Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Church Hurt - Get It Out of Your Head Series
68 Plays1 year ago
In this week's sermon, pastor Ridley Barron addressed the topic of Church Hurt, providing insight into the emotional and relational challenges experienced within church communities. Drawing from biblical examples and personal reflections, he emphasized the imperfection of the church due to the imperfection of its members and called for a focus on love and forgiveness. Barron highlighted the importance of understanding and healing relationships within the church, encouraging listeners to release hurt and resentment and to embrace forgiveness as a means of personal transformation and positive change within the church community. Through his message, he urged the congregation to experience the freedom and healing that comes from letting go and aligning with God's commands of love and forgiveness.
Timestamps:
00:00 Understanding imperfections of church and people.
05:26 Luke recounts Paul's struggle to join disciples.
07:25 Blending families brought challenges; never full agreement.
12:30 Savior's sacrifice, bridge-building, hope, church unity.
13:49 Obey Christ, don't walk away without reconciliation.
17:21 Church community brings love and support. Improve it.
23:33 Jesus asks man if he truly wants healing.
26:01 Let go and forgive to avoid suffering.
29:39 Choosing anxiety and depression over trust in God.
31:15 Confession at ball games, refusal to change.
35:25 God wants to set you free, submit.
38:05 Seeking courage and guidance through Jesus' name.
Recommended
Transcript
Criticism, Offense, and Church Struggles
00:00:00
Speaker
I want to start this morning by reading something that Lisa shared with me earlier this week as I was talking a little bit about the sermon this morning and where it was headed, the focus of it. She shared something from a young lady that she follows on social media, and I want to read an excerpt from it for you. We can gossip and gripe and name names and tell tales, but God forbid we have our sin called to the carpet. Our behavior challenged, our words rebuked.
00:00:29
Speaker
How easily we throw off our garment of praise for a cloak of offense because we didn't like a look that someone gave us in the parking lot. It's Satan's plan. The growth of the church is the grief of hell and he will take us down one eye roll at a time if he can because we let him. An offended house cannot be a defensive one. He knows our weakness.
Challenges and Resistance in Addressing Tough Sermon Topics
00:00:55
Speaker
Four months ago when we laid out the plan for preaching this year working with the staff, I knew that this sermon was going to be a little bit difficult for me just because of the nature of the topic.
00:01:10
Speaker
And this week as it's gotten closer and closer, there's been no doubt that there's been some resistance to this. Some of it just for my own flesh, but most of it I think from just Satan because he doesn't like for us to deal with hard topics. If we stay on the soft stuff, he wins. So I want to start by just saying to every single one of you, even if you're a guest this morning, even if this is the first time you've walked in these doors, I love you very much.
00:01:37
Speaker
We love you very much.
Finding Freedom from Worldly Entanglements
00:01:39
Speaker
And the reason we do what we do is because we want you to be free. We want you to be free of the things that entangle you in this world. We want you to be free of the emotions that have you bound up. We want you to experience what Christ promised all those people who decide to follow him. And so this morning as we address this topic, I hope you know that it is couched in love that we deal with this.
The Source of Church Hurt
00:02:03
Speaker
Preaching a sermon on church hurt is like preaching about unicorns, a flat earth, and honest politicians. I don't believe any of them exist. What we like to call church hurt really is when people let us down. The church itself has never let anybody down. The church was God's idea. The church was instructed by God, given by God. It is an institution he created for us. The church doesn't hurt people. People hurt people.
00:02:33
Speaker
And so this morning, if you have been one of those who have fallen into that category, I'm hoping that by the time we walk through this journey together and we look at Scripture, that we're going to have a little bit clearer image of what the church looks like and how we can move beyond what we like to refer to as church hurt.
Commitment to Imperfect Institutions
00:02:52
Speaker
If you read the book of Acts carefully, you'll see that there's no such thing as a perfect church. If you go all the way back to its original 11 apostles and Jesus himself, the church has never been perfect because it's made up of imperfect people. In fact, the entire book of Acts is a tale of how an infant church stumbled its way through its early days with lots of imperfections. So let's be clear again, it's not the church that's hurting people, it is people that hurt people.
00:03:23
Speaker
And then we have this funny response when people hurt us because we say things like, I'm not gonna give my money to that church because it hurts people. And yet we'll turn around, we'll go back to the same restaurant that gave us the same pitiful service or the same awful food or messed up our mistake and we'll pay top dollar for that food and never think twice about doing it.
