Welcome to the InTouch podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, May 15th. Do you wrestle with anger? bitterness or an unforgiving spirit. Learn how to remove destructive hindrances to your walk with the Lord in part two of Dr. Stanley's message: Freedom from Bondage.
When Paul wrote the book of Ephesians, he wrote the book to a group of people. And one of those problems that they had was a problem. That oftentimes is experienced by people today and don't even realize it, or if it is there, they refuse to acknowledge, they just repress it. That is, it's not there. If it's there and they realize it, they suppress it, they don't want to deal with it.
And so one of those situations is found in Ephesians chapter 4. And if you'll turn there, let's read two verses, verses 31 and 32. There is a basic form of bondage which results In the actions that Paul mentions here in this 31st verse.
So he says. In verse 31, let all bitterness and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. and be kind one to another. Tenderhearted, forgiving each other just as God in Christ has also forgiven you.
Now, When you and I think about a forgiving spirit, he says, let it be put away from you. That is, put it away. And you see, He says that's garbage, bitterness and resentment, and all of these things. And you see, when you grow up with this, Years and years and years in your life of this kind of thing. And you repress it, that means you deny it's there.
You suppress it, you accept the fact that it's there, but you don't want to deal with it. Listen, no counselor can ever help anybody who represses the truth or suppresses the truth.
So for example, here's what I want you to say. Here are children who grew up in a home. where the parents have rejected them. And the kids I'm not saying the parents intended to. But the kids grow up and they're hostile.
And they're angry. Oh, they're bitter and they're resentful.
So here's what Satan does: Satan says, Now, look, what you do is you just push that down. They just keep it down there because, after all, that is your father or your mother, and you're not supposed to feel that way. And since you're not supposed to feel that way, you don't feel that way, so you just repress it. No, I don't feel angry. Right beneath the surface of our consciousness You can get bitter and angry and resentful toward God.
and live with that all of your life, and you know what happens? It all takes its toll in your physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional life.
So, you see, we have to be honest with ourselves, and sometimes it is very painful for us to admit. that in our life In our attitude, we may have an unforgiving spirit. As we said before, it's easy to say that I'm disillusioned or I've been disappointed. It is more difficult to say, I have an unforgiving spirit toward. My employer, my father, my mother, or whatever it might be.
Now listen. What makes it worse is if that person dies. There's almost a frightening futility about the fact that you can't ever settle that situation, but you can, I want to show you how. And listen very carefully. Here's the basis of a forgiving spirit.
The basis of a forgiving spirit is That Jesus Christ The Saviour died for sin. Look, if you will, in chapter 2 of 1 John. 1 John chapter 2, I want to ask you a question now. And when he says here, my little children, I'm writing these things to you that you may not sin. If anyone sins we have an advocate, that is, he is the attorney who stands in our place.
Jesus Christ the righteous. And then verse 2. Verse 2 says, And he that is Jesus himself Is Is present tense the propitiation or the sacrifice or the payment. For our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of what? The whole world.
Did Jesus Christ die for the sins of the whole world according to 1 John chapter 2? Yes, he did. That he died for your sins. Past, present, and future. That he die.
for the sins of those who've wronged you. All right, when Jesus Christ went to the cross and He died, He paid the penalty for all your sin. Amen? Did he pay the penalty for the sin of the person? Who wronged you?
Are you sure about that? That is, the person, I mean the person who really set you up and just wiped you out. You mean that Jesus died for their sin? Then let me ask you a question. That is, He paid the penalty for their sins.
So, in God's eyes, if they're willing to accept the Lord Jesus Christ, your enemy has been forgiven according to the cross. Amen? Then let me ask you a question. Why do you keep holding against them?
something they've been forgiven for. What I'm saying is this: you and I have forsaken all rights. to hold bitterness. And resentment toward anybody because what we'll have to say is, even though Even though Jesus died for your sin of gossip, you've ruined my reputation, even though. Jesus forgave you and he paid the penalty.
I want some more payment. The Bible says, owe no man anything but to love one another. Listen, no one should be in debt to you and me. Tear up the papers of indebtedness toward those who wronged you. Jesus paid the penalty.
If He paid the penalty, who am I to require and execute vengeance and require judgment? payment for sin which has already been atoned for in the precious wonderful sinless body of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have to give up all my rights to hold grudges and resentment and bitterness toward anybody anywhere on the face of the earth. He has never refused to forgive you. You know why?
