"Forgiveness" (Part 1) Pastor John K. Jenkins Sr. (Bible Study)

I want talk tonight about forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness. I promise you, I was talking to a number of pastors, mentoring some pastors last night, and they were asking me about growth, church growth, and how you get people to stay, get them to come, and get them to stay. And one of the things I share with them is because you and get people to come to your church, the issue is getting them to stay. And the reason a lot of people won't stay, 'cause I told them this, I can guarantee you that somebody in your church is going to offend and hurt somebody. New people that come to the church, in time, if they join the ministry, become involved, get engaged, some joker go and do something that's going to hurt them and make them not want to come back to church. And it takes a mature person, seasoned, some level of seasonedness, to be able to have the capacity to endure the way, because church people can be nasty. Look at your neighbors, say, "Church people can be nasty." Capital "N" attitude. You come into church looking for Jesus, the love of God, looking for the people to accept you and pray for you, encourage you, and they'll bite your neck or bite your ear or crush you out in Jesus' name.

So, one of the important things that everybody has to learn in the course of their life is how to forgive. Even, even outside the church, at your home, on your job. And it's important to learn how to forgive because if you don't forgive, it affects your relationship with God. That's very important. Some of your harping some things in your heart. And every so often, I need to rearrange this issue. And I've taught about it over the years, but I need to rear a sit because I see in here and get letters and phone calls and people want me to resolve the issues and fix this person and this person hurt them. Can I tell you something? I can't fix all y'all drama y'all got in all your thing. I'm trying to teach you how to get it resolved, but the most important thing is that you do not allow what people do to you to impact your relationship with God. They are not worth it. I don't care what they did. I don't care what they did. They're not worth affecting your ability to commune with God because we're going to see in just a few moments, a lack of forgiveness will affect your health, or affect your other relationships and other people, affect your walk with God, and that's not the way God wants it to be. Can I get an amen right there from anybody?

So, we're going to talk about forgiveness. And what does it mean to forgive? It, it means to lay it aside. It means to let it alone. Don't keep revisiting. It means to send it away. Means to cease to feel resentment. It means to clear the record. Not, not the whole person's accountable or a responsible. Mention use word accountable, not to hold them responsible because we're going to see in a few moments why that's, why that's important. So, it means that it doesn't mean that you forget about it, but you remember it. Write this down: without pain. Now, you keep bringing something up, it may mean that you have not fully forgiven. And if you keep bringing it up, it may mean that you still have pain about it. So, what would God want you to do? How do I, how do I handle the stuff that people have done that have hurt me, brought me pain? So, it's a way of life. Somebody say, "Say that." It's a way of life. Say one more time, "It's a way of life." It's going to happen. So, I'm glad something's gonna happen. You can't avoid it. You can't escape it. You can't put yourself in a bubble and not be hurt. Somebody gonna hurt your feelings. And while I'm on this, you have hurt somebody. Look at your neighbor, say, "You hurt somebody." If somebody all think y'all ain't never heard nobody, you've been perfectly being right, you ain't never done no wrong, you ain't never treated nobody bad, you ain't ever heard nobody's feelings. Look at your neighbors, say, "You've been deceived." Go ahead. Look at him, say, "You've been deceived." 'Cause we didn't all have done something that we wish we had not had done and hurt people. Bruce people were guilty of that.

So, so I want to start off by talking about the fact that your health is affected by your inability to forgive. As a matter of fact, I suspect that a lot of the sickness that's going on in people's lives is fueled underneath by their resentment or their hurt or their pain from something that somebody has done to them and they have never been able to forgive them. Some of y'all been carrying and harboring stuff for decades, and some of your health is impacted by that. And the Bible, the Bible actually bears this out, that, you know, your health has an impact. That, you know, your death. Can I go on to the next slide? Okay, let's look at Psalm 32 and verse three. Now, this, this is two points I want to make in this verse, but here's, here's the first thing. When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long. This is an important verse. If I keep silent, I'm harboring this thing inside. I don't want to talk about it. You don't deal with it. Some of you refuse to deal with issues of how people have hurt you. That's not the will of the Lord. You've got to deal with it. Somebody has done something to you, got to deal with it. You have to do this. Can't shove it underneath the rug and act like it didn't happen. And you keep silent about it. His, the scripture says, "When I kept silent, my bones grow." That's the disease. When your bones are older than you. Somebody around you, they old, their bones are older. Look around, see if you can figure out who it is.

