What is Forgiveness?

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Now, I want you to pay attention. It wasn't anything in Israel. It wasn't their military size.
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It wasn't the type of people. The number one reason our souls are sick is because of unrepented towards certain sins.
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That's the number one reason. You can say it was because I was wounded. You can say it was because of this.
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But in reality, a disobedience to God makes your soul sick.
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See? But there's a second reason. And this is what I found after 35 years of counseling.
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It's unforgiveness in the heart of a believer. Now, Christian, I've got to ask you something.
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If you really are a believer in God, how can you harbor unforgiveness?
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I'm going to read from you Matthew 6, verses 12 -15.
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Y 'all roll it for me. Go to the next slide. Matthew 6, verses 12 -15.
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And it says this, And forgive us of our debts, as we have also forgiven our debtors.
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And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
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Sorry, I learned it the Catholic way, the good way. But I'm going to read it in this way for you Protestants.
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But anyways, For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.
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Now listen, But if you do not forgive others their sin, your
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Father will not forgive you your sins. Oh, but Pastor, I walked down the aisle in the
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Baptist church and prayed Jesus into my heart. Then why are you so angry, bitter, and destroyed?
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You see, you prayed a religious prayer. You have never had your soul cleansed by the Holy Spirit of God.
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Religion is a pile of crap, y 'all. And some of y 'all are hanging on to it like an anvil drowning in the middle of the
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Pacific Ocean. You need to be set free from that religion and come to an understanding of who
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Jesus Christ is. So what is forgiveness? Now if you will allow me just for a second,
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I'm going to explain to you what forgiveness is not. Okay? Forgiveness is not apologia.
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Okay? People say, well, I need to make an apology. Understand the difference between an apology and seeking forgiveness.
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You see, what we've done is we've tried to lessen the reality of our submission and our humility to make it better.
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Like, watch this. Pastor John, I'm sorry that I kicked you the other day.
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Okay? Will you please forgive me? Well, then
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God won't forgive you, you godless pig. I am seeking forgiveness.
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Now, here's what happens. Husbands, wives, y 'all with me? Watch this. I'm sorry.
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Sometimes God likes big butts. But in that, he does not. There is, when you give a reason, the word in the
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Greek apologia means to give a defense or a reason for an action or a belief.
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We have a whole vein in theology that we teach here called apologetics. And it's a reason for,
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I'm not apologizing in the modern colloquialism. I'm sorry I'm a Christian. I am giving you an apology, a logical discourse or discussion in which you can come to understand that atheists are idiots.
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And that's what I'm trying to do for you, right? That is not seeking forgiveness.
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When you have done someone wrong, humility, not defense, humility, not reason, should be the first club you reach for out of the club.
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Here's the second one. And Baptists are famous for this. Well, if you've forgiven me, you should have forgotten it.
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What? Guys. And they pull this, of course, from Isaiah. The word of God tells us,
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God takes our sin and as far as east is to west, he remembers them no more.
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Now the problem, once again, over the years are uneducated pastors preaching this. I'm sorry to tell you, an omniscient
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God cannot have amnesia. Okay? It's a paradox and an illogical conflict of terms, right?
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God does remember. Guys, I remember. I remember them taking my sister away.
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I remember the police coming to my house. I remember the beatings. I remember a lot.
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I do. I remember my wife burning my dinner last night. Just give me a second.
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Yeah, but they're white trash. They don't care. Guys, the Hebrew word is zakar.
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And it means not that God forgets. What it means is he chooses not to hold it anymore.
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That's forgiveness. So those are a couple of things in this introduction that are incorrect.
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I want you to go to the next slide. And I want to just give you an example that I found by accident of what forgiveness is.
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And this is really going to encourage you all this morning. In 2006, in a little
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Amish community in Pennsylvania, a man walks into a one -room schoolhouse with about 26 kids and a teacher in it.
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He walks in and he, at gunpoint, forces the boys to go unload his truck.
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One of the little girls escapes. They unload a lot of different things that I'm not going to go into.
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But basically, this was his last stand. They didn't know him. He didn't know them.
