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Now I want you to pay attention it wasn't anything in Israel wasn't their military.
The number one reason our souls are sick is because of Unrepentant towards certain sins. That's the number one reason. You can say it was because I was wounded. You can say it was because of this but in reality a.
Disobedience to God.
Makes your soul sick see. But there's a second reason and this is what I found after 35 years of counseling. It's unforgiveness in the heart of a believer. Now Christian, I got to ask you something if you really are a believer in God.
How can you harbor? Unforgiveness, I'm gonna read from you Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6 Verses 12 through 15. Y 'all roll it for me. Go to the next slide. Matthew chapter 6 verses 12 through 15 and it says this.
And Forgive us of our debts as we have also Forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation But deliver us from the evil one. Sorry I learned it the Catholic way the good way, but I'm gonna read it in this way for you Protestants, but anyways for if you forgive other people when they sin against you your heavenly father will also forgive you.
Now listen, but if you do not forgive others their sin Your father will not forgive you your sins. Oh Pastor I'll walk down the aisle in the Baptist Church and pray Jesus into my heart. Then why are you so angry bitter and destroyed?
You see you pray to religious prayer. You have never had your soul cleansed by the Holy Spirit of God. 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 Pacific Ocean.
You need to be set free from that religion and come to an understanding of who Jesus Christ is. So what is forgiveness now, if you will allow me just for a second I'm gonna explain to you what forgiveness is not.
Okay.
Forgiveness is not.
Apology. Ah, okay. People say why need to make an apology. Understand the difference between an apology and seeking forgiveness. You see what we've done is we've tried to lessen the reality of our submission.
And our humility to make it better. Like watch this pastor John I'm sorry that I kicked you the other day. Okay, will you please forgive me. Well, then God won't forgive you you godless pig. I Am seeking forgiveness.
Now here's what happens. Husbands wives y 'all with me. Watch this I'm sorry. Sometimes God likes big butts.
But in that he does not. There is when you give a reason the word in the Greek.
Apologia means to give a defense or a reason for an action or belief. We have a whole vein in theology that we teach here called apologetics and it's a reason for 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 a discussion in which you can come to Understand that atheists are idiots and that's what I'm trying to do for you, right?
That is not seeking forgiveness when you have done someone wrong. Humility not defense Humility not reason should be the first club you reach for the club. Here's the second one and Baptists are famous for this.
Well, if you've forgiven me you should have forgotten it. What? Guys and and they pull this of course from Isaiah. The Word of God tells us God takes our sin and as far as east is the West He remembers them no more.
Now the problem once again over the years or uneducated pastors preaching this. I'm sorry to tell you an omniscient. God cannot have amnesia. Okay, it's a paradox and in a logical conflict of terms, right?
God does remember guys, I remember. I Remember them taking my sister away. I Remember the police coming to my house. I remember the beatings. I Remember a lot. I do. I remember my wife burning my dinner last night.
Just give me a second.
Yeah.
Yeah, but they're white trash they don't care guys. The Hebrew word is the car and it means not that God forgets. What it means is he chooses not to hold it anymore. That's forgiveness. So those are a couple of things in this introduction that are Incorrect.
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 and this is really going to encourage all this morning.
Hmm in.
2006 in a little Amish community in.
Pennsylvania a.
Man walks into a one-room schoolhouse With about 26 kids and a teacher in it. He walks in and he at gunpoint forces the boys To go unload his truck. One of the little girls escapes. They unload a lot of different things that I'm not going to go into.
But.
Basically, this was his last stand. They didn't know him. He didn't know them. He just decided he was going to kill someone that day. He dismisses all the boys and the teacher and off they go. There are ten 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. Will you please just shoot me and my sister so that the other girls can live?
He shoots her and then shoots her sister and then continues to shoot eight more children. Five of them die. Five of them die and of course this punk and this coward does what every coward does when someone who could actually Do something besides a little girl shows up.
