Thank you for listening to this message from Life House Church.
Good morning.
Listen, it is almost here.
It is almost New Year's.
People been talking about it.
It's amazing you get past Christmas and we start looking at that new season, that new
time that's coming up and we're literally entering the last few days.
You heard a couple of times this morning already.
Wednesday will mark the beginning of a brand new year and if you've been listening closely
or if you will listen closely over the next few days, you're going to hear lots of chatter.
You're going to hear lots of talk.
You're going to hear lots of discussion in the media, social outlets, all those different
things.
They're going to be talking about the days behind us, right?
They're going to be reviewing the last 360 plus days and they're going to be talking
about what happened, when it happened, how it happened.
You'll see dramatic video right unfolding of events that have taken place over the last
year and you'll hear lots of commentary along the way with it.
But it always seems like every year that the last few days in December we reserve, right,
to look back, like to review.
We kind of look over our shoulder to review what's taken place.
There's this kind of sense of evaluation that goes on.
A lot of people look back and evaluate.
I heard again this morning, has this been a good year?
Has this been a bad year?
Is it something in between?
Whatever you're good and bad looks like, right?
We start looking behind us and we start to get this feeling of closure that comes in.
As you begin to close out this particular year and you get to open the new chapter of
2025, it just feels like this closure that's taking place and it's kind of what we do.
We celebrate the new year coming along.
And as long as I can remember, even from a chowd up, everybody at this time of year takes
a peek back over their shoulder to take a look at what happened over the last year,
right?
Turn to somebody right now, tell them we're going to talk about peeking behind you today.
Turn to somebody, tell them right now.
Tell them right now we're going to talk about peeking behind you today, all right?
We are.
That's what we're going to discuss.
All right, we're going to talk about peeking behind you.
If you would bow your heads.
Father, we thank you for this day.
God, I thank you for your blessings.
God, we thank you for the year that you've given us.
God, the blessings that have been bestowed upon us in that year.
Lord, we thank you for the easy, the hard, and everything in between.
Lord, we ask that you would have your hand upon today.
God, that your word, God, will come into our ears and God, that it will move into our hearts
and God, it would shift who we are and what we do.
And God, that we would begin to look to you in all things.
We just give you praise and everybody said together.
Amen.
Listen, it's good to have you.
And this is a very important spiritual subject to talk about.
Peeking over our shoulder is a spiritual thing to discuss because peeking over your shoulder
can be a good thing or it can be a bad thing.
It could be that as you're looking back, if you don't do it at the right time, at the
right intervals, and for the right place, or looking at the right things, it could be
a good thing or it can be a bad thing.
It depends how long you're peeking over your shoulder.
It depends what your eyes are fixed on while you're peeking over your shoulder.
And scripture really has a lot to tell us about looking back and what that is for us.
Ecclesiastes 3.1 says this to everything, say everything, to everything.
There's a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.
And that includes looking back or even looking forward.
There's a season and a time to it.
Now it even goes far to say that peeking over our shoulder should actually only be an occasional
kind of thing to do.
I should only peek over my shoulder occasionally and generally I should stay positioned looking
ahead, looking forward.
I only peek behind me once in a while.
I only do it on occasion.
I only do it once in a blue moon.
How many ever heard that saying before?
That's Western PA right there, okay?
My parents used to say it all the time.
I had no idea what they were talking about.
We're only going to do that once in a blue moon.
I'm like, what does that mean?
You know what?
I was so curious about this week I looked it up.
I know what it means now, all right?
Once in a blue moon actually happens about every 34 months.
It's when the moon is full twice in a calendar month, all right?
That's a blue, they call it a blue moon.
So now you know.
You heard it right here for the first time, all right?
Once in a blue moon.
And listen, we should only peek behind us.
We should only look over our shoulder.
We should only kind of look back once in a while.
And if to do it more than that is downright dangerous.
It really is.
It's downright dangerous.
