A Theology of Forgiveness

And often times, if we're honest, sometimes we do a bad job of representing, of being an ambassador for Christ. It's not like this thing that we get to decide to do if we want to do. We have to start living differently. We have to start doing out forgiveness in a way that is truly honoring. Even when we want to write people off, we start to change the way we see the people who have hurt us or we have hurt around us because we want to live on mission for our God. But hey church, if you have your Bibles, go ahead and flip open to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. And we're going to be looking at verse 16 as we kick this off. And as we dive into this text, we're going to deal with maybe one of the most difficult topics to actually put into practice. It's easy to understand, but actually living it out and actually doing it is so much harder. And today we're going to talk about this idea of forgiveness. You see, forgiveness, it's easy to say like, "Hey, I forgive you." It's easy to even think, "I forgive you." But to actually forgive people isn't always so fun. As we start today, I I want you to do a little exercise for me before you decide whether you're going to scroll on your phone or listen to the sermon. Just make some eye contact with me. All right? Uh before we get there, but as we do this here, here's what I want to think in your head is I'm going to ask you to do some critical thinking. Don't say this out loud, so just keep this inside. Is what was the hardest thing you ever had to forgive? The hardest person you ever had to forgive? Do not nudge your spouse right now. Just think it in your head, okay? You don't need to externally exhibit. But it was the hardest thing that you had to forgive. And it could have been something big. It it could have been a betrayal of trust. It could have been a hurt that just cut you deep. It could have been something at work that someone crossed the line and and it affected you deeply. Or maybe it was just the small things over and over again of doing the same thing constantly that just cut a little bit deeper, a little bit deeper and felt like when is this going to end? And today as as we start to walk down this journey, Paul is going to show us a road map of forgiveness of how as Christians, as those who proclaim Jesus, how we are all about this forgiveness thing. We actually open and we see in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. I love this in verse 18. He actually uses this phrase that we kind of build around this passage that we have been given the ministry of reconciliation. As those who follow Jesus, sometimes we need to be the ones to forgive. Even if we're honest, we're not always the most forgiving people. A couple nights ago, just this past week, uh we got all our kids in bed and and we got our kids in bed. I'm like, I think we made it. All right, it's going to be quiet. We're going to watch a show. I'm going to eat my Oreos and then I'm going to have some ice cream after that. And then I really need to start playing some more pickle balls so I can eat more Oreos and eat more ice cream. But we got all our kids in bed. I'm like, "We made it. We're done." And then I'm hearing noises and I'm like, "Okay, well that kid's not asleep." And I'm hearing more noises. I'm like, "Well, that kid's not asleep either." And then I keep hearing a door creek and it's driving me crazy. And I'm telling my wife, I'm like, "Do you hear that?" that. She's like, "I think it's just Arlo and he hasn't fallen asleep yet." I'm like, "That's not Arlo. It's a creaking door." And it keeps happening. It keeps happening. It keeps happening. And then I figure out it's my daughter Arya who's in the front of the house. She has her own her room in her own bathroom. And I come up there and and you know, like a great dad, I'm like, "Hey, is everything okay? Like, everything going great? You need anything?" No, I'm a jerk. Um I said, "What's going on?" as she's creaking a door back and forth. And as soon as I did that, in her little eight almost nine-year-old brain, she just broke down. She started crying. And I'm like, "Hey, hey, it's time for bed. We need to get in bed." And I'm like trying to usher in bed. I'm like, "I love you. Good night. We've already said this. I've already hugged you. We've already read stories. Everything's great." Like, and I put her in bed. And then I go back to sit and watch TV. And I just hear the crying going and going again. And I'm like, is she ever going to stop and tell my wife, she's like, you need to go say you're sorry and ask her to forgive you for being a jerk. I'm like, but I was right. Like, she needs to go to bed. And in my mind, I argued with my wife for probably like 2 minutes. I don't need to do this. I don't need to do this. I don't need to do this. And she's like, you're the adult. Go say you're sorry. As we get into the scripture, Paul today is going to tell us, you're the adult. You need to be part of this ministry of reconciliation. And today, here is the question we are going to ask as we dive into this is how do we do that? How do we embrace the ministry of reconciliation that God has given us? And he's going to give us this theology of forgiveness as we go into this. That's not just like, hey, ignore the problem until it's gone and don't think about it anymore. It's not just say, I forgive you on a surface level and forget about it and run the other way. But it's something that's deeper than that. And we start