Let It Go | Philippians 3:13

[00:00:00] Real Truth Daily. This is Daily Truths with Dave Ahlman.

[00:00:07] Hi everybody, welcome back to Daily Truths. Happy New Year's. Actually, it's not New Year's yet. Tomorrow is.

[00:00:13] But today I want to talk about our past. Namely, what's happened this past year. Maybe it's been a good year for you. Maybe not such a good year.

[00:00:22] But whatever it's been, I encourage you, especially if some things have happened this past year that were difficult and challenging and trying and you know, you made some mistakes and stuff.

[00:00:33] I encourage you to let it go. Right?

[00:00:37] I want to share with you a passage from the book of Philippians chapter 3, reading at verse 13.

[00:00:44] But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.

[00:00:51] Who said that? St. Paul said that. And basically, if you know anything about St. Paul, you know that his past was checkered at best.

[00:01:00] He was a Pharisee. He was a religious leader in the first couple years after Christianity was starting to spread like crazy.

[00:01:07] He was responsible for apprehending Christians, throwing them in prison and oftentimes oversaw their deaths.

[00:01:15] And Stephen in the book of Acts is a good example of that. And so we had a checkered past.

[00:01:21] But what's he saying? He's saying what I've done, the mistakes I've made, the sins I've carried out in my past.

[00:01:27] I have let it go. And now I strain forward to the higher calling that God has given me in Christ Jesus.

[00:01:35] My friend, what St. Paul has done with the past, you can do as well.

[00:01:40] And so I have three principles I want to share with you today about letting go of the past.

[00:01:45] And then at the end, we'll talk about what it means to let it go. OK, here's the first thing.

[00:01:49] Let go of your past failures this past year.

[00:01:52] I can look back over some of the decisions I made this past year and they weren't good.

[00:02:00] They were made hastily and I should have talked about it with other people and prayed about it more, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:02:07] But it's in the past. And so I have to let it go.

[00:02:10] You have past failures too. Decisions and choices you made this past year that didn't work out very well.

[00:02:15] May I encourage you to let that go. It's in the past.

[00:02:19] Don't go and rehearse it once again. Let it go. Secondly, let go of your sins of the past.

[00:02:27] There are some things that you did this past year that you knew were sinful and maybe you continue to do it, unfortunately.

[00:02:34] But here's the thing. This is why Christ came. Christ came to die for that sin.

[00:02:41] And God has forgiven you for the sake of his son. You've repented of it. You've given it to Christ.

[00:02:47] He died for it. And so God's declaration upon your life is not guilty, forgiven.

[00:02:53] And it's forgotten by God. He's erased it from his mind.

[00:02:57] And if he's done that with your past sins, you can let it go as well. Don't rehearse the hurt.

[00:03:03] Don't think about it in your mind. God has nailed it to the cross with his son.

[00:03:07] You are forgiven of your past sins. So your past failures, let it go.

[00:03:12] Your past sins, let it go. And finally, the past sins of others this past year that have inflicted hurt upon you.

[00:03:20] Let that go as well. There have been some doozies committed against you.

[00:03:24] Things that people did either unintentionally or intentionally towards you to hurt you.

[00:03:29] And you can rehearse the hurt. You can talk about it with others.

[00:03:32] You can chunk through it in your mind over and over and over again.

[00:03:37] But what good is that? Let go of the sins of others.

[00:03:41] And maybe they repented of it. Maybe they didn't.

[00:03:45] But if you continue to harbor resentment towards them, what good is that?

[00:03:49] So let go of the sins of the past. Now, when I talk about letting it go,

[00:03:53] what does that mean? And I've already kind of talked about it a little bit already,

[00:03:57] but here's what it means. Don't talk about it with others.

[00:04:00] Don't rehearse the hurt in your mind. Release it to God and let him have it.

[00:04:07] That's what it means to let it go.

[00:04:10] Now you might be thinking, well, what's an image, Pastor Dave, of people who have done that?

[00:04:15] And let me share with you a couple of things. One guy I know, he takes these three entities,

[00:04:20] his past bad choices, his past sins and the past sins of others, writes them down on a piece of paper,

[00:04:26] goes out in his garden, digs a hole and buries it. Pretty good image.

[00:04:31] Another guy does the same thing on a piece of paper and he puts it in the barbecue

[00:04:35] and it burns right next to his hamburger. So whatever it is that helps you to let this stuff go, go ahead and do it.

[00:04:44] Now we go back to St. Paul. Oh my goodness. His past was checkered as we said before,

[00:04:49] but he said, I forgotten what lies behind and a press onward to the higher goal of mine in Christ Jesus.

[00:04:58] We're going to talk tomorrow is beginning at the beginning of a new year tomorrow.

[00:05:01] We're going to talk about how you move forward into the future with the presence,

[00:05:06] peace, pardon and power of God. Right? So we're going to talk about that tomorrow.

[00:05:10] Let it go. My friend, let it go. This is New Year's Eve.

[00:05:14] It's a great time for you to say the past is in the past and I'm straining ahead.

[00:05:20] I'm moving forward and I'm fixing my eyes on Christ. Right? Amen.

[00:05:25] So that is today's Daily Truth. Have a great new year

[00:05:29] and we'll see you tomorrow with a New Year's proclamation of the word of God.

[00:05:34] Have a great day in Christ. And that is today's Daily Truth.

[00:05:37] Thank you for tuning in to Daily Truths with Dave Allman.

[00:05:40] Pastor Dave Allman is the pastor of Mount Hope Church in Boulder, Colorado.

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[00:05:55] Come back tomorrow for your next Daily Truth.