Love Heals the Past | Jud Wilhite | Central Church

[Music] all right good to have you guys with us today thank you so much for being here big shout out to each of our central family locations thank you guys for joining us if you're watching online it's great to have you and if you're joining us in our partnership with god behind bars and different prison facilities around the country thank you guys for being with us we love you you're not forgotten you're part of our family as well well it's been a interesting week it's been an interesting week stressful week anybody had a stressful week yeah stressful week at one point i finally just turned to lori and i said hey um i said can we just watch a movie together like just just let's watch a movie i don't even care what it is as long as it's not too serious right as long as it's you know like funny and not too stressful and so she goes yeah yeah so she picked a movie that i had never seen that apparently everybody on earth has seen it's this teenage rom-com called she's all that anybody everybody everybody's seen that am i really the only person see some people haven't seen it i had not seen this so she's like you got to see this so we're watching this movie and at one point there's this moment in the movie where it's like in you know it's a high school teenage rom-com thing and lori goes you know my high school was nothing like that and i'm like exactly my high school was nothing like that and she looks at me and she goes what are you talking you don't even remember high school you were so strung out partying doing your whole thing you don't even know you didn't do it she goes in fact i did everything right in high school i made great grades in high school i went to all the sporting events all the extracurricular things i was super involved and when my high school union rolls around i'm noted as a missing person and she goes you jud will height you didn't go to a single extracurricular activity you were a total uh mess your vice principal came up to you at graduation and said she never thought she would see you graduate in a snarky way and for some crazy reason they actually named you to the hall of fame of your high school and your photo hangs on the wall we're laughing and she goes with god all things are possible and all things is what that's about all things i was a mess in high school y'all it was one of the loneliest darkest times in my entire life i'm still a nerd but i was even more of a nerd if that was possible in high school i was not popular i was not connected i was a mess but when i was 17 years old about halfway through my senior year i got down on my knees for the first time in my life and asked god to move and work in my life and i surrendered my life to jesus christ i asked god to help me i didn't even know what all that meant but i asked god to move and work in my life and from that moment on my life took a different turn god gave me purpose where i had lost my purpose god gave me a sense of meaning where i had lost my sense of meaning god restored things into my life that i had lost along the way and god and the people of the church community helped save my life and i look back now and i realize virtually every good thing that came in my life came as a result of that moment when i surrendered my life to christ and i received what the bible calls grace grace just means the undeserved favor and forgiveness of god the undeserved favor and forgiveness of god and i've received that grace and you as a person of faith as a follower of jesus you have received that grace in your life as well and i want to talk to you about the power of that grace i don't want to talk politics i don't want to talk the election i don't want to talk who's president i don't want to talk legal challenges i don't want to talk counting and counting and counting and counting and counting i want to talk to you about something that is bigger than politics today i want to talk to you about something that is bigger than our country it's bigger than our own story it's the good news of god and his grace in jesus christ it's called the gospel and that's what we're going to look at at celebrate today because it's what can change our lives and listen it's the gospel that calls people of faith together from all different political persuasions from all different backgrounds it's the gospel that unites us and reminds us no matter where you're from no matter your race no matter your past experiences no matter your failures no matter your junk no matter your bank account we all come together at the foot of the cross and we're all valued and honored as children of god and we come you will never lock eyes with somebody that doesn't matter to god so we come together here and the ground is level at the foot of the cross [Applause] so we're here to worship and to focus and to remember what's most important we've been in this teaching series called love never fails and uh we've been looking at first corinthians chapter 13 to give us some insight into how we love and i just want to go back to first corinthians 13. we're gonna pick it up here in verse four we get to the red word i'll just ask you to say it out loud real loud with me if you're watching online just say it out at home online but here's what paul writes he says love is patient and kind love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude it does not demand its own way it is not irritable and it keeps no what record no record of being wronged now let's just leave that up for a minute because i gotta tell you this is pretty amazing it's beautiful you may have heard this before it gets right at weddings and everything awesome but this is really hard to do anybody feel me here on this like this is i mean when i look back over the last week day this morning i