male announcer: The following program
is paid for by the ministry partners
of the Hour of Power and viewers like you.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
♪ Joyful, joyful, we adore You ♪
♪ God of glory, Lord of love ♪
♪ Hearts unfold like flow'rs before You ♪
♪ Op'ning to the sun above
♪ Melt the clouds of sin and sadness ♪
♪ Drive the dark of doubt away
♪ Giver of immortal gladness
♪ Fill us with the light of day! ♪
♪ Amen Amen ♪
♪ Amen! ♪
Bobby Schuller: This is the day the Lord has made.
We will rejoice and be glad in it.
Good morning.
Hannah Schuller: And welcome, church family.
It is a joy to have you here. It is a joy to be with you.
We love you. Thank you for being here.
And we hope you leave this place free of any guilt
that you've been carrying around.
You know, if you've asked God to forgive you,
he has forgiven you,
and may you have the grace to forgive yourself.
And when you do that, you know what's cool?
You have the power and the grace to forgive others.
Would you turn around and shake the hand of the person
next to you and say, "God loves you, and so do I"?
Bobby: Hannah and I want you to know
how much you are loved and valued by God.
He will never leave you or abandon you.
You are his child, and he loves you.
Hannah: That's right.
I want to encourage you today that if you've been praying
for something, maybe for years,
and you haven't seen a breakthrough,
don't give up.
Your prayers are powerful, and they will move mountains
in your life.
Bobby: Yeah, that's right.
My grandpa Schuller used to say God's delays
are not God's denials.
So don't give up.
In fact, we want to support you in your prayer life,
whether you're praying for healing, relationships,
or financial challenges.
We want to pray with you.
Matthew 18:20 says, "Where two or three gather in my name,
I am there."
Hannah: Take a moment today and write down
your prayer request and send it to us.
We want to pray for you.
It doesn't matter what kind of impossibilities you're facing
or how huge that mountain is in front of you,
you can put your hope in our powerful God.
Bobby: Yeah, Hannah and I consider you a part
of our church family.
We're here for you, and we would be honored
to keep you in our prayers.
Remember always, God loves you and so do we.
Bobby: We're just so excited to have you here,
and we're so glad.
This is your house. It's not just God's house.
That you belong here in God's home, and we just want you to
know that you are loved and forgiven, and our hope is that
you leave this place full of joy and life.
Let's pray together.
Father, in Jesus's name, we thank you that you love us and
that you've called us, and we pray, Lord, that your power
would fill our hearts, that not only would we understand that
you've forgiven us, but that we would also forgive ourselves,
and that we would receive mercy,
and that we'd be merciful to ourselves.
Lord, you love us, and you call us lovable,
and we thank you for that,
and it's in Jesus's name we pray, amen.
Hannah: Amen.
♪♪♪
Hannah: You may be seated.
Thank you, choir, that was beautiful.
In preparation for Bobby's message, the words of our Lord
found in Romans 8:1: "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for
those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus
the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free
from the law of sin and death.
For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened
by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness
of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.
And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the
righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do
not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."
God has forgiven you and loves you.
May you forgive yourself, amen.
[congregation applauding]
Bobby: Well, we're so happy to have Frank Sontag
back with us today.
Frank is a talented radio host and personality who uses his
gift of communication and his own powerful testimony
to bring glory to God and encourage others to follow him.
Would you please welcome with me Frank Sontag?
Hey, Frank.
Frank Sontag: How are you, Bobby?
Bobby: Good, and what I didn't say there is Frank and I
have become very good friends since the first time
I was on your radio show.
I just felt like we connected.
That was years ago, and we've become good, good friends.
And Frank has this big event coming,
Kingdom Men's Conference, which I'll be speaking at,
and I hope you can make it you live here in LA,
or, you know, you're in town.
Come to this event. It's gonna be amazing.
So, we're gonna talk a little bit about that.
But first, Frank, tell me a little bit about your story.
Frank: Goodness gracious, first of all, thank you for all
you do on "Hour of Power," amen?
Bobby: Amen, yeah, thank you.
Frank: Applause?
Bobby: No, no.
Frank: No, I mean it. I've been in radio 32 years.
I've been at KKLA for five-plus, sharing the good news of the
gospel of Jesus Christ with many people all over Los Angeles.
And if we ever have any concerns or doubts about God having
a sense of humor, he's got me in radio.
