SOUND MIND - Hope for Relational Wounds

I mean, I search for peace, I search for hope, I search for

love, and one day for release. God give me strength to accept

the things that I just cannot know.

And even when I lose control, I will not let you go.

Good morning. But if Daniel, I want to lead

pastors here at Res Church welcome.

We're in a series called Sound Mind.

This is week 4 and we're covering hope for relational

wounds today. Man, a while.

This is a couple years back now, before I was on staff, I was

just a volunteer at the church and I was standing in the, the

old church office at the time. And I was scrolling through this

big church survey we've done and I was looking, there's like

hundreds of of comments at the end of every response.

And so I was just kind of reading them all and I, and I

ran across one that was essentially criticizing the

preaching. Now, I don't really preach back

then, but I thought the preaching was really awesome.

And so I remember reading this and I was sending it was like

just me and a friend in the church office.

And so I remember not only reading it out loud to my

friend, but then like giving my honest opinion about that

opinion in a not so gentle way, very sarcastically, because, you

know, we were alone. So what I what I did not know at

the time is out of the hundreds of people that responded that

the person that had written that was sitting in the next room

listening to the whole conversation.

And I would not find that out for two years, two years, two

years that person would would harbor that that wound.

And it got more and more infected.

So much so that later when they finally came and talked to me,

they said that for two years they couldn't be in the same

room with me. And so it took about 10 minutes

at some point for them to explain and for me to apologize.

10 minutes. And instead of 10 minutes, they

spent two years hurting, two years of resentment, 2 years of

fake conversations in their head.

Y'all have never had any of those, right?

Two years of fostering and cultivating A relational wound

instead of healing. You know, when you, when you

take an offence or a wound, it creates a debt much like a

weight. If you've ever experienced it,

it feels like there's been weight added.

So today we're going to, we're going to discuss hope for

relational wounds. Any anyone here ever had a

conflict with anyone? I mean, not everyone raised

their hand, which is surprising to me because I just feel like

you're lying in church. I'm going to come up here and

bare my soul and wear a backpack.

At least you can do is be honest with me.

See, I think at some point this is everyone.

Everyone that is human has experienced not just one, but

probably more than one relational wounds.

I think it's a universal human problem.

And so we're actually going to investigate kind of this overall

question today of just how do we navigate a world in which people

are messy and life doesn't seem fair.

Now, you may have noticed, not so coincidentally, that when we

we we preached on hope for anxiety, it was Justin.

When we preached on hope for burnout, it was Nate.

Not that those guys have anything to, you know, special

to say about any of those things.

So why then did I get relational wounds?

Well, here's why this is a good topic.

I read this study recently and I thought this is this is

interesting. Most people will lose 5 to 7

significant relationships over the course of their life. 5 to 7

deep substantial relationships. But pastors lose on average five

to seven significant relationships per year.

Just think about how that adds up.

This is actually the nature of pastoral ministry.

Like here's the reality. When people leave the church,

they almost never leave for a good reason and they're really

messy about it and they never leave well.

Like it's super rare that someone leaves the church.

Well. And so normally what happens,

this is just human nature when they leave is they need to

demonize where they left because it helps them justify with their

decision. And so it always, almost always

is a very messy. And so pastors are just

frequently faced with relational loss and relational wounds at a

scale that very few people really have a parallel with.

I, I, I read somebody talked about like, how is it?

How does a, a pastor take those wounds and those offenses and

then turn around when that same person is having craziness in

their life and needs the pastor to go back in and love on them?

Like what? What does it take to do that?

Here's the thing. If pastors don't have a really

good handle on dealing with wounds, we aren't going to be in

ministry very long. And so today, we're going to

just take a look at this idea of just dealing with hurt.

It's that simple. It's just dealing with hurt

regardless of where it comes from.

And listen, can we all be honest?

It comes from a lot of different places.

Mark Clark says it this way, and I like this.

He says we are hurt by people. We are hurt by injustice.

We live in an ecosystem where people's actions, words,

behavior all matter to more than just them.

Listen, the reason that I know that you've had relational

wounds is because you live with other people.

And we are messy. We can be hurt in a lot of

different ways. But here's the crazy thing.

What you, what we can't do is we can't withdraw from community

and try to wall ourselves off so that no one can hurt us.

And, and there's a couple of you in here today that you got hurt.

