I'm Sorry

Alright, I'm gonna pick up where I left off last week.

Last week I did a message uh called Words Create Worlds, and um I talked about sort of the pragmatic um description of a conversation, of an exchange of words.

Um, and the first word is the word locution, okay, and locution, you know, basically is the literal, it is the literal meaning of a word or a sentence, what the thing literally means.

The second is ilocution.

Illocution is the intent, what I mean by it, right?

So if I say step over that line, see what happens.

All right, step over that line has a literal meaning, but step over that line, see what happens is a threat, right?

That that's uh in in intent.

The next is then perlocution, perlocution, and perlocution is how it's received.

Wait, I before e accept after.

This isn't as easy as it looks, I can tell you, writing and and and talking.

I'm always worried, you know, there's no spell check on the blackboard, okay?

Um that's how it's received.

So we we talked about this last week.

By the way, I think it's worth noting when you think about reading your Bible, right?

We've talked about this before that reading your Bible is a cross-cultural experience.

Um, that you're having kind of a conversation with God, you're having a conversation with the Bible.

So think about that in these terms.

There's locution, there's words.

We study words, we'll talk about, hey, this word in the Greek means this, this word in the Hebrew means this.

Okay, so we're looking at words or sentences, but a lot of times people will jump from locution, what words are on the page, to how they receive them, how it sounds to them.

And we have to remember that there is an intent of a speaker.

And this is where what I try, I'm trying to always grow in this.

I don't think I've mastered it.

I'm working really hard.

I work on it pretty much every day.

Trying to look into the Bible, understanding the genres of the books of the Bible, understanding the context that it was written in and what was going on, and even some of the literary elements will, you know, cause things to come alive.

Because I think some of the mishandlings of the Bible, even some of the sincere mishandlings, were people that read something literally and they heard something and maybe didn't fully get this.

And so there's a miscommunication just like happens with person to person can happen with people in the Bible.

And then, of course, words create worlds.

What do I do with it from there?

What I want to do today is I want to talk to you, starting with this.

I want to talk about apologizing.

Apologizing.

Um, this whole message, I've been kind of sitting on it for a little while, and what sparked it was I was thinking about the relationship between apologies and forgiveness.

And how forgiveness is um, it's a huge part of our emotional health, part of our development, it's part of our freedom and our healing happens in apologies and how, or I'm sorry, in forgiveness, and how apologies can play a huge role in forgiving.

Um, you would think, by the way, that there is a ton of really good apologies in the Bible.

You would think, but there's actually not.

Um, surprisingly few.

There's a lot in the Bible about forgiveness, and I've heard a lot of good messages on forgiveness.

I'm not sure how many messages I've heard about apologizing.

In fact, I'm not sure if I've heard one.

Except this morning at nine.

Um, forgiveness, by the way, this is worth noting.

You can't wait for an apology before you forgive.

Or you can, you shouldn't.

Because the reason you need to forgive is someone hurt you.

They inflicted pain on you, they overpowered you in some way, they had the power to hurt you.

And forgiveness is part of the process of getting free from that, is part of the process of healing that.

Think about this.

Why would you wait on an apology before you forgive?

If they had the power to hurt you, why would you give them power a second time to control the timeline of your healing?

I'm waiting on you to say I'm gonna be bitter until you say you're sorry.

You have now empowered them with the timeline of your healing.

That's a terrible idea.

Terrible idea.

By the way, some of them will never apologize to you because some of them are dead.

They can't apologize to you.

Some of them won't apologize to you because they don't think they did anything wrong.

Or maybe they know they did something wrong, but they won't admit it.

They won't admit it to themselves.

They're lying to themselves first.

You cannot wait on an apology before you forgive.

Okay?

That's a whole other message.

That's not what this one is.

This one's about apologizing.

I want to talk about apologizing because I'm gonna tell you, forgiving is a lot easier when someone apologizes.

And uh, let's think about this, let's look at this.

In the Bible, there's not a lot about apologies, there's a lot about apologizing to God, repentance.

