Learning Forgiveness

I want to say hello to everybody here and online and uh what an honor to be here.

I'm gonna get right into the to the word.

I um I was driving into church last night and I was uh really thinking about the responsibility that I have that you guys give me, which is you come here to service and you let me pick the topic of what we're gonna talk about.

It just kind of hit me to the list, it's not like I didn't know that before, but I thought, man, that is quite a responsibility that you do that and that you you trust me with that.

And I realize that trust is important, and if I uh screw that up, then you'll uh you'll you'll ungive it to me.

So I want to uh I want to steward it well.

I I want you to know how I do this.

I I spend quite a bit of time during the week uh in God's word, studying, um trying to get my mind in alignment with understanding God's word so I can rightly divide the word of truth.

So there is an amount of academic uh intellectual understanding that goes with it.

Uh the other piece is uh the heart piece.

How many of you know you can say the right thing, but if you say the right thing in the wrong way, uh sometimes it doesn't land right.

So I really want to get my heart in the right place.

And then I want to really seek God, and I believe his spirit can lead and guide uh me and us into the right conversation at the right time.

And uh sometimes those topics that the Lord leads me to are things I don't really want to talk about, to be honest.

It's not like I'm picking my favorite thing, and today is an example of that.

You hey you can kill that screen, by the way.

I don't really, I don't need it.

I got the Holy Spirit, I don't need it.

Um sometimes there's things I don't want to talk about today.

I'm just gonna tell you, I'm I'm gonna uh preach on forgiveness, and and I feel like I've got every time I preach on forgiveness, I feel like I need to let everyone know that I'm no good at it.

I'm not good.

Like I'm just not good.

I I'm pretty talented when it comes to holding grudges.

Like I just I've got a gift.

And um I've gotten better at it, but I'm I'm not very good at it.

Uh I'm I'm I'm good at encouraging people to forgive you.

You know, if somebody's like, you know, she's so I'm like, eh, you gotta get her some slack, you know.

I'm I'm good at that.

Um I'm just not good at doing it myself.

And I prefer to talk about my strengths, you know.

I'd I'd much rather go, hey, this comes naturally to me, or I've sort of mastered this.

And uh what I'm gonna talk to you about with forgiveness, I've not mastered.

But what I have found is I've grown in this area.

And as I've grown in this area, it's had a huge impact on my life in terms of my character, my maturity, and I would even say my quality of life.

We're in a series called Well Done.

It comes from Jesus' words, well done, good and faithful servant, living well.

What does that mean?

How do we do it?

So we've been addressing things like uh anger and stress and um pain and all of this kind of stuff.

And so today I want to talk about learning to forgive.

I'm gonna operate under the assumption that everyone in this room realizes that forgiveness is a good thing and something we should all do.

Okay?

Like, like if you think holding on to bitterness is a good idea, okay, like I'm talking rationally.

If you think that's the move, Google forgiveness Bible verses.

And you'll just get plenty in your arsenal to tell you that forgiving is a really good idea.

And a lot of times you hear a sermon on forgiveness in a church, and the entire sermon becomes about telling you that you ought to forgive.

And so you walk out going, yeah, I know I'm gonna forgive.

I just don't know how to do it.

So, what I'm gonna do today is I'm gonna spend the lion's share of my time talking about how to forgive.

How do I actually do this thing that's so important?

And then at the end, I'm gonna talk about how we know if we're actually forgiving, if we're even trying to forgive, how would I know if I'm accomplishing it?

Um, I want to start with with this concept, uh, the concept of healing.

So if we start with the concept of healing, starts with something is broken.

And something's broken.

And once it's broken, then I then I start uh I start healing.

And if it's really broken and it's really painful and it hurts really, really bad, it might take a long time.

Okay, so healing, healing has a timeline, and it takes a very long time for me to finally go through the process of rehabilitation and getting help and doing the healthy, right things long enough that eventually I can change the suffix to healed.

Um, forgiveness I found to be the same way.

Okay, you're broken, you're attacked.

Somebody gives you a good reason to hold a grudge.

