I mean, I search for peace, I search for hope, I search for
love, and one day for release. God give me strength to accept
the things that I just cannot know.
And even when I lose control, I will not let you go.
Good morning. But if Daniel, I want to lead
pastors here at Res Church welcome.
We're in a series called Sound Mind.
This is week 4 and we're covering hope for relational
wounds today. Man, a while.
This is a couple years back now, before I was on staff, I was
just a volunteer at the church and I was standing in the, the
old church office at the time. And I was scrolling through this
big church survey we've done and I was looking, there's like
hundreds of of comments at the end of every response.
And so I was just kind of reading them all and I, and I
ran across one that was essentially criticizing the
preaching. Now, I don't really preach back
then, but I thought the preaching was really awesome.
And so I remember reading this and I was sending it was like
just me and a friend in the church office.
And so I remember not only reading it out loud to my
friend, but then like giving my honest opinion about that
opinion in a not so gentle way, very sarcastically, because, you
know, we were alone. So what I what I did not know at
the time is out of the hundreds of people that responded that
the person that had written that was sitting in the next room
listening to the whole conversation.
And I would not find that out for two years, two years, two
years that person would would harbor that that wound.
And it got more and more infected.
So much so that later when they finally came and talked to me,
they said that for two years they couldn't be in the same
room with me. And so it took about 10 minutes
at some point for them to explain and for me to apologize.
10 minutes. And instead of 10 minutes, they
spent two years hurting, two years of resentment, 2 years of
fake conversations in their head.
Y'all have never had any of those, right?
Two years of fostering and cultivating A relational wound
instead of healing. You know, when you, when you
take an offence or a wound, it creates a debt much like a
weight. If you've ever experienced it,
it feels like there's been weight added.
So today we're going to, we're going to discuss hope for
relational wounds. Any anyone here ever had a
conflict with anyone? I mean, not everyone raised
their hand, which is surprising to me because I just feel like
you're lying in church. I'm going to come up here and
bare my soul and wear a backpack.
At least you can do is be honest with me.
See, I think at some point this is everyone.
Everyone that is human has experienced not just one, but
probably more than one relational wounds.
I think it's a universal human problem.
And so we're actually going to investigate kind of this overall
question today of just how do we navigate a world in which people
are messy and life doesn't seem fair.
Now, you may have noticed, not so coincidentally, that when we
we we preached on hope for anxiety, it was Justin.
When we preached on hope for burnout, it was Nate.
Not that those guys have anything to, you know, special
to say about any of those things.
So why then did I get relational wounds?
Well, here's why this is a good topic.
I read this study recently and I thought this is this is
interesting. Most people will lose 5 to 7
significant relationships over the course of their life. 5 to 7
deep substantial relationships. But pastors lose on average five
to seven significant relationships per year.
Just think about how that adds up.
This is actually the nature of pastoral ministry.
Like here's the reality. When people leave the church,
they almost never leave for a good reason and they're really
messy about it and they never leave well.
Like it's super rare that someone leaves the church.
Well. And so normally what happens,
this is just human nature when they leave is they need to
demonize where they left because it helps them justify with their
decision. And so it always, almost always
is a very messy. And so pastors are just
frequently faced with relational loss and relational wounds at a
scale that very few people really have a parallel with.
I, I, I read somebody talked about like, how is it?
How does a, a pastor take those wounds and those offenses and
then turn around when that same person is having craziness in
their life and needs the pastor to go back in and love on them?
Like what? What does it take to do that?
Here's the thing. If pastors don't have a really
good handle on dealing with wounds, we aren't going to be in
ministry very long. And so today, we're going to
just take a look at this idea of just dealing with hurt.
It's that simple. It's just dealing with hurt
regardless of where it comes from.
And listen, can we all be honest?
It comes from a lot of different places.
Mark Clark says it this way, and I like this.
He says we are hurt by people. We are hurt by injustice.
We live in an ecosystem where people's actions, words,
behavior all matter to more than just them.
Listen, the reason that I know that you've had relational
wounds is because you live with other people.
And we are messy. We can be hurt in a lot of
different ways. But here's the crazy thing.
What you, what we can't do is we can't withdraw from community
and try to wall ourselves off so that no one can hurt us.
And, and there's a couple of you in here today that you got hurt.
