Forgiveness - David Bercot

Yeah, most people would say, "Yeah, she's a hurting person." I'm sorry. Yeah, she's hurting because she won't let go. You know, she's keeping it. It's like having a wound, and you just sit there and pick at it and pick at it, and you won't let it heal because you just—you won't just leave it be.

Chris Williams was a devoted father, had four children, a devoted husband, still a devoted father.

One night in the year 2007, it's a cold February night, he and his family, after supper, they decided on a whim, "Let's go and get some dessert, have dessert out." They did, had a nice time. As they were coming home, he was coming up a hill, and he noticed a car coming down the hill at excessive speed and traveling in his lane.

And he tried to swerve at the last moment, but it was too late. The car rammed into his car, direct hit. And as he kind of got his senses, he knew he was hurt bad. He looked around, and he saw that both of the children in the back seat, or two of the three of them, were dead. And then he looked at his wife sitting next to him. She was pregnant with their fifth child, and he heard her breathe her last breath.

And then he finally noticed the car that had hit him sitting there, and he couldn't get out. He was waiting for someone to call 911 and that. But in that time, as he was sitting there, he made a decision. Whoever did this, I don't know what the circumstances were, probably a drunk driver, I forgive them unconditionally.

And he's lived up to that. He's now a speaker who speaks on the subject of forgiveness, and he has lived those years since then. As hard as that is to have half of his family wiped out, well, half of his children and his wife and future child all at once because of a drunk driver, a 17-year-old youth. And he worked to try to get this young man a minimum sentence and to get him paroled after he was in prison. And the young man is out now, is married.

And he's not—he's an exception as far as his willingness to forgive, but he's certainly not an exception as far as innocent people who've been wronged by others. I mean, there are just millions of people who have been damaged, hurt by crime and war. On the other side, there are thousands of people who've been wrongfully convicted of crimes they didn't commit, sometimes through malicious false testimony, and they ended up in prison for things they didn't do.

There are millions of people who have lost a loved one because of the negligence of another, or maybe they're injured themselves. A lot of people go through life crippled because of somebody else's negligence. There are millions of people who suffer emotional effects from controlling mothers or harsh fathers, and others have been physically or sexually abused by a parent.

Well, the list goes on and on indefinitely. Now, in each of these cases, and like I say, there are just lots, millions and millions of people who've been wrongfully hurt. And in each of those cases—no problem. In each of these cases—oh, did I just get turned on? No.

In each of these cases, the person has a choice. Do I forgive, or do I hold on to this? If I'm going to hold on to this, how long am I going to hold on? The rest of my life?

And this has nothing to do with whether or not the wrongdoer deserves forgiveness or even whether they're repentant or not. But am I going to forgive them? Well, probably the main point I want to get across this morning in the message is that forgiving those who have wronged us is not optional.

If we want eternal life, there's no option. We absolutely have to forgive. Now, that's not me saying this. This comes from the one we will stand before on Judgment Day, and he's already laid out the rules. This is the way it is.

If you don't forgive, you are not going to be forgiven. We're going to look at some of his teachings. So again, I will repeat this. Unforgiveness will cost you your eternal life. I mean, it is that simple.

So let's look at what Jesus said. I think we're familiar with the Lord's Prayer. It's one reason Jesus, I think, wants us to pray this prayer often, just so we can get this, hopefully, in our minds. He said, "Or authorize us to pray, 'Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.'" Now, he could have just left it, "Forgive us our debts." I don't know that it's wrong to pray that, but he specifically wanted us to pray, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors," because what he went on to say shows that that is how it's going to work. We will be forgiven based on how we have forgiven other people. If we don't forgive, we shouldn't expect to receive forgiveness.

In fact, at the end of the Lord's Prayer, in case people didn't quite get the implication by the way he worded the prayer, he said this, "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." Now, is there anything unclear in those words? Is that in any way like, "Oh, that's not very clear. I wonder what that means." I mean, that's about as straightforward as you can put it.

