Freedom Through Forgiveness | Cornerstone Church | Pastor Linn Winters

Hey. We're in the fourth week of a series that we've called plot twist.

And if you know, a plot twist is like when you're watching a movie and you go, I think I gotta figure, I know who the bad guy is and suddenly the person who wrote the movie turns everything on his head and you go, really, that, I had no idea it was that person.

You're reading a book and you go, oh, I know how this is gonna resolve. I I can see it. And then all of a sudden, everything changes, everything turns and you're surprised

at the outcome in the book and actually, those are the most exciting movies. The best books that we read are ones that have a real plot twist to them. And we've been talking about it in Jesus. Often when he taught, there was a plot twist.

He would say, you've heard. In other words, you thought this is how life worked, this is what you understood you were supposed to do, but I tell you, and suddenly he would introduce an idea that we had never thought of,

something that we would have never considered. He literally brought a plot twist to our lives. Now, here's the thing you need to know. When Jesus brings a plot twist, it almost always is challenging. It almost always causes you and I to swallow hard and to go, oh, oh, oh, oh.

I thought I had this figured out, but now you're telling me it's different, but the different part is a hard part. And I can just tell you that when Jesus introduces a plot twist to your life, it's gonna require faith.

It's gonna require you saying, you know, I'm not sure I fully understand. I I don't know that I fully agree, but it's Jesus telling me to do it, so I'm by faith, I'm just I'm gonna step into what he's now telling me, and what you find on the other side of that step of faith is that it brings unbelievable

amounts of maturity to your life and your life is remarkably better because you stepped into

the plot twist. So, today's plot twist comes out of Matthew chapter five. It's Jesus speaking and here's what he says, he says, you have heard. In other words, this is how everybody's doing it, this is how you think life works. He says, have heard an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Now, actually, there are contexts in which an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is exactly right. It's in criminal and civil law. Matter of fact, this is the foundation in which almost every law that you and I have in The United States is founded. It basically says, the punishment should fit the crime.

You steal, you should return. You take a life, you should lose your life. In other words, whatever damage you caused, there should be a reciprocal, an equal repayment on your part for what you did, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The problem comes

when we take what was created for criminal and civil law and we try to use that principle inside of our relationships because it doesn't work in relationships. If you say to someone, hey, you hurt me, therefore, I am going to hurt you back in equal amount and measure, the reality is what you have stepped into now is revenge

and revenge will always leave your life decimated because are you ready for this? Revenge never satisfies. Even if you can even if you can accomplish hurting the person who hurt you at an equal level to which you were hurt, it will not calm your heart. It will not bring satisfaction.

Now, let give just a little addendum to this. When you're talking about physical and sexual abuse, that is a criminal thing. That's not a relational thing. Right? And it, in all likelihood, ought to be prosecuted criminally. What I'm talking about is, hey, I had a parent

who always withheld their love for me and I grew up all my life just feeling like I didn't measure up and I wasn't enough and now I carry that burden, I carry that resentment and there's a part of me that I wish they could experience the pain that they put on me.

It's a manager who fires you and it wasn't reasonable. It was without cause. Just use their own personal impressions and somehow you and you just go, boy, I wish I wish somebody would do to that manager what that manager did to me because it was so unfair. It's a friend who betrays and you're like, I trusted you.

Why are you drawing first blood with me? And how can you be so selfish in a moment like this that you're leveraging your happiness at my pain? Well, hope somebody does that to you someday.

I hope you feel what I feel someday, right? And in that moment, what I'm looking for, because I've brought this principle of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth into my personal relationships, I now live a life seeking revenge from the people who hurt me.

And here's what you need to know, revenge will always leave you empty and disappointed. There's a story in the bible about a guy, he gets revenge, he he literally inflicts pain for the pain that was brought to his life and it literally ruins his life. So if you've got your Bibles today, go with me to his story.

It's in, second Samuel and and if you're not familiar, second Samuel is kind of in the front of your Bibles, so go to the front then start, working to the right.

Second Samuel.

There's three main characters within the story. There is a man by the name of Amnon. He's one of the sons of king David. There's his half sister named Tamar and then there's her brother, also one of the sons of David named Absalom. It turns out that Amnon believes that he is in love with Tamar

and he decides one day, I'm gonna I'm gonna show a way to express this love. I wonder, you know, I'll do this and so he pretends to be sick and he makes a request and says, hey, would you be sure as people come to take care of me that Tamar, my sister, is one of those people? So, they're attending to

Amnon and Amnon says, you know, I'm really, really hungry, Could Tamar come and feed me? And then he says to the rest of the people in the room, hey, you leave the room, I don't need you here right now. Tamar is taking care of me. And here we go, it's in second Samuel chapter 13.

