Don't Let Past Failures Discourage You -- Zac Poonen -- September 19, 2021

[Music] i'd like to turn to philippians in chapter 3. many of us have been christians for a number of years and just like we want our children to grow up to maturity our heavenly father wants us to grow up to maturity we are very disappointed when our children seem to always remain immature and childish and you can be sure that the heavenly father is also sad when his children are immature in their christian life we're not angry with our children who are immature we love them we want to help them [Music] even if they behave like children when they are 20 years old we are not angry we want to help them that's the thing we must remember that god is never angry with us but sometimes he's disappointed a loving father will be disappointed if his child does not develop as he should and that's not wrong i mean it's a very irresponsible father who's not disappointed so god loves us much and he wants us to be mature and not be childish and it says here in verse philippians 3 verse 15 the word perfect here is translated in my margin of my bible is mature let us therefore as many as our mature philippians 3 15 have this attitude which he has mentioned in the previous verses and if you have a different attitude god will reveal it to you if you're really serious about being mature however if don't get discouraged verse 16 let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained thank god for what he's already done in your life so there's no place for discouragement in the christian life even if you find you're not as mature as you should be god wants us to press on to perfection all the time if you look at yourself the way a loving father would look at his children and see that god sees you in that same way you will never be discouraged never never never because no matter how many your weaknesses and how much how many are false you god still wants you to grow and become mature just like you want for your children and a good father will be very patient in trying to teach his children the right way in any area and i want to tell you from my own experience that the holy spirit is very patient in the way he seeks to lead us on it's the holy spirit does not put us all in one class and like a teacher stand up in front and teach us he gives us personal tuition you know it's only the children of kings and queens who have personal tuition with the [Music] teacher that's how the holy spirit treats us we are the children of a king and he deals with us individually he's not going to say the same thing to the person next to you as he says to you even in a meeting you must see that the holy spirit deals with you personally because you're a precious child of god and he will show you exactly what you need to do and you don't need to worry about the others around you so what is this attitude that he says in verse 15 let us who are mature have this attitude and that is let me read from verse 12 that's the attitude he wants us all to have paul says about himself i have not become perfect that all of us will acknowledge [Music] but there are two ways in which we can acknowledge it i mean it's not difficult for us to say we are not perfect just go and ask your wife or your husband they'll tell you pretty quickly that you're not perfect even though other people think you are the one who ones who live closest to us know that we're not perfect we might as well acknowledge it we're not perfect but it's not enough to acknowledge that i have not yet become perfect i've not yet become fully like christ but i don't sit back and say forever and ever i'm not perfect i'm pressing on [Music] it's like i sometimes take the example of a child who's just joined the kindergarten at the age of four and you ask him what is and you ask him what's your ambition he says i want to get a phd in some very complicated subject like nuclear physics or something like that this four-year-old imagine the ambition that four-year-old has when are you going to get that son oh it'll take a while but i'm going to get there and he's never going to tire of pressing on to that when he gets to first grade second grade third grade he's got to get a phd in nuclear physics think of we had an ambition like that lord i'm gonna be like you that's my ambition i'm not going to sit in the kindergarten forever i'm going to press on i'm going to go to the first grade and second grade i know i'm not going to jump up there all of a sudden it may take me 20 years to get there but i'm going to get there let those who are mature those who want to be behave like mature children of god not like babies let me paraphrase it lightly those who don't want to be babies let us have this attitude that's basically what it says in verse and that is acknowledge first of all that i have not become perfect but i want to become perfect i press on so that i may lay hold of that for which christ laid hold of me when you think of parents who send their children to the most expensive schools and colleges and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars which other parents cannot afford to give their children the best education what do you think of a son or daughter who was like a wastrel in that college i believe that a lot of god's children are like that when you think of the tremendous price that christ has paid which is far more than hundreds of thousands of dollars a parent may spend on a college in order