When Past Hurts Still Hurt | Pastor Shawn Johnson

hey guys i'm so excited to be here with you fresh life i can't tell you i can't tell you how much i love your senior pastors i'm telling you i've gotten the opportunity to meet a lot of pastors around the country and you guys already know this but maybe you're new and don't know yet or maybe you've been here too long and have forgotten you have the best the best of the best man we love you and me and jill just cherish our relationship with you guys and we we love and respect you so much so thank you thanks for letting us come hang out we love you guys all right if you're at a physical location go ahead and have a seat and we're going to pray and we're going to get into it god i thank you that you are with us whether we're in a building at a watch party in a house in an office on a hike a bike a treadmill wherever we're at we know that it's your presence that changes our lives it's your word that changes our lives and we're going to have both of those no matter where we're watching this from right now in jesus name and we thank you for that god we thank you that you're with us we thank you that you want to speak i pray god that right now you would open up our hearts and our minds to even as new friends be able to get into what can be a very treacherous topic and i pray you would do something really special in our lives today god we asked for that in jesus name and everybody at every location said security i like you you and me this whole time hey so the title of today's message is when past hurts still hurt when past hurts still hurt i'm telling you i don't say this very often at home because no one listens to me anyways when i do but i really believe this will be a really good time for you to take some notes get your phones out if you're on a device at home get ready to take some screen shots i'm telling you this is a set of notes that i've been putting together for the last two years out of complete personal experiences and hardships and i i've been really waiting two years to preach this message and cannot wait to deliver it to you today guys i'm telling you i feel like it's gonna set some people free and so [Applause] so when past hurts still hurt i just started jujitsu training with my oldest son ethan me and my wife jill have three boys and we just started jiu jitsu training i call it ninja school levi i can't let these 20 year old staff members sneak up on me you know what i'm saying and so i started ninja school well i got done with this a couple days ago and i was like oh my gosh my elbow hurts so bad and it's obviously a sign of youth and um and like i couldn't hardly drive home and no joke this morning i woke up this morning and the first thing i thought of was wow my elbow hurts like it hurts to the point where your senior pastor asked me he's like hey tomorrow you want to play tennis i know what he's doing you guys he forgets that he told me a long time ago he's really good at tennis and loves tennis and he's inviting me to something he can destroy me at i get the game i don't mind getting destroyed i would talk trash the whole time regardless but i had to tell him i'm like bro i can't my elbow is killing me here's the thing the truth is i didn't the injury didn't happen this week at jiu jitsu class i've been telling people that my elbow's been hurting for over a year and in fact i went to the physician i went to an orthopedic surgeon does all the professional teams in denver supposed to be one of the best he told me exactly what to do he goes i know exactly what it is and there's this thing in your elbow and i do this surgery a lot especially the baseball players it'll be perfect and then he told me the process and the process of surgery and recovery and all the time i was like nah i don't want to do it and so because i didn't go through this painful process to me it sounded painful because i didn't go through this painful process that the physician recommended here i am over a year later and my past hurt still hurts and i can't actually walk in the freedom i'd like to because i'd really like to get beat by your pastor in tennis tomorrow truthfully i mean that i would love to hang out and go play tennis i don't have the freedom to do all the things i want to do because i got a past hurt that still hurts and you guys you you know that our souls are like that right you know that it's it's why you can go from having you ever noticed you can be having one of the best days of your life like everything in the world's going right and all of a sudden you hear one thing and you go from real happy to real sad in a nanosecond you can just hear somebody's name can't you and all of a sudden your whole day's ruined you see a post you read a comment you hear about an event you drive by a place you hear a song and all of a sudden you can go from real happy to real sad and you're like what just happened it's because that's a trigger right and it's telling you uh oh you got a past hurt and it hasn't been processed yet correctly because guess what it still hurts because the song you just heard wasn't that big of a deal what that person said to you right there wasn't worth ruining your day or your week it it really didn't do the it wasn't where the injury happened it just triggered something and it reminds you i got a past hurt and it's still hurting me today and i can't walk in the freedom that i feel like i'm called to walk in that's where we find ourselves right and so if you have a bible flip open to ephesians chapter four and