My Need for Control | Let It Go Two | Rick Atchley

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Welcome to the Hills. Preacher Rick here. I want to greet our online family. And if you're in person at Northridge in the Hills or Keller, West Fort Worth, or Dallas, thank you for joining us today. I want to begin with a couple of thank-yous and a request. I want to thank you for all the amazing feedback I got in the series we just concluded on the Holy Spirit. Now, we haven't stopped talking about the Holy Spirit. We haven't stopped seeking the Holy Spirit. We believe that God has called us into a life that is supernatural, so I encourage you to continue to enjoy fellowship with the Holy Spirit.

The other thank-you is for the radical generosity you displayed for RENEW. Two weeks ago, we had our RENEW offering. We do this annually. This is the largest single weekly gift we've ever been given. There's still time for you to give and do good in the neighborhood. But thank you for being a generous church. Now, my ask is that you continue to be generous by letting people know about our healing prayer in two weeks. Many will come to church because they know they need help, they need God. And so let people know, in two weeks, we're going to take a time, and we're going to pray for people to receive healing from the Lord. And it will be a really encouraging time for all who come. Now, I want to begin my teaching

by telling the story I love to share about the first time I ever flew first class on an airplane. You need to know I've never bought a first-class ticket in my life. When I purchase tickets to do work with the church, even if I'm going overseas, I always fly economy and try to save money and be a good steward. But I'm at the airport, I'm going somewhere to speak, and I hear my name called out. And so I go up to the gate, and the agent there knew me, recognized me, and said, you're the pastor from the hills, and I've got an empty place. I'm bumping you up to first class. Well, I've never done that before. I was kind of excited. I got to walk on the plane first. I got to sit in a little bit wider seat. They brought me my Diet Coke in a real glass and not a plastic

cup. And everything's going great until other people started to come on the plane, and a lady I did not recognize walked past me and said, hello, Pastor Rick. And I freaked out. She thinks I fly first class. She thinks this is how I use church money. She thinks I'm one of those TV preachers. I was on that plane for three hours, and I did not enjoy a single second of it because I could not wait to get off the plane and find her and say, I don't fly first class. That was a gift. But I learned something. It doesn't matter where you are on the plane. We all wind up at baggage claim. Baggage claim treats everyone as equal. It doesn't matter your race, your gender, your socioeconomic status. We all carry baggage. And that baggage from the past

often diminishes our future. Now, does this sound familiar? It should because back in January, I started the year with a series called Let It Go. And I got a lot of feedback from people saying, don't end this series. There's a lot more baggage than you talked about we need to discuss. We talked about letting go of shame or letting go of bitterness, letting go of your anger at God. But I was sharing with my wife at supper. People are saying there are other kinds of baggage we need to release. So we just started trying to name some. And I mentioned control, and she perked up. Oh, women need that. I said, women need that. We all struggle letting go of control, and there's a reason. Our fallen nature craves empire. We have empire desire.

Think about it. What was behind the first sin? What was the seduction behind the sin of our first parents? It was this. Take control. You don't have to submit. You can be large and in charge. We all resonate with that temptation. We all want to build our kingdoms, and I should know because I am a recovering controlaholic. And I hope the people that know me best would say I've gotten better at letting go of an aspiration I never really grasped in the first place. Now, before we look at some Scriptures, I want to remind you that everyone reads the Bible in their context. There's no other way we can read it. But that means that our context filters how we see issues in the Bible, especially this one. You see, much of the Bible was written to exiles and to people

who lived in occupied lands, to people that had no say. Most of the first readers of the Scriptures had very little control over their lives. That's not the context through which we read the Bible, because we're Americans, and we believe control is our birthright. We are the land of the free, and if you ask most Americans, what is freedom, they'll say something like, get in your way. Having life the way you want it. Let me illustrate. You see in this picture two iconic franchises in our country, Starbucks and Whataburger. Did you know that there are 80,000 ways for you to order your drink at Starbucks? Now, I do not drink coffee, but I went to a Starbucks one time, and I realized, you don't drink coffee, either. By the time you put your caramel and your spice and your whipped cream on it, what you're

really drinking is liquid pie. And this is why it costs so much. Starbucks knows you will spend a lot more money as long as you have this illusion that you are getting it your way. Now, I have been to Whataburger. There are 36,000 ways I can order my Whataburger. Now, the Lord gave me special revelation this week. Starbucks is not going to be in heaven. Whataburger is going to make it, okay? I hope that encourages you. And what these franchises understand is there's something deep within us that wants to believe, I'm totally in charge. Now, when I say you need to let go, what I'm not saying is that you need to abandon personal responsibility. There's a section of the Bible we call wisdom literature, and all through that, you keep hearing encouragement to make good choices, to be prudent, to