in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 starting in verse 16. This is what Paul the writer of this letter says. He says, "From now on then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know him in this way." Here's the first thing we see when we talk about embracing this ministry of reconciliation is we need to see everyone. And when I say everyone, that's everyone around us in three categories. As forgiven, forgiver or both. You see, Paul as he starts this, he talks about this shift in the way we see things. He says, "Hey, no longer do we know anyone from a worldly perspective." And the perspective we know them from is is is this perspective of the gospel of of the good news of who Jesus is. He says we don't see people that same way anymore. Instead, we have this shift that we see them with these Jesus eyes. And as he talks about this radical shift in perspective, he's saying once you understand what Jesus has done for you, you can never look at people the same way again. And and here's how he starts to break this down. And I think when we talk about this in this idea and this lens of reconciliation and forgiveness is people are going to fall into one of three categories. The first category they'll fall into is there are some people in your life that need to be forgiven. These are the people who have hurt you, who have wronged you, who have betrayed you, or they have sinned against you. Here's the natural response to it. And here's my response to this is I get angry when I get hurt. I I I get vengeful. I'm pretty smart. so I can come up with some good ways to get back at them, right? Um, and I want to give a defense and and build my case and show to them how they have hurt me. And Paul says, "No, no, no. None of that. That that is the worldly way to see that." But instead of seeing our anger and our sadness and our resentment, Paul says we need to not look at them from a worldly perspective anymore. But not only are there some people that need to be forgiven, there are some people that need to forgive. the these are the people you've hurt, that you've wronged, that you've sinned against, and maybe they're holding grudges, maybe they are bitter, maybe they won't talk to you. And often times the natural response may to be like, well, that that's their problem. Like I tried to say I'm sorry and they didn't accept it is like is I tried to make amends and they pushed me away. But we what instead of trying to justify our actions, we need to see how we need to look for this reconciliation. But here's the reality of it is most people in our lives fall into both of these. This is the reality. Uh most people in our lives are have been hurt by us and have hurt us. We're simultaneously in need of forgiveness and we're called to extend forgiveness to other people. What I have found out in in my 11 years of marriage is that my wife and I, as much as we love each other, as much as we are building a family together and attempting to raise four children together, is we get on each other's nerves, more so me onto hers. I think I'm probably the more annoying one in the relationship. Um, and you hear me preach every week, so you probably like, "Yep, agree with that. You're annoying." Uh, can't help it. But what I found is sometimes we fight about the dumbest things and and you know like the therapy would be to go through and what is the root of all those dumb things that get on the nerves of but that takes too much time. So we just focus on the little instances but this happened literally past week is we're like laying in bed it's been a great day everything you know we're we're in bed so the kids are all asleep by this point and everything's fine and then we're talking and we're talking about church and I got an anonymous note of someone complaining about something and she's like do you feel bad about making someone mad? I'm like, nah, it was anonymous, so it doesn't count, right? Um, I got a filing system for anonymous complaints. It's called the trash can. All right. And then she tells me about this family that came for the first time last week and she was in nursery and she checked in this family and it was kind of crazy. They had a bunch of babies and and it was like after service a bit. So the check-in person was gone and she's checking them in and they had six kids and she's like, "Do you think it was that family?" And I was like, "Nah, I don't think I made them mad." I'm like, "But I I'll follow up with them this week." And she's like, "Oh, I didn't get their number." I'm like, "You didn't get their phone number." And she's like, "No." I was like, "We tell all our volunteers to get their contact information so Pastor Andrew could annoy them, show up at their house, and beg them to come to church." Not that really show up at your house, right? And I was like, "You didn't get there." And literally from this little thing, it started a fight right before we went to bed. She defended herself. I got mad. I defended myself. She's like, "Well, I'm sorry." I was like, "That didn't feel like you're sorry." I'm like, "Well, I'm sorry." She's like, "You're not sorry." And over this tiny thing about our church and the kingdom of God, we started fighting. And if we're honest, that is how our flesh operates. That is how the worldly perspective that we try to see things often is we look of how do I be right? How do I be comfortable? How do I make sure my point is across? And often this is the sad thing on this is the world judges us by our worst moments. They don't see