Unpacking Emotional Baggage

Hello, and welcome to the Salt Church Podcast. Thank you for tuning in to this week's message. Join us as we explore God's Word providing practical teaching for day-to-day living. The message you are about to hear was recorded live at our Sunday morning worship experience. If you would like to learn more about Salt Church, please visit us at saltchurch.

org. We hope that you are encouraged by today's message. So, Christmas at Salt. I'm excited about Christmas at Salt. Also, next Sunday, I kind of sound a little somber the way I was saying that, but let me just lift your spirits a little bit today.

Ugly Sweater Sunday is next week, and we're going to wear our ugliest sweaters. How many of you are with me on that one, okay? I think church should be a fun place. So, it's close to Christmas. Let's wear our ugly sweaters.

And the ugliest sweater will win a prize, amen? So, bring your friends and family to that. You know, that's another great way to invite somebody to church. Hey, man, we're having ugly sweaters Sunday. Why don't you wear ugly sweaters and come with me?

You know, this church wears ugly sweaters. What's going on here? So, let's go find out what this is all about. So, it's just another great way to connect people to Christ through our church and our church family. So, I look forward to that.

And let's begin the second part of our series called Travel Light. Travel Light is a series we started last week, and it's going to enter into Christmas. And it kind of deals a little bit with the Christmas season. As we travel through or we're traveling, we tend to pack too much baggage. How many of you are like me?

You tend to pack too much in your car, and you're like, oh, my goodness. Why did I bring all this? Yeah, Miranda says I pack just enough. But I don't. I tend to take too much.

And life's a lot like that. And when we have been unpacking the baggage and the clutter in our lives, what we're doing is we're unpacking the baggage and clutter in our lives. We're taking some of that stuff out so that we can travel a little lighter, so that we can experience freedom. So, this series has taken us through this. This last week, we talked about discontentment, how we are a discontent people and how we need to unpack that process of wanting more and gaining more.

And I'm content in having more and letting go of those things so that we actually can live in freedom and freedom in Christ. Next week, God kind of hit me with this. I was going a different direction. I want to talk a little bit about depression because I've seen more depression in our world and in our culture than I've ever seen in my life. People are dealing with it all the time.

So, we're going to unpack that emotional state and depression, the things we're going through. We're going to talk about that, see what the Word of God tells us about how to handle those things. Today is a very important one because I think it affects just about everybody in some way. And if you've ever had any type of physical wound, let me ask you this. How many of you had broken legs and broken arms?

It's not too pleasant, right? Right, okay. Let me go a little further. How many of you have been shot? Anybody been shot in here?

Okay, nobody's been shot. How about, oh, we got one shot. We got one shot right here. So, wow, okay. So, we got somebody's been shot.

Has anybody ever been stabbed, whether by accident or on purpose? I don't know. We got a few stabbers, you know, people have been stabbed here or are cut. And it's not very pleasant, is it? I mean, but, and when those physical things happen to us, they hurt.

And, but eventually they heal, but we still have some of those scars, right? When we look at our bodies, when we look at our cuts, when we look at our, our, our shotgun, our gun wounds, shotgun wounds. That would kind of blow you apart, I imagine, if you got shot by shotgun, but a gun wound. And we, we look at those things and, and you know, our, our, our emotional life is a lot like that. Our relational life is like that.

We have wounds based on experiences with others. So today I want to talk about relational baggage, how to unpack some of the relational baggage, because on the journey of life, we all have relational baggage. The way we think, the way we, we talk, the way we speak, the way we react to things possibly are connected to those relational issues that you may have in your life. Maybe some of you are, are experiencing some pain because you, you, you're coming into the Christmas season and you've lost a loved one. And you're thinking about that loved one and maybe you lost that loved one way too soon.

Some people, and I've had, God has graced me and I don't know how he's graced me, but he's graced me with being able to walk out people losing a child. A lot, some of our best friends lost a child with cancer and it was a very difficult season. And God walked us through that and God forbid, but some of you may have lost a child in your experience in that relational pain there. Or maybe a failed marriage or a friendship and maybe it's an emotional abuse that you've experienced from a father who spoke ridicule to you or, or just didn't cause some emotional wounds in your life. And maybe you're dealing with some of that and it's really, it's really been hard or it could be something completely different, but few people deal with it.

