Good morning, everyone.
Good morning.
It's good to see you all today.
Who feels like it's been a busy fall so far?
Can you relate?
That's me.
So coming at you live this morning from a busy fall.
One of the things I love about getting to be together is just what this body does for
me because each of you show up.
It's a joyful thing to come together and be a community together and see faces that from
the range of conversations we've had, sometimes it's just in quick passing and sometimes it's
pretty in depth.
But everybody who is here, somebody else is glad that you're here.
So I want to just make sure that you hear that also from me.
I'm so glad you're here because I feel boosted from you guys.
So thank you for how you build into this community and what God is doing.
This week is one of the weeks that we've been in a series called Fully.
And each week we've been doing focus on a word that ends in fully.
So Scott preached on joyfully.
There's going to be a number more coming up this week.
I'm speaking on forgetfully.
And it is essentially a message on forgiveness.
I want to say at the very top that I know that this is a fairly triggering topic for
people, for some people.
This can be triggering thing for some of you as you have experienced forgiveness as an
idea that's been weaponized and held as a tool of guilt over your heads.
And in regard to some of those most terrible and traumatic things, the words I say today
will be about forgiveness and even forgetting offenses to a degree.
But I want to be clear that what you do with these words and the timeline with which you
do them are entirely yours and between you and the Lord and not my business.
And so I want to put that out there.
I know that forgiveness can be a scary topic for people for a lot of reasons and today
is not meant to be, is not meant to weaponize that towards you.
So I want to be verbal about that.
What I do hope our time together is today about is the between you and you're the Lord
communication portion, that experience.
I am hopeful that that will continue to be or become a life giving and freeing and regularly
integrated parts for you.
In scripture, forgiveness is a central thread that runs through all of the passages in each
book from the first to the last.
Even though the central idea of this message is indeed forgiveness, it's really probably
core more about self reflection, which is why you had the question that you had today.
And so I want to talk about first that God forgives us.
That is where we have to begin is looking to the Lord and recognizing that that is offered
to you.
Much like how we talk about rest here at the house, though, we have misordered things.
Rest is not earned.
It is a gift given.
That's how we talk about rest here.
And so it's the same with forgiveness.
We don't earn it because we can't.
It has already been offered to you as a gift, not for the snatching, but for the receiving
and the welcoming of it in our lives.
First John 4 19 says we love because God first loved us.
And this verse sets the tone for God's action towards us always.
That God moves first.
We would not have been able to know how high or how wide or how deep the love of God could
go without it being revealed to us and already being in action towards us.
We might have figured out fractions of it.
Some of you may be familiar with from your philosophy classes or history classes, the
philosopher Plato and his idea of the cave.
And the idea of the cave is that all the people in the cave are facing the wall and all they
can see is the shadows of light, you know, pushing their shadows on the wall.
But it's dim, it's shadowed, it's veiled.
And they need somebody to lead them out of the cave to see what life is really like.
That's the idea of the cave in Plato's imagery.
And Plato often said that truth is what is outside the cave.
That's what you need to be led to.
But scripture unsurprisingly builds on this costume, builds on this concept because it
is in a Greek world and goes on to use these ideas in scripture saying, for now we see
only a reflection as in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face.
Now I know in part.
But that we look to God to lead us to things that are real and to things that are true.
And so it indicates that unless God leads us out of the cave, unless God leads us into
truth, unless God leads us into love, God leads us into these things such as forgiveness
that I'm talking about today, we cannot truly know.
But I'm thankful that God faithfully does that.
And this is how everything in life goes, is it not?
We are offered the model, we learn it, and then we share it.
That's how we do things.
We watch it happen.
We are led in it first, then we do it ourselves, and then we share it.
And so we understand that God has led the way as with just about anything, we recognize
that God has reached out to us, offering us something to respond to.
And in this case, it is that God has forgiven us and has offered it to us first.
He does not withhold it from us.
He does not make us earn it.
It is ours to have.
And so Luke 23, 34 says, Jesus said, Father, forgive them for they do not know what they
are doing.
Matthew 26, 27 and 28, when he's sitting with his friends, we reflect on this concept every
week here at the house with the communion.
He's sitting with his friends and it says, then he took the cup and when he had given
thanks, he gave it to them saying, drink from it, all of you.
This is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for the many, poured out for many
for the forgiveness of sins.
The action had come first.
