Today we're talking about forgiveness. Now some of you might be thinking, John, I thought you just said we're talking about prayer. And we are But Why, of all the things that Jesus could include in his prayer, you see, the disciples. Thought Jesus prayed. So powerfully, so incredibly that when they wanted to learn something, they didn't say, teach us to walk on water, teach us to preach, teach us to do these miracles. They say, Lord, if anything, will you please teach us to pray? And in his template, in his posture, in his example to teach the disciples to pray, he included forgiveness. That seem strange to anybody? It did to me, but then as I started to do a deeper dive into studying this, I, I really come to believe he included forgiveness in his teaching on prayer for two main reasons. First, I believe forgiveness is included in the Lord's prayer because it is one of the most difficult things you could ever do. Forgiving someone is, is one of the most difficult things you could ever do. For many of you in this room. As soon as I say forgiveness, there is a person that pops into mind. Right. So it's not what do you think about, it's who do you think about? Forgiveness is so difficult that in another story in the Gospel, when friends lowered um uh a lame man, a paralyzed man, through a roof into a room full of Pharisees, and Jesus says, your sins are forgiven, get up and walk. So a paralyzed man stands up and walks, and when he walks out of the room, the Pharisees were amazed, and you wanna know what they were amazed at? They were amazed, not at the healing of paralyzed guy, but on the fact that Jesus said, your sins are forgiven. And so someone is miraculously healed, leaves the room, and the Pharisees are left saying, wait, who is he to forgive somebody? That's how difficult forgiveness is. It is one of the most difficult things you could ever do in this life. I think that's why Jesus included it in prayer. Second reason why I think Jesus included forgiveness in the prayer is that while it is one of the most difficult things you can do, it's also one of the most important things you could do in this life. Nothing changes someone's heart than the spirit of forgiveness. I want to invite you over the next 30 minutes. To let yourself sit in tension. Here's what I mean. When I mention the word forgiveness, there's probably someone that comes to mind. OK And I'm just gonna tell you, I'm not, we're not gonna solve everything in your life over the next 30 minutes. You're gonna walk out of the room and the relationship will be just as difficult as when you entered the room. But what we can do. Is to have a theology of forgiveness, a foundation of forgiveness. And just my aim as your friend and as pastor is to simply offer some help and some hope. So whatever tension you're sitting in, whatever relationship that is fried, whatever ripple effect of something that happened years, maybe even decades ago that is still hanging on to you, I wanna invite you to sit in that and to see God, what do you have for me today? OK. Early on in our, uh, church planting journey when we were still mobile on the other side of COVID we were meeting in a new location which growing up as a Southern Baptist, it was, it was hilarious to me that I'm leading a church that met in a bar. And, uh, and so when we moved to this new location, we had a massive trailer, but it didn't work with the location, so we had to get a smaller trailer and so we went and got a trailer. Clark sitting here because he got the trailer, so I'm looking at him and so he picked up the trailer we delivered to the house. We were kind of examined it we had to switch, uh, cars for driving it, so we unhooked the trailer and it's empty and we open the back door and I go to step into it and I'm not the smallest of people. Um, this didn't help. Uh, I stepped into the trailer. I can't remember if you already left Clark or if you were there with me. I stepped into the trailer and the trailer goes. And my life flashed before my eyes. Because I didn't know if it was gonna flip up and I was like, this is how it ends, this is how it ends. I'm just gonna be just closed in the trailer and it's gonna go and then and then I also thought to myself, how big am I? Like, this is a trailer, you know, and, but what the reason it flipped up as this empty trailer is that when I put my weight in the back, the reality was at that point in time, there was nothing connected to the other side. What prayer does. Is that prayer connects our heart with the heart of God. And so forgiveness is key, because if you're taking notes, I want you to write this down. Your vertical relationship with God is directly connected to your horizontal relationship with others. There's not some spiritual world. In which we believe and then a physical world in which we live. That your physical existence and life and interactions with others is directly linked to your spiritual relationship with your heavenly Father. That's why I think forgiveness is so important because forgiveness connects the two. Warren Risby puts it this way, he says the important thing about prayer is not simply getting an answer, but being the kind of person God can trust with an answer. We think so much of prayer as us going to God. But have you ever stopped to ask yourself, are you the kind of person that God can even trust and answer with? That's why I think forgiveness is so key to prayer because it connects the vertical with the horizontal. It connects the spiritual with the physical. It's like breathing in. And breathing out That's why the great