Forgive Others

I'm very glad to be here.

And when you when you show up at a church like this, that you know they're getting a pretty good dose every weekend from the Word of God, you want to make sure that you're saying something that can apply to them, that it's just not a sermon that you had somewhere on a shelf that you actually hear from the Lord.

So we spent a lot of time praying about that.

And when I mention the topic of what we're going to talk about, you may think, you know, that's not really going to apply to me.

But hold out just a little bit and pay attention because I think we're going to be able to aim this at everyone.

And the reason is because sometimes as Christians, people do things to us that upset us.

More modern term would be they tick us off sometimes.

And raise your hand if you've ever been mad at anybody in your life.

Come on.

Unless you're so holy, you don't, nothing's ever wrong with you.

And uh, but but it happens.

And then sometimes people make mistakes.

Uh recently somebody asked me, what's the biggest mistake that you've made, Rick, as being a pastor?

And I don't know if I named the biggest mistake, but it is hilarious.

Uh my wife and I were raising four kids, and my youngest son, uh, he was going around at seven years of age telling everybody that he was the pastor's son.

And uh we don't like that.

You don't want to leverage that, that's just not right.

So we said, Don't do that.

Just tell everybody you're tanner.

Don't go around telling everybody you're the pastor's son.

He said, All right.

So he showed up at church the next weekend, and a lady went up to him and said, Aren't you the pastor's son?

And he knew immediately he had a dilemma.

And he said, Well, I thought I was, but my mom and dad said I'm not.

So there you have it right there.

Let me just tell you something.

I grew up in a church, and here's the reason why I want to hit on this hard.

We're gonna have a lot of fun today, but what's gonna happen is you're gonna see that the truth is we we all have to work on this, including me.

And I grew up in a church where it started out with the edge in their hand.

They had the edge.

I mean, this church was rocking and rolling there in the Louisiana area.

I'm a Cajun.

And uh we lived in Baker, Louisiana, and this church had it.

But as time went on, people decided that they weren't gonna forgive one another.

They were gonna keep records of wrongs, and the people got meaner and meaner.

And I don't know about you, but I don't want to meet another mean Christian for the rest of my life.

And especially after the Sunday school teacher that I had growing up, this lady hated me.

She talked about hell.

I mean, she she thought I was gonna be the first one ever that went to hell, the worst part of hell.

And uh, she talked about hell like she was born and raised in hell.

And one time she was talking about the Ten Commandments, and she was talking about how God, you know, don't take God's name in vain, and that's true.

And I was listening and I was overwhelmed by what she was saying.

So I said, Gali, ow ow.

And she said, Would you say, Bzet?

She had the longest finger in the history of mankind.

Would you say, Bzet?

And I said, I said, Gali.

She said, that's a form of God's name.

Hell is hot, BZ.

Hot, hot, hot.

Don't you want to go to heaven?

Not if the people there are like you, I don't.

That's what I remember thinking.

And so I've noticed that hurt people hurt people.

And if you're here right now and and you're trying to serve the Lord, and there's there's some decisions that you have to make.

I mean, as far as I'm concerned, if you were to meet with any pastor and uh and they were to tell you the biggest deterrence that they see in the faith, one would be the fact that a lot of Christians live in this world of guilt and condemnation.

And uh and they don't know the difference between the word condemnation and conviction.

Uh, but I'm gonna teach you real quick.

Condemnation is from the enemy, is from Satan.

And for example, if yesterday you got into an argument with someone and you yelled at them and and uh or you lied to them during conflict and confrontation, condemnation would follow after that and say, you see how you are, you see how you act, you see the way you talk to people, see the way that you manipulate, and if you'll notice there's really no hope out of it.

It's just weights that easily entangle you.

But conviction is from the Holy Spirit.

It sounds the same, some would not know the difference, but condemnation is from the enemy, conviction is from the Holy Spirit, and he'll tell you the truth, and I love it when I get convicted by him, but he always gives you a way out.

He'll point out, yesterday, the way you lied is not of me.

Call that person and get right.

I want you back.

So the biggest deterrent that I know of is condemnation.

People feeling like that it's over for them, that God is mad at them, and God is trying to hurt them.

And the second one, though, is like it, certainly associated with it, and that is the whole judgmentalism that applies to our lives.

People upset us and we get upset, we get frustrated.

And I want you just to think for a second about the heart of God.

Christ, his best example to his heart was on Good Friday.

