How do we as people reconcile against or with people that we have significant issues with? Maybe people that have harmed us, maybe people that we have harmed, or at the very least, relationships that we have that are very strained. Is anyone willing to have the courage to raise your hand and admit that you have strained relationships that you would like to see changed in your life in some capacity? And my hand is raised not rhetorically. I'm in. You know, strained relationships or broken relationships are such a burden. They are, they weigh you down. I mean, the number of hours I've spent driving in my car and having hypothetical conversations with people either I have a problem with or I know they have a problem with me. Like if I could get those hours back, it'd be amazing. Or the awkward situations that you find yourselves in when you have those unavoidable moments where you either you bump in to one of those people, your social circles connect to some degree, and you can't avoid it, or they're in your family, and the holidays happen every year, it's hard. It's really, really hard. Jesus says this in Matthew chapter 5. Therefore, if you're offering your gift at the altar, and to the people Jesus is talking to, that would be like the most important thing in their minds you could do. That would be the thing God would say. That's priority number one. He says, if you're doing that, and then you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift in front of the altar. First, go and be reconciled to them, then come and offer your gift. We started a series at the beginning of the year called First. We're just looking at these times in Scripture where Jesus tells us to put something first. And so our first Sunday together was how we got to focus on the inside first. He told the religious people in his day, you guys are so obsessed about the external stuff. You work so hard to look like you have it all together, but on the inside you're a mess. And that's kind of how it is for all of us. We're all messy. And Jesus said, look, just deal with that first. Prioritize the inside stuff. Obviously, this idea of reconciliation, it stirs up the inside stuff. But but this is something that Jesus values more than we might even realize. In fact, I think the best picture of that would be Luke chapter 23. Jesus is on the cross in this particular scripture. It says, When they came to the place called a skull, they nailed him to the cross. And the criminals were also crucified, one on his right, one on his left. And Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they're doing. And the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice. You have to put yourself as much as possible into the perspective of Jesus here. He has been beaten, he has been tortured, he has been mocked, he's been nailed to a cross. Right in front of his eyes are soldiers that are that are rolling dice to see who gets his clothes. And he says, Father, not avenge me. Father, forgive them. They don't realize what they're doing. 2 Corinthians says that all of this is a gift from God who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him, for God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ's ambassadors. God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, come back to God. For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. By putting our faith in Jesus, we are reconciled to God. Jesus, He paid for the sin of all humanity. Everything every person has ever done wrong, Jesus paid for it. It's paid for it, it's done. Now we have the option to receive that, to take what he's given to us. And ultimately what he's given to us is reconciliation between us and God. God, he loves you. Your mistakes, your issues, your past, it's been paid for. It's done. But now we, as Jesus followers, and I recognize not everybody here, not everybody watching, has maybe made that decision yet, but but if we have, as Jesus followers, we are actually called, given this task, to do everything we can to help every person around us be reconciled to God. And if we don't have reconciliation in our own relationships, then that's gonna be really, really difficult for us to do. We're the ambassadors of Jesus. That's what it says. So we have to value reconciliation. Now I want to say a few things on the front end, and we're gonna go through this. Number one, I mentioned this a minute ago, talking about this, just this idea, it stirs stuff up on the inside. And I know that many of us didn't come here today to say, you know what I'd like to think about? That thing I try really hard not to think about. This stirs up anger. This idea of reconciling with the people in our lives that we have broken or strained relationships with, sometimes it stirs up guilt. Sometimes this brings us mentally to some of our least favorite moments in life. It can stir up shame, it can stir up all kinds of things. But what I want us to understand is that God can handle all of that. So whatever internal stuff this stirs up today, just know that God will partner with you in all