Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Things Jesus Never Said, Part 1: You Don’t Need to Forgive Them

Episode Date: March 31, 2019

Jesus shared a lot of wisdom in the Bible. And lately, He also seems to share a ton on Instagram, on screen-printed mugs, and in those images your aunt posts on Facebook, too. But how much of it is true? Where’s the line between what He actually t... Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, thanks for joining us this week here at Life Church. You know, we'd love for you to stay connected throughout the week and everywhere you go. And the best way to do that is through the Life Church app. There you can watch additional messages and find resources to help you in your relationship with Christ. It's free and you can download it wherever you download your apps from. But for right now, let's go to this week's message and join up with our senior pastor, Craig Rochelle. Hey, I'm excited that there are some people excited today in churches all over the nation and people all over the world at church online gathered together to worship God and to hear God's word.

And before we dive into a brand new message series, I gotta take a moment to celebrate that this weekend at 32 locations, next weekend, there will be 33 locations. But this weekend, we are seeing people baptized. And I wanna congratulate those of you. Just a few stories from Life Church in Norman, Oklahoma, Teresa started a prison ministry using the messages from our church. In prison, Marissa actually came to faith in Christ.

Marissa, congratulations on being out of prison and being baptized this weekend. We celebrate with you from Fort Smith, Arkansas, Misty, drug-free, no longer bound by addiction, celebrating new life in Christ, being baptized. And from Life Church in South Oklahoma City, Crystal, you acknowledge you made a lot of poor life decisions, but someone invited you to church last weekend. You said yes to Jesus and you're being baptized this weekend. Congratulations. Church, I hope you feel it.

Can you imagine this weekend over 1,300 people going public with their faith, surrendering their lives and being baptized? I say it all the time. We're not praying for revival church. Can you feel it? We're right in the middle of one. And so today we're going to do what we always do. We're going to let God's words speak to us. We're launching into a brand new four-part message series.

It's called Things that Jesus Never Set. What I want to do over the next few weeks is I want to look at some of the words that are in red in your Bible. If they're in red, that means that Jesus said them. The words of Jesus, they are other words. to truly understand the power of the truth of what Jesus said. Sometimes it helps me to look at what he didn't say. What he could have said, what I might have said, but what he didn't say helps us understand the power of what he did say.

Today I want to look at what Jesus didn't say about the topic of forgiveness. I'll introduce it this way. How many of you know somebody need everybody to participate? It's no fun without you. How many of you know somebody who's really annoying on Facebook? Raise your hand. Raise your hand. Leave them up for a second.

Leave them up. If your hand's not up in the air right now, could be you. Probably is you. Just want to say. Let me tell you what Jesus didn't say. Jesus didn't say, Father, forgive them. for they do not know what they post. He did not say that to you Facebook annoying people.

He didn't say this. He didn't say, fool me once and I'll forgive you. Fool me twice and I'll give you hemorrhoids. He didn't say that. I might have if I had his power, but he didn't say that. Jesus never ever said, sorry, you've sinned too much for me to forgive. you. I can forgive everybody else, but you really get on my nerves. Jesus never said that. How many of you thank God for the grace of our good God, the forgiveness

that we receive freely through His Son, Jesus. As we talked today about what Jesus did say about forgiveness, we're going to look in Matthew's Gospel, and we're going to dive into a portion of a sermon that Jesus gave. It's known as the sermon on the Mount. We'll be in Matthew chapter 6. And in this chapter, part of the sermon, Jesus was actually teaching the disciples how to pray. Some of you may not be people of faith.

You may be new to church, and you don't really know how to pray. Jesus was very, very specific, and he was teaching them and us how to pray. And at the end of his teaching on prayer, He kind of gave a PS, a post script, a couple of sentences about the topic of forgiveness and the prayer. That's what we're going to focus on today. How do you pray? Jesus said this in verse 9.

He said, this then is how you should pray. Then Jesus said, our father. Everybody say our father. Jesus said, our father in heaven. Hallow would be your name. Your kingdom come. your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread.

Then let me highlight what Jesus did not say. He did not say forgive us our debts, though we're still holding grudges against other people. He didn't say, I'll forgive you, but you don't have to forgive what someone else did. What Jesus said is this, verse 12, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debt tours. Then in verse 14, he's finished teaching how to pray, and he gives us additional thoughts on forgiveness. And this is what Jesus did say. For if you forgive other people when they sin against you,

your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your father will not forgive your sins. I want to read this to you again because I want to let it settle in for just a moment. This is what Jesus said. If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you.