Terrified of public speaking, but here we are, and KMG
Ministries is something that we began last summer,
have been praying very intentionally, and our
first event is coming up in August.
Bobby: That's awesome, and now, you are--
you haven't always been a Christian.
You came to faith ten years ago. You're a dad. You're a husband.
But you started as, like, a rock-and-roll DJ, right?
And you were kind of a New Age guru, and you had this
radical experience with Jesus in your car.
Frank: I had long hair and everything, Bobby.
What are you laughing at?
Yeah, I was a New Age teacher for more than 20 years, grew up
in Southern California, loving rock and roll.
Fell into radio and was rebelling against God.
I had a motorcycle accident in '84, which kinda shook me up,
but led me to the way of the New Age.
And for more than a couple of decades, I did a spiritual,
but not religious program.
And then a little less than ten years ago,
God got ahold of my heart, and I praise him for his radical love
each and every day.
Bobby: That's awesome, and one of the things that,
you know, I think is so cool is that, what we learn, is that
what I've seen is that people who are in the New Age are
people who are trying to reconcile the spiritual, like,
almost like a sense within their heart for spiritual things,
but maybe they were hurt by religion or faith, and so they
either don't want or can't accept Christ,
or don't wanna limit it to Christ.
Frank: I think there's a hunger and a search,
without a doubt.
Bobby: And in a way, that was part of your journey was, like,
you kinda opened your spiritual ears and eyes to see the things
of the cross and of Jesus somehow through that.
Frank: I absolutely believe God was preparing me for all the
years in radio and my walk as a New Age teacher to come to know
him as the risen Savior, and now in my radio ministry, and now in
KMG, I know that he uses everything for a perfect purpose
and for his greater good.
And I'm just humbled to just watch him move, and he's
on the move all across the world and the country.
Bobby: So, now, as a believer and as a Christian teacher
and a husband and a dad, you're really passionate
about encouraging men.
Frank: I am, and it's something, I think, the Lord put
on my heart about four or five years ago to do something
at the radio station for men.
And we became something through KKLA called "Men's Gathering."
We've done eight.
And then, last summer, God kinda put on my heart,
"You need to do this nationally, and so we began a ministry,
501(c)(3), praying.
I didn't think spiritual warfare was as gnarly as it is,
but it's real, for sure.
And so, my heart is that I think men are kind of asleep
and need to be challenged, men in the church,
men that don't know Jesus.
And so, we're gonna shake things up a little bit.
I don't wanna profess to say we're so different, but God's
really put a fire in my heart to challenge men to be his sons,
and I think maybe we've just forgotten that,
and I'm being somewhat politically correct.
Bobby: No, that's awesome, and I think that there is a huge
need, that a lot of men are wondering,
"What does it mean--"
Like, even as Christians, sometimes with a message
that I preach a lot, a message of love, forgiveness, mercy,
that can sometimes feel like, "Don't be strong.
Don't be assertive."
And we don't wanna be jerks, but there is this part of men that
we need to be reminded that, you know, still being strong, tough,
you know, these types of things that we're often taught as boys
are still good things to have within our Christian faith.
Frank: I think many of us, good intentioned, we think
we're supposed to be good, and we are, by his saving grace,
but when I became a follower of Jesus, there was a fire
put in me that I knew on some level was there before,
but it's a hunger to be almost fierce.
And in this day and age, I mentioned political correctness,
I think men have been kind of a position where we're not really
sure what it means to be a man of God.
I almost think we need, like, permission to be fierce
and protectors and leaders and fathers and husbands
like God is calling us to be.
Bobby: Yeah, yeah, we need that more than ever today.
Well, I'm gonna be there. I'm so looking forward to it.
It's on August 25 at Cottonwood.
A lot of big names are gonna be there.
Darryl Strawberry's gonna be there,
the amazing baseball player.
Frank: Yeah.
Bobby: And he's gonna be preaching, and others, right?
Frank: Darryl's a good friend of mine in the ministry.
We've got a lieutenant, general, colonel?
I don't know what he was, but he was Special Ops Delta.
He's got more medals than I have shoes, and Victor Marx
will be there, a former Marine who has a ministry
in northern Iraq, Mosul.
He's opening an orphanage.
And Vince Evans, who played for a school called USC.
I went--God can forgive--don't clap, don't you dare clap.
If you're gonna do a clap, do an A clap, UCLA.
But and you're gonna be there.
We're just thrilled that you're gonna be there, and it's gonna
call men to really step forward and rise up, and so it's gonna
be more of an experience, and experience God, who I know will
be there and have a word for each and every man that comes.
