The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 1: Heart

Episode Date: October 6, 2019

In order for the church to be ONE so that the world knows we are His disciples, we must forgive one another.

Amen and amen. How we doing church? Everybody all right? What a great, what an amazing time to be a follower of Jesus and what an amazing movement to be caught up in. Amen? I think oftentimes at 1122 we take for granted what is miraculous. A couple weeks ago I got on an airplane and in 15 hours, I straight, I flew from America to Uganda. And we just do that kind of thing. I don't know if you do. I do it all the time, it feels like. And it's just like a thing. It's just like a day. You just go to sleep and you're in one country, you wake up, and you're in another one, and you're like, yep, that happened. And none of us, I never got off the plane, and people looked and went, a miracle.

It's just Delta. But if you told somebody 200 years ago, check this out. Well, it takes you 15 months and you lose half your family on this journey. We're going to do in 15 hours and eat and watch a movie on the way. they'd be like no and I think I'm telling you man if we would have backed up we're about we're seven years old if you'd have backed up eight years and said you know what it's about to happen do you know what it's about to happen through the movement that God is going to breathe a ruach of life into this church led by a whole bunch of people that have no idea what we're doing and none of us have been in leadership before like this and that god was

going to do this kind of thing everybody would be like that's a miracle and then what happens now is We celebrate that with a video like this, and a lot of us go, yeah, that's about right. Oh, my goodness. So we are at about the midpoint of this two-year journey as we just wrestle with what does it look like to love God with all. And the next five weeks are just going to swim around in what that means. One of the questions I get since we started the one initiative is this, especially with some of the young men that I disciple. And they will ask me, how do I know if I'm loving God with all? Well, we're going to walk through what does it look like very specifically to love the Lord of your God with all of your heart

That's a week. That's this week. And all of your mind? That's next week. And all of your soul. Actually, I think soul is next week and then it's mine. And all of your strength like this physical humanity that you stand in. And what does it look like to love your neighbor as you love yourself? And so all together as one church, we're going to be doing a deep, deep, deep dive. And so a part of the what we're doing is celebrating what God has done, but he's not finished with us yet. And so those of you that are attending here at San Pablo, when you pulled up, you noticed it looked a little different today, didn't it? Kind of like Jesus. We're tearing off roofs so we can get one more person to Jesus. Amen?

And if you're at Fleming Island, you just jumped into the middle of this thing that was already going 100 million miles an hour, so we're going to try to catch you up in Bay Meadows and Mandarin and Arlington and all of our campuses. and we want to welcome our men from Baker Correctional who are always a part of us, amen. And I'm also pleased to announce, and would you join me in welcoming our number seven campus? By the way, I'm done counting after this, so I can't keep up, okay? So I'm not going to use numbers anymore. It's just the next campus.

Would you please welcome our next campus? Union Correctional is one of our campuses now. We had our very first service there last Monday. 107 men that attended our very first service. I don't even know how they knew about it, okay? But 107 men showed up. Three men surrendered their life to Christ. And in addition to the 107 that were in the room last week, each week, we will be broadcasting the service to 321 men who were on death row.

Because this is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. Whether you're a deacon on the front row at San Pablo or your own death row at Union, the gospel is for you. Amen? So that's what we are kind of getting into once again. Now, if you got your book, put it in your hand, hold it, get used to it, love it. You're going to be with this for five weeks. And don't you leave it? If you see somebody leave it, in any campus, if you see somebody leave it behind,

Then you walk up to them and in the head and be like, hey, I know you did, hey, I know you did not mean to leave this because you're going to study this. You're going to take this booklet into your disciple group. This is what you're going to do. Now here's just a little reminder. I know you saw a video about it. Camp's pastor just told you about it. But in Mark chapter 12, verses 28 to 31, the Bible says, and one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another. And seeing that he answered them well, asked him.

This is a scribe asking Jesus, which commandment is the most important of all? And Jesus answered, the most important is, and here's our Shema. He's quoting Deuteronomy 6. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. That's where we spent most of last November on. This five-week series we're spending on this next section, and you shall love the Lord your God with all. And here Jesus says, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength, then the second one is this.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. Jesus laid out our five-week teaching series on what it looks like to love God with all. Now, here's what's crazy. I don't know when I realized this, but I did. Somebody asked Jesus, what's the greatest of all the commandments? And he says, the greatest commandment is that you would love God with all. Christianity begins to overtake Rome, 300 AD-ish.

There begins to be a bunch of heresies that pop up. And people begin to believe all kind of crazy stuff. People will believe all kind of stuff. And as the Bible is being formed in what we know as the scriptures, church fathers begin to get together and do a very, very noble thing. They begin to write creeds to say, this is what Orthodox Christianity is. which, by the way, there is no liberal Christianity.

