Okay, I, I want you guys to talk to each other real quickly. Welcome to those of you at the sites. Those of you joining us online. Lean over to somebody and tell 'em how forgiving you are. All right? Like, you can one to five it if you want. Uh, five is your Mother, Theresa one is your Voldemort. Okay? So just like, how are you on this forgiveness business? Go ahead, tell each other. Okay. All right. We're gonna come back to this again and again and again. How about this, could we just quick show of hands here. Grant's Trail, Fenton, mid Rivers, those of you watching online at home. Just quick show of hands, how many of you wish you were just a wee bit more forgiving? Anybody here? Okay. Yeah. So that's just, it's something, right? Okay, so we're in the middle of the Lord's Prayer. We're going to look at what I think is maybe the most difficult phrase in the entire prayer. I mean, it's the one that you guys wanted to talk about last week. And we were like, no, no, no, no. We've gotta talk about the first part. Forgive us our debts. Remember that was the word debts. It's like, it's okay. Some of us grew up saying trespasses. It's a very fine way of talking about sin, but that's in the original language. Jesus is using the word debt. So we're gonna stick with that. Forgive us our debts, God, this thing that is between us and then the rest of it. This is what everybody wanted to talk about last week as we have forgiven our debtors. Did you catch that? There's a thing there, right? It's almost disturbing what's there. I don't know if you heard it or not, but let me pray for us, and we're gonna jump in. Father, we're asking you now on this day, in this moment, at this time, with this passage that you would speak to us, God for, uh, for, for our own sake and for the sake of those around us, for the sake of our world, God, for the sake of just us walking into our tomorrows Lord, we need help figuring this whole forgiveness business out. And you and I both know that in the coming minutes, there might be some questions that come up that we have to deal with that. Uh, Lord, I pray that we'll lean in. I pray that we'll, listen, I pray that you'll give us clarity of, of thought, and we'll hear your wisdom. So we ask this now in the name of our Savior Jesus. Amen. So how about if we just start off by clarifying some terms, forgiveness. You ever thought about trying to define forgiveness? It's a kind of a difficult thing from Christian scholars to behavioral scientists. I, I did the, I just did the research on this thing, and almost all of 'em come back to this phrase in the middle of whatever they're doing. They'll come back to this phrase, which makes sense by the way, because in the New Testament, the Greek word for forgive, ami means this literally. So the phrase that comes up is letting go. Like I had someone recently just say, I'm struggling with the concept of forgiving, but this idea of letting go, I, I can hang on to that. Letting go. Well, what are we letting go of? Are we letting go of the hurt? Not, not initially. Are we just letting go of thinking about it? No, it's probably still gonna be there. What are we letting go of? We're letting go of getting even. We're letting go of making someone suffer because they hurt us. We're letting go. And here come the questions, right? 'cause we've all got thoughts here about that person in our lives, and we'll get to them. But if you want to give us some of those questions, we will not be able to get to all of them. But what we're gonna do is kind of just measure the sort of the, the, the top questions that come in. They've been similar in each service. But if you wanna use the app and let us know, Hey, these are the questions I have, then let's do that. And maybe it could be something that you could even talk about in your small groups. Maybe we could continue to kind of figure this out together. Maybe you'll talk to this, uh, this week with a pastor or, or a mentor, or a counselor about this. Because I think this is gonna take a while for us to sift through. But let me just be real clear on a couple of things. Standing before you right now is not an expert on forgiveness, okay? I'm still learning this one. And I want to say, as I will say, more than once, I can't even imagine what some of you have been through. I don't know. But what I do know from some of your stories, I can't even imagine when you hear me use the word like forgiveness, how impossible it must sound right now. But Jesus, in his wisdom, says, no, we, we gotta pay attention to this one. In fact, he makes us uncomfortable with the way he said it. Did you notice how he said it? We are to pray like this. Forgive us our debts as we have already forgiven the people who've sinned against us. Now, wait a minute. Did anyone else feel that? It almost feels conditional, doesn't it? God's gonna forgive me if I forgive others. Anybody else seeing that? If you read just a couple of verses later, he reiterates that. It's like, man, if you're not gonna forgive the people, how do you expect? What's that? Is that what Jesus means? Well, it can't be what he means because it would, it, it it's not consistent with the rest of his message. It's not consistent with the gospel. Uh, it can't be that it's conditional. It can't be that, that, well, I'm gonna earn God's forgiveness because I do such and such. It can't be that. If you can