Turn to the book of Acts, if you will. The book of Acts, tonight, chapter number 9. Out at Ucamp, the first message Brother McWhirter preached was on the subject of how sin gets into our life and how it begins as a suggestion. Suggestions become intents, intents become desires, desires become ultimately the actions, and the actions become memories in our life. Then he said, those memories become, again, suggestions to go back and do the same thing all over again. And I got to thinking about that thought for a moment or two, and I said, you know, that's true. They often do. The things that you've done will become familiar to you, and you'll wind up doing them over and over again, going back to them out of familiarity. In fact, the further into sin you go, the more comfortable you feel about going deeper into sin, and then deeper and deeper. It's because of the memory factor that brings that along. The question we need to ask tonight is this, as Christians, what do you do with the bad memories of the sin that you have committed? Yes, we go to Christ. Yes, we get our sins forgiven. Absolutely true. But what do you do with the past memories? How do you deal with those past memories? Well, I found folks deal with those memories in one of two ways. in the Christian realm. One is, they try to bury it. They turn it into skeletons in their closet, if you will. And those skeletons are guarded at all costs. Don't let anybody know about it. Don't ever let it out. Don't let anybody ever find out. Keep it hush-hush. Make it the family secret, if necessary. But find some way to keep it quiet, because people won't understand, and it'll be a terrible, horrible thing if they ever find out. It causes guilt, it causes remorse, it causes regret, it causes people to sit back in self-defense and always on edge and worried about their secrets that they have hidden from everybody else. On the other hand, I know of other Christians who have literally been willing to lay their skeletons, if you will, right on the table for everybody else to see. And sometimes done too soon, sometimes done much too descriptively, certainly. Yet, we must ask the question, what's the best way to handle it? Again, we must come back to the Word of God and say, okay, let's find out from God's Word about how to handle skeletons. I thought about some folks in the Bible who had some skeletons in their closet, some bad memories from the past, actions they'd taken, sins they had committed, that turned into terrible, terrible, tragic memories. In fact, we still think about them today. How about Eve, as Eve was discontent in the garden, listened to the serpent and took of the fruit? How about Adam and his love of his wife, more than his love of God, who chose to eat of the fruit, though he knew that it was a violation of God's Word? How about Sarah and Abraham? Sarah, who manipulated the situation to cause Abraham to finally go in and have a baby by her handmaid, and then how about later as she turned into jealousy and in that jealous rage, she ran Hagar off out into the desert. How about Abraham, as we think about his lack of vigilance in his life and his willingness to lead his wife into lying, which may very well have been the reason that she was then bold enough to suggest such a thing as going into Hagar to begin with. How about Bathsheba and David? We think of Bathsheba and her Maybe succumbing to flattery as David spoke to her and she thought, isn't it a wonderful thing that the king of the land would pay attention to me? Or maybe was it fear that caused her instead to think, oh my, if the king tells me to do this, I must do it. But whichever, she chose to disobey God and instead to go into her king. How about David in the middle of that and his sin of lust? And we can go on and on with Bible subjects, people, one after another, who have in their past some tragic event, some memory that they think of, and they say, this is a terrible, horrible sin in my life, and then they had to deal with it. Well, I thought about one person in particular here in Acts chapter 9. His name is Saul, as we meet him. His name later becomes Paul the Apostle, who shows us how to handle a bad memory and to literally turn our memories into motivation to serve God. Look with me in Acts chapter 9. We begin to read in verse number 1. The Bible says in Saul, Yet, breathing out threatenings against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest. And he desired of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem." You know the rest of the story. Here's Saul on his way. In fact, if we went back to chapter number 8, we'd see where Saul was the fellow that was in charge of the stoning crew that killed Stephen. And here's Stephen preaching the gospel of Christ as Saul is standing there as the one in charge, and everybody stones him. And then here is Saul heading to Damascus with the intent of taking more Christians prisoner and putting some in prison maybe for the rest of their life, others killing them. His intent is absolutely against anything that God would have approved of. Yet while he's in the middle of all of this, the Bible just records the history of it all, we see them, the Lord, arrest him in a rather unusual manner as he knocks him off his horse and does business with God and gets saved on the road to Damascus. What a transformation in his life! Yet here he is now as a Christian, saved, and remembering the fact that he has just gotten through murdering a Christian and been involved in this business of putting Christians in prison. Look then with me, if you will, in verse number 20, as we read. The Bible says, right after he gets baptized, it says in a straight way, he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God. And we look at that and we say, wow, what a marvelous transformation. From a