Getting to the Place of Forgiveness - Part 3 (3 of 12)

We are going to continue this morning looking at the subject of forgiveness, and the title of the message this morning is Getting to the Place of Forgiveness Part 3. You may say, are we ever going to get to the place of forgiveness? We'll get there and hopefully you find yourself getting there just from what we have covered the last two weeks and hopefully. This morning will be a help.

To you as well. The topic of forgiveness is a hugely important topic. There is no person Who can thrive in this broken world without learning the art of forgiveness. There's no relationship that can thrive apart from forgiveness.

There is no marriage that can thrive and be blessed of God, apart from. The art of forgiveness. In fact, Robert Quillan, a number of years ago said this about marriage. He said a happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.

It's the union of two good forgivers, and that's absolutely true. And I think we could say that the same thing is true in the church. A happy church is a church full of people who are good forgivrs. The Hah, the blessed Church, the thriving Church is not a church where no one ever does anything wrong.

Or where no one ever experiences wrong at the hand of others, the thriving church is the church that forgives. It's a congregation of people who are good forgivers. This is why this topic is so important to us and why we are devoting so much time to this topic of forgiveness. We have defined forgiveness over the past couple of weeks and let's reestablish our definition of forgiveness.

Somebody wrongs us, and we respond by forgiving them and doing that. Here's what we're doing. It is to send away the sin from between you and the one who committed the sin against you. And to hold that sin against him no longer to send away the offender from the vengeance he deserves from you as a result of the sins he has committed against you.

We talked about how we sometimes build prisons of consequences that we want to visit upon people in response to the wrongs they have done against us, and to forgive them is to release them. From those prison cells of consequences for their sins against us. And then letter C to forgive is to positively favor that person with blessing that he does not deserve. And so forgiveness is more than just withholding retaliation.

It is to chase that person down, as it were, and to do good to that person. Who has wronged us? So this is what forgiveness is. The question that we are asking is how in the world do we get there.

We all know that we are called by God to forgive those who have wronged us, but we often find ourselves fuming with anger and bitterness, and we have to admit I am very far away from the place of forgiveness. So how do I get from where I am now to that place of forgiveness, which is where I need to get to? We all love the idea of forgiveness, right? It's a great topic for a series.

We all wish that everyone else in our life would learn the art of forgiveness towards us. Amen. But when it comes to forgiving, that's when this topic is really challenging. CS Lewis said it this way, everyone thinks that forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.

We all know that that's true. Forgiveness by its very nature is hard. Some of you have for years been battling with unforgiveness and with anger and with bitterness, and it's not that you haven't prayed for that or asked God to take you there, but it's been a journey, and it's a journey that is as yet unfinished. How do we get to the place of forgiveness?

We've learned in recent weeks that we all unfortunately are very good at imprisoning other people, and we put them in various types and levels of prisons as consequences for their sins against us. Sometimes we put people in a maximum security prison. There's no way they're going to get out or escape. There's nothing they can do.

They're on death row. We will never forgive them. Then others are in a minimum security prison. Some people we imprison in sight of consequences for life.

And others we may have in a prison cell for a few hours until we feel that justice has been served. Some people, we will open the gates and let them free from that prison of consequences, but they're on probation. And as soon as they mess up they're put right back into that prison of consequences, and we reread to them all of their past offenses to us. How do we get to the place where we can just release those prisoners that are in our lives?

Just release them and let them go. Do you realize how much energy we consume with serving as a prison warden? Tending to all of these situations and people that we have locked up in various types of consequences because they messed with us and they sinned against us and they wronged us. We know Deep down that this is ruining us and we want to let them go.

We want to forgive, but how do we do that? Louis Smead said it this way to forgive is to set a prisoner free. That's the essence of forgiveness. It is to open up those gates and to let people free, to let them go, and to say, I don't want to be a prison warden anymore.

