Speaker 1: We all know we're imperfect. But we say to God, God,
Speaker 1: we're going to trust you. And when you come to
Speaker 1: Christ and you say, you're going to take my sins
Speaker 1: on you? Yeah. What are you giving me in return?
Speaker 1: My goodness. You don't have to beg. Please, God, please,
Speaker 1: please save me. You don't have to bargain. If you'll
Speaker 1: do this, God, then I'll do that. You don't have
Speaker 1: to bribe. I'll read my Bible every day. You just believe.
Speaker 1: That's it. That's why it's called the good news. Now
Speaker 1: he says he restores my soul. What does that mean? First,
Speaker 1: what's your soul? What is your soul? Well the Bible
Speaker 1: says that you have a spirit, you have a soul,
Speaker 1: and you have a body. Just like the tabernacle and
Speaker 1: the temple were a three part dwelling place of God,
Speaker 1: the inner court, the outer court, and the Holy of Holies,
Speaker 1: God dwells in you in three parts, in your spirit,
Speaker 1: in your soul and in your body. What's the difference
Speaker 1: between your spirit and your soul? Well, the Bible even
Speaker 1: says itself that only the Bible can discern the difference.
Speaker 1: That it is the word of God that is sharper
Speaker 1: than a two-edged sword dividing even asunder a soul and spirit.
Speaker 1: And so I don't wanna get into that, but I
Speaker 1: do wanna tell you what your soul is. Your soul
Speaker 1: is your mind, it is your will, and it is
Speaker 1: your motion. So why don't you write this down if
Speaker 1: you're taking notes, my soul is the part of me
Speaker 1: that thinks, chooses, and feels. My soul is the part
Speaker 1: of me that thinks, that chooses, and that feels. It's
Speaker 1: your mind, it's your will, and your emotion. Now if
Speaker 1: you don't have a soul, you don't have a whole lot.
Speaker 1: But these three parts of who you are, the way
Speaker 1: you think, the way you feel, and the choices that
Speaker 1: you make, your mind, will, and your emotions, really determine
Speaker 1: who you are. And it's very easy to get these damaged.
Speaker 1: Can your mind be damaged? Of course it can, yeah,
Speaker 1: by what you put in it, by experiences, by trauma, chemistry,
Speaker 1: all kinds of things, your mind can be damaged. You
Speaker 1: don't always think straight, and neither do I. And how
Speaker 1: about your emotions? Can your emotions be damaged? Yes. Your
Speaker 1: emotions can get raw, that you can get depleted emotionally,
Speaker 1: you can be out of emotion, you could be over emotional.
Speaker 1: And yes, our minds are broken, our emotions are broken,
Speaker 1: and actually, can your will be broken? Yes. Can it
Speaker 1: be damaged? Yes. Have you ever had a chance to
Speaker 1: look at your life and you think, I really know
Speaker 1: the right thing to do, and I wanna do the
Speaker 1: right thing, but I never do choose it. Because our
Speaker 1: choosers are broken. Our choosers are broken. We're all flawed
Speaker 1: in many ways, and that's why there are addictions, and
Speaker 1: that's why you do things that you don't wanna do,
Speaker 1: and you don't do things that you wanna do. That's
Speaker 1: part of your willpower doesn't always work. How many of
Speaker 1: you agree willpower doesn't always work? Yeah, right. And so
Speaker 1: when we talk about our soul, the way we think,
Speaker 1: the way we feel, and the way we choose, the
Speaker 1: decisions that we make, God says, I want to restore
Speaker 1: that in your life. I want to restore you to wholeness.
Speaker 1: I want to restore your mind and will and emotions
Speaker 1: to health. That's one of the things the good shepherd
Speaker 1: does for the sheep. The Lord is my shepherd. I
Speaker 1: have everything I need. Well, sometimes I need to think straighter.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I need to feel correctly because my emotions
Speaker 1: aren't always right. Sometimes they lie. And sometimes I need
Speaker 1: my will fixed because I don't have enough willpower to
Speaker 1: do what I need to do. Now, what is it
Speaker 1: that damages your soul? What I want us to do
Speaker 1: this weekend is ask a couple questions. What damages our soul?
Speaker 1: Because you can't get it restored unless you know what's
Speaker 1: causing the problem. What damages my soul? We'll look at that.
Speaker 1: And then we're going to look at what Jesus does
Speaker 1: to restore it. How does Jesus restore? Right thinking, right feeling,
Speaker 1: and right deciding. And then finally, we'll look at, just
Speaker 1: very briefly, how do I make of the right decisions
Speaker 1: to let my soul be restored. In other words, what's
Speaker 1: my response to what God wants to do in my life, okay? Now,
Speaker 1: let's begin with what is it that damages your soul?
Speaker 1: Why don't you always think right? Why don't you always
Speaker 1: feel right? And why don't you always choose right? There
Speaker 1: are many things that could damage your soul, but I
Speaker 1: wanna focus on the three most common. Three most common,
Speaker 1: you might write these down. Number one, the first thing
Speaker 1: that damages the way you think, the way you feel,
Speaker 1: and the way you decide is under or unaddressed grudges.
Speaker 1: Unaddressed grudges. When you get resentful, when you get bitter,
Speaker 1: when you start thinking about retaliation or revenge in somebody
Speaker 1: who's hurt you, it damages your soul. Now there are
Speaker 1: a lot of verses about this, but let me first
Speaker 1: talk about the background. The fact is in life, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be hurt. Why? This is not heaven, this is earth.
Speaker 1: And we're all broken people, we're all imperfect, Sometimes we
Speaker 1: hurt each other intentionally. Sometimes we hurt each other unintentionally.
Speaker 1: But the truth is, you're gonna be hurt in life.
Speaker 1: And sometimes people hurt you, and sometimes you hurt them.
Speaker 1: And so when that happens, we start to build up grudges.
Speaker 1: Now let me just start at the bedrock. Life is
Speaker 1: not fair. God never said that life would be fair.
Speaker 1: This is not heaven, where everything is done perfectly. God's
Speaker 1: will is always done instantly, perfectly, and completely. A lot
Speaker 1: of times we choose not to do God's will. That's
Speaker 1: called sin. And because life is unfair, the Bible tells
Speaker 1: us that innocent people suffer. This is not something new.
Speaker 1: Everybody can see it. That good guys don't always win.
Speaker 1: Bad guys often are successful. That there is injustice in
Speaker 1: the world. There's racism in the world. There's prejudice in
Speaker 1: the world. There is unfairness in the world. And every
Speaker 1: one of us in different ways have experienced unfairness or
Speaker 1: prejudicial treatment against you in some way and you shouldn't
Speaker 1: be surprised by that because the world is broken, everything
Speaker 1: is broken. What I'm interested in is not so much
Speaker 1: the fact that you're gonna be hurt in life, I'm
Speaker 1: sorry for it, but what I'm more interested in is
Speaker 1: how you respond to it. Because your response to how
Speaker 1: you get hurt in life is far more important than
Speaker 1: the hurt you have. Because they can either make you
Speaker 1: bitter or they can make you better. And when God
Speaker 1: wants to restore your soul, he wants to take all
Speaker 1: of the bitter things in your life and turn them
Speaker 1: into better things in your life. We'll come to that
Speaker 1: in just a minute. Now when you have grudges, when
Speaker 1: people hurt you, you can either let it go or
Speaker 1: you can start dwelling on it and stewing and spewing
Speaker 1: and worrying about all things. You start planning how to retaliate,
Speaker 1: how to resent them, how to get even with them.
Speaker 1: When you, somebody hurts you, that puts them beneath you
Speaker 1: morally when they hurt you. But when you try to
Speaker 1: get even, it just puts you on the same level.
