Mike Todd’s Introduction
- All of our help is coming from God
- There is a shift of where we are going to look for help – “All of my help comes from God”
- Today, we’re in week 3 of a series we’re calling ‘F.U.’
- You’re going to receive a master’s degree that will change your destiny
- No matter what you did yesterday, who you were with last night, or what you plan to do tomorrow, this is a divine moment to open your heart for God to do something extravagant in your heart – God’s best is still ahead of you
- In today’s culture, we know that offense is the currency of culture, but forgiveness is the currency of the kingdom
- When we don’t forgive people, we’re stuck, it affects us, not “them” – we’re trapped in unforgiveness
- We’re in a university now that will help us to forgive
- The hope is that you can forgive one person by the end of this
- This message today may be the most important message in this entire series to teach you how to forgive
Message Title: Forgiven Ultimately // Struggling to Forgive?
1. Forgiveness is a Primary Spiritual Discipline of Every Christ Follower
Raise your hand if there’s someone you need to forgive.
- Raise your hand if there’s someone you need to forgive from 2020
- Raise your hand if there’s someone you need to forgive from the last 30 days
- Raise your hand if there’s someone you need to forgive from this last week
- Raise your hand if there’s someone you need to forgive from today
Everybody needs to understand this one thing: “You can’t give what you ain’t got”.
If you haven’t experienced love, it’s hard to give love. If you haven’t experienced kindness, you can’t give kindness.
2. You Cannot Give True Forgiveness Until You Know You Have Received True Forgiveness
We like to think forgiveness is forgetting. We fill our space up to make us ‘forget’ what ‘they’ did.
You can’t give true forgiveness until you have received true forgiveness.
Ephesians 4:32 English Standard Version (ESV)
32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Many times we shut the scripture at this point.
When people do us wrong, we make exceptions for ourselves.
I’ll forgive this, but if you do ‘this’, then xyz.
Our feelings have to consult with the truth. The problem with your truth is that you made it up. Truth has to be something that was there before you, during you, and after you. You have to live “the truth”, not just “my truth”.
This is why you have to have a devotion life. The deepest transformation comes from the simple revelation.
When you take a small scripture like this and ask for revealed truth, God can uncover what’s there.
The prayer is that the truth of God’s word will be uncovered for you when you’re in the word.
3. Ephesians 4:32 Checklist
Be kind to one another
- That’s hard when you make racist comments
- When you slept with my man
- Abused or abnormally used me
Tender-hearted
- If we’re honest, there are certain things that happen to us that turn our heart very cold
- You can be so sweet and loving to one group of people, then cold hearted to others
- You can have an open heart for those struggling with abortion, but cold hearted to homosexuals
- Agreement doesn’t have to equal acceptance – you don’t have to agree to accept
Forgive one another
- We’re about to see how we look as the church, the organisms – can we forgive one another after the posts or mistakes are made during this upcoming election
God forgave you
- We never think about what we did to God when we think about what others did to us
- We don’t think about our trespasses when we think about when people trespass against us
4. Your Perception of Forgiveness Hinders your Acceptance of Forgiveness
Everything Mike sees right now has a purple tint.
Even when others see the truth, your lens influences your truth.
Others can see that it’s a yellow paper, but Mike’s lens causes him to see a light purple piece of paper.
The light purple is Mike’s truth.
We have to get the right view of God, and the right view of forgiveness, because even if it is truth, you see it out of the wrong lens.
5. Perception is Your Ultimate Reality Even If It Is Not the Ultimate Truth. Your Reality Dictates Your Actions
When your perception is wrong, you react in a way that is negative because you can’t see properly.
If you could ever take off your lens, you can apologize, ask for forgiveness, and recognize that you were seeing through lenses like the abandonment of your family, the last church that used you up, the mistakes made that you thought others would do to you.
Your perception was skewed. When you see the truth wrong, you act on it based on what “your truth is”. When you can lay down your truth and get the perspective of God, it makes you more apt to be able to say, “could you forgive me?”
Your perception can be so broken by the things that have happened and the things you have done to others. God wants to give you a brand new vision because you’re going to have to be able to extend forgiveness.
You have to get the right perspective on how God has already forgiven you.
If you’re walking around with guilt, shame, and condemnation, saying you serve a loving God but waiting for Him to strike you down because you’re going to mess up, you have the wrong perception of forgiveness.
