Perils of Unforgiveness | Week 1

Beginning a brand new series today entitled, as you see on the screen, the Perils of Unforgiveness. The Perils of Unforgiveness. Two weeks from today. You gotta mark it down. You do not want to miss a special illustrated sermon from our dear friend Evangeline, Evangelist and pastor Joe Phillips.

And let me just tell you, that'd be a great day for you to invite somebody who is unchurched or dechurched to come to be a part of that. That's going to be the conclusion to this series. Matthew 18. We're going to go there in just a moment. And I feel like God laid the title the Perils of Unforgiveness on my heart for many reasons.

But if we look in the dictionary, the word peril, Merriam Webster defines it like this. Exposure to the risk of being injured, destroyed or lost. The Cambridge dictionary defines it like this great danger or something that is very dangerous. Here's what I believe in my heart, that there are many people in great danger of being injured, of being lost, or of being completely destroyed because they have been caught in the devil's trap of unforgiveness.

Psychology Today in August of 2014, told the story of a young man from Medellin, Colombia by the name of didier. He was 11 years old and his mother was a street vendor. And he watched as she was shot 38 times and murdered in front of him.

And that tragedy led this 11 year old boy into a self destructive lifestyle of alcohol and crime and drugs. For many years.

People in the neighborhood told Didier where the assassin lived. And it was actually pretty close to where Didier lived. And Didier began plotting his revenge. He started collecting guns, even had grenades. And at night he would cry.

As a, as a young teenage boy, he would cry as he would think about and plot how he was going to exact revenge on his mother's assassin. One day a friend invited Didier to church and he went to church. And as he was sitting in that service, he realized that the hatred that he was harboring in his heart was actually consuming his soul and was killing him. And he found the strength and the courage to forgive the man who had killed his mother. For years he was caught in that trap of unforgiveness.

And he realized sitting in that church service that he had swallowed and ingested the bitter pill of unforgiveness and it almost destroyed him.

Here's what I believe today, that regardless of your age, or your gender, or how long you've served God, or how mature you are in the Lord, or how deep that your roots go in the things of God. Or maybe, maybe you're not even a believer at all. But I know this. We have this. One thing in common is that not one person, not one person here, not one person watching online is exempt from the potential of harboring unforgiveness in our hearts.

Everybody is capable, and everybody at one point or another battles the enemy of unforgiveness. I can't talk about the subject without going to Matthew chapter 18. If you're there in your device or your Bible, I want you to stand to honor the word of God. We're going to read this story together. I'm going to share the story beginning in verse 21 of Matthew 18.

The verses are on the screen. If you don't have your Bible with you or device with you. And as always, the notes for today's message are on the Refuge app. And I would encourage you to follow along and fill in the blanks here in the story. It begins like this.

Then Peter came to him and asked, lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times? No, not seven times, Jesus replied, but 70 times seven. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven can be 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, and so his master ordered that he be sold along with his wife, his children, and everything that 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. And then his master was filled with pity for him and he released him and he forgave his debt. But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand.

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. Similar words or familiar words to the man who just pleaded with the king using those same words, 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 they told him everything that had happened. And 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? And then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt. Verse 35.

That's what my heavenly Father will do to you, Jesus says, if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart. I would guess that this is a pretty familiar passage of scripture to many of you that are here this morning or even that are watching us, joining us online. Familiar passage of Scripture. But I feel so strongly in my heart that as we begin this series, there is something new, something fresh that God desires to speak to you today, and something that the Holy Spirit wants to do in your heart. Let's make some declarations together and we'll jump right in.

Everybody ready? Go. I will hide this word in my heart that I might not sin against God. This word is life to my body.

I will be a doer of the Word and not a hearer only. And I am confident of this that he who has begun a good work in me will complete it. In Jesus name, Amen. You can be seated. Jesus tells this story as he often did in order to teach.

And the story still has life on it today. It still speaks to us today. How many of you are thankful that the Word of God is living and active. It's not some ancient document that has no relevance to our lives today, but it's as practical and as living today as it was 2,000 years ago. And Jesus tells this story to help us to see clearly the perils of unforgiveness he encounters.

