I want to borrow that fan. Yeah, oh there we go. This is not really my starting point, but it brought up an issue, not an issue, but I brought up a challenge to the men this morning in our prayer meeting, if they could find the play on words. And I do this because it's always my purpose to try to get us to expand our understanding, to look behind the English, to look behind the vernacular. Now those few of us, well, if you speak three or more languages, you're called multilingual. If you speak two languages, you're called bilingual. And if you speak one language, you're called an American. Just so you know. So I want to get us to expand beyond that because there's so much more in the scriptures than what we find in the English. And you don't have to be a Greek scholar to find it. You just have to have a couple of tools like this. This was supposed to be in the bulletin this morning for everyone. This is what we're going to talk about. This is our takeoff text, starting in verse 3. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves, that each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interests of others. Having this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. Being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross." Now, of course, we're talking about forgiveness this morning, and the play on words here is The English word conceit and down in verse 7 where it says emptied himself. Now we don't grasp that in English because what is conceit? You think of yourself more highly than you ought and you know and you got a swelled head? Swelled. Well in the Greek, oops drop that down the line, hit it again. Kono doxia. That's the Greek word. Now, it's actually two words. The first part, kono, means empty. Doxia, of course, is glory. So the one who has empty glory, or think of a balloon filled with hot air. This is what we are in our sin state. This is, and every time we walk according to our sin nature, according to the flesh, rather than walking according to the Spirit, guess what we're eviding? Swelled heads. But what did Christ do? Who is our example in all things? Christ, Kena'o, emptied, that's the verb form, he emptied himself. So right up here we see in these verses where we are in our natural state, state we operate in usually from all the time, most of the time, because let's say, how many of us here walk spiritually 50% of the time? I'll put my hand down because that's not going to be me either. We try to, that's our goal, to be in Christ-likeness all the time, and we should, but that's a goal. But, as I've taught before, we are of two minds, disuche. We have the new nature, but we also have the flesh. And the two, according to Romans 8, are at war with each other. And Paul, in Romans 7, understood the depth of this battle, as we do. reality of it. We have a very difficult time emptying ourselves. And one other aspect of here, it says selfish ambition, erathia, that means factions to create contention. In other words, we have divisions And from that, why do we have divisions? So we can conquer and divide and conquer, elevate ourselves. So what does that have to do with us today? Let's close that out. We'll go to here. Go to here. And it has to do with our It's up here. There we go. Technology, you gotta love it. Always keeps you humble. Has to do with forgiveness, because that's what we want to talk about this morning. You don't mind, let me take those off a moment. How to destroy relationships and yourself. What is our purpose here? It's all about relationships. That was, man tried to live alone for an extremely short amount of time, and God created a relationship with Eve. who by the way was the only one named in the garden. In Hebrew, Adam just means man, he never had a name. It's Eve, the mother of all things, and you, come here. And they capitalized it and made it a name, but it's really not a name, it's just another Hebrew word for man. But it's all about relationships. Everything revolves around Christ's example. He is the righteous one who died for the weak, asthenia. We're going to come back to that concept time after time after time. In the New Testament, it's frequently translated as weakness in the flesh or sin, occasionally as illness. But more often than not, it means just weakness in the flesh, it means sin. And we have reconciliation through Christ who turns our sorrow into joy. Thus, and here's the important part, we are to forgive others as Christ forgave us. And that's the parable in Matthew chapter 6. Or here he's talking about in the Lord's Prayer, we are to forgive others as God forgave us. And according to the parable, if we cannot forgive others their tiny debt against us, how can we expect God to forgive the great debt we have with him? But we seem to forget that. We seem to slide over that. So what is forgiveness? Forgiveness separates us from the just penalty of our sins. That's what it does. You're familiar with the verse in Psalms 103 where it says, I will separate your sin from you as far as the east is from the west. That's what forgiveness is. It separates us from the penalty of our sin. And it's due to the finished work of Christ. In fact, forgiveness is actually love in action toward anybody. everybody. What forgiveness is not though, it's not forgetfulness. If I forget that you sinned against me, what am I actually doing? I'm setting myself up for you to do the same thing all over again. In other words, I'm