00:00:10.440 Hello, everyone, and welcome to the MilMac Musings Podcast by Destined for Glory, where we reveal the intersection between God and science for living wholeheartedly. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Destiny for Glory at MilMac Musings. We're here today with a subject.

00:00:29.340 As we were preparing for the show, it's really an in-depth subject. And it's a combination of two things. It's a combination of abuse and forgiveness. And I know they kind of don't seem to interact, but they really do. And as we start, I just wanted to just be vulnerable here. I was in a relationship that was abusive, as I've mentioned before. And as we were going through it, there was a lot of confusion, as I've mentioned, and there's a lot of anger, and there's a lot of spiraling, and you're just not sure what to do.

00:01:05.520 And so I was very fortunate to come upon a teaching. And it kind of cleared the way for me. But as we were preparing for the show, another thing that we did was read an article excuse me, that was about abuse that's still prevalent today within some denominations. And they're mainline denominations.

00:01:29.580 And as we talk about this moving forward, one of the big things that really is confusing in the church, and it shouldn't be, is this thing about submission to the husband. And I just feel that, from my perspective, you have to take Paul's reading of that or his writing of that in context in the day he lived. As we've talked about before, and there's other ministries that help us do this as well, is we're staying within context.

00:02:00.840 And when you're looking at Paul's time, in a Roman culture, the man was truly the head now. Everybody was really frightened of him because he had the power to kick people out, to hurt people, to send them away, and just to divorce the wife without any real resources on the woman's part to survive. That wasn't the church, though. That was the Roman culture. Exactly. So Paul tried to differentiate between the Christian worldview and that.

00:02:28.740 And at that time, in a context, you're looking at at that point, the husband truly was really the person who would go out to work or would go out to carry on the husband's duties of trying to keep the family unit together. So in my opinion, that's the context we're talking about. It's not in today's context where some people still take that as on the head.

00:02:57.660 And as we've talked about, when you're looking at relationship, what happens with a relationship? What are the most successful relationships? What do they actually do? They respect each other. You know And as we go forward with this series, it's just a matter of portraying that in a relationship when you have the respect of each other, not perfection, respect, knowing that you have, you know, his back and he has your back.

00:03:27.360 And that's truly what it is. God is the source, the complete source. And when both people look to him, the husband and wife or any type of relationship like that, you know, within a man and woman context, it's always to Christ. And Christ would come work through us. So there's so much to be said about this. And I know that it's going to be it's going to touch some key buttons there. And it has to be done because the church itself today in a lot of areas, you don't hear a lot about it.

00:03:58.140 Right. So I just want to back up and say one thing about respect. You talk about that we have to respect one another, but we're really incapable of respecting another person until we have self-respect. Oh, great point. Absolutely. So when you're having a relationship with someone or you engage in relationships, you want to come from an understanding of your own self-respect first.

00:04:29.160 You want to have that. Right. Exactly. Yeah. You want to work to have that if you don't have it. Well, that's a great point. And that's really the only way it works. Yeah Because if we've talked a number of podcasts, we're talking about adverse child experiences. We're talking about issues that people bring into the relationship based on their inner child and how the defense mechanisms were built up. So this is for a healthier relationship, but you have to understand that you need to do that work to get to that point.

00:04:58.860 Because once you both do that, it's a whole different type of relationship because you understand the other person is not perfect, and they're not coming against you. It's just the way their makeup. And you also have the ability to step back and say, "And then you can ask that question. Is it me? Is there something that's triggered within me that I need healing, or I need to go back and try to say, "Okay, this is me." Or is it something that somebody else is doing that you can see there's an underlying issue because sometimes things can be taken out of proportion.

00:05:31.380 And when that happens, you usually say, "Okay, there's something going on underneath there." Not that you know it all, but at least you can look at that instead of being defensive. And as I've mentioned before, in the past, when people were talking to me and giving me something that, you know, I would have to, you know, look at from their perspective, I would be saying, "Okay. This is an argument." I would be saying, "Okay." I'm listening. My defense my defense posture mechanism was to blurt out at the time they're talking to me.

