Forgive ONE ANOTHER

Happy Sunday, everybody. Happy Sunday, family. Is anybody happy to be in church today? We are happy to give somebody an elbow and say it's going to be a good one today. It's going to be a good one. And as you can see, I have the privilege of preaching together with my wife, Just Lane. How you feeling? How you feeling? I am excited to be here. I'm happy that you're next to me. It makes me feel a little bit better. Yeah. It's a little scary up here by yourself, but I'm so thankful to be here. And honestly, it's my favorite day of the week. Yes, yes, yes. We are in our series, actually, we're closing off our series, One Another, God's Design for Relationships. Any Christians brought your Bibles to church? Can I see those Bibles? Can I see those swords? Yes, yes, yes. The main text today is Ephesians 4. So you can open up to Ephesians 4. We will start with a simple verse in Luke 17, and a little bit later we'll be in Colossians 3. But if you want to stick to one spot, Ephesians 4 is the place to be. And one another is what we've been in, God's design for relationships. We see this phrase, one another, in the Bible over 50 times. Phrases like love one another, encourage one another. Last week we talked about serve one another.

And definitely what we're going to talk about today, forgive one another. These are not suggestions that the Bible gives us. These are actually spirit-empowered directives that shape Christian identity and spiritual maturity and are gospel witness to the people around us that don't know Jesus. The reality is, if relationships were easy, God would not have had to repeat this phrase over and over, one another. Why? Because it usually isn't our first response to necessarily serve one another, or forgive one another, right? Or even love one another. It takes initiative. It takes intentionality. Jesus warned us that in this world we will have trouble. And the reality is that many times we experience pain in our relationships. In fact, I would say that the hardest, toughest pains that we have, that we've faced, or even right now are dealing with, generally are relational. Every day as pastors we realize this more and more. All of the wounds that people carry in life, in marriage, in family, in friendships, even as brothers and sisters in Christ, this is a reality. That's right. In Luke 17, we see just a moment where Jesus is talking to his disciples about how to live a fruitful life. And what he says here in Luke 17 verse 1, it says, then he said to the disciples, it is impossible that no offenses should come. Okay? So Jesus is making it very clear. It is impossible no offenses should come. So we shouldn't be surprised. I read this quote recently. It says, the reason it's so hard for you to stay happy is because it's so easy for you

to get offended. Ouch, right? But the reality is that in life, it's highly likely that we will be offended. And the truth is that we're probably going to offend others as well. And we need to realize that there really is no win. We're not winning anything when we remain offended. So what do we do? And so as Christians, we need to understand that being offended is inevitable. Okay? Look at this line. Being offended is inevitable, but living offended is a choice. That's good. Yeah. Okay? It's just the reality. We cannot escape being offended. It's going to happen, but we don't have to live there. We don't need to remain there. Some offenses that we receive in our life are intentional, and some offenses are unintentional. In other words, sometimes people maybe are meaning to hurt us. Other times they may not even have realized the impact of their words or actions. Speaking of unintentional offenses, I realized early in marriage that sometimes she would unintentionally feel offended at me, and it's because she had a dream. And in the dream, apparently I did something in the dream, right? So I would wake up in the morning, and I'd be like, honey, are you okay? She's like, I'm a little mad at you. And I would say, I said, what happened? What did I do? And she says, well, in my dream, this rabbit came and stole my purse, and you just sat there and laughed at me.