And it starts in verse 10. Here's what it says, then Amnon said to Tamar, bring the food here into my bedroom so that I may eat from your hand. And Tamar took the bread she had prepared and brought it to her brother Amnon in his bedroom.

But when she took it to him to eat, he grabbed her and said, come to bed with me, my sister. No, my brother, she said, don't force me. Such a thing should not be done in Israel. Don't do this wicked thing.

What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king, he will not keep me from being married to you, but he refused to listen to her and since he was stronger than her, he raped her. Then Amnon hated her

with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her and Amnon said to her, get up, get out. Tamar is Absalom's full sister and now he is out of his mind with rage. He is furious about what's been done to his sister and in in his heart, he just says, hey,

this is eye for eye, this is tooth for tooth moment. And you understand this is a huge offense. This isn't something like, you know, you were with your friends and someone said something and it was a little bit embarrassing.

This isn't, you know, someone just, you know, kind of gossiped about you and so now you're frustrated. It's not you're driving down the freeway and somebody cuts you off. Anybody in the room a good Christian until you're driving a car?

I just tell people, I love Jesus, but something happens when I put my hands on the wheels and you cut me off and all of a sudden, I'm eye for eye, tooth for tooth. I'm thinking, you know what? I need to be the servant of God in this moment

and cause justice to happen and what he needs is for me to go forward, cut him off, slam on my brakes. In the name of Jesus. I don't do that because my license plate says Cornerstone, but my heart says it really, really clear.

You realize there is a legitimate offense.

You and I, you and I are wired a lot like Absalom. There's something in our hearts that when somebody wounds us, when somebody takes advantage of us and hurts us, that we just go, you know what? You you need to feel equal pain to the pain you've caused me.

And that's what I'm that's what I'm rooting for. That's the only thing that's gonna set this right in my heart is for you to suffer at an equal extent, maybe even a little more than what you cause me to suffer.

So here's a question, Who's that person for you? Who's a person in your life that wounded you, betrayed your trust, stepped on you to get to their happiness, and and your heart still wants justice. Your heart wants them to know the pain that they inflicted on you. Who's that person in your life?

Absalom's about to make a horrible decision. He decides it's up to him to bring justice to the moment. It's up to him to get revenge for what happened to his sister. Here's the deal. The bible says that king David, hearing what his son Amnon has done, is furious, but he ends up doing nothing.

I've got my ideas about potentially why that happened, but here's what we know for sure. When it comes to the children of David, king David had a blind spot.

And so, Absalom looks and goes, what? Why are you impotent? What? Why why aren't you it's so obviously wrong and you're the one with the authority and the power to, why aren't you doing anything? And then, Absalom looks to God and goes, God, where are you in a moment like this? It's been two weeks

and you haven't done a thing. Isn't it interesting that God never moves as fast as we think he should? And can I suggest to you that God's answer is probably already in play? Let me tell you why. Next in line for the throne is Absalom, which means on the day that he's inaugurated, he can bring criminal charges

against his half brother. The resolution was already at hand, but it wasn't quick enough for Absalom. And so he says, I'm gonna take this, I'm gonna make this right in my own strength and by getting my own revenge, and so he calls a banquet with all of the sons of king David

and he says to his soldiers, hey, here's the deal, we're we're gonna get Amnon really drunk and when he's in the throes of being drunk, I'm gonna yell out, okay, kill Amnon

and then you're gonna get up and kill him. Don't worry about whether or not you'll have repercussions because everyone will have heard me give the command, kill Amnon. So jump just a few verses further in the story, still chapter 13, but now over to verse 28. Absalom ordered his men, listen, when Amnon is high

spirits from drinking wine, and I say to you, strike Amnon down, then kill him. Don't be afraid, haven't I given you this order? Be strong and brave. So Absalom's men did as aunt did to Amnon as Absalom had ordered and then all the king's other sons got up, mounted their mules and fled.

When when you and I begin to say, look, no, no, it's tooth for tooth, it's eye for eye, what you did to me, you need to suffer equally. It sent it sent us on a journey in our lives that causes us to do one of two things.

One is is that we we do what Absalom did.

We strike out. We say, Hey, I'm gonna take matters into my own hands and I'm gonna make sure that you suffer for what you've done to me. You know, the reality is that when we do that, very often what we inflict on the other person is disproportionate to what they did to us. You you realize Absalom goes all the way to murder.

