Ministry Relationship’s - 2 Corinthians 2

Good morning. Good to see everybody.

So here I am. It's May and it's my month to

teach and preach. So I'm I'm grateful to be here

again and thankful for Pastor Lewis's teaching and Book of

Revelation. It's been very, very powerful.

We're actually teaching in the Book of Revelation on Grace FM

right now as well. I'm in chapter 16.

So if you want to get ahead of Pastor Lewis and act like you

know what's going on, you can listen on radio and tell them.

I can tell you something about that book now.

But anyway, you can never get enough of that.

That particular book. So this particular book that you

were talking about, Carrie on the marquee, lady, she's a

remarkable woman. She was displaced in the

Ukraine, losing her home, having to leave because of the war.

And they have a lot of friends and family and loved ones that

still are in Ukraine, but they're in Budapest right now

developing another ministry. But a remarkable family.

They've been through an awful lot.

And that is a book that I guess if you read it, you'll really

value living in America where you don't have to be displaced

right now. You can live with a degree of

safety and comfort compared to many other places in the world.

So we need to keep Ukraine in prayer as we do Israel, Iran,

all these places, Russia that are battling with each other and

pray that these wars will come to an end sooner than later.

And I was thinking to the, I had a dream the other day.

It was really crazy. Dream says you're young men will

dream dreams, right? Your old man will see I have

visions. Is that how it goes?

Right. All right, so I guess I'm still

a young guy. I'm having dreams.

But anyway, the dream is on Grace FM and it was such a

powerful dream. And I was meeting these people

that were listening to the radio station, and their lives are

being dramatically impacted because of the message of the

gospel on Grace FM. And when I'm out in public and

in real life, I run into people many times they tell me they

listen to Grace FM and it's a blessing to them.

And they watch on the YouTube too as well, or the teaching.

So this church, this isn't the people in the building.

We have a tremendous outreach in the community to many people

that aren't going to church right now for some degree of

reason maybe, but they find comfort in listening to Grace FM

online and also watching the YouTube and then turning the

radio on in their car. And so please continually pray

for that outreach. It's very powerful.

I take it for granted. I guess I shouldn't, but I do.

Sometimes we have a radio station, it's not easy to get

one. And so we have this tremendous

outreach where we can reach so many, many people and, and the

Lord is providing for that station that funds commend by

listeners and people support the, the station with the Grace

FM app, Calvary Chapel apps that we're very grateful for that as

well. So let's pray and then we'll get

into the book of Second Corinthians chapter 2.

2 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

Father God, we thank you this morning for the opportunity to

be together as a body of believers, a family of God, in

one place for a little bit of time today where we can let the

Word wash over our minds and our hearts and transform us and make

us a little bit more like you, Lord.

And we're grateful that the Word has power to change our lives,

no matter where we've been, what we've been through, what we've

experienced, the things we've done wrong.

Lord, the Word always comforts us because it reminds us that

there's a Savior, Jesus Christ, who went to the cross to die on

the cross for our faults, our sins, our dysfunction, and has

forgiven us for everything we've ever done and ever will do, and

has cleansed us with His blood and made us new creatures in

Christ. As your word says, if anyone is

in Christ, a new creation, new creatures, old things passed

away, old things become new. And we're so thankful that

there's the opportunity to be made new every day, no matter

where we've been, what we've been through, what we've had,

the experience. Lord, with regret and sorrow,

we're grateful that your word covers all of our sins, your

blood and your death, your bury, your resurrection.

So we praise you. That's why we're here today,

Lord, to learn more about you and how to walk with you and how

to how to treat others like you treat us.

And we pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.

So before I get into this, this particular chapter today, I was,

I was thinking as I was preparing for this message that

that all the problems in life that we have are relational.

They have to do with our ability to communicate with other

people, whether it's family, whether it's marriages, kids,

workers, people in the body of Christ.

It's, it's sometimes it's just really hard to get along with

people. You ever experienced that

sometimes you just have a difficulty and a challenge with

the people in general. And I, I know that by

experience, everyday Cindy and I, we're learning after so many

years of marriage that we still disagree about things and we

still sometimes act in ways that maybe we shouldn't toward one

another. And the Lord has to continually

correct us and remind us how to forgive and how to let go and

how to be gracious. And, and, and that's a, that's a

learning lesson that you don't learn one time.

