Letting Go Of Control

God did not give you a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, a spirit of love, a spirit of a sound mind. Let go of control. Step out boldly. Leave comfort behind. Well, welcome, everybody, I want to welcome everybody to all of our locations. And that was cool. Somebody asked me earlier if I designed that. I said, no, that was somebody else. But I think they were trying to make me happy. Again, it didn't hurt my feelings, so welcome. If you are a guest with us today and you are here to support somebody that's being baptized, friend or family member, I just want to say way to go. I'm so glad that you're here to support this person that you care about. We're going to continue a series that we've started last weekend here in just a moment called Take Heart. We're talking about courage. But before we do that, I want to make you aware of a couple of things. The first is this. We received a special offering at Easter. We give 100% of that offering away. This year it's going to Convoy of Hope to empower women all over the world. So far, here's where we're at in that offering, $870,649.90. So I want to say thank you for your generosity. Thank you for the way that you are caring for people all over the world in and through your giving. We will leave that offering open for one more week. And so if you're planning to give, you haven't done that yet, I want to encourage you to do so. The other thing that I want to mention is next weekend.

We're doing a ride in support of the Starbrite Foundation. It's a Starbrite event. What they do is they rescue kids out of sex trafficking. This is a ministry that's close to my heart. And so we're doing a ride for charity. It'll go to all the different Sun Valley campuses. Anything with wheels is welcome. I'm going to be on my motorcycle, but come and join me and we'll do this ride and it's about awareness and also raising funds in support of this really important ministry. Let's pray together and we'll continue our series. Perhaps you'd be willing there in your seat just to turn your palms up. If you're new, this is something we do here at the church. That's just us physically saying, God, I want to receive whatever you have for me today. And so spirit of God, Holy Spirit, I invite you. Would you completely take over and would you speak to us now? Nobody needs to hear from me, but we all need to hear from you. And so we give you our minds and our hearts and we ask you to give us wisdom of what the Bible teaches and may it go past our minds and our hearts and may we apply it in our lives. Lest this time we pray in Jesus name, amen, amen. Is there any area of your life right now where if you're really honest, you would say you're allowing fear to make the decision for you? Is there anything in your life right now? Like it's something you really want to do. You believe it's something God wants you to do, but you won't do it because you're afraid. If you have ever struggled with anxiety, worry or fear, I want to tell you what you are. You're normal. Welcome to the human race. We started this series last weekend called Take Heart.

And last weekend we talked about if you're going to walk on water, then what do you got to do? You got to get out of the boat. There were a couple of people here and they even remembered. That's like really good. Yeah. If you want to walk on water, you got to get out of the boat. Here's what I want to talk to you about today. Letting go of control. Now if you're a church person, I know you've heard this phrase before, and if you're here today and you're not a church person, just know that church people say all these cliches. I do it too. I have a bunch of little things that I say and a lot of people say them, but they have no idea what they mean. It's just like Christianese, like Christian talk to each other. And one of those, perhaps you've heard this before, is this phrase. You got to let go and let God. How many of you have heard that before? Just a show of hands. All right. Great. Even if you're not a church person, you've probably heard that. You got to let go and you got to let God. Here's my question. What does that mean? I mean, really? And then how are you supposed to do that? Like you're in a difficult season of life. and you got pressure, and there's pain, and there's things going on,

and then some little self-righteous, pious, Christian person comes along and says, "'Oh, you just gotta let go and let God.'" Has that ever happened to you? Because it happened to me this week, and I'm gonna keep it real with you. I thought, shut up. You don't even know what you're talking about. Move on, right? I wanna talk to you the next few minutes about how to let go and let God. Because a whole bunch of us think we're in control of a whole bunch of things that we're not. And as a result, it's stressing us out. And a whole lot of fear and a whole lot of anxiety actually comes from you and I trying to control things that are impossible for us to control. We're bearing a responsibility that we were never meant to bear or carry. Let me show you the verse for the series. This is 2 Timothy 1.7. I wanna encourage you to memorize this verse. Here's what the Bible says. Memorize it and quote it to yourself, especially in difficult times. This is what 2 Timothy 1.7 says. For God has not given us a spirit of fear. Okay, here's what that means. Fear is a spirit, but it doesn't come from God. For God has not given us a spirit of fear,

