Don't Look Back

There's an old saying. I think it is attributed to a long-dead Major League Baseball player, a pitcher by the name of Satchel Page. How many of you remember Satchel Page? He was a black pitcher who eventually made it into the big leagues after years and years of playing in the segregated leagues that existed before baseball was integrated, and he was really quite a character. I vaguely remember hearing and even seeing him, at least on television, I think. Many years ago, he pitched well into...nobody really knew how old Satchel Page was. He pitched probably into his 50s and still had a pretty good fastball. But there's a saying that's attributed to him, and it goes like this. Don't look back. Somebody may be gaining. Don't look back. Somebody may be gaining. And he was able to extend his career for many, many years and do things that, quite frankly, a lot of people didn't do. And maybe that personal philosophy he had helped him to just keep moving forward, regardless of the challenges, regardless of the obstacles of his life, regardless of things that happen in life. Don't look back. Someone may be gaining. You know, when we come to the Holy Days, we come to the Passover, the Days of Unleavened Bread experience, it's not a bad piece of advice, in one sense, for us to think about as we move forward. To not look back. To not look back. Now, that's kind of hard to do in one sense, because there are certain lessons of the Holy Days, especially this period, the nights we much remember Passover and Unleavened Bread, that we do look back on, but we don't look back nostalgically wanting to go back. We only look back to learn. And the real message of every one of the Holy Days ties into the plan of God, which is a forward-looking plan.

God is always moving forward in His plan. God doesn't look back in the sense that He wants to be held back, return to the past, or is locked in by fear, anxiety, or worry over the past, or anything from it. God's plan encourages us, teaches us, to forget the past, to move away from the past, and to always be moving forward.

That's the whole plan of God that we see in the Bible. It is a plan of God moving forward in time to the point where He will eventually bring His entire family together in His plan. The Holy Days highlight that. We begin with the Days of Unleavened Bread when He moved Israel out of Egypt. And they weren't to look back. Now, they did look back in the sense that they remembered that event. And I plan to talk about that a little bit more on the last Holy Day, but they only looked back in the sense of just remembering so that they learned in the present and it kept them moving forward.

But He moved them out of Egypt. He moved them to become a nation. We move to the time of the Church and God's plan and ultimately the return of Jesus Christ and the Millennium and the period beyond that, the Great White Throne Judgment and all that God has in mind as these Holy Days begin to step us through again, the plan of God.

We see that that plan is a forward-moving dynamic. And even in the book of Isaiah, we are told in one verse where it says that, of the increase of His government, there will be no end. Which gives us a bit of a hint that God's plan and purpose will just continue to move forward beyond even perhaps what is revealed in the Bible.

And that, you know, is maybe perhaps speculation, but we do see the plan of God clearly in the Scriptures. And then there's a little hint, such as that verse, that says that of the increase of His government, there will be no end. And so what God has in mind in the future, we'll find out. But it seems that that movement forward is always going to be there. And so when we come back to the days of Unleavened Bread, where we are right now, this first day, we've focused on preparation for the Passover.

We've examined ourselves. We have put out 11 from our homes to the best of our abilities. And we stand now on this day, keeping a holy day, beginning a seven-day period of Unleavened Bread, where we will not eat leavened bread. But hopefully we will go far beyond just the physical accoutrements of the meaning of this day. The days of Unleavened Bread are designed to help us see our past, but provide us to walk away from the past and to move forward.

Because, again, in the meaning of this day, there is this movement forward away from the sins of the past. And we see that if you turn over to 1 Corinthians 5. We are told to put out the old leaven. 1 Corinthians, let's turn and read that. 1 Corinthians 5. In verse 7, where it says, Therefore purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump. Since you truly are unleavened. And that's a significant statement right there, that we are unleavened as we come under the blood of Christ and our baptism.

And by the grace of God, that each year we rededicate ourselves through the symbols of the Passover service, we come to the reality as we observe these days that we are unleavened. Before God we're unleavened. We're without sin. By the grace of God. Now, that doesn't mean we are not capable of sinning, and we will sin.

