Rick Bezet
Gateway Church's Podcast
Forgive Others
I'm very glad to be here and when you show up at a church like this that you know they're getting a pretty good dose every weekend from the Word of God. You want to make sure that you're saying something that can apply to them that it's just not a sermon that you had somewhere on a shelf that you're actually here from the Lord. So we spend a lot of time praying about that and when I mention the topic of what we're going to talk about, you may think that's not really going to apply to me but hold out just a little bit and pay attention because I think we're going to be able to aim this at everyone and the reason is because sometimes as Christians, people do things to us that upset us. More modern term will be they tick us off sometimes. And raise your hand if you've ever been mad at anybody in your life. Come on. Unless you're so holy, nothing's ever wrong with you but it happens. And then sometimes people make mistakes. Recently somebody asked me, "What's the biggest mistake that you've made Rick as being a pastor?" And I don't know if I named the biggest mistake but it is hilarious. My wife and I were raising four kids and my youngest son, he was going around at seven years of age telling everybody that he was the pastor's son. And we don't like that. You don't want to leverage that. That's just not right. So we said, "Don't do that. Just tell everybody you're Tanner. Don't go around telling everybody you're the pastor's son." He said, "All right." So he showed up at church the next weekend and a lady went up to him and said, "Aren't you the pastor's son?" And he knew immediately he had a dilemma and he said, "Well, I thought I was but my mom and dad said I'm not." So there you have it right there. Let me just tell you something, I grew up in a church and here's the reason why I want to hit on this hard. We're going to have a lot of fun today but what's going to happen is you're going to see that the truth is we all have to work on this including me. And I grew up in a church where it started out with the edge in their hand. They had the edge. I mean this church was rocking and rolling there in the Louisiana area. I'm a cajun and we lived in Baker, Louisiana and this church had it. But as time went on people decided that they weren't going to forgive one another. They were going to keep records of wrongs and the people got meaner and meaner and I don't know about you but I don't want to meet another mean Christian for the rest of my life. And especially after the Sunday school teacher that I had growing up, this lady hated me. She talked about hell, I mean she thought I was going to be the first one ever that went to hell, the worst part of hell and she talked about hell like she was born and raised in hell. And at one time she was talking about the ten commandments and she was talking about how God, you know, don't take God's name in vain and that's true. And I was listening and I was overwhelmed by what she was saying. So I said, "God, Lee, I'll out." And she said, "Would you say Bizet?" She had the longest finger in the history of mankind. Would you say Bizet? I said, I said, "Golly." She said, "That's a form of God's name." "Hell, it's hot, Bizet, hot, hot, hot." Don't you want to go to heaven? Not of the people there like you, I don't. That's what I remember thinking. And so I've noticed that hurt people hurt people and if you're here right now and you're trying to serve a Lord and there's some decisions that you have to make. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, if you were to meet with any pastor and they were to tell you the biggest deterrents that they see in the faith, one would be the fact that a lot of Christians live in this world of guilt and condemnation. And they don't know the difference between the word condemnation and conviction but I'm going to teach you real quick. Condemnation is from the enemy, it's from Satan and for example, if yesterday you got into an argument with someone and you yelled at them and are you lied to them during conflict and confrontation, condemnation would follow after that and say, "You see how you are? You see how you act? You see the way you talk to people? See the way that you manipulate?" And if you'll notice, there's really no hope out of it. It's just weights that easily entangle you. But conviction is from the Holy Spirit. It sounds the same, some would not know the difference. But condemnation is from the enemy, conviction is from the Holy Spirit and he'll tell you the truth and I love it when I get convicted by him. But he always gives you a way out. So point out yesterday, the way you lie is not of me, call that person and get right. I want you back. So the biggest deterrent that I know of is condemnation. People feeling like that it's over for them, that God is mad at them and God is trying to hurt them and the second one though is like it, certainly associated with it and that is the whole judgmentalism that applies to our lives. People upset us and we get upset, we get frustrated and I want you just to think for a second about the heart of God. Christ, his best example to his heart was on good Friday. We call it good Friday because there was a lot going on good for us. But it wasn't necessarily a good Friday for him. I mean he was in more