Rev. Ron Sumners
February 23, 1997
What kind of baggage did you bring with you today? What attitudes, and ideas; prejudices, heartaches, burdens, joys, hopes, dreams, defeats, fears, what loves do you bring? The baggage you carry today will affect what you receive today. What I would like to do is affirm those things that are good and necessary and discard the millstones that are pulling us down and preventing us from being what God intends.
First, I want to talk about some attitudes that affect many of us.
l) INNER EMPTINESS:
In our society we have tried to live on a diet of religious platitudes. We know the patented answers that we are supposed to accept although they are really no answers at all. The world needs to know how the living Christ is relevant to them today. People today, maybe you, have a sick feeling that there is something missing in their lives. They search for the magic formula that will fill up the void - in things, in pleasure, in external stimuli. They all eventually leave a bigger hole in our hearts than before. Do you feel empty inside today? That's pretty heavy baggage to carry! Jesus Christ is the one who will fill that aching void and make you whole.
2) PURPOSELESSNESS:
"What are you going to do with your life?" and the college student answers, "I just don't know.” Many would say, "I'm in school because my folks are paying the bill, but I can't see what it's all about or what it's leading to.” Many professional people here today say, "I'm caught in the rat race of daily routine, and I feel like I'm defeated before I even start. What's the use?” Many housewives and professional women feel empty. Like Otis Redding said, in his song "Women, they do get weary."
3) LONELINESS:
Many people exist as shells in the midst of the crowd. Many of you are lonely. You may have lost your life's partner. You may be the life of the party. You may have people around you all of the time. But you know that it's just the Novocain that numbs the ache inside. You have everyone, but you have NO ONE. Loneliness is baggage that must be dealt with.
4) LACK OF SELF CONTROL:
Paul said, "The good that I would do I don't do, and that which I don't want to do, I find myself doing." In a world that sees Christians as people who don't do certain things, self-control is a must. Those are some of the things that affect all of us. But until we, as Christians, get them resolved we cannot be all that God wants us to be. God can fill up the emptiness; give you purpose and meaning; take away loneliness with His presence; and give us self-control with the strength of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Just because we are Church members doesn't mean that we have automatically discarded this negative baggage. Have you? Now, let's talk about some specific things that we as Christians bring with us - positive and negative. Before we can sort baggage and keep the necessary and discard the burdensome, it is fundamental that we be honest with ourselves. We've played (I'm O.K., your suspect) long enough. Let's admit that we are not what God wants us to be. What can we get rid of that will free us up to serve Him?
I think the first thing we need to discard is the burden of poor self-image. It's easy for a lot of us to go look in the mirror and say, "Thanks a lot, God, for nothing; you blew it when you came to me." We are all caught up in the world's standards of beauty and ability. As a man hardens his heart to God, he becomes more superficial. The things that matter, without God, are the things on the surface. Man has turned his concentration to sex, the body, physical strength, alluring clothes, and looks.
We have been guilty of adopting the same standards. Most of us spend so much time putting ourselves down for what we aren't, we don't give God a chance to build up and make beautiful what we are. Man's frame is only a temporary item. It weakens and dies with the passing of time, even the beautiful people. Man's inward personality, the soul, will live forever. You can make the best of what God has given you. You should take pride in your appearance. But for me to mope because I'm not 6'2" would be foolish. I cannot change it! I can, however, with God's help, change who I am. What do you think of yourself? God thinks you are beautiful, and you should too. It's time you stood up and said, "I may not be Brad Pitt or Cindy Crawford, but I am beautiful." And you who do think you are Brad or Cindy, you need to reverse the process and see that beauty is to be found in who you are not what you look like. One item of excess baggage that must be discarded if we are going to form any kind of cohesive group here is the epidemic of self-centeredness that is rampant today. So many of us are like the old farmer who prayed:
“Oh Lord, Bless me and my wife, my son and his wife, us four and no more."
We live in a world that says, "What's in it for me?" The axiom ' you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours' has set the tone for our society. When people get so caught up in their own concerns and how everything will affect them personally, they have little time for other people. We spend our lives getting and gaining only to find we have neglected to gain the most important thing of all.
There was a man who was a member of the church in Birmingham where I served. He was one of the wealthiest men in Alabama. If I mentioned his name, you would probably recognize it. He was worth millions. He had spent his whole life centered in himself and the acquiring of personal wealth. He died while I was at the church. Attending his funeral was the Pastor and myself. His son didn't even come. He had spent his life turned into himself and at death not even all his millions could buy a friend.
You better take your attention off yourself. Many of us have made SELF a goddess whom we bow down to and worship. It is time that you realize that you can't carry that baggage into Christian Service. I don't know about you, but I'm not worth Worshipping. Greatness, in the eyes of God, is found in the towel and basin at the feet of others. When's the last time you achieved greatness?
