Christ has forgiven you of every sin in your life.
And so someone has said something or done something, maybe one thing,
maybe a series of things in your life.
Is that even comparable to how much Christ loves you?
Did he forgave you of all your sins?
If you watched episode one and gave your heart to Christ
for the first time, or maybe you are giving your heart to Christ again
because you haven't been walking close with Christ
and you're beginning to really experience his forgiveness
at a deep level for the first time, go to the Foundations series.
That's here on Empower You.
You can go to the descriptions, you can see the titles,
but it's the Foundation series, and that will walk you through how to grow,
how to grow as a believer in your newfound faith.
And I know for a lot of people, they would say things like,
Oh, I received Christ when I was 12 years old,
or I was baptized when I was 14 years old.
But your life hasn't been changed.
You haven't been transformed.
Probably I'm not going to be the judge and jury here,
but probably you were not born again.
You probably haven't fully grasped how to be a disciple of Christ.
You're not experiencing God's power,
his healing, forgiving love
and your belovedness through having a new identity in Christ.
Well, go to that Foundation series and it's going to help you grow in that.
Well, today I want to talk about the great healer of relationships.
That's forgiveness.
Forgiveness is the great healer of our relationships.
Unforgiveness is the great sickness of most relationships.
I think we could argue that the biggest problem
in most relationships between sons and daughters,
student and teacher, athlete and coach,
husband and wife is unforgiveness
because everybody gets hurt.
And we have times where we feel ripped off
like it wasn't fair.
And guess what?
Everybody look at me right now.
Life's not fair.
And life is hard.
It really is.
And it's because demonic powers control.
The God of this age controls this world.
And so we're kind of we're kind of like in quicksand in this world
where we're grasping for what will keep us from sinking down.
And I'm telling you, the only thing that will keep us afloat
in this world that can keep us moving forward in this world
is Jesus Christ flowing through our spiritual bloodstream.
So I want to talk today about how important it is
that we not just get forgiven ourselves,
but that we learn to forgive others.
And Jesus makes one of the most radical statements
of the New Testament.
This is right after he gave us
what we call classically the Lord's Prayer.
So here's the Lord's Prayer.
If you don't know, our father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Let me say that again.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those
who have sinned against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil one.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Then Jesus says this in verses 14 and 15 of Matthew six.
For if you forgive other people when they sin against you,
your heavenly father will forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others their sins,
your father will not forgive your sins.
So this is really serious stuff to God
that if you're not going to forgive others
with the same kind of forgiveness that God gave to you,
then God's not God's going to withhold his forgiveness to you.
You say, well, Steve, that doesn't sound very fair.
That doesn't sound like grace to me.
I can't comment on that.
I'm just telling you what Jesus said.
Jesus said in the Lord's Prayer
to forgive those who trespass against us.
And we've all been trespassed against.
Jesus is making a statement.
He's actually I'm not sure he's making as much of a theological statement
as an experiential statement that if you don't have the capacity
to forgive others.
Christ has forgiven you of every sin in your life and so someone is has said
something or done something maybe one thing maybe a series of things in your
life is that even comparable to how much Christ loves you that he forgave you of
all your sins what that says to me and this is true of me too is that when I've
withheld forgiveness to others it's because of an erroneous understanding of
Christ's forgiveness of me so I've had to go back and get in touch with what
Christ did on the cross what Christ did by resurrection from the dead in my life
for me to be able to extend forgiveness to someone over here who's only done a
couple things maybe even a series of things that are bad but nothing compared
to the affront of my life to God and yet God forgives me so I want to tell you a
story of how I worked through a really big issue of relational unforgiveness in
my life I had planted a church and this church had grown into the thousands and
one day one of the elders came to me after I had spoken at a meeting called
me into my office and basically told me I was going to be on a six-month forced
sabbatical because of basically my leadership style and I couldn't believe
it and then as the the weeks and months went by I began to realize more and more
that they had someone else in mind to take over and there was probably a
pretty good chance I wasn't going to come back as the pastor and I felt so
angry and hurt and beaten down by these circumstances and if you saw the movie
Forrest Gump you may remember the scene where his girlfriend Jenny had come back
to him and they had this period of a few weeks it seemed like weeks or months of