pain and agony than you can imagine. Other people during those days that were crucified like him, they would be under so much pain that they would cuss everybody in front of them and historians will tell you that they would literally have to cut the tongue out of the person being crucified's mouth because they didn't want to hear all of that. Well they didn't do that to Christ and he was able to speak and think about his heart. There he was on the cross. It wasn't the nails holding him to the cross. It was his love for you. It was his love for people and the desire to set a precedent to show what forgiveness can do. And so in his prayer you can see that he was saying, "Father forgive them." He was building a relationship on the cross with someone who didn't deserve to be forgiven. And God was trying to say, "I want you to be a forgiver like me." So Peter one day, and let's just go to this for a second, one day the Lord was looking at Peter and he was trying to show him the truth of the power of forgiveness. And he knew that Peter one day was going to need to understand this. I'll give you a picture of that as well. What Peter did and what Judas did was not that much different. One betrayed the Lord, one denied the Lord. After Jesus rose from the dead, he knew that Peter, Judas had already committed suicide. And he knew that Peter didn't feel like that he was still a disciple. So the Lord wants to meet with everybody and huddle with his followers. And he tells somebody, he says, "Go and get the disciples and get Peter too." And the reason why he had to mention Peter's name, because Peter probably didn't feel like that he was a disciple anymore. He probably felt like that he ruined it, that there was no chance for the Lord to want him on the team again. This is what I want you to know. If Judas wouldn't have committed suicide, I am totally convinced that Jesus would have said, "Hey, go and get the disciples, go and get Peter, and get Judas." And the reason why he loves bringing back people into a relationship with him, "Can I have an amen today?" So let's look at this. Peter didn't get it. At one point, the Lord was really trying to teach Peter the importance of forgiveness way before the episode I just described. In verse 21, it actually says that Peter came to Jesus and asked, he said, "How many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me?" Up to seven times, now Peter was trying to impress the Lord because Jewish law said you had to forgive three times. So he doubled it and added one, thinking that God was going to be totally impressed by that. And the Lord didn't go with him at all. Jesus answered and said, "No, I'll tell you the truth, not seven times, man." But seventy times seven. So the Lord wasn't trying to say 490. He was basically trying to say, "You always have to forgive again." And in fact, if you know how many times you've forgiven, you haven't forgiven once. If you keep in score, then you're really not in the deal. And Peter still didn't get it. Just like sometimes with me, I don't know about you, but I am so hard-headed. Years ago, I was a professional golfer and God wanted me to go to Bible school to be in the ministry. And I didn't want to do it. I loved playing golf. I was afraid of ministry. I didn't know you could be cool and in the ministry at the same time back in those days, I didn't know there were Robert Morris's out there. And so I resisted it. And so I was in a tournament, and the only way I just signed a contract to play in Asia. And the only way to get out of the contract was to be injured. And I was up against a root. And when I hit the shot, it broke the club, broke my wrist, and the club swung around and hit me in the head. And knocked me out. That's how God speaks to me. It is. I'm so speaking hard-headed. All right, so Peter was that way, and we know that's the truth. So Jesus could tell that he wasn't getting it. So he told him this story. He said, "All right, Peter." He said it's like this. The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with a service. And as he began the settlement, a man who owed him 10,000 talents was brought to him. Now, that doesn't really mean much to you. 10,000 talents. You don't even know how much that is. And today's monetary equal. And so that was actually the equivalent of $12 million. So this guy had a huge debt. And so he owed that money, 10,000 talents. And since he was not able to pay the master order that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt, in other words, back in those days, there was no bellow plan from anybody, all right? And there was no bankruptcy clause available. In fact, if you owed money, either the person would just have to forgive you of the debt or you would be thrown into prison or slavery and perhaps even your whole family. So this guy understood the major dilemma, this huge debt that he owed. And similar to the debt that you owe when you found Christ. And so this is what he did, just what you would do. The servant fell on his knees before him and he said, "Be patient with me." And he begged. He said, "I'll pay back everything." And the servants' master took pity on him, canceled the debt, and let him go. How many appreciate the debt that was forgiven for you? Every sin has to be paid for. Either you're going to pay for it or we're going to