Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #244 Lifting Life's Greatest Load (Part 3 - Roof Off & Walls Down)
Transcript
- 0:00This element of clearing your conscience in two directions, between God and you and God
- 0:10and you and man, roof off, walls down, is one of the primary accelerators of revival
- 0:18and spiritual awakening.
- 0:21Every great revival you see has this element of confession and repentance as a foundational
- 0:29hallmark of that and maybe God wants to begin revival and He wants to start it with you.
- 0:37Welcome to the OneCry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
- 0:43The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and
- 0:48reports.
- 0:52Well welcome to the OneCry Podcast.
- 0:55I'm Kyle Reno with the Bishop Bill Eliff over there.
- 0:58How's my buddy doing?
- 1:03You know, you've called me that, the Bishop, and I don't really know what it means.
- 1:08I have no idea.
- 1:09I have no authority and I certainly don't have any in your life.
- 1:13I don't know what the deal is, but I'll accept what you're saying.
- 1:18Way more authority in my life than you can imagine or fathom.
- 1:21Yet, I also don't know what it means.
- 1:26As one person said, I don't care what you call me as long as you call me.
- 1:30As long as you call me.
- 1:31I've heard, as long as you call me for supper, that's what I want.
- 1:37Well, we're calling all of our listeners to the table today, man.
- 1:42We're honored that you give us a few minutes each week with you and hope it's helpful.
- 1:47The last thing that we want is just to really put something out there every week.
- 1:54We're hoping that this is fostering the conversation around revival and spiritual awakening in
- 2:02light of what God's doing, even in our nation and all we need to see happen among the nations.
- 2:07I think, Bill, man, you have tackled a topic in these last couple weeks that you can't
- 2:14skirt around and that God is continually calling us to, specifically around confession and
- 2:21personal holiness.
- 2:23Man, I know that this week is where it gets real, real.
- 2:27So, bro, I'm going to kick it to you.
- 2:29Walk us into that truth.
- 2:31You know, Kyle, what you just said, you can't walk around this one.
- 2:36It's just like every kid, you've got to learn how to tie your shoes.
- 2:41Right.
- 2:42I mean, now I say that.
- 2:44Today, we have a lot of shoes that don't have to be tied.
- 2:47But when you're a kid, you just have to learn how to tie your shoes.
- 2:51Right.
- 2:52And you just have to learn how to put your pants on.
- 2:56You have to learn how to write.
- 2:58You have to learn it.
- 2:59These are basic things.
- 3:01And it's really tragic that many people don't know how to be right with God and right with others.
- 3:10Wow.
- 3:11We just don't know how to do it.
- 3:13And you look at the string of broken relationships and anger and bitterness and slander and gossip
- 3:20and all the junk that's in relationships and realize somewhere along the way they didn't get that.
- 3:27They didn't learn that.
- 3:29And we don't want to go another day without understanding this.
- 3:33So we've been talking about how to lift the load of sin and the guilt of sin, the weight of sin off your life.
- 3:44And it comes by gaining and maintaining a clear conscience in two directions between you and God and between you and man.
- 3:54Now, we all sin, right?
- 3:56We all sin against God and we all sin against other people.
- 4:01We say things.
- 4:02We do things.
- 4:03We have wrong motives.
- 4:04We steal.
- 4:05We lie.
- 4:06We exaggerate.
- 4:07We mistreat each other.
- 4:09We exalt ourselves before others.
- 4:13We blow up.
- 4:15We intimidate.
- 4:16I mean, this list is long of ways that we hurt other people.
- 4:22But do you know how to go back and fix that, right, as far as it lies within you?
- 4:30And your father, God, wants to teach you that.
- 4:36And he wants to teach us that in some measure, Kyle, today.
- 4:40So we're going to look at a little passage that is right in God's kingdom manifesto, Matthew 5, 6, and 7.
- 4:51When Jesus started his ministry, he gave us what we call the Sermon on the Mount.
- 4:58And he uses a little device.
- 5:00He says, now, in the world's kingdom, they operate this way.
- 5:05But in my kingdom, this is the way we're going to do it.
- 5:08And he says, in the world's kingdom, you know, you're not supposed to murder anybody.
- 5:14And in my kingdom, we don't want you to hate anybody.
- 5:18We don't want murder coming out of your heart.
- 5:21And he just kind of references all these things.