And So what you did is you thought, man, if I withdraw

enough, no one can hurt me. But The thing is that you, you

have to risk being hurt in order to love.

That's actually what CS Lewis said.

He said to love at all is to be vulnerable.

Love anything and your heart will be possibly broken.

You can't wall yourself off from risk.

Here's what I'll tell you in pastoral ministry.

If I'm not willing to be hurt, I can't be your pastor.

If I'm not willing to love you, knowing that some of you are

going to break my heart, then I'm not fit for this office.

So the solution is not withdrawal.

It's not callousness. It's correctly understanding how

to heal. And so we're going to spend all

of our time today on this big idea to fully heal, you must

fully forgive. And if man, all of a sudden

you're like, he just said the F word.

They were listen for service kind of quiet because we started

talking about forgiveness. And I'm not kidding, you people

are like this. And I was like, well, I guess

this isn't an appropriate topic at all.

All right. To fully heal, you must fully

forgive. Let's start with the story of a

guy named Joseph. If you're not familiar with the

Bible or maybe it's a little bit new to you, there's a guy named

Joseph in Genesis 37. His story starts, he's one of

twelve sons. He's his dad's favorite.

He's also very arrogant. And at some point he ticks his

brothers off, so much so that they contemplate and begin to

discuss killing him. Now, you thought you had family

drama, but they're murder plotting their brother.

They don't kill him. They only sell him into slavery.

Man, I'm not a mystery to my little brother, but I never sold

him into slavery so we're OK there.

He's 17 years old. He ends up in Egypt of a country

next to his adjacent to where he lived and even in slavery God

actually blesses him. He he has God's favor on his

life until in the family that he is a servant, the wife of the

master falsely accuses him of rape and he ends up in prison.

So he's been sold into slavery. He's in a foreign country now

he's in prison. He will be in prison.

We don't even know how long somewhere probably between 6 to

12 years. He will be 30 years old by the

time he finally gets released from prison.

With God's help, he will rise to the second in command of all of

Egypt. He answers only to Pharaoh.

He is God-given wisdom and and prophecy will end up saving

Egypt from massive famine. And he starts a whole plan for

for saving food up for this famine.

In fact, it's so successful that the other countries start to

come into Egypt to ask for food. And at some point over 20 years

after he's been sold into slavery, here come his brothers

starving, and their families need food, and they don't even

recognize him. And I just want you to think

about this real quick, even if you don't know Joseph's story.

I want you to think about how many days and nights as a slave

Joseph would have thought about his brother's betrayal.

I want you to think about how many nights in a cold prison

cell surrounded by rats and filth and decay, did Joseph sit

there and think about how those who are closest to him or his

abusers. And Joseph ends up saving his

brothers and their families from famine, but they don't believe

that he's fully forgiven them. How could he?

After all they did? So when their dad dies, they

make up a story about how dad asked Joseph to forgive them.

Nothing like a little lying and manipulation to start off the

relationship, right? Again, right?

We're going to pick up our story in Genesis chapter 50, verse 15.

Genesis 50:15

When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said

it may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the

evil that we did to him. So they sent a message to Joseph

saying, your father gave this command before he died.

Say to Joseph, please forgive the transgression of your

brothers and their sin because they did evil to you.

And now please forgive the transgression of the servants of

the God of your father. Joseph wept when they spoke to

him. His brothers also came and fell

down before him and said, behold, we are your servants.

But Joseph said to them, do not fear, for am I in the place of

God? As for you, you meant evil

against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about.

That many people should be kept alive as they are today.

So do not fear, I will provide for you and your little ones.

Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

Joseph had fully forgiven his brothers and he says 2 really

substantial things in that moment.

I don't want you to miss this in Genesis 50, if you have your

Bibles, I don't want you to underline this.

He says, am I in the place of God?

Oh, that is a, that is a revolutionary thing that Joseph

sees here. We'll we'll look at that in a

minute. And the second he says this,

what you intended for evil, God used for good.

I want to investigate this idea of am I in the place of God?

Because I think, I think this right here is where we kind of

we go off the rails when we don't understand this when it

comes to healing, when it comes to wounds.

And so here's three ancient truths about wounds.

And then we'll kind of investigate that and we'll talk

about this statement. And I think this will be

helpful. Here's the first.

An offense creates debt. It's like, I want to put the

brick in the backpack, right? It creates debt like a weight

and debt demands payment. Someone must pay.

This has always been the truth about debt.

