You don’t believe this, but you deserve to be happy.
OCTOBER 27, 2022
Steve Brown: You don’t believe this, but you deserve to be happy. Let’s talk, on Key Life.
Matthew Porter: God’s grace changes everything, how we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize, purchase, and worship. This is Key Life with practical Bible teaching to get you home with radical freedom, infectious joy, and surprising faithfulness.
Steve Brown: Thank you Matthew. Hi Jerry. Man, this had been a great week. If you’ve just joined us, we are spending this whole week talking about forgiveness, the forgiveness you need, and the forgiveness that you need to give to others. And Pastor Parries, who’s my friend, and now is dumb enough to associate himself with Key Life, has been teaching us on that particular subject, and you told me off the air that we were going to talk about the happiness that we deserve. I don’t deserve happiness. I deserve God’s wrath. What do you mean I deserve happiness?
Jerry Parries: Oh man, that is not true. God wants you to be happy. The total goal of the Father is that his children are to be happy, John 10:10 said.
The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I’ve come that you might have life. And have it more abundantly.
More abundantly, is more abundantly, that you ought to be living above and beyond what the world is doing. God wants to see you smile. He wants to see you laugh. And as we’ve been talking about this week, when you have let it go and when you have forgiven others and then have forgiven yourself, it really is a gift to you. When you forgive, you no longer are at the mercy of the behavior of others. Nobody can walk in the room and your stomach turns, nobody can, you can’t, call you on your telephone and all of a sudden you, makes you sick cause you see a person’s number. When you truly forgive, you are in control of how you feel. We hold the power within us to move negative thoughts out of our way, which makes us absolutely happy and joyous, man. And when you are full of joy, full of happiness, it is what God wants for your life. T.D. Jakes, I don’t know if you know T.J., you know TD Jakes?
Steve Brown: Oh, one of my favorite preachers.
Jerry Parries: Oh, T.D. Jakes had a saying that was absolutely amazing, he says.
I think the first step is to understand that forgiveness does not exonerate the perpetrator.
Let me say that again.
I think the first step is to understand that forgiveness does not exonerate the perpetrator. Forgiveness liberates the victim. It is a gift you give yourself.
You know, and that’s what it is. When you forgive, you give yourself a gift to have the freedom and the love to just do incredible, live life to the fullest that God would have us to live.
Steve Brown: You know, you said something that we don’t think about very often, or I don’t. You know, when we don’t forgive, we give power to people to destroy us, don’t we?
Jerry Parries: Yes we do. Yes we do. And, when we do that, they control our happiness, they control our destiny. I had a, one of my church members, we were going on vacation and this young lady that was going on vacation with us, they didn’t get along together. And, her total week was really set on how this other young lady act during the week. And I told her in the middle of the week, I said, you know, you have given this person so much power to control your week because you have not let that go. And so, your vacation, your day is predicated off on how they act. And that’s a bad place to put your happiness, in the hands of someone else.
Steve Brown: So wise, Did she get it?
Jerry Parries: I think she did. Hopefully she did. You know, and then I love, one of my favorite Scriptures that I love, Dr. Steve, is Psalms 1:1.
Blessed it is the man. Blessed is the man who walk not in the consul of the ungodly.
The ungodly consul is, be mad, hold onto it, stay there, don’t say I’m sorry until they say they’re sorry. That’s unwise consul, he said, but you’re blessed if you don’t listen to that and you listen to what God says.
Blessed is the man who walk not in the consul of the ungodly, nor standeth in the path of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord.
The law of the Lord now is the love of Jesus, the love of Christ, Jesus says.
Here is the law. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Love the Lord that God with all thy heart.
Here is the law that God is telling us to walk in and meditate on, love. Meditate on how God loves you, how you ought to love others. And meditate on how God has forgiven you, so that you will be able to forgive others. Meditate on that day and night. And this is the miraculous thing that will happen for you, if you do this, he says.
You shall be like a tree, planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth fruit in its season.
It may not happen the day you want it to happen. Fruit takes time to come into season. Blessings take time to come into season. When you’re going through a traumatic situation and you have forgiven, it doesn’t turn around overnight, but in season, it shall happen for you. And listen, he says.
That you will bring forth fruit in your season. And your leaves shall not wither.
And this is the part that I love, and this is the part that makes me shout all over the place.
And whatsoever you do shall prosper.
