Forgiveness

[Music] breaking through all the lies [Music] can't stay silent [Music] [Music] every heart away is [Music] oh [Music] i can't stay inside feel the fire feeling [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] my heart [Music] [Music] i don't really care [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Applause] [Applause] grain [Music] forever your kingdom reigns our god reigns [Music] all over this room where you lift your hands yes [Music] forever your kingdom [Music] forever [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] one more time [Music] forever [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] silence the boast of sin and grave the heavens are roaring the ways of your [Music] you know [Music] yours is a kingdom [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] forever is [Music] [Music] is oh [Applause] is what a powerful name it is the name of jesus christ what a powerful name it is the name of what a powerful day it is the name of jesus [Music] well hey there everyone my name is brady welcome to bonita valley and thanks for spending part of your weekend with us if it's your first time we invite you to sit back relax and enjoy the service we'd like to take a few minutes and share a few things coming out for you and your family here at bvcc so check this out [Music] if you're a believer baptism is the next step in your faith life it's an act of obedience and a public declaration that we are followers of jesus christ our next baptism service happens sunday october 10th at 1 pm in the life center gym with our baptism class happening wednesday october 6 at 6 30 pm to sign up and be a part of the service stop by bonita valley dot com slash baptism [Music] the loss of a loved one can be one of the most challenging times of our life that's why bbcc hosts a weekly support group called griefshare it's all about providing a safe place to process and experience healing through the grieving process griefshader meets every tuesday at 7pm in room 205 of the life center [Music] for junior high and high school students britain valley's youth ministry is a place created just for them knowing god and making their faith their own is one of the most important things our students can do and that's why we gather every wednesday night from 6 30 to 8 pm in the family center and we're inviting all students to join us this saturday evening for a special night of dodgeball and games happening at 6 30 p.m [Music] bonita valley doesn't just have opportunities to get spiritually fit but physically fit also that's where our active faith and fitness ministry comes in every week fun opportunities are available for those who want to connect with others and take their fitness to the next level on mondays we host an incredibly fun experience we call dancefit at 6pm if you love music and you love to move dancefit is for you for our prime timers we've got senior fit the second and fourth tuesday of the month at 11 30 a.m and every saturday morning we host boot camp and that's open to all ages and fitness abilities also on saturday mornings is our 5k run walk and both meet on the church lawn at 8 am connecting at bvcc is easier now than ever with our online connect card here's how it works scan the qr code you'll find at the info center guest central or various other locations around the campus with the camera on your smartphone open the link that will take you to connectcard you'll see a number of connecting options including first-time guests prayer requests i committed my life to jesus today i want more info on a bonita valley ministry check the appropriate connection box you're after push submit and we'll get back to you asap at bvcc we're all about making connections with god and others and if you are a first time guest today please stop by guest central at the end of this service and pick up the gift bag we have just for you [Music] biblically speaking we're managers not owners of everything god has entrusted to us our time talents and treasures god wants us to leverage our temporary resources to make an eternal and life-changing difference which is what giving at bvcc is all about your faithful giving to the lord through bonita valley is transforming lives others and ours there are three ways to give at bbcc online at bonitavalley.com giving by texting bonita valley to 833-303-9325 or by mailing your offering to bvcc4744 bonita road bonita california 91902 good morning ah come on you can do better now good morning yeah let's have some fun we're at church it is so awesome to be with you guys and what an honor it is to be able to hang out here at bonita valley i love pastor jeff and the entire team and it is just a joy to be with you it's been several years since i've been with you guys apparently i didn't do really good last time so hey let's see what happens this time it is awesome to be with you about six years ago i think i was here we did something special it helps me understand who i'm working with here today so would you stand up real quick everybody stand up if you can that would be awesome all right i know you're like going up down up down with this catholic church no we're here all right hey it is awesome to be here my name is chris sanction uh and i'm a pastor we do a bunch of coaching for churches across the nation i've written a bunch of books blah blah blah but more importantly i have been married for 30 years yes and here's the crazy thing we started dating a boyfriend and girlfriend when we were 12 years old yes oh yeah and uh and she's hispanic how many hispanics do we have here come on [Music] that was okay but i've been to the family reunions there ain't no quiet group let's try it out one more time how many hispanics do we have here much better now that sounds like the family reunion all right and i've been married for 30 years we have two