And so you want to hold that grudge, and uh I realize if you decide, yes, I'm going to forgive, you start forgiving, but depending on how bad the brokenness and how much the attack or the offense hit, it takes sometimes it takes a long time for me to change the suffix to forgiven.

How do we take that journey?

Um I'm gonna start with uh the words of Jesus.

This is in Luke 6, 27, 28.

Jesus says, But to those of you who will listen, I say, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who hurt you.

I think I think it's worth noting that when you read the words of Jesus, you see the things Jesus did, sometimes it's easy to chalk it up to just, well, that's just Jesus being Jesus.

You know, I mean he's Jesus, for goodness sake.

Right?

I mean he's Jesus.

I'm not I'm I'm not supposed to do that.

I mean, that's Jesus, I mean, he's just a pretty high bar, he's Jesus.

You know, I use it as an excuse sometimes.

My wife will be like, hey, when are you gonna start doing this?

I'm like, you know, I'm not Jesus.

Okay?

And so sometimes we we go, uh, and and certainly we should have Jesus on a pedestal, and certainly uh he's the name above all names, and certainly, okay, all of that.

But uh, you gotta understand there's a difference between things Jesus did that he does not expect you to do versus things Jesus did that he taught us and told us to do.

In other words, there's no doctrine about what you ought to do when you walk on water.

That was Jesus being Jesus.

Okay, there's not, hey, whenever you turn five loaves and two fish into five thousand, whatever, hey, this is what you ought to do.

There's no doctrine around that.

There's no teaching, Jesus wasn't teaching that because he wasn't expecting you to do that.

But when he says stuff about, like, when he says stuff about uh bless those who curse you and love your enemies and do good to those who hate you and pray for those, pray for those who hurt you.

This isn't just Jesus being Jesus, this is a teaching and an expectation of what he wants us to do.

Have you ever tried to pray for someone who you don't like or pray for an enemy or pray for someone who wounded you?

Like anybody tried to do that?

One person?

Two, thank you.

See that hand?

Uh yeah, it's I've tried.

It's weird.

What do you even pray?

Lord help Johnny scumbag.

I don't know.

Lord.

You you see Susie gossip face.

You know the dirt in her heart.

Lord, I don't know, God.

This isn't just Jesus being Jesus.

He's telling us to do it.

But then he shows us how to do it.

In Luke 6, he tells us to do it.

In Luke 23, verse 34, Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing.

Luke 23:34

And the soldiers gambled for his clothing by throwing dice.

Father, forgive them.

Father, forgive them was Jesus praying for people who were doing him dirty.

Praying for people who were hurting him.

He's he is living the example of Luke 6.

Father, forgive them.

But then the second part of this is who, which is, he says they don't know what they're doing.

In other words, Jesus saw something in them that you couldn't see on the surface.

Have you ever heard the term seeing is believing?

Seeing is believing.

Well, we know scripturally, we know spiritually that faith, there's a component of faith that is the evidence of things not seen.

So there are some things you've got to see, uh, perceive, believe, that you don't see.

But one of the ways actually the change of belief is when you see something new.

You see something different.

Like if you were to sit down, I would encourage you to do this.

Sit with this thought, get quiet with it, think back on things that you used to believe that you don't believe anymore.

Paradigm shifts in your life, new beliefs, new thoughts.

It it probably goes back, if you track it back, it comes back to you seeing something different.

You you you believed this thing about these people, or you believed this thing about this topic, and you believed it for a long time, and then you saw something different, and that new sight caused you to think different, which caused you to believe different.

If you're going to be able to forgive somebody, someone's gonna you're gonna start forgiving and get to forgiven.

If you're gonna forgive somebody that you've not been able to forgive, it's going to happen because you're able to see something you've never been able to see.

If you haven't been able to forgive them, you won't do it by doing the same thing you're doing now.

It actually happens by seeing something you've never seen before.

And this is where we have when Jesus says, forgive them, Father.

He prays for his enemy, but then he says, for they don't know what they do.

Well, what do you mean they don't know what they do?

Well, who's he talking about?

Well, first he's talking about these Roman soldiers who were killing him.

Well, what do you mean they don't know what they do?

They knew what they were doing.

