Forgiveness Again with Sonja Knutson

Amen.

Thank you, Roberta.

You may be seated.

How cute is Roberta this morning?

Oh my gosh.

I want to be Roberta when I grow up.

I'm not even kidding.

Hey, keep your Bibles open if you haven't already open them to page 883.

My name is Sonia Knutson.

I am the pastoral associate here at Central.

If we have not had an opportunity to meet, I work under Pastor Ben and Pastor Ryan as their little sidekick.

And I am so excited that Ryan's coming back.

It's been a really long summer.

He can start doing all this upfront stuff again.

Woo! So, but I am it is a privilege for me to be a part of this team, as I mentioned.

We are in our fourth and final week.

Let me get these things started.

There we go.

Of our you pick sermon series.

It's been fun.

Ben has done three of them on questions that you had asked.

I was actually preparing for another question that was sent in via email.

And then my good friend, dear Pam Wagner, where are you, little Pammy?

There you are.

She called me one day.

We were talking about the fall retreat and she said, Hey, I have a deep question for you.

I'm like, bring it on.

And she said, What do you do when you think your head has forgiven someone, but your heart hasn't forgiven them?

Your heart is still old holding on to them.

I'm like, that's a great you pick question.

You should get up and preach about that sometime, Pammy.

But she didn't.

She is a brilliant teacher, however, she does a lot of female male classes, female male classes here about the Bible.

And she can do it, go in depth quite a bit about it.

But this is kind of a different type of question.

There's a lot of scripture around forgiveness, but really this is more of a feel, a feeling question.

So I'm like, I would love to take that on.

What do you do when your head says, I forgive someone, but your heart kind of still holds on to it, says, nope, I'm keeping dead of that.

Forgiveness itself could really be a whole sermon series, don't you agree?

It could be eight, 12-week series.

How do we forgive?

How do we know we really forgive?

What does it mean to forgive?

How do you forgive yourself in something?

How do you forgive God in something?

Which sounds crazy because God is perfect, but sometimes we cast a lot of hurts on God that we think we need to forgive him for.

And so I decided this morning, I'm gonna preach on this subject.

And I'm naming my sermon Forgiveness Again, because often when something comes from the heart and it moves into the head or vice versa, we feel like we're forgiving all over again.

So this morning I've titled it Forgiveness Again.

And we're gonna talk about this in depth, but we're gonna start the morning in prayer.

Will you please pray with me?

Father, what a deep subject it is.

And you do share a lot in your word about forgiveness, but often when we're reading the scripture and the word, just like we heard this morning, kind of goes in one ear and out the other, especially if a hurt has a hold on you.

And so, Father, I pray this morning that you take a hold of this message and you speak into the hearts and the minds of those that need to hear and need to work through forgiveness in some area of their life.

Use my words, use my voice as a vessel this morning, Father, and thank you for this beautiful day of Labor Day and the long weekend that many families spent together.

We love you, Jesus.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

So, how many of you can relate to this subject?

You have forgiven someone with your head, but your harp keeps a debt or hold on to that.

Yeah, that's good.

I mean, it's not good, but here we are, right?

A couple weeks ago, I was at the Maple Grove Costco and I was trying to find a parking spot.

Can you already feel my pain?

Because it's Maple Grove and their parking lot was not designed well.

And I put my blinker on and I'm like, there's my spot.

You know, I was clearly going into the spot when another car comes from the other direction and swoops in and takes my spot.

Now, clearly, I was committed to this spot.

I had my blinker on.

I already did the Minnesota nice wave, like the guy's backing out.

Thank you so much.

I'm gonna take that spot, peace be with you.

And the car comes swooping in and takes my spot.

It was a scene straight out of fried green tomatoes.

Have you seen that movie?

Thank you so much.

A couple weeks ago, I'm in the office, and as I've mentioned before, we just yell throughout the office often like, hey Ben, hey Ryan, hey Peter.

I'm like, hey, has anybody heard of fried green tomatoes?

Ben, who's like the movie critic of all people, never heard of it.

Kirsten, this one's better.

Kirsten.

I don't know what that was.

I'm like, what?

You're almost my age.

And she's like, I was in college.

I'm like, well, what were you doing in college that you did not watch this movie?

Thank goodness Dinda was in the office volunteering.

She comes walking down the hallway.

I've heard of it.

So we had this moment, didn't we, Dorinda?