You need to keep learning it over and over and over again how

to forgive people for certain things.

So this is the issue of Paul and he's teaching in this chapter

about the struggle that he's had with this church in Corinth.

It was a difficult church. The leadership wasn't really

flowing the way it was supposed to and the the power of the Holy

Spirit. They were taking sides and

supporting things that they should have been supporting.

And this initiating a lot of conflict, conflict at times.

And so Paul had to correct them by writing a letter.

And sometimes letters are helpful.

You write a letter to someone about something, maybe that

you're struggling with a relationship issue or something

that the other person doesn't see or understand.

And the letter sort of covers the other person's viewpoint.

And you have a chance not to react, but to read it and listen

to it and then consider what's being said.

We're trying to figure out how you can justify your behaviour

and have a conversation with the person that wrote the letter and

tell them why they're wrong or why you're right.

That happens too, unfortunately, but this happened in Corinth.

When Paul wrote this letter initially, they weren't

responding to the letter the way they should to, to take

corrective action. So Paul had to really put some

pressure on them and really call them out on their behavior as

leaders and allowing sin to exist in the church.

It should have been dealt with and, and sort of blowing,

blowing past the issue of the incestuous relationship that

that one guy had with his his stepmother.

So they did they did deal with it.

They eventually had to call the guy out and he was disciplined

by the church and he was out of the church for a while until he

got his life back together again.

So this is sort of the chapters background and, and what we're

what we're dealing with. But one of the things that's

hard for leaders and pastors and, and, and guys, you, you're

pastors of your home as well. It's never easy to have to wear

a Black Hat and bring a message of warning or exhortation or

correction. Because most of the time

whenever you have to say something, it's truthful and

it's hard. People don't really respond to

it right away with optimist, optimistic attitude.

They they sort of have pushed back or they don't want to hear

it. And so whenever you bring some

correction to someone about something, it causes a degree of

pain. And none of us want to be

responsible for causing pain in anybody else's life.

I know I don't and I'm sure you don't either, but sometimes we

cause pain by the way we handle things or don't handle things in

this situation. Paul was a guy that the Lord

used to create the awareness of the dysfunction that was

involved in the spiritual leadership of this particular

church. And, and Lewis and I and the

guys, we pray every Sunday when we're in the hallway before we

come out here, that sometimes the messages we have a really

difficult to preach. Sometimes you, you wish that you

could skip a chapter or skip a verse or skip, you know, a

paragraph, whatever. And when you're in a Bible

church, you don't have the luxury of doing that.

You got to cover everything that the scriptures teach because

it's God's Word and he wants you and me to hear it and then also

to be blessed by it, but also to be corrected by it whenever we

need to have a heads up about something in our life.

And so when we teach these things, we certainly as leaders

don't act like we have it all together.

We're in process too. We're all learning how to live

the Christian life. It's it's not one and done kind

of thing. It's something that you got to

constantly be educated in and her hearing the word and then

being able to repent and be corrected, not out of guilt or

regret, but out of like, thank you, Lord, you showed me this

and I can actually be changed by you.

I want this area in my my heart and my life to be changed.

So this is what Paul's dealing with.

So let me read some verses here and then we'll begin to make

some comments. But I in chapter 2 of second

Corinthians verse one determined this within myself that I would

not come again to you in sorrow. For if I make you sorrowful,

then who is he who makes me glad?

That the one who is made sorrowful by me.

And I wrote this very thing to you, lest when I come, I should

have sorrow over those whom I ought to have joy, having

confidence in you all, that my joy is the joy of you all.

For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you

with many tears, and not that you should be grieved, but that

you might know the love which I have so abundantly for you.

So he's laying the background here of he can't make the trip

to Corinth right now. He's not making excuses.

He has to do other things. But he knew that the timing

wasn't right. He had already told them what

they needed to do. They were processing the letter

and beginning to make correction and where they needed to do

correction. But it wasn't easy for them to

do this. So instead of Paul showing up as

some kind of heavy-handed dictator, which he never was, he

he's behind the scenes now letting the Holy Spirit do what

only he can do in the hearts of the people in the church.

