Letting Go for a New Beginning in 2025

Music.

Adam Hook. Adam is a husband and father with a passion for the Lord and the Word of God.

Listen now as he brings the final message of 2024, entitled, Let It Go.

As I was praying, as I was getting ready for this, God said,

there's a lot of you under the sound of my breath, and I'm speaking to myself,

we're coming in with a lot of hurt.

We're coming in with a lot of baggage.

And God is saying today, I want to do something in your life.

I want to do something new in you that'll change you forever.

But hear me, we have to be in a place. You know, a lot of times we're waiting on God.

God, when are you going to do this? When are you going to change my marriage?

When are you going to change my relationship?

When are you going to do something in my life? And God is asking,

when are you going to do the thing that I've told you to do?

Come on, preaching better than you're amen. but I'm here today to tell you,

God wants to do something new in you.

God wants to, you know, that thing that you've been praying for, God wants to do.

But hear me, we've been talking this whole year about a new identity that we have in Christ.

Hear me, when you got saved, there's some old stuff that fell off.

But how many of you know there's some things that we still got to work out?

Amen. But you're seated in heavenly places. You have a new identity in Christ.

But we talked about last Sunday. Come on, there's some things that we need to put to death.

And in one version, it says you need to kill those things.

So God is saying, you know what? It's time to look at our lives.

God, what is in me that I'm still hanging on to?

Because until we let go of certain things in our life, God can't move.

And I'm talking to myself today. I'm preaching to the choir.

There's been some things in the title of my message. It's time to let it go.

And one of the biggest things that God put on my heart, in my mind,

the things that I've even noticed in my life is offenses.

You know, Jesus said in the last days before that I come, people are going to

get gratefully offended.

You look around in the church today, there's some people that have left this

church out of offense. They didn't want to let it go.

Paul says, he says, Paul mentioned earthly things that are what lurking within you. in Ephesians 4, 17.

It says, so I'm telling you this, and I insist on it in the Lord,

you shouldn't live your life like the Gentiles anymore.

Let me put it in a little bit of English. Don't live like you used to before you got saved. Amen.

You know, people get saved, but why are we still cussing, still going to the

same places, still hanging out with the same people.

We're still hanging on to the same attitudes, but God says, I'm telling you

this and I'm insisting on it. You shouldn't live like that.

And in verse 21 through 24, since you really listen to him and we're taught

how the truth is in Jesus.

Change. Change the former way of life that was part of the person you once were.

Corrupted by deceitful desires. Instead, renew the thinking in your mind by

the Spirit and clothe yourself with the new person created according to God's

image and justice and true holiness.

When we receive, when we got saved, we received the Holy Spirit.

The Bible says in the last days, because we're sealed in Him,

not to grieve the Holy Spirit.

You know, how many times have I, you know, I've been looking at my own life

as the Holy Spirit said, change this. Get rid of this.

Paul says, the only thing that I want to more than anything is to be like Christ

and to know him and to have him in my life.

He says, I let, I die to myself.

You know, a lot of people in church, they don't want to hear that message.

I had a message one time, it's time to die to ourselves today,

to allow the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit wants to come in your life,

not only feel you, but he wants to move through you so he can change somebody else's life.

But there's a lot of things because we're still holding on to.

It's not that we're not saved, but come on, we can be less effective for the kingdom.

It talks about salt losing its flavor.

It talks about that our light needs to shine, but I'm hearing me.

Our light can become not as effective. We become less salty Christians.

I watched The Forge last night Anybody seen that movie?

And one thing he asked in there And he told this man, this gentleman He says,

no longer does he just claim Christ.

He's now devoted. And we have to ask ourselves, coming into 2025,

am I really devoted to Christ?

Because you watch that movie. He began to pray, Holy Spirit,

what do I need to get out of my life?

And he went through, and he got rid of the video games, and he got rid of all

the stuff that became idols.

We don't want to hear about what's on the throne of our heart.

We don't want to hear about the idols in our life, the phones,

the programs, the things that we watch. What's coming before Christ?

We need to get it in our hearts and our minds that we're a new creation in Christ.

And Paul is insisting we need to stop living and acting like the world,

like we were before Christ.

Holiness. God is saying holiness. I want you to listen. Come into 2025.

You're going to need to hear my spirit.

You're going to need to trust me in 2025.

We can hold so tightly to the former ways of life, we can miss it.

Now, I'm not talking about we're going to hell. I'm talking about we can miss the blessings.

You know, people are saying, well, I can't wait until I get to heaven.

