Put Your Past In Its Place // Forward (Part 2) // Charles Metcalf

Welcome to Transformation Church podcast, where we represent God to

the lost and found for transformation in Christ. We're so

glad you're here, and wherever you're listening from, we believe

God will transform your life.

Do today's message.

Welcome to Transformation Church. And it's a beautiful Sunday to

be in God's House. And I just want to welcome

everybody who is on line today. Maybe you're at your home,

maybe you're gathered with your friends. My hope and my

prayer is that you are staying warm, that your family

is safe. I know it's been a crazy couple of

days around the nation, and I'm grateful that.

You are here.

We are here at Transformation Church. I got a couple

of my friends in the room. Y'all can make some noise,

shout out to my people and listen. It's gonna be

such a great time. We're about to gather around God's word.

But we are in week two of our series called Forward,

and you can type forward in the chat. And it's

a beautiful, beautiful time because we announced our word of

the year just a few weeks ago and we're in

our sea.

He's called Forward, and last week Pastor.

Michael did an incredible, incredible job leading and guiding us

into that. And so we're gonna continue that thing this week.

So we're gonna jump right into it. I need you

to get out your notes, get out your phones. As

probstor Mike always says, your smartphone, your dumb phones.

It's always a great joke. It always works. But here

we go.

We're gonna jump straight into the word. We are jumping

into the Book of Philippians. So if you got your Bible,

go to the Book of Philippians. That's what we're gonna

be today. And the Book of Plyppians is a great book,

is written by Paul, and it's written to a church

at philip Hi, which is a place in Rome. They're

part of the Roman kind of government and structure, and

so they're run kind of by these ideals and Paul

is speaking directly to them. And just for fun, because

we all here today and we're just gonna go for it.

We're gonna read a little bit of chunk of Bible. Now,

I know, I don't know if you've been reading your Bible.

Hopefully you have twenty one days of prayer fasting beginning

of the year. You're starting some good habits. If you haven't,

you're about to get this word today.

God bless you. Okay.

Chapter number one, this is what the Bible says. Chapter

verse number one and chapter number three. It says this

Paul is writing. He says, whatever happens, my dear brothers

and sisters, rejoice in the Lord and never get tired.

I never get tired of telling you these things. I

do it to safeguard your faith. And then he switches

up the vibe.

This is crazy. This is what we're gonna talk about

this in a second.

But first two he says, watch out for those dogs,

he says, those people who do evil, the manipulators, those

who say you must be circumcised to be saved. For

we worship the Spirit of God and are truly circumcised,

for we rely on what Christ has done for us.

Listen to this language, he says. He says, we put

no confidence in our human effort. Though now right here

I got a pause real quick, because Paul is about

to flex on everybody at the Church of Philippi and

talk about how gangstery is. He says, though I could

have confidence in my own effort, anybody could. Indeed, I

have other reasons for confidence. I have the most, he

goes on to say, he said, I have even more.

Verse five, I was circumcised on the eighth day. I'm

a pure blood citizen of Israel, a member of the

tribe of Benjamin, A real Hebrew if there ever was one.

I was a member of the Pharisees, who demanded the

strictest obedience to Jewish law. I was so zealous. I

harshly persecuted the church. He's bragging about. He got it

all wrong, he bragging about it. Don't make no sense,

but he says. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the

law without fault. He says, literally, I was perfect. I

once thought. Now listen to how he changes this idea.

This is going to be so important today. I once

thought those things were valuable, but I now consider them

worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else

is worthless when it's compared to the infinite value of

knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, it says, for his sake,

I've discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so

I could gain Christ and I could become one with him.

I no longer count my own righteousness through obedience to

the law, but I become righteous through my faith in Christ.

For God's way of making us right depends on faith.

I want to know Christ, experience the mighty power that

raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him,

share in his death, so that one way or another

we will experience the resurrection.

Now here's the part.

Pastor Michael read this scripture last week, and this is

our core scripture as we talk about moving forward. This

is what it says, starting in verse number twelve. I

don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things,

or that I've already reached perfection. But I press on

to possess that perfection for which Christ first possessed me. No,

dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it. But

I focus on this one thing, forgetting the past and

looking forward. Somebody say forward, he said, I forget the

past and I look forward to what lies ahead. I

press on to reach the end of the race and

recip the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus

is calling us.

