Highlands Fellowship Relationships Restored Transcript
Well, hey everybody and welcome to Highlands Fellowship. It's so good to have each of you here with us today. I hope that you'll make yourself feel right at home because as we like to say around here, Highlands is home. Today we're in week three of a four-part message series called Love Restored. And in this series, what we've been talking about is we've been talking about some of the different relationships that we have in our lives and how we can get these relationships right.
Relationships are so important to how we live and the direction that we go. And so what we want to see is we want to see love restored in our relationships. And so we pray that that'll happen as we continue to seek God. So as we get started, I want to look at a couple of verses. It's Psalm 11 verse 3 and the first part of verse 4.
And it says this, "When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do? The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord is on his heavenly throne." So the Bible says that when you're in a generation where the foundations are being destroyed, which we're in, by the way, the Bible teaches us to look to the Lord. Like when you find yourself in a place where you don't know what to do as a follower of Jesus Christ or you don't know what to do as a parent or as a husband or as a wife or in your business wherever you happen to be in our culture. When you don't know what to do, it's time to go back to the Lord.
It's time to go back to his values. And I think sometimes we find ourselves further away from God than what we even realize. And that's why we have to come back to what God says. So, you know, our family when we go on vacation, we like to go to the beach. And I grew up going to the beach, jumping in the waves, body boarding, all that sort of thing.
But have you ever noticed that when you're out in the water catching the waves, you bring them back in, those waves don't come into the beach perfectly straight, right? Like when the waves come into the beach, they come at a slight angle. So when you go out and you ride back in and you go out and you ride back in and you go out and you ride back in, before you know it, it's been, you know, 15, 20 minutes and you're a 100 yards down the beach and you didn't even realize it. And I think the church has found itself a 100 yards down the beach and it's time for us to come back and to say, "Hey, you've been out there, you've been having a good old time, but we've drifted. We've drifted." And the Bible says in Jeremiah chapter 6 verse 16, this is what the Lord says.
"Stand at the crossroads and look. Ask for the ancient paths. Ask where the good way is and walk in it and you will find rest for your souls." When you find yourself at a crossroads in life, and I think we're at a crossroads in our culture right now, we have to ask, what are the ancient paths? We got to come back to kind of that old school way of thinking, those foundational truths, and you will find rest for your souls. And I truly believe that the world is really trying to redefine the good things that God has created.
Obviously, culture is trying to redefine gender and marriage and sexuality and so many other things. And people will come up to me and they'll ask, "Hey, Pastor Tim, what do you think about," and you name it, "What's your opinion about this?" And really, I've come to the point where I realize that my opinion, it doesn't matter at all. All right? My opinion, it doesn't matter at all. And so, I'm trying to follow Jesus and what he says is what matters.
I'm trying to do what God says. And that's what's most important. And so, the idea around this message is very simple and it's this. In order for relationships to work, we must let the one who designed them define them. And you might say, "Well, I don't like the way that God designed them." Well, you're not the creator.
You're not God. And I think we live in a culture that says you can trust your feelings. But listen, you can't trust your feelings. We can't be feelings-based, but we have to base our lives on the foundation of God's word and his values. And the question that we're asking is this.
Am I going to base my life on what I think or on what God thinks? And that's my challenge to you. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. And you might say, "Well, I think I know what's best." The Bible says in Proverbs 14:12, "There's a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death." And I'm not talking necessarily about physical death, but the death of good relationships, the death of your marriage, the death of your soul, the death of your mind. And that's why we find ourselves in our culture in a pretty difficult place right now.
But I've got good news for you. It's John 10:10 and it says this, "The thief comes only to steal, to kill, and destroy, but I have come that they may have life and have it to the full." And so, let me say it this way. All the things that God has for you are not there to restrict your life, but they're there to bless your life. Do you believe that? That God's ways work?
Do we actually believe that? Do we trust that? Do we trust that the ways of God really do work? Now, to build off of that, if there are some things that the past few years have taught us, it's that there's a lot of disagreement out there. There's a lot of disunity in our culture.
