1 The Boomerang Effect God installed laws to govern the universe and therefore the universe runs on strict principles. If there are no laws, there would be absolute chaos and disorder. What if the law of gravity applied one day, and then it turned off for a week, then when you least expected, God turned on the switch again. The fact that there is a constant law that God set in motion on the earth is not evidence of God s vindictiveness, but proof of God s kindness (not vengeful, but good). Every time we disrespect the laws that God put into the world, we are testing God. If you jump off a five-story building, you are now disrespecting the law of gravity, and if you may die or at least break a few bones. Every time we test God, we are mocking God. God has the right to test you, He s the teacher. The teacher gives the tests, that s dutiful. When the student tests the teacher, that s disrespectful. It means you are doing something inappropriate and trying to get away with it. Remember, Satan took Jesus up above the temple and told him to jump and have the angels save him, and Satan even gave Jesus a Scripture that assured God s protection. But Jesus responded, You shall not tempt the Lord your God. (Matthew 4:7). When you are violating God s build-in laws, you are mocking and tempting God, even if you are claiming Scriptures of protection, blessing, and prosperity. Now, here is the good news when it comes to God s laws, He gives us the cheat sheets. He gives us a manual of what His universal laws are, and how we can use them for our advantage. 3 Unbending Laws at Work in the World: (these are more than 3 laws, and these laws work everywhere and anytime. You don t even have to subscribe to them for them to be operating in your life. They effect Christians and non-christians.)
2 1. Judge not, lest you be judged (Matthew 7:1-3). 2. What you sow, that you shall reap (Galatians 6:7). 3. Pride comes before the fall (Proverbs 16:18). In these three laws we see The Boomerang Effect. A boomerang is a L-shaped stick that you can throw and it will find it s way back to you in a matter of time. The Guinness Book of World Records shows that the longest boomerang throw was 427 yards, which is further than four football fields. I bet that boomerang was almost out of site, but, then it began to make it s way back. The thrower now becomes the target. - When we bitterly judge someone, we are throwing a boomerang, you may even forget about the judgment that you made, but it will come back to hit you. - When you sow bitter judgments into your heart, you will reap bitter judgments in your life. That same boomerang will return. - When you make bitter judgments from the seat of pride, you will fall. That boomerang will come and knock you down. This is not because God doesn t love you and that He s un-kind. It s because these are the laws He has built into the universe. You don t have to believe that the boomerang will come back, it can be out of sight and out of mind, but that doesn t mean it won t strike back. During my time off, I discovered that I was getting hit by so many boomerangs. Not because God has rejected me, but I ve cast so many boomerangs that now I was being attacked by them. I hope I will wise up and start throwing less boomerangs (bitter judgments) and that even the ones that are in mid-air, would be sent to the cross of Jesus and disintegrate. There is going to have to be a deeper level of heart healing, if we are going to stop chucking boomerangs and if we are going to see the ones in mid air be extinguished by the cross of Jesus Christ. Now, when Jesus said, Judge not lest you be judged, He was not suggesting that we deactivate our brains. He gave us brains to analyze, assess, and appraise. He even said in another portion of Scripture, be shrewd as a serpent (Matthew 10:16). Judging in itself is not throwing a boomerang. It may be putting on binoculars and protecting yourself from coming calamities. It s bitter judging that s the boomerang, this
3 is the kind of judging causes you to reap bitterly judged by others. It s this kind that will cause you to fall into a trap. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; (Hebrews 12:15) Where you have bitter judgements, you are stifling (failing to fully receive) the grace of God in that area. Have you ever turned a hose on and water is not flowing because you bent the hose? That s the picture here. Through the cross of Jesus and you saying Yes to Jesus as Savior and Lord, that water bill has been paid (Calvary s effect), the knob turned (your conversion s effect). But is the hose bent somewhere. It may be further down the tube, and take some time for you to identify and straighten out. As you detect your bitter judgments, you are straightening out the hose, so the grace of God can flow more freely to you. This root of bitterness springs up out of the ground and when it does, it defiles many. What is defilement? 1. Defile means to poison. Poison is a destructive force. There will be destructive forces working in your life, when you have a root of bitterness. 2. Defilement is a contamination that attracts and activates Satanic forces to go to work in your life. 3. When you are defiled, you are extra tempted and extra tempting. As dog poop attracts flies, defilement attracts demons. It s an open door for the enemy. Satan takes full advantage of whatever he can get his hands on. How does this kind of defilement happen? - The seed is pain. - The root is bitterness. - The tree is judgment. - The fruit is defilement.
