Dirty Bible Words - Week 1 - The CORE - Pastor Mike Novotny
Dirty Bible Words
Week 1 - The CORE
Pastor Mike Novotny
Happy Sunday everyone. Welcome to week number one of Dirty Bible Words. You need to prepare your heart today. It might snow tonight but we're gonna find out, hopefully some good joy and some good peace in the promises that God makes to us, no matter what. A few years ago on this very stage at the grand opening, the first-ever Sunday of this new building for our church, a pastor said a dirty word.
Place was packed just like it is today. People were watching at home just like you are today. The lights were on. The microphone was live and the pastor, stood right here. Can you believe this said a dirty word? I remember that. Because I was the pastor, wasn't my intention to say a dirty word as actually retelling a story about a conversation I had with my older brother Chris. Yeah. Brothers could sometimes poke at each other a little bit? So he poked at me and I meant to call him a name that I thought was church appropriate. I thought, you know, it wasn't like Disney G-rated but it wasn't PG-13, cover, the ears of the children. I thought that's what the word was. But as soon as I said it and I saw a bunch of you go, uh-oh.
And a guy in our church who is like, you know, he's pretty chill, was where is he sobbing alive? He said, seriously, You know, I realized I had crossed that line. I had said a dirty word and no, Gary, I'm not going to repeat the word. I know you want me too but we've scrubbed it from the YouTube footage. You can't find it unless you were there. But as I think about that story and it made me think a lot about dirty words or curse words or swear words or inappropriate words. And here's what I realized about dirty words. Dirty words depend. There's no official list in a dictionary that you can find of the good words and the bad words. Dirty words depend. It depends on where you are and with whom you are and when you are and what kind of people are surrounding you and seen this right? Like back in the day even Hollywood once put certain words into a movie it was just inappropriate for that time in history and yet no.
I mean those same words, you put them as the titles on book covers and prop them up on the shelves for everyone to see. We say these words in our speeches and presidential Gatherings are not inappropriate. They used to be, but things have changed. Or are you old enough to remember, some of those 1980s comedies that you thought were hilarious? And then you watch them now, and you think I used to be funny, but our understanding of certain words has changed, even in the Bible, there's no page in the back. I mean, God cares about how you use your words, but he doesn't say, “here are the Christian words and here are the non-Christian words.” What offends people, what feels inappropriate or not? It really depends on where you are and when you are, so grab a pen and write this down, here's my definition. As we kick off this series of a dirty word, dirty words are offensive here and now. So maybe over there in another culture, another group of people, they wouldn't offend, but here they do. And maybe back in the day people weren't bothered or in the future they won't be bothered. But right now when we use them, it just feels less than appropriate. Feels like something you should say, among mixed company dirty words are the words that are offensive here and now, That's why I really want you to think about Dirty Bible Words.
Did you know that there are some words in this book that Jesus was not embarrassed to say? And the apostles who were filled with the Holy Spirit were not embarrassed too, right? They don't come with an apology or an explanation or an asterisk. The words are right here and yet when we read them today, there's something about them that feels, I don’t know, quite right.
We're going to feel more dangerous than beneficial. They feel antiquated, old-fashioned, maybe not appropriate. I could read a passage. Let's say about submission. Wives submit to your husband's, submit to the governing authorities, submit to your pastoral leaders. And I bet there's something in you that would just don't feel dangerous. Feels like that's something that could cause more harm than do more good. If you feel offensive here and maybe another culture is, it's not the case and maybe back in biblical times, it wasn't. But for us, it does. I think about the d word Doctrine. Dogma. Imagine if that was on the sign outside of our church, free Dogma inside there’d be more places to sit. I think it means it feels controlling, manipulative like we're brainwashing people and so religious Dogma. But the word Doctrine appears all the time in the Bible. Didn't bother people back then. But for us, some of the modern America just feels off. I think about the concept of hell.
