Just Lay It Down Part 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. To let go of bitterness means forgiving those who have wronged you. This is a bitter pill for many who hold on to their anger until their knuckles turn white. Today, the practical side of forgiving people, when in our own hearts we just can't do it.

From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, a relative of mine became embittered at her husband and took that bitterness to her grave. Family relationships were ruined with no apparent way back. Dave, the situation that you described is very sad, but it is not without hope. As far as the dead person is concerned, indeed, there is no hope for him or for her to make things right.

But for the living, there's always hope. It's important for people to lay things down even if the person who has wronged them is dead. Forgiveness is something that we not only do for others to bring about reconciliation.

It is what we can do for ourselves because that bitterness will corrode our souls. So it's very important for us to understand this. And you know, I believe that these messages are so critical for people. We're making them available to all who are listening for a gift of any amount. These messages can be yours.

The title of the series, of course, is The Power of a Clear Conscience. Here's what you do. Go to RTWOffer.com.

RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now let's open God's Word and better understand what we can do with our own anger and our own bitterness and deal with it to the glory of God. Now there are some counselors and I've heard them say, well, you don't have to forgive until you feel like it. Well, to quote the words that it's not very theological, good luck, good luck.

You're never going to feel like it. Now we're going to give you some specific instruction. And this is a message, you know, that you need to take home. One of the disappointments for those of us who preach is the realization that there are many people who listen, who say, well, wasn't that interesting? And they may leave and they may think about it again during the week, maybe once, twice.

It may come back to them. But basically the message is left at church. This is not a message that you can leave here at the church and profit from it. This is the kind of message where when you go home, you find a quiet place. And if you say there is no such thing where I go, then pray that God will give you one. And where you are at least an hour or two with God and you say, this is our time together, oh God. And what we're going to do is to deal with the root issues and pluck up from the roots with God's help, the root of bitterness, which springs up and thereby many people are defiled.

Are you ready? So this is a message you do at home. You listen now and then you take it home and you deal with it there. You can't deal with it quickly. Now let me begin by emphasizing again the Bible says, do not grieve the blessed Holy Spirit. And if you're a believer, you don't want to do that.

But some of us do grieve the Spirit by sin that has not been confessed, by bitterness that we will not acknowledge and we will not deal with it. So let's begin. You'll notice that the Apostle Paul says, be kind one to another, verse 32, tenderhearted, forgiving one another. You notice that there is reciprocity. Boy, I haven't used that word in years. I'm glad it came out correctly.

I wasn't planning to use it. But you notice that forgiving one another, and we're going to talk about this next week when we speak about reconciling broken relationships, forgiving one another. But here's what I would like to give you as steps to follow to get at the root of bitterness, which may be legitimate in a human sense because you've been sinned against. And by the way, some of you are listening and you're the ones who have done the sinning against. We'll deal with you next week.

See if you can survive that long. Number one, be honest. Be honest. Admit the truth. Don't lie. You see, what happens is we justify our feelings for so long that we even forget the fact that we have the feelings for, oh, yes, yes, I've forgiven.

We buried the hatchet, yeah, but the trail to the hatchet is very, very well traveled, and the hatchet is very shallow. And so what we do is we tell ourselves, yeah, I have forgiven, but what we do sometimes is we shut down emotionally. And as a result of that shutdown, we are really not honest with ourselves, especially those of you who are dealing not so much with a pit bull anger where there is this expression of anger, but rather the cobra type where it's deep and it's down and it's slow, but it's there and it leaks out.

Ask God to show you the deep root of the anger. And be honest. Remember, others may see what you don't see.

Our ability to see ourselves the way others see us is a divine gift, but especially the way God sees us and the issues we need to deal with deep in the soul. You know, skunks, just to choose an animal that might bring many memories to your own heart as it does to me, a farm boy. So far as we know, and I don't know the research on this, a skunk's odor may smell very, very good to him. It probably smells something like, well, there used to be, I don't know if it's still in existence, but Chanel number five or something like that.

He doesn't notice it. What kind of odor do you and I sometimes give off that we do not notice, but those around us do? And it may be for many different reasons.

One reason is smoldering resentment. Be honest. Admit it. Second, grieve the loss. Grieve the loss. My, some of you have lost your childhood because of the way in which you were treated as a child.

Some of you have had a destroyed marriage because of the unfaithfulness of a spouse. Why wouldn't you grieve the loss? You are grieving what could have been. Wasn't it Greenleaf Whittier who said that the saddest words in tongue and pen is simply this, it might have been.