And we see that in a lot of different places. A lot of hate, a lot of problems out there. And I think we would all have to agree with that. And everybody seems to be picking sides. Well, I just want to tell you today that we don't have the luxury of picking sides as Christians because God so loved the world.
Now, that means everybody, we value everyone. Even the person that you dislike or disagree with or the person that you got into a fight with, we value them. And so, for Christians, we value and we love everyone. As a follower of Jesus Christ, you don't have the luxury of having bitterness or hatred or a heart toward any other person that is not right. Any political group or movement, whatever they think is true or whatever you think is true to your mom or your dad, your neighbor, your wife, whatever it is or whoever it is.
If you have any of that going on inside of you and you think, "Well, I can keep that because I'm right," well, then you're wrong. And so what you have to understand is this, that my relationship with God is inseparable from my relationship with the people that God has put in my life. You can't have a good marriage without having a great relationship with God. And you can't have a great relationship with God without having the right attitude toward the people that God has placed in your life. And Jesus said in John 13:34-35, he says, "A new command I give you.
Love one another as I have loved you. So you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples." Because you went to Highlands Fellowship? No. Everyone will know that you're my disciples because you read your Bible more than most everybody else?
Not necessarily. They'll know that you're my disciples if you love one another. And that word for love there is the word agape. And it's unconditional, without condition. And I believe that the Lord would do great works inside of us, every single one of us today, if we would just decide, God, I'm going to allow you to heal my heart from the people who have made me mad, the people who have hurt my feelings, the people who I disagree with and that disagree with me.
I'm just not going to find myself in those groups that say, "Well, I'm on this side or I'm on that side." Now listen, I believe in having values and opinions, and the truth is the truth, and I believe God's word is what's true, and I stand very, very firm on what I believe to be true. I just can't have something like bitterness and hatred in my heart towards somebody else at the same time. That's why the Pharisees, the religious leaders came to Jesus and asked him, said, "Out of the hundreds of commands in the Old Testament, could you give us just one that you think is most important?" And so, look at Matthew 22:36-39. It says this, "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?" And Jesus replied, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment." And to which the religious leaders would have said, "We didn't ask for two, we just asked for one." Which Jesus would have said, "I can't give you just one because these are inseparable.
And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself." So the point I'm trying to make is if we ask ourselves, how am I doing with God? You have to also include how am I doing with the people that God has put in my life. That the relationship that I have with God will determine the relationship I have with other people. And it also works the other way as well.
So, I want to talk to you for just a few minutes today about whoever made you mad or whoever's upset you or whatever group or person you think this world would be better if they didn't exist. If you have any offense inside of your heart towards somebody, especially in your family, if there's somebody or anybody who's let you down maybe in the past 12 months, or if there's anybody who's said something to you or about you that you didn't like, and listen, I'll have to be honest with you. I have somebody in almost every single one of these categories that I just named. And Jesus said that it would happen. He told us that it would happen.
In fact, he says this in Matthew 24:10, "And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another." Luke 17, in the first part of verse one, and this is Jesus. "Then he said to his disciples, it is impossible that no offenses should come." So if you find yourself there, just understand this is what we call life. It's human nature that we have these things in our hearts. But as your pastor looking at our culture and the differences of opinions that are out there, I think it would be great for all of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ, to get our hearts in the right place, in a place that honors God. And we can give a lot of reasons why we're not going to be able to do this.
In fact, I'm going to give you three reasons why this is going to be extremely hard for us to do. And the first one is simply this. We have a wrong understanding of forgiveness. A lot of us think that in order to forgive, I have to also agree with, and that's just not true. In fact, forgiveness, it's not minimizing the seriousness of the offense or what the other person believes that you don't even believe.
It's not saying that what they did was okay. No, it's not okay. It's not even saying that what they did didn't hurt you, because yes, it hurt. It did hurt. It's not saying that what they did wasn't wrong.
