I am pretty sure John Mark Jones and Duane Cannon can pull that off. All in favor, say aye. Challenge extended, my brother. You know what's interesting about seeing this? If you've ever worked in children's ministry, you see how quickly a story can divert.

Okay? But you also see these children got the point.

And the point was, if you've been forgiven much, you can forgive little. God is a forgiving God in this parable, which is found in Matthew 18:21. If you want to go ahead and be turning there, I'm not going to ask you to stand to read today because these children did a good job going ahead and telling the gist of the parable. But now what we want to do is we want to dig in a little bit deeper, and there is nothing like hidden or to discover about this message. The question that I have for you today is this.

If God's forgiven you much, what does forgiveness look like in your life extended to those who are around you? And that's not just your family members. That's not just your closest friends. I'm talking about, are you a forgiving person? Have you ever considered that forgiveness is as vital in your life as prayer in Bible study?

In fact, you've often heard it said, or I've often heard it said, that someone who shackles themself with unforgiveness only hurts themselves. Well, I'm going to tell you that's not true. Because when we begin to dig into the context of this, your lack of forgiveness does affect other people. In fact, it can lead them astray. Why would I say that when you and I, when you and I choose to have any unforgiveness in our life?

We are saying that the thrust of the Gospel is not meaningful. What does it mean to be saved? What does it mean to be saved for your sins to be forgiven? And if, as one of the followers of Jesus, I mean, we just sang at the cross, at the cross, I surrender my opinion. I surrender.

What does he say? My life. And so if I come to the cross and the only reason I can come to the cross is by the grace and mercy of God extending mercy to me, then as a follower of Jesus, grace and mercy should not just follow me, but should go ahead of me too. In fact, Jesus, two different times in the book of Matthew spars with the Pharisees over this idea of the extension of mercy. In Matthew 9:13, after he calls Levi to be one of his own, he has a dinner and he's eating with the tax collectors, much like Luke 15.

And the Pharisees, of course, show up and they're like, does this man know what he's doing? And Jesus quotes a passage that's found in Hosea 6 6, if you're taking notes in a notebook or on that study guide, Hosea, which reads this. For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice.

In fact, the word there for loyalty is chesed. It's my favorite Old Testament word, and it's translated as the word loving kindness. In fact, I'm not sure there's a word in English that really encompasses the full meaning of that word. But it. It's God's benevolent disposition toward us in his mercy and his grace.

And he said, I delight. I delight in extending that, but God delights in us returning that. Now, when you get to 9, 13, and the Pharisees are saying, why do you eat with tax collectors and sinners? Jesus says it's not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. So he gives them a command.

He says, but go and learn what this means. That I desire compassion rather than sacrifice, he said, for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. In other words, from Jesus perspective, chesed is God's compassion toward us. In English, the word compassion means to suffer with.

And so Jesus is saying that God's disposition toward people in extending his grace and his mercy is to take on their suffering, their sin. And in his mercy, he lets it go. Literally, in the Greek New Testament, the word for forgiveness means to let go, to depart. And so when he forgives us of our sins, we are no longer indebted to. To what that sin required.

But we know what the Bible teaches is the debt of sin. Romans 6:23 says, what for the wages of sin is what I earn. And what you earn, whether you've committed a little sin or a lot of sin, is death. But see, that's where our flesh really gets the best of us, because we've got kind of like two compartments in our life. We've got the really bad sins.

I won't go there. But then there's these other little sins, and they're like, they're not that bad. But both of them deserves death. And God in His mercy and his grace, paid for those sins. The other place where Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6 in Matthew is in Matthew 12.

Again, as you're reading the book of Matthew, there's two things that are happening. One, there's this increasing tension with the Pharisees, the scribes, the priests, the Jewish leadership. But there's also this undercurrent as Jesus is preparing the disciples to go forth, ready to preach the gospel. And both of those are coming to bear. And so as they're walking through a field on the Sabbath, Jesus plucks off heads of grain and the disciples eat.

And so he's challenged by, you're working on the Sabbath by picking the grain. So Jesus goes back and tells a story about King David who when they were hungry, went into the temple and he went to where what's called the showbread, it was the bread they presented before God. And once that bread got a little bit old, there would actually be a pile that was for the priests. And so they went in. David and his men went in and helped themselves to that bread.