00:06:03.060 So it certainly was an act of listening. Not at all. You're busy thinking about what you're going to say and you're going to get your voice heard. And it's the defense of it. Part of you. And that's a self-worth. So when you understand that you don't have to be perfect and we're not perfect, but we can just sit back and understand what we've gone through, how the healing process takes place. To get to that point is so freeing to be in that type of relationship, to be able to do that.

00:06:32.400 So I think the church itself, and we've mentioned this before, the trauma awareness in the church, this is what we're talking about. Right. You know So going forward with forgiveness, which is down this a bit, we listened to a teaching. That was a really, really good teaching. And one of the things that we have also talked about was the Matthew it was mentioned of Matthew.

00:06:58.740 I think it was Matthew 18:16, where Peter goes to the Lord and says, "How many times should I forgive?" And it was a great way of how they did it. But anyway, as you look at what Jesus really wants us to do is he wants us to forgive. So as an overview, he's not asking us to stay in an abusive relationship. He's asking us to forgive the other person. And we've mentioned before, the ripple effect.

00:07:28.380 Our actions, it's like a little rock throwing into a lake or whatever. The ripples that go around from our actions, they have so much to do with the way they affect other people. And so forgiveness for me was one of the key things that started when I was born again. And then the teaching, as I mentioned before, of somebody saying, "You've got to heal yourself. You've got to forgive yourself rather." And you can do that.

00:07:57.420 And again, it all is with Jesus. Yeah So as you begin the process, Jesus understands your heart, but we were talking about it the other day, too. It's taking your focus off the other person, of the anger and the hatred, and it's true hatred, and it's just anger. And sometimes you feel it's rightfully so, but it's poison. You're poisoning yourself. Sometimes the person doesn't even know that you're thinking like that, but you're inside of.

00:08:26.700 You're doing that and saying that. And I just have felt, from my perspective, to be able to forgive is so free. Yeah Do you have any examples you'd like to talk about at all? Well, I mean, forgiveness. I mean, I think of you know just going through different experiences in our lives. But was there a biblical example that you wanted to bring forward?

00:08:52.080 I mean, you think about being in an abusive relationship, or you think about I mean, there's so much relationship conflict out there, relational conflict within the church. You know I think what we're talking about is within our body of Christ. And so you know to be able to overcome someone speaking to you in a negative light or doing something harmful to you or with evil intent.

00:09:23.940 There are many situations where there's evil intent. Spiritual abuse in the church. Gaslighting, all name calling, you know making you feel less than who you are, demeaning words that are said to you that make you feel like you don't have any worth, or you have no meaning, or you don't have respect from them.

00:09:55.980 And maybe it's not just getting a scripture. Yeah. And maybe it's not just you know situations like that. Maybe it's within a marriage. Maybe it's within a close relationship with someone in the body of Christ. Maybe it's conflict. Just conflict alone is there's a way to manage that.

00:10:21.900 But when it starts getting to where it's abusive. And so you think about you know we've seen in articles that we've read, which are absolutely happening right now around us within a 50-mile radius of where we are right this minute.

00:10:46.260 There are people in the pulpit that are instructing men to speak to their wives in a way that is so harmful, is not the way that Christ designed for it to be. Do you have that article up, Gerard, because there was a No, I actually don't have it on that. Okay.

00:11:12.600 I wanted to just bring an example, but he talks about how you know if a wife is even trying to say her opinion about something, how the man should just look at his wife and tell her, "You shut your mouth right now." And that's just so not what God has taught us through Jesus about what love and relationships are.

00:11:42.420 And so there's a lot of confusion about that submission as you addressed earlier. Right. That's a great you know that's one thing that really stuck out at me, too, was that and again, it's respect for the person and love. And that's what is God. God is love. So when you're looking at it from a denominational, from a Christian perspective, that's certainly not doing what God wants us to do. And God is love.

