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- [00:00]
A
Well, I'm sure it's been done at your campus already, but it's the first time that I get to do it. And I do want to say happy Mother's Day to all the mothers that are here with us. Can we celebrate one more time? The moms, they deserve it. Happy Mother's Day. We would not be here without you. Amen. Yeah, we celebrate you now. We are continuing a sermon series and everybody's always nervous, like, what are you preaching on Mother's Day? And we're going to continue a sermon series that I started about a month ago on forgiveness. I thought it'd be a one part sermon, and it's actually gonna be a three part sermon. It was separated by a month, and this next one we separated by two more weeks. So part two will be today as we look at the seven levels of forgiveness, and then part three will be on May 30th and 31st. Now, if you were in part one, if you're not, I'll get you caught up. But I talked about Joe Anderson, who was on staff with us, and I talked about he and I had a lot of forgiveness to get through. We. We even wrote a letter out to people saying we can't get along. We're going our different. And I said I was embarrassed for it. I had people in the church go, I got that letter. I said, don't look for it. I don't want it. Just leave it. Let it go. Burn it, Burn it. But he will be with us. So Joe and I will co teach on May 30th and 31st and talk about how do you get to level 6 and 7, where you get to reconciliation and. And a testimony for the world to see and to applaud and support and to be encouraged by. All right, so quick review. For those that were not here, I came up with this idea. Seven levels of forgiveness. It's something that I've lived out. It's just something that I formulated because I watched myself thinking that I had forgiven, but I really hadn't. And then going to the next level and the next level and the next level. And after years and years of being able to live this out in my own life with my family members and with staff and just people that I've had to ask forgiveness or they've had to ask forgiveness, I was like, I'm gonna put this in and make it a teaching. And I absolutely love the way this has come out. And I want you to know, as believers in Jesus Christ, forgiveness isn't a side Theme in the Bible, like, it's the theme like, God loves us so much that he sent his son to die for us. The Bible tells us in Romans, while we were yet sinners, before we ever did anything right, God. God sent his son Jesus to die for us. He offers us forgiveness, and he tells us to follow that example of forgiveness. It's not like we'll opt in to forgive. We have to. Forgiveness is required of us as believers in Jesus Christ. We Talked in week one about Matthew 6 in the Lord's Prayer, you know, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. How many learned, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Raise your hand. You got the debts and the debtors. How many had trespasses and trespassers? How many don't know what we're talking about. All right. Matthew 6, Lord's Prayer, Matthew 18. We talked about that when Peter came to Jesus and he asked, lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times. He's thinking, that's generous. Seven is generous according to Peter. And Jesus answered, I tell you, not 7 times, but 77 times. Or some translations would say 70 times 7 a lot. Jesus is throwing out the calculator, or they didn't have a calculator. He. He's throwing out the abacus. He's getting it out. And he's saying, there's no counting on this. You gotta understand. Forgiveness is the way the kingdom operates. And when we move into the kingdom of God, we are going to be a forgiving people. And so I'll give you the seven levels of forgiveness. Cause we're gonna focus on four and five today. But level one was, I have to forgive you. I have to forgive you. And there's an obedience that's there. It says, I'm the type of person that forgives. I will do that. It's a starting place. But a lot of people are like, well, if I'm gonna follow Jesus, I have to forgive. And because I have to forgive, I'm gonna forgive. That's the first level. But that's just a very surface level. Level two that we talked about was, I forgive you, but I want God to get you. Okay? And a lot of people live there because you see, like, vengeance is mine, says the Lord. And then you realize, like, oh, oh, if I forgive them, God, you won't let them off the hook. You'll actually get them. Yes, please. And so that's level two. We talked about that. The Strength of this is that we let God deal with them. But the weaknesses, you're still attached to, the hurt, you're still keeping score. And as long as you're doing better than the other person, you're happy. Level three is I forgive you, but stay away from me. I've got boundaries. I want you out of my life. You've gotta stay away from me. Level four, which we're gonna talk about today, I forgive you, and I'm gonna speak the truth to you in love. Level five is I truly forgive you, and I release you. All right, that's where we're gonna end today. Level 6 and 7. On the last part of this