23rd January 2022 - Teaching Service - Dave Food - Forgive, it's a new day

So that would be great and I'll get the recording going ready for the podcast.

Our theme for January is it's a new day. Did you know?

Today's a new day? Whatever happened yesterday and Judy describe what our day was

like yesterday. It's a new day today, and we can carry forward all

the rubbish from yesterday and the day before and the day before and the day

before if we want to. But I'll be really honest with you, I

get tired of that. I get tired of carrying the past with me.

I want to carry celebrations forward. I want to carry good memories forward,

but I want to leave behind the things that need to be left behind.

So my title for the day is forgive, it's a new day. Or

maybe you want to take it around the other way and say it's a new

day, forgive. Whichever way you want to take those two pieces, just

put them together and say it's a new day. Forgive, forgive, it's

a new day now. The first thing whenever I talk to people one on

one or praying with people, I say I just is there anything you need

to forgive somebody? For the first response I always get is a hedgehog response.

No, and typically that's a great sign to me that there is something

that needs to be forgiven. You know, I had a problematic knee.

I had a bike accident when I was fifteen, and the nerves inside my

knee were quite close to the surface. So whenever you touch my knee,

I kicked out. You know, when you go to the doctors and they

test your knee and they tap your knee just to test your reflexes are working

every time they came to that test. Whenever I had to go to a

doctor's I say, don't test this knee because I will kick you. Don't

test this knee because I will I will launch you across the room. And

I have one doctor and said, well I need to test your reflexes,

sir, I said, well, okay, but I have warned you.

He tapped my knee and my knee went out and I kicked him in the

face. And it wasn't my fault. It's just my reflex is responding because

there was a nerve very close to the surface that every time he touched it,

there was a reaction. And it's the same with unforgiveness. Unforgiveness sits

very close to the surface and when people come and say, you know,

you keep on talking about that. Is there something you need to let go?

Oh? No, there is no. Yeah, the hedgehog response comes

again, or maybe, if you prefer for those in North America, the

pork you bind response and then then comes a butt or something. But you

don't understand, Dave, what he did to me, what she did to

me. They lied about me again and again and again. She wanted to

she wanted to beat me, she wanted to get my job. You can't

imagine the struggles that I've been through. Well, probably I can't, but

we can still forgive. If you only knew what this has done to me

inside, you'd be angry too, trying to get me onside and join them

in their unforgiveness. And you probably had similar kind of comments, similar kind

of things said. And so I'm going to take us through some scripture just

to explore some principles here. And it's one final phrase that I've heard a

number of times. I can never forgive them. There's something that has almost

become unforgivable. And I want to start with the picture that I have,

which is we as human beings. When Pilot said, who do you want

to send to the cross for Abas or Jesus. They said, Jesus,

Jesus. You know, as mankind, we put the son of God on

the cross, and God forgave us. God has forgiven us, and God

will forgive us for the things that we do wrong, even though we choose

unholy and ungodly things. So let's look at our first scripture here, and

that you might imagine, I'm going to have to look at the screen,

so I hadn't printed them out. But here's Matthew six, verses fourteen and

fifteen four. If you forgive men their trespasses from the Lord's prayer, Father

will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses,

neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. It's pretty tough, isn't it pretty

tough forgive? So that you can no forgiveness doesn't mean that God doesn't forgive

us, or does it. The Father will also forgive you. The Father

will also forgive you. You know, it's good to model forgiveness. If

you've got young children, if you've got nieces and nephews, you know,

something happens and there's a place to forgive. Somebody do it in the open.

I don't mean in public, in front of church, but in front

of your children. Show them what forgiveness is. I think forgiveness is a

very hidden thing too. We like to make it all private, or you

hurt me, so I'll have a private conversation. I'm not saying we need

to do all of it in public, but let's model it with our children,

let's model it with the next generation, let's model it with unbelievers.

I remember being in another leader's house one day and we'd been having a meeting

and we were just about to go. I think everybody had left. I

think I was the last person to leave, and then a quick phone call

happened, and the pastor's wife got this phone call, and there was a

discussion going on between the pastor and his wife, and they were having a

bit of a disagreement, and I said, I'll leave, and said they

said, no, no, they've stay. Just stay for a few more

minutes. And they resolved it, and then they said sorry to one another

for being a little angry. They said, thanks, Dave, could you

just pray for us? And then what we go? I said, why

did you want me to stay? I said, well, We didn't want

you to just see us start having a disagreement and then leave thinking we're in

trouble. Just wanted to journey with you, and so I want to encourage

you. Sometimes it's good and healthy to see forgiveness flow, to see life

in reality. Let's forgive. Let's look at our next scripture. Where do

we find this? We find this in Fhesians chapter four, verse thirty two.

