Hi, I'm David Bercot, and tonight we're going to be talking about gaining victory over bitterness. Now, my dictionary defines bitterness as strong feelings of hatred and resentment. Just from the very definition, I think we would all recognize this is not something a Christian needs to have. So the first thing we need to understand is that bitterness is a serious sin. In fact, it's a sin that will cost you your eternal life if you don't gain victory over it.
Let's look at a couple of New Testament verses that deal with bitterness. Ephesians chapter 4 verses 31 and 32. There we read," Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil-speaking be put away from you with all malice, but be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you." Another passage, Hebrews chapter 12, verses 14 and 15. There we read," Pursue peace with all people and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.
Looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled." Yes, bitterness will defile you. Now, the scenario I want to talk about first in discussing bitterness is where an innocent person has been wronged or hurt by somebody else. For example, someone who's a crime victim or someone who's been caught up in war and has suffered as a result of that. Maybe their house has been destroyed or taken over.
Loved ones have been killed. They become a refugee. I can think of people who've been wrongfully convicted of a crime. Later, it's finally been shown by evidence that they were indeed innocent, and yet they served years in prison. Yes, it would be easy in those situations to feel bitter against the people who caused the injury to you.
Other people haven't been wronged or hurt by anyone, but perhaps they've been seriously ill or they've lost a loved one in death at an early age, and they become bitter against God because they feel, well, he could have intervened and he didn't. And so they go through life bitter against him. Or bringing things down to a more typical situation, perhaps we have friends or family or church leaders who have failed us or who've treated us unlovingly or unjustly.
Maybe we've been a member of a harsh sect or an exclusivist church. I know what that's like because I grew up in that. And leaving that meant that my wife and I, we've been totally shunned by all of the people who were our friends for our whole life. Everybody we knew as a friend. Suddenly, we're painted as terrible apostates, and they refuse to speak to us because that's their church's teaching.
As a writer, I know what it's like to have rumors spread about you, to have people accuse you of things that you've never said. When you write books that don't say what the average Christian wants them to say, it's like painting a bullseye target on your chest, basically saying," Hey, take a shot at me," because that is what's gonna happen to you. Now, as we're gonna be talking about later, people who are bitter often are not totally innocent victims. But for now, let's just assume total innocence.
Now, the reason why I mentioned those things, I'm not bitter about them, but to let you know," Hey, I understand I have been there. I've been through some tough things myself." And there were times when I was bitter about them and finally was able to overcome that bitterness through God's help. So let's look at some of the steps that will help us to gain victory permanently over bitterness. The first step is in recognizing that those who wrong us have actually blessed us.
Now, I know that probably sounds strange, that people who wrong us have actually blessed us. But it was when I came to that realization, it was then that I was finally able to put away all bitterness that I had felt towards Jehovah's Witnesses and what they had done to me in labeling Deborah and I as apostates and our being cut off from family and friends. And the event that caused me to come to that realization was in reading the writings of Francis of Assisi. He didn't leave very many writings.
He mainly left us his life. But one of the things he said was," Our Lord Jesus Christ, whose footsteps we must follow, called His betrayer" friend" and gave himself willingly to those who crucified him. Our friends then are all those who unjustly inflict upon us trials and ordeals, shame and injuries, sorrows and torments, martyrdom, and even death. We must love them greatly, for we will possess eternal life because of what they bring upon us. You know, I got thinking, I realized that's actually true.
You know, by returning kindness to people who are kind to us, well, there's no reward in heaven for that. Jesus said that. I mean, even the worst people are usually kind to their friends. What makes us different as followers of Jesus Christ is loving those who do us wrong, loving our enemies, doing good to those who wrong us.
And so I realized that instead of feeling resentment and bitterness against Jehovah's witnesses, I should delight that they are giving me an opportunity to repay that evil with goodness and kindness on my part.
In fact, I go out of my way to not speak evil of them unfairly in any way, and to always try to speak as well of them as I possibly can, despite the various theological errors they might hold to, and realize," Wow, by giving me the opportunity to return love back to them, they've given me a great reward in heaven." Jesus said," Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for my sake, rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so
they persecuted the prophets who were before you." So the first step, no matter how you've been wronged, realize that this person has now given you an opportunity to gain an eternal reward that your ordinary friends can't do.
