.
Press On
Nothing in the world
Can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not;
Nothing is more common
Than unsuccessful men
With talent.
Genius will not:
Unrewarded genius
Is almost a proverb.
Education will not;
The world is full of
Educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination
Alone are important
[Charles Swindoll, Living Above the Level of Mediocrity, p. 93]
