SUMMER FREEDOM SERIES: Forgiveness & The Master of Pain, Phil Chan

Thank you, Noe.

I don't know if I can live up to that,

guys.

Hey, good morning.

So happy to be here. Just reminder, this

Thursday we also have a worship night.

That's going to be really awesome.

That's going to be great.

Martin sent sent me some pictures of

France.

Have it up here, that'd be great.

I felt bad for them cuz as soon as they

arrived, they said it's 100° and they

don't have AC.

And I said, "God bless America."

>> [laughter]

>> But I'll be willing to hold down the

fort, that's okay. So, but they're doing

great.

And yeah, they're having a great time

and they just wanted to say hi to you

guys. But I just wanted to honor them

cuz they're not here. I get to see them

week after week and I'm just they're the

real deal, guys. And I love these guys.

They are real authentic and they really

love you guys to death. So, I just

wanted to honor them.

All right, so message, here we go.

This year I turned 39.

That's great. Great for some of you. I

know that's a shock to others.

Um

but I am getting old.

And I started I I I feel like I started

doing things that you're not supposed to

do when you're about to go 40.

I started playing basketball again.

And all my friends who are in 40s

torn ACL,

torn Achilles, they told me, "Don't do

it."

But I feel good, you know.

I feel good. So, I I I'm playing just

for fun. It's really good for my heart

and I play with the Mod brothers.

Let me just tell you, don't be deceived

by their smile.

They're freaking killers.

You know, I'm I'm high-fiving them

but inside

I'm dying.

I'm trying my hardest. And one time I

come home after playing and the next day

I'm nursing like a sprained ankle

and I can barely walk.

And it dawned upon me that

I did not remember spraining my ankle.

I don't remember falling.

I don't remember anything.

But I have a sprained ankle.

And that's what dawned upon me about

what it's like to get older.

Usually when you're younger

there is an incident

and then there's an injury.

What I realized getting older is

there is no incident.

Just the injury.

It's like uh it's like getting a parking

ticket except you left your car at home.

It's uh it's not fun.

But either way I have to reconcile with

the uh many joys of getting older.

Getting some white hairs.

Getting some energy loss and it's just

something, you know, as you get older

you have to reconcile with. But even as

that compromise of things that I'm

willing to let go I realize there's a

deep conviction that I have in my heart.

Something about age that

I absolutely will not

uh let go or relinquish.

And it's something I decided as a young

age and I'm standing here today to tell

you

that I'm absolutely committed to this,

that I would not let this

part about getting older affect me.

Is that I refuse

to become a bitter person.

I remember even as a young age, uh as a

kid, I remember wondering, you know, cuz

you're a kid you're just playing all the

time and you're having fun. I remember

as a kid like even before I was a

Christian I was like, "Why are Why do

people become so bitter in life?"

And they're just upset

and angry.

And I remember as a kid, I go, "God, I I

don't want to be like that."

I don't ever want to be like that.

That's something that

is a real life goal of mine.

Today, we're going to be talking about

forgiveness.

And this is a topic that

I love talking about because God has

saved my life through it and

is such a key

in not becoming a bitter person.

The amount of unforgiveness that we let

in our hearts is commensurate with

how

bitter we are as people as we grow old.

Did you know in Hebrews 12, this is a

really key passage. Hebrews 12 says,

"Do not let the root of bitterness into

your life because by it many have become

defiled."

And it It's such a wise passage because

it taught me that unforgiveness isn't a

state of being.

It's a seed.

It's a seed that if you let in your life

unattended

unaddressed, will grow

into something that will actually

corrupt your heart.

And this is the one of the secrets of

actually not becoming a bitter person

growing up is dealing

with unforgiveness in our own hearts.

When I first became a Christian, God had

to deal with all the unforgiveness in my

heart.

It was one of the first things and for

that reason I became so grateful.

I remember as a kid, I just uh I love my

parents to death, but I remember my

parents fighting all the time.

And they would just get in these loud

ruckuses and I was just so pissed and

angry. And this one time in particular,

I think we're getting a little out of

control. I remember I was like probably

like a five or six-year-old. I remember

being so angry. I was I was clenching

onto scissors in my hand

as a kid because I was so angry. My dad

came to me and he was like, "What are

you doing?" And he says and I said, "I'm

so mad. I want to do something with

this."

And the Lord says,

"I'm going to deal with that

unforgiveness in your heart

because you left that unattended."

This is such a pivotal message because I

believe that some of us here are not

clenching onto scissors, but you're

clenching onto something else.

You may be clenching onto something that

sets you once.

You're clenching onto what somebody did

to you before.

