Reformed Baptist Church in O'Fallon, Missouri
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Looking Back or Looking Forward? It Makes a Difference

Philippians 3:12-16

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Scripture Reading and Opening Prayer

Philippians 3, starting in verse 12.

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 those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

(Philippians 3:12–16)

Let’s pray. Father, help us to make this Word a reality in our own lives today. Help us to receive it, to dwell on it, to meditate upon it, and to put feet to action with these words. Lord, we pray your blessing upon our children as they’re going back to learn about you. We pray that you would be gracious to save them from an early age, that they would grow up to know you, love you, fear you, serve you, all of their days. I pray the same for us, that we would seek to know you, and as we’ve been reading in Philippians, to know you, the power of your resurrection, and to know your sufferings, Lord. Continue to mold us and make us into your image. Continue to do your good work in us, Father. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Don’t Think You’ve Arrived

Well, we’ve been looking for a few weeks at the verses of basically Philippians 3:1–11, where it’s talking about knowing Christ, knowing the power of his resurrection, and knowing what it is to share in his sufferings. And so what we come to now is Paul wants to emphasize a few things that tie into what he has. And so here’s what he’s going to say. Basically, if we just kind of water it down to real simple language, say three things. First, he’s going to say, I’m not there yet. Second, he’s going to say, I don’t look back. And then third, he’s going to say, I press on. So that’s kind of what we’re going to look at. And I’m going to develop those three statements and see what God is telling us and how we need to walk it out and see how it applies to us today.

All these things that we’ve been looking at, this is important, are for our growth, right? It’s for our growth. So we want to be disciples. Guess what happens if the church won’t disciple people? The world will. So the church is called to disciple—I mean, the Great Commission, right? Go and make disciples. So if the church won’t disciple people, the world will. Well, this is part of discipleship. What Paul is getting at here is he’s actually talking about some key things in regards to discipleship.

So here’s my first point. One, don’t think you’ve arrived. There is work to be done. Look what he says in verse 12: “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect.” So there’s still work to do. And then he goes on in verse 13: “I do not consider that I have made it my own.” Paul knows he hasn’t arrived. Yeah, I mean, he’s an apostle, though. He’s an apostle, and yet he acknowledges he hasn’t arrived. How can he not have arrived if he is an apostle? Well, because he’s still growing in sanctification. Well, let me let you in on a little secret. If the apostle Paul hasn’t arrived, then neither have you. So we have a ways to go, and sanctification is an ongoing process. Is God making us—really, it’s God making us more like him. Right, we’re set apart, he’s sanctifying us, he’s getting rid of the bad and putting in the good. Sanctification. But it’s an ongoing process. Hopefully who you were a year after you got saved looks different than the moment you got saved, and then three years after you got saved looks different than the year you got saved, and so on and so forth.

God is working in all of God’s saints. All of the saints. So God is working, and he’s working, and he’s working. And normally I’d make a joke about how he’s working overtime in some of you. But he’s working overtime in all of us. He has a lot of work to do in all of us. Thankfully, it’s a pretty easy task for him. It’s a pretty easy task. But for us, as we join him in that sanctification process, maybe our side, not so easy. So we labor, we strive, we run, we seek the Lord. We strive after these things, which is why we’re going to get to the point where he says, right, he strains toward it. So the Holy Spirit still has work to do on your soul. And sometimes, I don’t know if you’re like me at all, you’re like, I hope not. No. If you’re like me at all, you’re working and you’re working and you’re working and you’re reading your Bible and you’re praying. And sometimes the Lord points something out to you and it’s like, it’s been there for years and you didn’t even realize it. I mean, it’s just amazing how convicting that book is. And the Lord uses Scripture, uses books written about Scripture, to point out our sin. Why? Is God trying to be mean? No, he’s very gracious when he does that. He’s wanting to conform us to the image of his Son. So he points those things out in his time. Right? So we think, oh, wow, I’m doing something else out. Why? Because we haven’t obtained it yet. We haven’t arrived yet.

