Lost Cause | Too Hurt? — Forrest Coleman

Lost Cause | Too Hurt? — Forrest Coleman | Luke 15:25-32

Transcript

Forrest 0:06

Hey, I'm Pastor Forrest, and welcome to the Multiply Church Podcast. Each week we open God's word together to help you meet God and multiply good in your everyday life. We're so glad that you've taken time to join us for this week's sermon. And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and follow us on social media so you never miss a message. Now, let's dive into this week's sermon. We're getting to that age where I need aspirin for just random pains that happen. I don't even know how I hurt my shoulder blade or my knee, but I'm heading back to the medicine cabinet. But what about the pain that has no pill? What about the hurt that we have that can't be touched by a prescription, but it instead can only be healed by the power of God? See, many of us we are carrying wounds from preachers and teachers and leaders and parents and siblings and friends, offenses, betrayal, lies. And what do we do when there is not a prescription for the problem or another week of vacation can't solve it, or another achievement at work can't fix it, but in instead that through the power of God that we need Him to unlock the chains of us being too hurt. That's the title of my message today, Too Hurt. And sometimes we can be in a state of feeling too hurt by the pains and the difficulties and the challenges of life. Sometimes what people have done to us, even inside of the church, there's this whole category of hurt that's called church hurt. And some of those feelings and those situations are real, some of them are ridiculous. I remember the the first church I served at, there was a lady who was offended because uh the kids' pastor didn't smile at her in the parking lot and she left the church. Only God can fix that, okay? But there's also the real, like well, there's a scandal of somebody that you trusted. Or you find out that a friend has been talking behind your back. Or that person that you worked with for years at just the right time pushed you in front of the bus so that they could advance their career. See, there's real wounds that we deal with, and where we're going today, and what I'd like to do today, and the goal for today is to help you to keep your pain from becoming a prison. That's where we're going today. And as we're jumping into this series of lost calls, it's easy at times for us to have this pain that we've experienced in our past or maybe our present that's holding us down and chaining us down in a prison, and we have these emotions. And what can happen to us is we get into a state where we feel like we're never gonna trust again, or we're never gonna worship again, or we can never connect again. And it even can get us in a state of feeling like we're in a state of being a lost cause, or maybe you know somebody who's in that state, and what we know is that anytime we're tempted to see someone or to see someone or ourselves as a lost cause, we have to remind ourselves that Jesus came and overcame to seek and to save that which was lost. And so there's no lost cause because of the cross of Christ. And we're gonna be digging into this as we're leading up to Easter and today as we talk about, and there's a harsh reality that we can hold on to Christ and then also hold on to a hurt that holds us back. And if that hurt just never gets healed or is never addressed or never treated, then it can turn into bitterness, it can turn into suspicion, it can turn into keeping score, and even distance from God. And sometimes we have people that you think they're a lost cause or they feel like a lost cause because somebody who's run away, but there's also people who are becoming a lost cause, but they look just fine. But the hurt that they've experienced has shut them down and has closed them off to Jesus, but Jesus comes after them both. And so some lost causes are wild and rebellious, others are filled with resentment because of woundedness, because of an unresolved hurt. And what we're gonna see today from this famous chapter of Scripture and these famous words of Christ in Luke chapter 15, Jesus talks about those which are lost, and he uses three compelling stories that are so famous. One about a lost sheep, and the shepherd leaves the 99 to go after the one sheep that is lost, and then a woman who's lost a coin in her house and she can't find it. She asks her friends to come and help her, and they finally find the coin, and everybody celebrates. And then Jesus tells the story of the prodigal son. And you may have heard this famous story before. And this story is about this younger brother who has obviously become this lost cause. But Jesus continues the story, but he also talks about an older brother that's becoming a lost cause as well. And so if you have your Bible, turn with me to Luke chapter 15, this famous chapter. If you got your phone, pull it out, your Bible app, look up Luke 15. You're gonna want to highlight these verses. We're gonna be at the end of this story, and to catch you up on what happened in the story, this younger son comes to the father and asks his father for his inheritance early, basically saying to his father, I would rather have your stuff than you be alive. And so his the father gives the son his inheritance, which he immediately takes and goes into the city and he squanders it on partying and while living and prostitutes, and he finds himself at the end of his rope as a hired hand on a farm in a field, serving pig slop in a pig pen, and he's looking at the slop and he's thinking to himself that he should eat it, and he's thinking about back home his servants, his father's servants that eat better than what he's eating, and he comes to his senses. And he makes this plan that he's gonna return home to the father and that he's gonna apologize, and he's gonna ask for the father to hire him