We call it Good Friday because there was a lot going on, good for us.

But it wasn't necessarily a good Friday for him.

I mean, he was in more pain and agony than you can imagine.

Other people during those days that were crucified like him, they would be under so much pain that they would cuss everybody in front of them, and historians will tell you that they would literally have to cut the tongue out of the person being crucified's mouth because they didn't want to hear all of that.

Well, they didn't do that to Christ, and he was able to speak and think about his heart.

There he was on the cross.

It wasn't the nails holding him to the cross, it was his love for you.

It was his love for people and the desire to set a precedent to show what forgiveness can do.

And so in his prayer, you can see that he was saying, Father, forgive them.

He was building a relationship on the cross with someone who didn't deserve to be forgiven.

And God was trying to say, I want you to be a forgiver like me.

So Peter, one day, and let's just go to this for a second, one day the Lord was looking at Peter, and he was trying to show him the truth of the power of forgiveness.

And he knew that Peter one day was going to need to understand this.

And I'll give you a picture of that as well.

What Peter did and what Judas did was not that much different.

One betrayed the Lord, one denied the Lord.

And after Jesus rose from the dead, he knew that Peter, Judas had already committed suicide, and he knew that Peter didn't feel like that he was still a disciple.

So the Lord wants to meet with everybody and huddle with his followers, and he tells somebody, he says, go and get the disciples and get Peter too.

And the reason why he had to mention Peter's name, because Peter probably didn't feel like that he was a disciple anymore.

He probably felt like that he ruined it, that there was no chance for the Lord to want him on the team again.

But here's what I want you to know: if Judas wouldn't have committed suicide, I am totally convinced that Jesus would have said, Hey, go and get the disciples, go and get Peter and get Judas.

And the reason why he loves bringing back people into a relationship with him.

Can I have an amen today?

So let's look at this.

Peter didn't get it.

Uh at one point the Lord was really trying to teach Peter the importance of forgiveness, way before the episode I just described.

And in verse 21, it actually says that Peter came to Jesus and asked, He said, How many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me?

Up to seven times?

Now Peter was trying to impress the Lord because Jewish law said you had to forgive three times.

So he doubled it and added one, thinking that God was going to be totally impressed by that.

And the Lord didn't go with him at all.

Jesus answered and said, No, I'll tell you the truth, not seven times, man.

But 70 times seven.

The Lord wasn't trying to say 490.

He was basically trying to say, is you always have to forgive again.

And in fact, if you know how many times you've forgiven, you haven't forgiven once.

If you're keeping score, then you're really not in the deal.

And Peter still didn't get it.

Just like sometimes with me, I don't know about you, but I am so hard-headed.

Years ago, I was a professional golfer, and God wanted me to go to Bible school to be in the ministry.

And I didn't want to do it.

I loved playing golf.

I was afraid of ministry.

I didn't know you could be cool and in the ministry at the same time back in those days.

I didn't know there were Robert Morrises out there.

And so I resisted it.

And so I was in a tournament, and the only way I just signed a contract to play in Asia.

And the only way to get out of the contract was to be injured.

And I was up against a root, and when I hit the shot, it broke the club, broke my wrist, and the club swung around and hit me in the head.

And knocked me out.

That's how God speaks to me.

It is.

I'm so stinking hard-headed.

Alright, so Peter was that way, and we know that's the truth.

So Jesus could tell that he wasn't getting it.

So he told him this story.

He said, Alright, Peter.

He said it's like this The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.

And as he began the settlement, a man who owed him 10,000 talents was brought to him.

Now that doesn't really mean much to you.

10,000 talents, you don't even know how much that is in today's monetary equal.

And so that was actually the equivalent of 12 million dollars.

So this guy had a huge debt.

And so he owed that money, 10,000 talents.

And since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

In other words, back in those days, there was no bail-out plan from anybody, alright?

And there was no bankruptcy clause available.

In fact, if you owed money, either the person would just have to forgive you of the debt, or you would be thrown into prison, or slavery, and perhaps even your whole family.

So this guy understood the major dilemma, this huge debt that he owed.

And similar to the debt that you owe when you found Christ, and so this is what he does.

He did just what you would do.

The servant fell on his knees before him and he said, Be patient with me.

And he begged, he said, I'll pay back everything.

And the servant's master took pity on him, canceled a debt, and let him go.

How many appreciate the debt that was forgiven for you?

