Forgiving and Letting Go of the Past

TRANSCRIPT

Yeah, I love that little clip. What we can't show you in fact is what happens next to that little monkey, but we'll move on. No, nothing really bad happens, but that is a a teaching moment that we may use later on. And as a teacher, it kind of is exciting that you can have examples like that, but we are in apparently part four, I have, I have part three here, but part four of a series.

Called, Hey, there you go. Part three of a series called, you'll Be So Glad You Did. Timeless Advice for Troubled Times. Now we have all lived long enough to reap the benefits of some good decisions and habits and to reap the consequences of bad decisions and habits. Haven't we all? And we're either glad we did.

Or wish we hadn't. Or glad we didn't, and wish we hadn't. And in this series our speakers have been given some perhaps unoriginal advice, but some in some cases learned the hard way advice. So today in part three, we are talking about forgiveness. Yes, I'm gauging the room now and some people have just tensed up because there are people that live life by the code that I will never forgive that person for what they've done to me.

I can never forgive that person. And you know what? You're the person or persons that I want to speak to today because there are some things that are so hard, so hurtful, so wrong, so bad that you just feel like you can never forgive. And these are things that we need to be aware of and then things that we need to consider.

As we look at this advice today. So when it comes to forgiveness, many of us have a love hate relationship with us. For some people, it's easy. They seem to just be able to skate on by and let things go and, and keep moving. For other people, it's really, really hard to forgive. And I believe though, that if you lean in today to this wisdom, which is obviously not from me, but from the word of God and from some others.

that you'll be so glad that you did. Now, historians note that nearly all ancient texts with a moral basis valued and included forgiveness. It's been included in virtually every religion and every, every philosophy. And in fact, the oldest historical books records of forgiveness are found in the Torah, which is the first.

five books of the Old Testament. And the most notable story is that of Joseph, which is included in the latter part of Genesis, the first book in the Bible. Now, Joseph was one of 12 brothers and they were jealous of him because he was dad's favorite. Got any favorites Sam? You're wise if you don't. But he was dad's favorite and the other 11 brothers were pretty much against him.

And they actually sold him into slavery, into Egypt. And he had a tough life for the next number of years, and whereby he even ended up in jail. And God miraculously got him out of jail and rose him to prominence in the land of Egypt. In fact, he was second in charge of all of Egypt. because of his great wisdom and his ability to interpret dreams.

Years later, there was a great famine in the land and Joseph's brothers unknowingly came before him. And they came to ask for provisions because there was that great famine. And Joseph had every right and opportunity to throw them into jail for the wrong that they had done to him. But he doesn't do that.

He decides to forgive them unconditionally. And it's only in recent years that people are beginning to call to question the validity of validity of forgiveness. And oftentimes you'll see it. It seems like there's an eye for an eye mentality coming back. You do this to me, I'll do this to you, and I'll do it harder.

And this is exactly what Jesus is portraying now, is a new value of forgiveness. And I think by and large, most of us here would value forgiveness. And why? Because we're human. And we muck it up. And sometimes we muck it up really bad. And sometimes our tongue gets the better of us, and we say stuff we shouldn't say.

But even more than that, there are greater and bigger things and more complex things that start to come into play. And, and forgiveness seems to get harder and harder. And when people hurt us with their actions and their words, it creates an offense. It creates an offense, which then creates a debt. And so forgiving doesn't come naturally to us.

And so we are not innately forgiving. It's something that we have to teach our children, right? It's, it's something that that happens. Little Johnny hurts little Mary, and we say, little Johnny, you've got to say sorry to little Mary. And we ask Mary do you accept that apology? And she's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, OK, yeah.

And so in that sense, we are teaching our children forgiveness. But regardless of the fact that we've engaged in this cadence of forgiveness with our children, when things get bigger and more complex, and it goes from sibling scuffles to family portrayals, from late to our date, to unfaithful in marriage, or from buddies through childhood, to someone who embezzles us out of money of our, in our company, Whenever debts go unsettled, emotional, financial, or spiritual, there are two options for settling a debt.

One is to demand payment. We want payment. For those of you who have bought a car on, on, on a payment plan, or you've leased a car or something like that, and you find that you have trouble paying off that car, and there comes a point where you stop paying, you'll know that there are people that call you to demand payment.

