Heroes Take Out the Trash
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Ephesians 4:22-25
No one told me that I would have an endless mountain of trash waiting for me when I got married and had children. Seriously, like every single day! One day I came home later than usual and I noticed that my wife Tiffany had turned an Amazon box into a makeshift trash can next to our trash cans because both of our cans were full! “What is that?” I asked her. And she responded with “You need to take the trash out.” There’s no doubt about it - I’m the trash man at the Masters home. But, it won’t be long before I’ll have help from my son Liam.
Each of us comes to our present day reality from a past where we’ve made mistakes. We have all needed to “die” so the new creation in Christ could come alive within us. I don’t know about you, but the old me often tries to come back to life with all its old garbage in tow. Just like at my house, I’ve got to learn to take the trash out in my spirit every day. If I’m going to be the hero God has called me to be, I’ve got to make sure I regularly throw out my old villain ways.
I’ve got three helpful tips for throwing the trash out:
Pay attention. As a teenager, I simply ignored the trash in the kitchen. I only begrudgingly took it out when someone told me to. As an adult, I’ve learned to look for the trash. It won’t go out unless I decide to take it. A good sign that you and I are maturing in our relationship with Christ is when we begin to pay attention to what’s happening in and around us. It’s an excellent place to be when we begin to notice behaviors, attitudes, and sin that needs to be removed in our life before someone else has to tell us.
Get rid of it. It’s one thing to notice it; it’s another to do something about it. I think one thing a lot of men are guilty of is seeing something that offends God but deciding to leave it lying around. It’s like the guy who only takes the trash out when a guest is coming over or when it gets exceptionally disgusting. So many Christians live this way with sin. We hurry up and clean up because someone else might notice our mess if we don't. Or, we wait until it gets horrible before we decide to do something about it. We know it needs to be dealt with, but we delay dealing with it because we are spiritually lazy. Heroes are not lazy - they take initiative.
Put a new bag in the can. I’d take the trash out but not put a new bag in the can. I’d wait for someone else to do that and my wife would get so aggravated. She reminds me that we have six people in our home and guests over three nights a week usually. We need a new bag because more trash is on the way. Putting a bag in the can helps prepare us for what’s to come. It’s also a form of protection. The best way I can put a bag in my own can is to remain humble by submitting daily to the Holy Spirit and praying this simple but powerful prayer: “Search me. Expose me. Show me, Father, and help me see where I offend you. I want to remove whatever offends you from my life.”
Not a day goes by that I don’t notice something that needs to be thrown away. I’d rather throw it away today than to let it pile up for years and have to deal with it later. The more trash I have in my life, the more I show my kids it’s ok to live in supernatural filth. That’s not what I want to show them. I’m my kids’ hero right now, so I’m going to keep taking out the trash, so they know a real hero isn’t perfect, but he is responsible and consistent. I’m going from glory to glory, not garbage to garbage!
Bag it up and throw it out,
Pastor Jason