Speaker 1: You're no better than they are. When you let it go,
Speaker 1: when you forgive them, it actually puts you in a
Speaker 1: superior position. You don't want to ever get even with
Speaker 1: people because that means you're the same as they are.
Speaker 1: If you get even with them, you're no better than
Speaker 1: they are. So what do you do when you're hurt? Resent? Retaliate?
Speaker 1: Seek revenge? No. No you don't. Let me show you why.
Speaker 1: A couple verses. Job 5 verse 2 says this. To
Speaker 1: worry yourself to death with resentment would be a foolish,
Speaker 1: senseless thing to do. And in Job 18 verse 4
Speaker 1: it says this. You're only hurting yourself with your anger.
Speaker 1: You're only hurting yourself. We've talked about this many times.
Speaker 1: That when you When you hold onto a grudge, it's
Speaker 1: not hurting them. It's only hurting you. They're out there
Speaker 1: having a good time. They're watching movies. They're going to
Speaker 1: nice restaurants. They're going to ball games. They're having a
Speaker 1: whole lot of fun. They're totally oblivious. Who gets hurt
Speaker 1: when you're resentful? You do. It's like drinking poison and
Speaker 1: hoping it kills them. It's like taking fire into your
Speaker 1: stomach or your chest and hoping they get burned. Resentment
Speaker 1: is worthless. He says to worry yourself to death with
Speaker 1: resentment would be a foolish thing to do. Now the
Speaker 1: Bible does say that one day God's gonna even the score.
Speaker 1: The Bible says that there is a judgment day and
Speaker 1: that God is not just a loving God, he's a
Speaker 1: just God. If God was not a just God, people
Speaker 1: like Hitler could get away with everything they did. I'm
Speaker 1: glad that God is a just God. Now you can
Speaker 1: get around that judgment by accepting the grace of God
Speaker 1: and accepting the salvation that Jesus Christ paid for your sins.
Speaker 1: But there's gonna be a judgment day for everybody. And
Speaker 1: God is gonna be just in measuring out what people
Speaker 1: deserve based on their sinfulness. God says, I don't want
Speaker 1: you to have to go through the judgment. God doesn't
Speaker 1: like to judge. He likes to show mercy. All through scripture,
Speaker 1: God is very patient. And God is very... reluctant to
Speaker 1: judge and he'll wait and wait and wait and wait
Speaker 1: before he judges a nation or a person, things like that.
Speaker 1: He'd rather be merciful. But there is a judgment coming
Speaker 1: one day and God is gonna even the odds and
Speaker 1: people who were mistreated and misjudged and treated unfairly, there
Speaker 1: will be an equaling out, a time of justice. But
Speaker 1: that's not your job. If you try to show justice
Speaker 1: yourself and you take matters into your hands and get revenge,
Speaker 1: God says, fine, that's all we're going to do on that.
Speaker 1: So what do you do in the meantime? You let
Speaker 1: it go. You say, but Rick, you don't know how
Speaker 1: much they've hurt me. You let it Why? Not because
Speaker 1: they deserve it. They don't. You don't deserve to be forgiven.
Speaker 1: You don't deserve to be forgiven at all either. But
Speaker 1: God has forgiven you. You forgive people not because they
Speaker 1: deserve it. You forgive people because you don't wanna carry
Speaker 1: the pain around anymore. You don't wanna be stuck with
Speaker 1: unaddressed grudges. Because it's not gonna hurt them, it's only
Speaker 1: gonna hurt you. You know, Martin Luther King once said,
Speaker 1: bitterness is blindness. Bitterness is blindness. And I like that
Speaker 1: because when I get bitter against somebody over here, I
Speaker 1: get blind to a whole lot of other things. I
Speaker 1: get blind to how much God has done good in
Speaker 1: my life. I get blind to the truth. I get
Speaker 1: blind to all the needs of people around me. I'll
Speaker 1: just say this. You're never gonna stop hurting. Your soul
Speaker 1: will not be restored until you learn to forgive and
Speaker 1: let it go. You gotta drop it. We'll come back
Speaker 1: to that in a minute. The second thing that destroys
Speaker 1: your soul from the inside, I said first unaddressed grudges,
Speaker 1: the second is unconfessed guilt. Grudges and guilt are two
Speaker 1: of the biggest things that warp your soul. And grudges
Speaker 1: have to do with what people have done to you,
Speaker 1: and guilt is what you've done to other people. And
Speaker 1: we have both, we've hurt others and other people have
Speaker 1: hurt us. And so, unconfessed guilt, nothing damages your life more,
Speaker 1: your soul more. Nothing will rob your happiness quicker than
Speaker 1: to go around carrying a load of guilt. A lot
Speaker 1: of people have a misconception of God. They think that
Speaker 1: God wants us to walk around feeling guilty. He does not.
Speaker 1: God hates guilt. In fact, God loves to forgive guilt.
Speaker 1: God doesn't want you to be guilty all the time.
Speaker 1: In fact, he didn't make your body to handle guilt.
Speaker 1: You should only handle guilt for about five seconds. That's
Speaker 1: long enough to realize that was wrong and I confessed
Speaker 1: it to God and I let it go. You don't
Speaker 1: carry all your sins around in your life unconfessed. If
Speaker 1: you do that, it's like carrying a garbage bag of
Speaker 1: junk with you into the each new year. Many years ago,
Speaker 1: I remember there was a couple in our church who,
Speaker 1: they were singles and they found each other in our
Speaker 1: church and they got married. And that's when the church
Speaker 1: was much smaller and I actually was able to do
Speaker 1: their wedding. About 10 years later, they came back and
Speaker 1: they said, can we take you out to dinner? And
Speaker 1: we had a dinner with them and I said, so
Speaker 1: tell me what's happened in the last 10 years. And
Speaker 1: I remember the woman told me, she said, you know, Rick,
Speaker 1: I never realized that when I was walking down that
Speaker 1: aisle in that beautiful white dress that I was carrying
Speaker 1: a sack of garbage with me into this marriage. We
Speaker 1: all do that. Now listen closely. Marriage does not create problems.
Speaker 1: It reveals them. It reveals them. And the things that
Speaker 1: need correcting in your life show up real quick when
Speaker 1: somebody else is living with you. And what needs correcting
Speaker 1: in their life shows up real quick when they live
Speaker 1: with you. Marriage doesn't create problems. It reveals things that
Speaker 1: need to be worked on. And the purpose of marriage
Speaker 1: is not just to make you happy. It's to make
Speaker 1: you holy. And the number one tool, if you're married,
Speaker 1: the number one tool that God uses in your life
Speaker 1: is your spouse. You say, oh, brother. My spouse isn't
Speaker 1: even a believer. Doesn't matter. God will still use them
Speaker 1: in your life. And so we start having guilt over
Speaker 1: all of the things that we've done to other people.
Speaker 1: Look at this verse, Psalm 38. David talks about guilt.
Speaker 1: He says, my guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden
Speaker 1: too heavy to bear. God doesn't want you to carry
Speaker 1: that around. I'm bowed below, down, and I'm brought low,
Speaker 1: and all day long, I go about mourning. Now there's
Speaker 1: a couple problems with guilt. One of them is, every
Speaker 1: one of us have a good reason to have it.
Speaker 1: It's legit, because we don't always do what's right. We
Speaker 1: always hurt other people, we do selfish things. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it bothers you, but it bothers me, I
Speaker 1: often say, The most unkind things to the people I
Speaker 1: love the most. I'm just being honest with you. That
Speaker 1: ever happen to any of you? Or are you all
Speaker 1: so holy? Oh no, I never say anything mean to
Speaker 1: my kids or my spouse. Yeah, right. Yeah. Why is that?
Speaker 1: Because at root, we're selfish. I want what I want
Speaker 1: when I want it and your spouse wants what they
Speaker 1: want when they want it. And when two very self-centered
Speaker 1: people hit together, it's gonna cause problems. And that creates guilt.