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He just decided he was going to kill someone that day. He dismisses all the boys and the teacher, and off they go.
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There are 10 little girls left in there. He lines them all up, facing the wall, walks behind them, puts a gun to the head, and this little girl, 13 -year -old, says this,
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Will you please just shoot me and my sister so that the other girls can live? He shoots her.
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And then shoots her sister. And then continues to shoot eight more children. Five of them die.
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Five of them die. And, of course, this punk and this coward does what every coward does.
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When someone who could actually do something besides a little girl shows up, what does he do?
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He freaking shoots himself. That's horrible, ain't it?
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It's a great Sunday morning intro to a sermon, isn't it? Yeah, but see, this is real life, guys.
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There ain't no unicorns out there, people. And some of y 'all are trying to live a unicorn
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Christian life, and your soul is as dark and as cobwebbed and as dead as it's ever been because you're looking towards something other than the
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Word of God. Go to the next one. A father, a father of one of these girls, gives me chills just talking about it.
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A father says this, we need to forgive this man of this evil.
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I put some quotes up there, it's what some of the Amish community said. Said we need to forgive this man.
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Now, I'm talking about a father of the girl who died. A grandfather of one of the
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Amish girls said, we must not think evil of this man. Now, I am a senior pastor of a
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Baptist church. And I can tell you, if someone came in here and shot one of my church folk,
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I'm just going to be honest with you, maybe you need to find another pastor at this level of my maturity. My first reaction is not,
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I don't need to think evil of that person. I'm just being honest right now. I'm going to be angry.
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Another parent of the children said, I feel I want to reach out to those who have suffered a loss in a way, but to reach out to the family of the man who committed these acts.
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At the man's funeral, 30 Amish people from that community, 30
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Amish people from that community showed up at his funeral. One of the Amish men whose child was wounded went over to the gunman's father's house and held him for an hour while he sobbed in embarrassment and hurt for what his son had done to that community.
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But wait, there's more. The Amish community took up and started a love offering in their worship service the
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Sunday after that. To this date, they have raised $4 .3
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million that has been put in a trust in the name of the gunman's three daughters so that when they get ready to go to school, no matter where they choose to go, they will fully be funded.
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What is forgiveness? Well, what someone said to me the other day really hurt my feelings.
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Let's put it in perspective, shall we, just for a second. What is forgiveness?
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Well, first of all, what does forgiveness look like? Well, I want you to understand what forgiveness looks like is not necessarily based on the concrete foundation of your feelings.
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Now, Americans, I need you to really listen to me on this. Your feelings are not relevant to God's commands.
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Oh, but pastor, you don't know what happened to me when I was younger. Here's the good news for you.
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I don't have to. God is in total control and in his right mind when he says, forgive others.
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Forgive others. You see, forgiveness is an act of your will.
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It's an act of your will where you take your feelings, not that they're wrong or they're bad, but you take them and you set them aside and with the spirit of the living
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God guiding you, you choose sometimes daily to continue to serve and to love.
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And I'll tell you something, forgiveness is never more powerful and never more strengthening to your soul than when you do remember and you choose to forgive anyways.
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You want to lift weights and get stronger? Great. You want to lift spiritual weights? Learn how to forgive.
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Learn how to forgive those who have wronged you in entirety.
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And it's tough, especially for those of us that have strong mommy and daddy issues.
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You know, I know I'm not saying that's the height. I'm just saying when your mom and dad are dead and they did things wrong when you were growing up, there can't be a conflict resolution there.
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Right? And so if you focus on that, you start to harbor and it starts to build, kind of like a big zit.
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Right? Oh, pastor, that's gross. Check your heart. You see, we come to a place, we don't understand how powerful forgiveness is.
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Forgiveness, what it looks like, it's not about feelings. It's about choice. And let me tell you this, love is the same thing.
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Love is the same thing. Love, if you think it's an emotion, you're going to have a really hard time in marriage.
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You really are. Because your wife will drive you absolutely up the wall.
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Every week, Parker Ryan calls me and he's like, I'm Parker Byers, calls me and he's like, pastor,
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I'm marrying this chick in a few months. And I say, hey, love, choose to love her anyways.