- 5:25And he says in verse 23, if you're presenting your offering at the altar,
- 5:31and there remember that your brother has something against you,
- 5:37leave your offering there before the altar, and go first, be reconciled to your brother,
- 5:44and then come present your offering.
- 5:47Now, God wants peace, right?
- 5:50He wants reconciliation.
- 5:53He wants you to have the tools where you know how to make sure that as far as it lies within you,
- 6:02you're at peace with all men.
- 6:04Some people, they won't be at peace with you because they're not going to do it.
- 6:09But you don't want that to be your fault, as far as it lies within you.
- 6:13And I want you to think, as we start this podcast today,
- 6:18I want you to think about somebody that maybe there's a little something between you and them.
- 6:25Maybe it's an unspoken deal.
- 6:27Maybe it's real.
- 6:28Maybe you did something.
- 6:30Maybe it's a huge thing in your past.
- 6:33Maybe it's unforgiveness that you have.
- 6:36Maybe it's bitterness.
- 6:39Maybe it's, well, you did something that really hurt somebody,
- 6:43or they did something that hurt you, and you've never resolved that.
- 6:48So I want you to think about that.
- 6:52And Paul said, we've been using this scripture, Acts 24, 16,
- 6:58I do my best to always maintain a clear conscience in two directions before God and before man.
- 7:09Norman Grubb, in his little book, Continuous Revival,
- 7:15and this is, by the way, one of the elemental truths of real revival and spiritual awakening.
- 7:22He was involved in a 20-year movement of God in Rwanda,
- 7:28and it just continued and continued and continued.
- 7:32And when they asked him what sustained that movement of revival, he was very quick to answer.
- 7:39He said, we kept the roof off and the walls down.
- 7:43That was it.
- 7:45We kept the roof off and the walls down.
- 7:47In other words, nothing between us and God and nothing between us and anybody else.
- 7:53Does that mean they didn't sin?
- 7:54No.
- 7:55It meant that they were very quick to clear their conscience with God and clear their conscience with man.
- 8:04Now, why is this so important?
- 8:08And let me just mention very quickly a couple of reasons why the clearing of our conscience with other people is important.
- 8:15First of all, God wants to lift the load of guilt and conviction in your life, right?
- 8:21I mean, you sin, there's a consequence for that, right?
- 8:25You have made a breach in your relationship with God or a breach in relationship with your kids or your parents or your wife or that guy.
- 8:35And there's only one way to remedy that, and that is to clear your conscience.
- 8:42Kyle, one time years ago, my dad and brothers and I all went back to the town where I was born to do a revival for a pastor there who was a friend of ours.
- 8:57And so we did this 10-day meeting.
- 8:59It was really a neat thing.
- 9:02We all preached and sang.
- 9:05In the middle of that, there was a woman who was the most prominent.
- 9:09Her family was the most prominent wealthy family in that little town, Arkansas town.
- 9:15And her mother, I mean, the woman had been, one of the sisters had been a good friend of my mother when my dad was pastor there years ago.
- 9:28So she came to my mother in the midst of that revival, and she was just, her face was just drawn.
- 9:36And she said, I need to tell you something.
- 9:39She said, when my dad died, he was very wealthy, and there was a squabble about the inheritance.
- 9:46And my sister and I got crossways with each other.
- 9:50And she looked and tears started coming down her eyes.
- 9:53And she said to my mom, she said, we've lived in the same town that had about 10,000 people in it.
- 10:00And he said, we have not spoken to each other in 20 years, 20 years.
- 10:07And my mom said, my mom was just this sweet, godly Christian.
- 10:15She said, well, there's only one thing to do.
- 10:19And the woman knew, you know, in her heart.
- 10:23But she said, you got to confess your sin to the Lord, but then you got to go confess your sin and ask for forgiveness from your sister.
- 10:33And she said, I don't think I can do that.
- 10:35And my mother wisely said, well, of course you can, because the Lord wants you to, and he'll give you the strength to do it.
- 10:42If you'll just say yes, you just got to surrender your body to say yes, and let him use you.
- 10:49So that night, she came back to the revival meeting.
- 10:54And I was there, Kyle.
- 10:56If I'm lying, I'm dying.
- 10:58That woman looked 20 years younger.
- 11:03Her face was relaxed.
- 11:05There was joy.
- 11:06She literally physically looked different.
- 11:09And she told my mom, she said, I went to my sister's house.
- 11:13I knocked on the door.
