Forgiven People - Forgiving People Part 1

Forgiven People - Forgiving People Part 1

"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." They are familiar words, but they feel very different when they meet real life. Most of us do not struggle with forgiveness in theory. We struggle with it in strained relationships, old wounds, unresolved hurt, and pain that cannot now be put right.

The Bible is deeply honest about this. From Cain and Abel onward, Scripture tells the truth about human relationships: we wound and we are wounded. Sin is not only rule-breaking, it is relationship-breaking. It damages trust, fractures love, and leaves wounds behind. 

When someone wrongs us, at least two things happen. There is a debt created and there is damage. Forgiveness answers the question, "What will I do with the wrong?" It is not pretending nothing happened. It is not instant trust, full reconciliation, or the removal of every consequence. 

Forgiveness is costly because someone really did take something and someone really was hurt. If the pain is not going to be passed back, then in some way it must be absorbed. That is why forgiveness takes us to the cross. Jesus does not pretend sin is small. He bears it. He absorbs its cost. He takes the hit without returning it. The cycle of pain meets someone who will not pass it on.

Forgiveness is not weakness. It is cross-shaped love. It is saying, by grace, "The debt is cancelled, and the pain stops here. I will not make you pay, and I will not let this wound reproduce itself through me."

That leaves us with both challenge and comfort.

The challenge is that forgiveness is hard. Not in theory, but in real life, where wounds have names, histories, and consequences. But we also saw that forgiveness is not the same as instantly trusting again, feeling fine about what happened, or being fully reconciled. Often when we say, "I can't forgive," what we really mean is, "I can't trust." And that may be true. Trust, reconciliation, and restoration require something from the other person. Forgiveness is the first step we are called to take: releasing the debt and refusing revenge, while still telling the truth about the damage.

And the comfort is this: we are not simply told to forgive and then left to do it on our own. We have a Saviour who has walked this path before us. Jesus does not merely command forgiveness, he embodies it. And he gives us his Spirit, so that when forgiveness feels beyond us, we are not left to cope alone. We are invited to walk in his way, with his help, even when it is hard.

You can see past sermons on the Leominster Baptist Church website at  Leominster Baptist Church - YouTube and can contact us directly with your feedback or queries through the Contact Us link at the top of the episode description text.

Leominster Baptist Church can be found on Etnam Street in Leominster, Herefordshire. To find out more about us, visit our website leobc.co.uk. If you would like to speak to someone about anything that you have heard on our podcasts please give us a call and ask for a chat.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. They are familiar words, but they feel very different when they meet real life. Most of us do not struggle with forgiveness in theory. We struggle with it in real life, in strange relationships, old wounds, unresolved hurt, and pain that cannot now be put right. The Bible is deeply honest about this. From Cain and Abel onwards, Scripture tells the truth about human relationships. We wound and we are wounded. Sin is not only rule-breaking, it is relationship-breaking. It damages trust, fractures love, and leaves wounds behind. Forgiveness is costly because someone really did take something and someone really was hurt. If the pain is not going to be passed back, then in some way it must be absorbed. That is why forgiveness takes us to the cross. Jesus does not pretend sin is small, he bears it. He absorbs its cost. He takes the hit without returning it. The cycle of pain meets someone who will not pass it on. Let's dive into scripture.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Made for more. Not the handbrake, the gear stick. And what it did was when you, you know, you made your hand, the gear stick, you lift it up and then you put it in reverse. So you've got to lift up the little thing and then put it in reverse. Well, you lift it up and put it in reverse, and then as you pulled it out, the little bit that drops down normally wouldn't drop down. So you'd put it in reverse, and then you go to put it in first gear, and inadvertently put it back in reverse and go backwards again and go backwards again. And this is this is one of these things that you get these in life, one of these things that you just you live with. You know, it doesn't work properly, it's not doing what it should do, but you just kind of find a workaround. And this went on and on until Naomi came to me. Um I've done this, but Naomi confessed that she'd done this, um, and said, I really got quite close to hitting a car the other day, and twice I thought I got it in the first gear and gone backwards, and then got backwards again. So what we did was we got a dad in um and he had a look at it, he just simply cut off a little bit of fabric that was in the way, and now it works perfectly. And it was that simple, that simple to deal with, but it's it just it's an illustration of something that I noticed that we do. We we live with things, we put up with certain things on our life and just think that's how it is, that's just the way it is. Uh it's it's not right, it doesn't work properly, it's a bit awkward, it's a bit difficult, but what can you do about it? And in this case, there was something you can do about it, but we are coming on to something that many people think you can't do anything about. We