Matlock | 07/06/26 | Forgiveness | Dave Watmore

Matlock 

Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/354059/episodes/19307008-matlock-07-06-26-forgiveness-dave-watmore.mp3

Dave spoke about the power of forgiveness.

Justice and forgiveness

I have been stirred over the last few months about the culture around us in this country. My youngest son spoke with us about various news items and is angry about the injustice that is in our face day after day. Not a week goes by when we don’t have a good example of injustice but what do we do when we face injustice on a small scale or we feel we have been wronged.

When I stand here and say I’m going to tell you about the good news of Jesus and his forgiveness of your sins, you should all sit on the edge of your seats and wait in expectation for a life affirming experience. When I say to you that involves you having to forgive people who have hurt you or wronged you, you can’t wait for me to finish and you can flee to the Fuel Stop for a coffee or go and get your children from the children’s work even if they are now 30 years old.

So I’m addressing a difficult subject but if we are serious about living a holy life and a healthy life it is something we must grasp and where necessary deal with.
I will do my best to be as gracious as I can be.

All forgiveness has merit but biblical forgiveness has significant and far reaching power outside of yourself and into families and even to societies.

Let’s look at a couple of examples of forgiveness that are secular but not biblical.
Therapeutic forgiveness.
I will call this the Frozen forgiveness. The song famously says “Let it go , let it go”
It is fine as far as it goes. It only impacts you and does not deal with the other person or people. It only focuses on you.
Merit forgiveness
You will forgive someone when you see they are suffering as much as you are.This is somehow that you hope it pays you back but this is you seeking revenge and it is not for you to do this.
Putting the two together looks like forgiveness but it puts forgiveness in opposition to justice.

The cross shows us God’s forgiveness and fulfilment of God’s justice.
At the moment people are raging for justice but say that forgiveness can only be achieved when they see the person or people grovelling. It’s a recipe for hate, bitterness and anger.
Let’s look at some scriptures

““Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.””
‭‭Mark‬ ‭11‬:‭23‬-‭25‬ ‭NIV‬‬
https://bible.com/bible/111/mrk.11.23-25.NIV

https://bible.com/bible/111/luk.17.1-4.NIV

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Church and the Peak podcast. We hope you enjoy this message. For more information, visit churchandhepeak.org or come and join us at 10am every Sunday.

