3AC Dr. Eric Walsh - Forgiveness - the Power of Letting Go

[Music] all right good evening uh welcome back we are here again uh to present another message uh this one during this holiday season and um as we were talking about things to present towards the end of the year we thought about um a message i've done before um but probably has new relevance in the era of the pandemic the separation of families what i've found is that there is some even some families are having some family hostilities um in this 2020 year um dealing with this pandemic interacting only through um zoom and facebook and so forth um so i spoke to one uh a gentleman who hasn't spoken to his sibling for about six seven years and he told me that they fell out even further when something this year was posted on facebook that he had no idea that this this a baby was born um and uh he made a comment and they kind of fell out all over again this has been a tough year um and even now we're preparing for vaccination we now have more information about the virus that in fact if someone has had coronavirus there probably is some natural immunity that comes with it a great article came out that talked about the power of um the phytochemicals and flavonoids in um in plant foods and their ability to actually work as good as uh many of the medications that have either been purported or used for the treatment of kovid that simple whole food plants um are powerful in fighting coronaviruses we've talked about many times so as this year comes to a close there's something healing that has to happen a lot of economic loss a lot of uh loss of of life a lot of loss of um of of trust in systems and so the message tonight is to is to really deal with that our scripture reading is taken from luke chapter 23 starting at verse 34 it says then said jesus father forgive them for they know not what they do and they parted his raiment and cast lots our message tonight the power of letting go 2020 version uh forgiveness as an agent for healing forgiveness as an agent for healing we go to genesis chapter 50 but let's pray for us father god we thank you for this opportunity to study your word lord i ask once again you make me just a nail upon the wall a rusty sorry nail lord lord don't let the world see the nail that is eric walsh hang the portrait of jesus christ upon that nail so that only christ is seen tonight his precepts and his ways this is our prayer for this message in jesus name amen so in genesis chapter 50 there is a great um loss just like i said many have been lost um i found out one of my good friends mother uh a pastor that i worked under in california uh his mother lost his mother to covid uh just yesterday um so this is a year of a lot of loss and in genesis chapter 15 verse 15 it says and when joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead they said joseph will per adventure hate us and will certainly requit us all the evil which we did unto him they sent a messenger unto joseph saying thy father did command before he died saying so shall ye say unto joseph forgive i pray thee now the trespass of thy brethren and their sin for they did not unto the unto the evil and now we pray thee forgive the trespass of the servants of the god of thy father and joseph wept when they spake unto him in a year of loss one of the things that happens is that those who remain after the loss have to make sense of what is happening families are being strained this year because one there has been a lot of loss of life um i lost as i mentioned in the previous sermons my aunt my mother's sister who i loved uh dearly and was like another mother to me very difficult um i've been others this year that we've lost um as we've gone through a year of of of coronavirus not everyone to coronavirus there are those who lost a good friend of mine in california who worked with me a nurse while i was there committed suicide that was very painful another good friend of mine this year her son was in california so it's been tough honestly um as if a dark cloud sat over 2020 in many ways when all of that loss happens somebody's got to stay behind to try and put together the pieces and sometimes the person that we're most angry at is god himself how could god allow such loss how could god allow such tragedy and so it's difficult and families will often begin to infight and bicker as they try to put the pieces back together and it can be incredibly stressful the bible says that when joseph's brothers came to him after their father died that they begged him to remember what their father had said their father had said listen forgive them joseph for all that they did and joseph had clearly already forgiven his brothers he told them already what you meant for evil god meant for good he'd already taken care of his family and the bible tells us in genesis 50 and verse 17 that when joseph realizes that his brothers are still thinking that he remembers and holds against them what they did joseph begins to weep because joseph only ever from heals a child wanted to be accepted by his brothers verse 18 and his brethren also went and fell down before his face and he said behold we be thy servants joseph said unto them fear not for am i in the place of god am i in the place of god he says this because the bible teaches that vengeance is mine saith the lord i shall repay joseph understands that revenge is not served uh by the people of god they allow god to do it just recently we had an adventist who was um the youngest i think one of the youngest people ever