The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Forgiving When You Don’t Feel Like It

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

Forgiveness is difficult. For many people, it is tempting to hold onto grudges and anger they have towards others. However, Jesus tells us to do something different. In fact, he shows us. Jeff Cavins explains what Scripture tells us about forgiving others and why it is so important for us to be people who forgive. Snippet from the Show Jesus didn’t wait for us to change or become perfect before he died for us. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

Hello, I'm Jeff Kavans. You know, since 2014, Ascension has been producing YouTube videos and podcasts, 18 of them a week. Now, while we are making all of those free to anybody around the world, making them is not free. And we'd like to encourage you to be a part of what we're doing. Obviously, something is happening right now in great proportions as God's word is going out throughout the world and want to give you an opportunity to partner with us. So if you'd like to help us financially to get more videos out there and to create more free content, we invite you to go to ascensionpress.com slash support. And we would absolutely love to work with you. God bless you. Welcome to the Jeff Kaven show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship,

and evangelization, putting it all together and living as activated disciples. This is show 351. forgiving when you don't feel like it. Hey, welcome to the show. I'm Jeff Kavens. If this is your first time joining me, welcome, my friend. I hope you enjoy our time together. And if you are returning, which we have so many people who've been with us from the beginning, welcome back, my friend. Well, we're in the midst of a series right now that is called for lack of a better title important content for family formation. And today we're going to be talking about forgiving when you don't feel like it, introducing the art of forgiving to our children as they are growing up because this will

serve them well. And trust me, and you know, and you know you got kids, you know, as well as I do, they're going to have plenty of opportunities to put this into practice. But if they don't know, why they should forgive and they don't know how to forgive, man, they can really get all tied up, just like we do as adults. And so this topic is really, this topic is really for everybody in the family. And we would all, all benefit from learning how to do this. If you would like to show notes, it's very easy. All you got to do is text my name, Jeff Kaven's one word. And you can text it to the number 3377. Very easy. 3-3-7-7.

Pretty biblical number there. Three for the Trinity, seven for covenant, 33-77-7. I'll send you those notes. And every week we send out a lot of different notes. And the reason for that is that you're jogging, you're driving, you're...

I got a letter from somebody who's swimming. They listen with earbuds that are waterproof, I guess, and they listen to the show when they're doing laps. And so you don't want to be writing when you're doing the laps. That's why we provide them for you. Well, you know, I was thinking before I sat down here to talk to you, I was thinking about the Great Adventure Bible. And one of the ideas that came to me earlier this week, and I just thought about it prior to coming out of the show here, was to take a Bible, like the Great Adventure Bible. If your children don't have a Bible, that is really an amazing Bible, color-coded,

shows them how to read the Bible in chronological order. If you get them a Bible, you can help them in identifying these major topics that families need to study and these topics that we need to form our kids in. And you can help them actually in marking off that section of the Bible and let them underline, let them highlight the various verses that we're teaching from. And that's one way where you can make it personal for them by making sure they have a Bible and then giving some ideas to them on how they can highlight or cross-reference verses or some other coding system in their Bible that will remind them. For example, today we're talking about forgiving when you don't feel like it. We're going to be looking at several scriptures. The big one's going to be Matthew Chapter 18.

and it's the parable of the Unmerciful Servant. That's Matthew 18, 23 through 35. And it's amazing how serious they take it if they have their own Bible. And they feel the freedom to take notes for later in life. And they can go back and they can look at this. And they might even think about taking one of the blank pages at the beginning of the Bible and creating an index, if you will, or a table of content. of the main topics that they have been studying over the years that they're going to want to go back

to refresh themselves and then, of course, put it into practice. If you're a hearer of the word and not a doer, then you deceive yourself. We don't want our kids deceiving themselves. We want them to know the topics and know how to put them into practice. Well, here we are. We're talking about forgiving when you don't feel like it, and we all experience it. Parents, teens, great school kids, Everybody in the family has an opportunity to experience unforgiveness when you're hurt, someone says something, you are left out of something. And sometimes, you know, we become offended at what people say, and they really didn't do anything, but we misread the signs and jumped to the conclusion that somebody did something to us. And so we experienced all the pain, even though it wasn't

