- Hey friends, before we jump into this episode of Let It Shine, I need you to know that I need your help. If you click the link in the show notes, you will find a listener survey for Let It Shine that will enter you to win a summer essentials giveaway. So before I tell you what the giveaway is, I want you to know that this survey is all about you. I just wanna hear, what do you want? What do you need? What would make Let It Shine more listenable? What would make it more shareable? I wanna hear from you, all of the things. Now, if you fill out the survey and you follow me on Instagram, you will be entered to win this amazing summer essentials giveaway. First of all, the brand new, released on July 1st, Jen Welkin Bible Study Revelation. You'll also be entered to win a 24 ounce corksicle cold cup. My very favorite lipstick from Clinique called Black Honey, it is an almost lipstick. Really share, it adapts to everyone's skin color. You know what you love it. It's TikTok viral, Clinique, Black Honey, almost lipstick. Have you heard of Lumi all over body deodorant? If you haven't heard of it, you are missing out. It is a favorite and it's part of the summer essentials giveaway. And don't forget the very best belt bag of all time, the Lulu Lemon belt bag. Enter to win this summer essentials giveaway and you could win all of these things. All you've got to do is fill out that listener survey in the show notes. Okay guys, here's your episode of Let It Shine. (upbeat music) ♪ This will let it shine ♪ ♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪ ♪ Let it shine ♪ ♪ Let it shine ♪ ♪ Let it shine ♪ - Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Let It Shine. I have got something so special for you today. I cannot wait for you to hear it. I'm just imagining that you are out walking, walking on a treadmill 'cause it's so hot. Maybe you're watching dishes, maybe you're folding laundry or you're driving. I'm not sure. I know one thing about us is that when we listen to podcasts, we are multitasking. Today is a really significant episode. So my friend and my boss, Ben Mandrel, preached a sermon not too long ago on forgiveness. And we aired it on the Glass House podcast feed. That is what you're gonna hear today. It's a sermon from Ben Mandrel. And I know that you tuned in today. We don't normally run sermons on here, but I want you to know, Ben is not only one of my favorite preachers, but this topic on forgiveness is such a relevant and poignant conversation that we need to be having as women. I think there is so much forgiveness that needs to go on in our lives, but I think we question ourselves a lot about forgiveness, right? Like, there's always gonna be someone when I say the words, who have you not forgiven in your life that pops into your head? Now, does that mean you haven't forgiven them? Or does that mean, I know I need to forgive them and I'm trying to forgive them? It's just one of those things that we wrestle with as women. And I think there's a particularly sensitive topic for us around forgiveness because there has been a lot of hurt that has happened in our past, whether that was childhood hurt, things that have happened to you in adulthood, whatever it is. I know you are listening to this because you are aware that forgiveness is something you need in your life. You want to learn how to do it well. I know we wanna avoid the pain of forgiveness, but actually what we'll hear today is that we're holding on to some pain instead of just letting it go. So for whatever reason this podcast has found you today, I know and I believe in my heart, it's because the Holy Spirit has led you to it. So I'm just praying. I am just praying right now as you listen to these words that you will have a moment with God that you are not expecting, that his spirit will be able to speak to you about where you need forgiveness in your life and will show you the path to pursue that forgiveness. Guys, I want you to know that even though this is really powerful, it is really uplifting and encouraging. I'm excited for you to listen to this sermon from my friend, my boss, and the president of LifeWay, Ben Mandrel. (upbeat music) - Hey everybody, welcome back to another compelling episode of The Glass House Podcast. I'm the producer of the show, Angie Elkins, and I am so glad that you are here to hear this conversation around forgiveness. So guys, you may remember a few months ago, Artie Kindle was our special guest where he talked all about his book, Total Forgiveness. Guys, it made such a huge impact on not only Ben and Lenny, but many of you. And so this weekend, Ben was asked to preach at a local church in Nashville, and he shared his journey on forgiveness with the congregation. And guys, he's giving us three steps today to know if we are walking in forgiveness based on the life of Joseph. So you're gonna wanna check out the link for that passage in the show notes. You can also find that previous episode with Artie Kindle there. And remember, we love to hear from you. So you can always reach us at president@lifeway.com, Ben and Lenny, read every single one of your emails. I wanna remind you while we've got you that we would love for you to leave a rating and a review for The Glass House Podcast. If you're loving it, wherever you listen, it