Direction to Total Freedom - Nick Serban III

Direction to Total Freedom __ Nick Serban III

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

god, morning, offense, people, forgive, forgiveness, offended, life, won, moments, grows, word, judas, jesus, bitterness, lord, root, deal, happen, thought

We've thrown a leg up analysis there to kind of feel, here we go. Just thrilled to be in the House floor today. And for the next few moments, I just want to share a few things that have been on my heart where we'll hop back into x. I know for some of you were so disappointed this morning, that we're not back in x, we're gonna get there and we may grab a story or two from x, but I want to share, I've, I've been titled this direction to total freedom this morning. And I don't necessarily always I feel like I'm a topical preacher. Most of all, not necessarily a expository preacher. But this morning, I might be a little bit more expository. And to the extent of I, I really believe that God wants us in you to function in total freedom. And they say that, oftentimes, in the area of freedom, there are some major hang ups and hold ups and one of the greatest holdups to freedom in our lives. And maybe you've heard this before, and but just just bear with me, is this word called unforgiveness, which actually sways into bitterness. And I mean, I'm just looking at you this morning, I see nobody unforgiving or bitter this morning, can you all a great, turn the person next day and tell them how great they look right now, okay. And yet, as we as we kind of this is kind of a standalone message. I don't know if it's gonna be two parts. But there's a lot of material I want to get across this morning, I will be able to take some notes, take pictures of the screen, I purposely put things on the screen they all in sections so that maybe you want to take a picture or whatever. But I just believe God wants us to live in freedom. And I just believe that some of us are dealing with things and going through things that we've dealt with over and over and over again, and over and over and over again. And we've kind of just chunked up saying, well, that's just the way that I am or that's, you know, that's the plight that God has put before me. But I truly believe that there there again, there are some areas that we can grow in. And oftentimes it comes down to this small, what we call a rudder in our mouth. There's a story back in, in 1850, the United States won with the New York Yacht Club, they won a very prestigious yacht race. It was in the inaugural America's Cup, how many are in the yachting, I mean, we're landlocked here, but I don't know anything about yachting. I've been on some boats before, and not many with sales. But this is a big thing. It was a 53 mile race around the island of New York. And USA has defended their cup had defended their cup for 132 years. It's kind of like the the Ryder Cup or the Presidents Cup, you know, the same, the same home court advantage with the same team winning all the time. But after 132 years in 1983. Australia finally beat them. And there's some there's some controversy that came out of the beating of them and the winning of the race due to some new technology, the way their their boat was formed. The US says there were some illegal things that took place. But regardless of the whole piece, the United States lost the cup. And one of the one of the, to the forefront of how Australia won this was their coach that they purposed three years earlier that they were going to train to win. And so the the coach of the winning team, the Australian winning team, he happened to get a hold of a digital recording system. And he knew the race that was coming up three years later. And he knew that he knew that every how every tack and every jib, and every sale was to be placed during this time. And it was almost it was very, very purposeful. And he put it on tape. And he would shout it out. And he had music behind it. And he actually had the sound of the wind and the waves behind it and him calling it out. And he mandated that every person on that crew, listen to that recording at least two times a day for that three year period. Has a lot of people on a team I think there's anywhere between 12 to 15 those on the boat and all of them have just little little areas of concern some some people pull, some people push some people steer some people their weight and falls on one side or the other bone all came down to it 2190 times before they even said sale. They actually won the race. You As they put their heart, mind and soul into it our words, create words and worlds subjectively, where you can say things. We can share things. We can purpose things. But isn't it amazing? As James in the book of James over 2000 years ago, with the tongue, we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we cursed human beings who have been made in God's likeness. Our words are a difference between winning and losing. I know there was a very popular song years ago by an artist, how many how many remember an artist named Sandy? Patty? Anybody? Have you? Alright, in heaven's eyes, there are no losers. I remember I used to sing it to our youth group. Listen, we may not have won this thing. You know, there's no losers here. But when all comes down to it, you know, there's something about being triumphal. Our words can create worlds of hurt worlds of healing. And our Words have the power to bless and to curse. As I read and James the tongue, we praise the Lord our