2819 Church - I Beg Your Pardon | Romans 12:14-21 | Lonnell Williams

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

We are called to surrender every wound and walk in the Spirit, allowing the Lord to heal what we cannot.Lonnell Williams brought a call to examine the heart through Romans 12:14–21, confronting the danger of offense and the evidence it produces.

Welcome to all who are here for the first time and those who are back. I'm so excited and welcome to 2819 Church. We're just grateful for your presence. My name is Lonnell Dawson Williams. I'm the executive pastor here at 2819 Church. And I'm just elated to be able to come here with a standalone message and to preach this word. To you and to our digital disciples online all across the world, we thank you for your letters and your emails and your posts and your comments. And we recognize those in Cambodia and the Philippines.

in Germany and London, in Canada, in South America, in Brazil. That's why I love this shirt right here. This is my favorite one because it is until all have heard. Not just Americans, not that people that just look like me or look like you, but the entire world. And so we're grateful for you. And then to all those who have the Pando app, for those who are in the prison system right now, who are watching along live, I want you to know that we are praying for you and praying with you. and yes, you may be behind a physical cell, but the word is very clear that whom the son sets free

you is free indeed. So no matter where you are or what you're doing, if the father is with you, you are in good hands. I also want to just take a moment briefly to honor the shepherd of this house of Pastor Philip and Ms. Lena Mitchell. Amen. You know, for the last two weeks, Pastor Philip has been tirelessly finishing up his book, contend, and he turned his manuscript in on Friday, and he said, Lanelle, I just need a moment. I just need a moment. And so we're just grateful that we get the opportunity because Colossians 128 says that him we proclaim. Doesn't matter who is mounting this stage. Doesn't matter what they look like. As long as the gospel is being preached, people should come and hear the word of God, because there might be a word for you.

And so today I am just grateful for the opportunity. I'm going to be preaching from Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12. I'm going to focus on verses 14 through 21, 14 to 21. We're going to kind of bounce around a little bit, but I think this is an important word for us today. And so if you have your Bibles with you, you can turn there. we'll follow along as I as I walk through the text.

But the Lord gave this word to me because he was dealing with me about something. And I felt like as I walked through that spiritually, that maybe I could bring you in on my journey, my conversation with God, and I believe that there may be something in it for you. And so if I had to put a title to this preachment, give me grace, I would probably call it, I beg your pardon.

I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon. When I was growing up, my parents, Craig and Sherry, they had four kids, four kids. Me, I'm kind of like the middle. I'm a little sister named Lanay. I'm an older half-sister named Tanika and an older half-brother named Craig. We do not, they're not my stepbrothers because in my family we don't step on anyone. So they are my brother and sister.

And, you know, when we were growing up, we were taught something that for somehow, some reason, it is no longer a part of this generation. It is called manners. Manners. Yeah, it's called manners. You know, words like, thank you. And yes, sir, and yes, ma'am, and no, sir, and no, ma'am. I don't know where those words went in the English language in 2026, but for some reason, we don't hear them all. But when I was growing up, you know, it was very common to make sure that you respected your elders.

But when you get around 13 to 14, I decided, as my father would say, I started to smell myself. I don't know if you heard that terminology before, smell yourself. I said wet behind the ears, smell yourself, getting bigger than your britches. And I decided, you know, personally, one Sunday, I decided that I was going to test the waters with my mother. And so I was supposed to be in Children's Church, but I decided to hang out in the balcony with all the older teens. And my mother came out of the choir stand, came up the steps to the balcony, pulled me to the side. And she said, LaNelle, I thought you were supposed to be in Children's Church. Or me and my infinite wisdom, I'm like, I don't want to go to Children Church.

I'm not going to tell you what she did next. I'm not going to do that. But I will tell you what her words were to me. her words were, I beg your pardon. Now, maybe you have children as well and you have probably echoed something like that before. Maybe it's with your coworkers or your spouse or your children or your friends. You have at some point in time and your journey of life have said, I beg your pardon? Maybe if you're from southwest Atlanta, maybe you don't say that.

