Forgive us our Debts as we Forgive our Debtors - Leland Zehr

Good morning, welcome each one of you here and greet

you in the name of Jesus. Looks like quite a

few of our people are gone, and so we're thankful

for the visitors that are here to help fill in

the gaps.

I would have I really.

Enjoyed listening at Sunday Schood.

It seemed like the right thing.

To do, But had just been to have another hour

of discussion on some of those questions. But we're pretty

formal here and so that's probably not all bad. Thank

you for putting thought into those those questions, practical things,

and I thought there was good input and good answers.

I'm sure the discussion is open to continue for the

usually this morning. Have a subject that's been on my

mind for a while. I'm not sure where it came from,

hopefully from God, maybe some of my own wrestlings, but

I've been thinking about it for a while. At our

house most evenings, when we go to bed, we try

to don't always be able to make it work, but

gather everyone together before we go to sleep, and we

pray the Lord's prayer. And as you know, all of

you know the Lord's prayer. I'm sure it's a very simple,

short prayer. We can say it by memory. If you

time yourself, you can easily say it under thirty seconds.

It's so simple and so familiar that you can easily

say it and not think of a thing that you're

saying while you say it, because it's so familiar.

And yet.

As simple and short as it is. If you think

about it, it has some very core daily needs mentions,

daily needs for the spiritual survivor survival of those are

that would follow Jesus. And I don't know why, and

we probably can't know why, but it's interesting to me

to think about why Jesus chose a few of the

things that he chose in the Lord's Prayer, a prayer

that would be recited millions and millions of times down

through generations and thousands of people or thousands of years.

It's interesting the things that he taught us to pray.

And we find this prayer in the middle of the

Sermon on the Mountain Matthew six, and I thought, maybe

as an introduction to the message, if I could just

ask you all they're able to stand and will say this,

let's try to pray it and not just say it.

Pray the Lord's prayer together. Let's stand our Father, which

are in heaven. HALLO be thy name, thy kingdom.

Come. Thy will be done on earth as it is

in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us

our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us

not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine

as a kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen,

maybe seated, thank you. I'm not going to go into

all of this prayer, but I want to just point

out a few of the things that he mentions here

that I don't know all. We're not going to go

into depth. I'm sure we could preach a sermon on

every point, but he gave these practical points as humans,

as I think, are daily needs Verses nine and ten.

It's a reminder that God is above, God is in heaven,

and that as we live our lives to reverence and

have a fear of the almighty God and to give

him glory. He mentions the simple need of daily bread.

We as humans get a extremely inefficient fuel mileage. We

need to eat several times a day, and it's a

very common thing a piece of bread, especially in America,

today with plenty that we have, and yet even in

some parts of the world it's not so simple. It's

not taken for granted quite like it is here. But

even in our country, it is good to remind that

even the simple things of bread of food ultimately do

come from God and supplies our daily needs, and to

remember that we are not self sufficient. In verse twelve,

he talks about the need to both forgive and to

be forgiven for the faults that happen in life. And

in the last verse thirteen, again he acknowledges, no, that

isn't the last one, it's the next to the last one.

And thirteen he acknowledges the reminder of our daily temptations.

We live in bodies of flesh and blood and desires,

and we are tempted every day with something, some evil,

some thought, some desire, maybe some resentment. The list could

go on and on, but every day we are tempted.

We wake up and we go out into the world

and we don't know what it'll be, but temptations come,

and it's an ask.

It's asking God, it's acknowledging it.

First of all. Then it's asking God to help us

be overcomers. With his strength, and then he circles back

around and reminds us of the first point of God's

kingdom and that he is the one that is powerful,

and that he should receive the glory. And if you

are in that chapter, and if you're not, that's fine,

but that is the Lord's prayer. But then in the

next two verses after that, he highlights one of these points,

He commentates on it, he emphasizes it. After the prayer

is over, he says verses fourteen and fifteen, for if

we forgive men their truspasses, your heavenly Father will also

forgive you. But if you forgive not men their truspasses,

neither will your Father forgive your trustpasses. And I want

to talk this morning a bit about forgiveness and the

message the title is just simply the words of Jesus

out of the Lord's prayer, forgive us our debts as

we forgive our debtors. I don't need to tell you

that we live in a hurting world. There's people all

around us with stories and hurts there, and we know

that hurting people hurt other people, and we all take

turns on both sides of that equation. Sometimes we're hurt.