Every sin has to be paid for.

Either you're gonna pay for it or we're gonna let him pay for it.

I want Christ to pay for mine.

Amen?

Alright, so how do we learn from this?

Because Jesus was making a big deal.

How does this apply to us?

Number one, write this down.

If you want to understand how to close the gap on this whole thing, number one, remember, I have been forgiven by God.

I want you just to grasp that for a second.

Some of you are not serving God right now.

And uh, and the reason is because you you don't comprehend the love that he has for you.

How much he wants a relationship with you.

And think about this the Lord says, you'll never have a relationship with me.

He will actually stiff arm having a relationship with you until you let him forgive you.

I mean, you think about the heart of God.

He says, hey, the one thing you have to allow to happen in order to be in a relationship with me is you've got to let me forgive you.

A lot of people don't get that.

And here's the reason why we struggle with it so much, because the adversary doesn't want you in close proximity to God.

He doesn't want you in a relationship with God, like he's in love with you.

And love, you know, you were worshiping the Lord a while ago because you wanted more of him, but most of you don't understand that he liked it because he got more of you.

God loves to be around us, and here's why.

In fact, you can see the actual uh information from the Old Testament.

We know that the Bible says that his voice was a whisper.

The Bible says that it wasn't in an earthquake, it wasn't in a fire, it wasn't in the wind, but it was in a whisper.

Why would the Lord whisper?

He's a huge God.

He can yell, he can certainly just conjure up some decibels.

But he doesn't.

Why does he whisper?

Because he knows that you have to be close to him to hear a whisper.

And I learned this the hard way.

And the bees at home, we are loud people.

I'm a Cajun, and a Cajun is there, we're crazy.

You know, we'll eat anything that lives in a ditch.

Uh, you know, you gotta be crazy.

And it's loud around my house, but I have one child, Grace, who's a whisperer, and we're all loud, and every now and then we're doing something loud, eating loud, talking loud, reading the word loud, whatever it is.

And then we hear this noise.

So we have to say, What is that?

And we finally realize, oh, it's Grace, and we all stop what we're doing, she says something we have to get really close.

What's what you want, Grace?

I just wanted to say hello.

Okay, all right, and then we go get loud again.

I will tell you that's why that's why God whispers.

Because you've got to settle down and be still and know that he is God to hear a very still, small voice.

And you'll never want to get that close to a God who you're not convinced wants to love you.

Now, let's look at the rest of this story.

And in Matthew 18, this guy, he had just been forgiven$12 million.

Let's look at this picture.

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

Again, there's no way this story is going to be interesting to you because you don't know how much that is.

Well, he was just forgiven 12 million.

A hundred denarii is the equivalent of$17.

This guy was just forgiven 12 million.

Now he finds somebody that owes him 17 bucks, and look what happened.

He went to the guy, he grabbed him, and he began to choke him around his neck.

Because Roman law said that if somebody owed you money, that you could choke them.

How many want to bring that back?

We need that back.

All right, so anyway, all right, so he was choking him.

He says, Pay back what you owe me, he demanded.

And look at the repeat performance here.

So his fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him.

He said, Be patient with me.

I'll pay you back.

But he refused.

And instead he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.

It's exactly the same thing, except he wasn't able to forgive.

And I'm gonna tell you why I think that he wasn't able to forgive.

Because I believe that he was not convinced that he was forgiven initially.

If you're not convinced that you're forgiven and you've never received the forgiveness of God, you can't give it away.

You can only give away what you've received.

Maybe he thought the master would change his mind and say, no, you still need to repay the$12 million.

And maybe he thought he would have had to repay it uh$17 at a time.

I don't know.

But when I meet with Christians, they always say, you know, God has forgiven me.

I know he loves me, but there's a few things in my life that I know he holds against me.

And I want you to think about those few things.

I mean, is that true?

Is the Lord, because what we tend to do is we say, okay, God, I know you want a relationship with me, but I gotta fix this, and then I'll come to you.

But first I want to fix this, and the Lord is saying, hey, no, I want to be in on the equation of fixing that.

You can't fix it without me.

Bring everything that is a mess in your life to me, and we'll work on it together.

But we don't do that because we don't understand the power of his forgiveness.

Ephesians 4 32 says it this way Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other.

How?

Just as in Christ, God forgave you.

Can I have an amen?

All right, number two, let's write this down.

Resentment doesn't work.

