And listen, one of the biggest lies people tell is time heals all wounds. That's a lie. There is nothing biblical, nothing true about that statement. Time does not have healing properties in it. In fact, if you leave something that is desperately wrong untreated, it gets infected and gets worse.
It can fly, it will tell, and it waits for no man, because time can't heal wounds, at least, not all by itself. Thanks so much for stopping by for today's Destined for Victory, where we feature the preaching ministry of Pastor Paul Shepard.
Well, the thinking goes that if we put a little distance between ourselves and the pain from our past, we'll feel better, we'll get healthy, all will be made well. But ignoring your pain won't make it go away. Today you'll discover the biblical remedy for dealing with someone who has hurt you in the past. It's a welcome reminder for anyone who wants to get from wounded to well. Remember to come see us at pastorpaul.net to listen to any recent message on demand, including today's.
That's pastorpaul.net. Subscribe to our podcast at Spotify or wherever you enjoy your podcasts.
Now, let's listen to Pastor Paul's Destined for Victory message: Resolving Conflict God's Way. You can have sinful motives. You can be a person who smiles on the outside and has hatred and malice. On the inside. There is nothing worse than a person who grins at you and cuts you behind your back.
I'd rather not be grinned at. Do me a favor and just hate me to my face. Don't come smiling to me. Don't come telling me how much you love me. And then behind my back, you're slanderous and murderous with your tongue.
And you're deceitful, and nobody can trust you. And I hear in the wind what you really said about me. There's nothing godly about that. And as long as Christians think that's justifiable, they'll never please God and they'll never get delivered from it. You got to say, Lord, I'm sick of this.
I need to be. One of the old mothers in our church growing up said, You need to wear one face under one hat. That's some of them old sayings. She was one of them old mothers. She always wore a hat to church, too.
And she said, I honey, I wear one face under one hat. What that means is, what you see is what you get. She said, If I don't like you, you're gonna know about it. If I got a problem with you, you ain't gonna have to worry about hearing it down the street. I'm going to walk up to your face and say, here is the problem I have with you.
How do you deal with sinful patterns in your life, whether they're behavior or attitude or motives? You confess them to trusted people. You pray with them and stand and believe for deliverance. And you forsake them. You do not allow them to continue to operate in your life by the power of God.
That's how you get free. You look to God in prayer. He is the deliverer. He says, Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be delivered. That's his promise to you.
Don't just call on a higher power. There's no higher power. There is Jesus Christ, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. You can't say, well, you know, one size fits all, whoever you pray to, whatever you reach out to, not so. There is a name that is above every name.
That at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess, every pattern, every habit, everything in your life that's wrong, it bows. To the name and the authority of Jesus Christ.
So that's how you deal. with sinful behaviors, attitudes, motives. You take the word of God to them and you believe God for deliverance. What do you do? How do you deal with issues that are unresolved in your life?
We've been talking about issues. I brought my bags one week and showed you, illustrated it with baggage to carry around baggage. And I had a five-piece set of luggage and picked them all up at once.
Now, just for illustration purposes, they were empty, but in our real lives, our bags are full of issues and stuff. I got winded carrying five empty pieces. I got with it. My wife told me after church, he said, You were kind of huffing after you got through. I said, yes, I was.
I was flat out tired. I felt like preaching the rest of that message on my back.
Now, imagine carrying around in our lives all of our issues from the past, all the unresolved stuff, stuff that people said to you when you were a child that's still with you. The ways you were mistreated, the ways you were abused, the ways that you have been disrespected. Then, growing up and starting to deal with the opposite sex or same sex, if you had that attraction and what have you, and you started going through changes and dysfunction came into your life and you saw all kinds of brokenness manifesting itself in your life, and by the time you are an adult, you are good and encumbered with unresolved issues. What do you do with those? Jesus said, I came to set you free.
He said, I've come to deliver you from those. I don't want you going through the rest of your life carrying 20, 30, 40-year-old baggage. That hasn't been unpacked and resolved. And not all of our baggage is from our childhood, some of our baggage is from last month. Last year.
and the job you just left and the folk you just got through fooling with. And you have all of that, old stuff and new stuff. And you're carrying it around. What do you do with your people issues? When people have been your problem, when people have destroyed your psyche, when people have messed over you, when people have mistreated you and abused you and disrespected you and left you with dysfunction, when people have done you wrong, what do you do with that?
