Learning to Pray, Part 5: The Forgiveness Factor

Type: Wednesday Evening Service

Series: Fresh Fire: Learning to Pray

Sermon: Part 5: The Forgiveness Factor

🗣️ Speaker: Pastor Tom Van Kempen

Forgiveness is not just a kind gesture — it is a daily spiritual necessity woven into the very fabric of how we are meant to pray and live. Holding onto bitterness, resentment, and grudges creates a self-made prison that blocks the flow of grace in our lives, while choosing to forgive — even when it feels humanly impossible — is a supernatural act that brings deep healing to the one who forgives. True forgiveness is not a feeling or a one-time event, but a series of courageous choices to release others and trust that justice belongs to God.

ℹ️ Tip: The video is set to start at the beginning of the sermon, but you can scrub the playhead to any part of the service. ℹ️

• Full Transcript

  Good evening. It's good to see you in the house of the Lord tonight. I wanna just ask you to bow your heads for a second. Tonight's message can be seen as a little sensitive, so I just want to pray that our hearts are open to what it is God has for us. Heavenly Father, we come to you in Jesus' name. And Lord, tonight we are studying once again what has been known for centuries as the Lord's Prayer. But Father God, it's really more appropriately the disciples' prayer. It's what each and every one of us should be implementing in our lives on a regular basis. It can be used by itself as a spiritual weapon to bring down the strongholds of the enemy, and it can be dissected in such a beautiful way that it becomes a model for how we pray on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, but especially on a specific or a regular basis. So Father God, I pray that as we talk about this idea of forgiveness and the idea of unforgiveness, that we would open up our hearts to literally hear from the throne room of God. I pray, Father God, that we wouldn't just turn off your word as if we have nothing to report in our own lives. I pray that we would have an Isaiah moment where we would be confronted by things that need to be repented of in the name of Jesus Christ and that you will do a supernatural work in each of our lives here tonight in Jesus' name. I pray that you would draw us closer and closer to you by your spirit and that you teach us your word in a deeper way tonight so that we can, Father God, be conduits of your grace to one another here in this body and to those outside of the body of Christ so that your kingdom can continue to grow and grow and grow. I pray this today in Jesus' holy and precious name. And together, everybody says. - Amen. - Amen. Welcome to our Fresh Fire Learning to Pray series. This is number five on our Wednesday night trek, and I'm calling tonight's message the forgiveness factor. On Wednesday nights we've been talking about prayer, and prayer is the breath of the soul who can say amen. But unforgiveness, unforgiveness is the asthma attack that keeps you from breathing. And I just wanna challenge you to allow God to do a work in your life tonight. Because Jesus teaches us to pray in Matthew chapter six verse 12, "And forgive us our debts as," say as. as we forgive our debtors. 10 simple words, but those 10 words connect two massive spiritual realities. First, my forgiveness from God, and second, my forgiveness towards other people. Let's be honest, we love being forgiven. We love grace when it's flowing in our direction. But forgiving somebody else, that's not as much fun at all. For some reason, when I'm asked to forgive, I feel a little cheated, like I'm letting them off the hook prematurely, like justice isn't being served. I feel like this woman that I heard about testifying about how Jesus changed her life. She said, "I'm so glad I'm a Christian. "I used to have an uncle I hated so much "I vowed never to go to his funeral, "but now that I have the love of the Lord in me, "I'd happy to go to his funeral anytime." (congregation laughing) Is that forgiveness or is that sarcasm? I'm not quite sure, but what I am sure of is when someone hurts me, something rises up inside of me, and it demands justice. And when justice doesn't come quickly enough, something has a tendency of attaching itself to my soul, and that something is a grudge, that something is resentment, that something is bitterness. And if it's left untended, it will produce a poison that brings us down dramatically. Often we carry these offenses like prized possessions. We think that we're justified in our behavior. And so we actually have them in our back pocket to whip out every now and then. Maybe even to shine 'em up a little bit and to show people, look what so-and-so did to me. Look what you did to me. and we love to remind people of the injustices of the past. But I want you to look real careful at this verse and how it's connected to verse 11. Matthew chapter