let him pay for it. I want Christ to pay for mine, amen? All right. So how do we learn from this? Because Jesus was making a big deal. How does this apply to us? Number one, write this down. If you want to understand how to close the gap on this whole thing, number one, remember I have been forgiven by God. I want you just to grasp that for a second. Some of you are not serving God right now. And the reason is because you don't comprehend the love that he has for you. How much he wants a relationship with you. And think about this. The Lord says, "You'll never have a relationship with me. He will actually stiff-form having a relationship with you until you let him forgive you." I mean, you think about the heart of God. He says, "Hey, the one thing you have to allow to happen in order to be in a relationship with me is you've got to let me forgive you." A lot of people don't get that. And here's the reason why we struggle with it so much because the adversary doesn't want you in close proximity to God. He doesn't want you in a relationship with God like he's in love with you. You know, you were worshiping the Lord a while ago because you wanted more of him, but most of you don't understand that he liked it because he got more of you. God loves to be around us, and here's why. In fact, you can see the actual information from the Old Testament. We know that the Bible says that his voice was a whisper. The Bible says that it wasn't in an earthquake, it wasn't in a fire, it wasn't in the wind, but it was in a whisper. Why would the Lord whisper? He's a huge God. He can yell. He can certainly just conjure up some decibels. But he doesn't. He can't whisper because he knows that you have to be close to him to hear a whisper. And I learned this the hard way, and to be at home, we are a loud people. I'm a cajun, and a cajun, and they're crazy. You know, we'll eat anything that lives in a ditch, you know, you've got to be crazy. And it's loud around my house, but I have one child, Grace, who's a whisper, and we're all loud. And every now and then, we're doing something loud, eating loud, talking loud, reading a word loud, whatever it is. And we hear this noise. So we have to say, "What is that?" And then we finally realized, "Oh, it's Grace." And we all started doing it. She says something. We have to get really close. "What's what you want, Grace?" "I just wanted to say hello." Okay. All right. And then we go get loud again. I will tell you that's why God whispers because you've got to settle down and be still and know that he is God to hear a very still small voice. And you'll never want to get that close to a God who you're not convinced, wants to love you. Now, let's look at the rest of this story in Matthew 18. This guy, he had just been forgiven $12 million. Let's look at this picture. It says, "But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. Again, there's no way this story is going to be interesting to you because you don't know how much that is. Well, he was just forgiven $12 million, a hundred denarii is the equivalent of $17. This guy was just forgiven $12 million. Now he finds somebody that owes him $17. And look what happened. He went to the guy, he grabbed him, and he began to choke him around his neck because Roman law said that if somebody owed you money that you could choke them. How many want to bring that back? We need that back. All right. So anyway, all right. He says, "Pay back what you owe me," he demanded, and look at the repeat performance here. So his fellow servant failed to his knees and begged him. He said, "Be patient with me. I'll pay you back." But he refused and said he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. It's exactly the same thing, except he wasn't able to forgive. And I'm going to tell you why I think that he wasn't able to forgive because I believed that he was not convinced that he was forgiven initially. If you're not convinced that you're forgiven and you've never received the forgiveness of God, you can't give it away. You can only give away what you've received. Maybe he thought the Master would change his mind and say, "No, you still need to repay the $12 million." And maybe he thought he would have had to repay at $17 at a time. I don't know. But when I meet with Christians, they always say, "You know, God has forgiven me. I know he loves me, but there's a few things in my life that I know he holds against me." And I want you to think about those few things. I mean, is that true? Is the Lord? Because what we tend to do is we say, "Okay, God, I know you want to relate shit with me, but I got to fix this and then I'll come to you, but first I want to fix this." And the Lord is saying, "Hey, no, I want to be in on the equation of fixing that. You can't fix it without me. Bring everything that is a mess in your life to me and we'll work on it together. But we don't do that because we don't understand the power of his forgiveness." Ephesians 4.32 says it this way, "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other. How? Just as in Christ, God forgave you." Can I have an amen? All right. Number two, let's write this down. Resemit doesn't work. That's another reason why you need to forgive because of resentment. It doesn't even work. It's not creating success at all. And I know sometimes you'll see somebody