SPEAKER_00: We're continuing our series on relational success.
SPEAKER_00: Today is part four.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive and apologize often.
SPEAKER_00: Have a burden that I feel in my spirit that I want to release.
SPEAKER_00: And then we'll dive into forgive and apologize often.
SPEAKER_00: And a reason that I put often on there instead of just talking about forgive and apologize, because these are the principles that govern relational health.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot have relational success unless you're operating in the principles that govern relational health.
SPEAKER_00: And forgive, forgiving people who have hurt you, offended you, sinned against you, frustrated you, whatever, disappointed you, and then apologizing for the ways that you've frustrated and hurt and disappointed other people, those two things have to happen all the time.
SPEAKER_00: All the time.
SPEAKER_00: Because all of that stuff is happening all the time.
SPEAKER_00: There's always a reason.
SPEAKER_00: There's always a need to forgive someone.
SPEAKER_00: There's always a need to apologize and to seek forgiveness from someone.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's forgive and apologize often.
SPEAKER_00: That's there for a reason.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, as we approach your word, we pray that you would speak to us, that you would change our minds, that there would be a renewal of our minds, that it would be based on your word, that we would think according to your word, live according to your ways.
SPEAKER_00: We say, give us revelation, open our minds to understand the scriptures today, and teach us your kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Show us your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Teach us your ways in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 22, verse 36, our springboard scripture for the series, teacher, which is the great commandment in the law.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and with all your mind.
SPEAKER_00: This is the first and great commandment.
SPEAKER_00: And the second is like it.
SPEAKER_00: And love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: As yourself.
SPEAKER_00: So we love God.
SPEAKER_00: We love people.
SPEAKER_00: We love ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And there's an order to that.
SPEAKER_00: Messages in the past.
SPEAKER_00: We talked about the order of love.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about the importance of relational success.
SPEAKER_00: That true success is relational success.
SPEAKER_00: You can have all the other kinds of success in life that the world has to offer, but if you have failed relationally, you have failed in life.
SPEAKER_00: And so true success, true riches, true wealth is relational health and relational success.
SPEAKER_00: It's great relationship with God and great relationship with people.
SPEAKER_00: So, in light of that truth, the principles then that govern relational health have to be among the most important principles that we can know and live our lives by as followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so we want to know those principles.
SPEAKER_00: We want to live according to those principles so that we can apply them to our life so that we can have true success in life.
SPEAKER_00: First one we talked about last week was to take relational responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Your relational health is your responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Your relational health is your personal responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody else is responsible for your relational health.
SPEAKER_00: Not even the people that you're wanting to have relationship with or that are supposed to be in relationship with.
SPEAKER_00: When the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what it says.
SPEAKER_00: That's very important.
SPEAKER_00: But there is no law against these things.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, there is no law, principle, or power that can override these things being the personal results of personal surrender of control to the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Those things being the results of a person who has truly surrendered control to the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He literally lists out the guaranteed results and then says, There are no exceptions to this.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what happens when the Holy Spirit controls your life.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the fruit.
SPEAKER_00: This is what you will get to eat from from your life.
SPEAKER_00: This is what others will get to eat from from your life.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, There's no exceptions to this.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that amazing?
SPEAKER_00: That's good news, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that can stop this in the life of a person who has surrendered control to the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: These specific results or fruits are what make personal happiness possible.
SPEAKER_00: Apart from those nine things, you can't be happy.
SPEAKER_00: I promise you.
SPEAKER_00: Because you will have the opposite of those things.
SPEAKER_00: Which he described in the previous verses in Galatians 5.
SPEAKER_00: He gives this whole list of the fruit of the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: This is what your life will look like when you're following your own sinful human desires.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, This is what your life will look like when you follow the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And I promise you, personal happiness depends on those fruits being present and dominant in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And it's also what makes it possible for other people to be happy with you.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have those things and you consistently fail to have those things, you will consistently have the opposite of those things, and people will not be very happy with you.
