Ben Brinkerhoff - Overcoming Resentment - Class 1 - The Seeds of Resentment

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:01

   This is day one of the Rocky Mountain Bible School. Our first class is being taught by our brother Ben Brinkerhoff from Christchurch North in New Zealand. His topic overall for the week is Judah Overcoming Resentment. The The title for today’s class is Judah, The Seeds of Resentment, Brother Ben. OK, good morning, Rocky Band Bible school. All right.

2. 0:44

   Wow. Raise your hand if you are a Bringerhoff or married to one. Thank you for the support. Raise your hand if you want to be married to a Brinkerhoff, right? See Dave and Nancy, I did that for you. Ask that during the teen class and get some interesting responses. I think I’ll let you know how that goes.

3. 1:14

   I listen. I bring warm greetings from your brothers and sisters in the Christchurch, N Ecclesia in New Zealand. My only sadness really is the fact my wife Alyssa and my four children cannot be with me this week. They want me to convey their love to you as well. So you know, Jesus tells us and brother Josh, even last night, he says, listen, there’s two great commandments and you know what they are.

4. 1:48

   So the love of the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And what’s the other one if also love your neighbor as yourself, right?

5. 2:09

   And we and Christian Elphis, we love, we love this, we love it, we like to talk about it, we like to expound it, we like to discuss it, exhort on it. It’s just the doing it that’s hard. That’s the part that’s the part that’s hard. And you ask yourself the question, why? Why?

6. 2:32

   What’s getting in the way? Listen to love your neighbors yourself. It’s this verse is found in Matthew, it’s found in Mark, it’s found in Luke, it’s found in Galatians and Romans. And if you missed the point, it’s found in the book of James. It’s everywhere, right? And what what’s getting in our way?

7. 2:56

   And if you go back to the Rick of the verse in its original context in Leviticus, I think we get a clue to what the problem might be. OK, Leviticus chapter 19 and verse 17 for context. You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason with your neighbor lest you bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

8. 3:33

   I am the Lord so. So why do we find so much trouble following this beautiful commandment of the Lord? Perhaps the reason is, is that we’re bearing a grudge.

9. 3:48

   And if we have hate in our heart and we’re bearing a grudge, we, we can’t love. It’s it’s like bearing a grudge and love. It’s like they’re these opposites. Admit it. If you have, if you are bearing a grudge in your heart, love is very hard. And if you have a lot of love in your heart, you’re probably not bearing very many grudges.

10. 4:15

    These, these things are like opposites to one another. And, and I’d like to talk to you this week from time to time about love, if I can. But you know, if, if I talk to you about love and you’re being a grudge, it’s like taking a cup full of that’s full of water and putting under a spigot and the, the listen, the water’s going to hit the cup.

11. 4:36

    It’s just run over the side. It’s not going to stick. Because if you have a grudge in your heart that is, that is actually preventing you from from having love. So for its simplicity in these studies I’m going to refer to grudges and hate primarily using this word resentment because it’s a word that captures the attitude of the person I want to consider together. Now resentment comes from 2 parts of speech. The first word is re and not as in my uncle’s name. No re as in to do again as in restore or replay, right? You’re doing something again.

12. 5:20

    And the second part of speech this word derives from is this word sentire, which is Aladdin for to feel. So the word resentment really means to feel again. And it’s appropriate word for someone who is bearing a grudge. Many of us feel old hurts and pains again and again and, and, and we replay the scene. You know how it is, admit it.

13. 5:52

    You replay the scene in your brain and, and, and you and you re victimize yourself while while simultaneously and ironically promising that you’re never going to let yourself be hurt like that again. Whilst you are thinking about the thing that hurts you, whilst you are hurting yourself again,

14. 6:16

    right? I see some nods. You know who you are, right? Right. I believe that all of us struggle with this. So what can we do about it? Perhaps one of the best things we can do about it is to look at the example in scripture of one who overcame resentment. Now Leviticus says you should not hate your brother in your heart and the Bible reads, leaves a record of a man that did hate his brother in his heart and he appeared to have every valid reason to do so.

15. 6:50

    And his name was Judah. Now consider, consider for a moment Judah. Judah goes from hating his brother to selling him into slavery to lying about it to his father. This is notice the downward trend here. It’s not getting any better, right? He runs away from the ecclesia, then he marries in the world. Oh, and then he falls into sexual sin. This is Judah.

