Fighting Bitterness
00:00:00.000 | Here's a question we have received from a few different listeners recently.
00:00:08.280 | They're asking this, "Pastor John, how can I fight bitterness in my life?"
00:00:13.000 | Well, that's not a foreign question to me.
00:00:17.040 | Bitterness is usually owing to a deep wrong we've experienced, or lots of them, or even
00:00:26.080 | most painfully, the same one done over and over and over again.
00:00:33.440 | And it's intensified usually by the fact that nobody really knows the depths of this besides
00:00:41.400 | you.
00:00:43.360 | And therefore, the sense of injustice grows.
00:00:46.720 | If people only knew, and you can't tell them for various reasons.
00:00:53.520 | And so it gets deeper and deeper from frustration and disappointment to anger, outbursts, to
00:01:02.840 | settled, deep, long-term bitterness.
00:01:08.200 | And God really knows about this, and he really wants to help us with this.
00:01:14.820 | And there are four amazing things he tells us to embrace and believe and ponder in order
00:01:21.520 | to fight this.
00:01:25.600 | And here's number one.
00:01:27.360 | Let it sink in.
00:01:28.360 | And by the way, all of these depend on God.
00:01:32.440 | God makes all the difference here.
00:01:36.040 | You can't manage bitterness successfully without God, because even if you decided, "Okay, I'm
00:01:43.920 | settling all accounts in this world on my own," you wouldn't be able to do it.
00:01:49.480 | They'd slap you in jail, or something would go wrong.
00:01:53.000 | You can't do it.
00:01:54.240 | We cannot settle the accounts of those who've wronged us in this world.
00:02:00.400 | If there's no God, there's no solution to bitterness.
00:02:03.240 | So here's what God said.
00:02:06.280 | Ponder and let it sink in that you don't deserve better than you got from God.
00:02:13.760 | And I don't mean when I say that, that it was right that you got treated the way you
00:02:17.600 | did, or that they're not guilty.
00:02:20.480 | They are guilty, and you shouldn't have been treated the way you were treated.
00:02:25.000 | I don't mean to say that their injustice ceases to be because you don't deserve better from
00:02:34.080 | God.
00:02:35.320 | All I mean is to say is we've all sinned, fall short of the glory of God, and we are
00:02:40.680 | by nature children of wrath.
00:02:43.760 | Ephesians 2, 3, anything that happens to us from God's standpoint is not a wrong to us
00:02:51.920 | from Him.
00:02:52.920 | It may be a wrong from others, and God disapproves of that, but it's not a wrong from Him.
00:02:58.680 | And that doesn't solve the whole problem.
00:03:00.240 | But wow, what a huge deal changer that is emotionally, because so much of my anger comes
00:03:08.840 | from failing to see before God Almighty I don't deserve any better from Him.
00:03:17.080 | So that's my first thing.
00:03:18.480 | Just know how little we deserve from God.
00:03:23.360 | And now the second thing is, and realize and ponder and embrace how much we are getting
00:03:28.840 | from God, how much we've been forgiven, and at what cost.
00:03:33.400 | This is the text that is directed directly at bitterness from Ephesians 4, 31.
00:03:41.720 | Let all bitterness—and there's the word—let all bitterness be put away from you, and be
00:03:47.720 | tenderhearted and forgiving one another and kind because God in Christ forgave you.
00:03:57.320 | And again in chapter 5, verse 1, be imitators of God, be loved, your love, you're loved
00:04:03.680 | as a child of God.
00:04:05.320 | Walk in love.
00:04:06.320 | In other words, don't walk in bitterness as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us.
00:04:11.800 | A fragrant offering, sacrifice to God.
00:04:15.440 | So the point on this second thing is holding a grudge is a way of saying, "Christ acted
00:04:26.520 | toward me inadequately or foolishly when He didn't hold a grudge against me.
00:04:34.480 | I have overwhelming guilt and I have overwhelming forgiveness.
00:04:40.480 | How can I not extend it to others?"
00:04:45.560 | So that's the second thing.
00:04:47.080 | And here's the third thing.
00:04:49.440 | We need to embrace and believe and savor that in all the pain that's been done to us, God
00:05:00.720 | is working for us and not against us.
00:05:05.320 | Second Corinthians 4, verse 17, "This light momentary affliction," and fill in the blank,
00:05:14.040 | how much has she hurt you?
00:05:15.200 | How much has he hurt you?
00:05:16.840 | How many wrongs have been done to you?
00:05:18.940 | "This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all
00:05:24.520 | comparison."
00:05:25.520 | That is simply amazing.
00:05:27.800 | The question is, can we believe it, that sins against us, hurt done against us, injustices,
00:05:34.400 | slanders done against us, are not just something that we should forgive, but something that
00:05:43.760 | are actually, something that is actually producing a weight of glory greater than if they didn't
00:05:52.320 | happen to us.
00:05:54.320 | And therefore, there's positive reason for why these things should not undo us and make
00:06:00.680 | us bitter.
00:06:01.680 | God is using them.
00:06:02.720 | And here's the last one.
00:06:04.160 | It's surprising in one sense because people think, "Oh, maybe you shouldn't think like
00:06:09.240 | this."
00:06:10.400 | The fourth thing that God wants us to embrace and believe and savor is that nobody gets
00:06:15.700 | away with anything.
00:06:19.240 | Nobody who's done you wrong will get away with it.
00:06:22.100 | You may think, and the world may think, they do because they're not in jail or because
00:06:28.100 | they haven't been, they didn't lose their job or they didn't have the accident.
00:06:37.120 | And God says, "You need to relax here and let me be the one who takes vengeance."
00:06:47.520 | This is Romans 12, 19.
00:06:50.960 | "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God.
00:06:57.520 | For it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay.'"
00:07:04.160 | If your enemy is hungry, feed him.
00:07:06.440 | You see what that says?
00:07:08.360 | If you have an enemy and he deserves to be punished and nobody's punishing him, nobody
00:07:14.080 | sees what he's done or nobody agrees with you that he's done wrong, God says he won't
00:07:21.120 | get away with it.
00:07:22.780 | He won't.
00:07:24.260 | So you can relax because one of the reasons we feel bitter, I think, is this universe
00:07:29.960 | is not right.
00:07:31.760 | It's letting people get away with murder and nothing is happening.
00:07:35.640 | We scream bloody, "Justice has to be done here."
00:07:39.640 | And that text is to take away that anger and say, "Look, you're right.
00:07:45.000 | Justice hasn't been done yet."
00:07:48.200 | And so here's the concluding surprising point.
00:07:52.180 | We don't need to seethe with vengeance because either the wrong done to us is going to be
00:08:00.400 | punished on the cross if those people repent, or it's going to be punished in hell more
00:08:07.720 | fully, more perfectly than anything we could do.
00:08:11.680 | And in either case, we can lay it down and become Christ to those people, hold out forgiveness
00:08:18.960 | as long as they live.
00:08:21.480 | And if they won't take it, God's going to deal with them.
00:08:24.880 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:08:27.040 | You can email your questions to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org, and you can visit us online at desiringgod.org
00:08:33.560 | to find thousands of books, articles, sermons, and other resources from John Piper, all completely
00:08:38.400 | for free.
00:08:39.400 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:08:40.400 | Thanks for listening.
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