Totally Forgiving Ourselves by R.T. Kendall

a few years ago i received an email from somebody that i've never met i still have not met him here's what he said thank you for your book total forgiveness i appreciate the book but would you please please as soon as possible write a book that would help me to forgive myself that's what he said and i realized that over the years when i was at westminster i would get this question uh help me to forgive myself i know god forgives me but i can't forgive myself well the truth is when i got that email and when i reflect upon the kind of question i got i felt convicted and there was something that i knew i had to deal with before i could ever write a book on totally forgiving ourselves because i had a problem in that area i didn't want to admit it i almost lived in denial but the truth is there is something that has haunted me over the years and that is a failure to forgive myself over something that went on for a long time and i'm going to tell you exactly what it was uh when we first went to england i was invited to do research at oxford and the first day that i went in to see my supervisor he gave me advice that you wouldn't expect from an oxford dawn he said to me these years at oxford will go by quickly don't forget your children these years you won't get back don't forget your children but i did those three years at oxford i put everything first my thesis the bondlin library and all that i wanted to accomplish and uh i just vaguely remember my family in those three years and then all of a sudden i'm invited to preach at westminster chapel and before i know it they vote on me we agreed to stay and i'll never forget a few weeks after we were at westminster my son we call him tr he said daddy you said we were going back to america and we're still here and i couldn't look at him in the face 25 years later i was invited by the billy graham organization to do a film a 60-minute video that they were going to have for pastors and they asked questions like how do you prepare your sermons what is your adoption of the holy spirit what is it like for american pastorian church in london and then they said well that's 59 minutes we've got one minute to go uh how shall we use it oh tell us dr kendall tell us about your family and your role as a father i said stop stop don't film don't film because on this i have been a failure i put the church first thinking i was putting god first i put servant preparation first thinking i was putting god first i now believe if i had put my family first i would have preached just as well but i can't get those years back so ask me something else it turns out that's the only part they used they said pastors need this and i said that's fine i accept that you have no idea it cannot be explained fully how much guilt i have experienced over the years over my failure to be a good dad a good father i put all these other things first and i justified it at the time and the guilt that i have experienced well i want to tell you something all this happens after retirement and i get this email a man who says help me to forgive myself and i thought i would be a hypocrite to write a book until i have done it myself well i can tell you something i've never met that man but god used him i want to meet him someday he he doesn't know how much god used him because i had to do business with god and i can tell you now i can tell you i've done it i've done it and i've been set free if only i'd done it years before and i bring this message hoping that what has happened to me can happen to someone there that you have said many times i know god forgives me but i cannot forgive myself and what i want to do today is to show how to forgive yourself i've written a book how to forgive ourselves totally and i want you to know it can be done and it's in a way harder for me to forgive myself than it was to forgive those who hurt me well i want to explain today that god will help you and he wants you to do it now when i think of paul's words in philippians in chapter 3 verse 8 he refers to persecuting the church and then just a few verses later he says forgetting what is behind i wanted to say wait wait paul stop you say persecuting the church and just a few verses later you say forgetting what's behind how can you just say forgetting what is behind don't you need to say more don't you feel any guilt isn't it terrible what you did persecuting the church paul you were responsible for people's death you caused them to blaspheme you've split families what you did don't you feel bad how can you just say persecuting the church verses later forgetting what's behind surely how can you say that there's a reason there's a reason and i can tell you whatever is in your past even though you're not proud of it and if you could turn the clock back yes you would do better and i can think of those who may be watching right now when you hear about my past you say well let me tell you what i've gone through i'm talking to someone you're living with past sin perhaps giving up too soon and always wondering what might have been letting people down having an abortion falling into sexual sin unfaithfulness in marriage being sentenced to prison for a crime abusing your children lying to your best friend ruining another person's career you injured your health through carelessness wasted years with the wrong company you gave wrong advice and ruined another person's life living with the wrong choice in life or waiting too long to get right with god i could go on and on whatever it is i want you to know that god wants you this is the thing that i needed to know that god wanted me to forgive myself and as i have preached this message uh over the years all over the world i never will forget in one place after i finish this message a lady came up to me and took my hand and she wouldn't let it go and she just said she looked at me in the eye you will never know what you've done for me tonight there was another time when i