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I got him backwards. Yeah, I got him backwards. Guys, if I have to rely on my feelings to love and serve my wife, it's going to be a bad day at the house.
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If she has to rely on her feelings to love and serve me, my gosh, it's going to be bad.
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Forgiveness is not a feeling. It's an act and a submission to something greater than yourself.
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Luke 7 verse 13, if your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them.
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What? Rebuke them. And if they repent, forgive them. Here's what also forgiveness looks like.
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It is not devoid of accountability. It is not devoid of accountability.
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A pastor that I mentored years ago had a sexual issue in his church.
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And he said, well, we have chosen to forgive rather than call the police. I said, you're an idiot.
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You're an idiot. That's not forgiveness. That is enabling. That is not truth.
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You see, forgiveness must be based in truth. It must be based in absolute.
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It cannot be based in your fear of conflict. If you want to truly forgive, understand that forgiveness comes with accountability.
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It does. That does not mean you still cannot forgive. I always think about the great old idiot atheist philosopher.
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Well, if you say you're a Christian and God forgives you of everything, you can go out and kill 10 million people and God will still love you.
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Have you all ever heard that? First of all, it's so intellectually vacant of any kind of logical thought.
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I can't wrap my head around it. I mean, because if I can actually kill 10 million people, somebody is failing to do their job somewhere, right?
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But just for the game of it, okay, that doesn't mean that I don't get justice.
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That doesn't mean justice doesn't happen. You see, people, what you don't understand is, for those of you unicorn
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Christians that always talk about mercy, you have to understand that mercy cannot exist except in the stark contrast in the shadow of justice.
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Where do you get mercy from if there is no justice? There's no need for it. Just how courage must have an element of fear and danger, so must forgiveness have the idea of accountability.
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Accountability is absolutely necessary. So forgiveness looks like an act of the will, and it is also not devoid of an enabling simply dismissing it.
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Hmm. Galatians 6 .1. Brothers, if a brother be found in a fault, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of meekness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.
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You see, here's what's really gonna be weird, especially for some of you that grew up in a religious church rather than a real one.
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You see, you are supposed to be all up in somebody's business. Go ahead and say
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Matthew 7. Oh, I'm usually the people who quote this don't even know where it is.
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What's the one I'm talking about? Judge not lest you be judged. Well, actually say the whole verse.
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Judge not lest you be judged lest you be held in the account of what you're judging that individual for.
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That's actually the verse. The word of God tells us that we are to seek weaker, younger brothers and sisters in Christ and confront them in gentleness trying to bring them back out of that failure.
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See, that's responsibility. When we're family, the family of God, we have a responsibility to each other.
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You see, that's what forgiveness looks like. It's actually confrontation. Do you understand that?
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It's critically important that you understand that. Guys, sometimes people don't even know.
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We'll get to that in a second. People don't even know. Let me tell you this real quick. It's also sometimes the absence.
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You can forgive someone without them even knowing they have wronged you. You know it?
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You can. You don't have to make a Dr. Phil moment. Okay?
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Usually it's people who want to be the center of attention and their whole identity is based upon the pain and the scar tissue.
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Guys, by the way, if you don't have forgiveness in your heart, your entire identity and personality will be wrapped around your trauma and you will live the rest of your life like that.
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That is a very sad way and a very wasted way to live your existence.
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And here's another thing. Just for those that hit somebody in the heart, it's not too late.
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I promise you, it's not too late. All right, next thing. How do you learn forgiveness?
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How do you learn? How do you learn what forgiveness looks like?
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I'm gonna shoot this. There it is. Guys, you can learn it from a good -looking, bald pastor.
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But that's not God's first choice. Do you know where the first place you learn forgiveness from?
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It's from the Word of God. Wait a minute. Manifested into your family.
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That's where you learn forgiveness. You learn forgiveness. Your children will learn forgiveness on how you learn to forgive and how you demonstrate forgiveness.
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Do y 'all know who Dirk Williams is? The Amish do. The Amish do.
