Leaving the Past Behind

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But 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 upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Let’s Pray

WE SHOULD FORGET THE THINGS IN THE PAST

We read in verse 13, where Paul says the following:

“forgetting those things which are behind”

When Paul speaks of things behind us, he is speaking of the past.

As an example, when you ride in your car and you look in your rear view mirror, what do you see?

Do you see things on your journey that are yet to come?

No!

You see things that are in the past.

So Paul is saying here that we should forget the things in the past.

Now that, in itself, is a very bold and usually extremely difficult statement.

It is usually next to impossible to “forget” our past.

Let me tell you my view.

I do not believe that the idea Paul makes here is one of total disremembering.

I believe that what he wants to inform us of here is that we should not allow any past reference to interfere with us obtaining the ultimate prize.

As you read Paul’s letters you will find that he likes to allude about running a race and finishing the race, in a spiritual sense.

Here, in today’s scripture, it is not different.

He refers here to the Grecian races.

Now in that race you would run to secure the prize.

You would not stop to look behind you to see how far you have run.

You would not look behind you to see how many competitors you are beating.

You would not look behind you to see how many obstacles you overcame.

You would concentrate on obtaining the prize and use every effort in order to obtain it.

You will focus on the future.

If your attention was diverted for a moment it could hinder you in obtaining the prize and can even aid in you losing your crown.

You can, for example, not see the obstacle in front of you, because your focus was at the obstacle behind you, which you already overcame.

And then you fall at that obstacle, doing the same next time or having injured yourself so much that you have to wait to recover before you can continue.

We can therefore reason that:

OUR PAST FAILURES CAN BE A GREAT STUMBLING BLOCK TO REACHING OUR DESTINATION

You see many people today are in bondage to their past failures.

They are so much in bondage that they are incapable of taking the steps to try again.

Many believers can be positioned into this scenario.

They allow their past experiences, their past failures, to control their future.

I heard this story of a guy in his 60s.

He had a driver’s license but he never wanted to drive a car.

When he was asked why, he said that, when he was 18 he got behind the wheel of a car and he made a terrible accident.

No one got hurt, but that incident, that failure, shaped his future.

He refused to drive a car again because of fear, because of his past.

If he wants to go places he needs to ask for a lift.

He has to depend on others to get him to places.

If he would just take the past failure and keep it in the past, he could go forward and get behind the wheel of a car and become independent with regards to his transport.

But it is up to him as it is up to you.

You have to decide whether you want to stay in the past or reach out to the future.

I don’t care what failures you had in your past.

I don’t care if you failed spiritually or in your ministry or in your work life or in your personal life or in your marriage…

What matters is whether you take your past failures & stumbling blocks and allow it to hinder your future, or do you take it to form your future?

Luke 9:62 ESV

Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Let me give you an example.

Imagine you drive your car and all of a sudden you go full speed over a bump in the road.

Has anyone ever driven a car full speed over a high bump in the road?

You know what I’m talking about.

You made a mistake.

Your head hits the roof.

You sometimes even damage your car.

Then you look in your rear view mirror and you see the bump.

You turn around to go and see what this bump looks like.

What was this all about?

Then you are on your way again.

However, every time you move towards your destination you look back in your rear view mirror and you see the bump in the road again and you turn around to look at it, again…

This happens continuously…

What do you think will happen?

You will never be able to reach your destination.

You will be stuck at that place on your journey.

But what will happen if you use this bump in the road to form your future.

You would be more observant in the future, making sure that you do not go full speed over a bump again.

You will know how to go over the bump.

It is the same with our failures.

When you fail you do not have to go back to that failure again.

You learn from it and remember how to get over it in the future.

And you will be able to reach your destination safer as well.

It just makes sense.

Your past failures can keep you from reaching your destination.

Thomas Edison tried 900 times before he succeeded in getting the electric bulb to work.

What would have happened if he stopped at failure number 1 or number 2 or number 500 or number 899 and pondered at those failures, unable to continue?

He would never have been able to be successful in his future.

He said himself that he did not fail 900 times; he just found 900 ways not to do it.

Do not see your failures as failures, just learn from them and see them as ways not to do it.

Another thing we need to be wary of is that:

PAST SINS CAN KEEP US IN BONDAGE

When Paul wrote the words: "Forgetting those things which are behind...", I am sure that he not only reflected on past failures and obstacles, but also his past sin.

Paul was one of the leaders who persecuted the church.

He was one of the men that spearheaded the persecution on Christianity.

He was there when Stephan was stoned to death.

In fact, he was on his way to persecute the Christians when he met the Messiah face to face on the road to Damascus.

It was then that he realised that he was wrong.

But the thing is he did do a lot of wrong things.

He sinned a lot.

That, I am sure, troubled him at times.

But there came a time when he confessed; there came a time when he repented; there came a time when he found forgiveness.

We read the following in:

1 John 1:9 ESV

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

God emphasised this many years prior to Jesus coming to earth when He prophesied through the prophet Isaiah:

Isaiah 1:18 ESV

“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

It does not matter how much sin you have in your life, if you confess and repent it, it will be forgiven.

It will become white as snow.

It will be washed cleaned, never to be remembered again.

Unfortunately we as humans have the tendency to ponder on the past.

Many people cannot comprehend the fact that God can forgive them for what they have done.