And so one thing that we need to keep in mind is that Jesus advocates for our wholeness always
before we even ever know we're broken.
And so recognizing that forgiveness has been offered, you do not have to earn it.
It is not something you have to fight for from God.
We recognize that God has forgiven us and we accept it with an open heart.
But second part is a little hard because we are a people that can hang on to wrongs.
We do it towards others.
We build tally lists, but most specifically, we do it to ourselves.
I think we are the least gracious to ourselves, never letting ourselves off the hook.
We let our own mistakes, missteps and often and offenses stick to us and build up in our
own minds until we often see ourselves as our offenses and our wrongs.
It's often accompanied by defeating words such as, you're so stupid, why did you do
that again?
Again, how could you do that?
I can't believe that you, why can't you just?
And so we do this weird thing by hanging on to our self offenses or even our outwardly
facing offenses.
And it's as if we want people to know that we are already managing our self punishment.
I'm an idiot.
I know it.
You don't have to tell me.
I'll never forgive myself for this.
We get into this really stuck place, putting all of this as a barrier between ourselves
as though we don't deserve to be let go, that we don't deserve to be off the hook on that.
Or perhaps we go the other way where we dismiss our offenses and we put it on the other person
for being, you're too sensitive or you're making a big deal out of something that isn't.
I don't know what the problem is.
Or if we decide, or we decide that whatever really was, wasn't actually that bad and everyone
should just move on.
And we decide for others that they should just move on from our offenses.
Everyone says and does things like that.
Why should it be such a big deal?
I don't think you're looking at this correctly.
Have we ever said stuff like that?
Have we ever been in both of these categories?
Both are unhealthy because both are avoidant.
Both lead us away from self-examination, repentance and resolution.
Why do we need forgiveness?
Because we do these things.
We do them to ourselves and we do them to others.
Is it a surprise to any of us that we've hurt each other?
And is it a surprise to any of us that we've hurt ourselves in our body and our minds and
our souls and our hearts?
By our actions, by our words, by what we have not said and done towards others and what
we have done towards ourselves and others.
In doing these things, we have brought hurt and offense not to ourselves and others, but
to our loving creator.
If we come to terms with this, then it seems odd, though not surprising knowing what we
know of humanity, that we would be dismissive and avoidant of forgiveness that's already
been offered to you.
We are not in the practice of thinking we need it because we avoid it.
And this will stop us dead in our tracks because friends, we always need it.
We always need God's wholeness and restoration.
That's what forgiveness leads us to.
And so I want to practice something.
We're going to do this twice.
Liam, this will be the prayer of confession.
We're going to do this twice, but I will ask you a question between both recitings.
So up on the screen will be something called the prayer of confession.
You are already well in the practice of praying things that are more like recitations, but
I invite you to join me in this.
Almighty God, we acknowledge and confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word,
and deed.
We have not loved you with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
We have not loved our neighbor as ourselves.
Deep in within us, our sorrow for the wrong we have done and the good we have left undone.
So I'm going to ask you not to say out loud, but to consider how did that feel?
What did that make you think?
Did you think, this is a weird prayer.
Why am I praying this right now?
Or did you think, oh, if I really considered what these words are, I could be here a minute.
I don't want to think about that right now.
So we're going to pray it again.
We're going to say it again, and I want you to be aware of what you're thinking and feeling
as we say it.
So once again we say, Almighty God, we acknowledge and confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed.
We have not loved you with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
We have not loved our neighbor as ourselves.
Deep in within us, our sorrow for the wrong we have done and the good we have left undone.
So this is where we're going to take a little side trail to talk about self-reflection or
self-examination.
There is a wonderful spiritual practice called an examine that was created by Ignatius of
Loyola, a Spanish priest from the 1500s.
And he created a daily practice in which you go through, we'll do them as questions, you'll
see them as questions or as statements, but they are reflections.
We'll go through these reflections and it's an opportunity to consider things.
For now, Liam is going to put them up on the screen and he'll just move through them.
We will have a time available at the end to actually think about them.
But for this, Liam this will be the next screen, I think there's just, yep, that.
These are some of the questions that the daily examine guides you through.
You place yourself in God's presence and you give thanks for God's great love for you.
The second thing you do after you think through is pray for the grace to understand how God
is acting in your life.
And then you review your day.
You recall specific moments and your feelings at the time.
You reflect on what you said and did or thought in those instances.
Were you drawing closer to God or were you drawing yourself further away?