No, it really was wrong. It's not minimizing it. It's also not, and this is important, it's not reconciliation. Forgiveness is not reconciliation. Now reconciliation is very important but reconciliation is actually a two-player game.
So in order to reconcile I have to have your cooperation, right? But listen to me. Forgiveness and having the right heart, that is a one-player game. It's my attitude, not necessarily toward you, but it's my attitude toward God about you. And so I just say, you know what, God, I don't agree with them.
I've been hurt by them, but I am not going to let this poison my heart both now and in the future. Forgiveness is actually between you and God. And it's also, it's not forgetting what happened. In fact, real forgiveness is remembering what happened and still having the peace of God inside your heart by the love and by the grace of God. Knowing that what they said about me is still going to be able to, I'm still going to be able to lay my head down at night even after what they said because God's peace is still in my heart because I have forgiven them.
And honestly, church, I'm tired of the toxic culture and where everybody's pointing at everybody else and, well, you know, you need to get your life right and well, y'all need to do whatever it is. No, no, no. Here's what we need to do. Those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ, we start with us. We need to start with the house of God.
Let's begin with us. And I would love in the middle of all this toxic back and forth for there to be a group of people that would be able to look out there and say, "Man, I want to be part of that group because they treat people well." But listen to me. I believe that God is calling us to set a standard that goes against the culture in areas that are very controversial. But we're not going to be able to do that if we're as belligerent as the rest of them. We've got to stand firm and love well at the same time.
In fact, our Christianity is supposed to be so attractive and so different that other people want what we have. And that's what I'm trying to get us to. And it's got to start with our own hearts getting right about people, about our marriages, about our in-laws or our outlaws or whatever you want to call them. But here's a second reason why we don't think this is going to work or we're going to have a hard time doing it. It's because we don't think it's fair.
We don't think it's fair. And guess what? You're right. It's not fair. It's not fair for somebody to say all this garbage about you or to hurt you or to offend you or to even abuse you.
That's not fair. You're right. But trust me, you don't want fair. I just thank God that he's not fair. Because if God was fair, you and I, we would have to pay for the penalty of our sins and we would be spending eternity separated from God in a place called hell.
I don't want fair. I want forgiveness. And listen, I'm going to stand before God one day and I'm going to give an account for every single thing that I've done. But thank God that the blood of Jesus Christ has stepped into my life and he has forgiven me of the things that I've done wrong. And I'll take forgiveness over fair any day.
So what I want to do is I want to take a little time to teach you a story that you may have heard before that Jesus taught in Matthew chapter 18. And I think it's so important in the culture that we live in right now. It's a very powerful story because Peter came to Jesus and he had obviously been frustrated by somebody who had received his forgiveness maybe once, maybe twice, but kept offending him. So, let's look at Matthew 18:21-35. "Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, 'Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me?
Up to seven times?'" And I think he actually thought that this was a profoundly large number. Verse 22, "Jesus answered, 'I tell you not seven times, but 77 times.'" In fact, many scholars believe that he meant 70 times 7, which would be 490 times. And that's just in one day. So that would be like forgiving somebody once every 3 minutes or so, and that's when everyone's asleep as well. That's a lot, right?
Verse 23, "Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him 10,000 talents was brought to him." And in today's economy, that would be around $9 billion or so. Jesus intentionally gave an amount that was like, you know what, there's no way that could ever be repaid. Verse 25, "Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. At this, the servant fell on his knees before him.
'Be patient with me,' he begged. 'And I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt, and let him go." "But when the servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii." Now, that would be the equivalent to like 15 to $20,000 today. It's still a lot of money, but it's something that would be able to be paid back. "But he grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me,' he demanded.
His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him. 'Be patient with me and I will pay you back.' But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant in.
'You wicked servant,' he said. 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In his anger, his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed." And trust me, you don't want to have to pay for your own sins. And he goes on to say something very powerful, and this is the heart of the message today. Verse 35, "This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or your sister from your heart." And honestly, when you do, when you're not offended by whatever group or whatever person or whatever action, I'm not saying it's right.