16. 7:20

    And then he sacrifices himself or his father. How does someone go from there back up to here? How does that happen? How can I do that? How can you do that? So in our first 3 1/2 studies together, we’re going to see how Judah unwillingly falls into the pit of resentment. In our last 1 1/2 studies, we’re going to see how God lifts him out of that pit and restores him. So for today’s class, we’re going to look at where Judah’s resentment originated, and we’ll conclude with some thoughts about how the process of resentment works within us, if that’s OK, brothers and sisters.

17. 8:00

    Now Judah was born the fourth son of Jacob by his mother Leia. His name means praise, and upon his birth his mother says in Genesis 29 and verse 35, his mother says, Now I will praise the Lord. Therefore she called his name Judah and left bearing. Now, perhaps more than anything, I think this speaks to the character of Leah, a woman that called on God’s memorial name and praise.

18. 8:31

    I mean, she goes from seeking the praise and approval of her husband. Remember she called Levi Levi because she’s saying, now my husband will be joined unto me. She’s seeking what she’s seeking the approval and affections of her husband. And now with with, with Judah, she’s she’s calling on God’s name and praise and she appears to have adopted the God of Jacob as her own.

19. 8:58

    But, but Jacob doesn’t see her in this light. So perhaps blinded by Rachel’s beauty or being deceived, angry, being deceived at Laban Scripture uses really strong language to describe the state of Leah in this household. And turn with me to Genesis chapter 29 and we’re going to look at this verses 30 and 31. And it says there Jacob went in unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years.

20. 9:38

    And the Lord saw that Leah was hated, and he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. So Leah was hated and God saw it. Now we know that Leah was not as pretty as her sister, but you wonder for a moment, what did Judah and his brethren see when they looked at Leah?

21. 10:05

    Do you think to them that Leah was beautiful? To me my mother is beautiful. And I thought that before I had any concept of of looks or attraction. You know, a mother is beautiful because of the way she loves her child. You know the, the way a child is loved by a it’s, it’s different than any love a man ever receives in any other part of his life.

22. 10:29

    Listen, wives, you know you don’t love us the way our mothers did. You know we still, you know you don’t, right? And for a while, we resented you for it, right? It’s a special type of love because it is just like, you know, I could, I listen, my, I’ve done a lot of bad things and my mom defended me for most of them. You know, my wife doesn’t do that, right? And it’s a special thing, you know? So, so you know, Can you imagine? I just want you to imagine Judah not being able to understand Jacob’s disposition towards his mother that that although she was devoted to the chores and requirements of the household, that she was clearly second best. Now have you ever seen your mother cry? Did you want to save her?

23. 11:23

    Do you want to rescue her? So how was Judah understand that all his mother was faithful and she loved the Lord and she devoted herself to the family? That all she got was constant heartache being a a distant second in her husband’s affections. You know there’s no justice in it. There’s no right in it See resentment. It typically stems from a real or perceived injustice and I think this is where the seeds of Jews resentment come from. I, I try, I scanned the web to find a, a, a picture that could capture the essence of what injustice feels like. And I think you’re going to, I think you’re going to sympathize with this picture.

24. 12:16

    You know what? What do you think? Right? I mean, clearly resentment is not a problem only for adults is what that tells you right away, right? So, but, but more to the point, at what age you think that that Judah and his brethren began to realize that Leah was not the only victim of Jacob’s favoritism? At what age did he suspect that Jacob’s favoritism, it carried over to the next generation?

25. 12:49

    You know, suspicions would have started young, but they would have been confirmed in adolescence. And I tell you the point in which they were crystallized. Turn with me over to Genesis chapter 33, verses 1 and 2, where these suspicions and concerns were crystallized in in the young mind of Judah. Genesis chapter 33 and turning in at verse one. And Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, And behold, Esau came, and with him 400 men.

26. 13:19

    And he divided the children unto Leah, and unto Rachel, and unto the two handmaids. And he put the handmaids and their children foremost, and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph hindmost. It doesn’t take any kind of degree in military strategy to understand Jacob’s intentions here. You can imagine Judah looking at the situation and realizing to himself, wow, if someone has to die, my father would prefer it was me, my brethren and my mother before Rachel and Joseph. You know, at this point he would become hyper aware of Joseph. He would he would look for any evidence of special treatment and there was evidence of special treatment. And when he found it, he would wince in pain because his worst fears were being realized.

