FREE and FOCUSED

If ever a person deserved to be

termed outstanding, this man,

Saul of Tarsus, the apostle Paul,

deserves that title. He talks

about what, for him, has become the

most compelling, the most

absorbing, the most rewarding thing

for which to live.

He says, “One thing I do.” And

when I hear the apostle Paul say

something like that, I want to know

what that is. If this man—with all his

experience, all his knowledge of

God, all the extraordinary experiences

through which he passed—if

he can say, “This is the one thing that

drives me, compels me, motivates

me,” I want to listen to him.

He pictures himself as a runner in

this passage. Like all good athletes, as

he thinks about running the race

before him, first of all, he’s going to

get himself into a certain frame of

mind, and then he’s going to focus

and he’s going to run. “This one thing

I do.” He’s got his heart set on it.

And there are two important

things that we’re going to learn from

our text. The first thing that he

teaches us is this: Get free. The

second thing: Be focused.

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Get free from the bad done

to you.

Get free. That’s what he’s really

talking about in verse 13: “Brothers, I

do not consider myself yet to have

taken hold of this [all the things that

he’s been thinking of and talking

about previously]. But one thing I do,

forgetting what is behind.” Get free!

“Forgetting”—this is an unusual,

uncharacteristic word for this man,

Paul. He unashamedly says: I’ve spent

my life reminding you.

That’s the key biblical word.

“Forgetting” is not key in the Bible.

“Remind” and “memory” is used three

to four times more than the word

“forgetting.” So it’s unusual; it immediately

grabs our attention.

“Forgetting” from a man who reminds

people always of the great acts of

God in human history?

When Paul says “forgetting what

is behind,” he cannot mean you

should forget everything in the past.

What is it he forgets, and why?

What’s in focus here? Let me put it to

you in very personal terminology. As

you look back over this past year,

what is it that you need to forget? It

would be worth taking a moment just

to ponder that question.

You might, for example, say something

like this: “I need to get free

from the memory of what was done

to me.” Get free from the memory of

what was done to you. Some of you

have suffered enormously, and you

carry scars from the past that are too

personal to share but which go on

controlling your life, depressing

memories that hang over you and

your heart and mind. And when

you’re alone, and when you stop to

think, and when you kneel in prayer,

and when you have any time when

you’re not occupied, your memory

goes back to that.

Track 25

• illustration • I once caught a few

seconds of a television documentary.

And I saw some men in some remote

part of the world testing the strength

of their horses. And this was their

way of showing how great their stock

was and their prowess as trainers and

so on.

They harnessed their horses to a

heavily loaded cart. They clamped

the wheels of the cart, and then they

whipped their horses. And the horse

that pulled the cart the furthest won

the prize as the strongest horse in the

competition. Some of the horses

actually strained to such an extent

that they were destroyed in the

process and had to be put down. It

was a brutal and vicious process, and

just for the pride of men.

As I watched that, I remembered

some people, and their faces came

into my memory—people that I’d

known and had worked with over the

years, people that I’d pastored and

had the privilege of being alongside.

And I pictured them now as people

harnessed to the past, because of a

brutal father or mother or husband,

because of their upbringing, because

of their deprivation in youth, and so

on. They were harnessed to the past,

always struggling to get out of that

Free and Focused

Press on toward the goal—knowing Christ.

harness and move forward. They go into

every year with a load of shame and

regret and anger and sadness.

Paul could have remembered people

like that. He certainly had many people

who hated him, who made trouble for

him. The thing that hurt him most were

so-called believers who betrayed him—

he would go into cities and towns, the

whole town would be turned upside

down, and he would be left for dead

sometimes. He was flogged, ridiculed,

and imprisoned. And when he went away,

the church that was born seemed to kneel

before the first false teacher that came

along. He had every reason to look back

on his past and feel that he’d somehow

suffered at the hands of other people.

The great thing about this man,

though, is that he’s not trapped by those

memories. How did he break free? There

are some of you who may have that

question this morning: “I’ve come from

this background, from this marriage,

from this childhood; I want to get free;

how do I get free? I want to forget but I

can’t—what’s the key to forgetting the

things that have been done to me? How

did Paul break free?”

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This same man who writes the words

“forgetting the past” wrote in another

place, “Love keeps no record of wrongs.”

