The Lord can give us so much. I tell you what, this particular chapter has so much into it. So much. But today we're going to talk about a topic that is going to touch all of us' hearts here this morning. Look what it says in Ephesians 4.26. But be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Neither give place to the devil, that him that stole steal no more. but rather let him labor, working with his hands the things which is good that he may have to give to him that need it. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, that which is good to the use of edifying, that ye may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and clamor, I'm sorry. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. And be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you, Lord, for your forgiveness. is beyond our imagination. Thank you for the wonderful forgiveness. Thank you, Lord, for the wonderful salvation. You are such an awesome God. And I pray, Lord, if there's someone here this morning who never received Jesus Christ as personal Savior, may they experience that awesome forgiveness. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. You may be seated. Well, today we're going to talk in a subject that is hard, even though some seems easy. I prepared this message probably before Christmas. That's how long ago this message. And it said, Pastor, where are you with your messages? I'm in the end of April. That's where I am. It's just the way the Lord lays on me, and I just keep going. I already know the theme of what I have, and it's what the Lord puts in my heart, just keeps going. So that's the way I am. Some pastors might go like, wow, I cannot see myself prepare a message on Saturday night. I just can't do that. So forgiveness. No Christian is perfect, and every relationship needs forgiveness. You get that? It don't matter where you are. I'm talking about relationships. Again, I said to you in the beginning that we're not going to talk per se about marriages, but about every relationship that we have. It could be friends relationship, father and daughter, mother and daughter, it can be husband and wife, it can be co-worker, neighbor, whatever relationship you have. In every relationship, there is a need for forgiveness. You get that? Because if there's no forgiveness and when the offense comes about, then it's going to build a wall and it's going to stretch it out. So there needs forgiveness there. All right. What about my relationship with Jesus? What about your relationship with Jesus? When you break that relationship, what do you do? You ask forgiveness. Well, you know there's something there, right? And you need to ask the Lord to forgive you. And He forgives you. Well, growing relationships That's the way they grow. No matter what relationship you have. There's an offense, there is forgiveness. There's an offense, there is forgiveness. You follow that? It's mutual. Otherwise, it doesn't work. You follow that? It's got to be mutual. One is always being willing to forgive. The other one needs to be willing to forgive as well. Otherwise, they don't work. So, and this, of course, that's a part of relationship. Now, we look about forgiveness this morning, and I'm going to tell you why. Forgiveness, the word itself is an easy word. Right? Even with my second, you know, accent, my second language, I can say forgiveness is an easy word. The hardest thing to do is forgive, an action word. to forgive. And some situations are very hard to forgive, but not impossible. Follow that? There are people that say, oh, well, I sinned so greatly against God that I don't think He will ever forgive me. Well, you're wrong. Because God forgives. He promised forgives. We confess our sin with a genuine heart and He forgives. So there's nothing that we have done that God cannot forgive. That's the relationships. That's the way they work. Now, let's look about this forgiveness point from several things this morning. And it's a funny looking outline, but I'm going to give it to you. Overpacking our luggage. All right, that's our first point. Overpacking our luggage. As we journey through life, we will encounter opportunities to take on luggage God never intend us to carry. How does it work? Got that? We carry things within our shoulders that God doesn't want us to carry. He said, child, it's too heavy for you. Why you carry this? Child, why you carry anxiety? Give it to me. Child, why are you so worried? Give it to me. When did Jesus say to marry? Marry, marry. Why are you so unease about life? Look at your sister. She's sitting right here. And look what you do when you're so consumed with life, you're so consumed with these things. I'm only going to be here for a little time. So we carry luggage that God never intended us to carry, but we Here's the thing, we resist God. God says, child, give it to me. He goes, oh, no, you don't understand. I need to carry this. Well, some denominations, they say, that's my cross. You ever heard that? It's not your cross. God can take that from you if we give it to him. So overpacking our luggage. How it works, letter A, offenses. First, someone such as maybe your spouse, maybe your child, maybe your daughter, maybe your son, maybe your co, whoever that is, does you wrong. And I can tell you that is guaranteed that's going to happen. It's