Forgiveness - Make the Decision
Father, we thank you for the way in which you have provided for us. Lord, you have provided a way of salvation through your son, Jesus. You have provided a way of restoration and redemption through the power of forgiveness. Lord, you have provided our daily bread and our daily water. Lord, you have provided out of your goodness for us all that we need for life and godliness.
Pastor Cameron:Father, I pray now that you would provide for our transformation through the power of your Holy Spirit as your spirit, plants within us the truth of your word. In Jesus name, amen. Talking about forgiveness, the last 3 weeks, this is the 4th message in forgiveness. And it will be, the final in this series before we shift, shift next week. Perhaps, perhaps more than anything else, how we approach and practice forgiveness, is a living demonstration for how completely and truly we believe in the power of the gospel.
Pastor Cameron:Thank you, . A lot of us come to a point where sinier. God has offered, God has offered his son as a sacrifice for my sin. As I confess and repent of my sin, I am cleansed of my sin, and I am forgiven. It welcome he welcomes me into relationship with him.
Pastor Cameron:As a restored and repented person, I can approach the relationships of my life in the same attitude by extending forgiveness. The gospel is demonstrated. Right? I have been forgiven, so I forgive other people. And there's not many of us, at least if you've been here in the last 3 weeks or so, that would not be able to maybe recite the the those tenants of the gospel, especially with that forgiveness language.
Pastor Cameron:Right? But the the life of following Jesus is not an intellectual pursuit. It is not merely something that we just understand in our brains, and then therefore, it's everything is all like, we must understand it. Yes. We then we we must then walk in the obedience of faith to literally practice what has been preached.
Pastor Cameron:To take the intellectual tenet of I have been forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ, therefore, I will forgive others even in the depth of my hurt and pain. The action of forgiveness demonstrates how truly we believe in the power of the gospel for us. It becomes the moment where we step out of the pattern that says, hey, forgiveness for me, God, but not for the who has hurt me. And but not for thee who has hurt me. And we step into a, hey, forgiveness has been given to me through the blood of Jesus Christ.
Pastor Cameron:And therefore, it is my joy to offer forgiveness to others. And so how we practice forgiveness is a window into
Pastor Cameron:how truly we believe in
Pastor Cameron:the power of the gospel.
Pastor Cameron:In the power of the gospel that has forgiven me be the definition, this is kind of how we have thought of and talked about forgiveness throughout the last few weeks. That forgiveness is the intentional decision to release someone from the debt or obligation that resulted when they hurt or injured you. You have said this thing to you said that to me. You did that, or you were supposed to do something and you didn't. You broke a promise.
Pastor Cameron:You betrayed me. You hurt me. You abandoned me. You did this. It caused pain.
Pastor Cameron:It caused anguish. It caused brokenness. You now owe me, and I'm holding on to that. And I'm gonna carry that pain with me. And I'm not gonna let it go because somehow, some way, we feel like holding on to those things.
Pastor Cameron:Gives us some level of control over it. Gives us some level of like, we're we're not it's no longer just been done to us. We now are holding it and carrying it with us. Kind of the inverse of what we understand forgiveness to be is what we understand unforgiveness to be. Unforgiveness on the inverse of forgiveness is the intentional decision to regularly return to review or relive the moment of injury.
Pastor Cameron:In some strange way, we actually find a little bit of control and comfort in that too. Up inside of us. We relive that moment. We review that moment. And every
Pastor Cameron:time we think we
Pastor Cameron:have moved on and we
Pastor Cameron:have forgiven them or that time has healed that we go back to that moment and we give it spiritual spiritual CPR so it can be relived. But make no mistake, both forgiveness and obviously the inverse, unforgiveness, is an intentional decision. We've talked a lot about the difference between a decision that we make based upon our identity as forgiven people, and a decision that we make based upon how we feel in the moment. Because many of us have learned throughout our life that we make decisions based on how we feel. Right?
Pastor Cameron:So when I feel like forgiving that person for what they've done, then I will forgive them. How many times do you feel like forgiving someone that's hurt you? Right. So we have to do something else. We have to instead understand that our identity as forgiven people we have been forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ.
