The Restoration of Communication: Forgiveness
Family Talk

Transcript

Good morning, church. It is good seeing all of you here this morning. We're concluding our series today entitled, “Family Talk.” Over the past four Sundays, we've been talking about the importance of family communication, both at your house and at the church house. So, this series is not only for your house, for your family, but it's also for us as a church.

Our theme verse is found In Ephesians chapter 4, verse 15, where we read, Ephesians 4:15 (ESV) 15 “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” We've been concentrating on Ephesians chapter four. Today, we'll be at those final verses of the chapter, the final three verses. We've been working our way through chapter four, talking about the importance of communication and how it affects our relationship with God and with one another.

If you are a student of the book of Ephesians, you'll notice that Paul has written six chapters. The first three contain primarily propositional truth. He's teaching us doctrine for three chapters, and he lays the basis for the oneness we have in Christ. And he talks about the reality that because of Christ, both Jew and Gentile have become one in the church through Christ and that we're one body and he's the head. And this is the doctrine he's been teaching.

Then as he gets into chapter four through six, he begins to move from propositional truth to practical teaching of how to live it out. And so in chapter four, we're aware that he's laid this case for oneness in Christ, and he wants us to grow up into the head, into Christ, so that in maturity we recognize our oneness with God and our oneness with each other in the body of Christ. Then, he begins to deal with those things that will prevent us from experiencing this oneness. So, let's just backtrack for a second. Four weeks ago, when we began this series, we were starting at the beginning of chapter four.

We entitled that sermon, “The Goal of Communication Oneness.” So, the goal of our family talk should not be just to be heard, but it's so that at the conclusion of a conversation, we experience unity, that we're at one with one another. We talked about that four Sundays ago and then we talked about the challenge of communication. That's when someone has sinned against the other person and it creates conflict. We discussed how to handle conflict.

Then, last week we talked about the danger of communication. If you take the “d” out of danger, what do you have? You have anger. Anger, sinful anger, can break down your relationships. Now, we're in the last part of the chapter and we're going to be dealing with the key to restoration, the key to restoring your communication and your relationship.

It’s the word, “forgiveness” and not just any kind of forgiveness, but Christlike forgiveness. We all know the pain of broken relationships. No one has to describe that to us. We know it.

It’s harsh words, unresolved conflict and silence that grows like a wall. Whether in our homes, our marriages, our friendships or in our church, we've all experienced the damage that unforgiveness can cause. But God has given us the way to restoration - it’s Christlike forgiveness. Without forgiveness, communication breaks down,

but with forgiveness, we can lay the foundation to rebuild our communication with one another. So, how do we do it? Well, as we get to these final three verses, we see that the Apostle Paul exhorted the believers in Ephesus to put away their relational sins and to practice Christlike forgiveness in the power of the Holy Spirit. I believe today that we can practice Christlike forgiveness as the Holy Spirit empowers us. As we look at the text today, we'll see three steps that we can follow to restore our broken relationships,

through the power of Christlike forgiveness and through the power of the Holy Spirit. Let's read these final three verses and then we'll “unpack” them together. Ephesians 4:30-32 (ESV) 30 “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

This is God's word. Amen. We can restore our broken communication with Christlike forgiveness. How? Well, here's the first step:

1. By confessing what broke it.

By confessing what broke it. By confessing what broke down our communication, what broke down our relationship. Paul starts out with an amazing truth. In verse 30, he says, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” It's an amazing truth because it reveals something about God.

It reveals something about God because the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. He is God, of very God, the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. One God, yet three distinct personalities. He's not “the force” from Star Wars.

He's a person. He has personality and He has emotions. ‘Well, Gary, how do you know He has emotions?’ It is because I just read verse 30, where it says, “do not grieve the Holy Spirit.”

Grief is an emotion. What is grief? It's an emotional response to a felt loss. We usually use this word as it regards the loss of a loved one. They've passed away.

We grieve over that loss, but we also use grief in other places. Felt loss, felt loss of a marriage; we call that divorce. The felt loss of a friendship; we call that a broken relationship. The felt loss of a dream or some other thing.

