Several years ago, Natalie's niece, my wife's niece, and her husband were driving on Interstate 45 I mean, cruising along 75 miles an hour near Corsicana, when they came to a road block. Now we're not talking about a detour. We're talking about a road block, right? I mean, there's was all this rain. It had been raining for a couple of days, and all of a sudden there was this low spot on the interstate, and the water just began to rise and rise until it came to the point where it was not safe to pass through. And they put a road block at that particular point, and so they're cruising 75 miles an hour down the road, and all of a sudden they come to a halt. I mean, a complete halt. There's cars in front of them, there's cars beside them, there's cars behind them. They're completely pinned in. They're stuck. They aren't going anywhere. They're starting to think, what am I going to do if I have to go to the restroom? Do we have enough gas? How long are we going to sit here? Are we safe? Who is in these cars that's right next to us and in front of us and behind us and all of the above? Are we going to be late to where it is that we're going? Are we going to make it there at all? They're stuck. Roadblocks can be so frustrating to come up against, but they can also be scary. They can be dangerous. They can put us in situations that cause us to worry and and stress and fear what might happen to us if we're going to make it or not. While roadblocks can be that way when we encounter them in those type of situations, there's roadblocks that sometimes we face on our journey of life, and we when we come up against some of those, they can be just as scary, just as dangerous, and put us in situations that cause us to worry and cause us to stress and fear and what's going to happen to us as we sit at this road block where we were cruising down the journey of life at 75 miles an hour, and it just seems to have cometo a complete halt.Sometimes when we're cruising down the journey of life, we come up against these road blocks, like the road block of fear or the road block of worry or anxiety that just stops us in our tracks. Sometimes we come up against the road block of lust or pornography, or the road block of greed or comparison or addictions and failures and just so many other kinds of things that keep us from experiencing life, especially the abundant life that Jesus came to give us. Sometimes, when we come up against these roadblocks, it feels like maybe we can figure out a way to get past one of them and get going on our journey again, only to have it pop up a little bit further down the road again, the same one that we were at before we get around it, and it pops up again, stops us again. Sometimes there's new ones that pop up and we didn't see coming. So I don't know where you are on your journey of life. I don't know what roadblocks you may be facing right now or continue to reoccur in your life, but today, we are beginning a brand new message series where we're going to talk about some of the more common roadblocks that we face in life that can really keep us from experiencing the abundant life that Jesus said He came to give now the truth is, is that if you've said yes to Jesus for salvation. You recognize that you are a sinner, that your sinner or that your sin, separated you from him as a holy and a perfect God, and you've said yes to His free gift of salvation by putting your faith and trust in Him to be your savior, then you have abundant life. You have it because he is abundant life. He said over and over again, I'm the resurrection of the life. I'm the Way, the Truth and the Life. When Jesus said He came to give us abundant life, he meant himself. And so if you've entered into a spiritual union with Him and become a new creation in Christ, there is never a moment where you do not have abundant life. It's always in your possession. The problem is there are things that can happen in our lives that can keep us from experiencing what we already have. It's possible to have something and yet not experience it at the same time, and that's what these roadblocks keep us from doing every now and then. Today, as we begin this message series, we're going to talk about the fairly common roadblock in our lives, and that is the roadblock of our past. Many of us get stuck at this roadblock of things that we've done. You. In our past that keep us from moving forward on the journey of life and experiencing the abundant life that Jesus said He came to give. I may have shared this with you before, but when I was a junior in high school, I played tennis in high school and competitive tennis in high school. Many of you know that I was also a leader in my youth group. I was a leader on our tennis team. Everybody knew that I was a Christian. Well, there was this one particular important tournament. I was playing doubles with someone who was a senior. It was his last year. I had one more year to go, no matter what happened, but this was it for him, and I'm the one who messed up on the final point, didn't play very well, caused us to lose the match, not just for myself, but also felt really bad from him. And I'm standing all the way at the net, and I turned around and threw my racket as hard as I could from the net. It landed into the back fence. It cracked my racket, and I yelled out at the top of my lungs, G, D, except I didn't abbreviate.I did this in front of several coaches,my parents, several other parents who were there, friends, teammates, people that knew that I was a Christian, knew that I was a leader in my church youth group, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I mean, I felt so bad. I hated myself for having made that choice, for having done that. I felt so much guilt, so much shame, and I really felt stuck for a long time because of that choice that I made, but I finally felt like I was able to move past that roadblock in my life and get going again at some point until the next time that I got angry again. Then in that moment, I blew up all over