The Wayback Machine is an online digital library, holding over 580 billion web pages. It works by storing original source code so that previous versions of web pages are accessible—even if the page no longer exists. Did you know the Enemy has crafted his own Wayback Machine? Your past—regrets, sins, mistakes—are all archived, and He is working at a feverish pace to make sure you visit them again and again. But through the Holy Spirit, we have a way out. We can Hack the Wayback, turning the Enemy’s greatest weapon against him.

The Wayback Machine exists to tell you who it thinks you are. Your words, your actions, your thoughts—everything you’ve ever done—are all on display. And the Enemy wants you to think these things define you. But when we Hack the Wayback, we see our past in a new way. Instead of shame at how sinful we were, we are in awe of how loving God is.

Oh, man, it's good to see everybody. It's good to see everybody, especially with the fact that today's Independence Day, I gotta be honest, I am like, pleasantly surprised with how many people are here. I've been seeing people watching online. I was telling the staff, I was like, guys, if we have five people, don't be depressed. Because it's Independence Day, and people are grilling. And if you're one of those people who's grilling today, or you know, you're out at the beach, or at a party right now, we're doing our best to not be bitter, and hold it against you. Be praying for us, we'll be praying for you.

So today we are starting this brand new series, "Hack the WayBack," and how I want to start off today, a question not just to frame this morning, but the frame this entire series, I want to ask you this is a hypothetical, don't shout out or anything like that. But who are you? Who are you? There's many ways to answer this question. Who are you this identity question. But typically one thing that I've found whenever I've asked people about this, if I'm getting to know somebody, typically almost every answer to the question, who are you is rooted in and it's grounded in the past. Right? Just about everyone, whenever they answer that question, more than even giving you where they're presently at in their life, they dig into the past, right? Like I know, for me, whenever people ask who I am like, Who are you? Typically I start talking about like, Well, okay, I'm born raised in Akron, Ohio, lived in Cleveland for a little while, I went to Chapel Hill Elementary School, and I went to Coventry high school, and I went to the University of Akron, Ohio Christian University, right? I'm giving all of these things, all these descriptors about myself, but all of them are rooted in the past, right? They're all rooted in the past. And that's, that's good, because the past it helps it because of an information that we need.

A lot of fun things could have happened in our past that define us and define who we are. I didn't wear this shirt today, just because it's really cool, which it is, right. Any shirt that has the Ultimate Warrior on it is a good shirt, it just is. I got this shirt because I was at Target the other day and I'm walking down. Every time I go to Target even if I'm going there for like, you know, groceries or something, I have to stop by the clearance rack in the men's section. Give it up to the clearance rack at Target. Yes. We need to get a Target sponsorship at the church, see if they can throw some money our way. But I go to the clearance rack every single time just to see what they have. And as I was walking by the men's section, I was like, had to stop and do a double take because I saw this magnificent shirt hanging up and I saw it was normally like 13 bucks. And it was only $8 and I'm like oh boy, I gotta - WrestleMania six, I gotta get this shirt. I and I love it because I remember this WrestleMania like I as I was growing up. I feel like I grew up in the golden age of wrestling. I loved it. Like I loved pro wrestling. I thought it was all real. I thought these people hated each other and these rivalries were legit. It like threw me for a loop when I realized that this was all fake. And these guys were actually friends outside of this. But man, I loved wrestling. I loved it.

Think about it, me and my brother and our friends. We would rent all the Paper Views right? WrestleMania and Summer Slam and they're just they're fantastic right the Ladder Match and the Undertaker and have the coffin match and these things were so cool. I'd like a little wrestling ring. I still have a lot of my little wrestling toys. This is the coolest thing. My brother, his one friend Shawn Seacrest, his dad. I can't even remember what he did. But it was something with like metallurgy. And he made us a legit championship belt. It was the coolest thing ever. I don't know what happened to it. But it had like leather. It was like a leather belt. A big one looks just like it. It had actual metal on it. And he had it engraved and said WWF Championship belt and everything. I mean, we thought that was the coolest thing, slapping it over our shoulder and walking around the house with it. Like this is so cool. Man. I loved wrestling we could like every finishing move. We knew, like Shawn Michaels sweet chin music and the sharpshooter for Bret Hart like all these things, and we practice them on each other and just not smart. Like little 12-year-old kids like beating the tar out of each other trying to get them in the submission holes. But man it was it was so much fun. And all of that came flooding back to me the second I saw this shirt. Like as I'm just walking by and I seem to share all of that stuff. I talked to my mom and in between services she was saying the same thing. She's like, man it's so funny you saying all that it made me take a trip down memory lane thinking about all these these fun times and just everyone coming over our house to watch these.

