Well good morning everyone. How is everyone doing? Come on, make some noise. If you are happy to be in God's house this Sunday. My name is Kyra and it is true. This is my third summer teaching at The Crossing. I cannot believe you have had me back three years in a row. I'm sorry for that. No, it's wonderful. It's truly become one of the highlights of my summer is really to be here. Um, we have been just enjoying everything that St. Louis has to offer because in this visit in particular, my husband got to join me, so that was really cool. It's his first time in St. Louis. We went to, yeah, we can give him a Midwest welcome. We went to the city museum on Friday. That was awesome by the way. Super quirky. I loved it. We went to the arch and then um, yesterday I did some, I feel personally, uh, responsible to contribute to the Missouri economy. So we went to the St. Charles Historic Main Street and I dropped some money for all you guys. But um, just to catch you up, for those of you who don't know me, like I said, my name is Kyra. I serve at an incredible church just like the crossing. It's called Liquid Church. It is in New Jersey multi-site. We have seven campuses and God has really blessed us with some really hard terrain in the northeast. We are called liquid because we believe that church should be refreshing and we get to serve the living water of Jesus to people who live in one of the most spiritually dry regions in the country. But it is home for us even though we are originally from Puerto Rico. I have been serving there for 13 years. I serve as the executive pastor of ministries and this past spring, um, like I said, I celebrated 13 years of being on staff there to my great joy and privilege. I'm also married to my best friend. I met my husband in law school and I like to say he is the best thing that I got out of law school. So thank you hun. Uh, we have been married for 22 years. Last month we celebrated 22 years. Thank you. Thank you. And now we are in the busy season of parenting two teenagers. We have been blessed with two amazing kids. My son Andy has down syndrome. I've spoken about him in the past. He is the joy of our lives. He's 14. Going through puberty, hormones, all that jazz while also having special needs. You can imagine it's not easy. So I cover your prayers. I say that every time I come. And then I also, we are also, uh, parenting a 17-year-old who is going to start her last year of high school. So this is a big year for us. We have been going on a lot of college trips and something that I thought you would really enjoy is that my daughter actually in the month of June, completed a pre-college experience, summer experience at Wash U in St. Louis. So that was really fun. Um, so that means that I've actually spent, this is my third trip in two months to St. Louis. I feel like, uh, Lambert Airport should name a terminal after me at this point. But today I'm really excited because we get to talk about some things that are going to be very challenging to hear. But I really believe that the best things are on the other side of challenging things. Amen Church. Now I really today the title of my message is How to Forgive What You Can't Forget. See, there's already tension in the room. Aye, it's hard. Uh, but the reality is we all have that reaction because I think that sometimes forgiveness can feel like a dirty word because if we're honest, if you think about it, there's always in all of our lives, there always comes a point or a moment when life simply broke our hearts. Maybe it was the day that you discovered your spouse was having an affair or maybe it was the day that you signed the divorce papers. Maybe it was the breakup, the day that the breakup occurred or a betrayal of somebody you loved or a friend. Maybe it was a friend who ghosted you or lied to you or there were some cruel or harsh words spoken between you. Maybe it was the day that you were fired from a career or a calling that you loved or were someone that you loved, accused you of doing something. You did not do. Those moments. And we all have them. I just wanna normalize, we all have them. They are like our own BC and AD only. They don't stand for before Christ and Anna Domini, they actually stand for before crisis and after devastation. It's like life before and life after that moment. And we all have them because at some point somebody in our lives dropped the ball. They were not who they said they were going to be. They did not do what they said they were going to do. They did not protect us the way that we needed to be protected. And that was wrong and it hurt. And it could have been anybody. It could have been a roommate or a friend or a parent or a spouse. And the question that we ask ourselves in that moment is, do we really need to forgive someone for doing something like that? And if we're supposed to forgive them, how do we actually do that when they're still doing things that feel unforgivable? If you walked in here today and you are feeling like you're waging war against people in your life who have hurt you or who have offended you, or you find yourself holding onto a grudge, I want you to hear this loud and clear. Forgiveness is your weapon. We're going to unpack that today even though it is challenging to hear, maybe even agonizing to hear for some of you. But I promise you, I really do promise you the