Alright. Hey. Good morning.
Good morning.
As we get started, Kevin just mentioned this.
Maybe in your venue, you already heard something
about catalyst, and that's all about personal transformation.
And one of the ways we wanna gauge
that is with the survey that you've already
been invited to participate in. And so, here's
the deal, if you know, you know you,
the only time that you're gonna participate in
that is right now, I'm not gonna be
offended. Alright? I guarantee you, in all the
venues, I won't be offended. So you can
grab your phone and you can do it
right now as we get started about five
to seven minutes, but it's really important
that we would have a baseline. Because by
the time we get to the end of
catalyst, how do we talk about transformation
if we don't have a way to gauge
it? So, would you do that please? We
ask.
As we get started, I'm Dave, and we're
welcoming Roane County down in Bearden. Good morning
to y'all,
over at Amplend, good morning to you as
well. And you can open a Bible to
chapter,
18 in the book of Matthew,
and We're gonna talk about a topic today
called forgiveness.
Everybody up for this one?
Yeah.
That's what I thought.
You know, I I it was about twenty
years ago. No. It was twenty years ago.
And,
this year.
And,
my wife and I,
before that, we had left, one career path.
I was in a new career path. I
was now in vocational
ministry, and part of that transition was the
thing that I knew is that God was
calling me to go to school. And it's
a long story that I'm gonna try and
tell in a really short period of time,
but in the midst of that, I just
had this deep conviction that that's what it
was all about. I had no idea
at that time that I might actually be
doing what I do. I never imagined
that I'd be doing what I do, but
but I just knew that I was supposed
to go to school
and, there was a church. They invited us
to come be on staff. It was church
that we were part of. It's a church
church
that we were deeply connected in, and we
are deeply connected with the lead pastor of
that church and his wife. We were at
dinner one night, and they they had invited
us to come be part of their staff,
and
and, we were concerned a little bit. There
was a lot of stuff going on in
that church and he looked,
at us and in particular, he looked at
my wife straight in the eyes and he
said, Kelly, as long as I'm the lead
pastor of this church, you have nothing to
worry about.
Yeah. We were we were
Yeah. We weren't we weren't really aware how
that works. So
here's the thing, it was less than a
year later. About a year later, all of
a sudden,
in very short order,
within a week, I was out of a
job and when I asked him about that
statement, hey, here's what you said, here's the
promise you made to my wife, he says,
I never said that.
Now here's the thing,
at that time it was like not It
gets more complicated because it's not just
that, hey, there was a person and they
betrayed you. For those of you who've been
in business, for those of you who've been
in a marriage where you've been betrayed, those
of you who've been in families where you've
been betrayed by somebody who's close to you,
you know that that's difficult, but when it's
somebody
who's representing Jesus in your world,
it gets far more complicated. Not just are
you working through do I forgive this person,
but how do I forgive
Jesus even though he doesn't need my forgiveness?
How do I work my way through that?
And so, that's where we're starting today. On
the surface,
forgiveness
sounds simple. Just forgive people.
But as you know, it's not simple at
all. It's one of the hardest things we're
not only asked to do, but we're commanded
to do.
It's not an option, this isn't like, Hey,
there's a nice accessory,
by the way to the Christian life. It's
called forgiveness. If you get around to it
and you feel like it, embrace that one.
Jesus doesn't set it up that way.
So here's what we're gonna talk about today,
this idea of forgiveness. And what I wanna
do is I wanna set it up and
and I wanna set it up by telling
you it is complicated
and your situation is complicated and you probably
can't figure it out on your own if
you haven't figured it out already.
You probably aren't gonna figure it out this
afternoon if it's been 10:20,
thirty years that you've been dealing with it.
And so I'm gonna encourage you that you
requires that we would
get wise counsel.
We can get counsel from things like books.
There's a book called Forgive
by Timothy Keller. He's since passed away, but
in that book, in particular, it's based upon
the parable that we're gonna see today, and
in the end, there's some appendixes that actually
walk you through the process. What does this
look like for me to actually
experience and give the forgiveness that I've been
given?
Forgiveness is a word we know, but what
we're talking about here is this idea that
forgiveness means giving up the right to revenge,
the right to seek repayment from the one
who harmed you.
It must be recognized
that forgiveness
is a form of voluntary
suffering.
There's a debt
that needs to be paid.
Unforgiveness
says
when you finally do enough
then we can move on, then I'll forgive
you. When you finally
pay the penalty.
