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SLIDE Saying the three words, I forgive you might be the hardest three words that will ever come from our voice. Im guessing we can resonate with what the woman said at the end of the videoIll probably tell them I forgive them. Were like herwe know that forgiveness is good for us, but its so much work and its hard. The benefits of saying those three words arent always apparent to us. Were like Peter, who asked Jesus, How many times to I have to forgive? Can you just hear the complaint in his voice? Peters question revealed his own doubts. If youve ever had a hard time saying those words, I forgive you, take heart. Peterthe rock on which Jesus built his churchdid too. When Peter asked, do I have to forgive seven times, he was probably thinking that seven times was a large number of times to ask for forgiveness. Jesus response was not about a number. He was saying that forgiveness operates on a different realm than counting. Forgiveness is not about a number; instead forgiveness is a way of life based on grace. My dream as a pastor is everyone at Chain of Lakesand in the worldcan live a life based on grace, and we can easily say the three words, I forgive you. Its the Release that we want. Today were continuing today a sermon series called Release. We started out by listening to the story of Mary Johnson and Oshea Israel. Mary eventually was able to forgive Oshea for murdering her son. Not only that but the two were reconciled. Jason Blair then shared how our story of forgiveness is connected to Gods story. Last week I shared four myths about forgiveness. These myths hold us down. They are: SLIDE

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Forgiveness is about the other person Forgiveness and reconciliation are the same Forgiveness means we tolerate what the other person did Life doesnt change when we forgive Today were going to get practical and Im going to share a four-step process for forgiving. Were sharing all sorts of resources in this series. One resource is this brochure. In the middle is a devotion that I wrote for you on forgiveness. I encourage you to use it each day. Weve started to put the devotion on our Facebook page. I realize that not everyone uses Facebook, but if you do I want to ask you to hit the share button. I asked the congregation last week to do this, and Im sorry to share that no one did. SLIDE So let me tell you how to do it again. Go to the Chain of Lakes Facebook page

and hit share. The devotion will show up on your page. When you do that you will be blessing your Facebook friends. In this brochure is a place to take notes. I believe God will say something to you that youll want to remember. On the back is a place for prayer requests. SLIDE Another resource is two books that were selling today. One is Louis Smedes

The Art of Forgiving. Its the best book on forgiveness Ive ever read. The other is Amish Grace. Its the story of how the Amish community forgave a man who murdered five Amish school children. The final resource is our own community. Each Sunday were having a Question and Answer session at the end of the sermon. Think about the questions that you want to ask about forgiveness about this sermon, and well talk about it as a community. Im going to share four steps for forgiveness today. I cant promise you that if you go through these four steps you will immediately release the pain that someone has caused you.

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However I do believe that if we go through these steps over and over again that we will experience release. These steps are not complicated. They are hard. I believe that if we go through them consistently we will experience release. The first step is pray. Pray. Weve acknowledged in this series that forgiveness is hard, so it makes sense for us not to go through this process without asking for Gods help. God wants us to release the pain that others have caused us. Through prayer we can partner with God. We can pray in all sorts of ways. Let me share a few. We can pray that we get to the point where we want to forgive. Try this prayer: SLIDE Lord help me get to the point where my desire to be healed is greater than my

tolerating or enduring my pain. In my experience as a pastor one of the biggest obstacles to forgiveness is the choice a person makes to live with the pain. Sometimes we live to tolerate and endure instead of entering into a process where we can release it. Sometimes we just need to pray to be ready to forgive. Try this prayer. SLIDE process. Once weve decided to enter the process we can ask for help. Try this simple prayer SLIDE Lord, help me forgive Great God, help me be ready to forgive. Give me the courage to enter this

Our prayers dont have to be just our individual prayers. Our community can help us. We can ask people who we trust in our faith community to pray for us. Knowing that others are praying s a terrific source of encouragement.

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Maybe the hardest prayer we can pray is when we pray for the perpetratorthe person who caused our pain. How do I do that? Just share the persons name. SLIDE Holy one, I pray for (name of the person who hurt me)

God knows what to do with that prayer. Even if we said that prayer once a day that would be important. We can pray other prayers, of course. Prayer is essential. Prayer is the fertile soil in which forgiveness can bloom. Pray, pray, pray, and then pray some more. Pray so much that we get tired of praying. When we get tired, that is when God works often in wonderful ways. When we bathe this process in prayer we realize that this is the work of god and not our own work. Once weve prayed and keep praying an first and important step in the process is to SLIDE 2nd step Be clear and name the pain and how Ive been wronged.

Our pain is the rock that burdens our souls. Its this pain that we want to release. Its very difficult to release that which we dont name. Saying Ive been hurt is not enough. Saying, Im angry because this person betrayed me is better. Saying this persons betrayal has made me angry and now I dont trust people. . We might need a counselor to help us clarify our pain and how weve been wronged. At a minimum its important to have a group of people who will listen to our story and help us name our pain. Thats why our small groups are so important. The important point is the clearer we are on our own pain, the easier it will be to release it.