That's your grandparents. They would have heard in church as much about hell as they did about heaven. But is that the experience today? You'll find Church art, go to the Sistine Chapel, and you'll see glorious depictions of heaven, and just brutal depictions of hell. They weren't embarrassed by it hundreds of years ago, but today in our culture, feels like, right? The controlling people with the torture and the flames and the fire. There are some things about us right now that just don't feel right even though they appear in this book, And so here's my goal. My goal for the next few weeks is to try to figure out, why is that? What is it about the culture that you and I live in the people that you and I love that makes these certain words right here. And right now feel offensive to us, let's analyze our culture through the lens of these words. And then let's ask ourselves the question. Why would Jesus? Think these are not dirty words. If Jesus is the essence of Truth and Love, If everything he says, and everything he thinks is for the good of your heart, your soul and your eternity. Why would Jesus? So freely? Talk about these concepts and use these words that make us so nervous.
So in this series, we're going to talk about the s word “submit” going to talk about the d word “Doctrine” and “Dogma”. We're not just kind of spell each, h-e-double hockey sticks. We're going to talk about the Biblical teaching of hell and today to kick things off. I want to talk to you about. The f word: “Forgiveness”.
And you might be thinking Pastor Mike, one of these things is not like the other. But being forgiving, I want to be a forgiving person. We should forgive each other, that it doesn't bother me like the concept of hell. What's so bad about forgiveness? Well, give it a second. In today you're going to find out that the Bible pushes the concept of forgiveness to uncomfortable extremes. That what Jesus said about forgiveness is so challenging and so difficult that it will offend that part of you. And yet at the same time, the concept of extreme biblical forgiveness is our peace and our joy in the most amazing thing we can envision 3. Let's talk about one of the Bible's most offensive teachings, the concept of forgiveness. I'll give you here a few years ago, might remember. We had a whole sermon series on forgiveness where I compared sin to stone.
Like when someone sins against you, when they say something or do something or you need them to say something or do something and they're not there to do it, it's like they've thrown a stone that hits you and hurts you. But here's the thing.
After someone else's sin hits right here, it says. But the thing that they did wrong is within Arm's Reach, which means you and I, when it comes to the people who've wounded us in small or big ways, we have a huge decision to make whether or not to forgive. What will we do with this wrong that has been first done to us?
Let's talk about what forgiveness isn't before I have you fill in a blank of what forgiveness is. How people these days, and I would say, especially church people, get the Bible's definition of forgiveness wrong because they say things like this. “What you got to do is forgive and forget.” You know where you find that in this book? Nowhere, nowhere. In fact it's pretty ridiculous. If you think that to forgive someone you have to forget what they said or what they did. Not only does that seem impossible 98% of the time. But that's not at all what God says. I mean if you were raised with a verbally abusive mother, how do you possibly forget all of that? If you're in a relationship and someone wasn't faithful to you and they just controlled you and hurt you, how could you just scrub your mind of those memories? It's not at all what it means to forgive in the Bible. Nor does it mean to say something is okay. People get that confused too. Well, it's “I forgive you. It's not a big deal or it's fine. It's okay.” Actually, In the Bible, just the opposite. If you need to forgive me for something, it means I've sinned against you and sin is such a serious deal that it led the Son of God to a cross. So if you choose to forgive someone, you're not saying that it was fine, it wasn't a big deal. You know, we're only human and to forgive someone literally says, you have done something that God declares as wrong, bad. In fact, pull in a wicked, you have to minimize the offense that someone that did against you to forgive them of that sin and, just by the way, most important, if you're a Christian. To forgive someone who sins against you does not mean to eliminate every consequence of their action.
I really hate this one like abusive spouses take advantage of their Christian partner by saying “Well you have to forgive me.”
“Yeah, I do have to forgive you, but I can still break up with you.” You can forgive someone who was unfaithful to you and still file for divorce. You could forgive your abuser and still call the authorities and ask them to be brought to Justice. You could forgive me for something. I did in our friendship, but maybe you couldn't trust me again. You could forgive someone at school who hurt you and yet still avoid them a week. To forgive, doesn't mean like we go back to the way things were. Sometimes sin comes with consequences, sometimes parents, forgive their children, but they still discipline them in the same way since sometimes messes things up and you could forgive someone.