00:12:12.180 God, look at the greatest example of love, Jesus. He came down on what He did for us on the cross. And that's the true love. So how can we twist and well, we do. We do. But unfortunately, it's so wrong. And we also talked about the absolute power. So if you're in a denomination that's continually doing these things, they're in a ultra conservative bent on things. They're taking scripture way out of context, but they, for some reason, feel they're godly.

00:12:41.820 That this is a godly way to inflict pain on a woman, to inflict pain on children, to really beat them, and to actually so you have the verbal abuse, you have the physical abuse, and the mental abuse, the anguish of going through this type of behavior, behavior modification. And that's just not gone at all. They're grooming them to be who they're not really creative. Exactly. Exactly. And we've talked about the neurogenerational things. And that's what's happening here. And it's just in such a negative light.

00:13:11.880 And it's pure, pure evil. Yeah So they're using the Word of God for their own denominational aspect of what religion is. Yeah It's terrible. It's power. Yeah, it's power. So they're absolute power, and they're creating such havoc within the community and your body of Christ, such confusion. And one of the things within the article that was really, really, for me, uplifting was the woman who actually came out and was told the authorities.

00:13:45.840 And again, within that type of culture, they're trying to tell you, "Do not go out of the community." So they're trying to just keep more of the gaslighting, more of the just mental and verbal abuse going and confusion. You can't go outside a community. Because you know if they do go outside, you know people are going to hear it, and you're going to say, "That's wrong." And one of the best things I've heard was, "You talked about self-worth." And she said she had no self-worth. She had none. And this is the sad thing.

00:14:15.660 It took the DA to give her back self-worth because he said, "Yes, we're going after this." But then she had self-worth and that. And I'm not sure if this person was Christian or not, but she went outside the community to get this in a public conduct domain. It's just shocking. Rather than being able to get it right there within the body of it. Exactly. Within the community. She had to go outside the community to at least get some semblance of it.

00:14:44.700 And just to think just for her self-worth just is shooting up through the roof because I am stood up for her. Exactly. Yes. And that's we as the community and as a relationship, we stick up for each other. And obviously, I think one of the best words that we both talked about is we're angry about this. We're here with our ministry to talk about abuse, trauma awareness within the church. And this abuse is right under our noses.

00:15:15.180 And it's terrible. And it's under the illusion that this is the correct way that Jesus wants us to live. Couldn't be farther from the truth. And the scriptural aspect, if you don't mind, I'm going to go to Paul. I'd love for you too. Yeah. I just want to read the scripture verses here. And again, we have to put everything in context. Before we start, I just want to mention with James. I was reading James this morning. And it's really, really wonderful how he talks about this huge part of our body, the tongue.

00:15:47.280 Yes. Oh, boy, yes. I love James. It's amazing. And I'm just going to look for the scripture. One thing it talks about was really good is we as Christians have to show our works. We have faith, but we show the good works. And it's not law you know sticking to we have to know. It's about what Jesus did, being grateful. And that's the kindness and gentleness, grace and mercy that we show each other. But he doesn't spare much with the tongue. No.

00:16:18.480 Sorry, I should have had it before. Is it James 3? It is James 3. There's something really powerful here too about hell. Anyway, we just I can't fight at the moment. I don't want to waste much time. Anyway, the tongue can be such a vicious tool. Right. And as James points out, we can use it.

00:16:47.880 And we don't want to be double-minded because we can use it to praise God, but we can use it to condemn people. And that's the part of understanding our emotions, understanding our inner child, understanding the ACES that we've gone through, understanding how to deal with all of those. And this is critical because if you blah, you're not helping anything.

00:17:12.900 So you want to go up here, and you want to have the heart here and say, "Okay, what is it within me that I'm triggered and that's causing me to act this way?" And again, if you're triggered and you act a certain way, but you know it, how easy it is to say, "I'm so sorry. This is something within me. This is something that happened, and it really wasn't you. It was something within me." So I apologize for that, for whatever you say. And that's what it's all about. We're not perfect. God doesn't expect us to be perfect, but the tongue is important.

