Unlocking Freedom: The Power of Letting Go

I want to speak to you tonight a few minutes on a topic that you've

heard, but unfortunately, a lot of times a preacher don't finish.

In other words, I want to talk about letting go of things.

You know, we let go of things we ought to hold onto, and then we

hold on to things we ought to let go.

And a lot of times preachers preach along these lines and they

say, okay, but they never seem to tell you how to do it.

You don't need to raise your hand.

But how many of you said, I wish I could let go of something

that happened to me, but I don't know how.

I keep telling God I'm going to let go.

Just let it go.

Don't live in the past.

Don't just daily just pick it up again and drag it around in your

life.

Your going forward.

My going forward in our life as Christians has a lot to do with

letting go.

The devil wants us to hold onto things.

He wants us to be slowed down.

He wants us to be shackled.

He doesn't want us to have full liberty.

Someone wrote this poem, as children bring their broken toys

with tears for us to mend.

I brought my broken dreams to God because he was my friend.

But then, instead of leaving him in peace to work alone, I hung

around and helped him with the ways that were my own.

At last I snatched them back and cried.

How can you be so slow, my child?

He said, what could I do?

You never did let go.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Lord, I need you to fix this.

But I want to help you fix it because I want you to fix it the

way I want to be fixed.

I want to still have some control in this thing instead of

saying, here it is, Lord.

You know, so many times I think we come to this old altar and

we say, lord, I'm just going to give it to you.

I'm tired and I can't do it anymore.

We start feeling a little better, say a prayer.

But before we go back to our seat, we pick it back up and put

it in our pocket.

We won't leave it.

We don't want to let go.

First Peter, chapter five, verse seven, says, casting all your

care upon him, for he careth for you.

Casting.

Casting it away upon him, for he careth for you.

You're to do the casting.

He'll do the caring, but you must let it go.

Casting all your care.

It doesn't say some or most.

It says, all your care.

Do you have any cares tonight?

Do you have any burdens?

Do you have any things that you've prayed so many different ways

about, and you feel like you're just in a rut and you want

to cast it to the Lord and let him have it.

But we wake up tomorrow and here we go again, dragging it around

all, not some upon him.

There are some things that I think probably tonight you need to

let go of.

You haven't let go of it yet.

You know, with all the things that's been going on in the church

for the last five months, I still think there are some people

probably here that can't let go.

They just can't let go of it.

They can't accept that God wasn't surprised and God's got a

plan.

We may never know until we get to heaven.

God says, trust me and go.

Yes, sir.

Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus.

But at the same time, I think there's some that just can't let

go.

You've been hurt, you can't let go.

People have hurt you.

You can't let go.

People, friends have let you down.

You can't let that go.

It just stays with you no matter how hard you try.

Things, maybe before that, maybe things that happened five or

10 years ago, maybe when you were a kid, maybe something in your

home.

I don't know.

We all have a past, but we all don't get past our past very well,

even though we say, I know you can't change the past.

Yeah, but we still want to hold onto it.

There's a sense, and that's another sermon, but there's a sense

when we look back and see how far God's brought us and how many

prayers he's answered and where we'd be today had he not been

there all that time.

But, oh, what peace we often forfeit.

Oh, what needless pain we bear.

A man was hitchhiking.

He had two suitcases and a huge backpack on his back.

A man with a pickup truck stopped and told him, I don't have

room in the cab, but he could ride in the back of the truck.

And the man grinned and thanked him and hopped in.

But when the driver looked in his mirror, the man was standing

up, was holding the suitcases and the backpack still on his back.

While he's riding in a truck.

You say, well, that's ridiculous.

Yeah, it is, isn't it?

It's ridiculous to say we're going to turn it over to God, but

then we carry it on and on and on and on.

There's a movie I don't watch a Whole lot of movies.

And I'm careful about who I recommend movies to.

I don't have time most of them, and there's very few fit to

watch.

And we forgot.

I don't know, it's been a while.

We got this thing you could put on your tv.

You've heard of the Guard, and it's supposed to take out bad language.

They've sophisticated that.

Now, of course, it costs, but they can take out situations or things

or things.

That's not proper and good for our kids, by the way, if it's not

good for the kids, probably not good for adults either, most

of the time.

But there is one.

And so don't go home and look this one up necessarily and say,

I can't believe Brother Weatherby recommended to watch that

movie.

Well, I'm not necessarily recommending it, but it's a movie

called the Mission.

Some of you may have heard of it.

It's about a missionary, but it was a Jesuit missionary.

Wasn't a Baptist missionary called the Mission.