father. And whether we curse human beings, as well. In Genesis, chapter one, verse 28, there's this. There's incredible parallel, believe it or not to this scripture, because the first time in the Word in the books of the Bible, the Pentateuch. In Genesis 120, it says that God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply. This is the first time recorded in Scripture, that God used the word bless. I'm going to bless them. We go to James and we realize that you know, we can we can praise our God, we can bless our God, and then we can curse human beings, and at the inception, God is a Blitzer. And uniquely, every one of us desire, what we desire blessing. Ever everybody following me here this morning, we desire to have blessing in our life, we desire that the things we touch are blessed. You know, The Lord bless you and keep you. May he make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you, we desire blessing. And it oftentimes, there are things inside of us that are holding back, the hand, the move, and this can be controversial, even the grace of God in our lives, and orderlies that happen to mention to this morning that I believe there's total deliverance for everyone, I believe there's total freedom for everyone. Our and blessing is our deepest, deepest longing. But this is what happens to our tongue. We can sing with choirs, with the choirs of angels, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, the Earth is yours. And then we can change. And sometimes it's not just our tongue, it's our mindset. It's the way we we say things, the way we feel things, the way we do things. We kind of speak with a forked tongue, a forked tongue, where blessing comes over here, and hostility or cursing or disappointment can come from this. We did some We bless our Lord the Father. And then we curse human beings, uniquely and in the world that we live in modern day present day. There's there's a scholar analogy of a common enemy, or common humanity, a common enemy is, again, my interpretation. Again, I'm a Christian, doesn't matter if I'm a Republican or Democrat, I'm a Christian, okay. But when it comes down to it, it's so much easier to find a common enemy. In fact, finding a common enemy will produce votes. But finding common humanity finding a place of you know, we can kind of look at this and agree to disagree and move forward. Common common enemy is effectively incredibly effective. Because it demonizes people, full pulls, it hurts people. But then when we find common humanity, it appeals to ideas and appeals to and as a believer, we can surely it's kind of even the statement, you know, God hates the sin, but loves the sinner. And what happens with the economy a common enemy, just as a side note, we we start to bait people, we start to shame people, we start to troll people. And then we end up with a canceled culture. That canceled culture was popular a whole lot earlier than it has been in the last few years. We've done it Maybe not even understanding that we're doing it. But oftentimes with canceled culture, we have canceled people in our lives, we have written them off. And I want to tell you this morning, it is worth fighting for freedom, it is worth fighting for forgiveness, it is worth in the African language of Zulu, how many how many know what any Zulu phrases? Anybody hear? Hakuna Matata? No. in the African language, there's a there's a word that says, slow, slow Buddha, slow Buddha. And here's what it translated, I see you. When he turned the person next to you to say that to them, can you then say I see you. Or you can try to say slow Buddha. The image of God in me greets the image of God in you. And we realize that we embrace he as our Savior. A couple rules that I've that I've formulated over the years, a couple of areas that I've learned to kind of navigate through is that I can learn something from everyone ever thought about before. I can learn something from everyone in some area or some way people are superior in different areas in areas than I am and I can learn from them. And then the other area I have to recognize is that everyone is fighting a battle that maybe I know nothing about. There are many of you, you've shown up here this morning. And believe me, I'm believing the walls came down and the walls have come down and you're going to you're going to move through the rubble and you're going to walk in deliverance. But many are fighting certain things. But 30 years ago, there was an incredible book called Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. And when we read that book before, a couple of years, it's a great book. It's kind of dated. But he shares this incredible story in the book that he was on a New York subway, and if you've been on the New York subway before, it's chaotic. It's crazy normally, but in the middle of a it's maybe not not as bad. Jonathan, you were there last week, it's kind of nuts, okay. And on this one particular day, this this he was on, he was on the subway, he shared this in his book, he's on the subway, and the man comes in with two young children. And for the next 510 1520 minutes, the man just sat there and the kids were just creating incredible havoc on that Subway. Just just crazy. I mean, they were screaming, they were yelling, they were to running, they were fighting. And the father just sat there the whole time. And so finally, Steven, I guess the blood pressure was up so high. And he was he was just he was beyond himself, as many of us maybe have found ourselves