amazing children then we have this third one no um totally fine we have two amazing children we do hey uh this is something that's really fun to do it helps me understand who i'm working with here today so what i want you to do is i want you to go like this even though you're sitting next to someone spread your arms out really wide go like this if you have if you're single this could work out good for you you don't have to go on those christian mingles you can do it right here no apps necessary on this one all right on the count of three i want you to clap your hands ready no on the count of three you're already going right here what part of one two three did we not get all right she's got the mask over her ears it's gotta be right here um i'm just joking okay on the count of three ready one two and three okay now this time when you clap your hands on what you do don't go back like this i want you to stop and hold it however it lands however it naturally lands hold it there ready one two and three okay now bring it in real close to you so you can see it okay look down look down if your left thumb is over the right thumb if your left thumb's over the right thumb keep them together but lift it high in the air let me see let them over whoa you people are the best thinkers in the room you're the smartest people in the room seriously now the rest of you god loves you you just can't add he loves you though he really does now let them over the right them you're the best thinkers in the room if you write them totally opposite write them over the left thumb lift it high in the air okay you people are the best looking in the room oh yeah now if your hands not up god's got someone for you hang tight work this out right here all right so we got thinkers best thinkers and the best looking best thinkers best looking how many had your thumbs come perfectly together lift them up in there like this okay up in the air get quite a few you people just think you're good looking it's an ego issue for you you're gonna be seated now i know who i'm working with here it is awesome to be able to be with you guys today and be able to hang out and uh man what a joy it is to be able to be a part of this service today and uh as i shared with you married for 30 years we got two wonderful kids 14 months ago our beautiful daughter gave us a grandchild and uh a daughter a granddaughter named mila uh m-i-l-a mila brave her middle name is brave and uh we just believe that god's gonna do awesome things she's amazing and people used to tell me all the time hey you know when you have a grandchild it's like you know it's like nothing else and then i finally had one and i was like it is like nothing else and i was holding her recently and my son he's an adult my adult son looks at me he's like dad he goes it's like you love her more and i said son it's not like i do i do you're now in second place you get a silver medal from this point forward that's all you get but she's absolutely amazing and uh it's awesome to be able to be with you i love pastor jeff i love the entire team here uh absolutely incredible people hey uh we're gonna jump into a quiz how many here ever watch any marvel movies you know the superheroes how many are captain america fans anybody captain america batman wonder woman saw some of the guys put their hand up right back down i thought you said wonder brad sorry pastor um my favorite by far is this guy right here he is superman by far yeah that actually is a picture of me it was a few years ago uh in new york uh no i uh and this is christopher reeves he did the first uh superman movie came out many many years ago i remember being a kid and it was christmas day and my dad took us to go see superman in the theater now we went to go see superman there's a bunch of kids in my family and you got to understand something about that awesome dude and great great man uh but he's very frugal and cheap so we had to smuggle in all the snacks just like you people do don't act like you don't everybody's like i wouldn't do that that's not christian hot tamales falling at you um but my dad he wouldn't just smuggle in like a kitkat or a snicker bar he smuggled in everything lunch meats bread you know just whatever you know cereal milk everything was smuggled in you know i'm like 10 years old and i'm all puffed up like this being smuggled in i felt like the pablo escobar of the movies you know and just smuggling things and um but that was my but i watched superman and i love superman i love everything about it now if you're a superman fan or even if you're not you're probably aware that there is one thing that absolutely weakens him and when the villain gets it around him it weakens his body what is that called okay kryptonite some of you didn't know your thing is that cryptocurrency no kryptonite someone like i gotta buy that all right here it is here he is superman with some kryptonite it weakens his body jesus about 2 000 years ago gave a little parable and he was responding to peter one of his disciples and he was responding to peter about this issue that is kryptonite to our lives he was sharing with peter and a bunch of other people that there is our own kryptonite that we have in our own life and it's all exactly the same and here's what it is it's unforgiveness it's when you and i hold on to bitterness or anger or resentment why because someone divorced you someone cheated on you someone rejected you someone abandoned you someone cut you undercut you someone did something somebody did something a church did something something happened that made you angry and made you upset and you've never really dealt with it in your life and we all have that in our life a few years ago someone that i had invested in quite a bit of time and energy and leadership that individual did something about four years ago that absolutely just