victory that you're looking for is not in holding onto the herd, but it's actually in releasing it. And the freedom that God is inviting you to walk into today comes on the other side of your pain. He wants to walk you from pain to peace and from healing to hurt or from hurt to healing. Today we're gonna be tackling a lot of scripture buckle up 'cause I'm excited to preach and it is going to be a wild ride because we are going to be looking at the lives of two or one of the messiest, most dysfunctional families in the Bible. Anybody here have a little dysfunction in their family. You are like, well I actually put the fun in dysfunction. So we are going to be looking at the lives of two brothers and how this plays out in the lives of Jacob and Issa. Pastor Ben told me that Pastor Angela preached about this recently. I think she did some genesis teaching. I promise you this is gonna be a different twist. So hang with me as we tackle a lot of books in Genesis. Here we go. Genesis chapter 25 says this. This is the account of the family of Isaac, the son of Abraham. When Isaac was 40 years old, he married Rebecca Isaac pleaded with the Lord on behalf of his wife because she wasn't able to have children. The Lord answered Isaac's prayer and Rebecca became pregnant with twins. But the two children, what is the word that says Church struggled with each other in her womb. So she went to ask the Lord about it. Why is this happening to me? So you have your classic millennial couple power couple at that. You got Isaac, you got Rebecca, they get married, she gets pregnant. And from the start the Bible says that the twins were struggling in her womb, which is actually a spiritual way of saying Rebecca's got a WrestleMania match happening in utero. All right? So she goes to God and she's like, what's going on Lord? And can you blame her? I mean this is sibling rivalry before they're even out of the womb. It we haven't even gotten to the delivery room yet. You thought your kids fought. At least they waited until after birth. You know what I mean? And so the Lord tells her, the sons in your womb are going to become two nations from the very beginning. Read it with me. Church. The two nations will be rivals. One nation will be stronger than the other. And here's the key. Your older son will serve your younger son. God has just dropped a mic drop of a prophecy on Rebecca. And this is the prophecy that is going to set the stage for a lifetime of sibling smack downs. And when the time came to give birth, Rebecca discovered that she did indeed have twins. The first one was very red at birth and covered with thick hair like a fur coat. So they named him Esau. Then the other twin was born with his hand grasping Esau's heel. And so they named him Jacob. So Rebecca gives birth and sure enough she has twins. And the Bible describes these babies and it says of the first twin that he had black hair and that he had like a fur coat. And um, I gave that exact prompt to chat GPTI wanna show you what came out of that. I dunno what that is. Is that a bear? Is that a baby? It actually reminds me of the curious case of Benjamin Button. Anybody here remembers that movie? You thought it was Hollywood? No. It is actually the Bible people. And then comes Jacob. And the bible says that he came outta the womb grasping Esau's heel, which is why they named him Jacob. Because Jacob actually means heel grabber or in Hebrew slang deceiver. In other words, his parents basically named him shady, slim, shady. I can imagine. Jacob is in preschool and he stands up and I'm like, I'm the slim. I'm slim. Shady. Yes, I'm the real shady. Oh, you other slim shady are Justin. The so one for real slim shady tennis s**t. Come on, please stand up. Please stand up. I knew you know it Church only me hanging. You thought that was uh, Eminem? No, that is the Bible. All right, so here's what happens next. As the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter. He was an outdoors man, but Jacob had a quiet temperament preferring to stay at home. Isaac loved Esau because he enjoyed eating the wild game and Issa brought that Issa brought home. But Rebecca Love Jacob. There's two brothers and they are polar opposites. Esau, he is the rugged outdoorsy guy. He is the poster boy of the bass pro shops. And then you have Jacob and isn't AI amazing? And then you have Jacob, guys, he is like chilling indoors. He likes to sip lattes and cook with his mom and shop at Crate and Barrel. These are the twins. All right? They are polar opposites. And right from the start you can see that there's a lot of dysfunction because Isaac's favorite is Issa. While Rebecca, she's all about Jacob. And I just wanna pause in this story right now and address that. If you grew up in a family where there was favoritism, I want you to know I am really sorry that that was your experience because favoritism is not just bad, it's sinful. The Bible, if you go from Genesis and you go all the way to the New Testament, to the book of James, the Bible actually has a lot to say about favoritism. Listen to what the book of James says. If you show, what is the word? Favoritism, you sin and you are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. In other words, favoritism isn't just unfair, it is actually sinful. And if we are real, it always leaves a mess in its wake. And in this story in particular, it is