They're nice to you and you're nice back to them. There's no reward in heaven for that. So these other people are actually your better friends. They are genuine friends because they're doing something for you, even though they don't intend it, that if you respond the way Christ wants you to, you're gonna end up gaining eternally from them. Now, the second step in overcoming bitterness is recognizing that bitterness is a choice. God has given us free will, and He's given us responsibility.
Now, I want you to think about the word responsibility as two words joined together. Now, this isn't necessarily the etymology of where that word came from, but I think it's an interesting way to look at it. It's not original with me. This is something I read from somebody else that I thought was a very good analysis. Take the first half response, and then add to it the second half, ability. Response plus ability.
God has given us responsibility, meaning He's given us the ability to choose our response to any situation. When we become responsible Christians, we quit blaming circumstances, family genetics, and everything else for our behavior. We recognize that our behavior is a product of our own conscious choice. Now, I'm not talking about temporary failings and setbacks, our fallen flesh. You know, none of us are going to live perfectly. I don't mean that we have it in our ability to live a sinless life.
I'm not saying that at all. But I am saying that we do have the ability to choose to be bitter or to choose not to be bitter. In his campaign against the British, Gandhi told his fellow Indians," They cannot take away our self-respect if we do not give it to them." And the same thing is true of our happiness and our joy. No one can take it away from us if we don't give it to them. Nobody can make you be unhappy. They can do bad things to you. They can make your life very tough.
But you still have that ability to choose to be joyful or to choose to be bitter. I mean, think of the things that the apostles went through. When they were in chains in prison, they're singing in joy. When they've been beaten, they're rejoicing for having the honor of being mistreated on account of Jesus Christ. Okay, we've talked about two steps in overcoming bitterness.
The first one is in recognizing that people who wrong you have actually blessed you if you respond in the Christ-like way to what they've done to you. And number two, realizing that bitterness is a choice. You can choose to be bitter or you can choose to be joyful. The third step in gaining victory over bitterness is realizing that forgiveness is an essential of kingdom living. Notice what Jesus taught us about treating our enemies. Matthew 5: 38 through 48. You've, of course, heard this many times.
Let me read it to you again." You have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I tell you not to resist an evil person, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him too. Give to him who asked you, and from him who wants to borrow from you, do not turn away.
You have heard that it was said," You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore, you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. So if we are gonna be sons of our Father in heaven, if we are gonna be children of the kingdom, it's essential that we love our enemies and that we do good to those who hate us. We bless those who spitefully use us. See, if you do those things, you're never gonna be bitter.
Jesus was never bitter because He loved His enemies, and He did good to them. And, you know, the wonderful thing about all of this is that you and I were designed for the kingdom of God. When we live the kingdom life, we're living in the way that God intended us to live, the way He designed us. And so this results in our greater happiness, because we're following the very design for our being. You know, unforgiveness and bitterness place a very heavy, heavy load on us. But I see people who are bitter.
I just see people who are bent down, almost double, carrying this huge weight on themselves, a weight of hatred, a weight of unforgiveness. And it takes away their joy. It takes away much of their life. Going around, it's like going through life, having to carry 150 pound weight on your back as you go through daily tasks, and how horrible that would be for most of us, unless you're some unusually strong person.
Oh, but when we forgive, it's just like this great weight being taken off of us, the freedom that it gives us to just forgive and to love others, and particularly those who've done us wrong. All right, step four in gaining victory over bitterness is understanding why God allows us to suffer and to be wronged in the first place. You see, when we're born again, we're handed two things. I mean, this is symbolic. No one literally hands them to you. On the other hand, they are very real.
First, we're handed a certificate saying that all of our past sins have been washed away. We are forgiven. We start out with a clean slate, a new man, or a new woman. That's one of the things we're handed when we're born again. The second thing we're handed is a cross. Jesus said," Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's enemies will be those of his own household. And he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me." Again, that was Matthew 10:34 through 36 and verse 38. So he told us this is the way it's going to be in the Christian life. Don't think it's going to be a bowl of cherries. Now, blessedly, for a lot of us, life has been fairly easy.