commandment, Mark 12:31 says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and Love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus will go further and say love your neighbor as I have loved you. Your horizontal relationships will always be directly connected to your vertical relationship with God. And let me tell you, when one of them is not good. The other one's not gonna be good. Um It's Martin Luther King Junior weekend, so it reminds me of a quote won't be on the screen, but he said this, he said, forgiveness is not an occasional act but a permanent attitude. Part of what marked the civil rights movement with him was not just merely that he had a dream. But the mindset of leading to rights and freedom and then the ability to forgive on the other side of that. Again, forgiveness is one of the most difficult things you can do in this life and one of the most important things you can do in this life. Because your vertical relationship with God is directly connected to your horizontal relationships with others. And then if you don't want your relationships to flip up like I felt in that trailer, you have to connect your heart to God's heart and one of the best ways to do that is through prayer. Where does the prayer come from? We've been walking through it. Matthew chapter 6. I'm gonna read through it, but I'm also gonna include Jesus' own commentary at the end in verses 14 and 150. So the prayer goes, pray then like this, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your world will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive our debts as we forgive. Have forgiven our debtors. I don't love that word as, by the way, and, and I really don't like it in a couple of verses and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For if you, and here's Jesus' own commentary, for if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. OK, I like that verse, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, then neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Oh. I don't like that one. That does not seem warm and fluffy. Appreciate it. If you don't forgive, I'm not forgiving. Ah, I don't like that. That seems a little harsh, Jesus. Or what do we do? But you don't know what this person did if you knew. Then you would say, if you don't forgive, except for Carl, you, you don't have to forgive Carl because of what he did. We all know what Carl did, um. Like, right, we wanna add a condition to the condition, don't we? Why would Jesus put an if then in that statement? That seems a little harsh. But see, we, we come at it from the wrong angle. We come at it because we're thinking about the person who hurt us. So we're saying how could you? Not forgive my sins based on what happened in this situation, where Jesus is coming from the eternal angle. And so he's saying, I'm not talking about your view of that person, I'm talking about your view of me. You deserve eternal damnation. Complete separation from God. Hell, because of your sin, my son Jesus died on the cross. You're telling me? That that's not worth it. That my son's death on the cross does not pay for what you're holding on to? See, the reason I think Jesus can put those if then statements on there because it's not a reflection of who hurt us, it's a reflection of what God did for us. But if you're struggling, Welcome to the game because we all struggle again, it's the hardest thing you ever do, but it's one of the most important things you overdo. And I don't view this so much as like a threat, which you can feel like that, but actually a pathway to freedom. It actually can lead you out. Of the thick dense forest that you might feel like you're in. You see in the Lord's prayer we see 6 components and this is what we've been walking through each week. So our Father that acknowledges God's presence. Prayer is not a button to be pushed, but a relationship to be pursued. He wants to know you. He wants you to know Him. Then he says, hallowed be thy name. It's the holiness, the greatness, the glory, and the goodness of God, right? That's God's praise. Then it goes, your kingdom come, your will be done. That's God's purpose. I love that he starts out his template of prayer in his presence, praising his name, praying for his purpose to be done. See it's not about us yet. I think there's a reason for that, right? Cause then when you posture yourself in that way, oh, posture, that's another P word we can add that. Um, sorry, how my mind works. Um, so we go through, right, and then it moves into what? OK, give us this day. That was last week we talked about provision, right? And how God's provision sometimes doesn't look exactly like you think it will. But where God guides, God provides. And now we go into God's forgiveness. About the payment for our sins that are the pardon of our sins. That's God's pardon. He says lead us not into temptation. Right Which is really God's protection. We're gonna focus most of our time on forgiveness because I think that's gonna be probably the biggest tension point for people, but I do want to pause for a second here and say, why do you think the temptation for sin is directly after this idea of forgiveness? I think because when you're hurt, when you're angry, when you're bitter. Well, let me ask you, when you have those things, are you more likely to sin or less likely to sin? Right? More likely, right? The addiction is typically a symptom of a bigger disease or a response to a hurt, isn't it? The drug, the drink. The pornography, the, the whatever addiction you fill in the blank with tends to be a response