It doesn't matter if this clenching is

something that happened last week

or last year

or even 10 years ago.

This clenching is killing you.

And I believe God wants to set us free

today

from the poison of unforgiveness.

I want to give a challenge to us today.

It's going to sound bold. I don't know

if you're here for the first time, but

I'm going to give a bold challenge to

you today.

I'm going to challenge you

to walk out of here

having forgiven every single person

that's ever hurt you in your life.

I'm going to challenge you and I'm going

to give you a promise as I challenge

you. Some of you guys are

a little resistance, but I'm going to

give you a promise.

If you decide to do that today, you're

going to walk out of that door a free

man and a free woman.

You're going to walk out of there

with life in your heart.

With God occupying a space with joy and

love

in a space that once what bitterness

took.

And I'm going to convince you to do it

today.

I'm going to convince you with the

wisdom of the Bible. You all ready for

this?

>> Yeah.

>> Let's go.

There's three things I want to share

about unforgiveness and forgiveness and

why you're going to walk get to walk out

of here a free man and a free woman.

These are lessons that are really

precious to me because these are things

that God has taught me and have given me

life.

Number one,

what I've learned about forgiveness from

the Bible is that vengeance

never pays.

Vengeance never pays. How many of you

guys ever get into a

altercation with somebody

and then like replay the altercation in

your head afterward?

Except in the replay

you like think about what you would have

said?

You all ever ever do that?

Can I just say that in those replays

I got some of the best mic drops ever.

Oh, yeah?

You're selfish.

Yeah, anybody else do that? Just me?

You just laying in bed just thinking

about what you would have said like just

like the different cuts like the mic

drops.

Let the record show that in life Esther

usually wins the fights at in real life.

But I just want to say in those replays

I'm 100%.

I'm undefeated.

Anybody else ever think about what you

would do?

Okay, it's it's not just me. Okay, good.

I find it I find these replays

fascinating just like

looking into your heart. I find it

fascinating

what people do when they're in pain.

What they imagined.

I find it when I look at myself

what the voice of vengeance would say.

It's a It's a clue as to what's going

on.

And even as I share the story of me as a

boy holding onto the pair of scissors,

let's just do a thought experiment.

What if he had complete volition to do

what he wanted to do?

What if he

hurt himself or hurt others?

And if I if you carry that thought

experiment out, you realize something.

That vengeance never pays.

Whatever you desire when people when see

when people hurt you,

there is this seed of pain that happens,

and the human natural human response is

to take vengeance on it.

And that voice of vengeance is a real

thing that we have to deal with. I'm

reminded of what Jesus says. You guys

have heard it. It's one of Jesus's

famous sayings. He says, "You have heard

that it was said, an eye for an eye and

a

tooth for a tooth, right?"

And he says, "But I say to you, go and

do not deny your enemy." You know, what

he's highlighting is actually what I

call the cycles of justice and

vengeance. Is that

he's highlighting he's having a

hypothetical theoretical of what would

theoretically [snorts] happened if you

actually heard the voice of vengeance

and carried it out.

Oh, you injured my eye?

Let's me

injure your eye.

Oh, you hurt my tooth?

No, let me

take your tooth.

And his point is that

you will keep doing this on and on. Oh,

you hurt my foot? Let me take your foot

and eventually eventually

you will run out of body parts.

And he's trying to illustrate something.

Something really important for us that

are struggling with unforgiveness that

if you heated the voice of vengeance

to its completion. Let's pretend you

became completely corrupt and you

actually came to a point where you

actually the person that you are upset

with actually died.

The point is that

the vengeance still lives in you.

That's the point.

That vent the voice of vengeance is

actually

insatiable.

You will actually never be able to

satisfy it. That even if that person did

you hate to your very guts, you wished

death upon them and they actually died

that that desire

and that unsatisfaction

would still live in you.

And the problem is not them anymore.

The problem

is in you.

You see unforgiveness, as I've learned,

is like wishing somebody would drink a

bottle of poison

and realizing that you're the one

holding it.

It is clenching on

to a blade.

It only hurts ourselves.

Jesus is trying to rescue humanity

from its endless vicious cycle. Humans

are going to be imperfect. Humans are

going to be hurt. If been sitting in

this room,

you have a 100% chance, 100% chance

that you are going to get hurt by

somebody.

And there is that chance that this is

going to devolve into an endless cycle

of vengeance. And Jesus is saying the

only way to stop it

is forgiveness.

Because the ledger that we hold against

people

is actually impossible to hold.

It is heavy.

And it is killing us. This is the way

that Jesus modeled for us.