but of power and of love and of a sound mind. We're gonna unpack this over the next few weeks quickly. Let's put this together. So fear is a spirit, which means it's intangible. It's intangible. We can't see it. We don't even necessarily cause it. It's something that arises within us. Now, it could be there are spiritual forces that are bringing that on us, but a lot of it just comes from within. We start focusing on certain things and so fear begins to well up. But God has not given us a spirit of fear. So when you're anxious, when you're worried, when you're feeling afraid, when you're freaking out, that's not from God. Just so you know, Jesus is the Prince of peace. And so God has not given us a spirit of fear, but God has given us, same run, a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind. Power, the original language there, that's in the realm of take heart. Like when we remember who God is, power shows up. We take heart. We show courage. Why? Because he loves us. And the more that you understand God's love for you, the more that you will be able to rest and relax

in courageous fashion in that love, no matter what comes in your life. God's not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love. And then the last one is a sound mind. What does that mean? Reality, reality. A whole bunch of fear is we're afraid of things that aren't in the realm of reality. If you're afraid of something that might happen, but it's not happening now, you're afraid of something that doesn't even exist. Does this make sense? And you actually may cause it in some ways to exist, because that's what you're continually focusing on. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. We're thinking straight. We're living in reality. Memorize the verse over the next few weeks. Okay, letting go and letting God. What does that mean? This is Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Really famous couple of verses of scripture. But right here in these two verses, we learn how to let go and let God. Here's what the Bible says. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Okay, so let's just think about what we're thinking about, what we're reading here.

Trust in the Lord. How do you do that? What does it mean to trust in the Lord? You just need to trust God more. How do you do that? Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, submit to him and he will make your paths straight. Let's leave that verse up there. Let's break this down. That first run is how you let go and let God. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. What does it mean to trust the Lord with all your heart? You trust what he says more than what you say. You trust what he says more than what you say. How do I know if I'm trusting him? That's the rest of the verse. In all your ways, submit to him. Here's how you know whether or not you're trusting God. Do you do what he says? It's that simple. Do you do what he says? If we do what he says, the verse says, he will, which is so beautiful, he will. It doesn't say he might, it doesn't say maybe, it says if you trust in the Lord with all your heart and don't go your way but his, don't lean on your own understanding,

how do you do that? By doing what he says, he will make your path straight. Couple things about the book of Proverbs. Proverbs is all about the principle of the path. Okay, when Christians say, let go and let God, and when Christians say stuff like, God will never give you more than you can handle, have you ever heard that one? Yeah, that's not true either. There's a whole bunch of things I can't handle. And you got a whole bunch of things you can't handle. I mean, after all, if we can handle it all, what would we need God for? You ever thought of that? There's a whole bunch of things we need the power of God. When we say these kinds of things, it has to go past just cliche and all whatever, because what we're doing is we're kind of hoping, we're kind of wishing, but we're not really trusting God. So let's really like bring the verse down here and let's kind of get to a place where we're actually letting go and letting God, all right? Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. How many of you have ever heard me say lean in? Okay, there's coffee mugs everywhere around here that say lean in on them, because somebody's making fun of me. I don't know who it is, but I actually have the mug on my desk.

So thank you for that. Okay, to lean in is to put your weight on something. It's to press into it. So trust in the Lord with all your heart. And instead of leaning on your own understanding, what are you gonna do? You're gonna lean into Him. By the way, that's what real faith is. That's actually what real worship is. Your greatest moment of worship was not when you were singing a song and you got a goose bump. Your greatest moment of worship is when you decided instead of going your way and what you understood, you knew God said this. And so even though you wanted to go that way, even though you wanted to do what you understood, God says this, and so you went God's way instead. That was a massive moment of worship for you. Proverbs is all about the principle of the path. Here's the principle of the path. It does not matter what you are hoping. It does not matter what you are intending, what matters is which direction you are going. I'm gonna say it one more time, think with me. The principle of the path. It does not matter what you are hoping, it does not matter what you are intending, what matters is which direction you are going. What path are you on?

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Are you on God's path? Meaning, are you walking in his ways? It's not are you talking the talk, it's are you walking the walk? Because there's a whole lot of people that talk all kinds of stuff, but when it comes to really obeying God, it doesn't ever happen. You know you're trusting God if you're doing what he says. All of it, all of it, all of it is just playing around until you obey. And there's a bunch of us, we talk about how we're trusting God, but we do our own thing continuously and ignore his instruction. We're not trusting God, we're just doing a little song and dance that doesn't mean anything. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, submit to him and he will make your path straight. Which way are you going? So I mean, just like really think about it, like where are you headed right now? Any area of your life, what path are you on? Not what are you talking, what are you hoping, what are you intending, where are you going? It's the principle of the path.

