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February 26, 2025 • 28 mins

Voice of the Nazarene 2-23-25

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Unknown (00:01):
Coming to you from North Central Ohio. We share
with you the voice of theNazarene a week by week. Venture
into the Word of God sponsoredby the Bucyrus, Ohio Church of
the Nazarene. We join our PastorReverend Ray LaSalle, and the
voice of the Nazarene,

Pastor Ray LaSalle (00:17):
Philippians chapter three, they had been
persecuting the church. And thenjust a few verses later, in the
13th verse, Paul writes,forgetting those things which
are behind and I confess to you,as I struggle with forgetting,
I've got a good forgetter aboutthings that aren't very

(00:39):
important, and I remember thingsthat I should forget, the hurts,
hindrances, hang ups, habits,disappointments, but Paul said
we need to forget those thingswhich are behind. John picks it
up in Revelation, chapter 12,and he says that they overcame

(01:02):
by the blood of the Lamb, by theword of their testimony. I spent
some time last week talkingabout forgiving others, totally
forgiving others. I probablyshould have talked about
forgiving God. These years, I'vehad people tell me I just can't

(01:27):
forgive God. I don't know howGod could be God and allow these
things to happen. But I want tolimit it this morning, I want to
talk to you about forgiving,totally forgiving self,
yourself, forgiving our selves.
And I thought about a problem inmy own life as a pastor while my

(01:51):
kids were yet at home. Honestly,I put the church and the
congregation before I did myfamily. Back in those days, it
seemed like there was a lot ofemphasis on that, and there were

(02:11):
times I never showed up at mykids games, and I found out
later that they stood at thevery last moments and said to
their mother, isn't dad going tocome to our game. And I was in
the office late at night tryingto develop sermons, trying to

(02:32):
craft words so as not to upsetsome folk, just takes a word or
two if you don't tweak it right.
Lot was happening at that time,and I was just simply trying to
survive pressure. I found therewere times when I was running

(02:55):
the hospital up in the latehours of the night and driving
many miles. There were times Itook my work from church to
home. Times I'd be sittingaround the table and the kids
would say something to me, andfinally, their mother would say,

(03:18):
Just give your dad some space.
He's under a load right now, andhe's got other things on his
plate, and somehow it just Iheard it, and it rolled off. And
I confess to you, there's twogreat things that have really
bothered me through the years.
I'll not deal with the other,but putting the church and

(03:45):
putting preaching before myfamily, I missed the mark, and I
came up short. Years are lost,and I won't go any further with
it than that, but to say thatit's hard to lay that down now,
and somehow I thought I wasputting God first. I thought

(04:06):
putting the church first was andI have a feeling that if I would
have put my family first, thepreaching would have went along,
just probably as well. And Ifound that I haven't forgiven
myself over this thing, and it'splagued me and embarrassing,
though, as it is, I can't goback and get those years, and

(04:30):
you have no idea of the guiltthat I felt, and I've never said
that in this pulpit. And I meetChristians all the time that
say, you know preacher, I knowGod's forgiven me, but I can't
seem to forgive myself. Iunderstand. I've had that

(04:52):
problem too. So I want to giveyou the first reason why I think
that you should forgiveyourself. At least it's helped
me. If it doesn't help you,maybe it'll help me to remind
myself. The first reason youneed to forgive yourself is
because that's what God wantsyou to do. Isn't that simple?

