Gateway Church Live | “Show Me the Money” by Pastor Jelani Lewis | September 4

[Music] [Music] hello gateway church how you doing today it's a joy to be with you i hope you're excited to come together to worship to encounter his presence today whether you're joining us online or one of our gateway gatherings if you're here in person i believe we're going to have a great time in his presence i believe he's going to move i believe he's going to do some amazing things in our lives so let's put off the focus of the week let's cast off all our worries and concerns let's set our focus on him amen let's worship come on [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you is my victory when all the seasons [Applause] surrounds me [Music] there's nothing to fear now before i am [Music] [Music] your feet [Music] and [Music] for jesus [Applause] [Music] is oh [Music] an almighty fortress you go before us nothing can stand against the power of our god you shine in the shadows [Music] [Music] [Applause] nothing [Music] nothing can stand against the [Music] my is [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Applause] jesus [Music] [Music] peace like a river wash over me [Music] immerse me in water as deep [Music] as i worship your i majesty your holy [Music] land jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] come holy spirit rain down [Music] [Music] oh come holy spirit [Music] i worship your holy is [Applause] jesus is [Music] pour out your presents [Music] [Music] as we cry [Applause] [Music] [Applause] as well [Music] [Applause] [Music] come now in power [Music] [Music] like you've done it before would you do it again is [Music] again [Music] all we want is [Music] [Music] [Music] would you do it come on let's again take a moment and let's just declare the holiness of god in this place or as we were just singing or we invite you to come lord come rest on us rest in this place lord inhabit our praise come on let's just tell them let's just say god you are holy god you are worthy come on let's just lift up that those words to him is your holy holy holy [Music] me [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] we cry holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy you're holy holy to [Music] there's no one like you you're holy holy holy your holy holy [Music] your holy holy holy [Music] oh [Music] [Music] jesus i love you and jesus i love you yes you are holy holy holy holy [Music] holy [Music] holy [Music] holy jesus i love you jesus [Music] jesus i love you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] jesus i love you jesus and you [Music] world [Music] jesus i love jesus [Music] there was the moment when the lights went out when death [Music] the darkest day in history they're on a cross they made for sinners for every curse is blood [Music] but nothing we could have known for the earth began to shake and the veil was what sacrifice was [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] there [Music] was a flash of light breaking through [Music] when all his the king lost life was on the moon [Music] [Applause] is [Music] jesus [Music] jesus [Music] jesus jesus [Music] me [Music] is [Music] [Music] me [Music] me [Music] [Music] jesus [Music] [Music] lord thank you lord amen amen and it's so great worshiping with you today isn't god good [Music] well hey you picked an incredible day to come to church pastor jelani lewis is bringing the message it's going to be incredible but before we get to that let's just take a couple of moments you know some for some of you this can be maybe your least favorite part of church we're going to spend some time talking to some people for some of you it's like the best thing ever but what we're going to do is we're just going to spend about 30 40 seconds just asking somebody around you i want you to say maybe tell them how long that you've been at church and tell them something that god's done in your life we can do that real quickly whenever the commercials start rolling then you can stop talking but you can't sit down until then okay all right well welcome to gateway so glad that you're here and go [Music] [Music] i think it's kind of like cheers you want to go where everybody knows your name right i think the idea that you would walk into this massive church and feel like it's not quite so massive because people know me and i know people it's not just oh we meet at church and we help out around the campus it's like we're really doing life together you will meet people and develop friendships that you never knew you could have that's the importance of being a part of a community a build team i think that's the best way to get to know people people will come whether if you build it they will come us it's one of the most rewarding fulfilling things i just know that it's what jesus would be doing it's life i mean that is our life there's always somebody there to encourage you to help build you up when we serve others something really miraculous begins to happen [Music] amen amen let's give it up for our build team here at gateway church we're so excited i don't know if you know this but we have an amazing build team and those are our volunteers that serve here at gateway church and i don't know how long maybe you've been at gateway or how long you've known gateway if you're watching online but there is a lot of amazing ministry that is done and that is offered here in this house thank you to the heart of pastor robert but we could not accomplish any of that without our volunteers and without without our build team members and so we're taking a few moments this weekend to celebrate them to honor them and so you know it's pastor robert's heart that every member here at gateway church believe in jesus belong to family become a follower and build his kingdom it's god's desire to have his kingdom established in our life and through our lives and you know what it takes all of us it takes all of us to see the kingdom of god invade our cities invade our communities amen and so i love this scripture out of ephesians 4 16 it says he makes the whole body fit together perfectly and