that we might get a spiritual education and that is to become more and more like christ every year so we must not sit back and say i'm not perfect that's only one part of it we must say i'm not perfect but that's how verse 15 12 is i'm not perfect i've not become like christ but i'm pressing on if you can say that but i'm pressing on you're okay but if you just sit back and say well i'm not perfect when somebody corrects you about something i've heard believers talk like this somebody says hey that's not the way you should behave you say well i'm not perfect they shrug their shoulders and it appears to me they have absolutely no intention to be perfect they'll be in the same condition 10 years from now that is no but i want to press on thank you brother for showing that to me i'm very happy to that you pointed out something in me that's not christ-like i want to be perfect i hope you have that type of passion then you will never be offended with anybody who corrects you you'll be very thankful if you were doing a mathematics some wrong say in the second or third grade and you had a teacher who lovingly came and told you listen son my girl that's not the right way to do it would you be upset with that teacher that teacher is not trying to pull you down trying to make you better please have that attitude to any godly brother or sister who comes and corrects you in some area i've had number of people who've corrected me in my younger days and even as i've grown older and i tell you before the lord i'm thankful for every one of them i see them as teachers who showed me there was something defective in the way i worked out that problem that's not the way to do it thank you for showing me there's a better way and so we are here to help one another and pressing on to perfection so paul says here brethren again he repeats the same thing i have not laid hold of it yet but see there's always that but whenever he says i have not become perfect twice in those two verses and whenever we say we are not we say i'm not become like christ you must say but that's what we learned from these two verses i have not become like christ but that was not the way for me to behave there but when you speak to your wife or your husband it was not the right way to behave or speak you say i'm sorry that's not the way i should have spoken but it's gonna it's gonna be different in the days to come because i'm seeking to press on to perfection i pray there'll be a but in your life always whenever you recognize or when somebody shows you in your life that something is wrong don't get offended think of a teacher who's trying to help you to get that problem correctly so that you can advance to the next class always and if people are afraid to correct you you're in a very sorry state you should be very open to correction i remember once a brother way back in india many years ago came to me and said brother zach you're my elder brother i want you to speak straight to me or correct me wherever you see i'm wrong and i did and he got offended and left the church he wasn't serious he was hoping that i would say oh there's nothing wrong with you brother you know like all these foolish preachers who just butter people and make them happy because they want their money i say i'm not going to be that i'm concerned about your eternal destiny and so i'll tell you the truth so be thankful for anyone who comes and corrects you and don't ever get offended being getting offended is the mark of a child who is not only in the kindergarten but repeatedly failing in the kindergarten repeatedly failing in the kindergarten that's a person who gets offended with something somebody said or something somebody did not say or do he didn't greet me that sunday are you offended that somebody doesn't greet you forget it man grow up don't behave like a kid somebody didn't greet me can you imagine somebody getting offended or something as silly as that that's okay for a three-year-old not for anybody about that so in pressing onto perfection there's something we have to do and this is what i want to emphasize first of all i've got to forget verse 13 what lies behind and secondly i have to reach forward to what lies ahead pressing towards the goal i must see my goal your goal is not to become a better human being your goal must not be that you must have a better reputation in the church i'm sorry to say there are people who want that and if you search your heart you may discover that lurking desire in your own heart for the elder brothers to think a little more highly of you it's garbage let your desire be not to impress the elders but to become all like christ whether the elders see it or not whether they see your growth in secret or not that you have a passion i want to the goal my up the upward call of god in christ jesus and the call of god in christ jesus is not that you might go around preaching or have more gifts but that you may become like christ in your behavior in the way you think in your attitudes to people in the motives with which you do certain things in all those areas that your speech will be more christ-like year by year at home first in your place of work with your fellow workers with people on the street with that other driver of that other car on the road who's irritating you by the way he drives those are the places where we need to be christ-like not just in the church it's easy to be christ-like here we get honor for it to be christ-like where