Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - When Bitterness Takes Over | No Offense: Part 4

Episode Date: October 10, 2021

Do you often focus on the difficult or painful parts of your past? You might be dealing with bitterness. How can you let go and move forward with your life? We’re talking about it in this message.ABOUT THIS MESSAGEFrom the latest headline to social media comments, to the person who just cut you off in traffic—there are plenty of opportunities to be offended each day. But what if we decided to respond differently to those around us? Together, let’s learn how to live with No Offense.Learn more about No Offense: https://www.life.church/nooffenseWE’RE OPENWe’re continuing to monitor guidelines and best practices for gathering in a safe way. Learn more about everything we're doing to keep you safe and how you can help by using hand sanitizer, washing your hands often, and more: https://www.life.church/updatesFind a time and attend a service with us: http://www.life.church/locationsNEXT STEPSHave you made a decision to follow Jesus? You may be wondering what’s next on your journey. We want to help! Let us guide you to your next steps in your walk with Christ: https://www.life.church/nextABOUT LIFE.CHURCHWherever you are in life, you have a purpose. Life.Church wants to help you find your next step. Our hope is that your journey will include joining us at a Life.Church location throughout the United States or globally online at https://www.live.life.church. Find locations, videos, and more info about us at https://www.life.church or download the Life.Church app at https://www.life.church/app. FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/life.churchInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/life.churchTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/lifechurchCONNECT WITH PASTOR CRAIGYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIIdiIO-Y20hRW9niR0CA8AFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/craiggroeschelInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/craiggroeschelTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/craiggroeschel Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Here we go. Let's go in. Have you noticed? Has anybody noticed that the world seems a little angry these days? Like, we're all about to snap or lose it. We have people that are angry with government officials. We have government officials frustrated with their citizens. We've got employees that are angry with their employers and, frankly, they're quitting their jobs. And we have the largest need of labor in the history of our generation. We've got parents of teenagers who, let's be honest, we have always been angry. We have never stopped being angry, right? Case in point. Listen to this. Let's just talk about airline travel for a moment. Before 2020, the average number of investigated incidents on an airline with an unruly passenger was 143.

In just 2021, just this year. year just since January 1st. And he guesses, 3,715 reports to the FAA of unruly passengers. It almost feels like bitterness within humanity is a whole entirely different pandemic that we are now facing. And so today, as we continue on in this message series, no offense, we're going to talking about what do you do when bitterness takes over? If you've got your you version open, I'd love for you to turn to the book of Hebrews chapter 12. And as you're turning there, I want to read you an article that I read in psychology today. It says this, all bitterness starts out as hurt. And your emotional pain may well relate to viewing whoever or whatever

provoked this hurt as having malicious intent. Anger and resentment is what we are likely to experience whenever we conclude that another has seriously abused us left to fester. That righteous anger eventually becomes the corrosive ulcer that is bitterness. I fully know that talking about bitterness is going to expose a wound in some of you that you have not given me permission to expose. those. But as Pastor Craig has so masterfully led us through this series and honestly stepped on several of our toes in the process, it's important because freedom is what Jesus died to give us. And so many of us are living in prison. And so as we jump into this book of Hebrews, understand the context. This book was written to a group of Christians that culture had turned

against them. They were frustrated, they were struggling. This whole following Jesus thing is not what they thought it was going to be. And frankly, they were about ready to throw in the towel. And in that context, the author of Hebrew says this, make every effort to live at peace with everyone and to be holy. We could just stop there and do an entire series on that sentence. Make every effort to live at peace with it. Have we made any effort to live at peace with anyone? Let's be honest. Because of that holiness, no one will see the Lord.

And see to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and everybody say this with me and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and to defile many. I want to talk about a couple of the qualities of bitterness, and then we're going to kind of unpack how do we kill it? How do we get set free from this bitterness? The first thing, bitterness is a hidden destroyer. It's hidden. Isn't it interesting that the author of Hebrews uses this imagery of a root to talk about bitterness? Think about it. Deep beneath the surface. where nobody can see. How deep does it go? You won't know until you try to start killing it or try to start pulling it. I grew up in central Texas and the holy grail of all trees was a live oak tree.