6. If You Experience God’s forgiveness, You Can Extend God’s Forgiveness
If you can experience truly what it means to have every wrong thing you’ve done and thought, nailed to the cross, and walk in the confidence of what Christ has already done for you, it’s so much easier to extend forgiveness to someone else.
We don’t know how much God has already done to forgive us. Most of us are still trying to work and earn after salvation what God already paid for.
You need to understand that you are forgiven ultimately.
When you receive Jesus Christ and you repent of the life that you’ve lived, you are forgiven ultimately.
Say, “I am forgiven ultimately.” – “Yes I did it, but when I put my faith in Jesus Christ, he took everything bad about me and clothed it in His son and I have been forgiven ultimately.”
Disbelief of this ultimate forgiveness shows based on how you treat other people.
When you think doing your bible reading plan makes you better than other people, your disbelief shows.
When you only give to make sure that “God sees what I do”, your disbelief shows. He already saw everything that you did, what you’re doing, and what you’re going to do, and said, “I forgive you.”
He doesn’t just forgive you for what you’ve done in this moment. The whole problem with your life is that you haven’t received what has been purchased and paid for just for you.
Some can be Christian workaholics, i.e., everything you do is trying to earn another badge or merit for what God has done for you. He called it a “finished work” when He went to the cross. You can never be able to forgive someone else if you haven’t realized that we have been forgiven ultimately.
7. God’s Forgiveness is God’s Grace
Ephesians 2:8-9 New Living Translation (NLT)
8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.
God saved you by his grace when you believed – not when you served a lot, or joined the choir, or wrote in your journal 260 days consecutively. God saved you by his grace when you believed.
Furthermore, He shows that He’s a good father in that you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from Him.
Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done. We say things like, “I’ve never drank, I’ve never smoked, never had sex outside of marriage, etc., and while all of that is good, it doesn’t make you better than anybody else who believed.
We’ve been going all of our life trying to get our self-identity based on what we’ve done better than others.
God says the only qualification to get into this party is to believe. When you say, “well they’re like this, and they’re like that”, in the Bible they call you a Pharisee, and a Sadducee, when you’re trying to point out everything everyone else has done but still haven’t believed.
God’s forgiveness is God’s grace, so you just have to believe that He did it.
Since many of us are “working” for God’s forgiveness, we try to make others work for our forgiveness.
When we’re on the treadmill of life just trying to make it into heaven, we say things like, “Lord I trust you”, “Lord I see You”, “God I’m gonna do some right things”, “This is gonna be my year God”, “Imma stop doing this and that, and stop having sex outside of marriage”, etc.
The reality is that on the treadmill, we’re so tired trying to keep up with something that isn’t even in God’s word, i.e. we’re trying to earn our way into the forgiveness of God, that when someone needs our forgiveness, we make them work/run/hold them accountable in the way that we falsely perceive God is holding us accountable.
Our distorted perception makes us want to make other people earn what God gives to us for free.
Grace: – The dimension of divine activity that enables God to confront human indifference and rebellion with an inexhaustible capacity to forgive and bless.
It’s like your favorite food never running out. You can eat more whenever you get a little bit hungry. There is so much overflow that you can even share it.
The grace of God is inexhaustible. When you mess up, lie, hurt people, He gives his grace. It’s inexhaustible.
Here are three accounts:
- A perfect person (Jesus)
- A bad person (Mike)
- A good person (Natalie)
[‘S’ is equivalent to sin and ‘R’ is righteousness]
Jesus is the only perfect person we know; He is only righteousness.
Before coming to Christ, Mike had a lot of sin with a little bit of righteousness sprinkled throughout.
Before coming to Christ, Natalie had a lot of righteousness, but as we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, she had a little bit of sin sprinkled throughout.
Isaiah 64:6 New Living Translation (NLT)
6 We are all infected and impure with sin.
When we display our righteous deeds,
they are nothing but filthy rags.
When God sees Michael, He sees “sin and rags”, when He sees Natalie, he sees “rags and sin”. He is the only one that is truly righteous.
We like to say, “you’re a big sinner”. All God sees is sin, all He sees is “big sin”. Even when it’s just “a little bit”, it destroys the holiness God wants us to live in.
[‘R’ stands for rags now]
What about when you get into a relationship with God? What happens?
All of us, even Abraham has sin. God sees sin when He sees us.
To know we’re forgiven, God takes sin out of everyone’s account and put’s it into Jesus’ account. He takes all of the sin of the world and puts it in Jesus’ account.