SPEAKER_00: But listen to me, this is so powerful and so personal because this is the burden that I feel.
SPEAKER_00: Your personal happiness doesn't depend on any external situation or circumstance.
SPEAKER_00: And there's no exceptions to that.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he's saying here.
SPEAKER_00: You can have, you can have, each individual can have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody can have that, and there's no exceptions.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing anybody can do to stop you from being able to have those things and be a happy person who has good fruit in their life.
SPEAKER_00: Your personal happiness doesn't depend on any external situation or circumstance.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't depend on what people do or don't do, it doesn't depend on what you have or don't have.
SPEAKER_00: Man, I'm telling you, this is good news.
SPEAKER_00: And let me say this.
SPEAKER_00: If you recognize that you're going, well, actually, I do allow what I have and don't have to affect that.
SPEAKER_00: What people do and don't do actually do affect that.
SPEAKER_00: Then what that's the Holy Spirit lovingly saying is then you're in control.
SPEAKER_00: You're trying to control stuff.
SPEAKER_00: You're trying to control people, you're trying to control outcomes, you're trying to control situations and circumstances, right?
SPEAKER_00: So that you can be happy, or so that you can be happy with somebody else, and the result is misery.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's miserable.
SPEAKER_00: Because you won't be able to produce those fruits, lasting, dominant fruits in your life, because it's a result of surrendering control, and he produces those things.
SPEAKER_00: That's good news.
SPEAKER_00: The spiritually alive individual who has connection and communion with God can thrive despite external negative circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: Be it a bad marriage, an unbelieving, unhealthy spouse, a rebellious child, relational challenges, financial difficulties, economic crashes, physical health crises, challenging situations with your career, political chaos in your community, overwhelming financial debt, problem after problem with material possessions and properties, and God forbid we ever have to deal with actual persecution for being followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: In all these things, we as the church should be just like the church has been for thousands of years, able to thrive in the midst of all these things.
SPEAKER_00: We must have mastery over our attitudes, our actions, and the words we speak, surrendering control to see the fruit of the Spirit flourishing in and through our lives, despite what's going on around us.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the things that for centuries has marked the true followers of Jesus, that despite harsh and hard situations and circumstances, to the bewilderment of the watching world, we still flourish and thrive.
SPEAKER_00: We still have love, joy, and peace.
SPEAKER_00: We still stand and declare the goodness of God and the faithfulness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, not because we're in denial of reality, but because rather we refuse to allow this earthly reality to define the character, nature, and goodness and faithfulness of God.
SPEAKER_00: He exists outside of earthly limitations.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
SPEAKER_00: So do you.
SPEAKER_00: Spiritually, the Bible says you exist outside of earthly limitations.
SPEAKER_00: You've been seated with Christ in heavenly places.
SPEAKER_00: Your spirit exists with God outside of all the negative earthly limitations and sufferings.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Peter 1, the Holy Spirit was writing this through Peter to the church, and it was in the midst, the context of this verse that I'm going to read here is in the midst of some trials and tests and some sufferings.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, This though you have not seen him, you love him.
SPEAKER_00: Though you do not now see him, you believe in him.
SPEAKER_00: And listen, I love this.
SPEAKER_00: And you rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.
SPEAKER_00: King James says, joy unspeakable and full of glory.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying that you can be in hard situations, you can be in trials, you can be in tests, you can have suffering, you can have these external circumstantial things that are negative, and still, listen, rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, right in the middle of a mess.
SPEAKER_00: That is the testimony of the true church of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That is the work and the power of the Holy Spirit in us and through us.
SPEAKER_00: So as we jump into continuing this conversation, uh there was a scripture that I love and I didn't put it in the message last time, and I want to read this kind of as our foundation for today, but it's Colossians 2, and this is actually just I'm personally reading the book of Colossians right now.
SPEAKER_00: So I have my Bible study where I'm doing sermon preparation, I'm praying, and I'm I'm I'm writing these messages as the Holy Spirit leads me.
