BAGGAGE CLAIM

1

BAGGAGE CLAIM

Baggage Claim Dr. Brandon Park | February 23, 2014

As As we’ve unpacked our hurts, habits, and hangups angups in in this message series – o one ne thing we’ve all discovered is that everyone has baggage. No matter what y our life experiences have been, the baggage that you possess can all fall into one of three categories: Grudges, Grief, and Guilt. A grudge is the baggage caused by what we feel ________________ have done to u s. Grief is the baggage caused by what we feel ________ has done to u s. Guilt is the baggage caused by what we’ve done to __________________. Today we’re going to summarize everything we’ve been talking about when i t comes to Baggage. 1 Peter 5:7 says, “Casting all your anxieties upon Him; for He cares for you.” WORD STUDY: The word “casting” is the Greek word epiripto. Epi-‐ means “upon or on top of something” and ripto means “to hurl, to throw, or to cast” and it often means to violently throw or to fling something with great force. The only other time this word is used in the Bible is in Luke 19:35 and it pictures flinging the excess weight off the shoulders of a traveler and onto the back of some other animal such as a donkey, camel, or horse. God did not create us to carry the load of the weight of grudges, grief, and guilt. In this passage, God is asking us to allow HIM to be our beast of burden. He wants you to take your baggage and heave i t with all of your might onto His back and allow Him to carry i t for you. God i s willing to claim all of our baggage but we have to be willing to let it go. There are steps we can take to do just that.

1. God is Willing To Claim The Baggage of Your Past ____________

A “grudge” means a deep-‐seated feeling of resentment or rancor. The heaviest form of baggage to carry is a grudge. And what a lot of people do with the baggage of grudges is that they just attach more handles onto it so that it’s easier to carry. The only way to let go of a grudge is to quit _____________ it. We cannot allow ourselves to fixate and obsess about what a person has done to us over and over again. Holding on to that grudge is like chewing gum on the bottom of your shoe – it stays with you. Carrying a grudge though is like holding your hand to a hot stove, hoping the other person gets burned.

The word “forgiveness” literally means – “To ______ ______” or “to _______ _________.” James Dobson said, “Forgiveness is giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me.” The word “resentment” means “to __________ ____________.” We hold a grudge when we keep rotating what that person did to us on the rotisserie barbecue grill of our minds. Forgiveness is m ore for the person who has been ________________ than the one who has carried out the _____________. A lot of us think that forgiveness is more for the person who has hurt us, but in reality – i t i s more for us! In Matthew 18:21-‐35, Jesus gave a parable on forgiveness. He told a story of a man who owed a king “ten thousand talents.” (That would be the equivalent of 150,000 years wages for an average worker and the USD equivalent of $2.25 Billion). It would be impossible for the servant to pay off that debt. Just when the King was about to sell the man and his family into slavery, he pleaded to the king for mercy. Vs. 27-‐28, “And out of pity for h im, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the d ebt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of h is fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke h im saying, ‘Pay what you owe.” When someone has hurt us—it’s like a debt has been created i n our hearts against them. We think “They owe me. They need to pay.” But when the servant does not forgive his brother who owed him a small amount of money after he has been forgiven a debt he could never repay – the king orders the forgiven servant to be put in jail. When you compare our sin debt to God (which has been forgiven) to someone else’s sin debt to us, it is like comparing a mountain to a mole hill. Sam Jones, once said, “I don’t have anything in this world to forgive. I will never stay mad with any man unless he t reats me worse than I have treated Jesus Christ.” Jesus said, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother

from your heart.” An unforgiving spirit is the mark of an unforgiven spirit which is therefore the mark of an unforgivable spirit.