Speaker 1: And you cannot have two imperfect people and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden they're going in the same direction and they're
Speaker 1: gonna create a perfect relationship. There are no perfect relationships.
Speaker 1: And that's why we need forgiveness. Because unconfessed guilt causes
Speaker 1: a lot of problem. Now look at this verse. Proverbs
Speaker 1: 20 verse 27 tells us the other reason why we
Speaker 1: have problem with guilt. It's because we run from our
Speaker 1: own consciences. Proverbs 20, verse 27. The Lord gave us
Speaker 1: a mind and a conscience. And we can't hide from ourselves.
Speaker 1: You see, you can hide all kinds of stuff from me.
Speaker 1: And I'll never know about it. You might even hide
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of things from a friend or your
Speaker 1: boss or your spouse or your kids. But you're not
Speaker 1: hiding anything from God And not only that, you're not
Speaker 1: hiding anything from yourself. And when you try to hide it,
Speaker 1: it just starts eating you on the inside. Because the
Speaker 1: Lord gave us a mind and a conscience. We can't
Speaker 1: hide from ourselves. And if you think, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I just feel bad. I'm gonna go to, you know,
Speaker 1: take a vacation. But you take yourself on vacation. And
Speaker 1: so you take that same stress that's in your mind.
Speaker 1: The grudges you have toward other people and the guilt
Speaker 1: that you have about the stuff you've done wrong Now,
Speaker 1: what do you do with guilt? What do you do
Speaker 1: with guilt? Well, the answer is the same thing as grudges,
Speaker 1: and it's forgiveness. In grudges, you gotta forgive them, but
Speaker 1: in guilt, you've gotta ask God for forgiveness, then you
Speaker 1: gotta forgive yourself. Now, normally, we do everything except that.
Speaker 1: Let me show you all the ways that don't work,
Speaker 1: and why our soul, the way we think, the way
Speaker 1: we feel, and the way we choose, is often broken,
Speaker 1: because when you or feel guilty, you don't make smart decisions.
Speaker 1: And neither do I. Now, sometimes we just try to
Speaker 1: deny our guilt. We just pretend like it doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like those T-shirts we have in Celebrate Recovery,
Speaker 1: denial is not a river in Egypt. Denial is the
Speaker 1: thing that keeps you stuck in your guilt. And what
Speaker 1: we do in denial is we just try to pretend
Speaker 1: that it doesn't exist, and we say, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna bury my past. You know what the problem
Speaker 1: with burying your past? It resurrects itself at the most
Speaker 1: inopportune times. And it comes back. And it resurrects and
Speaker 1: it comes back to haunt you like the living dead.
Speaker 1: And something that happened 20 years ago, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it's back in your face again. So denial doesn't work.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we just try to minimize it. And when we
Speaker 1: minimize our guilt, it's kind of like, well, it's no
Speaker 1: big deal. I mean, everybody else does it. You know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't that bad. It's just a little teeny, tiny, teeny,
Speaker 1: tiny sin. Well, if it's so tiny, why do you
Speaker 1: still remember it? It's not. It's not tiny. If you
Speaker 1: remember it, it's a big deal. And if it keeps
Speaker 1: coming back in your mind, it's a big deal. And
Speaker 1: you're not gonna get rid of it by denying it
Speaker 1: or by minimizing it. Now, a third way we try
Speaker 1: to deal with guilt that doesn't work is we rationalize it.
Speaker 1: And I've said before, To rationalize means to tell yourself
Speaker 1: rational lies. You're trying to convince yourself in your head
Speaker 1: what your heart knows is wrong. That's to rationalize. We
Speaker 1: live in a society where everybody rationalizes everything. And that
Speaker 1: if I shout enough or I affirm it enough or
Speaker 1: I march for it enough, then I'll think it's okay.
Speaker 1: But inside your heart's going, it's not okay. Rationalizing doesn't work.
Speaker 1: Trying to convince your heart with your mind doesn't work.
Speaker 1: Your heart's gonna win out every time. Because there's an
Speaker 1: inbuilt conscience in our lives that God put there. And
Speaker 1: so we say, you know, I'm gonna rationalize it away,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't make it right and your heart still knows.
Speaker 1: And you're going around saying, why didn't everybody accept me?
Speaker 1: Why didn't everybody believe in me? That's a rationalization. You
Speaker 1: need to listen to your conscience. Another way we try
Speaker 1: to deal with guilt is compromise. And that's the whole
Speaker 1: idea of, well, I'm feeling guilty and here's the standard,
Speaker 1: so what I think I'll do is I'll just lower
Speaker 1: my standard and then I won't feel guilty anymore. And
Speaker 1: I'll say, I don't believe that's a sin anymore. How's
Speaker 1: that working for you? Again, it's trying to convince your
Speaker 1: heart what your conscience knows is wrong and compromising, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe if I just do it enough, then it won't
Speaker 1: be a sin anymore. Right. Get back to me on
Speaker 1: that one. Here's another one we try to do. When
Speaker 1: we feel guilty, we blame other people. Because if we
Speaker 1: can put the blame on them, it gets the focus
Speaker 1: off us. Now, couples do this all the time. Boyfriend, girlfriend,
Speaker 1: husband's wife, parents, kids. And it goes like this. There's
Speaker 1: a scale in your mind. And on one side is blame.
Speaker 1: And on the other side is guilt. And In this,
Speaker 1: the only way you can feel good about yourself is
Speaker 1: if it's kind of balanced. So when you do something wrong,
Speaker 1: like this, you have to have somebody else to blame
Speaker 1: because you did that, yeah, but you did that. You
Speaker 1: did that, yeah, but you did that. But you did that, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you remember that really big thing you did? There
Speaker 1: are people who one of a spouse had really gone
Speaker 1: over the edge in a wrong way. But they've come
Speaker 1: back and they said, I'm sorry, I apologize, I wanna
Speaker 1: rebuild trust, I wanna make this marriage work. But this
Speaker 1: person won't let him off the hook, the other one.
Speaker 1: And no matter how many good things this person does,
Speaker 1: they ask, yeah, but you did that. And if you're
Speaker 1: doing that with a spouse, you're killing your marriage. Because
Speaker 1: you've become unpleasable. You're acting like you're God, you're not.
Speaker 1: Anybody could hold you accountable for stuff you've done too.
Speaker 1: And so, blaming doesn't work. We say blame is spelled
Speaker 1: be lame, and it just makes you lame when you
Speaker 1: do that. Every time you blame, you are being lame.
Speaker 1: So you blame others, you got the scale in your mind.
Speaker 1: Which is, by the way, why people don't wanna forgive.
Speaker 1: Because if I don't forgive you, then I can keep
Speaker 1: blaming you for that. You see, if I'm trying to
Speaker 1: balance between guilt and blame in my life, and all
Speaker 1: of the sudden, You ask for forgiveness, and that sets
Speaker 1: me off balance, and I say, sure, I forgive you.
Speaker 1: Now I don't have anything to blame anymore on this side,
Speaker 1: so what happens? The scale tilts toward me, and I
Speaker 1: feel bad. So I don't wanna forgive you because then
Speaker 1: it's all on me. There's nothing to even the scales.
Speaker 1: And you keep yourself in tension all the time. Your
Speaker 1: soul needs to be restored. Restored. It's being chipped away at.
Speaker 1: It's being eaten at. It's being like little bacteria, like
Speaker 1: a virus. It's just working on your heart, making it
Speaker 1: smaller and smaller and smaller. One other way that doesn't work.
Speaker 1: We've talked about rationalizing, compromising, minimizing, blaming. One is, well,
Speaker 1: I'll just beat myself up. And for the rest of
Speaker 1: your life, you're trying to atone for your own sins.
