Things to Leave Behind in 2020 // Pastor Eddie Turner

if you have your bibles turn to philippians chapter 3 philippians chapter 3 verse 13 and 14 how many brought bibles how many brought an actual bible anybody still thank you god bless you for bringing your bible i mean he's got it on your phone how many brought an ipad anybody have the koran all right philippians chapter 3 verse 13. i'm reading from the living bible i'm going to use about three or four different translations but look what it says living bible dear brothers i am still not all i should be but i'm bringing all my energies to bear notice this is paul talking this is the guy who wrote two-thirds of the new testament was caught up into heaven heard things unlawful for men to utter this was a man that knew christ better than anybody of his day this was a man that established church after church this is a man that who wrote things that two thousand years later we're still talking about it this isn't one you're novice this is not your fly by night christian this is not just your regular person here's a man that was mightily used of god more than any other man that's ever lived and he says i'm not all that i need to be but he says i'm bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing what is it paul what what do you need to bring all your energy to bear on i mean you are almost perfect you are the god man on planet earth and yet you say i i've got one thing that i've really got to work at what is it forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead i don't know about you but last year the past last year 2020 it was a pretty difficult year how many of you are like me you're so glad that the year 2020 is over with anybody like me glad it's over with we experienced a worldwide pandemic like we've never experienced in our lifetime the covet pandemic has shifted and disrupted everything about our quality of life our health our liberties our vocations our jobs our finances our future have all been placed in uncertainty because of this unseen and unpredictable virus at the same time while trying to survive a worldwide pandemic we've been swept up in this political firestorm and at the same time we forget about this last year we had record numbers of storms and fires that destroyed properties and killed hundreds on top of these natural disasters there was a spirit of lawlessness that was unleashed upon the united states of america man-made terror and lawlessness like we've never seen in modern history major cities in our nations erupted in violence and racial unrest buildings were burned property destroyed thousands fleeing from some cities in some states trying to help their families find safety for their future and this wasn't happening just in jerusalem or in syria or saudi arabia or europe or south america this wasn't happening overseas this started happening here in america in fact christmas morning just 70 miles down the road from where we live in murfreesboro 20 minutes down the road on christmas morning a domestic terrorist blew up downtown murfrees downtown nashville on christmas morning we're not talking about something that happened in jerusalem we're talking about something that happened just an hour and 15 minutes down the road from where we sit this morning lawlessness has come to our land and to our state and to our home and it shocked us and you know what the crazy idiot blew up the spaghetti factory now if he had blown up a beer joint okay i can go with that i'll light the fuse if he'd blown up a beer in tobacco market i don't have a problem with that he blew up the spaghetti factory they tell me that cheese and spinach ravioli was blown from the state capital all the way to tootsies in downtown that that's pure evil the truth of the matter is it's been a stressful year and it's easy to understand why we want 2020 to be over but we're wise enough and we're old enough to know that just because the calendar rose over to another year that doesn't mean everything changes doesn't mean it all changes covet is still infecting people in 2021 the political divide in our nation has not ended and lawlessness and terror did not stop on december 31st 2020. many of the disturbing things we dealt with in 2020 will follow us into 2021 but i want to encourage you this morning to leave a couple of things behind in last year there's some things we're going to have to deal with this year just like we dealt with them last year but there's a couple of things you and i can have a choice on whether we're going to take them with us into 2021 and i want to encourage you to leave a couple of things behind notice what paul said again philippians chapter 3 verse 13 the living bible i'm bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing paul says it takes effort to put the past in the past paul says there's some things that happen in our life that are so traumatic and so hurtful and so painful that it's going to take everything you've got to keep it behind you some of us have had some moments in our lives some failures some betrayals some disappointments some tragedies some sins some mistakes some of us have some things in our life that that moment keeps trying to be rehearsed over and over it comes back in your mind you have a memory of it you get ready to do something you get ready to launch into a future you get ready to try a new dream you get ready to to be involved in some area that you believe god wants you to be involved in and suddenly that flood of your failure that memory of your mistake that haunting thought of that disappointment or that betrayal it comes upon you like a tidal wave and it stops you in your tracks and that's why paul says i'm bringing all