Real Life | Part 9 | Dave Gruhn

Alright. Hey. Good morning.

Good morning.

As we get started, Kevin just mentioned this.

Maybe in your venue, you already heard something

about catalyst, and that's all about personal transformation.

And one of the ways we wanna gauge

that is with the survey that you've already

been invited to participate in. And so, here's

the deal, if you know, you know you,

the only time that you're gonna participate in

that is right now, I'm not gonna be

offended. Alright? I guarantee you, in all the

venues, I won't be offended. So you can

grab your phone and you can do it

right now as we get started about five

to seven minutes, but it's really important

that we would have a baseline. Because by

the time we get to the end of

catalyst, how do we talk about transformation

if we don't have a way to gauge

it? So, would you do that please? We

ask.

As we get started, I'm Dave, and we're

welcoming Roane County down in Bearden. Good morning

to y'all,

over at Amplend, good morning to you as

well. And you can open a Bible to

chapter,

18 in the book of Matthew,

and We're gonna talk about a topic today

called forgiveness.

Everybody up for this one?

Yeah.

That's what I thought.

You know, I I it was about twenty

years ago. No. It was twenty years ago.

And,

this year.

And,

my wife and I,

before that, we had left, one career path.

I was in a new career path. I

was now in vocational

ministry, and part of that transition was the

thing that I knew is that God was

calling me to go to school. And it's

a long story that I'm gonna try and

tell in a really short period of time,

but in the midst of that, I just

had this deep conviction that that's what it

was all about. I had no idea

at that time that I might actually be

doing what I do. I never imagined

that I'd be doing what I do, but

but I just knew that I was supposed

to go to school

and, there was a church. They invited us

to come be on staff. It was church

that we were part of. It's a church

church

that we were deeply connected in, and we

are deeply connected with the lead pastor of

that church and his wife. We were at

dinner one night, and they they had invited

us to come be part of their staff,

and

and, we were concerned a little bit. There

was a lot of stuff going on in

that church and he looked,

at us and in particular, he looked at

my wife straight in the eyes and he

said, Kelly, as long as I'm the lead

pastor of this church, you have nothing to

worry about.

Yeah. We were we were

Yeah. We weren't we weren't really aware how

that works. So

here's the thing, it was less than a

year later. About a year later, all of

a sudden,

in very short order,

within a week, I was out of a

job and when I asked him about that

statement, hey, here's what you said, here's the

promise you made to my wife, he says,

I never said that.

Now here's the thing,

at that time it was like not It

gets more complicated because it's not just

that, hey, there was a person and they

betrayed you. For those of you who've been

in business, for those of you who've been

in a marriage where you've been betrayed, those

of you who've been in families where you've

been betrayed by somebody who's close to you,

you know that that's difficult, but when it's

somebody

who's representing Jesus in your world,

it gets far more complicated. Not just are

you working through do I forgive this person,

but how do I forgive

Jesus even though he doesn't need my forgiveness?

How do I work my way through that?

And so, that's where we're starting today. On

the surface,

forgiveness

sounds simple. Just forgive people.

But as you know, it's not simple at

all. It's one of the hardest things we're

not only asked to do, but we're commanded

to do.

It's not an option, this isn't like, Hey,

there's a nice accessory,

by the way to the Christian life. It's

called forgiveness. If you get around to it

and you feel like it, embrace that one.

Jesus doesn't set it up that way.

So here's what we're gonna talk about today,

this idea of forgiveness. And what I wanna

do is I wanna set it up and

and I wanna set it up by telling

you it is complicated

and your situation is complicated and you probably

can't figure it out on your own if

you haven't figured it out already.

You probably aren't gonna figure it out this

afternoon if it's been 10:20,

thirty years that you've been dealing with it.

And so I'm gonna encourage you that you

requires that we would

get wise counsel.

We can get counsel from things like books.

There's a book called Forgive

by Timothy Keller. He's since passed away, but

in that book, in particular, it's based upon

the parable that we're gonna see today, and

in the end, there's some appendixes that actually

walk you through the process. What does this

look like for me to actually

experience and give the forgiveness that I've been

given?

Forgiveness is a word we know, but what

we're talking about here is this idea that

forgiveness means giving up the right to revenge,

the right to seek repayment from the one

who harmed you.

It must be recognized

that forgiveness

is a form of voluntary

suffering.

There's a debt

that needs to be paid.