favoritism that pours gas on this sibling rivalry that leads to Jacob's ultimate betrayal. So buckle up 'cause we're about to go into full on Telemundo, you know what I mean? So once when Jacob was cooking some Stew Issa came in from the open country and he was famished. And so he said to Jacob, quick, lemme have some of that red stew, I'm famished. And Jacob replied, first, sell me your birthright. Anybody here know what a birthright is? Some of you may know that a birthright is all of the rights and privileges of the firstborn child and it isn't just money. Yes, it's true. Isa would have inherited a double portion of of Isaac's inheritance, but it also comes with the privileges of spiritual authority. He would've been their spiritual leader, their family priest. He would've been their judge with the father's authority. And it also comes with the lineage or tied, would've tied him to the lineage of the promised Messiah. And what does Issa do guys? He gives it all away for a bowl of autumn squash from St. Louis bread. That's what he does. Look, he tells Jacob I'm about to die. Which by the way so dramatic, he's just hungry. He's not gonna die, but he, he's like, I'm about to die. What good is this birthright to me? He's only thinking about a temporary thing. And Jacob who is a deceiver, said, swear to me first. And so he swore an oath to him selling his birthright to Jacob. I just want you to imagine something that's very near and dear to you and now think, how would you give something so sacred and give that up for a bowl of soup? That's what Esau is doing in this moment and this is why this is the turning point for Issa in this story. This is where it all begins to unravel for him because just like that God is actually setting the stage for his prophecy to Rebecca to come true. You guys remember what he said to her? He said to her, one nation will be stronger than the other and your older son is going to serve the younger son. It's interesting that the author of Hebrews in the New Testament actually writes about this incident. And here's what he says. See that no one is godless like Issa, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights to the oldest as the oldest son afterward. As you know, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected. Even though he saw the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done. What is the author of Hebrews talking about? He is referencing the moment when Jacob and Rebecca pull off a master class in deception. You see just two chapters later in Genesis 27, the whole thing comes crashing down. An issa's moment of impulsive hunger. It will cost him the future that he had thought he would get and he will never be able to get it back. I wanna break it down to you as we go. At this point in time, Isaac is an old blind man. He is going to die. And so the time for him to give Issa the birthright blessing to the firstborn son has come. And so as they're planning to do that, Rebecca, as you guys know, whose favorite son is Jacob? Well, she has other plans and her plan is to convince IA Jacob to dress as Esau. And she even goes so far as to put goat hair on his arms. Remember Jacob was smooth so that when Isaac touched Jacob because Isaac was blind, he would be tricked into thinking that Jacob was Esau. And it works. Isaac ends up giving the blessing of the firstborn son to Jacob. And when Au finds out, the Bible says he is devastated. When Issa heard his father's words, he let out a loud and bitter cry and he said, oh my father, what about me? Bless me too. He begged. But Isaac said Your brother was here and he tricked me and he has taken away your blessing. And Issa exclaimed, no wonder his name is Jacob. For now, he has cheated me twice. First he took my rights as the firstborn and now he has stolen my blessing. Oh, haven't you saved even one blessing for me? Do you only have one blessing? Oh, my father, bless me too. And then Esau broke, broke down and wept. Guys, this is the sting of the worst kind of betrayal. I want you to understand the weight of what Esau has just lost is hitting him in this moment like a tidal wave. That is why he lets out a loud and bitter cry because this sound that he makes, this is a sound that's so raw that when I read this text this week in preparation for this message, I imagine in my mind his cry would've resonated throughout the entire tent because this is the cry of a man who has been stripped of everything he thought he was gonna get for his future. That's why it's desperation and anguish in his voice when he pleads with his father and he says, bless me too, do you only have one blessing? But what is Isaac's response? Oh, ouch. It just cuts like a knife because he says your brother came, what's the word? Deceitfully and took your blessing and AU is so full of rage. The Bible says he held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing that his father had given him. And so he said to himself, the days of mourning for my father are near a k, a Isaac's about to die and when he dies, then I will kill my brother Jacob. Has anybody ever felt the sting of betrayal? You know, it's interesting. A couple of months ago we had one of our staff members, uh, resigned, uh, from our staff. And at liquid we have a very open hands posture. We bless people when they go, we want to cheer them on into new endeavors. When God