going to happen. I mean, it happens all the time. Somebody is going to do you wrong. Listen, this world is full of imperfect people right here. Even those on social media, all imperfect people. Somebody's going to do you wrong. Okay. And when somebody do you wrong, what you should do? What did you say? Forgive. Then Jesus said, Peter said, Lord, seven times, you know, Peter, seven times seven, that means don't do your math, don't get the calculator, it means every time. Forgiveness is a thing that we render every time it was asked of us. Somebody said, please forgive me. I'll forgive you. Sometimes it's hard to say that. We forgive. That's what it is. So, offenses. Look what it says in Luke 17 verse 1. Actually, go to Luke 17 verse 1. I want you to see that. Jesus actually, of course, in your Bible there, if you have a papal Bible, it will be in red, maybe even in your software Bible, it will be in red as well. And then said, he, Jesus, unto his disciples, it is impossible, but their offenses will come. What Jesus is saying here, listen, folks, offenses is going to come. It don't matter if you try to hold or hide yourself, they're going to come. All right. Somebody is going to offend you. All right. One way or the other. But look what it says, but whoa, That's a strong word, unto him through whom they come. It is not a question if your spouse, or if your child, or if your daughter, or if your son offended you, they will offend you. The question is, but when? It will come. No Christian is perfect. Part of that, you look at me, I'm not perfect. You're not perfect. You're not perfect. You're not perfect. Nobody's perfect here. You know what? It's going to come at a point in time, we're going to offend somebody. Or somebody's going to offend you. You know why? Because we're not perfect. So we're not perfect. No Christian is perfect. And no one is so perfect that cannot do no wrong. All of us will do wrong. The problem, even I was talking with the kids this morning back there, the subject was the heart this morning. We talked about the heart. That was the subject. We had a great conversation. Listen, when I go teach the kids back there, believe me, I don't have a lesson. I just bring a word and we go to God's word. I mean, I let the kids, I want their hearts. I want them to talk to me so I know where they are, so I can help them. So we talk. So we sit right here. There's no perfect Christian. Somebody's going to offend you one way or the other. There's not so much the offense that is committed. It is how we respond to the offense. And if you're hurt, say I'm hurt. They give the both parties, either a friend, either a husband, either a wife, even your child, to make remedy, and the purpose of it is this, forgiveness. That's how relationships grow, folks. That's how they grow. Okay, let me give you an illustration. Everybody has their own way of dealing with offenses. Some people exploding anger, and others clapped down. There's a story of an airline employee who found his own unique way of dealing with this, of being arrested. While checking his bags at the airport, a man became indignant with the employee who handled luggage. For several minutes, he belittled the young man and criticized his very move. Surprisingly, the curbside porter didn't seem troubled by this man's verbal abuse. After the angry man entered the airport, a woman approached the luggage handler and asked, how do you put up with such injustice? The young man said, it is easy. That guy is going to New York, but I'm sending his bags to Brazil. Well, that's not a nice way to do it, right? What do you think about dealing with offenses that he's not going to never see his back? That's not the right way to do it. That's not what the Bible teaches us to do. Our natural response to an offense is to become offended in our spirit over what was done to us. The Bible refers to this as a wounded spirit. The spirit is hurt and we want to retaliate, but that's not what God commands us to do. So, of course, offenses that are committed against us can create real wounds, and the Bible does not advocate pretending that pain does not exist. Pain exists, folks. That's a reality, isn't it? Pain is a reality. We can hurt people. We can hurt the heart of God. The Bible says right here in this passage that we grieve not the what? The Spirit of God. And when it does, we literally make God crying. Or the Spirit of God in us crying over what we're doing. Let it be the response. the response. Our thinking is tricky here because we tend to believe that the reason we have the weight of bitterness or unforgiveness is because of what others have done to us. It is their fault we say or it is her fault or his fault. Then we struggle. We struggle with that. The truth is that offenses will come in every relationship. What makes the difference in traveling light is learning how to forgive those offenses. Because let me put it this way, I don't care what relationship you are involved on, it goes both ways. It always takes two people. And you offend me today, I'll offend you tomorrow. The thing is, are we willing to forgive each other every time that happens? That's the key, because if it's not, then it will destroy that. So it is friendships or relationships between, let's say, for an example, let's say a father and a son, a father