Sunday September 7, 2008

Repairing Relationships: The Road to Recovery – Part 6a
Ephesians 4:21-32

Original message by Rick Warren – used by permission and modified by Kelly Cohoe

I. Review

Over the last few months, I have been speaking about “The Road to Recovery.”

In this series (which originated with Rick Warren and Saddleback Church) we are looking at how to handle the hurts,
habits, and hang-ups that are messing up our lives.

In this series we have taken the word “recovery,” and each week we have used a different letter to represent eight steps
that help us get unstuck from the habits that mess us up, the problems that cause us difficulties, and the memories we can’t seem to let go of.

The first week we talked about the Reality Step – “Realize I’m not God, that I’m powerless to control my tendency to
do the wrong thing, and that my life is unmanageable.”

The next week we talked about the Hope Step – Although I’m powerless to control all the problems in my life, God has
the power to control them. The E stands for “Earnestly believe that God exists, that I matter to Him, and that He has the power to help me recover.”

In our third week we talked about the Commitment Step – It is not enough to know that I’ve got problems and God can solve them, but I must “Consciously choose to commit all my life and will to Christ’s care and control.”

The O in the word recovery stands for “Openly examine and confess my faults to God, to myself, and to someone I trust.”

In this step we clean up the past, let go of guilt, gain a clear conscience, and learn to live the guilt-free life God wants
us to live.

The V in the word recovery stands for “Voluntarily submit to every change God wants to make in my life and humbly
ask Him to remove my character defects.”

Today we will look at step six: “Evaluate all my relationships, offer forgiveness to those who’ve hurt me and make
amends for harm I’ve done to others, except when to do so would harm them or others.”

Often newspapers need to make corrections to earlier printed mistakes. At times the corrections are funnier than the
original error.

For example, one correction read, “The marriage of Miss Freda Van Amburg and Willie Branton, which was announced
in this paper a few weeks ago, was a mistake which we wish to correct.”

Sometimes in their attempt to make amends and correct the wrong they have done they make it worse. Here is one that
says, “Our newspaper carried the notice last week that Mr. Oscar Hoffnagle is a defective on the police force. This was
a typographical error. Mr. Hoffnagle is, of course, a detective on the police farce.”

What these people are trying to do is make right something that they have wronged.

And that’s what this step is in the Road to Recovery. It’s about doing some relational repair work. It is about trying to
repair some of the damage that others have done to us and we have done to others.

This step is based on Ephesians 4:31–32: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger…along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you.” (NIV)

In this step there are two things we will look at. We need to first forgive those that have hurt us and second, make amends
to those we have hurt.

II. The Sixth Step – The Relational Step

   A. Forgiving Those Who Have Hurt Me

I have found bitterness to be a major stumbling block to most people. When encouraged to forgive someone who has wronged them I find that many are unwilling.

So let us begin by asking ourselves a question: Why should I forgive those who have hurt me?

   1. Why Forgive Those Who Hurt Us?

   a. Because God has forgiven me.

Colossians 3:13-14 says, “Make allowance for each other's faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.” (NLT)

You will never have to forgive anybody else more than God has already forgiven you.

When you have a hard time forgiving other people, it’s usually because you don’t feel forgiven.

People who feel forgiven find it easier to be forgiving. People who feel unforgiven find it difficult to forgive others.

   b. Because resentment doesn’t work.

Resentment is unreasonable, unhelpful, and unhealthy.

Job 5:2 says, “To worry yourself to death with resentment would be a foolish, senseless thing to do.” (GNT)

The Bible says resentment is foolish because it is illogical and unreasonable. You always hurt yourself more than
the other person

Job 18:4 says: “You are only hurting yourself with your anger. Will the earth be deserted because you are angry?
Will God move mountains to satisfy you?” (GNT)

Resentment is unhelpful. Why? Because you always hurt yourself more than anybody else. When you get angry and
when you get resentful towards somebody, you don’t hurt them. You’re worrying, stewing, spewing, all upset about it,
and it’s not bothering them.

