The hardest person in the world to forgive….myself.
Matt 26:69-75
Last week we started a series of sermons that I call “About the F word.” We started with the subject of “Ultimate forgiveness.” I suggested that “Ultimate Forgiveness” is that the forgiveness that every person feels a need for but often we as individuals can’t quite grasp what it is that we want. Some people fill the need for ultimate satisfaction with earthly opportunities, work, entertainment and even immoral activities.
Generally, people are looking to solve a craving and until they renew their relationship with God they will just stay hungry, hungry for something.
However, to resolve that hunger all that was needed was to make a decision and one step toward God and God would close the gap.
If you missed the message last week and you would like to get a copy let Eric Willoughby know and he will work out getting you a tape of a CD of any message you may hear or miss hearing on Sunday morning.
This morning we are talking about forgiving someone that we know everything about. We have witnessed their actions and we even know the hidden thoughts and intentions. We know about their secret offences against people and sometimes against God Himself. We know that they often feel regrets and pain and often feel deep remorse for the things that they have done and said and even thought.
This morning we are talking about forgiving ourselves.
When I think about my need for forgiveness I connect the idea to baggage. You know when ever we go on a trip we always need to carry some basic stuff with us. There is always the need for our clothes and medicines. But how often do we carry stuff we really don’t need, extra clothes or perhaps extra shoes. When we travel on vacation maybe we carry some of our work with us.
What happens is we end up with extra weight that we end up carrying around…extra baggage that we feel that we have to deal with on our journey.
Last week was inclusive of pre and post Christian relationships with God. But today is about dealing with the spiritual baggage that we tend to load up with on our spiritual journey.
We all slip up on our spiritual journey which includes every moment we live on this earth as a Christian. That journey takes place in a fallen world and all to often we hit a pot-hole or make choices which take us off of the path that God intends us to follow. Sometimes we think we are making good decisions in our personal life, our relationships and jobs.
Somehow we don’t see the catch, the trap, and we end up picking up, a consequence. We don’t see the emotional traps that come with so many of the daily choices and end up loading us down with extra baggage for our journey. The baggage contains things that we feel that we can’t get rid of like, guilt, shame, or disappointments in our decisions. We can’t take what ever it is back so we are left carrying it as we have to live with our decisions.
If we knew about the consequences we probably would not have made the decision. Unfortunately, we don’t see it coming until it is too late and so many people carry around the baggage for the rest of their lives.
The majority of time we pickup unwanted baggage when we step outside of God’s will for our lives, when we settle for a life of our own choosing. The Bible describes a life centered on our choices and control as a life focused on sin. It is also a life that falls short of the best that God intends for you and me.
A lot of us are carrying around baggage that has built up along the way.
The solution, the only solution is forgiveness. Last week, we learned what forgiveness from God was like by looking at the parable of the Prodigal Son. How Jesus’ story explains that no matter what we have done, or how long we are gone or even how far we have run, we can always ask God for forgiveness.
When He forgives us we are lovingly embraced by God and our past will never be brought up again. It is completely forgiven.
But the problem we are talking about today isn’t forgiveness from God.
The problem we are talking about today is how we have a hard time forgiving ourselves. How we tend to carry baggage from our past around and never forgive ourselves. You see, forgiveness is real when it comes from God, but it doesn’t become real in my life until I learn how to forgive myself.
So the question is how do I forgive myself?
One of the people, who was there in person and heard Jesus tell the parable of the Prodigal Son, was Peter. And Peter was the most outspoken of Jesus’ twelve disciples. He was a fisherman by trade and he was very bold. He had a tendency to speak before thinking about the consequences of his words.
The Bible says that the day before Jesus died, that He had a last supper with His disciples and at that meal, Peter promises Jesus that he is going to the very end with Him, even if it means dying. And then Jesus turns to Peter and said, very harshly to him—Peter, before the rooster crows in the morning, you will have denied you even know Me three times.
Well, this greatly offended Peter. Peter said—no, that will never happen. I am going to go with you to the very end. But that same night, Jesus was arrested and taken into custody and Peter followed from a distance.
Scripture - -- Matt 26:69-75
Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came to him. "You also were with Jesus of Galilee," she said.
But he denied it before them all. "I don’t know what you’re talking about," he said.
Then he went out to the gateway, where another girl saw him and said to the people there, "This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth."
He denied it again, with an oath: "I don’t know the man!"