The cross that we end up carrying is so small compared to what other Christians have had to carry in other ages, or what Christians right now are carrying in other parts of the earth. But if there's no cross, then we've never been born again. I mean, God promises us we're going to have some conflict. We're going to have crosses to carry. And often, you know here in the United States or in the Western world, our crosses are pretty easy compared to, as I said, what others have had.
God promises us that He is going to test us to see how genuine our faith is. Oh, it's so easy to praise God when everything is going good. It's so easy to talk about how great your faith is and to sing praise songs and hymns. It's another thing to see how we come through the tests.
James wrote James 1, verses 2 and 3," My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience." Probably the word" there patience" should be translated" endurance." In the days of King James, the word" patient" or" patience" meant what generally today we would call endurance.
So he said," Count it a joy when you have these various trials or these various tests, because God is testing our faith." I mean, if he knew we didn't have any, if we were hopeless, then there would be no tests coming. We would already be off of the vine. So the fact that he does bring tests shows that he still has faith in us, that we are still on his vine, and that he's trying to teach us something through the tests or trials that we undergo.
James 1: 12, and here I'm reading from the English Standard Version, it says," Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him." So rather than thinking that trials are something horrible, something to be bitter about, he said," Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial." And you can't remain steadfast under trial if you're never tried, can you? We have to have the tests.
It's one of the reasons why God permits evil to come into our lives as a test to us. And he says," When we remain faithful under trial, then we will receive the crown of life." God has promised this not to everyone, but to those who love Him. And we demonstrate our love for Him by loving our fellow man. And it's not just loving our friends, but loving our enemies, loving people who do wrong to us. Again, this all ties back into that first one of these people are our real friends.
They've actually given us a cause to be blessed. Step five to obtaining complete victory over bitterness is to quit believing in the myth of" hurting people." Now, I realize at first glance that may sound unsympathetic, but it's not. I don't find anywhere in my Bible any reference to hurting people. There are references to bitterness.
There are examples of people who are bitter, but there are no examples of, quote," hurting people." In fact, I'd never even heard the term hurting people until maybe about 20 or 25 years ago. It's a fairly new term. And the term is sort of a denial that these are bitter people. The simple truth is that hurting people are unforgiving people. In fact, the passage we read at the beginning of this message from Ephesians 4," It ties bitterness right together with unforgiveness." I'll read it to you again.
It says," Let all bitterness be put away from you with all malice, but be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you." So the remedy for bitterness, putting it away, is forgiving one another, being kind and tender-hearted to one another. Eleanor Roosevelt once said," No one can hurt you without your consent." She didn't mean that nobody can wrong you or do evil things to you. But hurting is a, when we're talking on the emotional level, is a feeling inside.
And you decide that you are going to respond that way. We talked a minute ago about this responsibility, the ability that we have as humans to choose our response. We can choose to be hurt, or we can choose to forgive. I've certainly had my share of wrongs done to me throughout my life, just like everybody else. And I could have gone through life as, quote," a hurting person." And perhaps I would have if God hadn't opened my eyes to the fact that I need to bless those who curse me.
I need to do good to those who do wrong things to me. But somehow, so many Christians, when they get stumbled or wrong, treated unfairly, whatever, they want to just lay there on the ground. I mean, imagine that you're coming to your congregation one Sunday morning for worship, and as you come in the front door of where you meet, somebody trips you on purpose. You stumble and you fall. Now, let's imagine that instead of getting up, you just lay there.
When other people come that Sunday morning, they have to step over you' cause you're laying there right in the middle of the floor. And people offer," Can I help you up? Is there something wrong?" You say," No, I was stumbled. Brother, so-and-so there, he stumbled me on purpose." And so you refuse any help, you just lay there. Finally, the service begins, you're still just laying there near the entrance of the door. When the meeting is over with, people are leaving. Again, they've got to step over you.