here's this line i want to highlight each part does its own special work see each and every one of you whether you're currently on our build team or not each and every one of you have a special work to do those of you that are watching online you have a special work to do god has uniquely gifted and called and anointed us each and every one of us to see his kingdom built in our lives and to see his kingdom built through our lives and that scripture goes on to say why we need each other it says so that we can grow up so that we can grow up and so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love i don't know about you but man i want to grow up in god i want to be healthy amen and so it takes all of us and so we want to honor some special and highlight a few special build team members and then we want to highlight all of us and pray over them and bless them first of all we want to honor some of our online build team we have walt and carol steiner who started a gateway gathering in st louis you can see a picture of this uh it grew so much they had to move from in their house yeah they had to move from inside their house to outside in the driveway and now they're moving into a local building and so walt and carol we just say thank you for all that you are doing in your community and in in the area of st louis and so can we give it up for walt and carroll again thank you so much and then here at our south lake campus i have the pleasure tonight of honoring dinah larki and so she could come on up can we give it up for dinah dinah has been serving over the last four years here at gateway she served as a group leader in young adults she served in a group leader in students she's also served on our equip team and stewardship and currently she's on our guest experience team i know she's amazing look at all the teams she's been on she's on our guest experience team which is our weekend team with our ushers and our greeters and our parking lot team and she currently serves in connect central as one of our lead team and so we thank you dinah for so much for all that you do all that you pour out and i've got a special gift for you to thank you and to honor you and so in this moment if you're here at gateway and if you serve on one of our build teams i'd like for you to stand up if you're watching online and you serve in one of our gateway gatherings as a build team member i love you to stand up yes can we honor all these build team members amen come on we could not do it without you stay standing if you would we want to bless them and honor them so if you could stretch out your hand we want to thank the lord for all that he's doing through them and how they are helping us encourage you and build you up and so stretch out your hand let's pray for them lori thank you so much lord for these amazing servants lord for these volunteers that give of their time their energy their talents lord i thank you for the gift that they are to this house but i thank you for the gift that they are to gateway church and lord i just asked you would return to them a hundred fold god not 20 40 or 60 but got a hundred fold of everything that they've poured out god i speak for your blessing your protection to be upon them lord if they're feeling weak or worn out today would i ask that the wind of your spirit would encourage them that you would strengthen them but we bless them today and we thank you for all that you're doing in their lives and through their lives in the mighty name of jesus and everybody said a man amen let's give it up for our build team once again we love you bill team [Applause] [Music] hey everyone we're so glad you're joining us whether you're with us online or in person here are a few things you need to know a lot of great things are happening at gateway here are a few ways you can get involved right now to check out all that's going on visit gatewaypeople.com also you can follow us on social media and join your campus facebook group if you'd like to give today you can visit gatewaypeople.com and click the give tab use our mobile app or give it one of the offering boxes at any of our campuses we have so many amazing opportunities for you to grow connect and be encouraged for more information visit us at connectcentral or text connect271010 we're so glad you're joining us thanks for being here today you know that god has placed a call on your life to serve the church god has given you giftings and a heart for people you may be a student a pastor or in a season called the in between let us develop what god has destined you to do at the gateway ministry experience [Music] [Music] [Music] well hey gateway church i do want to take a moment and welcome all of you that are joining us with the gateway gathering or online happy labor day weekend obviously you don't care uh cool uh as pastor austin mentioned earlier my name is jelani lewis and i am the campus pastor of the coming soon campus of gateway in plano texas and we're really excited about that we've started doing some meetings having some prayer meetings and i want to let you know if you're interested at all in getting more information on the plano campus or being a part of the build team that helps to launch the campus you can simply text the letters p l n to 7 10 10 p ln to 7 10 10 we'll follow up with you there we also have an interest meeting coming up on sunday night september 19th at six o'clock p.m at the campus if you're interested in being a part of that i do want to before i get into the message just encourage you to continue to pray to pray for our world to pray for our nation i am from louisiana and i have some friends and family that have been impacted by hurricane ida as i know that many of you do as well and i want to encourage you to continue to pray but also in situations like this often we want to know what can we do how can we get involved and so i want to let you know that if you go to the gateway home page there is a tab there that says crisis relief you can simply click on that and it gives you some options on how you can get involved whether it's through serving or giving or praying