27. 14:17

    See, deep inside every child you know, this is a deep desire to be loved because love fills an unconscious and deep need for security. Children feel safe when they’re loved because their existence depends on the unselfish love of their parents. So if parental love is threatened in any way, real or perceived, you’re going to feel it instantly. You’re going to feel it deeply.

28. 14:50

    And in Judah’s case, resentment is not born out of perceived injustice, but injustice regarding a deep and instinctual need for security. And what greater security can you have than when being threatened by an enemy that your father’s terrified is going to kill you?

29. 15:12

    So in Genesis 37, as Jacob’s sons grow in strength and independence, their insecurity and pain is transformed into another feeling, and that’s described to us in the Bible as hatred. And turn over to Genesis chapter 37 now, and we’re going to look at verses 3:00 to 4:00. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children because he was the son of his old age and made him a coat of many colors.

30. 15:40

    When his brethren saw that their father loved Joseph more than all his brethren, they hated Joseph and could not speak peaceably unto him. Now we learn more about the brother’s feelings in verses 8:00 and 11:00. In verse 8 we read, And the brethren said unto Joseph, Shalt thou indeed reign over us, or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet more for his dreams and for his words. And in verse 11 we read, And the brethren envied him, but his father observed the saying.

31. 16:16

    So here we come to one of the inevitable outcomes of resentment. I’m going to describe to you 3 inevitable symptoms of resentment. Sometimes you don’t know if you have resentment, but you can see the symptoms and one of the symptoms of resentment is displaced anger. It’s a displaced anger is a is a new term for an old idea. It occurs when, with, when, who or what you’re venting your anger at is not ultimately the source of your anger. Everyone knows this.

32. 16:47

    I I come home from work and Alyssa’s had a bad day and she’s been looking forward to me coming home from work. But then I do one thing out of place and now she’s mad at me. But she’s not mad at me, she’s just frustrated. I was supposed to be the savior and it turns out I was, I turned up and I was just being another problem, right?

33. 17:11

    Happens a lot, you know, or I’ve had a bad day at work, right? And I come home, you know, and they’re my smite again. I don’t like my kids are going to listen to this recording one day and be upset at me. There’s the backpack right by the door. You know, you’re something in you trip over it. Any dad’s ever tripped over the backpack as he came through the door, right?

34. 17:33

    Anything. What is this backpack? I’m not angry at the backpack I’m missing. I’m angry at the stress I’ve had that day. I’m displacing the anger. I’m putting it at the thing I can, I can kick the thing I can, I can take out my frustration on. So Judah’s and his brother’s first problem with Joseph isn’t Joseph.

35. 17:54

    It was the love and emotional security they didn’t receive from their father, but put it in a position where they couldn’t direct that fear and anger towards their father. They displaced it and they put it on Joseph. See, Judah knew something really well. Do you know what he knew? He knew what it was like to be second place in the household. He’d seen it.

36. 18:20

    How many countless times had he seen his mother’s tears as Jacob once again and went into Rachel’s tent and not Leah’s tent? How many times had he seen his mother’s extraordinary efforts and hard work and diligence not go rewarded for any praise or affections? See, he knew what it was like to be second best and he wanted no part of it. Now.

37. 18:44

    It’s fascinating to me that the two attitudes that Judah and his brethren demonstrate towards Joseph we’re told there in chapter 37, there are two things we’re told. One is hate and the other is envy. Now it’s probably not coincidence that these are the exact 2 attitudes that Judah would experience growing up, right? We already read about hate, didn’t we, when which says that Leah was hated and and so God opened her womb. But what about envy?

38. 19:15

    We read about envy in Genesis chapter 30 verse one. We read there and Rachel saw that she bared Jacob no children and Rachel envied her sister and said to Jacob give me children else I die. So what this table shows is is what what Judah learned as a child. He learned envy and he saw hatred.

39. 19:40

    Well, it just so happens that what does he act out as an adult? His brethren envied him and they hated him. We can observe this irony. Hurt people seem to hurt people the way they were hurt.

