Video Transcript: Forgiving Others

Video Transcript - Forgiving Others (Dr. Feddes)

Once upon a time there was a king. And this king had someone who worked for him who didn't do very well in managing money. And he owed the King 10,000 bags of gold. So the king decided he had lost enough money with this guy. And he called him in and ordered him to pay all that he owed. And the man said, well have mercy on me, and I will pay it all. And the king said, Well, I'll have mercy on you and I'm not going to make you pay any of it. The king was thanked by the man and then the man went out. And then he found a fellow servant who owed him one gold coin. And he grabbed that man by the collar and began to choke him and said, pay me what you owe. And the other man said, well be patient with me, and I'll pay it all. But he was furious and would not take the money. He could not get the money and he ordered the man to be thrown into prison until he would pay that gold coin. Well, so other people found out what happened. So they went back to the king and told him and they said, well, that guy that you forgave 10,000 bags of gold, went out and grabbed some of that old and only one gold coin and had him thrown into prison. And the king said, well, that's not my problem. 

He was forgiven the 10,000 bags of gold. That was an unconditional act on my part. And so he can do whatever he wants regarding the one gold coin that's owed to him. Wait a minute. If you've read the Bible and read Matthew 18 at all, you know, Jesus told a story about somebody who owed 10,000 bags of gold, and another guy who owed a gold coin, but it didn't quite turn out that way. The King didn't say, Well, I forgave him a lot, but whatever he does regarding forgiveness is up to him. No, he, he called him back in and, and he was furious with him. And here's what he had to say in Jesus parable, You wicked servant. I cancelled all that doubt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? in anger, his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed. And then Jesus gives the punchline of the parable. This is how my Heavenly Father would treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart. Jesus does not say, All is forgiven, no matter whether you happen to forgive or not, that's up to you. I just forgive you. He says, This is how my Heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart. 

Now, this is a theme that comes up again and again in Matthew and throughout Jesus teaching. Jesus says, In the Beatitudes, introducing his great sermon on the mount, Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. And then when he teaches us how to pray, he says that we should pray forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And then he explains for if you forgive men, when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, their sins, your friends, others will not forgive your sins. Evidently forgiveness is a package deal. And if you expect to be forgiven, then you must forgive. And for those who have been well taught in the Christian faith and have learned the truth of God's grace, and of His forgiveness, the question immediately comes to mind. Well, what does that mean then in relation to what we were always taught about the basis of our forgiveness? Do we earn forgiveness by forgiving other people? Is that what it's based on? If you really can get yourself to be a first class forgiver then God will forgive you. And if you can't work your way up into being an excellent forgiver well, then God won't forgive you. Doesn't that sound quite a bit like salvation? By works, in this case, the work of forgiving, which is a very tough work indeed. Well, let's think about that a little bit more, Jesus. But as we think about it, let's not water it down because Jesus does say that somehow, God's forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of others go together and cannot be separated. 

Just some more of what Jesus says near the end of the Sermon on the mountain, do not judge or you too will be judged for in the same way you judge others, you will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. So the way you're measuring and judging others is the way God will measure and judge you. James, brother, half brother of Jesus says, speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful; mercy triumphs over judgment. Now, what's going on with that? Well, the Heidelberg catechism can give us a bit of a hint of what's going on. When it explains what do we mean when we say forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors, because of Christ's blood, do not hold against us for sinners that we are any of the sins we do are the evil that constantly claims to us, forgive us just as we are fully determined as evidence of your grace in us to forgive our neighbors. So in that explanation, we're told the basis of forgiveness is not our works. It's not how much we can do. 

The basis of our being forgiven is Christ's blood. Jesus gave his blood to pay for our sins, he takes the penalty, just as in that parable, if the king is going to forgive, it is going to be based entirely on his generosity and his willingness to take that loss of the 10,000 bags of gold. Jesus takes the loss, he pays the penalty. It is all based on his blood. And it is entirely by His grace and not by our works. But where Grace is at work, where Jesus blood has been applied. People forgive. It is evidence of God's grace in us that we show grace to others. So we're not earning God's forgiveness, by our forgiveness, our forgiveness and willingness to forgive is based on forgiveness. He has extended to us first, and yet it is a package deal. And what that means is, you really don't have the option of choosing grace as God's policy toward you, but grudges as your policy toward others. Some of us who kind of like to do that. God, forgive me. I want to live under your grace. And then we go out and we do not want to do that. We want to hold grudges for a very long time. And I'm sad to say that even among many Christians and church people, this can be the manner in which we operate. People who would want others to be punished if they did some of the grosser sins that church people frown on, will sometimes not speak to others for years on end, or harbor things in their heart and that's almost a normal operating procedure. But that's not an option for God's people. There are just two options. 