don't know that i can say i was necessarily patient and kind i have moments where you know i i was probably uh you know rude to a family member or i demand it my own way i've been irritable i think about covet how many times i've walked around the house or watched the news and said something i shouldn't have said or regret it or had to go back and apologize to my wife again because pastor judd left the building for a while you know like this is hard to do right this is not easy and i think the only way we can live in this kind of love is to remember that god loves us in jesus christ with this kind of love we can only love out of the love that we receive in fact because god loves you freely you can love others freely god is patient god is kind right god's love isn't jealous or boastful or proud or rude it doesn't demand its own way it is and this is the best part it keeps no record of being wronged that's the good news of god's grace today i want to talk to you about how we can live in that love right now and how we can share that kind of love with other people because it's anchored in the grace and love of god if we're going to do it i've just got a couple thoughts for you one is to let go of your guilt let go of your guilt i don't know what guilt looks like for you but i found some pictures of animal guilt that i thought was uh pretty funny this is a picture of a of a dog that's you can just this is like a look of shame isn't it look at this dog it's like you could tell my dog used to do this he's been into something he shouldn't have been into he's got sort of the shame look going on there but this next one i thought was uh was really funny um he got into the into the uh curtsby's honey here but i love how the dog won't even look at what's happened it's just total anybody have a dog my bulldog used to do this just turn her head and just it doesn't exist it never happened just deny it there's dog guilt but then there's there's cat guilt cat guilt looks very different i saw this picture um you know cat knocks the christmas tree down you cat lovers know this is true come on you know it they do all this stuff kick em back i regret nothing no problem you know so when it comes to like guilt and shame we can we can deny it we can act like it doesn't exist we can uh we can move forward you know with no regret or we can let it sort of weigh us down there's a lot of ways to deal with it but we see a pretty powerful picture of how we can deal with guilt and shame when we look to the bible in luke chapter seven there's this kind of amazing story about jesus having dinner with a guy named simon now simon was a pharisee which means he was kind of part of the religious elite of the time he was um a very kind of self-righteous person he had a lot of things together very focused on externals and living a certain way living a righteous life so he had a lot of that kind of dialed in and he invites jesus to come over for dinner which you know that'd be cool like jesus come hang out let's have dinner right but the religious leaders are trying to set him up and it becomes obvious from the very beginning because um when jesus gets to simon's house when he goes in um typically in that culture the host would greet you with a kiss and then would offer water to wash your feet and then an oil in other words there were all these things that they would do that were considered being kind it's just like if you had somebody over to your house now you come in you say can i get you you know something to drink please have a seat whatever like this was how you welcomed somebody into the home jesus shows up at simon's house there's no kiss there's no water for the feet there's nothing so from the very moment he enters this space he's insulted and it's so such a big deal in the middle eastern culture that this would have been glaring but there's a woman we don't exactly know how she got there who's in the room who sees this happen who goes over to where jesus is and she is so moved by what god has done in her life that she falls to her knees he's reclining at a table and she begins to wash his feet which is what the host should have done except she does it with her tears and then she begins to dry those tears on his feet with her hair which was shocking at a lot of levels now this woman the bible says she was a woman of the city we don't know exactly what that means but a lot of commentators suggest it means she was probably a prostitute for sure she was a sinful woman because that's kind of what she's called in the story a sinful woman so here she is she's got a pass she's got some stuff now she comes over she begins to cry she allows her tears to fall on jesus feet and then she lets her hair down to dry his feet which would have been a shocking thing in that part of the world do you know jewish rabbis and teachers in that part of the world said that if a woman let her hair down it was grounds for divorce she let her hair down in public it was grounds for divorce they did you didn't just let your hair down right a lot of times in that culture um if a couple got married on the wedding night the husband would see the very first time his wife let her hair down and so it would have been shocking for this woman at this dinner gathering to walk up here's jesus here's simon you know these religious leaders are sitting there she starts to cry she starts to wash his feet and dry them with her hair which is almost like this incredible pledge of loyalty and love to jesus for all that god had done for her in her life then she takes this alabaster jar it's like a little uh decorative thing they would wear around their neck and uh it had a little bulb and it had a skinny slim like tube that came off the bulb and they would put a special perfume in these um ornaments and the whole idea was you