Pastor Cameron:Our identity as forgiven people requires that we take certain action. I am a forgiven person. A forgiven person does forgiving things. And when a forgiven person does forgiving things, I then begin to feel forgiving feelings, rather than the opposite way around, where I will do forgiving things when I feel forgiving feelings, and then I will be a forgiving person. It doesn't work that way.
Pastor Cameron:The reality is, is that unforgiveness rips a swath of destruction through your life. And it will consume every bit of life that God has designed to bring you joy, to bring you freedom. It does not just affect your soul, but it seeps into the relationships and circumstances of your life. Unforgiveness is a seed, a seed that gets planted in the soil of your soul. And when that seed stays planted in the soil of your soul long enough, it grows into a plant that produces fruit.
Pastor Cameron:And that fruit is poisonous and toxic to your life. And so when we if
Pastor Cameron:you think that unforgiveness just stays with you, it does not.
Pastor Cameron:The reality is that unforgiveness in any relationship will cause pain in every relationship. That when we hold on to unforgiveness towards another person, we think that it will just essentially damage or affect that relationship all on its own. But the reality is because unforgiveness is a seed that gets planted, it produces fruit that falls on everyone. It produces fruit that affects everyone. And so when we hold unforgiveness about anything to anyone, it affects everyone and everything in our life, whether we recognize it or not.
Pastor Cameron:As I was preparing this week and writing down this particular point, the Lord convicted me and impressed upon me something that I needed to deal with and a reality that I was experiencing or have been experiencing in almost my entire adult life. And he asked me this question, like, my prayer time I heard it from the spirit. He asked me this question, and I think, I will if he asked it to me, maybe he's he used to ask it to other people. So I I'll put it in the sermon. It's this.
Pastor Cameron:Who is hurting in your life right now because of the unforgiveness that you're holding from something way back then? Yeah. Well, in reality, who in my life, the people, the relationships that I have right now, where has the unforgiveness of previous relationships that I've held on to, where is that spilling over into the relationships that I have now? How is the bitterness? How is the anger?
Pastor Cameron:How is the rage? How is the malice? How is the the willingness to fight it out with it? How how is what that person did or said to me that I never forgave, how is that affecting the relationships that I have now? Lord was really specific with me.
Pastor Cameron:I trust he's gonna be specific with you. When we hold on to unforgiveness, it doesn't just affect us. It affects everyone in our lives. Every relationship, every circumstance, every experience. It pours out over all of it.
Pastor Cameron:So if we're holding on to unforgiveness, the question, end of the roundabout question is, well, what do we actually give up when we forgive someone? And the answer to that question is that we we give up what we're calling, this morning, the fruit of unforgiveness. We give up the fruit of unforgiveness when we when we forgive someone. Usually, we talk about that analogy as something positive like the fruit. Right?
Pastor Cameron:The fruit is something good. Right? But listen, bad trees bear bad fruit. Good trees bear good fruit. Bad trees bear bad fruit.
Pastor Cameron:And there is such thing as bad fruit. And unforgiveness in our lives bears bad fruit. Looking at, Ephesians chapter 4 it's not it's not fruit that you want. Here, I want, you to ask the Lord, ask the holy spirit. You're probably going to know already.
Pastor Cameron:And if you don't know, the people around you know, The people that love you the most know whether or not you possess any of this fruit. If you possess any of this fruit, the next necessary question to ask is, like, what unforgiveness am I holding on to? Paul says in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 31 and 32, get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander along with every form of malice, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as in Christ, God has forgiven you. So Paul here does, kind of the inverse of how we've been describing forgiveness. Right?
Pastor Cameron:Paul starts with the fruit of unforgiveness, then he transitions to the actions of a forgiving person, and then he transitions to the foundation of our forgiveness of others. In Christ, God has forgiven you. Therefore, be kind and compassionate so that you avoid bitterness and anger and rage and slander and malice. Right? So Paul kind of does it in reverse.
