Making Peace With Your Past Part 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Your past may be a black hole, sucking all the joy from your life. On today's broadcast, you'll find freedom from the despair of harboring a grudge, and the way back to hope for the future.

Please stay with us. 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, will there be words of hope today for those whose past really is a black hole? Yes, Dave, there are going to be words of hope, both in our relationship with God who is glad to forgive those who repent, but also helping in our relationship with others, broken relationships. I can't even begin to tell you about the number of people I know who are hampered in their Christian life because of bitterness, they will not surrender to the Lord. That's why this message is so incredibly important.

I trust that as people listen, they will be freed from their past and enter into a sense of joy and relief no matter what's happened to them in their background. You remember Jesus said that there was a king who had a servant who owed him 10,000 talents. Each talent is about $1,000 multiplied out of $10 million. And this man owed that much money and the king was going to throw him in debtors' prison. And you know what happened? The Bible says that that servant who owed so much money fell at the feet of the king and says, have patience with me and I'll pay you everything. And the king had mercy upon him and forgave him the debt, $10 million. You know what Jesus wants us to see in the parable?

He wants us to see ourselves. He wants us to recognize that the $10 million is what we owe God. In fact, it's even greater than that because theoretically that man could have somehow worked it off.

Maybe he could have won the lottery or something and gotten $10 million. But you and I can never work it off. Could my tears forever flow? Could my zeal no respite?

No. All for sin could not atone. Thou must save and thou alone. We cannot pay our debt. Jesus had to pay it for us.

Now here's the question. Is forgiveness free? Well, it depends how you look at it.

It's free to the person who received it. And if the person who received it somehow minimizes it, that's just the reality of it. But it's very expensive to the one who gave it because at the end of the fiscal year, that king was out by $10 million and had to absorb the loss. And Susan is going to have to absorb the loss.

And she's going to have to absorb the loss and let her brother go free. Oh, you say, but Pastor Luther, you're missing it. You don't understand. Don't you understand?

I can imagine somebody saying it. Don't you just understand how unfair forgiveness really is? And I say to you today that if you say that forgiveness is unfair, I thank God because at last you're beginning to understand it. It is grossly unfair. What could be more unfair than a spotless, sinless son of God having laid upon him iniquities that he never committed to die for people who were rebellious to pay their price so that you and I could freely believe and be acquitted by God?

Can you think of anything more unfair than that? And I want you to know today that after this message is over, I'm going to give an invitation. And I'm going to invite many of you to come and to do something that is incredibly unfair. I'm going to ask you to forgive those have wronged you. Some of you couples who are sitting together, you ought to come down together in a few moments and do something that is horrendously unfair. And that is to forgive. Let's go on to a fourth misconception, and that is that forgiveness surrenders justice. You know, I used to always have this in counseling.

Where is justice? And I am talking about Bert who married Mabel. Sure, in my opinion, it was not a great idea. Mabel was deeply hurt by men because of a dysfunctional family. She had a deep wound in her soul, but during the dating period, Bert couldn't see it because she was so beautiful. So they got married. They had two children. Mabel was always unhappy, always unfulfilled.

There was nothing that Bert could possibly do to please her. She runs off, finds another man who's going to give her the happiness that she's always wanted. And then in the process, she doesn't even want custody of their children because they're just messing up her life.

Finally, she's finding happiness and the kids are in the way. She also finds a very good attorney. She looks at her husband, Bert, as a gold mine. She gets the gold. He gets the shaft. As a result of that, now, Bert is left with two kids and basically no money, and Susan is off, God knows where, fulfilling her dreams. And now Bert comes and says, OK, I'm supposed to forgive so that I am free, OK? But the problem is, where's justice in all this? As you know, for years, when people said that, I didn't have an answer.

But I told you before, I've got an answer now. 1 Peter chapter 2. Here's the point. Who Jesus, who when he was reviled, reviled not again? When he suffered, he uttered no threats. He didn't say to the people around him, you know, I'm going to vaporize you folks. I'm going to send the angels on you.

No, he took it. And what does the Bible say? He committed himself unto him who judges righteously. Jesus said, I do not have to bring justice to this situation. I'm going to let my Father do it. I'm going to let God, the Father, even the score.

Score still not even. The people who persecuted Jesus and told lies about him, they have not yet been finally judged. But Jesus said, I'm willing to wait as I take my case and I give it to the Supreme Court of the universe. You see, that's why we as Christians can forgive.

It's because we believe in a just God. We believe that someday at the great white throne judgment, all of the deeds of the unsaved are going to be brought before God and meticulous justice administered. And then at the judgment seat of Jesus Christ, Christians who have been out of sorts, Christians who have wronged one another, they will be brought together very clearly at the judgment seat and Jesus is going to adjudicate the situation and bring justice and the truth is going to come out.

