Welcome to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton. Here you'll find practical, relevant, biblical information.
The Bible will be broken down verse by verse so that you get the full context of the scripture to better grow in your relationship with Jesus.
So welcome to everybody in the sanctuary. Welcome to everybody watching us or listening online.
It's great to have you all with us. There was a Sunday school teacher.
She wanted to make sure she had driven the point home on her lesson.
So to make sure that she had done so, she asked her students,
can anyone tell me what you have to do before you get forgiveness?
So they'll silence and then a little hand goes up in the back of the class.
Yes, Johnny says one word, sin.
He's absolutely right. Hit the nail right on the head, right?
Because in order for anybody to be forgiven, they have to sin.
It's something that we've all done, right?
We've all we've all sinned. We've all fallen short.
That's a big part of the gospel right there, isn't it?
Now, you know, last week, we talked a little bit about choosing your heart, right?
And we do. It's a choice. We all have to choose.
It's a decision we all get to make.
And by becoming a Christian, by being a believer, contrary to what a lot of people say, it's not a cure-all pill, right?
It's not all roses. It's not a golden highway cruising through easy street.
If anything, it actually makes life harder because we have the word.
We know what's to come. We know what's expected.
And I'm going to keep working a little bit on that theme as we go forward this week on choosing your heart.
You know, it's it's easy for us to to fall short, for things to go wrong, for us to point the finger, blame someone else.
You know, I think we're all familiar with the old term. The devil made me do it.
Right. But did he really? No.
It was our choice. It was our choice to do what we did, to say what we said, to act the way we acted.
As Pastor Mike was saying earlier, sometimes we're our own worst enemy, right?
And as hard as it is to do, sometimes we have to step back.
We have to reevaluate things and we have to take accountability for what we've done.
It's not always hard. We get so focused on what other people have done, we don't think about what we've done.
Accountability is a hard thing. Looking for forgiveness is a hard thing.
We build up these walls in our hearts. Right.
That's what the Bible refers to as hardening your heart.
It's the thing that causes division and pulls us away from the Lord.
And it's a hard pill to swallow.
In fact, letting go of grudges, anger, and bitterness is one of the hardest things that we have to do as a believer.
Just in the human state, even for someone who's not a believer, it's hard. It's really hard.
But we have to. The word tells us we're to forgive.
Even non-believers know, hey, forgiveness is needed. Right.
So let's go ahead. Let's open up our Bibles, Bible apps, whatever it is that you're using to our first scripture of the day.
We're going to be looking at Ephesians chapter four, verses 31 through 32.
So that's Ephesians four, 31 and 32.
And the word says,
Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, which means loud quarreling, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be kind to one another,
tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.
Jesus, he taught on forgiveness pretty thoroughly in the Gospels, too, didn't he?
It's a big theme.
You think about it, even when he was asked how we should pray, you think of the Lord's Prayer.
What's it say in there, right?
That we forgive others as we're forgiven.
Right.
Sometimes it says forgive us our debtors. Right.
It's the same thing, though. It's all about forgiveness.
You know, a while back, there was a about a year or two ago, there was a meme that was being shared.
Some of you might have seen it.
It made the rounds and it said, When I get disrespected, I get disrespectful.
And every time this meme would pop up, there would be a whole bunch of likes, a whole lot of shares, right?
Little hearts on there and comments that fed into it.
It just really added to this poison that was out there.
You know, all these little comments, it's cheering it on.
I thought to myself when I saw this, every time I say, Isn't this what's wrong with the world?
Right. People, they feel entitled to be disrespectful.
That it's okay to lash out at others, to treat people poorly.
Right.
You know, people today, there is a lot of entitlement, a lot of disrespect to the point of arrogance.
Right.
You know, people, they'll beat their own chest until it's bruised.
And they won't even realize, Oh, it's this guy.
Right.
They talk about things, you got to give respect to get respect.
Okay, that sounds nice, right.
But then do they give the respect?
They want to be the first one to be respected before they give anything else.
You see what's wrong with this picture?
Where's the love?
Where's the light? Where's the hope?
Where's God?
What's worse is it's coming from professed Christians very often.
Right.
It's like, you know what's wrong with your lifestyle? You're going to go to hell.
There's no tenderness.
There's no gentleness.
We fall into that sin ourselves.
We stray.
You see things like this.
I mean, it's just one me and one example of how many thousands.