00:03:41
Speaker
or your family members. Let you down, disappoint you, anger you, tick you off. You don't kick them out of the house. And you don't pack your bags and walk out every time your husband lets you down or your wife says the wrong thing. At least I hope you don't.
00:03:56
Speaker
So as a family of believers, as we gather in this place, I think the encouragement of Scripture is that we have to learn to love one another.
Command to Love and True Discipleship
00:04:05
Speaker
In fact, the Bible says very clearly, if you're going to call yourself one of my disciples, then you have to love one another. Not because they get it right every time, not because they always say the right thing or do the right thing, but because it is what Christ has commanded us.
00:04:23
Speaker
When I started earlier, about three or four weeks ago to really dig into this sermon, I thought I'd start by Googling. That's where everybody starts their research these days, right? So I started to type what to do when, and you know how it pops up and it starts to fill in things. The first thing that popped up is what to do when you're bored. You're happy to know that yoga was their first suggestion. And then it was what to do when you win the lottery. Their best advice was don't tell anyone and go hire some professionals to help you.
00:04:54
Speaker
And then funny enough, after what we have just been through recently, the third most popular search was what to do when your pipes are frozen.
Historical Church Hurt and New Testament Conflicts
00:05:04
Speaker
But when I got to the subject of what to do when you've been hurt by the church, there were more than 27.4 million responses. You see, this isn't a new problem. Church hurt isn't something that just happened
00:05:20
Speaker
last year or last month or 10 years ago.
00:05:24
Speaker
It's been around forever. Acts chapter nine, verse 26 and 27, Luke is telling the story of the early church and he's recounting what's going on with these young apostles as they are trying to put together what's happening there in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas as the church continues to expand. And in verse 26, it says, when he, talking about Paul, when he arrived in Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were afraid of him since they did not believe he was a disciple.
00:05:52
Speaker
Barnabas, however, took him and brought him to the apostles and explained to them how Saul had seen the Lord. Here is Paul, one of the guys that you and I look up to as one of the greatest followers of Jesus Christ in the history of the world, and he was rejected by the people who were his people. The very people that he looked to for encouragement and support rejected him saying, we don't believe you, we don't trust you, you're not one of us.
00:06:17
Speaker
If you read the New Testament carefully, what you'll see is that all those letters we like to go to for encouragement, Galatians, Philippians, Ephesians, Romans, Corinthians, every single one of those letters was written by somebody to address the issue of bad relationships in the church.
00:06:34
Speaker
You guys aren't getting this right. So here's another letter. Here's another word of encouragement. Here's another word of correction.
Understanding the Human Element of Church
00:06:41
Speaker
It was always about trying to help people move beyond what happens when people hurt people. But nowhere in scripture did they encourage them to pack up their Bible and their family and leave. So what do you do when you're hurt by the church? What do you do when people let you down that you call brothers and sisters?
00:07:03
Speaker
Well, first of all, you have to face reality. You have to face reality. The church is not God. Is that surprising to any of you? I don't think so. I think we all know that, right? The church is not God. It's made up of imperfect people who are trying to follow God. They're trying to get this thing worked out. 17 years ago, Lisa and I got married.
00:07:25
Speaker
She brought to the relationship two young girls that were previous marriage and I had two kids from my previous marriage. And we got together in that family. It became very apparent very quickly. This was not going to be easy.
00:07:39
Speaker
I mean, almost instantly with four kids in the house, there were conversations about whose Christmas decorations were the nicest, why mom overcooked the green beans, why dad was so harsh about keeping the house clean, and where was the best place to go for vacation, the mountains or the beach.
00:07:57
Speaker
And so shortly after we began that process, I started to talk to Lisa, and I said, we gotta have a family meeting. And we sat everybody down in the room together, and we began to talk about these things. And I said, here's what you have to understand. We will never, all of us, agree on everything in this house.
00:08:12
Speaker
We're six very unique people with different personalities, different desires, different talents, different passions that we're gonna have as we grow older. So what we have to learn to do is we have to love each other and start from the position of grace.
00:08:31
Speaker
What do I mean by that? Then start with the assumption that all of us are looking out for each other. That it's not our secret motive to undermine the family. It's not our secret goal to see our brother taken down or our sister embarrassed. That we all love each other. And if we start from that place, then it becomes easier for us not to be the cynic about everything else that's going on in the house. Now, that was six people.