hurt me so bad it wounded me deeply i mean really deeply to the point of and true transparency with you that i sat in counseling for months and i'm over it seriously it doesn't bother me i'm saying um i can think of his name and i don't get mad no son um but i i'm not over it still i'm just telling you i've been in counseling and i'm still if the it just bothers me do you have something like that in your life do you have a person or a situation when it's brought up it still makes you angry you still think about it it still bothers you you still want something bad to happen in order for you to feel like you need to get even with them if the name gets brought up it it it it ruins your day you think about it we all have those people those situations that thing in our life that just absolutely hurts us now peter one day he's a disciple there's 12 of them and the disciples are sort of like jesus's close followers and leadership team if you will peter comes walking up to jesus one day and he starts talking to him about forgiveness now this is an interesting topic because why did peter talk to him about forgiveness out of nowhere if you read the scripture out of nowhere peter just goes oh by the way let's talk about forgiveness something was going on in peter's life maybe peter was hurt by a friend maybe he was angry at his own wife maybe there was problems maybe there was something going on he had anger bitterness something was happening because out of nowhere he just brings it up to jesus and it's there where i want to start in matthew chapter 18. if you have a bible go there if you don't have a bible next time you're at a hotel get one they're free i've stolen hundreds of them i have an ebay company that i sell them on and i'll show it um matthew 18 21-22 then peter came to him and said lord how often shall my brother sin against me and i forgive him up to seven times jesus said to him his reply i do not say to you up to seven times but up to 70 times seven leave the scripture up there if we could then peter look what it says came to him we don't know why but something was going on in peter's life doesn't say we're probably angry at someone something went down he didn't like it we all have been there the resentment whatever and he says lord how often should i give my forgive my brother up to seven times now why did he save it seven times hebrew law said that you had to forgive someone seven times so peter is like hey lord i know you've come you're changing the laws these are religious laws is it still in effect do i have to actually forgive this person seven times now i love this part jesus said to him i do not say to you up to seven times i wonder if jesus just said it and there was a comma so he took a little break you know that peter's thinking thank god he says i are you saying that jesus says no no you don't have to forgive him seven times peter's thinking thank god because he's already at number five and i'm done with him then jesus goes on to say no no no no but up to 70 times what okay was jesus saying okay 70 times 7 is 490. hey peter you got to forgive people 490 times but on the 490 first time do whatever you want no no it was hebrew humor hebrew humor is to exaggerate that's why jesus said it's easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle that is an exaggeration because that was hebrew humor jesus was saying no no it's not 490 times peter there's no end to the forgiveness there's no end to the amount of forgiveness now let me just stop and say this that doesn't mean that person still has to be part of your life that doesn't mean that you still have to okay hey this is gonna be but there is a forgiveness and it's you're gonna find out it's more for you than it is for them so and here's the thing i think is really interesting is that i think you and i i think we love the idea of amazing grace when it's for us but it doesn't feel that amazing when god wants us to give it to someone else who isn't that true oh we love amazing grace don't we who man he forgives me his mercy is new every morning not so amazing when he wants you to give it to someone else let's go on with the story let's go back to the story we'll pick it up in matthew 18. look what it says now we're going to read quite a few scriptures i know you're in church you're like really well we're going to do it all right here we go therefore now jesus answers peter up to 70 times 7 then he gives a parable if you don't know what a parable is a parable is like a story and jesus is giving a story to illustrate a point okay quite a few scriptures so here we go therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants and when he had begun to settle accounts one was brought to him who owed him thousand talents now let's stop there ten thousand talents in modern times is worth millions and millions of dollars okay so here's what it goes but as he was not able to pay his master commanded that he be sold and his wife and his children and not all he had and that payment be made the servant therefore fell down before him saying master have patience with me and i'll pay you all then the master of that servant was moved with compassion released him and forgave the debt stop right there jesus is telling a parable about a master and his servants anybody want to guess who the master is in this story jesus okay and the servants are you and i so he's saying okay there's this master and he's just telling a story and there's this servant watch this now the servant owes the master millions of dollars he pleads to the master please forgive me have mercy on me and the master forgives him for millions of dollars of debt now let's pick up the story that servant the same one that was forgiven for millions of dollars look what it says went out and found one of his fellow servants so this servant forgiven for millions goes gets