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***The following is an unedited auto-generated transcript and may contain serious errors and speakers other than Dallas Willard. It is included here to assist your study. Please check the original audio for an authentic record of the event.

Dallas:

There’s one thing that we have to have in mind when we talk about God’s kingdom, and that is that as it is talked about, as it was lived by Jesus, it is a findable reality. And it’s findable in the relationships between human beings that live together. That’s where the kingdom of God is. It is a findable reality in the community of human beings. We must, I think it takes a lot of energy on that point, because we’ve been taught to think of the kingdom of God as, I don’t know, in fact what, maybe some kind of glorified political entity, or maybe heaven after we die, or who knows what. If you try to go into the mind, people will be the books of those who discuss it. It’s very difficult to find exactly what people have in mind by the kingdom of God. I think if you look at what Jesus taught, if you watch the way he lived and the way he acted, you’ll see that he regarded the kingdom of God as something which is to be found right in human relationships of parents to children, of man to woman to man, of neighbor to neighbor, of work to employ, of governor to govern. All of these human relationships, this is the place where the kingdom of God is to come. And that’s the way we turn into the kingdom of God, is by opening ourselves to the principle of that kingdom right in those relationships and the way we treat ourselves to, and then of course also the way we relate to God, is one person in the kingdom of God. He is one member of the community of God. And Jesus is another member of the kingdom of God.

Now, what I’ve been trying to do in these weeks, this is the last lesson in the series today, is I’ve been trying to get you to look at what he actually taught about the kingdom of God. Do you recall Jesus remarked on a few occasions about how people substitute the traditions of men for the Word of God? And each generation, each denomination, each group seems to say, well, we don’t have traditions of men. What we’re doing is not just a tradition of men. What we’re doing is the Word of God. And you will hear churches say, we are a New Testament church, for example, and what I mean by that, what we do is not a tradition of men. It’s the Word of God. When you come in our group, you will find that everything that happens here is just quite God’s thing. This is God’s way of doing it. And there won’t be any deviation from this. Every group platters itself that it has the Word of God in this temple.

Now, if you say, well, obviously this group is different from that, each group will say, well, but the others are wrong. The others have the traditions of men, the Catholics have the traditions of men, or the Baptists have it, or the Presbyterians, but we have the Word of God. And nearly all of the groups will say, well, all the others are, they have human traditions, but we’ve got them. We’ve got a real thing.

Now, at some point this ought to lead us to ask, well, why is that? What’s going on here? What’s happening? Why is it all these people say they have the Word of God and the others have the tradition? How can we escape this sort of trap? How can we hit the point where we look at things not as we must be right and the others must be wrong, but just sort of circumventing that whole issue of who’s right and who’s wrong and laying down the burden of defending and attacking? How can we defend?

Well, I suggest the way. First of all, we realize that we are wrong on a number of points. Now, as a general matter of fact, every one of us are wrong on some things, isn’t that right? So we start out with the acknowledgement, yes, there are some things that we’re doing, there are some things which we believe that are right.

Secondly, we might back a little bit, we might stay with that, but there are some things that we’re doing and the only reason we’re doing them is, you know, as Tevye says in Fiddler on the Roof, tradition, tradition. So why do we have a little cat? Well, tradition. I’ll tell you what, here’s the big answer. In other words, why are we doing it? Well, it’s just what our people have been doing. So this would be another step.

Now see, here’s an interesting thing about tradition. It isn’t necessarily wrong. So that’s different from saying we’re wrong on something, that’s just saying the only reason we’re doing this is because it’s a part of our culture. It’s a part of our way. We’ve been doing it, it’s a habit. It’s something that our group, our sort of people do. But it’s not necessarily wrong. What becomes wrong is when we say instead of being honest and saying, well, this is just a tradition that we’re attached to, we say God ordained it. This is God’s will. It’s God’s will that we have to eventually set this way. In fact, it’s God’s will that we do such and such and such. Instead of just saying honestly, this is the way we have been doing it and we sort of like it that way and it’s been done that way quite a while, it’s proven itself out to be the humble and so on. We want to all of a sudden give ourselves a sealed backbone and so we say God did it. God appointed us.