we're going to start in verse 31. see what happens is we're broken people we live in a broken world and we interact with each other that's the recipe for a perfect storm isn't it that's a recipe for hertz okay and so what happens is we get hurt and either we don't want to deal with it because it's too painful or we don't know how which i think is often the case and that hurt we don't like feeling hurt but without knowing it hurt turns into anger and then anger over time turns into bitterness and then bitterness turns into what the bible calls a hardened heart it starts to change the way we live it changes our insecurities it changes how we interact with people it changes who we let into our life it changes who we trust it changes how we treat people have you ever snapped on somebody and then like 24 hours later went yeah that was an overreaction right and what you realize is is they didn't show you respect or you didn't feel valued or they touched on something it was a trigger and they hit something and the truth is you weren't even snapping on them you weren't even responding to what they said you were responding to a hurt you've been carrying for 15 years right it's that past hurt that still hurts and it changes who we are as people and god says you know i don't want you to live that way because it keeps if you do it keeps you from doing the things i've called you to do it keeps you from walking in the peace and the joy and the confidence i want you to walk with right and so he says i got the prescription here it is ephesians 4. get rid of all bitterness that's what turns into the hardened heart get rid of all bitterness rage and anger brawling and slander along with every form of malice be kind and compassionate to one another and here it is here's this this nasty little word forgiving forgiving each other just as in christ god forgave you the physician says if you want to if you want to process this wound i've got the answer it's called forgiveness and we know that just trying to do that is a painful process in and of itself in fact the truth is because you don't know me that all that well it's a good thing levi did such a nice introduction because some of you are already mad and i get it some of you went oh wait that's what he's talking about today and i took time off to do this i get it now listen i don't talk about this subject lightly because what i know is as soon as you hear somebody say you know what you ought to do some forgiving it starts to emotions start happening don't they in fact some of us have been wounded so bad that you hear somebody say you ought to just forgive him you almost want to fight because you're like you don't know what i've been through you don't know what i'm up against right and listen fresh life no matter what location you're watching this from or listening to this from i don't know your hurts but i know hurt and i know it hurts i know that and and i'll just give you a snapshot my mom got pregnant with me when she was in high school and my biological father found out left i've never met him i've never seen him i've i've dealt with that somebody important in my life abandoned me thing my whole life i know the pain of that my mom was a heroin addict teenager and and she put me on a stranger's front porch in a car seat with a note saying please take care of him and went and jumped off a bridge into oncoming traffic to kill herself i know pain she didn't die she survived everything was crushed she got out of the hospital she married her drug dealer and i grew up in every kind of abuse i've ever heard of i'm just telling you i'm not trying to have it's not fresh life have a pity party for me i don't need a counseling session i get those once a week harv you know what i'm talking about so my point is i know hurt and i know how frustrating it can be to have somebody that you barely know go you know what you ought to do if you want to really be set free is just forgive because i know i know what that feels like so i don't i don't talk about this stuff lightly but here's what i want it's been my prayer for you ever since levi i invited me here to do this my prayer for you has been that today some some digging would happen in our soul and we would get real honest and god would have a window to talk to us he would get our attention and go listen i have a better life in store for you i have some freedom and some joy and some purpose in store for you and i want you to walk in it [Music] so i'm going to walk you through five steps of what we could add to it but for me it's been five essential steps of the forgiveness process and in fresh life it's a process right there are some things that happen and someone can do something or something can happen they go i'm sorry you go no big deal we're done it's good it was forgiveness was an event it just happened for deep wounds talking about the kind of stuff i was just talking you when somebody leaves when somebody hurts when somebody abandons when somebody abuses talking about wounds it's not forgiving those i don't believe is an event it's a process right um there's different kind of our body heals different wounds differently doesn't it like if you were to if i were to slice my arm open they would go to the hot they would stitch it up in the er they want to close it up so it can heal but but if i went to the same place with a severe burn they wouldn't they wouldn't close it up in fact they'd scratch off the surface they want to open it up because a severe burn is like the forgiveness process and the healing