SWYC 2012: Unless the Lord Builds the House

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GYC Southwest

Keala Thompson

The Power of Forgiveness

This morning I want to talk about forgiveness because there are a lot of people out there who are struggling with forgiveness.

And I recently had an email from a former Bible worker.

And this Bible worker emailed me and she got into a relationship.

And in this relationship she asked me, Pastor, if there's 1 thing that would make for a successful relationship, what do you think it would be?

You know, I didn't really think about it too long and it just came out of my mouth before I even thought about it.

And the word I said to her was forgiveness.

Because, you know, we're going to do things wrong, we're going to make mistakes, but if the other person that you're going to marry, look for this 1 thing in your partner.

If you can find that ability for that person to forgive you that will make for a successful marriage what do you say huh?

Forgiveness is the key of bitterness that's hurting people unforgiveness, hardness of heart, anger, resentment whatever it may be, It's the root cause of many sins that's going on, especially in relationships.

So I sat at her, and then she asked a good question.

She said to me, well, how can you gauge that?

How can you tell whether the person you're going to be and want to marry actually has forgiveness?

How can you gauge, how can you measure someone having forgiveness?

It's not someone who knows about forgiveness.

It's someone who has experienced forgiveness.

In other words, you don't want someone who just intellectually knows I need to forgive somebody but somebody who knows it but actually understands the true biblical way on how we are forgiven.

So this morning as we open God's word, may God help us to have open hearts to learn the true meaning of forgiveness.

And as it's all open, we hope us to see what it means to experience forgiveness.

Lord, this is our prayer in Jesus' name, amen.

The Bible says, what did Jesus say about forgiveness?

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also what?

But if you don't forgive men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your what?

So in other words, if we don't forgive, right, we're not going to experience forgiveness.

So my question to you, this 1, is do we, does God forgive us because we forgive?

You know, we live in a culture today that believe 99% of the people I talk to say, you know, I need to forgive Because if I don't forgive, then what?

Now I want to go into this because the Spirit of Prophecy has a lot to say about this.

God does not forgive us because, in other words, we don't do something first initiate and God responds as a reward for us doing something by our works.

So we created 1, out of 1 text created a whole theology out of 1 text and it has messed up a lot of people and we know what we need to do but unfortunately we have not experienced the power to do what we need to do but we can do it to God's love and power what do you say amen so this morning we're gonna discover what the word of God says and the spirit of prophecy says about forgiveness.

And when we are able to forgive, then we're able to reconcile, restore relationships of brothers and sisters, parents and children, husbands and wives, And God will do a miracle within his church.

Send me to Matthew chapter 6, verse 12 in your Bibles.

Matthew chapter 6, verse 12, same chapter.

The Bible says, this is the prayer, it says, and forgive us our debts.

So as we're forgiving people, God forgives us as in the process as we're forgiving now you're gonna see this come to light a little bit more and further on now look at this quotation in your handout knows what it says here this is from Christ object lessons 251 Inspiration says, we are not forgiven because we forgive.

Let me say it again because maybe new to a lot of you.

Not as a reward, but in the process, when we do it, we retain the forgiveness that we already experienced.

We're going to explain that a little bit more.

Okay, now turning me to Ephesians chapter 4, verse 32.

The Bible says, be kind 1 to another, tender hearted, forgiving 1 another, even as God for Christ's sake has what?

So in other words, we are to forgive as what?

In other words, we cannot forgive unless we have first experienced the forgiveness from God first.

In other words, if you just tell someone you need to forgive that person and the person's gonna say, yeah I know I need to forgive.

How many of you ever tried to forgive and it failed in your life?

Maybe it could be that maybe we have a misunderstanding of what scripture is really saying.

God is saying that you cannot give that which you do not possess.

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The Power of Forgiveness

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