put to death in a federal um criminal justice system after a crime he committed when he was 18 and i think he was only like 40 years old kim kardashian tried to come to his rescue and i don't often quote or refer to anything kim kardashian said but i think she said it very well when she said putting this person to death could never bring back the people who died then and i'm not saying i'm not for or against what happened in terms of a legal standpoint but i will say that in your own heart you ca if you hold that the other person someone must be destroyed for all things to be made even sometimes what happens is there's a hollowness that happens when you try to play take the place of god and joseph was wise enough not to want to take the place of god says listen am i in the place of god genesis 15 verse 20 says but as for you ye thought evil against me but god meant it unto good to bring to pass as it is this day to save much people alive verse 21 now therefore fear ye not i will nourish you and your little ones and he comforted them and spake kindly unto them joseph says no in fact i don't want revenge what i want to do is take better care of you joseph says i'm not going to do harm to you because of what you did to me joseph says instead i'm going to make sure your children are taken care of joseph was able to live a life free from the weight of all the trauma he experienced because joseph let go he understood the power of letting go of forgiving his brothers and accepting what god did because of all of that harm god used joseph and he wouldn't joseph would not have been who he was as a man if you're not gone through those difficult times one of the people who taught a lot about forgiveness is dr martin luther king jr who said we must we must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive he who is the devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love there is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us when we discover this we are less prone to hate our enemies and this was the mantra the philosophy even of the civil rights movement that dr king was lead of not like much of what goes on today between the different groups and sides and all of the political wranglings in the world today not many are looking for a way to love and even bless those who might be considered their enemies so the first lesson around forgiveness comes from um mahatma gandhi and it says forgiveness takes strength remember this is a man who brought the british to their knees non-violently he says the weak can never forgive forgiveness is the attribute of the strong you have to be able to forgive your enemies if you're going to ever be successful in moving the world forward or making things better the sabbath school lesson from the last quarter of 2018 the teacher's comment says this forgiveness involves a conscious choice to give up feelings of resentment toward another person and consequently it also removes any right to seek revenge for what he or she has done forgiveness does not require you to be the guilty party or imply that the other person deserves forgiveness rather forgiveness roots out anger and bitterness from our own lives helps heal wounds and builds a basis for restoring relationships forgiveness does not mean excusing wrong behavior or removing any consequences that might result from the behavior true forgiveness recognizes the seriousness of the offense but chooses a path of healing god forgave humans even though we were undeserving of his forgiveness but divine forgiveness did not undermine the seriousness of sin or remove all the consequences of sin indeed jesus took the ultimate consequence of sin suffering death on our behalf forgiveness says that i'm going to allow god to deal with it forgiveness says i recognize how serious the offense is but forgiveness says i am not going to allow what was done to me to make me a slave to someone else ellen white says it like this in the testimony she says the real greatness and nobility of the man is measured by the power of the feelings that he subdues not by the power of the feelings that subdue him the strongest man is he who while sensitive to abuse will yet restrain passion and forgive his enemies such men are true heroes in matthew 18 and verse 21 then came peter to him and said lord how oft shall my brother sin against me and i forgive him till seven times verse 22 jesus said unto him i say not unto thee until seven times but until seventy times seven to truly forgive as we're gonna talk about is a consistent thing it doesn't mean that you allow people to keep walking all over you but it means that with even with repetitive injury you'd refuse to hold on to anger and malice and the desire for revenge why is that so important well one of the reasons is our second point forgiveness is good for health um and you know the study show it creates better relationships in fact the reason many relationships don't work i mean romantic relationships is because people come into the new romantic relationship still mad at the person from the old one and they treat the person in the new relationship as if they wronged them because that's the person standing in front of them but you won't have good relationships if you can't forgive of course it helps your mental health it decreases anxiety stress and hostility lowers blood pressure as we'll see in a second uh gives you less depressive system depression symptoms builds and boosts the immune system to be forgiving helps your immune system we'll talk about why that is