again, and I'd yell at my students when I was coaching, or I would yell at my own kids after they made a choice that I told them something not to do, and Satan would take me back to that place. See, that's just who you are. Remember that time when you did that, when you were in junior in high school? I told you, that's who you were, that's who you are, and that's always going to be who you are, because you're defined by your past. It's always going to be who you are. This roadblock of our past can be so difficult to get around sometimes it just keeps coming up. Even we get around it, it just stops us again at some point where we're not really looking for it, and we get stuck back in the guilt and back in the shame, and it defines our lives even in the present. The thing is, we all have one we all have a past things that we're dealing with, and we have to deal with this roadblock in our lives from time to time. For you, maybe it was similar, maybe it was anger issues that you've had along the way. Maybe it was a past addiction to alcohol or porn or some kind of other sexual activity from your past. Maybe you've been arrested and gone to jail for something, or you experienced a divorce, or you put your fist through a wall and anger, maybe you had an affair, maybe you spread gossip against someone that you love and you knew it wasn't true. Maybe you stole something from someone or your place of work, or you cheated a business partner out of something, or maybe you just weren't there for your kids. Maybe you weren't there for your spouse, maybe you weren't there for your family like you were supposed to be along the way. I don't know what is in your past, but we all have one, and I know that sometimes our past can be a major roadblock on this journey of life. We feel the guilt, the remorse, shame just eats us up inside, and either we try to medicate it, we try to numb the pain in some unhealthy way, or we get busy to try and make it up to God, to try to make it up to the people that we've hurt along the way. We're gonna better ourselves. We're gonna achieve more. And I'm here, and I did those things, and they define me, but if I get here, these new things will define me, and I'll be my best version of my self, and it'll make all of those things go away. But the reality is, is that no matter how far we get down the road, this road block of our past always seems to pop up again, or it'll be just underneath the surface, making us drive faster and faster to try to try to beat it from popping up again. Gotta achieve more. Gotta do more. Gotta be more. I don't have to think about that. Don't have to have it pop up again.So what do we do?How do we get past the roadblock of our past? Or is there even a way to get past this roadblock? Is it just something we're gonna have to deal with until Jesus comes back? And calls us home. If you have your Bibles with you this morning, I want to invite you to turn to John. Chapter 21 Gospel of John, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Chapter 21here's what Jesus Jesus, here's what John begins to tell us. John, chapter 21 beginning in verse one, says, afterward, Jesus appeared again to His disciples by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way. Simon, Peter Thomas, also known as Didymus Nathaniel from Cana in Galilee. The sons of Zebedee and two other disciples were going, were together, I'm going to go out and fish. Simon Peter told them, and they said, we'll go with you. So they went out and got into the boat. But that night they caught nothing. Now this, of course, is after Jesus's death, after his initial resurrection. When? When John says afterward, he's referring to how he had already made us aware in the previous chapter of Jesus's initial resurrection, and how he had appeared to the women. We talked about that a lot last Sunday on Resurrection Sunday, no doubt, but now John's writing to let us know about another time that Jesus had appeared to them, and it was around this setting where they had gone out fishing. Let's see what continues to happen. Verse four, John picks up and says, early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. He called out to them, friends, haven't you any fish? No, they answered. He said, Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some. Now, if it didn't do so, it should have triggered something in their mind at that point, because we're told about a similar event, another moment that was very much like this one in Luke five. We're told about how Peter was told by Jesus to cast his net out again after they had been out all night fishing hadn't caught anything, the same kind of thing. Jesus has cast them out again. Let's push the boat out, and he goes, Jesus, we didn't catch anything all night. This is not the right time for us to be going fishing. We're probably not going to be catching anything, but because you say so, okay, mainly to just shut him up, probably, and prove him wrong, right? And and that time, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break, and they had to get help from another boat. Well, this time the same thing, pretty much happens. Here he goes on and says, when they did, when they casted their nets out on the other side, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. Then the disciple whom Jesus loved, said to Peter, it is the Lord. As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, it is the Lord, he wrapped his outer garment around him, for he had taken it off and jumped into the water. The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about 100 yards. When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it and some bread. Now this is an interesting scene here. It's, it's interesting, I mean, first and foremost, because I mean, Jesus had been resurrected from the dead, and they're seeing the resurrected Jesus again, and they're about to share a meal with him. This is a bodily resurrection. I mean, that's interesting enough in and of itself. But the other thing that we're told here that