The Holiest Saints Know Their Sin

The holiest of the saints, listen to this, the holiest of the saints know best the depth of their sin. Here’s what Charles Spurgeon said: “I believe the holier a man becomes, the more he mourns over the unholiness which remains in him.” I mean, the idea is the more you know Christ and the more you know your heavenly Father, the more you see clearly your own sin, and the more clearly you see how grievous it is. And the more clearly you see, yeah, Christ died on that cross, and I’m the one that put him there. Here’s what Robert Murray M’Cheyne said: “The nearer you take anything to the light, the darker its spots will appear. And the nearer you live to God, the more you will see your own utter vileness.”

One additional quote—these are just good, I just have to share them. Jonathan Edwards, one of my favorites, he said: “My wickedness, as I am in myself, has long appeared to me perfectly ineffable, and infinitely swallowing up all thought and imagination, like an infinite deluge, or mountains over my head. I know not how to express better what my sins appear to me to be, than by heaping infinite upon infinite, and multiplying infinite by infinite.” Now sometimes you read quotes like that, especially the Puritans. I mean, was Edwards obsessed with sin and guilt, as is sometimes charged of the Puritans? No. It’s not like he’s taking some pleasure in the sense of his own guilt. Rather, he emphasizes what we see: the sovereignty of God and the power of grace. His experience of sin is real, but it is also evidence of the relationship of man to God and of sin to grace. Do you know the depths of your sin, and have you experienced the depths of God’s grace? Through Christ it’s available.

Look what he goes on to say in verse 12. After he says, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect,” he starts to want to quell any belief that the Philippians possibly had of some type of perfectionist theology. Is it possible to be perfect in this life? No. Why not? Because part of it goes to us confusing the two ages. I talked about it a little bit last week, but we have the present age and we have the age to come. And a lot of times bad theology stems from confusing the two ages. So can we be perfect in this age? No. Will we be perfect in the future age? Yes. Now there is some, and I’d say bad theology, that tries to claim that we can be perfect in this age. It’s not possible. If Paul wasn’t perfect, you’re not going to be perfect. And that’s okay. Listen, there’s only one person that’s ever walked this earth that’s been perfect. Who is that? It’s Jesus, right? That’s why he’s called the author and perfecter of our faith. He can perfect because he was, in fact, perfect. But Paul’s not there yet, and we’re not there yet. It’s okay to be on the road but not arrive at the destination in this life. Again, we’re back to this age and the age to come. This age, we’re on the road. The next age, that’s the destination.

Paul’s point is to be on the road and continually moving forward. He looks forward. He’s moving forward. He’s straining toward something. You’re never going to fully arrive in this life at what God has for us in the next, and that’s okay. And just as a side note, this I think is important for some of you: you know, quit worrying about like the next step in your life. Sometimes we get so focused and we think three or four steps ahead, four or five years down the road, and get so focused on that we forget about the here and now. So enjoy where you’re at now. A lot of times, you know, you’re like you have younger children and you’re like, oh, I can’t wait to be out of this stage. And then you get to the stage where they’re a little bit older: I can’t wait to be out of this stage. And pretty soon your kids are out of the house, and you’re like, oh, I wish I—I missed all those stages. Why? Because you’re so focused on the next. No, enjoy the here and the now. Enjoy the here and the now. Even things like marriage. That’s great. If you’re not married, you should aspire to it. You should look forward to it. You should plan, but don’t get so focused on those things, something like marriage, which is important and given by God, that you miss the singleness that he has for you now. So sometimes we’re like, you know, I just want to be done with this. I want to finish that. Well, make sure you enjoy where you’re at. We get so focused on the future, we forget the here and the now.