six, verses 11 and 12. Look at what it says. Give us this day our daily bread and, I don't know if you've ever noticed that word linking these two verses together. Remember, the verses are not in Scripture. Somebody put them in there just to help you remember them and to find your place on a regular basis. This is an idea that is connected by this word and. And the idea here is really, really interesting. Daily bread, daily provision, daily blessing is connected to daily forgiveness, both what you receive from God and what you extend to other people. They are inseparable. You can't have one without the other. You will not experience the blessing of God if you're holding grudges against people in his church. If you're holding grudges against parents, if you're holding grudges against people who've hurt you in your past, you don't get the blessing without learning to give the grace that God gave you. If you want fresh fire in your life, you have to deal with the smoke of past hurts. You cannot breathe in the Holy Spirit while you're choking on the fumes of bitterness. So tonight, let me give you three spiritual truths that are so obvious in these verses. But I just want to remind you of them tonight. Truth number one is this, we all need forgiveness. Say need. - Need. - It begins with us. Before we talk about forgiving others, we have to talk about what we've been forgiven of. And I have this feeling that most Christians have forgotten what they've been forgiven of. I just have this sense that we stand in our self-righteousness a little bit too much, and we stand as the judge of other people in our lives and think that we have the right to judge them. The Bible says you better not do those things. Romans chapter three verse 23 says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." All of us have sinned. Every single one. And what's interesting, this word sinned or sin is the Greek word and it's hamartia. Okay, hamartia. And it means to miss the mark. Here's the problem with this idea, is missing the mark doesn't seem that bad. I mean, if there's a big old target down there and I shoot my arrow or my gun at it and I still hit the target, I just don't hit the bullseye, I'm still good. In the Olympics, I could qualify for a medal. Maybe not the gold, but I could be silver, I could be bronze. Listen, there are no silver medal winners in the body of Christ. There are no bronze medal winners. You are either hitting the target bullseye or you are a loser. You're out of competition. And this is super important because we love to grade sin. We think our sins are oopsies. You guys know what I mean? Oops, I'm sorry. Oops, it wasn't that bad. Oops, if you just get to know me, you'll know I had good intentions and good motives, right? But if someone offends us, it's as if they are the most vile, heinous, evil human being in the entire world, and that includes our spouse. How dare he? How dare her? And we use those offenses to justify the cold shoulder. We use those offenses to justify divorce in our marriages. We use those offenses to never talk to the person ever again to disown people right and left. But the key is in understanding what the mark really is. sin is missing the mark. What's the mark? You got to go back to Romans chapter 3 verse 23, "For all have sinned and come short of the..." Oh, oh the mark's a little bit higher than I thought. The mark isn't, "Am I better than my neighbor?" The mark isn't, "Am I better than Adolf Hitler or Charles Manson?" The mark is is pretty high, it's the glory of God. It's his holiness, it's his perfection, it's his goodness, it's his glory. And if you don't hit the bullseye there, then you are a sinner. In need of forgiveness, who can say amen? And so when we actually realize this, and we don't sugarcoat it in an Easter or Christmas message and say all you have to do is accept Jesus in your heart. No, that doesn't get you saved. You don't get saved by accepting Jesus Christ in your heart. You get saved by falling on your knees and pleading for forgiveness in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. And until we have pastors and people willing to let the truth be known, The church isn't gonna grow. We can't just walk on eggshells and say, oh, everything's gonna be okay. No, you're going to hell without Jesus Christ. You're going to hell because of your sin. So we have to acknowledge our sin and cry out, forgive me of my debts, Lord God. Forgive me. Jesus uses this interesting word debts here. Just so you know, there are at least probably eight, maybe 10 or 12 different words to help us to understand what sin really is in the Bible. So that means sin can't be just put in a little box and oh, that's sin. Sin's missing the mark, yeah, but sin's also a debt. That's what Jesus is saying here. And again, when we hear this word, we might religiously think, "Well, I can just declare bankruptcy." On