Somebody may have hurt you ten, twenty, thirty years ago, and you’re still resentful about it. It’s still making you
miserable; they’ve forgotten it. Resentment cannot change the past, cannot correct the problem, it doesn’t change the
person, it doesn’t even hurt that person – it only hurts you.

Does it make you feel any better? I’ve never talked to anybody who’s been resentful and they say, “I feel so much
better being resentful.” Bitterness just makes you mad and unhappy. The unhappiest people I know are those who are carrying a grudge.

“Some people stay healthy till the day they die; they die happy and at ease, their bodies well-nourished. 25 Others have no happiness at all; they live and die with bitter hearts.” (Job 21:23-25, GNT)

Research has shown that the unhealthiest emotion people have – the most unhealthy emotion – is resentment. Because it’s like a cancer that eats you alive, it’s poison. It has physical consequences.

Dr. S. I. McMillin wrote a book that showed the two greatest causes of the physical problems in your life are guilt and resentment. He said, “It’s not so much what you eat, it’s what eats you that matters.”

When you are resentful it makes you unhealthy. It has physical consequences. It has emotional consequences. It can lead
to depression. It can lead to additional stress. It can lead to fatigue, because nothing drains you emotionally like bitterness.
It just prolongs the hurt. It’s kind of an emotional suicide.

You need to forgive those that hurt you, for your own sake.

   c. Because I need forgiveness.

“But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven
will forgive your sins, too.” (Mark 11:25, NLT)

Resentment blocks being able to feel God’s forgiveness in your life. The Bible says we cannot receive what we are
unwilling to give.

It’s dangerous to pray the Lord’s Prayer. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” “Lord, forgive me as much as I forgive everybody else.” Do you really want that? You need to forgive other people because God’s forgiven you, because resentment doesn’t work and because you need forgiveness.

A guy came to John Wesley one time and said, “I can never forgive that person. Never.” John Wesley said, “Then I hope you never sin. Because we all need what we don’t want to give.”

III. Application

   2. How Do We Forgive Those Who Hurt Us?

How do I do this first part of step 6? How do I forgive those who hurt me?

   a. Admit the hurt.

Admit it. Let it out. Face it. Be honest. You can’t get over hurt until you admit it hurt.

We don’t want to admit the times that people we love have hurt us, because we have a misunderstanding that you can’t
love somebody and be angry at them at the same time. You can.

Rick Warren shares about the time he was talking to a person in counseling and they said, “I forgive my parents; they did
the best they could.” The more he talked about it the more he saw she really hadn’t forgiven her parents. She was angry inside. But she said she had forgiven them.

That’s denial. All of us are imperfect.

Until she was able to admit, “No, they didn’t do the best they could; they treated me in some ways that were wrong.”
Then she could learn to forgive them. You can’t forgive what you don’t want to own up to – that people have hurt you.
So you first reveal your hurt. Admit it and put it down on paper.

You’ve got some options when it comes to hurt. You can repress it—just pretend it doesn’t exist, ignore it—push it out of the way. That never works. It always pops out in some other form of compulsion in your life.

You can suppress it, just say, “It’s no big deal, it doesn’t matter, they did the best they could.” No they didn’t. It hurt. Or you can confess it. You just admit it.

You may say, “I’d really like to close the door on my past. I’d like to get closure so this person doesn’t hurt me anymore.”

I say, “Great, but there is no closure without disclosure.” First you must admit it. First you must reveal it. You must own up and say, “That hurt. And it was wrong and it hurt me.”

So what do you do? You make a list of those who’ve harmed you, what they said, what they did, what they thought, and
you put it down on paper and you get it in black and white so you can look at it.

It’s not this fuzzy thing that I resent, but it’s a specific. Think about that teacher who embarrassed you or that parent who said, “You’ll never amount to anything and you’re a failure.” That former relationship that was unfaithful to you. You write
it down and you reveal your hurt.

   b. Release the offender.

I release my offender. I let them go. I stop holding on to the hurt. How do I do that? How do you release an offender?
Do it by forgiving them. It’s the only way you can release them.