Bobby: Awesome, it's gonna be a lot of fun.
We hope you can make it. I'll be there.
It's August 25 at Cottonwood. Frank, thank you so much.
Frank Sontag, we appreciate your show
and your ministry, love you.
Frank: Thank you so much. Love you too.
God bless you.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
♪ When I hear that trumpet sound ♪
♪ I will lay my burdens down
♪ I will lay them deep into the ground ♪
♪ Then I'll know that I am glory bound ♪
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
♪ I'll be traveling far from home ♪
♪ but I won't be looking for to roam ♪
♪ I'll be traveling o'er the great divide ♪
♪ In a better home I will soon reside ♪
♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪
♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
♪ When I'm in my resting place ♪
♪ I'll look on my mother's face ♪
♪ Never more will I have to know ♪
♪ all the loneliness that plagues me so ♪
♪ So I'm waiting for that train to come ♪
♪ and I know where she's coming from ♪
♪ Listen, can you hear her on the tracks ♪
♪ When I board, I won't be looking back ♪
♪ Sing hallelujah, hallelujah ♪
♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪
♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪
♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪♪
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
[congregation applauding]
Bobby: Hannah and I are so happy
you've joined us in worship today.
And we'd like to say thank you for all the ways you continue
to support Hour of Power's worldwide mission.
God is on the move, and great things are happening.
Today I want to encourage you to walk by faith
and become the kind of person whose vision is framed
by the calling God has placed on your life.
He is with you today.
He favors you, and he loves you.
Hannah: Faith is trust, trust that in spite
of your current circumstances good things are coming.
Hebrews 11 says faith is the substance
of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Remember, your life is not limited
to what you are currently experiencing.
It's easy to believe that God loves us and favors us
when things are going well in our lives,
but man, when we're going through those storms,
it takes extra faith to trust God.
Bobby: It does, but friends, God sees someone in you
that no one else can see.
And if you can just have faith, you can become that person.
When you get a vision for the possibilities in your life
and start praying over them, believing them,
and even seeing them, you can fulfill the incredible things
that God's called you to do.
announcer: To request your copy of "Do the Impossible:
Six Steps to Achieving Freedom through Faith" book,
call, write, or go online today.
With this book you'll learn that with God,
you can do the impossible.
No mistake is too bad, no dream is too big,
and no challenge is too hard to overcome
when you're walking with God.
Put your faith in him, and you'll find freedom
to accept joy, take risks, and be vulnerable.
Each chapter is filled with inspirational illustrations
and scripture references designed to guide you
in your journey to strengthen your faith.
We're asking for a generous gift of any size,
so call, write, or go online today.
Your generous gift of $60 will include the book
and the two-disc "Do the Impossible" DVD set.
This series contains six messages
from Pastor Bobby's motivational
"A Simple Guide to Walking on Water" message series.
Call, write, or go online today.
Thank you for watching "The Hour of Power"
and for your ongoing generous support
that keeps this program on the air.
Now, let's return to the service.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
♪ I'm not gonna worry
♪ I'm not gonna fret
♪ I'm not gonna speculate or contemplate ♪
♪ what hasn't happened yet
♪ I'm not gonna worry
♪ He's got the whole thing in his hands ♪
♪ I won't let it haunt me
♪ I won't let it win
♪ I'm not gonna ruminate or meditate ♪
♪ on how it might have been
♪ I'm gonna release it
♪ He's got the whole thing in his hands ♪
♪ Maybe lately I started to resign ♪
♪ So here it goes, God only knows ♪
♪ it might just ease my mind ♪
♪ I'm not gonna worry
♪ I'm not gonna fret
♪ I'm just gonna wait and see ♪
♪ and in between give thanks for what I get ♪
♪ I'll live in the moment
♪ He's got the whole thing in his hands ♪
♪ Maybe lately I started to resign ♪
♪ So here it goes, God only knows ♪
♪ it might just ease my mind ♪
♪ I'm not gonna worry
♪ I'm not gonna fret
♪ I'm not gonna speculate or contemplate ♪
♪ what hasn't happened yet
♪ I'll live in the moment
♪ He's got the whole thing in his hands ♪
♪ He's got the whole thing in his hands ♪
♪ Yes, he does
♪ He's got the whole thing in his hands ♪
♪ Ooh ♪
[congregation applauding]
Bobby: Welcome, thank for joining us today on television,
and we're so glad you're watching today.
