No Carry-on Fee

If you have ever flown, you know that the price of your trip can often vary depending on how much baggage you bring with you.

A quick google search led me to the following cost for checked on luggage for flights.

First Bag - $30

Second Bag - $45

Third Bag - $150+

Fourth Bag - $200+

And this is if they are all normal sized bags. What if you are bringing oversized luggage or even luggage that no one else has ever brought before.

But let me ask you this, what do you do? You have to have your stuff to be able to travel. Even if it is simply a small amount, you have luggage!

The truth is that everyone has some type of baggage. It comes in all shapes and sizes. Your baggage could be from sin, hurt, addiction, or failure, but regardless of what baggage you’ve been carrying around, take comfort knowing that you are not alone!

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 4

8 As he was walking along the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter), and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. 19 “Follow me,” he told them, “and I will make you fish for people.” 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him.

21 Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They were in a boat with Zebedee their father, preparing their nets, and he called them. 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

Jesus took some people, who we would not have chosen, He took some people that we would have walked right past and he used them to change the world.

These men had a career, they had a life, they had families and not doubt, they had baggage. As the story of the New Testament unfolds, we see without a doubt that Peter is a man with a past.

And yet, God chooses to use them anyway.

You see When we come to Jesus, we find freedom, This doesn’t necessarily mean that we walk around in freedom. Many times we’re weighed down because we hang onto the past.

Again, if you have ever traveled before, the one thing that you are familiar with is baggage. Whether you pack the family car to the brim and head out on a road trip or you’re journeying through an airport, your baggage always travels with you. If you’re journeying through an airport, you baggage can become especially noticeable. There’s always someone who packs for a month to go on a one week trip. Their bag is heavy and exhausting to carry around. Then there’s the bag with the broken wheel so it is a pain to pull through the airport.

Try being late for a flight and you’ll find yourself sprinting through the airport while carrying the bags around with you.

Sadly, this is how many of us go through life. God doesn’t intend for us to go through life living in the past. He doesn’t Want us to constantly check our luggage round trip. Rather, he wants us to send it one way. That one way is to Him.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 11

29 Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

So this morning I have a bit of good news for you. I want to give you 2 reasons to not worry about your baggage.

I. God ONLY uses imperfect people.

If you struggle with the fact that you are not perfect and tell yourself constantly that you cant be used by God, let me remind you of who He has already chosen to use.

Noah was a drunk

Abraham was too old

Jacob was a liar

Joseph was abused

Moses had a stuttering problem and was a murderer

Gideon doubted

Rahab was a prostitute

Jeremiah was too young

David was an adulterer and a murderer

Elijah was suicidal

Jonah ran fro God

Peter denied Christ

Martha worried about everything

The Samaritan woman was divorced more than once

Paul was a Christian-Killer

There is nothing that you can bring with you that Jesus can’t overcome, friend He has already overcome it all when he conquered Death!

David Platt says, “Jesus did not call these guys because of what they brought to the table. These four guys and the disciples that came later, did have many things in their favor. For starters, they were Galileans, deemed to be lower class, rural, and uneducated by many. They were hardly the cultural elite, and they certainly weren’t the most spiritually qualified for the task.

Everyone has some type of baggage. One of our takeaways this week is to stop acting like we have everything together. Remember, God only uses imperfect people. If you perfect, you have no need for him.

II. Jesus Doesn’t Just Tolerate Baggage, He invites it!

Christian Standard Bible (Chapter 15)

John 15:16 You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.

Friend, He Choose you in spite of yourself! In spite of your flaws. In spite of your failures. He chose you, He wants you, He loves you and he wants to use you!

According to travelonthefly.com, “in short, an average airplane weighs around 90,000 pounds empty weight, which means the weight of the airplane when its fuel takes are empty and there are no people or luggage on board. This example is for a B-737-800 aircraft which is considered a medium-sized commercial jet airliner. You can expect to add 84,000 pounds of fuel, passengers, and baggage to that number to get a maximum takeoff weight of 174,000 pounds.” That’s a lot of baggage and a lot of weight! Do you ever wonder how in the world an airplane can get off the ground while carrying so much weight? It takes a ton of force and power.

This is a lot like our relationship with Jesus. It might seem like your’re carrying so much around that you wonder how he would ever accept you or handle it. Not only can he handle your baggage, he can handle all of our baggage collectively! His power surpasses any plane or human power!

Christian Standard Bible (Chapter 5)

I Peter 5:7 casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you.

He understood who he was dealing with here. This was not the cream of the crop, most intelligent and qualified.

As I have said before, these would have been men who didn’t make it through rabbi school and thus they were now learning the trade of their father.

Fishermen in that day, that profession, probably carried the same kind of stigma that we would see today in a common laborer title. So Jesus is intentionally searching for common men

Jesus used common language and terminology not just so they could understand, but so He could relate to them.

He was giving them the necessary confidence from the very beginning to show them that they were chosen for a reason

He would still need to transform them, but they were what he was looking for. There wasn't some long drawn out application process or interview for these common men. Jesus knew how to pair these men with the job he needed done. The one condition to become a fisher of men was "follow me"

While it seems simple, we all know that there are many implications to those two words

Application

Jesus called them while they were engaged in their ordinary occupations. Just as He calls us in our ordinary occupations and daily lives. But will we answer the call with faith and zeal?

They weren’t worried about the fact that they had not been successful in the past. They were not worried about past or future failures.

They saw an opportunity to follow a rabbi and they jumped at it!

They were not worried about the baggage they would be carrying with them.

Lets Shift how we think about our baggage. Let’s recognized God’s ability to work with it to accomplish His will.

How you shift your thinking from baggage being a burden to being an opportunity. This will require intentional and critical thinking.

I’ve been divorced - You can help people like others cant.

I’ve got a drug or alcoholic past.

Lets flip how we view baggage. We often try to hide it. God wants to use it. The first step is to be honest about our baggage. So often we try to suppress it so it doesn’t come up. In order to heal, we must be willing to talk about it.