Alright, on Matthew 18, and I'll begin reading in verse number 21. Then came Peter to him and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven. Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him which owed him ten thousand talents." Let me just stop for a moment because there's always a question, well how much is that? Well it's hard to directly change from their money to our money, but to understand the value it would be a talent is basically a year's income. So he's saying that he owed him ten thousand years of income. Think he could pay it? Think you could pay it? No. Verse 25. Before as much as he had not to pay, his Lord commanded him to be sold and his wife and children and all that he had in payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down and worshiped him saying, Lord have patience with me and I will pay thee all. Then the Lord of that servant was moved with compassion and loosed him and forgave him the debt. But the same servant went out and found one of his fellow servants which owed him a hundred pence, and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. His fellow servant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Now just wait a moment, if you will. If you go back to verse 28, it says, which owed him a hundred pence. Now the difference in value, a pence is basically a day's wage. So he owed him a hundred days. Now that would be difficult, it'd be a struggle, but it'd be possible. It'd be a lot, but it's possible. So what he owed and was forgiven was an impossible amount. What he was owed to him was a possible amount. That's the difference. Verse 30 together now, ready? And he would not, but went and cast him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were very sorry. and came and told unto their lord all that was done. Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desirest me. Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? and his Lord was wroth and delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay all that was due unto him together in verse 35 so likewise shall my heavenly father do also unto you if ye from your hearts forgive not everyone his father brother their trespasses now I think as we read this account most likely you already are in your mind understanding with where we're going in this you're seeing the two different situations what was forgiven, what wasn't forgiven, and you're probably drawing some conclusions about it. I would, I'm assuming you would. But I would ask for your attention as we look at this together, because I'm going to maybe approach it from a slightly different, not vastly different, but a slightly different direction. How do we know how to forgive? Some of you may say, well, I would like to forgive, I just don't know how to forgive that person. Some of you may say, I don't know how, and I don't want to. Okay, so my goal this morning is to encourage you to want to, and if you want to, to explain how to do it. How do you know how to forgive? Let's pray, and we'll look at it together. Now Father, we would ask now your blessings, your help in these things. Now, Lord, we cannot do this without you. That would be an impossibility. But we believe, we trust that we can do it with you. That is a possibility. So I pray that you would help us, encourage us, strengthen us, enlighten us, motivate us, challenge us, change us. All those things, Lord, can only be done by you. We ask that you do it this morning. We ask for these things in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. Now, Peter's question which is the basis of this whole account, teaches a very important lesson. Verse 21, "...then came Peter to him and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?" So the question isn't, if you will be sinned against, because Peter is already assuming, own understanding that you will be. And so it's not if, it's not even, what do I do when I'm sinned against? What's implied in the question is, how do I deal with someone who has sinned against me multiple times? That's the point. Because it wasn't just, how do I forgive? He says, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive? Until seven times. Seven times was the idea of completion. And my guess is this, is that when Peter said that, he was looking at it as a high thing. I'm willing to go seven times. That's a lot. He's stepping out. And my guess is when he got the reply, it wasn't what he expected. Because Jesus said to Peter, not just seven, but 70 times seven. My guess is if we had a picture there and we zeroed in on Peter's face, you saw eyes bulging. What? Really? Now, based on that, now Jesus is going to teach something. Now, Jesus knows our heart. He knew their heart. He knows man. He knows how we are. But it probably wouldn't take a whole lot to look at Peter and to understand, Peter, let me help you understand this, because I see this is a hard thing for you to swallow. So this is the premise of this whole account we read. It's a question that Jesus is answering. We'll do this a couple times in the message. We're going to stop the car before we go any further. We're not making any forward progress. Let's talk for a moment. This is a caveat, something to consider. We're not talking, in this sermon, we're not talking about physical attacks. We're not talking about someone who's breaking your house at 3 o'clock in the morning. Because if someone's breaking your house at 3 o'clock in the morning, I'll just tell you, you think for you, I think for me. I'm not thinking about someone I need to forgive. I'm thinking