calls people out of seasons and ministry, we're very open-handed, but at the same time we have off-boarding procedures and one of them is to send our staff who leaves an exit interview. And obviously because my role at the church, I get all of the exit interviews, but in particular this one was very important to me because they were one of my direct reports. And obviously as you guys know in the exit interview, there's always feedback that I welcome, we're never gonna be perfect. We're never gonna do everything just right. If you're gonna be a leader, you have to have humility because there's always more learning that you can do as someone who oversees large groups of teams of people. But when got the exit interview, I have to confess that I was actually really caught of guard because it wasn't just like constructive feedback. This actually went to the realm of the personal. And I was really hurt. Like I was offended and I felt that the exit interview made me feel like something was taken from me after all of the time that I had spent with this particular staff member. If you've ever felt like someone that you trusted took something that was rightfully yours, then you can probably see yourself in Esau's shoes. And it could have been anything or anyone. It could have been a roommate that took something you had, it could have been someone at school, maybe they bullied you, bullied you and it they took away your dignity. Maybe it was a boyfriend who lied to you and took your trust. It could have been your parent, a parent that didn't love you the way that parents are supposed to love their children. And in doing so, took away your ability to feel worthy. Maybe it was someone who unjustly accused you. Maybe it was a spouse who betrayed your trust and broke your heart. Maybe you've been verbally attacked, maybe your reputation has been shredded, maybe you've been physically assaulted or sexually abused and you still have the marks to show for all of that. Or maybe, and sometimes this is even worse for those who have of us who have kids, someone hurt your child or someone you love who betrayed you, who hurt you. For some of you in a congregation this large and diverse, I would imagine there's people here for that, for this that feels even heavier because it was actually you feel like it was God himself that let you down. Maybe you begged him for the healing, but the cancer came back. Or maybe you begged God to deliver and return your prodigal son or daughter, but the phone has remained silent. Maybe you've poured your heart into a marriage, into a calling into a career only to see it all go down in flames. How does it feel when the door is slammed shut on what you thought was going to be your future? That raw cry that Issa let out. It is the sound of a soul that is breaking under the weight of grief and hurt and betrayal and injustice and shatter dreams. And if you have been there yourself, if you've been wounded, if you've been betrayed, if you have cried out, then you know exactly what Issa is feeling in this moment. And the question that we have to ask ourselves is how do you forgive when you will never forget what they did? I told you this message was going to be hard gut wrenching for some others, but I want you to hang in here with me because before we get to that, how do we forgive? We have to tackle. Why do we forgive? Why do we forgive even when it feels impossible to forgive? And the answer is, we forgive because God commanded us to forgive. It is not a suggestion. It is a command to every follower of Jesus. Forgiveness is not optional, it is essential. Jesus Christ himself said it plainly in Matthew five. He said, you've heard it said, love your enemies or love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Which by the way, that sounds like a great plan to me. Can I just tell you I wanna love the people that love me and I don't wanna love the people that don't like me. But that's not what Jesus said he said, but I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. The apostle Paul in Ephesians four, he said, be kind and compassionate to one another. Can we read that last sentence together? Forgiving each other big loud voice just as in Christ God forgave you. And then Jesus comes in with a verse that will stop you in its tracks. At least it made me stop in my tracks. Matthew six says this, for if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. So, so far, so good. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your father will not forgive your sins. This is a very heavy verse because Jesus isn't sugarcoating anything here. He's saying Our willingness to forgive people who have hurt us will impact our relationship with him, which is why this can feel like one of the most unfair commands in scripture until you look at what Jesus did on the cross. Because on the cross Jesus took one look at his enemies and what did he say? Church, you know this well, and you can say it with me. Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. And can I tell you, I have been wrestling with this passage for a long time because when Jesus said, father, forgive them, he said, for they do not know what they're doing. He said that even though his enemies, the people who actually nailed him to the cross, oh, they knew exactly what they were doing. They may not have known who they were doing this to because they didn't understand that Jesus was the Messiah, but they were real clear that what they were doing to his body was wrong. In other words, they knew that they were going to hand him over to soldiers that were going to flog Jesus, that they were going to beat Jesus, that they were going to abuse him, that they were going to taunt and mock him, that his friends would desert him, that his closest friends, the disciple would leave him to hang on a Roman cross. They knew exactly what they were doing. And this is why forgiveness is tricky, because when we think about our enemies, like when we think about the people who've wronged us, who've hurt us, who've betrayed us, there is actually something deep inside all of us right here in this room that naturally cries out that was not right and they need to pay for what they did to me. And you know what? If you've ever thought that, I want to affirm that you are right. Do you know the desire to see justice is the desire that is planted by God in our hearts. This is one of the ways in which we bear his image. God is a just God. And so for us to have a desire for justice, it falls under that. For example, if someone takes something from you, whether it's your happiness or your reputation or your innocence, some aspect of your freedom there, you will feel violated and you will want to make the person pay for what they did to you. The problem is when our desire for justice actually turns into our need for revenge, an eye for an eye, a tooth, for a tooth that is Old Testament law. And that is why Esau wanted to kill Jacob. And can I just call this out? We have so many options to hurt people that have hurt us. I mean, just think about it. You can do anything. You can confront them and tell them harsh words. You can lie about them. You can shred their reputation. You can do whatever you want to do. And here's something that not a lot of people will actually acknowledge, but I'm gonna be that person and I'm gonna say it, when people that have hurt you suffer, you actually do feel better. Yes, for a little bit because then you know what happens. All the feelings of hurt and anger and betrayal, they all come crashing back. Wanna know why? Because revenge is swallowing a bottle full of poison and hoping it's the other person that drops dead. Can I challenge some of you today to stop drinking the poison? And the only way that we can do that flows straight from the cross of Christ. That is why Jesus prays Father, forgive them. Do you understand the power of those three words? In that moment, Jesus is doing two things. He's appealing not to his feelings but to his father. That's the first thing that we have to do. When we wanna release the person who have hurt us, we have to release them to our Father. You can say God, only you know how to judge justly. And so I am releasing this person to you. And when you do that, what you're saying is you're making a very powerful declaration that you trust God and you trust his judgment in his way and in his timing more than you trust your desire to get revenge or to see that person pay you back. It is not about denying the hurt, but surrendering your need to make it right yourself. You are releasing the person and in so doing, you are declining the role of judge and jury and executioner and instead you release them over to God. That's justice. The second thing that Jesus did on the cross was to pay for his enemy sins with his life. And that's called mercy. That's why when you forgive, what you're actually saying is you don't owe me anything. You don't have to pay me back. You don't have to apologize. You don't have to make this right for me to forgive you. I can actually forgive you even if you never acknowledge that what you did to me was wrong. Because forgiveness is something that's between you and your heavenly Father. And so you release the person to him and you entrust him to God. That's mercy. And that's what Jesus did on the cross. I want you to just think for a minute on everything that they did to him on that cross. Was Jesus physically abused? Yes. Was he betrayed by a friend? Yes. Was he unjustly accused? Yes. Was he mocked and humiliated? Yes. And yet Jesus took one look at his enemies at the ones who mocked him and tortured him and nailed him on a cross. And he said, father, forgive them. I release them to you. I release them to the wrath of an almighty God. That's justice. And you know what? You know what? In heaven, Jesus will actually bear the marks of what they did to him on that cross. He ain't forgetting what they did, but he forgives them in heaven. He will be there to forgive them and in doing so, absorb the pain of all of their sin. That's mercy. That's how justice and mercy intersect at the cross. And if you are thinking right now, I could never do that. Kyra, I want you to say, I want you to know you're right. You can't not in your strength. Only Jesus can give us the strength to do this. It is not natural. It is super natural and that's why you need his spirit to supernaturally empower you to forgive those who've sinned against you. After my colleague left liquid, I ran into their spouse at one of our kids' track meetings. And I'm embarrassed to admit this to you, but I actually found myself like I don't want them to see me avoiding them. And honestly, when I feel that way, I know I'm in conflict. 