sin? No. You see, you might treat your sin like a parking ticket, but God treats it like a capital offense. And the scripture says that the wages of sin, the payment for sin, is death. Ophilema, which is this word for debt, means failure to pay what is due. and death is what is due. And if sin is a capital offense, this helps us to understand the severity of man's condition, the gravity of the issue. And there are no small sins in big sins, there's only sin. And there's the consequences of sin, and that is death. Now, here's what's interesting. Adam and Eve didn't die instantaneously in the Garden of Eden. And I think that gave them a false sense of security. I think they were like, hey, we ate the apple, we got kicked out of the garden, yeah, but we're still here? I thought we were gonna die. What they didn't realize is their relationship was already dying because they blamed each other. What they didn't realize is that trust was dying in their relationship because they blamed each other. Death starts slowly, hopes die, trust dies, friendships die, marriages die, security dies, and eventually there's the spiritual death of hell itself. But then there's the other aspect of olephlema or whatever this Greek word is. It helps us understand that sin is a failure. It's a failure in duty and obligation for that which we ought to have rendered to God and to man. So hear me, this is important. So sin includes the bad that we have done along with the good that we fail to do. The magnitude of what we owe is so large and so beyond our ability to pay that Peter had to encourage his readers by saying, "You've been redeemed." In other words, your debt has been paid. Who can say amen? And it's been paid by something better than silver and gold. It's been paid by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Now here's what's powerful about the Lord's Prayer. Jesus assumes in this prayer that we will continue to need forgiveness every single day. Isn't that interesting? The disciples are saying, Jesus, Jesus, teach us to pray. And he doesn't teach them to pray the way he prays, because he's not asking for forgiveness. He is customizing a prayer to fit their circumstances exactly, to fit what they need perfectly. And in the middle of this prayer, he says, you need to ask for forgiveness every single day. John, the disciple in 1 John 1,8 puts it this way. "If we say we have no sin, we're deceiving ourselves "and the truth is not in us." You understand that 1 John's written to the Christian church. And he's saying, "Hey, hey, hey, you Christians, "you're not done dealing with the major issue. "Oh, eternally you're done dealing with it. "It's been solved, you're going to heaven. But today we need to deal with it again. And tomorrow we're gonna need to deal with it again. It is a constant evil that it will be attacking you until you get out of this body. Who can say amen? You've gotta be delivered from this body to be ultimately delivered from sin. So in verse 14, Jesus uses again a different word for sin, periptoma this time. It means a trespass. Paratoma means to go across the line. You've trespassed onto someone else's property or someone else's territory. It has the idea of slipping. And so some of you are from up north, you know what driving in ice is like. I really loved living in the Memphis area for a number of years because they had no idea what driving on ice was like. and I would go out on the road and these people were crazy. I mean, it's 32 degrees and so it's still raining. But what they don't understand is all that rain that gets on the ground, it's gonna turn into ice. And so they're driving the speed limit, 75 on the freeway, and they don't know that it's black ice right there. You have to slow way down or you're gonna cross the line. You're gonna go across this divider. It's like an icy road. You slip into sin when for the moment you're just caught off guard. And isn't that what we Christians do? We don't mean to sin most of the time. What happens is the devil gets the best of us. What happens is we're tempted and we kind of slip across the line temporarily, and then we run back over here as fast as possible, and that's an awesome thing. But we still need to deal with it. Who can say amen? We still need to say, God, God, forgive me for that. We still need to say to the person, honey, forgive me for that, or friend, forgive me for that. So whether we sin on purpose or by accident, we need to quickly ask for forgiveness. The Christian life is not about legalism. It's not about perfectionism. It's about honest confession. Say confess. Confess. First John 1.9 goes on to say, if we confess our sins. Confess means to agree. It means to just speak it out. And we're supposed to confess all the sins that we know that we commit. So if I offend my wife, I typically know that I've done it, okay? It's because I raised my voice inappropriately, I