Define what it is, right? This time forgiveness is my own definition means to leave the stone alone.
They send against you and here is the sand. You know about it. You remember it, it hurts you deeply. To forgive someone, is to leave that stone alone. If not, I can pick this up and do it for you. What did you first do to me? I'm a “leave the stone alone”. Even though I could like make you suffer, like you made me suffer, make you feel like I feel I'm not going to pay you back. Vengeance is not mine. It's not eye for eye and tooth for tooth. I'm going to turn the other cheek. I'm going to let this go and leave it to God. I'm not going to use your wrong to justify my own because two wrongs don't make a right. You wronged me. I'm going to do the right thing and I'm going to give
So, what would that look like in real life? I'll give you a couple examples, maybe you could think of your own. Let's imagine that you made fun of my physical appearance. Like the teeth on the bottom, which I got braces. I did you make some comments about it? I have psoriasis a fair amount, which means I'm flaking like from the eyebrows on up for most of the years, especially during the winter. Let's say you make some crack about the flakes on my shoulder but the way that I look, what would it mean for me to forgive you? It means that I'm not going to instantly analyze you and find some flaw in your physical appearance. I'm not going to say okay bro, you're not exactly Chris Hemsworth’s older, more attractive brother, alright? I can, I can find some things that are not so beautiful about you. But instead of, you know, hurting you embarrassing you like you embarrassed me. I'm gonna let the one alone, that wasn't good of you. But I'm still going to be good to you. I'm going to forgive .
Or imagine you get into an argument.
And the person just throws out all the good commandments of communication. I just want to be right? They just want to win, has that ever happened to you? And they raise their voice, which isn't right. To forgive means you don't match their sin. They bring up the past just to think that they're better than you. You could bring up their past too. But you don't, you leave that alone, you forgive them of their sin. They're not listening very well because they just want to be right instead of acting righteously, but instead of all the interruptions, just trying to be the one who wins. No, you're still going to do what's right? Right? You're a match to enforce an insult for insult. You're going to forgive people would understand. If you picked up the stone, that's what most people do. But Jesus says, “forgive”.
You're being a selfish spouse. Okay. I'm not going to be a selfish spouse. You are flirting with someone else. Okay, I can flirt with something else. No. Not send for saying, I'm going to choose to forgive every time. I'm going to leave the stone alone.
Can you think of someone? The relationship just isn't close. And the real answer is because there's a stone, maybe a bunch of them.
They just think about how you've reacted to that situation. God is calling you. Don't get them back. You might need boundaries, there might be consequences but don't, don't get them back. Leave that to me, God says. I'm calling you to forgive.
So, the Apostle Paul said here in Colossians chapter 3, Verse 13, Paul wrote “bear with each other. And forgive one, another. If any of you has a grievance against someone forgive as the Lord forgave you.” God is calling you but He's calling me too. To leave the stone alone. To forgive.
Now, that you hear all that and you're still saying, no. Okay. Yep. Not easy. But I can see why that's wise. And you're right. If you don't forgive you end up like those two inner-city gangs, where you do and they do this. But it's not even just going back and forth, and back and forth. Yeah, I can see why God would want all of His children to forgive. That's not super offensive.
Pastor, are you being a little bit much trying to get people's attention with this dirty Bible, with the f word ? Really? Isn't that bad? Well, get ready for this. Next section because there are three things about biblical forgiveness. That pushed this concept to an offensive extreme. I want you to write them down. Here's the first one.
The first thing offensive about biblical forgiveness is the size.
Because Jesus does not limit the size of the sin that we must forgive.
I might feel like a little annoying pebble of the tone in his voice. Or maybe something that just left you traumatized, when you were younger, but Jesus says, it's all the same. Forgive.
I think about this sometimes, when there's some court case after a horrific crime and the survivors are left there with the person who is discovered to be an abuser of minors, or you're the shooter is and we have the moms and the dads of the kids who were killed and they get up to speak. And have you seen this? And they say “I will never forgive you for what you did. I hope you rot in….” What would He say?