Pastor Cameron:When he says when he he starts with the bad fruit and ends with the foundation. So so that we understand that, we're gonna again start with the foundation and move to the fruit in the opposite way that Paul talks about it. Paul says, just as in Christ, God forgave you. Paul talks about our forgiveness from God being in relationship to our forgiveness of others. But the way Paul, structures his sentence here, we don't have a lot of clarity about, like, the what is actually meaning when he says, just as in Christ, god forgave you.
Pastor Cameron:And there's really 2 possible implications to it. The first is the most basic implication, the one that usually comes to our mind. It can be uttered understood as essentially paraphrasing it to say like this. Hey. God has forgiven you in Christ.
Pastor Cameron:The blood of Jesus Christ shed abroad on the cross, Colossians chapter 2, offered to you, confess and repent of your sins, and you will be forgiven of your sins and cleansed of all unrighteousness. Right? 1st John chapter 1. Just as God has forgiven you in Christ, you should forgive others. Really simple.
Pastor Cameron:Right? But it can also be understood like this. When Paul says, just as in Christ God or forgive one another, just as in Christ God forgave you. It can be understood like this, in the same way, in the same manner, in the same measure, in the same timing, under the same circumstances as God has forgiven you, that's how you should forgive others. Nehemiah chapter 2 that God is eager to forgive as a part of his character and nature.
Pastor Cameron:He can't wait to do it. It is who he is. He's not reluctant at all. He's not hemming and hawing about, oh, jeez. Well, I don't know.
Pastor Cameron:I know you asked for forgiveness, but I'm not exactly sure. Not feeling super forgiving today. Maybe tomorrow. Talk to me the 2nd Tuesday of next week, and we'll discuss it. You know, like, he's not reluctant to offer forgiveness.
Pastor Cameron:He is eager to forgive, right? That God does not revisit our sins upon us, the scripture says. Then when he forgives us of our sins, he separates us from our sins as far as the East is from the West. Is from the West. When we sin and we ask for forgiveness from God and he grants forgiveness to us, it's over.
Pastor Cameron:Draw about it. We can bring it back into our minds. But God is like, I don't know what you're talking about. I have chosen to remember your sin no more, he says. God is not a reluctant forgiver.
Pastor Cameron:God does not revisit our sins upon us. God is not slow to forgiveness. But how often are we? Right? Oh, I forgive you.
Pastor Cameron:I I I forgive you. And then the next time they hurt us, you know, I forgive you. But you're you remember this la the last time you did that to me as well? You've done it before. Right?
Pastor Cameron:And we we bring that into the equation now of our forgiveness in the current situation. Right? And we we're we're like, I I wanna forgive. I'm just not ready to forgive you yet. I'm not ready to forgive you.
Pastor Cameron:Listen. God is always ready to forgive. God is standing on the precipice even of your God was so ready to forgive you that he offered provision for your forgiveness before you were even born. The sacrifice of Jesus was made on the cross 2000 years before you sinned your first sin. There's some of the ways that we talk about.
Pastor Cameron:The There's some of the ways that we talk about the forgiveness of God. Okay? So that we can understand how we're going to proceed in forgiveness of others. Same manner, in the same way, with the same magnitude, under the same circumstances as God in Christ has forgiven us, then we must be asked the question, how has God in Christ forgiven us? Well, the first thing that we must talk about is the amount.
Pastor Cameron:Right? How much forgiveness do you have from God when you confess and repent of your sin? You have total forgiveness. You have total forgiveness. It is not as if God is over here being like, well, yeah, I forgive you for the little sins.
Pastor Cameron:Thank you for confessing and repenting of that little sin, that inconsequential sin, that very small thing. I forgive you of all those small sins, but you did some big sins over here. And there needs to be kind of like some extra shame. Condemnation. Now, we just need a little bit more time for you to suffer under the weight of what you've done.
Pastor Cameron:You know, when God forgives, God forgives in totality. There is no determination between what gets forgiven and what doesn't. The magnitude of big sins or the minimization of small sins. When we confess our sins and repent of our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. If you have laid before the altar of God every sinful thing that you did, confessed it and repented it to repented to him, you are forgiven of your sins.