And people give into it and they add fuel to that fire before long.
I mean, it's roaring and you have a room full of idiots cheering each other on.
Right.
Probably not the nicest way to put it, but it really is.
It's like, wow, this is this is moronic.
Are you guys listening to what you're saying?
Are you even looking at it?
Right.
I'm sure many of us in this room have fallen victim for that trap ourselves.
Right.
You know, this isn't the way we're supposed to act as believers.
In fact, when we don't forgive and we're unwilling to forgive and we start feeding into all this,
we're actually separating ourselves.
We're falling into the steps of the world.
We're doing what the enemy wants us to do and not what Jesus wants us to do.
We're letting our hearts harden.
When we do this, it's because we're actually falling away from our relationship with Jesus.
Because if we were in a good relationship and we were looking at the things that we're supposed to,
we were praying about the things that we're supposed to, and we were applying these lessons
and what the Holy Spirit has told us to our lives, we would act a whole lot different.
We would treat people a whole lot different.
We would say things a whole lot different.
We would act in love and kindness and tenderness.
I mean, it doesn't mean that everyone's going to like everything that you're going to say.
They're not.
Because you know what?
The truth could hurt, right?
We've heard this.
The truth can be painful because when you hear it and you're convicted, it's like, oh, it hurts.
I need to change something.
People don't like hearing that.
But that's the way it is.
That's why the Holy Spirit's there working.
They're still cool.
Whatever that was.
Might have been our speaker.
I don't know.
What was it?
Ah, OK.
That's all right.
But either way, we need to understand forgiveness is part of God's mercy for us, part of Jesus' mercy for us.
Which brings me to our next point.
It's been commanded.
It's been commanded in more than one place in the Bible.
We'll turn to Matthew chapter 5.
So Matthew chapter 5, verses 21 through 26.
So Matthew 5, 21 through 26.
I'm not going to go through it all.
I just have that part up here.
Well, we'll go through it here in a second before we get there, though, as you're turning.
Right before it in verses 17 through 20, it actually talks about Jesus didn't come to abolish the law.
He wasn't coming to get rid of it.
Right.
In fact, the Old Testament, there were three specific areas of law that that needed to be followed.
There's ceremonial, which had to do with how Israel was to worship the Lord.
Right.
And on top of that, we know they didn't know it pointed the way to Jesus, as we now know.
After his after the coming of Christ, his death, his resurrection, we're no longer bound by these.
So that was that was the first part.
That part's gone.
However, the second two areas are still there, the civil and the moral.
And these have to do with our daily living and our obedience to God.
Right.
Following what he set forth for us, what he's told us we need to do.
And how we treat each other.
You know, these laws were they were made to help people not just come to God, but to love him, to come into relationship with him and each other.
People read the Bible and they just think, oh, it's all about me and God.
And it's so much more than that.
It actually leads up to the Great Commission, which we'll go into at a later time.
Now, Jesus made it clear that he wasn't here to abolish the law and to get rid of it.
But rather, we needed to study it to see what it says and how we need to apply it to our lives.
You know, easier said than done sometimes, isn't it?
Now, someone really gets on your skin, really ticks you off.
Man.
You know, people want to jump to things like eye for an eye, even though it's not quite what it means.
Right.
They want to twist things to justify their own vengeance or, you know, their their own little their own little bloodlust.
You know, however, loving and God, we the more we love him, the closer our relationship is with them, the better we get to know him and his character.
The easier it is for us to love others.
To get to know others, to open ourselves up to this, to lower those boundaries that we've set up those walls and those barriers and to recognize our own sin.
And to realize, hey, you know what?
I need to forgive these guys because they're doing the same things I've done.
I'm no better than them.
So why should I hold them to a higher standard?
You know, that's not about nitpicking things, blowing them out of proportion.
However, when we feel wronged, we respond pretty quickly in a negative way, don't we?
Blood pressure gets boiling, maybe maybe your face turns a little red, get a little warm around the neck.
Some words start coming out of your mouth that really shouldn't punch a wall or something.
Right.
Throw something across the room.
It's not the way we're supposed to act, though.
Instead, if we're actually to listen to what we've been told, we turn the other cheek, right?
We respond in that kindness and love, it hurts, but you know what?
Maybe I've caused offense, too.
Usually it's a two way street, isn't it?
It's not just a one way.