we don't get any honor but because we want to please the lord that's our goal the upward call of god in christ jesus but coming to that first of all forgetting what lies behind it's a very important phrase every one of us if you look back on our life especially our unconverted days before we came to know christ i'm sure we have a lot of regret about the foolish stupid things we did and said we definitely should have regret and if you have confessed them to the lord you can be sure he's blotted them out with his precious blood the blood of christ does a tremendous job with our past there are so many references to the blood of christ in the new testament in the old testament if you went into the tabernacle or the temple through the door the first thing you saw in front of you was an altar that's the very first thing all the other parts of the i mean furniture in the tabernacle were further up but the first thing you saw was the altar and if we looked at it it was red the top of that altar was always red with fresh blood every single day what was the lord trying to teach the israelites the seriousness of sin how there was a sacrifice required for their sin you know it was costly if you sinned in the old testament because you had to bring a goat imagine if you had to bring a goat today for every time you committed sin you'd stop sinning pretty quickly because goats are expensive we don't think about that when we read in the old testament he shall bring a goat or even if he brings a bird imagine buying a dove or something every time you say it's going to be going to cost you something the sad thing is today because it is just oh lord i'm sorry please forgive me and we move on it doesn't cost us a penny [Music] that's one reason we don't take sin so seriously those israelites took sincerely because it touched their pockets so it should hurt us more because the price for our sin is not the blood of some goat it's the blood of jesus christ don't you think that should touch our pockets and our hearts much more than some guy who only had to bring a bullock perhaps a bullock the cost of a bullock compared to the blood of jesus christ where is the comparison that indicates how lightly believers take the cleansing by the blood of christ it's a fact if you meditate on it and think about it it'll hit you i i have meditated much on these things and it has radicalized radically revolutionized my attitude to sin in my own life because i saw what a price had to be paid much more than that israeli who only had to go and buy a bullock or a goat much more than that you ask yourself honestly when you get a when you get forgiveness of your sins through the blood of christ does it make you make you value that and say boy that was serious more than that israeli who spent a few hundred dollars having to buy a bullock to get rid of his sin it's a good question to ask ourselves or do i treat the blood of christ as of less value than the blood of bulls and goats i'm sorry to say some christians do and perhaps you also do if you think about it just ask yourself one day sit down when you're alone sometime and say if i had to go and buy a goat because i had to confess my sin would i take that sin more seriously next time and when i go to ask jesus to cleanse me with his blood what is a comparison do i take it just as seriously i should take it more seriously do i do do that or is it very light oh lord i'm sorry just forgive me thank you for your blood bye that is i'm sorry to say the way many people treat their sin and i'll tell you the result is that's why they never grow in their christian life and that's why they never get more light on the seriousness of what they've done or more light on other sins in their life god says i'm not going to reveal any of the other terrible things in their life because he doesn't take sin seriously something i show him he doesn't seem to have much sorrow over it why should i show him any more i'll tell you my testimony my honest testimony i have a tremendous passion god is my witness when i say this i have a tremendous passion to discover all the unseen unseen unchrist-like areas of my life do you know there are unknown unchrist-like areas in your life if you don't think so you're saying that you've become like christ already that would be the height of arrogance when you say i've not yet become like christ you're acknowledging there are areas in your life which are not christ-like why aren't you doing something about it you see i haven't seen them yet how can i do something about it before i know what is on christ like if you have a passion and i'll tell you that's how god has shown me so many things through the years and i picture this like the land of canaan where the giants are a picture of all the unchrist-like things in our life and the lord said to his the israelite from dan which is the northernmost to beersheba the southernmost place all of this land must be yours go and possess it it's like the lord saying to us from head dan to beersheba from head to foot i want every part of your life to be christ-like every part of your inner life and those children of israel at least in the time of joshua took it very seriously when they killed a bunch of giants and occupied that territory this is the thing if you killed a bunch of giants that territory became yours it's like you overcome sin in some area that area becomes christ-like it may be less than 0.1 percent but it's some areas become