Why can't we have heaven down here on earth now? We can.

It says, we can be saved, but not walking totally in the fullness of what God wants in our life.

In Isaiah 43, 18 through 19, and it says this, don't remember the prior things.

Don't ponder ancient history.

Look, I am doing a new thing. Now it sprouts up.

Don't you recognize it? I'm making a way in the desert, in the path, in the wilderness.

Let me ask you this, your spiritual life, do you feel dry?

On a scale of 1 to 10, how on fire are you for Jesus?

Where's your zeal at for him? Do we look more like the world when we step out

from this place, or is the world like, I don't want what you have?

We claim to have Christ, but we don't have joy. We don't have that effective,

how should I say, encounter of the Holy Spirit.

We need an encounter today coming into 2025 that says, look,

I'm changed, and I'm different, and I don't want anything to do with the world.

Think about this. I don't think we have a concept in our mind of eternity.

Somewhere we're going to spend it either in hell or we're going to spend it

in heaven by our choices. Amen.

And I begin to think of things in my own life that I hung on to, that I didn't let go.

For almost half of my, till about, I don't know, maybe around the time I was

a teenager, till about the time that I met my wife and got married,

I held on to bitterness for a long time.

I was hurt by my father and had some offenses that came into my life and I held on to it.

We hold on to things like it's like almost like it becomes a comfort to us.

Well, they hurt me and they did me wrong. I'm not going to forgive them.

Or we hold on to, I don't know, the little sins.

Hear me now. There's things in my life that I need. God has convicted me of,

But I hear me today, what are we holding on to?

Because if we're not careful, the thing that we're holding on to will begin

to affect the environment and the people around us.

Because I didn't let go of that bitterness and anger, it drove me to a point

before me and my wife got married, I wanted to commit suicide.

Anger brought me to a point, to a depression, to a place where I was not in

a good place spiritually.

Because of the fact what I didn't want to let it go.

You know, and coming into this, coming to this church, you know,

I grew up a Pentecostal boy.

My dad was Pentecostal. I went to a Pentecostal church.

I've been a Methodist, Lutheran, but that's besides the point.

And coming into a new place, I had to let some things go.

I had to let down some, not that they weren't bad, hear me, but I had to let

some things go of some mindsets because now I'm under a new ministry.

I'm under a new leadership, and I had to submit to that leadership.

You know, most people don't want to submit to their pastor.

They're like, well, this is how, you know, I've always thought this way.

You know, God wants to do a new thing today, and we're so stuck in our religious

thinking that God wants to move beyond our box. We put God in the box.

This is in any of my notes today. This is, we need to let go of the box that we put him in for so long.

We kind of like, okay, God only moves this way, and God only does this way,

well, maybe this is how God looks in a service.

I believe God wants to do something so totally new it blows our mind, but we're stuck.

I've had to ask myself, am I so stuck in my old ways of thinking? Am I stuck in sin?

Am I stuck in something that maybe God, I don't know? We can become so comfortable

with our things that we don't let go.

We become deceived and think that we're okay before God.

Letting go of our past, our warped view of ourselves. For so long,

I didn't think God loved me.

I'm a Christian, but for some reason, I had a warped mentality.

God loved me because of my failures, or God didn't love me, or I wasn't good

enough for the Lord, or because of the things, the failures that I've done,

I had a warped view, hurts and anger that we hold on to.

When my mom divorced my dad back in the 80s, she has held on,

and I'm not putting my mom down, but I want you to just realize she has held

on to bitterness up until now, and it has affected her life.

It has affected my relationship with her because somebody didn't,

because she didn't want to let it go.

You know, how many relationships, you know, and there's even people in our lives,

This year that i've had to let go,

Close friends close people that I love And it hurt And I wanted to hold you

know, we have people in our lives that we want to hold on to so tightly Don't we?

It hurts. God is saying, I know it hurts, and it's going to hurt.

It's a process, God says.

I'm not expecting you to let it go right away.

But today, God is saying, in the 2025, I want you to start praying,

and I want you to start asking me, what do we need to let go?

Because I hear miracles. I see new blessings, new things that I want to do in

your life. But we need to ask ourselves, where do I need to let it go?

You know, this sin, this religion, in these things that we think that we hold

on to. Let it go. Let all of it go.

Well, it's scary. You're right. It is. What if they hurt me again?

What if I pick up something new again? God is saying, trust me.

Put this thing that you're so heavy on your heart.

I've had to learn this year to be quick. The Bible says to be quick to do some things, to let it go.

