Let it Go
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“You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’
But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell.
“So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you,
leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.
Does anyone watch Gilligan’s Island?
I used to love to watch Gilligan’s Island (We had a rotation of past decade shows)
One of my favorite episodes was the one about Wrongway Feldman
Wrongway Feldman was a pilot that had been missing for decades
Gilligan and Skipper find his plane
And ultimately find him
Professor says he can fix the plane, and does
But Wrongway saws one of the pieces in half in the middle of the night, because he’s afraid to return home
He sabotages himself
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It’s one thing for someone else to keep someone from succeeding
It’s crazy to consider that sometimes the person who sabotages us is ourselves.
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I’ve done this in trying to eat right.
I’ll be on a diet
And then by my own choice my car will magically end up in Dairy Queen Drive Thru
I’ll make Kayla buy me Little Debbies at the store
Nobody is making me mess up my diet, I am doing so of my own fruition. I’m sabotaging myself.
In just a few moments we are taking a special step to see our church move into the next level.
We are taking our expand offering.
We have talked about the difference between tithes and offerings.
This is an offering…..it is above the tithe
I believe this offering could be a breakthrough moment for some individuals in many other areas besides finance
God can give you relational breakthroughs
God can give you spiritual breakthroughs
God can give you vocational breakthroughs
All as a result of your financial surrender.
But as I was considering what God would have me preach to you on this special day with so much potential, I remembered a study I did years ago in regard to giving.
The benefits of giving are halted when there are feelings that needed to be let go
The benefits of giving are halted when there are hurts that needed to be addressed
The benefits of giving are halted when there is forgiveness that needed to be released.
Let me read it again.
“You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’
But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell.
“So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you,
leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.
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In what is arguably Jesus most popular sermon, he addresses forgiveness and reconciliation in direct correlation with giving.
I want to break this verse down word by word with you for a few moments this morning and show you how anger and bitterness can actually sabotage the blessing God intends for us to receive.
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1. Angry
1. Angry
But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell.
The greek word for angry in this passage is:
orgizo: to provoke or enrage
There is a parenthetical insertion that this is a passive anger
This is not an anger that necessarily causes you to go punch someone out.
You may not flip them off in the parking lot
You may not go yell at them and call them all kinds of terrible names
But deep down inside, there is a boiling anger that eventually results in a lasting bitterness.
I would say that within Christendom this makes up a good portion of our anger.
My friend at the basketball game
We don’t act on our anger
We just put it deep down and hang onto it for years.
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2. Brother
2. Brother
The crazy thing is who is the cause and target of this anger
One would think this type of anger would be directed at Hamas
This would have to be directed at the mouthy agnostic or atheist that is pushing their agenda in our school systems.
But look at who this anger is directed towards
“angry with his brother”
brother: adolpho= This is a fellow believer
Nobody has the power to hurt a believer like another believer
we tend to understand our own insufficiencies, but expect other Christians to maintain perfection.
Do as we believe not as I do
We expect when we come into a body of believers to be in a safe space.
This is really not all that outlandish of an expectation
But the fact is this: We are all still struggling with our flesh
Our flesh causes us to do hurtful things.
If you build your faith on the foundation of a person…your faith will crumble.
And so we get hurt because of various things that happen amongst our brother’s and sisters.
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It can be major
Major hurts take place within the church
Expectations aren’t met
People reject us
People say extremely hurtful things
People neglect us
We expect to be used in a certain way and it doesn’t happen
You probably aren’t always going to get the position that you want to have within the church.
Those moments can cause you to begin to build up a ledger of all the wrongs people have done to you.
But it doesn’t even necessarily have to be a major action or moment to have a major effect on us.
Me and Kayla found out that some of our very best friends were having a bunch of people over
We weren’t invited.
I know that that wasn’t an action taken to hurt us….but the enemy takes every opportunity.
We were both really discouraged and felt disassociated from our body of believers at times because we allowed little instances like that to wear on us.
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These feelings never seem to stay stagnate
You can’t insert one of these feelings into your heart and leave it and expect for it to remain at the same level
Toys that grow bigger the longer you leave them in water.