But the thing is, whenever you take a trip down memory lane, it's not always a fun trip. I guess it's not. And so as I'm going down this memory lane trip, I'm also remembering things that like, like whenever we would wrestle sometimes we'd actually get hurt not like oh that kind of hurt, look like legit hurt. I remember that. And I remember us getting in fights with like me my brother. I mean, my friends because like, hey, you did that too hard. And that wasn't cool. And, and I remember watching wrestling I can still this is how crazy it is. I can still remember the moment I like stopped watching because my favorite wrestler was Shawn Michaels, the heartbreak kid. And I remember the match that he lost to Stone Cold Steve Austin in WrestleMania. And it like ended it for me. I was like this is it. It's over. He's my favorite wrestler. And he actually in real life got injured from it and didn't wrestle anymore because he didn't want to reactivate it was like a spinal injury and he just didn't want to chance it.

And that was like whenever I was out, I'm like, I don't want to watch it anymore. So at the same time that I'm having all these fun memories, I remember these things. I'm like, Oh yeah, I remember it's kind of like beating up on each other and getting on each other's throats about stuff. And man that's how the past is. Like that's how that's how the trip down memory lane goes. Just how there is a main street in every single town you visit, like every town across the board has a main street doesn't matter if it's a good town or a bad town, they've got a Main Street. Every single town, no matter how good, how fun has a memory lane in it. And so we remember the good but man there is bad there too. There is stuff that hurts stuff that makes us feel a bit squeamish stuff that makes us say, ouch, whenever we remember it. Some of the things maybe that we've said some of the things that we've done some of the ways that we have treated people and you want to know what's really crazy, too is I've noticed as I was thinking on the sermon, I'm like, man, some of the stuff in my past. That's hurtful. Or that brings shame or guilt. Man, I can remember that with so much more clarity than even the fun stuff. Isn't that crazy? Like some of the things that I can remember with like a cute detail are the things that hurt the most, are the ways that I let people down the most. I can remember how I felt I can remember what I was wearing.

I can remember all of this the day I stole a little Scooby Doo, Mystery Machine Hot Wheels from Marks on Waterloo road. I remember, I remember everything because I can still I'm not kidding you. I can still I was a little kid, I can still feel the shame that I put on myself knowing that this was the wrong thing. I can still remember having to tell the manager that I'm sorry. As we returned it my mom, we come home and she's like I I would have remembered buying the Mystery Machine. I got Oh, I know you took that. And so I remember this I remember and it felt man, it's still even today. There's always a little like, it's embarrassing, and it hurts. And you remember all of those feelings all that like squeamish stuff that you have.

And so I think about that I think about that's how our past is and I related to the song we just sang "Jesus Paid It All" right? And that's an amazing thing. Our entire faith is based on the fact that Jesus paid it all. But the hard part is while Jesus paid it all, I remember it all. Like I'm acutely aware of what he paid for me. And why that makes me so grateful. It also hurts because I know man, I've hurt people, man I've done things I shouldn't have done man. I've said things I shouldn't have said and it can hurt, the past can hurt.

And so I think about this is from 1 John 1, I love this. It's one of the most beautiful verses in all scripts or 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful, and just and he will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." I mean, that's what we're singing about. That's what we worship God for that he will forgive us. The question is, is can we forget? Because it's not a question of whether or not he can forgive us. We know he can. The question is, can we forget our past? Like, can we actually wrestle with our past and get over it? Because if we don't, it won't lead anywhere good. It won't lead anywhere good. It will lead us to death and destruction in our life and in our relationships and with the purpose that God had in mind for us.