(05:14):
Simple as that. It's what Godwants you to do. I mean, if you
pray for your enemies, you prayfor others, it would only make
sense that you would pray foryourself. And if you forgive
your enemies and you forgiveothers, why not get in on the
program and forgive yourself?
When we forgive ourselves, we'rehonoring the word, and God

(05:37):
doesn't want you to be sorrowfuland beating yourself up and
feeling guilty, and that's whyHe sent His Son to die on the
cross, and when I saw that waswhat he wanted me to do, it was
easy, and it's helped me tochange my life. Now maybe your
problem that you're dealing withis in a different vein, since

(06:01):
you're not a pastor. I don'tknow what it might be that
you're beating yourself up overand I'm not sure just what God
is wanting to say to you thismorning, maybe giving up too
soon and wondering what mighthave been. Maybe letting people
down. Maybe it was falling intosome kind of a sexual sin. Maybe

(06:28):
it was mental habits and yourthought life. Maybe it might
have been attitudinal maybe,maybe it's been not able to
control your tongue. Maybe itwas having that abortion. Maybe

(06:50):
it was unfaithfulness in amarriage, maybe being sentenced
to prison for crime, abusingyour children, lying to your
best friend, ruining anotherperson's career. Maybe you
injured your own health throughcarelessness, wasted years with

(07:15):
the wrong company. Maybe yougive wrong advice and it hurt
another person's future. Maybeyou ruined another person's
reputation. Maybe you lived withthe wrong choice in life, or you
waited too long and you put off.

(07:37):
God, I would like to definetotally forgiving ourselves it's
kind of like totally forgivingothers means that you're letting
them off the hook. And when youtotally forgive yourself, you're
letting yourself off the hook.
You see, when God forgave yoursins, he let you off the hook.

(07:58):
So we need to affirm what Godhas done. It honors him. It
honors the blood of Jesus. Andthe first reason why we need to
forgive ourselves is becauseit's what God wants us to do.
Could I suggest a second reasonthe devil doesn't want you to do

(08:21):
it, one of the quickest ways toknow the will of God is to
figure out what the devil wantsyou to do, and if you'll do the
opposite, you'll probably beright. And the reason the devil
doesn't want you to forgiveyourself is because he wants you
to be in bondage. He wants youto be in slavery. He wants you

(08:43):
to live in guilt. He loves it.
Don't give the devil thatpleasure forgive yourself
because it honors the blood.
Thirdly, you have inner peacefrom the bondage of guilt
when you forgive yourself, Biblesays, Where the Spirit of the
Lord is, there is liberty. Ihope that's not a new verse.

(09:09):
There's liberty. We testifybetter. We live freer. We're
unshackled. We're liberated whenwe're at peace. And a fourth
thing, it'll directly relate toyour usefulness. You see, God
can't use you the way you are ifyou're living under bondage

(09:30):
grievances when you're notlistening to him. Forgiving
yourself sets you free, andyou'll be more useful. Here's a
fifth thing, it'll cause you tolove people more. People will
like you better. You say, Well,I don't care what people think,
you lie. Yeah, you do. The onlyreason you're saying you don't
care is because you care. Youcare. I mean, who wants to walk

(09:55):
into a room and everybody said,Oh, my dear, you don't. To be
that kind of a person. You wantpeople to like to be around you,
and there's something when we'vegot things harbored on the
inside and we're grieving andwe're. A wounded spirit who
could bearand you want people to like you

(10:16):
more. Here's the sixth thing,forgiving yourself will help you
to fulfill all of God's purposefor your life. We deprive
ourselves while we're living inguilt. I want to hurry. Here's
another, totally forgivingyourself will keep you from
being paralyzed by the past, bythe past. Let it go. Move on.

(10:37):
Get past abuse, get past beingsoiled. Move on from being
abandoned, from beingdisappointed. You've got to move
on. If people hurt you, they'llmove on, not even though they
did it. And there you live andsit grieving and grieving and
grieving. Here's another yourphysical health is at stake.

