Latest / REZ CHURCH Podcast / SOUND MIND - Hope for Relational Wounds

Transcript

SOUND MIND - Hope for Relational Wounds · REZ CHURCH Podcast

0:00
I mean, I search for peace, I search for hope, I search for
0:06
love, and one day for release. God give me strength to accept
0:13
the things that I just cannot know.
0:18
And even when I lose control, I will not let you go.
0:30
Good morning. But if Daniel, I want to lead
0:33
pastors here at Res Church welcome.
0:35
We're in a series called Sound Mind.
0:37
This is week 4 and we're covering hope for relational
0:41
wounds today. Man, a while.
0:45
This is a couple years back now, before I was on staff, I was
0:48
just a volunteer at the church and I was standing in the, the
0:52
old church office at the time. And I was scrolling through this
0:54
big church survey we've done and I was looking, there's like
0:57
hundreds of of comments at the end of every response.
1:00
And so I was just kind of reading them all and I, and I
1:02
ran across one that was essentially criticizing the
1:06
preaching. Now, I don't really preach back
1:08
then, but I thought the preaching was really awesome.
1:11
And so I remember reading this and I was sending it was like
1:13
just me and a friend in the church office.
1:15
And so I remember not only reading it out loud to my
1:17
friend, but then like giving my honest opinion about that
1:23
opinion in a not so gentle way, very sarcastically, because, you
1:29
know, we were alone. So what I what I did not know at
1:32
the time is out of the hundreds of people that responded that
1:35
the person that had written that was sitting in the next room
1:38
listening to the whole conversation.
1:42
And I would not find that out for two years, two years, two
1:50
years that person would would harbor that that wound.
1:54
And it got more and more infected.
1:56
So much so that later when they finally came and talked to me,
1:58
they said that for two years they couldn't be in the same
2:02
room with me. And so it took about 10 minutes
2:07
at some point for them to explain and for me to apologize.
2:12
10 minutes. And instead of 10 minutes, they
2:15
spent two years hurting, two years of resentment, 2 years of
2:20
fake conversations in their head.
2:22
Y'all have never had any of those, right?
2:25
Two years of fostering and cultivating A relational wound
2:28
instead of healing. You know, when you, when you
2:32
take an offence or a wound, it creates a debt much like a
2:38
weight. If you've ever experienced it,
2:40
it feels like there's been weight added.
2:43
So today we're going to, we're going to discuss hope for
2:45
relational wounds. Any anyone here ever had a
2:47
conflict with anyone? I mean, not everyone raised
2:51
their hand, which is surprising to me because I just feel like
2:54
you're lying in church. I'm going to come up here and
3:00
bare my soul and wear a backpack.
3:02
At least you can do is be honest with me.
3:05
See, I think at some point this is everyone.
3:08
Everyone that is human has experienced not just one, but
3:11
probably more than one relational wounds.
3:15
I think it's a universal human problem.
3:17
And so we're actually going to investigate kind of this overall
3:19
question today of just how do we navigate a world in which people
3:23
are messy and life doesn't seem fair.
3:28
Now, you may have noticed, not so coincidentally, that when we
3:33
we we preached on hope for anxiety, it was Justin.
3:35
When we preached on hope for burnout, it was Nate.
3:37
Not that those guys have anything to, you know, special
3:40
to say about any of those things.
3:41
So why then did I get relational wounds?
3:45
Well, here's why this is a good topic.
3:47
I read this study recently and I thought this is this is
3:49
interesting. Most people will lose 5 to 7
3:54
significant relationships over the course of their life. 5 to 7
3:58
deep substantial relationships. But pastors lose on average five
4:03
to seven significant relationships per year.
4:09
Just think about how that adds up.
4:13
This is actually the nature of pastoral ministry.
4:15
Like here's the reality. When people leave the church,
4:17
they almost never leave for a good reason and they're really
4:20
messy about it and they never leave well.
4:22
Like it's super rare that someone leaves the church.
4:24
Well. And so normally what happens,
4:25
this is just human nature when they leave is they need to
4:28
demonize where they left because it helps them justify with their
4:31
decision. And so it always, almost always
4:34
is a very messy. And so pastors are just
4:37
frequently faced with relational loss and relational wounds at a
4:41
scale that very few people really have a parallel with.
4:45
I, I, I read somebody talked about like, how is it?
4:48
How does a, a pastor take those wounds and those offenses and
4:52
then turn around when that same person is having craziness in
4:55
their life and needs the pastor to go back in and love on them?
4:58
Like what? What does it take to do that?
5:01
Here's the thing. If pastors don't have a really
5:03
good handle on dealing with wounds, we aren't going to be in
5:06
ministry very long. And so today, we're going to
5:09
just take a look at this idea of just dealing with hurt.
5:13
It's that simple. It's just dealing with hurt
5:15
regardless of where it comes from.
5:16
And listen, can we all be honest?
5:18
It comes from a lot of different places.
5:22
Mark Clark says it this way, and I like this.
5:24
He says we are hurt by people. We are hurt by injustice.
5:27
We live in an ecosystem where people's actions, words,
5:31
behavior all matter to more than just them.
5:36
Listen, the reason that I know that you've had relational
5:39
wounds is because you live with other people.
5:41
And we are messy. We can be hurt in a lot of
5:45
different ways. But here's the crazy thing.
5:46
What you, what we can't do is we can't withdraw from community
5:51
and try to wall ourselves off so that no one can hurt us.