and so i encourage you to check that out if you want to get involved if you have your bible i want you to go to matthew chapter 18. matthew chapter 18 we're going to start at verse 21 and we're going to read a parable of jesus and just as a reminder the word parable the greek word for that is parabolae pera which means close beside or with and then bole means to cast and so literally what a parable is it is something that is cast alongside something else and so in the case of jesus jesus tells stories that are parables and these stories are cast alongside a truth to illustrate what the character of god is like and what the kingdom of god is like and so in this particular passage in matthew 18 jesus has just finished preaching an amazing discourse on reconciliation and it seems like peter when he hears this he's he's got more questions he's like i need i need to get further clarity here and so here's where we pick up this text this is matthew chapter 18 verse 21 it says then peter came to him and asked lord how often do i forgive someone who sins against me seven times that's that's a very good biblical number good try peter not seven times jesus replied but 70 times seven that's 490 some of your versions say 77 times the point here is that jesus is saying to peter if you're counting you've missed the point then he goes into the parable in verse 23 it says therefore the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him in the process one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars some of your versions say 10 000 talents the idea is that it's more than this man could ever pay he couldn't pay so his master ordered that he'd be sold along with his wife his children and everything he owned to pay the debt but the man fell down before his master and begged him please be patient with me and i will pay it all then his master was filled with pity for him and he released him and forgave his debt now let's look at verse 28. but when the man left the king he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars some versions will say a hundred denarii a denarius was a day's wages now the idea here then is that it was such a small amount compare comparatively speaking and so it says that the man he goes to get the money and it says he grabbed him by the throat mafia style he grabbed the man by the throat demanded instant payment his fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time be patient with me i will pay it he pleaded but his creditor wouldn't wait he had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full verse 31 when some of the other servants saw this they were very upset they went to the king and told him everything that had happened then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said you evil servant i forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as i had mercy on you then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt now listen to verse 35 that's what my heavenly father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart welcome to church everyone i want to i want to talk to you today on what i know is a very heavy subject but i believe that god's heart for you this weekend is that this would actually become a healing step for you i want to talk to you about forgiveness and the title of my message this weekend is show me the money show me the money if you're not familiar with that phrase it is synonymous with pay me pay me show me the money this was about 14 years ago i remember i climbed in the car with a man who i've known for about since i was 13 years old he is a mentor and like a big brother to me and and in that season i would take many rides with him and we would converse and catch up about different things and so this day i remember jumping in the car and when i buckled my seat belt he started the conversation like this he said jelani you know we've been through a lot together now i don't know about you but i don't like it when people start conversations that way it doesn't feel good to me it feels like when my girlfriend in middle school broke up with me on a tape recorder the true story she she gives the tape recorder to her cousin he hands it to me and i realize something's really bad something really bad is going on when i hit play on the tape recorder and she was singing the r b version of it's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday i thought this isn't good this can't be good that's how i felt when he said what he said to me to start the conversation and then he proceeded to tell me about some recent events that had transpired he told me that a man who was like a father figure to me thought that i had made some disparaging comments about him and in response to that he told some people some very personal private and painful things that i had shared with him in confidence and when i heard this i was absolutely devastated i remember vacillating between emotions i was angry i was embarrassed i was plotting revenge and then i finally landed simply heartbroken because i felt betrayed let me ask you today how do you respond when someone hurts you how do you respond when someone wrongs you what do you do when someone sins against you i'll tell you what i did i did what any other grown man would do i called my mama y'all when we look at this text jesus gives us a response he gives us what i would call the kingdom course of action he says here's what you do when someone hurts you wrongs you or offends you you forgive them now i realize that even delving into this subject is very sensitive but i believe that when jesus begins to talk about forgiveness he he lays out the answer to three different questions he answers what is forgiveness he answers how do we forgive and he answers why do we forgive and i want to talk about those three things today i want to start off talking about what is forgiveness what is forgiveness i feel like to begin this though i need to go back to when i was in high school i don't know if you guys experienced this but i grew up in the 80s and 90s and so there was something we thought was cool to do in the 80s and 90s we would pay someone