You're laying there. People ask you," Are you sure? Are you hurt? Is there something we can do for you?"" No, I've been stumbled. Don't you understand? I was stumbled. That's why I'm laying here." Imagine you come back the next Sunday and the person is still laying there. And it's always the same answer. I was stumbled. Brother so-and-so, he did me wrong. Well, in the physical world, we'd think someone like that was a nut. It's like," What on earth?
Get up, get over it." But in the emotional and spiritual world, we somehow think that that's okay. Yeah, so-and-so was stumbled. And that happens. I mean, Jesus talked about stumbling blocks and woe for us, for those of us who stumble others. I mean, it's a real thing. But he didn't say it was okay for the stumbled people to just stay there bitter, to never pick themselves up. He didn't say that they were excused from living by His commandments.
He just said that we are going to have an accountability if we cause other people to stumble. It doesn't mean that they're innocent, that they're going to get eternal life because they got stumbled. No, they're going to miss out on it, and you're going to miss out on it, too, if you caused it. And yet the message preached in today's Christianity isn't about bitterness. It's about hurting. There are so many books out there.
There are people who have no business even being in the pulpit in the first place, people who themselves have committed serious sins, and they paint themselves as a hurting person. And then that gives them qualification to be giving counsel and aid and ministry and preaching to other" hurting people." Well, the truth of the matter is so many of these people, they are simply wrongdoers themselves. They've hurt other people, and they are unforgiving people.
They have not forgiven the people who have done wrong to them. And instead of encouraging others to forgive, they pamper them with," Oh, this is a hurting person, and I need to be very gentle and careful because they are a hurting person." And again, I am not unsympathetic to people who have been wrong, who've suffered spiritual abuse, who've suffered other kinds of abuse or wrongdoing. I mean, we are to feel the pain that others feel, but never to the point that we excuse others for being unforgiving.
Now, one reason it is so important that we don't let people go through life labeling themselves as hurting people when the truth is they are unforgiving people. And the reason is, and this is step six of gaining victory over bitterness, and that is to realize that God's forgiveness of us is conditional. I realize that goes against everything the Reformers taught and what you hear in most evangelical churches today, but it is clearly what Jesus Himself taught.
And it's why I said at the beginning of this message that bitterness will cost you your eternal life if you do not overcome it. God's forgiveness is conditional. It's conditioned on our forgiving other people.
For example, Matthew 6:12, 14, and 15, when Jesus was giving the Lord's prayer, He tells us to pray," Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." He didn't say we should pray," Forgive us our debts unconditionally, or forgive us regardless of whether we forgive others, but only that we are entitled to pray to forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." And he concluded at the end of giving the Lord's prayer, he concluded that little message by saying," For, if you forgive men their trespasses, your
heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." I don't know how more plainly Jesus could have possibly put that. I mean, he said that in black and white." If you forgive others, your sins will be forgiven. If you do not forgive others, your sins will not be forgiven." Sought the gospel of David Bercot is what Jesus said. It's the gospel of Jesus Christ.
You know, I think about so many of the lyrics that are in the great hymns of old times, in famous gospel songs, in praise songs of more recent years, in contemporary Christian music. If you look at the lyrics, so many of them are praising God, thanking God, talking about God's forgiveness, His amazing grace, the fact that He forgave us and gave us the gift of salvation even though we did not deserve it. And all of those things are correct. He's definitely worthy of being praised.
It's a wonderful thing that He has forgiven us the way that He has. The problem is talk is cheap. It's easy to say how much you appreciate God's forgiveness. But Jesus' measure of whether you really do appreciate His dying for you, whether you really do appreciate the gift of forgiveness, is whether you forgive other people.
In fact, he concluded the Sermon on the Mount by saying," Not everyone who says to me,' Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven." Again, talk is cheap. Everybody can say Jesus is Lord, Jesus is the Son of God, Jesus is God incarnate, whatever title you want to put on Him, it takes no great sacrifice to say those things and even to believe them in your mind. But doing His will, doing the will of His Father, that's a whole' nother thing.
