Forgiveness

Praise God, thank you faith and Candace John and praise team.

What a blessing. Just reminding us of our

desperation for the truth for God that only he can provide.

I mean, that's I don't know if you feel desperate every time

you come on Sunday, but the reality is we are, whether we

feel it or not without without him.

You know what he provides. We got we got nothing.

We got nothing without Jesus. And so truly we are totally

dependent and desperate whether we realize whether our eyes are

open to that or not. So y'all for the month of

January, we've been taking one word at a time, really taking as

our our springboard Isaiah 45 eight and this just this cry

that Isaiah writes, the prophet writes that resonated with my

heart. I hope it does yours shower, O

heavens from above, let it rain down righteousness or that

righteousness and salvation may bear fruit, may spring up.

I the Lord have created. We're wanting righteousness to

reign and grow and sprout up salvation and the righteousness

of God in our city and church and community.

So many things, practical things out of that righteousness.

What that would look like. But we could name at least four,

and we are. And walking through them one at

a time each Sunday. And today we've landed on one

that we're going to process. But we've been walking through

kindness, gratitude, forgiveness, and hope.

I don't know if y'all have noticed, but being offended,

becoming offended has almost become like this national sport

that everybody's chosen to play. You know what I'm talking about.

I mean, human beings are trying to thrive more on the experience

of being offended, I think than we ever have before.

It's honestly actually a coping mechanism.

It was what it really, really is.

Because when we are offended, it it makes us feel good, at least

temporarily. You know why?

Because it makes us think we're we're better.

We we elevate ourselves as as morally superior if we're the

offended. And guess what?

Who we lower, the one who's offended US.

It's really just a coping mechanism to try to make

ourselves feel better. One of the ways that human

beings typically show offense is through the expression of anger.

And my goodness, is our world not angry?

I mean, just look around. I look at the news.

My goodness, anger is everywhere.

Anger's such an issue that it's become both a business and a

recreation. Have y'all heard of rage rooms?

Anybody. All right, so I guess I was in

the dark. I had heard of escape rooms.

I'd never heard of rage rooms. But if you just googled rage

rooms Atlanta, you can find a rage room that'll fit your rage

and your budget. In fact, you might choose the

Anarchy package. 30 glass items, 5 pieces of electronic

equipment. The baseball bat is

complimentary. Maybe you got a tight budget.

You can go for the fury package. That's 18 glass items and only

two electronic devices. You can schedule your birthday

party, your business retreat with your office workers, or

your date night or whatever you want to do.

You can go have a rage party and get your anger out for a price.

My goodness, I mean, anger has become business and recreation.

We live in an angry world. We live in a world that more

easily offended than ever. But the deal is as natural and

as easy as offense and anger come to us.

The deal is, is that Jesus offers a distinctly different,

supernatural, radically different way to live, a

radically better way to live. In fact, let me put it in these

words. If there was one thing you could

do that would make you more like your Heavenly Father than

anything else, what would it be? If there was one thing you

failed to do that would cause you to be doomed, honestly, more

than anything else you could fail to do that would lead to

your doom, what would it? What would it be?

It's this thing called forgiveness.

If you have your notes, you want to follow along in your worship

guide or you can see on the screen there.

The first thing that I want to tell you about forgiveness is

simply this. Forgiveness is what we all need

most. Forgiveness is what we all need

most. You and I.

You and I and every single human being have sinned and offended

God. This is what we see Adam and Eve

doing in the very beginning. This is what you've done also.

This is what I've done. This is what every human being

that's ever lived on the planet has done.

We've sinned against and offended a holy God, which means

we've not just offended God. It means our sin has caused us,

the Bible says, to fall short of the glory of God.

That itself separates us from God.

It causes us to deserve the righteous judgement of God and

that our sin actually will lead to our physical and spiritual

death if nothing is done about it.

It is bad. It is worse than you could

imagine. It is not just bad.

There's no words to really tell, to really communicate how bad

our sin and the number one problem it is in our lives.

It's that bad. But here's the deal.

You're probably here this morning.

You may be watching online. And if you're being honest, you

might just say, Kyle, I'm just not convinced my sin is that

bad. Like, I really, I'm really not.

In fact, Kyle, I'm a pretty good person.

I've not done a lot of things a lot of people have done.