Um, there's actually times, particularly you see a pattern in the Old Testament where you'll see people repent to God and not say sorry to the person when they did somebody wrong.

So, for example, the story of David and Bathsheba, you remember this story?

David's like the king.

He sees Bathsheba, she's a beautiful woman, but she's Uriah's wife, and yet he wants her, he's lusting after her, and so he has this power dynamic.

He's the king, he calls for her.

He didn't woo her, he didn't romance her, he didn't even fall in love with her, he just wanted her, and so he took her, and in the power dynamics of that day, what was she gonna do?

So he he not only sleeps with her, he impregnates her, she becomes pregnant, and so he tries to cover his tracks, and of course he gets in the impulsive thing where you're trying to cover your tracks, and so it's just one bad decision leads to another, and eventually he has her husband put to death.

And eventually a guy, uh the prophet Nathan, comes and confronts him about it.

And and it's he does it masterfully, and so David all of a sudden becomes aware of how many bad decisions that he made, and so he goes into this time of mourning and grieving, and and look what he says in 2 Samuel 12, 13.

It says David confessed to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.

Is that it?

Just the Lord?

Okay, David does not pass the vibe check in 2 Samuel 12, 13.

Like, my man, you think Bathsheba deserves an apology?

You raped her and killed her husband.

Let's call it what it is.

Um yet he feels he only owes the Lord an apology.

There's a lot of times in the Bible where you'll see like signs of remorse, but like we don't have a good verbal apology.

So, for example, Peter, right, denies Jesus and he realizes what he did, and he weeps.

Jacob and Esau, brothers, had a falling out, and then eventually they see one another again, and it was sort of awkward because Jacob thought Esau was coming to kill him.

And the reason he thought that was because Esau said, I'm gonna kill you.

And then they get together and they decide to bury the hatchet and they they sob all over each other.

They cry.

Uh, Joseph, uh, his brothers were gonna kill him, and then they sold him, and then they meet back up and they're weeping.

Um there there's there's evidence, circumstantial evidence, that the apostle Paul probably apologized to John Mark and Barnabas, who he fell out with in Acts 15, because in 2 Timothy 4, he's saying, Hey, bring John Mark to me.

In Acts 15, he said, I don't want anything to do with you, and they they had a falling out.

But what we don't have, and I wish we did, ugh, it's got to be somewhere, the apology letter.

I want to read it.

I want to know what Paul said, I want to know how he mended the fence, I want to know how he put, I want, I want, I want some locution.

I want some words, I want to know what you said.

There's not a lot of good apologies in the Bible.

And maybe that's why Jesus decides to throw us a bone and make up a story with a phenomenal apology in it.

It's probably the best one in the whole Bible.

It's like textbook, it's like, it's like the anatomy of a great apology.

And Jesus is like, you know, these guys aren't doing it, so I'm gonna make up a parable with a great apology in it.

It's the um the parable of the lost son.

So you know the story of the prodigal son, right?

Prodigal son, I mean, it is.

He he he makes a reprehensible decision.

He dishonors his father horribly.

He essentially says to his dad, Dad, you're gonna die.

I don't wanna wait till you're dead to spend your money.

I want to be able to spend it now.

I'm gonna get half when you die.

Why don't you just give it to me now so I can spend it while I'm young?

I mean, it is just awful, like the epitome of dishonor.

Your stuff matters more than you.

And so the son, and all of his immaturity and all of his entitlement, he takes and not only disrespects his dad, but divides his business in half, takes half of his estate, goes off, and he's shooting it up his nose in his arm, you know, with prostitutes and making it rain, and he's doing all this, and he ends up losing everything, everything, and he gets to where he can't even afford to eat, and he's down with pigs, and he's so hungry, the pig slop starts to look appetizing.

And so all of a sudden he's hit with this moment of clarity.

It says in Luke chapter 15, verse 17, it said, Finally he came to his senses.

Luke 15:17

He came to his senses, and all of a sudden he realizes what he did, and and immediately in verse 18, he begins to practice an apology.

Look at this.