And So what you did is you thought, man, if I withdraw
enough, no one can hurt me. But The thing is that you, you
have to risk being hurt in order to love.
That's actually what CS Lewis said.
He said to love at all is to be vulnerable.
Love anything and your heart will be possibly broken.
You can't wall yourself off from risk.
Here's what I'll tell you in pastoral ministry.
If I'm not willing to be hurt, I can't be your pastor.
If I'm not willing to love you, knowing that some of you are
going to break my heart, then I'm not fit for this office.
So the solution is not withdrawal.
It's not callousness. It's correctly understanding how
to heal. And so we're going to spend all
of our time today on this big idea to fully heal, you must
fully forgive. And if man, all of a sudden
you're like, he just said the F word.
They were listen for service kind of quiet because we started
talking about forgiveness. And I'm not kidding, you people
are like this. And I was like, well, I guess
this isn't an appropriate topic at all.
All right. To fully heal, you must fully
forgive. Let's start with the story of a
guy named Joseph. If you're not familiar with the
Bible or maybe it's a little bit new to you, there's a guy named
Joseph in Genesis 37. His story starts, he's one of
twelve sons. He's his dad's favorite.
He's also very arrogant. And at some point he ticks his
brothers off, so much so that they contemplate and begin to
discuss killing him. Now, you thought you had family
drama, but they're murder plotting their brother.
They don't kill him. They only sell him into slavery.
Man, I'm not a mystery to my little brother, but I never sold
him into slavery so we're OK there.
He's 17 years old. He ends up in Egypt of a country
next to his adjacent to where he lived and even in slavery God
actually blesses him. He he has God's favor on his
life until in the family that he is a servant, the wife of the
master falsely accuses him of rape and he ends up in prison.
So he's been sold into slavery. He's in a foreign country now
he's in prison. He will be in prison.
We don't even know how long somewhere probably between 6 to
12 years. He will be 30 years old by the
time he finally gets released from prison.
With God's help, he will rise to the second in command of all of
Egypt. He answers only to Pharaoh.
He is God-given wisdom and and prophecy will end up saving
Egypt from massive famine. And he starts a whole plan for
for saving food up for this famine.
In fact, it's so successful that the other countries start to
come into Egypt to ask for food. And at some point over 20 years
after he's been sold into slavery, here come his brothers
starving, and their families need food, and they don't even
recognize him. And I just want you to think
about this real quick, even if you don't know Joseph's story.
I want you to think about how many days and nights as a slave
Joseph would have thought about his brother's betrayal.
I want you to think about how many nights in a cold prison
cell surrounded by rats and filth and decay, did Joseph sit
there and think about how those who are closest to him or his
abusers. And Joseph ends up saving his
brothers and their families from famine, but they don't believe
that he's fully forgiven them. How could he?
After all they did? So when their dad dies, they
make up a story about how dad asked Joseph to forgive them.
Nothing like a little lying and manipulation to start off the
relationship, right? Again, right?
We're going to pick up our story in Genesis chapter 50, verse 15.
When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said
it may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the
evil that we did to him. So they sent a message to Joseph
saying, your father gave this command before he died.
Say to Joseph, please forgive the transgression of your
brothers and their sin because they did evil to you.
And now please forgive the transgression of the servants of
the God of your father. Joseph wept when they spoke to
him. His brothers also came and fell
down before him and said, behold, we are your servants.
But Joseph said to them, do not fear, for am I in the place of
God? As for you, you meant evil
against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about.
That many people should be kept alive as they are today.
So do not fear, I will provide for you and your little ones.
Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
Joseph had fully forgiven his brothers and he says 2 really
substantial things in that moment.
I don't want you to miss this in Genesis 50, if you have your
Bibles, I don't want you to underline this.
He says, am I in the place of God?
Oh, that is a, that is a revolutionary thing that Joseph
sees here. We'll we'll look at that in a
minute. And the second he says this,
what you intended for evil, God used for good.
I want to investigate this idea of am I in the place of God?
Because I think, I think this right here is where we kind of
we go off the rails when we don't understand this when it
comes to healing, when it comes to wounds.
And so here's three ancient truths about wounds.
And then we'll kind of investigate that and we'll talk
about this statement. And I think this will be
helpful. Here's the first.
An offense creates debt. It's like, I want to put the
brick in the backpack, right? It creates debt like a weight
and debt demands payment. Someone must pay.
This has always been the truth about debt.