40. 20:04

    Just observe that for a moment. Do you see that to be true in yourself? Hurt people seem to hurt people often the way they were hurt. I’ll give you a obvious example right there from Genesis. You think Jacob liked it that Isaac seemed to favor Esau over him. You think he liked that kind of favoritism.

41. 20:28

    But what does he do to his kids? Hurt people seem to hurt people often the way they’ve been hurt. So the point here is that is that Judas suffered in a home full of of what? Two things, hatred and envy. And he does the same. And that takes us to a second symptom of resentment, which is, which is modeling. Judah models the behaviors that hurt him. It’s not that Judas set out to be hypocrite. It’s just that modeling is unfortunately a common outcome of resentment.

42. 21:05

    See this word envy in Genesis 37, verse 11. This, this is an interesting word, right? It, it’s the word kana QANA kana, right? And it, it drives from an Arabic word which means to become very red, right? And and it’s meaning is to burn with zeal for any purpose or anything to excite to jealousy.

43. 21:37

    No, this, this is it wasn’t like envy going Oh yeah, I like her sweater. I’d look better in that sweater than she would. Not that I’ll tell her yet.

44. 21:51

    It’s not that kind of envy, right? This is this is this is in the, this is in the depths of your, you know, your stomach’s burning, right? They become very red for a thing like your, your facial complexion is starting to change color, right? Because in, in with in your insides. And do you think you can control a feeling like that?

45. 22:16

    You think you want to turn that on? You think you wake up in the morning going, do you know what I want to do today? I’ll take out the garbage and then I’ll sit there and become red and feel horrible, right? You don’t ask for that feeling. It sits there and you can’t wish it away. Ever had one of those feelings?

46. 22:34

    You just wish it away going, God, I do not want this feeling. You can’t wish that feeling away. You know, if they’re not intellectualizing this, they’re not saying, you know, that Joseph chap, he’s a bit of a goody goody, isn’t he? You know this isn’t a mental thing, right? They’re they’re feeling this envy in the in the depth of their gut.

47. 23:02

    It says they couldn’t speak peace to him. They couldn’t speak Shalom. What do you tell me? How do you speak peace when you’re not feeling any peace? There’s no peace in Khanna. Khanna is the opposite of peace. Khanna is burning up with envy. And that’s where the brethren were at this point in time. They’re fueled by insecurity.

48. 23:30

    They feel a deep sense of injustice. And when you have envy deeply burning inside of you, what do you do admit to yourself? Have you ever felt that burning sense of agitation inside of you? Have you struck out as a result of that? Have you struck out in violence as a result of that?

49. 23:58

    Ever done something you’re ashamed of because it was the only way you knew to calm that inner man? In this situation, Judah and his brethren can’t help but lash out of their brother. As we know the brothers anger and resentment was exacerbated by Joseph’s dreams. And the brothers say to Joseph in Genesis 37, verse 8, Shalt thou indeed reign over us, or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet more for his dreams and for his words. And when we’re in a deep sense state of hurt and envy, the brothers intuitively and unconsciously perform the third symptom of resentment.

50. 24:41

    And that third symptom is skewed judgement. And of course, when they judge the brothers, judge Joseph, they, they twist all the information in the worst possible way. You know how this works, right? When you’re in a grumpy state of mind, you know, You know how you’re a state of that mind where every tone of voice is too sarcastic, right? Every duty we have to do, it’s just evidence that no one else in the Ecologia cares but me, right? Every, every question you’re, you’re asked just offends you and you become defensive and sensitive about everything. Those around you, they avoid you because they can’t do anything right when you’re around and and you interpret all information through the distorted lens of your agitation. And when you’re like this, it’s as if your brain is in this panic.

51. 25:50

    Define any any evidence to support or justify or rationalize your obnoxious point of view and hateful disposition. Because darn it, if enough people are doing enough annoying, aggravating and hurtful things, then your bad attitude is justified. So you’re looking for any shred of evidence you can that makes the inside feel right.

52. 26:17

    And what’s the only answer when you’re like that? I’m going for a run. You take a shower. I’ll see you when I get back. Because we’re not going to have a constructive conversation right now.

53. 26:38

    And so and so the brothers, they don’t hear Joseph’s dream is my point. They don’t hear it. They don’t consider the matter like Jacob did. And and light of their resentments and hurts, they unconsciously judge the dreams in the worst possible light. Now the judgement was to hate him yet more for his dreams.

