Good morning. Good to see everybody.
So here I am. It's May and it's my month to
teach and preach. So I'm I'm grateful to be here
again and thankful for Pastor Lewis's teaching and Book of
Revelation. It's been very, very powerful.
We're actually teaching in the Book of Revelation on Grace FM
right now as well. I'm in chapter 16.
So if you want to get ahead of Pastor Lewis and act like you
know what's going on, you can listen on radio and tell them.
I can tell you something about that book now.
But anyway, you can never get enough of that.
That particular book. So this particular book that you
were talking about, Carrie on the marquee, lady, she's a
remarkable woman. She was displaced in the
Ukraine, losing her home, having to leave because of the war.
And they have a lot of friends and family and loved ones that
still are in Ukraine, but they're in Budapest right now
developing another ministry. But a remarkable family.
They've been through an awful lot.
And that is a book that I guess if you read it, you'll really
value living in America where you don't have to be displaced
right now. You can live with a degree of
safety and comfort compared to many other places in the world.
So we need to keep Ukraine in prayer as we do Israel, Iran,
all these places, Russia that are battling with each other and
pray that these wars will come to an end sooner than later.
And I was thinking to the, I had a dream the other day.
It was really crazy. Dream says you're young men will
dream dreams, right? Your old man will see I have
visions. Is that how it goes?
Right. All right, so I guess I'm still
a young guy. I'm having dreams.
But anyway, the dream is on Grace FM and it was such a
powerful dream. And I was meeting these people
that were listening to the radio station, and their lives are
being dramatically impacted because of the message of the
gospel on Grace FM. And when I'm out in public and
in real life, I run into people many times they tell me they
listen to Grace FM and it's a blessing to them.
And they watch on the YouTube too as well, or the teaching.
So this church, this isn't the people in the building.
We have a tremendous outreach in the community to many people
that aren't going to church right now for some degree of
reason maybe, but they find comfort in listening to Grace FM
online and also watching the YouTube and then turning the
radio on in their car. And so please continually pray
for that outreach. It's very powerful.
I take it for granted. I guess I shouldn't, but I do.
Sometimes we have a radio station, it's not easy to get
one. And so we have this tremendous
outreach where we can reach so many, many people and, and the
Lord is providing for that station that funds commend by
listeners and people support the, the station with the Grace
FM app, Calvary Chapel apps that we're very grateful for that as
well. So let's pray and then we'll get
into the book of Second Corinthians chapter 2.
Father God, we thank you this morning for the opportunity to
be together as a body of believers, a family of God, in
one place for a little bit of time today where we can let the
Word wash over our minds and our hearts and transform us and make
us a little bit more like you, Lord.
And we're grateful that the Word has power to change our lives,
no matter where we've been, what we've been through, what we've
experienced, the things we've done wrong.
Lord, the Word always comforts us because it reminds us that
there's a Savior, Jesus Christ, who went to the cross to die on
the cross for our faults, our sins, our dysfunction, and has
forgiven us for everything we've ever done and ever will do, and
has cleansed us with His blood and made us new creatures in
Christ. As your word says, if anyone is
in Christ, a new creation, new creatures, old things passed
away, old things become new. And we're so thankful that
there's the opportunity to be made new every day, no matter
where we've been, what we've been through, what we've had,
the experience. Lord, with regret and sorrow,
we're grateful that your word covers all of our sins, your
blood and your death, your bury, your resurrection.
So we praise you. That's why we're here today,
Lord, to learn more about you and how to walk with you and how
to how to treat others like you treat us.
And we pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.
So before I get into this, this particular chapter today, I was,
I was thinking as I was preparing for this message that
that all the problems in life that we have are relational.
They have to do with our ability to communicate with other
people, whether it's family, whether it's marriages, kids,
workers, people in the body of Christ.
It's, it's sometimes it's just really hard to get along with
people. You ever experienced that
sometimes you just have a difficulty and a challenge with
the people in general. And I, I know that by
experience, everyday Cindy and I, we're learning after so many
years of marriage that we still disagree about things and we
still sometimes act in ways that maybe we shouldn't toward one
another. And the Lord has to continually
correct us and remind us how to forgive and how to let go and
how to be gracious. And, and, and that's a, that's a
learning lesson that you don't learn one time.