Forget What Lies Behind

So what does Paul do? Well, look at verse 13. He says, “But one thing I do”—interestingly enough, those two words “I do,” they’re not in the Greek. We added them. All versions add them. That’s okay. Sometimes colloquially, linguistically, we do things like that to make the translation go a little better. But it’s literally “one thing.” And then what does he say? Well, he lays out two parallel clauses: forgetting what’s behind and straining toward what’s ahead. But those together are the one thing that he’s talking about. So first, which is really my second point: forget what lies behind. Forget what lies behind. Does that mean forget about your past? Well, no.

Paul talked about it. Listen to Acts 21. He says in verse 39, “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no obscure city.” Another chapter later, he says, “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day.” But this time he goes on: “I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women, as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness. From them I received letters to the brothers, and I journeyed toward Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished.” Has he forgotten his past? No. That’s not what he’s talking about in this passage. Even later when he’s appearing before—in fact, a lot of times he recounts his past when he’s witnessing, when he’s sharing the gospel. Acts 26: “My manner of life from my youth, spent from the beginning among my own nation and in Jerusalem, is known to all the Jews.” He doesn’t shy away from his past. I mean, it is part of his story. 2 Corinthians 11, he says it; Romans 11; 1 Timothy 1—all recounting aspects of his past. Why? I mean, that’s part of his testimony. It’s like, here back then, and here now. Like, look at what God has done. So when he says forget what lies behind, that’s not in view. That’s not in view of trying to forget who you were. No, part of that is what’s made you to be who you are today.

What he really has in mind—I’m going to actually talk about two different things, but the primary thing that he has in mind when he’s talking about forgetting what lies behind is really the great accomplishments you have already accomplished. That’s why earlier he’s like, oh, if we want to talk about confidence in the flesh, back in verse 4, he goes verse 5. He’s like, I have all sorts of confidence in the flesh if we want to do that: “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” But then he goes on, right? “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.” That needs to kind of be the view for us as well. When we’re talking about our own personal accomplishments, like that’s fine. Like God’s done some great stuff through us, done some great stuff in you. You’ve got maybe some initials behind your name indicating degrees that you’ve got. Great. And you’ve accomplished things athletically or intellectually. That’s great. But what is he talking about? Forget what lies behind. He’s like, what are you doing now to impact the kingdom? In other words, like, excel toward the finish line. A lot of times it makes me sad when I hear about people and they talk about stories of what they’ve done for the Lord, and all those stories go back five years or further. That’s okay again to talk about those things, but there needs to be present stories as well. Like, what are you doing now? How is God using you now? So we want to excel toward the finish line.

Finish Strong

You know, I used to run cross country in high school, and before every race I’d go to the finish line. And I’d jog just a small portion of the course backwards, and I’d find a place, maybe like a quarter of a mile, sometimes a little bit shorter, but a quarter of a mile from the finish line, and I would tell myself, like, mentally, hey, in the race, when I hit this spot, I’m just going to go and burn as hard as I possibly can. Why is that? Because there’s so little left in the race, I don’t need any energy after the race is over, right? So I, you know, and for the most part, I hung to that. I’d run along and I’d hit that point. I’d use some relevant marker or a tree or a bench or something. After the race is done, does it help to have any energy left? No. Sometimes, I mean, you’ve seen races, right? They literally collapse at the finish line. Like they’re done. They burned everything they had. Well, I mean, that’s the idea that Paul has for us when he’s talking about straining forward. Not looking behind, straining forward, everything we’ve got, we’re looking, we’re hitting on all cylinders to cross faithfully.

So, I guess this needs to be said, I realize like at the beginning of the race, most people are a little bit faster at the beginning of the race. If you’re a good runner, you should be pretty consistent throughout, right? But I wanted to still finish strong. Maybe not as fast as other parts of the race, but finish strong. Didn’t want to crawl across the line. Well, the same needs to be true for all of us spiritually, regardless of what age we’re at. We need to finish strong. So don’t—I guess part of my point here is, don’t rest on your laurels. Don’t ease up. Don’t accomplish something and say, self, I’ve accomplished something great. Maybe you’ve led someone to the Lord. Maybe you’ve been discipling someone. Maybe you’ve been ministering to someone. But don’t say, self, I’ve accomplished something great. I can ease up. I can take it a little bit easy. No, rather you need to ask yourself, one, give all the praise to the Lord. Lord, thank you for doing that through me. You’ve been so gracious and kind and merciful. But then two, what can I do next for the kingdom? What can I do next for the kingdom?