5:55
And, and there's a couple of you in here today that you got hurt.
5:58
And So what you did is you thought, man, if I withdraw
6:00
enough, no one can hurt me. But The thing is that you, you
6:04
have to risk being hurt in order to love.
6:07
That's actually what CS Lewis said.
6:09
He said to love at all is to be vulnerable.
6:12
Love anything and your heart will be possibly broken.
6:16
You can't wall yourself off from risk.
6:19
Here's what I'll tell you in pastoral ministry.
6:21
If I'm not willing to be hurt, I can't be your pastor.
6:27
If I'm not willing to love you, knowing that some of you are
6:30
going to break my heart, then I'm not fit for this office.
6:35
So the solution is not withdrawal.
6:36
It's not callousness. It's correctly understanding how
6:41
to heal. And so we're going to spend all
6:43
of our time today on this big idea to fully heal, you must
6:47
fully forgive. And if man, all of a sudden
6:50
you're like, he just said the F word.
6:54
They were listen for service kind of quiet because we started
6:57
talking about forgiveness. And I'm not kidding, you people
6:59
are like this. And I was like, well, I guess
7:02
this isn't an appropriate topic at all.
7:04
All right. To fully heal, you must fully
7:08
forgive. Let's start with the story of a
7:09
guy named Joseph. If you're not familiar with the
7:11
Bible or maybe it's a little bit new to you, there's a guy named
7:14
Joseph in Genesis 37. His story starts, he's one of
7:17
twelve sons. He's his dad's favorite.
7:21
He's also very arrogant. And at some point he ticks his
7:24
brothers off, so much so that they contemplate and begin to
7:28
discuss killing him. Now, you thought you had family
7:30
drama, but they're murder plotting their brother.
7:36
They don't kill him. They only sell him into slavery.
7:43
Man, I'm not a mystery to my little brother, but I never sold
7:46
him into slavery so we're OK there.
7:49
He's 17 years old. He ends up in Egypt of a country
7:52
next to his adjacent to where he lived and even in slavery God
7:57
actually blesses him. He he has God's favor on his
8:01
life until in the family that he is a servant, the wife of the
8:06
master falsely accuses him of rape and he ends up in prison.
8:12
So he's been sold into slavery. He's in a foreign country now
8:16
he's in prison. He will be in prison.
8:18
We don't even know how long somewhere probably between 6 to
8:20
12 years. He will be 30 years old by the
8:25
time he finally gets released from prison.
8:27
With God's help, he will rise to the second in command of all of
8:31
Egypt. He answers only to Pharaoh.
8:35
He is God-given wisdom and and prophecy will end up saving
8:38
Egypt from massive famine. And he starts a whole plan for
8:46
for saving food up for this famine.
8:48
In fact, it's so successful that the other countries start to
8:51
come into Egypt to ask for food. And at some point over 20 years
8:56
after he's been sold into slavery, here come his brothers
9:00
starving, and their families need food, and they don't even
9:04
recognize him. And I just want you to think
9:07
about this real quick, even if you don't know Joseph's story.
9:09
I want you to think about how many days and nights as a slave
9:13
Joseph would have thought about his brother's betrayal.
9:16
I want you to think about how many nights in a cold prison
9:19
cell surrounded by rats and filth and decay, did Joseph sit
9:23
there and think about how those who are closest to him or his
9:26
abusers. And Joseph ends up saving his
9:29
brothers and their families from famine, but they don't believe
9:32
that he's fully forgiven them. How could he?
9:37
After all they did? So when their dad dies, they
9:40
make up a story about how dad asked Joseph to forgive them.
9:44
Nothing like a little lying and manipulation to start off the
9:46
relationship, right? Again, right?
9:47
We're going to pick up our story in Genesis chapter 50, verse 15.
9:52
When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said
9:56
it may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the
9:59
evil that we did to him. So they sent a message to Joseph
10:03
saying, your father gave this command before he died.
10:06
Say to Joseph, please forgive the transgression of your
10:09
brothers and their sin because they did evil to you.
10:12
And now please forgive the transgression of the servants of
10:15
the God of your father. Joseph wept when they spoke to
10:18
him. His brothers also came and fell
10:20
down before him and said, behold, we are your servants.
10:23
But Joseph said to them, do not fear, for am I in the place of
10:28
God? As for you, you meant evil
10:32
against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about.
10:35
That many people should be kept alive as they are today.
10:39
So do not fear, I will provide for you and your little ones.
10:42
Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
10:45
Joseph had fully forgiven his brothers and he says 2 really
10:50
substantial things in that moment.
10:51
I don't want you to miss this in Genesis 50, if you have your
10:53
Bibles, I don't want you to underline this.
10:54
He says, am I in the place of God?
10:59
Oh, that is a, that is a revolutionary thing that Joseph
11:02
sees here. We'll we'll look at that in a
11:04
minute. And the second he says this,
11:05
what you intended for evil, God used for good.
11:10
I want to investigate this idea of am I in the place of God?
11:13
Because I think, I think this right here is where we kind of
11:16
we go off the rails when we don't understand this when it
11:18
comes to healing, when it comes to wounds.
11:20
And so here's three ancient truths about wounds.
11:23
And then we'll kind of investigate that and we'll talk
11:25
about this statement. And I think this will be
11:27
helpful. Here's the first.
11:28
An offense creates debt. It's like, I want to put the
11:32
brick in the backpack, right? It creates debt like a weight
11:36
and debt demands payment. Someone must pay.