Unforgiveness

says

when you finally do enough

then we can move on, then I'll forgive

you. When you finally

pay the penalty.

But forgiveness is different than that. The forgiveness

that's gospel centered forgiveness looks like, I don't

expect you to pay it because I'm gonna

pay your debt.

I'm gonna take the debt of your offense

with me, and I'm gonna take it upon

myself,

and I'm going to pay your debt. I

forgive you. That sounds a lot like the

gospel, does it not?

Sounds like what Jesus did for us and

the expectation Jesus had for us

is that that kind

of forgiveness is what would flow out of

us and into others. And in that book,

Forgive by,

Timothy Keller, he he talks about a lot

of real world stuff that has happened in

the last five years

Because the world's message is don't be foolish.

People have to pay. They did the crime.

They gotta do the time. While that may

be true, okay? The relationships that you have

may never be the same.

Jesus is gonna give us a warning.

It does require forgiveness in our heart.

If we're a follower of Christ,

that's the grave warning. So here's what we're

gonna walk away with this weekend.

Real life with Jesus in his kingdom is

fueled by grace

demonstrated

by unlimited

forgiveness. If you take note, circuit that word

unlimited.

We don't get to set the parameters. Now

with that, I I don't know what your

story is.

I don't

know how

how great the offense is that you have

to forgive.

I have no idea. It may be unimaginable

and we'll talk about that.

All I know is what Jesus says.

And he doesn't say that, Oh, if you

reach a certain level,

now you've qualified for the unforgiveness camp.

It's all levels, and he does so by

telling a story.

Now, Matthew 18,

here's what we've seen, is that Jesus

talks about us that those who are in

the kingdom are like children, humble and dependent,

and he calls us to pursue those who

have wandered away and to care for others

in the pursuit

of those people, and that we would

work hard towards seeing relationships

restored.

Forgiveness isn't just an isolated moment, it's it's

the culmination of all that's gone on already

in chapter 18.

If we are in God's kingdom, and we

are within a body called the body of

Christ, that we pursue one another, and we

forgive one another because it's what Jesus has

given us as a model of the gospel,

and so this is what Peter's wrestling with.

He's trying to figure out how kingdom greatness

works in the real world where people mess

up. As we pick up here in chapter

18 in verse 22 where it says, Then

Peter came up and said to him,

Lord, how often will my brother sin against

me and I forgive him?

As many as seven times?

Jesus said to him, I do not say

to you seven times,

but 77 times.

Therefore,

the kingdom of heaven may be compared to

a king who wished to settle accounts with

his servants.

When he began to settle, one was brought

to him who owed him 10,000 talents. And

since he could not pay,

his master ordered him to be sold with

his wife and children and all that he

had and payment to be made. Now last

night, while I was sitting here,

getting ready to get up on stage and

speak, ChatGPT helped me out. Gave me like

a modern day kind of thing. We figured

it out earlier in the week, but I'm

like, what about now? What's ChatGPT have to

say? And if ChatGPT is right, we're talking

about $6,000,000,000.

We figured it earlier this week. It's about

$13,000,000,000

to give you

a scale. Okay? So the the kind of

debt that we're talking about is

massive

to the point of being

unpayable.

You can never pay the debt. It's a

really important point

in the story.

So the servant fell on his knees imploring

him, have patience with me and I will

pay you everything.

And out of pity for him, the master

of that servant released him and forgave him

the debt.

But when the servant went out, he found

one of his fellow servants who owed him

a 100 denarii and seizing him he began

to choke him saying,

Pay what you owe.

In today's dollars, about $10,000.

He owes 6,000,000,000

that was forgiven,

but you're gonna pay me the 10,000.

So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded

with him, have patience with me and I

will pay you.

He refused and went and put him in

prison until he should pay the debt.

When his fellow servants saw what had taken

place, they were greatly distressed and they went

and reported to their master all that had

taken place.

Then his master summoned him and said to

him, you wicked servant.

I forgave you all that debt because you

pleaded with me.

And should not you have had mercy on

your fellow servant as I had mercy on

you?

And in anger his master delivered him to

the jailers, to the tormentors

until he should pay all his debt.

So also my heavenly father will do to

every one of you if you do not

forgive your brother from your heart. Now when

Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away

from Galilee and entered the region of Judea

by the Jordan.