Sometimes we hurt others. We all know what it's like

to be hurt and mistreated and maybe falsely accused or

accused in some way. Some hurts maybe are fresh. Maybe

you have things on your mind this morning that you're

grappling with that happened this last week. There's also hurts

that happened ten twenty, if you're old enough fifty years ago,

that you maybe remember in your mind. And a question

I'd like for us all to consider, and this is

as much for me as you, But what have you

done with those hurts? And what are you doing with

those hurts? Do you carry them in a backpack wherever

you go in life and get them out and look

at them once in a while and put them back

in and accumulate them and as life goes on, it

takes a bigger backpack to carry these hurts and these wounds,

or do we let them go. Wounds can heal and

at times it leaves a scar. It's normal, that's nothing

wrong with that. But if wounds never heal, and they

ooze and they puss and they hurt and their sore, generally,

something's wrong. Something is not right, That is not how

the body was meant, was created. I have multiple verses

this morning I want to read, and most of the

verses that I have, I I just want to present

one primary thought. It's in the title. It's in most

of the verses that I plan to read this morning,

with the exception of some and Psalms, is simply the reality.

The contingency of God's forgiveness to me is directly tied

and conditional to my willingness to forgive others. And Jesus

in particularly, and the Bible also. But Jesus seemed to

have a way of making a very simple and a short, concise,

solid statement point in teaching that went right to the

heart of the matter, and it closed in all the loopholes,

and it just left people.

Speechless at times.

Sometimes he did this with a statement, sometimes he did

it with a question, sometimes he did it with a parable.

But he had a way of when he told the

story or made the statement, where the mirror just came

around and you just start looking in the mirror.

And this matter of forgiveness.

He does it multiple times, and the New Testament has

it as well, that point that you can't get around

that if we want the forgiveness of God in our lives,

and then it is contingent one hundred percent on my forgiveness,

my willingness to forgive others. There's no loopholes, there's no exceptions.

It's just the way that it is. And so it's

a sobering thought if you take the time to actually

analyze that.

We all know what it's like. I believe to have a.

Heavy burden of guilt and shame. We've done something wrong,

Maybe we've committed a secret deed, or in a flash

of anger, we've said things that we regret. Unkind words

slip out of our mouths. Maybe we've been dishonest, living

a lie, hypocrisy. Behind the facade and the clothes and

the smile is a closet full of sin, whatever it

might be. But we feel when that happens. We feel terrible,

We feel the shame. Sometimes the weight of guilt gets

so heavy our bones feel rotten, just just a not

in our stomach, and there's no way, humanly speaking, at times,

to go back and to undo and to not do

what we did, and to not say what we said,

and to pick up the pieces that are behind us

that we desperately wish we could. And then so the

only thing that there is left to do is to

humble ourselves and ask for forgiveness to God or to

a fellow man, and sometimes to both. And in Psalms

here I want to read a few verses, just more

Psalms fifty.

One and one oh three, just briefly.

Here we can relate to David's misery, his desperate cry

for mercy, washing and cleansing, and for forgiveness. And this

is just a reminder here of maybe God's forgiveness. I'm

going to read a few verses. I'm not going to

read all of these. I'm going to skip around a

little bit. Psalms fifty one to one, the cry of David,

have mercy upon me of God, according to thy loving kindness,

according to the multitude of thy tender mercies. Blot out

my transgressions, Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquities, iniquity, and

cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions,

and my sin is ever before me. Verse seven. Purge

me with hissip and I shall be clean. Wash me

and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to

hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast

broken may rejoice Verse ten, creating me a clean heart

of God and renewerate spirit within me. It's just that

cry of he's trying to get rid of the guilt,

that cleansing the filth in his heart, and there's nothing

he can do but cry out to God to accept

his try of repentance and to clean him up, to

bring back the joy and the gladness that has departed

from him when you're when we're miserable and guilty, joy

and gladness and hope fade far away. Psalms one of

three ten and twelve says he has dealt with us.