Luke 15, 18.

He said, I'll go home to my father and I'll say, Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you.

Notice the difference between David's apology.

I've sinned against the Lord, left out Bathsheba.

Notice the difference between David's apology and the one that Jesus gave this fictional prodigal son when he's trying to train us and how we might want to interface and see one another.

He said, I've sinned against God, but I've also sinned against you.

Think about those two elements, because I think they're both really worth thinking about.

I can't sin against you and not sin against God.

When you that we have to sit with this, you gotta feel the gravity of this.

When I sin against someone made in the image of God, I am sinning against God.

That's what Jesus said.

By the way, you I couldn't sin against you and not sin against God any more than I could sin against your children and not sin against you.

Any more than I could hurt your children and not hurt you.

Mistreat your children and not it be a mistreatment of you.

Disrespect your children.

If you hurt my kids, you have hurt me.

And we know this.

And yet often these people, these grown-ups, right, these people that we are at odds with, and that maybe we look back and we see our treatment of them, things we've said or done or not said or not done, or whatever it is, it's worth noting, I've sinned against God when I've sinned against you.

But also, I haven't just sinned against God, I've sinned against you too.

When you look at um look look at a few of these scriptures, this is look what Jesus says.

Matthew 5.

So this is another place, right?

So we're just looking at the prodigal, that prodigal sign, that's Luke 15, Luke 15.

Matthew 5, Jesus says, if you're presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the temple, and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you.

So you're at church worshiping, you're at church serving, sacrificing, you're doing something as unto the Lord.

And all of a sudden he says, it comes to your mind that you owe someone an apology.

Leave your sacrifice there at the altar.

Go and be reconciled to that person, then come and offer, then come back and offer your sacrifice to God.

That's Matthew 5.

Matthew 22, by the way, is also the same uh portion of scripture that's mirrored in in Luke 10.

But it's where Jesus is talking to the lawyer, he says, What's the greatest commandment?

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength.

He said, and the second is is is like it.

So it's the second best commandment, greatest commandment.

He said, but it's equally important, he says in Matthew 2, which is love your neighbor as yourself.

So in other words, you're linking, I link the person with the image made in the image of God with God.

And when I sin against you, I'm sinning against God.

But I'm not just sinning against God, I'm also sinning against you.

We see the pattern throughout scripture that we're supposed to take this seriously.

Look in uh Numbers 5, 6 and 7.

If any of the people, men or women, betray the Lord by doing wrong to another person.

Interesting language.

If any of the people, men or women, betray the Lord by doing wrong to another person, they are guilty.

They must confess their sin and make full restitution for what they've done.

And so we have, with an apology, we have something that really starts with an acknowledgement that if I've hurt you, I've hurt God.

But you gotta think about both of those things.

Um, if we keep going on in the story of the or the apology that he's rehearsing, he's practicing, he says, I've sinned against both heaven and you.

Look at this.

I'm no longer worthy of being called your son.

Please take me on as a hired servant.

I've sinned against both heaven and you.

I said and did things to you that broke your heart.

And I can't go back and undo that.

He says, so because of that, the punishment that seems to fit the crime for that is I don't get to be your son anymore.

I've cost myself that.

But he said, the second is let me come work for you because I split your business and I blew your money, and there's a finite number on that.

I blew a million dollars.

So I'm gonna go work, I'm gonna go work it all.

I'm gonna work, I'm gonna spend the rest of my life working trying to make up for what I did.

So when you think about an apology, an apology, first of all, by the way, is an is an opportunity to participate in someone else's healing.

Think about why you don't want to apologize.

Why do we not like to apologize?

I don't like to apologize because it makes me feel shame and guilt.

You know, an apology is an admission that I did something wrong.

And, you know, our brains are pretty creative with defense mechanisms to avoid shame completely.

I I was talking to a guy recently who's has a his mother-in-law has a terminal illness, and so they know about how much time she has.

And he's like, you know, their family has some real complicated stuff that they've never talked out, never worked out.