Jesus as not only the son of David, as the Messiah, he's the son of God. More than can go in and take of those things to provide a need. And that was the point. He's saying, look, my men are hungry. And he says to them in Matthew 12, 7, but if you had known what this means, I desire compassion and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent.

See, they weren't comfortable with the Messiah that was coming in their minds to be a weak king. They wanted a conquering king. They didn't want somebody who was coming and just so freely forgiving people of their sin.

But neither are you. You and I in our life, we've got people that have offended us and when they offend us, we in our hearts begin to process that. We think, well, you know, you don't know how bad this person hurt me. This person should pay back every cent. You will owe me the money that you owe me.

But in our pride, we think they owe us something. But can I show you something beautiful I referenced many, many times.

Do you know how much your sin cost? When you and I step back and we begin to think about sin, and we begin to think about sin, and not only in our life, but in other people's life, it begins to accumulate very quickly.

And the cost of that sin is the grotesque image of the cross of Jesus Christ, who bled and died for you and me.

For some reason in our self righteousness, we think that, well, Jesus has forgiven me, but I haven't really done that many bad things.

That's a lie. We've actually been forgiven of a whole lot. And so as Jesus begins to dig into this parable that's called the unmerciful slave, I just want you to ask the question, am I a forgiving person? And if I'M not. Why?

What's standing in my way? Because in the kingdom dynamics, we've been talking about the kingdom and what it looks like in the kingdom and why the kingdom is important. Last week we talked about the riches of the kingdom. This week I want to talk about the reconciliation of the kingdom that Jesus Christ died to reconcile you, to forgive you so that you could be in right relationship with God, your sin forgiven. But because it's been forgiven, now as kingdom participants and members of we are called to do the same.

You see, forgiveness is the door to restoration. There is no way that if somebody offends you that you can sit down at the table and make things right in that relationship, be better without forgiveness. I can guarantee you if you go into a conflict situation with saying, well, I can't forgive what's been done to me, you will never reconcile. Have you ever been in an argument with a family member and all you're sitting there doing is just hurling things back and forth across the table? Well, do you remember when you did this?

Well, do you remember how you said that? You just start hurling things, it never comes to conclusion because you end up more angry than you were before you came to the table. But when you go to the table going, you know what? I choose right now to liberate and free that person from whatever offense they've done to me. No, no, no, no, I can't go in there and in a passive aggressive way saying, well, you know, you shouldn't have said it this way.

I mean, you can't do that if you're truly going to reconcile with somebody else. Forgiveness has to be a part of your values and your practice. In fact, we see an example of this in 2nd Corinthians 2, 5, 11, when Paul is most likely talking about the man in First Corinthians 6 who was having an affair with his mother in law.

So they disciplined him, they put him out of the church, but apparently they went too far. Now, whether it is or isn't, but you read that text, what you see is he said, look, alright, you've done this, but you've pushed him past the point. You haven't expressed the forgiveness for his sorrow. He's sorrowful for what he did. Now bring him back.

But here's the thing. If we don't check this in our hearts, if we don't become people of forgiveness and restoration, Satan takes advantage of that. In fact, a lot of you would think, you know, if, if some, if somebody came into Toccoa and said, well, we're going to put a nightclub down on the main drag. We think, oh, that's going to be a place of just absolute debauchery.

The playground of Satan is your unforgiveness.

The thing that will separate somebody from you quicker than anything else is a refusal to forgive. And so my question again is, are you a forgiving person? And if not, what today can change in your attitude and your affections that would cause you to want to be someone of forgiveness? So let's dig into this text because I want you to notice that as we start this text and we end this text, the question originally is one of quantity. Say quantity.

When we finish this, it's going to be one of quality. Because Peter's question was simple. He said, lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? That's a good question. See, in Matthew 18, there's been a couple of things that's going on that sets up the leading up to this question that he asked.

Like why in the world, right here in this part of the text, does Peter start asking about forgiveness? Well, the chapter starts opening up by the disciples asking him, who's the greatest in the kingdom? So Jesus sets a little child in front of him and said, unless you come to the kingdom as a child, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. But then Jesus twists this like there's an expectation of faith, but there's also an expectation of, of holiness. As we've talked about, that sin is dealt with.