So with that in mind, I kind of want to shift metaphors real quick. All right, so we've been talking about taking a stroll down memory lane. That's kind of a dated metaphor, you know, that phrase, taking a stroll down memory lane, it actually originated back in like the 1800s, the late 1800s will update this idea of memory lane a little bit. Today, we're going to be talking about the Wayback Machine, the Wayback Machine. Has anyone ever heard of the Wayback Machine? So not a lot of Mr. Peabody and Sherman fans in the house today? I'm shocked. Like it's such an unpopular show. Right? It's it's something that originated that show where they would travel back in time, to different locations. But it's actually not just that there's an actual thing nowadays called the Wayback Machine. If you go online, you do a Google search, you'll find it. Basically what it is. It's an Internet Archive. It's an online digital library. Get this, it houses over 580 billion with a B, web pages. That's a lot. It's a lot information that has a lot of content. Now, the crazy thing about it the thing that separates it so much, because you would think to yourself, well, I mean, so what? Google has access to billions of web pages, what makes it so different? The thing about the Wayback Machine is what it does, is it stores and it houses the original source code of just about every website you can imagine. So the original thing, so it will store that and it will keep it on its site. And so it takes almost a snapshot of what that page looked like.

In that moment, people have posted old school pictures, a snapshot of like what the Space Jam original movie website looked like, back in the day. It's hilarious, like all these little clipart things all over the place. That looks terrible. But it's the actual original web page saved exactly what it looked like. And it stores these things over and over again. So if you ever heard anybody talk about it, be careful what you post online, it lives forever. They're talking about the Wayback Machine. The Wayback Machine houses, all this stuff. It keeps all of it, it stores it and archives it, and it doesn't go away. Now, the thing about the Wayback Machine is on one hand, it can be fun. Like you can go look at the old Space Jam website, you can go look at nice face back in the day, you can do all those kinds of things. That's fun.

So again, I ask who are you? Who are you? Who are we? What defines us? Well, it's very clear what the enemy wants. What the devil wants. The devil clearly wants our past to define us. In fact, he has created his own WayBack Machine, and everything we've ever thought, everything we've ever said every hurt we've ever made. All of that is saved, stored and cataloged in a very easy to bring backup way so that at any given moment, it can pop back up, and we can take a trip on the Wayback Machine, we can see exactly where we've been, we can see exactly who we've heard, what we've done, what we've said, and it never goes away. The enemy wants the Wayback Machine to tell us our identity to just lay out there for us. These are your sins. These are your regrets. These are dysfunctions. And what happens if we end up giving into that if we end up playing with the Wayback Machine and we allow the enemy to just keep bringing these things up into define us. What ends up happening is we'll feel like Jesus can't really forgive us. Or and this is, this is just as dangerous. We'll feel like he can forgive us. But we're too damaged to be of any good for him. Right? We're like, no, Jesus can forgive me, I believe that Jesus forgives me, but me, I can't volunteer to church. You know, you know who I've hurt. You know how I've been, I can't I can't volunteer here. I can't be on a worship team. Because of where I've been and what I've done. And what I've said, now, I can't serve on a tech team because of who I am. I can't do any of these things. I can't help I am too damaged, to do anything.

But then there's a dark side to it, too. a not so fun side. Sometimes it's it's illuminating, but it can be devastating. People will use the Wayback Machine. Everyone's heard about cancel culture. You can use the Wayback Machine to find dirt on people. Political opponents, you can find it on them. Celebrities, you can find what they said back in the day on an old blog post or something like that. Athletes, there is there is no person who hasn't been affected by this. If it's a well known person, whether a celebrity, an athlete, politician, anybody, the Wayback Machine, this idea of going back and seeing what they've done, said, thought it can be pulled up and used against them. In fact, right now, right now, I just was on Twitter, late last night and saw there's an athlete who they're trying to drag up her old tweets to cancel her essentially, right. There's an athlete who they're trying to bring up stuff from my 2010-2011 to like saying, hey, she shouldn't be able to compete in the Olympics anymore. She shouldn't be able to do this because of what she said back then. And that's the thing about the Wayback Machine, man. It doesn't matter when you said it. It's only that you said it. It doesn't matter if you've evolved. It doesn't matter if you've changed as a person, if you've made amends. None of that matters. Because essentially, people will dive back into the Wayback Machine find what you said or did or thought and say this is you. This defines you. Your past is you.