Maybe you say something along the lines of, I know you're. line. I know you lie. Or maybe if you're in the northeast, yeah, maybe in the northeast, you say, uh, uh, say it again. No, no, no, no, I didn't hear you. No, no, no, say it one more time. Oh, I didn't get that, right, right? Maybe if you're on the West Coast, you say something like, excuse me. Who you're talking to? And you know us, we're like, you ain't talking to me. Nah, you ain't talking to me. All right? Coming at you sideways, right? Check yourself before you wreck yourself. Now listen, that is simply evidence that one has been offended. That is the visceral response to offense. And nothing is more dangerous than offense that has decided and learned

how to look justified. The book of Romans teaches us specifically how to manage and overcome offense. Let me give you a little bit of history lesson. In Romans, in Roman time, in the book of Rome, you had an emperor named Claudius. And Claudius, and Claudius was the emperor of the time. This is him here on the screen. I took this picture at the Coliseum. So that is actually what he looked like. That is a bust of his face. And Claudius absolutely hated the Jewish Christians. Absolutely hated them. And so when he came to the throne, he pushed all of the Jewish Christians out of Rome. He pushed them out out into the land. He said, you can never come back here again. But yet the Gentile Christians stayed. And so with the Gentile Christians stayed,

they determined, decided to take over. So they took over the churches. They took over the homes. They took over the lay jobs. They took over the ministry responsibilities. They took over taking care of the sick and the shut-in. They took over. And when Claudius died, The Jews came back into the city. And when they returned, they walked into a community that had reorganized themselves around their absence. And this is what's interesting. Their seats were taken, their jobs were taken,

their churches were taken. Everything had looked differently. Everyone had moved on. It was almost like, like you were renting out your home for the weekend. And you gave keys to someone that you met online and you leave to go on vacation. You come back home and all of a sudden all of your furniture looks different. They took the drapes off the wall.

They put a new duvet cover out. They emptied out the refrigerator and they're sitting on your couch when you walk to the door and say, what's you doing? Why are you here? Because what you gave temporary. access to starting to make permanent changes and that is what offense does we thought it was just a moment but it moved things around on the inside of us and now you're trying to figure out when did i start living like this you didn't just experience it fence you gave it access and anything that you

give access eventually will take control And that only takes a moment, one post, one message, one text, one phone call, and all of a sudden you become offended. How do you know what an offense is and how you're living with it? Offense is not born at the moment. It is born in the meaning that you assign to the moment. because something happens. And before you can even sit with what you felt, your mind starts to write a new story.

Well, this is who they really are. This is what they think of me. I knew I couldn't trust her the way she responded. This is the proof that I was overlooked. And now everything is filtered through glasses of offense. Everything that we see, their tone when they respond becomes proof. The way that they write their messages become proof. The way that they post becomes proof.

The way that they take their pictures becomes proof. The silence becomes proof. You're not responding to truth. You're reacting to the story that you tell yourself. Yeah. Yeah, you started dealing your interruptions, the interpretations of them. How do I know? you stop listening and you started filtering you're no longer discerning the right moment

you're assuming based on previous experiences you're not hearing clearly you're transforming and translating that through the wound and that my brothers and sisters is not the holy spirit that is your hurt holding a microphone and speaking over your life I can prove it. No, I can prove it up. Look, go to Matthew. Go to Matthew 15. Paul, the note take this. Matthew 15. Very simple. Matthew 15. We're going to go to verse 18. I'm going to read this real quick. But what comes out of the mouth proceed from the heart. And this defiles a person. Which means if everything that you're hearing sounds negative. And if everything that you're interpreting sounds off, it may not be what they said. It may be what's sitting

inside your heart. Pain is what happens to you. And we cannot ignore that. If you've ever broken an arm, when you break your arm, you go to the doctor and the doctor will put it in a cast. And they tell you to be careful as you operate around with a cast. And if, when they take the cast off, they realize that the arm did not heal correct. What they will do is they will reset the break, re put on a cast, and then say, be careful for the next few weeks. See, that's like pain. You can visually see the pain.

You can see that something happens. But if you're not careful, the bone that is called offense can be unsettled, can be unfixed, cannot be set right. All of a sudden, we're carrying around. a cast, it looks whole, but it's really broken. Offense is what the pain unaddressed became on the inside of you. And you've been protecting it like it still owes you something. Look at verse number 14.

Bless those who persecutes you. Wait, pause. Wait a minute. I'm going to say that again. Bless, I do not curse them. To me, this is one of the most challenging components with this text. because Paul is instructing us to be a blessing to those whom we feel like don't deserve to be blessed. The word blessing here means to intentionally pray that God would bless the person that persecuted you. In other words, go out of your way to bless someone that you feel like does not deserve it.

And that is the challenge with the fence. what you just said, that visceral response that you just audibly stated. Offense forces you to operate in a spirit that is contrary to the way in which Jesus commands us. Paul knew that this was going to be difficult. That's why he said, bless those to persecute you, bless and do not curse. He said it twice because once was not enough. This is not preventative language. This is corrective language, meaning that this isn't before.

