Enemies Within The Walls (part 3)

Our Father in heaven, we thank you this morning, knowing that we come before you as a people who have been forgiven of all our sins.

Lord, there is no greater blessing, and I would pray for our time here this morning as we look to see what the

Bible says about forgiveness, how we ought to think about it, how we ought to live it out, and the consequences of even failing to do that.

Father, I pray that you would bless our time this morning as we look to your word. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Well, you know, I was reminded this morning, I'll just tell you what I used to do when I worked in the jail, and I would be walking into work, and we had these rather large hallways, so I'd be walking in one way, and somebody else would be walking out the other way, leaving.

And they'd say, how you doing, Steve? And I'd say, better than I deserve.

You ought to watch the faces. If you want to try to have some fun at work, you know, you think work is dreary and dull and boring, walk in some day and somebody says, how you doing,

John? And you say, much better than I deserve. Watch what they do. They look at you like you're out of your mind.

Now, what else can happen if you say, much better than I deserve? They say, you have low self -esteem, or maybe even a more, or a less direct approach, they might say something like, what's the matter?

What's the problem? There is no problem. Much better than I deserve, that's not how the world thinks, because, you know, you should say something like, the world is my oyster, you know.

I think if things were any better, I don't know what I'd do. You know, that's what people expect.

Now, why is better than I deserve such a dramatic answer besides the fact that that's not how people think?

But what am I thinking? What am I actually, I'll just kind of let the cat out of the bag a little bit, what am

I thinking when I say that? I'm thinking about salvation, and I'm thinking about sin, and specifically

I'm thinking about forgiveness of sin, and so, you know, sometimes I have to be, I'll just, true confessions, sometimes

I don't feel like the most grateful person in the world. I don't know if that ever happens to you.

But when you say, much better than I deserve, and you think about that for a minute, even if somebody just says, well, that's a weird response, and they give you the, you know, the stare, like they can't wait to get away from you.

When you think about it, you just think, I am doing much better than I deserve.

In light of God's holiness, and in light of my sinfulness, when

I think about what I deserve, which is to be facing the unvarnished, unrestrained wrath of God poured out on me, like it was on Jesus Christ on the cross, now try that in the hallway.

Much better than I deserve. Why do you say that? Well, in light of God's holiness, my sinfulness, and the unvarnished wrath of God that I deserve,

I'm blessed. In light of Christ dying for me, I'm blessed.

Then watch what people say to you, you know, and how they look at you. You're crazy. We've been talking about forgiveness, and I think it's just so vital.

Even this morning, I was looking at Ephesians chapter 4, and we see, well, let's just put

Ephesians 4 in a little bit of context. Ephesians 1, 2, and 3 are doctrine, 4, 5, and 6 are practice, and so in chapter 4, he's really saying, these are the things that you need to stop doing, and the things that you should be doing.

This is how you should live in light of chapters 1, 2, and 3, and one of the things he specifically mentions is, right at the end of the chapter, is forgiving one another just as God has forgiven you.

That's rough, and he's talking to a church, so within the body of Christ, there needs to be forgiveness, and I entitled this series,

Enemies Within the Walls, because the lack of forgiveness within the body of Christ can really be a problem for a local church, and I also said that lack of forgiveness within a family can really be a problem.

We talked briefly last week about this idea of self -forgiveness, because I read about it in a journal, but I want to address this a little bit more specifically.

What are the two kind of dimensions of forgiveness, of biblical forgiveness, that is?

In other words, what directions can we look at in terms of forgiveness?

What's that? Horizontal, which is to say that we need to forgive one another, and the other one would be vertical, which is we need

God's forgiveness, and I say we need God's forgiveness, why? Because we don't need to forgive

God. It was really interesting, I was talking to somebody last week who ran into an unbeliever at the doctor's office, an unbeliever, and just found out something very serious, and turned to this sister in Christ and said, do you ever get mad at God?

And I thought her response was great, because she spent half an hour basically sharing the gospel with this woman, and then another half hour sharing the gospel with this woman and her husband.

Do you ever get mad at God? Well, that's kind of an unusual thought.

Does God need our forgiveness? Does he?

He doesn't need anything from us, but why would he not need our forgiveness? Is it okay to get mad at God?

What's that? It's our nature, but is it okay? And I just went back to Job, just thinking about Job, and what happens to Job in the beginning of the book?