And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even

as God in Christ forgave you. And that's an all inclusive you. It's

not just some of us. It's just not the good people. It's not

just the people who have got it all together. It's the people who've not

got it together too. Christ is even more glorified when those who have been

through tough things come to a place of healing and wholeness, when somebody is

able to forgive something dreadful. And I think about one or two stories that

I've seen in the press over the last few years where a Christian parent has

come on and said, I forgive the person who killed their son. I

just think that's a balding. But they were wanting to model something. I

believe they were all Christians, the ones I'm talking about, and they'd obviously

been challenged by the Holy Spirit about their brokenness and their forgiveness in public.

It's a tough thing to do, and some people say, how can you

do that kind of thing? But we've got to keep on modeling it.

We've got to keep on doing it. And it starts with a place of

tenderheartedness. I'm not saying we have to agree and understand exactly how somebody came

to hurt us, but just a softening towards that is the beginning of forgiveness.

And as forgiveness begins, forgiveness can be completed in Christ. And as

forgiveness can be completed in Christ, then we can see breakthrough. There's another

phrase that I often hear where people say, well, he doesn't deserve to

be forgived forgiven. Well, I'll be honest with you, how many of

us deserve to be forgiven? Very few of us. Let's look at the

next scripture then, to remind us and to help us to explore. In

Colossians three, verse thirteen, how do we forgive by bearing with one another

and forgiving one another? If anyone has a complaint against another. Even as

Christ forgave you, so you also must do. You'll also find it says,

do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn,

and you will also be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.

This is in Luke six, verse thirty seven. Jesus laid it out on

the Sermon on the Mount, as he said, you know blessed, for

if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also

forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your father

will also not forgive you. Wow. And then we go on to read

because you're probably going to start to say to me because I'm talking about the

F word, Dave, don't talk to me about the F word. And

I'm talking about giveness here, that's to be clear. But people say,

don't talk about forgiveness because it's a prickly problem. In one Peter four,

verse eights, above all things, so this is over everything else. Have

fervent love, not just a little bit of love, fervent love. I

don't know whether you take one of those. I don't know. I'm doing

a bit of brand advertising in out, but something like a Baraka. One

of those things. You put it in a water and it gives you vitamins

and everything, and it fizzies. And sometimes if you put if you have

too much water in the glass, it just overflows. That for me,

is what fervent love is. Fervent love is when you pour a glass of

champagne and the bubbles fill the glass and flow over the top because there's more

inside and it wants to get out. There's more inside us that wants to

get out. If we will just let it, if we will allow the

love of God to fill us, it will be fervent love. Now.

The thing about pouring a glass of champagne, the thing about pouring something in

that's fervent and activated, is it overflows. And I want to say the

same. If you ask God to fill you with his love, then it

will overflow, and it will overflow, probably in a messy manner. You

know. You think about pouring anything into a jug or a glass and keep

on pouring. It doesn't just come out of a certain particular place, unless

you've got a jug, in which case that's the whole point of it is

to make it come out of a particular place. But it just comes out

all over the place. I believe the same with fervent love. Fervent love

overflows, and it's good. Please don't they stand along If you're feeling unlovable,

stand alongside someone is for the God's love. You'll catch some of the

overflow fervent love for one another. For love covers a multitude of sins.

Doesn't say love hides a multitude of sins. Love covers a multitude of sins.

That doesn't mean love ignores a multitude of thinks. Part of the thing

about love is straight talking. Let's say somebody has got into a particular habit

of saying a particular phrase to you, or you're no good at this you

work for someone and they yeah, yeah, you can't do spreadsheets, can

you, Dave? Oh yeah, you're no good with Xcel? Are you?

Well? Okay, I just want to take a moment and in love

just say, do you know that I find that quite provocative, quite hurtful.

You keep on saying that, Actually, if you genuinely believe that I

could do better with Excel, and maybe I need some training or maybe you

could show me, you know, But but it starts with some truth.

It starts with actually you know, don't wait until the volcanos filled up and

you go wah oh. You always say that I hate you, and suddenly

we say things that we don't want to say. Find a place, find

a place where you can say, you know what, that's been brilliant.