He knew how destructive it could be in a person's life and how it would rob you and I of the abundant life that Jesus desires for us to have. And the story that Jesus tells is prompted by a question that Peter asks. When Peter comes to him, and with sincerity, he says, lord, how often should I forgive someone who hurts me or who offends me? And then he kind of answers his own question when he says, should I forgive him seven times. Seven times.

And he's feeling rather smug in his spiritual superiority because the Jewish law required a person to forgive someone three times. And so Peter's not just doubling down, but he's doubling the number and adding one for good measure, thinking Jesus most certainly will be impressed.

Should I forgive him seven times? Peter asked. And Jesus reply was, you know, he says, no, not seven times, but 70 times seven. And lest we get hung up the number, we can easily do the math and calculate that out and apply that in our own lives and say, well, there's a limit to the amount of times that I am to forgive. But Jesus, however, is illustrating a concept in this story, in this parable that he's about to tell for Peter and the listening audience and for you and I, because he.

He wants to drive on this concept that he's illustrating. And it's the concept of limitless forgiveness. It's the concept of a lifestyle of forgiveness. In other words, Jesus is saying, it's infinite. 70 times 7 represents.

It's the infiniteness, the willingness of a person to forgive over and over and over for a lifetime, regardless of how big or how small the offense might be. Jesus response is, again, it's not a literal number and it's not an invitation for you and I to keep score or to enter into some legalistic lifestyle of looking good on the outside while yet being destroyed on the inside.

Again, as Jesus often did, he taught him parables. And a parable, as I've shared with you many times, is simply a fictitious story that's laid alongside of a doctrinal truth to drive home the truth, to drive home the message that he's trying to convey to his disciples or to the Jewish listening audience or to you and I. And this story, again, speaks to us today, and it reminds us and it reinforces to us a few things. Number one, that God is the only one that can forgive our debts.

He's the only one that can do that. And if you haven't figured it out by now, the king in the story is God.

And the king decides he's going to settle his accounts. Anybody who's ever borrowed money from him, anybody who ever owed him anything, he's going to call them in and he's going to settle the accounts right then. And if you haven't figured this part out, you and I step into the story. In verse 24 and 25, we're the servant who owes millions of dollars. Because, you see, at one time or another, maybe it's now, maybe it was in your past you had a debt that you could not pay.

You see, the servant in verse 24 and 25 owes the king millions of dollars, and he does not have the ability to pay the debt, and neither do you and I when it comes to the debt of sin. Listen, you cannot do enough kind deeds, you cannot memorize enough scriptures, you cannot serve enough, you cannot go through catechism enough times, you cannot take communion enough times to alleviate the stain of sin on your heart. Religion won't do it. Being a good person will not do it. There's only one who can forgive you of the debt of sin, and his name is Jesus.

And if you're thankful that he forgives, somebody ought to say amen.

Now, the king chose to forgive the servant. Servant realizes, there's no way I could ever repay this. And he throws himself at the mercy of the king and he begs for mercy. He begs that the king would give him more time. And the king didn't have to do it because the servant owed him the money.

But yet the king chooses to have pity on him. And he wipes away millions of dollars of debt. And he did the same thing for you and I.

Did you miss that? Is it too fundamental, is it too elementary for you to respond with joy and with excitement that you had a debt that you could not pay? And there was a king who saw your sin and said, I'm going to wipe that away. Amen. I'm going to forgive you and I'm going to cleanse you.

And listen, he did not have to do that. He didn't have to go to the cross that Clay was talking about a few moments ago. In fact, the Bible says he could have sent for 12 legions of angels, 78,000 angels that he could have dispatched to come and rescue him from the cross. But he didn't do that because he loved us and he wanted to forgive us of our sin. That's shouting territory, my friend.

Come on. That's worshiping territory right there. Secondly, the story reminds us that we are called to forgive others. We're called to forgive others.

God does not give you and I an exemption based on the severity or on the size of the offense, large or small. We're called to forgive.

You don't have to like what I say. I don't really care if you like what I say. I'm not called to win a popularity contest with the people that I preach to. I'm called to preach the truth. And I do that because I love you enough.

And I want you to be free today. Free from the bitter pill of unforgiveness, free from the peril, the danger, the loss of unforgiveness. And we don't allow feelings to determine whether or not we're going to obey Scripture. I've discovered in my own life that when I've been offended, most of the time now, I don't feel like forgiving the person who has offended me. I don't feel that.