have an accusatory tone of some kind, or I might not share an appreciation when I should. And so you gotta say, "God, forgive me." You should also go to your spouse and say, "Honey, forgive me." But do you know we do a lot more sinning than even the ones we know? We are such sinful creatures that we're sinning throughout the day unknowingly. We don't even know we're doing it. Now some of you understand this completely. If you've been a Christian for any period of time, there are things that you've done previously in your Christian life that you thought were perfectly okay and you don't do it anymore. And you don't do it any longer because you've learned and the Holy Spirit has convicted you and said, You know, you need to stop doing that. You need to stop acting that way. You need to stop saying those things. Job puts it this way, he says, teach me what I cannot see. If you wanna pray a dangerous prayer, say that. God, I know there's some sin in me that I'm not aware of, would you just teach me about it? Oh, get ready, because it will be painful. I'm just letting you know. The psalmist put it this way, search me, oh God. Oh, be ready. Be ready. It's like going to the doctor and getting radiation treatment. If you've never got it, I'm here to tell you, I've received radiation treatment before. I know what it does to your body. It ravages your body, but at the same time, it brings healing. God will tell you the truth. It will hurt. It will ravage you, but it will heal you in Jesus' name, who can say amen? See these are pleas for grace. These are the psalmist and Job saying, God we just need more of your grace. I know I'm not in a position to even see it, but you can see it, help me see it. And once you see it, and once you pray that prayer of forgiveness, then you have to accept the forgiveness. See this is a part of the equation I don't understand. There are people who do not accept forgiveness from God. They think their sins are too big. And so they don't even ask. They go, you know what, I'm just a horrible person. I couldn't even ask God to forgive me of that. That sin was too big. That sin was too horrible. Or then there are people who will say, you know what, I will ask God for forgiveness, but I will never forgive myself. In other words, they think they're bigger than God because they're readily receiving the forgiveness of God so they can get into heaven, but they're not gonna forgive themselves. Or worse yet, there are Christians who hold ought against other human beings who God has already forgiven them, but we refuse to forgive them. Ouch. You are saying that your judgment supersedes God's judgment. You must, say must. You must forgive everybody, even if they don't ask it. Asking for it is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if God has removed your sin, listen, this is back to you again, as far as the east is from the west, Why do you take so many road trips to dig it back up? I just, I don't get that. We need to stop visiting the graveyard of forgiven sins and let yourself and other people off the hook. Romans chapter eight, verse one says this, "There is therefore now no condemnation "to those who are in Christ Jesus." No condemnation, no guilt, no shame. It's all been taken care of. The sin has been expunged. It is off your record. And now that we understand how ugly our own sin is, and if you've accepted the forgiveness of God, you're now ready for truth number two, which is we must forgive. Say must again. Must. We must forgive. Matthew chapter six, verse 12 again, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. You can have it up there for a while. I kinda like this verse. Jesus connects our vertical forgiveness to our horizontal forgiveness. Forgiveness, afia me, means to literally just to let go, to open up your hand, to release, to stop gripping, especially to stop gripping or holding on to an offense that you've experienced. God wants us to let go our need for instant justice and our desire for revenge. Listen, there's nothing wrong with wanting justice. That's how we're made. That's a good thing. Justice is good. It's when we're impatient with God and we want to do it now and we want to serve the justice ourselves. Faction we get in trouble the scripture teaches us in Romans chapter 12 verse 19 friends do not avenge Yourselves instead leave room for God's wrath Because it is written vengeance belongs to me. I will repay says the Lord Do you trust him? Do you trust him to keep his word if you do there's no need for you to take matters into your own hands If you trust him, it doesn't matter what your husband said, it doesn't matter what your wife said. If you trust him, it doesn't matter how you were treated in that previous church. If you trust him, it doesn't matter if your boss fired you. None of that stuff matters. I'm not talking about from a justice standpoint. Because God's going to take