Proverbs chapter 12. I got a lot of verses tonight, so y'all, you know, what you got to do is write the verse down and then catch up with me if you can. Proverbs 12:25: "Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad." Here's another point. Some of you have anxiety, and that's causing you to be depressed. I know what it's like to be depressed, and depression is not a fun place to live. It's not a good street to live on. But when you're depressed, you can't live with nobody else, and you can't do it yourself. It's tough. And the scripture says, "Anxiety produces that." That anxiety is often driven by something that's unsettled in you, so that it hasn't been resolved. That's not the street we want to live on. We want to live on a different street.

Proverbs chapter 15, verse 13: "A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of the heart, the spirit is broken." Your heart is sorrow, it breaks your spirit. And when you got a broken spirit, you can't commune with God. When your spirit is damaged, and you, you can't, we can't worship God. Everybody's rushing to look like their hands raised. You standing around looking at everybody else because your spirit is broken. I'm telling you, when you get free from God, when you get freedom from God, you want to worship God. You want to give them praying. Get you know, the worship of God overrides your temperament. My temperament is my normal temperament. I'm laid-back, quiet. That's mine. I know y'all don't believe that, but that's, that's in my normal temperament. I'm not, I'm not the life of the party. But you know, when the Holy Ghost gets a, gets ahold of you, he brings something out of you that you never even knew they're dead. But people see me around. When people, we're used to work, people used to come to the church to see me preach, they say, "Who is that guy? That's not the John Jenkins at work at the job." Don't ever say nothing quiet because the Spirit of God gives you a freedom inside. But if your spirit is broken because you're harboring something, it makes it very difficult for the Spirit of the Lord to grow.

Let's go to Weiu in chapter 15, go to verse 30. "The light of the eyes rejoices our heart, rejoices the heart. The light of the eyes rejoices the heart, and a good report makes the bone healthy." So, you can say something good about somebody, that makes your bones healthy. Y'all got that? So, we read it at the start in Psalm 32. If you are holding something in and you can't speak positive about somebody, that's going to make your bones grow. But when you can give a good report, by hidden pastors, say, as the scripture says, with clarity and with specificity, I like this, it makes your bones me healthy. And that's where we want to be, in a place of health.

Proverbs chapter 17, verse 22: "A merry heart does good like medicine, but a broken spirit drives the bones again." All of these things are pointing to the challenges that we have in our health because we are harboring things in our heart and our mind and our spirit against somebody that does not give us the ability to be healthy and to live the way God wants us to live. And it's probably is really problematic. And God wants you to live in a better way, a better life than that. So, the question is raised here tonight, how then do I forgive? What's the steps I need to take? So, let's walk through these five principles of forgiveness. These are not all of the, all of the principles, but I want to just hit what I consider to be five of the very important ones. And I'm hoping that you will examine yourselves and get a hold of this and get a piece of it.

