I, personally, have made many mistakes and hurt people in the past. Decisions that seemed right to me at the time have hurt people deeply. It is a terror of being in ministry - people have placed more trust in me than I have deserved, and I have failed them. I have been imperfect, and in many regards I am still very imperfect. I have repented, heart-to-God, for the things that I’ve done and said that I know have caused hurt, and I know that between me and God, these things are forgiven, scattered as far as the east is from the west. But the hurt that I’ve caused remains with those people.

There is very little in my life that I want more desperately than to be forgiven for my mistakes, my trespasses against them, my failures, and the hurt I’ve caused. I also know that many of those people do not wish to hear from me ever again, and I will not force myself on them. Even so, I know what God has done in my heart, and therefore I must have hope and belief that God can do the same thing in the hearts of those who have hurt me. I must remain open to the possibility of their openness to God’s work in them.  People can change; I did. In the words of the Christian punk band Relient K, “who I am hates who I’ve been,” and now I wish people could see who I became in the end. I must give others the grace I wish I had.

- Joe Barnosky

 [00:00:00] We're continuing our message series on Weak Links. Last week we looked at depression and despair, and the concept of this message series we're is we're taking a look at vulnerabilities we have in our faith relationship with God. And this week we wanna take a look at bitterness and resentment and chances are we all.

[00:01:18] Someone who is maybe a more bitter and resentful person, and who knows, maybe we are a more bitter and resentful type person. What is bitterness? And who is a bitter type person? People who are bitter are a lot like a porcupine. They have a lot of good points, but they are hard to be near.

[00:01:46] They're harsh. They're critical, they're rude. They can be mean and heartless. They can be condescending. They can be judgmental, they can be sarcastic, and they can be filled with anger. It isn't that they haven't been wrong. They have, but as a re, as a result of being wronged it's changed them and they've become mean and they become nasty and they're just difficult to be around.

[00:02:24] Bitterness has caused untold damage in churches and families. In workplaces and in relationships of all kinds, and at the heart of bitterness is a dissatisfaction with the person who's hurt you that they haven't suffered or paid the price for hurting you. , and this is the other thing that's interesting about bitterness is that at the heart of it is a, is really a dissatisfaction with God.

[00:03:06] That God would allow the person who has hurt you to not suffer or that God allow that person to get away with it. That he didn't punish them for. For doing it to you. Why have they been able to just move on with their life and everything be so great for them in your suffering? And so this is why bitterness is a big deal, is because it's a little bit of a frustration at God as well.

[00:03:40] And that's an avenue by which Satan can kind work on us and attack us. Because part of it is we're just frustrated with God.

[00:03:52] What I wanna do for the remainder of our time this morning is I want to take a walk through scripture and I wanna look at examples of bitterness, just a few of them in the Bible. I wanna see what the Bible says about bitterness and resentment. I wanna take a look at different kinds of bitterness and resentment and then I wanna talk about ways in which we can overcome bitterness in resent.

[00:04:17] Now, bitterness and resentment are quite common. I talked last week about depression and despair as being very common. Honestly, bitterness and resentment are probably equally as common. All we have to do is open our Bibles and turn a couple pages into it, and we're gonna find bitterness and resentment.

[00:04:37] At the very beginning of the Bible the very first couple in the Bible, Adam and Eve their very first. Children there, you're gonna find bitterness and resentment. Let's look at Genesis chapter four, verses two and eight, two through eight it says, now able kept flocks and kae worked the soil.

[00:05:02] Now, in the course of time, cane brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord and Abel. In offering some of the fat portions of some of the firstborn of the flock. Now, the Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Kane's offering, he did not look with favor As a result, Kane became very angry and his face was downcast, and the Lord said to Keene, why are you so angry, and why is your face so downcast?

[00:05:42] If you just do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you, but you must rule over it. Now, Kane said to his brother, Abel, let's go out to the field. And while they were in the field, Kane attacked his brother Abel, and he killed.