For some people – they have lived in grief for so long that it has become their identity. Now when a person goes through a tragedy – the church needs to be there to give c ompassion and care for as long as it takes to regain their strength and get back on their feet. But the truth is – some people don’t want to get well – they don’t want to get over their grief. If you’ve had something painful happen to you, don’t let that experience be the ___________ _____________ of your life. At first, y ou need to talk about it and verbalize and process your feelings. But there comes a time when you must let go of the grief. King David was very acquainted with grief. He lost his s on soon after he was born. He fasted and prayed and pleaded with God to save his son’s life – but in the end the baby died. In 2 Samuel 12:18-‐ 23, we are given some tips on how to handle grief as we watch how David did four things: 1. He ____________________ God -‐-‐ Vs. 20, “Then David arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his clothes. And he went into the h ouse of the LORD and worshipped.” 2. He ______________________ what he could not change. Vs. 22-‐23, "While the child was alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ’Who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I b ring him back again? 3. He _________________ in light of eternity. Vs. 23b, “ I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." 4. He _____________________ on what was left not what was lost. “Then David comforted Bathsheba h is wife, and went in to her and lay with her. So she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon. 2 Samuel 12:24 When we grieve we c an remain a prisoner of our pain or we can turn it over to God.


Nothing destroys a soul faster then guilt. David said, “ My sins have flooded over my head; they are a burden too heavy for me to b ear. My wounds are foul a nd festering b ecause of my foolishness.” Psalms 38:4-‐5 If If you don’t understand ________________, you’ll never be relieved of guilt. uilt The moment you become a believer, you are enrolled in Grace University and there are only 2 lessons you can learn in the school of grace: 1.) God loves you just the way you are, and 2.) God loves you too much to let you stay that way. Romans 6:1, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid…” Grace does not give you the _______________ _______________ to live you want to; grace gives you the ________________ to live like you ought to. o. The The Christian is someone in whom Christ lives. ives. When When Christ comes to live within you, you will simply live out the Christ that lives in you. When When temptation comes you will yield every time – either to the __________ or to your _______. ______. You don’t need to fight a battle that has already been won! Don’t fight temptation – yield to Jesus. I I feel guilt when I have hurt people, I feel grief when I’ve suffered a loss, I hold onto grudges when someone has caused me pain – but God’s grace is great enough to overcome it all. What What is it that you are holding onto that you need to let go go of today? _________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________

1

BAGGAGE CLAIM

Baggage Claim Dr. Brandon Park | February 23, 2014

As As we’ve unpacked our hurts, habits, and hangups angups in in this message series – o one ne thing we’ve all discovered is that everyone has baggage. No matter what y our life experiences have been, the baggage that you possess can all fall into one of three categories: Grudges, Grief, and Guilt. A grudge is the baggage caused by what we feel ________________ have done to u s. Grief is the others baggage caused by what we feel ________ God has done to us. Guilt is the baggage caused by what ourselves we’ve done to __________________. Today we’re going to summarize everything we’ve been talking about when i t comes to Baggage. 1 Peter 5:7 says, “Casting all your anxieties upon Him; for He cares for you.” WORD STUDY: The word “casting” is the Greek word epiripto. Epi-‐ means “upon or on top of something” and ripto means “to hurl, to throw, or to cast” and it often means to violently throw or to fling something with great force. The only other time this word is used in the Bible is in Luke 19:35 and it pictures flinging the excess weight off the shoulders of a traveler and onto the back of some other animal such as a donkey, camel, or horse. God did not create us to carry the load of the weight of grudges, grief, and guilt. In this passage, God is asking us to allow HIM to be our beast of burden. He wants you to take your baggage and heave i t with all of your might onto His back and allow Him to carry i t for you. God i s willing to claim all of our baggage but we have to be willing to let it go. There are steps we can take to do just that.

Grudges 1. God is Willing To Claim The Baggage of Your Past ____________

A “grudge” means a deep-‐seated feeling of resentment or rancor. The heaviest form of baggage to carry is a grudge. And what a lot of people do with the baggage of grudges is that they just attach more handles onto it so that it’s easier to carry. nursing it. We cannot allow ourselves to The only way to let go of a grudge is to quit _____________ fixate and obsess about what a person has done to us over and over again. Holding on to that grudge is like chewing gum on the bottom of your shoe – it stays with you. Carrying a grudge though is like holding your hand to a hot stove, hoping the other person gets burned.

