Love Is | Week 3 | Full Service

I'm reminded today about something like that I struggled with when my kids were little.

I don't know about you, but if your kids played sports when when they were little, you know, the the the first few years when they first started, primarily t ball with my son and then soccer with my son and my daughters. The the first, like, year or so they actually get on a team,

that was a tough time for me. Having been an athlete and having been a coach and and done stuff, it was really hard to be out there and watch. I mean, first of all, just watching them play is, excruciating,

to be honest. I mean, you you do it because you love them. They look cute in their uniforms. But when you watch the games, it's like this is chaos.

It's chaos. I mean, it's it's frustrating. You know, you watch you watch, you know, t ball. They my son hits the ball, runs to second base instead of first base. No. He didn't do that. He actually knew what he was doing. He's right there, by the way, so I gotta rip on him a little bit. And

but you know, they're running around. They don't know what they're doing. It's crazy. Soccer, it'd be like when they're playing soccer, it's like they they they all like they're just this big wad that just you know, you say, play your position. They don't know. They just run to the ball, and they're like, and

then there's always some kid over there picking their nose. One's chasing a butterfly. The other one's yelling, I want my snacks. So the game only started two minutes ago. You know, it's just it's just chaos. But that wasn't the most frustrating part.

And maybe you were frustrated like me. The most frustrating part for me when they played these first years, when you go to the games, is they wouldn't keep score. Anybody else get frustrated they wouldn't keep score? How many of you moms kept score anyways? I

asked last night, it was it was predominantly moms. You you you keep score anyways. You kept stats. Like this is his twelfth home run this year. How do you know that? You're like you're like ESPN over here. And

the reality is what frustrated me with that was I get why there's like, well, we don't wanna make it about the competition and all that, but here's the problem. That's what sports is. It's about the competition. If you don't keep score, that's not a game. That's not a sport. That's practice.

That's that's some chaotic version of trying to get some exercise. You see, what's you keep score in sports. Because here's what sports is good for. It gets you moving. It gets you outside. There's the physical benefits, but reality is it's also it teaches you teamwork.

It teaches you how to work together. It teaches you to look towards a cause that is greater than yourself. You're a part of something. It teaches you good sportsmanship.

And that's the key thing. You gotta learn. Because in life, you gotta learn that sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. And you need to know how to handle both. So not keeping scores. Well, we don't wanna make them feel bad. Then why are they playing a sport? If if if you're not at an age where you can handle that,

then don't get into an organized sport yet, is my thought. Just keep practicing in your yard. Keep playing. Keep doing that. But once it becomes an organized team, I think you should keep score.

Because I think you should learn what it means. How to win with grace. How to lose without having an attitude and being defeated. And and so that was so so frustrating to me. Well, when it comes to what love is and how to live in relationship with one another, keeping score is a terrible idea.

It's the opposite. Which is funny, because the one thing we shouldn't do, we all still do anyways. We say don't keep score just like in sports, but in the area where it's bad to keep score, we do it. We keep score in our relationships.

We keep score of how many times we've been scored against, how many times we've been beaten down, how many times we're winning. We like to keep score. And I'm just gonna tell you, if you keep score when it comes to love, your relationship is never gonna get very far.

It it it it's and many of us are trapped. Many of you right now, in regards of love, like in your marriage, your biggest problem is you keep score. Your biggest problem is is is not that you get into these fights and they turn hysterical. The problem is is because you keep getting historical.

You know what I mean? You know the old joke of the guy says I got in a huge fight with my wife last night. He goes, yeah. He goes, she got historical. He goes, don't you mean hysterical? I go, no. Historical. She told me everything I've ever done wrong.

And that's what we do. Because being historical usually leads to being hysterical, because you just don't there's no winning in that. There's no winning when you start keeping score.

So that's what we're gonna look at today. We're bringing first Corinthians chapter 13, which is by way the most popular quoted passage of scripture at weddings. Because everyone says relationship goals,

because this is what I hope my marriage will be like when it's describing love. And and so a lot of you think that this is the type of love you just need to have in your most important relationships. This is written to a church to say, this is how we should love one another.

There's no levels of love depending on who the person is. You either love or you don't love. And and so a lot of have a hard time doing this in the relationship we wanna do it the most when you don't even think you should be doing this with the person sitting in this room around you.

And that's what makes it complicated. So God is describing he is love, and he's saying, but this is what love is. In other words, these phrases that says love is, but it's really this is what love does. If you are loving, this is the result. This is what happens. And I wanna look at one sentence, one phrase in verse five today. Let's talk about it. It says this,

love, it doesn't demand his own way. Look at it. It says it's it's but it is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. So it's not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. That's score. It's keeping score. It doesn't keep score. I find it interesting that in the same sentence,

I don't think irritable and keeping score are two different things. I think it's saying, if you keep score, guess what that's gonna make you? You're gonna be irritable. You're gonna be frustrated. You're gonna be angry all the time. You're gonna have problems in your relationship.

So we need to learn to not keep score. Don't keep records of wrong. So how do you not keep records of wrong? What does that technically mean? The reverse engineering. That means love forgives. The action is if it's not gonna keep if you're not gonna keep records of wronged,

the action on our part means we need to learn to have forgiveness. We need to forgive. In other words, the big idea that we're gonna look at for the next few minutes is this, forgiveness is a blessing, not a burden.