This is so true. If you watch those of us who stand up and preach and teach, you’ll see many times we’ve come in and tried to bolster ourselves up by saying, God told me to speak on this day and the person sitting out here in the view, how does God speak? God, what happened there? Did God actually tell the person to speak on John 3, 18? How did that work? Well, you see, there are ways of expressing genuinely valid experiences of God’s guidance, but we have to be very careful with those before we wind up saying something on the phone.

So the second step I would suggest is that we have to honestly say to ourselves, as much as we’re doing it, it’s just tradition. Just tradition. And then the third step that I would suggest is the following, this is the one I’ve been working on since then during this period. So you take the New Testament, primarily the Gospels but not the Gospels alone, and you read them as if you had never seen them before. You read them as if you’d never heard about the church, as if you’d never heard about Christianity or whatever you want to call it. Read as if you only want to find out one thing. What did this person, Jesus, teach? What did he teach?

And this attitude of looking to see not what did he teach, with the preliminary steps that we’re certainly wrong on some of our views about what he taught and probably never will be infallible. That’s something we have to sort of give up. Honestly, we just have to sort of give up. We have to sort of give up on the project that said all our beliefs are completely correct, right? And it’s hard for us to do that because there is a certain teaching, not too explicit, which comes in instead of you are saved by having absolutely correct beliefs. Isn’t that true? Well, you know, if you ever said that, probably you’d have a hard time getting people to say that, but if you watch the stress that is placed in the groups, very often the impression is given that if you don’t have a correct belief, you just might be false. You just might not make it.

So then it’s very hard for us to turn around then with all of the proper sort of humility about our abilities, even under the grace of God, and say, no, I at least, what could be wrong about something like this? My theory of the atonement, for example, might not be right. My theory of inspiration, my theory of the Second Coming, my theory of this, that, and the other, might not be right. And then to read, to read with that sort of thinking mind, to see, well, not what actually, what did Jesus teach about this? What did Jesus teach about marriage? What did Jesus teach about sexual relations? What did he teach about work? What did he teach about parents and children? What did he teach about all of these things that make up our lives?

Now, I certainly hope that as we have worked along with this little question that I’ve just repeated, this has gotten into your mind, and you’re taking it as an important thing and trying to say, what did he teach?

You know, you ever hear of the wax nose of authority? You know about the wax nose of authority? Well, there’s a phrase in our language, the wax nose of authority. What that means is that authority is something that you can bend it around in any direction you want. And Jesus’s nose has been twisted out of shape, really, believe me, over the centuries, repeatedly. His face has been utterly disfigured by people who were relocating a jawbone or an eye or an eyebrow or the whole thing. And it’s very easy if people don’t know what he taught to say what Jesus taught them. And that sounds very likely. That’s very heavy authority, isn’t it? And Jesus taught that. That almost makes me want to dump it or something and get out of the way if you’re in the wrong position, because that sounds pretty bad to go contrary to the teachings of Jesus. But the question is, what did Jesus teach? What did he teach?

Now, I hope that I’ve gotten this project before. I hope that you’ll take it from here and so on. I hope you’ll read the Gospels, as I have said before, like you read the newspaper. Or like you read a book, any kind of book. You depend upon God to take care of the inspiration part. You don’t have to inspire it as you read it with some special attitude. Just read it. Just read it critically. Give it your whole mind and read it with abuse of understanding. Read it with the assumption that you don’t already know what it says. If we read it with the assumption we already know what it says because we are saved and in order to be saved we must be all right and have all knowledge and all belief right anyway. There’s no possibility of finding out what it says. There’s no possibility whatsoever.