He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor

rewarded us according to our iniquities.

As far as the east is from.

The west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from

from us. You know, forgiveness, that's just a snapshot of

God's forgiveness to mankind. But forgiveness is an interesting, mysterious

and supernatural thing. The more I think about it, I mean,

we all kind of know what it is when we

say it, But the more I kind of like thought about, well,

what is it like, how would you break it down?

And how would you like? What's going on with forgiveness.

It's it's a little bit gets even more elusive the

deeper you get, because.

Now, how does it work.

We don't know exactly how it works, but one thing

we know is that makes a tremendous difference in our world,

in our lives, and in the world around us and

the people that we live with. It's an invisible thing

that happens in the hearts and attitudes of people that

can release wrongs and restore relationships. It's like a whiteboard

full of something xes and terrible things, and it can

truly be erased away. The definition of forgiveness, I'll maybe

lift that in a little bit here, but forgiveness is

to grant pardon. There's just some simple definitions here, to

give up a claim on or account of a debt, releasing,

letting go of something. And the last one here is

I have ceased to feel resentment against And maybe that

one's the most challenging, at least in my mind, because

as to do with feelings, and maybe I'll have a

little bit more on this later. Is forgiveness a choice?

Is forgiveness a feeling. It's forgiveness an attitude. What is forgiveness?

I want to look at some.

Of these things, and I don't promise to give you.

Concise answers on everything, but I think the Bible has

a lot that we can that could help us in this,

and I want to stir your mind in some of

these things. Forgiveness is actually one of the primary reasons

and purposes that Jesus even came to earth.

To live and die and.

Rise again and Acts thirteen thirty eight, couple verses here

in thirty nine, be it known unto you there for

men and brethren, that through this man, Jesus is preaching

end to you the forgiveness of sins, and by him,

all that believe are justified from all things from which

he could not be.

Justified by the law of Moses.

And there's something what he's saying there is that there

is no way to make all the wrongs right and

the hurts be healed other than the path of forgiveness.

And in Jesus, you know, sometimes speaking of fundamentalism, my

nature can be to bring more justice into the system.

If we can define truth and maybe write it down

and get it clear, just get more justice, then that'll

fix the problems. But justice cannot replace forgiveness. In fact,

sometimes justice has to be compromised, you might say, in

the name of mercy, for forgiveness to work. The blood

of a thousand sacrifices, millions of sacrifices could not fully

compensate the sin and guilt of the world either. I

would like you to think just a little bit here,

imagine for a little bit a world with no forgiveness.

That's hard for us to do. It's something we probably

cannot fully do. But if every wrong that we would

ever do forever was held against us, would be written

in a book or written on a big board, and

my name Leland raised there would be at the heading.

And then as I live life, every sin, every evil thought,

every evil attitude, every word that came out of my

mouth that was not appropriate, would be written down and

it could never be raised. And every day that list

would get longer, and there would be no way to

forgive and to erase those sins. I did some figuring

just for a visual. If we would envision this whole

room being a whiteboard, the ceiling, the walls, and every

day you would just do one sin that was worth

ten five letter words, whatever that might be, and we

would write, like I write on a whiteboard with about

three inch letters with a little margin, so it takes

four inch square per each letter, and you just we

would write that down.

I don't know.

We just write my name, and then to start with

this wall and the ceiling, and just write the sentence

every day, the sin that I did, the sin that

you did. Within within just two or three years, all

all these walls and all this ceiling would be completely

full of words of the sins that I had done.

And if you think of ten years and fifty years,

it would take a tremendous amount of space.

To keep track of the sins that we do.

And that's just one sentence worth of sins a day.

I don't know about you, but some days I do

more than that. And can you imagine that the shame

and the guilt, especially if it was public and people

could see it, and it was for the whole world

to know, and it could never be undone, it could

never be hid, it could never be taken away, and

it just the less be lot behind my name got longer.

It would be terrible.