In fact, maybe maybe you're convinced it's going to roll

something like this. Maybe you think when you breathe

your last and you get to heaven or at the gates of heaven, or

you're going to encounter God because you believe in God.

You believe it's going to roll something like this.

You believe God's going to wheel out this giant set of scales and

on one side he's going to weigh your righteousness, all the good

that you've done. And on the other side he's going

to weigh your your sin. And you're pretty convinced,

like you've evaluated your life and you're you're pretty

confident you've got a whole lot more good on the righteous side

of the scale than you have bad on the unrighteous side of the

scale. And so if you're being really

honest, you just really don't believe forgiveness is your

number one need. You really don't.

You don't really believe it's that bad.

Let me let me prove you wrong. Listen to the word of God, James

210 for whoever keeps the whole law, that's the whole law of

God. That's that's all the commands

of God, but fails in one point has become accountable for how

much of it break one part of it, the Bible says, and it's as if

you're guilty of it. This is not Kyle.

This is Bible Romans 323 For how many have sinned and broken at

least one part of the law and are guilty of all of it, whether

they've actually broken all of it or just one part of it.

How many have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God?

All have. And then Romans 623 for the

wages of sin is for how many? Because how many have sinned?

All Isaiah 64, Six. Our righteousness is as filthy

rags. Here's what the Bible says.

You may think you got a lot of righteousness waiting for heaven

to be weighed on the scales of God when the Bible will tell you

long before you see Jesus. Then listen, your best deed on

your best day without Jesus and without the Holy Spirit is

filthy rags in the eyes of God. You and I actually have no

righteousness to even weigh on the scales of heaven.

Consider that Hebrews 922. Then consider this, Without the

shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins when it

comes to your eternal destiny. The Bible never ever, ever

speaks of scales of any type. Do you know what the Bible

speaks of? Blood without the shedding of

blood, there is no forgiveness of sin.

The Bible speaks of blood this way.

The blood of the one and only son of the living God could do

anything about your sin and mine.

And the only way when we get to heaven, because when we get to

heaven, even if, even if you only have one teeny tiny itsy

bitsy sin, it's enough to break the whole law of God and stand

accountable and guilty for it all.

And if you can actually never put even a teeny tiny ounce of

righteousness on the good side, the only hope you have is that

your sin has been cleansed by the blood of Jesus who took on

human flesh, lived a sinless life for you in your place, died

on the cross for your sin, shed his blood so you can be forgiven

of your sin. When the Bible speaks of your

eternal destiny, it asks the question whether or not you've

been covered by the blood of Jesus.

Period. And the only way you've been

covered by the blood of Jesus is if you've called out and asked

to be covered. It's not because your parents

were covered. It's not because your uncle was

covered. It's because you've asked to be

covered and forgiven, and you've surrendered to Jesus as the one

and only way of salvation, and you stand forgiven because of

his blood. Is that you?

Is that you? There's no scales.

We've all broken God's law. Is there the application of the

blood of Jesus in your life because you've called and asked

for it? If you've not, it's time to ask.

The Bible says if you call on the name of the Lord, you'll be

saved. Saved means forgiven.

Saved means rescued from what you deserve.

Saved means made alive and given the hope and confidence of being

with the one who made you forever.

Forgiveness, y'all is our number one need.

It's what we need most #2 forgiveness is what God wants to

give us. See, this is another, this is

another thing that you may struggle to believe.

You actually may believe. Well, you may think, well Kyle,

I actually believe I need forgiveness.

I just really don't believe God wants to give it to me, or at

least I don't deserve it. And you're right about that, but

you may be, you're wrong if you don't believe God wants to give

it to you. I want to prove you prove you

wrong. If you think God doesn't want to

give it to you, you're ready. This is if you have a Bible,

Luke 15 is where I am. We're going to do 2 primary

passages. You know this probably if

you've, if you've, if you're familiar with Luke's gospel, you

know this story, you may have heard it.

If, if you're not familiar with it, that's OK.

This is 1 you need to know. All right, so Jesus is catching

flak from the religious elite because he's hanging out with

sinful people that society says should not be hung out with.

Like these are people known for their sinful reputation and

Jesus is befriending these people and spending time with

them. All right, he's catching Flack

for that. And what he knows is the people

that are accusing him of hanging out with sinful people, which he

is doing, but thinking it's wrong.