But he says this. Anyone who would lead this child astray, it's better that they would drown in the ocean.

You follow that right child is set before them. He's trying to make the sense. You come in with a childlike humility that is the greatest in the kingdom, not the self righteous, but anyone who would lead him astray or do anything to hinder that child, it's better that they drown. And so then he goes into this discussion about stumbling blocks. So he transitions from who's greatest in the kingdom to warning them.

There's a warning here. Don't be a stumbling block to these little ones. Don't do anything that would thwart their faith, lead them astray, take them down a path that they shouldn't. Well, then we get to the text and he talks about what we call church discipline. If a brother sins, go to him and tell him.

If he won't listen, take somebody with you, another person to witness, and go and tell him again. And then he says, if he won't listen to that, then bring him before the church. The only two places in the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John where the church ekklesia is mentioned is in Matthew 16 and here. Bring him before the assembly and if he won't listen, then to treat him as a tax collector and a sinner. Now again, wait a minute.

Context. Childlike faith. Don't lead them astray. Don't be a stumbling block. The purpose of church discipline is to draw repentance.

That you want the sinning brother to repent. You do not have the right and authority of punishment and judgment. That's God's place. In fact, we read in the Bible that the only person who can forgive sin in a redemptive sense is who? God.

You and I can't do that. There's no human being on the face of this planet that could pronounce forgiveness over you in the place of God. God's already done that. It's the picture of cross of Christ, his finished work and the promise of God. That is what promises my sin forgiven.

And if there is someone sinning, if you as my brother and sister, I have a responsibility to come to you and say, hey man, what you're doing is not right. Otherwise I'm a stumbling block. And if you refuse to repent of your sin, if you're in a sin, then you're now becoming a stumbling block.

And when we come to the Lord in repentance. Let me ask you a question. If you ask the Lord to forgive you right now, would you expect God to forgive you? Is that what you've been taught? Then why can't we expect that of one another?

I made a comment earlier. I'm going to say it again. I'm looking at some cultural things right now and we were talking about some patterns that Fred noticed with Gen Z and this kind of this revival mentality. I'm going to tell you what I think we're missing in the American church today. Security.

Security. You know why? Because people come in these doors and the people of God are always acting a little bit different. We get offended and we withhold forgiveness for punishment's sake. Guys, I'm telling you that we lose the right to preach the gospel if I can't in some way shape form or fashion.

Embrace. Embrace the intention. Now let me back up. Let me flip the coin over. Forgiveness is hard.

Forgiveness is hard because I am in my flesh until the day I leave this world. Jesus comes back. I get angry, I get upset, I get offended and you do too. I say things that I shouldn't say. Sometimes I Say things in the wrong context.

Sometimes I think the wrong things because we're in our flesh, right or wrong. If you track that, say yes or no. So in doing that, in doing that, what I understand is that forgiveness in my life must be something that's produced by the work of the Holy Spirit moving in and through me. And so when we look at what Peter asks, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? He says, well, up to seven times.

So here's Peter now. In that time, the rabbis were taught this. They said, if somebody sins against you, forgive them three times.

Can I show you how shallow that is? How many times you're supposed to brush your teeth today? I heard it. Kids just said two times. Who told you the number two?

I mean, if I could get political for a few moments. They told us six feet five years ago, where they come up with six. They confess they made it up. It's an arbitrary number. How often?

How many? Two. Well, I know some senior adults in my life that brushed their teeth two times a day and flossed every day, and they still had teeth problems. You know why? Parents, you ready for this one?

I'm giving you ammo here. It's. I mean, I'm putting it on a silver platter. Your kid may say, well, yeah, I brushed my teeth this morning. Well, how do I know?

What they did was they put a little toothpaste on there and went, one, two, one, two, one, 2, one, two. I'm done. Scope. As long as my breath smells good, my teeth are clean. You agree with me that it's not how many times a day you brush your teeth, but how you brush your teeth that makes your teeth clean, right?

It's not how many times you forgive, it's how you forgive.

When we get done with this parable, if you don't forgive from the heart, it's not forgiveness. And that's the point. See, Jesus then goes around and says, no, because Peter's like, listen, I'm going to be here. I go, I'm going to impress the master, Jesus. It's not three, it's seven.