Other than Satan goes before God and says, Job isn't so hot, let me kind of tempt him, this is just the non -authorized

Steve Stander version, he says Job isn't so hot, let me take care of Job and we'll see how really good he is.

And so what winds up happening? Job loses his children, his possessions, just about everything.

And what does he say? But what's the, yes, he starts to question

God and wonder why, and he does all the things that probably we would be wanting to do, maybe even thinking that, you know, right, naked

I came into this world naked, I'm going to leave, blessed be the name of the Lord. That's ultimately the response we need to have.

Our sense of forgiveness, our sense of gratitude or whatever is not determined by our circumstances, but by God's faithfulness.

And what God does is always right and good, and so this idea, you know, forgiving

God, that's just rubbish. And this idea of forgiving myself, that's also rubbish.

I just want to repeat what this guy said, because I took the effort to type it in, so you'll have to listen to it.

I just love this, at the end of his, or during his journal article, he said this, I found that the idea of self -forgiveness was completely absent from Scripture.

So if you're struggling with forgiving yourself, look at the bright side, the Bible never commands it, so you're okay.

You don't need to repent of your lack of self -forgiveness. He says, though Scripture has a lot to say about self -blame, why?

Because you're responsible. The key to dealing with self -condemnation is to realize that when we sin against others, we also sin against God.

What's wrong with that statement? It's true, right, that when we sin against others, we sin against God, but what is, well, we're going to read it later, what does

God, what does David say? Against the only, have I sinned, and it really wasn't only against God, but it shows the primary, the primary nature of sin.

And the author concludes, even so, even though, I love this, if I just made an ellipsis of this, listen to this,

I found that the idea of self -forgiveness was completely absent from Scripture. Even so,

I realized how difficult it is to forgive oneself. And this is in an academic journal,

I just, it just kind of, you know, makes me laugh because that's so self -contradictory. Now let's, let's look at Psalm 51, verses 3 and 4.

Such a critical passage, and we're going to, really what

I hope to deal with, and I don't think we'll finish this morning, which is sad only from this standpoint, because I'll be gone for a couple weeks.

But I really want to work through some practical considerations of forgiveness.

How does forgiveness take place? How should we look at it within a family context?

How should we look at it within a church? But I'd like somebody to read

Psalm 51, verses 3 and 4, because I want to finish dealing with this idea of self -forgiveness real quickly, and then we'll, we'll move on.

Psalm 51, verses 3 and 4. Okay.

You know, do we judge ourselves? No, it's right there. Blameless in your judgment, in God's judgment.

Our sin is against God, he says. Even though, as we'll see, I think, later today, we might get there.

His sin was against whom? Uriah the Hittite and Bathsheba.

But he says, against the only have I sinned. Against you, there's my NAS slipping in there, against you and you only have

I sinned. Why? Because he understands that primarily, God sets the standard, and when we violate that standard, are others affected?

Yes. But the primary person that we are offending is the person who established the law.

Now why do I want to go back to this whole idea of self -punishment? I don't know if you've ever done this.

But I have to confess that I have. Have you ever, like in your own mind, decided to punish yourself?

Have you ever done that? Again, I have to confess,

I have. What do we do? You know, we're like, okay, because I've done this,

I'm going to deny myself. Now, I don't want to confuse this with, if your hand sins, cut it off, cast it, that's not what

I'm talking about. But you know, we think that somehow we can, through self -sacrifice, through self -denial, sort of make up for something.

You know, okay, well, in light of me talking like this to my wife, I'm not going to have chocolate for a month.

What is that? It's Roman Catholicism.

Only we just kind of skip over the whole priest in the booth thing, and you know, instead of, well,

I'm going to have to say three are fathers and six Hail Marys. I don't even know. Somebody told me once, if you had to do that many, it'd be really long.

I don't know what that is. I never went through all that. But it is a form of Roman Catholicism, because we're, in essence, we're saying, you know what?

Forget the cross. Forget the death of Jesus for my sins. I'm going to pay for my sins, me.

I think you'll have a real hard time in scripture finding this idea that somehow your sacrifice is an acceptable sacrifice to God.

In fact, I can promise you, you won't find that. I remember one parent who used to say things like, you know, if you don't stop doing

X, Y, or Z, you and I are both not going to get dessert. Now, it didn't make any sense to me.

Think about that for a minute. You know what? Now, the parent was going to punish himself for the sins of the child.

I really didn't get that one. But it's just about as, it's not just silly to punish yourself.