Congratulations.

You made it to twenty one days of praying, fasting,

and you read a bunch of the Bible today. So

it's a great, great day. Here's the idea. We're gonna

talk about this for the next few moments. The title

of my message, week two of our series forward. Write

this down at the top. It's important, big block letters.

I scribbled it massive at the top of my MoES,

my notes. It says this put your past in its place.

You're gonna have to put your past in its place.

Would you pray with me, Lord God, to thank you

that by your presence, by your spirit, even right now

around the world, that Lord, we're gathered through technology. And

I pray that you would speak to people people who've

been stuck in the.

Pain of their past, stuck in the pain of what.

Happened to them, Lord God, even trying to move forward,

but they feel stuck. I thank you that today they're

gonna do something beautiful in their life.

It's in the name of Jesus, we pray.

And everybody said, Amen, Amen, Amen, Now you gotta forgive me.

I went old school. What y'all know about this.

I have a composition notebook that's right, straight composition notebook

that all my sermons are written in now, because honestly,

my wife could tell you, I just scribble them on

pieces of paper and then I lose them. So I'm

hoping this year. So far I have eight pages of

sermons in here. So put your past in its place.

We two of this series.

We're talking about this idea of how do we put

our past in its place? First, I got to give

you context and kind of We're going to talk through

this Book of Philippians.

So here's the interesting thing about the Bible.

So we read it as chapter and verse like we

all read it like, okay, so chapter number one, this

is how no where I am.

Well, this is not how it was written. Paul wasn't

sitting in jail like okay, let.

Me make sure this is very organized so they can

go back to refer to it. That's not at all

what the vibes are. This is a straight letter. These

are his letters that he written. Some of y'all don't

know what a letter is. It'd be amazing you could

do that. Me and my wife were talking about that

with our kids. I think we're going to get them

to start writing letters to their friends. It'll be super epic.

But he wrote an actual letter. So he's got a

big piece of paper and he's writing this letter. So

this is it's just a long run on sentence, a

big idea, and he sends this to this church in Philippi. Now,

this church specifically loves Paul. He's like their goat. He's like,

this is the best guy. They've supported him financially so

he could go around and start these churches.

So they're in love with him. And this is how

this kind of works.

Right now, we have this book and it's all bound

together in these letters.

But imagine you're at this church. You go to this

church and somebody walks.

In there like, hey, we got another letter from Paul

and we're about to read it.

And this is what would happen.

They would get the letter from Paul, everybody in the

church stands around and they just start reading the letter,

like they just open it up. And this was church

like they prayed a little bit and then they opened

up like all right, we gonn to see what Paul

has to say, see how he's doing.

Okay, let's see if anybody names make it in there. Hey, yo.

So Paul's letter starts off Chapter one and two are

very chill, like he's encouraging them, he's being kind to them,

he's kind of giving them some context. But I always

like to picture even when I read other books in

the New Testament where Paul like it kind of takes

a tone like there's some moments in screen.

I'm sure this is another book of the Bible, but

you'll get this amazing rant.

There's this one. There's this one guy in the Bible

in the New Testament that literally the scriptures tell us

he's like sleeping with his mother in law.

It's wild, like the Bible's crazy.

Imagine you're at church that Sunday when Paul's letter says that, like,

you're in the crowd and it's like.

So yeah, it make sure you do good things.

And also Jeremy is sleeping with this mother in law.

It's so crazy. For Jeremy, he's cooked and everybody's like,

oh my gosh, get him out of here.

So anyways, there's a lot of turns that the scriptures

can take, but specifically in this one, Paul is talking

and he starts off in chapter one and two and

he gets to chapter number three, and in this letter

it takes a distinct turn. You see in the first

verse he says this, He's like, hey, listen, rejoice always.

I'm saying this to encourage your hope, to encourage your spirit.

Everybody's reading the live like yeah, that's good man.

And then the next one he's like, hey, yo, watch

out for him dogs, and it's like, wait, what is

he talking watch out for the dogs?

What does he mean?

And what he's saying is is there are people that

are a part of your church, that are around your

church that are trying to suggest about the gospel that

there's a different way that you get your value.

There's a different way of what makes you important.

