Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2: I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 2: I wanted to thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 1: Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.
Speaker 2: Hope it gives your perspective to see God has moving
Speaker 2: in your life.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the message. My message title is forgiving what you
Speaker 1: can't forget. And I know the minute that I say forgiveness,
Speaker 1: a lot of you are like, oh, please, not this today.
Speaker 1: You don't know what I've been through this week, because
Speaker 1: a minute I say forgiveness, you start to feel like
Speaker 1: I'm going to attach this to the hardest thing that's
Speaker 1: ever happened to me. And I am not in the
Speaker 1: mood right. I understand that. That's why I'm going to
Speaker 1: preach this message with great tenderness. Let's go to the Lord. Lord.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much that you came and you died
Speaker 1: for us so that we might have life and be
Speaker 1: set free. Jesus, you are so well acquainted with the
Speaker 1: hurts and the heaviness of what we walk through as humans.
Speaker 1: You loved us so much, and Hebrews that you tell
Speaker 1: us that you came to be a merciful and faithful
Speaker 1: High Priest. And how true that is because you know
Speaker 1: the grit and the grime and the gruesome heartbreak that
Speaker 1: can happen when we are hurt, betrayed, overlooked, devalued, lied about,
Speaker 1: cheated on. Lord. You know, right before you went to
Speaker 1: the cross, Lord, you gave us these amazing words to
Speaker 1: give us an insight into how much you understand. When
Speaker 1: you cry out from the garden of Kosemite, my soul
Speaker 1: is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. And then, Lord,
Speaker 1: you prayed the same prayer I prayed so many times.
Speaker 1: Everything is possible for you, God, take this cup from me.
Speaker 1: But then, in your great mercy, because you are a
Speaker 1: God of freedom, you reminded us at the end of
Speaker 1: that prayer these nine glorious, health shaking, demon quaking, earth
Speaker 1: shattering words. Yet not what I will, but what you will. God, Lord,
Speaker 1: help us to trade our will for thy will, because
Speaker 1: we are so confident you will. And all God's people said, amen,
Speaker 1: you can have a seat. So my journey with forgiveness.
Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of ironic that I'm preaching a
Speaker 1: sermon today on forgiveness when this very week I have
Speaker 1: struggled to forgive something hard that has happened. You know,
Speaker 1: I feel like sometimes life is like whack a mole.
Speaker 1: Did y'all ever play whack a mole? It's like, we
Speaker 1: get one thing taken care of, and it's like kind
Speaker 1: of calmed down, but then three more pop up, and
Speaker 1: then those three you work as hard as you can
Speaker 1: to get those to calm down, and then two more
Speaker 1: pop up over here and one over here, and it
Speaker 1: just feels like we're never going to get to the
Speaker 1: place where life can be tied up in a neat,
Speaker 1: nice bow and where things just all line up, the
Speaker 1: birds sing, the sun shines, and you think, ain't nobody
Speaker 1: hurt my feelings today? Wouldn't that be amazing? Right? So Yeah,
Speaker 1: preaching a message on forgiveness in a very week that
Speaker 1: I've struggled with being hurt. It's a tough thing. But
Speaker 1: as I was praying about it, I thought, Lord, thank
Speaker 1: you for bringing this hurt so fresh, so I can
Speaker 1: preach this message with the deep tenderness that a message
Speaker 1: on forgiveness deserves. You See, sometimes when we hear that
Speaker 1: word forgiveness, like I said, we will attach it to
Speaker 1: the hardest things that we have ever walked through, and
Speaker 1: we will feel like some of us like forgiveness is
Speaker 1: such an unfair gift that we now have to give
Speaker 1: to the person who hurt us the most. Have you
Speaker 1: ever felt that way about forgiveness? You see, I have
Speaker 1: an attitude toward forgiveness. As a matter of fact, when
Speaker 1: I set out to write my book Forgiving What you
Speaker 1: Can't Forget, I did over a thousand hours with a
Speaker 1: theologian studying in the Bible exactly what God's word says
Speaker 1: about forgiveness. That is a lot of hours. But before
Speaker 1: you get all impressed, I want you to know about
Speaker 1: seven hundred and fifty of those hours I was looking
Speaker 1: for the loophole. Surely, God does not mean we are
Speaker 1: to forgive everyone, right, surely, But what I discovered is
Speaker 1: that forgiveness is an absolute command by God. Forgiveness is
Speaker 1: an absolute command by God. But here's the comfort. Reconciliation
Speaker 1: is not a command that you always have to reconcile.
Speaker 1: God would not put us in a position where we
Speaker 1: have to stay close enough to someone who has used us,
Speaker 1: abused us, and let that person keep doing it over
Speaker 1: and over and over. Forgiveness is not their ticket to
Speaker 1: keep hurting us. Absolutely not. So. While forgiveness is a
Speaker 1: command by God, reconciliation is very conditional, and I think
Speaker 1: we're going to see that as the message goes on.