All of these things can bring on the emotional response of grief. Here's what God is revealing in a very transparent way through the apostle Paul to us, that we can hurt God; we can hurt His feelings because He's done everything to save us through Christ Jesus. He gives us the Holy Spirit to come and abide in us and we can offend God. You might say, ‘Well, how do we offend Him? In what way?

Why do we have this negative command, in verse 30 “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.” Well, we would have to look at the chapter, we would have to “back up the bus a little bit” here and say, ‘Well, what has He taught us so far?’ As we look back, our study verse says, “Speak the truth in love.” Grow up.

He goes on to say, in these verses to put away sinful anger. “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” (Eph. 4:26-27). In your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down in your anger. Verse 25 says

to put away falsehood. In other words, stop lying. Speak the truth with your neighbor. Be angry and do not sin. Don't be a “relational thief.”

Let the thief no longer steal. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth. In other words, “stop the name calling.” If you just look at these things, you can see all the things prior. Then you can see the verse following, in verse 30, where he summarizes some of the things that he has said earlier.

He names six attitudes or behaviors. All of these things grieve the Holy Spirit. Just listen to me for a second about this. All sin offends God, and some sin offends your neighbor, because there are sins that are just you sinning against God. You can do those all by yourself, at your house or in your room, alone.

Often, you've sinned against your neighbor, which is also a sin against God. All sin offends God. Some sin offends your neighbor. The category here that Paul seems to be revealing to us is that when you sin against a fellow brother, a fellow sister in the Lord, it grieves the Holy Spirit.

It grieves Him like someone died when you're not at one with fellow believers, God is willing to be so transparent in His love for us that He would say, ‘It hurts me when you're not right with one another.’

Paul says that if
nothing I've said so far motivates you, let me tell you what the Spirit's telling me. It grieves Him when you aren't right with one another. Now listen, if you're a believer and you've been growing up in Jesus, you know this. You know this without hearing the command, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit.” You know this by experience because you have spiritual awareness.

You sense when the Holy Spirit is grieved within you. You do. Those of you know that when you've got an offense between you and someone in the body of Christ or someone at your house, it'll disturb your sleep. It will bother you.

Now, this is one of the things. If you're not a believer, you might be able to just harden yourself and have a hard heart. But if you're a believer, it exposes you to the feelings of the Holy Spirit and He'll disturb your sleep. He'll make you feel His heaviness.

He'll make you feel His grief, that you're not growing up in Christ and becoming one with Christ and with one another. That should motivate you. That should motivate all of us. Relational sin doesn't just hurt people, it grieves God. This verse reveals the broken communication, that it's more than just a relational issue, it's a spiritual issue,

because all sin offends God. Relational sin offends God and it offends your neighbor. “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit.” It's a command, really. There are three commands in three verses, and that's the first one that we're covering.

The first step is by confessing what broke it. What is confession? Confession is agreeing with God that it's a sin. It's admitting that you're wrong. That's what confession is.

Now, when you confess, you're not telling God something He didn't already know. ‘I confess, God. You got me.’ No, He already knows. What you're doing, is you're coming into agreement with God and saying, ‘Yes, I agree that that was a sin. I shouldn't have said that.

I shouldn't have treated her that way.’ You come to a place of confession; you admit it. One of the sayings that we repeat often around here is, “Admitting your feeling is the beginning of healing.” You have to say, ‘I admit it, I was wrong. I confess it.

I agree with you, God,’ because this Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead, is grieved when you're not right with one another. Let's just remember who He is, in verse 30, “by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” By the day that you get the fullness of what God has promised the Holy Spirit. The scripture teaches us it is like a down payment and He's a seal. He's the proof that you got the whole thing. If you buy a house, you'll put down earnest money with an offer and you'll say, ‘Okay, in 30 days I'm going to close

and here's a check of a deposit of earnest money. If I don't close by 30 days, if I default, you get to keep my deposit.’ Well, that's what the Holy Spirit is, as a seal unto the day of closing, until the day of Christ's return. God's basically saying, ‘I'm giving him to you as a foretaste of the whole promise that is already yours.’ That's part of what it means, that He's a seal, that He's an authenticating seal.