As much as we want to say it's all coming from over here, we usually have something that we've thrown into that pot ourselves.
So what we need to do is we need to actually step back instead of looking for retribution and vengeance.
I need to right this wrong.
No, we don't.
Need to pray, right?
We need to act in kindness.
We need to stop looking at things as, oh, this has happened.
I've been embarrassed in front of all these people.
I need the approval of all these people.
No, you don't.
You absolutely don't.
The approval you need is for him.
Without his approval, none of the other people's approval that you're looking for is going to matter.
In the end, his approval is the only approval that truly matters.
So what?
You get a little embarrassed.
Learn a lesson.
Work on your character.
Stop focusing on what the world says is important.
All these menial things that are supposedly going to fill this void in your life and make you happy, right?
This nonsense that says you're entitled.
You're entitled to nothing.
It's one of the things I hate when it comes to the VA, people start talking about disability ratings and all that, right?
So yes, if you have a disability, yes, you should get it rated.
And the doctors and the people who are there, they should be honest instead of looking at it like, oh, this guy's lying and trying to prove that you're lying.
Right?
There's an issue there.
I'm not saying there isn't.
I fought this battle myself for many years.
And I'm sure most of the veterans in here that are registered have fought that same battle themselves and have worked with other people who have.
But we need to change our mindset from this, well, I served, so I'm entitled to all of this.
Because we're not.
That wasn't in the contract we signed.
That was not in the oath that we took saying, oh, I'm going to go and do this and you're going to give me all this.
No.
You go back and you look at any contract going all the way back, you actually pay attention to the oath that we took.
It's like any other job.
They'll take care of you while you're there.
But afterwards, you know what?
Maybe we'll see what we can do to take care of the injury that happened.
But beyond that, you need to go out and you need to work.
You are not entitled to sit back and just let things come to you.
You still need to be an active member of society.
Which is very much how the Lord has built us.
We think of Jesus.
They asked him, why do you work so much?
I do as the Father's done, right?
Six days a week, observe the Sabbath.
But instead we think, oh, I need this, I need that, I'm entitled to all this, I need the easy street.
It's not right.
We need to start looking to be God-centered and not self-centered.
Selfless and not selfish.
And we need to look to God to help guide us, especially when we're angry or hurt, to help guide our words and our actions.
It's a hard choice.
But choose your heart.
Choose your heart.
We fall into sin by not forgiving and we push ourselves away from Christ in the process.
And now we're going to go ahead and we're going to go into verses 21 through 26.
I hope everyone's already there.
Jesus said, you have heard that it was said to those of old, meaning those of ancient times, you shall not murder.
And whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.
But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without cause shall be in danger of the judgment.
And whoever says to his brother, raqqa, which is an Arabic term of contempt, it means empty headed, right?
Whoever says to his brother, raqqa, shall be in danger of the council.
But whoever says, you fool, shall be in danger of hellfire.
Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you,
leave your gift there before the altar and go your way.
First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift.
Agree with your adversary quickly while you are on the way with him.
Unless your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer and you be thrown into prison.
Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.
When we refuse to forgive, it's coming from hurt and anger.
It's coming from the things that the enemy feeds off of.
Anger is a sin, just like murder.
That's what it's telling us here.
That's exactly what Jesus is comparing it to.
The problem that people had at this time and people still have is they look at Exodus 20, 13 where it says,
shall not murder, and they want to apply it literally, right?
They look at it as though, hey, this person has not gone out.
They haven't physically committed the act of murder.
So they're okay.
Let them go. They're fine.
They'll get over it, right?
But what Jesus is saying is no, that's not the case.
Because when you take all this, you take all this hate, this discontent, this venom,
and you just let it build up in your heart and you start thinking about it.
You start thinking ill of your brother, your sister, your neighbor.
And at that point, you are just as guilty of murder as the guy who physically committed it.
Because you think about it, what happens?
Politics, great example right now, we're in election season, right?
There's a politician, maybe they're on the other side of the side that you're voting for.
You don't like what they have to say or what they stand for.
You're like, man, somebody should take that guy out and shoot him.
Why haven't they hung this guy yet?
They need to bring back public executions for treason
and put him back out on the White House lawn.
They say certain ugly things like this.
Just an example.
Or we see something on the news, like, oh, look at that scumbag.
I hope he gets the treatment in jail.
Bubba's going to enjoy him.
I mean, we're supposed to think so.
