Reconciliation Is Better Than Worship

Most people, young people, begin with guilty and you need to prove innocent. You need to prove me innocent. You see it on posts, like if you see a video and then somebody else say, is this AI? I can't tell you how many videos. Wait, is this AI or is this real? Skepticism, skepticism. All the time. Okay, you think about that. Think about 10 years from now. You think that's bad now? We won't even know anything, which by the way, some people can say, man, the world is falling, shoes about to drop. I love this because here's why. It is, this is what, it's a setback for a setup. That's how God always works. And you search through history. This is no surprise to God, by the way, but here's what's crazy. I think God is setting up a system where this generation and the ones after it will say, we can't trust anything. Who can we, oh, we can trust the Bible. Bible. Bible. Bible. Bible. Bible.

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Bible. Bible. Bible. Bible. Bible. Bible. Bible. Bible. Bible. Bible. Bible. Shrimp Spirit. Bible. Bible. Bible. Bible. Bible. Bible. Bible. Bible. There you go. In the morning, when you take a walk, and then when you take a walk at night, it's 20 degrees. 20 degrees, it's crazy. Now, I was wearing shorts on Saturday and freezing on Sunday. Anybody with me? God, Lee. And you wonder why people stay sick in middle Tennessee, or Tennessee, it's because the weather's so bad.

Hey, that's the joy of having a dog. You know how to dress for the day. You get up, take your dog out, you're like, all right. Yeah, that's a good point. People were freezing yesterday, I wasn't. That's a good. Because I took Cookie out earlier. Because you knew, you knew. I knew. Cookie told you, okay, let's see. She knew. All right, we are walking through. I know this is taking a little longer. I was looking at my notes this morning. It's taking a little longer, but we are unpacking every nugget in the text. And so, last week we talked about anger, and now we're getting into your offering. So, verse 23. So, if you're offering your gift. There at the altar. Can you do it, Candy? Go all the way through to truly, I tell you, not get out until the last page. If you're offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you. Leave your gift there at the altar, or first go and be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.

Come to terms quickly. Reach a settlement quickly with your adversary while you're on the way to court with him. Otherwise, your adversary will hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly, I tell you, you will not get out of there until you have paid every last penny. That's it. Paid the last. Penny. How do you like that? Penny. His mom, Penny. And Stella's middle name is Penny. Oh really, Stella Penny? Penelope. Aw. Is that what her name is? Stella Penelope French. Wow, I didn't know that. She's a star. Penelope, you don't hear that name anymore. I like that. That's a good name. I didn't know that was your mom's real name. Now guess where she got Stella from? No. She was raised in the village by her grandmother, whose name was?

Stella. That's it. What does Stella mean, star? It means star. So after two grandmothers. No, after her two grandmothers. Wow, dude, that's awesome. I love that. That's what it is. Okay, what's cool about this passage is, I don't know if you know this, this is the only time Jesus allows you to slip out of church early. Who knew? Because what he's saying is, if you are bringing your offering, and there you realize something needs to be reconciled, what do you do? What does he say? First, go what? You leave your gift there, and you go and be reconciled to your brother or sister. Yes. Notice in the text, Jesus starts with the plural form, everyone, and then he moves to the singular form, you. He personalizes, in a sense, this for his audience, and he basically gives us two illustrations. He says, let's talk about your relationship with God, and then we'll talk about your relationship

with other people. And so the first thing he says is this. Your relationship with God is hindered by the way you what? Or be affected by the way you do what? How you're in relationship with others. How you treat others, and how others have treated you, right? So notice what it says. Jesus is saying here, if your brother has something against you, I preached this sermon years ago, and I remember I preached the first sermon. I had three sermons to preach, and I preached the first one. Went to the restroom, and I remember me just coming out of the restroom thinking, wow, you know what? And this is me, you know, prideful self at the moment, thinking, you know what, Lord? I don't have anybody I need to be reconciled with. I can't think of anybody that, and at that moment, if you've ever been there, as I'm walking out of the bathroom, the Holy Spirit says, how about these five right here? Literally put five people in my heart. Now, let me tell you why they're five, okay? It doesn't say. If your brother or sister, or if you have something against your brother or sister, because that's different. It basically says, if your brother or sister

has something against you, if you've said something or done something or acted a certain way. Now, I'll just tell you, most of those I had direct, one was a family member, you know, family member close to me, I mean, I'm talking years ago, just things, you know, arguments about the faith, they were, they're Catholic and would debate about certain things. And my attitude wasn't right, so I called them. But the others were just past staff members or people that were on staff that I just needed to call and make sure we were fine and right. And basically called them because they still had, I didn't have anything against them. But as you think and pray about this, think about this. Do you live in a world right now where someone has something against you, something you did, something you said, something you acted upon that was offensive to them and you need to make it right? Now, this is a pretty profound insight Jesus gives and we don't understand this until we go back to the first century. Here's how it works. Jesus is painting a wonderful picture. We think the word altar means the steps of a church. That is not what Jesus has in mind, right? So think about what Jesus is saying here. He's saying, if you're there at the altar and you realize what?

