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THE BONDS OF BITTERNESS-PART 1
EPHESIANS 4:30-32; HEBREWS 12:14-15
Introduction
Has anyone ever said or done something to you for which you found it difficult to forgive them?
I’m talking about when you see them or every time you hear their name brought up, even if the their wrong against you was years ago, it still brings you an uneasiness in your body and soul. When you think of them, maybe your heart rate increases and you can feel your blood pressure rising when you think of whatever it is they said or did. Just thinking about it causes you to relive it all again!
Did someone just come to your mind as I was talking about that? Did those feelings come back? If that is the case, you need to realize that you are in the bonds of bitterness! You are its prisoner!
What is really a shame is that most of the time bitterness doesn’t even touch the person that we are bitter toward. But it sure will harm us!
Just as Frankenstein turned on his creator, so bitterness is a monster which turns on its creator.
It can cause damage beyond our imagination. It is an internal poison that eats its way out!
Many times the other person may continue on with their life, and may be happy and content, and never even think about you. But because you are bitter against them, they continue to control your life. If they do think about you or see you, they may get some satisfaction in seeing that they can still get at you!
I want to give you some examples of what I’m talking about:
If you were molested as a young child or teenager and it caused you to become bitter toward your molester, realize that your molester continues to touch you until you give that bitterness to God.
If you were physically abused by your father or mother. (I’m talking about where they went beyond what would be considered proper discipline.) As long as you continue to hold bitterness against them, then they are still hitting on you? You must give that bitterness to God!
Many emotions which we feel are not necessarily sin:
Anger is not always sin. Ephesians 4:26–“Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath” (It is possible for us to have righteous indignation–e.g. Jesus’ cleansing of the temple.)
However, when our anger is uncontrolled, it is sin. Or when the object of our anger becomes misplaced (i.e. we take act out our anger against someone who has done us no wrong) it is sin.
Guilt is not always sin
The Lord sometimes gives us a Godly guilt–a conscience or a convicting by His Holy Spirit–to get us back onto the straight and narrow.
However, Satan loves to use guilt to paralyze us in our Christian walk. And when we allow guilt over something God has forgiven us for to haunt us, then it is sin!
Romans 14:23–“. . .whatsoever is not of faith is sin.”
Grief is not always sin.
Grief is a gift from God when used to help us heal from loss or sorrow of some kind. Paul didn’t tell the Corinthian Christians not to grieve. He told them to not to grieve as others which have no hope!
But if we refuse to allow the Holy Spirit to comfort our grief, then it becomes self-pity. Self pity is a sin.
Anger/guilt/grief, are they sin? Maybe so, maybe not. But listen, there is one human emotion that is always, without exception, a sin. That is bitterness!!
Bitterness and a spirit of unforgiveness is always sin! If you spit in my face, you have sinned. But, if I turn away in bitterness, I have also sinned.
You may question my motives for doing something or I may even say or do something that you find hurtful. You may feel that I have sinned against you. And, depending on the circumstances, I may very well have. But that doesn’t give you the right to join in on the sinning by responding wrongly to the hurt you feel!
Who is that person that comes to mind when I talk about bitterness? There might be more than one! Who is it that you hold bitter feelings against? I’m talking about being honest with yourself and being honest with God.
Don’t try to explain away or excuse your bitterness. The Holy Spirit of God brought them to your mind for a reason. It is because He loves you and wants to rid you of that cancer of bitterness that is eating you from the inside out!
It may have been in the last week, last month, last year or even years or decades ago when you were hurt by this person or these persons. But you know in your heart that you’ve never truly forgiven them for it.
And whatever you do, don’t say: “I don’t hardly ever think about them at all.” That is not even the question. The question is when you DO think about them, or someone else brings it up. What are your thoughts about them?
We need to have the attitude of “Lord, thank you for forgiving me even though I continue to hurt you at times and I don’t deserve to be forgiven. Lord, thank you for not holding my sins against me. And, Lord, thank you for giving me the power to forgive others.”