as one of his servants. And so he heads home, and before he can even get to the house, the father sees him from a long way off and goes running to him and embraces him. And the son begins to ask for forgiveness and asks his father to make him a hired servant, but instead the father treats him as a son and forgives him and wraps in a robe and puts a ring on his finger, and then prepares this big party because a son had come home. But there also was an older brother. And this is where we pick up in verse 25. Meanwhile, the older brother was in the fields working. And we returned home. He heard music and dancing in the house, and he asked one of the servants what was going on. Your brother is back, he was told. And your father has killed the fatted calf, and we are celebrating because of his safe return. And the older brother was angry and wouldn't go in. His father came out and begged him, but he replied, All these years I've slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to do. And in all that time, you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. Yet when this son of yours comes back from squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fatted calf. His older brother. He hears the news of this younger brother who has squandered the family wealth, has broken relationship, and he's angry that he's come home. He's indignant. And the father comes out to him and he starts to go and start to talk all about all the things that he had done and express all this anger. And you have to give the older brother credit, a little bit of credit, because even though he was jealous and he was covetous and he was not uh forgiving and he was lacking mercy, at least he was honest. He was honest with what was what he was thinking, what he was feeling, the hurt that he was experiencing, and he gave the father an opportunity to correct him. See, sometimes it feels so easy for us to just any of the hurt that we experience, just to stuff it down and not share it. You have no idea how many times I'm in conversation with people and asking questions about their life and listening to them, and they'll say, you know, I've never told anybody this, but or they say, Well, you know, I've never said this out loud, but I must just have a face that you can confess to or something. I don't know. And maybe for you, maybe you've been in that state where there's been something that you haven't shared or something that is hurting you, and you may even feel justified in that hurt and in being less than forgiving and stuffing it down, and you don't tell your Christian brothers and sisters, your small group or your team. Hey, just as a side note, sometimes your hurt and your story needs to be talked about publicly, but most of the time, it is more wise to tell a trusted friend before telling Facebook. Most of the time, it's more wise for you to get a godly perspective before you invite the gossip perspective from social media. So, what we need to do in order for this pain not to become a prison for us and chain us up, we need to stop doing some things. And one of the things we need to stop is we need to stop hiding your hurt. You've got to stop hiding your hurt. You've got to be able to share, not stuffing it down. And as you stuff it down, these wounds that you experience, these wounds can then fester and fester and even become your identity. And it can look like this. Well, you're just saying, well, I'm fine. Or how about this? It is what it is. Well, I don't need to talk about it. That was a long time ago. I I'm I've just I'm just moving on. Listen to me. You've got to bring your hurt to the Father before it turns your heart away from him. And if you hide that hurt, what what ends up happening is you begin to drift into this lost cause without even realizing it. Scientists talk about the amygdala part of the brain and how it's the portion of the brain that is for threat detection. And if you've been hurt, sometimes your system gets trained then to start to scan for these threats. And so you walk into a room and you may be in the room, but you actually are reading the room for any threats that might be there. Or you're talking to somebody and they're telling you something and you're listening, but you're really trying to listen to the motives behind what they're saying, and you're hearing the sentences that are coming out of your mouth, their mouth, but you're just bracing yourself for whatever you really think is gonna be behind what they're saying. You're just waiting for this shoe to drop. Or maybe you you you have somebody who's making decisions and you're trying to analyze to see if you're gonna be hurt or not, and what the threat level is. And if if you don't bring this hurt to the father, you can end up like the older brother being 10 feet from the party, but your heart is fully missing it. The other day I was in conversation with a pastor who's out of state, and he's he's really been going through it. His his friends and his co-workers all since October have all had some significant death in their family, including his close friend's daughter having a miscarriage. And he was sharing this with me on the phone, and I was listening, and when he was done sharing, I just talked to him about how heavy that is. And then I just paused and said, How are you doing? And he went on to tell me that he was dealing with depression and he not told anybody about it. Don't hide your hurt, don't hide your hurt, speak it out, share it with somebody, and the older brother is expressing all of this anger. And in some ways, what he's saying, the facts about what he's saying is right. This, his younger brother, has messed up, has hurt their family, has squandered their wealth, has done all these things that are wrong. And so, yes, the older brother was right about the facts, but he was wrong in comparison to the heart of the father. And it's possible for us to be right