could turn it upside down and it wouldn't pour out but you could still smell the smells coming from this so just to kind of put it in context this is before running water y'all this is before like deodorant come on somebody this is this is we got it smelled like it too you know what i'm saying it would have smelled like it so what a woman did is she would wear these alabaster elements and um it would create a whole scent around her that was beautiful and that was attractive and these things cost a lot of money they were very expensive so she takes this and the bible tells us that she pours it over jesus feet which would have mean she would have had to have broken it and poured it out over his feet it would have cost her a fortune to do it but she's making right all the things that the host should have done when jesus showed up and she's making a statement that her loyalty and love is pledged to him awesome right but simon the religious leader this is what he says in luke chapter 7 verse 39 when he sees all this happen says when the pharisee who had invited him saw this he said to himself if this man jesus were a prophet he would know what kind of woman is touching him she's a sinner right so these are the things going through his mind interesting the next verse tells us that that jesus actually knows his thoughts what simon is thinking in this moment but this is sort of in in the culture at this time and in the culture at our time there's often this sort of perception that there are some people that you can't touch there's some people you can't be around there's some people you can't be uh connected to because they're sinners and particularly religious people you and i we're the worst at this right we get god comes into our life we receive grace and mercy and forgiveness from god and if we're not careful we start to get our life pulled together and we forget where we came from and then we start to get self-righteous and look down at everybody else and think they should be where we are when it wasn't that long ago that we were over there where they are we're all just people on the journey y'all but this woman he says she's a sinner now i want you to notice she felt like she could come up to jesus and do this jesus was available to her he was compassionate and jesus never gets onto her for her coming and showing this incredible display of like love and loyalty uh he affirms it in that moment because he's compassionate because you can bring your drama and your junk and your dysfunction and your brokenness to jesus and he will welcome it in fact think about this jesus is at the house of a pharisee named simon well if you read through the new testament there are different points where jesus calls the pharisees hypocrites but he's still willing to go have dinner with a hypocrite can i just tell you we could learn something today in our culture right now from jesus hospitality towards people that even he would say we're hypocrites he's still willing to sit down and eat with them and talk with them do you know you can disagree with somebody without hating them it's okay i mean part of being a civil society is being a society where we can disagree and have disagreements and still learn to overcome those disagreements that's what god's love can begin to do in our hearts and in our lives in fact sometimes people say well you know i will go to church but but i don't i can't go to church because the church is full of hypocrites you know what i always say always say absolutely and there's always room for one more so come on and join us none of us are perfect we're all on the journey but here's jesus sitting down with a guy that he knows is going to be antagonistic toward him in that moment and he sits down with him anyway and so simon's bothered by all this happening so jesus turns to him and he says let me tell you a story and i just gotta just you know in the gospels when jesus turns to you and says let me tell you a story especially in the in the original language there's actually kind of an implication here that like this is going to get rough he's not messing around he says there's two men that have been loaned money by another guy one of them was loaned a year and a half's salary worth of money that was what the equivalent would be and the other was was owned basically almost two months worth of income in money but neither of them could repay the person that gave them the money and so they were both in that's in the same situation here's what jesus says luke chapter 7 verse 42 he says neither of them could help me on this word see that repay they couldn't repay so he kindly forgave them both canceling their debts what who do you suppose loved him more after that now here's jesus he's reclining with this high highly respected religious leader they're in this incredible moment but this woman this woman has come over and done this highly embarrassing way out of the norm kind of thing it's making everybody uncomfortable and simon the pharisee especially and so jesus says look there's here's there's two people and there's an implication here and that is simon there's more than one sinner in the room right there's more than one person who has a debt they can't repay simon your debt may be less than her debt right two people were owed money maybe maybe your past isn't what her past is maybe your mistakes aren't what her mistakes are but don't miss this simon neither one of them could repay the debt so in that sense you're both in the same situation right you're both in the same situation you couldn't repay so he says who do you suppose loved him more after that in fact one of the ways i think we could just sort of think about sin could be reflected in this next slide that we're going to bring up here just a way to think about god's goodness and his grace