Speaker 1: Why did I even start studying forgiveness with an attitude
Speaker 1: because I walked through some really hard stuff. A lot
Speaker 1: of you know my story. You know it's inconvenient to
Speaker 1: be a private person who lives a very public life,
Speaker 1: and so when hard things happen, everybody knows about it.
Speaker 1: And even if I chose not to tell the story,
Speaker 1: the media would get a hold of it and they
Speaker 1: would tell the story for me. So, for those of
Speaker 1: you who don't know what my family and I have
Speaker 1: walked through the past ten years, our family changed into
Speaker 1: something that I never thought it would be. I was
Speaker 1: married almost twenty nine years, and my marriage ended in
Speaker 1: an incredibly devastating way. I was heartbroken. I felt so
Speaker 1: incredibly betrayed, and though I fought and begged God to
Speaker 1: save my marriage for years and years and years, I
Speaker 1: would forgive, and then things would fall apart. I would forgive,
Speaker 1: and then things would fall apart. I would forgive, and
Speaker 1: then things would fall apart. And in the end, I
Speaker 1: walked through the devastation of an unwanted divorce. It was hard,
Speaker 1: it was awful, and it was something I never thought
Speaker 1: my family would face. But I'm not unique with that story.
Speaker 1: So many of you have a very similar story to me.
Speaker 1: And you came to church this week and you were
Speaker 1: just hoping that I would preach a message about how
Speaker 1: bad people really are, you know, and then you walk
Speaker 1: in here and you're like, dang, she's preaching on forgiveness. Great,
Speaker 1: you know, But I just want you to know I
Speaker 1: understand the hurt. And maybe your story is nothing like mine,
Speaker 1: but here's what I know to be true about all
Speaker 1: of us. We've either just been through so hurt, we're
Speaker 1: in the middle of some hurt, or we're about to
Speaker 1: go through some hurt. And you go, wow, that's not
Speaker 1: very positive. No, I'm positive we've either been through some hurt,
Speaker 1: we in some hurt, We've had to go through some hurt, right,
Speaker 1: And so I think this is a message for all
Speaker 1: of us. In the middle of one of the hardest
Speaker 1: parts of my journey, I was in one of those
Speaker 1: places where it was hard to get out of bed,
Speaker 1: and I remember I had scheduled a counseling appointment, and
Speaker 1: I drove up to the counselor's office and I remember
Speaker 1: looking in the riover mirror and thinking, how long has
Speaker 1: it actually been since I washed my hair. Now, you
Speaker 1: with short hair, you will not understand this. But for
Speaker 1: those of you with hair that's more complicated like my hair,
Speaker 1: you know, the top knot is God's gift to us, right,
Speaker 1: because you can just have dirty hair whip it up
Speaker 1: into a top knot. And so as I looked at
Speaker 1: my reflection, I thought to myself, I look awful. And
Speaker 1: then I was walking into the counselor's office and I
Speaker 1: had a second thought, I can't remember if I put
Speaker 1: on deodorant today or not. And I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: I can deal with dirty hair, but I'm not walking
Speaker 1: in my counseling a point of stinking. And so I
Speaker 1: went to the bathroom and I thought, I am a
Speaker 1: resourceful girl, and so I opened up the bottom cabinet
Speaker 1: and there was no deodorant in there, but there was
Speaker 1: peach air freshener, and I thought that'll do, and so
Speaker 1: I applied the peach air freshener to me, and I
Speaker 1: walked into that counseling session, and I smelled like a
Speaker 1: freshly baked peach cobbler. I really did. The counselor looked
Speaker 1: at me. His name is Jim. Jim has been such
Speaker 1: an incredible gift to me and my family, and so
Speaker 1: I looked at Jim, and Jim looked at me and
Speaker 1: he said, catch me up. How are you doing? And
Speaker 1: I said not well at all. I said, I'm hurting
Speaker 1: so bad. I just don't want to get out of
Speaker 1: bed some days. And he said, huh, well, today is
Speaker 1: a good day then for us to start working on forgiveness.
Speaker 1: And I looked back at him and I said, are
Speaker 1: you high, Mike? Truly? Like I just said, I am hurting,
Speaker 1: and now you say we have to work on forgiveness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do that today. And he said, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: why don't we start with your pain? And he handed
Speaker 1: me a big stack of three by five cards and
Speaker 1: I said, great, very well acquainted with my pain, I
Speaker 1: will definitely be able to participate in this activity. And
Speaker 1: so he handed me this stack of three by five
Speaker 1: cards and he told me to write one thing on
Speaker 1: each card of something that had been done that had
Speaker 1: hurt me, something that had been said to me that
Speaker 1: had hurt me. Just write down all the facts of
Speaker 1: the trauma that you've experienced. And so I did. I
Speaker 1: wrote card after card after card after card, and then
Speaker 1: he told me to lay out the cards on the
Speaker 1: floor of his office, and I did that, and before
Speaker 1: too long, the entire office floor was full of those cards.