of my energies to bear it's going to take everything that's in me to forget my past you say why did he say that but remember he killed christians he wasn't squeaky clean he was the one that the the the pharisees used to go into cities and the towns and to find people who named the name of jesus and believed in jesus and he separated dads from children and children from families he literally had the stephen put to death the great deacon of the church he was on his way to syria to find christians in another country to find them and kill them his past was not sparkling clean he wasn't always a born-again child of god he had a dark dismal past and he said if i'm going to move on forward and accomplish everything god's got for me i've got to learn to put my past behind me and to do that it's going to take all of my energy it's going to take everything within me he says i i bring all of my energies to bear and here's what i've learned overcoming our past is a daily discipline that requires consistent effort both spiritually and emotionally some things are so painful and create such a moment of disappointment or trauma that the memory of it will not easily leave you you got to make it leave you and you can and here's something else paul goes on to say putting our past in its proper perspective is a sign of spiritual and emotional maturity putting your past where it needs to be is a sign of spiritual and emotional maturity let me let me prove it to you from scripture go back to philippians chapter 3. i want to read it from the passion translation the passions translation philippians chapter 3. listen to what he says verse 13 i do have one compelling focus the passion translation says paul said i've got a compelling focus this is what i'm focused on this is all i'm focused on it drives me it compels me i forget all of the past as i fasten my heart to the future instead i run straight for the divine invitation of reaching the heavenly goal and gaining the victory prize through the anointing of jesus now look at verse 15 notice what he says so let all who are fully mature everybody say fully mature everybody say fully mature everybody say fully mature notice what he says so let everyone let all who are fully mature have this same passion and if anyone is not yet gripped by these desires god will reveal it to them you see when you and i can put our past in the proper perspective that's a sign that we're growing spiritually and emotionally and how many of you know it's god's will for us to grow spiritually and emotionally see your past can be a wonderful teacher that helps us be better or it can be a terrible tutor that holds us in bondage our past can be a wonderful teacher that helps us become better or our past can be a terrible tutor that holds us in bondage whichever one that becomes in our life is our decision it's not anybody else's decision it's our decision so this morning i want to encourage you to to join this journey with me and amanda there's some things we can't change in 2021 but there's a couple of things that we can leave behind us and leave it in 2020. and the first thing i want to encourage you to leave behind you in 2020 is the spirit of fear the spirit of fear i don't know about you last year there was there was moments there was seasons there was weeks there was days where fear tried to get on me all this bad news all this social all the conspiracies all everything that's going on on social media about the plague the covid the virus all the news about people dying everybody dying everywhere more millions and millions of millions they said are gonna die you get it from anything i mean if if there was moments last year that if i didn't grab hold of myself and my emotions that fear would have drove me into paranoia does anybody know what i'm talking about it's a spirit of fear now there is two types of fear there's uh a healthy fear and the healthy fear uh is uh is there's a fear that's healthy it's a natural fear it uh it's like when you hear a loud noise unexpectedly you hear a loud noise unexpectedly and it scares you and and that will trigger what is referred to as the fight or flight response and if you hear a loud noise and it scares you most of time you will flee that you'll get away from it so that's a healthy fear because it it is to protect you and then sometimes it causes you to defend yourself the fight response i i experienced them both uh in about 15 minutes this past a year i was laying in bed at three o'clock in the morning sound asleep and all of a sudden this lady starts talking out of my wall beep beep beep breach exterior garage door breach exterior garage door i hear it amanda snoring she never wakes up i hear it and i sit straight up in bed and i hear it breach exterior garage door in our house we have a garage and we have a normal door we have an alarm on that normal door that's the exterior garage door and then we have you walk through the garage then you come into the interior garage door we have alarm on that one so i heard breach exterior garage door my thought hit somebody has broken into our garage immediately the fight response kicked in i jumped out of bed i grabbed my pistol out of my nightstand i woke him and up i said where's the bullets i loaded the gun i ran to the interior garage door i thought you know maybe i should shoot through the door and i said no i'm gonna open this door real quick and i'm gonna stand behind it and point the gun like this and as i got ready to open the door the interior garage door i had flash in front of me the flight response now up until this moment i had the fight response but suddenly in my mind's eye i didn't see it but i thought it flashed there's a six