care of it. Who can say amen? God's got it all under control. and he oftentimes takes the most painful moments in our lives and he creates something beautiful out of them, something glorious can come as a result of all of that stuff. So how do we let go of an offense? How do we let go when we've been offended, deeply hurt, and sometimes the sin has violated us in some inhumane way. A car accident where someone kills one of your children. A rape. A beating, an abuse of some kind that goes on for years and years and years. Am I including all of those in this too? And the simple answer is yes. But listen to me, forgiveness is not simple in any way, shape, or form. What you need to realize, the first step is realizing that forgiveness is a supernatural process. Was your forgiveness not supernatural? So you extending forgiveness is also a supernatural process. There's a saying that I've heard since I was a little child, To err is human and to forgive is divine. It sums it up right there. It tells me that forgiveness is not easy. As a matter of fact, I'm gonna boldly declare tonight that forgiveness is humanly impossible. That what I'm asking you to do, what Jesus is asking you to do, outside of his power, cannot be done effectively. Oh, you can play mental games and emotional gymnastics and all that kind of stuff. But what we're talking about here is a work of the Holy Spirit on the inside of us. But you're not alone when you feel like you're the only one there. As I said, the Holy Spirit's inside. Listen to what Colossians 3:13 says, that we need to bear with one another. That's the hard part. We need to forgive one another if anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But what if I don't feel like it? Well, let me tell you, you will never feel like it, okay? Not until you've already made the decision because forgiveness is not a feeling. If you wait to feel like forgiving, you'll be waiting 'til the second coming of Jesus Christ. Okay, it's not gonna happen. You have to make a decision. You have to understand forgiveness is a choice, or better yet, it is a series of choices, or a series of decisions that we have to make, not just once, sometimes again, and again, and again, and again, because the enemy will remind you, The enemy will try and discourage you. The enemy will show you that they've not changed, that they've not been remorseful in any way, shape, or form and you will feel justified in not forgiving them and the Holy Spirit will say, "No, no, no, no, we're not gonna act that way. "We're gonna choose God's way over man's way. "Who can say amen?" We're gonna choose. We're gonna choose to offer what we have received from God. What have we received? Grace. Grace, grace, grace, and more grace. And we're gonna choose to offer that same grace, whether it's to someone we know, whether it's to an enemy, we're gonna offer grace. We're gonna choose to act like Jesus Christ. Look at Luke 23, verse 34. Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing. Do you see what Jesus is doing? He's giving them the benefit of the doubt. They've just spent the last 24 hours beating the snot out of him. Kicking him, stabbing him, whipping him, putting a crown of thorns on his head, making him carry that cross up the hill to Golgotha, spitting on him, mocking him, making fun of him, ridiculing him, And he responds by saying, "Father, forgive them. "They don't really know what they're doing. "They might think they know what they're doing, "but you and I know, God, that they don't know." 'Cause if they weren't deceived, if the devil wasn't covering their eyes, they wouldn't behave this way. This wouldn't be taking place. The same is true of every person that has ever offended you. They didn't know what they were really doing. Now you can say, "Yes, they did." But if Jesus can say this, you can say the same thing. And listen, here's what's important. They didn't apologize. They didn't write him a letter. None of them went to counseling, and Jesus forgave them anyway. Here again, we've got words that sweep away all of our shabby excuses. These 11 words reveal the barrenness of our own hearts. It reveals the barrenness of our own revelation of what grace really is, because the more you understand grace, the more willing you are to forgive any offense, the more desirous you are to forgive these offenses. Many people say, "If only the people who hurt me would show some remorse. If they'd just be sorrowful, then I could forgive them. But let me tell you, it's probably not gonna happen. Do you understand? Most people are never gonna ask for forgiveness. Most people don't even care that they hurt you. It's irrelevant to them. And so, we have to quit making excuses because all it does is continue the bitterness and the resentment and the grudges growing in our lives. So you've gotta choose to act by faith. Forgiveness, in its essence, is a decision