people as forgiven or need of forgiveness or both. They see us at our worst. They see us in our in our sin and in our hardship. And here Paul says, "No, no, no. We don't do that anymore. Instead, we look at people through the lens of redemption, through the lens of how we need to reconcile people with one another, but also how Christ has reconciled us to himself, which we'll get to in a second." But the gospel perspective, as we see people, it sees their potential, not their current mistakes. But this keeps going on and we keep going to verse 17 and Paul continues and after he says, "Hey, you need to change the way you see people." In verse 17, he says, "Therefore, if anyone is Christ, is in Christ." I love this verse. He is a new creation. The old has passed away. And see that the new has come. You you see we embrace this ministry of reconciliation not by just seeing people differently but also we need to see this and this is an important step because we will never see people differently if we don't do this first is we need to accept that we've been fully forgiven by God. Just break this verse down a second and and hear this again. He says therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old has passed away and see the new has come. that this may be one of the most quoted verses in the New Testament, but I'm not sure that we always grasp how radical this verse is, especially when it comes to this topic and this idea of forgiveness is is first look at the fact that God's forgiveness of us is it's complete. It is not partial. Listen to this phrase in this verse. It says the old has passed away. Is God doesn't hold our past against us even though he has every reason to. God, you think your spouse has a good memory of your mistakes. God's memory is better of your mistakes. All right? He remembers every wrong you've done. But but it says he doesn't hold that against us. He doesn't bring up our failures in every conversation. He doesn't make us earn his love by even being perfect going forward. Instead, God's forgiveness is complete. It is not partial. But but it also it it tells us that it literally makes us new people. In this verse, he says that he being the Christian, being the one who has accepted God. He and or she is is using both ways here is a new creation. That that God isn't just changing his attitude toward us. God's not just saying, "Hey, I'm going to accept the fact that you're broken and you're messed up. It's fine. Don't worry about it." Instead, God's like, "No, no. I'm going to literally transform who you are. That because of what Christ has done on your behalf, you are a new person in me." and I'm seeing you as a new creation, not as your old life of sin. But we also see God's forgiveness is permanent. It is not conditional. It says the new has come. The way this is written in the original language is it's written in the present tense. It's not that the new will come if you behave right. If all of a sudden you start following all the laws of the Old Testament, if all of a sudden you start being a perfect person, if all of a sudden you start living exactly like Jesus will, then the new will come. No, that's not what he says. He says the new has come. It It is here. It is transforming you. It is working in you. The new has come and it is here to stay. This really reinforces a heavy doctrine or theology that we see in scripture is that when we are saved once, we are saved for all of eternity. But we do not lose our salvation. When we give our life to Jesus and exactly what we witnessed here in baptism, this is the outward sign of an inward decision where these six people have said in their hearts personally to God that I will follow you. You are my savior. That doesn't just go away overnight. That he seals us. He grabs us. He calls us his child. And what's huge here, what Paul is saying is that it's not just a conditional family tie that all of a sudden once you mess up and all of a sudden once you make mistakes again, God's going to say, "All right, let's redo it over. Make your confession again. Well, let's get this right again." That doesn't mean we don't confess. We'll get there in a second. But it's that God holds us. That our salvation in him is here. And and I think often this is not how we treat the other people in our lives. When we forgive them, if we're honest, often our forgiveness has a lot of conditions to it. A few months ago, I mentioned my daughter Arya. She is our oldest and she has two younger brothers and a baby sister. Loves her baby sister. She just carries her around like she's a doll. And I'm like, should she be upside down right now? I don't know if that's a good idea. Okay. Um she's not plastic. She will break and we won't have to pay that hospital bill. But she also has two younger brothers and they are annoying to her. I can just see it like they get it from me, right? Like father like son. They're obnoxious. And the other a couple months ago, I remember this vividly. They did something. They made her mad and and they needed to apologize. And they did apologize. And we're like, Arya, do you forgive them? She's like, yeah, I forgive you. As she's like staring into their soul right now. And then she throws it and bend them. but never do it again. I was like, "Hey honey, they're going to do it again." And often when we forgive people in our lives, we're like, "Man, I'll forgive you, but don't ever do that again. I forgive you this once, but there's a condition to it. You mess up again and I'm cutting you