Speaker 1: And as I turned and placed the last card and
Speaker 1: I looked at all of that pain, I thought to myself,
Speaker 1: no wonder, I feel so heavy inside. No wonder, I
Speaker 1: don't want to get out of bed because look at
Speaker 1: all I have been carrying. And so I looked up
Speaker 1: at Jim, and Jim did the best thing that anybody
Speaker 1: could do in a situation like that. He looked back
Speaker 1: at me and he said, I believe you. What's been
Speaker 1: done to you is terrible. It should have never happened.
Speaker 1: And if no other human ever dares to say these words,
Speaker 1: I'll say them to you. I am so sorry. I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry. And in that moment, something in me softened,
Speaker 1: and I realized I have been waiting all this time
Speaker 1: for the person who hurt me to give me that gift,
Speaker 1: to acknowledge how badly they've hurt me, to say that
Speaker 1: they were sorry, to do some kind of repentance and
Speaker 1: to promise they would never ever do it again. But
Speaker 1: if I continue to wait for that person who hurt
Speaker 1: me to say they're sorry before I can heal and
Speaker 1: move forward, then I am allowing that person to hurt
Speaker 1: me twice, because that's a choice they may never ever
Speaker 1: make right. And I realized in that moment, I didn't
Speaker 1: really need that person to say that they were sorry.
Speaker 1: What I needed was for another human to bear witness
Speaker 1: to the pain of what I'd walk through. And so
Speaker 1: I want to do that for you today. Before we
Speaker 1: even get into the scriptures and the message, I want
Speaker 1: to say to you, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that they said what they said. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: that they didn't say what they should have said. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry that they hurt you. I'm sorry that they stole
Speaker 1: from you. I'm sorry that they belittled you. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: that they abused you. I'm so sorry for what you've
Speaker 1: gone through. But friend, you deserve to stop suffering because
Speaker 1: of what another person has done to you. Right, deserve
Speaker 1: to stop suffering because of what another person has done
Speaker 1: to you. Forgiveness It's my choice. It's your choice. We
Speaker 1: can take a stake and drive it in the ground today,
Speaker 1: on this very day, and say I refuse to keep
Speaker 1: suffering because of what they did to me. Forgiveness is
Speaker 1: my choice, and I choose to receive this provision from
Speaker 1: God to help my human heart heal. That's what forgiveness
Speaker 1: really is. Now here's the other thing about forgiveness that
Speaker 1: can seem very very complicated forgiveness. It can seem if
Speaker 1: we forgive that person, then that's us saying that what
Speaker 1: they did is now okay, and it's not okay. So
Speaker 1: that's not what forgiveness means. Forgiveness can seem like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: if I participate and I forgive, does that mean that
Speaker 1: I can't ever process this Again, That's not what forgiveness means.
Speaker 1: You can keep processing, you can keep healing. And also,
Speaker 1: for a long time, I felt like a forgiveness failure
Speaker 1: because I would say that I forgave that person, and
Speaker 1: then a minute down the road or a week later,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I would get triggered in my pain.
Speaker 1: Do you know what a trigger is? Yes? Is so complicated, right,
Speaker 1: don't you wish we could time triggers like Tuesday night
Speaker 1: would be a good time for a trigger to hit,
Speaker 1: and so let's schedule it. I'll be in the bathtub,
Speaker 1: I'll be taking communion and I'll be listening to praise songs, right,
Speaker 1: and then a trigger can hit me and I will
Speaker 1: just cry it all out in the privacy of my
Speaker 1: own bathtub. Right. But that's not how triggers happen. Triggers
Speaker 1: just happen in the middle of our every day. And
Speaker 1: have you ever been hit with a trigger. You've already
Speaker 1: forgiven that person, but then a trigger hits and the
Speaker 1: pain feels so fresh, and you think to yourself, I'm
Speaker 1: bitter still. I must be a forgiveness failure. You're not
Speaker 1: a frigid giveness failure. Every trauma is two parts. It's
Speaker 1: fact an impact. Therefore, forgiveness can be two parts as well.
Speaker 1: We can forgive for the facts of what happened, and
Speaker 1: that satisfies the command of God to forgive. At the
Speaker 1: same time, we can also walk through the healing process
Speaker 1: of healing from the impact and forgiving for the impact.
Speaker 1: What that person did to us. It cost us something.
Speaker 1: That's the impact, and that is going to take time.