There's just like Christianity and some made-up stuff. Some other people will believe. I just need you to know that. And so you get things like the Apostles Creed. Anybody grow up saying the Apostles Creed? Come on, Ray, show me, all right? All right. It's good to know who you are, all right? The Nicene Creed.

You've heard of these, right? I believe in God the Father. All that stuff. I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe. I believe. Guess what? It's not present in some of the oldest creeds of our faith. Nowhere does it say we're to love God.

Think about this. Jesus says it's the most important thing of all the commandments, is to love God with all. And in some of our earliest foundations as the church, it was more about what you think about God than loving him with all. Do you see the disconnect? This is why oftentimes Christians just study, study, study, study, study,

learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, and don't love, love, love, love. So what would it look like for us as a church? every single one of us to love God with all I want you to go to the back of your book here okay and in it is this commitment card let's go ahead and get this out of the way all right five weeks from now go ahead hold it touch it smell it get used to it all right I want you can sleep with it if you want to do whatever you need to do this is going to be you need to be praying over this thing as a church we've been asking this fundamental question what is he the one thing that drives everything in my life

five weeks from now we're going to gather together at all of our campuses by the way baker and union yours will look a little bit different but we are asking for an all-in commitment from you too it'll just be different it'll be about prayer and reaching one more and some other stuff and a part of a part of what it means to love god with all is being radically generous in our finances towards god not not not not to buy favor but because by his favor he sent his first and his first and his best Jesus Christ to die in our place and we are so overwhelmed with the fact that God first loved us by sending us his best we can't help but to respond by bringing our first and best to him now what's incredible there's there's basically three categories of us when it comes to this card over 8,1122

or last year made some commitment on a card like this filled it out and turned it in praise god and a bunch of us I was one of those me and mine at my house we made a commitment And a bunch of us just need to be encouraged, because I'm telling you, a bunch of us at 1122, we stretched like we've never stretched before. I remember when Gretchen leaned over and said, I think we should give this. I was like, baby, this is a two-year initiative, not a 10-year, what are you talking about? You understand? Anybody else there with me?

So we took a big old stretch, and you know the moment you step out in faith like that, the target on your back from the enemy gets exponentially bigger. You can say, out of your amen. is true. And so there be some of us that just need to be encouraged to finish well. And then there's some of us, a significant group of us, that what was a stretch a year ago doesn't feel so stretchy anymore. Kind of like the yoga pants, you know what I'm saying? First put them all, feel tight after a little while. He'd be like, I got some room. And that's how you feel with your budget now. You took a big stretch. And now, either your finances grew or your faith grew,

something. God will lead a whole bunch of us. This is what Gretchen and I are praying through right now. will lead a whole bunch of us to say, yeah, I committed last year, but I think God is calling me to do more. And there's a whole bunch of folks that didn't make a commitment last year. Now, maybe you just weren't ready, no problem. But at least 2,000 of you weren't even a part of 1122 last year. We have grown by over 2,000 people since we started the one initiative. We have a whole island now. So I know all you Fleming Island people, this is all brand new to you.

So that's what this thing is about. And the reason that we're not messing with it so much now, except you're beginning to pray over it, is simply this, is because we're not ready for this part yet. So tuck it back in your little book, okay? Put that thing somewhere in your house where you can see it and touch it and smell it and pray over it. But we're not ready for that part, but at the end of the five weeks, we will. What we're going to do over the next five weeks is we're just going to talk through, just kind of almost word by word what Jesus meant when he said you shall love the Lord your God with all with all your heart that's

where we're going to start what does it mean to love the Lord your God with all of your heart you know a big part of this to your discipleship journey is that we have been called to be one church one church so what does it mean for us to love God with all of our heart a part of what it means to love God with all of your heart is that you have a heart for what is near and dear to the heart of God and you know what is nearest and dearest to the heart of God, God's people. That's it. What is near to his heart is that we love one another. Check this out. We're going to run through a bunch of scriptures real quick. John 13, 34, and 35, Jesus says, a new commandment I give you. Imagine if you're a disciple, you've been following Jesus for three years. He's just washed everybody's feet. He's just going

through communion with everybody. They're kind of like, this is like advanced level discipleship. right here. And then Jesus says, a new commandment I give to you. And you're thinking, as a good Jewish boy or girl, there are 613 commandments in the old covenant. And now we about to get a brand new commandment. All right. Everybody gets their pen and pencil out. They get about to write this down. A new commandment I give to you. And here's the new commandment that you love one another. I imagine they were like, I don't know if that's new, but this is what he says. That you love one another, just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this, by what?

By our love for one another. All people will know that you are my disciples. If you have love for one another. God's number one evangelistic strategy to accomplish the great commission and great preaching. One of you should have been like, yeah, it is, pastor. All right, but that's all right. I'll keep going. It's not great music.