'cause when you avoid people, you are in conflict. And I went home and I was like, Lord, I really feel like I need to do a lot of hard work. Like I need to do hard work but also hard work. And so what I would do is I would sit down to pray and I would literally pray one line of the Lord's Prayer. Every week, every day, every week I would say, Lord, forgive me. I repent every day. Forgive me of my sins, but Lord, also I forgive. And I would name their name and I would say that prayer every day and every week, and sometimes I wouldn't really feel it in my flesh and sometimes I would struggle and wrestle, but I did it in obedience every single week. Why? Because forgiveness is at the center of the Lord's Prayer. If you're new to Christianity, you may have heard of the Lord's Prayer. It's how Jesus taught his disciples how to pray. I thought it would be fun if we did something old school together and recited the Lord's prayer. Can we do that? I'm gonna put it on the screen and I want everybody here to say it with me in one big loud voice. Here we go, our Father in heaven, hallow it. Be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Here we go. And forgive us our sins as we also forgive those who sin against us and deliver. Look not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. At the center of the Lord's prayer is this line. And forgive us our sins as what church, as we also forgive those who sin against us as we also are probably three of the most troubling words in the entire Bible. There are only a couple of letters but deeply troubling. Forgive us, forgive me Jesus as we also forgive those who have hurt us. Does that mean my former colleague that blasted me in an exit interview? Yes Lord, I release them to you. Does it mean my spouse who hurt me? Yes, I release her or I release him to you. Does it mean my boss that I resent? Yes, I release them. My friend who gossiped and spread rumors about me? Yes, the child at school who bullied my child. Yes, I release them to the hands of an almighty God. You have to release the them to the justice of the Father. That's what Jesus did. And he is our model. He is our strength. And Jesus is the only possible way that we could do that because otherwise it it's too hard. I promised you today was going to be hard because forgiveness is unnatural. It is not human in our own strength, we don't have it because we're too hurt. And by the way, I want to make a very clear distinction. Healing the hurt is very different than releasing the person. You can forgive and you can release the person in an instant, but the heart doesn't forget, nor should it. It will take time to heal. Sometimes you even have to put boundaries around the person that hurt you. And sometimes reconciliation will not always be possible. But here's the key. You will never be able to heal the hurt until you release the person that has hurt you and your need to have them pay you back or make right what they did to you. Can I tell you that is why we forgive. In other words, forgiving people does not set them free. Forgiving people sets you free. That's what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is letting go. It's releasing the person and setting yourself free. It's getting rid of all of the bitterness that you hold onto of all of the anger and the hurt and the betrayal, which by the way are footholds for the enemy to gain a hold of. That's why forgiveness, think about it this way, is setting the prisoner free and realizing the prisoner is you. Forgiveness ain't for them. Forgiveness is for you. And because God loves you, he knows that's what forgiveness will do to you. It will be a gift to you. And that's what he commands us to forgive because he wants us to walk in freedom. Forgiveness is giving others what God has given to us. Out of the great sacrifice on the cross of Jesus, his forgiveness flows to us and His and out of that forgiveness, it must flow through us to other people. The challenge is you may not feel it yet and I get it. Oh, in your flesh, ooh, it's hard. You're still gonna feel betrayed. But by faith, I want you to choose that you can offer the same thing God offered to you. And when you do that, I promise you church, God is going to give you his supernatural power to follow Jesus's example in the story of my former colleague, it was so sweet. The Lord gave me such a gift because a couple of months after I had prayed and begun to pray that way, my colleague actually sent me an email apologizing to me, really just the sweetest email that he could have written. And I can tell you with 100% integrity that when I responded my in in the email, I said, you know what? You don't have anything to apologize for because I've already forgiven you. I have been praying that the Lord would bless you and your family in this endeavor. That's also how the story of Jacob and Issa ends. After decades of separation have happened, God actually instructs Jacob to return home. And Jacob is terrified because he knows Issa has every right to take revenge against him. Jacob has stolen his birthright. He actually deceived his brother. Jacob knows the weight of what he has done. And in Genesis 32, we actually see Jacob wrestling with some of these decisions that he's made on the past. And he's on his knees praying these desperate words. He says, save me. I pray from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid that he will come and attack me and also the mothers and the children. Jacob doesn't know what's waiting for him on the other side of that prayer. And sure enough, the next day Jacob looks up and there's Issa coming with how many people? 