They think it's wrong because they're fundamentally

misunderstanding God. They don't understand the

character and the nature of God. So Jesus says, hey, y'all, let

me tell you 3 stories to tell you the truth about God.

All right, you know these stories and maybe the third one

is the most popular. It, it's been, it's been called

the parable of the prodigal son. It could be more accurately

called the prodigal of the unforgiving older brother, but

we're not actually going to read that part because it also could

be called the parable of the forgiving father.

And that's the part we're going to read.

All right, pick up, let's just pick up in verse 11.

And he said, that's Jesus said there was a man who had two sons

and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the

share of property that is coming to me.

What you need to know is that's like the son looking at the

father saying, Dad, I wish you were already dead so I can have

your stuff. All right.

So if you're not going to die, then just go and give me the

stuff so I can do with it what I want.

And the father divided his property between them.

Not many days later, the youngest son, younger son

gathered all that he had took a journey into a far country.

And there he squandered his property and reckless US living.

And when he had spent everything, a severe famine

arose in that country, and he began to be in need.

So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that

country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.

And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate.

And no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he

said, How many of my father's hired servants have more than

enough to eat? But I perish here with hunger.

I will arise and go to my father.

And I will say to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and

before you. I'm no longer worthy to be

called your son. Treat me as one of your hired

servants. And he rose and came to his

father. But while he was still a long

way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and

embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, Father,

I've sinned against heaven, and before you I'm no longer worthy

to be called your son. But the father said to his

servants, bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put

a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and bring the fatted

calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.

For this my son was dead and is alive again.

He was lost and is found. And they began to celebrate.

What is the Father like? Does God want to give sinners

forgiveness? Here's the deal.

You and I have all been just like in some ways, to some

degree, this younger, rebellious son.

You know why? Because we've all received from

God incredible things, life, breath in our lungs, the clothes

on our back, the roofs over our head, the ability to be here

this morning and worship freedom.

We, I mean, we could just keep working the list.

Every single one of us have received incredible gifts and

blessings and good things that we could have never earned or

worked for or produced for ourselves unless they were

provided by God. But here's what happened.

Just like this rebel son, we've taken these things from God,

even the simplest things, and run off and done life our way

instead of God's way to 1° or another.

We've taken what God has given us and used it for our wants and

our pleasures and our purposes instead of God's purposes and

his pleasure. And perhaps if we've had this,

you know, Eureka moment where we've come to our senses like he

did while feeding pigs, we've realized, wow, this is a pretty

miserable way to live. Well, all this stuff in the

world can't satisfy me. Guess what?

No matter. Pleasure can actually give me

hope. Nothing can take away this

gnawing emptiness in my soul. There's got to be a better way

to live. There's got to be a home

somewhere providing life that I'm missing.

So we look for it. We maybe don't know the way, or

maybe we know the way and we're too hard hearted to go back.

But this younger son wakes up. He knows he doesn't deserve the

mercy of God. See, if you've realized no

longer that you no longer want to live the way you've been

living away from God, but you may also hopefully have the

realization you don't deserve the mercy of God.

We don't receive. We don't deserve the forgiveness

of God. This son realized I don't

deserve to be received back into the family where I was, but he

knew he'd be better off. And so like this son, the last

thing we know, the last thing we do know is that we don't deserve

to be forgiven and restored. But what is God like?

What is God like? Does God want to forgive?

Jesus says My heavenly Father loves to welcome sinners home.

My the father, spiritually elite, those of you who think

you're better than everybody else.

Jesus says my father is like the man standing on the porch

waiting and looking to show compassion, longing for them to

come home. And he doesn't just wait there,

letting them walk to him in shame.

Guess what he does? Pulls up his robe and sprints

towards lost people. My father.

Jesus says y'all got him all wrong.

He runs after these kind of people because he longs to give

forgiveness to these kind of people who need it.

Y'all have totally misunderstood God.

He wants to be with us and He wants us to be with Him.

He wants to sacrifice the fattened calf for our provision

to give us everything. He wants to satisfy us.

He wants to robe us with the righteousness of Christ.

He wants to identify us with a ring of His signature on our

hand. He wants to celebrate over us

and rejoice in heaven over a lost person that's been saved.