made in your heart to refuse to live in the past. It's a decision that I'm going to believe the words in this Bible above everything else. It's a conscious choice to release others from their sins against you so that you can be set free, not them. You know, most offenders don't even know they've offended you. They just go on with their life as if nothing happened, and sometimes you carry it for decades, for our entire life. And that's why when you take the step of faith and decide to forgive, a miracle begins to take place in your life, and this is the miracle. Forgiveness transforms your connection to the offender. You start seeing them differently. Instead of seeing a monster, you now begin to see a human being, someone frail like yourself. You begin to relate to the offender. You say, "I'm a sinner, and this person is a sinner. "We're going to make mistakes." You start giving the benefit of the doubt. Your acceptance of God's forgiveness makes you literally an ambassador of his grace who can say amen. And he wants you to give the message everywhere you go. The second thing that happens is we slowly begin to release the offender. And I say slowly, because if it's something heinous and despicable and horrible, this is not an overnight thing that takes place in your life. The decision to forgive is instantaneous, but the pain can take years to heal. The final release can take a long, long time, because in this process, you're giving up your right for vengeance. Now listen, I'm not saying you're giving up his right to the consequences or her right to the consequences. God's gonna take care of the consequences through the legal system or through his system, one way or the other. But you give up your right to mentally destroy that person You put justice in God's hands and we gradually start feeling for the offender. I mean, where there was hatred, anger, despising, all of these things, all of a sudden you begin to feel sorry for them. Ephesians chapter four, verse 32 says this, be kind and compassionate to one another. And then he says, "Forgiving each other." So there is an ability to feel sorry for the other human being because of what they've done is going to ruin their lives. And the scripture says we can actually love them. I know this is hard, but in chapter five, it says that you're not supposed to even hate your enemies. You're supposed to love your enemies. And I know we read this and go, oh, that's hyperbole. That's not real. Listen to me, it's real. It doesn't matter if they are on the other side of the aisle. It doesn't matter if they watch a television station you don't watch. It doesn't matter if they are so opposite you, it's unbelievable. It doesn't matter if they're from a country that you don't respect. You can have a love for even your enemies World War II, Corrie ten Boom. You guys know who Corrie ten Boom is? She was a Dutch girl who was hiding Jews in their basement and she got arrested by the Nazis and she got put into concentration camps and she saw some of the most despicable things that the world has ever seen. She would be stripped, all the guards would watch her, look at her, touch her. I believe her sister was killed in one of those concentration camps. Her parents were killed, and somehow she made it through all of this after years in these horrible places. And she went on a speaking tour because she wanted to let everyone know that forgiveness was possible. And one day in Germany, she's giving a lecture on forgiveness when in the audience she sees one of the guards in her concentration camp. And all of a sudden, she just feels all of this pressure. She feels terrible inside. Rage and anger and resentment start rising up in the inside of her. And then it's complicated by the fact that when she's done talking, The guard comes up to her and says, "Isn't it awesome, the forgiveness of God?" And he extends his hand towards her. In that moment, she had a decision to make. And in that moment, she acted in faith by reaching out her hand and saying, "Yes, and I forgive you." She let this guy off the hook, it seems like. No, she didn't. She let herself off the hook. If she had not forgiven in that moment, her life would have gone in the wrong direction. I'm just letting you know. Everything she stood for would have been for nothing if she chose not to forgive this at one time horrible human being. So that leads us to truth number three, and it's this. There are benefits to forgiveness. Who can say amen? So before we get into that, let me just clarify to you real quickly what forgiveness is not, okay? Forgiveness is not approving of what someone else did. It's not pretending that some evil didn't take place. It's not overlooking an abuse. It's not even forgetting. I hear people say, "Forgive and forget." It's not gonna happen. It will always be in your mind, okay? We're not God. We can't remove memories from the back