Series: The Year of Step Up

Topic: Part One: Step Up Out of Your History

Date: Sunday, January 11, 2026

 Scripture: Isaiah 43:18-19

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:18-19

Introduction: The Second Sunday Reality

Praise the Lord, Good morning, Church. It is an honor to stand before you on this second Sunday of January 2026.

We are twelve days into a new year. And if we are honest with ourselves, the “Second Sunday” is often where the rubber meets the road. On the first Sunday, everything is exciting. The calendars are empty, the resolutions are fresh, and the energy is high. We feel invincible. But by the second Sunday, reality starts to settle in. The gym is a little harder to get to. The diet is a little harder to maintain. The alarm clock feels a little earlier.

Last week, we launched a vision that I believe is going to define our trajectory for the next twelve months. We declared that 2026 is “The Year of Step Up.”

We spoke about the necessity of elevation. We agreed that God is calling us higher—higher in our faith, higher in our integrity, higher in our families, and higher in our kingdom impact. We agreed that we cannot afford to stay on the ground floor of spiritual maturity. We are called to ascend.

But today, we stop talking about the mountain, and we have to start climbing it.

As I was praying for this series, I felt the Holy Spirit impress a specific spiritual law upon my heart. It is a law of physics, and it is a law of the spirit. The law is this: Elevation requires separation.

You cannot go up if you are weighed down. You cannot move to a higher level if you are tethered to a lower level. You cannot walk effectively into your new season if your mind, your heart, and your emotions are still renting an apartment in your old season.

So, for Part One of this series, before we talk about strategy, discipline, or faith, we have to talk about baggage. The title of my message is: Step Up Out of Your History.

 The Text: God Interrupts the Exile

If you have your Bibles, please turn with me to the book of Isaiah, chapter 43, verses 18 and 19.

While you are turning there, let me paint the picture of what is happening in this text. The prophet Isaiah is delivering a word from God to the people of Israel. But he isn’t speaking to a people who are free, prosperous, or happy. He is speaking to a people in exile.

They are stuck in Babylon. They have been stripped of their identity, stripped of their temple, and stripped of their home. For the Israelites in this moment, “History” was their favorite subject. They were obsessed with it. They would sit by the rivers of Babylon and weep, remembering how great Jerusalem used to be. Or, they would sit in bitterness, replaying the mistakes and the sins that caused them to be captured in the first place.

They were a people whose heads were permanently turned backward. They were physically in the present, but mentally, they were living in the past.

And right in the middle of their trauma, right in the middle of their nostalgia, God interrupts their memory with a command. He doesn’t offer a gentle suggestion. He issues a divine decree.

Read it with me:

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:18-19)

I want you to circle that phrase: “Do you not perceive it?”

That is a haunting question. God is saying, “I am already working. The mechanism of your deliverance is already moving. The new season is springing up right now, beneath your feet.” But they couldn’t see it. Why? Because you cannot see the future when you are staring at the past. You cannot perceive the new thing if you are obsessed with the former thing.

The Illustration: The Suitcase on the Mountain

I want to give you a picture to hold onto today.

Imagine you are standing at the bottom of a steep, majestic mountain. Let’s call this mountain “The Mountain of 2026.” The peak is hidden in the clouds—that represents the potential of what God wants to do in your life this year. It represents the “Step Up.”

You are dressed for the climb. You have your hiking boots laced tight. You have your water bottle, your supplies, your map. You have come to church; you have sung the songs. You look like a climber.

But… imagine that attached to your waist is a thick, industrial steel chain. And dragged behind you on the dirt, attached to that chain, is a massive, beat-up, oversized suitcase.

Inside that suitcase is everything from your history.

• Packed in the corner are the failures of 2025.
• Stuffed in the side pocket are the arguments you shouldn’t have had, the words you wish you could take back.
• Folded neatly in the middle is the money you lost, the business that failed, or the promotion you didn’t get.
• Hidden at the bottom, wrapped in layers of shame, is the secret sin you committed, the guilt that whispers to you at night.

You look at the mountain, and you shout, “I’m going to Step Up!” You take one step forward, and you feel good. But then gravity takes over. The weight of that suitcase pulls you two steps back. You stumble. You scrape your knees. You try again. You pull harder. You sweat, you strain, you pray, you quote scripture—but you are not moving.

My brothers and sisters, you are not weak; you are just overloaded.

Many of you are wondering why your spiritual walk feels so exhausting. You are wondering why you make progress in January and slide back in February. It’s not because you don’t love God. It’s because you are trying to defy the laws of physics. You cannot climb a mountain while looking over your shoulder.

Trap #1: The Rear-View Mirror (Comfort in Pain)

This brings us to the first trap we must identify today: The Trap of the Rear-View Mirror.

Why do we keep the suitcase? Why is it so hard to obey God’s command to “Forget the former things”? If the past was painful, why do we hold onto it?

Psychologists tell us that the human brain prioritizes certainty over happiness. We prefer a familiar hell to an unfamiliar heaven. Even a painful past feels safe because we know the dimensions of it. We know the script.

• You know how to be the “victim.”
• You know how to be the “person who failed.”
• You know how to be the “one who was betrayed.”

It becomes an identity. But the future? The year 2026? It is unwritten. The unknown is scary. So, we cling to our history as a security blanket, even though that blanket is wet, cold, and suffocating us.