Speaker 1: I used to think that triggers were such a curse,
Speaker 1: But now I see it as God's mercy, because if
Speaker 1: the full impact would have hit me at once, it
Speaker 1: probably would have killed me. So how good of God
Speaker 1: to let the impact leak into my life over time.
Speaker 1: As I'm healing, I've already forgiven for the fact. But
Speaker 1: then when an impact hits me, when a trigger hits me,
Speaker 1: and I realize an impact is nothing more than an indication.
Speaker 1: There's a little more healing needed right here. There's a
Speaker 1: little more forgiveness needed right here. So I had all
Speaker 1: those cards laid out on Jim's office floor, and then
Speaker 1: he handed me a stack of red felt squares and
Speaker 1: he looked at me and he said, Lisa, I think
Speaker 1: you should just go card by card by card, and
Speaker 1: you should make the choice to forgive. And I said,
Speaker 1: that's great, except my mouth will say it, and my
Speaker 1: feelings haven't signed up for it yet. So what do
Speaker 1: I do about that?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And he said, why don't you say this? Out of
Speaker 1: obedience to God, I am choosing to forgive this person
Speaker 1: for the fact of what they did to me. And
Speaker 1: then take a piece of redfelt and lay it on
Speaker 1: top of that card. And then say, and whatever my
Speaker 1: feelings will not yet allow, for the blood of Jesus
Speaker 1: will surely cover it. Right, So I went card by
Speaker 1: card by card and said, I forgive this person for
Speaker 1: this fact of how they've hurt me, and whatever my
Speaker 1: feelings will not yet allow, for covered it with a
Speaker 1: red card. The blood of Jesus will surely cover it.
Speaker 1: And when I was done and I looked back, I
Speaker 1: didn't have all that pain staring back at me. I
Speaker 1: saw the beautiful work of Jesus Christ. Jesus died so
Speaker 1: that we could receive God's forgiveness. And as we receive
Speaker 1: God's forgiveness, we simply must cooperate with his forgiveness as
Speaker 1: his forgiveness flows to us, because we are not perfect,
Speaker 1: and we have also sinned and fallen short. But that
Speaker 1: doesn't justify what they did at all. And maybe we
Speaker 1: didn't participate in in in that situation where they hurt us,
Speaker 1: but maybe we've been carrying some bitterness. And so as
Speaker 1: we receive God's forgiveness as it flows to us, we
Speaker 1: must cooperate with it and then let us flow through
Speaker 1: us to other people. We don't have to originate forgiveness.
Speaker 1: I used to feel like I would just have to
Speaker 1: grit my teeth like I forgive you and conjure up
Speaker 1: some forgiveness from mimy. That's not forgiveness. Forgiveness originates from God,
Speaker 1: flows to us, flows through us, and it goes to
Speaker 1: other people. So what does God's word say about forgiveness?
Speaker 1: I want to start with Matthew chapter six, verses nine
Speaker 1: through thirteen. I find it pretty amazing that when Jesus
Speaker 1: was asked how should we pray, think about all the
Speaker 1: things that could be taught in that moment of how
Speaker 1: you can pray. This is Jesus and the people are
Speaker 1: asking him how do we pray? So if I was
Speaker 1: put in charge of saying the ultimate Lord's prayer, I
Speaker 1: probably would never have thought that forgiveness should be such
Speaker 1: a big part of it. And yet Jesus knows the
Speaker 1: human heart so well. He answers the people, this is then,
Speaker 1: how you should pray our Father in heaven, how it
Speaker 1: would be your name, your kingdom, Come, Your will be
Speaker 1: done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us
Speaker 1: today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as
Speaker 1: we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not
Speaker 1: into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. And
Speaker 1: then he goes on in verse fourteen and as another
Speaker 1: little section, for if you forgive other people when they
Speaker 1: sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you.
Speaker 1: But if you do not forgive others their sins, your
Speaker 1: father will not forgive your sins. Isn't it incredible that
Speaker 1: of all those words that we just study, that's in
Speaker 1: the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray, that forgiveness
Speaker 1: is one of the main subjects in that prayer. And
Speaker 1: this is supposed to be a daily prayer. In other words,
Speaker 1: each day when we wake up, we should pray something
Speaker 1: similar to this. We should pray our Father in heaven,
Speaker 1: how would be your name, your kingdom? Con Your will
Speaker 1: be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give
Speaker 1: us today our daily bread, that daily provision. That's how
Speaker 1: I know this is a daily prayer. And then make
Speaker 1: forgiveness part of that prayer. How incredible would it be
Speaker 1: if we laid in our beds before our feet ever
Speaker 1: hit the floor, and we wake up and the day
Speaker 1: is fresh, and there's new opportunities, and we decided one
Speaker 1: of the main things we're going to do before we
Speaker 1: get out of bed, is that we are already going
Speaker 1: to pre forgive the fools that hurt us that day. Right,
Speaker 1: wouldn't that be so amazing? It would be so amazing.