in a second especially in a time of a pandemic when you want your immune system working as a at full throttle improved heart health and improved self-esteem so there's a study that was done um in this in the journal of health psychology research looked at 148 young adults what it showed of course is that those at high stress levels had more health problems we know health and stress go together but a study also indicated that in cases where people showed forgiveness of both themselves and others the connection between stress and mental illness practically disappeared that's how important it is well what are some other health things that matter here while being hurt and disappointed it carries a burden it literally carries a burden a weight sits emotionally on the individual who has been hurt and cannot let go of it chronic anger puts an individual into a mode of fight or flight that is the the the called allostasis a fight or flight mode resulting in numerous changes in heart rate blood pressure and the immune system so this is also called allostatic load so what happens is if you are constantly angry if there's someone you're so mad at an ex-husband a parent uh whatever the care a child whatever it is and you stay super angry at that person it is like every day you're being chased by a dog like every day you are in a fight-or-flight mode so your heart rate never comes down because that's what has to happen for you to run from a dog you got to lift your heart rate your blood pressure stays up because when you're in a fight or flight mode blood has to get to your brain so you can think as clearly as possible the pupils constrict our blood is shunted away from the big big muscles sorry from the digestive tract to the big muscles um and of course the immune system gets lower priority so when you're in a constant state of fight-or-flight your immune system does not work as well these changes increase the risk for conditions like depression heart disease and diabetes how when cortisol is released in large amounts it blocks um the uh in pro-inflammatory cells of the immune system but when cortisol is always available eventually resistance to the cortisol develops just like people become insulin resistant and eventually there's inflammation that happens now i've been saying this since the beginning of this pandemic coronavirus is an inflammatory disease so if you can't forgive and you carry this burden and you have these high levels of cortisol to the point where because of your stress of not being of not forgiving and of being angry and so now your immune system eventually becomes resistant to the cortisol so the inflammatory components of your immune system now run wild and you become hyper inflamed if you get coronavirus in that condition because you're stressed because you haven't forgiven your cortisol levels stay high you're actually probably more likely to get sick or or get very sick from the coronavirus especially if you're a younger person who shouldn't get sick so when they say listen this young healthy person we have no medical problems got sick and got super sick going up in the icu or even died from coronavirus it would be curious to ask how many of those people were in a hyperinflammatory state because of trauma because of anger because of mental health and emotional issues that were never resolved forgiveness can help to mitigate those stress levels like we said increases the increase in cortisol levels causes inflammation in the immune system but it does something else it decreases activity in the prefrontal cortex increases activity in the limbic system we've talked about this in some of the other messages we've been doing since the pandemic started but the prefrontal cortex is the most holy part of the brain if your body is a temple the most holy place is the frontal lobe the prefrontal cortex this is where we reason that's why isaiah 1 and verse 18 says come let us reason together though your sins be a scarlet they shall be as white as snow if you cannot reason you cannot fully accept salvation this is why the devil wants you intoxicated because when you're intoxicated you don't reason well you block the release of a chemical called gaba we're gonna do a message on gaba in the next few weeks um you blocked the release of gaba and so you are uncontrolled you're disinhibited here's what you've got to get if you do not forgive the studies show that you decrease activity in the part of your brain that is the equivalent to the most holy place in the sanctuary your body is a sanctuary or a temple you want that part of your brain to be sharp and clean this is why the bible says be sober be sober be vigilant because that's the part of the brain that reasons and keeps you alert and awake if you are not forgiving people you're allowing your cortisol levels to say hi you actually don't have the same um a functionality of the prefrontal cortex and remember in one of the messages we talked about this is where either the seal of god will go or the mark of the beast will go in your forehead in your prefrontal cortex could it be that there will be those who are so angry so unable to forgive that in fact they don't receive the seal of god we'll talk more about the spiritual realm of kids but also it increases activity in the limbic system the limbic system is his emotions and memory um it's also in part where the reward pathways of the brain sit so it could be that when you're more angry and you won't forgive folk who have harmed you when you won't let go of things the reward