Let’s all be honest today. If the bitter feelings are there, don’t try to deny it. I want look at eight things that bitterness will do to your life:
I. BITTERNESS WILL UPSET YOUR SPIRITUAL LIFE! Why? Two reasons:
A. Because Bitterness Necessitates That You Walk In The Flesh, And Not In The Spirit.
All Christians have that choice every day, many times a day, to take a step in the flesh or to take a step in the Spirit. Those are the only two choices.
Galatians 5:16-17–“This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”
We can’t control what happens to us in this life, but we can control how we respond and react to those things!
If you have unresolved bitterness in your life, you are not right with God, and you are not walking in the Spirit, but in the flesh!
Galatians 5:22-23–“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance. . .”
These are the very things we hold back from when we are bitter.
When we are with “that person”, we don’t feel like displaying love.
When we think about them, we don’t feel joy and we have no peace at all!
We aren’t very longsuffering, or we would have given them more latitude.
But, if we would just walk in the Spirit and think about how much we’ve been forgiven by Christ, then it would make it easier to forgive them, even if they don’t deserve forgiveness, because neither do we deserve forgiveness!
(That, my friend, is meekness!)
We can erase them from our hit list if we’re walking in the Spirit!
The last chapter of Galatians drives it all home:
Galatians 6:7-8–“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. 8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.”
Bitterness will devastate you spiritually. Holding bitterness is walking in the flesh–sowing to the flesh, and it will eat you up inside.
It is impossible to be wrong with man and right with God at the same time.
That person may not even be around you anymore. In fact, they may even be in the grave and you are still holding a grudge. You can’t be right with God!
Bitterness Will Upset Your Spiritual Life:
A. Because Bitterness Necessitates That You Walk In The Flesh, And Not In The Spirit.
B. Because Bitterness Halts Spiritual Growth Altogether.
How many of you want to grow in grace? Say Amen!
We all should want to be all we can be for God!
We should desire to reach the fullest potential that God intended for us!
We should want to use our spiritual gifts for God’s glory!
We all should want to grow in grace!
But listen, if when we harbor bitterness we stop the growth process dead in its tracks! That’s right!
God says, the train stops right there, and it doesn’t move again until we take that stow-away of bitterness and throw him off the train!
I personally believe that is why we see so many immature Christians!
Are you in the bonds of bitterness? Why not let Christ set you free, because bitterness will upset and even devastate your spiritual life.
II. BITTERNESS WILL UPSET YOUR PHYSICAL LIFE!
Bitterness is like a constantly running machine. It’s not just an occurrence, it’s a lifestyle. It enters into our subconscious mind, and it runs while we’re sleeping, eating, watching TV, or talking to a friend.
And medical doctors say that bitterness affects the body and its physical health.
Bitterness has been medically linked to glandular problems, high blood pressure, cardiac disorders, ulcers, and even insanity.
One leading psychiatrist wrote, “90% of all people in insane asylums could be released immediately if they would learn how to forgive, or how to be forgiven.”
I quote from an article from “The Gospel Herald:”
“There was a man whose health was good. He was sturdy and strong. His heart action and blood pressure were fine.
Then his father died, and he got into a prolonged legal dispute with his sister about their father’s will. The case went to court, and the sister won. From that day on, the man could think of nothing more than the lawsuit and his sister. He talked about it, he thought about it, he filled himself with it, it became an obsession. And each day, he grew to hate his sister more. Then he began to have difficulty with his heart and blood pressure. Next, his kidneys bothered him. Before many months, complications killed him. It seems obvious that he died from bodily injuries brought on by a powerful emotion. I believe the man killed himself– death by bitterness.”
One might say that the man committed suicide, and the trigger that he pulled was the trigger of bitterness.
Now I’m not implying for a moment that all sickness is caused by bitterness, but I am saying it is impossible to be bitter, and it not affect your body.
You need to let Christ set you free from your bitterness, because:
Bitterness will upset and devastate your spiritual life. . .upset and destroy your physical life. . .
III. BITTERNESS WILL UPSET YOUR EMOTIONAL LIFE!
Where there is bitterness, there is discouragement. Bitterness not dealt with leads to paranoia. You start to develop a victim’s mentality. (i.e. Everyone’s out to get you.)
In addition to paranoia, you become negative and critical.
