Dropping the F-Bomb!
How many of you know that when you receive Jesus to be your Lord and Savior, you receive forgiveness of your sin?
If we are going to learn to be more forgiving and to forgive others, we need to first know that Jesus has forgiven us.
When I was younger, I remember running away from home. I had had enough of my father’s rules and regulations. I decided that I could make it on my own. I could take care of myself. Well, when I got to the end of the block, I remembered was hungry, and so I went back home.
But lets rewind the tape for a while. If you had stopped me on the road and asked me who my father was, I might have told you, “Father? I don’t have a father. I don’t need a father. It’s just me, myself, and I.” I’d have shown my anger and hostility toward my father.
Yet it would be only moments later that I would sit at the same table with the father I had just disowned. Did he know of my insurrection? I think he did. Dads usually do. Was I still his son? Apparently so.
My parents were still there for me. No one else was sitting in my place.
Had you gone and spoken to my dad after you had spoken to me and asked, “Mr. Tamasaka, your son says he has no need of a father. Do you still consider him your son?” What do you think he would have said?
I don’t have to guess what his answer would have been. He called himself my father even when I didn’t call myself his son. His commitment to me was greater than my commitment to him.
When we receive Jesus to be our Lord and Savior, we receive FORGIVENESS of our sin.
Do you need forgiveness of sin?
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LOOK AT 10 COMMANDMENTS
How many have sinned? All.
LET’S DO AN INFORMAL SURVEY. How many of you have heard of the 10 commandments?
Let’s see how we fare when we hold up our own goodness in light of the 10 commandments.
How many of you have ever lied?
All. What does that make you? A liar.
How many of you have ever stolen anything?
C’mon, you already admitted that you are a liar. All. What does that make you? A thief.
How many of you have ever been so angry at someone that you hated them? Jesus says that when you hate someone you commit murder in your heart. That makes you a lying, thieving, murderer at heart. In order for you to be made right with God, you need someone to pay the price for your sin. That is what Jesus did. He paid the penalty for your sin, and gives you salvation and forgiveness for your sin.
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Romans 5:8 says, “But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”
Then the Holy Spirit tells us to do something that can be really hard to do. He tells us not only to receive His forgiveness. He wants us to forgive those around us.
I don’t like most sermons I heard about forgiveness because it feels like I am supposed to be a doormat. I feel like everyone is supposed to run all over me as I sing a song of praise to Jesus.
This is what makes the Gospel move. This thing called forgiveness, is what the Gospel is all about. Does forgiveness mean to just let bad people do bad things to us? Just let the Lord take care of it?
Forgiveness is not weakness. It is the ultimate path toward power in Christ!
The people that God has forgiven WILL forgive others.
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James Garfield was a lay preacher and principal of his denominational college. They say he was ambidextrous and could simultaneously write Greek, with one hand and Latin with the other.
In l880, he was elected president of the United States, but after only six months in office, he was shot in the back with a revolver.
He never lost consciousness. At the hospital, the doctor probed the wound with his little finger to seek the bullet. He couldn't find it, so he tried a silver-tipped probe. Still he couldn't locate the bullet.
They took Garfield back to Washington, D.C. Despite the summer heat, they tried to keep him comfortable. He was growing very weak. Teams of doctors tried to locate the bullet, probing the wound over and over.
In desperation they asked Alexander Graham Bell, who was working on a little device called the telephone, to see if he could locate the metal inside the president's body. He came, he sought, and he too failed.
The president hung on through July, through August, but in September he finally died-not from the wound, but from infection.
The repeated probing, which the physicians thought would help the man, eventually, killed him.
Did you know that is what resentment and bitterness is like?
Sure you can choose to hold onto it. Sure you can remain angry and upset about things that have happened. I’m not saying that there haven’t been hurts that have cut deep or severely injured you. All I am saying is that the longer we hold onto things, the more it infects our own spirits. Whose spirits? That’s right. Our own spirits.
A LOT OF TIMES WE WANT TO HOLD ONTO ANGER AND GRUDGES BECAUSE WE THINK THAT IS HOW WE ARE GOING TO GET BACK AT THEM… THEY DON’T DESERVE MY FORGIVENESS. THEY DIDN’T EVEN ASK FOR IT!
Remember holding onto anger and bitterness is not hurting them, but YOU!
WHEN YOU SAY SOMEONE IS A PAIN IN THE NECK, WHOSE NECK IS HURTING?
WHEN YOU SAY SOMEONE IS A PAIN IN THE BUTT, WHOSE BUTT IS HURTING?
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It is kind of like if you come and see me wearing a little bottle around my neck. “what is that?” you ask in curiosity. “Nitroglycerine,” I answer. You are stunned that I would be wearing a necklace of nitro, so you ask for an explanation. I tell you about a fellow who has a bad habit of poking people in the chest while he’s speaking. “It drives me crazy,” I tell you. Then I explain the detail of my ingenious plan “I’m wearing this nitro so the next time he pokes me, I’ll blow his finger off.”
It sounds silly, but I wouldn’t be the first to forget that when I try to get even, I am the one who gets hurt.
Job was right when he said…
“You tear yourself to pieces in your anger” Job 18:4
Underline yourself. Notice who gets torn to pieces?
"If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Matthew 6:14-15 NLT
Notice whose responsibility it is? Our own.
Forgiveness releases ME.
