Pastor Brian and Jacque Lother
Brian: I would like to talk to you, today about, I think, a really important concept that is important for all of us to really practice in our lives. The title of my message is just letting go and letting God, letting go and letting God. For you and I to obtain all that God has purposed for us, and hopefully you realize that God has purposed wonderful things for us. God doesn't do anything by accident. He is very intentional. He is intentional about your life and what he has purposed for you, yet for you and I to obtain all that God has purposed for us, we must learn how to overcome the disappointments that come our way in our lives. We have to learn how to overcome disappointments.
Disappointments pose a very formidable obstacle in letting go of the past. How many of you know this, that if you are hanging onto your past, you can't walk into your tomorrows? You just can't do that. Let's face it; all of us have disappointments from time to time. Sometimes it feels like our disappointments almost come daily. That's the kind of world we live in. It doesn't matter how much faith you have; it doesn't matter how much you've obeyed God. I don't say this in a fear or cynical way, but how perfect your obedience is. I say that in a very genuine way. It doesn't matter how good a person you are. It doesn't matter your genealogy. You could be born from royalty, or you could be born from a genealogy that has no significance whatsoever in man's eyes. Sooner or later, something or somebody will shake your faith even to its core and foundations.
We will all face that we will all deal with that sometimes weekly; sometimes it might even feel like it's more often than. Ironically, it doesn't even have to be something really like what maybe some of us would call major. It could simply be something like maybe not getting a promotion; that can shake someone's faith. It could be not getting that big sale. We have salesmen here and expecting that big sale. Everything looked good and it just fell through. Maybe you applied for a loan and you didn't get a loan. That really disappointed you, and it was a heartache. It could be something much bigger or serious than that, like maybe your marriage could be falling apart, or maybe the death of a loved one or friend. We are praying for some people right now that God would heal them.
The fact of the matter is we've had a number of people in our church over the last 23 years who had terminal diseases that we prayed for they would be healed, and they weren't. Those moments can be a moment of disappointment, and that shakes the very foundation and core of your faith. You could be diagnosed with a serious illness that could shake your faith. It could be a disappointment. Whatever the case may be, disappointments possess the potential to derail our faith. They possess that power to derail our faith, to wreck our walk with God. Some of us have to deal with disappointments, even in ourselves, don't we? We deal with regret. Man, I wish I wouldn't have done that. Why did I go there and do this?
I talked with a person yesterday who fell into a sexual trap, and he has lost his family because of it. He has lost his marriage. He is lost so much of his finances. Today, he is living with, in a sense, regret. I'm glad that he has experienced the forgiveness of God, but this is a situation he is going to need to overcome every day of the rest of his life. He can either live in the tomorrows that God promises or he can hold onto the past and be discouraged and really lacking of faith.
Some of us have to deal with regret in our lives, but oftentimes it seems to me that the disappointments that bother us the most are the disappointments that other people caused to us. That feels like sometimes the ones that derail us the most. More often than not, these old wounds that we keep reopening; we keep reopening by living in the past. We keep reopening by picking at that scab, so to speak. What that reopening of that wound does is it causes us to miss out on all of the new beginnings that God has for us, all of the new beginnings that God has for us.
No matter what we have gone through in our lives, even no matter how unfair something was that happened to us, and I'm sure if you live long enough, injustice is going to happen to all of us; unfair things are going to happen to every single one of us. No matter how disappointed we were, we have to learn how to release it and let go of it. One of the reasons that I like to do these pauses multiple times a day is because one of the things that I say to the Lord is this: I give everyone and everything to you. I give everyone, and I give everything to you, everyone, and everything to you, God. In doing that, there is a weight that seems to be lifted off of my heart, my shoulder, and my spirit. There is a giving to God, my future, my circumstances, my hopes, and my dreams— that's the everything. And then those people who disappoint me or hurt me or say things against me, falsely, even, I give those to God. In giving them to God, that wound that that person has caused in my life is all of a sudden, not as heavy to bear any longer.