And that clap is for you.
As a church, we just really believe that no matter where
you are, that God loves you, and that you're a part
of this church community.
And if you're ever here in Irvine or Orange County,
come down to Shepherd's Grove and Irvine Presbyterian Church.
We'd love to meet you and worship with you,
and I'd love to shake your hand.
Friends, would you hold your hands out like this
as a way of receiving?
We're gonna say this creed together: "I'm not what I do.
I'm not what I have.
I'm not what people say about me.
I am the beloved of God. It's who I am.
No one can take it from me. I don't have to worry.
I don't have to hurry.
I can trust my friend Jesus and share his love with the world."
Thanks, you can be seated.
Let me begin by saying you can and should
and ought to forgive yourself.
Life is too good to spend beating ourselves up
all the time.
It's too good to continue to dwell on something
that happened five, ten, or twenty years ago.
And by no means am I suggesting that you should simply bury it
or forget about it, or whatever it is that thing
that you did that still nags you today.
I'm asking you simply to forgive yourself.
Today we're gonna begin a very short series called
"Forgiveness is Freedom."
We're just gonna talk about this for three weeks,
but talk about this journey of forgiveness that first begins
on the inside where we receive forgiveness from the Lord,
and when we do, we forgive ourselves.
Then we ask for forgiveness from others
and take responsibility for the mistakes that we've made.
Then we agree with the Lord, and this will be next week,
to forgive others.
And finally, after that, we will receive a real gift,
which is to become almost unoffendable,
that the more we become people who are forgiving,
we take on a resilience that we need to endure
the rudeness, harshness, competitiveness of this world.
And so, today, I wanna begin there.
I wanna talk about the importance of mercy,
of forgiving yourself, of letting go of the sins
that God's already let go of, of choosing to trust
that he's forgiven you, and so you can forgive yourself.
And before we go too far into this, many of us, we have things
from our past that haunt us, that nag us.
When we think about them, we feel embarrassed about them.
We think those parts of our lives are unlovable.
And I want every person in this room to think
of something like that.
Maybe normally, when it comes to your mind, you just,
you're gonna kinda push it out 'cause it's embarrassing,
or it's, like, "Oh, I can't think about that,"
but I want you to intentionally almost pull it up
to meditate on it and hold it before the Lord and before me,
and I want you to know something.
That part of your life is forgiven,
it's been redeemed, and it's lovable.
In a way, a part of being a believer is embracing
our past in order that we can be free in our present.
Too often, we reject our past, or we say
that part of my life is unlovable,
or that part of my life is too embarrassing
to think about.
But I want you to know that God loves even
that part of your life.
And the mistakes that you've made, they're forgiven.
So forgive yourself.
Life is too good to spend beating ourselves up,
thinking we're worthless, or that we don't have any sense
of belonging, or that that thing is too embarrassing.
If all of us could read each other's minds, we would see
that everybody is a little bit messed up.
Everybody's got baggage.
Everybody's got sin and mistakes from their past.
God doesn't reject you because of those things.
He's forgiven you, and he loves you.
And this is an important part of having a healthy spirituality.
Look, one thing that is clear that I've seen being a pastor
now for about 20 years, being in ministry, and talking with a lot
of people, and hearing from people, and people trusting me
with their vulnerabilities, and me seeing evolve
and grow as disciples of Jesus Christ,
I've seen very clearly that forgiveness is medicine.
It's medicine for the soul.
It's medicine for the mind, and it's even medicine for the body.
Throughout history, you see that many of the great movements
of God were preceded by forgiveness, forgiveness of sin,
forgiveness of one another, mercy, kindness.
We could use some of that today, couldn't we?
Healing in our country.
We need to become a people who forgive one another
and forgive ourselves.
Forgiveness causes healing.
Isn't that good news?
It always, always, always leads to healing.
It's all throughout the Scriptures.
2 Chronicles 7:14 says: "If my people,
who are called by my name, will,"
argue with each other on Twitter.
"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves
and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways,
then I will hear from heaven," and I will what?
"Forgive their sin," and then what?
"I will heal their land."
Forgiveness leads to healing.
If you need healing in your family, if you need healing in
your church or your school or your country,
it begins with forgiveness.
You need to forgive yourself.
You need to forgive your neighbor, and watch as God uses
that to bring healing into your work environment,
into your relationships, and into everything that's important
in your life.