Pastor Cameron:You are cleansed of all unrighteousness. It is not partial forgiveness or partial righteousness. It is total forgiveness and the righteousness of Jesus for you. We do not get to negotiate with God the level or the totality of his forgiveness of us. Thank the Lord.
Pastor Cameron:Because I would talk myself out of his forgiveness of me all the time. But God is so much more gracious and so much more compassionate and so much more kind with me than I am with me. His his forgiveness is total. His forgiveness is complete. His forgiveness is final.
Pastor Cameron:And just like God is not a reluctant forgiver. Right? How also does God forgive us in the moment of confession and repentance? He forgives us immediately. Forgiveness is encapsulated with some timing.
Pastor Cameron:God's forgiveness does not exist in this vacuum of like a, yeah. I'm gonna think about it for a little while. You get back to me after a little bit. We're gonna we'll deal with it when I when I'm feeling a little bit more compassionate, when I'm feeling a little bit more gracious, when I'm feeling a little bit more forgiving. Confession and repentance.
Pastor Cameron:It becomes it was so immediate. Right? We talked about this just a minute ago. His forgiveness of you was so immediate that it happened before the event, before you even sinned. He made a provision for your forgiveness before you were even alive.
Pastor Cameron:He went ahead of you. He was so eager to forgive you. He was like, I'm gonna forgive them before they have the chance to sin. And what if we walked in our life with the same posture of forgiveness as that? Understanding like that, like, listen.
Pastor Cameron:I'm gonna be in relationship with you. You're gonna hurt me. I know. I forgive you already. You literally cannot offend me.
Pastor Cameron:Impossible to offend me because I've already decided to forgive you for the things that you haven't done yet. It's a decision. It's a pre decision that I have made in response to the decision that God made to forgive me before, to forgive me in eternity. Like, you cannot possibly do anything to me that I have not already made the decision to forgive you for. You're forgiven.
Pastor Cameron:You're forgiven. You're forgiven. It's like Oprah. Everyone gets forgiveness. Right?
Pastor Cameron:Let's cut that out on the live stream. I'm already I already regret saying that. I already regret that one. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Pastor Cameron:Yep. Mhmm. No offense to any Oprah fans. So we have total forgiveness. We have immediate forgiveness.
Pastor Cameron:Right? And then we have unilateral forgiveness. We forgive the people that we love and that love us, and we also forgive the people that we don't like at all, that have hurt us over and over and over and over and over again, that we have no desire to be in continued, relationship with. Remember, we talked about that last week. Right?
Pastor Cameron:The difference between forgiveness and reconciliation and restoration of relationship. If you didn't, go back and listen to that one if you weren't here. But it is not it's not, it's not a matter or a measure of who gets our forgiveness and who doesn't get our forgiveness. The decision to forgive as God in Christ has forgiven us is the decision to forgive anyone of anything. Of course, we learned about this primarily in Mark chapter 11 verse 25.
Pastor Cameron:Right? The words of Jesus as he was talking about our prayer life, our relationship with the Lord. He says these words. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them so that your father in heaven may forgive your sins. Again, it's the connection between your forgiveness of someone else and God's forgiveness of you.
Pastor Cameron:They cannot be torn apart. Right? We call this in 1st service, AAA. We're gonna remember just remember AAA. Mark chapter 11 verse 25 is the AAA, principle.
Pastor Cameron:Anyone, anything, Anything against anyone. That is what it is. Anything against anyone. Who are we going to forgive? Anything against anyone.
Pastor Cameron:Who are we going to forgive? Anything against anyone. Who are we going to forgive? Anything against anyone. So that our father in heaven may also forgive us our sins.
Pastor Cameron:What is the fruit of unforgiveness. If we are if we are intense to forgive as God in Christ has forgiven us, total, immediate, unilateral forgiveness, What happens when we make a different decision? What happens when we instead make an intentional decision to relive, renew, revive that hurt that's been done to us or that relationship that we lived in that was so damaging. What is the fruit that begins to bloom in our life when we hold on to unforgiveness? Let the holy spirit speak into your heart right now and reveal if any of these are a part of you.