11:43
This has always been the truth about debt.
11:45
This has always been the truth about offense.
11:47
In fact, not only does does an offense create debt, the Bible
11:50
would actually say that, that all sin, any sin creates debt.
11:55
Now maybe you're new to the Bible and you're like, I don't
11:57
know what this concept of sin is.
11:58
Here's let me just give you a simple definition of sin.
12:01
Sin is anything contrary to God, his character, or His commands.
12:05
So anything that is contrary to who God is and what He says is
12:09
considered sin or rebellion or disobedience.
12:14
Sin can be active or passive, so you can send by doing something
12:18
wrong, but you can also send by knowing the right thing to do
12:21
and not doing it. We can send intentionally or
12:24
unintentionally, but all sin creates a debt.
12:31
This is what Jesus is explaining when he's teaching his disciples
12:34
how to pray, when they say he teaches how to pray and and he
12:37
he's teaching them the Lord's Prayer and he says in Matthew 6
12:40
and he says pray like this, our Father in heaven, hallowed be
12:44
your name, your Kingdom come, your will be done as earth, as
12:49
it is on earth, as it is in heaven.
12:51
Give us this daily, this day, Our Daily Bread and forgive us
12:54
our what our what he didn't say forgive us our sins.
12:58
He says forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our
13:03
debtors. So when we're wounded by an
13:07
offence, by a sin of someone else, it creates this debt.
13:12
And that wound, that debt, it needs to be paid.
13:18
And anyone who's ever had this happen to them, which is all of
13:22
us, say me, we know that it creates a debt.
13:26
We know that something feels off.
13:27
Do you know what I mean by something feeling off as if the
13:31
the scales of cosmic justice, right?
13:34
They're not equal. Something's wrong and it bothers
13:37
you, does it not? You that that kind of angsty
13:40
feeling of like, right, it's not right.
13:43
Something's not right. And so there's this intuitive
13:47
feeling that we all share of like someone has to pay this
13:50
debt. And listen, if you don't deal
13:53
with that wound, it gets infected.
13:58
Relational debts have this way of growing.
14:00
I don't know if you've experienced this or ever thought
14:02
about this. Have you ever had a friend who,
14:06
who like bought a used car and got one of those like toxically
14:08
bad interest loans? Did you know what I'm talking
14:11
about? Like 23% APR or something?
14:14
I'm like, do do they break your kneecaps if you don't pay?
14:16
Like, like that is a bad loan man.
14:21
Relational wounds are like that. If you don't deal with them,
14:23
they compound the debt compounds.
14:26
The pain compounds so fast and so much over time.
14:30
It's like, it's like aggressive interest.
14:32
I, I met with a, a, a friend of mine.
14:34
He used to go to the church years ago and we went out for
14:37
coffee and I'm just sitting, we're, we're catching up on
14:39
everything. And so I start to press in on
14:41
like, why aren't you involved in a local church?
14:44
Like, I don't understand why you don't follow the, the biblical
14:47
model of Christianity. You, you all know there are no
14:49
solo Christians anywhere in the Bible, right?
14:51
Like, if you think like, I'm, I'm a Christian, but I don't
14:53
need the church. You're just not reading your
14:54
Bible. And so I'm pushing on him
14:56
because he's a friend of mine, so I can kind of poke at him
14:57
like, hey, what's going on with this?
15:01
You live right next to a bunch of good churches.
15:03
Why aren't you doing this? And as I start to press, he
15:06
starts to get emotional and then he starts to tear up.
15:08
And I'm like, oh, there's a wound.
15:12
And I was just sticking my finger in it without even
15:14
knowing. And finally it comes out, he has
15:20
this hurt that caused him to leave the church six years ago,
15:24
and no one knows about it because he didn't tell anyone.
15:30
Six years ago I was like, bro, you have been hurting for six
15:35
years and you didn't tell anyone.
15:37
He's like, well, I was like, Oh my gosh, see, not only is he in
15:41
a, it's not just that he's in the same place that he was.
15:43
He's in a worse place now than he was because it's gotten
15:47
worse. It's gotten worse and it's
15:48
gotten worse. Six years of thinking about it,
15:56
of having those fake conversations in your head about
16:00
it, thinking about how you wish it was different, what you would
16:03
say the next time. No one's ever done that, right?
16:07
And the debt just adds, and the debt just adds, and the debt
16:11
just adds. See, forgiveness is releasing a
16:14
debt. Unforgiveness is holding on to
16:17
the dead and carrying it, believing that it's owed to us
16:20
by someone else. But you'll never heal without
16:23
forgiveness. To fully heal, you must fully
16:26
forgive. And if you think you're healing
16:29
without actually forgiving, you're just actually letting an
16:31
infected wound scab over. If, if you're visiting today,
16:37
maybe Christianity is not your thing.
16:38
Maybe you don't even believe in the Bible.
16:39
You're like, OK, I, I, maybe you're going to prove this all
16:42
from the Bible or something. I, I don't even believe that.
16:44
That's fine. Just consider this.
16:49
Medical science has studied forgiveness for a long time.
16:52
This is not just a biblical concept.
16:54
Like there are fascinating studies on forgiveness.
16:57
There's a guy named Doctor Fred Luskin.
16:58
He actually runs an entire arm of Stanford University
17:02
forgiveness projects. They've done the largest study
17:05
studies of forgiveness in history.