If you forgive others, your heavenly Father will forgive your trespasses. If you don't forgive others, he's not going to forgive you. And that's the law of the universe. That's what he has laid down. That's what it's going to be. It doesn't matter what any church might say contrary to that. This is coming from the judge. He knows what it's going to be like on Judgment Day, and he's already told us in advance. If you don't forgive, your sins are not going to be forgiven either.

Might call this the doctrine of conditional forgiveness, that forgiveness is not unconditional. A lot of churches teach that, but it's not because Jesus put a condition. He said, "If you don't forgive others, neither will your sins be forgiven."

Now, what Jesus taught flatly contradicts the false and very dangerous teaching that is prevalent in evangelical churches that once you get saved, every sin you have committed in the past is forgiven. And that's true.

And they teach, "Every sin you will ever commit in the future is pre-forgiven." And that's false. Jesus has just said, "It doesn't work that way. If you don't forgive others, you're not going to be forgiven." So yes, all of our past sins are forgiven, but our future sins' forgiveness depends on a number of things. Continued repentance is one, but also on forgiving other people. In fact, as we're going to look at a parable in just a couple of minutes, I would say it would sound to me like even our past sins that are forgiven at the time that we are saved, that that forgiveness is conditional. And I'll tell you why. We're going to look at his parable in a minute.

So it's extremely dangerous that people think that, "Oh, after I've been baptized, after I have been saved, that whatever I do is pre-forgiven. It's already done. I don't have to worry about it. That's all taken care of." Because that's not what Jesus says, and neither did the apostles ever teach that. It's very clear throughout the New Testament. It's an ongoing relationship. It has to be an obedient, love, faith relationship. It's not just, "I got saved and it's all over." It's, "How am I living day to day hereafter?" God wants a real relationship with him that is based on our loving him enough that we're going to obey him. Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments."

I remember when I was just newly attending an evangelical church, just new into the evangelical world, and Deborah and I had the pastor and his wife over for supper, and I prayed before supper, and it was my practice back then. I kind of lost that habit because of the evangelical church, but I would usually—most prayers, I would say, I would close right before I'd say, "Amen.

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us." Something like that. Anyway, once we started eating, the pastor said, "You know, David, you don't really need to pray, 'Forgive us our sins.' Once you're saved, all your sins have already been forgiven. So you don't need to pray that way." And I thought, "Well, that's strange. Jesus told us to pray that way, but okay, I'm learning the ropes." And like I say, I got out of the habit of praying that way just because of that. And no one in church, I mean, they looked down on the Lord's Prayer.

In fact, they would usually not even call it the Lord's Prayer. They would say, "That's not the Lord's Prayer. The Lord's Prayer is what he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane and so on and so forth." The Lord's Prayer was for Catholics and people like that, and yet Jesus is the one who told us to pray it.

When I hear the lyrics of so many praise songs today, Christian praise songs, you hear all the time phrases like, "I am forgiven." Not, "I was forgiven," which would be very accurate, but, "I am forgiven." And the thought with that is that it's like it's an automatic thing. I am forgiven. No matter what I do, I'm automatically forgiven. It's all taken care of. I was forgiven back when I got saved, which is very wrong. Because if that's true, then Jesus's words are false. And he told us, "If you don't forgive others, your sins are not going to be forgiven."

Okay. So let's look now at Matthew 18. Now, when you hear that expression, Matthew 18, for most people who are, I'd say, biblically literate Christians, when you hear that phrase, Matthew 18, you think of the steps in Matthew 18 on how to handle sin in a church, the steps for reconciliation and forgiveness and church discipline. And that is in Matthew 18, and that's what I usually think of when I hear the phrase, Matthew 18. But it's too bad we don't think of the last third of that chapter because I'd say it's even more important than those steps about how to handle sin within a church. They're certainly equally important, but I think for our own salvation, they are more important.

So we're going to look right now at what I call the parable of the unforgiving servant. And this is not going to be up here on the screen. If you'll turn in your Bibles and read with me, it's Matthew 18, verses 21 through 35. It's below the part we usually go to Matthew 18:4 on what to do when our brother sins against us and how to handle that. But Jesus went on to say this, which is very important. Now, for the young people here, I was able to get some images online. This is a ministry of some group, which I appreciate. It's free Bible images. When I first saw them, I thought, "Well, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to use these."