A lot of times these, you know, celebrity Christians that we know that are actually celebrities for a good reason, they’re faithful and they’re serving. Like they don’t just get to a point and they stop. They serve and they serve and they serve. You know, John MacArthur, right? And the guy’s like, what, 80-plus years old, and he’s still going as strong as he possibly can. He’s still going. So too many people have hindsight when it comes to the gospel. It’s more “look what I did.” Again, that’s okay. It’s okay to talk about what you did, but it needs to be also “look what I’m doing.” Present tense. And I get it, that’s going to look differently at different stages of life. The 30-year-old you can accomplish some things that the 60-year-old you can’t accomplish. But let me say this, the 60-year-old you can accomplish some things that the 30-year-old you can’t accomplish. You’ve got different giftings at different seasons. So resist the temptation to say, if I was younger, I could do this or do that. Well, you’re not. That’s okay. Work with what you got. It’s kind of a talents thing. If you’ve got the one talent, you work with the one talent.

Your Past Sins Do Not Define You

There’s also, though, I would say, a secondary aspect of our past and forgetting what lies behind. While Paul wasn’t afraid to talk about it and he didn’t shy away from it, he didn’t let his past define him. Right, it wasn’t Paul the murderer, it’s not Moses the murderer, it’s not Peter the faithless denier of Christ, it’s not Jacob the deceiver, it’s not King David the adulterer. Those things happened in life? Yes. But your past sins don’t define you. If you’ve repented, if you’ve sought forgiveness against those that you’ve sinned, then move on. And to be clear, this is not a discussion of what people might have done against you. That’s a different sermon. Some people, you know, sweep their sins against others under a rug. You shouldn’t do that. Some people want to act like it never happened. I’m not addressing that. Some people say forgive and forget. That’s not biblical. All right, if grievous sin has been done to you, it’s not something you can forget and probably shouldn’t forget. That’s not what Paul is addressing here. He’s talking about his own past actions. But to be clear, past sin can weigh you down. One, if you haven’t dealt with it, but two, if you let it hold you in bondage. I mean, maybe you have repented. Listen, you’re not the definition of your past sin, whatever it might be. You need to release it to the Lord and let it go. Stop letting the enemy hang it over your head. Forget those things. Move on. Current, unrepentant sin will weigh you down, and it should.

And let me say this, don’t let passions become present-day sins again. If you’ve done battle and God’s been gracious to give you victory and break some serious chains in your life, don’t undo the process. Don’t let passions become present-day sins again. The dragons must be slain immediately if they try to rise from the ashes. If all dragons were just this small, it would be pretty easy to defeat them. Most dragons aren’t this small, though, are they? But if you’ve defeated one, and then through your own foolishness and stupidity, you start feeding it again—it does start small, though. It’s a lot easier to defeat when he’s tiny.

And there are good things that we can do with our past. We can—that’s another sermon in itself—but we can learn from it. We can appreciate it. We can use it as part of our testimony. We can honor it. There’s bad things we can do with our past. Ruminate on it, weaponize it, deny it, reinterpret it. Those are bad things. That’s not what I’m here to address today. I will say this, you can’t forget your past sins against others. The passing of time never removes your need to make something right with someone that you’ve sinned against.