preached this message i found out two months later hard to believe but here's what they said that during my message a person who was death in both ears was healed now imagine because when we don't forgive ourselves we hurt ourselves physically now let me define what i mean by totally forgiving ourselves uh in a previous message i talked about forgiving others total forgiveness that's when you let them off the hook and commit them to god and know that god will bless them and you pray for them well totally forgiving ourselves is when we let ourselves off the hook and we forgive ourselves just as we know that god has forgiven us and it's a hard thing to do for some of us it was for me but i did it and i want to tell you how i want to give reasons that you should forgive yourself reason number one is what god wants you to do it's his idea now strange as it may seem that is what i needed i'm ashamed to admit this all this happened after retirement i retired at the age of 66 i've been at westminster 25 years all that time i lived with that guilt and and god still used me that's the amazing thing but after retirement and i received that letter from that man what helped me is when i saw it i don't know why it took so long it's what god wanted me to do and that's not all when i realized that all that i'd preached over the years what jesus did for me on the cross that the blood he shed satisfied the justice of god the blood turned his wrath away and when i realized that and then i struggled with forgiving myself i was actually competing with the atonement that's not good it was my self-righteousness i'm not happy to admit this but i'm telling you the truth i was just self-righteous and that's often the reason that we can't forgive ourselves we think we got to do something it's not enough just to accept forgiveness but the truth is that is why jesus died and that's why paul the apostle with his horrible past could say forgetting what is behind because he believed the gospel that he preached but let me give you another reason it's because the devil does not want you to forgive yourself this is important you see the devil loves it when you're in bondage when you're feeling guilty when there's no liberty he loves it don't give the devil that pleasure one of the things i often say in my preaching one way to know god's will is to figure out what you think the devil might want you to do and then do the opposite and you'll get it right well when it comes to this you need to know the devil does not want you to forgive yourself so the degree to which you live in self-pity and guilt and sorrow over the past you're making the devil happy don't do that uh there's a verse in the book of revelation that is worth according to you it's revelation chapter 12 where john on the other patmos he put it this way i heard a loud voice in heaven saying now the salvation and power and the kingdom of our god and the authority of his christ has come down for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down who accuses them day and night before our god and then he goes on to say they over shame him they comfort conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony for they love not their lives even to death therefore rejoice o heavens and you who dwell in them woe to you o earth and sea for the devil has come down to you in great wrath because he knows that his time is short remember this about the devil he's aware of this this is why he's angry he hates the blood of jesus he knows his time is short and here's a word the next time the devil reminds you of your past remind him of his future his end is coming but he's your enemy don't give the devil pleasure by wallowing in the past and wishing that it had been otherwise here's the thing why should you forgive yourself because it will give you inner peace and joy the degree to which you forgive yourself you will find yourself more useful uh i never will forget when i first went to westminster chapel i think i'd been there a month a man came in to the vestry that's the pastor's office that's what they call it in england vestry and he said his problem was he didn't have assurance of salvation and so i went through the gospel and helped him he says thank you i feel much better and he'd come back a month later his problem was still assurance of salvation well i'd go through the gospel and i would help him and then you know what six months later he comes back again his problem assurance of salvation he couldn't bring himself to trust the blood of jesus he thought it had to be something he must do to give himself assurance six years later he came back same problem i will fast forward to the end of 25 years would you believe a month before we retired that same man came in he said i've got this problem i've still got it assurance i said by the way where do you go to church well he says i go to different churches i said are you telling me you're not even of a member here or any place no and it was interesting how because he couldn't believe what i'm preaching today he hadn't even got involved in ministry and the devil had him sidelined you see when you forgive yourself trusting the gospel you will find your niche in the kingdom of god and he will use you another thing it will help you to love people more and i'll tell you one other thing forgiving yourself will mean that people will like you more oh you said i don't care what people think yes you do you don't want to be the type of person that when you walk into the room the lights go out or everybody says oh look who's here you see when you forgive yourself you will like yourself and you will help others instead of being the type of person that's always needing help always needing counseling you know i've learned over the years that two kinds of people there are the drainers and the energizers well most people that come in to see me would they would be drainers and by the time i was finished with several people i was drained once in a while you have an