Relate Community Church
Relate Community Church
Triggered and Trapped | Week 4
Get Free
Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling, and slander, along with every form of malice. Ephesians 4:31
…forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:31-32
Forgiveness is the key that unlocks you from the trap of an offense.
Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?” No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!” Matthew 18:21-22
Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt. “That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.” Matthew 18:32-35
1. Forgiveness is not saying it's OK.
Forgiveness is not saying it’s ok, it’s saying you don't owe me.
2. Forgiveness is not a feeling .
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:21
Forgiveness isn’t a feeling, it’s a Decision.
3. Forgiveness is not Forgetting.
Forgiveness is remembering what Jesus did for you and offering the same to others.
4. Forgiveness is not the same as Trust.
5. Forgiveness is not dependent on someone saying I'm sorry.
Forgiveness only requires one person, while reconciliation requires
two or more.
6. Forgiveness is not fair.
He [God] does not treat us as our sins deserve… Psalm 103:10
Forgiveness is: The Word Release or Let Go.
Challenge:
1. Accept God’s forgiveness and follow Jesus.
2. Offer forgiveness and be free.
Discussion Questions:
What’s a small thing that easily irritates you - social media comments, traffic, jokes that hit wrong? Why do those little offenses stick to us?
The outline says “bitterness comes from an offense.” Why do you think it’s so hard to notice bitterness taking root until it’s already producing fruit?
How does the parable of the unforgiving servant challenge the way we think about justice and fairness?
How does receiving God’s forgiveness first make it possible to extend forgiveness to others?
What would it look like for you this week to take one step toward releasing an offense—small or big?
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Let's see. It's my fault, my fault, all right. Good morning everybody and welcome to church. Welcome to Relate. I'm glad you're here, and if you are home today, you're back at home at your home church, then I'm excited that you're here. If you're a guest, then it means the world to us that you're right here in this room, or I'm going to look right into the camera and let those people watching online who have clicked and joined us today, let you know that it means so much to us that we can connect and worship God together. If you're in the room today, would you put your hands together and welcome everybody who's online and let them know that they are not alone. You are not alone, and so very, very, very awesome stuff happening around the church and around the building.
Speaker 1:I think it's been awesome to see the small groups getting kicked off this week. Angela and I have loved being we try to go to all of them. I wish we could, but there was a time in our life when that was possible. We could just go to all the small groups, but right now, 36 different small groups to pick from. This morning we were having a tough time just picking out the men's or the women's or the kids' ones, and I think our next session we're going to have to have them split out so that you can find your ones to be a part of. So get connected this week.
Speaker 1:I have to say something before we begin the message today. I feel like it's amazing when we're in a series, series kind of happen differently. I've always felt like no matter what series we're in, no matter what direction we're going in, I really seek God to try and figure out what do you want to say to us today, god, whether it's changing passages and changing direction. Sometimes I edit my sermons right up until maybe the night or the morning before I step out here and I feel like God, I hear you going this way and so we'll make. Sometimes it's right in the middle of the message, especially sometimes you might come from first. Sometimes people go to both services and they say I was shocked at how different they were, and sometimes it just changes from moment to moment. Right, I want to know where God wants us to be, but it's incredible when the series line up with like I feel like this is exactly what we need to hear and the Lord was speaking to us and leading us, our team in the direction of just studying my Bible and looking for what God wants to say months ago in preparation for the series, and today is one of those messages where I feel like we need to hear, we need to listen, and the Holy Spirit is speaking right to where we are, as not just right here locally in our church, but literally around the world and around the nation, with what is just so much unrest, so much people coming against each other, people offended at other people, people carrying and charging into battle against each other with bitterness and hatred, and I think it's so important that the church is listening to where God is speaking. And so today I would encourage you to go ahead and get your Bibles out. Go ahead.
Speaker 1:We are a note-taking church and so pull out your notes. How many of you in the room have your little note binder that? We have a bunch of them in the foyer. If you don't hold it up, let's see one right here. We got Mel. You've got your right here on the second row, awesome.
Speaker 1:So some of you are saying what are you talking about Out in the foyer? We want to give you the binders. We don't talk about them a lot. I just say, bring out your notes, but you can take notes on your phone or paper. I love writing my notes because it sticks better, it stays longer when I'm writing scriptures and the ideas that God is giving me and the little notes that the Holy Spirit's saying this and this and this, and I'm writing all that in my notes. It clicks in my brain better. So it's already paid for. You don't have to pay for them. We want to just provide those to you and so that you can walk out of here stronger and more mature and walking in the right direction.
