Get That Monkey Off Your Back
Used as a New Year’s sermon, but can be used any time of year about dealing with things that are weighing us down.
Chuck Sligh
January 6, 2019
[PROP: As large a stuffed monkey as can be found; several, if available.]
Inspired by a sermon by Sam Mata at Shoreline Church in Austin, TX
TEXT: Please turn in your Bibles to Luke 4
INTRODUCTION
Our text today takes place shortly after the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. Luke 4:14-15 tell us that Jesus returned in the power of the Holy Spirit. His first public sermon is recorded for us in the following verses.
Now please read along with me as I read verses 17-22 – “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. 17 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias [Isaiah]. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, 18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 20 And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” (OPEN IN PRAYER)
Joke – I remember a story of a woman with a baby who got on a bus and sat down. She was carrying the baby in one of those baby-carrying thingies on her back. When she got to her seat, it was apparent she was worn out and frazzled from carrying her baby all day on her back. Once seated, she pulled him off her back and held him in her arms, but this little rascal was squirming and wriggling around and restless, and she was just having the worst time with him, which only added to her frustration.
At the next bus top, a man got on the bus and when he looked down at the bundle in her arms, he said, “Ma’am, that is the UGLIEST baby I’ve ever seen in my life!”
She was naturally offended as he just walked by and sat down. Almost to the point of tears, another man boarded and sat down beside her.
Seeing she was upset, he said, “What’s wrong ma’am? Are you okay?”
She said, “That man over there was so rude to me. I am so upset. I feel like I should go back there and give him a piece of my mind.”
The man said, “Well, I think you should. No one should be rude, especially to strangers. You shouldn’t have to put up with that. You should to tell him off.”
And she said, “You really think I should?”
And he said, “Yeah. You go ahead and give him a piece of your mind. You go on and I’ll hold your monkey for you.”
Poor mother! This morning, I’d like to suspend common sense for a moment and take the joke literally. What if she wasn’t carrying a homely baby, but a real monkey, on her back? That would be pretty absurd wouldn’t it? Who would be that dumb? I think we’d say to her, “Ma’am, you don’t have to carry this monkey around on your back. You can put it down and live a normal life.”
I wonder how many of us actually have a monkey on OUR backs. Maybe you’re carrying around the monkey of worry or rejection or anger or bitterness or fear or sorrow for past offenses or missed opportunities or screw-ups in your past. I think God wants us to take those monkeys off our backs and not carry that baggage. I think God wants you to enter this new year with freedom and hope and courage and joy and strength and boldness and passion for God. I think God wants you to experience some things you’ve never experienced before, but you won’t be able to because you’ve got a monkey on your back weighing you down.
Illus. – I’ll never forget a woman who came to faith in Christ in our church in Wiesbaden who had a BUNCH of monkeys on her back. She had experienced ABANDONMENT from her dad who deserted his family when she was just four years old. She had experienced REJECTION from her mother who told her almost every day that she was a mistake and she wished she had never been born. She had experienced sexual ABUSE from a male baby-sitter her mother left her with after school who raped her every day he watched her for two years in her pre-teens. She had recurring NIGHTMARES after once witnessing police fill a thug full of lead right before her eyes in her teens when on vacation at a motel.
As she told me her sad story, I remember thinking, How do so many things happen to one person. Nobody should have to carry this many burdens. She had a bunch of monkeys on her back that were now affecting her marriage.
But the good news was that she found Christ and I had the joy of sharing with her how she could get them off her back and be free from the burdens of ABANDONMENT and REJECTION and ABUSE and FEAR and HURT.
I wonder if that’s why Jesus said in His first recorded sermon, “I came to preach the gospel to the poor;…to heal the brokenhearted…to preach deliverance to the captives…to recover sight to the blind…to set at liberty them who are bruised.”
“Wait a minute!” you say, “I thought Jesus came to save the lost from sin.” Yes, that’s right, but in doing so—in going to the cross and paying sin’s penalty—Jesus knew that it would result in these things He mentions. So He quoted this verse in Isaiah to express the practical outworking of salvation that is supposed to take place if we know the Savior.
I believe God wants that for us today—that we would go into this next year free from all these monkeys on our backs and all these burdens and be able to say, “I can take this off my back. I don’t need to carry sin or sorrow or pain or rejection or regret anymore.”
Psalm 23 is no doubt the most well-known and beloved psalm in the book of Psalms. In it, David begins with, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” and then he details all the wonderful things we experience by having Him as our shepherd. He ends by saying, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever” (verse 6).
I think some of you are looking over your shoulder and all you see are these monkeys on your back and YOUR psalm sounds like this, “Surely worry and hurt and anger and envy and regret and mistakes follow me all the days of my life and I’m not experiencing a lot of this joy and peace in the Christian life everyone’s always talking about.” It’s time to get some monkeys off your back that God never intended you to carry around. My prayer is that at the end of 2019, you’ll be able to look over the last year year you and say, “I got those monkeys off my back and laid my burdens down, and now goodness and mercy and love and peace and joy follow me.”