And then, yeah, they had a thing there. Yeah, you're allowed to use them. They would like you to give them credit. But anyway, now all the adults will be looking at the pictures and not reading along. Okay. So if you're 18 or older, if you'll turn in your Bibles, Matthew 18 will start with verse 21. "Then Peter came to him and said, 'Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?'" I mean, he thought he was being bold. I mean, this guy's done this to me seven times. Do I still forgive him?

"Jesus said to him, 'I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, 'Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.'

Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt. But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 denarii, and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, 'Pay me what you owe.'

So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you all,' the very words he had used with the king."

So did he say, "Oh, yeah, I've been forgiven, so I'll forgive you"? No? And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt.

But when his fellow servants saw what he had done, they were very grieved and came and told their master all that had been done. Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, "You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?" And his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due him.

In case anyone wouldn't get the import of the parable, I think it should be pretty clear, but Jesus wanted to make sure he didn't want anyone to misunderstand. So he concludes it by saying, "So my heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses."

Boy, that's a heavy thought. If we do not forgive from our heart, he doesn't want any lip, "Oh, I forgave you. I forgave you." If it's not in the heart, then he said, "This is what's going to happen to us. We've already been forgiven."

But he's saying that just like that king reinstituted that debt, he said, "That's what my Father will do to each of you if you do not forgive your brother." And what happened to the man who wouldn't forgive? He said, "Deliver him to the torturers."

So it's pretty terrifying. And something, I mean, this is a parable that to me just isn't taught enough. We don't hear it enough. I mean, that is some pretty strong teaching. And he laid it out very clear so that we could understand why his Father would treat us this way. I mean, when you go through that parable, I mean, I think all of us think, "Hey, what a creep." I mean, he's been forgiven this huge debt? Just to give you an idea, he said it was 10,000 talents. Now, talents could be either gold or silver, so we don't know. If it was 10,000 gold talents in today's money, that'd be $11.9 billion.

Imagine being forgiven that, okay? Even if it was silver talents, that would still be $160 million in today's money. I mean, few of us would ever see that in our lifetime. Most of us, if we lived 10 lifetimes, 100 lifetimes, we wouldn't earn that much money, let alone save enough to pay that. I mean, so you're forgiven that, and then you go to your fellow servant and you owe him 100 denarii. Now, years ago, I remember many years ago preaching on this, and I said it was just the equivalent of a few pennies. And so I did some figuring, and no, it's not a few pennies. So 100 denarii, an unskilled laborer would have made like a denarius a day.

So that would be like 100 days' work, three months, maybe a little over three months' worth of work. So today, an unskilled laborer maybe would make $12,000 in three months. It depends what they're getting paid. So it's not a little. I mean, if someone owed me $12,000, that probably wouldn't just, "Oh, big deal. You didn't pay it off."

So yeah, I think he gave that to show, okay, it did hurt. I mean, walking away from $12,000 isn't something easy, particularly if you're an unskilled laborer. I mean, that would be, wow, that'd be quite a blow. But on the other hand, you just got forgiven $160 million. So yeah, what are you talking about? $12,000, come on.

So he's showing, no, it's not necessarily going to be easy. You are having to do something that's hard, but you've got to be an unbelievable creep to go and do what this man did. But Jesus is saying, "You are the creep. That is you. If you don't forgive everyone who wrongs you, everyone, that's who you are. If you don't like the guy in the parable, well, then go look in the mirror. If you're a person who hasn't forgiven everybody, everybody who has wronged you, it doesn't matter that, okay, I forgave this guy, this guy, this guy, but no, I'm not going to forgive you.

I mean, that's what this guy did. He picked one guy, and you're going to pay me the $12,000." And yeah, we see what happened. Now, for most Christians today, I mean, this goes so much against the theology that has been embedded in them that they just can't accept this parable.