And we let it build up and that hate takes over.
And it is. It's hate. It's not love.
There's no love in there. It's all malice.
While people would say it's just words, there's no harm, no foul.
There is.
Because it's in here.
And it takes over spiritually.
It pulls us away from the Lord.
We fall into sin.
We're angry at their sin and we ourselves sin in return.
So not only are they needing a need of forgiveness from somebody,
but now you are as well.
You, me, all of us.
The reason why anger is such a terrible sin
is because it pulls us away from one of the greatest commandments.
When Jesus was asked, what's the greatest commandments, right?
Or greatest commandment?
There's two. First one, love God, all your heart, right?
The second one is like it. Love your neighbor.
If you're acting in hate, discontent, are you acting in love?
Are you loving your neighbor? No.
When you're going out and it's like, you know what, I don't like this guy,
but we have this going on and I have to give this to him.
Yeah, you're going to go over and you're going to give it to him.
But are you doing it with a grateful heart?
Are you doing it because you want to or because you have to?
It becomes very legalistic at this point.
You're doing it because you have to, not because you want to.
So you're just kind of, you know, it's like,
I have these announcements here, right?
And I come over and I got my buddy Robert here, right?
I'm like, hey, how you doing?
I'm giving this to him because I want him to have it.
I'm happy, right?
But then I take the same thing. I'm going to take this debt back now.
Okay, fine.
And then I got Albert over here.
I'm going to tell him that's offended me.
There you go.
Right?
It's how we act.
It's how we treat people.
Literally.
We start treating them poorly.
And we break one of the greatest commandments out there
because if we love somebody, we're not going to treat them like that.
Even though we have something going on inside that we need to deal with,
we're not going to treat them like that.
We're going to treat them like that.
It's not the way we're supposed to show love.
It's not the way we're supposed to act.
Remember, love is an action.
It's not just an empty hollow word.
I know I say it all the time and I will continue to say it all the time.
Right?
I will die on that hill because the Bible tells us so.
We let it run wild in our hearts.
We lose control.
We run further and further into sin and further and further away from Jesus.
Let's go ahead now and turn over to 1 John chapter 4.
So 1 John chapter 4.
We're going to specifically be looking at verses 20 and 21.
I'll give you all a second to get there.
A little bit different.
I don't have my Bible up here.
I have it all on my tablet.
I was doing that on purpose because I bookmark everything on my book
or my Bible and I'm already there and everybody's turning over.
I'm kind of forcing myself to give you all a little time to get there
and I'm not just running wild on you.
So 1 John chapter 4, verses 20 and 21.
The word puts it like this.
If someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar.
For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen,
how can he love God whom he has not seen?
And this commandment we have from him that he who loves God must also,
excuse me, must love his brother also.
As a believer, you are all that many people are ever going to know of God.
You are all that people are ever going to see of Jesus.
You are all that anybody is going to hear of his word as a nonbeliever
because people don't care what a book says when they don't know it
and they don't understand it.
What they care about is you and your character as a follower of Christ.
Are you living a lifestyle that promotes what you preach?
Because they need to see Jesus at work in you.
The way we act, the way we talk, the way we treat each other.
I know I'm beating the dead horse here, but it's that important.
It's like when a teacher repeats something in class, it's probably important.
That's why it's here.
All this stuff, how we treat each other, it is a reflection of our relationship with Christ.
Where we stand with God.
And the world's always on the lookout.
They have us in this fishbowl, right?
They're watching to see what we're going to do next.
If we're going to live up to that bar that they expect us to be at
or if we're going to be all the way down here with the rest of the world.
Are we going to act godly or worldly?
Choose your heart, right?
The world's always on that lookout for what's easiest, what's most popular.
And then they give into that rage and that hate when someone doesn't agree with them
or someone doesn't like them.
It's the fact someone doesn't like them, they don't even know them.
They feel it differently and people get hurt, right?
They really do.
They get hurt by it.
And so they miss what's most important.
A lot of believers, the same thing.
Somebody does something that they don't like and they get hurt.
They miss Jesus in the process.
And like them, when we get blinded by our own rage, we also don't see Jesus.
We just see that red line.
Or in some cases white, right?
But definitely not the light.
You know, it's funny because when kids act out, like, oh, they don't know any better.
They're still growing.
It's okay.
They're dealing with something.
They just don't know how to vocalize it yet, right?
