In this sermon, I discussed the concept of forgiveness and the common misconception that we are expected to "forgive and forget". I emphasized that while we are called to forgive those who have wronged us, we are not necessarily expected to forget the hurt they caused. I used various scriptures to illustrate this point, including Hebrews 8:12 and Ephesians 4:32. I also highlighted the importance of setting boundaries and recognizing our own imperfections as part of the forgiveness process. I concluded by encouraging the congregation to experience God's forgiveness and extend it to others, without necessarily forgetting the wrongs done to them.

Key Takeaways:
- We are called to forgive, but not necessarily to forget the wrongs done to us ( [00:34])
- Recognizing our own imperfections can help us forgive others ( [01:10])
- Setting boundaries is an important part of the forgiveness process ( [01:47])
- God's forgiveness is limitless and we should strive to extend the same grace to others ( [02:29])
- Holding onto resentment and bitterness can imprison us, and forgiveness can set us free ( [03:02])

Small group discussion guide for "Forgiveness: A Journey Towards Freedom"

Bible Passages:
1) Colossians 3:13
2) Romans 3:23
3) 1 Corinthians 6:12
4) Ephesians 4:31-32

Directions:
Begin by reading the Bible passages mentioned above. Reflect on the sermon's main points and how they relate to these passages.

Discussion Questions:

Observation Questions:
1) What does Colossians 3:13 tell us about forgiveness?
2) According to Romans 3:23, who has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God?
3) What does 1 Corinthians 6:12 say about permissible actions and their benefits?

Interpretation Questions:
1) How does Ephesians 4:31-32 instruct us to deal with anger, bitterness, and malice?
2) How does the concept of forgiveness in Colossians 3:13 relate to our own imperfections as highlighted in Romans 3:23?
3) What does 1 Corinthians 6:12 teach us about setting boundaries in relationships?

Application Questions:
1) How can we apply the principle of forgiveness in our daily lives, especially when dealing with people who have hurt us?
2) How can we ensure that we are not viewing others through the lens of their past mistakes?
3) How can we practice setting healthy boundaries in our relationships while still showing grace and forgiveness?

Day 1: Forgiveness is not conditional

God's forgiveness is not conditional. It is not based on our actions or our worthiness, but on His love and mercy. This is a difficult concept for us to grasp, as we often place conditions on our own forgiveness. We say things like, "I'll forgive you if you apologize," or "I'll forgive you when you make it right." But God's forgiveness is not like that. It is freely given, without conditions.

Ephesians 4:32 - "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."

Reflection: Reflect on a time when you found it difficult to forgive someone. What were the conditions you were placing on your forgiveness? How can you work towards forgiving unconditionally, as God does?

Day 2: Seeing others through the eyes of Jesus

Jesus saw people not as they were, but as they could be. He saw their potential for transformation and redemption, not their past mistakes. This is a powerful perspective that can change the way we view others, especially those we find hard to forgive.

Matthew 9:36 - "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd."

Reflection: Think of someone you have a hard time forgiving. How might your perspective change if you tried to see them through the eyes of Jesus, focusing on their potential for transformation and redemption rather than their past mistakes?

Day 3: Recognizing our own imperfections

We all have imperfections. Recognizing our own can help us to show grace, compassion, and mercy to others. It can also help us to forgive, as we realize that we too are in need of forgiveness.

Romans 3:23 - "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

Reflection: How does recognizing your own imperfections help you to show grace, compassion, and mercy to others? Can you think of a specific instance where this awareness helped you to forgive someone else?

Day 4: Setting boundaries for healthy relationships

Forgiveness does not mean allowing others to continue to hurt us. Sometimes, we need to set boundaries for our own well-being. This can be a difficult balance to strike, but it is an important part of maintaining healthy relationships.

Proverbs 4:23 - "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."

Reflection: Can you think of a situation where you forgave someone but also needed to set boundaries for your own well-being? How did you navigate this, and how did it affect your relationship with that person?

Day 5: Setting others free through forgiveness

When we forgive, we not only free ourselves from resentment and anger, but we also free the other person from guilt and labels. This can have a profound impact on our relationships and on the other person's life.