00:08:55
Speaker
Multiply it by 550 of us sitting in a room together trying to figure out what we're gonna do, how we're gonna do it, where we're gonna do it, what money's gonna be spent on it, all those different things. And you can imagine we're gonna let each other down sometimes, right? We're gonna have disagreements. We're gonna have moments where things don't go just exactly the way we plan. And here's the problem. Our emotions trick us.
00:09:21
Speaker
Our emotions trick us, they cause us to believe that everything is magnified beyond what it should be. Cal did a fantastic job last week talking about depression and then two weeks ago we talked about anxiety and we were talking about this reality that our emotions aren't wrong, it's how we deal with them that creates the problem. Let me continue reading from this social media person that Lisa was telling me about.
00:09:46
Speaker
When I was a little girl, I'd hear people talking in the church hallways. Sister Mary has left the church, they would whisper. She didn't get to sing her solo on Sunday morning, so she took her tape and went up the street. Well, Sister Mary wasn't any good, so as I grew up, I realized it didn't take much to offend a Christian, even a good one. Satan doesn't have too many tricks up his sleeve, but we seem to fall for the same tricks pretty easily. And offense is his favorite game.
00:10:16
Speaker
It's like a game of telephone that spreads the disease through the hearts and minds of even the healthier believers until the cancer cannot be cut out. They begin to see every decision, every comment, every sermon, and every social media post as personal. We have to stop looking at everything through a lens of panic, pain, and paranoia. We have been given abundant life, but offense puts us into an eternal prison.
00:10:45
Speaker
My challenge to the church is stop falling for it. Stop falling for it. Stand up to an enemy who wants to see us self-destruct in our own mess. Fight for one another. Pray for one another. Stand up to evil and refuse to allow it to have access to your mind.
Fighting Offense and Striving for Unity
00:11:05
Speaker
People will inevitably hurt us, but not everyone who gives you a weird look or says something that strikes a bad nerve is aimed at you.
00:11:15
Speaker
It is truly the bait of Satan, so don't take a bite. Acts 13, verse 49, we read these words.
00:11:26
Speaker
The word of the Lord spread through the whole region, but the Jews incited the prominent God-fearing women and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from their district. I told you church hurts not a new thing. Here's Paul, second time he's been run out of town by the people who called themselves his brothers and sisters. The second time he's been hurt by people.
00:11:51
Speaker
You know what the passage tells us? It says that Paul screamed at them, took his Bible, and ran out leaving and saying, I'm never coming back here again. No. Look at the next verse. Paul and Barnabas shook the dust off their feet against them and went to Iconium, and the disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit. Did you hear it? They shook the dust off of their feet, they moved on, and they kept on growing the church.
00:12:20
Speaker
They kept the kingdom as their single focus. It wasn't about them and their emotions. It wasn't them and their pride. It wasn't about them and their self-respect. It was about a savior who had died so that the world could be free. And that was their focus. Can I just ask you that when people throw stones at you, would you work to build bridges and keep on moving?
00:12:43
Speaker
Would you work to heal those relationships and would you work to continue to follow one goal and that is that the world may know the hope that you and I have? Don't let a bad experience keep you from the church. I'm not a Christian because I think I'm better than you. I'm a Christian because I know I am not better than you and I need a savior. So if you're looking for the source of the problem, it's me.
00:13:13
Speaker
and you and the person sitting next to you because none of us are perfect. None of us get this right all the time. This church, this pastor will fail you if I have not already. In fact, I halfway thought this morning about taking a poll and saying if I have hurt you since this church started to raise your hand but I decided my self-esteem could not take it.
00:13:41
Speaker
So when bad things happen, that's okay. If you disagree with me, that's all right. If you don't like what I've said, then I understand that. You have permission to decompress, but what you don't have is permission to walk away and disappear. In fact, Matthew 18 says that you are required in obedience to Christ to go sit down with those you have problems with and to not walk away without those important conversations. And something else you don't have permission to do?
00:14:10
Speaker
You do not have permission to say, I love Jesus, but I don't love his church. I want to say that to you again, because here's the deal. I have lots of good, good friends in this church, lots of guys that I know would go to bat for me and I would do the very same for them. There's many of them in this room today, but I don't know what one of them that would be okay with me walking up to them and saying, I love you, but I don't like your wife.