But forgiveness is different than that. The forgiveness
that's gospel centered forgiveness looks like, I don't
expect you to pay it because I'm gonna
pay your debt.
I'm gonna take the debt of your offense
with me, and I'm gonna take it upon
myself,
and I'm going to pay your debt. I
forgive you. That sounds a lot like the
gospel, does it not?
Sounds like what Jesus did for us and
the expectation Jesus had for us
is that that kind
of forgiveness is what would flow out of
us and into others. And in that book,
Forgive by,
Timothy Keller, he he talks about a lot
of real world stuff that has happened in
the last five years
Because the world's message is don't be foolish.
People have to pay. They did the crime.
They gotta do the time. While that may
be true, okay? The relationships that you have
may never be the same.
Jesus is gonna give us a warning.
It does require forgiveness in our heart.
If we're a follower of Christ,
that's the grave warning. So here's what we're
gonna walk away with this weekend.
Real life with Jesus in his kingdom is
fueled by grace
demonstrated
by unlimited
forgiveness. If you take note, circuit that word
unlimited.
We don't get to set the parameters. Now
with that, I I don't know what your
story is.
I don't
know how
how great the offense is that you have
to forgive.
I have no idea. It may be unimaginable
and we'll talk about that.
All I know is what Jesus says.
And he doesn't say that, Oh, if you
reach a certain level,
now you've qualified for the unforgiveness camp.
It's all levels, and he does so by
telling a story.
Now, Matthew 18,
here's what we've seen, is that Jesus
talks about us that those who are in
the kingdom are like children, humble and dependent,
and he calls us to pursue those who
have wandered away and to care for others
in the pursuit
of those people, and that we would
work hard towards seeing relationships
restored.
Forgiveness isn't just an isolated moment, it's it's
the culmination of all that's gone on already
in chapter 18.
If we are in God's kingdom, and we
are within a body called the body of
Christ, that we pursue one another, and we
forgive one another because it's what Jesus has
given us as a model of the gospel,
and so this is what Peter's wrestling with.
He's trying to figure out how kingdom greatness
works in the real world where people mess
up. As we pick up here in chapter
18 in verse 22 where it says, Then
Peter came up and said to him,
Lord, how often will my brother sin against
me and I forgive him?
As many as seven times?
Jesus said to him, I do not say
to you seven times,
but 77 times.
Therefore,
the kingdom of heaven may be compared to
a king who wished to settle accounts with
his servants.
When he began to settle, one was brought
to him who owed him 10,000 talents. And
since he could not pay,
his master ordered him to be sold with
his wife and children and all that he
had and payment to be made. Now last
night, while I was sitting here,
getting ready to get up on stage and
speak, ChatGPT helped me out. Gave me like
a modern day kind of thing. We figured
it out earlier in the week, but I'm
like, what about now? What's ChatGPT have to
say? And if ChatGPT is right, we're talking
about $6,000,000,000.
We figured it earlier this week. It's about
$13,000,000,000
to give you
a scale. Okay? So the the kind of
debt that we're talking about is
massive
to the point of being
unpayable.
You can never pay the debt. It's a
really important point
in the story.
So the servant fell on his knees imploring
him, have patience with me and I will
pay you everything.
And out of pity for him, the master
of that servant released him and forgave him
the debt.
But when the servant went out, he found
one of his fellow servants who owed him
a 100 denarii and seizing him he began
to choke him saying,
Pay what you owe.
In today's dollars, about $10,000.
He owes 6,000,000,000
that was forgiven,
but you're gonna pay me the 10,000.
So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded
with him, have patience with me and I
will pay you.
He refused and went and put him in
prison until he should pay the debt.
When his fellow servants saw what had taken
place, they were greatly distressed and they went
and reported to their master all that had
taken place.
Then his master summoned him and said to
him, you wicked servant.
I forgave you all that debt because you
pleaded with me.
And should not you have had mercy on
your fellow servant as I had mercy on
you?
And in anger his master delivered him to
the jailers, to the tormentors
until he should pay all his debt.
So also my heavenly father will do to
every one of you if you do not
forgive your brother from your heart. Now when
Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away
from Galilee and entered the region of Judea
by the Jordan.
