Let It Go: The Prejudice That Blocks the Blessing

Sermon outline

Your destiny is connected to the future, not the past, so the prejudice, hurt and hatred you still carry must be let go, because they are blessing blockers and a man who hates his brother walks in darkness.

1. If we say we have no sin, we lie

   From 1 John 1 and 2 he shows that whoever claims to know God but does not keep His commandments is a liar. Every one of us has sinned, however often we pray, and when we want to justify ourselves we say me and I. To be perfected means to be complete, to reach the goal and fulfil the calling of God, and the one who abides in Him ought to walk as Jesus walked. Everything begins and ends with the heart, and the first step of deliverance is a decision not to go there again.

   “It's not so much about the action of the sin, it's more about the condition of the heart.”

   • 1 John 1:5-10
   • 1 John 2:3-6
   • Romans 3:23

2. Three things necessary to fulfil the calling

   God's way is not a get-rich-quick scheme, and what comes quickly is lost just as quickly. Number one, get in line with what God wants by keeping your heart clean and walking as He walked. Number two, pray and read your Bible: Jesus said when you pray and when you fast, not if, and fifteen minutes in the car on the way to work is not separated time. Number three, know the Holy Spirit and the voice of the Lord, which is hard to hear in the chaos of life and hard to recognise if you never spend time with Him.

   Illustration: Watching a YouTube video and deciding overnight that forex trading is the way to get rich.

   “The Lord, He wants everything.”

   • Matthew 6:5-6
   • Matthew 6:16-17
   • 1 Kings 19:12

3. It always starts with service in the local church

   When the Lord works with you, He always works with you in service, beginning in the local church, because the church is His body and we are branches of the one vine. Praying at home and watching online has a place in personal worship, but hopping from church to church through the week is the double-minded man who receives nothing from the Lord. When God connects you to something, He expects you to flow in it.

   Illustration: The same man wears the hat of father at home, brother in his family, and head of media or youth leader in the church.

   “When God connects you to something, then God expects you to flow in that something.”

   • John 15:5
   • James 1:7-8

4. Your destiny is connected to the future, not the past

   South Africans come from a conflicted past, a system that benefited one group and left the rest forgotten and abused, and he does not minimise it. But to fulfil God's destiny we cannot hold on to it. A man who heard as a five year old what was done to a family member under apartheid, and still carries the family's trauma, is still holding that five year old inside him. If God has your name and your number, He will use you, as He used Moses the stutterer.

   “My destiny is connected to the future.”

5. Miriam's prejudice: blessing blockers

   God spoke with Moses face to face, yet when Moses married an Ethiopian woman his sister Miriam asked whether God speaks only through Moses. The question came from prejudice about who he had married. God often uses the very people we least expect to open the door to the blessing. The gossip spread over tea and biscuits, and when the cloud came down at the tent of meeting, Miriam who held the prejudice was made white as snow with leprosy.

   Illustration: He retells Miriam phoning round a circle of friends who gather over tea and biscuits to talk about Moses and his wife.

   “God will use the people that you least expect to open the door to bring the blessing.”

   • Exodus 33:11
   • Numbers 12:1-10

6. He who hates his brother walks in darkness

   It is not about White, Black, coloured or Indian, nor about which city or township someone comes from. If that is in your language, kill it, because it does not exist in the economy of God and it blocks the blessing. Revenge belongs to the Lord; our part is to enact love, forgiveness and unity. In Christ our culture is Christ, not ancestors, dowries or the sangoma, so we no longer see skin, creed or culture. The man who hates his brother does not know where he is going: he has no focus, running from pillar to post because he sees with natural eyes and not through the eyes of the Spirit.

   “If that is in your language, kill it, because it's blocking the blessing of the Lord.”

   • 1 John 2:9-11
   • Romans 12:19

7. Do not love the world

   Loving the world means putting your Christianity aside because your social circle matters more. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life are not of the Father; the pride of life is the car, the house and the followers on Instagram and TikTok. These pass away, but every walk of love and every step in the direction God has called you is eternal. Christ died for the lost too, so we have work to do.

   “We are a culture of Christ, so we do as Christ does.”

   • 1 John 2:15-17

8. Let it go

   Stephen, as he was stoned, asked the Lord not to hold the sin against his killers, and Jesus on the cross asked the Father to forgive those who crucified Him. The battle is not ours, it is the Lord's. Whenever the thought of what someone did comes back, cast it down and forgive them. If you want an open heaven over you, whatever it was and whoever it was, let it go.

   “If you want to have this open heaven above, then you let it go.”

   • 2 Corinthians 10:5
   • Acts 7:60
   • Luke 23:34
   • 2 Chronicles 20:15

In this message