Getting Past Your Past – Breaking the Labels that Bind*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting Past Your Past – Breaking the Labels that Bind*
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
Easter 2014

Friends, Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

Today we celebrate Easter and the power of God to take that which is dead and raise it to new life.  The first fruit of that we see in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. He was dead in his past and God raised him to new life!

Today we also begin a new series called Getting Past Your Past.  I’m really excited about how God’s resurrection power is going to use this series to work in each one of our lives.  Let me give you a preview of what’s coming up.

Next week we’re going to hit on the question of how to forgive those who have hurt us.  Then in week three we’re going to be discussing getting unstuck from your past.  On week four we’ll look at overcoming past money mistakes.  Week five is a unique message.  How do you own up to your own past mistakes and apologize to those you’ve hurt?  It’s part of getting past your past.  Then we’ll wrap up the series with the topic of forgiving yourself.  It’s my hope and prayer that in six weeks you will be able to look back and see God’s grace having worked in your life to free you from the grave of your past and resurrect you into God’s future.  Today we begin the series looking at breaking the labels that bind.

Each one of us has experienced someone in our past calling us or characterizing us in some way that we still carry with us.  We internalize this label and it becomes who we are.  This even happens in the way we tell stories or history.  Fill in the blank:

Attila the __________
Conan the __________
Billy the __________
Buffy the __________
Whinnie the __________
A Little Bit Off
We all have a label that holds us in our past.  I have several labels that I carry around with me.  Tom the “ungenerous.”  Tom the “holy roller.”  Tom the “over-achiever.”  But the one that really sticks with me is Tom “just a little bit off.”  This label comes from a very specific moment in my teenage years with my group of friends that I so desperately wanted to fit in with.  This group of friends started noticing that I didn’t always pick up on the cultural references they would make and the insider jokes that came from them.  The label, “just a little bit off”, came one day when they were referencing a favorite band of theirs saying, “We’re rockin with Dokken.”  Now back in the day, I didn’t know who the band “Dokken” was, and I thought they were saying, “Rockin and dokkin.”  So that’s what I said.  They thought this was hilarious and kept me in the dark about my mistake.  So for about two or three years they would say, “Rockin and dokkin” and laugh.  I thought they found me funny for some reason so I began to say “Rockin and dokkin” quite often.  They’d laugh and then say, “Tom you’re just a little bit off.”  Pretty soon they found all kinds of ways I was a little bit off.  Ironically enough, one of Dokken’s most famous songs is “Breaking the Chains.”  I didn’t break the chains.  But I am today!

Probably one of the reasons I never caught their cultural references was because I lived in a more urban environment, and they all lived in a suburban culture.  I was too busy listening to Vanilla Ice and watching his MTV videos trying to learn how to dance to have any interest in 80s and 90s hair rockers, all apologies to Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, and the rest.  But what did they have on Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer, my first live concert?  Ok, so maybe I am still a little bit off.  But today God is resurrecting me from the grave of my past music choices.

The Point
So what is the negative label that usually follows your name?  Here’s a truth I want you to know today.  It’s the whole point of this message:

God’s power is always bigger than your past.  God’s truth is bigger than any current truth in your life.

Even if you own a label that in many ways is true about you, it doesn’t mean it must continue to be true tomorrow.  God can take what is and make it no longer true.  God can and will give you a new God-centered view of yourself.  Paul, the first missionary of the church and the author of many books in the Bible says it this way:

Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person.  The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT

As we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection today, we see that the grave can lead to the resurrection.  God can resurrect you from your past!  That which held you hostage will hold you no more.  I’d like to look at three ways that God does this.

New Name
First, God will give you a new name.  The prophet Isaiah speaks to Israel after they’ve been conquered by the Babylonian empire and taken into exile saying:

You will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow.
Isaiah 62:3 NLT

God is in the business of giving new names.  It happens all over the Bible.  Abram and Sari wanted children, and it just wasn’t happening.  But God worked in their life and they became pregnant and God gave them both new names: Abraham and Sarah.  They became the father and mother of many nations.  Jacob means swindler or huckster or usurper.  He was always doing shady stuff with his older twin brother Esau.  God worked in his life and gave him a new name, Israel, which means “one who wrestles with God” or “God will prevail.”  Of course, if you wrestle with God, God will prevail!  Then there’s poor little Gideon.  He was pretty much afraid to stand up to his enemies.  But an angel of God showed up and called him a “Mighty man of valor” and “warrior.”  (By the way, this is always happening to me, angels showing up and calling me a “mighty man of valor.”  Always.)

So what name do you need changed?  I’ve got to say that the name “pastor” has always been a struggle for me. I’ve never really felt like a pastor.  I’m not the warm fuzzy cuddly guy you come talk to who will listen intently, nod, give you lots of encouragement, and send you on your way feeling like you can take on the world.  In an online assessment we use at our church “pastoral” is my bottom leadership trait.  But when September 11 happened I was working at a church and my pastor was on vacation out of town hunting in Colorado.  All the flights were grounded, and I was left to take care of the largest Protestant church in Petoskey.  After that weekend, the church began calling me “pastor.”  I bristled at the name, but eventually experienced a call to be a pastor.  Then I did my first internship at Reveille United Methodist Church in Richmond, VA.  When I got there they all just called me “pastor.”  That summer I became a pastor in my heart because the church looked at me as a pastor, but I still didn’t like the name, “pastor.”  Then I graduated and was appointed by the bishop to Sycamore Creek Church.  I told you all that you didn’t have to call me “pastor Tom” but some of you kept calling me it, but I never referred to myself in that way.  In the last year, you may have noticed that I’ve actually begun occasionally signing my letters “pastor Tom.”  I’m growing into the new name with you.