If you write in your Bibles, that that
last part there, the end of chapter 18,
should be underlined,
starred, highlighted, circled, all the things
because it's the point of the parable,
and it's great. It's a huge warning, and
throughout this week, I I kind of wrestled
from the time we went from sermon meeting
and we went through this week until this
weekend. I'm like, it's really important that we
would know the magnitude of the warning.
That that this is something that's he doesn't
say like if you feel like it.
He says this is what's gonna happen.
If you if you're a person who says,
I I could never, I will never,
we're gonna talk about the hard truth.
Here's the hard truth.
Maybe you don't know grace,
maybe you haven't experienced
the supernatural
forgiveness of God, of a debt that you
could never pay.
Maybe that's an indicator
in your life
that you don't really
grasp
what the debt that Christ paid,
the debt that's been forgiven.
Because if we grasp that,
if we grasp that,
we're certainly going to be people who say,
I know it's difficult, maybe even seems impossible
to me, but I'm going to pass that
along. And there's something to keep in your
back of your mind
as we go through the rest of this,
this weekend, the rest of this message.
Jesus
thinks this is possible.
This is built
on Jesus
believing this is possible.
So if in your mind you're saying that's
not possible, I could never,
you're not arguing with me.
You're arguing with Jesus
who says
this is the expectation
that we would be people who pass along
this kind of forgiveness.
This got all in my business. I'm already
all up in yours, so let's go.
Here's the deal. We're called to cancel offenses,
not track them. We're called to cancel
offenses, not track them, and this goes against
everything within us. Jesus connects the dots for
Peter by using a Biblical story. In Genesis
chapter four, there's a guy who shows up
by the name of Lamech. He's a descendant
of Cain, and Cain was the first murderer
in the Bible. So,
you've got this lineage
from Cain to Lamech,
and it's a family line of violence.
And so
Lamech says, if Cain's revenge is sevenfold,
then Lamech's is 70 sevenfold.
He's not setting a limit. He's declaring
that Lamech's
payment is
unlimited
vengeance.
Lamech represents
the world's system.
If you
offended me
to a certain level,
you
don't deserve
forgiveness.
And the gospel says
it doesn't matter if they deserve it.
It doesn't matter if they deserve it. It
doesn't matter if they ask for it. It
doesn't matter if they want it.
It doesn't matter if they humble themselves and
come and ask for it.
There's something that that has to happen within
us.
And somebody said that Jesus takes this saying
and he flips it upright, the world's thinking
is upside down and so Jesus comes and
he takes Lamech's thinking and he flips it
upright
and what happens is he gives us a
representation
of what it looks like to live in
the kingdom. And so 70 times seven is
an idiom of limitless forgiveness.
This 77 times.
It's not saying count to them. It's it's
just a way of saying
don't count. There's unlimited forgiveness.
Stop counting.
This is the overflow of something deeper.
It's the overflow of the work of Jesus
in us.
It's the overflow,
that we've really grasped
forgiveness because forgiveness stops being a decision that
we that we make and it starts becoming
who we are. The more that we understand
the gospel, the more that that plays out
in our life. How would I not forgive
when I'm forgiven? And then once again, it's
complicated. Does it mean? It does not mean
that we just go back and we pretend
like something didn't happen.
It's not like we just pretend that the
offense didn't didn't occur.
Because when we do that with Jesus, if
we pretend like the offense didn't occur, occur,
what happens?
We forget.
The offense occurred,
and because the offense occurred,
it keeps me humble under the rule of
Jesus,
and I recognize my need for Jesus, the
one who has forgiven my debt.
And so when I I think about relationships
with other people, I I don't just go
and maybe put myself in the same situation.
I'm wise.
It requires wisdom,
but it requires a work inside. He says
that this is a forgiveness in the heart,
and so what we're talking about is grace
received must become grace given.
That's the story.
The grace that I've received is the grace
that I pass on and it does require
wisdom.
It requires wisdom.
Because here's the thing, Jesus says you must
forgive them in your heart and that doesn't
look like this.
Somebody has offended you.
They don't know it.
Or maybe even they do.
In your wrestling you're like, You know what?
I do. I have to forgive them. I
have to forgive them in my heart.
So because I've forgiven them, I wanna make
sure that they know.
So I'm gonna tell them,
Hey, by the way, you hurt my feelings
and I've forgiven you.
Don't do that.
That's the wrong answer, okay? You just took
your forgiveness and made it about you,
And now they have to forgive you.
You just passed it along.