The word, “seal,” also has the idea of security. We are in a very safety conscious culture today, but back when I was a kid, you could just buy a product and take the lid off. Today, they have childproof lids and childproof seals that are really people proof, I think. Maybe some of you have used that special flavored creamer for your coffee that is difficult to open. In the drawer right underneath my coffee maker, I have strategically placed a pair of needle nose pliers for that one particular company that has a seal on there that is impossible to get off with your fingers.

I pull out those needle nose pliers and pull that thing off. Plus, I don't get any of that wet sticky stuff on me. It's on the needle nose plier. I drop the seal in the garbage.

That's a “freebie;” I gave you that one for free, a little tip. But, it's guaranteeing that the contents are what they claim to be on the outside. There are no additives beyond what the thing says on the outside of the label.

No one has poisoned it, no one has degra s sealed. That's the Holy Spirit; He's the saving of God and He's also the keeping of God.

When you believe in Jesus Christ, He comes and dwells in you; He saves you and keeps you until the day of salvation.

It's the Holy Spirit. This is God. God comes to live in us, to seal us until the day of redemption. Christian brother and sister, when you are not living right with your brother or with your sister, it grieves Him.

It grieves Him. David described the heaviness he felt with unconfessed sin in Psalm 32. He writes of it. He says, Psalm 32:3-5 (ESV) 3 “For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night

your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. 5 I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.”

Oh, He refreshes us if we just agree with Him and say, ‘I was wrong.’ Confession is not only good for the soul, it's good for the body. It heals the body. If you keep bitterness inside of you, it's actually got a physiological thing it does to you.

It helps you physically, mentally, and it's good for your relationships. James talks about this in chapter five of James. He says,
James 5:16 (NLT) “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” So I was thinking about this.

I don't think he's necessarily in context, talking about just confessing your sins to random people. Or, it might be that the context is more about going to the person you've offended and confessing, ‘I've sinned against you,’ like that. Because all of that affects the healing of your relationship, but also your own person, your own spirituality and your own body.

I don't know if any of you have a phone like this. We could get you to pull your phones out of your pockets or out of your purses. There's someone here. I guarantee. You dropped your phone.

You've got a cracked iPhone screen. It's cracked. You didn't buy insurance, and now you're stuck with it. It still kind of works, but you're kind of embarrassed to get it out because you have to look at it at different anglesto try to see around the crack. It still kind of works, but it's cracked.

You need a new phone; you need a new screen. There's some reason you're delaying it. Maybe, you can't afford it right now. You are going to wait until another year.

It's not even fully paid for yet; you've got a lot of reasons. But, the beginning step is to admit, ‘I have a cracked screen. I need to do something about that.’ We're talking about communication.

You have to confess what broke it. You have to put that away. Ask yourself today, ‘What was it that broke up this relationship with_______? Was it a cutting comment that I made?

Was it a cold shoulder? A sarcastic remark? Or, was it years of silent bitterness and the longer the years go on, the harder it is to do something with it for reconciliation to happen?’ Now, listen, honesty is where healing begins. To just honestly own your part, honesty is where healing begins.

Speak the truth in love.

You don't have to fix it all at once, but you do have to face it.

2. By repenting of what blocks it.

By repenting of what blocks it. Okay, you confess it. But now, you have to recognize that there are behaviors and attitudes in you that are still blocking the possibility of restoration in that relationship.

Paul lists six destructive attitudes and behaviors that block our relationships, that block our communication. He says these must be actively removed and surrendered to God. He names six. He doesn't name seven. That's the number of completion. He doesn't name nine.

That's the number of the gift of the Holy Spirit, of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. He names six. Well, that's the number of man, isn't it? He names six destructive attitudes. He has an unusual verb.

I told you that there are three imperatives, three command verbs in three verses. The first one was in the active voice, “Don't grieve the Holy Spirit.” It was an active voice.

That's your part. You're responding to the one who has sealed you. But then, this one is in the Greek middle voice. We don't really have, ‘I'm sorry.’

It's in the Greek passive voice and we don't really have an English equivalent. So, for the one Greek word, we have to put together several English words to try to get at this idea of the Greek passive. Notice what he does in this English translation.