Your brother or sister has something against you. Leave your gift where? There at the altar. There at the altar, okay. Now, let me ask you this. What does it take for a first century Jew to make it all the way to the altar in the context or the diagram layout of the temple? Anybody know? Think about this. It's not just walk in the church and walk to the front. That's not the picture here, okay? And have some sort of animal, right? Dove or? So you're walking in, yeah. So you're walking in with your animal, let's say your goat, okay? What is the first place you have to get to to walk in the temple complex? We'll put an image on, Robert. We need to put an image, Chris. Robert, you can put one of the temple complex. So think of the temple complex, which is like going to like a football stadium, let's say, even bigger, but going to a football stadium, okay? You got to park your car, or first you got to fight the traffic. Then you have to park your car. Then you have to pay for parking.

Then you have to get out, walk a mile to get to the stadium. Then you got to check in. Then you've got to go through security. Then you get to your seat. All that rigamarole to find out, oh, no, you can't sit. You've got to go back out and get something right. Then you got to go walk out of your seat, through security, through the door, back to the park. You see what I'm saying? Watch this. When you walk to the temple, the first place you have to walk through is what? It's by the, well, the offering, right? Where the, this looks like a big grill. Okay, that's the end. Let's back all the way up to the parking lot or the outside. All right, well, whoever brought the traveling thing, temple to ours was wrong. No, no, no. Because that was the first thing you had. Okay, you're right. No, you're all right. That is the tabernacle, okay? Oh, that's the tabernacle, okay. So think of the temple. So in the temple, this is a great clarification. So in the Old Testament, the tabernacle was,

you know, with these sheets that would separate the people. That's the inner circle of the tabernacle, okay? In the temple, what did they do? They took that and put that in the middle and then they built a whole courtyard system. It's the courtyard, yeah, it's like the big porch kind of. Herod makes it even bigger. He expands that by like a third. It makes it even bigger. Because Herod wanted to be one of the master builders known as constructing one of the wonders of the world, which it was an amazing sight. Okay, so the first thing you walk through is what? The court of the Gentiles. There's people everywhere, right? Everywhere, I mean, everywhere. I mean, it's like a flea market on, you know, during a celebration in New Orleans. I mean, people everywhere, okay? So you're walking through the court of the Gentiles first. Then the second place you walk through is what? Court of Gentiles is huge. This is where the Gentiles, and it just shows you how disconnected they were. They were way away from the inner circle and the holy place and the holy of holies. So way in the back, so way out back. Then you walk through the court of the Gentiles. You got your little lamb. Then you walk through what?

Would it be the next place would be where they're being checked? Like the priest? Court of women. The court of women. The court of women, or next, interesting. So the next place they walked, so the women, so Gentiles are the furthest away. Women could get one step closer, but not as close as the court of Israel or the court of men. So the men could go to another closer section, the court of men. And then beyond that lies the court of the priest, which is next to the tabernacle where the altar is. That's where the priests were, okay? So the worshiper is standing. He walks with his lamb through the altar. He walks, I mean, to the altar. He walks through the court of Gentiles, through the court of the women, through the court of the men, got to the court of the priest. This is a long walk with a guy. It's like, come on, man, be quiet. That was a pretty good go back there. Yeah, I've been working on that. Wow, that was... You've been planning for a lot of things. Hey, he's prepared. This is preparation.

Yeah, I haven't done this before. And so you get there, think of the intensity. You get there, you got this goat, you lean down, you pick him up, and then as you're presenting him on the threshold of the court, right before the altar, boom, it hits you in the mind. Somebody has something against me. And what, I mean, this is radical. It's, we can't think of it as I go to church and I'm at the altar. No, no, it's not that. It's you did, you went through all of the motions, you spent all of the time, and you remember that you have wronged your brother or your sister, and so Jesus says, what do you do? Drop it immediately and go make it right. Reconciliation with others, here's what Jesus is showing us, is far more important than your external act of worship. Reconciliation with others is far more important than your external act of worship. Why do we need to extend forgiveness to people? Why would Jesus even say this? Why would he say drop your, because you would think, man, a sacrifice, a worship service is important to God. Not really, Jesus is saying reconciliation is more important, why? Because the way you treat a human being is a reflection of how you treat God, right? Now think about 1 Peter chapter three, verse seven. Peter even gives us an insight,