It happened. This is after it already took place. The reaction is already loaded. The response is already set. The text is already sent. The emotion is already spiked. And Paul sets in mid-sequence and he breaks it up. If you got kids, young kids, especially when they're young, two, three years old, let's say the two kids are playing around and one child has a toy and the other child takes the toy. The response from the child that took the toy is one thing, but the response of the child who had the toy taken away.

Normally, they don't just say, hey, you took my toy. The thing that they do is they raise their hand. They had it locked and loaded, ready to respond. And as a parent, the first thing we do when we see that is we grab the hand to try to stop them from hitting their sibling. This is important because Paul, similar to us as parents, steps in to break it up. Not because anything happened, but because something actually did. He is not trying to stop the pain. He is correcting their response.

And Paul was not blind to this. He himself personally understood what it was like and what it felt like to want to respond in negativity. I can prove it. If you go to Romans chapter 7, one of the strongest examples of this. 7 verse 15, it says, for I do not understand my own actions. Pause. I don't even know what I'm doing. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate.

You see, that is not confusion. That's conflict. because the flesh doesn't want to wait. It fires before the spirit speaks. And when you are wounded, your first weapon is not your hands. Usually your first weapon is your mouth. Being triggered is not a sin. No, no, no.

Being triggered is not the problem. Building a narrative around that is. Yes, they hurt you. Yes, they did it this time. But they didn't create the wound. They just hit a bruise. that was already there and never healed. And so Paul, not only, he doesn't say, don't bless.

He says to bless. Can I silence the flesh? What silence? You have to replace it with direction. See, whatever you rehearse, you are going to reinforce. And some of us have been rehearsing the offense that we experienced years ago to keep our feelings in emotional, solitary confinement. I can prove it.

You're in a relationship. Person cheats on you. And all of a sudden, everybody that looks like them or sounds like them or acts like them in the future, all of a sudden is labeled a cheater. And you say to yourself, you know what? You look too familiar. I can't have that relationship. I can go even further. You're in church.

And you share the most intimate parts of you. and you share with someone who weaponizes it for their own glory. So you say, well, I don't want religion. I just want a relationship. I don't want to just come to church because I can't trust church people. So I'm going to watch church from my home, even though I live 20 minutes away. Or maybe at work. Someone takes credit for the work that you did, and then they come to you privately and thank you for it.

So now you BCC, your manager, on every single email that you send out. You know, just in case. Maybe you're co-parenting. Maybe you're co-parenting. Maybe the father or the mother doesn't pick up the child on time and continues to make promises, isn't paying their child support. And all of a sudden, you say, I could never get with another person that's got a child. Because I can't trust nobody like that. It's like the old phrase that says, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.

We're looking at people. Assuming that they all sound the same. You know you're operating in a fence when you operate in black and white thinking. They always. He never. She always. Everyone is. No one does.

Your emotions want to putting a period where God is trying to put a comma because whatever you were Hearse internally, you will eventually speak externally. You see, see, now, now you're not just remembering it. Now you're preserving it. You keep saying, well, when you know, that's just how I feel. That's just, that's just how I feel. And Jesus is like, exactly. That's the problem.

That's been sitting in your heart this whole time. You just so happen to say it with your mouth. Okay, no, that's fine. I got Bible to back up what I just said. Turn to Luke chapter 6, verse 45. Help us, Holy Ghost. The Bible says, the good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good. And the evil person out of the evil chapter produces evil.

For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. God never told you not to acknowledge your pain. However, he told you to think in truth. Blessings does not deny the injury. It denies the enemy inventory in your heart. I beg your pardon? Yeah. God never asked you for your perspective. He asked you to bless them. Look at verse number 18. Excuse me, verse number 15. My apologies. It says, rejoice with those who rejoice weep with those who weep okay look here Paul kind of positions this in between two of the hardest command or challenges so verse 14 was very challenging verse 16 will be very very much so challenging so he sandwiches in between you know

really they kind of give us some perspective because he's not interested in this like warm fuzzy Christianity you know and and general principles about empathy he is literally asking you to emotionally inhabit the interior of a person who hurt you, literally to feel what they feel. You know, that price of a photograph, oh, here they come. How you doing? Oh, I'm good. Back in the day, he said, I'm blessed and highly favored.

