When you forgive, you set two people free. You set them free from having to owe you and you set yourself free from having to collect from them.
Sermon Title: FROM BITTERNESS TO FORGIVENESS
Sermon Text: EPHESIANS 4:31-32 (NIV)
Sermon Series: EPHESIANS: GOD’S PLAN FOR GOD’S PEOPLE
By: PTR NESTOR SY
Sermon Notes:
EPHESIANS 4:31-32 NIV
31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.
32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
EPHESIANS 4:22-24 NIV
22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
EPHESIANS 4:25 NIV
25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.
EPHESIANS 4:28 NIV
28 He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.
EPHESIANS 4:29 NIV
29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
RELEASE BITTERNESS
get rid | Greek: airó
“to remove yourself or to separate yourself from.”
Bitterness can ruin your life.
“There will be no male pallbearers. They wouldn’t take me out when I was alive, and I don’t want them to take me out when I’m dead.”
If God can handle the wrongs we’ve done to him, he can handle the wrongs that have been done to us.
RENDER FORGIVENESS
compassionate | Greek: eusplagchnos
“tenderhearted”
When you forgive, you set two people free. You set them free from having to owe you and you set yourself free from having to collect from them.
REMEMBER WHAT GOD HAS DONE FOR YOU
If you have the experience of forgiveness, you have the enablement of forgiveness.
COLOSSIANS 2:13-14 ESV
13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
The simple reason why we forgive others is because we have been forgiven.
Application 1.
Because God has forgiven us freely, we must forgive freely.
True forgiveness comes with no strings attached.
Application 2.
Because God has forgiven us fully, we must forgive fully.
COLOSSIANS 2:13 ESV
13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses
Application 3.
Because God has forgiven us finally, we must forgive finally.
JEREMIAH 31:34 NIV
34 “No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”