Kenny, you can go there, 1 Peter three, seven. Peter gives us an insight on how the way we treat others affects our spiritual life. I.e., our prayer life, did you know this? Did you know if you are out of fellowship with a human being now, let me just clarify, it doesn't mean you, okay, so it's kind of like CR, and Adam, you know this, or with Celebrate Recovery, or AA, you're encouraged to make amends with people who either you have wronged or who have wronged you, unless it's worse or hurts the relationship of where it is to make it worse than it is before. Is that kind of how? If it's gonna cause harm to others, then it would not make sense for you to try to make amends, because that's more, that's a selfish way. So like if, let's say, I was in a relationship, I did something wrong to a lady when I was 16, and now she's been married for 20 years. I wouldn't go and say, hey, I just want you to know, you know, and that would do what? That would harm her, bring a wound. So what I would do is find a way to make amends appropriately, I would confess that to God, I would confess that to another person. Maybe I could write her a letter, burn it up, but just say, God, I know this was wrong. And then you do what we would say a living amends. So I would never treat another lady the way I did that. Mm, that's good.

So that's the way you would do it. Yeah, that's good. And it kind of goes along with what you're saying. The obedience part of it is more important than necessarily the sacrifice part of it. It's like, I was thinking what you said, it is a long, it's not the same length as far as like physically. But if I'm, say if I have an issue with a guy that's sitting over here in church on Sunday morning, I'm on the far right, you know, by the beam making my sacrifice, because I can't see well. I'm over behind the beam, and then somebody's on the other side, and I make this walk up to the altar, and I'm praying, and God's going, wait a second, you should have walked to the other side of the room. You walked the wrong way. And made it right before I did that. That's good. So anyway, I was just thinking that. No, that's good. All right, first, Peter chapter three, verse seven, shows us a relationship with how we treat those closest to us, our spouses, with how God answers prayers. This is fascinating, read this. Husbands, in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way

as with a weaker partner, showing them honor as co-heirs of the grace of life so that your prayers will not be hindered. Okay, this is interesting. So if you're listening, you want to know why some of your prayers aren't being answered? Yeah, you want to know why your prayers aren't being answered? It may be the way you treat your spouse. Because what he's saying is, if you do not honor your spouse, and treat her with respect, and serve her, then why in the world would God want to serve you? Why would God answer your prayers, right? Psalm 66, 18, if I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would have not listened. That's an interesting one, okay? So the key word here is first, first, okay? I want to emphasize that. Here's what God's saying, and I want you to hear this if you're listening. Don't wait for the other person to come to you. You go first. Don't wait for your wife to come to you and apologize as a husband or a husband as a wife. You go first. Don't wait to take out the cell phone and call someone, or wait for them to call you. You call them.

Here's what he's really saying. Don't raise another hand in worship. Don't sing another hymn. Don't memorize another scripture. Don't give another offering. Don't go on another mission trip. Don't serve in Sunday school. Don't teach a class. Don't do any of it until you first go reconcile with your. friend, family member, acquaintance, boss, co-worker and make it right with them. Now at this point you would say well what if that what if it makes it worse? Well you have to discern if going to them at this point makes it worse. I have a situation in my life years ago and you know I've thought should I go try to make it right with them and I've done this repeatedly there was the situation and my counselor just said at this point here's another thing you think about at this point the person in your life has to be receptive to your forgiveness or your acknowledgement that there was an issue and you're gonna understand too every issue in life I've learned through this being hurt or hurting someone there's always give and take on both sides until you can admit okay you didn't do everything wrong I was somewhat a part of it even though it was a little bit then there's there's no give and take in the relationship normally when you just say I've been waiting for you to do yeah you are keep going yeah okay what else that's not the right posture you need to come to this reconciliation process with an act of humility teachability and wanting to learn does that make sense and I think you shouldn't excuse me I think that's something that should not be decided by yourself yeah like there's a unless I have a mirror I can't see my the middle part of my back like I think you've talked about like there's just some things I can't see yeah I need somebody else and so I think this would be something that you talk to with your