Now let’s understand this. As far as being saved is concerned, there’s only one thing required. If you’ll look into the scriptures and you can test this out by the method that I’ve just been suggesting, I hope you will. And that is simply an acknowledgment of the lordship of Christ. An acknowledgment of the lordship of Christ. If we don’t have that settled, everything else will come along. And again, you subject that claim to the test of experience. And if we don’t have that settled, no matter what we say we may believe, no matter how correct we may be by whoever’s standards and practice, if we don’t have that simple point settled in the lordship of Christ, practically nothing will be found.

Now, believe in the lordship of Christ does not mean subscribe to fifteen different theories. If we don’t have twenty large volumes of systematic or biblical theology about him, that doesn’t mean that at all. And to submit to the lordship of Christ is to accept a great deal of a mystery at the point at which we come into that. We don’t understand. When we say, I’m going to accept you as a teacher, a lord, a master, and I will be taught and I will learn. You don’t have to buy anything from the way before you understand. You really don’t. You can take those things up as they come. You can take them up as they come.

Now, this morning we want to talk about forgiveness in the time that we have remaining. And if you look at your sheet there, this is a difficult topic. Because it is so close to the hearts of us all, and in most of us there have been confusing experiences about forgiveness. And so I put down here, first of all, four facts which I want you to look at. And I think they are facts, and of course you’re not only entitled but welcome to argue with these. But let’s look at them as we go along.

First of all, I say, the kingdom of God is above all a life together with other human beings with and in God the divine center. We’re talking about the kingdom of God and what forgiveness means in the kingdom of God. Now, we’re not talking about what forgiveness means outside of that kingdom, though many things that we’ll say will apply to that. For example, if you will read the writings of psychologists, you’ll find many excellent discussions of forgiveness without any reference to the kingdom of God at all. And these are all very helpful. But we’re talking about the kingdom of God and what it is and what forgiveness is in that.

Now, second point, human beings are such that life together always involves us hurting one another to some degree. Given that we are fallible, given that we are not all powerful, we’re going to hurt one another to some degree. Now, there are degrees of hurt, for example, there’s simple irritation, then there’s explicit pain. Then there’s not just pain but harming the other individual. That is, in some way, debilitating him to face life. Like a person’s leg is cut off, he isn’t just hurt with pain, he’s crippled. So there are degrees of harm that happen in life together, there’s violence behind. Jesus said, offensives will come. They’re going to be offenses. When we live together, we hurt one another.

Now, you see, the reason I’m stressing this is because a lot of people think this is unnatural. And like two people are living together and they hurt one another and, oh, this is the most unusual thing that has ever happened. No, it’s natural. It’s normal, we hurt one another. That in itself is not something to become outraged or upset or sanctified, it’s just a fact, we hurt one another. Not only do others hurt us, but we hurt others. You know, you must fix this, please. Be very certain to settle this in your mind, because a lot of people think, well, if I just get good enough, I won’t hurt other people. But you know that in this world, the way it is, your very goodness will hurt other people. That’s right. Your very goodness will hurt other people. So I say it’s completely natural and normal that we should do things which hurt others. This is not to say it’s a good thing, and that we should plan on it in the sense of deciding how we’re going to do it, but rather that we should understand that this will happen. Jesus himself taught this. He said offenses must be used to help.

Third point. Now turn it around and stress the other side. It is natural and it is normal that we should be hurt. There is nothing shameful or obscene about being hurt. Now you may think, well, why is he going over these totally obvious points I’m going over, because I find it so hard for people, especially in the churches, to accept things, to say, yes, that’s the way it is. But it’s perfectly natural, perfectly normal that we should be hurt. If you don’t have that set up… People often think, well, it isn’t normal, it isn’t natural, and this is one of the things, or at least you ought to own up to it. It’s one of the things that leads people into practicing what I call being the great stone face, or the stiff upper lip. And some of those, as I say, spend their life playing a child game of not owning up to their hurts, so that they can be a big boy. Big girls don’t get hurt, or at least if they’re hurt, they don’t show it, isn’t that right? Something shameful about this. And much of adult life is plagued by nothing but a childhood version of something that might call morals and manners for children. And so the idea is, well, no, it’s not normal, it’s not natural, it’s not right to show that you’re hurt or to be hurt, but it is. Everyone’s hurt. There’s not a person in this room who isn’t right now, I’m pretty sure, hurting one’s son-in-law. If anyone says, oh yes, well that’s fine, I wish everyone, I’m in favor of everyone saying, no, I’m not hurting anyone. That’s natural, that’s quite normal.

