Nobleton Community Church
29084 Sentinel Street PO Box 224
Nobleton, Florida 34661
Rev. Paul V. Lehmann, Pastor
813-389-8683
Nobletoncommunitychurch.org
info@nobletoncommunitychurch.org
OUR VISION IS:
To experience SPIRIT-FILLED WORSHIP AND PRAYER
To be involved in EVANGELISM, DISCIPLINING AND TRAINING PEOPLE
To use our SPIRITUAL GIFTS
To SERVE AND REACH PEOPLE FOR CHRIST, BOTH
“ACROSS THE STREET AND ACROSS THE WORLD”
Nobleton Community Church
Date February 9, 2025
Text Philippians 3: 1-21
Pastor Paul Lehmann
There are some people that always seem to live in the past, sort of “resting on their laurels” so to speak. The Livingston Inland Mission, which was named after the missionary explorer David Livingston, eventually became the British Missionary Society (which was Baptist). At a church growth conference held in Kinshasa, where all of the Missions came together to present their future plans and goals, the B.M.S. presented the wonderful work that had been done in the past 100 years, and how they had planted mission stations and churches from Kinshasa all along the Congo River right through the heart of the country. But they didn’t mention one thing that they were planning to do for the next 5 years. They were “resting on their laurels” and their past glories, instead of pressing on toward the goal to win the prize of God’s high calling.
Back in October 2010, I was at Nyack College in Nyack, NY at my Alma Mater for Alumni weekend, and to receive an award presented to me as I was inducted into my college’s basketball hall of fame. I was thankful for the 2 ½ years that I played for Nyack, (I transferred and therefore wasn’t eligible to play the first semester) This was an honor that I never thought would happen. Through the years I have never gloried over my past playing days, but now someone else is. Don’t get me wrong, I sometimes think of those days, and the lessons learned. For instance not doing a tomahawk dunk on a breakaway in a close game in the post season tournament. Just to “rub it in” to the opposing team. A simple easy dunk would have sufficed. The dunk hit the back of the rim and bounced off. We lost by one point.
But there are lessons of perseverance, and confidence that we could win against schools that were 6 or 7 times our size. The knowledge that one should always give a 110% and not give up, and just because good things happened one year, that we shouldn’t dwell on those accomplishments, because we should constantly be moving forward.
THE ONLY WAY TO CONTINUE TO ACHIEVE GREAT THINGS IN THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE IS TO LEAVE THE PAST BEHIND US.
We need to understand though what the apostle Paul means when he says to forget the past. Don’t we read in the Old Testament how God wants the Israelites to remember things; like what He does for them. They built memorials and celebrated feast days so they wouldn’t forget. Then Jesus tells us to celebrate the Passover Feast in a new way. The Lord’s table, our Holy Communion, is to remember Him. So what is this about—“forgetting the past?”
What Paul is talking about is the past as it relates to us and our accomplishments. The past as it relates to us and our talents and any good thing that the world might see in us. The past as it relates to our sin, and what we did before we gave our lives to the Lord.
WE ARE TO FORGET OUR PAST GLORIES.
In our Christian lives, we need to leave the past behind us. Perhaps we have gloried in what we have accomplished, or who we are, or where we come from. Paul calls this, “having confidence in the flesh”—in the last part of verse 3.
In verse 4 he says that he has more reason than anyone else to have such confidence. After all he says, “ I was circumcised the eight day (this was a big deal because it indicated that he was born into a Jewish family, not an adult proselyte like some who became Jews later in life, and were considered “lower” than those who were circumcised as infants.) He says, “I was from the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. In regard to the law, a Pharisee and as for the law, I was so zealous that I persecuted the church, and was faultless when it came to legalistic righteousness.
Paul is not “blowing his own horn” as we say, in an inappropriate way. Don’t we do the same thing when we send out our resume to get a specific job. We site all of our accomplishments and so forth.