Some of us are going to have to discard the masks we wear to hide who we really are. Grady Nutt has a poem in his book Being Me that speaks to this baggage:
“Every day is Halloween and I hide behind a mask
and hold out my Kroger sack (Biggest Size) Hoping
to collect approval for my neat disguise.
Nobody goes to a door of promise to knock for
goodies wearing his real face.
Who'd give goodies for that?
Very good reasoning if you are seven playing
pirate, spook, monster, or witch.
Typical reasoning for an adolescent fearful
that the real me will earn no goodies.
What would my sack contain if they saw what I
see behind my Mask? A Rejection? A Scoff? A Laugh? A Put Down?
Could there possible be acceptance, love affirmation, like I really am?
We wear masks in our relationships mainly for two reasons: l) To hide something from others, 2) to play some role laid on us by family friends society, even the Church.
Rodney Dangerfield has a line:
"My mother was so mean to me that, on
Halloween, she made me go out without a mask."
What Jesus did to men like Zacchaeus, Nicodemus, blind Bartimaeus, Matthew, Peter, and Paul was to take away their masks. I am a person; you are a person. We need to be who we are. The masks of Mr. Cool, Super Christian, I don't need anymore, and many others must be stripped away, and we must stand uncovered and dependent on God to use us just like we are, not what we pretend to be.
Some of you may carry the baggage of a closed mind. This is dangerous cargo for a Christian. It says that God's revelation is closed. This is not true. The revelation of God to people is open ended. We can have as much of God and His truth as we are willing to receive. A closed mind can't open to the new frontiers of revelation that God has for us. If things are false and heretical to you unless they are the way you believe, you may be closing your mind to a truth that God is trying to get through to you. If your mind is closed, then Christianity becomes for you the ritualistic observance of a code and system of piety that you deem as the TRUTH. God came in the form of Christ to break down this type of idea. The Pharisees were the most religious people in the world, but their minds were closed and the great Truth that God was giving never got through.
Now let's talk about some necessary baggage. This is the underwear and deodorant. You can't go on a trip without them. You will never come into the true joy of your salvation until you claim this baggage and take it with you.
The first is MEEKNESS. As a child I remember singing a little song in Sunday School - Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild. It always conjured up pictures in my mind of a weak and cowardly milquetoast of a man who let the World run over Him. This was not Jesus at all! He was meek, all right, but He was meek in the KOINE Greek meaning of the word. The Greek word has at its root meaning the idea of a great, powerful, spirited stallion that has been broken to harness. He still has all the fire and spirit he ever had, but now it has been made useful for his master.
Jesus had all the fire and spirit and passion of any man that has ever lived, but it was under the control of God. Are you meek? Have you placed your zest for living and talents and personality at the disposal of God? God does not make you a new creature by displacing your personality with a new one. He makes you a new creature by enhancing the personality and gifts that He has already given you. We, in meekness, then become useful for His service. Are you meek? Does God have the reigns of your life?
Are you carrying the essential baggage of love for people? Even if it hurts? In other words, are you willing to risk rejection for the sake of love? You were not created as a hermit or a lonesome pine; you were created as a person and that means that you need other persons, like a fish needs water, like a bird needs feathers, like a child needs parents, like a flower needs the Spring. We are afraid to love. We have been hurt. We've opened ourselves up before and people have walked right over us. Why take the chance again? I'm glad Jesus didn't react that way. As He hung on the cross, He looked over the multitude of people who had rejected Him; maybe the very ones who had whipped Him, maybe the very one who had placed the crown of thorns on His head, maybe the very ones who had mocked Him and cursed Him. He looked at the crowd and said, "I'll never trust mankind again!" We all know that he didn't say that. He said, "Father forgive them."
If we love like Jesus; we open ourselves up to the greatest of all paradoxes. We receive the greatest joy earth can give, but there is also the risk of the greatest of hurts. But until you experience this love, this risky love, you will never really know love. Have you learned how to love, even when it hurts?
There are so many things that are necessary for this journey into Christian maturity. You don't need for me to supply an exhaustive list. But there is one last item that I would like to mention that is essential: a real excitement and anticipation of what God is going to do to you and through you. So often, we've come to church expecting little or nothing so that's what we received. Did you come with a great thrill of excitement and anticipation that God is going to work in your heart? This could be the day when the millstone of self-doubt is removed. This could be the time when God reveals to you His purposes for your life. This could be the day when old hates and animosities will be washed clean and free you again to be the loving child of God you want to be. It can't happen unless you expect it to happen.
What baggage did you bring? Today is the time to do some sorting. Discard what is dead weight in your life and claim what is necessary. If you do it in honesty, this Sunday can be one of the most significant points on your Christian pilgrimage.
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