SPEAKER_00: And then I always like to make sure that I just personally have Bible reading that I'm doing that's not connected to sermon or anything.
SPEAKER_00: Right now I'm in Galatians.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times I'll find something in my personal reading, and I'm like, oh, that's going in, that's going in the message.
SPEAKER_00: And this is one of those.
SPEAKER_00: And he says in verse 1, chapter 2, Colossians, I want you to know how much I have agonized for you and for the church at Laodicea, and for many other believers who have never met me personally.
SPEAKER_00: I want them to be encouraged, listen, and knit together by strong ties of love.
SPEAKER_00: I want them to have complete confidence that they understand God's mysterious plan, which is Christ himself.
SPEAKER_00: In him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: And I am telling you this so that no one will deceive you with well-crafted arguments.
SPEAKER_00: And so right here, he's compelling to the church and he's saying, My desire for you, I want you to be knit together by strong ties of love.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to know the mystery that is Christ Himself and the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that he has.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: So that you will not be deceived.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever thought that building relationships is actually protection against deception?
SPEAKER_00: He wants us to be knit together with strong ties of love.
SPEAKER_00: That means close relationships in the church, where we're breaking bread together, where we're we're we know each other, we show up, we sacrifice, we chedule things on our calendar.
SPEAKER_00: We make sure that we prioritize investing and building strong ties of love.
SPEAKER_00: That is actually protecting us from being deceived.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're protecting these relationships by what we're talking about today.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive and apologize often.
SPEAKER_00: John chapter 20, verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: This is the resurrected Jesus as he shows up where the disciples are.
SPEAKER_00: And it says in verse 22, and with that Jesus breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Now, most theologians believe that this is when people were actually born again, that this was being born again.
SPEAKER_00: This wasn't the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: This was the initial infilling of the Holy Spirit unto salvation, or to be born of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And so he said, Receive the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: If you then he says this if you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: What he's saying is, you have the power to forgive sins.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, or to not forgive sins.
SPEAKER_00: You have the power to release somebody from their sins or to bind them to their sins.
SPEAKER_00: Now, how many of you know in that moment that had never happened in the history of the world before?
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus breathed on them, they received the Holy Spirit, and then he gives them that command.
SPEAKER_00: The concept of seeking and giving forgiveness is central to the heart of God.
SPEAKER_00: He stopped at nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, he stopped at nothing to provide a solution to the separation because of sin.
SPEAKER_00: For thousands of years, he had attempted to bridge the gap that our sin created, and when all of those efforts failed, he did what he knew wouldn't fail.
SPEAKER_00: He came himself and he conquered sin and death as a human, creating a pathway of reconciliation with man and himself.
SPEAKER_00: Now, because of that finished work of Christ, forgiveness of sin was possible for the very first time.
SPEAKER_00: Not just the putting off of sin, the pushing off of sin for a year, but the forgiveness of sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's possible and listen, and it's available to whosoever will.
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly where it sits today.
SPEAKER_00: In the will of human beings, in the will of believers, whosoever will and whosoever will not.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's very few things in the Bible that God is intolerant of.
SPEAKER_00: God is pretty patient, he's pretty tolerant.
SPEAKER_00: But at the top of the list of what he's intolerant of is people refusing to forgive another person.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing will abruptly stop or hinder your spiritual growth and your relational growth like refusing to humble yourself in light of his extravagant love and seek and give forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know sin separates us from God and it separates us from each other?
SPEAKER_00: It always has and it always will.
SPEAKER_00: The only remedy for sin is forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: The way we obtain forgiveness is by repentance, right?
SPEAKER_00: God says we confess our sins to Him.
SPEAKER_00: The only remedy for sin is forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: It is forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: It's a megatheme of the Bible, and it's a spiritual law that there is no way to alter or avoid.
SPEAKER_00: You will get to places in your life where the only way forward will be to forgive someone that has sinned against you.
SPEAKER_00: You will get to places in your life as you follow Jesus where everything will stop at a sin that has been committed against you.