I was looking online. I was looking for pictures to illustrate it, but I also got some with the pictures, some of the sites, they also had a discussion of the parable. And it was interesting that at the end, when they would try to explain it, they never could explain it the way it says because it contradicts their theology. And so their theology trumps Jesus Christ. Well, yeah, Jesus said this is what's going to happen, but what he really meant, I'll just give you one illustration.

This is at the end. The conclusion was, we're not at the conclusion of my message. I hate to disappoint you, but this was their conclusion at the end of explaining the parable or relating it. He said, "God forgave us an incalculable debt, giving us his forgiveness. So what are the injustices that we sometimes have to suffer in comparison? The divine forgiveness we receive makes us responsible for being merciful to others." Okay, not too bad. Then it goes on. "The Lord does not reproach us for any of our sins, for he forgave us all."

Whoa, is that what Jesus said? But he wants us to act kindly towards our fellow believers and towards all those around us. Be kind to one another, merciful, forgiving one another, as God also forgave you in Christ, Ephesians 4:32. In other words, hey, it's godly counsel. God wants you to forgive others. I mean, that's good. But I mean, this is what I heard all the time. I mean, you'd get a strong teaching in the Bible, and it would always be turned to should.

An absolute would always be, "Yeah, let's do this. This would be good to do this. You should do this." Well, Jesus didn't present it that way. Yes, we should forgive and all of that, but that's not how Jesus presented it. He didn't just say, "You should do this." I mean, the king didn't say, "You should have forgiven your fellow slave, but all right. I mean, you're still forgiven, but you really should have forgiven it." It's not the way the parable worked, is it?

The king pulled him back in, called him a wicked slave, okay? Wicked just because he didn't forgive. He hadn't done anything else. He hadn't stolen from the king or anything, but he was wicked because he wouldn't forgive. And he went and said, "Now, I'm putting you in prison until you pay back all you owe me." So the forgiveness was conditional. It's not a very big conditional. I'm forgiving this huge debt, and all I ask of you is that you forgive your fellow man, which is very tiny in comparison.

And like I say, we look at that and think, "I'd never be like that guy." But yeah, that is exactly what I would say so many people are like. Now, I know in our circles, we would understand this, I think, that this is something that we take very seriously. But what we tend to do, and I'm no different, is we want to apply it to the general run-of-the-mill wrongs that are done to us, that we put up with every day, day in, day out, sort of thing. And that's good. I mean, every little thing we need to forgive.

I don't think you could have a marriage that works if there's not just forgiveness all the time because there's always going to be whatever, inconsiderate things, misunderstandings, wrongs done. I don't think a family can work well if there's not just forgiveness daily. You certainly can't have a unified church life if there's not just forgiveness continually among us because we're all going to do things that are inconsiderate at times, that sometimes it's on purpose, that we just don't act in a Christian manner towards one another. We fail one another, things like that. If we aren't just constantly forgiving one another, we're not going to be able to work as a congregation.

And all that's good. That's not what I'm going to be focusing on today, though. I'm focusing on those really hard ones. Like I say, those, okay, yeah, we can forgive, and it's good. We have to do that. But we tend to want to think the really bad ones where somebody has really, really done us wrong. I mean, I think of the guy in the story at the beginning, which is a true story.

Wow, your family just wiped out, or half of it, just because of a drunk driver. I mean, it's just horrible. Yeah, I mean, I don't know that I would have, if it had been me just sitting there in my car seat, seeing dead ones all around me, that I would have just immediately forgiven.

I'd like to believe I would have forgiven at some point, but I don't know that I would have been at the level that this man was at. But it is what God calls us to do. And most of us haven't ever been hurt that bad by anyone. But I'd say most of us have had some hard knocks in our life from different people. And it's those particularly bad ones that we want to think, "Well, okay, this isn't like my sins against the Father and Jesus."

Yeah, that's a little different. Yeah, I know I'm not always completely truthful. I know I get angry at times. I get impatient and all of that. And yeah, I realize, yeah, those things that I need to forgive everyone around me. But yeah, what this person has done, that's on a different level.