before. He finally says something to the man. And he's and it was like the man had just kind of like woke up when Steven spoke to him. And the man began to apologize profusely, and he says, he's like, I'm so sorry. He's like, we just came from the hospital where my wife passed. And we just don't know what to do. And obviously, my kids aren't quite sure how to take this. Obviously, that's a that's quite a story of the true story. But we just don't understand what people are fighting through. And yet so many times, so many moments, we've come to a place where you know, it's my way or the highway, this is what I believe. And if you don't fall into line with this, forget it. Hurt people, hurt people. But you heard that 100 times. We kind of push that envelope. But hurt people hurt people, but forgiven people forgive people. In psychology, there are presenting problems, and there are root cause problems. And the more and more I've seen things, the more and more I've had the privilege to minister over the years, I've realized more and more that the root cause. And unforgiveness is probably 101% of the problem. Most of the time that we've held on to that we've not relinquished that we've not given to Tality of forgiveness. The golden rule, Jesus gives us the golden rule and comes out of the sermon Sermon on the Mount Biscay tells us to love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us. Bless those who curse you. Turn the other cheek. Go the extra mile. Give the shirt off your back And then we have Peter, who then asked the ask the question of Jesus, well, how many times will you forgive somebody? Now, no one knowing in Judaism at that point that the right answer would have been three. They figured out baseball a long time ago, three strikes, and you're out. Right? But Peter is trying to, you know, try to mess up Jesus, you know, how many times should we do this and 70 times, kind of up in the ante and Jesus says, no, 70 times seven. Continue to forgive. Not a suggestion, but a direction. The most important decisions that we make are pre decisions. So the law earlier has we received save the offering this morning. How about this proverbs 1911 bunker, I encourage you to jot this down, take a picture of it, if you make this one of your pre decisions in life. It is to the glory of man to overlook what an offense there's another translation, I believe it says it's the crown of a man to overlook an offense. I was I was having lunch with somebody the other day. And it was, it was one of those one of those pieces the waitress just could not seem to get it right. My friend who was with God bless him, he was he was doing a certain type of diet. And so he ordered a grilled chicken salad. And in the came out and had all this stuff on top of the grilled chicken. And she's like, well, I just want a grilled chicken and grilled chicken caesar salad. And he had asked that the the dressing we put on the side as well, because he didn't even necessarily want all that. And so the chicken came out. And there's stuff like all on top of the chicken, like looking at it. And he's like, you know, I can't have a short ticket back to take the back and here comes a chicken. It's all clean. Who knows what they do. I never send food back. He doesn't know what to do back there. All right. Very little, little something for the side, right? Anyway, so it comes back. And sure enough, the Caesar salad dressing was all over all the salad. He's like, where's she's like, it's there's like, it was like a no win. a no win situation. What do you what do you choose to you gotta overcome the offense. Well, I'm a paying customer. You know, maybe she's having a bad day today. Who knows, but it all comes down to it. It is to the glory of a man to overlook and offense. Last year, we went to the we went to a theatrical presentation of the hiding place. And it's a story of Corey timboon. And our family was sent to a Nazi concentration camp in 10, Boone and her lost her father and her sister, but she managed to survive. And uniquely I love love to see you know, always trying to work on our communication styles. You know, I try not to run around like I used to because I think people got vertigo sometimes. So I tried to stay in certain places and, and emphasize my voice down or loud. But she would stand story sorry, says that she would do needlepoint while she spoke at conferences. needlepoint by Jeanette. I mean I have a hard time walking and chewing gum at the same point. And here's he's doing needlepoint and sharing her story. And not the time she was at the end of it. She would talk about how she has moved forward and God has helped her and she would take the back of the needle point. And if you ever looked at the back of needlepoint, it's all dangly over all the cordage and what do you call it? Exactly. Yeah, all that stuff was there. And she would talk about how God can take the straggly in and make it something beautiful. But on this one particular day she was she was speaking near the cat near the concentration camp in Ravensburg. After me read After thanking, thanking for the opportunity to share. There was a man who came up to her and he made it personal. He said I would like to hear from your lips. Will you forgive me? And he happened to be the cruelest guard in that prison camp that she that she even had to deal with. And the story goes on and she shares a story that she stood there and she wasn't quite sure what to say how to say it. Even though she had forgiven the prison guard