foot guy five guy behind this door with a machete and as soon as i put my arm out there with that pistol he's going to cut my arm off i turned around and ran down the hallway amanda said where are you going i said i'm going out the back door you go around the front door and see if anybody came in the garage that's a natural kind of fear we've all dealt with it it triggers the fight or flight response but then there's the other kind of fear the spirit of fear which is not from god and it's not natural and you and i got to resist it in fact the spirit of fear you can tell if it's the spirit of fear because the spirit of fear manifests in several ways the spirit of fear frightens you with anxiety the spirit of fear causes obsessive faults to consume your mind the spirit of fear will paralyze you so you can't move you can't think straight you can't plan properly the spirit of fear causes us to be preoccupied with worst case scenario you've talked to people they've worked this stuff in their mind fear has grabbed hold of their mind and they've got all these worst case scenarios worked up in their mind this is going to happen this is what's going to happen to me this is going to happen next this is going to happen and they've worked it and you sit there and think why are you thinking that crazy stuff none of that's going to happen but that's what the spirit of fear does it gets you preoccupied with the worst case scenario the spirit of fear poisons our filter of life it limits our future everything you see becomes muddy because of the spirit of fear the spirit of fear turns our focus inward all we think about is protecting ourselves taking care of ourselves taking care of ourselves we don't care about anybody else just take care of ourselves so there's some things if you've dealt like i had to deal with it if you've dealt with the spirit of fear in 2020 i want to encourage you to leave it in 2020 don't allow it to invade your 2021 and let me show you how number one is this the spirit of the fear the spirit of fear is exactly what its name implies it is a fear motivated by an evil spirit spiritual entity it's a fear that's motivated by an evil spiritual entity look at second timothy chapter 1 verse 7 for god has not given us a notice these next three words spirit of fear so god says that fear is a spirit is a fear motivated by an evil spiritual entity the spirit of fear it's a fear motivated by an evil spiritual entity and my heart is grieved today because we have millions of christians who have become addicted to medications trying to defeat this spiritual entity and they're trying to defeat it with a natural weapon listen if it's a spiritual problem you can't beat it with a natural weapon now we thank god for medicine and we thank god for medication and there's times we need it and we thank god for it but the truth of the matter is if you're dealing with a spirit of fear which is a fear motivated and influenced by an evil spirit you can't medicate a spirit away sometimes the medication will calm our bodies so that we can deal with it and that's good and that's wonderful but eventually to eradicate a spirit of fear you're going to have to rise up in spiritual power and overcome that thing you see but so many christians they have just self-medicating and are self-medicating themselves and all they're doing is they're dealing with it naturally and never really getting rid of the the origin of it which is the evil spirit so understand it is a spiritual problem not just a natural problem the second thing is the spirit of fear is not from god it's not from god what does he say in ii timothy 1 7 for god has not given us a spirit of fear when that fear comes upon you when those thoughts try to invade your mind when those fearful feelings tried to consume you and you get move into anxiety and panic when that grabs hold of you that's not god that's not the spirit of god and as children of the most high god we need to recognize that's not coming from my loving heavenly father and i stand against that in jesus name i resist that in jesus name for god has not given us a spirit of fear here's something that amanda and i have learned you and i do not have to take ownership of every thought that pops in our minds did you hear me you and i don't have to take ownership of every thought that pops in our minds when that fearful thought comes you hear something on social media you read something you hear something on the news and it tries to bring fear to you and it thought hits you you're going to be next your family's going to be next this is going to happen to you you're going to catch that you're going to get on that's going to get on you that's what's going to hap that's how you're going to end up just like them when those thoughts start to fire into your mind you and i do not have to own those we can say no in the name of jesus we'll not receive that we'll not entertain that back several years ago amanda and i were flying to oklahoma and uh we flew to um houston and when i got to houston they have already told that here i've told it three times get confused where am i at uh which davis are you by the way i'm just kidding um we find that we flew to houston on our way to oklahoma and we're sitting there at the gate waiting for them to call our plane and all of a sudden walking down the hallway of the airport here comes john osteen now john and his wife dodie osteen now many of y'all don't know who he is but you know his son joel i mean you've ever heard of joel osteen in he wonderful you've heard of joel hosting well before there was a joel there was a john and john used the pastor he was the founder joel's daddy was the founder of the great lakewood