Sunday July 13, 2008

Let Go
The Road to Recovery – Part 3
Matthew 11:28-30

Original message by Rick Warren/modified by Kelly Cohoe

I. Introduction

This week I heard the story about a pet-store delivery truck going down the road. At every stop light he came to he’d
run to the back of the truck, grab a 2x4 and start beating on the side of the truck. Nobody could figure out what he was doing, so finally somebody asked him, “What are you doing?” He said, “This is only a one-ton truck and I’m carrying
two tons of canaries. I’ve got to keep one ton of them in the air all the time.”

As ridiculous as this may sound, we are often not much different.

Many of you are beating yourself up – trying to keep your problems in the air and preventing them from all crashing down.

We have a tendency to get stuck in life. We get stuck in relationships. We get stuck with habits. We get stuck in grief when we lose a loved one. We get stuck in anger. We get stuck in our work, in a sexual relationship.

Once you get stuck, then you start feeling guilty that you’re stuck.

After awhile your guilt about being stuck turns to anger. You think to yourself, “I should be able to change, but I just can’t.”

And then your anger turns to fear that you are never going to get out of this. It’s got control of you. “What is going to
happen to me?”

Then your fear eventually turns to depression and you start feeling sorry for yourself. You have a pity party and you
resign, “I give up – I can’t change.”

Then you start the cycle all over again and get further stuck.

How do you break out of that “stuckness”?

That’s what we’ve been talking about for a couple of weeks.

Step 1— Realize I’m not God. I admit I’m powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and my life
is unmanageable.

Admit it, you have got a problem. This is where you face reality.

Step 2— Earnestly believe that God exists, that I matter to Him, and that He has the power to help me recover.

This is the hope step—not only am I powerless, but God has power and He is willing to help out.

But it’s not just enough to know that God will help you. You’ve got to take action. You’ve got to make a decision. You’ve got to walk across the line.

II. The Third Step – Consciously Commit all of Your Life to God

Step 3—Consciously choose to commit all my life and will to Christ’s care and control.

This step is based on what Jesus said in Matthew 11: “Come to me all you who are weary and overburdened and I
will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
(verse 28)

Jesus says, “Come to Me.” It’s God’s invitation. I will share your load. You will have relief. You will have release. You
will have rest. You will have rejuvenation. Give Me control and care of your life and watch what I do.

What a deal! Why would anybody turn that deal down? Yet some of you have heard this before and you’ve never acted
on it. It’s like having an unopened gift.

What keeps us from taking this Third Step, this important step? What causes me to procrastinate giving my problems
to God and to delay surrendering my life to the care and control of Christ?

What keeps me from committing my life to God?

   1. Pride

“Arrogant people are on the way to ruin because they won’t admit it when they need help.” (Proverbs 18:12)

Pride will keep me from admitting I need help.

Proverbs 10:8 says, “The self-sufficient fool falls flat on his face.”

   2. Guilt

You may be ashamed to ask God for help.

Psalm 40:13 says, “Problems, far too big for me to solve are piled higher than my head. Meanwhile, my sins, too many to count, have caught up with me and I’m ashamed to look up.”

Ever felt that way? I’m ashamed to look up. I don’t want to ask God for help. You know how many times you have asked God for help, made promises and broken them.

This leaves you feeling defeated and ashamed. But God is greater than your guilt and He wants to help you. He will work with you even if you have tried and failed thousands of times before.

Don’t let guilt keep you from taking this step. He will forgive your guilt.

   3. Fear

You are afraid of what you might have to give up.

The story is told about the guy that falls off a cliff, and half way down he grabs a branch. He’s hanging on for dear life. Five hundred feet down. Five hundred feet up. He cries out, “Somebody help!” He hears the voice of God, “This is the Lord, trust Me, let go and I’ll catch you.” He looks down five hundred feet and he looks up five hundred feet and says, “Is there anybody else up there?”

It seems we will try everything else, leaving God as the last resort. We are afraid to let go. Some of you are hanging on for dear life by that branch and saying, “This isn’t that bad. No problem, really, I’m fine.”

What are you afraid of if you commit your life to Christ? What are you afraid will happen if you give God care and control
of your life?

You say, “I don’t want anybody controlling me.” Who are you kidding? You’re being controlled all the time. It’s just
that you choose who you’re being controlled by when you let God control your life. You’re controlled by the opinions
of other people. You’re controlled by hurts you can’t forget. You controlled by habits, hang-ups, by the way your parents brought you up.

Do you know what freedom is? Freedom is choosing who controls you. When you give your life to the care and control
of Christ He sets you free.

He said, “Those who sin are slaves to sin, but if you know the truth, the truth will set you free.”

So what are you afraid of? What are you holding on to? A relationship, an ambition, a habit, a lifestyle, a possession?

When you take this Third Step you give up everything.

He takes what you’ve given Him, turns it around, adds new meaning, new significance, and new vitality, and gives it
back to you in a whole new way.

Just come to God: “God, I don’t even know what I need to give up but I do know I want my life to be under your control; so God, here is a blank check.” And give God a blank check. Let Him take care of the rest. Don’t worry about it.

   4. Worry

Worry will keep you from surrendering your life to the care and control of Christ.