Could have been different. God has given you some kind of a limitation, some kind of a trial, and it destroys your career and all, and you wanted to do this thing, and some physical infirmity came in between you and your dream. Weep.

Why not? If you lost an arm, you'd cry. So what we need to do is to become very, very honest. As we think about the regrets of yesterday and the worries sometimes about tomorrow, could we, in moments of silence before God, and by the way, I read that the best cure for loneliness is silence before God, and then number three, we have to remember why Jesus was abused.

I'm in the text now. Forgive one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. Now think for a moment about Jesus, who is really the pivotal of the whole thing and the one whom we worship and the one who we love, who is our savior. What did Jesus endure? Well, he was betrayed by a friend. He was deserted by his followers, suffered for what he didn't do because our sin was laid upon him, and he bore our iniquity, and catch this, he even suffered under the hands of God. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Now follow carefully. You and I oftentimes have been the victim of injustice. We've been the victim of those who have tried to destroy us. We've all been there in one way or another, but that was not our choice.

We just happened to be where we happened to be, and people just did what they did, but Jesus would not have had to be there. This was his voluntary choice because he said, I so love the people whom God wants to redeem that I will die in their behalf. I will give my life. I will make the ultimate sacrifice for them.

Why? So that you, oh Father, can set them free because I want them to be free from their sin and from the natural consequences that we might expect, and I want to redeem them. Now think of that. Be tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.

That's the standard. You know that if you can't forgive, if you absolutely say, I can't forgive, I have to question whether or not you have been redeemed because the sin that you and I have done against Christ is much greater, almost certainly, than sins that have been done against us. The key to forgiveness is to understand the wonder of God's forgiveness, and then what we do is we simply say, I'm going to lay it down, lay it down.

In fact, that is very important. The first step to forgiveness is to be forgiven and to realize the importance of Jesus Christ's mercy toward us, and we forgive accordingly. Does Jesus forgive you more than once? Aren't you glad the answer's yes? In Christ, we forgive others.

Now, reconciliation is a separate issue that we'll deal with next week, but forgiveness, the laying down of bitterness, may God grant us the ability to do it. You know, I'm told that rattlesnakes, and I looked this up on the web, and if it's on the web, it must be true. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it's true. Not everything on the web is true.

I hope you realize that. But rattlesnakes sometimes bite themselves. Nobody knows is it because of anger, is it because of fear, but a rattlesnake bites itself. My friend, today, if you harbor bitterness, you are biting yourself. You're not changing your enemy. You're not changing the situation. All that you're doing is you are perpetuating the venom.

And the Bible says, by that, many are defiled. And I'm saying, stop it. Lay it down.

Lay it down. You know, there is a story. I may have told you the story years ago about a professor whom we shall call Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith was known in his classroom for having object lessons for helping the people learn in creative ways, so one day he put a target on the wall and said, now, what I want you to do, everybody gets a sheet of paper. And what I want you to do is to make a picture, draw a picture of the person you dislike the most, the person that you hate. I mean, let's just use the word hate. The person that you hate, draw a picture. Well, all the students, they just thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, some of them said, give me more than one piece of paper because I don't know who to choose.

Plenty of people that we hate. Because he said afterwards, we're going to put these people on this target that I've put on the wall, and then I've got all of these arrows. And what you can do is to take those arrows and throw them as hard as you want at the person that you hate. Oh, what an exciting assignment.

Plenty of opportunity for this. So the kids go through it and one by one, these pictures are put over the target and the kids are there. They are just really enjoying it.

Throwing these darts, these spears, these little spears as hard as they possibly can, these arrows. And then when everybody was over and everybody was having a great time and everybody enjoying it, he went over and he pulled the target off the wall and behind it was a picture of Jesus. And the kids were stunned. Every eye gouged out, both eyes gouged out. His cheeks, his chin, his neck, all gouged.

I mean, the best way to describe it is the face of Jesus was mangled. And then he said to them, and as much as you have done it on to the least of these, Jesus is saying, you've done it on to me. Angry parent, you may be angry with the father of your child. You may be angry with a person who robbed you of your virginity.

You may be angry for all kinds of different reasons, just as these students were. But every time you throw one of those arrows and you shout in anger, you're not only doing it to your child, you're doing it to Jesus. Therefore, the scripture says, be tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. Jesus shed his blood.