I drive a Toyota 4Runner and I know this.
As I drive my Toyota 4Runner and I head down one on a bottom road here in Carlisle and
I'm heading to get on Route 81 North.
How many know where Route 81 is, right?
If you're here, right?
How many avoided it all costs, right?
If you don't live in the area, you might not know what we're talking about.
Now if you're going to get hop on Route 81 off one on a bottom, if you're going up the
on ramp, you got to be quick about peeking over your shoulder.
If you want to look and see what traffic is coming, you better not do it for any length
of time because the on ramps on 81 are short around here.
There's no lane.
You got to hop out.
You got to get in traffic or you got to slam on your brakes, one of the two.
And if you're looking behind you, right, while somebody else is stopping in front of you,
how many know you're going to get to meet them up front and personal?
Yeah, you are, right?
You're going to get to exchange names.
You're going to get to exchange numbers.
Looking behind you for too long is dangerous.
If you're walking down a dark alley, you should only look behind you for a few seconds.
Take a peek over your shoulder and keep going ahead, right?
Because you want to get out of the dark alley.
I was just in the dark alley not too long ago.
It's exactly what I did.
I was walking through, like, take a quick look, make sure nobody's following me, right?
And then just keep on going, right?
If I'm running down the road, which does not happen very often, right?
But if I would be running down the road and somebody would call my name, I don't keep
running with my head looking back because I'm going to trip over my own two feet.
It's a dangerous thing physically to be peeking over my shoulder for any length of time.
Anything more than to peek over my shoulder is downright dangerous.
It really is.
And this is true physically and it's true spiritually.
It really is.
It's problematic if you look back for too long.
It's true spiritually.
It's true emotionally.
It's true mentally.
It can even be true financially and socially in the right settings, right?
And God warns us to be very, very careful while we're peeking over our shoulder, while
we're looking back.
The prophet Isaiah in bringing the word of God to Israel, he says this in Isaiah 43,
18, he says, do not remember the former things nor consider the old things.
Behold, I will do a new thing.
Now it shall spring forth.
Shall you not know it?
I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
How many know the new things not back there, right?
The new things out here.
Ecclesiastes 7 and 10 says this, do not say, why were the former days better than these?
Oh, if you're 40 and older, how many of you have ever talked about, oh, the good old days?
Oh, the good old days.
If you're 30 and under, how many of you have done that?
Oh, the good old days.
The word of God says to you, do not, you do not inquire wisely concerning this, right?
How many know?
Sometimes we glamorize the good old days.
We glamorize what's back behind us.
Over the Christmas break, I watched a movie that I remember somebody was talking to me
about, I'm like, oh yeah, it's a good movie.
I saw that back in the 80s.
Remember way back in the 80s?
You know, I know it's ancient, right?
I remember watching this movie back in the 80s and I thought, well, I'll watch it again.
It was terrible.
It was awful.
There was nothing about it that was redeeming.
They cursed the whole way through it.
The plot was terrible.
The video was terrible.
And I thought I was saved back then when I actually watched this thing.
I'm like, this thing's awful.
We glamorize what's behind us.
We do.
We remember the good thing about it.
We don't remember all the garbage that was along with it.
You know, I did the same thing a couple of years back.
I had a friend who had a classic car and I took it for a drive.
And I like, I love looking at all the old classic cars and this particular car that
this person has like, man, that thing is so cool.
You know, and they're like, go ahead, take it for a drive.
So I took it out.
I went, me, myself and I, right, we got in the car and I had it down the road.
And I thought, this thing's a piece of junk compared to the new cars, right?
It didn't handle well.
It didn't steer good.
You couldn't see out of the thing the way you sat down inside.
It looks really cool going down the road.
It's awful to drive.
We glamorize what was back then.
We really do.
Sometimes we glory in it.
We get stuck looking back at the good old days.
In Ecclesiastes 7, 10, it says, do not say, why were the former days better than these?