The word “forgiveness” literally means – “To ______ ______ _________.” let ______” go or “to _send away James Dobson said, “Forgiveness is giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me.” think ____________.” again The word “resentment” means “to __________ We hold a grudge when we keep rotating what that person did to us on the rotisserie barbecue grill of our minds.

oﬀended Forgiveness is m ore for the person who has been ________________ than the one who has oﬀense A lot of us think that forgiveness is more for the person who has hurt carried out the _____________. us, but in reality – i t i s more for us! In Matthew 18:21-‐35, Jesus gave a parable on forgiveness. He told a story of a man who owed a king “ten thousand talents.” (That would be the equivalent of 150,000 years wages for an average worker and the USD equivalent of $2.25 Billion). It would be impossible for the servant to pay off that debt. Just when the King was about to sell the man and his family into slavery, he pleaded to the king for mercy. Vs. 27-‐28, “And out of pity for h im, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the d ebt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of h is fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke h im saying, ‘Pay what you owe.” When someone has hurt us—it’s like a debt has been created i n our hearts against them. We think “They owe me. They need to pay.” But when the servant does not forgive his brother who owed him a small amount of money after he has been forgiven a debt he could never repay – the king orders the forgiven servant to be put in jail. When you compare our sin debt to God (which has been forgiven) to someone else’s sin debt to us, it is like comparing a mountain to a mole hill. Sam Jones, once said, “I don’t have anything in this world to forgive. I will never stay mad with any man unless he t reats me worse than I have treated Jesus Christ.” Jesus said, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother

from your heart.” An unforgiving spirit is the mark of an unforgiven spirit which is therefore the mark of an unforgivable spirit.

Grief 2. God is Willing To Claim The Baggage of Your Past ____________

For some people – they have lived in grief for so long that it has become their identity. Now when a person goes through a tragedy – the church needs to be there to give c ompassion and care for as long as it takes to regain their strength and get back on their feet. But the truth is – some people don’t want to get well – they don’t want to get over their grief. focal If you’ve had something painful happen to you, don’t let that experience be the ___________ _____________ point of your life. At first, you need to talk about it and verbalize and process your feelings. But there comes a time when you must let go of the grief. King David was very acquainted with grief. He lost his s on soon after he was born. He fasted and prayed and pleaded with God to save his son’s life – but in the end the baby died. In 2 Samuel 12:18-‐ 23, we are given some tips on how to handle grief as we watch how David did four things: 1. He ____________________ God -‐-‐ Vs. 20, “Then David arose from the earth and washed worshipped and anointed himself and changed his clothes. And he went into the h ouse of the LORD and worshipped.” accepted 2. He ______________________ what he could not change. Vs. 22-‐23, "While the child was alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ’Who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I b ring him back again? lived 3. He _________________ in light of eternity. Vs. 23b, “ I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." focused 4. He _____________________ on what was left not what was lost. “Then David comforted Bathsheba h is wife, and went in to her and lay with her. So she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon. 2 Samuel 12:24 When we grieve we c an remain a prisoner of our pain or we can turn it over to God.

Guilt 3. God is Willing To Claim The Baggage of Your Past ____________

Nothing destroys a soul faster then guilt. David said, “ My sins have flooded over my head; they are a burden too heavy for me to b ear. My wounds are foul a nd festering b ecause of my foolishness.” Psalms 38:4-‐5 grace If If you don’t understand ________________, you’ll never be relieved of guilt. uilt The moment you become a believer, you are enrolled in Grace University and there are only 2 lessons you can learn in the school of grace: 1.) God loves you just the way you are, and 2.) God loves you too much to let you stay that way. Romans 6:1, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid…” license Grace does not give you the _______________ _______________ to live you want to; grace gives you the ________________ to live like you ought to. o. The The Christian is someone in whom Christ lives. ives. When When liberty Christ comes to live within you, you will simply live out the Christ that lives in you.

Lord or to your _______. sin When When temptation comes you will yield every time – either to the __________ ______. You don’t need to fight a battle that has already been won! Don’t fight temptation – yield to Jesus. I I feel guilt when I have hurt people, I feel grief when I’ve suffered a loss, I hold onto grudges when someone has caused me pain – but God’s grace is great enough to overcome it all. What What is it that you are holding onto that you need to let go go of today? _________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________