And he's like, you would think, you would think that knowing how much time you have left, that you would want to go make it right with your kids and you'd want to go bring these things up and talk about these things you never talked about.

And in a sense, logically, if I stand back with no emotion, I'm like, yeah, definitely that would do that.

If you're looking at an apology as an opportunity to be a part of someone else's healing, yes, but you could see how someone would be terrified of that.

Because if I open this up and I start start talking about it and I'm admitting guilt, am I going to die, lay in my deathbed full of shame of what a bad mom I was, or what a bad wife I was or what a bad person I was, or what I could have done better that I can't go back and undo.

And so often the reason we avoid apologies is because we see it as opening up a door to the full extent of my shame, and now I'm going to be bound in it.

I was reading uh in the book, Please Sorry, Thanks.

He he mentions a study and he footnotes it in the book, but the study said that people tend to think of themselves 95% of the time.

95% of the time we're thinking about ourselves.

I don't know if it's 95 exactly, some it may be 94, some it may be 96, I don't know.

But the idea is most of the time we're thinking about ourselves.

Think about the way your body's designed.

My eyes are designed, I can't really see myself.

I can't see my own face.

In fact, it has one of the weird things, you've never seen your own face.

Ever.

It's impossible.

You can't take your eyes out and turn it and look at yourself.

You've only seen reflections of your face.

You've only seen pictures of your face.

So I can't see my, I can kind of see my hands and my feet in my periphery even less I look at them, but I don't walk around looking at my hands and feet all day, and I don't stare in the mirror all day.

Most of my life is looking at you and thinking about me.

And don't judge me because you do the same thing.

You're looking at other people, thinking about you.

An apology, a good one, an apology with great intent, requires me to do something very difficult that requires discipline, which is to look at me and think about you.

To look at myself, to do the opposite of what I do.

I usually look at you and think about me.

But great apologies happen when I look at me and I think about you.

And if I look at me and think about you, I think I have an opportunity.

Whether I owe her an apology or not, whether I owe him an apology or not, whether I could come up with a reason of why I did what I did and she's not perfect either, and he's not perfect either, if I see this as an opportunity to participate in your healing, I only do that if I look at me and think about you.

So it's an opportunity to participate in someone's healing.

An apology is also an opportunity to deal with your guilt, to deal with what you did.

Um, I I I found this resource uh from a uh a PhD, um Dr.

Jim Siebolt.

He has five elements of a great apology.

Go ahead and pull that pull that thing up.

I thought this was really good.

Five elements of a great apology.

He says, first, take responsibility.

Second, clearly state what you're apologizing for.

By the way, look look at the when we look at uh leave that up, locution, ilocution, prolocution.

What's literally said, so picking good words, what you mean by those words when you say them, if we go back to the apology of the prodigal son, I mean look look look how well this is crafted.

Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you.

Own it, take responsibility.

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

Please take me on as a hired servant, right?

Which is you get down to you know state what you plan to do in the future.

But I like the third one, which is focus on impact instead of intent.

And often I think apologies break down because I get so focused.

Again, I'm thinking about me, so I'm thinking about what I meant to do or didn't mean to do.

So I you go, well, Greg, you said this or you did this.

I'm like, I didn't, no, I didn't mean that, I didn't mean that.

So I'm thinking about me.

I have to think about you, because if I think about you, then I'll go, it doesn't really matter what I intended to do, it matters the impact that it had on you.

Example, if I backed over your foot with my car on accident, and you're like, oh, and I'm like, my bad, you know, I didn't mean to.

I mean, I didn't mean to.

I didn't, I didn't see I didn't mean like it's okay to announce it.

Hey, I'm so sorry I didn't see you there, but if all I do is keep talking about what I meant to do, your foot is throbbing.

And that's the impact.

I'm gonna tell you a story I really don't want to tell you, but I feel like I'm supposed to tell you this story.

I hate this story.

I honestly I wanted to leave this story in the past, but I couldn't get away from it.

I felt like I needed to tell it.

When we started the church, I had a friend of mine that he came up with the idea for this one big party, this thing we do.