are gonna address the topic of forgiveness. And that song, it sung, We Are Made for More. And yet, what I find, for if you're Christian or not, but a lot of people walk around with something that needs to be forgiven, or something they need to receive forgiveness for, but they don't. And so we go around and we just go, well, it hurts, it's difficult, I feel guilty, or I feel distanced from them, but what can I do about it? And this series is really about answering that question: what can we do about it? Well, how does forgiveness work? What does forgiveness look like? What it is, and as I've often said already, what it isn't, and trying to narrow down what do we mean when we hear the instruction to forgive, the command to forgive, which is one of those commands that we can just easily avoid. So as we do this, as we go into this topic, I just want to start by asking you to bring someone, something to mind. Someone that perhaps you've hurt, someone that perhaps has hurt you, a relationship that perhaps is difficult or strained, or maybe it's something that you carry, something that you've done. Because I I I I know so often when we speak about forgiveness, we say, well, the Bible says forgive. So forgive. There you go. Off you go, service ended, lovely. And we all go, okay, I hear that, I understand that, I think, but but I just can't. I don't know how. I don't know if I can. What what do I do with with the hurt? What what what are you actually asking me to do? And that that's kind of what we're gonna look at today. We've got three parts to this that we're gonna look at today is really answering the question: what is forgiveness? When we hear the command to forgive, when we pray, Father, forgive us as we forgive uh forgive our trespasses as we forgive others, or forgive our debts as we forgive the debts of others, that prayer that many of us will prayed hundreds, if not thousands of times. What is it we are asking God to do? What is it we are saying we are going to do? And the reason I want to bring someone to mind is because I don't want this to be Ivory Tower. Forgiveness only works if it works in the trenches. Because that's where we struggle with forgiveness. No one struggles with it on a Sunday, where everyone's lovely, or kind of this or can be lovely, where we're nice to each other on the most part. But that's it, let's not let's not do that. Because even church, perhaps church is the worst place. Church is the place where we get the most hurt, where the most difficult, where we have expectations of how people are going to treat us and how they're gonna operate with us, that we're all believers and we love each other because Jesus loved us and the expectation, and yet, to be honest, more people hurt by the church than perhaps anything else, which raises the question: why are we so bad at this? Or why do we have the reputation? Maybe we're not, but uh, we have the reputation of being so bad. Why is there hurt and why is there not forgiveness? And how do we handle this? Fortunately, we have something called the Bible, and in the Bible we have a whole series of letters written to churches, and fortunately, when those letters were written, they didn't smooth over any of the problems or any of the issues or any of the struggles these churches were going through. They are, on the most part, a mess. There's perhaps one or two that kind of get a C, but the others are awful, and there's all sorts of things going on, and they're trying to work out how do we live as a family with people who aren't family. If we're one in Jesus and we love each other and we're told that our love for other marks us out, what do we do with the hurt that comes in naturally through any relationship? Because if you haven't realized yet, we live in a world where we hurt people and people hurt us. As from the beginning, as through hurt all time. And whether that's on the micro scale of little sights and comments that are made, or on the macro, the big scale of wars and violence done on an industrial scale, whatever scale it is, the truth behind it all is that we hurt and we are we hurt and we are hurt in return. And we're called to forgive. And so we come up with questions, but what if they're not sorry? And what if the damage is already done? And if I forgive, am I letting them get away with it? And if I forgive, do I have to let them back into my life? What if they don't change their behavior? What do I do with that? What if they don't recognize it? What if I'm the one who's who wants to be forgiven but they won't forgive me? What if I'm the one who's done wrong and I'm asking them to forgive but they're withholding it from me? And what does this look like? These are not ivory tower questions, these are the things that we wrestle with when we rub shoulders with other human beings and we hurt each other, and we have to work out how do we find a way through this? Or do we simply knuckle down, close ranks, push people away, and and just get through it, put up with it. There is a diagram, we're gonna come back to this again. It's a diagram, I've shared it with Marie, I've shared it with different groups over time, so some of you will have seen this, and it's something that we've just found incredibly useful in trying to understand what is forgiveness and how does it work. So I'm gonna share with it, we're not gonna go through all of it now, but through this series, we're gonna keep coming back to it and gradually piece it together, what it's saying and what we're talking about. And it's this idea that there is a whole process behind forgiveness. We just sang the song that I made for more. Forgiveness is that it's the start. The cross is the start, it's the start of something, but it isn't the end of something. So, what we're gonna say in this series is that forgiveness is different from