Baggage Dump – How To Change The Way I Think sermon notes audio video. (over 2,100 YouTube views) – David didn’t talk about a physical wound. He talked about something just as severe and just as crippling. People wound us with words and actions in the process of life. It’s baggage. We become a baggage dump. Most people carry this baggage dump in their hearts their entire lives. I know people with wounded, pain-filled hearts. So do you. Many of you carry wounded hearts right now. It is not unusual. Even King David, the man after God’s own heart, anointed of God, and leader of a nation, carried a wounded heart full of pain. It was baggage.
The baggage dump affects our lives. It can cause addictions, emotional problems, and depression, blind us to reality, prevent us from getting help, and cause us to hurt others. A baggage dump creates more baggage that slows us down and even stops our lives. Many people never experience an extraordinary life because they are now a baggage dump.
BAGGAGE – EVERYBODY HAS SOME
By Delbert Young
Baggage Dump – How To Change The Way I Think
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Baggage Dump – How To Change The Way I Think
Scriptures: Psalms 109:22, Psalms 109:21, Job 7:11, Psalms 109:31, Psalms 143:8, Job 6:24, Romans 12:2, Ephesians 4:22-23, Colossians 3:13
Welcome to our new series called BAGGAGE: EVERYBODY HAS SOME. You have some, even if it is only a carry-on. King David said…
Psalms 109:22 For I am poor and needy, and my heart is WOUNDED within me.
(NLT) Psalms 109:22 For I am poor and needy, and my heart is FULL OF PAIN.
Of course, David was not talking about a physical wound, but he was talking about something just as severe and just as crippling. People wound us with words and actions in the process of life. Most people carry these wounds in their hearts their entire lives. I know people with wounded, pain-filled hearts. So do you. Many of you are carrying wounded hearts right now. It is not unusual. Even King David, the man after God’s own heart, anointed of God, and leader of a nation, carried a wounded heart full of pain. It is BAGGAGE.
Baggage affects our lives. It causes addictions, emotional problems, and depression, blinds us to reality, prevents us from getting help, and causes us to hurt others. Baggage causes more baggage that slows us down and even stops our lives. Many people never experience an extraordinary life because of baggage. The verse before the verse we read says…
Psalms 109:21 But you, O Sovereign LORD, deal well with me for your name’s sake; out of the goodness of your love, DELIVER ME.
We must allow the Lord to deal with our baggage and deliver us. I pray that over these next weeks, many of you will experience exactly that. Baggage Dump is one of the main reasons we should become Christians. We should experience deliverance.
Baggage Dump – How To Change The Way I Think
During the following weeks, I want to talk about the baggage of addictions, emotional baggage, and the baggage of depression. What does God’s word say about these things? Today, I will ask you to be honest, prayerfully, and honestly ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR BAGGAGE.
Job 7:11 Therefore I will not keep silent; I will SPEAK OUT in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
If you are like me, you realize you have baggage, but to speak out about your baggage makes you uncomfortable. I do not want to talk about my baggage, and I do not want anyone to know about my baggage. Also, I want everyone to think I am perfect. However, if you refuse to acknowledge it, you will go through life with it hurting and loading you down. You will never reach your full potential, and you will continuously injure people you care about and love, giving them a reason to injure you and give you more baggage. That is how baggage works. Acknowledging your baggage is the first part of your healing process.
What/who made your soul bitter? What/who hurt you, caused anguish, wounded, gave pain, etc, to your mind and your spirit/life? What addictions control you? What baggage are you carrying? Do not allow pride to stop your deliverance. Do not allow the enemy to continue to manipulate your life with baggage. Find someplace to speak out in the anguish of your spirit and do a BAGGAGE DUMP.
Life Groups are a great place to speak out, share, and be accountable. Use them. Perhaps you have friends with whom you can speak out. Maybe you need professional help. The goal is BAGGAGE DUMP. How you do it is not the issue. That you do it is a huge issue. Verse 31 of Psalm 109 says…
Psalms 109:31 For he stands at the right hand of the needy one, to save his life from those who condemn him.
Nothing condemns us more than baggage. Nothing robs us of life and makes us hurt the very people we love and care about more than baggage. The Lord is ready to help you. He will save your life from those things that condemn you. The Lord is here. He is at your right hand, wanting to help you.