christ-like and you cannot and what happens is when you've killed the giants in one area the lord shows you another area for you to possess and that is how little by little they were to go and possess the whole land and josh one of the things the lord told joshua i want you to see this verse and see it in the context of what i'm just telling you in the book of joshua he said these words to joshua at one point and joshua was getting old he told him in joshua chapter 13 i think it is [Music] i can't find it but he told joshua there remains a lot of land yet to be possessed and that's they're already possessed so much but the lord said there's still a lot of land to be possessed and he told he told the israelites that there's a lot of land to be possessed 13 13 1 okay i knew it was in 13 somewhere yeah 13 1 you are old the lord said to him and there's yet much land that remains to be possessed i wish you would all hear that word today joshua was such a wholehearted servant of god the best in the nation of israel that day and you may be the best believer sitting here this morning do you know the word of the lord to you my son my daughter there remains much land to be possessed in your life that at the moment is being ruled by some giants of the flesh but i don't want those giants to possess that land i want from dan to beersheba from head to foot every part of your life to be under the control of my holy spirit and to become christ-like now i know i realize the lord says to joshua you can't occupy the whole land in one day it takes time and unfortunately they had not possessed everything by the time joshua died and if you turn to the book of judges we read like this verse 7 judges chapter 2 verse 7 the people served the lord all the days of joshua and the days of the elders who survived joshua because those people like joshua had seen the great work the lord did for israel but after that when that generation verse 10 had been gathered to their fathers verse 10 there rose another generation who did not know the lord and we're not grateful for all that the lord had done for them then the sons of israel verse 12 forsook the lord and they became slaves that's a story of many many born-again christians they overcome something in their life they are challenged maybe the walls you know by the time in the early part they they had occupied the land of jericho and certain other areas they finished and they stopped i hope it will not be like that in your life my brother sister i hope you'll have a passion when the lord says to you there remains much land to be possessed i press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of god in christ jesus which is to become totally like him every bit of the land from dan to beersheba to be occupied for the lord not one part must belong to the devil not much one part of my life must belong to the flesh it must be holy the lords and coming back to philippians 3 if we want to attain that the first step is to forget philippians 3 13 what lies behind first of all to forget all that you have achieved [Music] to forget however much progress you've already made forget the giants you have conquered if you keep sitting back and congratulating yourself and patting yourself on the back for the giants you've already conquered in your life oh i had this bad habit is gone from my life good if that's gone but that satisfaction with that can prevent you from moving forward forget what lies behind forget stop congratulating yourself for all the giants you've killed stop congratulating yourself for the areas in your life the sins that you've conquered that's the meaning of forget if you keep on congratulating yourself and patting yourself in the back i overcame this i gave up my smoking and i gave up my drinking and i gave up this bad habit that happened i'll tell you this you'll never progress you've got to forget it forget and press on to what lies ahead but in this one area of forgetting there are there's a reason why we need to forget not only because we can become proud of the areas we have conquered but also we can have a lot of regret over the failures we have made in our life and that regret over past failure can hinder you as much as pride over past successes remember that we should not live in regret over oh it's so terrible what i did then and i wish i hadn't done it i mean if any one of you are honest you have a lot of things that you look back and say i wish you hadn't done it there's not a human being on earth who can say i'm very happy the way i lived we all have regret especially in the days before we knew the lord think of the things you did before you knew the lord and think of the things the foolish things you did after you came to know the lord i've done a lot of foolish things after i came to know the lord and that is more serious than what we did before we came to know the lord i look at it like this if i told a lie before i came to christ before i was born again if i tell a lie after i'm born again it's like telling a thousand lies not one lie because sin becomes like the bible says exceedingly sinful there's a phrase like that in romans 3 that sin becomes exceedingly sinful when does that happen when christ comes to into our life he gives us a microscope and that teeny-weeny ant looks like an elephant right if it is ha if that hasn't happened to you i would ask you whether you're really born again if the ants of sin in the past don't look like elephants to you