Unforgiveness Prison

Control Freak: The Joy of Letting Go

Anybody in the room willing to admit I’m a bit of a “control freak”?

I like to be in charge.

I like when things go my way.

I’ve got a plan and I’m right. If everybody else would just get on board with that the world would be a better place!

I have a friend who was known for always having to be right. He would say, “I don’t ever argue about things I’m not right about!” My friend P. Eric Boggs likes to say (jokingly), “It’s okay if you disagree with me, it won’t be the first time you’re wrong”

Series Principle: There are things in your life that are stealing away your joy. And the best thing we can do is to let go and release them into God’s hands.

But too often we live with “clinched fists” instead of open hands.

Every deal with a toddler and their new favorite toy? I dare you try to take it out of my hands

[Read this with me:]

Thrown in Prison by Bitterness and Pride

Matthew 18:21–35 “Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.””

Testimony: Our Forgiven Debt

Some of you may already know this story, but around 16 years ago my wife (Jennifer) and I had been praying for years for children. We wanted to start our own family but had struggled through infertility and miscarriages. Some of you here today I am sure know what that experience is like. At some point in the process a door opened up for us to explore IVF which had the potential to help us see a baby come to full term. This was near the beginning of our marriage and when we looked into the total cost, it mine as well have been millions of dollars! Jennifer works in the school system and I have been in pastoral ministry all my life. They don’t call those areas of work non-profit for no reason! Simply put we did not have the funds. It was somewhere in the ballpark of $30K back then. But how many realize what God puts in your heart, he will always provide for that need!! We began to share our desire to have children with friends and family. We met with a business men in our church and asked if he’d be willing to load us the money and we could make monthly payments. He agreed. After several months in the process, we did conceive and God brought us a beautiful baby girl! PTL!

So we started making those monthly payments. For us we knew it would mean a sacrifice in our monthly budget. But we trusted that God would help us chip away at the loan and make the payments.

Then one day the business man and his wife asked to talked to us after church. I figured it was about the arrangements we had made on the loan payments and was ready to make whatever adjustments necessary. Then they looked at us and said: “God has told us to forgive the debt completely. You don’t need to make another payment.”

Some of the greatest words you will ever hear are these: “Your debt has been Forgiven.”

Those are powerful words!

How many know, those are the words that Jesus is always saying to you….

Your past is forgiven.

Your shortcoming are forgiven.

Your mistakes are forgiven.

Colossians 2:13–14 “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”

The Gospel in three sentences:

I love you.

You’re forgiven.

Let’s eat!

In the gospel story, Peter seems to have a problem with forgiveness.

Matthew 18:21 “Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?””

Truth: I’d like to suggest to you today that just like Peter, many of us get caught up in who deserves forgiveness and who doesn’t in large part because we can’t really receive God’s forgiveness for ourselves.

We stay locked up in unforgiveness-prison where we are really our own prison guard!

There’s always somebody else who is to blame.

We’re fixated on the speck in our neighbors eye and fail to see the plank in our own eye.

We can’t let go because of Forgiveness Killers!

Perfection is a forgiveness Killer.

Everybody has failures.

But I find that it’s easier for many of us to have compassion for others, but we have none for ourselves.

Performance is a forgiveness Killer.

You can’t earn God’s forgiveness.

You can’t do another thing to make God love you more.

Still many of us keep performing thinking it will change God’s mind about us.

Comparison is a forgiveness Killer.

You are uniquely and wonderfully made (Ps 139).

Everything in our world is setup for comparison. We begin to believe the lie that “I’m not good enough.”

Jesus made you more than good enough. You are God’s very own son or daughter.

Competition is a forgiveness Killer.

You will have so much more joy in your life when you realize this one simple truth: When it comes to the blessing and provision of God, there is always more where that came from!

No need to compete or jostle for God’s attention.

The wicked servant stayed in prison because he lacked this one thing: HUMILITY

The answer is Humility.

James 4:6 “But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.””

1 Peter 5:6 “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,”

Psalm 25:9 “He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.”

2 Chronicles 7:14 “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

John Dickson on Humility: Humility is the noble choice to forgo your status, deploy your resources or use your influence for the good of others before yourself. More simply, you could say the humble person is marked by a willingness to hold power in service of others.

Jesus is our greatest model for humility. He humbled (emptied) himself.

Philippians 2:5–8 “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Greek word for emptied is kenosis:

Really one of the essential truths in all scripture. Jesus poured himself out into the world…into the human experience.

Simply put, Jesus is the master at “letting go.”

How many realize if the wicked servant could have just “let go” and trusted the good master, he would have known how to then release the friend who owed him money.

Instead he ended up locked up on the inside and the outside!

Here’s the simple practice of Humility

Be Kind

Be Compassionate

Let go, and trust it to God.

What has you locked up in a spiritual, emotional, and mental prison today? Come and bring that to Jesus.