Now finally, point B, and as I say, you may disagree all over the place with me about this, but still, I want to say that spiritual persons also, and perhaps especially, are hurt and hurtable. The gray stone face or the stiff upper lip is not the mark of spirituality, but rather is a desire to manipulate others by projecting an illusory image of strength, rather than allowing them to live with you as you really are, a hurt individual. Jesus was hurt. He was disappointed. He was pained physically and pained mentally. He was hurt. He was hurt in his life and he was hurt in his death. And if Jesus wasn’t a spiritual person, then I’d like to know your definition of a spiritual person.

Now these things I lay down as what seem to me to be facts. And in the light of these, then I’d like to go on to the teaching of Matthew 18, 15 through 35. Jesus has been talking about, in this passage, he’s been talking about children and about their preciousness before God. And he has just used the parable of the lost sheep to teach something about the little ones, the children. Now he turns from the little ones to the brothers. This includes also the sisters. Of course, they didn’t talk too much about those in those days, but he’d better include them. And the principles of Jesus set foot to make it clear that sisters are just as valuable as brothers.

All right, now he says, Moreover, his thy brother shall trespass against thee. And some, many of the ancient versions don’t include the against thee. They just say, if you trespass. Of course, in the brotherhood, when a person is in the wrong, it hurts everyone to some degree. So there isn’t all that difference between the reading of most of the old versions, in fact, in this reading, which is given here. I think a New English Bible, for example, doesn’t give the against thee. It just says the person shall trespass. Most other versions include the against thee.

If thy brothers shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fall between thee and him alone. Now, this is the best possible advice that can be given, psychologically or spiritually. If there is an offense, go talk to the person. Remember that the talking is not left up to the offender. The offender may not even know what he’s done. It is left up to the offender in this case, certainly they will know what he’s done. They’ve been hurt, and they will then have a knowledge that something is wrong. The other person may not. And the advice is, when this happens, go over and talk to the other person.

It would be worth living the rest of the hour just talking about why this is so hard for people to do. The easy thing to do is to dodge, to double. Probably to even go into some kind of dishonesty, you know, the game. Well, nothing really has happened. It’s a very poisonous move, this refusing to face what’s happening. Our lives are largely ruined by that in our marriages, in our children, with our children, with others, our neighbors, and so on.

Of course, let’s take one clear illustration of what happens. The person who does not talk this out becomes bitter and resentful in their minds. They become perhaps a suffering martyr, self-righteous sort of thing. I’m bearing all of this, I’m putting up with all of this, I’m so superior, and I’m suffering so much, and so on and so on and so on. The main thing is, these two people, even unless this is done, they’re not living honestly with one another. And here again we find this case of the offender, the offender projecting an image to the other which isn’t real. The image of the person who’s getting along fine is no problem, everything is fine between us, isn’t it? Everything is fine between us, here’s this image. When in fact they’re hurting, and they have been hurt, and they have been offended, and so they’re living a lie.

And they may even say, well, but see this, I’m doing this because of love. Remember, loves and lies don’t mix, love and lies. Love and lies don’t mix, they just don’t mix. When we lie to people, we’re trying to use them for something. You know that? And it may be that there are some cases where you could justify the terms of the good of the person you thought. And basically, that’s always wrong. If you have a, you know, a word or case, I’m perfectly willing to accept it because I’m not here to prove anything. But I’m here to suggest things for you to think about. And I say love and lies don’t mix.