Well, the word of God proclaims God wants to give us freedom.
So we look into the principles of the word and see what are the freedom principles by which we are called to live. When it comes to our people issues, Jesus speaks to that. For instance, in Matthew chapter 18, he says, Now there's an ideal way when people have mistreated you. He says, for instance, in Matthew 18, 15, if your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.
Now, that is the ideal. If that can happen, praise God. What do you do? You go and show.
Someone has mistreated you, abused you, disrespected you, done wrong by you, betrayed your trust, whatever it is, you go and show. It means that you tell them what they did. Jesus was clear: tell them, don't tell other people about them. He says, go to them. Tell them, here's what you did, here's what you said.
And I know it may be uncomfortable or embarrassing or just feels very impractical to have to drudge up stuff from 30, 40 years ago. But if it's unresolved, that's the way God says I'm going to deliver you from it, you go and show.
Sometimes you have to have a talk with a parent. Who is now aged? And you are well grown. But what they did, what they said, how they mistreated you, you're living with it every day. And you can't deal with it well, obviously, because it's still there.
See, it's one thing to say, yeah, here's the way I was raised, and it was unfortunate, but I'm over it, and God has helped me, and I've moved on with my life. If that is, praise God. But some of us know that's not the case. You haven't been able to move on. You're stuck.
You still feel the anger, the bitterness, the resentment, the malice. And listen, one of the biggest lies people tell is time heals all wounds. That's a lie. There is nothing biblical, nothing true about that statement. Time heals nothing in and of itself.
Time does not have healing properties in it. In fact, if you leave something that is desperately wrong untreated, it gets infected and gets worse. And so I don't care if you're an adult. Having to deal with a senior citizen parent, sometimes you have to pick up the phone and say, Mom, Dad, I need to have a talk with you because I'm believing God for deliverance and freedom. God wants to free my life, and there's some things that have been binding me that have to do with our history.
And we need to have a talk. And you do it. It may be with a sibling. It may be with a child. It may be with a Significant other from your past.
It may be with your spouse. Whoever, whatever, if there's an unresolved issue and you feel it in your heart and the malice and the anger and whatever is still there, it means it has to be brought to them. You say, but I'm dealing with somebody who is either no longer available to me, they're no longer married to me, they're married to somebody else, or whatever, or they're dead. In some cases, you have unresolved issues with somebody you can't talk to, they're in their grave. What do you do?
You take to God. what you would have taken to them. You say, Lord, here's what they did. Here's what they said. I wish I had a chance to confront them as your word tells me to do, but I cannot.
Sometimes you might want to write it out and say, here's what I would have said to them. Write it out. Journal it. Get it out of you. Here it is.
Yeah. I hate what my mother said. I hate what my father did. I hate the impact of that on me. Here is where it has left me stuck, and I deeply resent it.
You get it out. If you can't take it to them for practical reasons, you can always take it to the Lord. Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. Oh my God, David said, I trust in thee. Let me not be ashamed.
Let not my enemies or what they've done triumph over me.
Sometimes you got to go to the rock that is higher than I. And believe God. But listen, Jesus started with the ideal. Here's what you do ideally, you go and show. And every now and then you run into somebody who, when you go and show them what they said and did.
And by the way, you don't have to be nice about it. You should be respectful, but my point is, you don't have to go grinning and practicing sloppy agape. See, some Christians think that they always got to pretend to be happier than they are. You will never have real joy as long as you're pretending to be happy. Don't go away.
We have more of today's Destined for Victory message coming up next. We want to take a moment to thank all of you who support Destined for Victory with your prayers and financial support, gifts that help us keep this media ministry going. And if you'd like to join us in our mission to share the love of Christ with the world, please consider making a safe and secure donation at our website, pastorpaul.net, or give us a call at 855-339-5500. 855-339-5500. Have you ever had to rebuke someone you love?
It's not always easy, but sometimes it's biblical.
Now, here's the second half of Pastor Paul's message: Resolving Conflict God's Way. Jesus said in Luke 17, verse 3: If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. Rebuke is not a kind word. Rebuke is shaking your finger. Rebuke is a face that is stern.
Rebuke are words that are sharp. Rebuke is saying, Here's what you did, and I don't like it. I resent it. You had no right to treat me that way. You had no right to betray me like that, and I resent it.