You know, I can't stay in that, girl. Okay, that ain't you. All right, that's fine. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Do you know how hard it is to celebrate somebody that hurt you? My goodness. You've got to be saved for, real, for real. It's bad when their blessings make you upset. Okay, it's going to be tough. So there's

celebration of happiness for you becomes a state of suspicion. Weep with those who weep. It sounds holy until it's the parent who failed you or the sibling who disrespected you, the co-worker who slandered you, or the pastor. who mistreated you because they hurt you now that they're in pain it feels like payback okay you you celebrate their defeat and you say things like oh that's what they get eye for an eye but philippians too tells us to have the mind of christ not the move of of Christ, not the sentiment of Christ, but the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ does not calculate. It inhabits. It moves into the interior of the person on how they feel. That's why you cannot

decide your way into the mind of Christ. You have to live in it. You know what I'm talking about? You know that fake smile that you love to give when they come into the room? And they're like, oh my God, you know, I got a pretty new car. Okay, praise God. Praise God. Praise God. You know, that's a 2023, right? That ain't even though, 2026.

Hating for no reason. Lord, I don't know why I'm going to just say it. I know I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, but I'm going to say it anyway. One of the things that I really despise a, about the church. When I say church, not 2019, but the global church, is this, this haterology. Have you heard about this haterology? Everybody's a hater and God is going to redeem the haters. And the haters and the haters. No, you're a hater. You, no, now, now you're like, yeah, God, get them. And like, yeah, I'm about to. I'm about to get you.

You got to be able to preach the gospel. The gospel says that you are the one. You are the offender, not just the offended. Can you genuinely receive good news about them? Can you sit with them in their joy and it not cause resentment? And if that answer is complicated, that means that you are operating in condemnation. The Bible says, for therefore is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Jesus. What is condemnation? It is the judicial act of declaring a person guilty of sin and sentencing them to punishment, separation from God or divine judgment. The spirit has not yet fully displaced

the flesh in that territory. There are still work to do, not performance work, the deeper work of actually surrendering yourself and your story. Your reaction at times, if it's too big for the moment, There is an unheeled wound that is still inside of you. And therefore, you are casting condemnation. Look at verse number 16. It says, live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty but associate yourself with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.

Now watch this. He is talking to a people who are forced to live in a space with Romans who do not like them, who are judging against the Gentiles and the Jews. and the Roman culture, because they were despised, Paul is telling them to live in harmony. Now, if Paul is saying to live in harmony, literally he's saying that harmony has already been broken. Yeah.

It has already happened, which means he's addressing something that has already started to spread. And if you have ever lived in a strained relationship, you already know how this works. See, the argument didn't start big, it was small. It was one comment. It was one text.

It was one jab. It was one passive-aggressive statement. And one thing kind of got wrong. And in that moment, you didn't process the pain. You carried it. And you did what everybody else does. We tell somebody. Not to gossip.

You know, no, no, we don't do that. Just to, you know, I just got to get it off my chest. I just got to clear, I got to clear the air. I got to clear the air. And then when that other person says, you know what? yeah, I can see what you mean. Something in us is unsettled. We felt seen.

We felt heard. We felt affirmed. You have to be careful because validation can feel like healing, but it's just agreement with your version of the pain. Be careful. Validation can feel like healing, but it is just an agreement with your version of the pain. And because that fell good, you told somebody else. And then you told somebody else.

And slowly what started as a wound has now turned into a narrative. And now it's not just what happened. Now it's the version that you have rehearsed. And now people are just hearing the story. They're joining in on it. And now they got opinions. And now they have a language. And now they have frustrations.

And now they've attacked things to it. And would hurt you in. private is now being strengthened publicly. And before you realize it, you're not just hurt anymore. You are supported in your hurt. And support can feel like healing, but it is often just reinforcement. And the moment you become supported in that hurt, it becomes harder to let go. Some of you don't have a wound. Some of you have built a community around it. And now what just started as a simple offense has turned into a shared history and the history is keeping it alive. And every person that you recruit to your side is now a reason you can't put it down. And Paul breaks all of that up.

He says to live in harmony. Sometimes you're going to have to confront something deeper than just the moment. You're going to have to confront the story that you built around it. The story will start to do something to you. It won't just shape how you see them. It will start to shape how you see yourself. That's why he says, do not be haughty. Hottiness is what happens when the pain convinces you that your perspective is the final authority. In the Greek, it is not like a generic arrogance. It is a it is a haughtiness, a certainty that someone or something has hurt you. And without saying it out loud, you are saying, I am the wronged party. This is not quite arrogance.