forgiven then he goes over to one of his co-workers one of the other servants and says who owed him a hundred denarii now what is a hundred denarii okay that was money in that time it's worth about fifty eight hundred dollars so he's forgiven for millions of dollars he goes over to his servant friend who owes him about 5 800 and look what it says and he said and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat saying pay me what you owe so this fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him saying have patience with me and i will pay your bill and he would not but went and threw him into the prison till he should pay the debt let's stop right there okay first of all the servant goes to the master hold me out now he's forgiven of how much millions of dollars he's forgiven oh thank you he goes over to his servant friend who owes him 5800 nothing compared to what he was forgiven and he goes over to this servant friend that owes him 5800 and he has him thrown in jail and grabs him by the throat wait a minute you were just forgiven for millions and now you want to grab the throat and throw a dude in prison that owes you 5800 dollars now look what it says so when his fellow servants saw what had uh what had been done they were very grieved and came out and told their master all they've been done so some of the people saw it and they're like hey master you forgave him of millions he just had someone thrown in prison for 5 800 bucks but can you believe that look what the master does so it says then his master after he had called him said to him so now he goes back to this guy you wicked servant i forgave you all that debt millions of dollars because you begged me should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant just as i had pity on you and his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers we're going to come back to that word torturers until he should pay all that he was due to him so my heavenly father also will do to you if each of you from their heart does not forgive his brother of his trespasses so this man is forgiven of millions of dollars he goes over grabs someone who owes him only 5 800 and doesn't forgive him the master comes back and goes what the heck man i forgive you of millions of dollars and you can't forgive this guy at 5800 i'm gonna deliver you over the tortures now with that context of that story i want to pull out a few truths that i think are going to be relative to all of us here this morning so here's truth number one ready what i call big idea number one big idea number one is this forgiveness begins with a reminder of how much jesus has forgiven you begin what's the beginning i've been hurt by someone i still haven't gotten over it i still have counseling i'm still very angry trying to get better at it our forgiveness your forgiveness where does it start it starts with the reminder of how much jesus has forgiven you on your way out in the courtyard you'll see a bunch of books that i've written uh this is probably the one that sells the most the blue one in search of higher ground you can grab that but this book i want to talk about for just a second because it leads into what i'm talking about i wrote this book a couple years ago did really well i was on fox news and friends and all this other stuff and it did extremely well it was number one on amazon number two on reddit and all sorts of other things and it did really well called quit church now the book is called quit church when you're a pastor and you write a book called quit church with the subtitle because your life would be better if you did people have something to say about that when it came out in one day i received 16 000 emails from a bunch of nice christian people who just wanted to love me um so it comes out it goes all over it does really really well whatever uh and um but here's the thing so it's doing real well and a bunch of tv and all this stuff and we're doing all these interviews and everything and i i go fly to like dallas texas something i get picked up at a shuttle bus which is like taking me to a to a hotel late at night and i was going to speak in the morning somewhere i'm sitting in the back of the bus and sitting right in front of me are two ladies i'm returning emails on my phone they're two are right in front of me now i don't know who they are never met them before but i could tell they're christian because they're kind of talking to each other you know and oh yeah church and this and that they quote they quote a couple things you just tell the christian so i'm sitting behind them doing email one of them i have no idea who they are late at night 10 11 o'clock at night one of them says to the other one hey have you seen this book and she holds up her phone and i'm sitting behind him i kind of go like this and it's my book it's on her phone she goes what book she goes it's called quit church and the other lady goes quit church what kind of book is that then the other lady goes i don't know she goes it's written by a pastor in california i'm sitting behind them she goes a pastor no joke word for word he doesn't sound like a pastor he sounds like an idiot i'm sitting right behind them this is gonna get good you can't make this stuff up you know and so she's all a pastor he sounds like an idiot and they just start getting worked up and they start telling stories to each other and they're like can you believe it yeah america church is in trouble and then she says that's the problem with america and anybody says that's the problem with america clearly has all the answers and they're rambling back and forth they're going after you know and then they get so wound up you guys they literally turn around and invite me into the conversation it was awesome they're like can you believe it and they turned around and i acted like i was you know i'm like what