So Jesus says, don’t slip into this posture of a lying relationship with the one who’s offended, you go to him alone. Okay? Alone. Now there’s no need to make the community matter about things. It can be handled between you two alone. But if for some reason it isn’t possible to work out what is happening between the two of you, there may be a need for some guidance or judgment or prayer or help, some sort of spiritual help from the larger community. And then you should take people with you and see them. And if they can’t be worked that way, then you take it to the church.

And if he neglect, and of course this would also mean if you neglected, any person who neglected, to accept the counsel of the body of believers, to accept that counsel. Then considering this one who is not willing to partake in the life of the community, who’s not willing to accept the discipline of the community, who’s not willing to be under others and admit that their judgment is right and their own is wrong or might be right and their own is wrong.

Now here we get into something that’s very hard to visualize because we don’t have a community like life. But very seldom do you find a group of believers now where there is this kind of unity. Because you see, this unity is based upon confidence in one another and under God. And for example, in this group here, let’s be quite honest, I mean we’re very skittish with one another. And if one of us looks cross-eyed, the others might say, I’m in fact a church for a month. But let’s say under God we are together. Under God we are together. We’re together to help and to be helped. We’re together freely. Like for example, if I believe something and you don’t believe it, you can tell me what you believe and I can tell you what I believe and we still love one another and disagree with one another. And I don’t mean love one another, you know, in the sense that we say, well, I’ll still love you. I’ll still love you even though I disagree with you, even though you’re wrong. I’ll still love you. That makes me rise to stuff. I love people who are wrong. It’s the same environment which you find where people really show up with one another. And they’re really there to help and they really carry one another in their hearts in prayer. And they think about one another each day of the week, many times each hour of the day. That’s love.

When you get into that kind of community and when you have that kind of community, there will emerge elders out there. And frankly, the elder is simply the person whom the other people are quite sure is in touch with God and loves them. Consequently, they have some ability to help them and they won’t hurt them because they’re under God. That’s the elder. The elder is the person who has the power and the love to be of some special use in the group, and we have them in this group. But yet there is lacking in this group of our fellowship here. There is lacking this kind of unity which would give us an intuitive picture of what we’re talking about.

We see this, I’m sure, as you know, we probably think this in terms of a court of law or something like that, where we have Bob Colamy and me and Dick and two or three other people sitting up there with a gold jaw and these people come in and say, well now, he stepped on my toe and wouldn’t admit it. And we’ve passed the past judgment, well take him out in time for the time being, turn the axles on or something like that. So we can’t possibly give an intuitive picture of what this is talking about until we get an understanding of what the community of God is doing. And oh, our biggest job then is to understand, with love and sympathy, is to understand how different our churches are from the kind of community that we envision. And I don’t say that to condemn anyone or anything, I just say it because I think it is necessary for us to understand it because if we don’t we’ll never possibly get clear on how this could be interesting.

You think of the community as a group of people who are filled with love and care and concern and ability to help one another. That’s one thing. If you think of a church as some one of these things where they have the, they call it fellowship actually. I suspect this thing they call the big beer drinking brotherhood at hand, that’s close to fellowship. Really, people get more enthusiastic and closer together and warmer and more understanding around it. What? Excuse me, I’m touching on this stuff.

Now, it moves into something very unique in the next verses. Because you see, he’s going to teach us and that forgives us if not something which we can just run as our own little show. He speaks about the church, but he doesn’t believe that as a group of people doing their thing. Let me read the next three verses now. Say, may I just as a guide just add, when you read the Bible, all of us read in confidence. That won’t solve every problem, but it will keep you from being misguided about what is being spoken of.

Now, there is not even a paragraph break in the text between verses 17 and 18. Let us understand that when we go on here, we’re not talking about something different. We’re talking that we’re on the same subject. We’re talking about how this business of forgiveness is to be handled in the church.