(11:02):
Medical science tells us that.
Mayo Clinic tells us thatCleveland Clinic tells us that
living in unforgiveness isharmful to your health. Holding
a grudge causes your bloodpressure to rise. There used to
be a book when I was a kidpreacher, None of These

(11:23):
Diseases, and it talks aboutanger and what jealousy and
anger would do to you. Kidneyfailure and holding a grudge
helps cause diabetes and hearttrouble and on and on. Let me
give you another real quick,like your mental health is at
stake. It's a common denominatoramong all pathologists. No

(11:47):
wonder the devil doesn't want usto forgive ourselves. He'd
rather we be depressed andobsessed and unfocused and
burdened down and overloaded.
And here's your main one, yourrelationship with God, grieving
the Spirit. Who wants to live ina house with someone who is
harboring insidious, grievousfeelings? Would you want to live

(12:11):
in the same house? Do you thinkthe Holy Spirit wants to dwell
and live inside of us when we'vegot all of this internal
conflict and guilt, and thatbrings up another issue, this
issue of guilt. You know,there's a difference between
true guilt and false guilt? Twodifferent kinds of guilt, true

(12:34):
guilt, sin, false guilt, notsin. Pseudo guilt means it comes
from that word false. And falseguilt is not sin, but if you
give in to it enough, it willbecome sin. And here's the
irony, true guilt is easier todeal with than false guilt. You

(12:57):
just simply admit I'm wrong. Isee it as sin, and there's a
gracious God, and He forgives,and he's not always pointing his
bony finger and trying to makeit hard for you to return to him
and say, you know, just keepconfessing, confess on and I
can't let you get back to methat easily just keep grieving.

(13:17):
Jesus forgives instantly andentirely and completely. First
John 1:9, If we confess oursins, He's faithful and just.
It's a contract to forgive usour sins and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. And thegood news is, once you realize

(13:40):
it's sin, you confess it. So asa father that's missed the mark,
come up short and God revealsit, you just say, God, I see it.
I'm not going to sweep it underthe rug. I'm not running from
you. I'm not going to hide it.
I'm not going to make excuses. Icome clean. I'm guilty. And just

(14:01):
simply say, I confess, forgiveme. And guess what he does. He
corrects us. God, I recognizeit. I miss it, forgive me. And
the freedom is so good. I almostfeel guilty for not feeling
guilty. Guy, preacher, hadsomebody bought him a boat.

(14:22):
Said, Preacher, you need to getaway. You're losing your mind. I
want you to get out on the boatand fish. He said, I got out in
the boat and fished and feltguilty for not building sermons
and visiting folk in thehospital. Got back to my office,
said I felt guilty they spent somuch money on the boat. The

(14:42):
irony is that true guilt iseasier to deal with. False guilt
always keeps you struggling, andthe devil, he knows how to use
that. One of the reasons it'shard to forgive ourselves is
because of self righteousness.
Self pity and self righteousnessare twin sins. It keeps us in
bondage and not forgivingourselves is competing with the

(15:02):
atonement. Isn't thatridiculous? How can I, little
old me compete with theatonement that Jesus made when
he said, I'm willing to forgiveif you just turn it over to me,
how do you outdo the atonement?
And God doesn't like that. And Ibelieve, in a sense, the Bible's

(15:22):
commanding us to forgiveourselves. You gotta get right
in your own skin, and that's whyHe told those Hebrews, you need
to get the blood applied to thedoorpost, and we need to have
the blood applied to thedoorpost of our life. Keeps the
enemy out and it keeps victorywithin. So simply, we just admit

(15:43):
it, we come clean, we don'tsweep things under the rug. We
have a gracious God. Now, whenwe hurt people, when we're rude
and we're crude, we need toadmit it. Remember the three R's
of spiritual warfare? Youremember em? Hello. Nobody home.

(16:03):
It's remember, refuse andresist. What do you mean by
remember? Well, let's just useanother word instead of
remember. Recognize. Recognize.
Recognize when the devil showsup. You know when an evil
thought comes, recognize this isfrom the devil, this is not from
God. And I don't have to, Idon't have to give this a front

(16:26):
room attention. I just resistit. Recognize and when
unforgiveness tries to build upin your heart, and the devil
tries to get a grudge going inyour thoughts, recognize it's
from the devil, and then refuseto listen to him. And then the
Bible says, when we resist thedevil, what happens? He flees