[00:06:11] There, a couple pages into the Bible, bitterness and resentment's already there, and it leads to one brother killing the other. So I say it's common it's there at the very beginning and it's there throughout scripture. I talked about how bitterness and resentment can interfere with our relationship with God.

[00:06:34] Right there you see it interfering with Kane's relationship with God.

[00:06:41] Where's the bitterness and resentment? It's because God's favoring abel's sacrifice over against cane sacrifice. For those of you who grew up maybe in a larger family, you know what it's like if you were the favorite the parents' favorite, you know what it was like, the other siblings probably were a little bitter and resentful for you being the favorite.

[00:07:04] If you weren't the favorite, if maybe your brother or sister were the favorite. Chances are you are probably a little bitter and resentful for that, that's what we see going on here between, God and Cain and a. And right here at the very beginning. But now all we have to do is move a couple pages over in scripture and all of a sudden we're gonna see another example of it.

[00:07:27] We go to Abraham's, grandkids, Jacob and Esau and we see bitterness and resentment here. But now here it's not God favoring one's sacrifice over the other. What we have is one parent favoring one kid and one parent favoring the other. Look at Genesis 25, 28. Isaac, the dad who had a taste for wild game.

[00:07:55] He loved Esau. He favored Esau, but Rebecca, The mom she loved, ie. She favored Jacob. So you got dad favoring Esau, you got mom favoring Jacob. And from that, all kinds of bitterness and resentment developed between the two brothers. So much so that you got Jacob that ends up. Extorting from Esau, the birthright that belonged to Esau.

[00:08:30] And then later you have Jacob with the help of his mom fooling and tricking the dad, Isaac into getting the blessing. And you end up having Esau resenting Jacob so bad that Jacob has to basically flee for his life. But you have resentment and just bitterness between Jacob and Esau for literally over a thousand years that their descendants just have bitterness and resentment towards each other and hate each other.

[00:09:08] That's a lot of bitterness and resentment that all starts because one parent favors one and the other parent favors the. And then if you just turn the Bible one page more. Because this Jacob, when he had to flee his brother because of his brother's bitterness and resentment towards him Jacob goes to the homeland to find himself a wife.

[00:09:34] And as he goes to the homeland he goes to his. House, basically his relative's house to his uncle's house, a and he falls in love with someone by the name of Rachel. and he wants to make Rachel hi, his wife, but his uncle tricks him, his uncle's not gonna let him marry Rachel because Leah's the oldest.

[00:09:58] And Jacob ends up marrying Leah, but he wants to be married to Rachel so that he ends up marrying both. But he doesn't wanna be married to Leah, but he has to. So he marries Leah, but then he also gets to marry Rachel. Leah's able to, Giving him lots of kids, but he doesn't really love her.

[00:10:19] Rachel, who he loves, doesn't, isn't able to really give him kids, at least at first. And so Leah resents and is bitter towards Rachel because that's who Jacob loves. Rachel is bitter to towards Leah because Leah's able to give kids, and that's what a wife's supposed to do. So they're both bitter towards each other.

[00:10:43] And so Rachel, who's not able to, at least initially give kids, she's since I can't give kids, and she's bitter that Leah does, she's Hey, I'm gonna give my maid servant to give kids, because she'll basically be giving kids in my name. and that makes Leah even more bitter. So then Leah's if you she's gonna do that, then I'm gonna give my maid serving cuz I'm gonna give even more kids under my name.

[00:11:09] And that makes her even more bitter. And there's just this bitterness going on. And so all of a sudden Jacob ends up having four women giving them kids. That leads to all kinds. Like, how's that work out? What works out that Jacob ends up having 12 kids? It. And do you think there's any bitterness and resentment amongst those 12 kids?

[00:11:32] . If you flip the Bible like another page or two over, you get to see the bitterness and resentment amongst those 12 kids, because you know what, guess what? Jacob has a favorite amongst those 12 kids. And guess who it is? It's the oldest kid of the wife that he loved. Rachel was eventually able to have two kids, and the oldest of those kids was someone by the name of Joseph.