a compliment and then at the end of the compliment we go not y'all remember that like we would say your your shoes look so good bro not your hair looks so nice nobody said that to me in a while but your hair looks so nice not my wife told me that her her brother said to her one day you look beautiful not i mean it's not it's not funny but it is kind of funny it's kind of funny i feel like when it comes to forgiveness that there are so many things around forgiveness that i feel like i just want to start off and say not that's that's not what forgiveness is let me tell you two things that forgiveness is not forgiveness is not approval it is not saying what was done to you is okay it's not condoning that it's not saying it was right or brushing it under the rug that's that's not what forgiveness is it's not approval forgiveness is also not automatic reconciliation it's not automatic reconciliation reconciliation means to restore to a previous state and so sometimes we think well when we forgive it automatically restores that relationship that's not true because there's actually two types of forgiveness there is what's called unilateral forgiveness and then there is transactional forgiveness unilateral forgiveness is forgiveness one way this is forgiving someone who never asked you for forgiveness they never repented they never acknowledged what they did whether whether they didn't know or whether they've died but they've never asked you forgiveness and you choose to forgive them anyway that's unilateral forgiveness that's what jesus did in luke chapter 23 when he said father forgive them for they know not what they do they weren't asking but jesus gave it's it's unilateral but then there's transactional forgiveness which is what we find in matthew chapter 18 this is forgiveness when somebody comes and and they're repented and they ask you for forgiveness it's a transaction that takes place amen i hear you back there little baby they come to you and they ask for forgiveness and when you extend forgiveness this now becomes the groundwork for possible reconciliation because you agree on the wrong without transactional forgiveness it's very difficult to move forward in reconciliation and so forgiveness is not automatic reconciliation so what is forgiveness the greek word that's translated forgiveness means release it means release or to let go if we go back to this story in matthew 18 27 the king has come to sell his accounts but when he forgives the debt look at this scripture matthew 18 27 then his master was filled with pity for him and he released him and forgave the debt he he released him here's what forgiveness is forgiveness is releasing a person from a wrong committed against you it's releasing a person from a wrong committed against you it's relinquishing the right to punish now i don't know about you when somebody wrongs me i know this isn't the christian thing to say but i want to punish him it's actually relinquishing the right to punish in other words you're turning them over for god to handle it forgiveness is also the cancellation of a debt it's the cancellation of a debt in fact in the new testament most often when for the word forgiveness is used it's in reference to canceling a debt think about it we know this in the lord's prayer in matthew chapter 6 verse 12 jesus says forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors there is this sense then with forgiveness that it's almost like an accounting term because when someone wrongs us it's like they took something from our account and listen we we know this we actually know this intuitively because when when somebody wrongs us here's what we say they owe me an apology they they owe something because they've withdrawn or taken something from my account if i've done something i say i owe you an apology if if i'm vengeful and someone has wronged me do you know what i say i'm going to pay them back or i'm going to get even why because there's a sense when someone wrongs you it's as if they have taken something withdrawn something from your account and therefore when you choose to forgive them you choose to cancel the debt forgiveness is releasing a person from the wrong committed against you it is relinquishing the right to punish it is the cancellation of a debt in essence it's letting go it's letting go now when i think about this i think about an experience i had with my two oldest children i have a seven-year-old daughter named judah and a five-year-old son named jaden and so one day we were out at the park okay and my kids decide that they want to play on the monkey bars so all right so we're gonna go over to the monkey bars and so i pick up my daughter judah she grabs onto the monkey bars and then she starts to swing through and i mean she's like pow pow pow pow she looks like tarzan i'm like i'm like you're going to get a scholarship i'm so proud of you you're you're amazing you're amazing and then my five-year-old son of course he wants to be like his sister daddy i want to do the monkey bars okay so i pick him up and i put him on the monkey bars he he just hangs there like i remember seeing his feet dangle like this and then he says daddy help i said okay okay son so i'll go over to him and i said all right if you want to go to the next bar jaden you have to let go of the one you're holding then the momentum will swing you forward and you can grab the next bar he goes okay daddy and so i step back he doesn't go anywhere he says daddy help i said okay okay okay all right son if you want to move forward you have to let go of what you're holding on i got it daddy okay so i back up cool showtime five-year-old son daddy help help so finally i go back a third time and i'm like okay jaden if you want to get to the end of this you're going to have to let go of what you're holding on to i wonder today in some very honest moments if there are some of us in this room the truth is the hurt is so deep the pain is so deep the situation was so tumultuous that that you find yourself even in this moment today hanging on the monkey bars of life and your desire is to move forward and to