Even him. Forgive.
There's nothing so big in your past, there's no one who hurts you so deeply that Jesus won't look you in the eye with compassion, for what's happened to you and say, even that.
You said Jesus, my mom just like every day it was never good enough for her. I just grew up thinking I was trash. I died. No self-worth. I've had to go through counseling for years to escape her.
I thought when you got married, everyone keeps the vow. And then she didn't keep the vow. He didn't keep the vow and I wanted to work on it, but they were done with it. Then it went to court and I don't want my money and they wanted the kids full-time. Forget someone like that.
Jesus, he left me broke. She left me broken. You're saying there is no limit on the size of the send you want me to forgive. And Jesus says no.
It just says, Forgive.
Now that were defensive enough.
Here's number two. Jesus also talks about the amount of forgiveness.
Biblical forgiveness is not like the express checkout at the grocery store. A maximum 15 sins. That's what Jesus is, friend. Peter thought here in Matthew 18. Peter says that “Jesus, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me up to seven times? Jesus answered, I tell you not seven times but seventy seven times.” Some people think the original Greek of that verse should better be translated. Seventy Times, seven times 490 times, which is probably a hyperbole from Jesus and Peter just don't count, don't bother just keep forgiving. That's crazy, right? I'm going to be in your friends by her hurt by someone wants, or they trash-talk you twice, maybe you give them a third strike but seven times.
Seventy-seven times. 490 times and then I should keep forgiving?
And Jesus says, “Like the person who just rang me and learned from their mistake, but they said and they said and they said and you know, my mom's always this way my ex keeps doing stuff like that. My neighbor, he is never happy with anything. Even the most serial sinner you have ever met, forgive. They will never reach the limits where you can flip from Christian, forgiveness to Christian bitterness. The phrase is an oxymoron. Get rid of bitterness, Jesus says. Get rid of the arrogance, Jesus says and just forgive. You may need to set some boundaries and stay away from people who continually hurt you, but you are never allowed to get them back.
Instead Jesus says, The most offensive part of all. Three: Necessity.
Jesus says that if you will follow him, if you will, be a Christian, you need to do this.
Forgiving, someone who hurt you is not extra credit or EP Christianity. It's not overtime. It is what it means to be a Christian.
Quick show of hands. How many of you are familiar with the Lord's Prayer? That famous prayer Jesus taught in Matthew 6, “Our Father in Heaven…”, that one you might know. It talks about forgiveness. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Do I need to know what Jesus said immediately after he got done teaching that prayer? Here's a really quick, tiny sermonette. And here's what he said. Matthew chapter 6. Jesus said, “For, If you forgive other people, when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
Oh, you have to.
Now this deserves a word of explanation. Jesus is not saying to those of you who really want to and you're really trying to, but it's so hard because it hurts so much like it. If you struggle to forgive your mom or your dad or your ex, or whoever and it's just been a battle for years. You are absolutely forgiven and absolutely safe with God. Jesus is speaking to people who think they don't have to and they don't want to and they don't plan to. Nope, he doesn't deserve it. I'm not forgiving him. I'm not going to be nice to her, not after what she did to me. If Jesus says that's where you're at, your Father in heaven will not forgive you. Christianity is a system of faith that is based on forgiveness. And if you don't want to base your faith on forgiveness. Then you can't have the Christian faith. Embrace it or not, but it's not optional. Christians need to forgive.
And this is what Jesus and the Scriptures say to you and say to me, it doesn't matter what he did. It doesn't matter how many times she said it. You have to. You need to, every day with every person, leave the stone alone and turn the other cheek. Every time I forgive for the thousandth word, pray for those who persecute you, go the extra mile. Love those who don't love you. Don't return evil for evil or insult with insult but with blessing give people such shocking behavior when they deserve it. At least every single time God says, leave the stone alone.
Now, if I were you and I was hearing this for the first time, I would say, “What? How?”
If that's you weren't there? When me and my sister were growing up. How do you expect me?