They want that car. They want the money. They want what was signed for on the dotted line. And so you either lose that car or you will lose that car if you continue to stop paying. And you may even have to keep paying after you've, the car has been taken back. So there is, that is demanding payment for what you have actually signed up for.

The same is true when someone creates a debt with you. There's a breach of promise, unmet expectations, or a betrayal of trust. Maybe it's bigger than that. It's like abandonment or all types of abuse, the undone, just death of a loved one. You become the debt collector and you want some payment. You want to demand payment for what the wrong that's been done to you.

But there is a second option, and that is to forgive the debt. To forgive.

I'm going to give you a, a, there was a time in my life story and it's one I don't enjoy sharing because it kind of, it kind of displays the depths of foolishness that I can descend to. And This is this is what happened to me maybe a dozen years ago. I were sailing along fairly well financially.

The things were going good, bought a house, had paid off the house. It was going good. I may have just started my business and therefore things were a little tighter than usual. And one day I was out concreting, being the guru of concreting, thank you Pastor Kev. And I was out concreting and I got a phone call and it was a private number, which I don't usually answer, but on this occasion I did.

And there was quite a pleasant young man who was asking me all sorts of questions about stocks and things like that He said oh phil, what do you think about this stock or that stock or what's your favorite stock? So, you know, what would you do, you know in this situation and stuff, you know, and and and so I began to engage with him and He was pleasant enough and stuff and he finished that conversation And do you mind if I ring you again?

And so he rang me again and then we talked about similar stuff and Then it got to the point where he wanted me to introduce me to a stock analyst on the phone and I was getting more and more somehow in this web of what was going on until ultimately he rang again and there was an offer that you could really invest some money into this.

And I was so caught up in it and you know, I, we, Jen and I were in it together. I don't want to throw Jen out of the bus and I'm going to take all of all the blame for this because it was, it was my it was my bad, but it, it got so feverish and the sting was so hard and that I succumbed to it and invested a large amount of money to which we never saw again.

And. The hardest person for me to forgive in this story is me for being so absolutely dumb and foolish. And there were red flags there everywhere. And I, and the biggest red flag would have been the fact that I didn't want to tell anyone about this. I said, Hmm, there was always that element of, you know, doubt about it.

But there came a point where God started talking to me about forgiving these perpetrators and forgive this colorful language. But. I kind of said to God do you really want me to forgive these lowlife pond scum who do nothing but try and extricate money out of people and probably people more needy than me?

Do you want me to forgive those guys? He said, yep. Yeah, I want you to forgive those guys. And so I thought, well, Lord, how do I do this? I mean, how, how do I actually even do this? But ultimately I made a decision. I made a decision that I would forgive these people that had done this to us. And so I prayed and I want to make it very, very clear that this was not a one second decision and it was all over.

Oh yeah. I've forgiven these guys. Yeah. Blah, blah, blah, blah. It's that is not the case with forgiveness. In fact, forgiveness is a process that takes. A period of time until you get there and you don't know how long that time is going to be And so I prayed and I said lord help me to forgive these guys and it was going on every day for months and months Help me to forgive these guys and then it would burn again And then I said, oh lord help me to forgive these guys Help me to forgive these guys Show me how to do it and this went on for months This went on for like just a long time You And then I started to pray differently and I knew I had reached a place of forgiveness when I ultimately started to pray Lord, I want these guys in heaven with me.

I want these guys. I want them to get to know you I want them to get to know the weight of what they've done and the sin that you're going to forgive them of and so That they and their families can be in heaven with me And I knew then that I had reached a place where I had actually forgiven these guys.

And so this is what we need to do is to get into the cadence of this process when we when we need to forgive people. I want to tell you another story too about A lady named Corrie Ten Boom. Has anyone seen The Hiding Place? Few, few of you? You need to watch it. It's a very, very, very, very cool movie about forgiveness and the themes of that.

But Corrie Ten Boom was in the second, lived in around the Second World War. And she was a strong Christian. She in the latter part of the war she chose to act out her faith in Jesus through peaceful resistance to the Nazis by active participation in the Dutch underground. And they were hiding and feeding and transporting Jews and underground members hunted by the Gestapo out of the country.

And it is estimated they were able to save the lives of about 800 Jews with their little operation that they had going under their sewing room. They were ultimately betrayed and arrested by the Gestapo. And Corrie and her beloved sister Betsy and her father and a grandchild were sent away to the concentration camps.

