Life’s pitfalls and discoveries
The power of forgiveness
Introduction-
Today we begin a new series titled Life’s pitfalls and discoveries.
What I want us to look at is seeing things that cause us to get off track with our walk with God and discover things that can get us back on track, keep us from getting off track, and what it will take to stay on track.
If it goes well, each week we will look at one pitfall and end on a positive discovery.
We should be able to grab encouragement from each sermon.
It is not about what the person next to you needs to hear, but what you need to hear.
I hope each one of us can go deeper with our relationship with God and that you will want to go deeper.
This morning we talk about un-forgiveness and forgiveness. It will be our pitfall and our discovery. We will look on both sides of when we do not forgive and the discovery that is ours when we do forgive.
Matthew 18:21-35 read from Bible
Funny thing about forgiveness- we all want it but we all do not want to give it. When Peter approached Jesus and asked if seven times was enough times to forgive someone, He thought He was being generous. Seven is the amount of times that Jewish custom would tell you was enough times to forgive someone. He thought he would show Jesus how well he knew Jewish law. Jesus tripped him up by countering with 70x7. Jesus was really showing Peter that it is not the number of times, but that we have to forgive.
Jesus moves into a parable to show Peter what was expected. When we hear the parable we think the ungrateful man was a monster because he was forgiven so much and would not extend that forgiveness downstream to someone in his point of contact.
If the story was told today, it would be the same.
How many are not willing to forgive knowing how much that they have been forgiven?
How many want forgiveness but are not willing to extend forgiveness to someone else.
There are people today that cannot let anything go. If you do them wrong they never forget.
They live their whole lives looking under the microscope of other people faults and never looking what they themselves are doing to other people by their actions.
Hurting people hurt people- continually, everyday, on purpose and without mercy. Wanting, even demanding forgiveness but never giving any.
I will never forgive him/her! You don’t know what they did to me!
Being a true Christian and a true believer of Jesus Christ has never been about being better than anyone else. It is understanding what Christ did for us and being grateful.
Being a Christian has been about being different. We know what Christ did for us and we cannot live our lives with un-forgiveness knowing what Christ did for us.
Lives are like a dash-
They have a starting point and an ending point.
The dash is the time between the two points.
All of us know when we were born, but none of know when we will die.
What we do with that time is what we will stay before God and give an account for.
King David long before he was King David was living his dash. He was not born rich, was not from famous parents, but even as a teenager was making an impact and mark in life.
As a teenager, he was sent by his father to the battlefield to check on his older brothers. He was not going to fight, but to see if they were okay. While he was there, he saw injustice, saw a bully throwing his weight around and disrespecting his God, and no one believed God big enough to step in and defeat him. He, (David) was willing to get involved, step up to the plate, and right a wrong. (1 Sam 17)
The event, the battle of David and Goliath. We all heard the story of how he defeated the giant with a slingshot and a stone. Young David defeats Goliath the giant and Israel never forgot it.
Adult David years later is now King of Israel, living in a palace, the finest of everything, many wife’s, can have anything he wants, even things that he should not have. He can’t sleep one night (because his men were in battle and he was at the palace) and he looks out to see Bathsheba, the naked wife of his officer Uriah. In a split second decision, he calls for Bathsheba to the palace. He has an affair with her and dismisses her. He finds out later that she is pregnant with his baby. He tries to being his officer back from battle to sleep with his wife so he will think the baby is his. Uriah would not sleep with his wife because he would not enjoy his wife while his men were in battle. King David has to resort to deception. He orders Uriah out front of the battle and orders his men to pull back. Uriah is killed in battle.
David was at the right place at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing. It was his home, but he should have been in battle with his men. He should not have been with Bathsheba, and should not have covered up his adultery by having Uriah ambushed in battle. The consequences of all that for another sermon.
King David lived with guilt for a long time. (Anyone know what I’m talking about?)
King David later talking to Nathan the prophet and Nathan shares a story with him.
“There is a rich man and he has many sheep, and a poor man who has only one sheep and it actually was almost like a pet to him. The rich man has a traveler come to visit and the rich man instead of using his many sheep takes the only sheep from the poor man and makes a meal of it.
(5) “David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan as surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die. He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”
(7) “You are the man” the prophet exposes all that David did with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah.
Keep in mind that the devil condemns and God convicts.
For years David lived with that guilt. He must have been ashamed, and he swallowed it down. God brought it to the forefront and he had to deal with it. He had to make a choice what he was going to do with it. Live with it or deal with it.