[00:11:58] And that was the one who was Jacob's favorite. So guess what? The other kids were bitter and resentful about that fact. So they come up with this big scheme that they're gonna kill Joseph. Then they decide not to kill him. In fact, they decide instead to beat him up, throw 'em in a well, and then they sell 'em to some trade, some slave traders that are going to Egypt and then you know that's how Israel ends up in Egypt.

[00:12:21] And there's a whole long story. And then you can scoot some more pages through scripture and there's bitterness and resentment from Saul to David because David was the popular person, even though Saul was the king. You can flip a few more pages and there's bitterness and resentment. And it from King Darius's government officials towards Daniel.

[00:12:43] It's found throughout scripture and that's why we're. In scripture to have nothing to do with bitterness and resentment. Let's see what scripture says about it. Let's look at Ephesians chapter four, verses four, verse 31. It says this, get rid of all bitterness and there's. Look at the things that are grouped in with bitterness.

[00:13:15] Get rid of all bitterness. Get rid of rage, get rid of anger, of brawling, of slander and along with every form of malice, it, and it says, get rid of it. Why? Why do we have to be told in scripture to get rid of bitterness and interesting. It says, it doesn't just say get rid of bitterness. It actually says, get rid of all bitterness.

[00:13:44] But why would we have to be told to get rid of all bitterness? Why wouldn't we just naturally get rid of bitterness? Why would you have to be told. Because in the end, I think bitterness is something that, that we don't want to get rid of. I think in the end, bitterness is something that, that we know isn't good for us, but it's just something that, that we wanna hold onto.

[00:14:10] We know it's destructive to us, but we just hold onto it. If you ever watched the Lord of the Ring movies or read the books it's like the ring, like the people who get the ring they know it's bad for them. They know it's evil. They know it's destructive, but they hold onto it and they know it's eating away at them.

[00:14:27] They know it's destroying them. They know it's evil, but. They just hold onto it as it is just they just hold it and they hold it and they hold it till their, to the, to their own destruction. And that's what we do with bitterness. It's controlling me, but I'm gonna hold onto it.

[00:14:51] It's occupying my every thought, but I'm gonna hold onto it. It's eating me off from the inside but I'm gonna just hold onto it.

[00:15:04] But scripture says get rid of it, all of it.

[00:15:13] And it's interesting. It says all bitterness because you can't get rid of some of it. It's all or nothing. Why look at Hebrews 1214 to. Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy, because without holiness, no one will see the Lord see to it that no one falls short of the grace of God.

[00:15:46] And that no bitter root. Bitterness is referred to as a root that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and to defile. Many. In Ephesians 4 31, you're to get rid of all bitterness because bitterness is like a root, and if you keep some of it, it is gonna come right back. Have you ever dealt with roots before?

[00:16:10] We're getting into the spring. And it's the time of the of weeds and like it's time pretty soon if you have gardens, and I remember like the first couple years I'd weed my garden before I had a tiller and stuff like that. And you go out there and you're getting the garden ready and you bend over and you're just pulling up all the weeds and you pull on 'em and you hear a pop or whatever and you're out there bent over for an hour.

[00:16:39] Some satisfaction when you're done because it was all overgrown from the winter and you feel good. Cuz look at the work you've done. It was all overgrown and now you see nothing but dirt and you walk away and you come out four or five days later and like it's all back. What just happened?

[00:16:58] What just happened is there's just as much or more of the plant below the ground and above the ground and you may have taken it off at the surface, but it's all gonna come back. Like that's what bitterness is like we, we might just deal with it a little bit.

[00:17:14] We might sweep it under the rug. We, but if we don't get rid of all of it, it's just gonna come right back. The other thing that's interesting about Hebrews is this, it says a bitter root that grows up and cause trouble and defile many, and that's what if you know a bitter person, you understand what it says, defile many, because bitterness not only affects the bitter person.