That's the perfect number. If I forgive somebody seven times for the same offense, man, look at me. How good? Look at how good a follower and disciple I am, Jesus. I mean, you already changed my name.

Look at how awesome I am. But then Jesus flips it around and says, no, I tell you, not seven, but 70 times seven.

All right, math experts, how many is that? 490 times. So go back to my little illustration here. Of the bad sins and the not so bad sins, you probably would forgive somebody for lying to you 490 times. Would you forgive somebody for breaking into your house 490 times?

You've already in your mind, decided, there's some things I'll forgive and some things that I want. And that's the point that Jesus is making. It's a heart issue. It's not a counting issue. In fact, the first point that's on your outline says this.

There are no limits to forgiveness. There are no limits to forgiveness. Peter was stuck on the number of times, this checklist, so to speak. But what it revealed was, was actually the hardness of his heart that he would try to quantify a value for forgiveness. Standing in front of the man who was about to lay his life down for the sins of all humanity, and he wants to talk quantity.

I mean, did anybody quantify Jesus time on the cross? Well, actually, they did.

Won't you think, walk with me for a moment through the suffering of Jesus? Can I show you the quality of your forgiveness? Because here's a man who sinned not and broke no law, was drugged before a clown show and given the death sentence. And while he's there, they have you ever. I mean, I've worn a beard down for a long time, and just to pluck one hair out of my beard hurts.

They were pulling out chunks of his beard and they were hitting him with reeds and they were mocking him and spitting on him. That's just level one. Well, then level two goes up. And these same men who are going by the law, we can do this. They tie him to a whipping post.

And what's the number? Nine. Nine. There were nine little lashes on this one whip. A cat of nine tails.

And at the end of each one was a barb. And what's the number of times they did the whip? 39. Because that's what they were allowed by the law. And they whipped him 39 times.

So here's a man who's been beaten, his beard plucked out, bleeding profusely after being hit with 39 lashes of nine lashes.

And then they make him drag a beam up the street of Jerusalem to Golgotha, lay him down. And how many nails were there? About three. Right. They put one in his right and his left, and then through his feet, and they stood him up.

There was no limit to the cruelty these men exhibited on Jesus Christ so that your sins could be paid for. And he hung there for a few hours as he continued to bleed and he suffocated to death. And even while he was up there, Luke tells us he looked down at the very man who just did this to him. What did he say? Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing, but yet somebody will slander us. And for five years we'll trash them on Facebook because of what they did.

Somebody won't speak to us, and we'll hold a grudge against them for years just because they didn't speak to us.

Are you with me? See, there's no limits to forgiveness. And there can be no limits if we could do just like what this parable is teaching us. Point number two. Forgiveness starts with remembering mercy.

In Luke 18, we talked about how the tax collector and the Pharisee compared to each other. The Pharisees standing there going, look how good I am. And when the tax collector came, he wouldn't even lift his eyes to heaven. And you remember what he prayed? Lord, have mercy on me.

See, he didn't want to receive what he had earned. And the Pharisee was saying, I deserve more than what I got. When you and I remember the mercy that was given to us, we'll remember words like Titus 3:5 that said, he saved us not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy. And so he begins to tell the story. He said, for this reason, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who.

Who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. Notice, it was not the slave who was worried about his account. It was the king. And the king initiated, just like we read before that. If you look up at verse number 12, there was one sheep that went missing, and the shepherd went looking for the sheep.

And so this king comes to the servant to sell the account. Now, this is where it gets fun. Mathematically, it says that he owed the 10,000 talents. So follow the math here. One talent was equal to 6,000 denarii, and one denarius was equal to a day's wage.

This means he owed 60 million denarii.

I need that to sit. That's 60 million days worth of work.

I think that was 13,000 years.

This slave. There was no humanly possible way that this slave would ever pay that king back. So he comes and tells him, I'm going to put your family and you in jail until you pay back what you owe, which would take an eternity. RT France commentator said this. He said, 10,000 is the largest numeral for which a Greek term exists.

And the talent is the largest known amount of money at that time when the two are combined, it gives the effect that he owed zillions of dollars. But since he didn't have the means to repay and he was commanded that everything be sold, the slave fell to his ground. But listen what he says. He says, have patience with me and I will repay you everything. He didn't ask for mercy, did he?