This has always been the truth about offense.
In fact, not only does does an offense create debt, the Bible
would actually say that, that all sin, any sin creates debt.
Now maybe you're new to the Bible and you're like, I don't
know what this concept of sin is.
Here's let me just give you a simple definition of sin.
Sin is anything contrary to God, his character, or His commands.
So anything that is contrary to who God is and what He says is
considered sin or rebellion or disobedience.
Sin can be active or passive, so you can send by doing something
wrong, but you can also send by knowing the right thing to do
and not doing it. We can send intentionally or
unintentionally, but all sin creates a debt.
This is what Jesus is explaining when he's teaching his disciples
how to pray, when they say he teaches how to pray and and he
he's teaching them the Lord's Prayer and he says in Matthew 6
and he says pray like this, our Father in heaven, hallowed be
your name, your Kingdom come, your will be done as earth, as
it is on earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this daily, this day, Our Daily Bread and forgive us
our what our what he didn't say forgive us our sins.
He says forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our
debtors. So when we're wounded by an
offence, by a sin of someone else, it creates this debt.
And that wound, that debt, it needs to be paid.
And anyone who's ever had this happen to them, which is all of
us, say me, we know that it creates a debt.
We know that something feels off.
Do you know what I mean by something feeling off as if the
the scales of cosmic justice, right?
They're not equal. Something's wrong and it bothers
you, does it not? You that that kind of angsty
feeling of like, right, it's not right.
Something's not right. And so there's this intuitive
feeling that we all share of like someone has to pay this
debt. And listen, if you don't deal
with that wound, it gets infected.
Relational debts have this way of growing.
I don't know if you've experienced this or ever thought
about this. Have you ever had a friend who,
who like bought a used car and got one of those like toxically
bad interest loans? Did you know what I'm talking
about? Like 23% APR or something?
I'm like, do do they break your kneecaps if you don't pay?
Like, like that is a bad loan man.
Relational wounds are like that. If you don't deal with them,
they compound the debt compounds.
The pain compounds so fast and so much over time.
It's like, it's like aggressive interest.
I, I met with a, a, a friend of mine.
He used to go to the church years ago and we went out for
coffee and I'm just sitting, we're, we're catching up on
everything. And so I start to press in on
like, why aren't you involved in a local church?
Like, I don't understand why you don't follow the, the biblical
model of Christianity. You, you all know there are no
solo Christians anywhere in the Bible, right?
Like, if you think like, I'm, I'm a Christian, but I don't
need the church. You're just not reading your
Bible. And so I'm pushing on him
because he's a friend of mine, so I can kind of poke at him
like, hey, what's going on with this?
You live right next to a bunch of good churches.
Why aren't you doing this? And as I start to press, he
starts to get emotional and then he starts to tear up.
And I'm like, oh, there's a wound.
And I was just sticking my finger in it without even
knowing. And finally it comes out, he has
this hurt that caused him to leave the church six years ago,
and no one knows about it because he didn't tell anyone.
Six years ago I was like, bro, you have been hurting for six
years and you didn't tell anyone.
He's like, well, I was like, Oh my gosh, see, not only is he in
a, it's not just that he's in the same place that he was.
He's in a worse place now than he was because it's gotten
worse. It's gotten worse and it's
gotten worse. Six years of thinking about it,
of having those fake conversations in your head about
it, thinking about how you wish it was different, what you would
say the next time. No one's ever done that, right?
And the debt just adds, and the debt just adds, and the debt
just adds. See, forgiveness is releasing a
debt. Unforgiveness is holding on to
the dead and carrying it, believing that it's owed to us
by someone else. But you'll never heal without
forgiveness. To fully heal, you must fully
forgive. And if you think you're healing
without actually forgiving, you're just actually letting an
infected wound scab over. If, if you're visiting today,
maybe Christianity is not your thing.
Maybe you don't even believe in the Bible.
You're like, OK, I, I, maybe you're going to prove this all
from the Bible or something. I, I don't even believe that.
That's fine. Just consider this.
Medical science has studied forgiveness for a long time.
This is not just a biblical concept.
Like there are fascinating studies on forgiveness.
There's a guy named Doctor Fred Luskin.
He actually runs an entire arm of Stanford University
forgiveness projects. They've done the largest study
studies of forgiveness in history.