Because listen, he did it once. at one time, once and for all, 2,000 years ago, and since that moment, the river of God's forgiving love has been flowing unhindered in this world to any and all who are able and willing and ready to receive the love of God. You and I are to live in the state of forgiveness. Not being forgiven, I'm not talking about that kind of forgiveness, but I mean forgiving toward others. And this is a day of rights, but I want to tell you, my friend, when you received the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you gave up your rights to defend big I.
We gave up our rights to defend ourselves. We are vulnerable to this wicked world in which we live, but we are safe in the grace of the living Christ because, listen, we are walking in the midst of the flow of God's eternal and continuous, unalterable, unhindered forgiveness. We are forgiven children. We're forgiven members of the body. How can a forgiven member of the body allow the love of God to flow through them when they have plugged it all up with an unforgiving spirit that is expressing itself in bitterness and hostility because Big I has been injured?
It doesn't even fit. Doesn't match up. And what Paul is saying in this passage, he says, look. He says, do away with all that. Look if you will in 1 John chapter 2 and look over if you will in verse 9.
He says the one who says he's in the light. and yet hates his brother or is resentful or bitter toward them. He's in darkness. That is, he thinks he knows the truth, but he doesn't know the truth. The one who loves his brother is abiding in the light.
And watch this: there's no cause of stumbling in Him which says, if you and I have an unforgiving spirit toward anybody. then you and I are a stumbling block. To those who know us, he says, if a fellow is walking in the light, loving his brother, there's no cause of stumbling in him. And the implication is, therefore, if I have an unforgiving spirit toward my brother, then I have become a stumbling block. Verse 11.
But one who hates or is resentful or bitter toward his brother or sister is, listen, is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, doesn't know where he's going because the darkness has blinded his eyes, which says an unforgiving spirit. an unforgiving spirit distorts our perspective about things. When you have an unforgiving spirit, you can't see things as they are. And there's so many people who are fighting each other and their families with their employers and employees and all the things that go on because the offending big guy love this self-pity. Gonna have one more pound of flesh, forgetting that the Bible says that God the Father placed upon the Lord Jesus Christ in his perfectly sinless body all the guilt, all the penalty, all the sin of all humanity, eternity past as long as man has lived, from the Garden of Eden all the way to the end of it all, God placed on him the penalty.
He has already paid the penalty. What I'm saying is, I want another trial. I want him trod again. I want him prosecuted again. I want the jury on my side because we're going to, listen, he's going to pay again.
And you and I know that's not scriptural. No way for it to be scriptural. What am I saying? To whomever, toward whomever, you feel resentment. Bitterness, hostility.
Anger. Malice. You have a deep desire to get vengeance. I want to tell you that it is a sin against God. I don't care what they've done, you have no right scripturally, biblically, theologically to hold that.
I'm not saying, as I said before, if you're in a situation where That your very life is threatened. You may have to get out of the situation. To save your physical life, But that doesn't even give you a right. To be bitter and resentful. Be ye kind one toward another, not except for those who do the following six things.
Be ye kind one toward another, tender-hearted. Sensitive, compassionate. Pliable. Able to perceive things as they are. Listen, oftentimes when people wrong us, you know why they wrong us?
And you know, pastors get this all the time. And I've seen this happen, it's happened to me, it's happened to every pastor. We're the objects of people's hostility toward God because we represent him in some fashion or form. We're the objects of their resentment toward God. And I've had people in my life, as every pastor would testify, who want to hurl their vengeance and hurl their anger and hurl their hostility toward a man of God.
Because they're angry at God and He's the next thing that reminds them of Him. And the problem is The tragedy is they don't even know what they're doing. And that's the tragedy. They're wrecking their life. You see, you can't have resentment.
You can't have resentment in your life. All bitterness. or anger without it spilling over on others. When you're bitter, listen, you cause a blight. to everybody close to you.
When your anger, the acid of that just spills over on other people and they hurt as a result of it. Another question is, how do we deal with this personally? You say, well, he says, put it away. How do you put it away?
So I want to give you just two or three things, jot them down, if you will. First of all, I have to acknowledge. Honestly, that I am resentful or bitter.
Now you say well Suppose that person is passed on, because this is a question I get lots of times. But suppose it's my grandfather or grandmother and they harmed me or whatever it might be. Doesn't make any difference. It's all the same.
So, dead or alive, the answer is the same. Watch this. First of all, I acknowledge that is the way I feel. I'm not just hurt, I have an unforgiving spirit, God.
So I confess it to him. I acknowledge that I have it. I confess it to him. Thirdly, I own it is my feeling. This isn't something somebody did to me.