You make the decision first, and then allow God to work on the problems. If you wait for all the stop lights to turn green
first, you’ll never go anywhere. You can’t solve all the problems first.

You open your life to the care and control of Christ. You may have doubts, questions, fears, worries. You don’t know
how it’s all going to work out. But you know it’s the right thing to do.

I remember when Sara and I moved from North Williams to be closer to the church. There were so many factors. Do we
sell our home first and then look for a house? Do we look for a house and then sell our home? We decided we needed
to buy a home and then sell our current one…(tell the story).

If we would have allowed worry to control us we would never be in the home we are in now. We knew what God was asking us to do and we simply needed to do it!

The Christian life is a decision followed by a process. It is the same with recovery. It is a decision followed by a process.
All I’m talking about today is the decision: “Ok, let’s do it – let’s go for it.

Here at Grace we have a process to help you grow spiritually – it is our Discovering Grace Classes. First, you make the decision to attend and then you go through the process.

In World War II the Marines had a definite strategy they used in the Pacific when they went to retake the Pacific from
the Japanese. They used the same strategy on every island and it worked every time. First, the Marines would go to the island that had been taken captive, and they would start bombing it, and they would just pelt it with bombs and grenades
and all kinds of explosives. That was called the softening-up period. Many of you are in the softening-up period right now. And all kinds of explosions are going off in your life that are just sending fragments everywhere and you’re saying, “This
isn’t working.” You come to a point where you say, “Yes, I need something beyond myself.” It’s softening up your pride.
“I need help. I need God in my life. There’s too much stress.” In the second phase, the Marines would come in and
establish a beach head, maybe only twenty yards deep and two hundred yards wide but they would just get a presence
on the island. When they had established the beach head, had they completely liberated the island? No. They had just
gotten in. From there they began to fight the battles. Sometimes they’d move one hundred yards forward and sometimes they’d get pushed back. And sometimes they’d win the battle and sometimes they’d lose it. But everybody knew that once they’d established a beach head total liberation of the island was inevitable, just a matter of time. And in the history of
WW II once the Marines had landed and established a beach head they never lost an island. It was just a matter of time before the entire island was back in their hands.

When you make this step, God gets a beach head in your life. The Bible calls it conversion or being born again. It just
means God gets a presence in my life. Does that mean everything in my life is perfect? Absolutely not. It means God’s in
your life, He’s got a beach head, and the rest of your life He’s going to be setting you free, little by little by little. It’s a process. So don’t worry about it. Just trust God.

Philippians 1:6 says, “God who began a good work in you, will keep right on helping you to grow in His grace
until His task is finally completed.”

   5. Doubt

Doubt will also keep you from making this decision.

You are not really sure about all this Jesus stuff.

Most of us are kind of like a guy in the Bible named Jairus. He came to Jesus one day. “Jesus, I know You can heal people. My daughter needs to be healed.” Jesus said, “If you have faith then she will be healed.” Jairus was really honest. He said, “Lord, I’ve got a lot of doubts. I want to believe. Help me with my unbelief.” Jesus said, “That’s good enough.” And He healed the girl.

The Bible says. “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, nothing will be impossible for you.” Now a mustard seed is
so small you can barely see it.

It’s not the size of your faith that matters; it is the size of the One in whom you put your faith.

You can have giant faith, put it in the wrong thing and get no results. Faith is not the issue. The issue is what/who you put
it in. A little faith in a big God gets big results.

Don’t let any of these things keep you from taking this step.

Some of you may say that you have tried this before and it didn’t work.

Well, you do not “try” Jesus. That is like the kamikaze pilot who went on 33 missions. He was involved but not committed.

You need to consciously choose to commit all your life and will to Christ’s care and control.

III. Application - How Do I Take This Step?

   1. You receive God’s Son as your Savior.

I need to be saved. I need help. I realize I need Him in my life. “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.”

What does that mean? It means committing as much of myself as I understand at this moment to as much of Christ as I understand at this moment.

Make the decision and go from there.

   2. You receive God’s Word as your standard for living.

From now on I’ve got a manual that I’m going to live my life by.

We do have an instruction manual for life. It’s the Bible. God says this is your standard by which you live your life.

   3. You receive God’s will as your strategy for daily living and setting life goals.

A good question to ask every morning is: “Lord, you woke me up this morning. What do You want me to do with it?”

We need to learn how to say (and mean it), “God, I’m willing to do anything, anywhere, anytime. I don’t even have to understand it, but I’m living my life on Your terms because You made me for a reason. You have a purpose and I want to fulfill that purpose.”

   4. You receive God’s power as your strength.

Philippians 4:13 reads: “For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.”

No longer do you have to rely on your own energy. You get plugged into God and God says, “I will give you My power
to be all I want you to be.”

You don’t need will power; you need a willingness to accept God’s power in your life, to go by His controls, His system.

The road to recovery begins when I Realize I’m not God – when I admit I’m powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and my life is unmanageable.

I get further down the road when I Earnestly believe that God exists, that I matter to Him, and that He has the power to
help me recover.

But it’s not just enough to know that God will help you. You’ve got to take action. You’ve got to make a decision. You’ve got to walk across the line.

This is what you are being asked to do today: Consciously choose to commit all your life and will to Christ’s care
and control.