mentor your pastor whoever's discipling you I use a little process in my journal time I'll I'll write the person's name and then I write what happened hmm how it affected me and then what area of my life was affected by it did it affect my security that affect my relationship and then the last part which I love you touched on always put what was my part now if you were abused you don't have a part right yeah yeah but most the time and the most extreme circumstances even even when someone has wronged you bad like I can find my part and that when I think something happens I can't explain it but something happens when you get to and you write down your part or I write down my part where I see them in a different light like for instance my father alcoholic left you know all these things right but I when I did that process with my father when I got to the end I really realized like he was sick hmm he was struggling with addiction it didn't make anything that happened that he did wrong or right it was it was wrong but I saw him as what a broken person just like me because when even so that I think that's what when we get to our part we go wait a second oh we are still sinners yeah in relationship and I think that I don't know maybe it it it's the sugar in the the old Julie Andrews whatever it is the sugar in the cough medicine or whatever makes the medicine and go down yeah what is it a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine yeah I think when I look at my part it's like I am pretty jacked and you know what I have I've done wrong too yeah so I think sometimes that can help I want to ask you something though what does how does this verse fit when that person is unwilling to receive or maybe you're gonna get to this later but when someone like if you if you think that and you go hey brother I just want you to know man I I'm so sorry that happened I love to make things right and like hey no thank you I think does our part in there what what are your what does scripture say about that because there may be somebody who's listening going I've tried that yeah well I can share okay like but and I have no idea if this is gonna help or not in what you're thinking but there was somebody that hurt me indirectly kind of it they hurt someone else but it affected me and it was it was on the outskirts it was a situation where

you're like man this should not be this big of a deal you should be able to move on from this you know but I found myself not being able to move on from it and so when I was talking to my counselor about it I was really putting a lot of blame on this person and I because it this person ended up like kind of vomiting all their problems and issues or whatever it was on to us and then left us with that okay and so now I didn't I wouldn't even aware there was a problem and now I'm left with sitting with all this stuff and as I processed it over and over again this other person he's off living his best life and I'm now stuck in this place where I'm dealing with everything he just vomited on us so he just said what everyone is saying and got out of town yeah and so then I was having a really hard time and I was like I wasn't even extremely close to this person like why is it bothering me so much and so I was talking to my counselor about it and I the what I was looking at is the problem is you know I'm a very trusting person right so I've Trusted this person and at the end of the day, this is a super longer story But at the end of the day what what I realized about myself is that when I say that I trust somebody What I'm actually saying is I love this person And I have confused Trust and love because we're called to love other people. We're not necessarily called to trust every single person and I Think I've confused that over the years. And so when I say, oh my gosh Well, I just I never expected that of this person. I trusted them or whatever Well, really did I really trust that person or did I just love them? So, of course, I had expectations maybe so actually, what it did was it released the Animosity I was holding towards this person and it actually put it back on me because it's not this person's fault that I trusted him You see what I'm saying? Yeah, and so I realized wait a second I'm called to love everybody and I can love everybody but I need to trust other people well and responsibly and that doesn't mean that I have to trust every single person because trust is obviously a relationship and you deposit and withdraw that trust relationship and That person actually didn't demonstrate that he should have been trusted. Do you see what I'm saying? But it was like I put all of my trust my hope my expectations and people because I love them

But then if they do something to me Which and I could be doing something to them and it's like it's a super big letdown And it's like how did I get to this place? And so it really revolved a lot around Trust and me learning. Okay, I can't I don't have to trust this person because this person hasn't done anything to be trustworthy yet You see so like building that trust over time But loving that person no matter what and so for me it actually shifted the blame I was projecting onto this person back to me I Shouldn't have maybe trusted that person in the first place. And so that way that's on me That's not on that person, you know and it's actually been a really big breakthrough for me because now I find myself not living in resentment and bitterness and Being upset about whatever. I'm actually starting able to move on from the situation. I think there's a lot of people that have loved People that didn't have their best interest in mind And so that is a strong word because there is a difference between People that were called to love and people that were called to trust Because we can still love somebody like you said, I thought it was a powerful point I think I think this this connects because he says first go so we can go Right and our heart can be right and we can say hey I want to be reconciled and we can we're doing that because we love God first God first loved us and Whether or not that person receives it or not is really has nothing to do with our relationship with God, right? Yeah, that's between them and God. Yeah, wouldn't you agree? I mean, I think no, it's Jesus calling everybody to first go and be reconciled So if we first go let's say me and Robbie get into it and he comes to me and and follows this and I say no No, no. Well, that's not Robbie's fault. That would be my fault, right? I didn't do my side of it. So yeah Yeah, and and reconciliation means come to an agreement or a solution about something and the trust thing is interesting because We've all if you if you're a human being you've you've had your trust broken or abused or used and We're talking with our lead team this morning. We're going to lunch. You were talking about how a prominent author who we've all benefited from Just came out and said he's been in a seven or eight year affair on his wife while he's in Parkinson's and you know going through this horrible situation and