For you do not inquire wisely concerning this.
We often miss the new thing.
We miss the God thing.
We miss the good thing, right?
We miss the right now thing.
We miss the Rhema thing, right?
The now thing ain't God because we're too busy with our eyes fixed over our shoulder
and a heart stuck on what's back behind us.
Can I point something out that's super obvious this morning?
I'm going to be Captain Obvious this morning.
All right.
Here it is.
The good Lord put, the good Lord only gave you two eyes and he put them in the front
of your head.
All right.
Look at the person beside you.
I want you to confirm what I just said right now.
All right.
Confirm that they only have two eyes in the front of their head.
All right.
Do you know why he put two eyes on the front of your head?
So you continue to look forward, right?
So you continue to move forward.
Do you know that God could have gave you two eyes in the back of your head and two eyes
in front of your head?
You might say, well, that's a little bit weird.
It wouldn't be weird if we all had four eyes, right?
It would be normal.
He could have put two eyes in front, two eyes in the back.
So you could be looking back just as much as you're looking forward.
He could have done that.
He could have made it easy for our head to spin around.
Turn your head right now and try to hold it back there for a couple of minutes.
How easy is that?
The older you get, right?
You're like, I ain't even trying it.
I'm not even going to do it.
I'll get a crook on my neck.
I'll be working on my shoulders for three days with a massager machine, right?
The good Lord put two eyes in the front of your head so you continue to look forward.
So you don't waste too much time peeking over your shoulder.
Matter of fact, he made it uncomfortable.
If you look over your shoulder too long, you will get a crook in your neck.
It's difficult to do, right?
God the Father, God the, God the Jehovah God, He admonished the nation of Israel when they
were going through the desert, when He released them from slavery and they're traveling through
the desert.
He admonished them.
He corrected them over and over again because they were constantly peeking over their shoulder.
They were looking back at Egypt and they would complain to God and they would say, oh, that
we'd go back to Egypt and eat the leeks from Egypt.
They were slaves in Egypt.
They were beaten in Egypt.
They owned nothing in Egypt and they were long.
They glorify looking back over their shoulder and God would get so angry.
Paul says the same thing in Philippians 3 12.
He says this, not that I've already attained or I'm already perfected, but I press on that
I may lay hold for that which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
Brother and I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing, say one thing,
one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things
which are ahead.
I press towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
He tells the Philippians, I've not apprehended anything.
I've not gained anything by my own perfection.
I've not.
I've got nothing on my own.
But he said one thing I got right.
I quit looking behind me and I press on forward.
Right.
I choose to forget.
Paul was telling them I choose to forget that I was a chief sinner.
I was a sinner of all sinners.
I choose to forget that right.
I quit looking back that I used to consent to kill Christians.
That's what Paul did before he got saved.
He consent to Christians being imprisoned and killed.
Right.
Ali, I forget.
I put back the fact that I used to be so stubborn against God.
Matter of fact, I was so stubborn against God that God had to knock me off a donkey.
He had to blind me for a couple of days, send somebody to speak to me before I would get
saved.
Right.
Before I would confess, repent and turn my heart over to Jesus.
He said, I choose to put all that behind.
I choose to put behind me the fact that Paul got rejected over and over again by Christians
because they didn't even believe that he was converted.
They didn't even believe at the beginning that he was saved.
Right.
I choose to put those things behind me and I reach forward for the goal, for the prize,
for the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
That's what Paul was saying.
I don't waste time peeking over my shoulder for too long.
The apostle Paul knew it.
Anything more than a peek behind me can get dangerous.
Right.
Anything more than a peek behind me, sometimes the devil will start messing with your head.
He'll start speaking things in your ear about what was back there.
And the apostle Paul knew this and he knew something else.
Anything more than a peek behind me can be a complete lack of faith in God.
It really can.
And you might think, well, that's a little strong.
Right.
That sounds a little over the top.
It's the truth.
