WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:12.740 in prayer. Father, Jesus has said that the Holy Spirit is our helper, that he is a spirit of truth. 00:00:14.200 --> 00:00:22.839 And Father, that Jesus and you have sent the Holy Spirit to us, that we might remember his words, 00:00:22.839 --> 00:00:30.379 and that we might walk in them. And so, Father, we ask that you would be kind and merciful to us, 00:00:30.759 --> 00:00:36.920 and whether it's those of us here or those online live or those downstream, that your Holy Spirit 00:00:36.920 --> 00:00:43.879 would fall upon us so that your words would come home to us very deeply. And we know, Father, 00:00:43.980 --> 00:00:47.920 that as your word comes to us very deeply, it's a word of grace and a word of freedom. 00:00:48.280 --> 00:00:52.519 And so we ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen. 00:00:53.560 --> 00:00:54.380 Please be seated. 00:00:58.480 --> 00:01:08.320 So I had another coffee shop incident, but a good one. I went to a different coffee shop on Friday 00:01:08.320 --> 00:01:15.740 morning because the one I normally go to, there were no seats. And as I come in and I get my coffee, 00:01:15.820 --> 00:01:19.960 I see that one of the regulars that I talk with a lot, that he's sitting in the same coffee shop, 00:01:19.959 --> 00:01:25.879 and he's talking with his business partner. And neither of them are Christians, neither of them 00:01:25.879 --> 00:01:32.299 have any type of Christian background whatsoever. Both very, very great guys. And as I'm walking by, 00:01:32.379 --> 00:01:35.419 I just said hi, but I didn't want to interrupt them because it looked like they were in a bit of a 00:01:35.419 --> 00:01:39.979 business meeting. But one of them, the fellow that I talked to most of the time, he said to me, 00:01:39.980 --> 00:01:43.420 oh, you're sitting down to work on your sermon. What's your sermon going to be about this week? 00:01:44.060 --> 00:01:49.380 And I said, I paused, and I'll find out in heaven one of you were praying for me right that instant. 00:01:49.379 --> 00:01:57.359 And I said, actually, I'm talking about something that neither of you could relate to and nobody can 00:01:57.359 --> 00:02:02.219 relate to. I'm going to talk about the problem of unforgiveness, at which they burst out laughing. 00:02:02.939 --> 00:02:09.419 And that says, yeah, yeah, yeah, that doesn't have anything to do with either of us. And I went and sat 00:02:09.419 --> 00:02:15.139 and continued to work, and they had their business meeting. So we're going to look at a story that 00:02:15.139 --> 00:02:21.799 actually opens the door for us to consider forgiveness and unforgiveness, and sort of its 00:02:21.799 --> 00:02:28.159 power in our lives. And so it'd be a great help if you would turn with me to Nehemiah chapter four. 00:02:29.099 --> 00:02:37.159 Nehemiah chapter four. And I confess that this week I've done something which I haven't done for a 00:02:37.159 --> 00:02:44.199 while. I've sort of envisioned it as we go through this chapter, as if they're scenes or episodes in a 00:02:44.199 --> 00:02:50.859 Netflix series. And I've entitled each of the scenes as we sort of go through, sort of as a bit of a 00:02:50.859 --> 00:02:54.979 help. Originally, I was doing it, I was trying to get a handle on how to, what to do with the text. 00:02:55.439 --> 00:02:59.979 And I realized this would be a handy way for me to sort of make sure I understand the bits of the 00:02:59.979 --> 00:03:05.299 story as they go together. And then this week, I just decided we'd go through it together all in the 00:03:05.300 --> 00:03:15.400 same manner. So it begins with episode scene one, the joy of mocking, the joy of mocking, 00:03:15.860 --> 00:03:23.760 verses one to three. Now when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly 00:03:23.760 --> 00:03:30.700 enraged. And he jeered at the Jews. And he said in the presence of his brothers and of the army of 00:03:30.699 --> 00:03:38.339 Samaria, what are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves? Will they sacrifice? 00:03:38.939 --> 00:03:44.939 Will they finish up in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish and burned ones 00:03:44.939 --> 00:03:52.339 at that? Tobiah, the Ammonite, was beside him. And he said, yes, what they are building, if a fox goes up 00:03:52.340 --> 00:04:01.939 on it, he will break down their stone wall. Now, it's actually really interesting. This is a story 00:04:01.939 --> 00:04:07.599 still being read 2,400 years after it's been written. So even if you're watching and you don't 00:04:07.599 --> 00:04:13.439 believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, it is at least significant that there is a text like 00:04:13.439 --> 00:04:19.879 this still being read 2,400 years later. And for some of you, some of you who might have been in 00:04:19.879 --> 00:04:24.699 churches where they've done some leadership training. And often the book of Nehemiah is a 00:04:24.699 --> 00:04:30.560 book that's used in leadership training. There's lots of leadership principles that you can unearth 00:04:30.560 --> 00:04:35.500 from the book of Nehemiah. I haven't been focusing on that. I've been looking at the book, 00:04:35.980 --> 00:04:40.259 not just from the lens of leadership, but sort of a, I've just been trying to look at the book, 00:04:40.319 --> 00:04:45.639 actually make it more relevant for everybody or bring out the story for everybody. But even churches 00:04:45.639 --> 00:04:52.000 that haven't gone through the book of Nehemiah, this is often a chapter which is read. You might 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:56.000 not recognize it right now, but things come up to it later. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've heard that 00:04:56.000 --> 00:05:06.139 before. Now, but here's the thing. In many ways, this story 2,400 years ago is the seed for two movie 00:05:06.139 --> 00:05:15.479 genres that all of us are familiar with, westerns and bully movies. In other words, like for bully movies, 00:05:15.639 --> 00:05:22.060 mean girls and legally blonde, there's a lot to what happens in those types of movies with what's 00:05:22.060 --> 00:05:29.959 going on in this story, and westerns. And so you just think about it for a second. What's a very, 00:05:30.079 --> 00:05:36.279 very common scene in movies like the mean girls or legally blonde or in westerns? There will be a 00:05:36.279 --> 00:05:42.899 scene where you have the losers, usually the new kid in the movies, the bully movies, it's the new 00:05:42.899 --> 00:05:48.479 kid in the losers. And what happens is there's a time when the popular people and the powerful people, 00:05:48.599 --> 00:05:53.839 maybe in a high school or some in-office thing, and all of their people who cheer them on are all 00:05:53.839 --> 00:06:02.039 around mocking and humiliating the poor loser and the new person. It's a very, very common aspect of 00:06:02.039 --> 00:06:09.219 movies. And in westerns, those of you who like westerns, I have to confess I like westerns. I shouldn't 00:06:09.220 --> 00:06:14.820 be embarrassed about it. I love a good western. But what's a very, very common theme in westerns? Well, 00:06:15.120 --> 00:06:22.380 there's the simple homesteaders, and there's the baron who for mining rights or railway rights or 00:06:22.380 --> 00:06:28.340 cattle rights or whatever, he wants their land. And he's trying to do things to humiliate them and take 00:06:28.340 --> 00:06:35.780 over their land. And there's often a scene early on in the movie where the baron, almost always a man, 00:06:35.779 --> 00:06:44.000 man, and his thugs, his 10, 15, 20, 30 thugs, they're all around. And they have a poor homesteader, 00:06:44.079 --> 00:06:49.500 and they mock them and belittle them and threaten them. Right? Very, very common movie themes, 00:06:49.699 --> 00:06:55.759 actually. And that's exactly what's