an idyllic relationship and their love was rekindled and then one night Jenny
leaves and the next morning Forrest wakes up and he's pretty depressed and
down and the scene begins with him sitting on the porch kind of like I'm
sitting here and he's got his his shrimp hat on and he's got his Nike shoes on
and he's just sitting there and the way the the movie depicts it is he just gets
up and he says for no particular reason I just began to run and it shows him
running down that long driveway at his house and then turning left and running
into his town and then running across the county and then running across the
state if you recall that part of the movie he he runs across the United
States five times one day I got out during this time of this for sabbatical
and really for no particular reason I put on some some boots and began to walk
and walk and walk and for the next five years I walked every day and every day
that I walked I pronounced forgiveness over the men who had hurt me and who had
betrayed me or at least I felt they betrayed they probably have a different
version of that but I'm telling you from my vantage point what I felt and yet I
didn't feel that forgiveness all I can tell you is that intellectually I was
forgiving but I didn't feel forgiveness in my heart and I just assumed that I
didn't need to feel it and I would probably say that in some cases that's
absolutely true but I was on a bear hunt up in Uray Colorado and I got up like
430 in the morning to go on this hunt I was in this room I was staying in a guy
on a guy's ranch and the Holy Spirit all I can say is that the Holy Spirit
came into the room and knocked me to the floor I felt his presence just fill the
room and for the next 90 minutes I just lay on this hardwood floor and just
cried out to God and wept and and all I can say is that I began to experience
new freedom that I began to to really be able to forgive from my heart those
men who had hurt me and I began to forgive myself too at the same time for
harboring unforgiveness toward those because I had the guilt of that also and
I was healed that day I was healed
And it was like a tipping point of God's grace in my life that all those days, all those
months and years of seeking forgiveness had finally tipped over with, I think, the tears
of my heart released back into my heart.
And I was released completely.
And it's never returned.
And that was like five years ago, just completely released of unforgiveness.
And so when I came back to my city from the hunt, I went to each one of those people and
I sat down and I asked them for forgiveness for me having unforgiveness toward them.
And I've been set free ever since.
And so, men and women, it's possible, it really is possible, no matter what someone's done
to you, however you've been treated, to be released from the power of unforgiveness.
James 5.16, we read, therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other
so that you may be healed.
That's the key.
Sometimes we need to confess our sins to people to be healed.
We have to verbalize that we're forgiving someone, that we verbalize that we don't want
to be under the yoke of unforgiveness anymore.
And then it says, we'll be healed.
And I think some of us, you know, we think that by harboring unforgiveness towards someone,
somehow that's hurting them.
I'm not going to forgive them for what they've done.
Well, who's that hurting?
They don't care about you anyway, most of the time.
They've moved on with their life.
And if you're worried about what people think about you, quit worrying about it, because
most people aren't thinking about you at all.
And so, to release forgiveness to someone is to take it out of your heart.
You're the one who's got the burden of unforgiveness.
They don't.
They don't, in most cases, even care about you.
But that's not the issue.
The issue is, are you going to let that person and their actions have power over you by you
harboring unforgiveness toward them, or are you going to say, you know, I'm not going
to let their power rule over my heart anymore, I'm releasing them, I'm being released, I
forgive them in the name of Jesus.
Now, let me just say this, just because you forgive someone doesn't mean you trust someone.
So you may, there's people in my life I do not trust, but I have forgiven them.
They have no power over me.
Ephesians 4, 31 and 32, we read,
Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form
of malice.
Rather, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as Christ forgave
you.
Men and women, the only way to walk in forgiveness is to replace those things that hinder your
forgiveness with the fruit of the Spirit.
So replace bitterness with kindness, replace rage with compassion, replace anger with forgiveness.
That's the only way to walk in this kind of freedom, but you'll start getting healed.
You will really start getting healed, and that's what my next message is about, is that
there's power in forgiveness for even healing your body.
Even healing you mentally, emotionally, and physically, because you've been spiritually
healed.
So that's my next episode.
That's the next thing I'm going to share.
But the reality is your soul gets healed.
Your heart gets healed.
Your future gets healed by making things right with people where you can, but releasing forgiveness
to those people that have hurt you, and not letting unforgiveness hinder you from the
great destiny that God has for you.