So we cover it with love. We don't ignore it. We call it

for what it is. Think about Think about how you go to bed at

night. You cover yourself with your duvet or your blankets to keep all the

warmth in, and when it's hot you throw them off. But we cover

ourselves with love, and love is all encompassing. Love is all encompassing.

Part of the reason we don't forgive is we don't understand forgiveness. We don't

understand the power of forgiveness. We want to hold on to while I was

right and they were wrong. We want to win. Forgiveness is not about

winning an individual winning. Forgiveness is about God being glorified and about us all

winning together. Rchel Let's click onto the oh, well done, Great one.

Corinthian is thirteen, verse five. In the chapter on the Book of

Love, we read about love is kind, love is patient, and in

verse five it says love does not behave rudely. It doesn't react, does

not seek its own and is not provoked. It thinks no evil. So

instead of defaulting to their wrong and I'm right, let's just find a place

and say, do you know what, we both said some wrong things in

that discussion. Let's see if we can just put it right. Let's say

sorry. And sometimes, and this is where I love the illustration of our

hands. You know, we get into finger pointing when we want to blame

people. We start pointing you said this, and you, and suddenly we've

got two fingers and we've got the war of fingers going on. But I

want to be very careful whenever I point. Sometimes it's good to point,

but I tend to use my whole hand. But if you start pointing a

finger, just think there's three other fingers pointing back at you, So who

are you pointing it? And actually, forgiveness often starts by somebody saying,

you know what, I probably shouldn't have said that, sorry, And then

somebody says, do you know what, I shouldn't have been so provocative?

You're right? Can we forgive one another and then set a seal on it

and pray, don't just leave it as a bit of an open wound.

And when he kind of said, set a seal on it, so it's

not going to come back again, because I do know that the enemy loves

to come along. And a bit like this is a bit like when you've

got a scab on your leg. You know what it's like. When you've

got a scab on your leg. You've cut yourself. The scab's healed,

but the scabs now become really itchy, so you start scratching at it,

picking at it, and suddenly you're bleeding again, and then infection can get

in the enemy. Is exactly the same with forgiveness. If we keep on

I see, I see she said that word again. I don't think she's

really he or she's forgiven you just comes back and niggles again. It's a

bit like scratching that scab again. Could all go badly wrong if you've forgiven

one another and you set a seal on it. Move on. Don't allow

the echoes of the past to influence the truth of today. So let's explore

this in one further step as we go into part A story now in Matthew

eighteen, then Peter came to him and said, Lord, how often shall

my brother sin against me? And I forgive him up to seven times?

And what you think? What did the Lord say? Jesus said to him,

I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to

seventy times seven for those who are any good at mathematics here or those who

aren't. Four hundred and ninety, we're up to four hundred and ninety.

From seven. He went in with seven, Jesus comes back with four hundred

and ninety. Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king who

wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle

the accounts, one was brought to him, who owed him ten thousand talents,

a lot of money. But as he was not able to pay,

his master commanded that he be sold with his wife and children and all that

he had, and that payment be made. The servant therefore fell down before

him, saying, Master, have patience with me, and I will pay

you all. Then the master of that servant was moodly compassion released him and

forgave him. Forgave him he's dead. But the servant went out and found

one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred dinari not quite so much,

And he laid hands on him in a bad way, I imagine,

laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, pay me

what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged

him, saying, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.

Do you recognize these words? And he would not, but went and

threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow

servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved and came and told

their master all that had been done. I don't know what you'd think at

this particular point in the story. Then his master, after he had called

him, said to him, you, wicked servant, I forgave you all

the debts that because you begged me. Should you not also have compassion on

your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you. And his master

was angry and delivered him to the torturers and said he should pay all that

was due to him. So, my heavenly father, okay, now we

bring it back home. So my heavenly father also will do to you if

each of you from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespassess.

Very visual story, and it's interesting that the servant of the Master used exactly

the servant of the servant us exactly the same words as the servant of the

Master. Forgive as you have been forgiven. That's what I started off with

this morning, Forgive as you have been forgiven. So the place we need

to start in being able to forgive others is to know that we're forgiven.