You need to keep learning it over and over and over again how
to forgive people for certain things.
So this is the issue of Paul and he's teaching in this chapter
about the struggle that he's had with this church in Corinth.
It was a difficult church. The leadership wasn't really
flowing the way it was supposed to and the the power of the Holy
Spirit. They were taking sides and
supporting things that they should have been supporting.
And this initiating a lot of conflict, conflict at times.
And so Paul had to correct them by writing a letter.
And sometimes letters are helpful.
You write a letter to someone about something, maybe that
you're struggling with a relationship issue or something
that the other person doesn't see or understand.
And the letter sort of covers the other person's viewpoint.
And you have a chance not to react, but to read it and listen
to it and then consider what's being said.
We're trying to figure out how you can justify your behaviour
and have a conversation with the person that wrote the letter and
tell them why they're wrong or why you're right.
That happens too, unfortunately, but this happened in Corinth.
When Paul wrote this letter initially, they weren't
responding to the letter the way they should to, to take
corrective action. So Paul had to really put some
pressure on them and really call them out on their behavior as
leaders and allowing sin to exist in the church.
It should have been dealt with and, and sort of blowing,
blowing past the issue of the incestuous relationship that
that one guy had with his his stepmother.
So they did they did deal with it.
They eventually had to call the guy out and he was disciplined
by the church and he was out of the church for a while until he
got his life back together again.
So this is sort of the chapters background and, and what we're
what we're dealing with. But one of the things that's
hard for leaders and pastors and, and, and guys, you, you're
pastors of your home as well. It's never easy to have to wear
a Black Hat and bring a message of warning or exhortation or
correction. Because most of the time
whenever you have to say something, it's truthful and
it's hard. People don't really respond to
it right away with optimist, optimistic attitude.
They they sort of have pushed back or they don't want to hear
it. And so whenever you bring some
correction to someone about something, it causes a degree of
pain. And none of us want to be
responsible for causing pain in anybody else's life.
I know I don't and I'm sure you don't either, but sometimes we
cause pain by the way we handle things or don't handle things in
this situation. Paul was a guy that the Lord
used to create the awareness of the dysfunction that was
involved in the spiritual leadership of this particular
church. And, and Lewis and I and the
guys, we pray every Sunday when we're in the hallway before we
come out here, that sometimes the messages we have a really
difficult to preach. Sometimes you, you wish that you
could skip a chapter or skip a verse or skip, you know, a
paragraph, whatever. And when you're in a Bible
church, you don't have the luxury of doing that.
You got to cover everything that the scriptures teach because
it's God's Word and he wants you and me to hear it and then also
to be blessed by it, but also to be corrected by it whenever we
need to have a heads up about something in our life.
And so when we teach these things, we certainly as leaders
don't act like we have it all together.
We're in process too. We're all learning how to live
the Christian life. It's it's not one and done kind
of thing. It's something that you got to
constantly be educated in and her hearing the word and then
being able to repent and be corrected, not out of guilt or
regret, but out of like, thank you, Lord, you showed me this
and I can actually be changed by you.
I want this area in my my heart and my life to be changed.
So this is what Paul's dealing with.
So let me read some verses here and then we'll begin to make
some comments. But I in chapter 2 of second
Corinthians verse one determined this within myself that I would
not come again to you in sorrow. For if I make you sorrowful,
then who is he who makes me glad?
That the one who is made sorrowful by me.
And I wrote this very thing to you, lest when I come, I should
have sorrow over those whom I ought to have joy, having
confidence in you all, that my joy is the joy of you all.
For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you
with many tears, and not that you should be grieved, but that
you might know the love which I have so abundantly for you.
So he's laying the background here of he can't make the trip
to Corinth right now. He's not making excuses.
He has to do other things. But he knew that the timing
wasn't right. He had already told them what
they needed to do. They were processing the letter
and beginning to make correction and where they needed to do
correction. But it wasn't easy for them to
do this. So instead of Paul showing up as
some kind of heavy-handed dictator, which he never was, he
he's behind the scenes now letting the Holy Spirit do what
only he can do in the hearts of the people in the church.