This is loud pride. This is the most dangerous form of pride because it is the most self-concealing. It wears the costume of conviction while doing the work of division. A wounded person is the most difficult kind of person to reach because from the outside, they look right. They look whole. They looked like they got it all together. But it's just pain wearing language that protects it. The Bible says, never be wise in your own sight.

Now, Paul, he's warning us against a kind of self-mistrust that really kind of prevents us from growing. He says he has to put the offense in context. Paul is writing to an expelled people. They literally were kicked out of the city. Imagine if the police just came in here and kicked every single person. person out of this auditorium moved us out of Atlanta into Alabama. I don't even like Alabama like that. I'd be like, what in the world? So they had a real reason to be offended. But Paul still tells them not even your pain qualifies you to be your own authority. And some of us are caring what they said

at the dinner table three years ago. Because this is what happens when you become wise in your own sight. Imagine walking through life carrying a backpack. And every offense

you put inside. Every hurt you put inside. Every disrespectful text message you put inside. Every bad relationship you put inside. Every bad worker, you put inside and you put on this backpack and you carry it around around everywhere you go.

You go to bed with this backpack on. You take showers with the backpack on. You go to church with this backpack on. And what looks abnormal to some to you feels normal. Something that should be heavy all of a sudden your body has become accustomed to it. So now you're walking around with a bag full of offenses, talking about what this is just who I am. You try to walk through the crowd of people, and back of the day, you would say, you know, excuse me, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hit you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But now you just bump into people with your stuff. And you're hitting people with your wounds and with your fences and saying, well, you should have gotten out of my way in the first place. And rather than put the backpack down,

You adapted to it. You call it, well, this is my personality now. You know, I'm just, I'm just guarded. I'm just guarded. No, you have built a life around that ruin. And Jesus didn't come just to forgive what happened. He came to heal what stayed. Because when you trust in your own sight, you don't want peace.

You want proof, proof that God saw you, proof that they felt the pain, proof that they got what they needed, proof that the scale tilts your way. The mind of Christ isn't calculating. It is incarnating. It doesn't measure what they deserve. It moves at what mercy demands. The same Jesus who wounded is wounded without actually becoming hardened as the only one who can soften what life has hardened inside of you. Bible says in Romans 1217, Repaid no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.

So Paul begins the section. It's really interesting. He says, which means he assumes that something is going to happen to you that will probably require a response. These believers in Rome, they were living not in comfort, but they were actually navigating pressure

and misunderstanding and real offense. And in a world where retaliation, was actually a natural reflex. You know, you think about the Coliseum and the Gladiator Wars. It was common that when you were offended, you went to fight. So he doesn't say, you know, try hard in the moment, you know, it's okay. The Lord forgives. It's okay.

You can say something crazy to them. He says, give thought. Basically, he's saying, I want you to decide in advance who you will be before the moment arrives. Because if you. wait until you feel it, your flesh will answer faster than your faith. The phrase, give thought, is a Greek word. It means pro-o-neo, pro before. It's a compound word, meaning before, and neo, meaning mine, premeditated goodness, a decision made before the offense arrives about who you're going to be when it shows up. He's not describing a person who manages to well to react in

the moment. He's describing a person who decided in a quiet, season what their response would be before the trigger ever fired. I'm not talking about what you said to God in prayer. I'm not talking to you about the things that you assume all right because most of the damage in your life did not happen in the event. It happened in your response to it. And that is why the pause, the most important thing. Because if you cannot pause, you cannot give thought. But I don't Paul understood the context of 2026 because now we're in a very different season than in Rome. This is not a question of condemnation. I just out of curiosity, if you have your cell phone in your hand, please raise it up right now.

Just real quick, just raise it up high. If it's in your hand, yep, yep. See, Paul, thank you. Paul didn't understand the power of technology. Because now, before your mind can actually grip with what is being sent, before you can settle in your heart, what took place before you can actually think consciously about what you're going to say. You've already, thank God Apple has the unsinned button. But before the unsinned button, Lord, I tell my staff, don't text me. Don't tell, text me, because I'm going to misread it.

You didn't put the comma in the right place, so now we got a problem. Oh, you're going to capitalize it. Come to my office. Come on. You got a brother. They're like, I was just saying, hello. No, no, no, no. See? Where was your, why you got an exclamation point behind it? I'll just play. The gap between the mind being stimulated and the response, the one Paul builds everything around has been eliminated by the device most of us brought today. See, technology didn't create how we respond in the flesh. It just sped it up.