we may not think any big deal of when we first read it, it says when they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals. There. Now, why is that interesting? Why is that intriguing? Well, that's intriguing because we're told about another time in the not so distant past where Peter was also in front of a fire near Jesus, and things didn't go so well. Let me take you back there and just show you what happened. This is in Luke, chapter 22 beginning in verse 54 says. Then seizing him, referring to Jesus the night that he was betrayed, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance, and when some there had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them, a servant girl saw him seated there in the fire light. She looked closely at him and. Said this man was with him, but he denied it. Woman, I don't know him, he said. A little later, someone else saw him and said, You also are one of them. Man, I am not. Peter replied. About an hour later, another asserted, certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean. Peter replied, man, I don't know what you're talking about. Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him before the rooster crows today you will disown me three times. And he went outside and wept bitterly.Jesushad looked at Peteras he was gathered around a fire,and he had denied him three times, and it just destroyed him. Soon as the rooster crowed. I mean, it just destroyed him. Remember that that Jesus had tried to tell them this was going to happen? Remember that they had had this moment where Jesus had said, you're all going to fall away on account of me. Soon you remember what Peter said, Remember what Peter did? He stood up and said, Jesus, even if all others fall away on account of you, I I never will. I'll never do it, Jesus. But he did, and he immediately, began to experience the guilt. He immediately began to experience the shame for what it is that he had done the thing that he said that he would never, ever do, and he did it. But here we are again, in a similar way, right in John 21 we're reading about Jesus appearing before them after they had fished a similar moment in their past before. And then he brings him up on shore, and Peter is now sitting before a fire, face to face with Jesus, just like he had been at a fire before. This had to take Peter's mind back to that place, to the road block of his past. I honestly, really think that Jesus wanted to take him there. I think that that's what this whole setting was really about. That Peter had denied Jesus in public in front of a fire, and Jesus was going to deal with it in public in front of a fire, and in order to deal with his past that was bothering him, where he was experiencing the guilt and the shame and this road block where he was stuck, he had to take them back. Him back to that moment. Some of you don't want to go back to that moment. It's too hard. You don't like thinking about the guilt. You don't like thinking about the shame, but sometimes Jesus has to take us back to that moment and unpack the things around it before he can move us past the roadblock of our past. I believe that's what he's doing here with Peter. In this moment, he's face to face with Jesus around the fire. John 2115 picks up and he says, When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon, Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these nowthe question is, Who are these?Who's Jesus? What is Jesusreferring to here?Is he referring to the men that he's with? Peter, do you love Me more than these men you're hanging out with right now is, is he referring to fishing, the nets and all the equipment? Peter, do you love me more than your favorite hobby, the thing that you love to do in in fish, or your your work that you used to do? Do you love me more than that? Or ishe saying, Peter,do you love Me more than these other disciples? Do?I think that's what he's asking him,Peter, do you love me morethan they love me again? I think he's taking him back. He's taking him back to that moment. Remember Peter had said, Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will. What's he saying? Jesus, I love you more than they do. I love you more than they do, even if they all fall away. Say I never will, because I love you more than they do. Peter, do you love me more than they do? He's taking them back. He's taking him back to dealwith thisroadblock of his past. Butnotice Peter's response here.When Simon had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon, Peter, Simon, son of John, didn't we already do that we did. Here we go. Yes, Lord. He said, You know that I love you. Jesus said, Feed my lambs. Notice what Peter did not say after, you know that I love you.Did he say more than these?He didn't say it. Did he drop the comparison? Jesussaid, Do you love Me more than these? And he said, You know that I love you.He didn't go there.Maybe that's an indication that he was starting to get it that he was starting to recognize these things. I think Peter was learning about his mistake. That was his pride and his flesh, like like in my own strength, I know that I love you. There's something about me that's more special than all of these guys. And in my own power and my own strength, I I'll never fall away. So he just drops the comparison, you love Me more than these really, Peter, you know that I love you. I get it now. Jesus, you know that I love you right now. The other interesting thing here is that he says, Feed my lambs. Who are Jesus's lambs? The church? No doubt his his people, right? Jesus refers to himself in earlier teachings as the as the good shepherd and the sheep are God's sons and daughters, those who believe in Him for salvation. And so Jesus was telling Peter that he had a role for Him in His Kingdom work to go feed his lambs, to take care of the church, to take care of his sons and daughters, the people of God. In other words, we see that Jesus is starting to show Peter that his past will not be a roadblock that keeps him from the future