Relationships: The only way forward is forgiveness - Steve Craig

Good morning.

Man, we have had a bunch of cold Sundays in a row, haven't we?

It's uh it's tough to get going on a Sunday morning, particularly if you have kids and you've got to get them all bundled up and and out the door.

But I'm glad you did.

It's uh it's great to be together this morning.

We don't have any announcements today.

And so uh we're just gonna pray and jump right in.

Father God, I just praise you.

Thank you for for being our Father, for loving us, adopting us as your children.

Praise you for that.

Holy Spirit, thank you for for being here this morning and uh being our counselor and our teacher.

And we ask you to teach us from your word this morning.

And Jesus, we just thank you for forgiving us, for being our Savior and our friend.

And we we just love you and praise you for that.

And Jesus, it's in your name that we pray.

Amen.

So we're talking about relationships.

We're focusing on marriage, but but really what we're talking about uh applies to all of our relationships.

You know, our relationships at work with our with our bosses or our our employees or our co-workers at school, you know, with our classmates and our teachers at home, you know, with our parents or or with our children.

I think the most difficult relationship of all, though, is marriage.

It's also the most rewarding relationship of all.

And and your marriage might be difficult right now, but uh we started out by saying that nothing's impossible with God.

It doesn't matter where we're at.

Um don't give up.

Nothing is impossible with God.

We've looked at the essence of marriage, um, what we're trying to achieve, where we're where we're wanting to get with God's help.

And that is really friends.

It's being best friends, it's having a lifelong friend.

Last week we we saw how we can look at ourselves and each other at the tree of life, how we can see that we're we're all created in God's own image.

And the differences we have, how we're wired differently, is not what's going to destroy us.

In fact, it's just the opposite.

The differences that we have is what makes us strong.

It helps us to be a strong team and have all our bases covered.

It's a great, great source of strength.

And so I think we're at a point where we can really move forward.

We can make leaps, you know, and strides in our relationships.

But I want to acknowledge that sometimes we can, in our mind, want to move forward.

You know, we just want to we want to move forward.

And in our hearts, we want to move forward.

But we're stuck.

We're just stuck.

That we can't move forward.

Now, Susan and I have been married 26 and a half years.

I think when we hit about 50, thanks.

Um she needs the applause for that.

But um when we when we hit about 50, I'll probably stop counting the half years.

But right now, it's 26 and a half.

And there was a time in our relationship where we were really stuck.

You know, it started, it really started with me drinking, drinking a lot.

Um, actually, it started with me drinking a little.

But uh over time I was drinking a lot.

And it and, you know, I knew better.

I did not want to be that way, I did not want to live that way, but it was the only way I knew how to cope.

And I hadn't really learned that I could just turn my life over to God and that I really could trust him.

I hadn't really learned to apply what Jesus taught me to different situations in my life.

And so as that got worse, I compounded it by just lying to Susan about it.

And so for her, that it was really confusing.

You know, and then I would was emotionally neglectful to her.

And so that led to a moment of infidelity for her.

And now we're both confused.

And now we're both angry, and now we're both hurt.

Um she wanted me to tell you that, by the way.

She's talked about it in her in her class, and and we hope this this can help you.

Um, but we were at such a low.

I mean, we're the low of lows in our in our relationship.

We didn't trust each other at all.

Um, I had hurt her in a way that was really the worst way I could have hurt her, how she's wired.

And she had hurt me in a way that was the worst way she could have hurt me how I'm wired.

And we didn't know how we could be together.

We were really, we were just really so far apart.

Yet we both felt like we'd kind of always felt or known that God had put us together for a reason.

But we were stuck.

We were just, we were miserable.

It was a miserable time in our lives.

There was no good way out for us, and there was no apparent way forward.

And I don't know if you've ever felt stuck.

It's easy to get stuck.

You know, had your finances ruined, or an addiction become your problem too, or been lied to, or humiliated, or intimidated, or or belittled, been ignored, or taken for granted.

You know, there's no easy way out.

There's no hope ahead.

We just get kind of stuck.

And uh, not just in our marriages, we can get stuck in in most of our relationships, you know, in our jobs.

Have you ever felt stuck?

You're stuck in your job, you know, maybe you can't stand your boss, maybe you can't stand your co-workers, um, you can't afford to quit.

What are you gonna do?

And we're stuck.

You know who feels stuck a lot of times?

Teenagers.

They don't like their parents.

They're tired of being what to told, being tired of being told what to do, they can't fend for themselves yet.

They're stuck.

You know who can feel really stuck?

Parents of teenagers.

Now we're talking stuck, you know?

I've loved this person and they're ruining my credit and my car, you know, and my reputation.

I can't go to sleep because they're they're home light.

And instead of being grateful, they're resentful.

And what do you do?

There's no hope in sight.

It's about 17 years too late for contraception.

I mean, you're stuck.

And in almost any relationship, we can get stuck.

We can get stuck in our jobs, with our kids, with our parents, and especially our marriages, where there's no easy way out and there's no hopeful way forward.