It was about a wicked man who was a slave trader, kind of like

the man that wrote Amazing Grace, a wicked man who was a slave

trader.

And he killed actually many in this particular tribe.

And he got saved, supposedly.

And he went back to that same tribe as a missionary.

You've probably heard stories similar to this.

And some other missionaries had just gotten there and told them

of God's forgiveness.

This tribe, they'd already been there.

And a lot of the people in that tribe had become Christians.

And so he got saved, this particular man, and he was going

back to that tribe.

And it was on a high mountain.

He had to climb a cliff almost for hours and hours.

And he was carrying all his belongings.

He had a net, didn't have backpacks in those days.

This was way back.

And he had it all wrapped up in a net and.

And he was climbing up, and then he would pull it up and drag

it to a point.

And then he would go a little bit further and then he'd pull it

up.

And a lot of the movie was taken about watching that man who

had just become a Christian, going back to a tribe of people,

many of whom he had killed.

And he was carrying them all, dragging it inch by inch.

And when he got to the top, the whole tribe was standing on the

edge of the cliff watching him.

And one of them pulled out a knife.

And of course, the man assumed that the man of the tribe with the

knife was going to kill him in revenge.

But instead he cut the rope of the burdens and the movie shows those

burdens tumbling down the mountain, rolling and rolling and

rolling and rolling.

And that man that.

That tribesman that was had gotten saved, had cut the rope, reached

out his hand and pulled him up.

And that man broke out in tears and wrapped his arms around

the feet of that tribesman who had cut the rope and just sobbed

and sobbed like a baby.

The man knew that this tribe of people truly must have been changed,

born again.

Christians, I don't know.

But they knew too, that the tribe knew that that man had been

changed as well.

But I've never gotten over that picture.

And sometimes I'll close my eyes and imagine me carrying some

burdens and God reaching down and cutting them and they begin falling

off.

And I take a deep breath and I go, wow, thank you, Lord.

That burden's gone.

Sometimes I go find another burden.

God says, you're not going to get it, are you?

I'm the burden bearer.

You don't have to bear the burdens.

I will bear your burdens, but I'm not going to fight you for it.

Cast your care upon him, for he careth for you.

Maybe there's some unconfessed sins in your life that you still

can't get over.

Some things that you did that no one knows about.

You're not proud of it and you've asked God to forgive you and

you believe maybe that God has forgiven you, but you can't forgive

yourself and you're afraid other people won't forgive you.

And it's a burden.

It's something you're still dragging around instead of saying,

lord, take it.

I don't want anything to do with it ever again.

The Bible says if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just

to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

The psalmist said, as far as the east is from the west, so far

hath he removed our transgressions from us.

I don't understand the theology of Jeremiah 32, but God

said, I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their

sin no more.

I don't quite grab ahold of that.

Because God is omniscient.

He's all knowing.

How can he forget anything?

Well, I don't know, but I'm glad He does.

He chooses, if he wants to choose, to forgive and forget.

I'm not going to argue with him about it.

But what about you?

Behold, Isaiah said, for peace I had great bitterness, but thou

hast in love to my soul, delivered it from the pit of corruption.

For thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.

Some of you are haunted by the ghost of guilt.

And it's not a small thing for you.

And no one knows about it but you and God probably.

And it's hard for you to let go.

Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity and passeth

by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage.

He delighteth in mercy.

That's just who God is.

Mercy.

That's part of his wonderful attributes, characteristics.

He will have compassion upon us.

He will subdue our iniquities.

And thou will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

But yet sometimes we are tempted, and sometimes we give into

it, to go out in the sea and go fishing for our sins.

I know it sounds silly, but I'll tell you, it's a fact and it's

true.

And there's some sitting right in here in this auditorium that can't

get past your past.

And the devil loves to watch you in misery.

And God weeps and says, oh, what peace you could have, what joy

you could have.

There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared.

I think I've mentioned, probably since I've been here, a

little bit of some of the things that Lester Orloff used to

sing and preach.

And I know that dates me a little bit.

And I know he wasn't perfect.

I know he had some problems of his own.

But he would sing.

And he always sang off key a little bit.

But when he sang, I just was enthralled by it.

I just.

I don't know.

But he used to sing a song a lot on his radio program called Whiter

Than Snow.

I think we've sung it here.

Lord Jesus, I long to be perfectly whole I want thee forever

to live in my soul Break down every idol and cast out every foe

now wash me and I will be whiter than snow Whiter than snow

yes, whiter than snow now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow

Someone said guilt is the interest paid on not letting go and

believing.

Not believing God.

