Moving Past the Past

When you think about heaven, what is it that excites you the most?

Here's Stephen Davey. But the best thing about the prize that awaits us at the finish line is not the taste of food at the Lamb's banquet supper. It isn't having tears of sorrow wiped from our eyes.

It is in streets of gold or estates that never need repair or alarm systems. The most intense pleasure of heaven is found in the final vision where we shall worship him and see his face to the glory and praise of Christ forever. No matter how long you've known Christ, you likely think like the Apostle Paul did when he admitted, I have not arrived. There's actually a very healthy perspective in that attitude. One of the things that can hinder us is dwelling on our past. Dwelling on yesterday's sins, losses and grief can lead you to discouragement.

Dwelling on yesterday's successes, victories and joys can lead you to lethargy. So how do we truly let go of yesterday and seize today? I'm glad you've joined us because Stephen Davey has an important lesson from Philippians three called Moving Past the Past.

Let's join Stephen right now. Take your Bibles, iPads and Androids and turn to Philippians chapter three. If you're not there already, look at verse 10.

Let's get a running start. That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of the suffering being conformed to his death in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead, not that I have already obtained or have already become perfect. What did he not attain? Would it be the resurrection that he references earlier?

In a sense, yes, but it's more than that. In fact, we're given a clue with the verb translated perfect there at the end of that phrase. I haven't already become perfect. It's the only time Paul uses it in verb form in any of his letters. It means to reach moral and spiritual perfection.

You could translate it not as though I were already perfected. Paul uses the same word in adjectival form in several letters. He uses it and that gives us a little in on what he means. He uses it to refer to Romans chapter 12 as something that is pure, something that is consistent. Romans 12 too. Or he uses it to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 14, 20 to be mature, to be an adult in your thinking. So if you take that back, what Paul is more than likely saying here is I haven't reached a point in my Christian experience where I think after Christ, I walk with Christ, I model Christ with consistency and purity and perfection and even maturity.

And you think when you read that, I must have read that wrong. This is the super apostle, right? This is the author of one New Testament letter after another. This is the leader of the New Testament outreach to the Gentile world. This is the recipient of a heavenly vision that he was given of heaven. This is the one given a personal tour, trained personally by the Spirit of God. This is the clear thinking theologian. This is the persevering missionary statesman and pioneer. And he is admitting to the church, shock of all shocks, I have not arrived. How absolutely refreshing. Aren't you sick of three ways to arrive and seven steps to make it to perfection? And this is how you can be on the victory side?

He is living, one author wrote here, with a sense of holy dissatisfaction. By the way, that is the attitude of any successful athlete you've ever met. They're always working to improve. They can swing better. They can run faster.

They can train harder. Why do we think in the Christian race we can arrive and rest on our laurels? Paul says, listen, I want you all to know in Philippi that I'm not as mature as I'd like to be. Paul said that. He was satisfied with Jesus Christ, but he was not satisfied with his Christian life.

And he lived, one author said, with a sense of sanctified dissatisfaction. What a wonderful example. In fact, so many of us can get tripped up on that racetrack by being self-satisfied. And we become self-satisfied in where we are more than likely because we compare our running to other Christians and we always find somebody running slower.

They're easy to watch. Do you think Paul could have found someone slower? We've got to avoid the danger of comparing ourselves to others. In fact, we will compare ourselves to those who run slower than us and we will, and this is even equally dangerous, we will compare ourselves to those who are running faster than us.

Either extreme will not lead you to maturity. They either lead you to pride on one hand because I'm so much faster than that guy or to lead you to despair because I will never be as fast as that guy. Paul is comparing himself to the goal of Christ's likeness and he says, I have not arrived. How refreshing it is to hear someone's honesty clothed in humility. Frankly, we live in an imperfect world, right? We belong to imperfect families. We belong, it's going to shock you, but we belong to an imperfect church. I mean this morning you are surrounded by imperfect people. Just look around, look at them.