(16:49):
from us. He flees from us. Andhere's another thing that will
help you to forgive yourselfthat I found, and I've never
mentioned I don't think thisfrom the pulpit. I did yesterday
at a board meeting in thedistrict, but we have a family
secret. I'm going to let thefamily secret out, Okay, just to

(17:10):
the family. The rest of youdon't listen it's a family
secret. We know that God'sworking things together for our
good. Romans, 8:28, it's thegreat family secret that the
Christian has. Paul writes, Weknow who are we? The family, the

(17:30):
insiders. Somebody said, I don'tbelieve that. Well, Paul said,
it doesn't matter you're not inthe family. Didn't expect you to
believe it. Our family's secretis what we know. We know that
all things work together, tothem that love God, and to them
which are the called accordingto His purpose. How do we know?

(17:53):
We found it out. It's somethingthat God does, and he uses that
Greek word that we know, meaninga well known fact. You know,
there's some things that are afact. I found that what goes up
must come down. I found thatwhen you fall, a fall doesn't
hurt you. It's when you hit thebottom that hurts. Just a well

(18:14):
known fact. And the Bible'steaching we who are in the
family, a well known fact thatwe've been around enough years
to see that God always makesthings work out for his good.

(18:37):
I'd like to share anillustration or two, but
probably I'd better not. But Ido want you to know if you look
over your life, some of thethings that you went through
that you thought would breakyour heart, God had to move you
through some of those things,and he used them to give you a
testimony that you would havenever had, and to bring you to a

(18:59):
point of decision where youresponded to him like you would
have never responded to him.
It's well known fact Romans

8 (19:07):
28. Designed partner to help you to never feel guilty again.
God is saying, just leave itwith me. Watch what I'll do.
I'll make every day out of thepast work out for your good. But
there is a caution, a veryimportant caution. Listen
carefully. The fact that itworks together for good doesn't
mean that it was right at thetime. And Joseph said to his

(19:31):
brothers years later, I knowthat you meant it for evil, but
God meant it for good. I'd havenever been down here in the will
of God, if you hadn't put methrough this, but God's turned
it all around, and it'sforgiven. It's in the past and
God's at work. God makes it worktogether for our good, and

(19:59):
doesn't make it right. What itwas that you went through, and
he's speaking from your what Icall your pre conversion past,
or your post conversion past, Ifind most of us have no problem
forgiving ourselves for the waythat we were before we were
saved. That was before I wasconverted. And it's easy to deal

(20:20):
with God. Would you forgive? Godforgives us. Our problem is if
we have sinned since then, or ifwe've been improper since then,
or if there's been anyimpropriety in our life since
then, right? You see, I gotsaved at the age of nine
kneeling beside my parents bed.
Wasn't a whole lot to confess,but since then, I've had a

(20:45):
failure or two. Don't getexcited. We don't have enough
blackboard up here to put yournames up. You say, Well, Pastor,
what were they? You'll neverknow. Why won't I know because
as far as the East is from theWest, so far as our

(21:06):
transgressions have beenremoved. Now I mentioned one of
them this morning. I came upshort as a dad. They had a great
mother, but dad kind of blew it.
And when God says all things,not just back in your past, he
said, Leave it with me. Andincidentally, you don't have to

(21:27):
try to help him out to make itgood. He's big enough to handle
it. Now, how many have read thefirst chapter of Matthew lately?
Anybody in the crowd? It's abook of the Bible. I would never
encourage a new Christian toread the book of Matthew to

(21:47):
start with. Read Mark, Luke,John, but book of Matthew, let
me just read a little bit of thefirst chapter, the book of the
generations, of Jesus Christ,Son of David, son of Abraham.
Abraham, beget Isaac. Isaacbeget Jacob beget here, I'm
going to sleep. What have Igotten myself into? It's gotta

(22:08):
be the most boring thing thatI've ever read. But if you keep
reading, you'll get down toverse six and Jesse, beget David
the king, and David the king,beget Solomon of her that had
been the wife of Uriah. What'sgoing on here? Well, don't come

(22:30):
and ask me go to see Keith.
What's going on by the sovereignplan of God, when Matthew wrote
the genealogy of Jesus Christ,the greatest sin ever listed in
the Old Testament is bridged inand shown to us, somebody said

(22:51):
they shouldn't have mentionedthat in the genealogy of Jesus.
That don't look very good. Mylife didn't look very good
either, and it may have beenthat yours wasn't so good, but
I'm glad he put my name in thebook. I hope your name's in the
book. David committed adultery.