It's a blessing, not a burden. We're gonna see. We're gonna jump over to a story that Jesus taught to one of his disciples about forgiveness. And in that parable, he gives an example story. We're gonna see why. But the reality is a lot of us think forgiveness is more of a burden. I have to forgive.

I need to forgive. Why do I need to and you think that that's the hard that's the burden part. When in the end, it looks harder up front. It is hard. It is difficult to choose to forgive when someone's hurt you. It's very difficult. It's very counterintuitive. It's very opposite of the way of the world. In that sense, it's very hard, and in many ways, it's unfair.

If I choose to forgive someone that hurts me, that seems unfair, and it is. But the reality is we need to love people like Jesus loved us because we're supposed to become like Jesus. He's telling us what love is. And the truth is, was it fair for what Jesus went through on the cross for you? It's not about fairness.

The reality is I don't think any of us wants gods to be fair with us. Do you really want him to be fair?

I mean, I've looked at my kids before in a moment and said, alright. You're like, that's not fair. I go, do you really want me to be fair? Like when they're arguing over, you know, you cut a Twinkie in half, it's the last one, and they look at it and they take out their electron microscope and they say, that piece is a quarter of a nanometer longer.

And and you get mad, they go, so you give one to one, that's not fair. That's not fair. You know how I used to settle that? I go, oh, you wanna be fair? They go, yeah. I grab both pieces, I stuff it in my mouth, and I eat it. They go, why'd you do that? Because I paid for it. So fairness is, it's my Twinkie.

So they don't ask about fairness anymore. I even said, you want no. I don't think you want fairness when it comes to your relationship with God. And we need to learn that if we learn to do this thing that feels unfair, it actually becomes a blessing. Refusing to forgive is where the burden really lies. Now,

as we get into this, I I what I wanna do is I wanna look at some things. If that's so important, if this is the fuel, if this is the key that holds the rest of the love together, because this is implying that we're in a broken world and things aren't gonna go perfectly.

So if that's true and this is so important, why is it so hard? Why do we not do it? Why do we hold on? Why do we have a hard time with it? So before we jump into what it is, I wanna talk about what it isn't,

because I think the biggest holdback for us to forgive is we have a misconception as to what it means to forgive. I think we we we we we think we define it differently than what it is and then we reject that definition. And that's the thing holding us back. So what isn't forgiveness?

Well, I got a list here of a few things. First thing is it's not a feeling. Meaning, a lot of us won't forgive because you just I don't feel like forgiving them yet. It still hurts. It's still like no. It has nothing you if you wait till you feel like it, you're never gonna do it.

It's it's like, you know, if you only went to work when you felt like it, if you only went to school when you felt like it, I mean, we would we would we would be a disaster. And and it's not a feeling. You don't forgive. You don't have to feel the forgiveness. That's not that. It's second thing is it's not minimizing.

Or no. It's not forgetting. It's not forgetting. That's the second I wanna it's not forgetting what happened. See, a lot of people say, if I forgive, I have to feel it and I have to forget about it. It it it's not forgetting. The truth is if if if try to forget, that's actually worse. That's, like, weird. You

some of us have been hurt by someone so badly, you're never gonna really forget it. So you don't have to forget it because the only way we so when we try to forget it, the next thing it's not is it's not minimizing.

It's not minimizing the seriousness of what happened. That's how we usually try to forget and we try to feel better about. This comes out of an insecurity. When I minimize, someone says, I did you know what? Don't worry about it. No big deal. And and you actually you minimize it?

It's usually us that minimize it, so we can try to forget about it, so we can feel okay with what we did. But that's really, an insecurity. That's more like, I just don't want this to be a problem. So sometimes we're not our relationship's gonna go nowhere if you just minimize it.

Forgiveness is, yes, what you did was horrible. It hurt me deeply. I'm never gonna really forget about it. And you gotta know that. And you gotta know that. Because if you minimize it, then guess what the person thinks? They go away thinking, oh, I didn't really do that much.

That's the same thing when we try to minimize our sin before God. People say, I just wanna hear about God's grace. Well, God's grace makes a lot more sense when you realize how much you need God's grace. So I don't mean to preach hellfire and brimstone, but we have to have a reality of how bad our sin is.

Because when you realize how much forgiveness and grace we need, you realize how awesome Jesus is. And it's the same thing. So if you minimize it, you're setting yourself up for failure down the road. It's gonna destroy the relationship anyways. The next thing it isn't is it's not conditional.

A lot of us think forgiveness is conditional. I'll forgive you when you we'll see in a minute. You might need a when you to reconcile, but that has to start with forgiveness. We think forgiveness is the end game of a process.

If you're gonna try to work out a relationship, you're gonna try to work through a marriage, you're gonna try to work through something, it begins with forgiveness. It doesn't end with forgiveness. You're not working towards forgiveness. You work from forgiveness, if that makes any sense. The next thing it's not is

in line with that. You go, well, what does that mean? That means I just say, okay, I'm gonna forgive you even though I don't feel it, even though I'm not I'm not gonna minimize, but I'm just gonna say we're gonna keep going forward anyways and go right back to like because some of the forgiveness needs, there could be horrible abuse. There could be a lot of of of of manipulation

and horrible things, and and it's not resuming a relationship without changes. Like I said, you work back from it. See, resuming a relationship without change, resuming a relation, trying to put a relationship back together, that's reconciliation. And a lot of us think forgiveness equals reconciliation.