series, I want restoration and healing. And level seven, restoration becomes a testimony. Now, I wanna let you know that we stopped at level three. And I've noticed this, that a lot of people stop there. They get enough forgiveness that they feel good about it, and they move forward in their life. They. But they haven't gone all the way to what I would call biblical forgiveness. Does that make sense? You feel good with level three. It actually helps you to live healthy. And I'm not opposed to levels 1, 2, and 3, but I don't want you to stop there. Years ago, again, using Pastor Joe, or Joe Anderson, he was on our staff. He was addicted to alcohol. He lost his credentials. He went into Hazelden. Okay, so he was on our team, goes into Hazelden, and no longer a pastor comes outta Hazelden. He's looking for a sobriety group, and people are talking about Celebrate Recovery. And I started Celebrate Recovery just for Joe. Back in the day. Like, I ran. I've never been drunk in my life, ever. Not once. And I'm running a recovery program. When I went to aa, like on a reconnaissance trip, I didn't know what to say. They were like, I'm Steve. I'm an alcoholic. I'm Sue. I'm an alcoholic. I got to me, I said, I'm Rob. I'm glad to be here. And they're like, denial, Denial. Okay, so I'm running this for Joel. And then I understood. I saw these 12 steps, and I understood. And if you don't know AA, it says, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives have become unmanageable. People that are wanting to get sober say yes. And then they say, we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Yes. Step three, we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. People say, yes, but but then I've noticed in AA, they get stuck there. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. One, two, three. Because step four requires pain, requires work. It says, we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Number five. I admitted to God and to ourselves and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs. It starts to go, and it goes on into making amends and goes on all the way to step 12, where you become an ambassador of this healing for other people. And just like people get stuck in AA, 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. And I thank God for your sobriety. I wanna just say, keep working the process. If you are battling addiction, if you're in celebrating recovery, keep working the process. Go all the way through the steps. And just as a form of encouraging people that are living sober, can we just hand clap and just say, keep up the good work, go to level 12, go all the way. Don't back down, don't quit. So I see that same pattern with forgiveness people. One, two, three. One, two, three. I'm staying in three. But level four says this. I forgive you. And I'm gonna speak the truth in love. This is where we get into the good stuff. This is where you've truly decided to forgive. And you wanna deal with it honestly. You've released this, you're gonna leave the silence and the suppression of this. And you're gonna stop retaining the hidden pain. This is where the wound gets brought into the light. And it hurts. Some people say, I don't even wanna go there anymore. I'm happy with level three. They can stay away from me and I don't wanna go there. But you've gotta understand that healing requires expression. You're not gonna find the healing you want until you work with this unprocessed pain. Because unprocessed pain just doesn't disappear. It just lingers. And it keeps running in the background of your hard drive. Cause it gets stored there. And so with this step, you've gotta do what Ephesians 4:15 says. It says, speaking the truth in love will grow to become in every respect, the mature body of him who is the head, that is Christ. You're gonna speak the truth in love to the person that you have this offense with, that you have this unforgiveness with, that may have hurt you. And God's asking you to go to them. Not like you have to go to apologize, but he's saying, you're the offended party. And I need you to go to them. And you need to forgive them and you need to Let this go. And you're gonna say to them, like, what happened really hurt me. And you're not gonna attack them. You're gonna be honest. You're gonna be calm. You're gonna be clear. And I want you to understand when you do this step, the. The desire is to heal, not to hurt and not to win. Some people wanna do this step because they're like, this is a great step. I'm gonna go tell you exactly what you did. You're gonna know how bad this pain was. I hope you really feel this. And that's not the way you wanna go into it. You wanna go into this like, I wanna heal this. I wanna see God fix this. I want a God. I wanna see God bring true forgiveness. And you're not going into it to try to win. And by the way, when we're done with this, you will see how right I am, and you will know that I am better. You know, that's not the plan. You know, early in our marriage, like, I used to, like, be arguing with Becca, and I don't even know what they were. They were probably small arguments back then, but I can remember