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If someone came to a doctor and said, Im hurting, the doctor would want to know whats hurting. () Is it your stomach, or arm, or leg. The doctor would poke and prod to be as specific as possible. The same is true for our interior pain. Saying Im hurting isnt saying enough. Naming the emotion, evaluating it, understanding when it appears to us and why it appears to us. Thats taking responsibility for our pain. The clearer we are about our pain the easier it will be to release it. This step can get raw. In the book that were selling Louis Smedes wrote a story about Jeff. Jeff was a research assistant for a professor. In his research Jeff came upon a small package of lost letters that Thomas Jefferson had written to Sally Hemmings, who was Thomas Jeffersons slave. Jeffs professor convinced him to postpone his graduation for a year in order to develop a scholarly article. The profess said that the two would collaborate and be co-authors of this article. It would help Jeff in his career. The article was presented at a meeting of the American Historical Association. But it didnt have Jeffs name on it. The professor had removed Jeffs name and had taken credit for all of the work. Jeffs name was mentioned in one footnote. Jeff had given up a year of his life to this work and his professor received all the credit. When someone asked Jeff how he was feeling he said this: SLIDE I recognize annoyance, but, not thats not what I feel, some disappointment, no indignation,yes, but a lot more, too: grief to be sure, but none of these is what I am feeling right now. What I really feel is rage. My blood is boiling, and I hate that man. I wish he would get fired and die of frenzy on the spot. (Smedes, page 133)

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Jeff named and owned his pain. To forgive thats where he needs to be. Remember Mary Johnsons story. She shared that she wanted Oshea locked up and the key thrown away. She named and owned her pain. Smedes wrote in his book that when pain comes to us we have three options. SLIDE 1. We can ignore it or stuff it

This is the path that many Minnesotans take. We want to be nice. Its hard to be in touch with the rawness of our emotions. When we stuff our pain it becomes like a mole that eventually comes out and does mischief. SLIDE 2. Seek revenge.

We can respond to our pain by trying to hurt the person who hurt us. Revenge might feel good in the short-term, but it doesnt help us in the long-term. SLIDE 3. We can release it through forgiveness. Be clear and name the pain on how Ive been wronged SLIDE us. We can rediscover the humanity of a person when we view the person as a deeply flawed human being. Its easy to put a monster label or some other label on a person who hurt us and then let that label fuel our emotions. But thats not healthy. Instead could we see the person as a deeply flawed human being. The person is flawed. They arent a monster. Theyve made mistakes and those mistakes have hurt us. We might even cause those mistakes a sin. Its hard to know the persons motivation in hurting us. What we do know is the person is deeply flawed. Maybe the person didnt grow up in a supportive environment, maybe the The third step to forgiveness is to rediscover the humanity of the person who hurt

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person had his or her own pain that werent released, maybe the person cant help but inflict pain on others. The person is flawed. Im not saying that we tolerate what the person did, but can we view the persons humanity. When I have to forgive someone who has hurt me I try to imagine in my own mind the person as a baby. I imagine the person crawling on the floor, bringing joy to everyone in the room, to being lovable like babies are. Obviously as a baby the person never imagined that they would cause anyone any pain. Something happened between the time the person was a baby until the time the person caused our pain. At one point this person came into the world with all sorts of potential and promise. Look at Oshea Israel. He murdered someone. Hes not a monster. We saw that when he was here. He identified himself that he is a deeply flawed human being. This is where our friends can be helpful to us or can hurt us. Its natural to have strong emotions about a person who causes pain. Our friends can egg us on in an unhealthy way. They might say something like That person is a ________. Every word about the person is full of bitterness or anger or resentment. We dont need our friends to encourage our resentment or anger or bitterness. That doesnt help. What we need from our friends is help in releasing our painin forgiving. Its okay to be honest about their mistakes. But dont judge; let God do that. Instead see the see the person as a flawed human being who made some terrible mistakes. Were not called to give more power than is necessary to a perpetrator. Ultimately we get to the point of realizing that God loves this person too. SLIDE Fourth and final step revise our feelings towards the person by letting them go.

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This is a challenging step because were not ultimately in control of our feelings. If we can practice revising the feelings we have towards the personover and over and over again then eventually we will release those emotions. For many of us Release isnt a one-time experience. Mary Johnson talked about the exact moment when she released the pain she had for Oshea. For a lot of us that doesnt happen. But what can and will happen is when we consistently and persistently revise our feelings towards the person who hurt us we can over time release that pain. Perhaps this is why Jesus said that we have to forgive 70 times seven times. Because in the over and over and over practice of releasing that emotion we ultimately do. It often doesnt happen onceit might happen seventy times or a hundred times. But if we get in the habit of releasing that emotion, of letting it go, then over time the emotions dont hit us as hard. They might not go away, but they dont have to affect our lives. If you buy the book on Amish forgiveness youll come across the idea that Everett Worthington shared. He talked about two types of forgiveness. SLIDE Decisional forgiveness. This is where we decide to let go of our pain. We enter

into a process. We might do this over and over and over again. We get in the practice of letting go. This is the type of forgiveness Im talking about. SLIDE The second type of forgiveness is emotional forgivenss where over time our

emotions are replaced by other and even positive feelings. We dont have to decide because our emotions dont cause us pain. We dont get to emotional forgiveness unless weve experienced decisional forgiveness.

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Which leads me to the final question. The question is why? Why should we forgive. We know that forgiveness is hard, we know that forgiveness takes a lot of time, we know that forgivenss seems impossible at times. For me the answer to this question comes to a simple statement. Do we want to live with this rock in your soul? Do we want to live with that pain and emotional baggage that someone else has caused? Do we want to be released from that? Do we want to skip again? For me the answer is a resounding yes. When we forgive we are free to move on

with life with a greater sense of vitality and wholeness Today were coming to the Communion Table. Were remembering that Jesus died and was raised for us. Through his death and resurrection he released us from our sins. He forgave us with hope that he would forgive others. All of you have a rock that was put on your chair. Today we are going to ask you to drop the rock off before you receive Communion. May the release of that rock stay with us. Let go of the pain yourself. Then enjoy the grace that weve received through Jesus Christ.