It's not incredible tactics. The number one evangelistic strategy from God to reach the nations is the way you and I love one another. You see, he has called us to be one church. In John chapter 17, Jesus prays the longest recorded prayer that we have of him praying in the entire Bible. It's called the high priestly prayer. And when you get to verse 20, he says this. Now, he prays this out loud so that John can hear him so that John will jot down his prayer. and John overhears Jesus praying to the Father and Jesus after he prays for his disciples

by the time you get to verse 20 he says I do not ask for these only like the people that are sitting here with me only but also for those who will believe church did you know that Jesus was praying for us in the New Testament but also for those who will believe in me through their word that they that's us may all be one. How one, Jesus? This one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. Do you know how the gospel is going to go to the ends of the earth

and do you know how our neighborhoods are going to be convinced that Jesus is who he says he is? It's not because of my dynamic communication. It's by our love for one another. In 1 Corinthians chapter 12, Paul says, when you become a believer, you join the family of God, and it's like one body with a whole bunch of different parts. Jesus is our head, and we are a whole bunch of different parts of one body. Now, here's the problem. Let me give you the problem.

The problem is that the church, you, are full of sinners. Yeah, like you. and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and I don't know if you ever been around a sinner before let me tell you the problem with sinners ready let me tell you the problem with sinners I made a living off of them here's here's the problem with them the problem with them the problem with sinners is that they sin and you get a bunch of sinners around each other and guess what happens you began to kind of sin on each other yeah man so like in paul's analogy here in first Corinthians chapter 12 it's like

when you get a bunch of body parts in close proximity to one another, and you start rubbing up against each other, some of you rub it, and that's the sin itself. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm just, amen. You get body parts rubbing up against one another, that's called friction. Friction. Now, if you were perfectly silky smooth, there'd be no problem.

If you had no sin and you bumped into somebody, it'd be no problem. But the problem is we're a bunch of prickly sinners, and with prickly sinners bump up against other ones, it causes friction. And you get friction going for too much, That causes heat. And if you get like engine parts that are rubbing up against each other and the heat goes up, up, up, up, up, up, up. That check engine light will come on. Check your oil, ladies, okay?

The engine won't run without the oil. Do you understand? Same thing in your body. God has created our bodies in such a way that we have things like cartilage. And if you pull the meniscus out and you get bone on bone, right, cop? and that thing just rubs together and rubs together, guess what? It breaks down and won't work. And when the body of Christ, which is like an engine, gets a bunch of sinful parts, all of us bumping up against each other,

and it creates heat and heat and friction and friction, and eventually that thing breaks down. And like oil brings viscosity to an engine, forgiveness allows Christians to be one together. for the glory of God. You see, that's what matters. Here's how important it is, okay? Jesus says this. Jesus says in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus says, so if you were offering your gift at the altar

and there, you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go, first be reconciled to your brother. and then come and offer your gift. Let me translate this to us. If you are filling out your one commitment cart and the spirit of God speaks to you in such a way and you're just sitting on a million dollars

and you're like, yep, the Lord is telling me to give a million dollars. And yet you look across the aisle and you think, oh no, she's here. Do you know what God says? This is how important it is. God essentially says that you and God cannot be okay if you and God's people are not okay. That's how important it is. And he says, so don't even turn this thing in. Because a part of what it means to love God with all of your heart is getting your heart right with God's people.

That's just what it means. That's what forgiveness is. Church, if you're going to be around church for a while, you're going to have to learn forgiveness. Now, the good news here is that God, Jesus gives us unbelievable instruction on what it means to forgive. Matthew chapter 18, in your journal, we put all of the verses. I don't know if you can see it or not, but if you're over 40 or whatever, get out your maglight, get it going. Matthew chapter 18 Jesus is going to teach us very specifically

and step by step how to forgive how to forgive he starts out this way Matthew 18 15 if your brother sins against you go and tell him his fault between you and him alone all right let's stop right there if your brother sins against you

just by show of hands at all of our campuses anybody ever been sinned against Some of you are sending against me right now. Why does it make us raise our hand? All right, listen. So that if, that's a big old if. You know what I'm saying? If means probably like when.

Now this is important. If your brother sins against you. The first thing to ask yourself is the person who has sinned against me my brother or not. If they are not your brother or sister in Christ, then your first conversation is not about their reconciliation unto you, but their reconciliation. under God. Immediately, this becomes a conversation about the gospel, what Jesus did for them on the cross, not about what they have done against you. So that's step number one. I don't know why in the world, the 21st century church expects non-Christians to act like they believe Jesus is their Lord. So, that's step one. Secondly, if your brother sins against you, you have to determine is this

sin or just personal preference? Let me just write this down. Me, not returning your email, it's not a sin. It's not good business practices, but it ain't a sin. Me not returning your tax. Ain't a sin. It's just, it's just not nice. You understand? Or I might just be busy, okay? And we live, we live, listen, your offense does not determine what is and is not sin. There's a lot of times people would be like, I'm offended. No, you're just sensitive. And you need to grow up. That's what you need to do. You don't need a safe place. You need the gospel to do a work in your life and get your eyes off of your own self. Look, your offense is your choice.