about someone I need to to stop, and I would do whatever is necessary to protect my family. We're not talking about physical attacks. We're not talking about someone who has physically harmed you or trying to physically harm you. That's a different category. There's some other principles to understand there. But rather, this category of what we're understanding, what's being taught here, is an idea of personal attacks, in such that someone's lying, or gossiping, or cheating, or misusing you, or taking advantage of you, not in a physical way where you're physically at risk, at harm, but people are not doing right by you. Maybe they're disrespecting you, lying about you, doing things behind your back, and it hurts you. Now, some may do it ignorantly. Unfortunately, others do it purposely. And it hurts. And the result is emotional, maybe financial, maybe even mental pain and anguish. How do you deal with those situations? That's what Peter's asking, and this is what Jesus is answering. How do I deal with this? Not that someone's coming at me with a knife or a gun, or somehow they're hitting me at the club. Not those situations. But I'm just going through life, and people are attacking me, and lying about me, and cheating me, and doing me wrong. How do I deal with that? Now truthfully, it is not possible, it is not possible to go through life and never be sinned against. I'm talking to adults primarily, some teenagers, maybe this is true for teens, it's definitely true for adults, you've been done wrong. And just even probably when I started the message, things came to your mind that you remember. It is not possible to go through life and never be sinned against. But, it is possible to go through life, now watch, without being consumed by bitterness and hate because of what they did to you. There's a difference here. I'm not saying there's a way to go through life and everything's peachy-king, hunky-dory, and no one ever does you wrong. That's not the world we live in. We live in a sin-cursed, sin-filled world. Not everyone has the best intentions in their interactions with you. But it is possible, through the Word of God, through the power of God, through the help of God, to live a life that you're not consumed with bitterness and hatred because of what they did. This is what Jesus is now dealing with. How do you deal with these things that have been done wrong to you? Now a person may say, and this is an often said statement, I can't forgive. It hurts too much. And I would say to you, you're right. You can't. But God can. And that's the difference. We're not talking about what you do in your power and your might, but what God can do through you in His power and His might. God can give us the ability, the grace, the power to forgive those who have sinned against us. Now, I don't say this, I'm not trying to be braggadocious. Most of you who have been here a while know my testimony, know some of the stories and accounts of my life. We've been together enough, you know those things. All I'll say is this, if you have been sinned against and find it hard to forgive someone, I've been there, I know that. I also know how the Lord can deliver you from that. It's possible. You don't have to go through life with hatred and bitterness in your heart. It is possible to know the blessing, the power of forgiveness. So I want to share with you this morning, from our text, how the Lord has helped me, and trust how the Lord can help you in understanding how to forgive. Three things we're going to draw from our text. Let's go back now to our chapter 18 and let's look at the first of these three things together. Notice with me verse 23 if you will. Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened to a certain king which would take account of his servants and when he had begun to reckon one was brought into him which owed him ten thousand talents but for as much as he had not to pay his Lord commanded him to be sold his wife and children all they had payment to be made so here's the first thing if you look with me number one is this here's the first concept we have to establish and grow our faith in God you're saying where does that come from those verses let me explain this king was taken account of his servants now maybe There is an allusion here to the Lord. Now, every analogy breaks down. No human king is ever as great as our heavenly king. So God doesn't forget anything. He's not unaware of anything. But on the human side, this king did not know precisely in the top of his head what this guy owed him. But there was an account that he could look at and say, hey, this is what you owe me. There was a list of these things. So he understood that I can go to the books, as it were, and I can find out what this guy owed me, and by going to those books, he was able to know this. So this king that we see in our account, in the account here, had some type of account of his servants, and he knew what was going on with them. He knew what this person owed him. He knew what was due him. Now whatever follows in this teaching of forgiveness, now watch, stems from the king's knowledge of his servants. Everything that proceeds downriver starts here at the top, which is the king had servants and he took account of them, he knew what was going on. So what does that tell me? It tells me this, our lives do not exist in a vacuum. that there is one who knows what's happening in my life, who knows it even better than I know. Here's a truth that can bring great peace and calm to your heart when you have to deal with a lot of inflicted