And so I said, I'm so sorry. At first you didn't apologize, but then you realized it was better for you to apologize. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. And I'm sorry. I just have very vivid dreams, and it doesn't happen often, but I think it happened like a little while ago, like a couple months ago. And I remember I woke up, I was like, what you did in the dream, I was so mad at you. So we learn in life, there are different dimensions to asking for forgiveness. Now, here's the reality, whether the offense was intentional or unintentional, the pain and the wound is real. And if we don't deal with it, it can remain in our hearts. There are many kinds of wounds that people carry. Wounds from rejection, wounds from abandonment, from detachment, or even different forms of abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, and of course, sexual abuse. Maybe an offense or a wound for you is a friend who betrayed your trust, a spouse who spoke some hurtful words, a parent who failed you or abandoned you, maybe even a church member who disappointed you, who thought a brother and sister in Christ was going to be there and they weren't there for you. Other hurts can happen for so many reasons, misunderstandings, lying, broken promises, gossip, envy, disrespect, slander, being let down by somebody that we trusted. Now, some of these offenses might seem small at first, but over time, if we don't deal with them, they can leave deep marks. If wounds in our souls aren't healed, it becomes very difficult to avoid continuous conflict in other relationships. It becomes difficult to maintain healthy relationships because pain that isn't addressed often follows us into new relationships. And then we're wondering, why am I having so much trouble getting along with people? And when wounds aren't healed, through forgiveness, they can become infected. And what started as a little tiny thing can then become something very, very big and very

hard to deal with. Often when we try to move past certain hurts, sometimes what we do is we have a fracture and we try to put a Band-Aid over a fracture, and that just doesn't work. And later on, a situation or a memory, even a single word can bring back all of the pain. So I want to do something. I want to do a little bit of audience participation here, and I want to mention that we have cameras and they're looking because we want to make sure that everybody is honest, okay? So if someone has ever hurt you, raise your hand if someone has ever hurt you. Yeah, very good. All right, put it down. Second question, if you have ever hurt someone, raise your hand, raise your hand. All right, very good, very good. We're going to be checking the cameras after service. If you did not raise your hand, you're either dead or you're lying, right? Because every single one of us has experienced hurt at some point, and we've all also hurt others at one point. And so the key to today's message is you have to learn to deal with the hurt. So we want to get to the root of the issue. I believe the root of the issue in many cases in relationships is unforgiveness. So the title of today's message is Forgive One Another. What's the title of today's message? Forgive One Another. Let's pray. Lord, we open up our hearts today, Holy Spirit, asking that you would speak to us through your word, that you would minister to us, that we would be able to hear and understand your word and the principles in your word, and that we would apply them in our lives and reap the blessings and benefits that come from obeying your word. Speak to us, we ask. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Amen. And so we're going to begin in Ephesians chapter four. It is a beautiful chapter. So if you've never read it, I encourage you to. There's so many beautiful truths in that passage. But we see that Paul is writing a letter to a church in the city of Ephesus, and he's writing some instructions to the believers there. And he's writing to believers who are saved, but they are full of bitterness. And I want us to go to verse 26. It says, in your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. And do not give the devil a foothold. Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. Verse 30. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. So there we see that command, that instruction, forgiving each other, forgiving one another. And so let me say this. Forgiveness is a gift. Forgiveness is a gift. And I think that is the secret right there. Because the truth is we all want that gift. We all want to receive that forgiveness, right?

But forgiveness is also a beautiful gift that we get to give. Now the interesting part is that it's a gift that you give, but really you're the recipient. Have you ever given somebody a gift that you really kind of get a benefit from it? Like I remember a couple of times that was your birthday, and I said, you know, why don't we go on a trip? And we went on a trip for his birthday, and I definitely was part of it. the recipient of that gift, right? And so when you offer forgiveness, it's as much for you as it is for the other person. I want you to write this line down. Forgiveness is to set the prisoner free and discover that the prisoner is you. Yeah, so forgiveness is a gift. We have to look at the other side of the coin. When we don't forgive, there are consequences. And so let's talk about consequences of unforgiveness. We're gonna list about four of them. Consequences of unforgiveness. Sometimes it's good to understand what the consequences of unforgiveness are to understand I really wanna choose to forgive, right? So number one, when we have unforgiveness, we stay the victim. We stay the victim. When we don't forgive and release the person and the offense, we hold onto it. And the truth is, it holds onto us. I've seen people who have held onto hurts for years. I've seen it in families, people who hold onto an offense. I've seen it in church.