And then you look towards the next day and you think about how you might collaborate
more effectively with God's plan.
And as you go through those as a way of practicing reflection and self-examination, it's a guide
that offers God space to speak with you and for you to speak with God.
What have I done against my neighbor?
What have I said that I wasn't aware of?
Did I hurt myself or others?
Did I cause offense?
And it allows you some space to reflect on those things.
Within this practice, thank you Liam, within this practice is space for God to reveal to
you where you might have brought wrong or offense in your world, around you with the
people you know.
Without a practice of self-examination, we become avoidant of face-to-face time with
God.
We become avoidant because for the very thing that we've been talking about, we assume God's
judgment before we assume God's love and forgiveness.
We assume that coming face-to-face with God is going to be condemnation, not the joy that
he has for spending time with us, not the love that he has offered, not the forgiveness
that is already yours.
We assume the bad before we assume the good.
And it's this very thing that puts a dam in the river, in not just in our spiritual lives,
but in our lives in general with others.
We have assumed God is quicker to judge us than God is to forgive us.
And so we choose avoidance and then we treat others the same way.
We are quicker to judge than we are to forgive.
So take a moment to self-reflect right now and ask yourself if this is true of you.
We move zero steps forward when we either hang on to or dismiss the life-giving forgiveness
that has been offered fully to us.
When we practice this kind of forgiveness, we are then able to freely extend it to others.
And let me be clear, I did not say easily, but we will learn with a regular practice
how to be wise and generous and not withholding with our forgiveness to others.
So ultimately, we follow God's lead.
He extends to us first.
We say yes with a whole heart, with a reflective and self-examined heart.
And then we are freed up to share with others.
And so I want to read through a passage and I want to take a posture of full attention.
I will invite you to stand as you are able.
We're going to read through Matthew 18, 21 through 33.
We have a practice at the house of turning our full attention to the scriptures.
And so if you would like to turn to Matthew 18, you may.
We have Bibles in the hall as well.
If you don't have one, you can also pull it up on your phone.
Matthew 18, 21 through 33 is the parable of the unmerciful servant.
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother
or sister who sins against me?
Up to seven times?
And Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven times, but 77 times.
This indicated basically stop counting.
Don't count.
Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his
servants.
And as he began the settlement, a man who owned him 10,000 bags of gold was brought
to him.
Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and
all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
At this, the servant fell on his knees before him.
Be patient with me, he begged, and I will pay back everything.
The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt, and let him go.
Wow.
But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 silver
coins.
He grabbed him and began to choke him.
Pay back what you owe me, he demanded.
His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, be patient with me, and I will pay it
back.
But he refused.
Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.
When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their
master everything that had happened.
Then the master called the servant in.
You wicked servant, he said.
I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to.
Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?
I'm going to jump to Colossians 3, 12 through 14.
Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourself with compassion,
kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone.
Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
And over all these virtues, put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
You may be seated.
It is so clear in this message, in this scripture, what God's heart is.
It's so clear.
There are no games played on this one.
You can't misinterpret this.
The servant was offered forgiveness.
We can see that it is absolutely insane that he demanded, that same servant demanded he
be owed.
And when the person couldn't pay him, he put him in jail.
He was unkind, unmerciful, unforgiving when he had just received that.
That seems shocking to us, doesn't it?
And yet, and yet, that's a hard one in our lives.
What's even harder is that scripture tells us certain things about what God does with
our offenses.
Isaiah 43, 25 says, I, even I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake and
remembers your sins no more.
Hebrews 8, 12 says, for I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no
more.
Micah 7, 18, and 19, who is a God like you who pardons sin and forgives the transgression
of the remnants of his inheritance?
You do not stay angry forever, but delight to show mercy.
You will again have compassion on us.
You will tread out our, or you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities
into the depth of the sea.
What can be wilder than believing that God has offered us forgiveness is not something
to work for, but is something that is really given to you.
What can be wilder to consider is that God does not hold our sins against us.
What can be wilder to consider is that God forgets them in that he does not look at us
and see our offenses.
So forgetfully is how this message has been titled within this series, though all the
things I've mentioned, that's probably going to be the thing that we wrestle with the most.
Because as I said, we are people that know how to hang on to wrongs.
We even do it sometimes as a badge of honor, don't we?
We feel like something's been snatched away from us when we've been wronged.
Our dignity, our status, how people view us, our integrity, our trustworthiness, something
precious deep within us.