You think people are talking about you.
You become judgmental of others and think you know their motives.
You can’t go to a football game because every time the team huddles you’re sure they’re talking about you. (We may laugh, but some folks can get about that bad!)
Bitterness will upset you emotionally.
IV. BITTERNESS WILL UPSET YOUR CHURCH LIFE!
If you want to kill this Church, if you want to destroy the ministries of this Church, if you want to harm the cause of Christ in this community, then just harbor bitterness for someone else who is here!
Now understand that we’re all human (including the Pastor), and at times we’ll give each other reason to be offended. Sometimes it is unintentional, sometimes it is not!
A Dad told his Son, “Son, I’m taking your mama to the Doctor for her Colitis.”The son then asked, “Why, who did momma collide with this time?”
Collisions will happen, even within the fellowship. We can’t completely avoid that. But we can control how we respond!
Someone may say, “You don’t know what they said or did to me!”
I don’t mean to minimize your pain, or sound arrogant, but you’re not the first person or the last to get hurt in Church!
Sometimes we just need a good old-fashioned dose of “growing up!” We need to grow up, and get over things that have hurt us and move forward for Christ. We need to remember that we don’t deserve God’s forgiveness, and even if they don’t deserve ours, it’s still the right thing to do–so grant it to them!
I’ve been in the ministry for over 25 years. At times I’ve been lied to, lied about, criticized falsely, my motives judged (an arena God reserves only for Himself!), and my sincerity has sometimes been questioned.
But maturity each time begs me to blow it off, because it’s to be expected if you’re trying to do what’s right. I would have quit a long time ago if I allowed every hurt that came my way to affect me in the wrong way. There are bigger things to focus on, and we cannot allow our eyes to be diverted off of the real goal.
God is my defender, and He will be yours too, if you’ll let go, and let God take care of it! Don’t take it into your own hands, put it in His!
God sometimes allows us to be hurt. I think He allows it to test us. Will we become bitter, or better? Sometimes he allows valleys to be cut into our soul, but He can use those valleys as a channel through which He can transmit His grace to others, if we will allow the wound to heal, by leaving it in the hands of the Great Physician, and not by taking it into our own hands.
I’ve been in Churches before that I truly believe are going to have to have some funerals before they’ll ever go forward for the Lord. The reason–because some members of those Churches are making conscious decisions to harbor bitterness.
Bitterness divides the fellowship. “You don’t know what happened!” And I don’t need to know. In Christian love, on the authority of God’s Word, get over it and move on for Christ!
Philippians 3:13-14–“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
Conclusion
We are going to have to drive up a stake there and come back next week to look at the last four things that bitterness will do.
So, how do you remove the “root” of bitterness? (And bitterness is a root by the way!) There is only one way I know of to get rid of the fruits of bitterness in the life. You have to yank it out by the root or dig it up and get rid of it, by the grace of God.
Spray some heavenly Roundup on it! (i.e. forgiveness–only forgiveness can kill the root of bitterness!) You cannot do it by yourself. You need God’s help to do that!
Let God yank the bitterness out of your life and see how much better life can be!
If you have never been forgiven of your own sin, then you don’t really understand the grace, mercy and forgiveness that God gives. Which means you don’t really know how to forgive.
Remember how that after the Children of Israel crossed the Red Sea, they were thirsty, and came to Marah (bitter). What did God tell Moses to do to heal the bitter waters? Cut down a tree. And when the tree made contact with the waters, they were healed! The only hope for the bitter waters sloshing around in your soul is for them to come into contact with the cross of Calvary!
Ephesians 4:31-32–“Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice. 32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.”
Are you in the bonds of bitterness? Why not let the Lord free you today and release you from those bonds?
There is nothing more bitter than a sinner–who needs to be forgiven, can be forgiven, and yet is not forgiven, because they won’t accept God’s forgiveness. Forgiveness is offered. Take it!
Then you too will know how to forgive and have the power to forgive!
Home Page Contact Us Service Times Sermons Are You Going To Heaven?
NOTICE: THESE SERMONS ARE FREE TO BE USED BUT ARE NOT TO BE SOLD!