HOLD IT

SUNDAY SERVICE

 SERMON:

                         HOLD IT

 INTRO :  It is easy to go through life and feel embarrassed. And because of such embarrassment, it also easy to feel like throwing out something to compensate for your bad feelings. You feel you should throw out a word at someone, you feel you should throw off the relationship, you feel you should throw off the patience. 

There is something that happens behind the scene that we never know about. And if we knew it, we would understand the power of holding it to our selves.

 PROB : The problem we have is that we want to seek for compensation in short times, for revenge within no times...and never want to hold reactions for long.

 PURP:  To enable us hold our emotions and anxieties in a world of intolerance.

      >>> Christ was a man who faced a lot of persecution. He was always sought for by his enemies. They wanted him dead at all cost. Reaching a point of shamelessly paying one of his disciple to betray Him showed the extent at which they had hated him. He , himself also found hard time to convince his disciples to build a stronger belief wand. They occasionally doubted him and the power he had. 

But regardless of all these, he held his inner man and emotion and delt with his environment the way it was. 

🔶SEEK TO LIVE AT PEACE WITH EVERYONE

📜 Romans 14:19 Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.

📜 Roman12: 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.

   One of the most important responsibility as chritians is the responsibility of living at peace with all people. Peaceful mean that even when there is a possibility of having war, you hold it. It means that even when there is a possibility of starting a quarrel , you hold it. There is a lot of trash that lies in human beings that at one button push, a whole world of no-sense could be released. Being different individuals means that there is alot of things that are very different from each of us. You may like white rice and someone else doesn't want White rice. You may like your color but someone else doesn't want your colour. There are people who have said they never like brown people. And to them, whenever they speak with Brown people, they will see faults all over. It is easy for them to start a quarrel with brown people than with dark. And if you ever know you are brown, you have a task to hold peace with them.

There are many people that will come up to entice you into war. They will say very annoying words. They will act in anoying manners. They do all sorts of things to bring you to levels of war. You have to stand up and say to your heart, "hold the peace...it's a beautiful day". 

🔶DON'T EXPECT MORE THAN THEY OFFER

And because we live with all sorts of people, there is always a weak part of us that tends to expect more from others. Because you married the spouse you really loved, your weak part makes very many expectations. You want them to be humble. You want to them to always say"thanks" , whenever you give them something. You want them to be clean. And the day you wake up only to realize ; what has destroyed the scent in the house is the scent of your spouse - due to serial skips on baths , you will BLOW. You will become a caterpillar... ready to eat somebody in the house. You will want them to understand you and do what you really want.

Because you needed them at a given time and they never turned up at the very time, you want to set a pase for war. You expected more. A relative of mine met a covert at school at one time. They were happy to see themselves after a long time of over 10 years of not seeing each other. My relative asked her why she has taken such long without ever turning up for fellowship besides her address not being reachable. She said, "I only had one problem with your church. We were praising ,and after praising, the leader told us to get out of the church that they needed to pray. He said it rudely. But we got out. And from then I hated going to the church under his leadership." So the convert left church just like that. And what we came to know was that the leaders were reporting their fasting hours and needed privacy according to them. Misinterpretation and over expectations drove out  the soul .

  Relationship turn into missed calls just because of expectations that we have. The self in you is not the self in someone else. They will always be a time they will do what is contradicting yours. There will be a time when they do what is truely and properly annoying. But one thing to always do is to hold it. Learn to hold your reactions. Learn to drive your mind. Learn to go slow at the speedy roads in a relationship.

🔶UNDERSTAND REASON AND NATURE

📜John 2 :25 But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. 25 He did not need man’s testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man.

Many times we react so brutally at something simply because we have not understood the reason behind something. You called someone and they didn't pick up the call. You waited for someone and they never turned up. And what you do is to draw your own brutal conclusions about the matter. "He didn't pick the call because he thinks am broke." 

The spouse you got married with has given you hard time lately. You are always pissed because of the loud voices they rise to impose their facts onto you. They speak in high volume to emphasize their point. You occasionally get angry and freaked out because of the irritative behavior. A friend promised and delayed, and whole world of brutality is created. I phoned John, a friend of mine . Just after two minutes he went silent and never replying the hellos. I was a bit nervous and got the call on end. But what came straight to my mind was that he is not willing to answer my question. I thought I wasted my time. I knew the call had turned out to be a mess. I called again and he never picked up the call. I definitely knew friendship was done. But while I was writing, I knew I needed to hold the many thoughts, I phoned again for the third time. He told me he had someone to urgently talk to and kinda drew from the phone. That trashed the scores ...and ties continued. I later wondered why I even had such thoughts...and so quickly drawing lines and conclusions. But the problem was that I was expecting more than what was on menu for the day... and also, I never sought for the reason in the first place. Over reacting and drawing your own wrong picture can stir you from staged paths

Many have gotten angry and many have fallen by anger. Many marriages have fallen by emotional reason. We are naturally bound to being angry. But what does anger mean to you.?

A man at Cambridge University by the name Hull once said that anger is as important as happiness   but what differentiates is that anger gets out of hand quickly.

Understand the reason and understand human nature. Christ didn't entrust himself to them because he simply knew the human nature. He knew what was in man. Human nature wants to protect man. They will lie just to protect themselves. Human nature is selfish. They can mean to be greedy even when you thought they should give. You should hold it and let peace prevail.

🔶MASTER YOUR EMOTIONS

You have to know your strongest emotions and your weakest emotions. You have to know what makes you very happy and what makes you so sad. You have to master the art of anger. If you can ever know yourself very well, you will always find peace even in the dark. You will not find it a threat whene someone throws a word at you that needs you to respond. You will not find it crooked for someone to quarrel at you. 

If there is any war, always know you are responsible. You have played a part. There can't be war if you decided to move away. But mere fact that you stayed is the fact that you contributed. 

It is better to master yourself than to try to show others what they should be doing. If they ever know that you control yourself better, they will realize they no not anything; they need to learn from you.

CONCLUSION

⚫ In the chaos of this world, your peace lies within you. You have the responsibility.

⚫ You have to hold the trash that seem lingering within - untouched...and deal with it later. Hold anger and negative thought.

⚫ Hold on for a better time to say, because within chaos and anger, lies the wild thoughts from hell.

⚫It is your responsibility to keep peace with everyone.

 GOD BLESS YOU.

By Simon Kutosi.

Sunday 25th Feb, 2024

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