Let Go of That Orange!

There's nothing like a motorcycle story to stir the blood. One night in March, I dreamed that I was riding a motorcycle. I was flying down the road and taking those curves and leaning into them and just really enjoying it. It was so effortless and easy, it felt like I was flying. It felt like I was flying. It called to mind all the enjoyment I had with my Goldwing. I had a Goldwing for a while and really enjoyed that motorcycle.

It was on my mind. The next day, I was scrolling through the internet and I saw the bike of my dreams for sale just a half an hour away in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It was on sale for only $4,000. Let's show the picture of that motorcycle. We'll see how it comes out. It was a nice bike.

It was 148 horsepower, which is a lot of horsepower to put on a lightweight and little thing like that. New tires, anti-lock brakes, quiet as a whisper. Beautiful design. It was a sport touring Yamaha FJR 1300 R for race. It had a top speed of 150 miles an hour. No home should be without one. Acceleration and cornering mobility like you can only imagine. And the aerodynamic fairing color matched my helmet. It was meant to be. I bought it on the spot and rode it home that night.

I'm going to switch gears on you. I'm going to tell you a different kind of a story, not a motorcycle story. I'm going to tell you a monkey story. Let's go to the monkey slide. It's an unusual practice in South Asia. It's a little time honored. How many of you have heard of the monkey trap? Some of you have. Good. I have some fresh meat here that I can explain this to.

A hunter takes a jar and ties it securely to a root of a tree or a stake they pound on the ground. They put a big juicy orange in it like this. No self-respecting monkey would pass one of these up. And put an orange in the trap. There we go. The kind the monkeys just love.

The width of the opening in that jar, as you can see on that illustration, if you can see it from the distance, is just big enough to get that orange in that jar. And it's just big enough for the monkey to reach into. But he can't reach into the jar with an orange and hold the orange and get out. The jar lid isn't big enough. The opening isn't big enough. We've caught a lot of monkeys that way. The monkey just won't let go. He is trapped by his own desire.

Think about that for a minute. He's trapped by his own desire. He could get loose if he wanted to, but he's trapped. I've just showed you two illustrations. I've just showed you an illustration of two monkeys. Just one had a cooler bike. How many of us are trapped by our own desire? No showing of hands. Just a quiet thought in the recesses of your mind and your heart. How many of us are in a bind financially? Because we just can't let go of that orange. How much of us are in a bind emotionally or even spiritually? Because we just won't let go of something we shouldn't happen. We shouldn't have some relationships you don't want to have.

How many of us are prisoners of our own desire? My purpose today in this message is to encourage us all to identify what's holding us back, what's trapping us, and then let go of that orange, whatever it may be. Orange is just a symbol for the desires of your heart. And God will give you the desires of your heart if you put him first. But they have to be godly desires. He's not going to give you bad fruit. He's going to give you... if you ask for an egg, he's not going to give you a scorpion. There's scriptures about that.

We need to identify what the orange is, the forbidden thing that we shouldn't... and maybe it's not forbidden to everybody. Maybe it's okay for somebody else to have that expensive thing or that dangerous thing or whatever, and it's not good for anybody else.

Meets offer idols. You know, there's nothing in the world about an idol that's true, and yet Meets offer idols could cause people to stumble. So we need to identify what is your orange, and how do you let go of it? I'm going to talk about two things, two kinds of oranges that hold us back, and there's more than two kinds of things, classes of things that hold us back, and that's for discussion after church in the fellowship that we have with one another. See how many you can list? How many oranges are a potential harm that would harm somebody?

And there's two kinds, two classes of them that I want to talk about, and one class is habitual sin. That's obvious on the face of it. If you've got your hand firmly on habitual sin, then we need to let go of it. And the other class is something you might not think. It's self-esteem. It's either too high or too low.

How you think about yourself makes an impact on how you live your life and what choices you make. And the first one we'll go through is habitual sin. Let's show that slide that has a list. There you go. Habitual sin. It's any commandment breaking. It can be a temptation. In fact, there's a whole smorgasbord of goodies represented by that orange. Covetousness, which is idolatry. We wouldn't know what covetousness was unless God revealed it to us in the 10th commandment.

It's just not a natural concept that comes to the human mind. Covetousness would seem to be the winning factor in survival. If it was survival of the fittest, then your covetousness could pay off. But it isn't to the survival of the fittest. It's the survival of the most humble, and the most teachable, and the most malleable people who are willing to have Jesus Christ mold their character in a way that pleases Him. So He knows He can count on us. He's got our back. You know, when it comes to the clutch, would we have His?

