Forgiveness
Notes
Transcript
Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. Amen. I bless God for each one of you and for your presence here this morning. It is an honor, as always, to stand behind this desk where so many have stood before and prayerfully many shall stand after me. Amen. I think sometimes when you preach every Sunday you can become familiar and sometimes people do not appreciate the things of God as they should because they become familiar. And maybe as I age and grow more comfortable I will be more cynical and dismissive of this great platform but right now I am enjoying my way to Heaven and every Sunday I get to stop by here. Amen. To the Clergy, the Deacons, Mothers, the Choir, and to each person in your respective places… I want you to know that God is up to something in your lives and I thank God for you and I want you to stand and give yourself a round of applause. That’s right. We are not honoring the Pastor, the First Lady, the leaders… but can we honor ourselves for just a moment. Amen. God bless you and may he continually add unto you. I want to go to the Word… right now. This Word will be quick because God is calling us to another level of prayer and I want to take some time to deal with this Word but I also must be obedient to the full assignment with this Word.
Give Subject: Forgiveness
Give Subject: Forgiveness
Give Scriptures: Matthew 6:12-15 & Hosea 3:1-5
Give Scriptures: Matthew 6:12-15 & Hosea 3:1-5
Read: Matthew 6:12-15
Read: Matthew 6:12-15
12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:
15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
I do not want us to beat the proverbial dead horse… but over the last 3 and now four weeks have talked at length about prayer.
We have learned, quite literally from the Master’s words themselves how we ought to pray for indeed he said when you pray… pray like this.
And so we have learned the importance of correcting and rebuking our own postures and attitudes BEFORE entering the covenant that is prayer...
Make no mistake if you can tap into your prayer life and dig deeper in this area with God you enter into covenant with God through your prayer.
See for many of us our prayer life is not like a covenant but is instead a conversation.
Something forgettable, everybody has them, and they don’t hold much value.
But a covenant occurs when the two people bind themselves for life and commit to upholding their bond to the exclusion of most if not all other things.
We then learned the value in addressing God from the point of our relationship, thereby addressing him as a Father.
Addressing God as Father is a right given to us through and by Jesus’ sacrifice but I must ask you… would you be exercising the right correctly or would it simply be done as an act of copying the methodology of Jesus.
Put simply, do you have the relationship with God who you refer to (through your prayer) as your Father?
Do you have relationship with God or when you get to Heaven will he dismiss you and say I knew you not because of your failure to come to know him?
And of course, we also acknowledged our responsibility to honor God as the King of the Universe.
Whenever you go into the presence of a King it is important that you do so with the right mindset and the proper greeting. I am reminded of when Nehemiah (the Cupbearer to Artaxerxes) went before the King with a sad face and when the King saw his face and identified it… Nehemiah became fearful for the King’s reaction.
Another man went into the presence of a human King over a geographical area with a sad face and immediately paid homage to the King and began seeking forgiveness.
And yet, you will make SUPPLICATION to the KING OF THE UNIVERSE. The God whose throne sits above all others. The God who’s realm knows no limits… And will not at minimum recognize his supremacy over your entire life.
If he stopped breathing for you… you would choke on the very oxygen you breath but by his mercy you yet live. I want you to understand the magnitude of the situation.
And so, it is very important that we as God’s people pay homage to him and acknowledge his role.
Next we are to worship his deity and honor him as God of the Universe.
This may seem similar to the act of praising his majesty but indeed it is different.
A King rules and governs, setting order to things to ensure their successful operation.
A King manages an army, manages a budget, appoints lower leaders, has a council and other things.
And indeed as the King of the Universe… God the Father does all of these things but we must also recognize his role as the Supreme God.
As God of the Universe, whether he does these things or not he is worthy.
If he made a necklace from the stars and took your breath for a cool breeze… he is still God.
If he blesses you going in or binds your coming out he is still God.
If the Church stands forever and if they all were destroyed right now… He is still God.
As the God of the Universe he has no other responsibility but to exist and in his simple existence he would be worthy.
If the World was void he is worthy. If its flooded he is worthy. If you are sick he is worthy. If you are dying he is worthy.
He is SIMPLY GOD.
And finally, we approach God in our need.
And now, having learned all of that… we are staring down at the closing portion of this prayer and we see that once again it is not about you… but instead it is focused intently on our responsibility to others.
We have a responsibility to ask God for forgiveness but of equal importance to this is that as God applies mercy and grace to us we do the same thing amongst ourselves.
And not only is God forgiving you, but he is doing so on credit. He is giving you forgiveness knowing that many of you will reject it or worse shun it and walk away from it.
He is forgiving you despite knowing you will backslide.
He is forgiving you despite knowing how you behave and how you act.
He is forgiving you even though he knows what you did last night or last week.
He is forgiving you knowing full well the faults and problems you have deep down on the inside.
God knows you and chose you anyways.... Don’t believe me… turn with me. I want to read from the message Bible so you can better understand what I mean.