This has always been the truth about offense.

In fact, not only does does an offense create debt, the Bible

would actually say that, that all sin, any sin creates debt.

Now maybe you're new to the Bible and you're like, I don't

know what this concept of sin is.

Here's let me just give you a simple definition of sin.

Sin is anything contrary to God, his character, or His commands.

So anything that is contrary to who God is and what He says is

considered sin or rebellion or disobedience.

Sin can be active or passive, so you can send by doing something

wrong, but you can also send by knowing the right thing to do

and not doing it. We can send intentionally or

unintentionally, but all sin creates a debt.

This is what Jesus is explaining when he's teaching his disciples

how to pray, when they say he teaches how to pray and and he

he's teaching them the Lord's Prayer and he says in Matthew 6

and he says pray like this, our Father in heaven, hallowed be

your name, your Kingdom come, your will be done as earth, as

it is on earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this daily, this day, Our Daily Bread and forgive us

our what our what he didn't say forgive us our sins.

He says forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our

debtors. So when we're wounded by an

offence, by a sin of someone else, it creates this debt.

And that wound, that debt, it needs to be paid.

And anyone who's ever had this happen to them, which is all of

us, say me, we know that it creates a debt.

We know that something feels off.

Do you know what I mean by something feeling off as if the

the scales of cosmic justice, right?

They're not equal. Something's wrong and it bothers

you, does it not? You that that kind of angsty

feeling of like, right, it's not right.

Something's not right. And so there's this intuitive

feeling that we all share of like someone has to pay this

debt. And listen, if you don't deal

with that wound, it gets infected.

Relational debts have this way of growing.

I don't know if you've experienced this or ever thought

about this. Have you ever had a friend who,

who like bought a used car and got one of those like toxically

bad interest loans? Did you know what I'm talking

about? Like 23% APR or something?

I'm like, do do they break your kneecaps if you don't pay?

Like, like that is a bad loan man.

Relational wounds are like that. If you don't deal with them,

they compound the debt compounds.

The pain compounds so fast and so much over time.

It's like, it's like aggressive interest.

I, I met with a, a, a friend of mine.

He used to go to the church years ago and we went out for

coffee and I'm just sitting, we're, we're catching up on

everything. And so I start to press in on

like, why aren't you involved in a local church?

Like, I don't understand why you don't follow the, the biblical

model of Christianity. You, you all know there are no

solo Christians anywhere in the Bible, right?

Like, if you think like, I'm, I'm a Christian, but I don't

need the church. You're just not reading your

Bible. And so I'm pushing on him

because he's a friend of mine, so I can kind of poke at him

like, hey, what's going on with this?

You live right next to a bunch of good churches.

Why aren't you doing this? And as I start to press, he

starts to get emotional and then he starts to tear up.

And I'm like, oh, there's a wound.

And I was just sticking my finger in it without even

knowing. And finally it comes out, he has

this hurt that caused him to leave the church six years ago,

and no one knows about it because he didn't tell anyone.

Six years ago I was like, bro, you have been hurting for six

years and you didn't tell anyone.

He's like, well, I was like, Oh my gosh, see, not only is he in

a, it's not just that he's in the same place that he was.

He's in a worse place now than he was because it's gotten

worse. It's gotten worse and it's

gotten worse. Six years of thinking about it,

of having those fake conversations in your head about

it, thinking about how you wish it was different, what you would

say the next time. No one's ever done that, right?

And the debt just adds, and the debt just adds, and the debt

just adds. See, forgiveness is releasing a

debt. Unforgiveness is holding on to

the dead and carrying it, believing that it's owed to us

by someone else. But you'll never heal without

forgiveness. To fully heal, you must fully

forgive. And if you think you're healing

without actually forgiving, you're just actually letting an

infected wound scab over. If, if you're visiting today,

maybe Christianity is not your thing.

Maybe you don't even believe in the Bible.

You're like, OK, I, I, maybe you're going to prove this all

from the Bible or something. I, I don't even believe that.

That's fine. Just consider this.

Medical science has studied forgiveness for a long time.

This is not just a biblical concept.

Like there are fascinating studies on forgiveness.

There's a guy named Doctor Fred Luskin.

He actually runs an entire arm of Stanford University

forgiveness projects. They've done the largest study

studies of forgiveness in history.

He has all kinds of John Hopkins medical research has studied

forgiveness. The Journal of Religion and

Health has a ton of data on this.