Three reasons why you wanna trust God. Number one, here are your notes and you can take notes on the Sun Valley app if you want, you can download that for free on your mobile device. Number one, God sees what you can't. God sees what you can't. God has the balcony view, not just right now in the present. But for all time, God knows where you're gonna be 90 days from now. God knows where you're gonna be five years from now. God sees it all. He sees what you can't. Now, I'm gonna teach you a little phrase here, okay? You'll understand it. This is not one of those that, what does that mean? Okay, this is kind of clear. I'm gonna teach it to you. If you don't remember anything else from the talk today, remember this, okay? Here it is. If we could see what God sees, then we would always do what God says. That's it. If we could see what God sees, then we would always do what God says. I'm gonna ask you to repeat it after me. Are you ready? If we could see what God sees, If we could see what God sees,

then we would always, then we would always, do what God says. do what God says. Let's do it one more time. If we could see what God sees, If we could see what God sees, then we would always, then we would always, do what God says. do what God says. How many of you, you have teenagers, or you had teenagers, or maybe older preteens, and they do something stupid, and you have this conversation with them. You say, why did you do that thing that was stupid? Was it stupid? And the kid says, yes, that was stupid. Why did you do that? And what does the kid normally say? I don't know. I've had thousands of conversations like that with my boys, right? I'm gonna keep it real with you. There are a lot of conversations I think I've had with God,

and God was like, dude, talking to me. Like, what were you thinking? Why did you do that? And the best I got is, I don't know. I remember these conversations with one of my boys, because he's super logical, and he's like 10, and I would say, dude, I love you. I care for you. Just do what I say. And then I would ask him, like, for example, are you smarter now that you're 10, or were you smarter than when you were seven, right? Like, when were you smarter, at 10 or at seven? And he would say, I'm smarter at 10, dad. And I go, why? Because I'm three years older. And I'd be like, dude, I'm 45 years old. Like, I can see a whole lot of things you can't see, and I love you, and I care for you, and so just take me at my word, right? Trust me.

And how do you know if your kid is trusting you? They're doing what you say. The same is true with God. When you're raising a kid, you're going, don't lean on your own understanding. You got a 14-year-old brain, and you're nuts. Instead, lean on my understanding, because I can see what you can't see. I know what you don't know. Do what I say. And we're all, let go, let God. If you're gonna let go and let God, then do what He says. Let go of your control of your life, and put Him in control of your life. He sees what you can't see. He knows what you don't know. And He loves you. And right now, if you're going, well, what if I don't know what to do? What if I don't know how to submit to His ways? I'm gonna give you a real simple formula. I got a friend that says this. He told me this the other day, and he's spot on. Just do the next right thing. Somebody needs to write that down and get a tattoo.

Just do the next right thing. What is it? My guess is everybody here this weekend has some handle on what's right and what's not. Just do the next right thing. That's called being on a path. And one step of right leads to another step of right to another step of right, and then you've traveled the right way. If we could see what God sees, we would always do what God says. So here's a prayer I pray. I'll give you one more here. On the regular, I pray, God, help me see what You see so that I might do what You say. Somebody sent me that this week. It was me saying it. They sent me a video of me because they knew I needed some advice, and I'm watching myself on the video going, God, help me see what You see so that I might do what You say. He loves you, He cares for you, He can see what you can't see. Trust Him. Second thing, control is an illusion. Control is an illusion. You think you're in control of your life. You're not. You're not.

You're in control of some things, but most things. are out of your control. And the more that you try to manage and the more that you try to direct things that are out of your control, the more stressed out and freaked out you will be. Okay, so I'm gonna give you a practice. The practice is if you've got something in your life that you're freaking out about, you sit down, you invite God into the time and you say, God, by your spirit, lead me and you write out the things that you're freaked out about. Like you literally write them down. This will take you a little bit of time, but it'll be good for your soul. And then you make two lists. You look at everything that you've written down and you make two lists. One list is of all these things, what's out of your control? And you make that list. And then out of all these things, what is under your control? The things that are in your control, you take responsibility for. Now, please everybody hear this part of it. You take responsibility for your life. All kinds of things happen to all of us and a whole lot of life is how we choose to respond.