His body was nailed to the cross, all voluntary on his part, so that you and I could be redeemed. We could experience forgiveness, and then he gives us plenty of opportunities to forgive in return. Blessed are you who go to the root of your bitterness. Bitterness, forgiveness is both an act and a process. That's why I say in the notes, lay it down, and then if it comes back, lay it down again.

But each time it has less power. Lay it down, lay it down, lay it down. Be free in Jesus who redeemed you. And now let us pray. Father, I'm thinking of people who have lived with bitterness and anger for years.

The roots go down very, very deep. Would you help them, Father, to lay it down? I'm thinking of betrayal. I'm thinking of situations of promise that were broken and people who were misused and thrown away like the peelings of an orange.

And today that's the way they feel. I pray that in your presence they might receive and rejoice in the greatness of your forgiveness and your love for them, and then in turn grant others the same grace that you gave them. And for those who are listening who've never trusted Christ as Savior, this seems to be all very foreign to them. Help them to know that Jesus died for sinners so that we could indeed be forgiven as we receive forgiveness from His hand. And help us now as a church as we remember His death to be deeply grateful that He died for us and says, go free. Whatever God has talked to you about, would you take this sermon home with you?

And you respond. In Jesus' name we thank you. Help our people and help all of us. Amen. You know, my friend, when I preached this message at the Moody Church, I remember I gave an invitation and I remember the huge response that we received as people were responding to the truth that they needed. What about you today? Are you willing to deal with these kinds of issues that stand not only between you and God, but you and others?

I trust that you are. And you know, if you've been blessed as a result of this ministry and if you'd like to listen to these sermons again and again, today possibly you are listening and God brought to mind people who need to hear these messages. For a gift of any amount we're making this sermon series available to you, it's entitled, The Power of a Clear Conscience. We here at Running to Win have a great desire to take God's truth and to apply it to the deepest levels of human need.

Thank you in advance for helping us. Now, if you're interested in the sermon series, remember, go to RTWOffer.com. That's RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-832-7200. I believe that this sermon series is so critical that I'm going to give you that contact information once again. And thanks in advance for helping us as we get the gospel to thousands upon thousands of people.

Go to RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Time now for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. Today, a heartbreaking story from an anonymous couple who need serious help. My wife and I are desperately seeking advice. Our son married a woman who regrets that she did not marry another woman. She now wants to be in a same-sex relationship.

They have three children. Our daughter-in-law claims to be a Christian and yet refuses to repent. She wants to leave the marriage to pursue what she thinks is a more fulfilling relationship. What do we do? Well, my first inclination is to say that there isn't too much that you can do. But now that I've said that, let me back up and tell you what I think your response should be. I think what you should do is to take your daughter-in-law aside and help her to understand why the decision that she wants to make is a very bad idea. And it's a bad idea because it's a sinful idea. Help her to understand that the consequences are going to be far-reaching. That it's going to affect their family. It's going to affect the witness that she is trying to have to her children. Hopefully a good witness that she wants to have. And that she cannot simply pursue her own desires as if to say those desires have to be elevated above all of the implications for her husband and children. It's a very, very difficult decision fraught with all kinds of dangers.

So I think that needs to be said. The second thing that I think needs to be said is that you will continue to love her and continue to do all that you possibly can to help the children. Then beyond that, there isn't much that you can do, except of course to pray, to intercede. After all, she is an adult and oftentimes adults say, I'm going to do what I'm going to do no matter how it's going to smash relationships, no matter what the consequences are. Like somebody says, I'll join hands with the devil and go across the bridge and then deal with the devil later. Tragic, but that's the way it often is in the lives of people determined to pursue their own way.

The next thing is if she follows through, it'll be your responsibility to help the children to process this. Through prayer, through supplication, through your own witness, through your own love, we pray that they will not be too badly damaged by the actions of her mother. And then to remind yourself that Jesus Christ came to this earth to repair the irreparable. He came to this earth to help people with their messes, with their brokenness, with their great need, to bind up the brokenhearted, yes, to forgive those who trespass and to help us in our need. So I want to leave you here with hope, hope that in the midst of all of this, God still is glorified by showing his grace in the midst of disobedience, in the midst of heartfelt pain, God will be with you.

Keep believing, keep trusting, and you'll see God even here. Some compassionate counsel from Dr. Erwin Lutzer. Thank you, Dr. Lutzer. If you'd like to hear your question answered, go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer or call us at 1-888-218-9337.

That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Once you've given up your bitterness, how do you repair broken relationships? Next time on Running to Win, the how-to of building bridges to make things right. Thanks for listening. For Dr. Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.