If you write in your Bibles, that that

last part there, the end of chapter 18,

should be underlined,

starred, highlighted, circled, all the things

because it's the point of the parable,

and it's great. It's a huge warning, and

throughout this week, I I kind of wrestled

from the time we went from sermon meeting

and we went through this week until this

weekend. I'm like, it's really important that we

would know the magnitude of the warning.

That that this is something that's he doesn't

say like if you feel like it.

He says this is what's gonna happen.

If you if you're a person who says,

I I could never, I will never,

we're gonna talk about the hard truth.

Here's the hard truth.

Maybe you don't know grace,

maybe you haven't experienced

the supernatural

forgiveness of God, of a debt that you

could never pay.

Maybe that's an indicator

in your life

that you don't really

grasp

what the debt that Christ paid,

the debt that's been forgiven.

Because if we grasp that,

if we grasp that,

we're certainly going to be people who say,

I know it's difficult, maybe even seems impossible

to me, but I'm going to pass that

along. And there's something to keep in your

back of your mind

as we go through the rest of this,

this weekend, the rest of this message.

Jesus

thinks this is possible.

This is built

on Jesus

believing this is possible.

So if in your mind you're saying that's

not possible, I could never,

you're not arguing with me.

You're arguing with Jesus

who says

this is the expectation

that we would be people who pass along

this kind of forgiveness.

This got all in my business. I'm already

all up in yours, so let's go.

Here's the deal. We're called to cancel offenses,

not track them. We're called to cancel

offenses, not track them, and this goes against

everything within us. Jesus connects the dots for

Peter by using a Biblical story. In Genesis

chapter four, there's a guy who shows up

by the name of Lamech. He's a descendant

of Cain, and Cain was the first murderer

in the Bible. So,

you've got this lineage

from Cain to Lamech,

and it's a family line of violence.

And so

Lamech says, if Cain's revenge is sevenfold,

then Lamech's is 70 sevenfold.

He's not setting a limit. He's declaring

that Lamech's

payment is

unlimited

vengeance.

Lamech represents

the world's system.

If you

offended me

to a certain level,

you

don't deserve

forgiveness.

And the gospel says

it doesn't matter if they deserve it.

It doesn't matter if they deserve it. It

doesn't matter if they ask for it. It

doesn't matter if they want it.

It doesn't matter if they humble themselves and

come and ask for it.

There's something that that has to happen within

us.

And somebody said that Jesus takes this saying

and he flips it upright, the world's thinking

is upside down and so Jesus comes and

he takes Lamech's thinking and he flips it

upright

and what happens is he gives us a

representation

of what it looks like to live in

the kingdom. And so 70 times seven is

an idiom of limitless forgiveness.

This 77 times.

It's not saying count to them. It's it's

just a way of saying

don't count. There's unlimited forgiveness.

Stop counting.

This is the overflow of something deeper.

It's the overflow of the work of Jesus

in us.

It's the overflow,

that we've really grasped

forgiveness because forgiveness stops being a decision that

we that we make and it starts becoming

who we are. The more that we understand

the gospel, the more that that plays out

in our life. How would I not forgive

when I'm forgiven? And then once again, it's

complicated. Does it mean? It does not mean

that we just go back and we pretend

like something didn't happen.

It's not like we just pretend that the

offense didn't didn't occur.

Because when we do that with Jesus, if

we pretend like the offense didn't occur, occur,

what happens?

We forget.

The offense occurred,

and because the offense occurred,

it keeps me humble under the rule of

Jesus,

and I recognize my need for Jesus, the

one who has forgiven my debt.

And so when I I think about relationships

with other people, I I don't just go

and maybe put myself in the same situation.

I'm wise.

It requires wisdom,

but it requires a work inside. He says

that this is a forgiveness in the heart,

and so what we're talking about is grace

received must become grace given.

That's the story.

The grace that I've received is the grace

that I pass on and it does require

wisdom.

It requires wisdom.

Because here's the thing, Jesus says you must

forgive them in your heart and that doesn't

look like this.

Somebody has offended you.

They don't know it.

Or maybe even they do.

In your wrestling you're like, You know what?

I do. I have to forgive them. I

have to forgive them in my heart.

So because I've forgiven them, I wanna make

sure that they know.

So I'm gonna tell them,

Hey, by the way, you hurt my feelings

and I've forgiven you.

Don't do that.

That's the wrong answer, okay? You just took

your forgiveness and made it about you,

And now they have to forgive you.

You just passed it along.

