Victory Over Unforgiveness

In touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, next on In Touch, victory over unforgiveness. Last year, maybe yesterday, or maybe this morning, somebody heard you, and you felt it. And your first response was to retaliate, because you felt like you had a right to. And so you had to make up in the mind whether you were going to retaliate or not. So outwardly, you decided not to. But what you did, you stuffed it, and it's on the inside. Well, it made me that last year or yesterday or whenever, you saw somebody else that you thought was wronged. And you would like to have retaliated about that. But you didn't feel like you could, so you stuffed that one. One of the most dangerous things a person can do is stuff, resentment, anger, hostility, all of these things which really adds up to unforgiveness. In all this series of sermons, we've talked about the different emotions that are deadly. And they cause all kind of diseases, all kind of hurt, all kind of pain. And people live with it. Instead of dealing with it, they just live with it. And they have the idea that it's over, because, oh, I have forgotten that. But if you stuffed it, you may have forgotten it in your mind, but your body is still being affected by what you stuffed. Because you see, unforgiveness may be stuffed, but you do not escape the penalty. And you do not escape the consequences

of an unforgiving spirit. An unforgiving spirit is one of the most disastrous things that a person can have, because it's so subtle. It seems like, well, I forgot it. It was a long time ago, and it didn't really make all that much difference. And so I've just forgotten the whole affair. Well, you may have forgotten it, but not really. Because deep down inside, it's still boiling away. Unforgiveness is a disastrous attitude. It's a totally ungodly attitude. In fact, it is an attitude of rebellion. In fact, when you look at what unforgiveness is all about, you understand the nature of it from God's viewpoint when you look at the cross. Because at the cross, what did he say? That he was paying us in debt for every single person in the world, from Adam all the way to the last person who's born. That was the love of God. And he didn't say, I'll forgive you until, oh, when, if, and, and button, so forth. But it's awesome gift of forgiveness is over to all. And so I want you to listen carefully to this message. Because many people think they don't have any unforgiveness in their life. But the truth is that they look deeply enough. It's probably there. And if it's there, it's doing its damage just a little bit at the time.

So I want you to turn, if you will, to a passage that we turn to when we talk about anger. And if you'll turn to the fourth chapter of Ephesians. And I want us just to read two or three verses here. Beginning in verse 26, when the scripture says Paul said it, he said, don't let the sun go down on your anger. Don't sleep with it. And do not give the devil an opportunity, which says, if we don't deal with things right up front, we give the devil a toe hole in our life. And the result is that's when he begins to work, his destructive work. Then he says in verse 29, let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth. But only such a word is good to add predification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Listen to this. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slend to be put away from you along with all malice. And then he says, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other. How's that? Just as God, in Christ also has forgiven you. That is the command of the Lord. And if you'll think about this, it is the only attitude that is befitting those who say that we are believing. Why did He come? He came for the purpose of dying on the cross to do what? To make it possible

that all of us would be forgiven of our sin. When you trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, He forgives you of all of your sin. And He says, "And all of us have the responsibility who are followers of His to forgive others." And He doesn't say if and when possible in this, that and the other. He just says that responsibility is to forgive. And notice the degree of forgiveness. He doesn't say forget it when we're wrong. He says, "Be kind to one another, tend to harden forgiving each other just as God. In Christ also has forgiven you." That is the command. It's the will of God, it's the plan of God. And to do otherwise, would keep us from being the person's God wants us to be, having the witness God wants us to have, and living the life God has planned for us. There are not many things more destructive in a person's life than an unforgiving spirit because that you cannot keep it to yourself. And it can go on for years, destroying inside of a person without them even realizing it. So let's define a couple of things and now put them on the magazines here. And let's just define what we mean by forgiveness because people have different attitudes and different ideas about it. So forgiveness, for example, it means giving up resentment against someone and their right to get even. And the reason I'm going to put it up as you can see it, it's not just giving up our right to get even, no matter what they've done. Somebody says, "Well, I can give, but are you giving up your right to get even?" It means giving up resentment against someone and our right to get even, no matter what has been done to us. And then so let's just define what we mean by unforgiveness. Look at this. It means that listen, the deliberate willful refusal to give up one's resentment and the right to get even based on the attitude somebody's got to pay for the wrong done. As long as I feel like somebody's got to pay, then I'm not going to be forgiving. Look at that. Deliberate willful refusal to give up one's resentment and the right to get even based on the attitude someone's got to pay for the wrong done because here's what happens. Somebody says, "Well, they got to buy, they got by with it. Do you think anybody can get by with anything with an all-knowing God? No, they cannot." That's why he says, "Leave it to me. Vengeance is mine. I will to pay since," says the Lord. So it must grieve the heart of God to see his children have resentment and hostility and anger, unforgiveness towards someone because of what's happened when God says, "Look, leave it to me. You forgive them and I'll take care of it. I know exactly how to take care of it."