But it's that you're not holding on to that in your heart. Because to be forgiven, as C.S. Lewis says, to be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. If you would allow God to do this in your heart today, you would walk out lighter and freer and more attractive to those who actually need what we have. But a lot of us, and this is number three, we don't think we can do it.
We just don't think we can do it. And you may even say, "Look, I agree with what scripture teaches. I agree with what you just read, but you don't know my story. You don't know how bad it was. You don't know how bad it hurt." And you're right.
I don't. But I'm trying to teach you some values today from God's word. And it says in Philippians 4:13, "I can do everything through him who gives me strength." And I believe that. I truly believe that as you open your life to the power of God to do work inside of you that you will have the capacity to do things that you never thought were possible. And I want to say that again, can you do it?
No, you can't. But I truly believe that if you open up your life to the power of God doing work inside of you and you actually allow him to do the work inside of you that you will have capacity to do things that you never dreamed were possible. And now here's the catch. You have to take the first step. You have to take the first step for that power to begin to work inside of you.
God knocks at the door of our hearts, right? And we open the door. We let him in. So there are action steps that we have to take. There are steps that we have to take toward God that allows our hearts to be transformed and to be healed so that we don't think the things that we were thinking and we don't feel the same things that we were feeling.
Now then we allow God to do a fresh work inside of us by healing our hearts. And here's the deal. This is simple. This is simple, but it's challenging. And it comes straight from the most famous sermon that's ever been preached.
And there are three things that I'm going to pull out of the sermon on the mount that Jesus spoke that will help us to really be able to take the next step. And let me say this, you're not going to feel like doing this. But if you'll do it, if you will take that next step toward it, a transformation is going to take place inside of your heart. Your heart is going to change and you won't even know how you can do it. But the person that was so ugly to you and so mean to you, so hateful to you, that group that you despise, all of a sudden you're going to have compassion in your heart for them, not hate.
You're not even going to recognize yourself. And then that kind of attitude is going to make your life attractive where the people who are far from God are actually going to say, "You know what? I want what they have." And I'm telling you that's the hope of the gospel in our culture. It's the hope of the gospel and I really believe it. These things are really, really simple.
And the first one is this. We got to pray for them. We got to pray for them. And somebody says, "Well, yeah, yeah, I'll pray for them. I'll pray for the flies of a thousand camels to find their armpits, right?" No, that's not what we're talking about.
That's not the kind of prayer we're talking about. Matthew 5:43-44 says this, "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." I mean, literally going before the Lord every day and saying, "Lord, I forgive." And then name their name or name the group or name the political party. Name whatever it is that you've got bitterness in your heart about. "Lord, I'm asking for you to move in their lives. Lord, I pray that that person who completely disagrees with me and completely disagrees with your word and is even trying to pull your church down and pull your word down.
Lord, I'm just praying for them. I'm praying for their family. I'm praying for their life that you would intervene, God, give them health and give them strength." And listen, not only does that prayer do a work on them, but I'm telling you, it does a powerful work within you. It's a lot like reading the Psalms. If you read the Psalms, they're very interesting to read.
You'll see David writing these Psalms and he appears to be kind of mad at first. "God, why is this happening? Why do the wicked prevail?" And you read the first part of the psalm and then you read the last part of the psalm and you'll see the difference, right? You'll see all of this frustration at the beginning like "where are you God? My soul is in despair." And by the time you get to the end of the psalm, it's like, "Oh Lord, I love you.
I praise your holy name." What happened? Prayer. And I would encourage you to do the same for whatever person or group. Whatever it happens to be, wherever you've been offended, pray, "Lord, I just speak blessings over them in the mighty name of Jesus. Lord, touch them today by your power." And it may not change them, but I promise you, it'll change you.
It'll change you. Here's the second thing. I'm just reading the words of Jesus here, and that is bless them. Bless them. And the word bless means to speak well of.