My God in the kingdom, when you know how to let go and let God and really turn it over to the Lord, I mean really. Pray, turn it over to the Lord, give God praise, he says.
Now whatsoever you put your hands to do, he will make it prosper for you.
And that’s because you have learned how to forgive. Let it go and give it over to God. And that’s what I’m here to teach you today. I want you to know, don’t seek revenge. I want you to know that if you do that, God won’t be pleased with you. You won’t make him smile when you’re trying to seek revenge. Remember how to forgive others as God has forgiven you. And when you do that, God is pleased and love you for all that you have done. And I just want to talk about this as I end. The bitterness, here’s a quote that I have.
Bitterness is believing God got it wrong. Worry is believing God will get it right. And unforgiveness is believing you are right, even after God says you are wrong.
Isn’t that good stuff?
Steve Brown: That is so good. You know what just dawned on me. You know, we think of the sacrifice of forgiving others, that it’s hard and, but listen, we’re going to get to heaven someday and we’ll be rewarded for it, but it’s really hard right now to let things go. We really want to not get a gun and to exact revenge. It’s really hard, what you’ve said, no. That’s where the gift comes from.
Jerry Parries: Yes. That is exactly where the gift comes from. And not only that, Steve, when you don’t believe that God has your best interest at hand in any situation, it shows that you don’t trust him. You have to trust that God knows how to handle every situation in your life, and you’ve got to believe that if God loves me, he will not allow anything to befall me, that he won’t handle. And God loves us so much that he will take care of his children. I love my children. Let me tell you something. I have grown children and they are really good and grown. And each one of them live in their own house, but what my children don’t know, I hope they’re not listening to this broadcast. What they don’t know is I watch over them even far away. And when I look at their struggling or whatever, I may slip them a hundred dollars to just say, Hey, I just was thinking about you. I just want to bless you. No, I knew they were struggling. And God looks at us and know that we’re struggling with different things in our lives, and he blesses us at certain times to get us through. God will not let you fall. God will not for forsake you. God will not turn his back on you. If you really trust him, they that trust in the Lord will not be made ashamed. Your enemies may get by, but they won’t get away. Just turn them over to him and he will fight your battles as he’s done these so many years for others, He will do it for you.
Steve Brown: Jerry, this has been such good teaching unforgiveness, but you are not saying, and I guess we oughta say this before we land this plane. You’re not saying that you don’t ever stand up and speak truth.
Jerry Parries: Oh yes.
Steve Brown: And say to somebody, You know, I was hurt by what you said, or I think what you did wrong and what you did. It doesn’t mean that we become weenies. And that we never respond in any way. It just means we let it go.
Jerry Parries: Absolutely. In fact, the Bible is very clear that if your brother offends you tell him. You’re supposed to tell them. You’re supposed to tell them. But if they don’t ask for, if they don’t apologize, then move forward and let it go. And apology doesn’t mean that you have to associate with them anymore, by the way, let me throw that in. Sometimes
Steve Brown: Forgiveness doesn’t mean being dumb.
Jerry Parries: That’s right. Sometimes you’ve got to forgive and move on. And that’s okay.
Steve Brown: But if you can’t sleep at night, if the bitterness is eating you alive, if you’re not very happy, you’re just sour all the time and you listen to what Jerry taught us this week, you know how to fix it. Just make the list, let it go, and go get a milkshake. Okay. Jerry, great week. Thank you.
Jerry Parries: Thank you, thank you.
Steve Brown: Hey guys, listen to what he teaches. And you think about. Amen.
Matthew Porter: Thank you Steve and Jerry. Again, that was our good friend Jerry Parries hanging out with Steve. And if you missed any of this week long conversation, or if you just wanna share it with a friend, be sure to check that out at keylife.org. Next week we will resume our tour through Acts, but first tomorrow, be sure to join us for Friday Q&A, when we’ll find out if we will see Adam and Eve in heaven. Jeremy, I hope Heaven has name tags. I’m just saying. I love words, and when I come across a new one, I always lean forward and one of those new words for me was deconstructing, as in someone is deconstructing their faith. Well, fortunately we got to hang out with author Trevin Wax on Steve Brown Etc to discuss deconstruction and how to show God’s love to those who are experiencing a crisis of faith. It’s an encouraging and surprisingly practical discussion, and if there’s anyone in your life going through this, it’s going to help a lot. Can we send you that conversation on a CD for free? If so, just call us right now at 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] to ask for that CD. If you’d like to mail your request, send it to
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