happening here. You have these Jewish people, a small number of them, 00:06:56.679 --> 00:07:01.799 scattered, laboring away. What we haven't seen, what we've skipped over, is at the end of chapter two, 00:07:01.800 --> 00:07:07.600 there's the message, Nehemiah says, I've actually come to make sure that we build the wall around 00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:13.240 Jerusalem so we can be protected, and so our culture can develop, and so we're not living all 00:07:13.240 --> 00:07:18.580 the time in fear from, in a sense, by guys like Sambalat and Tobiah. We can start to go on and live 00:07:18.580 --> 00:07:22.860 our lives, hold our heads high. It's a very, very important thing. We all know how important it is to 00:07:22.860 --> 00:07:28.639 be able to hold our heads high. And so he said, it's time to build. And the people say, yes, 00:07:28.639 --> 00:07:34.560 let's build. And then sort of, if you go back and you look at it, what has happened is very shortly 00:07:34.560 --> 00:07:41.519 after that, they actually start to build. And it's as if you piece it together, if you read the whole, 00:07:41.659 --> 00:07:46.360 like, the five or six chapters, and you look at it, that Nehemiah has come up with a very, 00:07:46.479 --> 00:07:50.839 very brilliant strategy. See, this is why it's talked about in leadership things. So first of all, 00:07:50.899 --> 00:07:57.779 the original wall encompassed the whole city area, which was like a valley, a hill, a valley, a hill, 00:07:57.779 --> 00:08:03.859 and a valley. And the original walls encompassed all of it. And this valley to this valley is the 00:08:03.859 --> 00:08:10.659 really big hill. And this valley to this valley is the smaller hill. And what Nehemiah has decided 00:08:10.659 --> 00:08:17.519 to do is not try to build the wall over at all, but to ignore all over here. And in good military 00:08:17.519 --> 00:08:23.219 fashion, the original wall actually was at sort of at the bottom of the valley. There's some water 00:08:23.220 --> 00:08:27.800 sources there and everything which they needed. And what he's just decided is he's just going to 00:08:27.800 --> 00:08:32.580 build a wall around this bit, around this hill, and he's going to make it at the top, which gives it, 00:08:32.700 --> 00:08:36.379 of course, for those of you with a military background, a military advantage. It captures 00:08:36.379 --> 00:08:40.180 the high ground. And so the first thing is he's not going to make all of the wall. He's just going 00:08:40.180 --> 00:08:44.680 to build a small part of the wall. The second thing is he decides is he's going to mobilize the 00:08:44.680 --> 00:08:49.920 people just to build the part of the wall which is in front of them. So in a sense, he's saying, 00:08:49.919 --> 00:08:54.259 okay, the Morides, they're going to build this part of the wall, the, you know, Victor and Alex, 00:08:54.360 --> 00:08:57.719 and they're going to get their friends, they're going to build this bit. And, you know, and Chris 00:08:57.719 --> 00:09:03.479 and Dana, this bit, and Ross and Shirley, this bit, and, you know, Andra and Deborah, this bit, 00:09:03.579 --> 00:09:08.599 and, you know, George and Louise, this bit, and Diane and her friends, this bit. And we're just going 00:09:08.599 --> 00:09:13.179 to do this, and we're all going to work at it at the same time. And the other thing about it is, 00:09:13.219 --> 00:09:19.779 it's a little bit like an early example of, you know, how military engineers in a battle situation 00:09:19.779 --> 00:09:23.720 they don't try to build something that's going to last for 100 years, they just build something 00:09:23.720 --> 00:09:27.899 that's going to be good enough for the battle. They throw up a temporary bridge, they put sandbags 00:09:27.899 --> 00:09:32.120 or something. And he said, we're just going to build something which is good enough. Good enough 00:09:32.120 --> 00:09:38.419 is good enough. And the other thing he decides to do is we're all going to work at it at the same time. 00:09:38.879 --> 00:09:42.579 We're not going to do something like saying, let's get all of everybody together, and we're just going 00:09:42.579 --> 00:09:46.620 to build this section, and we're going to build this section perfectly to the proper height, 00:09:46.620 --> 00:09:51.460 and then we'll build this section perfectly to the proper height, and then, no, no, no, no, no, no, 00:09:51.460 --> 00:09:55.700 he said, we're not going to do that. We're going to start all around. We're going to work at the same 00:09:55.700 --> 00:09:59.899 time. Even if the wall begins by only being this high, we're going to have a perfect circle. 00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:06.100 And then we're just going to do the best we possibly can. And so they're doing it really quick. 00:10:07.259 --> 00:10:13.000 Most of them are unskilled, and it's going to probably mean, you know, that, well, actually, 00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:16.120 I shouldn't say the George and Louise section, because Louise would know how to build something. 00:10:16.120 --> 00:10:19.679 So let's say it's just the George section, and it's looking pretty rickety. 00:10:22.200 --> 00:10:27.840 And, you know, and then there might be the Diane section, and Diane makes sure that it looks really, 00:10:27.960 --> 00:10:34.120 really good, right? And so it's all a bit of a mishmash all around, and that's how they're doing 00:10:34.120 --> 00:10:37.759 it, and they're doing it really quick. That's what's just happened before this. And these guys, 00:10:37.879 --> 00:10:43.460 it's happening so quick that we're going to discover later on the whole wall building process 00:10:43.460 --> 00:10:49.019 is done in 52 days. That's the other part of this thing. We're going to do this like a blitz 00:10:49.019 --> 00:10:53.879 rig. Before our enemies start to even realize what's going on, we're going to be well into 00:10:53.879 --> 00:10:58.519 the process, and before they can really do much, we're going to finish it. It's like a blitz rig. 00:10:59.080 --> 00:11:04.440 And that's his strategy, which we find out if we read, you know, chapter two and three and four 00:11:04.440 --> 00:11:09.580 and five and six, and we piece the little pieces together. So Sanballat and his guys, they've come 00:11:09.580 --> 00:11:14.360 around, and now it's just like legally blonde or mean girls. It's just like a Western. They're there 00:11:14.360 --> 00:11:23.700 with their army, and with all these big buffoons chuckling away, they make fun. They say, look at 00:11:23.700 --> 00:11:29.680 these builders. They're feeble. Their mind is feeble. Their body is feeble. They're just, they're feeble, 00:11:29.720 --> 00:11:33.759 and they're making fun of them. And one of the things they say, well, they sacrifice. What they're 00:11:33.759 --> 00:11:38.200 actually saying there is they're mocking. They say, no, what are you guys going to do? You're going to pray the 00:11:38.200 --> 00:11:43.860 wall up? As if that's going to happen. You're going to pray the wall up? Like, that doesn't work. 00:11:44.180 --> 00:11:49.660 Pray all you want. The wall doesn't go up. They're just, they make fun, and they make fun, and they make 00:11:49.660 --> 00:11:56.540 fun, and they make fun, and they make fun, and they make fun. And so what does Nehemiah do? 00:11:58.900 --> 00:12:06.920 He's mad. He's probably a little bit humiliated. And as the story goes on, we're going to see that, 00:12:06.919 --> 00:12:15.039 in fact, the enemies have some success in having their mocking get in the heads of the Jewish people. 00:12:15.959 --> 00:12:22.559 It's going to become clearer a little bit later. So what does Nehemiah do? Well, let's look at the 00:12:22.559 --> 00:12:29.500 next scene. And here it is, and it's going to be a bit of a shocking title, but the scene is called 00:12:29.500 --> 00:12:38.679 Praying for the Ruin and Damnation of Enemies. What? That's in the Bible? Praying for the Ruin 00:12:38.679 --> 00:12:45.320 and Damnation of the Enemies. Verses 4 and 5. Listen to, he prays. Listen to how he prays. 