that God has for him, just what he's starting to get at. But Peter had denied Jesus three times, and so he needs to bring this up three times if he's really going to take him back to deal with it. That's exactly what he does. Verse verse 16, and Jesus said, Simon, son of John, again, do you love me? He answered, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Jesus said, take care of my sheep the third time. He said to him, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, Do you love me? He said, Lord, you know all things. You know all things. You're sovereign when we gotta write testimony to his understanding of who Jesus was, his deity. You know all things. You know that I love you. Jesus said,Feed my sheepagain. Peter had denied Jesus three times in front of a fire. Looked straight at Jesus. Peter looked straightat him. Jesus looked straight at him,felt the shame, felt the guilt, went out and wept bitterly over his guilt and shame. Now Jesus is standing in front of a fire, looking him right in the eyes, saying, three times, Feed my sheep. Your past, Peter, will not be a roadblock that keeps you from the future that I have for store in store for you with my kingdom work. What's he saying, Peter, let's move past the guilt. Let's move past the shame. I've taken it to the cross. I've risen from the grave and defeated the power of sin and death forever, and now I'm on a mission to seek and save the lost, and I'm gonna use you to be a part of that kingdom work as an instrument. I'm gonna work powerfully in and through you despite your past, so get over it. I've already taken it to the cross. It's done with you. Don't have to wallow in it. You don't have to continue to experience the guilt. You have to experience the shame. You don't have to try to run for me. You don't have to try to make it up to me.I've already made up for it.I took it to the cross. I defeated it, abolished it, wiped it away. God, my father raised me from the dead. Guys, the same thing is true of you. If you've put your faith and trust in Jesus for salvation, whatever it is that you've done, whatever it is. Causing you to sit at the road block of your past has been taken to the cross and dealt with for ever. Look at the way the author of Hebrews writes about it in chapter 10 says every priest stands daily ministering and offering, time after time, the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But he, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, For by one offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. He's got this picture of an Old Testament priest standing daily ministering, offering again, time after time, the same sacrifices which can never He says, take away sins. They can cover sins. They can cover them temporarily, but they cannot take them away. You might work your way around the road block of your past temporarily trying to make sacrifices for Jesus and all of this religious activity that you get caught up in, trying to make yourself better, trying to make yourself appear better before him one day. But all of this religious activity and all of the sacrifices that you're trying to make cannot take away your sins. Maybe it temporarily covers it up for a little while. It's always going to come back again. So he's picturing this activity of that, right? But then he turns his attention to Jesus and says that Jesus has made one sacrifice for sins of all time, and then that he sat down. Why is that important? Because a priest work was never done. There were always more sins to make sacrifices. A priest would never sit down. They're always having to make sacrifice, and then when they make a sacrifice for this sin, then another sins come. They gotta make it another. They can never sit down and rest, because Jesus made the most perfect sacrifice where he took all the sins of all time upon himself, then that sacrifice was sufficient. His work, really was. There was no more work for Jesus to do to forgive sins. It had all been accomplished. It had all been done. And so then he was able to finally say, well, just look at this For by one offering, oh my gosh, he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. You've been sanctified in Christ. You've been perfected in your spiritual union with Him, in this new creation that you have become and in your union with Christ, you don't have to carry the guilt, you don't have to carry the shame of your past. You don't have to try to make up for it by becoming a better person, because Jesus has made you into a better person. He's perfected you. He sanctified you. He's already made you into a better person. Here's the deal. Satan does not want you to know that truth. Satan does not want you to know who you are. In Christ, He wants to deceive you and to thinking that you are defined by what it is that you've done. He wants to keep you at the road block of your past by keeping you focused on that time you blew up in anger, on that time that you got arrested, the time that you had an affair, the time that you got a divorce, when you were addicted to pornography or you were spreading gossip or lied about someone or stole from a business partner or someone at work. But Jesus wants you to know that you are not defined by what you've done in your past. You are defined by who you are in Him,and who you are in Him is holyand righteous and loved and liked and accepted and completely forgiven for all sins of all time. Last time I checked all time includes your past. I think, think that these, when we see that are the first things that we need to know, then when we talk about application and the way that we move past this roadblock enable to finally start experiencing the abundant life that we we really do have in Christ and so. So the things that we highlighted and talked about, number one, is you've got to know, first and foremost, that you're completely forgiven, that Jesus took all your sins to the cross, that they are gone. Number two, once you know that, you've got to know your. Identity in Christ that you