5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.9 Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.1 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done,2 on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread,3 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.4
14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you,15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Footnotes
[1]6:9Or Let your name be kept holy, or Let your name be treated with reverence [2]6:10Or Let your kingdom come, let your will be done [3]6:11Or our bread for tomorrow [4]6:13Or the evil one; some manuscripts add For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen
21 Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.124 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.225 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.
Footnotes
[1]18:23Or bondservants; also verses 28, 31 [2]18:24A talent was a monetary unit worth about twenty years’ wages for a laborer
5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.9 Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.1 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done,2 on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread,3 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.4
14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you,15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Footnotes
[1]6:9Or Let your name be kept holy, or Let your name be treated with reverence [2]6:10Or Let your kingdom come, let your will be done [3]6:11Or our bread for tomorrow [4]6:13Or the evil one; some manuscripts add For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen
21 Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.124 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.225 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.
Footnotes
[1]18:23Or bondservants; also verses 28, 31 [2]18:24A talent was a monetary unit worth about twenty years’ wages for a laborer
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:
Invite you to open your bibles to 2 places, Matthew chapter 18 and Matthew chapter 6. Chapter 6 is in your worship guide. Matthew chapter 18 and Matthew chapter 6. I'm gonna begin reading in chapter 18 verse 21. Your eyes have looked at a lot of things this week.
Jeffrey Heine:
You've read a lot of things. I say this often, but what we're reading now is different. We're reading God's word, and through his spirit has the power to penetrate deep within us and to change us, and deserves our attention, deserves our focus, and so let's give that. Matthew 18 verse 21. Then Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him?
Jeffrey Heine:
As many as 7 times? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you 7 times, but 70 times 7. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and all that he had and payment to be made.
Jeffrey Heine:
So, the servant fell on his knees imploring him, Have patience with me and I will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when the same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a 100 denarii. And seizing him, he began to choke him saying, Pay what you owe. So, his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, Have patience with me and I will pay you.
Jeffrey Heine:
He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servant saw that what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant. I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?
Jeffrey Heine:
And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. Matthew chapter 6, We'll begin reading in verse 9, pray then like this, Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Jeffrey Heine:
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trans trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. Pray with me. Our father, there's so much here in your word, and I pray in this moment it would be so much more than just words on a page, Lord, that through your spirit it would come alive and that we would hear Jesus speaking to us, changing us to become more like him.
Jeffrey Heine:
We need to hear from you. Lord, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. The Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Jeffrey Heine:
One of my favorite stories from the Bible is the story of the, the paralytic man who was carried by his 4 friends, to a home where Jesus was teaching. And when they couldn't get in the home, if you're familiar with the story, they actually climbed up on the roof, and they they began digging through the roof. They they actually did damage to this man's home, and they they they cleared a big enough hole that they could lower a man down. And I I just love the whole scene. The I mean, you could picture this, the scared paralytic man just kind of swaying as he's being let down into this roof.
Jeffrey Heine:
You you picture the people underneath with, with all this dust and debris falling down, and the homeowner, just going crazy at what's happening in his home. And in the scene that as the man is lowered down and is laid before Jesus, I'm sure there was this hush in the room and Jesus looks at him and his first words are this, you are forgiven. I forgive you. Jesus goes straight to the heart. It's not that this person didn't have other needs.
Jeffrey Heine:
There were a lot of other needs this guy had. Primarily, you would think he, he wanted to walk. He didn't want to be paralyzed. And yet Jesus looks at that need and he says that that's not your greatest need. Your greatest need is the condition of your heart.
Jeffrey Heine:
You need to be forgiven. And Jesus would flesh this out in other places when he would say, if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It's better to go to heaven without a hand than to hell with both. If your, if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It's better to, to go to heaven blind than to go to hell with both eyes.
Jeffrey Heine:
So, so it's better to be maimed or blind and be forgiven than to have perfect health and yet go to hell. So being forgiven by God is the most important thing that we need. It's our most basic and our most pressing need. And so that's why Jesus teaches us to pray here. Forgive us our debts and by debts he means transgressions or he means sins.
Jeffrey Heine:
But, but Jesus doesn't just leave it there. He says, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. He adds a little bit there that I don't know about you. He just kind of makes you a little uncomfortable when he adds that one little line there. God's forgiveness of you is tied to your forgiveness of others.