And the particular man had committed this grievous sin to
get right with the Lord. But as he was dealing with this,
he wanted the people to know that this was breaking his heart
as to what was going on in the church.
He felt bad for them. He felt sorry for them.
He obviously felt bad for the man who had fallen into sin and
had to be basically thrown out of the church for a period of
time because he wouldn't repent. And it was, it was very
difficult. And this was the responsibility
of, of the, of the leader. He had to be faithful to to say
to speak the truth and love, just like you have to be able to
be able to speak the truth in love when you when you don't
really want to, but you know, you need to in order to see
changes made, whether it's in your marriage or with your kids
or with someone at work or some neighbor or someone in in the
church, whatever it there's always these conflicts that can
occur. So he he begins in verse 5.
Now we'll pick it up where I left off last time, but if
anyone's caused grief, he has not grieved me, but all of you
to some extent, not to be too severe.
Whenever you or I do something in our lives that is hurtful
towards someone else, we think sometimes it's just between me
and that person. But what happens is if you're in
a family or in a church, many times what happened in that
relationship spills out to hurt other people, right?
If you're a husband and wife and you're having conflict, your,
your problems are going to spill over into the lives of your
children. It's going to hurt them, it's
going to stumble them. And so the Bible says the sin of
one person effects everybody. And it's really true.
We have to take responsibility to understand that your sin
effects other people and my sin effects other people.
And so we have to understand that.
And Paul talked about this pain that was being caused in Second
Corinthians chapter 2 verses 5 through 8.
This punishment, verse 6, which was inflicted by the majority,
is sufficient for such a man. So that On the contrary, you
ought rather to forgive and comfort him, lest perhaps such 1
be swallowed up with too much sorrow.
So you have a situation where someone has done something wrong
and they get it and they are truly repentant.
They're sorry and they want to let you know they're sorry that
they wish they wouldn't have done what they've done the way
they did it. They they feel really bad that
it caused all this pain for other people beside their own
personal regret of what they had caused and what they had
inflicted on someone else. So this particular situation
that we're studying about here, it could be that man who
committed the incestuous incident with his mother-in-law.
It's not real clear like who this person was.
The name isn't there and the consequence of the story isn't
really clear in this particular chapter.
Or could have been someone else in the church that was rebelling
against the apostles and the leadership and causing a big
uproar and, and, and trying to bring division in the church.
It could be several, several different things, but it's
immaterial. That's not really important as
to who or what did this, this problem.
The the point is here in this chapter that discipline had been
exercised that the people did what they needed to do in that
church in Corinth to correct whatever the situation was.
So Paul's urging them now that this man really repented.
He's sorry for what he did and everybody has to change your
attitude toward this person now. They can't be condemning them.
They can't be hating them. The church needs to respond in
in a way of God's grace and his love.
And so we talked about this last time I was in this chapter that
if someone sins against you, Matthew 1815 says you go and
tell them their fault between you and him, you or her alone,
it doesn't matter. Male or female, you, you, you
deal with this issue yourself and not trying to bring a bunch
of other people into the situation.
If they listen to you, you've gained your brother, it says in
Matthew 1815. So whenever there's pain that's
caused and someone's life because of something you or I
have done or said, we have to on the other side, the receiving
side, if I've received the pain, I have to ask the Lord for help
to know how to forgive and to be willing to forgive and not to
come against that person who created the pain in me in such a
way that's going to cause more problem or more conflict.
And when there's a grievance between two individuals, it's
not good if this grievance begins to spread and touch other
people as well in their lives. So This is why Paul is writing
this in verse 8. He's talking about not causing
too much sorrow upon the person who committed the sin.
He says I urge you to reaffirm your love to him.
For to this end, I also wrote that I might put you to the test
whether you're obedient in all things.
Now whom you forgive anything I also forgive.
For if I indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that
one for your sake and the president of Christ, lest Satan
take advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices.
So one of the biggest problems in relationship is that the
devil is never letting things lie.