Option one lives under a policy where all debts are canceled. And when you live under that policy, then you pray forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And you have only one other option. live under a policy where no debts are canceled and nothing is forgiven. Every debt is carefully recorded. No offense is ever pardoned. But that's not a policy that I recommend because that policy is called hell. So there is a package deal. Do you want forgiveness to be the policy that rules your life? Both your relationship to God and your relationship to others? Or do you want careful record keeping and absolute justice, to be the policy that controls everything? Well, Jonah knew what he wanted. Jonah wanted grace for me, and punishment for thee. He disobeyed God when he was told to go preach to Nineveh, and he fled on a ship, but God sent a storm. And Jonah was thrown overboard, and then God sent a great fish, to, to swallow now and while Jonah is in the fish, he prays for God to deliver him, and he has faith even that God is going to do it. And he praises God for His mercy and how wonderful God is in his mercy and His Grace in rescuing Jonah , and then he preaches in Nineveh and God spared Nineveh. Well, what does Jonah think of that? Or not?

This is Jonah we're talking about, and Jonah was very angry at God. And God said, well, Jonah, do you have a right to be angry? That I spared this city and Jonas's? Yeah, I'm angry enough to die. And so God sends a nice little plant to grow over him and send some shade on him. And the next day, God sends a worm that eats the roots of the plant and the plant shrivels and the sun is beating down on Jonah. And he's even angrier than before. And, and God says, Well, do you have a right to be so angry? And he says, Yeah, I'm angry enough to die. God says, well, you're mad about this plant that springs up overnight and dies overnight. Shouldn't I have mercy on a great city with 120,000 people who don't even know the right hand from the left, and also a whole bunch of cattle? I know I always liked that is true in the cattle. But he cared more about the cattle than Jonah cared about the people because Nineveh was an enemy of Israel. And Jonah wanted God to favor him and his people and zap anybody that he wasn't getting along with. Well, that's just not one of the things that God will do. The Bible teaches that when we are forgiven, then we have to be forgiving people. And why is that so? Well, the cross is where Jesus saves us. The cross where Jesus deals with sin Golgotha was located at the great garbage dump. of Jerusalem. And we are to leave all the garbage at the dump, all the garbage that's involved in our guilt towards God and all the garbage of our grudges against other people, the sins we've committed against God and the sins others have committed against us are to be dumped and left on the garbage heap. 

When God's grace is flowing to you, it's also flowing through you. And if you stop the flowing through, it's going to do some damage to the flowing to. to think of it in a different way. The Bible says that we must be born again. It speaks of regeneration, Jesus said to Nicodemus, you must be born again or born from above. When you are reborn, and you have this life from God in you, then this life begins to act like God. And Jesus says, Be merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful, be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. And he says that in connection with loving your enemies because God makes his sunshine and rise on the evil and the good makes rain fall on the righteous and the unrighteous. And so Jesus says, Be like your father, have a family resemblance. You're in God's kingdom, where Mercy is the policy and God's kingdom is in you and reining in you are to take another phrase from the Bible, most often used by the Apostle Paul, you are in Christ, and Christ is in you. What goes on in Christ. So for all these reasons, forgiving and being forgiven, go together. Well, we might wonder, how often must I forgive? That's how we got into the parable of the unmerciful servant. In the first place. Jesus was asked by Peter, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me up to seven times? 

That seemed very generous. interest, the common teaching of the rabbi's at the time was roughly three. And so he thought, well, I'll double that and add another one. We got the number of perfection, man seven times. That's great. And Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven times, but 77 times. And then he tells the parable of the servant, and makes it very clear that we are expected to forgive not seven or even 77. But hey, forgive as often as you want to be forgiven. That's basically your rule. How often do you want to be forgiven? Well, then, forgive that much. Jesus in another place says if your brother sins rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, if he sins against you seven times in a day and seven times comes back to you and says, I repent. Forgive him. So, seven times, not in a lifetime, but in a day, says Jesus. So again, how often Must I forgive well as often as I wish to be forgiven. Now, having heard all that it's hard to disagree that we're that forgiveness from God and forgiving others are a package deal. You can't just separate them or chop them up.

