Speaker: Andy Stanley

Series: Life’s Rule

Title: Forgive

-When the going gets tough, the tough stop talking? [Does this happen with our
families / friends?]

-Rules are good; they help to make progress and help to keep things nice and
stuff. However our standards are based on what the “elders” has set.

-However for Christians who take the bible seriously or seeks God seriously,
when we read the bible we are confronted by a new standard that is more
difficult or uncomfortable for us. But God talks about doing unto others what God
has done unto us.

- [Ephesians 4:31] (It is written by Paul, someone who hasn’t seen Jesus before) –
What God asks us is to get rid of everything that is not according to God’s
standards. In Greek it means to rid ourselves of everything that is not according
to God’s standard. Anything that gets between me and another person.

-But thing is some of us do not how to do so, or we may not even notice it. That
we have certain grudge or any form of malice with us.

-Some of us may think that Paul someone who did not even go through what we
have gone through and he tries to tell us to get rid of bitterness, malice and
such. BUT Paul was writing this in a Roman’s prison, betrayed by his Jewish
leaders and that his friends did not come to his rescue whatsoever. He had
EVERY single right to hold bitterness and grudges with every single one of them
WHILE he was writing this very sentence; Ephesians 4:31

- [Ephesians 4:32] – Paul is saying we can be free of all this stuff, and we get rid
of it by FORGIVING! It is not by ignoring the person or running away from the
problem, but it is to FORGIVE!

-Forgiveness is a decision we make. It is not something that happens according

to our emotions or situations. It is making a decision somebody to not owe us
anymore. It is a decision to cancel what people has done wrong to us, the debt.

-And Paul says this, if we are able to that, to forgive. The things we say and do
will be different and more according to God’s standards.

-And it is all written in present tense, which means it is suppose to be in our daily
lifestyle! Which means we are like a forgiveness dispenser, we are called to give
forgiveness to anyone who owes us.

-Some of us may say, how can we give forgiveness to THAT person easily? That
person was the one who hurt us deeply! And that the person does not deserve it.
There is no reason to forgive the person. Unless we are someone that is
forgiving.
-However that group of people has forgotten the significance of and WHY we
forgive others.

- [Ephesians 4:32] –This is the reason WHY we forgive.

-Whenever we think of what people has done unto us that do not deserve
forgiveness, REMEMBER of how we have done things unto God that DESERVES
nothing BUT death! A debt that we could never pay, God says “Debt cancelled.”

-God says in His word to forgive 77 times. What God meant was not to just
forgive 77 times and forget about forgiveness, but to keep forgiving!

Steps to forgiveness!

*Identify who we are angry with.

*Ask ourselves what we are angry about or define what has been taken
from us.

-Forgiveness doesn’t settles who is to be blamed, but it is trying to figure out

what has been taken from us, and to cancel that debt=)

-When our focus is on what has God done for us and the significance of it, we will
be free from it!

-The person who stole certain things from us can’t set us free, but only our
Saviour! Can set us free.

-Those who owe us things, they can’t pay us back anyway! So what is the point
of holding on to the asking them to pay us back and spend years and years of
misery and bitterness on that!

-And as we ask God to deliver us from all these, we are taking a giant step to the
one who saved us! And only when we have experience the freedom of
forgiveness