You don’t wait for them to ask for forgiveness. You do it whether they ask for forgiveness or not, because you’re doing
it for your sake, not for theirs.

Why? Because God has forgiven you, you need forgiveness, resentment doesn’t work, and it just makes you miserable.
So you release your offender and forgive them for your own sake.

A number of years ago at Saddleback Church there was a lady named Judy going through a messy, messy divorce. Her stress was high. And on top of the divorce she began to go blind in one eye. Her eye began to deteriorate. She went down
to Scripps Institute and checked it. They said, “It’s deteriorating; I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do about it.” She was carrying all of this resentment and all of this bitterness. One day she walked into Saddleback Church and we were sitting there in a service and I was speaking on resentment and said, “For your own sake you’ve got to let it go. For your own sake, you’ve got to release your offenders, no matter what they’ve done. Don’t allow people in your past to continue to
hurt you in the present through resentment. Let it go.” And she bowed her head and said, “God, I reveal my hurt and
release my offender. I let them go.” She walked out of the church and as she walked across the patio, her eyesight came back. She went back to Scripps. They said, “This is a miracle. You were blind in this eye.” When she let go of her resentment, God said, “I want to do a miracle in your life.” You have no idea of what can happen in your life when you
let go the people who have been hurting you.

How often do we have to forgive?

Jesus said we must forgive continually. Forgiveness is not a one-shot deal where you say, “I forgive them,” and that’s it. Because those feelings are going to keep coming back, and every time you get those feelings you’ve got to forgive them
again – over and over.

Every time they come to mind, you must forgive them again until you know that you have released them fully. That may
take three hundred times or even more.

How do you know when you have released an offender fully? You can think about them and it doesn’t hurt anymore.
You can pray for God’s blessing on their life.

That’s when you know you’ve released them. You keep forgiving them, keep forgiving them, until finally you can think
of them and it doesn’t hurt anymore. How do you forget a divorce? You can’t, but you can get rid of the pain. You can
let go of it.

In releasing an offender it is not always possible, it is not even always advisable, for you to go back to somebody who’s
hurt you. Their circumstances may have changed. Maybe your parents hurt you; they never even knew about it. For you to go back to them forty years later and say, “You did this,” would just blow them away. They never knew what they did. Some people have changed. Some people have remarried. Some people have moved away and you don’t know where
they are. Some people have died. What do you do in those kinds of situations?

You can use the empty-chair technique. You get a chair and set it down in a room and imagine that person in the chair and say, “I need to say some things to you. Here’s how you hurt me,” and you lay it out. “You hurt me this way, this way, this way. But I want you to know I forgive you because God has forgiven me and because resentment doesn’t work and
because I want forgiveness in the future. I am releasing you.” You say it to the chair.

Another way to do it is to write a letter that you can never mail and you put in black and white, “This is how you hurt me.” You write it down, you let it unload off you. You’ve been carrying it so long, you need to unload it and you let it out in a letter. At the end you say, “But starting today I forgive you because God has forgiven me and because resentment doesn’t work and because I need forgiveness in the future.” And you do it for your own sake. You release them so you can experience freedom.

   c. Replace my hurt with God’s peace.

“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts…” (Colossians 3:15, NIV)

How? It’s unfair. If I forgive them they get away scot free. No they don’t. Let God settle the score. He can do a whole
lot better job than you can.

The Bible says, one day God is going to settle the score and He’s going to call into account and He’s going to balance the books, and one day He’s going to have the last word. So let God have the last word on that. OK? He’ll take care of it.

God is the judge. He is just. That’s why I believe in hell. Jesus talked more about it than He did heaven. But if there is not hell, then people like Hitler will get away scot free and that’s not fair and God is a fair God.

The Bible says, there will be judgment. So you just release them and in the meantime you focus on God’s peace rather than trying to get even. Let God’s peace rule in your heart.

Next week we will talk about making amends where we have hurt others, but for today let’s just focus on this first aspect: You must release those who hurt you so God can begin to heal your heart.