pathway is that is also where addiction happens could be that some of us eat more than we want to drink more alcohol smoke more cigarettes mess with drugs or other addictive behavior it could be because we're self-medicating an overactive limbic system because we have not emotionally healed from trauma we've not emotionally healed because we have not decided to forgive that person or persons who harmed us this is the danger as an african-american this is the danger of just being mad at the system all the time always angry at what was done and always recounting the history not that it shouldn't be recounted but unless you can manage to let go and forgive even those that have done you wrong you'll never fully heal in the mind and that might have eternal consequences why because the third point is this forgiveness is key to experiencing god's love matthew 6 and verse 12 says and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors for if you forgive men their trespass trespasses your heavenly father will also forgive you but if you give if you forgive not mend their trespasses neither will your father forgive your trespasses i want to read that in the amplified version of the bible same verse and forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors now look what the amplified bible says letting go of both the wrong and the resentment verse 14 for if you forgive others their trespasses the amplified adds this they're reckless and willful sins your heavenly father will also forgive you but if you do not forgive others nurturing your hurt and anger with the result that it interferes with your relationship with god then your father will not forgive your trespasses did you get that what jesus is really saying is listen you've got to forgive because if you don't forgive it will block your ability to develop a proper relationship with the god of heaven luke 7 verse 47 continues the theme of why being able to forgive is important to experiencing god's love luke 7 and verse 47 says wherefore i say unto thee her sins which are many are forgiven for she loved much but to whom little is forgiven the same loveth little wherefore i say unto thee her sins which are many are forgiven for she loved much why are her sins which were many forgiven because she loved much but to whom little is forgiven the same loveth little shows like an inverse relationship here um if you if you if you love the more you love him the more you'll be forgiven and you've got to forgive others in order to be forgiven that's what the bible says here in um in matthew 6 you've got to forgive others in order to be forgiven but as you forgive others you develop a greater relationship of love with your father and he forgives you even more ellen white says it like this she says we are not forgiven because we forgive but as we forgive the ground of all forgiveness is found in the unmerited love of god but by our attitude toward others we show whether we have made that love our own wherefore christ says with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged and with what measure ye meet it shall be measured to you again matthew 7 and verse 2. and so the spirit of prophecy tells us that as we forgive others we are forgiven your ability to forgive measures heavily on your relationship with him and let me let me point back to this i believe this connects back to the seal of god and the mark of the beast not in that this is it but in the ability to think clearly to choose because one of the things the spirit of prophecy said is that those who do not accept god's forgiveness they're being prepared for the mark of the beast matthew 18 gives the great story of the of this king who had a man who owed him um you know what equivalent of probably a million dollars let's just say and a man and his family was gonna be destroyed and he begged to this king for mercy and the king forget the man fell down and worshipped the king and begged him for mercy the king had mercy on him and told him you know you're fine go go away when this guy found someone who owed him money a small amount of money maybe like 50 bucks 50 dollars he wanted to um harm the guy even when a guy begged him just as he begged the king he threw the man into prison the man's friends went and told the king all that had happened and i'm going to read verse 32-35 it says then his lord after he had called him said unto him o thy wicked servant i forgave thee all that debt because thou desirest me shouldn't you shouldn't you not uh uh also have compassion on your fellow servant even as i had pity on you and his lord was wrought he was angry and delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay all that was due unto him verse 35 says so likewise shall my heavenly father do also unto you if you form your hearts forgive not everyone his brother their trespasses you got to get this you see what we've done to god specifically to christ being sinners by violating his law man's inhumanity to man all the the sneaking and sinning we did all our lives all the hidden uh envy and the hidden um uh the hidden dirt that we have in our lives the skeletons in our closets the sins we everyone knows about and the sins no one know about every one of them is we have grieved god we have we've injured god with every single one of them and yet with all that we've done causing christ himself to come to earth and die on calvary's cross so that we would have a second chance he is willing to forgive us and my bible teaches that god does not just forgive you of his sins he