He just said, have patience with me, I'll pay it back. You know what that's called in today's term? It's called a lie. There's no way he could pay it back. He owed too much money.

The only thing that gave him any hope was the mercy of the king to let his debt go. How many of you in this room right now, Let me just test you. If your creditor called you up right now, let's say you have a $200,000 mortgage, they called you up, said, you know, let me tell you something, we're just going to let that go. We're going to send you to the title of the house. Don't make any more payments.

You're good boy, I tell you. But how many of you in that same breath would go, you know what? I just got that much money back in my budget. How can I go extend it to somebody else? You know what you would do?

Spend it on yourself.

This is shifting our thinking. And it begins with remembering that the only way that we stand in right, standing with God right now is because of his mercy. Because if you got what you deserved, you wouldn't be standing before him.

Our potential to forgive begins when we consider how much God has forgiven us. And so I ask you again, is forgiveness a high value in your life? If you had to give it a letter grade. Let's play that game for a moment. If you had to give it a letter grade, A, B, C, D, F. What grade do you get?

Now, I know that may sound like a shaming statement. I want you to reflect in the patterns of your life. Are you quicker to harbor unforgiveness or to forgive forgiveness? So let's shift it from an ABC to a pass fail. Do you pass or do you fail?

And if you fail, what hope do you have? Can God do you believe that God could work through you the impossibility of making you a forgiving person? I believe he can. You know why? Because point number three, I love this point.

And I want to tell you, like, I hope you will circle this point and then write it down on a card and put it where you can see it. It says this. Forgiven people forgive others. Because here's why. Because they understand the mercy that was given to cover their zillion dollars worth of debt.

Because now what you see in this parable is that same slave, he did go wwe on the other servant. He did put him in a chokehold. This guy owed him 100 denarii, which is nowhere incompatible. It's not even a percent of a fraction of what the first servant owed. And he goes and has him thrown in jail over what would amount in a regular salary today of about 10 to $20,000 maybe.

And the other guy owed a zillion dollars.

See how Jesus is moving from quantity to quality? You see, there's a beautiful story. There's a beautiful story about a woman who shows up when Jesus is in the house of Simon the Pharisee.

And this woman comes in with this alabaster jar, and she gets down on her knees and she begins to wash his feet with her tears. And the Bible says to anoint him with oil. And of course, Simon has a problem with it being a Pharisee. He says, does he not know who this woman is?

He makes a point.

Her sins are many, and says her love is lavishing. He who has been forgiven little loves little, but he who's been forgiven much loves much. You see the connection that Jesus is calling us to stop for a moment and ask yourself the question, have I gotten over the cost of my salvation? Sometimes we ask, have you gotten over being saved? That's a little bit of a different.

I'm talking about, have you been so far removed from your salvation experience that you forgot how much it cost and how much your sin accumulated? Because we think about the drunks and the alcoholics and the murderers, and we got that box of these are the bad, bad things, but they're all in one box in our mind. We're the ones who separates what's good and bad sin. But they're all sin. It's all sin, and all of it deserves death.

And when we remember that it was God's mercy, not my works, not in any way of me earning favor. If that's the case, then like this servant who goes back and has his fellow servant thrown in jail for a small amount when he had been forgiven a big amount, then we miss the whole point that God is moving us to be a people of the gospel and that we're proclaiming the forgiveness of Christ in the gospel. But if I don't model that forgiveness, then the gospel has no effect.

See, point number four says this true forgiveness begins with your heart.

If you and I, no matter the situation, refuse to forgive someone else. It's telling of what is in my heart.

It would make no sense to me. I mean, we could do this. If you want to do this. We could sit down and argue. Well, you know, so and so did this to me.

If you knew how much pain I've endured because they did this. I get it. All of us have those kind of things in our life. But when I begin to draw a dividing line on what I will and will not forgive, then I'm missing the gospel. Because Ephesians 2 said that you were dead in your trespasses and your sin, but the grace of God came and saved and rescued you.

I've got to move that boundary way over here and be willing to say to the Lord, lord, you know the pain I've endured, but two things. Number one, the longer I hold on to unforgiveness, I only hurt myself. I shackle myself. But here's the second point, and this is contextual. The longer I hold onto that unforgiveness, I actually may be a stumbling block to the person I won't forgive.