Some of you have inserted frustrations into your heart and let them stay there for so long that they have turned into full fledge bondages of bitterness.
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3. Without A Cause
cause: eike This is alluding to the effect
Or the end game
Christ is calling those into question who are angry without a purpose to their anger.
This is the difference between righteous anger and unrighteous anger
Righteous anger has a Godly cause behind it
What’s the end game of your anger?
What do we expect to be accomplished by our anger
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Anger is one of the only emotions that completely bypasses logic.
We get mad at people
But deep down we don’t want to see them hurt
The people that hurt us, we get mad at them, but we don’t want their life to be messed up.
We are angry with no end game.
This doesn’t mean your frustration was unmerited
They may very well have done you wrong.
But Jesus is telling the disciples that if you are holding bitterness in your heart you are doing so without a kingdom motive.
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Raca
This anger leads us to develop certain feelings towards those who have wronged us.
Jesus seems to allude that this type of anger will drive someone to say “Raca” to his brother.
Raca: simply means worthless
Anger and bitterness blinds us to the value of our fellow believers.
God created everyone with value to His Kingdom
We are all called
That includes those with whom we disagree.
That includes those whom have wronged us
Our mission is too important for us to let hell born feelings of anger drive us to sabotage ourselves.
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Now you’re probably thinking “What does this have to do with our expand offering?”
As I said, Jesus makes a direct correlation between a person’s relationship with their brethren and the effectiveness of their giving to the church.
You can be a lavish giver without being a generous person.
Many people give hefty offerings in order to feel justified
They will give a large amount to good causes in order to feel like their sin isn’t going to be counted against them.
If you are truly generous it bleeds over into more than your finances
You will readily give your time to the cause of Christ
You will happily give your talent
You will readily release forgiveness to those who hurt you
We have overcomplicated situations that call for forgiveness
We think that if we forgive someone we are giving them permission to hurt us again
We feel it is our job to evaluate whether someone deserves forgiveness or not
Yet our leader, issues statements on forgiveness with statements as broad as “whosoever will” and laughs at the limitations the disciples present to him in regards to forgiveness.
Would Christ ask us to do something that would be harmful to us?
The answer is no.
When we release forgiveness, we take a step into God’s Will.
Those who are in God’s Will have access to God’s protection
This shouldn’t be a motivation, but God is much better at vindication that we are.
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In a group this size there are probably a plethora of situations in which feelings have been hurt
Somebody said something about you
Somebody didn’t appreciate something you did
There are endless possibilities within the church of ways that you could be hurt
Are you going to sabotage yourself by holding onto those situations.
Let me read our text one more time from the message paraphrase.
“You’re familiar with the command to the ancients, ‘Do not murder.’
I’m telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother ‘idiot!’ and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell ‘stupid!’ at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill.
“This is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters. If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you,
abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God.
The greatest hurt I’ve ever experienced was at the hand of a pastor that I worked under
I lost everything and I could have very logically and possible even justifiably placed the blame on him
I went for probably six months to a year with this self justified bitterness
One day God showed me the key to moving forward in my calling, and my relationship with Him
I had to apologize.
I wrote a letter.
God released me from that bitterness
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Stop sabotaging yourself
Blessing cannot coexist with bitterness.
I want us to see one more thing before we close out the sermon and bring our offering.
the gift was not the only thing that was hindered.
Look at the location that the gift is left
The altar
The altar is the place of communion
The altar is the place of fellowship and sacrifice
The altar cannot properly serve its purpose in a life that harbors bitterness.
He never sinned, nor ever deceived anyone.
He did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly.
You can sum Jesus attitude and action toward those who wronged him in three words….He “LET IT GO”
There are some of you that the blessing your faithful giving is intended to unlock will be stifled unless you are able to let it go.
Get out your offering.
I want us to come to the altar and spend a few moments in prayer
When God shows you what your harboring, I want you to leave your gift there and amend it
That may mean sending a text
That may mean going to someone
That may mean writing it down on something and putting it in your bible
But I am not going to give you an opportunity to consecrate your finances for the year without giving you the tools to break the enemies hindrance.
Today is the day that we release the bitterness and in doing so allow God room to bless our finances.