Looking behind for too long for the wrong reason can be a complete lack of faith in
God.
And again, we see it in the Old Testament.
We see it in the New Testament.
In Genesis, God sends angels to rescue Lot and his family, his wife and his two daughters
out of Sodom and Gomorrah.
And God does this because he's about to rain down judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah.
And he wants to save Lot because Lot is righteous.
He's one of the righteous people in this city that God's going to rain this judgment down.
And the Lord God at this point in time, he not only says, don't just peek behind you
for a little bit.
Right.
Just make it short.
If you turn around when they leave the city, God says, don't look behind you at all.
Don't even turn your head.
Genesis 19, 15 says, when the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, arise,
take your wife, your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment
of the city.
And while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife's hand and the hands of
his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him.
And they brought him out and set him outside the city.
And said, so he came to pass when he had brought him outside of the city that he said, escape
for your life.
Do not what?
Look behind you, nor stay anywhere in the plain.
Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.
Then Lot said to him, please know my lords, indeed now your servant has found favor in
your sight and you have increased your mercy, which you have shown me by saving my life.
But I cannot escape to the mountains.
Let some evil overtake me and I die.
See now this city is near enough to flee to and it's just a little one.
Please let me escape there.
Is it not a little one and my soul shall live?
And the angel said to him, see, I have favored you concerning this thing also in that I will
not overthrow this city for what you have spoken.
Hurry escape there for I cannot do anything until you arrive there.
Therefore the name of the city was Zor.
The sun had risen, the sun had risen upon the earth and when Lot entered Zor, then the
Lord rained down brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord, from the Lord
out of the heavens.
So he overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities and that
that which grew on the ground.
But his wife, Lot's wife looked behind him and she became a pillar of salt.
Why?
Lot's wife looks back and she physically crystallizes.
The angel of God told her, don't look back.
What did she do?
She looked back.
If the word of God tells you not to look back, what you do?
Don't look back.
This is a physical example of a spiritual truth.
If the Lord says don't, don't.
And Lot's wife was forever paralyzed, frozen in place, a pillar of salt because she peeked
over her shoulder.
She began to look back.
Right?
Peeking behind us can paralyze us.
It really can't.
Do you know how many people I know that are paralyzed?
Because they stopped looking at what was ahead and they began to look behind them.
Do you know how many people have suffered trauma in their lives and legit true trauma
in their lives?
And what can happen is if you suffered trauma somewhere in your past, you can begin to turn
your head and you can begin to get focused on the trauma that was back there.
And it's so traumatic.
Sometimes you can't turn your head around and even look to the future.
We get fixed on things that were in the back and somewhere in our past, a hurt, a difficulty,
a strain of some kind.
And we stick with our heads turned backwards and we and it paralyzes us.
It stops us cold.
Right?
Lot's wife's just kind of an illustration of what that is.
We get paralyzed.
And listen, if you can't stop looking back, you need to get with a good, godly counselor
who can help you pass the paralysis.
Right?
A Christian counselor who can help you walk through and get you so you can turn and start
to move forward.
And listen, here's the thing about a good Christian counselor, a good Christian counselor,
a good Christian therapist, what they'll do, they know this.
They know it's the Holy Spirit's work that actually sets you free from the paralysis
that you're in.
You're just kind of the tour guide to get you there.
Right?
They'll just, they'll help you work and get to the person who can free you from that.
And if that's you, if you're paralyzed from something that happened in your past, something
that's got you and you can't get moving forward and you're paralyzed, find a Christian.
Listen, this is biblical to find counsel.
It's all through God's work.
Find that person.
Find a good Christian counselor that can help you move towards Jesus and what the Holy Spirit
can do to set you free.
Don't let Satan lock you up, freeze you up, right?
Paralyze you with whatever took place back there because the enemy will do it.
He'll do it.
Because Satan knows sometimes that more than a peak can paralyze you.
If you get fixed on what's behind you.