Very I say of you, truly I say of you, whatsoever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. What’s it talking about? It’s talking about the bonds of unforgiving spirit. It’s talking about the bonds which offended people live in. Believe me, there are no bonds in heaven. It’s talking about the bonds of alienation between human beings. And it’s talking about the power of the church to release those bonds. Very I say of you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loose in heaven.

Again I say of you that if two of you shall agree on earth about touching anything, that thing shall act. It shall be done for them of my Father, which is what it’s talking about. It’s talking about praying for rain. It’s talking about forgiveness in the midst. It’s talking about handling this most important of relationships between human beings. It shall be done for them of my Father, which is in heaven. The reconciliation even between human beings is not a human work. It is a desire. This is why many people have had such bad experience when they try to make up with others. It’s because they try to do it as something which would be feared just by saying, well, I’ve offended you, so forgive me. Or you’ve offended me, so I’ll not forgive you or whatever.

But you see, this is to be handled as a picture. Remember we’re talking about forgiveness in the kingdom of God. We’re talking about forgiveness in a special kind of community on which God is the center. So when this binding and loosing is to happen, it isn’t as if someone, even Peter or the Pope or the preacher or whoever, had this fantastic ability to go around withholding bonds. We’re talking about a life together in a community, and the heart of that community is what? Prayer. The heart of the community is prayer. Because prayer is the relationship to the Lord who used to sin. The heart of the community is prayer. That’s why when you find a church that isn’t praying, you find a church where it’s not as happy. Or if you like, one of the churches that looks at the revelation of the church that says, down after the name, that’s not like a lie, but aren’t there. There’s a lot of flirting over there, a lot of action, picking up the peal of autonomy. But no spirits are lying.

This is Peter. In that passage, yes, he does say his name. In that passage, he’s dealing with a more general setting of the power of the church to release bonds. And he’s giving, especially, another follow-up week in the community. This is Peter talking about the brother of man. No one wants this one. In that passage, he’s speaking in a much more general way about all kinds of bonds, all kinds of problems. That’s my understanding. And in this passage, he’s very direct to this issue of an alienation between people where there’s some kind of money. That’s my understanding of it. You know, I don’t guarantee on the first day. All I do is give them and you have to check them out.

Now then, he comes even to something much more imminent in the fellowship than the prayer in the following verse. For where two are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of it. The power by which this community blends is not just one which is up in heaven, which is invoked by building the strength of prayer. There is one who is in the midst. And the one who is in the midst is Jesus. He’s here. The king and his kingdom are here. And it’s in his presence that forgiveness can be claimed.

He goes on to tell a story that bears on the simple point that he had made earlier in the Sermon on the Mountain. I’ve quoted at the top of your page from the sermon. He goes on to tell a story. I’m not going to repeat the story. I think all I was probably familiar with it. To the effect that those who do not forgive are not forgiven by God.

I think there’s a real danger of misunderstanding at that point for this reason that I’m trying to stay with some words about what forgiveness is. And if you look at point C, number two, it seems, I’d just like to read down and comment briefly on some of these things before we have folks.

Those who do not forgive are not forgiven, no matter how that should be found. No matter how correct they are doctrinally or otherwise. Jesus didn’t say, you know, if you don’t forgive, you’re not forgiven unless you have the right to believe about the Trinity. He didn’t say that. If you don’t forgive, you’re not forgiven. And he also said, if you forgive, you will be forgiven.

Now, whatever view you may hold in relation between works and wages, try not to tear that out of the Bible. But if you forgive, your Heavenly Father will forgive just like he said earlier on when he commented, to give a cup of water for one time in my name, you’ll not lose your reward. This is because forgiveness, like love, is not an act or series of acts which may be dispensed at the will of the agency of God, but rather is a spirit in which one lives and without which one cannot receive forgiveness. Forgiveness is a transaction between two persons, and it cannot be poured out on those unwilling or unable to receive it. And those whose spirits are such that they cannot or will not forgive also cannot or will not receive forgiveness.