Colossians 3:13 - "Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you."

Reflection: Reflect on a time when you forgave someone. How did this act of forgiveness not only free you from resentment and anger, but also free the other person from guilt and labels? How did this impact your relationship with them?

- "God loves us where we are as we are but the mistaken part of this is we often say God accepts me just the way I am and he approves of my lifestyle and my attitude and my choices." [05:48]
- "God accepts me as I am but he wants to make me new. He wants transformation. He doesn't want me to keep doing the same things that I have been doing." [06:25]
- "God expects me to forgive and forget whenever I experience hurt whenever somebody does something hurtful to me or hurtful to somebody that I care about." [06:57]
- "God doesn't expect me to forget but he does expect me to forgive. That's what I'm called to do and that's the real truth." [23:21]
- "God calls all of us to try to forgive the way he unconditionally forgives us." [22:45]

Several years ago, I was asked to do a wedding for this couple. I didn't really know them; they didn't really know me. They had been at a wedding of a friend of theirs that I had done, and then they were getting married. They didn't have a church they were going to or any kind of preacher, pastor, minister, or priest that they were connected to. So they just called and said, "Would you be willing to come and do this ceremony for us?"

Sure! We talked about the ceremony, and we got it all worked out.

So, the day of the ceremony, I was walking around ahead of time. There were a couple of people that I knew at this particular ceremony, except one in particular. It was this woman and her husband that were there. She had been a counselor at Green Valley Bible Camp, which we take our kids to from here, from Flagstone. She had been a counselor there when I was in high school, and she had witnessed what kind of high school kid I was, I'll just put it that way.

So she was like, "Hey, what are you doing here?" I said, "Oh, I'm doing the ceremony." She said, "Oh, okay, well great!" I could already hear kind of in her voice that she wasn't sure.

Anyway, after the ceremony, which went off without a hitch, by the way, things went fine. After the ceremony was over, I was visiting with some different folks, and she came up and said, "You did a great job." I said, "Well, thank you! I appreciate that."

She said, "You know, when you walked up there to the front, I leaned over to my husband and I said, 'We'll see how this goes.'" I understand I'm doing this ceremony a good at least 15, maybe even 20 years since she had seen my high school days, but she still had that picture of me in her mind.

There are a couple of people in this room, like I'm seeing Carl Duncan right now, who remembers when I was in high school. So rightfully so, she had that kind of nervousness, I guess. But that was a long time before.

I'm a different person now than I was back then, but that's how she viewed me—through my past, my past actions, my past attitudes, the past words that I had—even though it was years later.

You ever have a situation like that where people around you can't seem to let go of, can't seem to stop focusing on your past? Maybe they don't necessarily bring it up, but they still view you through those circumstances, those actions, those things. Maybe it's just one particular thing, but that's how they see you now.

Let's be really honest. You don't have to respond; just think in your own mind: Who is it in your life that you do that to? I wonder if there are some people that we still can't help ourselves. We know they're not the same person now that they were before. We know that maybe that one particular thing was just a one-time mistake, a one-time action that just rubbed us the wrong way or maybe even was hurtful to us.

Even though that's in the past, we still can't let go of it. Our first reaction when we see that person is to view them through the lens of whatever it was that they did before or said before or how they acted before. Because that's what we tend to do, right?

We get really irritated when people view us through the lens of our mistakes and our past. Well, we don't always pay attention to the times we do that to others. I think it's a struggle for all of us. It doesn't make you automatically a bad person; I just think it's one of those things that we all struggle with.

I want to be thinking about that as we are reminded of what Turner has already said this morning. This thought that we've been going through the last few weeks of mistaken truths—the things that we have come to believe about God or believe about His word and what His word says about Him that aren't completely accurate.

Maybe there are some things that are completely false, and maybe there are some things that we've come to learn about God or about how He functions in our lives that are partially true but not completely true. It's still a mistake to view God that way and to view how He deals with us in that way.