of that. It probably wasn't easy for Jesus to say, Father, forgive them. That probably took some effort. But I'm so glad that he did. So as we stir this stuff up, just know that God can help you with this. In fact, you need him to. When we put our faith in Jesus, he gives us the Holy Spirit. The very Spirit of God is inside of you. So whatever's going on inside of you that's that's that's off, that you're like, I don't want to, the Holy Spirit can handle it, but you have to trust him with that. I also want us to recognize how nuanced this is. Because some of us today, the reconciliation that that we maybe lack in in relationships in our lives, we might say, hey, it's not my fault. I'm not the one who committed the the crime. And that might be true. That might be 100% true, or 80% true, or 20% true. I don't know. For some of us, we know that we're the ones who were in the wrong, or at least we played a significant role in that. And so it requires humility to be able to even go there and think about that, because reconciliation might require an apology. And I hate apologizing for things. Like I hate it. But I do it a lot. Because I'm married and have four kids, and I'm a man, and uh just a little clunky in the way I go about life. It's also nuanced because that while we're gonna talk about a lot of principles that I think can help all of us pursue reconciliation in those broken or strained relationships, and how amazing is it, by the way, that Jesus wants us to have the freedom from all the pain and the baggage and the weight and the awkwardness that comes with that. It's nuanced because it's not all on us. It's not just a one-person job. In fact, Romans chapter 12, verse 18 says, if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. And I love that we have those two qualifiers. If it's possible, which implies that maybe sometimes it's not. Sometimes we find ourselves in kind of impossible situations. And at the time, to us at least, it seems like, yeah, reconciliation, it just isn't possible right now. Either because that person doesn't want to talk, or I'm just not anywhere close to being ready. But Jesus said that with God all things are possible. So even when we find ourselves in impossible situations, we can pray, Lord, it doesn't seem possible right now, so I need you to do something to make it possible. And then it says, as far as it depends on you, it doesn't all depend on you. In fact, I know that some of us in the room, some of us watching from home, you maybe have pursued reconciliation with someone. You've tried to get things right, and it just hasn't been received. It's not all on you. But to whatever degree it is possible, and as much as it depends on us, we're supposed to try to live at peace with everyone. We're supposed to try to bury the hatchet, to let the past be the past, and to move on, to not let past hurts, past wounds define our lives. This is difficult stuff. And I actually kind of wish Jesus hadn't said this. But he did. And his words rank number one in my life. At least they're supposed to. And so this is something we've got to go after. It doesn't mean, by the way, that every person's gonna be okay with us, that every person in our lives is gonna be cool with us. That's not possible. That wasn't possible for Jesus. Like, not everybody liked Jesus, not everybody agreed with Jesus. It's not about us having like everyone's happy with me. Not everybody was happy with Jesus. But Jesus did whatever was necessary to be reconciled to people and mainly for us to be reconciled to God. So this is something we're supposed to pursue. And again, how amazing would it be if that weight, that burden, that awkwardness of broken and strained relationships with God. So with all that said, let's start by looking at a few words. Let's start with this one retaliate. This is the exact opposite of reconcile, right? The opposite of reconciliation is retaliation, but let's be honest, guys, retaliation feels so good. I talked about, you know, driving in my car and having these uh these hypothetical conversations, and sometimes they're really vivid, where like I'm sitting across from someone and and and I imagine them saying what they would say to me, and it's amazing how often the thing that I imagine saying back is like a zinger. And I even feel it, I'm like, gotcha, and they're not even there. They're not even there. And I'm driving, like, yeah, I put them in their place, hypothetically. Am I the only one that does that? I always wonder. Anybody else? Just raise your hand if you do that. Thank you. All right? Thank you for being honest. But like it's it retaliation is it's enjoyable. It feels good when you when you let someone know that they're wrong. And we can retaliate in a variety of different ways. We have so many options. It's like a big menu of how would you like to retaliate to someone? Would you like to say something directly to them, or would you like to go on social media and write a thinly veiled critique of them that they will completely understand is them, but other people won't, so people start liking it and going, like, yeah, that's so great, you're so wise, and you're just feeling I'm ah, yes, bring it on. Like, how do you want to retaliate? 