work your way into God's forgiveness, why did Jesus go to the cross? So it can't be that. So what is it? Most of the scholars, most of the commentators that I look at that, that have read this, come to the conclusion that what Jesus is doing here is he's trying to get our attention. He is really underscoring something and we can't ignore it. But like a good rabbi, like a master teacher, he's trying to make a squirm just a bit. And what he's saying is, if you don't forgive, like if you live with a really unforgiving spirit, if that defines you, I'm not even sure my forgiveness has landed in your heart. You see, there's a real connection between are we willing to forgive and have we been forgiven? Now, sometimes people will talk about this from a, uh, from a horizontal and a vertical perspective. So horizontal, we're gonna talk about how we forgive each other, but we have to come back to has God forgiven us? You see, this is the call. This is what he has is, is leading us to this. This is really where life takes off. And I just wanna say this. When we don't forgive, when we withhold forgiveness, like we're withholding the, the, the, the potential for that person to feel relief. You wanna, what? What breaks the stranglehold of guilt in that other person's life? If they come to you and say, oh my goodness, forgive me. It's when you forgive them. Now all of a sudden there's relief. This is the way of Jesus. But I also want you to know this, it blesses the forgiver. I'm, I'm, I'm gonna get the quote wrong. Lemme see if I can get it close to right. But Louis s Meads, we'll quote him a little bit later, but Louis s Meads says, uh, that forgiving someone is like setting a prisoner free. But sometimes we discover that the prisoner we set free was us. Uh, Dr uh, Luskin at Stanford University has studied forgiveness and finds out that, that people who have forgiving spirits have, uh, have lower levels of depression, lower levels of anger, lower instances of cardiovascular disease. Hello. They have higher levels of self-confidence. Uh, their immune systems are better. Now, I want you to think about how some of us work so hard, have such a routine of, I do this. I eat this, and then I do this and I do this 'cause I want to be healthy. I would suggest in the middle of your routine work in this idea of forgiveness, because it helps. Forgiveness actually lowers blood pressure. It lowers the levels of fear in our lives. Okay? So appropriately given and received, the point you're getting it is that it, it's a gift on both sides of the equation. Forgiveness is a gift. God knows how this works. And so Jesus is really underscoring it here and says, you all gotta figure out how to do this. You're gonna need to remember the vertical God has forgiven you. And then you're gonna have to forgive 'cause this is my way. But we struggle, don't we? I mean, we all raised our hands, most of us. And those that didn't, if you weren't telling the truth, we forgive you. So it's just, it's just, it's just this, this, this idea of we are almost stuck. Anybody have a grudge that you wish you could let go of? Anybody have, like, you find that there's a, it might be a song, it might be a place, it might be a story, it might be a name, and it most certainly could be a face. And when you see that person, you're off and running. It's like it all comes back to the surface. Anybody know what that feels like? Turns out we're not alone. So there are these, uh, there's a researcher at the University of Washington years earlier who was doing research on crows, you know, crows, right? And, and to, to track them, you banned them, which means you put a little, you know, you put a little band on their little crow legs so that you can keep track of these crows. What he noticed was that these crows got so upset, of course, and the baby crows got so upset with being banded that they would then, if they saw the person that had done that to them in the laboratory, if they saw that particular person out on campus, they would swoop at them. They would call, they would, uh, they, they would squawk and, and, and all. It's just like they were just trying to get even with this person that did that to them. Even if that person left campus and went miles away into town, those crows would fly them and squawk and scold and rah, right? Researchers just fascinated by this. And he goes, well, I wonder, I wonder what it is. Is it, is it, is it like their, is it their scent? Is it their, their their body type? Is it their skin tone? What is it? What? And so he tried this a number of different ways. And the best way he could come up with it was he had the researchers that were in the lab wear like a caveman Halloween mask when they banded these crows, okay? So they would do that. And then what they would do is to ask all of these poor subjects, will you now wear that caveman mask out in public? And sure enough, when those people walked across the campus, here come the crows swooping and scolding and squawking. 