So we're quick to forgive a kid.
But when it comes to an adult, especially someone that we don't know, we don't know their background,
we don't know their upbringing, whether or not they're even a believer or not, we go the opposite direction.
It's like that, right?
Blink of an eye.
Oh, they're an adult.
They're old enough.
They should know better.
And we become very vengeful.
Like, look at this scumbag.
No.
Uh-uh.
That's not acceptable.
Nope.
We need to exercise some self-control and grow up.
We shouldn't be acting like that.
What's wrong with this guy?
We don't stop to think that adults, much like children, act the same way when they're hurt.
Hurt people hurt people.
It's that simple.
I'm going to share a story with you.
Back in 1979, police arrested a 23-year-old man, his name is Rusty.
He's out in West Virginia, Rusty Wellborn.
It was one of the most brutal slangs that the state had ever seen.
Rusty was tried for murder, convicted, received the death penalty.
At this time, he was locked up.
Bob McAllister came along.
He was deputy chief of staff to South Carolina's governor.
He had become acquainted with Rusty while he was on death row.
Bob still knew in his walk with Christ.
He had come to Christ and became a believer about a year prior.
And getting to know, you know, seeing Rusty here, caged up on death row,
he felt the Lord put it on his heart.
I need to go and minister to this guy.
I need to go and talk to this guy.
That's pretty tough, isn't it?
Because when we come across somebody who's murdered somebody, they're guilty,
even before the trial's over.
Even as believers, right, no, lock him up or throw away the cage,
give him the needle, give him the gas chamber, whatever, right?
But here he is already on death row.
And here's Bob, and he hears God, and he feels that weight on his heart.
I need to go minister to this guy.
So he does just that.
He goes in, and he sees Rusty.
Rusty's sitting in his cell, huddled up in a corner, his blank stare in his eyes,
just kind of giving up, right?
The cell's just kind of in disarray.
He's not picking anything up.
He's not really dealing with his trash.
He's just letting it fall where it is.
Roaches are crawling all over it.
They're crawling on him, and he's not batting an eye.
He's just like, I'm going to die anyway.
What's it matter?
So Bob goes in, tries to talk to him.
He doesn't respond.
So he prays with him, tells him a little bit about the gospel, leaves, comes back,
does it again day after day after day, shares the gospel, prays.
Share the gospel, pray.
One day he shows up.
Things have changed.
Rusty actually has life in his eyes again.
He's cleaned up, even in his little prison attire.
He's cleaned up his cell.
He's made his bed.
He's taken care of all the trash.
Everything is in order.
Whoa!
And now he and Bob start talking.
Rusty has been listening the whole time.
He's been observant.
And now he's hearing of Christ and his love and what he's done for us, and he wants to know more.
So he and Bob become very close friends over the course of about five years.
So much so that Bob sees him as basically like a surrogate son, and he sees Bob as a surrogate father.
He even calls him Pap, like Pappy, right?
A nice little nickname.
Out here it's more, you're more prone to hear Pop.
Back there, Pap.
So he hears more.
He grows more.
Bob comes to learn.
Rusty grew up in a pretty rust state.
He was abused growing up with all of his brothers and sisters.
He struggled in school.
In fact, just going to school was a chore not only for him but for the school staff.
He only had two pairs of pants and two shirts, which he wore all the time.
It's very embarrassing for him.
So it would be for a lot of people, right?
In and out of the system, if he wasn't getting thrown out of the house, he was running away.
All the way up until the day that led him to this, when he acted out, committed one of the most heinous acts that state had ever seen.
Now, in the process of this, hearing about the Lord and his forgiveness and his love, his heart softens.
He starts feeling really guilty, really sad about what he's done.
Not only to this victim, but to the family.
To the family.
That one little piece that we tend to forget about after the news has gone away.
What just so happened during this time, the brother of the woman he killed had also come to Christ.
While God was working on Rusty's heart, he was also working on the family, especially his brother.
And the brother of the victim felt it on his heart, I need to forgive.
So he wrote him a letter, I forgive you.
Later on, he actually comes to the jail.
And they embrace as brothers in Christ and hug each other and wept together.
Rusty knowing he can't take back what he did, but he's found forgiveness from the people that are still there that he hurt.
There's some redemption to be had there.
Of course, time goes on.
Bob keeps coming to visit him.
And it gets down just a few days before he's supposed to be, or before his execution.