out." Now, there is some discernment to had. you don't let people keep hurting you but God's forgiveness of us is not the same way we often in our flesh want to forgive other people that it is complete that it is full that it is wiped away and here's the thing I think so many Christians struggle to forgive other people because we don't understand that we have been fully forgiven by God ourselves I I've done counseling and and going walking through people and and I remember one vividly of guy, this was years ago, was so mad at his family and could not get past it. And the more we dug in, what we found out is he was so mad at himself. He had such condemnation of his own life that he couldn't accept the fact that God would forgive him to his very depths and was preventing him to forgive the people around him. And Paul when he comes to this passage, he's saying, "Hey, you can forgive people because God has forgiven you. You don't have to be worried that the weight of your baggage is being remembered by God. Cuz as scripture tells us, he has cast it as far as the east is from the west. It is gone. He has erased it. The blood of the lamb has covered it. It is gone in his eyes. And Paul as he moves down this line, we see people in a different way. We see them in a different way cuz we accept that we have been fully forgiven. And this leads to verse 18 where he says everything is from God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and he has given us this what we mentioned earlier at the start of this the ministry of reconciliation. Verse 19, that is in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. And he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. Again, Paul is kind of rephrasing a lot of what he said in this passage and before is that Jesus died for us. He fully forgave our sins. He wiped them away. But because of that, he has then given us this message, this ministry of reconciliation. Verse 20, therefore, this is a result of this. This is what we are to do because we have been forgiven and we see other people as needing forgiveness or needing to forgive us. He says, therefore, in verse 20, we are ambassadors for Christ since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. Verse 21, he made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us so that in him we may become the righteousness of God. How do we embrace this ministry of reconciliation is we need to see people as who needing forgiveness or being forgiven or both. We need to see and we need to accept that we've been fully forgiven by God. in this last part of this is we need to be part of the greatest forgiving movement in the world. You hear that? We need to be a part of the greatest forgiving movement in the world. Paul as he starts and goes through this, he says everything is from God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ. He said Jesus the only way this ministry is possible is because Jesus came and he died on our behalf. And he says he doesn't count our sins against us anymore. Instead, he has given us this message, this ministry of how we can experience forgiveness and restoration. But then Paul moves here from this personal forgiveness to this cosmic mission. You see, God isn't just in the business of forgiving individuals. He does that. We celebrated how he just did that. But he's also reconciling the entire world to himself. And and here he says that we've been given a ministry. And and I love this idea is because here's what Paul is saying is this isn't just optional for Christians. If you've been reconciled to God, you're automatically enlisted in this whole reconciliation restoration business. This past week, I uh changed my car insurance. And and part of that um as I kind of went back to a guy I used to have, he's like, "Hey, I as he gave me the quote and it was cheaper and it was great." I was like, "I noticed this thing on there. There was discounts for safe and something driving." I'm like, "Tell me about that." Cuz I've heard the horror stories. I have friends who have chips in their cars and it tells them when they speed, how hard they break, if they turn too fast, and do all this stuff. And their rates go up when they don't do that stuff. I'm like, I need to know about this drive safe program because I don't drive safe. All right? Like, let's be real. Going 10 over the speed limit is called driving in Phoenix. All right? Let me go 10 over on the 303. I might as well sign my death warrant right now cuz I'm going to get run off the road. So, I'm like, "Tell me about this whole program that I'm enrolled in automatically." He's like, "Ah, don't worry about it, man. It's not a big deal." He's like, um, he's like, "It's a good program. I promise it will save you some money in there." He's like, "I I do it." And I know Bud, he's a terrible driver as well. And I'm like, "I don't know. This this sounds like something that I don't want to be a part of, but he's like, it's part of the program. You're automatically enrolled in it." I'm like, "Great." And then I was thinking about this passage. I'm like, "When we say we follow Jesus, we're automatically enrolled in this whole ministry of reconciliation. We're automatically enrolled in this movement where we need to be forgiving of other people. It's not a choice that we get to like I'm opting out of that one. All right, Jesus. Like, yeah, the other fruits of the, you know, spirit and stuff like that, I'll take those. I I'll be a little more patient. I'll do this. But the forgiving people, let