It even breaks up the verb. It begins with the word, “let,” at the very beginning, right in verse 31, “Let…” then, what's the rest of the verb? We have to keep on going down.

Verse 31, “...be put away…” “Be put away” is the rest of the verb. So it took four English words to try to get at the passive Greek word – “let,” “ be put away.” He names the six things and he says, “...let all”l… “be put away.”

How do you let something be put away? It's a command, but in the Greek passive. It’s the idea that there's an outer influence that wants to put it away.

Your command is in the passive. You can't put it away. You need the outer influence to help you put it away. Your job is to let go of it.

This is wonderful. I want you to hear this.

Some of you are hanging on to bitterness. Some of you are hanging on to anger. You're hanging on to even malice, which is, I want bad to happen to that person. They hurt me.

I want them to be hurt. You're hanging on to that. But, if you're a Christian today, you're a believer, the Holy Spirit is living in you, and He sealed you unto the day of redemption. You're born again.

You're one with Christ, and you're supposed to be one with each other, but you still are hanging on to this stuff. I've tried to let it go.

I've tried to let go of my feelings of anger towards this person, but every time I think of them, if I happen to see them, it wells up inside of me again. Let it be put away. Let the surrender yield to the Holy Spirit's work in you.

So, the command then is this idea of stop hanging on to it. Stop clinging to it. Let Him take it from you.

Do you get what the word is saying here? This is deep. It's important. It's a breakthrough for those that will claim it today, that will say, ‘Yes, I will yield to the Spirit's work within me.’ Paul's not saying to us to do this in our own strength, but to do it in the Spirit's strength.

He names these six, and he says, let all of these be put away. Let them all be put away. He begins to name them. He begins with bitterness, which literally has the idea of a taste in your mouth of gall.

You've bit into something that's just bitter. It's where the root word comes for this. Bitterness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die when it's killing you. That's what bitterness does to you.

It's like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. He says to put it away. Next is wrath; the Greek word, “thumas.” It's where we get the idea of thermometer or thermos.

Something that can hang on to heat, wrath, fierceness, indignation, anger. Then it lists anger. The Greek word for anger is “orgē.” It's where we get the word, “ogre.” It has the idea of agitation of the soul, like boiling water.

Next is “clamor.” Have you ever heard someone say, ‘Oh, here she comes. She's a drama queen. Everywhere she goes, she creates clamor. She's got to be heard.

She's always talking about herself or gossiping about somebody else.’ Clamor is like two pots being clanged together. It’s like chaos. It's the idea of loud, divisive, uncontrolled or demanding.

The Greek word for “slander”

is “blasphēmia;” it means to lie about someone intentionally in order to do harm to them. So, there were five things and here's one more.

31 “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.”

Malice has the root of evil in it. The Greek word for this also can be translated, “evil.” So, the idea here of malice is to have evil intent towards another person. They've hurt me. I hope they die.

I hope their stuff dies. You begin to relish the idea and then, if you hear that their life starts falling apart, you say to yourself, ‘Thank you, God, for getting them. Thank you. I'm glad.’

You've been harboring hatred in your heart. You've got malice towards that person. I hope bad stuff happens to this person.

The word says this. “Let it all… be put away.”

Let Him take it. Stop clinging to it like you don't know. ‘Pastor, this is my shield. This is how I respond to this evil that was done to me.’ Maybe it was done to you as a child and this person is still in your family.

Maybe the person has passed away. They're not even here anymore. But you still have malice towards their memory.

Guess who it's hurting? Not them. It's hurting you and it's hurting your relationship with God. It's grieving the Holy Spirit. Let Him put it away.

Let it all be put away and let the refreshing come from the Lord. In the book of Acts,Peter is preaching here. He says, Acts 3:19-20 (ESV) 19 “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, 20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”

You can feel the Spirit's grief, but you can also feel His joy. You can feel His peace. You can feel His love.

Repentance means to put it away, doesn't it? It means to put it away, strip it off, and to go in the opposite direction. To strip off these six destructive attitudes. In verse 32, he's going to tell you what to put on,

but right now, we're in the “put off” phase. Colossians 3:8-9 (NLT) says this, 8 “But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. 9 Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds.” Let it be put off. Let all be put off.