SPEAKER_02 0:11

Grey top. So I was like, and and it wasn't like a little tiny, it was like that long. And it was like So I got here, took it off, washed it under the tap. I couldn't wear it because it was too wet. Anyway, um this morning I thought, oh well, I washed it. I'll uh put it back on because it's you know it's not not exactly summer out there, is it? And I looked at it and there is still a stain. There is still a stain. And sometimes when we don't deal with forgiveness properly, we still have we have the freshness of it in our mouth, but we still have the stain that is there that we haven't dealt with it properly. There's one thing that um you know that song from that film, and I'm afraid when I mention it, you'll be singing it all for the rest of the afternoon, frozen. Let it go. I'm sorry about that. It's in your it's that earworm. We're not having that in worship, are we? No, good. Because Phil is more than that. If we just say, I'm letting it go, I'm forgetting about it, it's not dealt with. It's still a stain on your top. We have to look at the fact that this is an important point. When we come for forgiveness, there is a price, a price to pay. I'll come on to that in a bit more. But um just letting it go, just taking it out of your memory, doesn't work in the long run. I've tried, but it's like my shirt, it's like my jumper. They're still a stain. Uh the other way that you can look at forgiveness is uh people will say, okay, I will forgive that person when I've seen them suffer. That sense of Schadenfreude, as the Germans say, that sense of, yeah, when they I've forgiven them, but I want to see that they have suffered. And then I can really go to them as a you know a really nice person and say, I forgive you because I can see that you're suffering. Very ungodly. That is not, that is not a Christian way of dealing with it. That is just a way of it's it's works really. It's saying, if you suffer enough, by that I will forgive you. That's not the way that God works, is it? Jesus says, You come to me as you are, and I will give you grace. I forgive you for all that you have done. So we come to the cross. Let me also say, uh, make a comment about what's going on in, if you like, in the world at the moment. We see so much uh anger and rage. And I could I I mean this week in particular, but I could have picked that two weeks ago and said exactly the same. People say, This is unforgivable, and it is many times when you see some of the suffering that people have gone through, losing children or you know, horrendous rapes and things like that, and you think that is so difficult to forgive. But it isn't unforgivable. But we have to come to the cross to find out where that happens. One of my sons, my youngest son, uh, we were talking uh about various things in the news, and he says there's such injustice, isn't there, in the world. There is such injustice, but how do we deal with that? How do we deal with injustice? And that is what is causing a lot of rage. Politicians are putting their spin on it. But it is actually the injustice that we see that really riles us up because we want to see justice. But do we want to see justice by taking revenge? That's not the way that uh Jesus says that we should bring justice. His justice comes by paying the price on the cross, and I will go on to that in a little bit more. Could I have my uh my first scripture up, please, Richard? So we're gonna look at some scriptures and see what they say. Says, I tell you the truth. You can say to this mountain, and I think was it was it uh Zara said, talking about mountains. I tell you the truth. I can say to this mountain, may you be lifted up and thrown into the sea and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you've received it, it will be yours. But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins too. So it's a very important point. When we are when we are praying, uh unforgiveness can be a block on our prayers. Whether we are Christians, have been for five minutes or twenty years. It is important to deal with unforgiveness. Because there's no it's not a new paragraph in that scripture, it's the same sentence, it's the same section. So it shows you how important it is that we deal with uh unforgiveness, forgiving others. Okay, can I have the the next scripture, please, Richard? One day Jesus said to his disciples, There will always be temptations to sin. But what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting? It would be better to be thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around your neck than to cause one of these little ones to fall into sin. So watch yourselves. If another believer sins, rebuke that person, and if there are if there is repentance, forgive. And even if that person wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again and asks forgiveness for forgiveness, you must forgive. I was reading, believe it or not, I do some research about these things. Uh I was reading something that you know it says, uh Jesus says, if you forgive seven times, then it's seven times seven. It used to be the kind of Jewish tradition that you would do that three times. So the guy who was asking that question, which comes after that passage, was saying, uh, okay, if you, you know, I'll exaggerate. If you if I say seven times rather than three times, surely that's enough. And Jesus is saying, no, it is more, it is seven times seven, or even seventy-seven times seven. It's a big number. That's how many times we for are forgiven by by God, and it's how we must deal with forgiveness ourselves. So let's look a bit more at some theology. Because I'm going to I'm going to challenge you all, by the way. We're going to have a time when we when we say, you know, God, Holy Spirit, come and speak to us. In fact, let me do that right now. Father, I just pray. Father, come. I pray, bring to mind things that you want us to deal with. Holy Spirit, we don't want to dredge through our lives, but Lord, I pray you will bring to mind the things we must deal with. So, Father, I just pray. By your spirit, help us to handle these things. Help me to be gracious in handling these things, Lord God, that we may be free to be more holy than we are now, Lord God. Amen. Let me just say it is about being holy. Being having forgiveness and forgiving people is a holy lifestyle. It's not just going