But if you don't forgive them, your father will not forgive. of your sense. That's what Jesus said. Very intense, very sobering words. The first time I ever taught on this text, I was probably 24 years of age, maybe 25 years of age. I was filling in for my pastor, Pastor Nick Harris, who was out for the weekend. I was in a robe with looking rather pastoral, standing behind a pulpit the size of a Honda accord, and I preached this message when suddenly I realized in the middle of this message that I was holding a grudge and carrying unforgiveness.

You see, several years prior, I was in school. I was a fraternity guy in a college, and at my particular school, there were some fraternities that we liked more than others and something that we didn't really like it all, and we disliked people because they had different color shirts, you know, for really holy and special things like that, you know. And so I was driving by kind of the enemy fraternity house back then. And this guy came out and he saw me driving by. He knew who I was. I sort of knew who he was. And he gave me a signal, basically pointing one way to heaven, peel the banana, you know, whatever. You know, you can figure it out. And he gave me the bird and he followed my car giving me the

bird. I was not a Christian at the time. And so I did what was only felt right, which was I stopped my car immediately in the middle of the street, abandoned my car, and started running toward him as fast as I could. What I was intending to do was simply right that wrong on behalf of our good God. I was going to break his finger off and put it where ever seemed right at that moment. You know what I'm saying? And so when he saw me coming, he turned the other way and he ran into his fraternity house and so I followed him in. He evidently went into some room and hid, and I was yelling where his finger guy. I was going to settle the issue. It didn't take long to realized there was one of me and about 30 guys from the other fraternity, and this wasn't my

best strategy. I decided I'll settle it later, and just made a vow. Next time I see him, we'd get things straight. Well, evidently, at the end of the semester, he didn't come back to school for one reason or another, and life went by, and I just was still looking for him, anywhere, anytime, all the time, and I saw him in the middle of my sermon. I looked up into the balcony, and there was finger boy looking down at me from the balcony. And it dawned on me. I'm preaching about forgiving others. And at that moment, I was carrying a grudge and holding the burden of unforgiveness against someone else. Some of you are going to have a similar unsettling moment with God even now.

You came to church, you feel like all is good, and suddenly you recognize the very sobering words of Jesus might have direct application in your life because you too have a grudge, unforgiveness. You're carrying a grievance against someone who wronged you, hurt you, disappointed you,

let you down, or betrayed you. Anytime over the years I've talked about this subject, forgiving others, it creates a lot of emotion, and rightly so. Inevitably, I'll get letters, emails, I'll talk to somebody, and they get riled up and they'll say, but Craig, you don't know what somebody did to me. I talked to somebody just a few days ago that is devastated because her husband cheated on her and she's ringing with pain and telling her to forgive at this point might almost seem cruel because of the emotion that she's living under even right now. Maybe you experience something similar. A best friend lied to you or maybe lied about you.

Maybe someone that you loved or admired. even a Christian figure or a hero to you, let you down and wasn't who they pretended that they would be. Maybe there's someone who didn't pay you what they owed you and left you in a very bad place. Maybe someone broke a promise to you. Maybe someone took advantage of you and used you for their benefit. Maybe, and unfortunately for many of you, there was someone who should have loved you and should have protected you. But instead of protecting you, they hurt you. Tragically, there are many of you who would have suffered very real abuse,

verbal or emotional, some physical, some sexual abuse. And here you are maybe years, perhaps even decades later, and you still feel that pain and you still carry the scars. So if you say for a moment that's just not fair, you don't know what someone did to me. I just want to take a moment and acknowledge that there are so many wrongs in this world. And let me acknowledge, it may have been grossly unfair, brutal, it may have been reprehensible what somebody did to you. I want to acknowledge that pain.

Sometimes I've found that there's even another level of pain. In other words, there's a lot of people that have hurt me. personally, but I don't know about you, but what tends to get me even more is when someone hurts or abuses someone that I love. There's almost even a deeper emotion sometimes that comes from that. And that's the case in our family. My sister Lisa is I'm courageously open about something that happened to her when she was younger. She's a part of our church and is a great mom to her kids and wife to her husband and such. But when she was in the sixth grade, there was a respected leader in the community, her sixth grade teacher that everyone knew and loved.