Speaker 1: You know where I got this idea years ago? Pastor
Speaker 1: Steven preached a message on a fence, and he brought
Speaker 1: up a fence up here was anybody else here? It
Speaker 1: was so amazing, right, And so I started doing this,
Speaker 1: And how great is it that as I walk into
Speaker 1: my day, inevitably it's like I'll be happy, happy, happy,
Speaker 1: and then somebody bumps into my happy And it used
Speaker 1: to be that they would hijack my day because of
Speaker 1: their foolish situation whatever they were doing to me, right,
Speaker 1: But now I'm like, oh, you do, you boo? You
Speaker 1: get all stirred up right here in the coffee line
Speaker 1: because they frapaid your latte and waylaid your whole day. Okay,
Speaker 1: I got it right. I mean, if that's the worst
Speaker 1: thing that happened to me today, I would still have
Speaker 1: a pretty good day. But you do, you boo, because
Speaker 1: you know what, You're the person I brak for this morning,
Speaker 1: and I have already preforgiven you and Just because you
Speaker 1: laid down on a fence does not mean I'm going
Speaker 1: to pick it up, carry it with me, and let
Speaker 1: it ruin my whole day. Right. It is incredible what
Speaker 1: can happen when we make forgiveness part of our everyday routine, eating, sleeping, breathing, loving, forgiving.
Speaker 1: But there's one other thing I want to point out.
Speaker 1: In this section of the Lord's Prayer. Right after we're
Speaker 1: instructed to forgive, it says, and lead us not into temptation,
Speaker 1: but deliver us from the evil one. There is a
Speaker 1: pattern throughout scripture, and it is all throughout scripture wherever
Speaker 1: there's unattended to anger, bitterness, resentment, desires for revenge. Right
Speaker 1: near that passage, it's instructive. We are instructed to forgive,
Speaker 1: and if we don't, the evil one comes close. It
Speaker 1: is like drop dropping blood in a body of water
Speaker 1: and it draws the sharks near. Let me show you
Speaker 1: a couple of other passages where we see this very thing.
Speaker 1: If we go all the way back to Genesis in
Speaker 1: Genesis chapter four, verses two through seven. Now Abel kept
Speaker 1: flocks and Cain worked the soil. Adam and Eve had
Speaker 1: two children, Cain and Abel, Right, two brothers. Abel kept
Speaker 1: the flocks and Cain worked the soil. In the course
Speaker 1: of time, Cain brought some of the fruits of the
Speaker 1: soil as an offering to the Lord, and Abel also
Speaker 1: brought an offering fat portions from some of the firstborn
Speaker 1: of his flocks. The Lord looked with favor on Abel
Speaker 1: and his offering, but on Cain and his offering, he
Speaker 1: did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry
Speaker 1: and his face was downcast. Now some people, as we've
Speaker 1: studied these scriptures, you know, some people really are concerned.
Speaker 1: Why is it that the Lord favored Abel's offering and
Speaker 1: not Cain's offering. Theologians have debated this, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to give you what I personally see in the scripture.
Speaker 1: Here it says that in the course of time, Cain
Speaker 1: brought his offering, but Abel brought his first fruits, right
Speaker 1: his first born. And so I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: what it is, but I do know that whatever it was,
Speaker 1: the Lord was not pleased with Cain, and Cain was
Speaker 1: very angry and his face was downcast. Now, if you've
Speaker 1: studied the Bible before, you know that Cain goes on
Speaker 1: to murder his brother Abel. But there's something that happens
Speaker 1: in between Cain being very angry and Cain murdering his brother.
Speaker 1: The Lord himself comes and talks to Cain. What how
Speaker 1: many times have I just prayed? Lord? I will not
Speaker 1: tell anybody, but if you can just come right here
Speaker 1: into my closet, let me see you and tell me
Speaker 1: what to do. I will listen, right. And I know
Speaker 1: that that's not going to happen, but if it did happen,
Speaker 1: I would keep it a secret, just between me and you.