remember your sin no more he would go all that way to forgive you how then do you not go all that way to forgive those who have hurt you if god is willing and the wages of sin is death the god of the universe can cause every one of us who have sinned to die tomorrow tonight if he's willing to forgive you if the blood of calvary was shed and when applied is faithful in forgiving and washing away sin how do we not forgive that family member who did us wrong the next husband an ex-wife that did us dirty the parent who neglected us or abused us again we're not saying that it makes what they did right we're not saying that you allowed them to keep doing it but if you're ever going to be whole and full you got to let go jesus on the cross as our scripture reading showed even as they were brutalizing him tormenting him mocking him he said father forgive them for they know not what they do the spirit of prophecy says this in letter 33 388 comfort your heart my brother by believing that the lord wants you to be saved and that you are his child do not think that your mind must be in a certain state of feeling or else you are not accepted of god your faith must rely not on feeling but on the promises of god walk by faith in a thus say of the lord rest your case with the lord and believe in his word believe oh believe the word of the lord and walk by faith not by sight consecrate yourself anew to god be loyal and true to a thus say of the lord and stand fast in the liberty wherewith christ doth make you free it is imperative that we understand that we are liberated when we are forgiven by christ that liberty is the power and the strength that allows us to forgive other folk james 5 16 says confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that ye may be healed the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much the fourth point is found here it is to request and to confess yeah we've got to be willing to forgive others but sometimes we've got to go and tell folk we're sorry and ask for forgiveness eloise says it like this in christ object lesson page 144 one of christ's last commands to his disciples was love one another as i have loved you john 13 34 do we obey this command or are we indulging sharp unchrist-like traits of character if we have in any way grieved or wounded others it is our duty to confess our faults and seek for reconciliation this is an essential preparation that we may come before god in faith to ask his blessings in other words christ commands that we love one another but he says listen if you want to ask blessing from me you've got to be reconciled some of us we pray and our prayers are not answered they bounce off the ceiling because we are holding a grudge against someone else or we have done someone wrong and are not willing to go and say i am sorry but the fifth point is this one you must be willing to forgive yourself and i don't mean you can forgive yourself and save yourself but i mean you cannot hold on to whatever it is that you've done philippians 3 13 says brothers and sisters i do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it but one thing i do forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead paul says i press towards the mark the high calling that is in christ jesus let me tell you something some of us are our own worst enemies we've had we've made our mistakes in life we've we've fallen down my bible teaches me that a just man falls seven times and rises every time now let me ask you this that is a just man right and my bible says that the just shall live by faith and that righteousness is by faith to be just is to be righteous so the just thought man falls seven times arises every time he's not just because he fell clearly the fall is what you don't want to do he's just because he gets up every time now here's the question would he get up every time if he was concentrating on remembering the fall if all he thought about was how he fell the mechanics of how he felt the reasons of why he felt the humiliation in falling if all he thought about was the fall he would never get up and there are many christians who are who and i remember there was there was an elder in a church i went to once a phenomenal christian man who kept the church in order but he couldn't forgive himself for some of the messes he had made some of the failures and mistakes he had made that had affected his children he could not forgive himself and let me tell you something satan loves that because then he can hogtie you because what we don't realize is there is none righteous no not one we have all sinned and come short of the glory of god some of our sins are much more visible than other folks in but we have all failed perfection so let me tell you something i don't i know you may have made some mistakes in your past but you've got to forgive yourself if not forgiving others can cause all of the psychological emotional and physical damage that we talked about imagine what happens when all you do is dwell in the past all you do is live behind you constantly looking in the rearview mirror and not seeing the bright road in front of you that god has paved i mean you will not be prepared for the time of trouble you will not be um able to stand the last day persecutions you will not be able to avoid deception because if you are thinking that you are not worth uh what christ is offering satan will deceive you into taking what he is throwing away we must uh look past our past failures our mistakes this let me tell you something the devil you know what