1 Peter 3.9 says, Don't repay evil for evil. Don't retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and he will grant you his blessing. Now, I recognize that for many of us, this idea of reconciliation is something that is maybe connected to something that happened a long time ago. The wounds maybe aren't fresh. But for some of us, maybe we're right in the thick of a fight. We're right in the thick of drama. And maybe right now you're here because you are this close to retaliating. Because you're so fired up right now because of how fresh everything you're dealing with is that you are you are like chomping at the bit to say your piece, to speak your mind, to put that other person down, or maybe let every person around you know that they were wrong. If you pursue that, it might feel good. People might agree with you, but it will do nothing to help you reconcile. Because all retaliation does is widen the gap that exists between us and the person that we have brokenness with. So, so if that's something you're you're fighting, I just want to encourage you to fight. Fight that desire, that temptation, we might say, to retaliate, to respond, even in kind. If they've insulted you, don't insult them. That's tough. That's a God thing. You're gonna like you don't you might need all that God has just to not retaliate, but if that's the victory for you today, that you can go a week and say, I didn't make it worse. That's good. That's good. Let's move on. This is uh the one I had to wrestle with the most this week. By the way, I hated writing this message. Hated it, and I'll tell you why during this segment. Um, right. I feel like I'm right a lot. Um I have disagreements with people, it's just amazing how confident I can be that if they could just see things from my perspective, they would realize how right I am and how wrong they clearly are. And the desire to feel right is one of the biggest hindrances to reconciliation that we deal with as people. So, and guys, you react to this however you want to. I love you. Just let it be known. I got thrown out of my uh son's basketball game a week ago. Um was given the boot. And I'm I just want you to know, uh, first of all, I know I'm your pastor. I was in another county, so we're good. The likelihood of uh any of the people there coming here today, pretty low. Okay. Um it was it was Fulton County. And you know, like, we'll go to Fulton County, but Fulton County people don't always come here. You know, and if you are, by the way, great, that's awesome. But you know, that's just kind of how the Fulton County, because I feel like we're good. Um here's what happened. And I need you to understand, I really believe I'm right. I feel strongly about this. So part of basketball is encouraging the refs to be better. It's part of the sport. It's really part of most sports, right? They need help. And so, and this is so this was so hard for me. I might need to backtrack. Um, I coached my son for several years, never got a technical, got got to the line many times. Never got a technical, never got thrown out of a game. My wife and my father-in-law both got warned on multiple occasions to stop, or they would get thrown out. And so for years I've had this whole like, you guys are the one with the problem, I'm good, that's gone. That's over, it's done. I'm the only one that's ever been kicked out. So here's what happened. Earlier in the game, there was a call that I thought was clearly wrong. And so I expressed that out loud by saying that was a terrible call. Those were my exact words. It was louder. Um I didn't say it to the ref, but I made sure the ref and everyone else could hear that opinion. That was a that was a terrible call. That's how I said it. And the ref looked at me, as as refs do. Uh then, for the next quarter or so, I felt like this trend of terrible calls simply continued. And what was happening is is this particular ref was calling all kinds of stuff on our on our team. He's blowing his whistle like like like his life depended on it. Just every time. Whistle, whistle. And then on our side, if there's any contact, no whistle. And so, after a few minutes of this, my son drives in and he draws some contact, nothing egregious, but there's no whistle, and I felt like, oh, on the other side, there would have been a whistle. And so he goes by me and I say, just like this, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do it as honestly as possible. I have it on video because I was videoing the game, by the way. Um I didn't put it up there because that might be retaliation. So um I wanted to, I thought about it, or not. Uh so I said, Could you blow your whistle then? To which he responded, by blowing his whistle. Which is, to be honest, what I asked for. Uh and he blow his he blow his whistle and he turned to me and he said, You're out. And I was like, What? Like, are you are you serious? Come on. For