No, you don't deserve the forgiveness of God, but God

wants to give it to you. Have you realized that that

forgiveness is what you need most?

Forgiveness is what God wants to give.

Have you called and asked for it #3 Forgiveness is also what God

asked of us. Forgiveness is what God also

asked of us. Let me, let me read the word of

God to you. Matthew 57 Blessed are the

merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Matthew 614 gets more specific. For if you forgive others their

trespasses, that's their sin. Your heavenly Father will also

forgive you. But if you do not forgive others

their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your

trespasses. Ephesians 432 And be kind to one

another, tender hearted, forgiving each other, just as

God in Christ has forgiven you. One more Colossians 313 bearing

with one another and forgiving each other, whoever has a

complaint against anyone. Just as the Lord, just as the

Lord, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.

You see, when God asks us or commands us to forgive, what is

He asking us to do? Let's be very clear.

Let's try to be specific and practical.

When God is asking us to forgive, what is He asking us to

do? All right, well, when we

forgive, here's what we're saying.

Let's just kind of walk this out.

We're saying we're not going to remain angry or desire vengeance

for being wronged. We're no longer going to remain

angry or desire vengeance. What we're saying is we're not

going to blame the other person or wallow in self pity for what

they've done to us. It means we're going to let go

of the offense. We're going to move forward and

past it. We're not going to hang on to

it. Let me give you as a specific

and clear and practical definition of forgiveness, I

think I can. Forgiveness is releasing someone

from your anger and gifting them with the gift of your peace.

It's releasing someone from your anger and all that comes with

that, and it is gifting them with the gift of your peace.

Now listen, I did not say, and the Bible does not say

forgiveness is forgetting because guess what?

You're probably not going to forget.

The Bible also does not say that forgiveness means completely

trusting again, because you may not need to.

Forgiveness does not mean that the relationship will go back

just to the way it was, because it may not.

Forgiveness does that mean if you give it, somebody will

receive it. They may not.

Forgiveness simply means that you're letting go of the right

to vengeance and being offended and angry and you're offering

them peace and a way of moving forward because that's what God

has done for you. He has let go of his anger and

his wrath and what we deserved and offered us a relationship, a

right relationship through Jesus of.

Peace. This is forgiveness.

This is a character trait of God.

We, you and I, are never more like God than when we are

offering the gift of forgiveness.

This is the gift we've received. This is the gift God calls us to

give to one another. But you know what?

Something often happens that Matthew chapter 18 describes.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

I want you to turn back to the first gospel and to go to

Matthew 18, and we're going to start at verse 21.

God asked us to forgive because He's forgiven us.

But here's what so often happens.

Jesus tells this parable beginning in verse 21.

Then Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often will my

brother sin against me? And I forgive him?

As many as seven times. Jesus said to him, I do not say

to you 7 times, but 77 times. Therefore the Kingdom of heaven

may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with

his servants. And when he began to settle, one

was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents.

And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold,

and his wife and children and all that he had, and payment be

made. So the servant fell on his

knees, imploring him, Have patience with me, and I'll pay

you everything. And out of pity for him, the

master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.

But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow

servants who owed him 100 Dinarai, and seizing him, began

to choke him, saying, Pay what you owe.

So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, Have

patience with me, and I'll pay you.

He refused, and went and put him in prison until he should pay

the debt. And when his fellow servant saw

what had taken place, they were greatly distressed.

They went and reported to their master all that had taken place.

And then his master summoned him, and said to him, You wicked

servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with

me. And should not you have had

mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?

And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers

until he should pay all his debt.

So also, my Heavenly Father will do to everyone of you if you do

not forgive your brother from your heart.

The servant who owed the master 10,000 talents owed the

equivalent of billions and billions of dollars that could

never have been repaid in multiple lifetimes.

He realized his debt was such that he was totally and

completely dependent on the mercy of the master.

He pleads he's going to lose everything.

He deserves nothing, and yet in mercy the Master grants him his

request, a full and complete pardon.

Do you realize if you're a follower of Jesus, the Master

has heard your cry for mercy because you've called on the

name of Jesus, and you've received not because you

deserved it, but because of his mercy and love.

