Life is not easy. This is one thing that you talk to anybody, and everyone will agree that there are hard things that happen in this life. Right before Jesus was arrested in John 16, Jesus is trying to prepare his disciples for what is about to come.
Verse 32: 32 But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when you will be scattered, each one going his own way, leaving me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.33 I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.
The word here for trials and sorrows is ??????, often translated as tribulation it means a pressing or pressing together pressure it is a metaphor for oppression affliction tribulation distress and straits. It means stress anguish tribulation adversity affliction crushing squashing squeezing distress. Imagine placing your hand on a stack of loose items and manually compressing them that is ??????, putting a lot of pressure on that which is free and unfettered. T????? Is like spiritual Brent pressing. The word is used of crushing grapes or olives in a press. We see this word again in revelation after the great tribulation has occurred the great pressing.
When we go through hardship, afflictions, tribulations, distress, trauma… we go through ??????, and it has a way of changing us. When we hold on to that hurt that has happened all around us it negatively impacts the way that we think the way that we view others and the way that we view ourselves.
Jesus is here telling us disciples that there's going to be hard times coming he was about to be crucified and go through some of the worst pain and torture anyone before or since has ever been through and he is telling his disciples that we're going to go through some pressing times but don't worry because I'm going to have victory in the end.
Jesus died on the cross so that we could experience forgiveness of our sins and yet…
Forgiveness is one of the basic principles of the faith and yeah it is a discipline that is one of the hardest for us to master. Too often forgiveness has been misunderstood and therefore out of grasp of us.
Christ said that if we do not forgive others, he will not forgive us so forgiveness is something that we need to understand and practice on a daily basis; furthermore, without forgiveness we can't heal from past hurts, traumas or pain and can't mend's current relationships. Unhindered forgiveness is the first step to radical healing in our lives.
While Christ was being nailed to the cross, he looks at the soldiers that have just finished beating him that have just finished whipping him that have that are actively nailing spikes through his hands and through his feet and he cries out father forgive them… for they know not what they do. In that moment, Christ no longer held them accountable or payable for their actions against him he let it go.
Forgiveness is the process of letting go of all of the trials oppressions traumas pains that we have been through in order for us to heal.
Forgiveness is more about our healing than the person that wronged us. And yet we like to hold on to those things. Those things in the world trap us and hold us back from healing.
Let's look what Jesus taught on forgiveness if you have your bibles with you today turn to Matthew chapter 18 and we're going to read verses 21 through 35.
Read Matthew 18:21-35
Jesus starts this Kingdom parable of the unforgiving servant and it's especially crucial for us to understand. The human capacity to forget God's gracious gift of forgiveness and allow a switch to look at how someone else has harmed us and forget what we ourselves have been forgiving for breeds unforgiveness in our lives.
1) Unforgiveness can restricts what God would do in others.
a. At the end of the story, the unforgiven servant, the one that only owed $1000 was still in jail until he could pay his debt. And while it may feel good to hold that thing against us, we need to remember that we've been forgiven of so much.
b. Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
c. Isaiah 64:6 We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind.
It doesn't matter how righteous we think we are or how good we try to act by ourselves our righteous deeds are nothing but filth. The infection of sin in our lives brings us to eternal death every single time but the free gift of Christ is eternal life and so when he is forgiven us look what Isaiah 1:18 says about our sins in the light of the forgiveness of God.
d. Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, let’s settle this,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.
Because we have been forgiven of so much and our sins are now made pure, they're no longer filthy rags with our even our righteous deeds but even our sins are made pure through the blood of Jesus, then when we look at what god has done for us, we should be forgiving others of what they have done to us. We should see them in the light of children of God. It doesn't matter what they have done doesn't matter what type of things that they have done.
You may say well pastor you don't know this person raped me pastor you don't know this person beat me every single day during childhood you may say pastor you don't know what they did to me to make me this way. And you would be absolutely correct I do not know what you've been through in order to bring you to this point. But I do know that because of what's happened you are in a place where you are hurting where you are broken, and you just want to take revenge and the other person. You want to hold on to the hurt the pain the anguish that they have caused you because it feels good at some level to hold on to it but enough is enough. You're not healing and you're keeping that person in jail. Now i want to make a quick fit footnote, right now I'm not advocating for legal mercy in this world we still live in a sin world but I'm advocating I'm telling you that we need to let go of what has happened and free them in the spiritual.
Read Matthew 18:18-20
2) Unforgiveness takes a toll on our bodies, minds, and emotions.
In the story, when the unforgiving servant is thrown into jail there were people during that time who were “bill collectors” that would exact their toll on the body, minds, and emotions of those that were in debtors’ prison. And we know that there's the further consequence that if we're not forgiving others we are not forgiven. But the torture that happens from unforgiveness doesn't just happen at the end of our life but it's something that we live with every single day.
(Show Brain Slide)
After something that has happened to us that has caused us serious pain two parts of the brain become hyperactive the first is the hippocampus which is responsible for our memory ingrams. The second is the amygdala. The amygdala is the body's alarm system to try to keep us from further pain, but what happens is that it causes us to react constantly to the things around us.
(Next Slide)
I loved this image I found that so readily explains what happens with the amygdala. You see we see things in our world see here sense feel touch that goes through our brains sensory processes and before it ever reaches the frontal brain which is our thinking brain the amygdala takes over and becomes reactive. Here in the diagram the person is afraid of spiders sees a spider it goes to the process the amygdala makes them scream and yell and tear and run away.