Her father and sister perished. The overriding theme of the story is that Corrie came to face to face with her Gestapo tormentors at one point who were instrumental in the death of her family members and she chose to forgive them. She ultimately chose to forgive them and this is where our faith, where the rubber meets the road of our faith.

Sometimes there is some beautiful scriptures that we love about Jesus and how he wants to give us an abundant life and how he wants to do this and that for us. But sometimes when it comes to forgiveness, it's much, much harder for that obedience just to spring up and say, okay, I'll do it. But Corey was able to do it.

So the option, the second option of it is what we were just talking about is to forgive the debt, to decide to release or cancel the debt that one is owed. And there is a process of bringing our emotions and behaviors into alignment with the decision that we make. If you want to make a decision to forgive.

We need to bring our behaviors. We need to bring our intentions. We need to bring our thoughts into alignment and say, Lord, help me to do this, show me what to do, and I will choose to obey.

One of Jesus disciples, whose name is Matthew, who was also a debt collector, records Jesus most repeated sermon, known as the Sermon on the Mount. In his letter to Jewish followers in Matthew 6, 9 6, 9 to 15, Jesus is teaching his followers how to pray and say this. Matthew 6 to 19 says, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day, we know it, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us, help us to forgive the debts. as we have forgiven our debtors. I think the key word there is daily. Give us today our daily bread and further going on to and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. This forgiveness thing is not always just a one off event.

It can and has to be a daily lifestyle because either we're going to hurt somebody or someone's going to hurt us at some point. Usually in some part of every day, it is a thing that we're going to get hurt. And so then he says, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And Jesus places special emphasis on one part of the prayer in verses 14 and 15.

So not only does he teach you here, but then he goes on to say in verse 14, for if you forgive other people, when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. Let's let that sing in for a minute. For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father shall also forgive you.

And then he follows it up with something even bigger. He said, but if you do not forgive others, their sins, your Father in heaven will not forgive your sins. Ouch. Ouch. Some of Jesus teaching is pretty tough and this is it. You know, it's

Jesus loves us so much that He, He gives us the option to forgive, to free ourselves of that debt that is churning around in our hearts and it impacts our lives and followers and it, it, sorry, it impacts our lives and He continues to teach this subject over and over again in His ministry, the power of forgiveness Not only impacts the person that has hurt you, but more than that, it impacts you for your freedom.

You see that, that illustration of the monkey with his hand in the cage, that works. Because the, the where he puts his hand, it is just big enough for him to put his hand in. But the bait that is in there, which is what he wants, the, the rice, sticky rice or the banana or what he grabs that that's his natural reaction.

And then he cannot get his hand out. out because the fist is bigger than the open hand, and that's where he is trapped. And sometimes the offenses that happen to us are so big that we feel like we cannot let them go. And the story of the monkey is a beautiful illustration of the fact that if we don't let them go, we are trapped.

And we just can't get our hand out of that cage. We can't get our hand out of that trap. And unforgiveness Jesus is telling us something here that is so important that He repeats it over and over and over again, that if we don't forgive, we're trapped. And the timeless advice for you today is to release your hand and let it go and say, Lord, help me to forgive.

That's where we're at today. That is the, that illustration. You know, I saw it about 30 years ago. I've never, ever forgotten it. And I loved it. And we need to remember that when, when you're holding on to. I can never forgive someone for what they did to me. You're holding on, and you're trapped. And you, we need to be able to say, Hey Lord, help me to forgive.

It's not denial. It's not denial of what they've done. They have to face the Lord for what they have done. But it is forgiveness which releases a debt, which allows you to be free. Peter came to Jesus one day and said, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother and sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?

Jesus Peter was on the charge. He thought he was doing great here. Seven times? And Jesus said, No. 77 times. 77 times. It's not about the number 77. It's about the continual act of forgiveness. It's about the continual condition of our heart. Are we open to it? Are we open to it every day? Or do we just want to take on a little bit?

Just a little bit of offence, just a little This person's annoying me, I don't know why they're annoying me, but I'm just gonna let him go, I'm gonna cut him loose. No. It's a continual act of forgiveness. 77 times is just a number. But the thought behind it is, I gotta forgive. Then Jesus tells a parable about a servant who owes his master a huge sum of money and couldn't repay it.