the bible calls him he's the satan means he's an acc he's an accuser and i'm telling you even for myself there are folk who want to reach out to me to remind me of the messes i've once made they want to bring it up and and regurgitate it that is the work of satan satan wants you dwelling on your past failures satan wanted adam and eve to constantly think about how they fell satan wanted jacob to think of what he did to esau satan wanted joseph's brothers to come to him as we talked about in the beginning story and talked to joseph about not getting revenge satan is the one who wanted who who even when jesus would have forgiven judas it was satan who convinced judas that he was beyond saving let me tell you something church you cannot go into the future that god has for you if you're living in the regret of the past forgive yourself and i don't mean forgive yourself in a theological way i mean do not hold yourself accountable for things you can no longer change if you truly believe that god can do the impossible he will make amends for where we have come short but you've got to forgive yourself because if you keep yourself bound up one you'll become a slave to somebody someone who you hurt will constantly use that thing against you leverage that thing against you at some point you got to say you know what if god has forgiven me i'm going to let go of this thing illinois says it like this in council for for the church page 353 she says the tempter stands by to accuse them as he stood by to resist joshua he points to their filthy garments their defective characters he presents their weakness and folly their sins of ingratitude their unlikeness to christ which has dishonored their redeemer talking about forgiving yourself now he endeavors to frighten the soul with the thought that their case is hopeless that the stain of their defilement will never be washed away he hopes to so destroy their faith that they will yield to his temptations turn from their allegiance to god and receive the mark of the beast counsel for the church 350 did you get that whether or not you can accept god's forgiveness is attached to whether or not satan will press upon you to receive the mark of the beast if you cannot let go of what's happened if you cannot trust the blood of jesus christ has done its job and i say this all the time when i preach a lot of us have more faith in tide and in clorox than we do in the blood of jesus we will put tide and clorox in the washing machine we will walk away and we don't even we never wonder if the tide of the clorox is going to wash the clothes clean but some of us spend our whole lives questioning whether or not the blood was able to wash away the stain of sin from off of our lives so forgive and be made free louis b smead said it like this to forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you to forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you and let me tell you something church this message is a message for me you know i grew up one of the persons i could have been very angry with was at one point was my biological father but somewhere in there my mother's attitude toward him allowed me to forgive him accept him the best i could and it's ironic my myself and my younger brother david we were probably the last two by his side david for sure was when he died a man who left us neglected us and basically wanted nothing to do with us and i was able to sit there and in those last times i met with my father share with him anew the gospel of jesus christ so if i had held on to my anger i could not have shared with him august the gospel before his death i'm telling you church don't allow the devil to bind you by what has been done to you don't allow him to bind you by the mistakes you have made instead i i would pray that each of us would make a decision to accept the liberty that comes in jesus christ the peace that passes all understanding that comes from knowing jesus as our savior you're gonna need that peace to make it through the time of trouble you're gonna need that peace to ward off the temptations of the devil you're gonna need that peace to receive the seal of god and not the mark of the beast you're gonna need that peace so that god's word is always clear in giving its instruction let us pray father god we thank you for this opportunity lord to study your word we thank you for the power of letting go the power of forgiveness to heal us mind body and soul father god someone who listened to this message is still angry at themselves still angry at an ex-husband ex-wife a parent a child a neighbor a family member an old boss they are still furious at what was done to them some of us lord are mad at what whole groups of people did to our people father god teach us from your word just as christ hung on the cross and said father forgive them we ought to be able to forgive even the vilest of our enemies for lord we were your enemy and you forgave us this is our prayer in jesus's precious and holy name amen hi my name is daryl i hope you enjoy the program today we'd like to offer you a free gift it's a book called path to peace do you have stress in your life do you have guilt in your life do you know someone that does well then why not order this free book at the peace and enjoy it i'm sure you'll be blessed by it thank you

Channel: Three Angels SDA Church

Views: 1,920

Rating: 4.8518519 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: A-QKM-VeX9M

Length: 39min 39sec (2379 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 23 2020