I hope you know that. In fact, 1st Corinthians 13 says that love keeps no record of wrong and that love is not easily offended. So the second thing you have to determine is, is this thing a sin or is it just what Jane is. says in James chapter 4. I'm just aggravated because I didn't get what I want. So if it checks, okay, that is a Christian, that is my brother or sister in Christ, and yes

they have sin. Here's the next part. Against you. Against you. Man, in the church, we always have these Cape Crusaders that want to go on behalf of somebody. Now, Pastor, I'm not offended at all, but I've just heard some people talking.

Okay? Well, then you pray about it. Did I sin against you? If not, then hush. Okay? Because, like, no triangles here, please. He says, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. You want to revolutionize your relationships, whether you believe in Jesus or not? Jesus will say, talk to people and not about them.

Talk, talk, and by the way, not tweet, not text, not Facebook, but like face-to-face. talk to people and not about them. And just because you share it as a prayer request, you don't get a pass there. We need to pray for Tammy. No. You go talk to Tammy herself. If your name's Tammy, you probably got sin in your life.

Okay, so, all right, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him its fault between you and him alone, and if he listens to you, you have gained your brother. This is huge. The goal here is reconciliation not being right. Look, I tell when I do any kind of premarital counseling, here's what I tell guys all the time. Listen, when you become a husband,

you've got a significant decision you can make. You can either be right or you can be a husband. Those are your options. It's just true. Because the Bible says husbands love your wife, like Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. When Jesus came on this earth, was he right or was he our Savior? You realized that was an option?

Like when he went to the cross, He could have said, no thank you. I don't deserve that. But you're a sinner, and I'm perfect. I'm going out to heaven. See you later. Actually, I'll never see you again because you're going to hell forever, okay? But instead of being right, going center, center, center, center.

Instead of that, he goes to the cross and he makes a payment for our sin that was not his fault because the purpose was reconciling us unto himself. So when we do go to that person, it is not to be right. but it's that that person might be reconcile. I'm going to give one note here, and I don't have time to preach on it. I just want to say it. Abuse victims, you are in a different category. You do not put yourself back in that harmful situation.

You forgive for sure, but you ain't going back to confront one-on-one anymore. You just skip right to number three. You call the church. You let some elders and some pastors help you through this. And do you forgive? Yes and amen. And do you call the police every single time? You convict and forgive.

Now, that's step one. By the way, I'm telling you, if we would do this, if we would do this, talk to people instead about people. It would change so much. And if people would have ears to hear when we get confronted. And so he keeps going because it doesn't always stop there, does it? He says, but if he does not listen, you know sometimes people don't listen, it's, unbelievable. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. This just means you need to involve wise,

objective, third party. This does not mean you get two other people that agree with you to hold them while you verbally beat them up. That is not what this is. This is, you are inviting some people that can not only point out their blind spots, but point out your blind spots too. When you were bringing two or three other, by the way, this is why you need disciple group, so that when you have a conflict with somebody, it would be great if you had somebody more mature than you in your life

to tell you, you know, there's some areas in your own life that you might want to take a look at. The way Jesus would say it in this, Matthew Chapter 7, he's like, hey, before you're trying to do eye surgery on somebody else to get that little speck out of their eye, you might want to make sure there's not a telephone pole in your face. That's a loose translation, but that's basically what he's saying. Let me tell you how it works out in my life.

I'm going hunting with my man, Pedy, one of our elders, and I'm talking to him, and I'm just telling him all the faults in my wife's life. And he just leans over, and he says, you know, it ain't exactly a day in the park to be married to you either. You understand? In other words, he's going, and I'm like, what are you doing?

He's like, I'm trying to pull the log out of your face so that you can just see if there's any sawdust drifting around her. Does that make sense? And so at first the person doesn't listen to you, because I understand, man, I get it, right? You ever go to somebody and you talk to them and you have a legit grievance and you go talk to them and in your imaginary conversation in your mind, man,

did it not go so well? I have the best imaginary conversations ever. In my mind, man, I just walk up to them and let me tell you where you sin. And they say, thank you, pastor. And they repent and the angels sing. Glory to God. But it never goes that way. And then every single time I bring somebody else in to help kind of mediate this thing,

I realize that the mirror is being held up to me every bit as much as the microscope is being tuned into them. That's what this is about. So, you bring in two or three witnesses. And if he refuses to listen to them, you tell it to the church. And if he refused to listen to the church, now listen, let me just point this out. I don't think it's talking about the church service. It's not like at the end of every weekend. I'm going to be like, all right, I'm going to get all the sinners to line up here.

