Drop the Bricks

Yesterday I offered a sermon at Hillside Church titled "Drop the Bricks." You can listen to it on my site here

If you examine your life honestly, then I would suspect that like all people - myself included - you carry around unresolved pain from past hurts caused by other people and yourself. 

We lug these hurts around like bricks in a backpack. Over time, these bricks weigh us down, strain our relationships, and drive a wedge between us and our faith in God. 

No matter how well we deal with the weight of these bricks, however, all of us must confront the truth at some point that the weight and strain of these bricks always steals our freedom. God never intended for you to carry bricks. Rather, God desires only one thing from you: a loving, healthy relationship with you.

Paul writes in Colossians 1:15-22:

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see—such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So he is first in everything.

For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. 

He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross. This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.

God created you through him and for him. God takes enormous pleasure in loving you. Carrying bricks only serves to deteriorate any sort of relationship or hope for reconciliation. 

Through the death of Jesus on the cross, God reconciled you, made you whole, and completed you. Paul wrote in his letter that God has made peace with you through the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross. As a result, God has now brought you into his presence, standing holy and blameless in his sight. 

You are a new person. God has forgiven you for the pain that you have caused others, as well as reconciled the voids in your life from being hurt. To know this in full, Paul writes in Colossians 3:13:

So now make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. 

Therefore, drop the bricks. They're useless to you. They only exist to steal your hope, which has now been restored to you by the gracious gift of Jesus. Seek forgiveness, and discover the amazing gift of freedom and hope waiting you for you on the other side.