Damariscotta Baptist Church

 

 

Philippians 3:13-14 // Galatians 2:20-21 // Psalm 104:8 

Good Morning! We are going to take an Easter break from the book of Genesis and for the next four weeks we will be focusing on how Easter is a season where we can be “Made New.” Today’s focus will be 

being Made New by 

“Moving Past our Past.” 

One of the greatest obstacles to growing in our faith is the inability to fully accept the forgiveness of God. Our past mistakes, shortcomings, and failures too often hold us back from all that God has for us. Easter reminds us that God invites us to live with a future focus. Rather than dwelling on the past, we are called to live with eager anticipation for what lies ahead. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to us today. 

That means 

that through our faith in Jesus, 

God gives us all that we need 

to live a transformed life and 

to be made new. 

This morning we will take a look at the far-reaching effects of the resurrection. One of the incredible results of our faith in Jesus is that we are given the power to move past our past. One of the greatest obstacles to growing in our faith is the inability to fully receive the forgiveness of God. However, our mistakes, shortcomings, failures and experiences do not have the last word and final say over us. Our living Savior is the one who has the last word and final say. 

As a hospital chaplain I have the privilege to meet with people who are in their final days of life. One person in particular I recall had battled cancer for 15 years and had decided to stop treatments and come to terms with the end of his life. Through tear-soaked eyes he told me how he had struggled with so many regrets about so many things in his life. It was a source of great pain. But he also shared that just a week before our time together his children had written him letters to share some of their final thoughts with him. Each one of their letters made one thing abundantly clear: whatever shortcomings he thought he had, they had forgiven him, and they loved him. He shared with me that those letters transformed his heart, and he was ready to meet Jesus because he was confident that the grace of God had covered his past mistakes. 

There is something about becoming aware of your own mortality that causes one to wrestle with the past. Not all of us find ourselves in the same situation as this man but we all can feel held back by our history from time to time. 

However, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus has changed everything. It proves to us God’s love for us. It makes available God’s grace for us. In the name of Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. 

Many Biblical characters find themselves struggling to reconcile their past as well. One in particular is a man named Paul. Before Paul had an encounter with Jesus, his name was Saul. He was a persecutor of the Church and an enemy of God’s people. He did many things that were sources of shame and guilt. He addresses his approach to his past as he writes to the church in Philippi. 

Philippians 3:13-14 

Brothers 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, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Paul first acknowledges that he has not arrived. The destination to which God has called him to is still before him. He is a work in progress. The way in which he is committed to allowing God to finish his work in him is to forget about what is behind him. All of the evil things he had done to the early Christians, he was forgetting about. He was not making this decision to somehow sidestep responsibility, but instead he was confident that God had great things ahead of him. He knew that if he spent his days focused on what had happened, he would not be prepared for what was yet to come to pass. 

I am probably one of a few people who have ever been in an automobile accident in their own driveway. I was backing out of the parsonage driveway, I got in my car, looked in the rearview mirror and saw nothing behind me. So, I began to back up. Immediately my vehicle struck something hard. I turned around and a parent of one of my daughters had pulled into the driveway and we collided. My heart sank, and I had to write a check to get it repaired. I then realized that a rearview mirror is far too small and leaves you with too many blind spots. That’s why we are meant to drive looking out of our windshields rather than our rearview mirrors. Like driving a car, we were never meant to navigate life looking behind us, God created us to move forward. Paul was choosing to live through the windshield of life rather than the rearview mirror. Many of us in this room find ourselves stuck in a rut because we cannot or will not receive the grace of God, and in turn, forgive ourselves. 

The truth is that there is no way to rewrite history. What is done has been done. When we relive our past by saying things like we would have, we could have, we should have, we are not bringing about any kind of meaningful change. Rather, we are simply robbing ourselves of the good work Jesus has done in our lives through his sacrifice on the cross and the good work he wants to do in our lives as he calls us heavenward. We become like a sailboat on the water with no wind. We become stagnant, with no source of power with which to move forward.  

Being made new is no easy task. We are often tempted to peek behind us and feel regret. In order to take full advantage of the power available to us in the resurrection, we must align ourselves with Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Paul writes about this as well in the book of Galatians. 

Galatians 2:20-21 

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

According to Paul, our past mistakes, sins, shortcomings, and missteps must be crucified with Christ. They must be nailed to the cross and put to death. We must die to our old self in order to come alive to all of the new possibilities and opportunities that God has ahead of us. The old self must be removed so that Jesus Christ can take up residence in us and live through us. Paul tells us that this is possible only by faith in the loving grace of God. In fact, Paul says that aside from the grace of God, there is no way to be made new. 

This may be a helpful way to think about how the grace of Jesus washes away our past regret. 

(Have a large see-through container filled with clean, clear water. As you work your way through this illustration have various food coloring droppers available and a small amount of bleach in a container.) 

We live our lives as sinful and broken individuals. With this in mind, we make mistakes. Our sins hurt God, others, and ourselves. 

We lie, 

cheat, 

steal, 

gossip, and 

much more. 

(With each sin mentioned, drop a bit of food coloring into the clear container of water.) 

The more that we add these sinful thoughts, words, and actions to our lives, the more regret can grow and cloud our past, present, and future. 

Eventually, we need something or someone to clean up our past so we can live unhindered. This is what the Bible tells us Jesus did on the cross. His blood is the payment for our sin. 

His sacrifice is the cleansing agent for us. His resurrection is proof of the power of the cross. 

(At this point, pour in slowly the bleach from the container. Stir it around and watch the water become clear.) 

When we put to death our past by laying it at the foot of the cross, we are then released from its power over our lives. We are made new. We are made clean. 

Paul gives us the secret to how we are to live in light of the forgiveness of God. In the Galatians passage we read earlier; he says that he now lives his life by faith in the Son of God. However, just because our past has been forgiven, does not mean that we will not make mistakes in our future. 

In order to live into the newness of life that Jesus offers us, we have to move forward in faith.  Faith in Christ gives us confidence that it is because of God’s love that we have been forgiven, and it is because of God’s love that we can receive forgiveness in the future. 

My daughters are wonderful, but by no means are they perfect. In our house, Val and I tried hard to keep short accounts with our kids by addressing disobedience or mistakes quickly. It did not matter whether they had drawn on a wall with a marker, hurt their sibling, or talked back disrespectfully, we tried to parent the same in every instance. We focused on the wrong that had been done, taught them to seek forgiveness and reminded them that they were loved no matter what. We wanted our girls to feel free to live life without the fear that we are ashamed of them or angry with them. 

We communicated this by displaying love through eye contact, genuine compassion, and by hugs and kisses. This is the way God parents us as well. He treats us with compassion. He addresses our brokenness, with love, care, and kindness. The Bible says this in many ways. 

Psalm 103:8 

“The Lord is compassionate and gracious,

    slow to anger, abounding in love.”

God is abounding in love. It is because of this love for you and for me that our past is covered. Sometimes it is helpful to imagine in our minds the face of God before us. Some people see disappointment on His face. We imagine him to be cosmically frustrated by our sins. However, the Bible tells us that God’s countenance toward us is approval, acceptance, forgiveness, and affection. 

Not because of anything we have done, but because of what Jesus has done on our behalf. I have heard a great quote about this that says, 

“Grace is the face that love wears when it meets imperfection”. 

You can move past your past because of the grace of God. You may need to seek forgiveness for something that happened. You may need to put boundaries in place. You may need to choose to live differently in the future. What you don’t need to do, however, is to carry around guilt and shame. The cross allows you to move past your past. 

Let’s pray.