Well, hey everybody and welcome to Highlands Fellowship. I’m so excited to be with you and I hope that you’re as excited about being in church as I am today. I want to welcome you from all of our campuses at Bluefield, Marion, Bristol, here in Abingdon at all of our venues. We are so thankful that we get to gather together and worship our Lord and Savior as we’ve just done. We also wanna continue to seek Him with everything that we’ve got. And I just want you to know that I am so grateful that each and every one of you are here and we wanna see God continue to do His thing in your life. And we wanna help you experience life with Jesus as is our mission here at Highlands Fellowship.
But it is great to have you with us. If you’re new with us, we wanna say a big welcome to you as well. Make yourself at home because as I’d like to say around here, and you can help me out, Highlands is home, and so Highlands is home, and we want you to feel that way. So last week, we started a new series that we’re calling It’s Time to Prune, and the reason we’re doing that is because we’re moving from one season into another, and I believe that that is a great time for us to consider what are the things in our lives that need to be cut back or cut out? So it’s time to prune so that we can be ready for the growth that God desires for us in this upcoming season in life.
Because God desires for us to see growth and for us to produce fruit in our lives. But before we can experience the growth and before we can experience the fullness of His blessings in our lives, we must go through this process of pruning. And that means letting go of what no longer serves God’s purpose in us. So just like a gardener cuts away dead and overgrown branches that then make way for this new growth in our lives, God lovingly removes the things in our lives that hinder our growth. And what’s important for us to remember is that pruning, it’s not punishment. Pruning is not punishment, but it’s preparation.
It is God shaping us and refining us and making us ready for greater things that He has in store. And it really prepares us for growth by cutting away the things in our lives that keep us from taking that next step in our faith journey. And we see this very clearly in John chapter 15, verses one and two. As Jesus says, “I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. While every branch that does bear fruit, He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” So through this series, we’re gonna talk about some things that we need to prune and how this process is necessary for our spiritual growth.
So together, we’re gonna learn to embrace the process of pruning. We’re gonna trust in timing and we’re going to step boldly into the new season that He’s calling us into. So let’s get ready to prune so that we will be ready for growth. Today though, I do want to warn you that this message is going to be a little bit challenging, all right? It’s going to be challenging today. But the good news is, so many of you know that oftentimes in life, the best things are on the other side of the difficult things. And today, we may talk about some things that are a bit difficult, but I believe the best is still to come.
So if you were with us last week, we started out with a message in this series called “It’s Time to Prune.” We talked about overcoming small offenses that hold us back and that weigh us down. And the good news is that we are pruning those things. Like we’re letting go of the offenses in our lives. Today, though, it’s a bit heavy. And so I want you to understand that, and it may not be easy because we’re gonna talk about some things that are a bit heavier. The heavier grudges, the heavier offenses, the things that may have been done to you that you didn’t desire, but that you carry with you every single day. And so it’s gonna be hard. May not be easy, but I believe, again, on the other side of the difficulty is when we often experience what God has His best for us.
So to start today’s message, I do want to look at the words of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel, Luke chapter 17. It kind of sets the tone for us and it’ll set the stage for us today. So when Jesus was talking to His disciples, He was helping them to understand that they would be hurt, that they would be disappointed, that they might be betrayed by someone close to them in Luke chapter 17, verse one and verses three through five. And it says this, Jesus said to His disciples, “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come.” And there’s another version that says it this way that is impossible that no offenses would come. Like there are times when we’re going to stumble, people will hurt us and they will let us down. They will betray us and Jesus says, that’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen.
So then He says in verse three, “So watch yourselves. If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them.” In other words, let’s not pretend like it didn’t happen. Let’s confront them, let’s deal with the situation. We’re followers of Christ, so we try to make things right. Our goal is always reconciliation. So we’re gonna talk about it. We’re gonna deal with it, and we’re gonna try to find some healing within the issue. So if your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them, and if they repent, forgive them. Let it go. Let them off the hook or release it and forgive them.
And then Jesus says something that’s incredibly challenging. He says in verse four, “Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times they come back to you saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.” And the disciples are hearing that, perhaps thinking the same thing that you’re thinking right now. Well, I’ll give you one time, but not two. Not in a day, maybe in a lifetime, but not two, not three, not even four times in a day. And if they come back and they apologize, they repent seven times in a day, we got to forgive them. Verse five says, “The apostles said to the Lord, increase our faith, increase our faith.” Like we need more faith if we’re going to be able to do that.