saying, would you blow your whistle then? Uh so then I went out and I had a nice little time in the lobby, just wrestling with a lot of stuff. Uh and then I went back in after the game was over, which was sin. Because I just felt right, and I needed him to know that he was wrong for throwing me out of the game. And it was, I've been honest, it was like legitimately sin, because all I was doing was scratching that itch that I had as a person to feel right and justified, and so I said, Hey man, you threw me out for no good reason. And he said, Oh, you said that thing, and I'm like, you need to have thicker skin to be a ref. And he said, Well, I've been doing this for 18 years, and I do have thick skin, and I said, Well, maybe it's time to hang it up. And then I left. Right. Now, I need you to understand. We've talked about this at church. There's two parts to us, right? There's the flesh. My flesh felt so good saying that. My flesh feels really good saying that right now. And then there's my spirit, which recognizes that that is 100% rooted in pride, that it's arrogant. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 29, says, Don't use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them. Proverbs 29, 11. Fools vent their anger, but the wise quietly hold it back. See, the issue is I felt like I was right. And he was wrong. And I needed him to know that he was wrong. That's how it started, and that's how it ended. Ironically, two days later, uh, this guy who who refs a lot of Liam's games and who I've played basketball with from time to time over the years, came up to me and said, Hey man, would you ever be interested in being a referee? And I said, No. Because I know I get paired with that guy. Like, it's just how God would do it. Like, me and him, I'm like that same guy. And Megan actually wisely, I think, said, Maybe you ought to pray about that, because maybe you need to feel what it's like to be in their shoes. And I'm probably not going to, but I will pray about it. Can you imagine how often Jesus felt right? Like, if you're Jesus and you're God, right? Those of us who follow Jesus, like our belief, because that's what he said, is that Jesus is God. He is the Son. He is God in the flesh. And he was right all the time. Can you imagine the self-control it must have it must have taken? Like, for Jesus not to just tell everyone constantly that they're wrong? Like, how how you know how it annoys you when someone is saying something and you know it's not true? Like, you know it? Maybe they're pretending they're an expert in some area that they're clearly not, and everything they're saying is wrong, and you're just like, you are, you do not know what you're talking about. Jesus dealt with that every day of his life. And look, there's times where he spoke up. There are times, guys, where we're standing for something that is true, and it's of great importance, and it's worthwhile in those moments when we're dealing with matters of truth to stand up and say, hey, that is not right. That is not true. 1 Peter actually puts it this way: chapter 3, verses 15 and 16. If someone asks you about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it, like stand for the truth, but do this in a way that is gentle and respectful. A call at a basketball game does not rise to the level of a great societal truth that must be stood for. But my point is simply this the need to feel right is an obstacle to reconciliation. What if we desired being right with people? More than we desired being right about people. Reconciliation is about being right with someone. Let's move on. So the next word is release. The only way. That you can move forward in terms of reconciliation is to release whatever offenses have happened against you. This is really hard. This is so hard. Ephesians 4, verses 31 through 32 says, get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. It's tough. If you don't release the offenses that have come against you, this is inside stuff, internally. You'll never be reconciled. People have undoubtedly hurt you. People have undoubtedly lied about you, betrayed you, stabbed you in the back, cheated you, abused you, you name it, or if it's not you, someone you love. Sometimes we harbor great resentment toward those who haven't done anything directly to us, but maybe their decisions have affected people that we love. Before we could ever move to reconciliation, we gotta release that stuff. We can't hold on to it. When you hold on to resentment, it just grows into bitterness, and that bitterness will become a deep anger. And that will solidify over time. That will solidify over time to where it literally becomes like a poison inside of you. Where you can honestly get to the point where you're like, I hope horrible things happen to that person. I would take joy out of finding out that their life fell apart. I know that's dark, but we can get to that place if we allow resentment and unforgiveness to dwell inside of us and we don't deal with it. We have to release that. And the thing we have to recognize