These days it’s easy to see life the way we want to. We can filter our images, pick the news we want to hear, and listen only to the viewpoints that agree with us. When we do that, we start to distort our view of the world. The same thing can happen to our view of God. We reshape our perception of Him into what we want to believe, or what we want to think about others. Jesus came to bring us the truth about God and His plan for us, and it doesn’t always sound like what you may think. This series cuts through the noise of the world’s perceptions of Jesus and what it means to follow Him, in ways that may be surprising to some people. It plays off the idea of memes as jokes, rhetorical devices, and sources of misinformation to debunk popular misconceptions and bring clear truth.
Series: Things Jesus Never Said
Message: “You Don’t Need To Forgive Them”
Text: Matthews 6:9-15
Sunday, April 28, 2019
Pastor Tom Cogle
Jesus did not say:•“Forgive us our debts even though we are still holding grudges.”•“I’ll forgive you, but you don’t have to forgive what someone else did to you.”
Forgiving others creates lots of emotion and rightly so!“You don’t know what someone did to me.”
Two levels of pain:
1.When someone hurts of abuses you.
2.When someone hurts or abuses someone you love.
How do you forgive something that seems unforgivable?
•Remember, He’s not MY Father, but OUR Father.
•We are His children – It makes God happy when His children get along.
•Unforgiveness hurts His heart!
“But what if I’m not there yet—Still mad—What do I do?”
•Prayer a prayer asking forgiveness
•Your prayer may or may not change others, but it always changes you!
Forgive – “hurl it away”
Forgive because God has forgiven you.
“Holding a grudge doesn’t make you strong. It makes you bitter. Forgiving doesn’t make you weak. It sets you free.”
Forgiveness empowers you to set the prisoner free, and you realize the prisoner was you.