progress and to get to the end of this and you've been calling out father why don't you help me help me dad help me heavenly father and i wonder if god is right there with you sin i want to help you but you know what i want to help you do i want to help you let go of what you're holding on to because the only way that you can move forward is if you let go forgiveness is letting go so then the next question becomes well how do we let go how how do we forgive the first thing that we have to do for going to forgive is we have to count the loss we have to to count the loss now before i get into this i need to confess to you uh i am not a mathematical genius like pastor robert okay you know he talks about how he can basically do algorithms for math in his head and that stresses me out that's that's not me in fact uh the first math class i took in college was math 0.99 that's that's remedial math if you don't know that's because apparently i didn't do so great on the a.c.t okay not that i'm bitter about math09 which by the way how many of you here and those of you online you're really great with numbers would you put your hand up just so i can know who i don't like at church who i don't like at church when it comes to forgiveness the first thing we have to do is count the loss and let me explain this to you when we go back to matthew verse 8 or chapter 18 verse 24 the king goes to settle accounts and it says in the process one of his debtors brought in someone who owed him a million dollars now here's what we have to understand about this king when he brings the servant in he knows how much the servant owes him he knows how much was borrowed he he knows what the loss is so when he goes forward to forgive he's not forgiving in general he's forgiving specifically he's counted the loss now here's why i say that often what we do is we forgive in general somebody hurts us and we go oh oh we forgive them the problem with forgiving in general and not in detail is we miss out on the depth of healing that god wants to bring see the reality is is that when someone wrongs us when they sin against us they've taken something from us and so here's what we do if we want to count the loss we actually acknowledge the pain we assess the damage we say here's what they did to me here's how that made me feel here's what they took from me you you you look at the impact of their decisions on your life and you count the loss and when you count the loss you now know what you're actually forgiving so you you count the loss number one here's number two you choose to let it go you choose to let it go we go back to the text and we notice that it says in verse 27 then his master was filled with pity for him and he released him and forgave his death the master made a choice now i want to acknowledge something this is one of the few times that you actually see feelings around forgiveness he says he had pity on him or compassion for him so there's feelings around this the other times that you see forgiveness you don't hear anything about feelings why because forgiveness is not a feeling it's a choice we choose to cancel the debt look at this verse this is in colossians chapter three you'll hear nothing about fillings here this is what paul says he says make allowance for each other's fault faults and forgive anyone who offends you forgive anyone who forgives you he doesn't say if you feel like it he just said forgive them forgiveness is not a feeling it's a choice and so if we're going to practically for forgive people we count the loss and we choose to let it go now i'm going to share a a very personal story here and a very sensitive story and if statistics are correct many of you have actually experienced what i'm about to share when i was just a kid six seven eight years old i was abused i want to be very sensitive because i know that many of us have worked through this but i was abused and to be honest with you i didn't deal with that until i came to gateway and i noticed i was struggling with some things that i just couldn't get by and so i decided to meet with one of the pastors on staff who has a counseling background and just to sit down and talk about what i was struggling with and so we sit down and we begin to converse and i'm telling her my life story and and i just mentioned hey you know i was abused when i was a kid and then i just moved on and then and then she stopped me she's like excuse me wait a minute like you can't just skip by this let's talk about the abuse and i said well okay we can talk about it and i shared a little bit more and then i said but i forgave them like that's the christian thing to do i know i already forgave them and so i just want to move forward and then she said this and i had never even thought about this she said did you ever grieve over that did you ever grieve over that she said because jelani grieving is part of the healing process and i said well well no it happened when i was a kid i didn't really think about it she said well here's what we're going to do we're going to take a moment right now and i want you to go back there and i want you to think about what they did to you what they took from you the impact of their decision on your life i want you to think about all those things and in response to that i'm like no no i i actually why don't we talk about you we're here to talk about you today okay i don't want to talk about me so i said okay i'll go back there and she said i want you to go back and i want you to think about those things and then i want you to say out loud what you really want to say and so i started to think about the abuse the impact that had on my life and how it made me feel what they took for me i start counting the loss and all of a sudden out of my mouth i just say you jacked up my life and then i burst into tears i just start weeping because for the very first time i had actually assessed the damage i had actually looked at the impact of those decisions on my life i counted the loss and then when i moved to forgive this person i forgave them from a different place because i understood what i was forgiving and how