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Welcome to all who are here for the first time and those who are back. So excited to welcome the 2819 Church. We're just grateful for your presence. My name is Lon El 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, 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 sale, but the word is very clear that whom the son sets free 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, Pastor Philip and Ms. Lena Mitchell. Am. 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, lynelle, I just. I just need a moment. I just need a moment. And so we're just grateful that we get the opportunity because Colossians 1:28 says that him we proclaim doesn't matter who is mounting this stage, does not 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 through 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. 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, kind of like the middle. I have a little sister named Lanae. I have 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 often. 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've heard that terminology before. Smell yourself get 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, lynell, I thought you were supposed to be in childish church. Well, me, in my infinite wisdom, I was like, I don't want to go to children's church. I'm not gonna tell you what she did next. I'm not gonna 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. Or maybe it's with your co workers 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 say something along the lines of, I know you lying. I Know you lying. Or maybe if you're in the northeast. Yeah, maybe in the northeast you say. Say it again. No, no, no, no, I didn't hear you. No, no, Say it one more time. I didn't get that right. All right, maybe if you're on the west coast, you say something like, excuse me, who you talking to? And you know us, we like, you ain't talking to me. No, no, you ain't talking to me. 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 the. In Romans, in Roman time, in the book of Rome, you had an emperor named Claudius. And Claudius, 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 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 and 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. 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 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. They put a new duvet cover out. They. They emptied out the refrigerator, and they're sitting on your couch when you walk to the door and say, what 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 offense, 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 through interruptions and interpretations of them. How do I know? You stopped 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 takers. Matthew 15. Very simple, very 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 proceeds 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 you. When they take the cast off, they realize that the arm did not heal correctly. 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 happened. But if you're not careful. The bone that is called a fence can be unsettled, can be unfixed, cannot be set right. All of a sudden we're carrying around a cast that looks whole. 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 persecute you. Wait, pause. Wait a minute. I'm gonna say that again. Bless and 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 offense. 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 who 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 seven, one of the strongest examples of this seven, 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. You cannot silence the flesh with 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 relationship. I don't want to just come to church because I can't trust church people. So I'm a 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. You know, 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 wind up putting a period where God is trying to put a comma. Because whatever you rehearse internally, you will eventually speak externally. You see? See now, now you're not just remembering it now, you're preserving it. You. You keep saying, well, when you know that that's. That's just how I feel. That's just, 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, 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. Trevor 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 commands 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, to kind of give us some perspective because he's not interested in this like warm fuzzy Christianity, you know, and general principles about empathy. He is literally asking you to emotionally inhabit the interior of a person who hurts you. Literally to feel what they feel. You know, that process. Oh, here they come. How you doing? I'm good. Back in the day, used to say I'm blessed and highly favored. You know, I can't stand that girl, you know? 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 got to be saved. For real, for real. It's bad when their blessings make you upset. Okay. It's gonna be tough. So their 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, okay. You celebrate their defeat and you say things like, well, that's what they get. An eye for an eye. But Philippians 2 tells us to have the mind of Christ, not the mood 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 brand new car. Okay, Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. You know that's a 2023, right? That ain't even a 2026. Hating for no reason. Lord, I don't know why I'm gonna just say it. I know I'm gonna get in trouble for saying this, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Help me, Father. One of the things that I really despise about the church when I say Church, not 2019, but the global church, is this. This hater ology. 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 a hater. You. No, no. Now, you like, yeah, God, get him. 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's 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, that there is an unhealed 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, you know, I just gotta get it off my chest. I just gotta. I gotta clear. I gotta clear the air. I gotta clear the air. And then when that other person says, you know what? Yeah, I can. 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 be the fe. Can. Can feel like healing, but it is just an agreement with your version of the pain. And because that felt 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 aren't 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 attached things to it. And what hurts 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 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, it's 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. Gonna 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. Haughtiness 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 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 quiet 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 look like they got it all together. But it's just pain wearing language that protects it. Okay, that's fine. 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 out of this, 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 carrying what they said at the dinner table three years ago, Because this 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 co 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 is 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, well, this is just who I am. You try to walk through the crowd of people and back in the day, you would say, excuse me, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hit you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But now you just. You just bump into people with your stuff. You're hitting people with your wounds and with your offenses 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 room. 