And so it's never excusable. It is never, it is never defendable to have an unforgiving spirit told anyone as a follower of Jesus Christ. So let's thank for just a moment what happens in a person's life when they refuse to be forgiving. For example, you cannot have a good prayer life and have a bit of spirit or have unforgiveness in your heart. You can't. Why? Because you come to God and you can come to Him saying, "Lord, I just want to thank you for being so good to me and I'm confessing my sin." You can reel all that off. Do you think God doesn't see that behind all that is an unforgiving spirit? Listen, if you hold bitterness, resentment, hostility, anger toward anybody, unforgiveness in your life, pray life's over until you deal with it. You say, "Well, I'm getting along fine. You think you are." But what you can't see is what's on the inside of what's happening to you. You'll worship, for example. Think about this for a moment. You see, if we get realistic about it, how can you come and sing these songs, for example? "My Jesus, I love thee. I know thou art mine. For thee all the fathers of sin I resign. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved the rich like me. This world is not my home. I'm just the passing through." We just go through all these songs. How great thou art with unforgiving spirit in my heart? That's hypocrisy. It doesn't work. What kind of witness can you have if your heart's full of Unforgiveness. How can you talk about that? when you've got unforgiveness in your own heart. And when it comes to giving, what did Jesus say? He said, "If you've got something against somebody, before you put in your offering, go deal with it and then bring it back." Listen, God wants you to have peace, and joy and happiness in your heart. He wants you to enjoy life. You cannot enjoy life as long as there's conflict between you and someone else. It's just there, and especially is that true in families where people live close, knit as a family does, and so what happens? It blocks your spiritual growth

and hinders the people around you. I think about children who grow up in a family where one member of the family or the parents, let's say that they're angry at each other. When they grow up in that kind of atmosphere, unless one of those members of the family, unless they're strong enough to see what's happening, explain it and talk about forgiveness and so forth, what happens to those kids? If that's their atmosphere, it's sort of natural for them to be angry. And what happens to their kids, the same thing? We pass down more than we realize, and therefore it's not something that you keep to yourself. So when I think about how it affects us, I think about how it affects us physically. We might be shocked if we knew how many people were in hospital beds. They can trace it back to an unforgiving spirit. You see, an unforgiving spirit creates anger and hostility and so forth, so what happens? When they drive, listen, do you wanna be driving next to someone else about two feet apart who got up angry is the devil that morning, and they're driving 80 miles an hour right beside you? No, you don't. You can't keep it to yourself and maybe you're hurting somebody and you don't even realize it. Maybe the things that you say about somebody, comments that you make, you see, here's what happens.

Watch this carefully. When the people who love you and respect you, hear you say angry things or bitter things or resentment towards someone else, if that person's not godly, let's say they have high respect for you, they may pick up on that and start feeling the same thing. Well, the person they're feeling that told had nothing to do with anything. This is why bitterness spreads and it's absolutely a disaster. So it affects all kind of relationships, but the one thing I wanna think about for just a few moments and I say is how do we deal with it? So I'd ask you this, if you walked out here today and somebody tripped you somehow and you fell and say you broke your knee and broke your leg. And they were just careless. How would you feel? Would you say, oh, I know you didn't mean to, when you got in the car, I'm telling you, if I don't just know, it was, how do you respond? You see, forgiveness is a good measure of how big of a man you are, how big of a woman you are. Are you big enough to forgive, no matter what? You've been hurt a long time, can you still forgive? You see, little people hold resentment. Little people are gossipers. Little people, little people want to retaliate. Godly men and women don't wanna retaliate.

They wanna forgive, you know why we wanna forgive? Because we want to live in keeping with the one who died for us and whose very life is all about forgiveness. It just doesn't fit who we are. So if I'm gonna deal with it, number one, first of all, I have to acknowledge the fact that it's serious business. You don't deal with unforgiveness lightly. It's serious business to deal with unforgiveness because we're dealing with our relationship with Almighty God. We're dealing with our whole future when you deal with unforgiveness. So you have to assume responsibility for it. And when you say or assume responsibility, I have to say and acknowledge God, I am bitter, I am resentful, I am a hostile, I have an unforgiving spirit. I accept it is true of me, Lord. And one of the reasons people will live with it is they just can't acknowledge, yes, watch this. Because what they wanna dwell on is what was done to them, who did it, why they did it, how they did it and how they suffer. They can't get over that, watch this. You have to look beyond your hurt and your pain, you have to look beyond yourself if you're gonna be forgiving. And if you're gonna, and if you're going to deal with it, you can't focus on yourself. A third thing is this, you have to confess to God I'm bitter, but I'm resentful.

