I Choose To Forgive - Part 1 Series

A) What I want to talk about this morning is something that I have had a hard time

admitting, and that is, I have a limited capacity – I’ve made a list .......

* I cannot do it all ... I can’t say it all ... I can’t be it all ... I can’t fix it all ... I can’t

solve it all ... I can’t carry it all ... I have a limited capacity.

B) Today, I want to talk to you about a choice.

* It’ll change your life ... If you can just come to the place where you can honestly admit,

“You know what? – I have some limitations.”

C) I can’t carry all the uncertainty of the future.

* I can’t carry all the burdens and what’s gonna happen, or what I’m afraid about, and all the

things I can be anxious about.

* I can’t carry the future – But I can trust God with my future.

D) But today I’m gonna talk about dealing with the past.

* In regard to the past, and when I was younger, I totally did not get this.

* When you’re young, you just don’t realize how life just piles up on you.

E) When you’re young, you just don’t see it ... But by the time you’ve flipped a few

pages on the calendar, and you’ve been through a few years, a few decades .......

* Stuff starts to pile up on you, and things happen, and people disappoint you, and rejection

comes, and disappointments come – And here’s what I’m telling you .......

F) If you don’t find a good way, a godly way, a biblical way of dealing with the things

that happen in life .......

* Your attic (mentally speaking) is gonna be so filled with nonsense and garbage, it’s gonna

be so hard for you to go forward if you don’t make a choice about the past.

* That’s what I want to talk about today ... The choice is this .......

(1) I CAN’T CHANGE MY PAST – I CHOOSE TO FORGIVE

A) How many of you have things about your past you wish you could change?

* Things you’ve done ... Things others have done to you – Put up your hand – Be honest,

let everyone else see your hand.

* “Preacher, if I could just live my life over, I’d do some things differently.”

B) I totally agree ... But we can’t go back.

* And God didn’t make us to carry the weight of the past ... We don’t have the capacity for

that, so we’re gonna make a good choice today – The choice to forgive.

* I’m speaking about this from experience – I shared this with you a couple of weeks ago,

but the Lord wants me to share it with you again for this message.

* People left – July 8, 2016 .......

SO LET’S START WITH THIS MOST OBVIOUS POINT IN THIS MESSAGE TODAY

A) I choose to forgive – It’s a decision that I’m making.

* I choose to forgive – Look at our text one more time – Matthew 6:14-15 .......

B) Sometimes when I’m studying a passage of Scripture and I’m thinking about you

guys, and what I’m gonna share with you .......

* Sometimes what I think to myself is, “Man, I hope I can make this clear, I mean,

that’s just complicated.”

* Like when we were going through the Book of Revelation, some of that stuff, I thought,

“Oh, I hope I can make this clear, I don’t hardly understand it myself.”

C) Not a thought like that came to my mind when I read Matt. 6:14-15.

* I mean, that’s a serious verse – That’s nothing you want to be messing around about,

or, “I sort of got it right.”

* There’s not gonna be no “nice try” people in heaven ... You really want to get this.

D) It’s not saying you get saved by forgiving ... It’s saying that people who are really

saved are forgiving people, increasingly so.

* Not perfectly – Not entirely – But increasingly, we are more and more forgiving.

* As the love of Christ penetrates our hearts more and more deeply, we just become more

forgiving people.

E) You ought to be the most forgiving person in your neighborhood.

* People ought to say about you, “He’s just not someone who holds grudges – Not just

someone who finds fault.”

F) “She’s not a person who tries to make people pay – She just moves on.”

* “She’s not petty – He’s not a scorekeeper – He’s just not like that ... You got to know

this guy ... He’s ... I’m looking for the word ... He’s ... He’s forgiving, that’s what he is.”