Finding Freedom | Fighting for Forgiveness | Pastor Jeremy DeWeerdt

Well, today, we are beginning a brand new series called Finding Freedom. And over the next few weeks, we are going to talk about specific ways to find personal freedom, find personal freedom. In a small Peruvian town, they have a tradition. The residents of Santo Tomas have this tradition. Every Christmas day, they gather together as a village. And on the 25th of December, they gather together and they resolve their grudges by fist fighting. Men, women, even children will punch each other over that year's disagreements, hurts, and even land disputes. This is real, all right? If someone hurts you in the previous year, if they offended you, if they ticked you off on Christmas day, you basically go punch their lights out. That's what you do. Merry Christmas. Now, here's the rules. The fight, it must be brief. There is no biting. There is no hair pulling. And if somebody gets knocked to the ground, you cannot hit them while they are on the ground. After you punch each other's lights out, you as opponents, here are the rules, you have to handshake or you have to hug each other. And this is symbolizing that the offense has now been resolved. It's done. So after all the fighting is done, everybody in the town

has duked it out. Then they go back into the town and everybody has a drink. And I thought, you know what, this might be a good idea that we could implement this into our Christmas services. Some of you have never invited anybody to our Christmas services, but you are thinking about who you're going to invite to Christmas service after this, right? You're like, OK, yeah, my mother-in-law, my co-worker, you know, whatever. OK, could you imagine this, that every Christmas day, you fist fight the person you have offense with. And you're like, oh, yeah, I actually imagine it every day. I imagine decking them every day, right? Well, you fantasize about it. Well, OK, here's the thing. Today, I want to talk about the subject of forgiveness, of forgiveness. And sometimes you actually have to fight to forgive. Not that kind of fighting, but you have to fight an internal fight to forgive. I talk about forgiveness almost every year. And you say, why do you talk about it so much? Because life affords us ample opportunities to exercise this skill of forgiveness. Can I get a big amen on that, right? And for many of us, we're carrying around a grudge or a hurt because somebody did something to us or didn't do something that they should have done.

And we're not experiencing the level of freedom that Jesus wants us to experience. So today, I'm going to talk to you about how you have to fight to forgive so that you can actually experience the freedom that God has. And I would start off with this simple thought, but it's true, forgiveness is always a fight. It is rarely easy. It is the opposite of what you want to do. Yet it's necessary, forgiveness is necessary, if you want to live in freedom. In our talk today, I want you to just hear this. It may feel a little trite compared to the offense that you have experienced, and that's not lost on me. I've tried to put together a message today that does not give some elementary answers to your calculus-level offense. Does that make sense? Like, I'm not trying to do elementary math here. I realize that many of you walk in here and there are some deep wounds, but I challenge you, I challenge you to wrestle down the biblical truths that I'm going to give you and to figure out how to apply them to your situation. Because I know this, I've been in this role of pastor for almost 35 years, and the senior pastor for 19 of them, and I will tell you that there are many people that have had to fight to forgive somebody. And I will also tell you that there are many people that have told me once they fought through

that whole thing of forgiving, they are very, I'm very glad they did so because on the back side of that fight to forgive is freedom. And they have found a freedom even though there has been great offense. So let's take a moment and let's pray and give this very important talk to the one who teaches us how to forgive because he's modeled it for us. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray right now for every person, whether it be man, woman, or child that is here. Lord, whether they be old or young or somewhere in between. Lord, I pray that you would just walk into this place, into every location of City First, in the living rooms that are watching right now. Lord, into God behind bars. Lord, wherever you are at, Lord God, as this message is being broadcast. Lord, I pray that, God, you would be there in your presence and that your Holy Spirit would move. We thank you in Jesus' name. Everybody said amen. Amen, right? A betrayal, a harsh word, a broken promise, a wound that you never asked for. That's what happens in life. In fact, no one gets out of this life unscathed. There are plenty of opportunities for us to have an offense, you could say.