We know that we're forgiven, So we have to start with ourselves. It's

a healthy place to start. Do I know that I'm forgiven? I don't

mean if I upset letter or upset Simon or somebody else. I don't mean

that kind of figure. I mean, I mean know that I'm forgiven as

a human. The God has forgiven me, because that's why he sent his

son Jesus. The transaction has been paid, the price has been paid,

the sacrifice has been made, and so as we've been forgiven, now go

out and forgive others. So the place, the strong place to start is

people church. Everyone know that you're forgiven, and so okay, as a

believer, if you know that you're forgiven, if you come alongside those who

don't. Then you'll often find unforgiveness reigns because they don't know that they're forgiven.

And sometimes if people are brought up in good ways and they've seen forgiveness

models, they want to see an example of what God did for us,

and so they will have learnt some good habits. But until we truly know

that we've forgiven, it's pretty hard to forgive some tough issues and matters.

And so let me start to pull this all together then with my final scripture,

and it's this, Therefore, I say to you, and sorry,

this is a story from Luke when Jesus was talking about forgiveness. And therefore

I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven,

for she loved much, but to whom little is forgiven, the same loves

little. Let's get a grasp forgiving others. Let's love one another and get

a grasp of how God sees other people. And then let's pray and let's

do. Let's forgive. So let me close with some a summary, just

a few things, and I've kind of tried to make this a bit memorable.

Forgive. It's a new day. Firstly, forgive because it's good for

you. Unforgiveness will lead to bitterness, Bitterness will lead to acid stomachs.

And there's a whole bunch of very clear evidence that if we walk around with

unforgiveness, then ultimately that will affect our health. If you want to challenge

me about that, I'm happy to point you to some papers, some medical

papers that talk about those kinds of things. They're not Christian papers, they're

just saying, you know, if you live with unforgiveness, if you know

people who have had major things happen in their life and it affects their health,

it affects their mental well being as well. So forgive firstly because it's

good for you. Firstly, then forgive because he's good for the other person.

I couldn't work out to say this, so I said them. I

don't mean us in them, but you know, if you've forgiven yourself first,

and if you've known forgiveness, then if you can forgive others, it's

good for them too. And then two, it's important to understand that if

we model forgiveness, if we show forgiveness, we live forgiveness. It changes

the economy, the environment, the world that we live in. I've seen

examples when I was a primary school teacher, I've seen examples of a child's

hurting another child completely accidentally running across the playground. Bang. You know,

one child wasn't looking where the other was going. He was focused on the

football. Knocked the child over and then got up, and then the child

was crying. And you know, as the playground playground supervisor that particular point,

I went across and this child was already saying, I'm really sorry.

I didn't mean I didn't see you. You know, it was almost upset

that this other child was so upset. But then the child had been knocked

over. Went on and I can't remember what. They tripped over again as

they were running across the playground and they head butted the child in their head,

went into the child's another child's stomach. So they were so kind of

excited and they ran and they immediately said, oh, I'm sorry, And

you just saw this kind of skittles or things being knocked over. That forgiveness

was getting multiplied across the playment playground, So forgive because it's good for the

economy, it's good for the environment. It's a new day. Forgive.

M Let me pray rather, thank you that you first showed us that we

can forgive because you forgave us. And so Father, we start with a

place of thankfulness, and we say Lord, thank you Father, thank you

for sending your son. Father, Thank you for sending Jesus to die in

my place. Jesus, thank you for being obedient to your father and going

to the cross and dying for my sin that I might know freedom. So

thank you Father, Thank you Jesus, and thank you Holy Spirit that I

can know that freedom, that forgiveness on a daily basis. Keep on reminding

me that I'm forgiven. Father, God, keep on letting me know that

I'm forgiven. And as I'm forgiven, let it overflow to others that they

might know that they're forgiven too. And Father, I pray for healing and

wholeness to flow from today for these moments as a result of this word,

as you've sowed it in my heart, let forgiveness flow. Let your kingdom

come, Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Part of the principles of the Kingdom. As it said in Corinthians thirteen love

and as love flows, forgiveness flows too. We get beyond ourselves and say,

Father, I want to pray that for everybody listening, both now in

the room and later they can say it's a new day, forgive the way

to walk in the day, and then to the end of the day they

can say I have forgiven, so it's a new day. And Father,

I want to pray for everyone who has something that they're wrestling with that they

just can't do on their own. Lord, would you help them? Would

you send someone or would you get them to ask someone. I can't do

this on my own, because Lord, you provide supernaturally friends, angels,

your presence, Lord, to help us to find had, healing and wholeness

in your mighty name, Amen,