to a pain that you're trying to deal with or maybe you're trying to numb or run from. Right He someone put it this way one time that anger and bitterness are like drops of blood in the water. That lead the sharks of sin to surround you. One of the first sins in the Bible Cain and Abel. Kane's upset Right, gets hurt, instead of letting go, what does he do? He sins out of that anger, right? So a lot of times our sin is is a response to lack of forgiveness. Not every time but understand that we see that it that we are more likely to lash out when we're feeling bitter or angry, right? We'll dive into this, but I want you to see this ahead of time because then you're gonna see that when it comes to forgiveness. Now I also wanna mention here too that I didn't mention this first service, but I had a good conversation between services, it's a little bonus content, OK, um, because we're talking about forgiving others. I said, well, what about myself? And the reality is, is sometimes the most difficult person you're gonna struggle to forgive is the person you spend the most time with. Yourself. And your forgiveness includes yourself, the person you see in the mirror. That comes from Jesus. See Jesus paid for your shame. Jesus paid for the guilt that you feel. So as we talk about relationships, some of you had someone come to mind. Some of you, it was your own name that came to mind. So let's dive into it and see what does the Bible actually say about forgiveness. Right, there's no I in team, but there's one in forgive. Right, it's a choice we have. What is forgiveness? Simply put, forgiveness is the canceling of debt. The canceling of debt. That's why it says forgive us our debt. Right, something is old. To somebody else, there was a pain caused or taken or loss. Someone took something from someone else. So to forgive is the canceling of the debt. In other words, the forgive forgiver bears the cost of the forgiven. Does that make sense? But as we talk about the canceling of debt, let's also clarify what forgiveness is not. Forgiveness is not forgetting what happened. OK. I, I think the whole forgive and forget is just ridiculous cause we don't. Right, we can't. So it's not forgetting. The second thing is forgiveness is not saying that what happened was OK. That's a legitimate fear, isn't it? Well, if I forgive them, then I'm saying what they did was fine. No, that's not forgiveness. It's called enablement. There are different things, OK. Also, forgiveness is not fair. By nature, it's not fair. If you go the mercy route, mercy is not receiving something that you do deserve, and grace is receiving something that you don't deserve. Either way, you don't deserve it. By definition, forgiveness is not deserved. OK Next thing, forgiveness is not the same thing as trust. Just because you forgive someone doesn't mean you're gonna trust them. Forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation. It's the first step towards reconciliation. You wanna move towards reconciliation we're gonna talk about that. But I want you to understand that if you forgive the person, it doesn't mean that the relationship will be the same. You see, you start here. Something happens and your relationship goes here, right? And you think I wanna go back to here how it was. Have you ever had that thought if we could just go back to before blank. Let me just really discourage you for a moment. I mean to encourage, but you'll be discouraged, so I'll just tell you anyway. You will never go back to here. Yay. You're dismissed, um. You can't, right? If you know, you know. You know what I'm saying? Like if you're there, you're there. Your relationship was here, something happens, and like, I will never get back to here. You won't. But there's good news. Because God doesn't want to take you here. God has somewhere new to go. And that new could be better, could be deeper, could be stronger. It's gonna be different. But he's gonna be with you. And it starts with forgiveness, OK? Last thing here, forgiveness is not opposed to justice. It's not just arbitrarily say, oh, it's, it's free. It's not opposed to justice. How do I know that? Because in 1 John 1:9. It says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and notice that we're just to forgive. In other words, God's justice is actually the basis for his forgiveness. So it's just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I mentioned at the beginning of the message, when Jesus said, get up and walk, your sins are forgiven. What's crazy to me is that he was able to do that. Why? Because he knew he was going to the cross to pay for that. I'm gonna be transparent with you not always the smartest person, but I have been known occasionally to be in a grocery store, be super thirsty, and to drink the drink before I check out. Anyone do this, anyone with me? Maybe if you're OK, we're friends. If you're, if you're judging us, it's about forgiveness, OK. Right? Because what do you think in your head, right? Like, I'm gonna pay for it, right? It's gonna get paid for, right? Here's the thing. The cross is the perfect intersection of God's justice and grace. He doesn't just look over at you and go, yep, it's fine, it's fine, it doesn't matter. But instead he's saying it's OK because my son paid for it. How serious does God take forgiveness? I would say the most serious. He took your pain, your hurt so serious that his son died for it. That's why he can say he is just to forgive because he took the payment. When you forgive someone, you're not saying that a payment isn't owed. What you're saying is