If you look in the if you look in the well-documented story of the crucifixion in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you'll see it gives detail.

Crucifixion was more than capital punishment, it was humiliation, it was supposed to be a crime deterrent.

Okay, somebody who was gonna try to go rogue against Rome, we're gonna we're gonna put you on blast, we're gonna humiliate you, and we're gonna make an example of you.

So here's what they did: they beat him within an inch of his life, they open his body up with whips to the point that you can see his organs and his bones, and he's he's on the verge of death.

So they make him look as feeble and as humiliated as possible, and then they begin to mock him.

Hey, put a robe on him now.

So he's bleeding out, put a robe on him.

They give him a scepter.

This is public, give him a scepter, beat him with the scepter, and then give it to him.

Take a crown.

Oh, here's the king.

We're gonna crown him, guys.

Everybody ready?

Put a crown of thorns on him, blood running down his face.

They pull his beard out with their hands, okay?

And anybody that knows that uh to a Jewish man, a beard was part of his culture, so they're pulling his beard out by hand, okay.

Rome, who has who has uh the the Jews and the nation of Israel under their you you ain't gonna come get us.

Pull the beard out, and then they start saying, Hail the king, hail the king, hail her king, hey, what's up, king?

What's up?

Where's your queen at, king?

Hey, hey, hey, Bobby, king needs a court jester.

Come on, king, you're king, right?

That was the accusation.

He said, I'm king of the Jews, you're king of the Jews, yeah.

Say it with your chest now, Jesus.

Mocking him.

Forgive them, Father, they don't know what they do.

What are you talking about?

They don't know what they do.

They know what they're doing.

They pulled your beard out, it wasn't an accident.

The cat of nine tails was not an accident.

What do you mean they don't know what they're doing?

If you're gonna forgive somebody who's really hard to forgive, who shows no remorse, you're gonna have to see something you've never seen before.

Jesus looks and goes, they don't know.

I mean, they know what they're doing, but they don't know what they're doing, but they they know, but they don't know.

Because when Jesus would look at this Roman soldier, he would see something more.

So, for example, like this.

Imagine us.

We grow up, we're we're fifth-generation Roman soldier.

Great-grandpa, great-great-grandpa, dad, you know, grandpa, dad, we're part of the thing.

We we grow up groomed.

We grow up, we're believing, man, this is for the glory of Rome.

We want to protect the homeland, okay?

We this is we're we're about doing good and doing justice.

And and by the way, we've grown up desensitized to violence in a day where in the colosseum, you know what happened in the coliseum, they fed people to animals.

It wasn't just in the big colosseum, there are little amphitheaters all over the place where they were where they killed for sport.

They had people wrestle, not for points, not for points.

They wrestled to the death.

These men went to war and saw death and killed.

And it so they're dis they they're ultimately desensitized to violence, and they believe that all of their values and virtues and everything is about Rome and anybody that opposes that.

It is our job to protect the vision of the nation, to protect here, and that this is what this is what we do.

That's you and me.

And then somebody comes and goes, guess what, guess what our assignment for today is?

Guess guess what today's mission is?

There's this Jewish guy.

Thinks he's God.

Bro thinks he's God.

What do you mean?

He claimed to walk on the water.

I know, these guys are nuts.

Does he have a following?

Massive.

Okay?

He's duped all these people.

He pulled a sleight of hand.

He said he he said he raised his buddy from the dead.

People are buying it.

Thousands of people come out.

Okay, they all get hungry.

You're gonna think I'm lying, okay?

Google it.

It's crazy.

He said, okay.

Okay?

Number one, there he's he says he's king of the Jews.

Okay, we gotta snuff this dude out.

Okay, number one, we gotta protect Rome.

Number two, these Jews ought to tell us thank you because this is a huckster, man.

This guy's a shyster.

This guy is crazy, and we're gonna make an example of the crazy guy.

Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing.

They know, but they don't know.

But they know, but they don't know.

And so Jesus in real time is going, He doesn't know what he's doing.

He thinks he's doing his job.

He thinks he's doing the right thing.

It's convoluted and chaotic.

And in a sense, he's operating in blindness.