about the horizontal facts about a situation and still miss the vertical heart of God of forgiveness. I don't know about you, but I mean, you know, sometimes it feels good to hold a grudge. Especially when you feel like that person doesn't deserve your sympathy. But it doesn't take very long for me to be on my high horse before I get bucked off from something that I did. And for you, maybe it's felt good or justified and holding a grudge, but all that's doing is just holding that garbage in your heart. Listen to me. If we're gonna get out of the prison that is pain and not be controlled by it and chained by it, we need to stop confusing being right with being healed. The older brother had what I call OBS, older brother syndrome. And really what that looks like is for him, you you start following God and you're doing the right thing, and you're you're doing all the things that you need to do, you're growing in Christ, and then all of a sudden people start asking you for answers and questions about the Bible and about your relationship with God, and you start being right, and that can easily turn into being always right. See, that's where the older brother was. And if you don't know somebody like that, you may be that person. Well, nobody ever disagrees with me, I'm always right. You say force, but I am right. You don't know what they did. I'm not wrong for feeling this way. I have every reason to be mad. And you may be right, you may be right about the facts, but you may be wrong about the heart of the father. This do us doing right, it can quickly turn into us being right, and big being right can quickly turn into being always right, and being always right is a dangerous place to be. See, the older brother, he's he's talking like his brother isn't even his brother. He he says, Your son. There's been times I've said to my wife, hey, your daughter is doing this. He won't even call his brother, his brother. He's like, Your son is doing this, has done this. He's talking to him, and then he's talking to his father, and he's laying out all this anger all of these years. He's talking like an employee, all these years, you never did this for me. And this son of yours and the older brother is keeping score. And this hurt that he has inside of him, he's speaking it out and allowing the father to be able to confront him and to correct him because yes, he was right about the facts, but that doesn't mean that he was healed. Look at the father's response to him. This is verse 31 and 32. His father said to him, Look, dear son, you've always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. We had to celebrate this happy day, for your brother was dead and has come back to life. He was lost, but now he is found. We've got these two brothers. One brother that ran away, that ran away from the father. And now we have another brother who refuses to come in, and the father went after them both. There's moments that I have to remind myself of the grace that God has for me and the people that are around me, and I have to remember the fact that Jesus is not the same thing as the people who may use his name in vain or misrepresent him. For you, you know, nobody wants to be as be have a reputation or associated with the sins of your parents, your family, or maybe it's a friend or uh a leader who messed up their reputation. Maybe you have a cousin who stole or went to jail or murdered somebody, or maybe they're just an idiot. And and you don't want to assume, you don't want people to assume that same thing about you just because you're related to them. Can I tell you this? Is the third thing we need to do. We need to stop judging Jesus off his worst followers. Somebody hurt you, somebody betrayed you, and the worst part is that they call themselves a Christian. But we have to realize that that person, too, is a person who is broken and in desperate need of a savior just as much as I am, and just as much as you. You know, especially when it comes to people in the church, we can have this response of like, well, if that's Christianity, then I'm out. Or, you know, I tried, I tried church. Or, you know, all Christians are hypocrites. Listen to me. Don't let a Judas keep you from Jesus. Jesus is not the same as the worst person who has used his name. And in Luke chapter 15, we see that Jesus shows us. He shows us the lostness of the son that has rebelled and gone far away, and then he also shows us the hurt and the pain and the drifting of the older brother who is close to the house but is far away in his heart. He he's got the he's saying all the right things, he's doing the right things, he's got this outward faithfulness, but inwardly he is angry, he's guarded, and look at this, look at this. He's so angry about the situation with the Son, he's angry with the Father. Some of us let things happen here on earth, and all of a sudden our anger is now pointed towards God. Can I tell you it's not God's fault that we're sinful and broken? Instead, he came into this world in the form of Christ and took on our pain, our sin, our shame to rescue us from the burden of sin. And so this message today is not like me just saying, hey, get over it, or pretend that it didn't happen. What I'm saying to you today, I'm I'm I'm calling you to come back inside. The older brother's standing outside, he won't come into the house. Do not let bitterness write your story. Stop stop letting someone else's sin or what has happened in your pain have the final word on your trust in God, your joy, your worship, and your future. No one's a lost cause. And Jesus shows us this as he goes after the sons. Who was really the prodigal? The older brother or the younger? Years ago, I uh I had a pastor that I worked with that cussed at me in the hallway at church. And some of y'all, some of y'all have coworkers that cuss at you every day on the job side or on the factory floor. But I was not expecting