So as we look at cutting out the grudges, like these larger offenses that we’ve been carrying around with us for so much time. If we’re gonna be able to do this, we need the faith to forgive. So what I would ask you to do right now is let’s do this together. Let’s just take a second and let’s pause and let’s ask God to do this in our lives. So let’s pray together. So Father, today we come to you and we ask that you would increase our faith. And I know God that today I’ll be talking to people, many people who’ve been hurt in significant ways and hurt very deeply. Their lives impacted significantly by the sin and betrayal of other people.
So God, we ask that your word would speak life and speak hope into us and your Spirit would give us the power to do what humanly we do not have the power to do. God we ask that you would increase our faith to offer the same forgiveness that you’ve offered to us through your Son Jesus Christ. We want to be able to offer that to others and we pray this in the name of Jesus and everybody said Amen.
So let me ask you a question. Who has betrayed you? Who has lied to you or lied about you? Who has mistreated you? Who has taken advantage of you? Last week we talked about pruning or cutting away small offenses and that’s relatively easy when somebody does something one time or it seems small. It’s not so easy when it’s not a one-time thing or it’s something that’s very, very big and very, very painful especially when you’re betrayed by someone that you trusted, somebody that you admired, somebody that you loved deeply and dearly and always believed that they had your best intentions in mind.
So who has betrayed you? It could have been a best friend. It could have been a roommate who stole something that you had. It could have been a kid in school that bullied you or maybe said some things online about you. It could have been a boyfriend or girlfriend that lied to you and then ended up lying about you. It could have been a dad or a mom that you simply wanted to please, but no matter what you did, it always seemed like they made you feel small and insignificant. It might have been a spouse that you trusted and believed in, who betrayed your trust and crushed your heart.
It could have been an authority figure in your life, somebody that you admired and cared for, and somebody that should have protected you, but that person did not protect you, but instead touched you inappropriately, and then in their twisted, sick way, somehow, they made you think that it was actually your fault. So who has betrayed you? Who has hurt you? Do we really need to forgive something like that, something that significant when they don’t deserve it at all? And if we are supposed to forgive them, how in the world do we do it? Like practically, how do we forgive if they’re still doing things that still feel unforgivable? I simply don’t understand how.
Well, if you’ve been betrayed in a significant way, I don’t necessarily know what it is, but I promise you, I do have some sense of understanding of that in my own life. So what do you do? How do you forgive? And how do you forgive when you don’t feel like forgiving? What if you even try and it still doesn’t seem to go away? You know, it’s a little bit like trying to vacuum up like a little piece of paper or little piece of lint, you know, that just won’t come up. Has that ever happened to you? I mean where you’re vacuuming and there’s something on the ground and you go over it and I’m talking you’ve got perfect technique and you’re going back and forth and it just doesn’t come up and then you go at it from another angle and you’re trying several times and it doesn’t come up.
So try another angle and with all the power of the Lord in you and you could do all things through Christ who gives you strength and when it still doesn’t come up, what do you do? What do you do? Well, you reach down and you pick that little piece of lint up and you look at it and then you throw it back down and you try it again, right? And you go back and forth over it and you try again. So what do you do when you go at it from every angle and you can’t seem to forgive?
This message is going to be painful for some. It’s going to be gut-wrenching and agonizing for others. But I hope you’ll understand that God tells us very clearly as followers of Christ that we are to forgive. And so I want to give you three different portions of Scripture, three pieces that I really feel like are very important to this topic and tell us very clearly what Jesus desires of us. In Matthew chapter five, verse 43 and 44, Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy, right?” And that sounds like a good plan to me, like love the people who are nice to you and hate the people who are mean to you.
But then Jesus says in verse 44, “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Paul said this in Ephesians chapter four, verse 32, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ, God forgave you.” And then Jesus’ words in Matthew chapter six, well, they’ll really stop you in your tracks. Matthew chapter six, verse 14 and 15, He says this, “If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” God tells us clearly to forgive.
So if we are to forgive, what does that mean? Like really, what do we do? And how do we do it? And what does it mean to forgive? So in order to really understand what it means to forgive, let’s start with what it does not mean to forgive. So what forgiveness is not? Now I’ll give you a couple things. First of all, we need to understand that forgiveness is not forgetting, okay? Forgiveness is not forgetting. Forgiveness to forgive doesn’t necessarily mean to wipe your brain, you have no memory, no recollection whatsoever.