To forgive is to set a person free, and then I love how he finishes this, and to discover that the prisoner was you. When we refuse to forgive, we are the primary victims of our anger and our bitterness and our unforgiveness. And so we long for that. Our question is how do we get to a place where we release people from these prisons that we have built and in the process release ourselves.

And experience the freedom that comes with forgiveness. We're blessed to know that in Romans chapter 116, Paul tells us that God gives to us a very powerful tool. He tells us that the gospel is the power of God into salvation. It has the power of God to get us into salvation, and once inside to take us deeper and deeper into salvation.

And one of those blessings in sight of salvation that we are empowered and entitled to do and to give is forgiveness. And so we can say it this way. That the gospel is the power of God into forgiveness. If you're in a place of anger and bitterness, and you want to get to a place of forgiveness, the gospel is the power of God to get you from where you are now to that place of forgiveness.

I know I shared this with you guys a few months ago, but I want to just share it again because it fits so perfectly with what we're talking about. Dave Harvey in his book When Sinners Say I Do talks about a married couple, Jeremy and Cindy. Jeremy committed adultery. Cindy found out about it.

She was devastated, reeling with anger and bitterness as we might imagine. And could understand. However, she tells the story that though I was in that place of anger and bitterness and hurt, I ended up at a place where I actually observed grace. Flowing from me towards my husband.

The question is how did she get there? Listen to her as she tells how she got to this place of anger and bitterness all the way to the place of forgiveness. She says over time, I began to see my own sinfulness, and God's grace and mercy for my sins. It was very hard to look at my own contribution to the breakdown of my marriage.

I wanted to just focus on his part and leave the blame there. But God opened my eyes and helped me to see that even as a victim of my husband's sin, I could not claim innocence in my marriage and certainly not before a holy God. See what she's doing? She's contemplating her sins against God and God's grace towards her.

She goes on to say, the gospel gave me power to forgive my husband. Christ had died for both our sins. Dying in our place and drinking the full cup of God's wrath that we deserve for our sins. And through the revelation of this truth, I was humbled and disarmed.

We were more alike than different. And from this standing place, forgiveness flowed. Where did Cindy go? She went to the foot of the cross.

She did exactly what we are trying to do in this series, and she contemplated Christ's death, drinking in God's wrath for her sins, contemplating her sins against God, God's grace and mercy upon her in forgiving her of her sins. And from that standing place, she says, forgiveness flowed. That's where we want to go. That's the sweet spot.

Where forgiveness issues forth from us, and that's where in this part of our series on forgiveness we are laboring. To, to think at the foot of the cross to allow God to take us to that place of forgiveness. What we're doing is we're gathering at the foot of the cross, and we're thinking, we're doing some gospel thinking, and we're looking at a series of thoughts that we can think at the foot of the cross that God will use to transport us from the place of anger and Bitterness and unforgiveness to the place of forgiveness.

Some of these we've already looked at, we go to the foot of the cross when we are reeling from wrongs that have been done against us, and, and the first thing we can observe at the foot of the cross is this, and that is that Christ has suffered as I am suffering right now, and infinitely more so, which means I'm never alone in any pain.

Secondly, we can think this. Rightly at the foot of the cross. And that is as we stand there and observe Christ and Him crucified, we can observe that sometimes God purposes that those whom he loves deeply be painfully sinned against. There's no question when we stand at the foot of the cross that we see God's love for us, right?

In Romans chapter 5 and verse 8, the apostle Paul says, God demonstrates present tense His love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Notice Paul does not say God demonstrated in the past. No, God demonstrates present tense. His love towards us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

what he's saying there? He's saying that the cross of Christ, Christ's death on the cross, is God's ongoing ever present demonstration of his present love for us. If you came to God and said, God, I just, do you love me? Do you love me?

can you give me some evidence that you love me? He would point to the cross and say that proves that I love you. And if you say, well, that, that shows me that you loved me 2000 years ago, But I've messed up a lot since then. I need evidence that you love me today.