We know the Scripture that says that he has no sin as a liar, and the truth is not in him. But in a sense of how God looks at us, through the blood of Jesus Christ, we are unleavened. And it goes on, for indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. And that's what makes us unleavened. That's what allows us to stand before God in His presence through the sacrifice of Christ. And so it goes on in verse 8 to say then, Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Let's keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. So in truth we do keep the days. We go through the rituals, as I was explaining on the Sabbath, of putting out the leaven to teach us sin, teach us something about sin, many different lessons that are there. But we also keep it in spirit. We keep the unleavened bread of sincerity, a sincere spirit. What does God want us to learn? What is it that God wants us to focus on and learn as we observe these days? I mean, what is the practical use of putting out old leaven and eating unleavened bread each day during this period of time?

I remember so well my earliest days as a trainee in a ministry and a man we had in the church at the time. He had just been brand new to the church and there was a period of upheaval at that time. This gentleman kind of got caught crossways in the winds of turmoil that were at that point in the church. He didn't stay with us, but it was right at this time of year, just prior to the Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread season.

It felt my lot to give a sermon and I talked about putting out the leaven and deleavening and that process.

I remember this gentleman got really upset and just thought that there was too much emphasis on the physical purging out of the leaven. I think it truly was that he just had not been truly grounded in the faith before he became a part of the church. He didn't fully understand it, coupled with the problems that were there at that time. I remember him making a comment to me that he said, this idea of putting out leaven like that.

He said, that's sophomoric and kind of like a fraternity prank, the way he put it to me. I remember being just kind of stunned at never hearing it that way. You're thinking you wouldn't expect to hear something like that from someone you looked at as a member of the church who was sitting there. He soon just fell away and drifted off and never saw him again. That comment has always struck with me because you can put too much emphasis on the physical aspect of it and miss completely the spiritual dimension of the days of unleavened bread. I've certainly understood that and come to see that even deeper over the years. You put it out, you eat unleavened bread, we don't eat any leavened product during the time. But I think that God wants us to focus far more on the spiritual than on the physical ritual. Because as we all know, you can clean all day, clean all week, and you're never going to get it all out. Even in a physical sense, there's just going to be something there. Unless you keep a daily log of where you eat crumbs.

Which I don't. I hope none of you do.

But it's just, you know, that's what, again, I've always felt that's one of the lessons. That's just one of the lessons. But you don't, you know, you want to spend far more time on the spiritual dimension of the experience than you do on the physical. That's what's important. God has a lot to say to us during these days. And sometimes it's important that we understand that movement moving forward away from sin, away from our past, into the future.

Because that's where God is, that's where He wants us to be, that's where God is taking us. He's taking us to the future. He's not taking us to the past. You and I are all products of our environment, the way we were raised, our families, our genetic inheritance makes us look the way we are and even act the way we are. And as we know from science today, quite frankly, even susceptible to the diseases that we get. It's in the genes. I go to, I guess over the years I've learned to try to take care of myself and do what I can to maintain my health.

But in the back of my mind, I've always understood that, you know, I'm just like everyone else. I'm going to be a victim of my genetic makeup and, you know, heart disease will probably catch up to me at some point as hard as I try to run away from it and do what I can because it runs in my family.

I came down with diabetes a year ago or got diagnosed with a type 2 diabetes. I didn't realize until a few months later when I was talking to my brother that I got it honestly. Runs through in the family, as it always does, comes through my mother's side. I didn't know that. I was talking to my brother after getting diagnosed with it, and he said, yep, grandma, our mom's mom had it. They called it sugar in those days.

And she had a stroke and eventually died of a stroke, and then others in the family have it. And so we're all part of those things. There are certain things you can't just run away from and escape from. But there are other things that we do have control over. And those are the choices, those are the spiritual matters that we have, even though we are still part of our environment. We've all heard the phrase, as the twig is bent, so grows the tree. As the twig is bent, so grows the tree. You look at the tree out there, your backyard or someplace, and you see that maybe it was struck by lightning at a certain point, or something happened, and it kind of made a southward turn because of some injury or something that happened in its youth, and it grew in that direction.