trust, it's different from healing, it's different from reconciliation, coming back together as one. It's an important step, but it isn't the whole step. The problem we have, we'll ignore the other side for now, Alex, and we'll come to that as we go through the series. The problem is we think that all of this means forgiveness. So when you hear you must forgive someone, what you hear is you must write off the debt, you must trust that person again, you must be okay with it and say, that's fine, I'm fine, I'm okay, it doesn't hurt anymore, and I must welcome them back into my life. And that that that's most often the reason why many of us say, I can't forgive. And you'd be right, you can't. If that's what forgiveness is, then you can't do that because they all rely on the other person doing certain things. So you can already see there's a connection between these. But when we say, or someone says you must forgive them, you say, Well, I can't trust them because they they continue to hurt me or hurt others. I I can't uh when I when I say forgive, am I saying it's okay, I'm fine with it? Because I really hurt. This is still really painful and really difficult to deal with. When I say I forgive you, does it mean I have to welcome them back into my life and be their best friend and act as if nothing has happened? And more often than not, that's why many of us go, I can't forgive. And what we mean, we don't mean I can't forgive, what we mean is I can't do all these other things. And here's the wonderful news that's true. And you're not instructed to. The Bible doesn't command you to trust people, doesn't command you to be okay with wrongdoing, doesn't command you to be reconciled to those who continue. The only thing it commands you to do is forgive. So what we're gonna do is narrow down what is this part? What is it that we have to do? What is it that God's inviting us to do that to open the door? It might open the door to those other things, it might lead to those other things, maybe, if the steps are followed and when people work together, but what is it that we are instructed to do to forgive? And in turn, next week we're gonna look at what does it mean for us to be forgiven? So there we go. Big idea of what we're going to be going through. And underneath it all, it's the idea that sin, when we talk about sin, it isn't just rule breaking, it's relationship breaking. And that's throughout the Bible. Many of us perhaps have grown up in certain traditions where sin is talked about and sin is there's these rules that God has, and you've broken these rules. And that that's an element of it, that there is disobedience. But the reason the rules are there is because they establish the boundaries of relationship. Just as any relationship, when you enter into a marriage or a friendship, there are certain things that, whether spoken or unspoken, mark out this is the way you behave, this is the way you act. And when you break them, someone doesn't say, you broke my rules. They often say, You broke my heart. They don't say you broke you broke the laws that we established, they say you've broken my trust. Because sin is relationship, it's not just law-breaking, it is relationship breaking. And that's what we experience. The Bible talks about it in relational terms, and it's telling us that all these things that we do, we're not just breaking rules and having to get justified because rules are broken. Being justified is being made right with a person, being made right with God or others. Because these breaking of rules, it's not just that a rule got broken, it's that distance was created. Separation occurred. And that's perhaps what you feel when you think about that person or that thing, you'll sense that there is a distance, whether spoken or unspoken. Maybe you live in the same house, but there is distance. Maybe you spend all your time with them, but there is a distance. Or maybe there is, because of time or situation, a physical distance. Or maybe the distance is represented in the number of times that they've called you in the last year, or the number of times that you've spoken. Whatever it is, there is distance that is created, and God again and again uses forgiveness as the first step to say, I want you to come to me, to return to me, and the doorway through which we do that is forgiveness. So today, as I say, what we're gonna do is describe what is forgiveness and what it isn't. And that's where I want to bring some clarity, because as I say, we use it to mean everything, but if it doesn't mean everything, what does it mean? The Bible uses two images that we're gonna look at today to explain forgiveness. So forgiveness is forgiveness is first of all releasing the debt. This is the first thing that we see, and throughout scripture, we see this image, and so we pray in one version, forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Sometimes it's trespasses, but it's the idea that there is a debt that has been incurred. When Jesus talks about it, he says, The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. At this the servant fell on his knees before him. Be patient with me, he begged, and I will pay everything back. The servant's master took pity on him, cancelled the debt, and let him go. And so that image of forgiveness is the idea of debts. And when it talks about Jesus, it says in Colossians, you were dead in your trespasses, God made you alive together with him, having forgiven all our trespasses. How did he forgive them? By cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. When we are hurt or we hurt someone, something is wrong. Wrongness comes into our life. And forgiveness is asking the question, what will I do with that wrong? Now, when we when someone hurts us, what we often say is, you owe me, and you can fill in the blank. You've