enabling you to cycle through that and do it again and again and again. it's not forgetfulness, it is actually an understanding of what sin you did or what sin was done against you, and then helping the other person. Like there's immorality, you do not let the other spouse on a long leash to fall right back into it again. Let me give you an example. In a church a long time ago, we had a gentleman who was actually convicted of child molestation. He did his time, he came back to the church, and he asked for a position in Junior Church. And the deacon said, sure, you did your time, we forgive you. Within about three months, he cleaned out his family savings, left his wife and children and went to Disney World, Orlando, Because that's a magnet for child molesters. And soon after, he was in trouble again. Forgiveness is not forgetfulness. It's helpfulness. So that's the basis of our relationship with Christ and others. Forgiveness flows from strength to weakness. Now, remember when we looked over in Philippians, we had that kinodoxia? We all want to operate from a position of strength. Nobody wants to operate from a position of weakness. But the truth of the matter is, we are all terribly weak. That's what sin is. Asthenia. It's this terribly haunting weakness. And so what do we do? We try to cover it up. We try to cover it by appearing strong. And so we want to hide that weakness from others, because in the lost world, weakness invites attack. But unfortunately what we actually do is we substitute our own strength for the strength of Christ. Thus we miss being a blessing and thus we have a difficult time trying to give forgiveness. And forgiveness, of course, restores our relationship with Christ and with others. Forgiveness is probably the most important thing that we can do, other than salvation, to preserve our relationship. Forgiveness does not avoid the consequences. Apologies. What's an apology all about? I'm sorry, I got caught, don't hurt me too bad. It's like the end of a long multi-month trial and the accused is found guilty and he stands up and he apologizes. Why is he apologizing at the end of the trial? So they don't throw the book at him. Why is the politician up there apologizing when he gets caught with his hand in where it shouldn't be? He doesn't want you to vote him out of office. That's not forgiveness. Forgiveness is, I have done thus, please forgive me. And you deal with the consequences of it, like David did. Now what are relationships? Since we're talking about forgiveness and relationships, what is a relationship? Relationship is the liaison between two what? Yeah, once you look you level in the eye and say I am a sinner and I am here to dominate you. I hear anybody saying that. I am a sinner and I am here to dominate you and of course you're both saying it to each other And this is friendships too. We're not talking marriage here, we're talking any relationship. Why do you enter into a relationship? For a mutual benefit. And of course, if you're both trying to dominate, what happens? War. War. Discord. Disruption. Notice here, the couple holding hands. Notice what they're not really doing. Darling, I love you. I'll do anything for you as long as I can control you. Remember the TV show, I Love Lucy? Yeah. Do you know that when that aired, people hated it? because it was a terrible marital relationship. It was a terrible show. And it wasn't until after he hit the reruns and it kind of grew on America that, yeah, this is OK. And then other shows came out to emulate it, like The Honeymooners. Wasn't that a great family relationship? He kept threatening to beat the tar out of her. And so guess what? In the next generation, they beat the tar out of each other. Really. Because it was okay to do. It became legitimized. So when you have a husband and wife, sinners, come together, you have a marriage, and they produce what? Sinners. Are we any surprised about families? And what are those little sinners trying to do? Dominate you. Now, I've been in healthcare for almost 30 years. One point I worked neonatal intensive care and regular nurses from time to time. And you know what I discovered? And I have eight kids anyway. The kids don't smile until about six months old because it takes them that long to train the parents. And once the parents are trained, they're happy. And for the past 20 years with the modern self-esteem movement in schools, guess what? They cut it down to three months. Because now those parents have been acclimated to, I want my child to have great self-esteem. You know what another word for self-esteem is? Selfish. It's all about me. And what started happening in the schools after a generation of being taught high self-esteem? School shootings. Because it's all about me. That's how I deal with my relationships. There ain't no forgiveness, there's only me. And since you're both about me, one of us has to go. We want to talk about biblical relationships though where we're not shooting each other. You know it's actually a covenant between others and the Lord and the example of this in the Old Testament is David and Jonathan. See we're very casual in friendships. It's almost like a Brownian movement. Whoever we bump into, we form a casual relationship. And then when they move on, we bounce into someone else and form a casual relationship. Oh, we're friends, and we share. And then you bounce into someone else, and we're friends, and we share. But you