Speaker 1: Good morning again and I'm so glad that you are here today.
Speaker 1: It's our second week of the you Pick series.
Speaker 1: It's a fun series to be a part of.
Speaker 1: It's because you're asking us questions and we're doing our best to answer them.
Speaker 1: That being said, if Ryan, myself or Ben or anyone would suggest to you, or maybe not answer your question the way you want, give us a call.
Speaker 1: We'll take you up for coffee, ryan will take you up for a burrito and we will do our best to work through whatever is concerning or weighing on your heart.
Speaker 1: We love this series because it tells us that you are embedded in whatever God is stirring in your heart.
Speaker 1: Last week, ryan talked about what is faith, and next week, we're gonna hear about how to hear from God, which Amy talked about.
Speaker 1: This morning, she heard from God to do something in her life and she listened.
Speaker 1: And then the following week, ben is gonna be talking about what does it mean to be lukewarm or have lukewarm faith?
Speaker 1: Speaking of warm, how warm is it today?
Speaker 1: Ugh, no, it's not, it's gross.
Speaker 1: How warm was it yesterday?
Speaker 1: Did you get outside and have fun in it?
Speaker 1: This is what I did yesterday with this little nugget.
Speaker 1: Look at my little baby girl I know, isn't she the cutest?
Speaker 1: Super hot.
Speaker 1: She's gonna be one in two weeks.
Speaker 1: Aw, her name is Kyrie.
Speaker 1: Don't you feel like we've been talking about her for a year?
Speaker 1: We have, because she's gonna be one in two weeks.
Speaker 1: It was super hot.
Speaker 1: Her favorite thing at the fair yesterday was they have those watering troughs that you can go and wash your hands after the petting zoo and stuff.
Speaker 1: But she kept pointing at it just to put her hands underneath that.
Speaker 1: It was really fun.
Speaker 1: So we started a new tradition with her Closed off a tradition with my dad.
Speaker 1: He passed away just about a month ago and for 49 years the fair has been such a big part of our life.
Speaker 1: So in the grief we are finding joy and we would encourage you as a community to walk through your grief and push through those hard times, because as much fun as a Steel County Free Fair is whoof-deh.
Speaker 1: It was hard to walk through those gates yesterday not seeing my dad in his golf cart.
Speaker 1: So anyway, it was a great day and if you're gonna be outside today in the heat, I hope you can find a little bundle of joy like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, so today I'm gonna be talking about forgiveness.
Speaker 1: There was a question or really a statement asked of us that just said talk about forgiveness.
Speaker 1: I'm like okay.
Speaker 1: But there was a side question that said, how do I forgive and not become a doormat?
Speaker 1: I thought, well, I can do that, because forgiveness is definitely something that we talk about over and over again and I don't think there's anybody in this room that wouldn't argue it really could be a sermon series.
Speaker 1: Amen, we don't have to just talk about it one day and I struggled a lot this week with this topic and I would text, ryan, I don't wanna do this, and then I would be okay, I'm not this.
Speaker 1: But I just had to keep my focus on what is forgiveness and how do we not feel like a doormat.
Speaker 1: Because we could talk a lot of different avenues on this subject.
Speaker 1: Forgiveness is always there, it's definitely a part of our life, it's ongoing, it's challenging, it tests our faith, it can set us back often.
Speaker 1: It's secular and it's religious, it's worldly and it's private, it's political and it's non-political.
Speaker 1: In fact, I would guess that there are millions of dollars spent on topics annually about this, through books and studies, through media, through newsprint, through therapists, through life coaches and so many other facets, all in the hope to free us from our brokenness.
Speaker 1: And why?
Speaker 1: Because it's hard stuff, but the good news is that the best things, often in life, are on the other side of the hard stuff.
Speaker 1: So let's begin this morning in prayer.
Speaker 1: Father, forgiveness is hard stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't know that anybody could argue that fact.
Speaker 1: It's hard because it is personal and this morning, as I share your word and all of the frustrations that have come through this week in creating this message, god, if there is someone here that needs to come to this altar and give up something that has been weighing on their heart, this morning, we ask that it happen today, that forgiveness is a part and a new start of their relationship with you and their relationship with others.
Speaker 1: We trust this into your hands, jesus.
Speaker 1: In your name, we pray amen.
Speaker 1: Well, fresh out of the gate, let me ask you because it's hard stuff, let me ask you a hard question what or who has hurt you?
Speaker 1: Who has deceived you?
Speaker 1: Who has lied to you or about you?
Speaker 1: Who has taken advantage of you?