00:17:44.220 It's so good. Was it the example of him talking about a ship and how the rudder is the smallest part of the ship, and it guides the ship wherever it goes. And our tongue is also the smallest, but a very strong muscle in our body that our words and what we speak actually guide our life and bring harm to others as well as ourselves. Exactly. So that's a perfect example of what not to do. And an example of you shut up.

00:18:15.420 Yes. How can you look somebody in the eye who is a child of God, who is equal with you, whether you like it or not, she or he is made in the image of God, made in the image of God. We both are. And to do that, you know again, things can happen, but when you're taking that type of mentality that you can do this, you can get away with it. That's terrible. And those women that are hearing that have to feel so oppressed.

00:18:46.800 I can't imagine that they're feeling joy and happiness and you know the fullness of what God created them to have, which just is a clear indication that it's not what God because what comes from Him lifts us up, makes us feel good. Absolutely. Makes us feel joy. You didn't really see Jesus do that too much. No, he would get angry. And he would get angry at the Pharisees because they weren't accepting him. And he was the you know way of truth in life.

00:19:16.800 But he could see that they were destroying the people. And in the Old Testament, God's saying the same thing. Yeah You're the shepherds of the people, but you're leading them astray. You know And so it's just really sad about how this goes. So I'm going to go to Paul if I have a chance to get in there. Let me go back to the other. Sorry about the delay. No worries. Okay. So we're going to go to Ephesians, and we're going to go to Ephesians 5.

00:19:45.300 It's just something that I find really, really powerful. Where are we here? It's funny because I'm looking at so many different Bible apps, and it's to get to a different Yeah. I think it was 5:25 or it was 5:00. Yeah. We started at 5:22. Okay. So let's go into this what you hear so much that is, in my opinion, in a lot of scholars as well, biblical scholars.

00:20:17.160 And these are people that study the Greek, the Hebrew. And again, when you're looking at one word taken in correct context, it can change the whole meaning of what it is. And just a clear example is in Hebrews. Mm-hmm. When you're talking about the sin, it's not a sin. It's the sin that will lead you away from Christ. Right. And that's not accepting who he is. Right. And that's all it is. But people use that from the pulpit saying it's sin.

00:20:47.760 And they lead to more confusion. So anyway, with Ephesians 5 here, Paul really and again, take this in the context of his time. So as we look, wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is head of the church, his body and is himself its Savior. And it goes on. I'm just going to read the scripture. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also, wives should submit in everything to the husbands.

00:21:15.600 Now, he's not saying for the woman to, I loved your example of the held out coffee cup. That was great. That was great. Yeah. No, it's about from the perspective of a policy. Again, it's a Roman perspective, but he's saying it's different for us. And again, as a husband who wants to protect his wife, who wants to lead his wife to show her his love for her.

00:21:42.000 And then the woman, you know the wife, it's not so much submitting, so to speak. It's more of respecting. Respecting. And that's the key. So Paul isn't saying here to the men that you are the head no matter what. You have to show up. So what does Jesus always say? The greatest is to be the least. To humble. So how does that not work within this context? Do you think Paul is saying, "Jesus, you're wrong?" Right.

00:22:13.200 No. He's just telling the community and the body of believers what this is really, truly about. It's one word, love. Love. And so as two people love each other, and they can work on themselves and work through the healing power of Christ. And everything is part of the healing. As we've talked about before, Jesus came down to the dungeons of our heart when as yet we were still sinners. And we had no we weren't even thinking about God.

00:22:42.720 We were just living our own lives. And we were just doing our own thing. And as the old saying goes, "How did that work out for you?" yeah I know for me it wasn't Not well for me. It wasn't good at all. But the other thing, too, that we can talk about here is the husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. What did Jesus do for us?

00:23:06.840 He came down and again, the most horrific way to die he did for us out of love for us because the evilness that was just perpetrating throughout the world, he had to conquer. He did conquer through that. The biggest reason was his love for us. He laid his life down for us. Right. Which I think is what Christ is calling husbands to do for their wives.