That's another reason why you need to forgive, because resentment, it doesn't even work.

It's not creating success at all.

And I know sometimes you'll see somebody that they're having a great life, and it seems like everything they do, God blesses it.

But everything you do, it doesn't seem to work.

You know some of the heroes of the faith felt the same way.

I mean, think about it.

God shows up to Noah and he looks at Noah and he says, I want you to build an ark in the middle of nowhere, a boat, because there's gonna be a lot of water, a lot of water.

500 miles away was the nearest body of water.

But Noah decided to do it.

And God was so blessed and so honored that he actually said, I'm gonna remind you of the covenant and what you did.

I'm so proud of you.

Every time you see a rainbow, remember the covenant.

You get a rainbow.

And then he looked at Abram.

He said, Abram, I want you to go.

Just go.

I'll tell you what to do later, but just go.

And Abram did it.

And after it was over, God said, I'm so proud of you.

I want it confirmed.

I'll confirm it through circumcision.

How many know that's not a rainbow?

So you know Abram was thinking, man, circumcision, Noah got a rainbow.

In all of his life, he was probably plagued with that.

And even at the end of his life, God shows up when he's a hundred years old and he says, I want you to go to babies or us.

You're gonna have a baby.

And he was thinking, who's gonna be the mama?

And God says, Sarah.

One translation, one verse says that Sarah was as good as dead at that time.

So he looks over at Sarah, and you know he was thinking, Noah got a rainbow, man.

So he's still on this.

All right.

Many of us, many of us, we get livid by what is happening in other people's lives, and it's frustrating.

So the Lord knows that we're gonna have the tendency to migrate to that place.

So he says things like this in Mark 11, 25.

He said, When you stand praying, if you hold anything against anybody, forgive them.

So that your father in heaven may be able to, one translation says, may forgive you of your sins.

Years ago when I was a youth pastor, I missed those days.

Being a youth pastor is one of the coolest things in the world.

And I loved it, except for the first year.

I didn't like it the first year because I had the meanest teenagers ever.

They hated each other, they hated me, they hated their mama, they hated their brother, they hated school, they hated everything.

And I couldn't figure it out.

So I was trying to pray to get God to move.

And nothing's worse than being around mean people except praying with mean people.

And so I was praying with them and it wasn't working.

And then finally, at the end of a dead prayer meeting, a girl said, She goes, Pastor Rick, can I say something before we leave?

And I said, Yeah, what's that?

And she looked at a girl across the way and she said, She pointed at the other girl, she said, For a few years, I've hated you.

And I don't even remember what it is that you did to me.

But I ask you to forgive me right now, would you please?

And so she's crying.

Now the girl across the way is crying, and I'm just watching this.

And then that girl across the way says, Can I say something?

I said, Yeah, what is it?

And she pointed at another girl.

She goes, I've hated you for longer than two years.

And uh, and then it's so she's working this out, and I'm thinking, I'm catching on to the issues here.

And then this girl pointed at a guy, she goes, You broke up with me a couple years ago, and I didn't like you.

And and then this guy's crying.

Now he got a football player crying, and uh, and he looked at another football player, he said, You didn't block good for me when he was in the seventh grade.

I broke my knee because of you, man.

So everyone got it right, and overnight the youth group was healed.

The rest of this story goes like this the master found out that the person that he was forgiven, that had been forgiven of 12 million, did not extend forgiveness to someone else for a much smaller debt.

So he brings him in, he says, Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?

And in anger, his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured.

The Lord is just trying to bring a picture to Peter about the power of forgiveness.

So many Christians are not enjoying their wall with God.

Look, resentment doesn't work.

In Job 21, it says this some men stay happy until the day they die.

Others have no happiness at all.

Why?

Because they live and die with bitter hearts.

And in Job 5, 2 it says, to worry yourself to death with resentment would be a foolish and a senseless thing to do.

Number three.

Forgiveness given is forgiveness received.

Look at this, another verse that shows the picture.

Jesus is saying in Matthew 6, for if, everybody say, if, if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you.

But if, say it again, if, if you do not forgive men their sins, your father will not forgive your sins.

Now, I just want to get into a quick little teaching on this because I noticed something a few years ago that a lot of people do not forgive because they don't know what it is.

So in order to tell you what it is, I'm gonna tell you what it's not so you'll know what it is.

All right?

What it's not.

Forgiveness is not minimizing the seriousness of the offense.

