Restoring the Joy
Sermon # 8
“JOY IS
FOUNDING IN DEALING WITH THE PAST”
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
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…
“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.
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]