2 Corinthians 5:21 New Living Translation (NLT)
21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.
He took all of our sin and put it on Jesus at the cross.
So, now none of us have sin in our accounts, but we don’t have righteousness either. How do we get righteousness into our accounts? We believe.
How did Abraham do it? He believed.
Romans 4:2-4 New International Version (NIV)
2 If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. 3 What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
When you repent from everything you’ve done and believe what Jesus did, now you get sin wiped out of your account and now righteousness gets put in your account.
The blood of Jesus did not just erase sin out of the accounts of Christians. It did not even just erase the sins of believers. It erased the sin of the whole world.
The person you hate, Jesus erased the sin from their account. The person you can’t stand, who has done wrong, Jesus erased the sin from their account.
That’s why as believers, our whole job is to get everyone to believe. If they ever believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for their sins, and rose again with all power so that we could walk out this Christian life, not empowered by our good works, but accepting the free gift of God and walking in forgiveness – if anyone could ever believe that, then they would be saved.
2 Corinthians 5:19 New International Version (NIV)
19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
The whole world – everyone that was messing up. God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them, not computing them, not accounting them against them. He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
People do not go to hell for sin. Jesus already paid for that. People go to hell for unbelief.
The church is backward for trying to put people in hell for things God didn’t put them in hell for. Jesus paid for sin. They go to hell for unbelief.
It’s not about perfection, but about progression. All you have to do is believe every day that God can do something to help you. Every day, God can help you not be overcome by the depression. Every day, God can help you not fall for the pornography. This is what God did for us and it’s good news.
Until you accept what Christ has done, you can never extend what other people need.
If you have not truly received forgiveness for yourself, you’ll never extend it to anybody else.
Anecdote: Mike received righteousness when he was a young adult. He believed and received the forgiveness of God. Mike was a young adult pastor, and it happened before he became the pastor of the young adults. He had been doing all kinds of crazy stuff. He truly believed what God did for him at salvation, not a nursery rhyme story, like “yea I’m saved” or a “get out of hell free card”. He really experienced the love and forgiveness of God. When Mike believed, that’s when righteousness came into his account.
Anecdote continued: When Natalie accepted Jesus into her heart and really believed, she was a young girl. It’s not about an age thing, it’s about an authenticity thing. There’s no age. We don’t know because there are some kids that can understand on a heart level. Jesus tells us to return to faith like children. Children believe things. They can be more gullible because they haven’t been inundated with the lies of life and pain. They can believe things. God wants you to believe Him like a child. If He says you’re going to make it, regardless of what’s happening, He needs you to believe Him like a child. He needs you to believe that He sent Jesus to erase everything your family would do for you, and to you. Believe. Natalie was a young girl and she believed. The Bible tells us that Abraham believed.
Have you, and when will you believe? It’s very hard to believe when you don’t understand that you’ve been forgiven.
This is what God says to you, every time you repent and turn to Him – F.U.
You’re forgiven ultimately (FU) when you believe.
When Michael, and Natalie, and Abraham believed, God said “you’re forgiven ultimately”.
Today, make a decision to believe what Christ has done for you.
Christ took your sin so that you could receive the forgiveness that He has provided ultimately.
It might be hard to believe and there may be tears flowing down your face and you’re thinking, “not me because of everything that I did”, but He was there when you did it and crafted a plan to get you here today to let you see that God isn’t concerned about all your pieces. He takes all of your pieces and all of your brokenness and turns you into a masterpiece.
There are people on platforms and ministering to others and still have not received this message.
You can ‘give out’ and act like you get it, but you ‘live out’ if you really get it.
How can we forgive somebody else if we can’t believe and receive that we’ve been forgiven ultimately?
After Mike received this truth, he went back to Ephesians 4:32 and the checklist. The revelation is in reverse.
1. God forgave you
2. Forgive one another
3. Tender-hearted
4. Be kind to one another
When you receive that God forgave you, then you can forgive one another, then you’re tender-hearted and can be kind to one another.
The greatest thing you can do is receive God’s forgiveness – for everything that you have done, are doing, and will do.
The only way to give it out is to get it for yourself. Hear the words of God, F.U. – you have been forgiven ultimately.
When you get that in your core, scriptures like “nothing can ever separate me from the love of God” hit differently and they have new meaning – “not death or life, or angels, or principalities”, because I have been forgiven.
Romans 8:38 New Living Translation (NLT)
38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.