what's going on i was just fasting and praying back here seeking god what's going on i go what's going on i don't understand and she goes this thing right here i go what are you talking about she goes this book she invites me into the conversation she goes it's called quit church goes and a pastor wrote it i go what and she goes yes and the other lady goes they're talking and going she goes have you heard of it i said you know i have i have heard of it and she goes the other lady goes she goes have you read it and i go i'll give you one even better i wrote it the other lady goes that's not true she grabs her phone and she's i know what she's doing she's looking for my picture she's putting chris on and she goes like it puts her phone right up to my head next to me she goes and she look she couldn't believe it she's like oh i'm so sorry i i didn't know that you you were you were here and we this is the best line we wouldn't have talked about you had we known you were here let's analyze that statement for a moment if you weren't here we would have gossiped like good christians do but we wouldn't have done it if we knew you were here and they went on and on into the best parts they're apologizing like crazy to me i said ma'am ladies i go you don't need to apologize i'm going to tell this story all across the united states you're going to be heroes now have you ever said anything really dumb before breakfast today you ever say anything dumb done anything stupid made some mistakes could you imagine if every hidden mistake every hidden addiction everything you've ever done in private when no one else was looking was put into a video and popped on the screen how embarrassed would we all be about our lives okay here's the point is that inside of this story what did jesus say jesus said the master forgives him of millions but you can't forgive where does forgiveness start forgiveness starts in realizing how much jesus has forgiven us i remember years ago i was on a jury duty it was the only time i couldn't get out of it now i know something you're thinking that's our symbol don't act like you don't try to get out of it you come up with anything to get out of it i don't it's a religious reasons uh covet amish whatever you can think of but i couldn't get out of it this time so you know i'm sitting there in the jury duty box you know and it's going on forever i'm getting bored and i literally had some hot tamales inside of my jacket and i'm sneaking them in like this you know because i learned to smuggle when i was little and i'm like you know and the guy on the on the in trouble or whatever he's got this rap sheet that's unreal like you know car theft and whatever just crazy like they listed like 18 different things you know and i don't know if it was god the holy spirit or just my imagination but for a moment i thought what would it be like if the doors of the court house just flung open and in walked this guy in walks jesus and the guy's sitting there there and ends walks jesus he takes the guy that's got the rap sheet puts him to the side sits in the chair and says whatever punishment you're going to give give it to me because that's exactly what jesus did for me and for you for the millions of things that we've done wrong where does forgiveness towards a person or an institution or uh an individual or a former whatever or someone in your family where does forgiveness begin it forgives forgiveness begins by first realizing how much jesus has forgiven me and he's had to forgive you for all the dumb things that we all do second thing is this here's the second big idea you need to learn as i need to learn we all need to learn to release your need for justice come on everybody say it out loud and proud right one two three release your need for justice okay that's the second thing what did what did that guy do that the one that owed him 5800 the guy gets forgiven for millions he goes over and he chokes him and grabs him by the throat he wanted him to be held accountable and he and he and he threw him in prison there was a justice that he wanted we need to release our need for their justice whatever god does whatever people do whatever but it's more about our own this is what it is it's more about our own heart wanting to see them get theirs that's what we want we get hurt by someone and we secretly want to see them get theirs it's kind of one of those get em god go go go he's right over there because we want them to get theirs it's it's this issue of learning to release the need for justice bitterness here's the thing about bitterness bitterness converts someone else's pain into your secret source of happiness it's true when we have bitterness what it does it converts someone else's pain into our secret source of happiness the guy that hurt me four years ago and and i still angry about it and i'm still trying to get over it um man i remember hearing something that something didn't go right it wasn't like some big thing death or anything but something didn't go right in my mind i was like oh that's good i never said that to anybody but here i am a pastor and i'm like going i'm glad something didn't go right for him i'm glad to hear that i didn't say it out loud but i what i did is i allowed my bitterness to be converted in from his pain into my source of happiness and where is the next step in this forgiveness process it's to release our need for them to get theirs that's between them and god and if it's something illegal or whatever that's whatever but man if someone just hurt me it's not any legal thing it's just a matter of hurt i want them to get theirs we have to release our need for justice years ago we have a bunch of campuses but years ago i was speaking regularly at one of our campuses and i'll never forget i'm sitting right over here service is about to start i'm yacking with some people