But those of us who've actually been involved in situations either ourselves or that we've observed and others know that, like everything else in the world, forgiveness can be twisted, and grace can be distorted. And I'll just mention a few of the ways. One is the doormat approach, where you've learned that forgiveness is important. And you confuse forgiveness with just being too weak and afraid to do anything anyway. And so you just take it, and stuff keeps happening to you. People keep inflicting stuff on you. You sometimes even put yourself in the way of harm, almost on purpose without avoiding it, and never confronting the evildoer. Because Hey, I'm in the forgiveness business. And we may be fooling ourselves there because forgiveness is not just an act of being too weak to resist evil anyway, or being so scared of losing a relationship, that we're not going to confront anybody. That's what a lot of so called forgiveness is. There's many women who've been terribly mistreated, even abused by their husbands, who forgive.

Because Well, what else is she going to do? She's not sure where else she would live. She's not sure who else she could get a relationship with. So she keeps on taking it but that's quite a different thing. From forgiving. What does Jesus say? Well before he tells the parable of the unmerciful servant, he says that if someone sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you And if he won't listen, then take somebody else along so that you've got some witnesses to deal with it. And if he won't respond to that, then report it to the church. And if they won't even listen to the church, well then let them beat you as a Gentile or tax collector, someone who is regarded as not a believer or a follower of Christ at all. 

That's the procedure. If you were a wife and your husband was beating on you, you owe it to him, to confront him, and to do something about it and to report him to the relevant authorities in the nation, as well as the relevant authorities in the church. And that is not in conflict with forgiveness. Because he is not doing himself any good by being a cruel abuser. He has to be saved from what he has become and saved from hell than he needs to change and one way to change it To resist, that's not out of personal resentment. But it is out of a desire to put a stop to what to destroy in Him and you and others in your home. Or I could say the same thing in regard to many other sins if you have an alcoholic spouse, or an alcoholic friend or relative, and over and over and over again, you just sweep it under the rug, and lie for him to the boss or to somebody else and cover for him. You may say, love covers over a multitude of sins, you've even got your verse for it, and you will help your spouse to drink himself or herself to death. Because you're not actually being forgiving. You're being a doormat, where you're afraid of the consequences of confronting that you might lose the relationship. And so sometimes forgiveness is actually very bold and very risky. And not holding resentment against the other person but loving them so much that you're willing to risk their wrath and losing the relationship in order to confront them. So again, there there may be times when just in humility, people will think you're a doormat because you forgive, or you bear the afflictions from others. 

But there's a great difference between being too weak and afraid to insist on change. You should insist that a wrongdoer repent and change. Jesus says, if your brother sins against you seven times and says I repent. And sometimes Of course, it may even have to go beyond the saying of I repent and you need to encourage them to take the next steps. At any rate, being a doormat is one kind of phony way of forgiving and others kind of be on the other end of that you're the manipulator and you know, you're a religious home, and you've read the Bible, and you've wronged somebody, and you go up to them and say, You owe it to me to forgive me. And you're kind of messages My job is to keep hurting you and Your job is to keep forgiving me. Well, that's not real repentance either, that's a far cry from I'm really struggling with this thing, and I wish I could change it. But I've hurt you again and I'm sorry. And please help me to please help me on my path of change. That's a far cry from the bully who keeps on doing the damage, who keeps on being mean, or keeps on doing whatever it is he's doing and then assumes that it's everybody else's job to just let him off the hook. Another danger in this whole area of forgiveness is to hear the teaching on forgiveness and to think yes, I must forgive and there is so much to forgive. 

I like when the toothpaste tube is squeezed from the bottom up and then neatly rolled up and they just grab that sucker and squeeze it and I am going to muster all of my holiness and forgive them. I am so mad that they left The toilet seat up when I preferred it down but by God's grace and with much prayer, I shall forgive. And I know, I'm exaggerating just a little bit here but a good many of the things we get angry about and fight about in our lives and you fill in the blanks your own way. We think we've got to rise to heights of holiness, to manage to forgive such grievous sins, when all you gotta do is not be a knucklehead and excuse it. Some things don't require forgiving even they just require excusing that okay, we had a little TIFF because we were both in a bad mood Hey, let's just forget it. We don't need any grand forgiveness or if you do think you're wrong them say so. But there are many times when you do not need to be this Exaggerator who's calling on the supreme powers of forgiveness. 