'cause they hold a grudge against that face. And he's like, well, I wonder if it's like, could it just be that it's a weird Halloween mask? I know we'll put a different mask on them. So the guy in the lab is still wearing the caveman mask, but he gives these other people, now this dates the research. He gives these other people an old Dick Cheney Halloween mask. Now, some of you don't know who he is. He was a former vice president. And so these guys walking across campus now have a Dick Cheney mask, crows, leave him alone. It really was the face. Wait, let's take it a little bit further. Now. Same thing's happening in the lab. We're gonna turn the mask upside down on these people that are walking across campus. The crows even then came swooping at them. And the observers noticed sometimes for just a few seconds, the crow would turn upside down as they were flying and go, yep, that's who I thought it was. And they'd come back, Adam. So this research got me to thinking about me. Maybe you, Are we at the mercy of like that one person that we hear about or that we see? And as soon as we see them, we're like a bunch of crazy crows, Ah, Swooping and squawking and scolding, because we're just gonna hold that grudge. And I think I'm doing okay. Oh, until I see them. What's the way out? We have to learn how to forgive, because sometimes the prisoner we set free is us. It's vertical and horizontal. Remember that? Now, Jesus makes this point in Matthew chapter 18. He tells a story. It's a really difficult story. I'll be honest with you. It's difficult. This makes a squirm and he's making the point here. He talks about a king and a servant. But when that word servant is being used, I want you to understand, when you look at the context of it, the scholars are saying this is, this is someone who works for the king in an official capacity. So he's in the king's court. He's probably a, uh, regional ruler in the empire. When we start talking about money, you'll see why. So the king is now going to gather all of his officials that are gonna come in. And it turns out when this guy comes up, he owes the king 10,000 talents. Now, this is where the scholars say, yeah, obviously this is a regional ruler. This might be a a a like a a, a king in this corner of the neighborhood. Who's up? Who's, who reports to the, the emperor. He owes him 10,000 talents. This is an, an insurmountable amount of money. They don't even agree on how much it is. But I'm gonna give you the conservative estimates. A a talent was 20 years of wages. 10,000 of those talents was like on the low side. Somebody said, it's probably the, in the neighborhood of several billion with a B dollars, billions of dollars CEOs. Now, some people said, if you translate it to real time, uh, worth, it's, it's, it's in the hundreds of, it's just an insurmountable amount. When Jesus is telling the story and uses that number, there was an audible gasp. I guarantee you, people are like, what? This guy can't pay. The king is getting ready to punish him. He pleads, he pleads. It's interesting here. He pleads not for mercy. He pleads for like time. He says, have patience with me. I don't think there's enough time for him to figure this out, but have patience with me and I will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the master of the servant released him and forgave him the debt. He lets him go and he, he wipes the debt clean. Now there's a second audible gasp in the room. What? That's part one of the story. Part two of the story. This same fella that was just forgiven the debt has someone who owes him a hundred Dari. He goes to that person and just loses it. This guy, he's like, you gotta pay me. Now, what does this guy say? I, I want you to see. He goes to him and says, you gotta pay me. Uh, uh, the, the fellow servant pleads and falls down and says, have patience with me and I will pay you notice, it's the same language, it's the same situation, completely different outcome. He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. So he starts off, he's so angry, he's choking the guy, you gotta pay me. The guy uses the same language as his, please. Like you have patience, I'll pay you back. Nope. The king finds out about all of this now summons his, his official to him and, and, and says, you wicked servant. I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you. And in his anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. So also, my Heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. There it is again. Is Jesus saying, if you forgive, you go to heaven. And if you don't, you won't. Again, I don't think so, but he is right here saying these two things are connected. If you don't forgive, like if you have an unforgiving spirit where you just won't let go of that need for vengeance, like you're not bearing a family resemblance, I'm not sure your heart's different. It's a pretty good indication to the condition of your heart. If, if we just hang onto this stuff. You see, we've gotta learn how to forgive. And as we learn how to forgive, there's gonna be some, some ways that we can look at this and some ways that we can learn from this. And let's just start by saying that the king was owed a debt that was like unpayable. And yet he forgives that debt. Here's the first point I want you to notice. Every time I've heard this taught, someone says, when you get over here to this guy, you know, his debt was nothing compared to the other guy's debt. And that would be true, but this debt was not nothing. I want you to see the brilliance of Jesus. Now, the master storyteller, he could have just said, so this debt was paid and now this guy goes over and he owes like pocket change. He could have made that point. That's not the point. A hundred denari is