Complete and full pardon. But that servant, who is

forgiven an impossible debt to repay, leaves and goes out and

finds someone who owes him the tiniest fraction of what he had

owed the master, and immediately demanding payment on the spot,

choking and getting physically violent with him, and refusing

to pass on the mercy he had just received, demands immediate

payment for the debt that he is owed.

The question is, who does that? What kind of moral monster would

refuse to pass on such incomprehensible mercy?

They can't even explain that they've received though that now

they're living in, and yet refuse to pass it on.

Who does that? This is just hypothetical, of

course. I'm just guessing.

But if I were driving home after committing a capital crime,

which to my knowledge I never have, all right.

But if I had, and if I was driving home a free man, having

been pardoned and forgiven, I don't think I'd have a problem

with anybody, including you, cutting me off in traffic on my

way home that day. I'm like anybody else.

I'm good. I you know, I'll go 10 below the

speed limit. Y'all just cut in on me.

Y'all have your way. I've been forgiven and set free.

I have life I don't deserve. Why don't y'all just cut me off

in traffic? Because this doesn't matter.

It's not a hill of beans compared to what I've been

given. I'm guessing I wouldn't yell.

I'm guessing that if I was on death row and I had been

extended mercy by a judge, then when I came home that day, no

matter what what my spouse, by the way, I'm not actually

thinking of any scenario here, Lauren.

So just just go with me. If my spouse maybe did that,

which which he didn't really have anything that aggravates me

that bad. Anyway, I'm just going, I'm just

going to do this if you if if you let me go to you instead of

me. All right.

If if you had committed murder and you've been extended mercy

by the judge and you're going home and your spouse does that

thing which aggravates you like to the nines that you've asked

them never to do again. I'm guessing you wouldn't yell

at them that day when you just got pardoned for murder.

Even if they put the toilet roll on backwards or didn't fold the

clothes while the dryer was still hot or didn't it didn't,

you know, empty the dishwash? I mean, it probably wouldn't

matter. You're alive.

You deserve to die. You're alive, right?

How could you not pass it on? You see, if we truly live in the

reality of the forgiveness we've been given, we can't help but

give it to others. And the truth is, if we're not

passing it on, here's the truth. We really haven't realized how

much we've been forgiven. Follower of Christ, listen to

me, anybody who offends you, you've got to remember you've

offended a holy God 1000 times more.

You've offended a holy God infinitely more than anybody

will ever be capable of offending you.

You see, as believers, we need to be reminded that we've

actually all been exposed publicly for who we actually

are. Now, I know you may be like

Kyle. What in the world are you

talking about? I don't know that I've been

exposed. Oh, you have been and I have

been too. Do you know when you were

exposed for who you are? And do you know when I was

exposed for who I am? It happened 2000 years ago on a

hill called Calvary where there was a man that was stripped of

his clothing and on his back was laid across and his back was

ripped to shreds and his brow was forced and penetrated with

the crown of thorns. He was spat upon and he was

beaten and he was spiked to a tree and hung there in your

place and mine because of your sin and mine publicly exposing

us for who we are and what we've done against the Holy God.

But Jesus took the exposure in our place, shed his blood where

ours should have been shed. But even our blood couldn't have

forgiven our sin because it wasn't perfect blood.

It wasn't a sinless life that Jesus had lived as the perfect

sinless Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world.

When Jesus exposed our sin, it was World News and it changed

all of history. It can change your eternity if

you realize you've been exposed for who you are and you need the

blood of Jesus to forgive you. And you can only be forgiven by

the blood. You've called on Jesus to save

you, and now you're free to pass it on to others because Jesus

has paid it all for you. When you take all that in, you

can't help but be joyful and overwhelmingly grateful.

You see, really, Here's the deal.

Gratitude and anger cannot simultaneously coexist.

It's one or the other. Gratitude and anger can't

simultaneously coexist. It's going to be 1 or it's going

to be the other. A man had a surfboard and his

wife loaned it to some friends of his.

They used it and they broke it. He had a choice.

He could forgive the friends who broke his surfboard and take the

hit, or refuse to forgive and try to make them pay.

Either way, someone pays, right? You see, whenever there's an

injury to a relationship or a hurt or a broken heart or a

broken object, and you're willing or I'm willing to say I

forgive, what we're saying is I've got this, I'll pay this

debt, I'll pick up the bill for this.