SPEAKER_00: And you will have to forgive in order to continue to move forward.
SPEAKER_00: There's no other way around it.
SPEAKER_00: It's the only way that sins can be remedied, that sins can be eradicated and dissolved is by the power of forgiveness that comes from a willing heart.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 11, 24 says, give freely and become more wealthy.
SPEAKER_00: Be stingy and lose everything.
SPEAKER_00: The generous will prosper.
SPEAKER_00: Those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.
SPEAKER_00: That scripture is actually about judgment.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about money.
SPEAKER_00: I think it works with money too.
SPEAKER_00: It's about the principle of giving.
SPEAKER_00: But I believe this is a correlation with that give forgiveness freely and become more worth.
SPEAKER_00: Wealthy, be stingy, and lose the very forgiveness you've received yourself.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a command that you obey for a reward.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, forgiving somebody isn't a command you obey for a reward.
SPEAKER_00: It's a response to a gift that was given to you by a loving, gracious, wonderful God.
SPEAKER_00: Refusing to respond right to this gift of forgiveness can cost you the very gift itself.
SPEAKER_00: Now here's a little secret.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiving someone that hurt you does not mean that what they did was okay.
SPEAKER_00: It's not agreeing with it, it's not signing off on it, it's not saying it's okay.
SPEAKER_00: It's not even about them.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiving someone that sinned against you is you forgiving them for the sin that they sinned against you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about them, it's your heart that is affected by harboring an offense.
SPEAKER_00: You've probably heard the old quote, uh, refusing to forgive is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's only hurting you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not hurting them.
SPEAKER_00: Many times the people that hurt you aren't even aware that they hurt you unless it was really, really bad.
SPEAKER_00: Another way to think about it is like a voodoo doll.
SPEAKER_00: It might sound kind of funny, but if you think about drinking poison and hoping it kills somebody else, that's basically kind of like a voodoo doll, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's like uh, except the doll is you.
SPEAKER_00: You're trying to hurt and control them by hurting yourself, which is actually manipulation and a form of witchcraft.
SPEAKER_00: Voodoo is just witchcraft.
SPEAKER_00: Saying, I'm I'm in control here.
SPEAKER_00: I am judge and jury.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna decide and determine if you get off or if you go free.
SPEAKER_00: Colossians 3 13, one of my favorite uh scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Colossians, maybe one of my favorite books in the whole Bible for sure.
SPEAKER_00: Says, make allowance for each other's faults.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna come back to that one in a couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_00: Make allowance for each other's faults, listen, and forgive anyone who offends you.
SPEAKER_00: That's a big that covers a lot of people and a lot of things, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.
SPEAKER_00: It's a command.
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is a mega theme of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: If you start reading scripture and you start looking for the theme of forgiveness, you will see it everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 6, 9, Jesus is teaching the Lord's what we know as the Lord's Prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Powerful prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I believe it's a framework for prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I also believe it is a literal prayer that you pray that is a powerful declaration of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.
SPEAKER_00: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_00: For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you.
SPEAKER_00: But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you think about the Lord's prayer, maybe you didn't realize how much of it is about the forgiveness, the giving and receiving of the forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_00: It's basically the point of the whole prayer.
SPEAKER_00: The forgiveness that God gives us comes with great responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you like Spider-Man, a little Stan Lee wisdom there?
SPEAKER_00: With great power comes great responsibility, right?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, to whom much is given, much will be required.
SPEAKER_00: To whom much is given, much will be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know we've been given much forgiveness?
SPEAKER_00: There's no degrees of separation from God.
SPEAKER_00: Your sin separated you from God as much as anybody's sin on the planet has ever, in the history of sin, separated them from God.
SPEAKER_00: There's no degrees of separation from God.
SPEAKER_00: You're either separated from God or you are connected in communion with God.
SPEAKER_00: We've all been forgiven the same amount.
SPEAKER_00: I love that verse that says, He who's been forgiven much loves much.