is that we can't wait around for people to come to us and say, hey, would you please forgive me? Because they probably won't. They probably won't. Very few people ever go to anyone else and say, hey, I've been thinking a lot about what happened, and I was wrong. And what I did really hurt you, and I'm really sorry. And please, would you forgive me? In fact, Steve, who was the pastor here for years, uh, my mentor in life, just a great guy, uh, Steve used to teach it this way that it's like we have these arrows inside of us. You know, people who have wounded us, have hurt us. It's like they've hit us with an arrow, and eventually we're like walking around with all these different arrows just coming out. And some go a little deeper than others. But if we wait around for someone to come and say, Hey, could I, would you mind me taking that arrow out that I put there? Like, it just won't happen. In fact, what often happens is the longer we leave it in, that person might actually come to us and say, Hey, could I remove that for you? And we're like, No. Because we're so used to it. We actually kind of, especially in a culture like we live in right now, that really values feeling victimized. Like, I guess a huge issue that we have in America right now where people feeling like they are, that like they're on the other side of grave injustices for little things. There are grave injustices in our world, but a lot of people feel like injustices have been done to them that in the grand scheme of things are just like minor. But we get so good at holding on to that that even when someone asks us to, we won't let it go because then we're not a victim anymore. We can't complain about it. We can't show our arrow to people and say, look what happened to me. It's gone. So we have a choice. Either we're gonna walk around with all these wounds and all this pain, waiting for someone to finally do enough to convince us to forgive them, or we'll just forgive them. Like, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. Father, forgive them. They're only human. Father, forgive them. Father, forgive me. You gotta release your own guilt. You gotta release your own mistakes and all of that. And this is inside stuff, guys. This is something you cannot do on your own. This is not about mental exercises. This is about the deep work of the Holy Spirit, the deep work of God in your heart, giving you the ability to have freedom from all that pain. But Jesus, before he even died on the cross, made sure to release that. Forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. So when he breathed his last breath, he was good. It's vital that we do that. This is about forgiveness. It's it's really tough. Let's keep going. Let's talk about who's responsible. This is where it gets really personal. Because sometimes we we find ourselves in situations where we might say, um, I'm not responsible for what happened. I'm not responsible for that gap that exists. I'm not responsible for the fact that that person is a toxic person. And a little sidetrack, but but I promise it's short. Looks, I'm not saying that in reconciliation we have to be super tight and close with every person who's ever hurt us. You know, sometimes in your life you have people who are toxic. You have people who, at the very least, you can say they're just so confused or unhealthy in some area of their life where you actually have to put boundaries in place. You have to sort of create some separation, some distance, because otherwise the pain is just going to compound. In fact, and sometimes in those situations, those boundaries are actually something that preserves the ability to have reconciliation later. Because if you didn't put that boundary in place, the number of offenses would grow and grow and grow to the point that it would make it so much harder for you to ever have reconciliation. Sometimes you have to say, hey, we got to pause the relationship right now. And then we can deal with what's happened, but I can't deal with what's happened if things keep happening. So understand that this is not necessarily saying, well, well, I've got to be like best friends with everyone that I ever have issues with. But what we do have to do is take responsibility for what we're responsible for. We have to have the ability to say, am I responsible for this strain, this brokenness? And Lord, to what degree am I? This is hard. Because we'd all like to believe that I'm 0% responsible, right? Like, who's responsible for me getting thrown out of that game? Clearly, the referee. Right? I mean, I can promise you, if I was a referee, I would never throw a dad out of a game. That just wouldn't happen once. No, it'd happen a lot. Uh is why I said no, I'm too temperamental. Um during during sports. You know, and I do think, by the way, there's not a lot of scripture about sports. I do think sometimes maybe God is like, well, he had a ball in his hand, so it was fine. Um, you know, because men in sports, do you think that's the truth? No. But it's how I sleep at night. So what we have to