As the twig is bent, so grows the tree. As you and I have been bent by the circumstances of our early development, our environment, so we grew. So we developed emotionally. So we developed in many different ways to be who we are. And that is the reality of who we are and what we are. There's something about human nature that wants to defend the past, but God says to come out of the past. There's something about us that want to hold on to certain things, even when we see clearly that the mistakes that we repeat generationally don't do us any good. Don't help our children. Don't help our present relationships with our husband, with our wife, with family, with church members.

There's something that wants to, in a sense, kind of defend the past, and that's human nature. It's not always God's nature, but that's the way we are. God says to come out of the past. He says to put that away. And as we come to this time of year, that's what is one of the big lessons that we have. When we look at Israel's problem, Old Testament Israel that is, that's one of the lessons that we see.

Now, it's looking back in the past, but it's again looking back with the intent of learning for the future. Turn back to, if you will, to Psalm 78. Psalm 78 is a wrap-up psalm that is really a history of Israel. It encapsulates so much of Exodus in Numbers and that period of time in Psalm 78 that was set into this pattern. It's called, in my Bible, it's called a contemplation of Asaph, whoever Asaph was.

But it's a contemplation, a reflection, in this case, upon the history and the experience of Israel. And it can be instructive for us. We won't read the whole psalm. It's quite instructive. But it does talk about the story of Israel. And they're coming out of Egypt and the marvelous things. In verse 12, it says, The marvelous things he did in the sight of their fathers in the land of Egypt in the field of Zoan. And it kind of repeats this and comes back to it. He divided the sea. He caused them to pass through. He made the water stand up like a heap. In the daytime, he also led them with the cloud.

He split the rocks in the wilderness. He gave them drink in abundance like the depths. He brought streams out of the rock and caused waters to run down like rivers. This is a part of the story of what God did with Israel as they brought them out of the land of Egypt, brought them into a new land. But they send even more in verse 17. The more God showed His works, the more He showed Himself and the miracles, they send even more against Him by rebelling against the Most High in the wilderness. And they tested God in their heart by asking for the food of their fancy.

They spoke against God. They said, can God prepare a table in the wilderness? And that seemed to be a theme. They couldn't believe that what God had done, every time they came up against an obstacle, they couldn't keep moving forward.

They were stuck. He struck the rock in verse 20, so that the waters gushed out and the streams overflowed. Can He give bread also? Can He provide meat for His people? Therefore the Lord heard this and was furious. So a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also came up against Israel, because they did not believe in God and did not trust in His salvation. Verse 22, in a sense, encapsulates the heart of their problem. They did not believe in God and they did not trust in His salvation. And that lack of belief really kept them from moving away from their past. Now, they moved through the wilderness, but you know they ran around in circles for about 38, 39 years before they went into the Promised Land because of their sins.

They did not believe God. They did not trust in God to save them, in spite of the fact that He was right in front of them. And every single day, with signs, with wonders, with many miracles, that should have told them that He indeed was with them. The problem was, Israel did not want to leave the past. They were stuck in that cycle. In verse 42, just to jump to that thought, it says, They did not remember His power the day when He redeemed them from the enemy. They did not remember His power.

God delivered them with power. That's the essence of the story of that deliverance. As a death angel passed through Egypt, killing the firstborn, sparing the firstborn of the Israelites, and all the other miracles of that particular time, they still wanted to go back. They did not remember. Now, they should have. And that remembrance should have given them confidence. It should have helped them understand what was in front of them at that moment, was something that also could be surmounted and passed through.

Think back at where you know God's hand was on you at some point, at some event situation in your past. And you felt and you knew to the depth of your being that God blessed you, that God was working with you, that God had moved you. Maybe it was when you were first called. Maybe it was when you were baptized and you had this understanding that indeed you had been forgiven. And you truly felt a new beginning, a new birth, with God's Spirit and that forgiveness, a new start in life.

Maybe it was some other event, an intervention with your personal health, an intervention in your job, or something and you knew and you felt faith, you felt empowered in faith because of what was taking place. And then we fast forward to where we may be right now or at some other point, and we don't remember that. We've forgotten and we doubt and we fear. We are acting like the Israelites and we must be very, very careful about that because it is God's desire to keep us moving forward, not to see us immobilized by fear.