Not that we would

give eye for eye or tooth for tooth,

but that we would forgive our enemies,

bless people,

and in doing so rescue us from the

poison that is killing humanity even to

this day. Whatever you read on the news

today, it is a symptom of the voice of

vengeance and its insatiable

hunger. And we as followers of Jesus

have the ability and the honor of

stopping the cycle

through the practice of forgiveness.

Vengeance never pays.

Vengeance never pays. That's the first

really important lesson the Bible

teaches us.

Number two,

the power to forgive is remembering that

we were forgiven. How many of you guys

think forgiveness is hard?

It's hard, right?

It's really hard.

I find it so fascinating in the Lord's

Prayer that Jesus says,

"Forgive us as we have been forgiven."

Isn't it fascinating?

He actually

ties the command to forgive

based on us being forgiven. Like he

almost like he he knew it would be hard.

And he says he had to attach

how you are going to be able to forgive

people. Because you actually, you and I

actually cannot forgive in our own

strength. If you're human, which I think

you are, you actually will have a very

hard time forgiving.

Lest you understand that you also have

been forgiven.

I understood this in um

The Lord told me this in a

My goodness. My bad. In a funny way. Uh

this one time in college, I was playing

basketball. Sorry, I don't know why I

have basketball stories today, but

you'll just deal with it. And

there's this guy I really didn't like uh

because for some reason he really didn't

like me.

On and off the court, he just gave me a

hard time.

Just super mean to me. And this one

time, we just happened to play

basketball together sometimes.

And this one time he was uh

he was going for a layup. He was just

like

And he uh he injured himself.

And uh

I'm not going to lie.

In my head

I said

Nobody else? It's just me?

I was just sitting there like, you know,

you you you you you you feign

compassion. It's like, "Oh, man." But

you know, the head

You know?

And

I remember that moment because

as soon as I did that, I felt God's

presence on me.

And I knew I was in trouble.

And I swear heard his voice say,

"Phil, I want you to go get him some

water."

And I was like,

"I don't want to do that, God.

This is kind of my moment of glory. It's

Just let me enjoy this moment. And I was

like, why would I do this, God? Why

would I He's been so mean to me, and

this is like This is such great moment.

This is why would I do this, God? And I

remember the Holy Spirit said to me,

he's like

It's because I would have done the same

for you.

I would have done the same for you. You

think You think you're perfect, Phil?

You think you haven't been annoying? You

haven't been

You've been perfect, too, Phil? I would

have done the same for you.

And there's this lesson of like and and

my heart began to soften and I realize I

started feel God's compassion for him.

You see, here's the thing about

forgiveness and why God ties our sense

of forgiveness on us being forgiven.

It's It's because

when we are just when we're hurt,

okay? When you and I are hurt, here's

the danger. This is such

This is such an important message for

society. When we are in pain,

when pain becomes the loudest voice in

the room,

pain

will be our God.

We just We actually become self-centered

because all we can think about what is

what people have done to us. You ever

like get in a fight with your spouse and

you just like you can't even think about

what you could have done to them. All

you can think about is what they did to

me.

That is the loudness of pain and the

self-centeredness of pain. You see,

God needs us to remember that we were

forgiven because he is trying to rescue

us from the voice of pain being the

loudest voice in the room.

He's trying to rescue us from the

idolatry of pain because when I pain

becomes your idol,

pain becomes your master.

And I'm going to tell you right now, and

I don't know who needs to hear this, but

pain

is a terrible master.

Pain will make you do things

that you will always regret in life.

If you listen to its voice,

you will live a life subservient to

pain.

And it is it is a really bad life. And

Jesus is trying to get pain to be out of

the main character. He's not Listen what

I'm saying. He's not disregarding your

pain.

He's not saying it didn't happen. He's

not saying it's hard. He's just trying

to say it cannot be the main character

because if it's the main character, he

become it becomes the god you hear.

And you must remember,

no matter how hard and no matter how

much you've been hurt by somebody, that

you also

have been forgiven.

We have been forgiven.

Christ

on a cross

freely

given

for you and I

without payment,

without hesitancy,

without a second thought.

Given for you and I.

The disciples, Peter once asked Jesus,

"How many times should I forgive my

brother? Is it like one time? Is it

seven times?" And then Jesus says,

"No, I tell you not seven times,

but 77 times."

Because

that's where that's that's how I would

forgive you, Peter.

And when we remember the power to

forgive others,

is remembering that

we were once forgiven.

And this keeps the size of pain in

check.

It keeps it from being our master.

The power to forgive. If you're sitting

here and you're and I just want to

encourage you you're holding on to

something that somebody did

somebody said

a gentle reminder that that we were

forgiven.

We were forgiven.

