Old
Baggage
Hebrews 11:1-3; Hebrews 12:5-11; Romans 5:3-5
May 27, 2001 Mike Todd Cornerstone UMC
Hebrews 11:1-3
11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not
see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for. 3 By faith we understand
that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made
out of what was visible. NIV
Faith is assurance of God’s will in our lives, and in the lives of those we love. Faith is the calm assurance that life is unfolding according to God’s plan.
If you have no faith in yourself then you are a loser. If you have no faith in the Word (the Holy Bible) as the Word of God, then you will always be in need and wanting help. If you have no faith in Jesus, then He can’t answer. And if you have no faith in God then you will have no Joy in life. There is no newness, no fullness or motive, nor a future and definitely no hope.
Faith is the true key to abundant living. A man may be full of confidence to handle any situation, but if things don’t go as he planned, and he loses faith to handle the circumstances he will become angry and distraught, bitter.
Look at the life of Job. Look at all he suffered through. And then look at those we know personally, such as Douglas Dalton. By Faith they accepted God’s divine purpose and they overcame.
At the lowest points in your life you can discover how key this element, we call Faith, will be for you.
You always hope to have an easy answer to the problems you may face in life, but can you always be sure of, and think of, the right thing to do when the time comes. What is necessary? When you live your life in Faith, it gives you power. Faith gives you a win/win answer to those situations in life.
At those times in your life, when all you have is prayer, who would you want to be or be with? The person who never cared or had no faith and trusted in Jesus, or the person who gets down on his or her knees and by faith utters “Lord I have no one else I can turn to, please be with me.”
I have here a piece of old baggage. Inside this baggage are several items I need to continue this sermon. And I have a key. I trust that this key will open a lock but I have faith it will open this particular lock. So much faith in fact that my sermon and the items I need to complete it have been locked inside. Now if the key does not work my Faith was misplaced and I will not be able to complete my sermon. Let’s see if the key works. Ah, it does. My faith was not misdirected. And that is what Faith in Jesus is like. It is never misdirected. It always enables us, through Jesus, to handle life’s most mundane and difficult tasks.
The first item I pull out of this old piece of baggage, besides my sermon, is an old handkerchief, a simple little handkerchief. But it represents to me memories of my Grandmother. I’ll never forget as a small child how much I loved my Grandmother, Granny Horton, or much she loved her grandchildren.
One Christmas we got to pick out a small gift for her and I gave her a box of handkerchiefs. You would have thought they were imported by the way she reacted. She used these handkerchiefs all day long: to wipe her hands, her mouth, and the sweat from her brow. She never had a cold, but oh how many tears she must have wiped with those handkerchiefs, a lot of tears from laughter, and from heartache. How she cried when we left for Germany, and when we came home. And then there were the tears of grief – when Granddaddy Horton died and cousin James was killed in Vietnam. But mostly, I can imagine how much she used that handkerchief as she considered the personal worries she had about her children, the kind of worries only a mother can understand.
This particular handkerchief represents memories of my grandmother to me, however, this particular handkerchief actually belonged to Sue’s grandmother and no doubt it showed a lot of history in that family. This handkerchief of Sue’s grandmother has been a witness to much personal history.
We don’t think of the personal history of someone close to us until they pass away. But just as history is recorded for all of us, there is also the very personal history of our lives that is only recorded in the memory of those we love. That is one of the reasons we join here today to celebrate the memory of our loved ones this memorial holiday weekend.
Look back a moment at one of the proudest achievements in your life: a diploma, degree, promotion, etc. There are times that are recorded for you in society by use of a device such as that just discussed (diploma, degree, marriage certificate, birth certificate, death certificate, etc.) and then there are those moments in life that are not recorded by anything except memory.
When my father died death ended his personal recorded history. I thought about how all his personal triumphs and tribulations had shaped his perspective on life and what gave him the value of living. I thought then about all he had seen in his lifetime; what he had experienced and what meant the most to him.
What experiences have focused your life in a positive or negative way?