Number one, recognize. Here's how you can forgive: is recognize that you need forgiveness. You have done some things and and hurt people. And it's easy to get to a place, it's easier to get to a place of forgiveness when you recognize that God needs to forgive you. Now, this book of Philemon, I'm just going to go ahead and get it and read it because I know most of y'all not going to be able to find it. Just go to the table of contents so you can get it. And we're going to read. Now, let me tell you the story about Philemon. Let me tell a little bit about this. Here's a, here is a guy who was a servant, a slave to his, to his master, and he escaped. And God, the Scriptures uses his story to teach a lesson. And so Paul writes of like finding me because the slave got saved. He got saved. And Paul sends him back to his boss. That's a whole nother discussion. We'll talk about that on another day. But he sends him back and he writes a letter to Philemon, or Phil, people pronounce it differently, but I qualified Lehmann, and he basically tells him to accept him back like your brother because now he's a brother. It was profound about this. His Paul says to him, "Maybe he escaped from you so that he could get saved." Because he got saved, then he sends him back. And in verse number 17, "If then you count me as a partner, receive him as you would me." Y'all follow me? Y'all with me? "But if he has wronged you or owes anything, put that on my account." Paul says, "If he's hurt you financially, if he's caused you injury, put it on my account." I, Paul, verse 19, "and writing with my own hand, I will repay." Not to mention Philemon to you that you owe me even your own self besides. Paul says, "I like the way he talks him." He said, "Look, forgive him, whatever he owes you, put it on my ticket." Or let me remind you, you know, you owe me something too. You know. And that's reality. Paul is challenging them. And I'm saying, here's what, here's what I'm saying to you. You walking around harboring something against somebody, and you owe somebody else some stuff too, that you did wrong. So, we need, we need to recognize that we need God to forgive us. We need forgiveness from God and from other people. You can't go around and harbor and keep resentful resentment against somebody else, and you have your own stuff that you need forgiveness for. We're going to see in a few minutes, too, scripture teaches that if you want God to forgive you, you got to forgive others. We're going to see that in a few minutes. But this is, this point is, recognize, you ain't been perfect all your life. Look at your neighbor, say, "You ain't dotted every I, crossed every T." Y'all didn't tend to a strong enough, hard enough. Y'all so timid. You ain't all that you made out to be. You ain't dotted every I, crossed every T. You ain't walked a straight line. You need forgiveness too.

Let's go to Matthew chapter 18. Am I going too fast for y'all? Let's go to Matthew chapter 18 and we'll start at verse 21. Say, "You got it." When you get it. Verse 18, starting in verse 21: "Then Peter came to him and said, 'Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?' I suppose Peter felt he was really doing something when he said, 'When I get to the eighth time, can I knock him out?' Jesus said to him, 'I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.'" Did y'all feel some tension right there? I'm not a math major, but how many is that? It's 490. And I got a 49 in Luke. It says that Jesus said seven times seventy a day. I got five, eight meals on that point right there. Verse 23: "Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, 'Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.' Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion." Somebody say, "Moved with compassion." "Released him and forgave him the debt. But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred aneri, and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, 'Pay me what you owe.'" He got some descendants in this church right here, this joker does. So, his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, "Have patience with me, and I will pay you all." And he would not. Can I stick a pair right here for a second? How many you are in relationships with people who have hurt you, and you've said, "I'm not going to forgive"? Maybe you didn't say it like that, but your attitude toward them, the way you're treating them, the cblol says it. So, when his fellow servant, verse 31, saw what he had done, they were very grieved and came and told their master all that had been done. Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, "You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servants, just as I had pity on you?" And his master was angry and delivered him to be torturers to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. So, my head, so my heavenly Father also will do to you, if each of you from his heart, from his heart, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses. Why? That's profoundly then what we do. I got this later on in the passage, he's going to deliver you to torturers. He said, "You should have had compassion." And everybody in here, God has had compassion on you. How do I know? He woke you up this morning. You should have been there. God gave you the activities of your limbs. He was merciful and compassionate. You should have been dead. You should have been sent to hell a long time ago. But God gave us life. He forgave us of our sins. And so, we are, we have to all be reminded that we ourselves are in need of forgiveness. So, Jesus is teaching Peter here the very important, significant thing of not, don't, don't be writing it down, don't be keeping the count, don't be recording it so you can go back and keep record, 'cause God's not keeping records. Are you? God has wiped out slate clean.