Speaker 1:So we're talking about offenses. The whole series Trapped, triggered and Trapped week number four has been about what it looks like to be offended, and it's not just because somebody said something about your mama or somebody said something that hurt your feelings. This is life hurts our feelings. Life has a way of damaging and triggering and making us. We get wounded in our hearts, we get heartbroken, we carry around the things that happen to us, and this series is about how do we address that. And this week, as I was preparing, I just I thought I don't just get offended, but I, like you, I offend people. Sometimes I feel like I do that for a living because I stand up on stage and whatever I say, I feel like sometimes I say one thing and half of the people that are listening will be offended, based on it could just be that I like chocolate or I don't like chocolate. Then everybody who does like chocolate you know what I'm saying. It's like you can't win for losing.
Speaker 1:But I thought back, in particular when I just just become an associate pastor I was already a youth pastor, but I was probably thinking this morning, 23 or 24. And I was asked to do a funeral for an elderly gentleman and his wife and family were going to attend. It was like a spur of the moment thing and I did not know them. They were strangers to attend. It was like a spur of the moment thing and I did not know them. They were strangers to me and to our church, and so I stepped in and tried to meet them and get to know them and just something really weird and crazy happened during the middle of the funeral. I caused an offense because of my own ignorance or my inexperience, or I just didn't know, and so I thought I was safe and that this would be pretty standard and I pulled out my New King James version of the Bible and I start reading a verse that I think this is.
Speaker 1:This is what this is. The everybody knows this verse. It'll be the Lord is my shepherd, psalm 23,. The Lord is my shepherd. And every version starts off the same Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want Many of you could quote it today, but it's when you get to that second line that the versions kind of separate a little bit. And so he makes me lie down in green pastures, as the New King James, the King James Version, says. He maketh me lie down.
Speaker 1:And so the wife of the husband who had passed stood right up in the middle of the funeral, and every time I got to the point where the King James and the New King James varied, she would correct me, and so I would be. He makes me, she would stand right up and maketh me. And I thought, oh man, I thought I'm in trouble here because I don't know all the King James versions by heart and I don't have it in front of me. And so when I got, he leads me by, he leadeth me to, he leadeth me. He restores my, restoreth my soul. It was an obvious offense. And I not only had I heard her feelings. Now everybody in the room was offended and I was offended because she was correcting me. We were all offended at each other and I still had 30 minutes worth of funeral to do and I thought this is not going to be good. I'm not reading any more scriptures. There you go.
Speaker 1:I think sometimes we offend and can't help it. Sometimes it's just an inadvertent thing that we're not intentionally. I don't intend to hurt anyone's feelings. Sometimes I feel like I do intend to hurt a little bit. Sometimes I talk about how much better dogs are than cats and everybody who is a cat person in the room just gets very offended, and sometimes we get notes and letters. Pastor Sean, how dare you talk about my cat? Listen, I've talked about cats and in good fun I'm just being in good humor and trying to make a joke. But I can say this that I grew up with cats and dogs and so I have kind of an authority to know that cats are not as good as dogs. So if you're a cat person in the room, then the point is Jesus said that we it's impossible that offenses won't come Like. Offenses are going to come whether we want them to or not.
Speaker 1:So this series is about. How do we whether it's something someone says, or you're on the freeway and someone cuts you off and you take offense, and how dare they? Or it's on social media and somebody makes just a random comment and it just hits you wrong, or you know they intended to hurt feelings and they were just trolling, and then you're going to get them back. Or somebody at work says something or does something or doesn't do something, and you get passed over or skipped or forgotten All the things that trigger us. The point of this series is that the trigger when we pick up that offense, it's a bait to a trap that will capture us or kill us and we have to choose whether or not we're going to take the bait. When you take the bait, then something happens in your heart and that is that bitterness takes root. It'd be great to just step over the offense with love. That's what we talked about week number one.
Speaker 1:But when we don't do that, when we pick up the offense and it takes root in our heart, what does it mean? What does the Bible mean by the root of bitterness? Well, I think it means that number one it's hard to get rid of once it's in you, once you've taken it, it's like a plant that puts it's not just like, okay, I'll just get rid of it, no, it's like it's rooted there. It lives there. Now, not only does it live there, and not only is it rooted and hard to get rid of, but it produces fruit. It produces other things that are much worse than the original offense. And so when we allow bitterness in, it's creating things Much worse things than bitterness come from the offense. That's just the root of it. So let's look at Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 31. You can open your Bibles and it's gonna be on the screen.
