BITTERSWEET 2

CANCEL THE DEBT NOT THE PERSON

Intro

It’s good to see you guys again! Just to remind you all about our series, we are talking about forgiveness.

Kaylee talked to us about bitterness being like a weight that holds us back from being free of our own emotions and relationships that we have with people.

Today, we will we talking about how we should treat the things people do that cause us pain in our hearts or even bodies.

The Title of this week’s message is Cancel the Debt, Not the Person

Pray

How many of you have ever blocked someone before?

Ask - without being too specific, why do we block people?

Over texting - annoying

bullying

broken relationship - GF/BF broke up

What if I asked you right now to get our your phones, get on social media, and unblock every single person that you have blocked?

You might just think I’m crazy.

While it’s easy to block people on social media, it’s not easy to block people in real life when they hurt you.

Many of us look at the people that hurt us, every day.

They might be

friends at school

neighbors

Teachers

an Ex.

The list can go on and on.

The truth is, that we can easily put up a wall against someone cancel them, and even involve other people in cancelling them or ignoring them because of something they did or said that was offensive to you or another person.

Drawing of Jen

This is Jen, Jen is your friend since 2nd grade.

Jen likes to read, she likes to paint, She likes Marvel Movies she likes to help people with homework, she likes to talk to people and make people feel good about themselves.

Jen is a cool person, however, she tends to act differently around other people.

So one day, while she is in another group of friends that you don’t typically like, you hear that she starts talking mad stuff behind your back.

She says you only brush your teeth for 15 seconds.

She says that you don’t get good grades.

She says that you don’t wear deoderant.

She calls you broke

So she says all these things about you, and what is your reaction?

Forget Jen! Forget our friendship, Forget her, forget her artistic skills, forget her books, forget her feelings and her eyebrows. CANCEL!!

But, the question we have to ask ourselves is…

How does God desire that I treat someone who has hurt me or someone else?

We will revisit Jen, but Let’s go back into our text and check out what is being said here.

Background info:

Colossians is a letter written by a man named Paul to a city called Colossae. So Colossian was a person who lived in Colossae, like American is the name of someone who is a citizen of America. So Paul wrote this letter because people teaching them some pretty crazy stuff like about praying to angels and doing whatever you want with your body. These teachings even led to treating other people like garbage.

So Paul, is writing to remind everyone how we are meant to treat each other since we are new people because of what Jesus has done.

Colossians 3:12–15 (NLT)

Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.

There are a few things that we can pull from this so we can begin to understand how we are meant to treat others who hurt us.

The first is,

1. Know Your Identity

Who you are in Jesus Christ, is greater than who you are in the mouth of people

verse 12 says that God chose you, It says that you are Holy, and it says that He loves you.

Holy means to be separated for a good purpose. You are meant to be different, You are meant to stand out. You do this by changing your attitude, your actions, and your words.

You’re not living out who God calls you to be when you are acting and talking just like everyone else.

You are meant to live in the world in a way that shows people that you are a child of God.

Because you are a child of God, you are loved by God.

God loves you so much that he doesn’t want you to be like everyone else.

God wants to make you like Jesus.

His love for you is greater than his love for all other creatures and creation that He has made.

To God, you are more wonderfully made than the stars in the sky, than the galaxies in the Solar System, and you are more precious to God than the most expensive jewels ever designed.

This God wants to have a relationship with you and to do that He gave up His only beloved Son to die so that you can have a life with him and not apart from him suffering forever.

That is who you are and what God thinks about you.

Transition

Our identity then should cause us to do the things that God has done to us to other people. And because of Jesus, our Debt can be cancelled

2. Cancel the Debt

When we talk about debt, basically we are talking about owing someone something.

The Bible says that the wages of sin is death so sin is equal to debt. So when we sin, we are building up our debt against God.

So when someone offends you, hurts you or someone else, it’s like they have a debt against you.

Let’s go back to Jen!

The temptation to cancel Jen is due to the fact that we only see Jen by the things she has done to us. It seems fine to cancel them because of what they have done and the debt they have built up against you.

But when we look at this passage, what is it saying?

Colossians 3:13 NLT

Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you…Why? Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.

So this means, let’s erase all of these offenses, and see Jen as God sees her,

full of purpose

unique

imperfect, just like everyone, but still Made in God’s image

We must cancel the debt, not the person

Apply

Many of us know people, or tv shows that are cancelled because of what’s known as cancel culture, but to be a part of cancel culture is to reject what God says in His word

We don’t have to affirm people for what they have said, or what they have done, but we have to make allowance for other people’s mistakes and love them even when they seem unlovable.

We need to move toward forgiveness because it keeps us from storing bitterness in our hearts and holding a grudge as we learned last week.

I just want to ask you one thing to think about before we move on to small groups:

Where do you need to have more compassion in your life?

Maybe its yourself,

we can be pretty hard on ourselves more than on others.

Sometimes forgiving yourself is harder to do than forgiving others.

Others

maybe you know people who say and do the dumbest things.

We want to be quick to judge others, but we still have to make allowance for other people’s faults.

just like them, we are also not perfect.

To close I want to read this passage just one more time and I want you to think about where you need some work.

Colossians 3:12–15 (NLT)

Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.

PRAY