Baggage Claim - Relational Baggage

Church, this is the way God wants us to do relationships. It's not natural to us. I'm like you and that when somebody hurts me, the first thing I wanna do is hurt them back. Right? That's our fleshly nature. That's that's what our nature at times wants to do. But that's not god's way. God's way is not that way. God's way is to as best as you can, live at peace with everyone. Bless those who curse you. Serve those who hurt you. [01:01:41] (30 seconds)  #LiveAtPeace

See, forgiveness is taking that bag with all of those things that you just wanna shake your fist at that person and saying, God, I'm letting go of all of this anger. I'm letting it go and I'm giving it to you. I'm choosing to give them to you and to let it go. That's a hard thing to do, church. It's a hard thing to do. And forgiveness doesn't justify their actions and forgiveness also doesn't mean that you trust them, but forgiveness is the first step. [00:53:05] (32 seconds)  #LetGoForgive

If we don't do that, it affects how we see others, it affects how we see ourselves, and it can affect how we see God. See, some of you in this room have maybe experienced abuse, abandonment. You have a bad view of yourself. You lack confidence in who God created you to be. And I wonder how much of that has to do with some of the baggage you might have experienced in your life. [00:45:24] (24 seconds)  #HowBaggageChangesUs

But he doesn't want us to carry them on our own. He says, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened. And he says, what? I will give you rest. Do you need rest today? Do you need joy today? Do you need peace today in this place of relational baggage? The last question we're gonna conclude with is this, are you carrying relational baggage that is robbing you of God's peace and joy? [01:06:11] (30 seconds)  #BringYourBaggageToJesus

When we cause relational baggage, we must humble ourselves, admit our failures, and ask for forgiveness. Church, those two words, I'm sorry, can bring so much healing in a relationship. A heartfelt understanding of what's of what you've done and saying you're sorry. You know, I've sat with quite a few couples in marriage counseling. And when they first get in there, they they would just wanna point the finger at everybody else. [00:58:32] (34 seconds)  #PowerOfISorry

Here's the reality guys, like there's such a stigma on counseling that people think, oh, you know, you don't you don't need to go to counseling unless you're like really broken. Most people wait too long to get counseling. See, I knew that I needed to work through the junk that was in my heart, and I got biblical counseling. So the combination of bringing it to the Lord, talking to the Lord about it, being able to talk with somebody else about it, began to to God began to bring healing and restoration in my life. [00:52:08] (31 seconds)  #BiblicalCounselingHeals

The enemy wants us to stay in pride and and blame you know, what did Adam and Eve do when they sinned and god came to them? They blamed everybody else. Nobody does that today. Right? See, the enemy wants us to be in pride, to blame everybody else for our problems, to blame everybody else for our baggage, but God wants us to humble ourselves and say, Lord, what was my part in this? What was my part in this? Look at your next point today. [00:57:59] (33 seconds)  #ChooseHumilityNotBlame

And and and relational baggage, it affects how we see others. It affects how we see our ourselves. And that's your next point today. Relational baggage, if not processed correctly, can affect how we view God, others, and even ourselves. It can affect so much when we don't take the baggage that we've experienced in our life and we bring it to the word of God, we bring it to the cross. [00:44:56] (28 seconds)  #BringBaggageToTheCross