Now you're like Now they're sitting there going,
Hey, I'm glad that you forgave me for
my offense. Now I gotta forgive you for
your offense because I'm offended at you.
Now we're in this cycle.
Don't do that.
If it's real, if it's genuine, if it's
something that he's doing within you, you don't
have to declare it to the other person.
Now if a person comes to you and
they've offended you and you've followed Christ in
that and you've forgiven them and they come
to you and they say to you,
I'm sorry.
I did this thing to you,
please forgive me. Well then it would be
appropriate for you to say, I've already forgiven
you.
I've already forgiven you. We're good. I've forgiven
you. There's no offense to be forgiven.
I've forgiven you.
And it's also the reason why we need
to stop calling Matthew 18 the the church
discipline chapter. It turns out it's not about
that.
It's about life in the kingdom. We should
call it the kingdom life.
Humble, pursuing others, living within the body of
Christ,
forgiving as we're forgiven,
chasing each other down when we go astray,
caring for one another, living in community
with each other.
You see, withholding forgiveness contradicts the gospel we
can aim to believe
and that's why we started with a warning.
If we absolutely
refuse to embrace
the forgiveness
of Christ in the lives of other people,
forgiveness in our hearts, we're saying, I don't
know that I really believe it or at
least
my allegiance isn't with Jesus. My allegiance is
somewhere else. My allegiance is most likely to
me.
So what does the gospel actually look like
when it's lived out? It looks like this
parable.
When someone truly understands that the king has
forgiven them,
it lets us be transformed
in how we treat others.
Once again, not pretending that the offense didn't
happen,
Forgiving is not forgetting.
It's remembering
but without exacting payment.
It's not throwing it in someone else's face,
it's saying it's been redeemed. I've forgiven it.
You see, real forgiveness
reflects Jesus' heart and it defines life in
his kingdom.
So when you step back and you look
at the whole parable,
that's what Jesus has been showing them.
This isn't really about the other person or
what they did when you look at it.
It's not about the person who has offended
you, it's about you.
This is the irony of this.
Your entire life in God's kingdom is built
on one foundation.
You've been shown
mercy you didn't
deserve.
You've been shown mercy you didn't deserve.
You know what that's called? That's good news.
You've been shown mercy you didn't deserve.
That $6,000,000,000
thing you could never pay?
Wow.
Forgiven.
Paid
by Christ.
But here's the honest part, the grace we're
called to give doesn't work like a light
switch. It's It's not something you can just
go, Oh okay, I heard this today. I'm
gonna walk out of here. Oop, problem solved.
Last three years of my life I've been
struggling with this thing, but now I guess
I'm not.
No. It requires that we embrace the process.
I'm gonna use in a a baseball analogy,
because it just works for this.
Trust the process. And so here's what happens
in baseball. In baseball,
being a hitter is very difficult. Hitting a
baseball, it's very
difficult.
You know it's difficult
because if you're a professional baseball
player and you hit a baseball
and get on base one third of the
time,
do you know what happens to you?
You end up in the hall of fame
as one of the greatest baseball players who
ever played.
It's hard.
And sometimes they get they get in slumps
where they they're doing all the things,
but they're not getting on base. They have
to trust the process. They have to trust,
okay, I'm gonna work with my coach. I'm
gonna work with my hitting coach. Do you
know what professional baseball players do you know
who they work with?
They're making multimillion
dollars
and they're working with a swing coach. Do
you know what golfers do who are making
multimillion
dollars? They work with a swing coach.
As followers of Christ,
there's wisdom here for us.
What's it look like for us to to
be open to seeking wise counsel, to to
going, Wow, I've not been able to figure
this one out. I need to clude other
people,
not to bash the person who needs forgiveness,
but what does that look like for me
to work through this? What does this look
like for me to work through this process?
You see, forgiveness is a journey with Jesus
empowered by the spirit over time.
Forgiveness like this isn't something we can produce
on our own. I don't believe this is
something you can dig deeper and find. I
believe that this is a supernatural work of
people who are born through the spirit of
God. People who are who have become new
in Christ, followers of Christ,
who've been born again or born from above,
this is what John calls it,
who are indwelt by the Spirit of God.
That's what's required to see this kind of
response. It's a spirit empowered response.
And so Paul writes this to the church
in Ephesus. He says, do not grieve the
Holy Spirit of God
by whom you were sealed for the day
of redemption.
Let all bitterness and wrath
and anger and clamor and slander be put
away from you along with all malice.