But we don't base whether or not we're going to obey scripture on how we feel.

Forgiving other people requires that you and I give up our right for revenge, that we give up our right to stay mad or to get even, or to wish harm or evil on them or to hurt them back. And I know what it feels like. I know what it means to say I have a right to get even with them. I have a right to be upset. I have a right to get angry.

I have a right to get revenge on that person for what they did to me. I understand that. I get it. Just because I'm a pastor doesn't mean I'm not human. I have emotions.

I can be hurt. I can be offended, just like you. But I also understand what it means to say, you know what? I have a right to give up my rights and to allow God to deal with that person, and I release them to Him. And it's only when I'm willing to do that.

Experience the freedom of God.

Whether we like it or not, we are called to forgive others. We're commanded to forgive other people.

We have to be willing to give up our rights. Listen, the nature of Jesus is love and grace. And it's his love and grace that makes relationship possible. Again, you and I could not absolve the debt of sin that we all had. And because of that, we could not have a relationship with the Father.

It was only the love and the grace of Jesus that built a bridge and allows you and I to come into his presence and to have 247 access with the father and to have intimacy and relationship with him, his love and his grace. Now listen to me. It is impossible for us to take on his nature if we omit those traits from our lives. You say, well, the person didn't ask me to forgive them. Doesn't matter.

Well, that person doesn't deserve to be forgiven. Doesn't matter.

If you, if you want to be like Jesus, then it means that you're willing to extend love and grace to others and to give up your right to get even and to say, lord, you deal with them however you desire. Third thing it reminds us is that refusing to forgive others places us in great danger.

Places us in great danger. You gotta hear this. It's so important. Because if we harbor unforgiveness and if we swallow that bitter pill of unforgiveness in our own lives, it releases spiritual poison and it will destroy you. My friend.

You've heard the old saying, bitterness or unforgiveness is like drinking poison and waiting on the other person to die. All you're doing is killing yourself and destroying yourself. It puts you in danger of losing everything that Jesus died on the cross for you to enjoy and for you to have. And here's the second thing, and you're probably not going to like this either. But when you refuse to forgive, you open yourself up to demonic activity.

It's the truth. We just read it. It's the truth of the word of God. You open yourself up to demonic influence when you refuse to forgive somebody else.

Let me read it again. Verse 31. 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 millions of dollars, and he 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? And then the angry king. The angry king. Oh, for the man or the woman who falls into the hands of an angry God. Then the angry king sent the man to prison bondage to be tortured, to be tortured, to be tormented until he had paid his entire debt.

And that's what my heavenly Father will do to you, Jesus says, if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart. Listen, what is so sad for me as a pastor is to realize that there are many people who are tormented and tortured emotionally and physically and spiritually, all because of unforgiveness. They are reaping things in their bodies, reaping things in their minds and in their spirits because they refuse to forgive, because of the torment of the enemy, because of the demonic activity of the enemy. And they are the ones who open the door for that. Because, listen, when you make the choice, and forgiving or unforgiving or not forgiving is a choice.

Again, it's not a feeling. It's not just when we're moved and compelled by the Holy Spirit. And all of a sudden we feel like forgiving that person and releasing them to God. It is a choice that we have to make. And if we do not do that, all of a sudden we kick the door wide open for demonic activity to come in and wreak havoc on our lives.

A few years ago, I was preaching a revival in Kentucky. It was on a Friday night, and I was praying for people at the end of the message who needed a physical healing. I was going down the line praying for different ones. And I was praying for this particular lady, and I would guess that she was probably in her 30s. Mid to late 30s.

I don't know. I didn't ask her her age. I wasn't born last night. I was born at night, but it wasn't last night. But I just was guessing, and I said, what can I pray for you about?

And she said, I had a car wreck three years ago, and I suffer from back pain, excruciating back pain. And the doctors have tried all these things, and I'm suffering constantly with this back pain. I said, we're going to pray. We're going to believe. God's going to heal you.

