The Danger of Unforgiveness

Thank you for joining us today.

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People need each other.

People change the world.

And people leave legacies.

Our desire is for you to understand, accept, and grow in a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Thank you for listening.

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I'm really glad that you are here.

If I've not met you, my name's Nick.

I'm the pastor here.

And I'd love to meet you right after the service in the lobby.

And uh man, we really are excited about what God's gonna do at this campus in the next 24 hours.

Tomorrow, as you heard, we will welcome uh about 850 or so leaders so far who have registered.

And here's the incredible thing from 122 different churches, which we're really excited about.

All of this is completely free for these churches because of your generosity.

So I want to pause there and just say thank you, thank you, thank you, church, for your giving.

It is making a difference not only in our church, but in 122 churches around Northwest Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and we're gonna have an incredible time tomorrow.

But tonight I do want to encourage you as Disney just uh tonight, right here in this room at five o'clock, we have cross church together.

If you have never been to one of these, these are the greatest services of the year.

There's something special about it.

And uh, if you are a person, uh I think all of us fall in this category who just need to meet with the Lord, I want to encourage you.

I cannot say this strongly enough, be here tonight.

I believe God's given me a word for your life.

Uh I know where we're headed in worship, and uh, I think we're gonna have an extremely powerful night.

So I hope you'll make plans to be here uh this evening.

Five o'clock, all right.

Hey, today uh one of the benefits of having our conference tomorrow is we have the privilege of bringing one of our guests uh who will speak tomorrow uh to get to bring him in, to get to speak to you today.

Pastor Jordan Easley, who just you just saw on the video.

Pastor uh Jordan is a pastor in Cleveland, Tennessee, a First Baptist Church right there.

Church has exploded under his leadership.

He's a fantastic preacher of God's word.

His wife Audra is with him here today, and his son Astra is also in town with us today.

And uh, we cannot say thank you enough for the the Easleys being with us.

But I promise you, I I just heard the sermon at Springdale campus.

Buckle up, get ready.

God's gonna use this in your life.

Would you give a warm crutch welcome to Pastor Jordan Easley?

Thank you, baby.

Hey, instead of clapping for me, if you know that you're a part of an incredible church that God's using in blessing, would you just put your hands together and say thank you to the Lord?

What an awesome church.

Hey, it's an honor to be with you, a humbling to be with you.

Excited.

I love this church.

I'm a big fan of your pastor.

And uh man, I'm just fired up about our time together today.

I see a lot of Bibles out already.

You guys are ready to go.

And uh, it's just an honor to stand here with you.

You know, anytime before you preach somewhere new, there's always this little bit of awkwardness because you don't know me and I don't know you.

So I thought, you know, it would probably be good to share with you a couple of things about myself uh before I start meddling in your life.

Amen.

Uh so here's a picture of my family.

Nick just introduced my wife, who I've been married to for 26 years, my high school sweetheart.

We have two kids that are in college pursuing a ministry degree.

Uh, like they said, my son is with us.

My daughter is in Liberty in Lynchburg, Virginia, right now.

Uh, but great family.

We love your your church, and uh, we've been friends with your pastor for about 20 years.

But we also pastor a great church, and uh, our church is very similar to yours.

Uh I love the local church.

I love preaching God's word, but we have a part of a church that has a lot of people and multiple campuses and a lot of services.

And here's what I've realized: whether you're in Tennessee or Arkansas or anywhere else in the world, uh, people are people.

And the people that I know are the people that you know, and people are people just about everywhere you go.

You know, churches can be different and music styles can be different, but people are people.

And let me give you a prime example of that.

Uh, if you would say today, there are a lot of people in my life that I love, I want you to raise your hand.

All right, look around.

I mean, that is one of those things, no matter where you ask that question.

I'm a little concerned that only 50% of you raised your hand.

Uh the other 50% get this, we're gonna try it one more time.

If you would say there are people in my life that I love, I want you to raise your hand.

That's all of us, okay?

Hopefully, if you're in the room, you're raising your hand.

But if I also said to you today, if there are people in your life that you don't really like very much, raise your hand.

All right, look around.

That's most of us.

It doesn't matter where you are, people are people.

And in the same way, you know, I could say today, if there are things that you're worried about, you could probably raise your hand.