Jeffrey Heine:
To me, that's, that's kind of a terrifying thought. I mean, when you just read through this, I feel like this gigantic weight was just put on me. That my forgiveness of God, it certainly seems like it's somehow dependent on my forgiveness of others. And And so I think, well, perhaps perhaps there's maybe a mistake. And this certainly one of the most challenging lines that you can have in the Bible, but Jesus doesn't back down from this statement.
Jeffrey Heine:
As a matter of fact, of all that he has taught us to pray in the Lord's prayer, this is the one statement he immediately fleshes out because he knows everybody's fearing like, you know, I am, does it really in there? Cause it sounds like I'm going to lose my salvation tomorrow. You know, if that's really true and Jesus doesn't back down, he actually reinforces it right afterwards with verse 14 and 15. He says, for if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses.
Jeffrey Heine:
Jesus doesn't expand on the daily bread part or your kingdom come part, but he hits that again. So I make no mistake. This is true. So, you you can't wiggle around this. You've got a deal that Jesus throws it in front of you, and he asks you to deal with it.
Jeffrey Heine:
He says, if you don't forgive others, you'll not be forgiven. If you are not a forgiving person, if you're the type of person who holds onto a grudge, if you're the type of person who likes to give people payback, if they've hurt you, then you are not forgiven. You're not a Christian. You're not a follower of Christ. We see this in the story that Jesus told in Matthew 18.
Jeffrey Heine:
When the person who did not forgive was literally handed over to his torturers because he wouldn't forgive. Now, I'm sure you're you're thinking, alright. I've got lots of little red flags just popping all up because it certainly sounds like we're doing something for our salvation. This sounds like some kind of works based righteousness that, you know, I I have to do this for God, and then God will do this for me. And it certainly kind of looks like that's what's going on, but let's, let's take a closer look at both Jesus's words and his parable because it really is centered on grace.
Jeffrey Heine:
And when you look at Matthew 18, you know, the story is of a King and he's settling his accounts. And so he's having these servants being brought to him, everybody who owes him money. And he's saying, all right, it's payday, time to settle our debts. And so this servant comes forward and owes him 10,000 talents, which is an astounding number. It's really one of those numbers that's so big, we really don't have a place in our brain that we could put it.
Jeffrey Heine:
In today's monetary, you know, system, it would be about 300,000,000,000 to $1,000,000,000,000. So so this servant owes about 300,000,000,000 to $1,000,000,000,000 which is obviously more money than anybody could possibly pay. And what we realized that anybody who could owe that amount of money isn't just a normal servant. This was a servant with a great amount of power. And so it's likely talking about a vassal King here.
Jeffrey Heine:
You've got the King and then you have, you know, in Rome when they would go through and, and they would conquer other lands, they would set up a vassal King and that King still govern their country, but he needed to make a profit and he needed to send that money to Rome. And here you have Jesus picking up on this imagery and he's saying, he's calling in the debt to these vassal Kings. So now I gave you power and you blew it and you owe an incomprehensible sum. Well, the servant comes before his boss and he's just, he's pleading, but notice he's not pleading for forgiveness. Doesn't cross his mind.
Jeffrey Heine:
Could you just cancel? Maybe just kind of look the other way. This $1,000,000,000,000 debt just, he's like, just, just give me a little more time. Just, just give me a little more time. He's delusional, like, like more time you could get out of that.
Jeffrey Heine:
All he would do is probably double the debt. You're not going to get out of debt. That's that great, but that's what he begs for. And so the only logical thing that the King could do would be to throw this person in prison, perhaps even execute, but he doesn't do this. Instead he forgives him his debt, Meaning, this king here just lost 300,000,000,000 to $1,000,000,000,000.
Jeffrey Heine:
Okay? He's never gonna see it again, and he just he just forgave the debt. And so the servant left the king's presence, and he immediately goes to somebody who owed him money. I mean, you look at, look at verse 28 and it says, but when the same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a 100 denarii and seizing him, he began to choke him saying, pay me what you owe. He's doing this immediately.
Jeffrey Heine:
He's leaving the king's presence of just being forgiven $1,000,000,000,000 and the first thing he's like is, I got to find somebody who owes me money. And he goes after him. And all this man owes him is a 100 denarii, which is several $1,000 and yet he refuses to forgive and he throws this man into prison. And when the King finds out about this, he summons them. He calls him a wicked servant and he throws them to the torturers or throws them into prison.
Jeffrey Heine:
And what you find here in this parable is Jesus teaches us the nature of forgiveness. He he defines what forgiveness looks like to us. Being forgiven is, first off, being set free. It's when a prison sentence is hanging over you, but, but you've been liberated from that. You're, you're set free.
