Breaking Free From Bitterness

Dr. Jeff Schreve: When we go through hard times and bitter things come, we tend to focus on the things that we have lost, when we need to focus on the things that we have left. Naomi felt like she had lost everything. I went out full, and now I'm coming back empty. I don't have anything. But she had the Lord, who wouldn't leave her even in the midst of her bitterness. The Lord is with me. He's never going to leave me, so I can trust him.
Larry Nobles: There's a disease in our world that's been around since the beginning of time. It affects billions of people, and it can't be cured by a pill, potion, or procedure. It's the disease called bitterness, which can get into a person's heart and poison everything in their life. This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve, and today he continues with the story of Naomi, who wanted to be called Mara, which means bitterness. "Call Me Mara" is the name of today's message from the five-lesson series Life Goes On: How to Face a New Normal. In it, Pastor Jeff shares how we can bring our bitterness to the Lord and find grace and restoration. Now, this message is going to hit a lot of people right where they live every day. Maybe if bitterness is a part of your heart, it'll provoke you to turn to the Lord and trust him completely. If you can, turn in your Bible now to the book of Ruth, chapter one, for the message "Call Me Mara". Here's Pastor Jeff.
Dr. Jeff Schreve: Have your trials and disappointments made you bitter? Because Naomi had trials and disappointments and three funerals, and they made her bitter. Truth number one: Everyone will face bitter things in life. It's just part of the human experience. Now, how do the bitter things come? Sometimes they come about because there are self-inflicted wounds. They come because of faithlessness and sin. And that's what we see in the story of Naomi. It says in verse one again, "Now it came about in the days when the judges governed, that there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the land of Moab with his wife and his two sons." That's a terrible decision that he made. Moab's a terrible place. Moab's a horrible place. The Lord says twice in the book of Psalms, "Moab is my washbowl." Why are they doing that? Well, because there's not any—I'm just afraid, I don't think I can make it here, there's a famine in the land. So isn't it interesting, trying to escape the famine, they run into three funerals in Moab. Elimelech dies, and Mahlon and Chilion die, and Naomi is bereft of her husband and her two sons. Why did that happen? Well, they shouldn't have been in Moab in the first place. The scripture doesn't say why they died or how they died. But her situation, a lot of it had to do with her own sinful choices. And so bitter things in life can come because you look honestly at the choices that you've made, and you say, "I brought this about, this is a self-inflicted wound." So sometimes they can come about because of faithlessness and sin. Other times, they can just come out of the blue. You don't have to do anything. You're walking with God, everything is good, you're seeking his face, you're walking in the light with Jesus, and out of the blue, wham, you get hit with something tremendously bitter. But remember this: None of these things can come without God's permission because God is over it all. God is the God who is sovereign, he is the God who is in charge. And the bitter things that come into your life and my life, God has to allow them to come in. See, nothing comes into your life and my life that doesn't first filter through his fingers of love. And even in rebellion, you leave Bethlehem and you're not going to trust in the Lord with all your heart and say, "God, I'm trusting you, you're going to provide for me here in Bethlehem because this is the promised land, this is where you want me to be." When you go to Moab, even in Moab, God is controlling everything that happens to you. And so we say that bitter things are a part of life. Everyone will face bitter things in life. Truth number two: Everyone will have to face the temptation to get bitter. Just because you have bitter things doesn't mean you have to be bitter. But when the bitter things come, then comes with it the temptation to get bitter. Look at verse 19, 20, and 21 again. "So they both went, Naomi and Ruth, until they came to Bethlehem. And it came about when they had come to Bethlehem, that all the city was stirred because of them. And the women said, 'Is this Naomi?'" Now, she's from Bethlehem, she grew up in Bethlehem. She's been gone for 10 years, but the people knew her. Bethlehem's not a town of five million people. It's a small town, and so you grow up in a small town, people know who you are. And so when she came back, it's like, "Hi, you look a little bit different. You look a little sour, but is this not Naomi, is this not pleasantness?" "Do not call me Naomi, call me Mara, call me bitterness, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has witnessed, the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty, El Shaddai, has afflicted me? He has brought harm to me." She had become bitter. The bitter things had come into her. Now remember this: Bitter things are external, bitterness is internal. Bitterness comes when you let the external bitter things get into your heart and make you bitter. So here is the evolution of bitterness. First of all, bitterness gets presented when we get hurt. Bitterness knocks at your door on the heels of hurt because every bitter person is a hurting person. That's