There's a different way of what makes you valuable as

a believer. And it's people who are telling you that

what you do is why you're special, that you're following

up the law and that you're doing all these things,

that that's the reason that we're saved. That's the reason

that Jesus did what he did, and he comes directly

for it, and he says, listen, we do not depend

on human effort to receive God's grace. That is not

the gospel, that is not the message of Jesus. And

just a couple of moments into dis sermon today, I

want to encourage you.

You are not saved by what you do.

You don't go to heaven because you open doors for

old ladies, because you read your Bible.

I love that you did the twenty one days of praying, fasting.

Guess what, That's not the reason you have salvation today.

He's very clear.

He's saying, hey, these people are actually and here's what

religion does. Religion always tries to control you based off

what you do or don't do. This is why the

Pharisees look down at people, because we rememborize the Torah,

and we've been trained to these special people, and we

do all these rituals, and that's how we look down

on people that were called the love Paul saying, no,

that's not how this works. That's not what the gospel

is about. It's not about human effort. It's about what

God has done. And I love that I said it earlier.

But he goes on this little rant. And now some

of you are like, what is up with the eighth day?

Be like, these are.

All the rules that everybody else And again you gotta remember,

the gospel is new. This is like a budding religion

in this new way of believing, and at this time

in scripture, they're known as people of the way, they're

not Christians. Christians was a derogatory toy term given to

us that then we took and we're just like, oh yeah,

we'll make it cool. But the truth is we are

people of the Way because Jesus said I'm the Way,

I'm the truth and the life, and so these are

people who are living a different way.

Jesus gives them this new way.

And what Paul is saying in the beginning of this

letter is he's saying, hey, listen, the way we are

moving forward, the way of this new message of Jesus.

The path forward is not marked by dos and don'ts.

The path forward is not marked by your performance and

how special you are.

The path forward is marked by faith.

He says, it's by trusting that Jesus died and he

covered our sins. It's by trusting who he is. And

he goes on this little rant and pretty.

Much what he's saying is, listen, I've done all the things.

If you want to get into it and talk about

who's special and who's followed the law and who's done this,

I could do that, But he says, I count all

of that as garbage. It's nothing to me. It means

nothing in comparison to knowing Jesus. We get through this scripture,

we're going to land on this specific portion. I want

to bring this up in chapter three and verse number thirteen.

It's so interesting how he frames this language. He says this, No,

dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved. But I

focus on this one thing now. Now our word of

the year is forward. So when we read the scripture

and you think about this idea and he's talking, he's saying, hey, listen, like,

I'm not messing with performance.

I'm not messing with the law. I'm not messing with

these people who try to tell you that this is

how you're saved.

He said, there's I'm forgetting all that and I'm focusing

on one thing now. If I'm reading the letter, like

we're go back to our scene, we're in the letter,

Jeremy just got kicked out for sleeping with his mother

in law, being super weird, and we read the letter

and it's like, okay, focusing on this one thing. If

I pause the letter and let's say that's where you're

turning the page in your letter, and so you don't

know what it says next, What is he about to say,

I focus on one thing, Paul saying, I've forgotten everything else,

the law.

I'm focusing on one thing. Or what is this one thing? Okay?

I focus on the goodness of God maybe, or I

should be focusing on his power. I should be focusing

on his grace. I should be focusing on on who

he is. I should be focusing on identity. He doesn't

say any of these things. And this is mad confusing

if you think about it again. We just read it

so you know. But he says this, and it's so

powerful and it's gonna guide our talk today. He says,

I focus, I bring my attention. I mean, let's just

talk about focusing for a second. When you think about focusing,

it is bringing something in. It's bringing your attention in.

It's making sure it's clear. He says, I focus on

this one thing forgetting the past. He doesn't say, I'm

focusing on moving forward. That's not what he says. He

the first thing he focuses on before he focuses on

where he's going, Before he talks about the vision, before

you get into a backic where he says, write the

vision down and make it plain so it could be

read on the ruin.

He doesn't talk anything about vision. He's gonna talk anything

about where he's going.

He says, the first thing I have to do if

I'm ever gonna move forward, if I'm ever gonna make

a difference, if I'm ever gonna grow into the father,

if I'm ever gonna grow into the business owner, if

I'm going to do what God has asked me to do,

if I'm gonna go forward, the first thing I have

to do is I have to forget. I have to

forget the past. I have to forget what happened to me.