He always wants to poke and to provoke you to more
unforgiveness and more anger and more hatred and more bitterness
in your heart toward whoever it is that you have your conflict
with. This is the the role of the Evil
1. He likes to sow discord among
the brother, and he loves and he smiles and he's happy when
people leave churches because someone did whatever or because
churches split because of the leadership.
Or I mean, it can go on and on and on.
And it's tragic what happens because of our unwillingness to
get our eyes on the Lord and to forgive people who have hurt us.
And the Bible tells us the effect of righteousness.
God's righteousness will be peace.
Isaiah 3217 says that. And so there has to be a
faithful confrontation of of of a problem.
You just can't act like something isn't there or it
didn't happen because it won't be dealt with that way.
And that's the way it is when you have real difficulties in
your life with people, you have to understand that the basis of
working out peace in a relationship, it's fractured, is
to have this readiness and this willingness to forgive.
And there's an indication in in this chapter thus far that the
person that did the sin acknowledged it.
And they they know they're wrong.
They see the hurt they cause. So there's grief and sorrow
because of it. So what do you do if someone
hurt you and you've forgiven them?
How do you restore that person's relationship to you?
Are you going to say I forgive you, but you don't want to have
anything to do with them? But that's that's not real
forgiveness. It has to be the love of God.
And many times there's an unwillingness to forgive things
in the past that someone's cleared up a long time ago, but
they're still being head over held over his head.
So why? Why would we say we forgive
someone and then we don't want to forgive them?
Really, down deep inside, this man's repented.
He's admitted what he did was wrong.
And in his repentance, he's coming to you personally or that
person, whoever it might be, is coming to you, letting them know
that they understand what they did was wrong and it's hurt
them. And your role in this, according
to Paul and his teaching, is you're to comfort them that they
wouldn't be involved or overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.
Have you ever done anything in your life that you wish you
never did to someone and you really feel bad about it haunts
you many times. And the person you did it
against, you just feel uncomfortable because you know
they're still struggling with letting something go, yet you
know they're hurting too, because they want to be restored
to a relationship with you again, if if at all possible.
And the real sign that someone's really repented about something
that has not been good is that you see the hurt in them and
they understand the hurt that they caused you.
It creates a sense of sorrow in their lives and remorse and that
they've damaged you in some way by the way they acted and what
they did. And it really is difficult.
So the person that hurt you wants to be forgiven, but you
can't demand forgiveness from anybody.
You can't, like, put pressure on someone.
Well, you need to forgive me. The Bible says you need to
forgive me. And that's not it.
You got to give people space and time to be able to process and
to be able to forgive, right? Like if I offend Cindy,
sometimes I want to get it right, right away, like in 5
minutes. She says I need some time.
OK, how much time do you need? How much time do you need?
I don't know. God's grace sometimes is 1/2 an
hour. That's great.
Sometimes it's three days. And that's, that's hard, right?
But you got to walk on egg shells and you just got to shut
your mouth and just let the Spirit do what only he can do in
regards to, to, to the reconciliation.
But the mark of true repentance is, is that you, you see in the
life of the other person that they're very disturbed and
there's sorrow over what they've done.
And the goal of you and me as Christians is to bring people to
a place of recovery, right? That's what Jesus does with us
when we sinned against him and he's forgiven us.
He wants to restore us, doesn't he, and to treat us just like
we've never sinned. He's anyone that can really do
that perfectly. He chooses to not remember our
sin anymore. Human beings aren't like that.
We we have to ask God to help us be like that, but only the Lord
has that ultimate kind of way of, of forgiving.
And so sometimes though, we'll, we'll look and we'll think,
well, what this person did? I, I know I need to forgive
them, but what if it comes up again?
What do I do? What if, what if that behavior
in that person is sort of habitual and, and it's going to
show up again somehow? Well, Jesus was asked the
question one time, How often do I forgive someone for the same
sin? He says 70 * 7 four, 190 times,
that's I'm lucky if I can do it once, let alone twice, 490
times. But that's the grace of God.
That's what's so marvellous about Jesus Christ and who he
is. He's the only one that does that
to anybody and can do it perfectly all the time and more
than 490 times. He does it continually as long
as we repent and come and ask for forgiveness.