It was beautiful.

Thank you so much.

This movie, Fried Green Tomatoes with Kathy Bates, where somebody steals her parking spot.

And what does she do?

Exactly.

Thank you so much.

And she rams into the car because she has more insurance and she's older than them.

But I want you to know that I am a mature Christian.

So I did not do that.

Instead, I sat there and I judged them silently.

I didn't honk, I didn't yell, I didn't confront them.

I simply sat there and started making assumptions about their entire character.

I'm pretty sure they do this all the time.

I'm pretty sure they are the people that push their Costco carts up into the grass rather than taking them to the cart corral.

Don't you hate people like that.

I'm pretty sure those are the kind of people that talk during a movie, as some of my friends do.

But when they're my friends, it's okay.

I just like shh, taking in the movie right now.

Eventually I found another spot about a mile away, because again, it's Costco at Mampa Grove.

And I thought, it's okay, breathe.

You need the steps anyway.

You haven't hit your 10,000 mark.

And I forgave them for about 30 seconds.

And then I went into the store and I saw that I'm like, oh, the rage came out on me again.

And I'm like, I hope they came in here for a Costco chicken and the deli was out by the time they got to the back of the store.

Apparently, my head had forgiven them, but my heart had pushed the replay button again.

And isn't that sometimes how forgiveness works?

Our head says, let it go.

And our heart says, But I have receipts and they owe me.

Maybe you've experienced this.

You think you've forgiven someone, you've prayed about it, you've decided you're not going to hold on to it or against this person anymore.

And then something triggers it: a memory, a smell, a sound, a person, a place, a conversation.

And suddenly you think, wait a minute, why am I back here again?

Why did my head forgive and move on?

But my heart has tabs on this.

Well, because, my friends, there is a difference between forgiveness and healing.

Forgiveness is a decision and healing is a process.

That's good, isn't it?

Forgiveness is a decision and healing is a process.

And maybe that changes this question that we're asking.

Maybe the question isn't how do I get my heart to forgive what my head has already forgiven, but maybe a better question is how do I heal my heart so triggers don't pull me backwards in my hurts?

And my hope today is that I can give you some practical tools to help with that.

But also please hear this.

If you need a deeper dive into forgiveness, if it's something that really has a hold on you, we would encourage you, we here at the staff, that you would come and chat with one of us, myself, Ryan, Ben, Kirsten.

You would grab a good book.

There's so many forgiveness books out there in the world today.

Or you would talk with a therapist or a counselor or someone who can help you work through those deeper places of hurt and healing, because God wants to bring healing to those places in our lives where we are still broken and where the enemy would love to keep us stuck.

So today we're going to look at three things that can help us move forward in the healing process for forgiveness.

And they are understanding, practice, and scars.

Say that with me.

Understanding, practice, and scars.

Remember, Ryan's coming back next week.

And what does he make you do a lot?

Repeat after him.

Let's say it one more time.

Understanding, practice, and scars.

And I would love to begin with the understanding piece, meaning understanding forgiveness and all that it carries.

At its heart, forgiveness means letting go of our desire for revenge and trusting God with justice.

And that's what makes our scripture today so powerful.

Jesus doesn't just teach about forgiveness, he shows us what forgiveness looks like, as Roberta shared earlier.

The disciples are gathering behind locked doors, and this is after Jesus was killed and resurrected on the cross.

But they together, the disciples, had yet to see him together as a group.

And so we find them locked in a room hiding.

They've experienced betrayal, disappointment, grief, and fear.

And then Jesus comes in and stands among them.

And his first words, if you're looking in your Bible today on page 883, is peace be with you.

And then he shows them his hands in his side.

And he shows them this because this is where he's been wounded, which tells us something important about forgiveness and healing.

Healing is not the same as pretending you were never wounded.

The wound can be real, the pain can be real, the memory can be real.

And still, through God's grace, the wound does not have to control what happens next, and we can live in peace.

Look at Jesus in our story.

He walks into this room where the people who had abandoned him are hiding.

And he shares peace with them and he shows him his wounds.

He shows him his hands and his side.

He doesn't shame them or make them relive their failures or remind them of everything that they did wrong.

He says, peace be with you.

Now I know some of you might be saying or thinking, Sonia, you're crazy.

Are you suggesting that I offer peace to the people who have hurt me?

And I can tell you, I understand that this is a hard thing to do.