And this Psalm here really shows that Israel didn't really understand fully the power that God was working through. But we should. We should understand that Spirit of God is the power to overcome the past if we're willing to give it up, if we're willing to acknowledge it and move forward. Because the past can be a very serious problem. The past can regulate our life and form the way we are, but it can also hinder us if we're not very, very careful. Sometimes how we look at the past is the key to how we look at our future. So much of society today wants to wallow in the past in an attempt to heal up from some past abuse, from some past wrong.

That is at the heart of so much of certain popular forms of psychology that people engage in to help them to deal with life and deal with the issues and move forward. And sometimes for some people there is a need for that. And if it helps them to finally get to that point, okay.

But you have to be very, very careful to sort through some of those remedies because a lot of it is based on looking into the past to understand the present behavior without properly knowing how to move beyond that past and the present into the future. There are steps that have to be taken. The spiritual steps that God reveals to us have ultimately summed up in one word is the best.

And that is repentance. Or change. And sometimes that is change in our personal behavior as we move away from sin. Sometimes that is a change in the way we even think about ourselves. And we think about people or events of the past. We have to be able to forgive. We have to be able to move forward. One of the keys of examining anything in the past is the key of forgiveness. It may be someone in the past, someone else. It may be ourselves. But a key thought in moving away from the past is forgiveness. Now that is speaking generally. It's not my intent to get into a lot of the details of that particular type of situation today.

But think about it. God's ways are the simplest and the best. Repentance, which means change. Which means putting out sin. Putting out the old. Putting on the new. Purging out the leaven. Putting on the leaven of sincerity, unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Repentance. That's one of the best. Forgiveness. It's pretty simple as well to really understand. Accepting the forgiveness of God. Extending forgiveness ourselves toward others. That's a key to examining the past and moving away. Because the past is no place to live. The past is no place to live whatsoever. We don't want to get stuck in the past. Past ways of thinking. Past modes of action, behavior, nostalgia, looking at it in that direction. One of the stories that fits this time of year is the story of Lot coming out of Sodom. We know that story well of God sending the angels down to Lot.

Circumstances that finally wrenched Lot and his family out of Sodom and Gomorrah and that society and that debauched space that God said he was going to rain, hail storm, and fire down upon. And the story, as they left, is centered in one sense upon the enigma of Lot's wife, who looked back and was turned to a pillar of salt. After being told not to look back. After being told to keep moving forward, get out here, get away, move up into the hills. And she stopped and she looked back.

She looked behind him, says in Genesis 19, and she became a pillar of salt. Now you go over to Israel today and you go down to somewhere around the Dead Sea on one of those tours, and they'll show you a place called Lot's wife.

It's kind of a rock figure. I remember we passed it the last time we were there a few years ago, and from a bus window driving by 50 miles an hour, it was hard to see that it was Lot's wife.

But they have this spot, and it's kind of a figure. I've seen other pictures and books, and I guess if you get it at a correct angle or a certain angle, then it looks kind of like a human figure there. And it's somewhat in the area where they traditionally think Sodom was, but probably wasn't. It's just one of those things that has been traditionally set there. Whatever happened to Lot's wife, according to the Scriptures, long since been moved out. I don't think what they show you, certainly it's just one of those interesting obstacles that they look at.

Christ brought it up in Luke 17. He said to remember Lot's wife. Luke 17, verse 32. He used that example, so we know that it was a true example. I mean, it was historically, it did happen. Jesus referred to a number of events from the Old Testament to establish the truth of them. So Lot's wife did turn to a pillar of Saul. She died.

And he used that as an example. He said, remember Lot's wife. Whoever seeks to save his life, in verse 33 of Luke 17, whoever seeks to save his life will lose it.

And whoever loses his life will preserve it. Well, you have to wonder that in the context of what he was speaking about, and certainly in the context of overcoming and moving forward, that there's something about losing, there's something, loss we need to experience of life from the past in order to preserve what we have today. Lot's wife wanted to go back. She couldn't move away from the society in which she'd been used to. Whatever was there, she wanted it, and her heart was there. And she couldn't move away from it. And she becomes an object lesson that whoever loses his life will preserve it. So in a sense, there's something that we have to lose from the past.

