Dropping the F-Bomb: Forget January 13, 2019 Philippians 3:12-15 Behavioral scientists have discovered that we usually see things that we are prepared to see, and that this is all centered in a network of nerve cells called the "Reticular Activating System." And everybody here today has a "Reticular Activating System." It works like this: Once something has been brought to your attention and you have been prepared to see it, you will see it virtually everywhere you go. i.e.: a new car. When you decide about a new car you begin to see them almost everywhere. This happens in other areas of our lives. We see what we are prepared to see. If we are prepare ourselves to see doom and gloom that s what we ll see. If, on the other hand, we have prepared ourselves to see sunshine and opportunities, then that is what we are going to see. If we see ourselves as failures, if we see ourselves as weak and sickly, chances are pretty good that that s what we ll be. We all look at ourselves. How do you look to yourself? Who are you on the inside? What do you see? Someone who is weak and constantly failing or someone who isn t worth very much? Or do you see yourself as an eager, optimistic person who can hardly wait for the next day to begin because there are so many things to do? What do you see when you look at yourself? We can go around saying, "Well, that s the way I am. You ll just have to accept me this way." Nothing is further from the truth. God can change us, if we will let Him work His will in our lives. Why do I believe that? Lets look at our scripture passage for today to see why. 12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not 1
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 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. This passage could produce a real challenge for us as we contemplate our second F-Bomb: forget. There are a lot of problems associated with forgetting the past. To this we may all bear witness. Some will say it is impossible to forget the past. Why then consider it at all? We need to consider it, not because it is an impossible task, but because it is possible to attain it and because of the benefits and blessings we will receive by doing it. One of the things that makes this hard lies deep within the neurological wiring of our brain. Dr. Wilber Penfield, director of the Montreal Neurological Institute, said in a report to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC: "Your brain contains a permanent record of your past that is like a single, continuous strip of moving film The film library records your whole waking life from childhood on. You can relive those scenes from your past, one at a time [feeling] exactly the same emotions you did during the original experience." It is important, I think, to understand at the outset that when Paul talks about forgetting the past he is not referring to erasing the past. Those of you who are familiar with how a computer handles the information that we input to its memory know that there is a "delete" key that is used to remove information we don t want stored in the computer. To some, "delete" means to remove permanently as if it was erased, completely purged. This doesn t 2
happen. When a person hits the "delete" key the information disappears from the screen but it is still in the computer s memory. Although it has been deleted it may still be found. The information is not erased or permanently and irrecoverably gone. It can be recovered. We cannot erase our past. This does not mean we cannot forget the past in the sense that Paul has in mind. What is Paul saying when he tells us to forget the things that are in the past? It sounds like a contradiction. We are asked to do something that seemingly is neurologically, psychologically, mentally and emotionally impossible. I believe Paul is saying that we are to forget the past in the sense that we do not allow our past failures, hurts, and disappointments to keep us from experiencing God s best for our lives today. For many, their past is holding them hostage. They are being held hostage by past failures, mistakes, and disappointments. Let me illustrate: Once at a divorce recovery seminar I spoke on the subject of "Divorce and the Phantom Leg." One portion of my talk was on, "Will the divorce ever be over?" I said, So, the question remains: "When will the divorce be over?" The answer: "It depends." I read of one case where a woman came in asking for orders against her ex-husband. She was haggard with emotion, nervous and upset to the point that she seemed ill. Trembling, she related at length how bad her ex-husband was, how ever since their divorce he had been poisoning her son s mind against her and was constantly interfering with their relationship. She seemed a bit old to have a young child at home, so the attorney interrupted and asked the age of her son. "He s just turned 32," she said. "Oh," said the attorney, "And how long ago was the divorce?" "About 17 years," she said. This woman 3
had made her divorce a career, a way of life! And there s the lady, in her 70s, who still talks with surprise about how her husband up and left her in 1945. She remembers exactly what he said what she was wearing, how they had tickets for the theater the next day. She describes the scene as though it were yesterday. In our text, Paul is encouraging us to break out of the hostage situation. He is saying, "don t allow the past to hold you in bondage. Don t be a prisoner of your past." He offers himself as the best example of this concept. Despite his misguided persecution of the Church, which could have resulted in immense and debilitating personal guilt, He did not succumb to its power to imprison him. He said, in 1 Timothy 1:12-14, 12I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service. 13Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. 14The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. His testimony provides a window of hope for anyone who would insist "I am who I am, I cannot change my circumstances, my situation is set in concrete it cannot change." Paul would say, Look at me, See the grace of God at work." Past blunders, mistakes, failures and hurts need not have a stranglehold on your life. Grace is a key that opens the door to freedom from the tyranny of the past. In essence he is saying that the "exceedingly abundant grace of our Lord Jesus Christ" is available to everyone who wants to "close some doors of yore." God s grace is as freely available today as then. God s grace will allow us to move past our failures. If not, our failures may keep us from experiencing God s best today. Henry Ford understood the importance of moving past our failures. He 4