[00:17:46] But it affects anyone that's around a bitter person. Anyone that's in a relationship with a bitter person, bitter person, their bitterness will affect anyone that they earn relationship with.

[00:18:06] James three 13 to 15 says this, who is wise and understanding amongst. Let them show it by their good life, by deeds that are done in humility, that come from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it and deny the truth. Such wisdom does not come from heaven, but it's earthly, it's unspiritual.

[00:18:39] It's actually demonic. So why are we talking about bitterness? Because bitterness actually is a way in which Satan attacks us. It's very caustic and destructive in our faith. It's demonic. It's not of God.

[00:19:01] Now there's a wide variety of things that we can be bitter about. There's. There's insignificant things we can be bitter about, and there's extremely significant things we can be bitter about. There's situational things that we can be bitter about. A and then there's other things that like cause us to be bitter almost 24 7.

[00:19:28] Some of us are bitter because of just changes that are going on in the world. Some of us are triggered by like when we go to Kroger and you go to checkout and there's not a cashier to go through, it's only the self checkout and that bugs you. In fact, they'll set you in a rage and for me it doesn't bother cuz I don't like having to deal with the people anyways.

[00:20:04] But for you, you're like ready to call for a manager. I just want a person here please.

[00:20:15] This one I understand a little bit more like you become like volatile because you're calling customer service and you can't speak to a person, right? This is a form of bitterness. It really is like it will set you off because of the way that the world has become. Sometimes a generalized behavior can cause and bring out bitterness in people.

[00:20:39] And we see that like when you ride with certain people and how like they drive, right? Normally someone's a really decent, easygoing person and someone driving like makes the smallest mistake and the person freaks out normally having something to do with the roundabout

[00:21:03] And they just there's some bitterness that's going on here. Something's happened before or multiple times. That is bringing out this bitterness. It is a form of bitterness.

[00:21:18] Maybe the thoughts and the feelings that you have when you maybe walk into Walmart and there's just a certain kind of people that you'll encounter there and you have the certain attitude, thoughts, and feelings. There's a bitterness that comes out there. Maybe it's a general bitterness that you have to the younger generation.

[00:21:35] If you're above a certain age. Those are situational bitterness. It, it comes and goes when you encounter certain things. But then there's a generalized bitterness that you might experience because of certain things that have happened to you in your past. Maybe you were fired from a job unjustly and maybe like your self-confidence is ruined, or a feeling, general feeling you have about employers.

[00:22:06] It creates this general. Bitterness in your personality so that whether or not it has to deal with your job or your family or anyone, you just have this air of bitterness about you. Maybe you are abused as a child and now whoever you're dealing with you don't trust and you just have a generalized bitterness about life.

[00:22:32] Maybe you were betrayed in a relationship and once again, you have a general bitterness in life. Maybe you suffered a sexual assault and now once again, every aspect of life you have a general bitterness. Regardless of the situation, bitterness has to be addressed because in the end, Bitterness is a poison that we drink that we hope will hurt the person who hurt us.

[00:23:07] Let me say that again. Bitterness is a poison we drink that we hope will hurt the person that hurt us, but it doesn't work that way. The bitterness hurts. We hope the other person will drop dead. We hope the other person will have a heart attack, we hope. But no, it's a poison. It's poisoning you.

[00:23:29] They're not even thinking about it probably. And in the end, it's a weak link by which Satan can attack. For the remainder of our time this morning, I just want to give some kind of practical and also spiritual suggestions on how we might move past bitterness in our life. Cause I think most of us have had certain events that have happened to us, some less, some more significant that have caused some bitterness.

[00:23:59] The first thing is this. We need to learn to hand our bitterness over to. And that sounds a little bit cliche-ish, I understand. But ultimately, remember part of bitterness is a frustration with God that he didn't punish someone for hurting us. Because in the end, our expectation is that God would be just, and that God would punish.