me opt out. I'll pass on that one. And Paul's like, "No, no, no. You are part of this movement. You You are opted in. It comes with a package of following Jesus is you need to realize you need to be forgiven by other people, but you also need to forgive others because of how much God has forgiven you. But he keeps going. And here's the great thing about this is not only are we part of this, but God is also not counting sins against people. I I love this phrase. He says he is not counting their trespasses or their sins against them. And this is incredible. The God of the universe has chosen not to hold people's sin against him. The debt has been paid by Christ. Go back to my insurance. Here's what sold me on it. Cuz I was like, I ain't doing this, man. Um I know my rate's going to just skyrocket. I'm like, tell me more about this. And and he said these words. He's like, it's non-punitive, meaning it's all upside. If you're a good driver, you'll get a bigger discount. You'll actually get a discount. And he said, for me, he's like, I'm a D driver. This is my insurance agent. That's really good to know, right? I was like, "Well, that means I'm an F." Um, and he's like, "And I still get savings over He's like, I get like 40 bucks over 6 months." I was like, "Sweet. I'm going to get like 10 cents over every 6 months uh saving once I hook this up." But he's like, "It's non-punitive." Meaning, it doesn't count against you. It is only for your benefit. And when we see this, this is this part of ministry of reconciliation is when sometimes your heart is hard or you're not forgiving people as quickly as you should. God's not holding that against you. Be like, "No, no, I'm going to hold back. I'm not going to love you. I'm not going to forgive you as much cuz you're not forgiving other people. Instead, he is transforming us." The biblical word is he is sanctifying us more into going down this path. And here's what's so important about all of this is we need to realize that we represent Christ in this work of reconciliation. Look at verse 20. He says, "Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were making his appeal through us." Think for a second what an ambassador does. An ambassador represents their home country in a foreign land. They speak with the authority of their government. They work to maintain good relationships. They resolve conflicts. And Paul tells us that we are ambassadors of Jesus. Here's what that means. When you put a cross church sticker on your car, you are an ambassador for Jesus. When you Everyone took their sticker off right now after service, you're going to go get your wedge. And when you wear a shirt that says cross church, you are an ambassador for our church and for Jesus. When you wear a hat, when you tell people you are a Christian, you are an ambassador for Christ. And you think about this deeper is is that this land as the Bible tells us is not our home. We are living in a foreign land. We have are living in we talked about in Corenth in Babylon. We are living in a place that is apart from us and we are representing our father and our God to the world around us and what our actions do. That's what people think about Jesus with us. What was it? Gandhi or Buddha. One of them said like hey I I like your Jesus but I don't like his people. And oftentimes, if we're honest, sometimes we do a bad job of representing of being an ambassador for Christ. But Paul gives us this weight on here that as our lives transform, as we attempt to live out, it's not like this thing that we get to decide to do if we want to do is we have to start living differently. We have to start doing out forgiveness in a way that is truly honoring, not in a way that we are forced to do it. We all of a sudden start to ask people to reconcile relationships even when we want to write people off. We start to change the way we see the people who have hurt us or we have hurt around us because we want to live on mission for our God. Now just think about how revolutionary this is for a second is that this movement of forgiveness, it's not a political party. It's not a social cause. It's not even a therapeutic per uh approach here. It is the church that we are part of and people who have been forgiven by God and now are extending that forgiveness to others. What if all of a sudden people knew cross church for like hey those people I don't believe all the things they do but man they are nice people is they don't get mad at me for being a sinner is they don't get mad at me when I when I did something to wrong them they actually forgave me when their service was bad at a restaurant they didn't berate me and so they said hey man this wasn't great but uh they still did so in a loving tone in many family members that there's these these chasms that happen all of a sudden they look to restore that what if we were known known as being a part in this movement. And here's why we can do this. In verse 21, it says he made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us so that he in him we might become the righteousness of God. You see, when you hear all this, you might be thinking like that sounds great, but like how in the world do I start to apply that? Like I feel some hardness in my heart towards some people. Maybe if you thought at the beginning of who's that what was that hardest thing you have had to forgive. Maybe some of it you haven't even forgiven fully and you're like how in the world could I ever get there? Well, you see this verse is the theological