Speaker 1: You're trying to make up for it. And a lot
Speaker 1: of people actually sabotage their own success and don't realize
Speaker 1: they're doing it. Because they feel guilty about something in
Speaker 1: the past, and they feel unworthy. And because they feel unworthy,
Speaker 1: they go, well, this is too good. I shouldn't be
Speaker 1: getting this much blessing. I know what I've done. I
Speaker 1: know all the things. I'm not worthy of this. And
Speaker 1: as a result, you start setting yourself up for failure.
Speaker 1: You beat yourself up. Because internally you go, well, I've
Speaker 1: done something wrong. Somebody's got to pay for it. And
Speaker 1: subconsciously we try to pay for our mistakes and our
Speaker 1: sins by getting sick or failing. And it can cause
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff. Guilt can make you depressed. It
Speaker 1: can make you despair. It can set you up for failure.
Speaker 1: I don't deserve to succeed. None of those things work.
Speaker 1: There's only one thing that works to get rid of
Speaker 1: unconfessed guilt. Confess it. Just admit it. The word confession
Speaker 1: in the Bible in Greek is the word homo logeo. Homo,
Speaker 1: we know what that means, it means same. Homogenized milk, homosexual,
Speaker 1: homo just means same. Logeo is the word to speak.
Speaker 1: Confession simply means to agree with God. You're right God,
Speaker 1: that was wrong. I don't deny it, I don't minimize it,
Speaker 1: I don't rationalize it, I don't compromise it, I don't
Speaker 1: blame other people. I don't belittle myself. I don't beat
Speaker 1: myself up. I just admit it. We'll come back to that.
Speaker 1: Number three. The third thing that destroys your soul is
Speaker 1: not unaddressed grudges or unconfessed guilt. It's unprocessed grief. Unprocessed grief. Now,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have grief in life because you're gonna have losses.
Speaker 1: There is no growth in life without change. There is
Speaker 1: no change in life without loss because you give up
Speaker 1: some old to get some new. There's no loss without pain.
Speaker 1: And there's no pain without grief. So you've got to
Speaker 1: learn how to grieve good. Now, grief is not a
Speaker 1: bad thing. Guilt's a bad thing. Grudges are a bad thing.
Speaker 1: Grief is actually a good thing. It's the way we
Speaker 1: get through the transitions of life. What is a bad
Speaker 1: thing is unprocessed grief. You haven't learned how to and
Speaker 1: to deal with it, how to go through the stages
Speaker 1: of grief. In Psalm 31, verse nine, David says, Lord,
Speaker 1: have mercy, because I'm in misery. He's grieving, he's grieving.
Speaker 1: I'm in misery, my eyes are weak from so much crying,
Speaker 1: and my whole body, whole being is tired from grief.
Speaker 1: If grudges don't get your guilt well, and if guilt
Speaker 1: doesn't get your grief well, and all of us can
Speaker 1: have these things that kind of eat away at our soul,
Speaker 1: the way we think, the way we feel, and the
Speaker 1: decisions we make. Now, the question is, how does Jesus,
Speaker 1: our good shepherd, the Lord is my shepherd, I have
Speaker 1: everything I need, how in the world does he help
Speaker 1: me with my grudges and my guilt and my grief?
Speaker 1: Three ways he does it. Here's how he does it.
Speaker 1: when we are hurt by others. Jesus turns my hurts
Speaker 1: into holiness. I need to explain this. Jesus turns my
Speaker 1: hurts into holiness. What I'm saying is that God brings
Speaker 1: good out of bad. He brings good out of evil.
Speaker 1: He has a way of turning things around. The stuff
Speaker 1: that happens to you, it's not all good. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of bad stuff that happens to you. But God says,
Speaker 1: I can turn it around. I can transform it. I
Speaker 1: can bring good out of evil. Let's look at some verses.
Speaker 1: It is the goodness of God that allows this. Now
Speaker 1: one of the most famous verses in the Bible is
Speaker 1: Romans 8, verse 28. We keep coming back to this verse, why?
Speaker 1: Because you keep getting hurt. You have guilt, you have grief,
Speaker 1: and you have grudges. And so you need to understand
Speaker 1: that God says, yes, I know that happened, but I
Speaker 1: can bring good even out of that. Romans 8, 28,
Speaker 1: one of the greatest promises in the Bible. We know
Speaker 1: that in all things, circle the word in, that in
Speaker 1: all things, it doesn't say all things, it says in
Speaker 1: all things, God works for the good of those who
Speaker 1: love him. Let me stop right there. This is not
Speaker 1: a promise for everybody. It's a promise for those who
Speaker 1: love him and have been called according to his purpose.
Speaker 1: We know that not everything that happens to you is good.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of bad things that are happening to you.
Speaker 1: Decisions that you make that are bad and decisions that
Speaker 1: other people make that are bad for you. There's diseases,
Speaker 1: there's all kinds of accidents and things like that. Nobody's
Speaker 1: saying God is a Pollyanna Optimists who say, you know,
Speaker 1: the sun will come out tomorrow. It doesn't always come
Speaker 1: out tomorrow. Reality is the sun does not always come
Speaker 1: out tomorrow. And that's the difference between optimism and hope.
Speaker 1: Hope is based on a certainty, but optimism is based on,
Speaker 1: you know, just wishful thinking. Pollyanna, it'll come out all right.
Speaker 1: We know that in all things, God works for the good.
Speaker 1: It's not all good, but God says, you know what,
Speaker 1: I can take even that. Can God take the bad
Speaker 1: things people do to do me, to do against me,
Speaker 1: and use it for good? Yes. Can God even take
Speaker 1: my own sins and bring good out of them? My
Speaker 1: own mistakes and bring good out of them? Yes. Can
Speaker 1: God take my own weaknesses and my damaged will and
Speaker 1: my damaged mind and my damaged heart, my emotions and
Speaker 1: the way I think, can God work even in that
Speaker 1: for good? Yes. Now not everybody else can do that.
Speaker 1: Anybody can bring good out of good. But God specializes
Speaker 1: in bringing good out of the bad in your life.
Speaker 1: And he turns my hurts into holiness. I was sitting
Speaker 1: down this morning and I just started thinking of all
Speaker 1: the different ways God uses bad things in your life
Speaker 1: for good in your life. And I actually made a list.
Speaker 1: He turns my hurts into holiness. He turns my wounds,
Speaker 1: the things that hurt me, into wisdom. You're a lot smarter.
Speaker 1: after you've gone through that. He turns my pain into gain.
Speaker 1: He uses correction to bring me to perfection. He uses
Speaker 1: offenses to remove my pretenses. You're a lot more humble
Speaker 1: if you get criticized. He uses my bruises for good.
Speaker 1: They're not good. Those bruises aren't good. but he can
Speaker 1: use my bruise. He uses my bruises for good. And
Speaker 1: when others want to bash me, God uses it to
Speaker 1: bless me. That's the kind of God God is. He's
Speaker 1: a good God. The Lord is my shepherd. He knows
Speaker 1: how to bring good even out of bad. Now Romans 8, 28,
Speaker 1: all things work together for good, is a wonderful promise,
Speaker 1: but it makes no sense at all unless you read
Speaker 1: Romans 8, 29, the verse right underneath it, which explains
Speaker 1: why God uses everything for his purpose. And what is
Speaker 1: his purpose? His purpose is to build your character. He
Speaker 1: uses the conflicts and the crises to turn you into
Speaker 1: your character. And he wants to make you like Jesus.
Speaker 1: Look at verse 29. It's up here on the screen.
Speaker 1: Romans 8, 29 says this. God knew his purpose from
Speaker 1: the very beginning. So it's not a big surprise to God.