Somebody gets offended, they hold onto it, they grab onto it, kind of like a cat. And everywhere they go, they have their cat. Look how they hurt me, look how they hurt me, right? And what happens is when you stay the victim, it keeps affecting you, the pain keeps hurting you. I heard it said this way once. Unforgiveness is like having an invisible umbilical cord connected to that person who hurt you. And because you're holding onto it, it still has the capacity to hurt you every single day, every time you think about it. You're reliving it, you're allowing it to stay. You stay the victim when you have unforgiveness. Another consequence of unforgiveness, number two, is that we give the enemy a foothold. Which means we're giving him a place where he can set up a residence. It's in that unresolved anger, in that bitterness, the enemy lives in that. And we read in Ephesians 4.26, I'm gonna read it again. It says, in your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. And do not give the devil a foothold. So it's telling us there that when we do that, when we remain angry, when we don't deal with it, we're giving the enemy a foothold. And the truth is, it's okay to be angry sometimes, right? Anger is an emotion, it's a feeling, and many times it's justified.

It's valid that we can feel angry when we see something that is hurtful or that it's unjust or somebody says something. There's reasons why we can get angry, but the difference is that we don't wanna remain in that anger, we don't wanna let that anger lead us to sin and we can't just justify our sin because you're angry, right, and it gives us the instruction. Don't go to bed with that anger in your heart because when we hold onto that anger, the devil uses it as a doorway into our lives. He uses that resentment, that unforgiveness as a point of access, and I think it's so important for us to recognize that. Now remember that the devil is a liar and he's an accuser. And so what happens when you hold onto unforgiveness, what he knows that you're holding onto that, he begins to speak and whisper into your mind things about this person, right? He starts planting thoughts in your mind like, oh, that person never will really change. Oh, look at how they're treating you. Oh, they're not even, and just starts whispering these things, they don't even care about you. This is how they've always been, right? And little by little, he begins to distort the way that you see that person. Think about it. A couple can go from standing in front of a pastor on their wedding day, full of love, right,

to stand in front of a judge in a courtroom full of anger. That's so, that does not happen overnight. It happens one unresolved night of anger after another and after another. And while the anger sits there, the enemy keeps whispering lies into your mind. Now the truth is this happens in many marriages. They go to bed angry and each can turn to each side, right, and they don't even want to touch their feet, right? That's never happened to us, never. We're just letting you guys know because we've heard that that happens. That never happens. Never. Get your feet away from me. No, the worst for me is like we can be in a fight and I'm so hurt and I'm so upset and then he falls asleep. Oh gosh, I'm just like, how can you sleep? You must not care, right? And so we just wallow in it. But the truth is this doesn't just happen in marriages. It happens in families, right, between siblings, between parents and children. It happens in workplaces, in schools, and even it happens in churches. And this verse about not letting the sun set on your anger, we use this a lot when we talk to marriages, right? You hear that a lot in marriage conferences. But what's interesting is that in this verse, it doesn't even mention marriage.

I mean, it applies to marriage, but here Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus. And so if you've been angry with someone for a long time and you haven't dealt with it, the enemy has already been influencing that situation whether you realize it or not. And it's very possible that now you're believing things about this person that really aren't true. But I wanna tell you some good news. The good news is that our God is greater than any stronghold. He's greater than the enemy, and he can tear those things down and he can bring healing and forgiveness. All right, third consequence of unforgiveness. negatively affected physically, emotionally, and spiritually. There are a lot of medical and psychological studies that have been done regarding what it means to hold in this hurt and not forgive people. According to these studies and this research, they say that forgiving is good for your soul and for your body. Let me give you a few lines. People who forgive benefit from better immune functioning and blood pressure. People that forgive have better mental health than people who do not forgive. They feel better physically. They have lower amounts of anger and fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression.

They maintain more satisfying and long-lasting relationships. This is medical research. Now, in addition, it also affects our spiritual life negatively when we don't forgive. Unforgiveness creates a spiritual block between God and us that often keeps us from being able to hear him, what he's speaking to us, and often keeps us from being used by God and even blessed by God. Mark 11.25 says, and when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them so that your father in heaven may forgive you your sins. This is really important to God. That's right. Number four, what happens when we hold on to unforgiveness? The offense robs us of our joy. And spiritually, Jesus wants to fill us with overflowing joy. Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. And we all want joy in our lives, right? But the truth is there isn't room for joy when our life is full of bitterness, when our hearts are full of anger and rage. You know, I've never heard someone say, wow, that person is such a joy to be around, but wow, are they full of anger, right? Are they full of bitterness, right? Those things just, they don't go together.

