How Does God Use Our Past As An Asset Now? | Pastor Greg Ford Sermon | One Church Columbus

We're in a series of messages in the month of December called Savior.

And by the way, I don't know if you know this, but the name Jesus means Yahweh saves.

Means the Lord saves.

So the name Jesus comes from the Jewish Hebrew term Yeshua.

Yeshua means Yahweh saves or the Lord saves.

And so when we look at Savior, we're looking at Jesus as our Savior.

We started talking last week about the word saved or salvation or savior.

And looking at what are those words and what do they actually mean?

And often with words that when you have a Greek to English translation, those words that show up as a certain word like saved has a range of meaning.

So we look last week, you know, most of us when we think of the word saved, we think about uh that we're sinners and we need a savior, and we bring our uh sin to Jesus' feet.

And the fact that Jesus had the will to and the power to be our Savior through his death, burial, and resurrection, uh, conquered death, and now he gives us uh life unto the age.

He gives us forgiveness, and now we're in right standing with God.

So that's what most people hear when they see the word saved.

But we looked at a weird verse last week where it says, women will be saved in childbearing in 1 Timothy 2.

And so it's like, well, what is that talking about?

So it brought up a deeper conversation about range of meaning uh in the word saved.

It's two Greek words, soteria and so-zo, which are show up in English as saved.

But if you read saved in English, it could mean one of four things.

So I'm gonna give you just a quick reminder on this.

And uh I included the scripture references, but I'm not gonna read the verses because I did that last week.

So if you see the word save, salvation, savior, it could mean one of four things.

The first is it could mean a physical rescue or protection.

In other words, God saved my body, uh, delivered me from danger, illness, or oppression.

Uh, the second is forgiveness of sins or justification.

And so this is uh being declared righteous.

Uh this is right standing with God, reconciliation with God, and forgiveness.

Uh the third is ongoing deliverance or sanctification, with some verses you'll see that will say uh talk about being saved or working out your salvation.

This is not uh getting God to forgive you.

We're not forgiven because we because we worked our way into it.

That's a gift, but sanctification is an ongoing process of transformation, and there's still work that we have to do, even though we're forgiven.

There's work that we have to do to remain free or to be free.

I can be forgiven and still be living in the bondage of flesh.

And so uh that's what it's talking about, the third thing.

And then the fourth is a future rescue or a final redemption, which is uh the future dimension of uh salvation that is ultimately a Christ's return, including resurrection and eternal life.

So that's what we started talking about last week.

I want to go back to 1 Timothy, and uh four different times in the book of 1 Timothy, it talks about, uses the word saved or salvation.

And I want to look at the first time it says that.

So 1 Timothy 1, starting in verse 12, this is the Apostle Paul talking to his son in the faith, Timothy.

He says, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service.

He considered me trustworthy and he gave me an opportunity.

I thank God for that.

Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief.

I like that verse 13 because he goes back and he's looking at his past.

And he starts with kind of what he did.

He said, You know, I I um I said some wrong things, I did some wrong things, I was a blasphemer, I hurt people, and I was I was violent.

And he said, but I was shown mercy, and he goes, you know, if I'm looking back, truth be told, I was ignorant and I believed the wrong thing.

I think we could all throw a hand in the air to say, I've been in that spot where uh I've done some things I knew were wrong, but there's some, I got probably more things that I've done that were wrong that I thought was right at the time.

I was ignorant.

Uh through my current life experience at that time, uh I was sure I was right.

If you live long enough, you'll have a few stories of you knew you were right.

You were sure you were right.

People tried to talk you out of it, you weren't hearing it.

You knew that you were on the right side of the issue, only to live long enough, gain a new perspective and a little bit of maturity and wisdom, and look back and go, man, I couldn't have been more wrong.

And so Paul says, Man, there were things I did, I thought was righteous anger and it wasn't.

I thought I was justified in my violence, it wasn't.

And he said, and and and the Lord forgave me and gave me his grace.

Verse 14, the grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

Verse 15.