If there are things that bother you, you could raise your hand.

If there are certain prayers that I'm praying and God hasn't answered those prayers yet, but I'm waiting for God to answer those prayers, you would probably raise your hand.

But in the same way, if you're being brutally honest, and if I were to ask this today and say, if there has been a time in your life where another person hurt you, most of us would honestly say before the Lord and before everybody else, you know what, that's been true in my life.

You don't have to live very long before somebody's gonna disappoint you, or somebody's gonna say something against you, or somebody's going to do something to hurt you.

And you know what I've realized about myself?

When I'm wounded or when I'm hurt, I tend to carry those hurts with me a little bit longer than I wish I did.

Now I may forget why I walked into a room, I may forget where I left my keys.

I may forget your name 30 seconds after you introduce yourself in the lobby after church.

But if somebody hurts me or if they wound somebody that I love, somebody in my family, it's like I all of a sudden have a photographic memory.

And I remember what they said and what they did, and I remember where they were standing, and I remember what they were wearing.

I remember it all.

Anybody else have a photographic memory in those moments?

The reason is hurt has a way of sticking to us, it has a way of living with us.

And we rehearse that sometimes and we redo those conversations.

Anybody ever won an argument about three days later while taking a shower?

Anyone?

Come on.

I mean, you're in there, you're washing, and you're yelling, you're like, oh yeah, well, let me tell you this.

And you're like, wait a second, hold on.

They're not even here.

But we have a way of doing that.

But but let me say that tells us something about hurt, doesn't it?

It tells me that the person who hurt me may have moved on, but the hurt in my life is obviously still there.

And that's something that we've got to address because hurt has a way of sticking to us, and the Lord doesn't want that hurt to affect us.

Today I believe God's word is gonna warn us loud and clear about the dangers of unforgiveness.

And I hope you have your Bible.

If you do, you know that you're walking through 1 Corinthians, and today we're gonna be in 1 Corinthians chapter 6.

1 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention

The title of this message is The Danger of Unforgiveness.

And I love this series, 11 Dangers for Every Christian.

If you've been following along, uh you know that we're in chapter six, and he's writing to a church in Corinth that had a lot of major problems.

The church he's addressing was a church that was dealing with division and sexual immorality and pride.

And now in chapter six, we flip the page, and Paul's going to address right in front of everybody this instance, this this problem where believers were actually taking other believers to court.

Apparently, one Christian had wronged another Christian, and rather than resolving the matter within the family of God, they were dragging each other into court and they were appearing before secular judges.

And Paul's going to address that.

I do want to make this abundantly clear that Paul was not saying that Christians should never use the legal system.

That wasn't his goal in this.

He wasn't saying that we shouldn't report criminal behavior.

He was simply addressing personal disputes between believers that should be handled differently because each person is in Christ.

He's going to say, if you're in Christ, you ought to handle the hurt in your life a little bit differently than the friends you may have that are not in Christ.

He's saying we as believers ought to look different when our hearts are hurt.

And so today, if you have a copy of God's word and you have a sermon journal, which by the way, those are awesome.

I want to encourage you just to write a few things down.

Because I believe God's got a word for every one of us.

And as we walk through this text, I'm going to give you five primary points that I want you to write down.

Even if you don't have a journal, text them to yourself, okay?

But remember them and pray through them and ask God, God, are you trying to speak a word to my heart?

Because I believe he's got a word for every one of us.

The first note I want you to jot down today is this God's word is gonna tell us, don't let your hurt make decisions for you.

Don't let your hurt make decisions for you.

And Paul's gonna begin this message in chapter six, verse one.

He says, If any of you has a dispute against another, how dare you take it to court before the unrighteous and not before the saints?

Now you can almost hear the shock in Paul's words here.

He he starts this message off by saying, How dare you, Christian?

Hey, how dare you?

Once again, this is the scene.

You have two Christians and they're fighting, and their conflict became so consuming that they were willing to damage the reputation of the church just in order to prove who's right and who's wrong.

Have you ever been hurt, anybody?

Listen, when you're hurt and when you're hurt badly, it's real easy to let that hurt start talking for you.

When you're hurt, you want vindication.