It’s not saying that it never happened. It’s not sweeping it under the rug. It’s not saying that that person didn’t do something that wasn’t completely wrong, wasn’t sinful. It’s not saying that you have to be a doormat the rest of your life and you have to allow them to continue to abuse you or to continue to hurt you and you need to just smile and take it for the glory of God and still send them Christmas cards and always put heart emojis on their posts on Instagram. That’s not necessarily what forgiveness is, okay? You can actually forgive someone and still create healthy boundaries.
You can forgive someone and say, “Yes, I’ve let it go, but we still need to rebuild trust to get back to where we were before.” Because there are consequences to what you did. We can forgive and still need to rebuild a relationship over time. In other words, forgiveness is not always forgetting. What else is forgiveness not? Well, forgiveness is not fair. So there’s nothing fair about forgiveness at all. I just let you off the hook for no reason and everything that you did that was wrong, now it’s just gone. Well, it’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not natural.
It’s fair to pay them back. Like you hit me on the cheek? Well, you got to know that you got one coming back to you, right? If you hurt one of my children, justice says that I get to do something back to you. Well, Jesus says pray for your enemies. Okay, that’s fair. I’ll pray for my enemies. I’ll pray that they get hemorrhoids coming out their ears, right? Now that’s fair. Don’t even know if it’s possible, probably not. But nonetheless, that’s why you go to the doctor for your medical advice, not your pastor, okay? But forgiveness, forgiveness is not fair.
And what’s interesting is we like it when God’s not fair to us because He’s not always fair. He’s always just, but He’s not always fair because if God was always fair, then I would get what my sins deserve. God is always just, but He’s not always fair, and He’s not always fair to our benefit. In fact, I love the power of Psalm chapter 103, verses 10 through 12, where it tells us that He, God, does not treat us as our sins deserve. He’s just, but He’s not always fair. He does not repay us according to our iniquities.
In other words, we deserve death, we deserve hell, we deserve punishment, but God gives us grace. Verse 11 and 12, it says, “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Forgiveness isn’t necessarily the same as forgetting and forgiveness isn’t always fair.
So the question becomes, what is forgiveness? Well, forgiveness is giving others what God gave you. Forgiveness is offering to other people the same grace that God has offered to us in Christ Jesus. So for those of you that are followers of Christ, I would ask you this question. Have you been forgiven of anything? Have you experienced grace that you didn’t deserve, have you been the beneficiary of mercy and the goodness of our God? You would have to say yes.
Now, I don’t know about some of you. I mean, some of you, you may be perfect. Like you’re perfect and you just sit there and you just look so self-righteous because self-righteous people are really good at looking self-righteous, right? So you just sit there and look self-righteous and go ahead and polish your halo all day long. But you got to understand this that this is a place that’s full of imperfect people. People who are forgiven by God and people who’ve experienced the grace of God and we need it now.
I don’t know what you’ve been forgiven of. But I’m gonna tell you right now man, I’ve been forgiven of some sins in my life. I’ve been forgiven of stealing and lying and cheating and having lustful thoughts and having hateful thoughts and doing hurtful things and betraying people. I’ve experienced grace that I did not deserve. Mercy from God. Forgiveness because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross.
So what is forgiveness? Forgiveness is giving others the very same thing that our God has given us. It’s the power of the gospel. It’s the power of the gospel. In fact, 1 John chapter one, verse nine tells us that if we confess our sins, and it seems like in our world today, in our culture, we’re afraid to use this word sin, and you read about it and you can hear about it all the time. Well, nobody’s really a sinner. Well, we’re just all good people. Well, no, truthfully, we are all sinners.
And the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. And who can know it? We have all messed up. We’ve all sinned against our holy God. So what is sin? Well, the Greek word that’s used is an archery term and it means this, it simply means to miss the mark. And you can miss the mark by this much or you can miss the mark by this much. But the reality is we’ve all missed the mark.
And if we confess our sins, where we go to God and we say, “I’m sorry, I have sinned against you. I’m sorry that I did something wrong. I’m sorry that I was hateful. I’m sorry that I was lustful. I’m sorry that I betrayed someone. God, I am sorry, I was wrong.” If we confess our sins, it says He, God, is faithful and just, not always fair, but always just. He’s faithful and just and will forgive us of our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Forgiving is giving others what God has given us. In other words, the gospel isn’t just receiving forgiveness, but it’s giving forgiveness as well. It’s not just being the recipient of grace, the grace that God gives us, but it’s giving His grace to others. So I’ll say it this way, forgiveness doesn’t just flow to us, but as disciples of Jesus, forgiveness flows through us. So it comes to us and then flows through us. It’s undeserved mercy, undeserved grace, undeserved goodness to us that continues to flow through us.