We're talking about like how does that happen? How do you make say and then somebody was saying I forget it was it was saying What we have in this world today is we feel like and there's a lot of pressure with this, too But we assume that since you have risen to that Prominence or position or that? Situation in life you have the internal soul Compatible to sustain it and most don't like we just assume. Oh, he's a big-time author. Surely He's spiritually mature. Surely he's growing in sanctification But that doesn't mean anything because we know a lot of guys who get to a high place of prominence and have a platform Well, listen, you don't have to look far on YouTube to find all these young Influencers they rise to the top and they fizzle out quickly why they get I want to commit suicide I want to end my life why because here's the line or here's the way to think of it You need to make sure that your interior soul is able to sustain the outward light or the outward Pressure. Oh, yeah. Yeah your inner soul needs to be able to sustain Become from the outer fame and it's a lever. Yeah what I'm getting at So and most people don't have an interior life that can do that that's good and so I I think, you know, I mean, we feel bad when these guys fall, but you realize, you know, when you realize what you have is a gift from God anyway, and the only reason you're here or we're here at this table or you're where you are, is because God gave you that and God put you there, and you can lose it as fast as you got it. Tomorrow, God can take, and the moment you start to think, I'm the only one, Elijah, hey boss, I'm the only guy in town, man, if I fizzle out, God's like, hey, Eli, I got 7,000 guys on tap right now, that I can call in a moment and replace you tomorrow. The only reason you're there is because I chose you

and I selected you. Well, and I was just gonna say, Jesus, you know, I don't know if this is the right way to phrase this, but he practices trust with us or invests with trust with us because you gotta think, anything in our life that we have or whatever, let's just say you and I are married or whatever, you did not come into my life until God could trust that I could have the relationship with you. Yeah, and vice versa, yeah. Correct, and so until that happens, right, it's like a building thing, like I know I can trust God, but can he trust me with like position or influence or whatever it might be, you know, husband, and for a long time, the answer was no, right? And then finally, it was like, okay, I think I can trust you now with this person, you know? But it's a continuous thing, just like our relationship, right? We continue to work on the trust, you know, and withdrawing and depositing that with each other and then in people in our life or whatever. And I'm walking with a girl in discipleship, it was the same thing, like she had messed up one time and she came to me and kind of confessed this situation and that was my line to her, like, cause she's waiting on God to bring her the right person. And I'm like, can God trust you to bring you this right person right now, by your actions, your attitude, your heart,

your motives, all the things. And if he can't, then it's not the time, right? And so it's like, it's a big deal, trust, but we don't throw that around flippantly. That's right. And so it's a building process for people. And then when you are hurt or when someone else is hurt, taking the responsibility for what your part is, is huge. But a lot of times it doesn't happen that way cause people aren't quick to do that. Like how many people are quick to first leave their gift at the altar and go and be reconciled? Not many. Yeah, I think that's why we have to have, and that's why we're all so passionate about discipleship. We don't do that on ourselves. We have to have accountability. We have to have people that we trust that we can confess sin to, because our nature is what? That we are gonna gradually justify our sin. We are not gonna gradually adhere to the severity of sin. I'm reading, it's a mortification of sin right now. John Owen, yeah. Yeah, John Owen, a mortification of sin. It's all about consistently, if you're not killing sin, sin's killing you. He's talking about all this. But one of the things he talks about is, is that we are, because of our flesh,

we are gonna naturally justify things. We are gonna naturally lose the severity of sin, lose our honor for God. But having people, you know, an accountability group or a discipleship group that you're consistently saying, hey, this is what's going on in my life, getting that good feedback, and learning to trust them with our sin keeps us accountable. And I think that, as you talked about, we're all in danger as we grow in our sanctification to think that we no longer need somebody else to hold us accountable. Yeah. You know, because I can't, I mean, if I'm, like, this is what they say in recovery, if you're sponsoring yourself, we shouldn't use this word, you talked this last week, you got a fool for a sponsor. Ooh. You know what I mean? Yeah, like, so if I'm leading myself. Because you can't trust yourself, because yourself has let you down so many times. Yeah, it's the flesh. Yeah, I need God to lead me, I need trusted men to go, oh, say that again? Because that sounds a lot like you, not like God. Yeah. You know, so.

I heard Paul David Tripp say this years ago when someone fell in ministry, one of our, a friend of mine asked him this, he was at a staff retreat. He said, why are these guys falling? What's the common denominator? And here's what he said. He said, if you are leading and you're standing on a plane or a level and no one is on the same platform with you or the same level, you're about to fall. Because if everybody, I mean, is lower, a step down, two steps down, looking up and no one is equal to, you can't trust anybody and they can't speak in your life or you're listening, you're gonna fall. So you gotta have people that you can trust, that can entrust and give things in your life that will help you. I mean, you think about, think about how God works. I mean, this is literally how God works. God is determining with this. Let's take this for example. God is determining, if he can't, God, here's what I think's happening. Jesus knows that when you go to God with an offering, God's gonna forgive you. Of course he's gonna forgive you. That's why you, he said. you bring an offering, I forgive.