Forgive him, Father.

He doesn't know what he's doing.

Peter is well known mostly for denying Jesus.

So forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do, was the Romans, and it was probably Peter too.

Which, you know, if you've ever had a friend like a ride or die, it's one thing these Romans who don't understand us and we'll pluck our beards out, but when you got your buddy who you've been there done that with, and and then he denies you.

But if you think of the totality of the relationship of Jesus and Peter, you see back in Matthew 16, when Jesus goes, you know, here's what's gonna happen.

We're go to Jerusalem, and the chief priests and the and the um uh the religious leaders and all these people, they're gonna do terrible things to me.

He goes, and in fact, I'm gonna be put to death.

And Peter in Matthew 16 goes, Heaven forbid! No, no.

Peter goes into this diatribe that you and I would go into if a friend of ours who we loved and care about had started going negative.

This is gonna be the end of me.

They went into, you know what I'm saying, doomsday stuff.

You would be like, No, don't say that, don't say that.

No, no, that's not you, that's not us, not here, not now.

Don't speak that out, don't believe that.

Good things are gonna happen.

Okay, that's what Peter goes into, and Jesus says, Get behind me, Satan.

You're a temptation to me.

Why?

Because Peter, in in trying to do good for Jesus, was trying to get Jesus to circumvent the cross, which is what Satan tried to tempt him to do all the way back in the wilderness.

So he's like, Look, I mean, my flesh doesn't want to do it any more than you.

That's why Jesus goes to Gethsemane and he's like, God, you got a plan B?

Father, anything to circumvent the cross?

That was his flesh was weak.

So he's like, Get behind me, Satan.

But Peter meant it because in John 18, he grabs a sword and cuts a man's ear off.

He put his sword where his mouth was.

He loved his friend.

Yet in a moment of weakness, he denies him three times.

Forgive him, Father, he doesn't know what he did.

Well, yeah, he did know what he did because he did it three times.

But maybe the first time you didn't know, the second time you knew, the third time you definitely knew.

And by the way, Jesus told you a few hours ago, before the rooster crow, he put a timeline on it.

Before the rooster crowd, you're gonna do this three times.

So you had a warning, you had a timeline.

I don't know what else to tell you.

He knew what he was doing, but he didn't know what he was doing.

But he knew what he was doing, but he didn't really know what he was doing.

Father, forgive him.

This isn't a scumbag, this isn't a bad guy, this is a guy having a moment of weakness.

This is forgive him, he doesn't know what he does.

The Pharisees, the Pharisees, who yet had an issue with Jesus because he was, in a sense, a threat to their influence, but bigger than that, think about it through the Pharisees' eyes.

The Pharisees are upholding divine foundational content.

613 laws of the Torah given by God.

We protect this.

This is the foundation of our country.

This is from the mouth of God.

And Jesus comes in and starts doing a cannonball right in the middle of this.

He's breaking their laws.

They see him as a troublemaker that's not only messing with sacred stuff, but is gonna agitate Rome.

Don't forget, we're under this oppression.

So when they come in, they're not just gonna kill you, my man.

Genocide is an option.

Forgive them, Father.

They don't know what they're doing.

But they knew what they were doing, but but they didn't know what they're doing, but they did know, but they didn't know.

And so Jesus is able to see something else.

And because he's able to see something else, he's able to forgive on a whole other level.

When I see something new, I think a new thought.

When I think a new thought, I deepen my understanding.

And it's within that deepened understanding that I'm now able to do things I wasn't able to do with the old thoughts.

And so it all came through sight.

It came through seeing something different.

I'll tell you why I don't like this message.

I don't like this message.

Because I'm a bit afraid to forgive too quickly.

Like, for me, it's like uh if Greg Ford gets known as the guy who just forgives quick, that Greg man is such a good guy, you know?

You jab him and he'll just forgive you.

You know, I mean he just turns the other cheek like nobody I've ever seen.

This guy's such a quick forgiver.

What a what a guy.

There's a part of me that's like, I don't know if I want that reputation.

You think you can treat me any kind of way?

I want you to look both ways before you cross me.

Watch how you handle me.