to church and reading your Bible and and going to prayer meetings, it is about forgiving people and being and knowing the forgiveness of Jesus. So, where do we start? Let's there may be people here who don't know the Christian message in the gospel, but if we go back to the to the book of Genesis, the beginning of the Bible, we see that the man there, Adam and Eve, they sin and they are thrown out of the garden. What happens is there, the ownership that they had, they were, if you like, owned by God, owned by Jesus. The moment they sinned, they are transported into the hands of Satan. And that is not a good place to be. And the whole of the Bible is then about the redemption. That means the paying for sin all the way through to the end of the Bible. Um, there is a price to be paid for the things that we have done wrong. Uh, how many of you are familiar with The Lion, the Witch in the Wardrobe? How many of you have seen that that film that they've made of it? There's a there's a passage in there uh which I think is a very good allegory, a way of explaining it, where Edmund, who is the I think the younger brother, isn't he? He's he's he's screwed up and he's sided with the white witch. The white witch is symbolic of Satan and the Lion is symbolic of Jesus. So Edmund has screwed up and they're fighting to get him back. But the witch says, He's mine, he belongs to me, he is mine. And in the end, you see a picture in that uh story, in that film, where uh he comes, where the witch is saying, you know, I've I've got Edmund, and there's a tent in the corner of a field, and the Lion Jesus goes into the tent, leaves everybody behind, and says, I need to talk to the white witch. And he talks to the to the white witch, and he comes out after a while. Then you see later that he goes and he puts himself on the altar, and the white witch and all her weird uh creatures kill the lion. And the the characters in uh the humans in in the the picture they all mourn and they go away. And then the the the girls go back the next morning and they see that the lion has disappeared, that the altar is broken, and then there is Aslan the lion. He is risen. But what's the point of that story? The point is that Aslan had to pay for Edmund's sin. Jesus had to pay for our sin. And he proved that he had the power and can bring you back into his ownership by rising from the dead and being alive. And isn't that the good news? You can come and be the person that God wanted you to be in the first place by coming to him, giving him all of your wrongdoing, and he has paid the price. Thank you, Johnny. Phil was telling me a story because we're doing uh an alpha course up in in Buxton. And uh there's a uh a 16-year-old young lady who's come, just randomly come to us over the last few weeks and joined the alpha course. And it was explained to her this last week because they were talking about the cross, they was uh they were explaining to her that someone had died for her. It's personal, and she was blown away from by it. The message of the gospel that she that somebody has died for her deliberately blew her away. It hasn't changed the message of the gospel. We we should not be teaching a cheap grace that says, it's all very nice. It is, but it costs Jesus his life, that there is a pain that he went through for us. And sometimes we need to have that revelation. Well, I would say not sometimes, always need to have that revelation that it cost him. It wasn't cheap, it cost him. And if you like the other extreme is that we have to live, you know, let's all live the right life, be good boys, be good girls, and do the right thing. That's that's not good enough. It's got to be that you believe in Jesus, that he paid the price, the full price. He didn't get, you know, it wasn't on a bargain offer in Aldi. He paid the full price for you. One of the things I wanted to show you is that sometimes forgiveness can be really difficult. There can be very difficult situations in your life. But doing that exchange with God where you know and understand that He has paid the price for you, you can be you can start to be free. There is choice involved, but it is also a powerful. So I'm gonna play you a video in a minute. I've got to do a little bit of a preamble, Richard. Uh, how many of you remember a story probably about um about eight years or so ago about a girl who was on um who went with her father on an aeroplane and she'd been to Pret à Manger and she'd eaten a uh a sandwich that had a sesame seed in it, and she was allergic to sesame seed. And the labelling at Pret à Manger did not say that there were sesame seeds in it, so therefore she ate it with thinking that she was going to be fine. She gets onto the aeroplane with her father and her friend flying to to France and she goes into uh anathy lactic shock. She has the epi pens, and and her father uh goes into the the toilets with her and injects her into the into her thigh, but it does no good. He goes back and gets a second one, it does no good. And on the floor of the the plane, which is still on its way to Paris or wherever, he sees he is not a Christian. He comes from a Muslim background, but he's an atheist, and he sees his daughter laid out, and they landed, and they see all they have all the paramedics coming to give uh emergency care, CPR, everything. And he sees five angels hovering over her body, and he shouts, it's not her time, and they disappear, but she's dead. He then goes to um goes to church because his daughter had been going, who's 15, had been going to church with her friend for about uh three or four years. It happens to be a New Frontiers church, uh, but that's by the by. Uh it's a church in in Wimbledon. Been to New Day, things like that. So that's that. But the father was not a Christian, but he decides that he must go. When he comes back from this awful event, he can only do one thing and that is go to church. He is surrounded when he arrives, he and his wife, by members of the church who pray for him and they console him. And then a few he's he becomes a Christian, but he then has to deal with the anger and the unforgiveness that he has for the people of Pretemanger and the the boss of Pretemanger in particular. Okay, Richard, this is this is where the story that you're gonna see carries on. Okay, Richard.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