After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, "Surely you are one of them, for your accent gives you away."
Then he began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them, "I don’t know the man!"
Immediately a rooster crowed.
Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: "Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times." And he went outside and wept bitterly.
Peter, the strong and decisive fisherman, the man that was willing to fight to protect Jesus in the garden, denied even knowing Him in the courtyard. He turned his back on the Son of God and immediately he felt regret and shame and guilt.
-- Peter’s future was in doubt at that point. It wasn’t an issue of whether God would forgive Peter or not.
The question was would Peter be able to forgive himself and move forward.
In our lives, our issue may not be that we denied the Son of God.
It may be that we made a mistake in a relationship and we are now feeling the guilt.
It may be that we missed God’s opportunity for a career and we are now feeling regret.
It may be that we lived our life so far outside of God’s will and God’s best for our life that we are feeling shame.
It’s not an issue of whether you were forgiven by God. You are forgiven by God if you ask for it. The harder question becomes, will I forgive myself. There are some of you here today that have been carrying around emotional baggage for a long time, because you have been unable or unwilling to forgive yourself.
Today is the day to finally take that step. Today, we are going to look at the necessary requirements for forgiving myself and here’s requirement number one.
Coming to God for Forgiveness.
That was our topic for last week and it is the most important step we can take in our lives. God offers Ultimate forgiveness – unconditional forgiveness.
Unconditional forgiveness removes the separation that exists between myself and God; because of Sin in my life. Unconditional forgiveness assures me that I CAN spend eternity with God in Heaven but it also enables me to forgive myself.
Peter had messed up. He denied knowing his friend and teacher to save his own skin. He had been so prideful and made all the big claims about how far he would go with Jesus. But in the cool evening in the courtyard his words became ashes at a critical time in Jesus trial.
This is a big piece of baggage that Peter picked up.
-- How could he ever proceed after this kind of failure?
The only way he will ever move forward and continue on the path that God has for him is if he will forgive himself.
Do you think that God still had a plan for Peter’s life?
Of course with our hindsight we know that he did. But how could Peter know that he would be forgiven and still useful to God after such an event.
Do you remember reading in Mark 16 about the Easter morning account?
After Jesus has been buried on the third day some of the women had gone to prepare Jesus’ body and when they got there they looked inside the grave. It was empty. There was an angel sitting there. This is what the angel said. 6"Don’t be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ’He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ "
God knew what Peter was feeling. God knew that he did not consider himself eligible to be a part of the group. But the Angel specifically tells the women to tell Peter. This let Peter know that even though he had really messed up, that Jesus was alive and Peter was forgiven.
Here’s the key. God’s forgiveness is specific. It’s instant. It’s complete. It’s repeated and it’s free. We need to know that God forgives us so that we can receive it and then we can forgive ourselves in the same way.
Paul describes God’s forgiveness in Colossians 2. Paul says, 13When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision (not acting like God’s people) of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14having canceled the written code,(the Law) with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.
Jesus settled this issue of forgiveness on the cross, but until you recognize that you are completely forgiven by God, you won’t be able to offer that same forgiveness to yourself. So forgiving myself requires that I come to God for forgiveness. That’s number one. However it includes that I receive, I accept, I believe that God really does nail my sins to the cross and leave them there and not on me.
The next part of forgiving myself is to be open to changes in my life. As a forgiven person, as a Christian I need to be open to the whisper of the Holy Spirit about the way I live. God did not require me to change to be forgiven but, he wants something more. He wants a willing and free response for us. He wants Us to want more!
As you read through the book of Acts you can watch as Peter is changed dramatically. The pattern of his life changes from being a man that acts quickly with his own decisions to a man that responds to the leading of God.
He receives the forgiveness offered by Jesus and just a few weeks after denying Christ, Peter starts teaching in public, in the heart of Jerusalem. His understanding of who he is in Christ allows his return to leadership and his boldness that disappeared has changed from boasting to sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ. His new boldness starts a movement that we are a part of today.
The Bible records event after event where Peter stands before authorities and keeps his original promise to Jesus because he is freed from the baggage of his denial.
That’s a lot of change in a short amount of time in Peter’s life. You may be thinking to yourself. Wait a second. We are talking about forgiving myself, and if I am going to be able to forgive myself, do you say that I have to change radically as Peter did. If that is what you are saying, I can’t do it.