Well, doesn’t the fact that man doesn’t serve me receive forgiveness? It seems that that’s the way to cut off everything. Yes, I think you’re right. I would interpret 17 as saying that, well, and it may be that I’m not the person who offended it, it may be the other person, you know, there’s a disagreement of your problems, but where there’s a heart, an unyielding in the spirit, then there is an incapacity to receive forgiveness. See, let me put it this way, when a person suddenly understands what the forgiveness of God is to them, their whole lives can’t help but be revolutionized, and that will affect their relationships to others. You can’t just have it, you know, this is where I think Francis talked a number of times about the yeast, the kingdom of God is like leather, and how it just spreads, and you can’t compartmentalize forgiveness. You can’t have a little of it here, and the rest of your life parking against you. I think this is what Jesus teaches, that it is a spirit or basic spirit, and it isn’t as if we forgive in order to get forgiveness, but that in fact if we don’t have a forgiving spirit, we are unforgiven people.

But forgiveness on our part does not earn forgiveness. Without the stand, there’s no question of earning that. Precisely because where there’s earning, there’s no giving. Where there’s earning, there’s this pain. I’ve learned something and I paid it. Now it isn’t a matter of earning forgiveness, it’s just a matter of this kind of test of whether or not God has forgiven us. Do we live with forgiving spirit?

I want to work over this third point here because I think it’s so important for us to understand some things about what forgiveness is and what it is not. I understand that we’re not going to be able to reach any kind of demon or anything like this. I can’t, I just want to expose my thinking about it to you and ask you to think about it because I find that many people are hurt as much by their efforts, misguided efforts, to do something they think all that’s forgiveness, which isn’t. They’re hurt as much by that as they are by their unwillingness to forgive.

And I think forgiveness occurs in an explicit exchange between two persons. It is something where you have two people, they are conscious, they have an understanding of what happens, and they acknowledge that one has attempted the other. They agree exactly, or I shouldn’t have used the word exactly here, but spare the exact, as to what happens. There is first of all an attempt at forgiveness of meaning and honor. And this is the first place where attempts at forgiveness usually go wrong, there is no meaning in mind. Usually what happens for an attempt to forgive is an attempt to sweep something under the rug quickly because of my blessing. And that is very, very sad, but it never meets the promise.

But there is this understanding, and now the act itself then has the nature of the problem. When I forgive someone who has offended me, what I am doing is I am saying to them, as far as our future is concerned, again, I will never, I will never use this voltage. I will never pull it on you in any way, shape, or form. Now this is a simple act which we can all understand, there is no mystery about it. As far as the fulfillment of the promise is concerned, it is undoubtedly going to require the great constraining of God to fulfill that promise. But that’s available in the community of God. We will possibly make mistakes, but we make mistakes anyway, and we will pick it up and we will go on by the grace of God. We won’t pull that on the person anymore. As I put it here, it is a promise of the one who tends not to take vengeance by any form of conscious action on the offender, which includes such things as saying, well you did that and I forgave you.

Now let me say, point out these things that I say forgiveness is not, because this is where I find the most important confusion.

First of all, forgiveness is not saying, oh it didn’t matter. That is not forgiveness. That is a refusal to face this thing. If it didn’t matter, there is nothing to be forgiven, so there is no forgiveness. Forgiveness is where something matters. It matters.

Forgiveness is not ceasing to hurt. And oh, there is so much confusion on this. People think, for example, that if they are truly forgiven, they won’t hurt any longer. That’s not true. You may continue to hurt for a long, long time. But remember, you see, people feel guilty about hurting too. You know that? People feel guilty about hurting. That’s such a confusion. But it’s so important, it’s not anything for us to look down on, we just have to understand, people feel guilty about hurting. Isn’t that incredible? Hey, watch this. There’s no reason people feel guilty about hurting. But many people don’t feel guilty about hurting. They think that if they keep hurting, they haven’t forgiven. And that’s just simply false. Hurting and unforgiving are two different things. Remember that unforgivingness is a disposition to use something on somebody. Whenever the occasion is right, I will lay it on them. This is the good individual’s phrase, bury the hatchet. Bury the hatchet. I guess that’s the thing is that you’ve been bringing the person, take it out and bury them. Or you can’t grab him and use him. Unforgivingness is a disposition to take that hatchet off your Belgian skull. Beat their brains out, make them pay, grind, you know, the pounds of flesh business. That’s unforgivingness.