I’ll tell you a real short story. It’s really somewhat, well, in some sense, minor. But when I was young, I collected baseball cards. And if I would have collected baseball cards about 25 years later, or if I would have been maybe born 25 years later, 30 years later, that’s when the baseball cards were actually worth something. When I was collecting them, that was like the dead years of baseball cards. So I have thousands of cards, and they’re probably not even worth the cardboard they’re printed on. They’re pretty much worthless, except for a handful of them. But there was this kid up the street, his name was Billy. He was about four years younger than me. And we collected baseball cards together. But guess what I did to Billy? I ripped him off of all his baseball cards, all the good ones, and convinced him and convinced him that he should trade me his good ones. And being four years younger, it was a little easy. I’m 12, he’s eight. That’s a huge difference. Well, guess what happens? I get saved like six years later. And guess what the Lord brings to my heart one day when I’m reading his Word? The fact that I ripped Billy off. So I repent, right? And I’m talking with my mom one day, and I’m just like, oh, I wish I knew how to get in contact with Billy. And she’s like, oh, actually, I have his mom’s number still. All right. So she gives me his number. I call up. I’m like, this is going to be so weird. It’s going to be so weird. Like six years later. And I’m like, Billy, hey, this sounds weird, but like God’s been doing a good work in my life. If I’m going to have to humble myself, I’m at least using it as an opportunity to also share the gospel, right? Like, God’s been doing a good work in my life. I got saved recently. And I realized that I ripped you off of a lot of your good baseball cards. I want to make it right. Guess what he says? I got saved too. So anyway, we end up having lunch, and I’m like, I don’t know the value of the cards. Here’s what I think the value might have been. But you name the number and I will pay you that back. Guess what he says? Don’t worry about it. It’s all forgiven. I don’t want any money. Right? I share that just because, again, like when God’s doing something in your life, you want to walk in righteousness, you want to walk in holiness, and you want to make things right with people, even with younger people.

Don’t Stay Stuck

In addition to that, I’d say this. As we’re trying to grow in our sanctification, don’t stay stuck. Some people get stuck. You can always make excuses for where you’re at today. Why you’re not growing—it’s usually someone else’s fault. We can have a long list of whys, and we can moan and whine and complain about where we’re at today. Or we can decide to do something about it. We can start by owning it. And we can get help. We can start by owning it and we can get help. Usually this means humbling yourself. But you go to your spouse, a wise friend who loves Jesus, your pastor—don’t stay stuck. If you’ve been caught in a rut for a while, let’s get you out. That’s not good. That’s not going to help you. God wants us growing and moving forward in our process of sanctification and becoming more like him.

Additionally, I’ve said it before, I’m going to say it again, don’t let sin done to you define you. That’s a sermon in itself as well, but if you do that, I guarantee you’ll get stuck. Many people, even in this room, have had some awful things done to them. But don’t let that define you. Don’t let that define you. People define themselves and end up defining themselves as victims. Listen, there’s only one person that ever walked on this earth that was a true victim, in the truest sense, and that was Jesus Christ. So don’t get some victim mentality. I guarantee you, if you do, you’ll get stuck and you won’t get unstuck. Don’t define yourself by your victim status. By God’s grace, whatever has occurred to you—sometimes by our own stupid decisions, but sometimes by the sinful decisions of others—by God’s grace you can walk through that. By God’s grace you can walk through it. You hear me? By God’s grace you can walk through it.

Strain Forward to What Lies Ahead

Finally, excel to what lies ahead. What does Paul say? Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. He’s not talking about excelling in life in general. He’s not saying, oh, go and excel toward that big promotion. Work toward that bigger raise. Focus on getting that bachelor’s or your master’s degree. Be the best athlete you possibly can. Win that sports competition. Go and be as smart as you can. Sharpen your intellect. Win the academic scholarship. That’s not the excelling that he’s talking about. It’s about the Christian life. Why? How do we know that? Because he tells us in verse 14: “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Now there are many great passages that talk about some of those things as well, like being diligent, striving in other areas, yes, but this passage, to be faithful, is talking about our walk with the Lord. That when Paul’s like, I’m moving forward, that’s his focus, not on some type of accolade. In the Christian life, it’s not about staying, it’s about moving. Not treading water, but swimming.