Pastor Cameron:What what does Paul say? The first fruit of unforgiveness is something that Paul calls bitterness. Bitterness is an uncontrollable negativity. Being like, well, how how does my unforgiveness have anything to do with me just being a pessimist? Like I said earlier in the service, right?
Pastor Cameron:Forgiveness or unforgiveness does not just affect the relationship that there was hurt in. It poisons your soul. It it brings disease into your life. It changes your heart. It transforms your mind in a bad way.
Pastor Cameron:It creates fruit that is diseased. And one of the most significant fruits is the fruit of bitterness an uncontrollable negativity about everything. Now, no one here is bitter. I understand. But you may know people.
Pastor Cameron:You may know people, who, whenever you're around them, it seems difficult to, like, listen to them talk because it's all, woah is this, and woah is that, and how bad is this, and how bad is that, And this is going wrong, and this is going wrong. And I don't like that. And I don't like this. And I can't stand everything. It's uncontrollable.
Pastor Cameron:It's like it flows it flows like a river from their soul and uncontrollable negativity about everything and anyone ever in existence about themselves, about others, about what happened at work, about what's happening in politics, or what happened in Hollywood, about the bills, whatever. Uncontrollable negativity. Uncontrollable negativity is a fruit of unforgiveness, bitterness. Another fruit of unforgiveness is anger. Anger is a temporary excited explosion of emotion.
Pastor Cameron:Now, what's difficult about anger as a fruit of unforgiveness is that there are righteous forms of anger. There are forms of anger that actually exist in service of righteousness and the gospel. In fact, I would describe myself as an angry person. Serious. I would describe myself as an angry person.
Pastor Cameron:And I've had to work extraordinarily hard to let the Lord burn out any unrighteous anger in my life. So that I do so I don't have a temporary explosion of emotion that does dishonor to the name of Jesus. But you wanna know what? I am so angry about the brokenness of people's lives. I am so angry about darkness and despair in Chautauqua County.
Pastor Cameron:I'm so angry how people live in loneliness and depression and anxiety, and pain. And then a reason I'm angry about all of that is because I believe that the answer is the gospel of Jesus Christ. But we run around in despair, and in blindness, and in deafness, in our pain and in our brokenness and in the weight of the burden of sin with the answer right before us in Jesus Christ. The very reason that I am a pastor is because I am so angry. I am angry about sin.
Pastor Cameron:And I am angry about brokenness. And I am angry about darkness. I am angry about injustice. It all. So be angry with me.
Pastor Cameron:So be angry with me. So be angry with me. So be So be angry with me. Be angry about those things and let your anger drive you to a holy resolution, to incarnate the gospel of Jesus Christ to those who are hurting, to those who are struggling under the weight and power of sin, to be the incarnated spirit of, of Jesus Christ to a world that is so broken and hurting. But we all know, of course, that anger unchecked and unused by the power of the holy spirit becomes a destructive force in our lives.
Pastor Cameron:It ruins trust. It ruins relationships. It it it you can get angry at work and lose your job. Anger has a very destructive force. I think of anger a lot like like it's it's incredibly sad to see what's happening down in, like we're talking about, like, Asheville, North Carolina this morning.
Pastor Cameron:About the incredible devastation at the flooding of the main river there in Asheville is doing to the surrounding area. Now kept within kept within the banks that was naturally meant to carry that river, That river is beautiful and life giving. But when the river overflows the banks that were naturally built to hold it in, it becomes destructive, It destroys everything in its path. That's anger. Anger has banks that were meant to hold it in, to move people to righteous indignation in the power of the gospel.
Pastor Cameron:But when we allow our anger to overflow the banks where God has naturally meant to hold it in, it becomes nothing but destructive. And it ends up turning into this next fruit of unforgiveness, which is the fruit of rage. Rage is a little bit different than anger. Anger can be a temporary explosion, but rage is the intentional decision to keep the fire of anger stoked up. Where where forgiveness pours water on the fire of unforgiveness, or where forgiveness pours pours water on the fire, range pours gasoline on the fire of our hurt.