We have prayed, like I said, here moments ago, we have prayed and prayed and prayed for some people, loved ones and different people in church and sometimes they've still died. They've still passed. There comes a point in time where we simply at times just have to leave those things with God and go on. I would like to read a verse here today. It's found in Deuteronomy 29:29. That should be easy to remember: Deuteronomy 29:29. This is really a verse that often is used in a different context, but I believe is an even better context to use this verse in regarding the secret things of God.
Jacque: The secret things belong to the Lord, our God, but the things revealed, belong to us and to our children forever that we may follow all the words of this law.
Brian: See, there are some things that God just keeps to himself. I know if you are the kind of person that has to be in the know on everything, that's hard, isn't it? That's hard, but there are some things that God just keeps to himself. That's often why the question why doesn't get much of an answer from heaven. It's because sometimes there are things that God just keeps to himself, and we just simply have to leave them with God. But there are things that are revealed by God and those things we need to embrace, we need to teach our children so that we may follow the words of the law as Moses wrote here. Basically, another way of saying that is we may follow the ways of God. We simply, at times must leave those things that we don't understand to God.
Sometimes we just have to— there is an old song called “Take your burdens to the Lord and leave them there.” Sometimes we carry these heartaches, don't we? Sometimes we carry these losses, these disappointments. We can look back on our life and have regrets and we can take those regrets and take them to the Lord and what?
Jacque: Leave them there.
Brian: Leave them there.
Jacque: Then second line of that song is, “And if we trust and never doubt, he will surely bring us out.”
Brian: That's right. Isn't that great?
Jacque: Yeah, bring us out of the past.
Brian: Go look that song up on YouTube today or whatever. There are some great recordings of it. Here is the thing about disappointments: they are usually inseparably connected to some kind of setback or an unmet expectation. Sometimes we have expectations; they don't happen and we get disappointed. Sometimes we have setbacks; we get disappointed. If you experience a loss, of course, you will experience strong emotions with that. That's how God made us. You are not made incorrectly. That's how God made us. We are creatures of love or creatures of connecting. When we love someone and we get connected to something, or maybe even a dream of our future, we hold onto it. When that doesn't come to pass, or we lose that loved one or lose that friend or lose that dream, we feel loss. We feel disappointment. It's impossible to be attached to something or someone, and then lose that person and not feel loss, even future dreams. Sometimes our future dreams get dashed, don't they? Maybe you were expecting for a relationship to develop and it never developed. You had hopes for that, and you were disappointed in that. Your dreams got dashed.
Feeling disappointment is absolutely normal; it's not unspiritual. Feeling disappointment is absolutely normal. I think there was a little hint of disappointment in the voice of Jesus when he said to his disciples, "Are you going to leave me too? Are you going to leave me too?" If you look at the writings of the apostle Paul, at the end of his life, he had been abandoned and left by many of his coworkers over the course of time. If you look at the end of Paul's life, you would think he was almost a failure of sorts, because there were very few people that were now working with him, co-laboring with him. He was all alone, except for this person or a couple other people. Yet what did he do with his disappointments? He gave them to God; because living in our disappointments will rob us of our tomorrows.
Living in our disappointments will rob us of our tomorrows. When that happens, the only thing that is left is our disappointing todays. When we allow ourselves to live in the disappointment of the past, the only thing we have is our disappointing today. I'm not minimizing our past sorrows. Jacque and I have had plenty of sorrows. We've had almost 50 people in 23 years, be a part of this church and die. You don't think that's a loss as a shepherd, as a pastor who cares for the people of his church? We had hardly been a church for just a couple of months, and one of our dear friends, he was like a son to me, 32 years old, and he died unexpectedly. I tell you what, nobody in the ministry prepared me for that.
Life is about disappointments and how we are going to handle them. Are we going to let them keep us down, or are we going to allow God's tomorrows to still come our way? I don't mean to minimize anybody's disappointments in any way, shape or form, but after a season of sorrow, and it's good to weep for a season, and it's good for us to come along people who are weeping for a season, but after a season of sorrow, to still dwell in that place of sorrow, we rob ourselves of the future that God has for us. God has a future for every single one of us, no matter how deep and how great your disappointments have been. Tomorrow is such a beautiful word. I love that word, especially when I'm dieting. Dieting, yeah; I'll do that tomorrow. There is hope for tomorrow when you are dieting. There is hope for tomorrow in every aspect of your life.
