Roots of Resentment

Who here is thankful for the forgiving power of Jesus Christ.

If it was not for what he did on the cross, even though he knew who I would be, I would not be here today.

He loves me in spite of me.

Some of y'all need an extra dose of love, extra dose of forgiveness, but forgiveness is powerful.

It is a tool that the Spirit of God wants to be working through you to get it to others, because we oftentimes do not want to forgive when we have been done wrong.

And what happens, like the video said, that we become a prisoner in our own minds and it binds us and it literally hinders the spirit working in our lives.

Because we will not let that last thing go, some of you today, I believe by the Spirit of God, is going to be loosed, that the chains that have been binding you and your spirits, hearts and minds and your relationships.

That God is going to loose you today and you can walk out of here free and forgiven and ready to forgive.

Forgiveness is powerful and equally so unforgiveness can have the same result on you, the same binding on you.

Forgiveness is a binding thing.

When I forgive someone who's done something wrong against me, it binds us in a way that would not have normally manifested.

And the same happens when unforgiveness is in the camp.

It festers, it takes deep roots and it gives.

It makes us prisoners emotionally, mentally and spiritually, and even physical damage and destruction can be caused by unforgiveness in our hearts.

If you'll stand with me for the reading of God's word, I got about eight of you trained and you still stood strong even though I kept talking.

If you have your word, open up your Bibles to, or tap your Bibles to, luke, chapter 23.

Luke 23 · chapter mention

We're going to read verse 34.

Your Bibles to Luke, chapter 23.

Luke 23 · chapter mention

We're going to read verse 34.

Now I want you to put yourself.

When I read the Bible, I like to put myself in the place of the author, because that gives me a different perspective outside of, different than what I see, because I can't see things how you see things.

But if you're reading, you can get a behind-the-curtain atmosphere of what they're going through.

And this is Jesus' words on the cross.

This is not in the middle of a church service.

He's not being encouraged and uplifted by his disciples.

He is literally hanging on the cross for your sins, for my sins and for the sins of those who put him there.

Verse 34,.

It says Jesus said, father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing, and the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice.

Father, thank you so much for your presence here today.

I speak right now to the hearts and the minds of those who have not let things go and they have allowed it to damage their spirits so much that it has corrupted the relationship with you and it infects the relationship with others.

I speak life today and I speak deliverance over this congregation, in person or watching online.

In your name, we pray amen.

You may be seated if you can.

Y'all like to get loud?

My cheering section over here, brother Rusty, was like hey, man, when I'm watching online, I'll be counting down.

You know when they do the countdown he's all 10, 9.

But you'll find that usually a dead church is a quiet church and I'm glad we're not dead here.

Come on somebody, yeah.

So today we're going to dive in just a little bit.

This is like I said to you many times if you don't take notes, try to Do it on your phone.

Do it something, because God can speak to something that you're dealing with here and you have to go home and face it there.

So if you're taking notes.

I look at it as a Tupperware that you can take what God has been serving this morning and take it with you and eat on it later.

I'm a fan of leftovers.

I'll take whatever God has left over.

Today, we're going to be looking at things that often get overlooked, unchecked and covered up.

If you've ever been hurt before, you don't want anybody else to know.

Well, I don't.

I don't want anybody else to know.

Some of you are the exact opposite you want everybody to know what they did and you talk about it constantly.

These two types of people we're going to address both of you today, both of us today, because sometimes, if somebody hurts me and then I have somebody else that the enemy sends along because misery loves company you will never suffer by yourself.

Think about it.

Even Jesus, in his last moments, was between two idiots, I mean sinners, excuse me.

One of them smartened up, but at the very moment where Jesus should have been rebuking them and praying God's vengeance down on their heads, he was asking God to forgive them.

Because this is the way.

This is the Stephen Tillman version of the Bible.

God, you know they're dumb.

Don't hold the lack of brain cells against these people.

They asked for signs and wonders and I did it and they still wouldn't say that I was the one true son of god.

I even said, and even people through the trial of Jesus washed his hands and said I'm not going to deal with this, because they knew he was innocent and they traded Barabbas for Jesus.