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance.

Christ Jesus came into this world.

Now here's our word, to save sinners, of whom I am the worst.

But for that reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life or life unto the age.

Uh, what I want to talk about today is uh saving, God saving us from our past.

I want you to think about your relationship to your past.

And to kind of uh give us some things to think about today, I'm gonna look into the Old Testament at one of the prominent characters of the Old Testament, David.

Uh David shows up in 1 Samuel 16.

Um, but he's actually mentioned, not by name, but he's referenced three chapters earlier in 1 Samuel 13.

Uh at that time, Saul is the king of Israel, and Saul has made decisions throughout his life.

He's allowed his insecurity to corrupt him to the point that he's living in such disobedience that God says, I'm removing you as king, I'm taking my hand off of you.

And it says in chapter 13, as God is correcting Saul.

He says, I've I've been looking for someone who's after my heart.

The fact that you've been unwilling to deal with the insecurity inside of you, it's driven a fear inside of you that's caused you to become a dangerous person.

And now your authority is being abused, and my people are being abused, and I'm removing you.

And he said, I've been looking for someone who is after my own heart.

I'm looking for a heart I can work with.

And he says, I found him.

He doesn't name him in chapter 13, he's gonna name him in chapter 16.

Chapter 16, God sends Samuel to the home of Jesse, and he says, I want you to anoint one of Jesse's sons, a king.

And I'll tell you which one when you get there.

So Samuel gets there.

Imagine this, Jesse.

Jesse, one of your sons is gonna be the next king.

I need you to bring them out.

Jesse lines up his sons in birth order.

The oldest is Eliab.

We we know indirectly, Eliab was probably over the age of 20.

In the book of Numbers, it says that to be enlisted in their military, you needed to be over the age of 20.

And Eliab was a fighter, he was a warrior, he was going to battle.

So we know he was a man, a young man at that point.

So Samuel, it says in 1 Samuel 16, and it's written by Samuel, says, he looks at Eliab and he's like, This has to be the guy.

This guy looks like a king.

And so he thinks, okay, this is gonna be quick.

Lord, is it Eliab?

And God says, Nope.

He says, This is the famous verse, man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.

To the eye test, Aliab passes, but so did Saul.

But I can see something more.

I'm looking for a heart.

I'm not just looking for what impresses people, what stands out in a crowd.

And so he rejects, no Eliab.

Sorry, Eliab, you're not the one.

Goes to the next one, goes down the line.

Each brother, every single one of them, no, no, no, no, no, which is confusing to Samuel because he's like, God, you told me to one of Jesse's sons.

And so he looks over at Jesse.

Is this it?

Do you have any other sons?

Now imagine how awkward this is.

You've got all these boys lined up, and none of them are the one.

So there's got to be this weird sort of tension in the room.

And Jesse says, Well, I do have one more son.

He's the youngest, David.

Okay.

In a family at that time, traditionally, culturally, the youngest would do the most, uh, they would do the younger brother work.

The older brothers would do the most important family work, the most prestigious family work, like going and fighting in battle and war.

The youngest was uh the shepherd of the family flock, which is an important job because that's part of uh how the family makes a living, but it's considered uh younger brother work.

And so in Jesse's mind, there was no way it was going to get all the way to David.

He doesn't even invite him.

So all the brothers, except one, has been invited.

He's like, Well, there's a younger one.

He's out in the field with the sheep, and Samuel says, I'll wait, go get him.

And then, kind of awkwardly, says to all the brothers, Nobody sits down until he gets here.

Okay, so all the brothers are standing there, like, you know, I guess we gotta wait on our brother, like the younger brother.

Now, this is a thing of honor, right?

Like, you have to, you can't sit till he gets there.

David walks in, God says, That's my guy.

So Samuel says, There he is, this is the one.

Now, David's a boy, he's not even old enough to go to battle yet.

He's a kid.

And so now, in the presence of his brothers, Samuel anoints him with oil and anoints him king in front of all the brothers who had been passed over.