There was actually a logitudinal study done with 50,000 nurses

just looking at forgiveness. And you know what?

All of those studies say the same thing.

Here's what they say. They all found that forgiveness

leads to massive benefits physically, mentally,

neurologically, and relationally.

And they all point to the negative consequences of

unforgiveness. Here's the quote.

Unforgiveness creates ongoing physiological stress responses

that prevent complete healing, while forgiveness activates

healing mechanisms in both mind and body.

That's not from the Bible. To fully heal, you must fully

forgive. So the goal of our sermon today

is to try to get to some practical implications of like

what would it actually look like to stop carrying this burden to

actually forgive before we we jump over to Jesus.

Jesus is going to talk about forgiveness and we're going to

see what we can learn from what he says about forgiving.

Before we do that, I actually want to start with something

else. I want to start with the five

mistakes with wounds. I want to talk about how we deal

with them improperly. And the reason that I want to do

that is that a lot of times when you're sitting in a sermon like

this, you're like, man, I it's cool that we're here and all,

but I really wish my friend were here because they're dealing

with this. Say me, this is for you.

Your friend might also benefit. This is for you.

OK. And I think if you'll if you'll

listen to the mistakes of dealing with wounds, you might

actually find yourself in here. OK, We good.

Don't cross your arms just yet. Got plenty of time for that.

OK, here we go. Mistake number one.

What I do with a wound, I extract the debt from them.

So someone hurts me and I go back and I they owe me a debt

now, and I'm going to take it back.

We call that revenge. OK, so so here's the problem

with revenge. It turns me into a debt

collector, right? All of a sudden, I'm like Boba

Fett the bounty hunter. Like I'm.

I'm running around. You know what?

It's actually worse than that, though, when you think about it,

because not only am I the collector, but I'm also the

judge and the jury. You notice that.

Like, I've decided how much they owe and I've decided when they

should pay, and I've decided that I'm going to collect it.

Nobody. OK, well, it's just me.

I'm sorry. It's just me.

It's not y'all. Y'all are very holy.

If you've ever sat around and and thought about scenarios in

which other bad, like bad things happen to that person and they

get theirs, what are you doing? You're fantasizing about being a

debt collector. You're thinking about revenge.

And now, now what did Joseph say at the end there?

Because he had fully forgiven. Here's what he said.

He said, Am I in the place of God?

When you decide you're the debt collector, you're saying.

I am in the place of God, so I'll go collect my debt.

Mistake number one. Mistake number two, I extract

the debt from others. We call it vindictiveness.

Vindictiveness. Now here's, here's often why

that happens. Maybe I was abused as a child.

Maybe the person that created the offence is no longer

available. They're gone.

Maybe they've passed away. But but the debt is still real

and I'm still carrying it. And since I can't go and collect

it from them, everyone else owes me because someone has to pay

this debt. And if you've ever met someone

like this, or if you are someone like this, you begin to, to live

a life in which everyone owes you something because this debt

hasn't been paid yet. And so, so, so the debt has

shifted to the world around you. Mistake number one, I try to

extract it from the offender. Mistake #2 I try to extract the

debt from others. Mistake #3 I ignore the debt.

I just ignore it. It's it's things are going fine.

You know, it's not that heavy. Just going to sneak another one

in here. Yeah.

It's good. It's good.

You know, we call that infection and it leads to bitterness.

The the idea that that time heals all wounds is actually a

complete fallacy. Time might numb pain a little

bit, but it doesn't heal the wound for you.

Time numbs pain, but it doesn't heal.

Ignoring a wound is a great way to slowly kill yourself, to

slowly kill your joy, to slowly kill your contentment, to slowly

kill your satisfaction, to slowly kill other relationships.

Unforgiveness is like waking up every day and drinking poison

and waiting for the other person to get sick.

I wonder why they're not sick yet.

You can't ignore the dead, you can't extract it from them, you

can't extract it from others, you can't ignore the debt #4 I

identify as the wound. Now that sounds a little tricky.

Some explain, some would call this the victim mentality.

But what? What will happen when I begin to

identify as my wounds? It is.

I start to worship the wounds. Now let me explain before you

go. I don't, I'm not sure I

understand that. Look, I highly recommend

Christian counseling and Christian therapist.

Like highly recommend. My wife and I went to a

Christian counsellor last week just to work on our marriage.

Like, Christian counselling is phenomenal.