If you haven't been with us for the last few weeks, we've gone through several of these mistaken truths. The first one was this thing that we come to believe: that God will not give me more than I can handle. We say that, and we maybe have even come to believe that, or other people may have said it to us.

The real truth is that sometimes God does give us more than we can handle. Sometimes God does allow things to happen to the point where we have no other alternative but to rely on Him because we can't handle it on our own.

We talked about how some of us kind of believe that all God wants is for me to be happy. This is kind of common in our culture nowadays—that my happiness is the most important thing, and God loves me and wants me to be happy. There is some truth to that. I do believe God wants us to have joy, purpose, fulfillment, and peace in this life.

But sometimes what makes me happy is not what makes Him happy. Sometimes what makes me happy is not the best thing for me or for other people. Now, you realize what God really wants is for me to be blessed. Sometimes I'm blessed by being connected with Him, even when I'm not happy.

He's going to help me be blessed and empower me to be a blessing to others. That's what God wants for me.

We talked last week about how God accepts me just the way I am, and that is true. God loves us where we are, as we are. But the mistaken part of this is we often say God accepts me just the way I am, and He approves of my lifestyle and my attitude and my choices.

He not only accepts me; He approves of what it is that I'm doing in this moment right now. That's not always true. God loves me no matter what. God loves me when I am knee-deep in things that I shouldn't be doing. He still loves me, and He still accepts me when I reach out to Him.

But He wants something different for me. He accepts me as I am, but He wants to make me new. He wants transformation. He doesn't want me to keep doing the same things that I have been doing.

These are some of the mistaken truths that we've talked about in the last few weeks. If you've missed any of those, I invite you to go back to our YouTube channel and walk through some of those things with us.

But we're going to talk about another mistaken truth this morning, and it's one that I think many of us have either been taught or we've heard it said, or we have said it to others. I think it's one that a lot of us have come to believe, and that is this: God expects me to forgive and forget.

God expects me to forgive and forget whenever I experience hurt. Whenever somebody does something hurtful to me or hurtful to somebody that I care about, whenever somebody says things that are hurtful to me or to someone they care about, I'm supposed to not only forgive them but I'm supposed to forget about it too.

I'm supposed to forgive them and let it go, and as a part of letting it go, I'm supposed to block it out of my memory and pretend that it never happened. We've probably heard this phrase multiple times in our lives: forgive and forget.

We've heard it; people have said it to us. We might have even said it to other people. Here's the key thing: there's not one time in Scripture that God says to forgive and forget. There's not one time in Scripture where it explicitly says God wants His followers to forgive and forget.

So where did the phrase come from? How do we get to the point where we believe that this is what we're supposed to do and what God calls us to do? How do we start believing this mistaken truth?

Well, you do a little bit of research, and of course, a lot of phrases that we use nowadays, it's really hard to figure out exactly where those things originated—like who said it the first time and under what circumstances.

If you do some research on just the phrase "forgive and forget," one of the first times, one of the earliest times that we see it ever used is in the 17th-century classic story "Don Quixote." You might remember that from your English classes that you slept through.

In "Don Quixote," there's a line that says, "Let us forget and forgive injuries." So that's one of the places that came from. Around the same time, there's a famous play from William Shakespeare called "King Lear," where someone says, "Pray you now forget and forgive."

So if we go all the way back to the 1600s, we see this phrase used in a couple of famous literary works. That's where we first see anything, at least in our English language, this phrase being used.

Now, did people just take that and go, "Well, that sounded good for William Shakespeare to say; I think we ought to use that in the churches"? I don't know. I don't know how it came to be one of those things that we started believing in.

There are some scriptures that kind of lead us in that direction, though. I mean, for example, in Hebrews 8:12, the author of Hebrews is actually quoting a statement from Isaiah the prophet 800 years before, but he's talking about God. He says, "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

So it seems like when you read that scripture, you read that verse, what does it say about God? God recognizes that we sin; He sees our wickedness, but He's going to forgive it. And then what's He going to do? He's going to forget it. "I will remember their sins no more."