like 20 weeks of wages. So what does that mean? That's like in the several thousands of dollars that debt, that's again, that's real money. I want some of you to hear this as we go forward. The point of this parable isn't to say, Hey, no matter what's happened to you, uh, you just gotta let it go. It's nothing compared to what Jesus did for you. It's true that it's nothing compared to what Jesus did for each of us. Nothing compares to that. But it is not nothing. And some of you have something that is hurting you, something that is there something that in some ways it's like, man, somebody owes me at least an apology on this thing. It is not a small thing. And Jesus is saying, I get it. I know that these things happen and still we forgive. Now he doesn't. Instead what he does is he lets his anger get away from him. Here's a thought. Forgiveness is not the absence of anger. Now, some of you ought to be writing that down 'cause you're gonna spend all your small group talking about this one, forgiveness is not the absence of anger. Sometimes people think, oh, if I forgive, well then, you know, I just gotta act like nothing bad happened. Not true, not true at all. When that initial wallop hits you, when something happens, and let's just say this, um, we're talking about different levels of offense, right? So when I'm talking about like the kinds of forgiveness that we struggle with, for most of us, these are deep wounds. I'm not talking about, I'm not talking about when he forgot that you guys were going out for dinner with friends. I'm not talking about when your friend forgot that it was your birthday. I'm not even talking about when you walked into that meeting at work and you could tell somebody was almost gonna start talking about you and your project. Now, those are all legit things. I'm talking about the deep wounds. You with me? You feel the anger? Why wouldn't you? It's justifiable up to a point. You see, Paul says in Ephesians, be angry. Just don't sin. Be angry. It's legit. Just don't let it get away from you. Don't let the anger now become something where you get consumed with. I can't wait to pay them back. I'm gonna do it this way. I'm gonna do it this way. If nothing else, I'm just gonna keep tearing 'em down at work. When they leave the room, I'm gonna tell a little story. I know that thing about 'em, and you're going, Greg, I'm not gonna do any of that. I just do it in my thoughts. You gotta let that go too. You see, even our revenge fantasies lead to a kind of well, bitterness guys, I want you to know, and I'm just gonna confess this in front of all of you, in the initial stages of hurt and the anger shows up, makes perfect sense. But then there's that next stage after that, it still feels pretty good. It tastes delicious. 'cause I get to be kind of high and mighty. And it's like, I can't believe it. They did that to me. If only people know how much I put up with, and you just start eating this anger, and I just wanna warn you, it turns sour. It turns into bitterness when you go, I'm not gonna let go of this. It's a bitterness that's now brewing in you. Lisa Turkish, who writes a, I think a really helpful book on forgiveness, uh, and uh, she says something really insightful about, about bitterness. Let's put this up there because I think it's so good. Bitterness wears the disguises of other chaotic emotions that are harder to attribute to the original source of hurt. What does that mean? I mean, sometimes it doesn't look like bitterness sometimes. Like I got this bitterness in me, but now it's seeping into everything else. And I can't even quite put my finger on where the, like, I can't even hardly trace it back to the hurt, but I'm just kind of living with this now. And people go, dude, for like the last six months, you have just been so short with everyone. When did you get so cynical? When did you stop trusting people? When did you see it just seeps into all areas of our life. It affects our relationships, it affects our, uh, prayer life. It affects our worship. So that's this guy. Now, contrast that with the king. The king has pity on the guy who owes him. Now, pity isn't really a word that we use very often, so let's use the other word that it can be translated as compassion. Compassion, alright, compassion. That's a good word. It's a word that actually is used a lot to describe another king in the gospels. The one named Jesus. Every time he sees someone struggling, that word compassion comes up. You may or may not remember this, but this is one of our favorite words in the Greek. If you take, uh, if you take G one, you'll, you'll know this word, but let's just learn, let's say this word together. We'll break it down. Sp everybody say it with me. Sp block Neats needs. Put a little on it. Neats needs. Oh my, oh my Spl. No, you gotta say it with, Ooh, go ahead. Spl. Oh yes, that's it. God bless you. That's it. Omi spl, my, the word in its origin, it's talking about like your belly. 