how it gets presented. And then it gets established when we hold on to the hurt. Everyone in this room has been hurt at some time or another. You've been hurt by a mom, you've been hurt by a dad, you've been hurt by a brother, you've been hurt by a sister, you've been hurt by a teacher, you've been hurt by a coach, you've been hurt by somebody, you've been hurt by somebody at church, you've been hurt by somebody at work. Everybody has been hurt. But not everybody is bitter. So the hurt comes, it's bitterness presenting itself at the door. If you open the door and let the sun go down on your anger, the hurt turns to anger and the anger comes in and you let the sun go down, it's letting the devil come in and set up shop. And listen, the devil is a bitter creature. The devil thought that he should be like the most high God. The inference in scripture is that the devil, the number one angel God ever created—he wasn't the devil, he was Lucifer, the star of the morning, the son of the dawn—that he would lead the worship in heaven. As the angels gathered to worship God, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory," he'd lead in the worship, and the worship would come to him and through him and go to God. He said, "The worship needs to come to me, not through me but to me, and I will be like the most high God." His sin was pride, his sin was ingratitude, his sin was bitterness because he felt like he was getting cheated by the most high God. "I'm going to be God, I'm going to set my throne above the stars of heaven." Well, God wasn't going to have any of that, and he booted him out, and Lucifer, the number one angel, became Satan, the father of the night. The devil works in the hurts to get you to go with him and be bitter and hateful and resentful of your lot in life. So it gets established when we hold on to the hurt. There's a little phrase that is so true, what we do when we don't process the sad and the mad right, and we let the sun go down on our anger. It says this: When we get hurt, we first curse the hurt. "This is a terrible thing, this is awful what has taken place." We curse the hurt. And then we rehearse the hurt. We go over it in our minds. "Oh, this person, then they said this, then they said that, then they said this, then they said that." You're trying to go to bed at night and you're thinking through all this, "Yeah, what they did this and they did that." You're just rehearsing it. And when you rehearse the hurt, you're nursing the hurt. You're keeping it alive, you're keeping it going so it stays fresh in your mind. It's like swirling around the vinegar over and over and over. You don't spit it out, you don't swallow, you just, "I want to keep tasting this. Ah, is this so terrible." We curse the hurt, we rehearse the hurt, we nurse the hurt, and then we disperse the hurt. We have to tell somebody else. We have to tell somebody else how poorly we were treated, how wrongly we were treated. Bitterness doesn't remain just in your heart. It has to go out. The scripture says in Hebrews chapter 12, "Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many." New American Standard says, "and by it many be defiled." Why? Because it gets dispersed, and bitter people want to get you to enter into their bitterness. They say, "Well, do you know what so-and-so did to me? Let me tell you the story what so-and-so did to me." They tell you the story and then their attitude is, "I need you to hate so-and-so like I hate so-and-so, because they're terrible. Look what they did to me." If you're an undiscerning person, you just say, "Oh, he must be terrible. I mean, there's really only one side to this story, it has nothing to do with this other person." Adrian Rogers used to say, "It's a really thin pancake that has one side." But you just accept it, and then "I want you to hate this person with me, okay?" "I'll hate them with you." Bitterness gets established when we hold on to the hurt.
Larry Nobles: We'll continue right there in just a moment when Pastor Jeff returns. But first, a big thank you. A thank you for listening to From His Heart and for praying for this ministry. We're touching people around the world and getting testimonies each day of those who've been impacted by our radio and online outreach. This is from Emile in South Africa who says: "I got a link to your website from a friend who thought it would be a good message for me to listen to. I do like and I do need the kind of truth you're proclaiming about Jesus and his love for me. I forget that sometimes and get bogged down in my own worries and struggles, and I get bitter about my life. I have a hard time being content no matter what is happening, and something is always happening. But as Paul said, we should be content in everything. Thank you, Pastor Jeff, for your faithfulness to the word of God and for the uplifting joy you bring to me and I'm sure countless others around the world." Now, that was a great letter. What an impact this ministry is having around the world, and you help when you support From His Heart, which is a separate non-profit organization from Pastor Jeff's church, and he receives no income from this ministry. To thank you for your gift this month to From His Heart, we'd like to send you the five-message series Life Goes On: How to Face a New Normal, along with his book Life Interrupted. These are our special gifts for your support this month. Just go to fromhisheart.org or simply call 866-40-BIBLE. 866-40-BIBLE. And know that you are impacting the world with us. Now let's get back to conclude the lesson "Call Me Mara".