And I've discovered that many times people look normal on the outside, but on the inside, they are internally carrying conversations, hurts and offenses, some of them, for many, many, many years. And often, the deepest human wounds are not created by strangers. But we talked about this during the red flags and roses series, that many times, it is those that we trust, those that are close, that are the ones that hurt us the most. Which means that forgiveness is never a shallow issue. Forgiveness is deeply, deeply spiritual. And because unforgiveness is never merely just about pain, it is about when the pain begins to compete with God's plan. When the pain begins to compete with God's purpose. That's what we're talking about today. Scripture is clear that bitterness is never presented in Scripture as a harmless, emotional response. In fact, it can become a spiritual danger, why? Because unresolved offense can become an altar where we continually sacrifice our peace, our trust, our joy, and our intimacy with God and us and others. We have to be careful, because Hebrews, the book of Hebrews talks about this. It talks about a root of bitterness. A root, you don't see roots. Roots are underground, and those grow in dark places

until finally it bears fruit in what is then above ground. But here's the thing, once a root of bitterness has taken root in our heart, the fruit of bitterness is not the kind of life that we wanna live. Like in all of my years of living, I've never heard anybody say to me, you know what I really admire about John? I admire his bitterness. Or you know what I really love about Julie? Just how guarded and angry she is. I've never heard this before, and you haven't either. We have to fight, we have to fight for forgiveness so that the root of bitterness doesn't grow and the fruit of hurt does not sprout. Bishop Desmond Tutu, it's one of my favorite quotes. It's a bitter pill to swallow, to be honest with you, but it's powerful. You know, he was the archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, right at the height of fighting apartheid and institutionalized racial segregation. He said this, he goes, without forgiveness, there is no future. And that's true. And today, you need to realize that this whole topic of forgiveness is actually about your future. This isn't just about forgiveness, this is about the future you. Because forgiveness is releasing the prisoner. And the prisoner is you, the offended.

You sit there and you go, well, that's, forgiveness, isn't that about, isn't that about the other, no, no, no. It's actually about you. Because the enemy would love to trap you in a prison of bitterness and anger and resentment. Forgiveness unlocks the door of the prison so that you can walk out. Forgiveness is. less about releasing the offender, it's more about freedom for the offended. So because bitterness is something that traps us, it's kind of also another metaphor, would be like, I've said this before, but bitterness is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. See Ephesians chapter four, verse 31 and 32 says this, get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you. Now again, that verse feels a little trite maybe to some of us who've experienced deep hurt. Like, oh, we're just supposed to forgive, you know? Well here, God's word does not command forgiveness because the pain is small. That's not why he commands forgiveness because the pain is small. He commands it because bitterness grows and grows and it becomes bigger and bigger.

Forgiveness is not saying it didn't matter, whatever it is, it was. No, forgiveness is saying I refuse to allow it to master me. I have refused for this thing to become my leader, that bitterness and hurt and pain become my leader. No, no, no, no, no. God is not asking something also that he has not already practiced because God models for us how to fight for forgiveness and he did that through his son Jesus on the cross. God forgave the unforgivable in us. He forgave you and he forgave me and we didn't deserve it. You know what you and I deserve? Hell. That's what we deserve. You're like, well, I'm not that bad. No one who's an offender thinks they're that bad. We deserve hell. We deserve eternal separation from God. We deserve judgment. We deserve justice. And Jesus comes along and says, I'll take all that on me. I'll take all that on me and I will walk to a cross, Jesus says. And so therefore, God forgave the unforgivable in us and now he says, you know what? You need to make forgiveness a practice yourself. It's not easy though. And I would even say this, it was not easy for Jesus,

which is why in the garden, he said, if there could be another way, if this cup could be taken from me, it was not easy for him either. You see, he forgave you, he forgave me when we didn't deserve it. And when we don't forgive, this is what happens, we become debt collectors. We remember and keep accounts of the things that people owe us. Our ex owes us. Our parents owe us. Our boss owes us. Our friend owes us. And that may be true, that may be true. They owe you an apology. They owe you the love that they did not give. They owe you the dignity that they did not show you. They owe you respect that they did not give. They owe you a lot, but here's the problem. As long as we believe they owe us, they own us. It's really true. As long as we think they owe us, they own us, they live rent-free in our minds, in our hearts, and in our souls, and the offense from the past still continues to offend us every single day forward. I remember one time someone telling me this years ago. Someone had really hurt this lady and she told me, she goes, you know, that person stole from me, she said,