00:14:36
Speaker
And when you say that to Jesus, when you say, I love you, but I don't love your church, you have offended Christ. You have assaulted the thing he created and you have attacked the thing he loves. And
Improving the Church and Recognizing Successes
00:14:50
Speaker
Jesus will not sit idly by while you do such things. The second thing that we have to do is don't get bitter, make the church better.
00:15:02
Speaker
Don't get bitter, make the church better. You see, it's easy to critique the church. In fact, it's actually become trendy today. There are actually Christian followers who go on social memes and put all these things out there. Here, we're gonna expose the church for this or we're gonna embarrass the church for that. We're gonna attack the church for this different thing. But I would say that we must continue to do better and be better than that. This is not what Christ has asked us to do. This is not what Christ compels us to do.
00:15:31
Speaker
Make no mistake, the church has done wrong and it has caused harm over the years. You don't have to read very far back in history to know that there were times that the church was on the wrong side of social issues, political issues. There were times when the institution of the church did not do what it should have done. But the problem is, faithfulness doesn't make the news, failure does.
00:15:58
Speaker
We talked about that a couple of weeks ago. You see, there are a million people out there who are ready to jump on a church when their pastor fails morally. There are lots of people who like to write stories about how they were attacked in a church, hurt by a church, disappointed by a church. Those kinds of things are easy to talk about. But can we celebrate the million times a year that churches get it right? Can we celebrate the fact that there wouldn't be modern healthcare in our country today if it weren't for churches that started healthcare in America years ago?
00:16:28
Speaker
Can we talk about the fact that every time the government tries to do charity, it falls into a miserable, chaotic mess. But when the church does charity, people get helped. People get redeemed. People get rescued from their mess. The government's not rescuing the family. The government's not fighting for marriage. But the church is doing that a million times a year and getting it right. But all we want to focus on is that one time somebody didn't talk to us in the hallway at church.
00:16:58
Speaker
because the world has come to an end. I mean, let's seriously think about this. This week, as a pastor, more than a dozen times I can easily recount how I called or wrote or texted somebody to check on them in a situation they were going through, and before I even got to the person, they responded by going, oh, the deacons have already been here.
00:17:19
Speaker
Oh, my life group has already responded. Oh, my D group was here this morning. They've been praying with me. I even had one family who is new to the church who said, we have never been in a church that loved us as well through a situation than this one. Can we celebrate that the church is the church and when the church is right, it's better than anything else that's ever happened in this world? And quit focusing on the two or three times it might let you down.
00:17:47
Speaker
Aren't you glad that nobody put your life under that microscope? Aren't you glad that nobody's judging you because of the fact that you didn't get your conversation right, or you didn't show up at the right time, or you didn't pray the right prayer? Aren't you glad that your life isn't examined that way? So, don't get better, make the church better. Now, if the church, and I'm saying the church, I mean the people at this point,
00:18:17
Speaker
If the church people have hurt you, I am genuinely sorry. I am genuinely sorry that anybody has ever disappointed you or let you down. But I'm pretty sure that it just isn't just people in the church who've done it. There are people at your workplace who have done it. There are people in your school who have done it. There are people in your neighborhood who have done it. People let down people. It's not just church people.
00:18:43
Speaker
But Satan will take whatever frustration, discouragement, or hurt you have and will encourage you to be bitter and walk away. Why? Because he knows you need the church. You can't be healthy without it. And so he tricks us into believing that what we should do is just get all frustrated and walk away from those people who are gonna love us and care for us. But God says, make my church better and just keep walking with me.
00:19:12
Speaker
Oh, by the way, we don't invite people to come follow the church or a pastor here. We invite people to come follow Jesus. And if you're doing that, then you're going to get it right. If you're doing that, you're going to be okay. If you're doing that, you're not going to be let down. And one other question. It's a question that Kyle posed last week at the end of his sermon. I think it's worth thinking about again.
00:19:36
Speaker
What if the whole reason God put you through the hurt you were going through is so he could use you to help expose it, to hold other people accountable, to make his church better, but instead you chose to walk away? What if this morning in this service somebody has walked in here who has been disconnected from church family for years because of pain that they experienced and they walked in here saying, I'm going to give Jesus one more try and they sat down next to you and it's your story that's going to reconnect them to Jesus.