I'm Barabbas and constantly God trades what I deserve out for Jesus in my life.

When we experience pain and when we experience suffering, someone we allow.

You know, if you keep somebody at arm's length, if you keep everybody at arm's length, they can't reach you.

I'm not talking about those people today.

I'm not talking about the person over in the aisle at Walmart that bumped into your car and the jerk didn't even say excuse me.

That's not who I'm talking about.

I'm not talking about that driver on 31.

Come on somebody.

Hey, I wasn't going to call your name, but you said it.

Now Everybody knows that is either going super slow or they're driving like their tail end is on fire and then they flip you the bird like you did something wrong.

I'm not talking about those people.

God needs to save them too.

I'm not sure which one the most the one who's driving like an idiot or the one who's slowing down and keeping everybody nevermind.

We're going to go on.

They all need Jesus, but it's the people inside of your circle, the people that you allow into your home, the people that you allow into your hearts, the people that you allow into your hearts, the people that are in your inner circle that you can rely on, you can call on that.

It seems to be that these are the people that can hurt you and reach you the most.

So we're going to talk about inner circle people problems.

Now, when I'm hurt or I'm betrayed, my instinct.

We all have an instinct about something.

If you are one of those who are the crazy driver, then someone's slow on the road, you're the one that buzzes around them.

Without the passing lane, that's you.

Now, if you're the one that's sitting in the front of a 10 line of cars and you don't have to worry because there's not a passing lane, that you can just drive whatever speed you want, it's your car.

When I'm heard or betrayed, my instinct is to shut down.

When I was first left and this happened when I lived in Orlando and Tristan was born there y'all probably figured out already that's probably what's wrong with him, but I was in Orlando and Tristan was born there.

Y'all probably figured out already that's probably what's wrong with him, but I was in class, I was going to college for studio engineering and I got a text from Tristan's mother and said hey, we're leaving.

My dad just flew in, we're going today.

If you want to come say bye to him, come on.

And I remember this sinking feeling.

I knew things were on the rocks already, but you never expect reality to slap you in the face, especially from someone that you love and trust.

Now, it was not a perfect marriage, matter of fact, it was probably the opposite of a perfect marriage.

Both of us were stupid, we were young and dumb and we thought we were in love, but it's actually called infatuation and we thought that we were going to stay together forever.

And little did I know that the enemy had been working on both of us because we stopped going to church.

I started drinking again.

Y'all may not know this, but Palestine don't have clubs, but Orlando does, and I made it a point to visit every single one of them every single week.

So I was the epitome of a perfect husband.

We just had a child and she'd send me this text and, all of a sudden, everything inside of me just felt like hollowed out and it was like something that I had set up.

But it was like all of a sudden, when I got hurt and someone in my inner circle did something to me that tore me to pieces.

We do one of two things we cling to God or we cling to flesh.

There is no in between, and I clanged so hard to flesh, got deep into cocaine, got deep into meth, came back to Palestine area and my dad y'all met my dad.

He don't pull punches.

The only thing that I could do in the depths of my pain most days when I wasn't out drinking or doing drugs was lay in the bed, cover my head and I would cry myself to sleep.

I have never been in such of a dark place in my life.

And my dad would come in, get up, go look for a job.

Good old fathers, right, quit being an idiot, walk it off, put duct tape on it.

And in this dark, dark place, at this moment in time, I could not see the end of it.

But let me speak to somebody today who is right in the middle of your damage and your destruction.

There is an end coming.

There is a light that will shine in your heart.

If you give it all to Jesus, in the depths of your pain and misery and your hurt, god can set you free of that.

He desires that for you.

But I want to shut down.

I don't want to let anybody else in.

I would just cover my head up and cry and actually this did more damage than it did good.

If you're in here today and you have been hurt, do not shut yourself off from good company.

Do not shut yourself off from people that love you and care for you.

How do you sidestep this?

You don't.

You have to go straight through it.

You have to walk right through it to the other side.

Now, as we're moving forward in the word today, I want you to ask yourself am I allowing the pain that I have experienced to rob me of my purpose?

Is what happened to me in the past stripping me and destroying the joy God has available for me now?