God would point you back to the cross and say, look harder. That right there proves that I love you. Today Because what, I would never surrender my son over in death for your salvation, to bring you to myself, only to abandon you. I would never insult my son in that way.

I would never disrespect him and his sacrifice in that way, the cross of Christ is proof that I love you today and will love you tomorrow and will love you forever. In Romans 8, we learn how deeply God loves us. He, he works all things together for our good, and he's committed to that. He's for us.

We see that at the cross. He's not against us any longer. He did not spare His own Son but delivered him over for us. How will He not also with His Son freely give us all things?

That we need for life and godliness. At the foot of the cross, we're overwhelmed with seeing the clear evidence of God's amazing love for us. And yet we also at the foot of the cross, observe that well God the Father loved Jesus too. Jesus was a supreme object of the Father's love.

And yet here Jesus is suffering horribly. I put 2 and 2 together and I infer from that that sometimes God purposes that those whom He loves deeply be painfully sinned against. That's a part of His plan. It's not an interruption to his plan.

There's a third thought that we can think at the foot of the cross, and that is that God the Father can be trusted completely on the receiving end of any wrongdoing. At the cross we do not just see a man dying, we see a man trusting. The most amazing. Display of trust that the world has ever seen, all the way to Jesus' last breath.

And God came through for him and Jesus would say, what, I don't know that I want you so much admiring my trust of my Father. I want you to admire my Father whom I trusted, because he's worthy of all of that trust that I placed in him through the gauntlet of the suffering that I endured. There's a forethought that we can think at the foot of the cross. and that is that I have committed greater sins against God than any person has ever committed against me.

When someone has sinned against you, and you're like, just in your mind, their sin is looming so large. It's all you can think about. you need to go to the foot of the cross and contemplate the magnitude of your sins against Jesus Christ, that's demonstrated there. It was your sins that pierced him.

It was your sins. That crushed him to death, as it were. You are a murderer. I am a murderer, a murderer of the Son of God.

Martin Luther would say, Don't even try to deny it. You have the nails in your pockets. The evidence is there. Our sins killed him.

And so we see at the foot of the cross that our sins are as infinitely bad as Christ is infinitely holy and righteous and good, and yet in that moment of making that troubling discovery of the magnitude of our sins against God, in that same moment in that same location, we discover something else, and we can think this, that glory to God. Though my sins are mountainous, Christ has purchased my forgiveness and my justification. I have forgiveness now through him, and the slate is wiped clean in believing in Jesus, all of the sins that I have committed against God the Son, And God the Father and God the Holy Spirit are utterly forgiven.

The slate is wiped clean, and God also looks upon me and says, from now on, I will always think of you as forgiven.

I will always think of you as righteous with the very righteousness of my Son. Now as we pick up here this morning, I really want to challenge you all to make sure that that you always see truth 4 and truth 5 together. And don't ever let yourself think too long about one without pondering and including the other. If all you do.

is contemplate how great your sins are against God. And that's all you do, then you're going to walk around pretty defeated, feeling condemnation. And you will have no grace to give to anybody who ever wrongs you. At the same time, on the other hand, if all you do is focus on God's forgiveness of your sins and you're afraid to or refuse to look at the magnitude of your sins, then you will often find yourself feeling morally superior to everybody else, especially who has wronged you, and from that vantage point of moral superiority.

You will speak to people and you will speak about people, and you will respond to people who have wronged you. And because you have so little comprehension of the magnitude of your sin, you will have a reduced appreciation of God's grace, and thus you will never from that position of moral superiority have enough grace to cover the greater sins in your opinion that others have committed against you. I want to linger on this for a little bit this morning because I think we're really getting at the heart of what it takes for us to forgive.

In Matthew chapter 7, Jesus asked us all a great question.