don't see that in the ancient world. When you formed a friendship, it was a bond. It was a sacred bond. You died for each other. You know, in interviewing prisoners of war, especially in Australia, because they were caught when they were captured, they were interned by the Japanese and were building a railroad. And they were dying like flies. And the survivors, once they were liberated, they said the only reason we survived is we had a mate. I'd be friend in Americanism. We had a mate. And when I got sick, that mate was there to help me. Because the Japanese weren't helping you. And when he got sick, I helped him. And we helped each other. And we encouraged each other. That's what friendship is. You're there. And marriage. That's what marriage is. Only tighter. Unfortunately, it's all marred by sin. In Genesis 3, 16, the wife desires what? That'd be dominance over her husband. And the husband would what? I'm criticized because I don't get good enough participation. So when I stop and I wave, that's your cue. And the answers are usually on the board. The husband would dominate his wife. Is that what happens? I'm not hearing much honesty in this crowd. Well, you're dominating each other. That's the struggle. You look in her eyes. You're melted. And she's saying to herself, gotcha. Ergo, it's all about dominating each other. Wow, isn't that a nice healthy view of relationships? Gee. But a biblical relationship, Christ is the foundation for everything. The Bible is the sole authority of the relationship. You know where we get into trouble at? It's when we start off our sentences with, I think. Or, I believe. believe the Bible says." See, in my class you're not allowed to start a sentence that way. In my class you have to tell me the book, chapter, or verse you're coming from so we can discuss it from the Scriptures. Now we may disagree on how to interpret that Scripture and that's fine. But I think and I believe are like noses. Everybody's got one. It's out there for everyone to see and you can't hide it. But it's about as meaningless. But that's what we do. And why do we fight and argue and develop factions? Why did Abraham play favorites between Ishmael and Isaac? Why did Isaac play favorites between Esau and Jacob. It's all about dominance. And they played it back to him. And then they played it off against each other. That is a pretty picture of a family. And then he goes off to visit his relatives, who are kind of like my relatives. We're going to dominate you for a while. So forgiveness is the only successful form of conflict resolution for those who like to use psych terms. You like that? A little modern psychology in there. Help you feel comfortable. Lack of forgiveness. I know this is foreign to everybody in here. That ain't ever happened to nobody. Now, if you're friends or you're dating, obviously, hopefully you're not in bed doing this, but it's still the same concept. You get together and you stare at each other and it's like eyes. And you're going, why did he offend me like that? Or hopefully you're saying, what did I do? The single greatest problem for all relationships is lack of forgiveness. It divides the relationship of two sinners, each vying to control the other. Each usurping God as his or her authority. Because let's face it, if we're trying to dominate, we're not appealing to God, are we? Now, here's why most conflict resolution strategies fail. Because they don't address the true issue. Psychology cannot address the true issue because it rejects biblical spirituality and salvation. And having worked in the field for several years, I saw that firsthand. The focus is on behaviors and problems with roots in the past. That'd be a little Freudianism there for those who are going for that thing. But you know what really the problem is? They see the other person as the problem. If you turn to Romans 2 verses 1 through 6, and you read that, and what it actually is saying is that, I'm not going to handle my problem. I'm going to look for somebody who's got the same problem, but it's worse than me. And the reason it's worse than me is because it's in you. And then I'm going to point them out to God. And God, see them? You're terrible. Fix them. And I look good. Actually, if he fixes them, you look worse. But you're trying to avoid the judgment of God. You're not trying to work on the relationship, you're actually causing erothea, divisions. And you cause those divisions so that you can elevate self. Don't be whispering down here. This is my wife, she knows all the answers, follow her. Now, this is non-biblical conflict resolution methods. And this is what happens. You've beaten each other up. You can do it physically. I worked the ER enough to, you see enough of that from both sides. And they fail because they address the wrong issues. They address the past. They address somebody else. All of my conflicts, it's her fault. Well, most of them, because the rest of them are his fault. And you see, that's the problem with being the child in the family. It's always your fault, because there's nobody else lower. Except the cat. And everything is the cat's fault. And look at their photo, though. Look how they started. Smiling in love. Remember that other graphic with arms around each other but the shadows weren't? And here's what they are. When I go to meet a family, do you know who I look at to see how that family actually functions? I don't look at the parents. They