All right, we've been talking about the Lord's Prayer, of course, and we're on the section dealing with forgiveness of our debts. I want to just give a quick review of what we've covered. We talked about the purpose of the Lord's Prayer, that its purpose is to give us an idea of how to pray to avoid the mistakes of prayer. Two mistakes in particular are that of the pagans who believe that if you simply pray a certain way, you get what you ask for. Or like Linus on peanuts, if you hold your hands upside down, you get the opposite of what you asked for. There's some method, some posture, some ritual you can go through. Say the right words, say them the right way, and presto, you get what you want. God becomes the spiritual, materialistic vending machine in heaven. The other mistake, of course, is to believe that prayer exists primarily for us. That's the mistake of the Pharisees. that you pray standing on the street corners or in the synagogues or you pray long prayers that everybody admires and looks to. So the two mistakes that we avoid with the Lord's Prayer are that prayer is not for us individually. It's not for my advancement. And it's not for getting what I want. That's the purpose of the Lord's Prayer. We talked about the structure. There is the preface or the address. Our Father in Heaven. There is the second section of a first section of petitions that deal with us and then the second set of petitions dealing with the Lord or excuse me, the first deal with the Lord, second with us. And then the last is the doxology. The theme of the first set of petitions is that God would work to glorify his name. There is the theme of these first set of petitions, holy or hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Your will be done. The theme there is that we are asking God to do this. That God has the ability to glorify his name in the world, and so we are seeking him to do it. The second set of petitions is that God would graciously provide us what we need, our daily bread, forgiveness of sins and protection from the plans of the evil one. We talked about the order of the second set of petitions, and we'll just kind of go through this briefly. It declares our helplessness to obtain even our daily food and prepares us to see our helplessness regarding spiritual matters. If I have to ask God to just give me what I need for today, how much less am I able to procure on my own forgiveness of sins or protection from Satan and temptation? I am helpless in these matters and so I am seeking God's help. It shows us that God who graciously gives physical needs will also graciously give spiritual needs. That I have every reason to expect that God will forgive me my debts. And that He will protect me from the evil one and his schemes. And the reason I know that is that if He provides the little things, bread, food, clothing, shelter, life, then He will most certainly graciously provide the more important things as well. We talked about the concept of debt. We noticed that Jesus very specifically uses this term. He does not say, forgive us our sins, the generic, but forgive us our debts. The idea is that we owe something to God. And what we owe to Him is eternal, perpetual, and perfect obedience. And we owe it because He's the Creator. He created us in His image. And so, God doesn't force it from us like, I think my analogy was Al Capone. You know, you owe me protection money. When it's not rightfully His. He doesn't coerce it from us. He doesn't take it from us. It's not like we bartered with God and we give Him something and in return, He gives us something and then we just simply forgot to pay. But rather, out of creation itself, before the fall, there is an obligation on our part to eternally praise God. What has happened in the fall of man, in our sin, is that we have entered into an inability to give that obligation. So that is now an insurmountable and unpayable debt. This is the Confessions of Faith statement regarding this obligation. That there's this universal obedience written in the heart. by which God bounds Adam and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience. That is our obligation to God. Then we come to this idea of forgiveness, and this is where we left off last week. Forgive us our debts. The word here, afe'ami, means to let something go. It's an interesting word in Scriptures because of the way that it's used. When someone dies and they let go of the Spirit. Sometimes the word is used metaphorically to describe death. It's used of allowing something previously forbidden. So, for example, when The little children. The parents are bringing the little children to see Jesus. And the disciples are forbidding them. And Jesus says, no, allow them. The old King James was, suffer the little children. Allow the little children, or let the little children come to Me. And this is the word that's used. In 1 Corinthians 7, it's used of divorce. The husband putting away his wife, literally it's letting her go. Although it's not letting, it's more forceful than that. The core idea of letting a loud cry go, let go of the voice. The idea is that there is something that is restrained or bound or forbidden or hindered. And whatever it is that is restrained or hindered or bound is let go. It's loosed, if you will. And this is the idea of aphi-, I mean, to let go of something that previously was being held on to. So in terms of forgiving our sins, what we're asking God to do is that He has a debt In the common parlance, a marker. An IOU. He has this legal claim on us that we are to be perfectly obedient. That we are to measure up to His image. And it's a debt that we cannot