in the Lord's Prayer, and we've noticed his purpose, the fact that this was really the disciples' prayer, the believers' prayer. We've noticed his person, our Father, in heaven, his prominence, how it would be thy name, his plan, thy kingdom come, his priority, thy will be done, his provision, forgive us this day, or forgive us those that trespass against us as we forgive those who trespass against us, and then his pardon. And so we've noticed that as well as Give us this day our daily bread. That's his provision. So all those different things that we focused in on, all to say that the Lord wants us to follow his pattern for prayer. He wants us to follow this pattern and make this the model, not just of recitation, but the model in terms of an outline for our prayer life, for our communion with God himself. And this morning, we get to the phrase that you've had illustrated before you by this dramatic sketch. That's the phrase that's found there in verse 12 where it says this, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And then I want you to drop down to verses 14 and 15 as well, as we'll tie those together today. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Not only does God want us to use this as a model for our prayer lives, but very specifically we'll see from these verses of scripture that today God wants us to forgive others. Someone has said that to err is human, but to forgive is divine. Another person added to that, it's much easier to commit a sin than to forgive one. It's easier for us to excuse our own sin than to forgive someone else's sin. And today I want to begin with showing you a video, and we'll notice this at the end of the message as well, a video that perhaps is familiar to you if you've been paying attention to the news over the course of the last month. You heard about what happened in the Indianapolis area with Davey and Amanda Blackburn, and the rape of his wife and then the murder of his wife. And so I want to play this for you as we begin and as we think about what forgiveness is really like, and ask yourself the question, how would I respond if it was me? Go ahead. A Fox News alert, two men charged in the murder of a pastor's pregnant wife. Due in court this morning, Larry Joe Taylor and Jalen Watson, who were calling themselves part of the Kill Gang. They faced murder charges in Amanda Blackburn's death. The 28-year-old was shot in the head during a home invasion earlier this month while her toddler was sleeping upstairs. Joining us right now with her reaction to the arrest, Amanda's husband, Davey Blackburn, and Amanda's father, Phil Byers. Good morning to both of you guys. Good morning. Good morning. We'll watch the remainder of that clip from Fox News at the end of the message this morning, but I showed just that much of it for you to place yourself in that situation and ask yourself the question that I already asked you today, how would I respond? Would I be able to forgive if it was my wife or Pastor Phil Byers was there, if it was my daughter that was the one who was raped? and murdered. You see, there's no exception clause to forgiveness. There's no exemption. There's no, well, if the sin is this atrocious or that horrific or this big, then you don't have to forgive that one. It's not that just the little petty sins are worthy of forgiveness and the big ones are not capable of being Jesus is very clear here when he says, as we pray, we pray, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And so this morning, I just want to look at one idea. We've typically looked at two or three with each message, but I want to look at just that one simple idea, and that's the prerequisite. God's prerequisite for our forgiveness. It's the thing that has to happen in order for me to be forgiven, in order for you to be forgiven, we must be forgiven. forgiving people. And so notice his prerequisite for us this morning, as we forgive our debtors. And I want us to look at two different ideas in relationship to that prerequisite. The ideas are, first of all, the concepts, as Jesus states them here in Matthew chapter six, verse 12, he says, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. I know that debts gets translated a number of ways, and maybe even as a child, you may have memorized the Lord's Prayer in a different manner, but really the most literal way to render this phrase here is just the way it's stated here in the New King James, and that's what the word means when Jesus is talking about sin. As I said last week, there are a number of different Greek words that are used for sin in the New Testament, but the one that is used specifically here is just that, it's the concept of debt. It's the concept of owing someone something. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lord, forgive us as we forgive other people that have done something against us. And personal sin can be thought of this way. Personal sin is like a withdrawal from a relational account. where you have a relationship with someone, or someone has a relationship with you, and they do something sinful against you, and it's like this massive withdrawal against that account, the emotional connection of that account, or the relationship of that account. The greater the sin is, the greater the withdrawal. The greater the sin, the more likely that that relationship could even end in bankruptcy, because someone has done something so horrible to you that it just shatters the relationship, but there's not forgiveness. However, if a person refuses to forgive, it can completely not just bankrupt that relationship, but it can bankrupt them spiritually as well. Sadly, there are all kinds of Christians today that are on the sidelines in terms of their Christian life that have kind of checked out of the church and checked out of their Christian life because something happened to them along the way where somebody did something horrible to them and made a major, huge withdrawal from that relationship account to the point of it bankrupting not just the relationship with that person or those people, but it even bankrupting their own relationship with God, where maybe they become embittered, not just toward the person that did something against them, but they become embittered toward God as well. It's no wonder that Jesus uses that type of terminology here when he describes sin in terms of debt. You see, the fact is that the Lord's prayer The Lord's Prayer is teaching us that this is part of life in a fallen world. And one of the challenges I think that we face is realizing that people sinning against us is what Jesus said happens. People doing things against us is what Jesus says is going to be a part of living on this planet. And so part of the challenge for us as believers is to not think that everybody ought to treat us perfectly, to not think that everything ought to just be rosy in our relationships. If that was the case, Jesus would have never said these words, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And so part of the challenge for us as believers is being willing to just say, you know what, part of life is people doing bad things. and doing bad things against me. It may be a neighbor, it may be a sibling, it may be a spouse, it may be a coworker, it may be your boss, it may be a fellow church member, it may be a friend, it may be someone who took a loved one that was a drunk driver on the road, it may be an abuser, it may be you fill in the blank, and people commit sins against people. The key is how we respond to those sins. The key is what we do with them. People will wound you with their words. People will wound you with their actions. But a spirit of forgiveness is what applies the balm of healing to those relationships with one another, but ultimately to that relationship you have with the Lord as well. Sadly, a lot of people, though, develop a victim type of mentality. A victim mentality will never enable you to forgive. to see yourself as a victim of somebody else's sin and to focus on their hurt or to withdraw from the relationship or refuse to resolve the issues and to hope for revenge or to resist forgiveness will never help you resolve the issue and extend forgiveness. And so Jesus here talks in terms of this debt of sin, but notice not just the debt of sin, notice also the heart to forgive that Jesus also speaks of when he says, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. As we forgive our debtors is that heart of willingness to forgive. And I love the word that is used here in the original in this text of scripture in that the word for forgive literally means to send it away. It's a powerful and beautiful word picture that what you do when you forgive someone else is the same thing that God does when he forgives you. It's the same thing that God does when he forgives me. And the Bible is full of all kinds of metaphors for forgiveness. Metaphors like as far as the east is from the west, so far as he removed our iniquities from us. Metaphors like he's cast them into the depths of the sea to be remembered no more. That's what we're talking about when it comes to not just our forgiveness that we enjoy from God, but our forgiveness of one another. You send it away, you get rid of it. What a powerful idea that Jesus is communicating here when he says, as we forgive our debtors. So what exactly then does that look like? I mean, how do you know if you're forgiving? in terms of living it out in your Christian life. I wanted this morning to take a few minutes and just describe and define, if you will, what forgiveness is, because there are all kinds of ideas, psychological in nature in some cases, and others just popular in nature, that may or may not be scriptural in terms of what forgiveness is, or what forgiveness is not. And so notice with me what forgiveness is. Number one, forgiveness is identifying sin for what it is. Or as they put it there, calling sin what it is. Identifying it, in other words, it's not, forgiveness is not just candy coating things, it's not just sweeping things under the rug, it's not just ignoring sin. Forgiveness still requires that sin be identified as sin, that wrongdoing be identified as wrongdoing, that it's not minimizing or excusing, that it still be identified as sin in order for forgiveness to be granted. And so forgiveness is identifying sin for what it is. Secondly, forgiveness is giving up your right to then also get even. Because typically that's our human fleshly response when somebody does something wrong to