You know, that's kind of like hauling out a cannon to get rid of a mosquito just swap the thing and move on. And then you know how there are others who hear this sermon on forgiveness in these passages on forgiveness, and they're right there with me. You're a superstar of forgiveness. And it's a good thing because the people around you are always wrong. And if only they will admit it, well, then you would be ever so kind as to forgive them. But you know, they don't always admit it. So until they do, I may have to hold off. But the thought never enters the mind that every so often there may be something I did that needs forgiving. And so sometimes the superstar forgiveness is very ready to grant that forgiveness should somebody come crawling to their throne begging for it. But we do need to get off our thrones and admit very often our own faults sometimes I'll I won't quote Any present company because I don't remember any of you necessarily doing this, but I sometimes just see on Facebook and don't even remember who writes it that people will vent their frustrations that people are thus in such a way. And if people only understood better those who are around them, and if people only understood that we aren't always what they think we are, and so on. Well, yeah, but that's true enough. But very often the person venting in that manner is not exactly a master of understanding people, either. And so again, in all these ways, as with everything else in life, the devil and our own fallenness can twist what is a glorious thing from God and turn it into something it's really not meant to be. 

I may be saying more in future messages about the passages on loving your enemies and, and forgiveness and maybe get into more of the ways that forgiveness gets twisted or that really quick glib, a, you got to forgive it. You know that We've got to be careful. It's a little more delicate and sometimes complex than that. But having said all that, forgiveness is very important. Charles Spurgeon was once confronted by a woman who had a question. He had spoken about heaven, and she had a problem. She just didn't know if she could be happy in heaven, if so, and so was going to be there too. And Mr. Spurgeon replied, Madam, I have no fear you will be there. Well, I remember I had a very similar experience where I had a radio program on having and somebody wrote me a letter, you know, they just, they didn't know if they could be happy if somebody who had really hurt them was there and you know, so I had to give a somewhat similar reply. Now, there are benefits to forgiving the Bible as a command and as an expectation but we also have to understand that it is a blessing. the Beatitudes are a blessing, blessing or the merciful, for they'll be shown mercy. 

And one of the great blessings of forgiveness, of forgiving others that is, is just having the assurance of God's forgiveness. And having that assurance grow as you forgive others. Sometimes you know, when we hear the gospel promises, we come to the Lord's table, we really do receive with our whole heart, God's mercy and grace and forgiveness, but then we're kind of shaken because we sin again. And we wonder, Well, if I was really a Christian, I wouldn't have done that and, and are and the doubts assail us. And when you hear God's expectation that you forgive others, you say, well, that that's the kind of God who forgives. And when I forgive somebody again and again, then I say, Yeah, and that's because God forgives me again and again. And when there is something terrible that was done To me, that, that I'm able to pray for that person instead of hating them, and to let go of my resentment, then I think, well, that's a miracle and that God who helped me through forgive them is the God who has forgiven me and your assurance of God's forgiveness for you grows as you forgive others. It's also so vital in our relationships to each other in our families. 

If parents and children never forgave each other, if spouses never forgave each other, if members of God's Church never forgive each other, if neighbors never forgive each other, we are going to have a very lonely life. We have relationships and they're valuable, precious relationships but they survive by forgiveness. And the Bible speaks of not giving the devil a foothold of not grieving the Holy Spirit. Forgiveness keeps Satan out of the room. ship. Forgiveness keeps the Holy Spirit happy. Forgiveness keeps the loved ones close to each other. And the Bible says that, you know you put on this and you put on that piece of clothing in Christ and over all these things you put on love. And then it goes on to talk about forgiving each other. And think of that again as the clothing you wear and and you get a thread sticking out. One thing you can do with that thread, just yank and yank, and yank and yank until everything unravels. And there are other times where you just tuck that thread away, or snippet and the thing is over. And forgiveness is the way to keep your clothing and your relationships in good repair, rather than just yanking it out over and over. You let it go. And then there is this benefit overcoming enemies. Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. How do you do that? Well, it's in the context of blessing those who curse you And not repaying evil for evil. 

The way that you overcome your enemies is to forgive those who hate or harm you. And if you don't, their hate, and their harm will continue to control you. Many children who grew up in an abused home, either become abusers or become depressed, unless they are able to let go of the hurt that was done to them. You end up repeating the very sins that were committed against you. Often if you don't forgive them, or you have other things that come in and just control you, you can go on for years and years. Made miserable by an enemy who's maybe not even in your life anymore. Sometimes. They might not even be your enemy, at least by intention. I remember a man in a church I served in Canada before moving to the United States, and he was furious at me for something I had done as a pastor that offended him. I had refused to perform a marriage for his daughter. And that whether rightly or wrongly, was a terrible offense to him. And so he stopped coming to church. And I left and went to the radio ministry, I left Canada. He still didn't go to church. He went year after year after year angry at the church and angry at me. And I kind of almost forgot about a lot, you know, I, I guess I was his enemy, but I, I never gave him a second thought to be honest. You know, once I moved away, I hardly ever thought about it. 