So if you go to the next part of the story, this is where they are now the Philistines are opposing them, and now this is the Goliath story.

And so David shows up, right?

And he's he's he's not even old enough to fight, but he shows up to bring food because he's too young.

But he goes to bring his brother's food, and when he gets there, he walks up on this scene.

We're we're in battle, we're opposed, we have this one giant, Goliath, who's standing out there, this warrior, who is openly mocking and defying the armies of the living God.

And David, as a boy, walks up, is like, what is going on?

Why will nobody fight this guy?

Like, you see how big he is?

David's like, Are you kidding me?

So I kill him right now.

Two good reasons I can think of.

One, he's an uncircumcised Philistine, which is a weird insult to say.

I mean, try it saying that to somebody sometime.

It's uh it's awkward.

But what what he what he means by uncircumcised Philistine is he is not in covenant with God.

We are.

So he's he's dead because he's on the wrong battlefield.

Not even just because he's opposing us, he's opposing God.

Okay, so he, whoever, he's done.

But the second thing is he's like, you know, uh I'm pretty good with this sling, and he's got a knife, and he brought a knife to a gunfight.

So I guarantee you I can take this guy out.

So here you have this boy essentially scolding the army for not being willing to stand up to this guy.

And and look what happens.

In 1 Samuel 17, his brother Eliab, the brother who had been passed over, the one who looked apart but didn't have the heart.

Dang, that rhymed.

That was kind of cool.

I didn't even bars.

Bars, they said.

I didn't I had no idea.

I've never done that before.

Okay.

1 Samuel 17 says, when Eliab, David's older brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, Why have you come down here?

And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness?

Hey, little brother, go do the little brother stuff.

You're talking big, but here you are.

Who are you to go do?

He says, I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is, and you came down only to watch the battle.

That's what we call gaslighting.

He's trying to gaslight his little brother, calling him conceited.

The reality is, Eliab, you got passed over.

Your younger brother came in, you didn't even get to sit down while you were waiting for him to come in.

When he came in, they anointed his head with oil, and you're jealous.

And now he showed up on the battlefield with some courage when all of you are sitting here with your tail between your legs.

Nobody's willing to fight this guy, and now your younger brother comes, you're jealous, and now you're saying he's deceitful.

It says in verse 29, What have I done?

said David.

Can't I even speak?

Um, it goes on in uh a few verses later, when he's talking and making his case why he should be able to go fight, he says to Saul, please understand, yes, I'm a young kid, yes, I'm a shepherd, but understand what shepherds do, at least what this shepherd does.

He says, This shepherd, when the lion and the bear came against my sheep and they got one in the mouth, I never flinched.

I went after him, I ran into danger, and I grabbed him by the jaw.

I'm battle-tested.

I grabbed him by the jaw, I clubbed him to death, okay, and I did what I had to do to protect my sheep.

So let me tell you, this guy will not stand.

Okay, he's going down, I promise you.

Uh I am a battle-tested guy.

So when you look at this now, I want to press pause here for a quick second, because when we think about our past, your relationship to your past, often we, if when I bring that up, you almost go right to like the catastrophic sins of life.

But often when we think about past, certainly there's that, and we're gonna get to that in a second.

But there's these other parts of our past that wouldn't necessarily show up on the Richter scale, but they're doing something inside of you.

You think about David, who in many ways didn't fit in his own family.

Imagine being the younger brother, and you find out that Samuel has come to the home to anoint one of the boys king, and everyone got invited except you.

I mean, there's only one of three reasons why that happened.

One, it was vindictive on purpose.

You're trying to hurt me, which I don't think was the case.

Uh Jesse is portrayed throughout the scripture and in history as a decent good man.

I don't think he had it out for David.

But it could have been that.

The second is it could have been that you were devalued.

In other words, ah, it's just the young one.

Like they only see you in the stage you're in.

You're still growing, and they don't see your full potential.

That his own father didn't see what Samuel saw and what God saw.

And so maybe you were devalued.