Now, you take that, and you start thinking, "Well, God develops some kind of amnesia when it comes to my sin." That once I'm a saved child of God, then when I do sin—it's not that I'm going to be perfect; I'm still going to mess up—when I do sin, God is going to forgive it, and then it's just going to magically disappear from His mind, and He doesn't have any memory of it anymore.

Then you take that thought, and you read something like Ephesians 4:32 that says, "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you."

So if God forgives and forgets, and I'm supposed to forgive in the same method that God does, what does that mean? I'm called to forgive and forget.

We come to believe that this is a command for us. This is something that we're called to do. This is an expectation of God—to not only forgive people when they do something hurtful to us, forgive people when they do something hurtful to somebody they care about, but somehow, someway, try to block that out of our memory and pretend like it never happened.

But what if I can't do that? What if I try to forget the pain that's been caused? What if I try to forget the emotional hurt that I've been going through, and I just can't? Does that make me a bad person? Does that mean I'm sinning? Does that mean I'm not doing what it is that God calls me to do?

I don't think we're a bad person. I don't think we're sinning if we struggle to forget. First of all, I don't think that God develops amnesia when it comes to my sin. I don't think that God just completely forgets everything when it comes to my sin.

When Scripture says He will remember my sins no more, that phrase doesn't just mean He completely blocks things out and has no memory of them whatsoever. What is being talked about, and what those words in the original ancient language they're written in means, is God is not going to bring those things to the forefront of His mind.

That's not going to be His focus. That's not going to be what He dwells on. That's not going to be all that He thinks about. Does that make sense?

So God is not saying, "I will have no recollection whatsoever of any mistakes that you have ever made." That's not accurate; Scripture doesn't bear that out. What God is saying is, "I'm not going to dwell on it. I'm not going to keep bringing it up. I'm not going to keep focusing on it myself, and I want you to keep focusing on it either."

Does that make sense? It's not that God completely forgets; it's that God's not going to focus on it, and He's not going to view me through the lens of my past mistakes.

And again, the second thing is, not one time in Scripture does it ever explicitly say that God wants me to not only forgive when someone wrongs me but also forget it. It doesn't work that way.

It's not easy to forget, and part of the reason for that is just the way that we're made, the way that God designed us, the way the brain works. I mean, God designed our brain—at least part of our brain—to be responsible for triggering a response when something painful is happening.

You put your hand on something hot; your brain is supposed to go, "Hey, take your hand off of that! That's hot! That's going to hurt you!" And then there is circuitry in your brain that creates some kind of neural pathway that says, "You know what? Next time you see that particular hot thing, you know what you should not do? Put your hand there again."

So that's the way our brain works. We have these memories, and part of the reason that we have them is to trigger a response when something painful happens to us.

I didn't ask his permission, so I'm probably going to get in trouble for telling you this story, but years and years ago, the first time we took our kids to the beach, we went to Orange Beach. Our kids were real young, and it was one of those weeks—I don't know how many of you have ever been down to the Gulf of Mexico—but it was one of those weeks where all the seaweed in the entire ocean was right there in front of us. I mean, it was just layers of seaweed.

So we spent several days building sandcastles and doing things right by the water but not in the water because it was just gross; it was just nasty. So we thought, "Well, we've got to get our boys out in the water. This is their first time to be anywhere near saltwater, ocean, Gulf kind of stuff. Let's go! Let's get out in the water!"

So we got a couple of footballs or something, and we were out there just in the seaweed, throwing balls around—not probably the best parenting decision in the world, but that's what we were doing.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, Griffin, who was probably about five years old at the time, starts screaming. He starts crying and screaming and saying, "The ocean got me! The ocean got me!"

So I run to the ground and scoop him up out of the water. What happened was, in all this seaweed, there was a whole bunch of jellyfish, and a jellyfish had stung him on his arm. You can still see the two lines from the tentacles that had come right across his arm.

That's a very painful experience for anyone, especially a five-year-old. So we got him out of the water, and there was somebody else—a complete stranger—that was on the beach and saw what happened. They had already had preparations for this, and they brought down a bottle of vinegar.