I have to forget how these things happen. I have

to forget all this stuff. It's so crazy.

He's saying.

I have to focus. I have to have attention. I

have to bring my focus and attention to this one idea.

I have to focus on forgetting. I want you to

write this down in your notes. The prerequisite for moving

forward is forgetting before. I know, everybody's excited. I'm excited

to move forward, but the truth is many of us

have not been able to move forward is because of

our past.

Every time you go to I mean, let's just talk

about it.

You got your new Year's resolutions, and some of you,

the reason you didn't even do New Year's resolutions is

because of the past of you know, I know I'm

not gonna do it anyways, so why would I even try?

I mean, think of any area of your life you

are trying to move forward in. The truth is what

keeps us from moving forward is all of our thoughts

about the past, our thoughts of how we failed, our

thoughts of how we're not good enough, our thoughts of

what other people said about us.

And he is saying, if you are ever gonna move forward,

you're gonna have to first forget the past.

You're gonna have to forget what happened, and specifically he's

talking about in the context of this scripture. He's saying,

if I am going to move forward into grace, I

have to forget where my value came from before I

knew Christ, and where my identity and even my source

of shame.

The past is such an interesting thing, and I'll be

honest with you.

When Pastor Michael first started talking about this idea, he

talked about this to our staff and he said, we're

gonna have to forget the past, forget it. Don't think

about it, and I was like, what, man, come on

with you. I mean, I got some good stuff that happened.

Forget the path. I'm just supposed to forget everything. And

we started talking about it and produced this beautiful conversation.

And here's what I've realized about the past. For many

of us, your past can fall into one of three categories.

The first thing your past can be is a trophy

your past. I mean, you know these people. This literally

happened to me. I'll tell you a funny story because

I got the microphone of you don't.

So.

I was in high school and there was this girl.

She was a year older than me. She was the

prettiest girl in the school. And everybody's like, oh my gosh.

And her boyfriend was a year older than her. He

graduate leaves the school, she's single. They break up randomly.

I wasn't even on the radar, but for some reason,

she liked me. We dated for a total of like

eight weeks. So just hear me out on the story.

But I remember we start dating and everybody's like.

Day, told you date, blah blah blah. And I was like, yeah, man,

this whatever, Like don't even worry about it. And I'm

not lying to you. Now. Let me say this, if

either one of you watching, hope you're doing well. God

bless you. No, no, no shame to her her boyfriend.

Don't even remember brother's name. But again, if you're watching,

I love you. But he was crazy, Like I mean

when I tell you, he like he was the guy

before the football game, like he's taking his helmet and

hitting himself on the head like yeah, it was like, brother,

you need the prayer.

So that's who he was. And I'll never forget bro.

We're sitting down and I'm getting ready for practice and

it's literally like out of a movie. I hear like

this old he had, like an old camaro and it

comes around the corner and it's like whoo, and it

comes dound the corner and drives up and he parks

right in front of me, like at the school and

I'm getting ready to walk over to the field for

practice and he literally he's like walks up and he's

dapping everybody up. And I know I'm dating this brother's

girlfriend and he doesn't know it's me, and I'm a

little panic right now. Mind you, I'm I'm a sophomore

in high school and I weighed like one hundred pounds,

so I'm terrified. I'm sitting there and he literally walks

up to me. I see his shoes and I look

up and I'm like, hey, what's up, bro, like trying

to play like super chill, like man, wait, where are

you being? Man?

And he's like, hey, Yo, you're dating so and so

I heard you dating my girl And I was like,

what does That's crazy? I didn't even know y'all really dated.

What I tell you, I was so like, so anyways,

I can't tell you the rest of the conversation because

he kind of talked crazy. But he was definitely one

of those guys where his past high school was his trophy.