As I say, wear off, perhaps not wear off, but the anger comes in and overrides that. That anger was huge, and I did blame people for the death of my child, the company, etc., and the individuals there, because it I knew something had gone wrong. I'd looked into it, and it was clear that shouldn't have happened. And for all the love and the way we'd lived our lives and got through for 15 years to have that ripped away from you because what I blame someone else at that time was just untenable. And that was boiling and boiling. And I railed and railed against God really in peaks and troughs, in fits in essentially, it felt uncontrollable. Um I don't know if it's just expressing emotion, I I you know, whatever it is, but it had to come out as one way of looking at it, etc. And when I think back now, my gosh, I don't think there's anyone that could have been more disrespectful to God and to Jesus than I was back then. At the same time, through understanding more about God, what biblical uh passages effectively brought to life and to my understanding through the teachings of in our church uh and people around me. I began to realise I was someone effectively who lived was like a living person in the Bible, and I saw myself as being like one of those people. I recognized those stories as me. It was almost like I'd been taken out of the page, given a new name, and brought fast forward two thousand years. I also identified that with angry people in the Bible, you know, all sorts of people, they too were able to be transformed, and I think bit by bit God was working in me, taking away, literally dimming down that anger in one sense, and lighting up my life really more with his presence. Essentially, so as my darkness shrunk, by the perhaps of the light coming on it, I might look at it that way, essentially the light of God, that started to fill my heart, my mind, and that became the predominant part of my life. It really changed when I had this vision in church one day on a Sunday, um, which is when it was just a regular Sunday listening to the word of God being uh being preached, and I remember just having vision come past my face like a piece of theatre of me. Actually cutting up to the the sea of Patemology, who I blamed entirely. I was very angry with. And coming up to him and putting my hand on his heart and saying, I forgive you for the death of my child. Uh and um and it's just vision that ended, and just hustled. And I was back in the room listening to whatever Hospital was talking about. This was actually in effect. A vision of food given to me like a essentially. And it actually happened three days later on the Wednesday morning when ended up meeting that person and other senior people in in the world of the food industry. At the end of that meeting, um, I went up to this man uh uh who had was before extraordinary anger really weird, and through total calmness, went up to him and put his hand on my hand here on his heart, his hand on the shoulder, and said, I want you to I forgive you for the death of my child. Um and I say this because you're a father of two daughters, and if you carry this burden, that burden will pass on to your children through different ways. I must forgive you so that your children can have the best life possible here on this earth. Basically. And he's welled up in his eyes, etc. He really didn't see this coming, and I have to say, I didn't see myself doing that a we a week back, no chance, no chance. But when I said it to him, I didn't do it through a gritted teeth. Very important. It wasn't a you know a tick tox exercise, it was heartfelt and meant. My heart had changed very completely, and God had done that. Because there's no way I could have done that on my own. It was heading completely the other direction. It was one month after Natasha's inquest, which had been a lot on TV.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