And God has given us this command to forgive. Now, the truth is we cannot control what happens to us, right, how people treat us, the things that they say, the events that we face sometimes, but what we can control is our response and our attitude. And that's what we're talking about today. Because I think we all raised our hands, we've all been through hurt, different types of hurt, but how do we respond when we face those situations? Let's talk about that, our response to pain. There are different responses as human beings that we have to pain. Some may be not as effective in helping us be free and move forward, but let's just talk about a few of them. Number one, response to pain, we get angry, right? We get mad at the person, we get mad at what happened to us. And feeling anger, again, there's nothing wrong necessarily with feeling anger, but the problem is when we remain in anger, right? And we allow that to affect us and then it leads us to sin. When we don't release it, we live in the anger and that can turn into resentment, it can turn into bitterness. Check out this verse, Hebrews 12, 15. It says, look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many. That root of bitterness does so much damage to our own hearts and then it affects the people around us.

And you might think, no, no, but my anger is directed at him. My anger is directed at her because of what they did, but you don't realize that you think you're aiming at them, but who it's really hurting the most is you. And sometimes the smallest little things can set us off because we're holding in these things, these hurts from the past because of our unforgiveness. Another response we can have when there's pain and there's hurt and offense is that we hold on to it. So maybe you don't necessarily get angry, but you hold on to that pain and you keep that pain alive. We wallow in it, right? We carry it around everywhere, like the example you're giving, like you're carrying around your cat and you just constantly are telling people, right? Can you believe what they did to me? And we try to get sympathy from everyone around us. We're constantly talking about the situation and the event. We prolong the pain and we forget that God is our healer. And the truth is, this could be for something that happened a few weeks ago to a few months ago to years ago. And even I've experienced people talking about things that happened decades ago, that they have not let it go. And God wants to show us that he is our healer, that he sees the condition of our hearts and that he wants to heal and restore those broken places. But he can't do that as long as we're holding

onto this pain. He is simply waiting for us to surrender to him and allow him to bring healing. But that really means that we need to let go. The third way we respond to pain is we suppress it. We suppress it. We try to convince ourselves that we're over it and we're past it. And so we say things to ourselves like, I'm fine, I'm over it. It didn't hurt me that bad. But then somebody says something, somebody does something, or even you see something that reminds you of it. And it's like going to the dentist and the dentist accidentally hits a nerve. Woo, you feel it. You explode, you react. And people are like, what just happened with him? What just, what's up with her, right? And I can even think back in times like I'm upset at something, especially something she did and she'll ask me, so are you upset? I'm like, no, I'm not. Not that this happens often. But when once in a while is something wrong, nothing's wrong. You're like, you know that little shh nothing's wrong, right? Even in the way that we respond sometimes we're saying nothing's wrong But the truth is sometimes something's wrong and we're suppressing it We're trying to bottle it in or pretend like it's not affecting us and this might happen with a spouse, you know in marriage It might happen with a friend It might even happen that you say something unintentionally and and and your friend reacts because you unknowingly hit