Jeffrey Heine:
Being forgiven is having all of your debts removed. It's being given a clean slate, and you feel that at times. You know, when somebody, when you've, when you've sinned against somebody and they, they say they've forgiven you, you feel like this weight has been lifted off you. You feel like this burden has lifted you. You've been given this clean slate.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's forgiveness. Now, being forgiving or forgiving others is the exact opposite of this. To forgive another person means that you actually absorb or you take in the debt that they owe you. This past Christmas, my brother-in-law, he gave me a $25 gift certificate to Target. And it doesn't sound like really a big deal, but this was a pretty huge deal.
Jeffrey Heine:
I've celebrated about, you know, 20 Christmases with him, at least. And I've never gotten a gift. So, 20 years, never gotten a gift, and all of a sudden, I get a $25 gift certificate. And, and I hadn't got him anything because I thought we had an arrangement, you know, that. And so afterwards, I just said, hey, you know, I'm sorry I didn't get you a gift.
Jeffrey Heine:
I, you know, I thought we had an arrangement. I wasn't expecting that. And he said, well, because I'm just trying to pay you back. What are you talking about? He goes, well, about, I don't know, 15, 16 years ago, you let me borrow your drum set?
Jeffrey Heine:
I was like, yeah, I remember that. He goes, I don't know what happened to it. It's like, one of his friends, somebody just took it, and and and I knew that it, you know, it was missing. And for 16 years, he's been harboring this guilt. And and so he said, I I was just hoping that maybe, like, if I gave you a little something every Christmas, 25, 30 years, I could pay this off.
Jeffrey Heine:
And I, I, it was, it was touching in a way because he really, he was wracked with guilt and I said, I forgive you of that. I forgive you. Yes. There's a debt you owe and I wipe that slate clean. You you don't owe me a thing.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's what forgiveness is. It's when somebody owes you a debt instead of making them pay, you just absorb the loss yourself and forgiving somebody of a monetary amount is really easy. Forgiving somebody of an emotional debt is a lot harder. If somebody publicly humiliates you or it's dismissive of you, you know, you want to publicly humiliate them back. You want to insult them as a way of making things even, you know, evening out the ledger, paying them back.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's what you want to do. They got to pay for what they did to you. And that's a very natural response in many ways. That's natural because that's just somebody hurts you. They need to be punished and hurt back.
Jeffrey Heine:
So, so it's actually kind of a just thing. The problem with it is you're not supposed to be the judge. You're not the one who issues out the punishment. But we do. We do it all the time.
Jeffrey Heine:
So if we have, you know, you, you find out your friends all got together and had a little dinner dinner party, but didn't invite you, and you're hurt by it, not cause you actually wanted to go, you're just hurt that they didn't include you. So what do you have to do? Well, you got to throw a dinner party and not invite them. It's just an easy little payback. Yeah.
Jeffrey Heine:
At the very least, you just got to kind of ignore them for a while, give them a cold shoulder and all you're doing is making them pay the debt they owe. If you heard a coworker say something negative about you behind your back, what do you do? Well, you got to say something negative about them behind their back. Even the ledger parents, we do this all the time. You know, somebody is says something critical about your parenting skills.
Jeffrey Heine:
And so you'd be like, oh, oh, so, you know, little Timmy still not potty trained, Wow. How old is he? How old is he? Oh, wow. So he's actually older than my child.
Jeffrey Heine:
He's potty trained. Just saying, you know? And so we, we find little ways to like, you know, zing you back using me. And what we're doing is we're calling in a debt. We were hurt and we hurt back.
Jeffrey Heine:
So we make people pay for their sins all of the time, but our call to forgiveness means this. Instead of lashing out, we absorb, we take in the punishment that they deserve. So we don't give somebody the cold shoulder if they're un kind to us. We don't criticize or shame somebody when they embarrass us. Instead, forgiveness is all about absorbing that debt in yourself and the greater the transgression against you, the greater that that absorption or that pain will be.
Jeffrey Heine:
Forgiveness hurts. Make no mistake about it. Don't expect to easily forgive somebody like, Oh, I joyfully forgive you. That's, that's an oxymoron. You can't joyfully forgive someone.