54. 27:00

    Yet here’s the irony. Joseph’s dreams did not foretell their harm, but their good. Now consider the matter from God’s point of view. What was God accomplishing through that dream? Do you know, we don’t have to guess because the scriptures, they give us the example of what God had in mind in the dream. We, we go to one of those really useful chapters, Psalm 105, where, where the psalmist is giving a retelling of the, of the history of Israel to the people and in a, in a poem and song, so they will remember their own history. And, and the psalmist interprets what’s going on here. And we read this in Psalm one O 5, verses 20 and 21 and skipping to verse 24, it says there the king being Pharaoh loosed him, meaning Joseph, the key.

55. 27:49

    The Pharaoh loosed Joseph, even the ruler of the people and let him go free. He made him Lord of his house and ruler of his all his substance. So that’s the, that’s the fulfillment of that dream, is it not? And then verse 24 says this. And he increased his people greatly and made them stronger than their enemies. Did it ever cross Joseph’s brothers minds at all? That maybe, just maybe their brother reigning over them was a good thing?

56. 28:20

    That God was doing it for a purpose? That Joseph, whose name means what? The increaser, right, that God might be using Joseph to increase his people to make them stronger than their enemies. You see one another symptom of resentment is a complete lack of optimism, right? It’s skewed judgement. You are interpreting information pessimistically based on feelings. In this case, the brothers were saying that that Joseph would never reign over them wrong.

57. 29:01

    And then they said they thought, they thought that if he did run over them, it’d be bad for them. Wrong again. But their minds interpret and respond to their pessimistic assumptions about the future as if they were fact. In fact. I want to, I want to outline this because this is so important, how this process works to create sin within us. OK, as I, as I go through this, I wrote, I wrote this out of my own personal experience and maybe this relates to you too. I think, I think we’re made of the same stuff. So probably here’s how it works in the mind of a resentful person.

58. 29:38

    They take limited information. In this case, the brothers took Joseph’s retelling of the dream. They take limited information, yes, but then we interpret that in the worst way possible. And then we make pessimistic assumptions based on our interpretation. So by the way, assumptions based on interpretations, dangerous things, then then what we do, no, that’s not enough, right? That’s right.

59. 30:08

    Right away, you’re in a bad space. But no, we go on, We’re going to treat those assumptions as if they’re unbiased facts, and then we’re going to act accordingly, thinking that we’re doing what’s right.

60. 30:26

    Is this not how it works? Limited information, interpreted assumptions based on that limited information the most pessimistic way possible. But now I’m going to act on those assumptions and I’m going to say, well, I’m totally justified. Why? Because I’ve assumed based on interpretation and then my mind is pessimistic. But you know what?

61. 30:53

    If I plan for the worst case scenario, I guess I’m going to be all right no matter what. And weren’t. This is exactly the process the brothers went down as they looked at Joseph’s dream. What could make someone act this way with this variety and type of skewed judgment? Resentment. What is resentment?

62. 31:19

    It’s feeling again. It’s feeling again a real or imagined wrong. So let’s explore how resentment happens and why it’s so fundamental to the way that Judah acts. See, one of the clearest descriptions that resent we have in all the Bible is actually found in First Corinthians chapter 13, which is not where you’d expect to find it. Is it First Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 5? I’m going to read this out of the NIV. It says there love does not dishonor others, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

63. 32:03

    Now the RSV actually puts here next to 1st Corinthians chapter 13 verse 5. The RSV actually puts in love is not resentful. But actually, the words expressed at the NIV are the better translation. Love keeps no record of wrongs. That’s really what the Greek is getting at. Both, by the way, are better than the King James of love thinketh no evil.

64. 32:28

    OK, now those of us struggle that struggle with resentment. You know, we keep a record of wrongs. You know, we keep a record of wrongs. Like the bank has gave me a record of my mortgage, right? It’s not going to miss a cent, right? It knows down to the penny what I owe.

65. 32:44

    Now, Paul uses the same word here. Keep a record of that same word there. Keep a record of. He uses that a little bit later in First Corinthians chapter 13 to help us even get a richer sense of what this word keep a record of is about. Now, if you go down a little bit in the chapter, you look at verse 11. What we read there in verse 11 is this. When I was a child, I spoke as a child. I thought as a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. So the word to keep a record of is the same word in verse 11 reasoned When I was a child, I kept. When I was a child, I kept records like a child is what it actually means.