said that failure is the "opportunity to begin again, more intelligently." Let s do a little word study here. The words forget, forgot, forgetting, etc. are all part of the same family. In The American Heritage Dictionary forgetting means 1. To be unable to remember (something) 2. To treat with thoughtless inattention, i.e., neglect 3. To leave behind unintentionally 4. To fail to mention 5. To banish from one s thoughts; forget a disgrace 6. To disregard on purpose 7. To cease remembering From these variations of meanings I see the possibilities of doing what our text exhorts us to do. For example, we can "treat with thoughtless inattention, i.e., neglect" to dwell upon hurts, failures, disappointments, etc. We can intentionally leave them behind deliberately "fail to mention" them. We can, by strength of purpose or resolve, i.e., "disregard on purpose" what has been said or done. This is what Paul is telling us in Phil 3:12-15 when he uses phrases such as, "I counted [considered] loss for Christ I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ and do count them but dung I follow after I press I strain forward to what lies ahead I press on toward the goal." Over a century ago, Robert Louis Stevenson devised a number of rules to help people to live happier, more productive lives. These rules may be a century or more old, but they are still excellent guidelines. Two or three of them have a direct application to our present 5
subject. He wrote: 1. Make up your mind to be happy - learn to find pleasure in simple things. 2. Make the best of circumstances. No one has everything, and everyone has something of sorrow. 3. Don t take yourself too seriously. 4. Don t let criticism worry you - you can t please everybody. 5. Don t let your neighbors set your standards - be yourself. 6. Do things you enjoy doing, but stay out of debt. 7. Don t borrow trouble. Imaginary things are harder to bear than actual ones. 8. Since hate poisons the soul, do not cherish enmities and grudges. 9. Avoid people who make you unhappy. 10.Have many interests. If you can t travel, read about places. 11.Don t hold postmortems or spend time brooding over sorrows and mistakes. 12.Don t be the one who never gets over things. 13. Keep busy at something. A very busy person never has time to be unhappy. Why is it important to drop this F-Bomb on our church, our families and our culture? It is because I believe that looking back encourages the possibility of going back. And when we look forward and not backward, there is hope for change. As I close I want to share with you one of the most beautiful and encouraging stories found in the Old Testament that bears witness to what I am saying. Even a casual reader will find the story of Joseph compelling. It is full of love, hope, dreams (literally), betrayal, mental and physical suffering and ultimately triumph over some of the worst adversities 6
that could befall an innocent person. It took years for the story to unfold, years that were marked by success and failure, hope and despair. He is a role model for faith, tenacity, devotion, and trust. Psalm 105: 17-19 says this about Joseph, "He [God] sent a man before them--joseph--who was sold as a slave. They hurt his feet with fetters, he was laid in irons. Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the LORD tested him" Was he ever tested! Some of you can relate very well with Joseph s tests. But, was Joseph tested beyond recovery? Was he tested beyond repair? Was he tested beyond hope of there ever being any change in his circumstances? If it ever became necessary to forgive, was he tested beyond the ability to forgive? Was he tested beyond the ability to "forget those things that were behind," to put it all safely, securely, away without it ever bugging him daily with thoughts of regret, or even revenge? Was he tested beyond being able to sleep at night, to toss and turn as his mind raced with thoughts of failure and feelings of hopelessness? He may have felt all these things at one time or another. Ultimately, however, he turned the corner. Ultimately he came to the place where he would say, "forgetting those things which are in the past, I reach with excitement for the things that are before me." How? What was the turning point in Joseph s life? Here s how, Genesis 41:50-52 says, Before the years of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph by Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On. Joseph named his firstborn Manasseh and said, "It is because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father's household." The second son he named Ephraim and said, "It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering." God gave Joseph two living testimonies in the form of two lovely sons. Joseph 7
recognized that both of these boys were God s provision to help him get on with his life. These boys were the key to his finding the joy of victory in forgetting his past. He named the first Manasseh. The name means "causing to forget," or, "forgetting." The second son was named Ephraim, which means "fruitful in the land of my affliction." I see a beautiful application unfolding here. God can--or He may have already done it-- give you a "Manasseh" and an "Ephraim." In other words, God can give you a blessing-- some form of blessing--that will cause you to say, "I CAN forget, or better I HAVE forgotten!" I will not even attempt to name something, to formulate something, that would fit this concept. I want the Holy Spirit to make it real to your faith. I simply want to say to those who may have despaired, who may be held as a hostage to something in the past, who feel that they have failed in some area--i want to say God has a "Manasseh" and an "Ephraim" for you. You can both forget the past misery, despair, disappointment, hurts, and heartaches and enjoy the freedom that each brings. At the same time you can say, "God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction." Use your "Manesseh" and your "Ephraim" to unlock the prison of your past hurts and disappointments. 8