It's good for so many things. However, be very careful when

you choose a counsellor because simply talking about a wound

does not mean that you're actually working on healing.

In fact, there's a phenomenon where we talk about our wound so

much, we focus on that wound so much that over time we begin to

be identified by our wound. So I'm no longer Daniel.

I'm the pastor who was wounded by these people.

I'm no longer Stacey. I'm the woman who was abused as

a child. I'm no longer Jim.

I'm the guy whose spouse cheated on me.

And in the moment that you begin to identify as your wound

instead of as a child of God, what happens is you actually

begin to worship the the wound you're not even interested in

healing anymore. You don't, you don't, you don't

want to change your identity. That's what you're known by.

And if you're like, no, I don't think I worship the one.

Listen, what? Wherever your identity lies is

your God. Whatever your identity is rooted

in is your God. And so when your identity shifts

to become your wounds, it is becoming your God.

How do you know if this is you? Listen, if you are still talking

about the same wound that you were talking about last year in

the same way you're talking about it, look out should be a

red flag. But there there is a problem in

your life because the heat that here's not progress in healing.

This is what Tim Keller says about wounds.

He says watch yourself. When someone does something

wrong, watch yourselves because an unforgiven wrong is a root.

It's in your life and it's working its way slowly to your

heart. As long as it's in there, as

long as it's not forgiven, slowly the evil that was done to

you will make you into its own image.

And if you stay bitter, if you stay resentful, even if it's

really pretty far under the surface, forgiveness is both a

decision and a journey. So you decide to forgive and

then you're actually going to go on a journey to free.

Like it's going to take time and progress.

It's not quick, but but The thing is, it's like a journey

through a, a bog or a, a swamp, meaning it's, it's slow, but you

have to keep moving. If you keep moving, you'll get

there. But if you stop, you'll start to

sink and you'll get stuck. And some of us have gotten stuck

in our wounds for so long that we identify as a wounded person

and really we've begun to worship them.

The 5th mistake is I'll fix it myself.

Self-reliance the old can do attitude that's actually fixing

yourself means you're actually suffering from one of the first

four mistakes and you're lying to yourself because here's the

reality is you you can't fix yourself.

I I can't fix myself. The very first step towards

salvation in Jesus Christ is a realization that I'm broken and

I can't fix the problem so the toughen up buttercup pull myself

up by my own bootstraps sort of that might sound noble, but it's

just a mask. So if you're here, it's actually

just one of the first four and, and, and you're actually, you're

deceiving yourself into thinking that you're going to be tough

enough to just get through it and take care of it.

No, it's fine. We're OK.

No problems here. Let's see if this backpack holds

out to the sermon, huh? Let me just say this about

self-reliance, man. self-reliance will get you

killed. I shared with you, I've shared

with you guys a couple times on Sundays, a decision I, I made

last year where I decided I would stop drinking for the rest

of my life. Like I, I just, I'm not going to

drink alcohol. The next time I'm going to drink

alcohol is when we're all in heaven at the new feast and the,

the new wine is pouring. And not even the Baptist can be

mad. And, and, and I made that choice

because over and over again, I would find that my consumption

of alcohol just extended a little further than I'd planned,

maybe a little more frequent that I intended.

And so no matter how much self-discipline that I thought I

had, and it would creep back into my life, the day that I

realized I was an alcoholic was a gift from God because it made

me realize that I didn't have the control that I thought I

had. And so instead I just said, I

can't, I can't play with this. I've got to cut it out entirely.

And I have to throw myself on the throne of God.

I need, I need God in his community to help me.

And so I was talking to somebody about this actually really

recently in like last week or two, and they said, hey, because

they, they had some similar struggles.

And they go, Hey, how come you're doing so well here?

And I continue to struggle with it.

And I said, listen, I think that they're a good friend of mine.

So I could be really blown with them.

I said, listen, I think the problem that you're having is

that you don't see sin as an apex predator that's trying to

kill you. You think you're strong enough

to win, and I know I'm not, and that's the difference.

Knowing you're weak is a great blessing.

Did you understand in this context, knowing that you need

help to forgive someone is a great blessing.

You're not going to will yourself to it.

If you could, you would have done it already.

All right, those are the the five ways.

Let's see you can fit one more in here.

Those are the five mistakes to make with wounds.

Let's talk about how we actually go about healing and see what

Jesus has to say. Grab your Bibles.