[00:24:23] And God's promise is that actually he would not allow things to go unpunished. Now he's gonna do it one of two ways. God's going to either punish it through the cross of Christ, and here's the deal is if someone's hurt you and that person that's hurt you, if they've repented of their sin, that you've got to accept the fact that the cross of Christ is.

[00:24:43] Payment enough for their sin against you. That, that if that person repents, that the cross of Christ is enough, you must be willing to accept it. But if they don't, and if this wicked person who is hurt you and wrongs you in such way if they don't repent and they remain under wickedness, then you need to know that God will pay repay.

[00:25:09] That he promises that he will. Look at Deuteronomy 32 35. It is mine to avenge. God says it's God's to avenge. I will repay in due time. Their foot will slip their day of disastrous near. And their doom rushes upon them. God's promises. It's his to avenge and it's in due time. It's not your time. I get you wish.

[00:25:42] They'd fall on their face and every tooth would fall out of their mouth. But that's not God's plan. I get that. You wish that they drop over with a heart attack or they die slowly with cancer. But that's not God's plan. But God's plan is that all people will be judged. That, that price would be paid either through.

[00:26:02] If not, but it will be ultimately by the fires of hell. It God, it is God's to avenge. And even though you might want them to drop dead of a heart attack or of cancer in this life, I can assure you the fires of hell, which are real are far worse than anything that you could ever wish upon them in this life.

[00:26:21] But you must hand it over to God because it is God's to deal with either through the cross or if they don't repent and they reject of it through the fires of hell. Secondly, don't let hurt turn into root of bitterness. Almost all bitterness and resentment starts with hurt, and the key is that you can't allow hurt to take root and become bitterness.

[00:26:56] You know what we're about to enter into spring. We're like a week or two away where we're gonna walk out and look at our yard and be like, where'd that just come from? There's gonna be weeds everywhere. And we're gonna be shocked at how it happened. There's a way to keep it from happening.

[00:27:12] If we would just put in the fall, a post emergent, and in the spring of pre-emerge, or maybe they refer to it the other way, but if you put a post emergent and a pre-emergent down, then by the time you get into spring, you know you're not gonna have weeds. While spiritually speaking, we can do a similar thing that keeps hurt from turning into bitterness.

[00:27:34] Jesus speaks about it. He says, turn the other cheek. And when you turn the other cheek, then hurt. Doesn't turn to bitterness. He says, forgive your enemies. And if you forgive your enemies, then hurt doesn't turn into bitterness. He says, love your enemies. And if you learn to love your enemies, then hurt doesn't turn into bitterness.

[00:27:56] He says these things for our spirituality as much as anything, so that Satan can't attack us through hurt becoming bitterness. Third thing that we can do is we need to learn to stop caring so much about. What becomes of the people who've hurt us, and I think this one is a real big one for those of us who have Xes who have wronged us and hurt us.

[00:28:26] Because I think for those of us who have Xes that maybe have cheated on us or Maybe emptied out our bank accounts or just all kinds of horrific stories that you hear from people who've been just really treated wrong by exes. Because of social media and because of sharing kids you stay connected to that person's life and this exes created this great wrong in your life.

[00:28:55] And because you still have. Connected on Facebook because you're connected with the kids. You see that they just got a, an advancement with their job. Maybe a promotion. They just bought this newer, nicer house. They bought this newer, nicer truck.

[00:29:16] Everything in life is going great. For them. And you sit there and you just become more and more frustrated because why is this evil, wicked person that treated me so bad that walked out on the family, why is everything going so great for them? Why are you concerning yourself with their life? If they truly treated you so badly, would you wanna be with them anyways?

[00:29:38] And if the answer is no, then what do you care? If they win the lottery, why would you care?

[00:29:46] What you need to do is you need to block them on social media. What you need to do is tell your kids, I don't want to hear what your mother's doing, if it's the mom or, I don't wanna hear what your father's doing. If it's your dad. If you have shared friends, you need to say, I don't want to hear what my ex is doing a, and you need to put walls around it, and you need to stop carrying what they're doing good or bad, or in.