'cause that's where they thought your emotions were. So you feel something deep down like, ugh, it's a deep emotion. That's compassion. So what does that look like for us in this moment? Well, it might just look like us remembering, like where we start with it isn't, oh, I just want to give that guy a hug. It isn't that, but it might start with, oh, he's made in the image of God too. Are you kidding me? Jesus loves her. I'm warning you. This is where it'll really mess you up. Wait a minute. You're saying the cross is for them. Now I'm not using a label now, I'm not using a name. Uh, Louis meets who has also written some important things about forgiveness. In fact, in the app, if you're, if you go to the app, you'll see that we're gonna put some of these books that we've mentioned his, Lisas that I just mentioned. We're gonna put some of these books that are helpful on forgiveness in the app so that you can go further with this. But he calls this rediscovering someone's humanity. You're, you just like, one of the first steps towards this is, and man, is it difficult sometimes to go, Ugh, God knows them by name too. Ooh. So that's where you start and you begin to see that that's what happens. But the king does more than that. He forgives the debt. He lets go of getting even, here's a different way to put it. He absorbs the cost of the debt. Now, this is not popular at all, but let me just say this. He absorbs the cost of dealing with a significant debt instead of passing it on to someone else. I don't know who said this first, not me. Forgiveness is kind of like suffering Because not only do I have the initial hurt, but now I've got that choice that I made where, wait, I'm not gonna pass this on to you. So now I'm absorbing that there's a kind of suffering involved in the initial stages of of, of choosing to forgive. And some of you're like, man, I don't want that. Greg, you're not selling this forgiveness thing well at all today. No, I just want you to know the truth. And the truth is, when we make this choice, we begin to absorb this herb. But let's just go all the way down the line. Now we're not talking about a story, we're not talking about a parable. We're not talking about some fictional king. Now I'm talking about the king. He absorbed the cost for me. What did we see last week? He canceled the debt. How? By nailing it to the cross again, what I want you to know now, as, as we move forward through the rest of our time together, is that God is offering us a way out. But you need to understand the context is his forgiveness of us. This isn't God saying, I just want you kids to get along better. Will you please settle down in the backseat? Just everybody, come on. It isn't even just the therapeutic angle of this, although I think as you walk through it, you do begin to feel these benefits. But it isn't even just so that you feel better. It's because this is the way of Jesus and the way of Jesus is the way of the cross. And the way of the cross is how God is still going to reconcile and redeem this world. And Jesus says, if you're with me, then you gotta learn how to forgive. Paul says, forgive as you have been forgiven. And here come the questions. But before we get to the questions, is it fair to assume hear sites everywhere? Is it fair to assume that in the last five, 10 minutes a name has come to mind? You got that person, don't you? Maybe it's a whole list of people you're like, We're not ready to just go and together. We forgive you. Yay. But I'll tell you what, maybe we can do risk, huge risk, but you don't have to say anything. Could you just like bring them to mind and admit that like, even if you don't like, know fully how to pray, maybe you could take this step and go, God, I don't even know what to do with this person, but I am tired. I am tired of the weight of carrying this around. Just, just even that much. God, I don't know what to do with this person, with these people, with that family, with that group at school, with those guys at work. But those families in the neighborhood, I don't know what to do. Could we at least start there? Let's consider that. Maybe even pray that for just a second. Forgive as we forgive the prayer you give us comes home so close yet radiates so far. We set the limits on our own forgiveness as generous or grudging as we are, the wounds we give and take in all our weakness, the injuries that smolder burning slow, the sins that others visited upon us are ours to hold or utterly let go. You tell the story of the wretched debtor, the one forgiven everything he owed, who then exacted payment to the letter from one who could not bear the given load, oh, lift my given load that I forgiven might give away forgiveness free as heaven, That I might give forgiveness as free as heaven. I'm, I'm so grateful that, uh, the reverend Dr. Malcolm Ge, who is a noted poet from Cambridge, England, gave us permission. We reached out and said, uh, you know, Dr. White guy, this this like this sonnet fits perfectly where we're going today. And he was like, yeah, absolutely blessed that you would use it. You see, this is what we want. I know it's what we want. We want to be able to forgive. We want all of this. But here's what I also know. There are about as many complications, questions and concerns about forgiving difficult people as there are difficult people. And as best I can tell, there's still a few of those in this world. So what are we supposed to do with this now? Uh, we've been, uh, Diego, do you have something there for me? Uh, these are some of the questions that we're just gonna take a look at at some of these. And I will just tell you there are, there are many, many more of these. But let me just get, uh, how do you forgive an abuser top? Wow. Okay. Uh, let's come back to that. Is building a wall