rabbi, from a teacher of the law, from a murderer of Christians, a hater of Christ, and a hater of the way of the Lord Jesus, to all of a sudden now a man who loves the Lord Jesus so much that he's willing to stand and preach Christ to the multitudes. To people that don't even want to hear it, but he's out there in the multitudes telling them about what he has just gotten through trying to destroy. And we see the difference, and you can almost imagine why some Christians would have sat back shaking their heads saying, wait a minute, this is a 180 degree turn. We're not too sure whether we believe this. We've seen some folks before who have said, I'm a Christian, I'm going to live for God, and then boom! Boy, I mean, they turn around and go the other way, and Saul's looking here like he's changed, but at the same time, they're thinking, how can he go from the guy who has the papers, the warrants to arrest people, to all of a sudden preaching the very thing that he was coming to stamp out? And I imagine they thought, I wonder if this is just a ploy to get Christians to come up and pat him on the back and then he can be ushered into the inner circle here in Damascus and find out who the important ones are so that he can destroy us. That may have crossed their mind. I don't doubt that it did. But notice in verse number 21 what happens. It says, But all that heard him were amazed. And they said, it is not this he that destroyed them which called on this name in Jerusalem, and came hither for that intent, that he might bring them bound unto the chief priests." And watch what takes place. A reminder now takes place. First they start off with Saul coming in to murder Christians, he meets the Lord Jesus, he gets saved, he's transformed, he stands up in all sincerity of heart, and we know this as we read the rest of the scripture, that it is sincere, he stands up in all sincerity of heart and he begins to try to persuade people that Christ is the only way of salvation. And when he does, what happens? People start throwing it back in his face. Wait a minute, isn't he the guy that tried to kill the Christians? Isn't he the one that was putting them in prison? Isn't he the one that's responsible for all of this havoc that's been made of this Christian sect? Now imagine how Paul must have felt. Imagine how he must have felt. As here he stands, trying now to preach for Christ, and all these people can do, saved and unsaved alike, is hurl back at him, hey, aren't you the guy that was killing Christians just a few days ago? What changed you? And I imagine Saul, Paul, stood there and wondered, whether he would ever be able to preach, whether he would ever be able to be used of God, whether his testimony could ever be effective. Think about what these people are thinking about me. It had to run through his mind. Yet Saul took this memory and turned it into a motivation for his life. Let's bow in prayer. Father, we look to you tonight. Lord, we desire to be able to turn memories into motivation. There's not one of us here tonight, Lord, that don't have in our lives some areas of bad memories that flood our mind if we allow them. Not one of us here that don't have territory in our life that we don't enjoy going to. And yet, Lord, at the same time, we realize that those memories are there etched in our mind for time and probably even for eternity. Certainly, Lord, we will need to do business with those memories in this life. And I pray tonight that you'd help us as we think about the business of thinking. Help us tonight as we think about how to handle these memories and turn them not just into something that's neutral in our life, but instead into something that's positive and can be used to motivate us to better and more zealously serve you. Bless us now tonight, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Turn with me, if you will, to the book of 2 Corinthians, chapter number 7. Read what Paul, here's Paul again now, 2 Corinthians, chapter 7, read what Paul has to say about the subject of repentance. He says here, in verse number 9, he says, Now rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance. For you were made sorry after a godly manner, that you might receive damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of, but the sorrow of the world worketh death." Two kinds of sorrow. There's a worldly sorrow and godly sorrow. Now he's going to tell us what the godly sorrow is like in verse number 10. Or verse 11, rather. He says, "...for behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort." what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge." Now, if we could just wrap it all up, what he's saying is this, you know how I know that your repentance was genuine? It was such a change in you that with the same fire and zeal with which you were doing wrong and allowing sin to go on, you turned around and with a zealous, vehement desire, with an intent on revenge, you moved in the direction of doing what was right, of righting what you had wronged, of doing right and making sure things were made right. That's what repentance produces in a person's life. Now, we see this in Paul's life, back in Acts 9, where we were. Here's Paul, riding into town, can't wait, breathing out of his mouth all kinds of slurs and desires to destroy Christians, and one moment he's on his horse, the next moment he's on the ground, the next moment he's a child of God, his life is changed, Three days later he's in Damascus and he gets his sight back and Ananias baptizes him. And a couple days later he's found out in the marketplace preaching to people and telling them that they need the Savior that he has just found. We see him with a revenge, with a vehement desire, with a zeal, with a new fire burning in his bones that has turned him from the greatest enemy of the