A life dominated by the past produces a defeated present. A life that is just so dominated by the past, all it produces is a present where we're just defeated. And we're like, well, I'm saved. And that's it. But I can't really do anything. Because I'm not a good person. I can't really volunteer anywhere. I can't really serve. I can't really help people. My purpose is gone because of who I've been in my past. Now, this is what I want to say. And just bear with me on this. The WayBack Machine. So you may be thinking, Okay, so we know it's bad. We know it's insidious. If we think this way, it won't lead anywhere hood. So how do we destroy it? Here's the kind of bad news. You can't. Guys happy you came to church today, man. Uplifting, motivational, just inspirational. You guys are gonna come out here today, man. My path sucks. And there's nothing I can do about it just feel great. But no, this is the thing. You can't, you can't like do anything to get rid of it. That's why this series is not called Destroy the WayBack. Like your past is past. Your past is set. It's already been done. I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But the Back to the Future lied to you. Like, you can't, you can't hop in a DeLorean and go back and change things like that is not how it works. You can't do that whatever has happened has happened. And it's set. The Wayback Machine never goes away. But it can be hacked.

So we can't destroy it. We can't get rid of it. We can't act like our past hasn't happened. The past is set, but we can hack. And so today and in the coming weeks, we're not going to learn how to erase our past. We're not going to learn how to like oh, all those hurtful things I said to people I just act like that never happened. That's perfect. Now we're going to talk about reconciliation and all those things in the coming weeks. But we can't do that. We can't act as if these things just live back there. And we can just destroy them and erase them and act like they never happened. No, they did. We can't erase our past, but we can see it in a new light. We can see the new light.

So today we're going to be in Scripture. If you have your Bible want to follow along, we're going to be in Matthew, chapter 16. I would encourage you if you don't have a physical Bible and want one, man come talk to us at the Welcome Center, we'll get you a physical Bible. But if you don't, you got your phone, you can download a Bible app. Those are fantastic. That's where I take a lot of my notes on. But I would encourage you to get it to read along. This is what it says in Matthew chapter 16. We're going to read one of the most famous accounts in all of Scripture. This is a little way in Jesus's ministry, his followers with him, they're traveling through a town and Jesus poses a question to his followers. And it's the same question that he asks us this question leaps off the pages, and he asks it of us here 2000 years later, and this is where we pick up Matthew chapter 16. Starting in verse 13. "When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, 'Who do people say the Son of Man is?' They replied, 'Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah and still others, Jeremiah, one of the prophets.'" So Jesus is asking his followers, hey, what's the word on the street about me? Like what are people saying about me? Who are they saying that I am? So they tell them this. And then in verse 15, Jesus asks this question that he asked to us as well. "'But what about you?' Jesus asked, 'Who do you say I am?'" That's the most important question we'll ever answer in our lives. One of Jesus's friends, "Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.' So Jesus replied to him, 'Blessed, are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.'"

Jesus is saying this is not something you would realize on your own. This is a revelation, this is God revealing something to you. "'And I tell you that you are Peter.'" So Jesus in this moment, he completely renames Peter, or Simon, gives him a new name, the name Peter, which means rock. And Jesus says "And on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of Hades, the gates of hell will not overcome it.'" What Jesus is saying in this moment is he's not saying I'm going to build my Church on Peter, what he's saying is, Peter, this declaration that you've made this revelation about who I really am, my true identity, who I am, that is so foundational, that is so earth shattering, it's going to change everything. And on that truth, I'm going to build my church, and nothing will be able to stop it, not a single thing, no matter what dictators come, when empires come, nothing will be able to stop it is not amazing. And we are living evidence of that the fact that we are still here today, 2000 years later, is evidence of Jesus's claim that he will build his church and nothing will be able to stop it.