of our mind, especially really difficult ones. Forgiveness is not even restoring the relationship. Do we want to restore the relationship? I think the scripture teaches that that's the ultimate. God desires for there to be reconciliation. But even in marriage, Jesus says, you know what? If adultery's there, you don't have to reconcile. Are you hearing me? You have to forgive, but you do not have to reconcile. Sometimes trust is so violated that the relationship on this planet cannot be saved. All right? So we need to understand the difference between these things. and it's hard, we've been taught wrong in the past, okay? We need to know what does the Bible really say. It's not even verbalization. You don't have to go to the person and say you forgive them. There's nothing I hate worse than someone in the church coming up to me and saying, "Pastor, I hated you for years, but I forgive you now." If the person doesn't know there's a problem, It's between you and God, okay? You don't have to verbalize it. Forgiveness does not mean the consequences are canceled. Forgiveness does not mean that you deny the pain. It's just saying that this incident will not own me. Who can say amen? So, Matthew 6, 14 and 15, for if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, "Neither will your father forgive your trespasses." (gasps) What? All of a sudden it sounds like we're going to hell again. How could God's grace be negated? That is not what this is teaching. As a matter of fact, one of the blessings of forgiving other people is you experience a deeper understanding of grace. You actually understand it. Forgiveness is literally at the heart of the gospel message. The more you forgive, the more you can lead other people to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Because you understand we don't forgive because they deserve it. You forgive because God forgave you. That's why we forgive. God forgave me. So you understand that forgiveness is a gift. It's a gift of God's grace. Forgiveness is also though evidence of your transformation. If you can never forgive, I can't judge your Christianity, but I can question it. Because a tree is known by its fruit, right? So if you've been forgiven and the grace of God is flowing through you, the fruit you produce will be grace. You will find it possible, maybe not easy, but possible to forgive. Jesus is not teaching that forgiveness earns us salvation. He's teaching that unforgiveness exposes a heart that has not fully grasped grace. If you're unable to forgive, it's because you don't realize the depth of your own sin and the enormity of your own debt. In Matthew chapter 18, Jesus gives us a parable to try and help us to understand what we owe. Now I'm gonna teach on this this summer, so I'm just gonna give you a quick synopsis here, okay? One guy goes to the king and owes 10,000 talents. That's in the trillions of dollars, just so you know. Okay, he owes trillions. And the king just forgives him. and the guy's so excited he runs out the door, I'm forgiven, I'm forgiven, and some guy owes him 100 denarii, 10 bucks, and he won't forgive the guy 10 bucks. What's the lesson? The lesson is we all owed God 10,000 talents. We all owed God so much money, there's not enough in all the world to pay our debt, and whatever anyone has done to you, I don't wanna trivialize it here, okay? But in comparison, it's like them owing you $10 and you receiving the glory of God's forgiveness and then you're unwilling to forgive someone else. His unforgiveness, listen to this, the closing of the parable, his unforgiveness causes him to be locked away, imprisoned by his own unwillingness to forgive. And in his unforgiveness, he makes a self-made prison. But listen, the door is always unlocked. At any moment, you can just push open the door and walk your way on out. Because as you recognize his grace, you can start extending that same grace. Number two, the freedom to walk in your true identity. We live in a weird age. Everybody's a victim. Have you noticed that? Did you know the Bible says there's no victims? Nobody's a victim. If you are a slave, you're supposed to actually honor your master. You're not a victim. You are exactly where God wants you at that time and moment in history. That does not mean slavery is not evil. It was evil. It's not evil. It is evil. It's still taking place. Sex trafficking is one of the number one crimes in all of the world. It's heinous and horrible, but even in those situations, God's grace can rule and reign. If not, then God isn't the God I think he is. He can do anything. Freedom is who we are. Corrie ten Boom said this in that lecture. Unforgiveness is setting a prisoner free and discovering the prisoner was me I'm the prisoner That's what unforgiveness does So you're given freedom to to no longer live in the past freedom from negative feelings resentment bitterness anger Matthew chapter 