Don’t worry. You don’t have to because remember, forgiveness is unconditional. Plus, not everyone is called the way Peter was called.
But you are called to the work of Jesus Christ and unless you begin to change some of the destructive patterns in your life that are the source of the guilt and shame in your life, your baggage. You will never be able to forgive yourself completely. You will never properly return to the journey that God intends for your life.
Here’s the question that I often hear from people. Can I keep asking for forgiveness for the same sin over and over again?
You just said, God forgives repeatedly, so can I keep asking God to forgive me of the same sins?
Well, the answer is “yes” and “no”. Number one, if you ask for forgiveness insincerely, then are you really asking for forgiveness?
Have most of you heard the comedy of “Larry the Cable Guy?” He talks real country and his humor is southern and often gross and rude. During his act, he will often make a joke and then bow his head and say something like, Lord, forgive me, I know that wasn’t right.” Then he goes right back into his act again.
I suspect that we often do the same kind of thing. We say or do something and want to clear our conscience with God so we said—God, please forgive me of this, fully knowing we have no plan or desire to change what we felt bad about.
Are you with me on that? We have done that before or is it just me?
When we ask for forgiveness with no desire or intention to change, we are sort of playing a game with God. But, God doesn’t play games.
He’s not going to forgive us if we are not sincere. When you go to God for forgiveness, you have to be sincere, sincere that you are sorry for what you did and sincere that you want to change.
But there are times when we are sincere, when we regret the sin in our life and we do want to change. We ask for forgiveness and we receive it and we turn around and commit the same sin again and again and again. This happens a lot with addiction or with habits.
Will God keep forgiving me for that? Well, the answer is “yes”.
God will forgive you over and over and over again. But here’s the problem—even though that forgiveness happens, if you keep committing that sin over and over and over again, you become numb to the experience. You become numb to the gift of forgiveness.
You become numb to the sin. And perhaps start making excuses, - well, because I can’t help it, it must not really be wrong. The guilt and shame no longer influence your repentance. Eventually, you slip deeper into sin and away from God.
It’s important if you want to forgive yourself, you have to begin to change the patterns in your life that lead to the guilt and the shame and the regret.
-- I want you to really listen to me for a moment. The patterns we have in our life that cause the baggage that we drag around with us, it doesn’t just hurt us. It doesn’t just hurt our ability to forgive ourselves and our future, but it also hurts our loved ones and even our future family.
You set patterns for future generations by the patterns you have now. Your temper, the way you argue, with the addictions that you have in your life, how you handle conflict, whether or not you have a quiet time with God.
The patterns of your life wither good or bad affect the people you know now and children and grand children in the future. Just like you have been influenced by your parents and grandparents and brothers and sisters in the past.
Think about the patterns in your life that you have that are destructive, that not only have the potential to hurt you, but habits that you don’t want to see in your children, or in your grandchildren, or great grandchildren.
I want you to think about patterns that you need to remove from your life. Make a mental image or a written note to yourself that you can return too, to help you to consider how you will with God’s help change the patterns of your life.
So the first requirement necessary to forgive myself, is to receive forgiveness from God. The second requirement is to recognize and try to break free of the destructive patterns in my life. And to start new patterns which match what we learn from being free from the weight of the baggage in our lives.
-- So for argument sake let’s say that we think we have been successful in those two steps.
Why is it that we still feel guilty and ashamed about our past?
Why doesn’t God wipe those irritations, like a pebble in our shoe, out of our emotions?
Why do we even have to remember the event in the first place?
It is that memory and emotion that makes us feel un-forgiven even when I accept God’s forgiveness. It is my past baggage that stops me from moving ahead.
-- Here’s an important truth that you need to know.
God does forgive the past, but He never erases it. He has a purpose for it.
God has a purpose for my failures and mistakes. We all come to Jesus with spiritual broken bones, wounds, hurts, and past mistakes. And God’s intention is to heal our past wounds, to bind together all of the hurts that we have in our life, to heal our relationship. He doesn’t erase the past. He allows the scars. He allows the weakness to remain. Why?
So that He can use us as wounded healers to go out and help those who are struggling with the same things. That’s how God is best glorified. That’s how people are best helped, when we allow God to use our weaknesses and our mistakes to help other people.
Do you have baggage from the past? We all do. Don’t be ashamed of it. God wants to use it.
Maybe you are wondering how God can use a scared person like you?