00:12:45.320 --> 00:12:55.920 Hear, O our God. So he's saying to God, God, are you hearing this? I want you to hear it. I want you 00:12:55.920 --> 00:13:01.460 to make, Lord, I want, I know you hear my prayer. I think you do. I want to make sure you don't just 00:13:01.460 --> 00:13:11.160 hear my prayer, but you hear what all these guys are saying. And for we are despised. And now he says, 00:13:11.159 --> 00:13:22.079 turn back their taunt on their own heads and give them up to be plundered in a land where they are 00:13:22.079 --> 00:13:33.899 captives. In a sense, this prayer is a perfect karma prayer. And the modern form of karma in the West 00:13:33.899 --> 00:13:40.939 is what goes around comes around. And he's praying, Lord, it's time for what's going around to come 00:13:40.940 --> 00:13:48.120 around. So, Lord, I want them to be defeated. I want them to be invaded. I want them to be defeated. 00:13:48.860 --> 00:13:55.060 I want them to be taken captive. I want them to be taken to a foreign land. And, Lord, I hope that 00:13:55.060 --> 00:13:58.560 when they go to that foreign land and they start to build something, that then they're plundered. 00:13:58.559 --> 00:14:12.259 That's what he's praying. And then it gets, it gets, it continues. Verse five, do not cover their guilt. 00:14:12.639 --> 00:14:20.379 Now, cover their guilt is, it's a literal translation and it's a very, very good, but basically what it 00:14:20.379 --> 00:14:24.419 means is forgiveness. That's why if you look at some modern, more modern versions of the Bible, 00:14:24.419 --> 00:14:29.799 they'll say, don't forgive them. And that's what it means. Do not cover their guilt. Don't forgive 00:14:29.799 --> 00:14:38.439 them, Lord. Don't forgive them. And let not their sin be blotted out from your sight. In other words, 00:14:38.959 --> 00:14:47.639 never forget it. Ever. Never forgive them. Always remember what they've done. Never forgive them, 00:14:47.639 --> 00:14:54.819 God. That's what he's praying. For they have provoked you to anger in the presence of the builders. 00:14:57.519 --> 00:15:02.179 Now, some of you might say, well, I didn't know that was in the Bible. 00:15:03.120 --> 00:15:08.279 George, like, are we supposed to go and do likewise? Like, is this teaching us how to pray? 00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:16.220 Well, we're going to come to it at the end of the story. We're going to return to it because it's 00:15:16.220 --> 00:15:23.379 something that we need to think about a little bit. So what do you do? How can a story continue 00:15:23.379 --> 00:15:29.899 after a prayer like that? Well, here's what happens. Nehemiah is praying this, and it might 00:15:29.899 --> 00:15:36.660 very well be that it's like a regular prayer of his. And we'll get to get a bit of a better sense 00:15:36.660 --> 00:15:42.740 of why he's even praying like this, because the next scene is building while being encircled by enemies. 00:15:42.740 --> 00:15:49.580 Building while being encircled by enemies. Verses 6 to 9. Here's how it goes. 00:15:50.259 --> 00:15:54.639 So we built the wall. We continue to build the wall. They're yelling. They're insulting us. 00:15:55.680 --> 00:16:02.279 They're threatening by their just very posture, the stance of their legs, the thrust of their chest. 00:16:02.539 --> 00:16:07.720 They're threatening us. But we continue to build the wall. And all the wall was joined together 00:16:07.720 --> 00:16:13.180 to half of its height for the people who had a mind to work. So this next little bit is happening 00:16:13.180 --> 00:16:17.620 when they're about halfway through the wall rebuilding process. And just a bit of a heads up, 00:16:17.680 --> 00:16:21.899 we're going to see that in chapter 5 and chapter 6, there's other things going on in the community 00:16:21.899 --> 00:16:26.660 while the wall is being built that Nehemiah is also having to deal with. But right now, he's just 00:16:26.660 --> 00:16:30.600 talking about this one sort of aspect of it. But notice what happens, verse 7. 00:16:30.600 --> 00:16:38.279 But when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashtodites heard that the 00:16:38.279 --> 00:16:42.560 repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward and that the breaches were beginning 00:16:42.560 --> 00:16:48.600 to be closed, they were very angry. And they all plotted together to come and fight against 00:16:48.600 --> 00:16:55.340 Jerusalem and to cause confusion in it. And we prayed to her God and set a guard as protection 00:16:55.340 --> 00:16:58.340 against them day and night. 00:17:05.519 --> 00:17:11.480 So what's happened is the story has unveiled enemies a little bit as it goes along. If you 00:17:11.480 --> 00:17:15.200 go back and you read from chapter 1 to here, you'll see that new enemies keep being unveiled. 00:17:16.200 --> 00:17:20.880 And it's not obvious to us because we're not aware of the geography, but if you get a Bible 00:17:20.880 --> 00:17:25.720 atlas or some other help, what you'll discover is that now there's the Jewish people right 00:17:25.720 --> 00:17:31.100 here. And originally, there were people up here and people over here who were their enemies. 00:17:31.480 --> 00:17:35.020 And then they added people over here who were their enemies. And now they've added people 00:17:35.020 --> 00:17:38.400 here who are their enemies. So they're completely and utterly circled, encircled. 00:17:39.800 --> 00:17:45.800 It would be, to use like a war analogy, it would be as if, I'm trying to remember this, 00:17:45.860 --> 00:17:50.660 and some of you can correct me after the word. There was a battle in the Second World War where 00:17:50.660 --> 00:17:56.500 the Allies made a big advance. And then there was a counterattack by the Germans. And there 00:17:56.500 --> 00:18:02.200 was a group of Americans left encircled by the Germans. And they sent paratroopers in. It's 00:18:02.200 --> 00:18:07.460 very powerfully portrayed in the series Band of Brothers. And you have these people fighting 00:18:07.460 --> 00:18:13.120 completely surrounded and outgunned by the Nazis all around. And that's the situation which 00:18:13.119 --> 00:18:24.759 is being portrayed here in the situation. And they're just talking destruction. And you can see, 00:18:24.859 --> 00:18:30.419 right, this is exactly like what happens in bully movies. It's exactly what happens in Westerns. 00:18:30.879 --> 00:18:37.379 In bully movies, there's always a scene where people break out from the encircled crowd and they do 00:18:37.380 --> 00:18:45.080 something to further humiliate and intimidate the uncool kids and the new kid. And in Westerns, 00:18:45.080 --> 00:18:50.160 there's always a scene where some of the goons and some of the thugs come and they burn out some 00:18:50.160 --> 00:18:55.680 homesteaders to cause even greater confusion and desire to sell. It's a very, very common theme. 00:18:55.720 --> 00:19:02.100 And that's what's going on here in the book. And it's very interesting that Nehemiah, 00:19:02.099 --> 00:19:08.240 in verse 9, you look at again, we prayed toward God and set a guard as protection against them day 00:19:08.240 --> 00:19:13.959 and night. And I just want to mention this. It's part of a biblical pattern that you pray and do, 00:19:14.679 --> 00:19:19.059 and you do and pray. It's not a matter that you just pray, and if you pray, you don't have to do 00:19:19.059 --> 00:19:24.000 anything, or that if you just do things, you don't have to pray. No, the biblical model is you pray and 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:30.980 you do, and you do and you pray. And that's what you see here in the story. Actually, I missed an 00:19:30.980 --> 00:19:35.759 earlier point. If you could just put this up, Claire, I sort of skipped back to my first point. 