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You know why? Dirk Williams lived in the 1500s. He lived in the Netherlands. And he was what was called an
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Anabaptist. Okay? The Anabaptists are a predecessor of the
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Brethren Movement which gave birth, of course, to the Mennonites, the Amish, and all that. Okay?
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So Dirk Williams was arrested and put in prison for the crime of, get ready for it, being baptized.
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What? Yeah. You see, the Catholic Church and some other mainstream
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Protestant churches, Catholics always get blamed for it all, but there were some Church of England folks doing the same thing.
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See, if you got baptized or christened like I was, if the Catholics turn out to be right,
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I'm good to go. Christened at eight years old, you don't need to be baptized again.
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See? But you see, God's Word over and over again says that a person believes then they're baptized.
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Right? And I don't care how smart you are, you ain't at eight years old, even if you went to Rhodes College, have a cognitive ability to choose
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Jesus Christ. So they arrest him. They put him in a jail, and as he's in jail, he's preaching to everybody.
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But one night, somebody gives him an idea and they tie blankets together, and he actually lowers himself out the window, and he runs across the ice because it's frozen over.
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And he's been emaciated because he's been in prison so long, so he tick, tick, tick, ricky -ticky -tabby right over the ice.
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Well, one of the guards sees him, and this big, well -fed guard in armor runs after him.
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And even the Mississippi folks know what's coming. He breaks through the ice.
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And the guard yells out, Oh, God, someone help me! Dirk Williams stops.
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He turns around, and he runs back and pulls the guard out of the ice.
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By this time, other cops have shown up, and they arrest him again.
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And the guard's like, Dude, he just saved my life. We gotta cut him loose. I was like, ain't gonna happen.
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He was tried and convicted of being baptized again, and he was condemned to be burned alive.
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And that's exactly what happened. But he gets better. Wait this. They tie him to the stake.
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They're putting the faggots of wood, yes, that's the proper term, the faggots of wood, the bundles of wood around him.
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And the bundles reach up to about your waist. And it's, I mean, this is science, man.
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They've organized vortex through and everything like this. The problem is, on that particular morning, after they started the fire, the fire was blowing in an easterly direction, which was blowing the fire away from his upper body.
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So it was this way. So for two hours, he burned for two hours.
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Over 70 times in that two hours, he cried out,
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Oh God, forgive them. God, hold this knot at their accounts.
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As he screamed, he screamed praise and prayers to God for his captors.
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Where did he learn that from? Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
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Ladies and gentlemen, we have to understand Ephesians 1.
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We read it earlier this morning. Ephesians 1, 3 -4 says this, Blessed be the
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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. A little Trinity, Triune nature there.
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Who has blessed us in Christ in every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
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Now verse 4, Even as he chose us. Even as he chose us when before the foundation of the world that we should be agios kaimos.
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Holy and blameless. Now, church, what's holy mean?
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Separated does not mean perfect. It means separated, right? What's blameless mean?
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You ready? Don't answer. It's a hard one. You know what it means? Without fault. It means blameless.
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Hold on a second. Wait just a second. God chose you before the foundation of the world to be holy and without fault.
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God, have you missed the last 55 years of my existence? But you missed two words.
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In Christ. Who has blessed us in Christ. My salvation is not conditional on my actions.
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It is positional of where I am in Christ. You see, forever shall call upon the name of the
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Lord shall be saved. For anyone who believes in him. Not just you have a mental understanding that there's a
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God somewhere up there or that little Jesus loves you and he was born in a manger and died on a cross.
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You see, you're in Christ. Well, pastor, how do I know the difference? You will never be able to forgive like those
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Amish or Dirk Williams without the spirit of the living God. I can't. Maybe I'm a bad pastor, but there's no way.
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No way in Jeff's flesh. I know what Jeff would be doing.
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I'd be digging a hole. And I dug them before. And I know where to put them.
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I'd be digging a hole. And in the most grotesque manner I could find, that person would go bye -bye.
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But man, when your flesh is submitted because of the conversion of almighty God, not because of a religion, because of the love and grace and mercy shown us.
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When the Holy Spirit of God, 1 Corinthians 3 .16, know you not that you are the temple of God.