- 11:15I knocked on the door.
- 11:16She opened the door, and we immediately fell into each other's arms.
- 11:21And I confessed my sin.
- 11:23She confessed to me.
- 11:25And for 20 years, just think of the pain they had, the guilt, the shame they felt for 20 years, simply because they wouldn't clear their conscience with each other.
- 11:39So God wants to lift that load.
- 11:43And some of our listeners today, you got somebody that immediately comes to your mind that you need to clear your conscience with.
- 11:52Secondly, you can't really walk with God if you're not right with his kids.
- 11:59Now, that's what he's saying.
- 12:02That's what Jesus is saying here in this verse in the Sermon on the Mount.
- 12:08If you're trying to give an offering to God and act real spiritual, but you got one of my kids over here, that something's not right between you and him, you need to leave the offering and get up and go be reconciled.
- 12:24I want peace in my family.
- 12:26I want you to be reconciled to each other.
- 12:30You know, Kyle, you've got, what, 20 kids, five kids?
- 12:37Yeah, five of them.
- 12:39Five of them and a lot of boys.
- 12:42And I've got eight kids.
- 12:44And, you know, when my kids are mistreating each other or there's something that's not right, you know what?
- 12:51We're going to step in, right?
- 12:53I mean, we're just going to step in because, number one, we know it's going to have to get resolved.
- 13:00And number two, we want it to get resolved the right way.
- 13:04And number three, this is a teaching moment.
- 13:07That's right.
- 13:08This is teaching them about forgiveness.
- 13:10This is teaching them about clearing their conscience.
- 13:13And so a good parent parents that moment.
- 13:16He doesn't just ignore it and say, well, you all just duke it out over there.
- 13:20You may let them duke it out for a little bit, you know, but you want them to come to a healthy resolution.
- 13:27So God wants, we can't really walk with God if we're mistreating one of his children.
- 13:36Thirdly, we need to deal with this because God wants to illustrate the realities of his kingdom.
- 13:45Now, this whole get it in context, this whole Matthew 5, 6 and 7 is Jesus telling us the kingdom has come and it's among you.
- 13:58It's in your midst and it's a new kingdom.
- 14:01It's a different kingdom.
- 14:03It's not like this angry, bitter, mean, you get your own pound of flesh kind of kingdom.
- 14:09That's not the way we're going to operate in my kingdom.
- 14:12In my kingdom, if we hurt each other, we're going to go get reconciled to each other.
- 14:18If we sin against somebody, we're going to go clear our conscience with that person.
- 14:23That's the way my kingdom works.
- 14:25And I want to tell you something.
- 14:27When a church starts doing this, the world sits up and takes notice.
- 14:34And they say, you know, I have never seen people who operate like that.
- 14:40I want to be a part of that.
- 14:42And that's why the church, why it's so critical for us to maintain a clear conscience in the church,
- 14:50particularly because the church is to be this oasis in the midst of a really dark world,
- 14:56showing the world there's a better way to live and to be this witness to a watch world.
- 15:02And number four, you say, well, why should I even listen to this program today?
- 15:07It's because clearing our conscience, making sure there's the roof is off and the walls are down.
- 15:13Nothing between me and God, nothing between me and anybody else magnifies God's reputation.
- 15:21It says, look, this.
- 15:24What do you think of some parents when you see their kids just angry and fighting and they're doing nothing about it?
- 15:34They're just letting it go on, right?
- 15:36You think, well, you know what?
- 15:38They're not that great of parents.
- 15:39They really understand.
- 15:40They don't know how to do this.
- 15:42But what do you do?
- 15:44What do you think of parents who lovingly, graciously step in with their children and say, son, daughter,
- 15:53we can't do this in our family and there's a better way to live.
- 15:57And I'm going to teach you that.
- 15:59You see, God's reputation is at stake in the lives of his children.
- 16:06And so when when we're at odds with each other, we can abort the reputation of God.
- 16:13I love I love what Jonathan Edwards said, Kyle, when he said our task is to give the world a right opinion of God.
- 16:24And how I treat others.
- 16:28Determines if I'm giving them a right opinion of God, because I bear the name of of Christ.
- 16:36So.
- 16:38I want to just pause and ask everybody that's listening.
- 16:43Is there anybody that comes to mind right now?
- 16:47Anybody that that just immediately, you know who it is.
- 16:54And maybe it's a whole bunch of people.