When you're hurt, you want somebody else to admit that they were wrong and you were right.

When you're hurt, you want them to finally understand what it was they did to you.

And if we're honest, sometimes we don't even want justice in those moments.

We just want them to hurt in the same way that we've been hurting.

And here's the thing God's word is telling us today your hurt may explain your reaction, but it doesn't excuse your response.

Listen, Paul wasn't telling these believers that nothing happened.

This was a real dispute that he was addressing.

But Paul was also saying that what happened to you still doesn't give you permission to respond in a way that dishonors the name of Jesus.

But as a follower of Christ, we do get to choose what happens through us after the fact.

And some of you know that when something happens to you like that, it does hurt.

And it does affect the way that you see things.

And some of us have allowed that something that somebody did against us affect us for multiple years.

And that thing that they did is affecting how we're living far, far in the future.

And here's what Paul would say in that instance.

He's saying, the longer we let that wound lead us, the more we're going to allow that wound to shape us.

And it's going to affect us inside and out.

So Paul's reminding the Corinthians, and I believe Paul is reminding us: don't let the person who hurt you determine the kind of person you become.

Listen, that's where forgiveness begins.

And that's when forgiveness is needed.

In verse 2, he continues saying, Or don't you know that the saints will judge the world?

And if the world is judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the trivial cases?

He said, Don't you know that we will judge angels?

How much more matters of this life?

I like that Paul right here, he he kind of gets in their face a little bit and he challenges them on their identity.

This is identity language.

He was essentially saying, Hey, don't you realize who you are?

Don't you realize who God sees you as today?

He calls them saints.

He's like, You're a saint.

And when he points out the fact that they're saints, he's saying, Hey, there's going to be a moment when all of us are with Jesus.

The people that you like, the people you don't like, if they're in Christ, we're all going to be together.

But he offers a little perspective here and he says, if God can prepare you to reign with Christ in eternity, then don't you think God can give you the wisdom you need to handle this conflict right here and right now?

See, the problem in Corinth wasn't that these people didn't know Jesus.

They did.

They knew Jesus.

They just weren't living like it.

And that's why he's talking to them about this.

He's like, you're hurt and you're not acting like you know the Lord.

And you know, we can kind of slip into that, right?

I I've known Jesus for a long time, but when I'm hurt, anger starts speaking for me sometimes.

Pride starts making decisions for me.

Resentment starts reminding me what I've gone through.

And it convinces me that, hey, because you went through that, whatever future action that you're going to take is completely justified.

And that's something that all of us deal with.

But Paul says right here, that's not who you are anymore.

You belong to Jesus.

Your life belongs to Christ.

He doesn't say that the wrong you experienced didn't happen.

He didn't make small, he didn't make it seem a little bit smaller than it needs to be.

He just tells you that your pain shouldn't get more authority in your life than Christ does.

Christ should have the authority, not the pain.

He should drive it, not the pain.

So don't let your hurt make decisions for you.

The second thing he's going to say is, value your witness more than winning.

Value your witness more than winning.

Let's keep going and see what Paul says next in verse 4.

He says, So if you have such matters, do you appoint as your judges those who have no standing in the church?

I say this to your shame.

Can it be that there is not one wise person among you who is able to arbitrate between fellow believers?

Instead, brother goes to court against brother, and that before unbelievers.

Now I want you to notice what's bothering Paul at this part of the story.

It wasn't simply that these people were disagreeing.

Hey, Christians are going to disagree with Christians.

It's a part of life, it's a part of being in a family.

But what he was saying here is your conflict should look different between one another because both of you are in Christ.

That's what he says.

Brother goes to court against brother, and that before unbelievers.

Now notice what he's saying there.

He's saying, you got two brothers and they're fighting in this way before unbelievers.

He's saying the world is watching Christians tear one another apart, and God has a big problem with that.

And you know why God has a problem with that?

Because our relationships in this family, those relationships always preach a message.

They always preach.

How we treat people says something about the Jesus we claim to follow.

Jesus said in John 13, by this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.

So notice Jesus didn't say people are gonna know you're my disciples because of our buildings or our programs or our preaching.

No, he points to the relationships within the family of God, and he said, How you love one another will show the world if you're the real deal or if you're not.