I start praying over this woman. And as I'm praying, in the middle of me praying for her, I get a word of knowledge, and I stop right in the middle of my prayer. I said, ma', am, I feel like the Holy Spirit just spoke to me. And I said, I could be wrong, but I feel like I need to share this with you, because while I'm praying, I feel like that your pain in your back is connected to unforgiveness. And when I said that, she started weeping.

She didn't say anything. She didn't tell me anything. She just starts weeping. And so I just began to pray. I said, listen, I believe that if you'll make the choice to forgive, God's gonna heal your back.

I just began praying over here. God, give her the courage. Help her to choose to forgive. The next day, I'm having lunch with the pastor of the church. I'm preaching again that night, having lunch with him.

And I said, hey, man, I wanted to ask you about somebody I was praying for last night. He said, I know who you're gonna talk about. I said, you do? He said, yeah, it was a woman. And he described her.

And I said, yeah. I said I felt like I had a word of knowledge for her while I was praying for her. And I told him the story. And he said, yes, she did have a car wreck, but let me tell you what else happened. He said, about three years ago, her grandmother shot and killed her mother.

He said, she lost two dear women in her life on the same day. Her grandmother went to prison and her mother was killed. And she has not been able to forgive her grandmother for that. I said, well, I believe that she did last night. And I believe God's going to heal her body.

And here's what I believe. I believe there are some of you who are tormented in your mind and in your body because of unforgiveness. I believe you've opened the door for demonic activity. You've opened the door for the tormentor to come in and to torment your sleep and to torment you and your physical body. But I believe today's a day of freedom for you.

And I believe that as you make the choice to forgive, God is going to heal you and God is going to set you free. John 10:10 makes it very clear. We know the verse that there's a thief, there's an enemy, that his name is Satan, and he desires to do three things. He desires to rob from you, steal from you, he desires secondly, to kill you, and he desires to destroy you. And I believe that through unforgiveness, this thief, by the name of Satan, wants to rob us of three things.

Number one, he wants to rob you of freedom.

You'll never experience the true feeling of being free in your spirit as long as you harbor unforgiveness. You'll never know what that's like. You'll never know what that feels like. Psalm 16. In the presence of the Lord, there is fullness of joy, and at his right hand, pleasures forevermore.

Freedom brings joy, freedom brings peace, freedom brings contentment, and freedom brings his presence. Ephesians 4, 31 and 32. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another. Just as God, through Christ, has forgiven you, the devil today wants to rob you of the freedom that God intends for you to have.

Secondly, he desires to rob you of fellowship, of fellowship. Because the reality is we forfeit fellowship with God and fellowship with each other. If we choose to harbor unforgiveness in our spirit, we forfeit that. Look. What?

First John, chapter one, verse six and seven says so if we say we have fellowship with God, but we continue living in darkness, we are liars and do not follow the truth. But if we live in the light, and what I'm calling you to do today is to bring those things into the light.

And here's what I believe is happening even right now. There are things that are being dredged up in your spirit by the Holy Spirit, not because he's mean, but because he's merciful. And I believe he'll dredge things up that have long been buried in your soul that maybe you haven't thought about for years. And all of a sudden a memory is going to come back to your mind, a face is going to pop up into your head, and that is the mercy of God bringing those things to your remembrance because he wants you to have sweet fellowship. And intimacy with him and fellowship with others.

And I'm asking you to bring those things into the light of his Presence. Watch verse 7. If we live in the light, as God is in the light, we can share fellowship with each other. And then the blood of Jesus, God's Son, cleanses us from every sin. Unforgiveness blocks our ability to have intimacy with our heavenly Father and with others.

It becomes a wall, it becomes a barrier that blocks fellowship and listen. Fellowship with him and fellowship with each other brings life. And it's like when you choose to harbor unforgiveness in your heart, it's like you sever an artery that brings life to you.

And God wants you to bring those things into the light so that intimacy is restored. Intimacy with others and intimacy with Him. Here's the third thing we forfeit. We allow the enemy to rob us not only of freedom and fellowship, but he robs us of forgiveness. Because the Bible makes it clear that if you're not willing to forgive other people, God cannot forgive you.

Jesus himself said it in Matthew, chapter 6, verse 15. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. I want you to watch this story and then we're going to pray. Watch the story of this young man by the name of Matt Schwatzel and this pastor by the name of Eric Fitzgerald of how God restored fellowship between them.