Years to save the relationships. The things that he said to me. Now what? Why? Come on, help me. What makes this possible? How can I do this? What? What I think this is good instead of just an impossible standard?” Those are the right questions to ask. If someone has hurt you deeply in this life, here is a simple answer. How, why?
Because God started it.
Because if, you know, the God of this book, you believe that he started it,
Reminds me of the story of Elizabeth Elliott. Hear that name before? Elizabeth Elliott was married to Jim Elliot. They were a fresh-faced twenty-something, newlywed couple, and Jim Elliot had a passion to share this news of Christianity with people from other cultures. And that's why Jim for two or three years, studied the language of a tribe from Eastern Ecuador called the Hirani people. He studied, he studied, he studied, he invested so much time into his life and then four months. He and his friends flew a little plane over the jungle, making contact with this remote tribe, dropping gifts to show their kindness and their good intentions. When in fact they landed the plane, they got out and they met with a group of Hirani Warriors and had an amazing exchange.
Kindness, gifts, and love for you. Hoped it would open the door for them to share the good news of Jesus Christ.
But soon, the door slam shut.
The next time, Jim Elliot and his friends landed a group of Warriors came out of the Jungle and murdered all of the men. Jim Elliot's body was found floating in a nearby River.
Which meant that these men. It picked up a boulder sized stone, and crushed this new wife's heart. Here she was with Jim's daughter, just 10 months old, at the time of his murder. She'd never have her biological father again.
So, do you know what she did?
She left a stone alone.
In fact, Elizabeth Elliott herself started to study the language that her husband had studied. And after two years of pouring herself into the culture, she and now her three-year-old daughter went to move into the village with the very villagers who had murdered her husband and taken away her daughter's father. The rest of the story is almost too good to believe. You can read about it online, after church is done, it was so good. In fact, they made a huge movie out of it. The story of Jim Elliot and his wife, Elizabeth, but when the script writers wrote the story to the movie, did you know this? They lied. They felt, they had to.
And they were showing up front. The news of the murder trying to process the emotions of these people with just been sending in. So grievously, the script writers wrote in bitterness and a lack of forgiveness, in a desire for vengeance. In fact, from the Family itself, saw the script, they said to the ones making the movie. Wait, wait. This isn't how it was. I never hated those men. We never wanted to get back at them or get even .Which the writers knew, but here's what the writer said. Your mom Elizabeth knew God. Most people who see this movie. Don't know what God is like that.
That's how you do it. How do you forgive the people who send? So often in such big ways against you? Elizabeth story says, when you know God,
When you believe that the story of forgiveness didn't start when they threw that stone. But when you threw that stone and you got forgiven.
Over the passage. I read to you before. Colossians 3, verse 13. Here's what it says, forgive. Yep. As the Lord, forgave you, past tense. Like before the present tense command comes to leave the stone alone to treat that person in a gracious way before that comes this. The Lord forgave you. Let me ask him. Question Christianity. How much did the Lord forgive you? When Jesus went to the cross on that Friday? Did he just die for that time that you accidentally went over the speed limit.
Are you done and in the bigger sense, the biggest things. And the one you don't even want to think about matters the size. You forgave. Did Jesus just give you one strike, maybe two at-bats when he went to the cross for you? Nope. The amount of the amounts, the frequency. Those of us who have kids’ stories of addiction know that if Jesus gave us a second chance, we would never make it. But instead he didn't forgive once or twice or seven times or 77 times or 70 times seven times? He went to the cross with his unbelievable passion to forgive all of it. And the crazy thing was he didn't need to. You and I have a moral obligation to forgive because we are sinners ourselves, but Jesus was sinless. And yet out of the goodness of his own heart, his mercy and compassion for People Like Us was so profound that he went anyway and he forgave all of it.
This is the key to Christian forgiveness is to remember that when it comes to you and Jesus, Jesus paid It all.
All of it. The debt that you could not pay. He paid it all, he didn’t split the check. Is that just the god of Second Chances, he is the savior who looked at all of this. In every sin, your worst sin and said I forgive you.