And before you can do what verse 17 requires, you need to fundamentally have a different relationship with the thing that causes you to react instead of think. Give thought. Decide in advance. If you ever apply for a job, when you get the job, one of the first things they do is have you signed documentation. And one of the things should be something called a work policy statement. Basically what HR is saying, that these are the principles in which we govern here at this organization. And you are signing this document to say that I agree with what is going on this paper.

And in the event that what I do does not match up with what I wrote on that paper when I signed my name, that that allows you to call into question my employment. Some of us need to have an emotional life management statement. Some of us need to sit back and write out the very things that we are not going to do in the seasons of a trigger so that when the moment arrives, we can pull out our statement and say, you know what? I'm going to breathe. I'm going to count to ten.

I'm going to take a walk. I'm going to sit on this for about 30 minutes. I'm going to give myself, I'm going to call somebody real quick, just let them know, but I'm not, I'm not going to allow you to take me there. Some of us need to have a policy statement in place. It's Paul new. If you don't set a policy, your pain will write it for you. And if you don't lead your soul, your wound will. Pre-decide.

Look at verse number 18. If possible, one of my favorite verses, so far as it depends. on my mama. No? Oh, let me read that again. If possible, so far as it depends on my husband or wife, my cousin and them, Ray, Ray, I call my daughter Pookie, depends on you.

Live peaceably with all. Paul shifts from your reaction to your responsibility. He writes this knowing very well that peace is not always ritual. You are responsible for your portion, not the whole. It is called boundaries. The world that measures peace by resolution, but Paul measures peace by responsibility, which means you can do right and still not be reconciled and still be right in the sight of God. Let me free you real quick.

Some relationships will not reconcile on this side of glory. Free yourself. But Paul craftfully constructs this command. If possible, that's honesty. That's honesty. Some stories won't end with a hug. So far as it depends on you, jurisdiction, your portion. Peace is a jurisdictional decision.

That is what Paul is drawing your lane, their lane. When I was growing up in Sunday school, we would come together after Sunday school, right? And we would all sit in the room and they would sit there and say, okay, these are the minutes and this is how many people came and this is the lesson. And we're going to get up and everybody, we're about to go into our next gathering, which is the service. And my grandfather would have them stand up and he would raise your right hand. And he would say, may the Lord watch between the envy. You went to my church, okay? while you're absent one from another.

For me, I was like 10, and I'm like, something ain't right about that. See, because if you read your Bible, you know that that was not a blessing. That was the story of Laban and Jacob. And he was saying they hated each other so much. So he says, may the Lord watch between me and you while we're absent one from another. And in other words, I need God to watch because if he just closes his eyes for one second, I'm going to knock you clean out. That's literally what he's saying.

May he watch? Because if he doesn't, kapow, right? My daughter's like, five, five, five, five, five, all that. He's like, we're going all the way in. No brakes, all gas. I'm old, y'all. Forgive me. Let me help you.

You do not need their apologies to stop being their hostage. As long as you have not released this person, they are shaping your mood, your energy, your capacity to be present at your house, at the table with your children, in every room that you walk in and they have no idea that they own that much of you. You've given land or privileges over your life without even charging rent. And some of you are still waiting for that conversation to happen, for that acknowledgment. to take place for them to finally see what they did so you can finally be free. Peace that depends on what they do next is not peace. It is a hostage situation. I've come by here to tell you it's time to be free. If they never say I'm sorry whom the son sets free. It's free indeed. I don't need your apology. I'll be bad all by myself.

Come on, come on, let's go, let's go, let's go. Hey, stop negotiating your peace with people who never meant to control it. Help us. We're almost done. Verse number 19. It says, Beloved, never avenge yourself, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it has written, vengeance is mine, and I will pay says the Lord. So Paul is not, he's not writing to people who have had a bad week.

He's writing to people who are under pressure. People have been displaced, talked about, mistreated unfairly, care, real offense and in a culture that expected you to defend your honor by striking back Paul says something that would have sounded absolutely crazy beloved never avenge yourself now look how he starts he doesn't start with you know those of you who are trying those of you who are tempting he doesn't say those of you who are mature he says beloved it before he deals with your belmontia behavior, he reminds you of your identity.

Because the only person who can release vengeance is someone who doesn't need to fill whole. Leave room. In other words, get out of the way. In the back of my mind, for some reason, that ludicrous song is in my bed. I'm not going to say that. And don't you say it either. Because some of us haven't just been hurt.