a severe burn has to be opened up so it can heal from the inside out one layer at a time that's what this process is like it's not an event what i'm talking about today is a process i'm telling you at least the freedom and that's what i want for you all right number one write this down the first thing we got to do if we say okay god i'm gonna take you up on this i don't know what i'm getting into i don't know if i'm gonna get this right it almost makes me mad to admit that i'm gonna do this but i'm gonna take you up on it bless you number one is acknowledge the hurt we've got to acknowledge the hurt it took me a lot of counseling to realize how essential this was in the forgiveness process because of the things i went through as a kid i've spent my whole adult life either pretending they didn't happen or minimizing the effects it had on me and i sat down with a counselor a couple of years ago and he finally said it's so it's so interesting i went to i'm telling you a lot about my life and we don't know each other yet a couple years ago i was having a whole lot of anxiety and and and i've worked with levi through a whole bunch of this stuff he's been there for me i've been able to be there a little bit for him like it's just life but a few years ago or a couple years ago i was having such bad panic attacks i had to take some time off work and had to go to this anti-anxiety impatient counseling facility it was humiliating and i felt so stupid i'm like i'm a pastor i should be better and they're like no you're a human it's okay to be broke and so anyways i went to this thing and one of the first guys i met with he'd been a pastor a counselor a therapist like as long as i've been alive and i tell him all about my anxiety and he sits there and listens and i'm a wreck and i'm crying and i'm falling apart and he goes all right he goes let's make a list of your grievances i said what i started to forget what you got when i said i was going to talk about forgiveness what i want to talk i don't want to talk about my grievances i don't want to talk about my past i'm having panic attacks right now i want to talk about this he goes i know he looked at me and he goes he said something so profound he said do you know how much anxiety producing energy it takes for you to hold on to that unforgiveness he said it's killing you he said let's talk about the people who have hurt you and we made a list and he said because until you acknowledge it until you face it and until you feel it you can't forgive it so while you're still pretending it never hurts you and while you're still pretending it didn't happen and while you're still pretending you're too strong as an adult to be affected by what happened to you as a child you can't forgive what you don't acknowledge so i want you to let's talk about it let's let's admit that it hurt let's talk about how has it changed the whole course of your life being abandoned like that and how has it changed the way you see people being abused you've got to face it and feel it so that you can forgive it and listen watch this we see joseph doing this and a bunch of you will know the story about joseph and if you have your bible and you want to follow along great if not it'll be on the screen but genesis 45 i'm gonna read a passage here in a sec if you're like man i want to read along and underline joseph has a story where he would be one of those guys that would have a hard time forgiving the people who were supposed to protect him his older brothers abused him and and they sold they thought that he was dad's favorite and they didn't like it and so one day they sold him into slavery and he was taken as a slave to a foreign country as a kid and would spend years and years of his life in slavery and in prison and they went home and told dad that he died so i mean you want to talk about a guy who's got some reason to hold on to some unforgiveness is joseph i can't get into it you have to read it for yourself if you don't already know the story he god does some miraculous things with his life as he's a slave and as he's in prison and he becomes the second most powerful man in egypt many years later there's a famine everywhere so everyone has to come to egypt to get food to stay alive and the pharaoh the the most powerful guy puts joseph in charge of all the food so now his brothers the very ones who sold him into slavery now have to come beg for food from him to stay alive i mean you want to talk about irony right so that's what's happening and we're about to watch joseph enter the forgiveness process because as we're going to see he's been holding it in he's been thinking i'm a powerful guy i got a i got a large staff i run a big organization a lot of people look up to me i can't be weak i can't let that stuff bother me i'm past it all and what we're about to see in a second is he wasn't okay watch this they come to him for the food then joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendance and he cried out have everyone leave my presence get everybody out of here so there's no one with joseph when he made himself known to his brothers and he wept so loudly watch him he's facing it and feeling it he wept so loudly that the egyptians heard him and pharaoh's household heard about it verse 4 joseph said to his brothers come close i'm your brother i'm the one that you sold into egypt and then in chapter 50 there's a verse that everybody puts on their coffee mugs and it's that verse that says you meant you meant it for harm but god meant it for good that's