Jesus died on a cross to help us get free from the paralysis, right?
He sent the Holy Spirit.
That's why the Holy Spirit came to dwell within you.
He sent the Holy Spirit so you don't get in a state of paralysis.
So whatever's behind you no longer affects you.
So you can go to the new thing in God, right?
So you can step into whatever life has for you as a new creation in Christ.
So you can walk forward and not be looking back.
Amen?
It's true.
Because if he wanted you to do that, he'd put eyes on the back of your head.
I know some of you moms think you've got eyes on the back of your head, but you don't, right?
Here's the thing.
If God brought you out of the paralysis, if he stepped you through out of something, even
maybe some sin that was back there, don't go looking back over your shoulder, right?
Years ago I preached the message.
I was preaching along the lines of Samson and I entitled it, Don't Touch the Dead Thing,
right?
Don't go back to the thing that God's killed off in your life.
Don't go back to the thing.
And sometimes we do that.
Sometimes God kills something off in our life that we don't need, that's no good for us,
that's going to tear us up, that's going to pull us down and we get turned around.
Don't do it.
Second Peter 2 20 warns us about this.
It says, for if after they have escaped the pollutions of this world through the knowledge
of the Lord and the Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome,
they looked back, right?
And the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.
But what would have been better for them if they had not known the way of righteousness
than having known it to turn, say to turn, right?
From the holy commandment delivered to them.
But it happened to them according to the true proverb, a dog returns to his own vomit and
a sow having washed to her wallowing in the mire.
Don't go back.
Don't look back.
Don't spend time looking over your shoulder at what God's freed you from.
Don't do it.
Because more than a peak is dangerous, right?
And if God tells you don't look at it at all, don't.
Don't look at it at all.
Just keep moving forward.
So I only hit a couple of these.
There's more.
But when should I look over my shoulder?
When is it safe to look over my shoulder?
What, you know, or should I look over my shoulder or should I get my vertebrae fused and never
look for it, right?
Just keep staring ahead all the time.
Never stick them back.
Listen, we peek over our shoulder to do one thing.
We do it to celebrate what God has done in our lives.
When you look back, you look back over your shoulder for a short period of time, you do
it to celebrate.
The reason to peek over our shoulder is to look back and realize what God has accomplished
in our lives, to testify of His mercy, of His grace, of His extended love towards you
and me, right?
Towards the goodness and the provision that He's given in our lives.
When we look back over our shoulder, it's not about what we've accomplished.
It's not about what we've got through.
It's what we got through in Him, right?
It's about what He's done.
I don't glory in anything you do like Paul does.
You don't glory in anything that you've done, only what He's done and what you got to be
a part of.
We celebrate Him.
It's why Jesus said, scriptures like Matthew 5, 16, let your light so shine before men that
they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
Because that's what you look back and peek at.
You look at Him.
We review what He's accomplished.
We inventory all the amazing things that God's done.
We peek over our shoulder to look at Him, to look what He's done in our lives.
And here's the thing.
If you peek over your shoulder for that reason, it raises you up.
It does not take you down.
It has the opposite effect of peeking over your shoulder for other reasons.
Instead of dragging you down, instead of locking you up, instead of paralyzing you, it will
actually lift you up.
It begins to remove the danger from peeking over your shoulder.
It really does.
Zach, if you'd come and the praise team comes, and as they come, I want to give you four
things real quick.
The peeking over your shoulder to look at what God has done and in His faithfulness.
I want you to see what this does for you.
You need to know this.
First of all, it builds your faith.
Say faith.
If you look back over your shoulder and you look at what God's done, your faith will begin
to rise.
And I cannot spend enough time.
I wish I could.
You have to understand something.
God, you know what moves God?
Faith in God.
Your faith in God.
You want to see God move on your behalf.
You want to see God move in your life.
You want to see God shift something.
You can't work your way into this.
You can't be good enough.
You can't shine it up enough.