You can’t forgive the person who hurt you until you receive forgiveness. You can’t earn it, or brag, or boast about it. God gave it to you as a free gift so give it away. Give away what He gave you for free. Don’t be selfish; don’t hinder yourself.
Anecdote: Mike loves being a father, and it causes him to come into interaction with kids that aren’t his. He loves his kids, but kinda likes other people’s kids. Natalie threw a birthday party one time. She gives really generous gifts to the kids. There was one particular child that got a big bag of candy. Then another one came in late that was unexpected. The two kids are friends. The kids asked the other one for one of the candies, and the little boy said, “No, it’s mine”. Mike was watching from the sidelines and saw that the kid’s attitude was like he paid for the candy. His attitude didn’t reflect that he just received the candy as a gift only about three minutes ago. For 3-5 minutes he started taunting the kid. He started waiving the candy like “you can’t have what I got free”. Then something rose up on the inside of Mike, and he said, “Come here lil boy”… “that candy was a gift to you, so you need to give some of it away as a gift to somebody else. You’re still better off right now, giving half of it away than you were four minutes ago.” Mike made him pour all the candy on the table and show him where the halfway line was. Mike then said, “now give that to him”. Mike found him 5 minutes later and asked if he still had candy, and he said, “yes, sir.” Mike asked if he was still having a good time and he said, “yes, sir.” Mike then asked what he was doing with the rest of his candy. He said, “after you made me give it away, it felt good so I’ve been giving it away to other people who already had candy.” That reminds Mike of what God wants the grace and forgiveness to look like in our lives.
God is so good that He gave it to us, why don’t we give it away? For God so loved the world that he gave His only son.
To find it hard to understand indicates that you may not understand the basic meaning behind forgiveness – Cancelled Debt
8. Forgiveness: The cancelling of a debt
True Illustration: Mike calls Justice, a TC Production Manager, back out on stage. Forgiveness is a cancelled debt. Justice opens the gift to reveal a board that says, “Cancelled Debt”.
Mike heard this week that Justice has a vehicle he still has a note on. As of this moment, the debt has been cancelled on that vehicle. That’s all forgiveness means.
He got into an agreement that he did not have enough to pay for initially, and he thought he would pay for it over time, but then somebody with more resources came in, and they said that the debt is cancelled.
The sin that you have created, the lies that you have believed – today, God is saying that through Jesus, you have been forgiven ultimately. The debt is cancelled.
True Illustration continued: Mike calls Justice back. The back of the card has “for Jeremy R” on it.
The letter was from a TC Nation member who did the week of prayer and fasting and prayed for his school debt of 4k to be paid off by October 15th in order to apply for med school. This letter was his last hope asking TC to please pray for him since he knows God has a way. It had just been hard for him.
The crazy thing about Justice’s debt being cancelled is that there was an extra 4k added to the price that it takes for Justice’s debt to be cancelled. Mike’s question is, “would you be willing to cancel his debt now that your debt has been cancelled?” Justice’s immediate response was, “absolutely.”
After Justice experienced debt being cancelled, he was able to cancel debt for somebody else. When you’re able to receive the forgiveness of God, you’re able to extend the forgiveness of God.
Today, the ask isn’t for you to extend forgiveness. The ask today is for you to just receive God’s forgiveness.
Receive His forgiveness. Say, “I am forgiven ultimately.”
Today, receive God’s forgiveness.
Altar call: Make an altar wherever you are. This is a moment of transformation for you.
God doesn’t stand there pious waiting for you. Before you need it, God has provided it. He’s not standing there waiting for you to come to Him. He’s running toward you as you run toward Him. He wants to extend grace and forgiveness. Receive and fall into the grace of God.