He has all kinds of John Hopkins medical research has studied
forgiveness. The Journal of Religion and
Health has a ton of data on this.
There was actually a logitudinal study done with 50,000 nurses
just looking at forgiveness. And you know what?
All of those studies say the same thing.
Here's what they say. They all found that forgiveness
leads to massive benefits physically, mentally,
neurologically, and relationally.
And they all point to the negative consequences of
unforgiveness. Here's the quote.
Unforgiveness creates ongoing physiological stress responses
that prevent complete healing, while forgiveness activates
healing mechanisms in both mind and body.
That's not from the Bible. To fully heal, you must fully
forgive. So the goal of our sermon today
is to try to get to some practical implications of like
what would it actually look like to stop carrying this burden to
actually forgive before we we jump over to Jesus.
Jesus is going to talk about forgiveness and we're going to
see what we can learn from what he says about forgiving.
Before we do that, I actually want to start with something
else. I want to start with the five
mistakes with wounds. I want to talk about how we deal
with them improperly. And the reason that I want to do
that is that a lot of times when you're sitting in a sermon like
this, you're like, man, I it's cool that we're here and all,
but I really wish my friend were here because they're dealing
with this. Say me, this is for you.
Your friend might also benefit. This is for you.
OK. And I think if you'll if you'll
listen to the mistakes of dealing with wounds, you might
actually find yourself in here. OK, We good.
Don't cross your arms just yet. Got plenty of time for that.
OK, here we go. Mistake number one.
What I do with a wound, I extract the debt from them.
So someone hurts me and I go back and I they owe me a debt
now, and I'm going to take it back.
We call that revenge. OK, so so here's the problem
with revenge. It turns me into a debt
collector, right? All of a sudden, I'm like Boba
Fett the bounty hunter. Like I'm.
I'm running around. You know what?
It's actually worse than that, though, when you think about it,
because not only am I the collector, but I'm also the
judge and the jury. You notice that.
Like, I've decided how much they owe and I've decided when they
should pay, and I've decided that I'm going to collect it.
Nobody. OK, well, it's just me.
I'm sorry. It's just me.
It's not y'all. Y'all are very holy.
If you've ever sat around and and thought about scenarios in
which other bad, like bad things happen to that person and they
get theirs, what are you doing? You're fantasizing about being a
debt collector. You're thinking about revenge.
And now, now what did Joseph say at the end there?
Because he had fully forgiven. Here's what he said.
He said, Am I in the place of God?
When you decide you're the debt collector, you're saying.
I am in the place of God, so I'll go collect my debt.
Mistake number one. Mistake number two, I extract
the debt from others. We call it vindictiveness.
Vindictiveness. Now here's, here's often why
that happens. Maybe I was abused as a child.
Maybe the person that created the offence is no longer
available. They're gone.
Maybe they've passed away. But but the debt is still real
and I'm still carrying it. And since I can't go and collect
it from them, everyone else owes me because someone has to pay
this debt. And if you've ever met someone
like this, or if you are someone like this, you begin to, to live
a life in which everyone owes you something because this debt
hasn't been paid yet. And so, so, so the debt has
shifted to the world around you. Mistake number one, I try to
extract it from the offender. Mistake #2 I try to extract the
debt from others. Mistake #3 I ignore the debt.
I just ignore it. It's it's things are going fine.
You know, it's not that heavy. Just going to sneak another one
in here. Yeah.
It's good. It's good.
You know, we call that infection and it leads to bitterness.
The the idea that that time heals all wounds is actually a
complete fallacy. Time might numb pain a little
bit, but it doesn't heal the wound for you.
Time numbs pain, but it doesn't heal.
Ignoring a wound is a great way to slowly kill yourself, to
slowly kill your joy, to slowly kill your contentment, to slowly
kill your satisfaction, to slowly kill other relationships.
Unforgiveness is like waking up every day and drinking poison
and waiting for the other person to get sick.
I wonder why they're not sick yet.
You can't ignore the dead, you can't extract it from them, you
can't extract it from others, you can't ignore the debt #4 I
identify as the wound. Now that sounds a little tricky.
Some explain, some would call this the victim mentality.
But what? What will happen when I begin to
identify as my wounds? It is.
I start to worship the wounds. Now let me explain before you
go. I don't, I'm not sure I
understand that. Look, I highly recommend
Christian counseling and Christian therapist.
