12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
15All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 16Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
17Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. 18For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. 20But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
(Philippians 3:12-21)
Today is our church birthday, and we are 4 years old. Pastor Jonny brought us a message called Don’t Look Back.
We all have a past that we remember, and we all have a future that we don’t know. One of the wonders of the Gospel and God’s love is that it doesn’t discriminate based on a person’s past. It doesn’t matter what your background is, you can come to Christ and be part of God’s family!
So this week’s Scripture passage is written by Paul. It was a letter to encourage church in Philippi. The Philippian church was one of the early churches, relatively new at the time, with new believers. You could say that there were some parallels between the church at Philippi and Light & Life.
Jonny brought a warning and a hope this week.
The warning is especially prominent for those of us who have a great past: don’t live in the past. The problem with having a great past is the temptation to constantly look back and yearn for “the good old days” again. The past always seems more romantic when we look back, but at the time, it likely didn’t feel any more special than the current present.
The problem with fixing our eyes on the past is that we miss out on enjoying the present and the future that God has for us.
The nation of Israel fell into this trap. On their way to the Promised Land, they took their gaze off God and looked back fondly at their time spent in Egypt, even though they were in slavery in Egypt and they were free when they were in the desert. They failed to look forward to what God had for them, and they failed to thank God for freeing them from their past. Because they focused on the past, they missed out on the Promised Land and it was delayed by a generation.
We should never forget what God has done for us and we should be thankful for all those things, but we shouldn’t fail to embrace what God is doing now in our lives. Why would we not want to be part of what God is doing?
Jonny’s message of hope is for those of us with a troubled past: you don’t have to live in the past anymore. God is calling you to press on and come to Him. God is love and God loves freedom, and there is freedom in Christ if you come to Him.
Once a person becomes a Christian, the Bible says they become a new creation, and that the new is come and the old has passed away. What we focus on consumes us and is what we end up walking towards. So don’t focus on the old, on the past, but dwell on Christ, and focus walking towards Him.
We can see this is Genesis 19 with the land of Sodom and Gomorrah. God told Lot and his wife to leave Sodom and not look back. Lot’s wife looked back and she was turned into a pillar of salt. It is not healthy to look back at a past that God has told you to leave behind.
Just a couple of Scriptures that help motivate us to look towards the future rather than the past:
19See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.
(Isaiah 43:19)
62Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
(Luke 9:62)
Here at Light & Life, we love looking back each birthday at how God has blessed us as a church. There are so many things we can be thankful to God for and so many happy memories we can use as fuel to propel us into the future.
So never live in the past, always thank God for what He has saved you from, and look forward for what is He calling you to. Regardless of the circumstances, the future is bright with Jesus.