Bob comes in, spends time with him.
And Rusty just says, hey, I love you.
Could you just read the Bible for me today?
Let's not just talk, just read the Bible for me.
So Bob stayed there and he read that Bible to him for about an hour.
After about an hour, Rusty kind of stopped moving, his eyes were closed.
Bob figured, okay, he's asleep.
That's good.
That's our time, right?
So he takes his blanket, he covers him up, basically tucks him in and kisses him on his forehead.
He leaves for the last interaction together.
Because right after, not too long after that, he's taken to be executed.
The woman who was helping to prepare Rusty before he got executed talked about his last moments.
How she was preparing him to meet the father.
Rusty made a comment, said, what a shame that a man's got to wait till his last night alive to be kissed and talked in for the very first time.
A life of pain and turmoil.
And you think of how people cheated him, talked about him.
Yet we wonder why people turn out the way they do.
But now here he is at the end of his life, thankfully now a believer, knowing he's been forgiven by the family, actually being able to embrace them as a brother in Christ.
A surrogate father he never had.
And love.
He now knows what love is.
Which for us is no different than how Jesus loves us.
Because we've sinned, we've all messed up.
Right?
And what are we looking at as a nonbeliever if we don't ask for forgiveness?
If we don't forgive others?
Bible tells us the wages of sin is death.
Sad indeed, someone has to wait to get to their final few breaths before they know what love and forgiveness truly is.
Yet we want to throw a fit because somebody messed up our at the drive through.
Brings me to our third point.
We all want to be forgiven.
Every single one of us.
We all want to be forgiven.
Turn with me now to Luke chapter 6 verses 27 and 28.
So Luke 6.
So I said 27, 28.
Luke chapter 6, 27 through 31.
Oh no, the board's right, 27, 28.
Sorry, I didn't update my notes here.
So Luke 6, 27, 28.
Jesus says, But I say to you who hear, love your enemies.
Do good to those who hate you.
Bless those who curse you.
And pray for those who spitefully use you.
See, loving someone who's offended us is hard.
It's not easy.
It doesn't come natural.
Not even a little bit.
The hate is what comes naturally.
But love, man, that's hard.
Even a family member messes up.
Quick to anger.
I know I've upset my wife a few times.
She's ready to throw a pat at me and hide the body.
Right?
I know there's been times I've upset my mom enough.
She's like, man, should have put you up for adoption.
Right?
We've all done these things.
So forgiving someone, loving someone, it doesn't come natural.
We don't just fall in love with people when they hurt us.
Or when they hurt something inside of us, an ideal maybe.
Right?
Like we see people do things on the news and it just angers us.
Ah!
Right?
But it's a mindset.
It's an action that we have to take on our part in our own heart.
You see, to love your enemy is to take the anger and the pain and set it to the side.
Set it to the side.
And instead of acting on this and the malice that we have,
we think about how we should act as a believer, how God would have us act,
how God tells us to act.
And we act in that way that brings honor and glory and points to him.
We take, basically, we take ourself out of the equation.
Right?
People like to say more Jesus and less me.
That's the best place to do it.
It's like, mmm, because me wants to hit this guy in the face.
Jesus tells me to wash his feet.
You know, empathy, grace, mercy.
We might not know why somebody is acting the way that they're acting,
doing the things that they're doing, saying the things that they're saying.
We don't need to.
And it helps us, right?
But there is nothing in forgiving somebody or loving somebody that says,
you have to know what's going on there.
We don't have to agree with it.
Instead, we should pray for them.
Who in here has ever thought, hey, I need to pray for my enemy.
I need to pray for the guy who's offended me.
We don't usually.
Lock him up, throw away the key, put him in a hole.
We need to pray.
We need to pray for the Lord to soften their heart,
to show them the errors of their way,
and to pray for their healing.
Their healing.
They're acting the way they are because they're hurt.
Hurt people hurt people.
They need to heal.
When people are hurt, they don't even necessarily realize that they're hurting others
and that they're acting out in a shameful way, in a hurtful way.
Or they've been indoctrinated to think that it's okay for them to do this by the world.
Because that's what the enemy wants.
So it could very well be that they're lashing out because they feel safe to do it around you,
because you are a safe place for them.
They're not going to say that.
But when we know somebody really well,
or you're getting to know someone really well, you know what?
They know that they're in a place of love.