people of God to one of the best friends the people of God ever had in this world. And so here we are. What made the difference? The difference was Christ, of course. That's the difference. But now, if you will, we have to ask the question, how can this guy go from public enemy number one of Christians to the finest friend we've ever had as far as humans are concerned? How can he make it from one to the other? And how is he going to live with the memory that he used to kill Christians? And that's a hard question. Well, before we answer that, I want to take you instead to the book of Galatians. Excuse me, I want you to look at the results of turning memories into motivation. I want you to see how Paul often referred to his previous murderous days. I want you to see how he used those memories and how God took them and used them for good. Here's the results. Watch this. First of all, there's a powerful reasoning that takes place with Paul. In the book of Galatians, chapter number 1, verse number 13, he says, For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God and wasted it. Now, who wrote that? Pastor Paul. He talked about it. You don't see Paul here burying the idea. He's not hiding the fact that he had killed Christians and persecuted them. He's the one that brings it out of the closet. He's the one that sets it out center stage and says, let me tell you what I used to do. Now, why did he do that? because it was a public matter. People already knew it. People were already thinking it. Paul wasn't going to sit around and hang his head and play like, well, maybe I can go somewhere where nobody will know me. That wasn't what he was going to do. He was going to say, you all know what I did. I just will tell you what I did. But let me tell you something. This is a matter of powerful reasoning. In this passage in chapter 1 of Galatians, Paul is saying, listen, the gospel that I preach, that salvation is through Christ and Christ alone, is not of man's Making. This is something that came to me from God. And then he uses this as a powerful reason why people ought to believe him. He says, what else can account for a man who was a persecutor of Christians? And you all know what I used to do. You all know how I used to kill Christians. What else can account for the fact that I used to kill them and now I'm preaching Christ? What else can account for it? Here's something you need to know. It's in your notes. We have not called attention to it yet. Paul was saved at about 34 A.D. That would have been just a couple years after the death of Christ, by the way. This is kind of an interesting time scenario, but we're not going to spend time on that. But 34 A.D. He wrote the book of Galatians in 58 A.D. So we're talking a 24-year period has now gone by. Paul isn't some wonder Christian who just showed up and said, you know, today I got saved and yesterday let me tell you about all the wicked things that I was doing, but now I'm a Christian and you can tell that you ought to believe my message because of what I used to do. No. Paul's saying, look, it's been 24 years, folks. You've watched my life, you know what I used to do, but you know what I am now. I'm not a flash in the pan, I didn't just show up. I'm somebody who's been around for many, many years, and now the longevity of living for Christ has made that old life a stark contrast. We look at Paul as a murder of Christians, our soul as a murder of Christians, and then we look at Paul with a long history of some 24 years of living for Christ, and we say, how do you put the two together? And Paul says, let me tell you how you put the two together. It proves that the gospel of Jesus Christ was not something that men invented, because men could have never changed me like that. The gospel of Jesus Christ was revealed from heaven, because only God could have changed my life. That's what he was doing. He was using his memories, his bad memories, as a motivation and as a proving point, if you will, a proof that the message that he was preaching was worth preaching. Again, he does the same thing the next year in 1 Corinthians as he writes the book of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse number 9. He's writing. He's talking about what the gospel is. He's talking specifically about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He talks about how Jesus was seen by Peter and then by the twelve, and then he was seen by five hundred brethren all at one time in a room. And then in verse number nine, it says, or verse number eight, he says, and last of all, he was seen of me also as of one born out of due time. I saw Jesus, he says. Now he says this in verse 9, For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because why? I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am. Paul's saying, look, I'm here to tell you that the resurrection from the dead is a truth. There were people that were in this church, believe it or not, at Corinth who were going around saying, the resurrection has passed. There'll be no more resurrection. When people die, they go to the grave, they stay there. There's no resurrection. Don't worry about it. You're just going to die. It's over. Can you imagine people being a member of Lehigh Valley Baptist Church not believing in the resurrection of the dead? Yet that's exactly what happened here at Corinth. And so Paul's pinning this letter. He's saying, listen, the resurrection is a reality. It's true. Jesus rose from the dead, and there's going to be another resurrection. He's the fruit of it. He's the proof of it. And let me tell you something, the gospel is so real, and the resurrection is so real, that there was a day when Peter saw Jesus. And you know who Peter was, wasn't he a great preacher? Wow, they said, yeah, Peter said he saw, that's pretty impressive. But