Or third, maybe you were just overlooked and forgotten about.

Either way, that stings.

And so if you're David, who not only was devalued or overlooked in your own family, then you have a brother.

You had to overcome the condescension of Iliad before you could ever go on the battlefield with Goliath.

I had to fight my way out of my own brothers before I could go fight the giant in the Philistine.

And so within your own family, something's off.

It may not be catastrophic, it may not be overly traumatic, but I've just never felt accepted.

I've never felt like I could be myself.

I've never felt valued.

I feel like, you know, I see people who have an older brother, older sibling, or siblings that love each other and pull for each other and will fight for each other, but I gotta fight my brother before I go fight this other battle.

Like, what's wrong?

You have to think that David, at some point, when he's out alone shepherding, he's gotta be with his own thoughts.

He's sitting at attention looking for predators, he's going into danger.

At some point, you have to think, in his in his own mind, he's going, what is wrong with this picture?

Why do I love these sheep better than my family loves me?

What is wrong with this picture?

How come I am willing to not flinch in the face of a lion or a bear to go fight for a sheep?

Why is it that I'll stay up all night on the night watch?

Why is it that I'll sit here on the balls of my feet looking constantly for danger so I can protect?

When I get boxed out in my own family, my own brother talks down to me, my own father forgot about me and devalued me.

Okay, these are real things.

And as you're wrestling with this, okay, one of the things we see from David, okay, what caught God's attention about David was his heart.

And how do you take this element of your background?

And some of you would say, you know, I don't necessarily have the big dramatic, like, I mean, we're all humans, we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but you don't have maybe some seismic sin in your life that continues to haunt you.

But for you, you go, when it comes to my my saved from my background or or my uh uh my past, your past may not be this overt sin.

It might be something that was just off, it didn't make sense, it wasn't right, and and and I'm confused about it.

And and so you have to think that David, at some point, when he's sitting out there and he's going, What's wrong with this picture?

And instead of hardening his heart towards God, it was actually the confusion of that drove him into the arms of God.

You have to think that it's when he's sitting there going, Why do I love these sheep?

Why am I a better shepherd than my father is a father?

Why am I a better shepherd than my brother is a brother?

That that that he pins the words of Psalm 23.

The Lord is my shepherd.

My father should have been better than he was, but the Lord will not fail me.

My brother should not treat me as he does, but the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down and grieve.

I find my rest in him.

He brings peace where there's turmoil.

He leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul.

I didn't get restored in the presence of my brothers, but I was restored in the presence of God.

You think about when he says, You anoint my head with oil, my cup runneth over.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

Surely, surely, goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.

And I may feel weird in my own home, but I'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

So when you think about saving from your past, don't just think of the sins that you committed.

Don't just think about everything you've done.

Think about there are things that came from Jesse and Eliad that confused you as part of your what we give to the Lord.

If you keep going in the story, David uh you know goes and kills Goliath and he becomes this great warrior, and eventually uh he evades uh Saul who tries to kill him and he finally becomes king.

There was a system within Israel for kings to go to the battlefield seasonally.

You wouldn't want the king to be on the battlefield all the time because then your king's probably gonna get killed in battle and then we we lose our king.

But what you don't want to do is have a king that never goes to battle.

That wouldn't be good because the king is the one who has the authority to go charge attack.

The king is the one that can send people into battle.

And if you don't go out on the battlefield and see the collateral damage of attack, and you don't see the carnage, and you don't see the corpses, and you don't smell the blood, and you don't have the the arrow whiz past your ear, it might be easy to just sit up in the palace and say, send them in.

But when you go live it and you you you you don't lose, you don't have distance between yourself and the battlefield.

You're going in there.

You know, you you have sobriety around your decisions in terms of we're going in for conquest, we're gonna go take over this, we're gonna go fight this.

And so that was part of the system of Israel.

And it came time for David, who was discovered by God because of his warrior spirit and because of his shepherd's heart.