And so that's what he says as he brings this story to a close. He says in verse 33, should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave the same way that I had mercy on you? Well, I mean, how do you answer that? Yes, sir, you're right. I should have.

I should have had the same mercy. I mean, let me remind you of Ephesians 4:32, and I've given you a lot of verses. Go back and read those at your leisure. But in Ephesians 4:32, he says, Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another. And he qualifies it.

Just as in Christ, God has forgiven you. Colossians 3, 12, 14 says the same thing, verse 13, bearing with one another and forgiving each other. Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also you should do the same. And he goes on to see how that plays into the bond of unity and love. When you and I refuse to do that, it shows a lack of knowledge of the love of God.

In fact, John says this is just kind of off script for a moment. But in First John 4, I believe around verse 16 and 20, if I say I love God and I hate my brother, the same person is a liar. It's that point. It begins in our heart, and it says that the Lord moved with anger, righteous anger moved him over and made him, put him with the tortures, until he paid everything he owed. But how much did he owe?

An eternity's worth. Separated from the Master. What he revealed is that what happened to him by his insistence of not forgiving showed that he did not have a heart for the Gospel. If you look over at Matthew, chapter six, we get something we all know very well. The Lord's Prayer, right?

Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Say it. Forgive us of our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

But wait, there's more.

There's something about temptation that's connected back to my unforgiveness. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Unforgiveness is the playground of Satan, to separate believers from one another, lost people from saved people. Why? So he can destroy, kill and steal.

And of all the things you've heard me say this point before, I'm going to make it again. All the things in the Lord's Prayer, the two things that Jesus comments on, or the one thing he comments on is forgiveness. If you forgive others of your sins, their sins, God will forgive you. But if you don't forgive others of your sins, the Father won't. Was that a formula?

Is that adding to the. To the Gospel? No. What it's saying is when you and I understand the depth of our sin and what it took to save us, we'll become forgiving people, forgiven people, forgive others. And Jesus then shows us how that fourth point, true forgiveness begins with the heart, begins to take hold.

Now, let me wrap this together, because I told you at the beginning, there's this other point on your study outline I want you to fill in. Jesus moves us from the idea of forgiveness, focusing on quantity, how often to quality forgiven from the heart. Some of you are sitting here today and eyeball to eyeball, looking at me. You have harbored something against somebody for way too long.

Don't look at my eyeballs. Imagine that Jesus is standing before you right now. And you know you have struggled with this, and the only thing holding you back is that you have refused. You refuse to forgive. If you come to the table of reconciliation, you've already lost because you've already said in your heart, they do not deserve forgiveness from me by saying that.

What you're saying is, there's no way I can love them. Jesus flips that upside down in Romans 12 when he says, I tell you to do good, to I'm telling you, do good to your enemies. Leave room for the judgment of God. Because he said, vengeance is mine, I will repay. If someone has done something to you egregious and they never received forgiveness of their sin, I don't want this for them.

But they will spend an eternity separated from God in hell. I don't want to do that. Do you want to do that? But when I fail to begin to adapt to the forgiving heart of God, it's evidence that the gospel has not taken root. See, the kingdom has come to move forgiveness from optional to essential.

You need it and I need it. Those shackles that hold me down sometimes relationally, are because I'm carrying this pride in my life that I refuse to forgive the offenses of other people. But I can tell you what. Listen, I promise you, if you'll start practicing forgiveness as a discipline, it will liberate you in a way you can't imagine. You know why?

Because that offense is holding you captive.

And there's the warning. Church discipline was to restore a sinning brother. If I refuse to forgive, how can I ever restore a sinning brother? Then I'm failing God in the body of Christ.

Are you a forgiving person? Are you? Because the kingdom has come to make forgiveness an operative priority. Let me close with this story. Do you know a guy by the name of Eric Smallridge?

Anybody? Anybody know Eric Smallridge? I didn't think you would. Because he doesn't live around here. In fact, you probably would have never known him that over 20 years ago, Eric made a decision.

One night, he decided to drink and drive. Y' all know where this story's going, don't you? Because at the same time, there was a young lady by the name of Megan and her friend, and they made a decision. They decided to go to the beach for the week and have some fun. And they got in a car and they were driving home and they intersected each other.