And the words used here, these specific words, are giving us the image of a runner being completely focused. Every muscle, every fiber, all of him is straining forward to cross the finish line. And in the midst of the race, the full direction and course of the body, where is it? It’s forward facing, not backwards facing. Again, I’ve already mentioned I was running cross country. Looking behind, anyone knows this, but looking behind when you’re running, it slows you down. Right? So, when I was running cross country, and the person in front of me in a race, when the person in front of me looked around, guess what I knew? One, I knew it was going to affect their speed. I knew I had them. I knew I would end up passing them. Very likely—why? Because they’re more concerned about me than running the race. They’re more concerned about me overcoming them than focusing on the race. They show they’re more concerned about who was behind them than what was ahead of them. So I made it a goal: never look behind me when I run. If you’ve run in a race, it’s very tempting because you want to know what’s up, right? Who’s behind you? How close are they? Especially when you get towards the end. Right towards the end, you’re like, oh, can I ease up? So you glance over your shoulder as you get past. So I made it a goal to never look back when I ran. I knew it slowed me down. I knew it was a distraction. And I knew if anyone saw me, they might overtake me and I’d give them some hope. No. Well, the focus of the runner is to run the race, and the focus of the runner is to focus on running and finishing the race. So we’ve got three analogies here regarding running. When we’re thinking about toward what’s ahead, the runner’s not distracted by other runners. So you’re where you’re at, you don’t look back, you focus on the goal, you focus on Christ. You’re not concerned about what others are doing. You’re not focused on what’s going on to the side or behind you. You’ve forgotten what lies behind. You’re straining toward what lies ahead. Believers, you stay focused.

And the goal is the finish line, right? He says, “I press on toward the goal.” Well, for the runners, it’s the finish line. Right? Make it. Persevere. Don’t give up. And the prize—now the goal is different than the prize. I mean, the goal is to cross the finish line. The prize, right, sometimes you get a medal or trophy or whatever—well, the prize in the Christian life is Christ. “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” So what’s Paul’s point? Press on, strain forward. That’s why he says, “I press on toward the goal.” Then a little bit later he says in verse 16, “Only let us hold true to what we have attained.” Too many fall short of the goal. Too many don’t get the prize. Too many stop running the race. Too many get sidetracked off course. Don’t let that be you. Don’t let that be you. Strain forward. Press on. Persevere. Don’t stop. Don’t quit.

You should ask yourself. I mean, I know it’s kind of like, whatever, cliché to use like January 1st to like set some goals for yourself, right, and a lot of people stop after January 3rd, right, but it is good to sit down and do some self-reflection in a good way of how can I become more conformed to the image of Christ, how can I continue to grow closer to the Lord, what are tangible things I can do to help me accomplish that. So you know, people are like, oh, January 1st, and they want to set some new goals for different aspects of their life. Well, you should do that spiritually too, whether it’s January 4th or it’s today afterwards in your quiet time. But if we just hope for progress to occur, it’s not always going to, and it sometimes usually doesn’t. All right, so how can I become more conformed to the image of Christ? Set up things in your life to take steps in that direction. Some of it is no-brainer, right? I mean, being in the Word. That’s going to put you in a position to pray. But what are other things? Well, I mean, I’d say like being in the presence of other believers worshiping together. You could come up with a list. And then there might be things you’re like, OK, at some point, you’ve only got so much time in the day. If you’re sleeping eight hours a day, you got 16 left. And you got a whole bunch of things vying for time. So you can come up with a great list of things that will help you be conformed to the image of Christ. It doesn’t matter if you don’t ever make the time to do those things, which means you’ll probably have to cut some things out. It means you’ll probably have to have a little discipline in your life. But our hearts as believers should be to want to grow closer to the Lord. I think sometimes it’s not a knowledge issue. It’s a heart issue. I think we know what we need to do. It’s just a matter of if we have the heart, the desire to do it.