It really is a denial of the cross, of the work of Christ. He died for our sins.

We don't get to, you know, determine our own punishment. So I just wanted to deal with that.

It's just a dopey idea. Now, I mangled this quote from Pastor Dave, so I want to get back to it.

What are some obstacles to forgiveness? And I love this. You know, one is long memories, right? Some folks stop short in forgiveness.

They bury the hatchet. But the problem is they leave the handle exposed enough to grab it at a moment's notice. To truly forgive means we sufficiently cover the whole hatchet so that it no longer can be found.

That's right. And I, we mentioned this last week, the idea of blotting out sins. We need to blot out the sins of others.

It's not like we can always forget and we'll, we'll get to this, but we need to not bring them back up if we do remember.

I mean, I've been blessed with a really bad memory. And I say,

I say it's a blessing. I mean, think about this. If you can, I mean, there are things that I do remember, I can remember, you know, just every detail about a particular event, where I was, you know, the temperature, everything.

And then there are other things that I can't remember at all. And specifically, if somebody sins against me, the

Lord has really blessed me in that most of the time, I don't remember it.

If I say, I forgive you, I'm done with it. It's it's over. Some people that just doesn't happen with.

And for them, I think it's really more difficult. So what if you remember someone, how someone else has sinned against you?

What's the problem with that? What would be maybe a temptation that you might fall into,

Bruce? Okay.

You'd be tempted to think about it, to when you see them again, to just sort of view them through the lens of their sin against you, and it's going to taint your relationship with them.

Now, I'm going to suggest to you, and this is going to shock you. In some cases, that might be okay. But for the most part, it shouldn't be that way.

Why would I say, well, yeah, we'll get a little bit ahead here. Why would

I say in some cases, that would be okay, Brian?

Sometimes it's wise to be guarded. Somebody and I'll get to you in a second, Charlie, somebody brought up a situation here not too long ago.

Now, just picture this friend of a friend kind of thing.

But a relative of this friend committed a heinous crime against a child in the family.

Would it be wise to remember what that person had done?

I think it would be. Now, I think there are a multitude of circumstances, what if this to death.

For example, let's say that after the sin, this person was radically transformed by the work of the

Spirit, and you could tell that this person was just a new creature in Christ. That would be one example.

But I think it would be foolhardy for the most part to just say, you know what, not only do

I not want to think about it, but I'm not going to think about it ever because that's a pretty hard one.

So there are sins that I think are so serious and so potentially dangerous. But certainly if you're dealing with an unbeliever, you know, what's the number one rule of unbelievers as you know, repeated often by my wife for me?

Unbelievers act like unbelievers. There's a shocking thing, right?

So, you know, in the midst of everything that's going around us in the world, when we see chaos and people treating each other badly, you know, our number one thing should be what?

Well, it's unbelievers acting like unbelievers. Such things should not be within the church, definitely.

But go ahead, Charlie, you were going to say? Okay. So I think there are situations where we need to kind of, we need to be cautious.

But that's not, that's not the run of the mill situation. You know, a more run of the mill situation is someone says something that hurts us.

That cuts, that insults us. And if we carry that around, or if, you know, not only do we not bury it fully up to hatchet level, but we somehow are just kind of keeping the hatchet handle behind our back, then things are going to get worse.

And I want to read Philippians 2, verses 3 and 4, because I think a second thing that prevents us from forgiving as we ought to is pride, pride.

Would somebody read Philippians 2, verses 3 and 4? Okay, now this is an application.

This is not a direct interpretation of this passage. But if we're to do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, we're not ever to think of ourselves more highly than someone else.

One of the reasons that we don't want to forgive is because we think that an offense that is done to us is so serious that they're not worthy of being forgiven.

How dare someone say something like that to us? Have you ever been around people who think that way?

Because I have. And I'll tell you what, it really does reflect a level of arrogance.

And really, what does it reflect on how they view other people? I'm going to argue with contempt bordering on hatred.

If you can't forgive somebody, if you're going to just continue to stoke the fire and to think, you know what,

I can't forgive them because what they did to me was so horrific. And usually it's what somebody says.

And you know what, I really do plan on, in the weeks to come, talking about controlling the tongue because I'm going to tell you this little secret right now, forgiveness.

Why do we wind up needing forgiveness? Why do we wind up having to forgive others? I would say 99 % of the time it's because of things we say.