It's it's his first step because he's angry, he's hurt and you and I when we go to seek revenge very often escalate the situation. But worse than that, even when we get revenge,

It never satisfies. It's never enough. It never refills the wound

and we still hurt. The second thing we do is that we go hugely passive aggressive. We just go, I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna spend my life rooting for your pain

And then they go on. They go on as if they didn't do anything wrong. Matter of fact, their life gets better and your life stays where it was. And and so now we get wrapped in these chains of bitterness,

bitterness at them that they could do that and not acknowledge it and bitterness at God because God is silent and hasn't moved and and there's something in us that says, if I could carry around these chains of bitterness and anger, they're gonna eventually see that and they're gonna realize the harm that they've caused

And they almost never do. And the only one who ends up trapped is me. It's like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.

It's why revenge never satisfies. If I could have the assistant come out with the water tank, I'll now do the great escape. Someone said last night, you look like punk rock pastor now, you know, you've got the outfit.

It'd be one thing if the story ended there, it just doesn't. And you would think it would because Absalom's already gotten his brother, he's gotten his revenge. You would hope and think that Absalom can now be satisfied in his heart, but we've already said it out loud, revenge never fills the ache. And so now Absalom turns

his attention toward his dad. Here's what you need to know. Revenge never satisfies and bitterness. Bitterness will end up affecting every part of your life.

See, we have this idea, we have this concept that says, hey, I can be bitter at the person who hurt me and that's not gonna affect any of my other parts of my life, any of my other relationships. But the problem is this,

that you are so focused on the person who hurt you that anyone who does anything that reminds you of that person, you're triggered. Your husband says something that sounds just like you're wounding dad and now all of a sudden, you're spewing on your husband and you don't even know why you're so angry.

Your son, your son does a gesture that's just like the gesture and suddenly something inside of you just tenses up and I'm just telling you, it is an absolute myth that you can take your bitterness and your anger and close it behind a door and keep it in the compartment of that one it will literally leak out

and permeate every other relationship in your life. Right after Lisa and I got married, we I took her and I was doing a youth pastor job in Texas. They gave us this horrible I could spend all day describing how horrible this apartment was that they gave us, but we're thrilled because we're in ministry and

one morning, Lisa's getting up to go to work and she opens the bottom drawer in her dresser and this huge rat, I'm talking about almost the size of a cat, leaps out right into her face. Lisa quickly let me know that if I didn't get rid of the rat, she was leaving.

So I went, I found an exterminator in the church and said, look, I got a rat, I got to do this or my wife is gone, you know. And he says, okay, I can do it, but really all you can do is poison the rat, which means you don't know where the rat's gonna go to lay down and die.

And I said, I don't care, I just gotta get rid of the rat for my wife's sake. So sure enough, he came, he laid the poison, about a week later, we smelled the rat. We had gotten the rat. It was somewhere in our kitchen

and so we went into the kitchen and we pulled the refrigerator out, we emptied every one of the cabinets out of all the pots and pans, we pulled the stove out from the wall, no rat.

The kitchen smelled so bad that we decided to close the door. Now, tells you a little bit about the the kitchen had a door. But anyways, we closed the door thinking we can contain the smell inside the kitchen and we'll just eat out for the rest of our marriage. That's that's the plan.

The problem is the smell begins to waft through the cracks and now it's filling the hallway, it's getting into the bathroom and it's rough. You've to hold your breath anytime you get anywhere near. We round up some high school kids. We take them and we said, we've got to find this rat. It's getting worse.

We pull out the refrigerator. We take everything out of all the cabinets. We pull the stove out from no rat. Close the door. Eventually, the smell from the rat fills every single room and the apartment becomes unlivable.

We take a bunch of high schoolers back in, we start pulling the stove out from there, we clear out all the cabinets for thing, we pull the refrigerator out from the wall and suddenly when the high schooler says, rat, the rat had crawled up on top of the motor in the refrigerator and died, which meant

it was being slowly roasted by the heat from the motor and then the odor was being sent by the fan of the motor.

Just like the rat, when you live in anger and bitterness for what's you cannot close a door and keep it there.

It will permeate and fill every part of your life. Every relationship will be affected by the bitterness you carry within your heart.

Absalom's got his revenge, but his heart still isn't satisfied and so now he turns to his father, hey, how come my father didn't do anything about it? How come he didn't respond? How come I got put in the position where I needed to kill my brother? He should have taken care of it. And so now he decides that his father's incompetent.

So what he does is he goes out every day, he sits at the gate of the city. In those days, city officials would sit at the gate, people would bring their court cases to them, and they would decide who was right, who was wrong.

Absalom puts himself there, people come up, he says, hey, what's your grievance today, what are you doing? And they would tell the story and on every occasion he'd say, you know, it's actually not my job, but if I were hearing your case today, I would decide for you. You clearly are in the right.