What's he do? He freaking shoots himself. That's horrible, ain't it? It's a great Sunday morning intro to a sermon, isn't it? Yeah, but see this real life guys. There ain't no unicorns out there people.
And some of y 'all are trying to live a unicorn 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 Word of God.
Go to the next one a.
Father a.
Father of one of these girls gives me chills just talking about it. My father says this. We need to forgive this man of this evil. I put some quotes up there with some of the Amish community said Said we need to forgive this man.
Now. I'm talking about a father of the girl who died. A Grandfather of one of the Amish girls said we must not think evil of this man now. I am a senior pastor of a Baptist Church. And I can tell you if someone came in here and shot one of my church folk.
I'm just gonna be honest with you. Maybe you need to find another pastor at this level of my maturity. My first reaction is not I don't need to think evil of that person. I'm just being honest right now.
I'm gonna be angry. 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. At the man's funeral.
30 Amish people from that community. 30 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.
But wait, there's more.
The Amish community.
Took up and started a love offering in their worship service the Sunday after that. To this date. They have raised 4 .3 Million dollars 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. What is forgiveness? Well, what someone said to me the other day really hurt my feelings. Let's put it in perspective.
Shall we just for a second? What is Forgiveness. 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 now Americans.
I need you to really listen to me on this.
Your.
Feelings are not relevant to God's commands. Oh Here's the good news for you, I don't have to.
God is in.
Total control and in his right mind.
When he says.
Forgive others. Forgive others. You see forgiveness is an act of your will. 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 God guiding you you choose sometimes daily To continue to serve and to love. And I'll tell you something Forgiveness is never more powerful and never more strengthening to your soul than when you don't remember.
And you choose to forgive anyways. You want to lift weights and get stronger. Great. You want to lift spiritual weights. Learn how to forgive. Learn how to forgive those who have wronged you in entirety.
And it's tough especially for those of us that have.
Strong.
Mommy and daddy issues, 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.
Right, and so if you focus on that you start to harbor and it starts to build. Kind of like a big zit. Right. I'll pass it. That's gross. Check your heart. Mm-hmm. You see we come to a place We don't understand how powerful forgiveness is 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. Love is the same thing Love. If you think it's an emotion, you're gonna have a really hard time in marriage.
You really are. Because your wife will drive you absolutely up the wall. Every week Parker Ryan calls me and he's like I'm Parker Byers calls me and he's like pastor. I'm marrying this chick in a few months.
I guess I can't and I say hey love choose to love her anyways. I got him backwards. It was Sam. Yeah, I got him backwards. Guys, if I have to rely on my feelings to love and serve my wife. It's gonna be a bad day at the house if she has to rely on her feelings to love and serve me my gosh.
It's gonna be bad. Forgiveness is not a feeling it's an act and a submission To something greater than yourself. Luke 7 verse 13 if your brother or sister Sins against you rebuke them. What rebuke them and if they repent forgive them?
Here's what also forgiveness looks like it is not devoid of accountability.
It is not.
Devoid of Accountability. A pastor that I mentored years ago had a sexual issue in his church. And he said well we have chosen to forgive rather than call the police. I Said you're an idiot. You're an idiot.
That's not forgiveness. That is enabling. That is not Truth. You say forgiveness must be based in truth. It must be based in absolute. It cannot be based in your fear of conflict. If you want to truly forgive.
Understand that forgiveness comes with accountability. It does. That does not mean you still cannot forgive. Always think about the great old idiot atheist philosopher. 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. Have you ever heard that? First of all, it's so intellectually vacant of any kind of logical thought 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?
But just for the game of it, okay. That doesn't mean that I don't get justice. That doesn't mean justice doesn't happen you see people what you don't understand is for those of you Unicorn Christians that always talk about mercy.
You have to understand that mercy cannot exist. Except in the stark contrast in the shadow of justice. What do you get mercy from if there is no justice? There's no need for just how courage must have an element of fear and danger.
So much forgiveness have the idea of accountability. 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 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.