really does help other people find the show. Okay, friends, here is Ben Mandrel, and forgiveness in The Glass House. - It's such a joy to be able to speak to you this morning on a topic that I feel like is something that I'm learning myself. I wish I could teach out of a spirit of success, but it's more of a spirit of striving. And that is how to totally forgive people who have hurt you. People who have offended you. And one of my favorite definitions of preaching is truth through personality. So I hope that I'm gonna give you a lot of truth this morning, but I also hope you'll get a little bit of my personality. I wanna introduce you to my family real quick. Here's my crew right here. And I have four kids and two dogs. And first of all, this is Max. He plays guitar and loves music and plays drums as well. And this is Miles. He's actually at a tennis camp this week because he loves tennis. And this is Jack who loves all things sports and tells me something new about sports every single day. And then I'm so excited, Ava's here today. She's gonna be a sophomore at the University of Tennessee and she's home for Katie Dial's wedding. So it's really special to have our whole family here today. And then this is Lindley. Lindley works at a place called Visionarying Studios that helps churches redesign their spaces and refresh their spaces. And so I'm really proud of her work there. And then finally, here is Sully and Finn. And as I, I thought about my dogs recently, I found this quote on evangelism not long ago that I think is so powerful. None of us as Christians espouse pharoseical beliefs. In fact, we love them. But many of us live them out nevertheless. We come to Christ and in our desire to be godly, we seek out people like us. Ultimately, we arrange our lives so that we are with non-believers as little as possible. We attend Bible studies that are 100% Christian. Sunday school that is 100% Christian. Prayer meetings that are 100% Christian. We play tennis with Christians and eat dinner with Christians. We have Christian doctors, Christian feminists, Christian plumbers, Christian veterinarians. Even our dogs are Christians. And the result is we pass by hundreds without ever seeing them or possibly influencing them for Christ. None of us are pharosees philosophically, but we may be practically. That's such a convicting word about the importance of spending time with people who are far from god. But the thing that really stuck out me there where it says even your dogs are Christian and it dawned on me that I have one dog that's a Christian and one that's not. Based on his very poor behavior, the fruit of his life is that he's totally lost in prodigal. So pray for solely because he really is testing my patients as a Christian every single day. Three really random things about me just 'cause you'll get to know me. I love movies with narrators. If it's got a narrator, if Morgan Freeman is saying something, I'm watching the movie, all right? Second of all, my kids make fun of me of this, but whenever I watch sports, I'm really curious about where every player went to college. And my boys be like, "Dad, who cares where he went to college?" Well, I gotta look it up. I gotta figure out where they went to college. And then finally, I have a wife that loves to take photographs of me sleeping. And I have countless photographs that have been sent to me over the last year of myself sleeping. And I believe very much in naps. And I heard Winston Churchill took one nap a day, and I believe in that. So that's a little bit about me. So here's where we're going with Proverbs. Whoever conceals an offense promotes love. But whoever gossips about it separates friends. That is not one of those verses that ends up on our refrigerator magnets. Man, is that convicting. Whoever conceals an offense promotes love, but whoever gossips about it, gossips about it separates friends. I've been thinking about five people in my life that I wanna forgive, and I want you to think about that too today. I want you to think about, on one hand, the five people that God's gonna call you to forgive because you heard this message. When I was in high school, there was a guy named Matt who, for whatever reason, decided to make up a story about me because I didn't get a lot of girl attention because I was totally not cool. He began telling everyone that I was a homosexual. And I remember walking down the hallway with such bitterness and embarrassment because there was nothing I could do to correct this narrative, and I had a really hard time forgiving him for that. When I was in my 20s, I had a situation arise in my life where I was asked to be a pastor, and I was gonna transition with the existing pastor, and he was gonna pass the baton to me, and I went down to see him one day, and as he was in his office with the door kind of cracked, I heard an elderly woman wearing him out about why I was not fit for this role, why I didn't have the experience, and why I wasn't ready. And I remember having a lot of bitterness toward her. When I became her pastor, I couldn't let it go. It was really hard for me to love her because she thought so little of me. When I was in my 30s, I had a friend that was attending our church. They were some of our best friends. They lived right next door. We