James 5:16: "Therefore confess your sins to each other
and pray for each other so that you may be healed."
Right, there it is.
"The prayer of a righteous person is powerful
and effective."
So, we see again, forgiveness leads to healing.
Maybe you need healing in your life.
Maybe you feel broken.
Maybe you feel like you're just out of energy.
Maybe you feel stressed out all the time.
Maybe you're sick.
I wanna recommend to you, in the name of Jesus, forgive yourself.
If you need healing in your body, begin by having mercy
on yourself, on your soul.
The soul is fragile, so forgive yourself.
God's forgiven you.
And I think, very often, when--and for us, as Christians,
we think, "God has forgiven me, and because that was such
a great gift, and because I didn't deserve it,
I need to be hard on myself so I don't mess up anymore."
We think, "The more God has forgiven me, the more I need
to white knuckle, and, like, never mess up.
And if I do, I need to really feel it, you know, feel bad so
that I won't do that anymore."
Friends, I'm talking from experience here.
Can I tell you that beating yourself up does not make you
a better person?
Grace does, forgiving yourself does, having compassion on
yourself does because then you have fresh vision, energy.
You hear from the Spirit.
It's something God's doing in you, rather than something
you're doing through willpower.
Quite the opposite is true.
When you beat yourself up, it becomes harder to be
a good person and to do what's right.
I have seen consistently in the behavior of others
that shame leads to bad behavior.
Shame leads to judgment.
In fact, there's been real clinical studies in psychology
that what the Scriptures say about shame is true, that this
legalism and, like, when you hear somebody that's judgmental
and harsh, that those people themselves usually struggle
with shame.
All the things that they're saying to people,
they're unconsciously saying to themselves,
and unconsciously's really the word.
I think very often when you run into people that are
mean-spirited, judgmental, condemning, harsh,
they have this unconscious-- they don't know it.
They have this unconscious voice swirling around in their heart
and their mind that says, "You're a bad person.
You're a mess-up. You never get things right.
You're just like your dad. You're just like your mom.
You're just like your brother. You're just like that bully."
And it's these voices, for whatever odd reason, that cause
people to be more strict, more judgmental, and more harsh.
You see this in John chapter 8, an amazing story where Jesus is
in the temple, and these really harsh, wicked men take a woman
who was caught in the act of adultery, in the very act,
it says, and they drag her out.
Of course, the man's not there, right?
Just the woman.
And they bring her out in front of everyone to humiliate her
and embarrass her.
And the reason they bring her before Jesus
is they know he's merciful.
And they know he's so merciful that he might reject the law of
Moses, the Word of God, in order to have mercy on this woman.
They hate Jesus's mercy.
And so they bring the woman out, and the Bible says they
do this to trap him.
And they point to her and they say, "Rabbi,
this woman was caught in the very act of adultery.
The Bible says we should stone her.
What do you say?"
And Jesus doesn't say anything.
He just gets down on his knees and he starts to kinda like
write in the sand.
People love to think about what he was writing.
The Bible doesn't say.
Some people say he was writing down the Scriptures about God's
mercy, God's forgiveness.
Some people think maybe he was writing down some of their sins,
or the Ten Commandments.
But anyway, when he's done, he says to them,
"He who has not sinned, throw the first stone."
And the Bible says, "Oldest to youngest,
they dropped their stones and they walked away."
Oldest to youngest, right, because the older you are,
the more sinnin' ya done, right?
You know what's amazing about this story, by the way,
and this is my point, is that I think all those men
struggled with shame, that they all knew
they didn't live up to the law.
So, unconsciously, there's all this shame swirling around,
but consciously, they were like,
"I'm going to put that on this woman.
I'm gonna project all of my shame on her."
And so, when Jesus calls them out on it, that unconscious
shame becomes conscious, and they feel ashamed
about whatever it is that they've done,
and they walk away.
Jesus loved them too and would have had mercy on them as well,
if only they'd asked.
He asked the woman, "Where are those that condemned you?"
She says, "Nowhere, Lord."
And he says, "Neither do I condemn you.
Go and sin no more."
The Lord is not condemning you. The Lord is not angry at you.
The Lord has forgiven you, and he loves you,
every part of you, even your past.
So forgive yourself. You're worth it.
And this is what happens to us.
When we're filled with shame, we become judgmental.
I remember there was this church, I won't say their name,
but they protested my grandpa's funeral.
They're hated by the left and the right.