Don't point at anybody, just stare. Paul effectively says, let's get real here. Keep in mind, by the way, that Paul is at the top of his game with rare transparency. He basically admits, I have come a long way but I've got a long way to go. This is the first essential attitude in the race.

The second essential attitude is critical at this juncture of self-evaluation and honesty. Let me put it this way and I'll paraphrase it where Paul goes on to say, I'm not quitting, I am pressing on. I am not quitting, I'm pressing on.

In other words, not only should we get real, we need to keep moving. Look at verse 12 again, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. So Paul uses a verb twice.

You can translate it to grip or to capture. You can understand Paul will be writing, but I press on to capture it. That is, to grow more like Christ inasmuch as I have been captured by Christ. But I press on to grip greater intimacy, greater consistency, greater maturity with Christ in my walk, knowing that I am gripped by Christ.

And that's essential in the balance. In other words, rather than give up and quit, I'll never be able to run that fast, I'm too slow, I always get tripped up, somebody else is running better, their race is better than mine by the way. Even though Paul has been serving Jesus Christ now for just over 20 years, his admission of immaturity combined however with his confidence in being gripped by Christ, captured by Christ, then compels him to stay in the race.

I press on, which means I move decisively toward an object. Paul uses this same word earlier in his testimony to prove how zealous he was in pressing on and persecuting the church. Now can you imagine the change in his life before he was captured by Christ on the Damascus road and saved? He was pursuing, he was running after the church, but now he is pursuing, he is running after Christ. He wants a better grip as it were on Christ, knowing he is being gripped by Christ. So keep in mind Paul is not talking about chasing down his salvation. He's not talking about running after his justification. If I can just run fast enough, maybe I'll get into the family.

No. He has been captured by the Lord and now he presses on. In fact he uses the present tense, every time I get out of bed I am pressing on to capture him in a deeper, greater, more intimate, more mature manner. It's as if one author writes gritting his teeth. He's saying, I'm going to keep at it every day.

Like that athlete who gets out of bed, hits the track, hits the gym. I'm going to keep at it. I'm going to develop.

I'm going to work hard. Paul here is saying, I am in the grip of the grace of Christ and I will, one author says, press on in hot, grasping pursuit of an ever deepening walk with him. There's a balance there in knowing that Christ is working in you and you are working for him. No quarterback gets out on the field and says to his teammates, listen guys, what we ought to do is just let go and let the coach. Let's let him do it all.

Nor should he get out there and say, you heard the coach, but forget him. Paul uses this idea here of working hard for Christ, knowing he belongs to Christ and Christ is working through him. This gritty, realistic attitude of pursuing after Christ. I pulled from my file a parable, an illustration by an author of this kind of gritty perseverance. It's a parable. It's a parable about an old dog that fell into a farmer's dry well.

It was a long fall, but he survived. The farmer came along and after discovering, assessing the situation, he sympathized with his old dog but decided that neither the dog nor the empty well were worth the trouble of saving. So he decided to fill it in, bury the dog at the same time. When the farmer began shoveling, initially the old dog was hysterical, but as the farmer kept shoveling and as the dirt hit the back of that dog, the dog just kept shaking it off. It dawned on that old dog that every time a shovel loaded dirt landed on his back, what he ought to do is just shake it off and step up. This he did, blow after blow. No matter how painful or how distressing the situation, the old dog fought panic and just kept shaking it off and stepping up. It wasn't long before he stepped out over the edge of that well and hopped to the ground. What seemed as though it would bury him ended up benefiting him, all because he kept shaking it off and stepping up. Isn't that good?

I had a guy come up to the edge of the service and say, you know, if it had been a cat, he should have used cement. And I thought that was absolutely brilliant. I mean, all right. I have come a long way, but I have not arrived. I'm not quitting, but I'm pressing on a third essential attitude. Let me summarize it with this paraphrase.