Let's turn to Matthew 18. If you have your Bibles, we're

going to start in verse 21 and we're going to look at a

question, an answer, and a story.

Here we go, verse 21. Then Peter came up and said to

Jesus, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I

forgive him? As many as seven times.

Jesus said to him, I do not say 7 times, but 77 times.

Now he's going to tell a story. Listen, if you were a disciple,

every time Jesus told the story, you knew you were about to get

slapped upside the head. I'm just saying verse 23.

Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a king who

wished to settle accounts with his servants.

When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him

10,000 talents. Y'all don't have context for

10,000 talents? Current day market $60 billion,

not million $60 billion versus 25.

And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold

with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to

be made. So the servant fell on his

knees, imploring him. Have patience with me, and I

will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the

master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.

But when the same servant went out, he found one of his fellow

servants who owed him 100 denarii of five to 10,000

dollars. And seizing him, he began to

choke him, saying, Pay what you owe.

So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, Have

patience with me, and I will pay you.

He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay

the debt. When his fellow servants saw

what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they

went and reported to their master all that had taken place.

And then his master summoned him and said to him, You wicked

servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me

it should not. You have had mercy on your

fellow servant as I had mercy on you.

And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers

until he should pay all of his debt.

Verse 35 S Also my heavenly Father will do to everyone of

you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.

Jesus has a disciple named Peter.

Peter has come and asked Jesus, Hey, how much is too much to

forgive? How often is too often to

forgive? How many times do I have to

forgive? Hey, is there a sin so great

that I can't, I don't have to forgive it?

Is there an offense so great that I don't have to forgive it?

Is there something that someone could do that's so great I could

go, oh, that, that passes the note, that's too much.

When Jesus effectively looks right at him and says, no,

there's no sin too great. There's no time too many.

Nothing is off limits for forgiveness.

Now quick caveat for some of you that are starting to cross your

arms, there's a difference between forgiveness and

reconciliation. Forgiveness takes one person,

reconciliation takes 2. You may never be reconciled to

someone, but I will tell you this, you cannot reconcile with

someone unless you've first forgiven them.

And when we forgive, we are not enabling or excusing wrong

behaviour. I want you to hear me.

We can name evil and still forgive.

In 1993, Mary Johnson's only son was murdered by 16 year old

Oshea Israel during a party altercation.

After years of anger for losing her only son, Mary met with

Oshea in prison and during that meeting she experienced A

transformative moment. This is a quote from her.

I just hugged the man that murdered my son and I instantly

knew that all that anger and the animosity and all the stuff that

I'd had in my heart for 12 years for you, I knew it was over.

We can name evil and still forgive.

So Jesus has already answered the question, no, there's no

limit to forgiveness. But then he has a whole parable,

whole story. And so I want you to see the

three things that are in this story that I think matter for

you and I, if we're going to learn what it looks like to

forgive. Here's the first one, verse 35.

Forgiveness is a command. You see that, right?

Jesus is Lord of Lord and King of kings, and kings don't make

suggestions. He has all authority on heaven

and on earth and he has forgiven us of far more than we will ever

forgive anyone else of that that I love that he picks the sum of

10,000 talents. It's an impossible number, but

it's a real number. It's not a made-up number.

You ever had like a 2 year old and you're like, what's the

biggest number you can think of? And they like make terms up 1

billion billion brillion. You're like, that's not another

thing. 10,000 talents is a real number.

It's just impossible. The reason I love that he picks

a real number is because you and I have a real debt.

Every sin that we have ever committed towards someone, we

first committed toward God because in order to commit that

sin, we had to break his commandments to do it.

You know, if you, if you know anything about the, the, the

gospel of Jesus Christ, this this idea that Jesus came for

our salvation. It was it, it really starts with

the idea that Jesus came to earth in order to pay a debt

that was unpayable and impossible for us.

This is what Jesus is foreshadowing in this moment

when he says 10,000 talents is he knows he's going to go to the

cross and he's going to pay a debt that we can't pay.

So, so for those of us that understand that, listen, in the

shadow of that forgiveness, we lose all right to hold on to

debt. Did you understand what I'm

saying? In the shadow of the cross, I

lose all right to hold on to debt.

Say this with me in the shadow of the cross, I lose all right

to hold on to debt. Let's do it again.

In the shadow of the cross, I lose all right to hold on to

debt. Do you understand what he's

saying? You, you cannot stand in the

shadow of such great forgiveness and then hold on to debt.