One thing that I love in here and this kind of frames where we're at, talking about our past. But one thing I love, is that the question that Jesus asks here, and I think it's an appropriate and proper question for us to have, as we look at our past, I asked you at the beginning, who are you? Right, who are you? The appropriate question, the proper question, if we want to deal with our past, in a healthy way, is not who are you? But who is Jesus? Right? Like that's, that's the thing that we need to be asking when it comes to our past. Not who am I not? What have I done? Not where have I been? Not what have I said, but who is Jesus? Who do you say that he is? Because what the Wayback Machine wants to do, and what the devil wants to do is to have you so focused on you, on your past, on your words, on the hurts you cause on the hurts, you felt, he wants you to be so focused on you that you lose sight of who truly matters: Jesus. He doesn't even want you to bother with the question, who is Jesus? He's like, no, no, don't worry about that. Just focus on who you were. Focus on where you've been and what you have done. He wants us to be asking the wrong question.

Has anyone ever been on a bad date before? A bad date? Oh, come on. That's it. If you're not raising your hand, chances are it's because you were the bad date. You're, you're like, oh, no, it's all been great. All these dates have been awesome. It's you know, if you've ever been on a bad date, there's a lot of different telltale signs that things are gonna go bad. But I'll tell you the number one, and you can you can look this up, probably the number one sign that a date is going to go bad, is from the start, the person you're on a date with is just talking about themselves? It's usually a pretty telltale sign that this is not gonna go anywhere good. If if the whole conversation is geared about who am I? And let me just tell you about who I am, and then you just start spilling all out. Because the sign of a good date, this sign of a date that is intriguing and you want to invest in you want to learn about is you're asking the other person, who are you? And you're finding out about them, and they're finding out about you, right that that's how you want it to be you want to be diving in and asking the right question, rather than just oh, no, this is let me just tell you about me. Let me just talk about myself the whole night. You see, if you ask the wrong question, it completely ruins and destroys the date. And the same thing happens whenever we look at our past if we are asking the wrong question.

If we look to our past, and we're asking man, who am I because of this, that is the wrong question. And it will lead us to wrong answers every single time. We need to look at our past and say no, no, it's not who am I? It's who is Jesus? Who is Jesus? Who is he? Is He who he actually claims to be? Not who am I but who is he? The enemy is so focused on getting us to be self focused. That's all he wants. He just wants us to be so self focused, to dive into the Wayback Machine and to just be consumed with where we've been consumed with our past. We have got to realize our past is not about us. It's about Jesus. Because if we focus on ourselves, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I've been here, I've been here. If you focus on yourself, if you hop on the WayBack, you focus on yourself and your past, it will define you. It will define you, I promise you, your past will start to define you, you will start to be attaching your identity to who you've been in the past, it will just kill you with shame and regret, man.

And this is how it always happens, isn't it? The Wayback Machine always wants to kick in for me in three places. I'll tell you mine. When I'm driving, when I'm in the shower, when I tried to go to sleep. Anybody else? When those three things happen, the second that car engine turns on, the second the shower faucet's on, it's coming out. The second I lay my head on the pillow, it's like you can hear the Wayback Machine booting up, like, instantly. It's crazy. And all I hear from that moment on is stuff from years ago will come up stuff from years ago stuff that I thought I was over, stuff that I thought I had dealt with will come back up into my head. It's like, someone just pulled up a web page, and boom, there it is. The why did I say that? Man, why did I do that to them? Whoops, man. Why did I not trust God in that way? All these different things and they snowball one leads to another and that leads to another and that leads to another and before I know it, I am so filled with shame. And I'm so filled with regret and don't like man, I'm a I'm a bad person. Man, I'm a coward. Why did I say that? Why don't you stand up for that person? I mean I'm, I'm overbearing. Why did I just throw my weight around in that situation? That is exactly what the devil wants. He wants you to be so focused on yourself. So focused on who your past tells you that it becomes your identity. He wants you to feel awful. We just talked about it last week. And our last week of eMoodjis is the devil is walking around like a lion looking for someone to devour. And he knows man, if I can get you so focused on your past, you will devour yourself. You'll take yourself down, you'll feel awful, and you will allow it to define you.