to protect myself from further hurt the same as unforgiveness. So in other words, I, I think what this question is, is, uh, can I protect myself or is that being unforgiving? Um, how do I forget what they did after I forgive them? Yeah. Uh, what if the person doesn't even ask for forgiveness? Uh, how do I know I'm making progress? I feel like I'm stuck. Well, I think that could keep us busy for a minute or two, don't you? Let's just take a, a couple of these. Uh, I think it'll make sense if we go in this order. Uh, so, uh, what about people who don't even ask for forgiveness? Do I forgive them? Well, I think there's a form of forgiveness that you can, that you can offer them. Let's just say that it won't be the complete, uh, package of forgiveness. I mean, in an ideal fashion, forgiveness leads to reconciliation. That's the whole point, hopefully. But if someone doesn't admit something, if someone doesn't come to you, well then they're sort of cutting off the full work of forgiveness, right? But you can still in that moment choose to what was the definition? You can let go, God, I'm gonna let go of this desire and this need, this idea that if I can get even, then I'll, I'll, I'll feel better. So we can let go of that. We can let go with God. Peace. Help me with my anger. We can begin to even, we can even get to a place where we pray for them. Now, maybe we'll come back to that in a minute, but you can let go of the anger. You can ask, God, please help me with this. I'm gonna let go of this desire and this need, Lord, help me with this. But I don't think my getting even and making them suffer is gonna make me feel like any better. I wanna let go of that. God, please, even if they don't ask for it, you see, you can get to that place. It won't be full reconciliation, but you can get to that place. But let me just say this. There is an ache in this situation because you know what's not happening. They're not admitting what they did to you. It's like, don't you even care? And I want you to know if that's you, the God of the universe sees and knows what happened to you. And the Bible tells us that he is close to the broken hearted. Psalm 1 43 says that he binds the wounds of the broken hearted. So even here, even in this sort of incompleteness, God will meet you there, but there's there, there, there's more. Right? Somebody said something about, is it unforgiving if I build a wall to protect myself from more hurt? Well, I think the answer to that is not necessarily, you see, uh, do not think of forgiveness as someone, uh, forgiving someone doesn't mean a lack of consequence. Okay? So when we forgive someone, it doesn't mean that there isn't consequence. Sometimes it's consequence in a relationship. Sometimes it's consequence in a community. Sometimes if it's, if it's a deep enough thing, it could be a legal consequence, right? It can, there can be consequence there. So when you forgive someone, you're letting go of you getting even with them. Romans 12 says that you let God do the business of justice. You, you don't take revenge. You leave this up to God. Even if you don't see how God is ultimately gonna deal with them, you let God deal with them as much as it is possible. You live at peace and the rest of it, you're going to leave with God. So when we forgive, it doesn't mean that there is a consequence. And sometimes that consequence involves boundaries. You see, um, let's kind of move into the whole idea of, of like really the most difficult people to forgive. I wanna say again, I have no concept of the depth of some of your hurt. I can only imagine. And that's all I can do. But I want us to say this much. When we forgive, it doesn't mean that we are allowing someone to keep hurting us. It doesn't mean that we have to tolerate the intolerable. Now, I'm I I just wanna keep stressing this. Don't misquote me because this isn't us now talking about those, what I'm gonna call minor offenses that we all have, right? You see, we don't have to go zero to 90 on every offense in our life. Amen. Proverbs 19 says that it is the glory of a person to actually overlook an offense. I'm not talking about the big deep ones, they're just saying, every now and then we ought to lighten up with each other. Wisdom means that we have more margin with each other. What a world that would be. But regarding the deep offenses, forgiving someone doesn't mean that you let them keep hurting you. So the person that's asking about, can I build this, this, this barrier, this wall? Well, yeah, but I want you to forgive along the way. What does that mean? It means you let go of even the fantasies of, of revenge over time. You let go of that. God, please, by your grace, I don't want that anymore in my life. And you establish healthy boundaries. You see, I I now I I i have forgiven you. My heart's good with you. And I'm gonna keep my distance from you. Dan Aller, who is a world renowned counselor, expert on these areas, author, deep friend of the crossing, my personal confidant and counselor. Dan writes about this in bold love his book Bold Love. We don't even have time to go into this, but he says there's like three different kinds of people that, that will kind of trip you up. E an evil person, a foolish person who doesn't even know the hurt that they're leaving. And then you're, you're garden variety center as in all of us, right? We don't have time