The fact is that He not only CAN forgive you, He DOES forgive you.

When you ponder on your past sin all you are doing is going back to the past.

However, there is one exception on this rule.

We read in Matthew 5:23 where Jesus said:

Matthew 5:23–24 ESV

So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

Why is this different?

It is different because it involves another believer.

It states that if anyone has anything against you.

Now I am sure that it applies vice versa also, in other words if you have anything against anyone else.

But in the context of this scripture Jesus emphasizes that it is important that, if someone has anything against you and you know about it, you need to go back and make peace with that person.

The thing is we are not alone in this race.

We have other Christians running with us.

And if we are the reason they cannot finish the race because they have something against us, then we need to go back and make sure it is resolved.

Paul wrote to the church of Corinth and said the following:

1 Corinthians 10:31–32 ESV

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God,

And then John said the following in:

1 John 3:15 ESV

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

You need to make sure that it is resolved.

You need to make sure that, if you know of someone who has something against you, that you take the first step and go and remedy it.

And if you have something against someone else that you remedy that,

And you need to ensure that you are not a stumbling block for another person preventing them from finishing the race, because I can tell you that if you are, you are not going to see eternal life.

No one who loves his brother or sister will be a stumbling block for them, therefore, by means of elimination, if you are a stumbling block to them you do not love them, but you hate them.

And John said that, if you hate your brother you will not see everlasting life, therefore you will see everlasting death in hell.

Going back to make things right with your brother or sister is the exception on the rule.

But also, when you do it do not linger there.

Move on when it is done.

It is easy to stay there and glaze in the great feeling of forgiveness.

But you have to move on.

You have to look at the future.

We have spoken about past failure and past sins, but what about past successes?

WE MUST NOT LINGER ON OUR PAST SUCCESSES

Example

A couple of years ago Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis were scheduled to box for the heavy weight boxing title.

Now at that time Lennox Lewis was the champ.

He had the belt.

If Tyson was to beat him, Tyson would become the champion.

Now, for those of you who can remember, Tyson, in his younger years, probably was one of the best boxers ever seen.

He became world champion at a very young age.

He won many of his first fights in knockouts within the first three rounds.

He was a force to be reckoned with.

But unfortunately his lifestyle did not work well with society and certain things happened that kept him from boxing.

There is no doubt that Tyson was a great champ and he had great success.

But that was all in the past.

When Tyson faced Lewis that day he faces Lewis, not in his past capacity as the dangerous Iron Mike Tyson, as he was known, but as the present Mike Tyson, former world champion.

That morning we watched the fight and it was one of the saddest displays of boxing I have seen in a while.

That day Tyson got a boxing lesson from Lewis.

He lost the fight without even hurting Lewis just a little bit.

You see, Mike Tyson came to that fight on the back of his past success.

He believed that, because he was so great in the past, he could still do it that day.

But he could not.

And it was proven.

It does not matter if you ran the marathon 10 times.

You cannot run it the next year without training.

Your successful completion of the race does not mean that you will be able to do it the next year.

Your past successes can hinder your future success.

This is one of the most understated strategies that Satan uses.

He slows us down by getting us, not making us (Satan cannot make you do anything), to think and reflect on the memory of past successes.

We must not forget our past, but it can become a hindrance to our success if we ponder on it too much.

If we keep on going back to it.

The purpose of our past successes should be to remind us of how faithful God was.

To remember His blessings in our lives.

But you cannot live on yesterday’s blessings.

God wants to give you a new blessing every day.

Remember when God gave the Israelites food in the desert.

Exodus 16:4 ESV

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.

God wants to bless you every day.

He wants you to go out and gather His blessings every day.

Just as the Israelites had to go out and gather their bread every day, so we must go out and gather our blessings every day.

But unfortunately many people linger on past blessings and this hinders them in finishing the race or achieving greater success in the personal lives.

In the Lord’s prayer we pray: “Give us our daily bread”

Give us our DAILY bread

Give us new blessings daily.

Listen to the following written in:

Lamentations 3:21–23 ESV

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

If we want to be successful in our life, in our ministry, in our marriage, in our relationship with our children, in our bond with our family, then we should start living, not in the past, but in today, reaching towards the future.

We should not live on yesterday’s blessings and successes, but on today’s blessings and today’s opportunities.

We can look back and praise God for all the souls that were won for Him in the past, and it is good to reflect on it, but when we built today on yesterday’s bread from heaven, we will find that it will become stale and no one will be able to make use of it.

It is in the past.

We have many more souls today that needs saving.

Your race is not over until the day you lay down your head for the last time.

What is important today is how many people we can reach for Christ today.

CLOSING

We were placed in this world to make a difference.

We were chosen to fulfil God’s plan.

That means that we need to go forward.

If we stay at one place we will not be able to go forward.

If we constantly return to one place in our journey we will find that we cannot finish the race as God intends us to finish it.

If you are so concerned about your past failures or your past sins or even your past successes that you forget about the future, then I urge you to reconsider.

Renew your mind this morning.

How many times have I failed?

Many times.

How many times have I sinned in the past?

Plenty.

How successful have I been in the past?

But that is exactly where it is and needs to be

In the past.

Do not let your past hinder your future.

Let your past guide you and learn from it.

Let’s Pray

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