Jesus paid for that. And you don't have to wait for the other person to take a step. How do we know that? Because in Romans 5:8, it says, but God shows his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, we had yet to go to God. We didn't go to God. He says, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Another example, when Jesus was on the cross, looking at the very people he came to save, the very people that were killing him. He did not look at them and say, oh, you got something coming. And look, if you read Revelation, evil does have something coming. That's why there's an existence of hell. God has and God will deal with evil. Understand that. But when he's on the cross, looking at the people who put him there, what does he say? He says, Father, forgive them. For they know not what they do. To forgive them, they don't get it. Hm. See, we can be forgiven. And our sins, even our shame can be forgiven because Jesus paid for it. I paid for it. We see this all throughout scripture, Ephesians 1:7, in Christ in him we have the redemption through his blood, that's payment, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace. So you seek justice and you see grace. Ephesians 4:31-32. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with malice. Again, that's the stuff that comes when we're hurt, doesn't it? Like no one, no one walks through the day. How's it going? I'm so good, I'm bitter. Right? I'm so blessed that I'm angry. Like it doesn't work, it doesn't come, right? Like when you're hurt, that leads to the bitterness, doesn't it? So it says, put that aside. Why? Verse 32. Instead, be kind to one another, be tenderhearted, forgiving one another. How is that possible? as God and Christ forgave you. Colossians 3:13, bearing with one another and if one has complained against another, forgive forgiving each other. How is that possible? As the Lord has forgiven you, so also you must forgive. What he's saying here is don't let forgiveness stop with you. Forgiveness doesn't just happen to you, forgiveness actually happens through you, to be a blessing to the people around you. And it changes things. In fact, it changes everything because your vertical relationship with God is always connected to your horizontal relationships with others. But let's get, let's get practical here because, and I'll share a few thoughts with you. Number one, Forgiveness includes choosing release over revenge. It's not that justice and revenge doesn't happen, it's just not your job. Part of why we love movies like The Avengers is because we want to be one. Hate to break it to you. You are not an avenger. But I got a shield, I was right, OK. Oh come on, some of you wanted a shield, at least I did. Captain America, that's a great name, right? OK, anyways. It's not that justice doesn't happen, it's just not your job. It's God's job. So you can take something that you're ah and you release it. It says here in Romans 12:17 18, it says, repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable on the side of all. And here's an incredible phrase here, if possible, meaning it's not always gonna happen. As far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. In other words, own whatever percentage you own in this thing that happened. Right, if you own, if it's 80% you 20% the other person, own your 80%. You can't control what the other 20%'s gonna do, but own your 80%. If it's 99% the other person and it's 1% you, you can't control what that person does, but you can't own the 1% that's you. Right? As long as it's up to you, choose peace. Why? Because love makes the first move. Jesus made the first move. Lisa Turkurs, who was a public figure, went through a public divorce, but her husband was unfaithful. Instead of retreating, she said, nope, I'm gonna minister through it. And so in her deepest, darkest days, she writes this book for forgiving what you can't forget, and she says these words. He said, forgiveness is not about excusing the wrong. But about releasing the burden of bitterness and pain. It's about letting go. I have a chart I wanna share with you, it was helpful for me, maybe it'll be helpful for you. And, and really it's this idea here, and you'll see it a picture in just a moment, but forgiveness is more than therapeutic. It's more than transactional. It's actually transformational. It's more than therapeutic it's more than transactional it's actually transformational here's what I mean. Picture on one side, you have a circle here, OK. Of it's forgive and it is these things, by the way, so it's not less than this so first it's more than therapeutic. So we live in a culture where forgiveness is this idea of self therapy, right? And like letting go, and that's saying forgiveness is about me. And it is, right? It's not less than that. Right? What's that famous image of, uh, not forgiving someone and being bitter is like drinking poison except expecting the other person to die. Right? And so bitterness is not good. It's gonna lead to all kinds of anger and and other things, OK? But it's about me, and that makes sense. Right? And because you get verses like this, for example, Jesus says in Mark 11:25, whenever you stand praying, forgive. If you have anything against anyone, so that your father also who is in heaven may forgive you of your trespasses. So if you're struggling, if you're hurting, forgive. Right, while people are sinners, forgive. They haven't come, they don't have to come to you for you to forgive. Right? You can make that choice. So there is that section. But What about the other person? What do you