All right, based on your Facebook, you need to repent and repent. Y'all see what she did? That's not what we're talking about. Although that's how some churches have interpreted it sometimes. It says you tell it to the church, it really means you're telling it to spiritual authority so that they can help you reconcile. And if he refuses to listen to the church, then let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. To which you first read that, and you're like, yeah, kick him out. But let me ask you a question.

How did Jesus treat the Gentile and the tax collector? He loved them. He rolled out the red carpet for him. He laid down his life for them. Now, does that mean he gave them responsibility of leadership? No, no. But he loved them to the very end. And he says this, truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Do you know what this means that our earthly relationships have an eternal impact? That's what this is talking about. that the way you and I love one another and forgive one another, that it has an eternal impact.

He says, again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my father in heaven. One of the most abused verses in the Bible quoted out of context. This is not about asking God for cotton candy and Cadillacs. This is about God doing a miraculous work of reconciliation in a person's life. Another misquoted verse, for where two or three are gathered in my life. name, there am I among them. This is not a verse about worship. Notice our worship leaders don't quote this verse that way because they read more than one Bible verse at a time. We have like legit worship pastors that study theology and doctrine. This is not a verse about when two

people get together and sing because it says just two or three. If they're four people, does that mean God's out again? No. What this means, listen to how crazy this is. It means that when you, under the authority of the church leadership, step into a tough and sticky situation where you have been sinned against and you, after the example of Jesus, are offering forgiveness in Jesus' name, then God says, I will get involved in that, no matter how impossible the situation seems that the tomb is empty. Anything is possible. That means, think about the person that you need to forgive and that you think, uh-uh.

they know you know what they did to me i don't and god would say do you know what we did to jesus and he says father forgive them for they know not what they do you see you look at a broken relationship and you think this thing is impossible to be reconciled but i would tell you if the tomb is empty anything is possible do you know this is crazy man do you know how many times at this church, at the church of 1122, we have had divorced people, divorce from one another, start attending this church. And it's so big, and there's 10,000 services and all of that.

And the husband would sit over here, and the wife would sit over there. This happened during the Act Like Men series. And the dude came down here to pray, and his ex-wife was right there. And they looked across the thing, and they went, oh, wow. They begin to just say, all right, if the tomb is empty, anything is possible, you fast forward six months, and they're remarrying each other. Don't tell me God can't move. If God can bring Jesus back from the dead, he can bring any relationship back from the dead.

Now, here's the crazy thing. Now, if we were to leave right here, we'd be making great time. The only problem is, if I was like, therefore forgive. Most of us don't have the tools to forgive because we don't really know what forgiveness is. And so what Jesus is going to do now is he is going to give us very specific instructions on how we are to forgive. verse 21 then peter came up and said to him of course he did he's going to talk first he's going to talk most and he sticks his foot in his mouth again lord how often will my brother sin against me and i forgive him as many as seven times now peter thinks he's being awesome do you know what the old testament rule is

on forgiveness you don't eye for eye tooth for tooth that's it that's it and so what peter is saying is what if I up this to as many as seven times? I think he's waiting for Jesus to say, well done, good and faithful servant. You were so forgiving. And then Jesus turns this thing upside down, and Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times.

Now, it doesn't mean literally 70. It means this. In Greek, it's 70 and 7. That's what it means. 70 and 7. Now, do you think it literally means? 77 times? If it meant that we only had to forgive 77 times, then husbands. Four months into your marriage. Your wife would come up to you and be like, all right, Scooter, you got two more.

Okay? So, no, no, no. Seven is the number of completion times 70, the number of completion with a zero. It would be the equivalent of us saying like a bazillion or a gazillion or just to infinity and beyond. and to explain what forgiveness really is, then Jesus goes into storytelling. He tells this story. Verse 23. Now here's the thing. Here's the thing you've got to hang on to. He's going to talk about finances, but he's not talking about finances.

He's actually talking about forgiveness. But this illustration on finances help us understand what it means to forgive. He says, therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wishes to settle accounts. Underline those words. Settle accounts. When you offer forgiveness to someone, what you are doing is you are settling accounts. Which means, let me just jump to the end here, if you do not choose forgiveness, your only other option is bitterness and you will never be settled deep, deep down in your heart.

You won't. And so, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wishes to settle accounts with his servants. And when he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him, underlined the words owed him, who owed him 10,000 talents. Now, the moment that Jesus says 10,000 talents, everybody knows this is a story. 10,000 talents in the first century would have been greater than the GDP of all of Israel. This is literally like a trillion dollars. The whole country didn't have a trillion dollars.