One thing you can like about them is they--
it's the one thing that unites liberals and conservatives
in America today, this community.
And there was this guy, Keith Allen,
who was interviewing one of the main spokeswomen
who just says, you know, "God hates,"
I can't say the word.
And you know, "God hates America,"
and, "God," you know, and all this stuff.
"And you're going to hell," and just very judgmental.
And he found out that the lady that's kinda the main
spokesperson for this, really, satanic church--they claim to be
Christian, but--that this lady herself had had multiple affairs
and that one of her sons who is in the church was out of one
of these affairs and had been married several times.
And so he calls her out on it on TV, and you just see her--
she's been on a rant, and she just locks up.
And he points to the guy and he goes,
"Are you the illegitimate son?"
And he looks shocked.
And you find out very quickly--
I don't say that to shame her, right?
I mean, lots of people have made mistakes.
I say that to simply say, I wonder if she grew up in the
view that if you get a divorce, or if you have an affair,
or if you make these mistakes that you're going to hell.
So you gotta hide it, and you gotta just white-knuckle
your way to holiness.
And you could see on her face, I just believe that all of her
judgmentalism that she lobs on everyone else is coming
from this unconscious place.
Well, God loves that woman too.
And if she could learn to forgive herself and know that
God just loves her and adores here and cares for her, she'd
lose her need to control everybody through judging.
Pastors, of course, preach on, you know,
the things that they struggle with.
It's like a joke.
Like, whatever your pastor preaches on the most,
they struggle with.
When I say that, once, I had a friend who said,
"Bobby, you must really struggle with loving people."
[laughing]
That's funny.
You know, to be honest, I really,
I do struggle with the message I give.
I struggle to feel loved.
I don't why.
I had great parents and a great family, but maybe, like you,
maybe through my experience of life, I think I'm
a tenderhearted person, and I learned in high school
to stonewall and to be tough.
But really, that came because, you know, words of condemnation
and judgment and harshness on me, and bullying.
It was really hard for me to take those things
as an 11 year old, 12 year old, 13 year old.
And I learned that to be tough is the way to do it.
And so much of my life, the last especially 10, 15 years,
I've been learning from Hannah and through
the love of my kids and through friends that I am lovable.
And so, maybe it is true that even I struggle with these
things, and that's why I preach on them so much.
But maybe you feel that way too.
You think, maybe you feel numb in life, or you feel, like,
there's this part of my life that's not lovable,
and I want you to learn that I have learned
through friends and family, and through the Holy Spirit,
that God simply loves everything about you.
He's not embarrassed by you.
He's not rejecting you.
He's not holding your past against you.
You are his beloved son, his beloved daughter.
How he adores you.
So, forgive yourself and get in sync with that wave of mercy
that flows from heaven.
When I say, "Forgive yourself," by the way, I'm not saying it
in the way that society says.
I feel, very often, that society is kind of, like, doesn't say,
"Forgive yourself," but they almost pretend like,
"Don't feel shame by pretending it doesn't happen."
But that makes things worse, doesn't it?
When I say, "Forgive yourself," I mean forgiving yourself
doesn't mean pretending that you never did anything bad.
We all do bad things.
Forgiving yourself means you look to the cross.
The cross is at the heart of our faith.
It's at the center of everything we believe because on the cross,
he who knew no sin became sin, that we could be
called the righteousness of God.
Isn't that good news?
I'm not saying pretend that you never messed up
and that you'll never mess up again.
I'm saying forgive yourself. God's forgiven you.
He's paid the ultimate price that we could be
100% totally made righteous.
The Bible says you are righteousness.
Wow!
That doesn't change, so receive it.
And this is an important message that Paul gives in Romans
chapter 8, the Scripture from today.
Paul, in Romans 7, talks about how he used to struggle
with legalism, how he was a Pharisee, how he tried to live
in the spirit of legalism and law, and how that only made him
want to sin more.
Anybody grow up in a strict religious environment?
I guarantee people who grew up in those environments,
dancing sounds a lot more fun to them than it does
to people who dance.
Movies sound more fun.
Sinning sounds like fun. I wanna go smoke something.
That's what legalism does to children and to teenagers.
That's what it does, and that's what Paul says.
You know, when I heard, "Do not covet,"
I wanted to covet all the more, right?
It's human nature to want what we can't have.
And he said, "I found," and this is Romans 7,
"that that spirit of the law was one of death,
that the more I focused on the law,
the more I died on the inside."