Speaker 1: Before you even created, he knew what he wanted to
Speaker 1: do with your life. He planned in advance that all
Speaker 1: of us in God's family, here's the key, would become
Speaker 1: like Jesus, his own son. God wants a family for eternity.
Speaker 1: And God wants you to be his child. And he
Speaker 1: sent Jesus to show what a child of God is like.
Speaker 1: You wanna know what God wants you to become like?
Speaker 1: Look at the character of Christ. Now listen, God is
Speaker 1: far more interested in your character than he is in
Speaker 1: your comfort. You know, people act like, well, I don't
Speaker 1: understand it. Things aren't going good for me, and I'm
Speaker 1: trusting God. Did God ever promise that everything will go
Speaker 1: the way you want it to go? No, because if
Speaker 1: it did, you'd be the selfish little snot. If you
Speaker 1: got everything you wanted in life, this life is preparation
Speaker 1: for the next. In heaven, there's no sorrow. There's no suffering.
Speaker 1: There's no sickness. There's no sadness. You know, there are
Speaker 1: no people throwing stones you know, arrows and barbs at you.
Speaker 1: This is the preschool. This is the character development stage.
Speaker 1: God wants you to grow up before you go to heaven.
Speaker 1: And so when you go through tough times, you should
Speaker 1: never ask, hmm, why is this happening? I'll tell you why.
Speaker 1: Romans 8, 29, to make you like Jesus. And the
Speaker 1: question you should ask any time you go through any
Speaker 1: difficult time is not, Why is this happening? Or why
Speaker 1: is this happening to me? Or why is this happening now?
Speaker 1: The question you should be asking is, what? What do
Speaker 1: you want to teach me, God? What character development do
Speaker 1: you want me to grow like? God is far more
Speaker 1: interested in your character, what you're becoming, than he is
Speaker 1: in your comfort. Yes, God wants you to be comfortable,
Speaker 1: but he's not gonna give you comfort at the expense
Speaker 1: of character. You're gonna be comfortable for trillions of years
Speaker 1: in heaven. Right now, He wants you to become like Christ.
Speaker 1: So what is Jesus like? Romans 8, 28 says he
Speaker 1: wants to make me like Christ using all things, verse 29. Well,
Speaker 1: the perfect picture of Jesus is called the fruit of
Speaker 1: the spirit. It's Galatians 5, 23 and 24. In Galatians,
Speaker 1: it says nine qualities. The fruit of the spirit is love.
Speaker 1: God wants you to be loving. Joy, God wants you
Speaker 1: to learn real joy. Peace, God wants you to learn
Speaker 1: real peace. Patience, God wants you to learn patience. Goodness
Speaker 1: and gentleness and faithfulness and self-control. There are nine qualities there.
Speaker 1: And when you look at those nine qualities, you know
Speaker 1: what they are? Perfect picture of Jesus. Jesus is total love,
Speaker 1: total joy, total peace, total patience. So you can wake
Speaker 1: up every morning and say, well, Lord, I don't know
Speaker 1: which one of these you're gonna teach me today. Patience.
Speaker 1: How does God teach you patience? Waiting. Waiting. Have you
Speaker 1: ever had to sit in God's waiting room? Have you
Speaker 1: ever been in a hurry and God wasn't? The number
Speaker 1: one way God teaches you patience, Department of Motor Vehicles.
Speaker 1: And so God often teaches you those qualities in the
Speaker 1: exact opposite situation. You learn love being around unlovely people.
Speaker 1: You learn joy in the middle of grief. You learn
Speaker 1: peace in the middle of chaos. It's easy to be
Speaker 1: peaceful if you're out fly fishing in the mountains with
Speaker 1: Brad Pitt. You know, a river runs through it, you know,
Speaker 1: and you're out there. Who could not be peaceful? It
Speaker 1: doesn't get any better than this. But if God's going
Speaker 1: to teach you real peace, he'll put you in the
Speaker 1: middle of chaos. Some of you are in it right now. Patience, gentleness.
Speaker 1: How does God teach you gentleness? With people who annoy
Speaker 1: you to death. Don't look at them, but you know
Speaker 1: who they are. Teaching you how to be gentle. Self-control.
Speaker 1: There are lots of ways he teaches you self-control. And
Speaker 1: so God says, I want to turn your hurts into holiness.
Speaker 1: And what's the purpose? Put Romans 8, 29 back on
Speaker 1: the screen. God knew his purpose from the very beginning,
Speaker 1: and he planned in advance that all of God's family
Speaker 1: would become like Jesus. That's the number one goal God
Speaker 1: has for your life. Not comfort, but character. Be like
Speaker 1: Jesus' son. Now God's son is the firstborn of restored humanity.
Speaker 1: There's that word restoration, restored. He restores my soul. We're
Speaker 1: all broken. We all have broken relationships, broken minds, broken emotions,
Speaker 1: broken wills. We're all broken. And God says, I want
Speaker 1: to restore humanity to the original position I created it
Speaker 1: to be in the Garden of Eden. So I'm sending
Speaker 1: Jesus to come and die for your sins. And it
Speaker 1: says then on the screen, so we see the intended
Speaker 1: shape of our lives in him. Look at Jesus and
Speaker 1: you'll know what God wants to do in your life.
Speaker 1: We see the intended shape of our lives in him
Speaker 1: and he will have many brothers and sisters in God's
Speaker 1: eternal family. Like father, like son. Like father, like daughter.
Speaker 1: He wants you to become not a god, but godly.
Speaker 1: Genesis 50 verse 20 explains then why God allows people
Speaker 1: to hurt you. Knowing what God's goal is in verse
Speaker 1: 50 verse 20 he says, you intended it to harm
Speaker 1: me but God intended it for good to accomplish what
Speaker 1: is now being done, the saving of many lives. This
Speaker 1: is a quote from a guy named Joseph. Joseph had
Speaker 1: every reason to have unaddressed grudges because his own family
Speaker 1: sold him into slavery. He was one of the youngest
Speaker 1: kids in the family and his older brothers didn't like him.
Speaker 1: They thought he was pompous. They didn't like him at all.
Speaker 1: So they took him and threw him in a pit
Speaker 1: and told the father that a bear had eaten him.
Speaker 1: And then he's living in this pit by himself and
Speaker 1: some slave traders come by on their way to Egypt
Speaker 1: and the brothers pull him out, sell him into slavery.
Speaker 1: He's taken down to Egypt and he's hired out as
Speaker 1: a slave to a guy named Potiphar and he's Potiphar's
Speaker 1: wife is a seductive woman and she gets the hots
Speaker 1: for Joseph and she tries to seduce him and he
Speaker 1: says I'm not going to do that I have integrity
Speaker 1: I serve the God of you know of the ages
Speaker 1: I serve the almighty God and so she's spurned she's
Speaker 1: scorned what does she do she screams and claims that
Speaker 1: he's taken advantage of her and falsely accused he's thrown
Speaker 1: into prison The first 40 years of his entire life,
Speaker 1: nothing goes right. Some of you might identify with that.
Speaker 1: He's thrown into a pit. He's rejected by his family.
Speaker 1: He's sold into slavery. He's taken to a foreign country.
Speaker 1: He's falsely accused. He's put in prison. God had him
Speaker 1: exactly where he wanted him to be. And the second
Speaker 1: half of his life looked a whole lot brighter because
Speaker 1: out of that, through a series of circumstances, he's raised
Speaker 1: up to be the second most powerful man under Pharaoh
Speaker 1: in Egypt, which was the most powerful empire in the
Speaker 1: world at that time. And he not only saves Egypt
Speaker 1: from a famine, but he saves all of the Middle
Speaker 1: East from a famine. And when he finally comes face
Speaker 1: to face with his brothers many years later, and they
Speaker 1: come to buy grain from Europe, from Egypt, he looks
Speaker 1: at them, he says, you meant it for bad. Let's
Speaker 1: don't beat around the bush, you didn't like me. You
Speaker 1: meant it for bad. God meant it for good, and
Speaker 1: God's bigger than you, and God can bring good things
Speaker 1: out of even bad things. When you learn that, you
Speaker 1: will begin to rebuild your soul. The broken thoughts, the
Speaker 1: broken emotions, and the broken choosing of decision making in
Speaker 1: your will. So God says, I will turn your hurts
Speaker 1: into holiness if you will trust me. Number two, what
Speaker 1: about when we do wrong? What about when we sin?