Now let’s get very clear in our heads about this hurting business, okay? Hurting isn’t even an evil. Many people make pain as evil. Pain is no more evil than cooked cabbage. I don’t like certain ways of cooking cabbage, that doesn’t make cabbage evil, does it? I don’t like pain, that doesn’t make pain evil. Just because I don’t like it, that doesn’t make me evil. Hurting, it’s just hurting, that’s all. It has to be dealt with, but it’s not evil.

Another thing, forgiveness is not forgiving that are wrong with God. That’s marvelous of you to sit still while I say all those things. I know that you don’t agree with any of these, but at least I’m going to say them to you and I want you to think about them.

Forgiving is not something which you can do. Forgiving is something which by God’s grace you can. Forgiving is something which may happen to you over time. Forgiving and forgetting are two different things. You can forgive it, but you remember. And it’s been done many, many times. And in other things, you forgive, there’s no forgiveness involved, you just forgive. Forgiving and forgiveness are not the same thing, please put it down. And that follows the simple fact that anything that you forgive, there’s no forgiveness in it. Like you forgot them all the days, but you didn’t forgive anything. Forgiving and forgetting are two different things.

And this is so important, I think, all of these are. Pretending that the relationship is exactly what it was before the injury was imparted. All this is a trap, a poignant trap. Pretending that the relationship is not the same, period. It will never be the same. It may be better, but it will never be the same. And many people think that if they forgive, that means, well, I’m going to pretend like it didn’t happen. That’s a lie. To pretend like that is too lying to yourself and too lying to others. It did happen. The relationship has changed. It may by God’s grace be ten thousand times better, but it will never be the same.

Now, God’s grace can move into our lives and make them better. He can even bring forgiveness over. Not that you need it. Not that you need it at all, but you can’t bring forgiveness. God’s grace to someone. But if you’re going to handle the forgiveness which we so gladly need and require, all of our friends will be able to understand what it is. And if you don’t agree with what I’ve said to you, then I hope you will go right up and write up what you think it is. I really want you to do this. As some of you know, one of the objects of my teaching is to get you angry and willing to, willing to work on these things until you come to an understanding. At least, that you can extend a basic description, belief, and experience of the next element.

Now, the forgiving relationship is one which is very much about guilt. And where guilt is involved, people tend to do all kinds of twisting and turning and dodging and trying to play it on other people and reversing the role of all kinds of guilt. Guilt is excitement. So you have to be very careful. You have to be very thorough in your studies, in your meditation, in your prayers, in your openness to listen to what others say and your openness to experience. Before you have to acknowledge where you can’t go.

I just want to close where you can’t handle this confidence, forgiveness without hurting other people. I just want to quote this verse, which I make so much of, first John 1.7. Because here he is speaking about the condition of the King who is living in the kingdom of God. That is, if we walk in the light, in the truth, openly, as he is in the light, then we have fellowship one for another. And then we have divine community. And then the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son and Son himself are awesome. And in order to have that kind of life, forgiveness has to be understood rightly and handled well and thoroughly. Otherwise, we’ll have darkness. We’ll have people dodging on us, people in alienation from one another, people who care for us, why? Because they think it’s the spirit who thinks it is. And in fact, it is.

Let’s pray. Lord, we come in not only with this lesson, but the whole series, and these clear ones will come and listen and talk and study. And we pray that you will lead each one in his or her own unique and individual way. And be their teacher. Guys and girls, take care of them. Make them prosperous and happy.