today ask god for a microscope to show you what sin really is in his eyes before we came to christ we were seeing what sin is in man's eyes i mean even ordinary human beings are not converted think telling a lie or behaving rudely is bad you don't have to be a christian to feel that way yeah that's like an ant we don't want ants in our food definitely not we don't want ants crawling around our house either but when you see those ants like elephants crawling around your house there's a lot of difference sin becomes exceedingly sinful and so we have regret not only over the things we did in our unconverted days but a lot of regret over what we did after we are converted [Music] and all i want to ask you is to the best of your knowledge have you taken the blame to confess our sin means i take the blame what is the difference you know the bible speaks about in adam and in christ okay let's compare adam and christ when adam sinned by eating that tree you know what was his next sin after that he refused to take the blame the lord asked him did you eat it and he wouldn't acknowledge it he points to his wife and said she's the one who gave it to me and trying to blame god remember god you're the one who gave her to me so think about that you gave me such a wife and that's why i ended up like this there are people who say that i've heard people say me brother it's my wife she makes life so difficult for me lord you gave me your wife and that's why i'm like this and you keep saying that i tell you i wonder whether you'll even enter the kingdom of god [Music] if you blame somebody else for your sin you're not following jesus christ you're following adam anyone i don't care who he is if he blames somebody else for his sin his wife or some neighbor or somebody in the office that fellow provoked me and that's why i did this yeah there are 101 ways we can blame somebody else you are doing exactly what adam did in the garden of eden when god says did you do it you say no this chap this woman made me do it oh that man provoked me to do it all my children irritated me blame them blame somebody else i'm the holy man you see other people make me sin it's garbage learn to confess sin properly by not blaming anybody else and i want to tell you this if you blame a single person for your sin it's not a confession that god accepts you're like adam and we're not to be like adam so i hope something will change in our life from today that will stop blaming other people around us especially in our home or in our office or anywhere else lord it's me it's me contrast that with christ when he was hanging on the cross you know what he was saying it's me father [Music] he hadn't sinned at all what was he saying it's me my sin your sin which we should have taken the blame for he says lord with me punish me punish me it's me punish me and god did it he forsook him think if you did some terrible thing in the office or somewhere else which hurt others badly and somebody else goes and takes the blame for you and some small little thing somebody in your office takes the blame and pays up a hundred thousand dollars which you should have paid what would be your attitude towards him you know that's what jesus did on the cross because we keep kept pointing to others like adam that that is my husband my wife and this the children and that's that's why i behaved like this jesus is okay i've got nobody to blame there's a hymn there's a poem that i read long ago how [Music] man always has got fingers pointing to somebody else for what they did wrong [Music] but on the cross jesus could not point at anybody his hands were nailed he couldn't point at anyone like adam he nailed those pointing fingers on the cross and i want to urge you to do that this is what it means to be crucified with christ i cannot point my finger at anybody because my palm terms are crucified is that true in your life [Music] i want to challenge you i'm only telling you what the lord has spoken to me i'm no different from you i know every sin you've committed because my flesh is the same as yours i know what you're tempted with i know where you fail because my flesh is the same as yours i don't have to be a prophet to know that and i know you point fingers at others because i've done it myself but i've sought with all my heart to have my fingers crucified that's what jesus was saying at the end of the sermon on the mount he said so many amazing things in the sermon on the mountains a much higher standard than the old testament law and the end of it he said now that you've heard this high standard don't use it to judge others have you noticed that in the sermon on the mount [Music] anger is equal to murder matthew 5 21 22 lusting with the eyes is equal to adultery verse 28 onwards and seeking honor in prayer is idolatry seeking honor when you give money to god is getting wanting everybody to know about it is idolatry and being worried all the time if you can have more and more money to protect you because of inflation and because of cost of living and you don't believe in a loving father who provides for you you trust more in your savings account more than your loving father do you know how many believers trust in their savings account more than their heavenly father they talk about a heavenly father but the trust is in their savings account i've got enough laid up for a number of years you remember the story jesus said about a rich man who said i've got enough later for a