do, though, in all seriousness, is is own it. You know, guys, there is a power in owning your issues and calling them what they are. Like his hands, if you're new, we've always been a church that's hyper-focused on Jesus and his love and grace. Grace being that we have total forgiveness for everything. Uh, but but sometimes in that whole grace focus, what gets lost in that is that we forget the power of like confession and actually owning our issues and our sin. Because if I don't own the seriousness of my sin, then I'll never actually fully appreciate the seriousness of God's grace. Like if I live my life believing, I haven't really messed up that much. I mean, yeah, I've done a few things, you know, here and there, but for the most part, I'm an awesome person. And, you know, then that's part of it's like saying, you know, God hasn't really had to forgive me for that much. I'm not like that person. But Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament, called himself the chief of sinners. And that wasn't him being like grandiose or trying to get people to be like, no, Paul, you're not the worst one. Paul actually believed that. But how amazing must it have been for someone like Paul to believe I'm the worst, and I'm completely and totally forgiven of everything. See, Paul took responsibility for his stuff, for his issues. You have to be able to take responsibility for your part in the brokenness, and that requires something really difficult that not a lot of people do. Some time to reflect. Some time just to think and pray. You want to pray a dangerous prayer. I've shared this before. Psalm 139, 23 through 24. I believe this is like one of the most dangerous prayers that takes a tremendous amount of courage to pray. But man, if people would pray this, if like all of us would pray this on a daily basis, oh my goodness. It'd be amazing. It'd be hard, but it'd be amazing. Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. Search me, O God. Point out anything that offends me. Now, I've I've prayed this, and I want you guys to know from my experience, God is not like, okay, this, this, this, this, this, this, all of it. He's gentle. He's so gentle. More gentle than we can understand. But but if you pray that prayer, Lord, is there anything that I need to be corrected about? Like, yes. Of course. You're a person, you're a human being. We live in a broken world, and the result of living in a broken world is all of us get broken. But God is gentle and he will show you, hey, like, that situation, if you reflect on it, you'll see some responsibility that you have. And when there's responsibility, when we recognize, man, something's happened, I have some responsibility to bear, then we have to take the steps to reach out and try. Try our best. Just try to find restoration and reconciliation. We've got to reach out, especially when we're the one that's responsible. The first scripture we looked at, Matthew 5.23, if you're offering your gift at the altar and there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them, then come and offer your gift. There's a step, there's an action. You've got to reach out. It's not a waiting game. Forgiveness, that happens internally, but reconciliation requires someone to take the initiative. Someone has to reach out. What if you're not the one who was wronged? Or rather, what if you're not the one who committed the wrong? You're the one who was wronged. Well, Jesus says this in Matthew 18. If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. By the way, it's so powerful. Because what happens very often is when someone offends us or hurts us, and I've experienced this, uh, people don't ever come and talk to you about it. They go talk to a lot of other people about it. Which is called gossip. I've been a part of this, I've experienced this, and they what people like to do, we've all been there, is if I talk to other people about it and I get all those other people to go, oh my goodness, really? Like, I don't want to tell you how many people I showed the video of me being thrown out of that game to. Um 70? Probably. I'm not exaggerating. Um because it felt really good to show that video and be like, can you believe that? And they're like, oh my gosh, that guy's he's ridiculous. Like, yes, he is. Right? That's called gossip. It's me like not going to that person, even though I did, but not in a healthy way. Uh but that's me going to all these other people involved. And they what do they have to do with it? They didn't get thrown out of the game. Nothing to do with it at all. Jesus says, if someone hurts you first, go privately to them and say, hey, this happened. This upset me. For the purpose not of feeling right or them feeling wrong, but for the purpose of reconciliation. And then he goes on. And he said, if the other person listens and confesses it, you've won that person back. You're reconciled. But if you're unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again. So that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. If the person still refuses