Title: I'm Moving On
Bible Book: Philippians 3 : 12-14
Author: James Merritt
Subject: Progess; Growth; Commitment; Christian Living
Objective:
Introduction
Believe it or not, in the last several years I have become somewhat of a country music fan, and one of the groups I like is a group called Rascal Flatts. They came out with a song that both haunts me every time I hear it, and yet also brings me a sense of comfort. I want you to listen to just the first verse: I've dealt with my ghost, and faced all my demons; Finally content with a past I regret; I found you find strength in your moments of weakness; For once I'm at peace with myself. I've been burdened with blame, trapped in the past for too long; I'm movin' on.1
I doubt there is anyone listening to this message that could not look back on your life and have at least some regrets; regrets of doing things that you should not have done, or regrets of not doing things that you should have done, or maybe regrets over both. I guarantee you there are people here today who wake up every morning under a cloud of guilt because of something that's happened with their past. Well I want to teach you today one of the greatest lessons in life you will ever learn, and that is how to "move on." Believe it or not, the greatest Christian who ever lived, outside, of course, the lord Jesus Christ, had a lot he had to move on from in his own life. He had a past that was full of shame, sorrow, and heartache. But he tells us how he dealt with a past that was weighted down with guilt, so he could look forward to a future that was filled with glory.
I. Be dissatisfied with your position
"Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me." (Philippians 3:12) Now Paul was saved and Paul was sanctified, but Paul was not satisfied. Because even though this man walked with God, had a dynamic prayer life, was winning people to Jesus right and left, and even writing inspired scripture that would go into the bible, he was not satisfied. There was still plenty of room for improvement in his Christian life. As much as he had grown in the Lord, there was still a lot of growing in the Lord to do. You see there are two dangers that we face, one with our past and one with our present, that we must avoid if we want to "move on." We must avoid living in the past. I don't even have to tell you why that is true. But we also must avoid resting in the present. If anyone could have rested on his laurels, so to speak, Paul could have. He had seen the risen Lord, he had visited heaven, he was known as the world's greatest preacher, missionary, church planter, and soul-winner. Yet, he said, I'm still not what I ought to be. May I ask you a question? Are you perfect enough to know that you are not perfect? To put it another way: Are you mature enough to realize you're not mature enough? One of the things that made Paul such a great man was he was more concerned about his character than he was about his reputation. I told you before, that reputation is what other people think you are; character is what God knows you are. The reason why Paul was so successful is because he never thought of himself as being successful. Paul was so full of God because he was so empty of self. I am convinced the average person never understands that success is not a destination, it is a never ending process. One great Christian put it this way: "Success is not determined by what we are, but rather by what we are compared to what we could be. It is not measured by what we have done, but rather by what we have done compared to what we could have done." The first step to moving on with your life is this: Never be satisfied with where you are, and always be determined to make the rest of your life the best of your life.
II. Be delivered from your past
"Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead." (Philippians 3:13) Paul had learned a tremendous lesson. You cannot focus on where you are going until you forget where you have been. You remember last week I told you how the Christian life is a race? Well you will notice carefully Paul uses athletic language in all of this passage. The words "press on," "reaching forward," "goal," and "prize," are all racing terms. The Christian life is a race, and as you run your race remember two things-where you have been is not important, but where you are and where you are headed is important. You will never sail the ship of your life into the seas of the future with joy and peace, if your anchor is stuck in the mud of the past. You cannot run forward if you're always looking backward.
I heard about a little boy who was listening to his Sunday School teacher tell about lot's wife and how she looked back and turned into a pillar of salt. He said, "Why that's nothing, my mother was driving a car to the grocery store yesterday, and she looked back and turned into a telephone pole."
Winston Churchill once made this statement: "If the present quarrels with the past, there can be no future." Well, Paul was determined not to let his past hinder his present or hurt his future. You see there were several things that Paul had to forget. He had to forget past guilt. Paul was a murderer, a blasphemer, a persecutor of the church; the deep scar of sin was embedded into his heart. He had to forget past grief. Paul had suffered terribly. He had been beaten, shipwrecked, scorned, left for dead, alienated, and ostracized by his family. He had to forget past glory. As far as the church was concerned Paul was the "toast of the town." He was a spiritual superstar, but he had to forget all of that. He had to forget past grudges. Paul had been mistreated, betrayed, lied to and lied about, sold out by family and friends. He had to forget all of those things if he was going to serve God and move forward. I want you to listen carefully. Some of you are going to have to clean out the skeletons in your closet and forget your past failures if you're going to move on with God. Now don't misunderstand what that word "forget" means. It does not mean "to fail to remember." There is no way you could ever erase the past totally from your memory. In the bible "forget" means "no longer to be influenced by or affected by." When God says in his word, "I will remember your sinfulness no more," it doesn't mean that God all of a sudden comes up with a bad memory. What it means is, God will no longer allow our sins to affect our relationship to Him.
I heard about a man who went to see his doctor, and said, "Doc, you've got to help me." He said, "Well, what's wrong?" The man said, "I'm suffering from amnesia, what should I do about it?" The doctor said, "Just go home and forget about it." Well, before you can be all that you need to be for God today and tomorrow, you've got to go forward and forget about what has happened in the past. You know what our biggest problem is sometimes? We remember what God forgets, and then we forget what God wants us to remember.
I read a story years ago about General Robert E. Lee who visited a lady in Virginia after the civil war. She was extremely bitter toward the north. She took him out to her front yard and showed him the scarred remains of one of her prize trees. It was a tree that had gone all the way back to the revolutionary war. During a raid, all of the limbs had been shot off by the union army. They had carved their initials on it; they had totally defaced the beauty of that tree. She said, "General Lee, what do you think I ought to do about that tree?" He said, "Lady, I think you ought to cut it down and forget it." Well if you are going to move on, you're going to have to cut down some trees in your past and forget them.