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. You see you are supposed to be all up in somebody's business. Go ahead and say Matthew 7.
I'm usually the people who quote this don't even know where it is. What's the one I'm talking about?
Judd not let you be judged.
Well actually say the whole verse judge not lest you be judged. Let's you be held in the account of what you're judging that individual for that's actually the verse. The Word of God tells us that we are to seek weaker younger and brothers and sisters in Christ and Confront them in gentleness trying to bring them back out of that failure.
See, that's the responsibility when we're family the family of God. We have a Responsibility to each other. You see that's what forgiveness looks like. It's actually Confrontation. Do you understand that.
It's critically important that you understand that guys?
Sometimes.
People don't even know we'll get to that in a second. People don't even know let me let me tell you this real quick. It's also sometimes the absence. You can forgive someone without them even knowing they have wronged you.
You know it you can. You don't have to make a dr. Phil moment.
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. Guys, by the way, if you don't have forgiveness in your heart your entire identity and personality be wrapped around your trauma.
And you will live the rest of your life like that. That is a very sad way and a very wasted way to live your existence. And here's another thing just for those who've said that hit somebody in the heart.
It's not too late. I promise you it's not too late. All right next thing. How do you learn forgiveness? How do you learn? How do you learn? What forgiveness looks like. I'm gonna shoot this there it is.
Guys, you can learn it from a good-looking bald pastor. But that's not God's first choice. Do you know where the first place you learn forgiveness from? It's from the Word of God. Wait a minute. Manifested into your family.
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. Do y 'all know who Dirk Williams is the Amish do?
The Amish do you know why? Dirk Williams was lived in the 1500s. He lived in the Netherlands and He was what was called an Anabaptist. Okay, the Anabaptists are a predecessor of the brethren movement.
Which gave birth of course to the Mennonites the Amish and all that. Okay, so Dirk Williams Was arrested and put in prison.
For the crime of.
Get ready for it being baptized. What. Yeah, you see the Catholic Church and and Some other mainstream Protestant churches. Catholics always get blamed for it all but there was some Church of England folks doing the same thing.
See if you got baptized or christened like I was at the Catholics turn out to be right. I'm good to go.
It.
Christened at eight years old. You don't need to be baptized again. See. But you see God's Word over and over again says that a person believes. Then they're baptized 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 Jesus Christ. So they arrested him they put him in a jail and as he's in jail, he's preaching to everybody but one night somebody gives him an idea and they tie a Blankets together and he actually lowers himself out the window and he runs across the ice.
Because it's frozen over and he's been emaciated because he's been in prison so long. So he Ricky tiki tabby right over the ice. Well, what are the guards seizing and this big well-fed guard in armor runs after him?
And even the Mississippi folks know what's coming. He breaks through the ice and the guard yells out Oh God, so it helped me. Burke Williams stops. He turns around and he runs back and pulls the guard out of the ice.
By this time.
Other.
Cops have shown up and They arrest him again and the guards like dude. He just saved my life. We got to cut him loose. I was like ain't gonna happen. He was tried and Convicted of being baptized again, and he was condemned to be burned alive.
And that's exactly what happened, but he gets better. Wait this. They tie him to the stake. They're putting the faggots of wood. Yes, that's the proper term. The faggots of wood. The bundles of wood around him and The bundles reach up to about your waist and it's it's I mean, this is science man.
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.
So it's this way.
So for two hours He burned for two hours over 70 times. In that two hours he cried out Oh God Forgive them.
God hold this not at their accounts as.
He screamed He screamed praise and prayers to God for his captors. Where did he learn that from?
Father.
Forgive them for they know not what they do.
Ladies and gentlemen.
We have to understand Ephesians 1. We read it early this morning. Ephesians 1 3 through 4 says this blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Little Trinity. Try you nature there. Who has blessed us in Christ in every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
Now. Verse 4. Even as he chose us. Even as he chose us. When before the foundation of the world. That we should be aghast chi a mouse.
Holy and.