Pastor Cameron:It allows it to burn brighter and hotter and bigger and faster. And we become almost like it becomes a habit for us to every time we feel the anger start to diminish because of our hurt towards that person. We're like the guy that can't leave the fire alone. Right? Always poking it, prodding it, throwing more wood on it.
Pastor Cameron:It becomes rage. Anger and rage turn into or can sometimes be, produce the fruit of what we call or what Paul calls brawling. It's not a word we use too much, but it is an attitude that we recognize sometimes in ourselves. How many of you are always ready for a fight? You can answer it or not, but Right?
Pastor Cameron:Many of us in our lives are always like, just ready for a fight. No wonder what? Give me a reason. You know? Like Right?
Pastor Cameron:We're just like, just give me a reason. Give me a reason. You know? All the time. We're always living on the edge of, like, wanting to fight.
Pastor Cameron:Wanting to fight our spouse. Wanting to fight our parents. Wanting to fight our co workers. Wanting to fight our friends. Just give me a reason, and I'm ready to go.
Pastor Cameron:Listen, it's a fruit of unforgiveness. Well, I just like I just tell it how it is, and I just like to get right at it, and I'm I'm not confrontational, but I don't like to let I don't, you know, I don't like to let tension live, so I I try to fight about it to get to know you love tension, and you love fighting, and so you're always looking for it. It is a fruit of unforgiveness and it will destroy your life and it will destroy your relationships. There is nothing righteous about the constant desire to fight. All of these things actually end up leading to another.
Pastor Cameron:Fruit of unforgiveness, slander. A very significant fruit of unforgiveness in our lives is slander. The ability to quickly tear someone down. What we often think is that slander, just like comes out of it comes out of nowhere. It just happens.
Pastor Cameron:Like, oh, I I just said it. I just said it. I didn't mean it. It just came out. But what is actually true and what we believe the scripture teaches is that the mouth is simply the overflow of the heart.
Pastor Cameron:And so when we are quick to slander someone or quick to tear someone down, the only thing that we're displaying is that our heart has been ruminating those words. Our mind has been ruminating those words. We've been preparing the ammunition of slander until the moment where we either could not hold it any longer, or we had our opportunity, and now it's right out. And it destroys. Malice and ill will towards another.
Pastor Cameron:I was listening to a sermon, that was a couple weeks ago, I think, by Tim Keller, I think. And he said, the clearest understanding, the clearest recognition that you have forgiven someone else from your heart and in totality is your ability to genuinely pray for God's blessing in their life? Can you pray for God's blessing to the person that has hurt you? To the pain that has been brought upon your life? Are you have you have you done the work with the Lord in order to do that?
Pastor Cameron:Do you have any of these? Bitterness, anger, rage, brawling, slander, malice. Do you have any of these? These are all symptoms of the disease of unforgiveness. There is a cure for the disease of unforgiveness.
Pastor Cameron:It's called forgiveness. All of these things are feelings. Right? They're feelings that produce action. And they come from a heart of a person who is holding on to unforgiveness.
Pastor Cameron:But if you remember this little triangle that we've been playing with for the last couple of weeks, I don't know if it's if it can be up on the screen, or not. But, this little triangle that we've been playing with for the last couple of weeks where the base of the triangle is identity. Right? Who we are. Our who what is our year it is.
Pastor Cameron:Our identity. We are forgiven people. God has forgiven us. That is who we are. We have been forgiven by the blood of the lamb.
Pastor Cameron:And so out of our identity, we act. A forgiven person forgives people. And then that creates feelings of warmth and kindness and compassion to that person. An ability to pray God's blessing over them. I don't have any malice or bitterness or anger or rage or slander for them anymore.
Pastor Cameron:All I have is blessing. The feelings are there because I've taken the actions that are accompanied with my identity. But what we do is we flip this triangle on its head all the time. Right? And we're like, I've got these big feelings down here.
Pastor Cameron:And as soon as those feelings change, then I'll take action. And when I take actions, then I'll feel differently. Then I will be that personal. It doesn't work that way. Action always comes first before even feelings.