The servants begged and pleaded for his master not to put him in jail. The master showed mercy to his servant and forgave the whole debt. This huge amount of money, he forgave it. But the servant later leaves and finds a person who owes him a small fraction of what he owed his master. The man begs and pleads for forgiveness and time to repay the debt.

But the servant insisted that he be thrown in jail. The town people went to the master and told him what had happened. The story continues in verse 32. Then the master called the servant in and he said, you wicked servant. I canceled all that debt because you begged me. And now shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant?

Just as I had mercy on you. Do you know, if you're Christians today and you have asked Jesus to forgive you, do you know that he's forgiven you all of your sins? From the time you ask for that forgiveness, right through to the time of your death. Even ones you haven't even committed yet. He's forgiven you that whole amount.

And someone comes to you and annoys you and you can't forgive them. This is what this parable is about. It's about us recognizing how much we have been forgiven. And it's enormous. It is enormous. Can you imagine every sin that you've committed? We don't even remember half the sins we've committed now.

But it still goes on and on and on and on. It's a great debt that we have been forgiven of. And now he's asking us, release your hand. Let it go. Let it go. You need to forgive. You need to forgive.

Forgiveness is to decide to release, to cancel the debt that one is owed. We need to align our emotions and our behaviours with that decision. Align is a verb that means to place, arrange or give support. It's not the other way around. We need to make the decision first. That is our first port of call.

Someone's hurt you. Someone's hurt you bad, but our first port of call is I choose to forgive. Lord, I choose to forgive. After that, then we have to get our emotions in line. Then we have to get our thoughts in line. We have to get in line with forgiveness, all of those things, so that we can outwork. Our decision, like I said before, it is not a one off, one second event, it is a process that may take months and months and months.

But you'll know you're there when you can say, Lord, bless those people that hurt me. Bless them. Bless them. Lord, touch them. Make sure, Lord, that they get saved, Lord. Bring laborers in their lives that they might get saved. That is a sign that you are ready. So let it go. It's not denial. It's not easy, but we need to align ourselves with it.

And do you know what, sometimes you're telling people, you're the reason that I'm always angry and irritable. You're the reason that I can't thrive in a relationship. You're the reason I am so happy and unfulfilled. Do you know what, when you say that you're giving them still giving them power over you.

We need to let all that go because if, if their apology is the only thing that's going to make you happy, it's not enough. It's not enough. We need to let it go and let them apologize or not. Doesn't matter. It's about us pulling our hand back, pulling our hand back and say, Lord, I'm going to forgive them no matter what,

you know, every decision that we make, every act of forgiveness is interconnected with whole bunch of different people. It also, I think the, the example that you set. As parents, as senior people, it impacts others when they see that you forgive, that you are forgiving to each other in your relationships, in your marriage relationships, and stuff.

And I believe that it just goes down to your children, and it'll go down to your children's children. But. When you see someone who's bound up in unforgiveness, it is so easy that they are so tangled and so hurt. And so it's so they get so hard. And these are the things that we are trying. We're not just trying, but by, by being able to forgive.

We are releasing ourselves and releasing others by our acts of forgiveness. Life is connected, as Pastor Kiv said before. So, in Romans 12, 14, it says this, it says, Bless and do not curse. This literally, literally means to speak well of them. Do good for them. Romans 17 to 21 says do not repay evil for evil.

Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, this is one of my favourites, if it is possible as far as it depends on you. Live at peace with everyone. You won't always be able to get it done if the other party doesn't want to come to the party. But as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written in his mind to avenge. I will replace, says the Lord. On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. I know that sounds like a little bit of vengeance, but it's not.

It's in fact, there was an Egyptian tradition that of, of public repentance, that by carrying a pan of hot coals on your head, you were repenting of something. That's what that actually means. And so today, you know, there is an opportunity for you. If you are one of those people who have said, I can never forgive to pull your hand out of the cage.

That's the decision that we're faced with today. I believe if you choose to make that decision to forgive, you will be so glad you did. Amen. We're going to have the band came back, come back, and we're going to have a song now. Let's just pray, Lord. We just thank you today that you have put this opportunity before us that we may be able to forgive others who have hurt us.

Firstly, Lord, we need to choose it. And then we need to live it out. And so father, I pray that there'll be ones here today that have nudged the dial further towards forgiveness and releasing their hand out of the cage that we, or all of us will may not be trapped anymore, but we will be free. In Jesus name.

Amen.