Like this was where he was the guy, and so

he would revisit all the time. You know, if you

see it in the movies, I see this happened. He

would come back all the time to revisit his past

because the past was his trophy. It was where the

best parts of his life were. Is where the best

memories were. It was where all the things went right

in his life. And for some of us, the truth

is the thing that keeps us from moving forward is

we have made our past a trophy. You've made that

one season of your life where you had those friends,

that was the best friends you ever had. And now

you're in a brand new city, in a brand new place,

trying to make new friends. And the reason you can't

make new friends is because you're comparing the new people

to all the old people and you're saying that, oh, man,

well there's nobody like that, or I'll never find a

friend like that, or they'll never be there for me

like that. And the truth is, as long as your

past is a trophy, it'll always keep you from moving forward.

Some of you, you've made parts of your marriage a trophy.

But we were just remember when we were in love,

and remember you used to call me and we'd stay

up on the phone all night and we'd do this.

That's because that's not realistic.

And you've been together for forty years and you still

expent your husband to call you and stay up on

other phone.

That is ridiculous. That's and but we do this. We

make a trophy out of our past. We make it

this thing.

And the truth is, sometimes that trophy is not even

really what happened.

Okay, we gotta talk about some of us have.

Remembered stuff in a certain way that it ain't even

really the truth. That person didn't even really like you.

They were actually super mean to you. You'd hated living there,

but now you're somewhere else and you're looking back, just

like the children of Israel did. They got out of Egypt,

then Moses day out in the desert and they're like, man,

we didn't go back to Egypt. Bro Like, at least

we had food and you were a slave.

You were getting beat over the head by Egyptians making

the pyramids. Thank y'all for doing that. Super cool, they're

still here. Your work was great. But think about we

do this, we.

Make a trophy of our past now because we are

so in awe of where we were, we are never

able to see the future forward of where God wants

to take us.

You got to put your past in its placed.

The other thing if your past, if it's not a trophy,

the other thing that can happen is our past can

be a trap. Meaning our past is there's these cycles

that we were always in, there's these things we always did,

and when we start to think about our past, it's

a thing that traps us. It's meaning it's this routine

that we get into. So many of us. There are

cycles that you form as a young person. You formed

in school, Like the trap is it's your birthday. And

you know, when you was in college, your birthday was

always your moment to wild out. And now when it

comes around your birthda're like, come on, man, it's my birthday.

Like I go on, we get to go have one

night where don't nothing really matter where what happens.

In Vegas, it stays in Vegas.

Let me tell you everything that happens in Vegas come

back to wherever you live.

That's not how that works. But it becomes a trap.

It becomes this place we go to.

That then creates a cycle and we've left the past,

but we brought those same patterns with us.

And you do the same thing.

And some of you your cycle was dating people that

weren't good for you. And now you're older and you're grown,

and you're in the same cycle because you're past. Something

happened there and it got you stuck that this is

the only way I operate, This is the only thing

I do.

I'm just asking maybe it's not. Maybe your past has

become a trophy.

Maybe it's become a trap or maybe And this is

so real and I want to be sensitive with this.

There's so many of us that when we think about

our past, the word that comes up is it's really

just a tragedy. And what I mean by that is,

when you look at your past, there's something that happened.

There is a moment where the pain of that tragedy

has paralyzed you. Honest with yourself, you've never been able

to move past it. You live in a different state,

but you're still held back by where you lived previously.

You found a new friend, but you're still held back

by the tragedy of that moment. Maybe you've moved past

the pain of that little situation, but for some reason,

that moment has marked you and you can never get

past it, and you never get over it, and you

carry the shame with you, and you carry the guilt

with you, and you're trying to move forward. You're desperately

trying to move forward the tragedy that happened.

You can't. You can't get past it. You carry it everywhere.

It affects how you show up to work. Some of you.

God's trying to help you move forward, trying to help

you get the promotion trying to help you get the job.

And the truth is, you can never move past the

last time when you were working your way up the

corporate ladder and this terrible moment happened and you had

a failure and you made a mistake and you didn't

get the job, and now you are held live by

that tragedy. Maybe it was something very serious, very deep.

Maybe you lost somebody you love, and I get it

that that's.

A real tragedy.

But if you are honest with yourself for just a moment,

it's been years and years and years, and.

You cannot find the strength.

You cannot find a way forward because the tragedy of

your past gives.

You stuck for in. The good news today is because

of Jesus.

No matter if you feel like your past has been

a trophy, it's been.

A trap or a tragedy.

The beautiful thing, even the anchor of our church, is

God stands ready to transform our past to make something beautiful.