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 don't want. You want proof. Proof that God saw you, proof that they felt the pain, proof that they. That they got what they needed, proof that the scale tilts your way. The mind of Christ isn't calculating. It is incarnating. Doesn't measure what they deserve. It moves at what mercy demands. The same Jesus who wounded, was wounded without actually becoming hardened, is the only one who. Who can soften what life has hardened inside of you. Bible says in Romans 12:17, repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. So Paul begins this section. It's really interesting, he said, which means he assumes that something is going to happen to you that will probably require a response. These believers in Rome, they were. 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 oneo, 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. He's not describing a person who manages to. Well, to react in the moment. He's describing a person who decided in a quieter 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. 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 most important thing, because if you cannot pause, you cannot give thought. But I don't think 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 said, 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 unsend button. But before the unsend button, Lord, I tell my staff, don't text me, don't tell, text me, because I'm a misread it. You didn't put the comma in the right place. So now we got a problem. Oh, you go capitalize it. Come to my office. Come on, you got a brother. They're like, I was just saying hello. No, you. No, no, no. See, where was your. Why you got an exclamation point behind it? I just playing. 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, you need to fundamentally have a different relationship with the thing that causes you to react. Instead of think, give thought, decide in advance. Well, if you ever apply for a job, when you get the job, one of the first things they do is have you sign 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'mma breathe. I'm just. I'm a count to 10. 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. Paul knew 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 mutual. 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. 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 his 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 gonna get up and everybody, we 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 and thee. Oh, you went to my church. Okay. While you're absent one from another. For me, I was like 10 and I'm like, something 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. In other words, I need God to watch. Because if he just closes his eyes for one second, I'mma knock you clean out. That's literally what he said. May he watch. Cause if he doesn't, kapow, right? My daughter's like, all that. He's like, we going all the way in. No breaks, 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, idea that they own that much of you. You've given landlord 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 sun sets free is free indeed. I don't need your apology. I'll be bad all by myself. All right, 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 almost done. Verse number 19, it says, Beloved, never avenge yourself, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, and I repay, 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, carry 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, before he deals with your behavior, he reminds you of your identity. Because the only person who can release vengeance is someone who doesn't need to feel 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 gonna 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. 2am, 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. I should have said this. You know, I should. Oh, that would have been good. Next time, next time. And through three days later, you 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 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 conversations that never happened. 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 gotta just. I gotta release you. I'm releasing you. I'm not releasing. I just gotta release you. That was not releasing. That was judging that conversation you had with the right person. That wasn't processing. That was distribution. You weren't healing. No, no, no, no, no. You were spreading the offense. So, so, 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. They need to feel how they hurt me. No, they don't. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. Look, look at, look at verse 20. This is 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 coals on their head. By the time Paul reaches to verse 20, he moves from an. 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 not about what. 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. 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 was 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 here the text, it says, 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 your head 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, lynelle, do you see as you prepare for this text, do you see what's in the text? I said, I'm reading it. I don't understand what you mean. She says, you know, Pastor Philip always says that good leaders are good repeaters. I'm so. 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 on the Mount. I said, what you talking about? Wait a second, let me go to Matthew 5, 6, 7. It's literally repeating Jesus's words. Bless those who persecute you. Love your enemies. Repay 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 enemy. Pray for those who persecute you. Same voice, same authority, same kingdom. What does that tell us? And 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 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. This is 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 take destroy you, it will try to redefine you. Because anybody can say, I forgive you. Yeah, you know, I forgive him. Yeah, yeah, I forgive him. 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 act, you look different. You're. You seem to be acting different lately. The worst thing that they did to you is who you became trying to 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, 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 turn feel wrong. When it's wrong, it'll just feel justified. And the most dangerous version of you is the one who can justify what God is trying to heal Jesus. 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 put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 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. And Jesus snuck you into this room today so that you could 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. 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 me that there's still work to be done. And today. Today is the beginning of your journey to forgiveness. You know, when I. When I. When I started this message, this. 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. A brother, 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. He went to jail when I was 15. That means he 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 ever. 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 committed a crime before the age of 25 and you were given a life sentence without parole, that they actually will offer parole to you simply because they believe that the prefrontal cortex is not fully developed. So you make mistakes at early age, not realizing that, hey, these are permanent mistakes. And so my brother called me, he said, yo, L. Listen, I need you to do me a favor and write me a character letter. I was 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 gonna tell him everything. I got your back. I'll support you financially if you Need a place to stay. We'll find a place for you to stay. You know, he's, 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, I said to the parole board and the judge, I know what he did and I know what he's 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 brother 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. Name is 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 jurors, 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? I mean, a 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 free. God hears your tears. He's catching your tears. Because some of us have been in this cage, Offense, for too long. You wake up heavy. You go to sleep heavy. Your prayers are tainted with offense. God get them back. God's like, man, I'm trying to draw you back.