Covetousness, which is idolatry. Then there's swearing. It's easy to let euphemisms creep into our lives. And it's worse to swear and say the bad words themselves, but it's something that you might just say, well, that's just part of my personality. I'm an old salt from way back, and that's just how I talk. But we're supposed to root out everything that could cause offense.

Sabbath-breaking. That's one that the world at large does, largely unknowing. Not everybody knows that there is a Sabbath day. And again, it wouldn't have been in our wheelhouse had not God revealed what the seventh day was and why it was important. And He wants us to make it an integral part of our character. Hatred or bigotry of any kind, judging a person based on their color or their creed or any of the externals that you see in the news, people are judging and taking bad actions. Lust, lying, theft. There are several sin lists in the Bible, and every one of them are hard to let go for somebody. It looks so good at the time, but it's bitter fruit in the end. There's a very real penalty for sin, so we've got to go and seek reconciliation with God, as we heard in the sermon at. Reconciliation with each other and reconciliation with God, because that penalty is death and God doesn't want us to die. He wants us to live and live more abundantly. Let's go to the next slide. There's a scripture here. 1 Corinthians 6, verses 9 through 11. It looks like it's not going to be possible to read it up there. I've got to dial in the fonts on this thing, but in 1 Corinthians 6, we'll start reading verse 9.

To set the stage, he was talking to the people in Corinthian in Corinth, and that was a famous old sea-firing town. What happens in Corinth stays in Corinth, and it was just really an tempting environment. For people who are coming out of this world and coming into the church in the true faith of God at Corinth, it was a stumbling block for some. Paul here is writing a letter in response to the letter that they probably wrote asking him questions. He tells him how to calculate the cabbage. It's plain talking here. Verse 9, 1 Corinthians 6-9. Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. It's a pretty obvious statement, but they were acting like they didn't understand that statement. The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind. And it doesn't stop there. There's other sins that are tempting to some to hang on to, and not tempting to others. And so he lists them. He wants to cover the field here.

Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers. Those are the trolls on the internet. There's nothing good that they've seen. They just troll and destroy everything. You can't hardly do anything in public with any type of a list of any size without attracting some naysayers and revilers. Nor extortioners. None of them shall inherit the kingdom of God.

And some such were some of you. So if you just quit reading there, you'd be in trouble, because what's the remedy for these sins? The remedy here is something that they undertook, and they did. And Paul is calling their attention to it. And it's the second half of verse 11. But you are sanctified, you are justified, but you are washed, but you are sanctified, and you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

And if you are washed, what's that mean? That's when you're washed in the blood of Christ when you were repented and were baptized, and the washing of water by the Word brought you to the next step of the process of repentance. And it's a process, and you have to undertake it very intentionally. You're just not going to stumble into being converted. It takes effort.

And the Corinthians said some of them had done that step. They were washed, and they intellectually at least knew that they could be spared the death penalty. But you are sanctified and set apart for a special purpose. God takes great interest in every one of us, in every thought. He knows every word on our tongue before it's spoken. He knows what we're thinking. He loves us, and He wants us to steer clear of those things that would cause us to be separated from us, us from God or us from our brethren. And when you are washed in the waters of baptism, you're sanctified. You're set apart. There aren't very many like us. And you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus. He justifies us. He took the penalty of sin on Himself for us. He died for us. And we were washed, sanctified, and justified. And this is something that Paul was implying when he wrote to the Corinthians that all is not lost, that these activities can save you, or at least they're a part of the salvation formula. And then he goes on to talk about how all things are lawful, but not all things are expedited. And there's some judgment calls that you've got to make with the Spirit of God guiding you. But we need to let go of that orange that caused us to need to be washed and sanctified and justified. If we're holding on to something that we shouldn't be holding on to, God wants us to let go. The 12-step program says, let go and let God. Don't try to do it all yourself. We can't do it on our own strength. We know that only the Holy Spirit working through us and in us, directed by God and Jesus, are what it takes to live godly in Christ Jesus. So there's a whole bunch of sins that we need to let go and get out of our lives. Now there's another class of sins I mentioned, unrealistic self-esteem. Let's go to the next slide. Unrealistic self-esteem. Too high or too low. On the low side, we can think, God won't hear my prayers. I'm not good enough. I keep sinning. I can't make it. That's what the devil would have us believe. It was true we're not good enough on our own, but as we're led by the Spirit of God, we're good enough in his sight because he knows what it takes.

I keep sinning. I can't make it. Well, of course we keep sinning. That's why we got to repent daily. That's why we have the spring holy days roll around for us to recommit to those principles that God has called us to understand and do energetically. I keep sinning and I can't make it. Well, we can make it if we hang in there. If we call upon God to save us in our distress, he will do it through the power of his Spirit if you ask him for it.