true, we experienced it, and even that has to be taken care of. If you don't know if somebody really tried to hurt you or whether you just misread the signs, the results are the same, and that's the wound in the heart and a broken relationship with other people. But here's what's interesting is, and I was a pastor for 12 years, so I kind of, you know, was involved in a lot of counseling and family counseling, marriage counseling. And one of the things that I started to realize was that this whole issue of unforgiveness is really at the heart of some estimate that it's close to 70% of the problems they have or even 80% of the problems that they have goes back to the inability or the unwillingness to forgive or to release people of the things that

hurt you. And when you bring home mom and dad, whether they are at work or one stays home, they come back at dinner time and they've got two teenagers and a fourth grader and everybody's at the table and they're eating sure but hopefully with no phones but they're eating and every one of them has a bit of a dialogue going on in their mind as to what happened that day or what they are dealing with and so if somebody's at work and they they are really bruised because of something that was said at work they carry that to the table And of course, the teens do things that happened at school. You have this gathering of hurt.

And if it's not taken care of, it just gets stuffed away. And then new things happen. And it's like a wound on a callous. That's a wound on a callous. That's a wound on a callous. And we never get to the solution and live where our hearts are free. And that could be another title for this, couldn't it? and that is that forgiveness for freedom.

So all of us have experienced being hurt. And what I'm going to do here is I want to share with you some of the major parts, major ideas about forgiveness and unforgiveness. And some of this I wouldn't expect a third grader necessarily to get. You're going to have to break some of that down. And I'll give you some tips on how I would communicate some of the bigger issues here. But all of us, let's just start off with this. all of us have had the experience of being hurt or wounded or in some way emotionally bruised

by someone that we love, in fact, or somebody at work or a fellow student at school. Well, Jesus knew this, and he said in John 1633, he said, I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. And then he says something that's really, really interesting. And when you hear it, then you'll say, yeah, that's really true. He said, In this world, you will have tribulation. You'll have tribulation. One translation says, in this world, you will have trouble. You're going to have trouble in this world.

And that's true, isn't it? When he talks about tribulation or trouble, in the Greek, the idea there is a tearing apart in the inside. It's that deep hurt, that ache on the inside. And in this world, you're going to have them, he said, pretty honest. but he says, take heart, take heart, be encouraged, find a place of rest. Why, I have overcome the world, Jesus said. And so whatever the world can throw at your teens or throw at you at work, Jesus said, I have overcome the world.

And if he is overcome, he can show us how we overcome in these situations. So most of us have run into some kind of stumbling block in our life and, you know, where we're tripped up or we are bothered by something that people say. And the question is, how do we communicate forgiveness to our family? And obviously, we can't go into great detail, particularly when teaching children, but we can communicate the big picture to them and what is at stake with unforgiveness. And so, as I said, I want to explain that for you and just give some big tips for some of the big points. One of the things that I try to tell children when they feel so hurt inside is that something was said or something was done and it had a big impact on your heart. It hurt what they said, what the text said, or what they did or what they somebody else said on the playground. and it really did hurt.

And we can't minimize that at all. If our kids say, I'm really crushed by this. Well, then they're really crushed by this. And in the world, we do run into these types of wounds in our lives. And if we don't do something about that hurt in our heart, that wound in our heart, it can fester and get worse and worse. and it has really strange ways of manifesting. It could be in sickness, it could be in anger, it could be in addictions,

it could be striking out physically at somebody because we're so angry, so angry. I just saw on the news, I just saw on the news the other night. There was a senator and a union leader that literally in a hearing were going to fight. they challenged each other and stand up all right i'll do it and bernie sanders settled them down and said guys hey hey hey hey you're a senator sit down but the point is they they were ready to manifest this hurt that they both had right there and in a fist fight it is beneath the dignity of a senator i think but that's what people do right if you don't know how to handle it that's