do wise things. For example, you're a student. You can't control if your teacher likes you, but you can turn your homework and your term paper in on time. You can't control that. And only the Lord knows how long we're gonna live on this earth, but you can make wise, healthy choices about your lifestyle. I cannot control whether or not you are going to like this sermon. I can spend time in prayer and study and preparation of my heart when I deliver the sermon. And so it's wise to exercise responsibility where you can, but please understand, there is a difference between exercising responsibility and expecting sovereignty, of thinking, because I did the right and wise thing, everything should line up after my choice the way I insist. In other words, there's a difference between making choices and taking control. See, control-holics don't just

want to make choices. They want you to submit to the future they want to create. They want you to surrender to their kingdom. And the pursuit of this kind of control causes us to justify some really unhealthy behaviors. The end of control allows us to baptize some very ungodly means. Some of you work too much. You really do. You're workaholics. And underneath your addiction is this idea, if I just make enough money, I can control my future. And some of us accept very unhealthy patterns in our family. Right now, I'm probably talking to a husband or a father, and you've got a bad temper, and you know it, but it works. Your family walks on eggshells trying to keep you from exploding, and more often than not, it's why you get your way. Maybe I'm talking right now to a wife and a mother, and you nag, nag, nag, and you're constantly beating your family down with your criticisms, and it's so unhealthy, and it's so efficient, and more often than not, you get your way. Almost every week, I get a phone call from a church leader across the country

wanting some advice on some church struggle they're having, and more often than not, the struggle is not about theology. It's about control. It's parties in the church fighting about who gets to have church the way they want it. And so, this idol really does lead to some toxic consequences, and because it's an idol, it is never going to deliver what it promises. And so, I'm just telling you, if you don't let it go, it will let you down. And here's why. One is because this need to be in control is a guaranteed formula for frustration because the universe does not recognize you as sovereign. Listen to James, one of Jesus' brothers. He wrote a little letter, and in the fourth chapter of that book, he says this. Look here, you say today or tomorrow, we're going to go to a certain town, we'll stay there a year, we'll do business there and make a profit. How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog. It's here a little while, then it's gone. What you ought to say is, if the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that. Otherwise, you're boasting about your own pretentious plans and all such boasting is evil. Big idea, fog shouldn't boast

because the universe does not bow to the will of fog. Now again, let's keep in tension that I'm not saying you shouldn't make good choices when you have that option. The proverb says that good planning and hard work leads to prosperity. Think about it, it wasn't raining when Noah started building the ark. But let me remind you, cemeteries are full of people who had great plans. And experience teaches us what we are so slow to learn, that the only thing in the future that is fixed is the throne of God. There are contingencies that lie ahead of us that we cannot order. And every day, our lives are significantly impacted by people and by events that are completely beyond our control. I'll be very personal. I'm at a season in my life where my wife and I are trying to be responsible with our stewardship for retirement. And every day, political leaders around the world make decisions that affect our portfolio. And we have no control. Let me be more specific. Right now, someone's listening to me that this time next year is going to be in a difficult battle with cancer. And today, you have no idea it's coming.

Someone's listening to me right now that is going to be holding a baby this time next year that you are not planning to have. Someone's gonna be needing a job. You have no idea right now that your company is about to announce a downsize. Some of us are going to be going to the funerals of others of us this year. We just don't know it yet. Because life refuses to be managed by fog. Much of the good that's happened in my life, I did not orchestrate. And much of the pain that has come to my life, I did not anticipate. Again, from that wisdom literature, we have a book called Ecclesiastes. The author, I think, is Solomon, and he says this. I also saw something else here on Earth. The fastest runner does not always win the race. The strongest soldier does not always win the battle. The wisest does not always have food. The smartest does not always become wealthy. And the talented one does not always receive praise. Time and chance happen to everyone. That is so right. The world is wired to remind us that we are creatures. We are not the creator. You see, it's not really control I need to let go of. It is the illusion of control. It's the idea that I ever thought

that fog ordered the future that I need to release. Fog doesn't get to call the shots. You bow down to this idol, you are guaranteed a life of constant frustration. And there's one other big problem, because needing to be in control is really a form of insubordination. Hardly anyone listening to me right now is gonna deny the existence of God. What we deny is the insistence of God that only He belongs on the throne. Some of us hold a view of God that make Him little more than just a divine waitress. God's job is to run around and make sure He fills our order correctly. This would be a good time for us to examine the bulk of our prayers recently. Whose kingdom are we praying to come? You see, God sits on a throne. He does not sit on a love seat. God is never gonna invite me to sit next to Him so that together we can decide how to run the universe. The Scripture says the Lord has set His stone in heaven, and His kingdom rules over everything. In other words, there's not one time in all of eternity where God has ever said, I wish I ruled that. That includes hell. Get rid of this nonsense you see in cartoons that the devil's the ruler of hell. God prepared hell for the devil and his angels.