III. Be devoted to a purpose
The secret, I believe, of Paul's great life was he understood the power of concentration. He says in v.13, "Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do..." Paul said I'm going to give my life to one thing. Those two words "one thing" are very important in the Bible. When the rich young ruler came to Jesus and asked him how to be saved, Jesus said, "One thing you lack." When Martha was arguing with Mary over what was really important in life, Jesus said to Martha, "One thing is needed." David said in Psalm 27:4, "One thing I have desired of the Lord, that I will seek." Now what was the one thing Paul was seeking? "I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." (v.14) The word for goal is skopos which means "to look at." We get our word telescope from that word. It means a mark on which the eye is fixed. The word "prize" is a word that means a reward for finishing a race. Now what is the point? Paul said, "I have one goal, and I'm fixing my focus on that goal. I have built my life around reaching that goal." Paul had a one-track mind, and his mind was on the right track. I am convinced that with so many Christians the reason why they're so ineffective in their Christian life is they are involved in "many things" and they fail to concentrate on "one thing." I cannot tell you the number of times people come to me and say, "I'd like to do more for the church, but I just have too many irons in the fire." You know what I feel like saying sometimes: "Either pull out some of your irons or put out the fire." You see Paul's life was like a rifle shooting a bullet toward one target. Too many of us have lives like shotguns, putting buckshot all over the place. Concentration is the secret of power. A river that flows between two banks heading in one direction can become a tremendous source of electric energy. But if it overflows those banks and flows every which way, it will become a stagnant swamp. So Paul had a simple recipe for a revolution in your life, and here it is: Set the right goals in life and then build your life around reaching those goals. Now, first of all, you've got to make sure that you set the right goal. I heard about a football coach who devoted part of his off-season trying to teach his six-year-old son how to become a place kicker. So the first day he got down on his knees, put the ball down, looked at his son and said, "Now when I nod my head, kick it!" That's how the coach lost his two front teeth. You must have the right goal in mind.
So that raises an important question. How do you set not just goals, but the right goals? Let me give you four questions that will help you determine whether or not your goals are truly god-given goals:
1. Will it get me to where I need to go, which is to a deeper and more intimate relationship with god?
2. Will it help make somebody else successful?
3. Do I have to violate a spiritual principle to get there?
4. Will it fulfill God's purpose for my life, or help me accomplish something God has told me to do? 2
IV. Be determined in your passion
Twice in verses 12 and 14, Paul says, "I press on." You can forget your past, you can focus on your future, you can set goals for the present; but it will take more than just inspiration, aspiration, and even perspiration to get you to where you need to go; it will take determination. You must keep pressing on. You see that's where we baby boomers have a problem. We have been raised to view success as something easy, and our generation doesn't know a whole lot about determination, perseverance and endurance. Our generation has the attitude that when the boss gets unreasonable you quit; when the subjects get too difficult, you just drop out of the class; when the marriage gets unbearable, you simply get a divorce. Well, if you're going to move on, you can't quit.
Historians now concede that Abraham Lincoln was one of the two or three greatest presidents in our history. Let me tell you some things you may not know about Abraham Lincoln. In 1832 he lost his job and was defeated in the race for the Illinois legislature. In 1833 his business went bankrupt. In 1834 he was elected to the State Legislature, but the next year his sweetheart died and the next year he had a nervous breakdown. In 1838 he was defeated for state Speaker of the house. In 1843 he was defeated in his race for congress. In 1846 he was elected to Congress, but in 1848 he lost re- election. In 1849 he was rejected for a federal Land Officer appointment. In 1854 he was defeated for the Senate. In 1856 he was defeated for the nomination of Vice President. In 1858 he was again defeated for the Senate. But Abraham Lincoln went on to become President of the United States because he understood that failure is never final, never futile, and never fatal. Let me give you a thought never to forget. God is not finished with you until you draw your last breath. Therefore don't you ever finish for God until you draw your last breath?
I heard about an old lady who was very nervous driving in traffic. She was waiting for a traffic jam to clear and she came to a stop on an expressway ramp. The traffic thinned out, but the lady was still too afraid to move. Finally, the man behind her yelled, "Lady, the sign says, "Yield, not give up."
Conclusion
What I have been trying to tell you today is this: Because of the grace of God and the mercy of God and the forgiveness of God, it doesn't matter where you've been. What matters is where you are, where you're headed, and are you determined to get there. I started this message off with a song. I want to close it with a poem that really captures what I hope many of you heard today: Run on from where you stand, and never mind the past; The past can't help you when you're beginning new; If you've left it all behind at last, Then you're done with it, you're through. This is a new chapter in the book; Today is a new lap in the race he's planned; Don't give the vanished days a backward look,Run on from where you stand. Old failures need not halt, old triumphs never aid, Today's the thing, tomorrow soon will be; Get in the race and run it unafraid, Leave the past to ancient history; What has been is forgiven; yesterday is dead, By it you are neither blessed or banned; Take courage then, be brave and press ahead; Run on from where you stand.3
Every day in the Lord Jesus Christ is a new day. Whatever happened yesterday-good, bad, or indifferent-with the Lord you can always say, "I'm movin' on."
Endnotes
1 Copyright 2000, by Rascal Flatts/ascap, "I'm Movin' On"
2 Adapted from Charles Stanley, the source of strength, p. 165.
3 Based on the poem "Start Where You Stand": by Benton Brayley, In Poems That Touch The Heart, compiled by A. L. Alexander (Garden City, New York: 1956).