But yet the Bible says over and over we're accepted in the beloved.

We have a perfect salvation.

We're not perfect, but we are perfect in Christ.

We have a perfect book.

We have a perfect Savior.

We have a perfect salvation.

And one day I will be perfect.

I shall see him and I shall be like him as he is.

I'm being perfected, but I've got a long ways to go.

But he who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be made

the righteousness of God in him.

Cast your care, cast your sins, cast your guilt upon him, for

he careth for you.

And then, dare I say, probably the big one is to let go of bitterness

and unforgiveness.

You're looking at me just like I thought you would.

Bitterness and unforgiveness.

Is it me?

I forgive everybody.

I don't have any problem with forgiveness.

We get pretty good at acting like that until we see them or until

we hear somebody mention their name and things start coming back

and there's a bitterness.

There's very few things worse than bitterness in this life.

I've seen bitterness destroy preachers, destroy missionaries,

destroy their wives, destroy their children.

Bitterness, the way they were mistreated, and they just can't let

it go.

It's like a cancer in their spirit, slowly eating away of the

joy and peace that they could have.

It's like a poison.

The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded

spirit, who can bear.

You know, there's an interesting verse.

I don't know if you noticed this or not, but look at Matthew,

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

chapter 18, the first of the Gospels.

Matthew, chapter number 18.

And look at verse 21, I think, is where it starts.

Then came Peter to him and said, lord, how oft shall my brother

sin against me.

And I forgive him till seven times.

Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee until seven times,

but until seventy times seven.

How many times is that?

Four hundred and ninety.

Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king

which would take account of his servants.

And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him

which owed him 10,000 talents.

But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his Lord commanded him to be

sold, and his wife and children and all that he had, and

payment to be made.

The servant therefore fell down and worshiped him and said,

lord, have patience with me.

I will pay thee all.

Then the Lord of that servant was moved with compassion and loosed

him and forgave him the debt.

But the same servant went out and found one of his fellow servants

which owed him a hundred pence.

And he laid hands on him.

Whoa.

And took him by the throat.

That's what it says, saying, pay me that thou owest.

This was the same man that was getting ready to be his family lose

everything, that owed far, far more than this little debt.

And here was one of his servants that just owed him a few

dollars in comparison.

And his fellow servant fell down at his feet and besought him,

saying, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.

And he would not but went and cast him into prison till he should

pay the debt.

So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were very

sorry and came and told unto their Lord all that was done.

Then his Lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, o

thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt because thou desiredst

me.

Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant,

even as I had pity on thee?

And his Lord was wroth.

Here's what I want you to see.

And delivered him to the tormentors till he would pay all

that was due unto him.

So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you.

If ye from your hearts, forgive not everyone.

His brother and sister.

Listen.

Listen.

Tormentors.

Tormentors.

A tormenting Christian.

People who can't let go of being mistreated and heard and lied

to and on and on and on.

You're tormenting yourself.

There's torments.

God made it that way.

If you're saved and have enjoyed the forgiveness of God, and

yet you still will not forgive others, you're going to live a life

of torment.

It's going to be a painful way to live.

Listen, I've been around the block a few times.

I know I've done hundreds of counseling of people.

That are just eating up like cancer with bitterness.

And they won't let it go.

And they're in torment.

It's hard for them to sing the songs like we sang tonight, very

convincingly.

It really is.

It's hard for them to go to prayer meetings and really enjoy

the prayer meeting and the fellowship because they're being

tormented inwardly.

Let me tell you something that you already know, but you need to

hear it over and over again.

Jesus was hurt more than you and I will ever be hurt.

We'll never be as mistreated and unwanted and hated and despised

and rejected.

None of us will ever experience that.

How dare we get upset because of the way we retreated past failures.

You know, when Jesus called Peter to follow him, he said, I want

you to leave your boats and your nets and your father come with

me.

And he did.

But can you imagine how absurd it would have been if you and I would

have been watching?

And here's Jesus walking, and here's some people following me.

Here comes Peter, and he's dragging his nets.

Cause he don't want to let go.

Just in case it doesn't work.

This is my living.

This is my fishing equipment.

Can you imagine how far that would have gone, how far he, how

long it would have lasted if he went dragging his nets through

his life.

Past failures.

The apostle Paul was a Christian killer, a murderer before

he got saved.

King David, a man after God's own heart, the Bible says.

But he had to live with his committing adultery and murder, murdering

the woman's husband and lying and all that.

Did God forgive him?

Oh yeah, God forgive him.

He didn't have to twist his arm.

That's God's nature.

But there is forgiveness with God.

That he might be feared, not that he might be taken for granted.