me, well, a pound of flesh, right? I'll just do the same thing back to them and we'll settle this score. And if we're not careful, it goes back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and nothing ever gets better. It only gets worse, right? And so forgiveness is me saying, you know what? I'm giving that up. I'm sending that away. My right to get even in any way, shape, or form, it's gone because I have forgiven that person. Number three, forgiveness is making a three-fold promise. And it looks like this. When you say, I forgive you, you're saying, I forgive you and I'm making a three-fold promise to not bring up your sin to you. To not bring up your sin intentionally to me, which is the hardest of the three. and then to not bring up your sin to other people. It's one thing to say you've forgiven somebody, but if you keep dwelling on it and constantly thinking about it yourself, are you really going to cultivate a spirit of forgiveness? You're not, and so there's a conscious decision where you find yourself thinking about what it was that somebody did against you, and you have to say to yourself, you know what, I can't keep focusing on this because that's not gonna help me forgive, and so I'm making a threefold promise to not bring it up to myself, to not bring it up to them, the person that did this against me, and to not bring it up to others, because that's the other temptation, is to tell the world. about what so and so did in such and such a way and make sure everybody knows. And sometimes we spiritualize it in terms of, oh, I've got a prayer request. There's nothing spiritual about a prayer request that runs somebody else's reputation through the mud. It's not spiritual. And so forgiveness means you don't bring it up to other people. It's a threefold promise. Fourthly, forgiveness is focusing on Christ's forgiveness extended to you. In other words, we find Christ's forgiveness as our model of forgiveness for other people. That's why this morning, as we sang, we focused on God's love. We focused on God's grace. The song that was sung of Who Am I, that reminded us of the fact that not a person here today is worthy of God's forgiveness. Not a person here, not a person in this entire world is worthy of God's forgiveness. And if you understand that, if you understand grace as being God's unmerited favor, and if you even begin with a little inkling to understand the fact that God's a holy God. And yet he has forgiven sin that is the most atrocious and horrible thing in the heart and mind of God. God is utterly separate from sin. He can't even allow sin in his presence. And yet he's allowed us to be recipients of his grace and he's chosen to forgive us through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. If you begin to just start to comprehend that, you can't say, I won't forgive you. It's not possible. As horrible as sin is to us, when somebody commits it against us, that is nothing, that's not even a drop in the bucket compared to how offensive sin is to an utterly holy God. And so for a Christian to say, I won't forgive, is to really say, God, I don't care about your forgiveness either. A holy God is willing to forgive a wretch like me. How dare I? not forgive someone else when they do something against me. So it's focusing on Christ forgiveness. And when you stand in awe of the fact that God would forgive you, you have to, you have to forgive someone else. Fifthly, it's letting go of destructive feelings. And you know how they raise their ugly heads, right? In your life, destructive feelings of, I deserve better. I didn't deserve to be treated that way. Why couldn't they have some kind of respect or why did they do this to me? And that turns into anger and into a root of bitterness that the Bible talks about that gives off all kinds of bad fruit in a person's life and produces all kinds of horrible things and a spirit of revenge and the list can go on and on and all these destructive feelings that if you forgive you have to let go of and not allow yourself to keep thinking in that manner because you have to remind yourself, I have forgiven. I've chosen to forgive. And that's why sixthly, forgiveness is a decision, it's not an emotion. That's the big challenge, is that we tend to think that, well, if I feel forgiving, I am forgiven. No, you can feel totally unforgiving and still say, you know what, this is an intellectual choice that I am going to make where I am going to say, I have forgiven, and I'm gonna commit to this threefold promise, this threefold commitment, I'm not gonna keep bringing it up to myself, and when that comes into my mind, I'm gonna say, no, I can't go there, and I'm not gonna live on the basis of my emotions, I'm going to live on the basis of obedience, I'm going to be an obedience-oriented Christian instead of an emotion-oriented Christian. Which, by the way, if you wanna wreck your Christian life, just live by your emotions. Just live by how you feel. I mean, all of us, because of our flesh, our feelings take us, and they are wretched counselors. Don't listen to your feelings, don't live according to your feelings, live according to what God's word says, and God's word says, forgive. Forgive. And so it's not just an emotional decision, it's a