Speaker 1:Paul says get rid of bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. This verse alone. If you go open the social media, if you go open the news right now, this is what you see. How do I just get rid of it? Okay, I picked up the offense, I've carried the offense, it's got a root. Now what do I do about it?
Speaker 1:It's really difficult to undo it. There's some things that you cannot undo, some things that don't just like oh, I made a mistake, let me but let me revert, let me hit back on my computer Undo, undo, undo. Some things you can't undo. 20 years ago I accidentally put gasoline in my diesel truck the first diesel truck I ever had. I pulled up to the pump. You cannot put diesel in a gasoline car because the pump doesn't fit. But they don't do that for the other way around. I put one gallon in there. It didn't run the same until I got it fixed. But it takes a lot to undo a thing. Once it's in there, you get bitterness in your heart. It starts clogging up everything. It starts gumming up things. It starts making you think differently.
Speaker 1:We talked about this last week and the first week we talked about the small offenses social media, something someone says and this thing. But it actually goes beyond that. Some offenses are so big it feels like they're impossible to step over. Some things are nationwide, some things are like family-wide, church-wide. They feel like they're so big they eclipse everything. It's not just some little comment that someone said off the top of their head and you know they didn't really mean to hurt your feelings, but you're going to let them know anyway. This is not that. Those things are kind of well, they didn't really mean bad and they're probably in a hurry on the road. But some things feel like this is so big, I can't just let it go. How do I get over? Maybe it's something political school shootings, violence.
Speaker 1:We come to a place where it's like this is an imp. I don't know how to step over this. I don't know how to think the best of them. I don't know how to see them, how God sees them. What I see is this impasse of an offense that's so big Maybe you've been a part of a betrayal or an affair or an abuse or a situation that this is life-changing and it's in your face and it's on you whether you want it and it's against your will. That's the kind of thing today I think we have to unpack and talk about, because I don't think there's a difference. I think there's bigger things and smaller things.
Speaker 1:But what God's asking from us? To get rid of all bitterness and rage and anger and brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Maybe it was lost innocence or something that happened in your childhood. Maybe it was something that never should have happened, a catastrophic event that has marked you for the rest of your life, sometimes money things and health things and career things. The thing is, you decide, we have to decide. Do I want to be free from this or do I want to continue to hang on to the root that has rooted itself in my heart? So the scripture of Ephesians says get rid of it. But then it tells us how to get rid of it. And I'm just going to give you a forewarning right now. Elbow your neighbor and say get ready, warning, you're not going to like the answer. The answer how do we get rid of these things? It goes on in verse 32. It says forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. I understand that's not the answer we want. I don't know if I like that, pastor Sean. That's nope, I don't like it. I've decided I don't care for that.
Speaker 1:Forgiveness is not one of those things that whenever I say, all right, everybody, we're going to forgive, and everybody says yes, forgiveness. Write it in your notes, then fill in the blanks with this that forgiveness is the key that unlocks you from the trap of an offense. What you would like to hear me say is revenge is the key. Everybody. We talked about revenge in week two. Revenge, making things fair, being a warrior for justice I like that Sounds good, that just resonates with me. Revenge, I could do that or week three. We talked about ignoring and pretending like I'm not hurt and not being able to recognize. We could get with that. Ignoring is the key, everybody. If you can just ignore it, then it's not there. Let's practice how we can ignore. That feels like it would be productive, right, but the reality of things is the only key that unlocks that trap of offense is only one and it's forgiveness. Forgiveness is the key and we don't love the idea. We like the idea of being forgiven, but forgiving is a totally different thing.
Speaker 1:I want to show you in the scripture what Jesus in fact. Jesus talks about forgiveness a lot. Jesus continues in preaching and in teaching and growing the disciples. He talks to them about forgiveness over and over and over again. And Peter at this point I think he thinks he's got it To me. I'm reading into it a little bit, but it's almost like Peter is. He's almost like the teacher's pet right here, and I'll show you why he's looking for a gold star.
Speaker 1:Then Peter came to him and asked Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? And then he says seven times. I almost imagine he's smiling and he's like seven times. Right, jesus? Because in the Jewish tradition. There's a tradition that says not only if you've offended someone, they get to ask three times for forgiveness, and you have to forgive them three times. And so I think it's almost like Peter is saying okay, I'll just double that six, then we'll add one seven. If I say seven times, right, jesus, that's how many times we should forgive people? Like it's almost like he's going above and beyond what's expected. And yet Jesus' response to him is shocking, because Jesus tells him no, not seven times, but 70 times seven. In other words, you thought you were just aiming high, but really this is like an un, you shouldn't be counting how many times you're forgiven. It's not like we get 70 times seven, 490 times. It's not like you get to 490 times I forgave them and say nope, not 491. I will not do it. Jesus is saying you shouldn't be counting, like forgive with no limit.