much i was forgiving and when i chose to forgive them the lord brought a new depth of healing if you're going to forgive you're going to count the loss and then you choose to let it go here's the third question that jesus answers and that is why do we forgive why do we forgive well reason number one is because we have been forgiven how many of you thankful that we are forgiven through jesus christ amen it's because we've been forgiven you see this again in matthew 18 32 it says then the king after he after this king finds out that the servant didn't forgive the other man he calls him and he says then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said you evil servant i forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant just as i had mercy on you this king says to him you should have forgiven because i forgave you you should have had mercy because i have had mercy on you again if we go back to colossians chapter 3 verse 13 i only read the first part of that verse but remember here's what it says make allowance for each other's faults and forgive anyone who offends you and here's why remember the lord forgave you so you must forgive others wow we forgive because we've been forgiven now when i think about this i can't help but but think about an experience i had with my wife this was before we were married we had just started dating but we knew it was pretty serious we were headed the direction towards marriage and here's what you have to know about my wife my wife she's there on the front row hey babe uh but but she was like mother teresa growing up like she just really i mean she wasn't perfect but basically perfect you know what i'm saying basically perfect she just didn't do a whole lot wrong well that wasn't my story i i had made some very poor choices when it came to purity and morality in fact even after i received salvation i still struggled i was saved but i wasn't free and because of that this is just a side note because of that i really struggled with self-forgiveness i struggle with forgiving myself but let me tell you something that i learned about forgiving myself first of all refusing to forgive myself was essentially holding me hostage and demanding payment and guess what i can't pay me it's the second thing i understand about not forgiving myself so when i choose not to forgive myself i choose to determine my own consequences which is my effort to be god and guess what i'm not so i learned these things about self-forgiveness but i was wrestling with with sharing with her just because i knew her past and i knew my past but i felt like listen we're head of the direction of marriage and so i need to tell her about the decisions i've made and so we're sitting in the car one day we're at sonic and we're parked somebody laughed at sonic what kind of so we're sitting there at sonic and she's sitting in the drive and the passenger side i'm sitting in the driver's side and i remember there was the armrest console in between us and so i work up the courage to tell her about my past and i'll never forget she literally burst into tears like bursts into tears and she starts going why why now i can just tell you that was the climax of encouragement for me i never felt better in my life than in that moment i'm just kidding literally i wanted to get out the car and let another car hit me it was rough and so we continued to converse and and finally she did something i'll never forget sitting there in the car she takes her left hand and she reaches it across the console and she grabs my hand and she says i forgive you and i'm not going anywhere let me let me tell you what god did through the cross of jesus christ because the bible says that we were all separated by sin and here's what god did through the cross of jesus christ he took his hand and he reached it over the chasm console of sin and he grabbed your hand and he grabbed my hand and he grabbed our hands and he said i forgive you and i'm not going anywhere and because we've been forgiven we forgive here's the second reason why we forgive we forgive because forgiveness frees us forgiveness frees us if we go back to matthew 18 and now at the end of this verse 34 and 35 it says then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt so this man is in prison and he's being tortured that's what my heavenly father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart now i don't know how you look at this but but this seems pretty severe to me it seems pretty severe like if you think about this whether you say god is doing this himself or if you say well really you've opened the door to demonic oppression because you agree with unforgiveness however you look at it this seems pretty severe like god really torture and imprisonment but i wanna i wanna communicate something to you i believe that this is actually a beautiful act of love here's what i mean by that all of us know that there are different consequences for different actions depending on the impact of that action for example if we go back to my seven-year-old daughter judah if she decides that she is going to call her little brother a name a negative name there are consequences to that we don't do that in our family we encourage one another and so we address that but let's just say that my seven-year-old daughter decides she wants to steal the car keys get in my little honda hybrid and drive down the street can i tell you there are different set of consequences for that here's why first of all i understand that if she gets behind the wheel of the car she's essentially hit the self-destruction button on her life not only that she potentially may harm many other people in the wake and so because i love her and i care about her and i don't want to see her harmed or for her to harm other people i make those consequences severe what if god who understands the impact of unforgiveness in our lives loves you and he loves me so much that he says i'm going to make these consequences so severe because i understand that if you carry unforgiveness you essentially hit the self-destruction button on your life and potentially harm many others