a season of my life. But then this lady went on to say, but I refuse to allow that person to continue to steal my future. You see, if you're chasing after people's debts like a collection agency, you're gonna become tired, you're gonna become frustrated, because if that person was. responsible and had enough EQ to pay off the debt that they owed you, they would have already done it. And waiting for a person to pay you an emotional debt they are unwilling or unable to pay will keep you spiritually bankrupt. If your peace depends on their repentance, your freedom is in their hands. Man, I'm preaching a lot better than you're responding. I'm gonna tell you that right now. I am freaking dropping truth bombs here. Like as I was putting this message together, I'm like, oh my goodness, Holy Spirit, this is so good. And I know that the reason why some of you are quiet today is because it's personal. It's deeply personal, and I understand that. I really do. But something divinely beautiful happened at our original conference, and it was really interesting. For those of you that were there, it was a Holy Spirit moment. This happens rarely, but standing on this stage, I wasn't just aware of the Holy Spirit working. I literally saw it like a wave. For those of you there, you know what I'm talking about. But there was a good friend of Jen and mine, Lisa Harper, who was one of our speakers, and she's come in multiple times to speak at original, and she's a really good friend and also just an incredible person. And we were coming out of the side door, actually coming into the session that she was gonna speak, and she turned to me and she said, hey Pastor Jeremy, just so you know, I'm gonna talk today to those that have been abused. Those have been physically abused, those have been emotionally abused. And she goes, at the end of my message, what I'm gonna do is, Pastor Jeremy, if it's okay with you, I'd like to call you and Jen up, and I would

like you to pray over those people that have experienced abuse. It's like, okay. I mean, that's not just a simple prayer, right? That's a heavy thing. So I was like, okay. And Lisa preached an amazing message, and when she was done, she did exactly that. She goes, I'm gonna have Pastor Jeremy and Jen come up here. And so I got up, and I stood right here with Jen, and I prayed over those that have experienced abuse. And then Jen prayed, and prayed a dedication to God, if anybody wanted to give their life to Jesus kind of a prayer. And as she was praying, I was standing up here, and literally, Jen is praying, I'm done praying. And I heard God, like, in my head, say, we're not done yet. And literally, it was very impromptu, this was not planned, but I felt like the Holy Spirit said to stand up here on the stage, and after Jen got done praying, to take the mic, and to, on behalf of all the people who will never apologize, to apologize to those people that have been abused. In other words, to stand up here and say, though I've done nothing personally, Jeremy DeWart's done nothing, I am going to stand up here, and I am going to say, I am sorry that you went through whatever it is that you went through. And I'm not going to try to recreate the moment, because quite honestly, it was a very special Holy Spirit-led moment. But as I stood up here, and I said, especially as a guy, who many times that the people that are the abusers, unfortunately, tend to be guys, I said to a packed room full of women, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you experienced that. I'm sorry that you went through that. It was such a powerful moment. Literally, it was like, I watched, and I told you this, it was like, I wasn't just aware of the Holy Spirit's movement, I literally felt, I saw a wave of the Holy Spirit move over this room. And there were people like weeping, there were people thanking God, there, it was almost like a release, like the room released. And here's the thing, It was like those ladies that were in the room could release a debt that was never gonna get paid to them by the one who truly should have been paying it. Some debts, whether you are a man or a woman,

whether you're a child or a senior citizen in here, some debts will never be repaid by the person who created them. And I know that you want that, I know you're waiting for that, but I'm here to tell you, I want to release you from that expectation, not because that person shouldn't pay the debt and shouldn't ask for the apology and shouldn't try to make up for it. Yes, they should. But the problem is this, in this hopelessly broken world, many times the person who is the offender is not gonna do it. So forgiveness is not saying there is no debt. Forgiveness is saying, I release my demand that you personally repay what only God can ultimately redeem. That's what you're doing. That's what you're doing. And here's the power of the cross. The power of the cross is Jesus paid debts he did not owe. And because we owe debts that we could not pay, he paid the debt for us. And sometimes following Jesus, and whether I'm telling you this is for every person, if you have a pulse in here, this is for you. Sometimes following Jesus means accepting this painful reality.

This is where it's a fight, all right? There are wounds in life where your offender may never pay, but God still will heal that place. God will heal it even though the offender will not. And ladies and gentlemen, this is the fight. This is the fight to forgiveness. Forgiveness is not for the faint of heart. Forgiveness is one of the most manly, one of the most womanly types of things that you could do. It requires you to reach deep. It requires you to make a choice. Forgiveness is not saying what happened is okay. This is the lie that many times people think about forgiveness. It's like you're letting the person off the hook. No, no, no, that's not it. Forgiveness is not about promising even that reconciliation is required or possible. I mean, where you could have forgiveness and reconciliation, do it. Where you have forgiveness, but not everything goes back in the box, you have to accept it. Forgiveness is not about forgetting. Forgiveness is not about allowing, you know, in a sense, that person to get off scot-free. Forgiveness is saying, God, I want freedom, and I am not gonna allow the offense that took place in my life to become a prison. So therefore, I need freedom, God.