Would you write that down?

Because a lot of people there they're in my office or they're somewhere and we're ministering to them.

Tom or someone is trying to minister to them, and uh and they'll say, Okay, I know I need to forgive.

I guess it wasn't that big of a deal.

No, it was a big deal.

That's why you're thinking about it right now.

It's not reducing the offense to nothing so you can forgive.

It's knowing how tremendously painful it is, and still forgiving.

And in fact, you can see Joseph, he had an opportunity.

Man, this guy could have been bitter.

He could have paid back his brothers what they did to him.

I mean, I don't know what you have been through, but Joseph, he probably went through a little bit more than you.

And here he is with all authority and everything that he needs to destroy the people who hurt him, and they're in front of him, and he never minimized what they did, but he did maximize God.

As he looked at them, he said, You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.

It's not minimizing.

But number two, I think, will relate to a lot of you a lot more, and that is forgiveness is not trust.

Forgiveness is not trust.

That's two different topics, two different words.

But there's a slogan in America that we've said for years, and this is how it goes.

You gotta forgive and forget.

But let me just tell you, that is bunk.

There's not there's not one scripture in the Bible that says that you have to forgive and forget.

It's you forgive and remember.

And so when I talk about forgiveness, I'm not asking anybody here to trust the person who went out of their way, maybe even in premeditated fashion, to hurt you.

I'm not asking you to trust them again.

That can happen over time.

But forgiveness, it can happen in a second.

I was talking to somebody between the services, and this guy said, All of my life I've been a professional, resentful person.

He said, I keep track.

He goes, I can remember everything.

I just have that in mind.

I can remember everything, and I've kept records.

He goes, I always have a scorecard.

And I said, Man, you can become the best forgiver that you've ever met in one second.

And you know how I know he got it?

Because he said, I want it.

And he reached up to the heavens and I prayed for him.

And I believe he got it.

Can I have an amen?

And you can get it too.

So, how do you fill in this void?

Let's just go ahead and say that you're now convinced that you need to at least understand the revelation of what I'm talking about.

Number one, acknowledge my own imperfections.

Would you write that down?

Acknowledge my own imperfections.

All across the room, even if you were Presbyterian like Tom Lane growing up, we're going to raise your hand on this one, all right?

How many of you have ever hurt anybody in your life?

Look at this.

Raise it up high.

Now I know a few of you have never hurt anybody because you're so holy, you flew in here and landed softly on your chair.

Everybody has.

And what happens is we serve the Lord and we forget about our own flaws and imperfections.

They have people out there that need to hear this teaching because of something that you have done to them.

And a lot of times we forget, we just remember what has been done to us.

And I'll never forget this one time where I realized how much I needed to be careful because I have the potential to hurt people.

There was a lady who was in my office who was hurting the church.

This is many years ago now.

But she was hurting the church, and I couldn't wait to talk to her.

And there she was in my office, and she was letting me have it, and she was going to town.

Well, I was able to keep pretty good pace with her.

So I was letting her know what I thought.

Then she let me know what she thought, and then I trumped it, and then she kept going.

I trumped it again.

And at one point she broke down and I stayed on theme.

And I was just all over it.

And for some reason, it even felt a little bit anointed to me.

And I thought, man, I'm letting her know the truth around him.

And I'm looking at her and I realized I was winning.

She got up, and when she was walking down the hallway, and I looked at her, I stepped out of my office and I looked at her, and she looked 20 years older.

And I realized when I was watching her walk down the hallway, that I had become the very thing that I never wanted to be.

All of us have gone out of our way to hurt people.

The scripture even says in Ecclesiastes, there's not a single person in all the earth who's always good and never sins.

And sometimes we start out like King Uzziah, he started out with a love for God, and the Bible says, as long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success.

But it was his pride that led him to his downfall.

Number two, abandon my right to get even.

Recently I got an email from a lady, it was hilarious, but she sent me an email, she had visited our church, and she sent me this email and she said, You're going to hell because you use technology.

And then I realized this was an email.

Come on with that.

How many know you could write a good email back on that one?

But Romans 12, 18, and I remember this verse.

Don't you hate it when you remember a verse?

And I remember this verse, and it says, if it's possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everybody.

In other words, yeah, grab a CD for a friend who's going through this on the way out.

But this is, what about you?

How does this apply to you?

And here's why you got to get this straight.

This church, and I'm getting ready to brag about this church again.