You want to need people's forgiveness less? You want to never have to say, please forgive me?

Keep your mouth closed. Stop saying what you say and you'll need a lot less forgiveness.

But back to this, this whole idea of self -forgiveness or even self -love, self -image.

Is that something we have to work on? This passage, Philippians 2, is completely against that. It says, do nothing from selfishness or selfish ambition or empty conceit.

We ought to think of others more highly than ourselves. We ought to have the mind of Christ, the passage goes on to say.

We ought to, you know, as he left heaven's throne and came down, condescended to walk on the earth.

If he did that, then how should we think about other people? If he loved enough to do this for us, how should we think about other people?

The Bible never says, think better about yourself. Your problem is a lack of self -esteem.

If you would only view yourself the way other people see you, then you'd have peace.

It doesn't say that. It says, think less of yourself.

Look at others as more important than you. It's just a completely foreign concept to us because we don't want that.

The world tells us we shouldn't want that. But forgiving others is a reflection that we are learning to be humble, not that we've ever arrived because we won't.

And rejecting a genuine plea for forgiveness shows that we think more of ourselves than we ought to.

What's another reason maybe why people don't want to forgive? A stumbling block for forgiveness.

Because we don't want them to get away with it. I've worded it a slightly different way. I have one word for it.

Revenge. We want revenge. There will be blood.

Oh, yes. Justice is mine, saith the steve.

Oh, yeah, it's on. Let's look at Romans chapter 12. Romans 12, 19.

This verse is like ritual seppuku to the whole idea. For those of you who don't know what that means, that's

Japanese suicide where they cut themselves open. Nice.

Nice image. Good morning. How are you? Romans 12, 19.

We'll read that, please. Go ahead,

Bob. It kind of takes all the fun out of it.

God is the avenger. You know, we want to be the avengers, right? Which one are you? Captain America, the hulk, the avengers.

We want that, but it's not ours because, you know, again, let's just think through this one more time.

If our sin, as David says, even though he committed murder and adultery, and he says my sin is against God, who's going to get vengeance?

We want vengeance. Not just for murder, but when somebody insults us or they do something we don't like, we think we should get them back,

Bruce. But Bruce, it might not be what

I want, but you don't understand.

I'm angry. You're helping me, brother. This is counseling 101, right?

These are the issues, I mean, we laugh, but these are the issues that divide us.

These are the issues that cause strife in the body. It is this inability to think of others as more important than ourselves.

It's this desire for revenge. It's a failure to understand, look, God's got this,

God's going to take care of it. And you know what? If the person I'm dealing with, if Bruce can look at me and say, you know what,

Steve isn't perfect, but I think he's a brother in Christ, then what's true about the sin I committed? It's covered.

It's forgiven already. But Bruce, you don't understand.

We have this thing where we think we have to exact our pound of flesh. We have to get our vengeance.

Charlie, it's a good question.

Why are there some sins that require temporal punishment and why are there some that do not?

Well, I would answer it this way. There are some that require temporal punishment because our society has decided they require temporal punishment.

I mean, certainly if we were to go back to the Old Testament, you know, one of my favorite passages when my kids were younger is where it talks about if you have a rebellious son, you take them outside the city walls and do what?

You stone them to death. And I'm going, you know what? You should be thankful we're not in Old Testament Israel or you'd be outside the city walls right now and we'd be stoning you to death.

So, a different time, a different society, a different commandment from God, but why are there issues that we decide demand punishment in this structure?

Well, you know, let's just take robbery for example. By the way, just on a technical point, can

I explain to you the difference between robbery and burglary? Thank you. Thank you very much. Burglary is when you enter any locked facility or even a locker or something like that.

Or when you enter a structure with four walls. Even a garage is a burglary if you enter it to steal.

But it's entering with the intent to commit a crime. So if you enter a store with the idea of shoplifting, it's not just a petty theft, it's a burglary.

I used to love that. That's a great felony stat. You know, I roll up to the store and the security guard has the mall cop, has the perpetrator.

And I say, well, he nabbed this guy stealing whatever it was, a pack of gum or whatever.

So I just walk up to the suspect, I advise him of his rights and I say, how are you planning on paying for your purchase today, sir?

Well, I have no money and I have no credit cards. All right. Burglary. Felony.

Yes. Robbery is using force or fear to take something.

So it's a completely different thing. If something happens to your home, if somebody breaks into your home, it's not a robbery. You were not robbed.