Jacque: Like you need more tomorrow.
Brian: Yeah, like you more tomorrow, or because I blew it today, I can always diet tomorrow.
Jacque: There you go. I'll start again.
Brian: Okay, great. I can always start tomorrow. Tomorrow's is another start-up day. I love the word tomorrow because it is filled with such hope. It is filled with such great hope, the word tomorrow, but when our minds are filled with the questions why, it will only lead us down to a downward spiral. These are the secret things at times that we have to understand, belong to the Lord. Sometimes, you know what, you just can't unscramble eggs.
Jacque: You can never unscramble eggs.
Brian: You can never unscrambled eggs. Even Humpty Dumpty can't be put back together again, only by the king. The king's horses and all the king's men can't do it. The king can do it. Sometimes it just can’t unscramble eggs, and we have to just simply move on. I love the words of Aslan in this story of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Because Edmond has failed, he has basically betrayed his family and everything for some Turkish delight. He has fallen under the spell of the wicked witch, and now he has been broken free, but she has got a claim on his life, and she meets with Aslan. Some of the kids and some of the people, some of the followers of Aslan are upset. Aslan has this incredible quote; Aslan, of course, is Jesus. He says, "What is done is done. Let the past remain the past, and let's go on." What is done is done. Let the past remain the past, and let's go on. The fact of the matter is we simply aren't made in such a way that we can just forget about it. Just forget about it. If I was Italian, I could say that better. If I was Weedo and Gweedo or whatever, I could say it better.
You know what, there is a sea of forgetfulness that God can bury all of our regrets and sorrows in. There is a sea of forgetfulness that God can bury all of our regrets and all of our sorrows in. The access to that burial place is actually through God's forgiveness, God's forgiveness. There is a time to stop mourning what we have lost and there is time to start receiving God's mercy and his love and his grace. We may be heartbroken; we might even be angry over of betrayal or things that have gone awry. We might be frustrated with a failed relationship, maybe a lost job, maybe you were near the end of your career, you lost your job and you had to start over a whole new career, a whole new occupation. Maybe you got swindled by somebody and had to file bankruptcy, but don't stay in that place of anger. Don't stay in that place of disappointment and broken dreams. Don't carry that pain around year after year and month after month with you.
Don't let that pain of rejection— maybe your spouse left you. You had dreams of building a family and future and golden years and all that has been dashed. Don't let the pain of that fester inside of you and poison your future because God has a new and good tomorrow for every single one of us. That's how God is. God has a new and good tomorrow for every single one of us.
I would like to bring our attention back to truly an incredible story. It's found in the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis. It's a story of Joseph. Most of you probably are familiar with this story, but I just want to set a little bit of a backdrop for you. He was in a sense, a favored son of his father, and he was a younger son. His father had made him this coat with multiple colors. Because the father had kind of treated him as a favorite, he became despised by his siblings, which is normal, natural, I think. One of the things that Joseph did was he had dreams, kind of like Adam. Adam has dreams. Sometimes you understand the interpretation of those dreams and sometimes you don't.
Joseph had a dream, and the problem with Joseph is he shared his dream with the wrong people. Be careful who you share your dreams with. He shared his dreams with his brothers. The dream was about the brothers bowing down to Joseph. Well, that wasn't at all in their wheelhouse of thinking, and that certainly wasn't going to be something that they were going to embrace. It didn't take long; they connived away to— they were going to kill him, but they decided to not do that. They just sold them into slavery, down into Egypt.
He goes down to Egypt. He is now a slave, and he begins to work in a person's home there and he starts to rise up in favor. The wife of this guy has eyes for Joseph and tries to make a move on him. Joseph runs out of their home and doesn't yield to her advances. As a result, she gets rejected, gets spiteful and says to her husband, "He tried to assault me." The next place Joseph finds himself is in the dungeon, in prison. In this place, he is there because he has been falsely accused. He has been sold into slavery, not because of really anything he did. It's very unfair, isn't it? It's very unfair, a lot of pain, a lot of sorrow, a lot of rejection.