are not defined by your past any longer. I mentioned to you earlier how I got so angry at that tennis match through my racket and cussed in front of everyone and and how I continue to deal with that, how it continued to resurface every now and then when I would get upset and mad at my students for something they were doing or not doing. How I would get blow up as a dad in my own kids, and I felt like I had to react that way. Why? Because those things defined me. I mean, if I am the one that was responsible for losing that tennis match, then I was a failure. So I had to lash out in anger, because that defines me. I'm a failure. I can't deal with that kind of thing. If my kids are acting up and doing something that I told them not to do, then I'm a failure as a father now, and so I need to lash out. I need to try to control their behavior better, because their behavior defines me. It speaks of me. And whenever they're not performing well in front of other people, then that says bad things about the kind of person that I am, but if they perform well in front of others, then that says a lot about who I am as a great dad and father, about making sure my kids are behaved, right? That's why it continued to surface over and over and over again throughout my life, even when I felt like I would finally move around it, but when I finally began to understand my identity, that I wasn't defined by the things that I do, but I was defined by who Christ says, that I am in all the things that he says about me, and that I'm not a slave to reacting that way to prove something about me whenever it goes wrong, because it's an eternal union and identity that I always have, no matter what's going on in my life, and that that's when God began to move me past this roadblock of my past and the continuing resurfacing of The anger issues at times so importantto not just know that we're completely forgiven,but to know that we've been made into an entirely new creation, that we are not who we once were, and we are not defined by our failures or our accomplishments. Number three, how do we get past it? Well, we've got to understand and know that our past does not determine our future. Sometimes we get stuck there, going, I'll never be anybody in the future because of the choices that I've made in the past. And we saw through Peter here that his past didn't define the future that God has for him and whatever choices you've made in your past don't determine the future that God has for you and His Kingdom work as well. But then the next thing that we've got to do is renew our mind to those truths. Because again, even when we know these things, that's not going to stop Satan from trying to put this roadblock up in our lives as we're walking down this journey of life again, he's going to make you think or feel that you're not really forgiven at times. He's going to make you think or or feel that you're not holy, that you're not righteous, that you're not loved or liked or accepted by God, that you don't have a future because of your past. And so that's why, when we know these truths, we've got to start recognizing Satan's lies and then renewing our mind, replacing those lies with God's truth that we are aware of. It doesn't do us any good to know them if we just sit in the lies. You gotta know them, recognize the lies and renew our minds to the truth. Every time this road block pops up, we knock it down with God's truth. Truth will set you free. Now the reality is, for some of you, though, that you've never put your faith and trust in Jesus for salvation, and so none of this really applies to you. In that case, you're you're not completely forgiven. Your identity is based on the things that you accomplish, or your failures from the past because you're not in Christ. Or your identity hasn't become new yet. You haven't been made into a better person yet. But it doesn't have to be that way. Jesus accomplished everything necessary on the cross to have your sins completely forgiven and to come dwell in you and enter into a spiritual union with you and make you a whole new creation, the you that you were always meant to be ina union with Him and living with him as yoursource, and if you'll just receive His free gift of salvation, all that will be applied to you, you'll be completely forgiven. He'll come to dwell in you and make you a new creation in Christ. And then you'll be defined by who you are in Christ, and can be set free from your past and move around. On this roadblock and begin to enjoy and experience the abundant life that you do have in Christ but I do want to just quickly address one last thing. We've been focused this entire time when we've been talking about this roadblock of our past, in dealing with the things that we've done in our past, but I realize that some of you, when we start to talk about our past, you don't necessarily think about the things that you've done in the past, but you think about what's been done to you in your past. And I realize that for some of you, that's an incredibly difficult thing that some of you have been through some horrific things in your past that other people have done to you, and maybe they were even people that you trusted and you loved,and my heart breaks for You.I'm sorry that happened to you.I'm sure that the roadblock of dealing with your past when you and your mind takes you back to those moments is incredibly difficult. It honestly might take a whole nother sermon to really talk through this comprehensively, but I just want to say, just like you are not defined by your previous choices in your past. If you're in Christ, you are not defined by what's been done to you in your past, either. And you need to know that as awful as what you've been through, God still has a future for you and doesn't want you sitting at the road block of your past, missing out on the abundant life that you have in him and that he wants to express through you. And so would you give it to him this morning and allow him to move you around that road block?