And he came up with it because he said, you know, we have all these people coming to church, and like a lot of them, they may have, you know, had lived in party lifestyles.

They they thought they think that all the fun you have in the world is is out there.

And you know, the word party's been hijacked by the world that you know the world parties to forget, but the church parties to remember, and people call a party going out, get drunk, get high, hook up with somebody, whatever, make a bunch of bad decisions.

And and he's like, you know, when you look in the Bible, you look at the way they did weddings, you look at the way they did festivals.

They, I mean, they knew how to celebrate, and yeah, there's a time to weep, and yeah, there's a time to be sad, but there's a time to turn it up and have a good time.

And so we came up with this idea for one big party, but we had never done it before.

So it's the first one big party, and I'm trying to vision cast to the church, and I'm like, guys, I'm telling you, we're gonna come together and we're gonna let our hair down, and we're gonna have a good time, we're gonna have some fun, and you need to bring your friend, bring a friend.

If you have a friend, they don't like church, that's right, they bring them anyway.

They'll love it that day.

And you know, I'm like, whatever it takes to get them, you do whatever you have to do to get your friends in the building that day.

And I and I'm and then I got sort of going and I hadn't really thought of everything I want to say, but I was in the moment, and I said, you know, whatever you have to do, if you have to drug them, drug them.

I was like, drug them, let them wake up in one of these seats.

You know, I was like, you know, let them.

I was like, you know, some of them, you some of your friends need a roofie, and let them wake up in the tank being baptized, and I'm I'm making jokes, okay?

And everybody laughed, and it was, I felt like I had really done a good thing.

I wake up the next day, my friend called me.

He get he goes, bro, that was so inappropriate.

And immediately I got defensive because of intent.

I said, Come on, man, everybody needs to lighten up, man.

Everybody's so easily offended these days, you know.

Yeah, clearly I was kidding.

Clearly, I was making a joke.

He said, My man, you don't understand.

I brought a friend to church, I promised her it was gonna be a place of healing.

I promised her she was gonna find love and grace.

I promised her.

He said, My friend that was there with me had been roofied and raped.

And she was sitting in church, and in the intro of your message, you were making jokes about and making light about the worst things she had been through in her life.

And dude, it was horribly destructive.

And I gotta tell you, I wanted to vomit because I went from thinking about my intent to thinking about my impact.

And so I said, Oh my gosh.

Like I mean, I was horrified.

I said, please let me apologize to your friend.

You know, he goes, She does not want you, doesn't want to talk to you.

To this day, I don't know who she is.

You you may be in here right now, I don't know.

So I realized, I'm sitting there, I'm thinking, as bad as I want to just move on, I have to apologize.

So this was on Monday, I get this call, and I'm like, you know what, Sunday, I'm gonna kick my message off and apologize.

And I was sick all week.

I was sick about it.

So I get up, hey guys, before I get in my message, I gotta just address something I said last week.

I I thought I was being funny.

It was thoughtless, it was wrong.

I didn't even, I didn't mean to, but I made a horrible impact.

You know, words create worlds.

I created a world of pain for somebody.

And it's literally the opposite of why we moved to this city and built this church.

It's literally the opposite.

We want to be a place of healing.

I went into someone's scar.

And I said, if I hurt one person, I probably hurt more than one person.

Maybe some of you heard, maybe you're watching online, you know, and I was, I just, I, I just apologize.

I said, please don't judge these people here based on something stupid I said.

And I'm sure I'm gonna say something stupid at some point in the future, but I'm hoping to say fewer stupid things.

The more mature I get, I'm gonna be more thoughtful about what I said.

I'm very, very sorry.

Please give us another chance, and please don't, please forgive me.

And as sick as I was about it, I had so many people come to me.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I had somebody say, I hadn't even walked a mile in that person's shoes.

I had other things, frankly, I'm owed an apology for, and in some way, vicariously, I felt like I was being apologized to through your apology.

I had people come to me and say, as you were apologizing, I realized I got some people I need to apologize to.

Like, an apology is a powerful thing.