hurt me, so more often than not, you owe me an apology. You owe me, or if it's in a close relationship, you shouldn't have done that. You you you're my husband, you're my wife, you shouldn't speak to me like that. You owe me love, you owe me kindness, you owe me safety because of the relationship we have that that I shouldn't be afraid around you. You owe me this, you owe me honesty. If someone betrays you, you you owe me your your loyalty. Because all that we've been through, all that we've experienced, you owe me the truth. You owe me, if it's someone perhaps in leadership, abusing a position, you owed us humility. In some way, you you owe me, you must repay. Something has incurred, that means now you are indebted to me. You have taken from me, you have robbed from me, you have damaged something, and and you are required to make a payment for that. Wrongdoing creates that obligation, and when we in our language or just in our feeling, that's what we we sense. Something has been taken, and now something is due. And so the Bible uses this language to explain that is what forgiveness is. Forgiveness here is releasing the debt. It is saying, I will not demand repayment. It means I will not keep your account open. Now, what we tend to do is we become debt collectors. When someone hurts us, we demand that they make a payment for that debt. And we're very inventive in the ways that we do that. Um we we sometimes we we we we give them the silent treatment until they make it right. We we let them know that they've hurt us or upset us. We make certain comments because they aren't yet aware. We do little things to let the person know you owe me something and you haven't yet paid it. A bit like the bailiffs. They come around when you owe the bank or someone money, they come around, they knock on the door to let you know you owe something and you haven't paid it. And what that does is sometimes you get the payment back. Sometimes they pay up. They give you what you want, they give you the apology, they give you the repayment, they they make amends and they do things, but more often than not, they make the payment, but the relationship is still fractured. You get what you want, but you don't get what you really want. You get the repayment, but there's still distance. And so forgiveness is trying to answer how do I address this wrong and still keep the relationship? And the way Jesus demonstrates and instructs us to do that is to cancel the debt, to stop demanding payment. And what that means is I take this wrong and I write it off. And let me just say in all these things, it shows us why forgiveness is so hard. Because when I cancel a debt, what does it do? It doesn't just disappear into nothing. I have to absorb it. I have to absorb the cost. And that that hurts. That feels perhaps unfair, that feels difficult. Why should I have to pay? Why should I have to cover them? Why should high yeah, absolutely? The Bible doesn't ever say that forgiveness is easy, but it says that this is the way that you can wipe the slate clean so that you no longer have to, one that their debt is free, but don't think of it just as something you do for them. You no longer have to chase them for the debt. You no longer have to expend your energy and your time and your focus on making them pay. We're gonna see often forgiveness is more about what God wants us to have rather than what he wants the person we're forgiving to have. When I'm writing off the debt, what it's saying is I no longer have to use the energy to bring this thing into every future conflict. I now have to spend the energy thinking about how I'm gonna make you pay and make you hurt and make you feel intimidated until you pay me. And I'm not gonna have to bring everything. You notice you do this, someone hurts you, and then you there's the debt, and then what you want to do is make the debt bigger as possible. So you go, and three years ago you burnt my toast. And uh, do you remember that time when you said good morning and it wasn't a good morning, and I know you didn't mean it was a good morning? And that time that you had all sorts of things, you smiled at me, and I knew it wasn't a genuine smile, I was I knew it was I hate you smile, and then and we we start to we start to collect debts that aren't even there, we start to add all these things to it and go, Oh, yeah, and you owe me this, and you owe me this, and the debt gets bigger and bigger, but it never gets paid, and we end up separated for them, and forgiveness says, Okay, here is the debt as I see it, and I'm going to write it off. I'm not going to chase payment for it. I'm not gonna make you repay me personally, I'm not gonna use the currency of bitterness to uh do it. I am gonna have to absorb it myself. That's why the grace of God is not cheap, it is costly because someone absorbs the cost. Now, let me just first caveat, and we're gonna come onto this in future weeks. That doesn't mean the offender doesn't bear responsibility. There's another side, there may be consequences. What it's saying is I am choosing not to collect the debt. It's not that there may not be consequences. Some people have done things that require intervention, that require justice, that require courts and limitations and restrictions, all that that may still be necessary. Don't hear me saying that we don't address those things. We do, but what we're saying is I am not going to collect the debt. I am not going to make you pay me. There may be something to pay, that's not that's not mine, that's not my role anymore. I am stepping back and saying, I will write off the debt and I will not collect it. I will not make you pay me. Doesn't mean there may not be something to pay, but the Bible speaks of sin as a debt between me and you, and I am choosing to write it off. It is so hard to do this. Something