Pastor Cameron:Actions come first. So the question is, what are some actions of forgiveness that create better feelings towards the person that has hurt us? I think we can all agree that it is not healthy to always act on everything that we feel. So we let action become the mode by which we intentionally decide. How do I intentionally decide to forgive someone who has hurt me deeply even if I don't feel that way?
Pastor Cameron:The way to intentionally decide is to intentionally act. It's very hard to intentionally decide simply in the cavern of your mind. You must intentionally decide with your actual action. Action precedes doing or being. We let action become an intentional decision that precedes and produces feelings that are healthy and God honoring to this person.
Pastor Cameron:What does Paul say are 2 tangible practical, here they are. Here are some actions to be free from the pain and damage of unforgiveness. Says it right in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 31 and 32. Says, be kind. Kindness is a soul warmth.
Pastor Cameron:Exemplified intangible action. Who is the person that has hurt you? Where is the unforgiveness that you're holding on to? How can you show them kindness? Sorry.
Pastor Cameron:How can you show them kindness? The next thing that Paul says is a tangible action is compassion, which is a readiness a readiness to feel the pain or position of another. An open spirit and heart towards them. How can you relate with the position that they are in? How can you position yourself to have a readiness to feel pain that they're feeling.
Pastor Cameron:An open spirit and heart towards them. Listen, forgiving feelings proceed from forgiving actions, which come from the heart of every forgiven person. Forgiving feelings proceed from forgiving action, which come from the heart of every forgiven person. We must make a choice to forgive. I warned you last week not to come this week if you weren't going to be ready to make some decisions to forgive.
Pastor Cameron:I say that tongue in cheek. Right? But today today is the day where you have an opportunity to release people from the debt that resulted when they hurt you. You can make that decision today. The decision today.
Pastor Cameron:Understanding that you must embrace the process of forgiveness every day. Do you remember the process of forgiveness? There's the decision that we make. The decision is, today, I am going to forgive this person for what they've done to me. Even if it's just in my prayer with the Lord, Lord, I forgive them for the pain that they have caused in my life.
Pastor Cameron:But then we must enter into the process every single day because what the the enemy wants us to remain chained to our hurt. So he's not gonna just let us leave behind that hurt without trying to stir it up in our lives again. So it's not just an intentional decision. It's also an intentional process. What does the intentional process look like?
Pastor Cameron:Well, there's kind of 3 main steps. Number 1 is I'm not going to bring it up to them. Yeah. I forgave you. I I forgave you of all that, but do you I mean, remember when you did that.
Pastor Cameron:Right? It's good. It's good. It's good. It's good.
Pastor Cameron:Like, you're totally forgiven. Right? But but but that was pretty bad. I don't know I don't know if you remember, but, it hurt pretty bad. Like, totally over it as you can tell, but if you were just talking about it a little bit more, yeah.
Pastor Cameron:No. As far as the East is from the West, it's over. I'm not going to bring it up to them. I'm not going to bring it up to Others. Thank you.
Pastor Cameron:Not gonna bring it up to others. Yeah. I like, we had a thing, I don't know if you know I don't know if you know about it or not. I forgave them, but I just, you know, when I worried about your relationship with them, totally forgave them. But I just wanted to let you know, so and so said this and did this and this and this and this.
Pastor Cameron:I'm total we're totally good. I've forgiven them in the Lord. Thank you, Jesus. But that reminds you of everything that they have done to me. Stir it up.
Pastor Cameron:Stir it up. Right? Don't don't get those holes don't get those coals hot again. Don't put the bellows on an ember that is ready to die down through the power of forgiveness. I'm not gonna bring it up to them.
Pastor Cameron:I'm not gonna bring it up to others. And then, most significantly, I'm not gonna bring it up to myself. I'm not bringing it up to myself anymore. Walking along, I see them. Oh, hey.
Pastor Cameron:There's so and so. Man, they did that to me. Wait a second. No. That's over.
Pastor Cameron:I've forgiven them. I'm not bringing that back up again. I'm not stirring that back up again. I'm not letting that seed of unforgiveness and bitterness take root in my soul again. That is over.