A lot of people, they just try to medicate it, whether it's emotionally counseling, whatever we try to get through it. Oh, time will heal, but time really doesn't heal it. Only the power of Jesus Christ can heal these situations. Time doesn't heal it. And men, we're probably the worst, right?

Because we don't like to deal with it, right? We just wear it inside and if we have, we leave it inside ourselves, we don't deal with it. It incubates, it grows and it becomes worse and we become bitter, angry, hateful. And we walk through life that way and it sets in deeper inside of us. It attaches to us.

So I want to deal with that today. I want to look at the Bible and there's a, probably an unfamiliar story. I'm kind of going a different direction than the kind of popular Christmas stories. But you know, Christmas does date all the way back to the Old Testament, right? I mean, from the, from the lineage of Jesus Christ here and here, there's this man called Terah.

Terah. T-E-R-A-H. And he is the father of Abraham. Terah was the father of Abraham. And I'm going to look at the story of Terah in Genesis 11 if you want to turn there with me.

And perhaps you've seen this story. You've probably read it, but you kind of glanced over it. Because you're kind of getting to the Abram story, you know, you want to see what Abram was doing, but if we go back, we might miss something here in this very small section of Scripture that talks about where Abram came from. And it says this, This is the account of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

And Haran became the father of Lot. So Terah had three sons. Abraham had two sons, I mean two sons, two brothers, Nahor and Haran. And Haran was the father of Lot. We hear about Lot in Scripture later on.

The nephew of Abram, as he's walking out, as they're claiming their land. And it says, While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans in the land of his birth. So we see that Terah lost a child. He lost a child. And I'm sure it was really hard.

If you'll skip to verse 31 here, it says, Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot, son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai. We know her as Sarah later on in Scripture, the wife of his son Abram. And together they set out. They set out from Ur to the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. So as you can see, there's a story that was taking place even before Abram was called out.

And it says this, Now I think it's interesting that there was a city named Haran, and there was a son named Haran. And when they got to Haran, on their way to Canaan, which was the promised land, that he stopped there. He stopped there. And while Scripture doesn't specifically lay this out or say this, and here's what we can do by biblical interpretation, by simple hermeneutics, and you can say, well, maybe this didn't happen or what have you. That's fine.

But we can speculate based on the Scripture here that perhaps God had spoke to Terah. That God had spoke to Terah about this land that he had laid out for his family, for his people. Perhaps a very similar story as Abram had from God. But on the way, we see that he stopped in this city and he died there in Haran. The Hebrew word for Haran is different than the Hebrew word for the son Haran.

So this is how we can kind of distinguish this. Haran, the son, meant mountain climber, meant one who climbs heights. But the place Haran means parched, to glow, to burn, to incite passion, and it can be translated to be angry, the anger. So here we see that Terah overcame an obstacle or wasn't able to overcome an obstacle in his life, right? His son's death happened, but when he came to a place where it reminded him of his son, a place of anger or a place of despair, a place of passion, incited passion based on where he was in his life, he stopped there and he died there.

And for so many people, when they face things in life, they face trials in life, when they go through their Haran moments, they stop and they die. They stop and they die. And God has something special for every person. He's created you in such a way, he's given you a plan, he's organized, he's orchestrated something for you, something powerful, something that's freeing for you even, where you can really experience joy. But for so many people, they fail to experience the joy that God has for them and the life that God has for them because they're stuck in Haran.

They're stuck in a place of desperation. So what can we learn from this story? What can we get out of this? I think a few things we can learn from this is that relational baggage, the relational things, the things that hurt, the things that keep us where we are, keeps us from our potential. It keeps us from our potential.

And you make bad decisions when you're wounded. Did you know that? Think about it. And I've counseled a lot of people even in my short time in ministry. I mean, it's just marriages and relational issues and things like that.

And one thing I can say is that we act stupid when we're wounded. We don't think right. We think unbiblical. We don't think in ways that could be helping the relationship. And we hurt the relationships because we hurt.

Because we're bitter. And we get crazy. And it gets sticky. And it gets downright nasty at times. And we're not thinking correctly about what we're saying.

In fact, Psalm 73 says it like this. When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant. I lost my mind. I didn't know how to act. I didn't know how to relate to that person.

I didn't know. I was doing things. And sometimes after these things that we go through, we step back and we look at how we reacted to the situation. And in most cases, I think, if you're with me and I've been there too, I'm like, why did I say that? Why did I do that?