Now you're like Now they're sitting there going,

Hey, I'm glad that you forgave me for

my offense. Now I gotta forgive you for

your offense because I'm offended at you.

Now we're in this cycle.

Don't do that.

If it's real, if it's genuine, if it's

something that he's doing within you, you don't

have to declare it to the other person.

Now if a person comes to you and

they've offended you and you've followed Christ in

that and you've forgiven them and they come

to you and they say to you,

I'm sorry.

I did this thing to you,

please forgive me. Well then it would be

appropriate for you to say, I've already forgiven

you.

I've already forgiven you. We're good. I've forgiven

you. There's no offense to be forgiven.

I've forgiven you.

And it's also the reason why we need

to stop calling Matthew 18 the the church

discipline chapter. It turns out it's not about

that.

It's about life in the kingdom. We should

call it the kingdom life.

Humble, pursuing others, living within the body of

Christ,

forgiving as we're forgiven,

chasing each other down when we go astray,

caring for one another, living in community

with each other.

You see, withholding forgiveness contradicts the gospel we

can aim to believe

and that's why we started with a warning.

If we absolutely

refuse to embrace

the forgiveness

of Christ in the lives of other people,

forgiveness in our hearts, we're saying, I don't

know that I really believe it or at

least

my allegiance isn't with Jesus. My allegiance is

somewhere else. My allegiance is most likely to

me.

So what does the gospel actually look like

when it's lived out? It looks like this

parable.

When someone truly understands that the king has

forgiven them,

it lets us be transformed

in how we treat others.

Once again, not pretending that the offense didn't

happen,

Forgiving is not forgetting.

It's remembering

but without exacting payment.

It's not throwing it in someone else's face,

it's saying it's been redeemed. I've forgiven it.

You see, real forgiveness

reflects Jesus' heart and it defines life in

his kingdom.

So when you step back and you look

at the whole parable,

that's what Jesus has been showing them.

This isn't really about the other person or

what they did when you look at it.

It's not about the person who has offended

you, it's about you.

This is the irony of this.

Your entire life in God's kingdom is built

on one foundation.

You've been shown

mercy you didn't

deserve.

You've been shown mercy you didn't deserve.

You know what that's called? That's good news.

You've been shown mercy you didn't deserve.

That $6,000,000,000

thing you could never pay?

Wow.

Forgiven.

Paid

by Christ.

But here's the honest part, the grace we're

called to give doesn't work like a light

switch. It's It's not something you can just

go, Oh okay, I heard this today. I'm

gonna walk out of here. Oop, problem solved.

Last three years of my life I've been

struggling with this thing, but now I guess

I'm not.

No. It requires that we embrace the process.

I'm gonna use in a a baseball analogy,

because it just works for this.

Trust the process. And so here's what happens

in baseball. In baseball,

being a hitter is very difficult. Hitting a

baseball, it's very

difficult.

You know it's difficult

because if you're a professional baseball

player and you hit a baseball

and get on base one third of the

time,

do you know what happens to you?

You end up in the hall of fame

as one of the greatest baseball players who

ever played.

It's hard.

And sometimes they get they get in slumps

where they they're doing all the things,

but they're not getting on base. They have

to trust the process. They have to trust,

okay, I'm gonna work with my coach. I'm

gonna work with my hitting coach. Do you

know what professional baseball players do you know

who they work with?

They're making multimillion

dollars

and they're working with a swing coach. Do

you know what golfers do who are making

multimillion

dollars? They work with a swing coach.

As followers of Christ,

there's wisdom here for us.

What's it look like for us to to

be open to seeking wise counsel, to to

going, Wow, I've not been able to figure

this one out. I need to clude other

people,

not to bash the person who needs forgiveness,

but what does that look like for me

to work through this? What does this look

like for me to work through this process?

You see, forgiveness is a journey with Jesus

empowered by the spirit over time.

Forgiveness like this isn't something we can produce

on our own. I don't believe this is

something you can dig deeper and find. I

believe that this is a supernatural work of

people who are born through the spirit of

God. People who are who have become new

in Christ, followers of Christ,

who've been born again or born from above,

this is what John calls it,

who are indwelt by the Spirit of God.

That's what's required to see this kind of

response. It's a spirit empowered response.

And so Paul writes this to the church

in Ephesus. He says, do not grieve the

Holy Spirit of God

by whom you were sealed for the day

of redemption.