He says, Why are you looking at the speck that is in your brother's eye but are not noticing the log? That is in your own eye. In conflict situations, it is natural as anything, as natural as breathing for us to become focused on the sins of the other person, and to make a big deal out of their sins. And Jesus observes us doing this and says, why are you Noticing or staring at the speck that's in your brother's eye but ignoring the log that's in your own eye.

Imagine Jesus, you're having a conflict with somebody else, and you're like, man, we got to get this solved. And, and you go to Jesus, who's going to be your counselor. And Jesus says, what's the problem? What can I help you with?

And then you both sit there in front of Jesus and you confess the other person's sins. OK. and you're making a big deal out of the other person's sins. And then imagine that Jesus says to that other person in the room that you're having a conflict with, Imagine Jesus says to him or her, Why are you staring at the speck?

In this other person's eye and ignoring the log in your own eye. Imagine he says that to the person you're in conflict with. You would say, yes, Jesus gets it. My sins are a speck, and their sins are a log.

Then Jesus turns to you and says, and I got a question for you too. Why are you staring at the speck in your brother or sister's eye, and ignoring the log that's in your own eye? See, the language here indicates whoever Jesus is talking to, Their sin is the log. And the other person's sin is the speck.

His language here is teaching us to always make a bigger deal out of your own sins. than you do the sins of other people. And this is not just some little mind game that we play in order to trick ourselves into being humble. At the foot of the cross.

This is easy to do. Because no matter what wrong anyone has ever done against us at the foot of the cross, we always can see that my sin against God is infinitely greater than anyone's sin is against me. Do you understand that? You don't have to get into this.

Have I sinned against them in a greater way than they've sinned against me? You don't even have to go there. All you got to do is start thinking about how you've sinned against God. Your sins against God are infinite.

They're infinite. No one will ever sin against you any greater than you sinned against God. And God has forgiven you for that. See, if you begin to see your sins as the bigger deal, then you're ready to make a bigger deal out of the grace that God has shown you and forgiving you of your sins.

But if you walk around and all you do is see your sins as a speck, Then you will only experience a speck-sized portion of God's grace. That'll be what you're walking around with just a speck-sized portion of God's grace, and you're never going to have enough grace to cover other people's sins against you. But if you see your sins as the bigger deal, the bigger sins, and If you think that way, you deepen your capacity to experience God's grace, and you then have much grace to give.

To cover the sins of others against you.

Jesus puts this all together for us in Matthew chapter 18, and I want us to spend a little bit of time here. Peter comes to Jesus and he asked him a question that I think all of us, have some understanding of. It says, Peter came. And said to him, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?

Up to 7 times. That's the question. Jesus was not fooled by Peter's question, and we should not let ourselves be fooled either. Peter's real question is this, Lord, when am I allowed to stop forgiving?

The 8th time. That's his question. Am I entitled to cease forgiving someone when they've sinned against me the 8th time? Am I allowed to withhold forgiveness from them?

Peter's not coming to Jesus saying, Jesus, I just want to forgive. Please tell me how far can I go in granting forgiveness to everyone who's wronged me? How many times can I do this? No, it's when can I stop.

Am I allowed to stop on the 8th time? That's the question that he's asking. And Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to 7 times, but up to 70x7, Peter. Take that 7, multiply it by 70.

Jesus just blows the top off of Peter's. Number and says what, 490 times. That's what comes out of Jesus's mouth. Jesus answered, guys, if Jesus stopped right there, and said, you forgive other people 490 times, as they sin against you.

If that's all he said, he would have rendered us a great and painful disservice. Because if that's all he said, on the surface, guys, that answer is crazy. And it's even morally offensive. But Jesus then tells Peter and us a story.

That is designed to show us why what he just said makes absolutely perfect sense. And in telling the story, Jesus is not seeking to answer Peter's question. He's destroying the question. That's his goal.

He's going to obliterate the question. Peter will never ever ask this question again. The question gets destroyed. In the coming verses.