Which means every conflict becomes an opportunity to either display the gospel or completely distort it.

Are you getting this today?

Listen, you can win an argument and completely lose a witness.

You can win an argument and lose a witness.

And I'm telling you that because I've done that.

Anybody else?

I mean, I could stand up here for a long time and tell you stories in my own life when I thought I was right and I was justified in doing the things, and I can tell you the times I got the last word.

I sent the text that I should have deleted, I forwarded the email.

I can tell you moments where I told my side of the story when I should have kept my mouth shut.

And even in those moments when I knew I was right, I knew that my perspective was the right one.

I'm just telling you, every single time my life did not look like the life of Christ.

Even when I was right, my life did not look like Jesus.

And let me tell you why I believe that's true.

It's because it's hard, it's hard to look like Jesus when you're hurt and you're trying to win.

Now I want you to really think through that in your own story.

It's hard to look like Jesus when you're hurt and you're trying to win.

One of the most dangerous questions that you can ask during a conflict is, how do I win this?

It's one of the worst questions you can ask.

A good question you should ask is, How can I honor Christ right now?

And most of the time, those are going to lead you in two completely different directions.

That's what Paul's talking about in this text.

Paul's talking about kingdom credibility.

Kingdom credibility.

He's saying the watching world is watching Christians tear one another apart.

And what they need to see is that Christians handle conflict differently than those who are not in Christ.

I mean, think about Jesus, right?

Jesus modeled for us perfectly how we should do this.

Nobody in the history of the world has gone through much, has been treated more unjustly than Jesus.

We're talking about the Son of God who is betrayed by Judas and denied by Peter and uh and abandoned by his disciples and condemned by Paul and he was nailed to a cross by men that he created.

And what did Jesus say in Luke 23?

He said, Father, forgive them because they do not know what they're doing.

That's our Savior.

That's the heart of God.

He forgave what was seemingly unforgivable.

He modeled forgiveness for us when forgiveness was hard.

And he showed us that the hurt that you've experienced, it's real, it's a part of your past.

But it doesn't have to right your future.

It doesn't have to.

So that's the second one.

Value your witness more than winning.

Let's move on to number three.

He's also going to tell us, be willing to surrender your right to get even.

And this is a hard one.

Surrender your right to get even.

He keeps going in verse seven and says, as it is, to have legal disputes against one another is already a defeat for you.

Why not rather be wronged?

Why not rather be cheated?

I don't like that verse.

I don't know if I can say that as a preacher.

I love the Bible, okay?

I love the Bible, love preaching the Bible.

But this is one of those verses that just I read it and I'm just like, I just don't want to do that.

I don't like that.

I mean, look at what he just said.

Hey, why not rather be wronged?

I read that in the flesh, I'm like, well, because I don't want to be wronged.

That's why not, right?

I don't want to be wrong.

They're wrong.

I'm not wrong.

When you're hurt, you read that and you're like, why not rather be cheated?

My flesh says, because I don't want to be cheated.

They're the ones who are cheating me.

I didn't cheat anybody.

I shouldn't even be in this mess.

Sometimes when I read the Bible, especially right here, I want Paul to say, hey, Jordan, here are seven reasons you should punch them in the face.

I want him to say, here are seven ways to make sure everybody knows that you're right and they are completely wrong.

But man, that's not what he says.

He said, Hey, there are moments when the greater victory comes through a willingness to lose.

The greater victory is going to happen when you're willing to lose.

In fact, right here, Paul said in this lawsuit is already a defeat.

You see that in the Word of God?

He's saying one person's eventually gonna win the case, but when you look at both sides, they're both losing here.

They're both losing.

And you have to ask the question why?

If one of them's gonna win, one's gonna lose, why does he say both sides are losing?

And here's what I believe he's trying to communicate.

It's because when proving that you're right becomes more important than living in Christ, you're gonna lose every time.

When you're hurt, when there's a dispute, and you're more focused on being right than looking like Christ, he's saying, Man, you're you're gonna lose.

So don't miss this today.

He's saying sometimes the greatest victory is surrendering your right to win.

Right here, Paul was confronting a heart that says, Hey, you owe me something, and I'm not gonna rest until you pay.

Hey, let me tell you something about unforgiveness.