Speaker 1: What about when we have that unconfessed guilt? How does God,
Speaker 1: the good shepherd, deal with that? Well, God's a good
Speaker 1: God and here's the answer. When we do wrong, Jesus
Speaker 1: takes my sin on himself. He says, I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: your guilt. Please just hand it over to me and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go die on the cross and pay for
Speaker 1: all your sins so you don't have to pay for
Speaker 1: your sins. This is the best news in the whole world.
Speaker 1: We call it the gospel, which is an old English
Speaker 1: word for good news. And Jesus takes all my guilt
Speaker 1: on himself. He says, I'm gonna give you all my goodness,
Speaker 1: also called righteousness, I'm gonna give you all my goodness
Speaker 1: so you can get into heaven and I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: all of your guilt and I'm gonna pay for it
Speaker 1: on the cross. Nearly 700 years before Jesus died on
Speaker 1: the cross, so that would be about 2,700 years ago,
Speaker 1: a guy named Isaiah was a prophet and God told
Speaker 1: him in very specific terms that he was gonna send
Speaker 1: a savior to the world, a messiah, to save all
Speaker 1: our sins and to pay for them. 700 years he
Speaker 1: gave them this prophecy. It's in many chapters of Isaiah,
Speaker 1: but Psalm, I mean Isaiah 53 is the clearest. And
Speaker 1: when you read these details, you gotta read that this
Speaker 1: guy was saying this 700 years before it happened. Only
Speaker 1: God could have told him this. And in Isaiah 53,
Speaker 1: verses five and six, it says this about Jesus. 700
Speaker 1: years before Jesus arrived. He was wounded. and crushed for
Speaker 1: our sins. This is on the cross. He was beaten
Speaker 1: and he took our punishment so that we might have peace.
Speaker 1: And through his wounds, our wounds are healed. All of
Speaker 1: us have strayed away like sheep. You know sheep I
Speaker 1: told you last week are not real smart. We've all
Speaker 1: done our own thing. We've left God's path to follow
Speaker 1: our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the guilt
Speaker 1: and sins of us all. Now what I just read
Speaker 1: to you is the most basic fundamental truth of the Bible.
Speaker 1: If this wasn't true, we could all go home right now.
Speaker 1: Because we wouldn't have anything at all if Jesus Christ
Speaker 1: hadn't come to pay for your sins. But the most
Speaker 1: basic truth is that he did. That everything you're gonna
Speaker 1: do wrong in life, including the stuff you're gonna do
Speaker 1: tonight and tomorrow, and next week, and 10 years from today,
Speaker 1: it's already been paid for. It's already been paid for.
Speaker 1: You just have to accept God's grace and goodness. That
Speaker 1: is the goodness of God. That he's already paid for
Speaker 1: everything I'm even gonna do, not just in the past,
Speaker 1: but in the future, it's already paid for. I remember
Speaker 1: one time there was a guy out on the patio
Speaker 1: at the Lake Forest campus, and he came up to
Speaker 1: me frantically after the service, and he said, I need
Speaker 1: to know, what do I need to do to get
Speaker 1: to heaven? I said, well, you're too late. Just thought
Speaker 1: I'd shock him. You're too late. He goes, no, no, no, really.
Speaker 1: What do I need to do in order to get
Speaker 1: to heaven? I said, sorry, you're too late. So what
Speaker 1: do you mean? There's gotta be something I can do.
Speaker 1: I said, there's nothing. It's already been done by Jesus
Speaker 1: Christ 2,000 years ago. This is what makes Christianity different
Speaker 1: from religions that are out there. Every religion has a
Speaker 1: list of things to do to get to heaven. And
Speaker 1: each religion says, this is our list, and this is
Speaker 1: our list, and that's our list, and another religion, that's
Speaker 1: our list. And if you'll do these things, it's all
Speaker 1: based on your performance, you might make it into heaven.
Speaker 1: Can't be sure, but you might. And so all the
Speaker 1: other religions can be summed up in the word do.
Speaker 1: Christianity is summed up in the word do. Done. And
Speaker 1: when Jesus was on the cross, he cried out, it
Speaker 1: is finished. Now notice, he didn't say, I'm finished, because
Speaker 1: he wasn't. He came back to life three days later,
Speaker 1: and he wasn't finished, and he's alive today. He lives
Speaker 1: in my heart. I've been his friend now for over
Speaker 1: 50 years, and many of you have too. But when
Speaker 1: he says, it is finished, he's saying, you don't need
Speaker 1: to add anything. It's not, I die on the cross,
Speaker 1: plus you do these 10 other things, then you get
Speaker 1: to go to heaven. There's only one thing you need
Speaker 1: to get into heaven. Humility. To realize you're never getting
Speaker 1: there by what you do. The only way is to say,
Speaker 1: I am a sinner and I need a savior. That's
Speaker 1: what you say. That's humility. That's the sin that'll keep
Speaker 1: you out of heaven. I don't need anybody to save me.
Speaker 1: I'm good enough to get there on my own. Really.
Speaker 1: It's a perfect place. I stopped being perfect about 30
Speaker 1: seconds into this planet. And so nobody bats a thousand.
Speaker 1: I've never met anybody who actually claimed to be perfect.
Speaker 1: We all know we're imperfect. But we say to God, God,
Speaker 1: we're gonna trust you. And when you come to Christ
Speaker 1: and you say, you're gonna take my sins on you, yeah,
Speaker 1: what are you giving me in return? My goodness. You
Speaker 1: don't have to beg. Please God, please, please save me.
Speaker 1: You don't have to bargain. If you'll do this, God,
Speaker 1: then I'll do that. You don't have to bribe. I'll
Speaker 1: read my Bible every day. If you do this, bribe, bargain,
Speaker 1: you don't do anything. You don't beg, you just believe.
Speaker 1: That's it. That's why it's called the good news. The
Speaker 1: word gospel is just an old English word that means
Speaker 1: good news. And what's the best news? You can't get
Speaker 1: to heaven on your good works, but it's already been
Speaker 1: paid for. You just have to humbly admit you need
Speaker 1: a savior. that you're not good enough to go to
Speaker 1: a perfect place. He said, but Rick, you don't know
Speaker 1: what I've done. It doesn't matter. I don't need to
Speaker 1: know what you've done because I know what Jesus has done.
Speaker 1: And what Jesus has done is bigger than what you
Speaker 1: have done. The good thing he did on the cross
Speaker 1: is bigger than the bad thing you have done. That's
Speaker 1: why we call it Good Friday when he died. It's
Speaker 1: not good for Jesus. It's painful, but it's good for you.
Speaker 1: You say, well, Rick, I've asked God to forgive me.
Speaker 1: I just don't feel forgiven. It means you don't fully
Speaker 1: understand it yet. Because once you understand how fully forgiven
Speaker 1: you are, you just want to shout. You want to
Speaker 1: jump up and down. And if God comes into your life,
Speaker 1: it's going to make some changes. You can't have him
Speaker 1: come into your life and not change you. So if
Speaker 1: your life hadn't changed any, you might have gotten something,
Speaker 1: but you haven't gotten God. Somebody as big as God
Speaker 1: can't come into your life and not change you. And
Speaker 1: the more you understand grace, the more joyful you'll be.