SPEAKER_00: That's all depending on your revelation.
SPEAKER_00: You control the dial, the temperature of the heat of your love strictly by understanding how much you've been forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm convinced the person who really has revelation of how much they've been forgiven would never, even for a second, refuse to forgive someone that they needed to forgive.
SPEAKER_00: We must receive it and we must give it.
SPEAKER_00: Never underestimate the power of forgiving and releasing someone from an offense.
SPEAKER_00: Few things are as healing to you and to that relationship than forgiving.
SPEAKER_00: And here's another little secret.
SPEAKER_00: You want another secret?
SPEAKER_00: First secret was forgiving someone isn't signing off on it, isn't agreeing that what they did was okay or that it's okay if it happens again.
SPEAKER_00: It has nothing to do with that.
SPEAKER_00: Here's another secret.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have to apologize to be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have to apologize for being forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: You don't even have to have a conversation with them.
SPEAKER_00: They don't even have to be alive for you to forgive them.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiving an offense is a singular person's job.
SPEAKER_00: It only requires one person, you.
SPEAKER_00: It means to omit.
SPEAKER_00: It means to let go, to give up a debt, to cancel, to give up, to no longer allow, not listen to this, not to hinder, I'm gonna tie this in a war series to away from one to another place.
SPEAKER_00: So it means to let go, to release somebody.
SPEAKER_00: Not to hinder.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Jesus said, if you forgive them, they'll be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't forgive them, they're not forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive means to release.
SPEAKER_00: So then what's the opposite of forgive is really offense.
SPEAKER_00: Offense is the Greek word scandalon.
SPEAKER_00: Scandalon means a trap or a snare, a stumbling block or impediment.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: That means something that hinders you.
SPEAKER_00: So forgiving, forgiveness, forgiving is something that releases you.
SPEAKER_00: Offense is something that traps you or hinders you.
SPEAKER_00: Now remember, we defined what it means to be blessed or what it means to be cursed in the series we did, the last series we did, the door, and to be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: So forgiveness is connected to being blessed.
SPEAKER_00: Because being blessed means to move down the road, to advance or to increase.
SPEAKER_00: To advance or to increase, right?
SPEAKER_00: Now, if scandalon is present in your life, are you blessed?
SPEAKER_00: You can't, can you, can you be stuck and trapped and impeded and hindered and be advancing and moving forward at the same time?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: It's one or the other.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I was saying.
SPEAKER_00: This principle stops everything.
SPEAKER_00: When we get hung up on offense, it shuts down all forward progress in our life.
SPEAKER_00: We will not grow spiritually, we will not grow mentally, emotionally, relationally, everything shuts down.
SPEAKER_00: And so offense then is connected to being cursed.
SPEAKER_00: The definition of cursed, remember, is to be made bitter, to be stuck, to cause, to be shaken, to be alone or to decrease, right?
SPEAKER_00: So blessed is to advance, to move forward.
SPEAKER_00: Cursed is to be stuck or to decrease.
SPEAKER_00: Offense causes us to be stuck and to lose stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness causes us to be released, to be released from the trap, to be unhindered, to release somebody, but we're also releasing ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Because offense is a bond, it's a a binding of yourself to that person.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when I was uh seven years old, my parents divorced, and many of you know my story, but I want to share this one as a as just my personal one situation.
SPEAKER_00: I have many, but one situation that I saw the power of forgiveness do an incredible work in my family.
SPEAKER_00: Parents divorced when I was seven.
SPEAKER_00: My mom raised me, my brother, my sister as a single mom.
SPEAKER_00: Our relationship with our dad just kind of disintegrated, and we just went on with our lives without having a relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: And it was painful.
SPEAKER_00: It caused a lot of hurt.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the youngest, uh, and it created a lot of hindrances in my life from the rejection, from the hurt.
SPEAKER_00: And fast forward to being a 23-year-old young adult in drug rehab.
SPEAKER_00: My life had become completely unmanageable.
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of you know that story.
