Self-Control

All right.

Welcome, welcome to Gateway Church.

Welcome this weekend.

If you're watching from one of the campuses or online, welcome to you as well.

That was my first time to see that little intro to the sermon series, Survival Guide for the Soul.

And uh also when I was preaching last week, I never noticed that there was a forest behind me until I saw pictures of it later.

And I like the background a lot.

Um, Pastor Thomas keeps telling me that I should just emerge out of there in camo and then preach to you.

And I think that's a wonderful idea.

I desperately want to try it.

Funny thing about that background, those woods right there, whenever you drove, whenever you arrived here, uh you might have noticed some uh some forest there off to the side.

Um that's I just emerged out of those woods, as you can tell by my beard.

Uh, I've been living in the woods for a while, and um that's where I live.

And so I just showed up for this and they decided that this was a fitting theme.

I don't normally dress up like this.

They bought these clothes for me.

Um and by the length of my beard, you're like, we we already knew that.

We knew you don't dress up very often.

We we already knew that.

So we're talking about survival guide for the soul.

I uh one weekend uh my dad was preaching and he he was preaching this service, uh, an evening Saturday night service, and then had to leave the next uh or that night actually to go preach somewhere the next day.

And so uh I offered to drive him to the airport.

And so um he had a tight schedule.

He had to get directly to the flight in order to make the flight.

And so uh the moment he finished preaching, I had my car um ready and waiting for him, and he got in the car and I took off driving straight for the um airport.

And we thought um we'll beat the traffic out of here um because we're leaving, you know, before the service is even over.

And um as soon as he got in the car and we took off, we realized that the parking lot was already packed.

Everyone was leaving.

Um, I don't know if you know this, but uh, you know, pre-COVID, this room can seat 4,000 people.

And when it's full like that, there are uh 12,000 cars in the parking lot.

I don't know how everyone drives three cars, but they do.

And there are 12,000 cars trying to leave at exactly the same time.

And so uh he came out, he got in my car.

I was driving a Toyota Corolla, and uh it was one where all of the paint um decided to just remove itself from the car one day, and uh what was under there became rust, and uh my kids were not very proud to be in this car with me.

Uh, they called it the leprosy car.

Um and so uh my dad got in my car and we take off driving, and oh man, tensions were high.

Everyone was trying to get out of there as quickly as possible to go eat their food or whatever they were gonna do.

And so uh then me and my dad we got in a little argument about what the best way was to get to the airport.

And after he won, per ush, um uh I said, okay, fine, I'll go that way.

And so I cut over into the other lane, and there was a guy that was just rocketing in that lane, and he had to slow down because I moved over right in front of him.

I didn't even cut him off.

It was just like, I just I just hindered his fast driving and he was mad.

And my dad got on the phone, someone had called him, and he's talking on the phone, and I can see this guy in the background just boiling in his car.

First chance he gets, he swears around us, and he comes right up to the passenger side window, and he gave us the bird.

I mean, and this was a guy who had just pulled out of this church, okay?

Just so you know.

If you're here today, you might remember this occasion because woo, he was flipping us off.

And so I just went like this and pointed, and my dad is still on the phone, oblivious to everything that's happening.

And you could see he went like this, and he just straightened up and drove just like that.

True story, all of that is a hundred percent true.

And so uh today we're gonna talk about self-control because sometimes we need some self-control in our lives.

Road rage is one of those times it shows us the worst of our character, shows us the worst of our being.

Uh road rage is like um it was the thing that came before social media that would show us how depraved we really are.

Because any sense of barrier or protection, and we will immediately start ripping people apart.

Can you imagine if you talk to people in real life the way that you do when you're in your car, you know?

Like if you were walking through the grocery store and someone cut in front of you and you're like, hello, what are you thinking?

Out of my way.

Can you imagine what that would be like if we acted that way?

And that is the way it is on social media.

That is the way it is.

When there is any barrier of protection around us, we will immediately turn into the worst part of ourselves.

Self-control is needed, especially in these times when tensions are high.

And so our survival guide for the soul is talking about how do we exhibit the fruits of the spirit.

So we went over this last week, but let me show you once again in Galatians chapter 5, verse 22.