and sin sin is like our relational debt with god the sin just means to miss god's mark and the bible says we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of god uh you know some a little bit some a lot uh me a whole whole whole lot right i have a relational debt but sometimes we think that when we come to god if we place our faith in our trust in jesus christ we receive his grace um that we we kind of are been empowered to reorganize our life and go back to sort of earning our way back with god it's sort of like seeing sin and grace like chapter 11 bankruptcy you know chapter 11 bankruptcy i hope none of us ever have to do it in our organizations or where we work but chapter 11 it's not really total bankruptcy right it's like reorganization it's like you get to hit pause with all your creditors you get to try and reorganize things so that you can somehow pull out of it and move forward in the future and a lot of people sort of see sin and our relational debt with god along sort of chapter 11 lines like like just give me some time god and i'll work it back i'll make it right i'll give enough money away i'll go to church enough i'll carry a big enough bible on the weekend i will make it right like we declared chapter 11 with god but i want to suggest that we all actually declared chapter seven see chapter seven bankruptcy is a total loss right chapter 7 bankruptcy means there's no reorganization that's going to fix it there's no amount of effort that's going to make this right there's no way to pay these debts back in chapter 7 everything gets sold off all the people that invested lose pretty much all of it or they get pennies back on the dollar it's a total loss when we come to god don't miss this we are in a situation of chapter 7 bankruptcy not chapter 11 whether we were religious before or not whether we lived a good life or not whether we had it all worked out or not whether we were republican or democrat or independent we declare chapter 7 bankruptcy with god because we can't pay the debt back and the good news is jesus came and lived and died and rose again to pay that debt back for us that's what grace is that's what the gospel is none of us could pay it back but he paid it back none of us could make it right but god made it right through jesus his undeserved unmerited favor and forgiveness listen god's grace in jesus is the biggest story no matter what else is happening in the world god's grace is bigger than what you did god's grace is bigger than what you said god's grace is bigger than your mistake his grace is bigger than your failure his grace is bigger than what you might have lost god's grace is bigger than how those people hurt you god's grace is bigger than all of the plans that you had that didn't work out god's grace is bigger than the forces that are against you god's grace is bigger than the election god's grace is bigger than your fears god's grace is bigger than our differences his grace is bigger than your grievances it's bigger than what keeps us apart it's bigger than what makes us mad it's bigger than what makes us ache it's bigger than what we think we need see no matter how your life is right now god's grace is bigger and in him man in him you're forgiven and you're loved and you're free it's time to walk in that freedom and forgiveness love keeps no record of wrongs and you're not going to find this kind of grace floating around on facebook or instagram or twitter or tick tock you're not going to find it from your favorite political party or candidate you won't find it from your favorite sports team or your favorite products from your banker or your credit card provider you're not going to find the grace that you need anywhere except from jesus and because god loves you freely and pours that grace out into your life you can love others freely from that place let go of the guilt and the shame let go of the chapter 11 bankruptcy like you can somehow work it all off and make it better now and realize we all declared chapter seven everything we have is because of the grace of god every air we get to breathe that's the grace of god i love that old saying i think dave ramsey made it popular on the radio years ago but i still use it people say how you doing and i say it with all sincerity better than i deserve i'm doing better than i deserve because of god's grace every day here's another thought to love others out of the love god pours into us and that is to let go of your grudge to let go of your grudge i saw this little uh slip of paper about kind of trying to navigate a relationship when you know there's some tension like in a marriage it says official warning danger your spouse is in a potentially hazardous mood today due to and then it says check all that apply something you did something you didn't do something you did in a dream hello that's actually happened to me before something outside of your control or all of the above please be cautious and keep your distance and or purchase gifts then it says further instructions one leave me alone two pick up tacos for dinner three give me the tacos and back away well that's one way to deal with a grudge but i want to suggest to you today that jesus models for us how we can deal with our grudges and that when we first realize the only way to love others with that kind of love is to receive god's love and grace in our lives that empowers us to let go of the grudge towards other people in fact luke chapter 7 beginning in verse 47 this is what jesus says in the midst of this story to simon he says i tell you her sins and they are many which by the way i kind of love this moment we'll see what else jesus says but jesus doesn't like sugar coating the truth it's not like you know she's lived a great life we'll just sort of power of positive thinking through this thing