This church has the hand of God on it.

It's almost sovereign-like what's happening here.

It's unusual.

The way that God has put this church together.

You can stay in this church for years and never get involved, and this church will be okay, but it will never be as strong as it could be, is if you did get involved.

And some of you are here now and you got sideswiped and hit a few times in your past, and so you made a decision with stiff arming effect that no one's ever gonna hurt me again.

Nobody.

And they just did.

Because you were not designed by God to do life alone.

God wants you involved.

And I believe that we have the integrity on this staff, and they have the leadership, and they have the teaching, and the skill level around this church is off the chart.

And I think the one thing that we can do to lose our first love here is for the people here not to forgive one another when someone hurts you.

And you know what happens?

You end up having resentment towards somebody who really doesn't infiltrate into your life much, but it plays out in your relationships that you love, like in your marriage.

And men, I love the Bible because the Bible, it knows how to speak to us.

The best example there is is the Bible tells a man to love his wife like he loves himself.

It doesn't tell a woman to love her husband like she loves herself because God knows that a woman don't love herself.

But a man does.

He know it's true.

A woman can be in front of a mirror and she can find something wrong.

Even if she's a 10, she can find something wrong.

But a guy can be fat, ugly, with hair on his back.

You know it's true.

Okay, you know I'm right.

That is hilarious.

Alright, back to the word.

Back to the word.

But it tells a man, even if even if a man is not a Christian and not a Christ follower, a man knows that one verse.

It could be a Buddhist and he knows this one verse.

Wives submit to the husbands, huh?

But before it says that, it tells it tells a man to give his life up for his wife.

You're never gonna do that, dude, if you have resentment.

It's just not gonna happen.

Okay, but then it turns to the women and challenges them.

It doesn't tell a woman to respect her husband.

It actually beefs it up a lot.

It says, you've got to.

Because the Lord knows that if you don't respect him, see, when he goes to get married, he's got his groomsman and his best man, and a lot of friends who believe in him.

That's why they're in the wedding.

You've got the dad who might be an exhorter, other people as well, but the mantle leaves them and it goes to the wife.

And God knows it, and that's why he says, Look, ladies, I don't know what you're gonna get right, but the one thing you've got to get right, you've got to respect your husband.

I made him, he can't live without it.

And then throw in some joy there in your happy, because I've never met a man yet that said, I just want to marry a mean, depressed chick who hates everybody.

Okay.

And you want joy.

I grew up in a church where they would sing about joy, but they didn't have it.

It was like, got the joy, joy, joy down in our heart.

Down in our heart.

And everybody yelling, down in our heart.

No, you don't.

You don't have it.

I've seen joy and it don't look like that.

All right, number three, apply God's grace to my life in church.

Okay, I gotta wrap this up.

But I'm gonna tell you right now, when you start, when you make a decision to forgive, it was a guy who came to our church about two years ago now, and this guy came to me, a very distinguished, a major leader in our community.

I didn't know it at the time.

But he walked over to me and his lip was trembling.

And he said, Last night I pushed my wife way too hard.

He said, Is this the kind of place where I can be forgiven?

So I'm I look behind him, and his wife is behind him, standing there.

I wasn't totally sure it was her.

So I looked at her, and I'm looking and trying to get as much information as I can in a second.

And I look at her and she's like, Tell him yeah.

So I said, Yeah, man, this is definitely a place.

I was thinking about her more than even him.

So anyway, I prayed with him, and then still to this day, I'll go into church and I'll see it's he and his wife and their kids.

Their kids have now been baptized.

He and his wife have gotten right with God, they're serving the Lord, and every time I see her, I always look at her, and they're all worshiping God, and she looks over at me and she sees me, and she gives me thumbs up just like that.

Why is that cool to me?

Because it doesn't matter what that guy would have done, that family would have never been restored if she wouldn't have been willing to forgive him.

The power of forgiveness is so cool.

I've seen people fall into adultery and hurt people that someone forgave.

I saw a small group rally around a man who hurt his whole family, and they found out that he was in adultery in the middle of the night, and they they went to his house and would camp out in launch chairs on his front door until he would come in in the middle of the night.

Just to say, we miss you, dude.

Get you some sleep.

And the next Friday night he did it again.

They did it again.

How many know it didn't take long before he got right with God?

The Bible says love never fails, and I believe the Bible meant it.

Let's give the Lord a hand.

Come on, everybody.