And we can because we are reminded that the cross stands

forever as a reminder that who picked up the bill for us?

Who paid the debt? What Jesus did.

So how could anyone owe me anything when somebody else has

paid everything for me? You see, we actually don't

forgive because anyone deserves it from us.

We forgive because we didn't deserve it.

We actually forgive because God deserves it, because he's paid

it all. Forgiveness is what God asked of

us. Let me give you one more 4th and

final thing. Forgiveness is hard y'all, but

unforgiveness is harder. Forgiveness is hard, but

unforgiveness is harder. If you look back at Matthew 18,

look at verse 21. I think Peter like thought he

had a really good idea here as he often thought he did.

Hey Jesus question, how often do you want me to forgive?

I feel like I got a great standard to offer.

Are you good if I forgive 7 times?

You know God, that's the number of completion.

Surely that surely that's going to cut it.

To which Jesus says try again. Let me let me do something to

your math. Let's multiply 70 times, said,

Hey Peter, when it comes to forgiveness, I don't want you

doing math. Math and forgiveness Don't,

don't, don't add up that no, it doesn't work like that.

Peter is saying to Jesus, but Jesus, forgiveness is hard,

right? Forgiveness is hard.

Surely I don't have to do it infinitely, but according to

Jesus I wanted, I want us to read verse 31 through 35 again

and I want to read it with you asking and answering this

question. Which one is harder according to

Jesus, to forgive or to not forgive?

Listen to what Jesus has to say again and and try to read it or

hear it. Answering this question.

Jesus says when his fellow servants in the parable Saul

would have taken place, they were greatly distressed and they

went and reported to their master all that had taken place.

And then the master summoned him and said to him, You wicked

servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with

me. And should not you have had

mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?

And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers

until he should pay all his debt.

So also my heavenly Father will do to everyone of you, if you do

not forgive your brother from your heart, which one does Jesus

say is actually harder? Forgiving or not forgiving?

Not forgiving? That sounds way worse without

even getting into the details in today's sermon because we don't

have time of what all he just said.

But it's obvious unforgiveness is way worse than the difficulty

or pain of choosing to forgive. Let's just break down what

unforgiveness sometimes leads us to do the difficult things.

Not just difficult, but deadly things we often do.

Because taking offense and remaining offended and refusing

to forgive and let go of our anger often leads us to do

things like this. Quitting a job or ending a

friendship or dissolving a marriage, or not speaking to a

family member for years, or avoiding specific people we

don't want to see or run into or interact with or move and change

addresses or change churches. That doesn't even mention the

discipline of God that Jesus brings up in the text, which we

don't need time to get into. But I'm it would be way worse

than what I just named. One pastor said this.

In my many years of pastoral experience, he says, I found

that Christians who lack joy, power and usefulness in their

walk often is because of unforgiveness.

God withholds blessings because of their bitter, grudge filled,

stubborn heart. So you know what is so much

better? What's so much better is

surrendering control to God. What is so much better is when

you actually believe God when he says don't take avenge revenge

for yourself, but leave vengeance to me, for vengeance

is mine. God says.

What's so much better is when you realize Jesus is paid at

all. You've already won.

You've got nothing to prove no matter what happens when you

understand it's not ultimately about you and you don't have to

take everything personally when you can let stuff go.

When you realize God hasn't called you to 24/7 jury duty and

you realize you're not called to rehearse every line of that

someone has said to you that hurt you all night long so you

don't go to sleep. Unforgiveness is so much harder,

so much harder. And again, like we brought up,

Jesus says I got a radically better, distinctly different way

to live. All you who are weary and heavy

laden, come to me and I'll give you just I got a way for you to

live. It's radically, radically

different and better. We ought to practice forgiveness

every time we get a chance. Let me tell you where you ought

to practice. You should forgive in big and

small ways, but you can practice in the small ways so you can

work up to the big ways. All right, Every time you get

behind the steering wheel, you need to prepare to practice

forgiveness. Like, I'm serious, this is

highly practical. In fact, if you just want to

write something like on a 3 by 5 card and put it on your dash and

give you some clear tape, practice forgiveness.

Because you drive a half a mile, you're probably going to need to

practice forgiveness. Practice in the small ways.