when you can get on the on these fights on school grounds i remember when i was growing up, I would, on the way home from school, I would see one of these scrums, you know, where people were fighting and I got away from it. I didn't want anything to do with it because I thought they might turn on me. But here's one of the things that I share with kids when it comes to unforgiveness and being hurt. I like to bring out a mousetrap. And I know that sounds kind of funny, but I like to bring a mousetrap. And here's the reason why. I explain to my kids that unforgiveness If you're hurt and you step into unforgiveness, it's like stepping into a trap. It immobilizes you and it renders you ineffective and you are bound up in that trap.

And the point of the trap is to stop you. And ultimately, big traps will try to kill you, right? And so I get them a mouse trap and you might want to go to the store, get a brand new mouse trap and bring it home. and I explain to kids a certain part of the mousetrap and how that fits into this idea of unforgiveness. Now, if you take a mousetrap and this is what I do to them and I'm going to bring some cheese out, I show them that the place that you put the cheese, that little bar that you put the cheese or the bait on is called the scandalon. I'll put that in the show notes for you. It's called the Scandalon, and it is the name of that part of the trap where you put the cheese.

It's the Scandalon bar right there. And the idea is to get the mouse to go after that cheese, which the mouse doesn't know that that's actually a trap. And it comes from this idea, Scandalon, S-K-A-N-D-A-L-O-N, I'll put it in the notes. It comes from this idea of a bait stick. The key to a mouse trap, killing a mouse, is the bait stick. To be offended is to be trapped. To be offended is to grab after that bait. And then the trap goes off and you are stuck. Now, this is a fun way to teach kids because if you got the nerve to set the trap in front of them and show them how it's done, then you can take a pencil or something else and you can act out this idea of somebody says something, I have a choice, am I going to be offended,

scandalized, as the word scandalon implies, offended, scandalized, or am I going to take the high road and not go for the bait? This is an amazing tool for kids. They love it and they get it, all right? And so I like to explain to them that a trap is designed to do two things. One, A trap is designed, and you can ask them, what are some traps that you know of? Have you ever been to your friend's house? Do they trap raccoons or birds or whatever it might be? Mousetrap is a good one because people don't like mice in their house. But a trap is designed to do two things.

Number one, it's designed to not look like a trap. You design a trap, and the one it's intended for doesn't know it's a trap. That's why it's called a trap. and a trap is you know it doesn't look like a trap and number two it's stronger than its intended victim so if you want to catch a mouse the trap has to be stronger than a mouse but a mouse trap will not trap a lion or a bear it just won't do it the lion might not even know what went on or might be scared you know when he hears the snap but it certainly is not you're not going to come and find a a lion stuck in a mousetrap if you do get a picture send it to me that that's going to be a phenomenon

that's going to go viral right there but it usually doesn't happen and so the traps that are laid for your kids by the enemy who wants to trap your kids and you know render them useless because they're so caught up in anger and revenge and so forth and bitterness the thing we have to do is sit down and show them in a real, real scenario, what this would look like. Somebody says something. You've got a choice. You're looking at that trap, at that bait. The question is, do you take it or do you do something else?

Do you avoid it? And that's what we really want our kids to do is to avoid getting trapped. That's what we want them to do. Now, there is a theme, and now this is for you, mom and dad, there's a theme all through. throughout the Bible that we would call exile and return. Exile and return. And what we see is that God's people Israel, like in the book of Exodus, they find themselves in 400 years of bondage. And they're crying out to God, help us, help us. And God uses Moses to go to Pharaoh and says, let my people go. And what God is going to do is he is going to free