And the particular man had committed this grievous sin to

get right with the Lord. But as he was dealing with this,

he wanted the people to know that this was breaking his heart

as to what was going on in the church.

He felt bad for them. He felt sorry for them.

He obviously felt bad for the man who had fallen into sin and

had to be basically thrown out of the church for a period of

time because he wouldn't repent. And it was, it was very

difficult. And this was the responsibility

of, of the, of the leader. He had to be faithful to to say

to speak the truth and love, just like you have to be able to

be able to speak the truth in love when you when you don't

really want to, but you know, you need to in order to see

changes made, whether it's in your marriage or with your kids

or with someone at work or some neighbor or someone in in the

church, whatever it there's always these conflicts that can

occur. So he he begins in verse 5.

Now we'll pick it up where I left off last time, but if

anyone's caused grief, he has not grieved me, but all of you

to some extent, not to be too severe.

Whenever you or I do something in our lives that is hurtful

towards someone else, we think sometimes it's just between me

and that person. But what happens is if you're in

a family or in a church, many times what happened in that

relationship spills out to hurt other people, right?

If you're a husband and wife and you're having conflict, your,

your problems are going to spill over into the lives of your

children. It's going to hurt them, it's

going to stumble them. And so the Bible says the sin of

one person effects everybody. And it's really true.

We have to take responsibility to understand that your sin

effects other people and my sin effects other people.

And so we have to understand that.

And Paul talked about this pain that was being caused in Second

2 Corinthians 2:5–8

Corinthians chapter 2 verses 5 through 8.

This punishment, verse 6, which was inflicted by the majority,

is sufficient for such a man. So that On the contrary, you

ought rather to forgive and comfort him, lest perhaps such 1

be swallowed up with too much sorrow.

So you have a situation where someone has done something wrong

and they get it and they are truly repentant.

They're sorry and they want to let you know they're sorry that

they wish they wouldn't have done what they've done the way

they did it. They they feel really bad that

it caused all this pain for other people beside their own

personal regret of what they had caused and what they had

inflicted on someone else. So this particular situation

that we're studying about here, it could be that man who

committed the incestuous incident with his mother-in-law.

It's not real clear like who this person was.

The name isn't there and the consequence of the story isn't

really clear in this particular chapter.

Or could have been someone else in the church that was rebelling

against the apostles and the leadership and causing a big

uproar and, and, and trying to bring division in the church.

It could be several, several different things, but it's

immaterial. That's not really important as

to who or what did this, this problem.

The the point is here in this chapter that discipline had been

exercised that the people did what they needed to do in that

church in Corinth to correct whatever the situation was.

So Paul's urging them now that this man really repented.

He's sorry for what he did and everybody has to change your

attitude toward this person now. They can't be condemning them.

They can't be hating them. The church needs to respond in

in a way of God's grace and his love.

And so we talked about this last time I was in this chapter that

if someone sins against you, Matthew 1815 says you go and

tell them their fault between you and him, you or her alone,

it doesn't matter. Male or female, you, you, you

deal with this issue yourself and not trying to bring a bunch

of other people into the situation.

If they listen to you, you've gained your brother, it says in

Matthew 1815. So whenever there's pain that's

caused and someone's life because of something you or I

have done or said, we have to on the other side, the receiving

side, if I've received the pain, I have to ask the Lord for help

to know how to forgive and to be willing to forgive and not to

come against that person who created the pain in me in such a

way that's going to cause more problem or more conflict.

And when there's a grievance between two individuals, it's

not good if this grievance begins to spread and touch other

people as well in their lives. So This is why Paul is writing

this in verse 8. He's talking about not causing

too much sorrow upon the person who committed the sin.

He says I urge you to reaffirm your love to him.

For to this end, I also wrote that I might put you to the test

whether you're obedient in all things.

Now whom you forgive anything I also forgive.

For if I indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that

one for your sake and the president of Christ, lest Satan

take advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices.

So one of the biggest problems in relationship is that the

devil is never letting things lie.