that they're having a great life and it seems like everything they do, God blesses it, but everything you do, it doesn't seem to work. You know some of the heroes of the faith felt the same way. I mean, think about it. God shows up to Noah and he looks at Noah and he says, "I want you to build an ark in the middle of nowhere. I'll boat because there's going to be a lot of water, a lot of water." Five hundred miles away, it was the nearest body of water, but Noah decided to do it. And God was so blessed and so honored that he actually said, "I'm going to remind you of the covenant what you did. I'm so proud of you. Every time you see a rainbow, remember the covenant. You get a rainbow." And then he looked at Abraham. He said, "Abraham, I want you to go. Just go. I'll tell you what to do later. But just go." And Abraham did it. And after it was over, God said, "I'm so proud of you. I want it confirmed. I'll confirm it through circumcision." How many know that's not a rainbow? So you know, Abraham was thinking, "Man, circumcision, Noah got a rainbow." In all of his life, he was probably plagued with that. And even at the end of his life, God shows up when he's a hundred years old and he says, "I want you to go to babies or us. You're going to have a baby." And he was thinking, "Who's going to be the mama?" And God says, "Sara." One translation, one verse, says that Sarah was as good as dead at that time. So he looks over at Sarah and you know he was thinking, "No, I got a rainbow, man." So he's still on this. All right. Many of us, many of us, we get livid by what is happening other people's lives and it's frustrating. So the Lord knows that we're going to have the tendency to migrate to that place. So he says things like this in Mark 1125. He said, "When you stand praying, if you hold anything against anybody, forgive them. So that your Father in heaven may be able to," one translation says, "may forgive you of your sins." Years ago when I was youth pastor, I missed those days, being a youth pastor is one of the coolest things in the world. And I loved it. It was my first year. I didn't like it the first year because I had the meanest teenagers ever. They hated each other. They hated me. They hated their mama. They hated their brother. They hated their school. They hated everything. And I couldn't figure it out. So I was trying to pray to get God to move. Nothing's worse than being around mean people except praying with mean people. And so I was praying with them and it wasn't working. And then finally at the end of a dead prayer meeting, a girl said, she goes, "Pastor Rick, can I say something before we leave?" And I said, "Yeah, what's that?" And she looked at a girl across the way. And she said, she pointed at the girl. She said, "For a few years, I've hated you. And I don't even remember what it is that you did to me. But I ask you to forgive me right now. Would you please?" And so she's crying. Now the girl across the way is crying. And I'm just watching this. And then that girl across the way says, "Can I say something?" And I said, "Yeah, what?" And she pointed at another girl. She goes, "I've hated you for longer than two years." And then she's working this out. And I'm thinking, "I'm catching on to the issues here." And then this girl pointed at a guy. She goes, "You broke up with me a couple of years ago, and I didn't like you." And then this guy's crying. Now he got a football player crying. And he looked at another football player. He said, "You didn't block good for me when we was in the seventh grade. I broke my knee because of you, man." So everyone got it right. And overnight the youth group was healed. The rest of this story goes like this. The master found out that the person that he was forgiven that had been forgiven of 12 million did not extend forgiveness to someone else from much smaller debt. So he brings him in. He says, "Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?" And in anger, his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured. The Lord is just trying to bring a picture to Peter about the power of forgiveness. So many Christians are not enjoying their wall with God. But resentment doesn't work. In Job 21 it says this, "Some men stay happy until the day they die. Others have no happiness at all." Why? Because they live and die with bitter hearts. And in Job 5, 2 it says, "To worry yourself to death with resentment would be a foolish and a senseless thing to do." Number 3. Forgiveness given is forgiveness received. Look at this. Another verse that shows the picture, Jesus is saying in Matthew 6, "For if," everybody say, "If," if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if, say it again, "If," if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. Now, I just want to get into a quick little teaching on this because I noticed something a few years ago that a lot of people do not forgive because they don't know what it is. So in order to tell you what it is, I'm going to tell you what it's not so you'll know what it is. All right? What it's not. Forgiveness is not minimizing the seriousness of the offense. Would you write that down? Because a lot of people, they're in my office or they're somewhere and we're ministering to them. Tom or someone is trying to minister to them and they'll say, "Okay, I know I