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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 series called Forward. And last week, Pastor Michael did an incredible, incredible job leading and guiding us into that. And so we're going to continue that thing this week. So we're going to jump right into it. I need you to get out your notes, get out your phones. As Pastor Mike always says, your smartphone, your dumb phones, it's always a great joke. It always works. But here we go. We're going to 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 where we're going to be today. And the book of Philippians is a great book. It's written by Paul and it's written to a church at Philippi, 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 just going to go for, we going to 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 21 days of prayer and fasting beginning of the year. You're starting some good habits if you haven't. You 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 going to talk about this in a second. But verse 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 gotta pause real quick because Paul is about to flex on everybody at the Church of Philippi and talk about how gangster he 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 5. I was circumcised on the 8th 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 have 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, 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 12. 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 forward to what lies ahead. I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. Congratulations. You made it to 21 days of prayer and fasting. And you read a bunch of the Bible today. So it's a great, great day. Here's the idea. We're going to 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. Be big block letters. I scribbled it massive. At the top of my moats. 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, I 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. What happened to them, Lord God. Even trying to move forward, but they feel stuck. I thank you that today they're going to do something beautiful in their life. It's in the name of Jesus we pray. And everybody said amen. Amen. Amen. Now, you got to 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. Week 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 nowhere 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 were. 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 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. They're 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 open up like, all right, we're going 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 scripture. 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, make sure you do good things. And also Jeremy is sleeping with his mother in law. It's so crazy. Poor 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, to encourage your hope, to encourage your spirit. Everybody's reading the letter, like, yeah, that's good man, stay. And then the next one, he's like, hey, yo, watch out for them 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 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 of 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 moments into this sermon today, I want to encourage you. You are not saved by what you do. You don't go to heaven, open doors for old ladies because you read your Bible. I love that you did the 21 days of prayer and 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 remember Ize the Torah and we've been trained under these special people and we do all these rituals and that's how we look down on people that we're called to love. Paul's 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? Like, these are all the rules that everybody else. And again, you got to 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 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 saying, hey, listen, the way we are moving forward the way of this new message of Jesus, the path forward is not marked by do's 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 13. 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. 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, 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's saying I've forgotten everything else. The law. I'm focusing on one thing. Well, what is this one thing? Okay, well 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, 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 going to 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. The first thing he focuses on before he focuses on where he's going, before he talks about the vision, before you get into Habakkuk where it 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 doesn't talk anything about where he's going. He says the first thing I have to do if I'm ever going to move forward, if I'm ever going to make a difference, if I'm ever going to grow into the father, if I'm ever going to grow into the business owner, if I'm going to do what God has asked me to do, if I'm going going to 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 going to do it anyways, so why would I even try? I mean, think of it. 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 going to move forward, you're going to have to first forget the past. You're going to 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. I mean, I got some good stuff that happened. Forget the past. 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 and 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 like 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, dang, Charles, you date. And I was like, yeah, man, it's 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 the 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 in the head. Like, yeah. It was like, brother, you need 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. It's like. And it comes around the corner. It 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 literally, he's, like, walks up, and he's dapping everybody up. And I know I'm dating this brother's ex girlfriend, and he doesn't know it's me. And I'm a little panicked right now. Mind you, I'm a sophomore in high school, and I weigh, like, 100 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, where you been, man? And he's like, hey, yo, you dating, so? And so I heard you're dating my girl. And I was like, what? That's crazy. I didn't even know y' all really dated. When 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 to me. 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. It was 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 and 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. If you've been together for 40 years and you still expect your husband to call you and stay up on that phone, that is ridiculous. That's ridiculous. 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 got to 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, they out in the desert and they're like, man, we need to 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. Think about it. We do this, we make a trophy of our past. And 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 gotta put your past in its place. The other thing, if your past, if it's not. 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 formed 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 birthday, 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 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. You do the same thing. And some of you, your. 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 your past seems something happened there and it got you stuck. That this is the only way I operate this, 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. If you're 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, 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 captive by that tragedy. Maybe it was something very serious, very deep. Maybe you lost somebody you love. And I get it, that's a real tragedy. But if you were 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 keeps you stuck. Friend. 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 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've got 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 going to 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 his stay up later than we were actually supposed to be awake. 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 drawing too much attention. You know, you just come downstairs, you're like, hey, mom, 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, huh, weird. Okay. And then you realize the adults have kind of forgotten about you. So then you kind of just stand in the corner, you're like, ooh, it's kind of nice. And I would be chill. Me and my little brother, no doubt, we would be chill for a little bit. Cause 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, get. 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. And my dad was like, what are you doing? And I was like, yeah, man, you 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 gotta 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 relationships that were working perfectly fine. It'll start messing with the confidence you. 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 going to give you three ways on how can we. If we're going to move forward, if we're going to go to all God has for us, Paul is telling us in this script, the first thing you got to 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. Let's go. Early up in the book, in Genesis, there's a guy named Abraham. And God says, hey, I want you to leave everything. Leave it all behind. He says three specific things. Leave your country. Leave your clan and your father's household, your family. Here's 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 12, 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. I.