Thank God for Jesus.

Thank God for Jesus.

You know, he didn't just reconnect us with our Father, he spent his time teaching us how to live.

He said that he came so we could have life and life abundantly.

He wasn't talking about, you know, some televangelist pitch.

Send in some money and we'll send you a green prayer cloth.

I mean, he was talking about real life, abundant life, a connection with him, our work full of life, our relationships full of life and full of love.

Jesus wants us to live.

All of us.

He wants us to live.

He wants us to really live.

And Jesus knows how to get us unstuck.

In Luke 6.37, he said, forgive others, and you will be forgiven.

And don't get mad at me just yet.

See, we don't usually want to hear this one.

But it's the truth.

When we're stuck, the only way forward is forgiveness.

Jesus tells a story that has convicted me so many times.

It's in Matthew 18, starts in verse 21.

Then Peter came to him and he asked, Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me?

Seven times?

No, not seven times, Jesus replied, but seventy times seven.

Therefore, the kingdom of heaven can be cared compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him.

In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars.

He couldn't pay.

So his master ordered that he be sold along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned to pay the debt.

But the man fell down before his master and begged him, Please be patient with me, and I will pay it all.

Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.

But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars.

He grabbed him by the throat and he demanded instant payment.

His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time.

Be patient with me, and I will pay it, he pleaded.

But his creditor wouldn't wait.

He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.

When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset.

They went to the king and told him everything that had happened.

Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, You evil servant, I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me.

Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you?

Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he paid his entire debt.

That's what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.

Like it or not, in that story, we are the debtor, each of us.

Jesus has forgiven us everything, and he's not fooling around.

He expects us to forgive each other.

Did you see how that story ended with a man in prison being tortured?

And when we don't forgive each other, anyone, we are in a prison.

We're in a prison of our own making.

And we're tortured.

We're tortured by bitterness, we're tortured by resentment, we're tortured by anger.

And Jesus has handed us a key.

He's just handed us a key.

Forgive our brothers and sisters in our hearts.

The only way forward is forgiveness.

Colossians 3.13 says, make allowance for each other's faults and forgive anyone who offends you.

Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.

Each of us.

He doesn't want us in danger physically.

He doesn't want us in danger emotionally.

So there are times when we forgive from our hearts, but we still require change.

We require actions.

We set boundaries for trust to be rebuilt.

Healthy boundaries.

But we can't even do that correctly, wisely, without forgiving first.

Jesus describes someone, he says, you know, that there's someone who sees a friend and they've got a sliver in their eye.

And they want to help them get it out.

But he says, how can you help them get it out?

Because you've got a beam in your own eye.

And what Jesus doesn't say is, don't worry about that.

Worry about yourself.

No, what he says is take the beam out of your eye.

Then perhaps you can see clearly to help your friend.

See, when we have bitterness and resentment and anger, it just blurs our vision.

We don't know what to do.

We can't see clearly.

We can't think clearly.

We can't be wise and set good boundaries and know and know what to do.

We've got to clear our vision.

We have to forgive.

It's the only way forward.

Forgiving's a strange thing.

It's really it's a perfect example of what following Jesus is like.

Because Jesus doesn't ask us to do anything that he hasn't already done himself.

And what he teaches us to do seems like it's for him.

You know, like it's just obeying him.

Or it seems like it's something we're doing for somebody else.

But everything that Jesus teaches us to do is ultimately for us.

It's for our own good.

It's how we live, it's how we have life abundantly by applying what he teaches us.

Forgiving's just like that.

When we obey Jesus and what he taught us and we forgive, it sets us free.

It heals us.

This is an example I uh I've used before, but it's a few arrows.

And the idea is that when someone does something to us, I mean, legitimately, they've harmed us, they've wronged us.

It's like getting shot with an arrow.

You know, I mean, you're shot.

And it hurts.

So what am I gonna do?

I'll tell you what I'm gonna do.

I'm not gonna pull it out.

They shot me.

They're the ones that did this.

I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna wait.

I'm gonna wait till they feel bad.

And then I'm gonna wait till they're sorry enough.

And they come over and they apologize.

You know, not just any apology.

It better be a big apology.

And then they can pull it out.

They did it.

You know, the problem is I don't control them.

They may never feel bad about it.

They may never apologize.

And so what am I gonna do?

Am I gonna live my whole life with this arrow?

I mean, you can barely get through a door in your car.

You know, it's gonna get infected, it's gonna fester, it's gonna get more sore over time.

What am I gonna do?

And I gotta I've got to pull it out.

I have to.

And you know what?

I'm gonna have to grip my teeth, maybe.

And it's gonna take some effort.

And God will have to help me.

And it hurts.

But it beats the alternative.

I've got to pull it out.

And the reason that is so critical is because life isn't one arrow.

I mean, life is a barrage of arrows.

Every day, constant arrows, little darts, small arrows, big arrows, an occasional spear.

You know, and before long, we are literally, we are like porcupines.

And we just got arrows sticking out of us everywhere.

