The following sermon was recorded at Calvary Tabernacle on October 2, 2024. This sermon is presented by pastor Kenny Robertson. See below for the full transcript of this sermon.
Episode Transcript
This transcript was created using an automated transcription service, so some text may be inaccurate.
Matthew chapter 6, we’ll begin reading in verse 9. After this matter therefore pray you, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
One writer in one of the other Gospels said forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Going on to verse 13 and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. I began to think on this scripture and indeed down through the years, Brother Bradley, it’s always been a verse that stood out to me.
It’s always been kind of what you might call a scary verse because it’s plain there. The Master spoke plainly there. Basically, he said if you forgive me in their trespasses, I’ll forgive you your trespasses.
But if you don’t forgive men their trespasses, neither will I forgive you your trespasses. And when we start talking about forgiveness, it’s a very icky and deep subject. I’m certainly no psychologist.
I don’t have any degrees. I have no kind of college education or a university learning. I come from the backwoods of Alabama.
I come from the school of hard knocks. I’m just an old country boy fixing to turn 55 years old. I’m a husband, father, grandfather.
I work a job. I’ve not always been a good church boy. Most of you know it.
I was brought up in church. I was brought up to know right from wrong. But I spent many years wandering in the wilderness and wandered in the desert doing my own thing, cooking crystal meth, shooting it up, doing everything I could to turn against the ways of God, dabbling in the occult.
And that’s just part of the stuff I did. I didn’t have much of a filter or much of a limit on what I did. I’m not giving the devil any glory.
I’m just telling you who I used to be. But then do come a day, July the 1st, 2007, where the old man was crucified by the blood of Jesus and a new man rose up from the ashes. Can you say amen? We serve a forgiving and a redeeming and a restoring God.
The blood of our Savior Jesus can deliver anybody from any kind of iniquity, from any kind of bondage. Don’t matter what it is. Don’t matter what you’ve had your head to.
The blood of Jesus is a cure-all for it all. The blood of Jesus is the bondage-breaking, incineration, devil-chasing solution that this world needs. But I want to tell you this, even after I had stepped into the ways of the Lord and I began my journey with the Lord, I found that there were things in my life, there were situations in my life that I had to figure out how to forgive.
I’m gonna be real transparent with you all tonight. Even after I started on my walk with the Lord, down through the years, I faced church hurt. I faced family hurt.
Let me say there’s no worse hurt than church hurt and family hurt. It’s a wound that goes deep. As I began my walk with the Lord and I meditated on this scripture, found myself thinking, Lord, there’s some things I don’t know that I can forgive.
There’s some things that’s went on against me I don’t know if I can forgive. I can’t forget it. I can’t forget it.
Even things that goes back to when I was a child, I can’t forget it. How am I supposed to forgive? Lord, if I forgive, it’s almost like I’m letting them off the hook. If I forgive, it’s almost like I’m saying that what they did was okay.
Lord, if I forgive, it’s almost like saying I agree that what they did was right. The definition of forgiveness is to stop feeling angry or resentful towards someone for an offense, a flaw, or a mistake. As I was riding up the road, you can tell I had to write this on the back of a bank envelope.
As I was riding up the road tonight, I thought, what does forgiveness mean to me? Forgiveness to me, just my definition, is when you relinquish your right to hold a grudge or pay somebody back for how they hurt you. You know that when you walk in unforgiveness and when you carry unforgiveness, there is one person that’s in that prison, and it’s you. That person that hurts you, that person that wounded you, or that situation, whatever the case may be, chances are they don’t even know that you’re still suffering from it.
They don’t even know the tears that you still cry from it. They don’t even know the times that you’ll lay awake on your pillow at night, tossing and turning it over in your mind and replaying it and wondering, why did they say this to me? Why did this happen to me? Why did they do this to me? All the time, you’re searching for an answer. You’re searching for a resolution that you’re not going to find.
You want that person or that situation to resolve itself, and you keep tossing it over and over in your mind, and you’re left repeating it night after night, day after day. Certain songs bring it back to your attention. Certain smells bring it back to your mind.
Certain things that you hear or you see will bring it flooding back, and once again, you feel those feelings of hurt, betrayal, and agony, and you’re the prisoner of the unforgiveness, and what it’s doing, it’s holding you in its grip. It’s holding you in its chains. You’re left to come back to it and to repeat it and to repeat it and to repeat it because the hurt is so deep.
I know because I’ve been there. I know because I have been there. I never even knew until I was about 45 years old that we as humans do indeed bury things.