and a daughter, a mother and a son, a mother and a daughter, a neighbor, a coworker, a husband, a wife, all these relationships, listen, for these relationships to grow, it's got to be commitment. And if there's no commitment, There will be no forgiveness because any time an offense comes, guess what happens? Somebody will not be willing to forgive. Our relationship with Jesus is the same way. We have to ask forgiveness. How do we respond to when we get offended? How do we do that? Let me give you another illustration. If you travel by air, you will see a list of prohibited items near security checkpoints in the airport. If you travel by air, you have a flight, There's things that you cannot take. All right? They will not allow you to take an airplane. All right? Don't bring a gun with you because you'll be in trouble. OK? Some items like weapons, sharp objects, oversized equipment are permitted for checking luggage, but prohibited for carrying arms. You cannot do that. So while other items are permitted, Let's say blasting caps or dynamite or batteries are a dangerous hazard and are not allowed at all. Some things you just don't take it. The Transportation Security Administration, the TSA, doesn't always catch these prohibited items, but God does seize every aspect of our hearts. Look what it says in Ephesians chapter, verse 31. Look what it says. That's God checking the luggage. Look what it says. Let all bitterness. That's pretty thing. You're about to go flying. And God says to you, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from your luggage. You're about to fly and God says, you take that out of your luggage. That's what it says there. I'm using an illustration here, the same thing. If you fly, years ago, we landed in New York, coming from Portugal. And this lady was coming, this family's coming ahead of us, they were going to New York, Canada. We're going to New York, Boston. And the first thing that happened, the man said to her, do you have this item, this item, this item, this item? And the answer was, no, no, no, no, no. Open the luggage. She had everything there that she said no. It is a sad thing, because you know what? Now they're taking everything out. Every piece of stuff that was in that luggage was out. And we were there waiting, watching, because now it was our turn. And we're looking at each other, we don't have those items. We just have clothes. But you see that happen. God says to you and me, in order for your relationship to grow, in order for you to get the luggage to go on, you need to get rid of these things. It's right here, Ephesians chapter 4, verse 31. Let these things go, because they don't benefit a relationship. So all six of the emotion responses, because they're all emotions, on this list are hazards to your heart and my heart. Look what it says, that obedience, problem of the heart, anger, problem of the heart, wrath, problem of the heart, anger, problem of the heart, claimant, problem of the heart, evil speaking, problem of the heart. Then Jesus said, out of the heart proceed all these things. Amen. And look what it says here, put away from you. He doesn't say, you should. He said, you get rid of it. with all malice. So let's look at these things right here. Number one, bitterness. Bitterness is from the Greek word, pakria. It means especially, it's like a poison. And of course, what people don't understand, you ever see a bitter person? A bitter person is sour. It's cold. There's like, there's no sweetness to it. You ever see a person like that? And you go, oh, what is wrong with you? We're watching a movie. On our retreat, it's called God's Not Dead, the first one, never saw that movie before. And the professor was like a hardcore, angry atheist. And I remember in the movie, he literally scorned the student because he wanted every student to write, God is dead. And the guy said, I will not do that. I can't do that. I mean, it's the kind of movie you speak into the screen. I felt like we were talking to the screen. And I was so like, you know, I wanted to go straight up that teacher. And in the middle of the movie, I don't know if you guys remember that, the kid goes to him, what happened to you? The kid really, and he stopped, and he asked him again, what happened to you? Literally, why are you so angry at God? I'll give you all the proof that God exists, and why are you so angry at him? Wow, you could see the bitterness and the anger all exposed in his body. It comes from the heart. So bitterness, let me tell you, a bitter person is a sour person. And God says, mm-mm, child, take that out of your luggage. I don't want that there. Get that thing out of it, because it's going to poison you. All right? Number two, rat. It's from the word tumourism, which means that passion, it's breathing hard, it's indignation, it's beyond anger. It speaks of a white heat of anger. If you go to bed angry, let's put it this way, you will allow the anger to swim in your heart until it eventually boils to wrath. Rat doesn't happen to a person like that. It swims. It's like a food that you live in a stove overnight, you know, like in the crockpot. It just keeps going and going to a point that it just explodes out. You don't sleep either when you go to bed angry. Well, praise the Lord. Thank you. Amen. But I tell you what, God says, get