Back to the Future
Stuck in Time
Pastor Heath Beard
April 23, 2025

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April 23rd & 27th


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…

—Philippians 3:13 NIV

Remember Lot’s wife!

—Luke 17:32 NIV

17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”

—Genesis 19:17 NIV

But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

—Genesis 19:26 NIV

…She wanted what she had MORE than she wanted what God had for her!

These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us…

—1 Corinthians 10:11a NIV


If you stay where you are, then you may not ever move.

With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.”

—Genesis 19:15 NIV

31 And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

—Matthew 12:31-32 NIV


If you want something better, then you have to exit where you are.

When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them.

—Genesis 19:16 NIV

Do not say, ‘Why were the old days better than these?’ For it is not wise to ask such questions.

—Ecclesiastes 7:10 NIV

Come back to the place of safety, all you prisoners who still have hope!
I promise this very day that I will repay two blessings for each of your troubles.

—Zechariah 9:12 NLT


If you don’t let your past die, then your past won’t let you live

Lot and his two daughters left…

—Genesis 19:30a NIV

6 if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man…

—2 Peter 2:6-7a NIV

Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.

—Luke 9:62 NIV


FILL OUT YOUR CONNECTION CARD HERE
Next Steps:
1. Today, I invite Jesus in my life for the first time.
2. I have lived in the past and today I am walking out of it.
3. I will do a word study this week in the Bible of the word “past.”
4. I am interested in serving at Evergreen Camp this June.