and we'll never acknowledge he's like her sins oh yeah there's a lot there's many have been forgiven past tense they've already been forgiven so she has shown me much what love what about you what about me when i think of all that god has forgiven me for of his goodness and mercy to me and all of the mess that i am in my life i'm just so grateful and when i remember that it empowers me to love others but he says a person who is forgiven little shows only little love then jesus said to the woman your sins are forgiven you can't um and so in this sentence right here i think jesus because he's already says you've been forgiven isn't so much forgiving her in that moment as acknowledging that she had already been forgiven it had already happened and he doesn't whitewash over her sins her sins were many but she had been forgiven because of her faith and her trust in jesus and friends you can you can forgive you can forgive and forgiven people are forgiving people when you receive that goodness and grace from god that's what empowers you to forgive others i want to tell you today you cannot hold a grudge in one hand and hold grace firmly in the other hand when you remember what god has done for you that changes the grace you show to others and when you look at what god's grace really means you know we often talk about the fact that jesus forgives us through his death on the cross but the bible actually gives us several concrete images of things we've been saved from and things we've been saved to and i think it's very helpful just to talk through this quickly to realize from a biblical standpoint what jesus accomplished for us through his death on the cross first of all the bible says we've moved from death to life when you place your faith and trust in jesus which is just a simple act of faith where you say i believe jesus lived died rose again for me i'm going to trust him in my life i'm going to surrender to him in my life the bible says you're something spiritual and profound is actually happening in that moment whether you feel it or not you're moving from spiritual death to spiritual life awesome incredible thing that god is doing through his grace let's go to the next one the bible also says we go from being orphans not knowing who our heavenly father is not knowing our meaning our purpose not feeling grounded in that to realizing that we are adopted by god we're considered god's kids and the bible says we're heirs of all that god has for us as his kids so we're not only adopted we also inherit heaven and the hope of heaven and all the things that god has for us so you move from death to life you move from being orphaned to adopted you move from being a stranger the bible says we're aliens and strangers in this world and in many ways we experience that and live that in our lives but we move to being a citizen of heaven now we are a citizen of god's kingdom and what he's doing we move from the the realm of darkness to the realm of light these are other images that the bible talks about we once were in darkness we once were lost but now we have god's light to guide us and to direct us in our life and then finally we move from what we might call peasantry to royalty we move from um this situation where maybe we were a nobody but as romans actually says in the message translation god loves to take nobodies and turn them in to somebody's that's what he loves to do and so when you place your faith and trust in christ when i place my faith and trust in christ i move from death to life from being an orphan to being adopted by god from being a stranger to being a citizen of heaven from the realm of darkness to the realm of light from peasantry to royalty you are now a daughter of the king you are a daughter of jesus listen the most important thing right now is not who is the president but who is your king right who is the superior one in your life because you are a son and a daughter of the king of kings and the lord of lords and from a biblical standpoint this is what grace means this is what i get to live my life in life i get to live as one loved and adopted by god i get to live as a citizen of heaven i get to live and get in in god's kingdom of light i get to live as royalty today and even more in the future as i follow him that's god's grace for us in our lives i love the story i love the story max liquido tells about this mom in brazil named maria and her daughter christina was growing into a young teenager and wanted to leave and wanted to experience the world and get out and all the things the world had to offer they lived in this little village and they fought a lot in those years as moms and daughters sometimes can do and one day maria woke up and she was shocked to find that her daughter christina had packed her things and run away and gone and she knew probably where she went that she she probably got on the train and went to rio de janeiro to the big city and so she prayed and she waited as the days began to turn into weeks and in the midst of that she knew her daughter was was young her daughter was beautiful but she hadn't experienced a lot of life and she didn't have any money and she knew a young girl who's attractive on the streets of rio de janeiro without money and too much pride to come back home is a recipe for getting into some really tough things and so at one point out of desperation maria did what she the only thing she knew to do really she she took the money that she had she went to a photo booth she sat down and she took as many pictures of herself as she could afford in this photo booth and took all these little black and white photos got on the train went to rio de janeiro and began to go to all the clubs and all the place the prostitutes hung out all the place the street walkers were she went to the hotels everywhere