Speaker 1:And then, right after he has this interaction with Jesus, with Peter, it's like Jesus, so I've got to unpack this a little bit for you. So Jesus tells them a story, he gives them a parable and starts showing them a picture of what forgiveness looks like. And we get this parable of a servant and a king, and the king calls the servant in because he owes him a lot of money. And the Bible says that he owes 10,000 talents, and so if you look up what 10,000 talents equates to in today's money, it's like up to $100 billion. So this servant owes an unpayable amount of money. And so the king says you owe this money. You pay now or I'll have to take it out of you. And so the servant begins to cry and beg and plead forgive me, I can't pay this back. Have mercy, have mercy. And the king says, okay, I'll give you mercy, you won't owe anything. And just as he's let go free and forgiven of a debt he could never have paid back, he walks out of the courthouse, walks out of the king's throne room and he sees someone by chance that owes him $100.
Speaker 1:It says that he goes to this man, grabs him by the neck and demands that he pay him or he'll beat him or have him thrown in prison. Now witnesses see this happen, go back and tell the king. And the king responds as Jesus tells the story in verse 32, matthew 18, 32. It says then the king called in the man who he had forgiven and said you, evil servant, I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you? Then the angry king sent the man to prison. Now I get to tell you this is one of the scariest verses in the New Testament, because this is Jesus giving us the picture of what our lives look like. He says the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid off his entire debt.
Speaker 1:And then Jesus says that's what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart. That should be a collective gasp from all of us, because of the expectation that God has on us. Is not just hey, would you just forgive them? Hey, would you just forgive them for your own sake, so that you'll feel better? True, but what he's actually saying is if you don't forgive like I forgave you, then I won't forgive you. If you refuse to forgive, you will not be forgiven. The implications are devastating if we refuse to forgive because a debt was paid for us. Jesus hung on a cross to pay for us sins that we could never imagine paying for. Each of us owes a debt, and then we turn right around and hold a grudge and hold a debt against someone who owes us nothing.
Speaker 1:Cs Lewis said this that everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have someone to forgive, until it comes until I actually have to forgive someone. Sure, that's a beautiful idea, it's very poetic, it's the right thing to do. And yet why do we hang on to the grudges and the offenses so? Really quickly, I'm going to give you the reasons why I think we don't forgive. Like, we understand the implications, we see the balance of judgment, we see that it affects us, but why don't we forgive? Here's why I think it's because we don't know what forgiveness really looks like. I think we have a picture of forgiveness and I think that picture is wrong. We have a wrong idea of it. So here we go. I'm going to give you six of them pretty quickly. You can write them down.
Speaker 1:Number one forgiveness is not saying it's okay. We don't forgive because we think we have to say what you did is okay. That's not forgiveness, in fact, if it was, for Jesus never said that our sin was okay. He forgave us. In fact, when you see the woman that was accused of adultery and Jesus is asked what are you going to do, teacher? And then he ends up all of them end up walking away and cast the first stone. And then what do you remember? What he tells the woman? He says and then what do you remember? What he tells the woman? He says your sins are forgiven, go and sin no more. All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Every single one of us have not reached up and attained, achieved a pleasing, acceptable justification before the Lord. And he didn't say it was okay, he just forgave us.
Speaker 1:So when it comes to the other people around us, forgiveness is not saying it's okay, it's saying you don't owe me. So when I forgive you, I can say I don't agree with what you did, but you don't owe me anything. And for each of us, I'm sure, even in this room or in each heart, there are countless marks against us from the times that we lied, the times that we didn't live up to God's standard, the times that we stole, the times that we lived in opposition to his desire for us. Maybe it was an affair, maybe you cheated on this or that or relationship. We looked at things we shouldn't have looked at. We participated in things that we shouldn't have participated in. We opened porn or hurt someone or did something that we never even knew hurt them, but we still created an offense. Forgiveness is not saying it's okay, it's saying you don't owe me.
Speaker 1:Number two forgiveness is not a feeling. So if you're waiting for that, you know what? I'm just not ready to forgive right now. Just give me a minute, just give me a little while. Maybe when things settle down, when things calm down, when things aren't as hot as they are right now, I'll have a chance to get, I'll have a chance to calm down and then we'll think about it. The problem with that is several problems with that. The first problem is that Jesus didn't wait until he felt better to forgive the people on the cross. He's hanging on the cross saying Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Not only that, some of the people that only that, some of the feelings that you're waiting on may never come.