thinking, like, all right, she's kind of got me there. All right? But I just wanna win. And so I'd be like, I'm gonna win this argument. I'm gonna try to get out of this with 52% blame on her and 48% on me. Right? Men. Anybody else? Don't raise your hand. It's Mother's Day. All right, don't raise your hand. All right. But I was like. And then finally I was like, I'm not trying to win. I'm trying to heal. What kind of marriage wants to win like that? I wanna heal it. And then I got to where I'd be like, yeah, I'm sorry. And she's like, too soon. Just hold on. I have a little more to tell you. You know, like, just a little more. All right, so now level four. Okay, I'll give you a couple examples. Stephen in the New Testament is being martyred for his. He's being killed for his faith. Killed for his faith. And Stephen doesn't say nothing to see here, God, he actually really handles it well with these people. He fully confronts what they're doing, but he fully forgives. It says this in Acts 7:60. Then he fell on his knees and cried out, lord, do not hold this sin against them. When he said this, he fell asleep, which means he died. He's like, God, don't hold the sin against him. He's letting him know, you're sinning against me. But I don't want God to hold this against you. Like, I forgive you, like, I'm going to be with Jesus right now. There's a forgiveness that happens when you're speaking the truth and you're truly addressing what's going on and you want to happen. Now, the strengths of this is it breaks the denial, it breaks the suppression. It creates a possibility for real healing. It aligns truth and love and grace altogether. And the weakness of it is, though, that, remember, you can come to this with a little attitude of, I really wanna show you. I really wanna. I wanna make sure you feel this. Okay? That's not your goal. That's not your goal. All right? This is gonna require timing and spiritual maturity. You're gonna let the Holy Spirit, let them feel it. Does that make sense? Your goal is not to leave there going, yeah, they really, really felt it. Now, there's a danger if we skip level five or level four. And I wanna show you in the Bible two examples. One where they skipped it and one where they did it. Okay, level four, there's a story in the Old Testament, 2 Samuel. All right, so I loved our Samuel series, by the way. Absolutely loved it. Second Samuel, chapters 13 and 14. All right, there's a young man by the name of Amnon. He's one of David's kids. He violates his sister. It's terrible. And I know there's children here, and I just won't say all the things, but he violates his sister in a very evil, evil way. And Absalom is so obsessed what Amnon has done to his sister Tamar, he's so obsessed, Absalom decides I'm taking Amnon's life. And so he does, because of what Amnon did to Tamar, he takes his brother's life. And when that happens, he has to go into exile from his family. He has to run away from David, the king, his dad. Three years. He's like basically in a banishment. Stay away for what you did. We know what your brother did was terrible, but now you did this to take vengeance on your brother. Stay away for three years. And then finally, through some different people intervening, they go to David and they said, david, just let Absalom come back to Jerusalem. Let him come back to Jerusalem. And so David's like, okay, back to Jerusalem. But he stays out of my eyes. I don't ever wanna see him. Cause David had Absalom wait. Like, out of sight, out of mind, out of Proximity gone. And now they're saying, come on, David, this is your son. Bring him back in. All right, well, he can be around, but I never wanna see him. And the Bible tells us in 2 Samuel 14:28, it says Absalom lived two years in Jerusalem without seeing the king's face. So he's in the same city with his dad, the king. He's a child of the king. Doesn't get to see the king, doesn't get to go into the court. And he's like, I want. And by the way, when it said he didn't see his face in their custom, that meant he did not have full acceptance. He did not have access to the court. He did not have honor. He did not have a restored. He was around him, but he wasn't restored. And this is bothering Absalom, bothering him deeply. And so he starts to act out, and. And he goes and attacks Joab, who is David's military commander. And he says, isn't Joab's field right next to mine? Light Joab's field on fire. So Job's field gets lit on fire. This is right there in the Bible. It's another one of those stories that you read. And you're like, I can't believe this is going. But he lights it on fire. Job says, what are you doing lighting my field on fire? And Absalom says, I wanna see my dad. I'm not content with, like, partial restoration. I'm not content with, like, forgiveness that lets me be in the city but not be in his presence. Job goes to David, says, you gotta do this. You gotta do. You gotta try to let. You gotta do this. But see, the pain had already taken place. The rebellion had already taken place. And the longer we let this unforgiveness simmer. Absalom had it in there. He's like three years of banishment, two