We poured that on it and went through a whole bunch of stuff to help deal with the sting. I tell you that because for the next several years, any time that we went to the beach, if there was seaweed, Griffin was a little cautious about being anywhere near it.

Now, we might get on the other side of it, or it might float by or whatever, but there was just that hesitation: "Oh, there's seaweed, which means there's jellyfish, which means the ocean is going to get me."

Because that's what his brain decided to do: "This is a painful experience, and if I see seaweed in the ocean, that means there's going to be jellyfish, and he's going to get hurt."

That's what our brains do for us. That's why we have those kinds of memories in our brain—so that we won't allow ourselves, or at least we'll be more cautious and keep ourselves from experiencing a painful experience again.

Now, there's been some recent research that has indicated that social and emotional pain triggers the same part of the brain that is triggered when we experience physical pain. When someone does something that is emotionally hurtful to me—someone uses hurtful words or mistreats me in some way, somebody hurts my self-esteem, somebody breaks my trust—there is part, just the physiological part of my brain, that triggers a response.

I keep a memory of that; my brain logs that into its memory banks. Does that make sense? It's just part of what happens; it's part of how God designed us, which makes it difficult to forget.

When someone does something hurtful to me, my brain says, "Okay, we need to remember that so that we don't experience that again." Not only that, but I think that ultimately God wants good things for us.

I think ultimately God wants us to be blessed, and He doesn't necessarily want bad things to happen to us. Even if sometimes He allows bad things to happen to us, He doesn't want bad things to happen to us; He's not wishing for that.

I believe that God ultimately loves us and cares about us and doesn't want us to put ourselves in hurtful situations—not just physically hurtful situations but emotionally hurtful situations too.

I think God wants us to be cautious about those things—to remember what was hurtful about that situation before so we don't experience it again until we've learned to process it, deal with it, and move past it.

So I think it doesn't make me a bad person if I struggle to forget when someone has hurt me in some way. It doesn't make me a sinner when I struggle to let go of something that someone has done to hurt me or to hurt somebody that I care about.

But having said that, I do believe forgiveness is vital. Forgiveness is essential if I'm going to live my life the way that God wants me to live it. If I'm going to be the kind of person that God calls me to be, if I'm going to interact with people in my life the way that He wants me to, I have to learn to forgive, even if I struggle to forget.

So the mistaken truth is this: God expects me to forgive and forget. That's not completely accurate. Here's the real truth: God does expect me to try to forgive like He does.

God expects me to try to forgive like He does. I may not be able to completely forget, but He calls me to forgive in the same way that He does. He doesn't expect me to just passively continue to put myself into hurtful situations and allow myself to be hurt, to be taken advantage of over and over again.

But He does expect me to show compassion and grace and mercy, even if that person that has hurt me doesn't deserve it and doesn't ask for it. I'm called to forgive them anyway—to forgive in the same way that He does.

Colossians 3:13—we've talked about this verse before. The Apostle Paul says, "Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you."

Paul acknowledges you may have every reason to be upset. Bear with someone if you have a grievance against them. If I have a grievance against someone, that means I have a reason for being upset at them.

Paul says, "You may have every right to be angry and to be frustrated and to hold grudges and to have resentment. You may have every reason to do that, but even if you do, you are called—I am called—to forgive, to show compassion, to show grace, to show mercy."

Why? Because that is what my God does for me. He shows me compassion when I don't deserve it. He forgives me when I don't always even ask for it. Paul says, "That's what you need to do for others."

That's what we're called to do. That's what God expects me to do. God expects me to make a conscious decision to forgive, to treat that person who has done something hurtful with respect, to treat them with compassion, to try to replace my negative thoughts and emotions towards them with positive ones, to pray for them.

I mean, Jesus said that: "Pray for your enemies. Pray for the people who are being hurtful to you." Sometimes we're like, "Okay, God, do to them what they did to me," and we want like, "God, strike them! God, they deserve something bad to happen!" That's our prayer.