out Loud she kind of moved on kinda. But here he was right in front of her. Here's what she says the currents, the current started to a my shoulders race down my arm sprang into our, my, the joints of my hands. And then this healing warm seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. And she says, I forgive you, brother. I cried with all my heart. I'd never known God's love so intensely, as I did, then. But even so I realized it was not my love. Because I had tried, and I didn't have the power. It was only through the power of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, living in freedom, living in greatness. In the book of Hebrews, chapter 12, I want to focus on this, this this passage, just for the next few moments, I think there's six things that we can we can pull from this, Hebrews 1215. Here's what it says, look after each other, so that not one of you will fail to find God's best blessings. Watch out that no bitterness, takes root among you. For as it springs up, it causes deep trouble hurting many in their spiritual lives. This could be one of the greatest healing verses in scripture. It's a revelation of who God wants us to be, is a diagnosis, a prognosis and a prescription all in one. It's kind of it's kind of like a whole visit at one time going to a doctor. It's the answer for anyone who has been ever offended in the past, or will ever be offended in the future. Like gonna ask for hands this morning. I think it's pretty reasonable to think that, at some point in our lives, every one of us have been offended. At some point. Someone has said something. We've even gotten so good at it. We we can tell when people look at us a certain way. Then Then we're offended. Maybe mistreated, misunderstood, criticize, disappointed, maybe even embarrassed by someone. The reality of offense. And Luke 17. One, it says this, it is impossible that no offense is should come. But woe to him through whom they do come. There's a there's a reminder for us today that, you know, it's going to happen. It's going to happen at the restaurant with the Caesar salad and no dressing on the side. It's going to happen in your neighborhood. It's going to happen. Hopefully not in the church parking lot or the streets that we park on here. But it's going to happen. It's going to happen that the coffee is not to the temperature that you like on a Sunday morning, God forbid what is going to happen. The word offend comes the Greek from the Greek word, a scandal and the word Scanlon refers to the part of a trap. I love this part. It refers to the part of the trap where the bait goes. So think about a mousetrap. Think about the place that cheese goes or the peanut butter, how many are cheese people and peanut butter people? We got to I don't know what works best. But it's where the cheese goes. And it's used as a trap. The offense. Satan baits us that we would take the bait described as a trap Satan, to bring it to captivity. And Jesus said it's impossible to live in this world. And there's not going to be the opportunity to take the bait. But know this, as we sit here, taking the bait is part of the trap, or the tool the enemy tries to lure us into. Satan blinds us from the central central truth. That just because you've been mistreated, or miss Judge, I wanted to get this just because you've been mistreated, or just because you've been misjudged, you feel justified in withholding forgiveness. And that's a lie from the enemy. Because we'll see in just a few moments that we must forgive to be forgiven. And it's words it's not happy thoughts. It's not Oh, it's no big deal. But it's words. I've said this many times here over the years we've taught my boys early thought our children early that you know what When there's time for forgiveness when someone says that they are sorry, say the words back to them, I forgive you. Don't just shrug your shoulders and say, Oh, it's no big deal, but verbalize those things make it part of the contract. It's done. It's over with things change at this point. Is powerful is impossible to live on earth with imperfect people and not be offended. Because none of us are perfect. James 120 says, For the anger of man prevents the righteous character of God from being formed in your life. How many want to grow here this morning? How many of you how many want to be everything God has called you to be for the anger of man prevents the righteous character of God from being formed in your life? How do you start your growth today? How do we stunt our growth? Anger? unforgiveness? Rage, acting out? The anger of man prevents the righteous whenever I'm offended, whenever you're offended, we hold up we dam up the grace of God in our lives from being formed, every day, okay, so far. Are we getting it? Listen, this is this is freedom stuff here this morning of I don't need to get a little more excited. Come on, guys. This is freedom. The reason for offence, John 13. To and supper being ended, the devil had all having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot to betray Jesus. Now, some commentators, some scholars that have thought about, you know, well, how did how did you, Judas deny Christ? How did he get to that point? I mean, come on, they're hanging out their friends. And, you know, I've heard I've heard teaching before, I've heard it said before those closest to you, but will be the ones that hurt you the worst, the most. And I want to shake that off. But at the same time here, Judas was very close to Jesus. And scholars