You'll be ready in the big ways. There was once a pastor before

the days of the Internet who used to avail himself of

magazines. He should not look at his wife

was out of town. He pulled them out of hiding and

after looking at these he was sick, humiliated, ashamed again

of what he had done, knew he was doing what he was doing was

wrong, just did it anyway. He made the decision, I'm done

putting my, I'm putting my foot down.

I'm sick and tired of this. Boxed them all up.

Marched down the steps of his apartment to the dumpster at the

base of the apartment. Dumped all the magazines in the

dumpster. His wife still had a day or two

before she came home. About two hours after he dumped

all his magazines, he decided he wanted to go back and get them.

So he did. Went back down the steps,

reached in, reached a little too far, leaned over, fell in the

dumpster, broke his arm, stuck in the dumpster, couldn't get

out. You know where his wife found

him? In the dumpster.

That dumpster pastor, is all of us.

We've all sinned. We've all tried to get out of

our sin. We've all may have even tried to

get rid of it, take it out, out with the trash.

But guess what? We've all done.

We've all gone right back to our sin.

We're all so deep in it on our own and broken.

We can't get out of it. Not unless somebody else, by the

power that only God can offer to change us from the inside out

and set us free, can do anything about our sin.

That goes for the unbeliever who's never called out for

forgiveness of God. That goes for the believer who

still struggles against sin in their life.

Only Jesus is the answer. Only letting His Word by the

Spirit do the work in you. Does He pull us out By the way?

He wants to pull us out, but you got to realize you're in the

dumpster so you can say yes to Him pulling you out.

And then you know what? When you realize you've been in

the dumpster, you don't lose your mind when you find other

people in the dumpster, right? When you realize that's where

God found you. When pastor said this, what

would it be like to be a part of a Church of people who realized

they were nothing but dumpster pastors?

People who knew they were not just sinners, but sinners caught

red handed against God. There lies exposed, then there's

sin forgiven and then set free. That would be a fun, free and

joyous church to realize every day just how much we've been

forgiven by a holy God. When you realize that it cannot

help, you will not be able to help.

But live different and pass it on.

John and praise team are going to come out.

Here's what I want to ask you this morning.

Number one, have you received forgiveness from Jesus?

Have you realized you're in the dumpster?

Have you realized you cannot crawl out on your own?

Have you called out to Jesus to save you?

As we sing? I'm going to stand here

forgiveness. If that's you and you never

have, that's what you need most. Would you be willing to come

talk to me? I'd love to walk you through

what calling out to Christ would look like.

I'm not going to embarrass you. I'm not going to make you do

anything you don't want to do. You can call out to Christ right

where you are, but if you'd like to talk with me, I'm going to

stand right here. Maybe you're here and you say,

Kyle, I know that Jesus has forgiven me, but I am not giving

forgiveness to someone else. And I've realized that's really

a terrible way to live. You know you've heard it said

that, right? Refusing to forgive is like

taking poison and expecting the other person to die.

It doesn't work. It doesn't work.

Jesus says, come to me, say Kyle, I can't.

I don't want to let go. Well, sometimes what you can't

do, what you think you can't do if you'll just think of it this

way, if I I'm just going to give it to Jesus, he'll do what only

he can do, which may mean help you forgive or you think you

can't. That life you may have never

imagined life different than the way it's been because you've

just always thought it's going to be this way and it doesn't

have to be. Jesus says I came that you may

have life and have it to the to the full to the full.

So you might need to get on your knees.

You might need to come stand. You might need to pray, you

might need to get on your knees where you are.

You might need to text somebody in the invitation.

You might need to go to somebody in the room.

But however God leads you just would you ask God, God, if

there's anything in me, anything I've not passed on that you've

paid for me that I'm refusing to pass on God, I don't live that

way any longer. Show me what I need to do so

that forgiveness flows through me that I'm living the way you

called me to live, that sets me free.

Amen Father, I pray Lord that you would allow us to be

reminded again in a fresh all consuming way of your mercy

you've given to us the God you would allow us to be conduits of

that mercy to others and forgiveness to set be set free

by the truth than the way you've called us to live in Jesus name

I pray Amen. Would you stand with me church

family, we're going to sing and worship.

I'm going to stand here. You come and you respond as the

Lord leads you this morning.