This morning we have a choice too, what are you going to do with it? Can this be a discovery?
Forgiveness is what most people want of others when we do wrong things, but it is the hardest of things for us to grant to others who have wronged us.
We feel God cannot forgive so we stay away from him, and allow guilt to destroy human relationships and the relationship we have with the Lord.
We expect God to forgive us, even when we do not even ask him or confess it.
Some just keep pushing down events, and guilt just keeps adding up and God gets farther away in our lives.
You see when David was confronted by Nathan the Prophet; He took that as a word from the Lord.
Most people don’t realize that they are caught up and lost in sin. That day for David was a game changer.
Maybe you’re here this morning and you’re saying to yourself…I did not kill anyone!
There the lost ones. Bank robbers, murderers, convicted criminals. We have all heard how God gets a hold of their hearts and makes changes.
They were lost, and God turned them around. Not me! That not me, I only steal a few supplies from work, cheat a little on my taxes, and took a little money out of mom’s purse.
David had a wakeup call- Discovery-“He was that man”
Davis understood forgiveness because he knew and understood what sin was. (He saw what he did as sin)
That same David wrote Psalms 23- “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing, he makes me to lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.” (Trust Him)
David wrote Psalm 51:1-13
This man realized that when God put his sin before him, it was a game changer.
Secret sin will destroy us; it will destroy relationships with others, relationship with the Lord.
David’s sin was un-confessed, to God or himself and it was gnawing at him. That is what we call guilt.
His guilt made his stomach ache, body hurt, migraines, can’t sleep. He did that for over a year before Nathan confronted him.
One Pitfall is un-forgiveness- The discovery is that forgiveness can change your life. Forgiving yourself and others is life changing. The freedom of forgiveness allows you to move on after asking God to forgive you and the ability to forgive others so that you do not allow them to suppress your life with things that happen in the past.
I. Change of heart (Discovery)
We must stop blaming everybody else, everything else.
He says that he has sinned against God.
1 John 1:9
“If we confess our sins, he (God) is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
Changed of heart Is doing 180 degree- turning away from sin and getting as far from it as you can.
Changed of heart is truly being sorry for their offense.
It is being open and honest with God and with anyone related to the offense. I don’t necessarily believe you need to have to parade it to all believers, just the ones that are involved, and those that will be helping you turn it around.
II. Change of mind
We are always willing to take credit for our accomplishments. Oh stop it (waving hands) but we have a hard time taking responsibility for our actions.
We use apologies like
I’m sorry, but I was not myself today.
I’m sorry, I was tired.
I’m sorry, but you should not of _________
Taking responsibility- I’m sorry, my action, and my words were inappropriate. I should not have said that.
We have to stop blaming others for our actions.
We have to change who is in control of our lives.
You want to get someone thinking/ take ownership of your actions and they will not have a defense. There plan was to convince you that it was your fault. You take ownership and they will be speechless.
Iii. Change of Direction
David’s life was off track because he felt no one had to hold him accountable.
I am the king! I make the rules.
Being confronted, he now needed to make things right.
There are some things that you cannot make right. It is literally impossible. Someone dies, demographics, maybe they do not even want to give you a chance to make it right. Make it right when you can make it right, make it right with the Lord!
Cleanse me!
Wash me!
Create in me, a clean heart; renew a right spirit in me!
All sin is against God- and affects others.
David acknowledged his sin, and desired God’s mercy and grace to help him.
Some of the most painful moments we can experience are times when God reveals the blackness of our sin. Our heart breaks over the things that we have done to others.
The people we have hurt
The times we have failed.
The lack of character.
But out of the valley of repentance, God raises up joy. We can again have it after we have fallen away, maybe even the first time that we have walked with God in a right relationship.
Winding down
Only God can cleanse a heart, create a renewed spirit.
When news came to David that Uriah was killed in battle, I bet he felt he was off the hook. He had covered his sin. God would not leave it there. He had confronted him, and he confronts us too with our sins.
The Tell tale heart. In that movie, the main character kills someone and buries them in his basement. The murderer could not get away from his guilt of what he had done and he began to hear the heartbeat of the dead man. The heartbeat grew louder a louder and stronger and stronger. It drove him to madness. The guilt grew stronger, the pounding in his chest grew stronger and then he realized the pounding, beating heart was his own.
Close
God wants to forgive this morning. He wants you to discovery something new.
We have to have a change of heart, a change of mind, and a change of direction for the forgiveness God offers to change your life.
Amen.