And a lot of you that are manipulators in your relationship, some of you are suffering from it, some of are doing it, some of you are sitting next to each other. I'm gonna tell you right now, you manipulators. When you say, but you said you forgave me, just because they forgive you doesn't mean they trust

It doesn't mean you get to go right back to where you were. Forgiveness is not carte blanche to come right back in to a bad scenario, you can't try quit trying to say, well, Jesus said we need to forgive. He did, and they should forgive you. But forgiveness doesn't mean you move back in. Forgiveness doesn't. There's a process to that. Reconciliation

takes time. Reconciliation is conditional. That takes the changes. Forgiveness is unconditional. Reconciliation has to start with forgiveness. But forgiveness does not equal reconciliation.

And that, I think this the reason I spend time on this is I think this is the biggest one I see, what hold people back from forgiving. Because you think, oh, you're telling me that in my marriage I should keep taking that abuse or I should keep no. But you can forgive the person.

And we'll see why it's a blessing as we keep going, when we see what it really is. So it's not it's not resuming a relationship. It takes one to forgive, it takes two to reconcile. It's also not forfeiting justice.

There can still be justice and you can forgive. The most extreme example is if someone actually murdered somebody that you love and now they're on death row. You can go, you can even watch the execution for closure, but you can forgive that person.

And just because you you don't go and say, well judge, I forgave them, so they should be out of jail for murder. No. There's still gonna be justice. They still gotta be accountable for their action.

But you can not hold it against me. You cannot like, and we'll see. And you know what? What we're gonna see why that's important is they've done studies.

And it usually takes if someone's murdered, it takes like twenty years sometimes for the execution to happen. And do you realize that people that just are stuck and fixate on thinking the vengeance, the the when this happens, the justice prevails, then I'll be content?

So their life is disrupted for twenty years. So up and down, oh, they got another they got another extension.

They got another this. You're you're just mad all the time, and your life becomes all about that. Then you go to watch the execution. The You think it's gonna have has closure. Like, finally that fight was won. You feel good for a minute. But you know how many times those people stay messed up afterwards?

You know who consistently is okay during that twenty years? Goes and watches justice and and is has the contentment that justice prevailed, but at the same time then goes on with their life and isn't all disrupted? Is the people that chose to forgive the person. Whether they ask for forgiveness or not.

Because justice is not forgiveness. It's something different. It won't settle that in your heart. And the last thing it's not, it's not weakness. A lot of us say if I forgive you, if you forgive, then you were weak. You didn't stand your ground. And usually that's connected to one of these other

like usually if you see it as weakness, it's because you see it as this.

I just caved. And if you do see forgiveness as this, then yeah, that is weakness. But real forgiveness, we're gonna see in a minute, takes incredible strength. When was Jesus the strongest when he was on earth? When he hung on the cross. It took incredible strength to forgive. So, yeah, to Satan do not,

you know, keep score, do not keep record of those wrongs. Those few words are some of the hardest words in the whole Bible to apply. Because everything in our feelings wants us to not do it. Everything in our practical understanding says I can't do that. Because if I do it, I am letting that person get away with this.

But that's not true. What forgiveness is is you're letting yourself get away from it.

Matter of fact, that's what forgiveness really means in the Bible. Uses the word forgiveness, the Greek word. It means to let go. So a good definition is letting go of sin. Meaning when someone has sinned because when it says don't keep record of the wrongs, do you realize that word for wrongs there is the word evil?

So it means evil has been done to you and you can forgive. A lot of us go, yeah, I can I can forgive? I I I can let go. I won't keep score. I'll choose like, you know what? I'm not gonna get really mad when you leave the toilet seat up.

As long as it's not all the time. Or I'm not gonna get mad when you do this. Or I'm not gonna get mad. I'm I'm gonna forgive you each time. But this is talking about absolute evil done against you. You can forgive it. Why? Because the word literally means letting go of sin.

You're letting go. And it's but here's the thing. It doesn't mean you let them go. You let them get away. It's you're the one that's letting go. Matter of fact, the full meaning of the the phrase for what forgiveness is a compound word, it means to let go of, to leave, to go away from.

So the one that's moving away in the context of forgiveness is not the person that did needed the forgiveness. It's not the person that hurt you. You're the one that's moving away. You get that? Does that make sense? Because you need to move away from it. And like I said, you can offer forgiveness

even if they don't live in that forgiveness. They might not ever take advantage of it. They might not want reconciliation. And the reason this is so important is, what if you are bitter towards someone who's dead? And you have all these other definitions of forgiveness in your mind. There can never be reconciliation.

They can never be those things. It can never be made right. It can never be conditional. So what are you left with? You're gonna spend the rest of your life letting them continually hurt you. So forgiveness is a blessing for us. It's the only way to hope.

It's also the only hope that if there is ever a chance for reconciliation or for that person. In other words, it's kinda describing like a person has knocked you down and sucked you into a valley, and you're both down in the valley. You can leave the valley whether they leave or not.