In addition to our personal shame, and all that that

would be. Do you imagine a world without forgiveness? It

would be a terrible place to live. Just in general,

grudges would fester, They could never be resolved never, there

would be endless cycles of resentment and revenge. There could

be no reconciliation or healing. Trust would be gone, nothing

but hate and pain. That's what a world would be

like without forgiveness.

Matthew eighteen. If you cared to you can turn there.

Want to read the main passage from the end of

Matthew eighteen. So Jesus we prayed the Lord's prayer, and

Jesus talked about prayer and the sermon on the mountain. Now,

a few chapters later in Matthew eighteen, verse twenty one,

Peter came to Jesus and said, there's a matter of

her and offenses, and forgiveness was being talked about and

on their mind. And Peter had a question sounds like

one that maybe I would ask and some of you,

you know, well hypothetically, and how many times do we

need to actually forgive? Like what if somebody has just

just constantly sinning against us, are you saying we need

to forgive them?

I mean seven.

Times or how many, and Jesus answers him. Jesus not

only answered him, he didn't.

He went on to tell.

A story, because I think Jesus seen the importance of

this subject, and I want to read this story now.

Starting it Matthew.

Eighteen, verse twenty one. Then came Peter to him and said, Lord,

how off shall my brother sin against me? And I

forgive him till seven times? And Jesus saith un to him.

I say, not unto thee until seven times, but until

seventy times seven. Therefore, if the kingdom of Heaven likened,

therefore is the Kingdom of Heaven likened unto a certain

king which would take an account of his servants. And

when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him,

which owed him ten thousand talents, But forasmuch as he

had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold,

and his wife and children and all that he had,

and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down

and worshiped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and

I will pay thee all. Then the lord of that

servant was moved with compassion and loosed him and forgave

him the debt, and the same servant went out and

found one of his fellow servants, which owed him a

hundred pence, and he laid hands on him and took

him by the throat, saying pay me that thou owest,

And his fellow servant fell down at his feet besought him, saying,

have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.

And he would not, but he went and cast him

into prison till he should pay the debt. So when

his fellow servants saw what was done, they were very

sorry and came and told unto the lord all that

was done. Then his lord, after that he had called him,

said unto him, oh, thou wicked servant, I forgave thee

all that debt, because thou desirest me shouldest not Thou

also had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I

had pity on thee. And his lord was wroth and

delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay all

that was due unto him. So likewise shall thy heavenly

father do also unto you, if you from your hearts

forgive not everyone his brother their trustpassed.

And you see here.

Again him making the point in that last verse, making

it very clear if you don't, if they didn't get it,

that that contingent andy again, you will not be forgiven.

If you do not forgive, we have the one of

the things.

I appreciate the King James version.

And think a lot, but it's sometimes hard to fully

understand some of the depths because of the terminologies that

are used that are not modern. But Jesus was trying

to drive home a point here in this story, I think,

a very important point and make an impression. And if

you don't understand the measures and the amounts, it's not

very impressive. It's like Gerald standing up here talking Spanish.

It doesn't know what that means. Anyways. And I took

the time to try to write down a few things

on the board to interpret, to translate the biblical talents,

the money, the terms that Jesus used here into our

what we understand today. I know there's different ways of

calculating this, and if you take the time to look

it up, you'll get different answers.

But this method to me made the most sense, and

so I use that. I'm not saying it's one.

Hundred percent, but I'll use it for today.

So the definition of forgiveness.

But the death that the servant owed was ten thousand talents.

And if you can follow this, it's a lot of rioting.

I don't want you to be too distracted. But so

he had ten thousand talents he owned, but one talent,

just one of them, not ten thousand, equaled six thousand denari.

Well that still doesn't help you.

Right, Well, one denary, not one talent, One denari equaled

one day's wages.

So that's something we.

Can understand and can be converted and brought forward with

the inflation and different currencies. You think of one day's wages,

one denary, one day's wages. Today, we'll just say that

a person can go out and find a good job.

You can maybe make two.

Hundred dollars a day in dollars, So one denary two

hundred dollars. So one talent, one talent equals six thousand denari.

One talent six thousand denary times two hundred is one

point two million, one.

Million, two hundred dollars.

