Freedom From Insecurity

Listen, I kind of want mercy, don’t you? I want grace. I want somebody to help me. I don’t want justice all the time, I want grace. So that they get grace, I get grace. If you ask justice, you get justice. Justice has already been determined. It’s going to happen. Just take a deep breath. And He says, “By His wounds you have been healed.”

Can I ask you a question this morning? This is a really personal question; do you want to hurt people? Did you wake up this morning looking for somebody to hurt? Like I can’t wait to get to New Life; I want to find somebody out there in the foyer that looks kind of vulnerable and I’m just going to hurt them. Man, I’m going to put a wound on them, and it will take years to get over what I’m going to do this morning. I mean, I got some good criticism. I haven’t given anybody in a while. I’m just looking for the right target. Did you wake up doing that this morning? Everybody – nobody in this room. If you did you’re evil. Really, honestly. That’s my definition of evil.

An evil person is someone who wants to hurt people. That’s an evil person. That’s bigger issues. Those are big issues. And there are evil people who woke up this morning wanting to hurt people, that‘s why we have police officers, right? They take care of those people. But most of us, 99.9% of us in this crowd we didn’t wake up doing that. When we hurt people, it had to happen. We don’t want to hurt people, we hurt people. You know why? Hurt people, hurt people. You don’t want hurt people, but you’re hurting people. I don’t want to hurt people but people are getting hurt. Why does that happen? Because hurt people, hurt people. And so this is why – this is what Peter was saying. Deal with the wound in your heart, deal with it. Ask God to heal you of that sense of justice. God you haven’t set it right. That person hurt me. I haven’t seen justice yet. It causes us to be insecure, it’s hurting us. Let it go. Take a deep breath. Lord give me faith today to relieve – here’s your prayer, “Lord give me faith today to believe that You‘re going to set things right at the end. Even if the things are not set right now, it will be set right, and now Lord, heal me.”

So in my process, when I realize I’m hurt I was wounded. I don’t want to be this insecure person. Listen to what he says, that very last thing he says, that in verse 25, “…the Shepherd and the Overseer of you r souls.” You wan to get free today? Listen, you walk out of here and keep your insecurity. If you like that then you live with it, all right? But I’m telling you something, if you want to be a steady, unshakable person who does not lash out, retaliate, who’s not defensive, who’s somebody that even in the face of the sharpest criticism, they’re just steady, and unshakable, they’re sound.