These limbs would be, I don't know, 5,000 pounds and they would withstand tornadoes and be immovable. How is that possible? Now, I'm not a botanist or horticulturalist, but I read that, if you take a full grown live oak tree and take all the roots and line them up, they would span more than a linear mile. It is what is beneath the surface of the soul that left unchecked is slowly going to grow. Church, listen to me, deeper and deeper and deeper. And frankly, it is robbing you of the life that God desires for us. It is a hidden destroyer. Sometimes these roots of bitterness, you don't even know you have one until you wake up one day and you can't stop thinking about that thing or that person. And some of us, we have bitterness toward the most ridiculous dumb things. Like my thing, I get so angry. Cindy yells at me. I have an issue when people tow things improperly. All right? So I, I'm a thing. I get so angry. Cindy yells at me. I have an issue when people tow things improperly. All right. So I'm not a long-haul truck driver, but I tell a relatively heavy boat to the lake every summer.

And I know phrases like tongue weight and gross vehicle weight rating. I have done the math. I know exactly what my four-wheel drive pickup can safely tow. Many of you have not done the math. I'm telling you, there are the, I want you to look at this. This is the stuff that sends me to the panic. the fifth wheel attached to the bumper of that, what is that, a Chevy Blazer or whatever, I've seen you people at Home Depot with your Tandemax trailer and a full palette of concrete, which is already sketchy, and you're towing it with your Dodge Caravan minivan. Just, you need to repent, people.

It just drives me crazy. Some of you get really riled up about insignificant, silly stuff like I do. and some of you are listening to this and you are praying that we're not going to go there. And I have to tell you we're going to go there. Some of you are dealing with a life paralyzing offense. The abuse of a family member, the betrayal of a spouse, the deception of your business partner, and you cannot shake it. I heard someone say that bitterness was like drinking poison,

hoping it would kill your enemy. Who's the only one getting hurt here? It's you. Roots can grow underground unseen, but they will eventually yield a visible fruit. It is a hidden destroyer, but the second thing I want you understand is it, poisons others. Bitterness always poisons others. Roots will never stay in just your yard.

They will always grow into the neighbors. Look at what this verse says. See to it that no one misses the grace of God, that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and do what? And to defile many. The Greek word here is mea yano which means to stain to pollute or to contaminate and there is not anyone listening to this message today that would not acknowledge the idea that in our culture today we believe and celebrate that all bitterness should be broadcasted do we not on every news channel on every social media platform, my life is so defined by this hurt that I'm going to invite as many people to join me in this misery as possible. That is the world we live in today. And hatred and holiness cannot coexist in the same heart. It can. On top of that, when we invite people into our bitterness,

We become the stumbling block to their pursuit of peace. And it happens every single day. You've seen it happen, church. One bitter person can destroy a life group. One bitter person can divide a family. We're not that far away from the holidays. And some of you are already dreading the Thanksgiving table. One bitter person can separate

a church. I struggled with this. In fact, this was probably one of the first points of my life where one of my kids led me in a significant way. For those of you who are parents of young kids, most of the time you're going to be exhausted.

If you're a parent of teenagers, your prayer life has gotten better and your blood pressure has simultaneously raised all at the same time. I'm telling you, and I'm giving you just a moment of encouragement, there is a day coming where your kids are going to grow up, and the seeds of faith are going to have taken root, and you're going to start to see fruit. In fact, this is a picture of my oldest son and his family,

and I'm just going to tell you, this was just an excuse to show off my granddaughter. That's what grandparents do. I am her yacht. That is my Ivy Sloan. and I am so proud of my kids. Last November, we're sitting around the table having family dinner. We do it once a week. And I'm spending too much time watching the news.