66. 33:36

    When I was a child, I kept records like a child. Now, I don’t know how your kids keep records, right? But you know how my keep kids keep records. Now we have a certain language you don’t allow in our house. Do you have language you don’t allow in your house? We don’t have There’s a there’s a word that begins with F4 letters long. We don’t allow that word in our house. Do you know what that word is?

67. 34:03

    Well, let me just put it this way. When you were raising your children, what is the number one thing that they complained you about? When they come back and they say Mommy, Mommy, they say it’s not, it’s not fair, right? We don’t allow that word. It’s a naughty word. That is a naughty word in the Brinkerhoff household. It’s funny.

68. 34:28

    They never seem to say that when the when the when the split is to their advantage. You know, I’m not to this, dad. Never heard one of my kids come up and say Mommy, Mommy, it’s not fair. I got too much ice cream. Yeah, you know, Mommy and Mommy, it’s not fair. I got a longer, longer turn on the slide.

69. 34:48

    You know that just that never seems to happen that way. You know, fundamental to the way that children reason is that they keep records. Admit it. Admit it to yourself. Those who have children, raise your hand if your kids kept records. Oh, some of you have Angel children. Who has Angel children, right? Right.

70. 35:10

    Jonathan, I know better than that. Right, I, I have something I was going to say, but I’m going to keep it right to myself right now. That’s right. All right, self-control, right. So, so let me draw a little sketch right on the now I’m going to draw, I’m going to show you a little sketch about how I think a child’s brain probably works, right?

71. 35:34

    You see a seesaw to balance, right? Because everything is a comparison. Everything is a balance. And at that middle of the balance is our perception of Fair. OK, Now as we look at this sketch, I want to introduce something we’re going to be referring to quite a bit in these studies, which are the five selves of sin.

72. 35:52

    And the five selves of sin are these. And it begins with self importance. Now as self important people, we think as a default I deserve to have or I expect to have just as much or a little bit more than the next person because by definition I’m self important. Now thinking this way, this leads to what?

73. 36:21

    This leads to being easily hurt. We’re always keeping records. We’re counting, ensuring that we get everything that we deserve. And occasionally when we’re treated in the wrong way, our mood fouls and we get bad feelings and judgments and defensive behaviors. So when that happens in our childish brain, the way we reason as children, what happens is we add a little, we, we go back to our balance and we add a little hurt. So now you can see our balance is skewed just slightly. You see it’s a skewed down that way because we have a hurt there, right?

74. 36:58

    We’ve been hurt. I didn’t get what I was expecting to get. I wasn’t treated the way I was expected to be treated. You know, someone treated me badly and I’m and and I’m hurt about that. And you go back to the five selves of sin and you go, OK, we notice one that comes next. This is self justification.

75. 37:17

    And that’s what we do next. We we notice that our little balance isn’t even in our mind. It’s just or it’s right to just say even things out a little bit. I’m just going to get even. I’m just going to even out even things out. And how do you going to do that?

76. 37:34

    Well, there’s a million ways you may, you may speak badly about that person. You may, you may give that person a little bit of the silent treatment, a little bit of a cold shoulder or, or, or maybe worse, whatever it is, you justify it because after all, they hurt you first and, and, and your way, you’re just evening things out a bit.

77. 37:58

    And as you might have guessed, the words of Christ found in in Matthew chapter 5, you know, love your enemies, bless those that curse you, do good to them that hate you and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you. Those words don’t have much effect on the self important self justifying person. So we can see now that resentment or holding on to the original wrong has blinded us because something that’s wrong seems right in our eyes because we’re the one who’s doing it. And in our view the circumstance is called for it. Of course, in this sense the resentment is leading to sin, but in our view it’s justified.

78. 38:45

    It’s justified. Well, what that means is we don’t need to repent. So we’ve slipped from self justification or getting even to self righteousness or rationalizing a lack of repentance afterwards.