Let's turn over to 1 Timothy 1. 1 Timothy 1. Paul said a powerful example, and he wasn't going to give up. He was going to be strengthened by God. In 1 Timothy 1 verse 12, And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. He didn't join the ministry on his own. He had a kind of a ministry of death as he was going around and persecuting God's churches. He was doing it zealously and effectively, and he was just laying havoc on the brethren. And he acknowledges that here in 1 Timothy 12. I thank Christ Jesus who has enabled me, who has strengthened me. He considered me faithful and appointed me to service. I was formerly a blasphemer, like many of those in Corinth, a persecutor and a violent man. And because I had acted in ignorance and unbelief, I was shown mercy. Even the depth of his crimes, causing families to be split up and some to be killed, God showed mercy. And the grace of our Lord overflowed to me because I had acted in ignorance and unbelief. And the grace of our Lord overflowed to me, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying, verse 15. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners and whom I am chief. Paul carried the burden of those murders and those persecutions with him his whole life. And he didn't let it get him down. He explained to people that he had done these things and that God was still willing to wash and sanctify him and strengthen him and show him mercy because Paul yielded to the Spirit of God. And when he was baptized, when he was anointed after being blinded for three days on the road to Damascus, he then began to preach the very faith that he had tried to destroy. And he went at it hammering tongs, and he was a choice vessel that God used to flip the coin and do some good in people's lives, shutting off that aggressiveness. And he says that he was the worst of sinners, but for this very reason I was shown mercy, so that in me the worst of sinners Christ Jesus might display his perfect patience as an example to those who would believe in him for eternal life.

That is why he was shown mercy, because it would display his perfect patience. Not Paul's perfect patience, but God's perfect patience. And if God can be patient with somebody like Paul, who would actually put knives to throats, he can forgive us. He can overlook. He won't overlook sin, but he'll forgive sin if we ask him to. If we have an orange that we're lugging around and a big jar around it, and we can't get rid of it, he'll help us get rid of that. His perfect patience would lead to believing in Christ for eternal life. And this is a tremendous concept. This is nothing like the pagan nations of the world around him could understand. Their religion was a religion of works and earning favor with the gods and placating them with sacrifices so they would rain next Tuesday on their corn field that was drying up. And they had a transactional look at God and the relationship with the gods. They said there were many gods, but Paul says, no, there's one king, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, to him, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. So we shouldn't let unreasonably low self-esteem keep us from pursuing a godly life. We shouldn't think that we can't make it, that we're not worthy, we should understand that we're worthy, and it's what he's building in us that attracts him.

The flip side is exalted self-esteem. We've got a slide for that, too. Exalted self-esteem. And that's where the paraphrase would be, God owes us. After all we've done for him. Let's turn over to Luke 18. The parable of the tax collector comes to mind. Christ gave this example to point out the difference between a humble person and a prideful person. So Luke 18, verse 9, and he spoke this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. That's a natural tendency. If we think that we've found some unique truth and nobody else can understand it, and we start to spread division over it and cause splits or cause trouble, then that's not a good teaching. That's not a good way to go. And at the root of that is an exalted self-image that I'm special. I know these things. And they trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. This parable is going to deal with that.

Two men went up into the temple to pray. One a Pharisee, the other a publican. Old King James for a common street fellow that you might find at the pubs drinking a soccer ball, maybe. I know soccer's on everybody's mind these days. And there's some violent people out there. But there's a Pharisee, the high religious official, and a publican, just your run-of-the-mill guy.

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you that I am not as other men are. Extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. He just felt he was a cut above. His perception of his self-esteem was not realistic. He had to justify himself. He wanted to look good in his own eyes. And in the eyes of others, he said, I fast twice a week. And those weren't quietly done fast off to the side. They would just figure their faces and musk up their hair and put some dress on them. Go around leaning over like they were really suffering so that people could see that they were fasting. They could see they were miserable. What Christ said in another place, they've got their reward. They've never seen they got their reward. I give tithes of all that I possess. Well, that's a level of commitment. It's a good level. You know that God owns the universe. God has all the money. And if he wants you to put 10% towards religious purposes, another 10% towards festival tithe, and another 10% or more to help the poor, then you're working God's agenda. And that takes a certain commitment. If you do it to be seen, then that takes it all away. They've got their reward. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes into heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house, justified rather than the other. For every one that exalts himself shall be abased, and every one that humbles himself shall be exalted. And if we have the proper attitude toward our place in the universe, and what God is doing through us, and the miracles that he's performed in our lives, the greatest miracle being conversion, then we're on the right path. And that's what he wants. Let's turn over to Romans 12.