My dad on the other hand, I mean, he's fickle, there's no telling what he's going to do for you, but I would side for you. And eventually he turns the hearts of the people away from his father and toward him. He literally then organizes a revolt, he throws his father out of Jerusalem, goes and sits on the throne himself,

David then does a counter attack, he's able to once again regain Jerusalem and then in the midst of the battle, Absalom is riding along on his mule, he goes underneath an oak tree, he has excessively long hair and his hair gets caught in the oak tree and so now the mule goes on and he's dangling there by his hair.

Somebody tells David's general, Joab, Absalom is hanging in a tree. So here we go, jumping over to chapter 18 verse 14, here's what happens next. Joab said, I'm not going to wait like this for you. So he took three javelins in his hand and he plunged them into the heart of Absalom,

was still alive in the oak tree and then 10 of Joab's armor bearers surrounded Absalom and they struck him and they killed him.

Bitterness will always lead you to brokenness and bitterness will cause you to to miss out on God's plan for Think about this for a minute. Absalom was supposed to be the next king. He has literally lost God's plan for his life. And I'm just gonna tell you, if you live in bitterness, if you live hoping for and desiring,

will never experience what God has planned for your life. It'll be forfeit. So then the question comes, I mean, what would God want me to do in a moment like I'm pain is real. The harm that happened to me was actual. What does God want me to do in a moment like this?

Here we go. Three things. Number one, forgive. He just says, Hey, Matter of fact, here's a verse about forgiveness. It says, be kind and compassionate. Really to the one who hurt me? Yeah. Be kind and compassionate, forgiving each other just as Christ, God forgave you. In other words, look, you didn't deserve forgiveness,

they don't deserve forgiveness, but because you're grateful for what Jesus did for you, give forgiveness to them. And guys, woah, woah, woah, woah, is not about how you feel. Forgiveness is simply saying, you ready for this? You owed me something, I've got a ledger in my heart listing all my grievances against you

and I'm simply making a decision right now that I'm gonna take the list and you owe me nothing. I forgive you. It doesn't mean you forget, It doesn't mean you restore trust. It simply means when they walk in front of your car, you don't speed up. You don't owe me anything. Hey, guys.

Can I tell you I know something about chains and bitterness and a desire for revenge? Many of you know my story and my dad took off when I was nine and I I was so angry at God for not doing anything. I felt my dad needed to suffer at an equal level to which he'd made our family suffer.

And worse than that, we were the ones living in poverty. My dad, my dad is buying yachts. My dad is buying air.

And I literally waited, waited for everything in his life to fall apart. And one day, I'm sitting in a car with my youth pastor, I'm about 15 years old and my youth pastor looks at me and he says, Lynn, you're just like your dad. To which I said, No, I'm not.

I literally, here's what you need to know, I literally, with every decision I make in my life, say, What would my dad do? And I do the opposite. I am nothing like my dad. And here's what my youth pastor said to me, your dad is a man full of selfishness

and Lynn, you are so focused on not getting hurt again that every decision you make is for your own good and you're selfish for a different reason, but you're just like your dad. And I'm telling you, it terrified me to think that I would become just like the one who would hurt me.

And I said, what do I do? And he said, you forgive him. And I said, I don't wanna forgive him. He's never asked. And my youth pastor said, It has nothing to do, it's not for him, it's for you. It's for those chains you're carrying around. And I made a decision in that car, God, I'm ripping up the ledger. I'm

gonna forgive the man who never asked to be forgiven. And can I tell you in that moment,

I cannot even explain to you the burden that was lifted from my heart because I chose to forgive somebody who actually didn't deserve forgiveness, but I needed to forgive? Number two. So, we start with forgiveness and the second thing is you hand the offender off to God. You just go, God, look, I forgave them,

but look, if you still need to spank them, if you still need to teach them a lesson, God, I'm giving them to you.

There's a great verse about this, here it is. Do not repay evil for evil. What we just talked about, right? This isn't eye for eye, tooth for tooth, this is different, this is relational law. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it's possible,

as far as depends on you, live at peace with everyone, even the person who hurt me. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath for it is written, it is mine to avenge, I'll repay, says the Lord. Can I just say, my wife is so much better at this than me?

Literally, we've we've had people who have deeply wounded us and hurt us. They've done horrible things toward the church and then toward Lisa and I and Lisa, she just goes, okay, I'm gonna forgive them and I'm gonna turn them over to God

and I literally can walk out in the lobby, see her talking a week later to the person who hurt us and she has no angst, she's just fine. Now inside she's going,

just wait till God gets ahold of you but she's fine, matter of fact, so much so I actually went out and bought her this shirt. I don't know if you can read it. It says, I'm gonna let God fix it because if I fix it, I'm going to jail.