He's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So the whole process of the recovery of the offence is to
bring someone to recovery. And I've watched this in this
church, happened with relationships.
I've watched it in my own family, to see people restored
and forgiven and healing occur. That's what makes our message so
powerful when the world sees what we do that they don't
really ever see happening in real life.
They see you as a Christian forgiving someone that they
would say they never could forgive.
And they'll sometimes say to you, well, how can you do that?
Or how can you forgive or how can you let that go?
And you tell them what Jesus did for you.
That's why you can do it, because Jesus is in you, isn't
he? And his life is living through
you. So any form of restoration or
correction doesn't come from anger, it comes from love.
Love covers a multitude of sins. And Paul suggests that you
should forgive and comfort this person, let's say be overwhelmed
by excessive sorrow. And so this is what we all have
to learn how to do. And this is not an easy thing to
do. So he says in nine through 11
here again that let's see here for to this end.
I also wrote that I might put you to the test whether you're
obedient in all things now whom you forgive anything I also
forgive. So he's be an example.
Paul's forgiving for if I indeed if forgiven anything, I've
forgiven that one for your sake in the presence of Christ, lest
Satan should take advantage of us.
We're not ignorant of his devices.
So this is what I want to dive into a little bit here.
There's three things that are really important in this little
section that I just just read there in regard to restoration.
And this is what we all have to understand how we have to deal
with, deal with this. We can't be ignorant of the
design devices of the devil. Why is there so much division in
our country, in our culture? Why are there so many marriages
ending up in divorce? Why are there so many church
splits? You ask yourself these
questions. We're not to be ignorant of the
devices of Satan. If there's an arsonist loose in
California and they haven't caught him yet, guess what?
There's going to be a lot of fires, isn't there?
And the enemy is always going around trying to start fires,
and he'll do that until the final day when he's thrown into
the abyss. We have to be eternally vigilant
in regards to not being ignorant of the plan of the Evil 1.
We are all in a battle, spiritual battle.
Enemy is constantly trying to take advantage of this situation
and he uses us to defeat us until we're ready to extend full
forgiveness when there are broken relationships within us.
That's what keeps the enemy from taking advantage over you.
Whenever you have the power to forgive, and the power to
forgive comes from Christ, it doesn't come from you.
It comes from Christ in you. There's no way in your human
capacity and ability do you have the ability to forgive people.
This is a work of God's sovereign, omnipotent,
omniscient character. He's merciful.
His goodness endures forever. His mercy endures forever, Paul
tells us in Ephesians, don't let the sun go down upon your wrath.
And Cindy and I were taught this when we first got married at
Bible college. It's easy to get mad and angry
and be proud and just refuse to give each other a kiss before
you go to bed at night. Doesn't mean you're, you've
resolved everything, but you're showing them, Hey, I love you
and I do forgive you, but I'm trying to work through this
problem right now, right? So even though you really don't
want to, the Lord says, get over there and kiss her and tell her
you love her. I, I just want to dig in and
make her feel like she's like, it's all your fault, you know,
but that's not what you do as a Christian.
You, you, you got to, just got to forgive, right?
You don't carry it over to the next day because if you do,
you're giving the enemy the opportunity to keep the evil
power going there. You got to let let it go.
You got to let it go and and on and on and on.
If it's unresolved, you're giving the devil an opportunity
to continually fuel the fire. And then it gets hold of
everybody that's involved. It creates more problems and
spreads it wide and turns the whole family, the church,
whatever upside down eventually. And one of the elements of
restoration involves this awareness that we're in a battle
and that we live in a crazy world under a crazy leader.
And his name is Satan. He's a madman, and all he wants
to do is create conflict and insanity.
So first of all, we have to deal with all this stuff in our own
heart to turn the attack away from the evil 1 and away from
us. Someone said this is a an
analogy to Pastor use at this mental hospital.
The way they could figure out when people were ready to be
able to leave is that they would bring them into a room and there
would be water flowing out of a spigot, spigots on and the water
and they give the person a mop and they say, can you clean this
water up? Well, if if the person just went
over and started cleaning the water up, but then go over and
turn the faucet off, they knew they weren't ready to go out of
the mental hospital. But anybody that went over and
turned the faucet off and then started cleaning water, they
knew that they were healthy and that they could be able to to
move on and, and live their lives with us and you and me.