he was also seen by the other twelve. Oh my, you mean the other eleven, the whole twelve son? That's right. Man, that's a lot of people to have seen. Kind of hard to hallucinate when twelve people see somebody all at once. You know, I mean, you may all take drugs, but for all of you to see the same thing on the same drug is kind of unusual, isn't it? And then, boom, all of a sudden, 500 people all at once saw Jesus. Not 500 people said, well, I saw Him over here, and I saw Him... but I mean, 500 people all at once. It would be kind of like us being outside tonight, and all of a sudden, a spaceship shows up. It kind of just plops right down over here on our playground and sits down and some little green men walk out, you know, with strange looking eyes and strange looking appendages. And they walk off and they come down and they say, take us to your leader. And so we we take them to Orlando here. You want the leader? You can have him. He's yours. All right. And they talk to him for a little while. He talks to them for a little while. And they walk back and get on their spaceship and fly away. And all of us. See the spaceship. Now, I've heard a lot of stories from people, okay? I was driving down the road all by myself and all of a sudden this, oh yeah, really? Well, you know, anybody can get scared and imagine they see things or hear things or experience things. But when a whole group of people, you know, a couple hundred people or 500 people, as the Bible talks about here, see something all at once, you and I have to sit up and take notice and say, now, wait a minute. Either they've all gotten together and collaborated their story and decided to be wholesale liars, or these people must have seen something. They may not have the right interpretation, but they have to have seen something. And then Paul comes down and he says, look, there's the proof of the resurrection. But if you want further proof, I'm the one that's writing this. Let me tell you what I've seen. I saw Jesus. He put me in the ministry. He made me an apostle. He told me to preach. And it's by the grace of God I am what I am. And remember this, if this isn't enough, if you just think that I'm some kind of a weakening believer who wanted to believe in Jesus and was looking to believe in Jesus, I'm the guy that was killing Christians and persecuting them. I wasn't wanting to walk in this way. I wasn't wanting to believe that he was alive. I wanted him out of my memory altogether. I was trying to eradicate him. And he came, and he showed up, and talked to me, and I was born again on that day. That's what Paul was saying. It became for him a powerful reasoning tool. His past now, some 24, 25 years later, becomes a proof to show, look, I've tried that and that isn't the answer. There's no answer outside of Christ, and I found in Jesus the answer. That's what Paul was saying. Not only is our memory to be a powerful reasoning, but notice here that it becomes a potential revenge in the book of Acts 22. That word almost sounds a little strange, but it's Bible word, potential revenge. Acts chapter 22. The Bible says there, in chapter 22, in verse number 3, Paul is talking to a whole multitude of Jews who want to seem dead, really. And he says in verse number 3, he says, I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day." Now, here we're sitting at about 60 AD. We're talking 26 years after Paul became a Christian. 26 years later, he's in the midst of a huge crowd, a murderous crowd of Jewish people who are clamoring for him to be killed, in essence. Paul is asked for the right to speak in his own defense, and so he's standing. He's doing that. And in verse number 3, it kind of butters him up. Hey guys, look, come on. It's me, Paul. I was born a Jew. You know, I was born over in Tarsus. Hey, I sat at the feet of Gamaliel. You all know Gamaliel, don't you? Oh yeah, we know Gamaliel. Oh man, hey, that's me. I was a teacher of the law. I'm just like you. Come on, we're buddy-buddy. Come on, you don't need to kill me. He could have stopped right there. And you and I probably would have been tempted to stop right there. But look at what he says next. And I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women. He goes on. He says, well, let me tell you something. I'm not only one of you, but I've been out there killing Christians just like you. Oh, now the crowd's really excited. Oh man, he's a Christian killer just like us. This is wonderful. He's one of us. And their heads are probably starting to bob a little bit. Maybe we ought to let this guy go. Maybe we got the wrong man. But then... He goes on. He says, even the high priest will bear me witness. And then he goes on and he begins to tell his story in verse 6, 7 and on down. And he starts telling about how he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. And boy, does that get him in trouble. And what he's doing is he's saying, look, as I tell you my testimony, he says, let me tell you how I used to live, but let me tell you how now I am living. Who's he talking to? Jewish unbelievers. These are Jews who do not believe in Jesus. And you say, well, why do you call it potential revenge? Remember that passage we read back in 2 Corinthians, chapter number 7? It said in verse number 11 that one of the things that repentance is, it says is, yea, what revenge? Revenge. It's almost as if Paul had in his mind The idea that if I served the devil so well, and the kingdom of darkness so well, that I was murdering Christians and throwing them in prison, then when I turn around and follow Christ, I ought to be willing to have the same happen to me. What revenge? If I went with such murderous hatred in my heart to kill Christians, then I ought to go with such loving power in my heart that motivates me even to the point, if it means my