We can tend to want to dismiss the pain, but we often don't want to do the hard work that
comes with it, of actually dealing with the thing that has happened.
That's not an indictment.
We just don't respond to pain well.
We usually just want to numb it.
That's what we're in the practice of, to get rid of it.
But often we don't want to forget when someone else has done something to us.
We want to remember the things, but we don't want the complications that come with it.
We want others to know the wrongs that have been done to us, or the wrongs that have been
done, and we want them to join our side and agree that it was terrible.
And usually, not always, but usually, this is an outcome of not examining what's at the
core of the pain and the hurt that was caused by the thing, by the offense.
Self-examination is an incredibly important tool to have in your life arsenal.
Asking yourself, why did that bother me so much?
It's a great question to keep on hand.
For better or for worse, it's actually for better, though we may hate it, we see in Scripture
that God not only leads us in loving and forgiving others, but in not keeping the offense ever
in our view.
That does not mean that everything goes back to normal.
That's not what that means.
It's hard because we know some of the offenses that have existed on this planet.
It feels, at its worst, like we're letting people get away with things, but there's a
process to it.
It's not just simple, right?
For forgiveness to be fully realized, we have to come to a place of recognition and reception
of what this gift of forgiveness looks like to us, and to really experience at a deep
level.
It's not flipping, it's not loose, and it's not sweeping things under the rug.
It's not what you often hear in childhood experience.
Tell them you're sorry.
Tell them it's okay, right?
We've all instructed kids to say, tell them you're sorry, and what is the response back?
It's okay.
It's not okay.
What I often will say to a kid is, you can apologize if you'd like.
You can say I forgive you, or you can say thank you, but you don't have to.
Truthfully, we're not forcing people into that action, but it is not okay, right?
We don't want to get into the practice of being like, it's okay, because that just,
again, that's the avoidant dismissive thing.
God is not dismissing things.
God is not about that.
God does deal with things directly.
We have seen evidence of that.
You should rest assured, be rest assured, that when we're talking about, when Scripture
is talking about God is sending these offenses into the sea, he's not dismissing them.
He is dealing with them, but he's letting us off the hook of managing that.
There's plenty of other things we are carrying with us throughout this life.
God is not dismissing things, nor do I believe God is asking us to dismiss things either.
That is not in God's character, particularly when we consider the depth of God's love for
us and for others, and that God's objective for us is always restoration to wholeness
in ourselves.
God is not dismissive or avoidant.
God is asking us to be gracious and merciful just as God has been with us, but it is not
just a, that's okay.
There's a process involved.
There's self-reflection involved.
It's not quick, but do not hold things against yourself or others.
God wants us to be free.
And so once again, we see in these scriptures that I just read that God leads us in mercy
and loving kindness, and that is something that we also need to practice.
And just as the servant was forgiven his debts, it was put upon the servant to share mercy
and forgive as he'd been forgiven, to no longer hold the debt over the owner, or the
ower, excuse me.
And I want to say, I think this is largely so that we ourselves don't get into a practice
of oppression, because when you choose to hold offenses over somebody, it's because
you want to regain the power that you feel like was taken from you.
You want to hold it over them.
You don't want to restore equity.
That's often the case.
And what you're looking at is actually becoming the oppressor in this situation, because consider
the servant who refused to accept the plea of the one who owed him silver.
He became the oppressor.
And I think when we are unmerciful and unforgiving, that's the danger we can fall into.
We do not need more of that in our world.
So someone who doesn't practice forgiveness, who thinks that they don't need it, will not
be able to practice mercy and grace and forgiveness towards others.
They will not be able to do it.
Their heart is not soft.
They are not teachable.
I've heard people talk about their forgiveness towards others as almost, don't cross me,
you'll regret it.
And speak of the retribution that they'll enact, or how they'll make life for somebody.
That's oppressor language.
They want to treat somebody the way they feel that they were treated or wronged, as almost
a point of pride.
This is not a virtue.
This is not admirable.
It is a play for power.
And we need so much less of that in our world.
Forgiveness is something that is entirely your choice.
Whether or not you participate in it, you are empowered to make those decisions on your
own.
And that's one of what happens when we don't have a practice of forgiveness in our lives.
Energy is taken from you.
It takes a lot of energy to hold and maintain offenses.
As I said earlier, forgiveness is not always easy and sometimes an offense is incredibly
big.