Like highly recommend. My wife and I went to a
Christian counsellor last week just to work on our marriage.
Like, Christian counselling is phenomenal.
It's good for so many things. However, be very careful when
you choose a counsellor because simply talking about a wound
does not mean that you're actually working on healing.
In fact, there's a phenomenon where we talk about our wound so
much, we focus on that wound so much that over time we begin to
be identified by our wound. So I'm no longer Daniel.
I'm the pastor who was wounded by these people.
I'm no longer Stacey. I'm the woman who was abused as
a child. I'm no longer Jim.
I'm the guy whose spouse cheated on me.
And in the moment that you begin to identify as your wound
instead of as a child of God, what happens is you actually
begin to worship the the wound you're not even interested in
healing anymore. You don't, you don't, you don't
want to change your identity. That's what you're known by.
And if you're like, no, I don't think I worship the one.
Listen, what? Wherever your identity lies is
your God. Whatever your identity is rooted
in is your God. And so when your identity shifts
to become your wounds, it is becoming your God.
How do you know if this is you? Listen, if you are still talking
about the same wound that you were talking about last year in
the same way you're talking about it, look out should be a
red flag. But there there is a problem in
your life because the heat that here's not progress in healing.
This is what Tim Keller says about wounds.
He says watch yourself. When someone does something
wrong, watch yourselves because an unforgiven wrong is a root.
It's in your life and it's working its way slowly to your
heart. As long as it's in there, as
long as it's not forgiven, slowly the evil that was done to
you will make you into its own image.
And if you stay bitter, if you stay resentful, even if it's
really pretty far under the surface, forgiveness is both a
decision and a journey. So you decide to forgive and
then you're actually going to go on a journey to free.
Like it's going to take time and progress.
It's not quick, but but The thing is, it's like a journey
through a, a bog or a, a swamp, meaning it's, it's slow, but you
have to keep moving. If you keep moving, you'll get
there. But if you stop, you'll start to
sink and you'll get stuck. And some of us have gotten stuck
in our wounds for so long that we identify as a wounded person
and really we've begun to worship them.
The 5th mistake is I'll fix it myself.
Self-reliance the old can do attitude that's actually fixing
yourself means you're actually suffering from one of the first
four mistakes and you're lying to yourself because here's the
reality is you you can't fix yourself.
I I can't fix myself. The very first step towards
salvation in Jesus Christ is a realization that I'm broken and
I can't fix the problem so the toughen up buttercup pull myself
up by my own bootstraps sort of that might sound noble, but it's
just a mask. So if you're here, it's actually
just one of the first four and, and, and you're actually, you're
deceiving yourself into thinking that you're going to be tough
enough to just get through it and take care of it.
No, it's fine. We're OK.
No problems here. Let's see if this backpack holds
out to the sermon, huh? Let me just say this about
self-reliance, man. self-reliance will get you
killed. I shared with you, I've shared
with you guys a couple times on Sundays, a decision I, I made
last year where I decided I would stop drinking for the rest
of my life. Like I, I just, I'm not going to
drink alcohol. The next time I'm going to drink
alcohol is when we're all in heaven at the new feast and the,
the new wine is pouring. And not even the Baptist can be
mad. And, and, and I made that choice
because over and over again, I would find that my consumption
of alcohol just extended a little further than I'd planned,
maybe a little more frequent that I intended.
And so no matter how much self-discipline that I thought I
had, and it would creep back into my life, the day that I
realized I was an alcoholic was a gift from God because it made
me realize that I didn't have the control that I thought I
had. And so instead I just said, I
can't, I can't play with this. I've got to cut it out entirely.
And I have to throw myself on the throne of God.
I need, I need God in his community to help me.
And so I was talking to somebody about this actually really
recently in like last week or two, and they said, hey, because
they, they had some similar struggles.
And they go, Hey, how come you're doing so well here?
And I continue to struggle with it.
And I said, listen, I think that they're a good friend of mine.
So I could be really blown with them.
I said, listen, I think the problem that you're having is
that you don't see sin as an apex predator that's trying to
kill you. You think you're strong enough
to win, and I know I'm not, and that's the difference.
Knowing you're weak is a great blessing.
Did you understand in this context, knowing that you need
help to forgive someone is a great blessing.
You're not going to will yourself to it.
If you could, you would have done it already.
All right, those are the the five ways.
