Love Worth Finding Series
Finding God’s love in forgiveness
Introduction-
Every one of us has a story to tell…what is your story?
What are you telling others not only with words, but by your actions?
People are watching you at the grocery store, your work place, sporting events you attend and one’s you participate in. Your children not only see you but hear you, and they are trying to absorb both.
People with phones and cameras make it very hard not to record every move we make and every word we utter.
We have been in a series of finding love in every area of our lives. I hope you have discovered new areas of where you can find God’s love and show God’s love.
What we have looked at
Loving God, God loving you
The love God has shown for you and I by sending His Holy Spirit to empower and equip us for life’s struggles.
Last week finding God’s love in loving others.
This week, I am making it a bit more personal… finding God’s love in forgiveness.
God’s forgiveness is life changing.
To experience God’s forgiveness from the heart and know that you know that your sins are forgiven by the one and only person who can forgive sin will set you free and will set your mind free from guilt and shame
Un-forgiveness is life changing.
Un-forgiveness will do the exact opposite of what God does for us. Un-forgiveness places heavy burden on you that drags you down and your mind is filled with guilt and shame and you feel all alone and isolated from everyone else.
Our D.S. Kerry Willis said in a meeting this week that isolation from God and other people turns to ignorance and then to idolatry.
(My take) You turn your back on God and keep tuning Him out ,you begin to think you don’t need God and you get arrogant, then as you go from God , you create your own God.
Don’t say that will never happen to me because it is only by the grace of God that you don’t do these things because sin will take you farther than you want to go.
Forgiveness is freeing and a blessing and un-forgiveness is tormenting down to your very soul.
What Forgiveness is… according to Webster-(Noun) the action or process of forgiving or being forgiven.
Psychologists generally define forgiveness as a decision to release feelings toward a person who has harmed you. Key word feelings, that is true but there is more to forgiveness.
God’s Word defines forgiveness as a deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance toward a person who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness.
But it comes with certain precautions.
Christians who study or teach forgiveness make clear that when you forgive, you should not gloss over or deny the seriousness of an offense against you. (We do not make excuses for the offender)
Forgiveness does not mean forgetting, nor does it mean condoning or excusing offenses.
Though forgiveness can help repair a damaged relationship, it doesn’t obligate you to reconcile with the person who harmed you, or release them from legal accountability. Repeat
Your brother popping you in the nose is definitely a different forgiveness than someone who has physically or mentally abused you.
The end result God wants for us is wholeness and for you to not carrying around guilt and torment, or rehashing the event over in your mind.
But how much you open yourself up to the offender is one that God has to help us with.
Some can move pass and forgive and restore relationships and some need to forgive for their healing and stay away from the person so that they can be made whole by the Lord.
3 questions to ask ourselves
How do we forgive ourselves after God has forgiven us?
How do we forgive others that have sinned against us?
How do we seek forgiveness from those we have sinned against?
Matthew 18:21-22
“Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brothers and sister who sin against me? Up to seven times? Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven times, seventy- seven times.”
For those keeping numbers, He is not saying on the 491st time you can legally not forgive them. It is remembering how much the lord forgave you.
We forget what God has done for us as we attempt to forgive those that trespass against us.
We think we have special circumstances.
That statement shows Gods boundless love that he has for us and how we ought to forgive others.
Illustration
Story of Corrie Ten Boom
Corrie Ten Boom was put in a Ravenbrunk concentration camp with her sister for hiding Jews in the wall of their family watch shop during the war and they were beaten and starved and if it would not have been for their building being infested with fleas, she would have been raped. She was miraculously spared and released after years and even watched her own sister die in the camp. Years later after speaking about her torment and pain around the world, she was in Munich Germany and meet a man at a revival one night that was her prison guard. After listening to her talk about her God and His forgiveness, he was moved by her words and the God that could forgive sin. Now she was faced with if she lived out what she talked. He extended his hand to her, but would she take it? She struggled with what she thought was a lifetime, but extended her hand. She said that it was a release of God’s love for a man that literally all but killed her.
Stories of restored marriages of infidelity are inspirational and encouraging.
We hear stories of forgiveness and separation.
Where God had them break away and gave them new mates and new circumstances and new friends and new jobs after the most trying times of their life.