- 16:56Maybe it's a whole group of people.
- 16:58Maybe it's a whole family.
- 17:00And things are not right.
- 17:02So are you going to ignore that?
- 17:05Are you going to go to them?
- 17:07You say, well, what do I do?
- 17:11What do I do?
- 17:12Well, let me just give you.
- 17:14I've dealt with this for years, counseling people.
- 17:18And I've noticed there are about 10 questions that people always ask me.
- 17:24And, Kyle, I want to see if we can answer those 10 questions.
- 17:28And they're found.
- 17:29We've been highlighting this little booklet, Lifting Life's Greatest Load.
- 17:33Those 10 questions and answers are found in this little book, which you can you can get.
- 17:39The way to get it is found in the notes on the podcast.
- 17:45But let me just let me just pose these questions.
- 17:49And let's see if we can answer them.
- 17:50Here's the first question.
- 17:51With whom should I clear my conscience?
- 17:55Who do I need to go to?
- 17:57And the truth is, here's a great rule of thumb.
- 18:00My confession should be as public as my sin.
- 18:06Let me say that again.
- 18:07My confession should be as public as my sin.
- 18:12Spurgeon said it like this.
- 18:14He said, a man can only be used again when his confession is as notorious as his sin.
- 18:21Isn't that a great statement?
- 18:23So if I've sinned against one person, I just need to go to that one person in private.
- 18:29I don't need to stand up and tell everybody else about that.
- 18:32If I've sinned against a group, I need to go to the group.
- 18:35I mean, I've had times, Kyle, where, you know, I've said something to one of my family members,
- 18:41maybe a kid or my wife in front of the other family members.
- 18:46And not only do I need to go to my wife and say, hey, what I said was wrong.
- 18:50Would you forgive me?
- 18:51But I need to go to my kids and say, you know, you just heard the way I responded to mom.
- 18:56That was wrong.
- 18:57Would you forgive me?
- 18:59Right.
- 19:00Because I want my confession to be as public as my sin.
- 19:04I was in Wichita Falls, Texas.
- 19:08And we were doing a meeting there.
- 19:10And one night, this girl comes to the microphone.
- 19:15And we were kind of having an open testimony time.
- 19:20She was the youth pastor's sister.
- 19:24And she was there in that church.
- 19:26And she'd gotten pregnant.
- 19:29And she'd had a child out of wedlock.
- 19:33And everybody chose to just keep it quiet.
- 19:39In other words, here was this girl who was obviously pregnant.
- 19:44But nobody said anything.
- 19:46And the church was gracious to her.
- 19:49But this girl said, I just, I couldn't look anybody in the eye.
- 19:56And she came to the microphone.
- 19:58And she said, I need to ask this church.
- 20:02I need to ask your forgiveness.
- 20:05Because I sinned against the Lord.
- 20:08And I got pregnant out of wedlock.
- 20:12And she said, I sinned against you parents.
- 20:17Because I made you, I forced you to have conversations with your children you never should have had to have.
- 20:23I sinned against you students.
- 20:26Because my silence about this made you think that this was okay.
- 20:31That there were no consequences.
- 20:33And I've sinned against the church because I've hurt the reputation of Christ.
- 20:39And I just want you to know, I've recognized what I've done.
- 20:42I've received the Lord's forgiveness.
- 20:44Would you forgive me?
- 20:46Now, Kyle, she said that.
- 20:48There were like 800 people there that night.
- 20:51This guy stands up in the back and he says, we forgive you.
- 20:56And another one, we forgive you, we forgive you.
- 21:01And also in this chorus of just hundreds of voices, we forgive you.
- 21:05And they're calling her by name.
- 21:06And then they all rushed, rushed the stage.
- 21:09And they just gathered around this girl.
- 21:12And I'm telling you, it was the most beautiful, redemptive, not that she hadn't sinned.
- 21:17Right?
- 21:19But she had come clean and cleared her conscience.
- 21:23And God forgave her and did a really redemptive thing.
- 21:28Isn't that beautiful?
- 21:29Amen.
- 21:30Here's a second question.
- 21:32What should I say?
- 21:34Well, I don't know what to say.
- 21:35If I go back to somebody, I don't know what to say.
- 21:37Well, my standard answer to that is use the language of the Bible.
- 21:42The prodigal son, when he had sinned against his dad,
- 21:46he said, I'm going to get up and I'm going to go to my father.