have said that the real reason what had gotten into the heart is that Judas was offended. Because of chapter two before in John 12, he disagreed with the decision Jesus made about Mary in the, in the, the perfume that she poured out on Jesus feet, they remember, remember that story, it was a very expensive, I mean, it was like a mack daddy, perfume, you know, $200 now and certain dollars now it's whatever it was, it was very, very expensive. And he was he was the treasurer. I mean, he's like, he's trying to collect money so they can go eat, you know, and, and have have travel here and all this. And he or she pours it out and he rebuked Judas in that moment. And guess what? Judas got? There's that word, offended. He was offended. Not only that, Jesus said, You know, it's okay. But he said, Leave her alone. There's a double whammy. I thought I was I thought I was part of the crew. I'm a part of the team here. I'm part of the staff. I should go to say this. John 13, two, and supper being ended the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot to betray him. Satan trap Judas when he disagreed with Jesus. He disagreed with Jesus decision about Mary's offering. He was told to leave him alone. Basically, Judas took offense. negative emotion like many of us do sometimes. Anger, resentment, bitterness. And ultimately, I got it we could have titled this message this morning, how to live a life undefended. How to leave how to live an undefended life. But ultimately, it comes down to crucifying ourselves and say, You know what, I am not going to let this change me. You can say this, you feel that we've established that words hurt, and moments hurt and motives hurt, but it all comes down to it. How do we respond? How do you respond when someone disagrees with you? How do you process it when you don't get your way? How do you easy is it for you to get offended or resist those who disagree with how long does it take to get over? You know, some of them are processors. Some of us are Exploders. See, I hear some of your laughing. You've identified who you are who the person you're sitting next to is. It's kind of like, we're gonna I'm gonna go into the quiet mode here. Don't talk to me for seven days. That Scripture right because those seven days they marched around right. Or I'm going to explode. It's going to be to the power of seven right now. He's like, hey, handle this the removal of a fence. Hebrews 1215, look after each other so that not one of you will fail to find God's best blessing back to Genesis, what do we longed for the blessing of God, the affirmation of God. Watch out that no bitterness takes root among you. For as it springs up, it causes deep trouble hurting many in their spiritual lives. So I want to take Hebrews 1215, I want to break down just a few of the words of as we kind of close out this morning. But if you're taking notes, and numerically the first areas to look when translation says look diligently. The phrase, look, look diligently comes from the word Greek word, a Piske of posts, which means for things, to watch, to look carefully, to take oversight, to see. See to it, to see to it, that we're watching this right now. We're going to look diligently. So scripture is telling us today, on this day, we want freedom we want, we want God to do we want the blessing of God, we want the goodness of God, we want the fever of God wanted to chase us down, we wanted to grab us we want, we want all these things. We are to look diligently. It's a daily prayer. It's a daily moment, take every cross daily, deny yourself and follow him. It's these moments. It means to carefully take oversight of what goes on in your heart, it means to drive your sponsor to take responsibility be responsible for what develops in your spirit, emotions and reactions. Your opinion. I mean, maybe just me ever been in a moment that everything just seems fine. And everything seems good. It's kind of like all of a sudden you have these feelings of overwhelm, you're overwhelmed by something? Or is that just me? Or, you know, or just whatever? Now, what do you do in those moments? Well, first of all, you decide, you take it for the Lord. And you say, Holy Spirit, you know, way this give me give me clear, clear truth on this right now, you know, is this, Lord? Are you trying to direct me somewhere you're trying to tell me something? Or is this just an attack for me to get to kind of get in this direction here, so I'm not as pleasant and kind of nice, when my salad doesn't come out nice. Or my wife speaks to me a certain way or my children didn't take the garbage out, you know, or this person cut me off in traffic. Here's the plain vanilla part of a god will hold others responsible for what they do to us. But God will hold us responsible for what we do to others. We're not responsible to answer for the actions of others. But we are responsible to answer for our actions. Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace. Watch out that no poisonous root number to the root. Let's get to the root of the issue. Reedsville the word Reedsville from the Greek root refers to the root that goes down and is deeply embedded in the soil of the heart. Let me just try to try to paint a picture here. As as we continue, just take a pause here and move forward. I want to take the picture of in the area of unforgiveness and bitterness is that sometimes the root goes deep. Especially when it's not dealt with right away. I love sharing the story. I'll share it 100 more times and if you get tired of it I'm so sorry. When I was in high school, I worked at an apple orchard. And that was my I made enough money to buy my my first real baseball glove, buy my clothes to go back to school. I mean it was it was kind of neat thing I worked at Beals apple orchard and eastford Connecticut. And I was a not just an employee, but I was one of the chief suckers. I suckered trees. Now if you don't know what suckering is, and we won't, I can tell you more about it later. But when I suckered trees when I was the sucker, I was in charge of I mean, Rose hundreds of acres of trees. But when new sprouts came up, I would climb the trees. And I would rip them with my hand because they were so young. They were so very easily influenced, I would grab them and rip them off. And so at the bottom of the tree when we were done, these new sprouts were gone. And the reason they were gone is because more trees and more leaves would block the growth of the apples. And so they want more nourishment, the common so less, less of these little sucker sucker. If you ever see a tree that's prune it taking care of it produces, but the trees that don't produce are the ones that are just left alone. And I had the opportunity to go to some of those trees that people had missed over the years. And no longer can I just pull them off. But we had a, we had a tool I had a saw, and all depending how long that that branch was there was the harder I had to saw. Sometimes, you know, there's one good one or, you know, some of them show. That's this is the way it is, even as we sit here, right now, we pray, Holy Spirit revealed truth here this morning. Real Truth and as right now, but what what are it maybe what is an area? Or maybe an area that we're not, you know, and as it comes to your remembrance, you kind of maybe maybe it's easy to say, Oh, I'm over that. But are you really have the have you just grown accustomed to the way the roots feel right now? I guess nobody is no big deal. I get over, you know, I just mark that off my belt, you know, because I'm just going through life and you know, overcame that whatever. But has there truly been forgiveness, the route that goes down deeply embedded in the soil? God is saying, the longer we tolerate offended attitudes, the more deeply the root is allowed to grow. The longer I resist the calling of the voice of God, the harder it becomes to hear that voice again. Think about those times that you've you've worked CDC to overcome sin, and you're, you know, and you made the wrong choice. And you still hear the voice of God saying, No, don't do that. Switch to channel you shouldn't be here and just keep staying there a little longer and longer and, and the voice just grows dim. As opposed to really embracing. Lord, heal me, Lord, change me and giving forgiveness we ask that we ask the Lord is there anything below the surface hidden from others that are preventing you from growing stronger in the Lord? Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness. Bitterness number three the word bitterness is a pic Ria, which is describes an acid to the soul that begins to surface agree. And here's that here's that here's another way to describe it here. I hope you get this as why it's the sour, sharp, critical scornful sarcastic words that come out of us about that situation, or person. Bitterness, sour, sharp, critical scornful, sarcastic, bitter. The fruit looks negative looks for negative things to say about someone who was offended you. I gotta tell you what. And the Lord is Lord has dealt me dealt with me personally on this. I remember, there's there's been moments. I'm uh, I'm a pretty quiet guy. Obviously, many of you see me up here. And it's kind of like, but I remember I remember early on in our marriage, we would go to Kim's parents, we drive down to Pittsburgh, from Niagara Falls, bring the kids and hang out. And I remember getting the car sometimes thinking you know, I just don't say enough you know, I think in the quiet son in law are sending love you know, and my other brother in law, you know, you seem to have all the stories and this and that and you know, I just kind of sit there and, and whatever. And I kind of learned over the years not just because of the fault but you know, for bad reason. I can I can be really sarcastic. If you've ever get around me for a little bit I can I can be very I can say things quickly. I you know, I can say things that are that are funny or something you really think about sometimes, actually, you know what it is? I'm a provoker in a conversation. It's kind of needle you a little bit here I feel freedom coming out right now. Come on. I feel like I'm I feel like I'm going on right now. But uh, but isn't it amazing? And I want to I want us to listen. There are mountains in our lives today. Some of you got walls some of you have past relationships and situations that have happened in your life, that the manifest presence of the enemy has come in and you just kind of rear your ugly head in the middle of situation and God says No more No more sour no more sharp no more critical. No more scornful, no more sarcastic. Watch out that new poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble You know the word for grows up is springing up springing up grows up. The phrase grows up in the Greek is I tried to I was working on this word here before but there it is on screen you can pronounce it however you like foo will call it who refers to small plant that is just breaking through the soil, it