A rob is, a robbery is, you know, putting your hands up, you know, stick them up.

That's a robbery. So there you go. You learned something today. Now, why does society decide that robbers and burglars need to be punished?

Why can't they just say, you know what, please forgive me, here's your stuff back. We'd have a lawless society.

There have to be some temporal punishments for some crimes because otherwise people just be running around all the time.

Because here's the truth. If you get arrested for a burglary, how many burglaries have you probably committed before you get caught?

A ton. So the only way to dissuade some people is to bring about that kind of punishment.

So you know, there are other maybe crimes that we could talk about and maybe we'll cover them more as we go on.

But I want to go to 2 Samuel chapter 11, because I've referenced this story of David.

And we know the scoop, David sees Bathsheba on the rooftop and, you know, in almost kind of Samson -esque language, he doesn't say get that woman for me, but he decides to make it happen, right?

And she becomes with child. And instead of doing the right thing at that point, he just compounds his sin by doing what?

By having the husband of Bathsheba sent to the front of the line so that he's going to die in battle.

And we'll pick up the story here in 2 Samuel 11 verses 25 to 27.

And this is after Uriah has been killed in battle. And he gets told of this,

David said to the messenger, Thus shall you say to Joab, do not let this matter displease you.

For the sword devours now one and now another. Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it and encourage him.

In other words, he's just like, you know what? Uriah died. That's just kind of the way it goes in war sometimes.

These things happen. Verse 26, when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah, her husband was dead, she lamented over her husband.

And when the morning was over, David sent and brought her to his house and she became his wife and bore him a son.

But the thing, this is the killer verse here, but the thing that David had done displeased the

Lord. Now if we read other passages in scripture, what would we read about David?

He was a man after God's own heart. And when we read this passage, it's really hard to discern this.

Committed adultery. Committed murder. Then he takes the murdered man's wife and he just kind of, this whole cover up thing,

I mean, this is like, you know, water gain on steroids. This is horrific. But moving on here,

I think we could say that your sin will find you out. Look at 2

Samuel chapter 12 verse 1, and the Lord sent Nathan to David, Nathan the prophet.

He came to him and said to him, there were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor.

The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and he brought it up and it grew up with him and with his children.

It was used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms and it was like a daughter to him.

This is the family pet. Now there came a traveler to the rich man and he, the rich man, was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guests who had come to him.

He was greedy, but he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.

In other words, the man who had plenty stole from the one who had almost nothing, took his little miniature wire haired dachshund, sacrificed him.

My anger is kindled and then look, then David's anger was greatly kindled against this man.

And he said to Nathan, as the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die and he shall restore the lamb fourfold.

I'm going to make him go out and buy four purebred wire haired dachshunds and give them back to that guy because he did this thing and because he had no pity.

And then we have the reveal, as they say on TV, Nathan said to David, you are the man. I'm going to stop right there for a moment.

Have you ever had that kind of moment in your life? I know I have where somebody just kind of maybe they don't even point their finger at you.

But they've laid out the circumstances and they go, in essence, you're the guilty man.

You're the sinner. Now, there are two possible responses there, right? One is, no,

I'm not. How dare you say that? And the other one is.

I can't hardly talk because I'm so broken over my sin. That's where David winds up.

Nathan says, David, you are the man that says the Lord, the God of Israel. Listen to all the

God did for him. I anointed you king over Israel and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul.

I saved your life and I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah.

And if this were too little, I would add to as much more. Why have you, listen, despised the word of the

Lord to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with a sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the

Ammonites. And here we get back to this question that Charlie asked. There can be temporal consequences, in other words, even if we're forgiven, there can be consequences in this life for what we do.

Listen to verse 10. Now, therefore, this is the judgment of the Lord upon David.

The sword shall never depart from your house. You're never going to know peace because you have listened, not just despised the word of God, but you have despised me.

You have despised God. Hated God. Do we think about sin that way?

Sin is hating God because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the

Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord, behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house and I will take your wives before you rise and give them to your neighbor and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of the sun.

For you did it secretly, talking about Bathsheba. But I will do this thing before all Israel and before the

Senate is going to be on the front newspapers. Everybody's going to know your life is going to be a wreck.

David said to Nathan, but you don't understand, I had low self -esteem, Bathsheba made me feel better.

Uriah the Hittite, he was behind on his tax payments and this is where we see the heart of David.