In the prison, in the dungeon, he begins to serve the jailer and serve the different people that are there. They have dreams and he interprets the dreams. The next thing you know, one of the guys that were in prison is now back into Pharaoh's court. Pharaoh has a dream and nobody can interpret what this dream is. This guy says, "Oh, by the way, there is a guy down in prison that is a dream interpreter." Pharaoh calls for him, he interprets the dream, and the next thing you know, Joseph is the number two man in the whole kingdom of Egypt. He is in this place because now famine is going to come and he has wisdom on how to deal with the famine and how to set Egypt up to be in a position of power and strength during this famine.
The brothers are experiencing this famine; they are destitute. They come to Egypt for help, and guess whose court they come into, of course, Joseph's. This is the scenario where now they are afraid because Joseph has this power over their lives. This is what Joseph says to his family: Genesis chapter 50 verses 19 and 20.
Jacque: From the Message Bible, Joseph replied, don't be afraid. Do I act for God? :
Brian: And the answer to that is yes. Do I act for God? Yes, I do. I act on God's behalf. God has put me in places to do his work. We all have to understand that, that God places us where he places us to do his bidding, to do his work, to be his ambassador, to be his representative.
Jacque: So Joseph continued on. Don't you see? You planned evil against me, but God used those same plans for my good.
Brian: Let's read that again.
Jacque: Don't you see? You planned evil against me, but God—
Brian: You planned evil against me.
Jacque: But God used those same plans for my good.
Brian: The very same plan for my good.
Jacque: As you can see all around you right now, life for many people.
Brian: God will take the sorrows of your past and turn them into blessings. He will do that if we will let go of the pain and the hurt. Do you think Joseph was able to do what he did because he held onto bitterness and anger and resentment against his brothers? Not at all. What we will experience in the future to a very large extent depends on our willingness to let go of the past and avoid dwelling on what could have been, what could have been. Let's fix our eyes; let's look boldly on what we can change ourselves. Let's fix our eyes on what we can change rather than what we can't change. You know how impossible the past is to change. Even God can't change it. He can fix it.
God has never claimed to be able to change your past, can't go back in history. So if God can't change it, let's not dwell on it. Let's walk into what God has for us tomorrow and today. Let's fix our eyes on what we can change rather than what we can't change. We need to shake free of the, “I should have done this, or I could have done that, or what would have happened if I would've done this?” How many of those conversations have we had with ourselves through the years? If I would have only done that, or I should have done this, I could have done that. Yet we can never, ever let the regrets of yesterday destroy the hopes and dreams of tomorrow.
Never ever let the regrets of yesterday, destroy the hopes and dreams of tomorrow, because we can't do anything about what has happened. We can't do anything about what has happened, but we can do a great deal about what remains of our future. We can do a great deal about what remains of our future. Sometimes God's plan B is even better than his plan A. That's not how we think, is it? Well, if plan A doesn't work, we'll go to plan B. Our best plan is always plan A, isn't it? Oftentimes, God's plan B is better than his plan A. I think there are two cases in point. One is this church. God's plan A was to give us a property across the street. That was his plan A. We were going to build the church over there and we are going to do all that. We spent money on architects and thousands of dollars, and then we got turned down. As the pastor, I felt like what a failure I was. How by leading these people to a piece of property that we can't even build a church on, and we've spent all this money, and I'm in this season of moping and regret.
Jacque: Well, the city had said we could, but then they changed their minds.
Brian: Yes.
Jacque: You had done your work before.
Brian: Well, I had done some work before, but it's like a bait and switch or whatever. At the end of the day, we couldn't build and we spent lots of. It was almost as though God was saying, "You know what I have for you to go, you can't get there from here. You’ve got to go someplace else first." You know, you've got go someplace else first. From there, this property became available; we'll tell that story another time, but it was very supernatural how it happened.