means there is a hidden seed in the soil that is producing fruit above the ground. What is the little grow unless we deal with it? Yesterday I was I was out in our backyard and the beginning of the year I took a roundup or some some type of weed killer. And I began to spray some of the some of the some of the weeds that were in our beds. And here we are about halfway through. It's been very, very hot. And so I was walking there and I saw I saw some sprouts and and I realized some of the sprouts were harder to pull out than others as we just talked about sucker suckering in that, and yet I had a purpose that I needed to take care of this in my backyard. And there was there was not any moment that I thought to look at my neighbor's neighbor's yard. And he has he cuts his grass, but he's got a garden that he didn't plant this year. So there's like weeds everywhere. And I chose not to go in his garden and pull his weeds. And sometimes sometimes in our lives, we have a tendency to want to pull weeds in other people's gardens, as opposed to take care of the weeds on our own. And this is this is a weed moment here this morning. This is a weed moment. Lord, is there something hold me back here? Is there something that's in the pathway of me truly, truly dealing, we refuse to weed out or refuse to weed out we'll defile us and lead to something worse. And there are visibly motions that we'll see. Reveal will be revealed. Then there become inconsistencies. At the latter part of the Scripture, it says a root of bitterness grows up to trouble you that were trouble, Enoch, Leo. If there's something or someone that bothers you and upsets you, it means to emotionally agitate by negative thoughts about someone that festers and follows you wherever you go. I just want you to hear this morning. That these moments and these times in these difficulties. Oftentimes, we recognize it when it first happened, but then we allow it just to consume us. We allow it to kind of weave in and we allow it to kind of almost like a vine, capture us. The word defiled comes from the Greek word, meow Annie, which means anyone who was inwardly upset with someone and doesn't deal with their own situation with their overall situation with the hurt of the situation. Last word and then we'll come back to one last thing, corrupting many. corrupting emotions will soon verbalize their inner feelings in the file others. We either take our situations and our circumstances to the cross to be healed. Or we will spill spot and stain everyone else with our pain, poison and toxic communication. Like I tell you what the cross is the place to take it. The forgiveness that He has given to us is the place that we can receive goodness and mercy. Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. So what do we do we encourage one another, we help one another. We speak to one another. lest any man fails the grace of God what does it mean to fail than to receive the grace of God? We can fail to receive God's grace and forgiveness for ourselves. And we can fail to give grace and forgiveness to those who have been offended I was gonna do this next week. I may do it next week too. But I had the opportunity you can come keys, I had the opportunity this past week to see the movie, sound of freedom. And it's powerful movie to get chance to see it, I encourage you to go see it. But, uh, in preparation of this message today, I I could probably make it make it look better with a larger hammer. But I want you to hear this today I've submit to you this morning. That that's a sound of forgiveness. For when Christ hung on a cross for us, he had a pre decision. That was what was one of his main main purposes coming here, not only get us to eternal life, but the give us the ability to be forgiven, that he was the ultimate sacrifice. He was the the ultimate atonement be like that word, he paid the price. That's the sound of forgiveness. lest anyone fail, the grace of God means we can possibly reject God's offer for forgiveness for ourselves, we could possibly reject forgiving others. Over the past five, maybe six, maybe, maybe seven years, maybe it's kind of been a bit of a longer process. I have purpose to have some coaching. call outs, even the word counseling has come in to get better, to maybe help see some spots in my life that I need to, to work on. And one of the coaches I sat down with, encouraged me to, at the end of one of our gatherings encouraged me to write a list of things maybe I'm holding on to or people I haven't forgiven. And when he asked me the question, I thought to myself, Oh, my God, I'm a minister of gospel, I love Jesus Christ. You know, I serve communion on Sundays, you know? And he's like, he's like, he's like, I get it. I get it. And he's like, you know, is your homework, go home and think about it. And oh, my goodness, he talked about a long week. Well, a couple of weeks, I began to I began to dig into stuff that maybe immediately in your mind thinking yourself, well, there you go dig into this stuff. Like I tell you what, there were some things that I was holding on to from childhood. Well, the Lord covers all those things. Absolutely. 