energizer and they make you feel better well as long as you don't forgive yourself you're going to be a drainer and you're always going to need help be an energizer where people come to you for help and this is what we're talking about i'll make a confession to you it's embarrassing but people who've heard me preach since i've retired have said to me how come you preach better now than you did when you're at westminster and i say you really think so but i can tell you this is the reason because it set me free here's another reason you should forgive yourself your physical health could be at stake do you know medical people have come to realize that unforgiveness is injurious to your health holding a grudge can lead to high blood pressure heart trouble kidney disease arthritis and even more so when you don't forgive yourself because you turn inward where you don't like yourself it can affect your psychological condition i knew of a psychiatrist who said if i could get my client not to feel guilty i could cure him in 30 minutes the problem is we all have that guilt and this guilt is pseudo guilt the word pseudo means false comes from a greek word sudos that means lie so there is false guilt and the devil will take advantage of guilt that god did not put there now there are two kinds of guilt true guilt when we have sinned against god false guilt when you more are worried about something you did you didn't spend your time right or well for example when i retired one of the deacons at westminster chapel gave me money for a new motor on my boat because we were going to be living in the florida keys at the time and he got me this wonderful motor so i could fish i love that's my hobby fishing and here's what happened when i would be out on the boat i would think i ought to be inside working because they got things to do then when i'd come home to work and then i think that man spent all that money on that boat i need to be out fishing i would feel guilty if i'm out fishing thinking i should be in working or if i'm in working i think because of that man giving me that money i should be out fishing pseudo guilt or i had someone come up to me happens to me you went right by me and didn't speak to me i said oh i'm sorry i didn't see you and now i've got a double problem that person will say well i'm so insignificant he didn't even see me and i stay awake at night oh i hurt the feelings because i didn't speak to them pseudo guilt uh in my book how to forgive ourselves totally i go into many examples here's the thing it is not a sin to have pseudo guilt but it becomes a sin if you know it's false guilt and you dwell on it because here's the thing the devil will seize upon your feeling of false guilt and then it becomes a sin well here's another irony true guilt when you've sinned against god is the easiest to deal with do you know why god doesn't hold grudges good old 1 john 1 9 if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness it's dealt with because the blood of jesus solves it the irony is false guilt is the hardest to deal with because we we keep thinking of things and the devil will seize upon it and by the way in case you wondered i get asked this question my failure to be a good father and my failure to neglect my family was that pseudo guilt or true guilt i'm gonna tell you it was true guilt i sinned against god by neglecting my family i'll tell you a story without mentioning any names of course but a daughter of a well-known evangelist drove 600 miles to come and see me because she had read my book totally forgiving ourselves and she wanted to hear it from my own lips do you still say that your neglect of your children was a sin i said oh yes and then she started to cry she said i wish my daddy had said that he would never admit it was a sin and you see there are those who need to know and parents need to become vulnerable and admit when we have failed in this area well one of the reasons it is so hard to forgive ourselves self-pity gets in there and i must tell you you may not like to hear it in fact i don't like to remember it because i have a problem now and then more than i care to admit with self-pity feeling sorry for myself it's been easy to do for the last several months we're in the middle of this coronavirus and i'm thinking why could all this happen and here i'm in lockdown and and if you're not careful you start feeling sorry for yourself let me tell you something self-pity gets us nowhere and it will be the devil who will seize upon it remember the three r's of spiritual warfare recognize refuse resist recognize you need enough spiritual discernment to recognize that this is the devil the devil he's bringing up things he will mention things that we're not even sin or he will bring up your sin recognize him and then refuse in other words don't listen to him just don't listen resist even if he persists resist and the bible says resist the devil and he will flee from you well i can tell you it's spiritual warfare and the devil does not want you to forgive yourself and yet let me tell you one of the best things of all to help you it's helped me and that is to forgive my past and forgive myself and that's a verse that i refer to as the family secret it's romans 8 28. when people kindly ask me to sign a book or even when i write a letter i will write my name and put romans 8 28. almost all of my letters i put romans 8 28. we know that all things work together for good to them that love god to them who are the called according to his purpose and this is a wonderful verse it's a verse that refers to our past never forget that never look at romans 8 28 as future no because if you use it for future you might if you're not careful begin to excuse yourself with something that you haven't done yet and you know it may not be right you say well it'll work together for good no if you want to be a fool refer to the future when you try to apply romans 8 28 no you don't have a right to do that it refers to our past it's god's