It was something the apostle Paul said in his letter to the Philippians as he described for them the all-consuming desire that shaped his life. He said, “forgetting what lies behind,” that is, what lies in the past. His words instruct us as we begin a new calendar year—2024.
His full statement is found in Philippians 3:10-14. “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Paul identified “knowing Christ” as the desire that shaped his life. “I want to know Christ” (Philippians 3:10). To know Christ was to participate in Christ’s life. It was to fully embrace and live out of Christ’s pattern of suffering, death, and resurrection (Philippians 3:10-11). Paul said Christ had claimed him—“Christ Jesus has made me his own” —so that he (Paul) could share in Christ’s resurrection life.
To know Christ, to participate in Christ’s pattern of living (i.e., suffering, death, and resurrection), to share in Christ’s life was the goal which Paul passionately pursued. “I press on to make it (this goal of sharing Christ’s life) my own” (Philippians 3:12). It was the prize to which God in Christ Jesus had called him (Philippians 3:14).
Like Paul, God has called us to know Christ and to share Christ’s life. We do so “by becoming like him (Christ) in his death” (Philippians 3:10). We embrace his pattern of death and resurrection as our way of life. We die to the way the world trained us to think and live. We die to the egocentric self we constructed by following the way the world trained us to think and live (Mark 8:34-35). We die to the values of the world in which we live.
God’s call to share Christ’s life includes God’s promise that—when God’s work in our lives is complete—we will share Christ’s character of self-giving love as our own. As we grow spiritually in the likeness of Christ, we participate in his life. We experience “the power of his resurrection” (Philippians 3:10). We experience the transformation of our suffering as the Spirit works in it to teach us and mature us into the likeness of Christ. We experience the Spirit’s work of bringing life out of death. We know by experience that God works in all things for our good, using every experience of life to conform us to the image of the Son (Romans 8:28-29). We experience Christ’s pattern of suffering, death, and resurrection.
Paul is quick to say that he has not perfected this way of living. “Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal” (Philippians 3:12). Rather, he intentionally, deliberately pursued this way of living. “I press on to make it my own” (Philippians 3:12).
Paul’s pursuit of becoming like Christ and sharing Christ’s life involved “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead” (Philippians 3:13).
“Forgetting what lies behind” is an important part of spiritual growth.
Paul’s words do not mean the past is not important. Our experiences in the past are a huge part of how we learn and grow. We learn—hopefully—by experience. Unless we learn from our experiences, we continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. We get stuck in a destructive pattern that robs us of life. We remain stuck in emotional-relational-spiritual immaturity.
Paul’s words—forgetting what lies behind—remind us that the past has the power to sabotage the present. They are a warning that the past can thwart our spiritual progress, that the past can be a barrier to how God wants to work in our lives.
The past sabotages the present when it invades the present.
Regret and guilt and shame are one way the past invades the present. These invaders indicate experiences from the past—failures, mistakes, wrongdoing—that are unaddressed and unresolved. These experiences from the past—unaddressed and unresolved—are still alive inside us, robbing us of focus and energy and initiative.
Sorrow and grief are another way the past invades the present. Sorrow and grief are normal. They are how we process our loss. They are how we come to terms with a loss. They enable us to turn loose of what we loss, to move on beyond what was, and to begin to rebuild our lives. Prolonged grief, however, indicates we have not dealt with our loss. We are stuck—in our grief, in clinging to what was. The past is thus a barrier to any work we might do in the present.
Most of us carry old messages from our formative years. Most of them are shame-based messages—messages that say we are inadequate, that we are nothing but a screwup, that we are no good, that we are worthless, that we will never amount to anything, that we are not acceptable, that no one will ever love us. These old messages—living deep in our psyche, pushed outside our conscious awareness—shape how we think about ourselves as well as how we relate to others. They determine the patterns of our lives. In them, the past invades the present, sabotaging it.
Paul knew it was important to forget what was behind. He described his life before his encounter with the Risen Christ (Philippians 3:4b-6). He had much in his past that could feed his egocentric self: a strong heritage, religious training as a Pharisee, a seemingly blameless life patterned after the scribal interpretations of the Law, a religious zeal that surpassed his peers. All of these things he set aside, viewing them as nothing more than rubbish (Philippians 3:7-8). (The Greek word Paul used literally means bodily waste, but the English translators sanitized his language in their translations.) Paul had discovered something of much greater value than any of these: the grace of God that provided a righteousness that came from God, claimed through faith, not a righteousness based upon conformity to the Law (Philippians 3:8-9). This gift of righteousness positioned him to know Christ, to experience Christ’s pattern of living, and to share Christ’s life.
Paul ended this section of his letter by calling everyone who was spiritually mature to embrace this attitude out of which he himself lived (Philippians 3:15): forgetting what lies behind, pursuing the goal of knowing Christ, embodying his pattern of living, and sharing his life.
As we enter a new
calendar year, let us forget what lies behind as we press on toward the
goal of being like Christ and sharing his life.
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