Your only hope to get out of that is forgiveness. The only hope for them, true reconciliation, is for them to see what you did in forgiveness. And they might get a clue and find the same redemption and follow you. Any other way is you're just staying down in that valley

getting bitter and bitter and building resentment. Here's the problem. When you get hurt by someone, keep reliving it and keep going through it again and again and again, you start adding to the list of what you think they did.

Because all those feelings, all these years, you're blaming them for ruining the last five years.

You're blaming so every time you keep getting stuck in that scenario, going back, going back, you put that on their list. You keep making their offense bigger. You realize if you can't forgive and walk away from it, everything you added by those years you lost worrying about it, that's on you. That is not on their list.

God says you can let it go and you can walk away from it. That's your choice. Why put that burden on you? Why continually be responsible for what they did by letting it ruin your life? So it's the only hope for you to get away from a situation that will never be reconciled.

It's also your only hope of ever actually getting reconciliation, if you're hoping that it would work, is it starts with forgiveness. It doesn't end with forgiveness. It's a process. And so how does this this even look like? Well, wanna go to the story now in Matthew chapter 18.

And and Jesus tells an incredibly powerful parable, and he's comparing this parable. This story is compared to what the kingdom of God is like. So he's the king in the story, and and we're the servants. If you're a part of the church, we're we're his people. And he kind of explains what's going on. He explains this in context of a question he gets asked.

You see, the disciples, Jesus has been teaching. They've gone through some tough stuff. And what happens right before this question is asked is is he talked about how to correct another believer. If you have a problem with somebody when they've wronged you,

what should you do about it? How do you go about trying to to to talk to them? So it's how do you have a tough talk with someone who's hurt you, which is interesting. Because right after that, Peter asked a question.

And you know, Peter is this disciple that, you know, he was a great leader and but you know, early on he was I can relate to Peter. He would open mouth, insert foot.

You know, ready, fire, aim. He would say something and then think about what he just said. He is that guy that you went to school with that if a teacher said something, the one that you liked about him is he'll ask the question that everyone's thinking, but no one will ask.

So he's like, he just talked about how to go to someone who's wronged you and try to correct them, but what happens if that doesn't work? What you know, and so Peter said, question.

And he just asked what I know everyone's thinking. And he asked this question in verse 21. Then Peter came to him and asked, Lord, how often should I forgive someone?

I can tell you this. If they just talked about how to correct someone that's hurt you, he asked that question. I've been a pastor for thirty one. I'm in my thirty second year being a pastor. I've been asked this question in a lot of different ways over and over and over and over again. Like, hey, how many times do I have to forgive someone? At what point is my hurt greater

than than than my call to forgive? And every single time, they had someone in mind. No one has ever come to me and said, theoretically speaking, if there was someone to do this, it hasn't happened to me. But if it did happen, just for reference, I like to get all my ducks in a row. I'm really organized.

I wanna know what the definition of how many times do I forgive if someone happened to hurt me multiple times. No one does that.

When Peter came, he heard the teaching about correcting. He's like, I've tried that. That's what's going through his head. And he goes, so how many times do I need to forgive? And Jesus realized he doesn't understand what forgiveness is either. And

in this story, he teaches what it is, but he also lands why it's so important, and then even gives us the key to how to do it. What we should do and how we should do it. So he asked this question, and then but Peter's also trying to score some brownie points.

So he's like, okay, he has someone in mind, but he's gonna be I'm gonna be magnanimous. I'm gonna get the gold star in my chart for the day. So he goes, how many times do you need to forgive someone who sins against me? And being Peter like he is, he offers his own answer. He goes, seven times? Why would he pick seven?

Well well, here's why. Because in that teaching of the day there, the rabbis taught you the three strikes you're out policy. You were required to forgive three times. If they did it a fourth time, you can get even. You only had to forgive three times.

So what Peter did in his mind is like, I'll double it and add one to make it seven was the number of completion or wholeness. So I'll make it a holy number. I'll double the amount that that they're teaching today, so I'm gonna be twice as patient, and then add one. That makes it perfection.

He expected Jesus to go, wow, that is super awesome to know of you, Peter. You are so forgiving. But he doesn't get that answer. Jesus says, no. Not seven times, Jesus replied, but 70 times seven. So 70 times seven? So you think Peter then, oh, got it. 490 times.

I got it. Wrote it down. Can you imagine? Do you think Jesus really meant 490 times? That would be a weird number. And how would you even keep track of that?

I mean, I'd be like, okay. So if they do something against me and then I do something against them, does that even it out? Does that not count as a time? Is it one for one now? Or or how does this work? Does it really mean like someone makes you mad, like you left the toilet seat up again or something? Like, that's it. You realize that's number 300.

Number three zero one. That's the three hundredth time I've had to forgive you. Okay. What does that mean? That means you have a 190 more.

And then you better watch out. No. In in in in in Hebrew culture, to do an exaggeration like, like to multiply seven, but say 70 times seven, was was an exaggeration to say always. There is no limit.

So Jesus is saying there is no limit to how many times we should forgive somebody. And a lot of you are still wrestling because you keep feeling your false definition in your heart right now. You keep feeling it. To forgive does not mean any of those false things, but it does mean you're gonna let it go

and you're gonna move away from it. And so you gotta let go of the false definitions to be able to grab the true definition. And so then he says that. So then he goes, therefore, and then he gives them an example. And I'm just gonna tell you right now, this example is he holds a mirror right in front of Peter.