Galatians 5:22

It says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

So last week we talked about love.

Um, it could also include several other ones that are in there, like kindness and goodness and gentleness.

All of those are very similar to love.

This week we're gonna talk about self-control, which could include forbearance, and next week we'll talk about joy.

This week, though, we'll talk about self-control.

Self-control um is a fruit of the spirit.

So let's just let that sink in for just a moment.

God says that if you're walking with the spirit and you're living the life that you are called to live.

In church, we talk a lot about giving control over to God, releasing everything, just being in the spirit, just being who we are.

He accepts us for who we are.

But as we mature as a Christian, he expects us to control ourselves.

That is a fruit of the spirit, one that we gloss over often, one that we forget about often, but we are called to exhibit self-control.

We're called to be able to control ourselves.

There was a time when a husband said to his wife that every time they got mad at each other, frustrated with each other, she would just disappear in the other room for a little while, and when she would come back, she would be perfectly happy.

And he said, I gotta know.

How do you do it?

How do you have so much self-control?

Right whenever we get really heated and you get really mad, you leave the room, you go away, and when you come back, you're fine and you're happy.

And she said, Well, it's simple.

Whenever I leave the room, I go in the other room and I clean the toilet.

He said, I don't understand.

That sounds like a terrible job.

What could possibly make you calm down and be so happy after that?

She said, Well, when I do it, I use your toothbrush.

That's one way to use self-control.

We've got to pause for a moment and think about this: that we are called to be disciplined, to control ourselves, and we have power in that.

You have a power in choosing in your mind that you are gonna take responsibility and that you are going to control yourself.

I absolutely hate washing the dishes.

I always have.

I've always thought it's the worst thing that you can possibly do in your house.

And the reason is because I don't like to do something that's gonna quickly get undone.

I don't like to wash the dishes just so that I can wake up tomorrow, eat on those dishes again, and then wash them all over again.

Repetitive tasks like that just drive me crazy.

And one day I was thinking about this topic of self-control, and I realized that the only thing that's bad about doing the dishes is the angst that I feel, that I put on myself whenever I do it.

Everybody washes dishes.

It's a it's a task that we have to do, it's something that you just have to keep up with.

And and and I I thought, I wonder then if I changed my mindset, if that would change whether or not I hate washing the dishes.

I just assumed that I was made this way.

I was just born to hate washing dishes.

And instead, for just a moment, I tried to change my mindset on that.

So I started thinking, well, what is one thing that I love to do that I don't get to do very often?

And one of those things that came to mind that perfectly coincided with this is that I love to listen to podcasts.

And so I decided whenever I listen to podcasts or whenever I wash the dishes, I'm gonna put my headphones on and I'm gonna listen to podcasts.

Now, uh it it didn't make it my favorite chore of the day, but what I realized is that there was some power to what I determined to do in my mind, that my mind had that ability to control the things that I would do, to control the way that I would do those things.

And there are a million ways that we can control ourselves, but there today we're gonna focus on the ways that deal with interpersonal uh things, interpersonal dealings with other people around us.

And so God has called us to bear his image.

He placed his image in us, and he asked us to be a good representation of his image.

And so we are expected then to function within the calling that he has given us.

And when we do not exhibit self-control, we don't function in the calling that God has placed on our lives.

And when we do, we exhibit the fruits of the Spirit.

We function within the identity that God has called us to function in.

A hammer only fulfills its uh maintains its identity and function within what it was designed for.

It is really good at hammering nails into wood.

It is not a good blender.

Don't ask me how I know.

I've tried it before.

We have this intended purpose, which is to bear the image of God.

And God could not have made us to live some unhampered life where we would never run up against problems or troubles in our lives, because then growth would not be possible.

Instead, God functions as some sort of coach in our lives when he encourages us to train harder, experience the resistance so that we will become stronger.

And as we go through these difficulties, we become stronger so that we are more prepared to go deeper with God and to do more here on earth as we partner with him.

So I'm gonna talk about three different ways that we can control ourselves.

And the first is that we control our desires.

Control your desires.

We must control our desires because it is our desires that drive our actions.