SPEAKER_00: I won't get in the details there, but things weren't good.
SPEAKER_00: My soul was not good.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't thriving.
SPEAKER_00: I was stuck to say the least.
SPEAKER_00: I was stuck and in decrease.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting at this breakfast table in this living area.
SPEAKER_00: I got up early.
SPEAKER_00: I would get up early in the morning and I would read and I would prayer journal and I would pray.
SPEAKER_00: And the Holy Spirit spoke to me.
SPEAKER_00: I barely knew how to even hear from the Lord, but it was one of those moments the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, Write your dad a letter.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember had just I just had the thought, man, I am healed.
SPEAKER_00: Like God has delivered me from that orphan mentality.
SPEAKER_00: I am healed.
SPEAKER_00: I will be able to be a responsible, healthy man.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be able to be a great husband.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be able to be a great father.
SPEAKER_00: I will no longer be hindered by the fact that I don't have a dad, that I am not in a relationship with my dad.
SPEAKER_00: I remember thinking, that's not, that is no longer going to affect me.
SPEAKER_00: And I just remember feeling this freedom.
SPEAKER_00: And on the heels of that, the Holy Spirit is like, write your dad a letter.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I'm good, actually.
SPEAKER_00: I don't need to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And the Holy Spirit's like, write your dad a letter.
SPEAKER_00: And so I started writing, and I feel like the Holy Spirit even told me what to say.
SPEAKER_00: And I haven't talked, I'm 23 years old, hadn't really talked to my dad since I was about 12 at this point, maybe.
SPEAKER_00: No relationship.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we knew where each other were.
SPEAKER_00: We would keep up through other people and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00: And so I wrote him this letter, mailed it off.
SPEAKER_00: About a week later, I get a letter in the mail and I open it up and it says, it's from my dad, obviously, it says, Your letter was the best thing that's ever happened to me.
SPEAKER_00: And in that letter, not only was I forgiving him, I was apologizing for anything I might have done to negatively affect our relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Even though I was only 11, 12 years old, I still took responsibility and said, I forgive you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not asking, I don't, I don't, I'm not asking you to answer for what happened.
SPEAKER_00: I completely forgive you, and I want to apologize for anything I may have done.
SPEAKER_00: That was the gist of the letter.
SPEAKER_00: But I also said, but I would like to have a relationship with you.
SPEAKER_00: So I get this letter back, it's the best thing that's ever happened to me.
SPEAKER_00: And so we start talking back and forth.
SPEAKER_00: And because I truly forgave and released all of that, God began to reconcile our relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Now, reconciliation, we'll talk about this in a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Reconciliation is not always possible, but forgiveness is always possible because it only requires one person, you.
SPEAKER_00: It's an act of your will.
SPEAKER_00: Whether or not there's reconciliation requires two people, and it's an act of their will, and that's where it gets complicated.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes not even God's will.
SPEAKER_00: But in this situation, it was God's will.
SPEAKER_00: So we reconcile.
SPEAKER_00: And then that that led to my brother and my sister asking questions.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, Ben, I heard you're talking to dad, heard you're going to dinner with dad, heard your you guys have been talking and meeting up, and you know, how's he doing?
SPEAKER_00: And I would say, he's good, you should call him.
SPEAKER_00: And then when I was with him, he would say, How's your brother?
SPEAKER_00: How's your sister?
SPEAKER_00: They're good.
SPEAKER_00: You should call him.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't trying to put myself in as any kind of a mediator.
SPEAKER_00: And about a year later, he and my sister reconciled.
SPEAKER_00: And then I don't know if it was six months, a year after that, him and my brother reconciled.
SPEAKER_00: And he didn't know any of his grandkids.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have kids at the time, but he didn't know any of his grandkids.
SPEAKER_00: He had four grandkids, didn't know any of them.
SPEAKER_00: And so when he reconciled with them, they would start going over there, and he was able to meet his grandkids and spend some time with them.