And unbeknownst to us, he was not only grooming her, but he was grooming us. You could even say he was grooming the community, and this was before we really even called it grooming because we just weren't aware in the same way that we are nowadays. What this man, I call him Max, it's not his real name, but what this man did not only to my sister, but to scores of little girls throughout the years. It's so horrific that I would never say what he did out loud. How do you forgive something that seems unforgivable? How do you forgive something so brutally wrong from someone you trusted?

maybe even respected. How do you live out what Jesus taught us to do? There's a clue in the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray in verse 9 of Matthew 6. Jesus said this, he said, this then is how you should pray. He said, our father. Everybody say our father.

It's really interesting to me that Jesus was teaching people to pray and he didn't tell them to pray my father, but he taught them to pray our father, our father. In other words, God is not just my heavenly father, but he's your heavenly father. We share him in common. He is our heavenly father. And because he is our father, we are his children,

and our relationship with our siblings under God truly matters to God. As a dad, this makes sense to me. Amy and I have six kids. People always say, did you know what caused that? We always said, yes, we did it. We're unwilling to give it up. That's old, I know.

And thankfully, our kids are almost grown out of the stage of fighting in the car, but sometimes they're not. I don't know if this happens in your house and your car, but on road trips, everything can be fine until one screams, you touch me! Take your hands up, me! He hit me! I don't know if you've ever watched in soccer when a player will barely bump another

player and then they'll flop on the ground. Our kids flop in the middle of the back seat. Draw a shield. Depenetrate to the shield. And then I find myself saying those annoying things like I'll pull this car over. And I've actually done that on the highway before. And so Amy said this a million times. said it a million times, there's nothing that breaks our heart more than when our children don't

get along. On the other hand, we said the flip side, there's nothing that brings us more joy when our children love and honor and respect each other. When we pray, we're praying to our father and our relationship with God's other children really matters to the heart of God. Maybe that's one reason why Jesus said this in Matthew chapter 5. He said, if you're offering your gift at the altar and remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar before you give your offering. He says, Go and be reconciled to them, then come back and offer your gift. What was Jesus saying, essentially?

If you're going to worship your heavenly dad, don't bring him an offering when you're fighting with his kids. Go get that straight first because that's how much it matters to our heavenly father. Go and make it right with your siblings, the other ones of God's children, then come back and worship God. Think about this. Who does unforgiveness hurt? If God is our heavenly father, then it actually hurts his heart when his children are not treating each other with love and honor and respect. Who else does it hurt when there's unforgiveness?

It hurts the person who is not forgiving. It poisons their soul. You find yourself just seething and anger and something like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. If we live with bitterness, resentment, and hatred, then we continue to let the wounds stay infected and poison our own soul.

Someone said this, that you may be living in a prison of offense. Someone hurt you weeks ago, months ago, years ago, decades ago, and you are in a prison of offense. Forgiveness is the key that sets you free from the prison of offense. It sets you free. Amy and I learned this years ago when we first got married. she brought a very old beat-up car into the marriage. I brought a Christian sanctified car into the marriage,

a Honda accord, and all the disciples gathered in one accord, thank you. And so the rule is, in my house, the wife drives a better car. So I gave her that car and I drove the other piece of car. Okay? And so when I had to start commuting to seminary, when I had to start commuting to seminary, it was an hour and a half drive, and her car got bad gas mileage. It was dangerously high miles. And so I upgraded it to a red geoprism, which was incredibly humbling in every way. It was a red aluminum can with a motor in it. And so we sold her car to a gentleman that was kind of in need. and we were incredibly tight financially. I was paying for full seminary by myself on a very, very low salary.

And so we needed the money from this car, but we discounted it significantly to bless this man, and we decided to carry the note at no interest over three years, and he would pay us. We felt really generous, and we were honoring him in every way.

This guy made one payment, and he disappeared. He was gone. Gone. Car's gone. No sign of them. No, no, second payment and I was beside myself, angry, hurt, upset. We were generous. We were trying to bless him and he ran off. Amy recognized, we're not getting his car back. I'm upset about it.