And he says, "Finally, therefore,"
and this is Paul rejoicing.
This is a Pharisee, a legalistic Pharisee who left that
legalistic life and embraced the life of the Spirit,
which is a holy life, but it's a life in the Spirit.
And he says, "Therefore there is now no condemnation," none,
none, no condemnation, no condemnation for any of us,
"for those who are in Christ Jesus
because through Christ Jesus,
the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the
law of sin and death, and you have been made free."
So live in that spirit of freedom.
To walk in the Spirit, that is the Holy Spirit,
means to walk with no condemnation, none at all.
Doesn't mean you're perfect. Doesn't mean you're innocent.
It means you're forgiven.
No condemnation, they've opened up the jail cell.
They've wiped your slate clean, you're free.
Now go live in that freedom.
God's forgiven you, forgive yourself.
The soul is so fragile.
That's why we do become so defensive.
That's why we run away from people who love us, is because
when the soul, the heart experiences pain, like
rejection, criticism, ridicule, and judgment, it's very painful.
You're gonna receive that your whole life from people,
but you're never gonna receive that from God.
You're never gonna receive that from me.
And therefore, never do it to yourself.
Don't judge yourself or criticize yourself.
Always do your best, forget the rest.
That's not an original.
That's Tony Horton, I guess his name is, from "P90X."
When I'm sweating and dying on "P90X,"
I'm like, "I can't do it any better."
And he's like, "Do your best, forget the rest."
I'm like, "Okay."
Another thing I wanna say, and this is for sure gonna be
the weirdest thing that I've said in my whole sermon.
I was walking around Back Bay and I felt very strongly that
the Holy Spirit wanted me to say this to the church.
And this might just be for one person, and one person alone,
and maybe that's you.
He said to tell the church to forgive your body.
Forgive your body.
You ever feel angry at your body?
It's not doing what it used to do.
It's not doing what it's supposed to do.
I think, unconsciously, sometimes we have this
frustration towards our body when we feel sick,
when there's things about aging, or things maybe we inherited
in our birth that makes us in a bad way
unlike everybody else, weaknesses.
Remember what I said at the beginning of this message,
that forgiveness always leads to healing.
Sometimes we feel, as weird as this sounds, angry at our body,
and frustrated at our body, or shame,
especially about our body.
You know, I'm too whatever, too old, too fat, too short,
too bald, too tall, too young.
Forgive your body.
Be good to your body.
I don't know if that makes sense,
but maybe that was for you.
Finally, when we become the types of people who learn
to forgive ourselves, we forgive our soul,
and we forgive our body, and we become merciful to ourselves,
and we live in the spirit of no condemnation
that Paul was talking about in Romans 8.
We then need to cowboy up and go and ask for forgiveness
from our neighbor.
This is huge.
We must experience the joy of taking responsibility
for our mistakes and reconciling with our neighbor.
And when I say our neighbor,
I mean your spouse.
I mean your kids.
I mean your brothers, your employees.
And I'm not saying today that you need to forgive them.
We're gonna talk about that next week.
Today, I'm saying, first, you need to ask them to forgive you.
And this is hard to do because of the pride in our heart,
especially when you've learned to hate that person.
Or maybe you feel embarrassed.
Here's three things that I wanna tell you that I think are
important in this process.
If you're gonna go and ask someone for forgiveness,
whether it's from 20 years ago, or 5 minutes ago,
this is important,
take responsibility without defending yourself.
Take responsibility without defending yourself.
That is a good apology.
Very often, we're like, "Honey,
I'm so, so sorry I did this," right?
It starts out pretty good.
"Honey, I'm so, so sorry I did this,
and the only reason I did it is because you did that.
And if you hadn't done that, I promise, I wouldn't have done
that, and I won't do that ever again as long as you don't do
that other thing that you do," anyone?
We sort of mix in a little blame, just a little bit.
Look, everybody knows there's two sides of a story,
but the best kind of apologies are the ones
that don't include what the other person did.
If they receive your apology,
they will take their share of the blame.
If you just say, "Honey, I'm so sorry I did that.
That wasn't kind.
That was impatient of me.
That was disrespectful," then, very often, not always,
very often, your spouse or neighbor, your kids,
your friends, they'll say, "No, no, I shouldn't have," right?
That's how you want the conversation to go.
Say it with your whole heart.
Anything else, it would have been better if you
hadn't said anything at all.
It's all or nothing.
I remember I had a really good friend who hurt me in a big way.