Paul speaks to the idea of unrealistic self-esteem. And it says, it's a razor blade. You've got to be unbalanced. You can't say, I'm so bad that I can't do anything. I can't get out of bed. You can't say, I'm so good. I don't need to. I don't need God. Romans 12. We've got a slide for that. And we'll start reading in verse 3. It's probably the first two verses. It starts out with a command that is followed up later with instructions on what to do. I beseech you therefore, Hebrews 12 verse 1, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. That's what he expects of us. He doesn't expect of us to have dozens of oranges that we're unwilling, unable to get rid of, bad fruit. He wants us to be holy, acceptable to the Lord, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world. That's where all these bad ideas come from. The devil, injecting them into man's society and egging us on behind the scenes, especially at the highest levels of government, where there's satanic battles raging that we don't even know about.

The nations are clashing and they're upset and it's spiritual powers and spiritual wickedness in high places that are causing this. And if we're conformed to that world, that rubs off on you after a while. So be not conformed to this world. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Get rid of those old thoughts. Let go of those old things that are holding you prisoner. That you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith. And then he goes into the many members, one body, and the gifts that he gives us. And God is so generous. Just think for a minute of all the gifts that he's given you.

And there are too many to count. There's the gifts of solid relationships. There's gifts of money. It takes money to eat. There's gifts of friendship and fellowship that only come about through the power of the Holy Spirit, because it's just not up to us on the carnal level.

And God has dealt to every man a measure of faith and given us gifts that he wants us to exercise in the service of our fellow man. And a lot of these oranges are subtle.

Well, a lot of them are subtle, and a lot of them are way out there. And back to the motorcycle story. At first, I thought the orange that I didn't want to let go of was that motorcycle. I just didn't want to let go of it. I wanted that motorcycle.

But I knew in my heart that the odds were not good. So sooner or later, someone would see me, would not see me. He'd pull right out in front of me. He'd turn left in front of me, and that would be the end of it. I didn't want to attempt God. He kept me safe on my first motorcycle, the Gold Wing, 40,000 miles over the space of 10 years in the dozen states in Canada, even took my kids to school on that thing. And they thought it was cool that their dad brought them to school on a motorcycle. I got him a helmet, but my poor wife was just silently grinding her teeth. Praying that each Sunday morning when I'd go out early right around dawn, I'd go race around the paved country roads there in Indiana at 90 miles an hour plus, she would just say, oh God, please send him back alive. And I had dodged the bullet because I did not want to be the grandpa that goes hiking with the family. And I did want to be the grandpa that went hiking with the family, and not the grandpa in the wheelchair or worse because of my selfish risks. I had a large tasty orange of motorcycling pleasure, and I was was I willing to take that risk again for the fleeting rush of eye-popping acceleration?

Was I willing to give up precious time with my family while often doing my own subtle thing, how selfish is that? And for me, it was selfish. Now, all you motorcycle drivers out there, you have to judge in your own heart what is your level of risk and what is your level of reward, and make a godly decision one way or the other. And it doesn't mean getting rid of your motorcycle necessarily. Maybe it just means changing some habits. But was the orange, was my orange not so much the motorcycle and its personal pleasures, although beautiful as it is, as it was, was it rather the image that motorcycles broadcast to the world? I think that deep in my heart, I wanted to be that guy who was a swashbuckling hero, just racing through on a motorcycle, swinging my scimitar left and right. Get out of my way! I'm on the road.

Was my orange that I needed to let go of the physical motorcycle or the image that I was trying to project with it? A little bit of A, a little bit of B. Let's go to the next slide. I remember psychology class in college. It was a dramatic experience, and you see here tragedy and comedy, the masks that people wear. We had a notable professor, and he's high ranking in the Church of God history. And he strode into class the first day. I'm a freshman. I'm an ambassador college. I don't know the reason so much anything, so much as the Church behind it. And he started, here comes this guy, six foot two, he strides in, and he says, what mask are you wearing today? Students, wake up! Don't ride the monorail around Disneyland. What mask are you wearing today?

And then we use that as an introduction to delve into the subject of personality and self-image. And the bottom line, of course, was we needed to have a humble, childlike approach to life.

Who you are needs to come from the heart, not from posing behind a mask or setting up an elaborate facade. When you talk about personality, it's from the Latin persona. A persona can refer to either the public image of one's personality or the social role that one adopts. The word derives from Latin, which we originally referred to as theatrical mask.