Jesus said, if your brother sins against you, rebuke him. If your mother sins against you, rebuke her. Respectfully. 'Cause you know, we were raised by folk who said, I'm gonna always be your mama. If you fifty-five and I'm seventy-eight.
I'm no less your mother than when I was changing your diaper. You better act, the tone in your voice better sound like you know who you're talking to. Y'all remember that old-fashioned But you can still fulfill the word as respectfully. I had to do it. My father's now with the Lord, but there were times in my adulthood I had to say, Pop, we need to talk.
And I just sit down with him and I said, I respect you, I love you, I appreciate you, but there's some stuff in my heart, I just got to get it out. I said, I don't think I'm going to sound disrespectful while I say this. But if I happen to say something that sounds disrespectful to you, please forgive me ahead of time. I'm telling you what I had to say to my father. And he said, son, just go in and get it out.
And we were able to get connected. You do what you have to do. To reconcile. But some of us know there's some people, if you go and show, They're going to have one of three reactions, all of which are not good.
Some people are defiant. Defiant. That means defensive. Fending off You don't know what you're talking about? Get out of here with that.
That's what can happen when you take something that's been hurting you, painting you. Robbing you of joy and peace. You take it to some folk and they're just defiant. And doesn't it hurt further, deeper? Doesn't it go to the wrong place when you're trying to get straight?
And they are fending and defying.
Some folks are defiant.
Some folks are in flat-out denial. You ever taken something to somebody and said, Here's what you did? And they say No, I didn't. Come on, let's be real. Look, we believe in God for deliverance.
You got to be real to get this. And they said, No, I didn't. With the straightest face. And you're standing there saying, I remember when you said it. I remember your voice inflection.
In fact, I remember what you had on when you said it. I remember where we were standing, what we were doing. And they looked right back at you and said, No, I don't know what you're talking about.
Some folk are defiant, some folk are in denial. Here's the third unappealing response you may get.
Some folks not only defy, some folks are not only in denial, some people have flagrant disregard. For how you feel or what you're saying. Meaning, they know it happened, they know they said it or did it. They know they abused you. They know they offended you.
They know they disrespected you. They know they mistreated you for years. Whatever it is. And they don't care.
Now talk about pain. Here, you are vulnerable enough to bring to them. The thing that has been troubling you. And what you get is Get over it. I mean, how long has this been?
I don't believe you bringing this old stuff up to me. I don't believe you messing up my Thanksgiving Day, pulling me over in the other room. Talk about some mess like this. Folks, that Hurts. When you are vulnerable.
And somebody else is uncaring. That hurts. But it's possible. That when you go and show That's the response you get. What do you do?
Jesus didn't stop with. If your brother hears you, you've won him over. When you keep on reading down Matthew 18, you know what he gets to? He says: if you tried everything and they won't. Listen for the life of them.
He said, treat them. Like a pagan or a tax collector.
Now before you get happy Cause you know that sound like oh, I'm gonna get to I'm gonna get to do something How does Jesus tell us to treat pagans and tax collectors? Says I love them. The difference is You love them from a safe distance. See, you don't let people continue to abuse you. Love is not putting trust in untrustworthy people.
Get this straight now. If you are a pagan, I know you don't honor God, so you're not going to honor me. If you are a tax collector, a tax collector was not your friendly IRS agent. In Jesus' day, a tax collector was an extortionist. Was a Jew who worked for the Romans, and they became wealthy.
By extorting more taxes than they should, than you owed, and they would give Rome what Rome deserved, and then they would keep a healthy. a large sum for themselves. And they were despised by their own people. They were sellouts.
So you didn't trust them. You knew they couldn't be trusted. But you love them from a safe distance. That's what you have to learn to do with some of the people in your life. As God is delivering you from your past, you've got to learn to love people from a safe distance.
See, the Bible says your enemy hunger feeds him. That doesn't mean you have to be up close. You can send them some food. Oh come on, this is gonna help somebody. This is gonna help some bit.
You can send them a plate. You know those little things we have where everybody fixes a plate and put their foil around it and take it. You say, here, get this to tax collector. Trying to help you get free. Don't put yourself in harm's way.