his people from bondage in Egypt. And you can talk to your kids about this because most of the time they've heard these stories. But you will be able to talk to them about the fact that Israel was in bondage for 400 years. They didn't like it. They cried out to God. God raised up Moses to do what? To free them from this trap that they have been in and to give them freedom. To give them freedom. now as you go on in church history and in the old testament history you will see times when Israel was supposed to let people go to release people to free people they called it every 50 years a jubilee every 50 years and the jubilee was proclaimed slaves were returned to their families land was returned liberty should be proclaimed throughout the land debt

was forgiven. But what we see, what we see in Israel's history is a couple of times when they didn't do it. See, they were freed by God from Egyptian bondage and God said that he wanted them to go and free others. That's part of their calling in life and they failed to do it. And as a result, they found themselves in bondage themselves trapped. And so you see this pattern. throughout scripture. And the key to this in getting free is really looking at what Christ has done for us and then seeing our role in releasing other people so that God's love can just saturate them and they can experience freedom as well. You see, forgiving other people is not just about releasing them, but when you forgive other people, it frees you.

So we're going to look at that when we come back from this break. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz. And we know, right, as disciples of Jesus, we need to be encountering God's word on a regular basis. We need God's word to transform our minds, to move our hearts. And yet, if you're anything like me, sometimes you sit down to read the Bible and just you fall asleep. Or you get caught up in the names and the events. It can be a confusing set of books.

We've created an answer. And the answer, we think, is the Catholic Bible in a year podcast. It is produced by Ascension and hosted by me. For more information, you can go to ascensionpress.com slash Bible any year. So we are back and we're talking about forgiving when you don't feel like it. And I didn't mention that at the top of the show, but most of us don't feel like it. Most of us aren't saying, I'm just trying to figure out a way to forgive that person. Oh, I want to forgive them.

It's battling the bitterness and the anger that we have because we've been hurt. We took the bait. Our life is in that trap. Guess what? There's only one that can free us from it. And that's someone who's stronger than the trap. And that's Jesus. So Jesus came. And in Luke chapter 4, when he was in Nazareth, he proclaimed the great Jubilee. The year of the Lord has come. And he's proclaiming in his ministry forgiveness for sin. And he's going to die for our sin and release us. of our sin, original sin, and all those sins that happened at school, at work, wherever, Jesus, death, burial, and resurrection pays the price for our sin. So there we are in a trap, and we are ineffective because we're in a trap, and we, like Israel, are saying, Jesus, help us. Help me. I am trapped. I am hurt. and that is what he does. He forgives us our sins, but it doesn't happen by magic.

He pays the price with his death, burial, and resurrection. And the price for sin is death, and he paid it for us. Listen to what Peter said. In 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 18 and 19, Peter said, you know that you were ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. So we see that Jesus is the one who purchased us with his precious blood. We belong to him. He freed us. He freed us. In fact,

One of the other points that I like to bring out with kids is that it is Jesus finished work on the cross for us that now gives us the responsibility to do to others what Christ has done for us. He is forgiven us all of our sin. And what he asks of us and he asks your children to do is because they were released and forgiven by Jesus. now they can go and release and forgive other people. And they might say, yeah, but they did this or they did that. Yeah, but what about us? Even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, Jesus loved us and he died for us.

He didn't wait for us to change, to die for us. He died for us when we were enemies, when we were dead in our trespasses and sins. And so that's an important point to point out to our children, is that the time to forgive your friends is not when they pay up or they reach out. You forgive your friends, even when they are nasty and gossipy and whatever else, just like Jesus forgave you when you were dead in your. your trespasses in sins. That is a really important point because kids by nature are going to go

immediately to, well, they deserved it, or they're not changing, or they have to do something to. And that's not true because Jesus didn't make you do something too. He died for you and offered you life. And that's the pattern that we want to teach our children. Now, this is so important that the next thing that you can share with your children is the Lord's Prayer. And in the Lord's Prayer, what do we do? We say, forgive us our trespasses, forgive us our sins, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. So this idea of forgiveness is so central and so important that when the disciples asked

Lord teach us to pray, that was one whole section, that we are to forgive. as he has forgiven us. Now, the most powerful story in the Bible on forgiveness, which is where I spend most of my time with children, is the amazing parable in Matthew chapter 18, verses 21 through 35, and I'll put that in the show notes as well. Let me walk you through this real quickly here

and show you several points in here to make when you're teaching your children the importance of forgiving others. and releasing others. And there's so much more we could go into on this. You know, we could talk about your emotional well-being when you forgive, your physical well-being, what unforgiveness does to your physical body. Some doctors say that there are many diseases that are related to bitterness and unforgiveness in our lives.