Go, here's how ridiculous your statement is. He goes, therefore the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. Now with inflation, when this was written and, you know, that's 10,000 talents, it might be in a billion dollars by now.

But the the the amount in that day is it's a talent was was it took an average worker, like, several years to earn a talent. And so if you you add it up, like like like, this it says it's 10,000 talents. In the same era, the taxes that that Rome got from all of Israel was, like, 600 talents.

So this guy owes more than the national tax base of this this nation. In in other words, it's it's an insurmountable debt. It's an impossible debt to ever pay off. So he says, so this guy's the king. He represents God in the kingdom. This guy's one of his people who's supposedly a servant who owes him an impossible debt.

And he says, he he's calling in his accounts. He couldn't pay. So his master ordered that he be sold along with his wife, his children, everything he owed. That's common things. Alright. You just forfeited your own freedom. We're gonna sell all y'all, and I'm gonna recoup as much as I can.

Like you just went into bankruptcy, foreclosure. Instead of foreclosing on the house, you get foreclosed on yourself. But it says, but the man fell down before his master and begged him, please be patient with me and I will pay it all.

If this is really giving us the story of the gospel, this is what Jesus is trying to say. I'm the king, you owe this debt, your sin is an insurmountable debt. You can't never pay for it yourself. And so what's the guy's first answer? Just give me more time and I'll make it right.

That's the heart of what a lot of us, you think this this relationship with God thing is. Some of you are here because you're like, you know how to get my life together. You get a sense there is a God, a higher power, whatever it is, and you're here. And you think, gotta I gotta get back into church. I gotta do some good things because you think, I gotta pay off that debt. I gotta make sure I'm right with God.

But the reality is that form of legalism that I work for God's love, I work for his forgiveness, just like I said, forgiveness, reconciliation starts with forgiveness, it doesn't end with it. We think that we look at our faith as I gotta do the right things, basically pay off the debt, then God forgives me and loves me.

What he's trying to say is it doesn't work that way. We don't work for his love and forgiveness. We follow him from his love and forgiveness. But our first answer is, I'll make it right. Remember I said it's not minimizing forgiveness isn't about minimizing the offense?

Well, when we look at our relationship to God, we should not minimize our offense against God. We need to realize that we all owe a debt to God with our sin that can never be repaid. We can never earn it. So we're in trouble. But we try to do the same thing this guy tried to do.

I'll go make it right because he didn't realize he never could. But it says, then the master was filled with pity. He loved him and he released him and forgave his debt. So see, he was forgiven in a scenario that he could never reconcile. He could never pay it back. He could never do it, and God forgave it.

And what's interesting about that is when you think about the forgiveness, he could walk out and and and he probably thought how many of us do when it comes to God forgiving our sin. It's like, well, you know, why do I have to follow God? Because he said it's okay. He took care of it. Like, it's basically just disappeared.

Like, did that debt really just disappear? Who actually paid that debt? Yeah. But but in this scenario too, who paid the debt? The king. The debt doesn't just disappear. Someone paid it. We get it. You get it. There's a practical illustration in today's society right now. Student debt forgiveness.

It's not really forgiveness. It's forgiveness for the person who has the student debt, but guess who pays it? Not the government. They're not magnanimously saying don't worry about it, it goes away. The institutions that borrowed they gave

you the money, they're still getting paid. Guess who's paying them? All of us, including you that are a student. If you have a job, your taxes are getting diverted over to it. So if you think, oh, it just went away. It didn't go away. Someone still paid for it.

And so sometimes you don't understand that. That you're like, oh, it's it's great. They just made it go away. Good. That's awesome. It should have been. Good. It's about time. And so you think you earned it. You think it's it's you did it. Someone actually paid a debt for you.

One you could never repay yourself. Because you picked a stupid major in college, so you're never gonna get a good job.

Go into ministry, then you'll really do well.

So this is the gospel he's saying. But you know what he's really letting Peter know? And he says how many you think seven times you should always forgive? There's a key right here he's starting to say. In this story right now, guess who Peter is?

He's this guy.

In this story, guess who you and I are? We're this guy.

We're the guy, if I know Jesus, we're the people that were forgiven a debt we can never repay. Never. Not in a million years. And so Peter's probably tracking with that. And he says, but when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars,

which is a huge debt in this day, but it's still possible. And he grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. His fellow servant fell down before him and begged him for a little more time. He did the same thing. Just give me time. Give me time. In this scenario, time might have worked.

But he goes, but his creditor wouldn't wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full. So this guy gets forgiven millions of dollars, something he can never repay. Goes and finds a guy that probably could repay it over time if you're willing to work with him,

and instantly throws him in prison. Instant justice, instant vengeance into this, after he's just been totally forgiven. Isn't that guy a major jerk? When you hear that story before, I already kind of spoiler alerted it, blew it on you because you already know that we're that guy.

But imagine if I didn't tell you that means we're that guy. Wouldn't you say, this guy's an idiot. I would never do oh, wait a minute.