rid of that stuff out of your luggage. You don't need that to travel. Number three, anger. Anger is from the word urge, which means violent passion. I mean, there's all different types of anger. We're going to talk about that this morning. But anger, some people are so explosive, it doesn't take much. You poke them and the giant is awake. It wakes right up in anger. I mean, I know some people that are... I have no idea what they spoke because they're so angry they can't even control their words and it comes right down. Others, this swims and it comes right up. That's the wrath. So God says to you and me, wrath, anger doesn't fit in the airlines. Get rid of it. Get rid of it. Clamour. It is not a word we use often, but it's translated from a Greek word, which is klodge, which means an outcry. Perhaps it's easily present day example of a claim of 90% of the anger post on social media. You know, some people go on social media and burst out. You see that? And you go, why in the world do you talk about your private life on social media? And they go on and on. They expose that thing. They keep going. Listen, I'm gonna give you two cents about social media, okay? It's called social media. You get that? So when you put a post, you're exposing yourself for everybody to put their two cents into it. And some people get mad and angry because, how could somebody do that to me? Well, some things you just don't put there because you're gonna expose yourself to that. I'll tell you what, I put our food pantry on the group here, and you don't want to know what I got back. And I meant well. I'll tell you what, there's many wicked minds in this world. Many wicked hearts and evil hearts. I could not, if I was showing it to you, you would go, oh. Goodness. I'm not saying all is bad, but there was a lot of bad there. So, evil speaking. Evil speaking is from blasphemy. The word would often translate in blasphemy. It means it's speaking evil of others. This sometimes takes place in a person, but it was often in a slander way or slander the name of someone. We see this on politics. How people destroy each other. False accusations, evils, purposely destroying people. And God says, uh-uh, child. This thing doesn't fit in your luggage. Get rid of it. Malice. Malice is from the word kakia, which means depravity or evil wickedness. This is when your anger becomes in a meaning way. You're so angry that you become mean. It can happen when you actively plot revenge, refusing to speak, freezing your checking account, so to speak, maybe husband and wife relationships, but being purposely mean, it is malice, purposely try to harm somebody. And God says to you and me, child, you don't need that. in your relationship. What I'm trying to say here this morning is this. God tells us what we don't need in order for our relationships to work. Because if we keep putting those things in, He knows better than we do. And He says to you when we try, it's not going to work. So we need to take those things out. That's why we must guard against anger and bitterness and be vigilant always. When we make small exceptions, we can find ourselves in a slippery slope and we don't want to go there. So, number two, okay, lightening your luggage load. You see, this is a weird outline, but I'm telling you, lightening your luggage load. Some people think of forgiveness as a stuffing and offense of a light pretender that never happens. For example, oh, forgive me, that's it, and they brush it off like a cold thing. That's not the way it works. When you approach the Lord and ask Him for forgiveness, how you ask Him for forgiveness? You ask him with a broken heart, you regret what you have done, or you just brush it off and say, Lord, I'll forgive me for I did this. What do you think he's going to do? He's looking at you and said, you have no intentions of asking. See, the word forgiveness is a lot deeper than just a word. And it fits to all of us. All of us. So lighten your load. Biblical forgiveness, however, isn't stuffing an offense deep into the luggage. It's handing the offense over to God. It is trusting God to be the judge in releasing you to the problem that you have. He's given it to him. This is why Joseph's brothers who had sinned deeply against him were fearful that he would retaliate. Joseph replied, What did they do to him? Remember the story of Joseph? What did they do to Joseph? Now imagine you there and you were the one being sold. How would you feel about your family or your bloodline, your family selling you like a piece of merchandise? How would you feel? Would that destroy you for the rest of your life? It could. It could damage you for the rest of your life. I can't believe my family have done this to me. I mean, people stop talking to each other and break relationships for less than that. But when this father died and they faced Joseph, they're still thinking about what they did. I wonder if they ever asked God to forgive them. The Bible doesn't say that, but I wonder if they ever asked God to forgive for what they did. So they go before Joseph and they're fearful of what he's going to do. Oh, now the father's not around. Now he's going to retaliate towards us for what we have done to him. You see the relationship there? Look with Joseph. Genesis 50, 19 says, And Joseph said unto them, Fear not, for