I remember one time when I went to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and I was getting a general physical, and I ended up going into the alternative medicine department at Mayo. They sent me there, as well as, you know, all the other departments. And I remember talking to the doctor, and he came in, and he wasn't a Christian. In fact, I think he was Hindu. And he asked me, he said, Jeff, how are you doing in relationships? And I'm thinking of my. myself, what does he want to know about that for? He said, are you holding any anger towards people? Is there any unforgiveness towards other people? Is there some bitterness that you're dealing with? And I'm like, are you a theology teacher? No, he's not. What is? He's a doctor. And the doctor has

enough sense to know that if there's something in my heart or my lungs or my kidneys, liver, whatever it might be, cardiovascular system, that it could very well be associated with anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, brilliant insight. So, unforgiveness does have an impact on our lives. Now, listen to this now. Matthew chapter 18. Let me walk you through this. It won't take long, but this is where the meat is for teaching children. It's a parable of the unmerciful servant. Listen to this. Therefore, the king, this is verse, no, let's go back earlier, verse 21 of chapter 18.

Then Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me? And I forgive him, as many as seven times. So Peter is asking Jesus, hey, should I forgive someone up to seven times if, you know, they hurt me? Not once, not twice, not three times, not four, five, six, seven times. and Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but 70 times seven. That's powerful. That is powerful.

In other words, forever, as many times as you need to, you forgive people. And then he moves right into this parable of the unmerciful servant. Listen to this. He says, therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to subtle accounts with his servants. when he began the reckoning one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents and as he could not pay his lord ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had and payment be made so the servant fell on his knees imploring him lord have patience with me please i'll pay you everything. Now that's a really a rough place to be, isn't it? Well, we kind of skipped over how much he

owed the master there. He owed him 10,000 talents. Do you know what a talent is? A talent is a measure. A talent, listen, a talent is 15 years wages. And this guy owes 10,000 talents. Do you know what that is, that's 150,000 years wages. You talk about a number that will blow your kids away. Just share that with them. This guy owes 150, not 150 years, not 1,500 years, but 150,000 years of salary. And he couldn't pay it back. And so he fell on his knees and he said, please, I implore you.

Lord, have patience with me. I will pay you everything. Sure you will. Sounds impossible to me, buddy. And listen to this, the master, out of pity for him, the Lord of that servant, released him and forgave him. He forgave him the debt. Wow.

Ask your kids, how would you feel with that? How would you feel if you owed that kind of money? And the master just looked at you and said, I release you. forgive you of that debt. What would you feel like? Get into a conversation with your kids. What would you feel like?

Tell them what you'd feel like if that happened to you. But get this then. The next verse in verse 28, everything changes because that same servant who owed 150,000 years of wages as he went out, not years later, but went out of that meeting. That meeting where he was completely forgiven. left the meeting and came and guess what one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denari which is just a few days wages he found this guy who owed him just a few days wages and what did he do he seized him by the throat and said pay what you owe so his fellow servant fell down pleaded with

him have patience with me and i will pay you now you think he he would have released him wouldn't you I mean, just 20 minutes earlier, he was released of 150,000 years of wages, and this guy is begging for release of this debt of just a few days' wages. You'd think he would release him, but he doesn't. He refused, and he went and put him in prison till he should pay the debt. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Wow. What in gratitude. well guess what happened someone was standing around and saw the whole thing and when his fellow servants saw what had taken place guess what they did they were greatly distressed i'd be distressed too i say how could you do that you were forgiven so much and you couldn't release that guy the

little bit that he had guess what they did they went to the lord and they reported to their lord all that had taken place. And then his Lord summoned him, the original guy that was forgiven of so much, he 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 Lord delivered him to the jailers. till he should pay all his debt. That was not a good day.