church and joel used to be his daddy's tv director he directed his daddy's tv ministry in fact i would take we would send our tv staff from trinity down to houston and joel used to pick up our tv staff in a church van and escort them around and show them everything he did for two days joel's a very humble wonderful young man well before there was a joel there was a john and john was a great preacher and a great pastor and he used to come on tv on sunday nights and i would watch him on sunday nights after church all day i'd watch him so he was bigger than life and i saw him coming down the hall and amanda i looked at i said there's john osteen she said well go out there and meet him i'll say ain't going to meet him i ain't going to meet him he don't know me i'm from all good she said go meet him i said no he's going i guarantee you amanda he's got a private plane and he's going to a gate where they have private planes she said do you think so i said yeah i promise you that's what he's going to do lo and behold he didn't go past he turned in right where we were he's flying southwest cattle car just like us he sat down i'm sitting on the he said no further than from me and this handsome young man right there and i couldn't believe it john oldstein is right in front of me ten feet away amanda said should put go si go meet him go me i said ain't gonna meet him but i couldn't get my eyes off i might keep looking at him look back look at his back i know he thought he had a tick i had a tick you know i just finally he saw me kept doing that he said smiled at me said come here so i walked over there he said what's your name i introduced myself and he said eddie sit down he said tell me about your church tell me about your ministry can i tell you that for the next 10 or 15 minutes you would understand this i was in hog heaven anybody know what hog heaven is all right i was on cloud nine after about five or ten minutes they i don't know how long it was they called for our plane i shook his hand told him how much i loved him again what his ministry meant to me and i floated back to my seat he boarded first we boarded last the plane takes off and [Music] we get a certain altitude and the stewardess says the seat belt sign is turned off but stace if as long as you're seated keep your seat belt on but if you need to move around or go the restrooms feel free to do that and about that time i looked up and here comes john osteen walking down the isle of the plane i looked at amanda and i said can you believe it john osteen goes to the bathroom too [Applause] she said most normal people do you idiot and we got tickled because i've been gone goo-goo over this guy so he's walking down i'm looking at him she said you're not gonna follow him in the bathroom all right i thought he's gonna walk past me he doesn't he stops right at my seat he said eddie can i talk to you a few more minutes yeah yeah and i never forget he said squeeze over he didn't say scoot over he said squeeze you won't know what he was wearing that day i can tell you everything he said squeeze he says squeeze over i scoot it over and for the next 10 minutes he shared some things with me and one thing he shared with me has become an anchor in our life and i want to share it with you he said eddie if you will learn to put god's word in your heart when you do not need it the holy spirit will always be faithful to bring it out of your heart when you do need it amen amen let me repeat that eddie if you will be faithful to put god's word in your heart when you do not need it the holy spirit will be faithful to bring god always faithful to bring god's word out of your heart when you do need it you see most of us we don't study about god's provision about blessing us financially until we're broke and we're behind the eight ball then most of us don't read scripture about god's desire to heal us until we're sick and we're behind the eight ball then most of us don't download information about overcoming fear until we're scared and paranoid paranoid about something and then we're behind the eight ball and what he's saying is if you and i when things are going good if we'll be consistent to memorize and put god's promises in our heart then when all hell breaks loose against us the holy spirit will be wonderfully consistent to bring it up out of your heart and see what happens suddenly then the word of god becomes the sword of the spirit the word of god becomes your shield of faith the word of god becomes your weapon to come against all the attacks of the enemy but you and i have got to put god's word in our heart and when fear right now as things might have calmed down a little bit and people are getting more used to being in this new normal if you'll continue to put god's word in your heart when satan tries to attack your life in the days to come god will bring it out of your heart and you can use it to defeat the enemy see you've got authority over all the power of the enemy but you've got to use that authority in jesus name and his authority is found in his holy precious written word all right here's why you need to get rid of the spirit of fear it's more infectious than covet fear is more infectious than covet they tell us that disease is terribly infectious and we believe that but i want you to know fear is more infectious than it if you let fear in in any area of your life it'll invade every area of your life so when the spirit of fear comes on you that causes anxiety and panic and obsessive thoughts and worst case scenario when that comes on you've got to resist it you don't play with it you don't entertain it you don't give in to it you don't yield to it you resist it in the name of jesus