There's a process to pain.

There's a process If you literally break something in your arm and you break your arm, there's a process to heal that back up.

You have to first constrict it.

Process to heal that back up.

You have to first constrict it.

You have to keep it still, be still and know that I am God.

Stop trying to run around like a chicken with your head cut off and let God heal you.

The worst thing you could do with a wound is pick at it, but some of y'all won't stop picking and then you wonder why you spend years in pain and suffering.

And, god, why haven't you healed this?

Stop picking at the scab.

Now, that was hurt.

That happened in my own personal home, but as just as real as that was for me when I was hurt by someone that I had in my inner circle, the same happens in the church house.

I was hurt by someone that I had in my inner circle.

The same happens in the church house.

Anybody ever been hurt by people in the church before?

When Jesse and I first got married, we were involved in our church when I got out of jail and my cousin which, by the way, the 24th of this month he is going to be coming and preaching and ministering he is the one that took me in after I got out of jail and kept loving me even though I was being unlovable, and he is the reason.

He is one of the people that laid down and became a stepping stone so that I would not fall.

We need more of those people in our lives.

But he's coming to preach and minister.

But in this, at the beginning stages of our marriage and our relationship, we had a pastor there and you think sometimes that you know somebody and you trust them, and then you find out things later.

Has this church ever experienced that before?

Some of y'all have no clue and some of y'all are like keep moving, pastor.

We're not trying to relive that.

Today it's 4th of July.

We're celebrating freedom.

I wish that I could take.

I asked Jesse.

I said can we white out the name on our marriage certificate and put another one?

But the things you find out from people that you trust, sometimes it will rip you apart.

Some people today will not darken the door of a church because of what they found out about somebody in the church house.

There's a process to the pain.

When we get hurt, we get hurt, we experience pain, we feel damaged, we get furious, we want to run and hide.

I'm going to say something about Jessie, because she said this to me last week and so I got the microphone when yeah, I'm going to be in a lot of trouble.

Anybody got a couch, just kidding.

I got three and I bought them very comfortable, on purpose.

Maybe I'm not going to say anything too bad.

All right, last week she told me two things.

Actually I'm going to go ahead and spill her beans.

It's not my can.

Right Doesn't affect me In this moment.

She said I love you and I said are you positive?

She said yeah, like a bad drug test.

Talk about passively, aggressively bringing up my past.

And she twisted it into a love comment Like all right, I see you, girl.

And then it's not over.

And then I was talking about oftentimes, not oftentimes.

Every single day I tell my wife I love her and I mean it with all my heart.

And I don't know why, because when we first met each other I was so damaged and destroyed.

Y'all listen, be careful what you pray for and you may make your list If you're pray for, and you may make your list If you're single right now.

You may make your list before God, but know that he knows what you actually need and it's beyond what you want.

Let me explain.

She didn't want anybody with the record no, I didn't check that one.

She didn't want anybody who had been married before and sure didn't want anybody who had had kids.

Check, check and check, and she sure didn't want to be married to somebody who was going to be called in the ministry.

I tell her all the time baby, this ain't me, this is God.

And we talk about how God has blessed us and how he brought us together because we're thankful and we appreciate each other.

And she said yeah, baby, you were probably my biggest blonde moment.

She hurt me and blessed me in one breath.

I'm thankful for blonde moments when we don't really see what we need in the future and God understands what we need beyond what we want.

We want to get furious, we want to run high.

Sometimes we want to attack.

You may be a personality that.

Your instinct is that if you get hurt, you want to throw punches, little bob and weave.

Some of you may be the kind of fighter that you kick their shin, push them down and run.

Whether you're a fighter, whether you're a screamer, whether you're one like me that shuts down and you don't want.

I know in my household, if I upset, upset my wife, and it gets real quiet in the house, there's about to be a storm coming.

She is the calm before her storm, and all of you men that have been married before, you know that if she says nothing, she's lying.

What's wrong?

Nothing Like all right, you're giving me sermon material and we get filled with these perfect storms of emotions.

And what this does in our hearts and our minds?