need to forgive. I guess it wasn't that big of a deal." No, it was a big deal. That's why you're thinking about it right now. It's not reducing the offense to nothing so you can forgive. It's knowing how tremendously painful it is and still forgiving. In fact, you can see Joseph, he had an opportunity, man, this guy could have been better. He could have paid back his brothers what they did to him. I mean, I don't know what you've been through, but Joseph, he probably went through a little bit more than you. And here he is with all authority and everything that he needs to destroy the people who heard him and they're in front of him and he never minimized what they did. But he did maximize God. As he looked at them, he said, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." It's not minimizing. But number two, I think will relate to a lot of you a lot more. And that is forgiveness is not trust. Forgiveness is not trust. That's two different topics, two different words. But there's a slogan in America that we've said for years and this is how it goes. You've got to forgive and forget. But let me just tell you, that is bunk. There's not one scripture in the Bible that says that you have to forgive and forget. You forgive and remember. And so when I talk about forgiveness, I'm not asking anybody here to trust the person who went out of their way, maybe even in premeditated fashion to hurt you. I'm not asking you to trust them again. That can happen over time. But forgiveness, it can happen in a second. I was talking to somebody between the services and this guy said, "All of my life, I've been a professional, resentful person." He said, "I keep track. Because I can remember everything. I just have that mind. I can remember everything. And I've kept records. He goes, "I always have a scorecard." And I said, "Man, you can become the best forgiver that you've ever met in one second." And you know how I know he got it? Because he said, "I want it." And he reached up to the heavens and I prayed for him. And I believe he got it. Can I have an amen? And you can get it too. So how do you fill in this void? Let's just go ahead and say that you're now convinced that you need to at least understand the revelation of what I'm talking about. Number one, acknowledge my own imperfections. Would you write that down? Acknowledge my own imperfections. All across the room, even if you were Presbyterian like Tom Lane, growing up, we're going to raise your hand on this one. How many of you have ever hurt anybody in your life? Look at this. Raise it up high. I know if you've never hurt anybody because you're so holy, you flew in here and landed softly on your chair, everybody has. And what happens is we serve a Lord and we forget about our own flaws and imperfections. They have people out there that need to hear this teaching because of something that you have done to them. And a lot of times we forget we just remember what has been done to us. And I'll never forget this one time where I realized how much I needed to be careful because I have the potential to hurt people. There was a lady who was in my office who was hurting the church, this is many years ago now, but she was hurting the church and I couldn't wait to talk to her. And there she was in my office and she was letting me have it and she was going to town. Well, I was able to keep pretty good pace with her. So I was letting her know what I thought. Then she let me know what she thought and then I trumped it and then she kept going. I trumped it again and at one point she broke down and I stayed on theme and I was just all over it. And for some reason it even felt a little bit anointed to me and I thought, man, I'm letting her know the truth around you. And I'm looking at her and I realized I was winning. She got up and when she was walking down the hallway and I looked at her, I stepped out of my office and I looked at her and she looked 20 years older. And I realized when I was watching her walk down the hallway that I had become the very thing that I never wanted to be. All of us have gone out of her way to hurt people. The scripture even says in Ecclesiastes, there's not a single person in all the earth. He's always good and never sins. And sometimes we start out like King Uzziah. He started out with a love for God and the Bible says, as long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success, but it was his pride that led him to his downfall. Number two, abandoned my right to get even. Recently I got an email from a lady who was hilarious, but she sent me an email. She had visited our church and she sent me this email and she said, "You're going to hell because you use technology." And then I realized this was an email. Come on with that. I mean, you could write a good email back on that one. But Romans 12, 18, and I remember this verse, don't you hate it when you remember a verse? And I remember this verse and it says, "If it's possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everybody." In other words, yeah, grab a CD for a friend who's going through this on the way out. But this, what about you? How does this apply to you? And here's why you've got to get this straight. This church, and I'm getting ready to brag about this church again. This church has the hand of God on it. It's almost sovereign like