Again, that's one talent, that's not ten thousand talents. So

you take this one point two million times the ten

thousand talents and it's twelve billion dollars in dollars that

this servant owed the master. Maybe what makes even more

sense is to convert it into working days. If to

convert how many denari six thousand times at ten thousand,

one sixty million days.

That that serve owed his master to be working.

If you convert that into years working three hundred and

sixty five days a year, no days off, it would

take a one hundred and sixty four thousand, three hundred

and eighty four years to pay that debt. So that's

just a glimpse of the magnitude. And this is Jesus

teaching about forgiveness. And of course this parable is not

about dollars and cents and money and days of work.

But.

It was about a man that owed someone more than

he could ever pay. He would never live long enough

to pay the debt, even if he became a life

slave for the man. And this story here, I'm sure

you have to imagine a little bit with this story

to think about how it must have been for this

servant to be indebted this much, and the hopelessness as

he stood before the master, and the master said, that's obvious,

you can't pay this and you're going to have to

be sold. Your wife is going to have to be sold,

All your children are gonna have to be sold. Everything

that you have must be sold distributed and to accommodate

the debt. And that poor man, if you think about

families like us today, you think about Troy, you think

about Gerald or any one of you, Darren, and put

a real name to it, and think about myself as

a man that stands before a President Trump, that has

the power, has the law, has the forces to deal

with you in the way that he sees fit. And

you are at his mercy, and your family standing beside you,

and the judgment has been given.

You're all going to be sold.

And that poor man just fell down before that master

and said please. He didn't even ask for forgiveness. It's

an interesting thing. He didn't ask forgive me. He said,

just give me time, Just give me somehow. If you'll

give me time, I will pay this all back to.

You, which was a dream. But he was desperate. And

somewhere in that process that that man.

Was touched the Master seeing the desperate, hopeless situation of

that man and his family, and the Bible says, an

interesting thing, we talk about this parable as being about forgiveness.

I think it has as much to do with compassion

is forgiveness, he says.

The Lord of the servant was moved.

With compassion and loosed him and forgave him the debt.

When he's seen into the eyes of that man and

his family and his children in the situation, all of

a sudden, he didn't care about the dollars and cents,

he didn't care about the money owed. He said, go home,

go home with your family, and you owe nothing.

You're free. He was moved with compassion. You know, compassion

changes everything.

Compassion is a powerful Godly emotion, and it moves and

it works together to forgive others. Often, if we can

somehow keep compassionate day, we can build a wall around compassion.

If we can stay stoic and stay strong, as we say,

and not be moved and not be touched, and keep

distance in space, there's a good chance then we can

withhold forgiveness.

But if we get close to a situation.

And we feel the pain, and we look into the

eyes and we see the desperation, often God moves through

the emotion of compassion, and forgiveness is possible. Justice without

compassion is a harsh, cold thing. And we see the

second part of this story where the same man then

as he got up and then was relieved and went.

Out and was free. I don't know how long, if

it was the.

Next day, week, or year, but he found his fellow

servant that owed him a hundred pence and that is

basically one hundred days wages three months, owed him three

four months worth of.

Wages money.

And it says that he took him by the throat

and said, give me what you owe me. And some

people were watching. Some people were witnessing this and had

known the whole story and had seen what had happened,

and they went and this man, this next man, pleaded

with him the same way, and again he didn't ask

for forgiveness. He just said, give me time and I'll

pay everything back to you. And the man, the first

man that had been forgiven, said no, you're going to prison.

And so then the other servants went back to the master.

And when the master found out.

He was wroth.

He was upset. He couldn't believe the unjustice comparing the

debts that had been forgiven and the forgiveness that was

not passed on and extended to others, and he said,

give him to the tormentors. And Jesus was making a

point to all of us that this is us, this

is the Master is God. The Master in heaven has

sent Jesus. He has forgive forgiven us. And so when

we go through life and we withhold forgiveness from our

fellow family members, friends, church members, people, that whatever they

did to us, it is so petty for us to

have the brass to withhold forgiveness when we have been

forgiven so much. Forgive us our debts as we forgive

our debtors. I would like to leave just a few

more few more practical things.

Are going to read a few more verses.

I'm just going to hit a few bullet statements points,

not going to them very deeply, but maybe questions and points.

