Our sermon this evening is entitled “Let Go and Let God.” The title is derived from a popular statement used among Christians today. Before we can “let God,” or allow Him to work in our life, we have to “let go,” or throw off the chains that hinder our usefulness to the Lord. We have to stop allowing ourselves to be controlled by the things of this world, such as the desire for earthly possessions and wealth, or the feeling that we must meet the expectations of people. God may even call us to leave our loved ones or friends behind before He can and will use us.
Letting go and letting God is what’s called “faith.” Phillips Brooks defined faith by using the five letters found in the word to form an acrostic. He said that “faith means Forsaking All, I Take Him.”(1) Repeat this with me, if you will: “Forsaking All, I Take Him.” Hebrews 12:1-2 defines faith by saying, “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” Faith is laying aside the world and looking ahead unto Jesus Christ.
Tonight, we’re going to look at letting go and letting God work in our life. The passage that we’re going to examine is often called the “Hall of Faith,” for in it are mentioned numerous people who understood the meaning of faith, and exemplified it through their behavior and response to God. Just as the individuals in the “Hall of Faith” discovered, we too will learn that before God can truly use us, we have to let go. It is my hope and desire that as we hear the Word this evening, that the Holy Spirit will do a work in our heart, and that we’ll be persuaded to follow the Lord wholeheartedly the rest of our life.
Faith Defined (vv. 1-3, 6)
1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. 3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. 6 . . . Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
The writer of Hebrews tells us that faith is a belief in the unseen. In verse 3, we’re told that by faith we believe that the world and the things in the world which we can touch and see were created by an invisible God. This is something that people today have a hard time dealing with. People want to believe that the things they can touch and see were made by something they can touch and see. This is the reason why scientists believe that one creature must have evolved from another creature.
People want to rationalize the world and simplify it so they can better understand it. If we can understand something, then we feel like we have power over it, and can control it. People desire control over their own lives. We don’t want someone else, or rather God, to have the control. Here’s the problem: When we take control, then we’re not living by faith. Living by faith is learning to let go of the control of our own life, and trusting that control to something unseen; and that something is God and His divine will.
In verse 6, we read that without faith it is impossible to please God. Living by faith is attempting for God what we can’t do by ourselves. We might decide not to follow the Lord unless what He’s said fits our specifications or abilities, but that’s not faith. Faith believes in the unseen and the humanly impossible. Faith yields our own inability to the unseen Force that is able. Faith attempts to do what can’t be done through human effort. Faith admits that what can be seen and rationalized is not all there is to the world. Faith let’s go and let’s God, and without it we cannot please the Lord.
Faith Exemplified (vv. 8-10)
8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; 10 for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Abraham provides an example of what it means to live by faith. We read here that God told Abraham to go somewhere, and he knew not where, but he went anyhow. How many of us, if we heard God speak and tell us to go somewhere to be a witness for Him, would actually go? You might say, “Well, if God asked me to go I would definitely do it!” and you have no doubt in your heart that you would obey Him. So, you wait for God to open the right doors; and you might just make it to where the Lord’s calling, but most of the time people keep sitting around waiting for the right set of circumstances. So, instead of going, you wait.
It’s one thing to say we’ll go, but it’s another thing to say we’ll go when we don’t know where we’re going. Verse 8 tells us that Abraham didn’t have a clue as to where he was heading. That translates that God might ask us to go somewhere, and then we won’t know where we’re going to live or how much money we’ll be making. Would you still go if you were to live in a run down shack, and were poor the rest of your life? You see, many times we’ll go if the calling is in agreement with how we think it should be. If it meets our expectations we’ll gladly go. If the circumstances are logical, then we’ll go. But since when did God become logical, and when could we fit Him in our own little box? The haze of our own desires all too often clouds our judgement.
If you want to know how to truly be used by God, then turn with me for a moment to Genesis 12:1-2, as we look at the specific instructions the Lord gave Abraham:
Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing.”
The first thing God might ask us to do is “get out of our country.” We must be willing to leave our familiar territory and our comfort zone. All too often, when we’re in our hometown or around familiar people, then we’ll settle into a routine of how we go about doing things. When our life is predictable we don’t have to rely on God as much. When we get in a bind there are church people to care for us, neighbors to help us out, and family members to be there. With all of these people to help us, we sometimes forget to thank the Lord for their help, or even see them as blessings from God. We start taking His blessing for granted and forget to rely on Him to meet our needs. The Lord will work through us only when we learn to rely on Him for provision.
We might have to leave our familiar territory, because people have become too familiar with us. In Matthew chapter 13, we read about how when Jesus went to His hometown of Nazareth that people rejected His teaching because they still remembered Him as being only the carpenter’s son. Likewise, the people who know us sometimes won’t allow God to work through us, because they tend to hold past feelings over us. Jesus declared, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house” (Matthew 13:57).
The second thing God might ask us to do is to “leave our family and our father’s house.” The Lord might ask us to leave our family because many times they can become a hindrance. Some of the reasons for this are similar to what was just mentioned about leaving our country and familiar territory. Many times we have to leave our family because they’re either selfish or unbelievers. Our family can be selfish when their love becomes so overpowering that they try to interfere with God’s plans. If people in our family don’t believe in God, then they’ll definitely ridicule us and try their best to weaken our faith.
