Free Sunday School Lesson for pre teens, teens, and older on Choosing Forgiveness: How Not to Grow Bitter.
Begin the lesson with an ice breaker: have two student volunteers attempt to hold books above their heads for as long as they can. Consider giving a prize to the student who can hold out the longest.
Notice how holding the books seem easy at first, but as time goes on, the books get heavier and heavier. Eventually, they will not be able to hold the books.
Bitterness is the same way.
If we get angry at someone, and we hold on to that anger, we will eventually grow bitter.
Have you ever gotten mad at someone? Did you think they did something wrong to you that you truly did not deserve? You felt slighted, hurt, betrayed?
When we hold on to these negative feelings, it starts to affect us.
Have you ever met someone who was bitter? They just hate the world because the entire world is against them?
I want you to think of that bitter person the next time you grow angry with someone and want to hold on to that anger. When you become bitter, you aren’t hurting that other person. You are hurting yourself.
This is why the Bible tells us in Ephesians 4:26 KJV – Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:
In the same chapter, Paul makes some comparisons about what your flesh wants to do verses what God says you should do.
In Ephesians 4:31 KJV, the Bible commands us to “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:”
Bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor (which means a loud, confused noise), and evil speaking (which means gossiping) all go hand in hand with getting mad at someone. Malice, which is mentioned at the end of the verse, means the intention or desire to do evil. Basically, it means you want to get even. You want to hurt this person in the same way you have been hurt.
The Bible warns us against trying to get even.
It isn’t even for the sake of the other person. It’s for our own sake.
Romans 12:19 KJV – Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
Right after the verse in Ephesians 4:31 KJV where God warns us to put away all of these awful feelings toward others, the Bible says “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.“ (Ephesians 4:31 KJV).
Be kind. Forgive others. After all, Christ has forgiven you.
It’s so easy to forget about God and what he wants in all this when you are angry or upset at another person. You want to give the excuse that God knows you are human. He knows how you are and that you cannot help messing up.
But, you need to remember that this person is just a human, and they make mistakes, too.
You can’t define someone by their worst moment.
People mess up, say something wrong, do something wrong, and you try to paint them with that brush for the rest of their lives. It’s grossly unfair.
Paul goes so far to say in 1 Corinthians 6:7 KJV, can you not just take it? Can you not just suffer wrong.
When we are focused on ourselves and how we have been hurt, we forget the big picture. We forget that people are watching us, and we are making Christians as a whole and Jesus Christ look bad with our behavior.
Why on earth would anyone want to be a Christian when all the “Christians” just get mad, talk bad about each other, and try to get even. You’re behaving just like everyone else in the world when you are called to be Christ-like.
(At this time, be vulnerable with your students, and share a story when you were wronged and either did the right thing or did the wrong thing. I will share mine here.)
I know, firsthand, how difficult it can be to forgive.
When I was in college, I had two roommates, and we were true roommates. All three of us lived in one dorm room with three beds, three desks, and three little closets. It was tiny. One of these girls I had known since I was five years old. I wouldn’t say we were best friends, but we were close. All three of us had gone to high school together and attended the same church all of our lives.
So, that makes their betrayal all the more difficult.
After the first semester, I noticed that their behavior toward me changed. They did not like me anymore. One went so far as to take me out of her wedding. That really hurt. I thought it was something I said or did, but I would later come to find out the truth from my sister.
My sister had a friend who attended the same college, so she was able to find out first. However, she decided not to tell me until after that year of school was over when I could move out.
Once I moved out, she explained to me how these girls one day decided to go through my prayer journal. It’s very easy for me to get distracted while praying, so I would write my prayers to stay focused. It’s important to note that I talked to God about everything, including these girls.
Well, they must’ve found something they didn’t like – I’ll never know what all they read about, but I do know they went out and told a lot of other people what I’d written. They even had the audacity to be angry with me for what I’d written in my prayers to God. Someone they told even defended me, saying it wasn’t their business to read anyway.
It all made sense after my sister told me that, and it really upset me.
I was faced with a decision: to do something about it, or to let it go.