joseph talking to his brothers what happens here is he finally says i can't keep pretending this didn't happen i am large and in charge but i have to face the fact that i went through some stuff and it hurt and i got to face it and i can feel it so i can look at my family and forgive him and he starts crying so loud as he enters into this first part of forgiveness that you can hear him from houses away i'm gonna face it i'm gonna feel it so i can forgive it we gotta acknowledge that there was hurt can't forgive what you don't acknowledge right second thing is and this one's tough it might make you angry we got to surrender our right to punish this is this is huge because i i got to be honest i've lived for several years as an adult and especially as a pastor and i went oh i forgive that person oh i'm still going to make them pay don't get that twisted but i forgive them right you know that feeling there's this verse that you'll probably be familiar with and i needed a counselor to help me tie it to the forgiveness process do not repay anyone evil for evil be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone if it is possible as far as it depends on you live at peace with everyone do not take revenge my dear friends but leave room for god's wrath for it is written it is mine to avenge i will repay says the lord here's how it works in real life for us today i was talking with a couple just a few weeks ago and i love this couple and some mistakes have been made on both sides of the marriage most recently he made some mistakes some big ones she's forgiven him and so now we're at another stage and we're still having problems so i'm talking and i said hey guys i'm just going to be honest as somebody who loves you until you're both ready to actually forgive this marriage is doomed it's going to be dysfunctional and she said well i have forgiven him and i said i know you say that i've heard you say that but i've also heard you guys talk and here's what happens babe i forgive you and then we get into an argument over here about something else and you go oh but can i really trust you because i think we've been here before haven't we honey you said that that's what you were oh but you've said things before that i couldn't and that right she's forgiven him but she continues to use the situation for leverage in the relationship for control and we do this and i just told him as people that i love and his friends i just said guys this relationship will never work until you can actually let loose of that that that right you feel that you have to continue to punish because he'll always be the whipping boy and you'll always be in control and this marriage will always be dysfunctional the only way for real reconciliation is i have to surrender my right i'm not letting him off the hook i'm surrendering my right to say god i'm not going to be the one who punishes you are i'm not going to be the judge and the jury and the executioner anymore i'm going to leave that up to you i'm going to give away my right to punish you know what before we go any further let me just will you guys throw up that slide i want to quickly talk about the difference between what forgiveness is and isn't before we go any further because these points are already getting like difficult and i want to make sure you understand what i'm talking about especially when i hit number four because if you haven't wanted to fight me yet you're gonna fight me at number four i'm just telling you right now forgiveness is go ahead put that up oh it's on this side i know forgiveness is about freedom that's what forgiveness is forgiveness is about your freedom i'll tell you what forgiveness isn't if i look it's not justifying their actions see i i've thought forever i can't forgive i can't say that i'm letting you off the hook because if i do then it reminds me of what you did and you might not realize how bad it was what you did and i got to make sure you know what you did was wrong so i can't just forgive but forgiveness is not saying what you did is okay it's not okay that you left it's not okay that you hurt it's not okay that you lied it's not okay that you abused my forgiving you doesn't justify any of those things i'm not letting you off the hook god says i'll take care of the wrath there are consequences for people who hurt my kids but we don't have to be we don't have to worry about that forgiveness is not a guarantee that there will be reconciliation in the relationship and i'm going to set some people free with that here in a second and forgiveness is not a guarantee that we're going to continue doing life together forgiveness is for us forgiveness is our heavenly father saying i've got a prescription for you to to layer by layer healing by healing day by day make sure that the hurts that happened back then don't continue to hurt you today because i want you set free that's what it is okay [Music] [Applause] so we're going to acknowledge the hurt we're going to surrender our right to punish now it gets real tough i can i can't i can't even almost say it pray for him pray for him what oh i'll pray for him oh i will pray god i pray you take away and i pray you and i pray you and if i can control lightning and give him covet twice after the vaccine and i pray you've heard it you've heard that it was said love your neighbor and hate your enemies but i say to you love your enemies and pray for those who do what i've tried to do this before and honestly it's looked like this god would you i can't say their name and i'm done you ever