Unforgiveness keeps an emotional ledger.

And in that ledger, you just write it down.

You're like, you did this to me, or you said this about me, or you hurt my family, or you owe me this.

And as long as you keep that ledger open, it's like we become a collection agency.

But here's the problem trying to make somebody else pay will eventually cost you two.

You're gonna lose even if you win.

Because if you're upset and you have bitterness, that bitterness is gonna end up costing you peace.

If you're upset and it lives there.

A little too long, that resentment that's gonna cause, that resentment is gonna cost you joy.

Someone wants to describe bitterness as drinking poison and hoping the other person gets sick.

That's what unforgiveness does.

It's like you're waiting on them to pay, but your own soul keeps making these payments.

And it's just costing you.

May I just say on behalf of what Paul's saying, you don't have to live like that.

That doesn't have to be your story.

You say, well, what makes it possible for a Christian to forgive things that are seemingly impossible to forgive?

Let me tell you, Christians can do that because Christians believe something that the world doesn't believe.

We believe that God sees everything.

We believe that God knows everything, and we believe that God will judge the world rightly.

Correct?

Romans 12, verse 19 puts it this way: It says, friends, do not avenge yourselves, but instead leave room for God's wrath.

Romans 12:19

Because it is written, vengeance belongs to me, I will repay, says the Lord.

So we can forgive.

Why?

Because God's in charge and you don't you aren't.

Listen, forgiveness is not saying that justice doesn't matter.

Forgiveness is saying I trust God with justice more than I trust myself with revenge.

And the reason some of us haven't forgiven is because some of us believe if we forgive them, they're gonna get away with it.

But what I read in the Bible is forgiveness doesn't remove justice, it just puts that justice in God's hands and it takes it out of mind.

So surrender your right to get even.

Let's keep going.

Number four.

Number four is this deal with sin in you, not just the sin against you.

This is what Paul said in verse eight.

He said, instead, you yourselves do wrong and cheat.

And you do this to brothers and sisters.

You know, when you start in verse one and you kind of read through it, verse eight's the verse where he kind of changes the direction of everything.

Up until now, you can almost see everybody in Corinth is reading this and they're they're like, Yeah, Paul, go get them, Paul.

You're like, tell them what's up, Paul, and then it's all of a sudden like, yeah, but you yourselves do wrong, and they're like, wait, what?

He completely pivots, he changes the direction of the conversation.

Isn't that just like the Bible, by the way?

And so many times I open up the Bible and I'm like, God, I want you to talk about them.

Tell me all about what they're doing wrong, and then all of a sudden he just changes the direction.

He's like, No, I'm here to talk about you.

And that's what happens right here.

He said, I want to talk about you.

And he's saying, it's it's possible for you to be genuinely hurt by somebody else, but then for you still to respond in a way that's wrong.

And he tells us, he tells you, he's saying, their sin does not excuse your sin.

Their bad attitude, it does not excuse your bad attitude.

Their disobedience to me does not give you permission to disobey what I'm telling you to do.

One of the most obvious signs of unforgiveness in our hearts is when we're incredibly aware of what everybody else is doing and we can see all their stuff.

We're like, man, I can see their hatred and I can see their dishonesty and their selfishness and their pride.

I see their bad attitude, but we are weirdly unable to see our own stuff.

You can see all their stuff, but you can't see your own resentment.

Let me just encourage you, if you're ever in that place, if you're in that place right now, a really good prayer for you to pray is this Jesus, before you do anything in their heart, I want you to show me what I need to do in my own heart.

And if you have the courage to pray that prayer, let me just tell you buckle up, y'all.

Because God will reveal some stuff, and He'll reveal the bitterness in your own heart, the unforgiveness in your own heart, the anger, the hatred, whatever it is you're harboring.

And in those moments, let me tell you, don't sweep that under the rug.

You gotta bring it into the light and you've got to address it.

Don't defend it, but allow God to do a work in you because you've got to remember the goal of Christianity is not just to point the all out uh the problems in all of these people, it's to make you look more like Christ.

And that only happens if you're willing to address what it is that you're harboring in your heart.

So Paul says, deal with the sin in you, not just the sin against you.

Let me give you one more and then we're done.

Number five.