Some things that help, some attributes that go along that

are almost always with forgiveness, and some things that hinder forgiveness,

because sometimes we look at this word forgiveness and we

know we need to do it, but we don't know

how to do it. Is forgiveness a choice, is just

something you decide to do, you know. Sometimes the reality

is sometimes we want.

To be forgiven.

We know it's the right thing, but the reality is

that the offense, the hurt, the turmoil in our hearts

is so current and real that we don't even know how.

It's just we're overwhelmed with this negative emotion about a situation.

And I read or heard somewhere, don't know where, but

it said when when we are cold, physically cold, we

cannot just will ourselves into being warm. We cannot just

think and choose to be warm. But we can move

ourselves into the sunlight and allow the sunshine to warm us,

to thaw us, to bring heat into our body. And

that principle is true in the spiritual and emotional realm

as well. There are times that we cannot sit there

and will ourselves into forgiving or having the feelings of

forgiveness in the moment, in the in the in the

in the in the pain that is going on. But

we can move ourselves in the right direction and into

the light of God's will for us. And as we

do that, I think God through sometimes a process can

warm and thaw our hearts. And it can not only

become a thawing out of our hearts. There can even

be some compassion that arises within us. For a person

that we have struggled so hard to forgive, we see

it in a different way. We pity that person. It's

not so personal, and God can do work in our hearts.

A few other references again the words of Jesus in

Mark eleven.

Twenty five and twenty six.

When you stand praying forgive, if you have aught against any,

that your Father also, which is in heaven, may forgive you,

your trustpasses. But if you do not forgive, and neither

will your Father in heaven forgive, your trustpasses. Just making

that point again, it's the words of Jesus. That's a

third time in different places. He's specifically made that point

contingent Classians three and thirteen and fourteen. Listen to these

other words and attributes that go along with.

Forgiveness.

Put on therefore as elect of God, holy beloved, bowels

of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long suffering, forbearing

one another and forgiving one another. If any man have

a quarrel against any, even as God forgave you, so also,

do ye see that again that connection and above all

these things, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness,

and then two verses and Ephesians thirty one and thirty two.

Let all bitterness and wrath, and anger, and clamor and

evil speaking be put away from you with all malice,

and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another,

even as God, for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. And

they're going to see that. He finishes that again by saying,

even as God has forgiven you. So a few just

basic points quickly. I already mentioned that God's forgiveness is

contingent us receiving his forgiveness as contingent upon others. But

I think that is something that we should take with

us as we live life. It is just something to

always hold in front of us to remind ourselves of.

Is that I have a choice in this matter, but

it's going to affect my relationship with God, the way

that I relate to others. And if I can keep

in mind this picture of all the debts that God

has erased and forgiven through the years and years of

my sins, who am I to grab another a man by.

The throat and.

Not forgive him in some manner. It's the height of

arrogance and being unaware of.

Our own need.

He talks about humbleness of mind or humbleness, and I

would just say humble humbleness is the companion and secret

of forgiveness. I don't think that we can forgive without humble,

being humble or humbleness of mind. Pride and forgiveness don't coexist.

Personal pride almost makes yeah forgiveness impossible to extend. And

this is something we all deal with, and it's a

human trade. It rises up within us. We need to

constantly be working on pride in our lives. But pride

is actually the thing that makes us so offendable to

begin with in the first place. I don't know if

you've ever felt like you just get your fair I

get my more than my fair share of knocks and

hurts and hard things in life. Maybe you do, or

maybe you're just proud and you got a lot of

edges out there. You know, when when I'm proud or

you're proud. There are a hundred ways to offend a person.

They're touchy, You can't say the right thing, you can't.

Look at them right. If you don't look at them,

it's wrong. If you do look at them, it's wrong.

It's just you can't say it good enough. Pride is

just a minefield waiting for offenses to happen. Driving down

the road, you know, just somebody on their cell phone

and almost serves into me not to mention that I

just did it or will do it. It's just easy

to be irritated with all the little things of life.

And pride is we need to be humble, to remember

that I am again so unworthy to not be extending

for giveness to others. When a person has a humble mind,

the offendability rate goes way down and the ability to

overlook faults and.