what's happening here. It's unusual. The way that God has put this church together. You can stay in this church for years and never get involved. And this church will be okay, but it will never be as strong as it could be as if you did get involved. And some of you are here now and you got sideswiped and hit a few times in your past. And so you made a decision with stiff forming effect that no one's ever going to hurt me again. Nobody. And they just did. Because you are not designed by God to do life alone. God wants you involved. And I believe that we have the integrity on this staff and they have the leadership and they have the teaching and the skill level around this church is off the chart. And I think the one thing that we can do to lose our first love here is for the people here not to forgive one another when someone hurts you. And you know what happens? You end up having resentment towards somebody who really doesn't infiltrate into your life much, but it plays out in your relationships that you love like in your marriage. And men, I love the Bible because the Bible, it knows how to speak to us. The best example there is is the Bible tells a man to love his wife like he loves himself. It doesn't tell a woman to love her husband like she loves herself because God knows that a woman you don't love herself. But a man does. You know it's true. A woman can be in front of a mirror and she can find something wrong. Even if she's a 10, she can find something wrong. But a guy can be fat, ugly, with hair on his back. That's all! You know it's true. Okay, you know I'm right. That is hilarious. All right, back to the word, back to the word. But it tells a man, even if a man is not a Christian, not a Christ follower, a man knows that one verse. They could be a Buddhist and he knows this one verse. Why I've submitted to the husband, huh? But before it says that, it tells a man to give his life up for his wife. You're never going to do that, dude, if you have resentment. It's just not going to happen, okay? But then it turns to the women and challenges them. It doesn't tell a woman to respect her husband. It actually beefs it up a lot. It says you've got to because the Lord knows that if you don't respect him, see when he goes to get married, he's got his groomsmen and his best man, a lot of friends who believe in him, that's why they're in the wedding. You've got the dad who might be an exhorter, other people as well. But the mantle leaves them and it goes to the wife. And God knows it. And that's why he says, "Look, ladies, I don't know what you're going to get right, but the one thing you've got to get right, you've got to respect your husband. I made him. He can't live without it." And then throw in some joy there in your hat because I've never met a man yet that said, "I just want to marry a mean depressed chick who hates everybody." [laughter] Okay. And you want joy. I grew up in a church where they would sing about joy. So they didn't have it. It was like, "Got the joy, joy, joy, down in our heart." "Where?" "Down in our heart?" "Everybody, "Yo, where?" "Down in our heart." "No, you don't. You don't have it." "I've seen joy and it don't look like that." [laughter] All right. Number three, apply God's grace to my life and church. Okay. I've got to wrap this up. But I'm going to tell you right now, when you start, when you make the decision to forgive, that there was a guy that came to our church about two years ago now, and this guy came to me a very distinguished, a major leader in our community. I didn't know it at the time, but he walked over to me and his lip was trembling, and he said, "Last night, I pushed my wife way too hard." He said, "Is this the kind of place where I can be forgiven?" So I looked behind him and his wife is behind him standing there. I wasn't totally sure it was her, so I looked at her and I'm looking and trying to get as much information as I can in a second and I look at her and she's like, "Tell him you." So I said, "You have, man. This is definitely a place." I was thinking about her more than even him. So anyway, I prayed with him, and then still to this day, I'll go into church and I'll see. It's he and his wife and their kids. Their kids have now been baptized. He and his wife have gotten right with God. They're serving the Lord. Every time I see her, I always look at her, and they're all worshiping God, and she looks over at me and she sees me and she gives me thumbs up and just like that. Why is that cool to me? Because it doesn't matter what that guy would have done, that family would have never been restored if she wouldn't have been willing to forgive him. The power of forgiveness is so cool. I've seen people fall into adultery and hurt people that someone forgave, I saw a small group rally around a man who hurt his whole family and they found out that he was in adultery in the middle of the night and they went to his house and would camp out and launch tears on his front door until he would come in in the middle of the night. Just to say we miss you, dude, it gets you some sleep, and the next Friday night he did it again. They did it again. How many of you didn't take long before he got right with God? The Bible says love never fails, and I believe the Bible meant it. Let's give a Lord a hand. Come on, everybody. (applause)