That wasn't even right. That wasn't even biblical. And I'm thinking that I'm right and I'm justified by what I say because I'm so bitter and I'm so upset and I'm so frustrated. And perhaps we go through those times and we're dealing with those things. The second thing is it pollutes our other relationships.

And even the good ones, it pollutes them. Negative impact happens when we hold on to hurt, when we hold on to bitterness. And I've seen it. I know you've seen it. It can be a disease.

And when people gather around, it's a cancer. It's a disease. It infects. And you've seen it. And you watch.

I've watched people's personality change right in front of mine in VIP宮, In front of me, by being around the wrong people, by being affected by the wrong people, it can be very bitter, it can be very, very bad, very painful, very negative. It can negatively impact. And anyone they are around, it's interesting, anyone that those people around, if you're maybe you're dealing with hurt, I don't know, maybe, maybe it's somebody else you've seen, but it's interesting how people kind of start acting like the people that they're around, how they start talking like the people they're around. And we, if we're not careful and we're dealing with unforgiveness, we're dealing with bitterness, we have to take back and assess ourselves a little bit, right? And say, what is this doing to me and the people around me and the friendships that I have?

It can affect our friendships and our relationships. Have you ever had those people in your life that you try so hard to say the right things and do the right things that's always spent on you? It's always put back on you or you always are, they're always defensive. Well, Hebrews 12, 15 says this, a bitter spirit is not only bad in itself, but can also poison the lives of many others. And there's three things here, just kind of some sub points.

If you want to write those down, they may be in your notes there. It makes us defensive. You met those people that are very defensive. You just can't win. Everything's about a defense.

And maybe it's because of hurt and maybe it's insecurity or they just don't believe in themselves. And it's hard to be criticized and for people to be critical. It makes us distant. That's the second thing. It makes us distant.

We distance ourselves. Guys, we do this really good, right? We want to distance ourselves. We don't want to talk about anybody. We find about it.

We find our hole. I can deal with it myself. I'm strong enough to deal with it. I can fix it myself. I don't need no other bros to come into my life and talk to me.

We don't need any of that. I can speak for the men. I think women, you deal with it in your own way as well. And the discussion, I don't want to talk about it right now. We're not going to deal with it.

We're going to move on. That's kind of the reaction that women have more of. And they kind of pull away in that way. While on the back end, they're like, we're going at you. But we all deal.

It makes us distant. And it makes us demanding. It makes us demanding. We become very demanding in our relationships. And you ever met someone who's just like super controlling by everything that they say?

I know everybody laughs about that, but I know I deal with it myself. And I've been under leadership that's super controlling. And when you get really down to it, when you're right, when you really kind of dig the root out of the problem, it really does come down to bitterness and hurt and shame from the past. Whether it is somebody who's spoke negatively to that person. They're trying so hard to be perfect.

They're so hard to be, you know, everything to be correct. And they become quite demanding. And it can make us very demanding. The next thing is, and this is probably the most important thing, is that it destroys our relationship with God. It destroys our relationship.

Our relationships with people, get this, our relationships with people are inseparable with our relationships with God, with our relationship with God. If we don't have a solid relationship with God, with people, then how can we have a relationship with God? If we, it just doesn't go together. So you can't be one of those people. Well, I don't really like people, but me and God got it going on over here.

But I don't want to be around people. I don't like people. I hate people. I don't want to be. I mean, yeah, I know some of your personalities aren't really people, person, but that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about you like you legitimately are bitter towards people in general. And that's just not God. You cannot be in love with Jesus. You cannot be a follower of Christ and not love people in some genuine way. We need to love people.

Mark 11, 25 says it like this. When you are praying, first forgive anyone who is holding a grudge against you so that your Father in Heaven will forgive you your sins. In fact, it says it even in here in Matthew 12 and 14. It says, forgive our debts, forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. And for if you forgive others when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.

Now, if this is true, if this is true, then this message is very important. If this is true, if he's like, if you don't forgive those people, you know, now this isn't talking about salvation, OK? You can't merit salvation. But I want you to be very careful here when you read this. It doesn't mean you just throw this out.

Oh, I'm saved. I'm OK. You know, God saved my life. I hear that all the time. It drives me crazy.

It's unbiblical. It's wrong. I'm saved so I can be bitter all I want to. You know, God's got me. No.