In 2 Timothy chapter 3, starting in verse 2, it says, People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

2 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

When we do not exhibit self-control, we uh we we exhibit the qualities of someone who pursues pleasure more than they pursue God, who continues to seek what we believe will make us feel good in the moment instead of pursuing the things of God, instead of focusing ourselves and our lives to be closer to Him, and instead we just chase our desires all around.

And when we chase our desires, it is as if we are chasing a wild beast, and once we finally corner that wild beast or catch up to it, it turns to devour us.

Chasing our desires ends in destruction every single time we try to do this.

We can't control our desires all the time, and when we when we give in to them, the desire pops up, and when we don't exhibit self-control, we chase these things around and we inhibit the body from functioning properly.

We inhibit our ourselves from being able to function in the fullest uh version of ourself that God has called us to do.

And so when you ask yourself, what then should my desires be?

Obviously, they should be pure, they should be desires for closeness with God and with family and things like that.

But but here's one one easy way that you can decide if a desire is wrong.

One primary desire that you should have is a desire to never indulge in a desire that you cannot fulfill.

And the world teaches us that we'll find happiness if we are rich or famous or wealthy or all of these things.

And so instead we say, I wish I could be this, I wish I could be a rock star, I wish I could be a movie star, a YouTube star, because that's a thing now.

I wish I could be this kind of person or that kind of person, I wish that I could have this and that.

And our greatest desire then should be never to ingrain in ourselves a desire that we cannot fulfill.

It causes discord and unhappiness within ourselves.

We we develop these desires and don't use any self-control to block these, and so we end up hurting ourselves and others.

And when we seek pleasure over virtue, we find ourselves in a dangerous situation.

Now, it may not sound like very much fun to exercise self-control.

It may not sound like an exciting endeavor.

It might sound like a lot of work, a lot of effort.

Might sound like now, in order to really start doing this, I'd have to watch my behaviors and follow these things all the time.

And so I'm gonna give an extreme example, but this example is a good one for figuring out why it is important for us to have self-control, what this path of destruction really looks like.

So let's say that you you're presented with the opportunity to be unfaithful to your spouse.

You're presented with the opportunity to have some type of affair.

And maybe even the desire is strong.

Maybe even the pull towards this relationship is incredibly strong, and you feel this overwhelming urge to fulfill this desire to be with this person, and so you you think, well, how difficult will it be then to really truly control myself and to do this?

Well, um, the one thing you can do is play out the scenario over the long run.

Which one takes more effort for you to decide in that moment that's not for me and to let it go, or to indulge in this behavior, which then will mean that you will have to keep two so stories straight all the time.

It will mean that you'll have to live a double life.

It will mean that you'll have to, in your mind, balance the lies that you've been telling and remember the story over and over.

It will require that you hide your whereabouts.

It will require that you hide your communication, it will require a complete change of your lifestyle.

When you just stop and play that out over the long run, you can say, actually, having self-control in this moment will stop me from a mound of destruction in my life that I do not want to take on.

Self-control stops us from those things.

Sounds difficult, sounds like a lot of work, but it stops us from going down a road that we don't want to go on.

It devours us, and each pleasure that is gained is a new master that you must serve.

Every pleasure that you indulge in becomes a master that you have to serve.

So it does take energy to uh to exercise self-control, but it takes less energy to exercise self-control than to manage the consequences of the pain that you will feel if you give in.

Well, what about whenever we experience uh anger?

What about anger?

Should we should we still exhibit self-control even when we get really angry?

Yeah, even then, even then, that's a good time uh to avoid becoming angry.

We should also keep in mind that the things in general that anger us don't really do us any harm.

Road rage is a really good example of that.

We don't have to be out there driving on the roads uh as Christians, being a church curmudgeon in the car and just yelling at everyone and being frustrated by everything.

We don't have to feel those times of anger.

Self-control can abate those feelings instantly.

We take what might have been a barely noticeable blip in our day and transform it into this agitated state that completely ruins the peace of our day.

Our anger invariably lasts longer than the damage done to us.

Our anger oftentimes lasts much longer than the hurt that we feel from what someone has done to us.

What fools we are then if we allow our peace, the peace that God gave us, to be disrupted by such small disagreements with our fellow brothers and sisters?

Watch your uh behavior on social media.