00:19:37.620 --> 00:19:41.920 This is relevant for this whole section. You know, the things that they mock them about building the 00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:50.539 wall, it turns out the mockers are all wrong. God does want the wall built. And this is an important 00:19:50.539 --> 00:19:57.460 thing for us, because we can allow enemies to get into our head. And sometimes maybe somebody doesn't 00:19:57.460 --> 00:20:00.559 like us, they're our enemy, because we've done something wrong to them, and that's going to get 00:20:00.559 --> 00:20:06.279 to forgiveness. But sometimes they just don't like us. They hate us. They want to see us fail and get 00:20:06.279 --> 00:20:12.100 destroyed. And yet we know that we're doing what God would have us do. The Lord's quiet yes 00:20:12.100 --> 00:20:18.799 always trumps the world's loud no. The world's quiet yes always trumps the world's loud no. 00:20:18.799 --> 00:20:29.779 Anyway, back to our story. So you pray and you do in the biblical way. Is this like now that they've 00:20:29.779 --> 00:20:34.139 prayed, is God going to start to do something that's going to help them? Well, no, actually, 00:20:34.200 --> 00:20:41.899 it's going to get even worse before anything happens which is better. The next scene is called 00:20:41.900 --> 00:20:49.780 When the enemies are in your head. When enemies are in your head. Verses 10 to 12. Look at what 00:20:49.780 --> 00:20:56.880 happens. And the first is in verse 10. In Judah it was said, the strength of those who bear the 00:20:56.880 --> 00:21:03.920 burdens is failing. There is too much rubble. By ourselves we will not be able to rebuild the wall. 00:21:04.720 --> 00:21:10.240 And in the original Hebrew, it's written in a rhythmic fashion, so that it's like a little bit like a 00:21:10.240 --> 00:21:15.980 child's song. You know, sticks and stones may make my bones, but you know, names will never hurt me. 00:21:16.019 --> 00:21:20.140 Or some other little type of a, you know, a ditty like that that people say with a bit of a sing-song 00:21:20.140 --> 00:21:26.140 voice. In Hebrew, this is written in a sing-song manner. And it's as if this is what there's now 00:21:26.140 --> 00:21:31.120 starting to go on in their head. The enemies are in their head. And so the enemies are in their head. 00:21:31.120 --> 00:21:35.220 And they don't want to come out and say, well, we're really afraid of them. So instead, what happens 00:21:35.220 --> 00:21:41.539 is their confidence is completely and utterly sapped. And now they're thinking to themselves, 00:21:41.660 --> 00:21:47.720 I'm not strong enough to bear the burden. This isn't going to work. It's going to fail. There's 00:21:47.720 --> 00:21:55.799 too much rubble. We just can't do it by ourselves. And then in verse 11, you see that the enemies 00:21:55.799 --> 00:22:02.039 have a sense that the Jewish people, that they're getting in their head. And so this doesn't make 00:22:02.039 --> 00:22:05.859 them say, okay, okay, let's just cool it. We don't have to be so mean. No, no, no. What happens 00:22:05.859 --> 00:22:12.000 with people like that when they're getting in your head? They get meaner. They get meaner. That's what 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:16.960 happens. They get even more aggressive and mean. And that's what you see in verse 11. What they're 00:22:16.960 --> 00:22:21.039 saying, that the Jewish builders are thinking, I don't think we're going to be able to do this. I 00:22:21.039 --> 00:22:28.559 think it's going to be a failure. And now the enemies are saying, they will not know or see 00:22:28.559 --> 00:22:41.039 till we come among them and kill them and stop the work. Whoa. And the neighbors who haven't been 00:22:41.039 --> 00:22:48.299 building, but are part of the community. And it's a little bit, we, in a sense, in a big city like 00:22:48.299 --> 00:22:56.139 this where things are impersonal, we pick up when the culture doesn't like something. But any of you 00:22:56.140 --> 00:23:00.300 who've lived in small towns, one of the things which was really hard for me when I was a minister 00:23:00.300 --> 00:23:06.300 in a small town, it took me, because I was from Montreal originally, and then from Ottawa, and I'd 00:23:06.300 --> 00:23:13.080 never lived in a small town. And I didn't realize that if we made a decision in council, all of the 00:23:13.080 --> 00:23:18.120 community talked about it. Like, I didn't realize that. I didn't realize that's how small towns worked. 00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:25.000 It didn't dawn on me in a million years that people who never came to our church would talk about what 00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:31.400 we were doing and influence the decisions. Like, but that's what's going on here. And what they're 00:23:31.400 --> 00:23:36.799 saying in the neighborhood is this, verse 12, the Jews who lived near them came from all directions 00:23:36.799 --> 00:23:41.900 and said to us 10 times, you must return to us. Like, give up, get out. 00:23:41.900 --> 00:23:56.420 Now, this next scene, I'm using the Lord of the Rings analogy from the movie. And the next scene is 00:23:56.420 --> 00:24:06.500 called an Aragorn moment. Nehemiah has a moment as if he's Aragorn, not with a fancy sword and all of 00:24:06.500 --> 00:24:14.920 that. But see what happens in scene 5, verses 13 to 14. So this is all going on. The enemies are in 00:24:14.920 --> 00:24:20.180 their head. So what does Nehemiah do? Verse 13. So in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, 00:24:20.700 --> 00:24:26.420 in open places. So in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, the spots where the walls may be 00:24:26.420 --> 00:24:31.059 only this high, not this high, where the wall is just never going to be very high for whatever 00:24:31.059 --> 00:24:39.359 building reasons. And in the open places, I stationed the people by their clans, by their 00:24:39.359 --> 00:24:47.179 family groupings, with their swords, their spears, and their bows. And I looked around. I looked and I 00:24:47.179 --> 00:24:52.399 rose and said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people, here's that moment. 00:24:53.000 --> 00:24:57.539 What I'm thinking of is there's this wonderful scene. If you haven't seen it, I guess it's a bit of a 00:24:57.539 --> 00:25:08.639 spoiler. But it's in the third movie. And they need to draw the attention of Sauron away from what 00:25:08.639 --> 00:25:15.420 Frodo's doing. So you remember the same, they all go to attack Mordor. There's just a tiny number of 00:25:15.420 --> 00:25:21.240 them. And you remember that scene where the gates open and there's thousands and thousands and tens of 00:25:21.240 --> 00:25:26.680 thousands of people and they completely start to surround Aragorn. And there's this very powerful 00:25:26.680 --> 00:25:34.240 scene where he's on his horse and he says, there will come a day when we will all die and our hands 00:25:34.240 --> 00:25:40.920 will be weak, et cetera, et cetera. But this is not that day. He rallies them as all they're being 00:25:40.920 --> 00:25:47.080 completely and utterly surrounded. And this is Nehemiah's rallying cry. He says, do not be afraid 00:25:47.080 --> 00:25:54.160 of them. Remember the Lord who is great and awesome and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, 00:25:54.160 --> 00:26:01.259 your wives, and your homes. Now I'm going to pause and I'm going to do something. If it was just you 00:26:01.259 --> 00:26:06.759 folks, I don't think I'd have to worry about it. But this is online and I might get pushback. 00:26:08.060 --> 00:26:12.420 But it's the right thing to say. And I want to say something to the men who are here. 00:26:12.420 --> 00:26:25.920 This story reveals a biblical pattern. So men, men, you are called to be prepared to fight. 