A little minefield you hit a little spot. It's not healed a wound and and this is this is why in relationships It can be complicated and so what is something else that we can do with our pain is that we can choose to forgive and We have to learn to turn our pain into forgiveness our hurt into love. And so maybe you're thinking Pastor you have no idea what I've been through and the truth is you're right I don't but you know what God knows exactly what you've been through He seen he sees everything that you've walked through and he knows every bit of pain that you've been through in your life And he wants to show you that he is more than able to bring healing to your heart You know, what's interesting is the word forgiveness in the Greek actually means to let go to release to surrender and to show favor Unconditionally, does that mean that the person deserves it? No, but you have to choose to give it to God. And so I want to Mention a couple points because I think that sometimes we struggle with forgiveness because we have a misunderstanding of what forgiveness is And so I want to clarify that forgiveness is not saying that what the person did is okay It's not okay, and it never will be Forgiveness is not a feeling it is a choice forgiveness is not healing but it does pave the way for healing and Forgiveness is also not the same thing as reconciliation because you can choose to forgive someone even if they don't apologize Even if the person already passed away, you could choose to let that person go and surrender them to God It only takes one person to forgive Reconciliation takes two people that other person needs to recognize the fence. There needs to be Mutual. Hey, I'm sorry. I forgive you. Let me rebuild the trust. It takes intentionality on both parts So sometimes it's it's wise to just forgive and to move on and sometimes it there is opportunity for reconciliation But we need to seek wisdom in that now what is forgiveness forgiveness is a command from God We've read it in the word here in several parts of Scripture forgiveness is something continual. It is a lifestyle It's not a one-time thing. Oh, I forgave once. I'll never have to forgive again It is probably the thing we will do the most before we get to heaven Forgiveness is releasing them releasing the offense to God. Okay, so let's talk now about an important question. How do we forgive? How do we forgive we want to give you a few key points here and I want to start off point number one Remember how much you have been forgiven? Hey, this is a good place to start because you might be saying like me like I don't feel like forgiven, right?

So let's start first Remembering how much anybody here been forgiven by Jesus because you receive them as your Lord and Savior Oh my god, can you imagine put a list if we if we went name by name? All right. Let's go to Charlie. Let's put all of his sins that he got forgiven like right like Pastor you don't have to go through mine Right, but let's leave mine off the board right because because our sins would would bring us great shame Right if everybody was aware of all things and yet we know because we're human and we know how we've messed up So it shouldn't surprise us. Remember how much you've been forgiven Colossians 3 verse 13 bear with each other There it is again one another and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone Forgive as the Lord forgave you forgive how as the Lord forgave you notice that Paul doesn't say forgive because they apologized Paul doesn't say forgive because they deserve it poor little them. They deserve to be free No, Paul says forgive because you were forgiven And and so when you and I have to think about it for real, how did Christ forgive us? Whoo, he forgave this freely. He forgave this completely and he forgave us repeatedly Because even to this day he's forgiving us And that's why I love Psalm 103 verse 12 He has removed our sin as far from us as the East is from the West He is a good God and he's forgiven me. That's right. Now. How do we forgive number two? We need to repent of unforgiveness. What what wait a second repent I think this can bring a little confusion because we're like I don't need to repent of anything that person needs to repent to me And ask for forgiveness, right? But the reality is sometimes we forget and to recognize and accept that unforgiveness is a sin That's right. Holding on to unforgiveness is a sin. Look at what James 4 17 says It says so whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it for him. It is a sin And so the Bible teaches us we've read many scriptures just today and there's so many more about how God Commands us to forgive and I recall also when when Peter asked Jesus, he was probably offended by some one of the disciples, right? And he asked Jesus, how many times do we have to forgive someone? Seven times? And he probably thought that was

like a good thing, right? Like seven times, I forgive him seven times. And what does Jesus reply? He says, not seven times, but 70 times seven. I don't even, what's the math for that? What's 70 times seven? It's a lot of things. I don't know, I can't figure it out right now, but it's a lot of, a lot of offenses, right? I think the heart there is you have to repeatedly forgive. Right. It's not that we're going to get to that number, whatever the math is on that, right? And get there. Oh, 490, maybe 490. I don't know. Okay. Maybe 490. Oh, 489. You only got one more. Like that's not what Jesus's heart was. It was just like saying, Hey, we need to constantly forgive. And so when we are holding onto unforgiveness, that is, that is a sin. And we need to repent of that and ask God, God, you know what? I've been holding onto this unforgiveness. I'm so sorry because you've forgiven me. I need you to help me to forgive. Number three, how do we forgive? Release the judgment into God's hands. Release the judgment into God. Cause what happens is when somebody sins against me and offends me, they now have a debt. They owe me, right? If I sin against you and offend you now, now I have a debt. I owe you. And so there's this, there's this, uh, tendency to, you owe me, there's a debt and I'm going to be the judge to tell you and to hold onto that. Right. And the Lord tells us in the word that he calls us to release, uh, for second Thessalonians one verse six, God is just, he will pay back trouble to those who trouble you. Um, you and I are called to release it to God. He has your back trust that he is sovereign, that he is in control instead of holding onto it because I'm going to hold onto it. Cause I want to learn. I want to let him know. I want to let her, I want her to feel it, what I felt. Right. And there are likely, I said this earlier, there are likely some people that you are angry with or offended by, and they might honestly have no idea that they offended you. Cause maybe, you know, like, like when I don't have idea, cause I, in her dream, you know, I hurt her pony. I don't know. I did something. So sometimes this could happen. You're really upset at somebody and they don't even know because when they said that thing that was maybe a joke or whatever it was, you were, you were maybe a little susceptible because of what you were going through in that moment. And they didn't even realize that they offended you. And so God says, give it to me, release it, forgive. Now to forgive is not excusing the offense. It's not pretending that it never happened or thinking or believing that it was okay for it to happen. No, no. Forgiving says you did something to me that hurt me, but I recognize I can't hold onto this in my