this from an older pastor, okay? And maybe you've been cussed out by a pastor. I don't know. But in that moment, I I could have let that have me spiral, but instead it was a reminder to me that church people fail to. And all of us are in need of Jesus as the Savior. Can you imagine? Just imagine with me. Imagine with me if if people in our church, if people in our church got honest instead of getting bitter. Imagine if people in our church didn't hide what was hurting to them, but instead took it to the Father and to trusted believers who could actually pray for them. Imagine if the people in our church, instead of having a wound that the enemy is allowed to exploit and shut them down and shut them out, instead they step out into the light and say, Hey, this is the hurt that I'm dealing with. Will you pray for me? Can you imagine there are some people that are hurting right now and feel like they are lost and they're just waiting to be discovered by the Father who wants to go after them. And he wants to use us to see them come home. And so, very simply, maybe for you this week, maybe it's a very small step. You just you need to tell one trusted Christian friend about how you're hurting. Not Facebook, not building a whole case, but one trusted believer and then ask them to pray for you. Or maybe it's something deeper or something more serious. A few years back, I had bitterness towards uh a leader in my life who didn't do anything big, sinful or unethical, just had a disagreement in leadership about somebody who got fired. And I realized a couple years later that I still had like 10% unforgiveness and bitterness towards this person. And I knew that that was the case because I had a really hard time praying for them. And so what did I do? Well, I went to Christian counseling. I did not want this destructive path of bitterness to drag me any farther than I had already had. And so maybe you need to go to counseling. Maybe you don't need to pay for Christian counseling, you just need to talk to your small group leader. Or maybe you do need to go to counseling, maybe you do need to work through something. Because remember this weak people don't go to counseling, wise people go to Christian counseling. Amen. Because we're not gonna stay bitter and hurt, we're gonna be healed in Jesus' name. Because Jesus is the one who came down off the throne and went to a cross and walked out of the grave that we're gonna celebrate in just a few weeks, so that we could walk now today, holy and healed, not in our name, not because anything we did, not because how right we are and how good we are, but all because of what Jesus did and how right and true and just he is. And then he gave us his life, purchased by his blood on the cross. And listen to me, we're gonna invite other people into it, into that level of healing. And so, something we're gonna do today is as you leave, out on the wall out there in the lobby, it says one more. And I want a few weeks ago, I I challenge you to think about somebody in your life who's one more person who needs Christ, who's far from God, who's walked away. And what I would love for you to do today is for you to grab one of the stickies that are out there and write down somebody's name or their initials and put it on that wall and begin to pray for them as we lead into Easter and then invite them or Easter or during the series. We're gonna stop hiding. We're gonna speak it out. And we're gonna invite others to come inside to the party. Maybe for you, maybe you're the one who you've had hurt, you've had pain, you have challenge, you need God to heal you of that, and he's faithful to do so. Or maybe you're somebody who don't you don't even have access yet to the healing that Jesus has for you because you haven't given your life to him. Would you stand to your feet now as we pray? Father, all across this room, God, I pray right now, Lord, this time is a time, Father, hearts torn towards you. That God, we know that that you're faithful, God, to heal us, to change us, to transform us, to make us new. And so, God, today I pray that over every home represented here today, God, if there's anybody in this place right now, God, who is is needing to receive that healing of a past hurt or bitterness, God, that today you would meet them here right now. If that's you today, you're a believer in Jesus, but you need him to you need him to reach in and to heal your heart of some pain and bitterness. Would you just raise your hand right now so I can pray for you? Yes, here, here, here, all over, all over the room, over here, Father, right now. I pray for every single hand that's raised right now, God. You know, you know so intimately the situation. So, God, right now, we pray, God, for your Holy Spirit healing power. God, that you would reach down into their heart and that God, you would heal them in the name of Jesus. Father, I pray that to that this week, God, they would open their mouth and they would speak it, Father, to a trusted person who could pray for them. And right now, Lord, we pray, God, that you would you would move right now in power in their heart. You can put your hands down. If you're in the room today, you've not received Jesus as your Savior, and you don't have yet access to the healing power that Jesus has for you. Today is the day for you to move from death to life like the Son. And if that's you today, I want to invite you to follow Jesus for you to receive what He did for you on the cross. And if that's you, I want you to pray, Jesus, save me. And your heart and mind, pray, Jesus, save me. I ask you to forgive me. I believe that you're the Son of God, that you died on the cross for my sin, that you walked out of the grave. Help me to walk out of my grave now. I give you my life as you gave yours for mine. Thank you for saving me. Now into eternity.

Sallie 30:19

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