Un-forgiveness will kill you
Forgiveness will give you life
Pastor Joe Bachman
10/15/06
Matt 6:9-15
9 "Pray, then, in this way:
’Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
10’Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
11’Give us this day our daily bread.
12’And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13’And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.[For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.]’
14 "For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
15 "But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.
NASU
Look at verses 14 & 15
Those are some powerful verses
So many times they are looked over
But that does not make them any less true
I noticed something about people
When they read the bible they always rejoice in a verse that is comforting and compassionate
But they seem to ignore the challenging ones
How many people do you know that have these verses as their life verses?
That’s because we have a hard time putting these verses to practice
Sometimes it is so hard to forgive isn’t it?
Oh it is easy to accept forgiveness but it is hard to give it
1) Let’s look at what happens when you can’t forgive
2 Cor 2:7
7 so that on the contrary you should rather forgive and comfort him, otherwise such a one might be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.
NASU
alot of us should have this for our life verse
it says we should not only forgive but we should also comfort the person who has offended us
why?
Look at the last part of this verse
otherwise such a one might be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.
Notice it does not just say sorrow it says excessive sorrow
The hardest step to heal from forgiveness is to forgive ourselves
Sometimes it is easy to forgive others but it is hard to forgive ourselves
There is a lot of mental health problems such as depression and other mental health problems caused from un-forgiveness
There is where people are living in the sorrow mode
But see un-forgiveness does not stop there it moves to excessive sorrow
Here is where it becomes dangerous in this stage a person could hurt others and or himself.
A prime example of this is what happen in Lancaster
Everyone is asking the same question
Why did this happen?
Let’s look a little bit about the man that did this horrible crime
His name was Charles Carl Roberts
Charles Carl Roberts IV was born December 7, 1973 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
His father is retired from the local police force.
His mother works at Sight & Sound Theatres, a Christian organization that stages Bible plays in Strasburg, Pennsylvania.
Neither he nor his family were Amish.
In 1990, Roberts worked as a dishwasher at Good `N Plenty Restaurant in Smoketown, PA.
Roberts drove a milk truck for Northwest Food Products Transportation in East Earl Township.
He shared a home in Georgetown, with his wife and children, a daughter, 7, and sons, 5 and 18 months.
Their first child, a daughter named Elise Victoria, died twenty minutes after birth on November 14, 1997.
This is a brief overview of his life
Now let’s look a little deeper
What was going on behind the seen
Sometimes you can tell a lot about a person with what they write
"I don’t know how you put up with me all those years. I am not worthy of you, you are the perfect wife you deserve so much better. We had so many good memories together as well as the tragedy with Elise.
It changed my life forever I haven’t been the same since it affected me in a way I never felt possible. I am filled with so much hate, hate toward myself hate towards God and unimaginable emptyness it seems like every time we do something fun I think about how Elise wasn’t here to share it with us and I go right back to anger."
These are words form a person who had a hard time forgiving himself from the past
This type of un-forgiveness turns to anger
So what you see here and what I believe that God is trying to show us here is what happens when we let un-forgiveness into our hearts
It causes death
Not always like this but it does always cause death
It might be physical
It might be emotional
It might be Spiritual
But it always causes death
But you know what
God is always a God of balance
Say God is a God of Balance
2) Let’s look and see what happens when we do forgive.
Forgive:
2 : to cease to feel resentment against (an offender)
Notice the word feel
If you cease to feel resentment what then do you feel
Peace
Joy
Freedom
The one question I heard over and over again that was pointed to the Amish people
How can you deal with this
Their answer was always the same
We trust in God
And we choose to forgive
Folks you see forgiveness is a choice
You can choose to forgive
Or you can choose to hold it in
Eph 4:30-32
31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
NIV
Once again God shows us how to forgive in the Lacaster shooting
How many of us could even start to forgive the person who killed our child
Look at the type of forgiveness they showed
Let’s set up the picture for you
Man comes in
The school has 27 students attending the school in grades 1 to 8.
Roberts had wire ties and plastic flex cuffs, which he used to begin tying the hostages feet together after they were lined up along a blackboard. He let go 15 male students, as well as one adult female who was pregnant. Three other non-student females with infants were also allowed to leave. One shotgun and one handgun was found next to the suspect when police entered the building.
Timeline Oct. 2, 2006
9:51
(Approximate) Roberts enters school
Roberts allows male students, some teacher to leave
Roberts secures doors with 2x4s and 2x6s
10:36 Call comes in to police about shooting
10:45 First police arrive on scene
Roberts calls wife
Roberts calls Lancaster County radio
Shooting Starts
Police storm school
The next day the Amish take to reporters with these words
We forgive him
Then they take it a step further
They ask the wife to pray with them
Then ask family to come to funeral
Split the money
You see they not only talked the talk but they walked the walk
They took the bible literally
James 1:22
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
NIV
Mark 11:26
26["But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your transgressions."]
NASU
Close
People hear that need to start healing
People hear that need to forgive someone
God spoke to me one day and said this
I believe he is speaking this word to the whole church today
I can not take you one step further till you learn to forgive