and in walks this guy now have you ever met someone i know this is stereotyping but have you ever met someone that just looks flat out scary you know what i'm talking about late at night you're at shell station gassing up and they pull up next to you and you're like okay i just wanted two dollars in gas they just have this look about them you know what i'm talking about they just like they just look intimidating that was this guy intimidating looking man and he's like six two he's about 250 pounds just a monster of a guy and here's what he looks like he's tatted up to here always wears a white shirt hairs always slicked back if you ever think of a mob it's him he looks like the mob totally looks like the boy and he wears black glasses and never takes them off and when i say never i mean never worship prayer literally baptism he comes up i mean just he's never takes his glasses off ever right so i get up first time first day you know trevor's about to start i'm over here he comes sit down i go over there i go man how you doing he stands up he's i'm like 511 and on my way back to the other side and um and he's like six two and he stands up and i mean kidding he talks just like he goes how you doing and i want to i like to relate to people so i'm like i'm good how are you take the gun leave the cannoli just anything i come up with and i go what's your name man glenn puts his hand out shakes my hand i'm like he's going to kill me i'm going to get up and speak and he's going to kill me so you know worship's done whatever it's my turn my time to speak i come up i'm sitting in the front worshiping i come up blah blah blah i go over here i do my message i'm you know a big auditorium i speak and i do a couple funny stories everybody's laughing and he's in the front and i'm eyeing him the whole time everybody's laughing like a real funny story and he's just like and i'm like he's going to kill me i just know it he's thinking of how to do it so after that it was so funny after the ser or when i got done speaking we did the offering at the end i got done speaking i went down over here sat there and the associate pastor one of the associates come up and they're praying for the offering everybody's eyes are closed not mine though but i got to be open in case something happens and so i look over at him like this i look over him during the prayer during the prayer for the offering he pulls his pant leg up undoes a rubber band there is the biggest grip of 100 bills i've ever seen in my life i'm not even kidding there had to be 10 or 15 000 on his on his ankle and he undoes it and during during the prayer for the offering and he's like this and i'm like looking he looks over me and i'm like there's a lot of sins you've got to pay off no so this goes on now he comes back the next week and the next week gives his life to christ we baptize him with the glasses and all that he's you know and and he he's a funny guy and he always sat right there and if someone like right on the corner he'd always sit on the corner and if someone was in his chair when he came in he wouldn't say anything like the chair like this is the chair he just comes walking down he just stands right here and that's it in about 30 seconds they all get up and they move and then he sits down i'm like you can't do that at church clan like i don't know what you've got going out there but you can't intimidate people you know this goes on for two or three months i'm not even kidding he comes up to me and he says it's right before the service starts he goes hey pastor you ever notice that i always sit in the front row i'm like oh i notice i got a bulletproof vest on to prove it i know and he goes you know why i sit in the front row and i said i have no idea he goes if someone try something on you i'll take care of it and i'm thinking he wants someone to try something on me he hasn't been able to inflict pain now he's been a christian for 90 days he's itching now family month is coming up it's our biggest time of the year we everybody invites people it's a big family month thing that we do and so every push invite invite invite invite it's a big time of the year so family month which starts for us in just two weeks at south hills all campuses and so we do this thing called family month well it was the thursday before family month glenn's been our church for about three months okay there's a knock at my door i'm in studying it's a thursday afternoon i'm studying i'm working on the message for sunday knock on the door the door opens up my assistant goes hey you have a call on line one and i said tell him i'll call him back in about an hour or two i'm finishing up some stuff and she goes i'll let glenn know and i said hold on i'll take the call you know because i want to live and i pick up the phone and i kid you not this is exactly how the conversation goes and i'm pretty like an upbeat person just like you see here i'm like hey this is chris chris this is glenn i'm bringing 15 people sunday reserved the first three rows click that was it i looked on the little thing it was like a nine second conversation reserve the first three rows click i brought the staff together and i'm like we got to reserve the first three rows they're like it's no big deal i go no we need the best rope money can buy you go to lowe's you go to home depot we got to test it i want to rope up the three rows i know nobody and i l i never do this i roped out the three rows i personally did it i oversaw the roping i stood there here's the chair first row i stood there like this waiting for his 15 guests and him i stood there and people are coming down you know and moving the rope three rows back and i'm like no no no no dude what pastor no some lady comes down with a walker you know she lifts up the rope i'm like no you know fall over the tennis ball is at the bottom of a rock the