4 It s ideal that we abort the seed before it grows roots. That s why last week we talked about Pain Management. In life you will get hurt. I know people may say, Stop being so sensitive, but the truth is we don t want to be hard-hearted either! Sensitivity is not merely a vice, but can be a virtue. Now, the truth is that in this fallen world we live in, we will always be hurt by people. As sure as the sun comes up in the morning, be assured that you will suffer injustice. You may have had godly parents, who prayed three hours a day, read the Bible cover-to-cover every four months, and who are some of the most wise, humble, and compassionate you would ever meet- yet, you would ve still been hurt by their imperfections. This is why we must know how to effectively manage our pain. Come to the throne of grace as we talked about last week. Articulate you pain to the One who is near to the broken-hearted. Don t accuse, for there is no healing there, articulate. If it will help you google, An exhaustive list of emotions and use that to help you to put language to how you felt. Pour it out to the Lord. Did you know pain is just the bumblebee, but the stinger is the deception? The bumblebee in itself is not extremely dangerous, it s the stinger! Satan uses pain to come upon you and then injects a lie into you. What will infect your life is not the pain, but the lie. For example, I remember when I was in fifth grade, my parents sent me to a private school, where I was no longer the popular kid, but was the new, strange kid. That was the first year I knew depression. I used to cry almost daily and begged my parents to deliver me from that school. In the pain, I had some lies injected into my young heart: - LIE ABOUT SELF: You are a reject, and if people don t like you, it means you are worthless. - LIE ABOUT OTHERS: Your parents only want to use you, they don t care about your feelings, only your competency. They are just using you for their own glory. - LIE ABOUT GOD: God doesn t care about you either, so He can t be trusted with your life. - LIE ABOUT LIFE: Life really sucks, there is not much to be thankful for or happy about. What God wants to do to heal the pain in your heart, it to remove the stingers (the lies) and to replace them with truth!
5 - TRUTH ABOUT SELF: I am not a reject, people don t have to like me. My value is fixed in heaven forever. I m worth Jesus. - TRUTH ABOUT OTHERS: Your parents only wanted what was best for you because they love you. They were doing they best they could. (Oh the subjectivity pain brings with it ) - TRUTH ABOUT GOD: God wept as I wept. It grieved Him to see me treated so poorly. But, He also was not in panic, because He knew that He could heal me. - TRUTH ABOUT LIFE: Life is a gift from God and there is so much to be thankful for and happy about. Whenever you are going through a painful situation: 1) Articulate the pain before the throne of grace. 2) Allow the Holy Spirit of truth to expose the lies. 3) Allow the Holy Spirit of truth to replace the lies with truths. Only then is the stinger out, and you can heal effectively. You will keep swelling and infecting when the stinger remains. The bumblebee may be long gone, but it s the stinger that defiles or poisons. When you are defiled by bitter judgments you will experience these THREE BOOMERANGS making their way into your life: 1. Constantly ATTRACTING what you have judged: New cast. New setting. But, same story. - CASE #1) Story of the woman who married three times, yet had a bitter root towards her father for being an alcoholic and making her work and then falsely accusing her. - Don t people have the power to make their own decisions? Yes. We all have a freewill and are accountable for our decisions. But, Satan is the god of this world and will take full advantage of whatever he can get his hands on. He will make sure you suffer and pay for all the universal laws that you break. When you are defiled, you can be extra tempting, theses forces are working through you and you may be unaware.