There is another great story where God's plan B was better than plan A. It has to do with the prophet, Samuel and King Saul and King David. As we know, Samuel was the prophet and Samuel anointed Saul as king. He had picked him out of a crowd in front of everybody. This is God's man for the hour, God's man of power for the hour. Samuel invested a lot of energy and a lot of time into his relationship with Saul, and then Saul began to go astray, and Saul began to disobey God. Maybe you are in a similar place where you've pursued a relationship with somebody or you've had influence over somebody and now everything is off course, and you feel somehow as though you've been robbed and you have lost. That's how Samuel felt. That's how Samuel felt when Saul started to go astray and sin, what's this bleeding I hear in my ear; you can go back and read that portion of scripture.
That's how Samuel felt. Samuel felt devastated. He felt humiliated. He was the prophet that picked this guy out of a crowd and anointed him with oil, set him in place as a new king, and he was absolutely heartbroken and disappointed. Basically, what Samuel was doing was, he was nursing his wounded heart because leadership had disappointed them. Have you ever been disappointed by a boss? Have you ever been disappointed by a government leader? Have you ever been disappointed by a pastor or some other leader in your life?
Samuel was licking his wounds and was nursing his wounded heart because leadership had failed him. God came to Samuel and he asked him to do something really incredible. It's a very important question. He asked him this question: we find it in first Samuel chapter 16, verse 1.
Jacque: So God addressed Samuel, "So how long are you going to mope over Saul?"
Brian: That's God's question to Samuel: How long are you going to mope over Saul?
Jacque: You know, I've rejected him as king over Israel.
Brian: So now—
Jacque: Fill your flask with anointing oil and get going.
Brian: Get going. Fill your flasks with anointing oil and get going. God is asking us the same question. How long are we going to mourn over our broken dreams? How long are we going to mourn over the losses of our past? How long are we going to mourn over having been rejected? How long are we going to mourn over not being honored and given the place of distinction that we saw rightfully deserve? How long are you going to mourn over being treated unfairly? When we focused on our disappointments, we stop God from bringing fresh new blessings into our lives. God went on to say to Samuel, "If you'll quit morning and get up and get going, I'll begin to show you a new beginning that has greater possibilities." And he led him to David. We know the story on how great a King David was in spite of many of his failures.
When we mope, what we have forgotten is that God is our source. When we mope, what we have forgotten is that God is our source and his plan B can be greater than his plan A. God can always come up with another plan. God can always come up with another plan. He can, even, as Joseph said, "Take the plans that were made by evil people, he can take those evil plans and bring good out of them." So who do we trust in? Are we going to trust in the Lord to do this? Let's get up and let's get filled with the oil of the spirit, shall we? Let's get up and get a new attitude and let's embrace God's forgiveness and his mercy for ourselves, for all the things that we regret, but let's also embrace God's forgiveness for others as well.
I recognize that it's very hard at times to trust God, especially when we don't understand him. It's hard. Sometimes it may feel as though we have worn out our welcome with God because we've come to him with the same problems, the same issues, the same struggles, but that's not ever possible with God to wear out our welcome with him. There will always be a new beginning that God has for us, but we can never walk into that future while we are dwelling in yesterday's disappointments.
Let's open up the doorway, shall we? Let's open up the doorway that all of our disappointments, all of our wounds, all of our losses can be placed in that sea of forgetfulness. Let's open up that portal to do that. Here is how we do it. It's actually by saying this: Father, forgive of us of our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. That's how we do it. We can't say forgive us of our trespasses and stop there. We have to complete the sentence. We have to say, forgive us of our trespasses. When we ask God to forgive us of our trespasses, what have we done? We are letting go of our regrets. That's what our trespasses do to us: they create regret. Forgive us of our trespasses. But when we also say, "as we forgive those who trespass against us," as we say, "as we forgive those who trespass against us," as we say that, that's where those wounds that have been created against us, that's where those disappointments, that's where those losses can all lose their impact to keep our focus on yesterday rather than on tomorrow.
Today, we are going to have communion together. We are going to have communion here in our sanctuary, and we invite you at home or wherever you are watching this to have communion as well with us because it's in the cross of Jesus Christ, that all forgiveness can be completed or consummated. It's in the cross of Jesus Christ that we can truly let go of the disappointments of the past and walk into our futures of tomorrow.