very life, if that's what it costs me to make converts, to win people to Jesus, so be it. I'll lay my life down as the foundation on which God can save other souls." That was Paul's thinking. He was willing to give testimony, even though he knew it might mean his own life, he might die in that endeavor. He didn't care. I don't mean by that he wasn't concerned about his life, but he didn't care. He was willing to die for Christ if he could just get another lick in at the devil. That's where he was at. Again, this happens in 60 AD in Acts 26. In 62 A.D., we see him doing the same thing again. Acts chapter 26 and verse number 9. He's talking to none other than King Agrippa, who's an unbeliever as well, but he's the king, the king who has the authority to set him free. He's talking to this king, and he says in verse 9, I barely fought with myself, but I often do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem, and many of the saints did, did I set up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests. And when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme, and being exceedingly mad against them. Listen to what he says, I persecuted them even unto strange cities. And then he goes on to talk about how he met Jesus. Again, he uses this, this whole testimony. He says, let me tell you, King, how I used to be. I know you have the power of life and death in your hand, and I know you could kill me right now, and I know that you're not a believer in Jesus. I know that you're a nominal Jew, and you want to please the Jewish crowd, but let me tell you how I used to be a Jew and how powerful of a Jew I used to be, but then let me tell you about what changed my life, because that story may just make an inroad into your life. Plant some seed, and one day you become a Christian. Paul was out with a vengeance to reach people with the gospel of Christ. That's why he hazarded his life and limb in order to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Potential revenge. But then, third of all, the third result is found in Philippians chapter 3. This is written in 64 AD, some 30 years later after Paul gets saved. Philippians, chapter number 3, verse number 6. Paul is writing. He's saying, have no confidence in the flesh. Then he says in verse 6 to prove how Very successful he was in the flesh. He says, concerning zeal, I persecuted the church. Touching the righteousness which is in the law, I was blameless. He's going on through here and he's saying, these are the list of my accomplishments here. What we've got here is a proven renunciation. Watch what I'm talking about here. Paul's saying, we need to renounce the flesh. We need to have no confidence in the flesh. We need to give up on the flesh, on doing things our own way. Then he goes on to say, let me tell you what really gave me good standing in the Jewish world, why everybody loved me. I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. I was of the tribe of Benjamin, etc., etc., etc. He just lists all these things. One of the things that he lists is, right here, he lists the business of persecuting God's people. What he's saying is, you know, when I persecuted God's people, when I persecuted Christians, people patted me on the back. I was moving right on up in the ranks. I was becoming a mover and shaker in the Jewish world because of what I was doing. But he's saying in this passage, he's saying, but I renounce all that. I renounce it completely and totally. Even though it moved me up in the Jewish world, it moved me down in God's eyes. It did not bring me any closer to God. One of the most powerful truths we're going to see here in a moment when we return to this passage is what Paul is doing with this very thought. But it's a renunciation. Men were rejoicing in the death of Christians, and Paul was saying the flesh will give us no acceptance with God. It will give us acceptance with men. You want to live in the flesh? You want to live by the flesh? You want to follow religious ways and religious ceremonies? Friend, you will be popular in the religious world. But if you want to follow Christ, you will find yourself not that popular among the religious crowd of this world. That's what Paul was saying. We're going to come back to this in just a moment, so let's save it. Then in 1 Timothy, chapter number 1. 1 Timothy, chapter number 1. In verse number 13, a fourth time, Paul, actually it's about the sixth time, I guess, or maybe the eighth time. Eighth time, I guess, maybe Paul refers to his own conversion experience and his persecuting of Christians. This one is written in 65 AD. Here we go. Verse number 13. He says, I was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious. But I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus." Now, follow what Paul's saying here. It's a passionate rekindling of his love for Christ. Paul was talking about what he used to be and how God's grace and God's love and the very faith that God had given to him caused him to be a different person than what he once was. Paul looked back on what he once was. He realized what he had done. He realized the sin of it. He realized the tragedy of it. He realized how it had wronged the Lord. And Paul was humbled all that much more as he stood there reflecting on his life and what God had done with him. He's coming near the end of his life. He's not quite there, but he's coming near the end of his life. And as he's writing about it, he's saying, it's by the grace of God that I've been saved. It rekindles the fire in his heart. Friend, when you and I sit back and we look back on our past life, our sin, and we think especially those bad memories, if you will, some of those highlighted events, we look back and we say, how could God even love somebody like me? And the answer is, it's a staggering answer, the