And that's why in his parable of building on the rock, building on the rock isn't based on having your theology correct or not trusting in your own works, but only in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is how people want to explain it. But Jesus Himself explained it there at the end of the Sermon on the Mount.
He said," He who hears my sayings and does them, he will be likened to one who builds his house on the rock." So God isn't looking for people who constantly praise Him because of His wonderful forgiveness and grace. Again, not that those aren't appropriate, not that we should not do those things, not that He does not appreciate it when we say those things, but He wants to see whether we really, really appreciate His forgiveness, and we show it by whether or not we forgive others.
Turn with me to Matthew 18, verses 21 through 35. Again, as I mentioned, Jesus stated this principle plainly when he explained the Lord's prayer to us. But now he also gives us a parable that drives the point home that I don't see how we can miss it unless we simply want to close our minds to the truth, if we simply want to listen to what commentaries and theologians might tell us, rather than just looking at the obvious meaning of what he is saying, which the early Christians had no problem understanding.
Beginning with verse 21, this is Matthew 18. It says," Then Peter came to him and said,' Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?' Up to seven times?" Jesus said to him," I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven." Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents.
But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. The servant therefore fell down before him, saying," Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all." Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.
But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying," Pay me what you owe." So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying," Have patience with me, and I will pay you all." But he would not, but went out and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done.
Then his master, after he had called him, said to him," You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you? And his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. So my Heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses. Again, you don't need any kind of commentary to understand that.
Jesus laid it out so plainly that a person who cannot even read or write can understand what he said there, and in case we wouldn't get the point of the story, he laid it out at the end." So my Heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses." In other words, God's forgiveness of us is conditional. He forgives us, It's not conditioned on our living a perfect life thereafter, and it's not conditioned on our having cleaned ourselves up. I mean, it is free.
It is of grace that God grants us forgiveness, that we get on the vine. But he explains it here, that then if we don't forgive others, he will take that forgiveness back. We will owe that debt, which we are unable to pay. Now, that's a very heavy truth, and it's one that's not preached in evangelical churches or any churches that have come out of the Reformation, because the Reformation basically denied the very words of Jesus Christ.
It's why Luther went to Romans for the heart of the gospel and tried to steer his readers away from Matthew. Because if you read the gospel of Jesus, which Matthew contains more of it than any other Bible book, you see that it does not fit Luther's gospel, that it's not just believe, and you have heaven absolutely promised to you without condition, he tells us there is a condition if we don't forgive others. And if we stay bitter, when we are bitter, it means we have not forgiven others.
He draws emphasis by saying," From His heart, if you do not forgive from your heart." So this isn't just saying," Oh, I forgive you," saying it with your lips. No, deep inside in your very heart, you have forgiven. There is no hurt there because the matter is forgiven.
And when you can't forgive others, what you're saying is," These sins, Lord, that you forgave me of, they don't compare to the sins that so-and-so have done to me."" So-and-so who gossiped about me?"" Oh, that is far more serious than the things I did against you, Lord. I understand you forgave me freely, but look at what he did." I mean, see, that is what we are saying. We are like this servant who received this forgiveness of a debt he describes as a 10,000 talents.
I mean, that would, in today's money, be millions of dollars, something some poor servant couldn't possibly pay, and yet he wouldn't forgive his fellow servant of a debt of 100 denarii. It wasn't anywhere even in the same ballpark as owing 10,000 talents. So again, why I said earlier, we've got to drop this myth about hurting people. Hurting people are bitter people. Bitter people are unforgiving people. And yes, we want to have compassion on them and mercy and feel the pain that they feel.
But if we truly love them, we can't let them live in this label of" I'm a hurting person," and I'm gonna go around the rest of my life just bitter inside and unforgiving. Because if we encourage that, if we give them the idea that that's okay, we are basically signing their eternal death warrant. We are going to be the cause of their losing out on eternal life. Because if God cancels the forgiveness He gave us, we have no hope. We cannot pay the debt we owe God.