has been damaged. There is a moral debt that is created. The Bible doesn't shy away from that, but it says the way to address this in a way that doesn't make you into a person controlled by the bitterness, controlled by the demand and demand to repay, to be repaid, make you into someone that obsesses over what was done to you. The only way to be free from that is to ride it off and to absorb the cost, and to do so by God's grace and his strength, and to know that that is exactly what Jesus does. He doesn't tell you to do something he doesn't, he cancels your debt. The idea that us and God have a debt by the things that we've done, we create a debt that stands against us that we owe him. And the other side of that is also we take God's good things and run off for ourselves. So you remember the prodigal son? What does he do? He takes the father's money and he runs off. He takes the good things from God and goes, right, I'll have it for myself. And the idea is we do the same. Our debt isn't just the wrong things we've done, that's normally where Christianity focuses, but our debt is also the good things that God has done for us, and we've taken for ourselves and used for our own ends and our own means. And there's a debt between us, and what God does when he forgives, he says, I write that off. I absorb the cost. And if you want to say that's an easy thing, then you look at the cross and you see what that entails, you see what that looks like, and you realize that when Jesus tells us he's not giving us something that he hasn't done, he's saying, I will do it, and because I have done it, you will be able to do this. In some cases, it will be the hardest thing you ever do, but it will be the best thing you ever do. You'll be free. You will no longer have to demand them. That's why forgiveness is astonishing. Our debt before God is vast, and he takes it away, he writes it off, it isn't ignored, it doesn't say it doesn't matter, and it didn't hurt, but it is paid. It is paid by him, absorbed by him, so that we no longer have a debt with God. And when we do the same for others, when we forgive someone, we're saying, I I don't want to collect. I am taking myself out of that position. The other part of it is it's releasing a debt and it's refusing to pay evil for evil. See, debt language, it can sound a bit formulaic, a bit sort of dry. It's all for counting, isn't it? You have money, I have money, we write it off, fine, but but we all know forgiveness is more than simply that. So that's one side of it, but the other side is that it's not just a debt, there is a wound. I have been wounded by your actions, by your words, by your behavior. I have been wounded. There is damage that has been done, there is a tremor in my nervous system when I see your name, when it comes up on the phone, when I see you walking down the road, there is something in me, there is a wound that that gets poked every time I see you. Damage has been done, and for some, that damage is a loss of confidence, it's the erosion of joy in your life, it's grief over what could be. Have been there is a wound that has been occurred. And that damage it can be emotional or physical, it can be spiritual, it can be financial, it can be reputation, there is a wound that has happened. And so what people often get stuck because they hear forgive and they feel I'm hurt. So I can't forgive because I'm hurt. And again, this is a misunderstanding of what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is not saying that it doesn't hurt anymore. It's saying I've been hurt, I've been wounded, but I will not respond by wounding in turn. There's a very simple instruction Jesus gives us a golden rule, if you like. Do to others as you would have them do to you. Most of the world operates on do to others as they have done to you. Do you notice the subtle difference? We operate on you have done this to me, so I will do this to you, where Jesus says, do to others as you would want them to do to you. We are wounded and we wound in return. And as I say, that starts on the tiny, small level, or it goes up to countries going to war with other countries. You have done this to us, we will repay. We're seeing it play out at the moment. You've done this, we won't forget it. We might go quiet for a bit, but eventually we'll repay, and then you'll repay, and then you'll repay until we all destroy each other. Eye for an eye. By the way, that it is in the Bible, and it was meant to curtail that escalation. Because what we do is we don't just wound in turn, we wound and a bit more. You hurt me, and I'm gonna hurt you back with a tiny bit extra, and then you're gonna hurt me back with a tiny bit extra, and up and up, and up it goes. And this is the pattern of relationships across the world. And forgiveness is saying, I will be the one who says the wounds stop here. I will take the last hit and I won't hit back. I will take the last insult and I won't insult in return. I will take the last spear of pain in my side and I will not retaliate. The cycle ends with me. I cannot stop evil by becoming evil, and so I choose not to repay evil with evil. Again, notice that that means you have to take the last hit. You have to absorb the pain. Just as you have to absorb the cost, you have to absorb the pain. But look also that this isn't something Jesus tells us to do, it's something he does. Peter tells us when they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate. You can spit at me, I will not spit back. You can shout and insult me, I will not shout and insult in return. When he suffered, he made no threats. You think you're hurting me? Wait till my father hears about this. Wait till God comes and repays you. Wait till he comes and inflicts the angels and all the armies of heaven come against you. No threat. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross. We we attacked, we hurt, we insulted, we mocked, we put a spear and nails in his hands and in his feet. We placed a crown of thorns deep onto his head. We whipped and we laughed and we jeered, and he took it all and did not repay. And so by his wounds we are now healed. Because he didn't repay evil with evil, he repaid it with grace. The cycle ended with Jesus. All that's like the whole cycle of human history, from Cain and Abel, one takes the life of another, and then Joseph and his brothers, and all these times of one hurt, and then they didn't repay, and on and on, and it goes back and forth, people hurting and retaliating, and then Jesus, the hurts of the world, was done to God himself, and he didn't retaliate. He didn't strike back, he didn't lash out, he says it ends here. The cycle of violence that has defined humanity ends here, and when we forgive, that is what we're saying. The cycle ends here. I will take the last punch, I will take the last slap, I will take the last insult, and don't get me wrong, that will hurt and that will be painful, but I will not retaliate because it stops here. The pain stops here. Again, it's why forgiveness isn't easy. To be slapped in return in grace, to be mocked and not retaliate, to have your name slandered and not want to slander in return. To have someone speech you in a way that demeans you and not to do it in kind. And when I say this is it's about revenge, but when I say revenge, don't think pitchfork and I'm out to kill them because they've hurt me. That's kind of the picture we have. But when I say revenge, what I mean is the silent treatment. I'm gonna hurt them. But I'm too sophisticated to hurt them directly. I'm gonna do it in subtle ways. It can be coldness, it could be withholding kindness, it can make little critical comments because you didn't like the way someone behaved, it could be putting them down to other people. You don't speak to them directly, we're too cowardly for that, but we'll speak to everyone else about them and bring them down. It can be sarcasm, it could be contempt, it could be when you sit back and you know you quietly enjoy their discomfort. You liked how things are starting to go wrong for them and things don't work out. It can be trying to punish them by a distance or make them grovel, not because you want repair, but because the power feels good to make them suffer. But all of that is repaying evil for evil. You are absorbing it. And again, remember this isn't minimizing it, it doesn't say it doesn't hurt, doesn't say what they did wasn't painful, it's not saying I'm just moving on and forgetting about it, it's actually saying this does hurt. It was painful, it was difficult, it did wound me. But that's the last wound that's ever going to happen between me and you, as far as I'm concerned. That's the last thing I'm going to do. And so forgiveness actually begins with the truth, doesn't cover over and say, oh, it's fine, it didn't hurt, it didn't matter. It says, no, it did hurt, but I'm not going to use it to retaliate. It did wound me, it has done something to me, but I'm not going to use it to treat you in the same way. Again, it doesn't mean you don't report if there's a crime, it doesn't mean you don't seek justice, but it's saying I do not pursue this. I am not demanding payment for myself. If you notice there's a verse, I think it's in Romans where it says, I haven't got it up there, but in Romans where it says, do not seek vengeance, but entrust it to God and his wrath and his justice. That it's not that there won't be an accounting, there will be, but I am not taking responsibility for it. One, because I'm not very good at it. When I do, I just add and add and add. And two, because again, it doesn't create the opportunity for things to for me to be free or us to be reconciled. And so both of these are important. If you focus too much on the debt, it becomes legal and a bit dry. If you focus too much on the hurt and the wound, it becomes emotional and difficult. Both of these are the picture the Bible gives us to say this is what you're doing when you're forgiving someone. You are releasing the debt and you are refusing to pay evil with evil. Now, as you go on from that, if you remember, we'll come back to that in a minute. Trust is another stage. Saying forgiven doesn't mean I trust you. Like I said, it's a different thing. You can start to see why this is important to get these things right in our head. It's not saying I trust you to keep being kind to me. I trust that you won't ever hurt me again. No, no, forgiveness can't say that. It simply says, I'm not gonna count, we're not gonna pay make you repay the debt, I'm not gonna repay. If there's to be trust though, then if you notice, there has to be repentance. You have to recognize that you've done wrong and you have to repent. Now you might say, what if they don't recognize it? What if they don't realize that they've even hurt me at all? You can still forgive. For some of you, the person that you need to forgive isn't alive anymore. They wounded you as a child, or they wounded you in a party, or you don't have contact with them, and that but that damage is still there. You can still choose to forgive. It's a bit different, but it's still saying, perhaps between you and God, God, I am cancelling the debt that my mother, my father, my granddad, my grandparents, that friend who I don't see anymore, that friend I don't know where they are, I've lost contact. I choose to cancel that debt. And I choose not to hold any urge to hurt them in return. You can still do that even if they're not here. And you can do that if the person doesn't recognize. There'll be many situations where the person doesn't see that they've done wrong. You can try and help them see it, but that isn't really