But here's the thing, and this is where we have gotta just latch on to and remember is that no one, no one including your past gets to define you. Nobody, no one gets to define you, including your past. I love how Jesus, he responded to these questions. He didn't even really acknowledge the responses, right? He asked his disciples, Hey, who are people saying that I am? "They replied, 'Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah and still others, Jeremiah, one of the prophets.'' You notice Jesus didn't even spend time rebutting any of those. He didn't even spend a second thing like people think I'm like Jeremiah, do they think I'm one of these prophets resurrected, or he didn't spend a second worried about what other people thought of him, because Jesus knows something that we need to know that no one, no one, no one gets to define us, except God. No one including our own past. And I want to let you know today that your past has an opinion about you. Your past has an opinion and it will try to tell you who you are, it will try to tell you the kind of son, that you've been the kind of husband you've been, the kind of daughter you've been, the kind of boss you've been, the kind of employee you've been. Your past will try to tell you, you've been a failure, that you've been a success, right? It'll also try to build you up and in proper ways, your past will try to define you and tell you who you are, it will try to label you. Your past will try to label you and tell you who you are.

And as we're talking about that it makes me think the Cleveland Indians, I love them. They're my my hometown team. They're in the process right now of looking for a new name. They're looking for a new name. I just saw an article which I can't even believe that this is real. They've got like 1,000 I think they said a little over 1,000 options that they're looking at right right now, which I would love to see that list. I can only imagine if you got 1,000. There's some pretty terrible names on there. Right. But there is there's an online debate going on, especially on Twitter about what their name should be. I mean, this is a very historic franchise. This isn't some expansion team that came around 1020 years ago, like they're they're one of the foundational American League, baseball clubs. And so you're trying to think like, man, we have got to come up with a good name for them. It's gotta be a strong one. There's a lot of contenders right now there's the Cleveland Spiders because at one period of time they were called the Spiders, the Cleveland Guardians because the Guardians of Traffic those two are really iconic statues in Cleveland, by the bridge right there by the ballpark, um the Cleveland Municipals, that's one that I like I'm reading a little bit on the history of it and stuff of the Cleveland Buckeyes paying homage to the Negro League team.

There's so many really good names, but man people are like amped about it. Like every time someone posts a new picture, have like a mock up that they made, saying this is, this is my idea. I'm a graphic designer, this is what the jersey would look like if we were called the Spiders. And then instantly down the comments, spiders is the stupidest name ever, you should delete this post next person. I agree. It's terrible. It should be the Municipal. Municipal is awful. It should, that shouldn't be it either. It's like, people are just so hyped about this, and I gotta be honest, I'm kind of in on it too. Because I'm like, I love this team. I don't want to be chanting for a stupid name, right? Like, Ghosts Fighters or something. I don't know. It just seems weird. So I'm, I'm invested too, right? Like, I'm invested, too in this. But you know, it's funny. All these people, all these keyboard warriors at home like me who are typing in on this, we don't get a say in it. Like they say that they're talking to a focus group, they say, they know that the Dolan family, the people who own the team, they're going to decide whatever name they feel is best, whatever name they feel is most marketable, whatever name they feel like, resembles the club in the city the best, like, they're going to decide that. And it's up to them. You know why? It's real simple. They own the team. It's not a trick question, they own the team, they paid millions of dollars to be able to own that team name, that team, all of that, that they get to make that decision. So they get to label the team. Because they own the team. They get to label the team, because they paid for the team I trust that you are tracking with me.

So the enemy, whenever he tries to bring up the Wayback Machine and say, hey, look, this is who you are. This is who you are, this is what you've done in your past, there's this stuff you said to other people, is the way you let God down, you let your family down, let friends down, this is who you are. I want to tell you whenever you feel that whenever you feel the enemy in it, and it's in different ways, maybe it's something someone says maybe it's his thoughts you're having whenever you feel that I'm not kidding, I want you to say this out loud, I want you to declare this and believe it to be true. Because it is whenever you feel that, let someone is trying to label you or put you into a corner or tell you this is who you are. Just simply say, hey, you're entitled to your opinion, and I am entitled to ignore it. You are. You know, like you can? Absolutely you're entitled to your opinion, go right ahead. Try to say that this defines me and this says who I am, you can have that opinion. And I am also entitled to ignore it. I'm entitled to ignore it. Because there is only one person who gets to label me. There's only one person who gets to label me who gets to name me. And it's the person who owns me. It's not just random people with criticisms and opinions on their own. No, no, no, I have been purchased. I've been bought at a high cost. And that is the only person who gets to name me. Jesus paid it all. So that means no one and no thing, including your past gets to claim you, or label you.