They know they're in a place of forgiveness.
And they don't know how to get these things out, so they act it out.
They act it out.
Look at veterans at PTSD.
First responders, right?
Not just them, teenagers.
They're geared to go this way, but not this way.
So they lash out.
You know, sometimes people are just having a bad day.
They're having a bad day and the Lord's put you in their way
so that they can unload that burden.
Not that it's not going to be painful for you.
It might be painful for you, absolutely.
It might be confusing.
It's definitely been times my kid's been upset.
I'm like, dude, what's going on?
Right?
It happens.
But he's put you there because you can take that hit and rebound from it
and continue to show them love and mercy and forgiveness.
It's like a surgeon.
You have to remember, the father is the ultimate physician.
Sometimes physicians need to allow for some hurt to happen in order for full healing to happen,
like manipulating a broken bone or a torn muscle.
You have to cut into things, surgery, right?
We forgive people to show Christ to others.
To show Christ to others, to show his light.
Not long before she died, 1988, Margenita Lasky, she was a novelist and a journalist,
and she was quoted as saying,
What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness. I have nobody to forgive me.
What a lonely statement.
A lonely, painful, hurtful statement.
She was an atheist, unfortunately.
We need to forgive others to show the love of Christ,
and we need to forgive because even on the cross, Christ forgave us.
Luke 23, verses 33 and 34.
So Luke 23, verses 33 and 34, the word says,
And when they had come to the place called Calvary there, they crucified him.
And the criminals, one on the right hand and one on the left,
then Jesus said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
Even on the cross, Christ forgave all.
He was mocked, tortured, embarrassed, and dying a slow, horrible death.
He forgave.
He prays for everyone.
Forgiveness of the Jews, the Gentile, the Jewish leaders, the Romans,
everyone present and everyone for all time, you and me,
because it's our sin that put him on that tree.
And he forgave.
He offered us the forgiveness that everyone seeks.
I'm almost done here, guys. One more story.
It's a Spanish story. It's gone around for quite some time. You might have heard this.
There's a father and there's a son who became estranged.
The son ran away. Father searched for months high and low,
everywhere he could think of to try to find his son to no avail.
One day in a last-ditch effort, he went to the newspaper there in Madrid,
and he took out an ad, and it said, Dear Paco,
meet me in front of this newspaper office at noon on Saturday.
All is forgiven. I love you. Your father.
Saturday turns around and 800 Pacos showed up.
We all need forgiveness. Sounds like a bad episode of Mari, doesn't it?
It's like, you are not the father. You are not the father. You're the father.
Right?
Christ didn't go to the cross for us to continue to build up balls and to tear each other down.
He did it to bring unity to the world, to bring down those divides,
for us to recognize our sin, to forgive others, just as we look to be forgiven ourselves.
We need to put all that anger and that hurt aside.
We need to forgive that boss, that coworker, that parent, that sibling.
And in many cases, you need to forgive yourself.
You need to forgive yourself.
You're allowed to forgive yourself.
Jesus forgave you.
Jesus, who was crucified, forgives you.
So you are allowed to forgive yourself.
Because as much as you love God, as much as you need to love others, you need to love yourself.
And forgiveness is love. Plain and simple.
Forgiveness is a gift that's offered for all, and it was paid in Christ's blood.
It's letting go of that hate, letting go of that pain, so that you can move forward.
It doesn't matter if the other person changes or not.
It's on you to be the other person, to be the godly person, and to move on.
Don't let your anger pull you from Jesus.
Let his love sustain you and work in you for others to see his light.
Let it shine.
And with that said, let us pray.
Lord, we thank you for the example and the sacrifice you made for us in Jesus.
We thank you for your forgiveness.
We are reminded of your call to love one another and to forgive,
just as you love us and just as you've forgiven us.
And these many reminders of your character and love that guide us in our daily interactions.
We ask that you bless us all as we depart and go our many ways,
that your love shines through us for others to see,
that your light is able to shine in those dark, deep recesses where people are in hurt,
where people are in pain, so that they could come to know you and know what true love is
and know what your forgiveness is before they get to their last breaths like Rusty.
We ask that you work in us, that we forgive ourselves,
that we're not as quick to anger and we're faster to love.
And we thank you for being there with us always and guiding our steps.
And all of these people said, Amen and Amen.
Thank you all for joining us here today at Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
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We look forward to hearing from you all. God bless.