Okay?

People come in hot, people they think won't hit back.

Being a quick forgiver, I don't know, man.

There's some of this stuff you gotta really think about, you know.

It's like Greg Ford, you know, he's really long-suffering.

It's like, I don't know if I want that going around.

You ever want to pick and choose some of the fruit of the spirit?

Patience.

Like, oh, my boss is just so patient.

I don't know if I'm a boss, I don't know if I want that reputation.

Get your junk done on time.

I'll be very patient as long as you get it done by the deadline.

Oh, we ain't got no bosses in the house.

Okay, I understand.

I guess I'm I'm feeling y'all out.

He's just so long, so I don't know if I want that.

I don't know if I want that.

Because then you be people think they can just handle you.

And there's a part of me that feels that a part I'll just if I don't know if I'll be bit bitter and if I'll be angry and and if I'll if I'll make you kind of scared of me and if I hang on to be fueled by a little bit of hatred, a little bit of resentment, and that I'll be safer.

But to believe that bitterness makes you safer is to believe a dangerous lie.

Very easy one to buy.

I bought it.

And from Jesus, what we have is not just a teacher, but an example of what it would be like to be a human being in flesh, dealing with offense and brokenness and attack, and to not retaliate or to not take the pill of bitterness.

And Jesus in his wisdom understood my flesh is prone to weakness.

Take this cup from me, but not my will, but your will be done.

I don't want to do this any more than you do.

He knew that his flesh was prone to all the things flesh is prone to.

And because of that, he wouldn't let a second of bitterness hit.

Why?

Immediate forgiveness.

Father, forgive them.

Father, forgive them.

He's proving to us that even though you are attacked, even though you are wounded, you don't have to have an automatic, sin-filled, emotionally charged response.

And you don't have to let this thing come in and attach itself to you and to create roots of bitterness and resentment and hatred and ultimately self-centeredness.

And so Jesus in his flesh models this in real time for us in conjunction with Luke 6.

This teaching that seems like impossible.

And yet he shows it in the heat of the battle.

In the heat of the battle.

Because if I was Jesus and they're spitting on me and pulling my beard out, I'm calling down 10,000 angels right now to seal Team 6, these mugs right now.

Take them out.

Lay them out.

We'll live to fight another day, and I'll do the cross another time.

Alright, but today this is going down, okay?

And Jesus is teaching.

And this is this is what I want you to get.

I'm almost done, so just hang with me.

10 minutes and 23 seconds.

And whatever else I feel like doing.

Oh no, I'm just kidding.

I'm kidding.

I'm kidding.

I'm kidding.

Everybody relax back there.

Kids' team, you'll be fine.

Jesus, I want you to think about this.

When Jesus was on the witness stand, he uttered not a word.

But when he forgave, he did it out loud.

Jesus, who are you?

Who are you?

Are you the king of the Jews?

Well, you said I am.

Defend yourself.

Who are you?

And the answer to the question, who are you, didn't come on the witness stand.

It came in Jesus' attachment to his purpose, his focus on his purpose, and his willingness to walk through that season and do whatever it took in that season to walk out his purpose.

And then he answered the question from the witness stand on the cross when he said, Father, forgive them.

I'm the one who forgives.

I'm the one who forgives.

I'm the one who sees what others can't see.

Jesus had a fierce focus on his purpose.

Which in some seasons called for him to talk.

He didn't talk on his way to the cross because that part of the season he was supposed to die.

And he was supposed to forgive the unforgivable.

But in other seasons, he did speak up to the Pharisees and say, You brood of vipers, you whitewashed tombs.

He did speak up to Peter later on when Peter denied him three times after having made the bold claim that even I love you more than them, and all of them will deny you, but not me.

And Jesus three times said, Peter, do you love me more than them?

Peter, do you love me more than them?

Peter, do you love me more than them?

There was going to be a time to talk, but there was a time to shut up.

And all of it was connected to the focus of his mission, what he was called to do.

But in the middle of all of that, Jesus teaches us that if you really want to live free, if you really want to live safe, if you want to be protected, it's not going to be through ingesting bitterness and unforgiveness and holding on to it.

