Sermon Tone Analysis

March 16, 2012

By John Barnett

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God’s high calling for grace-energized women is to love their husbands and children.

To most of us mature 21st century believers that may sound wonderful.

To them it must have sounded impossible.

The Cretans of Paul’s day lived in an ego-centered, selfish society that knew and cared little about forgiveness.

Roman Society became so decadent that it saw forgiving people as weak and unforgiving ones as strong.

Cretans celebrated vengeful gods and exalted as heroes those who took vengeance on others.

The result was a society so much like America today--filled with bitterness, vengeance, anger, hate, and hostility.

More and more we see people seeking vengeance either outside or inside the bounds of the law.

Just this week a crowd in Austin, Texas dragged a man from his car and beat him to death for a crime they mistakenly thought he had committed.

This pervasive unwillingness to forgive in our society is also the leading cause of the breakups in family relationships.

*Bitterness Pervaded the World of the Bible*

God wanted the lost pagans living on Crete to see their changed lives and be confronted with living examples of Jesus Christ.

Society was to be flooded at every level with the irrefutable proof of changed lives.

Paul sent the details for the invasion of this strategic island in his letter to Titus.

We have been studying these admonitions in Titus 2. These life-truths have always deeply impacted any society.

When the Gospel that brings this impossible life into the heart of a newly saved individual starts to work through Christ's church, the world takes notice.

God has always worked out His plan in this world through individual believers who struggle through life.

One of the struggles believers have always faced while seeking to follow the Lord is: bitterness.

The key passage in the New Testament that warns about bitterness is Ephesians 4:30, let’s go there.

Ephesians 4:30 /"And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption."/

NKJV

The immeasurable power of God is stopped when His people disobey.

God’s grace teaches us to deny ungodliness, but when we resist that grace our sin grieves and quenches the Holy Spirit .

So Paul says grieve not the Spirit, don’t quench Him, because apart from God’s power nothing can be done that will last.

Just as the congregations back then were told to deny ungodliness in any form, so must we also today.

Bitterness is a very deadly, fast-growing, and easily spread form of spiritual cancer.

*Grace-energized Lives Are Hindered by Bitterness*

In the New Testament each time the word bitterness is used it always is a form of the Greek word pic.

This word means just what the tool by the similar sounding word comes from, “to prick or cut”.

This Greek word used for bitterness implies something that pricks or punctures and penetrates deeply.

This verse is fascinating for two reasons:

• First, bitterness is the very first sin that is listed after Paul warns about the horrible dangers of grieving the Holy Spirit of God as a believer.

Bitterness is FIRST in that list, never forget that.

• Second, the verse on the other side of the warning (v.

29) is all about corrupt words (one of the danger signs of a bitter person is that they say rotten things about others).

At the heart of bitterness is a hurt that is internalized and not forgiven.

Perhaps the strongest warning Jesus ever gave to his disciples was in Matthew 18—He warned that the results of a bitter and unforgiving heart were grave.

For a moment turn there to Matthew 18:21-35, stand with me and listen to the gravity of Christ's warning.

Matthew 18:21-35 /"Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?

Up to seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.24

“And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.

25 “But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made.26

“The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’

27 “Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.

28 “But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’29 “So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’30

“And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt.31

“So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done.32

“Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant!

I forgave you all that debt because you begged me.33 ‘Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’34 “And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.35

“So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”/

NKJV

Did you catch that?

Jesus just told believers that we would trap ourselves in the prison house, and find ourselves in solitary confinement, tortured by the poisonous and sharp cutting edge of bitterness--if we hold onto an unforgiving spirit that always leads to bitterness.

*Bitterness Leads to Intense Inner Torment*

Jesus said that we hand ourselves over to the torturers (v.

34) when we embitter our hearts against someone.

Those who live in the gall of bitterness imprison themselves in an emotional concentration camp, and become the victims of immense internal torment.

Nurturing bitterness is as foolish as drinking poison, or diving into a dark pit.

Our refusals to forgive wall us into solitary confinement, and bitterness becomes our tormentor.

Jesus warns that any believer is a candidate for this unspeakable emotional and mental torment when bitterness-producing-unforgiveness is practiced.

Do you see now why Paul lists bitterness first in the lineup of Spirit-grievers?

Do you see why he says “put away ALL bitterness”?

He says it is so deadly, so painful, so quick to spread that it must be dealt with right away.

A bitter person is cut and punctured by the words or actions of others.

Those wounds untreated by the healing grace of a tender-hearted-forgiving-attitude become a source of malignant poison.

So this wound infects the wounded person with bitterness, a hurtful condition that touches every part of their life.

As Hebrews 12 warns us, bitterness spreads throughout a person’s life until everything in them gets defiled by bitterness.

Hebrews 12:15 /"looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled"/; NKJV

One of the telltale signs of a wife or mother being hindered in living out her grace-energized role is when she feels “hurt” by her husband or children.

Those hurts can quickly get infected and become resentful feelings which always grow into bitterness.

*Say NO to Bitterness Daily*

• Bitterness imprisons a believer’s emotions.

Failing to forgive another will imprison a believer in their past.

Bitterness nurtures pain and keeps it alive, never allowing the wound to heal.

The longer the hurt is dwelt upon the more our anger is fed, resentment grows, and joy is extinguished.

Forgiveness-energized by grace, opens our prison doors and sets us free from our past.

• Bitterness poisons a believer’s life.

Bitterness is not just a sin; it is an infection that poisons our speech making it biting, cutting, sarcastic, and slanderous.

Bitterness poisons our emotions making them violent, unpredictable, intolerant, vengeful, and ungodly.

Bitterness poisons all relationships making them void of affection, devoid of love, and emptied of kindness.

The writer of Hebrews warns, “See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled” (Heb.

12:15).

Forgiveness-energized by grace, replaces bitterness with love, joy, peace, and the other fruits of the Spirit (cf.

Gal.

5:22-23).

• Bitterness opens believer’s lives to Satan.

When Paul warned believers about improper anger he mentioned Satan’s horrible presence in Ephesians 4:26-27, “Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity.”

When Paul similarly charged the Corinthians he again joins Satan’s destructive influence upon believers who leave open this strategic door as he wrote, “Whom you forgive anything, I forgive also; for indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ, in order that no advantage be taken of us by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his schemes” (2 Cor.

2:10-11).

The Bible clearly warns that unforgiving-based-bitterness offers the most ground that Satan gains in our lives.

Forgiveness-energized by grace bars that avenue of demonic attack.

• Bitterness closes a believer’s life to God.

Remember how soberly Christ spoke in the Sermon on the Mount?

“If you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions” (Matt.

6:14-15).

Jesus was not saying that believers lose the completed, past forgiveness of salvation.

He was warning that bitterness robs them of their ongoing relational forgiveness with God the Father.

We cannot be right with God when unforgiving of others.

Forgiveness-energized by grace always restores us to the place of maximum blessing, returning us to purity, and the joy of fellowship with God.

God wants believers to avoid bitterness so much, that He constantly emphasizes the importance of forgiveness in Scripture.