number of years was jesus commanding that person no there's nothing wrong i'm not saying you should take all your money and throw it away it's not a question of money it's a question of where your confidence is is your confidence in that or in a loving father who will never leave you nor forsake you these are you know failure in faith is much more serious than failure in other areas we don't seem to see failure in faith as a serious sin if i told a lie or slap somebody i take that seriously but what if you don't trust your heavenly father and you're trusting in money and something you'll stirred up more than your heavenly father do you ever see that as a sin it's a far more serious sin than slapping somebody on the face it's a sin of unbelief the bible speaks in hebrews chapter 3 and verse 12 i think it is an evil heart of unbelief turned with me to that verse so should never forget it hebrews in chapter 3. [Music] and verse 12 take care brethren not that you don't slap others on the face take care that you don't have an evil heart of unbelief where your confidence is in your money more than in a loving father that is an evil heart of unbelief we need to confess it more than if you slapped somebody lord i have an evil heart of unbelief [Music] just like that adult person out in the world my confidence is in something other than you forgive me it's not a question of what you have or what you don't have it's a question of where your confidence is an evil heart of unbelief that will make you fall away from the living god when we think of falling away from the living god we think oh we stop going to church and we say jesus christ is not god no no no when you are not making spiritual progress year by year let me say that again when you're not making spiritual progress year by year you have fallen away from the living god whether you know it or not the person who's not falling away from the living god is the one who's making progress year by year by year what would you think about your child who's sitting in the third grade year by year by year by year five years in the third grade five years defeated by the same sins again and again and again and again yeah we are in danger of falling away from the living god so therefore we have to be careful that we don't get hardened it says in verse 13. so i want to say a little more about this regret for the past god allows failure for some very good reasons let me tell you that you know paul had a thorn in the flesh which he prayed lord remove it and the lord said i won't remove it it'll keep you humble it was some type of physical infirmity i personally believe it was some type of infection in his eyes which never got cured and it was repulsive because that pus was coming out of his eyes all the time and he said lord take it away and it pleased the lord not to take it away you said paul you're such a mighty servant of god you're in danger of pride so i have to give you something to humble you this will humble you when you get up to preach people see all this dripping and they won't think so much of your good you will become like christ inwardly what does it matter if there's some defect in your body [Music] what does it matter if people despise your physical appearance if you're becoming like christ-like isn't that enough paul and he says yes lord and so he said i will glory in my infirmities he says in second corinthians 12 you did not take away that thorn in the flesh thank you there's another thorn in the flesh that god doesn't take away from us from any of us you know what it is the memory of past failure haven't you sought sometimes i wish god would remove from my memory all those incidents of failure in my life completely blotted out there's no memory of the areas i feel wouldn't that be wonderful i have sometimes sought god like that lord the things i've done i've done from the time i was a little kid i wish it were blotted out and the only things left in my memory with all the christ-like good things i did but god doesn't do that he allows the memory of things that we did when we were 10 years old five years old the selfish foolish things i'm nearly 82 but i my memory still can remember things stupid things i did when i was a little kid and i'm sure it's true in your case too i know what all human beings are like because i know what i'm like and we wish it would be blotted out lord and think of the much more serious sins that we committed and especially the thousand times more serious sins which you committed after you were born again and you wish oh i wish i hadn't done that you repented your repentance has been genuine the blood of christ has blotted out completely and god has said about those sins in your case i will not remember it anymore i know that my past since god has said to me i will not remember it anymore hebrews 8 12. so i have no sense of guilt not even an atom of guilt in my heart because the blood of jesus has taken care of it all but i've also wished that the memory of it would go but it has pleased the lord not to remove the memory of it it's like a thorn in the flesh always you know the thorns always poking you a thorn in the flesh the memory of those stupid idiotic things that i did before i was born again and after i was born again and no matter how much i pray like paul prayed take it away take it away and the lord says no [Music] and then paul says why because it will keep you humble and that's exactly why my brother and sister