years without his face. I finally see his face. But guess what? Someday I'm getting that guy. Someday I'm getting that guy. And then Absalom leads an insurrection against David to try to kill his own father and then dies tragically. That's what happens when a level four is skipped. David should have said, absalom, we gotta talk this out. We gotta. Why did you do this? This is ripping my guts out. I'm not gonna be a dad that just turns a blind eye or just pretends it didn't happen or won't deal with the wounds in our family. And. And you look at the dysfunction in David's family. Don't follow his parenting advice. All right, but you see this going on, and it's a wound that wasn't taken care of. Contrast that with Jesus and Peter. Jesus and Peter. A level four forgiveness. John, chapter 21. I won't read to you the story, but Jesus, like, Peter's denied Jesus. And now Jesus is like, do you love me? And I love this. Jesus has already extended forgiveness to Peter, and now he's addressing it directly. Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep. Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep. Peter, do you love me? Tend my lambs. It's a restorative thing. And I gotta be honest with you, like, how many, if anybody, deserved banishment? Peter, come on. Like, would you fault. If Jesus says, peter, from this day forward, you will be an example of what happens to everybody that denies me. You will be an example for anyone that banished you. Think you could do that to the Son of God? Out with you. I mean, we wouldn't even fault Jesus for that. But Jesus is like, I forgive you. I've extended this. I. I directly address it. I'm not shaming you in this. My whole purpose of this conversation, as painful as it is, is restorative. And then Peter goes fully restored, fully restored, and represents Jesus and dies a martyr's death. And the history tells us that he died upside down, crucified on a cross. Cause he said, I'm not even worthy. If you're gonna kill me, do it upside down. I'm not even worthy to be right side up. I mean, incredible from forgiveness. So that's what happens when you have this restoration, this ability to truly forgive and speak the truth out there. And we're not quite all the way to restoration. Jesus goes 4, 5, 6, 7, right there with Peter. But I wanna tell you this. Don't skip level four. As painful as it is, a lot of families just live. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. One, two, three. We won't talk of Thanksgiving. We won't talk of Christmas. We won't. We'll try not to make a scene. Don't live there as a believer. Don't live there as a believer. All right, level five. I truly forgive and release you. This is the hinge. This is the release. This is where it's at. This is not based on their response. This is not based on their apology. This is not based on their changed behavior. Sometimes when you go to people that have hurt you and offended you and that you need to say, hey, I need to forgive you for what you did. And they're like, well, you did it worse. And you're like, not what I was thinking. You know, and then they're like, you know, you need to forgive me. I need to forgive. You know, you need to. And you're like, not what I was thinking. And the flesh is like, go back to level two. You know, start praying that God will get em right. You know, how many. Remember the game Chutes and Ladders, you know, it's like, don't make all this progress to level five. And then just because they got an attitude, boop right back to level two. Don't do that, don't do that. Come on, stay at level five. It's not based on that, all right? At this level, you release the person entirely. You stop retaining the offense, and there's nothing left in your hand anymore. Nothing left. Now, I wanna use an illustration that our freedom ministry does. And by the way, if this series is resonating with you and you've not been to Freedom, I couldn't encourage you strong enough to sign up for our next freedom whenever it is, all right? But this is an illustration that they do to talk about the power of forgiveness. So I want everybody that can do this, I'm gonna ask you in just a minute to make a fist with me. Don't do it yet, but I'm gonna ask you to do it. And I want you to make. I mean, I want you to make it as strong as you can. All right? All right, so ready? Everybody make that fist as strong as you can. I mean, to the point that your arm can tremble even. I want that fist, like, hold it, hold that fist, hold that, hold the fist. Come on, somebody. I see it shaking. Some of you are not participating. Freedom is coming up. Freedom is coming up. All right. Yeah. All right, Come on, squeeze it tighter. Squeeze it tighter. Kind of annoying, isn't it? Right? Keep. Hold it, hold it. Hold it tighter. Come on. Now it's starting to bother you right now. You're thinking, why will you. When do I get to let it go? Come on. All right, one last. Come on, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going. All right, all right. Let it go, let it go. Do you feel that freedom? It's like the blood comes and it just rushes in, all right? Spiritually, physically, supernaturally, when you forgive, you're gonna feel something like that in your life. You're gonna walk differently, you're gonna think differently. You were never made to live like that with other people. You were never made. And although you don't walk around like that, I bet if we could see into people's hearts and into their souls and. And we could really see on the inside, we'd see a bunch of people walking around right now like this, and we'd say, just. Come on, just release that. Let it go. Let it go. You were never meant to carry that. You were never meant to walk like that. This is where we get to live out Colossians 3. 