And David wrote some of the great psalms, Repentance, Psalms

of repentance, Psalm 51.

And you can almost feel the agony in his voice.

But he let go.

If he had not let go of that horrible sin, sins, history would

have been different.

Might have never heard of David after that.

What happened to David?

What about letting go of your will?

Why is there this tug of war with God?

As if we have this feeling, this idea in our mind.

Sometimes we don't mean to, but it's like, well, Lord, I know,

but I don't want to do that.

And so we won't let go.

And we back and forth and back and forth.

A tug of war.

Because we think God's got some God, some killjoy that wants

us to give us something to do to make us miserable.

No, that's not the God of the Bible.

A lot of people don't know the God of the Bible because they don't

know the Bible that God wrote.

They figure God acts like people.

Whoo, thank God for that.

Worries and fears.

I won't spend a lot of time on that, but probably should because

so many times we worry.

We don't like any preacher getting up saying that's a sin, but

it is.

It's a sin to worry.

I have to confess it quite often, just to be honest with you.

I say, lord, you can take care of it.

I'm not going to worry about it.

And I go to bed and toss and turn and toss and turn worrying about

it.

I'm probably the only one here that's that way.

But worries and fears are hard to let them go.

The Bible says be careful for nothing, but in everything, by prayer

and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be

made known unto God.

And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep

your hearts and minds.

Through Christ Jesus, will we ever be able to live a worry free

life?

Well, I don't want to be oversimplifying about it.

But if we can ever let go.

Yes, but if we can't let go.

I know, I know.

I'm preaching from experience and I'm preaching from the word of

God that says, casting all your care upon him for he careth

for you.

Worry is like rustic.

Something gets rusty and you let it go and you let it go and you

let it go.

And pretty soon it begins to eat through the metal, and pretty

soon you can't buff it out anymore.

You can't sand it out and repaint it.

It's destroyed.

Years ago, it was a very pretty common thing.

Preachers.

And a lot of preachers would preach on it.

And I understood then, I understand what they were talking

about.

But you might remember they were talking about burnout.

Burnout.

People were burning out.

They've just gone as far as they can go, and they're just done.

They're just burnt out.

Try to help people.

They don't appreciate it and they try to forgive people and they

still want to get even.

And it goes on and on, and they just keep more and more thrown

on them to do because nobody else would do it.

And they just on and on and on.

That's why I told you this morning, there is something more

important than working for God, and that's worshiping God.

Because you're never going to rust out and blow out and fall to

pieces because you worship too much.

But you will.

If you work without worship, you will.

Why have people turned back?

Why did so many people fall by the wayside?

They burn out.

But I haven't heard that in a while.

But I've also heard people, a lot of people are rusting out.

But you know something?

We can reach out.

Amen.

Just reach out.

Don't burn out.

Don't have a blowout.

Don't rust out.

Reach out.

Reach out for Jesus.

He's reaching out for you.

Doubts will rob you of untold blessings.

Somehow, somewhere, sometime, the sooner the better.

We've got to just believe God.

Mm, boy, it's so easy to preach.

Good night, y'.

All.

Just go home and believe God.

Israel saw so many things, victories and miracles of God that

we couldn't even comprehend.

An ocean pulling apart.

They all walked in a rock with water pouring out of it in the middle

of a desert.

Food coming, floating down from heaven.

Manna.

So many things God did.

And yet they turn the corner and say, well, we're in trouble now.

I doubt this is going to work out.

And there were so many times when God said, oh, my God, how long

Are you going to provoke me to wrath?

I guess probably.

Pride is one of the hardest of all to let go.

Because we don't think we are proud.

We're proud that we're not proud.

But the Bible says, only by pride cometh contention.

And the only thing I can think of, really, if you go back far enough

that holds back revival in churches, is pride.

We're not willing to bow.

We're not willing to give up.

We're not willing to take the blame.

And the Bible says pride goeth before what?

Destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

A man's pride shall bring him low.

How low you want to go.

We're never more like the devil than when we're full of pride.

And we're never more like Jesus than we humble ourselves.

You say, well, you're about through and you haven't told us how

to do it yet.

Preach.

Let me tell you quickly how, number one, realize that God is grieved

when we won't let go.

I heard a story one time of a father and was watching his son trying

to move a rock.

It was a big rock.

And the little boy, bless his heart, he was sweating and grunting

and trying so hard.

And his father would just stand right there beside him, watching

him and said, son, you got to use all your strength.

He said, I am, dad.

No, you're not.

You got to use all your strength.

And boy, he pushes harder, as hard, as hard as he can.