And I said at the very beginning, I want to point out this is not meant to be a message
about shame or weaponizing forgiveness.
These are your things to handle as you wish.
But there are things attached to it.
Forgiveness is not something that someone can or should be forced into, but it will
take time and energy away from you.
It does not build something good in us when we withhold forgiveness or hold onto our offenses.
It takes something away from us and it keeps us stuck in a place that we will probably
hate.
And also, you are not letting people off the hook.
When you forgive somebody, that's not what you're doing.
You are releasing yourself from carrying the weight of the thing.
The other party is responsible for themselves.
If you've ever been to therapy and you've talked through things that involve other people,
the therapist or counselor has probably said something to you like, you cannot change the
other person.
The only thing you can change is your own response.
And again, a reminder, you do not earn God's forgiveness and that goes for your neighbor
too, so don't make them earn it.
And that might make you mad because you might want them to squirm and feel awful about things
you find deplorable.
God has offered forgiveness to us.
We simply need to receive it with an open heart.
However, it is our world's lack of walking in the freedom of forgiveness that often keeps
us so wound up in our systematic patterns of hurting each other and ourselves.
So putting a practice of forgiveness in the world through ourselves might be recommendable.
If we want to see healing, I think this is where we go.
So does the Bible instruct us in a practice of forgiveness?
Yes.
We also have it included in our blueprint.
It is a part of the fiber of our church.
If you're in a community table right now, you will talk about this next week.
And so this is a good week to spend some time thinking on what forgiveness might look like
in your life right now.
On a very practical level, I am aware we had an election this week.
And the race leading up to it was difficult for a lot of reasons for a lot of people.
And we have watched ourselves become increasingly awful to each other.
And there are real reasons for that.
Policies affect people.
And so we have big feelings for real reasons.
And your feelings are valid and they do matter.
However, how we respond to our feelings is important.
We have said and done things towards others out of our feelings regarding the election
and leading up to it.
Some of this has been channeled incredibly well.
Big feelings are not bad.
What we do with them, we need to ask questions.
We need to self-examine.
And like I said, some of this energy and these feelings have been channeled in really productive
ways.
Action steps have been taken that reflect your values and have been in an effort to
build something for those you love and for your community.
And that is energy well spent.
Keep doing that.
Most as well, some of the energy spent has been towards dismantling things that do not
reflect your values towards the building and betterment of those you love and for your
community and that's important too.
However, we have an opportunity to examine ourselves and choose, if our actions towards
others, how those actions look.
That is in front of us right now.
And that is a very practical way.
Right now, we can spend our energies.
I'm going to put the slides for examine back up.
And I shared with you earlier the one, rather, I'm going to put the slides for examine that
I shared with you earlier back up on the screen and give you a few moments to think through
some of these guided thoughts.
And Liam, you can actually just kind of give each slide maybe 10 seconds and move through
them and go back through them again.
You can also take a picture of the questions to save for this week.
But I would say a practice of self-examination and forgiveness might be something we want
to be extra mindful of putting into play in our lives.
Where we are spending less time counting offenses and building them up in our mind, which I
am badly subject to as well.
I am amazing at building up big stories in my head about things that I felt were offensive
to me.
And being more open and humble with the Lord on my own heart and honest.
I need to be honest about the root of my feelings and what I'm doing with them.
And if I'm staying closed off and jaded or if I'm staying soft and open.
These are things I need to reflect on.
The world is full of a lot of evil, which I know sounds very hopeless.
I like to think I'm a realist.
But sometimes beyond our own belief, we are often complicit.
The way we rarely think that we are the problem, but we are not the good guys.
This is why self-reflection and forgiveness needs to be a regular practice in our lives.
Forgiveness is offered to you freely.
It is available to you.
You do not have to earn it.
But to fully experience it, you do need to be reflective.
You need to be honest with yourself.
And the more you're able to have that practice happening, you can be wise and generous with
that in our world with others.
And we need that.
The church needs to lead the way on that.
So take time looking through these questions, take pictures of them to use throughout this
week, if you'd like.
And in just a moment Pastor Greg is going to come up and lead us in communion.
God, we ask for your love to fill us.
We ask that you would continually keep in front of us that you are not standing with
judgment ready for us, but you are standing with openness and welcome and love for us
to restore us to wholeness always.
For us and our neighbor, always.
So help us be faithful to that call in our lives.
Take some time to think through these questions.