That's not what Jesus said. Love them and pray for them. Pray for God to bless them. "Yeah, but you don't know! You don't know how hurt I am! You don't know what they said! You can't even fathom what they did!"

You may be right; I may not be able to ever fully understand that. But God doesn't put any loopholes in this. God doesn't make this conditional. God calls all of us to try to forgive the way He unconditionally forgives us.

God doesn't expect me to forget, but He does expect me to forgive. That's what I'm called to do, and that's the real truth.

So how do I do that? How do I forgive like God does? How do I get better at forgiveness? I'm going to give you just some ways to help and go through this very quickly, as quick as I can this morning, but just in trying to be better at forgiving and trying to be better at not holding grudges and holding people responsible and guilty for the ways that they have hurt me or hurt somebody they care about.

Number one thing: I've got to try to see that person through the eyes of Jesus. I need to try to see that person through the eyes of Jesus.

You go through the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the Bible, which are the four books that talk about the life of Jesus when He was here on this Earth, and you look at how Jesus viewed people compared to the rest of the people around Him.

I mean, you look at how Jesus treated people—even church people, religious people—how they treated them and how they viewed those people compared to how Jesus did. He just viewed them differently.

Jesus viewed a tax collector named Zacchaeus, who was hated by everybody, who lied and cheated and stole from his own countrymen and deservedly so was completely ostracized and ignored by everybody around him. Jesus saw him as someone who had the potential to be incredibly generous and have a powerful testimony.

He saw him differently than everybody else did. There was a woman that we've talked about not long ago—this woman that was caught in the act of having sex with somebody that she wasn't married to and was dragged in front of the church, maybe with a bedsheet wrapped around her, and deserved punishment.

She was guilty, and they saw her sin; they viewed her as a sinner, as an adulteress. Jesus saw someone who needed compassion, who needed connection, who needed mercy.

We talked about the woman recently that had the bleeding condition. She was considered unclean, couldn't be around anyone else, couldn't touch anyone else, couldn't interact with anybody else, couldn't connect with anybody else because that would make them unclean.

She was not only had this ailment, but she was to be socially ignored by everyone—that was like a command for the whole society to stay away from her. She was unclean, and other people saw her as undesirable and unwanted.

Jesus saw her as somebody who needed to be set free, and He healed her. We've talked multiple times about Jesus and His interaction with His disciple Peter. Peter saw himself as a sinner; Peter saw himself as a failure.

Jesus saw Peter as a leader, as someone who could change the world because of how he connected with other people with his message about Jesus. You see what I'm saying? Jesus just saw people differently.

If I'm going to learn to forgive people, I've got to start seeing them through the eyes of Jesus—not through the lens of what they did, not through the lens of how much it hurt, not through the lens of past mistakes and past failures.

Through the eyes of Jesus, look at what Jesus did even on the cross. As He's looking down on the people who have beaten Him, who have mistreated Him, who have nailed Him to this piece of wood and are watching Him, gladly watching Him, being entertained, watching Him slowly suffocate and die, He looks down at those people.

Through His eyes, He doesn't see hate; He doesn't see in His own mind; He doesn't have a desire for revenge. He doesn't call on God to strike them, even though they deserved it. What does Jesus say as He's breathing His last breath, as He's struggling to get air into His lungs?

He prays in Luke 23:34, "Father, forgive them because they don't know what they're doing." Could you pray that prayer in that moment?

I mean, we like to think that we would. I don't know, but I know this: if I don't start getting in a better habit of viewing people around me—even people that have hurt me—the way that Jesus does, I'm never going to be able to forgive them like He does.

We've got to start looking at people through the eyes of Jesus.

Number two: I’ve got to recognize my own imperfections. I’ve got to recognize my own imperfections. I've got sin; I've got flaws; I've got imperfections. I've said things I shouldn't have; I've made dumb choices; I've hurt other people.

I mean, Paul even says in Romans 3:23, "All of us have sinned; all of us have fallen short of the glory of God." I'm not necessarily better than that person; I've just got different flaws and I've made different mistakes than they have.