Jesus says, let me explain to you why I can say what I just said to forgive. Up to 70 x 7, he says, for this reason, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a certain king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. And when he had begun to settle them, there was brought to him one who owed him 10,000 talents. But since he did not have the means to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold along with his wife and children and all that he had and repayment to be made.

The slave, therefore falling down, prostrated himself before him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will repay you everything. And the lord of that slave felt compassion. And released him and forgave him the debt, but that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him 100 denarii, and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, Pay back what you owe. So his fellow slave fell down and began to entreat him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will repay you.

He was unwilling, however, but went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed. So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened. Then summoning him, his lord said to him, You wicked slave. I forgave you all that debt.

Because you entreated me, should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, even as I had mercy on you? Amazing story. We tend to lose a little bit of perspective in the story because we're not quite sure what 10,000 talents compared to 100 denarii are. We don't go, Whoa, that's amazing.

What a, what a, what a contrast. We're asking, what's a talent and What's a denarii. and to make a long story short, I remember reading an article a few years ago in Voice magazine where a fellow pastor ran some calculations and And tried to tease out the modern value of 10,000 talents compared to 100 denarii. And here's what he arrived at.

When you think, when you see 10,000 talents in this story, think $7.5 billion OK. This slave was forgiven a debt of $7.5 billion. 100 denarii is the equivalent of $17,000. So that's the comparison $7.5 billion compared to $17,000.

You say, Well, what's, how do those numbers compare? Well, I did some studies. $7.5 billion is more than $17,000. Considerably more, in fact, to give you some idea, take $17,000 and multiply it by 441,000.

And you'll get close. To $7.5 billion. And to help you with this, I actually made a bar graph so that you can see a comparison of $7.5 billion with $17,000 and here's the graph. OK.

That orange bar that you see is $7.5 billion and you see the blue bar there? That's the $17,000. You can't see the blue bar. In fact, the orange bar representing $7.5 billion would have to be considerably higher for us to even begin to see the blue bar with the naked eye.

In fact, let me say it this way that orange bar you see there, imagine that that is 7 miles high. 7 miles high. The blue bar would then be 1 inch high. OK, that's the comparison of $7.5 billion to $17,000.

Now we see the lunacy of the wicked slave in refusing to forgive this one inch. Of debt owed to him when he had just been forgiven of a 7 mile high debt that he owed to his master. Now we understand why the master said, I forgave you all that debt. You should have forgiven.

Your fellow slave of a far lesser debt. Working with this graph. here's a graph that shows the comparison then of, because here's what Jesus is doing, that $7.5 billion represents our debt to God that God has forgiven us of, because we believed in Jesus, the $17,000. Listen, that doesn't just represent the sins people commit against us.

Make note of this, the $17,000 or the 100 denarii represents the sins people commit against you that you find unforgivable. The ones you say I'm not going to forgive. That's what the 17,000 represents. And here is the bar graph comparing our sins against God that God has forgiven us of compared to the sins of others against us.

You see that blue bar there. That represents the sins that other people have committed against you that you find unforgivable. You see that bar. That blue bar.

Represents the sins that others have committed that keep you up at night. That you fuss and fume about and you toss and turn and you play over and over and over in your mind that blue bar represents the sins that people commit against you that you lash out at them for and retaliate against them and imprison them in a set of consequences that you believe they are deserving of. Because of their sin. That blue bar represents the sins others have committed that have caused you to just say, what, forget you.

And you pull away from them and you want nothing to do with them any longer. It's the sins that loom so large whenever you see that person or think about that, that person that caused you to gossip to other people about that other person. And can you believe what they did? And you make a big deal out of their sins against you.

That blue bar represents the sins others have committed that you are angry and bitter over and refuse to forgive. It's the grievances that you hold and the grudges. that you hold against people. That's the comparison.