Well, yeah, Jesus says it is on a different level. It's nothing compared to what we have done to the Father. I mean, our forefathers, Adam and Eve, they got put out of the Garden of Eden, lost eternal life there in the garden just for eating of the fruit. That was all.

I mean, we commit sins like that, disobey God's commands all the time in many small ways. I don't mean that we deliberately go out and do it. I'm just saying, even someone who's committed to living everything in the New Testament, we fail all the time. And if you think you don't, then maybe we need another sermon on that topic.

So yeah, even if somebody kills our family, he's calling on us to forgive. That's what he did, Jesus did on the cross. I mean, the scribes and Pharisees were there taunting him. I mean, they're the ones who instigated his death, not just a death, but a horrible death. And then they're there laughing at him while all of this is going on. And he says, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." I mean, it's like, I mean, they weren't repentant. They weren't deserving of any forgiveness, that's for sure. But he did that. So it's not like, "Well, God, you don't know what it's like," because God's Son was here. He went through all of this.

He endured something far worse than most of us will ever endure. And he freely forgave. He interceded on their behalf. Okay, there are some four aids I want to just talk about, and we'll close with that, that I think will help us to forgive if we're struggling with unforgiveness. And I think most of us at some point in our life are still struggling with, like I say, not forgiving everybody, but just, yeah, there's some special ones who really messed us up pretty bad. I think the first one, first help, would be just that parable that Jesus gave.

Jesus helped us to see how it looks like from God's eyes. Down here on earth, it seems really bad when someone does something bad to us or really fails in a major way. And like I say, it seems like a mountain. And Jesus helps us to put it in perspective.

We all want God's forgiveness. We all are counting on his forgiveness. But it's like, yeah, you take that almost for granted, but then you're not willing to forgive others. And again, I guess to me, throughout my life, I've tried to go back to this parable when I've had a hard time forgiving and thinking to myself, "Okay, I am that rat, that creep who wouldn't forgive his fellow servant." That we all hate when we read it. We all think, "Man, who would be like that?"

And I got to remind myself, he's saying, "David, that's you if I don't forgive." And I found that is a help, just him giving that parable, plus the warning. If nothing else, Jesus motivates us often by reaching out, promising blessings, and he also motivates us by fear. This is what's going to happen. So if the one doesn't motivate you, the fear needs to motivate you that this is going to cost me eternity if I don't forgive.

Okay, a second help is recognize that forgiveness is in our power. I don't hear it very often. It's usually someone in the world saying this, "But I just can't forgive." I mean, I've heard several times in my life, many times, people saying that, "I just can't forgive." Well, you always can forgive. Jesus wouldn't ask us to do something that it's not in our power to do. And so, yeah, we should never kid ourselves that, "Oh, I just can't do that."

You can do it.

Think of the word responsibility. I don't know if this is the origin of the word, probably isn't, but it's a good way to think about it. And this is not original with me. Response plus ability, responsibility, that you have the ability to choose your response to anything. You can respond with anger. You can respond with, "I'm going to get even with you." You can respond with, "I'll never forgive you," and just hold on to that unforgiveness. Or you can respond by forgiving. It is in each of our power to do that. It's just a choice that we want to make. And it's a choice that, yeah, do I want to live forever myself, or do I want what that person did, not only to hurt me in this life, but to hurt me eternally because I'm not going to forgive him?

Because that's the only way someone else can hurt us eternally is if they do something to us in this life and we refuse to forgive them, then they end up costing us our eternal life. Or I should say we cost us our eternal life because they have no say on that, whether we forgive or not. I mean, that's the one thing Satan, with God's permission, he can bring all kinds of trials on us. Persecution can take our life sometimes with God's permission. But the one thing Satan has absolutely no control over is whether I forgive you for what you've done to me.

He maybe has the power to bring evil on me. Again, it has to be with God's permission, but he cannot control how I respond to that evil. That's purely me and with the power from God that I, no matter what evil you do to me, you cannot stop me from forgiving you for doing that. And so always remember that it is always in our power.

