To Remember or Not, That Is The Question.

CORNERSTONE COMMUNITY CHURCH

Scripture: Philippians 3:13-14 ESV  | January 5, 2025

Sometimes the things that have the most meaning are the things that are torn, old, and chewed on. Those are the things which often have the deepest stories to tell. Sometimes the things that appear the most worn are the most well loved. 

I was thinking about how new life comes from older life. A new baby comes from a mother. A new tree grows from the seed of an ancient oak. New faith comes from the ancient truth that the Father, Son, and Spirit have always been. 

Even in our popular culture, the classic children’s book called the Velveteen Rabbit is about a stuffed rabbit who comes to life through the love of his owner. The rabbit is well-loved, torn and frayed around the edges, not new. But it has a history of being loved. It is born to life out of this love.

Our culture has a bad habit of always decrying older things. But we would be amiss to do so. Imagine if we didn’t remember the causes and consequences of the second World War, or the Holocaust, Stalin, or Communism. Imagine if we forget the lessons learned? Remembering the right and wrong of the past helps us make God-honoring decisions for the future.  

It is from this wisdom, this history, and these experiences that new ideas come alive. Theologian Howard Thurman who lived and preached in the 20th century asks, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go out and do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” 

To encourage their congregations and help them focus on the new year, many pastors often quote: Isaiah 43:18, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!” They quote this to encourage you to forget the past and do something new this year. 

The apostle Paul in Philippians 3:13-14 writes, “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”.

Are Isaiah and Paul telling us to forget everything that ever happened before we met Jesus? Are we supposed to purge our minds of all memories, stories, history, of all the past? Are we supposed to forget everything?

I don’t think so. There are many times God instructs us to remember:

• In Deuteronomy 9:7, Moses tells the Israelite people to “remember this and never forget how you aroused the anger of the Lord your God in the wilderness…because you were rebellious against Him.”

• We are to remember all God has done for us, His blessings and love.

• We are to remember what Jesus did on the cross for us and how he saved us. 

• We are to remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy.

• We are to remember those suffering for Christ’s sake.

• We are to remember God’s promises.

• We are to "Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations; ask your father, and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you."

So, what are we supposed to do with those passages of Scripture that tell us to FORGET the past?

When we read and study the Bible, context is very important! Context means you know who wrote it, to whom they wrote, when and why they wrote it. What is the text around the verse, what book of the Bible is it in…context! 

If you quote our verse in Isaiah out of context it loses something very important! 

It misses the fact that it is talking about Israel’s Sin and Unfaithfulness. 

Context tells us we are no longer to live a life of sin, as unfaithful, disobedient people. We are to leave the life of sin and live the new life God has for you! God is doing a new thing in the life of Israel when they forget the life of sin and disobedience and choose a life of FAITH, LOVE, and OBEDIENCE! 

Let’s dig just a little deeper. There is a common word in both passages (Isaiah and Philippians): FORGET / FORGETTING. 

The Hebrew is:לִשְׁכּוֹחַ. It means, “to forget, to no longer care for or to refuse to focus on something.” The Biblical word forget means: to refuse to focus on the past.

Our brains store trillions of pieces of information from the moment we were born. Our memories are important! 

Paul isn’t telling us to wipe our memories, like a magnet to a floppy disk (remember those?). He is telling us to focus on the present and the future, rather than the past, or more specifically, we are to no longer care for and refuse to focus on a life of SIN! 

The past is important, we should remember it. Remember from whence we came. Remember the consequences of bad choices personally and throughout history. We should remember the stories and embrace their wisdom. 

We remember the past so that we are not controlled by it. 

We refuse to allow past defeats to deflate our self-worth. We refuse to allow past successes to inflate our pride. 

We remember our history, so that we can make more loving choices in the future. We leave our past sinful life behind, so that we can adopt our new identity in Jesus! A life filled with the Holy Spirit. A life lived with God, abundant, real, fulfilling, and meaningful! A life where you have a history of loving others and being loved. A life of obediently following God. And I promise you this, when you live that life, you will truly COME ALIVE! 

That’s my prayer for you this New Year 2025! 

Pastor Paul