Dr. Jeff Schreve: You remember the Peanuts character Pig-Pen? Pig-Pen, when he showed up on the scene, you always knew he was dirty because of the cloud of dirt around him. Now, that's spiritually what takes place in a bitter person. You can't see it per se, not like that, but it's there. It's just this cloud of negative, it's this cloud of anger, it's this cloud of "I'm getting ripped off and this person mistreated me," just a mouthful of vinegar. That was Naomi. That's why she said, "Don't call me Naomi, call me Mara, God has mistreated me." So it gets presented with hurt, it gets established when we hold on to the hurt, and then it gets destructive in our relationship with God. You can't walk with God if you're bitter. God hates that. And so there's no way to walk in the light with Jesus if I'm bitter toward someone else. The scripture says in 1st John chapter 4, "You can't love God whom you have not seen if you hate your brother whom you have seen." If you're not right this way, you can't be right that way. Jesus said when he gave the model prayer in Matthew chapter 6, "Pray then in this way, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name," he said at the end of that prayer, "But if you do not forgive men, then your father will not forgive your transgressions." We pray in that model prayer, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are indebted to us, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." And God says, "Do you really want me to forgive you the way you forgive that person? Because you haven't forgiven this person. And if you don't forgive, then I'm not going to forgive you. And if I'm not right with people this way, I can't be right with God. If I'm not right horizontally, how can I be right vertically? I can't." All bitterness, when we have bitterness toward another person, filters up to God. Now, Naomi wasn't necessarily bitter at another person. She was bitter at God directly. If you're bitter at another person, you're bitter at God indirectly because God is over all things and God is over your boss. If your boss fired you for no particular reason or mistreated you, or some coach way back when did something to you and you're bitter toward him, it eventually goes back to God. Her bitterness was directly at God because "the Almighty has been very bitter, he has dealt very bitterly with me," she says in verse 20. That "very bitterly" in the Hebrew is a superlative. He's dealt especially, exceedingly, greatly bitter at me. In an angry, harsh, bad temper. That's what she said of God. "The hand of the Lord is against me." You know, Job never did that. That was the argument that Satan had with God. "If you, God, if you let down the hedge, you let me get at him, he'll curse you to your face." Job never did that. He didn't understand why God allowed the things to happen to him that happened to him, but he never ascribed unseemliness to God. Listen, if you want to walk with God, you can't have a heart of bitterness. You've got to get that out of your heart. You have to forgive your neighbor. You have to forgive the person who hurt you. You let that get down in your heart, that hurt that you have allowed to come in, it destroys you from the inside out. It destroys your relationship with God. Hey, you want to be good to yourself? Forgive that person who hurt you. You say, "Well, then let that person off the hook for what they did for me?" You're not letting them off the hook, you're letting you off the hook. Hey, forgiveness is opening up the prison door and letting the prisoner go free and find out that the prisoner was you. Let it go. Forgive. And now when it comes to your relationship, when it's direct with you and God because of bad things that have happened, and it wasn't a particular person that did anything per se, it was that God directly allowed this. Then what do you do? You can't have a bad heart toward God. You can't say, "God, you're against me." How am I ever going to walk with God if I see God as the enemy? You're going to go in a very dark place and you're going to become a miserable person that no one wants to have anything to do with. You're going to be Pig-Pen times 100, and you're going to be lonely and bitter and die that way. Don't do it. So everyone will face bitter things in life, everyone will have to face the temptation to get bitter, and then truth number three: Everyone can choose to trust God no matter what. My favorite verse in the book of Job is Job 13:15. "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." I don't understand why all this is happening to me. Naomi lost her husband and two children. Job lost 10 of his kids all at once in addition to all the other things. I don't understand. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. And you remember this about the Lord. When we go through hard times and bitter things come, we tend to focus on the things that we have lost, when we need to focus on the things that we have left. Naomi felt like she had lost everything. "I went out full, and now I'm coming back empty. I don't have anything." But she had the Lord, who wouldn't leave her even in the midst of her bitterness. If you're a believer in Jesus, the Lord will not leave you. Hebrews chapter 13 makes that crystal clear. "Let your character be free from the love of money, being content with what you have, for he himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor will I ever forsake you.'" And because he has said that, we may confidently say, "The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What shall man do to me?" The Lord is my helper. The Lord is with me. He's never going to leave me, so I can trust him. The Lord will not leave you. The Lord wants to help you. "The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What shall man do to me?" That verse is also shared in Psalm 118. "The Lord is for me, I will not fear. What can man do to me? The Lord is for me among those who help me." Now, that's different than what Naomi said. "The hand of the Lord is against me. The Lord has testified against me." But this scripture says that the Lord is for me. He's not against me. He wants to help you in your difficulty, in your problem, in your grief. He's near to the brokenhearted, he saves those who are crushed in spirit. And the Lord has a plan for you. It says in verse 22, "So Naomi returned, and with her Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, who returned from the land of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest." That's just kind of a little aside, a little throwaway, but it's not a throwaway. It's the beginning of spring. It's the beginning of new things. The dark time in Moab is over. Her 10 years in Moab were the worst ever. They were the most heartbreaking time of her life. But she's come out of Moab and she's come to Bethlehem, and it's the beginning of spring, and God can work even in her bitterness. Now listen, the thing I like about Naomi is she was honest. And if you want to get well, you have to get honest. If you're bitter toward someone or you're bitter toward God, you have to name it and nail it to the cross. You have to get it out of your heart, pull it out of the shadows, get it under the light. "Lord, this is what's been in my heart, this is what's been eating my lunch. I'm so consumed by this, and God, I want to get it right with you. I want to get it out, I want to get it forgiven, I want to be right with you." See, God has a plan for that. It's the beginning of barley harvest. In chapter two, Ruth is going to go out in the field. Naomi doesn't have anything. She's a poor widow, she doesn't really have a way to make money in a male-dominated society. So Ruth is there with her. Ruth is the one that has faith. Ruth is the one who believes God. She's trusting God. She left Moab behind, and so she goes out and she just happens to glean in the field that happened to belong to Boaz, a mighty man of valor, a wealthy man, who happened to be related to Elimelech, Naomi's deceased husband. He's a kinsman redeemer. They just happened to have this connection. He marries her, Ruth. He takes Naomi. "I will provide for you." They have a child, Boaz and Ruth. His name's Obed. Obed grows up and he has a child, his name's Jesse. Jesse grows up and he has eight sons, and the eighth son is named David, who becomes king, who has a son, a greater son, who's the Lord Jesus Christ. God really does give beauty for ashes. God really does have a plan. God really can take all your mess and all my mess and turn it into a message. God can take all the tests and turn it into a testimony, if you will trust him. Listen, some of you are here and you're in Moab. You've made bad decisions, you're in Moab, you're at the pigsty. You have to get up and leave Moab, you have to leave the pigsty in order to get right with God. Some of you desperately need to admit to yourself and to God that you're bitter. You have to say, "Lord, I need my heart to be healed." Go God's way. Leave Moab and let Jesus do a work in you.
Larry Nobles: Today on From His Heart with Pastor Jeff, you heard the message "Call Me Mara", and it has truly been an important warning and admonition to believers everywhere to take very seriously what bitterness will do to your heart and also impact others when left unchecked. Bitterness can be caused by a lot of things: losing a job, a loved one, a friend, or facing other devastating, unexpected detours. And even though you know that immediately life will never be the same, a new normal is in store for you with the Lord by your side. And to help you with that transition, we'd like to give you Pastor Jeff's book Life Interrupted and the series Life Goes On, our special gifts for your support of any amount to From His Heart this month. To get yours, call 866-40-BIBLE. 866-40-BIBLE. Or go to fromhisheart.org. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Larry Nobles, and we trust that you'll be back here next time for another blessing from Pastor Jeff's series Life Goes On. Join us next time for the timely lesson "How to Sing in the Rain". That's when we'll open up God's word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from his heart.