had that feeling i'm going to be honest in church when i felt real spiritual it went like this god i pray you know what they need this part i really believe is not so much for the person who's hurt you it's for you it's for me listen listen because remember i said that hurt it turns to anger and that anger turns to bitterness and that bitterness turns to a hardened heart and that's what starts to change the way we live and it takes a lot of anxiety and depression producing energy to live with a hardened heart and every time i can humble myself to be obedient to my father to go i'm not letting anybody off the hook i'm not justifying anybody's actions but i'm actually going to pray that god would bless them today i'm actually going to pray that god would help them maybe come to full repentance and see what has happened i'm going to pray that god would take care of them that he would show them the same grace i've needed 10 million times it's so painful to pray that but here's what happens every single time you pray that prayer you know they used a lot of agricultural analogies because that's what everybody understood it's like our hearts get hardened and you can throw seed on hard ground like that but it won't produce a thing right but every time i decide to pray for that person who hurt me it's like it's like i'm tilling that soil one layer at a time one layer at a time one layer at a time and each time my heart starts to get softer and softer and softer and pretty soon you can throw some seed there and something beautiful can happen where where only death and desolation was now can be something beautiful that's what we want it begins to soften our hearts and god says it's it's when your heart is in this condition that you actually have peace and joy and you don't have to live with your soul like this all the time he says i can set you free from this stuff but i want to it's a painful process but could you pray for that person who watch what'll happen number four be open to reconciliation i'll be honest this one made me real mad when i heard it romans 12 18 as far as it depends on you live at peace with everyone because here's what i thought it meant honestly i felt stuck i felt like what god was saying is unfair because i've been through some things that that have have changed the entire course of my life and have hurt me so so deeply and you know what this is like because we all live in the same world and it's life that if i forgive this person then i got to let them back in and if i let them back in they'll just hurt me again but that's what god says i got to do so thanks a lot for that god or i've done this oh i forgive him but i'm not letting him back in my life but i'm gonna feel really guilty about that all the time because in my heart not really forgiving because if i'd really forgive i'd let him back in and i haven't let him back in so i guess i don't really forgive so i guess i don't listen to god so now i feel guilty and now it's like it's like salt on the wound i was the one who was hurt and now i'm dealing with guilt and shame over the hurt and it puts us in a real bad spot and i'm telling you this set me free fresh life there is a gigantic difference between forgiveness and fellowship they're not the same thing forgiveness go ahead and put that slide up forgiveness i do that's on me that's on you that's what i do i decide i'm to acknowledge what happened i decide with god's help and i'm going to help you do this i'm going to give you a prayer to help you do some of this stuff because it feels overwhelming i decide to go to god and say god help me to surrender my right to punish i do that i decide to pray for the people who have hurt me even when it's hard to even utter those words out loud i do the forgiveness work fellowship that takes two people that takes multiple people fellowship happens if and only if there's true repentance we have too many fake repentance we've got too much fake repentance in the world right now there's too many people using the words i'm sorry but not actually apologizing for anything i'm not talking about i'm sorry that my words were misunderstood i'm sorry if that hurt you that apology right that that's the crazy one right because what that's saying is i'm sorry you're not emotionally stable enough to handle what happened i'm sorry that that was misunderstood i'm no no no no an apology go read genesis 45-50 that story of joseph and his brothers and you're going to see real forgiveness and real reconciliation and it happened because his brothers came and threw themselves at his feet and they said what we did was wrong we are sorry will you forgive me that's an apology an apology that you can rebuild a relationship on starts with i was wrong i am sorry will you forgive me it's got to be true repentance no fake repentance you don't rebuild a relationship on fake repentance you got to actually see change there's got to be trust and honor and respect and i'm going to give you an analogy that a counselor gave me because i was feeling really bad about this because there was someone in my life that was causing pain in our family and i was feeling really guilty for not letting them back in my life excuse me dry mouth and uh he said he said let me give you let me give you an an analogy it's it's it's extreme but go with me he said if you have someone come watch your kids and you have those little nanny cams everywhere and you're you're watching on your phone and all of a sudden you see him chasing your children around with an axe and then you