Transcription
Father, we just come before You and we just say thank you. Thank you for Your presence. Thank you for Your love. Thank you for Your forgiveness. God, we come tonight, God, and we say what a kind, amazing, and loving God You are. Father, we we thank You that, Father, as we approach You, as we come near You, God, we are always received. And so, Lord, we just say, "Come and have Your way in us. Show us Your ways, oh God. Lead us, God. Reveal to us, God, any hidden thing, God, in our hearts and our lives and our minds, Father, that that You desire to uproot and to remove." God, we just say, "You have all invitation, God, to come and do what only You can do." Holy Spirit, come in power. Come in truth. Father, we just say You are so amazing and awesome and wonderful and kind and beautiful, God. And we just say, Lord, it's our desire to to unite with You tonight, God, in thought and purpose. Indeed, God, we don't want to argue with You. We don't want to justify, God. We don't want to reason away, God, any truth that You would want to speak to us today. So, Holy Spirit, we ask for a spirit of conviction, a spirit of love, a spirit of peace to be in this place. I thank You that You're a safe God. You're a good God. You're a sure God. And we can come to You, God, with our hurt, our pain, our struggles, our weaknesses, God, and You are always willing to meet us, God. I thank You that You're a God who is faithful and keeps Your promises to us, God. That what You say You will do, God, You will do. We can put it in the bank, God. We can we can put our lives on it, God. What You say You will do, You will do. Convince us of that truth, God. It's in Your Son's name we ask. Amen.
I want to welcome you to the Freedom in Christ class. We're going to discuss today the the lesson on forgiveness. And the goal of this session is to help the individual grasp the truth that forgiveness is not only a command, but it's a privilege. Forgiveness is God's prescription for sin. Sin makes us sick. Sin sin creates bondage. And forgiveness is the forgiveness is what opens us up to the healing process. Forgiveness is not something that we have to do. Forgiveness is something that we get to do. And as we grow in the understanding and the revelation of the Father heart of God and the sacrifice and the cost that Jesus paid to forgive us, it will become something that we desire to partner with our Father and Jesus and Holy Spirit in doing for ourselves and for others. See, forgiveness is the antidote for both sin that we committed and sin that was committed against us.
First Peter 3:18 tells us this: "For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God." That was the whole purpose Christ died: was to bring us to God. "He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit." We often will get all spiritual once we know Jesus and once we've received His forgiveness and once we've accepted Him as Lord and Savior. There are times that we we know we're supposed to forgive. We know from the Word of God, if we've been in the Word of God at all, we know that that's something that that we're supposed to do. And so sometimes we'll get all spiritual and we'll start to believe and and think that we don't have anything to forgive, all the while we harbor things or hide things deep in our hearts.
Second Corinthians 5:16 and 19-19 says this: "So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old is gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them any longer, and he has committed to us the message of reconciliation." Did you catch it? The message of reconciliation is forgiveness, not counting men's sins against them any longer.
See, you and I can't heal a wound by saying it's not there or getting all spiritual and trying to live with the pain. It can't be done. Facing your heart offense, brokenness is the only lasting solution. Peter 5:10 says this: "After you have borne these sufferings for a little while, the God of all grace will himself make you whole and secure and strong." If you've been a victim of sexual, physical, emotional abuse; if you have ever been rejected; if you've ever been embarrassed, abandoned, falsely accused, talked about, disappointed or let down; if you've ever made a mistake or failed or been failed; can I just say, I am so sorry, but the only way you are going to get freedom and healing for that pain is through forgiveness and allowing yourself to allow the only true healer to come and meet you in that place.
See, sometimes we in our unforgiveness think, we don't logically think this way, but but it practically plays out that when we get offended or when we get hurt or when we get wounded by someone else's sin or actions, we sometimes think that unforgiveness is going to protect us or heal us in some way. But you will not find peace and freedom and healing until you're able to forgive completely and totally yourself, others, and God. Forgiving them does not excuse their behavior. It does not say that the sin is condoned or just overlooked. Forgiving does, however, open the door for you to be released into the one and only true healer. He's the only one that can make us whole.
Unforgiveness brings bondage and torment to our lives and gives Satan opportunity to take control. We see this in the story in Matthew 18 where the king comes along and he's settling up accounts. And he comes upon one of his servants and he says, "Hey, it's time to pay up." Now, this servant owed a a pretty big amount, and the king decides to cancel the debt. Now, this man should have been very grateful, but he in turn turns around and decides that he is going to collect debts that he's owed. And he comes upon one of his servants and demands payment. And when the man can't pay, he he demands that all that he has is sold and his family is thrown into slavery. Well, the king hears about the ungratefulness of this servant, and so he comes to him and literally takes all that he owns, takes him and his family, and turns him over to the tormentor. And Jesus says to the to the disciples as he's explaining this parable, and he says, "Look, when you don't forgive, when you choose not to walk in gratitude and understanding and revelation of all the amount that God has forgiven you, and you in turn withhold that forgiveness to someone else, we in in turn turn ourselves over to the tormentor."