Well, take a look at a photo album of the things we used to carry. The things that have hurt us the most and the memories, the images still sting and remind us of the emotions that went with the situation.
He doesn’t just want to allow you to forgive yourself, He wants you to use the memories and emotions of those events to help other people.
He does not intend to forgive you and you just stop moving on your journey knowing you have made it. He wants to use those things in your life, because you have experienced it and now you can go out help other people struggling with that same baggage.
Oh, I have a picture of that in my album.
Broken relationships, man that one hurt for a long time.
Anger problems, yep, I have a lot of images of that , my wife, my children, others.
Lust, greed, envy, They are in there.
Hate, loss, doubt, fear, man they seem to be mixed in there all over the place.
There are people in this room who are struggling with the same things that you are. There are even more people in your life that can hardly move because of their baggage and the struggles they are having.
--God wants to turn your past into your most powerful ministry. The only difference in us and people that have not managed forgiveness is the weight of the baggage.
Jesus did not remove the event from our hart and minds he removed the weight that made us unproductive.
In the end, there are two roads that you can take when dealing with un-forgiveness in your life. The first is the road we just traveled together. It’s the road that Peter traveled. It’s coming to God for forgiveness. But then, with God’s help, changing our patterns from destructive patterns to positive patterns, and then opening ourselves to an unlimited future that God has for us. And then to commit to use our pasts experiences to help others who are going through the same thing.
-- Unfortunately, it’s the other road that is the most traveled. It’s the road of carrying weight of our baggage around for the rest of our lives. Living un-forgiven, not because God won’t forgive us, but because we are unable or unwilling to forgive ourselves.
Maybe you are here today and you don’t see how you could possibly forgive yourself. You don’t see how God could possibly forgive you. You don’t know how you are going to move beyond your past or get rid of the baggage you are carrying. You don’t see how God can use you in the future. What you need to do is to remember the names of people who are in God’s hall of fame.
Jacob was a liar and a cheater, yet God changed his name to Israel and he became the father of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Moses was a murderer and he had an anger problem, yet God used him to bring the Israelites out of captivity in Egypt.
David was an adulterer and a murderer, and yet God made him a man after His own heart and made him the greatest king in Israel’s history.
Paul persecuted and murdered Christians, yet God used him to become the greatest evangelist and church planter in the history of the world.
Peter, yes even Peter, he denied Jesus, but God used him to become the central figure in the founding of the church in the first century.
God’s hall of fame is filled with people that have faults and make mistakes. That means that you could be the next person on the list. You can be used for the glory of God and to heal other travelers if you are willing. God’s potential through you is unlimited except by you.
All Glory be to God!
Music
As you leave here today, I have a big challenge for you. It’s not a big challenge, it’s a normal size challenge. I want everyone who leaves here today to visit the wall of forgiveness by the main door. There are some markers available. What I want you to do is this. I want you to pick up one of those markers and I want you to write your initials on the wall.
When you write your initials on the wall, what you are saying is—God, today, I accept your forgiveness for my past. But you are also saying—today, God, I am going to forgive myself. And the baggage that I brought in here this morning is going to stay here. I’m not going to take it back out with me.
All of this baggage, the guilt, the shame, the disappointment, the regret in my past, it’s not going out with me. It’s going to stay here. I am receiving Your forgiveness and I am committing to forgive myself.
Romans 8:1. It says, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”
So stop condemning yourself. God doesn’t condemn you, so stop condemning yourself. Stop living in bondage. When you walk out of here today, write your name on the wall and open yourself to God’s unlimited future.
Go in peace!
Let’s pray.
God, You know all of our hearts. You know all about our lives. You know everything about us and every step that we have ever taken. You also know all of us make mistakes. You know all of the emotional baggage, all of the unforgiveness that we are carrying. You know all of the guilt, all of the shame, all of the disappointment, all of the fear, and the regret that we carry around, and all that you feel in this room today. God, we ask that You forgive us of the specific sins in our life that are weighing us down. Forgive us instantly, completely and freely. Help us to break free of the destructive patterns that are in our lives. Help us to experience the future of hope and the potential that You have for us. Help us to forgive ourselves and help us to lay down the baggage that we have been carrying for so long.
Lord, thank You for forgiving us. We realize that we have been carrying around the baggage of past sins that you have already forgiven. We want to trust you with our past as well as with our future. Today, we forgive ourselves.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