17:07
He has all kinds of John Hopkins medical research has studied
17:10
forgiveness. The Journal of Religion and
17:12
Health has a ton of data on this.
17:14
There was actually a logitudinal study done with 50,000 nurses
17:18
just looking at forgiveness. And you know what?
17:22
All of those studies say the same thing.
17:23
Here's what they say. They all found that forgiveness
17:26
leads to massive benefits physically, mentally,
17:29
neurologically, and relationally.
17:32
And they all point to the negative consequences of
17:34
unforgiveness. Here's the quote.
17:36
Unforgiveness creates ongoing physiological stress responses
17:41
that prevent complete healing, while forgiveness activates
17:45
healing mechanisms in both mind and body.
17:48
That's not from the Bible. To fully heal, you must fully
17:54
forgive. So the goal of our sermon today
17:59
is to try to get to some practical implications of like
18:02
what would it actually look like to stop carrying this burden to
18:06
actually forgive before we we jump over to Jesus.
18:09
Jesus is going to talk about forgiveness and we're going to
18:11
see what we can learn from what he says about forgiving.
18:13
Before we do that, I actually want to start with something
18:15
else. I want to start with the five
18:16
mistakes with wounds. I want to talk about how we deal
18:19
with them improperly. And the reason that I want to do
18:21
that is that a lot of times when you're sitting in a sermon like
18:24
this, you're like, man, I it's cool that we're here and all,
18:27
but I really wish my friend were here because they're dealing
18:29
with this. Say me, this is for you.
18:39
Your friend might also benefit. This is for you.
18:42
OK. And I think if you'll if you'll
18:44
listen to the mistakes of dealing with wounds, you might
18:47
actually find yourself in here. OK, We good.
18:50
Don't cross your arms just yet. Got plenty of time for that.
18:54
OK, here we go. Mistake number one.
18:57
What I do with a wound, I extract the debt from them.
19:01
So someone hurts me and I go back and I they owe me a debt
19:05
now, and I'm going to take it back.
19:06
We call that revenge. OK, so so here's the problem
19:11
with revenge. It turns me into a debt
19:14
collector, right? All of a sudden, I'm like Boba
19:16
Fett the bounty hunter. Like I'm.
19:18
I'm running around. You know what?
19:20
It's actually worse than that, though, when you think about it,
19:22
because not only am I the collector, but I'm also the
19:24
judge and the jury. You notice that.
19:27
Like, I've decided how much they owe and I've decided when they
19:30
should pay, and I've decided that I'm going to collect it.
19:34
Nobody. OK, well, it's just me.
19:36
I'm sorry. It's just me.
19:36
It's not y'all. Y'all are very holy.
19:41
If you've ever sat around and and thought about scenarios in
19:44
which other bad, like bad things happen to that person and they
19:47
get theirs, what are you doing? You're fantasizing about being a
19:53
debt collector. You're thinking about revenge.
19:58
And now, now what did Joseph say at the end there?
20:00
Because he had fully forgiven. Here's what he said.
20:01
He said, Am I in the place of God?
20:06
When you decide you're the debt collector, you're saying.
20:09
I am in the place of God, so I'll go collect my debt.
20:15
Mistake number one. Mistake number two, I extract
20:20
the debt from others. We call it vindictiveness.
20:23
Vindictiveness. Now here's, here's often why
20:25
that happens. Maybe I was abused as a child.
20:29
Maybe the person that created the offence is no longer
20:31
available. They're gone.
20:32
Maybe they've passed away. But but the debt is still real
20:34
and I'm still carrying it. And since I can't go and collect
20:37
it from them, everyone else owes me because someone has to pay
20:43
this debt. And if you've ever met someone
20:46
like this, or if you are someone like this, you begin to, to live
20:49
a life in which everyone owes you something because this debt
20:53
hasn't been paid yet. And so, so, so the debt has
20:59
shifted to the world around you. Mistake number one, I try to
21:03
extract it from the offender. Mistake #2 I try to extract the
21:06
debt from others. Mistake #3 I ignore the debt.
21:11
I just ignore it. It's it's things are going fine.
21:13
You know, it's not that heavy. Just going to sneak another one
21:17
in here. Yeah.
21:19
It's good. It's good.
21:21
You know, we call that infection and it leads to bitterness.
21:27
The the idea that that time heals all wounds is actually a
21:30
complete fallacy. Time might numb pain a little
21:35
bit, but it doesn't heal the wound for you.
21:39
Time numbs pain, but it doesn't heal.
21:42
Ignoring a wound is a great way to slowly kill yourself, to
21:46
slowly kill your joy, to slowly kill your contentment, to slowly
21:50
kill your satisfaction, to slowly kill other relationships.
21:55
Unforgiveness is like waking up every day and drinking poison
21:59
and waiting for the other person to get sick.
22:07
I wonder why they're not sick yet.
22:12
You can't ignore the dead, you can't extract it from them, you
22:15
can't extract it from others, you can't ignore the debt #4 I
22:19
identify as the wound. Now that sounds a little tricky.
22:22
Some explain, some would call this the victim mentality.
22:26
But what? What will happen when I begin to
22:27
identify as my wounds? It is.
22:30
I start to worship the wounds. Now let me explain before you
22:34
go. I don't, I'm not sure I
22:35
understand that. Look, I highly recommend
22:38
Christian counseling and Christian therapist.
22:39
Like highly recommend. My wife and I went to a
22:42
Christian counsellor last week just to work on our marriage.
22:44
Like, Christian counselling is phenomenal.