I had no idea, Brother Billy, that in 19 or in 2015, I went through the loss of somebody in my family, through the death of someone that I loved. When this person died, the next few weeks, I had stuff come rushing out, and I’m just being real with you. I don’t normally talk about myself, but I’ve got to be real with you and transparent, but I began having stuff rush up to the surface.
I began having stuff tumble up that I had forgotten about that happened to me as a child, different things that I went through, different things that I faced that I had legitimately forgotten about, and when that started coming to the surface, feelings of rage and bitterness and unforgiveness began rolling over in me once again. I had learned, although falsely, how to bury the unforgiveness out of sight, out of mind, but there came a trigger that made it all come bubbling up, and I had to deal with it. You might be walking along right now feeling like you’ve got it in check, that you’ve got it in line, but you’re not healed.
It’s just buried, and at the most inopportune time, from the craziest situation, something’s going to trigger, and it’s going to come rushing back to the surface. Hold on, I got good news for you, though. Lots of times, I ain’t to the good news part yet, lots of times, what we do in our mind, we picture ourselves going to the person, revisiting the situation or the people, and rehashing it.
Maybe if I could have said this, or if I get the chance, I’m going to say this, or if I get the opportunity, I’m going to handle it this way. I’ve got my defenses up, it’ll never happen again. I’ll never go down that road again.
I have got my guard up, I have got my wall up, and if I see them, I’m going to let them have it. I’m going to blast them, Brother Billy. I mean, I’m going to straighten them out.
I want you to think about this. You know what that’s kind of like? Imagine yourself getting bit by a poisonous snake. What happens? You have poison in you, and that snake crawls off, it goes on its way.
You’re left there with poison, but instead, you go after the snake. You want to find that snake, and you want to find out why it did that. Why did you bite me? Why did you do this to me? And all along, the poison is in you, the snake has went on.
And you took your focus off the poison that’s in you, and you’re trying to find that snake to get an answer that you’re not going to get. That’s where unforgiveness gets us. Unforgiveness captures us by making us focus on the other person, what they said, what their actions were.
I understand it’s completely normal. It’s completely, absolutely normal to do so, but if I can help you tonight, I want to help you tonight. If you’re struggling with unforgiveness for somebody, some situation, some horrible thing, take the focus off of that, and look back at you.
Not that you did anything wrong, but you’re the one with the poison in you. What can I do? What can I do to heal this poison that’s in me? What can I do to move into freedom, to move into being liberated from this prison? What can I do to treat the poison? Let the snake go. Focus on what’s keeping you in the unforgiveness.
Focus on what’s keeping you in this state of unforgiveness, and do you know what it is? It’s the devil. It is the prince of the power of the air. It is the prince of darkness, Satan, Lucifer, that is keeping you in that bondage so you will not move into freedom once and for all.
If he can keep you bound in chains of unforgiveness, if he can keep you bound, tied up, not able to let it go, not able to experience the healing power of Christ, then he’s got you defeated. You’re living a 50% life when Jesus created you to live a life more abundantly, a hundred percent life. There is joy for you.
There is liberation for you. There is healing for you. Brother Kenny, you don’t know what they did.
When you forgive them, when you let it go, you’re not forgiving the behavior you have to forgive as a person. And let me tell you, that can be hard. There’s some dark people out there, but imagine when the Father, the Holy God of the universe, looks down at us.
We’re like, Lord, forgive me. Have you forgiven others? Here’s the thing. If you can forgive them, if you can let it go, there is a freedom for you.
There is a victory for you. Cameron, there are chains that you will find falling away that you cannot imagine. You can find a victory and a healing, not to where you steal.
It’s not that you condone what they did, but you love them in spite of it. You say, Brother Kenny, how do you know that? I know it because God’s Word backs it up. It doesn’t happen overnight, children of God.
It doesn’t happen always just like that. There is a wrestling that takes place. There is a warfare that takes place, and you have to ask the Lord to melt your heart and to give you that heart of forgiveness.
But I promise you, if you’re sincere and you want to be free from the unforgiveness that you have carried, keep seeking the Lord and give you that heart. Can you say amen? Does that mean you have to put yourself back in that situation? Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
Does it mean that you uphold what they did? Absolutely not. No way, shape, form, or take care of yourself. Let the Lord help you.
Let the Lord take care of the poison. There is healing in the name of Jesus. There is healing in the blood of Jesus.
And everyone that asketh, receiveth. To him that seeketh, or to him that knocketh, or him that seeketh, it shall be opened. To him that knocketh, it shall be opened.
Keep on. Keep on. It is worth the warfare.
It is worth the struggle to move into forgiveness once and for all.