heart anymore. And so I choose to release you from the obligation that you have to me. That's not easy, but that's what it is. And so I read this in an article this week. It said, it said, don't ask yourself, how much forgiveness do they deserve? Ask yourself, how much freedom do you desire? And so I don't need to think about how much they deserve the forgiveness as much as I need to think about how much I desire freedom. We talk about this church about, we want to help people know God, find freedom, discover purpose, and make a difference. Well, find freedom is connected to this whole concept of forgiving, of forgiving the people that have hurt us. This is so important to the Lord that the Bible, the Bible even teaches us in the word of God. Jesus teaches us that if you come to church, to the temple, to worship the Lord, and you have your offering, but you remember that somebody has something against you, or you have something against your brother or sister, it says, leave your offering at the altar, go and get right with your brother or your sister, and then come back and present your offering to the Lord in worship. So God is asking us to trust him as the judge, right? And to step off of that throne that we sometimes want to sit on as judge and trust him to be the judge. Because let me just say this, he's a much better judge than we are. And so it's important, it's important to understand that we release the judgment into God's hands. And number four, how do we respond to unforgiveness is we choose to offer forgiveness. And I think the key word there is choose, right? Because forgiveness, again, is a choice. It's not a feeling. And I'm not trying to make light of it and say, oh, you just have to forgive, just do it, right? This isn't about oversimplifying something that can be very painful and very complicated. But forgiveness does begin with a choice. It's a decision that you and I have to make because no one else can forgive on our behalf. It's a choice to say, God, I'm choosing to release this person. I'm choosing to release this offense. And the truth is that healing takes time, but healing won't even begin if we don't first make the choice to forgive. Forgiveness is a process. It's usually a series of decisions. And the first decision is inviting God to change our hearts. And so I know in my, in many times in my I've had people that have hurt me. Sometimes I just don't even know where to start. So I ask God to help me see them as He sees them

and begin to praying for them. Begin praying for that person that has hurt you and just praying blessing over their lives. And it's incredible to see how, as we begin to pray for that person, God begins to change how we view them and how we see them. And so maybe the first step for you today is simply saying, God, change my heart towards this person. Maybe you feel like you'll never be able to love them or you'll truly be able to feel forgiveness, but I wanna encourage you to begin with that step of saying, Lord, I choose to forgive. I wanna give you my heart and I ask you to help me because that's really how you're gonna begin this healing process in your life. Colossians 3.13 says, again, we read it, but it says, bear with each other. And again, forgive one another. If any of you has a grievance against someone, forgive as the Lord forgave you. Now, the same way that God has forgiven me is the same way that I am to forgive others. And he forgives freely and completely. You know, I love Psalm 86. It says, the Lord is ready to forgive. Think about that. He's ready. It makes me think like he's in position to forgive, right? He's not like sometimes how I am, confessing like how I can be sometimes