You will grow into your new name too.  God is going to give you a name and you will grow into that name.  You will be called “forgiven.”  You will be called “overcomer.”  You will be called “spiritual mom.”  You will be called “spiritual leader” to our kids in Kids Creek, our youth in StuREV, or to adults in a small group.  God will give you a new name.

New Purpose
Second, God will give you a new purpose.  Your new name comes with a new purpose.  One of Jesus’ followers was named Simon.  Simon was unpredictable, undependable, and wishy-washy.  He was a fisherman.  Jesus walked by his boat one day and said, “Follow me and you will fish for people.”  Simon, you may look like you’re a lowly fisherman, but you’re going to follow me and become a world-changer.  You’re going to speak eloquently to thousands and thousands of people and through you, they will come to know me. A little later Jesus gave Simon a new name:

Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.
~Jesus (Matthew 16:17 NLT)

If you know the story you’ll know that Peter was not always a rock from that point forward.  He messed up again and again.  Peter denied Jesus three times.  After the resurrection, Jesus forgave and restored him.  But Peter was the preacher on Pentecost, the birthday of the church, and three thousand people came to follow Jesus on that day alone!  Tradition tells us that Peter was so rock solid in his commitment to follow Jesus that he was sentenced to death by crucifixion, and he did not feel worthy to be crucified like Jesus.  So he was crucified upside down.  The negative label that Peter was known for was turned on its head.  He was no longer wish-washy.  Now he was a rock of faith.

God can take the associated label with your name and turn it upside down.  You’re a “tightwad” and God will give you a new purpose to make you generous.  You’re “unfaithful” and God will make you know for your faithfulness.  And on and on and on.  What’s the opposite of your negative label?  That will be God’s new purpose in your life!

Out of our greatest weakness God can grow our greatest strength and purpose.

New Future
Third,God will give you a new future.  The prophet Jeremiah spoke for God to the Israelites as they were in exile in Babylon saying:

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you…
Jeremiah 29:11 NLT

Notice that the word is “plans” not “plan.”  There’s not one right plan for you.  There are many good plans for your future.  So you’re “always the bridesmaid and never the bride.”  God’s plans for you may be that you become comfortable in your singleness or that one of many good godly men will come along and you’ll get married.  Or maybe you think your kids will never grow up to be anything, but God will use them in mighty ways.  Or I’ll always have this addiction, and instead you will lead people out of addiction.  Or I’ll never get out of debt, but rather you will get it together and be able to be generous with others and teach others how to do so too.  Or I’ll always be fat, and God will turn you into a P90X superman who trains and inspires others to get in shape too.  Or I’ll always be childless, and in God’s power you’ll have children or adopt or have spiritual children.  God will give you a new future.

Maybe one of the most inspiring stories in the Bible of a new future is the story of Rahab “the prostitute.”   She’s always got the label, “the prostitute.”  The label was true.  She was a prostitute, and there were two kinds of prostitutes in that day.  There was the respectable temple prostitute and the unrespectable prostitute that gets picked up on Cops.  She was the Cops prostitute, but when Israel was conquering the promised land, she helped them out and God honored her choice.  (If you’d like to see how the recent Bible series told the story check it out here.)    She hid the Israelites spies and got to know God.  God brought her a God-fearing man named Salmon and they had children.  The Rahab “the prostitute” became the Great…Great…Great…Great…Great grandmother of…Jesus, the son of God, the savior of the world.  God gave her a new future!  The same God who raised a dead Jesus from the grave, can raise your dead future and give you a new living future.

Friends, here’s the problem.  You can’t break the labels in your own power.  You’re stuck.  Each one of us is broken and wounded in some way or another.  Each of us is a “little bit off” or a lot off.  Each one of us has missed the mark of God’s will for us.  Each one of us is in a pit too deep for us to climb out on our own.  We can’t free ourselves from the labels.  You need the power of God that raised Jesus from the dead to break those labels, give you a new name, a new purpose, and a new future.

Many of you were brought here by God for this very moment.  You think that you came here just to appease your mom or your grandma who are always wanting you to go to church, and well, it’s Easter.  So you finally gave in to their nagging.  But God has another plan for you today.  The plan is that you would know the saving power and grace and mercy and compassion and kindness and love of God that raised Jesus from the dead.  God’s plan for you today is that you ask God to forgive you of your past mistakes and free you to follow Jesus into a new name, a new purpose, and a new future. Here’s how you do it.  Tell the truth about yourself to God.  Stop pretending to be someone you’re not.  God knows it anyway and God already loves you in spite of whatever you think you need to hide.  Telling the truth about yourself is less about telling God something God doesn’t know, and more about getting out of a state of denial in yourself.  Then ask Jesus, God’s son, to forgive you and lead you as a new person.  Paul says

If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
~Paul (Romans 10:9 NRSV)

Will you do that today?  If so, I invite you to pray with me.

Good and gracious God, you showed us your power in the resurrection of your son, Jesus Christ; may that same power raise me from the grave of my past and give me a new name, a new purpose, and a new future.

I’d like to challenge you today to come back and stick it out through this series.  Be here every week.  Let this commitment be the first commitment of your new life in Jesus.  If you’d like to talk more, drop me an email (tomarthur@sycamorecreekchurch.org).  May God give you a new name, a new purpose, and a new future!

 

*This series and sermon are based on a sermon series first preached by Craig Groeschel.