please listen in love for you god keeps that in your memory so we cannot remove it so how shall i forget what lies behind this is the way i shall forget what i have done in the past by saying lord i'm not going to live in regret over that i remember it but i'm not going to torture myself with regret regret regret which will hinder my spiritual progress so that's the way we have to forget the things that are behind god has blotted it out in the blood of jesus what are the things that you look back in your past life that really disturb you that really bother you the things you did after you were converted and which you wish you had never done you wish that some part of your life could be just blotted out he's forgiven you but the memory of that is there it will remain there till jesus comes it will remain there i think in heaven it will be blotted out i believe it will be you won't remember it in heaven that part of our memory is going to be removed in heaven it's going to be wiped out but as long as you live on this earth the memory of your failure will remain to first of all to prevent you from doing it again and secondly to keep you humble to make you more careful in similar situations that you don't do that again but we must forget it in the sense that i must not whip myself and afflict myself trying to punish myself no christ has taken the punishment of it all you don't have to afflict yourself for anything you did in the past that is a heathen idea that i beat myself that you know the non-christians there are people who do that for their sin they beat themselves and roll on the ground and do all types of things there are christians who mentally do that over their past failure you can't take the punishment for your sin there's no use whipping yourself christ took a whipping for you he took it completely he died for you he was whipped and beaten and you don't need to get a whipping now forget it but it keeps you humble and if you take it that way i believe god can make you progress in your life finish with regret over the past and say let that regret spur you on i sometimes tell young people some of the truths i share with you of an overcoming life i discovered when i was nearly 36 years old 16 years after i became a christian i wish i had known it as soon as i was becoming a christian i was 20 but there was nobody around me in any church that told me the type of things i'm telling you these days nobody in no church i attended and i struggled along failing getting up discouraged everything else and i sought god to be filled with the holy spirit studies this word i studied his word in depth and after 16 years i finally got opened my eyes to see the truth so i tell young people i see you guys are 17 18 years old and you've already understood what i discovered when i was double your age so strictly speaking you should be you should be able to make much greater progress in your life by the time you come to my age than i am today much greater progress in christ likeness and in usefulness to god and effectiveness in his service much more than i have done because you started earlier you start when you're 15 or 16 but i started when i'm 36 i got a handicap in running this race and you're way you can be way ahead of me but i said i doubt whether you will beat me in this race and i'll tell you why because i'm so sorry for the foolish things i did that i'm running very fast today to make up for lost time and i see some of you people i say to younger people you're not running so fast you're taking it easy because you know these truths so easily you never did all the foolish stupid things that i did you never thank by thankfully because you were in a good church you never did the foolish things that i did from 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 you never did the foolish things we all did so you don't have any regret i feel sorry i'm not saying you should do those things but why can't you run and say lord jesus i want to know more about how much you suffered to take away my sin that's what you need to i'm not saying you have to do the same things for these things we did no parent will want all of your parents do you want your children to do the stupid foolish things you did when you were young no we none of us want our children to do the foolish things we did when we were young but we do want them to be passionate in following the lord and i pray that will be true don't let regret over the past hold you back you know there must be a like a curtain that drops right behind me as i move forward and i look back and i see a curtain i can't think of anything that happened at the back i can't see what i accomplished i can't see what foolish things i did it's all i can't see it forgetting the things that are behind forgetting what i've done for the lord completely forgetting completely forgetting all the foolish things i've done i say lord i'm only going to look in front no man wins a 100 meter race looking back to see how far he's covered or how much better he is than others such people will always lose the person who's going to win a race is always going to look in front for the finishing line and i want to encourage you basically that's what i want to say dear brothers and sisters please look at the finishing line alone don't look back to see how much ground you've covered it's not important don't look back and see the places where you tripped up forget it and certainly don't look around to see