00:26:27.220 --> 00:26:35.060 You are called to be ready and willing to defend and to fight. That is your calling as men. 00:26:35.059 --> 00:26:41.559 Now I'm not saying you should all go out and take martial arts training, buy pistols and learn. 00:26:41.700 --> 00:26:45.220 I'm not saying that. We're not in a culture where that has to happen in that type of physical way. 00:26:45.859 --> 00:26:51.059 And this is made fun of in our culture. And I should probably try to qualify with all sorts of 00:26:51.059 --> 00:26:55.799 quotas. But I'm not going to do it. This is a very consistent biblical message. Men, 00:26:56.559 --> 00:27:01.639 you and I are called that when the time comes, we are willing to defend. If the boat's sinking, 00:27:01.640 --> 00:27:08.360 we put women and children into the life rafts and are willing to die ourselves. If the time of 00:27:08.360 --> 00:27:16.340 attack comes, we're willing to defend, lay down our lives to defend. And don't let the enemies in 00:27:16.340 --> 00:27:22.080 our culture who want to deny these truths get in your head. That's who you are as men. 00:27:22.079 --> 00:27:34.319 That's who you are. That's who I am. Pray that if that time comes, I would be willing to lay down my 00:27:34.319 --> 00:27:47.779 life or to stand my ground to protect and defend. So what happens? Do they fight? Well, let's look at the 00:27:47.779 --> 00:27:54.960 next scene. And if you're just listening to this in a podcast form down the road, there's a question 00:27:54.960 --> 00:28:01.639 mark at the end of this title for scene six, which is disarming, disarming to work, question mark. 00:28:01.779 --> 00:28:08.740 And it's verse 15. And what you see is this. When our enemies heard that it was known to us and that 00:28:08.740 --> 00:28:15.619 God had frustrated their plan, we all returned to the wall, each to his work. And what we're going to 00:28:15.619 --> 00:28:19.979 see is now there's a question. Do they lay down their arms, they put it away and they get back to 00:28:19.979 --> 00:28:25.959 working? No. Actually, that's what you're going to see in the very, very next section. And you can 00:28:25.959 --> 00:28:32.379 see, by the way, in all of this, why if you wanted to do some leadership lessons about prayer, if you 00:28:32.379 --> 00:28:38.619 wanted to do leadership lessons about, you know, re-analyzing the task and coming up with a different 00:28:38.619 --> 00:28:43.779 plan, if you wanted to see something about how to manage threats and to work and be creative, you can 00:28:43.779 --> 00:28:49.299 see how you could get lessons out of all of this. And this is one of those parts that if you haven't 00:28:49.299 --> 00:28:52.879 been familiar with it up to now, you go, oh yeah, yeah, that's where that comes from in the Bible. 00:28:53.420 --> 00:29:00.200 What we see is this. The next scene, scene seven, is called the hammer, the sword, and the trumpet. 00:29:01.160 --> 00:29:05.940 The hammer or the chisel, the sword, and the trumpet. And here's how it goes. 00:29:05.940 --> 00:29:14.360 From that day on, half of my servants worked on construction and half held the spears, shields, 00:29:14.779 --> 00:29:24.539 bows, and coats of mail. They don't disarm. They work at a slower pace, but maintain their defenses. 00:29:25.820 --> 00:29:30.539 And the leader stood behind the whole house of Judah, who were building on the wall. Those who 00:29:30.539 --> 00:29:36.619 carried burdens were loaded in such a way that each labored on the work with one hand and held his 00:29:36.619 --> 00:29:43.139 weapon with the other. So if they were carrying burdens, they had their sword strapped to their 00:29:43.139 --> 00:29:48.420 side as they carried the burdens. If they were working on the side with a chisel or a hammer, 00:29:48.579 --> 00:29:52.980 they'd have their sword right beside them at all times, like immediately present. 00:29:54.379 --> 00:29:58.420 Eighteen, and each of the builders had a sword strapped to the side while he built. The man who 00:29:58.420 --> 00:30:03.620 sounded the trumpet was beside me. And I said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of 00:30:03.620 --> 00:30:08.980 the people, the work is great and widely spread, and we are separated on the wall from one another. 00:30:09.940 --> 00:30:14.960 In the place where you hear the sound of the trumpet rally to us there, our God will fight for us. 00:30:15.300 --> 00:30:19.300 In other words, if the attack comes from the enemies and we're too spread out to mount a defense, 00:30:20.500 --> 00:30:26.720 I know we have at least one military guy here. Classic military strategy, we'll all gather in one spot, 00:30:26.720 --> 00:30:33.160 we'll form a defensive perimeter, and we'll fight. Come where the trumpet sounds. Just run to where 00:30:33.160 --> 00:30:40.220 the trumpet's blowing, and we'll know. And so we labored at the work, and half of them held the 00:30:40.220 --> 00:30:44.500 spears from the break of dawn until the stars came out. I also said to the people at that time, 00:30:45.079 --> 00:30:48.819 and then it goes on a little bit about some other precautions which they took. 00:30:48.819 --> 00:30:58.980 So, what about that prayer? What about that prayer? And how does that fit in with the whole story? 00:31:00.220 --> 00:31:04.819 You know, sometimes you hear, like I gave an example today of where I had sort of a timely word 00:31:04.819 --> 00:31:11.419 to my friends, but a lot of times I don't. I mean, one of the things I want to encourage you is to bear 00:31:11.419 --> 00:31:16.899 witness to Jesus, to your friends, and your places of work. And if they throw something at you, 00:31:16.900 --> 00:31:22.340 raise an objection, and you just go, but it's not the end of the world. That's how you start to figure 00:31:22.340 --> 00:31:28.440 out how to answer questions, is by taking that step, and then, you know, later on you'll think about it. 00:31:28.960 --> 00:31:34.540 One of the things I wish I had said sometimes to my Jewish friends, because a lot of my Jewish friends, 00:31:35.140 --> 00:31:40.700 I can tell that they believe that Jewish people have the Old Testament, they call it the Tanakh, 00:31:40.700 --> 00:31:45.259 and Christians have the New Testament, but Christians don't believe the Tanakh is theirs, 00:31:45.860 --> 00:31:50.620 is Christians. They just, you know, Christians have the New Testament, Jewish people have the Tanakh, 00:31:50.759 --> 00:31:55.420 and I wish I, next time I get a chance, I think I'm going to try to say to them, you know, listen, 00:31:55.500 --> 00:32:01.120 you need to understand that Christians believe that God, in a sense, wrote one book with two chapters, 00:32:01.559 --> 00:32:07.799 and the chapter has sub-chapters, and that first chapter is what you call the Tanakh. We call it the 00:32:07.799 --> 00:32:13.059 Old Testament, or maybe another way to put it would be chapter one, and that he also wrote a second 00:32:13.059 --> 00:32:18.039 chapter, that to finish the book, he wrote a second chapter. There's sub-chapters within it, 00:32:18.339 --> 00:32:23.079 and that's what we call the New Testament, and just like in any book, you can't just read chapter one 00:32:23.079 --> 00:32:28.339 and think you understand the whole book if there's still chapter two, and if you read a book and you 00:32:28.339 --> 00:32:31.819 read chapter two, but you haven't read chapter one, you're never going to really understand the book. 00:32:31.819 --> 00:32:37.539 You need to read both books to understand, you need to read both chapters to understand the book, 00:32:37.799 --> 00:32:41.899 and so when you see this prayer here, 00:32:43.059 --> 00:32:52.680 you're seeing a very, very good prayer written, so to speak, in chapter one. Now, what you learn 00:32:52.680 --> 00:33:00.259 from reading chapter two, as well as chapter one, is that at the end of the day, the whole book has 00:33:00.259 --> 00:33:10.180 only one