You can't, I mean, you can't uh function, you can't really move, you can't relax, you can't sleep, and you sure can't have a healthy relationship.

Because every time we go to hug someone or to hold someone, man, we're bumping up against each other's arrows.

You know, and it and it hurts.

We've got to pull the arrows out.

We have to.

We've got to let God heal the wounds.

And then we can live.

Then we can really live, then we can move forward.

Pulling the arrows out is forgiveness.

It's following Jesus.

It's what he did.

One of the last things that he said on the cross, Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing.

It's what he told us to do.

Again, it's what he expects us to do.

There's been plenty of times that I've not wanted to forgive.

The harder times were when I wanted to, I just didn't have it in me.

You know, I just couldn't do it.

I wished I could.

I just didn't know how.

And it's then that we have to ask God.

We have to ask God just to show us how, to help us.

What helps me, what's helped me over and over, is thinking of that story, the story Jesus told.

Because there's no doubt in my mind that I am that debtor.

And there's also no doubt in my mind that God has completely forgiven me.

And so it convicts me.

I can't hold this against this person.

I have to forgive them.

What helps a lot of people is to get by yourself for a few minutes and just picture Jesus on the cross.

Just quietly picture Jesus on the cross and ask him to show you all that he's forgiven you for.

And how completely he has forgiven you.

How it doesn't matter to him, how much he loves you, how he adores you, how it's all gone.

And then think again of the person we need to forgive.

And maybe we can.

Maybe just a little bit.

You know, some things take time.

We might have to get there over and over and over.

A little bit at a time.

But we have to forgive.

With God's help, we can do it.

You know, Susan and I's mess turned out pretty good.

God used that whole situation in our relationship for good.

Um, I mean, we learned we learned so much.

We learned um about honesty and transparency in each other and and about God.

And our relationship is is better, far better than it was before any of that stuff ever even happened.

I love and appreciate her more.

Um I think she would say the same about me.

But we couldn't stay there.

We had to get unstuck.

We had to move forward, we had to forgive.

I mean, the only way forward is forgiveness.

And it's true in all of our relationships.

You know, we can forgive our boss and our co-workers, we can forgive our parents, we can forgive our children, we can forgive each other.

But especially in our marriages, we have to move forward.

We have to forgive.

And so this week, every day, can we forgive someone?

I don't mean go and tell them that we've forgiven them.

I mean just us and God, telling him that we've forgiven them, asking his help if we need it.

You know, we might not even know if we have anybody to forgive.

You know, uh, just getting ready to speak.

You know, yesterday I was asking God, you know, God, is there any is there anybody that I need to forgive?

And I didn't think there was.

But uh, but he showed me a couple a couple things.

And it was such a relief to pull those arrows out.

You know, so we can ask him if we don't know.

But most of us know.

We know who.

We need God's help to forgive.

You know, one of the things I like most about Sunday mornings is just being here in this room.

You know, being with uh all of you.

It is such a unique time.

You know, we can sense the Holy Spirit in such a strong way, and there's such an excitement for God and uh and a love and an openness for each other.

Imagine what it's gonna be like in a few weeks.

See, we will have all pulled out some arrows.

We'll all be lighter, we'll all be more full of life.

And some of our relationships will be unstuck.

I mean, we'll be moving forward, moving forward with each other, moving forward with God.

You know, it's not easy to forgive.

It's why Jesus had to talk about it so much.

But I promise you, you can do it.

I promise you you can do it.

With God's help, you'll definitely do it.

And so in a minute, we're gonna ask him to help us all.

And we'll sing one more song together and really celebrate just how great God is, how great Jesus is, to not just come and reconnect us with God, to show us what our Father is really like, to forgive us of everything we've ever done, but to teach us.

I mean, for him to take the time to teach us, to show us how to live.

And as we apply it, it's then that we have life, abundant life, reconnected with God, reconnected with people.

That's why he came.

And so let's stand, let's get ready for that.

You know, Jesus taught us to forgive.

I mean, who better?

Who better?

I mean, he's the all-time expert.

He's gotten plenty of practice.

He gets plenty of practice just with me.

One of the things I've learned in life is that we can't give what we don't have.

And so we have to turn to Jesus.

We just have to.

He is so quick to forgive us and save us and fill us with his Spirit and with His strength and to teach us.

And we just have to ask Him.

See, we can't give what we don't have.

We've got to turn to Jesus.

We've got to let Him forgive us.

And then we forgive each other, and then we move forward unstuck, full of life, together forgiven.

So let's pray.

Father, I praise you for being such a great God.

Thank you for loving us as your children.

Holy Spirit, I just pray you would stir, stir up each of our hearts.

Give us the desire and the strength to forgive.

Show us who we need to forgive if that's where we're at.

But most of us know, God.

We just ask you to help us.

Give us the strength.

Each day this week, remind us to stop and spend a minute with you and forgive each other.

Help us to move forward, God.

Unstick our relationships.

We love you and we thank you and we trust you.

And Jesus it's in your name we pray.

Amen.