That's why we are saved by grace, because we never, on our own power, our own godly deeds, whatever, could ever repay all we owe to God. We must be saved by His gift, by His favor, and He tells us," My forgiveness is conditioned, not conditioned on you living a perfect life," as I said, but on your forgiving your fellow man. Francis of Assisi said," He said the servant of God cannot know how much patience and humility he has within himself, as long as everything goes well for him.
But when the time comes in which those who should do him justice do quite the opposite to him, he has only as much patience and humility as he has on that occasion, and nothing more." Yeah, it's easy to be patient. It's easy to be humble when everything's going our way. It's when things go against us, it's when we're treated unfairly, when life throws us a really hard curve. That's when we find out how much patience we have. And the same thing can be said about forgiveness. Oh, it's easy to be a forgiving person.
When everything's going fine, no one wrongs you except for, you know, the little daily slights here and there. Oh, but it's when somebody really, truly does you wrong. And the wrong they do you may have some very severe lasting consequences on how it affects you or your family or other people. That's when you find out whether you have a forgiving heart, because you only have as much forgiveness in you as you have on that occasion and nothing more, as Francis pointed out.
Now let's go to step seven of overcoming bitterness, and that is recognizing that you may not be as innocent as you think you are. Now, up to this point, we've been talking about innocent Christians who've been wronged. Someone has lied about you. You're the victim of a crime. You belong to a spiritually abusive organization, something like that. But my experience has been that many bitter Christians are people who, to a large degree, are the cause of their own problems.
Now, I'm not saying that most Christians who have been wronged are the cause of their own problems. I'm saying that many Christians who remain bitter are people who are the cause of their own problems to a large degree. As I've mentioned before, people who are labeled as" hurting people" are often people who hurt others themselves. So to ever gain victory over bitterness, they not only need to learn to forgive and to love those who wronged them, they also need to learn to get honest about themselves.
By way of example, when I mention a sister who was part of a fellowship that I was in, this was quite a number of years ago. I think it's highly unlikely that anyone listening to this message would ever come in contact with this sister. In fact, I have no idea where she lives now or what church she even attends. I'm gonna call her Amanda. That's not her real name.
Before joining the fellowship that I was leading at the time, she wrote me a letter mentioning that she would like to move where our congregation was and to join. And her letter gave me quite a bit of concern because I saw just in her letter a rather proud spirit. She talked about how the Lord has used me mightily in various kinds of ministries and things.
And I thought," Boy, I don't know if she's going to be a very good fit here." Well, I wasn't going to say," No, you absolutely cannot come and be part of our fellowship." But it took only a few weeks after she moved there before she demonstrated that she was a very domineering, confrontational, argumentative person, and she was also a person full of bitterness. I remember once preaching a sermon she didn't like.
She stayed through the end of the sermon, and as soon as the service was over, she just got up and walked out of the meeting hall, slammed the door rather loudly, got in her car, gunned her engine, and drove off. Now, she, of course, saw herself as a hurting person, a person who had been continually wronged by others. She was so blind she couldn't see that she was the one who caused hurt to a lot of other people, and that many of the things that she experienced was because of her own wrongdoing.
She was experiencing the responses other people made to her confrontational domineering personality. Well, not surprisingly, it wasn't long before she was having conflicts with a number of people in our congregation. In fact, one day her brother came to me to just talk about the stress that she was causing to him and his wife. We were talking in my private office about the situation, and I was encouraging him to be patient.
I said," Look, everybody is having conflicts with this particular sister." Now, she was divorced, not remarried, but divorced. And I just made the comment to him," You know, it's not surprising to me that she's divorced. You can just be around her and see that she would be an extremely hard person to live with day after day or to be married to." Not that that gave her husband grounds to divorce her, although I think she was the one who did the divorcing.
But anyway, as it turned out, this woman's adult daughter, who also went to our fellowship, was standing outside the door when we were talking, even though it was in a fairly private location and was eavesdropping on our conversation. And when the brother left, she stood there outside the door and was very upset. So she came into my office and basically let me have it for what I had said about her mother, and particularly mentioning what I had said about the divorce.