I have sinned against the Lord. No excuses.

And Nathan said to David, the Lord also has put away your sin, you shall not die.

It's what he deserved, but the Lord has put it away. Remember, we talked about what that means, east from west, he's moved it away from David.

Nevertheless, because by this deed, you have utterly scorned the Lord. The child who was born to you shall die.

And we read that and we go, well, that's not fair. How's that right? Why should the baby die?

Listen to what one commentator says, he says, having shown utter contempt, utter contempt for the

Lord, David's son will die. Means surely die. He goes on to say, when

David slept with the woman and created new life, the woman did not belong to him. That was not his wife, it was

Uriah's wife. The child cannot belong to David. He cannot enrich himself through his sin.

And in a sense, justice is done for Uriah. Uriah is dead.

But the Lord took vengeance for Uriah. David was punished.

He didn't get to keep the fruit of his sin, as it were. Now, before I move on and into the next section, because I really do want to talk about the process of forgiveness.

Since we have just a couple of weeks off anyway, not weeks off of Sunday school, just weeks off of this.

I want us to just think about this kind of, how do we accept accusations against us?

If someone says to you in kind of less than Nathan language, you have sinned against me.

How should we respond? What do we want to do?

What is our almost like knee jerk reaction if somebody says, you know what, you sinned against me? No, I haven't.

And if they're right in front of you, you know, they probably just got kicked in the shins. What should we do?

Somebody says, you know what, Steve, Bruce, April, Dan, you sinned against me.

What should we do? Okay. How have I sinned against you?

Let's say they come to you and they say, you know what, Steve, you sinned against me and here's how. Then how should we respond?

Humble ourselves. And, you know, I'm going to suggest the first thing that we ought to do. And this is,

I think I'm going to say this a lot. Keep our mouths closed and think for a minute, evaluate what they're saying.

And you know what? If we're not convinced in our own mind, then what would be the right thing to do? Maybe, maybe ask forgiveness anyway, but I'm going to suggest something else,

Brian. Ask the Lord to show you. And I think if you, you know, if someone brings something to you and you're not really sure, here's what

I would, I would almost urge you to take some more time to think about it, to pray about it.

Search what the scripture says. And if in fact you have sinned against that person, then you need to go back and say what?

I have sinned against you and I need your forgiveness.

Would you please forgive me? I mean, there is in this moment when Nathan says to David, you are the man and David response, his response is

I've sinned against the Lord. There's a brokenness and we're going to see this play out when we go through Psalm 51 in a little bit bigger context here.

We're going to see that brokenness play out a little bit.

And that's our response. If we know we're guilty is not defense. It's crushing.

It should be crushing. We should feel the weight of that. We should feel the guilt of it because we are guilty and we'll talk about, and I'll just give you a little preview and then we'll close in prayer.

But as weighty and as crushing and as harsh as it is to say, yes,

I've sinned, the blessing is in forgiveness, there's a release of that weight.

And in 99 % of the cases, there ought to be with forgiveness, what?

Reconciliation, a restoration. And this is why it's so critical, not only within the church, but in your homes.

And we're going to talk about that because if you don't grant forgiveness, then that other person is walking around with what?

The guilt, the shame, the weight of their sin. And you're like, well, I'm not going to forgive you.

Or maybe I'm just not going to talk to you until you figure it out. And you come groveling across broken glass all across the kitchen.

And please don't break anything important. We want to see the other person suffer and crawl and writhe like a worm on the floor or whatever it is.

Do this, you know, the dance of sorry, whatever it is. And the truth is, let's just go back to where we started.

If we think about ourselves rightly, if we think about all that we have been forgiven, if somebody comes to you and they're broken about their sin and they're really sorry about it and they really want your forgiveness, what would cause you to say you don't deserve it?

Pride, sin, but nothing godly, not right thinking, not thinking in light of all that God has forgiven me of.

How could I possibly withhold forgiveness from you? How could I do that? Let's pray.

Our Father in heaven, Lord, would you work in our lives, in our families, in our homes, and within this church to make us a people swift to forgive in light of all that you have forgiven us.

Let us get joy out of forgiving. Let us experience the release of the sorrow that comes with sin.

Father, I pray that you would restore relationships in our homes and within our church body and that we would be just delighted that we would be eager to forgive and swift to reconcile.

Lord, bless each one here in light of the love that you have granted us in Christ and the forgiveness of sins that is ours.