And if you knew what Christians sometimes do to one another, you understand why there has to be a judgment seat of Jesus Christ where the truth is going to come out. So when you forgive, it's not as if justice just evaporates. You say, Father, I cannot handle it. Your word says very clearly, dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves. I will recompense, says the Lord.

And you say, God, you need to take care of this. It's beyond me. We bring justice to as many situations as we can in this world, but at the end of the day, it is God who is the final judge. So you can forgive without surrendering justice. We've mentioned that we should forgive only when asked.

That's a misconception. Second misconception that forgiveness means reconciliation or that forgiveness minimizes the offense. That forgiveness means surrendering justice.

We come now to a fifth misunderstanding that we must wait until we feel like it. Remember the man in the parable, the forgiven servant? Matthew 18, he leaves the presence of the king, forgiven $10 million. And he finds somebody owes him 20 bucks, 20 denarii, that's about what it is, grabs him by the throat and says, pay up. And I'll tell you, the king was not happy when he found out about that. Well, why did he say pay up?

Why didn't he forget? Well, I didn't feel like it. And so there are people today, in fact, there are Christian counselors who tell people, you know, you don't have to forgive until you feel like it. So there are people who live with bitterness for most of their lives because guess what?

They never feel like it. Now, what do you feel like doing? Well, revenge. And what does revenge say? Revenge says, I want him to suffer as much as I have suffered. In fact, I want him to suffer a whole lot more. Homer, the Greek poet says that we take revenge and it is as sweet as honey and we drool it in our mouth and we let it drip from our lips. Oh, revenge. I said to a woman, well, what would you like to have happen to your husband?

And she said, hell sounds good to me. Just to see him burn there and the fact that it's forever would make it even sweeter. The closest she was ever getting to heaven was to visualize her husband burning in hell. That's why the Bible says, dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves because you can't handle vengeance.

Vengeance tears you up and no matter how vengeful you are, there's always more that you want to destroy, more that you want to get even. That's why it has to be in God's hands. And this is why marriage counseling is so difficult. I'm glad God has not called me to do marriage counseling.

I used to do a lot more of it and then couples caught on. They'd better go to somebody else. Took them a while, but they got the message.

See, the problem is that you have two different scales by which offenses are weighed. You know, the woman thinks that this is just absolutely atrocious and awful and she feels vengeful. And the guy is saying, well, hold it now.

Wait a moment. You know, this isn't really that bad. And a marriage counselor told me, by the way, that men find it much easier to forgive than women. That's understandable because women are so sensitive. These hurts sometimes are so deep that they find it very difficult to forgive. And that's why you have so many nasty divorces, by the way. Because, you see, all of the anger and the hostility has been built up and you've got two people, both of whom want vengeance and they want to destroy and to break. There's no sense of justice or rationality. There's only one thing, destroy them. And God says that's sin.

That's vengeance which belongs to him. So I'm going to ask you to do something in a few moments that is contrary to every feeling in your body. I'm going to ask you to do something that is contrary to what you feel. But I've had to do that too. Do you think that I feel like forgiving? There have been times when I've just simply had to open my arms to the Lord and say, God, I can't handle this.

I just give it to you. And there was something within me that says, no, no, no, no. You do that and you will no longer be able to fantasize about vengeance. But you just do it in faith and you get it done so that you're free. Wow. Sixth, final misconception is that forgiveness should be easy. After all, it's just a matter of words. I forgive you.

Easy. What about that unforgiven servant? He didn't forgive. Was his unforgiveness easy? He was handed to the torturers until he should pay the debt.

There are some of you, God bless you, who have been handed to the torturers. Someone said, and the reason that I'm mentioning this is this, that forgiveness is so difficult that we seek for alternatives. We seek for substitutes.

And there is two substitutes that we seek for. One is the fantasies of revenge. But someone has written, the moment I start hating a man, I become his slave. I can't escape his tyrannical grasp on my mind.

When the waiter serves me steak, it might as well be stale bread and water. The man I hate will not permit me to enjoy it. And there are some of you who cannot, cannot enjoy life because the person you hate will not permit you to enjoy it. What a tragedy to think that that person who hurt you continues to hurt you and will not allow you to enjoy life. There's a second possibility if we don't want to forgive and that is denial. Oh, I forgive, you know. But just like it's possible to say I love you and not mean it, it's possible to say I forgive you and not mean it. Or maybe even to say I'm not bitter, I'm just hurt.

Now there may be a distinction, but for some people that distinction is an air raid shelter. They don't have to deal, deal with anything in their life. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not bitter, I'm just hurt. Mind you, I think that you are scum and that you're a lot lower than I am on the totem pole, but I, I'm not bitter. How difficult is it to forgive?

Let me quote the words of one writer. Unfortunately, the cost of forgiveness is too high for many people. Consequently, they turn to cheaper versions of forgiveness that will enable them to think better of themselves, to cope with their situation without having to engage in struggles or change the nature of their relationship.