Read: Hosea 3:1-5
Read: Hosea 3:1-5
1 Then God ordered me, “Start all over: Love your wife again,
your wife who’s in bed with her latest boyfriend, your cheating wife.
Love her the way I, God, love the Israelite people,
even as they flirt and party with every god that takes their fancy.”
2–3 I did it. I paid good money to get her back.
It cost me the price of a slave.
Then I told her, “From now on you’re living with me.
No more whoring, no more sleeping around.
You’re living with me and I’m living with you.”
4–5 The people of Israel are going to live a long time
stripped of security and protection,
without religion and comfort,
godless and prayerless.
But in time they’ll come back, these Israelites,
come back looking for their God and their David-King.
They’ll come back chastened to reverence
before God and his good gifts, ready for the End of the story of his love.
We see here that Hosea is recounting his commandments from the Lord.
The Lord instructed him to marry Gomer who was a prostitute and he did that which the Lord had told him to do.
So he binds himself to her in the ultimate sign of covenant, speaking of the relationship between Christ and the Church.
Then he went on to have three children all with this woman, bearing forth fruit in fulfillment of God’s original commandment and in representation of Jesus’ Great Commission.
For God said be fruitful and multiply, thereby telling them to bear fruit in the form of Children.
But Jesus said preach the Gospel and it is by the preaching of the Gospel that people become saved and are born again into the family of believers.
In this way, we beget children naturally according to God’s original commandment and spiritual ones in accordance with our Christ given mission.
And all while doing this.... Gomer proves herself to be unfaithful and she goes out to her previous lovers seeking out what she does not know she already has.
She was seeking fulfillment from other people
She was seeking fulfillment through her other lovers
She was seeking fulfillment through her other experiences
She thought she had it better in her previous life, never realizing she had a God sent husband and beautiful fruit waiting for her at home but she was in conflict the entire time and no matter what she tried or what she did, she found herself reverting back to the nature with which she was most comfortable and most familiar.
And so, we make it into our chapter and we discover that Gomer has found herself enslaved by the same things she said made her feel free.
We love to think we are in control.
I will just go see him one more time.
I can cuss out one more person nobody will know.
I know I am supposed to witness to that person but they are fine.
I know I am supposed to give that homeless person some money, but I need gas.
I can get that extra piece of chicken nobody will know.
And before you know it, we are practicing excesses in every area of our lives with no goal or recourse for fixing it/ or turning around because we like being comfortable more than we like being corrected.
And so, we find ourselves in bondage because we feel like we can handle it.
We find ourselves incarcerated within the prison of our own lives because we were too stubborn to seek out forgiveness.
And this is why I love Chapter 3 because in spite of it all Hosea receives and obeys the commandment of the Lord to love the Woman of God beyond her faults.
God tells Hosea, go buy her out of her slavery.
Clean her up
Dust her off
Take her into the home.
Love on her.
Forgive her.
And Restore her.
Hosea is made to understand the difficulty in being God and in so doing learns to forgive someone else of what they have done to you.
God helps Hosea to discover the power in forgiveness.
He helps Hosea to uncover the true pain it is to be God and learn better how to handle God’s Children as the prophet sent by God to speak to them.
Conclusion
Conclusion
And so today, I want everyone under the sound of my voice to have a Hosea experience. Many of us feel as though we have perfected this life thing but the reality of the situation is that you have messed up just like everyone else.
And just as much as we want to pray to God for healings, miracles, and breakthroughs… it is incredibly important that we learn to forgive one another.
So I want everyone in here today to begin meditating and praying. I want you to think about some things that people have done to you. Some things in this Church, in your Household, in your family, on your job, at your favorite grocery store… I want you to begin thinking about that. If you need some privacy, begin to write it down.... and if you get worried somebody is looking then don’t worry about it, its just another thing to write down.
I want us to take some time to think about this as we have a moment of meditation. We are making good time, because I cut myself short to ensure we had adequate time for this. Now of course, this list cannot be exhaustive but I want you to put some serious thought into it because the better you do this action today and right now… the better you can do it in the privacy of your home. And then you can really start to free yourself.
Now, every person that is on your list, I don’t want you to forgive them. Because saying you forgive someone is just as easy and anybody can fake it. But I want you to start interceding on each person’s behalf. I want you to take some time to pray for them. Cover their lives in anointing. Cover their lives in blessings. Pray God’s miracles over them. Pray they get free from bondage. Pray that God restores them to their house. Pray that God restores their fruitfulness to them. Fix their marriage. Upgrade their bank account. Pray now. Pray now. Pray now.
All over this building, I want you to pray. Seek God now. Don’t you let one word come out of your mouth against them. Don’t you dare pray for yourself. Be completely selfless in your prayer. Pray God’s blessing for your life be made manifest in their lives.
Now God. Based on the integrity of their prayer. I pray God now that every word they just prayed be honored on Earth as in Heaven. And in my role as Pastor and with the anointing on my life I not only decree those blessings done but every prayer said… be made manifest in this awaiting congregation. What they prayed, let it show up. What they sowed, let it show up. What they said, let it be done.
Now Clap your Hands all over this building. Come On.