But hear me clearly: You cannot be a victim of your history and a master of your destiny at the same time. You have to choose one.

Some of you have physically entered January 2026, but your mind is still living in November 2025. You are replaying old conversations in the shower. You are thinking of the perfect comeback you should have said. You are nursing old wounds. You are holding onto grudges like they are precious treasures.

To the Church, I have a hard word for you today: Unforgiveness is the heaviest item in your suitcase. We often think, “I won’t forgive them because they hurt me. My anger is my shield. My anger is my weapon against them.”

That is a lie from the pit. Unforgiveness doesn’t hurt the person you are mad at. They are probably out enjoying their Sunday lunch right now, completely unaware of your misery. They are sleeping fine while you are tossing and turning. Unforgiveness doesn’t hurt them; it tethers you to the ground. It is a chain around your ankle, not theirs.

If you want to Step Up this year, you must forgive. You must drop the suitcase. “But Pastor, they don’t deserve it.” You are right. They probably don’t. But you forgive them because you deserve to travel light. You deserve to be free. You cannot climb to the level God has for you if you are dragging the corpse of an old offense behind you. Cut the chain.

To the Public, to the entrepreneurs, to the students: I see many of you paralyzed by the fear of repeating a mistake.Failure is not a destination; it is a tuition fee. Did you fail in 2025? Did you try a project and it flopped? Did you try to start a business and lost money?

Good. That means you were in the arena. That means you were trying. But the trap is when you build a house in your failure. Do not set up camp in the valley of your mistake. God allows you to visit the valley of failure to learn a lesson, not to buy real estate.

Extract the wisdom. Pack up the lesson. And leave the pain behind.

Trap #2: The Glory Days (The Trap of Success)

Now, “Stepping Out of History” isn’t just about forgetting the bad things. There is a second, more subtle trap that catches the most experienced believers among us. The Trap of the Glory Days.

Sometimes, the greatest enemy of your future is your past success.

We see this in the text. God says, “Forget the former things.” In the Hebrew, the word implies “the beginning things” or the “prior events.” He didn’t distinguish between the bad events and the good events. He said forget all of it.

Why? Because some of us are stuck in the “Good Old Days.”

• We talk about how great the church was five years ago.
• We talk about the revival of 2019.
• We talk about the big business deal we closed in 2021.
• We talk about how fit we were in high school.

We are trying to live on “leftover manna.” In the Old Testament, God gave manna to the Israelites, but He told them to only gather enough for that day. If they tried to save it for the next day, it would rot and breed worms. Yesterday’s manna is rotten today. Yesterday’s anointing is not sufficient for today’s devils.

Here is the principle: If your hands are full of yesterday’s trophies, you cannot catch the new blessings God is throwing your way today.

If you are still talking about what you did in 2020, you aren’t doing enough in 2026. You have to put the trophy down. You have to stop reading your own press clippings. You have to humble yourself, become a beginner again, and say, “God, I thank you for what you did, but I am hungry for what you are doing.”

 

 

 

The Promise: The New Thing

Look at the second half of the verse. “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up… I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

This is why we can afford to let go of the past. We aren’t letting go of the past to step into a void. We are letting go to step into a promise.

God says He is making a way in the wilderness. Maybe your 2025 felt like a wilderness. Maybe it felt dry, lonely, and confusing. God is saying, “I don’t need your past materials to build your future. I can make a road where there was no road. I can make a river flow in a desert.”

But you have to perceive it. You have to look for it. And you can only look for it if your eyes are facing forward.

Conclusion: The Mental Inventory

We can shout about this. We can agree with it intellectually. But nothing changes in your life until you make a decision of the will to drop the weight.

I want everyone to close your eyes for a moment. Create a sanctuary in your own seat. Shut out the person next to you. This is just between you and the Holy Spirit.

I want you to take a mental inventory right now. I want you to look at the suitcase you have been dragging. What is inside it?

• Is it Guilt? Are you punishing yourself for a sin that God has already forgiven?
• Is it Regret? “If only I had taken that job… If only I hadn’t said that…”
• Is it Unforgiveness? Is there a face that pops into your mind that makes your stomach tight?
• Is it Pride? Are you holding onto a past identity of who you “used to be”?

Identify the one thing—the one anchor—that is keeping you stuck at the bottom of the mountain.

Can you see it? Can you feel the weight of it? It’s heavy, isn’t it? It’s been exhausting you.

Now, I want you to use your faith. Visualise yourself standing at the bottom of a staircase that leads up to 2026. You are holding that heavy bag labeled “History.” Your hands are cramping from holding it so long.

Now… let it go. In your mind, open your hands. See the bag hitting the floor. Hear the thud.

Now, take a deep breath. You are lighter. Turn your back on the bag. Do not look at it. Do not pick it back up. And take the first Step Up.

Let us pray together:

Father, we thank You for the New Thing. We thank You that Your mercies are new every morning. God, we confess that we have been holding on to things You told us to let go of. We have been comfortable in our pain and arrogant in our past success.

Today, by an act of our will, we release 2025. We release the trauma. We release the failure. We release the shame. We release the bitterness. And Lord, we even release the trophies of yesterday so our hands are free for today.

We perceive the new thing. We choose today to travel light. We are ready to climb. We are stepping up.

In Jesus’ mighty name, Amen.

God bless abundantly.