And by the way, that means in private and in public. I'm going to speak well of them. I will not let a negative word come out of my mouth about whoever or whatever. No, I just can't do it. I'm not going to let it happen.
Jesus said it this way in Luke 6:27-28, "But to you who are listening, I say, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you." Romans says it this way in Romans 12:14, "Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse." I'm telling you, we're supposed to bless those who curse us.
Because remember, our spirituality is supposed to be attractive enough where people look at us and say, "Hey, that's what God thinks about marriage. Okay, well, I want that." And we can be honest enough to say this is what God speaks about marriage, not that. Or this is what God speaks about sexuality, not that. Or this is what God thinks about gender, not that. But if they see us as a group of people who are just against everything instead of those who are genuinely in love with them and care for them and want what's best for them, they will never experience the love of Jesus in the way that we want them to understand.
We're going to bless those around us in the name of Jesus Christ. And then finally, Jesus says, "You need to do good to them." Do good to them. Romans 12:17-21 says this, "Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath. For it is written, 'It is mine to avenge, I will repay,' says the Lord. On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." As the Holy Spirit works in your heart, he will say, "Pray for them. Bless them. Do good to them." And if they don't want you to do that, do it anyway. Do it anyway. And we'll continue to give and encourage others to do the same.
It's at that point you'll begin to notice a shift in your spirit. Why? Well, it's because that's the spirit of Jesus working within you. It's nothing that human nature wants to do. But God is countercultural in his values and in his actions.
The Bible says in Ephesians 4:31-32, "Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling, and slander along with every form of malice." We've got to get rid of these things. "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you." It's hard to do unless it's been done to you. So really, the first step is being forgiven, just to realize that God has forgiven you. Why? Because if that happens, you'll begin to realize that the forgiven forgive.
The forgiven forgive. And if you're a follower of Jesus Christ today, your sins have been forgiven. And we're called to forgive others the same way that Christ has forgiven us. Would you pray with me today? God, I pray that you would do a work in our hearts and in our minds in a way that only the power of your Holy Spirit can do.
This is hard stuff. It may be simple, but it's very hard. And it has its challenges. And you teach us in your word that we're going to be offended by things. People are going to offend us.
There are things in this world, in this culture that are going to offend us. But you also teach us that we cannot hold bitterness and anger and hate in our hearts. It's just not the way that we can live. The fruit of the spirit will not come out of us if we have anger and bitterness within us. And if we don't have a right relationship with you, how will we ever have a right relationship with other people?
And yet you tell us that if we don't have a right relationship with other people, then we certainly can't have a good relationship with you. These things are inseparable. So help us to understand and maybe even do an evaluation of our hearts to see that if we have bitterness, if we have hatred, if we have unforgiveness in our hearts, there's no way that we can have a good relationship with you. But in order to forgive others, we need to experience the forgiveness that you've given to us through your son, Jesus Christ. And you use a story in your word to show how the forgiveness that you give us is so much more than what we could ever forgive anyone else anyway.
So, help us to know and to remember and understand how much we've been forgiven of because we've all sinned. We've all fallen short. And the punishment for our sin is eternal separation from you in a place called hell and eternal torment. But yet through a relationship with you, you give us grace, a free gift that we don't deserve, and you show us your mercy, and it changes absolutely everything. So God, I pray that we would be a people who are known by our love and our forgiveness.
And yes, we stand on the truth of God's word. There's no question about that. But because we are strong and secure in our identity with you as children of God and because we've studied your word and we know what it says and we have that foundation, we will be able to stand strong in the storms that this world throws at us. And as we do, we will look different and it will actually be attractive to the world because it is so different than what they're doing. God, we want to see your kingdom come here on this earth.
Help us to live like we're part of your kingdom, not like we're part of the world. So God, we surrender to you and to your word, and we trust that you're going to do a work inside of us that only you can do. So God, we give it all to you today. It's in the name of Jesus, we pray. And everybody said, "Amen."