christ because if it ever finds a place of lodging in your life it'll invade every area of your life and you don't need it so let's leave the spirit of fear in 2020. second thing real quickly i'm hungry i've been doing this for three months all morning the second thing let's leave behind the regrets of our past in 2020. every one of us have regrets every one of us could make a list of things we should have done shouldn't have done wish we'd have done could have done would have done every one of us have a list of that and if we're not careful those regrets will paralyze our future that's what paul was dealing with he shouldn't have done some things he did he should have done some other things he said i'm bringing all of my energies to bear i'm bringing my compelling focus is to keep my past and my past did you know that if you would have bought one if you would have spent one thousand dollars on apple stock the day it was offered in 1980 if you would have spent one thousand dollars buying apple stock in 1980 and never bought any more apple stock never touched it just let it ride for the next 40 years till now did you know one thousand dollars invested in apple stock in 1980 today you would have almost 400 000. now how many are like me regret that you didn't buy apple stock in 1980 i didn't even have a thousand dollars in 1980. but some of us live our life in regret i shouldn't have done that i shouldn't have said that i shouldn't have gone to that school i should have studied this i shouldn't have sold that house i should have taken that job i shouldn't have quit that job i shouldn't have acted that way i should not have said that we live with regret and that regret will haunt us and we carry it from year to year some of you live with regrets of things you did in 1982 1996 2004 2003 you replay it over if somebody brings it up or if you have a memory of it you can go back to the day you knew what the weather was like that day you knew who was in the conversation you knew all the parties that were involved you knew exactly the mood you knew what time of day it was you knew exactly where you was when it happened why because the regret of it keeps it fresh in your mind and it hinders us from being what god wants us to be and paul says i've got a compelling focus i'm bringing all of my energies to bear to forget that stuff to forget it and you say but the pain was the moment was so painful and i'm so ashamed i don't know how to get over it i don't know how to put it in my past and not let it hinder me how do i do that look at isaiah chapter 53 real quick isaiah 53 look at isaiah chapter 53 verse 4 and 5 talking about jesus this is a prophecy about jesus he is despised and rejected by men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief we hid as it were our faces from him he was despised and we did not esteem him surely hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we esteemed him stricken spitting by god and afflicted here's the verse we know he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities that's a prophecy about jesus 400 years before jesus was ever born it says there's coming a day that he's going to be wounded for our transgressions he's going to be bruised for our iniquities that was that's declaring about his death on the cross and the torture he went through and we read that one but then notice the next phrase the chastisement for our peace was upon him anything that robs our peace jesus paid for that also see we know this we know he died for our adultery we know he paid the price for our lying we know he paid the price on the cross for our addiction we know he has forgiven us because he paid for the penalty of our alcoholism we know all of that but do you know the same redemption and the same sacrifice on the cross for all of those things he also paid for your regrets and your shame so you don't have to carry it yeah but you don't know what i did and i don't just i made my bed and i gotta sleep in i gotta lie in it no let me tell you something you might have made your bed but jesus decided to lie in it for you you don't have to lie so you yield your regrets to jesus he doesn't expect you to carry it the bible says in psalm 103 he pities us like a father pities his children he remembers we're dust and he knows our frame in other words he knew you and i wasn't going to get it all right he knew we wasn't going to be perfect he knew we were going to make mistakes and he paid the price for your regret and your shame and you and i have got to put it in our past and not allow it to affect our future the truth is simply this you can't redo your past you can't remake your past you can't take it back you can't redo what you said and you can't react the way you reacted it's in your past in fact the only thing you can do about your past is get over it that's the only thing you can do about it and here's the final thought that i'm going to say to you god can do more about your future than you can do about your past god can do more about your future than you can do about your past spirit of fear leave it in last year your past put it behind you and let's get over it amen

Channel: LIVELIFE.CHURCH

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Rating: 4.9111109 out of 5

Keywords: Life Church, Cookeville, MESSAGE, Bobby Davis, livelife.church, Cookeville Life, Quarantine, Church, Jesus, Holy Spirit, God, Jesus Christ, salvation, miracle, miracles, healing power of Jesus, prophecy, prophet, prophetic, message, christianity, christian, testimony, saved, son of God, strength, pray, prayer, isolation, hearing God

Id: AyrsMGD_bEA

Length: 37min 1sec (2221 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 17 2021