Forgiveness goes way up.

Another couple of words that go along with traits attributes

is compassion. I mentioned that and tenderheartedness. Jesus we mentioned

that in Jesus mentioned it in the story Matthew eighteen.

But here we have tender heartedness and bowels of mercy

and meatness Ephesians four thirty two. That verse I don't

know to you, to me we I've thought of it

as a children's verse. Now we tell the children to

memorize it. There's a song about it Ephesians four thirty two.

That will tell you what to do be kind. I

teach our children they get in a little scrap, I'm

gonna tell them, say you're sorry, give each other a hug,

say I forgive you. But I think the reality is that,

as Jesus said that we need to become as little children,

and I think in the area of forgiveness, that is

one of the areas. Children are really an amazing example

of forgiveness. They can be in a heated scrap, digging

each other's eyes out, and ten minutes later happy in

playing together. They truly can let go and forgive things.

And I think I don't I think it's accurate to

say that the older I get, I have to work

harder at being more to be tenderhearted. I feel like

maybe it's taken more work in the last five years

to be tenderhearted and forgiving than it feels like it

took maybe the previous forty some years.

Now.

I don't know if that's just me or if life

and the things of life. As we get older and

the more we see we tend without for non intentional

we tend to become more hardhearted, and that is something

we need to cultivate and work against.

And I think.

This hardheartedness, struggles with forgiveness, quarrels. He talks about quarrels.

You know, sometimes it's not the big things in life

that really we spend a lot of time trying to forgive.

Sometimes it's the little things.

You know. This last week, I was somebody came to

one of my job sites in the middle of the night,

stole some things, vandalized a piece of equipment. Just a

bit irritating. It's going to cost some but I truly

did not hardly even care. It was That's what you

expect from thieves.

That's what they do. Kind of have pity the poor people,

whoever they are.

Yes, it's annoying. Wish it wouldn't have happened. It's gonna

be a headache, it costs some money, but it is

a I wouldn't say it's a struggle of forgiveness. But

when you get close home to your own people and

to your own family and your own church, with the

little things of life, the little quirrels, the little disagreements,

the words, those can be the biggest and the hardest

things to let go and to forgive. Mercy and forbearance

he talks about long suffering are part of forgiveness, mercy,

and patience to be patient. Impatience works against being able

to forgive. And then he says, here, above all, I'll

put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.

And I'll just.

Say a little bit on this simply, faults are thick

where love is thin, and you just remember that that's

a common thing. But when the love gets thin, the

faults just pop up all over the place. And the

Bible says love covers a multitude of sins. And the

more that we love and that we can have charity

one towards another, we're able to kind of not be

so bothered by the faults of and offenses of others.

How can we live in a way that prepares us

for the hurts that are coming. I've been talking more

about Okay, a hurt came, how do we forgive that

and work through that? But I think one of the

keys to forgiveness is to try to live in a

way and be prepared for the offenses of life. And

I think a lot of the things of humbleness of

mind and just being tender hearted prepare us for that.

But I think about Jesus, I think about Stephen Jesus said,

as he hung on the cross and the people down

below him were crucifying and taking his life and mocking him,

he said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what

they do. And when Stephen was being stoned by these

big rocks and they were hitting him, and the anger

and the eyes of those around him, he said, Lord,

lay not descend to their charge. And Moses, when the

people were out to get him, he interceded for them.

How was this possible? You know, sometimes forgiveness takes processing.

It takes time. We talk about that. You know, it

doesn't happen overnight. But in these moments, there isn't time

to process.

It is happening.

I'm dying, I'm being tortured. How can a man with

all sincerity look at his enemies and say, Father, forgive them,

for they know not what they do. I believe it

was a life. They were full of these attributes of God.

They could see their enemies as hurting people and that

did not know the love of God, and they interceded

for them instead of lashing out at them. Forgiveness is

a powerful witness. Forgiveness. True forgiveness from the heart is

one of the signs of genuine salvation. Christians are some

of the most forgiven people, and so we should be

willing to extend forgiveness to others. Forgiveness is not a

live and let live approach. That's sometimes a substitute. That's

what I can be tempted to do.