Megan and her friend were killed in a car wreck. And Now Eric Smallridge, 24 years old, standing before a judge, is sentenced to 22 years in prison, vehicular homicide.

In that courtroom that day was Renee, Megan's mom, mother of four kids, now three. Megan being the twin of her sister, she's righteously angry. Wouldn't you be? How do you look at somebody who took the life of your child?

We dropped our daughter off yesterday in a place that I will not name.

I say, go, Caroline. That's all I can do. But I can't tell you the horrible thought that I would lose one of my three. Some of you have lost children. And it breaks, I'm telling you, it breaks my heart even thinking about it right now.

This life snuffed out and this 24 year old who made a stupid choice and a mom sitting in that room going, you know what? I'm going to do something about this. You would too, wouldn't you? In that righteous anger, she said, I'm going to go around and I'm going to speak about the dangers of drinking and driving. And so she does.

She travels around and she's speaking, but she shares in a story about how God got a hold of her heart. And he said this. He's like, I want you to forgive him. She's like, how can I forgive him? Look at what he took from me.

And she realized the effectiveness of her journeys trying to get people to know the dangers of drinking and driving were a little bit impotent because she would not forgive him, but was going to churches and speaking about this. And so God moved on her and she went to that prison.

She went in and she forgave that young man. She said, I forgive you. And it's like you in this room today, you know what you can do? You can write down on your study guide, on August 10, 2025, I choose to forgive blank. Now, your heart may still have feelings about it, but your head has decided, I release this person from that offense in the name of Jesus.

And so she does. In fact, one report says that he said, I never could even forgive myself. And it led to a relationship being built and she would go see him and spend time with him. You know what happened to that young man? He got saved because the one who took the life of her daughter was forgiven by the one who was offended.

It gave her the medium to forgive her. But wait, there's more. Because then her family started noticing what she was doing and the freedom that she experienced and the impact on this young man's life. So they went to the prison and did the same thing. They began to forgive.

Wait, there's more. Because then they said, you know what, we're going to petition the judge, check this out. To lessen his sentence, to give him a chance to live life.

And they were able to move on the courts to drop it down to 11 years and he was released least.

So some of you don't know Eric Smallridge and you don't know Renee and you never probably heard of Megan, But I do know somebody you have heard of. His name is Matthew West.

Renee submitted her story to Matthew west after he had put out a survey saying, I'm going to write. I'm writing some songs, I need some ideas. And he picked up on the story of Megan. And in 2012, he released a song called Forgiveness about this situation. And in that song, the primary lyric of the chorus says, help me to do the impossible.

Matthew West, a lot of you know him, you listen to him on the radio, you got his albums or you got him on itunes or something. He said, the story made me look at my own life and ask myself if I'm able to do the impossible just like she did. You know how she did the impossible? By the help of the grace and the mercy of God.

By the grace and the power of God. Louis Smedes says this. To forgive is to set a prisoner free and then discover all along that the prisoner was me. How blessed. Psalm 31:1 Is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

And I ask you today, are you a forgiving person?

For some of you, this is the first time you've ever maybe made the connection between your walk with Jesus Christ and your ability or commitment to forgive. And I'm not saying you will never do it perfect. It's just like your life. Till you leave this world, Jesus comes back, you're still in your flesh. But to insist that you will not forgive is disobedience.

But you know what? Jesus can forgive you of that. Can he? Can Jesus forgive you of all your sins? There's no limits to his forgiveness.

Then why should we limit ours now? Does that mean it's going to be easy? Anybody said, no, it's not going to be easy. But it's better for me to come and drop a knee at an altar and say, God, you know how much I hurt because of what this person does. But I need the power of God to give me the strength to extend the forgiveness that will set me free and hopefully set that person free.

I want to live like a free person, don't you? But I can't do that as long as unforgiveness is the shackles that attaches me to the ball and chain that I got to drag around the because I refuse to forgive. What about you? Today our pastors will be down front. This altar is open.

You know your needs better than I do. My question again is this. If it's a pass or fail, what's your grade? And if it's fail, what do you need to do to change your mind and your heart to embrace the idea of forgiveness as a kingdom principle. Would you stand with us, Father, as we come to this time of decision?

Lord, speak to our hearts and and you tell us what we need to do and help us have the power and the conviction that whatever we do, we do so to honor and to glorify you. In Jesus name, amen.