pain by others. It's not an easy truth, but it's a good truth, and here it is. As a believer, and that's the preface to this, as someone who is a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, and we'll talk about that a little bit later, nothing, nothing, zero, nothing has ever come into your life or my life unless it was allowed by an all-wise, all-loving, all-knowing God. God has an account of all things. He knows everything that's going on in my life. And nothing can enter into my life unless the Lord has opened some type of gap and allowed it to come in. Now let me, again, speak from my own testimony. Maybe you've felt this way, maybe not, but I tell you, I've felt this way, and I've gone through this. There are times when things have occurred in my life that I was not happy about, and that's saying it very lightly. And I've gotten alone with the Lord. When I was young, I used to, because I grew up in West Virginia, I would just, it's funny, I'd walk in the woods. Where's the woods? I walk outside and there's the woods, okay? So everywhere you go, there's woods. So I would just, I would sometimes walk for several hours. I'd just go find somewhere and just go that direction and just walk for a long period of time. And me and the Lord would have a talk, and typically the talk started out like this, Lord, I cannot believe that you're so stupid. How could you let this happen in my life? Lord, I am really mad at you. I mean, how can you call yourself God and let this happen? I would get mad, I would yell, I would criticize him, I'd get all upset with him. I'd just get it out. And then I'd stop. Sometimes that took a long time. And I'd say, Lord, I'm sorry. I'm just so upset. I don't like what's happening. Lord, you've got to do something. I know you're God. I know you know best. I know you love me. I know you care about me. Lord, I know you've allowed this. I don't like it, but I know you have, and help me deal with it. This is what we're talking about. The Lord has an account of our lives. He knows what we're going through. He knows what we're dealing with. And if we're a born-again believer, He has allowed it for His purpose and His reason. I'm not saying He's doing it flippantly or uncaringly, but there's a reason and a purpose He's allowed it to happen. And we have to trust the Lord in these things. Let me share a couple verses with you. Notice with you Colossians 3.3. Notice what the Bible says. For you are dead, talking about believers now, and your life is hid with Christ in God as a born-again believer. Now this is the blessing. Now the great blessing of being born again is we go to heaven when we die. But that's not the end of the blessing. At this moment, at this time, I'm a born-again believer in Jesus Christ. I accepted the Lord as my Savior as a teenage boy, riding the bus just like some of these teens do. I rode the bus, I was a teenager, rode the bus, went to church, got saved, got called to preach, and here I am. Not exactly that quick, but over some periods of years. As a born-again believer, I am like, let me see here, I got at least a penny, I'm a preacher, I gotta, okay, I gotta dime, man, I'm a rich preacher. Okay, so here is Jesus. I am placed in Christ at salvation, and Christ is in the Father. To get to me, you have to go through the Father and the Son. So anything that's ever entered my life has been allowed by the Lord himself. Now, that doesn't mean I like everything that happens. That means I trust God in everything that happens. I can look to him and say, Lord, I know you know best. Personally, I don't like this, but I trust you. The Bible says our life is hid with Christ and God. Notice what it says here in the book of John. John chapter 10. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." Notice the thing, we're in the hand of Jesus, and notice this, pluck them out of my Father's hand, and Jesus is in the Father's hand. That's the security we have as believers. So I said, number one was this, that we have to establish and grow your faith in God. Here's what the faith looks like. Whatever God has allowed is designed to grow, correct, stretch my faith so that I am better suited to serve Him and bring honor and glory to Him. And sometimes that hurts. Let me just give you a quick illustration from my own life. Again, if you were speaking, you would give your illustrations, I'm speaking, I give mine. I'm not trying to say I've arrived, I have not, I don't even know where arrive is, I'm so far from it. But I try to live for the Lord, and here's some things the Lord has taught me. A week or so ago, I don't remember what service, it was Sunday morning, Sunday night, or Wednesday night, it was one of the three, I spoke about, and I won't mention the exact church again because of what I'm gonna say next, But I spoke about a particular church where the Lord called me, and I went into a staff position. I wasn't the pastor, I was on staff. And I told about how sure I was. Again, I'm not going to go through the whole illustration because I'm not trying to to attack that church. But I was positively sure, and if you were here you know what I told you, this is where I prayed and the Lord, I threw the fleece out and the Lord did exactly what I prayed and it was as clear as my hand right there that God wanted me to go to that church and be on staff. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. Can I tell you, of all the churches I've ever been at, that was the most miserable time in my life. I served there two years. See, how do those two things go together? I don't know, except the Lord knows. That's all I know, the Lord knows. And I can trust Him. Just because something is God's will doesn't mean it's always going to be peachy king and hunky dory. Pastor Wright, really, do you think God's will would ever include suffering? Can you ever think of any account, anything that would include suffering? I think I can think of one big thing that includes suffering. Somehow we think that we who believe Christ should never have to suffer like our Christ. But we're called to follow his steps, his example. Let me give you number two, I gotta hasten. So number one is this. Establish and grow your faith in God. Now go with me now back to chapter 18 and look with me at verse 24. Because there's another now interesting thing here. And when he, this is the king, began to reckon, I want you to notice the wording. One was brought unto him which owed him 10,000 talents. Basically, he said, hey, who's this Joe Schmoe guy? You need to go get him. And they said, hey, Joe Schmoe, the king wants to see you. And Joe Schmoe walks up and the king says, You owe me 10,000 talents? Really? And the guy, you can imagine the panic, full panic. Oh, please forgive me. No, no, don't sell my wife. Don't sell my kids. No, don't sell anything. I will pay you somehow. And the king's like, really? You got 10,000 years to live? I don't think so. But notice there is no animosity. The sermon is brought to him. Now drop down to verse 28. Notice the difference here. When this servant now is forgiven and leaves and goes find Bob Smith who owns him some money, but the same servant went out and found one of his fellow servants which owed him a hundred pence, now watch the wording, and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat saying, pay me that thou owe us. This wasn't, he went and found him and said, hey Bob, you know, you got some money you owe me? He went up to him and he said, pardon me. He grabbed, don't swing back please. He grabbed him by the throat and said, Bob, where's my money? Is that the way he was treated? Even when he was in debt, is that how the king treated him? Even when he's owed 10, never. Totally different response. That brings us to big number two, if you'll look with me. Not only do we have to establish and grow our faith in God, but number two is this, never make revenge your goal. Never make revenge your goal. The king, no animosity, he's just dealing with the debt. The servant is very personal and very aggressive. Here's the important lesson, don't miss it. The king, through forgiveness, was able to settle the account. When the king looked and said, you owe me more than you could ever pay, bud. There's only one way to settle this. I have to forgive you all of it. And the account was at zero. He goes to his fellow servant, grabs him by the throat, and says, you pay me everything. I don't have it. I'll put you in jail until you pay me. You understand what that means? How much working are you doing in jail? How can you pay the debt if you're in jail? He is unable. So this guy can never get the debt settled because he's bitter and won't forgive. The king has a settled debt because he was compassionate and forgave. Now, before we go forward in our own forgiveness, I want you to think for a moment about the Lord's forgiveness. What could you do to erase your sin debt? I know, Pastor White, I would join a church, and you would join a church as a sinner, and that's all you'd be is a sinner. I know, Pastor White, I know what I'd do. I would get baptized. I'd get baptized every single Sunday, and you'd get wet every Sunday, and you would still be a wet sinner. How do you get rid of the sin debt? You have 10,000 talents. How could you ever pay it? I can never pay it. I owe too much. I could never pay my debt. I needed a king to pay it for me. The Lord Jesus Christ. He came, He died in our place, shed His blood so that it was possible for our sin debt to be washed away. Now, let's back up for a moment. Let's just pretend. Okay, we're pretending for a moment. The guy says, sir, Joe Schmoe, you owe me 10,000 talents. Please, please give me time. I'll pay it. And the king's like, really? You can't pay me 10,000 talents. I'll just forgive you. No, I don't want your charity. I'll pay it myself. All right. Hey, go sell his wife, sell his kids, sell everything he has, let's just start the ball rolling. Did that have to be the outcome? The king was willing to forgive. I'm going to tell you, if you're sitting here this morning, the king is willing to forgive you. You owe a debt you can never pay. And only the blood of Jesus can wash it away. And you go ahead and stiff neck God and say, I don't need God, and I don't need any mercy or charity, you're going to die and you're going to spend eternity in hell. because you won't come to Jesus Christ to be born again. It's not about how good you are, it's about how good he is, and he's willing to forgive you. The king, through his own compassion, forgave this man. But the other man, no compassion, no mercy, unwilling to forgive, and the account was never settled. So what does it mean for us now? What it means for us as sinners, we get forgiven, but what about us who have been sinned against? A lot of people never get over their bitterness. Now watch, because they have imprisoned the one who has hurt them and demand payment. I demand you make payment. You hurt my feelings. You hurt me. You attack me. And until you make it right, I'll never forgive you." And you're never going to get forgiveness, and you're always going to deal with