I don't know your situation, but I know what I've walked through.

And it's difficult to think about giving peace to someone who has hurt you.

I know it could feel impossible, especially when there's never been an apology or an I'm sorry.

There's never been remorse or responsibility taken for poor actions or behaviors.

And when that happens, it can feel like they still owe you something.

But maybe that is where our faith asks us to lean in.

Because the peace Jesus offers is not dependent on whether the other person offers it or deserves it.

It isn't dependent on whether they apologized or changed or even acknowledged what they did.

It is a peace that doesn't erase what happened, but it begins to calm what is happening inside of us because of what happened.

And by the way, if no one has ever said to you these words, I want to say them now to you.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for your hurt.

I'm sorry for your shame.

I'm sorry for the things that should have never happened to you.

I'm sorry for the words and the actions and the betrayal and the loss.

And I want you to hear this clearly.

You did not deserve any of it.

I'm sorry, and peace be with you.

Friends, we cannot change what happened behind us, but through God's grace, we we can begin to change what the wound has been allowed to do in front of us.

The wound may be part of our story, but it does not have to be the author of our future.

It does not have to control every thought, every reaction, every relationship.

And that is why forgiveness matters.

Because forgiveness isn't just about what happened then, it is about what we are going to allow that wound to do now, in the present, and in our future.

And if we believe in his word and in his power in our lives, then our story today gives us the confidence to forgive with our hearts, knowing that we are not alone.

John 20, 21 through 23 reads, Jesus said to them again, peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, so I send you.

When he said this, he breathed on them and he said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.

If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

I love this because it reminds us that we don't have to be alone in our forgiveness.

Jesus is with us.

He shares the heaviness of what we've carried, and through faith, he breathes into us our choice to release others from the emotional or spiritual debt we feel that they owe us because of what they did, which is important.

Because if we retain it, if we keep recalling it and replaying it over and over again, then in some way the offense remains in us and continues to take up space in our hearts.

But when we begin to understand what forgiveness really is and the freedom that it can bring, then we can move from simply knowing we've forgiven someone to actually living it out.

And that brings us to practice.

And the best way to tell your heart what your head already knows is to practice forgiveness.

How do we practice forgiveness?

Well, let's look back at our story today.

Thomas comes into the story in John 20, 27.

Now, he wasn't in the room when all of this was coming down, and Jesus came in with the disciples, and Jesus offered them peace and he showed them his hands.

But our doubting Thomas, which gets kind of a bad rap, should actually be called honest Thomas, because if we're thinking about it, we would probably ask the same questions that Thomas often acts, or we we would act the same way that Thomas does in most of these scenarios.

And Thomas says to his friends, his disciples, when they're like, Thomas, Jesus is alive, he's back, he says, I don't know, I gotta see this.

What's really happening here?

Where are the strings?

Where are the mirrors?

Because it kind of feels, you know, pretend.

But they say, No, it really happened.

And I love what Jesus does.

A week later, he comes into the scene and Jesus shows up and didn't simply say to Thomas, believe, because you know, I'm the guy.

Just believe in me.

But rather he met Thomas where he was, which doesn't that make a great teacher?

Think of the teachers in your life who have impacted your life.

The teachers that know how you need to learn are the best teachers.

And this is who Jesus is to Thomas.

He meets Thomas where he is and he says, put your finger here.

See my hands?

Reach out your hand and put your hand in my side.

Jesus gave Thomas something that he could do.

And I think that matters for us because forgiveness isn't just something that we think about.

Forgiveness is an action.

And like any action, it takes practice.

Sometimes we think that we truly have to forgive someone and we shouldn't feel angry anymore.

We shouldn't feel sad or we shouldn't remember what happened or feel the triggers.

But that's not realistic.

Forgiveness doesn't mean the memory disappears.

It means that we learn what to do with the memory when it comes back.

So when the replay button is pushed again, we practice something different.

We practice things like pausing and breathing and praying and boundaries.

And when we practice, if nothing else, then we know that when the trigger comes up, we have skills.

We have tools in our toolbox to help the triggers from affecting our heart as much as they do.

Just as much as an athlete would practice the skills on a field, so his memory will then know what to do when the play is in action.

Our spiritual skills need the practice just as well.

So when a trigger comes into our life, we know what to do, such as pausing.

We can take a moment.

We can think about what's happening.

Why is this smell affecting me?