Blameless now church. What's holy mean? Separated does not mean perfect. It means separated, right? What's blameless mean you ready? Don't answer. It's hard one. You know what he means without fault. Means blameless now wait, no, that's hold on a second this wait just a second.
God chose you before the foundation of the world. To be holy and without fault. God have you missed the last 55 years of my existence. But you missed two words in Christ. Who has blessed us in Christ.
My salvation is not conditional on my actions. It is positional of where I am in Christ. You say forever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved for anyone who believes in him. Not just you have a mental understanding that there's a God somewhere up there or that little Jesus loves you.
And he was born in a manger and died on a cross. You see you're in Christ. Well pastor. How do I know the difference? You will never be able to forgive like those 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. No way in Jeff's flesh. I know what Jeff would be doing. I'd be digging a hole. And I dug him before. And I know where to put him. I'd be digging a hole and In the most grotesque manner I could find.
That person would go bye-bye. 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 when the Holy Spirit of God first Corinthians 3 16.
Know you not that you are the temple of God. This isn't the temple of God. It's a gymnasium. This is the temple of God and then the Holy Spirit of God dwells within you. You know how that father and that grandfather and all those other people forgave because the Holy Spirit of God empowered them to.
That is supernatural last thing. What can this kind of forgiveness do what's it look like. How do you learn it? What can it do? Well? I'm gonna tell you what it can do. It's real simple. I Would but for the brevity of time read all of this passage, but I encourage you to at least write it down.
But I'm not gonna read it all. I'm just gonna skip down to verse.
19.
Joseph is the visor of Egypt second-in-command. His brothers have done bad. You all have heard the tale. But Joseph said to them do not fear for am 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. You know what he can do. You know what forgiveness can do. Man it can set you free son.
Man.
He any of y 'all in this room got problems of bitterness.
That stuff's like cancer. It's chomping away at your soul. You can go pay penance light a candle you can go confess it all day long. But until you enact the power of the 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, but God commended his love towards us and that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.
You have to change your paradigm. What can it do for you it can change how you view everything. You start to be free. You start to heal for the first time. There's an old adage Holding bitterness is like drinking poison expecting the other person to die.
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 and That forgiveness that you need to happen will only come by the power of Spirit of God.
Last thing what else can it do? Well, I'm gonna tell you it is a fearful thing in Hebrews. It says it is fearful thing. To fall in the hands of an angry God.
Fearful fearful.
Pastor I asked Jesus Christ in my heart my Lord and Savior that's found nowhere in Scripture. Well pastor, I've been christened not in Scripture. Oh Pastor I believe in God James 4. So to demons. All of your little man-made ideas.
They ain't working for you. You know why. Because they're man-made. They're not from God.
Here's what forgiveness can do for you. 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. It gave me a life of purpose. The forgiveness that you first need to experience is not you to somebody else.
Change your paradigm. First seek forgiveness of God for the bitterness you harbor and the sin that you've committed. Then you will be able to forgive others as well. Trying to do it the opposite way. It'll never work because you'll always feel like somebody got away with something.
Let me tell you something. In the Word of God these scales will balance. How many of you want justice? 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.
Because Jesus Christ died in your place. That ain't justice. 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. I don't give a crap where you grew up in church.
I don't care what you believe. I want to 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. If you don't this church can't save you.
Same spirit of God send me. It's the same spirit of God's in you. I ain't got no magic powers any of that other guy. I'm no Dale spirit to sancti all that.
But what I can do is I can show you in God's Word What set me free and it's been doing it now for about 4 ,000 years and so far it's worked out pretty good for believers. Number two if you are a believer, but man you need some help with the whole forgiveness thing.
Well, that's why God invented the church to help you. I Know man, there's some things that you've been through. 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.
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. There's a struggle you have. I promise you someone else has had it. If you need help.
Let us help you. That's what we're here for. Number three. If you need to be baptized or join a church. This is a time for you to come. I'm gonna ask you to stand with me. And if God has spoken to you today you come this morning as God leads.