All the former life. Paul doesn't say to remove all bitterness by yourself. He says to let it be put away from you. Let the Spirit stop clinging to it and start cooperating with the Spirit. Let Him exchange that old attitude with a new attitude.

I pray right now that the Holy Spirit will be speaking to hearts in this room, that he'll be speaking to those who are listening, and that you would be willing to say, ‘Which of these six items, which of these six destructive attitudes have I allowed to take root in my heart? Lord, examine me and know me. Do I have any of these in me?

I'm going to let you take them off of me.’ Some of them, He'll have to pull out by the root because it's really become so entangled in your heart. Name it, confess it, repent of it, ask for cleansing, and he will do it. Refreshing times will come. Now this leads us to the third step:

3. By seeking what builds it.

By seeking what builds it. We're at verse 32. Now, Paul exhorts us to Christlike forgiveness, to the virtues of kindness, tenderheartedness and forgiveness. He's told us what to allow to be put off.

Now, he's calling us to allow the Holy Spirit to put these on us, this new way of relating to Him. It's a way of seeking a new foundation. And we're going to be talking about forgiveness. But first, let's look at how he begins. He says to be kind to one another.

Well, that'd be a good start to the person that you formerly had malice towards. To be kind to them and tenderhearted. They actually try to see it from their side, to think about who they are, to see them as someone that Christ died for. It's challenging. The idea is to be kind, you could translate like this: pleasant, easy, benevolent, gracious.

Here, the idea is voluntary participation, that I volunteer. I'm willing to take the initiative to be kind to this person. They've been mean to me, but in Christ I'm going to be kind to them. They've been hard hearted towards me, but in Christ I'm going to be tender hearted towards them.

They've offended me, but I'm going to forgive them. How? Not as the world forgives. I'm going to forgive them as God in Christ forgave me.

Do you think it was hard to let go of those destructive attitudes? It was impossible without just letting them go to the Holy Spirit, to leave them at the cross. The only ones who have the capacity for this are those who have received the forgiveness from the Lord Jesus and allowed them to experience the total forgiveness of His love and His redemption.

The one who has received this forgiveness now can dip into the well, the bottomless well, of forgiveness and pour it out on every relationship.

Some of you are stuck in your maturity. You're stuck in your growth because you can't let go of that hurt.

I'm not saying that I wasn't hurt. It was a real hurt. Some of you were hurt deeply by someone else, someone who claimed to be a Christian. That makes it hurt worse, doesn't it? I'm not saying that it didn't happen. I'm saying give up the right to hurt them back, to grow up into maturity to the head, which is Christ, and to forgive them as God in Christ forgave you.

Confessing, repenting and then seeking. Only the Holy Spirit can give you this. But your part is a command. Be kind and forgiving. Be kind and tenderhearted.

Forgive. Notice that forgiving is in that continuous participle there. Because the thing is, you'll forgive them and then you'll get up tomorrow and you'll be angry at them again and they haven't done anything new to you. You're just still trying to get it out. You're still trying to forgive them.

So forgiving as God in Christ. How? As God in Christ Who paid the debt of my offense. To Him who came from heaven to earth, pursuing me, took the initiative to pursue me, to pursue you, died in my place and then hung on the cross saying, “Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.” This is the gospel.

You want to live out the gospel in your life, forgiving as God in Christ forgave you. Because your lack of forgiveness is not just destructive to that relationship, it's destructive to your soul. It's destructive to your relationship to the Father because it grieves Him that you're hanging on to this.

Now, this forgiveness that He gives you doesn't automatically rebuild. You seek it. You seek the rebuilding. You seek to build it back up, but it doesn't automatically rebuild the relationship. Just as when Christ died on the cross for your sins and says, “Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing.” You can still sit out there and say, ‘No, I've heard the gospel. I've heard that He's offered forgiveness to all who will believe.’ But you can say, ‘I reject it. I choose not to believe.’

So then, you can stay in your unforgiven state, because it takes two parties. It takes the one who's doing the forgiving and the one who's forgiven to receive it, right? The same is true if you're in a broken relationship and you are the one that was offended and you offer forgiveness. It's usually more complicated than that because that person often thinks there's something you did, too.

