Richard Ellis Talks

Richard Ellis: Today on Richard Ellis Talks. So you say, "Well, okay, I stopped that. I see that the rebellion in my heart has created all this damage. I look at my past, I see my choices. So why would you not just want to get away from that?" Because sometimes you have to remember the pain that was caused by a choice in the past so you don't do it again today and end up with that same past.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. Richard's style is unlike anyone else, where he shares the life-changing message of the gospel in a way that's real, refreshing, focused, and fun.

We know that life is pretty challenging these days, but these talks will help you meet those challenges head-on with biblical truth, encouragement, and direction. Now, if you're not able to stick around with us for all of today's talk, you can always listen to, download, and even share this entire message with a friend right from our website, richardellis.com. So, let's jump right in with today's talk. Here is Richard Ellis.

Richard Ellis: The title of today's message is "Past the Past." So my question to start with today is this: we might take a peek into the reflecting pool of your life and mine. This is the first question: what is the greatest achievement of your life to date? If you were interviewed, you're on TV somewhere and they put a mic in your face and say, "What is your greatest achievement, your whole life?" And this is it. Everybody got that?

Second question: what is your greatest failure or loss to date? And it may be something nobody even knows about, or maybe one or two people know about. It could be a choice you made or something that happened to you. It's just catastrophic in nature. A great achievement on the other end, a great disappointment.

I found a quote that says this: "Even though there are days I wish I could change some of the things that happened in the past, there's a reason the rearview mirror is so small and the windshield is so big. Where you're headed is much more important than what you've left behind." Now, if I say, "Tell me about your past," it is very fascinating that most of us go to a negative connotation with the word "past." You don't have to have a bad past.

So if you have a terrible past, what do you think caused that? And if things are getting better, your past should be improving. If you're growing spiritually, your past should be changing, especially your most recent past and how you're able to deal with your distant past. So how we live today contributes to our future past. How you live today, in the present, is going to contribute to your future past because tomorrow, today will be your past.

So if you make great choices, one of them being to respond, not to react to what happens to you today, you will continue to build a great past. Now, if you have a bunch of stuff you regret in your past, regret usually has to do with something we did. It could be something you regret that happened to you, though you may not have had any control over that. But if you have regret and then you find yourself doing the same thing that you did in your past, and you're expecting that your present is going to be different and your future past is going to be different, it's not going to change.

So does God want us to remember our past? Let's start with Deuteronomy chapter 9, and I'm going to give you a few examples of this in the Old Testament, and then we'll do the New Testament. Deuteronomy 9, and let's just read verse seven. And this is very interesting how he puts this: "Remember," and then he says, "Do not forget." So not just a positive remember, but do not forget.

But what is he telling them to remember and not forget? "Do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord." Now, why would he tell you to remember that? Hopefully so you don't repeat that.

Now, I can think of in my own life, I don't like to think of it as just all-out rebellion. I just think I still get tricked or deceived or just choose to sin. But I know better. And some people know better, but they are so locked up with God. They are so determined—maybe you're one of these people—that "I am going to prove that my way works. And even if my way doesn't work, I don't care. I'm going to be right because I'm going to be right."

So you can read me all the Scripture you want to read me. You can tell me what works and doesn't work. I'm going to do what I want to do the way I want to do it and you can't stop me. And almost God can't stop me. But look at how that's worked out for you so far. And how much more of your life are you willing to give to that cause, that worthless cause of waste?

So you say, "Well, okay, I stopped that. I see that the rebellion in my heart has created all this damage. I look at my past, I see my choices. So why would you not just want to get away from that?" Because sometimes you have to remember the pain that was caused by a choice in the past so you don't do it again today and end up with that same past. Go to Isaiah 43. Isaiah 43:18. Everybody there?

Now here he says, "Do not remember." Here he says, "Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing. Now it shall spring forth. Shall you not know it?" In other words, it'll be obvious, won't you know that's what it is? "I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The beasts of the field will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, because I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert to give drink to my people, my chosen. This people I have formed for myself, they shall declare my praise. But you have not called upon me, O Jacob, and you have been weary of me, O Israel."

So he says, "Look, forget all that past stuff. I'm going to do something new." If you cannot get past the past, you don't have a shot at any future. Because your future is going to be nothing but a mirror. It could just overlap. Take your past and just hinge it up and slap it down in the future. And you go, "Well, that's discouraging. That's depressing. You're saying my past is going to be my future? Tell me different. Tell me why it's not going to be that."