And yet he stays in the palace, he doesn't go to the battlefield when he's supposed to, he loses touch, he loses calibration, and this is what leads up to his major, probably most prominent, well-known failure.

He looks, uh, one day he looks and sees a woman bathing who's not his wife.

He takes her, he commits adultery with her, he impregnates her.

Once she's impregnated, now he's gotta he's in survival mode and he's gotta cover his tracks, and so he's like, okay, uh, what am I gonna do?

Takes, has her husband put on the front lines of the battle.

His comrades retreat.

In the heat of the battle, he's murdered, he's he dies in battle, and he's like, Oh, okay.

And now he takes her as his wife to try to cover this whole thing up, right?

He is scrambling, and so it's it's the interesting thing about this is when David.

Eventually repents for this, he says, Uh, Lord, I've I've sinned against you.

And really, what happened is when you look back at the origin of the nation, God said, I want to set you apart.

I want you to be different.

I want you to be different from other kings.

I want you to be different from other nations.

I want you to operate according to my law.

And he says, Don't allow them to influence you because that happens all the time.

David, frankly, if you look at history, his actions were benign compared to other ancient Near Eastern kings.

To just take this woman as his wife and do this, that was no big deal.

He he you could take the kings at that time would take whoever they wanted.

Whatever they did was law.

They weren't worried about offending anybody.

They just were kings, they had all this authority, they did whatever they wanted.

And yet God said, I don't want you to compare yourself to other ancient Near Eastern kings and say, but I'm not as bad as them.

I want you to operate the way I've given you.

I want you to be the king I've called you to be.

I want you to be the nation I've called you to be, not just, you know, comparing yourself to the people around you.

And so this is what David did.

He takes her and the whole deal, and then he does what people do when they mess up.

You try to cover the tracks, sweep it under the rug, move on, don't think about it.

Well, some time passes, and God sends uh the prophet Nathan uh to David to speak with him.

This is 2 Samuel chapter 12, verse 1.

2 Samuel 12:1

This is so good.

The Lord sent Nathan the prophet to tell David this story.

Hey David, I got a story for you.

There were two men in a certain town, one was rich and one was poor.

The rich man owned a great many sheep and cattle.

He had huge herds and flocks.

And the poor man owned nothing but one little lamb he had bought.

He raised that little lamb and grew it up with his children.

Now, the brilliance of this story is what we've just talked about, David.

David, who probably named his sheep.

David, who, when when a predator got close to a sheep, he didn't flinch.

He charged in.

He was willing to fight.

You don't just do that for something on a spreadsheet.

You do that for somebody that has a name and that you have affection for.

And so he's telling this story, and David, you can is this is attaching to his heart.

The man owned uh nothing but one little sheep, he raised the little lamb, grew up, grew it up with his children.

It ate from the man's own plate and drank from his cup.

He cuddled it in his arms like a baby daughter.

One day a guest arrived at the home of the rich man, but instead of killing an animal from his own flock or herd, he took the poor man's lamb and killed it and prepared it for his guest.

David was furious, as surely as the Lord lived.

Okay, he is in his righteous anger like you can't imagine.

As surely as the Lord lives, he vowed.

Any man who would do such a thing deserves to die.

He must repay four lambs to the poor man for the one he stole and have for having no pity.

And then Nathan said to David, You are that man.

So David had gotten so caught up in sweeping it under the rug, covering his tracks, that he forgot that was somebody's husband, that's somebody's wife, that's somebody's son, that's somebody's daughter.

The heart that got him discovered by God was the one that would charge the lion to protect the lamb.

And now in all the chaos of life, you've gotten to a place where you've sacrificed the lamb for yourself and you moved past it so quickly because of your shame.

And in this incredible moment, he flips the mirror around.

And if you've ever had that, where you became aware of what you did, and so it's in this moment that David, who when he saw the lion, he didn't flinch.

When he saw the bear, he didn't flinch.

When he saw the giant, he didn't flinch.

When he saw his own sin, it buckled his knees.

And he writes Psalm 51.