22:47
It's good for so many things. However, be very careful when
22:49
you choose a counsellor because simply talking about a wound
22:54
does not mean that you're actually working on healing.
22:58
In fact, there's a phenomenon where we talk about our wound so
23:02
much, we focus on that wound so much that over time we begin to
23:07
be identified by our wound. So I'm no longer Daniel.
23:11
I'm the pastor who was wounded by these people.
23:14
I'm no longer Stacey. I'm the woman who was abused as
23:17
a child. I'm no longer Jim.
23:20
I'm the guy whose spouse cheated on me.
23:22
And in the moment that you begin to identify as your wound
23:26
instead of as a child of God, what happens is you actually
23:30
begin to worship the the wound you're not even interested in
23:34
healing anymore. You don't, you don't, you don't
23:36
want to change your identity. That's what you're known by.
23:39
And if you're like, no, I don't think I worship the one.
23:40
Listen, what? Wherever your identity lies is
23:43
your God. Whatever your identity is rooted
23:47
in is your God. And so when your identity shifts
23:52
to become your wounds, it is becoming your God.
23:58
How do you know if this is you? Listen, if you are still talking
24:02
about the same wound that you were talking about last year in
24:06
the same way you're talking about it, look out should be a
24:11
red flag. But there there is a problem in
24:16
your life because the heat that here's not progress in healing.
24:19
This is what Tim Keller says about wounds.
24:23
He says watch yourself. When someone does something
24:25
wrong, watch yourselves because an unforgiven wrong is a root.
24:30
It's in your life and it's working its way slowly to your
24:33
heart. As long as it's in there, as
24:36
long as it's not forgiven, slowly the evil that was done to
24:40
you will make you into its own image.
24:43
And if you stay bitter, if you stay resentful, even if it's
24:47
really pretty far under the surface, forgiveness is both a
24:53
decision and a journey. So you decide to forgive and
24:56
then you're actually going to go on a journey to free.
24:58
Like it's going to take time and progress.
24:59
It's not quick, but but The thing is, it's like a journey
25:02
through a, a bog or a, a swamp, meaning it's, it's slow, but you
25:06
have to keep moving. If you keep moving, you'll get
25:09
there. But if you stop, you'll start to
25:10
sink and you'll get stuck. And some of us have gotten stuck
25:14
in our wounds for so long that we identify as a wounded person
25:19
and really we've begun to worship them.
25:24
The 5th mistake is I'll fix it myself.
25:29
Self-reliance the old can do attitude that's actually fixing
25:37
yourself means you're actually suffering from one of the first
25:39
four mistakes and you're lying to yourself because here's the
25:42
reality is you you can't fix yourself.
25:46
I I can't fix myself. The very first step towards
25:51
salvation in Jesus Christ is a realization that I'm broken and
25:56
I can't fix the problem so the toughen up buttercup pull myself
26:01
up by my own bootstraps sort of that might sound noble, but it's
26:05
just a mask. So if you're here, it's actually
26:09
just one of the first four and, and, and you're actually, you're
26:12
deceiving yourself into thinking that you're going to be tough
26:15
enough to just get through it and take care of it.
26:17
No, it's fine. We're OK.
26:21
No problems here. Let's see if this backpack holds
26:25
out to the sermon, huh? Let me just say this about
26:30
self-reliance, man. self-reliance will get you
26:35
killed. I shared with you, I've shared
26:39
with you guys a couple times on Sundays, a decision I, I made
26:43
last year where I decided I would stop drinking for the rest
26:46
of my life. Like I, I just, I'm not going to
26:48
drink alcohol. The next time I'm going to drink
26:50
alcohol is when we're all in heaven at the new feast and the,
26:53
the new wine is pouring. And not even the Baptist can be
26:55
mad. And, and, and I made that choice
27:03
because over and over again, I would find that my consumption
27:06
of alcohol just extended a little further than I'd planned,
27:10
maybe a little more frequent that I intended.
27:12
And so no matter how much self-discipline that I thought I
27:15
had, and it would creep back into my life, the day that I
27:20
realized I was an alcoholic was a gift from God because it made
27:28
me realize that I didn't have the control that I thought I
27:30
had. And so instead I just said, I
27:33
can't, I can't play with this. I've got to cut it out entirely.
27:36
And I have to throw myself on the throne of God.
27:40
I need, I need God in his community to help me.
27:42
And so I was talking to somebody about this actually really
27:44
recently in like last week or two, and they said, hey, because
27:48
they, they had some similar struggles.
27:49
And they go, Hey, how come you're doing so well here?
27:51
And I continue to struggle with it.
27:52
And I said, listen, I think that they're a good friend of mine.
27:54
So I could be really blown with them.
27:55
I said, listen, I think the problem that you're having is
28:00
that you don't see sin as an apex predator that's trying to
28:07
kill you. You think you're strong enough
28:11
to win, and I know I'm not, and that's the difference.
28:18
Knowing you're weak is a great blessing.
28:22
Did you understand in this context, knowing that you need
28:27
help to forgive someone is a great blessing.
28:31
You're not going to will yourself to it.
28:35
If you could, you would have done it already.
28:39
All right, those are the the five ways.
28:42
Let's see you can fit one more in here.
28:45
Those are the five mistakes to make with wounds.
28:49
Let's talk about how we actually go about healing and see what
28:53
Jesus has to say. Grab your Bibles.