This begins to plant seeds of bitterness, revenge, anger and rage, negativity, and it makes us not trust the others that had nothing to do with what we went through, and we will begin to assume that anyone that resembles what that looked like and what they did to me that they're going to do the same.

I've told you this before that my wife, I had arguments inside of my head and there was things that happened that we had to buff out at the beginning of our marriage because she would say act or do in such a small little way that it felt like the way that I had been hurt before, like I have been called you're not funny, you're stupid, you're not even a man, not from her.

All right, let's just clarify right now.

But if she would say or she would do something like this, that really had nothing to do with me.

Oh, and there's a daddy's girl.

You got a problem.

You call your dad, you got something you need fixed, you call your dad.

Her dad is one of those that will show up.

He will give you a shirt on his back.

He loves to help, he loves to teach.

He's just that kind of person and when we first got married we had arguments about her calling her dad instead of having the man come and fix it.

Then she would say, well, do you know how?

No, but I pay for this house, I deserve the right to break it.

More Stupid arguments and things that go on inside of our heads because we've been hurt somewhere before and something that kind of resembles.

And then we try to copy and paste what happened here over onto a new situation and it doesn't fit and it causes us a huge whirlwind of emotions and self-loathing.

We create distance and we close off so that there's no new person that can come in, no new relationships in our life.

No new church is going to hurt me again and we can't let anyone in or we feel that they'll just hurt us again.

And this becomes a place of resentment and that's why I wanted to title this today Roots of Resentment.

Because a lot of hurt in our lives goes unchecked and undealt with.

Because a lot of hurt in our lives goes unchecked and undealt with and we walk around.

We're supposed to be people who know God, but we walk around with a weight on our spirits, with cloudiness in our mind, and we can't really, we don't want to witness to people.

We don't want to talk to people about God Because we can't be poster children for freedom, because we're ourselves not living in it yet and we have roots of resentment.

And in this place of resentment our hearts and our minds, and even in our relationships, our marriages with our kids, with our moms and dads we have a garden in our heart filled with briars and thorns, with fruits of revenge and hatred.

I've told you all this before.

I've told this to the prayer people that come on Tuesdays, by the way, tuesday morning 10 o'clock, tuesday night 7 pm for those that work that I sometimes just want God to do the justice in front of my eyes so that I can see that it happened.

Do the justice in front of my eyes so that I can see that it happened.

I want to see God's justice right in front of me, not for the benefit of them.

I want to feel better about it.

So let's shed some light on two things.

One if you can't define something, you can't defeat something If you don't know what it is.

In your life, maybe you have had something happen to you in your childhood and you have been holding onto it this whole time.

You may not talk about it all the time, nobody may even know or understand what you have ever went through in your entire life, but those roots are deeper than anything and they can choke the life out of the spiritual fruits that God wants us to be producing.

So we're going to look at what resentment is.

And how can I, how can I, how can you, how can we know if we have had resentment take root in our hearts or not?

Have I really let go of everything and let God set me free of this?

So what is resentment?

First of all, resentment is a bitter indignation.

This is anger or annoyance provoked by what is perceived to be unfair treatment.

Bitter indignation and having been treated unfairly, what does that mean?

This means, by all accounts, you have the right to be upset.

Someone hurts you.

Those feelings are real.

How you feel about it, it's justified in most cases.

Some psychologists say that resentment is a complex, multi-layered emotion that has been described as a mixture of disappointment, multi-layered emotion that has been described as a mixture of disappointment, disgust, anger and fear.

It's a petri dish of bad emotions.

Other psychologists consider it a mood or a secondary emotion that can be drawn out in the of insult and distress.

So what does this mean?

We've talked about me.

What does this mean?

This means that someone who is a jerk that is, mean, always upset, always negative in every conversation Chances are somewhere along the line.

They have been so severely hurt that the seed was planted and the root has grown so deep they don't even know it's there under the surface and the chances are they have never faced or processed what happened to them.

They haven't processed the pain, they haven't processed the hurt that has been inflicted on them.

Chances are they don't even know that they're acting the way that they're acting, because it's real easy for me to see you, but I can't see me.

The Bible warns us not to only be careful of our own attitudes and fruits, but to also help each other.