she could find she would go into the bathroom uh go to the bulletin board she would go to certain phones around the area and she would put a picture of herself in all of these places just tack it up or tape it up or stick it between the frame and the mirror and she had wrote the same message to her daughter on the back of every one of those pictures hundreds of them she did everywhere ever she went everywhere she could go until she ran out of time ran out of money and then she went back home days turned to weeks weeks turned to months she prayed she cried she worried for her little girl one day christina is coming down the stairs of a hotel and she turns the corner and stuck in the corner of this little mirror is a black and white picture that looks familiar and she stops i mean at this point there's no twinkle left in her eye there's no more adventure left she slept on a thousand beds she'd rather forget in fact she really wanted to just go back to her little village in brazil and sleep on her palate again but she felt like she had done too much and gone too far and there's no way she could go home there's no way she could go back and she stopped and she looked at that mirror and she looked at that little picture of her mom and she reached up and took it down and turned it over and all it said was this whatever you've done whatever you've become it doesn't matter please come home and she did and max lucado tells that story of christina going back home into the arms of her mom who loved her and starting over after all that she had been through you know friends i think that's what god and his grace wants to say to all of us today it doesn't matter what you've done or what you've become just come home just come home to him god loves you so much jesus came and lived and died and rose again for you he loves you so much that he'll restore you from death to life he'll restore you to light and to uh to being a citizen of heaven and to adoption as god's kid all of that through faith he loves you so much and when you begin to experience that grace and that love it will open your heart up to love others and to love yourself again as god loves you maybe you're here today and maybe you've never crossed that line of faith and i'd just love to give you an opportunity to reach out to god and trust him in your heart and in your life so with all of you please bow your heads and close your eyes if you'd like to become a follower of jesus today you can begin that journey by repeating a simple prayer after me say dear god i thank you for loving me thank you for sending jesus into the world i believe he died on the cross for my sins i believe he rose again forgive me for my sins give me the gift of eternal life help me face the challenges that i'm up against god i surrender my life to you in christ's name friends with every head bowed and every eye closed if that's your prayer today if it's your commitment i want to ask you wherever you're at just to slip your hand in the air just to acknowledge you're going to follow god and you're going to trust him in your life just slip your hand in the air reach out to him today he loves you he forgives you in jesus christ he will restore you and give you purpose and meaning today could be one of the most significant days in your whole life just reach out to him receive his grace god we thank you for your love we thank you for the kindness that you show us every day and we give you thanks and praise as we follow you now in christ's name amen but let's put our hands together for those who made spiritual commitments in their life today if you made a spiritual commitment we'd love to give you a resource that will help you over the coming days and weeks as you grow in your faith as a follower of jesus it's a simple journal that we've created called how to follow jesus and it's free to you you just go to central.family on your mobile device or online if you just click the link i've decided to follow jesus we'll send this to you digitally and that can be a great resource for you today just guide you through the next couple weeks as you begin that journey of faith in your life well let's put our hands together now for our location pastors who are going to come and close out our experience well thank you pastor judd and thank you so much for joining us we're so glad that you're with us today at central and i want you to know whether you made that decision which is the best decision you could ever make and you're and you would like to get that how to follow jesus guide or you want to just take any of the next steps mentioned today that could be jumping in and being a part of our hope for kids initiative all of our next steps are located at that central dot family website so i highly encourage you to check it out and just so that you're aware here at our henderson location we do have in-person meetings right now saturday at 5 00 p.m sunday mornings at 10 a.m and 12 a.m and for these online experience where we're gathering together live we also have an 8 a.m on sunday mornings so share let your friends know let your family know we want to be a part of this together and as you're heading out in this week always remember hang on to what it says in romans 8 that if god is for us who can be against us keep showing up and we'll see you next time

Channel: Central Church

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Keywords: central church, central online, central live, drew bodine, it's okay to not be okay, pastor jud wilhite, jud wilhite, Sermons, online church, love, heals, the past, love heals the past, message, teaching only, neries, love never fails, election, biden, trump, covid-19, hope for kids, christmas at central

Id: cH8Vc40s4p0

Length: 37min 46sec (2266 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 07 2020