if someone offends me, it's like, oh, really? Oh, you're sorry? Oh, what are you sorry for? Oh, no, you don't understand exactly what you did to hurt me. This is it. And I just, and I'm not in a position, I'm not ready. I'm not in a position to forgive freely, right? That's not who our God is. He says he is, Psalm 86 says, the Lord is ready to forgive. James 5 says, the Lord is full of compassion and mercy. That is who our God is. And you know what? God wants to transform all of his children to look more and more like Jesus. And this is part of it. This is part of this process. He is a God that's full of mercy and grace. And as Christians, as his children, we should reflect that grace and that mercy. You know, as you're sitting here right now, I can't even imagine the spectrum and variety of pain and hurts and wounds represented in this room right now. And when you hear us talk about hurt, a pain, offense, forgiveness, or unforgiveness, I'm not sure who comes to mind. I'm not sure what comes to mind. For some, it's a major deep pain from a long time ago, maybe childhood or youth years, from a pain of somebody who took advantage

or abused or hurt you. It could also be very fresh wounds, very recent offenses of hurtful words, actions, attitudes, behaviors, betrayals, abandonments, rejections. Like, I can't even imagine, you know, if we literally just sit for a moment and think about it, it probably would provoke tears in our eyes, right? Because this is so real. And I think it's important that we address it. I think God's heart is that we would find freedom. And we understand that that's not necessarily something that comes from one moment to the other, although God can do amazing things. That's why we have journeys and experiences like Freedom Group, which is something that we offer here, which we'll offer in the fall of this year, after a person has been through rooted first, then be able to go through freedom. I know a lot of people have been through freedom, but it really walks you through a process and a journey of really releasing all of the hurts and the pains from our life and from the past. And so I was thinking about that moment in Matthew 18 where Peter asked Jesus, so how many times do I gotta forgive Jesus, right? And Jesus, you know, says, well, not seven times, 70 times seven. And then a little bit after that, Jesus goes on to speak a parable,

a story about a Lord who had a servant who had a debt that was so huge, that servant had a debt so huge, he would never be able to repay his master for that debt. And the master chose to forgive the debt. In other words, it was like a life forgiveness of debt. And that servant was so thankful. And then the story says that that servant had a fellow servant who owed him a little bit, not a lot, a little bit of a debt. And he was not merciful. He was harsh with him and he sent him to jail. And then when the original master heard about this, he said, you wicked man, you were forgiven so much. How could you not forgive? And so when you and I hear that story or even read that story in the Bible, we are so quick to say, what a fool. Bro, you just got forgiven. A huge debt that you can never repay and you're not gonna forgive him. And that's the moment where the story becomes a mirror. And we're like, oh. Because I'm sitting here not forgiving. in her or him after God's forgiven me all my sin. And so we've been forgiven so much and when I don't forgive someone who's offended me or hurt me, I'm like that wicked servant because I've been given so much grace and so much mercy that I didn't deserve.

Here's a good line. To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God forgave the inexcusable in you. That's so good. And you know, to close, we are in such a important and I think crucial place as a church right now in such an important season. We're getting to move into our promised land and this past Friday we had our DNA night and Pastor Virg gave this powerful message to our team about when the people of Israel are standing before the Jordan River and they're about to cross into the Jordan River, like God again does this miracle but they're about to go into that promised land, right? And God gives Joshua command to give to the people and he says, consecrate yourselves because tomorrow I will do miracles among you. And so that word consecrate is to like purify yourself, like set yourself apart and I think that as a church, we are in such a beautiful season but it is gonna require for us to consecrate ourselves. So us to purify our hearts, examine our hearts and say, Lord, what do you wanna heal? What do you wanna transform? What do you need to do in my heart? So that we as a church, right? We as a spiritual family can be prepared for all the miracles he will do when we step into that promised land that God has for us. So I think that just as Paul was writing to the church,

to the Ephesian church, right? This also applies to us. We can't give room for unforgiveness and bitterness among us. We need to be aware of the condition of our hearts and we need to be attentive to our relationships and we need to practice these one another's, right? These are, I think they're easy to read but to actually love one another the way that Jesus calls us to love, right? The way he calls us to serve one another. Even thinking of the message last Sunday, you know, Jesus wrapped a towel. Jesus, the son of God, right? Wrapped a towel around his waist and washed the feet of his disciples. And notice he did not just skip over Judas, right? He wasn't like, oh, I'll wash everybody's feet but I'm not Judas because he's gonna betray me later. No, he washed his feet as well. And so that is such a powerful example for us to follow. And to be honest, I could never do that in my own strength. But the thing is when we are believers, the Holy Spirit of God comes to dwell in us and we don't have to do it as in our own strength. His power that raised Christ from the dead lives in us. And the word of God says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And so in these moments where we're talking about difficult things