We've been taking residence there. You know, you replay the conversation in your head. 2 a.m. You're up thinking about it. You're driving to work. And you're like, you know what? I can't believe they said that. I can't believe.

I should have said this. You know, that would have been good. Next time. Next time, I'm going to. And three days later, you're still thinking about something that actually never happened. Because when you remember, see, when you go into your memory, it is actually you remembering the last time you remembered it. So you start building narratives that never actually happened. So then when you come to the argument, you say what you said, they're like, I didn't say that.

So you've been mad for three days. Ain't said a word. And mad at them about something that they never even said, that you are reacting to the conversations that never happens. You have become the judge, the jury, the jailer, and the plaintiff. You cannot hold the gavel and ask God to judge them at the same time. God deal with them. God handle them. God take my way.

I would if you just move. Move. You are trying to do for yourself, but only God has the authority to do. And then you send that passive-aggressive text real quick. And we lie to ourselves and we say stuff like, you know, the Lord just wants me to get this off my chest. I just feel he just, he wants me to be free in this season. I got to just, I got to release you. I'm releasing you. I'm not releasing.

I just got to release you. That was not releasing. That was judging. the conversation you had with the right person. I wasn't processing. That was distribution. You weren't healing. No, no, no, no, no.

You were spreading the offense. So Paul says, beloved, not because you handled it right, not because you got over it, you are holding fast to God's word. You do not need vengeance to be whole. Because mercy is better at judgment and justice than you ever could be. God, they need to know how I feel. God, they need to feel how they hurt me.

No, they don't. Vengeance is mine. Look at verse 20. It's to the contrary. If your enemy is hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. For by doing so, you will heat burning colds on their head. By the time Paul reaches to verse 20, he moves from an internal surrender to a physical action.

To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed them. in a culture where people kept their distance to protect themselves, Paul commands movement toward your enemy, not to manipulate them, not to call them out, not to win them over, but to live a different kind of life. This isn't the kindness to get somebody back. This is love that gives without needing anything in return. This isn't about what you said in prayer. This isn't about what you told your friends.

This is about what your body does when you see them. Because Paul told you your body is an offering, Romans 12, 1, and 2, which means forgiveness is not proven by what you say. It is revealed in how you move. And this is what modern day surrender looks like. You told them you forgave them. You just forgot to tell your body that. Posture closed off, distance increased. Your body is telling the truth. Your mouth was just trying to manage it. You told them, well, you know, yeah, I forgive you. Yeah, I forgive you. You just forgot to tell your flesh. And your body is still telling the truth. Your mouth is trying to hide. So whichever one you obey reveals who is leading you.

Try to avoid your enemy to try to preserve your dignity. Preserve your name. And Paul says, no. Feed them. serve them move your body in the direction that your flesh is resisting because distance is not always wisdom sometimes it is disobedience with a better language this is not be nice to them so god can get them see in the ancient world you hear the text it says to by doing so it'll keep burning coals on their head, but in ancient times, actually that was a sign of repentance, of remorse, that you would

come into the city with a burning coal over here to say, I am seeking forgiveness. So your kindness is not punishment. It's pressure. Not pressure that you apply. Pressure that mercy creates. Because mercy confronts without attacking. The beautiful thing about this that I realized, as I was reading this text, I saw something that blew my mind.

I was having a conversation with my wife, and she was like, do you see, as you prepare for this text? Do you see what's in the text? I'm reading it. I don't understand what she mean. She says, you know, Pastor Philip always says, the good leaders are good repeaters. I'm saying, yeah, that's true.

She says, well, how in the world did Paul say what he said when it's exactly what Jesus said on the sermon of the mountain? I said, what are you talking about? Wait a second. Let me go about Matthew 5, 6, 7. It's literally repeating Jesus's words. Bless those who persecute you. Love your enemies. Repair no one with evil.

Turn the other cheek. Live peaceably with all. Blessed are the peacemakers. Never avenge yourself. You've heard an eye for eye. But I say, don't resist evil. Feed your enemies. me, pray for those who persecute you. Same voice, same authority, same kingdom. What does that tell us?

What does that tell you and me? The best way to handle your concerns is to find it in the book. How do I overcome hate? It's in the book. How do I overcome offense? It's in the book. How do I overcome offense? It's in the book. How do I deal with trauma? It's in the book. Everything that you need. It's in the book. Look at verse 21. Do not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

It's not a future warning. This is a present reality. Evil is not just something out there. It's something trying to work its way inside of you. These believers were not just at risk of being attacked. They were at risk of becoming, shape them and attack them. And Paul says the real battle is not what has happened to you, but what it is turning you into. Because if evil can't destroy you, it will try to redefine you.