There's no sense trying to clear a situation up until we've
turned off the tap of the devil's lies.
If we're leaving that tap on and that information keeps flooding
our minds from the Evil 1, there's no forgiveness and
there's no ability to acknowledge any wrongdoing.
One of the problems, too, is you.
You forgive, but if you persist in bringing it up over and over
again, it's like you're trying to mop up a situation where the
water's still flowing. You, you haven't stopped the
insanity, right? And that's plain stupid.
That's why in marriages and many family relationships and in
church, these kind of harmful, hurtful things can go on for
decades and decades. Nobody's turned off the tap.
Nobody's forgiven one another and let it rest in the past.
We all need forgiveness continually, don't we?
I need Jesus more now than I ever needed him ever at any time
of my life. I was thinking like, why did I
get into ministry? Why did I want to be a pastor?
I had no desire to be a pastor. To stand up front and give
messages and then have people say, oh, that was a nice
message, whatever. I wanted to do this because
Jesus helped me and I wanted to help other people.
That was my whole heart for why I wanted to be a pastor, to see
God, help people see their lives change.
He's changed mine. When forgiveness happens in
lives, marvelous things begin to take place.
Families are restored, Marriages are restored.
Couples are restored. Kids are restored.
Your your whole life is transformed whenever you allow
the Lord to to do this kind of stuff in your heart.
What's the purpose of of a church existing if there's no
message of forgiveness being proclaimed?
First of all, Christ forgiveness to us and then our opportunity
and privilege to forgive others. That's what changes the world.
That's why people want to know why you believe what you believe
or what church you go to or is there, is there anybody that
lives this stuff out? Is there any, is there any place
I can find God's mercy? That's what people were looking
for and that's what we all need in our lives.
It's it's an interesting thing, you know, in the marriage
relationship, if you've been married for any period of time
in your marriage has lasted, it's only lasted because you
both have been willing to forgive as Jesus has forgiven
you, right? To see any, any glue that holds
a marriage together in a healthy way.
You recognize your own shortcomings and you always have
them to the day you die and some of them are less than they were
before. Thank God you can't change, but
I think the greatest illustration in this subject
that we're covering today is in Luke chapter 15.
If you got a Bible, just turn there for a minute before we
prepare to take the Lord's Supper.
This is one of my favorite sections of the Bible.
When I came to Calvary Chapel or I, I first heard about Calvary
Chapel, this this teaching in the prodigal son was exhibited
to me personally through the teaching of the pastor to the
flock over and over and over again.
And I wanted to be in this kind of place with this kind of God,
with this kind of message, because it's the message of
miraculous healing and transformation.
The parable, the lost son, verse 11.
Then he said a certain man had two sons and the younger them
said to his father, father, give me the portion of goods that
falls to me that his inheritance.
So he divided to them his livelihood.
And not many days after the younger son gathered all
together, journey to a far country and they're wasted his
possession with prodigal living. That's our story, right?
How many times have we come to places in our life where we've
known what our father wanted, but we didn't want what the
Father wanted, so we went our own way, right?
Even though we knew is against the will of the Father, we still
wanted to do what we wanted to do because we're all still
prodigal. I don't care how long you've
been falling, Jesus, how much you love him.
There's deeper places you can go to get closer to him, right,
returning to him at a deeper level than you've ever returned
on before. So he he goes out there, he
wastes his possessions with prodigal living stupid stuff.
But when he had spent all their all his stuff, there arose a
severe famine in the land and he began to be in want.
In other words, he started to get broken and he was reflecting
on where he got to in his life. All the decisions I've made-up
into this point have been a disaster and I'm suffering the
consequences. Then he went and he joined
himself to a citizen of that country and he sent him into the
fields of feed swine. So he's desperate.
Where's the rehab facility or where's the counselor?
Where's the place I can go get help?
So he finds this place that said, hey, you can make some
money, go out and feed the pigs, right?
And so he said he would have gladly filled his stomach with
the pods that the swine ate, but no one gave him anything.