We’ve been programmed to believe that forgiveness is for the forgiven. When someone has done wrong to me, my forgiveness will benefit that person. We hear about the person who forgives the rapist, the murderer, or the thief and think, “well that person doesn’t deserve forgiveness.” That might be true, but forgiveness not only releases the forgiven, but it also releases the forgiver.
I know someone who is bound by un-forgiveness and bitterness toward her father. She holds the grudge and keeps past wrongs in her heart.
What she doesn’t realize is those against whom she bore the grudge against wakes up every morning, went to work, lived life and did as he pleased without even thinking about whether or not she had extended forgiveness.
Now, her father has passed away, but the bitterness lives on. Do you know what that means? To forgive, doesn’t really release the other person, it releases YOU.
If the devil can convince you to hold onto bitterness and grudges, then you do his job for him. You don’t need the enemy to hinder God from working in your life, you do it yourself.
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ANGRY BIRDS – Some birds have their eggs stolen from the pigs. You pull the angry bird back and shoot them at the pigs! This is a fun cool game. When Grace asks me what I am doing, when I play, I say I am doing something really important, leave me alone.
I pull the bird back and when I let it go, the bird flies, hits the house and knocks it down and eventually kills the pigs.
Have you ever realized that when the bird hits the house, who usually dies first? When the bird attacks, it is the bird that rolls over and the bird dies first! What’s the point of being an angry bird if you hit your head and die first?
When we hold onto our problems real tight, we show up and we’re furious and can come at whoever has offended against us and kill ourselves while we are trying to get back at them!
Forgiveness is an offensive weapon, not a passive thing. When someone hands you an offense, the natural response is to throw it back at them like a bomb! DON’T THROW BACK A BOMB OF ATTACKING! THROW BACK A FORGIVENESS BOMB! THROW BACK A REAL F-BOMB!
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In any given Christian community there are two groups: those who are contagious in their joy and those who are cranky in their faith.
They’ve accepted Christ and are seeking him, but their balloon has no helium. One is grateful, the other is grumpy. Both are saved. Both are heaven bound. But one sees the rainbow and the other sees the rain.
Could this principle explain the difference? Could it be that they are experiencing the same joy they have given their offenders?
One says, “I forgive you,” and feels forgiven. The other says, “I’m ticked off,” and lives ticked off at the world.
I NEED TWO VOLUNTEERS FOR THIS LAST EXAMPLE. SIT THERE AND BE MY NEIGHBOR. AND THE OTHER CAN BE GOD
Remember the verse we read from Luke 6:37-38?
"Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you."
Underline “forgive and you will be forgiven.”
It’s as if God sends you to the FOODLAND to buy your neighbor’s groceries saying, “Whatever you get your neighbor, get also for yourself. For whatever you give him, is what you receive.”
It sounds pretty simple right? I’m not too bright, but I can figure this one out. Since I love thick, juicy steaks, I should buy my neighbor some thick, juicy steaks. I’m really enjoy cookies and cream ice cream, so if I buy my neighbor some cookies and cream ice cream, I can expect some to come my way. And when I drink milk, I don’t want the skimpy skim stuff that Laura makes me drink. I want 2% Christian milk, just like God made it. So what do I buy my neighbor? 2% Christian milk, just like God made it.
Let’s take this a step further. Suppose your neighbor’s trash blows into your yard. You mention to him the mess it made, and he says he’ll get to it sometime next week.
You inform him that you’ve got company coming and couldn’t he get out of that chair and do some work? He tells you not to be so picky, that the garbage fertilizes your garden.
You’re just about to walk across the lawn to have a talk when God reminds you, “Time to go to the market and buy your neighbor’s groceries.” So you grumble and mumble your way to the store, and then it hits you, “I’ll get even with that guy for not cleaning up the yard.” You go straight to the skim milk. Then you make a beeline to the sardines. You march right past the cookies and cream ice cream and head toward the prunes. You make a final stop in the day-old bread section and pick up a crusty loaf with green spots on the edge.
Chuckling, you drive back to the house and drop the sack in the lap of your lazy, good-for-nothing neighbor. “Have a good dinner.” And you walk away.
All your brilliant scheming left you hungry, so you go to your refrigerator to fix a sandwich, but guess what you find. Your pantry is full of what you gave your enemy. All you have to eat is exactly what you just bought. We get what we give.
Some of you have been eating sardines for a long time. Your diet isn’t gonna change until you change.
You look around at other Christians. They aren’t as sour as you are. They’re enjoying the delicacies of God, and you’re stuck with sardines and anchovies on moldy bread.
You’ve always wondered why they look so happy and you feel so cranky. Maybe now you know. Could it be God is giving you exactly what you’re giving someone else?
Would you like a change of menu? Would you like some peace? Then quit giving your neighbor such a hassle.
Want to enjoy God’s generosity? Then let others enjoy yours. You want to enjoy God’s forgiveness, maybe you need to forgive someone else. .
So, as we close this morning, my question to you is, what will you be eating? Cookies and cream, ice cream or sardines? It’s up to you.
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PRAYER FOR SALVATION– Maybe you have never received Jesus’ forgiveness for your sin. You have sinned. If you were to try and make it to heaven on your own strength and goodness, you would fail miserably. You need to receive Jesus’ forgiveness for your sin.
PRAYER TO OFFER FORGIVENESS – You could be here this morning and the Lord is speaking to your heart about forgiving someone in your life. It could be a sibling, a friend, a teacher, a parent, a cousin, or someone else. You know that you need to let go of the offense because forgiveness is about allowing God to pour out blessings on your life.