[00:30:12] You also need to learn to cancel the debt of the people who've hurt you in your past. And it's not always easy to cancel people's debt or hurt or sin, but it starts by reminding ourselves that forgiveness isn't just for us.

[00:30:33] Chances are each of us have done something in our lives.

[00:30:41] Where people have been bitter at us and like we've done something that people have been bitter towards us and we might not even realize it. And hopefully they've been able to work past it and forgive us for it, and if they've been able to forgive us for it, then hopefully we've can learn to forgive.

[00:31:07] For things they've done to hurt us. It's what we prayed the Lord's Prayer this morning, and it's at the heart of what the Lord's Prayer is about. Forgive me my debt, forgive me, my sin as I forgive those who sin against me. That we ask God to forgive us in the same way that we forgive other people.

[00:31:29] Next one is this.

[00:31:34] Learn to. , feel sorry for those who've wronged you, or maybe I should have said, really learn the story of those who've wronged. Some of the hardest people to love are bitter people, but you know what? Bitter people are bitter for a reason. And I had to learn this as a pastor because you know what, as a pastor you have to deal with all kinds of people.

[00:31:56] And some people are hard to love. And I remember in ministry, like starting out there's just some really like nasty mean people out there. And I spent a lot of people time just avoiding certain people and hoping they transferred to some other churches.

[00:32:13] And I honestly didn't want anything to do with them. But somewhere along the way, like I actually sat down and started talking to some of these people and you find out that, you know what they've had a really tough life. Like they had a parent that, that died like very early in life. Maybe they were abused, maybe they lost a child.

[00:32:35] Maybe they were Abandoned by both parents or whatever. Like people have, like people that, that are sometimes very hurtful in, in how they act. Pastor Dave said this phrase to me, hurt people, hurt others. So people that, that are hurting others have probably been hurt themselves. When you learn their.

[00:33:06] you can actually learn to have compassion on them. It doesn't make it right for why they treat people that way, but you begin to have a little bit of compassion and you learn to be a little bit more understanding. Here's the last one, and this comes from Jesus. You gotta learn to love your enemy. Love.

[00:33:25] Look, and this is a hard one, right? Look at Luke 6 27 to 28. Jesus says this, but to you who are listening, I say, love your. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you. What good is it? How you know for those who like love us, it's easy to love them back.

[00:33:53] Anyone can do that. But how hard is it to love your enemy? I'm not saying I'm good at it cuz I'm not. , but it's what Jesus tells us to do. And what does that look like? I don't really know. I'm not saying I'm good at it, but I think it looks something like this. It means that you forget people who hurt you.

[00:34:13] It means that you treat your enemy with the same respect and attitude that you treat someone who you care for.

[00:34:21] It means that you're willing to help someone. If they are an enemy, it means that you're willing to pray for someone, even if they are an enemy. It means that you show mercy and compassion to someone that, that doesn't even like you, as hard as it might be to forgive your enemy, it's probably easier to do than holding resentment and bitterness in anger.

[00:34:50] For those of us who are holding on to bitterness and resentment, the hurt that you had in your past, you had no choice in it was just brought into your life, but staying hurt in the present and the future, that is your choice. Don't allow the person who brought hurt into your life a year ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, whatever it is, don't allow that person to keep bringing hurt into your life today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your life.

[00:35:24] It wasn't your choice 10 years ago. It is your choice today, and it is your choice Tomorrow. Let go of the bitterness and let go of the resentment. Would you join me in word of. Gracious Almighty God, we just thank and praise you for this day. And as we wrestle with this topic, as people who have been hurt at different times in our past it is hard to love our enemy.

[00:35:45] And we just pray that by the power of your spirit, you'd help us to be able to do that and where we have been hurt in the past, that you'd help us to be able to let go of that bitterness and that resentment.