Forgiveness - Purpose of Your Life Series
Purpose In your life • Sermon • Submitted
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· 5 viewsYou can't fulfill your purpose if you are harboring unforgiveness.
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Get Better... Not Bitter!
Get Better... Not Bitter!
Today I want to look at what God has called us to as believers. One of the hardest things in the world to do is to forgive and move on with our lives when we have been hurt by someone. I’m referring to real genuine hurt. A hurt that has cut deep into us. This is the kinda hurt that we have that causes us to become hurting people who are hurting people… And just like an old used sponge we go around always picking up junk and then collecting it unto ourselves getting more and more bitter. More and more Grumpy, crotchety, and just unpleasant to be around. Like an old fart who has one foot in the grave about to die!
See a sponge serves an awesome purpose when it’s alive, God uses it to filter the oceans.
Just like a water filter on a refrigerator, it’s designed to remove harmful particles so you don’t get contaminated and ultimately get sick and die.
This is what God does when you allow Him to take away the contaminates that people spew on you. Hurt words or even hurtful actions.
So I’m sure the questions your asking is Minister how do we do that? Let’s discuss.
Some of you need to take a step of forgiveness and I wish I could tell you it was easy. It’s not! God knows it’s not. But that’s what will make you more mature in God. That’s what makes you a better person then the one who hurt you, you are able to release what was put inside you the day you got hurt.
13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.
Allowances means to endure, bear with, be patient. Are you doing this to those who have hurt you?
Why does God tell us to make allowances for those who have hurt us? because we have hurt people and we expect to be forgiven, we treat it like it’s owed to us, after all, God forgives us.... So we must forgive the person who’s offended us.
Look at what Jesus says:
14 “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. 15 But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Matthew 6:
Well I can’t forgive them, God doesn’t understand what they did to me! No my friend that’s the whole problem he absolutely understands what they did and what you did to hurt someone.
If God were not willing to forgive sin, heaven would be empty.
If you can’t forgive, then you’ve forgotten what you’ve been forgiven of.
Well I can’t forgive them, God doesn’t understand what they did to me! No my friend that’s the whole problem he absolutely understands what they did and what you did to hurt someone.
21 Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?”
22 “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!
23 “Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. 24 In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. 25 He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt.
26 “But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ 27 Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.
28 “But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment.
29 “His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. 30 But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.
31 “When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. 32 Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ 34 Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.
35 “That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.”
- 35
Jesus makes it clear that we are to forgive those who offended us, inexhaustibly, thus the point of the exaggeration Jesus demonstrates to Peter. Seventy times Seven.
But let’s look at that a little deeper, Jesus always used words strategically.
The Hebrew language is alphanumeric or words have a numerical value. Words that share the same numeric value are typically connected and most likely have a deeper spiritual meaning. So when Jesus says seventy times seven! Peters mouth must have hit the floor, 490 times Lord! Really! Yes heres why
tamim is the Hebrew word for complete, perfection or finished.
A person who can’t forgive will always live an incomplete life, a life that doesn’t have a full understanding of what Christ did on the cross for them.
But wait, it get’s even deeper, nativity and Bethlehem both add up to numeric value of 490. Jesus was born for what reason? To be an example for us and be the perfect sacrifice for all of mans sins. All of mans un-forgiveness. He became the sacrificial lamb when he went to the cross and shed his blood for all of the world.
18 For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. 19 It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. 20 God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but now in these last days he has been revealed for your sake.
21 Through Christ you have come to trust in God. And you have placed your faith and hope in God because he raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory.
22 You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.
1 Peter 1:18-
See this is why we also do communion to reflect on his example He laid for us.
A persons ability to forgive is in proportion to the maturity of his/her walk with Christ. Pray to be more like Christ.
Forgiveness is a choice, what choice do you chose and why.
12 and forgive us our sins,
as we have forgiven those who sin against us.
Matthew 6:12
We must mature to become whole and complete in Christ because to be complete in Christ is to be complete in God. See we are most like beasts when we kill, most like men when we judge; most like God when we forgive.
We are most like beasts when we kill, most like men when we judge; most like God when we forgive.
Otherwise we are We are most like beasts when we kill, most like men when we judge; most like God when we forgive.
otherwise we are We are most like beasts when we kill, most like men when we judge; most like God when we forgive.
You can’t fulfill your purpose until you fulfill your repentance of your sins of a unforgiving heart.
Sadly enough some have been hurt to the point of hatred which can lead to a heart filled with malice and then murder.
Doing an injury puts you below your enemy;
Revenging one makes you but even with him;
Forgiving it sets you above him.
See I grew up like a lot of people without my father in my home and so I had a lot of anger in me and pride which lead me down a path of un-control, why because I wasn’t mature enough in the things of God, but once I asked God to help me and to take away that malice, it was like a burden was lifted off of me.
Jesus
6 one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all.
26 And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 for anger gives a foothold to the devil.
26 And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry,
Ephesians
Ephesians 4:26
Pride is hiding behind the mask of human nature and human nature is sin nature, hiding in satan.
Tell the story of your meeting with Christine and the boys. spend about 3 mins. on it.
When you forgive, you in no way change the past—but you sure do change the future.
Let me close with this thought a wise man waste no time on not forgiving, because he knows the true value of time, and he will not waste it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
So I pose this question to you, who do you need to forgive? Who do you need to approach and tell them how they hurt you and how you forgive them, weather they meant to or didn’t mean to, then I challenge you to pray with them if they are a believer. If they are not, tell them that you love them with the love of Christ and as far as the east is from the west you release your hurts never to hold on to them again and watch what God will do for you. Amen!
12 He has removed our sins as far from us
as the east is from the west.
What is your next step to true healing and forgiveness.
Closing assignment - On a piece of paper write down the person who hurt you and we are going to pray over it and then we are going to burn it up and leave it with God.