He's saying, how can you? How can you look at someone else

and think they owe you when you've been forgiven of so much?

It's a command. Secondly, forgiveness is a cure.

In verse 27, he says, and out of pity for him, the master of that

servant released him and forgave him the dead.

Let me ask you a different sort of question.

Do you want to be forgiven? Like if you make a mistake or if

you harm somebody? If you do something, do you want

to be forgiven? Do you want God to forgive you?

Yeah, because forgiveness is a cure.

Our path to salvation was because God forgave us.

The cure to infection of a relational wound is forgiveness.

We forgive not because the other person deserves it, but because

we need it to heal. So not only are we commanded to

do it, it is what heals us. And thirdly, forgiveness is a

characteristic. It's a characteristic.

It's a characteristic of someone who's saved.

Let me show you verse 33. And should not you have had

mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?

What is he saying? He's saying, listen, you don't

really understand God's forgiveness if you're still

holding on to debt. You don't really understand

forgiveness if you're holding on to unforgiveness.

Debtors. That's you and me, say me.

Debtors should never become collectors.

Think of it this way. I've been forgiven of too much

to be arrogant enough to think I'm still owed something more.

I've been forgiven of too much to be arrogant enough to think

I'm still owed something more. So does command a cure and a

characteristic. Now Jesus essentially explains

that that to truly release the debt of someone that really,

really doesn't deserve it, you're going to need a

perspective that radically changes.

My perspective has to shift from the one where I'm the victim and

they're the perpetrator. I'm innocent and they're guilty.

And it has to shift to the one where I realized that most often

in my life, I am the perpetrator.

I am the guilty one. That's how I rang up a 10,000

talent, $60 billion debt with God.

I have racked up a debt that is impossible for me to pay, and I

deserve punishment for that debt.

In fact, Romans 323 will say that every single one of us has

sinned and the wages of sin is death.

We deserve death. So you thought the debt that

that person owed you was big? But we deserve death.

But God? But God?

But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with

which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses,

made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved, raised up with Him and seated us

with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the

coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace

and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and this is

not your own doing. It is a gift of God.

And if you embrace this perspective, if you have

accepted this, this gift of mercy from God, you will

actually have the perspective and the power to forgive people

in just a minute. I want to, I want to talk about

how to practically go about that when it seems impossible, but I

don't want to leave this moment right here unless I ask you

something. Have you experienced this level

of forgiveness? Do do you understand what it

looked like for God to forgive you?

Do you know Jesus personally? Because you can only partake in

His mercy if you have placed your faith in His finished work

of salvation on the cross. The Bible says that you must

place your faith in Him to be saved.

Romans 10/9 and 10 says it this way because if you confess with

your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that

God raised him from the dead, you will be saved for with the

heart. 1 believes and is justified and with the mouth. 1

confesses and is saved. Do you know Him?

Not, Not have you heard about Him not do you go to church?

Not do you read your Bible? Do you know Him?

Have you given your life to him to rule and to reign over?

And so for just a brief moment, I want to give you a chance, if

you've never done this, to place your faith in Jesus because you

must believe and declare. That's what Romans 10 tells us.

You must believe that you need to be saved.

You must believe that you're in need of a savior because you

rebelled against God and therefore have no power to live

perfectly on your own. You must believe that he rose

from the dead in power with the desire to save you.

You must believe that he is God and you must declare.

You must declare him king of your life and Lord over you.

You must declare surrender of your will and your desires to

him who is perfect. You must declare him publicly

and not be ashamed. So if you'd like to surrender

your life to God today, I want to give you that chance.

Would you for just a brief moment, close your eyes and bow

your heads? We're wrapping up.

If you've never done this, if you, if you want to surrender

your life to God today, just quietly or even silently repeat

this prayer after me. Jesus, I know I'm a Sinner and I

can't save myself. I want you to save me and adopt

me into your family. I surrender everything to you,

even my wounds, and I receive your promises of forgiveness,

adoption and eternal life. Be my Lord.

Please Jesus, if you prayed that prayer for the very first time

right now, would you be brave and raise your hand for me to

see? Thank you, thank you can put

your hands down. It's Jesus name, Amen.

If you just gave your life to Jesus for the very first time,

welcome to the family. In a few minutes, as we respond

to the sermon, there's tables in the back, they say.