00:23:36.960 Exactly. Yeah And it's vice versa. So again, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. Yeah That's just amazing. Yeah And so where is the confusion on that? Yeah I'm saddened. My heart breaks for people who are still in bondage to this and the oppression they're feeling. Right. It's definitely misleading people the way it's being taught in any other format than mutual respect, mutual submission, and love.

00:24:11.520 Right. So if you're looking at the two examples, you're looking at the husbands who try to do this, are they truly having a really wonderful relationship? They're going through such abuse. They're just abusing the other person. How can you say there's any love in return? Because the other person's fearful, frightened, confused, and you're thinking you're having a great life. How crazy is that?

00:24:39.360 Whereas when you have a relationship that's mutual love, first of all, it's God. It's Jesus. Our love and focus is on Him. And everything works for us through that. It comes through each of us. Yeah And as we're both looking at each other and we're both working together for the common good of the family or whatever we're going through, and just the relationship with him and then with us. It's nothing but love that works. So the confusion out there is very sad. It is.

00:25:08.160 Well, you were talking initially you know about forgiveness and when we were talking earlier about your story and that there was a podcast or a sermon, a message that you heard that changed your whole perspective of where you were. Do you want to share a little bit about your story and then we can go and listen to that clip? Great idea. That's a great way to do it.

00:25:38.580 So when I was going through that in that relationship with the abuse, and it's a downward spiraling that was happening. And again, we've talked about it before. From my perspective, I thought I could not leave. I thought, "Jesus did not want me to leave the relationship." And that's the confusion, because that's all I've ever heard. You've got to stay there. You're not supposed to get a divorce.

00:26:02.340 So as you're going through the abuse and you're not in safety, and you're in an area of you really need to be safe, and there were other extenuating circumstances within that relationship where you know I had a family member that was barely being abused as well, and more so of a neglect of just leaving them out there and not accepting them. So that being said, I went on a trip, and I like to exercise.

00:26:32.580 So I went for a quick jog because for me, particularly at that time, exercising was a key to get rid of the anxiety. And as I was running, I was listening to this great teaching that truly, truly, just enlightened me about what Jesus wanted. And I think that as we move forward, we'll listen to the clip. Okay. Yeah. I think it's Tim Mackie from Good Hope Church. I think that's correct. Take a listen.

00:27:02.100 This is how it will be with my Heavenly Father, unless each of you forgives your brother or sister from your heart. How you guys doing? It's intense. Do you think Jesus cares about this topic? Do you think Jesus cares that if someone says they're a follower of Jesus, do you think it matters to Jesus that they actually try and forgive people who wronged them?

00:27:35.280 I think that's what he means. It's just the most basic conclusion to draw from this. He takes it really seriously. There's something, Jesus, whatever he's doing with the kingdom of God, he's inviting people to come follow Him and to learn a new and different way of being a human being. He uses lots of different images for it, being born again, or entering into the kingdom, participating in the life of heaven that's being renewed right here on Earth.

00:28:06.120 He uses lots of different language for it. But one of the key ways that's going to happen is by making second nature something that at first seems totally unnatural. And that's when somebody wrongs you and they owe you. It's totally just that you want to get them back and that you want to get even. And to release them from their debt, it's crazy. But Jesus says the new world of God's kingdom, it's right there.

00:28:37.380 That's one of the most important ways of the spreading of God's reign and rule throughout the world, is to forgive. It's to forgive the debt that people owe you. And he obviously takes it, takes it very seriously. And the whole point of this parable is that if I'm going to follow Jesus, then I see myself first and foremost as someone who has been forgiven, whose debt has been covered.

00:29:05.280 And so it puts me in this position, if I'm a Christian, that according to Jesus, it's fine for me to get angry, it's fine for me to have all the normal emotional responses. Jesus doesn't say that if you struggle to forgive someone who's wrong to you, right? He doesn't say if it's hard for you. He says, if you refuse to and you will not, then you're not one of my disciples.

00:29:34.680 He knows it's hard, that's why he spends so much time exploring it with us, because it's so difficult and he knows it. So I see myself, this is a new way of being human, I exist because of God's grace, and that fundamentally reshapes how I see everybody who might wrong me or who might owe me. You guys with me here. It's just basic.