Okay, a third thing that helps is the recognition that forgiveness frees us in this life as well as eternal life, even if there was no eternal life involved. If it's not going to make any difference in eternity whether you forgive people or not, guess what? You are going to be a thousand times happier in this life by forgiving other people. People who aren't even Christians have discovered this. When you hold on to unforgiveness, it's like going through life with this huge burden on your back. It just makes, well, it weighs you down. It makes life miserable. It's always there. You're under this burden. And all you have to do is just chuck it off.

It's that easy. I mean, just picture in your mind, think of the Middle Ages, and let's say a prince is having a shipment come in of grain for the castle and everyone in it. And so he travels with a number of his serfs, maybe a couple hundred miles. They go down to the ocean, and he brings his serfs with him to unload the grain from the ship. And they take these heavy bags of grain off the ship, and then they have to walk back home a couple hundred miles.

And picture this one serf. He's walking along, just bent almost double with his heavy load on him. And he notices, well, some of his other serfs, they're walking back home, and they don't have anything on their back. And he says, "Well, how come you're not carrying one?" "Oh, the boss says you don't have to carry them."

I don't believe that. And so you just keep going on, bent over. Finally, the prince comes and says, "Hey, you don't have to carry that. I've got some carts that are going to be coming on later. I just needed you all to unload them from the ship. But yeah, some carts will carry that."

And you sit there and, yeah, so what's the catch? No catch. You can just drop it here. In fact, I don't want you to carry it.

No, I don't think so. So you're going to go through life just doing that. That's what it's like when you hold on to unforgiveness. I mean, you've got this big load that Jesus, it's not just okay to put it down. He commands you to put it down. And you think, "No, I'm going to just go on carrying this load." And you make yourself miserable when, like I say, it's that easy. Just let go and put it down.

I went to some websites that just concerning forgiveness. I was looking for some quotes. And I came on some websites. It was sort of interesting because these were not Christians. And they were sharing stories of forgiveness in there, of forgiving people. And some of the things done wrong to them were pretty bad.

Well, it ranged from victims of crime or victims of war to just some pretty bad parents who really messed them up in life. But in each case, they had chosen to forgive. And like I say, reading through these, there might have been a Christian in there, but most of them, they were clearly not Christians. I mean, they sometimes mentioned their religion. They were Jewish or Buddhist or, I mean, a number of things. I'm going to just read these quotes to you. "Regardless of whether or not he deserved my forgiveness, I deserve peace."

Not forgiving it. Yeah, you're going to never have peace until you do. I mean, it's going to always be there holding on to that. Another person, "In the instant I forgave, I realized how much negative energy it takes to hold unforgiveness inside of you." And it does, just to hold on to that day in, day out, year in, year out. It's pretty bad.

Another person, "I knew the only way to get past what had happened so that it would no longer dictate my life was to forgive her." It dictates your whole life. I mean, I've seen so many people, they just hold on to unforgiveness. They let that ruin their life. And all they have to do is just lay that burden down.

Another person, "Forgiveness doesn't mean saying I'm okay with what he did. It means I can continue with my life with peace of mind." And again, these are non-Christians just talking about how forgiveness blesses people in this life and makes your life better. "When you find it in yourself to forgive, then you are no longer chained to the perpetrator." When you hold on to unforgiveness, whoever brought wrong on you, you stay chained to them. I mean, they're always there. They're on your mind. You're always talking about them.

You're not free of them. You want to get free of that person, forgive them. The last one, "Holding on to unforgiveness is letting someone you despise," as Christians, maybe we don't despise them, "live rent-free in your head." I kind of like that one.

It is what happens. I mean, this person that you dislike who has done wrong to you, you're letting them live rent-free in your head because, yeah, they're always on your mind. When you forgive someone, why people say forgive and forget? Because when you truly forgive, yeah, it kind of recedes in the back of your mind. I guess it's on a hard drive somewhere. You probably don't totally ever forget it, but it's not there in your conscious memory where it's always popping up and all of that. But when you don't forgive, yeah, it's always there. This person who you detest, who messed you up, you're letting them live inside your head and keep messing you up throughout the rest of your life.