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one
another as God in Christ forgave you.
Therefore,
be imitators of God as beloved children
and walk in love as Christ loved us
and gave himself up for us a fragrant
offering
and sacrifice to God. That's the Spirit empowered
life.
That requires
that we don't grieve the spirit, we obey
the spirit.
That we are yielded
to the spirit so that we can actually
be kind to one another.
We can be tenderhearted,
we can
forgive one another as God in Christ forgave
you. How did Jesus forgive
you? Completely.
It's an unlimited
forgiveness.
So forgiveness is the hard work of saying
yes to Jesus
again
and again and you could add like a
bunch more agains.
Again and again and again and again until
it's really annoying. Keep saying that to yourself.
How many times? And again
and yet again. You keep offending me.
And you forgive
yet again. Now it doesn't mean that you
don't address relational problems. It doesn't mean that
you don't seek counseling. It doesn't mean that
you just keep letting the same situation
play out and you become, you know, just
a an emotional punching bag. No. It does
mean that because of forgiveness
you step into the situation.
I don't hold your offense against you
by stepping into the offense.
Forgiveness
demonstrates our allegiance to Jesus
and living under his reign in our everyday
lives. This is the culmination of real life
with Jesus in his kingdom that this is
what this looks like. It looks like a
life that has submitted to the rule and
reign of Christ.
We've humbled ourselves
under the authority of Christ.
We're connected with other followers of Jesus.
We go after those who strayed
and we forgive with a supernatural forgiveness that
comes from the spirit of God alone.
Forgiveness
demonstrates
ultimately
who I believe.
Do I believe Jesus
or not? So real life with Jesus in
his kingdom is fueled by grace demonstrated by
unlimited
forgiveness
And the question is always, so what will
you do with it? This week,
we're headed towards a national holiday of celebrating
Thanksgiving, right? We're heading toward that place of
being grateful.
And before we get there, I wanna encourage
you that you would reconcile
things in your own heart and mind.
We can't possibly
demonstrate
thankfulness
for the gospel
and not pass along forgiveness.
The hypocrisy
of walking into thanksgiving saying, God, I'm so
grateful.
And yet harboring things against another person in
our heart and mind who doesn't deserve our
forgiveness,
it it's the ultimate in hypocrisy.
What are you grateful for?
Well, I'm grateful for the 6,000,000,000 out of
my account, but I'm still gonna look for
all the 10 thousands people owe me.
Or
I'm grateful
that I'm forgiven so that I can live
in the freedom of Christ. And so my
story, it it played out over time. I
I had deep wounds because
the offense against me wasn't just against me.
It wasn't just that I lost a job.
It wasn't just that. It was like, woah,
this this impacted my whole family. This was
a wound that that impacted all of us
and so I I wrestled with it over
time and it began, it was always on
the front of my mind.
And I wrestled through it because it's like,
God, I don't think I should have to.
I wrestled with God for a couple years
and I finally had to come to grips
with the fact that I was mad at
Jesus, I was mad at the world,
I was working it out slowly through the
power of the spirit, it wasn't something that
happened in an instant.
And then do you know what happened?
There were other offenses by other people that
started mounting up as well.
All of a sudden it felt like, wow
I have this huge gaping wound and now
I have all these other little
stab wounds to go along with it.
How's this ever gonna work out? And so
I I was working it through my mind
from last night until today.
It is probably
about six years later.
It's about six years later
and,
I ran into him at a conference.
Where do you run into people at a
conference? In a bathroom? Of course, that's where
you're gonna run into people, right? I ran
into him, I was like, Woah,
hello.
And I realized something in that moment.
I realized that God had done a supernatural
work over time.
That there had been something through the intentional
work of allowing the spirit of God to
transform my heart and mind, because when I
saw him, I didn't
feel the emotion of how dare you, how
could you. I was able to smile, I
was able to to go,
with a genuine kind of way, Hey, how
are you? What's going on in your world?
And here's ultimately what what happened is God
revealed that that this was something in the
back of my mind while forgiveness had happened
over time, it was so gradual, I didn't
even realize the completion of it until he
revealed it to me through an encounter with
a person. It doesn't make any sense. I
still to this day believe it was the
supernatural kindness of God to allow me to
encounter him in that restroom,
as weird as that sounds.
And in that moment,
I knew that forgiveness had brought healing,
not to our relationship,
not to the relationship between the two of
us,
but to me. Because the irony of forgiveness
is that it restores you.