Is it exhibiting the love of God, or is it uh taking the bait and diving into division and jumping deeper into the ways of causing more and more division, or are we exercising self-control?

Are we exhibiting the love that God has called us to exhibit?

The second thing that we need to learn to control is our ego.

Our egos get damaged or hurt whenever someone says something mean or hurtful about us.

And because our ego gets uh uh uh hurt or broken, we often lash out because of that.

And so, our our like an example of that would be uh oftentimes you're doing something really difficult.

You take on something very challenging in your life, and people that you love around you will question whether or not you should be doing that.

And oftentimes it hurts our ego.

What is it that would make them say that?

Do they think that I can't do it?

Do they think that I can't accomplish that?

Should I step back from this?

What is it that causes them to bring this criticism?

So ask yourself, play that out down the road.

What would then cause them to accept you?

To quit?

To join them in not doing anything?

To join them in in activity?

Is that how you can get into their group?

And if so, is that a group that you would want to be a part of anyways?

Instead, look at the criticism that you receive as the the sign or the signal that you are making changes, that you are growing.

And all the criticism would only show up because of the progress that you are making.

Oftentimes people quit things simply because someone says, I'm not sure if you can do it.

That is the time to press on, not to pull ourselves down into the frustration that we feel over what they've said to us.

I uh I don't want fame or fortune or any of those things.

I seek instead to be able to control my thoughts.

I seek instead to be able to control myself.

And what about when someone insults you?

In the same way uh that a mother would be foolish to uh get upset at the insult of a toddler, uh, as children often do.

Um, my uh you may have seen this on social media, but uh my little niece Bray, James's daughter, uh told my dad one time she was sitting in his lap, and she goes, You dot a big tummy like that.

And he was like, What?

Why do I have a big tummy?

And she just thought she goes, because you're fat, you know?

And we got it on video, it was magical.

And and no one was offended, no one was hurt.

In those times when someone insults you, you don't know what's going on in their life that would cause them to insult you.

And in the same way that a mother would be foolish to get down by the insults of a toddler, we at the same time would be foolish to take those things too seriously.

We would be foolish to give them too much uh credence.

And and and I this is one way that I started thinking about it.

And you can't take it too far, you can't take this illustration too far.

But um, say you're walking down the street and there's uh uh a dog on the other side of a fence in a backyard, and the dog barks at you and shows his teeth and and violently barks at you, but he's on the other side of the fence.

Um you don't spend the rest of your day wondering why that dog was mad at you.

You don't spend the rest of your day wondering what is it about me that caused that dog to target me.

What you understand is that you encroached on a territory and that person felt threatened, and so that they that and the dog felt threatened, so he lashed out.

So um I don't use I'm not using dogs so that we will take it too far and you'll just be like, uh, they insulted me.

They're like dogs.

No, the idea is that there are other things at play when someone insults you.

And you don't need to spend the rest of your day wondering why that person lashed out at you.

It isn't your business.

Whatever hurt or pain they are feeling that cause them to not be able to act like an adult to you, whatever pain that is, instead of feeling angry at them, we should feel sorry for them.

And it will be much easier for you to forgive them if you realize that they're going through something too.

And so instead of allowing these insults that are hurled at us to bring us down and to take us down, we instead need to control our ego, not allow it to take us over.

Jesus asks us to exhibit self control.

He lets the rich young ruler walk away from him.

He doesn't try to control him.

So you have that ability.

The Holy Spirit is your guide and your helper.

And so when anger or fear or worry or anxiety or jealousy rise up in us, we have the opportunity to either embrace them in the lowest form of our humanity.

Or we can accept the leading of the spirit.

You may not have complete control over the thoughts that arise in your mind or the deep-rooted feelings that rise up in your spirit, like anger or resentment, but you have absolute control over what you do with those thoughts and feelings.

You have absolute control of how much space you give those to take up residence in your heart.

And the third thing that we need to remember is that we need to choose to forgive.

I'm going to read to you a story that we're all familiar with, and then we'll talk a little bit more about this.

But it starts in Matthew chapter 18, starting in verse 21.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

It says, Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me?

Up to seven times?

Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.

As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him.

Now, uh ten thousand bags of gold, um, just so you know, is um it's like a whole lot of money.