I want to encourage you not to keep the same old monkey on your back around in the new year. I want to share four things that we’ll experience if we’ll just lay these things down:
I. FIRST, WE’LL HAVE HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS.
Everyone wants and needs good relationships. You see, our hands were made to embrace other people. [DEMONSTRATE WITH HUGGING MOTION.]
The problem is that we all bring “stuff” into our relationships. We bring our issues, struggles, fears and flaws into our relationships. If we could get these monkeys off our backs, we could have healthier relationships.
You see, I cannot very easily embrace you if you’re carrying a monkey on your back. I’m reaching out to embrace you and you say, “I don’t know. I’ve got to protect myself. I’ve got to guard my heart. I might get hurt again.” So you say, “Take your arms away. Are you trying to get my monkey? That’s my monkey! Leave me alone.” It’s hard to embrace somebody with a monkey on their back.
God cares about good relationships. I know how many times God has spoken to me through a friend, or my wife or another loved-one when I needed encouragement or direction or comfort or peace or joy or a reminder that everything is going to be okay. I’m so glad for the friends and loved ones I’ve had in my life who have been there for me in times of trouble, and who called me out when I needed it.
The need for close relationships is why I think homegroups are so important at GBC. Not nearly enough people participate in our homegroups, but I want you to know that our homegroups are important to GBC, and I think they should be important to you too. I believe we all need healthy relationships with other believers walking with God TOGETHER—hearing one another’s burdens and struggles; praying for one another; sharing our insights with one another; “being there” for one another. It’s not easy to find the time to attend one of our homegroups, but we ought to make every effort to participate.
I believe the best relationships you’ve ever had are waiting for you in 2019, but you’ve got to get some monkeys off your back to keep those relationships strong and healthy.
Illus. – I remember being at the Postbank one day where an American woman was trying to get some phone bill problem straightened out while I was depositing some euros into my account. Suddenly she started raising her voice and talking rudely in that small room, and everyone in the Postbank tensed up and watched in unbelief. She was shrieking at the man trying to resolve the problem as best as he could.
I had rarely done this before, but I walked over and quietly said in my best fatherly voice, “Ma’am I know you’re upset, but you’re making a scene. I know he’ll help you out as best he can.” She just plopped down in a chair and started balling.
I thought to myself, I wonder what monkey is on her back; I wonder what burden or hurt she’s carrying; I wonder what grievance she’s nursing. She finally gained her composure and apologized and thanked me and continued her business in a more dignified manner.
Now the Postbank man wasn’t really a friend to her…that is, she didn’t really have any kind of relationship with him; but I couldn’t help but wonder if she took her frustrations out on her husband, or her children or her neighbors or other key relationships in her life.
Men, I hope you didn’t just elbow your wife when I make that last statement. I know you often have tremendous stresses and pressures at work. You’re just as likely to cause havoc at home because you’re carrying monkeys home on your back.
Brethren, let me let you in on a little secret. This is my first sermon in the new year, so I won’t charge you for this. Listen carefully: Sometimes, it’s not everyone else who’s messed up; sometimes it’s not everyone else’s fault; sometimes your loved ones aren’t the problem! Sometimes [POINT TO MONKEY] IT’S THE MONKEY!
You meet someone and he says, “Everyone I meet is so rude. Everyone I deal with is so messed up.” or “I’ve got all these broken relationships because I just keep meeting the wrong people!” Well, maybe THEY’RE not meeting the right person! Maybe you need to get a monkey off your back. Maybe you need to reevaluate your actions and reactions and settle some things in your heart that are holding you back and damaging your deepest relationships.
II. THE SECOND THING THAT WILL HAPPEN IF YOU LAY YOUR MONKEY DOWN IS THAT YOU’LL HAVE A PASSION FOR SERVING OTHERS.
You see, our hands are not just created to EMBRACE EACH OTHER in relationships; our hands were created to SERVE OTHER PEOPLE. [DEMONSTRATE WITH HANDS OUTSTRETCHED TO CONGREGATION.] God wants you to experience the joy of being involved and being used and serving others.
All of us have gifts and talents God has given us to serve others. I’m so encouraged that at Grace Baptist Church, this is a place where people often lay down their burdens and reach out and serve other people. We don’t do it perfectly, but we’ve got some wonderful servants who lay down their burdens and drop the monkeys off their backs and serve others in teaching our children, serving on the worship team, cleaning the church, serving in the nursery.
Listen to 1 Peter 4:10 – “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”
In the original Greek, Peter said, “A gift,” not “THE gift” (I looked it up.) In other words, Peter is saying that every believer has a spiritual gift of some kind, and that every one of us must use that gift to minister to one another in order to be good stewards of God’s manifold grace.
You might be saying, “Well, I was taken advantage of in my last church” or “I’m just tired after working all week or keeping the kids all week and I just want some peace and I don’t want to serve on Sunday”…and all kinds of other reasons! I wonder how many wonderful works God could perform through you if you got these monkeys off your back and used your gifts and talents to serve others. I wonder what blessings you’re missing by making excuses because of burdens.