to go into those. But he will just say, there is such a person as an evil person, I just wanna say evil's a real thing. And there are people who do not care. The the depth of hurt. They do not care the wake that they are leaving their cold. They're mean. They use power and threats and shame as weapons. Sometimes they can present themselves in the best possible way to most people. But behind closed doors, sometimes what happens there, the only word that can be described is evil. And Dan says, you still forgive that person. You still let go of, of this, this desire, this belief that you think that if I can just get even with them, I'll be better. No, you let God heal you. You leave them in the hands of God. You let go of that and you keep your distance. This is a healthy way to do this by the way. And we also leave open the possibility that God can actually heal and do something with evil people. 'cause we see it in scriptures, right? But that's not gonna be you reconciling with them until they have confessed and come to you a rebuilding of trust. It just takes time. How do I know if I'm like, I'm making progress if I feel stuck. Last big question. Well, I think you're gonna take it in steps. First of all, I don't think you're gonna forget. Somebody said, what? What do I do if I haven't forgotten? Well, you're not gonna forget if it's a big enough hurt, you're not gonna forget it. Can we just say that out loud? Sometimes people think, oh, to forgive means to forget. No painful things we remember, right? It's kind of built in. It helps us. How many times have you put your, your, your hand on the hot stove as a little child usually happens once, right? How many times did you drink an entire bottle of Pepsi and eat a box of Mentos? Maybe once. Don't do that. By the way. Painful things. We remember, what did we say last week about God when it comes to our sin? When it says that he remembers our sin no more. He doesn't have amnesia. He's choosing not to remember Isaiah 38. And Lord you love me so much that you have put my sin behind your back. You wanna know one of the steps that we take? First of all, we surrender this right to get even. I don't want this anymore. I don't wanna be bitter anymore. I don't know who first. I tried to track down where the origin of this quote came from. The first time I saw it in print could find it in print was Carrie Fisher. This quote, she said she heard it at an AA meeting. Can you guys just put this up there? Bitterness is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. I don't want that. God, I don't want that. So I am choosing to begin to give up the right to get even. And now I'm gonna choose not to bring it up. I'm not gonna bring it up to that person if I'm in relationship with him. You tell me how help our relationships. I'm not gonna bring this up to you like next week Diego. If we're having an argument five years from now and I just need to kind of get like leverage back. I don't get to bring that up and go, yeah, but you remember, if you and I are good, then I choose to not bring it up. And I'm begging you to do the same. So I don't bring it up and put it in your face. I don't bring it up and tell other people about it. 'cause guess what that is? That's getting even. And I don't even let it happen in my own mind. It's one of those things. It's a self-control thing. God please, I am giving this back to you. And so it's a surrender, a daily, sometimes hourly God please. And he begins to do something. It's a step-by-step thing. My comments change. I'm praying. I'm praying for them. I'm not praying that the sky falls on them. I'm not praying, you know, lightning and fireballs from heaven on them. Sometimes it's the prayer that we prayed a second ago. God, I don't even know where to start with this person. But every time they come up, I don't even know what to do. But I guess you love them. I don't, but God you do. And you told me to pray for those who persecute me. I don't even know what to God. Go find them. Let your kindness lead them to a different way. That's where you start. You know, the prayer for me these days in, in a situation is God, I am giving you permission to change my heart. I'm giving you permission, Lord. And I'm gonna make these choices. And some of the choices, they're gonna seem like a, like a oh. It's like, God, I'm just gonna trust you. 'cause here's the other thing. I think it's Keller who says this for forgiveness is something that you grant before you feel it. Mm. Can the preacher get an awkward amen? It's a choice. It's a choice. God, I'm gonna start down this road. I don't feel like it, but I'm gonna trust that you're with me. And so we start down that road and sometimes it's a step. Sometimes it's a big stride. Sometimes you feel like you're making progress. But I'm gonna tell you what, on most days, it's so quiet, it's so small, it's happening at the deep places of your heart. And over time you look back and you go, wait a minute. Look how far God brought me on that. And the next time I see their face, I don't squawk like a crow. You with me? CS Lewis said in his letters to Malcolm, uh, he was praying and at the end of a prayer he realized, I, I have forgiven someone that I've been struggling with. I've been asking God for this for years. And at the end of the prayer time, he's like, wow, God, you healed me of that. But it wasn't like this. It was over time. It's an act of trust. It's an act of faith. And I think ultimately way down the road, it becomes an act of worship. 