God's word is gonna tell us, let the grace you've received shape the grace you extend.

Let the grace you've received shape the grace you extend.

Let's keep going.

Verse 9, Paul says this don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God's kingdom?

Do not be deceived.

No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or males who have sex with males, no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God's kingdom.

One thing I love about Paul is he never softens sin.

And I don't think we should either.

So, right here, the point of this message is he's addressing a crowd of people like this crowd of people, and he said, It's obvious by looking at you that sin has been a huge problem in your life.

But then he pivots one more time and he's gonna say this.

He's gonna say, But God's grace has the ability to change a life.

And he's looking at people and he's saying, It's obvious that God has done a work in your heart.

It's obvious that God has changed your life.

In fact, read verse 11.

He said, And some of you, you used to be like this, but you were lost, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God.

Don't miss this part of the message.

What did he say?

He just told the church, and some of you used to be like this.

You were described like this.

That's the gospel.

I mean, he's talking to this church, a fighting, divided, messed up church, and he's saying, Don't forget where Jesus found you.

Don't forget the place, don't forget the moment.

Think about where you were.

He found you, and then he washed you and he sanctified you and he justified you and he cleansed you from the inside out and he set you apart and he declared you as righteous before a holy God.

Only Jesus can do that in someone's life.

He reminded them of where they've been and where Jesus had taken them.

So, what's the point that Paul wants to make today?

Here it is.

He said, And if you have truly experienced the grace of God, then it should change the way you extend that grace to people that have hurt you.

It should change the way that you extend it personally.

You know, when I was praying through that, I was reminded of a story about a guy named Lewis Zamperini.

Some of you have probably heard this story through the movie Unbroken, maybe the book.

But what a powerful illustration of what we're talking about today.

Lewis started out as a young man, was a great athlete, an Olympic runner.

I mean, a guy that looked like he had the world ahead of him, just an incredible launch to an incredible life.

He soon became a bombardier during World War II, and he served his country in that way.

In 1943, his plane went down over the Pacific Ocean, and he found himself in the wreckage floating on a life raft, and he was on that life raft for 47 days.

Think about that.

47 days.

He was drifting on this life raft under the blistering sun.

He was at times surrounded by sharks.

He was starving.

He was barely alive.

And then in this moment where he thinks, I'm about to be rescued, instead of being rescued by the Americans, he was captured by the Japanese.

So he goes from this life raft for 47 days to now he spends two more years behind fences at multiple POW camps.

There was one guard in particular, his name was Mutsuhiro Watanabe.

The prisoners referred to him as the bird.

And he was the bad guy, right?

And he made it his mission to make it miserable for Lewis.

He beat him within an inch of his life.

He humiliated him.

He singled him out, even with all the other people.

He wanted it, he wanted his mission to be about stripping away the strength and the dignity and the hope of Lewis.

And you know what?

That's what Lewis endured for two years.

But he survived it.

Eventually the war ended and the prison gates opened.

And Lewis came home to America, where he was reunited with his family, where he was married to his fiancee.

I mean, he was celebrated across the country as a war hero.

And when you would look at him in that moment, you would say, you know what, the prison is behind him.

The war is behind him.

And I'm sure that's what everybody thought.

But the truth was, Lewis had gotten out of the prison camp, but the prison camp hadn't gotten out of Lewis.

See, night after night, when he would close his eyes and try to go to sleep, he would have nightmares that would take him right back to those POW camps.

When he closed his eyes, he could still see the bird, and he could still feel the pain, and he could still hear his voice and think about all the horrible things that he endured.

He could feel the hatred that he had towards him, and it would just enrage him even at night.

Lewis began drinking heavily.

And the anger and the resentment inside of him, it started doing damage in his relationships, it poisoned his marriage, and eventually he came so consumed with revenge that he dreamed of returning to Japan, finding Watanabe and killing him personally.

Think about the irony of that.

The war was over, but the bird was still winning.

There were no more fences, there were no guards, there were no prison camps.

The man that he hated lived thousands of miles away.

And yet he was still winning.

He still had control of his life.

That's where he was for several years before a moment in 1949 that changed his everything.

In 1949, he attended a crusade in Los Angeles, California, where a young evangelist named Billy Graham was preaching.

And he heard the gospel and that day changed his life.