See, unforgiveness blocks God's forgiveness of us. Why? Not because God hasn't or won't forgive. It's who He is. It's part of His nature. See, forgiveness is not just an act that God does. It's not just something He performs. Forgiveness is is part of the nature of who God is. It's not because of that, but it is because by our refusal or ungodly belief that we can't forgive, we have given that area over to our enemy. God will not compete for that place. He will not take it or demand it. He gives us the invitation.
Matthew 6:14-15 says, "If you forgive men when they sin against you, your Father in heaven will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." That's a a frightening scripture to me at times. Not because in my old in my old way of thinking, I used to think that the the heart behind that scripture was, "You better forgive or you're not going to be forgiven." It's not that. The Father knows that when we don't forgive, we're turned over literally to the tormentor.
Our purpose in life is to be conformed into the image and likeness of Jesus. I believe you and I want to look like Jesus, or you wouldn't be be seeking and searching out His ways. I can't imagine what my life would look like had it not been for my personal experience with the forgiveness of God. And each one of you have your story of forgiveness as well. It's an ongoing, continual story. It's an ongoing, continual process of God forgiving us day in and day out. We have been shown much mercy and much grace.
Micah 7:18 says it this way: "Who is a god like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgressions of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever, O God but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins under foot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea." I love that scripture because it speaks such depth to God's heart for us and His desire to be connected to us and have nothing hindering our our fellowship and our community with Him. And forgiveness, unforgiveness does just that. It hinders us. We may be thinking that we're teaching that offender a lesson, but really what it's hindering and hurting is our relationship with the Lord.
See, you and I will never look more like Jesus Christ than when we choose to walk in forgiveness. Why? Because it is the ultimate expression of God's love. It is the ultimate expression. We will not look more like Him than when we choose to forgive. Think about your own lives. The greatest expression of God's love for you was when He said, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing." Lord, their debt is canceled out because of what I was willing to do on the cross. That act, that one solitary act of love, expresses like nothing else that beautiful, that beautiful gift of forgiveness.
See, it cost Jesus everything. Forgiveness is costly. It costs us something. And I don't know why we've been convinced by the enemy that it's just water on a duck's back back, and we just let the stuff roll off and just cheaply throw out forgiveness like it means nothing, all the while we're harboring the hurt and the pain and the really the unforgiveness. See, it's more than just the act of saying, "I'm gonna forgive." It is literally the expression, the cost of love. Forgiveness is not cheap or easy.
When we choose to forgive, we're making a statement of dependence on our Savior. What we're saying is, when I choose to forgive someone, what I am saying is, "I am letting you off the hook. You are no longer what I am looking to to heal this place. I am dependent on my Savior who came to heal, save, and restore." If we choose to hold on to the hurt, pain, offense, and justice of the wrong done to us or that we have done to others, we in essence are telling Jesus, "We don't need the blood You shed or the sacrifice that You made. What I need is..." and we fill in the dot, we fill in that blank. "What I need is for someone to come and recognize they did wrong to me. What I need is to punish myself some more for the wrong that I did." Are we are we kidding ourselves here? The King of Kings and Lord of Lords gave everything He had, every drop of blood He had, to pay for the debt that sin created. And we want to give Him this cheap substitute?
Are we kidding? In essence, what we're saying in unforgiveness is that we will defend, we will protect, we will avenge, and we will represent our own case. We take up our own causes and we plead our own our own cases, thereby pushing God right out of the process of healing, the healing Jesus died to provide. See, the enemy comes along and tempts us with unforgiveness, and he deceives us into thinking that unforgiveness is going to keep that person far away from us. When in reality, forgiveness means to let go from one's power. So by default, unforgiveness means I am drawing that source, that that person, that experience, that situation right into me. And that unforgiveness, forgiveness means to let go from one's further attendance and occupancy. So when I refuse to forgive, what I am what I am doing is choosing to camp out in a place that God never intended a child of God to camp.
Forgiveness is our determined and deliberate willingness to let something go, to release it from our possession. The thing is, we don't just release the hurt, the pain, and the offense to nothing. We have a Savior that said, "I will and have taken it." It's not just out there in nothing land. It goes to the to the most powerful thing on in all of history. It goes right smack into the arms of love, which is all-powerful. It's no longer about you and the offender.
When we choose to forgive, we have to get this, because Jesus said that we will have plenty of opportunity to be offended. There will be plenty of circumstances, plenty of experiences, plenty of life to go around, plenty of life that hurts and wounds us in this world. But He said, "Take heart, for I have overcome the world." It is to God's glory to overlook an offense. What the enemy meant for our destruction, when we put it in our Savior's hands, He says He will turn it to the good of those that love Him.
Having said all this, can I say, can I tell you the number one reason I believe we don't extend forgiveness to others is because we haven't received the total forgiveness of Christ in our own lives? The enemy tries to tell us that there's something we must or can do to fix the wrong that we've done, and that's just not true.