He shows it's in freedom that he's able to forgive.

And in so doing, he's able to remain free.

He's able to remain free.

How do I know if I've forgiven?

Okay, because I've I've taken the journey from trying to power up with bitterness to then like, okay, I'm gonna start forgiving.

And then I, you know, I start on this path, you know, starting this path.

And it's like, well, how will I know if I'm it's like you got somebody who's like ticked you off or hurt you or wounded you or offended you or whatever.

It's like, how do I know if I've forgiven them?

It's like if I like them, it's like, well, I don't like them.

Oh, yeah, nobody.

All the spiritual people come at 10, apparently.

I mean, there's some people that's like, uh I'm trying here, but I I do not like this person.

Don't send me a Christmas card.

I don't want to know how your year went.

Don't be sending me text messages, okay?

I do the thing on social, it's like make them hidden, okay?

I don't want to be petty and unfriend.

I just don't want to see your stuff anymore, okay?

Don't get classy on me now.

Don't get classy.

You can make them disappear, okay?

I want to see your vacation, okay?

I don't care how rare your stake was.

I don't like this person, okay?

I don't like them.

So have I not forgiven them, what how will I know?

How will I know?

I got four things for you.

These are things I've learned from my own experience and in talking to friends who struggle with forgiveness about as much as I do.

The first thing is the pain moment, the traumatic moment, the hurt, it becomes over time, it becomes more of a reference point than a pain point.

If you'll take this journey, the intertwined journey of forgiving and healing, as I move toward this, forgiven, it will become more of a reference point than a pain point.

Now, some things are so painful that they may cause you some pain for the rest of your life.

What I'm saying is that will begin to shift if you'll walk in healing.

And one of the indications is hey, this is now, it's something I can talk about differently than I could five years ago.

Five years ago, I talked about I cried every time.

I'd shut it down every time, I'd get mad every time.

But but now it's like it's more of a reference point.

I have a friend, I've talked about this uh a few months ago.

I have a friend whose mother was stabbed to death on a jog.

And and and he's talked about he he knows all the details because of the autopsy and he knows everything about it, and so he imagines it and he thinks about it, and he has these moments of of rage and and anger, and and so okay, he's he's he, although as horrific as that is, he's in the same boat Jesus was in.

Father, forgive.

They don't know what they they don't know what they do, but they knew what they did, but they don't know I gotta forgive.

If I don't forgive, I'm not gonna heal.

It's intertwined.

I cannot decide to heal and not forgive if forgiveness is part of my healing.

Sorry, I wish there was another way, but there's not.

Will he ever get to the place that there's no pain associated to that memory or that thought or that reality?

I don't know.

I don't know.

Maybe all of his life, when he thinks about that, there's still a twinge of pain.

There's still something there.

There might be.

I think some things are that painful.

But what will happen is over time, over time, over time, it will become more of a reference point.

You'll be able to talk about it, you'll be able to use it, you'll be able to reference it without it having the same sort of agony that it has now.

The second is um revenge and retaliation are a non-issue or become a non-issue over time.

Revenge and retaliation.

Hey, revenge and retaliation are a normal triggered feeling when something like that's happened.

In fact, it would be normal for you to plan to do that.

It would be normal for you to think, you know what?

They did me like I'll tell you what, one, I'm gonna get some money.

When I get some money, I'm gonna get in the position, I'm gonna play the politics, I'm gonna get here.

Oh, they got me this time, but just you just wait.

Okay, I'm gonna work my, I'm gonna I'm gonna sneak in the back door and I'm gonna find out, and I will get, I will have my day.

Celebrate today because I will have my day.

And I've got okay, that that's a normal response when you've been hurt, when you've been attacked, when you've been offended.

And yet, if you walk the process of forgiveness, even the desire to go get even, it starts, it starts to become a non-issue.

Retaliation becomes a non-issue.

So you might go, well, you know, I'm moving in the right direction.

You know, I used to want to kneecap them, now I just want to talk about them.

Okay, okay, it's progress.

It's progress.

Okay, we still have some work to do to change the suffix, but you're moving in the right direction.

Uh, number three.