Jeffrey Heine:
You're gonna get hurt when you forgive because you're absorbing their penalty. But this is what Jesus is telling us to do. And can't you see how this demonstrates the gospel? I mean, in just such a tangible way, it demonstrates the gospel. The gospels, Jesus taking this incomprehensible debt that we owe him, and instead of calling it in and making us pay him, he absorbed the penalty.
Jeffrey Heine:
He took it. Instead of receiving the very just wrath of God for our sins. Jesus said, how about I cover that for you? I'll take it. He absorbs it.
Jeffrey Heine:
So forgiveness is, one of the most tangible ways we have of demonstrating the gospel to people. And what Jesus is telling us here is if we understand this, if we have received this gospel, then we will live out this gospel. We will be forgiving people, forgiven people become forgiving people. When God really has changed you and you were forgiven, you will become a forgiving person. And if you cannot forgive, this demonstrates that you have never been forgiven by God.
Jeffrey Heine:
You have never received that. So when we forgive, what we're doing is we're really reflecting god's heart to the world as we forgive others. We resemble him when we forgive. Do you know who you resemble when you don't forgive? Who you resemble when you pay back people with insults, who you resemble when you delight in seeing somebody else suffer.
Jeffrey Heine:
Do you know who you resemble when, when you cheer when somebody's defeated or you celebrate when they are humiliated or crushed? When you do that, you resemble Satan, not God. And just as Satan, he does those things because he's filled with pride. Pride is often the root of unforgiveness. Look back at Matthew chapter 18.
Jeffrey Heine:
Verse 26. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, have patience with me and I will pay you back everything. And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. So it was out of pity. The master looked at his servant and had pity on him and it was because of that pity, it moved him to release him of the debt.
Jeffrey Heine:
Now, to pity somebody means you empathize with them. It means that you you can relate to them, you you identify with them, You, you can see yourself in them. You're never going to forgive somebody you feel morally superior to or that you believe is beneath you. You're not going to forgive a person like that. When the King saw this servant crying and pleading, the King's thinking, that could have been me.
Jeffrey Heine:
We're we're we're both humans. I could have had that debt. And he empathized with this man and he had compassion for him. But if you feel superior to somebody who has wronged you, you will never forgive them. You know, one of the ways that, that we feel morally superior to other people is we we make them 1 dimensional.
Jeffrey Heine:
We turn them into, to little caricatures. You know what little caricatures are, you know, when they draw a picture of you and they exaggerate one feature. Like me, it'd be It's about to say big biceps, but it'd be it'd be like, you know, I'd have a huge nose or something like that. They just they they exaggerate a feature of you. It's a caricature.
Jeffrey Heine:
We do that to people all the time that we refuse to forgive. We turned them into a caricature. For instance, if somebody criticizes us, we say, it's because you're mean spirited. You're just a mean person. It's who you are.
Jeffrey Heine:
And somebody says, well, didn't you criticize somebody? And you said, well, I mean, that was a little different. I mean, I'm, I'm more of a realist. I was trying to help the person out. It's not because I mean somebody lies to you and he says, because you're a liar.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's all you are. You're a liar. And that's all you see the person as is a liar. You lie and you're like, well, it's complicated. You know?
Jeffrey Heine:
There was a lot of factors going into it. I didn't really want to hurt this person and I knew I, you, you want to explain it. You don't want to do that to other people. You make them 1 dimensional. That's what you are, a liar, a mean person.
Jeffrey Heine:
And so we, we turn them into these little caricatures in order to feel superior to them. That way we don't have to forgive them. I mean, you've all, you've all done this before. Somebody hurts you, you know, and, maybe was saying something about you and you walked by and you heard it. They were saying something behind your back and you heard it.
Jeffrey Heine:
And, you're like, They go, Oh, let me explain. Let me explain. You're like, No. I don't I don't want you to explain. You're just a mean person, or you're just this, you're whatever.
Jeffrey Heine:
You're like, I I don't I don't want to make you multi dimensional. I just want to make you 1 dimensional. This is what you are. Because if you just keep them as this is what you are, well then you are so much below me and I don't have to forgive you. We do this all the time, but if you believe the gospel, you can't do that because you understand all of us are in the same boat.
Jeffrey Heine:
All of us are fallen sinners. All of us are in debt way over our eyeballs, have a insurmountable debt that we owe. There's no difference between me and the person who has hurt me. We both need grace. When the servant refused to forgive his fellow servant, he demonstrated he did not understand his own real need for mercy.