Number two, here's what you got to remember. If God allowed something to happen that brought hurt to you, he has a greater purpose and why he allowed it. Somebody said, "There's a greater purpose." There's a greater reason behind why God allowed it to occur. There's a greater purpose behind. Let's go to the very famous passage, Romans 8:28. That is the verse of all verses right here for you. You don't know any other verse in the Bible, you better get to know this one right here. This, this verse right here has helped me through some little difficult times in my life. Romans 8:28: "And we know, not we think not, we assume that we hope not, we imagine that we pray, he says, and we know that all things work together for good." Oh, not something that most, not the majority, not, not a few, but all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose. Here's how you know when you can forgive. Well, let me back up for seconds. And sometimes when you're going through something, it may not be apparent as to why God allowed it. As a matter of fact, in most cases, it is not apparent why you're going through it. But I like with Isaiah 63 says, "God will give you beauty for your ashes." And it's, that means he will put a crown, that where beauty means he'll put a crown on your head. And when he says he'll give you beauty, but he's going to give you a crown, here's what that means. He's going to give you an understanding. He's going to make it plain as to why you had to go through what you went through. It's not clear why you're going through it. And yet you got tears. I'm not going to tell you dangle hurt. It's going to be some stuff that hurt you. Why are you going through it? But in due season, in time, God will make it plain as to why he allowed it to happen. Years ago, decades ago, when I had the girlfriend, and I'd rolled up the street and saw my girlfriend in the car in the arms of the star basketball player of our high school team, it broke my heart. I was devastated. But I can look back now and say, if that had not happened, I wouldn't be right where I am right now. Touch out to all glory, thank you. Well, do y'all hear what I'm saying to you today? Instead of getting mad at the joker, you better thank God in there tonight. Your loss, it's his loss. It's his loss. It means God got something better for you. You lost your job? Thank God. He got something better for you in store. It may not look like it at the moment, but in due season, that's what you got to know. You got to know that all things work together. It would not happen in my life that couldn't get in my life if God hadn't signed off on it. And if God signs off on it, he sees. God sees the big picture. Y'all ain't saying. He sees where you're going. I've learned in my life that God allowed some things to go through my life so he can purge me of some stuff that I needed to get out of the perjury. That purging, he got me ready for where I'm at today and where I'm going. That's what you got to remember. All things work together. And you got to recognize. Don't get, okay, I'm running ahead of myself. Slow down. Somebody said, "Slow down." That's a powerful pregnant. If you don't know that verse, get that verse memorized. Underline it. If it ain't highlighted in your Bible, highlight it. "We know that all things work together for good to those who love God." I love God. I don't know about you. I love him. And to those who are the cold, I'm called. Look at your neighbor, say, "You called. You've been called. You got a purpose." Who are they called according to his purpose? Whoa. Okay. All right. Slowly, pastor. Slow down. You just, you just going crazy.