So the question is, how is your flow? Like how is your flow? In fact, there’s a prayer, and you may know this prayer, and if you know it, you can say it out loud with me, because many of you probably do, and we’ll get to a little part about forgiveness. But Jesus says this, He says, this is how you should pray. Do you wanna know how you should pray? Well, you should pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.”
And I want you to stop right there for just a second, okay? Because I want you to be ready for this next part because He says, “And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Like, do you really wanna pray that? Like, forgive me just like I forgive them. Forgive me just like I forgive my boss that I still hate. Like forgive me, like I forgave my ex-spouse that I continue to be bitter toward. Like forgive me the way that I forgive others. So my question is, how is forgiveness flowing through your life?
Forgiveness isn’t just what flows to us, but it’s what flows through us and out of us. So why would He ask us to forgive? Why would He ask us to forgive? And I think there would be many reasons why He would ask us to forgive, but one of the top reasons that He would ask us to forgive that things that seem unforgivable and that aren’t fair is because really God loves you so, so, so much.
He loves you. He doesn’t just ask you to forgive someone else to heal the other person, He asks you to forgive to help heal you, the wound inside of you. In other words, forgiving someone else, the person that betrayed you or the person that lied about you, the person that cheated on you, forgiving them may not set them free, but forgiving them always sets you free, always.
So why would God ask us to forgive others? Well, it’s because He loves you so very much. And listen, I know this brings up so many significant wounds for so many people. And I hope that there’s no part of you that hears me say that this is easy. There is absolutely nothing easy about it. Easy is holding a grudge. Easy is to live in bitterness. Easy is to wish the worst for someone who deserves something bad. Easy is to continue to plot, to continue to rehearse what they did, to rehearse what you will say the next time that you’re around them.
Easy is to not talk to them and not try to heal. Easy is to let the devil continue to split your family, right? Easy is to walk in hatred and unforgiveness. Forgiveness is not easy. It’s easy to remain bitter, but it takes faith to forgive. And we, as followers of Jesus Christ, we pray that God would increase our faith, like really increase our faith.
And what does faith do? Well, faith enables me to see an opportunity for freedom where others only see an offense. Faith empowers me. Faith doesn’t mean that you’re going to feel gracious. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to feel excited about it. But faith helps you to let go, trusting that God is in control. In fact, you may not feel anything, but faith often activates long before feelings follow.
So I’m choosing by faith. I may not feel it in my flesh. I may still be angry in my flesh. I may still be bitter. I may still feel that way, but by faith, I’m choosing to offer the same thing to others that God has offered to me. And the reality is forgiveness might be a process. It may happen in a moment, it may. But it may take some time as well. So we’re asking God to increase our faith today.
It takes faith to forgive. It takes faith to believe that on the other side of the offense that there’s something better than holding on to the grudge. So I wanna talk to those of you whose marriages may be struggling right now. It takes faith to forgive. It takes faith and it’s not easy. There’s somebody that I love that’s super close to me that recently there was a significant betrayal in the marriage. And now the betrayed spouse, biblically, you would say has grounds for divorce. The other person committed adultery, therefore there’s biblical grounds for divorce.
But, but let me also remind you, adultery is also grounds for forgiveness. It is. And you can choose to walk away or you can choose to have faith. You can offer something that someone doesn’t deserve. And I can’t tell you what to do in your marriage. I don’t know the whole story, but I can tell you this. Every good marriage is made up of a husband and a wife who are good at forgiving because we are imperfect people because I need so much grace and I do. I want to freely offer grace and it’s hard, but we need to have faith in order to forgive.
So when you start to pray about forgiveness and think about it, we tend to lean into this. You might ask the question, “Well, how much forgiveness do they actually deserve?” But we’re not asking how much forgiveness they deserve. We’re asking how much freedom do you desire? Let it go. It takes faith. It takes faith to forgive.
It’s choosing to say, “What you did to me is no longer going to hold me prisoner. What you said is no longer going to limit my future. The betrayal, I’m not going to let it hold me down any longer. I’m not going to let it pollute my heart and I’m not going to let it poison my soul.” Yeah, what you said was wrong. Yes, you did. It was something that wasn’t fair. Yeah, it wasn’t right, it might have been years of abuse, but I’m not going to let it rob me from years of my future by continuing to dwell in the past.