intellectual decision. a decision that's not an emotion. Seventhly, forgiveness is possible. It's possible if the offender won't ask. And I know there's a little bit of a debate here whether or not that's full forgiveness or whether or not that's letting love cover a multitude of sins or whatever, but I think it's appropriate to say it's forgiveness even if the person's not repentant. Even if the person won't ask for forgiveness because I think the difference between forgiveness in this sense and forgiveness where a person repents and asks for forgiveness and turns from it and all those things, the difference is between those two ideas is forgiveness versus reconciliation, okay? Reconciliation is when a relationship is restored because the offender has admitted their guilt, has turned from their sin, and asked you for forgiveness, and then it's been granted, and not only are you forgiving, but also there's been a restoration of the relationship. But what if that person doesn't repent? What if that person feigns repentance? That's where a lot of people get hung up, is they say, well, I don't think they were really repentant. I don't think they were really sincere. I don't think it was legitimate. And they may not say it quite this blatantly, but in a sense what they're saying is, so I don't have to forgive them. No. You do still have to forgive them. Even if it's just unilateral, and even if full reconciliation does not occur, you still have a responsibility to forgive them. And so forgiveness is something that is possible, even if the offender won't ask. And let me add one more that's not gonna pop up on the screen for you, and that is this, forgiveness is not keeping score then. So many times, as I've interacted with people on counseling situations, we've talked about forgiveness, they've assured me that they have forgiven, and then something comes up, and they'll say something like, well, that's the fourth time that they did that to me. And I'll have to say, ho, ho, ho, hold it. Did you not tell me that you have forgiven this individual? Yeah, I forgave them for those other three times. And I'll have to say, but if you have forgiven them, that means you're not keeping track of three, four, 50, 70, 100, 500 times that someone has done something to you because it's gone, it is sent away. It is forgiven. All of those things are a part of forgiveness. I know as you're sitting there, you're thinking, well, pastor, but you don't know about, you know what? None of us are immune to this. You know, when I entered the ministry at age 21, I was very naive and idealistic. I thought that everybody loved pastors. I mean, I really did, I love my pastor. Growing up, I thought he was the world's most awesome person, okay? And I appreciate it, and I know he had faults, I knew those faults, but I overlooked them because he was my pastor. And so I just kind of had this idealistic thing about ministry, people are gonna love you because you're doing the right thing and you're trying to have other people do the right thing. And so I remember thinking that. I wasn't even a year into my first ministry, I was 22 years old, wasn't even a year into my first ministry when my wife and I received at least one, she said she thought it was two, hate letters. I mean, we're not just talking about I don't like this that you do, I don't like that, we're talking hate letters. At the time, Ruth was expecting our first daughter, Ellen. And for some reason, that was the focal point of this person's hatred. The fact that we're expecting a baby. And this person went on to say how disgusting I'm gonna say she because I'm pretty sure I knew who it was. Don't know for a fact, okay? She thought that that was just a horrible thing that we were expecting, a baby, and that that was disgusting. So much so that she wished that someone would rip that baby from my wife's womb. That was the kind of terminology that she used in this letter. I mean, just spewing hatred Hatred of us, hatred of this unborn child, and hatred of things that are sacred and things that are holy. And that was my welcome to the ministry letter less than a year in to being a pastor. How would you have responded to something like that? How could you respond to something like that? You've got it on the screens. That's the only way I could respond. To do anything other than that would be to allow that one person to sour my attitude toward people, to sour my attitude toward ministry. I mean, I could have thought, I'm a pastor, come on. I'm just trying to do the right thing. You're supposed to treat me right kind of mindset. You know, this victim mindset or entitlement type of mindset or, you know, I'm gonna go on this witch hunt and I'm gonna find this person and I'm gonna confront this person and I'm gonna tell them how horrible they are By the way, Pastor Hoag, my senior pastor, got a similar letter, okay? And he was the one who said, I'm pretty sure I know who this is. And he said, you know what? We don't know that for a fact. And we need to forgive, and we need to let it go, and we need to just keep doing the right thing. And we need to do all, and he may not have outlined all these things that you have outlined in front of you, but basically espouse the whole spirit of forgiveness