79. 39:03

    Unfortunately, though, I I don’t know if this is how it works with you, but once I justify doing the wrong thing, it becomes pretty easy to keep doing it And and before long even expand upon it. And and we may find that the the balance, unfortunately, the balance of our child like reasoning. It might even start to tip the wrong direction. You know, it might be that, Gee, we’ve done a lot of sins and you know that that hurt almost it doesn’t even, it doesn’t even seem to rationalize our, our, our sinful response. Ah, ha, ha, we have a solution to this problem, don’t we? So this is where excitement steps in. So in in that case, we don’t want this problem to last very long.

80. 39:46

    We just remember that hurt again. Yep, And and we remember we replayed in our minds and but, but we’re not too honest with ourselves, are we? When we think about that original hurt, you know we. We just happen to make their part a little bit worse and we make our part a little bit less and and doing this, we just make the hurt a little bit bigger. Just just big enough to justify our attitude and anger and negativity when we re remember.

81. 40:28

    Do we do? We had a little bit of intention. You know, you meant to say that, you know, that was no accident. Not only did you do it on purpose, I bet you premeditated it.

82. 40:47

    It’s not third degree murder. It’s not even second degree murder. It’s pre planned murder. It’s first degree. We make it bigger and we start to get pretty good at this justification game. And before long, everywhere we turn, we find someone who’s annoying us or doing something the wrong way or or saying the wrong thing. We take offense at everything.

83. 41:12

    We just pile up hurts. We pile up resentments. So what are resentments, brothers and sisters? I want to give it a new definition. I think resentments are the fuel that allows to feel OK doing what’s wrong. Before long we find ourselves in a position where we literally can’t forgive the wrongs done to others. Now, why can’t you forgive the wrongs done to others? If you’re full of resentment, how could you? If you forgave, you’d be sitting on a huge pile of sins without anything to justify them with.

84. 41:57

    None of us are going to do that. So we’re going to continue with this diagram in our future talks. We’re kind of moved down the process of the self loathing and self gratification. But for the moment, I want you to see that this is the process that Judah went down. He was the man that Paul describes in Titus, not literally, but figuratively. Paul says in Titus 3 verse 3 that we ought to avoid those who are full of hate, envy, living in malice. Now living in malice means to live in ill will, living in ill will, deceived and foolish.

85. 42:42

    So often living in I’ll will, we are deceived because we’re lying to ourselves. We’re making it. We’re making a horrible situation even worse. So Judah’s problem began with hurt that was real. It was real, and it was undeserved. It was hurt that he nursed in his heart, and he used it to justify treating Joseph Baddeley.

86. 43:13

    But you know a funny thing about treating Joseph Baddeley? It didn’t make the pain in his heart any less. There was a benefit, though, of resentment because it allowed Judah to justify his actions and being justified. His actions grew worse and worse, and his attitude grew worse and worse. Before long, Judah was looking to find fault. He was full of displaced anger.

87. 43:40

    He was modeling hatred and envy, and he was acting with skewed judgement of facts. In Paul’s words, Judah was thinking like a child keeping records of wrongs. He was counting wrongs. Which brings us to the question, what wrongs are you counting? Perhaps it’s useful in light of that to ask what God is counting, because the same word reasoned or counting love does not count wrongs.

88. 44:14

    It’s it’s used often in the New Testament that it’s, it’s the Greek word lozami, and it means to reckon or count or compute or make a count of. And this same word is used throughout the New Testament, for example, in Romans 4 verse 5. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the godly, his faith is counted for righteousness. How about Romans 4 verse 8 to the man who the Lord will not bless, the man to whom the Lord will not count sin? That’s that one.

89. 44:55

    Yep. Or 2nd Corinthians 5 verse 19. To wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. I just want you to bear this fact in mind, that our nature is very much to count, to count the sins of others, to reason like children. But Christ in Christ God is not counting trespasses, but what does He count?

90. 45:44

    He is counting faith. So thinking back to the balance, then, how does this balance work in light of grace? Once you say that that undeserved kindness of grace, it basically destroys this balance. This whole tit for tat paradigm we seem to be born into. See, God’s not trowning, counting, trespasses, but let’s be honest, we are.

91. 46:22

    So how would God take, brothers and sisters, a man who was caught in envy and hatred, and transform him into a man who was willing to sacrifice his freedom for his father, who had not repented of favoritism? How did God release from Judah the burden of self-righteous resentment? This is the question we’re going to try to answer this week as we progress in our studies together.