way of saying look as for the past leave it with me now it refers first of all to our pre-christian past it may be there are things that you did before you were christian and horrible things and romans 8 28 covers your pre-conversion your pre-christian past but then i need to share something with you if it only referred to pre-christian past in my sake uh in my case it would have had little meaning for me because i was converted when i was six years old i can remember the day i was converted i was at my parents bedside i confessed my sins you know what sins were there at age six well i remember how i talked back to my parents and i was convicted but as far as my pre-conversion passed not many but i have to tell you something there's a lot in my post-conversion past that haunt me and i'm ashamed of and i'm sorry about and here's the wonderful thing even in our post-conversion past we've all sinned we're not perfect we've come short of the glory of god and all things work together for good you see the reason we know that it refers to our sinful past he says it works together for good why good well it wasn't good if it was good you wouldn't need to work together for good it's because something was not good and maybe you are thinking of something in your past and you think oh i wish i hadn't done that we all have this but do you want to know one of the reasons that god gave us romans 8 28 is the family secret he doesn't want you to feel guilty god does not want you to feel guilty that's why he's given you this wonderful verse we know when paul says we know he uses a greek word oydah that means knowledge of a well-known fact there are two greek words for knowledge basically the gnosis refers to general knowledge revealed knowledge knowledge that could be revealed but then there's oida knowledge uh well-known fact you know what goes up goes down new york is a great city uh you don't need to tell that a lot everybody would agree he uses that word for we know that all things work together for good he said it's a well-known fact how do we know well we've found it out look back at your life and see how many times those things that happened to you at the time it was horrible and you think how could this work together for good i think of my previous talk when louise and i went through the darkest hour of our lives and the future looked so bleak and i thought i'm finished now i can tell you it was the best thing that ever happened to us it worked together for good i am thankful for it all and here's the thing about romans 8 28 god will cause things to work together for good you see it's not something you do to make it happen he doesn't want you to say well now romans 8 28 work together for good uh what must i do to help this along you don't need to do that god says leave it with me well you may be saying rt i don't believe that well let me say this with respect if you don't believe that it's probably because it wasn't meant for you you see that's why paul says we know it's for the family those on the outside looking in they say i can't believe that but those that are inside looking out we're in it we know we found it out that god has been faithful over the years and that's why paul has said we know all things work together for good and so here are some things you must know though the fact that it works together for good doesn't mean that what happened was right at the time it wasn't good when a plane falls to the ground there's nothing good about it a hurricane there's nothing good about it a tornado nothing good about it the corona virus there's nothing good about it you see god allows bad things but he says it ain't over until it's over to quote yogi berra wait and see watch what i do and i guarantee i would put my ministry on the line there are some things that i would go to the stake for and that's what i'm preaching i've learned in my old age to preach what i would go to the stake for and i guarantee that everybody listening to me you put god first you see romans 8 28 doesn't apply to everybody no it says we know it's the family secret those in the family and then it also says those who love god love present tense that you love him now not because you once loved him but because at the moment when you love god he works and he says leave it with me you don't need to make it happen so the fact that it works together for good doesn't mean it was right at the time sometimes the husband will say to the wife ah see there that shows i was right no don't say that if god makes it work together for good he did it it's not up to you and he says leave it with me sometimes we just can't believe that things will work together for good uh but i can tell you he takes the responsibility you see romans 8 28 is in the context of showing the security of the believer that he takes the responsibility who shall separate us from the love of god nothing nothing and for those who love god now sometimes there are christians who fall and at the moment they're giving no evidence that they love god well i'm sorry you disqualify romans 8 28 from working for that moment but when you come to yourself and say god i'm sorry i am so sorry and confess your sins to god he says okay now i can work and that's when he will make romans 8 28 true for you and the day will come that you think i wouldn't have believed it i can't believe it and i can tell you now all that we're going through and we're still in it as i speak right now we are in the greatest crisis in the history of the world and i am standing here in times square the epicenter of this virus in the whole world wait and see to those who will hang on to the promise of god and believe the bible believe his word you wait you wait it will work together for good so much that you'll say i can't believe that all that was going on it's been good god knows i needed it i didn't think it would happen question is how good is good there's good better best is it's does it say all things work together for the best well he uses