I would like to just take a moment to pray, and then we'll take our emblems here and receive communion together. I'm so thankful that even in a time of COVID, we can have communion together. Whoever came up with this ingenious idea, I thank you because it allows us to still honor the Lord's table. As we take communion today, I want to do something just a little bit different than what we normally do, and that is this: I want us to envision whatever wounds, whatever pains, whatever sorrows, whatever circumstances have created those wounds or sorrows in our lives. I would like us to envision us going to that portal. As we eat the bread and drink the wine of the cup, I want us to envision just throwing that circumstance, that situation, whatever was at the source of your hurt, your wound, your disappointment, I want us to just cast it through that portal, because forgiveness allows that portal to open up. It allows that portal to open up.
I'm so thankful today, Jesus, for your love and for your grace. I'm so thankful for the cross that you became sin who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God. Today, Lord, as we take these emblems that represent your body and your blood, and if you are at home, take the bread and just hold it up to the Lord. We do this, Jesus in remembrance of you, for on the night that Jesus was betrayed, he took the bread that was there for the Passover dinner, Passover meal, and he took the bread and he broke it and he handed it out to all of the disciples, and he said, "This is my body, which is broken for you. Eat it in remembrance of me." This bread signifies or symbolizes the body of our Lord, which was bruised for our iniquities, and by his stripes, we are also made whole and healed.
For those of you who we have already prayed for today, and others who may have missed that moment of prayer earlier today, but you've tuned in now, if you need healing, take this bread and eat it and know that the body of the Lord, Jesus Christ was bruised and bloodied for our healing. As we eat this bread, we receive your healing today, Lord, whether it is in our heart, our mind, our soul, or our body, in Jesus name. After they had eaten the bread, Jesus took the cup and he blessed it, and he lifted it up and he said, "This cup is really the blood of the new covenant. It will be shed for the remission of your sins, so that complete and total forgiveness can be made available to you."
But in that forgiveness that comes to us, there must also come of forgiveness that goes to others. So father, I take those wounds that have broken my heart and I take those losses and those disappointments that I didn't even understand why they may have happened. I'm always looking for someone to blame for my losses and my pain, but Lord, I just take all those losses, I take all those disappointments, I take, Lord all of the anger, I they take all of the pain that has happened, even those things that I don't understand, those secret things that belong to you, and I take them to that portal and I cast them in because I can be forgiven by you, and you can empower me to forgive all those who have sinned against me.
As I drink this cup today, Jesus, this cup represents your blood, which was shed for me so that all of my sins, and I committed sins against other people that hurt them and wounded them, and you are saying to me today, father, that my sins can be remitted, completely washed away. So Lord, I choose to also wash away all of the sins committed against me in my life, and I cast, Lord them into that portal of the sea of forgetfulness. So as I drink this cup, cleanse us completely, Lord from all loss, from all sin, from all disappointments. This, we pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Let's drink the cup together.
I thank you so much, father, for the hope of tomorrow. I thank you so much for the grace that's available for tomorrow. I thank you, Jesus, that there is even such a thing as tomorrow. So I pray, Lord, that our hearts will be light today, that we can breathe a little bit deeper, that our burdens will have been lifted because you are the burden bearer. Thank you for the cross. I thank you for new beginnings. I thank you that broken dreams can be replaced by bigger and better dreams. I thank you that you can lift up our countenance. I thank you that your plan C and D and E and F and G and all through our lifetime, your next plan will be greater than the previous. So I pray that we would look to you every day, the author and finisher of our faith, because you who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it. This, we pray, Jesus, in your name and for your sake. Let's raise our hands together.
Now may the Lord bless you, and may the Lord keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn his face towards you and give you his peace as only he can. May all of your losses be turned into the purposes of God. This, we pray, in the name of the father, son and Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you. Have a wonderful, wonderful day. Enjoy the presence of God throughout this day and enjoy the fellowship that we can have with our creator, our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ, and enjoy each other's fellowship as well, even if it has to be six feet apart. God bless you. Have a wonderful day. Bye. Bye.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 1-24-21. If you would like to watch the full service, click one of the links below.