find out that you hired an axe murderer to be your babysitter he goes you can forgive that person but you're probably not inviting them over for thanksgiving dinner forgiveness and fellowship are two entirely different things and you don't have to feel guilty for drawing that line in the sand if the things aren't present to make a relationship possible you do the as far as it depends on you that's the forgiveness we have to do some things for the fellowship to be a part and you don't just not have to feel guilty about that there's some relationships where you wouldn't even be using wisdom to re-engage with you still forgive because that's what sets you free but it's different than the fellowship isn't it there's this general biblical theme that definitely always points us to restoration and reconciliation when possible but even the word of god says but there are going to be some special times when that's just not possible the apostle paul tells two guys that he's mentoring timothy and titus that he's like you have the call of god on your life and you have been you've been letting some people back into your life that it's causing you more harm than good and you've got to stop it here's what he says here's what he says to timothy don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments because you know they produce corals and the lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone able to teach not resentful opponents must here it is must be gently instructed that's fruits of the spirit that's not i'm gonna tell you what you did i go i'm gonna get you no it's gently with peace patience love kindness mercy goodness self-control with the fruits of the spirit i'm gonna to the best of my i might have to wait a few days before i can tell you that you hurt me so that i can find some fruits of the spirit somewhere right you know that feeling i gotta wait a few days i don't have any right now i'm gonna wait and i'm gonna come to you with the fruits of the spirit and i'm going to gently in hope that god will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth that's the goal my hope is if i can gently tell you you hurt me and with the right spirit with the fruits of the spirit give you a chance to repent maybe we got something to build on maybe he tells titus he gives titus the three-strike rule avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law because these are unprofitable and useless warn a divisive person once and then warn them a second you know what if they hurt you again go warn them a second time after that have nothing to do with them you may be sure that such people are warped and sinful they are self-condemned everything i can do as it depends on me i'm going to work towards reconciliation but there's just some special cases oftentimes it's things like where addictions are involved or or mental health is involved or abuse is involved there's just some times where it's like i i don't have to have the fellowship but for my own future for my own freedom i gotta have the forgiveness that's the difference and i believe this is so difficult that we have to pray for divine strength and healing and freedom we got to get god involved in the process this stuff's too difficult to do on our own listen if you could do this on your own you already would have i'm telling you this stuff hit me so hard when i started learning it because if i if i'd have found this freedom on my own i already would have i need the power of the holy spirit in my life in my heart in my soul helping me to walk through these steps because you know the deal it's like it's like there's this glass wall between us and forgiveness or between us and the freedom we want from what happened and it's like i just don't know how to get there we need the power of god to help us get there jesus was teaching his best friends how to pray and he said guys he talked about an everyday prayer with him we now call it the lord's prayer and remember there's a line in there that says forgive me of my trespasses because i'm working on forgiving other people of their trespasses and he said this is so hard to do you need to pray about it every single day i mean that's an interesting thing to make part of the lord's prayer isn't it jesus goes no no no i've been hurt like you've been hurt i know betrayal some of you are a part of it i know pain you're going to need the power of the holy spirit need god to help you get through this stuff would you put up those four verses real quick take a screenshot of these i think you're going to see them two at a time these are why praying about this stuff is so important finally brothers and sisters rejoice strive for full restoration encourage one another be of one mind live in peace and listen the god of love and peace will be with you god says when you are willing to walk through this painful process there is freedom on the other side and it's peace it's the stuff you've been craving like crazy there's peace i want you to experience and it happens on the backside of being obedient and walking through the forgiveness process my grace is sufficient for you says my power is made perfect in weakness if you're like me you go i seriously don't have the strength to get into this i don't have what it takes to dive back into what happened and to face it and to feel it so that i can forgive i just can't i'm not strong enough i can't get rid of this right to punish i want to hurt him so bad i think about it every day i can't i can't know how to give that up he says i know and when you're