Baggage – Week 3

Joke:  A parishioner dozed off to sleep during the sermon one Sunday morning.”Will all who want to go to heaven stand,” the pastor said.The entire congregation stood except for the lone sleeping parishioner. The pastor told them to sit down and continued, speaking dramatically, “Now will all who want to dance with the devil, please stand.”Just then someone dropped a hymnal on the wooden floor, and the sleeping man jumped to his feet and looked around sheepishly.”Well, pastor, I don’t know what we’re voting for, but it looks like you and me are the only ones for it.”

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Baggage Week 3 – Cast Your Cares

We have been in this series on baggage and one thing I know is that some of the baggage we haul around with us can give us anxiety and the thing is that much of it is really out of our control anyway.  And so, what we need to learn when we feel anxious, is instead of bottling it up and keeping it within us, we need to cast it on Jesus and trust Him to handle it.

 Welcome to the last week of our Baggage Series.  Let me recap our last 2 weeks in this one sentence.

Let go of the baggage in your life, travel light and free into a life filled with expectation and anticipation of all that God desires to do in and through you.

 That sounds like good encouragement doesn’t it?   It’s almost like one of those marketing email headlines that is just begging you to keep reading.

Things like. . .

• I got Botox and this is what you look like.
• Have you seen sheep dance
• Your invited
• . .don’t tell anybody
• They did what with a pair of Crocs
• They said it couldn’t be done
• Don’t just take our word for it
• I love this one open table used. . .licking your phone never tasted so good

Are you interested?  Or does it make you feel, well. . .anxious?

Let’s be honest for a moment about something. There are some of us here today who’ve been hearing for so long that there are greener pastures ahead, that things are just about to turn a corner, that the light is at the end of the tunnel, or something like that and we’re just plain old tired of the waiting.

We want to believe, we know God is good, we’re just not sure where to begin.

If that sounds like you today, I’m glad you’re here.

I have a few scriptures to share with you as we get going:

Psalm 55:22 (NIV): Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.

Matthew 6:25–27 (NIV): 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

Matthew 11:28 (NIV):  “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

 1 Peter 5:7 (NIV): Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Here’s a truth for you.  He cares for you.   He wants the best for you – He desires for you to walk in wholeness and experience the abundant life He has for you.

As we identify the baggage in our lives, we need to let it go, and trust God with your future, but there is something else — an essential ingredient that we cannot miss.

That ingredient is humility.

You need to understand that we were never created to be an island.  God created Eve to be a helper to Adam, we need be willing to allow the Holy Spirit, however he chooses to do it, to get us untangled from sin, to move us forward, and to help us let go of the baggage.

In fact, the passage we read from 1 Peter identifies humility first before casting your cares on Jesus. Listen to this;

1 Peter 5:6 (NIV): Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.

 Maybe you’ve noticed that it’s difficult to work with someone who is all puffed up with pride. Those ones that know everything about everything.   Ever meet someone like that?

How can we think it would be any different in our relationship with God? The good news is that God does know everything about everything so we can cast our cares, you can boldly go to the throne of grace and He will help us through the circumstances.

Jesus modeled humility for us in becoming like us and sacrificing Himself for us.

It’s been said that, “humility isn’t thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself, less.”

 Let me give you 5 attributes of a healthy humility for you to think about:You acknowledge you don’t have it all together.

1. You know the difference between self-confidence and pride.
2. You seek to add value to others.
3. You take responsibility for your actions.
4. You are filled with gratitude for what you have.

Where might you be able to grow in this area?

Now once you’ve got the humility thing all lined up and you know you could use some help dealing with your baggage, and by the way we have all at some point had, and many of us still have some baggage that we carry, but here’s the next step.

Give it all to Jesus.

Just pick it up and throw it on Him. . .seems simple enough, right?

So, what exactly does that look like? How does it work?

Luke 10:38–42 (NIV): As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” 41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one.  Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

The point I want to highlight from this passage is the example set by Mary. . .While her sister is worried and bothered by all kinds of “things,” and it’s interesting to me that Scripture tells us that these preparations had to be made, but Mary is seated at the feet of Jesus.  I think this a beautiful picture, and has a powerful lesson for us to learn.