28:55
Let's turn to Matthew 18. If you have your Bibles, we're
28:58
going to start in verse 21 and we're going to look at a
29:03
question, an answer, and a story.
29:06
Here we go, verse 21. Then Peter came up and said to
29:10
Jesus, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I
29:15
forgive him? As many as seven times.
29:21
Jesus said to him, I do not say 7 times, but 77 times.
29:27
Now he's going to tell a story. Listen, if you were a disciple,
29:31
every time Jesus told the story, you knew you were about to get
29:35
slapped upside the head. I'm just saying verse 23.
29:40
Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a king who
29:44
wished to settle accounts with his servants.
29:46
When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him
29:49
10,000 talents. Y'all don't have context for
29:54
10,000 talents? Current day market $60 billion,
30:03
not million $60 billion versus 25.
30:10
And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold
30:14
with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to
30:18
be made. So the servant fell on his
30:20
knees, imploring him. Have patience with me, and I
30:23
will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the
30:25
master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.
30:30
But when the same servant went out, he found one of his fellow
30:33
servants who owed him 100 denarii of five to 10,000
30:38
dollars. And seizing him, he began to
30:41
choke him, saying, Pay what you owe.
30:45
So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, Have
30:48
patience with me, and I will pay you.
30:53
He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay
30:56
the debt. When his fellow servants saw
30:58
what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they
31:00
went and reported to their master all that had taken place.
31:04
And then his master summoned him and said to him, You wicked
31:07
servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me
31:12
it should not. You have had mercy on your
31:14
fellow servant as I had mercy on you.
31:18
And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers
31:21
until he should pay all of his debt.
31:22
Verse 35 S Also my heavenly Father will do to everyone of
31:28
you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.
31:39
Jesus has a disciple named Peter.
31:41
Peter has come and asked Jesus, Hey, how much is too much to
31:43
forgive? How often is too often to
31:45
forgive? How many times do I have to
31:47
forgive? Hey, is there a sin so great
31:50
that I can't, I don't have to forgive it?
31:52
Is there an offense so great that I don't have to forgive it?
31:55
Is there something that someone could do that's so great I could
31:57
go, oh, that, that passes the note, that's too much.
32:00
When Jesus effectively looks right at him and says, no,
32:03
there's no sin too great. There's no time too many.
32:10
Nothing is off limits for forgiveness.
32:12
Now quick caveat for some of you that are starting to cross your
32:16
arms, there's a difference between forgiveness and
32:19
reconciliation. Forgiveness takes one person,
32:22
reconciliation takes 2. You may never be reconciled to
32:28
someone, but I will tell you this, you cannot reconcile with
32:33
someone unless you've first forgiven them.
32:38
And when we forgive, we are not enabling or excusing wrong
32:42
behaviour. I want you to hear me.
32:46
We can name evil and still forgive.
32:51
In 1993, Mary Johnson's only son was murdered by 16 year old
32:56
Oshea Israel during a party altercation.
33:00
After years of anger for losing her only son, Mary met with
33:03
Oshea in prison and during that meeting she experienced A
33:06
transformative moment. This is a quote from her.
33:08
I just hugged the man that murdered my son and I instantly
33:11
knew that all that anger and the animosity and all the stuff that
33:14
I'd had in my heart for 12 years for you, I knew it was over.
33:18
We can name evil and still forgive.
33:23
So Jesus has already answered the question, no, there's no
33:25
limit to forgiveness. But then he has a whole parable,
33:27
whole story. And so I want you to see the
33:29
three things that are in this story that I think matter for
33:31
you and I, if we're going to learn what it looks like to
33:33
forgive. Here's the first one, verse 35.
33:37
Forgiveness is a command. You see that, right?
33:42
Jesus is Lord of Lord and King of kings, and kings don't make
33:46
suggestions. He has all authority on heaven
33:51
and on earth and he has forgiven us of far more than we will ever
34:00
forgive anyone else of that that I love that he picks the sum of
34:04
10,000 talents. It's an impossible number, but
34:08
it's a real number. It's not a made-up number.
34:11
You ever had like a 2 year old and you're like, what's the
34:13
biggest number you can think of? And they like make terms up 1
34:15
billion billion brillion. You're like, that's not another
34:18
thing. 10,000 talents is a real number.
34:22
It's just impossible. The reason I love that he picks
34:26
a real number is because you and I have a real debt.
34:29
Every sin that we have ever committed towards someone, we
34:33
first committed toward God because in order to commit that
34:35
sin, we had to break his commandments to do it.
34:43
You know, if you, if you know anything about the, the, the
34:46
gospel of Jesus Christ, this this idea that Jesus came for
34:50
our salvation. It was it, it really starts with
34:52
the idea that Jesus came to earth in order to pay a debt
34:57
that was unpayable and impossible for us.
35:00
This is what Jesus is foreshadowing in this moment
35:02
when he says 10,000 talents is he knows he's going to go to the
35:05
cross and he's going to pay a debt that we can't pay.
35:09
So, so for those of us that understand that, listen, in the
35:12
shadow of that forgiveness, we lose all right to hold on to
35:17
debt. Did you understand what I'm
35:20
saying? In the shadow of the cross, I
35:23
lose all right to hold on to debt.
35:27
Say this with me in the shadow of the cross, I lose all right
35:33
to hold on to debt. Let's do it again.
35:36
In the shadow of the cross, I lose all right to hold on to
35:40
debt. Do you understand what he's
35:42
saying? You, you cannot stand in the
35:44
shadow of such great forgiveness and then hold on to debt.