100%. But when I'm acting out, and I'm getting angry about something, or, you know, there's there's difficulty here, and I'm having these feelings about stuff over and over again, I can't seem to whatever. Oftentimes it goes back to you know, did you actually forgive this person? I forgive everybody. Oh, it's you. We never let our kids get away with that. You know, that Forgive me everything. Will No, no, what exactly did you do? You know, call it out. I don't remember at all. The Holy Spirit has a way to remove the bringing remembrance for our minds of thinking maybe we're holding back. This message today was really derived out of this, this main thought. We've talked about it, I see it. Revival, renewal. time, energy, growth. I see amazing families here today. I know most of your stories that are here. Somebody I hope to get to know your journey. I see those who have overcome difficult relationships. I see that those have walked through miraculous moments where God heals. See those that have had difficulty with business situations and and I see Cheyenne who's waiting to go to the mission field. When's it gonna happen? She's been clicking her clicking your heels together. I want to go I want to go I want to go. I've seen those who have who have hit some pretty pretty decent potholes and bumps in the road. I see those that were faithful. See, those are almost starting over again. I want to ask the question today, I asked the question to us all, where are we in this area? Because I've seen it, and I've experienced it. And I know oftentimes when we don't deal with things, and we don't surrender to things, that route just gets a little bit deeper. And I believe that even this morning that it's not that the Lord just wants to cut the route while you've cut the route, you know, we'll get into more nourishment, but it's still an agitation to the ground. We got to we got some things out here for that landscaping reader. And we've got some stumped we got some stumps out here. We got to grind down because they're still protruding. We cut we cut the tree down, but the roots still there. So I'm sending Nick out this week when the next no we gotta grind these things. Because then I because when their ground and then I can make the ground level. I believe every one of us wants a level playing ground. I proposed you this morning, based on this Scripture. God would look after us look at look after each so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous fruit of bitterness grows up to trouble you corrupting many. Because when that roots in the things we touch. You know, the forensics today. As we as we conclude, forensics today have gone to such a different level that just a just a drop of DNA. This drop of a mineral or a piece of follicle hair follicle changes the way that cases are now explored. And I've heard recently there's been, you know, 30 year 40 year murder cases and things that unsolved. Because now the forensic that come they're able to solve based on just just a hair follicle. I really present to us this morning. Is where you're bringing the Holy Spirit in the room with you? Are you being everything he's called you to be? Are you able to bring life to situations? Are you are you are you functioning on all cylinders? Are you a six cylinder vehicle running on three? Or is it God's purpose? To give us total freedom? Total deliverance that his mercy would find us new every morning. Guess what he's not changing great is His faithfulness was still come down. Pre decide to a man's glory to overlook an offense to a man's crown to overlook an offense. So do we do we live offense free. I've taught things written down here. We're gonna I'm gonna I think six of them will be on the screen at one point. Yes, no. three at a time. Here we go. You're ready for this. I'm just gonna gonna read them. Then we're going to see God minister here. Refusing to deal with an offense will forfeit your potential and keep you living in the past. Number two offended people stain everything that filters through their lives. Number three, offended people refuse access to people who are believed to be in debt to them. They build walls instead of bridges. Number four, an offended heart produces bitterness and bitterness grows to the degree that our revenge is not satisfied. I know that's nobody in this room here right now. Okay. But listen, that happens when we blame others for our toxic attitudes. We become blind to our own faults and shortcomings. harboring an offense keeps you from seeing yourself because blame is deferred to another. I guess we could send this to people too if we could do that. If you're offended Christians live suspicious and afraid that others will mistreat them. How would you like to be free that today? Huh? This free. Nobody's out to get you. Your response to an offense determines your attitude and your future. offended people this Since themselves from others because of insecurity. Humility is the key that frees you from the prison of offense. If you believe that God has cheated you, you have served him for the wrong reasons. Anyone who cannot forgive has forgotten how great a debt God has forgiven them because pride views itself as a victim and therefore cannot offer forgiveness to another so what is the Holy Spirit speaking to us today? This is a teaching today. This is a this is the in depth how do we just shake it off mid the mid summer blues that's a sign of forgiveness. You have been forgiven. Blood bought washed by him changes everything. Maybe it's a hurt from the past. Maybe it's hurt in the presence. But that's how the Holy Spirit ministers. You know exactly where you're at can be present. But God wants to give you freedom over it. So you're not this all the time. But you balance your shoulders back, your head up high. Living in freedom walking for him. We just stayed with me this morning.