I am not narrow minded, but I am single minded. Paul writes in verse 13, brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do. Stop. He'll describe that one thing with a couple of key phrases, but I don't want to move too fast or quickly past this point of precision and focus.

One commentator added, like a heat seeding missile, Paul is locked onto the goal of pursuing Christ's likeness. It is the main thing. You've heard it before. We'll apply it here. And the main thing in a Christian's life is to keep the main thing, the what? The main thing. In athletic terms, this would mean you minimize the distractions. You narrow the focus. The 19th century evangelist, Neil Moody, who once said on this text, it's better to say this one thing I do than these 40 things I dabble in. There will always be the push. There will always be so many things that will crowd into your calendar and into your life and your heart and into your mind.

Make sure they do not crowd out the main thing. In the analogy of the sporting world, no athlete is successful at every sport. He specializes.

Michael Jordan in basketball was not Michael Jordan in baseball. In this context, Paul is referring here to a single-minded concentration. He is a runner. He is racing. He is racing after the knowledge of Christ on a deeper level, his commitment to Christ on a more personal and consistent manner, and intimate growth with Christ, recognizing here as he grits his teeth, so to speak, that Christianity is not this level race. In fact, it's really more like running hurdles.

You jump over one, here comes another. It's one obstacle after another, one distraction after another, one difficulty after another, one refusal after another by the believer who chooses to concentrate on the main thing. Christianity, one author wrote, is the art of learning to refuse the wrong thing and focus on the right thing. It's not being narrow-minded. It's being single-minded. Have you ever had anybody at work say, you know, you're really kind of a fanatic about this thing called Christianity. It is God.

And if they don't know that you're committed to him, there is something amiss. Let's minimize anything that would pull us away from the single-minded pursuit of Christ. Paul says something else, fourthly. Let me paraphrase him in a sentence. He says, I can remember yesterday, but I'm choosing to move past the past. I can remember yesterday, but I'm choosing to move past the past.

Look at verse 13 again. Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. Now, Paul is painting here a picture of his one pursuit, his main thing with two parallel clauses. Forgetting what is behind and straining toward that which is future or ahead. If Paul had been the running coach of John Landy just before the British Empire Games, this would have been his locker room speech. I think he would have said something like, look, John, no matter what you do, do not look back over your shoulder. Keep your eye on the tape at the end of the race. Dwelling on the past is like attaching a ball and a chain to your ankle.

You can't do it. You can't forget the past, but don't dwell on it. Paul, think of this. He could have dwelt on his former life, it did trouble him. We've reviewed the fact he never forgot he persecuted the church.

He was a killer. In his zeal, a jihadist was running after what he thought was right and it was wrong and he was persecuting the church along the way. Think of what he could have dwelt upon. He never forgot it, but he chose to move past it and strain toward the future. You study the life of Israel as a nation, especially during the exodus and you can well remember or you'll learn that one of their problems was they tended to forget the right things and remember the wrong things. They forgot the power and the provision, the protection, the providence of God in multiplied events and they remembered Egypt. In fact, on one occasion recorded for us in Numbers 11, they said as they complained, we remember the fish we ate.

Are you kidding? We remember the melons, the leeks and the garlic. We remember Egypt. Evidently they forgot why they needed to escape from Egypt. They're there out there saying we remember the watermelon. Paul isn't writing here that we need to forget everything about our past.

Paul didn't. He started his biography in this chapter with recalling his former life. In fact, there are things in your former life before you came to faith in Christ that leads you to praise God, right? It's important to remember that Paul is writing in the context of a race. He's effectively telling us to forget anything that hinders our reaching forward in the pursuit of Christ's likeness. Or in the words of one author I read just this past week, one way to get ahead is to leave some baggage behind.

It's not bad. Lose the baggage. Now you think about this and you're left to wonder and I went with you and had to think about this quite a bit. Is Paul asking the impossible? Isn't it true that the more tragic or traumatic or violent or sinful or painful the past, the more difficult it is to forget? Is Paul suggesting that if you're going to mature as a Christian, then you need to be in the process of effectively losing your memory. Well, if that's the case, I am maturing.