Only Jesus now, I'm going to be completely honest, that should still kind of scare you. Right? Because I mean, think about it logically. Okay, let's think about this logically, the only person who gets to judge me, the only person who gets to label me, the only person who gets to name me, is the only perfect being in existence that should cause a little bit of like, oh, okay, maybe I want other people to be my judge. Because if my judge is my father in law that I don't really like, and he's a drunk anyways, I can ignore it. Who cares about your label you put on me? I'm gonna listen to that. If it's my friend who sees a hot mess all the time, and she's trying to tell me that I'm crazy. Have you looked in the mirror recently? You're the one who's the hot mess. You're the one who goes from relationship to relationship. So in some ways, the labels that other people put on us the way they tried to point to our past. In some ways, it is kind of easier to deal with that. Because we can shrug it off. We can act like it doesn't matter. Like their opinion doesn't count. And yeah, to a degree. It doesn't. But Jesus is does. God's opinion does. And so if we're tracking along the right way, and we realize wow, the only person who can truly name me, claim me and judge me, is perfect, and is holy. That should instill fear in us the the appropriate kind of fear what scripture calls the fear of the Lord, which is understanding and having an appropriate view of who God is and who you are. That's what it means to fear the Lord not being scared of him but realizing wow, he is that otherworldly like he is that different than me there. There is no similarity here. He is that perfect. He's that amazing.

And whenever we realize that it should instill that appropriate healthy fear in the back of our mind, especially whenever we know not only is he perfect, but man, he knows our wayback machine. He knows, no one else knows. But he knows right? I mean, even look, can we can we just be real. And I don't want to feel bad. If you've told your testimony here at church before, I'm not putting it down at all. It's amazing. It's what Scripture says it's one of the ways we overcome the enemy is through the word of our testimony. So I'm not putting it down at all. But this includes me my own testimony. The most I have shared with you is the PG-13 rated version of my testimony. Right. And I'm not saying that because like, well, I've secretly murdered a few people. And I'm not telling you that what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is the thoughts I've had. They're just hurtful words. And I never said, I've never said them to anybody else. But I thought them. I've meditated on them. I've thought of comebacks that would just tear somebody else down. Right? Like I know all of that. I know all of that. I don't know, just the PG-13, TBS, edited for TV version of my testimony, man. I know the gritty spike leavers in my testimony, right? Like, I know, I know, the gritty reboot of my testimony. I know that version. And so that causes me a little bit more all towards Jesus. That caused me to be like, wow, because I get these people like me. but they've heard the cleaned up version. Man, loves me. He knows everything. Like there's not a single thing I've thought that has been hidden from him.

As Pastor Donnie said during communion, he knows every single thought every single word, every single action, even if it has gone unuttered. He knows it. And in the midst of that, he loves us. In the midst of that, he forgives us. And that right there is why if nobody else, worships God, you have to notice everyone else can sit on their hands, they can twiddle their thumbs, they cannot give a rip about God. But you can't because you know exactly what you've been forgiven from, you know, what's in your Wayback Machine, you know, all those pages that have been stored up, all the crap you've done and said, and thought, you know it, and you know, he knows it, and you know that he's still went to the cross for you, you know, he still loves you, man, that that is life changing. When you truly realize that whenever you truly realize, holy cow, he knows everything, and doesn't change the way he feels about me. That is life changing. That is the heart of the gospel. That's the heart of the gospel that despite everything that shows up on our Wayback Machine, Jesus still loves us.

And because He loves us, this is what's so beautiful about it in this, this is what we celebrate here at church. Because of that, that means my identity. It doesn't hinge on my past. It hinges on his pronouncement of who I am, so my past doesn't get to define me or label me. But what he pronounces to be true does. What he calls me does.