Just more space, more time, get away from the whole thing.

Then it doesn't hurt so bad. That's not forgiveness. That's

something else we need to learn it to embrace forgiveness.

Sometimes forgiveness in order to get healing, we have to

walk towards the pain. That's not original me, that stuck

with me from a man that said that in order,

and I've found that true in a lot of things

in life. To shrink and to run from pain often

just prolongs it. But if we walk into it with

the help of God, he can take us out the

other side with forgiveness.

One thing more, what about trust?

Often trust gets brought into the subject of forgiveness. And

I'll just say, for myself, I don't understand it all,

but trust often gets misunderstood. I believe as the same

thing as forgiveness. And so the question is, well, if

you don't trust me, then you don't forgive me.

Is that right?

Is that a test of my forgiveness? Well, there's probably

a whole sermon to be preached on that, but I

just want to say a few things that trust.

What is trust. Trust is confident expectation.

When I trust my wife with something or one of

my employees, it's not a fake trust. It's not just

something I'm saying. It's that I believe that she will

do this thing because of the past record.

I just I believe it. That is trust.

You cannot manufacture trust.

Trust is built. Trust is now. Now.

There's the side that we need to not withhold trust,

But trust has.

To be rebuilt.

And when when when things have been broken and betrayed

and hurts, there's forgiveness needs to be extended. But trust

is another thing that needs to be built and sometimes

takes time. The burden of trut of trust rebuilding is

on me if I have been the one that has

hurt somewhat. It is not on the person I ask

for forgiveness and then I'm offended because they don't trust

me immediately. The burden of trust is for me to

understand that I have broken trust with this person or

these people and I need to go through a process,

and it's going to take time to rebuild trust.

And I want to read just a few.

Things here, and this is my closing thoughts on rebuilding trust.

I think I read this or some of this maybe

at a men's meeting one time. I don't think here.

This is by a man named Marvin wangerd. He helped

a lot of people, tried to help people. He's no

longer living, but I think this is just a good

summary of rebuilding trust. And I'll read some of what

he has written here. When trust breaks down in the

Christians is the Christians only option to separate. No trust

can be rebuilt. It can be restored to where all

feels safe. Here's what rebuilding trust requires. Three things. Number

one time positive interaction with whom trust is broken happens

over time, one encounter after another. It generally takes ten

positive experiences to erase one negative. One time is required here.

Building trust in any relationship requires the passing of time.

Months and years, not days and weeks. Give trust time

to rebuild. The second one is transparency. Most of us,

if our trust is violated, tend to move away from

the painful relationship distance feels good, But rebuilding trust requires

that we again make ourselves transparent to our brother and sister.

In transparency, we cannot hang a do not disturb sign

on the door of our heart. We must remain open,

even if there's potential for more pain. If we choose

not to make ourselves transparent to our brothers and sisters,

trust will never be rebuilt, no chance, And if we

choose not to do it, the choice will not be

will be one degree or another influence our relationships and

inform how our response in future relationship difficulties.

I don't think I read that right. Sorry.

The third one is truth. When trust breaks down, lies

begin to take over territory.

Truth used to.

Own with lies comes conflict. In conflict, a relation settles

over a person's spiritual eyes. Relational fog settles over a

person's spiritual eyes. When this fog the Bible calls darkness

settles over a person's eyes, there are four things they

fail to see, and I won't go into that. Truth, time, truth, transparency,

the three legged stool trust stands on. Trust is fragile,

It can be broken easily. That's the tough reality we

live with. But the glorious reality is that we also

live with the possibility that trust can be rebuilt and restored.

And one more thing, and I think this is important.

We don't replace mistrust with trust like artificially, we replace

mistrust with love and care. We begin to show love

and care for the person with whom trust is broken

and the environment of love and care trust grows. When

trust is present, relationships are secure and meaningful. And so

there is a responsibility for even us if we're the

one that was hurt.

Let's say to be kind, to be caring.

Even if we can't fully from the heart trust someone,

one thing we can do is be tenderhearted, be kind,

and be considerate to the person that has hurt us.

God, bless you. I don't know Gerald, you wanted to