18 says that the first guy was delivered to the tormentors if you have ever carried bitterness or resentment, it's torment and Sometimes the cost is far deeper than the offense that was ever perpetrated against you Freedom from victimhood. I just I'm so tired of everyone Complaining and whining and saying they don't get what they want or what they deserve Listen, the Bible says you deserve hell The next time you go into a restaurant and complain about the service you deserve hell You don't deserve a juicy hamburger at Steak and Shake If they give it to you, it's a blessing if they don't pray for them Quit this complaining quit this whining we live in a country that has food falling out of our ears And yet we complain and complain and complain. God says I don't want to hear it anymore. You're never more like Jesus than when you forgive and you will never be set free until you forgive. Do you know who the Bible says you are? You're a king's kid. You're a powerful conqueror. You're a healthy and whole person, body, soul, and spirit. Amen. So that means one of the benefits of forgiveness is healing for your mind and body Physically you will start feeling better than ever in your entire life Medical research confirms what scriptures always said bitterness damages the body Forgiveness reduces stress lowers anxiety restores emotional balance your mind will be set free there will be less confusion clearer thinking a mind filled with hope and peace and maybe will be restored. It's not a guarantee, but it's a possibility. So I'd like to have everyone stand right now because I don't want to embarrass anybody, but some of you have brought a backpack of unforgiveness into the church tonight. And here's what's sad. You might be used to it. You're walking with a limp and you don't even recognize it. You think that's normal, but it's because there's rocks of unforgiveness in that backpack and it's causing all kinds of spiritual issues. And God, I believe, is desirous of us to to drop our unforgiveness at his altar today. And so I'm gonna pray for you and then the team is going to sing and so I'm gonna leave the altars open and you can come if you want to and no one's gonna assume that just because you come forward, you came forward because you've got unforgiveness in your life, okay? That's the devil trying to talk to you into not coming forward. You might have prayer for a million things that need to be prayed for tonight. So we're opening these alters, but let me pray for you tonight and prepare you for what I think God has in store. Would you bow your heads, please? Heavenly Father, we come to you in the precious name of Jesus Christ. And Lord, I've sensed your gentleness here tonight. I've been convicted of unforgiveness in my own life, but I don't feel beaten down in any way, shape or form. I preach this message to myself over the last couple of days, and all I've sensed is your love. All I've sensed is your encouragement. All I've sensed is your help, wanting me to cast all my care, including all my unforgiveness, onto you. So in this moment, Father God, I ask on behalf of myself and on behalf of this congregation to please forgive us of all of our sins. Forgive us, Father God, of holding grudges. Forgive us for nursing grudges. Forgive us, Father God, for allowing roots of negativity and resentment and bitterness to grow in our hearts. And tonight, Father God, we're asking you to pull those out by the roots in Jesus' name. Father God, yes, some pain might be caused, but we're gonna make a decision that since the Lord's Prayer says, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, "as we receive your forgiveness "for all of our sins tonight, Father God," we are going to release every person who has ever harmed us in the name of Jesus Christ. Father God, I realize that even in this moment, some names are coming to people's brains, So I pray that in their hearts they can say, "God, I give them to you. "God, I give them to you. "God, I give them to you." I also realize that over the next couple of days that this message is gonna resonate. And there are gonna be people maybe from childhood that we're gonna remember hurt. And all you're trying to do, Father God, is to give us the opportunity to let 'em go, to let the pain disappear by a miraculous work of your Holy Spirit, to become the men and women, the conduits of grace that you want us to be, and to be your ambassadors, Father God, to a world that is hating each other right now, to a world that is holding grudges for generations, not just one lifetime, but we're going back hundreds and even thousands of years, and trying to hold modern people responsible for things that aren't even their fault. So I pray, Father God, that you would do a revival in our hearts, in our church, in our city, and in our nation, and I pray this in Jesus' holy and precious name, and together everyone says, Amen.