to listen, then take your case to the church. And in his culture, the church was like the central social hub of everyone's lives. But he's like, first go privately and then go again and bring a couple people that you respect and trust to help in the process. That's not how we typically do things. But notice that Jesus tells us to reach out, to take some action. And so if there's brokenness or strain in a relationship in your life, I would just encourage you, pray and say, God, am I the one that needs to reach out? Because reconciliation requires action. And maybe you're not ready for that, and you need God to do some stuff in your heart. You maybe need to release some things before that could be possible. Work on that. Or maybe you're someone who has done that. You've reached out. You've tried and it was rejected. What then? And we're gonna be really close to wrapping up. Just be ready. This is where I've lingered on this one for a while. What do I do when I have released those offenses in my heart? And I I've even gone so far as to reach out and tried to mend fences, to make things right, and it's been rejected. Because that happens a lot. Like you, you, I've forgiven them, I've forgiven myself for my part in that. And I've even gone so far as to say, hey, would you like to connect? Would you would you like to ever talk? And they're like, no. But what do you do? You don't retaliate, you don't let that become more unforgiveness. You're just ready. You say to yourself, even if it's a person, you're like, they'll never come to me. They will never apologize. They will never change. You have no idea what God is going to do in their lives. You have no idea the trajectory that they're on. It's one of the challenges we have when we interact with normal human beings. We don't know what's coming up in their life. We don't know where they're at. When we read the Bible and we read stories about someone like, let's say, Peter, if you've ever read the story of the disciples, Peter is just like a fool so often. But we know how his story ends. We know that he ends up being reconciled to Jesus, even though he betrays him. And we know that Peter goes on to be this amazing leader in the church, and he does incredible things, and God uses him in amazing ways. And so when we read Peter mess up, because we know that he's about to have an uptick, even when we read the story of Peter denying that he even knew Jesus and abandoning Jesus at his most vulnerable place, we're not really mad at Peter because we know that it all works out and Peter's great. But when we interact with people, we don't know their story. We don't know how it's gonna end. We love to imagine that people are just gonna stay where they're at. That they'll never be better, that they'll never they'll never change, that they'll never find that humility or whatever it might be, but we would hate to imagine ourselves that way. Right? Like, this is who I am, this is who I'm always going to be. I'll never grow, I'll never progress. This is it. That's a scary thought. God is working on people. So that person, you may have tried your best, you may have tried to bring healing to that relationship and it was rejected, and you're like, they're never gonna change, that it's just who they are, they have all this pride, whatever. Be ready. Decide in advance that if that person were to ever reach out to you, decide now that you will receive them and not reject them. Decide now, just say it in your heart, I'm ready for reconciliation. God, I if you can say, I feel like I've done all that I can do, what now? Just be ready. And don't be surprised when God presents an opportunity for that to happen. Because God loves reconciling what's broken. That's what he does. I got one final word, and we'll wrap up with some Lord's Supper together. It's the word receive. It's written in red because I couldn't find the black pen that I wrote on earlier. But I was actually in the prayer room praying with our prayer team this morning, and and one of the people on the prayer team just said that word, receive. And I was like, well, I've used about every other word that begins with R this morning, so why not throw that one on there too? No, honestly, I was like, yeah, that I'm glad that I got to hear them pray that. Because at the end of the day, this brings us full circle back to Jesus. You've got to receive the reconciliation that He's won for you. You have to receive the love that Jesus has for you. You have to receive the fact that when Jesus died on the cross, he paid for every mistake you ever have made, for every mistake that you ever will make. It's covered. It's covered. And if we don't receive that, or we don't receive all of that, then we are so susceptible to holding other people and all their issues and mistakes against them in a way that God would never do to us. Like I hold people sometimes to a much higher standard than God holds me to. Like I've actually had like an intense conversation in my car. I realize a lot of things happen in my car. Gotta figure that out. Um I need