I am in the place of God. That is, I forgive you. I forgive you. You see, folks, and that's how relationships work. You always be willing to forgive the other person. Always. Otherwise, I don't care what relationship it is, it won't work. It is, listen, relationship works, people are committed to each other. It could be marriage, it could be, like I said, friends, it could be somebody dating each other, it can be father and son, father and daughter, mother and son, whatever relationship is, you gotta be commitment to each other. How many mothers don't speak to their children? How many fathers don't speak to their children because their relationships are broken? I work with several people like that. I don't talk with my father for 20 years. Why not? And they bring the issue right back up. I said, for that? You know, life is short, folks. And if we have an unforgiving heart and the person that we refuse to forgive moves out of the scene, Many people will regret that for the rest of their days because they didn't have that chance. Or they had the chance, they refused to do it. Now the remorse hits them up. We shouldn't live that way. God says, put in your luggage forgiveness. Forgiveness. So light your load. It wasn't, see here in the justice of, He wasn't saying that what they did in Sullingham was right, but He forgave them. See, when we choose to forgive, we're not going to tell the other people that, oh, I agree with you after all. It's not that. We can say, I'm sorry, I understand, I forgive you. Okay, look what it says in Romans 12, verse 19. So a forgiving Christian remembers that he too has been forgiven. Why we forgive? Because we have forgiven. The grace of God came upon us and we have been forgiven by the grace of God. So God did not forgive us because we were good people. who had never sinned, because let me tell you this, all of us have faults here. That includes me. All of us do wrong. All of us think wrong. All of us. But let me tell you, when we got saved, we were not that good. That's why we need a Savior. But I tell you what, it's just the grace and the blessing of all of it is that when we come to the Lord, no matter what you have done, He forgives. Somebody asked me the other day, maybe a few months ago, said to me, you tell me, I was witnessing to him, and he said to me, you tell me that a first degree murder, God can forgive a first degree murder. I look at him, I said, yes. He looked at me like in disbelief. I said, that's the grace of God that I don't understand. In my society, I might never forgive such a person, but God forgives. And he goes, I cannot believe you. I said, well, that's what the Bible says. Our God as love and as grace and mercy is beyond my understanding. I do not understand. So the truth is, of course, a forgiving Christian remembers that he too been forgiven. God enough forgives us because we are good people, because we all sin, we all sinners. Christians are are not good people, they are forgiving people. Follow that? They are forgiving people by the grace of God. And as we grow in the Lord, we get a little better, a little better day by day. So it is because of the forgiveness that we have been given that God commands us to forgive others the same way, listen to this, He had forgiven us. Wow. How can I forgive like God forgives? How can you forgive like God forgives? His mercy and His forgiveness is beyond my understanding. But it says right there in Ephesians, and you're going to read that verse. Go to Luke chapter 17, verse 3. It is sobering words coming from Jesus. It says, Luke 17, 3, it says, take heed, take heed, pay attention to yourselves. If thy brother, listen, this is not marriage, this is thy brother, trespass against thee. What does that mean, trespass? Offended you, all right? It says, rebuke him, and if he repent, forgive him. Literally like this, brother, tell me, go again. Brother, you did offend me. And brother goes, will you forgive me? I'll forgive you. You see how that works? That's that simple. That's what Jesus is saying here. Take heed, pay attention. If your brother sinned against you or hurt you, said there's something wrong and said, rebuke him. Come to go to him and tell him like, you offended me. And then if he repented, if he say, please forgive me, forgive him. And look what it says in verse four, and if the trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, and say, and I repent, look what it says, thou shall forgive him. You know what the world says? I am done with you, get out of here. You offended me how many times? I'm done. No, you know what God says to you and me? You forgive continually. Keep on forgiving. That's the heart of the Christian faith. Continually forgiving. Is that hard to do? Yes. Yes, because we have to die to self. So, letter A, rebuke. The first response to an offense is to go directly to the person responsible. Show him, show her, whoever that is, that they have sinned against you. Let them know. Let them know so they give them a chance. Listen, why? Listen to this. Here's one thing we need to understand this. We don't go let them know to put them down or to hurt them. We go to let them know so they know so they have a chance to ask forgiveness so the relationship keeps on growing. You follow that? Because if you go like this, that's what's going to happen. The