Lists of virtues or vices were common at the time. Praise and blame speeches in narrative form were given, and they characterized biographies. Lists of virtues typically included items such as noble birth or beauty as well as character traits like prudence or steadfastness. Self-commendation was considered appropriate if one were defending oneself or using oneself as a legitimate model for others. By claiming to have greater merit than his opponents even on their own terms, he turns this self-commendation into an occasion to undermine them. Professional speakers and writers often used the standard “rhetorical technique of “comparison” to accomplish this end.
All this sounds a lot like politicians of our day doesn’t it? What Paul is warning us about is to put all of these things that we and others consider good about ourselves and put them behind us. Don’t count on those things. Forget about it! (As they say in Brooklyn)
We of course understand that we need to do this with our sins. We are new creatures in Christ. (II Cor. 5:17—The old has gone the new has come.) Our sins are forgiven, and we are now Children of God. But the problem is what about the things that we have seen in the past where God has blessed us.
PERHAPS WE HAVE GLORIED IN OUR MATERIAL GOODS.
(Verse 7) Of course, we shouldn’t forget about what He has done for us. How He has provided for us. Even abundantly, particularly as I have said before, when we compare what we have, and what many others in the world (and even in this country), do not have.
So material things are a blessing from the Lord. This was true in the Old Testament, and there is no where in scripture that shows that for the Christian this isn’t so, even today. Except what we see in the Gospels, is Jesus addressing wrong attitudes towards our possessions.
He says; “ Don’t lay up for yourselves treasures that rust or can be corrupted or destroyed, but lay up treasures in heaven.” “Don’t think about gaining more and more wealth (building bigger barns to store it in is the parable), –if your heart is in your wealth, He may demand you to sell it all and give it to the poor, and follow Him.
Then also:
Perhaps we have gloried in our own self-righteousness (verse 9)
Paul was the classic example before his conversion. All those things he mentioned in verses 4-6, he says in verse 7 that he considers anything that was once a profit for him, a loss, for the sake of Christ; compared to the greatness of knowing Christ Jesus his Lord.
Can you say that this morning? Do you KNOW Jesus in this way, so that He means more to you than anything you own, anything you are able to do, your earning capacity –now or in the past—your pension etc. –your education or training, or experience in a given field? Do you consider all of that rubbish, so that you may gain more of Christ? These are hard questions that we must ask ourselves.
Or do you subconsciously count on your own goodness, and see no need to be fanatical about Christ. You sometimes wonder about these ridiculous statements that Paul makes like in verse 10—“I want to know Christ and the POWER OF His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in death…” You may be super cautious about going to extremes.
Do you glory in the memory of a good deed you did.
(Matthew 6:3) –Jesus said, “when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
All of these things are the things that we are to put behind us. FORGET PAST GLORIES!
Then we are also to FORGET PAST OFFENCES.
Our hesitation to forgive others even though God has forgiven them, can eat away at us like a cancer.
In the book; “Restoring Your Spiritual Passion, Gordon MacDonald writes: …”on a plane flight which I was headed toward a meeting that would determine a major decision in my ministry, there is a memory that burns deep within. I knew I was in desperate need of a spiritual passion that would provide wisdom and submission to God’s purposes. But the passion was missing because I was steeped in resentment toward a colleague. For days I had tried everything to rid myself of vindictive thoughts toward that person. But, try as I might, I would even wake in the night, thinking of ways to subtly get back at him. I wanted to embarrass him for what he had done, to damage his credibility before his peers. My resentment was beginning to dominate me, and on that plane trip, I came to the realization of how bad things really were…As the plane entered the landing pattern, I found myself crying silently to God for power both to forgive and to experience liberation from my poisoned spirit. Suddenly it was as if an invisible knife cut a hole in my chest, and I literally felt a thick substance oozing from within. Moments later I felt as if I’d been flushed out. I’d lost negative spiritual weight, the kind I needed to lose: I was free. I nearly bounced off that plane and soon entered a meeting that did in fact change the entire direction of my life.