What are you doing today that's going to change what tomorrow looks like? If every day looks like yesterday, you're going to run out of days and any hope of a future. So you say, "Well, I'm excited about the future." Why? Why would you possibly be excited about the future? "I got all these plans." What plans do you have that are related to God in any way? A holy life, a godly life, where you look at your sin and say, "God, I don't want this to be my future. Help me."

On that note, go to Jeremiah 29. And some of you can tell me exactly what verses I'm going to, because you've read this, you may have memorized this. But do you believe the verses that you know? Does your life look like you believe the Scriptures? Jeremiah 29:11. This is God speaking to His people: "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord." So this is what God, he's saying, "This is what I know I'm thinking about toward you, toward us, let's say."

"Thoughts of peace, not of evil." So if God's thinking about bringing peace into our lives, why do we bring so much evil into our lives? He's not doing that. "So why am I surrounded by all this evil? I'm involved in evil. I think about evil things. I pursue evil things." What is that about? That's not God coming up with that. You're listening to the enemy the way he has just cranked you up and churns you and spits you out from the past, and it just keeps repeating itself.

"Thoughts of peace, not of evil, to give you what? A future and a hope." Now again, I'm not trying to be discouraging today, but if you don't figure out a way to get past the past, you have no future. Future and a hope. "Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me and I will listen to you. And you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart." We are so easily distracted.

We get rocking along, you know, you gather maybe on a Sunday, whatever, different people, some meet on Saturdays, whatever day they gather or they don't gather. And they get a hit. See, what you think is you come to a gathering like this and you come in and go, "Oh, I hope he says something that really encourages me." For what? "Oh, I hope I hear something powerful today." For what? Are you any different today than you were a week ago? Do you have any intention of changing any of that, or is this past week just been another replica of your past? Same old loop.

You say, "Well, how do I change that?" Do something different. Now you say, "What does that mean?" This is what that means. So think about the sin that so easily besets you. Everyone that's got that, knows what that is, raise your hand. I'll give the rest of you a minute, keep your hands up till they figure it out. Okay, this is not complicated. I can promise you something: unless you die during this message, before the day is over, your sin that so easily besets you will come knocking.

This is not complicated. You know how we all know this? Because it happens every day. That is our experience. That is our past. And you either, we either have an experience with that sin where it comes knocking and we go, "Hello, who is it? Oh, it's you again. Oh, I shouldn't let you in. Oh, Mrs. Doubtfire." You know, and here we go. And we hold the door, "Oh, I'm not supposed to do this." And, "Okay, come on in." And you get rolled again and go, "Oh dear God, I don't know how that happened." You opened the door.

So what does your future look like if you get past your past? The knock comes at the door and you realize it's an enemy. At my house right now, we got a little thing on the door knob. You turn that, you can't turn the door knob. There's a deadbolt above that that has a deadbolt on the outside, and you can open it from the outside or the inside. And above that one is a deadbolt you can only lock from the inside. So you're going to have to take my door off the hinges to get in when all that's locked. Why would I lock all that? Just trying to be safe. So how many doors you got locked? And how many doors you got open?

See, we're not even locking doors. We put a brick out there, leave them open, "Come on in." And then you say, "Well, why is my life so screwed up and why are you telling me I don't have a future?" You do have a future, you've planned it. Because you can't get past the past, your future is your past. There's no hope. You say, "But I've been trying for years." Get a security system. They get in even then. Hire a guard. They still come. Put on some armor. Call a friend.

Now you say, "Well, this isn't very razzle dazzle." It's just your life. That's all it is. Go to Second Corinthians. Second Corinthians chapter 5. Okay, Second Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17. I've read it before, I'll probably read it again. Great verses: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ," that means you're a Christian, Christ is in you, you are in Christ, there's that relationship, "he's a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new."

"Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation." So what does all that mean? You're a new person. You cannot live that old life. You are a new creation. The old things have passed away, everything's new. You have new possibilities, you have new options, you have power to live the life that he intended. He is not just demanding that you do something you can't do. That's what religion does.