Why is this person affecting me?

I can journal about it.

I can talk to somebody about it.

Or we can take a deep breath.

We can think about the scripture that we just read.

Jesus breath breathed the Holy Spirit into them.

Think about that.

If you're being triggered by something, take a breath.

Blow it out.

Think of the Holy Spirit entering you.

What would Jesus do in this moment?

It calms your spirit.

It calms who you are.

We can take a moment and we can pray.

We can invite the Holy Spirit into that moment.

And sometimes when I meet with women, they're like, I don't know how to pray.

I'm not comfortable praying.

Well, guess what?

He gave us a prayer to pray, which we will do later.

And in the middle of that prayer is a big chunk of forgiveness.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive me as I trespass.

And teach me to forgive those who trespass against me.

What he taught us how to forgive.

He taught us this is a skill that we need.

So pray.

And also set up boundaries.

Sometimes we think that boundaries are unforgiving, but it's the complete opposite.

In fact, healthy boundaries can be a part of what forgiveness really looks like.

We can forgive someone and still say, I love you, but I can't allow this behavior in my life anymore.

Sometimes the most beautiful and faithful thing we can do is forgive someone while also creating the space we need for healing.

So practice.

Pause.

Breathe.

Pray.

Set boundaries.

Because forgiveness isn't about getting to the point where you never feel the hurt again because you will.

It's about practicing a new response so when the hurt comes back, the wounds can heal and become scars.

In our reading today, Jesus doesn't hide the scars or erase the evidence.

He doesn't say, Look at me, Thomas.

I'm resurrected.

You can't see any wounds anymore.

He simply shows him the scars and says, Do not doubt, but believe, because the wounds are healed.

The nails are gone.

The resurrection didn't remove the scars.

The resurrection changed what the scars meant.

Oh, that's good.

The resurrection didn't remove the scars.

The resurrection changed what the scars meant.

The nails are gone.

And isn't that the picture we need for forgiveness in our faith?

No more nails.

Central, there may be things in your life you never forget.

There may be scars that never completely disappear.

I have plenty of physical scars that remind me of being young and foolish and kind of a tumble girl.

I have scars on my legs and my elbows and my knees from falling off swing sets and out of trees, and I probably should have been a boy because I played just as hard as my brother did.

And when look at those physical scars, they remind me of things that are joyful and adventurous.

But they're also scars that nobody can see.

Scars from things that should have never happened to me, with adults that should have never touched me the way they did.

Scars from broken relationships, scars left by words that were spoken, scars from betrayal and neglect, scars that surface when something triggers an old memory and suddenly my heart hurts all over again.

And for a moment, it can feel like that wound has reopened and it's seeping.

But this is where I believe faith makes a difference because through faith my wounds become scars.

A scar that says, yep, that happened, but it won't have the final word or hold on me.

Jesus didn't pretend in our story today, or ever throughout his story, that his wounds never happened.

His resurrection didn't erase the pain or tell us that what happened didn't matter.

It did matter.

His beatings mattered, his abuse, his mocking, and his death mattered, and yours does too.

But we don't have to live in it, Central.

Instead, in our faith, we can place our wounds in God's hands and trust that he can bring healing to places we cannot heal on our own.

As his followers, our scars don't have to define who we are or determine what our future will be.

The scars will stay there.

They will be there, but they can tell a different story.

And I think that's one of the things that faith does in our forgiveness.

It tells us a different story.

Not a story of hurt or wounds or weakness, but a story of healing and redemption.

Not because the story didn't matter, because it did, but because God matters, then what happened.

And knowing that one day, in all of our stories, God then will use your scar to help someone else who is still wounded to remind them what happened to them is not the end of their story.

Friends, this forgiveness thing is difficult and it's touchy and often feels very raw.

And it should, because with it comes heartache and brokenness.

And just about the time that you think you've moved beyond a hurt and have forgiven, something triggers and the replay button is pushed all over again.

But my prayer for you today is that you can move through the understanding of what forgiveness is.

You can practice forgiving, even when you're not in the midst of a storm.

So you are prepared for the replay button again, and you recognize the scars that Jesus scars that were sacrificed for us on a cross so many years ago were once wounds that healed.

And when your wounds are reopened, you too then can find peace and allow Jesus to kill the hurt in your scars.

So you don't feel that forgiving again is necessary, but it's also a lovely gift.

Amen.