Forgiveness Sets You Free: Steps to Release Bitterness

Do you realize that the prayer that Jesus taught teaches us that we have as much need for daily forgiveness as we do for daily bread? I don't know about you but I need daily bread. Right? You know, if you're in here and you don't need daily bread, you just you're that well off. Praise the lord. God bless you. Right? Let's meet up after service. Can I borrow $5? Anyway, no. I need I need daily bread and I don't mind asking for it but I also have to understand that there is the daily need for forgiveness which leads me to point number two, forgiveness starts with prayer. [00:48:54] (50 seconds)  #DailyForgiveness

Have you ever met somebody that's just they're just bitter. I've never met anyone that was just, like, they were just a bitter person that I was like, I just wanna hang out with you. Like, can we go on vacation together because you seem like you would just be a party? You know what I'm saying? Like, I haven't met anyone like that and neither have you and there's a reason is because when you get around bitter people, the bitterness not only defiles them but it defiles everybody around them. Right? You ever show up at at like a a like, you know, you you go out with a group of friends and you're like, yes. We're gonna have a great time and one of the friends show up and they're they're just angry and it ruins the night for everyone. [00:52:13] (60 seconds)  #NoMoreBitterness

And if it couldn't get any worse, are y'all with me? If it couldn't get any worse, go down a couple verses and he says in verse 14, for if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others sin, their sins, your father will not forgive your sins. Now, let's be real. That's not saying that god's up in heaven and he's real vengeful and he's like, oh yeah, you're gonna hold on to that? Boom. Not forgiven. [00:44:38] (41 seconds)  #ForgiveAndBeForgiven

We want to avoid forgiveness because we don't want to let them off the hook. When we don't understand that the longer we hold on to the offense, we're just keeping our self imprisoned. And so if we begin to understand the first reason that we forgive is not necessarily because they deserve forgiveness Come on. Well, preacher, you just don't know what they did to me. Exactly. I do not know but I do know this, you don't know what they did to me either. And if we don't forgive then we live life bound [00:47:59] (55 seconds)  #ForgiveToBeFree

And I grabbed from my bookshelf. I grabbed two books. One was written by a man by the name of Richard Exley, and he'd written a book on surviving the storm. Unbeknownst to me, over half that book had to do with forgiveness. The second book that I pulled off the shelf was written by RT Kendall. It was called Total Forgiveness. I grabbed those two books and I walked back into my room where my wife now was sitting in bed. And I threw those books on the bed, and I said, we will internalize these two messages because I refuse to allow what we are currently going through to define who we will be for the rest of our lives. [00:57:20] (53 seconds)  #RefuseToBeDefined

And so every time somebody would come up and go, yeah, we heard about what happened. I immediately wanted to jump to no. No. No. No. No. This is what actually happened. This is what was done to us. And I had to come to a place where I realized that every time I did that, all I was trying to do was pull them to my side. And if I was going to experience total forgiveness, I was gonna have to let that desire go. [01:04:50] (47 seconds)  #LetGoToForgive

So, you confess your feelings. Identify your feelings. Confess your feelings. Number three, ask god to change your feelings. I know this is not deep theologically. But sometimes you gotta go, god, I choose to forgive. I don't feel it yet. So, god, help my feelings to come into line with the choice that I made. And then number four, and this is the hardest one, is you've got to make the choice to not tell anyone what they did. But preacher. K? If it's got to start with but, you should probably stop there because it's not headed in the right direction. I had to make a choice. [01:03:08] (67 seconds)  #ConfessChooseForgiveness

But then that leads me to the second thing that Jesus assumed in these verses, not only will people hurt you, but you will be in the place of needing forgiveness. Let me say it another way. You will have hurt other people because here's what I found out. And this is from a pastor. Right? Sheep bite. But so do shepherds sometimes. Unintentionally most of the time and we often assume the worst. When other people hurt me, I automatically assume the worst and then I want them to assume the best when I unintentionally hurt them. [00:46:44] (56 seconds)  #WeAllHurt