in the wake so it's actually his goodness and his love that says you can't carry unforgiveness now let me crystallize this for you and this will be my last illustration i brought with me a piggy bank today and i brought this piggy bank because this piggy bank represents unforgiveness see i told you earlier that there's this sense with when somebody wrongs us that they have taken something from our account they have withdrawn something for from our account and so here's what happens when we carry unforgiveness we pick up a piggy bank and when we see the person who's wronged us when we think about the person who's wronged us when we hear about the person who's wronged us we we we essentially say from our hearts show me the bunny not the bunny the money sorry that came out weird wrong show me the money when i think about you i know you owe me so pay me give me what you owe me show me the money the problem is this and actually there are several problems the problems though are number one you end up carrying this piggy bank everywhere you go so it doesn't just impact the relationship with the person that hurt you no you carry this into your marriage and you carry this into conversations with your kids and you carry this on your job and it starts to manifest itself according to ephesians 4 in bitterness and harsh words and hatred and it's because you're carrying unforgiveness and not only that though this this is an extra weight that we were never meant to carry and so we're carrying an extra weight now everywhere that we go and guess what it begins to weigh us down in fact it can impact us physically with stress and anxiety why because we're carrying unforgiveness but not only that we all know this pigs stink and so imagine carrying this pig in every relationship every place and every moment you find yourself in prison and saturated with the stench of a pig that's torture and here's what god does in his goodness for us today he says i know when you think about that person or those people that you're yelling out from your heart show me the money but i came today to say this to you show me the money give me the pain give me the hurt give me the debt give me how they wronged you and if you would show me the money i will show you the freedom because forgiveness frees us i want you to bow your heads and close your eyes and i want to ask you the question that pastor robert asks us every weekend and that is what is the holy spirit saying to me in this message for some of us today it's clear he's speaking to us about forgiving someone someone who hurt us someone who wronged us maybe he's even speaking to you about forgiving yourself for some of us today [Music] he's speaking to us about receiving forgiveness the forgiveness that was paid for through christ about giving your life to him making a decision to follow him for all of us so i believe he's speaking to us about how much he loves us and how much he wants to see us walk in freedom so in a moment i'm going to pray over you corporately but then pastor nathan is going to come up and he's going to give you an opportunity to respond personally and so father i just pray over every person under the sound of my voice i pray that you give them the grace to forgive [Music] so that they can be free in jesus name amen amen yes let's thank pastor jelani for the message if you would let's stand up as we close the service i'm going to ask our pastors and our prayer team to go ahead and come forward and i really want to encourage you respond to this message you can go ahead and begin to step out of your seat and come down if you're in the balcony we have prayer team members up there as well if you're watching us online you can text your prayer to 7 10 10 and we have pastors that are willing to pray with you there as well but i really want you to respond to this message you know james 5 talks about when we confess to one another and pray for one another so that we can receive healing and so if you want to respond to the message go ahead and step out of your seat and come down or if you want prayer for anything at all maybe it's a financial issue or or a family issue a relationship a financial issue whatever it is maybe it's a health issue we want to stand we want to pray for you so go ahead and come down for prayer you don't need to be ashamed to need prayer we all need prayer there's lots of things that are going on in our lives and in this world so if you need prayer for anything at all go ahead and step out of your seat and come forward a few things i need to let you know about before we dismiss uh we've got to uh build team celebration out in the lobby we've got some lemonade and some tea and some kona ice because i know it's hot out there so we're celebrating them and so we're going to have some time out in the lobby to celebrate also if you're a man in the house this coming saturday at all our dfw campuses we have our men's breakfast uh from eight to ten here at south lake it'll be in the main lobby you can go to gatewaypeople.com for more information about that and then we also have connect central so if this is your first time here at gateway if you're new to gateway if you have any questions about how to get into a small group how to get connected across from the cafe is an area called connect central we've got pastors and leaders in there we'd love to meet you and answer any questions that you have so let me pray for you and then you can be dismissed lord thank you so much for today thank you for our time and worship thank you for this amazing word lord i ask that you would continue to speak to our hearts lord show us any areas in our life lord where we have unforgiveness that we can release that we can count the cost make the choice to release forgiveness so that we can walk in wholeness and health when i speak your blessing and your protection upon everyone here in jesus name amen amen if you want prayer you can continue to come forward have a blessed week [Music] you

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Length: 73min 30sec (4410 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 04 2021