how many people you're overtaking that'll also make you lose the race say lord i've got one goal that's the finishing line is to become like christ completely so i want to put a curtain right behind me i'm going to have zero looking back in regret my past failures which serves to humble me why did god allow peter to deny him three times i don't have time to show you this but you read the gospel sometimes john you know jesus was in the high court being tried with the priest before the high priest which is the high court of those days john the apostle was a relative of the high priest so he could go in through the gate related to the high priest peter came there and the gate fellow said who are you and john came and spoke to the gatekeeper and got peter inside one single event which made peter deny the lord john did a good turn for him he wanted to come inside to see the trial and that's where three people came and asked him here you're with jesus and he denied him three times i thought sometimes peter must have thought oh i wish john hadn't come and spoken to the gatekeeper and got me inside i wouldn't have denied the lord i would have felt like that why did god allow it why did god allow john to know at that time that peter is trying to come in do you have regrets like that something somebody did or the moment that if that hadn't happened i would not have fallen like this yeah we all have incidents like that god permitted it he permitted it with peter he permitted it with you because he wanted you to be humbled for the rest of your life so that he can make you make you a useful servant in his kingdom and so about what is it 40 43 days after that on the day of pentecost no it was 53 days right after that on the day of pentecost and the spirit of god comes upon peter and fills him and becomes a mighty anointed person and he preaches that powerful message and 3 000 jews are converted i mean if you if you were to convert one jew in your life you'd never forget in your life see boy i brought one jew to the lord it's not easy to convert a jew it's like trying to convert a muslim three thousand of them converted in a fifteen minute sermon can you imagine the danger peter had of getting puffed up and people come and slap him on the back and say hey peter that was great man he could not be puffed up he'll say you know what i did seven weeks ago it humbled him permanently all his life he remembered himself as a man who denied the lord in the moment of testing did he could he forget it in one sense he could never forget it but he did not bring such regret in his life that he stopped serving the lord no okay i did it 25 years later he'd say yeah i'm the man i'm the man who denied the lord three times i'll never forget it all my life it has humbled me permanently so my brothers and sisters when you forget the things that are behind let those failures humble you permanently but don't live in regret over it that it hinders you from further progress forgetting the things that are behind i press toward the mark don't live in regret or anything in the past is there something that you did that made okay let's forget these spiritual things sometimes you can have regret over decisions that you made which made you lose a lot of money money is a very important thing in this world and perhaps you took some decision which made you lose a lot of money some job opportunity which you gave up which should have made you a millionaire today but you're struggling you have regret over it say lord you allowed it maybe if i had got it maybe i would have drifted away from you maybe those million dollars would have taken me away from you thank god you did not allow me to get it don't sit in regret over money that is lost by your foolishness or [Music] by wrong choices there are many things like this we look back and say boy if i hadn't done that at that point i came to the fork in the road and i took the wrong turning that's why i'm here today i could have been there some of my some of my friends are out there and i was with them and i'm over here struggling but those guys are not following the lord you are thank god [Music] so remember that god allows failure to humble you but you must not live in regret over it forgetting the things that are behind one day when we stand before the lord you will see that god permitted you to take the wrong decision yeah i think of incidents in my life where god permitted me to take a wrong decision or something that made me suffer some type of loss earthly loss not spiritual laws and i say thank you lord i will never shed tears over earthly laws never i'm not gonna sit and weep or feel sorrow about any earth sorrowful about any earthly loss lord i want to have sorrow only over spiritual loss that i've suffered in my life make that decision today god bless you let's pray heavenly father please help us each one we are so quick to forget important things i pray that no one here will forget what they heard today and it'll change their life permanently not just for a few days but they'll remember it 20 years from now if you haven't come help us all we pray in jesus name amen [Music]

Channel: River of Life Christian Fellowship

Views: 4,658

Rating: 4.8846154 out of 5

Keywords: rlcf, river, life, christian, fellowship, church, god, jesus, bible, scripture, past, failures, discourage, sermon, zac, poonen

Id: jOscijCzDc0

Length: 56min 44sec (3404 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021