Take responsibility. Yes, this happened. Yes, it's terrible. Yes, it's not fair. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Now what are you gonna do? And you take responsibility for your life. Everything else that's out of your control, you give it to God. And you keep that list and you take it back to God every day as you are walking this path. Because here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna give it to God and then you're gonna take it back. And then you're gonna give it to God and then you're gonna take it back. And you're gonna give it to God and then you're gonna take it back. Does anybody know what I'm talking about? Okay, that's normal. You're gonna do this tug of war with God. So you spend time with God, if at all possible, in the morning. And you just remember, I'm taking responsibility for these things. I'm taking responsibility for my life. I'm taking responsibility for these things today. All this stuff belongs to God. And you walk the road and you walk the path.

Because control is an illusion. Nothing will stress you out more than trying to control things that are out of your control. Somebody this weekend, if you'll just receive that, that will set you free. You will be so much happier. People will like you more. You'll like yourself more. Just let God be God. You and I weren't made to be God. That's His job. Take responsibility for your part. The rest of it belongs to Him. Number three, God is trustworthy with your life. God is trustworthy with your life. What does that mean? There are going to be seasons for all of us when you don't understand what's going on. Some of you right now, you're like, don't I know it? You don't understand. You can't see the plan. You can't trace His hand. What do you do? I don't understand. I don't see the plan. I can't trace His hand. What do you do? Here's what you do. You trust His heart. You don't evaluate the love of God

based on your current circumstances and how it's not going your way. You evaluate the love of God based on what He's done for you. But if you were the only one who ever lived, He still would have came and died on the cross to cover all of your sin for all time. Three days later, He still would have rose again to conquer death, hell, and the grave on your behalf. Jesus said, in this world, you will have trouble. Do not be surprised by trouble. Do you know what He said right after that? In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world. For every believer in Jesus, I will make you this promise. Your future is very bright. You will live out your life walking His path. You will fight the good fight. You will finish the race, and you will step off into glorious splendor forevermore. Relax. Take heart. It's gonna be okay. God has not given you a spirit of fear. It's not from Him. He's given you power, love, and a sound mind. So trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. and all your ways submit to him and he will make your path straight. You can trust him with your life. Let's take a moment and pray together. Would you guys

pray with me? I'm just going to ask you a straight-up question. Have you ever had a time in your life when you've really turned your life over to him? When you've put him in charge of you? If you're here today and you're like, you know what? I want to trust the Lord with all my heart and I want to go his way. I can help you do that right now. We trust the Lord by trusting in Jesus. We trust in Jesus in two ways. One is our Savior. We believe that he died on the cross for all time so he covers our sin and we receive him as our Savior. We also believe that he rose again and so we receive him as the leader of our lives from this day forward. We trust him as Savior and as leader and Lord. If you want to do that, I can help you do that right now. In your own heart and mind you can pray and he'll hear you and I'll help you talk to him. Just say, Jesus, I need you and I want to trust in you and so I receive you as Savior. I believe that you died on the cross for me and I ask you to cover all of my sin for all time and I believe you rose again and so I ask you to lead me from this day forward. I trust you as Savior and I trust you as Lord. Thank you, Jesus. I receive you. Thank you for receiving me. Amen. If that was you, I want to be the first to welcome you to the family of God and would love to help you get started on the journey right after the service at all of our locations. There's a little gathering at the front. It's called First Step and I want to invite you to that. If you'll just go and just tell somebody, hey, I prayed with Chad. They'll give you this Bible for free. There's some notes here in the front where you can look up some verses of Scripture, help you better understand the decision you've made. But take that step right after the service and again we'd love to give you this and help you get started on the journey. Can we just celebrate everybody that just prayed with me and received Jesus? We're gonna celebrate a whole bunch of people that have made that decision because baptism is each person's public profession of faith and so in preparation for this time of celebration, I'm gonna pray again and then we'll get the party started. Let's pray. Father, thanks again for your grace.

I pray that we would trust you. I think this is from the Holy Spirit so I'm gonna say it. There's people who know for sure they are leaning on their own understanding and they're not obeying you and they know it. I pray right now they would repent because you are a God of mercy and grace and love and you know what's best for them far better than they do. So I pray right now would be the moment that they would turn and get on a different path. If that's you, I want you to know you're loved. He cares for you and he sees you. He's just concerned and so trust him and go his way. Father, for all of us, give us wisdom of these things and may we not just talk about them, may we practice them. Teach us we pray in Jesus name, amen.