And so holy wife that I have, she said, let's do this. Let's not let him steal it, which he did. Let's just give it to him. Her word for the year is Jesus in case you did not know and that's evidence of how incredibly holy my wife is. She was perfect and right in every way. Instead of letting it poison our soul, the car wasn't coming back, if we changed our perspective, let him off, forgave the offense, and said, we're going to give it to you, guess who it would free? Not him, he was already driving our car for free. It would free me from where I was. So we did. We just said he never knew it, but we said we bless him with this car. Several years went by, and I was in Burger King. it's true, there was a time when you could have found me in Burger King. I don't drive by one now,

but there was a time. And so I was in Burger King, and I saw the guy. There he was. And I looked at him, he met my eyes, and he ran toward the back door. I chased him down and said, no, wait, you don't understand. I just want you to know, we gave you the car. He was so confused, but so much earlier, what had happened is we had been set free. There are those of you, you're living in a prison of a fence. You're in the prison, and forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door. You may say, good story, good for you. I'm not there yet. I'm not close to being there. what do I do if I'm overwhelmed with hurt, anger, or bitterness? Matthew chapter 5, the very same sermon that Jesus was preaching earlier in the

sermon of the Mount, this is what he said. He said, you all have heard it said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. In other words, Jesus was speaking into a culture that believed in justice, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth for life for life. If someone wrongs you, you wronged them back. That was the direct culture Jesus was speaking into. You've heard it said, hate those who hate you. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

What do you do when you're angry, when you're hurt, when you're bitty? You can start by praying for the person who offended you. You can start by praying for the one who let you down. You can start by praying for the one who abused you. And you may say, I don't feel like praying. I understand. If we had waited until we felt like praying for Max, we would still be waiting to this day.

But at some point, we recognize, let's pray for this one who hurt us. We pray for our enemies. We pray for those who curse us. And so my prayers, honestly, when I started praying for him, we're like, God, do something to them. I mean, in them, you know, like, you know, do something in them, God, do something in them. And over time, what happened is my heart started to soften until we were genuinely able to pray.

God, help him find forgiveness in you. Help him find new life in Christ. Our prayers, our heart started to change. Here's what I found about praying for those who hurt you. Your prayer for those who hurt you may or may. not change them, but it always changes you. What do you do? You've heard it said, hate your enemies, but Jesus says, I tell you pray for those who persecute you. What is prayer? Prayer is a God-honoring place to start. Then as God works on your heart, there will be a time, and it may be a

process and it may not happen immediately or it may happen immediately, but at some point you recognize as I've been forgiven with God's help, I choose to forgive. What I love about the word forgive and the Greek language is what this word literally means is it doesn't mean to sweep it under a rug. It means to hurl it away, to cast it out of your life. It's not pretending like it didn't happen. and is not explaining it away, but it's hurling this poison as far away from you as you can possibly move it out of your life. It's to hurl away, is to rid it from yourself,

is to let it go. How do you do this? Colossians chapter 3, verse 13, Paul says this. He tells us to bear with each other. Some people, it takes a little more grace to bear with than others. bear with each other and forgive one another if you have a grievance against someone. How do you do it? How do you do it when you're so hurt? How do you do it when you've been

betrayed? How do you do it when you feel like every bit of trust has been ripped out of your heart? You forgive as the Lord forgave you. How do you do it? In the same way our good God has given us what we don't deserve and could never ever earn, that's the same way we forgive those who hurt us. I love what my friend Pastor Andy Stanley says. He says, in the shadow of my hurt, forgiveness feels like a decision to reward my enemy. but in the shadow of the cross, forgiveness is merely a gift from one undeserving soul to another.

We didn't earn it. We don't deserve it. We give it as we have received it. I'm telling this story with my dad's blessings. My dad is very public that he had an ongoing battle. with alcohol. And in my 20s, we hit a rough spot in our relationship. I was young, I was immature, and I was preaching to a relatively small group of people. And in that sermon, I said some disrespectful and dishonoring things about my dad. A few years went by, and my dad enjoyed listening to my sermons on cassette tapes. If you don't know what a cassette, set tape is, you can Google it and you can find out what it is. But evidently, he listened to a message that I preached about the words of Jesus on the cross when Jesus said, it is finished. And on that day, something happened in his heart. And he was transformed spiritually. And in the upcoming months and

years, he was able to become free from the addiction to alcohol. And now today he helps people readily overcome the same addiction. And so, as you can imagine, in any type of situation, there's lots of healing that needs to take place. Years went by. And somehow, someone, for some reason, gave him the cassette tape of the sermon where I dishonored him. And he got that and he listen to it. And he called me and he said, son, this is what I had, and this is what you said. And I had nowhere to hide, no excuse. And so I just threw myself on the sword and said, can you please somehow, forgive me? And without hesitation, without reservation, without even a moment of holding back, he said, oh, son, he said, I've been forgiven of so much. I've made so

many mistakes. Of course, in the same way I've been forgiven, I will forgive you. How many relationships could be healed if fathers and sons would embrace one another and say, I forgive you? What if mothers and daughters would hurl it away and let the words be in the past, let the let downs be gone, and embrace and forgive in the same way that Jesus has forgiven us. What if husbands and wives, yes, adultery is grounds for divorce, yes, it's also grounds for forgiveness, yes, what if somehow, in the same way that we've been forgiven by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us, we could find the same grace to forgive someone else. How many people could be free? Jesus wasn't overbearing, mean, harsh, or lacking empathy when he loved us toward forgiveness.