Right, that's better. I think that's a very moving story. Um it can it can bring tears to your eyes. Um how do you handle such a difficult situation? And that is the challenge for us, isn't it? I I'm delighted to say I don't have that challenge of having to deal with the loss of a of a child and having to forgive people for that. There are sometimes there are much smaller things that we we hang on to though, with with unforgiveness. But the the the issue is the same. I go back to my shirt. I tried to wash, I'd cleaned my teeth, I felt a little fresher. I'd still got, I'd washed off the stain that was on my shirt, but when it dried, it was still there. What Leslie doesn't know is I'm going to give it to her to wash it. She will do a better job than me. Put yourself in God's washing machine. He can do a better job. The things that we have done wrong, they're not cleaned up by sticking it in the washing machines. It talks about the launderer's soap. But it's actually because you are paid for, you are bought back. That's what when you we see the words redemption, it means Jesus has paid the price for you. He's bought you out of the ownership of Satan and into the ownership of Jesus, hasn't he? If you're a Christian. If you're not a Christian, there's an opportunity to say, I want to say thank you for buying me out of Satan's grasp and bringing me into the hands of Jesus. And believe me, I thought that be being in the hands of Jesus would be boring. It isn't. It's a precious place. It's a place where there is peace. As you see on that man's face, he's not contorted with bitterness, is he? I'd say he's released and free. And there isn't a joy, even though he will never get over the death of his precious daughter. He has that freedom to walk in that life. Uh we're going to do um we're going to do communion. Can we pass that round? First of all, is there anybody here who is gluten-free? Oh, Leslie's got something she wants to bring. Do you want to do that now? And I will just can somebody help me out on this. Sorry? No, I haven't finished. I haven't finished. Just pass these around and then we will do it in a minute. That's not gluten-free.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