only way He could love you and me is by paying for our sin Himself. And we ask, how could He do such a thing? And we say, the answer, we don't know. We don't know. It doesn't make any human sense. It only makes heavenly sense. God's the one that loves us in spite of our sin. What a wonderful truth! You look back on your memory. Yes, you can think about your memories the way the devil does. You can think about your memory the way the world does. You can sit there in remorse, and you can sit there in regret, and you can sit there and remember, and remember, and remember, and remember, until you get so sick of remembering your life is torn apart. Or you can look back and say, thank God. He saved me out of what I was. He changed me from what I was. He made me different. Praise be to His name. That's what this passage is teaching, passage after passage. That's what we see in Paul's life, turning memories into motivation. So you say, well, how do I do it? Okay. The book of Philippians, if you will. Here it is. Real quick, chapter three. Here's Paul's treatment on how he turned his memory into motivation. In verse number one, we're going to kind of read through this quickly here. He says, finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. You want to know how to rejoice in your Christian life? Here it is, he says. I'm going to give you the formula. I'm going to teach you what you need to know. And here's the first part of it that we're going to be dealing with here tonight. He says, to write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs. And he's not talking to those of you that go on visitation, OK? He's talking about the human variety here, alright? Beware of dogs, beware of the concision. In other words, the ones that cut and destroy. He says, look out, for we are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh, he says. Though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more. He goes on to list all the things that he could rejoice over, and what he's saying to us here is, verse 7, "...but what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ." He's saying, you've got to renounce the flesh. You must renounce the flesh, first and foremost. You've got to take a look at your sin, and you've got to see it for what it is, and see it for what God calls it. You don't turn it into a pet thing. You don't just put it in your bag and kind of carry it around with you so you can take it out under the cover of dark when nobody else knows and play with it and put it back away when you're around good Christians that might find out and not approve. You put it away. You hate it. You renounce it. Now, here is the amazing truth that is just so powerful in this passage. If we read verse 4, 5, and 6, we'd read about all the things that Paul did. All the things that he does there sound very positive except one statement. And there it is right there smack dab in verse number six. He says, persecuting the church. Beyond that, everything else sounds so wonderful, so self-respecting, so self-elevating, so wonderful. Is it not an unusual inclusion, to include this persecuting Christians, God's people, with all these other endeavors. Now, here's the thought. You think your bad deeds are bad. They are. Sin is sin. But for those of you that have struggled with, and this is all of you, all of us, have struggled with self-righteousness, Look what I did. Look what I am. Look where I am. Ha ha ha, I'm somebody. God says, Paul says, your most wicked deed of ever, ever that you have committed, stands right alongside of all your self-exalting, self-righteousness as wicked in God's eyes as well. It's all to be taken like the flesh and thrown away. Here's a picture I just thought of. Suppose you went in for some liposuction. You decide, man, I want to lose some weight, and I'm tired of pills, and I'm tired of not getting to eat, and I'll just go in, check in, let the doctor make a couple of cuts, and stick that vacuum cleaner up inside me, and pull it all out, and I'll just walk back into church. They won't know what hit me, huh? So you go in for some liposuction, and off comes 50 pounds of, you know, that yucky stuff called fat. They suck it all out into that jar, and you get done with your operation, and the doctor says, well, you're doing very well. And you say, but doc, I have one last request. What's that? You know what? I'd like to have all that fat. I'd like to take it home and, you know, I'm going to display it on the centerpiece of our house and on the coffee table. I want everybody to come in and look at it. It's going to be lovely. When we have those special dinners where we have our fine china and silver out and, you know, dignified company, I'm going to put it right in the middle of the table and it's going to be our decoration. You say, oh no. You put that thing away. You want it gone. You want it disposed of. You want to forget that it was ever there. God says that's how He looks on the works and the deeds of your flesh and mine. He looks on us as even the good things we do, as well as the wicked things we do, as things that need to be cast off. We must renounce the flesh. And until we come to that place, we're not going to be able to deal with that sin that's back there. Some of you are still coddling that sin, still holding that sin, still protecting that sin, still fearful that somebody else will find out about that sin, or worse, maybe they already know about it and that they might hint that they know about it, and when they hint that they know about it, you fly into a rage. Who are you to talk about that? Wait a minute! If you and I hate our sin, we hate our sin! It's a matter of something that we hate as much as anybody else hates, and we hate it as much as God hates it. It's not a matter of calling her. Don't talk about my sin. Wait a