I'm spending way too much time in social media. And I am physiologically affected by other people's bitterness. And I was talking about it to Noah, and he looked at me and smiled. At the time, he was 22. And he said, Dad, what are you? doing? What are you doing? I'm like, well, aren't you bothered by all of this? He said, Dad, I deleted all of my social media months ago. Not only that, I don't even have a browser on my phone anymore because I am not going to expose myself to anything that's going to pollute my

mind or tarnish my soul. Parents, the day is coming, where our kids get the opportunity to lead us. The next day, I deleted it from my phone. I said, I can't do this anymore. I'm going to follow my kids lead. It is a hidden destroy that eventually is going to poison other people around us. So how do we do this, church? We know it's dangerous. We know we've been affected by bitterness. How do we kill a root of bitterness?

The first one is pretty obvious, but it's important. You expose it. You expose the object of your bitterness. Look at what the apostle Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, Ephesians chapter 511. Have nothing to do with the fruitness deeds of darkness, but rather, what does he say? Expose them. Bring it out to the light. Have we actually gone to the place of calling out why we are chronically paralyzed by this wound, right?

Have we said it? Have we written it down? some of you are bitter at God because you lost a parent to COVID. Some of you are bitter at your coworker for getting the promotion that you deserved and worked for. Some of you are bitter at an older sibling who seems to do no wrong. Some of you are bitter at the woman who is now dating your ex. And even though you don't want to be with him, you can't stop hating her. You are in prison.

And Jesus died that you. you would be free. You cannot heal from that which you were unwilling to admit. So just be honest. I am rooted to this bitterness because of blank. And when you start to pray, God, would you expose what roots of bitterness I have? You may discover his revelation of why it might surprise you. Several years back, I was leaving our Oakland City campus that we were averaging 9,000 a weekend. It was humongous. I had a staff of 13. My pastoral load was unbelievable.

The number of weddings, funerals, counseling, suicides. It was paralyzing. And I got to this point where I was so dark in my brain. I felt victimized. I felt underappreciated, and I got so judgmental to other people. And I had, have you ever, like, had arguments with other people, but only in your own brain? And he's just over and over and over again. Like, that was my life, 24-7.

And I called Pastor Craig, and I said, Craig, I think my time here is done. I can't, something's wrong. And he said, describe it to me. And I did. I'm dark. I'm victimized. I'm judgmental. When my phone vibrates because I got a new email, I will literally get chills because I can't handle one more thing. And he smiled and looked at me, which kind of made me mad. And he said, you're burned out. Nothing's wrong with you. You're just burned out.

He said, so you're going to take 10 days off. You're going to find an activity that replenishes your soul. You're going to disconnect all access to social media, email, text, everything, and you call me when you're back. And so my youngest son is in here somewhere. Seth, Seth and I went up to the Ozark Mountains, and we got a little cabin, and we took a couple fishing poles, and we went and had a date with some trout. Side note, trout make me bitter. like I cannot catch a trout to save my life and Seth will tell you we did not catch a single trout but it was probably day three of a 10-day getaway that I was a different person and all of those people that I was so judgmental about and bitter toward I love these people what was the

problem it's not them it was me And I was the one that God needed to bring into a place of freedom. So we expose it. Secondly, and this is where we're going to get a little bit challenging, is we're going to cancel their debts. We're going to cancel their debt. I know this is hard. We have this picture in this scripture where before the author,

takes us to the point where he says, make sure, see to it that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble. Before that, he says, make sure that no one misses the grace of God. It isn't until you live under the powerful nature of God's grace that you can do any of these things. In fact, Pastor Craig talked about this last weekend when we looked at the forgiveness cycle. If you'll remember this, it starts with the profound reality that I am forgiven. And I don't deserve it. And that leads us to feeling a profound sense of gratitude, which then makes us more accepting of other people,

which makes us more overflowing with love. That's why the author of Hebrew says, make sure, see to it. No one misses the grace of God, because without the grace of God, we cannot be set free from a root of bitterness. And so we are going to cancel their debt. Jesus told a story in Matthew 18,

where a servant was, he owed an enormous debt to a master. And he went before the master, petrified, that he was going to get thrown in prison or killed. And the master in his grace forgave all of his debt. And then he went out and saw a fellow servant that owed him a fraction of what he had just been forgiven. And instead of reciprocating that grace, he had that servant thrown into debtor's prison until he paid it back. And this is what the master says in response.