Where do you draw the line? Better question, who helped you draw that line? God? Or did you make that decision all by yourself.
Illustration-
Let me speak as a pastor and give you a pastor illustration for those that are going through personal and horrific struggles right now in your life and forgiveness is hard. First, you had better be seeking God and what God has to say about what you are suppose to do.
I had a pastor friend, it was early in my walk with the Lord and was I was studying for the ministry with another denomination and this young pastor was seeing God doing amazing things in a young church God called him to pastor.
The problem was that the people he was pastoring were not nice to him.
They expected too much.
If he walked on water like Jesus they would have expected more.
They invaded his personal life with his two young children and they were always under the microscope as parents and as a pastor.
He was burned, was hurt, was frustrated and he became depressed.
He sought God about what he should do and the Lord told him clearly to stay where he was until God brought healing.
He left that church despite what God had told him and for over 30 years of ministry has not found a place for very long to call home.
Did he have a right to be mad? Yes. Did he listen to the Lord? No, and he paid a severe price for it.
Another person- same scenario, struggled in the church that he was at and stayed the course. During the hard times, he hung onto God’s promise of what he would do.
He did not go by what he saw, or what he felt, but what God said.
God brought the healing that was needed.
Forgiveness is a choice! A choice that you make- and believe me, your decision does have affects and consequences. What Is God telling you?
Col 3:1--3:3
“Since then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ, is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not earthly things. For you have died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”
Col 3:7-8
“You use to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all things as these; anger, malice, slander and filthy language.”
Col 3:15-
“Let the peace of God rule in your hearts.”
Does God mean what he says yes!
Does he understand how hard it is- yes
For those that have been physically hurt and mentally abused, God does not tell us we need to put ourselves in danger in any relationship or put ourselves in a position to be hurt again. We need God help and power to get through it and set us free.
But what about ridding ourselves from anger, malice, vengeance ,slander. Does he mean it- yes does He understand how hard it is- yes!
Hard right? These things happen after we have decided that we will not forgive and take it into our own hands.
We are to be different- we are Christians, God’s chosen people, we are to put on his righteousness, take on his compassion, humility, gentleness, and his patience.
We cannot do that without him, it is impossible.
He goes as far to tell us that we are to forgave others like he forgives us.
God makes doctrinal statements in His Word-
If He told us to be Holy but never told us how to be holy, we cannot apply His word.
If would be impossible to please God unless He told us what pleases him.
We forgive because of what Christ has done for us-
“Forgive each other as God has forgiven you”
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.
“Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts, let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.” Isaiah 55:7
Listen, if you have been deeply hurt or abused and you need to make life changing decisions, then go to the life changing God for answers.
Most un-forgiveness in the world today is because we cannot let go of hurts and move forward with God. It is the little things that has manifested itself into big things and the big things we deal with, we don’t talk about.
You don’t need Dr Phil or Dr Oz, or Oprah- you need Jesus!
There is power in forgiveness that comes only from God
There is peace that only comes from God as we forgive and allow God to move us forward.
Burying the hatchet only brings peace if it is not buried in somebody.
Ever made a mistake?
Ever said something you should not have?
We expect others to forgive us but not willing to forgive others.
We want God’s forgiveness for ourselves, but feel others should not get that same mercy and grace.
Listen as we wrap this up this morning-
Peace in the midst of a storm
“Jesus did not say “Let us go into the midst of the storm and drown.” He said, “ Let us go over to the other side” He said we will get through the storm and be on the other side of it.
We have to trust God-
We have to trust the Word of God
We have to be in the Word of God to experience the peace of God in our Storms and be able to forgive to receive the healing power of forgiveness.
Do not fear that there is anger in your heart over what you are going through- fear that you are not turning that anger over to God. Healing only comes through Him. We cannot take these things out of a broken heart without Him.
This morning we had a whole family stand up and pledge to make sure that Austin follows the ways of the Lord, and we need a church that will pledge to help those that are hurting.
We do not forgive so that the offender is let off the hook!
We forgive because we want the Lord to make us whole –
We forgive so that our relationship with God and His people is not broken.
We forgive so that God gets the glory in our lives.
We forgive because God has told us too.
We forgive because we want forgiveness from God and people around us.
Amen. Prayer Time