And each of us has to examine that, which means that we have to come to see the past for what it is and view it through God's eyes, not through the eyes of our own training, our own nostalgia, yearning, or even regret. One of the keys to a successful life is to live your life with no regrets. With no regrets. You make a decision, you live with its consequences if it's a bad decision. Sometimes you live with it for a long time, sometimes you may eventually be extricated from it, but you move on.

And you hope you make a better decision next time. Whether it's with a marriage, with a job, and a relationship, you learn to live with no regrets and you move forward as you learn. I was reading a story about it was in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago, and this had to do with money, as most stories do in the Wall Street Journal.

They were talking about, I think it was an excerpt from a book that Warren Buffett, the world's richest man, depending on which year you look at it, he does tag team with Bill Gates, I think, on that. But the story was talking about Warren Buffett's son, one of his sons, who years ago, he had decided to divvy up some of his fortune among his family, and he made a decision. One of his sons was offered a block of stock in Berkshire Hathaway, which is the big holding company for Warren Buffett's fortunes. And he was offered a block of stock, and the young man, his son, I think he was in his 20s, cashed it in.

Cashed it in. And he used the money to finance his education. He went, I think, into a music career, and has been a success at his musical career for 20, 30, or more years. And I think he may be a teacher of music, and has had certain success in even his own area of maybe composing certain music. And the article was saying, had he kept the shares of his stock, today they would be worth $72 million. Now, he may have got a... let's just say he got a million dollars out of it. I don't know.

Maybe he got $780,000 out of it. But he got a whole lot less than $72 million. And the article was saying he had no regrets. He was glad for what he did, because he did what he wanted to do with that portion of his inheritance. Now, knowing the Buffett family, he's probably got another block of stock and whatever, but he lost out on quite a number of millions of dollars, had he kept it. But he used it at the time for what he wanted to do. It bettered his life, and he went and he's done what he wanted to do.

And the basic point was, he had no regrets. He had no regrets. And I thought about that. Whatever we find ourselves in, in our life, at whatever point, it's important that we have no regrets. And we learn the lessons, we move forward, we make better decisions as we move ahead. Because that's what God wants us to do. That's what God wants us to do. You know, we've all been like Lot and his wife, victims of circumstances that we couldn't always control. But why defend it? Put it under the blood of Christ and don't look back. Put it under the blood of Christ and keep moving forward.

In Ephesians chapter 2, this is what's behind this particular section of Scripture. This is basic advice. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1, You he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom you also once conducted yourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as others.

That can describe a past, and it does describe a past. But God, who was rich in mercy in verse 4, because of His great love with which He loved us, when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up together and made us to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. In chapter 4 of Ephesians here, verse 17, therefore He says, I say and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

Walk away from that, He says. Move away from that. God has given us the power to move away from that part of our past. He says you have not so learned Christ. This is not what you've learned as you have learned about a relationship with God. If indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man, which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.

Therefore, putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry, do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. Let him who stole steal no more, no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands, what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.

Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification. Boy, how hard that one is!

How often do we want to pop off and tell somebody what we think? Let our words tear someone else's emotions and rip. God says, don't let a word come out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, or building up, that it may impart grace to the hearers. Would that all of our words give grace? Leave people feeling good, encouraged, uplifted, thoughtful, rather than depressed, hurt, angry. Do we realize the power of our words? Either put into paper on the computer screen, I keep coming back at times and thinking how quickly it is, how quick and easy it is. For us today, when we get on our computers, fire off a message. Sometimes I think I may at some point in my life ditch the computer, ditch the smartphone, and the ease and the quickness with which you communicate, and go back just to pen and paper, and a stamp you lick and put on an envelope. Because there's a little bit to the time that it takes to write something out and think about it, and then fold it up. Or if you want to do it like that, you want to fold up the paper of a fiery letter, you might have to say to somebody, and just put it on the shelf. Mark Twain, I think, at one point, he said, write a letter in anger and put it on your mantelpiece for about a week, and then go back to it after a week and read it again and see if you still want to send it.