I raised my hand. We'll have people back there

would love to talk to you and talk about what it looks like to

follow Jesus. We have a gift for you, some

resources. We're excited for you,

practically speaking. What about for the rest of us?

Who, who, who know Jesus? And yet maybe there's someone

that man, we just can't seem to forgive.

It just seems impossible. How do you forgive someone when

it seems impossible? There's a pastor named Pastor

Skip Heitzig. He has this little three-step

process. It's really simple and it's

really hard. It's really simple.

Upward, inward, outward, upward, inward, outward.

Step one, we start upward. You start forgiving somebody by

going to God and praying for them.

And if you're like, I don't want to pray for them.

I know that's why we go to God and pray for them.

Because let me tell you one of the most serious things in the

world. When you're really mad at

somebody, angry or resentful or hurt by them, going into the

throne room of God, into the Lord of the Lord and the King of

kings who created this universe into his throne room and

speaking their name to him will begin to change.

You begin to change your heart, and that's what needs changing.

And so every day we're going to get up, we're going to go back

to God and we're going to pray for them.

And we're going to pray for their blessing and we're going

to pray for their repentance. And we're going to pray for

their salvation. And we're going to pray good on

their life. And in that time with the Lord,

we're actually going to focus on how much we've been forgiven of

so that we can remember the perspective of what he's done

for us so we don't become the servant who's been forgiven.

10,000 talents and wants to choke somebody out for a couple

Denarii going to start upward and then we're going to move

inward. We're going to look inward.

The first thing is you're not going to wait until you want to

forgive that person. It's going to be a long wait.

You're going to make a decision to forgive.

When you make a decision to forgive, it's actually just the

start of a long journey, and you're going to start that

process and you're just one foot in the other in front of the

other, like as God does this work.

Forgiveness is sometimes 1° at a time, and it takes time.

But the main thing is you don't stop.

Because if you stop, you get stuck and you start to sink.

And in those moments when resentment and bitterness begins

to bubble back up in our lives, we remember that I made a

decision to forgive that person. It's much the same when when you

love someone. Yeah, there might be these

moments where you fall in love with them, but a lot of the

moments of loving someone are really hard.

We make a decision to love them even when our emotions don't

match. Amen.

The same thing goes forgiving people.

We're getting acknowledge that it's a long journey.

And we remember that we're also a perpetrator, not just a

victim. And then thirdly, we're going to

reach outward. We're going to go to that

person, if possible, to tell them we forgive them.

And listen. Reconciliation may not be

possible because forgiveness takes one person, but

reconciliation takes 2. But even when reconciliation is

not possible, peace is possible. Even if that person isn't

remorseful, even if that person hasn't earned it, peace is

possible. So today I'm going to ask you to

make a commitment. The person, the conflict that

has been bubbling up all service long, you've been trying to not

cross your arms, but you really want to.

I want you to make a commitment to pray for them Today.

I want you to make a commitment that you're going to forgive

them, which means you're going to start a long journey.

But let me explain why you need to do it.

In Matthew 11 when Jesus explains what it's going to be

like to put your faith in him, he says this.

He says come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I

will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn

from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find

rest for your souls. Jesus is not simply telling you

that His guidance is going to be gentle and it's going to be

freeing. He is telling you that.

But you'll notice He's also telling you that you come to Him

heavy laden. Where does all that debt go?

Where does all that heavy burden go?

He wants you to give it to Him. Some of us in the room have come

to Christ, but we refuse to give him the burden that he asked

for. And we've wondered now for a

while, why has why has life felt so difficult?

Why have things changed? And, and because you actually

have to give him the burden. So we choose to forgive today

and let Jesus carry the burdens in our story.

Joseph said something in that original story that's really

profound. He said what you intended for

evil, God used for good. Guys, if you will give over all

those wounds to God, he will start using them for good.

I promise you. That debt requires a payment,

but Jesus already made that payment on the cross, and you're

carrying around something he already paid for.

If you'll give it to him, you'll find that life with Jesus is a

lot more freeing, a lot easier than you thought it was.

Will you give it to him today? Stand with us.

We're going to close in song. Our prayer team is going to come

up. We would love to pray with you

about anything, whether it's about forgiveness, whether it's

about your health, whether it's about anything that's going on

in your life. We love the opportunity to pray

for you and with you. And so our prayer team will be

here. You guys move as the Lord leads.

We love you guys.