So forgiveness frees us more than it does the person we forgive. I mean, that's the nice thing about this commandment. It's not one of those commandments that is a cross to bear. I mean, some of his commandments, boy, they're pretty tough.

He does command us to, if we deny him in this life, he will deny us. And that might mean having to undergo torture and all of that. But this one, it's a blessing in this life. It's not a burden to, "Oh, I have to forgive." What you find is it releases you. It makes your life that much easier. I knew a sister in Texas who had a very controlling mother she grew up with. And when I met her, she was married. Her mother lived 1,500 miles away back here in Pennsylvania. She had married a Texas guy, moved to Texas and stayed there. So it's not like she saw her mother very often. It was back in the days when before cell phones and when long distance was really expensive.

So you didn't talk on the phone very much long distance. So it's not like she was around her mother very much anymore or anything like that. But she could never stop talking about her. I mean, every one of us in the congregation must have heard, I don't know how many times, all the faults of this lady's mother over and over again.

I mean, you knew the conversation at some point was going to come around to her mother. And yet she'd tell you, "Oh, I've forgiven her." No, I don't think so. The fact that you just can't get her out of your mind, you're letting her live rent-free in your mind. She's always there. Just forgive her, evict her from your mind, okay? And you can only do that by forgiving.

Let her be gone, okay? This happened. Good. Get even with her. Forgive her for it. And then that way, she can't keep messing you up. I mean, the effects can be there, but yeah, but she let this just destroy her because she wouldn't forgive.

And I noticed a lot of the stories online on forgiveness, it did tend to deal with parents, I guess, because a parent probably does have the power to influence us more than probably anyone ever will in our life, either for good or for bad. And like I say, looking at the stories online, obviously, a number of people, it's been bad. They had parents you would hope you would not have. But again, people, even non-Christians, found the only way of freedom out of that was to forgive.

And one person found this very helpful. This is our last point, number four, was to picture what their childhood was like. And this could apply not only to a parent, but also, let's say, somebody who hurt you negligently or criminally, something like that.

But the application of this was with somebody who had struggled forgiving her mother. And someone had told her, "Picture what her childhood was like, your mother's childhood."

What was her childhood like? She never thought about that. It turned out, yeah, her mother had had a pretty hard childhood herself. In fact, probably the reason she was so controlling is because she grew up with her own mother who was very controlling. And she probably hated every bit of it and thought, "I'll never be like this when I get grown." And then I think a lot of us have found the very things you didn't like in your parents, we end up repeating those very same things. It doesn't always happen that way, but it does very frequently.

And then going a step further, it was now picture your mother, let's say, as a 10-year-old girl. Just picture what her life is like, what she's dealing with in her childhood. Now picture yourself back when you were 10. And picture both of you getting together in a playground, you and your mother. You don't know she's your mother. Just this is another child. What would you be talking about? If you shared experiences, you might find, "Oh, your mom's like that? So is mine." "Oh, she yells at you all the time." "Yeah, my mother's always yelling at me." You might become very good friends because you'd find you had a lot in common.

And this helped this one person get past it when she thought of, yeah, I mean, because all she thought about was how a mother should be. And it's not wrong to think of that. But just putting her down in human terms, yeah, what was she like? What did she go through as a child? And how has that affected her? Helped her to finally let go and forgive her mother. It may not work for everybody, but I thought that was a helpful hint.

So again, the bottom line of the message is whatever works to get you there, forgiveness is not optional. It is an absolute essential. There are four things that, like you say, some of these have helped me and others have helped other people. One, Jesus has helped us to see the reality. If you struggle with forgiving someone, go back to the parable.

Look up those pictures. They're online out there. And see yourself as that servant who was forgiven $160 million and then wouldn't forgive his fellow servant $12,000, okay? Just keep going back to that anytime you think, "No, I really can't forgive. This is too big of a price." And well, do you want to pay the 160 million? If you don't, then forgive.