SPEAKER_00: And it was, there was just this slow, took a long time, but there was this slow, beautiful reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: And so then we got married, we started having kids, and and he uh he was there for all of it, didn't miss any of it.
SPEAKER_00: And then we started doing these annual trips to my dad lives on a lake, and we started doing these family trips to the lake every summer.
SPEAKER_00: And we did them for years and years and years every summer.
SPEAKER_00: And it would be my my brother, my sister, us, all of our kids, and some cousins and stuff would come.
SPEAKER_00: And it was just a beautiful time.
SPEAKER_00: There was, you know, at least 15 of us, and we'd all be back there one year.
SPEAKER_00: I think it was like the third or fourth year that we had done it.
SPEAKER_00: I was sitting on the back patio and I was just looking and watching everybody.
SPEAKER_00: My dad's out there, all kids, all the grandkids, everybody we were cooking out, eating food, and uh yeah, my mom even came on a couple of those uh trips.
SPEAKER_00: It's just this beautiful, wonderful family picture.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting there and the Holy Spirit dropped this on me.
SPEAKER_00: He said, He said, You see all that, all that reconciliation, all that relationship.
SPEAKER_00: He said, You had no idea what was riding on one decision to forgive.
SPEAKER_00: He said, None of this would have happened had you not humbled yourself as the youngest in your family, had you not humbled yourself and chosen to forgive and to seek reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: It just blew my mind.
SPEAKER_00: The power of one act of forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's not always gonna be the result, but I saw it.
SPEAKER_00: It's changed our family, and I know that it would not have happened had I not wrote that letter that day in obedience to the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I love this scripture in Matthew 13, verse 57.
SPEAKER_00: This is when Jesus was in Nazareth.
SPEAKER_00: You may remember the story when he went to Nazareth, his hometown, and it says this, and they took what offense at him.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: Scandalon, stumbling block, trap, hindrance.
SPEAKER_00: They took offense at him, but Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.
SPEAKER_00: And listen, what was the result?
SPEAKER_00: And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's a powerful correlation right there.
SPEAKER_00: That there's a connection between being willing to forgive or not, and a lack of faith or the presence of faith.
SPEAKER_00: God's ability to move supernaturally in our life hinges on our ability to forgive or not forgive.
SPEAKER_00: That's just amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, when you read this story in Mark, it says he could not do many miracles there, only heal a few sick people.
SPEAKER_00: So it limited his power and ability to do mighty works of righteousness, mighty works of his power in the lives of people.
SPEAKER_00: And it all was because they took offense at him.
SPEAKER_00: They were offended by him.
SPEAKER_00: And in this situation, they weren't offended because he sinned against them.
SPEAKER_00: He never sinned.
SPEAKER_00: If you were offended with Jesus, it was not because he sinned against you.
SPEAKER_00: They were actually offended because of his success.
SPEAKER_00: They were offended and despised him because he shows up and he's great and he's doing all this stuff, and they're scoffing.
SPEAKER_00: One translation says they scoffed at him.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't this just Jesus, the son of Joseph, the carpenter's son?
SPEAKER_00: Aren't Mary, his mother, and his brothers and his sisters here with us?
SPEAKER_00: They reduced him, they criticized him, they judged him, and they were offended by him.
SPEAKER_00: They thought negatively of him, and they were the ones that suffered.
SPEAKER_00: They were the ones that lost that day.
SPEAKER_00: Powerful, powerful principle.
SPEAKER_00: Here's one that shifts a little bit on us, and it gets more into the apologizing uh zone.
SPEAKER_00: Most of the scriptures about forgiveness and unforgiveness are about forgiving someone who has hurt you.
SPEAKER_00: So I don't think that's an accident either.
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a big time emphasis on that scripturally.
SPEAKER_00: There's only a couple of scriptures that actually talk about you apologizing when you're when you've done something wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Most of them are about you uh giving forgiveness when you've been sinned against.
SPEAKER_00: But listen to this, Matthew 5.23.