And God, God knows that I am not standing up here and seeking to minimize the sins that others have committed against you. Some of you have been horribly wronged. And I would never want to make light of any wrongs that have been committed against any of you. My burden as an ambassador of God.

My intent here is to make sure that you don't minimize the magnitude of your sins against God. And thus minimize the magnitude of God's amazing grace that He has lavished upon you. I wish we could walk around everywhere we go with a 7 mile high orange bar just following us everywhere we go, reminding us this is what you've been forgiven of. I love you.

This is how big my love is for you. I have forgiven you of all of this. If we walked around with that orange bar following us everywhere we go, and then people sin against us with those one inch high sins. From that standing place, I think we all would find that forgiveness would flow.

This is, we're we're, we're getting to ground zero, guys. If we're at the foot of the cross and we're thinking the way that Jesus is teaching us to think. We will, though it'll still be challenging. We will find ourselves in a better position to forgive.

than we will ever be making a big deal out of other people's sins and making light of our own. There's a 6th truth that we can think. I thought that we can think at the foot of the cross, and this is as far as we'll get this morning, and that is this at the foot of the cross. I'm, I'm staring at Christ and Him crucified, and I observed that yes, Jesus is shedding His blood and he's purchasing my salvation.

He's purchasing my forgiveness, he's purchasing my redemption. He's purchasing my justification, but he's also purchasing something else. He's purchasing me. At the cross.

At the foot of the cross I observe. And can think that I have been purchased by Christ's blood. Which means that I am now owned and operated by God, and I now live to serve his purposes. And not mine.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 20, Paul says, You've been bought. You've been bought. Christ was buying you from the slave market of sin. Which means now you don't belong to yourself anymore.

You've been bought with a price. Therefore, this is your agenda from this day forward. Glorify God in your body. He purchased you.

You are now owned and operated by him, and you live for him and not for yourself. You say, well, why are we even talking about this in the context of forgiveness? Well, this is important for us to ponder because it gives us perspective in the face of what seem like wrongs that are being done against us. If we're really honest, we will see and acknowledge that most of the time that we grow really angry against people.

It is not because a real bona fide sin is being committed against us, but rather because somebody is doing something that is at cross purposes with our selfish agenda. And even when someone is really sinning against us, oftentimes the real energy inside of our anger against them is because the result of their sin is that something has violated our selfish Agenda You want a few examples. No, OK. Well, Here we go.

A man gets up on a Saturday morning and plans on doing nothing all day but watching 3 collegiate football games. Throughout the course of the day he's in the 4th quarter of the 2nd game. When his wife approaches him with a honeydew list. She even has the gall to approach him on a critical 3rd down play rather than during a commercial break, which to most men is like, that's like how thoughtless.

Can you be He's angered by her interruption, and by her persistence that particular things need to get done around the house. His anger is not because an actual sin is being committed by his wife, but merely because his wife is doing something that is interrupting his selfish agenda. Perhaps later in the day this man's two children in another room begin to argue, and he ignores the argument at first, but eventually their argument grows so loud that he can't hear the television.

So he explodes with anger at his children and he tells them how wrong they are to be arguing.

However, most of the energy inside of his anger comes not because his children have sinned against God and violated God's agenda, but merely because their argument. Produce results that were at cross purposes with his selfish agenda. Perhaps a mom is out in public with her children and she prides herself on being a phenomenal mother. Everyone looks up to her and she relishes her reputation as a great mom, but she's out in public and other people from the church are around, and of all times, the children begin to misbehave.

They outright disrespect her and disobey her, and she is angry at her children. And her anger is not so much because her children have violated God's agenda. Her anger comes more from the fact that they're making her look like a bad mom. They have violated her selfish agenda.