hero, and that one hero is Jesus. If you go back and you look at chapter one and chapter two, 00:33:10.660 --> 00:33:14.440 you'll have people like Peter, and you'll have people like Paul in chapter two, and you have 00:33:14.440 --> 00:33:22.000 people like David, and Abraham, and Moses, and Nehemiah in chapter one, and what you look at, and how the 00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:28.339 Bible shows that there's only one true hero is that in both chapter one and chapter two, all of the 00:33:28.339 --> 00:33:34.839 heroes, and they're sort of lesser heroes or sub-heroes, there's all some things about them which is flawed, 00:33:35.279 --> 00:33:44.460 which they sin in, in all of their cases, without exception. There's only one true hero, the true and 00:33:44.460 --> 00:33:53.480 greater hero, and all of these lesser heroes, the heroes who sin, who don't, well, they're just not the full 00:33:53.480 --> 00:33:58.920 hero. They're really pointing the way towards that time when we come to realize and recognize the true and 00:33:58.920 --> 00:34:06.460 greater hero, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. So how does this work out for Nehemiah? Well, it works out like this. 00:34:06.460 --> 00:34:18.639 Nehemiah prays, Father, never forgive them. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever forgive them. 00:34:20.240 --> 00:34:28.539 What does Jesus pray on the cross? Also surrounded by his enemies, but now hung by his enemies on a cross 00:34:28.539 --> 00:34:44.259 to die. He says, Father, forgive them. Father, forgive them. So a couple of things. So here's the first thing. If you 00:34:44.259 --> 00:34:50.500 could put up the next point. There's two things that we can learn. One thing here that we can learn right off the 00:34:50.500 --> 00:34:57.440 bat about Nehemiah's prayer is that we are to pray honestly and to pour out your heart to the Lord. Pray 00:34:57.440 --> 00:35:03.860 honestly. Pour out your heart to the Lord. See, the fact of the matter is, if I hate people, if I 00:35:03.860 --> 00:35:10.400 don't forgive them and don't want to forgive them and never want to forgive them, and I'm talking to 00:35:10.400 --> 00:35:18.019 Almighty God, he already knows that's what I think. Like, he already knows that. So why should I try to 00:35:18.019 --> 00:35:26.280 pretend that I'm pious? Like, that's only play-acting. Like, if I'm play-acting with my wife, my wife doesn't, 00:35:26.280 --> 00:35:31.440 she wants me to be me. I mean, she also wants me to keep repenting of the things about me that are bad. 00:35:31.740 --> 00:35:38.780 That's a whole other topic of conversation. But she wants me to be me. And so, you know, Nehemiah is 00:35:38.780 --> 00:35:47.480 mad. He's angry. He's humiliated. And he's praying for justice. He's praying for justice. And his prayers 00:35:47.480 --> 00:35:54.400 reveal a misunderstanding about forgiveness. And it's a misunderstanding that you have hints of the 00:35:54.400 --> 00:36:00.200 solution in the Old Testament, but it's not made clear until you come to the New Testament. Yet, you 00:36:00.200 --> 00:36:07.300 constantly have this riddle posed to you about how God's chosen people, it just can't be a case of 00:36:07.300 --> 00:36:13.579 favoritism or something like that. There must be something else that doesn't make it just favoritism. If you 00:36:13.579 --> 00:36:20.320 could put up the next point, that would be very helpful. Forgiveness does not involve injustice, 00:36:20.320 --> 00:36:39.800 exoneration, forgetting, minimizing, or favoritism. You see, that's how we think of this as forgiveness. 00:36:39.800 --> 00:36:48.860 How do we think of forgiveness? Well, we think of forgiveness as we try to look at what's going on, 00:36:48.920 --> 00:36:53.039 and we try to say, okay, well, it's not really as bad as that. And we try to come up with excuses, 00:36:53.260 --> 00:36:57.039 maybe. That's what people are telling us, or that's what we think we have to do to forgive. We have to 00:36:57.039 --> 00:37:02.740 try to come up with some types of excuses to make it look like it's not quite as bad. We try to give 00:37:02.740 --> 00:37:08.440 extenuating circumstances, where people tell us that forgiveness is just forget that it happened and 00:37:08.440 --> 00:37:13.860 just move on, where people try to have it about being favoritism. Like I know of one family, 00:37:14.700 --> 00:37:22.840 where the father, in fact, the man had been sexually abusing nieces and nephews and others, 00:37:23.220 --> 00:37:30.840 and when it comes out, the whole family, the larger extended family, tells the victims to forget about 00:37:30.840 --> 00:37:37.579 it and also tries to minimize it. It really wasn't that bad, and also tries to say something about 00:37:37.579 --> 00:37:43.519 favoritism. Well, this is your uncle. This is this person, and he's suffered enough, and think of 00:37:43.519 --> 00:37:47.920 the other person. And because of these extenuating circumstances and because of the role, you need 00:37:47.920 --> 00:38:01.139 to show favor to them. And that's what forgiveness means. You forget it. You minimize it. You give people 00:38:01.139 --> 00:38:11.759 a pass because of who they are. Excuse me. You exonerate them. And in a sense, what happens with how we 00:38:11.759 --> 00:38:19.579 normally counsel people to forgive is we want to perpetuate injustice. If you put up the next point, 00:38:19.579 --> 00:38:31.059 forgiveness deals with inexcusable wrongdoing. Forgiveness deals with inexcusable wrongdoing. 00:38:31.559 --> 00:38:37.199 See, that's the problem. When people say they can't forgive, partially they just reject it. They say, 00:38:37.299 --> 00:38:42.940 you think I should let that person off and forgive them just because they're my uncle or just because 00:38:42.940 --> 00:38:49.740 they're my grandfather. Like, how dare you say that? Or you try to put away and put away and make it not 00:38:49.740 --> 00:38:54.900 look as bad. And then you come to that part that's just, you can't make that part of what's happened to you 00:38:54.900 --> 00:39:00.960 just look minimal. And then you say, how can I forgive them? Because you've come to that which is inexcusable. 00:39:00.960 --> 00:39:17.440 And then you come to a brick wall. And there's nowhere else to go. But you see, you come to Jesus. 00:39:18.639 --> 00:39:23.360 And it's only really in Jesus that the strands of the teaching of forgiveness in the Old Testament 00:39:23.360 --> 00:39:27.920 and the riddles at the heart of grace are made clear. 00:39:29.880 --> 00:39:33.700 That when Jesus dies on the cross, because he's not just 00:39:33.700 --> 00:39:40.579 Jesus, the son of Mary and the adopted son of Joseph, he's also God, the son of God. 00:39:42.300 --> 00:39:46.140 Well, first of all, I don't have to give excuses to him. He already knows 00:39:46.140 --> 00:39:50.160 all of the extenuating circumstances for the wrong that I've done. 00:39:50.159 --> 00:39:57.179 I never have to make excuses to him. Some of my excuses would just make him laugh because it's 00:39:57.179 --> 00:40:02.679 stupid. But he knows the real excuses. If there really are excuses, he knows them better than I do. 00:40:03.579 --> 00:40:08.059 But after you get rid of all of the excuses, there's what's left is what I've done, which is 00:40:08.059 --> 00:40:12.279 I failed to do what I should or I've done what I shouldn't. And I've just done it. 00:40:12.920 --> 00:40:19.199 I've done it. And it's inexcusable. And it's wrong. And that's what he forgives. 00:40:20.159 --> 00:40:27.000 And we see in forgiveness, at the heart of forgiveness, 00:40:27.639 --> 00:40:29.839 is that the person who's wronged. 00:40:31.379 --> 00:40:35.759 Now, this is where it's going to be obviously different when it comes to us. 00:40:35.899 --> 00:40:40.219 Because you see, in a sense, what happens with Jesus done on the cross first, there's two things. 