SPEAKER_00: So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the temple, you're in church, if you're in church and you're worshiping God and you're giving an offering, and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you did something that hurt somebody.
SPEAKER_00: You did something wrong.
SPEAKER_00: You said something wrong, you offended somebody, you did something wrong, and it hurt the relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, leave your sacrifice there at the altar.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, everything stops.
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is one of these things I'm telling you, everything stops when there's issues like this.
SPEAKER_00: Go and be reconciled to that person.
SPEAKER_00: Again, that's reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: That takes two people.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, go and make it right.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he's saying.
SPEAKER_00: Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.
SPEAKER_00: Resume, right?
SPEAKER_00: So you it dawns on you, you get a revelation, or you know that you've done something wrong, that you said something, that you need to go back and apologize and make it right.
SPEAKER_00: Man, that's a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: God's saying, don't even come worship me in my house if you've got unresolved stuff with somebody.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, this is somebody that they he they needed to be resolved.
SPEAKER_00: It needed to be reconciled.
SPEAKER_00: It was an important relationship.
SPEAKER_00: So forgiving someone only requires you, reconciliation requires two, right?
SPEAKER_00: You forgiving someone only requires you, reconciliation requires two.
SPEAKER_00: Situation with my dad, their reconciliation may not have been possible.
SPEAKER_00: My responsibility was to forgive him.
SPEAKER_00: If he chose to reconcile and forgive me or, you know, whatever that looks like, then now we have a possible reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: We were able to obviously do that, but it's not always possible.
SPEAKER_00: But listen to me never, ever, ever underestimate the power of an apology.
SPEAKER_00: It is a spiritual thing.
SPEAKER_00: Few things are as healing to your spirit and to your relationship.
SPEAKER_00: And here's another little secret.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be wrong to apologize.
SPEAKER_00: Someone's offended at you and you're over here going, what I did was justified, I'm right.
SPEAKER_00: They can be mad all day long.
SPEAKER_00: I'm standing my ground.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you sure are.
SPEAKER_00: You're standing right there.
SPEAKER_00: And you ain't going nowhere else until you make it right.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you are right or wrong.
SPEAKER_00: If you're at odds with somebody, if there's a relationship that needs to be intact and it is not intact, if there's a relationship that needs to be moving forward and it is stuck, it's your responsibility to fix it.
SPEAKER_00: Our kids, we we don't have any rules.
SPEAKER_00: We can talk about this another time, some parenting stuff.
SPEAKER_00: But we don't have any rules.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like rules.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have any rules.
SPEAKER_00: Did I say that?
SPEAKER_00: We govern our house by relationships, period.
SPEAKER_00: We live by principles, and we live by relational principles.
SPEAKER_00: And if you violate a relationship, everything stops until we fix it.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what governs our house.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's relationally governed.
SPEAKER_00: We live by principles, and when those principles are violated, we stop, we have a conversation, and we fix what's broken, we fix what's wrong, we make it right.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that takes a little time, but we're like, hey, we're gonna just wait.
SPEAKER_00: We'll figure this out.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you got to go on with some aspects of life, but the point is there's something wrong here, and you're gonna fix it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna fix it, I'm gonna make it right, and that has been a tremendous blessing in our family.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't grow up like that.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't grow up knowing how to repair a relationship that I messed up.
SPEAKER_00: It's an incredible set of tools to give your kids and and your grandkids.
SPEAKER_00: And so um when we do this, it's always an act of humility, which is a core value for our family.
SPEAKER_00: It's always an act of humility to say, hey, I might not have said that right, I that that might not have come out right, I apologize.
SPEAKER_00: Or, hey, what I did was wrong, what I said was wrong, and I'm gonna do better.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna work hard to do better, and I want you to know that I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing how that repairs and fixes stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And no matter what you did, how bad it was, it it healing can always come.
SPEAKER_00: Healing can always come.
SPEAKER_00: Healing just fills that gap, it bridges that that relationship, and we're able to what?
SPEAKER_00: Move forward together.
SPEAKER_00: We're able to be blessed.