your job. Forgiveness isn't about making them realize it. Forgiveness is what you do on your part to say, I release and I do not demand repayment. And that's what we're doing when we're forgiven. Now the hope is that they might recognize. And once they've recognized, they might change their behavior. If they change their behavior in repentance, then you can begin to trust them because they are different. If they do that, they might start to make amends through restitution, which might help you have some healing, some sense of this is okay, it doesn't sting like it did, it doesn't hurt in the same way, I can think about it easier, and then may even notice there are dotted lines on those last ones, it may bring back reconciliation where we are one again and united, but that isn't guaranteed. And that's important to recognize, that isn't the guaranteed, it requires steps, and there's lots of things going on here. This is my simplified version. Like I said, it's a lot more complicated in practice. But if you notice, reconciliation isn't guaranteed. It may be hoped for, maybe prayed for and longed for, but it requires the other person. The same is true with God. God dies on the cross and forgives and announces forgiveness for all, but unless we recognize and we turn to him and walk with him, unless we draw near and we we seek to live for him, then there is no reconciliation. And so what's true with God is true with other people. And so this idea of forgiveness, it means that forgiveness is those things, but forgiveness isn't denial. It's not saying, no, no, don't worry about it, it didn't happen. It's not an excuse. It's not saying don't worry about it, it's not approval, it's not saying what you did was okay, and it isn't trust, because that's another thing that comes at a different level, and it isn't reconciliation. And I say that because some people think, well, I've forgiven them, so that means I have to trust them. I have to let them carry on, I have to let them keep hurting me or hurting others, I have to let them keep damaging or causing damage. No, you don't. That isn't forgiveness. And it's not the removal of consequences. There may still be a payment to be made, not to me, but because of what they've done has damaged society or damaged someone or has broken laws of this land, there may be consequences, but you can still forgive even when there are. We've all seen those incredibly powerful images where families stand on the court steps and someone has been sentenced for something and they say, We're glad that justice has been done, but we forgive. They have to make a payment to society because of what they've done, but they're not making a payment to me anymore. And often it's with tears and pain because it's the hardest thing they have to do. It means that they've lost someone they love or damage has been done that will never be made right again, but they still choose, I will not demand repayment, and I will not repay evil for evil. Forgiveness isn't those things. It's choosing not to make the offender pay by your hand. And that's what forgiveness is. So perhaps it's smaller than we often think, but it's also more powerful because it's within our grasp. It means each of us can realize, okay, I can't say it's okay, and I can't stop the hurt, and I can't stop the way that it made me feel, and I can't take away the wound that's been inflicted, and I can't get rid of the debt that's been incurred. I can't do any of that, but I can choose to say, you do not have to repay me. And I will not repay you with evil. Now, as I say, to start off with, it may still feel like you can't, and you'll say, I can't because of the emotion involved or the difficulty involved. That's all fine. We're not trying to say it's easy. We're just trying to say perhaps it's a bit more within your grasp. It will still take the grace of God. It will still take a supernatural strength that I believe only God can give. It will still take the power of God who forgives us and Him living in your heart to do this. And so it's not something perhaps it is, I can't do it. No, in your own strength, perhaps you can't. But for those who've been brought near by the grace of God, those who have been forgiven by our Almighty God, there is something in us, something of his heart, something of his power, something of his spirit, that means that this is now possible for his children. There is more we could say, but I think we're going to leave it there for today because there is more than enough to think about. Next week we'll look at what it means to be forgiven and how that works out. Or I don't know, maybe that'll be the last week. Perhaps next week we'll look a bit more on what the steps and how we how we do that and how both sides need to come together. But for now, where does this leave us? I guess it leaves us with honesty. It leaves us in a world where we recognize we hurt people when people hurt us. And if we're honest, we realize that the Bible doesn't shy over that. That when it says forgive, it isn't, it is telling the truth about us. There will always be a need for this. And there are two ways to deal with it: by getting payment or repaying, or by forgiveness. Relationships will always be broken. It is the way of things, it is that the crack that runs through this world, it is the crack in our own heart and our own walk. But God has made a way. We were made for more than simply living with the burden of guilt or the burden of having to collect on payments. We were made for more. We were made to be able to be free of this. And as I say, perhaps that's where we should land because whenever we talk about forgiveness, what were we started with the other person in mind. So you might still have that person in mind, the person that you struggle to forgive, that it's hard to forgive. Now I