possibly pay And God lets go of the debt. Now, we know that there's a more rounded perspective of forgiveness than just that in Scriptures. Why does He let go of the debt? Well, because someone else paid it. You should not take from this Word the idea that forgiveness is God just simply saying, Oh, alright, don't worry about it. And he just sweeps the sin under the rug and forgets it. But rather that the debt is let go of or forgiven because Christ pays it for us. And so the obligation that we have to fulfill it is in fact satisfied by another. So don't press this word as if it were the only concept of forgiveness in Scripture. But it is an interesting concept because what we're asking in this prayer is to say, God, I have this insurmountable debt. Let go of it. Just forgive. We're going to refer to it later on, but in Matthew 18, there is the parable of the king who is going through his accounts And he finds a man that owes, what is it, 18,000 talents, something like that? Or is 18 sticking in my head because of the 18th chapter? But the, yeah, just a huge amount. In the 1800s, Albert Barnes calculated the worth as being 15 million pounds sterling British, which back then the exchange rate was three or four bucks to the pound. So we're talking $45, $50 million back in the 1800s. The debt would be $100 million, $200 million today's money. I'm not going to calculate it out because we don't know the exact weights of a talent. But the idea is this huge incredible debt. And the man comes to the king and says, please forgive me. And the king goes, done. And he just wipes out the whole debt. There's no repayment plan. There's no credit counseling services involved. There's no, ok, pay the balance, but forget the interest. There's, well, just pay me what you can and I'll forgive the rest. God doesn't work that way. He says, forgive me. Ok. And the whole thing is done away with. That's the picture of forgiveness that we're talking about here. In forgiveness, it's the idea of letting go of the debt of sin wherein God no longer holds the debt against us. He is aware of the debt. The debt is real. But because it's been satisfied through the payment of Jesus Christ, it's let go. Now, that enters into a legal concept here. A concept of payment and of the legal concept of double payment. God cannot justly accept double payment for the same thing. Nor, when something is paid for, can He not remit or grant the removal of the debt. I'm going to pick on Jim and Aaron for a moment. Okay. Aaron married my daughter. Aaron owes me more than he can possibly pay. Okay. $10 million. Jim is extremely rich. And Jim says, I'll pay Aaron's debt. Here's $10 million. Quit bugging him. Because Aaron's a good friend of his. So I take the $10 million, and then I go back to Aaron and say, no, you still owe me $10 million for my daughter. Which $10 million doesn't cover it, OK? Just split, you know? You know, if somebody owes me a debt, someone else pays it, I cannot legally or justly or ethically still claim the debt from the other person. A debt paid is a debt paid. I can't accept double payment. Once a debt is paid, that covers it. This has implications for the concept of forgiveness and atonement. The word debt has a legal connotation and how God works with our sin as a debt paid for by Christ. I would challenge you to understand, then, that Jesus Christ did not pay the debt for every single human being, else every single human being would be in heaven. Now, where you sort that out, we'll deal with another day because that's beyond the scope of our discussion. But I want to throw that out. Furthermore, notice that like the rest of the Lord's Prayer, this is in the plural. Forgive us our debts. This is not an individual-centric concept. We are constantly to be praying that God might be gracious and forgive the debts of others. As we're going to find out, we pray that even for those who hate us the worst. Our enemies. Furthermore, we are to pray to God that He would forgive us as we forgive others their debts. Not since we forgive, but as we forgive. The term is a comparative. What we're asking is that God would forgive us in the same way or in a similar manner as to what we invoke when we are forgiving others. We're asking God to treat us the way we treat other people. How you forgive. is an indicator as to whether or not you understand forgiveness in the first place. If you hold grudges, if you hold debts that you refuse to let go of, then do you truly understand what it is that God has done for you and your massive debt obligation to Him? Again, the parable that we'll come to in Matthew 18 The man who comes to the king and asks that huge debt to be forgiven has another man come to him who owes him a pittance compared to that, but is still unable to repay. And what does he do? He throws him into debtor's prison. You pay me what you owe me. He can't do it, so he throws him into debtor's prison. Now, what happens to that man? The king hears about it. I forgave you that huge debt and you wouldn't forgive one of your fellow servants this small debt? And where does he wind up? Yeah, in prison. If we do not forgive, it's an indication that we do not understand what it means to be forgiven. Christians who are bitter, by definition, is an oxymoron. Christians who will not forgive, by definition, is a self-contradiction. To the point that Jesus warns, if you do not forgive, Neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your debts. You do not forgive, God's not going to forgive. And that doesn't mean you forgive in order to be forgiven. It means if you have been forgiven, how can you possibly hold a grudge against somebody else? Because the perspective of the New Testament is my debt to God is unfathomable. And whatever you have done against me, pales in comparison. It doesn't matter if you have murdered me, stolen from me, whatever. The worst abuse you can keep against me is minuscule compared to my sin against God. I'm a little unclear on the categories for when you say forgiveness and talk about bitterness. Because up to now, we talk about God forgives us. We only ever do that. Yes. Well, no, you owe me. Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, yeah. serious consequence to what happened, forgiveness or not forgiveness. But the idea of how I forgive my daughters when they do something I told them not to do is more, you're basically saying I'm not going to be bitter. I just, I don't quite understand the mechanics of what we're even saying when we talk about forgiveness between people as compared to forgiveness between man and God. OK, well, I'm going to go into more detail on that. But the concept of what we owe each other is as much a real debt as between us and God. Not because, you know, I don't owe you something because you're so great, good, wonderful, because we're equally sinners. OK, it's true, Laura, he is. And certainly not because you're my creator or anything of that nature. but as fellow servants, both of whom bear the image of God, albeit in a marred and blurred fashion. If I am going to be a servant of God, I of necessity owe to you also the respect of the image of God in you." How can a man say that he loves God and hates his brother? When his brother is made in the image of the one who he says he loves. So, how can I offend you? How can I not give to you the respect due to your humanity? Because that humanity is the imago dei, the image of God. So, there's a connected debt, so to speak, that by virtue of me owing a debt to God or being a creature of God, I have necessity also owe to you certain things. Respect, politeness, courtesy, love, blessing. And then when I fail to give that, I have in a sense become indebted to you. Further, there may be situations where actual harm is done to you in terms of reputation or in terms of material possession. Maybe I gossip about you, Tell everybody you're really a closet liberal or whatever, you know. And so, you know, you voted Democratic in the last election. And now your reputation is harmed. Now I owe something that is more than just a Not paying the respect. Now I've done material harm that needs to be repaired. There are reparations involved. You can go even beyond that as well. So in that sense, forgiving you is just not demanding that of you? It depends on the situation at hand, what's been done, what harm has been done. Whether we're talking about merely reconciliation, Whether we're talking about, OK, whether we're talking about not being better, whether we're talking about reconciliation, whether we're talking about restoration. And to what degree? And this is part of the problem of the concept of forgiveness in the New Testament. Let me. Point out real quick, Ephesians 4, 32, Colossians 3, 13, there are a lot of other verses. Ephesians 4.32, Be kind one to another. Tenderhearted. Forgiving one another even as God, for Christ's sake, forgave you. Colossians 3.13 is the same concept. If you understand that you've been forgiven, then you of necessity must possess a disposition towards others that is ready and willing to forgive. For time's sake, let me move on and talk about forgiveness as a concept in the New Testament. OK, I'll tell you what, ask the question because I got something to hand out. So while I'm doing that, let's do them both. Yes and yes. Yes and yes. There are obligations that you have as a Christian, even towards unsaved people who hate you and who, even if they would kill you if they had the chance, you still have an obligation towards them that we're going to talk about. Yes. Well, we'll talk about forgiveness. OK. Forgiveness as a concept in the New Testament in particular is a kind of an umbrella concept. It involves a lot of different things. I'm not going to lecture through what I just handed out to you. I'm going to tell you where this falls in here in just a second. But forgiveness is an umbrella concept and it involves different ideas and different stages, if you will. First and foremost, forgiveness refers to a benevolent attitude towards other people. Benevolence is a nice fancy word for good will. Wanting good things. Even towards our enemies. So, Matthew 5.43-48. You've heard it said, eye for an eye, tooth for tooth. Get your revenge, right? But what are we supposed to do to our enemies? Love your enemies. Pray for them. Bless those who persecute you. Now, think about that. Here are Christians, first century, being martyred, being tortured, being thrown into dungeons, thrown into prisons, and they are supposed to bless the person who's doing it, pray for their good, and love them. Because that's what Christ did to those who crucified Him. So even the person who hates you, you are still to love them. And you, like Christ and like Stephen, are to pray, Father, forgive them. Even if they don't ask for that forgiveness. Even if they don't want it. Now, this is simply the refusal to hold vengeful thoughts in your heart. Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. So, who alone has the right to seek your vengeance? God. Because only God is just. And you aren't. So only God has the right to exact justice on your behalf. And you're going to leave it to Him to do that as He sees fit. If it is wrong for you to seek justice, it is equally wrong for you to desire it. Well, I'm not going to get revenge, but I sure am going to think about it. You know, I would never take revenge, but I'm sure I'm going to pray something bad happens to him. Well, you just turn prayer into the equivalent of a voodoo doll where you stick your prayer pins. The whole theme of the Sermon on the Mount is if it's wrong to do, it's wrong to want to do. whether it's murder, murder of the heart, adultery, adultery of the heart, or revenge, well, revenge of the heart. So, towards all men, we are to have a benevolent attitude. Even God, Matthew 5, 43-48, even God sends the blessing of His reign on the just and the unjust. God has been benevolent towards His enemies. God feeds the worst, radical, God-hating atheist that there is. He gives that person life. He keeps their heart beating. He gives them clothing, food, and shelter. God is kind and benevolent towards them. You be kind and benevolent towards your enemies, even if they never ask for forgiveness for all the hurt and damage they've done to you. Now, this is a serious requirement. There are people who have been abused by their parents physically, sexually, emotionally. There have been people who have been abused by spouses. People who have been abused by all sorts of ways. There has been harm that has been wrought in your life. There are hurts and bruises that have never healed. I promise you they're there. And God is telling you that whoever inflicted those wounds, you pray and you love them. So, is forgiveness, on our part, does it have the same requirements that it had between us and God? That's to say, if somebody done me wrong in life, what's the difference between letting go or is the same requirements there between two people on earth and us and God in them? If that person ever came to me and asked for forgiveness, repented that they had done wrong to me, is it letting go on my part or is it actual forgiveness? Well, I don't know if there's a difference between the two. Let's say that in this first situation, you have an enemy that hates you. OK, who has brought serious harm to you. You are required to maintain an attitude of benevolence, of praying for them, blessing them, loving them, even if they never ask for forgiveness. This does not mean that you say that there is no debt. It means you're not malevolent because of them. So, it's not really the same as our repentance And God forgiving? Not yet. They have to actually come and ask for it. Yes, at this juncture, it's simply the statement that I am not going to be mean. I'm not going to harbor ill will. I'm going to pray for their good. I'm going to seek their good because I was once God's enemy. So if that person is my enemy, that how can I treat them differently than what God treated me when I was His enemy? Well, I would say at this point what you're dealing with is you're dealing with a letting go of bitterness, malevolence, personal revenge, hatred of the heart, bitterness of the heart. Not necessarily saying, Okay, forget it. Don't worry about it. And they've never asked for forgiveness. There's still a recognition that there's a debt. Well, it's not so much a question of feelings as a question of, I want to put it in the objective, not in the subjective. But at this point, this says, I will treat this person a certain way. I will pray for this person. I will seek their good because that's the way God treated me when I was His enemy. So, I'm going to treat my enemies the same way. Now, is there still a debt? If they haven't asked for forgiveness, restoration hasn't been done where restoration is due, yes, there is still a debt. So, a young lady is sexually abused by her father. She becomes a believer. He isn't. What's her obligation towards her Father? To love Him. To pray for His salvation. To not be bitter. To not be malevolent. To not wish ill will. To let go of all bitterness. To say to herself that her sins against God are far worse than her father's sins against her. And I know Christian ladies who have done just that. And more. So at this stage, it's not holding the malevolent feelings, the ill will. Now, there are times also when we're talking about forgiveness in terms of reconciliation. And this is where the offending party actually comes and seeks the forgiveness of the debt. They confess the sin. So, for example, Luke 17, verses 1-5, Jesus says, it's impossible that offenses won't come. But what happens? If your brother comes to you and asks you to forgive him, Seventy times seven in a day, you forgive him. And the disciples in verse 5 say, Lord, increase our faith. And basically, Jesus' answer is faith is not the issue. You don't need an increase of faith. What you need to recognize is you're an unprofitable servant. You do what is your duty to do. Forgiveness is an obligation that you owe, in a sense, because God forgave you. And you are now God's servant. This is what God requires of His servants. You do it. This, however, is the restoration, or I should say, the reconciliation of a relationship. Whereas in the first, if the person has not actually asked for forgiveness, you're not holding or harboring ill will. Nonetheless, the debt still exists. In the second, where the person has come and actually sought and asked for forgiveness, now the debt is let go. There may still yet be a third situation. That is, in some cases, there has been harm done. And in order for a complete reconciliation to be affected, there must be some act of restoration. Look, if you will, at Matthew 5, 23 through 26. Let me explain something to you about Matthew 5 and this passage. You go into the temple to worship and you remember that your brother has something against you. Those words