Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 152
TRANSCRIPT
It is important to have places we can anchor to in life. It seems that the seas of life have become rougher and more confusing to navigate lately. Anchors are what hold us steady when the seas of life toss and turn. In this podcast I am going to talk about four words that will keep us secure in the ever-changing seas of life.
I’m Lee Whitman from Restoring the Foundations and I welcome you into this Hope Healing and Freedom podcast. Cindi and I love to go boating. We live in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, which is called the City Between Two Lakes. We are 15 minutes from two wonderful lakes. One of our favorite things to do after work is to pack a picnic supper, anchor our boat in a lovely cove, and eat dinner on the lake. You talk about the best waterfront dining. On one of these evenings as we were dropping the anchor, the anchor rope disconnected from the anchor. It was such a helpless feeling to watch the anchor we thought was securely connected to the boat disappear into the 50-foot waters of the lake. I remember just sitting there watching in disbelief as something that we thought would provide security for us, simply vanished into the deep water. The security that was to be found in the anchor was not secure at all.
We need to have places where we can anchor our life. Many of the things we anchor to in this life are no more secure than the anchor that disconnected from my boat that day. We look to finances as an anchor. We look to relationships, even solid wonderful relationships like marriage as an anchor. We look to health as an anchor. All of these gifts from God are at best only temporary and can end up at the bottom of the lake like my anchor. People who don’t make God THE anchor of their life end up struggling because they are unable to find anything secure. There was a survey that came out recently that said that people who have God as one of the anchors in their life suffer much less from mental illness than those who don’t.
Today’s verses are Hebrews 6:17-19. “In the same way God, desiring even more to demonstrate to the heirs of the promise the fact that His purpose is unchangeable, confirmed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to hold firmly to the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and reliable and one which enters within the veil,” I am taking the ideas for this podcast from a sermon by my pastor at New Tribe church in Mt Juliet, Tennessee, Pastor Jarod Smith.
Let’s look at four words and how they can be anchors for our relationship with Christ. These are all very active words, which you will hear me say several times in this podcast. The reason I stress that these are active words is that it is very easy for us to have a spectator relationship with God. We attend church every Sunday, might even be involved in church activities like outreach and service, and yet might not be active about our personal walk with Christ. Serving in the church is a wonderful thing to do, but it does not replace having a personal, vital, active relationship with Jesus. Jesus didn’t die for us on the cross to make us busy. He died to give us intimacy with Jesus, Father God, and Holy Spirit. I didn’t get married 46 years ago so that I could have a ring on my finger and a marriage license on the wall. I married my bride so that we could intimately share our lives together.
The four words we will examine today are Confess, Release, Renounce, Receive.
1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The word confess means to say the same thing as another, to speak in agreement with another, to admit or declare oneself guilty of what one is accused of. Confession is agreeing with God that what we have done is sin, and agreeing with God that by receiving what Jesus did on the cross is the only way of salvation. It is the foundation of the Christian Faith. All through scriptures the concept of confession and repentance are central.
Several years ago, there was a move of God on college campuses across the United States and Europe. It began with the revival on the campus of Asbury College in Kentucky, and it spread all around the world. The common element found in the revivals on every college campus was confession and repentance. Students would spontaneously wait in line, some for hours, to confess their sins before their classmates. Some have said that the presence of God was so heavy in those meetings that students were flattened to the floor by the power of confession. Those young people were agreeing with God about their sin. Confession is a necessary anchor in our life with Christ.
I find it very interesting that Pastor Jarod spoke on these four words last Sunday. He has been preaching a series on Freedom and as part of his series last Sunday was about these four words. I am struck that the four words that he highlighted as necessary for a life of freedom are at the very heart of Restoring the Foundations ministry. Confession, agreeing with God about our sin, is a key in the ministry steps for each of the four ministry areas of RTF ministry. We start by dealing with the family baggage we inherit from our ancestors. In that step we recognize the sins of our ancestors that are in our family line, and we confess them on behalf of ourselves and on behalf of our family line. Confessing these sins then allows us to apply the blood that Jesus shed on the cross to our own sin, and to the sin that is in our bloodline, so that these sins are cut off.
I know for me, confessing the sins of my ancestors was never something I was taught, thus I never did it. Yet I knew there was pressure on my life to walk in certain sins. I knew I walked in shame but never knew why. For most of my life I believed the lies of shame that there is something wrong with me. And I could verify this lie on a regular basis because I walked in the shame that was in my blood line. When I went through RTF ministry and saw for the first time the sin of shame that was in my family line, I was able to confess, agree with God about that sin and apply the blood of Jesus to that sin for the first time in my life. The pressure to walk in shame was removed.