tennis balls fell off the walker and um so she's standing there you know and finally one minute before the service starts i'm like well what the heck we got all this rope it's like this thick you know and he comes walking in not with 15 guests but with 21 first-time guests 21 first-time guests at church some of the people like man we're at church we didn't have a choice it was this or death and they all come walking in i had a lot of conversations with him over the years and i remember in that first year him talking about bitterness and anger from his past and different things that have happened and i remember telling them you gotta glenn you gotta you gotta release the offender you gotta let these things go they're just gonna hold on to you and haunt you forever the first thing we have to do in this story the master forgives the millions is to remember that we've been forgiven of millions we've all been forgiven of millions secondly is we got to release our need for them to get theirs for that death that's up to god and them it's like we got gotta let go we can't let our secret source of happiness be a pain that they have in their life and then the third thing is this to forgive is to boldly declare that your life does not belong to the offending party it's the third thing we pull out of it that i pull out of it is to boldly declare that my life does not belong to that offending party you know what i've noticed people that we're mad at most of the time they don't know it and if they did they don't care why are we angry who's winning in this it's our they are actually allowing us to continue to get hurt over something they did five years ago and i'm living it right now in my own life an action a fraction on my life and then something happens and i day by day i might wrestle or i might think about it and i'm like oh my gosh this person has put a chain around me and they don't even know it and we all do it but then what happened what did jesus say in matthew 18. i told you to remember one word anybody remember what the word was torture what did he say matthew 18 he goes okay the master released them to the torturers remember it's a parable it's not literal it's a parable so what what does that mean for us it means jesus is saying to us hey if you don't want to forgive buddy if you don't want to give forgive ma'am if you don't want to forgive chris song says if you don't want to forgive that's your choice but you're going to be tortured every day of your life you're that's that's just part of life that's part of the that's part of the way things you're going to be tortured you're going to be emotionally tortured because you're going to hang on to this thing and it's going to bother you and it's going to hurt you and when the name gets brought up or the situation or that church or this or that gets brought up it's going to torture you physically it's going to torture you do you know that the longer you don't forgive it becomes it releases a chemical in your brain that becomes an addiction so that the longer you don't forgive the harder it is to break spiritually it keeps us a distance from god how can we enter into this freedom with god when we're holding on to this kryptonite in our own life it's a torture and it's not a torture for them they don't know it and if they did they don't care it's a torture for us we're the ones that are dealing with it we're the ones with the heaviness in our own life we've been i've been africa many times done lots of water wells and hospitals and built things there and all this and one time a couple of the guys wanted to take me to this amazing museum and i went to the museum and you ever been to a really cool museum they'll name the artifacts or they'll name the painting every every every artifact or painting has a name and there was an artifact there and it was fossil bones and it was bones of two saber-toothed tigers that are extinct two saber-tooth tigers now here's the interesting thing they're extinct but his but they put them together how they found them in the dirt this is how they found them but one of them had their mouth hooked onto the back side of the tiger he was attacking him the other one had his mouth hooked onto the backside of that this is what they did and they literally died that way do you know what the name of that artifact is they named it bitterness and then underneath it said because neither one was willing to let go that's us that's me that's you because neither one of us are willing to let go and we die like this with this bitterness in our life i'm going to ask the band to come up and um i just want to share a couple last thoughts with you i want to go back to that guy that the situation in my life that really hurt me and about 60 days ago i saw this individual for the first time in four years first time in four years and i saw them at an event and i knew god wanted me to do something i needed to take a step and um the individual was across the room it was a big room probably this size or bigger i saw them way on the other side and i just made a beeline towards them i thought i got to go over and talk to them so i went over and walked up and i just leveled them nobody i walked up and i just said hey he goes hey i said man i know there's a lot going on we haven't seen each other in four years we're going to be at this event for the next day with each other next two days i'm hoping that somehow we can find a point of being okay with each other gave him a big hug walked away now i'd like to say that we've had a conversation since then and god's just healed it that's not true i'd like to say that i'm totally set free that's not true either still angry i'm not patting myself on the back because i'm still dealing with it and i'm a pastor i'm supposed to be preaching this stuff but i'll tell you one thing i did take a step i took a