The Bible doesn't tell you to put yourself in harm's way. Don't misunderstand the Sermon on the Mount. When Jesus said, if they slap you on one side of your face, turn your cheek, he wasn't saying put yourself in harm's way. What he was talking about was humiliation. That wasn't violence.
The slap on the cheek he was referring to was not violence. They weren't trying to beat you up. He was talking about Romans who were in charge. The Jews were the oppressed people. They had no political power.
They had no military power. They couldn't overthrow Rome.
So, Romans could humiliate them by slapping them and hope that they try to fight so that they could justify beating you down or killing you.
So Jesus taught people on the hillside: if they slap you on one side of your face, Help them understand that you are a bigger person and you don't have to define yourself by always fighting a battle you can't win. You can be bigger than them. If they slap you on one side, you can let them slap the other one too. Because that doesn't change who you are. That's what he was talking about.
He wasn't talking about don't defend yourself.
Well, the Bible says you can't defend yourself. No, it doesn't. That same Jesus later on, when he was in the garden and checking on the boys because he's getting ready to go to the cross, he said, And if you don't have a sword, a defensive weapon, buy one. Jesus said it. There were a couple Greek words for a sword.
The one he used was defensive weapon. If you need to defend yourself against genuine harm, Of untrustworthy people, he said, do it. When I was in Bible college, one of my professors was teaching on some practical things about being a servant of God. And he said, Listen, don't be so caught up in ministry that you don't defend your family. And he said, if you live somewhere, this is in Philadelphia, you live in one of these neighborhoods where you know folk are liable to come in there and do harm to you or your family.
He said, It's your job. to defend your family. He said, Now do that any way that your conscience. I realize people have different levels of conscience on how they could do that. He said, So I'm not telling you to do it my way.
He said, But in my house, that means I'm packing. He did. He told a class full of Budding preachers. He said, They come up in my house if they want, I'm going to put a hot one in them. And one brother raised his hand and said, But how do you reconcile that with our call to win people to the Lord?
He said I can win him quicker with a gun on him. My point is simply that love doesn't call you. To practice unsafe. Dealings. With unsafe people.
But you can love them anyway, and you can deal with them.
Now, what do you do? When all fails. You can't reconcile with him. Because they're defiant, they're in denial, or they disregard your feelings. What do you do when you're trying to love them from a safe place, but you're still carrying stuff in your heart?
Jesus then gives us a principle. I'll have to cover it in the next message. I'm out of time. He says, then I want to teach you how to forgive. Yeah.
Now, forgive is not what a lot of folks think. There is power in forgiveness. That many of us have never experienced because we've never trusted God enough. To release our enemies. We think we gotta hold on to something.
But by holding on you keep yourself in bondage. But if you will release them, and I'm going to talk about that in the next message. you will find that there's a power in forgiveness. that will transform your life and free you. from the bondage you suffer with.
True joy does not depend on how others treat us, but on how we treat others. When we learn to forgive those who have wounded us, we'll have the kind of joy that only comes from living our lives God's way. Today's message, Resolving Conflict God's Way, is part of Pastor Paul Shepherd's teaching series, God is a Finisher. Look for it online at pastorpaul.net. You know, Destined for Victory could not exist without the faithful prayers and financial support listening friends and partners like you provide.
You are the lifeblood of this media ministry, and it's because of you that we can share the gospel of Jesus Christ with people all over the world. And because the busy summer months are always a tough time financially for the ministry, we're asking you to prayerfully consider sending a generous gift to Destined for Victory today. When you do, we have a great resource to share with you. It's our new booklet, Rising Above Offense. This is something every believer should read.
You'll discover how to respond the right way when someone offends you or does you harm, and you'll learn all about the beautiful and amazing power of forgiveness and what it unlocks in your life. Again, it's called Rising Above Offense. Request your copy today for your generous gift to Destined for Victory. Call us at 855-339-5500. Again, 855-339-5500 or visit.
At pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. As always, you can mail that gift to Destined for Victory, post office box 1767, Fremont, California, 94538. A lot of Christians don't understand forgiveness. And we've got to get this straight. And I believe that by the time I'm done, you will have a fresh revelation, a fresh understanding of what God calls us to do in this area so that we can be free and we can enjoy what He has provided for us and not walk in perpetual bondage because of our people issues.
And that's tomorrow in our Destined for Victory message, learning how to forgive. Until then, remember, he said. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.