Peter heard the first part. He goes, yeah, Jesus, I know that I could never repay my debt to God in His grace and His forgiveness. And he goes, and this guy comes back, no more chances, you're done. So what about your stupid answer of seven? He's like, no, bet you get oh. Oh, I get it.

I get it.

Says then when some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They understood what the king was like. They understood that he he was more he wasn't like he was a friend more than than their king and their their their master.

He loved them. That's why they had money they borrowed. He let them borrow money. He didn't he he would let them do busy. He would let you know, he was awesome. And so they went to the king and they told him everything that had happened. They're like, that's not right.

And if that's the servant, we're the church. The church should get very upset when someone says they're a Christian, but it's not very forgiving. That's why I go on my rampages when I see some of the way we treat people on social media. We gotta stop it if you're a believer.

I don't even care if the other person ticks you off. They might be irritating. But don't take that tone and that attitude.

It's wrong.

So they got mad. So they went to the king, and the king called the man in. He had forgiven and said, you evil servant, I forgive you the tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you? Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured.

These next two verses are some the scariest verses in the whole bible. Sent him to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.

Or for torture, didn't mean physically like they're torturing him, like skewering him and stuff, it just meant you're gonna be imprisoned in the torture of that and the pain of that isolated like that until you can pay this debt off. Well, think about it. When would he ever pay that off? Never.

He's now gonna be permanently imprisoned. And then verse 35, this is the scary part, that's what my heavenly father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart. If you refuse to forgive, you're gonna always be in prison. Now that sounds really scary.

Is that is is God saying that if you don't forgive, you're going to hell? I don't know if it's saying it that harsh because I think there's other passages that say if he truly forgave you, he won't take it back. But here's what I do believe it's saying. It's saying two things for sure.

It's saying if you refuse to forgive after you've become said you believe in Christ and you refuse to ever forgive things,

there's a good chance you're not a Christian to begin with. You might have said a prayer. You might have said you believe in Jesus, but you do not really in your heart understand the depth of what Jesus dying for you did for you. You don't really get how much grace you needed. You're probably like the other guy. You you didn't understand the depth of it. You were clueless to the amount of debt you owed, and and what you do is you think, I'm better than it. Because that's where judgmentalism comes. The reason we have a hard time

forgiving people, exactly what Jesus said, is we don't see how bad off we are, so we think we're better than the person that hurt us. So we assume we can hold them down because look at how horrible they are, and I am in the I'm more righteous than they are, so I can look down. That's what most of the times when we act like bad attitudes is I'm not saying we don't disagree about that. I'm not saying we don't vote certain ways. I'm not saying we don't even fight for things. I'm just saying when you treat someone so dislike in an attitude that says, you're an idiot, I'm better than you, and you're a jerk, and I won't forgive you no matter what, it's because you think you're better than them.

And what he was saying is he said this up like, we're all in the same boat. Here's the thing he's trying to say, do you realize you don't wanna forgive someone that's hurt you or wronged you, but guess what, who on this planet earth, while you're alive, who do you think will hurt you the most?

You.

Do you realize if you look at the way we live and ignore God's word and live out our life and make stupid decisions and run away from God, I guarantee over your life, the one that will sin the most against you, that will hurt you the most, set you back the most, cause you the most pain and the most suffering, guess who it's gonna be? Look in a mirror.

You hurt yourself worse than anyone else hurts you, but Jesus forgave you and died on the cross for you. So the first step to even understanding this is, have you truly looked at your sin honestly

and saw that I owe an impossible debt to a righteous holy God, that he died on the cross for me, and I'm gonna embrace that. And now I know that because I'm a Christian, I'm not better than anyone else. I'm just forgiven. And

I need to embrace that. And when I embrace that, I can start to maybe be a little bit more forgiving to others. But if I go into this attitude that says, I was pretty good to begin with. I just needed a tune up from God. I just needed to get my act a little bit together. But those people those people are the worst.

Somewhere along, you have a line between this is unacceptable bad. This is I know we're all bad, but this is okay bad. It's better bad. And here's the problem. Every one of us that has that line, guess where the line starts? Usually with yourself. Anybody you and better is okay. Anybody worse than you is bad.

Here's the problem. The line for everyone's bad is all the way at the top. Everyone down. And so he's saying is if you don't truly understand the gospel, you will never be able to forgive. And if you can never forgive, it means you probably don't really know the gospel, which means you're probably not a Christian. Or

best case scenario, what it's saying is, you may still be forgiven, but you just imprisoned yourself for the rest of your life. That is for sure. So if you're in here and you're struggling with lack of forgiveness, either a, not a Christian,

or b, you're a Christian that's gonna suffer the rest of your life. You've put yourself in your own prison. You've put yourself back in a prison that you were forgiven from to begin with, and you're living your life in your own prison. And half the time, if you don't get this, you live in this prison. You're still blaming the person that hurt you and ultimately the God who let it happen.

When the truth is everything since it happened, there is a healing process. There is a way to get past it, but it starts with forgiveness. But you think if I forgive, I let them get away with it. I'm letting it no. You're allowed you're starting the process of letting you get away from it. Get away from it.

Does that make sense? It's hard. I get it. It's difficult. It's hard to do. But that's what we need to do. So how is this a blessing? You know why? Because he says you'll end up in a prison. You'll destroy your relationships. You'll never reconcile. You can't reconcile a relationship without forgiveness.