That's the process. But God is basically saying, if I'm gonna forgive you, then you need to demonstrate the grace I give you to another person. And if you can't be a vehicle of grace and mercy and forgiveness to another person, why in the world am I gonna do that to you? And it's basically, it's the little steps of faith and trust, and I always say this, but God is looking to see if he can trust you when no one's looking, to see if he can entrust you with more when everybody's looking. Some of the greatest prayers that have been answered in my life were those that weren't answered the way I wanted. I mean, I remember years ago, I used to pray to speak at, you know, when I was, you know, 20 years ago, I'd pray, man, God, let me speak at this con, or I wanna go to Passion, I wanna speak at Catalyst, whatever. And God didn't answer that prayer. And at the time, I was like, what is wrong, why? You know, you think, oh, I could speak like that guy. And then I look back and I was saying, what was I thinking? This would have been recorded on video, I would have probably said something, I mean, what was I thinking? God will give you what's best for you. And if you don't have it,

it's because God thinks you don't need it at this time. And one of the things, like Kandi was saying earlier, one of the things, if you're listening and you're single or divorced or never been married or widowed and trying, you need to remember this, that the best thing you can do is work on your relationship with God, because when God thinks he's sovereign, when he thinks you're ready to trust and love someone else the way you love and trust him, he's gonna send them. So don't miss the opportunity. Like we tell people in recovery, you'll never get this season again. You'll never get a season when you're in a house, working a job, around brothers, studying the Bible, memorizing scripture, doing here, don't miss the moment of time. We all say that sometimes. So what Jesus gets to is this, our relationship with God is hindered, but number two is our relationship with others is affected. Because here's what Jesus says, when you don't forgive your brother, it's in a sense, you're cutting yourself off from me. But then he says, but if you don't forgive your brother beforehand, it can ramp up to where the legal system catches up to you and gets involved. So what he's saying is,

when your brother has something against you, don't rush to Judge Mathis or Judge Judy. My mom likes Judge Judy. Because what'll happen is you'll be embarrassed publicly. What he's saying is, take care of this privately, like Christian brothers and sisters, before it ramps up publicly. And so in both illustrations, what Jesus is anticipating is a conflict. And what he's saying is, you can't eliminate conflict in your life, but you can resolve conflict in your life. And here's the interesting thing he says, you better do it now, because if not, you'll be thrown in prison, and you won't get out until the last penny is paid. Now that idea of penny is not like a penny in our pocket. It's actually a day's wage, okay? So you will pay an entire day's salary wage for what you're doing. Now the natural question becomes then, well, wait a minute. If I owe my brother something, or he owes me something, I can't make money in prison. How am I gonna pay him back? And Jesus is like, that's the point. The point is, make the most of what you have in the time you have with the light you've been given now. So if you know somebody is out of sorts with you, you need to make it right, make it right now.

If it's money, pay him back. If it's forgiveness, give it to him. And the point is, if you have an opportunity to reconcile, reconcile while there's still sunlight, because there will be a time when you miss it. And here's the progression, watch this. In this text, you miss this if you don't see it, but if you draw it out, there's a parallelism of increasing, amping up of the problem. Here's the parallel. First of all, he says, you'll go to the local judgment. Let's go all the way back. Remember what he says. If you're angry with your brother, you'll be judged. Or if you call your brother a fool, you'll be judged. If you're angry, what does it say? Kenny, quote it for me. Oh gosh, I don't know if I can quote it. You'll be subject to the court if you insult your brother and sister. First is court, so local judgment. Watch the second one. If you insult your brother and sister, you'll be subject to, wait, it's judgment, then court. Then hellfire. Then hellfire, okay. So the first one is local judgment. The second one is the court, which is the Sanhedrin. And the third one is the Gehenna or hell, watch this. So notice the increase here.