She may even be pouty with them over the next hour or so, making their disobedience all about her and how it makes her feel rather than about God's agenda. For their lives. Sometimes we're driving on the freeway and somebody cuts in front of us, forcing us temporarily to slow down by 10 MPH on the freeway. We get mad at the careless driver not because he's committed or she has committed a real bona fide sin against us, but because they've done something at cross purposes with something that we felt entitled to, which is the right to drive on the freeway without having to slow down by 10 miles an hour temporarily.

In such moments, I think Jesus would say to us, I didn't die in order to purchase for you the right. To not have to slow down by 10 miles an hour on the freeway. And yet we get so petty. So I actually had to lift my foot and tap the brakes and slow down by 10 miles, and I'm angry.

I'm fuming over what this person has done. Has a real sin been committed, or am I really angry because this person has done something that has violated what I felt I was entitled to? They've done something at cross purposes with my selfish agenda. I am as guilty of this.

As anybody, I can be so petty. The older I get, the more petty I realize that I am. I think I've always been petty. I'm just seeing it a little more clearly now.

I was Driving in the state of Utah 2 or 3 years ago and going southbound on the 15 freeway and, I saw a car about 500 yards ahead of me in the slow lane, and I thought, well, I'll get into the fast lane and I'll eventually pass this car. And so I do that. I get into the fast lane and continue driving. I notice in my rearview mirror that there's an 18 wheeler that's some distance back, but there's a ton of room, and I didn't even think about that, that truck.

But about 60 seconds later, I look in my rearview mirror and this, this 18 wheeler is right up on my bumper, like probably 30 ft from my rear bumper. My first thought was, I was angry. I got angry instantly. This guy is rude.

He knows I'm about to pass this guy. To my right and he's right up on my bumper, and that is one of my pet peeves when people follow me too closely. Make note of this, like on the freeway or city streets, don't, don't follow too closely. And so I should have, it's no big deal.

I should have just sped up, passed the car to my right, got in the slow lane, and let the guy go on by. It's no big deal. I should have done that. But I didn't.

Sensing that this was a teachable moment for this. I, I thought I would seize the opportunity and so I, I actually put my foot on the brakes. I'm ashamed to admit this, I put my foot on the brakes and slowed down by about 1015 miles an hour until he got off my bumper. And then I accelerated and got back to my normal speed, and before I knew it, this guy was back on my bumper even closer.

So I got even madder and I pressed the brakes again, slowed down even more for a longer period until he got off my bumper, and then I sped up again and he was back with a vengeance. This guy was clearly not in a learning type of mood. And And so again, I should have at that point just forget it, forget it, it's no big deal, just get in the slow lane, let him go by and have his way. But no, I, I, what I did is I pulled next to the car in the slow lane and I drove side by side with that car.

For about 10 minutes. Being careful to allow this trucker no opportunity to pass, and I would speed up or slow down to get this guy off my bumper because he was, he was riding me so close. My daughter Brooke was 20 years old at the time. Here's the crazy thing.

I was driving back from a conference where I was teaching on this subject right here. Brooke was in the car. She didn't know anything was going on. She was reading a book, and I was so ashamed of myself, it's like, I'm not even going to tell her because I know she'll rebuke me.

And, so I didn't say a word. I just acted calm, but I started noticing she was looking up and looking in her rearview mirror. And I thought, what, this has got to end soon. So after I felt that justice had been served, I sped up and I Passed the car to my right and the trucker just immediately just zoomed by me and as he did so, he turned on the lights of his cabin so that I could see his emphatic mono digital wave that he issued as he drove on by.

And when, when it was all over, I felt this crushing. Realization of the stupidity. of what had just happened. It's like, what, what, what got a hold of me?

What possessed me? And it was, it was as if Jesus was saying, Milton, I didn't die. I did not die. For that right to have people 30 ft or more from your rear bumper, I didn't die for that.

And yet you've consumed so much energy. In being a guardian of this little petty right. That is not even remotely anything that I died for. How much energy do we consume in the face of things that make us angry?