Cody Carnes – Run To The Father – Song lyrics:
I’ve carried a burden
For too long on my own
I wasn’t created
To bear it alone
I hear Your invitation
To let it all go
Yeah, I see it now
I’m laying it down
And I know that I need You
I run to the Father
I fall into grace
I’m done with the hiding
No reason to wait
My heart needs a surgeon
My soul needs a friend
So I’ll run to the Father
Again and again
And again and again
Oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh
You saw my condition
Had a plan from the start
Your Son for redemption
The price for my heart
And I don’t have a context
For that kind of love
I don’t understand
I can’t comprehend
All I know is I need You
I run to the Father
I fall into grace
I’m done with the hiding
No reason to wait
My heart needs a surgeon
My soul needs a friend
So I’ll run to the Father
Again and again
And again and again
Oh-oh, oh-oh, again and again
And again and again
Oh-oh, oh-oh (oh-oh)
My heart has been in Your sights
Long before my first breath
Running into Your arms
Is running to life from death
And I feel this rush deep in my chest
Your mercy is calling out
Just as I am You pull me in
And I know I need You now
I run to the Father
I fall into grace
I’m done with the hiding
No reason to wait
My heart needs a surgeon
My soul needs a friend
So I’ll run to the Father
Again and again
I run to the Father
I fall into grace
I’m done with the hiding
No reason to wait
And my heart found a surgeon
My soul found a friend
So I’ll run to the Father
Again and again
And again and again
Oh-oh, oh-oh, again and again
And again and again
Oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh
Again and again
O Come to the Altar – Elevation Worship – Song lyrics:
Are you hurting and broken within?
Overwhelmed by the weight of your sin?
Jesus is calling
Have you come to the end of yourself?
Do you thirst for a drink from the well?
Jesus is calling
O come to the altar
The Father’s arms are open wide
Forgiveness was bought with
The precious blood of Jesus Christ
Leave behind your regrets and mistakes
Come today, there’s no reason to wait
Jesus is calling
Bring your sorrows and trade them for joy
From the ashes, a new life is born
Jesus is calling
O come to the altar
The Father’s arms are open wide
Forgiveness was bought with
The precious blood of Jesus Christ
Forgiveness was bought with
The precious blood!…
Oh what a Savior
Isn’t He wonderful?
Sing hallelujah, Christ is risen
Bow down before Him…
Will today be the day that you repent? All that means is turn. Turn from whatever you’ve been turning to and turn to God, and believe. Receive the forgiveness of God.
If you’re here and have a fresh revelation of what it means to receive and experience God’s forgiveness. Before we extend it and forgive our dad, that coworker, etc., let’s just fully stand in this moment and receive the forgiveness of God.
If that’s you and you’ve never received the forgives of God, the Bible tells us that we don’t have to jump through all these hoops and do what the religious people say etc., He says, “I just want a relationship with you. All you need to do is repent, turn.” You can say, “That wasn’t the way it was supposed to go, those aren’t the things I should be running to, those aren’t the gods that are going to provide for me, it’s You. I’m turning away from that and I’m turning to You. All you have to do according to Romans is believe that He lived and He died just for you. Receive it and the debt is paid.
It’s the one decision that Mike made that changed everything for him. It took him from being a liar, addicted to pornography, a manipulator, all kinds of evil thoughts in his mind and heart that played out in his actions because his vision was obscured. It’s the thing that didn’t make him perfect, but now he’s progressing every day with God. He’s devoted to him, i.e., he’s taking away his vote. He may want to act one way, but he will act according to God’s truth instead. Today, that is available to you. It doesn’t matter what you did. It doesn’t matter who you are and where you are. God wants your heart and for you to know that you’ve been forgiven ultimately.
This is the moment to put your pride aside and believe. If you want to receive Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior lift your hand up.
We’re going to pray with you.
Let’s Pray Together: God, thank you for sending Jesus, just for me. Today, I realized, I’ve sinned and I need forgiveness. Thank you, that Jesus lived, He died, and He rose again with all power, just for me. Today, I give you my life. Today, I give you my heart. Change me, renew me, transform me, in Jesus name, Amen.
- Text ‘Saved’ to 918-992-7623 for resources and content to help you to be His devoted disciple
You can still get “Relationship Goals” the book and study guide today for additional support with your relationships:
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SUMMARY NOTES
- Forgiveness is a Primary Spiritual Discipline of Every Christ Follower
- You Cannot Give True Forgiveness Until You Know You Have Received True Forgiveness
- Ephesians 4:32 Checklist:
- Be kind to one another
- Tender-hearted
- Forgive one another
- God forgave you
- Your Perception of Forgiveness Hinders your Acceptance of Forgiveness
- Perception is Your Ultimate Reality Even If It Is Not the Ultimate Truth. Your Reality Dictates Your Actions
- If You Experience God’s forgiveness, you can extend God’s Forgiveness
- God’s Forgiveness is God’s Grace
- Forgiveness: The cancelling of a debt
Link to full Video: Here
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The D.I.G. stands for Deeper In God and it is a conversation where we dive deeper in God. Join us this Wednesday at 7pm (cst)! — https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYv-siSKd3Gn9IsliO95gIw