maybe I need a new car. No, I don't. 2006 Scion for life. Uh but I I one time I had a really intense conversation with my son about how messy his room is in my car. And if you've ever seen my car or been in it, not exactly the ideal environment to talk to someone about the need to be organized. Okay? I had an ant infestation in my car one time. I had someone hide a mic, this actually happened. They hit a microwave in the back of my car. I didn't find it for a year. Um, I didn't look. I feel some bit of shame right now. Um, but I don't care. It's better than it used to be, progress not perfection. But the point is that I'm kind of like a messy person. You know, it's like I just am. And here I am, like, you gotta get your room clean and like he's surrounding his feet in the car like wrappers and cups and things. And I'm like, this is I'm holding him to a standard I don't hold myself to. So maybe I should clean my car first. And then have the gall to tell him, right? He does need to clean his room though. Um but we we tend to do that, right? We hold people to standards that we hope God would never hold us to that. We've got to receive the complete and total forgiveness that Jesus has given us and recognize, guys, that it's like it's paid for, and this is where it gets real hard. The sin that that person has committed against you, it was also paid for. That's tough. But it's true. This works both ways. I can't receive all of the forgiveness that God has given me and recognize that all my sins are covered, but then be like, but theirs clearly aren't. It's been paid for as well, and so now it's up to me to do whatever I can do to be reconciled. If you desire to be free of that burden and that weight and the awkwardness of strained relationships, commit your life to reconciliation. Just do whatever depends on you. Like I said in Romans chapter 12, if it's possible, to whatever degree it depends on you, try your best to live at peace with everyone, recognizing the entire time, the lengths to which Jesus went to reconcile us to God. With that said, we're gonna wrap up by taking Lord's Supper together. And if you're new, we have uh this is something all of us are welcome to do. There's cups with bread and juice in the back of the room. And also, I recognize if you're new and maybe you're new to the whole Jesus thing, you feel uncomfortable doing this, you don't have to. Um, this is something that Jesus' followers have done literally since there have been Jesus' followers. Jesus, right before he was arrested and he went to the cross, he was having a meal, a really important meal, with his followers. It was a meal uh called Passover. They would do a meal together, and it was very symbolic of what God had done. And in that Passover meal, Jesus took some bread and he broke it, and he said, This represents my body, which was broken, which is about to be broken for you. And he took some wine and he said, This represents my blood, which is about to be spilled for you. And so when we take this meal together, there's a variety of ways we look at it. There's all kinds of meaning packed into this, but today, let's recognize that this is the price that was paid for our reconciliation to God. And it's an amazing price when you think about it. Like I've paid way too much for things. There's so much stuff. If I go back, I should not have paid that. That was not worth that. And I'll be honest, I think Jesus maybe paid too much. I don't very, I very rarely feel, and I don't know if anyone else is with me, like I don't really ever feel like, yeah, I was worth that. That sounds about right. My freedom from sin, my reconciliation with God, you know, the death of Jesus. It seems about right. That's the lengths to which Jesus went to reconcile us. And so when we take this bread and we drink this juice, we're recognizing what he's done, what he's gone through, so that we can be reconciled to him. It's us receiving his forgiveness, it's us receiving all that he's done for us. And that should, at the very least, fill us with some desire to go be reconciled to others. So let's let's take the bread, we're gonna pray for it and bless it. Father, I thank you so much for this piece of bread, and thank you, Lord, for what it represents, what it means. This represents the body of your son. It was broken for us on the cross, beaten, mocked. And you do that willingly, Jesus, completely and totally willingly, so that we can be reconciled to God. Thank you. Let's take the bread. Let's pray for the juice. Father, thank you for this juice for what it represents. Your blood, the blood of your son spilled for us. Lord, help us receive this. Help us truly receive how passionate you are about forgiveness and about reconciliation. Help us take this in, Lord, and feel complete and total release from all of our issues and problems, knowing that it's been paid for. But Lord, I pray that that inspires us to go out and do everything we can, go to whatever lengths are possible for us to pursue reconciliation with others. Thank you, Jesus. Let's take the juice.