The second word that is an anchor for our life is release. To experience freedom, it is essential that we release others for the blame we attribute to them. We don’t realize how deeply we hold others responsible for our sin. Releasing them, or said another way, forgiving them is a vital step toward freedom. As part of my RTF ministry to shame, I discovered that I needed to forgive those who opened the door for shame over my life. In my case I knew I needed to forgive my grandfather and my father who passed this shame on to me. I also needed to release those who spoke shame to me. I know my brother said much of what he said in a teasing manner, but his words spoken in jest struck a very real wound caused by the shame in my blood line. I also found that I needed to forgive my 5th grade teacher. What? You say! Why your 5th grade teacher? When I was in elementary school I had a struggle reading. Looking back, I may have had some learning struggles that were not diagnosed in those days. So, we had different reading groups according to your reading ability. These groups were not meant to shame the kids for being slower readers, but the reading groups were called something very obvious like the Tortoise group and the Hare group. Guess which group I was in? And all of the kids in my class knew who was in which group, causing more shame. So, Yes, I had to forgive, release blame from my 5th grade teacher for shaming me.
The third word that is an anchor for believers is renounce. The word renounce from the dictionary means 1. To give up or put aside voluntarily. 2. To give up by formal declaration. 3. To repudiate, to disown. Repudiate means to reject as having no authority or binding force. In RTF ministry we lead people to renounce several things. We start by renouncing, rejecting as having no authority or binding force, the sins of our ancestors. We often remind people that there is no real power in saying the words of the RTF ministry steps, but the power is in them setting their will to reject as having no authority or power and by apply the blood of Jesus to these sins. The next step in RTF ministry is changing Ungodly Beliefs to Godly beliefs. The ministry steps there include renouncing and breaking their agreement with the Ungodly Belief. I love thinking about what they are doing by renouncing. They are putting aside voluntarily, they are giving up by formal declaration, they are repudiating with means to reject as having no authority or binding force. One of the anchors of our faith is renouncing the things handed to us from our forefathers. 1 Peter 1:18 says, “knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” We renounce based on what Christ has already done for us. His blood shed on the cross for us is a strong anchor that is eternally secure. It will never fall off our anchor rope.
The fourth word is receive. I have come to really love this word because it is a very active word. Receive means to take, to take with the hand in order to use, to take what is one’s own, to take to oneself, to make one’s own. I translate this to say that we actively take possession of something. When someone gives you a birthday present, that present does not become yours until you receive it. Salvation is available to all of mankind. The only ones who have become children of God are those who have received it. They have taken it to themselves; they have made it their own. Just believing that Jesus died on the cross for your sins is not enough. The demons “believe” that Jesus dies on the cross for the sins of the world. I think that if they wanted to, they could also receive the gift of salvation, but because their hearts have been corrupted and hardened by sin, it would be nearly impossible for them to change. These demons have been turned over to a reprobate mind.
Everything offered to us by God must be received. Here is where I want to encourage each of us. Many in the body of Christ have given a mental ascent to the truths of God. They have made an agreement that they are true. I don’t believe that is the same thing as receiving. Receiving is a very active, almost militant word, that says that I am taking this truth unto myself no matter what the cost. Yes, it is a historical fact that Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I am going to receive that truth into my life and make it the foundation for my life no matter what my family, my culture, even my church says. Receiving says I am going to take what God says into my life and live my life upon it even when I don’t see evidence with my eyes, even if my circumstances do not change. I will not be swayed away from the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
These four words are strong anchors for your life. Confess – agree with God that what He says is true, and what He calls sin is sin. Release those who have helped you get into this sinful condition. Renounce, reject as having no authority or binding force anything that does not match up with God’s Word, His nature, or His character. Receive, aggressively take to yourself, everything that God is offering you. These four words will change your life.
PRAYER
Father God thank You for all that You have to give us in our relationship with You. Thank You for the ministry of RTF. Thank You for the faithfulness of Chester and Betsy Kylstra who stewarded this message for 35 years. They pioneered and passed on the message of RTF which includes all four of these anchors to our faith: Confess, Release, Renounce, and Receive. Father, I am asking You to use this podcast to show us any place where we are living below all the life that Jesus came to give us. Anyplace where we are not actively and aggressively receiving.
We are celebrating the 35th anniversary of RTF on October 15-16-17 here in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. October 16-17 is the Catalyst Conference which is open to anyone by reservation. We are filling up quickly, so if you have not registered, please go to our website and get registered. We would love to see you at the Catalyst Conference as we celebrate 35 years of God using RTF to bring Hope Healing and Freedom into the world.
