Getting rid of weight

Pastor Zac Elliot

Fusion Church

I was trout fishing trip in the Sierras with some men from my church and we decided to fish a stream at the top of the mountain. On the drive up I couldn't figure out why my truck was driving so sluggishly. It wasn’t until we got to the top that I figured it out. The smell of burning brakes was intense, and it was clear – I had forgotten to take the emergency brake off for the entire drive.

Needless to say, I wasn't happy but the only person I could be mad at was myself. Not only did I ruin my brakes, I warped the rotors too, and now the emergency brake doesn’t work right. I was my worst enemy that day.

Have you ever found that you're your own worst enemy? Sometimes it doesn't dawn on us until the last minute. It’s only after we make a really bad decision that we realize the only person we can really blame is ourselves.

We get into these situations because we forget to take off the thing that is holding us back. The Bible tells us that sin is the one thing that is holding us back from not running our race with endurance.

Sin is what is keeping us from having the life that God wants for us. That’s why the Bible tells us to "strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us." (Hebrews 12:1)

It's really hard to go anywhere with extra weight. It's hard to run, it's hard to walk, it's hard to drive with the emergency brake on and it's hard to follow God and still hang on to our sin. That's why we need to give it up. It's affecting our endurance and it's affecting our life. In fact, it's making finishing the race impossible.

The greatest way to get rid of that weight of sin that's tangling and tripping us up is to confess it to Jesus Christ. The Bible says that he took our sin upon himself on the cross. He did it so that we don't have to carry it. If you want to live a life of endurance instead of sluggishness, one that can finish the race, you have to give up your sin. You have to give it to Jesus so that you can be forgiven and run without hindrance.