Now, we don't like that one.

You just leave me alone and I'll figure it out.

There was something.

I don't know what, maybe because I woke up several times in the night.

But Jessie asked me this morning what is wrong with you?

I said nothing.

She gets in the car.

She's like what is going on with you?

You seem off, I don't know.

And every time she would ask me, even though she was doing it from a place of love and concern.

It made me more angry.

I know it's stupid, but when some people try to pick on things that you're trying to cover up, you get mad at them, when really they're trying to do it out of love.

But things when they get exposed, they become healed.

Hebrews, chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

If you've got paper, write it down, turn with me to Hebrews, chapter 12, verse 14 and 15.

Hebrews 12:14

And it says this Make every effort to live in peace with everyone.

Say everyone.

That means not just the people you like, that means everyone.

And to be holy Without holiness, no one will see the Lord.

Verse 15, see to it that no one falls short of the grace of God.

It didn't say see to it that you don't fall short.

It says see to it that no one.

We are the grace of God.

It didn't say see to it that you don't fall short.

It says see to it that no one.

We are meant to have relationships with each other.

We're meant to encourage and lift each other.

We're also meant to point out things in each other's life out of love.

Does anybody here enjoy when someone tells you what you need to work on?

When someone tells you what you need to work on, let me help you, don't try to help me.

I want to help you what you need to work on, but don't start telling me what I need to work on.

Only God can be my judge Stupidest saying I've ever heard.

See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up because trouble, because it will trouble, it will cause trouble and defile many.

Now what does that mean?

First of all, it gives us a mandate that I need to be vulnerable to people who are good influences in my life, and also I need to be uplifting and talk to others about things that maybe they can't see.

I don't like to be exposed.

I don't like for anybody to be able to see all the things that I deal with, because I know that I fall short.

But one bad root, one bad bitter root, can destroy an entire garden.

And so here's what we do in the Christian faith.

We're so good at pretending like we don't have problems.

We don't want to say that we are still not over something, and we don't want to say that we haven't forgiven somebody.

And we don't want to say that I am bitter over things that happened to me.

We don't want to say it and we think that if we say it that'll make all the roots magically disappear.

And then we get upset and confused when we're trying to grow fruits of joy, trying to go grow fruits of love and all the fruits of the Spirit, all nine of them.

We're like God.

Why do they keep coming out black and disgusting?

Why are they rotten?

Because you have not cleaned out all of the roots of the past, hurt that you're still holding onto.

Don't complain to God about things that you're causing, uh-oh.

Don't complain to God about things that you yourself are causing.

We grow a garden of self-inflicted disaster and ask God why we're not experiencing his love, joy and peace and all the other things that come with God.

God, where is your presence?

Where are you?

One bad root can corrupt the whole garden.

We are called to hold each other accountable we are, we are called but also to encourage and lift up each other.

You know I talked about my cousin a minute ago that I said loved me even when I was unlovable.

Sometimes showing someone what they're missing will show them what they need to get rid of.

If I show love to somebody who does not love and does not care to be around me, but yet I show them anyways, I'm displaying who God is before them.

I'm displaying the when Jesus was on the cross, as we read a minute ago, he was praying for their souls and saying God, forgive them.

God has also designed us to live in harmony with each other.

1 Peter, 3, 8 through 9, it says.

Finally, all of you should be of one mind, sympathize with each other, love each other as brothers and sisters, be tenderhearted and keep a humble attitude.

Why must we keep a humble attitude?

Because we are sinners ourselves.

We have done nothing.

God's grace and mercy has done more than we ever could.

What we do not deserve he freely gives.

Verse 9 it says don't repay evil for evil.

Don't retaliate with insults when people insult you.

Instead, pay them back with a what A blessing.

Over and over again, the Bible says stuff to me that does not make sense, because my flesh does not want to pray for someone to have a blessing when they are praying for curses for me or when they are a curse to me, but we are to pray a blessing over them, even though.

Now why?

Even though?

Why?

Because Jesus said they don't understand what they're doing.

How can we expect godly fruits coming from sinful nature?

It doesn't work like that.

So why do we get angry and upset at sinners who act like sinners?