other person is going, no, no, no, no. And don't forget it's going to happen there. But if we go with the compassion and say, listen, you hurt me. They are fancy to give the other person the opportunity to say, oh, okay. Because the point here is the relationship to grow. You follow that? The point here is the commitment of two people, because every relationship is made by two people, to grow so that relationship can flourish. Okay, so let's go to the next one. Repentance. You heard the statement, when you forgive, you set two people free and realize that one of them was yourself. You got that? So the second part of the statement is definitely true. When you forgive someone, you release yourself from the acid of the bitterness, even if that person never repented or received your forgiveness. But let me tell you, when we repent, it takes that load off us, but it involves two people. One lends forgiveness, one repents. The next day is the opposite. This lends forgiveness, this one repents. Our relationship with God is different. We are always the one who break the fellowship. Because God doesn't sin against us, it's we that sin against him. So we see here the way this forgiveness works. So consider these seven A's of confession in this message this morning. Number one, how we deal with these things. Okay, so you go back here a little bit. about forgiveness. Look what it says in 1 John 1 9. If we confess our sins, look what it says. He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Sometimes even someone who betrayed us, we can still forgive. because that's the heart of the Christian faith. Now, look here. Consider the seven A Confessions that have used in this. I'm going to give it to you this morning. Look what it says. Number one, alter your behavior. You won't be perfect, but if you are genuine sorry, you will give effort towards changing your behavior. Without real change, there is a reason to question the repentance of the person. When we genuine regret what we had done before the Lord, what do we do? We are broken. We cry, we go before the Lord, Lord, please forgive me. You know what David said, a contrite heart, a broken heart, same thing. See, when there's a relationship between two people, when there's something wrong in there, when asked for forgiveness, it's got to be a genuine thing. Otherwise, how the other person is going to feel about it? It's going to say, oh, You're not being truthful. Number two, address everyone involved. Only talk to the people who are part of the problem and always look for solution. You follow that? And if a relationship between two people, it's not a battlefield, folks. It's not, I get the gun, and I got the machine gun, and you got this. No, because again, if it's a relationship, and if you want that relationship to flourish and to grow, it is, you gotta find a solution. Talk about it. Communication, we had a message on that. You gotta talk, because it's always for the good of the relationship. Do you go to Jesus with the finger pointing at Him and said, I don't know what you did to me, but I'm going to this, this, this, and you point the finger. How is the relationship with Him if you could do that? It doesn't grow. So, avoid, did I give you number two? Address everyone. Number three, avoid if, but, or, maybe, saying, and I know. Avoid these words, if, but, Maybe saying, I know I should have yelled at you, but you were being really annoying. It's just blaming the other person and finding fault with them that when we fail, I'm sorry if I offended you, you really never, you know, we keep the list keeps going on and on. But sometimes those kinds of words, you know what God says to you and me, take it out of the luggage. Because again, in a relationship, remember, the other person has feelings too. And in the next day, the other person got to remember that you have feelings too. So he's always like this. That's how relationships grow. Folks, why is so many problems in our society? Why so many teenagers cry and suicides are so big? Because people say, oh, my friend doesn't like me anymore. This friend doesn't. You know why? Because they never take time and stop pointing fingers at each other and forgive each other. It happens all the time. Look at the teenagers. Young people, that same thing. Today they're friends, tomorrow they're putting fingers at each other. When we put fingers at each other, guess what happens? That relationship won't grow. Because if you put a finger at me, I'm gonna put a finger at you. So, number four, admit specially what you did. That's a contrite heart, that's an honest heart. We admit we did wrong, we say, I'm sorry, I've done wrong. And you know why? It gives the opportunity for the other people to say, I forgive you. And when we do that, here's what happens. Joy and growth. That's what happens. Because now that person, if it means they're wrong, that person knows that's a genuine forgiveness and it causes the relationship to grow. Let me put it this way. How was your relationship, those of you who are married, with your children? Hard, isn't it? Can be hard in some situations. Sometimes you try and the other person doesn't respond. Because that's what I said, it involves two people committed to each other. Because if there's no commitment, why do we think we have so many relationships