"Tear Down The Wall!"

Matthew 6:9-15…

9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
” ‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10 your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’ 14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Oftentimes when a pastor prays for and plans a sermon series in advance, there’s that sense of hope that it will speak to people, even when you don’t have anyone particular in mind. Yesterday was one of those days where our people were touched and many of them thanked me for the message (all glory to God!).

My illustration was this:

A wall does two things: it prevents anything from coming in, but also prevents anything from going out! This is the same effect that unforgiveness does to us….

In order to “protect” ourselves from further hurt, we build up a wall to shield us from those who attack us. We let pride take a hold in our hearts and think we’re all the better for it, ignoring rather than resolving. (How stupid!)

But what happens is, we are shut off to the outside where God is as well. When we need His forgiveness, the wall is preventing it from reaching us!

The verses that follows “The Lord’s Prayer”, 14 & 15, say specifically that if we forgive others, then God will forgive us. The inverse of that is if we don’t forgive those who have sinned against us, then God won’t forgive our sins against Him! This is a big deal to God, believe it or not.

Somehow that part about “God not forgiving us” gets lost in today’s Christian walk, where we ignorantly glide on by thinking God will love us and think we’re good-to-go because that’s just how He is! Truth be told, God also wants us to show that same brand of love to those who have hurt us.

The argument against forgiving usually involves the statements:

“They don’t deserve it!”

“If you only knew what they did to me!”

“It’s too hard!”

“I’ll have to think/pray about it!”

Yet…

Do we deserve God’s forgiveness? (Absolutely not!)

He knows full-well of our sins/mistakes/crimes! (Each and every one of them!)

The sacrifice made on the cross wasn’t so easy, but it happened! (What’s “difficult” to us pales in comparison!)

God forgives all the time, without hesitation! (To those who ask for it and have expressed it to others…)

So how shallow are we to think we can withhold forgiveness? This only ends up hurting us, rather than healing us. We cannot “move on” if we have that wall in our way!

“Moving on” involves the “removing of” any resentment, fear, and ego still lingering within us and releasing forgiveness to the party who’s committed the offense.

We see at the end of the Book of Job where he had to pray for his so-called “friends” that had “done him wrong”.

Job 42:10…

After Job had prayed for his friends, the LORD made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before.

God restored Job to prosperity once that forgiveness was released! In fact, the Bible tells us he was blessed with twice as much than before!

The wall of pride might be preventing you from God’s restoration in your life. Do you feel “stuck”? “In a rut”? “Going in circles”? It could be time to check yourself and see if you have any unresolved relationships where forgiveness has not entered into the equation yet.

If we don’t forgive, then the enemy will continue to laugh at our stubbornness because he knows it’s holding us back!

Tear down the wall!