minute. When you got saved or when you dealt with that sin as a Christian and confessed it and forsook it, did you not forsake it? That it's not yours anymore. It represents the flesh and you and I ought to treat it like Paul treated all of his flesh. Something reprehensible. That's right. It's rotten. Get it away from me. You're right. It's wicked and it's not God-exalting. That's how we ought to treat our memories. I'm not saying we don't remember it. I'm saying that we treat it as something that we stand against. We won't be able to use our testimony of yesterday's sin today as a testimony of victory. But Paul, some 24 years later, did use it as a testimony of victory. There will come a day, if you live long enough and Jesus doesn't come back, when you'll be able to stand and say, let me tell you where I once was and how God delivered me. Now, here we go. Verse number 8, "'Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ, and be found in him not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.'" There's not only a renouncing of the flesh that needs to take place, but we need to revel in Christ. Revel. That's a word of excitement, of great joy, rejoicing, if you will. We ought to revel in Christ. We ought to make much of Jesus. I can tell you some things that I once did before I was saved. Now, I'll tell you all the stories. I'm not interested in just dragging out the past. But the issue is this, that as you tell that past story, you tell of what once happened, and they're public sins that everybody knows about. You can use them like Paul. Everybody knew that he was a murderer of Christians. He could use that publicly. There are other private things that you and I have that are in our past that there may be an appropriate place in a situation where you're trying to encourage a brother or a sister in Christ. And significant time has gone between to where you can say, listen, I know what you're going through. I can identify. I've been there. I've been right where you are. And let me tell you how God gave me the victory. You can give them great hope because they can see that. But the issue is, you must always make much of Christ. If you make much of your sin, and here's where the preaching of back in the 70s, the 60s and 70s, I think, went wrong, was somebody gets saved, and as soon as they got saved, some ball player or some, you know, some open wicked sinner, and they put them in the pulpit and let them start telling about their sin. And friend, there hadn't been enough time between their days of so-called conversion and their preaching to where folks could see a difference. And somewhere along the line, they got lifted up in pride and fell again and wound up right back in the old sewage where they were and did more harm for the cause of Christ with that than good that they had done in their preaching. Bob Harrington's one that I think of, just comes to mind just like that. There are others. I don't know whether Jane Fonda got saved or not. I haven't talked to her. I don't know her. I've heard the reports. Many of you have heard the reports. I hope it's true. What a wonderful, wonderful thing. But Jane Fonda doesn't belong out in the limelight. She doesn't belong in the pulpit preaching or even giving her testimony yet. What she needs to do is sit down and get a settled Christian life. And down the road a ways, there may be a place where Jane Fonda can come out like a tiger, like she used to espouse wrong views back in the 60s and 70s, and get up there in the limelight again and say, let me tell you what Christ did for me and how my wickedness of days gone by, God has forgiven. Boy, wouldn't that be a wonderful, wonderful thing? And so, that time needs to be there, but it's making much of Christ. Then look in verse number 9 and 10 and 11. It says, "...and be found in him, not having my own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." We need to rejoice in God's power. You see what Paul was saying? He was saying, okay, I've got the past. I know what I did in the past. I've got to renounce that. I've got to put it off. But in order to get over this memory, in order to make this memory a motivation, I need to lift up Christ and make much of Him. I need to revel in Him. And then I need to rejoice in God's power. As I'm stepping out and living for God, God's going to use that in my life. He's going to use that testimony in my life. He's going to have brought me through those waters for a reason. There's going to be some people down the road I can identify with and speak to in a much more powerful way. Not that I will go into sin and say, I went into sin so I could speak to more people about sin. That's not the answer. But the idea is, He's been through it, He knows, and He can sit there and identify with them and speak to them in a very blunt and pointed way. I've used some of you on occasion to sit down and counsel with some other young believer, or maybe an unsaved person, where I knew that what you had faced and what they had faced had been the same. And I believed and trusted that God would be able to take that testimony of God's saving, transforming power in your life to make a beeline right for their heart. And you'd be able to say some things in some very strong manners that I could have said and just made them mad, but you'd be able to say them. And they'd have to sit back and at least say, well, you know, they've been where I am, Before I throw out what they say, I better at least give it some consideration. And my friend, we need to step out on God's power. We need to start rejoicing in God's power. We're going to be talking about this through the month of February, of trusting God and looking for God to work in our life. But this is what he's talking about, is letting God use it. Then look in verse 12 and 13. He says, Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after it, that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, watch it, for getting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before." You get the picture? He says, I refuse to sulk. I refuse to just sit down and say, well, it's me. Look what I did. Look what's happened to me. Isn't it just terrible? He said, oh, no, I'm not going to live there. I refuse to. I'm going to forget what's behind. Now, understand, this is a man who isn't the guy who just got through with the sin and the next day he's saying, let me give you some advice. This is the guy who has lived this for some 20 some years, almost 30 years now, and he's seen victory in his life. This is a man who has gone down to the depths of even being murdered and left for dead, and God brought him back. This man has come back and he's saying, now let me tell you a thing or two about what I've learned about the Christian life. You've got to refuse to sulk. Forget what's behind. You can't sit there. You can't change yesterday. You can't change what happened before. But you can deal with it and make it one day a trophy out of which God can bring triumph. That's the goal. That's the desire. And then last of all, he says this in verse 14, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Now, I don't have time to fully develop this thought, but you must and I must rally to the reward. I press toward the prize. We must rally to the reward. I wish I had time tonight, and I'm going to probably bring a message or two along these lines down the road. I've got some I've been preparing and just aren't quite ready yet, and timing isn't right. I don't sense, but everything in the Christian life is to be done by faith. What is faith? Faith is believing God's word, but wait a minute. It's believing God's word, but it's believing God's word when you don't have the physical evidence in your hands. Watch this. Faith then, if I live by faith, is me today saying, Lord, I don't have the physical evidence in my hands, but I believe what you say is true and you will bring it to pass. Faith is me believing the promises of God. What Paul is saying here is, I'm pressing towards the prize. Did he have the prize in his hands? No. He said, I'm pressing towards that prize. Well then, how did Paul know there was a prize there? He knew it because God had promised it. That's right. But how did he believe such a thing? By faith. Paul was walking by faith. He wasn't walking by memory. He wasn't walking by looking back here at what he had once done and thinking, woe is me, look how terrible I've been and how rotten I've been and how I've really messed up. Paul was saying, look at the future, look at what God has for me. That's where my eyes are and that's where my eyes are going to stay. He rallied to the reward. If you and I are to win in this Christian battle, if we're to find victory in the Christian life, we'll not find it by looking back at our problems and looking back at our troubles and looking back at our mistakes and looking back at our sin. I'm not saying don't deal with them. I'm not saying don't get them cleared out and cleaned. I'm not saying that, because if you don't clean them out, you try to bury them, you're going to find yourself in a mess of trouble. But once you've dealt with them, you put them behind you, you look forward again, and you get moving on by faith and let go. God take care of the consequences. So, in essence, what we're saying is this. You and I all have bad memories. But you ought to go back and I ought to go back and just pull out some of those bad memories and ask ourselves, okay, what has God done with that sin? He's put it away as far as east is from the west. Well, it will be a tremendous motivation for you and I just to say, Lord, let me rekindle my fire and get moving again. But Lord, let me also have this illustration as a ready arrow to shoot as I speak to someone in the right situation to tell them there's hope for people like them because I've been there before and God pulled me out. That's what God wants to do in your life and mine. But first, we've got to settle the issue of our sin. Unless you've been saved, my friend, and know Christ your Savior, That sin just hangs around your neck like an albatross. You can't turn it loose. Only Christ can set you free. Let's pray. Father tonight. How good it is to know, Lord, that our memories can indeed become motivations in our Christian life. Lord, there's memories I have that every one of us have here individually that are things that are not real pleasant. Lord, I pray tonight that you would help us to take those memories and turn them into usable motivators in our life that could help others. Lord, I think of my dad's death and how you've used that in numerous situations of talking to folks that have lost their father. You've used it in other ways to motivate me to be more concerned about a father of a young man or a young lady who's unsaved. Lord, I pray that you might teach us to take those memories in our lives and dare to let them be genuine motivators to live more godly and more boldly for Christ. I pray for folks that sit here and battle memories that are unsaved. I pray, dear God, you'd save them and show them that you're able to wash away the sin, the guilt, to take it away and give them genuine victory. I pray for Christians that, Lord, they dare to trust your word and stop trusting their own ideas and the devil's thoughts instead of God's thoughts. Help us to trust you that what you've done with our past sin is to take care of it once and for all on the cross of Calvary. Bless us tonight. Be with us, I pray, as we go into this prayer meeting and then leave tonight. I pray you give every one of us safety as we leave. For it's in the Savior's name we ask it. Amen.