00:40:40.219 --> 00:40:45.699 You see, justice is done. Justice is done. 00:40:47.939 --> 00:40:53.359 The punishment that I deserve for my inexcusable wrong that would unmake me falls on him. 00:40:54.359 --> 00:40:56.179 He offers to be my substitute. 00:40:57.059 --> 00:41:01.359 Because the judgment for the inexcusable wrong that I have done would unmake me. 00:41:01.360 --> 00:41:07.400 And he wants to save me. 00:41:09.200 --> 00:41:11.180 So he takes that punishment. 00:41:11.680 --> 00:41:12.840 And justice is done. 00:41:13.500 --> 00:41:14.780 It's not minimized. 00:41:16.160 --> 00:41:18.460 He bears the full brunt of the punishment. 00:41:19.539 --> 00:41:22.480 But forgiveness goes beyond justice. 00:41:22.480 --> 00:41:25.920 Not by undermining justice, but by going beyond it. 00:41:27.240 --> 00:41:31.659 And what goes on beyond it, and we can see it here with the justice, 00:41:31.860 --> 00:41:34.079 is that he does all of this to redeem me. 00:41:34.240 --> 00:41:39.219 And so, because I can never repay, I can never amend my life, I can never fix it, 00:41:39.340 --> 00:41:41.019 he bears the cost of it. 00:41:41.480 --> 00:41:43.820 He swallows the cost of it himself. 00:41:43.820 --> 00:41:49.059 He swallows the cost. 00:41:50.900 --> 00:41:55.539 See, that is why, if you put up the next point, to be forgiven is life-giving. 00:41:57.059 --> 00:42:02.280 And what we'll see in a moment is to forgive is also life-giving. 00:42:04.380 --> 00:42:13.700 Now, what this means, hopefully I'm going to be clear about this, 00:42:14.580 --> 00:42:15.860 I pray that I have clarity. 00:42:17.940 --> 00:42:21.580 Let's use the example of if somebody was to murder one of my children. 00:42:24.980 --> 00:42:29.000 It would be completely valid, and this is what we learned from Nehemiah's prayer, 00:42:29.180 --> 00:42:32.460 it would be completely valid for me to pray that justice is done. 00:42:33.100 --> 00:42:39.539 To pray that the prosecutor doesn't just decide because he or she wants to have a bit of an easier life 00:42:39.539 --> 00:42:41.059 and that the case is going to be tricky, 00:42:41.219 --> 00:42:48.019 to downgrade clear premeditated murder into some type of involuntary manslaughter. 00:42:48.380 --> 00:42:54.219 That it's valid that I pray that the prosecutors and the judges don't back down, 00:42:54.300 --> 00:42:56.860 they don't lose heart, that true justice is done, 00:42:56.860 --> 00:43:02.840 and that the person experiences a just punishment for what they've done, 00:43:03.800 --> 00:43:08.500 knowing that that's never going to be complete or adequate for the pain and the true wrong, 00:43:08.599 --> 00:43:10.200 the depth of the wrong that they've done. 00:43:10.199 --> 00:43:13.980 But at the same time, it's valid that I pray to forgive them. 00:43:15.419 --> 00:43:16.919 I pray to forgive them. 00:43:17.980 --> 00:43:19.819 And if I'm going to pray to forgive them, 00:43:19.879 --> 00:43:23.059 it means some of that other stuff that I think that should be done to them, 00:43:23.179 --> 00:43:24.619 like depending on how they've been murdered, 00:43:24.799 --> 00:43:27.819 that that same type of murdering happened to them, 00:43:27.919 --> 00:43:31.079 that if there was anything in terms of humiliation, 00:43:31.279 --> 00:43:34.099 there was any type of torture, any type of all of that, 00:43:34.179 --> 00:43:35.659 that they experienced that. 00:43:35.659 --> 00:43:37.500 I want them to experience that. 00:43:37.579 --> 00:43:39.460 I want them to experience that. 00:43:39.719 --> 00:43:41.839 And our civil society will never give that. 00:43:43.759 --> 00:43:46.619 So there's still things in there that are unsatisfied. 00:43:49.619 --> 00:43:51.719 But you see, what happens if you don't forgive? 00:43:54.719 --> 00:43:59.699 Even after they go to jail and they go on in their life and all of that type of thing, 00:43:59.759 --> 00:44:04.199 and I'm having to deal or you're having to deal every day with the deep wrong that's been done, 00:44:05.659 --> 00:44:12.480 and I become bitter and I become angry and I become fixated and I become consumed by it 00:44:12.480 --> 00:44:15.759 and I can't forget it and I look at people and I get mad. 00:44:17.420 --> 00:44:20.739 And if I don't forgive, you see, what happens? 00:44:20.960 --> 00:44:25.079 I'm getting, you know, the person is going on with their life. 00:44:25.339 --> 00:44:26.739 They might not even feel guilty. 00:44:27.179 --> 00:44:29.159 And I get consumed by it. 00:44:30.179 --> 00:44:31.980 You know, I've used the analogy before. 00:44:31.980 --> 00:44:39.059 What happens to me is that it's as if every day I eat lots and lots and lots and lots of ex-lax, 00:44:39.420 --> 00:44:41.760 hoping that that person gets diarrhea. 00:44:43.340 --> 00:44:44.639 But it doesn't happen. 00:44:45.539 --> 00:44:47.679 I just get the runs. 00:44:48.800 --> 00:44:50.639 And my life gets bent out of shape. 00:44:50.639 --> 00:44:56.239 And there's a mystery to forgiveness where you, in a sense, absorb into yourself. 00:44:56.879 --> 00:45:02.079 You're going to realize and accept the truth that you can't do all of these things, 00:45:02.179 --> 00:45:05.500 that the full punishment that you think they deserve can never happen. 00:45:06.359 --> 00:45:13.619 And the purpose of forgiveness is to take onto yourself that cost so you can be free. 00:45:13.619 --> 00:45:19.859 You see, you've only really forgiven another person when it no longer obsesses you. 00:45:20.659 --> 00:45:24.059 And where, when you think about it, it doesn't make you want to fight them, 00:45:24.139 --> 00:45:27.579 or it doesn't make you cower under them because you're still afraid of them. 00:45:27.900 --> 00:45:34.299 You come to a point where it has no hold on you. 00:45:34.300 --> 00:45:39.680 Now, of course, Jesus just models this. 00:45:39.740 --> 00:45:40.420 He doesn't have to do it. 00:45:40.460 --> 00:45:44.280 He's not bent out of shape or anything like that because he's God. 00:45:46.340 --> 00:45:49.360 But he came so that you and I could be forgiven. 00:45:49.620 --> 00:45:54.620 That's why he came, that when we put our faith and trust in him, we can be forgiven. 00:45:54.620 --> 00:46:00.620 He took into himself the cost that had to be paid for my wrongdoing so that I could be forgiven. 00:46:01.200 --> 00:46:02.440 So justice is done. 00:46:02.440 --> 00:46:04.920 My inexcusable wrong is done. 00:46:06.139 --> 00:46:09.099 But that forgiveness is part of grace and mercy. 00:46:09.300 --> 00:46:14.780 It goes beyond justice to this point where I can have a relationship with God, 00:46:14.900 --> 00:46:16.420 which is what he ultimately wants. 00:46:18.280 --> 00:46:21.300 So in our case, once again, 00:46:22.679 --> 00:46:26.079 to forgive another person doesn't mean, 00:46:26.519 --> 00:46:30.579 to say, George, if you forgive this person for murdering your child, 00:46:30.659 --> 00:46:31.820 it should mean they don't go to jail. 00:46:31.820 --> 00:46:32.480 No, no, no, no. 00:46:32.980 --> 00:46:34.740 They still go to jail. 00:46:34.860 --> 00:46:39.140 There's no contradiction between desiring justice and forgiving, 00:46:40.420 --> 00:46:42.059 at least human justice. 00:46:43.039 --> 00:46:46.240 There's no consequence, no contradiction by that at all. 00:46:46.239 --> 00:46:52.239 But if you could put up the final thing, or second final thing, 00:46:52.299 --> 00:46:57.359 the Lord Jesus Christ wants you to walk the path of forgiveness with him because he wants you to be free. 00:46:57.360 --> 00:47:01.840 He doesn't want your enemies to always be in your head. 00:47:01.840 --> 00:47:05.840 He doesn't want them to control your life. 00:47:06.640 --> 00:47:08.140 He wants you to be free. 00:47:08.139 --> 00:47:11.339 And you'll only be free when you learn to forgive. 