The power to forgive

is in us being forgiven. The last is

life of forgiveness

is true freedom.

A life of forgiveness is true freedom. I

promised you

if you forgave somebody today that

you'll walk out of the door a free man

and a free woman.

I cannot help but think of

the most poignant act of forgiveness

to me in the scriptures. It is Christ on

the cross.

And even as they

crucified him. Do you remember what he

said?

His last dying breath

he said

Father

forgive them

for they they don't know what they're

doing.

That is

unbelievably

astounding to me.

You know what it tells me

about Jesus?

You can beat him.

You can try him unfairly.

You can say false things about him.

You could even crucify Jesus.

But you

cannot

offend Jesus.

Jesus had a completely

unoffendable heart.

Even to his last breath.

And this is what I realized

what I want to be like when I grow up.

I want to have a completely

unoffendable heart.

You see, in Ephesians 4 it says Paul

says, "Do not let the sun go down in his

anger so to give the enemy a foot in

your life."

What he's saying is that if we are angry

and we give in to what unforgiveness and

vengeance allows us to do and wants us

to do, we actually give the enemy a door

into our lives.

Uh it's a hook into our lives. And pain

and the enemy can

hook onto our lives and make us do

whatever we want. It can make us say

things, passive-aggressiveness,

vengeance, the things that just steal,

kill, and destroy.

And true freedom is not having any hooks

in our life where the enemy can hook and

make us do its bidding.

See, Jesus lived a completely

He had a completely unoffendable heart.

And this is this is like my life goal.

I want to love

like a kid.

I want to love with open arms. It

doesn't mean that

I'm pain-free. Doesn't mean that I'm

trauma-free. Doesn't mean that I'm

hurt-free. Those are things that are not

in

scripture as to what it means to be

unoffendable. It means that no matter

what people say or think, in Hebrews 12,

I will not let the root of bitterness

come and corrupt my life. And

forgiveness is the only way that you dig

up

you dig up and out what the enemy is

trying to do in your life.

This is what

freedom truly is.

Free to love.

Free

in my heart.

What's interesting is that after I

became a Christian and God started

dealing with all the unforgiveness in my

heart. You know what's really

fascinating?

Um a lot of it was like having

forgiveness for my parents for things

that they did or didn't do

unintentionally. You know what's really

interesting? I started looking at them

completely differently.

I like See, when I had unforgiveness in

my heart, all I could think about was

their mistakes.

And when God dealt with my

unforgiveness,

I all I could think about was how their

good qualities for some reason.

What's That's what the beauty of

forgiveness. It doesn't change what

happened.

But it changes our ability to have godly

perspective on it.

And because I can I don't primarily

dwell on people's imperfection because

of forgiveness, you can actually love

them and have compassion on them.

And that's true freedom.

It's to live in a world where you're not

wounded by people. You can actually love

people.

And love people well.

Um

I think that's my whole message. I'm

sorry.

I didn't realize this would go so fast.

All right, I guess we'll do more

worship, I guess.

Pete, you want to come up? Um

All right, let's stand, I guess.

I got to work on my prep. Jesus Louise.

Uh I had a few invitations for people uh

this morning.

I I'm going to get to people that

you know that you need to forgive people

in a second. I'm going to get to you,

but first I want to

some of you guys here are needing

forgiveness first.

You for uh

some of you guys have stumbled upon this

church

and

you don't know what it's like to know

God. I'm going to just tell you that God

wants a relationship with you.

And what's standing between you and him

is

Bible calls sin.

And he says that if we repent and turn

from our sins, he will forgive us and we

have reconciliation with God.

I want to invite that that's you, that's

something that we're going to have

people here and left or someone brought

you would love to pray for you and

invite you into. Secondly is

if that's not your first forgiveness,

you you actually still need forgiveness

from God, that's available to you.

The The The third is

the moment of truth,

which is maybe you came here clenching

onto something.

God wants us to walk in freedom.

God wants us to walk

in the freedom of his love.

And this is your moment

you've been holding on

on the strength that God's going to

provide you to actually forgive some

people in your life. See, reconciliation

requires two people, but forgiveness

just requires

one.

It's something that we do ourselves

before we start the work of

reconciliation, if possible.

If that's you and you feel the Holy

Spirit tugging on your heart,

then can I ask that you would

start listing out the people

that you actually want to bless and

forgive.

We're going to have people uh praying

here, our praying [music] ministers on

the left and the right if there's

something you need help with.

We would love to pray for you, but this

is your moment where

you can actually get free

because God forgave you.

And God wants you to walk in his love

and his freedom.

So, we're going to worship,

Um but let's respond accordingly. We

would love to pray for you.