So he's this guy's so low and so broken that he's ready to get
his face down in that pig pen in that pig slop and eat what the
pigs were eating. It looked really good to have at
that point in his life. I remember when I was in boot
camp training at, at the missionary training school at
Cindy and I went to this young kids at the time, we're in early
20s. And you know, I was, I was
clueless, man. I knew a lot about the Bible,
but boy, I didn't know a lot about fallen Jesus, right?
I knew how to be religious and self-righteous, but I I didn't
know how to be real because I wasn't willing to be real with
God. I was playing the game, I guess.
And I remember my job there. I was always deflated because
all the other guys, they had tool belts on.
Like I go burger, he can fix anything, right?
You go out. Why can't I be like him and have
those tools and how I use a tool I'll tear my finger, I'll do
something it's just not going to work.
I'm not not a mechanically minded person says at the end of
the time with the guys giving us a job for the day it tell me and
this other guy I think his name is Jeff.
You guys, you go feed the pigs. So we get in this truck that
look like green acres. If you ever watch that show, Mr.
Haney, and there was no doors on the truck and it was, it was a
mess, man. And we had these big things of
garbage that we had to take down to the pig.
And we, we get down there and they be like going smarting at
us, looking at us. We're going to feed me, feed me.
And we have these long boots on. We have to get down, pour all
this stuff out. Of course, I, I was, I was low,
but I wasn't low enough to eat that.
I was going to eat what Cindy had for me later on.
But anyway, we're, we're pouring all that stuff out.
And I thought how pathetic this is.
This is, you know, and we were fattening these pigs up to
eventually they would be killed and they would teach us how to,
you know, tear the skin off. And boy, I said, this is ham.
You know, this, this looks really good.
It smells good. But I'm thinking it's disgusting
just watching, pulling that whole skin of that animal off as
it hung on a hook. And that was that was my pig
experience. Pig pen, Pig pen experience,
right? But anyway, this guy, he got so
broken, it says in 17 he came to himself.
He said, how many of my father's hired servants have bred enough
to spare? And I perish with hunger.
I will rise and go to my father. And I'll say to them, Father,
I've sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy
to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired
servants. So he's coming to his senses.
Now. This is repentance.
I'm wrong? I've sinned.
He's repenting before God now he's going to go repent before
his father. He knows he can go home there.
He knew enough about this father that his father would be
merciful to him. And he was willing to just go
back and be a servant. He didn't need to be called a
son anymore. And and he, he saw his sin for
what it was. It was it was so bad that he
wasn't even worthy to be called a son anymore.
And I know when I've had my darkest points of my life for my
own sin, I'm thinking, God, how can I still be your son?
How can you still call me your Son?
Your love is without end. So he arose, He came, comes to
his father. But when he's still a great way
off, the Father saw him. So this Father and this is our
heavenly Father, every day He's looking out on this earth for
you and me to come back to him, to come closer to him, to come
to him the first time of my, my, our lives, or to come to our
senses about something in our life that we're doing as
believers that we know we shouldn't be doing or messing
around with. And he, he knows we're going to
hit the fan and everything's going to fall apart if we don't
get back to him soon. And He's everyday praying for
us. Jesus is ever living to make
intercession for us. We come to our senses and as
soon as we start making that first step forward, guess what?
God is running full speed to grab you before you have a
chance to go back again, just to hold you tight and restore you
back into that relationship with Him.
So the Father sees him, He has compassion, He runs.
He fell on his neck and he kissed him, and the son said to
him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and in your sight, and
I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.
Father didn't even address that. He already knew the heart.
He knew he had repented. He knew he had seen the light.
And he didn't have to say, well, we're going to have a counseling
session for the next six weeks so I can make sure you're really
serious about your repentance like we do, You know, someone
falls. I mean, how long do I have to
tell them about their problem that if they understand their
problem, they repented. Jesus says go and sin no more.
He didn't say you need psychologist and medication to
get passed by this. You just come and repent and
come to the Father and the Father will restore you rapidly.
The Father said to his servants, bring out the best robe and put
it on him, put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet.
Bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be
merry, for this is my son who was dead and is alive again, was
lost and is found, and they began to be merry.