They figure, how can I make myself feel better and cope? But Christian forgiveness, oh, I love this. This is the answer now folks. Here we come. Christian forgiveness requires our death understood in the specific form and shape of Jesus dying and rising. For as we participate in Christ dying and rising, we die to our own selves and find a future no longer bound by the past. In a moment, I'm going to ask you to forgive somebody who does not deserve forgiveness. I'm going to ask you to forgive somebody who perhaps has not asked for forgiveness. You know, I've been speaking here about offenders and I've been talking about the wounded person, but you know, there are some of you who have really hurt others and you have never asked them for forgiveness. And you know right well who you are and who you may be here today listening, whether here in this church or over the radio, you have done hurt to others and you've never asked their forgiveness and yet you claim to be a Christian.

You know what Jesus would say in the 18th chapter of Matthew? He would say that you as a Christian should forgive for two reasons. First of all, you've been forgiven so much. And secondly, you can entrust justice into God's hands, therefore having been forgiven, you should forgive. And if you do not forgive, Jesus comes very close to saying you're not a child of God and you've never been forgiven by God because Jesus said those who have been forgiven much forgive.

Here's what I'm going to ask you to do today. In a moment, we're going to ask you to come and I'll explain that, but then what we're going to do is to take revenge and bitterness and take one last look at it like a bucket of water and then spill it out at the foot of the cross and walk out of here free. Forgiveness is an act, it's also a process. You can't just forgive once, but once you've learned how to do it once and you keep doing it, the freedom eventually comes because Jesus said that the sun shall set you free, you shall be free indeed.

Spilling it out sometimes means tears, sometimes it means agony, it means death, but thank God it means freedom. Let's pray. Father, we do ask in the name of Jesus that you shall do today that which only you can do, we pray. Grant, O God, that you by your blessed Holy Spirit would set your people free. Today we pray, Father, that couples will come down together, that there may be those Lord who have relationships among each other where there's been bitterness and hostility and unforgiveness. We pray that there may be reconciliation. Come, O Father, set hundreds of people free here and throughout the country. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. Well, this is Pastor Lutzer and I want to have a personal word with you. I have no doubt that this message was directly intended for many people who have listened and you may be one of them. I urge you today to not let Satan continue to fester that bitterness within your heart. I'm holding in my hands a letter from someone who recently connected with us who said, I was working as a self-taught engineer in a Christian-owned company.

I was unfairly let go, which led to my wife divorcing me. I fell into a deep clinical depression. And then he goes on to say that he was aware of our ministry and began to listen. And he began to listen to the teaching that we had about Satan and footholds and God's true forgiveness. He said that after listening, he wrote a letter to his Christian boss who had unfairly fired him. And he says, I was freed from that clinical depression and didn't have to see my psychiatrist anymore.

I'm not saying it's wrong to see a psychiatrist, but my dear friend, I trust that you will see God first. I want to thank the many of you who support the ministry of running to win. If you've been blessed, it's because of other people's investments. Would you consider becoming an endurance partner? That's someone who stands with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts. Right now, you can go to RTWOffer.com. When you're there, click on the endurance partner button. And of course, RTWOffer is all one word.

RTWOffer.com, click on the endurance partner button. Or if you prefer, you can call us right now at 1-888-218-9337. Your support helps this ministry to bless thousands upon thousands.

Call right now 1-888-218-9337. It's time again for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. Sometimes we can get counseling that raises more questions than it answers.

That may be the case for this anonymous listener who contacted us about this situation. I've been divorced, and my Christian counselor says that I must move through anger before I forgive. The fact that I'm not angry, he says, is because I am in denial. If I weren't in denial, I would be angry, and then I could forgive. What do you think of this counsel? Well, I need to say that I'm very skeptical about what your Christian counselor is telling you.

I don't see how you can generate anger in your life if it isn't there. Now, maybe he thinks that you are in denial, and you might be. But on the other hand, how do you get out of denial? Is he trying to make you angry, and then he says you are no longer in denial?

So let me simply summarize by saying a couple of things. First of all, if you believe in your heart that you've genuinely forgiven, if that is not true, the future will prove it to be so. So there's no use trying to conjure up some anger to make your forgiveness legitimate. Forgive, lay down any kind of bitterness, and let it be. If in the future anger should rear its ugly head, then you deal with it at that time. I think that people respond to situations like this differently. Some people get over a divorce quickly. Others don't. I don't know you. I don't know your situation.

All that I would simply say is I don't think that you have to be led into anger before you forgive. Some wise counsel once again from Dr. Erwin Lutzer. If you'd like to hear one of your questions answered, just go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer. Therefore, 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. There's an epidemic of Internet sex sweeping our culture. Fantasies replace reality, and families are being destroyed daily. Next time on Running to Win, how to break the cycle of sexual addiction and swim against a rising tide of immorality, available at the click of a mouse. Thanks for listening. This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.