Because anybody can say, I forgive you. Yeah, you know, I forgive them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I forgive them. But not everybody can walk in it. If you can move your body towards what hurts you, you are doing something that your flesh cannot produce. So here's the question I have for you. What is a fence turning you into? A little less soft, a little more guarded, a little less open, a little less available.

It's gotten so bad that somebody will look at you and say, you know, you're at you look different. You seem to be acting different lately. The worst thing that they did to you is who you became, trying to be. make sure it never happened again. Yes, you survived what they did, but you're still becoming someone because of it. And what they did is finished, but what you're becoming is still in progress. Because at some point, this stops being behavior and it becomes a condition. Because when hurt sits too long, it doesn't just stay a wound. It turns into a stone. It doesn't feel wrong when it's wrong.

It's just feel justified. And the most dangerous version of you is the one who can justify what God is trying to heal. And this is why in Ezekiel 36 verse 26, this is why he says, I will give you a new heart, a new spirit I'll put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart because some things can't be managed. They have to be removed. And some of us have been walking around with a stony heart. I mean, we understand, you know, consciously about God.

We understand about religion and faith. We understand about this walk. conceptually we get it but there has been a block a wall of stone around your heart that has prevented you from actually understanding and truly believing what is being said to you your lack of forgiveness your lack of willingness to just say i forgive you has brought upon an offense that you can no longer carry you and jesus snuck you into this room today so that you can let go of something, so that you could finally be free. I beg your pardon? Yes, it's time for you to be free, free from the pain of the past, for you to put down the backpack

that you think is normal, but everybody else can see something ain't right. Your visceral response, I beg your pardon. That response tells you, and tells you, and tells me that there's still work to be done. And today, today is the beginning of your journey to forgiveness. You know, when I started this message, the title actually serves two purposes and give you all of the story. I told you that, you know, when I grew up, I had a brother and two sisters. What I didn't tell you is that my oldest brother right now is serving 50 years to life in prison. He's in San Quentin, Penitentiary in California, one of the most dangerous prisons in the United States.

I am 40 years old, and he went to jail when I was 15. I basically never saw my high school graduation, college graduation, grad school graduation. He has never met my wife. He has never seen any of my children, and he's never heard me preach. I got a calling six years after he went to jail. And my brother recently, because of the law change in California, there was an amendment that said that if you can committed a crime before the age of 25 and you were giving a life sentence without parole that they actually will offer parole to you simply because they believe that the prefrontal cortex

has not fully developed so you make mistakes at early age not realizing that hey these are permanent mistakes and so my brother call me he said yo listen um i need you to do me a favor and write me a character letter and i'm like yeah man you're my brother like yeah i'll write it i'll write a very detailed and very you know just emotionally driven letter to the parole board and to the judge And, you know, I'm just, I'm going to tell him everything. I got you back. I support you. Financially, if you need a place to stay. We'll find a place for you to stay. You know, he's of the alleged crimes. He's forgiven. He's, you know, he's worked through all of it. I said, you know, all of this, all this stuff. And on the last line, I said to the, to the parole board and the judge.

I know what he did. And I know what he has been accused of. I know the pain that he has caused. But on behalf of my brother, I beg his pardon. I want you to just pardon my brothers so that he can be free. And some of us, some of us don't even realize it, but we have been sitting behind a jail cell of a fence with the keys in our pocket and refuse to just unlock the door. And if you need an example of what that might look like, I can give you the perfect. example, things God. We offended God with our sin and with our guilt and with our shame. And so instead of him sending us to eternal damnation, he sends Jesus in who serves not only as the judge, the juror, the defendant, the defender, and the prosecutor. And when the verdict comes back to the judge,

the judge opens up the folder, he reads it, he lifts up a blood-stained piece of paper and he says, not guilty. So if God can forgive us, why can't you forgive them? Why can't you say, I forgive you? That meaning relationship has to be perfect, doesn't even mean it has to be restored. Why can't you just say, I know what you did and I'm okay, that I will do the work that it takes to heal from this hurt, but I will no longer allow you to hold my life hostage. I will be. God, here's your tears. He's catching your tears. Because some of us have been in this cage of a fence for too long. You wake up heavy. You go to sleep heavy. Your prayers are tainted with a fence. God, get them back. God's like, man, I'm trying to draw you back.