He says, you wicked servant, I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? And in anger, his master handed him over to the jailers until he had repaid all that he owed. And this is what Jesus said. And this is how your heavenly father will treat each of you until you forgive your brother or sister from your heart. We are going to choose to give up your claim to revenge and to blame. But you don't know what they did to me. They deserve it.

I have a righteous anger, possibly. But can I encourage you, if we're going to live our lives based on the life that Jesus lived in the teaching of God's word, Jesus turned over the tables just one day, just one day. And every other of the 1,277 days of his public ministry, he was an instrument of peace, not of righteous anger. He was the one that was befriending the foreigner or the person of the other race. He was the one healing the unclean.

He was the one that was forgiving the sinner. Church, I'm begging you. cancel their debt because God canceled yours. If that's not hard enough, and I know some of you, this is excruciatingly challenging, but everything about the life of Christ and the teaching of God's Holy Word is always counterintuitive to your human nature and the direction of culture. So we have to look different. So how does that look?

Well, you're going to have to cancel their dead about 20,000 times today. And then tomorrow, maybe 195. And maybe the next day, 18,000 times. Until you wake up one day and the wound was a fact. It's no longer an emotion. It's just I'm choosing in this moment. to not hold it against him, they owe me nothing. And if you really want to be set free and healed, once we've canceled their debt, you're going to speak a blessing to your offender. You're going to bless them.

But I tell you who hear me, Jesus says in the gospel of Luke, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless. This is the word we get eulogy from. Ulojillo. Blessed to speak well of those who curse you and to pray for those who mistreat you. The reason we struggle with allowing a root of bitterness to grow in our lives is because we compare sin. We compare it. The word sin is an archery term. And it means to misdemeanor. the bullseye. What's the bullseye? God's holiness. Well, I only missed it by a millimeter. Maybe so. Look, they missed it by a mile, possibly. And while the consequences on earth are different from the millimeter and the mile, both require the blood of Jesus. Both require the cross.

Both require the grace of God that we do not deserve. And so we bless and not withhold. When you realize what you have been given, how dare we withhold it from others? The person that I have spent the majority of my life having a root of bitterness with is me. I have loathed myself for way too many years of my life. we've been a part of Light Church

or 20 years on staff for 18 and I know some of you know our story some of you are new with us I'll give you the Quick Readers Digest when I came to Light Church I was a moral train wreck I was an addict I was an adulterer

and it all came out six weeks after I had joined staff 20 years ago and my wife wife, Cindy, had every right to live and let her life be defined by betterness towards me. It's kind of wacky. This month, Cindy releases her third book on healing a marriage on the other side of betrayal

because this marks 20 years, 20 years from it all come crashing down. to the hand of God's healing over two decades. And it was actually in this room. It wasn't Edmond campus. It was the East Campus back then. And there were wooden pews in here. And Cindy Beale and I sat right there, month after month after month,

allowing God to heal. And like three or four nights ago, we're laying in bed and we're listening to a podcast that she had recorded about the release of her book. And I know it's been a while, and I'm listening to the questions, and I'm listening to her answer the questions.

And I'm listening to this podcast as I am in the middle of writing this sermon. And, babe, you didn't know why the tears were happening, and it's because listening to this, you are this sermon. Like, I don't need to preach. any of it. Like you are the sermon. I remember the moment where you said, I am choosing to stay and be a part of the redemptive work of God in my husband's life. You didn't have to say that.