If I give her day, I was doing some math about the amazingness of Jesus forgiveness. Imagine for a second because Jesus on the stage, it looks at all of you and says, hey, I got a deal for you today. I'm willing to forgive 99% of the days that you have lived on Earth and all you have to do to get to heaven, is be a good person, 1% of your life, how about that? Just 1% be like me. Love God, with your whole heart. Love all of your neighbors as yourself, and I will give you Paradise forever and ever, which sounds amazing. So you do the math, you say, average American Life 77 years. 1% is points.
And seven years or 282 days. So I have to be like Jesus for 282 days. I don't know if that's gonna work for me. So Jesus comes back, says, “okay, how about this? How about I forgive you, for 99.9% of your life and all you have to do to get to heaven is be good point one percent of your life. Well, the decimal point, point zero seven, seven years, 28.2 days, just be like Jesus for the month of February and you get eternity. Who's in? So Jesus comes back soon. Okay, I will forgive you for 99.99% of your life and all you have to do is be good for .01 percent move the decimal point zero zero seven, seven years or 2.82 days. I'll drop it off at school on Monday. I'll pick you up after practice on Wednesday and if you were just a good kid for two point eight, two days, I'll let you celebrate and love you for eternity. I told my daughter this yesterday, she said to 22 days, so Jesus comes back. How would I forgive you for 99.999% of your life and to get Paradise in heaven? Where there's nothing wrong. All you have to do is be good .001% of your life. That's .0007 years or .282 days which works out to 6.8 hours. Jesus says,
I'll drop you off at the front door atwork. I'll pick you up early, 3:00 and all you got to do is be a good person, and you can have it.
You walk in the door. And Chuck walks in after you. You work with a Chuck someone…. so hard to be patient, so hard to be kind, so hard to be forgiving, start worrying about the first email that you get. You forget your trust and faith. And gotta think about that if Jesus Christ forgave you 99.999% of the time, you would still freak out about being good enough to get to heaven. And that is why I love love. But the Christian faith says, because it says, you don't fix your karma. You don't balance your scales, you don't work hard enough to be a good person who could ever be good. For God. Instead, we have a God who came down and he paid it all to pay for 99% of your sins, or 99.9% of your sins, or 99.999% of your sins. 100% of your sins, the biggest sin you've ever committed, the worst thing you've ever said, the thing you've struggled with for decades of your life. The good news is that Jesus paid It all. And what would it look like if you believe that today?
What happened to the 15 year old girls who would look in the mirror and believe that.
The guy who messed up his marriage and just 4 years he can't let it go, what happened? If he believed it, what would happen if we shook off the old religious idea that you gotta earn it and we actually believed it's about Jesus and not me.
Grace and I know how good I am Mercy. Not this perfect life that I have lived, what kind of Joy? What, what peace would we sleep at night? If we didn't believe that Jesus came down to split the check, but he died on a cross to pay for it all.
What would happen if that thought of God's forgiveness for us was so overwhelming that we could look at even that person and say, you know what? I was you.
I don't remember how God treats me.
I said some stuff that hurt, God, it hurt his son very much. But instead, even as he hung he said, “father forgive what happened” in your family? What, what bitterness would dissipate if you and I brought Jesus into the picture and we first looked up and then looked out If before we tried to forgive, we would remember, we got the Lord forgave us, but what would change?
I think the world would.
Rome did.
Did you know 2,000 years ago? Forgiveness was a revolutionary concept? In the ancient Roman World what mattered was honor. If someone wronged you, you needed to defend your honor, no matter what the cost. To hurt someone who hurt you was honorable, you would protect your family name and then came the teaching of Jesus. Crazy idea to turn the other cheek. To love those who don't deserve to be loved. Christians, changed the world.
I wonder if we could change it again.
If you need help with that, I don't blame you. So we got some homework today to run over to our church’s YouTube page. Type in the word, forgiveness to find a whole sermon series to help. Hard to go to a TimeOfGrace.org jump onto the store. You can find books on forgiveness, a journal to help you work through the process of forgiveness. God wants to give you every resource that you need. Because forgiveness is not easy, but it is possible.
Yeah. Start with a forgiving God.