How about you? Paul isn't talking about developing spiritual amnesia. What does he mean? Keep in mind that in biblical terminology, forgetting doesn't mean you can't remember. Forgetting does not mean you can't remember. To forget in the Bible means to no longer be influenced or affected by. Which explains God's promise as the writer of Hebrews in chapter 10 verse 17 records God is saying, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. Does God forget anything? Not in your life. He can't.

Doesn't. He never learns anything. He's always known. He never forgets anything.

He sees everything all at once. What it means is that God will no longer allow our sins to influence him in regards to our standing. I'm not going to deal with you in relation to your sin anymore. That's what he means. So Paul isn't suggesting some sort of mental or psychological game where you do these four things and you're able to just be amazingly forgetful or whatever. No, we can't erase the sins and mistakes and the pain of the past.

We remember them well. But Paul is effectively telling us that if you want to run the race there are times where you must break free as it were from the power of the past by living for here's the other parallel clause by reaching for by straining toward the future. Listen, beloved, we cannot change the past but we can change the meaning of the past.

Right? We can see how God used that to break us, to mold us, maybe convert us, to rescue us, to develop us so that now he can use us in some manner. Paul implies as you run this race you break the power of the past by giving it new meaning and that meaning comes to light as you strain toward the future. You can't run your race looking over your shoulder.

Is that what the enemy is doing in your life today? You want to run for Christ. You want to walk with Christ but your head is constantly looking over your shoulder.

Reach forward, Paul writes verse 13, translated here reaching forward. That word comes right out of the athletic world for a runner in a foot race with his arms outstretched and his body bent and straining forward toward the tape. You've seen it, haven't you?

Maybe you've done it. Straining to reach the finish line. And what is that finish line that Paul has in mind? Well, let me paraphrase one more time in this fifth and final essential but first let me quickly review.

Paul has first said, I have come a long way but I've not arrived. In other words, get real. I'm not quitting but I'm pressing on. In other words, keep moving.

Thirdly, I am not narrow minded but I am single minded. In other words, stay focused. Fourth, I can remember yesterday but I'm choosing to move past my past.

In other words, lose the baggage. Now fifth, let me paraphrase him this way. I am not expecting the race to get easier but the prize makes it worth it. Notice verse 14, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God and Christ Jesus. What's the prize? The upward call.

He's not hoping that he gets called upward. He says that's the prize of the believer. And what's the upward call to? Heaven. More importantly, a person.

The one he longed to walk with intimately and know deeply. He's waiting for the upward call. When that will be completed, the finish line is the doorway to heaven. And he says, I can't wait.

I just can't wait. When authored, provoked with my thinking, he challenges the church by writing, the prize in Paul's mind is bigger than escaping the world's misery. It's better than never going hungry again or being free from pain and sickness or even reuniting with redeemed loved ones. Those are all good things. But the best thing about the prize that awaits us at the finish line is not the taste of food at the lamb's banquet, supper. It isn't having tears of sorrow wiped from our eyes.

It isn't streets of gold or estates that never need repair or alarm systems. The most intense pleasure of heaven is found in the final vision where we shall worship him and see his face to the glory and praise of Christ forever. And Paul says, I am running the race toward him. As you run your race toward him, I hope this time in God's word has encouraged you.

The lesson you just heard is entitled Moving Past the Past, and it comes from Stephen's series, Aiming Higher. If you missed a portion of this lesson and want to go and hear it in its entirety, we've posted it to our website, which is wisdomonline.org. I encourage you to go to that site to keep caught up with our Bible teaching ministry. While you're there, be sure and sign up to receive Heart to Heart magazine. We'd be happy to send you the next three issues of Heart to Heart. Call us at 866-48-BIBLE and join us at this same time tomorrow for more wisdom for the heart. We'll see you in the next episode of Heart to Heart.