Baggage Dump – How To Change The Way I Think
What is your BAGGAGE? EVERYBODY HAS SOME. Perhaps your baggage came from relationships. Someone you trusted along the road of life hurt your heart by betraying your trust. You built a wall around your heart. You refuse to allow anyone in. Relationships gone awry cause serious baggage.
For example, did you know that one in four girls experiences sexual molestation? Sadly, usually, a family member/relation does it. Some of you know the horror of that. Unless you allow the Lord to deliver you, you will struggle with your thought processes all your life. You think what happened to you could even be your fault. It affects your marriage and every relationship you have. You have a wall built. Maybe you had a bad relationship with a spouse, a “friend,” a parent, etc. Relationships cause baggage.
Some people have baggage of low self-esteem. They feel they will never amount to anything. It does not only affect their mind. Also, it affects their appearance. Then, it affects how they think people feel about them. Low self-esteem is unbiblical. You must allow God to deliver you from that baggage.
Some have the baggage of addictions and feel they will never be free. In fact, you are not sure you want to be free.
Baggage Dump – How To Change The Way I Think
You love your master. I pray that will change and your addiction will not be your master after our series.
Some people have spiritual baggage. They experienced terrible teaching that taught them legalism, and they became highly judgmental. Some people experience a bad situation with a Christian and now think all Christians are belligerent hypocrites. They refuse to go to church or serve God. That baggage could cost them their salvation. That is how serious baggage can be. Let the Lord deliver you.
(1) The first step in being set free is to ACKNOWLEDGE your baggage.
Let me acknowledge one of mine for you. As a young pastor, I struggled with rejection and people saying mean, hurtful things about me. People left the church, and I would hear the awful things they said about me. For a time, it was a constant, continuous event in my life. It wounded me and filled me with pain. I became defensive, which made the situation worse. I asked the Lord to show me why this was happening. He did. It went way back.
After graduating from college, I worked for Dundee Mills in the time management department. I would follow an employee around all day with a stopwatch, recording everything that employee did to see if he or she had a complete job. Amazingly, most people did not have a full-time job. My job was to discover this and work on getting them a full day’s work.
It involved pressure on both ends. I had to find people without a full workload to preserve my job. My superiors wanted the most for their bucks and expected me to get it, but the employees hated me because they knew I was about to add more to their jobs. There was a confrontation, and a few times, people quit when I walked up with my stopwatch.
Baggage Dump – How To Change The Way I Think
I seldom did a check without some confrontation with an employee. However, I did well at the job, and my superiors rewarded me by quickly advancing me to management. I think I was the youngest ever supervisor. They liked my confrontational, no-nonsense attitude.
As I began managing my own shift, I knew that most people did not have a full job. I did not want to add more to them, but I did demand (literally) that they do what they did well. Again, there was pressure. My superiors wanted production, and my employees wanted an easy ride. This produced lots of confrontation. Again, I excelled and became the supervisor “poster boy.” I went for eight years, never stopping a job, which is unheard of in a cotton mill.
I broke and surpassed all production records.
The bosses mentioned my name when other supervisors tried to give excuses for stopping a job. Again, management rewarded me for being confrontational, advancing me to a first-shift overseeing job. I learned to feed on confrontation. It seemed the more confrontational I was, the more rewards I received.
I did very well at my job, but I developed a confrontational attitude, which was my attitude when I went into the ministry. Once, I even jumped on my son in front of people. I displayed my authority and how things were to be done. I associated success with my ability to confront. Also, I had the attitude of doing it my way, now and right.
Moreover, I projected this attitude from the pulpit. Instead of ministering to people, I wounded them. Because of my confrontational attitude, people left the church and said significantly hurting things to me and about me. Furthermore, because of that attitude, I had a wounded spirit. That attitude made me feel rejected, and pain filled my heart. I didn’t like being that way, but that was all I knew.
Baggage Dump – How To Change The Way I Think
Several years ago, I asked the Lord to help me, and he did. I learned the importance of understanding my temperament.
Many of you are familiar with my temperament study called “Fearfully and Wonderfully Made.” Most of us use a temperament study to justify our baggage. We say something like, “Well, that’s how God wired me…” However, the purpose of the temperament study is to dump baggage, not justify it. I began to allow the temperament study to help me dump my baggage. I began a healing process.