Speaker 1: But look what happens here. Cain gets that. The Lord
Speaker 1: comes to Cain and says, in verse six, why are
Speaker 1: you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do
Speaker 1: what is right, will you not be accepted? But if
Speaker 1: you do not do what is right, sin is crouching
Speaker 1: at your door. It desires to have you, but you
Speaker 1: must rule over it. Unattended to anger, and sin is
Speaker 1: crouching out the door, right, and it says, sin is
Speaker 1: crouching out your door, desires to have you, but you
Speaker 1: must rule over it. Let's look at one other place
Speaker 1: in scripture Ephesians, chapter four, starting in verse twenty six,
Speaker 1: in your anger, do not sin do not let the
Speaker 1: sun go down while you are still angry, and do
Speaker 1: not give the devil a foothold. And then it goes
Speaker 1: on in verse twenty nine to say, do not let
Speaker 1: any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only
Speaker 1: what is helpful for building others up according to their needs,
Speaker 1: that it may benefit those who listen. And do not
Speaker 1: greet the Holy Spirit with whom you recealed for the
Speaker 1: day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger,
Speaker 1: brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be
Speaker 1: kind and compassionate to one another forgiving each other, just
Speaker 1: as in Christ, God forgave you. We don't want to
Speaker 1: reduce our life down to the limitations of living heard.
Speaker 1: There is a big, beautiful world out there, full of
Speaker 1: such possibilities that you do not want to miss. And
Speaker 1: if we are so stuck on the hurt that has
Speaker 1: been caused to us and we think about it over
Speaker 1: and over and over and over, that's just allowing that
Speaker 1: trauma to traumatize us over and over and over. When
Speaker 1: cruel things have been done to you, it is life altering,
Speaker 1: but it does not have to be life ruining. Forgiveness
Speaker 1: forgiveness is God's provision for us to heal. Forgiveness is
Speaker 1: actually a gift from God. Now, if I were you
Speaker 1: and I was sitting there and I was thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's nice, But what do I do when the person
Speaker 1: who hurt me seems to get away with everything? What
Speaker 1: do I do about that? Because honestly, as I take
Speaker 1: an assessment in my heart, sometimes the very thing that
Speaker 1: pull's bitterness back into my feelings is that it feels
Speaker 1: like they're off living in happy, happy world and I'm
Speaker 1: here dealing with all the pain and the fallout of
Speaker 1: the decisions. Have you ever been there, Well, let me
Speaker 1: read you what the scripture says Galatians six seven through eight.
Speaker 1: Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man
Speaker 1: reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh
Speaker 1: from the flesh will reap destruction. Whoever sows to please
Speaker 1: the spirit from the spirit will reap eternal life. God
Speaker 1: will not be mocked. There's a story of Esther, and
Speaker 1: there's several characters in Esther, but there's this one character
Speaker 1: that his name is Hayman, and he has bent on
Speaker 1: destroying the Jewish people. Mordecai, Esther's uncle finds out about
Speaker 1: Hayman's plans. Esther has access to the king, and so
Speaker 1: through the course of time, Esther is able to reveal
Speaker 1: Hayman's plot to the king. The very gallows that Hayman built.
Speaker 1: I want you to listen to what scriptures said. The
Speaker 1: very gallows that Haman built to kill the Jewish people
Speaker 1: are the very gallows that he was then hanged on.
Speaker 1: Esther seventeen. So they hanged Hayman on the gallows that
Speaker 1: he had prepared for Mordecai. Romans twelve nineteen through twenty one.
Speaker 1: Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room
Speaker 1: for God's wrath. For it is written it is mine
Speaker 1: to avenge. I will repay, says the Lord. On the contrary,
Speaker 1: if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty,
Speaker 1: give him something to drink. In doing this, you will
Speaker 1: heat burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome
Speaker 1: by evil. Sin is crouching at your door, but you
Speaker 1: must rule over You must rule over it. Do not
Speaker 1: let it have you. Do not give the devil a
Speaker 1: foothold in your anger. Do not sin, Do not give
Speaker 1: the devil a foothold, Lord, deliver us from the evil one,
Speaker 1: And forgiveness is such a powerful part of that. Do
Speaker 1: not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Speaker 1: I think that the very vest the very best time
Speaker 1: to forgive is before we're ever offended. But the next
Speaker 1: best time to forgive is right now. You know. I
Speaker 1: started doing these things as I was working on forgiveness
Speaker 1: because I really had reduced my life down to the
Speaker 1: limitations of living hurt. I really had done that. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you can just check your heart and see,
Speaker 1: are there places where I've limited myself because of the
Speaker 1: hurt that I've endured? Right? And so I started doing
Speaker 1: these things called rebellious acts of resilience. And what a
Speaker 1: rebellious act of resilience? First of all, I love the
Speaker 1: word rebellious because I'm such a rule follower that it
Speaker 1: kind of feels good to say I'm doing something rebellious, honestly,
Speaker 1: But what a rebellious act of forgiveness is is for
Speaker 1: me to start listening to the I can'ts and I
Speaker 1: don't in my vocabulary. So I had forgiven for the
Speaker 1: hurt that it happened to me, but I was still
Speaker 1: dealing with the impact very much. So I went on
Speaker 1: a beach trip with some friends. And on this beach
Speaker 1: trip we had a little house and the ice maker
Speaker 1: wasn't working. Now I am very into ice, especially at
Speaker 1: the beach. I like cold things, very very cold. I
Speaker 1: have this thing about the beach. I like to pack
Speaker 1: it cooler with ice in it. I like to put
Speaker 1: my water and my Dike Cob. Don't send me a
Speaker 1: message about that. I understand how that it is for me.