Um some translations say uh ten talents.

Um but uh it's uh it's a joke, actually.

Like if you were there with Jesus when he was telling the story, um he would have gotten to that part and he would have been like, and this dude owed a cajillion dollars, and you'd be like, Whoa, no, that's not possible.

That's what he says here.

All right?

And at this, the servant fell on his knees before him.

Be patient with me, he begged, and I will pay back everything.

The servant's master took pity on him, cancelled the debt, and let him go.

But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.

This is nothing compared to the debt that he owed.

And he grabbed him and began to choke him.

Pay back what you owe me, he demanded.

His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.

But he refused.

Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.

When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

And then the master called the servant in.

Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?

In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed.

This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.

Now, this is uh obviously a text about forgiveness, and it gives us a very strong picture of how strongly Jesus feels about forgiveness.

It gives us a very vivid picture by the disparity in the amounts of what each of these people owed and the way that they responded.

All of that is there and present in the story.

Uh it's such a large amount of money.

One talent was worth 20 years of an average person's pay for one year, or 20 years of an average person's worker's pay.

So 20 years compiled would be one talent.

And so he owes this uh unbelievable amount of money.

And the message here is powerful.

It tells us that, it reminds us that oftentimes we hold others, uh, we we don't forgive others, we hold this bitterness towards others when we have been forgiven so much.

We have been forgiven uh more than we can possibly fathom.

And so we're called to forgive.

Forgiveness does not mean acceptance.

Forgiveness does not mean that we condone or pardon the actions that were done by the person.

Forgiveness, in fact, does not even always mean that the person who committed the crime or the offense will not experience consequences.

Forgiveness actually is something that we do, and it's for us.

It doesn't mean that they escape those consequences.

It means that you are letting go of something.

Forgiveness is more like the air in your lungs.

There's only room for you to inhale the next lungful when you've just breathed out the previous one.

There's only room for us to receive the forgiveness of God once we've let out all of the unforgiveness that we have been harboring.

Whatever the spiritual, moral, or emotional equivalent of the lungs may be, we sometimes call this just the heart.

It's either open or closed.

And if it's open and able and willing to forgive others, it will also be open and ready to receive the forgiveness that God gives each and every one of us.

But if it is locked up or gripped tightly, it will be uh uh locked up to the other.

And holding unforgiveness is like as if someone has pushed you under water, and in your anger you choose to stay under there.

Apart from all of the things that you need to survive, you choose to stay underwater.

And oftentimes our bitterness will get so strong, we'll say, I'll only come up out of the water if it's to grab him and pull him down with me.

I'll only let go of this if I see the destruction of the other person.

And forgiveness is stronger than that.

Forgiveness is there so that we will make that decision to forgive, whether or not they have uh changed or asked for forgiveness or any of those things.

The most creative power given to the human spirit is the power to heal the wounds of a past that it cannot change.

That is the greatest power that we have is that simply through forgiveness we can heal the wounds of the past, even though we can't change what happens.

We do not forgive because we are supposed to.

We forgive when we are ready to be healed.

And waiting for someone to repent before we forgive them is to surrender our future to the one who wronged us.

It is to give them control of our future.

And so when you forgive, you set a prisoner free.

And once you do it, you realize that you were that prisoner.

Forgiveness releases the the ability for God to heal us.

Now there's something really interesting that we should just take note of for just a moment in that passage.

Peter says, uh, Jesus, how many times should we forgive?

And then he gives the answer.

He's like one of those people at a conference that says they have a question, but really they're trying to tell you something, give you the answer, you know?

And he's that guy.

He's goes, seven, you know?

And Jesus is like, no, not seven.

And Peter's like, I overshot, I knew it.

And he goes, no, 77 times.

Now, a quick note some of your Bibles may uh say uh 70 times seven.

Maybe you've heard that.

Maybe you've heard people talk about forgiving 490 times.

But if you actually go back and you look very closely at the text, I'm gonna read it in Latin because that's the only one I can read.

I can't read Greek or Hebrew, but um septuages, septies is the word that is used.

Septuages means seventy times, and septies means seven times.

And so what the text actually says is seventy times, seven times.