This is 10,000 20-year wages. That's what that is. This is more money than you could ever dream of. and since he couldn't pay, his master had ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had and payment to be made. And so the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, have patience with me, and I will pay you everything. Which, if you were listening to this, you were like, no, you won't. You would have to work for like 200,000 years just to get, like, the down payment going.

This is impossible. No matter how hard you work, you can't make enough money to pay people. back the debt. And what Jesus is creating in our mind is this, is that forgiveness, if somebody sins against you, then they have created a debt, debtor relationship and they owe you something. This is what he is creating. Verse 27, and out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him, and here's the magic words, forgave him the debt. Regardless of what he felt about it, he looks at this man who owes him a bazillion dollars and says, brother, you don't owe me anything anymore. The debt has

been canceled. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denary. This is three months wages. This is whatever that is in your world. Okay. This is, this is, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, It's three months wages. Okay, 20 grand or something like that maybe. 10 grand, that kind of thing. And so when you're seeing this man who has just been forgiven of an amount of money that he could never pay back, no matter how hard he worked for the rest of his life,

and he bumps into somebody that owes him three months wages. You would think that he would see the guy, and the guy would say, hey, man, I got a money. I know I owe you, you know, like three months wages, but I can't pay you back. And the guy that had just been relieved of the whole thing, but like, bro, don't worry about it. I am all set. In fact, let's go to McDonald's on me. I'll supersize it. You would think that's what would happen.

But that's not what happens. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred-dnery and seizing him, he began to choke him. He didn't go forgiveness. He goes like UFC-style saying, pay what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him. He's going to use the same words. Have patience with me. and I will pay you.

And he refused and he went and he put him in prison until he should pay the debt, which is when never. You don't make much money in prison. There's no way he could ever pay this back. And when his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed. They look at the situation and they go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That doesn't make sense.

Help me understand how this incredible debt could be forgiven you and you can't forgive this tiny little debt that this guy owes. And so they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. And then the master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. Peter said, What you think, boss? When we get to about seven, is that the limit?

And Jesus is essentially saying, how many times have I forgiven you, Peter? And Peter's like, all right, let me count on one, two, a lot. And Jesus, in this parable, is saying, okay, so why would you limit this to seven? Why would you put limits on your forgiveness when I have given you an unlimited forgiveness? And then if you take your Bible seriously, which I do, verses like this should make you shudder and cling to the cross. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother. And then here's our word from your heart. What does it look like to love the Lord of your God with all your heart?

A part of the way we love God with all of our heart is to forgive. of all from our heart. Because it's just as simple as this. Forgiven people, forgive people. And this is a very good grammar, but it's good theology. And if you ain't given it, maybe you ain't got it. You see, the Bible says, oh, what manner of love the Father has lavished upon us? You know what happens when you get lavished with something that you can't contain it all?

That literally is what the word lavish means. It means it's filled you up. is getting on everything else. And what the Bible says is that when the gospel grabs hold of your heart, that God's love and forgiveness and grace gets on you so much that all you can think is, who am I, that you would forgive me of all of my sins. My sins of commission, my sins of omission, the sins I know about, the ones I'm not even aware of yet.

And at the cross, you said, it is finished. And all of my debt for all of my life has been paid for. And now this person put a mean tweet about me. Huh. You see if the grace really gets on you, then it'll get it through you on to everybody else. So if you take this parable and look at the steps that Jesus takes, then it will give you the step by step. I'm usually not a step person unless Jesus teaches steps like this on how you forgive. You see, Jesus in the parable said, it's like a king who settles accounts, who settles accounts with the servants. So who is it in your life that you need to forgive? Who is it in your life that you

need to forgive? In your journal, I want you to open up to page 17 and at the bottom of it, after your questions, you're going to do those in disciple group. Under the apply section, it says debt ledger, debt ledger. And this is just like a template for you to use. Okay? Because I don't know about you, but if I start jotting down who I need to forgive, who has sinned against me and what they had done, I can't just fit it on like two and a half lines. Maybe some of you can. God bless your ministry, but that's all right. So step one is to identify who hurt you. For some of you, it's easy. The moment I said the word forgiveness, your ex came up right then, or your boss. Or maybe you thought about that friend that lied about you or maybe thought about your spouse

or maybe talk about your parents or that person who abused you. Like, who is that person that has sinned against you? You know, Christians oftentimes have a hard time identifying, especially if it's somebody that they love, that has sinned against them. And sometimes, sometimes, the hardest person to forgive on the planet is you. Because if you're honest, you sinned against you.