400 men Gulp. Can you imagine what Jacob's thinking? Is it? He says, coming from me, it's payback time. But then the Bible says this, but Issa ran to meet Jacob and embraced him through his arms around his neck and kissed him and they, what is the word? Wept. I want you to envision church, that person that you're having a hard time forgiving. Can you ever imagine a moment where God has done such a work of healing and forgiveness in your heart that there's actually healing in the relationship? Some of you don't have the faith right now for that. That's okay. Borrow mine because I wanna show you what's possible that God can take two siblings who were at each other's throats their entire lives and do for them what Jesus has done for you. If you don't have the faith, borrow mine. And that's why we're gonna end with communion. I wanna invite you to take out your cup because this is where the power comes from. It's from remembering not just the Lord's sacrifice, but it's remembering that as Jesus bled on that cross to forgive our sins, so then he can command us out of that flow to forgive others for what they've done to us. That's why we need to draw supernatural strength from his sacrifice. In one Corinthians, Paul actually gave instructions to all Christians on how we're to approach the Lord's table. And he said this, everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. And so what I wanna do right now is I wanna invite us to examine ourselves. I wanna invite you to close your eyes, bow your heads, and think about this question. This is between you and the Lord Jesus. Here's my question. If God has forgiven you, who do you need to forgive? Who do you need to release and say, father, forgive them. I'm letting go of all my bitterness, of all my hurt. I'm entrusting them to you. And I trust in your judgment, in your justice, in your way, and in your time. Who do you need to forgive? I promise you, you're gonna walk out of here lighter, you're gonna be feeling better. You are going to leave behind rage and bitterness and hurt and betrayal, and God is gonna begin a work of healing in your heart. So as you take a deep breath, as we join Jesus on the cross, I want us to pray together. And I want every person to repeat after me in one big, loud voice, say, father, I forgive. And now name the person you need to forgive in your head. Don't say it out loud, say it in your head. Say, father, I release name them, Judy, Kevin, Michael, Ben. They owe me nothing. My flesh doesn't feel it. My heart, it still hurts, but I release them to you. And as you do that, I wanna pray for you and over you. And so Father, I thank you for the truth of your word. I thank you that you're constantly challenging us with your word to go deeper into our faith in our relationship with you. Jesus. I recognize forgiveness. It is a tricky topic. It is difficult to do. I pray today that we would recognize it's only hard when we try to do it without you and your spirit. And so out of your great love and compassion for the people of the crossing, I pray that you would give them a supernatural strength, Lord, that you would give them a double portion of your spirit so that they can do this hard, but holy work of forgiving people who have deeply wounded them. I thank you that it is through your spirit that we can experience the healing that you so long to give us that when we forgive, that, when we release our own need for justice, our own desire to see that person be heard in response to what they did for us, that when we let go of all of that and we surrender and we trust that in your time and in your way, things will always be made right. Lord, I pray that people would actually get to experience a whole new facet of who you are. We are people who are always longing for more of what Jesus wants to give us. And so I pray today that over the course of this prayer, over the course of the next few days and weeks, as your spirit continues to work inside each of our hearts, that we would actually know that we would trust that in Lord, that when we're with you, that when we put our eyes on you, that when we surrender everything that happens to us on this side of heaven, we always get to experience your goodness. I pray that you would increase your children's faith even when they don't believe it. I pray that they would do so out of obedience and trust that their feelings will catch up to their obedience. I thank you for your love and I pray all this in your son's name and everyone says with me, amen. Amen. We're gonna take communion. If you guys remember the Lord Jesus Christ had his last supper with his disciples. And while he was at that table, he invited them to take the bread that represents his body broken for us. And I wanna invite you to take the bread right now. And then he took the cup and he said, this is my blood shed for the forgiveness of your sins. And he commanded us to do this in remembrance of him. So you can go ahead and take the cup and I wanna invite you to stand up because I thought, what better way to end this message that by joining Jesus on the cross and singing of the Lord's goodness.