step and i know i got more to go but what step do you got to take who do you need to call who do you need to have an appointment with this week you need to sit down at starbucks and just talk this out doesn't mean they're going to be part of your life maybe you don't even want to see them again maybe they're not even alive i don't know but what step do you need to take they may not be part of your life ever again but for you for your sanity to be released from the torturers what do you need to do what step do you need to take i uh i think that most of us in here probably christian maybe some of us are new to the whole church thing but i believe that god in his own way jesus in his own ways speaking to all of our hearts reminds me a few years ago a friend of mine he's a theologian he writes theologian books way smarter than mine and uh he loves studying stuff and he was in new zealand on vacation with his wife and he took a couple extra days at the end of the vacation and he went to an actual running sheep ranch in new zealand where they graze on the grass just like in the bible you know and the bible says that jesus is the shepherd and we're the sheep and psalms 23 and he he sees that real interesting like jesus the shepherd we're the sheep and he thought i want to learn a lot about the sheep so he went there and he spent the day he worked it out with this rancher and he got to rock around for a few hours and learn about sheep and he's taking notes and how interesting the relationship with is and it kind of correlates to our relationship with jesus and all this stuff after a few hours it's time for him to go and he's the the ranch guy that the actual shepherd a real shepherd is walking with my friend back to his car and he opens up the car door and thanks him and all that just stand there talking with the car door open and the shepherd guy goes hey he goes one more thing i want to show you my friend says well what's that he says you see those sheep over there they're about 20 30 feet away they're not that far away they're just right over there you just see them right over there yeah he goes the one and there's like 12 of them 12 13 14 i'm just grazing in grass just 30 feet away and you see them yeah he goes i want you to say sheep come and that's what the shepherd's telling my friend my friend goes do what he goes just yell out to them sheep come and so my friend standing in his car he goes sheep come and he goes come on louder sheep calm he goes louder shape calm you know and he's yelling and there are no name flinches nothing just keep eating and then the shepherd in a very soft calm voice says sheep come and they all stop eating and walk right towards them it takes me to john 10 when jesus said i'm the good shepherd and the sheep know my voice they know my voice what is that voice telling you today who to forgive what's that voice telling you to do today what step to take what is that voice telling you today who you need to work something out with what you need to let go of listen to the voice he loves you and he wants to help you with this thing i'm going to pray right now and pastor mike will come and close us out but would you close your eyes with me i want to just pray for you but i i think there needs to be a bold first step right now right here in this room if you say man there's something i need to forgive no one needs to know what it is we're not going to point nothing but there's something i need to deal with something i need to forgive something i need to let go of it happened a month ago it happened a year ago it happened 50 years ago but i need to let it go would you quietly this may not be normal for you but i do think there needs to be a bold first step would you quietly if that's you and i just want to pray for you if that is you would you just quietly stand right up and say i hear the voice i need to take a step come on don't wait for someone else you're looking around and see if anybody else will do it you do it this is your time to take a bold step i need to let go i need to release i need to be done with it i need to take a first step today and my first step today is just standing up and admitting it that's your first step there's a second one you got to take this week but right now this is the first one anybody else you feel that tapping on your heart and you're like do it take the step get released from the torturers now what i want to do there's a lot of people standing up represents a lot of pain a lot of hurt and a lot of bitterness let me pray for you and then i'm going to lead you in a prayer jesus touch these people help us to take steps including me that lead us to forgiveness that lead us to lord letting things go we want to be released from the torture of what bitterness brings us help us god today this is our first step help us to follow through and to get free free from it i'm going to ask that you would just if you're standing there if you would feel comfortable enough you don't have to but if you come comfort them off would you stretch your hands up in the air sort of just a sign of surrender to jesus and then i want to lead all of us in a prayer even those that are sitting and i want you to say it out loud and proud everybody in the room we're supporting these people that are standing up and making a very bold step today say it out loud everybody in the house say jesus today i let it go i choose to forgive i don't want to be bitter anymore i want to be set free from this help me to take the steps that i need to take i realized today i'll never need to forgive more than you forgave me today is step one i'm moving towards freedom in jesus name amen

Channel: Bonita Valley Community Church

Views: 136

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: JYjDEfkQVIs

Length: 61min 4sec (3664 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021