It says right here in Scripture that the Father in Heaven will not forgive your sins. That's a very serious issue. And I don't even want to know if we have that kind of attitude where that will, you know, what will happen to us or what God has for us beyond this life if we live continually in bitterness. In fact, the things we're experiencing in this life, many of you have a simple answer, but you choose to walk in unforgiveness and bitterness and relational baggage. In fact, I talked to somebody not long ago and said, I just don't want to forgive.

I'm not going to forgive. Forget it. I'm not going to forgive. I just can't. And that's a sad state to me, that they just want to walk in utter darkness and not experience, you know, is your life good?

No. No, it's terrible. But I'm not going to forgive. Really? So you just choose.

You're so, so hung up on unforgiveness that you don't even want to experience all that God has for you. And that there's a joy that comes out of this. If you were released and freed, yeah, that's, that's just what I, that's just where I want to go. That's what I want to do. And it's a very sad thing.

It's a very sad thing. Psalm 147 says, he heals the brokenhearted and he binds the womb. So there's hope, right? He heals the brokenhearted. And he binds up their wounds.

2 Corinthians 10, 3 and 5 says this, For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world, right? On the contrary, they have divine power to abolish strongholds. I want you to underline that word, strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.

And we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. Every thought. Underline that word, thought. What is a stronghold? Stronghold is a thought.

That we are captured in a thought. The way we think about our relationships, the way we think about the people that have hurt us in the past, the way we think about our father that said all those mean things to us in the past, the way we think about our ex-wife or ex-husband and the way they did that to me, or the way we think about that friend or that family member. And some of us are even afraid to go home because we're afraid it's going to turn into some tension in our homes this Christmas, right? I mean, I mean, I mean, what, what disorganization we have in our families and, and, and all this, you know, all the stuff that goes on and they're strongholds that keep us from enjoying the things that God has for us and the plan he has for us. So, so who, how do we break this?

How do we break this? Well, there's three things here. First of all, we got to reveal the hurt. We got to realize that we're hurt. We got to reveal the hurt.

Don't tuck it away. Reveal it. Let others know. Talk to somebody. You know, there's actually something healthy about counseling.

There's a reason there's counseling. Well, I don't want counseling. I don't want to be a part of that. You know, that shows weakness. I know, man, that's what you think.

It shows weakness. We can deal with it ourselves, but we need to reveal our hurt. That's why we do small groups. That's the point of having small groups in our church. We call them soft groups and we meet during the week.

And this is the opportunity that we share our hurts. We share our pains. We, we talk about things. We reveal the things. Here's what the psalmist said in verse in chapter 32, verse three.

He said, when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. Have you ever met anybody like that is just groaning all day long? Just groaning, groaning, groaning because they kept silent about their issues. They groan, but they keep, they keep silent. Psalm 39 says it like this.

But when I was silent and still not even saying anything good, my anguish increased. It got worse. And, and, and we do this. So we need to reveal our hurt. Secondly, we need to release the people involved.

We got to release the people. God, we got to let it go. We got to let them go. We got to forgive them. You know, they don't have to forgive.

It's not about justice. It's just about forgiveness. Let God do the justice. It's about forgiving that other person, releasing them, releasing the baggage, releasing the people baggage and just say, listen, I don't agree with what you've done. It doesn't mean the hurt's not still there, but we're releasing it to the Lord, right?

We're releasing it to them. I love you. I forgive you for what you've done to me. You can do that. Reconciliation may not happen.

Reconciliation is a two-way street, right? But, but forgiveness is a one-way road. And we have that one-way road. We can take it down and we can always forgive that person. We can release it.

We need to give it to the Lord and we will experience freedom. In fact, Jesus talked about forgiveness. Yeah, huh? I think he did quite a, quite a bit. In fact, Peter kind of brought up the subject of forgiveness and Peter was trying to be a bad, bad boy or good or, you know what I mean, not like really bad, but, but he was trying to be smart with Jesus.

He says, hey, hey, look at me. You know, the Jewish law says this, you have to forgive three times. And he understood that. It doesn't actually say that in scripture, but the Jewish law in the Torah, it says you have to, you have to forgive someone three times. And if you give them three times, three times, you're good to go.

You know, you can hate them from then and there on, right? You can hate them after that. I've got to my third forgiveness and I can go on. But, but Peter says, you know, I'm going to double that and add one. How about seven times, Jesus?