It restores you.
You may have heard this before,
it's a common phrase that you have a
person living rent free in your head.
There's someone that they're always on your mind,
they're coming to mind, they're the person when
we're talking about today, it's the first thing
that came to mind, they are hanging out
and they are living there and they're paying
no rent,
and what they're doing is they're keeping you
in bondage.
You're not experiencing the freedom of the gospel.
You're not experiencing
the freedom of Christ because you've not extended
forgiveness.
As followers of Jesus, we forgive
because we're forgiven.
You may have heard this before,
forgiveness
is based on forgiveness.
It's not based on a qualifying
ask, it's not based on deserving, it's not
based on,
somebody
just having a deep regret and finally they
got to the point where you're like, Okay,
I'll forgive you. No, it is an unconditional
supernatural thing that's through the spirit of God
as we yield and humble ourselves to His
power at work in us.
So my encouragement to you is, go to
work.
Embrace the process.
Don't write it off.
Maybe you are five
levels
removed.
And I wanna encourage you, I wanna encourage
you this week, listen to the podcast, it's
in the Live It Out Guide. Listen to
the podcast, we worked through some of this
in there. It's not simple.
It's not just a decision that you make
and you move on and it's not something
that you go, well, it's all gonna work
out in the end. It's not.
Without you embracing the supernatural
work of God in your heart and mind
to extend grace in a way that's beyond
your ability.
That's what
the church is.
This is the picture of life in God's
kingdom.
To be these people. We need each other.
We need each other when we're like, man,
I don't know what to do.
This is the relationship that I have. This
is the relationship that ended. This is the
the thing where I am. This is the
person who walked out the door on me,
this is the business partner who betrayed me
and walked away with a bazillion dollars, whatever
that may be. Now I wanna say to
you, this parable is not about money.
Don't don't misapply the parable. Once again, doesn't
mean that if the spirit of God says,
Hey, forgive the real debt that they have,
that you should, but it's not a command
that anybody who might owe you money doesn't
owe you money. Okay? That is not what
this parable is about. This is about forgiveness.
The supernatural work of God in our heart
and minds.
And once again, I'm not saying the spirit
of God might not say,
you need to give, forgive the actual
financial obligation.
Just saying, Don't use this parable to do
it.
So here's the question, I want to encourage
you, and before I do.
So it's one thing to say, Reach out
for help, it's another thing to give you
a resource. So there's two resources. One way
you can reach out for help is by
buying a book called Forgive by Timothy Keller
and going through the process and using the
appendix in the back. There's four of them.
To work through the process. What's it look
like for me to allow the spirit of
God to use scripture to change my heart
and mind over time?
Another way is you might need counseling, you
might need somebody to come alongside and help
you in that process and that's
why we wanna encourage you to reach out
for a referral.
Don't keep doing the same thing.
Change course
and don't think, oh, I'll do that someday.
We want to encourage you, don't delay because
the longer that we delay, especially from weekends,
the longer that we delay in following through,
the chances that we'll follow through, they they
start to decrease exponentially.
And so I want to encourage you follow
through.
Here's the question though,
that I'm gonna ask us to all wrestle
with.
Where is Jesus asking you to pursue Him,
so that you can forgive
like Him?
I do believe the lack of forgiveness is
out of a lack of pursuit.
If we're pursuing Christ,
forgiveness becomes a lot easier.
When I grasp what Jesus is doing in
me,
extending that onto other people
is a lot easier.
And so I want to encourage you, ask
that question. I'm gonna give you like twenty
seconds.
Where is Jesus asking you to pursue Him
so that you can forgive like Him? And
and hold it captive, write it down, maybe
like, I don't even gotta write that down,
I know, I know that.
Ask him that
question.
So over the next couple of days, my
encouragement to you is to do the work.
Use the Live It Out guide. Over the
next couple days, as we head and we
celebrate
Thanksgiving, as we celebrate our gratefulness
to God for all the abundance of blessings
in in our world and in our lives,
let's begin by doing the hard work,
trusting the process that that as we do,
we'll experience a gratefulness
we could never have known
any other way. Now in all of our
venues, I'm gonna invite you to stand. Father,
we are grateful that you're a God who's
led us out of darkness and into the
light. And we pray that this week we
would be people who walk in the light
of the truth of the gospel.
We declare your praise now in Jesus name.
Amen.