- 21:51And I'm going to say to them, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight.
- 21:56I'm not worthy to be up higher than, you know, would you forgive me?
- 22:01And so I just tell people, you don't have to be long.
- 22:06You don't have to give a whole explanation.
- 22:08And I've had to do this hundreds of times.
- 22:14Particularly in my own family.
- 22:16I've had to go to them and say, look, what I did, how I did that, what I said,
- 22:20how I said that was wrong.
- 22:22Would you forgive me?
- 22:24And I think it's wonderful not to just say, I'm sorry,
- 22:27but to ask for forgiveness because that gives them the opportunity to respond
- 22:32to what you're saying.
- 22:34So I remember the first time I started doing this when I was 17.
- 22:38I talked about it a few weeks ago on the podcast.
- 22:41I made a list of all my sins.
- 22:43And my dad challenged me.
- 22:45He said, sit down and just let the Lord show you your sins.
- 22:50It was seven pages long.
- 22:52And then he said, circle the ones that involve somebody else
- 22:57or you've hurt somebody else.
- 23:00So I did.
- 23:01And it was quite a list.
- 23:03And he said, now I'm going to tell you what to do.
- 23:06I want you to call them or go to them, whatever you need to do.
- 23:10And we talked about that.
- 23:12And just tell them, I'm trying to get right with God.
- 23:15I sinned against the Lord in what I did.
- 23:18And you were involved in that or you knew about that.
- 23:21Would you forgive me?
- 23:23He said, that's all you have to say.
- 23:25So I just started practicing this routine.
- 23:27I remember I had stolen a water pistol from a drugstore the last day
- 23:36of junior high school.
- 23:37Now, I didn't really steal it.
- 23:38Gerald Hannah stole it, but I just asked him to steal one for me too.
- 23:41So I'd used that excuse for years, but I stole it.
- 23:46So I went back to that.
- 23:48I can take you right to Don's Pharmacy where it happened here in Little Rock.
- 23:52I walked in.
- 23:54I said, Lord, please don't let anybody be in here.
- 23:56And it was like everybody I've ever known in my life was there.
- 23:58And I went to the pharmacy guy, and I said, look,
- 24:01I'm trying to get right with the Lord.
- 24:03And what I did was wrong.
- 24:06Would you forgive me?
- 24:07And here I paid him back with interest for this little water pistol.
- 24:11Now, I don't know what he thought about that, but I know what God thought
- 24:15about it, and I know what I felt about it.
- 24:19It was free.
- 24:20And so there's appropriate ways to do that and not appropriate ways,
- 24:28but just use the language of the Bible.
- 24:32Now, here's a third question.
- 24:34What if it happened a long time ago?
- 24:37I mean, it just happened so long ago.
- 24:39I'm still, I don't remember.
- 24:41Well, the interesting thing is, why do you still remember it?
- 24:44Why do you still have guilt and conviction about that?
- 24:49I was in a meeting one time, and God was just moving,
- 24:53and this old man comes up to the microphone, and he said,
- 24:58he was holding up this, like a screw and a bolt and a nut,
- 25:06and he said, 60 years ago, I stole a bolt and a nut from a hardware store.
- 25:14I just didn't want to pay for it, and I just grabbed it and stuck it
- 25:17in my pocket.
- 25:19He said, for 60 years, every time I've come to pray,
- 25:24the devil has said to me, you're a thief, and it's just shut me down
- 25:29for 60 years.
- 25:31Now, listen, if I was Satan, you know what I would do?
- 25:36I would attempt you to do something that was so small,
- 25:41you didn't think you had to deal with it, but so big that it would trip you up
- 25:47for the rest of your life.
- 25:49And I'm just saying, if God brings it to your mind,
- 25:52just go deal with it.
- 25:54Just go deal with it and take care of it.
- 25:57Here's a fourth question.
- 25:59What if I can't locate them?
- 26:02And the answer to that is ask God to help you find them.
- 26:05He knows where they are.
- 26:07We had a team member once when I traveled with Life Action,
- 26:10and he had cheated on a test, and so he felt conviction about it.
- 26:21He wanted to go clear his conscience.
- 26:23He called the school.
- 26:25The professor was no longer there.
- 26:27He confessed to the guys in the department.
- 26:31They said, well, don't worry about it.
- 26:33You're forgiven.
- 26:34But he just always felt bad because he loved that professor.