Go to Genesis chapter 45. This further bears out the argument of what I'm trying to demonstrate to you today. Genesis 45, these first eight verses. Remember, this is the story about Joseph. Who would brothers? Joseph was his father's favorite child. His brothers sold him into slavery. They hated him. They really tried to kill him, but they ended up selling them into slavery. And he goes to a series of events where he gets, becomes a slave in a general's house named Potiphar. This part of his wife tries to sleep with him. He doesn't do it. She lies on me, tells her husband, Potiphar, that Joseph tried to rape her. He throws him in jail. It is a law story, but Joseph ends up being, God elevates him to the number two man in all the land. He is in charge of the land. He goes through a series of events in his life that ordinarily, any person could be bitter with God. Genesis 45, verse 1: "Then Joseph." So, let me, I gotta give you the whole story here. Trying to cut, cut corners here. So, Joseph interprets dreams for the Pharaoh. Yeah. Do you, I notice already because if y'all, if y'all know what, I don't have to go back to it because, but some of y'all don't. Who said that? You said that? Okay. He didn't know the story. Let me tell you what happened. So, he's in jail for supposedly trying to sleep with the general's wife. While he's in jail, he interprets two jail mates' dreams. One of them, he said, "Your dream means you're going to die." How many, I don't want that to be the interpretation of the dream. But sure enough, he died. He got, he, he died. The next guy said, "You're going to be restored to your old position, working for the Pharaoh." And sure enough, he got restored. Joseph said, "When you get there, can you just remember me?" How many y'all know sometimes when people get elevated, they forget from whence they came from? Well, he forgotten. But the Pharaoh had a dream that he could not interpret. So, all of a sudden, its former jail mate remembers, "Joseph interpreted my dreams. Maybe he can interpret the Pharaoh's dreams." So, they call him out. And Joseph, in fact, interprets the Pharaoh's dream. And he tells them, "Your dream means that you'll have seven years of plenty and seven years of famine." And so, that, so the Pharaoh elevated Joseph because he can interpret the dream to be in charge of everything. And so, sure enough, there were seven years of prosperity, and they built barns and saved resources and did all of that. And then they hit the seven years of famine. And during the seven years of famine, Joseph's brothers come to Egypt looking for food. And they come looking for food. And Joseph sees them and calls them into his chambers, but they don't recognize him. Then Joseph, verse 1, "could not restrain himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, 'Make everyone go out from me!' So no one stood with him while Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept aloud, and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard it. Then Joseph said to his brothers, 'I am Joseph.' Can you imagine what they must have felt? Does my brother, does my father still live? But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed in his presence. And Joseph said to his brothers, 'Please come near to me.' So they came near. Then he said, 'I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into slavery. But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me here before you to preserve life.'" Enough in that powerful right there? "For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. Verse 7: "Here it is. And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance." So, now, verse 8: "It was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a farewell to he has made me a father to Pharaoh and Lord of all his house and they ruled through all the land of Egypt." And that's the place you got to be. You got to get to a place where you can say about the things that people have done to you, "It is not you who did it, but God allowed it to happen." That's what helps you to forgive. When you can see, here's what you got to see. You got to see that God is in control of your life. And he will not allow anything to come into the domain of your life that he has not checked off on. And I try to say that to people over and over again. I'm going to try to tell you, whatever happens in your life, God is not the author of it all, but before it can come into your life, he has to check it off and say, "It's okay." And if he checks it off and says, "It's okay," he knows that you got enough in you to be able to handle. He's already prepared you. Hallelujah. So, Chris said, a crying and complaining, you got to say, "My God, think I can handle this." "Bless his name. He knew I could go through this." "Bless his name. I'm mad at you because of what you did. I ain't mad 'cause of what you said. I ain't gonna be angry with you 'cause of how you treated me. I'm giving God the praise that he knew that I can handle your nasty self." Right. The ELCA debt. God has a greater purpose behind you. And you have to have the maturity. You got to grow up and see that the God that we are serving is such an awesome God that he sees your future. And there's something good that is going to