do with that? See, that's where forgiveness is also more than transactional, cause that is really when forgiveness is about them. What do you do when the person comes or when the person doesn't come? How do you respond to that? Cause Jesus says something almost contradictory, but we're gonna show you why it's not in just a moment. But in Luke chapter 17 verse 3 and 4, they're talking about how, how, how many times do I need to forgive? He says, pay attention to yourselves that if your brother sins, rebuke him and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you 7 times a day and turns to you 7 times saying, I repent, you must forgive him. I don't like that. Mhm, I don't like that. And my heart responses, but you don't get it, God. Or just like I don't want to. Right You must forgive? They need to pay Right? I'm gonna sit back. I, I'll forgive them, yeah, I'll forgive them when they come to me. but notice the posture in that. Right? Because what you're doing is you're still requiring a payment, right? That's not called repentance, that's called penance. Right, when we put something on someone else, OK? Versus what I want you to notice the difference. verse says, God, you've forgiven me. And while it hurts and I'm struggling through your power, I'm gonna forgive them. And I'm praying for them and when the time comes or when I reach out I'm gonna try to restore it. We might not have the same relationship it might not go back, but we can go somewhere new and I want that. I'm ready to forgive. So when they come back they're ready to respond you feel the difference? See it's more than therapeutic it's more than transactional it's something better so what I would say I describe it as it's transformational. Therapeutic says it's about me. Transactional, it says it's about them. Transformational says it's about Christ. See, I think this is the most biblical understanding of forgiveness, because what you're saying is there's something bigger going on. There's something greater going on, and it starts with God and through God, all things are possible. And so now I'm not gonna focus on me. I'm not gonna focus on them. God, I'm gonna focus on you and I'm gonna let you change us. And that provides the opportunity for both sides to change. Have you ever been forgiven by somebody? How does that feel? Have you ever forgiven somebody? How does that feel? Oh In both cases, the weight comes off. Why? Because it's transformation. Tim Keller writes this, it's a lengthy quote, but it's it's awesome, so he says. He says the New Testament indicates that we should forgive not simply as the response of our wills to a command. But as a natural response to our hearts reordered by God's forgiveness. Jesus very explicitly ties God's forgiveness of us to our forgiveness of others. If we expect God's forgiveness, and if we have truly rejoiced in it, that we will forgive others. If we don't forgive though, it's fair to ask if we have truly received God's forgiveness and been changed by it. If you never forgive sinners, do you really understand yourself to be a forgiven sinner? See, that's why I think there's the if then because it's not our view of ourselves, it's not our view of them, it's our view of God. There's two stories, we don't have time to read all of it, but I'll summarize it for you. One's found in Matthew 18. And Jesus shares the parable of the unmerciful servant, and so there's a king, and there's a servant, and the servant owes like 10,000 talents. So they debated how much it's worth, but basically it's like um an amount in the in the form of billions. In other words, there's no way this servant can repay what's owed. And the king looks down on him, has mercy, and says, you know what? I'll absorb the cost. You're free, so he takes on the debt he cancels the debt and says you are free. OK. He goes out and he finds someone who owes him some money. That this is just a few talents. It's still quite a bit of money, like a couple, uh, a couple months' worth of wages, maybe about $10,000 in modern day, so it's still a good amount. Since you owe me money, and if you can't pay me, you're gonna be thrown in jail and all this stuff and he gets back to the king. And the king says his words in Matthew 18:33, he says, Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? Saying, do you not get what I gave you? He goes further and then that guy gets locked back up. He's saying, this is serious stuff. This is what Jesus died for. Do you not get it? It's another story. In Luke 7, Jesus is eating with a Pharisee and Simon and this sinful woman, not even named, is called the sinful woman comes and it starts like anointing Jesus, wiping his feet with her tears and her hair, and this fairy is like. You let that happen, Jesus. And he tells a story. A man who was owed 500 in AI and like 50 in AI. And he says, and he forgives them both. Who's gonna love? The master more, he said, well, of course, the one who was forgiven 500, that's way more. Is that correct. And then he says these words in here, he says. Therefore, I tell you her sins, which are many are forgiven, for she is loved much, but he who is forgiven little loves little. Mm. Someone owes 500 an area, someone owns 50. 