God delivered me from the need for confrontation. I can still do it, but only when necessary. Today, I hate confrontation. It has been a long, long time since I fired off confrontationally. That attitude was baggage that caused me wounds and pain. It bothered me that I hurt people and sometimes affected their relationship negatively with Jesus and the church.
Most of our baggage does not only hurt us. It hurts the people we care about and can affect their walk with Jesus. Today, I think differently. I feel like a different person, and I believe that most of you who knew me then would attest to that fact.
The first thing you must do is acknowledge your baggage. Then (2) ask the Lord to SHOW YOU from where your baggage came. You will never get help until you realize you need help, and help is much easier when you recognize where the baggage came from. We were talking about David and Job having baggage.
Baggage Dump – How To Change The Way I Think
Psalms 143:8 Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. SHOW ME the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.
Job 6:24 “Teach me, and I will be quiet; SHOW ME where I have been wrong.
I do not mean to say that your baggage is your fault and you did wrong. I do mean to say that continuing to carry baggage is wrong. As you lift your soul to the Lord, asking him to show you how your baggage happened, he will. He desires you to be free and delivered, so he will show you.
The next thing necessary for a BAGGAGE DUMP is (3) change how you THINK. How you think about what caused your baggage is a much larger problem than what happened. What I mean is that baggage occurred once. Allowing it to continue in your mind and rule your life will affect you forever. You must renew your thinking.
Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but BE TRANSFORMED BY THE RENEWING OF YOUR MIND…
(NLT) Romans 12:2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but LET GOD TRANSFORM YOU INTO A NEW PERSON BY CHANGING THE WAY YOU THINK…
We can change our thinking to get out of our old lives and thinking. Ask the Lord to change your thinking. You want to think ahead, not behind. You want to think new, not old. God can change your thinking so much that you will be a different person.
Baggage Dump – How To Change The Way I Think
Ephesians 4:22-23 throw off your old evil nature and your former way of life, which is rotten through and through, full of lust and deception. Instead, THERE MUST BE A SPIRITUAL RENEWAL OF YOUR THOUGHTS AND ATTITUDES.
Once you (1) acknowledge your baggage, (2) ask the Lord from where your baggage came, you can (3) change how you think. I know that is way easier said than done, but if you do #4, it is easier than you think
The final thing we will discuss today regarding dumping baggage is to (4) release your offender. Most baggage comes from bitterness, not forgiving, and hatred.
Colossians 3:13 Bear with each other and forgive WHATEVER GRIEVANCES you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
How are you to forgive? You are to forgive as the Lord forgave you. When someone hurts us, we think we have permission to hurt the offender, say anything we want about them, and do our best to get vengeance.
We convince ourselves it is okay to do that. “You hurt me. You wounded me, and you were unfair to me, so therefore, this gives me the right to hurt you back. I can gossip about you. I can lie about you. Also, I can spread rumors about you. Moreover, I can be bitter concerning you, and if you ever get hurt, I can rejoice you are getting what you had coming to you.” Here is what I want you to hear today.
Because someone sinned against you, that does not give you the right to sin. Someone else sinning does not give you the right to sin, even if the sin was against you.
I have had several occasions in my life where I could harbor hatred and easily hurt back, gossip, lie, spread rumors, etc., but I refuse to go through life with bitterness and hatred in me. I refuse to sin because someone sinned against me. Things in life will make you bitter or make you better. I choose to be better. You must let it go. The Lord let your sin go. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
So, you walked into church today with baggage.
It’s that time for the service to be real or fake. You can walk out exactly as you walked in, holding all your baggage, or begin the BAGGAGE DUMP process. Even if you start now, it may take years to dump it entirely, but please begin. (1) Acknowledge your baggage; (2) Ask the Lord to show you from where it came; (3) Allow God to change the way you think; (4) Release your offender. If you will, you will be delivered. Your heart will stop hurting, and you can walk out free.
Baggage Dump – How To Change The Way I Think
Baggage Dump – How To Change The Way I Think
Other Related Sermons:
Baggage of Addictions sermon notes audio
Emotional Baggage sermon notes, audio, video
Baggage of Depression sermon notes, audio, video
Sermon Series By Delbert Young
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