You know, instead of taking off the old and putting on the new,

we've become comfortable with it.

We've become comfortable where we're at as a Christian. We've become comfortable

in our own thinking and our mindsets and the things that we let go.

We don't even realize it anymore.

We can't change the past, but we can redirect our focus on the one who heals, the one who delivers,

the one who saves, the one Jesus Christ who can take our pass and give you a

testimony how many would say a raise your hand I'm ready I'm ready God what

do you want me to give up if it's everything fine,

I've seen him I've heard this pastor he lost everything he lost his family to

a terrorist attack and years later the gentleman that created that terrorist

attack came before him and they were in court.

And that pastor said, you know what? He told the judge, you know what?

I'm dropping the charges and I forgive him.

A terrorist killed his whole family, took his church, and he's saying, I forgive him.

And you know, through that all, that terrorist came to the Lord.

In John 5.1, I want you to listen to this. John 5.1-3, it says,

later Jesus went to Jerusalem for a special festival.

In Jerusalem, there is a pool with five covered porches, and the Aramaic is called Bethesda.

The pool is near the Sheep Gate. Many sick people were lying around porches beside the pool.

Some of them were blind, some were crippled, and some were paralyzed.

Some of you today, you feel that way. I feel paralyzed. I feel crippled spiritually and blind.

And God is saying, I'm not condemning

you today. I'm here because of the healing that I want to bring.

One of the men lying there had been sick for 38 years.

And Jesus saw him lying there, and he knew he had been sick for a very long time.

So he asked him, do you want to be well?

Do you want to be well? The sick man answered, sir, there is no one to help

me in the water when it starts moving.

Listen to this. I tried to be the first one into the water, but when I try,

someone else has gone in before me before I can.

Then Jesus said, stand up, pick up your mat, and walk.

Before I became, this is before I got married, I was deepening addiction in my life.

And you know what? There's a lot. He says, here he says, I've tried.

Many of you today, maybe you've tried counseling. Maybe you've tried,

I've tried all these things to get out of where I'm at.

I've tried. And Jesus is asking, how long are you going to stay where you're at?

And it wasn't until I, you know, because I was in addiction,

I was afraid of anybody else knowing that I was addicted.

Some of you are afraid. I'm afraid, well, if somebody knows where I'm at,

I might lose everything.

And it wasn't until I decided, okay, I had to go to somebody.

I had to tell somebody where I was at.

And, you know, it's been a process of years of letting it go.

You know, sometimes if you're offended, it says, you know, it's the idea of

the first mind, okay, I need to let this go and forgive them.

And then something else may be coming up where I picked up that addiction and

I had to let it go again, let it go.

I hear sometimes you may have to let it go a million times, but there's coming

a time where Jesus is going to show up and you're going to get your miracle.

And no longer are you going to have to say, I'm letting it go.

I've let it go on. Amen.

Of you're thinking, man, everybody else has the victory and they've got it together.

We've tried this. It says, today is your day for a miracle.

Today is the day. We need to let it go.

We need to stand up and trust the Lord and pick up our mat and walk in freedom.

Today is your day of salvation and freedom.

Matthew 14, 22.

He's talking about the disciples getting into the boat in the storm.

This is in Matthew. It says, right then, Jesus made the disciples get into the

boat and go ahead to the other side of the lake.

I just want to stop there for a minute.

I think Jesus knew that there was going to be a storm before he even told them to get in that boat.

Jesus knew all the stuff coming into last year, all the mistakes you were going

to make, all the stuff we were going to say out of our mouth we shouldn't have,

but yet God is saying, I still love you, and I'm here.

There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and I think that's

one of the biggest things that we need to let go of, is allowing the enemy to lie to us.

We've allowed him to lie to us for so long because maybe we feel like,

man, we screwed up so long, we feel like we ain't saved no more.

It's a lie from the pit of hell. Well, I said this, I've done that,

and I haven't read my word, or I haven't prayed.

Maybe you haven't felt like, man, I haven't done all these things this year

that we feel like are spiritually right.

But God is saying it's time to let go of that condemnation, walk in freedom,

and walk in a relationship with me.

It says, once, it says, they got into the, it says, the evening came and he was alone.

Meanwhile, the boat, fighting a strong headwind, was being battered by waves

and had already far away from land.

Very early in the morning, he came to his disciples walking on the lake.

When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified and said, it's a ghost.