The serpent did not talk back to the Creator. Read the Gospels. Not one time does a demon ever say to Jesus, You can't make me. It takes the Bible one verse. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. One verse to establish two fundamental truths. God is not you, and the universe is not yours. God is on the throne. He is never threatened. He's never surprised. He never wonders what to do next. God is outside of creation. He is the only wholly independent being, which means only God can set fixed plans. Only God can announce this is what will be in the future, and it will happen. And His plan is for His kingdom to come, not yours and mine. And accepting this is not passivity. It's not, Well, I can't help it, so I'll just go along. Accepting this is actually a healthy grasp of reality. Our lives will be healthier, and we will flourish when we submit to the way the universe works. It's God's, and He's in control. I like retelling the story of a time when my wife and I submitted to that reality. A lot of you know, in our early marriage years, we battled infertility. We lived in Abilene at the time, and we were driving to Dallas to see a specialist.

And our last trip involved a rather invasive procedure in which that doctor said to my wife, There's a one-in-one-million chance you will ever get pregnant. So we're heartbroken. We're driving back late in the day to Abilene, Texas. And for a long time in the car, we're just silent because neither one of us even knew how to articulate the pain. And we get about an hour outside of Abilene, and one of these West Texas thunderstorms just came up out of nowhere, and it started raining so hard. so hard we had to pull off the road, and then God just put on a show, and it started lighting. And it's like we were under a dome of lightning all around us on every side. Lightning is just coming down and hitting the ground, and it should have been terrifying, and yet it was strangely edifying. As we saw with our own eyes a testimony to the awesomeness of God, and this peace began to settle over us because we just realized God's got the future, and if God's got the future, it's gonna be okay. Needing control is so frustrating. Ceding control is actually liberating. And I wanna share quickly three ways our lives will just work better when we let go of what we can't hold anyway. One is, when we let go of control, we'll love better. Because I can tell you as a recovering controllaholic, there is one thing that controllaholics live with that is a constant irritation. People. Other people are constantly frustrating our plans by refusing to align themselves to our will. Now, let me illustrate, because I think it's really pretty simple, okay? I've got a kingdom called the Kingdom of Rick, and I've got a chart I want you to see. The flowchart is so easy to grasp. There is me, and there's everybody else. And if all of you would just get in line with the chart, I wouldn't have any issues. Let me illustrate this way. I want to adapt to John Orton Borg's story.

So in my kingdom, there are many important states. One is called the state of office. And when I go to the state of office, I want the internet to be up and work quickly. I don't want people knocking on the door saying, can I just have five minutes? I don't want to get any angry emails. What does this mean? It means things are working well and properly in the state of office in the Kingdom of Rick. And then I go to the state of eating out, and I'm seated quickly, and my server brings my food, and it's delicious and just like I wanted, even though it was a special order. And no one around me is loud or obnoxious. If I'm eating outside, nobody nearby is smoking a cigarette. What does this mean? It means everything's working like I want in the state of eating out in the Kingdom of Rick. And then I go to my most important state in my kingdom, the state of home. And I pull in the garage, and I go in the back door, and I notice the TV is on ESPN. And there is a Diet Coke by the recliner with crushed ice. And I sit down and I hear a voice from the kitchen, honey, I'm making you a snack, and then I'm going to come and rub your shoulders. And what does this mean? It means I've walked into the wrong house, because that is not going to happen. You see, all of my states in my kingdom are in rebellion. None of them are functioning like I will. And here's my point. If control is always your answer, other people will always be the problem. Let's be honest. How many of us right now have someone in our life we love, but they frustrate us because they just won't let us fix them? And what if it was God's job to fix them, and it was our job to love them? Listen to Paul. We do not preach about ourselves, but we preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that we are your servants for Jesus. That order is so important. Jesus has got to be on the throne. I've got to be the servant. When I get that out of order, life gets frustrating, and I don't love people well. When other people are always putting me in a bad mood, it is a sign I've put Jesus in the wrong place, and I need to get off the throne and get back to being a servant. When you let go of control, you really will love people better. Not only that, but you'll live bolder. So many people live like the goal of life is just to die safely. I've been to a lot of funerals. I've preached a lot of funerals. Can I just tell you not one time have I ever done a eulogy where I praise someone for their cautiousness? Not one time I've ever said, let me tell you, they never took a risk, they never sacrificed,