Pastor Cameron:And in those moments where we fail in the process, we must return to the moment of decision. Lord, I brought it up to someone else, and I'm recognizing father that I'm not that I need help in the process. Lord, would you please help me once again to forgive this person for the pain that they have caused in my life. And maybe I brought it up to them again, and we had a moment of, an emotional conversation. I said, well, you did this to me back then.
Pastor Cameron:Lord, I have forgiven them. Would you please help me to break free from the power of unforgiveness? To live in freedom from the pain and the hurt. When I fail in the process, you must return to the mo return to the moment. I'm gonna invite the worship team back up.
Pastor Cameron:But, as I said, we're, we're not just, gonna let this sit here. Okay? There is always benefit to allowing the Holy Spirit to work and process the truth of God's word here as you just sit. But there is also often the necessity for tangible act tangible and symbolic action. Okay?
Pastor Cameron:What I have up front here is a whole table full of, empty note cards. Okay? Pens for you. As we, as we keep going in, worship, this morning, I know, like, last week and the week before, I asked the lord I asked the holy spirit to impress upon your heart who it is you need to forgive where you're holding unforgiveness. And maybe it's forgiveness of yourself to experience the forgiveness that God has already granted you, Jesus Christ.
Pastor Cameron:Maybe it's someone else in your life that you know. I'm holding unforgiveness with this person, And I need a moment. I need a time where I make a decision to do something else. This is your moment. This is your time.
Pastor Cameron:So if that's you, and you know who that person is, as we start worshiping this morning, I want you to come up, grab a card, grab a pen. You can take it back to your seat if you want. I'd take mine back to my seat during first service, because I had more than one person that I needed to write down there. I had some stuff I need to work out with the lord. Right?
Pastor Cameron:And, and you can take it back to your seat if you want, and write those write those things write those names down. Lord, I forgive so and so for whatever. Saying this, doing that, not doing that, betraying me, whatever. I forgive so and so for this. If you don't wanna go back to your seat, you can come up and kneel at the altar, and you can write here.
Pastor Cameron:You can sit in the front pews. You can do it. You can lay on the floor. I don't care. Right?
Pastor Cameron:Where you do it, the point is, are you gonna make the decision? Are you gonna make a decision today to let you you you are going to make a decision today. The decision is, I'm gonna continue to live in the midst of my unforgiveness, and let the fruit of let the fruit of unforgiveness grow in my life. Or I'm gonna make a decision to forgive today. And I'm gonna ask the Lord to help me through the process of forgiveness, not reminding myself, not reminding them, not reminding others.
Pastor Cameron:And I'm gonna do that until I break until the Lord gives me freedom and breakthrough from the power of the pain that I've experienced. But what is also important is that there's two sides to this paper, and you can take more than you need. If you want to take multiple, that's fine too. But also understanding that it's not just things that have been done to us that we need to pursue forgiveness of or forgiveness about. We need to forgive others.
Pastor Cameron:Sometimes, we are the people who have hurt others, and we know it. We know that we've hurt others, and we're afraid. And we don't know how to ask for forgiveness, to pursue forgiveness, to pursue reconciliation. And so it may require also the action of of saying, Lord, on the other side of the card, I I have hurt so and so. Please help me to pursue forgiveness with them.
Pastor Cameron:Please help me to pursue reconciliation them. Lord, please turn. Please humble my heart so that I can move in compassion to them. Lord, please forgive me for what I have done to them. When you're done writing down everything that you need to write down on this card, I want you to fold it up.
Pastor Cameron:Don't put your name on it. No one's reading these. Okay? Put your name on it, and I want you to bring it back up, and I want you to place it in this bowl where first everyone from FirstService has placed their things as a symbolic way to surrender this to the Lord, making an intentional decision to both pursue forgiveness for those who have hurt you as well as forgiveness for those that you have hurt. Make the decision today to continue to live in unforgiveness or to continue to live in forgiveness.
Pastor Cameron:There's no order or anything like that. Come up when you're ready. Return the card when you're ready. Stay up front. Go back to your seats.
Pastor Cameron:Do what you need to do, but let's press into the practice of forgiveness this morning.