You gotta focus on the impact of what happened more than even what you intended.

I want you to think about this whole thing, because we should become really good at apologizing and forgiving.

And forgiving gets easier when we get better at apologizing.

But if you look back at the story of the prodigal son, and I gotta go quick, he comes home, he practices apology.

Father, I've sinned against both heaven and you.

I'm no longer worthy to become your son, be your son anymore.

And let me work for you.

And remember, he comes home and his father sees him a long way off and he runs to him.

And and he, if you if you read the story closely, the son begins to apologize and the father interrupts him.

Father, I sinned against heaven and you.

I'm no longer worthy to be your son.

And the father jumps in, hugs him, kisses him, gives him a ring, gives him a robe.

It's this scandalous grace of like this son that blew it, and then he kills the fattened calf.

The father kills the fattened calf and throws a party.

And then, of course, the brother who I refuse to judge.

I refuse to judge him because I get it.

They didn't even invite him to the party.

No one sent him a text, no one sent him an invite.

He just shows up after a long day's work and they're in there turning up, and he's like, What's going on?

And they're like, Oh, they killed the fattened calf.

And he's like, Oh, you mean the one that I've been feeding?

How do you think that cow got so chubby?

I fed him at 5 a.m.

every day.

No one invited me, and we're con we're we're just confronted with this scandalous grace of Jesus, of God.

Okay, but then in the story, the father comes out, and it's almost people don't notice this.

This is huge.

The father comes out, you know, and he says the son, look, man, we thought your brother was dead.

Come into the party, man.

Come in, come in.

He's more important than the stuff, he's more important than the business.

He's more important.

And he and but the father says to the older brother, he says, All I have is yours.

All I have is yours.

He's gonna work it back off.

The work begins now.

I'm not dealing him in for half.

He blew his half.

He's gonna come, the work starts now.

He's gonna work it off, not as a slave or a servant, he's gonna work it off as a son, but make no mistake.

He's hired, he's gonna work and it's all gonna go to you.

So often the proof of the intent of an apology and how receptive we are of it is are you willing to do the work?

Because apologies can make you more humble or they can make you more arrogant.

Some people refuse to apologize to anybody, and then other people get so good at apologies because they're so charming, they just know how to apologize their way out of any predicament to get back in, and then they steal half your stuff again, and then they come back and they want another ring and another robe, and then they steal half your stuff again, and they just grovel and oh I'm no, I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy.

Okay, the proof of the sincerity, and of course, the father says, No, you're not a servant, you're my son.

But the proof of that and your ability to receive it is in are you willing to do the work that goes along with the apology?

And so I want us to just take a moment, I want you to think about is there anywhere in your life right now, is there anywhere in your life that you have something you need to apologize for, somebody you need to apologize?

How are you gonna do that?

I think you need to start with how you view apologies.

This is not about shoving you deep into your shame.

This is actually a way of dealing with your guilt.

This is a way of making right whatever it is that you can make right.

You can't make it all right, but you can maybe make something right.

And third, it's an opportunity to participate in somebody else's healing.

I would encourage you, take a moment, dig through your intent.

Are you looking at other people and thinking about yourself?

Or are you willing to look at yourself and think about other people?

When you get your intent right, pick your words carefully.

And then you know what?

They may or may not receive it, but you you have control of your intent and your words.

And maybe there are some of you today who are on the other side where there is somebody who hurt you and you've been postponing forgiveness and you've been putting it off, and yet they have consistently proven themselves that they are sincere, that they are doing the work, that they their intent is right, that they've made, they've had a change, they they're they're not perfect, but they've made a change, and that you keep pushing the forgiveness off your perlocution.

It's time for you to go ahead and I don't know if it's a word, perlocute.

It's time to go ahead and go, you know what?

I'm gonna begin the process of forgiveness.

And it may not happen in a split second, but I'm I'm gonna begin the process of forgiving.

We as the body of Christ, brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to get really good at apologizing.

We need to get really good at forgiving, and the two really do go hand in hand.

Amen.