00:20:07
Speaker
But oh, you're not here because you took your Bible and went home. You refused to show up. You refused to be exposed again. I would submit that the Romans 828 is absolutely essential for you to hear in this moment that God can work through every situation, every hurt, every pain, every ache, every loneliness to bring something
Letting Go of Hurt for Peace
00:20:30
Speaker
good. You have to give it to him.
00:20:35
Speaker
The third thing that I would encourage you to do, and this is probably the hardest of the three, let go of the hurt. Let go of the hurt. Romans chapter 12, just flip over one book, Romans chapter 12, verse 17, it says, do not repay anyone for evil. Give careful thought to do what is honorable in everyone's eyes. Verse 18, if possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with who? That's not what it says. It says, live at peace with those who agree with you.
00:21:05
Speaker
Live at peace with those who stroke your ego. Live at peace with those who don't talk about your sin. Live at peace with those who vote like you do, look like you do, dress like you do, have the same skin color as you do. Love those people, but don't love anybody else. That's not what Paul said. Paul said, love everyone. And by the way, did you catch it? Who wrote it?
00:21:27
Speaker
Paul, the same guy who got thrown out of church after church, after village, after village, by the people he called brothers and sisters. And his encouragement to us, if possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everybody that's ever thrown a stone at you. Live at peace with everybody who's ever wished you dead. Live at peace with everybody who's ever asked for you to be arrested by the Roman authorities.
00:21:57
Speaker
live at peace with them all. There's an interesting story in John 5, many of you might remember it. Story of a guy who for 38 years laid by the pool of Bethesda, he was unable to walk. In that story, the belief of the local people was that when the pool of Bethesda would have a ripple in it, that the first person who would jump into the water would be healed.
00:22:21
Speaker
Now, we don't know for a fact that that was the case. There's no record in the Bible that that actually is what happened. But it was absolutely the belief of these people who lived in that area, so much so that many of them would camp out there trying to be the first one to jump into the water. The focus of the story is a man who had laid there for 38 years, unable to walk, unable to move. Nobody really paying much attention to him until Jesus enters the story.
00:22:50
Speaker
Jesus walks in, he looks at the man, and he says to him probably one of the most incredulous questions that's ever been asked, do you want to be well? Now, if I'm laying in the dust after 38 years, I'm looking at him and saying, I don't know who you are, Rabbi, but you've lost your mind. Absolutely, I want to be well. How do we go about this? But if you read the story carefully, notice what the man does. Jesus says, do you want to be well?
00:23:19
Speaker
and immediately he points at what everybody else hasn't done for him. Do you hear that? He didn't take responsibility for himself, he pointed at the people, his friends who had let him down. Do you hear that? You see, there are moments in your life that you find because of your hurt, because of your pain, because of your past, you find yourself laying face down in the dirt. And Jesus looks at you and says, do you really wanna be well?
00:23:48
Speaker
And you might be going, really? Do you ask that question? But here's why Jesus asked that question. Because he needed to know if the man really wanted to be well. Because Jesus wasn't asking, do you want me to change your situation? Jesus was asking, do you want me to change you? And there's a big difference. It's one thing to say, yeah, I want to walk.
00:24:15
Speaker
It's something entirely different to say, Jesus, everything about me is yours. Because what Jesus is not gonna do is he's not gonna give you permission to pay anybody back. He's not gonna give you permission to get even. He's not gonna give you permission to use callous words or hurtful words to try to teach somebody a lesson. Jesus looks at you today and he says, are you tired of laying in the dirt of your bitterness?
00:24:44
Speaker
Are you tired of being walked over by this world? Are you tired of being disappointed by what happens around you? Are you tired of being let down by your friends? Because if that's you, I'm what will make you well. But you got to give it to me. You've got to entrust it to me. You got to be willing to let me change who you are.
The Importance of Forgiveness for Personal Freedom
00:25:08
Speaker
And then you'll find your situation is different. So what does that mean?
00:25:15
Speaker
Well, first of all, it means you've got to offer forgiveness to people. You've got to offer forgiveness to people. That's always painful, isn't it? We don't like this idea of forgiveness because we think that somehow by not forgiving, we have control over the person who hurt us. Right?
00:25:37
Speaker
Isn't that what it is? I could never forgive them for what they do. I could never forgive them for what's happened. I could never forgive the past. I could never let go of that. And the reason you won't let go of it is because you've become comfortable lying in the dirt. You've become comfortable being paralyzed emotionally, spiritually, relationally. You've become comfortable with your situation and because you're comfortable, you're not about to let go.