bitterness. It comes to a point in time when you just have to be willing to forgive people, even if they don't ask for it, even if they're not worthy of it. Because you imprison yourself. Your account will never be settled. You have to learn to forgive and just say, I know you can't pay me, so I'm just going to forgive you. I don't want my heart imprisoned in bitterness. You think you're putting them in prison. I just won't talk to them. What I'll do is this. I'll put something nasty on social media. That'll teach them. That'll teach them. That's always funny. I won't talk to them. If they don't invite me for Thanksgiving, I won't go. I'll see them in Walmart, and I'll walk the other way. I won't text them. I won't call them. I'll just pretend, and I've had people tell me this, I'm going to pretend like you're dead, and I'll never speak to you again. Okay, but I'm not dead and I'm living my life. It sounds like you are going to have the issue here. The bitterness. And we live in our own prison of bitterness. Thinking, here's what we're thinking, I got them in prison. No, no, you got you in prison. It's a prison of bitterness. That is not where you want to be. You cannot make revenge your goal. Because it is not, as a believer now, as a born-again believer, it is not your place to bring vengeance. That's the Lord's place. Once I establish my faith in God and decide to trust Him with my life, once I did that as a teenage boy, I got to a place where I could release all my bitterness and say, Lord, I'm trusting You to take care of things. Notice with me in Romans chapter 12. Notice what the Bible says. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath. In other words, put it aside. For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thy enemy hunger, feed him. If he thirst, give him drink. For in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Now watch, be not overcome of evil. That's being imprisoned by your bitterness. but overcome evil, get out of that prison with good. This is what the Lord has told us. This is what the Lord has provided for us. So that's the first, that's the second, here's the third now, lesson about how to forgive. How do I know how to forgive? Go back with me to our text. Chapter 18, verse 32. Then his Lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, This is the servant who wouldn't forgive, he has been forgiven but won't forgive. O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desirest me. Shouldest not thou also had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses. There's a lot to unpack there. I'm just gonna give you three quick implications about what we see here. So here's point number three. Seek a clean heart towards others. A clean heart towards others. In your interaction, have a clean heart. Don't be one of these people who are talking behind people's back or smile to the face, knife them when you're away from them. Seek a clean heart. Here's three implications quickly. Here's the first one. God is willing to forgive you completely. Notice what he says, I forgave thee all that debt. It is possible to be completely and eternally forgiven. Let me just stop for a moment again. I spoke earlier about how that we can have forgiveness through Jesus Christ but the truth is there are things about you that maybe no one else knows but you in God and you would be unbelievably ashamed if people knew this about you. You have it hidden, you have it pushed down, buried six feet under, and you don't think anyone knows, but the Lord knows. I'm telling you, God can forgive you. I'm not making light of sin. I'm not just saying, go ahead and sin, and you know, go do all your sin, and you say, okay, God forgive me, do all your sin, God forgive me. Okay, I'm not talking about playing games with God. But I'm talking about when you sit there and your heart is broken. Because there are people I've talked to about the gospel, and they've said something like this. In fact, I think it was me and Bill who were out sewing. This was like a year or so ago. A guy was very, I think, very honest. He said, God could never forgive me. You don't know what I've done. God can never forgive me. I don't know what he did. But I know something about God, and God can forgive him. God can. He can. That's the first implication. that we can be completely, eternally forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ. Here's the second implication. We see this in verse 33. Here's the second implication. Our relationship with God is going to be hindered by a heart full of hate and bitterness towards others. The bitterness doesn't only imprison you, but it isolates you. That's not where the Lord wants. And the Lord withdraws His blessings and His grace. I'm not saying you'll lose your salvation. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying the presence of God, the blessings of God, when you feel like you're close to Him, He pulls away because you and your heart have all this bitterness and hate towards someone else. I've said it multiple times. Some of you already know what I'm about to say next. No one, no one has sinned against you like you sinned against God. You're not going to convince God that someone's beyond forgiveness. Lord, you don't know what ... Well, I guess you do know what they did. Well, Lord, it was really ... I guess it was as bad like mine. No one's ever sinned against you like you have sinned against God. And God expects forgiveness from the heart by believers. And here's the third implication, and that's verse 35. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother. Of that whole account, verse 35 to me is the big hurdle. It is so much easier to say, that's right, that's right, I forgive you, and walk away. Let me tell you what's hard, it's from your heart to forgive them. Because it's easier to say the words than actually mean it in your heart. If I would ask you, if I went around this morning, who do you hate, who do you hate? You say, I don't hate anyone, you're not supposed to hate people. I know that, but who do you hate? We know the words, but what's in the heart? Just because we're sitting here on a Sunday morning does not mean that we don't have people sitting here with hate in their hearts towards other people. So the third implication is forgiveness isn't just words, but it's what's actually in our hearts towards others. So how do I know it's in my heart? Can you operate towards them? Can you interact with them without any animosity or hidden agenda because of what they've done to you? A lot of people can't. All these little, you know, these things you say that had this, you know, undercurrent of meaning to them, because you haven't forgiven them. When they say something, yeah, well, I know what you, you remember what you did, because you haven't forgiven them. Oh, here you go again, because you haven't forgiven them. Now let me give you my reality. You have your reality, I have mine. I'm not complaining, I'm not whining, this is it. Maybe you can relate to it, maybe you can't, but I think some can relate with this in your own situation. As a pastor, there are people who have, that I've pastored, people who call me pastor, they're members of a church that I have pastored, who have actively worked and attacked, worked against and attacked me or my family. But here's the key, they don't always know that I know what they've done or said. Because here's what they expect, if they did it, you're gonna quit sitting in front, aren't you? Because here's what they expect, if Pastor White knew I said it, he would come to me and say, whoa, why did you say that, why did you? But since he didn't do it, he must not know. Maybe that's just because that's not how I'm gonna respond to it. There are people who have actively said things behind my back, they've gone to other people, some even trying to hurt the church itself, which is a line when you cross, then my actions would be slightly different. But there are people who attack me, they attack my wife, they attack my kids, and what you want to do is, you just want to baptize them. You want to hold them down for like 10 minutes, a little bubble stop, Raising the newness in the deadness of life. That's kind of what you want to do. But you can't do that. Unless you have a guy who has an excavator and you can bury him out back. Now you're wondering about the mounds out there, aren't you? But you, now watch this. And this is the challenge, and the Lord has helped me, and I'm not saying I'm perfect at it. Again, I'm in no way claiming I've arrived. This is still a struggle for me. But I've had to go to people like that, who know some things they've done. They don't know that I know, but they know what they've done. And I have been able to say something like this. This has happened, different ministries, different times. I've had to say something like this. As far as I know, I have nothing in my heart against you. And I gotta say it honestly. Now, only the Lord can bring you to that point. Now, why would you do that? Because you're afraid to lose people? I'm not afraid to lose people. They're not my people, they're the Lord's people. They come and go as they please. Because I love Jesus and I wanna please Him. That's why you behave that way. I don't want the absence of the Lord's presence. I don't want the absence of His blessing. I don't want the Lord to pull away from me and say, okay, live your own life the way you want. I don't want that. I need Him. I plead for His presence. I want His blessing on my life. There's an old psalm that goes like this, nothing between my soul and the Savior. We probably should add as the next line, nothing between my soul and my neighbor. That's where you're supposed to live. Now we cannot control whether anyone has bitterness towards me or towards you. You can't control what their bitterness is towards you, but you can control your bitterness towards them, and the Lord expects it. Now again, if we were to take a time machine and go back 2,000 years or so when this happened, Peter comes up, how many times should I forgive this person who has sinned against me? What about seven times, Jesus? What would you think about me then? And Jesus said, Peter, here's what I think. I think about 70 times seven. That's how I imagine Peter, like, what? How can you do that? You can't. God can. We can never do these things without Him. But God would never give you something to do without also providing, if you seek Him, the grace and the power to do it. Here's a statement, we're almost done. It is not possible to go through life and never be sinned against. But it is possible to go through life without being consumed by bitterness and hate because of what was done to you. That is the power and blessing of forgiveness. Now for some, maybe today, you need the forgiveness. God is the answer. He can forgive you. He can wash away your sins and give you a promised home in heaven. For some, maybe today, you need to forgive. God is still the answer. He can give you the power and the grace to forgive. But we have to seek him. To that end, let's bow our heads and let's pray.