They were so frightened they screamed then jesus spoke to them be encouraged

it's me don't be afraid peter replied lord if it's you order me to come to you

on the water and jesus said come then peter got out of the boat and was walking

on the water towards jesus,

but when jesus saw the strong or no when peter saw the strong wind he became

frightened and he began to sink and shouted, Lord, rescue me.

Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him saying, you man of weak faith,

why did you begin to have doubt?

Like I said earlier, how many here feel like you're fighting a strong headwind?

You've been battered by the storms of life this year and you feel stressed out

and you feel like giving up.

And maybe you're like, man, I'm tired of dealing with the same sin in my life.

And the enemy has lied for so long, you'll never be free. I'm here to tell you, yes, you can.

And it says, you know what? It says, he said, he says, he says,

order me to come out onto the water. And Jesus said, come.

And he let, you know, that was, that boat almost feels like it was a place of

comfort because in that boat, it says, yeah, like, even though it's tossed back and forth, earth.

I'm not drowning. This is somewhat of a safety place.

And to get out to walk to Jesus, he had to let go of the boat.

There's a lot of things, a lot of stuff, a lot of people, a lot of things that

we're holding onto that we find so much comfort in.

God is saying, step out in faith this year.

Take my hand and let me show you, let me calm this storm.

I hear this in my spirit Some of you right now The very thing in your life would

change If you would just let that thing go Right now Just let it go,

We've been talking about Tithing and finances And you know As a man especially,

Men we work hard for our money And we kind of like to know where our money is

going What's going on Sometimes we can become tightwats.

When God speaks to you to give and you're like, God, I can't afford that.

I don't know why I'm speaking to this. And I'm not talking, you're all going

to hear money, but hear me what I'm talking about.

I remember one time I was, I was, I had, I said, I just got paid, paid all our bills.

And there was a certain amount we only had left. And God was like,

I want you to give that to me.

And I'm like, no, Lord, I fought him. I said, it's like, no.

And he's like, do you want me to bless you or not? See, there's a lot of things

that God is saying you don't want to let go of.

We fight God, don't we? Oh, I love that. Oh, I love hanging out with those people.

Oh, I love going to that bar. Oh, I just love having a little drink here and

there. I love these little things.

And God is saying these little things, these things, let it go.

And you know what? When I gave that amount to the Lord, when I let it go,

when I let go of that addiction, And, you know, there was a gentleman that said,

let go, throw your TV away, throw your phone away. I'm like, fine.

I did that. The very next week, I met my wife because I let it go.

And what a blessing she is in my life. And when I let go of the finances,

the thing that brought comfort to me, the thing that I felt supplied everything.

God says, I'm your supplier.

I'm your everything. This is when you let go of everything that you feel that

keeps you, I'll be on the other side with a miracle.

Different times that I've given, I've given up.

When I gave that finances to the Lord, it was the very next moment.

I believe it was our pastor at the time where we were at. He says,

you know what? God told me to give this to you.

And you know, that very thing that I gave up, God will bring back.

And when you give up relationships that are not good in your life or that shouldn't

be there, God will bring other people in. That'll be a blessing.

Trusting God means we need to get out of our comfort zone.

Stop living in compromise. Stop living in this. Jesus said in the last days

that people will be lukewarm.

Stop living in that lukewarmness. Come out into the faith.

Trusting God needs faith Amen Father, right now Just bow your heads And if you're

here today And you know what, you maybe say I've never given my life to Jesus,

Or you may say You know what, I'm not living Like God has called me to live

I know there's things in my heart That I'm harboring or that I need to let go,

Just lift up your hands to the Lord Just between you and God.

Say, hey, I need God. I need to let it go today.

Music.

Tight fist. And God was saying, a lot of you are in this place right here of

tight-fistedness. You're frustrated.

You're upset. You're hurt. And God is saying today, let it all go.

Music.

Let that healing, anointing, and balm come into your life. Let's stand. Hallelujah.

All over this place, people have been raising your hand,

we have people around that will pray for you,

if you don't feel comfortable coming up now afterwards somebody will pray with

you but in your own heart get before the Lord and say hey God this is where I'm at,

and Father God right now we just ask for your healing over those right now Father

as we go into the next year be with us and God we declare that we trust you and we love you, Father.

Music.

And we thank you, God, that you were always there.

And those that just help us to let it go this year, God, and let you be all

that you can be in our lives. And we thank you and praise you.

In Jesus' name, amen.

You've been listening to the generations church podcast if you'd like more information

about generations church feel free to get in touch with us at info at generation

church dot us or head over to our website www.generationchurch.us thanks for listening.