00:26:07
Speaker
Forgiveness is all about letting go. Forgiveness is all about turning loose and saying, okay, God, this is yours to handle. The second thing you got to do is you got to understand that bitterness causes physical disease, literally. Science today is telling us that bitterness actually ruins us from the inside out.
00:26:31
Speaker
It causes physical disease, things like heart disease, high blood pressure, even sugar levels are affected by it. The patterns of our brain, the way we think, all affected by our unwillingness to forgive. And here's the irony, we think that our hatred, our bitterness, our anger is teaching them a lesson and all it's doing is torturing us.
00:26:53
Speaker
I can't tell you how many times in 38 years of ministry I've had people walk in and say to me, I don't know what to do. Here's the situation. Here's how they hurt me. Here's what they did 15 years ago, 20 years ago, five months ago. And I go, you've got to offer forgiveness. And they will walk over, they'll offer forgiveness and come back next week and I'll say, how'd it go? And they said, well, they didn't even know I was upset with them. They didn't even know there was a problem. You know what forgiveness does?
00:27:20
Speaker
Forgiveness gives us a key to open up the door to a prison that sets us free. Now just in case you dozed off, went to sleep, missed it, it sets you free. You don't have the ability, the power, the authority to imprison anybody else. You do not have the ability no matter what your situation, no matter what your status, you don't have the ability to put anybody else in an emotional prison.
00:27:49
Speaker
but you absolutely have the ability to put yourself in prison. And you do it every time you choose unforgiveness. So God says, do you want to be well? Because here's the key, there's the door. And if you will trust me, you will experience freedom like you have never experienced in your life. You remember the story of the Exodus, right?
00:28:16
Speaker
All of God's people living in the land of Goshen under the authority of the Egyptians. God comes along says I'm going to set you free. It took God 24 hours to free Israel out of Egypt. It took 40 years to free Egypt out of Israel.
00:28:36
Speaker
The journey that Exodus that they took from Goshen up to the Promised Land should have taken two weeks. It took 40 years because the people did not want to be made well. They did not want to trust God. They did not want to give
00:28:58
Speaker
forgiveness to those who needed forgiveness. They did not want to give up authority of their lives to a God who said he would guide them. They did not want to give up any things. It was so, so, so bad that they actually became delusional. If you read the story carefully, in the middle of the journey, as they are being fed by God's hand, they go, oh, it was better back in Egypt.
Choosing Freedom Over Bitterness
00:29:19
Speaker
It was better back in Egypt. Do you hear how crazy that is? They were slaves in Egypt.
00:29:26
Speaker
And they thought slavery was better than following God. Let me ask you something. How many of you are saying that same thing to him today? I'll choose the slavery of my bitterness over following God. I'll choose the slavery of my anxiety over trusting God. I will choose the handicap of depression in my life rather than trusting this God.
00:29:55
Speaker
Jesus looks at every single one of us today and says, do you really want to be well? Do you really want to know peace? Do you really want the joy that I can give to you? Do you really want to experience eternal love beyond comprehension? Do you want to know kindness and compassion? Do you want to know goodness? I'm going to close by sharing three quick things with you.
00:30:24
Speaker
Number one, hurt isn't holding on to you, you are holding on to hurt. Some of us in this room today, some of us here, and you know who you are, some of you are holding on to hurt like it's a security blanket. You know why? Because when you get in a tight situation, it's easy to go, oh, that's just who I am. Say that with me, that's just who I am.
00:30:55
Speaker
Y'all are not participating very well. Say it again, that's just who I am. That needs to be the last time you say that. Because nowhere from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 does God ever give anybody permission to say that's just who I am.
00:31:10
Speaker
I had a conversation three weeks ago with somebody, a good friend of mine. We were discussing sports, and this person confessed that at ball games, they get way out of line watching people play, so much so that it's probably an embarrassment. And they close that statement with the phrase, but that's just who I am. I'm sorry, I don't think Jesus is gonna welcome that person into heaven and say, you were a complete embarrassment to me, but that's okay, I understand, that's just who you are.
00:31:39
Speaker
I don't think Jesus is going to look at you and say, your marriage is falling apart and you're refusing to spend any time working on it, but that's okay. That's just who you are. Jesus didn't die so you could stay just who you are. Jesus died so he could come along, find you lying in the dirt with the world spitting in your face, stepping all over you, walking all over you, bringing you down and leaving you in that nastiness. He died so he could come along and say, do you really want to be made well?