happen because of what he permitted in your life. There's a purpose. It's a purpose behind. It's greater than the moment. You got to see it. Start being better. Stop being bitter with people. Instead, try to see, "What does God teaching me? What does he want me to learn? And what is in my future?" I worked at a good government job one time. And I remember, I was, you know, I was the lowest man on the totem pole. And I remember the division chief, we're coming every day, walk right by my desk and wouldn't say nothing to me. Almost something else right there, then say nothing. I'm still a work in progress. They are pregnant me. I haven't arrived. Pray for me. I almost slipped up. I almost fell down. But God, yes, my God. And such were some of you. And I used to say to myself, "It hurt me, dude. I saw him speak to everybody else, but not me." I just want to speak to everybody else in the office, but not me. And I say to myself, "If God ever puts me in a position of power, I'm gonna speak to every person." When we were in the ministry center, before we moved here, before we finished building out the ministry center, I had an office downstairs. And in between services, I saw that sometimes I had to go to the bathroom. And I asked them to put a bathroom in my office because when I left my office to go to the bathroom, I never made it. I'd be walking down the aisles trying to speak to everybody, you know, 'cause that's what I can't just because I, because, you know, if I walk past you and I don't say that, see, see, he's speaking about me. So, you need an key all that he used his feet there by Bernardo, speak to me. So, I needed a bathroom in my office so when I had to go, I could go and I'd have to feel like I had to go out here. Most people coming in in between services, if you want me to talk about saying that everybody, someone, if you want to stop me. So, I'd be walking down the aisles from doing, "Hey, hey, what's happening? Hey, hey." Thank God for bathrooms. Come on, give him some praise right there. So, the point I'm trying to get you to see in this record is that Joseph's understood in retrospect that God had him go through that whole string of events to get him to be the number two man in the land. God knew what the outcome. God knew what the future held. He knew way what was going to happen. He wanted to use Joseph. And my point to you is, you always can't see where it is God's taking you. But here's what I can tell you, he is taking you somewhere. It's not apparent right now. You can't see it while you're going through it, why you're crying and your pain and you understand sorrow. And it's not always clear. Never judge your future by your present circumstance. So, instead of getting bitter, say to yourself, "Recognize, I'm not gonna be man with you. God has a purpose. It's something that this is going to lead me someplace." And I guarantee you, everybody who's had some kind of pain in your life, I can guarantee you, it may not be apparent today, but sometime in the future, God's gonna put a crown on your head of understanding. He's gonna give you beauty for your ashes. We should have stayed in Philemon while we were there because I know it took some of y'all decades to find that book. But just jot it down. And I'll read verses 15 and 16 to you so that you don't tell miss out on on discus. Verse 15 and 16 says, "I already told you this for this read of passage for perhaps." Verse 15: "He departed for a while for this purpose that you might receive him for ever, no longer has a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you both in the flesh and in the Lord." So, he writes back to him and says, "The reason perhaps he left is that God had a purpose. He departed that he, that you might be able to receive him for eternity, his app has a brother and not has a slave anymore." So, that's, that's important.

Let's go to Romans chapter 5, verses 1 through 5. "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, verse 3, but we also glory in tribulations." Somebody say, "Glory in tribulations." Say it again, "Glory in tribulations." Everybody, one last time, "Glory in tri." You got to learn to glory in tribulations. This is how you can tell the maturity of a person, whether they have the ability to glory, to celebrate, to give God praise in the middle of the cell, the tribulation. Anybody can worship God when it's over, but can you glory in tribulations? And somebody said, "Well, how do I do that, pastor?" Here's how you do it: knowing that tribulation produces perseverance. I'm glorying in it because I know it's going to produce something in me. And matter of fact, we've been through enough already in our past. How many know that you can handle some stuff today because of some stuff you went through in your past? Because I was, because I went through something in my past, I can handle what I'm going through now. This is small stuff. This is, I don't sweat this now because I've been through some stuff before. I'm glorying in tribulation because I know that tribulation produces perseverance. And perseverance, character. Woo! That's what's missing in our culture today is character. People ain't got no character. Character is how you behave when ain't nobody looking. That's character. And