'cause we begin to see God do something. You're like, you're crazy. I've never seen that happen, Greg. Well, I don't see it happen every day, but I've seen it happen. I can't and wouldn't go into the details. But I remember standing with a man in a hospital hallway and he was being delivered some news from someone that's just about the, it's just about the worst, hardest. Don't even try to fill in the blanks. You'll get 'em wrong. Just don't go there. That's not the point. But it was betrayal, it was hurt, it was dark, it was evil. It was everything you can imagine. And I watched a grown man lose his legs. I watched a grown man stand there in the hallway. You know, you kind of hear that phrase. I know where that phrase comes from. He couldn't stand up. He was, he was grabbing the handrail. And I thought, God, we're gonna lose him. Like We're gonna lose him right here. But we didn't. And without going into details, I will just tell you, God heals. And it is through the miracle of forgiveness and the real life flesh and blood showing up of grace. And it was people walking with him and his family. It was people telling hard truth some days when they didn't want to hear hard truth. And on other days just saying, you are not alone. I've got you. God's got you. We're not going anywhere. And over time, over time, looking back, it's like, wait a minute. God has healed them. And every time I see him, they don't live here. Every time I see him in a big crowd, you'd see me and he and his wife standing there hugging and laughing and crying. Because what the rest of the world doesn't know is that in that moment, light pushed back darkness. And I'm just telling you, miracles do actually happen. God does this. I can't even pretend to imagine what it is that you've gone through. I don't know. And I'm sure not minimizing it. We probably need to keep talking about this. I am saying to some of you That forgiveness will keep you from allowing that person from back then having any more control over you. They don't deserve to have that word anymore in your thoughts, your heart and your life. And sometimes it is this letting go that God begins to heal. And now you're set up. Does this bring the marriage back? Maybe not. Do you get that dream job back? Does God give you your childhood back? Do you get the innocence that was robbed of you back? Do those horrible thoughts and memories, are they like completely wiped out of, of, of, of, of your thoughts? No, no, no, no. But God now takes us through this and somehow, some way by his grace, he says, let me show you how forgiveness is the way through this. And there's a better way for you to live. And I don't want you to drag this around with you anymore. And for those of us on a regular day, you know, without those big stories, like on our regular days, could we just live in a rhythm of forgiveness? Could we get good at this? Could we just say, God, I just wanna, I wanna keep my accounts clear. I wanna stay current with people. I want to. And it doesn't mean we walk around going, you know, I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you. It isn't that, but it's God, I just want your grace. I just want, I wanna live that way. 'cause that bears a family resemblance. What if we did that? Would that be something? Now for some of you, this idea of a vertical relationship, we need to talk because you haven't come to Jesus yet. We should talk. But for the rest of us, how on earth do we end this now that we're finished? I mean, 'cause like your questions, we kind of went there for a couple of minutes. Yeah. So what do we do? Well, let's not end with a big happy clappy song, shall we? Let's not end by standing up and worshiping. Let's not end, uh, by you coming forward, uh, in a response time. Let's end this way and then, then let's just kind, we'll hold our applause and instead you guys just have your conversations with each other, okay? But I figured this might be the best way to end. I wanna leave you with a prayer that will remind you of God's power. It's not my prayer. Paul wrote it in the book of Ephesians. So let me pray this over you. I'm gonna read this prayer. It's one of the all time great prayers in the scriptures. You can go home, you can look it up, you can read it again and again and again. But I'll bet you there's a phrase in there for you. So here's the thing. Wherever you are, oh, I'm just gonna ask instead of running out here and receive this prayer, and then we're finished. Okay? Now, some of you may need to raise your hands and go, God, I need this. Some of you're gonna bow your heads and go, God, I, I gotta, I don't know what to do. Some of you're gonna be, I don't believe any of this. Some of you, uh, your fists are already clenched 'cause it's like, but maybe a bunch of us could just say like, I don't know, put our hands out this way and go, okay, Lord, I need every bit of this. So here's the prayer. I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the lord's holy people. To grasp A wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. And to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Let's keep talking. Thank you for being here. We're gonna keep this conversation going next week. You let us know what we can do to help. Amen.