00:32:09
Speaker
And the only thing that will stop it is you. It's not hurt that's holding on to you, it's you that's holding on to the hurt. And Jesus says it's time to let it go. Secondly, forgiveness is not excusing or saying it's fine. I know right away people immediately when they're talking about forgiveness go, wait a minute, you told me I got to invite that person back to my life? No, not at all.
00:32:33
Speaker
If you've been in an abusive situation and that's the hurt you're carrying around, you absolutely have to forgive for yourself, but you don't invite that back into your life. You absolutely draw new boundaries. But if they come to you and ask for repentance and confession and those kinds of things, ask for forgiveness, you are compelled by Christ to offer forgiveness. But you don't invite it back into your life.
00:33:00
Speaker
You've got a business partner who cheated you, walked out, left you holding the bag, forced you into bankruptcy. They come back to you and say, hey, I know I did you wrong. I need to forgive you. Absolutely. Do you want to start a business together? Not a chance. God bless you. Go do what you want to do. I've been set free from that. I'm not going right back into that. But forgiveness is necessary for your freedom, not for theirs. Lastly,
00:33:29
Speaker
Wounds are what they gave you. Scars are what Jesus gives you. You know what the difference is between a wound and a scar? One's opened up, one's hurting, one's causing pain, the other one has been closed up by the healing process, right? You know what's cool about scars? Chicks dig them. If I were to sit here and talk to you about all the scars I got growing up trying to impress some girl,
00:33:58
Speaker
We'd be here for a little while. There's this one. There's that one. You know, I could go on and on and on. Thankfully, at one point, God said, okay, you're going to wind up hurting yourself severely. I'm going to bring you a woman who's going to look you in the eye and say, you're stupid. I love you. Quit. Thank you, Lisa. No scars. Scars tell the story, right?
00:34:20
Speaker
Scars talk about the pain you've been through. Scars don't deny that you have been injured. Scars don't deny that you've been hurt, but the difference is the healing has taken place. And so when you look at a scar, you remember the story and you go, hmm, I remember those days. I remember that moment. I remember that relationship. I remember how that person hurt me. But praise God, that's not who I am anymore. That's not where I am anymore.
00:34:52
Speaker
My invitation today to you is this, wherever you are, whatever you're going through, I want you to look at the scars, not yours, his. Jesus died for you. He died so you could experience forgiveness for all your boneheaded, dumb, idiotic behaviors.
00:35:15
Speaker
All those crazy things you choose to do on your own, all those times you think you've got this under control, Jesus died so you can know freedom. But he also died so you could turn and offer freedom to others. So you could let people go, which would open the door to your prison and set you free. My invitation to you this morning,
00:35:42
Speaker
If God is speaking to you, if He's saying to you, it's time to open the door, would you let Him do that? I believe with all my heart that Jesus is speaking sincerely, specifically to some of you this morning saying, hey, do you really want to be made well? Tired of laying in the dirt yet? Tired of being paralyzed?
00:36:04
Speaker
All your life, emotionally, spiritually, relationally, you tired of all that? Because whenever you tell me you're ready, I will change who you are. But you won't do it until you give him control. You won't do it until you submit. Will you pray with me this morning? Father, we do pray for our hearts and our heads that they would align with who you are this morning.
Aligning with God's Love and Experiencing Peace
00:36:36
Speaker
Pray that right here in this season of our lives, Lord, that we would submit to your commands to love one another well and to forgive each other freely. Thank God you offer that forgiveness to us first. Thank God the death of Jesus on the cross gave us the chance to know real freedom, to know real peace.
00:37:03
Speaker
Now we have this command to turn, to look at our brothers and sisters and say, hey, I know you're going to let me down along the way, but I know you love me and I want to love you right back. I know the mistake you made last week, last month, last year, was because you were sincerely trying to do what you thought was right. And it's okay. Because I forgive you and we love each other. Lord, would you teach us
00:37:34
Speaker
What that looks like, really looks like in the practical day-to-day activities of our life. Would you show us what that looks like in our head? How we rearrange and renew our thoughts, transform our minds to align with what you desire for us? Truth is, some of us are holding onto the dirt. It makes us too doggone comfortable. Maybe today's the day that we experience freedom for the first time.
00:38:06
Speaker
Give us the courage to respond here in this season. It's in Jesus' name I pray, amen.