550 debts both wiped clean. Which one was a sinful woman? So 500, right? Which one was the Pharisee? Also 500. The problem is he thought it was 50. See, as soon as you think of yourself as not needing forgiveness, it puts you in a position to go and judge others. But when you understand that God has forgiven you from eternal damnation and wiped your slate clean, that's why I love it. So when he was on the cross, one of the other words he said on the cross was, it is finished. Tay telesoyi. You know what that means in common language used in that day is that the debt has been paid. Oh. On the cross, he says it is finished. He looks out and says forgive them. He says it is finished. Your debt has been paid so that as we go and as we pray, we understand that forgiveness changes us. Don't let forgiveness stop with you but work through you because it's not about you, it's not about them, it's about God and that when God works through you, it can change you. Now, that's not minimizing what happened. If we've said already that's the most difficult thing you can ever do. But if you're battling, if you're struggling, if you're up at night, maybe you're hurting for something that happened decades ago because there's the facts of a trauma, then there's the impact of a trauma. And sometimes those ripples go down through generations, right? Some of you are sitting wrestling with something that you did, that someone else did, that someone didn't do from a day, a week, a month, years ago, and it's rippled on. I wanna encourage you with this, that what hurts you doesn't have to hold you. When God sees you. He does not see you as victim. He sees you as my son and my daughter. And that when you reach that place of forgiveness, you let go and it leads to freedom because what hurts you. Doesn't have to hold you. Some of you are still being held by what someone did. Someone you're holding on to what someone did to someone you love, which is in reality tougher than us, right? I can't forgive what happens to me, but if you hurt my kid or my wife or that's harder, isn't it? So here's the second thing with that. In order to forgive, you need spiritual tools for supernatural results. It's supernatural. You will not be able to forgive apart from the power of the Holy Spirit and Christ working in your life, but if you do. That weight, that tension. It's freedom. Again, it's not gonna be solved overnight, but let me just encourage you with something as we're wrapping up here, share with you a path of forgiveness. These are not linear steps, right? You're gonna need to forgive someone time and time again, right? Why? Because you're gonna be triggered. I wish we could plan triggers, you know what I'm saying? Like, oh, I'm gonna get triggered Thursday night at 7. So then at 6:55, I'm gonna have my Bible out, I'm gonna have a candle lit and some worship songs playing like, oh, don't got me. No, what happens, the trigger happens and it's like the trauma happened yesterday, right? So what do you do? How do you respond? Let me just encourage you with things they're not linear. You're gonna have to do this over and over again. Number one is here is the process the wrong. Can you acknowledge what hurt? Don't minimize it, don't deny it. Acknowledge what happened. Second thing here our process wrong, um. Is then abandoned revenge. This is where you say God's justice is better than my justice. Let go of that. Trust God for the justice to be done. Right. Third thing here is then just go to God. If you're feeling angry, go to God angry. If you're feeling depressed, go to God depressed. If you're struggling, go to God in depression. He wants, that's again, the goal of prayer is the presence of God. Go to him with everything. Right? Be honest with him. Talk to him. Pray for the offender. Like, if, if you can forgive one portion, forgive that portion and then say, God, I know your blood covers that portion too, so help me. Jesus didn't just die for your sins, they died for their sins too. Process the wrong, abandon the revenge, talk to God, praying, lifting up, even if like I don't even know what to do. And as God works in you and through you and you understand how much you've been forgiven, then finally you can find that place where you can help rebuild. You won't go back But you can build something new. Take a step towards reconciliation. To reach out To serve, to bless. It might not look the same as it did. But God, again, it's not about me, it's not about them, it's about Jesus, it's about Christ. And you can experience transformation for that and beyond. You know, Proverbs 4:23 says above all else, guard your heart. Right? Guard your heart. Have you heard that before? Guard your heart, guard your heart. But did you know praying can help that? Why Paul, who by the way wrote these next words in prison. Surrounded by the people who hurt him not out of prison, not out of the situation, but in the very situation itself before people came back to him in the brokenness in the valley, in the darkness, he writes these words. He says, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be known to God. Take it to God, and look what happens. And the peace of God which surpasses understanding what will guard your heart. And your minds in Christ Jesus. The power of forgiveness comes through Christ. Can change your life, can change their life. Forgive others. Do it. Why? Because it shows you you have the heart of God and you understand how much he's forgiven you. Because your vertical relationship with God is directly connected. With your horizontal relationships with others. I invited you to stand in the tension. So what I ask you to do now is just to stand. And let us sing or not sing, let's say this Lord's prayer. Making it make it personal this time. Whoever comes to your mind. May you place that person in your heart as we pray this together. Our Father who are in heaven. Holler be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.