35:48
He's saying, how can you? How can you look at someone else
35:55
and think they owe you when you've been forgiven of so much?
35:59
It's a command. Secondly, forgiveness is a cure.
36:05
In verse 27, he says, and out of pity for him, the master of that
36:08
servant released him and forgave him the dead.
36:10
Let me ask you a different sort of question.
36:13
Do you want to be forgiven? Like if you make a mistake or if
36:19
you harm somebody? If you do something, do you want
36:21
to be forgiven? Do you want God to forgive you?
36:24
Yeah, because forgiveness is a cure.
36:29
Our path to salvation was because God forgave us.
36:34
The cure to infection of a relational wound is forgiveness.
36:39
We forgive not because the other person deserves it, but because
36:44
we need it to heal. So not only are we commanded to
36:47
do it, it is what heals us. And thirdly, forgiveness is a
36:53
characteristic. It's a characteristic.
36:55
It's a characteristic of someone who's saved.
36:58
Let me show you verse 33. And should not you have had
37:02
mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?
37:05
What is he saying? He's saying, listen, you don't
37:07
really understand God's forgiveness if you're still
37:09
holding on to debt. You don't really understand
37:15
forgiveness if you're holding on to unforgiveness.
37:18
Debtors. That's you and me, say me.
37:21
Debtors should never become collectors.
37:27
Think of it this way. I've been forgiven of too much
37:30
to be arrogant enough to think I'm still owed something more.
37:35
I've been forgiven of too much to be arrogant enough to think
37:39
I'm still owed something more. So does command a cure and a
37:43
characteristic. Now Jesus essentially explains
37:46
that that to truly release the debt of someone that really,
37:50
really doesn't deserve it, you're going to need a
37:53
perspective that radically changes.
37:57
My perspective has to shift from the one where I'm the victim and
38:02
they're the perpetrator. I'm innocent and they're guilty.
38:07
And it has to shift to the one where I realized that most often
38:10
in my life, I am the perpetrator.
38:12
I am the guilty one. That's how I rang up a 10,000
38:16
talent, $60 billion debt with God.
38:20
I have racked up a debt that is impossible for me to pay, and I
38:24
deserve punishment for that debt.
38:26
In fact, Romans 323 will say that every single one of us has
38:30
sinned and the wages of sin is death.
38:37
We deserve death. So you thought the debt that
38:41
that person owed you was big? But we deserve death.
38:47
But God? But God?
38:55
But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with
39:00
which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses,
39:04
made us alive together with Christ.
39:08
By grace you have been saved, raised up with Him and seated us
39:15
with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the
39:18
coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace
39:23
and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
39:26
For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and this is
39:29
not your own doing. It is a gift of God.
39:35
And if you embrace this perspective, if you have
39:37
accepted this, this gift of mercy from God, you will
39:41
actually have the perspective and the power to forgive people
39:46
in just a minute. I want to, I want to talk about
39:48
how to practically go about that when it seems impossible, but I
39:51
don't want to leave this moment right here unless I ask you
39:53
something. Have you experienced this level
39:58
of forgiveness? Do do you understand what it
40:00
looked like for God to forgive you?
40:04
Do you know Jesus personally? Because you can only partake in
40:09
His mercy if you have placed your faith in His finished work
40:13
of salvation on the cross. The Bible says that you must
40:17
place your faith in Him to be saved.
40:19
Romans 10/9 and 10 says it this way because if you confess with
40:22
your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that
40:26
God raised him from the dead, you will be saved for with the
40:31
heart. 1 believes and is justified and with the mouth. 1
40:35
confesses and is saved. Do you know Him?
40:41
Not, Not have you heard about Him not do you go to church?
40:46
Not do you read your Bible? Do you know Him?
40:50
Have you given your life to him to rule and to reign over?
40:55
And so for just a brief moment, I want to give you a chance, if
40:59
you've never done this, to place your faith in Jesus because you
41:03
must believe and declare. That's what Romans 10 tells us.
41:07
You must believe that you need to be saved.
41:08
You must believe that you're in need of a savior because you
41:11
rebelled against God and therefore have no power to live
41:15
perfectly on your own. You must believe that he rose
41:18
from the dead in power with the desire to save you.
41:22
You must believe that he is God and you must declare.
41:27
You must declare him king of your life and Lord over you.
41:29
You must declare surrender of your will and your desires to
41:33
him who is perfect. You must declare him publicly
41:35
and not be ashamed. So if you'd like to surrender
41:40
your life to God today, I want to give you that chance.
41:43
Would you for just a brief moment, close your eyes and bow
41:45
your heads? We're wrapping up.
41:51
If you've never done this, if you, if you want to surrender
41:53
your life to God today, just quietly or even silently repeat
41:57
this prayer after me. Jesus, I know I'm a Sinner and I
42:05
can't save myself. I want you to save me and adopt
42:12
me into your family. I surrender everything to you,
42:18
even my wounds, and I receive your promises of forgiveness,
42:27
adoption and eternal life. Be my Lord.
42:32
Please Jesus, if you prayed that prayer for the very first time
42:38
right now, would you be brave and raise your hand for me to
42:41
see? Thank you, thank you can put
42:46
your hands down. It's Jesus name, Amen.
42:53
If you just gave your life to Jesus for the very first time,
42:57
welcome to the family. In a few minutes, as we respond
43:05
to the sermon, there's tables in the back, they say.