Speaker 1:Forgiveness isn't a feeling, it's a decision. The decision to forgive someone is actually the first step, because positive feelings tend to follow forgiveness, and we're waiting on the feelings before we get to forgiveness, before we're willing to go ahead and let someone have forgiveness. But lots of things follow forgiveness. I wish we had time to unpack them all, but there's lots of medical evidence. Johns Hopkins said this. Universities and hospitals have studies that prove that people who forgive report using less medications, sleeping better, less illness, less physical complications, lowering the risk of heart attack, improving cholesterol levels and better sleep, reducing pain. It goes on and on. Blood pressure, down the levels of anxiety, depression and stress, just because of forgiveness. So there's this thing that we do in our heart that affects our body. There's a thing that we do that we decide to do in our heart and it affects the way I feel. It affects a lot of the areas of my life, but we can't wait on the circumstances and feelings to line up before we decide to do it.
Speaker 1:Number three forgiveness is not forgetting or ignoring. Now, this is not quite the same as we talked about in week three, but this is where yeah, well, I guess I'll just forget that you did that. No, that's not. Forgiveness is not saying I'm going to pretend like you didn't do it. Forgiveness is not you reformatting your brain and erasing the part that remembers what they did. It's God's not asking you to be their best friend now and then go and like everything on their Facebook page. Forgiveness is not forgetting what they did. It's remembering what Jesus did and then doing that for other people. I think people who struggle to forgive actually struggle to remember what Jesus did for them. That's why it's so important that we remember and that we remind ourselves who he is and what he did, and who we are because of it. Number four Are y'all with me? Okay, here we go.
Speaker 1:Number four of six halfway there, forgiveness is not the same as trust. Just because you forgive someone does not mean that you have to trust them and bring them closer to you and start letting them back into your personal space to be abused again. Forgiveness is given, but trust and mistrust is earned. It's something that they have to earn, and there are people that I've forgiven that I will probably never trust again. Number five forgiveness is not dependent on someone saying I'm sorry, I don't need to wait until they ask for it. It's not something that has to be reciprocated.
Speaker 1:This is not a two-sided thing. Forgiveness can just be a one-sided thing. I forgive you and even if that person that you need to forgive is no longer on this planet maybe they've already passed, maybe they're already gone you can still forgive them and we think, well, I can't forgive them because I can't make that right. No, you can make it right in your own heart, because if you're waiting on someone to say I'm sorry again, you're waiting on something that might likely never come. I think of it this way forgiveness only requires one person, but reconciliation requires two or more. We don't have to be on even footing. I can give you forgiveness, whether you want it, ask for it, deserve it. And the proof is that God didn't wait for you to say sorry to send Jesus to die on a cross. He sent him While we were still sinners. He died for us. That doesn't mean I'm reconciled to him right away, because I still have to come. I still have to surrender my life to him. I have to follow Jesus.
Speaker 1:Finally, number six forgiveness is not fair. You maybe you're sitting in your chair thinking right now well, pastor John, everything you said sounds good, it's beautiful, I love it. Right now. Well, pastor John, everything you've said sounds good, it's beautiful, I love it. But it's just not fair. True, it's not fair. If forgiveness was always fair, then God would not have forgiven me and he would not have forgiven you.
Speaker 1:Forgiveness is not fair. Psalm 103.10 says God does not treat us as our sins deserve, and thank God he doesn't. Because if it was for what we all deserve, what do we deserve? We deserve judgment, we deserve hell, we deserve to be put out and we don't deserve mercy or grace or anything else he gave us. We don't deserve the cross. We deserve to be on the cross. So what is forgiveness? I told you what forgiveness is not. I'll tell you what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is and this is not easy, but this is what it is. Forgiveness is release. It's this word release or let go. You have to let it go. You have to open your hand and let it go, because if you don't, it's killing you, it's hurting you, it's destroying you, it's creating bitterness and the bitterness is producing other fruit. So I want to share something from my past.