The second object I take out of this old piece of baggage is a photograph of my father. It’s a picture of him from about twenty-five years ago, when he was a young man, sitting at a table in his military uniform. I would say that he had all of the optimism in the world. He would sing, “I’m sitting on top of the world.” When my father died I inherited his wallet and I began to realize that to people whom never knew him the contents of his wallet were all they had to identify him by. His wallet represented his recorded history but that was all it would share. The wallet could not illustrate or tell you how he was, who he was, only who he was according to the documentation in his wallet (ID card, drivers license, etc.). If you never knew my father by his personal history, you would not truly know him by his recorded history. This wallet could not contain or carry all the hopes he had, the dreams fulfilled, nor the tribulations of life he endured.
After my father passed away, I could no longer consult him for anything. I was going to have to live my life by full confidence in myself, and by my personal and deep abiding faith in Jesus Christ. My father nurtured these in me when I was young.
The third object I take out of this old piece of baggage is my father’s belt. He also shared this with me when I was young, the belt of discipline. I wasn’t always sure of its purpose but I knew its meaning “listen to me and listen carefully—Don’t do it again.”
Hebrews 12:5-11
5 And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:
"My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart
when he rebukes you, 6 because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he
punishes everyone he accepts as a son."
7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what
son is not disciplined by his father? 8 If you are not disciplined (and everyone
undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 9
Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them
for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! 10
Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God
disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline
seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a
harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
NIV
There were times I needed discipline.
Like when I threw a curve bat. Have
any of you heard of a curve bat? Well,
I can tell you there is such a thing. One
time my two brothers and I were playing baseball.
My brothers made me mad, so when it was my turn to hit the ball, I threw
the bat straight at them. Only
problem was is that the bat curved and went into the window of our house.
That is how I know about a curved bat.
Well dad came out of the house and saw me and my brothers standing there,
they had on gloves and I didn’t, so dad knew it was I.
Dad’s discipline was best. Here are his 10 commandments: “Don’t lie. Don’t steal. Don’t break the car glass or the house glass. Don’t burn the grass. Don’t burn the house. Don’t lose my tools. Don’t come home late. Don’t hide something from me. And don’t let me call you more than three times before you come home.”
After becoming a parent I realized how important it was to have principals. You want the best for your children—you want to protect them. You hope to be wise like King Solomon. Reading Proverbs will help you with this.
Whether your parents were good, bad, or indifferent, the crossroads of maturity is to reach that point where you understand that your parents did the best they knew how with their life considering whom their parents were. You pick up the best traits they had to offer and build on it. Think about it sometime—look at the history of their times, look at what they have come through and consider what was important to them and their generation.
My English teacher in high school explained it this way: “Parents too strict raise parents too lenient.” Walk a lifetime in their shoes. Walk a mile in my shoes.
The meanest man I ever dealt with was L. B. Smith
(fictional name). He was a
professional intimidator. If it
hadn’t been for God in my life I could have killed him.
God said, “If you can learn to handle him, you will be able to handle
anyone.” Through God’s wisdom
and discipline I learned to be careful with what I say, to guard my emotions,
and became very slow to anger.
From God I learned that to love your enemy you must understand what motivates them. To understand someone’s needs is to love them.
God’s discipline made me stronger. The respect I showed L. B. he had never had before. I wonder what effect did it have on him. God’s discipline is like that; it builds up the character in you.
Rom 5:3-5
3 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that
suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope.
5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our
hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
NIV
Without the forgiving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we carry the emotional and mental scars of our past history like carrying old baggage. Unless we can forgive others for their transgressions, the light of Christ cannot be shown through us.
This wallet that I am holding, was the last personal item of my father that carried his recorded identity.
This cross, the one standing behind me, is representative of the cross carried by Jesus Christ and it identifies Him as our Saviour. It is Christ recorded history that we see in the cross, and read in the Bible. Will Jesus bear the Cross in vain or will you abandon your old baggage and carry his light into the World?