know how to cover it up. I look at the kids. Even the teens aren't that good. And you can tell family dynamics by watching the kids. You can tell who controls and dominates that family. You can tell how spiritual they are, how much Bible they delve into, how well they're able to apply it by watching the children. So what's the solution? Heal yourself? That's what psychology is all about. Physician, heal yourself. Do this. Do that. Don't you read the signs? The solution to most counseling methods is unattainable because it is anti-God, anti-Bible, and you know something? It's really anti-you. This is a secret. I won't tell anybody. It's a dirty secret. But in the psych industry, if they make you better, they don't get paid. Okay, you got that? So the deal is not to make you better, it's to make you come back. Because then they get paid. When I was in the Navy, And I worked in clinic. And I developed this program. Actually, I wanted to implement this program someone else had developed to make asthmatics better. So they didn't have to come back to the clinic. And they could do self-care at home for a lot of their minor respiratory emergencies. And you know how far that got? Not off the ground. Because you don't get paid if you don't get visits. So the solution is to stop trying to solve past problems to find peace and happiness. We all get trapped into that. If I go back and look at those past relationships, if I go back and look at those past failures, if I go back and look at those past traumas, and we all have traumas, I don't know anybody who's gotten out of life unscathed. Because the world is full of sinners and you are a sinner. Now you're probably not concentrating on how many people you damaged through life because we're all the hero of our own story right really and the truth that you know is your absolute truth because it's your truth so it has to be right because if it wasn't right it wouldn't be your truth so guess what it's all about you Or, in my case, me. Or, it's his fault. So it's not about fixing yourself, because guess what? God made you that way for a reason. And God put you in that particular culture, in that particular time period, in that particular family for a reason. Let me tell you a little story about my parents, and it's true. I was about 11 years old. That'd be his age. I was playing on a picnic table, entertaining my baby brother, who was about six, seven months old. He was in one of those little seat things. And the parents were camping out and preparing breakfast, and I was trying to keep them amused so they could hurry the process along. And I falled off the table. I fell backwards. Hit right back here. I'm laying on the ground. I can't breathe. And I can't move. And my dad runs over, and he puts a great army training into action. And he takes my neck and goes, stretches it. I would not advise anyone else doing that. Survivable rates are very low using that technique. It worked for me, but that's only because God was overseeing our ignorance. I could not move my arms. Period. Now I'm not going to ask you what you would do, I don't want you to embarrass yourself, but my parents ate breakfast, threw me in the back of the station wagon, and continued on vacation. Two days later I was able to move my arms. Just with that exaggeration. it still hurt like mad because when I fell my chin drove into my sternum and bruised the bone where the muscles attached right here and I couldn't move. And so two weeks later when we got back to the Army Clinic and my dad, okay we'll take you in, gosh I hate doing this, the Army doctor yells at me, you're too skinny, ignoring the fact that I bruised my bone, ignoring the fact that I couldn't move my arms for two or three days. There you go. That was my parents. That was a good story about my parents. But you know something? If I had had different parents, if I had had different life experiences, and I had had very bad ones, guess what? I probably would not be saved, because I would be a different person. I could not stand up here and help you in the same way. I would be changing God's message within me. In other words, I would be telling God, you did it wrong, so get it right. Let's go back and fix it. Anybody ever try to go back and fix problems? You get a good reception that way. So if you're trying to change any aspect of yourself in the past, concentrate on right now. And fixing yourself tells God that you can do a better job than him. So what is the biblical solution? First of all, it's prayer. Be a spiritual maturity. A spiritual maturity is nothing but a Bible technical term for Christ-likeness. Growing in Christ. Forgive as Christ forgave. Forgiveness of debts against you. Restore others in humility. Remember that kinodoxy where we're always trying to be puffed up? I'd say especially guys, but I'd be lying. It's everybody. Forgive as Christ forgave you in wisdom and love. Doing what? Understanding each other's sinfulness and weaknesses, Athenaeus. How can we do that? We recognize our own. How can we empathize with our brother and our sister who's going through something, because we've gone through it. We understand it. A few years ago, I had a crisis in my life. This year, my wife has a crisis in her life that is similar, and now she understands. I don't fall for the dictum that if you've not been through it you can't understand what I'm going through because if you follow that out to its logical conclusion, if