She said," You weren't there, you don't know anything about it. How can you possibly say what you did?" And I explained I didn't have to be there. I don't know all of the details. I don't know that her husband wasn't just as guilty or more guilty as she for problems in their marriage, but I stood by what I said. It's not surprising that she was divorced. If she were a domineering man, it would be easy to see why she would have an unhappy marriage. But to be a domineering wife made it even more so that way.
Well, anyway, about a year later, her daughter came to me and wanted help. She said her mother was just basically ruining her life. And she pretty much put a guilt trip on her daughter that her daughter should include her in their family's social activity since she was basically, quote," a widow, lived by herself, and expected that she should be included in everything that her daughter and her daughter's husband did." And she often insulted their friends and had confrontations with her friends.
And as a result, it was affecting her daughter and her husband's social life. Well, I told the daughter," Yes, I would be happy to speak with her mother about it and see what I could do." But I pointed out to her the irony that not that long ago, she'd gotten so upset with me about my observations on her mother, and she herself now was having to come to me and say her mother was ruining her life. And, you know, she said she realized the irony of it, and I certainly didn't hold it against her.
I said," Yes, I will help," although I said," It would be better if you yourself talk to her rather than a third party." But if you don't feel you can do that, yes, I will talk to her as your pastor. Well, that was many years ago. As I said, I have no idea where Amanda lives now, whether she even goes to a church, if so, what church she goes to. And again, Amanda's not her real name. But I do know this, that unless she's gotten honest with herself, she is no doubt still a bitter person.
She still thinks that others have hurt her and done wrong things to her and that she's a totally innocent victim. And as I said, she won't overcome bitterness until she can get honest with herself, and she's going to find it's a lot easier to forgive others, who maybe truly have done wrong things to her when she recognizes that she herself has probably hurt more people and wronged more people than the other way around.
Yet my experience has been that the Christians who have the hardest time forgiving others are usually the Amanda type person, the very ones who cause most of their own problems, who hurt others, and yet when something is done to them, they can't forgive. They become bitter and they carry it around and see themselves perpetually as a victim. So that was step seven, learning to recognize that you may be just as much at fault or more in fault regarding the thing that you're so bitter about.
But step eight is that we all need to recognize that in a sense we're all in Amanda's shoes. Now, we might be innocent concerning the thing where somebody has wronged us, that perhaps we are bitter about. However, none of us are totally innocent before God. I doubt that any of us have gone through life without wronging other people or causing hurt to other people, even if, again, it has no bearing on some other wrong that we might be bitter about.
Thanks to the mercy and grace of God, I'm a person who now finds it fairly easy to forgive other people, which is great. Unfortunately, I'm a person who also finds it easy to get upset with people rather quickly. I get over it usually pretty fast, and if somebody does wrong to me, I'm usually able to forgive pretty quickly. But I'm not an innocent person. I've got my faults. I'm a person who gets impatient quickly. At times, I can be too critical. Now, I'm not a domineering confrontational person like Amanda.
At least I don't think most people would view me that way. But I do have real faults that I'm sure have caused injury and pain to other people. So you know I mentioned earlier about how Jehovah's witnesses paint me as somebody who's apostate, somebody who's turned his back on God, and that sort of thing. People who don't like my books often accuse me of things that I'm actually innocent of. But deep down, I'm not really innocent. It's just that these people are denouncing me for the wrong things.
I mean, rest assured, I deserve to be denounced. If Jehovah's Witnesses wanted to broadcast to the world, David Bercot is an impatient person. David Bercot gets upset too easily or whatever. Well, they would be 100% right in doing that. Now, that's not what they broadcast.
They broadcast that, you know, I'm involved in spiritism, or maybe I've been committed adultery on my wife and I've turned my back on God and, you know, all kinds of things that are totally imaginary, but they actually would have good cause to denounce me if they knew me better. And I think all of us are that way. Yeah, maybe the things said about us are lies. Maybe we've been the victim of gossip. Maybe we've been treated harshly by a church for things we didn't deserve to be treated harshly about.