are very important to understanding what's being taught in Matthew 5. Your brother has something against you. Meaning what? You are in their debt. You owe them something. There is a legitimate complaint that this person has against you because you have done something wrong. You are the offending party. You are the one who owes the debt. So you come to worship and you remember, I owe this debt. They have something against me. What are you supposed to do? Leave your gift at the altar? Go find the person and do whatever it takes to make it right. Because if you don't, what's going to happen? In this passage, what does Jesus say is going to happen? Agree with your brother, your adversary, quickly. Or else what? He's going to hand you over to the judge. And the judge is going to do what? And then they throw you into prison and you're not getting out until you pay the last penny. Debtor's prison. Now, this is a metaphor. Jesus isn't being literal here at this point. This is a metaphor. But the idea is if you owe this debt, you have offended somebody else. You have sinned against them. And they legitimately have something against you, then you... Interrupt your worship. You go. You make it right. And you do whatever it takes to resolve the issue because they hold the marker against you. And if you don't do this, they're going to turn you over to the judge and the judge is going to get revenge. OK, what does that mean? You offended somebody and you don't do anything about it. That person has a right to say to God, God, you handle it. I'm not going to be bitter. I'm not wishing ill will. In fact, I pray for their good. But God, I'm going to leave it in Your hands. And God will handle it. I'd rather have to answer to You than to God. So, if there's harm involved, you do whatever it takes. to restore and undo the harm. So, it depends where you're at. Forgiveness is a broad term in Scripture. Have they asked for forgiveness? Well, even if they haven't, you don't be bitter and malevolent against them. You pray for them. You love them. You seek their good. You bless them. If they have asked for forgiveness, then you effectuate reconciliation. And if in that process there is actual harm been done, then there may need to be some act of restoration. I used this analogy last week. Pretend there's a church. Church has a treasurer. The treasurer embezzles $10,000 from the church account and goes to Vegas and blows it all. It's all $10,000. It's gone. The church finds out. What do they do? Take him out and stone him. And tell God it was an accident. Right? No. Are they going to be mad? Are they going to be angry? Well, probably. Should they? No. They're going to have to fight the temptation to be bitter against this man. They're going to have to pray for his good. Even if he doesn't want forgiveness. Even if he says, I've been fooling you guys all along. You're a bunch of sap Christians. I don't believe any of this stuff. I just did it to get your money. Fine. We still pray for you. We're still going to love you. You may be our enemy, but we're not yours. But let's say he comes back and says, ah, I'm sorry. I've had this problem. It got the better of me. OK. And now he seeks reconciliation. Are we going to forgive? Yes. We forgive you. Are there also acts of restoration that need to be done to satisfy both the church and legal government? You better believe it. Are you really wanting forgiveness? Yeah, fine. Okay, let's go turn yourself in to the local prosecutor. You confess to the crime. You stand trial. And oh, by the way, you pay the money back with interest. Oh, yes. And after you get out of prison, after you get out of prison, don't expect your job that you're welcome to come to the church. We will love you, but don't expect us to make you the accountant or the church treasurer again. Now, I've heard of pastors who committed adultery come to the church and forgive me and demand to still be the pastor. No, no, it doesn't work that way. Brother Nathan. I think that's a very important point because sometimes we can think of forgiveness as meaning that justice no longer applies. Forgiveness doesn't mean that there is no justice in the world. But it certainly means that we forgive, we don't hold something against them, but there are consequences to our actions. And just because we want people, or we seek that people are accountable for their actions, does not mean that we are not being forgiven, that we're not forgiving them. It's a restoration. fellowship of relationship. It's not saying, ok, there are no consequences. You can do whatever you want. You have no consequences in this world. And it doesn't work that way with God. Even before you were saved, some of you led a life in which having your sins forgiven and your relationship with God healed back to, you know, full acceptable state in salvation, that nonetheless there are consequences of what you did before that you're still suffering. That happens. That's part of restoration and it's also part of the laws of cause and effect. So, forgiveness doesn't remove the rest of that either. The handout that I gave you, very quickly. This was something I created a long time ago because people were asking, well when do I, now when do I get involved, let me borrow a copy, thank you. In this process, let's say I see an offense take place. And basically what I've done is kind of hopefully created a, kind of a flowchart of scripture verses. You have to ask yourself, am I part of the problem or am I part of the solution? Either one. Yes or yes. No or no. If I'm part of the problem, what part of the problem am I? Am I the one who's done the offending or am I the