you've been in an auto accident and I can't know how you feel then I have to go out and be in an auto accident myself and then we're both maimed. Also I would not be able to help my patients because I've not been through a lot of the things most of my patients have been through. But I understand weakness. I understand sin. I understand the foundational basis for it. I understand addiction. What is addiction? It's addiction to sin. Everybody in here is an addict because we're addicted to sin. Because we all have our secret pet closet sins that we hide from everyone else. So it's unity through forgiveness. Through forgiveness, each person uses his spiritual maturity or her spiritual maturity to support the other's weaknesses. This is serving each other as Christ serves us through our weaknesses. bringing us to spiritual maturity in him. You want to grow in spiritual maturity? Learn to forgive. Because if you don't forgive others, Christ does not hear your prayers. In order for a relationship to truly last forever, both people need to put God first before everything else in their lives. This is the importance of forgiveness. It is how you heal that. Years ago, I went to a seminar, Bill Gothard, Basic Youth Conflicts. The one message I got out of that was forgiveness. Now, I don't buy into everything that he teaches, but I got that out of that, forgiveness. And I went back to people I knew, to people I could find, and I would ask their forgiveness. Let me guarantee to you, not everyone was happy to see me. Not everyone forgave me. And they still don't today. I have a trail of broken lives. I have hurt more people than I have healed in my life. I'd like to say I'm probably unusual in that, but no, that's what we do because we're sinners. We tend to ignore the damage we do, but mine come back and haunt me. forgive. And the ones I couldn't reach, didn't matter, I forgave. That is how that burden was released. It's not about going back and reliving the past. It's not about going back and healing each other. It's not about going back and doing all these psychobabble things that pop culture promulgates. in the books, the movies, the TVs. It's not about any of that. It's about forgiving. And if you can't find them, forgive them anyway. And if they didn't ask for it, forgive them anyway. I didn't notice anyone around the cross asking for forgiveness. When Christ said, Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing. Forgive them. Forgive them. Because You can't mature in Christ if you can't forgive. And if you say, I can't forgive that person for what they did, that should show you something about yourself, about your need. Because really, it's not about my wife fixing me, have a good day, bring a lunch. It's not about me fixing her because I tried and I failed. Because you can. It's not about fixing friends. It's not about anything. It's about people coming together, supporting each other through our weaknesses. Because when I am weak, what did Paul say? When I am weak, I am? Because you're now operating on Christ. It's Christ's strength that flows through you. That can't happen if you're strong. And the trials of life that God brings you in contact with, in the Greek they're called parismos, parismoi, they are designed specifically to show you your strengths of the flesh and where you need to be weak. It's not an accident that the first book of the Bible actually put on paper parchment, maybe papyrus, was the book of Job. And Job was all about strength. Job spent 30 chapters, 34 chapters, detailing how strong he was. In fact, at the end of his siloquy, I think, I think it's chapter 38, 39. No, it's before that, 34. embarrassed because I taught it and I forgot the exact chapter. You can go online to the church director though and look it up they're all posted. Job uses the word I and me over 30 times at the end of this testing, at the end of this trial, at the end of months of living in misery and pain, at the end of being hounded by his three bodies who were just like him. Job is no more humble than than you are. Or I am. Because the flesh never quits. The flesh never gives up. It always struggles to dominate you. It's only when we understand through the trial how weak we are and God meets us in that valley of the shadow of death. That's when we realize. And that is when we are then able to start forgiving. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for your Word. We thank you, Lord, for the blessing that you use your Word to teach us, to heal us. This whole idea of relationships is what life is all about, being here with others. Without a relationship, we can't lead others to Christ. Without a relationship, we would not be led to Christ. Without a relationship, we would not learn to grow in grace. And without a relationship, we would not be able to practice the Christ-likeness that you are developing within us for eternity future. To fit us exactly what you have designed for us for all eternity. And you have designed it. And if we would just sit down and listen to you and stop helping, you would be able to flow through us and touch others. We thank you, Jesus, for your patience. Even those times when you're probably exasperated, we're with us like you were with the apostles. You still work with us. Help us to exhibit that in our relationships with each other and with those that we call friends and even those that are against us. In Christ's name, amen. Thank you.