Let all bitterness and wrath

and anger and clamor and slander be put

away from you along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one

another as God in Christ forgave you.

Therefore,

be imitators of God as beloved children

and walk in love as Christ loved us

and gave himself up for us a fragrant

offering

and sacrifice to God. That's the Spirit empowered

life.

That requires

that we don't grieve the spirit, we obey

the spirit.

That we are yielded

to the spirit so that we can actually

be kind to one another.

We can be tenderhearted,

we can

forgive one another as God in Christ forgave

you. How did Jesus forgive

you? Completely.

It's an unlimited

forgiveness.

So forgiveness is the hard work of saying

yes to Jesus

again

and again and you could add like a

bunch more agains.

Again and again and again and again until

it's really annoying. Keep saying that to yourself.

How many times? And again

and yet again. You keep offending me.

And you forgive

yet again. Now it doesn't mean that you

don't address relational problems. It doesn't mean that

you don't seek counseling. It doesn't mean that

you just keep letting the same situation

play out and you become, you know, just

a an emotional punching bag. No. It does

mean that because of forgiveness

you step into the situation.

I don't hold your offense against you

by stepping into the offense.

Forgiveness

demonstrates our allegiance to Jesus

and living under his reign in our everyday

lives. This is the culmination of real life

with Jesus in his kingdom that this is

what this looks like. It looks like a

life that has submitted to the rule and

reign of Christ.

We've humbled ourselves

under the authority of Christ.

We're connected with other followers of Jesus.

We go after those who strayed

and we forgive with a supernatural forgiveness that

comes from the spirit of God alone.

Forgiveness

demonstrates

ultimately

who I believe.

Do I believe Jesus

or not? So real life with Jesus in

his kingdom is fueled by grace demonstrated by

unlimited

forgiveness

And the question is always, so what will

you do with it? This week,

we're headed towards a national holiday of celebrating

Thanksgiving, right? We're heading toward that place of

being grateful.

And before we get there, I wanna encourage

you that you would reconcile

things in your own heart and mind.

We can't possibly

demonstrate

thankfulness

for the gospel

and not pass along forgiveness.

The hypocrisy

of walking into thanksgiving saying, God, I'm so

grateful.

And yet harboring things against another person in

our heart and mind who doesn't deserve our

forgiveness,

it it's the ultimate in hypocrisy.

What are you grateful for?

Well, I'm grateful for the 6,000,000,000 out of

my account, but I'm still gonna look for

all the 10 thousands people owe me.

Or

I'm grateful

that I'm forgiven so that I can live

in the freedom of Christ. And so my

story, it it played out over time. I

I had deep wounds because

the offense against me wasn't just against me.

It wasn't just that I lost a job.

It wasn't just that. It was like, woah,

this this impacted my whole family. This was

a wound that that impacted all of us

and so I I wrestled with it over

time and it began, it was always on

the front of my mind.

And I wrestled through it because it's like,

God, I don't think I should have to.

I wrestled with God for a couple years

and I finally had to come to grips

with the fact that I was mad at

Jesus, I was mad at the world,

I was working it out slowly through the

power of the spirit, it wasn't something that

happened in an instant.

And then do you know what happened?

There were other offenses by other people that

started mounting up as well.

All of a sudden it felt like, wow

I have this huge gaping wound and now

I have all these other little

stab wounds to go along with it.

How's this ever gonna work out? And so

I I was working it through my mind

from last night until today.

It is probably

about six years later.

It's about six years later

and,

I ran into him at a conference.

Where do you run into people at a

conference? In a bathroom? Of course, that's where

you're gonna run into people, right? I ran

into him, I was like, Woah,

hello.

And I realized something in that moment.

I realized that God had done a supernatural

work over time.

That there had been something through the intentional

work of allowing the spirit of God to

transform my heart and mind, because when I

saw him, I didn't

feel the emotion of how dare you, how

could you. I was able to smile, I

was able to to go,

with a genuine kind of way, Hey, how

are you? What's going on in your world?

And here's ultimately what what happened is God

revealed that that this was something in the

back of my mind while forgiveness had happened

over time, it was so gradual, I didn't

even realize the completion of it until he

revealed it to me through an encounter with

a person. It doesn't make any sense. I

still to this day believe it was the

supernatural kindness of God to allow me to

encounter him in that restroom,

as weird as that sounds.

And in that moment,

I knew that forgiveness had brought healing,

not to our relationship,

not to the relationship between the two of

us,

but to me. Because the irony of forgiveness

is that it restores you.