and move on. And that's exactly what I've done. It's so much so that I had to ask my wife a little bit about the details because I'm almost completely forgotten even the details of this lengthy letter of hatred. And that's a good thing to just have forgotten most of it because it's forgiven. Even though that person never repented, even though that person, to my knowledge, never got right with the Lord, it's forgiven, it's gone, it's sent away. Because to not send it away is to entrap myself in the chains of unforgiveness and to not hurt them like we oftentimes think we're doing when we're unforgiving and hold it against them. What we're doing instead is harming ourselves and wrapping ourselves in this in-chain prison of bitterness and hatred instead of forgiveness and love where we're set free. That's the beauty of forgiveness, is that we're set free. We send it away. Do you have a heart to forgive? Are those things that you see on the screens this morning, are those things true in your life? Is that what you practice toward other people? The concepts of forgiveness. Notice then also though the consequences of unforgiveness. Jesus goes on to expand on this in verses 14 and 15 when he says, for if you forgive men, their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. And so the consequences are stated in two different ways, in a positive way, but also in a negative way. The positive way is found there in verse 14, where he says, if you forgive men, your heavenly father will forgive you. And so God forgives the forgiving, and in this case, he uses a different word for sin. Rather than debts, he uses the word trespass. It means to slip, or to fall, or to take a false step. And again, it's a picturesque way of describing sin, it's just that. And a reminder to you that what he's talking about here is relational forgiveness. Remember that from last week, we talked about our positional forgiveness in terms of when you're saved, all of your sins, past, present, and future are forgiven and it's taken care of, and so you now stand justified before God, that kind of forgiveness that happens at the moment of salvation. But we also talked about relational forgiveness, where I as a child of God still need to go to God and confess my sins because he's faithful and just to forgive me of my sins, and to cleanse me of all unrighteousness. That's what this is about. It's not a salvation issue. It's an issue of relationship. It's an issue of fellowship with God. And so he very clearly states here that relational forgiveness is granted, but it's granted on the basis of my willingness to forgive others. Your relational forgiveness with God is dependent upon your relational forgiveness to others. What does that mean? It means that if you refuse to forgive, you're not right with God. Not only are you out of fellowship with someone else, but even more importantly, you're out of fellowship. with the creator of the universe, the savior of your soul, the most important relationship of all relationships. And so God forgives the forgiving, first of all, but secondly, what he says then on the flip side, in a negative sense, in verse 15 is, but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive you your trespasses. And so God withholds forgiveness from the unforgiving. Again, this is not a loss of salvation, it's not that kind of forgiveness, but it's relational forgiveness. And so what he's saying is if we refuse to forgive others, God will not forgive us. You cannot be forgiven unless you are being forgiving. The unforgiving are unforgiven. Unforgiveness is unforgivable, however you wanna put it. Jesus is very clear here that you're out of fellowship with God if there's someone with whom you've not restored a relationship, someone you have not forgiven. Spurgeon used to put it this way. He said, unless you have forgiven others, you read your own death warrant when you repeat the Lord's prayer. What did he mean by that? Well, he meant by that what is stated here, as we forgive others, forgive us our debts as we forgive others their debts. In other words, in the same measure, the same way that I forgive, I'm saying to God, forgive me like I forgive other people. Well, what if God forgives you like you forgive other people and you don't forgive other people? You know what you're saying to God? Don't forgive me because I don't forgive other people. That's why Spurgeon called that a death warrant and that what you're doing is you're really wishing on yourself something very horrible if you refuse to forgive. Jesus would later teach on this in Matthew chapter 18 when his disciples came to him and asked him about forgiveness and the question that was asked of Jesus is how many times should we forgive? You know, they had been taught, you forgive someone seven times, and after the seventh time, you know, let them have it, hammer them, okay? That's not what God taught, though, and so Jesus' response in that case is, I don't say seven times, I say 70 times seven, and it wasn't that it was, okay, good, I'll keep score 491, and then I'm gonna bust them. That's not what Jesus was teaching. What he's saying is, just keep forgiving. 70 times seven. And then he goes on to tell the story, 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 10,000 talents. 