Let's see you can fit one more in here.
Those are the five mistakes to make with wounds.
Let's talk about how we actually go about healing and see what
Jesus has to say. Grab your Bibles.
Let's turn to Matthew 18. If you have your Bibles, we're
going to start in verse 21 and we're going to look at a
question, an answer, and a story.
Here we go, verse 21. Then Peter came up and said to
Jesus, 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 7 times, but 77 times.
Now he's going to tell a story. Listen, if you were a disciple,
every time Jesus told the story, you knew you were about to get
slapped upside the head. I'm just saying verse 23.
Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a king who
wished to settle accounts with his servants.
When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him
10,000 talents. Y'all don't have context for
10,000 talents? Current day market $60 billion,
not million $60 billion versus 25.
And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold
with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to
be made. So the servant fell on his
knees, imploring him. Have patience with me, and I
will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the
master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.
But when the same servant went out, he found one of his fellow
servants who owed him 100 denarii of five to 10,000
dollars. And seizing him, he 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 will pay you.
He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay
the debt. When his fellow servants saw
what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and 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
it 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 of his debt.
Verse 35 S Also my heavenly Father will do to everyone of
you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.
Jesus has a disciple named Peter.
Peter has come and asked Jesus, Hey, how much is too much to
forgive? How often is too often to
forgive? How many times do I have to
forgive? Hey, is there a sin so great
that I can't, I don't have to forgive it?
Is there an offense so great that I don't have to forgive it?
Is there something that someone could do that's so great I could
go, oh, that, that passes the note, that's too much.
When Jesus effectively looks right at him and says, no,
there's no sin too great. There's no time too many.
Nothing is off limits for forgiveness.
Now quick caveat for some of you that are starting to cross your
arms, there's a difference between forgiveness and
reconciliation. Forgiveness takes one person,
reconciliation takes 2. You may never be reconciled to
someone, but I will tell you this, you cannot reconcile with
someone unless you've first forgiven them.
And when we forgive, we are not enabling or excusing wrong
behaviour. I want you to hear me.
We can name evil and still forgive.
In 1993, Mary Johnson's only son was murdered by 16 year old
Oshea Israel during a party altercation.
After years of anger for losing her only son, Mary met with
Oshea in prison and during that meeting she experienced A
transformative moment. This is a quote from her.
I just hugged the man that murdered my son and I instantly
knew that all that anger and the animosity and all the stuff that
I'd had in my heart for 12 years for you, I knew it was over.
We can name evil and still forgive.
So Jesus has already answered the question, no, there's no
limit to forgiveness. But then he has a whole parable,
whole story. And so I want you to see the
three things that are in this story that I think matter for
you and I, if we're going to learn what it looks like to
forgive. Here's the first one, verse 35.
Forgiveness is a command. You see that, right?
Jesus is Lord of Lord and King of kings, and kings don't make
suggestions. He has all authority on heaven
and on earth and he has forgiven us of far more than we will ever
forgive anyone else of that that I love that he picks the sum of
10,000 talents. It's an impossible number, but
it's a real number. It's not a made-up number.
You ever had like a 2 year old and you're like, what's the
biggest number you can think of? And they like make terms up 1
billion billion brillion. You're like, that's not another
thing. 10,000 talents is a real number.
It's just impossible. The reason I love that he picks
a real number is because you and I have a real debt.
Every sin that we have ever committed towards someone, we
first committed toward God because in order to commit that
sin, we had to break his commandments to do it.
You know, if you, if you know anything about the, the, the
gospel of Jesus Christ, this this idea that Jesus came for
our salvation. It was it, it really starts with
the idea that Jesus came to earth in order to pay a debt
that was unpayable and impossible for us.
This is what Jesus is foreshadowing in this moment
when he says 10,000 talents is he knows he's going to go to the
cross and he's going to pay a debt that we can't pay.
So, so for those of us that understand that, listen, in the
shadow of that forgiveness, we lose all right to hold on to
debt. Did you understand what I'm
saying? In the shadow of the cross, I
lose all right to hold on to debt.
Say this with me in the shadow of the cross, I lose all right
to hold on to debt. Let's do it again.
In the shadow of the cross, I lose all right to hold on to
debt. Do you understand what he's
saying? You, you cannot stand in the
shadow of such great forgiveness and then hold on to debt.