Speaker 1:When I was, I think, 10 years old or so, so growing up in my neighborhood. There were lots of little kids in my neighborhood. We used to go out in the summertime and knock on every door that we knew where all the kids were, and there would be 20, 25 other kids just running up and down the neighborhoods and we were having a blast. Those are the good old days for me, having a blast. Those are the good old days for me, and I remember all the games we used to play, riding our bikes up and down the street, and we had to be home before the streetlights came on and I knew that my streetlight came on last so I could watch the other streetlights. Then you could argue with my mom that our light wasn't on yet. So we would ride up and down the streets trying to prove how strong we were, how much better we were than I was, than the other kids, and we would fight and wrestle and play war and tag and hide and climb up on top of the houses and all those just getting in trouble all the time. And I'm not very proud of this story, but it's something that we did. This is not it, but I'll just tell you One of like.
Speaker 1:Let's say, 20 kids would get on their bike and ride down the street. All the other kids would be lined up on both sides of the street throwing tennis balls and soccer balls and basketballs, trying to hit that front wheel. So the bike would flip and like it was violent. Thank you, it gets worse. We would take the tennis ball and my friend, one of us. We didn't have cell phones.
Speaker 1:Then, back in the old days, in the 1900s, we had someone got a stopwatch and so we would time each other on anything we could think of and we made up this game. It didn't last very long, but we all did it A rite of passage. We'd take a tennis ball They'd have the stopwatch ready and we'd take the tennis ball and we'd push it down into a fire ant bed and then each of us would have to grab the ball and whoever could hold it the longest with the stopwatch going all while the ants are crawling up and biting. And I remember going home and my mom was furious. You will never do this again. So we had to create other games, but it made me think of this.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we're holding on to a thing that is killing us, it's hurting us. It's like stupid, this stupid thing, but we're holding on to a thing that is killing us, it's hurting us. It's like stupid, this stupid thing, but we're holding on to it for what? To prove how strong we are, or that we're trying to hurt the other person, or that we're better than them, or that, for whatever reason, we're hanging on to something. Right now, you could say that that 10-year-old me was stupid for hanging on to fire ants and having to live with the results of it for probably weeks after. You can pretend like I'm strong, but then the moment I'm laying in bed at night I'm crying because I got all these fire ant bites all over me. But what about the things that you're holding on to? What about the things that you are held back and broken in your marriage because you won't let go of something that happened 10 years ago? You're hanging on to it. I will die on this hill. I have something to prove and your marriage will never be what it's supposed to be because you won't let go, you won't release it.
Speaker 1:The relationships around you, your career you can't move on because every time you've got this bitterness in you, your bosses see it, your co-workers see it. You can't be elevated, you can't be given a raise. You can't climb the ladder that you're trying to climb because other people around you can see they got something they're hanging on to. Maybe it's not the married, maybe there's some single people in the room. You go on dates. You're trying to build a relationship, you're trying to have a spouse and build a family. You just can't get past date one or two because every time you get in the room with someone, they sense this about you that you just got some bitterness going on. You're hanging on to this thing and you say, well, that's just my personality. Listen, it is not your personality, it's your pain and you got to let go of it because you're not hurting anybody but yourself.
Speaker 1:Someone once said that unforgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. You tried to release it. Maybe you thought I've been through this program. I tried to go. I tried to read a book, pastor Sean. I tried to go to, I did Oprah's Book Club and I went to yoga and I went to work out and I started doing this and I got on a diet and I tried all the things to make me not feel bitter and to help me let go and to help me forgive.
Speaker 1:But there's only one key to getting out of the trap. There's only one key. What's the key? Some of y'all said forgiveness. Like it's a question, like I'm telling you the answer is forgiveness. It's the one key that will open up the trap that has held you. It's the one key. And so maybe today is the day where your marriage takes a step and you let go of that unforgiveness and you start saying, okay, I'll forgive you. You start looking around at your life and realizing there's some things you need to let go of, you need to release, and God can help you do that. Today I want you to watch Lisa's story. I know it's going to help you.
Speaker 3:I grew up in an emotionally and physically abusive household. My mother was incredibly emotionally violent and then my father was detached. He was an alcoholic. I never knew what I was going to come home to. I never knew what I was going to come home to. I never knew what he was going to come home like. You know, what was so amazing is I still wanted a relationship with my father when I had children. I began to think maybe now my father will engage. And I remember there was a time period where John and I loaded up our four boys and we drove all the way down to go see my father, knocked on the door and my father didn't answer and there was just this little note and he said I'm sorry, I changed my mind. I don't want to see you guys. I was like God. You know, I feel like I am utterly and completely fatherless, not because I don't have a father, but because my father doesn't want anything to do with me or with us. He said your dad has let go of any right to be your father. He said but, baby girl, if you need something, you just call out to me. And at that point my expectations for my father changed. I was no longer looking for him to be what he couldn't be to me because I was getting that from my heavenly father.