I'm going to forgive whether the person deserves it or not. David Stoop, in his book, Forgiving the Unforgivable, says this. Forgiving other people does not in any way benefit or let them off the hook. It allows us to cancel the debt they owe us, which in all probability, they can never pay anyway. We are the ones who are freed. Listen to this. We are the ones who are freed from the expectation of restitution for the wrongs done to us. Nobody understands forgiveness like Jesus. No one understands forgiveness like Jesus. During what we now call Holy Week, if we remember, Jesus is betrayed by a close friend, Judas. He is denied by another close friend, Peter, three times. He is mocked by soldiers. He is physically abused. He is crucified by the people he came to save. And yet on the cross, what did he say? He said, Father, forgive them. Jesus did not just preach about forgiveness. He demonstrated it while he was alive. A bleeding, and some of us today are bleeding. Some of us today are bleeding. We're not on a cross, but we're bleeding. Our business partner totally betrayed us, and we're angry. Our best friend turncoated on us, and we're hurt. Our family member deeply hurt us,

even maybe a church, maybe even this church, hurt you. See, here's the thing. We all have a choice in those moments. We could either A, allow bitterness and anger to create walls and give us a diminished life, or we could fight for forgiveness and release what we were never meant to carry. It's our choice. So in closing, let me just say two very practical, but powerful things. First, in my experience, and from what I read in the Bible, and from talking to countless others, most of the time, forgiveness is a choice and not a feeling. When you go to forgive, you don't feel a thing many times. In fact, if you were to live by your feeling Christmas day, you would go punch the lights out. This is why it's a fight. It's not a feeling, it's a choice. But here's my question. If not forgiveness, then what's the alternative? Bitterness, hate, revenge, carrying that hurt indefinitely? That's the alternative. So you choose forgiveness or you choose these things. It's up to us. And it is not a feeling. Most of the time, it literally is a choice. Secondly, this is something that should bring some assurance to us. God sees clearly and he judges perfectly.

God is not blind. He's not impotent. He's not handcuffed. He's not disinterested. He knows what's going on. This hopelessly broken world. I have all kinds of questions. Why didn't he prevent certain things? Why didn't he stop certain things? I get it. I don't have all those answers. Someday we will, by the way. The big answer to that, the 40,000 foot answer is, hurt people hurt people. And we live in a hopelessly broken world where sin has now permeated everything. And it's not God's ultimate design. And he can't stop every evil thing. He could, he could, he has the power to, but then there's this thing called free will. And so I know that doesn't all the way like put everything tidy and a bow on it, but this is what I do know. God sees, he's the God who sees. And if grace is real, we talk about amazing grace. We sing the song, right? We talk about grace, grace, grace, the God of grace. Well, grace doesn't exist if there isn't justice. Well, you think about that. There is no such thing as grace

if there also isn't justice. And he is a God of grace, but the Bible says very clearly, he's also a just God. And contrary to common thought, forgiveness shows that you are strong, not weak. Jesus was the example of this. Bible says in 1 Peter, this is by the way, this is when it comes to offense, this is my go-to verse. This is the one right here, okay? If there's anyone that you take out your smartphone and take a picture of, it's this one, all right? When they hurled their insults at him, meaning when the people hurled their insults at Jesus, Jesus did not retaliate. When he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, this is so huge, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. Now, let me read that last sentence, but let me insert some names there so it makes sense. Jesus entrusted himself to God the Father who judges justly. In other words, Jesus was like, I'm not going to retaliate. I'm not gonna become a debt collector. I'm not gonna go and punch back. Instead, I'm gonna entrust this hurt, this wound, this offense to the God who judges justly. And I'm gonna tell this to you, and I really want you to hear this. God is a much better debt collector

than you will ever be. You can entrust your offense to the God who sees everything and judges justly. The God who sees everything will restore you. He will heal you, and honestly, He'll avenge you. You know, the Bible talks about this, that, you know, allow God to do the avenging. Don't take it into your own hands. Don't try to take justice into your own hands when it comes to somebody who offended you. Doesn't mean you just roll over and die. I'm not trying to say that. But my point is this, is when you start playing debt collector, you walk into prison of all the bitterness and the frustration. When you think that person owes you, they own you. But when you say, God, I'm giving you this offense, and I'm entrusting it to you, and you are, you are the one that judges justly. It's a fight to forgive, but it's worth the effort. Release the debt and trust God with the justice. Some of you today need to do that. And in the last two minutes I have,