And if you're waiting to forgive until you're reconciled, that's never gonna work. It it will never happen. So how is this a it's hard, but it's really a blessing and here's how. Forgiveness is a blessing

in many ways ultimately because it's greater than the alternatives. Quickly, three alternatives that is better than. That most of you are living in one of these alternatives if you won't forgive. The first one is forgiveness is greater than repayment.

That goes back to that idea, the conditional idea of forgiveness is like, I will forgive once you make it right. You need to forgive and then allow someone a chance to try to make it right. That's reconciliation. But if you may put that up front, I'm not gonna forgive you till it's made right.

The problem with that is that's not grace, that's justice. Justice isn't bad, but that's not the same as forgiveness. And what we need to offer to get away from these moments ourselves is forgiveness. What we need to offer if there's gonna be any hope of a reconciled relationship is forgiveness.

Justice will never reconcile it. Justice will never help you reconcile your own life. Especially because this, because no matter what you do, what do you do if this is the way you operate? Is what do you do when you hurt so badly that there's nothing that can be said and there's nothing that can be done to make it right?

Now what are you gonna do? You're gonna live in a prison the rest of your life.

Forgiveness is also greater than resentment. I mean, revenge. Revenge first. Revenge. I wanted to skip revenge.

Forgiveness is better than revenge, man. I know it's a great line in a movie and I love it when it said it and this is the hard one for me. I struggle with this one. I don't wanna just get even. I wanna get ahead by taking yours off.

I'll I'll be honest. Sometimes I wanna punch someone in the throat so hard it just takes the whole head right off.

It's not a gentle tap. It's not trying to convert. I just I just I'm that way. I did I struggled. Maybe you're like me. But revenge is hard for me. I just I go I don't wait. I don't get I don't sit there and let it build up. I'm like, I'm gonna go on the offense. The best defense is a good offense in my mind.

But it's wrong. It won't hurt work. No matter what you think, great line in a movie. Hello. My name is Anigo Montoya. You kill my father. Prepare to die. Hello. My name is Anigo Montoya. Anybody know what movie that's from? Prince's Pie. One of greatest movies ever made.

He spent twenty years looking for revenge, didn't he? But what does he say at the end when they're jumping out the window and go on and he's like, I don't know what to do with my life now. Because he spent twenty years only focused on that, so he has no life.

Are you gonna spend your whole life looking for revenge, and even if you get it, find out, well now what am I supposed to be about? You made that your identity. And when you do that, you end up with the last thing, is

forgiveness is greater than resentment. Because when you seek these other things, repayment and and revenge, you just want to get even, you want something happen to them, You've let them control the narrative. Even if there's never gonna be reconciliation,

so what you do to keep that going, the fuel for that is resentment. So you keep reliving it. You keep rehearsing it. You keep replaying it. You keep you basically stoke a fire with it, you keep throwing logs on, memories, and you let that fire get hot. You sit in front of it, you're like you're like gollum, like, my

precious. And what happened to him? That ring seemed so great. It seemed like it was this ring of power, and it distorted him, and demented him, and changed him. And that's what it'll do. And you think that I can't let go, otherwise they're getting away with something. Why it's destroying you.

And it's not making it better. Then like I said earlier, the problem is every time you relive it, you forget anything you did. You remember all you focus on is what they did, and you start adding all of the pain, all of the sorrow, all the frustration,

all the things that have happened to you since, you put that on their list, and it doesn't belong on their list. That's on your list. You're doing it yourself. So if you've been refused to forgive and it's been like twenty years,

the last nineteen or so of it, which is probably most of the frustration and consternation and pain, guess who hurt you the worst for the last nineteen years? You. You've actually taken what they did and hurt yourself worse than they even hurt you by what they did.

It's the only way to hope. It's it's it's greater than all of these things. Matter of fact, this this quote from Frederick Buckner, a pastor, theologian, author. Of all the deadly sins, resentment appears to be the most fun. Appears.

To lick your wounds and savor the pain that you will give back in many ways is a feast fit for a king. But then it turns out that what you are eating at the banquet of bitterness is your own heart. The skeleton at the feast is you. You start holding a grudge, but in the end the grudge holds you.

That's what we need to take care of. We need to not be stuck in that. So what what do we need to do? I've heard it said this, is is is In other words, what is Jesus really answering here? He answered Peter's initial question. When is my hurt greater than my call to forgive? You know what the answer is? Never.

Because if you won't forgive, your hurt will grow. It won't go away.

I heard this quote. We are most like beasts when we kill. We're most like men when we judge. We're most like God when we forgive. So what's the answer?

It's basically what he said you need to do in all through scripture. Simple. Here's what we do. How do you start to forgive? How do I do it? Simple answer. You relinquish the right to get even, you respond to evil with good, and you repeat it as often as necessary. It's almost like riding a bike.

You can only start pedaling and doesn't that seem like you're just going in circles?

It does. You're just going in circles. But guess where the bike's taking you? Somewhere else. So you go, alright. I will refuse to relinquish my right to get even, respond evil with good, and repeat. I'll repeat.

There's two pedals. Relinquishing the right to get even, responding good with evil, and then you just keep spinning. But then what keeps you going is when you ride a bike, you gotta you're gonna go what you look at. Right?