13. Bear with each other and forgive one another. If any of you have a grievance against someone, forgive each other as the Lord forgave you. Wow. There's strength in this. There's a true freedom that comes when we get to this level where I forgive you and I release you. I'm not gonna obsess about this anymore. You get an internal peace that floods on you. You're no longer controlled by the offense. You're no longer controlled. Maybe you're not reconciled. And again, I gotta say this because some people that miss week one, you don't have to get to level six and seven with every. Maybe somebody's done a terrible thing to you and you're not gonna get to level six or seven and reconcile. Be a testimony to the world of this new friendship. That's not required. But what I'm saying is this. For the believer in Jesus Christ, level five is not like level five is something that we have to get to. It's not the ceiling. It's the line that we need to get to. Jesus is like, as my followers, I want you to get to this level. And 1, 2, 3 is great, but I need you to get to here, where you truly forgive someone from your heart, as the Bible says, and you really do this and this release happens, you're no longer controlled. Now, the weakness of this is that it doesn't guarantee reconciliation. That's the only thing I could think of. That's the weakness. Otherwise, it's absolutely incredible to get to this level. And I know. And I know that it's hard. And as I hear the stories from people in our church, I know that it's hard. I know, I know. I can't even imagine the things that people have gone. But it's not the ceiling. It's. It's the line. That's what forgiveness really is. Now, after week one of this series, we had a lady by the name of Kim who attends our church. She came to us and she said, hey, man, you laid out the seven levels. I lived in levels one through three, but God is since taking me through to level five. And she said, I'd like to share my testimony. And as she shared her testimony with our team, I wanna let you know that it's like absalom amnon tamar, like level of pain. Okay, I'm giving you a precursor. Cause you're gonna see her video testimony in just a moment. It's a biblical level of pain. And she said, I want the church to hear what God has done to me through this pain and, and through true forgiveness. So I want you to see Kim's testimony and then we'll come back.
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I was coming home from work on the bus one day and I got a call and I was informed that my brother was killed, that he was shot. I don't even know how to react. I instantly shut down and they shared that my brother was killed by his wife. How could this happen? How could a family member take my brother's life? She cared for my children. She cared for my mom. We loved each other. How could you do this? My heart was hurting so bad and I just felt so betrayed. I thought justice would be good if they could just sentence her to die somehow. I was like, let the courts take care of it. She murdered somebody that was close to me. My sister in law was sentenced to life in prison without parole. I spent 10 days in the trial and I guess I just felt like the whole time I was there I was part of justice. For some reason I was like, I'm going to go there and just really speak for my brother. He loved you and he would want to forgive you. Even after all this, I forgave her in front of everybody. Now I can move on with my life. I can move on. I know I'll never see her again. So after the trial, we all just started doing our own lives. I had a career, I had two daughters. A granddaughter would come into the picture. Our family just was healing. We started at River Valley. I would meet a good friend and it would be over a year of knowing her that I'd find out she's in prison ministry. And that would lead to another conversation that would bring back after 14 years, my sister in law. We talked about how much she knew about my sister in law. And she said she was leading Bible study in prison. When you mentioned her, I'm like, I know her, I know who she is. And you know, I knew what her crime was. As a volunteer, it's so encouraging and wonderful to see the life change. And you don't always think about, there's a family on the other side of this that is dealing with what happened. The Lord Took me right to, I need to see her. And there was so much resistance with my other sisters. They thought I was dishonoring my brother. They felt like it would be opening up old wounds.