- 26:37And he was in the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport running to meet a plane,
- 26:41and he turned the corner, and he runs into this professor.
- 26:45And it's like God had just orchestrated something just to reconcile
- 26:50their hearts with each other and to resolve the issue.
- 26:54God will take care of that.
- 26:57Here's number five.
- 26:59What if they've died?
- 27:01I have a lot of people who they have died.
- 27:07Somebody died that they were at odds with, right?
- 27:12And they've always felt bad.
- 27:14I never cleared my conscience with my dad.
- 27:17Well, what I tell people to do is make your confession to God
- 27:21and ask God to deliver that if he needs to, right?
- 27:25I've even had people just say, look, put an empty chair and set it down there
- 27:31and just say to that person in your heart, you know, please forgive me.
- 27:37What I did was wrong.
- 27:39And just see, because you're making your confession before the Lord.
- 27:44Here's number six.
- 27:46What if it's just a small thing?
- 27:50And I kind of already referenced that.
- 27:52Just understand the enemy's tactics.
- 27:54He loves to trip us up with small things and just deal with it, right,
- 27:59and get it off your heart.
- 28:02Number seven, what if it costs money?
- 28:07And what if it costs money?
- 28:09Well, here's the question.
- 28:11How much is being right with God, man, worth to you?
- 28:15How much is a clear conscience and just a full heart
- 28:20and having the beautiful joy of knowing, man, the best I know,
- 28:24there's nothing between me and God and nothing between me and anybody else,
- 28:30how much is that worth to you?
- 28:33I'll tell you what it was worth to Zacchaeus.
- 28:36He said, I'm going to repay fourfold everybody that I've stolen from.
- 28:44You know, I could tell you stories about this.
- 28:47A man who came to the church one day and he said, you know,
- 28:51I've stolen from the church.
- 28:53I've just not tithed for years.
- 28:55And I've been more faithful to pay my tithe than I have been to give to the Lord.
- 29:00And he handed the church a check for $20,000.
- 29:07A man who said, I have stolen shop tools.
- 29:12He said, I work in a shop and everybody does this,
- 29:15but you just take the shop tools home.
- 29:18And before long you got a whole – because they refurbish the tools,
- 29:22before long you got a whole set of those shop tools at home.
- 29:27And he said, I realized what I had done,
- 29:31and so I went back to my supervisor with a check in hand,
- 29:35and I confessed and paid back.
- 29:37And he said, I just feel so liberated.
- 29:41There was one guy, Kyle, who said, he said,
- 29:44I was just really trying to be right with the Lord.
- 29:46He said, one day I went in and I saw this little sign above the coffee,
- 29:50and it says pay for what you drink at my work.
- 29:54And he said, I realized I hadn't paid for coffee for like 20 years or 10 years.
- 30:03And he said, I calculated it out and I went into my supervisor
- 30:07and told him I'm trying to get right with God.
- 30:09I've been stealing from his company. I don't care what you call it.
- 30:12And here's a check for $330.
- 30:16And the supervisor, who was a Christian,
- 30:18sat back and he said, you know what?
- 30:21I've been here for 20 years and I've never paid for my coffee.
- 30:25And he wrote a check for $660,
- 30:29and they took $1,000 back to their supervisor.
- 30:33Think of the impact of that in terms of witness for the kingdom.
- 30:38I've got honest men that work for me.
- 30:41They're not going to steal in the slightest way from this company.
- 30:46And here's number eight. This is a big one.
- 30:49What if they won't forgive me?
- 30:52What do I do?
- 30:54Well, that's their responsibility, not yours.
- 30:58I love what Romans 12 says.
- 31:01As far as it lies within you, be at peace with all men.
- 31:07In other words, there's some people that won't forgive you,
- 31:10but that's on them. That's not on you.
- 31:13But don't let the thought of their seeming possible unforgiveness
- 31:22keep you from doing the right thing.
- 31:26And then realize that sometimes the magnitude of your sin
- 31:31makes it difficult and hard for other people to forgive.
- 31:35And you may need some counsel and help how to navigate that,
- 31:38and so may they.
- 31:40But it still needs to come into the light.
- 31:44And here's number nine. We're coming down to the finish line, Kyle.
- 31:50What if somebody has something against me that's not legitimate?
- 31:59Well, it's still your responsibility to seek reconciliation.
- 32:04I'll tell you a little story.
- 32:06So I was in a church one time, and God was really moving,
- 32:11and some of the old controllers in that church got mad.