Speaker 1: Where is their pain in your life and who is to blame?
Speaker 1: What has a hold on you that keeps you from an unhealthy life or from a healthy life mentally, spiritually, physically, emotionally, do you have something in your mind?
Speaker 1: And now let me ask you where does forgiveness play a part in it for you?
Speaker 1: The other day, I was at my mom's house cleaning and vacuuming because that's my love language and I was thinking of forgiveness in preparation for this message, and I became fixated on a piece of lint that was on the front rug at her house.
Speaker 1: And I'm vacuuming, and I'm vacuuming and I'm thinking of this message, and this piece of lint Just won't be lifted up by the vacuum.
Speaker 1: So I change it like I changed my strategy.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna vacuum this way, like I'm gonna go the other way, and it would just stay stuck in the carpet.
Speaker 1: And Finally I bent down and I picked up that piece of lint and I raised it to the cleaning gods.
Speaker 1: Ah, I win, right.
Speaker 1: Then what did I do?
Speaker 1: I dropped it back down on the carpet and all of a sudden, there was this aha moment like this is what forgiveness, the struggle of forgiveness, is in our lives.
Speaker 1: Right, we pick it up and we throw it back down, no matter what part of forgiveness spectrum you are in, and that's how I see it it's a spectrum.
Speaker 1: The idea of forgiveness is this annoying piece of lint that just doesn't seem to go away, even when we attempt to pick it up and get rid of it.
Speaker 1: It has this static cling in our souls and in our minds and in every piece of our being.
Speaker 1: And why?
Speaker 1: Why do we let the harm consume us as it does rather than work through with the goodness?
Speaker 1: It's hurtful, it's destructive, right, it's evil, tim Keller shares.
Speaker 1: If we don't defeat evil through forgiveness, evil wins in the world, in the perpetrator and in you.
Speaker 1: And doesn't that just sound awful Like who wants evil to win, right?
Speaker 1: If we know that that's true, then why do we struggle with it?
Speaker 1: Is it because we don't understand it, or the world has convinced us that we don't need it, or forgiveness is shameful, or it looks different than how God intended for it to be as a healing gift.
Speaker 1: The characters in today's story that Robin shared, surely, were confused by the act of forgiveness, starting with Peter, who asked Jesus the question how many times should we forgive to the slave who was granted forgiveness but would not return it to the man who owed him money?
Speaker 1: In this story, we hear what forgiveness is and what it is not.
Speaker 1: So what is forgiveness?
Speaker 1: Well, in logical terms, it is to cease resentment against an offender.
Speaker 1: In biblical terms, it's giving others what God gave us.
Speaker 1: It's giving others what God gave us.
Speaker 1: Doesn't that sound simple and freeing Right?
Speaker 1: Then why do we hold on to our hurts?
Speaker 1: Or, often, why do we feel like a doormat if we are in the act of forgiving?
Speaker 1: I think it's not about understanding what forgiveness is, but understanding what it is not, because I sure tend to get stuck in the carpet in the things that it is not.
Speaker 1: For 45 years, I was hung up in my hurts from my biological father, dale, and this man is not to be confused with the sweet man that raised me for 45 years and who recently passed away.
Speaker 1: Dale, my biological father, was not a kind, loving father figure, or a person for that matter, and although his life was not a part of my life since the time I was 6 years old, the child in me desperately sought his approval, his acceptance and his love.
Speaker 1: So I became a doormat often, as did my mom and my siblings, to his cutting words and his harmful actions and choices.
Speaker 1: And although he didn't seek forgiveness, I often attempted it, only to have more barks and brass behavior come out, making me angry, making me feel more hurt and frustration, and it grew and grew until eventually we decided that we needed to be apart from one another, not for days, not for weeks, but for decades.
Speaker 1: My attempts to forgive him didn't work because I was making forgiveness more about him and seeking his approval, which is the opposite of what forgiveness is, and that is the key to our struggles.
Speaker 1: In forgiveness, we focus on what it is not.
Speaker 1: So what is forgiveness not?
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, it's not a free pass into our lives, not for me, not for you, not for the others in our lives.
Speaker 1: God did not design forgiveness so we can give and receive it flippantly.
Speaker 1: It's more than that.
Speaker 1: The slave in our parable was quick to receive it from the king, but not so quick to give it away to the man that owed him a debt.
Speaker 1: He thought it was a free pass.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many times, when Jeff and I were raising the boys, that we experienced this.
Speaker 1: They would be at each other and finally one of them would get hurt and I would say you need to apologize to him.