He always wants to poke and to provoke you to more

unforgiveness and more anger and more hatred and more bitterness

in your heart toward whoever it is that you have your conflict

with. This is the the role of the Evil

1. He likes to sow discord among

the brother, and he loves and he smiles and he's happy when

people leave churches because someone did whatever or because

churches split because of the leadership.

Or I mean, it can go on and on and on.

And it's tragic what happens because of our unwillingness to

get our eyes on the Lord and to forgive people who have hurt us.

And the Bible tells us the effect of righteousness.

God's righteousness will be peace.

Isaiah 3217 says that. And so there has to be a

faithful confrontation of of of a problem.

You just can't act like something isn't there or it

didn't happen because it won't be dealt with that way.

And that's the way it is when you have real difficulties in

your life with people, you have to understand that the basis of

working out peace in a relationship, it's fractured, is

to have this readiness and this willingness to forgive.

And there's an indication in in this chapter thus far that the

person that did the sin acknowledged it.

And they they know they're wrong.

They see the hurt they cause. So there's grief and sorrow

because of it. So what do you do if someone

hurt you and you've forgiven them?

How do you restore that person's relationship to you?

Are you going to say I forgive you, but you don't want to have

anything to do with them? But that's that's not real

forgiveness. It has to be the love of God.

And many times there's an unwillingness to forgive things

in the past that someone's cleared up a long time ago, but

they're still being head over held over his head.

So why? Why would we say we forgive

someone and then we don't want to forgive them?

Really, down deep inside, this man's repented.

He's admitted what he did was wrong.

And in his repentance, he's coming to you personally or that

person, whoever it might be, is coming to you, letting them know

that they understand what they did was wrong and it's hurt

them. And your role in this, according

to Paul and his teaching, is you're to comfort them that they

wouldn't be involved or overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.

Have you ever done anything in your life that you wish you

never did to someone and you really feel bad about it haunts

you many times. And the person you did it

against, you just feel uncomfortable because you know

they're still struggling with letting something go, yet you

know they're hurting too, because they want to be restored

to a relationship with you again, if if at all possible.

And the real sign that someone's really repented about something

that has not been good is that you see the hurt in them and

they understand the hurt that they caused you.

It creates a sense of sorrow in their lives and remorse and that

they've damaged you in some way by the way they acted and what

they did. And it really is difficult.

So the person that hurt you wants to be forgiven, but you

can't demand forgiveness from anybody.

You can't, like, put pressure on someone.

Well, you need to forgive me. The Bible says you need to

forgive me. And that's not it.

You got to give people space and time to be able to process and

to be able to forgive, right? Like if I offend Cindy,

sometimes I want to get it right, right away, like in 5

minutes. She says I need some time.

OK, how much time do you need? How much time do you need?

I don't know. God's grace sometimes is 1/2 an

hour. That's great.

Sometimes it's three days. And that's, that's hard, right?

But you got to walk on egg shells and you just got to shut

your mouth and just let the Spirit do what only he can do in

regards to, to, to the reconciliation.

But the mark of true repentance is, is that you, you see in the

life of the other person that they're very disturbed and

there's sorrow over what they've done.

And the goal of you and me as Christians is to bring people to

a place of recovery, right? That's what Jesus does with us

when we sinned against him and he's forgiven us.

He wants to restore us, doesn't he, and to treat us just like

we've never sinned. He's anyone that can really do

that perfectly. He chooses to not remember our

sin anymore. Human beings aren't like that.

We we have to ask God to help us be like that, but only the Lord

has that ultimate kind of way of, of forgiving.

And so sometimes though, we'll, we'll look and we'll think,

well, what this person did? I, I know I need to forgive

them, but what if it comes up again?

What do I do? What if, what if that behavior

in that person is sort of habitual and, and it's going to

show up again somehow? Well, Jesus was asked the

question one time, How often do I forgive someone for the same

sin? He says 70 * 7 four, 190 times,

that's I'm lucky if I can do it once, let alone twice, 490

times. But that's the grace of God.

That's what's so marvellous about Jesus Christ and who he

is. He's the only one that does that

to anybody and can do it perfectly all the time and more

than 490 times. He does it continually as long

as we repent and come and ask for forgiveness.