at your weakest he says i'm at my strongest let me in let me do in you what can't be done otherwise right because jesus looked at him and said with with man this is impossible but with god i get you through what you don't think you can get through let me in i got you therefore god exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name that that at the name of jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the heaven there is power and you know this fresh life there is power in the name of jesus strongholds fall down in the name of jesus everything in heaven earth and underneath it and hell and everywhere else bows at the name of jesus we can get through something that feels impossible when we start declaring in faith according to the name of jesus three years ago my doctor said i needed to have a rotator cuff surgery i didn't want to do it he explained the process i was so desperate for change i said okay let's do it and i went through because i couldn't play with my kids i couldn't do the things i wanted and being a dad's been a dream of mine my whole life and and so i went through it and it was a it was a horrible surgery and i woke up and i had all kinds of reactions with the medicine and i had to wear a sling for six weeks and i had to go through therapy for months it was a process but fresh life this past week even with a sore elbow i played basketball with ashton i lifted weights with austin and i went to ninja school with ethan i'm walking in my dreams i'm walking in my calling and i'm doing so free because i went through the painful process that's where god wants you with this forgiveness stuff he wants to put what happened in the rearview mirror let's get rid of it let's get past it you don't get to hurt me anymore i am free by the powerful name of jesus [Applause] all right i'ma give you a prayer would you take your phones out take some screenshots if you're out of campus if you're watching this on your phone or computer take a screenshot let me give you about 15 20 seconds to get this am i in your way here no you got it this is a prayer that some pastors helped me write for myself and i want to share it with you today fresh life this is how we begin to to declare our freedom in this area it's like what we did as a country you can take that slide down if they didn't get it you have to hit rewind like what we've done as a country right we signed the declaration of independence and then we went to war we said i am free i declare it and now i'm gonna go get it that's what i want you to do in this area because this has held some of you captive for so i know what it feels like to live with this stuff for decades and feel like a prisoner but i'm learning what it feels like to be free fresh life and i want this for you all right let's go through this prayer together god i'm ready i'm ready to stop pretending like pain in my past is not affecting my present oh this is so huge guys god would you forgive me for holding on to unforgiveness because i made all kinds of excuses and i got all kinds of reasons but i want to get gut level honest i have held on to unforgiveness and i got to repent right please forgive me for holding on to unforgiveness today i declare i'm getting rid of this unforgiveness and letting go of this hurt and anger i completely forgive and you put whoever you need to in there in jesus name because that's the only way i know how to go i need the power of jesus to do this one i thank you that you are healing these wounds that were inflicted you just pray that daily your healing your healing you're healing you're healing these wounds that were inflicted and from the inside out layer by layer expect healing to come i thank you that you're making me whole and you're setting me free i declare that i'm giving up my right to judge or punish this person i completely forgive it's in your hands now in jesus powerful name i pray amen amen and we're going to start to see some freedom you know this feeling there's like a glass wall it's like that's where i want to be i can't seem to get there i want to let loose i can't seem to let go i want to acknowledge it i can't seem to face it i want to forgive i can't seem to let go of my right to punish i'm telling you today some walls are gonna break in jesus name we're gonna start to experience some freedom you deserve it fresh life you deserve freedom god we pray right now by your powerful name that you would break some chains break down some walls set some people free god i pray that it would feel right now all over the world as people are watching and listening to this it would feel like they're stepping out from under a squat rack right now and i can breathe and i feel light and i feel hopeful in the mighty name of jesus christ for the first time maybe in years i have hope for my future i believe in you for my future and i'm gonna go chase it down in jesus name and everybody said

Channel: Fresh Life Church

Views: 698,897

Rating: 4.8854136 out of 5

Keywords: fresh life, fresh life church, levi lusko, fresh life sermons, fresh life messages, 2021 sermons, levi lusko sermons, preaching, preacher, church online, online church, levi lusko messages, pastor levi lusko, forgiveness, bitterness, grief, pain, messages about forgiveness, sermons about forgiveness, messages about grief, sermons about grief, loss, shawn johnson, how to forgive, when past hurts still hurt, pastor shawn johnson, shawn johnson pastor

Id: 7DbN69qAuyM

Length: 39min 57sec (2397 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 18 2021