(23:17):
I'm saying David was a peepingTom. This great man that I get
so excited when I read abouthim, but the old boy got between
the sheets for the wrong woman.
Fact of the matter his mind wentoff trying to cover up how he
would keep his kingdom and notbe ruined in the sight of
people, and not blow his ownmarriage and kill his influence

(23:37):
with his kids. And he thought,I'll have her husband killed.
And God allowed it to be writtenin the book. What David did was
wrong. I mean, very, very wrong.
But God took over, and Godwanted to show His goodness even

(24:00):
through Bathsheba, the wife ofUriah, just a signal to let us
know that he's a gracious Godfrom everlasting to everlasting
He is God. And you know what Iwant you to know? God knows
about your past, and God knowsabout your guilt. You may be

(24:20):
sitting here this morning orwatching by live stream, and
nobody else knows what hashappened in your past, and
you're carrying that grievousthing in the back of your mind
wondering, will it ever get out?
And he invites you today to dowhat I was able to do, and
that's to honor his offer. Comeunto me, all you that are labor

(24:43):
and are heavy laden, and watchwhat God does. All things work
together for good. Forgiveyourself totally, and watch what
God does, and notice what hesays, I will restore to you,
Joel, 2:25, the years that thelocusts have eaten, and I'm
hanging on to that promise. Youneed to accept his promise. John

(25:07):
8:36 if the Son sets you free,you're free, indeed, you're
free. All you got to do isaccept his offer, and some of us
need to make a decision toforgive ourself once and for
all. And the young pastorslooking for their district

(25:31):
license yesterday, questionswere being asked, and how would
you handle this, and how wouldyou handle that. And the leader
of the group asked the question,you've just preached a funeral.
He's talking out of his life. Hesaid, You just preached a
funeral. You've headed over tothe room, and you're gathering
with the family to eat a meal,and a woman that was there that

(25:54):
you did not recognize, that shecomes up and whispers, preacher,
can I ask you something, or canI say something? That was my
father. I've not seen him formore than 30 some years. My
father violated me when I was ateenager, and I left home, and
I've never been back. And thequestion to all those wanting to

(26:16):
get their district license. Whatwould you say? I'm glad to
respond in my own way thatfather may have never released
you, but there is anotherfather, and I want you to know
he will release you, he'll neverviolate you, and he'll work in

(26:37):
your life to bring things out ofyour past and still make life
turn out good if you turn itover to him. And there's people
here this morning, in thisaudience, not only watching by
live stream and telecast,there's people here today that
are carrying things they need tounload on God and once and for

(26:59):
all, get free. To get free.
Father, just look us over for amoment. We're weak, we're part
of the dust of the Earth madeinto your likeness. We wear
human skin. Most of us have somekind of a past. Not everybody

(27:27):
had a perfect past, and whilewe're pretty good at forgiving
others, we have struggled atforgiving ourselves. And people
are weary not being set free,they'd love to be free this
morning. They'd just like to laysome things down once and for

(27:51):
all and walk off and leave itthere and say, God, I'm not
going to carry this any longer.
I'm in the family now, and Iknow that you can take what
happened and turn it around andmake me a better person, and
you're not holding against myrecord.

Unknown (28:12):
Thanks for being a part of the voice of the Nazarene.
Visit us every Sunday at 9amwith BNC's Pastor, Ray LaSalle,
for more information regardingBNC, visit bucyrusnazarene.org.
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