Speaker 3:A year before my father died, my oldest son and I went and visited him. He was in an alcohol-related dementia center and I thought what do I say to this man who is on the edge of eternity? And this is what I heard Tell him he was a good dad. I thought, no, no, I'm not telling somebody on the threshold of death a lie. He was not a good dad, I'm not telling that. And I heard him again. The Holy Spirit said Lisa, he was as good as he knew how to be. Tell him he was a good dad.
Speaker 3:So I grabbed a hold of my dad's hands and I brought him up. You know, between us, I had full attention and I looked him in the eyes and said dad, you were a good dad. He began to shake. It was like a thousand volts of electricity shot through that Sicilian man where he's weeping and crying, and he formed the only two words he spoke the entire time we were there. He kissed the back of my hands and he said thank you. And when he said thank you, my dad wept and cried over my hands and nodded as my son prayed him into eternity and we put him to bed that night, and that was the last time that I ever got to see him.
Speaker 3:I don't know who it is you're afraid to love. I don't know if it's a father, I don't know if it's a mother, I don't know if it's a brother or somebody that violated you, but I'm just going to tell you that you will never, ever regret forgiving other people. None of us deserve the mercy we get. We all deserve judgment, and yet God gives us mercy. So how can we do anything less for others? Be courageous and love and forgive.
Speaker 1:I believe that God can help us to release today. I think he can help us to let go and to walk into freedom. So I'm going to ask you to do something, challenge you a little bit today. And it starts with this card right in the seat back in front of you, in the little pocket, there's this card. We have one for everyone, and I'd like you to just reach out there and take it and grab the pen. They're going to leave the lights down, but I think you can read it enough. It says god, this is a prayer that we're going to pray together.
Speaker 1:God, I've held on to unforgiveness against. And then there's this blank line where you're going to write someone's name. Maybe it's more than one person's name. The prayer says I'm asking you to give me the strength to forgive them so I can be free from the trap of offense. My unforgiveness is making me bitter and holding me back from the future you want for me and my family. Today I choose to forgive, and then it says same blank again. You can write their name there again, the same way. You've forgiven me. That's the step God wants us to take. So I am challenging you to write at least one person's name in that blank.
Speaker 1:I think there's a good chance that there's some people in the room who you need to forgive someone close to you. Maybe it's someone you haven't spoken to for so long. Maybe it's someone that you can't speak to. It might also be that you need to forgive yourself for something you did, that you've been holding an offense, not giving yourself any credit or any mercy or any grace because of what you did. God has already offered forgiveness long ago. There might be someone in the room and you just need to forgive God. You've blamed God for so many things and you've run away and in your heart, you know that there needs to be a reconciliation. So I'm going to just challenge you to write those names down in the next few moments, not saying that what they did was okay. Not saying that you feel like forgiving them. You're not forgetting it. You don't have to trust them. They don't deserve it. They haven't earned it. This level, this decision to forgive it doesn't change the past, but it finally frees you to have a future. It takes the key of forgiveness and unlocks the trap and the bitterness and the root that has been creating all kinds of bad fruit and holding you back from where God made you to be. So here's what these practical steps look like.
Speaker 1:With this card, we're going to do a couple things. Number one I'm challenging you to accept God's forgiveness and follow Jesus. That's the first step. If you've never done that, we're going to say a prayer in a moment. I don't think that you can give something you've never done that. We're going to say a prayer in a moment. I don't think that you can give something you've never experienced receiving. So if you're like I don't know how to give that, I don't know what that means, then I'm going to just encourage you to receive the free gift of salvation and forgiveness that God offers all of us through Jesus Christ. We'll say that prayer in a moment and then after that, I'm challenging you to offer forgiveness and be free. So here's what we'll do. We're gonna say that prayer together right now.
Speaker 1:So, right where you're sitting, I'll just invite you to close your eyes and if you've never surrendered your life to a heavenly father that loves you more than anything, he's not asking you to prove how much you love. He just says my gift of life is free. Jesus paid for it on the cross with his blood and his life. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. You just have to follow Jesus. You just have to surrender your life. Give him your life, and so we'll do that with this prayer.