This is how we need to be with each other, isn't it?
Celebration when people come to their senses, have a party, have
a great meal, love on each other and not talk about the problem
anymore, because the problem now has been forgiven and the person
is turned back to the Lord. Now the older son, and this is
religion here, was in the field and he came and he drew near to
the house. He heard music and dancing.
She called one of the servants and asked what these things
meant. And he said to him, your brother
has come, and because, because he has received him safe and
sound, your father's killed the fatted calf.
But he was angry and would not go in.
This is the unforgiving heart. This is the bitterness.
This is the enemy and the stronghold.
This is the faucet that's still on.
It hasn't been turned off. His father comes out and pleads
with him. And he answered and said to his
father, Lo, these many years I've been serving you, I've
never send or transgress your commandment at any time, and yet
you never gave me a goat and make make make merry with my
friends. But as soon as the son of yours
comes, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots and
killed the fatted calf for him, and this is the father's heart,
He says to him, Son, you're always with me, all that I have
is yours. It was right that we should make
merry and be glad for your brother was dead and is alive
again and was lost and is found as a password.
My greatest heart and joy as I see someone I know who's gone
through a rough time. Last time I heard about them,
they've fallen from the Lord. They're not following Jesus
anymore. They lost their home, they lost
their marriage. And all of a sudden I see that
person come in the doors of Calvary Chapel and it this makes
me weep with joy knowing that they've been found again, they
were lost, and they've come back to their Savior.
And what I want to do is rejoice and be merry with what God has
in store for them in the days ahead.
So we have the opportunity every Sunday to take the Lord's Supper
as a worship team can come forward, and we have the ability
to think about the message and process it in our hearts and
think about how God has been so good to us.
So every time we take the cup and the bread, we're reminded of
the significance of the forgiveness of Jesus and what
he's done for you and me. We're able to understand that
forgiveness is continual and we can come into this relationship
with the Lord again in a very, very powerful way.
It reminds us of the strength that we have to forgive comes
alone from Jesus Christ. And it's possible to forgive
because God has forgiven you and me.
And by the strength of the Lord, we can provide this forgiveness
to one another as the Lord forgives us every time we gather
and we take the supper together at the cross of Jesus Christ.
So let's prepare our hearts. Let's take a moment to think
about any relationship in our life that the Lord wants us to
forgive. Whether it's 30 years ago, 50
years ago, 10 years ago, one year ago, one month ago, one day
ago, let's give it to the Lord. Let's be a body of believers
that understands why we're doing what we're doing and why we're
following Jesus. We want people to know about
salvation. We want people to know about
Jesus Christ. And the only way they're going
to know is if you and I live this out.
Show them. Tell them what the Lord has done
for us. That all bitterness and wrath
and clamour and evil speaking be put away from you, and be kind,
tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for
Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Oh, Lord, we're so thankful that
you've forgiven us and that you keep forgiving us, Lord.
And you know, in our hearts where we struggle with who we
may struggle, and we bring these people to you, asking you for
your mercy on their lives, that they would understand that
you've forgiven them, that they would come to you for
forgiveness. And that we could all forgive
one another and move ahead. Lord and new life together,
building each other up, not tearing each other down,
strengthening each other in the ways of the Lord.
Lord, we come before you every Sunday.
We have this supper. It's not a ritual, it's a
remembrance of you. You say as often as we eat the
bread and drink the cup, we show this as we remember you.
Lord, let us do this today the right way, with the right heart
and the right mind. On the night that Jesus was
betrayed, he obviously had a lot to forgive of of all those who
betrayed him. He took the bread in his hands
and he broke it and he gave thanks and he said, take, eat.
This is my body which is given for you, given for you, given
for you. Eat this in remembrance of Me,
the same manner He took the cup. He said This cup is a new
covenant in My blood which is shed for the forgiveness of sins
of many. Our sins have been forgiven.
Many others have been forgiven. Thank you Lord, for your
forgiveness. Drink this in remembrance of Me.
For us, as often as we eat the spread and we drink this cup, we
show forth the Lord's death. That comes again, right?
Hey man, what a what a way it ended, huh?
God bless you guys.