00:30:00.780 So this is so difficult and so complicated that everything that flows out of this is going to get explored more in the next weeks that come in this series. Because what does that actually mean? Like cash this out. How do you actually do this? Does Jesus, what does he mean by this? Does he mean? I call this the most common misunderstanding of this teaching of Jesus. I call it the doormat misunderstanding of Jesus' call to forgive.

00:30:29.160 So what does he mean that 77 times, i.e. like infinite amount of times, someone hurts you and they wrong you, you just forget about it, you get back in the ring again and you just let them hurt you all over again and then you like brush it off and you get back in the ring and you let them hurt you all over again so they call it the doormat. You just let them walk all over you. Is that what Jesus means? Just do that forever. Welcome to being my follower. So is that what he means?

00:30:59.640 It's not what he means. It's not what he means. And so it's actually very important for us to clarify, and this is what we're going to just do the next few minutes here is clarify what Jesus does not mean so we can understand what he does mean by forgive. If you have a Bible open or on, the teaching Jesus gave right before this, literally right before Peter's question, he's talking about how to deal with conflict and broken relationships in the community of his disciples.

00:31:29.040 It's up in verse 15. And he says, "If your brother or sister, someone wrongs you in the community, if their brother or sister sins, sins against you, forget about it. Just forget about it and act like it didn't happen. It's all fine. That's not what he says. What he says is go to them and point out what they've done to you, just the two of you. Notice how this is usually what we do not do.

00:31:59.340 Normally, we don't go to them, but we do go to other people. So not stop that. That's natural. That's what humans normally do, and it ruins human communities. Go to the person and point out what they did to you. If they listen to you and oh my gosh, oh I'm so sorry I did that, you've won them over. You've brought the relationship back together again. If they don't listen to you, take one or two others along.

00:32:29.940 Like maybe you're the crazy one and you're just overly sensitive, you know? Or maybe what you need is a neutral party to help mediate this conflict here. And if they still don't listen, then you get even more people involved. And you keep reading on in the passage. Jesus says, if you reach a point where they won't own up to what they've done, you cut off the relationship. Jesus says that, then Peter comes up to him and says, well, how many times? And then the teaching on forgiveness.

00:32:59.820 So whatever Jesus means by forgiveness, he's not contradicting himself here. Are you with me, right? Somehow, he's not talking about two sides of his mouth. You can go through this process and never be alone in the same room with someone who's hurt you, and yet still forgive them as a follower of Jesus. And to compare these two teachings, it's very important to help us see what Jesus doesn't mean. And so I'm just going to name this.

00:33:25.920 I think this is so important and helpful for us to clarify what Jesus does not mean by forgiveness. And this is going to reappear again in this series. It's very important. Part of the reason I think why some of us look at this teaching of Jesus and feel like hopeless because it's so difficult is because I think we've misunderstood what he means. First of all, forgiveness according to Jesus is apparently not ignoring or forgetting or condoning or excusing the wrong that's been done to you.

00:33:55.380 How many of you have heard the saying forgive and forget? Forgive and forget. Have you seen that? This horrible advice. That is horrible advice. Could George Parnell just forget what I did to him? You know what I'm saying? I can't forget it. And I wasn't even the one who got hurt. Like, what a ridiculous idea. Forget? To forget is to minimize what's been done.

00:34:24.360 And that doesn't help anybody at all, not the other person and certainly not you. What Jesus envisions is that you actually move towards what's been done and you name it for what it is. That was wrong. And forgiveness is not the opposite of it. Forgiveness actually involves you moving towards it and naming it. You're not ignoring or condoning anything at all. Forgiveness, according to Jesus, is not tolerating or allowing further wrongs done to you.

00:34:53.580 When Jesus says, "Go to them, point out what they've done," if they don't acknowledge it, you're never alone with that person again. Did you see that? It's right there. I'm just saying, this is very clear, just read it. So Jesus isn't saying you just roll over and take it time and time again. They're a dangerous person in your life. You should probably not be around them if they don't want to make things right. And that's not wrong, and you can still forgive the person, but never have to be alone with them if they're still a dangerous person to you.