That was a bummer of a day. You'd talk about being totally free and then there you are 20 minutes later, all of that debt is back on you because you couldn't release somebody else. Now one thing I like to really, you know, make a point of when I'm teaching children about forgiveness here is this next line.

See, I haven't failed. the teaching here. I read up to verse 34, but I didn't continue with the last verse, which is verse 35, because I want to make a point. You see, the parable's over in verse 34. And it ends with, and in anger his Lord delivered him to the jailers till he should pay all his debt. End of story. and then Jesus looks at the disciples and he says so also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart in other words you will be trapped like that mouse trap but it's a lot bigger than the mouse trap you will be trapped and you will be trapped and you could be tortured by your decision as now you have to pay the whole thing.

The story was over, and I could have said, Lord, that was a great story. I could use that in a teaching or whatever. Well, after the story was over, then he looks at me and says, my Heavenly Father will do the very same thing to you, Jeff, if you don't forgive your brother from your heart. And so what we see is that my ability to forgive that Jesus gives me or my inability to release and forgive other people will have an impact on me for good or for bad. It's really up to me and an act of my will. You see, I teach the children that forgiving

is not a matter of feelings because most of our young people would say, I don't feel like forgiving him. And that's true. But the good news is this. Love doesn't go by feelings. Forgiveness is not dependent upon feelings. It's an act of the will. I release you. I forgive you. I will speak well. I will not harbor this wound. I will not expect you to do something in the future. I free you up. For God to deal with your heart as well and I will remain free. That's forgiveness. And they usually will say, well, what if two days later I don't feel like it anymore. Well, number one, you don't do this because you feel like it. You do it because Jesus asked us to do to others what he has done for us to forgive and release. And if a week down, two weeks

down the road, I'm starting to feel a little bit angry about that all, you know, and all that mess, that's when I stop it right there. I nip it in the bud right there. Go to confession, get a hold of the word of God. Pray, say Jesus, Lord, you paid the price for me. You forgave me. I don't want to take this on again. I don't want to take on the bitterness that I had towards my friend again. Lord, thank you. Thank you, thank you for forgiving me. And that's what I tell young people is when that happens and you feel like you could get angry again, just focus on how much Jesus loves you and has forgiven you. Just think about that. And then try to pass that on to whoever hurt them in the first place. So those are some things. I'll put all that in the show notes for you,

so don't worry about it and I'll send it to you. Again, if you don't get the notes, it's my name, Jeff Kaven's one word, text it to the number 3377. But my prayer for you as a mom or dad, as a family, is that you'll form your children in this. And maybe you can even use an example in your own life, being prudent in what kind of example you use, of course, and share with them what happened in your life and how you had to forgive. You're going to be really doing your kids' service here because if they don't know how to do this, this confessor and come out in some really squirly ways.

And we don't want that. We want them to know how to live. Know how to live. Jesus has overcome. Let's pray. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus, we love you so much and we praise you today. Lord, you have forgiven us and released us of so much.

We are so grateful. Praise be to you, Jesus. We are so grateful. Lord, help us to have that, that very, very sweet spirit towards other people that we can forgive them and release them. Lord, give us courage to do this because this doesn't come natural. This is supernatural. But we know, Lord, you wouldn't ask us to do this if we couldn't. We know you wouldn't ask us to do this if you were going to be away from us. but you are with us we thank you Lord we thank you in Jesus name amen name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit amen I love you my friend I love you and hey write me and tell me what's going on in your life with this and how are you going to put it into practice my email again it is the Jeff Kaven show at ascensionpress.com have a great week Thank you.