He's saying, how can you? How can you look at someone else
and think they owe you when you've been forgiven of so much?
It's a command. Secondly, forgiveness is a cure.
In verse 27, he says, and out of pity for him, the master of that
servant released him and forgave him the dead.
Let me ask you a different sort of question.
Do you want to be forgiven? Like if you make a mistake or if
you harm somebody? If you do something, do you want
to be forgiven? Do you want God to forgive you?
Yeah, because forgiveness is a cure.
Our path to salvation was because God forgave us.
The cure to infection of a relational wound is forgiveness.
We forgive not because the other person deserves it, but because
we need it to heal. So not only are we commanded to
do it, it is what heals us. And thirdly, forgiveness is a
characteristic. It's a characteristic.
It's a characteristic of someone who's saved.
Let me show you verse 33. And should not you have had
mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?
What is he saying? He's saying, listen, you don't
really understand God's forgiveness if you're still
holding on to debt. You don't really understand
forgiveness if you're holding on to unforgiveness.
Debtors. That's you and me, say me.
Debtors should never become collectors.
Think of it this way. I've been forgiven of too much
to be arrogant enough to think I'm still owed something more.
I've been forgiven of too much to be arrogant enough to think
I'm still owed something more. So does command a cure and a
characteristic. Now Jesus essentially explains
that that to truly release the debt of someone that really,
really doesn't deserve it, you're going to need a
perspective that radically changes.
My perspective has to shift from the one where I'm the victim and
they're the perpetrator. I'm innocent and they're guilty.
And it has to shift to the one where I realized that most often
in my life, I am the perpetrator.
I am the guilty one. That's how I rang up a 10,000
talent, $60 billion debt with God.
I have racked up a debt that is impossible for me to pay, and I
deserve punishment for that debt.
In fact, Romans 323 will say that every single one of us has
sinned and the wages of sin is death.
We deserve death. So you thought the debt that
that person owed you was big? But we deserve death.
But God? But God?
But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with
which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses,
made us alive together with Christ.
By grace you have been saved, raised up with Him and seated us
with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the
coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace
and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and this is
not your own doing. It is a gift of God.
And if you embrace this perspective, if you have
accepted this, this gift of mercy from God, you will
actually have the perspective and the power to forgive people
in just a minute. I want to, I want to talk about
how to practically go about that when it seems impossible, but I
don't want to leave this moment right here unless I ask you
something. Have you experienced this level
of forgiveness? Do do you understand what it
looked like for God to forgive you?
Do you know Jesus personally? Because you can only partake in
His mercy if you have placed your faith in His finished work
of salvation on the cross. The Bible says that you must
place your faith in Him to be saved.
Romans 10/9 and 10 says it this way because if you confess with
your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that
God raised him from the dead, you will be saved for with the
heart. 1 believes and is justified and with the mouth. 1
confesses and is saved. Do you know Him?
Not, Not have you heard about Him not do you go to church?
Not do you read your Bible? Do you know Him?
Have you given your life to him to rule and to reign over?
And so for just a brief moment, I want to give you a chance, if
you've never done this, to place your faith in Jesus because you
must believe and declare. That's what Romans 10 tells us.
You must believe that you need to be saved.
You must believe that you're in need of a savior because you
rebelled against God and therefore have no power to live
perfectly on your own. You must believe that he rose
from the dead in power with the desire to save you.
You must believe that he is God and you must declare.
You must declare him king of your life and Lord over you.
You must declare surrender of your will and your desires to
him who is perfect. You must declare him publicly
and not be ashamed. So if you'd like to surrender
your life to God today, I want to give you that chance.
Would you for just a brief moment, close your eyes and bow
your heads? We're wrapping up.
If you've never done this, if you, if you want to surrender
your life to God today, just quietly or even silently repeat
this prayer after me. Jesus, I know I'm a Sinner and I
can't save myself. I want you to save me and adopt
me into your family. I surrender everything to you,
even my wounds, and I receive your promises of forgiveness,
adoption and eternal life. Be my Lord.
Please Jesus, if you prayed that prayer for the very first time
right now, would you be brave and raise your hand for me to
see? Thank you, thank you can put
your hands down. It's Jesus name, Amen.
If you just gave your life to Jesus for the very first time,
welcome to the family. In a few minutes, as we respond
to the sermon, there's tables in the back, they say.