But it bugged him everyday he got out of bed. And then, one day he started going back to church again. And he visited with the pastor and he talked to the past and past that, well, you know that, that unforgiveness is just destroying you. So he wrote me a letter and I opened it. And when I was in my office it came back to God and I wrote him back. And you know, I was told later by his kids that they all got together and read that letter together and their dad was there. Dad was Whole Again, and he was himself again, but for more than 10 years, it just ruined him every day. And I in this case, I didn't, wasn't even trying to be his enemy. But I had done something that offended him very deeply. Take another story of this one, not involving me, except that it was told to me I was preaching in a church and a man came up to me and he was kind of unusual in the fact that I looked up to him quite sharply. And, you know, he told me that I he was six foot nine, I believe, and, you know, I'd played quite a bit of basketball in high school in college, and he told me this story, he said, for a lot of years, I was seeking to be closer to God and seeking more of His love and His presence in my life. And my spirit just stayed so dry and empty. And he said, I had this basketball coach when I was in high school, and he was a jerk. He was such a jerk to me. And that just bugged me. for 23 years, that guy, I could not stand thinking about him. And then I showed up at this gathering of Christians, you know, for a spiritual retreat and a revival from various people in various churches. And here was that guy, that coach and he said to when, when I saw him and we came together and talked together and that resentment fell away. 

He said, My whole life changed. And I suddenly felt so close to God and the richness and the, and the fullness of the Holy Spirit in my life. And for 23 years, he was still mad about what happened when he was on a high school basketball team. Now, again, I don't even know if the offenses were all that serious or not. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. But the impact was, and one of the ways you can keep sometimes you do have real enemies who did terrible things to you. Other times, maybe they weren't even real enemies, but it felt like it. But either way, if you let what happened, just keep dying at you, it will destroy your whole life. Well, they move merrily on with theirs. And so one of the great benefits of forgiving is just leaving their cruelty and whatever they did to you in God's hands. And as the Bible says, leave room for God's wrath says don't avenge yourselves, but leave room for God's wrath or it's written I will avenge Worry pay says the Lord. If they need to get paid back, there's somebody who can take care of it. When we want to pay back. It either destroys us or it destroys somebody else. If we're just insisting on getting it ourselves, you know, the story of laying back in the Old Testament, a young man wounded me, so I killed him. Somebody wants to be even seven times. I'm going to be avenge 77 times. That's that. 

Well, yeah, if you want to live that way and die that way, then so be it. But if you want to leave some room for God to be the one who decides what justice requires, he might just decide justice requires leaving all of that at the cross, and he'll let that person and he'll forgive that person who hurt you so terribly. But if not, if that other person is not under the mercy policy, you can be quite certain that if vengeance is theirs, it will be just and it will be in God's hands. So the benefits of forgiving again, are these. You experience God's mercy and forgiveness every time you show mercy and forgiveness You repair relationships that really matter a lot to you. Because, hey, if you depended on me to be a perfect pastor, after 15 years, there'd be nobody left. Okay? If you depended on being a perfect spouse, you would have been abandoned long ago. You know, if you're going to be a perfect parent, all your kids would hate your guts. That's just the way it is. So the repairing of relationships and even the overcoming of those who remain enemies, that doesn't mean that you get to be pals lousy with people who hurt you terribly or abused you terribly and still have no intention of changing I know, a young woman who went through a lot of depression. And, you know, in my exchanges with her it came out that her father had molested her.

She refuses to see her father unless he will acknowledge what he did and repent for it. She refuses to let her children see her grandfather. Does that mean she's hateful and unforgiving? No, it means she has a brain in her head. You don't hand your grandchildren over to the molest, you know, you don't hand your children over to the molester, when he doesn't even acknowledge what he did. So, again, forgiveness means praying and working toward reconciliation. And she has met with him a couple of times with a pastor. And so she's working towards reconciliation. 