He said, Peter came to Jesus and asked the Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times. Jesus is really going to like this. I'm going to forgive him up to seven times. I'm doubling it and adding one.

And Jesus answers, I tell you not seven times. You're wrong, Peter. But 77 times. 70, it means ongoing, ongoing. Forgiveness is ongoing.

It just keeps going. Forgiveness. And first Peter, in fact, Peter came back later and wrote a letter to the church in verse Peter 2, 23. And he says, when you, he was talking about Jesus. He says, when they hurled their insults at him, Jesus had every reason not to forgive people.

He did not retaliate. Right. And when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. Justice.

That's God's. Your calling is forgiveness. You've got to release those people. You've got to let them go. Jesus did it.

In fact, forgive them, Lord, for they don't know what they're doing. Forgive the people. They don't know what they're doing. They don't know that they're hurting you the way they're hurting you. Let God deal with them.

And then thirdly and lastly, I think this is the most important part. We need to refocus on God's plan for our lives. So that's really what it's about. It's God's plan, because Satan is doing everything he can to knock you off of that plan. Everything.

He does not want to see you succeed. He does not want to see you advance the kingdom of God. He does not want to see you experience joy. The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. Right.

That's what he does. He doesn't want to just steal from you. He wants to kill you and he wants to destroy you. He wants to wipe you off the face of this earth. And he's going to use every method he possibly can do.

But what does Jesus do? Jesus comes to give us life and life abundantly. Joseph, when he was betrayed in Genesis by his brothers, they sold him into slavery. Genesis 50 says this. I am I in the place of God.

You intend to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done. You see that? You meant it for harm. And we could say that. They meant it for harm.

The devil meant it for harm. But God is going to use it for harm. He's going to use it for good. He's going to use it for a purpose beyond what I'm...this pain that you experience will be the salvation of something tomorrow, amen?

It's an opportunity to minister to people, to minister to you so that you can grow and be all that God has intended you to be. We need to refocus on my purpose and my plan for my life. Why am I here? Nothing should knock you off course. Job 11 says it like this, put your heart right, reach out to God, then face the world again, firm and courageous.

Then all your troubles will fade, I love this, from your memory, like floods that are past and remembered no more. How many of you want to experience that freedom? That's freedom. So we're releasing the relational baggage so we can travel light this season. Travel light, relational baggage, take it off, remove it, lighten up a little bit.

Don't allow unforgiveness to weigh you down. Don't allow relationships that have been troubled in the past. That identity that was placed on you, that tag that was placed on you, that was weighed on you, that weighed you down. Release it. Let it go.

With all heads bowed and all eyes closed. How many... In fact, I'll just stop here and just allow the Holy Spirit. What is the Holy Spirit telling you right now as your heads are bowed and your eyes are closed? Just take a second to allow the Spirit to minister to you.

What are you showing me in this? How many of you here, with all heads bowed, would say that you have relational baggage? Maybe you have some, amen. You have some hurt, amen. Some hands.

You have some deep scars. God wants to heal those today. He wants you to lay them at the altar today. He wants you to walk out of that door free, free. Just release it.

Let's pray together. Let's believe together. God, in the name of Jesus, we're asking that you begin to heal the broken hearts here today. By your very name. That we would take the first step and put it in your hands.

That we would choose to walk away. That we would release it and give it to you. Heal us, Lord. Transform us. In the name of Jesus.

With all heads bowed and all eyes closed. How many of you would say this? I don't even know if I'm walking with Jesus. Maybe you haven't even taken the first step of giving your life to Jesus. Maybe you said a prayer when you were a kid, but you really haven't lived the life.

Maybe you backslid and maybe you walked away from God. Maybe that's you today and you're ready to receive Jesus today. To make today the day that begins the healing process. Because nothing else will work. Nothing else will work until you start with this.

And that you would believe and receive in Jesus' name. If you'll pray this with me. Father, I believe that you are the Son of God. That you died on the cross for my sin. Come into my life and come into my heart.

God, change me, transform me from the inside out. That I may not live the way I once lived. But I would turn and walk with you. I want to experience the joy that you experienced on the cross, Lord. That for the joy set before you, you endured the cross.

Because you saw us. You saw me. So I give my life to you today. Father, I don't know why. To make this way.

I can remember today. Am Ida? This reminds me. The better you got to work with you.