00:47:11.340 --> 00:47:16.000 And you learn to forgive by embarking on a journey of, 00:47:16.539 --> 00:47:18.120 well, if you could put up the final point, 00:47:18.500 --> 00:47:22.059 as the forgiveness of Jesus becomes more real to your heart, 00:47:22.860 --> 00:47:24.300 he will deepen you, 00:47:24.940 --> 00:47:25.780 ground you, 00:47:26.340 --> 00:47:27.140 draw you, 00:47:27.139 --> 00:47:28.920 and propel you to forgive. 00:47:30.920 --> 00:47:31.339 I mean, 00:47:31.379 --> 00:47:34.299 many people who are outside the Christian faith forgive. 00:47:34.519 --> 00:47:36.019 It's part of God's common grace. 00:47:36.500 --> 00:47:38.239 And many Christians have a hard time. 00:47:38.239 --> 00:47:41.259 But as the fact that he forgave you, 00:47:41.579 --> 00:47:42.419 he forgave me, 00:47:42.500 --> 00:47:44.099 becomes more real to my heart. 00:47:44.239 --> 00:47:45.979 It deepens me and grounds me 00:47:45.979 --> 00:47:47.919 and gives me a place to stand. 00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:50.619 It will draw me in a direction of forgiveness. 00:47:50.799 --> 00:47:52.319 It will propel me in a direction 00:47:52.319 --> 00:47:54.979 that I need to forgive. 00:47:56.879 --> 00:47:59.339 I need to forgive so that I can be free. 00:48:01.399 --> 00:48:03.779 And you need to forgive if you want to have reconciliation. 00:48:04.219 --> 00:48:06.500 You can't have reconciliation without forgiveness. 00:48:06.500 --> 00:48:10.820 See, that's why the teaching of Jesus is so profound for families. 00:48:11.059 --> 00:48:12.380 It's so profound for churches. 00:48:12.599 --> 00:48:13.960 It's so profound for marriages. 00:48:15.079 --> 00:48:15.539 You see, 00:48:16.219 --> 00:48:18.860 if I can't forgive, 00:48:19.320 --> 00:48:21.820 I'd have to have a new marriage every year. 00:48:22.599 --> 00:48:25.179 My wife would have to marry a different man every year 00:48:25.179 --> 00:48:27.260 if she can't forgive, 00:48:27.360 --> 00:48:28.619 if I can't forgive. 00:48:29.719 --> 00:48:32.360 Because not only do we need to be free of the wrong, 00:48:33.199 --> 00:48:36.480 but forgiveness is the first step towards reconciliation. 00:48:36.500 --> 00:48:43.480 You will hear many people, 00:48:44.599 --> 00:48:45.820 many of many people, 00:48:46.460 --> 00:48:48.039 on death row in the States 00:48:48.039 --> 00:48:51.300 who've come to faith while they're on death row 00:48:51.300 --> 00:48:55.260 and who've been forgiven by people 00:48:55.260 --> 00:48:58.360 who don't deny that they still need to pay for what they've done, 00:48:58.360 --> 00:49:01.860 but also start to know a type of forgiveness 00:49:01.860 --> 00:49:05.140 and the freedom of having been forgiven. 00:49:06.180 --> 00:49:10.000 So there's no contradiction between justice and forgiveness. 00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:13.440 forgiveness is greater than justice, 00:49:13.440 --> 00:49:16.659 but not in a way that removes justice. 00:49:16.980 --> 00:49:17.980 It's just greater. 00:49:17.980 --> 00:49:20.860 And God has called you and me 00:49:20.860 --> 00:49:23.240 to learn to forgive 00:49:23.240 --> 00:49:25.940 so that we might be free, 00:49:26.300 --> 00:49:28.460 that we might be free in him. 00:49:28.460 --> 00:49:33.300 I've had people that I've had to pray for over a decade 00:49:33.300 --> 00:49:34.740 that I could forgive them 00:49:34.740 --> 00:49:36.240 before I've been able to forgive them. 00:49:37.380 --> 00:49:39.440 Sometimes if you pray to forgive, 00:49:40.619 --> 00:49:42.039 it'll happen really quick. 00:49:43.599 --> 00:49:45.780 But that's why I say that Jesus wants you 00:49:45.780 --> 00:49:47.840 to walk the path of forgiveness with him. 00:49:47.840 --> 00:49:52.000 Because sometimes it's a long obedience 00:49:52.000 --> 00:49:53.140 in the same direction 00:49:53.140 --> 00:49:55.720 of praying to forgive. 00:49:56.360 --> 00:49:57.700 But it's always worth it. 00:49:58.340 --> 00:49:59.019 Let's stand. 00:50:05.840 --> 00:50:06.400 Father, 00:50:06.840 --> 00:50:09.440 we confess before you 00:50:09.440 --> 00:50:12.000 that it's easy for us to think 00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:14.160 that you show favoritism towards us 00:50:14.160 --> 00:50:16.420 or that you just forget the wrong we've done 00:50:16.420 --> 00:50:19.360 or that you've just sort of minimized 00:50:19.360 --> 00:50:20.639 the wrong we've done 00:50:20.639 --> 00:50:23.700 or don't remember the wrong we've done. 00:50:24.119 --> 00:50:25.500 And so, therefore, 00:50:25.700 --> 00:50:28.200 it's all right for us to be pious 00:50:28.200 --> 00:50:29.500 in a relationship with you. 00:50:29.500 --> 00:50:30.800 And then, Father, 00:50:30.920 --> 00:50:31.740 something happens 00:50:31.740 --> 00:50:33.700 that we just can't deny is wrong 00:50:33.700 --> 00:50:35.500 and we don't know how you... 00:50:35.500 --> 00:50:36.240 Father, 00:50:36.320 --> 00:50:38.559 it's as if we've never actually acknowledged 00:50:38.559 --> 00:50:39.079 that Jesus, 00:50:39.420 --> 00:50:40.500 that you have forgiven us 00:50:40.500 --> 00:50:42.200 in the person of your Son 00:50:42.200 --> 00:50:43.760 when we put our faith and trust in him. 00:50:44.760 --> 00:50:45.639 And so, Father, 00:50:45.639 --> 00:50:47.239 we ask that you bring home to this 00:50:47.239 --> 00:50:48.339 this profound truth 00:50:48.339 --> 00:50:49.440 that Jesus, Father, 00:50:49.920 --> 00:50:52.219 he saw the inexcusable wrong 00:50:52.219 --> 00:50:53.779 that we have done in the past 00:50:53.779 --> 00:50:54.879 and will do in the future 00:50:54.879 --> 00:50:57.739 and still he forgave us. 00:50:57.859 --> 00:50:59.199 You forgave us in Jesus. 00:50:59.920 --> 00:51:00.759 And we ask, Lord, 00:51:00.799 --> 00:51:02.099 that this truth would become 00:51:02.099 --> 00:51:03.839 more and more real to our hearts 00:51:03.839 --> 00:51:05.980 so that we could be so deep 00:51:05.980 --> 00:51:07.179 and so deepened 00:51:07.179 --> 00:51:08.099 and so secured 00:51:08.099 --> 00:51:10.099 and so drawn 00:51:10.099 --> 00:51:12.059 and so propelled 00:51:12.059 --> 00:51:13.360 that we might 00:51:13.360 --> 00:51:14.960 really, Father, 00:51:15.159 --> 00:51:16.440 more and more understand 00:51:16.440 --> 00:51:17.639 your forgiveness of us 00:51:17.639 --> 00:51:18.739 and that we might be shaped 00:51:18.739 --> 00:51:19.619 to forgive others. 00:51:20.139 --> 00:51:21.219 And we thank you, Father, 00:51:21.279 --> 00:51:22.380 that you want us to do that 00:51:22.380 --> 00:51:23.480 so that we will be free. 00:51:25.179 --> 00:51:26.000 And so, Lord, 00:51:26.039 --> 00:51:26.840 we ask that you 00:51:26.840 --> 00:51:27.820 help us both 00:51:27.820 --> 00:51:28.920 to appropriate 00:51:28.920 --> 00:51:30.380 the forgiveness of Christ 00:51:30.380 --> 00:51:32.519 and that you would help us, 00:51:32.779 --> 00:51:32.840 Father, 00:51:32.980 --> 00:51:34.360 to walk a path 00:51:34.360 --> 00:51:34.960 of forgiveness, 00:51:35.900 --> 00:51:37.299 of learning to forgive others. 00:51:37.300 --> 00:51:39.400 that you would help us 00:51:39.400 --> 00:51:40.060 to recognize 00:51:40.060 --> 00:51:42.000 those parts of our life 00:51:42.000 --> 00:51:44.820 that are ruled 00:51:44.820 --> 00:51:45.940 by unforgiveness 00:51:45.940 --> 00:51:48.060 and are being deformed 00:51:48.060 --> 00:51:48.800 and twisted 00:51:48.800 --> 00:51:49.539 and broken 00:51:49.539 --> 00:51:51.140 by unforgiveness. 00:51:52.120 --> 00:51:53.140 And we ask that you 00:51:53.140 --> 00:51:54.600 help us to name that 00:51:54.600 --> 00:51:55.539 for what it is, 00:51:55.840 --> 00:51:56.539 unforgiveness, 00:51:57.260 --> 00:51:59.460 and help us to pray into it 00:51:59.460 --> 00:52:00.400 that we might forgive. 00:52:01.100 --> 00:52:02.019 Thank you, Father, 00:52:02.140 --> 00:52:02.700 that you want us 00:52:02.700 --> 00:52:03.780 to be free in Christ. 00:52:04.280 --> 00:52:04.980 And we ask this 00:52:04.980 --> 00:52:06.019 in Jesus' name. 00:52:06.720 --> 00:52:07.160 Amen. 00:52:07.300 --> 00:52:07.500 Amen.