I resent how he was treated, I resent how she was treated, I resent how my kids are treating me, I resent this, yes Lord I'm bitter. I don't deserve this, this is not what I'm married for. I don't know what an old people can go, but I have to confess the fact that I am. You see it's very, watch this, it's easy to confess something in private between you and God, just you and God, as if it's a secret. No, listen, I need to hear myself say it, God I am guilty of resentment, I am guilty of holding a grudge, I am guilty God of disobeying your law and being unwilling to forgive, I must be willing to confess and acknowledge it. And I need to acknowledge the fact that it's a violation of the word of God. You see as long as I keep my focus on them what they did I won't do this, but I need to acknowledge the fact that I have a responsibility, that I have an unforgiving spirit, it is an active rebellion toward God, in other words I need to look at it like it is. You won't deal with it, you see it like God sees it. As long as you can sort of smooth it over, wrap it up, put a bow on it, you can live with it, you think. And then of course, you need to ask God to forgive you, ask Him to forgive you, God forgive me, I'm guilty, I violated your law, I'm really guilty, I'm rebelled against your spirit, I've heard of the people that spread over to my family or whatever, I need to ask you to forgive me, then I have to ask God to enable me to forgive. Now, when a person is living with somebody a long time and you've been hurt and hurt all your time, you've been hurt and hurt and mistreated and mistreated and accused and blamed and somebody says you've got to lay it down, you have to ask the spirit of God within you to watch this, to enable you to be, listen, to enable you to make a decision. Not based on feeling but make a decision, God, I choose to lay down my anger, my resentfulness, my hostility, whatever the words that are there, I choose to lay it bent by your grace and your mercy and your strength, you said you would enable me to do all things, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, I choose to lay it down. I no longer want unforgiveness in my life, I absolutely and totally forgive, it doesn't fit who I am in it longer, I thank you dear God by your awesome power, I lay it down,

I choose to lay it down, why do you keep saying it over and over again, because I want the last person in here to hear it, lay it down and when you go home I want you to remember how that's what I said, lay it down, he says lay aside these things, you have the power to do it, now, then you need to start praying for the other person, let's say somebody's hurting you for years and years and years, you begin to pray for them, ask God to open their eyes, that is, here's what happens, watch this, no longer is the center of my tension on me and how I got hurt, now the center of my tension is on them, watch this, why do they do me the way they did me, why do they treat me that way, why do they hurt me that way, what did they have in mind, what motivated them, and I can tell you and I said this to you before, it was only when, it was only when I genuinely recognized why my stepfather treated me and my mother the way he did, only when I recognized why he did it, did all that mess come out of my life, I confess I went to see him, I asked him to forgive me from the way I responded to him, I did everything I knew, but one day when I was praying, it's like the Lord showed me, well you did ask him, you did all of those things but I want to show you something, you have to go deeper than that, a little of it is still there, I said, God will show me, how do I get rid of all of this, it's like he showed me, when you see and you understand why he treated you the way he did, you'll be free, telling you, when I saw that I got free, and what I saw was this, and I probably have told you this before, but most of you weren't here, he He grew up on the farm. He wanted to be a doctor. He forced him to be a farmer. He hated being a farmer. He left the farm, but he didn't leave. He didn't leave his hatred, animosity, and bitterness and resentment toward his father there. He brought it with him. When I saw why he spewed out his anger and his resentment and his hostility on me and my mom, it's like God sent me free.

So sometimes it isn't just a matter of confessing. It's getting to the root and finding out why it's there. And then, then you're able to pray for that person because just to say, well, just go pray for him. You don't have to do that. But ask yourself, why did they act the way they act? Now, you may not discover a reason as definite as mine, but there is a reason and he'll show you. And then you might have to ask the Lord and it would be a good thing to do this. Lord, what can I do for that other person? What can I do for them? You say, you just don't understand. No, I don't. I understand that doing something for somebody who hurts you is powerful. I do know that's true. And if they know what you're feeling, it may be that you need to go to that person and just be honest with them and say, I need to ask you to forgive me for something. Now, listen, if it's somebody who doesn't even have any idea what's going on, I'm not saying you should go to everybody and you ask God about that. But if God leads you to go to that person, you don't listen, here's how you do it. You don't go to him and say, well, back here on the year ago, here's what you did to me.