- 32:15And one ringleader had a meeting in his home with 20 men
- 32:19and tried to get me fired.
- 32:23And I sat in my office and folded my arms and thought,
- 32:26you know, if those guys are going to get right with the Lord,
- 32:29they're going to have to.
- 32:30They need to come to me and ask for forgiveness
- 32:32because what they'd done was not right, and it wasn't right.
- 32:37And the Lord just tapped me on the shoulder, and he said,
- 32:42I want you to go back and read what I said.
- 32:46So I went back and read Matthew 5, and it says,
- 32:49if you're presenting your offering and you realize that somebody
- 32:55has something against you, Bill, do they have something against you?
- 33:01Well, yeah, I don't think it's legitimate.
- 33:04I'd say it's legitimate, do they have something against you?
- 33:07Yeah.
- 33:08Then go seek to be reconciled.
- 33:11And I realized that God is so interested in reconciliation and peace
- 33:18and the witness of a clear conscience that it's always my responsibility to go.
- 33:25So I don't want to sound noble about this,
- 33:28but I called all – I think it was actually 25 men.
- 33:33I called all 25 of them, and I met with them individually and privately,
- 33:39and I said, apparently, you have something against me,
- 33:42and I may have harmed you, done something, and if there is,
- 33:48I want to reconcile that.
- 33:50And I listened, and there's some things the Lord showed me,
- 33:53but I knew at the end of that time that I had done what the Lord wanted me to do.
- 34:00And you know what that did, Kyle?
- 34:02It did something to other men in our church,
- 34:05because we're kind of circled around what happened,
- 34:09and it was a powerful teaching moment.
- 34:13I didn't intend it that way, and it was a humbling moment,
- 34:17an important moment for me.
- 34:20I got one more.
- 34:21You ready for one more, Kyle?
- 34:23I'm ready.
- 34:24Okay.
- 34:25Here's a question I hear all the time.
- 34:27Can I do this later?
- 34:30And my answer to that is delayed obedience is no obedience at all.
- 34:37Delayed obedience.
- 34:38Why would you want to do it later?
- 34:41Why would you want to just hold on to sin and to the pressure
- 34:48and the conviction that you feel and not just get it taken care of?
- 34:55So the time to deal with this is today.
- 35:00This element of clearing your conscience in two directions,
- 35:05between God and you and God and you and man, roof off, walls down,
- 35:11is one of the primary accelerators of revival and spiritual awakening.
- 35:18Every great revival you see has this element of confession
- 35:24and repentance as a foundational hallmark of that.
- 35:28And maybe God wants to begin revival, and he wants to start it with you.
- 35:34Man, I'm listening to these truths, Bill,
- 35:37and I'm thinking about in the first years of following the Lord,
- 35:42how many of these moments I had to have.
- 35:45And the spirit of God was relentless.
- 35:47And you've heard some of my story, and God's done great works to my family,
- 35:52but my family had so many dysfunctional parts to it.
- 35:54And I had made a bunch of bad decisions.
- 35:57I lived in an atmosphere and environment of a bunch of bad decisions.
- 36:00And what the Lord continually called me to do is,
- 36:03you do the next right thing regardless.
- 36:06You do the next right.
- 36:08And what I was learning is what you just said earlier, one of the things.
- 36:12Hey, you be the one that represents reconciliation and own what you can own.
- 36:19Confess and be the one that takes the bold step.
- 36:23What I didn't realize, and I'll say this to our listeners,
- 36:26which got my heart leaping.
- 36:28These bold moves is going to be good on a lot of different reasons, a lot of ways.
- 36:34It's going to be God-glorifying, very well could lead to reconciliation,
- 36:39like those two sisters, that story was powerful.
- 36:42But ultimately, man, it's freedom for you.
- 36:46It's freedom.
- 36:48There's just nothing like having that clear conscience for both God and man.
- 36:57It's just that air is so crisp and so full of life.
- 37:02I remember one time the Lord was telling me to go to a guy,
- 37:07and I didn't want to go because I thought I was right.
- 37:12And like your situation, I had biblical reasons why I thought I was right,
- 37:17but the Lord still wanted me to close the gap.
- 37:20And I'll never forget the Lord said,
- 37:23How much time are you wasting with these hypothetical conversations
- 37:27and thinking about this when you could have one real conversation?
- 37:33Oh, yeah.