just want you to put someone else in your mind. I want you to put yourself in your mind. And realize that forgiveness is perhaps more about you than it is about them. Forgive is about you being free. Forgiveness is about you having a burden lifted. Forgiveness is about you being healed and the grace of God working in your heart. Forgiveness is not about you pretending. It's not a shallowness. It's a deep work of God where he says, you can be free of this. That person doesn't have to be a weight around your neck. Their words don't have to run through your head throughout the rest of your days. What they did doesn't have to hurt in the way that it does. It doesn't mean that it will never hurt. But there's a difference, I often say this, there's a difference between a scar and a wound. When Jesus died, he had wounds, and when he was resurrected, he still had scars. But a scar is different to a wound. A wound is something. If someone prods it, you're going to lash out and probably hit them for it. A scar is here is a story of what was done, but it's also a story of what God did, of what he made right, of what he healed, of what he restored. And I thought it would be there forever as a wound, but it's a scar. And when we think that we're alone on that, Jesus resurrected from the dead, comes to his disciples and shows them scars. Scars of forgiveness. Scars of what it took for him to forgive us. Both as a wonderful testimony of what he has done for us, we're going to come on to that, but also as an example. This is what forgiveness may look like for you. There may still be scars, but they will not only speak of what was done to you, they will speak of the work that God has done to make things right. So today, if you are wounded and this all things, and everything that I'm saying, you think I just can't wait for it to finish and get out of here because it's too painful. Perhaps it is. But in the hands of Jesus, those wounds become scars. By his grace, there is something he can do, and I know it perhaps seems too good to be true or too difficult to believe. But he can. He does. And so we're just going to respond to that now. Just going to pause and still ourselves and bring ourselves to the wounded Savior, the scarred savior, the one who doesn't just tell us to forgive, but died on a cross to show us what forgiveness might look like and to give us the power to go and do likewise. Jesus, I thank you that you didn't command us to forgive from heaven. You did it while you were here on earth. You did it while people gossiped about you and lied about you. You did it while people were betraying. You did it as you hung on the cross, nails in your hand, blood on your head, back beaten and torn, forsaken and mocked. There you prayed, Father, forgive. And because you did that, as painful as we it might be, as hard as we might find it, I pray that you would help us to see there is a hope that we might be able to do likewise. For those who've carried unforgiveness, and it could have been for days or weeks or months, perhaps years. Those who have struggled to write off the debt, struggled not to repay evil for evil. We simply recognize the truth that they have been hurt. We don't diminish that, we don't push that to one side, we recognize that pain that they have had. We recognize what has been done to them. That a debt has been created, that a wound has been inflicted, and we don't say it's right, we don't say it's good, it is wrong and it should never have happened. It was not the world that you planned, it wasn't the way that you created us to relate to each other. But as we recognize that hurt, we ask that you by your spirit might gently invite us to another way to respond to it. That we don't have to keep adding to the debt. That we don't have to make repayment ourselves. That just as you came to forgive us, you also came to relieve us from the responsibility of demanding payment from others. You told us to pray, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others. And today, as we gently step into that, maybe cautious, maybe still fearful, maybe still worried about what it might entail and what we're letting the other person off from, would you just help us to see, Father, more of ourself than them, more of what you want for us and the freedom you want for us than the other person? May your grace shine brighter than their face in our minds. Father, we name what is real. Where we are bitter, would you soften us? Where we are confused, would you bring clarity? Where we are wounded, would you meet us? Where there is a debt, where there is damage or distance, would you give us wisdom and courage to take a step towards that doorway of forgiveness? If we were made for more, Lord, would you lift burdens? Forgiveness is the door to that freedom. May we step towards it. And yet without forgiveness, we don't hear what we harden. Help us, Lord, take our next faithful step towards what you have for us. We thank you, Lord. We thank you for your your command, which is only for our good. But we also thank you for your example that shows us you are with us in that heart, you are near in that brokenness, and you are giving the strength to walk in your ways. Lead your people, we pray. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

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We hope that you've enjoyed listening to Dean's thoughts today. If anything that he has said has challenged you or raised questions that you'd like answers to, please don't hesitate to contact us and ask for a chat. You can find our details on our website, which is leobc.co.uk, as well as on the information that we have posted for this podcast. Alternatively, if you live in our area, you're very welcome to join us on Sunday morning at 10 30 to hear things first hand. We'd love to see you there.