Speaker 1: Many of you know that one of my mentors in
Speaker 1: life was the father of modern management, Peter Drucker. And
Speaker 1: he mentored me the last 30 years of his life
Speaker 1: from about 65 to 95. And he trained all of
Speaker 1: the who's who of business leaders that are leading businesses today.
Speaker 1: And one day I was up at his house and
Speaker 1: he was mentoring me on some leadership things and I said, Peter,
Speaker 1: when did you step across the line? When did you
Speaker 1: find Christ? When did you put your faith in Jesus?
Speaker 1: And he said in that thick Austrian accent, well, Rick.
Speaker 1: He said, when I finally understood the concept of grace,
Speaker 1: I knew I was gonna never get a better deal.
Speaker 1: When you finally understand how good God really is, you're
Speaker 1: not gonna go anywhere else. Because he's a good, good father. Now,
Speaker 1: as I said, Isaiah wrote that part about Jesus suffering
Speaker 1: on the cross. Let me read you some more of it.
Speaker 1: And listen to the details of this 700 years before
Speaker 1: it actually happened. Isaiah 53, verses 7 to 12. He
Speaker 1: was beaten down and punished. Talking about Jesus on the cross,
Speaker 1: before the cross. But he didn't say a word. That
Speaker 1: all happened. He was led out like a lamb to
Speaker 1: be slaughtered. He was condemned to death without fair judgment.
Speaker 1: And then he was put to death for the transgressions
Speaker 1: of everyone else. That's us. He died like a criminal,
Speaker 1: but then was buried with the rich, even though he'd
Speaker 1: done nothing wrong and had never lied. You know this
Speaker 1: is true. Jesus died on the cross as a criminal.
Speaker 1: That was the worst capital punishment available. It's humiliating, death
Speaker 1: on the cross. But when they took him down, there
Speaker 1: was a wealthy man named Joseph of Arimathea who had
Speaker 1: a brand new tomb he'd bought for his family, often
Speaker 1: buried people in the same tomb for decades, like a
Speaker 1: hole in the wall of a cave, and then covered
Speaker 1: it up. And Joseph of Arimathea was quite wealthy, but
Speaker 1: he offered his tomb for Jesus. He goes, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna need it very long. Think about that. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: what's a few days? He said he's coming back to life,
Speaker 1: so why would I worry? He should borrow it for
Speaker 1: a couple days. I don't intend to die between now
Speaker 1: and then. But 700 years, Isaiah says, a rich man
Speaker 1: is going to provide him a tomb. And it says,
Speaker 1: yet it was God's plan to cause him to suffer.
Speaker 1: It was God's plan. Who put Jesus to death? Not
Speaker 1: the Romans, not Jewish leaders. God did. God did. Jesus said,
Speaker 1: I lay down my life. He's part of the Trinity.
Speaker 1: I voluntarily do this for you and me. It was
Speaker 1: God's plan to cause him to suffer and make his
Speaker 1: life a guilt offering for our sins. A sacrifice to
Speaker 1: bring forgiveness. But after his soul suffered many things, he
Speaker 1: will enjoy life and joy again. That's the resurrection. He's
Speaker 1: saying this 700 years before it happened. But my suffering servant,
Speaker 1: God says, will make many people right with God. and
Speaker 1: he will bear all their sins, and he will willingly
Speaker 1: give his life, and he was treated like a criminal,
Speaker 1: but he took the place of everyone who had sinned,
Speaker 1: and he interceded for their forgiveness. Now when Jesus died
Speaker 1: on the cross, he covered all your sins, and he
Speaker 1: forgave you, and the Bible says he throws your sins
Speaker 1: in the deepest part of the sea, it's like a metaphor,
Speaker 1: and then I wanna add, and he puts up a
Speaker 1: no fishing sign. Why would you drag out something to
Speaker 1: remember that God has already forgiven and forgotten? When you
Speaker 1: keep feeling bad about something you've already confessed to God
Speaker 1: and God's forgiven you and Jesus died for it, then
Speaker 1: it says, I don't really believe Jesus paid for my sin.
Speaker 1: That's unbelief. When you keep asking for forgiveness for something
Speaker 1: you sincerely asked for already is unbelief. Because Jesus gives
Speaker 1: completely and freely and instantly and with grace. When Jesus
Speaker 1: forgave all your sins, which one were not included? None.
Speaker 1: They're all included. Every single one. This is why I
Speaker 1: serve Jesus Christ. I don't serve him for money. I
Speaker 1: don't serve him for fame. I don't serve him out
Speaker 1: of duty. I don't serve him out of fear. I
Speaker 1: don't serve him out of guilt. I serve him out
Speaker 1: of gratitude. And you should too. And if God has
Speaker 1: forgiven all your sins, shouldn't you? Now what about the
Speaker 1: third thing? We talked about guilt. We talked about grudges.
Speaker 1: What about this third area that warps my soul? Grief.
Speaker 1: You might write this down. When we experience loss, here
Speaker 1: it is, loss and pain, Jesus feels my grief and
Speaker 1: heals my heart. He feels my grief and he heals
Speaker 1: my heart. Why does Jesus feel my grief? Because he
Speaker 1: understands grief. He's been there, he's experienced it too, he understands.
Speaker 1: He came to earth and became one of us. So
Speaker 1: he's experienced all of the loneliness that people experience, the
Speaker 1: betrayal that people experience, the rejection that people experience. And
Speaker 1: he came to feel my grief and heal my heart.
Speaker 1: That is the goodness of God. The Lord is my shepherd. Again,
Speaker 1: more in this same chapter, Isaiah 53. Same place, 700
Speaker 1: plus years before Jesus, came to earth, Isaiah says this.
Speaker 1: Describes Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior. He was despised and
Speaker 1: rejected by others. If you've ever been despised, you know
Speaker 1: how that hurts. Maybe you were despised at school. That hurts.
Speaker 1: Maybe you were despised because of a handicap or the
Speaker 1: color of your skin or because you're female or male
Speaker 1: or whatever. If you've been despised, Jesus understands. He was despised.
Speaker 1: He was rejected. If you've ever had somebody reject you,
Speaker 1: walk out on your life, Jesus understands that hurt. There's
Speaker 1: no hurt you can experience that he doesn't understand, no grief.
Speaker 1: Why can Jesus understand my grief? He's experienced it all. Isaiah,
Speaker 1: he was despised and rejected by others. He was a
Speaker 1: man of sorrows, which endured much pain and suffering. And
Speaker 1: he experienced deep grief. Imagine leaving heaven and come here
Speaker 1: to live with a bunch of people who hate you.
Speaker 1: He experienced deep grief. But we ignored him and we
Speaker 1: looked the other way. He was hated and we did
Speaker 1: not care. Yet it was our weakness that he was
Speaker 1: carrying on the cross. And it was our sorrow, our sorrow,
Speaker 1: that weighed him down. So he understands. But he doesn't
Speaker 1: just understand. He doesn't just feel. He heals. Look at
Speaker 1: the next verse. Psalm 147, verse 3. He heals the
Speaker 1: brokenhearted and he binds up their wounds. I don't know
Speaker 1: what's broken your heart. Some of your heart's breaking right now.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I'm sorry and I'm glad you're here because
Speaker 1: this is a place for the healing of broken hearts.
Speaker 1: But the fact of life is Jesus says I heal
Speaker 1: and I feel and I care about what you're going through.
Speaker 1: Now so what are you doing with your grief? Maybe
Speaker 1: you just had a big breakup. Maybe you just got
Speaker 1: fired at work. Maybe you just go, does anybody want me?
