Let go, Let God
02/03/08 PM
Introduction
I’ve called our lesson this evening “Let go, Let God.” Have you heard this saying before? The other day I was driving in the morning commute and I saw this phrase on the bumper of a car in front of me. And I started thinking about what the phrase means (I think about all kinds of stuff during my morning commute because I don’t want to think about work.) So I’m going down the freeway with my hands at ten and two (because this was the tricky part of I-52 West where all the people wanting to take I-5 North wait until the last twenty feet before the off-ramp and then try and jump the line of cars waiting to take the ramp) and I’m thinking I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t mean to “let go” of the steering wheel because that wouldn’t do anyone any good at all. So I was thinking what does it mean “Let go, Let God” and our lesson this evening is going to address that question. Let’s examine the meaning of “Let go, Let God.”
I.Let Go of Our Agendas
A.…and let God direct our paths.
1.Whether or not we are intentional or not, we all have agendas for our lives and for our futures.
a.Some are more immediate than others, some more sophisticated, some are better planned out than others but they do exist.
b.Most of us are not simply drifting through life.
2.The priorities we set, the standards by which we make our goals and gauge our success, the plans and dreams by which we live our lives are all part of our personal agenda.
3.These determine the consistent pattern of decisions and actions which illustrate the agenda by which we live.
B.God has a better design for our lives than any we can devise for ourselves.
1.As we examined last Lord’s Day; God is our good shepherd. He is our provider, our guide, our protector and our host in this life and the life to come.
2.His agenda for His children is for a blessed life, a righteous life, a life lived for a greater purpose than we could ever establish for ourselves using the priorities and standards of this world.
3.Romans 8:28 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
4.We must be willing to let go of our own agendas in order to accept the agenda of God.
5.Accepting God’s agenda requires that we accept God’s truth.
a.Before we can accept God’s agenda we must choose what will be the foundation for our lives: the social, ethical, and moral codes of God or those of the world.
b.What we believe to be true affects every aspect of our lives.
6.To let go of our agendas and take steps down the pathway of God’s plan for our lives requires that we decide, once and for all that we believe that the Word of God is true for every condition, circumstance, and situation.
7.We need to accept the Word of God as our standard for right and wrong, for true and false, and for good and evil and in having accepted it we need to do every thing in our power to make it the foundation of our lives, the basis of every principle, attitude, motive, and action. Letting go of our agendas and letting God direct our paths.
[Having chosen to let God direct our paths we need to give Him the proper place in our hearts and…]
II.Let Go of Our Idols
A.…and let God have the center of our hearts.
1.There is a statement made by Jonah towards the end of his prayer to God when he was in the belly of the fish that speaks directly to this thought.
Jonah 2:8 “Those who regard worthless idols, Forsake their own Mercy.” NKJ (Forsake their hope of steadfast love. ESV Forsake their faithfulness NASB)
2.Anything that we hold in higher regard than God becomes an idol to us, worthless as Jonah says, but an idol none the less. And by putting our focus, our energies, our devotions into these worthless idols we forsake the mercy of God and lose the hope that is available to all through His steadfast love.
3.1 John 2:15-17 “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”
a.Note that this command is absolute, not relative. It does not say: “Don’t love the world too much,” but “not at all”.
b.The “world” here does not mean the earth or its people (God Himself so loved the world that He gave His Son to save its people), but rather the world as a “system” or “worldview” made up of ideas and beliefs that exclude God.
c.We are not to love the things which are sought merely to pamper the appetite, to please the eye, or to promote pride in living. These are the objects sought and made into idols by the people of the world; these are not the objects to be sought by the Christian.
d.The secular worldview places little or no importance on God, instead focusing on “All that is in the world” and in opposition to God.
B.All that is in the world…
1.All that is in the world is not from God and when we put them at the center of our heart they become worthless idols and cost us the love of the Father. All that is in the world falls into one or more of these categories:
2.The lust of the flesh.
a.The lust which has its seat and source in our lower animal nature. Satan tried this temptation first on Christ:
Luke 4:3 “Command this stone that it be made bread.”
b.Jesus spoke of how adultery begins not with the act, but with the desire - with looking at another person with lust in one’s heart (Matthew 5:28).
c.While we often limit this category to refer mostly to sexual lust, any sort of selfish or greedy cravings simply to satisfy one’s physical desires in rebellion against God could also be considered “lust of the flesh.” This would include anything purely physical, exploitive, and self-centered.
3.The lust of the eyes.
a.Sins of craving and accumulating possessions (bowing to the idol of materialism) fall in this category. While sex may also be included here, people’s “eyes” can lust after many things - Eve wanted the fruit that was “pleasing to the eye” (Genesis 3:6), Achan saw the beautiful robe from Babylon and the silver and gold (Joshua 7:21), and David saw a beautiful woman bathing and wanted her (2 Samuel 11:2-3). People would have to be blind not to see anything, but believers must not become obsessed with what they see.
b.The avenue through which outward things of the world, riches, pomp, and beauty, inflame us. Satan tried this temptation on Christ when he showed Him the kingdoms of the world in a moment.
4.The pride of life.
a.Some versions translate this as “pride in possessions.” It refers to both the inward attitude and the outward boasting because of an obsession with one’s status or possessions. The word “pride” suggests this person brags in order to impress people, but the bragging may stretch the truth.
b.Literally, “arrogant assumption”: vainglorious display. Satan tried this temptation on Christ in setting Him on the temple pinnacle that, in spiritual pride and presumption, on the basis of His Father’s care, He should cast Himself down.
5.The love of God and the love of worldly things are incompatible. If you give place to the love of the world, the love of God cannot dwell in you; and if you have not His love, you can have no peace, no holiness, and no heaven.
6.A Christian cannot live with a divided heart, responding one moment out of love for God and at the next turning to the world for pleasure. If we want to demonstrate (to ourselves, as well as to God) that we know Him, we must let go of our idols and let God have the center of our heart.
[James 4:4-5 “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”?” Which means we need to…]
III.Let Go of Our Old Selves
A.…and let God have our new selves.
1.If we are honest we can relate with the church in Corinth when Paul wrote to them in his first letter:
I Corinthians 6:9-11 “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”
2.When we become Christians we must let go of our old selves, the lives that were led by the agenda and idols of the world and let God take over. Paul wrote of this often:
a.Ephesians 4:21-24 “if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”
b.2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
c.Romans 6: 4-11
3.Knowing we have put our old selves away we must have the same attitude as Paul: Philippians 3:13-14 “Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Letting go of our old selves and letting God have our new selves.
Conclusion:
To let go and Let God means to give back to God that which is already His, our lives. When we Let go and Let God we adopt His agenda for our own, we make Him the center of our heart and we devote ourselves to doing His will and in doing so we will reap the benefit of His love and His blessings and His promise of eternal life through our belief in His Son.
Over and over the scriptures make it clear that the ultimate offering God desires from us is to give our lives over in complete dependence on His ways. So for us it remains to Let go, Let God!
Invitation