Speaker 1:Right now, would you say this out loud with me, everybody in the room, those who are watching online, would you just say dear God, today I ask you to forgive me of my sin. Right now, I surrender my life to you. I ask you to make me free. Take out the bitterness, take out anger, take out malice, take out hatred. Take those things out of my heart. Make me a new creation. Breathe new life into me. From this moment forward, I choose to walk in forgiveness. I choose to follow your example In Jesus' name. Amen, amen, amen, amen.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna ask you to stand up on your feet and we're gonna worship for a moment, and while we worship, here's what I'm gonna ask you to do.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna ask you to take this card and as we worship, as we surrender our hearts to the Lord, I want you to just walk down here and take that person's name. You didn't have to write your name anywhere on it, it's just. It's an anonymous thing and they'll all be taken care of, they'll all be destroyed. But I just want you to take this down as a symbol to God that I'm not walking out of here the way I came in and I'm not taking this offense with me. I'm walking out of here the way I came in and I'm not taking this offense with me. I'm walking out of here free from this trap. I want you to walk down here during the next few minutes and just put this card right here at the altar and leave it in God's hands. I believe that that not only will bring you freedom, but it will take the route and allow you to walk in forgiveness. But let's just take a moment of freedom and worship the Lord.
Speaker 2:Let's worship the Lord. I'm gonna lift my hands Till I can be and I'm gonna shout your name Till the walls collapse. I come to worship. I come to worship, and there's no one that can bring me peace, that can wash me clean, like you. But you know, there's nothing in this world that can free me. You saved my soul. I'm gonna lay to my end Till I can breathe, and then I'm gonna shout your name Till the walls are falling down.
Speaker 2:I've come to worship. I've come to worship. I'm gonna sing my song Like I am unashamed. I'm gonna shout for joy song. I've come to worship. There's no one that can bring me peace, that can wash me clean like you, lord. There's nothing in this world that can free me. You saved my soul. I'm gonna lift my hands Till I can reach heaven. I'm gonna shout your name Till the walls come falling down. I've come to worship. I've come to worship. I've come to worship, and I'm gonna sing my song like I am on a chain. I'm gonna shout for joy at the mention of your name. I've come to worship. I've come to worship. I come to worship, amen.
Speaker 1:I want us to continue our worship, but I want us to just take a moment and approach the table of the Lord with the communion elements that you got on your way in. If you don't have them right now, then if you just raise your hand up, the ushers will be. They'll come right down and make sure that you have them. But here's the thing I think for us to truly walk in forgiveness, I think we have to truly embrace what was done for us. We have to remember, we have to continue to remind ourselves. I know what he did for me. I know that I am unworthy, I know that I can never earn the gift that he gave us, but I'm going to hold on to it like it means something and I'm going to follow his example and I'm going to freely give as I have freely received. So would you just take this cup and this bread? Would you just peel back that top layer and take the bread? And Jesus, with the disciples, knew that they would need to continue to remember why we're doing all this and what it looked like to lay down their life over and over. Forgiveness is a type of laying down your life. That this is not my opinion, not my preference. This doesn't make me feel good. In fact, this is me taking up my cross, saying I don't like this, but I'm going to follow his example. It doesn't feel good, it's the last thing I want to do, but I'll do it and I'll forgive because I want to be like him. So would you take the bread? And just as Jesus told the disciples, this is my body that's broken for you, body that's broken for you, I want you to take the bread and remember his body that was beaten and bruised. They put the crown of thorns on his head and nailed his hands to that cross, hurled insults at him and cursed him. Would you take the bread and remember his body that was broken for you. Thank you, jesus. In the same way he took the cup, he said this is my blood that was poured out for the remission of your sins. And as he hung there and the blood dripped out of his body and drained out of his body and they pierced his side so that we could have life, when God sees us, he doesn't see all the terrible things that we've done and thought and didn't do. What he sees is just the blood of his son. So would you take this cup and drink it in remembrance Now. Would you just give thanks right now. Thank you, jesus. I remember the cost you paid.
Speaker 1:Today, god, we remember the sacrifice that was given for us and we proclaim that we will not walk in unforgiveness. We will not walk around with our head held high and a chip on our shoulder like we're owed something, and we'll not be the unforgiving and the unmerciful servant. But, god, we want to be servants that are free. We want to be servants that are free. We want to be people that are free. We want to be people that walk in humility and know that we don't deserve the grace that you gave us. So, lord, help us to keep that at the forefront of our mind today as we walk out of this place and remember what an incredible gift you have given each of us. So, god, as we have received freely, let us give that same forgiveness and let's walk in freedom.
Speaker 1:Today. Can we put our hands together for Jesus today? Come on, I'm going to invite the prayer team to join me at the front. If you want to pray with someone before you leave about any issue, about anything, then I would invite you to come down. Otherwise, I love you guys and I'm excited about the fall and all the things that are coming. I'll see you next week. Have a blessed week.