Give Up and Go

7, July 2002
Dakota Community Church
Give Up & Go!

Introduction:

What you are willing to walk away from often determines what God will be able to lead you to.

Question: Are you holding onto weights?
- Un-believing boy/girl friend.
- Church tradition. (We don’t lift our hands in our tradition)
- Old hurts. (Soccer ball of cancer)

THREE THINGS YOU MUST GIVE UP TO GO UP IN GOD:

1. Give up your history.

- You can’t go forward with your focus on the rear view mirror.
- If you want to lead the orchestra, you’ll have to turn your back on the crowd.

2 Corinthians 5:16-19
16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation

- If you are holding on to it people are not drawn to reconcile.
- You are new, Mort is not easily offended.(Mort is french for dead)

Philippians 3:12-14
12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Numbers 11:1-6
1 Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the Lord, and when he heard them his anger was aroused. Then fire from the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. 2 When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the Lord and the fire died down. 3 So that place was called Taberah, [1] because fire from the Lord had burned among them. 4 The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, "If only we had meat to eat! 5 We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost-also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. 6 But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!"

- Have you turned your sin days into glory days?
- GIVE IT UP!

2. Give up your security.

Going up means change and change means leaving the comfort zone.
- Leaving things you trust in incase God alone is not enough.

GOOD DEEDS

Jeremiah 48:7
Since you trust in your deeds and riches, you too will be taken captive,
and Chemosh will go into exile, together with his priests and officials.

BEAUTY (Fleshly ability = camel)

Ezekiel 16:15
’But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute. You lavished your favors on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his

FALSE GODS

– sports, power

Jeremiah 13:25
25 This is your lot, the portion I have decreed for you," declares the Lord,
"because you have forgotten me and trusted in false gods.

WICKEDNESS

– Pet sins? Comfort habits? Secret chambers of the heart?

Isaiah 47:10
10 You have trusted in your wickedness and have said, ’No one sees me.’
Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you when you say to yourself, ’I am, and there is none besides me.’

GOVERNMENTS

Isaiah 20:5
Those who trusted in Cush and boasted in Egypt will be afraid and put to shame.