So when we evaluate these oranges that we need to let go of, we look at it at the physical level, but also at the spiritual and emotional level, make our judgments godly judgments. Now, how do you let go of these oranges? Well, that's the subject of countless sermons, how to overcome sin and build godly habits. So I'm just going to go through two elements of how to get rid of these oranges.

Let's go to 2 Timothy 2.

2 Timothy 2, verses 14 to 16. He's talking about things that Timothy, the young minister, needed to know about. In 2 Timothy 2, verse 14, it says, If things put them in remembrance, the instruction he'd been given, put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord, that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. You didn't want him arguing a bunch of language tiki-tank stuff. Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. And the word study means put your mind and heart to do this work. Yes, there's some book study involved, but it's an old King James' study to do this. But show yourself approved to God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Dikatomeo, getting the sense of the meaning of the words out of the context in which they were given. It's expository preaching is what it is. We need to rightly divide the word of truth. But Shon, profane and vain babblings, really will increase unto unmore ungodliness. We've all run across people who argue until you're sick of it about some particular minor point of what they call doctrine. And we shouldn't spend a lot of time trying to deflate their bubble. It says, don't answer a fool according to his folly. Use judgment and wisdom in the Spirit of God.

And we can do that, and we can shun profane and vain babblings, where the natural result is they will increase to more ungodliness.

Let's turn back to Matthew 18. And it was time for that, Matthew 18. At the same time, verse 1, at the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who then is the greatest of the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto them, and said unto them in the midst of them. And he said, Truly I say unto you, except you be converted, and you become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. You'll have too much baggage. You get to be a simple surface. What you see is what you get, type of person. Otherwise you won't enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever there, shall humble himself as this little child. The same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whosoever there, shall receive one such little child, and my name receives me.

Whosoever there, shall offend one of these little ones, which believe in me, and it were better for him than the millstone who were angry about his neck, and he was drowned in the depths of the sea. That takes it very seriously when we go about offending little ones. We're in the image of God, each one of us, and to our small children, we're very much viewed as a godlike power. We feed them, we bathe them, we take them around, and as they grow up, we need to show them love. To perceive that they are loved makes all the difference. When we're 20, we want to be as open and honest and trusting as we were when we were 10. There are things that you learn as you grow up, but you just know that you're saying that you put that out of your mind. We don't want to wear a theatrical mask. We don't want to be somebody we're not. We don't want to be whitewashed tunes like the hypocritical Pharisees, that Christ condemned so bitterly. We don't want to be trapped in our own desires, whatever they may be. A few more scriptures. Philippians 3 Philippians 3 verses 1 through 8. Finally, brethren, rejoice in the Lord. This way of life should be a cost of rejoicing. We shouldn't be moving around or heads down, thinking we're not good enough. We need to rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me, indeed, is not to breathe this, but for you to say. And here's some of those things we've got to look out for. Beware of the dawns. Beware of evil workers. Beware of the conceitment. For we are the circumcision, which worshiped God in the Spirit and rejoiced in Christ Jesus and had no confidence in the flesh. But I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinks that he is where of, he might trust in the flesh. I am more. Then he goes down his list of circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, the Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law of Blameless. But what things were gained to me? Those I counted for loss, for Christ. Yea, down list, and I can count all things with loss, for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things. All the loss at all. He was an up-and-coming young man in his early work as a Pharisee, and he persecuted the church with the story was there. And he just didn't look back. He just pressed on ahead. He counted that whole system with loss.

Turn over to Hebrews 12. We're supposed to count things. We leave behind this. Just count it with loss. These oranges that were so tempting and so wanted to make you become a slave of your own desire. Just to forget it. God has all the money. He's got all the material goods. He's got all the spirit, and he can give us the spirit without limit if we ask him and if we show that we want to wield that spirit in a godly way.

One last thing. One last P.S. before I quit. I'll tell you how the motorcycle story turned out. After thinking it through and praying about it, I returned the bike of my dreams to the dealer the very next day. And I'm now safe. At least I know I won't be killed riding a hot dog race bike and powering into a declining radius curve while shaking with Parkinson's. I just didn't want to do that. And as they say in the movies, a man's got to know his limitations.

I think God saved me in that regard. We need to... last scripture, Hebrews 12. I mean Hebrews 12. We need to look to Jesus Christ for the help that we need.

Verse 1, Wherefore seeing we also are encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us. Let us run with patience the races set before us. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, counting it all loss, and is set down at the right hand of God, at the throne of God.

That's the example we need to follow. That's the source of our power to get rid of these weight of sin that we're dragging around. And every weight, we just need to get rid of it. Great rewards await those who are faithful to God, who repent daily and trust in His mercy. Let's just let go of that orange and run with patience the race that is set before us.