This was years ago, and I called him,
and I talked to him about this thing.
We hadn't talked in a while.
And he just said plainly, "I didn't do that,"
and he did this thing.
It was really rotten.
And then he finally said, "Well, if you want,
I'll say that I'm sorry to you,
so at least you can hear the words,
but I just, I don't really mean it."
I'm like, "What are you--
Are you trying to make it worse?"
You know, most people aren't that bold, but there is
a little bit of that sometimes that happens.
So, when you ask for forgiveness, be humble.
Number two, remember that forgiveness takes time.
Don't expect people to forgive you.
Very often, they won't, and that's okay.
Just the step of asking for forgiveness is one that is kind
and loving, and it's not your right to be forgiven by others,
so go into it with that expectation.
Remember that it takes time, and very often,
just asking for forgiveness can be like planting a seed,
where maybe now you don't get any response at all.
Maybe you get the cold shoulder, but that person heard
what you said.
And it may take a year or two years or five years,
but they just might come around because a few years back,
you planted that seed and you took responsibility.
And finally, number three, and this is so important,
ask forgiveness from the least of these.
Yeah, of course we're gonna ask forgiveness from our spouses,
et cetera, but don't forget to ask
for forgiveness from children,
for example, from that annoying guy in the office that is
annoying and rude to everybody that you lashed out at,
or at your employees.
Apologizing to the least of these is an important part
of being a believer.
I remember not long ago, my daughter, Haven,
who's eight years old, told me a secret,
and it was a silly thing, and I mentioned it to someone else,
and she found out, and she said,
"Daddy, I told you to keep it a secret."
We even pinkie promised.
There was a lot involved.
I remember later that day, I made a point to go and sit
with her, and I said, "Haven, I'm so sorry."
You know, to an adult, it would have seemed silly, you know,
not a big deal, but to her, it was a big deal.
And I said, "I'm sorry.
You asked me to keep a secret, and I let it out of the bag.
Will you forgive me?"
And she just gave me a big hug, and she just kinda nodded
like this, says, "I forgive you."
This is important.
Children need these kinds of messages from adults
and mentors and teachers.
We're never too big for our britches, right?
We have to be okay apologizing to children and to people that
we maybe wouldn't always think need an apology from us.
More than anything, we must learn that God is a merciful
God, that he loves us, and he's forgiven you,
so forgive yourself.
Father, we love you, and we thank you that you love us
and that you call us "lovable."
It's in Jesus's name we pray, amen.
Bobby: Hannah and I are so happy
you've joined us in worship today.
And we'd like to say thank you for all the ways you continue
to support Hour of Power's worldwide mission.
God is on the move, and great things are happening.
Today I want to encourage you to walk by faith
and become the kind of person whose vision is framed
by the calling God has placed on your life.
He is with you today.
He favors you, and he loves you.
Hannah: Faith is trust, trust that in spite
of your current circumstances good things are coming.
Hebrews 11 says faith is the substance
of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Remember, your life is not limited
to what you are currently experiencing.
It's easy to believe that God loves us and favors us
when things are going well in our lives,
but man, when we're going through those storms,
it takes extra faith to trust God.
Bobby: It does, but friends, God sees someone in you
that no one else can see.
And if you can just have faith, you can become that person.
When you get a vision for the possibilities in your life
and start praying over them, believing them,
and even seeing them, you can fulfill the incredible things
that God's called you to do.
announcer: To request your copy of "Do the Impossible:
Six Steps to Achieving Freedom through Faith" book,
call, write, or go online today.
With this book you'll learn that with God,
you can do the impossible.
No mistake is too bad, no dream is too big,
and no challenge is too hard to overcome
when you're walking with God.
Put your faith in him, and you'll find freedom
to accept joy, take risks, and be vulnerable.
Each chapter is filled with inspirational illustrations
and scripture references designed to guide you
in your journey to strengthen your faith.
We're asking for a generous gift of any size,
so call, write, or go online today.
Your generous gift of $60 will include the book
and the two-disc "Do the Impossible" DVD set.
This series contains six messages
from Pastor Bobby's motivational
"A Simple Guide to Walking on Water" message series.
Call, write, or go online today.
♪♪♪
CC BY ABERDEEN CAPTIONING 1-800-688-6621 WWW.ABERCAP.COM
announcer: The preceding program was paid for
by the ministry partners of the Hour of Power
and viewers like you and is accredited
by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.
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