Speaker 1: I understand that police use it to clean blood off
Speaker 1: the road. I got the whole thing, okay. But I
Speaker 1: like my water, and I like my Dike coke, my
Speaker 1: little sandwich, and I put it in a cooler with
Speaker 1: some ice, go down to the beach, and that is
Speaker 1: my happy place. I just love it. The problem was
Speaker 1: I quickly discovered the ice maker was broken, and I
Speaker 1: had an out of portion reaction to the situation at hand.
Speaker 1: I was like yet another thing he's taken from me.
Speaker 1: You see, if he would have been faithful, then we
Speaker 1: would still be married. And if we were so married,
Speaker 1: he would be here and he would fix the ice maker.
Speaker 1: But because he isn't here, I can't have ice, you know.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, it's ice, Lisa, like it's ice, right,
Speaker 1: But boy, did it flood me with I can't. I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't. That's reducing your life down to the limitations
Speaker 1: of living hurt. And so I stopped myself after being
Speaker 1: very embarrassed at my overreaction, and I said, but what
Speaker 1: if I could? What if I could? And so I
Speaker 1: googled instructions how do you fix an ice maker? I
Speaker 1: am terrible with written instructions. They were utterly unhelpful. But
Speaker 1: then I remembered the YouTube, y'all, and so I YouTube directions,
Speaker 1: how do you fix an ice maker? And I thought,
Speaker 1: what's the worst that can happen? It's already broke? What
Speaker 1: if I broke it more? Okay, you know? And I
Speaker 1: tinkered with it, and I looked at the video and
Speaker 1: I did what it said and I fixed that ice
Speaker 1: mak God. And in that moment, it wasn't like I
Speaker 1: epically healed, but I absolutely epically proved to myself I
Speaker 1: still have a lot of life to live. I reduced,
Speaker 1: I refused to reduce my life down to the limitations
Speaker 1: of living hurt. And when that I fell into that bucket, y'all.
Speaker 1: I did the EMC hammer dance around the kitchen, right.
Speaker 1: It was glorious. So then my two friends who were
Speaker 1: with me, they said, hey, Lisa, let's go down to
Speaker 1: the ocean. And I thought, great, I've got my cooler now,
Speaker 1: all prepared. So I get my book, I get my towel,
Speaker 1: I get my chair and my little cooler and I'm
Speaker 1: headed down to the ocean. And my friend Jess, who
Speaker 1: was with me, she says, wait, wait, wait, wait wait,
Speaker 1: I have a boogie board for you. And I said,
Speaker 1: why do I need a boogy board because I'm gonna
Speaker 1: sit in my chair and read my book. That does
Speaker 1: not require a boogie board, right, And she said no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: We're going to play in the ocean. I said, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't do oceans. There are sharks in there that
Speaker 1: eat people every day. There's like shells that cut your feet,
Speaker 1: jellyfish that sting. I don't do oceans. And we sat
Speaker 1: down on the beach. She grabbed her boogie board. She
Speaker 1: went and jumped into the water. But before she did that,
Speaker 1: she laid my boogie board right in front of me
Speaker 1: because she had carried it down for me, and I
Speaker 1: was looking at her. I was looking at that boogie board,
Speaker 1: and I saw her laughing and smiling, and I kept thinking,
Speaker 1: I don't do oceans. But then I stopped myself again.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to reduce my life down to the
Speaker 1: limitations of living hurt. Therefore, what if I did? What
Speaker 1: if I did? And before my overthinking brain could kick in,
Speaker 1: I grabbed that boogie board. I went and I jumped
Speaker 1: into the ocean. It was disastrous. The wave took me under.
Speaker 1: My bathing suit bottoms came down. It was like a
Speaker 1: whole situation, you know. I stood up. I did get
Speaker 1: my bathing suit bottoms back on, just to clarify, and
Speaker 1: then I laughed and I played, and for a few
Speaker 1: minutes I wasn't a woman who was living in pain.
Speaker 1: I was that same care free person that I had
Speaker 1: been for so long. I can't I don't listen for
Speaker 1: those types of words, because even after you've forgiven, sometimes
Speaker 1: you stay stuck in this place where you just feel
Speaker 1: like you can't move forward rebellious acts of resilience. You can,
Speaker 1: and you will, and you should, and it is good right. Indeed,
Speaker 1: the best time to forgive is before we're ever offended.