Jeffrey Heine:
It shows right there that the forgiveness that the king gave him really never hit his heart. Listen, when forgiveness of our King, when the forgiveness of our King penetrates our heart, we cannot help but become forgiving people because when the magnitude hits us of what exactly Jesus paid, when that hits us, it transforms us and we can't help but forgive others of their debts. You know, perhaps one of the reasons that we find it so much easier to ask for forgiveness than to give forgiveness, I mean, isn't that It's a lot easier to ask forgiveness by God. God, will you forgive me? We hardly even think about it.
Jeffrey Heine:
Than to actually give people forgiveness who is who have hurt us. I think one of the reasons that is, is because deep down inside, we don't think we really hurt God. Right? Somebody insults us. Ouch.
Jeffrey Heine:
Hurts. I mean, we feel that. That hurt. So so, forgiving them, that's a big thing. We fail in another area of our life, we sin a little away.
Jeffrey Heine:
We're like, well, God's big, he's powerful. I mean, we don't really feel like we inflict hurt there. So asking for forgiveness isn't much of a big deal because we don't think we're hurting him and we could not be more wrong. When we sin, the debt that Jesus had to pay was literally hell. And it's important to see this, that on the cross, Jesus went through hell for us and I'm not talking metaphorically.
Jeffrey Heine:
No, Jesus went through hell for us on the cross, literally went through hell. You know, the Bible uses all these different images to describe hell. And when you look at what Jesus endured on the cross, he went through every one of them. For instance, hell is described as being cast into the outer darkness. Do you remember what happened when Jesus hung on the cross?
Jeffrey Heine:
Said darkness covered the land. Total darkness covered. Hell is described as a place of, of heat and incredible thirst. Remember Jesus gave that parable in Luke chapter 16 of the rich man in hell the man was begging. Could I just have one drop of water please?
Jeffrey Heine:
Jesus on the cross. One of the things he yelled was, I thirst. I thirst. Hell is described as a place of abandonment and we see all of Jesus's friends fleeing from him. And then he suffers ultimate abandonment when his own father forsakes him.
Jeffrey Heine:
And that's, that's the very definition of hell right there is when the father turns his face away. When you are forsaken or abandoned by God, And Jesus is enduring that. I mean, we struggle because somebody, we struggle to forgive somebody because they didn't invite us over to dinner. Jesus was abandoned by his father who he's known for all of eternity. So you could, you could go through all the different images that the Bible used to describes hell and you will see that on the cross, Jesus endures every one of these.
Jeffrey Heine:
You'll find every image except for 1, except for 1. Because hell is also described as a place where there is gnashing of teeth, the gnashing of teeth. And that's a very graphic way of, of saying you're lashing out at others in bitterness. You're lit, literally spitting venom at people. You're gnashing your teeth in anger and we don't see that on the cross.
Jeffrey Heine:
How should we see the exact opposite? As Jesus is hanging there and he is broken, he is humiliated. He is abandoned. He is forsaken by everybody. He loved out of the deepest possible hurt.
Jeffrey Heine:
He says, father, forgive them. He doesn't gnash his teeth. He speaks words of forgiveness. I mean, from the heart of hell, Jesus forgave us. And what you're seeing here is when everything in his life has been stripped away, when he's been rubbed down to a nub, and this is just the very core of who he is.
Jeffrey Heine:
What you see is a God of forgiveness and a God of mercy. It's who he is. We see the very core of Jesus here. And then if you see this and you understand this, you can't help but be moved tremendously by, by his love and his mercy has been being poured into our hearts and also in all those pains and all those griefs that we've experienced at the hands of others, they just melt away. And what Jesus is saying is, if you can't forgive others, it means if you don't embrace forgiving others, it just means you don't even know my heart.
Jeffrey Heine:
You don't know me because I'm a forgiving and I'm a merciful God at my very core, even the very heart of hell. When Jesus's spirit is inside of us, we're able to take that love and we can share it with others in the ways that we love, in the ways that we forgive. Pray with me. Jesus, may your gospel melt our hardened hearts. May the things that we are struggling to forgive seem trivial in this moment.
Jeffrey Heine:
Even the big things, the biggest things that we can imagine are nothing more than a few $1,000,000 compared to a trillion that we have been forgiven. Jesus, we have hurt you deeply beyond what we can imagine and you have taken on our debt and as you were taking it on, you spoke words of forgiveness to us. Thank you. We bless you in this moment for those who don't know you or made that truth, may your love for them right now be poured into their hearts. We pray this in the name of Jesus.