Not because he met Billy Graham, but because he met Jesus Christ.

And Jesus Christ did a work in his heart.

You see, that man who had spent years of dreaming about going back to Japan one day and taking care of business, he had thought about revenge so many times, but this time he buys a ticket to Japan.

Not for the purpose of hurting Watanabe, but he wanted to forgive him.

And so he met with some of the very men who imprisoned him and abused him.

And he shook their hand and he embraced them and he told them.

But what he did do is decide that they weren't going to own another second of his life.

He was going to take that burden off of him and place it at the feet of Jesus.

Maybe you're hearing that today and you're thinking, man, that's exactly where I'm at.

Maybe as you've even heard this message, there's a name that pops into your mind.

Maybe it's a wound, or maybe it's a betrayal, or a face, or something someone said, or something someone did against you.

And I don't know the circumstance.

Maybe they've moved on, maybe they never apologized.

Maybe they don't even know how deeply they hurt you.

But for whatever reason, you have carried that day after day after day, and you've never been able to put it down.

Here's what I believe Jesus is leading us to do at the conclusion of this message.

I think Jesus is inviting every single one of us to lay those things down, to lay them at the altar and refuse to pick them up ever again.

You know, Colossians 3.13 says, Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive.

When you look at that verse on the screen, I want you to notice what it doesn't say.

It doesn't say you should forgive them because they deserve it.

It doesn't say you should forgive them because they finally apologized or because what they did wasn't that bad.

Here's what it says: you should forgive them as the Lord has forgiven you.

Man, what would it look like if you took a step of faith in this service, maybe got a little bit uncomfortable and did something you didn't plan on doing?

And you said, you know what, before I leave this place and jump in a car and hop on a road and go eat lunch and act like nothing happened, I'm gonna do what God tells me to do right now.

What would happen if you took that thing, that moment, that hurt that you've been harboring, and you decided today's gonna be a milestone moment, and I'm gonna bring that all the way up here, and I'm gonna kneel at the altar and I'm gonna give this thing to Jesus.

You say, Why would I bring it to the altar?

Think about the symbolism of altar.

Go back to the Old Testament.

Think about what happens at the altar.

You know what happens at the altar?

Things die at the altar.

The altar is a bloody place all throughout scripture.

And maybe you are in this place today and you'd say, you know what?

I think that there would be a lot of freedom if I could leave this place after killing some bitterness that I've had in my heart.

After killing the unforgiveness that I've been harboring.

After surrendering and sacrificing all of the things that have been holding me back.

I think I could experience the freedom of Jesus in a new way if I took that step of faith.

And let me tell you, you will.

You will.

And so that's the first part of this invitation.

My prayer is that there's somebody that has a moment with Jesus in just a minute.

But there's a second part of this invitation that I think is powerful.

Ephesians 1.7 says, In Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.

And maybe the greatest decision you can make today isn't forgiving someone else, but is actually receiving the forgiveness of Jesus in your own life.

You know what?

There's nothing greater that could happen in this place than a sinner that is saved by Jesus.

And that is the greatest picture of forgiveness.

It's not just a prisoner being forgiving a prisoner, prison guard.

It's a sinner that is saved by Jesus and forgiven and set free.

You know what?

That's the invitation today.

It's twofold.

I'm talking to somebody who needs to come and you need to lay down unforgiveness.

But I may be also talking to someone that needs to come and receive forgiveness once and for all.

Hey, in both cases, Jesus is saying the prison door is open.

You don't have to stay there anymore.

You can take a step of faith out of that prison and you can experience freedom in your life like never before.

So my prayer is this: that there is nothing the devil could do in this moment to prevent you from taking that step of faith right now.

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes?

Father, today, I just pray for freedom.

But Lord, we know that freedom comes by faith.

And so, God, give us the faith to take a step forward out of the prison doors and experience your grace in a very real way.

God, thank you in advance for what you're gonna do.

Give us the courage to follow you right now and to do something that puts a smile on your face.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

If you have questions about what you have heard or would like more information about your relationship with Jesus, please email us at info at crosschurch.com or visit our website at crosschurch.com.

At Crosschurch, our mission is to reach Northwest Arkansas, America, and the world for Jesus Christ.