00:35:26.100 Are you with me here? It's very significant. Whatever it means, it's different than reconciliation or restoration. Reconciliation requires two, right? It requires the person who's been wronged, moving towards the offender, hey, that was wrong. Oh my gosh, I can't believe I did that. I'm so sorry. Then we can go somewhere. It takes two. Forgiveness takes one. Whether or not the offender acknowledges it, or whether they don't acknowledge it, for Jesus, that doesn't matter.

00:35:56.760 Forgiveness takes one. It's something that you do regardless of what the other person has done. It doesn't mean things go back to the way they are again, clearly. It doesn't mean that there are no consequences. So apparently there can be really intense consequences. The relationship is cut off, and yet you still need to forgive them. So if forgiveness doesn't mean those things, what does it mean then?

00:36:25.860 And John and Paul are going to help you explore this in the weeks to come, but just go back to the parable and we'll kind of land the plane here. But look at the last line of the parable, the last words of chapter 18. Remember Jesus said this, verse 35, "This is how it will be with my heavenly father, unless each of you forgives your brother or sister, where? From your heart," Jesus says.

00:36:51.360 So for Jesus, forgiveness is not those things, but it is a deep change in your heart for how you regard this person and how you think about them. 'Cause here's the thing, is that the person who smacked the phone out of your hands, right, the person who hurled their dirt at you at Thanksgiving or Christmas, you know, dinner last week or whatever, you know, like your family member, your weird uncle or something like that, whatever, right?

00:37:22.680 So when they could pay you back, they could say, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I did it. You know, I kind of lost my cool again," you know? So they can say that to you, but what does it take, like what's gonna happen when you lay down and are going to sleep that night? You're gonna replay it, and you're gonna replay a version of the story where you leaned over the table, you know what I'm saying? Where you got out your laser gun and annihilated them, right?

00:37:50.400 That's the story you're gonna play, and you're gonna love, you're gonna love that movie. And you're gonna play that movie again and again, tomorrow night when you go to sleep. You guys know what I'm talking about here. Just because they said they're sorry, or just because they write you a check, sorry about your phone, like there's something deep inside of you that has to change towards that person. And that's where Jesus puts the focus. That's where forgiveness is.

00:38:13.860 And if you refuse to let Jesus do something here, to where you can come to a place where you view them as human again, where you view them as somebody worthy of at least Jesus's love, where you're able to renew their humanity and see them as someone that you could come to release and let it go. If you refuse to do that, Jesus says, "You're not one of my followers. "You're not following me." Forgiveness takes place here, deep in the heart.

00:38:44.460 It's very significant. Whatever it means, it takes place here. And part of understanding what forgiveness is for Jesus comes from the final metaphor, image in the parable, and it might have bothered you. Jesus says, "If you refuse to forgive, it's like what?" What happens to the guy who won't forgive by the end of the parable? Where is he? By the end of the parable? He's in jail. He's in jail undergoing what?

00:39:14.400 Torture. Jesus depicts someone who can't forgive as someone who's trapped, being tortured. Jesus thinks that unforgiveness destroys human beings. It traps us in a state of pain that will ruin us. And there's no better way to describe this.

00:39:41.580 One of the best books that you've seen that I'm adapting and quoting from here is a book by a guy named Louis Mead. It's the best book on Christian forgiveness that I could recommend. And he puts it this way. This is his way of framing this prison torture metaphor. He says, "I know a man of 70 who says he was once cheated out of a promised retirement bonus 15 years ago." He knows for sure who did it. It was the new vice president in charge of personnel.

00:40:12.420 Everyone who's spent more than 15 minutes with him has heard the story. You know this person? Have you met this person before? And some of you, you're like, I am that person. Every taxi driver who's driven him more than two miles knows it. The postman knows it. The woman at the checkout counter knows it. His rage has become his very being. He has become his bitterness. He breathes it. He sleeps with it.