He's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to

cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So the whole process of the recovery of the offence is to

bring someone to recovery. And I've watched this in this

church, happened with relationships.

I've watched it in my own family, to see people restored

and forgiven and healing occur. That's what makes our message so

powerful when the world sees what we do that they don't

really ever see happening in real life.

They see you as a Christian forgiving someone that they

would say they never could forgive.

And they'll sometimes say to you, well, how can you do that?

Or how can you forgive or how can you let that go?

And you tell them what Jesus did for you.

That's why you can do it, because Jesus is in you, isn't

he? And his life is living through

you. So any form of restoration or

correction doesn't come from anger, it comes from love.

Love covers a multitude of sins. And Paul suggests that you

should forgive and comfort this person, let's say be overwhelmed

by excessive sorrow. And so this is what we all have

to learn how to do. And this is not an easy thing to

do. So he says in nine through 11

here again that let's see here for to this end.

I also wrote that I might put you to the test whether you're

obedient in all things now whom you forgive anything I also

forgive. So he's be an example.

Paul's forgiving for if I indeed if forgiven anything, I've

forgiven that one for your sake in the presence of Christ, lest

Satan should take advantage of us.

We're not ignorant of his devices.

So this is what I want to dive into a little bit here.

There's three things that are really important in this little

section that I just just read there in regard to restoration.

And this is what we all have to understand how we have to deal

with, deal with this. We can't be ignorant of the

design devices of the devil. Why is there so much division in

our country, in our culture? Why are there so many marriages

ending up in divorce? Why are there so many church

splits? You ask yourself these

questions. We're not to be ignorant of the

devices of Satan. If there's an arsonist loose in

California and they haven't caught him yet, guess what?

There's going to be a lot of fires, isn't there?

And the enemy is always going around trying to start fires,

and he'll do that until the final day when he's thrown into

the abyss. We have to be eternally vigilant

in regards to not being ignorant of the plan of the Evil 1.

We are all in a battle, spiritual battle.

Enemy is constantly trying to take advantage of this situation

and he uses us to defeat us until we're ready to extend full

forgiveness when there are broken relationships within us.

That's what keeps the enemy from taking advantage over you.

Whenever you have the power to forgive, and the power to

forgive comes from Christ, it doesn't come from you.

It comes from Christ in you. There's no way in your human

capacity and ability do you have the ability to forgive people.

This is a work of God's sovereign, omnipotent,

omniscient character. He's merciful.

His goodness endures forever. His mercy endures forever, Paul

tells us in Ephesians, don't let the sun go down upon your wrath.

And Cindy and I were taught this when we first got married at

Bible college. It's easy to get mad and angry

and be proud and just refuse to give each other a kiss before

you go to bed at night. Doesn't mean you're, you've

resolved everything, but you're showing them, Hey, I love you

and I do forgive you, but I'm trying to work through this

problem right now, right? So even though you really don't

want to, the Lord says, get over there and kiss her and tell her

you love her. I, I just want to dig in and

make her feel like she's like, it's all your fault, you know,

but that's not what you do as a Christian.

You, you, you got to, just got to forgive, right?

You don't carry it over to the next day because if you do,

you're giving the enemy the opportunity to keep the evil

power going there. You got to let let it go.

You got to let it go and and on and on and on.

If it's unresolved, you're giving the devil an opportunity

to continually fuel the fire. And then it gets hold of

everybody that's involved. It creates more problems and

spreads it wide and turns the whole family, the church,

whatever upside down eventually. And one of the elements of

restoration involves this awareness that we're in a battle

and that we live in a crazy world under a crazy leader.

And his name is Satan. He's a madman, and all he wants

to do is create conflict and insanity.

So first of all, we have to deal with all this stuff in our own

heart to turn the attack away from the evil 1 and away from

us. Someone said this is a an

analogy to Pastor use at this mental hospital.

The way they could figure out when people were ready to be

able to leave is that they would bring them into a room and there

would be water flowing out of a spigot, spigots on and the water

and they give the person a mop and they say, can you clean this

water up? Well, if if the person just went

over and started cleaning the water up, but then go over and

turn the faucet off, they knew they weren't ready to go out of

the mental hospital. But anybody that went over and

turned the faucet off and then started cleaning water, they

knew that they were healthy and that they could be able to to

move on and, and live their lives with us and you and me.