Speaker 1: Does anybody want me? Does anybody notice me? And there's
Speaker 1: that ache in your heart. What do you do with
Speaker 1: that ache? You take it to Jesus. Three things that
Speaker 1: are my response. to what Jesus does for me because
Speaker 1: of my guilt, my grief, and my grudges. How should
Speaker 1: I respond? Well, it's all summed up in the attitude
Speaker 1: of believe, trust, and number one is trust the good
Speaker 1: shepherd to forgive my sins. Actually believe that he has
Speaker 1: forgiven my sins. Start acting like all your sins are forgiven.
Speaker 1: Romans 3, 23 and 24, all of us have sinned,
Speaker 1: yet God declares us not guilty if we trust Circle
Speaker 1: that word, trust in Jesus Christ, who in his mercy
Speaker 1: freely takes away our sins. So I just trust, I believe,
Speaker 1: I accept that my sins have been forgiven because of
Speaker 1: what Jesus did on the cross. Number two, release my offenders.
Speaker 1: Release my offenders, people who've hurt me and focus on
Speaker 1: the future. Don't let them get under your skin anymore
Speaker 1: because your soul cannot be restored until you let go
Speaker 1: of resentment in your mind, in your thoughts, and let
Speaker 1: go of revenge in your emotions and let go of
Speaker 1: retaliation in your actions and your decisions. You gotta let
Speaker 1: it go. Say, God, today I'm letting them go. And
Speaker 1: the Bible says in Ephesians 4, 30, get rid of
Speaker 1: all bitterness. Let me just, you should not, bitterness is
Speaker 1: a barrier to your life. Forgiving each other just as
Speaker 1: Christ forgave you. Not only that should you get rid
Speaker 1: of resentment, he said you gotta get rid of retaliation.
Speaker 1: Romans 12, never avenge yourselves, leave that to God. He
Speaker 1: said he'll repay those who deserve it. So I trust
Speaker 1: God really did forgive all my sins. And then because
Speaker 1: of that, I start offering forgiveness to other people. I
Speaker 1: let other people off the hook and I release my
Speaker 1: offenders so I can focus on the future. I'm certainly
Speaker 1: not gonna get stuck in the past for the rest
Speaker 1: of my life. Then number three, I team up with
Speaker 1: Jesus to carry my load. God never intended for you
Speaker 1: to go through life carrying all your grief, guilt, grudges, problems, pressures, stresses,
Speaker 1: situations by yourself. And Jesus says, I wanna team up
Speaker 1: with you. I wanna yoke up with you. And when
Speaker 1: he uses the word yoke, he's not talking about an
Speaker 1: egg yolk. He's talking about the kind of yolk that
Speaker 1: they would put over two cattle as a beam and
Speaker 1: the beam, then the two cattle can pull the wagon together.
Speaker 1: Here's what it says, look up here on the screen.
Speaker 1: Come to me. Just come to Jesus. Come to me,
Speaker 1: you who are weary, you tired, you carry heavy burdens,
Speaker 1: and I will give you a lot more to do. No,
Speaker 1: that's not what he says. Come to me and I
Speaker 1: will give you what? Yeah, rest, we talked about that
Speaker 1: last week. Take my yoke upon you, Let me teach you,
Speaker 1: because I'm humble and gentle, and you will find rest
Speaker 1: for your souls. For my yoke fits perfectly, and the
Speaker 1: burden I give you is light. Now, when you read that,
Speaker 1: it sounds like he's saying, okay, you know, this cattle yoke,
Speaker 1: they would put over two horses or two cattle, they'd
Speaker 1: pull the wagon. You go, wait a minute, he's putting
Speaker 1: something else on me? That sounds pretty heavy. That doesn't
Speaker 1: sound good, a little big heavy thing like that. No, no,
Speaker 1: you don't understand the purpose of a yoke is not
Speaker 1: to put more on you. is to take off half
Speaker 1: of your load. If you're pulling the wagon by yourself,
Speaker 1: it's 100% dependent on your energy. Jesus says, yoke up
Speaker 1: with me. Let's share it, and guess what? I'll help
Speaker 1: you carry, and it'll be half as difficult. Does that
Speaker 1: make sense? The yoke is not to put more on you.
Speaker 1: The yoke is to say, I'll pull your load. Jesus
Speaker 1: doesn't have any load. He's God, he has no load.
Speaker 1: Everything's easy for him. And so when you yoke up,
Speaker 1: team up with Jesus, he says, I'll help you pull
Speaker 1: your load. And by the way, when you're yoked up
Speaker 1: to Jesus, it's impossible for you to run the wagon
Speaker 1: into the ditch. Because he's not gonna let you do it.
Speaker 1: You gotta go the direction he's going and you gotta
Speaker 1: go at the pace he's going and he will go
Speaker 1: at a more reasonable pace than you will. That's what
Speaker 1: he says, I want to do in your life. Let's
Speaker 1: bow our heads. Would you pray and would you talk
Speaker 1: to God right now? Say, God, my soul needs restoring.
Speaker 1: I don't always think right. I don't always choose right.
Speaker 1: I don't always feel right. And I need you to
Speaker 1: restore my damaged soul, my mind, my will, and my emotions.
Speaker 1: And Lord, specifically today, I want to ask your help
Speaker 1: on the things that do damage my soul. About those
Speaker 1: unaddressed grudges. I know it's not doing me any good
Speaker 1: to hold onto the hurt. I'm only hurting myself with
Speaker 1: the anger. And every time I remember that, the way
Speaker 1: they hurt me, it just hurts again. Would you turn
Speaker 1: my hurts into holiness? Would you turn my pain into gain?
Speaker 1: Would you do what only you can do? Would you
Speaker 1: transform me and turn the conflict And the chaos into
Speaker 1: character in my life. I need your help to do that.
Speaker 1: And Lord, I'm going to ask you also with the
Speaker 1: unconfessed guilt. And there's stuff I've been carrying around in
Speaker 1: a large garbage bag for a long time. And it's
Speaker 1: starting to stink. I'm going to say to you, I
Speaker 1: need your forgiveness. And then more than that, I'm going
Speaker 1: to believe it. I'm not gonna listen to my feelings
Speaker 1: or what anybody else says or what thoughts that Satan
Speaker 1: might try to put in my mind. Thank you, Jesus,
Speaker 1: for taking all of my sins on yourself at the cross.
Speaker 1: Thank you that you were wounded and crushed for me.
Speaker 1: You're beaten, took my punishment so that I might have peace.
Speaker 1: You've said in your word that your wounds heal my wounds.
Speaker 1: I'm asking you to do that. And then Lord, all
Speaker 1: of those losses that I've had in life that have
Speaker 1: caused grief, I need your help with that. I need
Speaker 1: you to feel my grief and heal my heart like
Speaker 1: you've promised. Help me to realize that you understand how
Speaker 1: I feel better than I do. And as I continue
Speaker 1: this journey with learning about your goodness, I first wanna
Speaker 1: say I'm gonna trust that my sins have been forgiven
Speaker 1: Because I've humbly just come to you and said, I
Speaker 1: need it. I need a savior. And I'm gonna release
Speaker 1: the people who've hurt me. And every time I think
Speaker 1: of them, help me to just pray a prayer of blessing.
Speaker 1: Do not hold onto the hurt. Most of all, Jesus,
Speaker 1: I wanna team up with you. Yoke up with you.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask you to help me in the load
Speaker 1: that I'm carrying. Amen. If you've never invited Jesus Christ
Speaker 1: in your heart, say Jesus Christ today. I want to
Speaker 1: get to know you. I want to learn to love you.
Speaker 1: I want to learn to trust you. And I humbly
Speaker 1: ask you to accept me into your family. And I
Speaker 1: pray this not because I deserve it, but because on
Speaker 1: the cross it was finished. You paid it all right there.
Speaker 1: Thank you. In your name I pray. Amen.