III. THE THIRD THING I THINK WE’LL EXPERIENCE IF WE GET OUR MONKEYS OFF OUR BACK IS WE’LL BE ABLE TO RECEIVE WHAT GOD HAS FOR US.
How many of you want everything that God has for you? God is an abundant God! He’s not “a little dab will do you” God who says, “I don’t want to spoil you; I just want to give you a little bit.” He’s not a “barely enough” kind of God. He’s a God who wants to BLESS US ABUNDANTLY!
I love how God says in Malachi 3 that when we honor God with our tithes and our offerings, He’ll “open up the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” (Malachi 3:10) What a wonderful way to describe the marvelous blessings God wants to give us!
[DEMONSTRATE WITH HANDS STRAIGHT OUT AND HANDS UP:] He WANTS to bless us and to fill our hands with His bountiful blessings, but we’re monkey-wrestling. We pull him off our backs like the lady on the bus and wrestle with him and try to get him under control and then put him right back on our backs again. And sometimes we can’t experience all of God’s blessings because we’re struggling with our monkeys and dealing with all the pain and frustration and struggle and all the sorrow and the fear.
I know that some of you have experienced some truly awful things, and you’ve been unjustly treated, and you’ve seemingly gotten a raw deal in life or someone has deeply hurt you, or someone has betrayed you or let you down. You’re carrying a big old monkey on your back!
But the cross is BIGGER and MORE POWERFUL than ANY hurt you’ve ever experienced in your life and the cross takes care of ALL your pain and sorrow. But first, you’ve got to stop wrestling with your monkey so your hands are free to receive God’s blessings. You’ve got to lay your burdens down.
Illus. – Our oldest son, Chris, and his wife, Sarah, used to live in a two-story house in the Nashville area when he was still recording albums in Nashville. One day Chris and I were watching a football game and Sarah was straightening up while Susan had gone to run some errands. Sarah was going upstairs, and this was so typical of her style, and she grabbed a laundry basket, and her purse and another bag, and the wiener dog under one arm and a cup of coffee in one hand and her water in the other and headed up the stairs.
Chris saw her and said, “Honey, stop, STOP. Don’t do that! It’s dangerous. Look, I’m here to help you. Now I’m going to sit on the couch and watch the game, but you need to make several trips up and down so you don’t hurt yourself, okay? I’m here to serve you. I don’t want to have to pause the game to pick you up and take you to the hospital. So PLEASE be more careful.”
He was joking, of course, and went up to help her, but do you get my point? Well, she had so much to do and so little time to do it so she was just weighting herself down to get it done.
Spiritually speaking, is that you?—Carrying all this STUFF around, this baggage, these weights. You need to just lay them down so your hands are open to receive God’s blessings. In fact, you may not even be able to SEE the blessings God is already bringing your way and will bring you in 2019 because you’re so focused to that stupid monkey on your back! Get that monkey off your back!
IV. THE LAST THING I BELIEVE WILL HAPPEN IF WE LAY DOWN OUR MONKEYS IS THAT WE’LL BE ABLE TO WORSHIP GOD FREELY.
Our hands were created to EMBRACE each other; to SERVE each other; to RECEIVE GOD’S BLESSINGS; and finally, lift up in praise to God. [DEMONSTRATE WITH HANDS RAISED IN PRAISE.]
Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:8, “I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.”
Paul is saying to “Don’t carry around all this anger and doubt and all these issues that are defeating you. Get rid of that stuff so you can worship God with your hands lifted up.”
Most of us want to get close to God and God wants to get close to us, but we’ve been holding on to a bunch of STUFF and then THAT becomes our focus, not God. This morning, why don’t you lay down your anger, or your doubt or your ingratitude or your sin or your fear or your bitterness, or whatever monkey you’re carrying around. If YOU did lay it down and turn it over to God, you’d be able to raise your hands up to God with complete liberty and with a clear conscience in praise and worship.
CONCLUSION
I’m praying that 2019 will be the best year we have all experienced in our whole lives. It can be our best year ever only if we get rid of the monkeys on our backs and lay down our burdens that are weighing us down.
What do you need to lay down today? Is it anger and bitterness? Hurt over a past grievance? An unwillingness to forgive? Is it fear and worry? Is it covetousness or materialism? Is it lust or envy? Is it a sin you’ve been unwilling to forsake and that monkey has kept you from feeling fully embraced by God, even though He never ceases to love you no matter what? I cannot possibly think of every monkey and burden you might be dealing with, but whatever it is, I urge you to lay it down this morning.
1 Peter 5:6-7 sys, “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: 7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”
Come to God with humility and repentance and HE will exalt you; HE will put you in a better place in your life in His perfect timing. And then cast all your care; all your pain; all your burdens; all your sins; all your failures; all your worry, rejection, anger, bitterness…upon HIM for He cares for you.