In a nutshell. . .

Make time for Jesus. Sit with Him and His Word. Pray, journal, read, and tell Him the things you are anxious about, thinking about, “worried and bothered” by.

This idea, discipline if you will, was even modeled by Christ while He was here among us. He would regularly go off to be with the Father

Mark 1:35 (NIV): Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.

And just like Jesus recognizes in Mary’s time spent with Him, “which shall not be taken away from her.”   You need to understand any time spent with Christ is time well spent.

What can you do this week to have more intentional time with Christ?

What areas of concern, what baggage are you carrying right now that you would like to give to Him?

Church. . .

We need to learn to Trust Him

 We ended last week’s sermon with a similar point, and we talked about trust in week 1 as well. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that trust is a significant obstacle in this process.

I’m fully aware that trust can take time – and for some it doesn’t come easy.  Especially when that trust has been betrayed by someone.

Listen I have shared things with other ministers, other people, about things.  I confided in them and they went and betrayed the trust that I had in them through that process.   And I felt betrayed, I carried some baggage.  So I get it.

In His book titled The Speed of Trust, Stephen M.R. Covey says,

“Low trust causes friction. . .Low trust is the greatest cost in life and in organizations, including families. Low trust creates hidden agendas, politics, interpersonal conflict, win-lose thinking, defensive and protective communication – all which reduce the speed of trust. Low trust slows everything – every decision, every communication, and every relationship.”

 Maybe you have you seen the damage it has done in your life? In your relationships?

Covey goes on to say, “Simply put, trust means confidence. The opposite of trust – distrust – is suspicion.”

 So here’s a question for you. . .Are you suspicious of God?

Are you just waiting for Him to drop the hammer on you?

Reprimand you?

Take everything good from you?

Let me share some more good news with you.  That’s not Papa.

Psalm 145:8–9 (NIV): 8 The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. 9 The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.

James 1:17 (NIV): Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

Psalm 34:8 (NIV): Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

He has a plan and a purpose for your life.

Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV): For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Truth is, you will experience trouble, adversity, and frustration in this life. No one can avoid it.

You will have opportunities to get offended, bitter, or angry.  But you can choose to live above above those things.  You can choose not to carry that baggage.

And let me just add something as well.  It’s so freeing when your not carrying the excess baggage.

Hebrews 12:1 (NIV): Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,

Hebrews 12:1 (TPT): As for us, we have all of these great witnesses who encircle us like clouds. So we must let go of every wound that has pierced us and the sin we so easily fall into. Then we will be able to run life’s marathon race with passion and determination, for the path has been already marked out before us.

Jesus said it this way,

John 16:33 (NIV): 33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Listen church, I’ve been in some pits.  But just as God brought out Joseph from the pit and placed him in the palace.  The promise we get to enjoy as sons and daughters of the Most High King is this:

Romans 8:28 (NIV): And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28 (TPT): So we are convinced that every detail of our lives is continually woven together to fit into God’s perfect plan of bringing good into our lives, for we are his lovers who have been called to fulfill his designed purpose.

Trust Him today.

Cast your cares on Him today.

Toss your baggage onto Jesus, and walk a little lighter today.

He cares for you, His thoughts of you are precious.

Just think about this for a moment:

If God didn’t care, would He share His one and only Son with you?

If Jesus didn’t care would He have humbled Himself, to the point of death, for you?

Is Peter, who spent years with Jesus out on the missions field and whom Jesus trusted to lead the disciples in His earthly absence — Is this same Peter misleading you when he says, “cast all your anxiety(cares) onto Him, because He cares for you?”

 Let go of the suspicion and doubt.

Maybe your earthly father wasn’t one who was always the best, didn’t treat you right, let you down, whatever else, but your Heavenly Father is perfect in every way.

You don’t need to be suspicious of Him.

Let go of the baggage.

Trust Jesus with today, tomorrow, next week, next month, everyday learn to trust him.

Psalm 20:7 (NIV): Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

 Let’s pray together.