like unforgiveness, I know that it's real and I know that it's hard, but we don't have to do it in our own strength. We can trust in God and he can give us the strength to help us forgive. I feel like God wants this so much for us. And sometimes it's just so hard for us to release it, the forgiveness. It's kind of like a parent when you want your child to make the right decision and you want it so much for them, but you can't make the decision for them. This is one of those things that God can't do for us. There's a lot he can do for us, but these are one of those things that he leaves to us. He can't choose for us to forgive. And so here's the hard-hitting question of today. Who is it today that you need to forgive? Who is it that you've been holding them hostage, harboring the anger and the bitterness in your heart toward them because you've been angry at the offense, at the hurt, at the pain? Who is it that you've been holding a grudge with and it's been affecting your life? Whether it's decades ago when you were a child, you were young, or whether it was this last week. And as your pastors were here to encourage you, encourage, want to give you courage,

and as your pastors were here to encourage you, want to give you courage to make the choice, to make the choice to release, release, release the person, release forgiveness, choose to forgive. I'm not saying it's easy, fun, or that they deserve it. But I'm here to encourage you, remind you, although you and I might not be able to do this on our own strength, that's where we can pray to the Father and say, Father, I'm going to need you right now to help me. I'm going to need you to help me forgive this person because first of all, you have forgiven me, but I'm going to need your help because I need you to change my heart because my heart is hard, my heart is hurt, my heart is, it's not moldable and shapeable. Would you shape it, Lord? Would you mold it? Would you soften it, Lord? The Lord loves that prayer. And I want to challenge you, not just to say you did a good thing, but I want to challenge you to this because I want you to find freedom. It's possible to be saved and not free. You could be out of Egypt, but Egypt still be in you. So I want to pray. I want to pray for you for this moment, and I want to pray that you would build up the courage here today to determine yourself and choose and say, I am willing to choose to take the steps that I need to begin taking to forgive. So you can bow your heads. You can close your eyes. Oh, Lord, we come before you today. Lord, we come before you today with heaviness and with hurt, and we need your help, Lord. Come on, if you need his help, just tell him in your own heart, in your own voice, just tell him, I need your help, Lord. I need your help.

I need your help. I need your help because I can't do this on my own, Lord. Right now, we remember that you have forgiven us. Tell the Lord, I remember, Lord, you forgave me. I remember and I value, thank you for forgiving me. And if you need to join me in saying, Lord, I'm sorry. Forgive me for my unforgiveness. Because I understand it's a sin. Forgive us of our unforgiveness, of our hard hearts, Lord. We turn from that today. And right now, choose, just choose. Choose to trust God. And ask him for the strength right now. Ask him for the strength. Help me release. Help me forgive. Help me forgive, Lord. Help me forgive. You know who that person is in your heart. You can say, you can whisper it to the Lord. Help me forgive and say their name. Help me forgive that person. Let me forgive him. Let me forgive her for what they did. Help me forgive, Lord. I choose to release. I choose to trust you. I lift them up in your hands, Lord. And Lord, I pray as many of us choose today to release and to forgive, that we would sense your peace that surpasses all understanding, that we would taste freedom, true freedom

in our souls, healing, restoration, peace, joy unspeakable. Thank you because one moment in your presence can change everything. Thank you, Lord, for speaking to us today, and I pray, Lord, that you would help us have the courage to not only trust but to obey. And I pray that chains of unforgiveness and roots of bitterness would be broken, uprooted, today. And in the cases where reconciliation is possible and a healthy option, may that happen. And wherever not, may there still be forgiveness, which... Forgiveness is to set the captive free and realize the captive was me. So we pray for the fruit that will result from this decision. And we thank you for your truth because your truth sets us free. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.