00:40:41.700 He'll probably die in it. In fact, he may die of it. The poison has now splattered his organs and an ulcer now bleeds the lining of his once healthy stomach. He has waited too long. If he now forgave the man, he wouldn't know who he was. He could still do it, and maybe he will, but his postponements have made it dreadfully hard. Do you see what he's describing here?

00:41:08.400 Jesus knows that bitterness and that playing the little movie and the nursing the grudge will kill us. It dehumanizes us. And that the way forward and the way to become the kind of human that Jesus is calling us to be is to learn how to release the debt. It doesn't mean a whole bunch of other things, and you'll explore that more in the series, but at its core, it's this deep change in your heart towards this person who's wronged you.

00:41:37.200 And recognizing that at the same moment, Jesus is paying my debt as he dies on the cross. He's paying their debt as well. So as I was listening to it, one of the best things that came above, and you've heard it as well, is that the doormat, we are not expected to be doormats. We are expected to forgive. But if we keep going into a relationship where the person is treating us with disrespect, is abusing us physically, mentally, verbally, or any other way.

00:42:07.560 God does not want that. We are His children. And we're supposed to be an interpersonal relationship based as an imager of God, which is love. So when you're going through this, you see that, as Tim pointed out, that the statistics are very high for what happens. And this is what we're talking about with the denominational aspect of things. And when that happens, the people are confused. They have no way out, and they're sometimes isolated.

00:42:37.080 And that's one of the key things with abuse. They isolate people. And so for me, when he was talking about not staying in a relationship where it's not safe, that was the key to me, to open the door, open my eyes. So that really helped you in moving forward, knowing that you were doing the right thing for your life in a healthy way. In a healthy way. That's the key. With the freedom in Christ to do that.

00:43:03.360 Again, it was getting away from the mindset of I have to stay in this relationship no matter what, to really, truly seeing the way God sees each of us and how we interact with each other, particularly with a husband and wife or relationship with a man and woman. Yeah So that was a key help for me. That's so good. And I think you know just to close this up, I think it's really important for all of us to understand that when you're in the abusive relationship, your brain's not working right.

00:43:33.960 You can't think well. They're telling you they're not being abusive. And you know what? They probably don't even know that they are. But they are. And so you have to really understand yourself and be connected to yourself and sit down and pause when things happen and write down what's going on so that you understand that what is truly going on when somebody tries to tell you that it's not.

00:44:03.900 And I love Tim's message. I love that it changed your life and that helped you. And I hope it helps somebody who hears it today. And this is something, again, you don't hear much of in the church. No. And it was such a freeing thing to hear that. So I always talk about the providential hand of God. And Tim made that message for that. But I was I believe the hand of God was there for me at that particular time to listen to it to get that.

00:44:32.280 And if I can add one more thing, too. Yeah When you bring people within the community, so you have them cease people within the community, whether it's counsel or whatever, and they don't acknowledge or own it. That's it. There's nothing you can do. Yeah You just have to walk away because you need to be in safety. Absolutely in safety. You're not bound to that. No, not at all. No, not at all. And remember, Jesus divorced Israel. Yes. Yes, he did.

00:45:00.960 And we're not you know promoting divorce. What we're doing is promoting healthy relationship and understanding that you know there is a lot of trauma in the church. There's a lot of abuse in the church. There's a lot of abuse in our relationships with one another in the body of Christ. And so we just want to help people to get free from that and have the tools. Right. And that's the key.

00:45:30.480 The key to healthy relationships are having the correct tools, biblical tools that are really downloaded from God. And the word of God is what really helps. And they work. They do. It's amazing. They work. It's so true. And again, we are a ministry that really is Christ-centered. Praise God for that. And we understand from our walk that it's really the walk with Jesus yeah that really helped us to heal.

00:45:58.740 So we're looking forward to bringing more information to you and just thank you for joining. Yeah, thank you. Have a great day. Thank you for joining us today. If you have questions for us, please email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We look forward to hearing from you. Have a blessed day.