Like, man, God's just blessing you and blessing you and blessing you and blessing you and you know better. And it seems like you're just sabotaging yourself and you just look in the mirror and you go, what is wrong with you? Why do you keep sinning against you? So step one is this. Write it down. You don't have to do it right now, especially if we're sitting next to you. And we're not going to have time to do this in the service. Let me just be honest, okay?

I don't know, 10% of you might do it, but I'll tell you this, there's 10% of you that walk through this process and you will walk in a manner of freedom that the other 90% dreamed about walking in. So I dare you to. I dare you to do this. So first of all, who is it? Secondly, identify what they owe you. This is another problem that a lot of Christians have because you think, well, listen, it's not that big a deal. What?

Do you realize that if somebody sins against you and you treat it as if it is not that big a deal? Essentially, you would look at Jesus on the cross and go, hey man, I think you're wasting your time. Because every sin on the planet was so atrocious to our holy and perfect God that Jesus had to die on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. It is a really, really big deal. Maybe somebody literally owes you money or you look at that person and say, you owe me my reputation, you spread it live. about me that was not true. Here's a big one in our culture. If you're honest, you think about your ex and you say, listen, you promised me.

You promised. I was there, all dressed up with all of our friends and family. And you said, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, rich or poor, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. And you broke your vow to me. And you owed me that. because you broke my dreams.

You've jacked up a whole bunch of my relationships. You took away my opportunity to tuck my own children into their bed every single night. I don't even get to do that anymore. You see, this is why most people won't do this. If you're for real about confronting the things, the sins that people have committed against you, it will ruin your weekend, I promise you. But there is freedom in the refiners fire. or maybe it was an abuse

or maybe the people that were supposed to like when you were a kid the people that were supposed to be the primary protectors of you brought you more pain than anybody else and it's manifesting itself

in all kind of crazy ways in an eating disorder or you drink too much or you're trying to hurt yourself all the time and that's really just a band-aid because deep, deep down, you've still got some wounds that you never paid attention to. Listen, man, if you're walking out to your car after church and you fall down and skin your knee a little bit, that's all right, it'll heal. But if you flip over in our construction zone and get run over two or three times and just try to hop up and be like, I'd be all right. You ain't going to be all right.

Ten years from now, people will be like, why are you still walking funny? Because you never got the healing that you needed and emotionally, oftentimes, people injure us and wound us instead of exposing it to the light so that God can heal that thing and praise God for scars. Amen? That's how Jesus, he let everybody know who he was resurrected. He said, Thomas, there's the scars. But covering that thing up and just trying to protect that wound, you'll never be able to walk into freedom that God has purchased for you through the blood of Jesus Christ.

So identify what that person took from you. Third, this is the hard part, especially if you're a man. What feelings do you associate with that? What feelings? Like every time you think of that situation, you feel condemnation and you feel shame, you need to say these things out loud. You need to write these things down. And then, and then, if you'll really take the time to do this.

And again, I wouldn't just do it in here. Like, you'll probably have a journal full. and then you will have what I would call a debt ledger. I want you to think about it like a legal document. Like if you could take that person to court, you could say, you see here God, here's proof. Here's what she took for me. Here's what he took for me.

Here's what they owed me. And here's the pain that I have been through because of it. And then in that moment, you've got one of two choices. Because you have a debt ledger. Now, one of the option is for you to hold on to it, for you to hold on to it. And oftentimes one of the reason people don't forgive people is because they think, well, then they'll get away with it. Ultimately, what you're saying there is, I don't trust God to do his job, so I'm going to have to do it for him.

The problem with it is that's like eating rat poison trying to kill all the rats in your house. You're the only one that's going to die, and bitterness will kill you. But if you're going to do that, if you're going to hold on to your debt ledger, I would say go ahead and just hold on to it with pride. I mean, just print it nice and neat, blow it up, go to Kinko's if that's still a thing, laminate the thing, and just put it in your living room. With a picture of the person, people come in and be like, what's that? Well, welcome to my house. All right, have a seat. And that's Ted.

That's why I hate Ted. See, all the reasons right there. That's why I ruin my life. That's him I hate that, joker. At least everybody will know why you're such a miserable human. Yeah. Be like, you know how I fussed you? It ain't really you was his fault. He did that to me and so I'm going to do it to you. But there he is. You can hate him with me. Ready, go. All right? Might as well. Or your other option is to cancel the debt. See, a lot of times people say, well, I forgave them, but I still don't feel like I've forgiven him. I got good news for you. Forgiveness is not a feeling. Forgiveness is a decision to say, you don't owe me anymore. And if you're going to go down this road, what I would,

implore you to do is spend the time to write out that debt ledger. And if you look at that and you began to remind yourself of the gospel of Jesus Christ and say, I did not deserve to be forgiven and yet by God's grace through the blood of Jesus, I have been forgiven of all because Jesus paid it all. Because Jesus paid it all, you don't owe me anything anymore. And then I would highly encourage you to do something with that debt ledger. Like burn it and spread the ashes in the ocean. Or we literally have had some people in the past few years when I've taught this at our church,

put it in a coffin and dig a hole in their backyard and put it in a hole and bury it up and then put like a little tombstone on it. Maybe you've heard the phrase, you need to forgive and forget. That's stupid. I don't know who made that up. If you see them, forgive them because that was dumb. No, you need to forgive and remember. Not remember the pain, not remember the sin.