If you look in the Psalms, some of the Psalms have captions and they'll connect back to a narrative in the Old Testament.

And so if you go to Psalm 51, it will tell you at the beginning that this is what David wrote after this conversation in 2 Samuel 12 with Nathan.

And David says, Have mercy on me, O God.

According to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion, blot out my transgression, wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.

In other words, I can't let it go.

It's in my past, but it's in my present.

And I'm afraid that I can't imagine a future, that it won't be in there too.

Lord, I need you to save me from my past.

It's always with me.

If you keep going, it says in verse 10, he prays, Create in me a pure heart, a clean heart, oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit with me.

Notice the transition where he's going from blot out my sin, Lord, would you remove this?

To now, Lord, would you remake me?

Remove my sin.

Create in me a clean heart.

Recreate me.

Renew, renew a steadfast spirit.

Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation.

Now let's stop here.

What is he talking about?

The joy of your salvation.

Because if we get our chronological bearings in this, David precedes Jesus.

So when he's saying, restore to me the joy of my salvation, he's not thinking about the cross.

He's not thinking about Jesus.

The cool thing is in the Hebrew, it is Yeshua.

So he's saying, restore to me the joy of Yeshua.

So in many ways, it is it is uh uh uh foretelling or speaking into the future prophetically of Jesus that would come with, that would be our salvation.

But in that moment, he's saying, Restore to me the joy of my salvation.

Lord, I've seen you save me from the lion, I've seen you save me from the bear, I've seen you save me uh from the giant, I've seen you save me from Saul, I've seen you save me from my family of origin, I've seen you save me from my insecurity, I've seen you save me time after time.

Now, Lord, would you save me from my sin?

The full range of meaning of salvation.

Restore to me the joy of my salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.

The verse 13.

Then I will teach transgressors your way, so that sinners will turn back to you.

I want to end with this concept.

Think about your relationship to your past.

Some of it was what Jesse and Eliab did to you.

Maybe devalued, maybe overlooked, or maybe it was vindictive.

Don't know.

But I want you to look at not only what you did, what they did to you, but what you did to Bathsheba and Uriah, and to bring it all to Jesus.

And here's what happens: the way the Lord saves us from our past is the cumulative debt that comes from what Jesse did to me and what I did to Bathsheba, all of that together.

Jesus saves us from that and takes us from debt to debt free.

In Colossians, it says that the that the uh the value of our debt is canceled.

It uses actually financial language.

And so that's the first thing is this idea of forgiveness.

And that we go from this thing that was a subtraction, a debit in our past that keeps subtracting from our present and keeps threatening to rob our future.

So you go from debt to debt free, but it's even better than that because as I continue to work out my salvation, okay, I get this forgiveness, debt-free.

But now as I work out my salvation, it not only goes from debt to debt free, it goes from debt-free to an asset.

Notice what David says.

He says, Lord, create in me a clean heart, renew a right spirit, restore to me the joy of my salvation, so that I can teach transgressors your way, so that other people who've had somebody do something to them and something they did to others, who have a past relationship, that they can bring that to you, that they can see, Lord, your ability to not only bring debt free, but to propel me forward.

It's the same thing that we read if we go back to Timothy, what we just read, uh Paul said in 1 Timothy chapter 1, where he says, I am a witness.

1 Timothy 1 · chapter mention

He says, I am one who received the grace of God.

And he said, God, save me so that I could be on display as a trophy of redemption, as that God can work in even the worst of sinners.

So, friend, what I wanted what I want to encourage you to do today is invite Jesus to be a third party in your relationship to your past.

You and your past have had a monogamous relationship too long.

It's just been you and your past, and and you and your past, your past continues to haunt you, whether it was what Jesse did to you or what you did to Bathsheba.

And today I want to invite you to add to invite Jesus to come into that relationship and to take you from debt to debt free, and then to continue to work in your life so that even those things from the past become an asset to what God uses in and through you in the future.

So let's take a moment.

I want you to think about how this applies to you, and let's just take a moment to invite Jesus in.