you're gonna make a choice to do it. You're like, well, I don't feel like doing it. It's not about feelings. I literally, not because I'm a saint, but because I care about my soul, I've literally forgiven people on the spot for something that really hurt me. Why? Because I don't even want, I don't even want that root of bitterness to begin to grow inside of me, because I know me too well. I'm Dutch. Dutch people can be mean, trust me. I can think of creative ways of getting back at people. My whole heritage is that. I refuse to allow that. So there've been moments that I've looked at people and I've been like, I forgive you. I'd rather strangle you by forgiving. Why? I'm not gonna allow that root to grow. I'm gonna release the debt and I'm gonna trust God with the justice. Let's pray. With every head bowed and every eye closed, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna do it right now. We're not gonna postpone it till Tuesday. If there is somebody that you need to release the debt,

they owe you a lot, they've done a lot, and right now you know you need to release the debt. By the way, before we go any further, with every head bowed and every eye closed, you might have to do this multiple times. This is maybe more than a one-time thing, but I want you to remember today. I'm gonna mark the moment today by having us do this. If there's someone that you need to release the debt and you need to trust God with justice, and you're saying, I no longer want this hurt to continue to punish me into my future. I no longer want this person to own me, living rent-free in my head. I no longer want the enemy to create damage and restrict my freedom. If you have a person in mind, I want you right now just to take a moment and under your breath, you don't have to say it out loud, God hears you, I want you to forgive them. They don't deserve it, they have not earned it, but you're doing it because you are the bigger person and you're gonna do things according to the way Jesus did it. So I want you to forgive them right now, just whisper it. Just say, I forgive and say their name. This may not be the only time you have to do this, you might have to do it every day, but until that heaviness

against the lift you are gonna choose forgiveness you're gonna choose freedom because with no forgiveness there is no future and you're saying God I will have a future so therefore I choose to forgive Heavenly Father the names of the people that we just spoke or this is a heavy moment a lot of people did that and it was not easy God I pray right now that after they spoke that that God you would open up the prison door I pray that freedom would begin to come into their heart I pray healing over their soul I pray that all of the thoughts that live rent-free that continue to keep them up at night wake them up in the morning Lord I pray that those thoughts would begin to diminish in the name of Jesus I pray that God you would come very close to those who are deeply hurt now Lord you would bring a supernatural healing that my words cannot bring that only your Holy Spirit can bring Lord I pray most of all that God you would give them a faith and an optimism in you of faith knowing that better days are ahead of faith knowing that they don't have to walk around with the burden of the hurts but rather instead that they are gonna have healing and they are gonna have freedom and they're gonna move on beyond this moment Lord I ask you would do something quite supernatural in their heart in their mind and in their lives we love you in Jesus name and everybody said amen amen can we give the God of healing our praise hey what an amazing time together if you're watching and you have not yet made Jesus the leader and the forgiver of your life we want to give you the opportunity to do that right now it begins with a very simple prayer that you can simply just pray after me dear Lord I know that I've made mistakes and I need your forgiveness I believe that you died for my sins I now invite you to be the leader and the forgiver of my life and in Jesus name a man amen amen well if you just made that prayer for the first time or maybe you rededicated your life we are celebrating with you today that is one of the best decisions that you will ever make and now that you've prayed that prayer we have a couple of next steps for you first tell someone about that decision you made we're not meant to walk through this life alone and secondly we have a free

resource that's just for you it's called a new beginning booklet and it's a simply a 14-day devotional and so as you start growing through your relationship with Jesus this devotional will help guide you yeah and when you sign up for this resource you will also receive a link to a few videos from our pastors these videos will guide you through how to pray and how to read the Bible and how to build Christ-centered friendships and as you start this journey please let us know if you have any questions you can drop a line in the chat or DM us on social media and we'll get right back to you after you walk through the new beginning resource a great next step for you to take is growth track growth track starts at the first Sunday of the month and this is a great way to discover your God-given purpose and design you can attend in person or online and if you'd like more information or want to sign up you can visit the app or scan the QR code on your screen that's right and finally if you need prayer for anything when I say anything I mean anything visit the app and enter your prayer request we have people who are praying over them constantly and the best thing that we you can do is come back to church and when we gather together we grow exponentially more well we love you City First fam we're praying for you church and we will see you guys next week