he says, when you've gone through some tribulations, and when you've gone through some peer relations, you get produced in you perseverance. And once you get perseverance, you have some character. And character produces hope. And then hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given to us. I love this verse right here because when you have a level of perseverance and character, you, you can always have hope. I was talking to, what our church got a loan from the bank some years ago. I got invited to a reception with the president of the bank of this nationwide bank. Was a National Bank. And when he heard the story about our church, he sought me out for all of the hundreds of people that was there. And in the midst of our conversation, he said something that I thought was very insightful. He said, "You must provide the people you serve with a lot of hope." This banker understood that what keeps us ticking is hope. Never lose hope. Never think that God has forgotten about you. Never think that God has abandoned you. Never think that God has left you to falter by the wayside. Always have hope that somehow God is going to make a way out of no way. Somehow God's going to work it out. Somehow it's tough now, but when I get on the other side of the coin, when I get to the other side of the situation, he has not left me or abandoned me, but something good is going to happen. You've got to be people of hope. You have to be people of hope. We've got faith, hope, love. All these three. We got hope. Somebody sang out, "Hope." I believe God's gonna make a way. I believe he's gonna open the door. I believe he's gonna give me strength. I believe he's gonna work a miracle. I believe he's gonna solve my problems. I believe he's gonna turn things around. I got hope that no weapon formed against me shall prosper. I got hope that though the devil tried to kill me, God is going to give me the light. I've got hope that God's gonna take care of all of my knees. I've got home. Somebody hung out home. And it starts the journey. Starts off with tribulations. Stop trying to avoid tribulations. Stop trying to avoid problems. People be trying to go to shortcut, avoid the journey, avoid the pain, and boy the sunset. And you miss out. 'Cause you know what happens if you skip the journey? You want to end up coming back to where you shouldn't win it in the first place. Just go ahead and get it over with. Go ahead through the thing. God not a purpose for a stop skipping, stop avoiding it. Just go through the deal. Whatever you gotta go through, go through it. Tribulation does what? Is our Bible in front of y'all? Just looking under the Bible. Get this in your head. Tribulation produces perseverance. Gives you the ability to take a licking and keep on ticking. Go through some troubles and keep on worshiping God. Anybody who can't worship God in the midst of hell ain't been through nothing. We have a couple in our church. The wife got pregnant. The doctors told her the baby didn't have it, didn't have a brain. So they urged her to abort the baby. They didn't even wrestle with the discussion. Most people would have went on and boarded the baby. They carried the baby through full time. I was so proud of him. Here she carried this child who she knew didn't have a brain, and the child would not live much longer after he was born. But she carried the child, the fullness of the thing, and worshiped God. The baby was born, and they gave the baby a name. They soon realized the baby, the baby lived just for about six hours. I was so proud of how they handled that. And now, here we are, years later, they got three kids now. Come on. Let's try to tell about if you can worship. I don't understand. Even said, I don't understand. I don't like who I am. I'm, I'm crying. It's painful. It's difficult. It's tough. I don't have to like where I am, but learn to know that God has a purpose. But what about why he has permitted you to go through what you've got? Somebody say, "Amen." I'm gonna stop right there. Eight o'clock. I'm trying to do better. It's 8:02 because I want to spend some time in prayer because somebody, some people, somebody needs prayer about this right here. But let me take a couple of questions, just one or two real quick, if anybody has anything. And then we see if we got any internet questions if I can get this thing working. Do you think I have a question? I have a ton of internet questions. What do you do when you have no problem forgiving others, but do so when it comes to forgiving yourself for something you've done? How do you forgive yourself? And, and, and, and that's a good question because ultimately, a lot of people have problem with forgiving themselves for what they've done. We have to recognize that our ability to be forgiving is grounded not in what you do or have done, but what Jesus did on the cross for you to be forgiving. In other words, some people can't forgive themselves. They feel like that I go back and, and, and put themselves in the same situation, respond differently, do something different. I'm telling you, you're forgiving about the blood of Jesus Christ. This is a question of faith and belief that the blood of Jesus washes away all your sins. You, and if Jesus forgave you, who