How much of our anger really is the result of a real sin being committed? And how much of it is just our rights have been violated. Our petty little puny self-serving rights have been violated. If we get up in the morning and it's like I have been purchased by you, Jesus, I am owned and operated by you, and therefore I live to serve your purposes and not mine.

And here's the way we need to think, we shouldn't say I have no rights. What we should say is I do have rights, but those rights have been purchased by Jesus. My rights are in his custody. If anyone violates something that I am entitled to, Jesus will take that up with that person.

It'll be duly noted by him, and he will tend to that my rights are in his custody. That's the way that we ought. To think, and yet so often we don't think that way. We're so small.

We are so puny. In The things that we can get upset about real bona fide sins are going to be committed against you. Let's not make it more complicated by getting all angry and fussy over things that are done against us that really aren't sins, but they just, they're at cross purposes with our selfish agenda. We ought to be able to get up in the morning and even in the face of wrongs and say, God, you have every right and you have my permission to rearrange my life and my day in any way that you see fit for my good and for your glory.

And whatever wrongs you allow, whatever wrongs confront me today, I will know that those have been sovereignly allowed by you, and I will embrace them. In the same way that Jesus embraced the wrongs that were done against him on the day of his suffering and crucifixion, I will accept these wrongs as a part of your necessary plan for my life, knowing that you would only allow them because they serve your purposes of glorifying yourself and doing tremendous good in me. I've been purchased by Jesus and so I live for Your glory, God.

I want to glorify you through what I allow you to do in me, even through the wrongs that are done against me.

I want to glorify you. Through the way that I respond to the wrongs that are done against me, and with your glory, I will be content. And even better than that, I will make your glory and serving your glory my greatest joy. It really is good news.

To know that it's not about me. It's not about you. It is so not about you and me. It's about God.

It's about something bigger and through Christ at the foot of the cross, God is, He's saving us from the small life that is focused on us and our own petty rights and calling us to be occupied with something infinitely greater. And that is him. and His glory. I want to encourage you this week.

Do something that I did recently, just any occasion where you get angry. For some of you, that's going to be this afternoon. At whatever point you find yourself getting angry, just stop at the foot of the cross and just ask, what am I really angry about here? Am I angry because A real sin is being committed against me, or am I angry because something's happening that is at cross purposes with my selfish agenda.

And even if there is an actual sin being committed, what is it that's ticking me off? Is it that a sin's being committed, or is it the fact that this real sin is resulting in something that violates? My selfish agenda. If you do that exercise, I don't know what the percentage will be, but I think I can say comfortably that over half the time.

You will be able quickly to observe that your selfish agenda is being violated. And that's when we need to go to the foot of the cross. And yield that up. We belong to Jesus.

He's taken notes, taking names, duly noted by him, and all of my rights are in his custody. And it is to him that I belong. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. If you're here today and you've never put your trust in Christ, I There, there is a savior who loves you and who has died on the cross so that your mountain of sins could be forgiven, and you could be doused with amazing forgiving grace.

My prayer. is that you would fly to him today. Run to Jesus. For us as believers, let us, let us learn to To be deep thinkers on gospel truth.

And allow God to transport us to those places where we know we need to go. Father, there's people in this church family that are that are hurting who want to They want to get to that place of forgiveness and Their hearts are open to you, Lord, take me there and you're the only one who can take us there. It's through the power of your Spirit, but we're learning here that you use the gospel as a premium tool to get us there. It is the power of God into forgiveness.

So teach us to make wise use. of the gospel And the way that we go about forgiving. Other people, help my brothers and sisters, help me, Lord, may we be a people full of grace, full of grace, who are staggered and amazed by your amazing grace towards us, and we just have bucket loads of grace to give to those who sin against us. You're a good God, thank you for your gifts to us.

Thank you for this opportunity to give of our offerings to you, Lord, receive these funds, do much with them for the glory of Jesus, for the spread of the message of His amazing grace. We ask these things in His name, and all God's people said,