TRANSFORMED BY FORGIVENESS
MT:26:28 21 FEB 16 DR. M POPE
INTRO: Studies have shown that many of the psycho problems people have today is due to the baggage of guilt they carry. So with the psy counseling, pills, self-help plans that are created in the secular world are designed to relieve people of the depressive, anxious thoughts they carry. They use drugs to take away the pain, consume alcohol, engage in pleasures that stimulate the senses so they don’t have to sit and think about their pain and loneliness.
1. TRANSFORMED BY GOD’S FORGIVENESS
Several Things Happen When One is Forgiven
a. 1 Jn 1:9 The Stain of Sin is Washed Away
1 Jn 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness
b. 2 Cor 5:17 Plague of Guilt Is Removed
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
(Some people can’t seem to understand they are truly, freely, entirely forgiven by God, so they go through life with the proverbial ‘guilt complex’, always rehashing the past. Their past then becomes a mental, and emotional anchor to their soul and keeps them from becoming what God has freely ordained for them.)
c. The Believer is Now Restored To Fellowship with God
2. TRANSFORMED BY GOD TO FORGIVE OTHERS
Psychol Dr. Geoffrey Sutton: “Unforgiveness incorporates a complex of negative emotions, negative thoughts, negative motivations, and avoidance behavior focused on the offender and the transgression. The negative emotions are primarily feelings of anger, bitterness, and resentment, but also include fear of future harm. The negative thoughts reflect memories of what a person said or did.
Jesus Death gives us a picture of what happens when we forgive others - Death Burial Resurrection Is a Picture of God’s
a. When We Forgive
1. When you Forgive You Die to Self
(forgiveness is as much for you as the one to whom you are willing to forgive)
2) When You Forgive The Offense is Cast From You
(the same as God casts your offenses away from Him)
3) When You Forgive The Joy of Life and Blessing Returns Anew
(Like the new life in Christ we have when He forgives us)
b. When We Don’t Forgive We Carry a Burden that is too big to bear
1) Grief and Guilt Consume the Mind and Soul
2) MK 11:25 Fellowship with God and Others is Broken
25 And when ye stand praying, forgive , if ye have anything against another: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
3) A Root of Bitterness Enters the Soul: The person that is hurt the most is the one who does not grant forgiveness
Read First: No such thing as a ‘partial forgiveness’.
Two little brothers had finished supper and were playing before bedtime. Somehow one of the brothers hit the other with a stick, tears and bitter words followed. They were still fussing when mother entered the room and prepared them for bed.
The mother said to the one hit with a stick, ‘now before you go to bed, you need to forgive your brother’. The little boy thought for a moment then said. “Well, OK, I’ll forgive him tonight, but if I don’t die before I wake up, he’d better look out in the morning.”
4) God will not forgive you when you come to Him
God can forgive immediately and put the offense away, and never charge you with it again.
For us, we can begin the process to forgive immediately, but we can’t let it go as easily. We must continue to remind ourselves in prayer to God, that we are and will forgive those who have hurt us. In time you may still remember the wrong but there is the peace of complete forgiveness in your heart.
Close: AACC: The Christian approach to seeking and granting forgiveness in counseling should not be about ourselves, but instead all about Jesus Christ and what He has done for us. This requires that our forgiveness approach with Christians be Christ-centered and consistent with Scripture.