You take commands, you take people saying, "Here's your checklist: do this, do this, don't do this, don't do this." You check it all off and you try by your willpower to make it work. And it fails. It has to be done through the power of God in and through your life. We have no power of sin apart from the power of God. You can't stop sinning. It's literally a law. The Bible describes sin as "the law of sin and death." So we are going to sin no matter what, unless you let him intervene in your life and stop that.

You say, "But I don't believe that's possible." That's the problem. So you find Scripture that says that's what He says. Then you take faith and say, "Okay, I'm going to mix faith with what I see that He says and let's see what happens." Let me mention this one, Ephesians chapter 4. I think this is important because it is part of people's past. Ephesians chapter 4. And I don't have time to read all the verses I was going to read, but let me read you the ones kind of here at the end. Ephesians 4, go to verse 25. Now these are practical things.

Gosh, he can't start there. That's not possible. Okay, go to 20. Okay, verse 20: "But you have not so learned Christ, 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 way you used to live, 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, so here's some practical things. You say, "Well, I might be in the list." Therefore, because that's true, putting off that, putting on Him, putting away lying. Stop lying. I always forget to put this one in here. Maybe I lie more than I realize it, but that's not my big deal. Stop lying. "I just can't help myself, I just got to make me look better than I am." You're making up stuff about yourself. It's not true, stop lying. Just be you. "Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry, and 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." Stop stealing.

"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, that it may impart grace to the hearers." You can't imagine the conversations I have with husbands and wives and the texts they show me and the language they're flinging at each other. Effing this, GD that, just boom, boom, boom. Stuff you would never say out loud. Where in the world is that coming from? "Well, it works." It does not work. You are destroying your spouse. You are destroying your children. And you're showing, if you got kids and that's how you speak to them, you're telling them that's okay. "Well, I don't know where my kid heard that." Oh, let's take three guesses and maybe we'll figure it out.

Keep reading. "And 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." And then verse 32: "And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you." So you say, "I can't get past my past because people did stuff to me in my past, and I can't forgive them." How can you not forgive them when He has forgiven you? And this is the thing that comes back, "But you don't know what they did." You don't know what you did that got him killed.

Now, I know all this is very uncomfortable because I'm staring, looking at a bunch of people I don't—the people on the radio, now they're listening somewhere other way. I don't have to stare at you. So this is rough right here because some of you are looking at me like, "Okay, I get it. Maybe I'll try that." And there's some of you going, "Dude, I ain't doing any of that. I'm not going to change. You can flip my past into my future. That's all I got. That's all I'm giving God." That is catastrophic. You are not going to come back as a duck somewhere. This is it. This is your only life. And you may have less time than you realize.

I think about all those people out there at that concert in Vegas. For some reason, it hits me. An hour earlier, they're all phones up, singing "God Bless America." And an hour later, some guy is unleashing the Kraken on them and bam, you're hit in the head with a bullet. You go, "What happened?" Your life is that long. You don't have time to waste. You've wasted enough time, like me. "Oh, I'll do that one day." This is the only one day you get. You get one day at a time. Philippians chapter 3. Now I've also read this, but in a different context. So let me jump in here down in verse four, kind of this is jumping in literally in Philippians 3:4.

"Though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks," in other words as a human being, "if anyone else thinks that he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is of the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ." So when I asked the question, "What's your greatest achievement, your greatest loss?" You better have more than that.

And even if you have a lifetime achievement of some kind where you're famous or you have a trophy or you've been acknowledged in some way, you better not stop there because there is something greater than any of that and that is finding Christ, knowing He lives in you, through you, and seeing what He can achieve if you'd just simply trust and obey Him. "But it won't show up anywhere." You've got to be concerned that it shows up in heaven, not here. Why won't somebody know me here? It may never happen. You may die in obscurity but in obedience and holiness and trusting God and letting Him work in and through you in such a way that there's no stopping you.

And it's backwards from the world. You lose your life, you find it. You hold on to your life, you lose it. So no matter what you've achieved—and this is what is so frustrating. I got a buddy, he's dead now, worked in the White House and kept inviting me to go up there and finally went one day with him. And you get to the White House and you go in that building and you feel almost the oppression. You know that the enemy is after whoever is in the house. But once you've been so close to that place and that power and most people can't even work there but for a certain period of time because it's too intense, they get out. And then the problem is, what are you going to do if you've been there?