Whenever I do weddings, that's the part of the ceremony that's called the pronouncement. It's like the ending, right? It's right before the bridal party proceeds back out of the main aisle, the pronouncement whenever I talked to the couple about it, they're always like, what is that? And I'm like, well, it's basically like, a summary of the whole ceremony. Like you say everything that's happened. I'll take the couple that I just did, I did a wedding for Mark and Beth. I'll say so as much as Mark and Beth have consented together to join together and holy wedlock and have exchanged vows to one another and have exchanged rings to one another. By the power vested in me, I declare them husband and wife. And so that's what the pronouncement is, right? I'm, I'm saying that because I have authority, because I have power granted to me in this religious ceremony, by God, I am pronouncing them husband and wife, I am giving them this title I am labeling them and what they're saying whenever they enter into this kind of marriage covenant, especially in a religious sense, what they're saying is, we are waiting on this moment, this pronouncement to say we are husband and wife. Right? That's what Mark and Beth was saying. Like, we know that the government's already issued us something. But in this religious ceremony, we're waiting on God's approval. We're waiting on God to say that we are husband and wife because what they're acknowledging and what we need to acknowledge in our own lives, is that our past doesn't define us. Like, like they've been, they've been dating for a long time. They're engaged for a long time. They've they, you know, they got their wedding certificate, they did all these things, and they're saying, Yeah, yeah, but um, Have those things in our past? That doesn't name us, God does. So until that pronouncement comes, we're not husband and wife, until the pronouncement comes, we are not officially this new title.

And I want to let you know, your past in the same way your past experiences man, they do not define you who Jesus pronounces you to be. That is what defines you. That's what defines you. That's what labels you that's what names you. And that's why we talk today about not needing to destroy the Wayback Machine, but instead, hack, the Wayback Machine because we don't need to destroy it. And this is what's so amazing about God, the way he works things out. This is what's so amazing about his plan, and his will, is the weapon that the enemy devised to be our greatest downfall, to be the thing that causes the most shame and guilt in our life, the Wayback Machine this, this idea of digging back into your past, what was intended for evil and shame in guilt. God says, I'm not going to destroy it. No, no, no, I'm going to hack it. I'm going to take what the enemy meant for evil, and I'm going to use it for good. So instead of this being something in your past that you have to run from, and you have to try to get away from because you're so humiliated and shame filled. Instead, you don't have to try to erase your past, you can embrace the heck out of it. Because now it doesn't induce shame it induces off of who Jesus is. It doesn't induce guilt, it induces gratefulness, because you're like, oh, my goodness, I, I used to look at my past and just like hate myself and be like, man, why did I do these things? I feel so awkward feel embarrassed, but man, now I look at my past and I just see what I have been saved from how different I am now how much God loves me that despite all that he still went to the cross for me.

You see, we can hack the Wayback Machine and turn what the devil thought would be his greatest triumph, what he thought would be the game changer, the thing that would end us and take us out. And God has used it for good. He's used it for good. So if you are someone who has felt like you've had to run from your past, even after being saved, even after starting in a relationship with Jesus, you feel like you can't allow yourself to even think about where you've been. I want to let you know you do not have to run anymore. You don't have to run anymore. You can embrace where you have been knowing exactly what Jesus has saved you from knowing exactly how much you have changed, and exactly how much he loves you. You can hack the Wayback Machine. And you can completely turn the devil's greatest weapon on its head. I want to pray with you real quick. All right.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your promise. You told us that if we confess our sins, that you would be faithful and just and that you would forgive us our sins, and that you would purify us from all unrighteousness. God, the hard thing is sometimes it's easy to forget that we can get so caught up in our past, so caught up in checking out the Wayback Machine to see where we've been and what we've done and what we said that we don't feel like we've been cleansed. We don't feel like we've been purified. We don't feel like we're a new creation anymore. So God help us today to not try to destroy or erase our past but to embrace it, to see it for what it actually is. The thing that you saved us from the thing that in spite of it, you love this so much you died, the humble death of a servant the death on a cross. You took that for us. God, your love for us is so amazing. It's so incredible. Help us to live in all of that every single day, help our past to push us towards you because we are so overcome with gratefulness and gratitude and thanksgiving for who you are and what you've done for us. And it would change us, God and help us to do the same in our relationships with the people around us. That we would so exemplify you that we would not hold the past over people's heads that we would not hold grudges and hold bitterness and resentment in our heart but that we would model you. That we would forgive and that we would look past the past in the same way that our heavenly Father does for us. We love you. Jesus, help this word today to transform our hearts and our minds as we apply in our lives and we'll give you all the honor, all the glory, and all the praise that you and you alone deserve. It's in your name that we pray. Amen.