It restores you.

You may have heard this before,

it's a common phrase that you have a

person living rent free in your head.

There's someone that they're always on your mind,

they're coming to mind, they're the person when

we're talking about today, it's the first thing

that came to mind, they are hanging out

and they are living there and they're paying

no rent,

and what they're doing is they're keeping you

in bondage.

You're not experiencing the freedom of the gospel.

You're not experiencing

the freedom of Christ because you've not extended

forgiveness.

As followers of Jesus, we forgive

because we're forgiven.

You may have heard this before,

forgiveness

is based on forgiveness.

It's not based on a qualifying

ask, it's not based on deserving, it's not

based on,

somebody

just having a deep regret and finally they

got to the point where you're like, Okay,

I'll forgive you. No, it is an unconditional

supernatural thing that's through the spirit of God

as we yield and humble ourselves to His

power at work in us.

So my encouragement to you is, go to

work.

Embrace the process.

Don't write it off.

Maybe you are five

levels

removed.

And I wanna encourage you, I wanna encourage

you this week, listen to the podcast, it's

in the Live It Out Guide. Listen to

the podcast, we worked through some of this

in there. It's not simple.

It's not just a decision that you make

and you move on and it's not something

that you go, well, it's all gonna work

out in the end. It's not.

Without you embracing the supernatural

work of God in your heart and mind

to extend grace in a way that's beyond

your ability.

That's what

the church is.

This is the picture of life in God's

kingdom.

To be these people. We need each other.

We need each other when we're like, man,

I don't know what to do.

This is the relationship that I have. This

is the relationship that ended. This is the

the thing where I am. This is the

person who walked out the door on me,

this is the business partner who betrayed me

and walked away with a bazillion dollars, whatever

that may be. Now I wanna say to

you, this parable is not about money.

Don't don't misapply the parable. Once again, doesn't

mean that if the spirit of God says,

Hey, forgive the real debt that they have,

that you should, but it's not a command

that anybody who might owe you money doesn't

owe you money. Okay? That is not what

this parable is about. This is about forgiveness.

The supernatural work of God in our heart

and minds.

And once again, I'm not saying the spirit

of God might not say,

you need to give, forgive the actual

financial obligation.

Just saying, Don't use this parable to do

it.

So here's the question, I want to encourage

you, and before I do.

So it's one thing to say, Reach out

for help, it's another thing to give you

a resource. So there's two resources. One way

you can reach out for help is by

buying a book called Forgive by Timothy Keller

and going through the process and using the

appendix in the back. There's four of them.

To work through the process. What's it look

like for me to allow the spirit of

God to use scripture to change my heart

and mind over time?

Another way is you might need counseling, you

might need somebody to come alongside and help

you in that process and that's

why we wanna encourage you to reach out

for a referral.

Don't keep doing the same thing.

Change course

and don't think, oh, I'll do that someday.

We want to encourage you, don't delay because

the longer that we delay, especially from weekends,

the longer that we delay in following through,

the chances that we'll follow through, they they

start to decrease exponentially.

And so I want to encourage you follow

through.

Here's the question though,

that I'm gonna ask us to all wrestle

with.

Where is Jesus asking you to pursue Him,

so that you can forgive

like Him?

I do believe the lack of forgiveness is

out of a lack of pursuit.

If we're pursuing Christ,

forgiveness becomes a lot easier.

When I grasp what Jesus is doing in

me,

extending that onto other people

is a lot easier.

And so I want to encourage you, ask

that question. I'm gonna give you like twenty

seconds.

Where is Jesus asking you to pursue Him

so that you can forgive like Him? And

and hold it captive, write it down, maybe

like, I don't even gotta write that down,

I know, I know that.

Ask him that

question.

So over the next couple of days, my

encouragement to you is to do the work.

Use the Live It Out guide. Over the

next couple days, as we head and we

celebrate

Thanksgiving, as we celebrate our gratefulness

to God for all the abundance of blessings

in in our world and in our lives,

let's begin by doing the hard work,

trusting the process that that as we do,

we'll experience a gratefulness

we could never have known

any other way. Now in all of our

venues, I'm gonna invite you to stand. Father,

we are grateful that you're a God who's

led us out of darkness and into the

light. And we pray that this week we

would be people who walk in the light

of the truth of the gospel.

We declare your praise now in Jesus name.

Amen.