There's no sense trying to clear a situation up until we've

turned off the tap of the devil's lies.

If we're leaving that tap on and that information keeps flooding

our minds from the Evil 1, there's no forgiveness and

there's no ability to acknowledge any wrongdoing.

One of the problems, too, is you.

You forgive, but if you persist in bringing it up over and over

again, it's like you're trying to mop up a situation where the

water's still flowing. You, you haven't stopped the

insanity, right? And that's plain stupid.

That's why in marriages and many family relationships and in

church, these kind of harmful, hurtful things can go on for

decades and decades. Nobody's turned off the tap.

Nobody's forgiven one another and let it rest in the past.

We all need forgiveness continually, don't we?

I need Jesus more now than I ever needed him ever at any time

of my life. I was thinking like, why did I

get into ministry? Why did I want to be a pastor?

I had no desire to be a pastor. To stand up front and give

messages and then have people say, oh, that was a nice

message, whatever. I wanted to do this because

Jesus helped me and I wanted to help other people.

That was my whole heart for why I wanted to be a pastor, to see

God, help people see their lives change.

He's changed mine. When forgiveness happens in

lives, marvelous things begin to take place.

Families are restored, Marriages are restored.

Couples are restored. Kids are restored.

Your your whole life is transformed whenever you allow

the Lord to to do this kind of stuff in your heart.

What's the purpose of of a church existing if there's no

message of forgiveness being proclaimed?

First of all, Christ forgiveness to us and then our opportunity

and privilege to forgive others. That's what changes the world.

That's why people want to know why you believe what you believe

or what church you go to or is there, is there anybody that

lives this stuff out? Is there any, is there any place

I can find God's mercy? That's what people were looking

for and that's what we all need in our lives.

It's it's an interesting thing, you know, in the marriage

relationship, if you've been married for any period of time

in your marriage has lasted, it's only lasted because you

both have been willing to forgive as Jesus has forgiven

you, right? To see any, any glue that holds

a marriage together in a healthy way.

You recognize your own shortcomings and you always have

them to the day you die and some of them are less than they were

before. Thank God you can't change, but

I think the greatest illustration in this subject

that we're covering today is in Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

If you got a Bible, just turn there for a minute before we

prepare to take the Lord's Supper.

This is one of my favorite sections of the Bible.

When I came to Calvary Chapel or I, I first heard about Calvary

Chapel, this this teaching in the prodigal son was exhibited

to me personally through the teaching of the pastor to the

flock over and over and over again.

And I wanted to be in this kind of place with this kind of God,

with this kind of message, because it's the message of

miraculous healing and transformation.

The parable, the lost son, verse 11.

Then he said a certain man had two sons and the younger them

said to his father, father, give me the portion of goods that

falls to me that his inheritance.

So he divided to them his livelihood.

And not many days after the younger son gathered all

together, journey to a far country and they're wasted his

possession with prodigal living. That's our story, right?

How many times have we come to places in our life where we've

known what our father wanted, but we didn't want what the

Father wanted, so we went our own way, right?

Even though we knew is against the will of the Father, we still

wanted to do what we wanted to do because we're all still

prodigal. I don't care how long you've

been falling, Jesus, how much you love him.

There's deeper places you can go to get closer to him, right,

returning to him at a deeper level than you've ever returned

on before. So he he goes out there, he

wastes his possessions with prodigal living stupid stuff.

But when he had spent all their all his stuff, there arose a

severe famine in the land and he began to be in want.

In other words, he started to get broken and he was reflecting

on where he got to in his life. All the decisions I've made-up

into this point have been a disaster and I'm suffering the

consequences. Then he went and he joined

himself to a citizen of that country and he sent him into the

fields of feed swine. So he's desperate.

Where's the rehab facility or where's the counselor?

Where's the place I can go get help?

So he finds this place that said, hey, you can make some

money, go out and feed the pigs, right?

And so he said he would have gladly filled his stomach with

the pods that the swine ate, but no one gave him anything.