I own this feeling. This is a feeling that I personally own. Fourthly, I acknowledge my responsibility to deal with it. I assume my responsibility to deal with it. It isn't somebody else's responsibility.
It doesn't make any difference how wrong they may be. That's not the issue. The issue is: I have the feelings, I'm the one who's bitter, I'm resentful, I have the unforgiving spirit. I assume the responsibility for dealing with this unforgiving spirit in that person. Then, having done that, I get myself two chairs.
I sit in one of them, put the other one in front of me. I sit the other person in that chair. You say, but suppose it's my grandfather and he's been dead 15 years. Sit him in the chair. Let's say it's your wife sitting in the chair very gently.
Let's say it's your husband, you you put him in there very gently. Or a child, you see them in the chair.
Now, they're not really there. Physically, but they're there emotionally and spiritually in your thinking. Let's say it was really the truth. What do you feel? They really did it.
They really just wiped you out.
So you say to them, I want you to know that I have felt bitterness and resentment or hostility or whatever you felt toward you. I want you to know also that That because the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sin and your sin. That I confess that I have no right. to hold this against you. And so I'm releasing.
My feeling. I'm releasing. my attitude, I choose today to forgive you. and to be forgiving toward you. And I will hold this against you no more.
I choose, I make a decision. I choose today to forgive you for that. I will hold it against you no more. Even if it comes up in my memory, I won't hold it against you because I'm forgiving you on the basis of which I was forgiven. By the blood of Jesus.
And I know as He's forgiven me, He's forgiven you.
So I know that from God's perspective, you've already been forgiven. And so I'm forgiving you. for the way I've been treated and from this point on. I will hold it against you no more. And so, what do I do?
I choose by an act of my will, verbally. And with my spirit to forgive the other person, and by faith I accept the fact that it is a finished and completed act based not on my feelings, but the fact that God has forgiven me, He has forgiven the other person, and because they're forgiven from God's perspective, I don't have any rights to hold anything against them. If it is something... If it is something that person has done to you, that you need to go to them and they're aware of it. And maybe The situation is such that you may need to go to them, but most of the time, and the reason I just leave that little out here is because.
I want to say this very clearly. You should never go to your parents. And tell them things like that because it would wipe them out. You see, so many mistakes they made, they don't even realize it. If you were to go to your parents and say, after 30 years, Well, Father.
30 years ago, you absolutely destroyed my self-image. But I want you to know that today And give him all the details of what he did to you and all the suffering. Today I want you to know you're forgiven. No, I say that to simply say. Only with exception should you go to the person.
We're to be forgiving. Told those other people?
Sometimes You see, if you went to every person and tried to settle up, you'd go to somebody. that you thought felt something that had never even crossed their mind. And it would be a total shock to them.
So, you have to be very careful if you're to go to a person and say to them, I want you to know that I want to settle up something between us.
Sometimes, but most of the time. You and God settle it. And if you and God settle it, it is amazing how God will work in the other person's life. But I want to say to you: don't go to someone like your parents and just dump all the garbage. even if they knew what they were doing.
I believe that's very unwise. Listen, if you put them in the chair, And you're forgiving toward them as far as God is concerned, it is settled. As far as you're concerned, its effect on you, it is settled. And then let God deal with the other person in His own timing. Most of us, many of you.
And many of you, for example, who are Fine, wonderful Christians. You grew up in homes maybe. Things happen that you had nothing to do with. And maybe you had to deal with some resentments and bitternesses. You deal with it, but don't go back and dump that on your parents because, first of all, they were probably totally ignorant.
They did the best they could. They couldn't have done any better knowing what they knew. And for you to dump that on them would be an absolutely unbearable sense of guilt and burden that you do not want them to carry with them to the grave. And sometimes the reason we do that is because You know what we're doing? We put them in the chair, but if I go back and dump it on them I'm getting in one last jab before I've cleaned it up.
And I want to say that's not forgiveness. I have to be willing to bear the responsibility. I'm talking about my attitude, regardless of what they've done. And my friend, I want to say to you that whoever you are, if you have an unforgiving spirit toward anyone, it is hindering you, it is thwarting God's purpose in your life. It will drain you of your energy, affect you physically, spiritually, mentally, it'll affect you in every facet of your life.
And I'll tell you something else it'll do in the church. It closes the door to revival. Yeah, the church. The free flowing of God's forgiveness must be a reality in our hearts. Thank you for listening to part two of Freedom from Bondage.
For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our online 24-7 station. And if you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