one who has been offended? And what kind of offense are we talking about? Are we talking about, you know, Michael says, You know, man, I really don't like the way you're combing your hair these days, Pastor. And I say, which hair? The one on the left or the one on the right? OK. And so he hurts my feelings. Boo hoo, woe is me, he doesn't like my hair. All right. So my feelings are all hurt. Well, that's not the same thing as if, you know, somebody embezzles the $10,000 and brings reproach on the name of Christ and the name of the church. You have to kind of ask yourself, what level of sin are we talking about? And in particular, is there a biblical offense involved that brings reproach on the name of Christ? The second point there. Am I part of the solution? Not can I help, but must I help? Do I have to get involved? Do I need to be involved? Was I asked to give help? Am I in authority over the situation? Do I have some sort of a close relationship with people that are involved where my advice would be accepted? And can I give good advice? And then finally, some situations you just have to stay out. Proverbs 26, 17 is, if I remember correctly, the man who picks up the dog by his ears, so is the man who meddles in his neighbor's business. I defy any of you. Pick up a dog by his ears or try it and see what happens to you. You pick a dog up by his ears, he's going to bite. So you get involved with something that's not your business, don't be surprised if you get bit. That's the warning of Proverbs 26. So it depends on a lot of different things. And this was an attempt on my part, anyway, to kind of assemble the biblical teaching on forgiveness in a way that you can work through it and realize that forgiveness is not just this carte blanche, one-size-fits-all situations. That there are different stages, there are different concepts, there are different kinds of sin that are involved, and the Scripture covers all of these. It's more complicated in our personal relationships than we think. Alright, let me make some applications. First of all, as we are helpless to provide even our daily bread, so we are helpless to pay our debt to God. That is the starting point of this petition. If you think for one minute that you had anything in any way to do with you being forgiven, you will not be forgiving towards others. And I will turn that around. If you have trouble forgiving others, Most likely, it's because you think you had something to do with being forgiven. Well, you know, I did my part so that God forgave me. Now you have to do your part to satisfy me. If we are unable to show forgiveness, it may prove that we have never experienced it in the first place. If you hold the debt against another, meaning they have offended you, they are in your debt. Even if they are your enemies, you are still to treat them with grace. Romans 12, particularly 19-20, what are you supposed to do to your enemies? You're supposed to be good to them. You're supposed to love them so that you heap coals of fire on their heads. That doesn't mean you're good to them to get even with them. Here's the last. Who is your worst enemy? We know that. But many times we really don't think that way. My co-worker makes my life miserable. If I could twist his little scrawny neck right off, maybe it's your spouse or a parent. Somebody who has inflicted harm on you and every time you hear the name, your blood pressure goes up at the least. It is quite possible to forgive the worst of your enemies. I want you to picture Saul of Tarsus coming back to Jerusalem and meeting in the church with people, some of whose family members he may have killed. When Peter is writing and he's closing out his epistle and he talks about scriptures that Paul has written, hard to be understood and twisted by the unlearned, he refers to him as our beloved brother Paul. Peter is writing to Christians who had to flee Jerusalem because of Jewish persecution. And some of them may have lost their home and everything they own because of our beloved brother Paul. Who has hurt you the worst? And how do you think about them? Don't focus on your feelings. Focus on your thinking. What do you think about this person? Do you make yourself think and pray for their good and bless them? Do you make yourself think scripturally towards them? A lady who was sexually abused by her father. Here's one story I can tell you. where the father, later in life, came to be a Christian years after she had. And in no small part, because she witnessed to him. And he asked her forgiveness and she forgave him. And they began working on the process of restoring a relationship. That can only be done by the grace of God. That's mercy. Who has hurt you? Well, you know, my husband yesterday was awfully mean to me. What is that compared to what you've done to God? We get offended very easily because we have such an easy life. So, forgive us our debts in the same way we forgive others. Alright, let's close in prayer. Father in heaven, we own up to the miserableness of our offense before you. That our sins are not just crimes, but they are acts which personally brings about in you Father, a revulsion towards our sin. And yet, in Christ, You have canceled that debt. You have paid for it. And then taken what He earned and granted it to us so that we stand before You clothed in righteousness. Father, make us a humble people. Help us to seek the salvation even of our enemies and to pray for their good. We ask that You would grant us this, The same love that you have had for us, that when we exemplify that love, all men will know that we are your disciples. We humbly ask it now in Jesus name. Amen.