Number two, recognizing forgiveness is in your power. Never imagine that, "Oh, I just can't forgive what they did. I just can't forgive." No, you can forgive. And nobody can take that power from you. It's the one thing they can't take from you. No matter what they do to you, they can't stop you from forgiving them.

Number three, believing because if you think, "Oh, it somehow is going to hurt to forgive," that forgiveness doesn't hurt. It frees. It's laying down a burden. You think, "Oh, it's just so unjust," or, "This is more than I can do." You'll find instead, "Oh, this freed me." It's like, "Why did I carry that burden for so many years?" It's like, "Just lay it down. It feels so good." And finally, yeah, if you're really struggling with a particular person, a parent, or somebody else, yeah, picture what their childhood was like. Maybe the way that they are is because they got treated the same way. And unfortunately, they ended up passing it on.

Okay. Does anyone have any feedback, questions? Yes, Justin. Just. I really appreciate what you shared. Just something you mentioned in passing, and I was going to see if you have any thoughts on this. But you talked about, obviously, that Jesus himself was in the flesh experiencing these horrible things, and he forgave. But he went a step beyond that. He actually asked his Father to forgive the people that were doing this to him. And so I was thinking of that, that there could be some times when we choose to forgive someone, but we're kind of hoping that God will punish them.

Yeah. So I was thinking, well, maybe only Jesus is capable of asking actually for their forgiveness. But then I thought about Stephen. I turned to that passage in Acts chapter 7 where Stephen says as they stoned him, he was calling on God and saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, "Lord, do not charge them with this sin."

And I was like, "Well, that's a step beyond forgiveness where you're actually asking for their forgiveness for what they're doing." I don't have any thoughts on that. Is that our responsibility as well? That's almost saying, "Well, I mean, I don't even want this person to be punished for what he's doing." Yeah. No, I thought about that in preparing the message. I noticed Jesus, he didn't put that requirement on us in the Sermon on the Mount, but I thought that's probably what he wants us to do. And maybe that is a sign of we've really forgiven when we can truly intercede for somebody to God, before God, that please don't punish them for this. I think when we can do that, then we know, wow, we have really laid it all down.

So yeah, I would really encourage that step. I noticed, again, he didn't put that requirement in the parable of the unforgiving servant, but I think that's a good standard to look towards because that's what Jesus did. I mean, he interceded and even made excuse for them. They know not what they do. Scribes and Pharisees knew a lot what they did, but they didn't know they were putting their creator to death. They knew they were putting a prophet to death. But yeah, he even made excuse for them in that. It's hard to believe for all they did to him and just dogged him, his whole ministry, always doubting, always ridiculing, always condemning, and then having him put to death this way.

And then yeah, he not only forgives, but he intercedes on their behalf. Yeah. Like I say, he doesn't ask us to do something he didn't do himself. Thank you.

Yes, Daniel. This message, I heard a similar one you gave on the bitterness. And I realized that I was holding on to bitterness, and it was so true how freeing it is. And one of the things you mentioned in that message, and maybe you can expound, I don't want to put pressure on you, but what about hurt people?

You mentioned that in the previous message. Yeah. So I mentioned then, I don't know if this has still come. I don't hear it very often in our circles, but it was certainly in my evangelical days, it was just always you're hearing about hurting people.

She's a hurting person and all of that. And not to be unsympathetic with hurts because yeah, people do get hurt, and a lot of people are dealing with pain. But I realized through the years that hurting people generally are unforgiving people. Now, hurting, not someone who has been hurt, because like I say, that can happen to very innocent people. And we've all been hurt, I'm sure, in many ways. But the phrase hurting person tends to be people who just live there. And it's nearly always because they don't forgive. And so well, that sister I talked about, I mean, I'm mentioning her freely because none of you have ever met her. I'm sure you never will.

And you don't know her name. And I'm sure she's not watching this. But if she is, yeah, maybe she will see herself, and it'll help her. But yeah, most people would say, "Yeah, she's a hurting person." Well, I'm sorry. Yeah, she's hurting because she won't let go. She's keeping it. It's like having a wound, and you just sit there and pick at it and pick at it, and you won't let it heal because you won't just leave it be.