Luggage

Luggage

WE ALL HAVE LUGGAGE…

The process

Unpack - Let go - Embrace

Unpacking our luggage:

To unpack you need to identify what’s in the luggage.

Each of us have baggage, some of us have heavier luggage than others. Either heavy or light ends of the spectrum they can fit into the following categories…

Abuse … as small as name calling to being Raped

Addiction… everything from too much TV to Pornography, alcohol et...

Loss … a great loss in our life of someone or something important to us.

Here is how Paul writes about it in Galatians 5… which I believe is the list of luggage items we choose to carry…

Galatians 5 (the message)

16 My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. 17 For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. 18 Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence? 19 It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; 20 trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; 21 the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom. 22 But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard - things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, 23 not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. 24 Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good - crucified. 25 Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. 26 That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.

What is luggage…

Started in the garden of Eden when Adam blew it...then we live in an hour when everything is so congested/painful/disconnected/ fragmented and the list goes on.

WE ALL HAVE LUGGAGE…

Visual illustration:

HAD CHOIR MEMBERS ALL BRING LUGGAGE IN WITH THEM FOR THE DAY. IF ANYONE ASKED THEM THEY WOULD SIMPLY SAY THEY WOULD FIND OUT. EVERY WHERE THEY WENT THEY CARRIED THE LUGGAGE WITH THEM.

IN THE SERVICE I CALLED THEM ALL UP... Call everyone up... leave luggage on stage (the spiritual becoming visual)HAD THEM STAND AT THE FRONT WITH THE LUGGAGE...

In fact we have a carousel just like the airport for our baggage… and when we go to see family we go to that carousel and pick up the necessary baggage… when we go to work each morning we go to that carousel and pick up the baggage… we come home at night, we pick up that luggage… LET THEM GO SIT BACK DOWN BUT LEAVE LUGGAGE ALL OVER THE STAGE AND PLATFORM.

We don’t always get life right. We try, but sometimes things get sticky, messed up, complicated, and we create baggage of our own and baggage for others.

Paul acknowledges this in Galatians 5… a little earlier in vs. 7.

Ga 5:7 - You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?

You were running well in life, where did you get this baggage?

We have it everywhere… like… Ed Watt was visiting a local department store with his wife, and they had just purchased a piece of luggage and a cooler. As Ed browsed in the shoe department waiting for his wife to finish the rest of her shopping, a clerk asked if he could be of assistance. “No, thank you," Ed replied. “I’m just waiting for my wife." At that point, a man behind him said, "I’m waiting for my wife, too, but I never thought to bring lunch and an overnight bag."