You probably did, because you're a sinner saved by grace. You probably did; it always takes two,

but your part is to seek forgiveness as God in Christ forgave you. It lays the foundation for the possibility of rebuilding the relationship because it removes it, confesses what broke it, and it repents of what's still blocking it, so that from your side, all impediment now is removed for the possibility of the relationship being renewed. The possibility exists.

C.S. Lewis talks about this, “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”

Paul talks about it in his letter to the Colossians. He says, Colossians 3:12-13 (ESV)

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” So, when you think about forgiveness, think about the one seeking forgiveness because you felt the grief of the Holy Spirit and you feel that you were wrong

and you need to go to that person and confess your sins to them. I'm the one that hurt you and I know that. So you could be the one seeking forgiveness. But there's also the other person who's being asked to grant forgiveness. That's the two parties.

Let's address first of all, the ones seeking forgiveness. How do you do that? Can I get really practical for a second? There are six words I think might give you a starting place. I was wrong.

Please forgive me.

The last three are not that hard. Please forgive me. Most of us are pretty good at that one. The first three words, I was wrong. How many know it all?

So you don't have to lift your hand. Just think about it for a second. How many “know it alls” do we have in the room?

I'm telling you what. As soon as a child learns to speak the English language and you tell them to go and tell your little sister, go and tell your big brother that you were wrong, they'll do the ‘please forgive me.’ They'll say, ‘I'm sorry.’ But it'll just about blow up their brains to try to get them to say ‘I was wrong.’

We're all born with this rebellious spirit. ‘I was wrong. Please forgive me.’ Seeking forgiveness.

You named the wrong; I was wrong when I said this to you, when I did this to you. You name it. Please forgive me. You're asking for forgiveness now. Let's talk about granting forgiveness first. Can I tell you what it's not?

Let me tell you what granting forgiveness is not. It's not pretending it didn't happen. Oh, never mind. No, forgive them. I was wrong.

Please forgive me. Oh, don't think anything of it.

That's not forgiveness. It's not conditional. ‘I'll forgive you if you do X, Y and Z.’ That is not forgiving.

Now, God can do this. He can say, ‘I put your sin as far as the east is from the west.I plunge into the deepest ocean.’ But our problem is we have to keep forgiving. Notice that in both the Colossians passage as well as the Ephesians passage, it is forgiving as God In Christ forgave you, because it's a continual process for us until finally it seems to fade from the memory because we're putting it away.

We're surrendering and finally, He takes it away from us. It depends on the depth of the offense. The deeper it is, the harder it is to let go of it. But, we're called to it nonetheless.

It's not impossible. I hear people say, ‘I could never forget. It's impossible.’ All things are possible in Christ Jesus. You can let go and it's not an automatic cure for the hurt.

Saying, ‘I forgive you’ doesn't mean the hurt will immediately go away. But may I say to you, it eventually will. The hurt will be replaced by refreshment from the Spirit for love, joy, peace, patience and kindness to come from the Spirit. Because as much as He was grieved by you hanging on to unforgiveness, He is overjoyed because you're growing up to maturity in Christ, which is His goal for you to be like Jesus.

This is what He's calling us to. What is forgiveness? Well, did I mention to you that in verse 32 as well as in verses 30, 31 and 32 are three command verbs, three imperatives.

He says to be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ Jesus forgave you. It's not a holy suggestion, it's a command. You want to grow up in Jesus to maturity in Christ.

Forgive. It's obedience granting. Forgiveness is, first of all, obedience. Remember when Jesus was teaching something like this and Peter says, ‘So do we have to forgive him seven times?’ I can just picture Jesus getting sort of a smile on His face.

He says to Peter, ‘Actually 70 times 7.’ Do you remember what I was telling you about? He's forgiven you of all your sin. When you say “yes” to Jesus, He's paid for how many of your sins? All of your past sins, all of your present sins and all of the ones you haven't done yet. He's already paid for them.

He's abiding in you now through the Holy Spirit; He has sealed you unto the day of redemption and He's made available to you this bottomless deposit, this well of forgiveness so that you can write forgiveness checks and never bounce a check. I mixed all kinds of metaphors in there. Hopefully you got two of them.