(Next slide)
that's simply because this thinking brain that controls our thoughts is way up here in an area of the brain called the granular isocortex it's about 8 layers of brain in the frontal cortex of the brain. But when we've been through hurt and pain the brain wants to protect us and keep us from experiencing that pain time and time of again and further it wants to help us to survive.
So, what happens is that the brain encodes everything around us that was there when we went through trauma pain, heartache, and causes us to relive/ react in very similar ways as to when the first pain had occurred.
When we are hurt because of that pain I always describe it in counseling it's like going into the doctor with the knife in your chest and ask him the doctor to heal you of the heartache. And when the doctor says OK, we have to put you under you've got to go through heart surgery in order to remove this knife safely and then you object and say no no no heal me while leaving the knife there. Friends, that is unforgiveness. It is holding on to the hate the anger the pain all the feelings that you are justified to feel so that you can hurt the other person. And when we hold on to all of that hate and anger and we never forgive we just take more and more and more on we become so reactive that we are all of a sudden triggered into anxiety and depression and hurt and we started to heal that hurt with different means maybe it's by eating maybe it's by drinking, maybe it's by shooting drugs or snorting a line.
At the very root of all of this hurt is a spirit of unforgiveness and when we become so reactive, we kind of look (This) the nutty professor going through acupuncture so that he doesn't feel hungry anymore. We end up like a pincushion of hurt and all it takes is one brush with another person and we are back into debilitating reactions.
(Backpack Object Lessons Using weights, label them with things we struggle to forgive, Some basics are traumas, physical, emotional and sexual as well as smaller things like hurt feelings).
There are things that we pick up and hold on to because they're too painful to let go and then there are other things that we just don't let go. When we refused to forgive, we carry those things with us every single day. Maybe there are huge things that we don't know how to forgive, it could be sexual trauma, childhood abuse, physical abuse, or the loss of the loved one especially by suicide or just too early and we blame God for it so we're not even willing to forgive God. Maybe we blame ourselves for the things that happen. And so, we go through life not knowing how to forgive and we keep holding on to more and more things and so the hurt becomes unbearable, and it holds us back from doing the things from living the life that God wants us to live.
Hebrews 12:1-2 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
The things that hinder us are not just the sin that we have done but it's the sins that others have done to us that we refuse to let go of that we refuse to forgive. We end up being stuck in unforgiveness
Forgiveness has to do with the concept of giving up debt as we see so clearly in this story. I'm giving up the right to spiritually, mentally, punish someone or to be repaid.
We have to understand Jesus and how he forgave. He forgave them while he was being crucified. God is not asking us to do anything that he has not already done for us and for the other person. He forgave us so that we could have a relationship with him. Hear me now, you don't have to talk to the other person in order to forgive them in fact forgiveness can happen without ever talking to somebody else, especially if that person has done something so awful to you, but the root of forgiveness the reason why God forgave us is so that we could restore relationships with him.
Forgiveness was never meant to be something for you to do on your own we need Jesus to help us forgive others. We need to forgive every time we are hurt. And maybe it's something small or series of small events or maybe it's something huge. At the beginning of our passage Peter asked Jesus well how often should I forgive, seven times? And something really important to understand is that seven times was more than the Jewish custom already to forgive. And Jesus goes no no no no, 70 * 7 in other words you are to forgive an unlimited number of times because God has forgiven us an unlimited number of times.
We know from Romans 8:28 that God uses all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. And we know that God allows us to go through the pressure the trials the tribulations for a reason in order to develop us and to make us prepared for what he has called us to do. But that doesn't excuse the hurt the pain that we've been through.
1) Forgiveness is the start of the healing process. Forgiveness is to some degree about the other person as we learned earlier in this passage, but forgiveness frees you!
2) Forgiveness Frees You! (Drop the Bag)
How do I forgive:
1. Stop rehearsing what happened in your head.
Stop cinching up the weight of what they have done, the pain that you went through. Take those thoughts captive so that you can be free! 2 Corinthians 10:5
We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.
a. Forgiveness is not a feeling; forgiveness is a choice. A Choice to let God take the Pain and Heal you!
2. Give it to God.
I choose to redirect my thoughts, to put them at the feet of God. Because you can't change what has happened to you. That is the past, but you can change how you react to what has happened. You can give it over to God and allow him to heal what has happened to you. Psalm 103:3-5, 8-12
3. See Others through the eyes of Christ!
God does not see our mistakes, or our sins he sees Christ, that is how we are to see others, and that is how we can learn to forgive.
a. How can we forgive ourselves?
i. Acknowledge the hurt and pain on how I hurt others.
ii. Confess it to God and others.
iii. Address Why, what was the motivation.
iv. 1 John 1:9
But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.
4. Ask God for His Strength & His Love to Forgive
Ephesians 3:16-19
Altar—a time for healing.
If you're here today and you're listening and you're saying you know there is something I've been holding on to that I haven't been able to forgive. Maybe you've tried in the past and you need to let go of it again because you picked it back up. Today's the day to lay it at the feet of the Lord, bring it to the cross. Let today be the first day of healing. Let God start to heal the pain that has caused you time and time again to feeling anxious or depressed or to return to alcohol or drugs let today be the first day of healing in your life.