But if you got faith in God, God will move.
God meets faith every time.
Psalms 27.1 says, The Lord is my light and my salvation.
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life.
Of whom shall I be afraid?
When the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh, my enemies and foes, they stumbled
and fell.
Do you know what the psalmist was saying?
I just took a peek back over my shoulder and I just looked at all the enemies that God
took down in my life.
Everything that came against me is now laying on the ground because of Him.
Amen.
Come on.
We're celebrating right there.
Secondly, if you peek behind your shoulder for the right reason, it's worship.
It is praise.
Peeking over my shoulder and acknowledging what God has done is worship to Him.
Psalms 9.1 says, I will praise you, O Lord, with my whole heart.
I will tell you of your marvelous works.
God knows the marvelous works He's done.
He just wants you to repeat it back to Him.
You just repeat because it's going to raise your faith.
It's going to be praise.
I will be glad in rejoicing you.
I will sing to your name almost high.
It is a form of worship.
Looking back over your shoulder and recounting the things that He's done, verbalizing it,
saying it out loud to Him and just acknowledging what He's done.
It is worship.
Third, it gives me a bird's eye view of the redemptive work of God.
I don't know if you know this or not, but we got short term memory and we've got narrow
focus most of the times people.
We see what's going on around us.
But if you peek over your shoulder to what God has done, He will give you a bird's eye
view of life and what He's doing across the globe.
Not just here in Carlisle, not just in your life, right?
Your little world, but all across the globe.
Isaiah 55 says, for my thoughts are not your thoughts.
Know your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than yours and my thoughts
more than your thoughts.
God is so grand.
He is so big.
He is accomplishing so much that we can't even get our little brains wrapped around
it.
You start thinking about it, it's going to blow your mind.
You start realizing what He's unfolding in the world around us, what He's going to do
in the future.
It'll blow your mind.
His ways are so far above our ways.
Every time I get into nature, I see this, I realize it.
That's one of the reasons I like going out hunting or even hiking.
Because every time I get into woods, I realize, you know, God just breathed this into existence.
There's this amazing ecosystem out there running all the time and it is so much bigger than
I am.
You stand by the seashore and you think, how far does that go out?
You get in a boat and you start going out across that and you understand that there's
a whole world below that that He runs.
He's so much bigger than we ever give Him credit for.
The fact that you're on, sitting on a planet earth, you might have not done anything today.
You just traveled a thousand mile an hour.
I don't know if you know that or not.
The earth revolves at least a little over a thousand mile an hour.
And you're just standing on top of that thing, right?
Doing what you do.
He's big.
You start looking over your shoulder and recounting who He is.
Amen?
It's true.
Peeking back will build your faith.
You will worship.
You'll begin to see the bigger picture.
And fourth, it will help you launch forward in Him.
It'll help you launch forward in Him.
Romans 8 says this, for what then shall we say of these things?
If God is for us, who can be against us?
Come on, you should be excited about that one just right there alone.
He who did not spare His own soul but delivered Him up for all of us, how shall He not with
Him also freely give us all things?
Who shall bring a charge against God's elect?
It is God who justifies.
Who is He who condemns?
It is Christ who died.
But furthermore, He is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes
intercession for us, who shall separate us from the love of Christ, shall tribulation
or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword, as it is written, for your
sake we were killed all the day long.
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
Come on, right?
Brian persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor
things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other created thing shall
be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
If that doesn't launch you forward, I don't know what will.
Amen, come on.
We got a reason to praise.
We got a reason.
If you're going to peek back over your shoulder, take a look at what He's done.
Recount what He's done.
Quit focusing on all the other stuff.
The problems, the issues, the difficulties.
Stop staring at all that and let Him launch you forward.
Thank you for tuning in to this message from Life House Church.
We pray that you were impacted powerfully by this message.
If you have been personally affected by our ministry and you would like to partner with
us as we love God, love people every day, visit our website at www.lifehousecog.com.