It's unlimited. It's unconditional. It's a choice to release the offender of his death.

It's the beginning of healing that starts the process to forgive them. You know, in North Carolina we all know about natural disasters, don't we? We know about hurricanes. Some of you have moved from the west coast to avoid earthquakes. Welcome to North Carolina.

It doesn't matter where you're in North Carolina. We've all had hurricanes in the last couple years that have affected us.

Rivers swell, roads vanish, bridges get washed away. What used to be easy to get across to the other side, now there's a raging torrent between and the bridge is out. It's going to take a lot of work to be able to get to the other side. That's the way it is in some of your relationships right now. The bridge is washed out.

I guess the first point would be to say, ‘Hey, I need to confess that the bridge is washed out. I need to agree with God that I had something to do with that.

Maybe I had a lot to do with that. I need to repent of whatever that was.’ Now, here's what forgiveness does. It looks at that bridge being out and it can't just all of a sudden pop a bridge up. But here's what forgiveness can do.

It can help take out all the broken metal and all the broken foundational stuff, because before you can rebuild, all that's got to get cleaned up. All that's got to get cleaned up, right? And then forgiveness is like laying the foundation so the bridge can be rebuilt. It doesn't rebuild the bridge, but it lays the foundation for a bridge to be rebuilt because it sets aside all impediments that would prevent that. Now, there are certain people that we need to keep boundaries up because they won't do the work on their side of the bridge.

They won't forgive or they won't seek forgiveness. But, do your part–obey the command and do your part. You can't control what they do. Just like when Jesus says, “Father, forgive them,”

but then, people turned away and they rejected Christ. I pray that it's not you today, because it takes two –one who says, ‘I forgive you’ and the other who says, ‘I accept it, I believe.’ For those of you that have someone, maybe they've passed away and you've been holding bitterness towards them, today, I pray that you will release it, that you will let it be put away from you and that you go ahead and forgive them.

Maybe, you'll never see this person again, even if they're still alive in this world. I'm not saying you have to, but for your sake, put it away and forgive them in Jesus’ Name so that you can renew yourself in Christ. But, where possible, forgiveness allows us to rebuild. The cross of Christ is the ultimate picture, isn't it? As God in Christ forgave you, that's what he says.

How can we do this? It's impossible to have that kind of forgiveness. It is in the flesh. It is in your own humanity. But all things are possible with God.

He can give you the power of forgiveness so that you forgive those who have hurt you. You can pray, ‘Father, forgive them. I forgive them.’

If you've received that forgiveness, you can restore what's broken with Christlike forgiveness. You can confess what broke it. You can repent of what's keeping it, what's blocking it and you can seek what builds it back up again. So, church, who do you need to forgive today?

Who have you been holding destructive attitudes towards? Don't wait for the perfect moment. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you right now as we pray. Lord, I pray, first of all, for the one who has never given their life to you. You say to them, ‘I offer this forgiveness.

Father, forgive them.’ Is that you, my friend? You've never said “yes” to Jesus? You've never received His grace and forgiveness. You can do it right now.

You can make a decision right now, an act of the will, and say “yes’ to the Lord. Pray right where you are. Prayer is just expressing your faith in words. ‘Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. I confess that I've offended You.

I confess that, Lord, and I repent of my sin. I know You died on the cross for me, Lord Jesus, and I believe that You were raised from the grave. Come and live in me. Forgive me my sin. Help me to be the person you want me to be.

I want to be a child of God.’ If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing, He'll save you. He'll forgive you; He'll come and live in you through His spirit. Others are here and you're a believer. The Holy Spirit lives within you and seals you unto the day of redemption. But you're still hanging on to some junk that's keeping you from growing to maturity in Christ.

It's grieving the Holy Spirit. Would you pray right now? ‘Lord, forgive me, forgive me for holding on to unforgiveness. Holy Spirit, right now I just pray you'd put the faces of people that we're not right with so that we would give it to you, so we would let it be put off and put on Your kindness, Your tenderheartedness, Your forgiveness. We pray it in Jesus’ name, Amen.’