10,000 talents would have been more than an entire lifetime possible income, okay? More than anybody could ever repay. That kind of debt. But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold with his wife and children and all that he had and the payment be made. Wow. Imagine that, you owe so much that you end up being sold and your entire family ends up being sold into slavery as a token demonstration of an attempt to settle the debt. Then verse 26 of Matthew 18 says, the servant therefore fell down before him saying, Master, have patience with me and I will pay you all. Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion and he released him. and he forgave him the debt. Who, by the way, is the master in this kingdom of heaven illustration? It's God himself. Who's the servant? It's you and me. And that we owe a debt of sin that we could never repay. You could not live long enough and do enough good deeds to ever repay the debt of sin. There's no way you can repay a debt of sin. And then it goes on to say in the text, after it says that he was released and forgiven, verse 29 or verse 28 says, but that servant, the one who was forgiven, of this incredible debt, went out and he found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 denarii, probably about three months wages. Significant amount of money, but nothing compared to this immense amount of money. And he laid hands on him and he took him by the throat, saying, pay me what you owe me. So his servant fell down at his feet and begged him. Does that not sound familiar? That's what he did to his master. He fell at his feet and he begged him, saying, have patience with me, I'll pay you back. And he would not. But he went and he threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what he had done, they were very grieved and came and told their master all that had been done. This guy who was forgiven so much is unwilling to forgive somebody else. Then in verse 32, then his master, again represented by the Lord, then his master after he called him said to him, you wicked servant. And I just wanna pause there for a second. Because what is that saying? What does God call refusal to forgive? You wicked servant. He calls refusing to forgive wicked. Pretty strong words. And then notice what it goes on to say. I forgave you all the debt that you begged me to forgive. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant just as I had pity on you? Then his master was angry. Stop there. What's God's attitude toward refusal to forgive? First, he calls it wicked. Secondly, he says he's angry about it. It's a big deal. And he delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was done. He punishes him. He disciplines him. And then it says in verse 35, so my heavenly father, this is how we know the master's the father, so my heavenly father also will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses. Uses the same kind of terminology that we find here in Matthew 6. He's saying God says it's wicked, God says he's angry, and God says I won't forgive you if you won't forgive other people. It's that big of a deal to God. God withholds forgiveness from the unforgiving. God is angry with someone who refuses to forgive. He disciplines believers who refuse to forgive. That's why we must forgive. And I realize you may be thinking, well, but you don't know what happened to me, you don't understand how bad it was, how it ruined my life, how it ruined my family, how it ruined this and destroyed that, and you don't understand all that went on. Listen, if we say those kinds of things, we really refuse to understand what Christ did for us. If you refuse to forgive, you don't know what Christ went through for you. Ephesians 4, 32 says, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, have forgiven you. Remember the words of Jesus on the cross. Father what? Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. It wasn't, Father, strike them dead. They're killing your son. A horrible crime. No, it was Father forgive them, they don't know what they're doing. Christ forgave the very people who tortured and crucified him. How does that compare to what you've been through? How does that compare to what you've been through? If you're harboring unforgiveness toward anyone, the Bible makes it clear, you're out of fellowship with God. The good news is is you can get that right. The good news is that you can choose to forgive. How fully, how fully have you forgiven the people that have hurt you? Maybe recently, maybe a long time ago. As we conclude this morning, I wanna just give you some questions to ask yourself in relationship to that. Do you find any of these following statements to be true? Number one, every time I think of blank, I still feel angry. Number two, I have a subtle secret desire to see, and we just are filling in the name of someone, to see so-and-so pay for what they did to me. Number three, deep down, I have a subtle secret desire to see them pay for what they did to me. Or number three, deep down, I wouldn't mind if something bad happened to the person who hurt me. Number four, I find myself wanting to tell others about how they hurt me. Number five, if their name even comes up, I'm more likely to