So the answer, the real fuel for this, the real key if you really wanna know how to do it to get the motivation, the power is this. The key to forgiving is to stop thinking about what's been done to you and start thinking about what Jesus has done for you. That will help you get on that bike and ride away.

That's what will enable you to do it. Because Jesus, when he hung on the cross, his final words was it is finished.

He died for the sins. So in your life, is it?

Have you forgiven yourself? In other words, have you embraced the forgiveness of Christ that can enable you to do this? Is it finished?

Because we needed to get on that bike and we need to pedal looking at Jesus and looking what he did. Look to the cross and just keep pedaling. The problem is that seems like more of a burden than going the other way.

It's like this. My my father-in-law was out visiting. He's, like, 75 years old. He got me into bike riding, but you can tell I haven't ridden much lately. And he

but he can still he's a better bike rider than me, but he's gotten older. He likes to mountain bike and stuff. As he's gotten older, he's lost some power. So it's like it's hard for him to go up steep stuff, so it's a little bit harder when he goes out and stuff. So he comes, goes, at my new mountain bike. And it's beautiful looking, but it was big. Had huge wheels. I'm like, that looks hard to ride. I pick it up. He's like, oh my gosh. He goes, yeah. It weighs like fifty five pounds.

And I'm like, if you know anything about riding, especially going up hills, the last thing you wanna do is lug any more weight than yourself.

This bike's more than double the weight of a normal mountain bike. And I'm like, why would he get a heavier mountain bike as he's gotten older and it's harder to ride? He goes, because down there in the crankshaft, you don't realize that that's got an electric motor.

I go, what? I go, a motorcycle? He goes, no. It doesn't ride without you. It it it it adds too. You choose to pedal, and it it brings power to your pedals.

I wrote it. It's super smooth. It feels like you're actually doing it, but it's really all I gotta do is make sure I spin. It has different settings. You could make it like you could ride it like it's a normal bike and just lug the 50 pounds around. You could you could turn it on one, it gives a little help. Two, three, maximum help. It's just how much help do you wanna lean into? What do you wanna do? Where do you want? But it comes with a power source.

And so when he was going out riding, he was able to go right away. He's like, now he can get up out of these valleys that you get stuck in. He can get through that sand, those sandy spots, but he can get up. And he went out and rode and he came back. He was he'd been gone for like three hours. He rode for over three hours at 75 years old. He didn't mean to ride for three hours, but he got lost because he's old.

Took him three hours to find his way back. But he said, I'm so glad I had this bike because there are so many values. I gotta get out of this. And he was able to ride right up it. And all he had to do to choose is to pedal and rely on the power that he was given.

And that's the thing. When you hear this story, you think there is no way I can do this. It's been so hard. But you're living in the burden by not forgiving. You're living in the burden because you're owning one of the false narratives of what forgiveness is. You're living in the burden that says there's no way I can let this go. When you if you know Jesus,

you have a power source. As long as you stay plugged in and charge that battery up, as long as you turn that lever and lean into the power He's already provided, and then you just gotta pedal, and the power comes through you just willingly. Your job is just to keep spinning, just to keep responding, just to keep saying, hey, I'm gonna relinquish my right to own this. I'm gonna respond to evil with good, and I'm gonna ride away from this. I'm gonna ride up out of this canyon, and I'm gonna trust the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I'm gonna get out of here, whether they get out of here or not. And if you do hope for reconciliation,

that's your only hope that they'll go with you. They need to see you, and they'll jump on, and they'll do the same thing. That's your only chance, but that is the gospel of who Jesus is, and that's why we must forgive. Amen?

Let's pray. Hey, as I pray, if you already you know you know Jesus, but you've had a hard time with forgiveness lately. You've kinda stopped pedaling or you didn't you haven't had your bike plugged in and it's out of juice. Talk to God about that right now. Just say, God, I want this to be finished. Choose to let it go.

But some of you, the reason you've struggled is you've never been pulled out of the valley of your own sin. You've never accepted Christ as your Lord. You've never accepted his love and his offer by admitting your own sin.

If that's you, you're online, you're in this room, I just wanna close prayer and pray with you guys. A yes moment to Jesus. Say yes to his love. Say yes to his forgiveness. And it's simple. Just profess, confess your own sin, our debt, and profess his willingness to forgive and how he did it on the cross.

If that's you, just pray with me, but pray make it your own words, but pray something like this. Dear God, thank you. Thank you that even though I am the worst offender and hurt cause of hurt in my own life,

You didn't make me pay it back, you paid it for me. Thank you that you went to the cross for me and that you died for me, but you rose from the dead beating death so I can have life. So right now in the best way I know how I turn from my sin, I turn from my attempts to pay you back and I accept your love.

And help me to have that love and give me that heart, that bike heart that has the power and give me the power and the willingness to pedal and then empower those pedals to ride towards you. To ride towards what love is in my life. Help me to be a forgiving person. Help me to just live my life the way you would live it.

I thank you, and I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus, amen.

Hey, guys, as as we get ready to go, a couple things. One, if you need to talk to someone some more or pray with someone some more, we have our prayer room over here. Other than that, I just wanna tell you guys I love you guys. And I know that's a bye week, but I can still say go Cardinals because this is probably their best chance to win this week. So