So he's this guy's so low and so broken that he's ready to get

his face down in that pig pen in that pig slop and eat what the

pigs were eating. It looked really good to have at

that point in his life. I remember when I was in boot

camp training at, at the missionary training school at

Cindy and I went to this young kids at the time, we're in early

20s. And you know, I was, I was

clueless, man. I knew a lot about the Bible,

but boy, I didn't know a lot about fallen Jesus, right?

I knew how to be religious and self-righteous, but I I didn't

know how to be real because I wasn't willing to be real with

God. I was playing the game, I guess.

And I remember my job there. I was always deflated because

all the other guys, they had tool belts on.

Like I go burger, he can fix anything, right?

You go out. Why can't I be like him and have

those tools and how I use a tool I'll tear my finger, I'll do

something it's just not going to work.

I'm not not a mechanically minded person says at the end of

the time with the guys giving us a job for the day it tell me and

this other guy I think his name is Jeff.

You guys, you go feed the pigs. So we get in this truck that

look like green acres. If you ever watch that show, Mr.

Haney, and there was no doors on the truck and it was, it was a

mess, man. And we had these big things of

garbage that we had to take down to the pig.

And we, we get down there and they be like going smarting at

us, looking at us. We're going to feed me, feed me.

And we have these long boots on. We have to get down, pour all

this stuff out. Of course, I, I was, I was low,

but I wasn't low enough to eat that.

I was going to eat what Cindy had for me later on.

But anyway, we're, we're pouring all that stuff out.

And I thought how pathetic this is.

This is, you know, and we were fattening these pigs up to

eventually they would be killed and they would teach us how to,

you know, tear the skin off. And boy, I said, this is ham.

You know, this, this looks really good.

It smells good. But I'm thinking it's disgusting

just watching, pulling that whole skin of that animal off as

it hung on a hook. And that was that was my pig

experience. Pig pen, Pig pen experience,

right? But anyway, this guy, he got so

broken, it says in 17 he came to himself.

He said, how many of my father's hired servants have bred enough

to spare? And I perish with hunger.

I will rise and go to my father. And I'll say to them, Father,

I've sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy

to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired

servants. So he's coming to his senses.

Now. This is repentance.

I'm wrong? I've sinned.

He's repenting before God now he's going to go repent before

his father. He knows he can go home there.

He knew enough about this father that his father would be

merciful to him. And he was willing to just go

back and be a servant. He didn't need to be called a

son anymore. And and he, he saw his sin for

what it was. It was it was so bad that he

wasn't even worthy to be called a son anymore.

And I know when I've had my darkest points of my life for my

own sin, I'm thinking, God, how can I still be your son?

How can you still call me your Son?

Your love is without end. So he arose, He came, comes to

his father. But when he's still a great way

off, the Father saw him. So this Father and this is our

heavenly Father, every day He's looking out on this earth for

you and me to come back to him, to come closer to him, to come

to him the first time of my, my, our lives, or to come to our

senses about something in our life that we're doing as

believers that we know we shouldn't be doing or messing

around with. And he, he knows we're going to

hit the fan and everything's going to fall apart if we don't

get back to him soon. And He's everyday praying for

us. Jesus is ever living to make

intercession for us. We come to our senses and as

soon as we start making that first step forward, guess what?

God is running full speed to grab you before you have a

chance to go back again, just to hold you tight and restore you

back into that relationship with Him.

So the Father sees him, He has compassion, He runs.

He fell on his neck and he kissed him, and the son said to

him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and in your sight, and

I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

Father didn't even address that. He already knew the heart.

He knew he had repented. He knew he had seen the light.

And he didn't have to say, well, we're going to have a counseling

session for the next six weeks so I can make sure you're really

serious about your repentance like we do, You know, someone

falls. I mean, how long do I have to

tell them about their problem that if they understand their

problem, they repented. Jesus says go and sin no more.

He didn't say you need psychologist and medication to

get passed by this. You just come and repent and

come to the Father and the Father will restore you rapidly.

The Father said to his servants, bring out the best robe and put

it on him, put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet.

Bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be

merry, for this is my son who was dead and is alive again, was

lost and is found, and they began to be merry.