say something negative than positive about them. Number six, I have a hard time thanking God for them. Can you thank God for that person? If one or more of these statements is true in your life, there's at least some degree of unforgiveness in your heart. Watch this video with me this morning and see how Pastor Blackburn responds and the rest of the story. do this without them. They're just like carrying us and supporting us with all their prayer, with all their love, and the outpouring of expression and their condolences for all of this. That's what's really getting us through it. Yeah. Of course, these men have been charged with your wife's murder, Davey. And I have read in news accounts out of your area, you are ready to forgive them for what they did. Can you explain that to us, how that works? Yeah, you know, forgiveness is really interesting in that it's not a feeling. And I feel like that if you wait to feel like you're ready to forgive, then you're never really going to be able to forgive. Because when someone inflicts pain on you or an offense this grave, I don't feel like you ever feel like forgiving. But you know, One of the things I learned from Amanda and that we really learn as we walk with Jesus is that if we were to make all of our decisions based on emotions, then we would live a miserable life. This world would be even worse than what it is right now. And so although we don't feel like forgiving, what we feel like is forgiving. is anger and hatred and rage and loneliness and confusion, we choose to forgive. And the thing is about forgiveness is it's a daily decision. We're going to have to wake up every single day and face that decision over and over and over for the rest of our lives. And I don't want to live my life going down the path of bitterness because it will destroy my soul and it will destroy everybody around me if I choose that. And so today, I choose forgiveness. And I pray that tomorrow I can wake up and choose forgiveness by the power of Jesus Christ. You know, one of the things about Jesus is when they were inflicting way more pain than any of us could imagine on him on the cross, he looked out and he said, Father, forgive them for they don't know what they're doing. And so that spirit lives in us. And we're just praying that God through his spirit would help us in that. Well, it is a heartbreaking story, and Phil and Davey, just know that there are millions of people right now praying for your family. Thank you very much for coming on TV to tell us about Amanda. Amen. I asked you at the beginning this morning, how would you respond if that was you? Maybe something quite that horrible hasn't happened to you, but maybe there's something else. Or maybe there's a list of somethings. Or maybe it's someone or a list of someones. I mentioned at the beginning of the service today that in your bulletin there's this little tiny slip of paper and it simply says forgiven. I'd like you to take that out as we conclude the message. And I'd like you to think right now, is there someone in your life that you need to A, forgive, or B, renew your forgiveness toward. Because I realize that sometimes we say we forgive and we choose to forgive and then we renege on it. We pull it back and we start to think about what they did again and really start to live as if it wasn't forgiven. So maybe you've forgiven this person in the past, or maybe you've never forgiven this person. I'd like you right now to take out a pen, if you can think of someone, if you can think of something, and you write it however you want to, okay? You can write initials, you can just put one letter down there that represents the sin. So it can be a person, or it can be a sin that was committed against you. You can do whatever, okay? But I'm asking you today, if God is working in your heart in such a way that you know today you need to take care of this, you need to forgive someone or renew forgiveness towards someone, would you right now just write on that piece of paper something that represents them? It could be initials, whatever, okay? Something that represents them or something that represents the sin that was committed against you. Would you do that? I'd like you to all just bow your heads and close your eyes, or just bow your heads and keep your eyes open enough to write on that piece of paper. Don't look at what your neighbor's doing, because there may be a tendency to think, well, what's so-and-so doing, and what's happening down the pew from me? Just put yourself in your own little bubble, okay, between you and God. And what is it that you need to write down? Who is it that you need to write down? Who is it, more importantly than writing on a piece of paper, that you need to choose to forgive today? Father, thank you so much for your word. It's practical ramifications in our lives, and I pray that right now we might be thinking of someone, we might be thinking of a situation, or we're writing down on this piece of paper specifics, maybe in a general sense, but we know exactly what it represents. I pray as we do so that that would be an expression, a tangible and physical expression of our decision, not just our emotions, not just how we feel, but of our decision to forgive. I pray in Jesus' name, amen.