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This isn't a temple of God. It's a gymnasium. This is the temple of God. And then the
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Holy Spirit of God dwells within you. You know how that father and that grandfather and all those other people forgave?
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Because the Holy Spirit of God empowered them to. That is supernatural.
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Last thing. What can this kind of forgiveness do? What's it look like?
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How do you learn it? What can it do? Well, I'm going to tell you what it can do.
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It's real simple. I would, but for the brevity of time, read all of this passage.
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But I encourage you to at least write it down. But I'm not going to read it all. I'm just going to skip down to verse 19.
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Joseph is the visor of Egypt, second in command. His brothers have done bad.
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You all have heard the tale. But Joseph said to them, Do not fear, for am
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I in the place of God as for you, verse 20, Pastor Josiah, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today.
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You know what he can do? You know what forgiveness can do? Man, it can set you free, son.
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Man. Any of y 'all in this room got problems with bitterness? Man, that stuff's like cancer.
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It's chomping away at your soul. You can go pay penance, light a candle.
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You can go confess it all day long. But until you enact the power of the
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Holy Spirit of the living God that if you're truly saved is living within you, it'll be chains around your feet and a darkness in your soul that you will never be able to make it go away with anything of the flesh of this world.
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But God commended His love towards us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
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You have to change your paradigm. What can it do for you?
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It can change how you view everything. You start to be free. You start to heal for the first time.
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There's an old adage, holding bitterness is like drinking poison expecting the other person to die.
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Don't work, never will. Guys, you can be set free. And I'm telling you, if you want to be emotionally healthy, forgiveness is the only way.
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And that forgiveness that you need to happen will only come by the power of the Spirit of God. Last thing, what else can it do?
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Well, I'm going to tell you. It is a fearful thing.
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In Hebrews it says, it is a fearful thing to fall in the hands of an angry
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God. Fearful. Fearful. Pastor, I ask
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Jesus Christ in my heart, my Lord and Savior. That's found nowhere in Scripture. Well, Pastor, I've been christened.
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Not in Scripture. Pastor, I believe in God. James 4, so do demons.
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All of your little man -made ideas, they ain't working for you. You know why? Because they're man -made.
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They're not from God. You see, here's what forgiveness can do for you.
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It can keep you out of hell. It can give you a life of peace. Man, I'll tell you what it did for me.
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It gave me a life of purpose. The forgiveness that you first need to experience is not you to somebody else.
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Change your paradigm. First seek forgiveness of God for the bitterness you harbor and the sin that you've committed.
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Then you will be able to forgive others as well. Trying to do it the opposite way, it'll never work.
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Because you'll always feel like somebody got away with something. Let me tell you something.
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In the Word of God, these scales will balance. How many of you want justice?
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Be real careful when you say, oh yeah, I want justice because the only just thing is for you to be rotten in hell forever.
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Because Jesus Christ died in your place. That ain't justice.
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That's mercy. Where are you this morning? I'm gonna ask the pastors to come forward and I'm gonna ask you just three simple questions.
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I don't give a crap where you grew up in church. I don't care what you believe. I wanna ask you this morning, do you know for sure that if you died right now, you would go and spend eternity in the peace of grace of God?
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If you don't, this church can't save you. Same spirit of God's in me is the same spirit of God's in you.
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I ain't got no magic powers, I need that other God. I'm your deus spiritus sancti, all that, but.
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But what I can do is I can show you in God's word what set me free.
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And it's been doing it now for about 4 ,000 years and so far it's worked out pretty good for believers.
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Number two, if you are a believer, but man, you need some help with the whole forgiveness thing.
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Well, that's why God invented the church to help you. I know, man, there's some things that you've been through.
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But I'm gonna tell you this right now, there is nothing that you can think of that I promise you someone else in this room has not gone through.
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Oh, pastor, you don't know. No, dude, after 20 years, I know. I've been listening to these people's hurts and pains for 20 years.
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There is a struggle you have, I promise you someone else has had it. If you need help, let us help you.
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That's what we're here for. Number three, if you need to be baptized or join a church, this is the time for you to come.
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I'm gonna ask you to stand with me and if God has spoken to you today, you come this morning as God leads.