If I'm not perfect and if I've got flaws and I get to experience grace and compassion and mercy, then I need to be willing to show grace and compassion and mercy to other people. If I recognize my own imperfections—not that I'm saying we dwell on them—but if I just recognize, "Man, I'm not perfect either," it's going to help me to forgive that person who's hurting me.

Number three: If needed, I need to set some boundaries. If I need to, I need to take the initiative and set some boundaries. Just because I'm not going to retaliate or get revenge or hold a grudge against this person or dwell on how much this person may have hurt me, that doesn't mean that I have to maintain the exact same relationship with them or that I have to allow myself to be in a place where they can take advantage of me or hurt me again.

I don't have to willingly put myself in a position where they can do the exact same thing once again. I'm allowed to set some boundaries. I'm allowed to say, "Okay, from now—at least for now—this is the limit of our relationship. There are going to be some guardrails that our time spent together and how we're going to interact with each other."

That doesn't mean I'm not forgiving them; I'm not going to hold a grudge; I'm not going to be mean to them because they're mean to me. I'm not going to do the same thing to them they did to me. I'm not going to tell other people to mistreat them because they mistreated me.

But I am allowed to say, "I can't be in the same relationship with you anymore. We can't have the same connection that we did, at least not for a while until some healing takes place." And that's okay.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:12, he's talking to the Corinthians. They have this attitude: "Everything is permissible for me." He agrees with that. Everything I might have permission, because of the grace I received from Jesus, to do a whole bunch of things.

But he says, "Not everything is beneficial." As I'm working to forgive this person, it may not be beneficial; it may not be healthy for me to continue to let them be a part of my life, at least not in the same way that they have been in the past.

I can forgive this person and set a healthy boundary at the same time.

And then lastly, I need to set them free. I need to set that person free. And here's what I mean by that: when I hold a grudge, when I hold on to bitterness and resentment, that's a burden for me. I carry that with me, and it weighs me down.

My resentment towards you when you've done something hurtful to me—that's a burden that I carry, and it imprisons me. It becomes a problem in my life. But that resentment and that grudge is also a way for me to keep that person shackled, at least in my own mind, to keep them chained to the hurt that they caused me and to keep them chained to the guilt that I think they should feel because of how they hurt me.

When God forgives me, He completely sets me free from the consequences of my sin, from the guilt that I would feel because of my sin, from the punishment that I deserve because of my sin. But He also sets me free from having to carry that burden around, and He sets me free from being labeled by my mistakes.

He sets me free from Him viewing me through my mistakes and my flaws and my shortcomings. When I choose to forgive, I'm not just setting that person free from my retaliation or consequences for me; I am choosing to set them free from the guilt that I might want to inflict on them, from the label that I might want to slap on them, from the lens that I want to view them through.

I'm setting them free from those things. They may not even realize that's what I'm doing, but that's what I'm doing. I'm choosing to release them from my resentment and my anger.

We've looked at Ephesians 4:32 a second ago. If you back up one verse to verse 31, the Apostle Paul says, "Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling, slander, along with every form of malice." Get rid of it! Don't hold on to it!

Don't hold on to your bitterness; don't hold on to your rage. Don't be talking bad about other people; don't be wishing that bad stuff happens to other people. Set that person free!

I'm not going to hold them prisoner to my anger and my resentment. I'm going to get rid of it. I want to ask God to release me of that burden, but I'm going to make the choice to release them from my anger and resentment too.

So we look at people through the eyes of Jesus, we recognize we're not perfect either, we set some boundaries if we need to, and we set that person free from our anger and resentment and bitterness. That's how we get better at it.

It would be nice if people did something hurtful to me for me to be able to go, "Oh, I forgive you," and it's no big deal. Maybe sometimes for some of us it is that simple. But if somebody really has hurt me in some way or hurt somebody that I care about, it is hard for me to forgive.

So maybe some of these things that we shared this morning can help us do that, at least more quickly and in a more healthy way. I may never completely forget; hopefully, I do. Hopefully, I get past it; hopefully, I process through it, and it's not something that comes to the forefront of my mind anymore.