And that's where you just go, look, I I've let you off the hook, but if God still needs to spank you. And then finally, third thing,

bless the offender. Be kind to the one who hurt you. I know, remember we said when God does a plot twist, it's hard and this is probably the biggest reach, right? You want me to be kind to the person who

hurt me. Matter of fact, go back to the very verse that we started the whole message with, and it says, you've heard that it's been said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but I tell you, don't resist any, look, don't take this in your hands, don't try to fix it yourself, don't do that.

If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other cheek also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go a mile, go with them two miles, you're literally saying, hey, if somebody hurts you, be kind in response.

Give to the one who asks and do not turn away the one who wants to borrow. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why would God do that? Why would he say that? Here's why. When someone hurts you and they know they've hurt you, they expect retaliation. That's what human beings do and in the moment you instead of retaliating decide to be kind,

they stop seeing you and they start seeing Jesus on you because that's exactly what Jesus would do. Remember he's on the cross, he says, hey father, forgive them, they don't understand what they're doing.

I've got some dear, dear friends, and his name's Tony. Her name is Stacy. And they met each other when she was a showgirl in Las Vegas. And, he was the emcee of the show. He would sing and, you know, do some stuff, and they met each other. They end up getting married.

And they're doing just all the things that you do when you're kind of in that lifestyle. One Easter, one of the other show girls invites Stacy, says, you should come to Easter services with me. And Stacy said, okay. And they go to Easter services, Stacy becomes a Christian.

Tony wants nothing to do with it. Tony is thrilled with his addictions. He's thrilled with his lifestyle, but now his wife is chasing Jesus, and he's frustrated out of his mind because he thought he married Ariana Grande, and now he's married to mother Teresa. And he's like, I So he begins to be mean to her.

He's going to wear her down. He's going to get her to stop this silliness.

Stacy's aunt comes for a visit, and Stacy says to her, it's just it's just gotten bad and and and and I I think I'm gonna leave him. To which his aunt, her aunt says to her, you can't because you haven't done what Jesus would want you to do in your marriage.

And she introduces Stacy to the love dare, and if you're not familiar, it's a little book that has 40 different days, and on each of those days, it talks about doing something kind. Remember? Kind for the person who hurt me. Something kind for your spouse.

And so she begins to do that every single day. She just does another kind thing for Tony. Tony thinks he won. Tony thinks, oh, she's given up. She's being kind to me. But in the midst of that, God begins to use her kindness to convict Tony's heart.

And he's sitting there one night, the show's gotten over, he's sitting at a table trying to drink himself till he's blind, he's doing poker because that's one of his addictions. And in a moment, in a moment, he says, I don't want this. I want what my wife has. How did he see that? He saw Jesus in her kindness to him.

I'm just telling you, Jesus is inviting you and me into one of most powerful moments of our lives that even our enemies would see Jesus in us and be convicted and maybe, maybe, maybe find Jesus because of us. You've heard it said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I tell you, Jesus says, don't resist the evil one.

Go the extra mile. Turn the other cheek. See what God can do.

Let's bow our heads. If you need prayer when this done, you can come to the front. Here's what I'm gonna ask. I know what we talked. I know what we talked about. It's big. It's hard. So what if you just did one step? One step and let God show up.

And there's some of us in this room that you have been carrying resentment and anger toward the person who hurt you. You're in chains. What if today you simply said, I don't feel like it, but I choose. I choose to forgive the person who hurt me.

Some of you have already done the forgiveness thing, but you haven't turned them over to God. You haven't said, hey God, you know what? You do what you need to do in their lives. If you need to spank them, you spank them. If you need to teach them a lesson

and some of us in this room just to say, hey, I'm taking Jeff. I'm taking Tom. I'm taking Alice and God, I'm giving them to you. You do you and whatever you need to do in their lives.

Would you turn them over in a moment like this? And finally, there's some of us in the room and you would just say, Lynn, I've forgiven him. I turned him over to God, but you know what if I'm I've I've never shown kindness to that person. It was a step too far for me.

And you would just pray today and say, God, would you just open up the door, give me an opportunity to be kind to the person who hurt me, that they would see Jesus on me.

And that's your next step. Hey, dearest love, we come before you and God, again, we're just gonna say out loud, this is this is hard and yet there's something amazing on the other end of obedience. There's something remarkable when I stop living life the way everybody else is and I choose to live the plot twist.

Give us the courage. Give us the strength. And this we pray in Jesus name. Amen.