Do it.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

Okay, let me finish what I'm gonna say.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Sorry for the confusion.

SPEAKER_02 28:04

Can I oh I'll leave that. Okay, sorry, I'm creating a bit of a mess. As usual. I told you I would create a mess, not the sort of mess I was planning on doing. Okay, so how do we forgive? Forgiveness is not always felt, but it is granted. Let me say that again. Forgiveness is not often felt, but it is granted. Sometimes you might feel, oh, I don't want to forgive that person. I'm going to wait until I feel like it, and then I will forgive. No, no, no, no, and no. It's paid for. You have to understand that the cost has been paid for by the things that have been done to you or you have done to others. When you understand that, as that man did, he'd got that revelation that he and he started to feel it. He'd made that choice. Then he could actually feel it when he prayed for that man. So what do we do? We acknowledge that something wrong has happened, that a debt exists because a loss has occurred. Now that loss could be personal, it could be reputational, it could be financial, it could be emotional, and it could be physical. There are many losses that we can talk about. But there is a loss when people sin or we sin against other people. Whether that is in with your tongue or with your fists or with other ways. Trust can be broken. It's a debt that has been occurred. The only way to pay it is by the blood of Jesus. Jesus has paid for the things you've done wrong, and it's finished. My shirt, I know, will be clean one day. But your shirt can be clean right now. So acknowledge that there has been sin not just to you, but also to God. When someone sins against you, if I went and punched Phil in the face. Tempting, believe me in elders' meetings. And I'm sure it would be mutual. If I punched Phil in the face, yeah, we've got to do do some business. But I've also sinned against God first. And we often forget that. In fact, I would say we always forget it. Our sin is not just against one another, it is first against him. And he will not allow that injustice to go unpunished or dealt with. We might say, as I started off with, you know, with the song, you know, frozen, let it go, let it go. You might say, let it go, let it go. But if it's still a stain on your shirt, Jesus is saying, I've it's there's still injustice here. It's still not being dealt with. I haven't, you haven't applied what I have done for you to this wound. And it's time to do that. So if that is you today, don't just go away and say, I'll deal with it this afternoon. No, no, no. You deal with it today. You have sinned not just against one another, but against God Himself. And we need to deal with that and remember that. That is what righteousness means. He has that righteous anger. He will deal with that by bringing his righteousness. And if we don't deal with it there, there will be a judgment. People will be judged for things that have gone on. God will have justice one day. And the I would say the the what is going on in society is let's read it as Christians. People are saying we need justice. Now, how we apply that depends on the situation. But we need to be ready with our discussions to say there will be justice. Can you forgive? Can I just do the the scripture in Romans, please, Richard? We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. For everyone has sinned. We all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as a sacrifice for sin. And people are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. And this sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in past times. For he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in the present time. And God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus. Chew over that one, I suggest. Or pay for what they've done wrong. Choose not to pursue that repayment of debts, even if they've offended you. That means that we surrender our own efforts for vengeance and repayments to God. That's where you do have to give it up. We can forgive because we have been shown the depth to which we have been forgiven. This is not a one-off, but something that should empower our lives as we dwell within us, as He dwells within us. Forgiveness is the overflow of the grace we have received. So the more you learn to be forgiven by God and forgive others, the more grace will be seen. And people will see that. So what shouldn't you do? Don't bring it up again. Now there will be some caveats in this. But let's say Julia borrows my car. Oh, I tell you what, if I borrow her guitar, that would be better. If I borrow her guitar and I'm strumming away and drop it, smash up the body of it. Um and she goes away and says, Oh I say, look, oh, I'm terribly sorry, Julia, I'll pay for it. She's like, no, no, no. I'm I'm exercising forgiveness. I will pay for the damage. And I go, fine, great. Save me a couple of hundred quid or whatever. If she then sees me the next time and goes, Ah, it's Dave. He's the guitar dropper, aren't you? And I go, Yeah, okay, thanks, Julia, for that. And then she sees me any six months later and sort of looks at the guitar and goes, Ah yes, I remember. Yeah, this guitar doesn't quite play the same as it used to, Dave, the guitar dropper. Don't do that. Please, Julia. I will not touch it, honestly. You wouldn't want me to. Equally, Julia shouldn't then go to her group and go, do you know what? Dave Watmore. He dropped that guitar and he wouldn't pay for it. He wouldn't pay for it, type fisted, what's it? Don't gossip about it to others either when you've forgiven someone. It's not right. That doesn't show forgiveness, does it? That shows a kind of self-righteousness. Look at me. But then don't dwell on it on your own thoughts. If you have dealt with it and the cost has been paid, you can then forget about it. God doesn't forget sins, he pays for them. I always say this because it annoys me when people say, He just forgets it. Well, I always think, do you know what? Sometimes I remember things. What if God remembers what I've done wrong? He has paid for it, therefore it's not in the debit side of the account. It is now paid for and you are in credit, which is utterly ridiculous. But that is the grace of God. It is dealt with. I would say that there is a caveat to this, which is if there are things that have been done wrong to you and they are serious, you don't just cover it up. You go and find people to deal with it. And if that means bringing in, you know, uh the police, you should do that. I say that because some, you know, in in all different parts of the world, including the church, people have said you've got to forgive, because that's what it says, but that's where we cover it up. This is not a cover-up, this is a paying for your debt, paying for your sin. And so we shouldn't do that. We have to deal with it correctly. Okay. Um, we've all, apart from me, got communion. You've got the bread and you've got wine. So should we just stand? Perhaps did you want to bring something to see. Oh, Father. So let me just say, if you have unforgiveness, then you've got to be careful of what you are doing. This is not uh this is a very important and holy act. You are remembering the body that was broken for you and the blood of Christ that paid for you. And if you have unforgiveness in your heart, it says in the Bible, deal with it before you take communion. So let us just pray before we do that. So, Father, I just pray, help us to know your forgiveness, help us to deal with it. Thank you that you have granted us forgiveness, Lord, and we now forgive those who we are struggling to forgive. We thank you, Lord God, that you have paid the price for what has been done to us and we have done to others. And Father, we just take your body now and remember that in Jesus' name. Yeah, Father, we thank you. Jesus, we thank you for your blood, the most precious commodity in the whole universe, that has paid for our sin and taken us out of the kingdom of darkness and into your glorious light. So, Lord, we just remember now the blood of Christ that has paid the price for us, and we say thank you for your sacrifice for our sins, that we can be forgiven and have eternal life. Amen. Okay, let's see, do you want to we haven't quite finished? If anyone's got any words of knowledge, we nearly will finish. We're not going to do any more worship. Which one?

SPEAKER_00 42:51

Hello?

SPEAKER_02 42:52

Hello?