But I may never completely forget, but I have the potential, and God calls me to try to completely forgive. That's what I'm called to do because that's what He does for me.

About a year ago, I tried to show a video to you guys, and we had technical issues; we didn't get to watch all of it. We're going to try it again today because it's a powerful video, and it probably communicates better than anything that I said this morning what it is I'm trying to get across to you today.

Back in 2018, a young man named Botham Jean was gunned down in his own apartment by a police officer in Dallas named Amber Guyger. In 2019, Amber Guyger was convicted of murder, and some of you know that story. Some of you in this room or maybe watching this online were even a student at Harding with Botham before he graduated, moved to Dallas, and then ended up dying in such a horrific way.

At the conclusion of that trial, at the sentencing, the judge allowed any one of Botham's family to come up to the witness stand and say whatever is on their heart to this police officer, to Amber Guyger, knowing the conviction had already happened. This is just a sentencing to know what the consequences for her actions are going to be.

Botham's brother, Brandt, got up and sat at the witness stand and just said some of the most powerful things that I think you could say in that situation. I know some of you, maybe many of you, have seen this before, but I want you to see it. Try to see it with fresh eyes this morning and think about it in the context of what we've been talking about—that we may not be able to always forget.

That's not what God calls us to; God calls us to forgive. I want you to see a beautiful picture of forgiveness this morning.

"I don't want to say twice or for the hundredth time or what you've taken from us. I think you know that. But I just hope you go to God with all the guilt, all the bad things you may have done in the past. Each and every one of us may have done something that we're not supposed to do. If you truly are sorry, I know I can speak for myself: I forgive you.

And I know if you go to God and ask Him, He will forgive you. And I don't think anyone could say it again. I'm speaking for myself, not even bad for my family, but I love you just like anyone else. And I'm not going to say I hope you rot and die just like my brother did, but I see—I personally want the best for you.

And I wasn't going to ever say this in front of my family or anyone, but I don't even want you to go to jail. I want the best for you because I know that's what Botham would want you to do. And the best would be to give your life to Christ.

I'm not going to say anything else. I think giving your life to Christ would be the best thing that Botham would want you to do. Again, I love you as a person, and I don't wish anything bad on you."

"Can I give her a hug, please?"

"Yes."

Oh, that's an amazing picture of grace, isn't it? I would like to think that I would react the same way that that young man did. I don't know; I haven't been put in that situation yet. But that's forgiveness that we're talking about.

I'm certain that moment was four years ago. His brother died in a horrific way—an innocent man died in a horrific way. Five years ago, I don't think—I mean, I don't know. I assume that Brandt Jean and his family haven't forgotten what happened. They haven't forgotten the hurt that they felt. They haven't forgotten receiving that phone call. They haven't forgotten the pain that they've been through.

But he chose to forgive anyway. He chose to forgive, and that's what God calls us to do.

I don't know all your stories; I don't need to. But there is someone in your life who has hurt you. I would encourage you to try to forgive. I would not want to guilt you into trying to forget, but we're called to forgive.

Why? Because of how much He's forgiven us. And if you've never let that sink in this morning—how much my God loves you and how much He has forgiven you and continues to look at you and say, "That's my child, and I'm so proud"—I hope you realize that today.

I hope His Spirit fills your heart today so that you can sense and know how loved you are by our God and how He has wiped away all your sin and wants to do that for you. If you haven't experienced that yet, I want to invite you to come forward in just a moment and say, "I want to experience that forgiveness from Him."

If you used to have that kind of connection with Him but you've somehow become convinced in your own mind that you can't receive that forgiveness anymore, you don't deserve it, I want you to know God can forgive anything.

And He'll forgive you, and you're welcome to come share that with this church family. If you've been holding on to anger and resentment and bitterness, and it has chained you down, and you have chained up somebody else in your own mind with your own attitude towards them, my God can set you free from that, and that can happen today.

Let's walk out of here today not only as forgiven people but as people who choose to forgive. If this church family can help you do that, we want to. So you come forward and let us know how.

Well, together we stand and sing.