Speaker 1: Fine, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Like, are you familiar with that?
Speaker 1: But boy, if he got hurt, he was very quick to say he owes me an apology, right.
Speaker 1: That's what life is and that's where it's a free pass and it's flippant.
Speaker 1: Forgiveness is also not conditional or a bargaining chip.
Speaker 1: I'll forgive you if you do this.
Speaker 1: I'll forgive you when this happens, or I will forgive you if you jump through enough—oops, right.
Speaker 1: We negotiate in our lives what we think forgiveness is and that is not true forgiveness and how it works.
Speaker 1: Forgiveness also does not minimize what has happened in your life.
Speaker 1: The hurt is real, so the wrongdoer does not have power to reduce it or dismiss it.
Speaker 1: Now, there are differences between wounds and wrongs, and only you can define if you have been wounded, which typically is an accident, or if you have been wrong, which is intentional and then needs forgiveness.
Speaker 1: My dear friend struggles often with minimizing.
Speaker 1: She is often hurt by words or actions by an offender, and when she feels hurt by this person and she expresses it to him, he dismisses it, making her feel as if it's her problem.
Speaker 1: So if there is an apology, if there is an apology offered, it just doesn't feel real.
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel valuable.
Speaker 1: Forgiveness is also not forgetting.
Speaker 1: It's not saying it never happened.
Speaker 1: It doesn't sweep it under the rug.
Speaker 1: It's not saying it wasn't hurtful or it's not a sin.
Speaker 1: It's not saying it was okay that it happened.
Speaker 1: We don't have to forget, but we also don't have to live in it.
Speaker 1: We can learn to live out of it, focusing on the lens of grace and discovery.
Speaker 1: That is what forgiveness is not.
Speaker 1: It's not a free pass, it's not conditional, it is not to be minimized or forgotten about.
Speaker 1: So what is forgiveness?
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, it's personal.
Speaker 1: No one can deny that right.
Speaker 1: It's personal on all levels, from the pain itself that you feel to the act.
Speaker 1: It's about you, your heart, your being, your relationship with others and your relationship with Jesus.
Speaker 1: It's about your life and how you are to live it.
Speaker 1: Forgiveness is personal.
Speaker 1: Say that Forgiveness is personal.
Speaker 1: It's also a process and a transaction.
Speaker 1: When I think of the steps of forgiveness, I can't help but think of buying a house.
Speaker 1: There is a process, right.
Speaker 1: There are steps that take place.
Speaker 1: You fill the paperwork, you meet with a banker, you meet with your closers, and then there is the actual transaction.
Speaker 1: The moment it is done, it's a decision.
Speaker 1: You sit at closing, you make the deal and it's done.
Speaker 1: Not before, not after.
Speaker 1: It's done right then and right there.
Speaker 1: And true forgiveness is just that it's receiving the blood of Jesus as payment in full for every wound I've ever had or ever will suffer.
Speaker 1: Tim Keller best describes this transaction as forgiveness is death, but also a resurrection.
Speaker 1: Something in your life has to die so you can live in the resurrection.
Speaker 1: It's a choice, it's a decision that happens right now, in the now, when we apply it to our life and to the ailments that require it.
Speaker 1: And, as Jesus said on the cross, it is finished and no human, no human can ever have power over you when Jesus shares in this transaction.
Speaker 1: Amen, and isn't that just?
Speaker 1: Forgiveness is just.
Speaker 1: John 1 9 reads when we confess our sins.
Speaker 1: He is faithful and just, will cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Speaker 1: Cleanses us from what?
Speaker 1: From all unrighteousness, all of it, what we have done, what others have done to us, that weighs us down.
Speaker 1: It cleanses us from our thoughts, from our actions, and all will be cleansed because he is just.
Speaker 1: We don't need justice, he does it for us.
Speaker 1: The slave didn't need justice in this parable today he was already forgiven, but he missed that, didn't he?
Speaker 1: He ended up in prison, internally and literally, just like you and I, when we hold onto things that imprison us and it spills into other areas of our lives I lived that I was so mad and angered and hurt by Dale.
Speaker 1: Often in my young adult life I would assume that people were going to treat me the same way and I let it consume parts of my life, my marriage, how I was as a parent, who I worked with, how I worked with people.
Speaker 1: I assumed the worst and I was consumed by the unforgiveness.
Speaker 1: I didn't work through my forgiveness and when I did that, evil won in my world, in the perpetrator and in me.
Speaker 1: Forgiveness is personal.
Speaker 1: It's a process.
Speaker 1: It is transactional and it is just, but it is not easy.