You need to forgive and then remember and remind yourself that you cancel the debt and they don't owe you anything anymore. Because here's the truth. They can't give it back to you anyway. Your mama can't come back home and give you those years back. Your abuser can't show back up and give you those years back. That's just not how it works. And so what will begin to happen over time, necessarily overnight when you walk in the truth of God eventually with healing

your feelings began to catch up to the reality of God's truth that they just don't owe you anymore you see here's the point in order for the church to be one so that the world knows that we are his disciples we must forgive one another and a part of what it means to love God with all of our heart is to forgive others from our heart. C.S. Lewis says it this way. To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.

The only way that makes this possible is the gospel of Jesus Christ. You see, because I stand before the Almighty God, and if God Almighty tunes into the podcast and he listens to it this week, and he says, you know what, I'm on this one journey, And God himself turns to page 17 of the journal, and he says,

Identify Who has sinned against you. He could write down Jobie Martin and identify what they owe you, and the list would not fit on these pages. And he could write volume after volume after volume of how I continually sin against him because I am a glory hound, just like you. And he would have evidence in a court of law to say this is evidence that he deserves to be judged. And yet the gospel tells us that at the cross, Jesus took my record of debt and nailed it to the cross. And when Jesus from the cross says, it is finished, essentially what he is saying to anyone who would believe that when he died on the cross, it counted for us that Jesus,

that Jesus paid it all. And if Jesus paid it all for me, then who am I to look at somebody else and say, You owe me? Church of 1122, a part of what it means to love God with all of our hearts is to look at the other people of God, the people that have sinned against us

and say, you don't owe me. You don't owe me. You don't owe me anymore because Jesus paid it all. Now we're going to close at all of our campuses by celebrating communion.

And communion, the reason we're doing this is because it is a reminder. When we partake of the bread, when we partake of the cup, the body and the blood of Jesus, then we are celebrating that Jesus paid it all. I'm going to pray, go ahead and start passing the elements at all of our locations, and then the campus pastors are going to set it up at our campuses. Would you pray with me? You can pray with one eye open so that you can

see the baskets as they go by. Our good and gracious heavenly, Father, Lord, we love you more than anything, and we thank you for the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Lord, some people are going to really need your help this week. I know we need your help every week, but some people are going to really need your help this week because the Spirit of God convicted some folks and some names, some minds, some faces came to their minds,

and they know, we know they've been harboring, unforgiveness and it is out of line with who we are if we are in the gospel. And Lord, when we think about going to our brother or sister and talking to them, we get filled with anxiety and worry. And God of your word tells us that we should be anxious for nothing. But in prayer and supplication, we should make all of our requests known to you and that the peace of God which transcends understanding could guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. And Lord, I pray that's what happens this week.

And I pray that men and women and students of 1122 would step out in bold gospel-centered courage to lay down debt ledgers. And that chains of bitterness would be broken for all eternity. And God, we know it's not by our might or by our power that we can do this. But you promised, you promised, that when we step in obedience in this direction, that you will be with us. And if the tomb is empty, anybody can be reconciled. We pray it in Jesus' name.

Amen. And so when we celebrate communion, the reason we do it, Jesus commanded us to, but it is a reminder that our debt has been paid. Jesus took the bread. He broke it.

He says to the disciples, this is my body. broken for you the next day that he would go to the cross and God would make him who was without sin to be sin God would pour out his wrath of judgment upon Jesus

to the point where it would break his body and on that cross from a broken body comes these words it is finished Jesus was saying for anyone who would believe that Jesus paid it all.

And that night, Jesus says, as often as you eat of my body, you do so in remembrance of me. And then he took the cup and he said, this is my blood. That on the cross, Jesus's blood was poured out for the forgiveness of sin. And if you have a difficult time forgiving yourself because you have been the one sinning against you, it's because you don't fully understand the person. power of the blood of Jesus. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

And as often as you drink of this cup, that is what you are proclaiming that when Jesus's blood was spilled upon my life, I was washed clean. Therefore, now there is no condemnation for those who were in Christ Jesus. And as often as you drink of this cup, you do so in remembrance of me. Amen. If we would please stand as

we respond.