43:07
I raised my hand. We'll have people back there
43:10
would love to talk to you and talk about what it looks like to
43:12
follow Jesus. We have a gift for you, some
43:14
resources. We're excited for you,
43:18
practically speaking. What about for the rest of us?
43:20
Who, who, who know Jesus? And yet maybe there's someone
43:24
that man, we just can't seem to forgive.
43:28
It just seems impossible. How do you forgive someone when
43:32
it seems impossible? There's a pastor named Pastor
43:37
Skip Heitzig. He has this little three-step
43:39
process. It's really simple and it's
43:41
really hard. It's really simple.
43:45
Upward, inward, outward, upward, inward, outward.
43:49
Step one, we start upward. You start forgiving somebody by
43:54
going to God and praying for them.
43:57
And if you're like, I don't want to pray for them.
43:58
I know that's why we go to God and pray for them.
44:04
Because let me tell you one of the most serious things in the
44:06
world. When you're really mad at
44:08
somebody, angry or resentful or hurt by them, going into the
44:12
throne room of God, into the Lord of the Lord and the King of
44:15
kings who created this universe into his throne room and
44:17
speaking their name to him will begin to change.
44:21
You begin to change your heart, and that's what needs changing.
44:26
And so every day we're going to get up, we're going to go back
44:28
to God and we're going to pray for them.
44:30
And we're going to pray for their blessing and we're going
44:32
to pray for their repentance. And we're going to pray for
44:34
their salvation. And we're going to pray good on
44:36
their life. And in that time with the Lord,
44:42
we're actually going to focus on how much we've been forgiven of
44:45
so that we can remember the perspective of what he's done
44:49
for us so we don't become the servant who's been forgiven.
44:52
10,000 talents and wants to choke somebody out for a couple
44:55
Denarii going to start upward and then we're going to move
45:00
inward. We're going to look inward.
45:07
The first thing is you're not going to wait until you want to
45:10
forgive that person. It's going to be a long wait.
45:13
You're going to make a decision to forgive.
45:17
When you make a decision to forgive, it's actually just the
45:19
start of a long journey, and you're going to start that
45:23
process and you're just one foot in the other in front of the
45:25
other, like as God does this work.
45:28
Forgiveness is sometimes 1° at a time, and it takes time.
45:31
But the main thing is you don't stop.
45:33
Because if you stop, you get stuck and you start to sink.
45:37
And in those moments when resentment and bitterness begins
45:40
to bubble back up in our lives, we remember that I made a
45:42
decision to forgive that person. It's much the same when when you
45:48
love someone. Yeah, there might be these
45:50
moments where you fall in love with them, but a lot of the
45:53
moments of loving someone are really hard.
45:55
We make a decision to love them even when our emotions don't
45:57
match. Amen.
45:58
The same thing goes forgiving people.
46:04
We're getting acknowledge that it's a long journey.
46:07
And we remember that we're also a perpetrator, not just a
46:11
victim. And then thirdly, we're going to
46:15
reach outward. We're going to go to that
46:16
person, if possible, to tell them we forgive them.
46:22
And listen. Reconciliation may not be
46:25
possible because forgiveness takes one person, but
46:29
reconciliation takes 2. But even when reconciliation is
46:32
not possible, peace is possible. Even if that person isn't
46:40
remorseful, even if that person hasn't earned it, peace is
46:45
possible. So today I'm going to ask you to
46:49
make a commitment. The person, the conflict that
46:52
has been bubbling up all service long, you've been trying to not
46:56
cross your arms, but you really want to.
46:59
I want you to make a commitment to pray for them Today.
47:03
I want you to make a commitment that you're going to forgive
47:06
them, which means you're going to start a long journey.
47:10
But let me explain why you need to do it.
47:15
In Matthew 11 when Jesus explains what it's going to be
47:18
like to put your faith in him, he says this.
47:21
He says come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I
47:25
will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
47:28
from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find
47:32
rest for your souls. Jesus is not simply telling you
47:38
that His guidance is going to be gentle and it's going to be
47:44
freeing. He is telling you that.
47:46
But you'll notice He's also telling you that you come to Him
47:51
heavy laden. Where does all that debt go?
47:56
Where does all that heavy burden go?
47:58
He wants you to give it to Him. Some of us in the room have come
48:03
to Christ, but we refuse to give him the burden that he asked
48:07
for. And we've wondered now for a
48:09
while, why has why has life felt so difficult?
48:12
Why have things changed? And, and because you actually
48:17
have to give him the burden. So we choose to forgive today
48:22
and let Jesus carry the burdens in our story.
48:25
Joseph said something in that original story that's really
48:27
profound. He said what you intended for
48:31
evil, God used for good. Guys, if you will give over all
48:37
those wounds to God, he will start using them for good.
48:41
I promise you. That debt requires a payment,
48:45
but Jesus already made that payment on the cross, and you're
48:49
carrying around something he already paid for.
48:55
If you'll give it to him, you'll find that life with Jesus is a
49:00
lot more freeing, a lot easier than you thought it was.
49:06
Will you give it to him today? Stand with us.
49:10
We're going to close in song. Our prayer team is going to come
49:12
up. We would love to pray with you
49:13
about anything, whether it's about forgiveness, whether it's
49:15
about your health, whether it's about anything that's going on
49:17
in your life. We love the opportunity to pray
49:19
for you and with you. And so our prayer team will be
49:22
here. You guys move as the Lord leads.
49:24
We love you guys.