Let it go.

I really don't care.

Does it it doesn't bother me anymore?

Okay, is if there's any discrepancy between what you're saying with that and how you're actually feeling inside, you're still in the process of forgiving.

This one hits close to home because there's some people who have offended me and taken me off, and I don't like them.

And when they come up, I go, but I can't I got no problem with them.

I let it go, man.

I let it go a long time ago.

Man, I don't care about them, man.

I'm not worried about them.

I'm not worried about them.

I'm gonna let them live live and let live.

You know what I mean what I'm saying?

Like, I don't mean it doesn't bother me anymore.

You know, I let it go.

I've forgiven, man.

Like, I took the high road.

Doesn't bother me.

No, no, man, they don't bother me at all.

They're fine, I let it go.

I let it go.

Okay, it it's still a little fire in your belly, my man.

You still got a little emotion in there.

If you're having to think about your poker face as you're saying they don't, I've let it go.

I don't have a problem with them anymore, but you but you still got something in there, and there's a little discrepancy between what's coming out here and what's actually happening here, then I'm still on a journey.

I'm still on a journey, okay?

And be patient with yourself because the timeline might be a long time.

Somebody that really hurt you, really offended you, really broke you down.

The fourth is this this one's tough.

Can I accept the fact that God loves that person as much as he loves me?

Or is that a triggering thought or concept all by itself?

Just the thought, just the mention of God loves me and that person the same, that ticks me off.

Okay, that's gonna set me over the edge.

That it just being triggered by that thought is letting me know I'm I'm on a journey here.

I'm on a journey.

I'm moving, uh we're not at forgiving yet, we're forgiving and we're moving in the right direction.

I give you this last thing.

Uh go ahead and stand up on your feet.

We're actually gonna we're gonna end in a time of worship here.

I I want to give you this last thought.

I found that there's a relationship, that there is a intertwining of unforgiveness into all kinds of areas of our lives.

So if I'm hanging on to bitterness and unforgiveness, it affects your rest.

If you're like, you know, I just can't figure it out.

For some reason, I just can't ever find rest.

Might be a worthwhile exercise to kind of think through is there any area of resentment, bitterness that I'm hanging on to because it's sucking the life out of me, it's burning fuel, burning my energy.

I'm I'm just depleted all the time because it is a depleting thing.

So it affects your rest.

By the way, it affects your worldview on humanity as a whole.

If you find yourself saying stuff like, you know, everybody's an idiot, you know, these people, well, man, whoa, I didn't know that was still there.

Pardon me.

If you start making sweeping generalizations about mankind and people and just everybody's this and everybody's that, and okay, you might be able to track that back to some unforgiveness you have toward an individual that now it's just being projected on all of humanity.

But here's the biggest one I've found is there's a relationship between my ability and willingness to extend forgiveness and grace to other people and my ability to do the same thing for myself.

And here's why.

Think about this logically.

If you think like Jesus and that you can look at a Roman soldier who's doing some bad stuff, and instead of going, he knows exactly what he did, you can go, he doesn't know what he's doing.

You can see a fifth-generation soldier that thinks he's doing something patriotic, he's become desensitized.

Doesn't make anything he's doing right.

It just means I can look and see and go, forgive him, Father, for he knows not what he does.

And I can see five layers deep into that guy, then I can see five layers deep into me.

And I can extend myself some grace to go, you know, let me look over here.

And and what often the people they get stuck in just going, they knew what they did, and they stay right on the surface with everybody else, stay right on the surface with themselves.

So they end up in an environment where nobody gets forgiven.

And you want to call that safe?

Excuse me?

You want to call that free?

No, that's bondage.

That is bondage.

There's no freedom in that.

If you want to live well, well done, have a good life, you're gonna have to learn this lesson as hard as it is.

Take it from a guy who's not any good at it.

I'm trying to get, I'm trying to go from being horrible at it to pretty good at it, is where I'm trying to get, and then eventually I'll try to get great.

But you know, you know what I'm saying?

You gotta take this journey, and Jesus expects us to do it, teaches us to do it.

This isn't just Jesus being Jesus, he's trying to set you free too.