Finally said, son, you haven't asked me to help.

My strength is your strength.

You're my son.

Together.

And they said, oh, and him and the boy just moved that rock and

rolled it out of the way.

God is grieved when we walked, realize that when we don't let go,

God can't do anything.

We need to realize that you're hurting yourself when you don't let

go.

I'm talking about realize, not recognize.

We all recognize.

But realize means you finally get a hold of it and gets a hold

of you and you get real about it.

If I don't let go, I'm going to hurt myself and I'm going to hurt

my family.

And I'm going to waste some of the best years of my life.

And you need to realize, let me tell you how to let go.

Realize that the devil wants you to hang on and never let go.

The Bible says that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal,

but mighty.

Through God to the pulling down of strongholds.

Strongholds.

The devil has specializes in strongholds in our life Things that

we can't let go of that become strongholds.

Realize the past is past, you only have today, and the future is

bright.

Consciously and deliberately, consciously and deliberately lay

them down at his feet.

When a mountain of sorrow leaves a river of heartache in a

valley of darkness that you don't understand, take the high road

to heaven at the crossroad of Calvary to the refuge of Jesus and

lay it all at his feet and let it go.

PS One thing that will help you to let go of some of the burdens

you're carrying unnecessarily is to try to start lifting somebody

else's burdens.

It's kind of neat the way that works.

Sometimes stop and go out of your way and take that time to make

that call or say that prayer.

Encourage that person that's sitting over to the side alone and

you've heard and you know that they're going through a hard time

and you just give them a hug and you tell them, I love you and

I'm praying for you.

All of a sudden your burdens begin to feel a little lighter.

But I'm not talking tonight about making your burdens lighter.

I'm talking about getting rid of them.

Cast your care upon him.

Set your affection on things above and not on things of the earth.

Don't quit.

Every time I read or think about Zacchaeus in the Bible, I always

smile.

It's so funny to me to see this little guy, I don't know how

old he was, sitting up in a tree because he couldn't see over

the crowd.

He was too short.

You sang the song when you were a kid, right?

I wonder sometimes if Zacchaeus might have been the first

tree hugger, Holding on so he could see him when the Lord stopped

and said, zacchaeus, come down.

I'm going to your house for supper.

What if Zacchaeus would say, well, I'd sure like that.

But I can't let go.

I got to hang on here.

I don't know how I got this high, but it's going to take me a

while to get down.

He could have missed everything had he kept hugging that

tree.

But he let go and he climbed down and his life was never the same.

He had to let go in order to follow Christ to his house.

You want Christ to visit your house more, your home.

You want him to warm your heart.

You want him to talk to you more personally, just you and him.

And then you're going to have to let go.

I've dreamed many dreams that never Came true I've seen them vanish

at dawn But I've realized enough of my dreams thank God to

make me keep dreaming on I prayed many prayers when no answers

came Though I waited patient and long but answers have come to

enough of my prayers to make me keep praying on I've trusted many

friends that have proven untrue.

And left me to weep alone But I've held enough golden sheaves in

my hand Enough of my friends have proven true blue to make me

keep trusting on I've drained the cup of disappointment and pain

I've gone many days without a song But I've sipped enough nectar

from the roses of life to make me want to live on well, if you're

going to go on and I know you want to, if you want to go forward

and I know you want to, you want your best years to be ahead.

You say years, I'd settle for months.

A few weeks.

Need some relief?

Then let go.

Let go of those things that's eating you up.

Amen.

Let's stand together with our heads bowed and eyes closed for just

a moment.

I don't know if I helped you at all But.

God knows and God understands.

No one understands like Jesus.

He's a friend beyond compare.

Meet him at the throne of Mercy.

He is waiting for you there.

Maybe you would just like to say Lord one more time to just come

and kneel for a few minutes.

Say Lord, the preacher helped a little, maybe.

But I really want to let go and I need you to help me know how

to do that.

I want to have liberty.

I want to have freedom.

Lord, I know you said in this world we're going to have some tribulation

and some trials and some pains and we got heaven to look forward

to.

But Lord, I pray that we might realize that a lot of our problems

we bring on ourselves because we won't let go.

And so Lord I pray youy'd touch hearts tonight and maybe some

would come, maybe not.

Besides, because someone may not come doesn't mean that they don't

want to let go.

That Lord, we need you every hour and we need help Lord, this

church's future and our future individually as people and families.

A lot of us going to depend on letting go and looking up and looking

ahead and counting our blessings and leaving everything

else in your hands.

Help us tonight.

I pray in Jesus name Heads are bowed.