SPEAKER_00 42:54

So I just um I do Freedom in Christ with uh Angela and Elizabeth. Um and forgiveness frequently comes up. So in the Freedom in Christ booklet there's a really good prayer. Forgiveness is a choice, is a command of God, but it's your choice. You can choose not to forgive, in which case you'll be stuck with whatever has happened to you, and you will just remember it again and again and again. So if you're waiting for that person who's hurt you to apologize to you, you could wait for eternity, because they might not. And again, you have that choice. Do you want to be stuck with that thing that happened and it recurring to your memory or do you want to get it out? God doesn't forget, and your but your memory of that event, the pain that happened, can be Um covered, as it were. So you have that choice. Do you want to suffer under what somebody said or did for the rest of your life, or do you want to get rid of it? God won your freedom on that, on the cross. He won that freedom. So you have the choice. And when you pray, it's like, Father, I choose to forgive whoever it was, whatever it was, that made me feel. So it's identifying in you the pain, the rejection, the anger, maybe, that you felt when that person sinned against you. And then you choose to forgive that person and give to God what you felt. You might have felt anger, resentment, bitterness, you might have felt rejection. God deals with that. And then you choose to bless that person. So you are releasing that person to God's judgment. And it says in Genesis, surely the God of the whole earth will do right. Revenge is his, not yours. When we choose not to forgive someone and we bring it up again, actually we're doing a bit of revenge, aren't we? Like Dave was saying, or I hope they fall over when they walk out their house, sort of thing. When you forgive someone for what they've done, it's not saying what they did is acceptable. Their action against you is not acceptable. So you're not saying that, you're handing it to God. Forgiveness also is not saying that you go back into that situation again and again. So if it's a very abusive situation, God's not saying, all right, that's okay, you've forgiven them, so go back again. No, that's not right. You're just giving that person the opportunity to abuse you again and again, and you're in a cycle. It's not right. That's not what God wants for you. I have to tell you that my mother was a twin, and she came from a very big family. I'm thinking about what the man was saying when he forgave the CEO of Pretemonja, he said, I'm forgiving you because you've got daughters and you don't want this to continue in your family. Well, my mother was a twin. My auntie Joyce, born-again Christian, all her family, her husband, everybody. Amazing. My mum's family, just me, my sister, my mum and dad, not Christian. Um, whatever. They came from this big family. She had three older brothers. She never, ever forgave them. So from the age probably of around 15, 16, she still held resentment and anger, particularly to one brother who was a lot older, probably a bit of a bully like they are. In all my life, I have never met three of my uncles or my cousins, because her unforgiveness, her bitterness and resentment against them prevented her from bringing the family together. Now I chose as a Christian to forgive my mother and also to pray against and give to God all bitterness, anger, and unforgiveness that runs through the family. And it does run through my mother's family because her sisters don't forgive, her other sister doesn't forgive, and my mum stopped forgiving my aunt, her twin sister, for silly things. And my sister doesn't forgive. She chooses not to talk to me if she's angry. So what I'm saying is, you know, sometimes we hold on to unforgiveness and it affects those people around us because the bitterness is like um is a demonic root and it defiles many. So forgive. You just forgive, you choose it. You might not feel it, you might not want to, but the minute you start to do it, and you might have to do it again and again, but it sets you free, and it sets those around you free.

SPEAKER_02 48:33

Do you want to pray for us?

SPEAKER_00 48:35

I will do no second. I've also got a picture in the worship of I think a young man walking with the father. Now, maybe his father, I'm not sure, but at some point he was walking very close to a father, his father, or the father God. And at one point he grows up and he goes straight into the world, and now he's going, How do I get back? And God says, I never let go of you. I'm still holding you, just choose to come back to me because I love you, and I I have open arms for you. So it may be for someone who knew God and has walked away, or maybe it's a reconciliation with your own father. I don't know. So anyway, I'll just pray. Father God, I just thank you for your grace and your mercy. Lord God, I thank you, you give us grace to forgive. And I pray, Lord, as this week goes on, that you would reveal to each of us any area where we have chosen not to forgive or things in the past that we have forgotten, but actually there's still a root of resentment, anger, perhaps bitterness. Help us, Lord, to walk in your light always. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 50:05

Okay, we're gonna finish there. I would encourage you if you need to go and get your children, please go and get your children, or we've run over time. My apologies for that. Um, but if you need to uh come and be prayed for and pray with others uh about what I've said, then there is an opportunity to do that now. To wipe the slate clean, put your jumper in the washing machine, do some business with God. And I hope you all have a good week and see you all next week.