6 - CASE # 2) Another woman had a bitter root about her father deserting her family. Her husband left her. She repented of her bitter judgments against her father. The husband came back to his senses and said, I really didn t want to leave you, but I was hearing voices telling me that I had to those voices finally stopped If we fail to honor our parents, we hinder the blessing of God. These bitter roots keep us from honoring our parents and invite curses. - Maybe you were in a terrible church situation, and you held bitter judgments towards a local church. You wonder why every church you go to, the same thing happens to you. Your bitter roots keep replaying the same story. Different cast, different setting, but same story! When you start seeing these patterns of: Different cast, different setting, but same story- God is allowing these boomerangs to keep hitting you (because it s the laws He set in motion), but He s hoping you would finally be able to see that you have a bitter root that keeps attracting these stories. So you would forgive and repent of your bitter judgments and uproot this plant that keep harvesting the same story. 2. Continually BECOMING what you have judged: CASE # 1) Man who hated his father for being a womanizer. This man got saved, filled with the Spirit, serving God, and got married, and then feel into adultery over and over. He came in for prayer counseling, they found the bitter root towards his father that had defiled him, and he was set free! - For young parents, have you found yourself becoming what you vowed never to repeat from your parents? - For young married, have you found yourself doing to your spouse, what you hated seeing your parents do to each other? When you see this boomerang hitting you, God is hoping you would realize, I am actually a lot like the person I bitterly judged, we have so much in common, it s not hard to forgive him or her - for I m no better. I chose to relinquish my bitterness and I chose to forgive from the heart, and I bless so-and-so True forgiveness is complete when you can bless them (Matthew 5:12-13, Romans 12:14,1 Peter 3:8-9). Then, have uprooted
7 the bitter judgments, and those forces that were forcing you to become what you judged are now de-activated. 3. Falling into the other erroneous extreme: Pride comes before the fall. Bitter judging is from the seat of pride. You can fall of the horse not the same side and become what you judged, or you can fall off the horse on the other side and fall into the opposite extreme. But the boomerang still hit you and you fell! Have you bitterly judged: Conservative Christians, Charismatic Christians, the lazy, the workaholic, the legalistic, the licentious, the sexually immoral (handicap), the obnoxious, the quiet, the passive, the aggressive, the needy, the prosperous, sensitive, the intellectual, etc. * Overreacting to error still causes you to fall off of truth. Identifying Bitter Judgments 3 Biggest Complaints against your Parents: 1) 2) 3) 3 Bitter Judgments you ve made towards Non-parents: 1) 2) 3) 2 People (you knew personally) you vowed to never become like, and why did you vow to never to become like them? 1) 2) Who hurt you the deepest the last year or two? How? Who hurt you the deepest in your childhood? How? What kind of maltreatments are you especially sensitive to?
8 How to Uproot Bitter Judgements? 1. ADDRESS THE PAIN AND EXTRACT THE LIE. 2. IDENTIFY AND ADMIT TO YOUR BITTER JUDGEMENTS (confess your sins ) 3. ABHOR THESE JUDGEMENTS AND RENOUNCE THEM (hate the fact that you have thrown all these boomerangs, given the enemy access, and have become, attracted, and fallen because of these judgements) You aren t the ultimate solution, the cross is. But you have to repent in that area to see the cross shield you from the boomerang. You need to apply the shield. If we are breaking God s universal laws, we can t help but keep getting attacked by boomerangs. But, if we repent and uproot bitter roots, the cross will extinguish every boomerang, stopping them from getting back at you. 3 Immediate Results of Up-rooting Bitter Judgements: 1. You will be less tempted and less tempting. 2. There will be less demonic activity around your life. 3. You will see radical changes in your relationships and consequently your life.