In Matthew 8:21, a man once approached Jesus and said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my dead father.” Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead” (8:22). He basically said, “Let the spiritually dead alone and come follow Me.” Sometimes the Lord will call us to let the dead bury their dead.
Thirdly, God might ask us to “go to a land that He will show us.” The Lord might decide to tell us where to go as far as location, or He might choose not to tell us. Going to a land that God will show us is stepping into a future that only the Lord knows about. The future might look dim and the circumstances might not meet our expectations, but if God calls us then we must be willing to go. In such times we need to consider Jeremiah 29:11, which says, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
When we do what God asks of us, then He will use us for His glory and bless our life in His service. God promised Abraham that if he did what He asked that He would make of him a great nation, He would bless him and make his name great, and that Abraham would become a blessing unto others; meaning the Lord would multiply his witness throughout the earth through his descendants. If we’re obedient to God, then He will multiply our witness by using us to win many lost souls to the kingdom; which in turn, these individuals will go out and witness to others, multiplying into a great nation of followers of Jesus Christ.
Faith Demonstrated (vv. 13-16)
13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 14 For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. 15 And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
In verse 13, we read that many people (including Abraham) had a vision of something – possibly a ministry – not knowing whether it would come to pass, and they embraced it. They believed that the end result of their obedience would be a heavenly home awaiting them and many blessings. If God places a ministry on our heart then we need to embrace it, even if the odds of seeing that ministry come to pass seem impossible. We need to believe with all our heart that our obedience will be rewarded.
We also read in verse 13 that when these people embraced the vision they had received, they acknowledged that they were pilgrims on the earth and that they were just passing through a foreign land. It’s extremely important for us to realize that we’re just passing through this life, because if we can’t come to this realization then we’ll likely cling to the things of this world. If we cling to the world then we won’t press onward and follow God, and we’ll eventually die in the world and not reach our true homeland or final destination in God’s blessings.
Verse 15 says, “If they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return.” If Abraham had looked back at Haran he might have wanted to return there because he had a life and knew many people there. In following the Lord wholeheartedly we must not look back at what we’ve left behind. God wants us to look ahead to “Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1).
In Leviticus 25:23, the Lord told His people, “The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me.” God said, “The land shall not be sold permanently,” and the reason why is because His people were sojourners, or wanderers, with Him. Before settling down in the Promised Land the Hebrews were a nomadic people who followed God and His tabernacle wherever He led them; because they were to be a light to the nations (Isaiah 42:6), and through their travels they would impact many cultures. If we allow ourselves to become chained to this world then we can’t be as effective in reaching the world for Jesus Christ, and we’ll miss many opportunities.
Dwight L. Moody once told a story of two heavily intoxicated men who, on one night, went down to their boat to return to their homes across the bay. They got in and began to row. They rowed hard all night, wondering why it was taking them so long to get to the other side. When the sun came up, and as the two men became more sober, they discovered that their [tie down] had never been loosened, and that their anchor had not been raised.
Many people are trying to live by faith in a similar fashion. Moody declared, “They cannot believe because they are tied to this world. Cut the cord! Set yourself free from the clogging weight of earthly things, and you will soon go on.”(2)
Jesus told us what we must to do in order to follow Him. When He sent out His twelve disciples He told them, “Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts, nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs; for a worker is worthy of his food” (Matthew 10:9-10). In Matthew 8:19-20, we see that a scribe once told Jesus that he would follow Him wherever He went, and Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay is head.”
In Matthew 10:37-39, Jesus said, “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it,” and Jesus asks us, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” In order to follow Jesus we must be willing to give up all that we have, and cut the cord that anchors us to this world.
Time of Reflection
Has God asked you to do something for Him – like visit a neighbor, lead Sunday school, teach vacation Bible school, or show up for church – and you denied Him? Did you disobey the Lord because you had something better to do? Has God ever called you to take your family on a mission trip to another country, and you didn’t go because you were waiting for the right circumstances, or your kids didn’t want to leave their friends behind? Did it have to work out the way you thought it should before you would go?
If you want to see God move in your life, use you, and bless you, then you need to let go and let God. You need to cut your ties to this world and realize that God’s called you to be a wanderer with Him, and that you’re only passing through this life. If you’re a Christian who’s guilty of seeking a bigger home in this world than in the life to come; I want to encourage you to ask the Lord for His forgiveness and start seeking Him anew this evening.
If you don’t know Jesus as your personal Savior and Lord, then consider His words when He asked, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?” If you want to live in that city that Hebrews says is prepared for those who know God, when you die and leave this earth, then you need to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord tonight.
NOTES
(1) Spiros Zodhiates, Illustrations of Biblical Truths (Chattanooga: AMG Publishers, 1995), p. 75.
(2) Richard A. Steele, Jr. and Evelyn Stoner, Practical Bible Illustrations from Yesterday and Today (Chattanooga: AMG Publishers, 1996), p. 114.