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Wow.
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14 years later, I'm gonna go see the killer again. So as I'm driving out to the prison, I'm second guessing everything. What am I doing? Why wouldn't somebody want me to go? She's leading Bible studies, so that can't be anything bad, right? And I got to the prison and I heard, you're not supposed to be there. This is just gonna open up wounds. What are you doing here? And I was sweating profusely. I thought, oh, my goodness. They called my name. And I walked through the corridor and I saw her standing there. I looked at her. We hugged. And when I was holding her, we were bawling. I felt this immense love for her, love that I've never since felt for anything. I felt she was so broken. And I had empathy for her and love for her. We talked about the Lord, and we talked about grace, and we talked about our families. We talked about forgiveness. I think I cried all the way home. What was that? Lord, I remember thinking, I love you so much. Thank you. I must not have forgiven her. But what he showed me was this bondage that is held if you don't forgive. This sickness is like a cancer in your body. I know it was Holy Spirit confirming in me you need. You needed to see her. You may have thought you honored your brother at that trial by saying you forgave her, but you never forgot. And I don't want you to remember this anymore. I feel free. I don't feel like I'm in bondage. I know the Lord's with me. I know he loves me. I know that I can love others even when they're not loving me. He let me see what true forgiveness could be. And that, for me, is freedom.
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What a line. He let me see what true forgiveness was. And for me, that's freedom. Thank you, Kim. Thank you, Kim, for sharing that testimony and showing us a level that many of us will never experience. But I don't know what you've had to forgive, but I would pray that you would truly forgive. That we'd get there as believers in Jesus Christ, knowing how much he's forgiven us, that we would truly forgive those people that have hurt us, those people that have wounded us, violated us, and that we'd get to that level of saying, God, we truly, truly forgive. We want to live with that freedom. We want to Live with that freedom. So if you could bow your heads here at all the campuses, I want to just say this, and if you're here, and we will not ask you who it is, we won't embarrass you, but here at all the campuses, in just a moment, I'm going to ask you to raise your hand and say, I know I need to forgive this person. I know I need to forgive this person. And as a way of raising my hand, now that's gonna be symbolic of I'm opening my hand and I'm letting it go. And I'm asking God for the strength to follow through with these steps four and five. So if that's you here and at all the campuses, would you just go ahead and raise your hand right now and say, that's me, that's me. I know, I. Yeah. Hands going up. Hands going up. Hands going up. I want to pray over you with your hands up. Lord, I pray for all these people, hands up, all over this place, all over at our campuses. We've been forgiven. You've forgiven us. May we forgive. Lord, help us to do the hard work. Help us to truly speak the truth. Help us to really release regardless of what the other person does, but help us to get there. And I pray, God, with these men and women with their hands raised, that's the first step. Their hand is open. Now they're saying, God, give me the strength. This is the release of this. And now, Holy Spirit, lead and guide me so that there can be healing. I don't need to win. I don't need to win. I don't need to make them feel bad. I need you, Holy Spirit, to do what you do in their life and in my life. And so, God, I pray for these men and women that there'd be so much forgiveness, so much healing, the world would look at them and say, what happened to you? I really started living out what Jesus said about forgiveness. It was so hard, but it was so worth it. So I pray that over them right now, in Jesus name, that they would live out that forgiveness and you would give them the strength to do whatever steps are next. They will not stay stuck. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.