Letting Go

4/27/08

 

 

(The following was used with a PowerPoint presentation, the asterisks indicate slide changes.)

 

*Letting Go!

 

Forget trying to be a Christian!

 

When you try hard in your own strength you get nowhere.

 

This is the fruit of trying to live for God in your own power…

 

·        Vain promises

·        Broken vows

·        Luke warm commitments

·        Half hearted servant hood

·        No power to overcome

·        And the list of failures could go on and on

 

*It’s only when we die that we start to really live!

 

Pray

 

Why is it that some struggle so hard being a Christian?

 

You have to learn to “Let Go” and “die” then you learn to live and have victory!

 

The harder you try in your strength the worse it gets!

 

*We have to learn to “Let Go” and die so we can learn to “Let God” and live!

 

*Letting Go Mark 10:17-30

 

This passage of scripture is greatly misunderstood.

 

Yes, it teaches about wealth and what it can do to a person but it teaches a whole lot more!

 

*Mk. 10:17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ¹⁸“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. ¹⁹You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not

 

*defraud, honor your father and mother.’” ²⁰“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.” ²¹Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” ²²At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great

 

*wealth. ²³Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” ²⁴The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁵It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” ²⁶The disciples were even more

 

*amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?” ²⁷Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” ²⁸Peter said to him, “We have left everything to follow you!” ²⁹“I tell you the truth,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or

 

*fields for me and the gospel ³⁰will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.

 

Look again at Peter.  The time was coming when Peter had to learn a very critical truth.

 

*Peter said, “Lord We have left everything to follow you!”

 

Peter was saying, “Lord we are sold out; there is no one as committed as we are.”

 

It was something they would talk among themselves about, probably often.

 

*Lk. 9:46 An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest.

 

We know that Peter was sold out…

 

*Mat. 14:25 During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. ²⁶When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. ²⁷But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

²⁸“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

 

*²⁹“Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.

 

It was Peter who made the great confession of who Jesus was…

 

*Mat. 16:13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” ¹⁴They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” ¹⁵“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

¹⁶Simon Peter answered, “You are

 

*the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

¹⁷Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

 

It was Peter who cut off the ear of the High Priest’s servant when they came to arrest Jesus…

 

*Jo. 18:10 Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.)

 

If there was any disciple who had the determination to be committed to Jesus to the point of death it was Peter.

 

*(Blank)

 

Read Lk. 22:24-34, 54-62

 

Peter had to break; he had to die.

 

Peter was completely broken.  That strong self confidence crumbled.

 

That’s why the angel said these words to the women when they looked into the empty tomb…

 

*Mk. 16:4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. ⁵As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

⁶“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they

 

*laid him. ⁷But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”

 

*(Blank)

 

·        Your best intentions are not good enough.

·        Your promises are not good enough.

·        Turning over a new leaf is not good enough.

 

You have to die in order to live!

 

No one in the New Testament understood this more than the apostle Paul.

 

*Gal. 2:15 “We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ ¹⁶know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.

 

*¹⁷ “If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! ¹⁸ If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. ¹⁹ For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. ²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live,

 

*but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

 

*(Blank)

 

·        What’s your hang-up?

·        What’s your problem?

·        What’s your struggle?

·        What are you defeated over?

·        What is it that knocks you down when you try to stand firm?

·        And most of all, how does it change?

 

*It’s not how strong you are, it’s how weak you become so that you can become strong!

 

It’s amazing what you can do to a dead man.  You can pinch him, he won’t flinch.  You can tickle him and he won’t budge.  You can tempt him with his weakest temptation and he won’t give him.

 

*2 Cor. 12:9 …“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

 

*Jo. 3:30 (KJV) He must increase, but I must decrease.

 

*Zec. 4:6 So he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.

 

Look at this verse again that Paul wrote…

 

*Gal. 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

 

Two imperative things have to be understood…

 

1.     I can’t do it, but…

2.     Jesus in me can!

 

Proud people do not want to admit they can’t do it.