You can forgive (RCC)

Intro: Repeating Ghosting

I had a friend that ghosted

I then started talking to this girl, turns out she was the girl!

Then I ghosted her

He and I then talked and I told him how I ghosted her!

Tension-

What do you do when people make you mad or offend you?

When your mom makes a comment that makes you mad and just infuriates you. What do you do?

When your teacher calls you out in front of the whole class and makes a scene, and you feel embarrassed? What do you do?

When your friends don’t invite you over to something and start saying things behind your back. How do you feel?

Do you have friends who are always angry?

I know angry adults, angry senior citizens, and here’s the thing, they were angry teenagers at one point to.

When we don’t deal with things correctly we make things messier. It starts as just one person offending you, but then you start telling other people about the situation, you get mad at situations like it, you encourage other people to get mad.

Angry people only want to repeat their anger and their pain on other peoples lives.

If you see stuff in the news, maybe things at home, there’s anger everywhere. It’s unprocessed.

Bible

This isn’t anything new. There’s a book in the Bible, that was originally a letter to a group of people in Thessalonica who were being treated horribly!

At the very end of this letter Paul says something, 1 Thessalonians 5:15 “See that no one pays back evil for evil, but always try to do good to each other and to all people.”

This is a great idea, but how do we do this? Through a spiritual practice called, forgiveness- the process of letting go of pain and moving forward after someone hurt you.

Spiritual Practice- Let Go

Here’s what you need to understand- forgiveness isn’t just about the other person. It’s about you!

Forgiveness is not about forgetting. You may not have been told this, but it’s often implied.

Illustrate

Situations that have caused me pain:

In art class my teacher held up my painting in front of the whole class and said don’t do it like this!

I remember when I left for college all of my friends would put these big surprise party’s together and share how much they cared. And I kept waiting for the day. After you graduate college, you know officially they aren’t going to do it.

I was abused by some family members growing up, and when they would make comments saying I’m too sensitive or needed to get over things I just couldn’t take it.

I can’t do much. In fact, there’s normal things for you emotionally that you can’t do when you hold onto this much pain.

Jesus

I don’t know what your story is, I don’t know where the pain is in your life. The reason why teach a message like this is not to tell you you’re awful, it’s because we’re echoing the love of God. Forgiveness actually validates the pain you’ve been through. When we forgive, it’s Jesus giving you the strength to say:

They hurt me when they said that about me. It was wrong. It wasn’t true. I don’t have to hold the offense anymore. I can live life free, looking at the truth of what Jesus says about me.

I’m sorry for what you’ve been through.

Application

What’s one situation in your life where you could choose forgiveness instead of retaliation?

This might be a heavy one where you need to talk with your small group leader after group. You will have to deal with it at some point in your life. And tonight Jesus is here, and I think he wants to help some of you get free!