are you to not forgive yourself? You got to get grounded in the word. You got to get that wording. You got to know beyond anything else that God has forgiven you. You're white and white and white. Whoa. Slow down and wash your slate clean. All right. Is it okay to stop talking to somebody after you truly forgive them, but try not to allow them another opportunity to hurt you? Wow. So, this is a, this is a, the answer this question, some we're going to talk about a little more deeply next week. But if you keep holding that person accountable or responsible, that means you, you haven't elevated your sight high enough because you keep looking at that person. So, God allowed that person that hurt you, but you got to look past the person and say, "God, who controls my life permitted the whole situation to occur." And if he didn't allow it to occur, if I could not have handled it, he would not have allowed it to occur. But he allowed it to occur. So, the scripture says, and I can't tell you, this is the question that Peter asked, "How many times should I forget him before I go off on him?" Oh, Peter says, "Seven. Is seven enough?" Jesus said, in one place, "Seven times seventy." And they answered him, "Not a word." Y'all know the scripture where Elijah was preaching to the people of God, they were halted between two opinions. They were divided between serving God and serving Baal. And, and he said, "Y'all got to make up in your mind who you gonna serve. If God is God, serve him. If Baal does God, serve him." And the scripture says, "They answered him not a word." Just like y'all not answering or that I'm standing right now. I can tell when I'm challenging you 'cause y'all don't say nothing. I'm telling you, Jesus said, "I didn't say this seventy times seven, four ninety a day." Now, if you count the 490 times, you got a serious problem. Beyond for yours, are you coming with a question? All right. I'll take that question. So, this is a follow-up question. Um, so during periods of healing, while you're forgiving, healing while you're forgiving, isn't it best to put up some sort of boundary to protect yourself while you're working through the issue with God? Like, if an act of violence or abuse occurred, like you always say, "Hey, if the dude put his hands on you, that's not the dude for you." But somebody could be misinterpreting that like, "Well, he put his hands on me, and I forgive him, and pastor said I should talk to him again 'cause seventy times seven." Pastor didn't say that about abuse. Let's get that straight, right? That's why I want you to, they might be able to get the record straight. All right. Yeah, forgive to him, right on into jail, call the Popo. I forgive you, but I'm not going to be in relationship. I'm not going to be married to. I'm not gonna marry you. Abuse a person who has an anger limitation, a person who has abuse issues, it didn't just show up. Their signs and indications that they got issues. But sometimes y'all want to look on pass it. You think you can, you can change them. I feel the Holy Ghost right now talking. You want me to stop right here and talk to talk to you? You right back. I know it. I mean, y'all think y'all think you can change them. You're not the Holy Ghost. Look at the final lady, say, "You are not the Holy Ghost. You can't change him." That's not your role. He's throwing stuff, kicking holes in the walls in the house, slamming doors, that day cussing people out. That there is an indication. Time for me to keep going on down the road. He's on our road, never to be seen again. Good night. See y'all later. No, that's the problem. So, don't hear me say, take an acceptable use physical abuse. I'm not talking about that. Drawing guns on you, threatening your life. No, no, no. He needed your help. Don't stay in that situation. Get some help. And once he gets help, if you're still available, maybe you might entertain. Once he got years of demonstrated ability. Yes, sir. It's the last question. Thank you, pastor. My fee is bumping around. I just wanted some advice from you as my pastor. I had poster pitch on my Sochi me, and my caption was, "When I think of the goodness of Jesus and all the things you have done for me and all the storms he helped me triumph over." Hashtag, woo. Hashtag, blessed. Hashtag, thank you, Jesus. So, I got caught me, and it was like, "Allah Jesus was you for oppression." Just say God, no name, truth. Not to spoil your blessings. So, I just want some advice. As do I look at that as my helmet? I want to be like, respond and, you know, feeding Tobin in his purchase. I was like, "Just leave it as that." So, don't look at it as a tack. Or I think is there's just hence, you know, with a different belief system. They believe differently. That's why they call him Allah. That's what that means. They, there's probably a Muslim, Muslim saw some friend of yours at spread. It's a Muslim. That's what that means. We win people by loving them. Me, don't, don't demonize them. Don't rebuke them. Don't cuss them out. I know you want to. Don't do that. Love you. Love the thing that makes us different is that we have the capacity because Jesus lives in us to love people back, even though they don't treat us with love. That's what you do. You love.