It starts with local judgment, starts with the big Supreme Court in those days, and it ends in hell. Watch this. Reconciliation's the same. It starts with a judge, then it goes to an officer, then it goes to prison, okay. So it's basically like if you don't handle it, it's gonna be out of your control. You have an opportunity to deal with this. And if you don't, it's gonna spiral and you're gonna pay a greater consequence. Yes, that's the point. This is literally the point. He's saying this, that's good. He's saying if you don't, now keep in mind what he's talking about here. He's talking about anger. That's what this passage is about, anger. And he says if you don't get a jump, if you don't ruthlessly eliminate anger, anger will eventually, watch this, you out of the community and fellowship you live in. Here's what he's saying, it's gonna pull you out to local judgment, it's gonna pull you in Sanhedrin, it's gonna pull you in Gehenna. When you're on your way to meet me, like think about like what you're saying, like it's incredible,

like you're on your way to meet God, and he's saying wait, wait, wait, wait, don't come to me first. It literally takes you out of relationship with God. Yes, that's a good point. And I was thinking about the parallel, I mean, I didn't mean to cut you off. No, that's good. What we're doing as a church, the practice of prayer, all this is surrounded around communion with God, right? And so with God who is the most gracious, the most loving, the most forgiving, I mean, there's nothing comparable to it. So it's like we're practicing that with God, right? But where's the game at when I gotta go do it with other people? Anybody could be holy before God, oh man, you put on an act before God, oh God, I forgive you, I love you, whatever. But then you gotta live it out in community. Because here's the thing, the way you treat people physically is a direct connection or a revelation of how you are spiritually with God. We're not gonna get ahead of myself, but next week I will show you this. The whole lust passage where you get to lust and it ramps up, or actually it's two weeks from now, I was studying way ahead.

Say what you just said, how you treat others is a direct connection to what? Is a direct revelation of your relationship with God. Meaning this, if I'm not trustworthy to you, if I'm not trustworthy to you, if I'm cheating on my wife, that's why divorce in the Old Testament, it says if you cheat on your wife, you're liable to be stoned, why? Because God is saying, this is the point, I was thinking about this this morning, I was like, wow, that's harsh, but here's the point. If you can't be trustworthy to a human being that you're with every day who reciprocates love, then you're definitely not gonna be faithful to me. You're not gonna be faithful to me. You say you're faithful. If you can't be faithful to your staff or your friends, then you're not gonna be faithful to me. See what I'm saying? So what he's saying is the vertical relationship with him is revealed in the horizontal relationship visibly with other people, basically. And here's the thing about the world we live in today. If you're listening, you're Gen Z or Gen Alpha, my heart breaks for you in this one respect. You are raised in a world, unfortunately, that's very different than Vivian, myself, even Robert, Jeremy, Candy, Adam, very different. Chris and Ben, Ben's right on the edge teetering,

but here's the reality. I was raised in an environment where I started out with trust and respect from the beginning, okay? So if you were my senior pastor and I was 12, 15 years old going to church and Pastor Adam was my pastor, Vivian, you know this, bro, what was your pastor's name? Dr. Oakley. So when you went as a young little girl to Dr. Oakley, were you questioning, I wonder if this guy's stealing money from the church? No. I wonder if this guy's sleeping around. No, you trusted first and then you were skeptical if you, it's innocent until proven guilty, okay? Unfortunately, and again, I got a lot of answers for this or ideas, AI, you can't trust anything anymore, Chachi BT and Gemini, you have all these answers. Tell that to like the YouTube feed. Conspiracy, YouTube feed, we're not going into that now. We're not going into that now. Drop the mic moment. We're not. It's an off subject. They got on to me and Jeremy for our conspiracy theory, but the point is, but here's my point. My point is, and maybe I got into it too, but the point is the generation today, Alpha and Z, start off with skepticism, they, Chris, am I right? They, not you, Chris, but most people, not Chris, because Chris is perfect, but Chris is mature

and perfect in Christ, but most, you have a question? Okay, hold on. Most people, young people begin with guilty and you need to prove innocent. You need to prove me innocent. You see it on posts. Like if you see a video and then somebody else say, is this AI? I can't tell you how many videos. Wait, is this AI or is this real? Skepticism, skepticism. All the time. Okay, you think about that. Think about 10 years from now. You think that's bad now? We don't, we won't even know anything, which by the way, some people can say, man, the world is falling. Shoes about to drop. I love this because here's why. It is, this is what, it's a setback for a setup. That's how God always works. You search through history. This is no surprise to God, by the way, but here's what's crazy. I think God is setting up a system where this generation and the ones after it will say, we can't trust anything. Who can we, oh, we can trust the Bible. The Bible, yeah.

It's the only thing less, left that we can trust and so man, even y'all coming to this sermon, I mean, this podcast and growing in your faith, this is why we need a biblical worldview and know this book because it's the only unchanging, tested, tried, infallible, inerrant, sufficient word that we have out there. All right, Kimmy's got a question. So good. Almost done. I've got to go. I've got to go get our son. So, okay. How do you live this out, reconciliation with someone who's passed away? I literally almost had this similar. Per Robert. That was a Robert question. It was very good. Okay. How do you live this out with someone who's passed? I think it might go along with what you said. By the way, Robert did tell me we have a lot of questions that have come in. Good questions. Oh, do we? Okay. Maybe we need to. I'll tell you what we're going to do. No, we definitely want to do a live recording.