It's over. Here's what you say. You say, about a year ago, here's what happened to me and I wanna tell you, here's been my bad attitude and I need to ask you to forgive me for responding in the wrong way. This is what I did to my stepfather. When I went to see him, I purposed in my heart not to mention one thing he did. And you know what? Before I could finish, he was around the table, hugging me and crying and asking me to forgive him. And that's not what I went for, but I was grateful. But if I'd have said, here's what you did to me. It would have just driven it deeper. I'm saying all that to say, if you really wanna get rid of it, you gotta get rid of it. You got to lay it down and you got to be, listen, you have to be well and be rejected. But as long as you deal with it, you're free. And no one is free. You're not free as long as you have an unforgiving spirit. Now you say, well, how do you deal with somebody who's died? You say, well, that's all over, no, it's not, watch this. If you have bitterness towards someone, unforgiving spirit, let's just say it like it's one of your parents. And you have that and they die. And you begin to grow in your Christian life and you realize the way you treated them.

Then you wanna deal with it and they're gone. I'll tell you what, if you deal with that, here's the first thing that'll happen. All of a sudden you'll feel this sudden, horrible, and emptiness that they're gone and I can't do anything about it. I won't ever be able to settle it, but you can. And I know this sounds simple, but it works. You sit in one chair and put a chair in front of you and put that other person in the other chair. You say, they're already in heaven, it's okay. For this moment, they're sitting there listening to you. And then you say the same thing to them sitting in the chair as if they were there. They'll watch this, what makes this work? God's listening. God's hearing your heart. What's he doing? He's forgiving and cleansing and setting that issue. You can do that to that invisible person and you're asking them to forgive you. They don't hear it, hear. God hears it, you hear it, and that settles it. That's not the way you're gonna get rid of it. Now how will you know, watch this, how will you know when you've forgiven somebody? Well, number one, when you see them, you won't see them the same way. Secondly, those harsh feelings you had will be replaced by a whole different attitude to them.

Why? Because you laid it down. It's not in you anymore. You don't feel the way you felt. Why? Because you asked God to forgive you and to cleanse you, you laid it down. God emptied you of that. And what will happen is you'll be willing to watch this. And this may be a little difficult for you to think. You'll be willing, listen, you'll be willing to accept them just the way they are. Now you say, "Oh my goodness, that may be a trap." No, it's not a trap. He's working in your behalf. You'll be able to look at them from a whole different perspective. You'll be willing to see them in a whole different light. And in the process of doing so, you'll be able to accept them the way they are. And more than likely, you'll try to understand why they act and the way they act. It'll be different when you really forgive them. So when somebody says, "Well, can I be sure?" Yes, you can. Well, maybe it's somebody that you've sort of avoided. You know, you see them coming and you very carefully and politely go the other way. When you have forgiven them, here's what you do. You're waiting for them. Let me give you an example. When I first came to Atlanta, we had a big fight, and the folks who tried to run me off, God ran them off, so to have them. But one of those men is a man I really loved, genuinely.

And I thought he loved and supported me, but he didn't. And so he did something to me that really hurt me, tried to trap me in a situation, and the Lord just spared me of all that. And he just couldn't face me. So I tell you, when I knew I'd forgiven him, one day I was in the Southern Baptist Convention, and I saw him walking across the Rotunda. And I thought, "Well, have I forgiven him or not?" And I had this wonderful spirit of total freedom I couldn't wait for him to come to me. Listen, you don't want any of your friends to die. You have an unforgiving spirit to them. It doesn't mean it's what they've done. You're not going to be free, and there's only one person who can make you free. And Jesus said, "I'll make you free, and you'll be free indeed." You do not want to be bound by the destructive attitude, such as unforgiveness. Well if you've never been saved, none of this is going to work for you. That's what you have to start with, you have to start the way all of us started. By asking the Lord Jesus Christ to forgive you for your rebellious spirit, to forgive you for your sins, to forgive you warning it your way, until I meant you trusting him as your personal Savior, that you believe he died on the cross and paid you a sin death. And that he's willing to forgive you and to cleanse you and to give you a whole new life. The moment you're willing to do that, he's willing to start your life for you all over again. And Father, how grateful we are for your love for us. You know we stumble and fall and fall and you pick us up, and you teach us and you keep on instructing us. Thank you for being patient with us and understanding, and I pray the Holy Spirit will take this message, "Oh God, let it not be ignored under any condition. Let it stick." For every person who hears it, and I know that there are people who will hear it around

the world, who are living in horrible situations. Would you grant them, dear God, the grace to believe your word and to trust you, that you will see them through whatever they go through? And I pray for every person seated here this morning, who finds themselves in one of those positions struggling with unforgiveness, grant them, dear God, the power to lay it down, that they will not have to sleep another night with a spirit of unforgiveness. But peace, joy, love, kindness, forgiveness, all the wonderful qualities that you provide for us, and we ask you this in Jesus' name, amen. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]