Speaker 1: It takes practice, it's a lot to swallow and it is not fair.
Speaker 1: But life isn't fair.
Speaker 1: In fact, in the words of my dad and many dads I'm sure, the fair only comes once a year.
Speaker 1: So if you're waiting for fair, you're going to be sitting around for a long time.
Speaker 1: Our story reminds us of that unfairness when Jesus tells Peter we are to forgive 70 times, 7 times, not once, not twice, but time and time again, a number given symbolically, not literally.
Speaker 1: It's a never-ending way that we ought to forgive and that doesn't sound fair, does it?
Speaker 1: And one may think this is why we become doormats.
Speaker 1: But was Jesus a doormat when he forgave others?
Speaker 1: Was Jesus a doormat when he hung on the cross and forgave those who beat him?
Speaker 1: Was he a doormat when he forgave the robber that hung next to him?
Speaker 1: No, he was perfect.
Speaker 1: Even in his death, jesus modeled forgiveness for us.
Speaker 1: And 70 times, 7 times, sounds and feels really hard, but it's not about the math.
Speaker 1: It's about cleansing ourselves so we can live rich lives and bring his kingdom here to earth and to others.
Speaker 1: His prayer taught us that.
Speaker 1: We said it earlier.
Speaker 1: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Speaker 1: Thy kingdom come.
Speaker 1: Thy will be done on earth as it is into heaven.
Speaker 1: Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Speaker 1: An easy prayer to say, isn't it?
Speaker 1: But not so easy to practice.
Speaker 1: When you have been wronged, when you have lost your job, when someone lied about you, when your spouse hurt you, when someone has hurt your child, when someone has shamed you on social media or cut you out of a friendship without a reason, when a parent abandoned you, when someone has died in your life, maybe too early, maybe in a tragic way, I don't want to forgive when that stuff happens.
Speaker 1: I want what is fair, right.
Speaker 1: But he calls us to forgive, as he forgave us, and he has done that time and time again.
Speaker 1: And I don't know about you, but I don't deserve it.
Speaker 1: I have hurt people, I have lied, I have cheated, I have cursed the name of Jesus, I have thought horrible thoughts about other people.
Speaker 1: I don't deserve his forgiveness and yet he hung on the cross for my sins and my transgressions.
Speaker 1: So the least I can do is to forgive, or attempt to forgive as he forgave me, so I can live in his plan and in his perfection.
Speaker 1: Friends, we don't always see the perfection God has planned for us.
Speaker 1: When we are wronged, our reflections of this world look dirty and cracked.
Speaker 1: But the word of God reminds us that we will one day see clearly.
Speaker 1: 1 Corinthians 12-13 reads.
Speaker 1: Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections on a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.
Speaker 1: Paul is telling us that we don't see or know God the way he sees and knows us.
Speaker 1: So we can be mad and we can be disappointed in the outcome of our lives and people, but as his followers we need to lean into his clarity and trust that he will see us through to better days.
Speaker 1: I was able to forgive my father, dale, in his final years of life.
Speaker 1: Was it easy?
Speaker 1: No, and to be honest with you, I really didn't want to, but he had had a stroke and he ended up in a hospital in Iowa.
Speaker 1: My siblings were out of town and typically they would have been the ones to go to his rescue, but my husband and I were called down there and I fought and I screamed and I cried the whole way from Minnesota down to Iowa to that hospital.
Speaker 1: But God did something in my heart through prayer and screaming and crying and through my conversation with my husband, and he healed us.
Speaker 1: I was able to forgive my dad.
Speaker 1: We were able to reconcile and he was able to ask for forgiveness and in his dying days three years ago, I was able to say goodbye confidently, knowing that I would see him again, because we both shared forgiveness and love through Jesus for one another.
Speaker 1: So, central, let me ask you again today who has hurt you, who deceived you, who lied to you or about you, who took advantage of you, and where is their pain in your life Today?
Speaker 1: I encourage you really, I beg you to find your resurrection.
Speaker 1: You're cleansing through forgiveness.
Speaker 1: Don't let another day go by without seeking forgiveness in your life.
Speaker 1: You are worthy of it and God is waiting to have this conversation with you.
Speaker 1: It's not about the other person.
Speaker 1: Don't worry if they haven't asked for forgiveness.
Speaker 1: This is about you.
Speaker 1: In fact, that person or that thing doesn't have to be anywhere around you.
Speaker 1: It could be dead and gone, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: Let this peace be a cleansing resurrection for you so you can start into a new life and enjoy his kingdom Amen.