foundation of everything we believe and also the whole reason we can live as ambassadors of Christ. that he took Jesus who was perfect, who was in heaven, who did no wrong, sent him to earth to be fully man and fully God, to live among us, to love people, to heal people, to do life with people, and then he took our place by hanging him on a cross, to die for our sins so that we could be a new creation. And all of a sudden, we don't have to be bound by our sinful flesh. All of a sudden, we don't have to say, "I can't do that because it's too hard." It may be too hard for us, but it is not too hard for God because he has fully forgiven us. He has changed our lives so that we can love and forgive and be part of his ministry to the world around us. And I love how all this just continues to build in this passage is we see people differently because God has forgiven us fully, completely because of what he has done on the cross. He calls us. He opts us in to be part of this movement. And let's keep going into chapter 6 starting in verse one because this really ties together with the rest of this passage. He says this. We are working together with him. We are working together with Christ. It is not our power. It is his. We are working together with him. We also appeal to you. Don't receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, "At an acceptable time I listened to you, and in the day of salvation I helped you. See, now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation." Here's what Paul is moving us to. That as we start to embrace this idea of reconciliation, it calls us to live our lives differently. It causes us to see people differently. To stop holding on to the things we so desperately want to hold on to. That argument that you've crafted in your head of why your brothers and sisters or your aranged family members are idiots and you don't want to forgive them. And you're like, I have that argument locked and loaded at any time. And Christ calls us to let go of that. Of the people at work who have hurt you and have frustrated you and every time you see them be like, "Bro, I don't want any part of you." But he's saying bury the hatchet because I forgave you so you can forgive me. And you see all this comes to the basis of here. Our mission at Cross Church that we got to see on display in the form of these baptisms today is to make Jesus known. We cannot do that if we are not forgiving the people around us. And here's how we live this out today. And if you don't hear anything, this is what I want you to hear today. And we're going to unload some baggage. And I'm going to give you the opportunity to do this at the end. But this is how we live it out. Is our ability to forgive directly impacts our ability to make Jesus known. Our ability to forgive directly impacts our ability to make Jesus known. Sometimes we come to church and be like, "Man, I love our church." We see new people coming. I'm inviting my neighbors. I'm seeing people be baptized. We're clapping. We're excited. We got some youth in here. They're like shenanigans. They're yelling like monkeys. And it's exciting, right? And all of that is so great and it's so awesome and we want that to keep going. But here's the thing. We will reach a point where we will stop if we are not loving and forgiving the people around us. And Paul here says if we want to see people come to Christ just as Jesus brought us to himself, we need to start burying the hatchet with people. We need to start loving the peop people the way that Jesus loves us. So they can see themselves redeemed in Christ just as he has redeemed us. This past week, actually this wasn't past week. It felt like a week ago. This was yesterday. My son Archie, my oldest boy, he decided he didn't want to share any of his toys. And Archie has this thing in his head where he doesn't like any of his toys until someone else plays with that toy and all of a sudden it's his favorite toy in the world. And I was like, "Dude, you can share with Arlo, your little brother. It's okay. Share with him." And and he like had done this three times. Finally, he ripped a toy out of his brother's hand. He said, "No, I will not." And I lost it. I'm like, "Bro, go to your room. This is it. You need to share with your brother." I'm like, "I'm not dealing with this anymore." I'm like, "You need to say sorry." And he yelled at me as a result. And I was like, "You need to say sorry to Arlo and you say sorry to me for yelling at me, for being selfish with your brother and being mean to your brother." When he saw that, when that moment hit him and he knew his action steps, I got to say sorry and ask forgiveness to my brother and I got to say sorry and ask forgiveness to my dad. In his seven-year-old brain, it was too much and he ran away and cried. And I think often as adults, we act the very same way when we're confronted with our sin. When God circles in our life, you got to forgive that person or you got to ask that person to forgive you. You got to confess your sins to God and say, "I have this garbage in my life." You got to lay it out in front of him. I don't know about you, but a lot of times my reaction is I just want to go run away. I want to escape that. I want to be angry about that. I want to cry about that. I want to do anything except actually do the faithful thing of addressing it. And today as we respond to such a heavy passage that talks about how much God has forgiven us, but how much we need to forgive and we need to love the people around us.