It's so easy to do it with a computer. You can put down your words and hit that send button, and boom! It goes around the world just like that. And it's out there for good. It's out there and can be copied, pasted, spread, and always have your name on it. So I don't know if my prediction of becoming a Luddite will ever come to pass.

I'm like you. I'm too addicted to technology. But I understand sometimes the limitations that are there. I still write letters. I still write notes. Sometimes I'll type them out on the computer and put them into an envelope and send them, rather than just send an email. There's grace about getting a card handwritten or a letter that's handwritten from someone. Think about it. When you open your mailbox and somebody sent you a card or a letter and it's handwritten. Let's hope the postal system stays in business. I know they're wanting to cut out Saturday delivery, which will make it good for some of those postal workers maybe to come in the church in the future. And I only get junk on Saturday anyway, so it's not going to really upset my life if I don't get a mail on Saturday.

But come to think of it, I get junk on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, just about any more bills. But I hope that the postal system never fails, never dies out because there's something about a handwritten letter. Maybe we'll go back to personal couriers. I don't know, like they did in Jane Austen's day and deliver handwritten notes in that way. But think about that. Think about your words. Think about imparting grace to the hearers as a means of how we relate with one another, how we move forward, move away from our past. It says in verse 30, Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. That's the spiritual leaven that we need to examine and find and really scour from our lives. After we put the baking soda and the bread and the self-rising cornmeal and flour and everything, put all the big things out. Oh, that's the easy stuff. This is the hard stuff right here. To put away wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking. That's where it really gets difficult to do. That's the hard stuff with all malice. And be kind to one another.

Tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. That's what God wants us to do. With God's help, we can do that. The Days of Unleavened Bread are an annual learning tool for us to examine ourselves, to see what we have learned, what we can learn as part of the forward movement of God's purpose. And no matter how many years we've kept them, no matter how many years we've been in the church, no matter how old we are, we all, as long as we live, can continue to learn how to live. How to live. As long as you live, keep learning how to live. Because with God's help, we can straighten the tree. With God's help, we can begin to correct that bend in the tree. And the growth from that point up ahead can be straight. We don't always have to be victims of things that were in our past, because we have that power of choice. That's one of the great lessons from the Days of Unloved Bread as well. Forgiveness, repentance, and choice. How we live to choose our actions, to choose to be kind, to choose to put evil speaking away, to not be caught up in bitterness, anger, wrath, and clamor. The clamor that comes...the way I take that word clamor is everybody else. The crowd. The clamor of the group. The group thing. The particular spirit of a time and of a group and of a situation that can be there. Don't get caught up in what others are doing. Know your own inner compass. Know your own self. Know what you have committed yourself to. Be wise. Be humble. Don't have confidence that you can make right judgments for yourself. Move forward and move into the future with God's help. In Philippians 4. Verse 6.

If you are a person, or anyone's subject, or necessarily anyone's problem, transfer it to God. Transfer it to Christ. Then move on with life. Let Christ live within you. As you take that piece of un-loving bread today, tonight, tomorrow, the next seven days, recognize that it's teaching us the need for Jesus to live His life in us. His perfect life. Think about that, which will be the key to dealing with our past and helping us to move and to face the future with courage, to overcome the sins of anger, bitterness, doubt, and fear of the past, to be able to live in the present moving forward to the future. This is what God wants to give us. Verse 7. This peace of God. We read on the Passover night in John 14, I think, about verse 37. Christ said, Peace I leave with you. My peace I leave with you. Not as the world. Be not afraid. Be not afraid, He said.

The only reason, the only way we can get to living a life that is not dominated by fear and anxiety and worry is through the peace of God that He describes here, that can guard our hearts and minds through Jesus Christ. If there is no other lesson, if there's no other point, perhaps you and I need to learn during the days of Unleavened Bread. It is to have peace of mind and a confident faith in God, living His life in us, helping us to move to the future. Only then can we have the peace of God governing in our heart. Christ promised that. That's one of the promises that He left with His disciples and the church hours before His death.

And He said, do not be afraid. And so as we keep the feast with New Unleavened, seeking ways of dealing with the challenges of life, let's move forward. Let's not look back, because somebody might be gaining, and we don't want it to be overtaken. Let's take a step forward, straightening the twig.