By faith, I choose to let it go. I’m not going to be a victim anymore. I’m not a prisoner. It takes faith to forgive. And we can’t change what someone else has done to us, but we can. We can let God change our future. We can do that. And I know it’s tough. I know that this is tough. But sometimes the best healing happens on the other side of the pain that we go through.
Forgiveness doesn’t change the past. It doesn’t change what he did. It doesn’t change what she said. It doesn’t change the betrayal. But it changes your soul and I believe it’ll change your future. So what is forgiveness? It’s giving to others the very same thing that God has given to us in Jesus Christ. And I believe with all my heart that if we are going to grow spiritually the way that God desires for us to grow, we have to prune out the grudges. We have to prune the bitterness out of our lives by forgiving the way that God has forgiven us and yes even the terrible things that somebody has done to us.
Would you pray with me today? God, we come to you and we ask you to do something in our hearts and in our lives that we do not have the power to do. There are some things that happen in our lives that happen to us and we don’t know the reasons why, but they are significant hurts and we are holding on to these things so tightly that you can’t do work in us if you want to do because we are harboring this bitterness and this anger. We’re harboring it in our hearts and we’re pushing you out.
And I’m not gonna say it’s easy to do this because I know for a fact that it’s not. I deal with this stuff every single day in my own life and I have compassion for those who have been hurt and if you’ve been hurt today and you don’t feel the love of anybody in this world, I want to tell you today, you are loved by a good God and I love you. I care about you. I want to see you be healed from the difficulties that you’ve gone through.
But to hold that bitterness and to hold those grudges in our hearts, it is not what God desires for us. And it does not allow us to grow in our relationship with the Lord and help to see others healed as well if we hold on to it. So right where you’re sitting, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to ball up your hands and make a fist just as tight as you can with both hands and hold them as tightly as you possibly can because this is the picture.
This is the picture of what it’s like when we hold on to the bitterness and the grudges of the hurt that’s happened in our lives, keep holding it tight. But this is not what God desires for us. He wants us to find freedom. He wants us to experience the joys of life, but we don’t get to because we’re holding on to these things so very tight.
But this is what our God wants us to do. So, right now, open your hands and just allow the Lord to take those things away from you. Cast all your cares on God because He cares for you and I promise you He’ll receive those things and He will walk with you every step of the way because He’s a good God. He’ll never leave you. He’ll never forsake you.
We live in a fallen world and bad things are gonna happen. But one day, if you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, you will spend eternity in heaven with God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And we will get to live with our Creator for eternity in a perfect place where there is no sin, there’s no sickness, there’s no disease and that’s what He desires for your life today.
And so if you’ve been holding on to these grudges and this bitterness and you’ve been trying to take care of all these things by yourself, today I would ask you, do you want to give your life to Christ because He can change you and I believe He’s the only thing that could possibly change you. He’s changed my life, changed the lives of so many here today.
And so today, if you want to say, “I’ve tried it my own way, it doesn’t work, I’m still harboring all this bitterness and pain, and I need to release it, and I need to give it away because I can’t hold on to it any longer,” today you say you want to give your life to Jesus Christ, I want to give you that opportunity. You can pray this prayer, you believe it in your heart, follow after Christ, say, “God, I believe in you, and I believe in your Son, Jesus Christ. I believe that you sent Him to this earth to live a perfect life so that He could be the perfect sacrifice by dying on the cross and then being raised from the dead three days later to overcome death, hell, and the grave.”
“And today I recognize my need for a Savior because I am a sinner. Thank you for covering the punishment of my sin. I want to follow after you today. I want to give my life to you as much as I know how I’m giving it all to you and I want to grow in my relationship with you as I move forward.” If that’s you today, you have become part of the family of God and I believe that you will find freedom in Jesus as you follow after Him because we want to know about it.
We want to walk with you because I believe that we were not created to live this life with Christ alone, but in the body of believers who are seeking after Him and sharpening one another as iron sharpens iron. So one friend sharpens another. That’s what we want to do. So let us know about it. Don’t leave here before you tell us because we believe God is doing something amazing in our church and in our world.
God, we thank you even during tough times and tough situations that you continue to teach us and you desire for us to grow. Help to use these things that are things that we don’t see as good in our lives. The really difficult things. Help us to understand that these can help us to grow in relationship with you and also to help others heal over time. But we give it all back to you and we’re trusting you to guide us each step of the way.
So God, we love you, we praise you and do a work in us that we cannot do in ourselves. Give us the faith to forgive. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray and everybody said.