in our world that which don't grow? Because one tries, the other one don't. One gives in, the other one walks out. One gives in, the other one's not interested. So it becomes a struggle. It becomes a great struggle. Number five, acknowledge the hurt. Express sorrow for your sin. If it doesn't make you sad, then you have... I mean, I'm sorry, express sorrow for your hurt. Your hurt, express it to the other person. Number six, ask forgiveness. Some of the hardest words are these words, I'm sorry, I've done wrong. I go back to my dad. I love my dad, love my father, miss him daily. I do. But in my childhood, when I was a teenager, when my dad would come and say something, and I know he was so dead wrong, and sometimes he would offend me in things, especially I worked for him, and I never heard from him, I'm sorry. It hurts. I was my dad, I loved him. But I admire his heart, but before he went to be with the Lord, he'd get us all together and say, you guys, please forgive me for what I have done. It was a sobering time, but you know, it's never too late to say, forgive me. So ask forgiveness, number seven. This is the hardest one. Accept the consequences. It is hard sometimes because sometimes we don't want to proceed because we don't know what's going to be or sometimes we can imagine the consequences. Let us see forgiveness. One of the best known prisoners of Nazi concentration camps is Corrie ten Boom, a Dutch Christian. Many of you know who Corrie ten Boom is. A Dutch Christian who helped her family hide Jews from this. She and her father and her sisters were imprisoned, all of them. Both her father and her sister died through the brutal treatment in the camps. Years after the war, Corrie was speaking in a church about the love and forgiveness of God. After the service, a man came to thank her for her testimony. As he approached her, Corrie recognized him and recoiled. He had been one of the guards at the concentration camp. He reached out his hand and shaked hers. A fine message, he said. How good it is to know that our sins are on the bottom of the sea. She stood frozen. You mentioned the concentration camp, he continued. I was a guard there, but since that time, I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me from the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips," he says. Will you forgive me? Corrie Ten Boom, many people know about her. Look what Corrie says. Corrie later described that moment. She said, I stood there with the coldness of my heart. But forgiveness was not an emotion. I knew that, she said. Forgiveness is an act of the will, that the will can function regardless of the temperature of your heart. She told how she reached out to his hand, to shake his hand, and then the love of God filled my heart, she said, when I reached to his hand. And she said, I forgive you. Now think about it. Her family died for the brutal treatments. She was not treated very well. And this man was one of them. Think about it. If you were there, would your heart be full of hate and try to get even? And she said, forgiveness is an act of the will, not the temperature of your heart. That is so wise, because that's exactly what it is. We forgive as an act of the will. We forgive the same way Christ forgave us. Can you imagine that man, when she was given that testimony, the man knew exactly what she was talking about. The guilty party was there, but she chose to forgive. Number three, I'm going to go fast on this one. Packing your luggage well. Letter A, leave the scoreboard behind you. Listen, folks, in a relationship, we don't keep records. You did wrong me today, February what? 27, 1922. 5 o'clock in the morning, you did me wrong. 10 o'clock in the morning, you did me wrong. We don't keep records of that. You know why? Because they won't build relationships. Leave that scoreboard behind. Give grace, let it be. Give grace. Look what it says. And be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another. Even look what it says, as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. Kindness, tenderhearted. Wonderful things. I conclude with this. We mentioned at the beginning of this lesson that no relationship is perfect and no relationship can grow without forgiveness. And let me tell you, take those things out of your luggage. You know what we need to put a travel with? You know what we need to put in our luggage? Forgiveness. And how kind of forgiveness is that? The same kind of forgiveness that God has forgiven you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, this was not an easy lesson to preach this morning, Lord, because I have a heart too. But Lord, it is a lesson that all of us need, a lesson on forgiveness. Thank you, Lord, for your forgiveness. And give us a heart always to be willing to forgive others and others to be willing to forgive us. And I pray, Father, for someone here this morning that never really received Jesus as Savior. May today they really think about God's forgiveness, what God can do in their heart and what God can do for them. Lord, not just about heaven, which is important, but about transforming their hearts. Lord, I pray for anybody here that has a testimony that never received Jesus as Savior. May today they want that forgiveness that comes from You. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.