First John 1:9 says, "If we confess, if we confess our sins to God, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness." He cleanses us and washes us when we come and we ask for that forgiveness. And what He says is done and finished is complete. That word when He cried out, "It is finished," on the cross was a completion word. It was perfectly perfect and completely complete. It's not enough to just keep coming to the cross, to the foot of the cross, begging, pleading, and hoping God will forgive you over and over again for the same offense, only to get up and walk away under the weight and the guilt of trying to make it right somehow on your own. In faith, we must believe. We must get up. We must realize by faith that we are restored and cleansed and made new in our hearts and minds, just as if we had never committed that sin. We don't have to walk away after confessing and repenting with our heads bowed low in shame or our tails tucked between our legs.
Leviticus 26:13 says this: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high." Because of what Christ did on the cross for us, when we truly come with a repentant heart and confess that sin, we can walk away assured. We can walk away with our heads held high because He no longer counts that sin against us. That's what real forgiveness is.
See, we can't say we forgive someone all the while tucking that thing right here, looking for the next time that they mess up, that they fail, that they hurt us, that they wound us. God doesn't do that to us, and we want to look like Him.
Colossians 2:13-15 says this: "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive in Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross, and having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross."
One of my most favorite verses in scripture is Micah 7:8, especially in those times when when I so desire and so long to please God and live a life that that is rid of sin and and and all of that, yet we still find that we stumble and we fall. So Micah 7:8 brings me such assurance and such it builds my faith and it and it convinces me that God is really who He says He is. Micah 7:8 says this: "Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise." Why is it that we can rise up when we fall? Because of the blood of Jesus. Because of the heart of God who leans in and forgives us. He's given us the spirit of reconciliation, the ministry of reconciliation, the ability through the grace of God, not in our own strength, not in our own power. Because here's the deal, if our hurt and pain and wound has not been met by the healer and Savior, our flesh will not allow us to not count someone's sin against them any longer. But God says, "Don't be don't be conformed to the pattern of this world, to the way of the world, to the way of our flesh, in in choosing to hold someone's sin against them. He says there's a new way. There's a superior way. There's a kingdom way that is far better than our way and and the way of our old nature." God desires that we too would walk in that ministry, just as Jesus did time and time again. Look at all He suffered. Look at all that He went through. Look at all the times that He could have risen up in offense and said, "I'm so done. I am so out. My heart is so closed. My heart is out of this relationship." And He never did. He operated by the power of the Holy Spirit in that ministry of reconciliation. And I want to say to us, the only way we can walk in true, unhindered forgiveness is by the power of the Holy Spirit giving us that spirit of that ministry of reconciliation.
So I want us to close our eyes and we're going to ask the Lord. Is there an area in our own heart that we have found it difficult to forgive ourselves? Do we partner with the enemy rehearsing that sin over and over and over again, even after we've gone and asked Jesus to forgive us? Please receive from Him today. Please receive His cleansing power as He speaks His word over you and says, "As you have confessed and repented, I am faithful to forgive you. Go and sin no more." Receive His cleansing. Receive His healing.
Maybe there's an experience that has taken place in your life that you find it difficult or impossible to forgive the offender. Maybe you've even said those words, "I just can't forgive." It is the kindest thing on the planet for me to say to you, you're believing a lie. Jesus would not ask us or command us to do something that He doesn't empower us to do. So if we're believing we can't, we're believing a lie. Would you choose truth today? Would you ask Him to come and empower you and enable you to forgive what seems like the unforgivable? And in so doing, would you go to the one who wants to meet that pain and bring healing? Are you willing, as a child of God, to ask Him to empower you with a heart to extend mercy where it's not deserved? Because if we're really honest, isn't that what we think? They don't deserve it. But after all, isn't that what mercy is? Isn't that what grace is? Let's ask Jesus to come and give us, and through the empowerment of His Spirit, the ability to extend that grace and mercy.
Ephesians 4:31 says, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also forgave you." Can we say in our heart of hearts, "Lord Jesus, apart from You, I am powerless to forgive. My flesh wants vengeance. I affirm that it is not my responsibility to avenge, and by choosing to take my own revenge, I have given ground over to the enemy by my unwillingness to forgive. So today, I lay down my right to avenge. It is Jesus' responsibility. Come and be my defense. Jesus is the one righteous and just judge and defender. I declare that I will overcome through God's love and the blood of Jesus working through me. I place my offender into the hands of Jesus and I give up any right to harbor any resentment toward him or her. By the blood of Jesus, I cut off any ungodly attachment to my offender. In Jesus' name, I turn, and you fill in the name, I turn completely over to You and declare Your blessing on his or her behalf. Give me the grace to renew my mind as I refuse to dwell on feelings of hurt, pain, anger, and resentment. Bring my emotions into alignment with my choice to forgive. I will be governed by compassion, not my pain. Thank You, Lord, for Your grace that enables me to live in freedom in Jesus' amazing and powerful name. Amen."