Speaker 1: But the next best time is now, if you're physically able,
Speaker 1: will you please stand. I have something that I've written
Speaker 1: that I really want to share with you. This is
Speaker 1: a declaration. And when I wrote this, it was a
Speaker 1: message really to myself, because I remember waking up at
Speaker 1: two am in the morning and just feeling the weight
Speaker 1: of all that I was facing. Two am is such
Speaker 1: a complicated hour, isn't it. It's like too late to
Speaker 1: call your late friends, too early to call your early friends.
Speaker 1: So it is just you, right, And so often I
Speaker 1: would pray just the simplest prayers, like Jesus, I love
Speaker 1: you and you love me, and that's all I've got.
Speaker 1: And so to comfort myself, a lot of times I
Speaker 1: would pull out my journal and I would write declarations.
Speaker 1: So this declaration was something that I wrote for myself,
Speaker 1: but I'm so grateful I get to share it with
Speaker 1: you today. This is forgiveness, making the decision that the
Speaker 1: ones who hurt you no longer get to limit you,
Speaker 1: label you, or project the lies they believe about themselves
Speaker 1: onto you. Somewhere along the way, they got hurt, really
Speaker 1: really hurt. Maybe they really aren't necessarily bad people, but
Speaker 1: chances are maybe they're unhealed people. But honestly, aren't we
Speaker 1: all unhealed people? Do we ever really get to the
Speaker 1: place where we're like, finally I figured it all out,
Speaker 1: like I'm not going to do anything else or wrong. No,
Speaker 1: we never get to that place. On this side of eternity.
Speaker 1: We can grow, we can go to counseling, we can
Speaker 1: study the Bible, we can allow God to have his
Speaker 1: way with the sanctification process, all of that. But you see,
Speaker 1: if if I look at people who have hurt me
Speaker 1: and I just say to myself like they're such bad people,
Speaker 1: then forgiveness will feel like a really unfair gift that
Speaker 1: I have to give. But if I just change my
Speaker 1: perspective and I say they're unhealed people, it helps. And
Speaker 1: something happened to them along the way. I don't have
Speaker 1: to know what it is. But if they're doing something
Speaker 1: cruel to you, something cruel has been done to them,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make it right, It doesn't justify it. It's
Speaker 1: just a fact to consider. When people have a deep wound,
Speaker 1: they feel they must protect the pain from that festering
Speaker 1: place is often what they'll project. So you must make
Speaker 1: the decision that their offense will not define you or
Speaker 1: confine you by the smallness of bitterness. The sum total
Speaker 1: of your one incredible life must not be reduced to
Speaker 1: the limitations of living hurt. The completely delightful, beautiful, fun
Speaker 1: and brilliant way God made you must not be tainted
Speaker 1: by someone else who lost their way. You've got much
Speaker 1: too much going for you to be stunted by anger
Speaker 1: or haunted by resentment, or held back by fear. Grow
Speaker 1: into God's grace by giving forgiveness kindly and receiving it freely.
Speaker 1: Throw your arms up in victory and declare, I'm free
Speaker 1: to forgive so that I can live. Do it once,
Speaker 1: do it twice, do it seventy times seven. Make it
Speaker 1: an undeniable fact that you are indeed bound one day
Speaker 1: for heaven. This forgiveness message you dare to declare is
Speaker 1: evidence of Jesus in you that not one soul can deny.
Speaker 1: Sing it like an anthem that the one who was
Speaker 1: crushed will not have their joy hushed. Scatter it like confetti,
Speaker 1: coloring bland, surviving with the radiance of thriving. Release it
Speaker 1: like the fantastic fragrance everyone loves and always wants more of. Now,
Speaker 1: put your fingers on your pulse. Go ahead, you can
Speaker 1: do it. Do you feel that it's your heart is beating, pumping,
Speaker 1: willing you to press onward and upward your life, your
Speaker 1: future is full of possibility, new joys that you do
Speaker 1: not want to miss. So maybe it's time to get
Speaker 1: carried away dancing to that song, you know, the one
Speaker 1: where you can't stay down when its rhythm gets turned
Speaker 1: all the way up. And if it's not a pray song,
Speaker 1: if it's not a Jesus song, sing it to Jesus anyways, Right,
Speaker 1: it's time to get moving and on with living. This,
Speaker 1: my friends, is the power of forgiving.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us special thanks to those of
Speaker 2: you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of
Speaker 2: you that this ministry is possible. You can click the
Speaker 2: link in the description to give now, or visit Elevation
Speaker 2: Church dot org slash podcast for more information and if
Speaker 2: you enjoyed the podcast.
Speaker 1: You can subscribe.
Speaker 2: You can share it with your friends. You can click
Speaker 2: the share button, take a screenshot and share it on
Speaker 2: your social stories and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks
Speaker 2: again for listening. God bless you