I raised my hand. We'll have people back there
would love to talk to you and talk about what it looks like to
follow Jesus. We have a gift for you, some
resources. We're excited for you,
practically speaking. What about for the rest of us?
Who, who, who know Jesus? And yet maybe there's someone
that man, we just can't seem to forgive.
It just seems impossible. How do you forgive someone when
it seems impossible? There's a pastor named Pastor
Skip Heitzig. He has this little three-step
process. It's really simple and it's
really hard. It's really simple.
Upward, inward, outward, upward, inward, outward.
Step one, we start upward. You start forgiving somebody by
going to God and praying for them.
And if you're like, I don't want to pray for them.
I know that's why we go to God and pray for them.
Because let me tell you one of the most serious things in the
world. When you're really mad at
somebody, angry or resentful or hurt by them, going into the
throne room of God, into the Lord of the Lord and the King of
kings who created this universe into his throne room and
speaking their name to him will begin to change.
You begin to change your heart, and that's what needs changing.
And so every day we're going to get up, we're going to go back
to God and we're going to pray for them.
And we're going to pray for their blessing and we're going
to pray for their repentance. And we're going to pray for
their salvation. And we're going to pray good on
their life. And in that time with the Lord,
we're actually going to focus on how much we've been forgiven of
so that we can remember the perspective of what he's done
for us so we don't become the servant who's been forgiven.
10,000 talents and wants to choke somebody out for a couple
Denarii going to start upward and then we're going to move
inward. We're going to look inward.
The first thing is you're not going to wait until you want to
forgive that person. It's going to be a long wait.
You're going to make a decision to forgive.
When you make a decision to forgive, it's actually just the
start of a long journey, and you're going to start that
process and you're just one foot in the other in front of the
other, like as God does this work.
Forgiveness is sometimes 1° at a time, and it takes time.
But the main thing is you don't stop.
Because if you stop, you get stuck and you start to sink.
And in those moments when resentment and bitterness begins
to bubble back up in our lives, we remember that I made a
decision to forgive that person. It's much the same when when you
love someone. Yeah, there might be these
moments where you fall in love with them, but a lot of the
moments of loving someone are really hard.
We make a decision to love them even when our emotions don't
match. Amen.
The same thing goes forgiving people.
We're getting acknowledge that it's a long journey.
And we remember that we're also a perpetrator, not just a
victim. And then thirdly, we're going to
reach outward. We're going to go to that
person, if possible, to tell them we forgive them.
And listen. Reconciliation may not be
possible because forgiveness takes one person, but
reconciliation takes 2. But even when reconciliation is
not possible, peace is possible. Even if that person isn't
remorseful, even if that person hasn't earned it, peace is
possible. So today I'm going to ask you to
make a commitment. The person, the conflict that
has been bubbling up all service long, you've been trying to not
cross your arms, but you really want to.
I want you to make a commitment to pray for them Today.
I want you to make a commitment that you're going to forgive
them, which means you're going to start a long journey.
But let me explain why you need to do it.
In Matthew 11 when Jesus explains what it's going to be
like to put your faith in him, he says this.
He says come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I
will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find
rest for your souls. Jesus is not simply telling you
that His guidance is going to be gentle and it's going to be
freeing. He is telling you that.
But you'll notice He's also telling you that you come to Him
heavy laden. Where does all that debt go?
Where does all that heavy burden go?
He wants you to give it to Him. Some of us in the room have come
to Christ, but we refuse to give him the burden that he asked
for. And we've wondered now for a
while, why has why has life felt so difficult?
Why have things changed? And, and because you actually
have to give him the burden. So we choose to forgive today
and let Jesus carry the burdens in our story.
Joseph said something in that original story that's really
profound. He said what you intended for
evil, God used for good. Guys, if you will give over all
those wounds to God, he will start using them for good.
I promise you. That debt requires a payment,
but Jesus already made that payment on the cross, and you're
carrying around something he already paid for.
If you'll give it to him, you'll find that life with Jesus is a
lot more freeing, a lot easier than you thought it was.
Will you give it to him today? Stand with us.
We're going to close in song. Our prayer team is going to come
up. We would love to pray with you
about anything, whether it's about forgiveness, whether it's
about your health, whether it's about anything that's going on
in your life. We love the opportunity to pray
for you and with you. And so our prayer team will be
here. You guys move as the Lord leads.
We love you guys.