You were the CEO, you were the COO, you made a bunch of money. And so that's all you've got. It does not have to end there. Keep moving. Press into Him and see what He can do with the rest of your life. And if you let Him get a hold of you, you say, "Well, look what I did without Him. Imagine what He can do if you would just cooperate with Him instead of trying to get Him to cooperate with you." "Hey God, I'm going over here. Come bless this." How about the other way, God saying, "Hey, I'm going over here. I'll bless this. Let's go." And you get in on that.

If you only knew what was possible through one solitary life. Just one person going, "Okay God, I'm in. I yield. I'll see if this works." Your life would explode with effectiveness because everywhere you go, you're looking, you're listening. And it's like Christ is living in you and through you and you get out of the way and He starts speaking to people and praying for people and texting and calling people. And all of a sudden you don't have time to sin anymore because you get addicted to Him and to serving Him and to the enormous blessing that comes from seeing His life manifest in your life.

Where'd we leave off? Verse seven: "But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know him and the power of his resurrection."

Do you know Him and do you know the power of His resurrection? Have you seen—okay, I'll tell the story here. Couple shows up at church off the radio. We meet, they come, they come, they come. They are not married. They were married. Could be in the room today, haven't seen them yet. They were married years ago. She became a Christian, they got reacquainted, they're getting remarried. Ask me to go sit, have lunch with them, talk to them about getting remarried. We sit down at lunch. And she has been praying for a godly husband and was going to get her old husband back.

And somehow in the course of that lunch, I looked at him and I said, "So you die right there in that seat. What happens to you? Where would you end up?" He said, "Somewhere in between." I said, "There is no somewhere in between." And I shared the gospel with him and sitting there with his wife, she had no idea the man she was about to remarry wasn't even a believer yet. She said, "How could I have missed that?" So we all hold hands sitting there at that little table and he becomes a Christian and she says, "That's the godly man I prayed for."

You say, "Well his whole life is changed then." Is it? His eternity is changed. If you're a Christian, your eternity, your destination is changed. But what's your life look like? "That I may know him," personally, "the power of his resurrection." You say, "Well, what does that mean?" That means I sat at lunch and saw a man raised from the dead, that's what that means. He was dead in his trespasses and sins, the Bible says. And he heard the gospel, responded to the gospel, and went from death to life, from the power of Satan to the power of God, from darkness to light, just like that in a restaurant.

Guest (Male): Richard will be back in a moment to wrap up today's talk. But first, I want to share a couple thoughts with you. Let's be honest: real life isn't about living some highlight reel for others to see. Most people have deep hurts, questions, and struggles. We get it and want to help you in any way we can. So let's keep this conversation going. Give us a call at 855-6-RICHARD or connect with us at our website, richardellis.com.

You can even put in your prayer request right there on the prayer wall so others can pray for you as well. Call us at 855-6-RICHARD or online at richardellis.com. And now let's get back to Richard with a final word on today's show.

Richard Ellis: You say, "That just happens to you because you have some gift of whatever." You know what? You cannot use that excuse anymore. Get over yourself. "Oh, he's got some special something." I got the same special thing you got: Jesus. And the Holy Spirit working in me. And when I get out of the way and let Him work, I see the dead raised. You get out of the way, let the Lord work, you see the dead raised. And then people stare back at me, "Well, what if I just give a little money and let you keep doing that? I'll give more money. Please don't stir this up anymore. I don't want to be that person."

Then find you a mirror and look at your future. Because it is your past. Because nothing is going to change until you change your mind. You repent. And then a few verses down, verse 13, he says, "Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind." In other—what is the context here? He had talked about all these things, achievements. Forget those things, "reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ."

I found a quote by Oscar Wilde and he said, "No man is rich enough to buy back his past." I found me a rich man that bought my past back. And His sweet name is Jesus. And He died on a cross, shed His blood, was buried and raised from the dead to not only pay for my past, but give me a present and a future and the ability to get past my past to the future that He has for me, so that my future past doesn't look like my past past.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening today to Richard Ellis Talks. We're confident that the program blessed you, and we want to hear about it. One way is to give us a call and let us know. The number is 855-6-RICHARD. Another way is to drop us an email. Jump on over to our website, richardellis.com, and click on the connect tab at the top. We'd love to hear from you. And while you're there at the website, it's the best way to stay up to date with all the audio and video talks with Richard posted on the prayer wall, how you can join the team, and even a place where you can ask any questions you have to get straight biblical answers. Check it out: richardellis.com.

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