the word good good but when god created the heavens and the earth and he looked over the creation you know what he said about his creation it's good it's good and even fallen creation it works together for good and we are his fallen creatures except that we've been redeemed by the blood of jesus and that means that the righteousness of jesus is put to our credit and we're looking to jesus and we become a part of the family and all that has happened you can say it worked together for good and if god calls it good well that's good enough for me uh i have in my notes to ask a question uh when is the last time you may have read matthew chapter 1 verse 6. well you know about matthew chapter 1 uh it's not a very exciting chapter we don't give matthew to a new christian we usually give him mark or luke or john because if we say to a new christian start with matthew and he starts reading and he thinks well the book of the genealogy of jesus christ son of david son of abraham abraham was the father of isaac isaac the father of jacob father of judah brothers of judah the father of care parisi what is what is this i've got into what's this about it's pretty boring at first but keep reading when you get down to verse 6 this is amazing he says jesse was the father of david the king and david the father of solomon by the wife of uriah of all things do you realize what it's referring to it's the darkest spot in the life of david when he fell into adultery and then committed murder to cover up the adultery and then he was in trouble for everything and he got found out it is one of the darkest moments in the history of the old testament if you didn't know about that and you're just going through the genealogy of jesus that's what matthew 1 is about it shows you the lifeline of jesus going all the way back to abraham and matthew takes the time he breaks the pattern they're just son of son of until he gets to david wife of uriah and solomon the father of of uh the wife of uriah uh bathsheba and you would have thought if you didn't know if you didn't know that is the way it was supposed to be do you know what that's not the way it was supposed to be but god forgives sin and in psalm 51 david prayed god have mercy on me that's the opening word in psalm 51 mercy have mercy and then he asked god to forgive him and then he said later on the sacrifices of god of the spirit that is what pleases him a broken heart o god you will not despise and david repented he was a man after god's own heart and matthew 1 makes it look like all that happened that's the way it was supposed to be you did no different you think well this is the way it was supposed to be the fact that it works together for good doesn't mean it was right at the time but god has a way of preserving our past and making it look good and he will do that with you the question is are you a member of the family you see this is the family secret uh this isn't for everybody but the good news you can become a member of the family here's what is required is when you are aware that you have sinned against god you're actually sorry for your sins let me ask you two questions before i close do you know for sure that if you were to die today would you go to heaven do you and if you were to stand before god you will and he were to ask you he might why should i let you into my heaven what would you say would you say well i've tried to live a good life i would say that's not good enough he's well rt what else can i do i i do my best that's not good enough you see our best because we are born in sin uh david could say i was shaping and iniquity and sin my mother conceived me we're born sinners you don't need to teach a baby to lie or a little boy a little girl to lie it's we come from my mother's room speaking lies we're all sinners at our best we will come short of the glory of god i'm a sinner you are a sinner and in order to become a member of the family instead of disagreeing with god or challenging him and say i've been a good person no when you come to the place that you're sorry sorry for your sins david was sorry for what he did and in your past those things that haunt you confess them to god don't excuse yourself and say well what happened was this don't do that you say god i'm sorry i'm sorry i want you to pray this prayer you can say it out loud wherever you are right now wouldn't hurt if you did but any case repeat this right now say lord jesus i need you i want you i know i'm a sinner i'm sorry for my sins wash my sins away by your blood i welcome your holy spirit into my heart best as i know how i give you my life that's the prayer did you pray that prayer are you ashamed that you prayed that prayer why do you ask rt jesus said if you're ashamed of me i'll be ashamed of you jesus said if you confess me before men i'll confess you before my father let it be known you prayed the prayer if you're with someone right now don't be ashamed in fact if you prayed that prayer i would ask you even if you're by yourself it won't hurt stand up the angels are watching god is watching or if you're with others and maybe there are two or three in the room maybe 10. maybe you're the only one that prayed the prayer stand up show that you're not ashamed and now if you've never done that before as surely as you prayed that prayer and you're showing you're unashamed you know what that means you've just been born again happy birthday it's a new life begin anew read your bible every day pray learn to know that god is your friend he's your savior he will never leave you he will never forsake you put him first in your life and if you and i don't meet here below i will see you in heaven

Channel: SermonIndex.net

Views: 1,191

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Revival, Character Of God, Free Sermons, Video Sermons, Jesus Christ, What Is The Gospel, SermonIndex, What Is The Truth, R.T. Kendall

Id: 8jHM9X8cf4M

Length: 41min 46sec (2506 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 23 2020