What To Leave Behind In 2019

What to leave behind in 2019

Introduction

This morning (29th) you are a few days from the New Year (2020), and physically if you are like most of us you are one step from exhaustion and you are praying that you are not going to get on that merry go round and play it again as 2019.

I bet if I were to ask if there was something you would want to change for 2020, I would get an answer from everyone.

It is only natural to come to an end of one year and reflect on what you would like to see happen for the next.

It is natural to go into a New Year with anticipation and hope that the New Year will be better than the old year.

Some of you made resolutions that fit the good and bad things of the last 12 months.

Most resolutions are broken by February.

So what will make this next New Year better than the last old year?

Short of being able to read into the future, we do not have a crystal ball, a mirror that shows us the future, but as a believer…we have something better.

We have the Word of Almighty God

We are offered God’s presence

We have God’s promises.

We have each other as a family of God. We are important to each other.

Each would be great to take into the New Year.

Prayer-

Father, this last Sunday before the New Year, we again come before you desiring that you would go before us and with us into this New Year. We ask that you would correct the short comings and bless even more the good things that have happened. We pray that the things that we struggled with would not be the same things that we struggle with this New Year. In Jesus Name. Amen.

Purpose of Message - I will tell right up front… it is so that we look to God’s Word to make sure we are approaching the New Year as God would have.

2020 does not have to be scary when you are moving into it with the Lord and you are confidently doing what the Lord has already told you to do.

If He has said a few things and you have not listened and you are expecting in the New Year for God to change his mind on the things He has already told you, you will probably be in for a bumpy ride.

I have a suggested list of things you might want to take into the New Year and a list of things that you most definitely should not take with you into the New Year.

You will have to tweak the list according to what the Lord says to you but you will definitely be in better shape than most if you do.

Things to leave behind from 2019

Bitterness, Negative judgment, harmful habits, excuses, failures, painful past, unhealthy relationships, regret, condemnation.

I don’t mean put them in the recycle bin and drag them out again. (Give them a visual)

I mean get rid of them- even out of all your hiding places.

Things that I would bring into 2020

New or renewed relationship with the Lord #1 because everything else will fall into perspective if your relationship is right.

Peace of God

Hope

Praise

Joy

I would be at that table getting as much as I can get

“If you want something you never had, you have to do something you have never done.” Repeat 3 times

Let that sink in for a minute!

Let me give you a few verses to spring board into action.

Philippians 3:13-14

“Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do. Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize, for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus”

The one thing Apostle Paul tells us to do is forget the past and not live on past failures, but be looking ahead!

Paul had a long pedigree list and performance metals. (That takes you only so far)

These were the things that he once trusted in, but now he is looking to Christ.

He did not delete his past from his memory, he just won’t let his past keep him from his future now that he is a new creation in Christ.

His past is reevaluated up against what Christ has done for him and it is as filthy rags in comparison.

If his past had lessons learned, he wants them brought forward, if they are under the blood of Christ, he was going to bury them in the redemption of Christ.

God wants us to know that the past has no power over us and that we can let go of it because we have been renewed by his love, and redeeming grace.