I remember how you never once used my sin as ammunition against me to hurt me, not one time. I remember how you would say things about who I was as a husband. husband and the father that weren't actually true, but you spoke blessings over me. You are the sermon. And it was watching you forgive me that gave me the tools to forgive myself. And I think about like how many tens of thousands of people, tens of thousands of couples are different because Cindy said, you know what, I am not going to root my life into bitterness. Instead, I'm going to do what Jesus talked about in John 15. I'm going to abide in and be grafted into the true vine instead.

Instead of hate, what's going to flow through me is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, gentleness, kindness, self-control. And as a result, so many people's lives are different because you are the personification of grace. And church, I ask you, this is not just about you. Does God want you to be free from this bitterness? 100% yes. Does God want to leverage grace through you to impact others? Oh my gosh, yes. But you have to do the unthinkable. I've got to call it out. I have to muster the courage to say, I cancel your debt and I will not hold this against you. And then we are going to do what Jesus taught us. We are going to speak a blessing over those who have heard us.

The Apostle Paul later goes on to say this in Ephesians 4. Church, get rid of all bitterness, all rage, all anger, brawling, and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind, church, be kind and compassionate to one another. Forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you. You don't have to have the courage to muster up forgiveness. You can't create it. You're simply passing along what has already been given to you. All of our locations, would you join me in prayer today? Father, I know this is challenging for so many. God and I pray that your supernatural, shalom, your peace withdraw us to a place of self-honesty. God, help us. Help us to take steps to be set

free from things that we have been imprisoned to for so, so long. at all over locations and online, can we just be honest? How many of you would say, I have spent far too much time living in bitterness and resentment and unforgiveness to someone else? Would you just be honest and raise your hand? I'm going to raise mine as well. Just lift it up all over this place. Father, I thank you for the courage of your people.

God help us to offer. operate in this cycle of forgiveness. God, knowing what you have given to us and give us the courage, God, to release other people from a debt. They may not even know that we hold against them. God, even now in this moment, we choose to pray a blessing over them. God, would your love and your grace find that person right now. We speak a blessing over them. Set our hearts free and help us God to impact so many others

because we are rooted and grounded in grace. As we continue to pray, you cannot give what you have not fully received. And there are some of you listening to this message that feel absolutely deserving. You feel like you're too bad. You feel like you've blown it too big. God's love, maybe for the world, but there's no way that's for me. Well, you don't deserve it, but I pray that that not keep you from asking for it. The Bible says that every single one of us have sinned, whether it be a millimeter or a mile, all of us has sinned. And we have missed, and we have missed the mark, the standard of God's holiness. And there is a cost and a penalty to that. Paul says to the church in Rome that the wages of sin is eternal death and separation from God

forever. That is the very real bad news. But the very real good news is that while we were sinning, Christ died to pay a debt that he did not owe, but you did. I want you to think of like an invoice, right? Every bad thing you've done, you owe God what is on that invoice. And the moment Jesus hung on the cross and said, it is finished. He paved the way for that to be stamped, paid in full. but you need to not just know this, church, you have to receive it. You have to receive that grace for yourselves.

What do you do? You just call out on the name of Jesus. The scripture says, anyone who calls out on the Lord will be saved and made new and set free. And then, church, you will have the capacity to extend that grace to other people. All over the place at all of our churches and online, if you want to say yes, to Jesus. I need you to boldly just lift your hand right now and say, God, I need your grace to be true for me. Just lift it up right where you are. Just lift it up right where you are. Hey, praise God for you. Others of you, just be bold. Lift it up. I want to see you.

Jesus, I need your grace. I'm saying yes. All of our church is praying with those taking the step. Pray this with me. Father, I need you. I've sinned. I'm asking you to save me. Jesus, thank you for giving your life to pay for my sin and rising from the grave to give me life. I give you all of me to use my life for your glory in Jesus name I pray. Can somebody go a little crazy today and celebrate the grace of a good God?