It is it is meant for you to add those two numbers together, and it is written in that same exact way in only one other place in Scripture.

That place is in Genesis chapter 4.

Genesis 4 · chapter mention

You'll remember that Cain murdered his brother Abel.

And then Cain was sent out of that land by God, and Cain was afraid that people would murder him or get back at him.

And God said, If anyone touches Cain, I will avenge his death sevenfold.

So Cain went to a town that he named Enoch after his son, and Enoch was a terrible place.

Enoch was full of death and destruction and awful behavior of the people who lived there.

And therein Enoch was a man named Lamech.

Lamech wrote a poem that is recorded in Scripture, and he wrote this poem for his two wives, and he read this or recited this poem to them to talk about how great he was to his two wives.

I wrote a poem about myself one time, neither of my wives appreciated it at all.

Um, so it doesn't work, don't try it.

Um So Lamech writes this poem, and in this poem he talks about how great he is and how much he has accomplished, and he talks about how uh a young man simply wounded him and so he killed him, and he says in this poem, Cain is avenged seven times, but if someone messes with me, they will be avenged 77 times.

And so when Jesus says, No, not seven times, seventy-seven times.

And the wording is exactly the same as what we find in Genesis 4.

Remember, the Pharisees would have to memorize the first five books of the Bible.

So when it was said in exactly the same form as what it was written, it would have been an immediate nod to the time of Lamech.

What Jesus is saying here is that what you want to do, it doesn't matter if it's 77 or 490, the point of what Jesus is saying is that we will forgive over and over again.

And what he says is when you want to pay someone back 77 times over, in your new and redeemed state, you will forgive them 77 times over.

It won't be like the old days.

It won't be like the old man.

We won't be like that anymore or operate in that way anymore.

We won't be the fallen lamech who says, I pay back 77 times.

Instead, we will say, I forgive 77 times over.

My mother-in-law told me this story that uh her her grandfather uh abused her um mentally, emotionally, uh, physically, and sexually.

And and she went to a conference one time or a class to find ways to get over this, to find ways to forgive.

And and and bringing up all of those memories was so painful to her that she ended up leaving.

And she sat down and she prayed and she said, God, why can't I forgive my grandfather?

And in that moment, she got a vision that her grandfather was in her hand.

Um, I don't ask, I didn't ask what the scale of the vision was.

I don't know how tall she was or how tiny he was, but she had him in her hands and she was shaking him and showing to God, do you see what he did to me?

Do you see what he did to me?

And in the vision, God said, Look down at your hand.

God said, I can't deal with him unless you let him go.

But more importantly, I can't heal you unless you give me your hand.

Whatever pain or hurt we grip tightly to, stops the healing power of God from entering into that situation, that moment, or that pain that you feel.

And the tighter we grip, the more we close out God.

And the further we put off our healing.

You can do it.

Self-control.

The fruit of the Spirit asks you.

No matter how difficult or painful it is to let go so that God can heal you.

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes with me if you will?

Forgiving is a journey.

The deeper the wound, the longer the journey.

But today, you can take the first step towards forgiving.

Maybe you're watching today and you think, I'd like to know what that kind of forgiveness feels like to receive.

That's what God makes available to us.

That no matter what you've done, no matter what choices you've made in your life, God forgives you.

He receives you into his presence.

If that's you and you desperately need that type of love and forgiveness in your life today, just wherever you are, you pray this prayer with me.

Dear Lord, I receive your forgiveness.

And Lord, I accept you into my life.

And Lord, give me the strength to forgive others in the way that you have forgiven me.

And if you prayed that prayer, I want you to text decision to 71010 so that we can give you some resources for this new walk of faith that you're stepping into.

And today, Lord, God, we we we take that first step towards forgiveness.

Lord, we give you control.

And Lord, we take control.

We decide today that we will not let those thoughts overwhelm us or overtake us, but instead, Lord, we will forgive.

And God, we ask that because of this, anger, fear, worry, anxiety, jealousy, hatred, bitterness, all of these things would pass away.

And may we be the church that you have called us to be.

No longer functioning as a Lamic, but Lord, forgiving 77 times over and an endless number if that's what you call us to.

So, Lord, we pray all these things in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.