Sunday Scaries…How many of you have ever heard of that? According to the Cleveland Clinic “The Sunday scaries are feelings of intense anxiety and dread that routinely occur every Sunday” It’s that feeling you get when Christmas break is over and you have to go back to school on Monday. It’s that feeling when you have a big test coming up this week and you almost can’t study for it because you are so overwhelmed with worry. Sometimes it's just a normal Sunday afternoon and you can’t help but feel anxious about what might come tomorrow. How many of you have experienced that?
I think a lot of us get that same feeling at the start of a new year. You're starting to wonder what is going to happen this year. Is it going to be your best year yet or is it only going to get worse? Are you just going to spend another year going through the motions living the same boring anxious life? Some of you have already decided that that's the case. You have made up your mind that this year is going to be just like every other year so why even bother making it a good one?
After reading about Red Light Green Light up to now, you are probably thinking, why would I try to change my habits or build intentional relationships? Nothing is going to change. My parents will still be divorced, my friends will still talk behind my back, my grades will still disappoint my parents. What’s the point?
You have already defeated yourself and given up in your mind before even giving yourself a chance. I love New Year’s because it really does feel like a fresh start but it’s only a fresh start if you make it one. It’s all about your perspective. Life is what you make of it, and it all depends on the mindset you go into this year. You have to choose the attitude you are going to have.
So how do we do this? How do we change our mindset?
We have to start by thinking differently this year.
And I know this sounds easier said than done. You have to understand that you have power over your thoughts. A lot of us think that if a thought pops into our minds we just have to deal with it until it goes away. It’s like if you have a crush and you say “I can’t stop thinking about him” or “I can’t get her out of my head” Actually you can, and you probably should. While you can’t necessarily stop a thought from popping into your head, you are 100% in charge of what happens to it from there. The Bible says in
2 Corinthians 10:5, “We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
That means when a thought pops into your head you stop and ask yourself, is this thought true? Is this thought Godly? Is this thought helping or hurting me? And then if the answer is no this thought is not true or Godly. You correct it.
Let me give you an example. You may have the thought “I can’t change because I keep going back to the same old things.” You need to ask yourself, is that thought true? The answer is no because the truth is the Bible teaches that as a Christian you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you which means you have something called self control. So if you lean on God he can help you to change any habit in your life and find freedom from those patterns of sin. You just made that thought obedient to Christ, You took a lie and used it to remind yourself of the truth.
Another way to take your thoughts captive is to replace the thought with something better. It’s like a little boy who decides he wants to play in the street. It’s all he can think about. “I want to play in the street ``''That looks so fun ``''I got to get out there” Street, street, street. And if his mom comes up and just says you can’t play in the street. What do you think he is still thinking about? The street. But if the mom comes up and says let’s go play in the backyard and eat some ice cream, what do you think he’s thinking about now? Ice cream in the backyard, right? His thoughts of the street were replaced with something better. A thought comes in your mind and if you act on that thought you are going to end with a less than, kind of life. Replace the thought with something better. If you are tempted to fool around with your boyfriend or girlfriend, replace that thought and think about the person you will one day marry. Think about how you’ll affect both of your futures, how the repercussions of breaking up or potentially messing up your heart if things don’t go the way you thought. Replace the thought. Think about something better.
You can have power over your thoughts so this year I think we should challenge ourselves to start changing our minds. We need to change the way we think. I think we need to pick something to remember and something to forget.
Instead of letting our minds run wild, let’s decide together now what we are going to think about.
Let’s start by forgetting our pasts.
Something to forget: Your past.
Like we said earlier, you can’t change your future if you are stuck beating yourself up for your past. We have to ask God to forgive our past and help us move on. We have to accept the forgiveness of God and start over. We need to stop remembering what he has forgotten. You have to let go of your past mistakes and bad habits and believe that when Jesus died on the cross and you made him the Lord of your lives, he washed you clean of those things so we can start fresh with him.
Paul had a pretty rough past. We have talked about it before but this man was arresting and killing people just for being Christians. When he encountered Jesus and his life was changed. Then he does a complete 180 and starts preaching and helping plant local churches. Now Paul could have been paralyzed by his past. He could have said “No, I can’t do anything for God because I have made so many mistakes in the past.” But that’s not what he does. In fact, look at what he says in
Philippians 3:13-14 says,“Brothers and sisters, 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.”
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. That’s what we have to do. We have to let go of the past and work towards the future so in 2023, let go of your past. Don’t let your past get in the way of you making progress towards becoming more like Christ. Believe that Jesus has forgiven your past and Let. It. Go.
Think of it this way. Have you ever seen a really fast runner? How do you think they got there? They didn’t just get up one day and start running as fast as they could. They had to train. A lot of runners will take parachutes like this and run with it while they are training. The parachute holds them back and makes them have to work harder. It slows them down. But when they finally take that piece off they can run harder and faster than they have before because it is no longer holding them back.
When you let go of your past you no longer have something holding you back. You are free to run as fast and hard as possible at the things God has for you.
As we forget our past we need to decide what to remember.
Something to remember: Remember God is Watching
I don’t mean God is staring down from heaven shaking His head at you. I don’t believe that. He isn’t watching you to slam you. He is watching you to encourage you to be the person that deep down inside you really want to be. God is watching us because what we do with our life matters to him.
Hebrews 12:1 says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
The Bible says that we are surrounded by those who have gone on before us and they are cheering us on to live our life for Jesus so we fix our eyes on Jesus. He is our focus; he is our reason for living. We give our best to him because he gave his best to us.
And so when we think about doing something stupid we remember that he is watching us and if you are like me, knowing that he is with me and that he is for me, it causes me to want him to see me do things that make him proud of me. I don’t want to disappoint him. I want to live in a way that honors Him and gives Him glory.
So, here’s what we are going to do. Each of you has a card under your chair and in just a second, we are going to play a song and when we do that I want each of you to write one thing on your card that you need to forget. One thing from your past that you need to let go of. Maybe it’s the same habit you keep going back to, maybe it’s something someone did or said to you. Whatever it is, write it down and take a second to pray “God help me to let go of this piece of my past. I believe that because of what Jesus did on the cross you have forgiven me of my mistakes and you aren’t holding this against me. Help me to let it go and move forward in becoming even more like Christ, amen” After you pray, I want you to take this card and put it by your bed or somewhere you will always see it.
Every time you are tempted to go back to your old ways or beat yourself up for the dumb things you have done or you're tempted to live a life that is less than I want you to look at Philippians 3:13 and remember that God is with you. And he is for you and he is watching you to help you be the person that deep down inside you really want to be.
©2024 Sagebrush Church