Thankfully, I’d grown enough in my relationship with the Lord to know several things:
- Confronting these girls would do nothing. They wouldn’t be sorry – they’d probably even forgotten about it.
- It was in the past. Nothing could change it. Talking about it would only stir it back up again.
- Finding out what they read and who they told would do me no good.
- Me being angry with them only hurt me. It did not affect them at all.
It took some time and some prayer, but I let it go. I never even confronted them because what good would it do? I made the decision to forgive them because waiting for that “feeling” of being ready to forgive doesn’t come. It’s not in us. Feelings will mislead us and lie to us (Jeremiah 17:9 KJV).
Jeremiah 17:10 KJV – I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
God knows our heart. He knows what is best for us, which is why he says to let it go. Forgive.
To forgive is an action.
It’s not some feeling you wake up with one day. It’s a decision.
I am not a “true crime” girl, but my sister is, and together, we have watched so many documentaries where people will confront the murderers of their loved ones to forgive them. These individuals specify that it is not for the sake of the killer, but for their own sake, that they might be free from that terrible, awful feeling of bitterness.
A Biblical Example of Bitterness
There’s a story of a young man in the Bible who suffered from bitterness, and it ultimately caused his downfall. He had everything going for him. He was a prince, the best looking in the land, and he was – as the Bible strongly suggests – his father’s favorite. I’m talking about Absolom (2 Samuel 15-19 KJV).
Absolom had a reason to be angry – just as I had a reason, and many of you have had reasons. His sister was raped by another half-brother. Absolom waited two years for his father King David to do something about it, but David was so messed up over his own sin with Bathsheba and Uriah, that it affected his judgment when it came to disciplining his own children. So, Absolom decided he would do something about it himself. He killed Amnon, the man who had raped Tamar (2 Samuel 13:28-32 KJV).
Had Absolom stopped there, maybe our story would have been different, but then, Absolom decided to go after his father. He was bitter and angry about the fact that his father had done nothing for all that time, so he organized a rebellion and ultimately ended up dying.
It’s difficult for us to look at that story and see Absolom as the bad guy, when in truth, he was the bad guy. He was working against God’s will. That’s hard for us to understand because most of us can relate to Absolom. We would want to take vengeance for our sister. I know that I would want revenge, but going against David was going against God’s will. We look at this story and think, “That’s not fair. Why would God let that happen?”
You’re right. Life isn’t fair.
What happened to Tamar wasn’t fair. What happened to me wasn’t fair. It isn’t fair that most Christians in the United States are comfortable while there are Christians suffering for their faith. There are people who have more money than could be spent in ten lifetimes, while there are people and children starving or suffering. You should know by now that life isn’t fair. The world and the people in it are wicked, so life is never going to be fair.
But, you don’t have to suffer from the pain and bitterness that comes with just living life and dealing with imperfect people.
There’s another man in the Bible who also had a reason to be angry.
Job lost everything.
He literally lost everything, from his possessions to his children, but he managed to keep the one thing he did not want: his life. Job wanted to die. He was ready to die. However, after sitting on that ash heap in silence for seven days, Job made a horrifying discovery. He wasn’t going to die. He was somehow going to have to survive all of this. For him, this was upsetting, and he expressed such. Unfortunately, he had some “holier than thou” friends who let him know very quickly that he deserved all of this.
At the end of his story when Job was finally reconciled and it was his “holier than thou” friends in the line of fire, he had a decision to make (Job 42 KJV). God had left it up to Job as to whether these men who said his kids probably deserved to die (Job 8:3-6 KJV) would face God’s wrath or not.
Job decided to let it go. He forgave and prayed for them, not only because he knew it was the right thing to do, but also because this “well, they deserved it” attitude brings on more suffering to the person who has that attitude than to anyone else.
So, I ask you today. Are you holding on to any anger? Do you have any malice? Are you guilty of evil speaking?
Why don’t you try being kind, tender-hearted, and forgiving others as Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32 KJV; Colossians 3:13 KJV; Matthew 18:21-22 KJV)
If you enjoyed this free Sunday school lesson on Choosing Forgiveness: How Not to Grow Bitter, check out some other free bible lessons from this site!