Spiritual passion cannot coexist with resentments. The Scriptures are clear. The unforgiving spirit saps the energy that causes Christian growth and effectiveness.
Bitterness and resentments sometimes causes physical ailments.
When my dad was diagnosed with multiple-mya-loma, he was given only a short time to live. At that time he was holding bitterness in his heart against his adopted sister, who he believed had cheated him out of his inheritance. As he lay in the hospital, he called her in California and asked her to forgive him for the bitter feelings that he had held against her. She wasn’t even aware of this, because my dad never said much. She forgave him, and he got better and was released from the hospital, and he was healed of the cancer, or at least it went into remission for 4 more years. He ultimately died as it came back, but he experienced peace when he forgave and his life was extended.
A Jewish woman from Terre Haute, Indiana was in charge of the Holocaust Museum there. One night it was burned to the ground. (Probably by someone who believed that the Holocaust never happened). When she was asked by a reporter how she felt about this, she replied; “ I forgave the Nazis and I forgive the person who did this.”
Failure to forgive others hinders God’s forgiveness of us. Failure to forgive stifles our witness for Christ.
Failure to forgive causes turmoil in our lives. It causes arguments, and marriage relationships are strained and sometimes destroyed.
One Saturday morning a lady named Jane Schmidt awoke to the delightful smell of waffles and the sound of her two small boys in the kitchen with her husband. Padding down to breakfast, she sat on her husband’s lap and gave him a big hug for his thoughtfulness. Later that day she and her husband were having a heated discussion in their bedroom when their four year old Jacob, stopped them in midsentence. Standing in the doorway, he said, “Mommy, try to remember how you felt when you were on Daddy’s lap.”
We are to: FORGET THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE BEHIND AND PRESS ON TOWARD THE GOAL TO WIN THE PRIZE (VERSE 14)
LET US LIVE UP TO WHAT WE HAVE ALREADY ATTAINED (VERSE 16)
Many live as enemies of the cross of Christ
They need to be broken!
I remember as a boy, I liked to put together model airplane gliders. You know the kind that was made of cheap, balsa wood. The thin, light wood is pre-stamped so that you punch out the airplane and attach the wings to the fuselage. The balsa wood is supposed to break off at the grooves. Sometimes it does not. Occasionally you splinter or break off part of the airplane by accident. When this happens, the planes don’t fly as well as they are designed to. Life is delicate, like the balsa plane. When we break in the right areas we will fly higher and smoother than when we break in the wrong places…When we are broken in the wrong places, we become self-centered. Our broken emotions keep us from loving effectively. We shun future settings where further hurt could take place, like significant relationships, or fellowship in churches, and it keeps us from setting goals. Or we react defensively to the hurt by overachieving and living a life of abandon. When we are broken in the wrong places, we do not see the fruit of the Spirit.
The older we get, the more you see people who have lost the sparkle in their eyes that they once had. They have endured tough circumstances, but not successfully.
How should we be broken in the right way?
Being broken in the heart, in the soul, where God can do something with your will and character, is a matter of converting, sanctifying the actual pain, and making it a part of the healing salve. You cannot do it on your own. God must do it. BUT YOU MUST BE WILLING.
The Lord wants to prepare us for heaven. He will cleanse you, forgive you and fill you with His Holy Spirit, so that you can live as He intended you to live on earth. Our citizen ship is in heaven and we eagerly await the day that we will be totally transformed, but until that day comes, LET US LIVE A LIFE THAT DOESN’T DWELL ON THE PAST, EITHER THE MISTAKES OR THE GOOD THINGS THAT WE HAVE DONE, BUT RATHER REMEMBER WHAT HE HAS DONE IN OUR PAST AND WHAT HE WANTS TO DO IN OUR FUTURE. HE WANTS TO BLESS US IF WE SUBMIT TO HIM.