We know I did not act like a church person when I was out on the streets doing what I was doing.

I was out on the streets doing what I was doing we put.

We like to get an attitude and then walk around pretending like we're displaying gratitude.

Pay them back with blessings.

That is what God has called you to do and he will grant you his blessing.

God values relationships so much that even in the scripture it says that if you are giving an offering, if you were at the altar and you remember that someone has done something against you, did not say if you have done an offering.

If you were at the altar and you remember that someone has done something against you, did not say if you have done something against them.

It says the very thing of them doing something to you is enough for him to not forgive you if you don't try to make it right.

Boy, that's serious.

I don't want to go apologize for something I didn't do.

Anybody else with me on that one.

But when we pray for blessings, even on those that don't deserve it, that's where the true blessings of God come in your favor, because you are now.

Because, listen, our flesh does not want to do that.

So when we submit to what the Bible tells us to do and the people who have worked against us, who are fighting against us your job, schools, relationships, whatever it may be we pray blessings on them, the blessing of God is coming your way.

That's scripture.

So this passage is twofold.

Number one we have to be open to the Spirit leading you in a season of healing.

You ever been so hurt before that you didn't feel like you could let it go and you hold on to it, thinking that it's going to do something to the person that you're holding it against.

It's like you drinking poison expecting someone else to die.

It doesn't work that way, and you know a lot of things.

I've noticed in the Bible that when you get your mind set on things above and you begin to pray in the spirit, the things of flesh don't affect you the way they used to.

The people who are working against you, trying to come against you, trying to disrupt what God is trying to do in your life.

All of a sudden they don't matter so much anymore.

You can have this world.

Just give me Jesus.

We have to be self-aware that if you have been hurt, that you might have some things you need to give over to God completely.

Hurt that you might have some things you need to give over to God completely.

If you are around someone who acts in some of the ways I mentioned earlier, be patient and be kind.

You never know when you're going to be there.

It's hard to see yourself and be self-aware when you're in such pain.

Pain is blinding, it's debilitating.

You can't, you don't.

I did not want to wake up in the morning.

I didn't care what happened to me.

So we've mentioned some things for you to look for in yourself and others to help recognize what spiritual injury this hurt could have done to you.

Maybe you're in here today and you don't know if you've been hurt, or maybe you haven't let some things go and you think you've forgiven.

How do you feel when you think about it?

Do you always talk about it.

If something that is even close to that conversation come up, you start in on what you feel that's easy to do.

Hurt can have such deep roots, and resentment can have such deep roots that it will run into every area of your life and it will choke the life out of every conversation, every situation.

There's some things in your life that you probably missed because you wouldn't let go of that and God passed you over with the blessing.

So, preventative measures.

If you're here today and you've been hurt and you can't let it go, let me point you back to Jesus.

He had every right as he hung on the cross.

He had every right.

The one person in the world that did not deserve anything.

In that, even close to that, he was the one that was taking it for us.

In that, even close to that, he was the one that was taking it for us.

People may have hurt you, but I guarantee you they haven't crucified you, stripped you naked, beat you in front of everyone.

Sometimes it can feel that way, but there is power in forgiveness and when you realize that there is power in forgiveness, it takes away the power of the enemy.

That's like when you try to hide your sin and it becomes something to trip on underneath the carpet.

But when you start to expose what you've done wrong, if you start to, like the Bible says, confess with your mouth, all of a sudden the enemy does not have any more ammunition.

The enemy does not have any more ammunition.

When you frame things up in the way that Jesus looked at things.

It completely will change your perspective on how you see the people that hurt you.

I know it's weird to say this when people that have caused such pain and have destroyed so many things.

But you will never live in a true state of freedom until you let go and let God handle that situation.

No matter who has done you wrong, god wants you to be in freedom today.

No matter who has done you wrong, god wants you to be in freedom today with every head bow.

Now, if you have been hurt today and you still are holding on to that pain, I believe with all my heart that God wants to set you free and you can walk out of here different than when you came in, because that is who he is.

If you need freedom today in your heart, in your mind, deep down in your soul, I want you to come to the front and we want to pray for you.