they never stepped out in faith. They lived the safest possible life they could possibly live. Let's all try to be like them. Why would you live under the tyranny of timidity if God is in control? Why would you choose cautious instead of courageous? One of my top 10 Bible texts is in the first chapter of the book of Philippians. Paul's writing from prison. He says, for I fully expect and hope I'll never be ashamed, but that I will continue to be bold for Christ as I've been in the past. And I trust that my life will bring honor to Christ, whether I live or die. For to me, living means living for Christ. Dying is even better. Here, I don't know what the future holds, I'm not in control. Caesar could decide today that I am executed. He could decide today that I'm released. I don't know. Here's what I can control, boldness. No matter what happens, I'm going to bring honor to Christ because God is on the throne. And when we're convinced that God is in control, we're going to choose to do what is right and bold, even though we can't know the outcome. You've got a neighbor or a coworker at your office or school, classmate, and they need Jesus. But you've been afraid to share your testimony

because you don't know how they'll respond. But that's not your job. If God's in control, be bold and do the next right thing. It'll change how you steward your finances. By the way, we don't tithe to give God his 10%. We tithe to acknowledge all of it belongs to him. Everything you have, you are stewarding for God. And if he's in control, you can be radically generous with his stuff. And then Jesus comes along and says, someone slaps you in the cheek, you want to slap them back, don't you? Someone curses you, you want to curse back. Don't do that. Turn your cheek, bless them. Now, you've got to believe God is in control to do that. Because you don't know how your enemy is going to respond. It's not your job. Controlling the outcome is God's responsibility. Being obedient is yours or mine. And living on mission and staying kingdom-minded is so much more rewarding than staying safe. You really will like your life better. I mean, you'll love better, you'll live bolder. And one more thing, you'll praise bigger. You see, controlaholics act as if their circumstances are the deciding factor in determining how much praise God should get. So if life is going well and the future is in order and everything's in line with the way you want,

then let's praise the Lord, he's so good. But when life is tossing you around and you are out of control, do you run out of praise? When you've lost control, did God lose his reign? In one sense, you might say no day was more out of control than the day Jesus was crucified. God on a cross. It felt like decency and nobility and purity and love had been defeated. But the tomb is empty. During that whole three days, God's throne never wobbled once. And if God is on the throne, that means anything in life is redeemable. It may not be manageable, but it's meaningful. And this is why Christians can do this most strange thing, not just praise God after the storm, but they can praise God in the storm. Because of where I stand at our different campuses every week, I have the privilege of seeing someone just giving God the glory. They're full of praise, their hands are in the air. And I know the back story. I know that they just got delivered from a terrible diagnosis of health, that they just had a child come home. But then I see on that same aisle, someone else singing with all their might, lifting their hands to God, and they just got a terrible report from the doctor. And they just buried that person they were married to for 50 years. And they don't let how much control they have determine how much praise God gets. They're like the psalmist, why am I so sad?

Why am I so upset? I should put my hope in God and keep praising Him, my Savior and my God. And isn't it true that sometimes it is the absence of control that leads us to seek the presence of God? So what part of your life seems out of control right now? You know what you can control? You can control who you're going to praise and how you're going to praise. I'd like everyone to stand up right now, every campus, even online. We're going to sing one verse of a song together. It's almost 200 years old. And this song has blessed the church because it communicates this principle that we all resonate with, that sometimes life goes just like you want, and sometimes life just blows you all over the place. But in both seasons, your soul can thrive. So sing this with me. When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul. It is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul. I hope it is. I hope your soul is thriving. If it's going to stay well with your soul, you've got to give up control and seek first the kingdom of God. And so, I'm going to pray over you. Every one of us has a part of our life right now that's out of control. I am not going to pray that God fixes it. I'm going to pray we can release it, okay? So just right now, think of that part of your life where it just seems unmanageable and you can't control. Just think about it, and I want you just to open up your hands and just act like you're

giving it to God. So Father, you can hear our hearts. We're not even asking you to fix because we're not sure we know what's best, but we know from your throne, you see what's best. What we're asking, God, in the power of the Holy Spirit, could we live released? Could we, God, stop carrying what is not good for us and not meant for us and trust in your sovereignty? You own the future, and because you own the future, we can look forward to it. Help us, God, live with well souls. We pray this in Jesus' name and for his glory, amen.