And yet when we stand before God, every one of us has these lists of faults that God sees, that we should be able to see about ourselves, that if we receive trials and punishment in life, we deserve them. None of us stand in the shoes of Christ who suffered for absolutely nothing that He had done wrong. Again, we may not be suffering because of something we did wrong, but there are things we've done wrong that maybe we should be suffering for.
In other words, we're punished for this that we're innocent of, but we are guilty of this other thing. I know I, David Bercot, am that miserable servant in Jesus' parable who owes God millions and millions of dollars that I can't possibly pay. And so I absolutely have to have His forgiveness, which He gave to me at the time I surrendered my life to Him and His Son.
But now it's incumbent on me to forgive these small debts that my fellow Christians and brothers and sisters, non-Christian brothers and sisters in this world, perhaps owe me, trespasses they've committed against me. Those are all tiny compared to what I owe God. All right, in conclusion, let's just go over those eight points again real quickly.
The first one we talked about was recognizing that those who wrong us have actually blessed us because they've given us the opportunity to show love and forgiveness to them, to repay their evil with kindness, which results in a wonderful reward in heaven for us. Jesus has told us that. So that's the first step in dealing with bitterness. Recognize that actually these people have done you a favor. Step 2: Recognizing that bitterness is a choice, no matter how horrible things have been to you.
And there are people in this world who have suffered incredibly vicious, wicked things at the hands of their fellow man, who have forgiven. Every one of us has that ability to choose to be bitter or to choose to be joyful and to forgive. Step three is recognizing that forgiveness is an essential of living the kingdom life. It's not an option. You can't go around bitter and remain a citizen of Christ's kingdom. You can't be a child of the kingdom if you're a bitter person. You've got to overcome that.
Step four is understanding why God allows us to suffer and to be wronged. When we recognize that all of these things serve as a trial, giving us the opportunity to prove to God not only our faith in Him, but that, yes, we can forgive these wrongs that our fellow man does to us. We can not be like the servant in Jesus' parable. We can forgive these small debts of our fellow servants because we've asked God to forgive us a debt we could not possibly pay. Quit believing in the myth of hurting people.
Don't coddle others who are bitter by labeling them as a hurting person who gets to go through life bitter and feeling like a victim eternally because they are a hurting person. And likewise, if you see yourself that way as," Oh, I'm such a poor victim," recognize that you're a bitter person. When you forgive, you're not a victim any longer. You suffered. But when you forgive, it's over.
Paul didn't go through life as a hurting person, as a bitter person, as an eternal victim, even though look at all that he went through, not only at the hands of his fellow countrymen, the Jews, but also from the pagan Romans, and also from his brothers and sisters in the Church. Step six, important one. In overcoming bitterness, we've got to understand that God's forgiveness is conditional. Jesus has made that crystal clear.
When you recognize that if you don't let go of your bitterness, if you don't forgive the people who have wronged you, you will forfeit your eternal life. Step seven is recognizing that you yourself may not be innocent. The person who has wronged you, you know, they might have done that in response to something you did wrong to them. So if you're having trouble forgiving, if you're still bitter about something, analyze the situation objectively. Did you do something to that person that caused their response?
Now, it may not justify their response before God, but if you recognize, you know, a lot of this was my fault, it's gonna be a lot easier to forgive. And finally, step eight is even if you weren't the cause of the thing that has hurt you, that has wronged you. Even if you are innocent in that matter, you are not innocent in life. You're being wronged over this matter, but you could justly be punished about some other matter.
And if you recognize that, it's a whole lot easier to forgive, to say," You know, that person has told lies about me, but I don't know that I would look any better if they told the absolute truth about me. They just don't know the whole truth about me." And so, yes, I can forgive them. It doesn't justify what they're doing, but it certainly makes it a lot easier to forgive. As I said, I'm not a stranger to bitterness. I was bitter for many years after leaving Jehovah's Witnesses.
And I have found it is so joyful to forgive and to eradicate every little bit of bitterness out of your soul, where you can really love those who've wronged you and look for opportunities to do good to them. Yes, doing the right thing. Doing the kingdom thing is also the thing that's gonna bring you the most joy in this life, let alone eternal life ahead.