He was doing it to help us heal, to help us be free. I like what Pastor Dave Willis says about forgiveness. He says this. He said, holding a grudge doesn't make you strong. It makes you bitter. Forgiving doesn't make you weak. It sets you free. Let me tell you what Jesus did not say. Jesus didn't say, I'll forgive you, but you don't have to forgive other people. He didn't say you can treat people however you want, and we're okay. He said, for if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your father will not forgive your sins. Forgiveness empowers you to set the prisoner free.

And you realize the prisoner was you. So Father, today, I pray for miracles that go beyond our human ability to understand. I acknowledge right now that I'm speaking into, in many cases, immense and unbearable pain. Unjustified abuse. Horrible abuse. And God, I ask for the grace that you've given us to overwhelm and help overcome all the injustices that we experience. on this earth. God, I pray for miraculous healing and restoration

in relationships that seem unrepairable that you would do what only you can do. At all of our churches today, those of you who, kind of like me, you walked into church, you're watching online and you realize, oh, I'm holding a grudge. I've got unforgiveness in my heart. There's still bitterness in there. Got to help me to hurl it away.

help me to let it go. If you find yourself there today, would you lift up your hands? Just all of our churches, just lift up your hands, lift up your hands right now. God, I empathize with those who are hurting today. And at the same time, I thank you for your grace and your presence to be here. We ask for the power of your spirit to do a work in our hearts. And God, even though we may be angry and rightly so, we just take a moment and maybe we don't even feel it,

but we pray for those who hurt us. God, we pray that they would experience your goodness, your grace. God, we pray that they would know you, find healing in you. God, we ask that you would do a work in our heart. I know for some is happening even right now. I know for others, this may be the beginning or another part of the process. but God help us by your power because of your grace undeserved to forgive others even as you have forgiven us.

As you keep praying today with nobody looking around, there may be those of you who recognize you've done a lot of things wrong. If we sat down across from each other now and I ask you kind of how you are spiritually, you might say, I'm not really sure. I don't know where I stand with God. I hope I've done enough good to overcome the bad, but I'm not really sure. The problem is this, that any type of sin against God is real, and all of us have sinned against God. His standard is actually perfection. Because of our sin nature, none of us are right with God. And this is the very reason why God sent his son Jesus. Who is Jesus? He is the sinless son of God. He came, to be a ransom to pay the price for our sins. Jesus is called the Lamb of God. He was perfect without

blemish in every way. He was the final sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins. Jesus, who never wronged anyone who never sinned against God. He went to the cross, perfect and holy. He became sin in our place. He died on the third day. God raised him from the dead. He defeated death, hell. sin, the power of the grave. Why? So that anyone in this includes you, doesn't matter who you are, doesn't matter how dark your life is right now, doesn't matter how bad you've been. When you call on the name that is above every name, the name of Jesus, your sins are forgiven. They're hurled away. They're separated as far as you are from the east, is from the west. God forgives you. There are many of you. This is the very reason you're here today. When you call on his name, he hears your

prayers. You are forgiven and you are made new. At all of our churches, those who say, yes, I need his grace. I turn from my sins. I turn toward him. I give my life to him. That's your prayer. Lift your hands high now. All over the place, lift them up and say yes. Right back over there, right back over here. Praise God for you. Others of you. Lift them high. Right back over here. Thank God for you. Others today call on his name.

Right back over here. Jesus, I need you. Over here in this section, both of you right here together. Praise God for you. Church online, you click right below me. And as we have people at all of our churches crying out, on the name of the one who saves, would you all pray aloud with those around you? Pray Heavenly Father, I give you my life. Forgive all my sins.

Make me brand new. Fill me with your spirit so I could follow you. My life is not mine. I give it to you. Thank you for new life. Now you have mine. in Jesus name I pray could somebody celebrate big

somebody worship God for new life in Christ Hey thanks again for joining us here at Life Church you know it's always our heart as a church to see you continue to grow in your relationship with Christ we have a great way to help you do that it's called life.church slash next there you'll find videos and all kinds of resources to help you take your next step in your faith journey

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