And I love talking about this.

It's a little idea that always gets me that I

always say that that God is the worst trader ever trader,

meaning like he makes trades like the Bible tells us

that he gives us beauty for ashes.

I mean, think about this. This is God.

He makes the trade of Oh, you got what a

terrible situation, or you've got tragedy, or you've got pain. Oh,

if you give that to me, I'll give you peace,

I'll give you hope, I'll give you love. Friend, Today,

if you feel stuck in your past, you feel stuck

in your pain, you feel like you cannot move forward,

I am telling you God he wants to make a trade.

He wants to make a trade for you today. So today,

as we come to the end of our time, in

just a moment, I'm gonna give you three ways on

how to put your past in its place.

Now listen before I give you three ways.

I don't know if you've ever been like put in

your place. I don't know if you know this or not,

but this has happened to me multiple times where I thought, you.

Know, I was big time.

I remember as a kid all the time, and really

it happens with kids who really.

Think they're special, really think and you kind of get wild.

And this would happen to me specifically because me and

my little brother were always trying to sneak and stay

up later than we were actually supposed to be away.

My kids haven't figured this out yet, but.

Everybody knows if you up past your bedtime, you gotta

be quiet.

Man. You can't be drawn too much tension. You know.

You just come downstairs, You're like, hey, Mama, can I

get some water?

And they're like, yeah, yeah, go ahead, grab your water.

You grab water, and then like before you go back

to your room, you're kind.

Of just like weird, okay, And then everybody you realize

the adults have kind of forgotten about you.

So then you kind of just stand in the corner.

You're like, who's kind of nice?

And and I would be chill, me and my little brother,

no doubt, we would be chilled for a little bit

because my parents had people over, and so we would

just sit down on the couch and watch the game

and just be chill. And then slowly, like as a kid,

you're like you start just like getting and then all

of a sudden, I'm like throwing a football.

And I'll never forget one time I was going and I.

Threw a football and like slammed off the TV like

a threw up and my dad was like, what are

you doing? Like and I was like, yeah, man, you

get go to your room right now. And it was

kind of like, hey man, I was chilling, no, go

to your room. And what happened He was like, hey man,

you gotta be put in your place.

You got to know where you're supposed to be and

where you're not supposed to be.

What I'm saying to you is is, if you don't

put your past in its place, it'll get out of

hand very quickly. It'll start messing with other stuff in

your life. It'll start messing with things that are working

perfectly fine. It'll start messing with the relationships that were

working perfectly fine. It'll start messing with the confidence you have,

It'll start messing with the security you have.

Some of you.

The reason you struggle with anxiety, with fear, with worry

is because there's things in your past that you have

not put in its place.

You do not get to control me. You do not

get to say that. You do not get to do that.

So I'm gonna give you three ways on how can

we if we're gonna move forward, if we're gonna go

to all God has for us.

Paul is telling us in this gript.

The first thing you gotta do is you have to

forget your past. You have to forget it. And this

is not a new idea. I want to say this

really quickly because the Bible is connected.

All over the Bible. There is a consistent biblical.

Theme of God telling people to forget stuff all throughout

the Bible. Let's go early up in the book in

Genesis is a guy named Abraham, and God says, hey,

I want you to leave everything, leave it all behind.

He says three things. Leave your country, leave your.

Clan, and your father's household. Your family is what he says.

This is the instruction, and go to a land. I

will show you. Now here's a funny kind of play

in the scriptures that happens. The Bible says, he tells

him these three things. Go leave the land, leave your clan,

and leave your father's household. And the Bible tells us

in Genesis, chapter twelve, verse number five, it says, so

Abraham left.

His country, he left his clan. But there's this little detail.

He took Sarah and Lot with him. Now this doesn't

seem like a big deal, but Lot is his nephew.

What do I mean by this? Meaning? If you go

through the family tree.

When he says leave your father's household, the only person

that would have fallen into that category was Lot And for.

Some reason, it's just this little detail.

And again I'm not anchoring a whole theological belief on this,

but what I am saying is there is biblical precedent

where he says, this is the instruction leave everything that

reminds you of the past, that reminds you of how

you did operate, because I'm about to establish you as

a new nation.

He says, yeah, okay, I'll leave the land