And I already told Andy today at lunch, we get first slot. You're worship night. I think people like to worship but we're getting first shot. What's worship? Yeah, the worship slid in before us. But anyway, I'm not bitter. I'm just saying it long hollow. No, but the first break. I told Julie today. The first break, we're in there. We're slotting in long hollow. We're in there. We're in there. We're in there. We're in there. We're in there. We're in there. We're in there. We're in there. We're in there. We're in there. We're in there. We're in there. We're in there. We're in there. We're in there. We're in there. We're in there. We're in there. We're in there.

We're in there. We're in there. Long hollow forgotten Jesus pockets. Okay. Okay. We can answer questions then you think? Are we going to do a special episode? I got an idea though. What if we, when we finish this section of, you've heard it said, I said to you, which will be like three, four weeks, what if we do like one or two Q and A? Maybe we can bring Vivian up and she can do the questions. We can categorize it as I have a question. Which we wanted to do then. It could be a serious. Anyway, not. Okay. To answer the question, what, how are you reconciled with Adam? You got to give a quick answer cause she's got a quick answer. Quick answer is. I mean I hate to rush this question, but we have, we've done some different things. You can take Josie if you want. I should be up there. But, um, oh, so what, what a lot of times people will go to the actual grape site and make amends in person. There are, we actually, we know that there, you can write a letter, burn the letter. Um, you can go to the place where the, where the act was committed and go to that place, get on your knees and say, God, this is where I did this to so-and-so and I want to come back here and acknowledge that I was wrong. I was wrong in what I did. I confess that.

And then, and when I went back to before is living amends. So you can figure out what the best way to, to, to confess that and make it right. And then your, your sponsor, your mentor, your disciple maker would hold you accountable that I'm going to honor, I'm going to honor that person. I'm going to honor that person for the rest of my life by never doing that again. So it's another way that you're, you're, you're, and so every time, let's say, um, let's say I yelled at, uh, maybe my mom, I was, I raised my voice, I raged and then my mom's passed away. So every time I feel that, oh, I want to rage and I go, I pray and I say, Lord, and I don't do it. I'm saying, mom, I'm honoring you and I'm making that right. That's good. That's good. Uh, two things I'd add, uh, a book that is life-changing and we give it out in the droves is total forgiveness by R.T. Kendall, my friend, mentor, member of the long hollow, total forgiveness must read if you haven't read it. So read that. And a couple of things he says, number one is you have to forgive them completely. Number two is you never bring it up again against them or hold it against them. Uh, and that's, that's hard to do, but that's what he said. Number two is if you're listening, this is the whole podcast summarizing these next few words. So listen, forgiveness is selfish in a sense, okay? Because unforgiveness is like a backpack of shame and guilt that you wear until the moment you let it go. So think of it as a hot potato back in the day, play the game hot potato, you know, or like musical chairs. You keep going around until you said music stops. The problem is when you have this hot potato, you want to give it away.

And then when you give it away, it's like putting the monkey on your back in a spiritual way. Because now it releases me, whether you forgive me or not, it's therapeutic to say, I forgive you. Right. And so that it's selfish in a sense. So it's hard to do you like, I don't want to know what you need to do this for your own wellbeing. The last thing I would say, um, is that, uh, reconciliation, this is the way to think of it. Don't ever forget this is an offense against your neighbor. If you have unforgiveness, an offense against your neighbor builds up a fence between you and God. That's how you're gonna remember it. That's the line of an offense. An offense between you, you and your neighbor builds up a fence between you and the Lord. Someone wrote this poem, Lord, let me feel the pain of a wounded soul and seek to heal that wounded one. I pray. Yes, I would take the reconciling role and bring an end to pain and strife today. Wow. I like that. So, uh, if you are at the altar on Sunday or at the church or in worship or worshiping and your Bible reading time, ask the Lord and it's just, don't let us tell you, ask the Lord. Like we said in our prayer time, he's been telling me reconciliation is weak. Ask the Lord. Who do I need to put on my heart? He'll do it. He's amazing.

That's powerful. Such a strong word. Thank you so much, Pastor and Kandi. Just remember, if you're listening to this or you're watching this, there's other people that I think can benefit from it, especially some of the things we talked about today. If you could subscribe, that's a huge help to us. If you could make a comment, like, share, share this with a friend. Maybe even when you go out and you make amends, you can come back later and say, the reason why I did it is because I heard this podcast. Make sure that happens. That's cool. Just a way to get the word out. We want more people to know about, the forgotten Jesus, so thank you for joining us today. Yes.