John Newton and Amazing Grace

You know, John Newton was the captain of a slave ship. Involved in the brutal transatlantic slave trade, profane, immoral, truly a wretch who’d blasphemed and cared nothing for God. And yet God was gracious to redeem him. He wrote, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” Now there’s a documentary, it’s probably about five or ten years ago, it actually doesn’t do a good job of portraying Newton. It actually has him almost committing the very thing that he’s commanded not to, and it’s like he’s overly obsessed with what he used to do and he hasn’t moved past his former sins. That’s not true of Newton in real life. Did he forget his past? Well, in one sense, yes. He moved on from it. He forgot what lies behind. In other words, he stopped letting yesterday’s sin define him or hinder him and instead pressed on in the new calling that God had given him, being a disciple of Christ. And he refused to let guilt, shame, or his former life paralyze him or debilitate him or discourage him. He forgot what lies behind, and he also refused to use it as an excuse. He knew well what Paul was saying. It’s not pretending the past never happened, and it’s refusing to be chained by it so that you can’t run the race set before you. So he forgot what lies behind. He acknowledged his past sins, repented of them, but he didn’t dwell upon them in a way they kept him from pressing on toward the prize.

It’s easy for us at times to stay in the past and stay stuck. Don’t stay stuck. I’ve met people who are stuck, and they are stuck. They’re stuck because they are defining themselves from their past sins. They can’t move on from it. They have this victim mentality and status. If we listed all the awful things done to us in this room, it would probably occupy quite a few volumes. So you’re not the only one. I don’t know if that makes you feel better or not. But many awful things have been done to many people. But guess what? There is a God who is gracious and walks with you through that and heals you. He brings healing. The balm of Gilead is available. He is a good God. Don’t forget his goodness. So we forget what lies behind, and then we strain forward. Why? Because we want to walk well with Jesus, and we have as much of Jesus as we want.

The Gold Is There to Be Mined

If you just sip from the cup of Jesus, you can sip. If you want to drink deeply, you can drink deeply. And all of us—we will spend, the greatest theologians, the godliest of men have mined this thing their entire lives, and only but scratch the surface of all that’s there. So if you’re struggling because of a lack of getting from this, it’s not because the gold’s not in the mines, it’s the miner’s not mining, or he’s mining with the wrong tools. But the gold is there to be mined. You have to be wanting to mine, and then you have to mine rightly, but it’s there. So we strive. And what happens? What do we see? We realize like that’s striving—like we’re not doing that on our own. That’s always an epic fail. No, we’re striving with the power that Christ gives us. We’re striving with the Holy Spirit that lives in us. So it’s not an effortless striving that we just know is not going to lead anywhere. No, we can strive and hope. As believers, if we’re striving, if we’re walking in his mercy and grace, then we know we will arrive at what we’re striving for. Might be some toil, might be some effort, might be some labor, might be some tears, but we’ll arrive. I mean, that’s the commitment. We’re striving toward the goal. Every believer gets Christ. So we strive and we strive and we strive, knowing that God in his goodness and his mercy strives with us. He’s working together, the sanctification process, and there’s no doubt that he will always fulfill his part. [audio unclear]

Let’s pray.

Closing Prayer

[audio unclear] Maybe they’ve been dealing with different things, past sins, God, that they’d be adopted into your kingdom, and one of your children. Have mercy on them, Lord. Free them from those things, and may all of us, Father, continue to be diligent to seek you. Your Word is truth. Help us to clearly see it. Help us to understand your Word more and more. Illuminate our minds and our hearts with your goodness and your mercy. Show us truths in your Scriptures that we just haven’t discovered yet or haven’t seen for ourselves. Make it living and active as you say it is, Lord, in each one of us. Use it, Lord, in our lives to conform us to the image of your Son. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.