This is how we need to be with each other, isn't it?

Celebration when people come to their senses, have a party, have

a great meal, love on each other and not talk about the problem

anymore, because the problem now has been forgiven and the person

is turned back to the Lord. Now the older son, and this is

religion here, was in the field and he came and he drew near to

the house. He heard music and dancing.

She called one of the servants and asked what these things

meant. And he said to him, your brother

has come, and because, because he has received him safe and

sound, your father's killed the fatted calf.

But he was angry and would not go in.

This is the unforgiving heart. This is the bitterness.

This is the enemy and the stronghold.

This is the faucet that's still on.

It hasn't been turned off. His father comes out and pleads

with him. And he answered and said to his

father, Lo, these many years I've been serving you, I've

never send or transgress your commandment at any time, and yet

you never gave me a goat and make make make merry with my

friends. But as soon as the son of yours

comes, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots and

killed the fatted calf for him, and this is the father's heart,

He says to him, Son, you're always with me, all that I have

is yours. It was right that we should make

merry and be glad for your brother was dead and is alive

again and was lost and is found as a password.

My greatest heart and joy as I see someone I know who's gone

through a rough time. Last time I heard about them,

they've fallen from the Lord. They're not following Jesus

anymore. They lost their home, they lost

their marriage. And all of a sudden I see that

person come in the doors of Calvary Chapel and it this makes

me weep with joy knowing that they've been found again, they

were lost, and they've come back to their Savior.

And what I want to do is rejoice and be merry with what God has

in store for them in the days ahead.

So we have the opportunity every Sunday to take the Lord's Supper

as a worship team can come forward, and we have the ability

to think about the message and process it in our hearts and

think about how God has been so good to us.

So every time we take the cup and the bread, we're reminded of

the significance of the forgiveness of Jesus and what

he's done for you and me. We're able to understand that

forgiveness is continual and we can come into this relationship

with the Lord again in a very, very powerful way.

It reminds us of the strength that we have to forgive comes

alone from Jesus Christ. And it's possible to forgive

because God has forgiven you and me.

And by the strength of the Lord, we can provide this forgiveness

to one another as the Lord forgives us every time we gather

and we take the supper together at the cross of Jesus Christ.

So let's prepare our hearts. Let's take a moment to think

about any relationship in our life that the Lord wants us to

forgive. Whether it's 30 years ago, 50

years ago, 10 years ago, one year ago, one month ago, one day

ago, let's give it to the Lord. Let's be a body of believers

that understands why we're doing what we're doing and why we're

following Jesus. We want people to know about

salvation. We want people to know about

Jesus Christ. And the only way they're going

to know is if you and I live this out.

Show them. Tell them what the Lord has done

for us. That all bitterness and wrath

and clamour and evil speaking be put away from you, and be kind,

tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for

Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Oh, Lord, we're so thankful that

you've forgiven us and that you keep forgiving us, Lord.

And you know, in our hearts where we struggle with who we

may struggle, and we bring these people to you, asking you for

your mercy on their lives, that they would understand that

you've forgiven them, that they would come to you for

forgiveness. And that we could all forgive

one another and move ahead. Lord and new life together,

building each other up, not tearing each other down,

strengthening each other in the ways of the Lord.

Lord, we come before you every Sunday.

We have this supper. It's not a ritual, it's a

remembrance of you. You say as often as we eat the

bread and drink the cup, we show this as we remember you.

Lord, let us do this today the right way, with the right heart

and the right mind. On the night that Jesus was

betrayed, he obviously had a lot to forgive of of all those who

betrayed him. He took the bread in his hands

and he broke it and he gave thanks and he said, take, eat.

This is my body which is given for you, given for you, given

for you. Eat this in remembrance of Me,

the same manner He took the cup. He said This cup is a new

covenant in My blood which is shed for the forgiveness of sins

of many. Our sins have been forgiven.

Many others have been forgiven. Thank you Lord, for your

forgiveness. Drink this in remembrance of Me.

For us, as often as we eat the spread and we drink this cup, we

show forth the Lord's death. That comes again, right?

Hey man, what a what a way it ended, huh?

God bless you guys.