- 37:34And I did.
- 37:35I went and had one, owned what I could own, and walked away, and I was free.
- 37:40And I was thinking, I wasted a month.
- 37:42A month.
- 37:43Yeah.
- 37:44Just circling one real conversation.
- 37:46Laboring about it.
- 37:47Yeah.
- 37:48Blaming, pitching blame, making excuses.
- 37:50Well, what if he does this?
- 37:51Yeah.
- 37:52And how stupid.
- 37:53You could make one phone call and get this resolved in ten minutes.
- 37:57Yeah.
- 37:58Ten minutes.
- 37:59And most of the time, when I go to clear my conscience,
- 38:03it doesn't take much longer than that.
- 38:05Now, sometimes it's a beautiful, longer conversation,
- 38:10but usually it's just, hey, God has convicted me.
- 38:14What I did was wrong.
- 38:16Would you forgive me?
- 38:17Would you forgive me?
- 38:19And people usually say, I remember the last call I made when I was 17,
- 38:25and I had this, took me several weeks of making a lot of phone calls
- 38:30and paying some people back and cleared some things up.
- 38:35And I did the worst one last.
- 38:39Don't do that, by the way.
- 38:42Put the hardest one first, because then everything else is easy.
- 38:46But I kept the hardest one to last.
- 38:48I know exactly where I was sitting.
- 38:51I picked up the phone.
- 38:54I said to the individual, you know, what I did was wrong.
- 38:57Would you forgive me?
- 38:58And they said, it was just silence.
- 39:00And they said, well, you know, I was wrong, too.
- 39:07And, yeah, I'll forgive you.
- 39:10And I said, well, thanks.
- 39:14And I just hung up the phone, and I turned around in my chair,
- 39:18and I was in an office, and I yelled out loud.
- 39:22And I thought, I'm free.
- 39:25It's not like I hadn't sinned.
- 39:28But to the best of my knowledge, there's nobody on the earth that I know of
- 39:34that can say that I'd sinned against them, that I had not sought to make it right.
- 39:39Well, there's a liberty in that.
- 39:41And you talk about hearing God suddenly in a new way,
- 39:45having spiritual authority and ministry in a new way.
- 39:51I mean, we could talk about that.
- 39:53We could take a whole other series and talk about that.
- 39:56But you've got to get there.
- 39:58This is tying your shoes.
- 39:59This is one-on-one.
- 40:01We have to live with the roof off and the walls down.
- 40:06And I bet some of our listeners need to do some work.
- 40:12No doubt.
- 40:13There's some work.
- 40:14There's some shoe-tying work that needs to happen in these next few days,
- 40:20and I pray that we'll do that.
- 40:22So, Kyle, lead us to pray about that, would you?
- 40:26Yep.
- 40:27Yeah.
- 40:28Well, hey, listen, let's walk into the presence of the Lord.
- 40:32You know, you can be driving down the road, but be conscious of the Lord right now.
- 40:37Know he welcomes us in because of the finished work in Jesus Christ.
- 40:45Lord, I'm going to ask, even now, for every one of us, if there's anyone,
- 40:51we're at the altar right now.
- 40:54If there's anyone that you want to show us that has anything against us,
- 41:00if there's any ground to make up with anyone, we're surrendering right now to do the next right thing.
- 41:09And so I'm asking, Spirit of the living God, give us the courage to do what Bill just shared with us
- 41:17and to rightly represent you in moving toward people and asking for forgiveness
- 41:23to own everything that we can own and to believe for the future.
- 41:29Lord, we love you.
- 41:30And I thank you that there's some work that's about to happen.
- 41:34So I pray you would speak in the heart of every one of us, be strong and courageous.
- 41:40I pray in Jesus' name.
- 41:41Amen.
- 41:43Amen.
- 41:44Well, Bill, thank you so much, bro, for the work and the thought around this series.
- 41:48It's been a blessing.
- 41:50And you should send it as a friend, like a bundle.
- 41:54So, hey, listen to these last three messages.
- 41:56I'd love to talk through it.
- 41:58We put in the show notes, by the way, the resource that Bill has written, a way for you to get that.
- 42:04I encourage you, it will help you come back to these truths and pass it on to other people.
- 42:09Man, we're honored to be a part of this spiritual journey with you
- 42:13and look forward to being back with you next week.
- 42:17We're praying for you.
- 42:18Have a blessed week.
- 42:28Amen.