You see, we prefer to wait until we feel like forgiving, but if we do that, then our lives are dictated by our. At the fire department, we work 24 hour shifts. And that particular day we didn't get hardly any sleep. It was literally like three or four seconds to nod off and to cross the center line and to meet the other car.

Forgiveness is a. A choice, not a feeling. I'm supposed to be a helper. The EMT and the paramedic and the fireman. That helps in these tragic situations.

And here I am caused this. See, forgiveness makes us victorious. Two men of service, one a pastor, the other a rookie firefighter, forever bound in tragedy. For them, it's hard to believe over a decade has passed. I can still see it.

I can still smell it. The horrendous noise and the glass breaking when the grief counselor approached. In the hospital, Eric Fitzgerald knew his wife June was gone, leaving their 19 month old daughter. Faith without a mom Face is sitting there playing on the little hospital bed with the nurse. And of course she sees me and reaches out.

I don't know what she understood really, but she crawled into my lap and she just went to sleep. And I was thankful because I didn't have to pretend that everything was okay.

I was at the hospital and police officer came in and he said, I don't know if anyone's told you, but June didn't make it. And then he also told me. He said, and by the way, she was seven months pregnant, and the baby didn't make it either.

Eric, you had the opportunity to really say to the judge, you know what? I think this guy deserves some hard time. What did you do? I remembered somebody said this in a sermon. In moments where tragedy happens or even hurt, that there's opportunities to demonstrate grace or to exact vengeance.

And I chose to demonstrate grace. The men knew of each other, but endured their grief apart until the two year anniversary of June's death. Matt Swatzell had stopped by the grocery store to buy a condolence card for Eric when he spotted him in the parking lot. Eric starts walking out of the grocery store and starts walking towards my truck. What do you see in the window?

He was just bawling. Yeah. So I just walked up and I just hugged him. I mean, what do you say? You know, sometimes things are best said with no words.

That hug must have felt like someone had just put a pin in two years of pressure. That was the biggest relief I had ever felt. He just said from the start that he forgave me. And just hearing him say those words, it just impacted my life completely. They talked for two hours that day.

And where you might imagine the relationship would end, I said, man, I don't know what you're gonna say to this. I said, but I just feel like in my spirit that I'm supposed to stay connected to you somehow. And he's like, dude, I feel the same way.

We knew it was something special. We just had this instant bond. It's unexplainable. It's just easy to talk to each other. Look at that deliciousness.

We just talk about life, you know, just how we're doing and just moving forward. And he said, don't let this define you. Meeting with Eric, it gave me hope that we're gonna be okay.

As the years unfolded, strangers became friends and something even more. I'm witnessing a little bit of a miracle with you two sitting here together. There's a bond that we have that's unexplainable. He's like a big brother to me. You know, we have a lot of fun together.

You know, as weird as it may sound and crazy, but we do. It's unique.

I can't say, this is a beautiful story and it's got a great ending. It doesn't. It's nasty. It's real, and it's something that I'm going to struggle with for the rest of my life.

Both men view their friendship as a sign from above. Another sign. Years later, Eric remarried and was expecting a child. The baby was born on the same due date as the son he'd lost. Forgiveness is not minimizing the offense.

Eric practices what he preaches and raised his daughter, Faith, to choose love over anger. So next year, that means you're gonna play varsity? Most likely, yeah. I usually just say my mom got in a car accident. I just don't want people to think that Matthew's a bad person, because he isn't.

He just made a mistake. I just want her to know that she's loved. She's not alone.

Dang it.

Throughout her whole life, I'll be there for her no matter what.

So just seeing Faith, you know, holding my kids, it puts a smile on my face. It hurts, but it's the cards that we were dealt, and now it's our story together. It reminds me that there's grace and there's hope and there's good.

I mean, June's in heaven, you know, and one day, you know, we'll get to all kind of hang out, and so, you know, God's a big God, and I think that's going to be a great day. One day.

Hey, thanks so much for joining us for this message. If God spoke to your heart in a special way, we would love to hear from you. You can reach out to us@testify.therefuge.net I look forward to you joining us again, whether it's in person or online. God bless you.