There’s a key there, isn’t there? As you

look back, you can turn that situation in

your mind, because your Lord

commands you to, and you can say:

“Whatever that person did, I’m going to

view them in this way: I’m not going to

keep a record of that wrong. I’m not

going to keep going over it. I’m not

going to hug it to myself. I’m not going

to plan revenge. I’m not going to try and

find a way back there so that I can get

back at the person who has damaged me

so much.”

In fact, the Lord Jesus put it more

radically than that. Remember what he

said? “Love your enemies … Do good to

those who hate you and despitefully use

you.” Love your enemies? How can you

do that? Where does the power to do

something like that come from? You say,

“That’s impossible.”

It may appear that way. But as the

Lord Jesus spoke these words, he added

something that gives us the key to how

we can do it. He said: By this you will

show that you are sons of your Father

in heaven, and this is how your Father

in heaven behaves—”He causes his sun

to rise on the evil and the good, and

sends rain on the righteous and the

unrighteous.”

The greatest crime of the people who

hurt you was not to hurt you. Their

greatest crime was to reject the God of

glory and his dear Son, Jesus Christ—to

live as though he does not exist. That’s

their crime. And there are moments in

your life—maybe weeks, months, even

years—when they hurt you, but for a

whole lifetime they’re living without

regard to the God of glory. And what

does he do for them? Every morning

they get out of their beds, and the sun

comes up over the horizon.

And he did it for you. When you

were dead in trespasses and sins, when

you did not have a moment for him,

what did he do for you? He caused his

sun rise on you. He sent his rain to feed

you. He made your life good.

And you say, “I can’t do that for the

person who hurt me.” But you can if you

have a Father in heaven. You demonstrate

who your Father is, what your real

parentage is, by loving those who hurt

you. Get free from the memory of what

was done to you.

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Get free from the bad you

have done.

But some of you may be saying something

like this: “It isn’t what was done to

me that bothers me. There are things I

want to forget with respect to what I’ve

done.” There’s not one of us here this

morning who doesn’t feel that, somehow

or other, we need to get free from the

memory of the bad we have done. And

we have an enemy, the devil, who comes

to accuse us of these things. That’s his

job. He does it very successfully. He

gets us into trouble and then he accuses

us for being in trouble.

My dear friend, let me ask you this:

Did you confess them? When I ask that

question of people who are racked with

guilt, very often they say: “Oh, I confess

them every day. Hundreds of times. I

did it five years ago, and there’s scarcely

a day when I haven’t confessed I did it.”

If you’ve confessed it, Christ has

forgiven it. Then why are you still

hanging onto it?

It’s quite simple, really. There’s no

magic to this; it’s not rocket science.

What you’re really saying is this: “I am

so shocked at myself. I’m so ashamed

of myself. I’m not like that; I’m something

different. I’m better than that. I

let myself down, and I can’t forgive

myself. That was an aberration; that’s

not what’s in my heart. What’s in my

heart is righteousness and truth and

justice and purity. And then I went and

did that.”

My dear friend, the real problem

behind hanging onto guilt is this: “I

don’t believe my heart is as rotten as the

Bible says.” Don’t you know that the

Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above

all things and desperately wicked; who

can know it?” Don’t you know it says

only the Lord knows how deep our dye

in sin is?

So maybe you’re clinging onto the

past, those guilty secrets that you carry,

because you can’t believe what your

heart is like. Why not face it? You can

be free. The apostle Paul knew what his

heart was like, and he talks about the

depth of sin that was in his heart.

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• illustration • I came across a quote

from a man called A. W. Tozer. Here’s a

quote that I brush against on at least an

annual basis, and every time I do I say,

“Ouch.” “Self derogation is bad for the

reason that self must be there to derogate.

Self, whether swaggering or groveling

[there’s the “ouch” bit], can never

be anything but hateful to God. Boasting

is an evidence that we’re pleased with

self; belittling that we’re disappointed in

it. Either way, we reveal that we have a

high opinion of ourselves.”

Ouch! He’s saying something pretty

important there. Clinging to the guilt of

the past is saying, “I’m too good for

that”—a high opinion of ourselves. You

get free of that by acknowledging what

God’s Word says. And when people tell

you the kind of person you are, don’t

jump to your defense. Say of yourself: “I

know a lot more than that. You think

you’ve seen the worst of me; there’s a lot