That's a far cry from saying, oh, all is forgotten. And by tomorrow morning, all my children will be in your home. That's not how forgiveness works either because forgiveness seeks the well being of the offender. And it seeks the well being of those who might be injured in the future. But these still are benefits you experience God's mercy. You repair relationships, and in the case of enemies, you overcome them, by having God's mercy and God's justice be the final say in your life, rather than what you want to pay back. Well, how often should we forgive as often as we want to be forgiven? How serious are sins ? Should we forgive as serious as sins as we want God to forgive us, which are pretty serious against the majesty of God? How soon should we forgive? Well, there's a different way we could answer that one is forgiven before we come to Communion. That's been kind of a traditional one in many of the churches that I was familiar with, don't go to the Lord's table if you've got a grudge against somebody else, and that was based, in part on Paul's words, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, when you come together, it's not the Lord's Supper you eat. Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats the bread and drinks of the cup. 

So traditionally, then before communion, you had a time of self examination of sins maybe that you needed to repent of in relation to God and also things that maybe came between you and other people. And you were supposed to address that before he came to the Lord's Supper. Now back in those old days, in many of those churches that was a little bit convenient because Lord's Supper only rolled around once every three months. So you had a little time at least a nursery grudge around here that is a real pain in the neck because, you know, we have the Lord's Supper every week. But at any rate, there is that teaching in the Bible that we don't want divisions among believers. So every time we come to the Lord's table, we drop the grudges we seek forgiveness from Christ and we drop the grudges in our own life. If you were under quarterly communion, you still had other Bible passages that would be kind of a headache. If you want to nurse a grudge when you stand praying if you hold anything against anyone forgiven, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins. It's very hard to come into God's presence and say, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors, if we haven't forgiven our debtors, so we must forgive before the Lord's Supper but forgive even before we pray at any time. 

Time and forgive before you give, hey, the offering plate comes around or you're in the temple offering a gift at the altar. Forgive before you do that, and seek forgiveness before you do that. Anyone who's angry with his brother will be subject to judgment says Jesus in Matthew five. Therefore, if you're offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift. Love your neighbor as yourself is the second greatest of all the commandments and all the duties of worship and all the other religious things we do. Don't matter much compared to love and forgiveness in our relationships. So before you give, forgive, and then you know before you go to sleep in your anger, do not send it out. let the sun go down while you're still angry. And do not give the devil a foothold. The days are getting shorter, it's getting darker, sooner. The evening you have less time even during the day to hold on to a grudge right now. And then these words do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.

Be kind and compassionate to one another. forgiving each other justice in Christ. God forgave you. So, before you go to bed at night, drop the arguments, the bitterness, the rage, the anger before you say your prayers. Drop it before you give your offerings. Forgive before you come to the Lord's table, forgive. We are going to be taking our offering in a few moments. We're going to have our congregational prayer in a few moments. You're going to be taking part in the Lord's supper and you're probably going to want to go to bed tonight. So today is an excellent time to think about that person or Persons who still trouble Your Spirit, whom you're still angry at. And forgiveness does not mean that you will snap your finger and all negative feelings will vanish 10 seconds later. But forgiveness is like many of the other actions in our life. It's the beginning in the path of Christ. When you decide to fight against some other sin, you're not always instantly free of it in 10 seconds, you still have to battle your own flesh. 

But your old self that wants to hold the grudge has to be overcome by that new self that's born again in Jesus, and that is going to win and you're determined to count that old, angry self dead. You count yourself dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ Jesus and come to the place of prayer. When you say Forgive us our sin, our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors, you're resolving to forgive. You can't always control the emotions you are going to feel in connection with that. But you're going to start praying for the best for your enemy. Start praying for God's justice and dealing with your enemy or else's mercy, but you're leaving that enemy in his hands. And you are saying, Lord, I leave them in your hands. Bless. And meanwhile Lord, help me to live in the freedom of forgiveness. Let's pray together 

Dear Lord, we pray that your miracle of forgiveness may come to us where, where we have sinned against you, where we feel guilty and weighed down by what we have done, Lord, lift the burden from our back and help us to be free and you to know that we can never pay back the amount of debt that we owe, with the Christ blood has paid it all. And then Lord as our minds turn to those who have offended us, whose actions still hurt us, or, or trouble us even to this day, Lord, help us by your grace, not to be controlled by what has happened, but instead to be controlled by your spirit and live as citizens of your kingdom and rejoice that we are Have a package deal in which your mercy flows to us and then through us, and may that be So help us Lord where, where we need extra help to just seek that from you and from one another to support each other in this receiving and giving of mercy through Jesus Christ our Lord, we pray, Amen.