swapped meals regularly, and he was offended by a decision I made at the church and got so upset about it that he and his wife and their kids left the church. And I have so many regrets about how I handled that, but also I have so many things that I held against him for so many years about that. When I was in my 40s, I came and took over an organization called LifeWay, and I inherited a world of problems. And there were some employees that didn't like the direction that I was taking the company, good-hearted people, and one of them met with me privately to let me know what he thought about me, and I still think about certain things he said, and I feel like they were so cruel, and so unkind and uncharitable toward me. And then the hardest one for me is always myself. The Bible says that we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and I wake up every day, and I just see all the areas that I just thought I would be better by now. After walking with Christ for this long, I just thought by the time I was 46, I'd have more figured out. I thought I'd be a better dad. I thought I'd be a better husband. I thought I'd be a better friend. I thought I'd be a better Christian. And there's just so many things I've wanted to do in my life that I've disappointed myself. And I have to continually remind myself that I've got to be kind and give grace to myself. Those are five people, and I want you to think about five people in your life and your past. The God's going to call you to actively forgive, and the first one is going to be yourself. When you come to a church, let's just imagine that some of you grew up in this church and you've been around here a long time. Believe it or not, churches can be places where people harbor a lot of bitterness. There's a line of people that you need to forgive if you've been attending this church for any period of time. You may have grown up this church, and the student pastor didn't give you enough tension. And then there was a Sunday school teacher once that said something really unkind about your wife. Or there was a former pastor that you didn't agree with the way he conducted himself, or there is a person who is supposed to be a deacon or a great leader in this church, but they've disappointed you in some way. And then, of course, there's yourself and how you've done your things in the church toward people that you regret. And you wonder if they've ever forgiven you or if you could forgive yourself. And what I'm saying is the longer this line of people that you have to forgive, the harder your heart becomes. And I'm just learning, as I get older, that sometimes I'm really bitter and really angry and really on edge because I have a long line of people that need forgiveness. And that I need forgiveness. Lendly and I have a podcast called The Glass House, and we had a gentleman on named Artie Kendall who wrote a book called Total Forgiveness. And everybody had been talking about this book and telling me about this book. And I was like, "Let's have him on the show." And he's an older man, and he gave us this testimony about how he one time was told that he's going to have to forgive somebody, even though it was really hard, and he confided in somebody who was his friend. Watch this video. An old friend from Romania, his name is Joseph Tohn. It's spelled T-O-N, pronounced T-S-O-N. And because he's from Romania, and I knew he wouldn't tell anybody, I told Joseph Tohn exactly what happened, who it was, what it was, fully expecting him to put his arm around me and say, "Artie, you ought to be angry. Get it out of your system." I think that's what I wanted. Sure. He looked at me. If I could narrow 25 years in London down to 15 minutes, they would be my finest hour. Joseph said, "Artie, you must totally forgive them for until you totally forgive them. You will be in chains. Release them, and you will be released." And then I said, "Joseph, I just remembered. There's more. I haven't told you everything." And he interrupted me. I'll try to put on his accent. "Artie, you must totally forgive them for until you totally forgive them. You will be in chains. Release them, and you will be released." I said, "Joseph, I can't." He said, "You can, and you must." Ben, it was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. It really is the hardest part of Christianity. We talk about if you're going to be a good Christian, you should read your Bible this much, you can attend church, you should go on mission trips, and all these things that we put as criteria for what a good Christian is. But the word "Christian" was first used in the New Testament as "little Christ." And to be a little Christ or an imitation of Christ, the thing that should define us more than any other thing, the thing that defined him more than any other thing, is his ability to forgive people. And so I want to talk to you from Genesis chapter 45 today. If you have a Bible open up, what does it really mean to totally forgive somebody, and how do you know that you have? And when it comes to those five people, what are the signs that you know that you've totally forgiven people? So here's the story of Joseph. If you're new to the Bible, I'll just explain. Joseph had 11 brothers. He had a long line of people to forgive because they threw him into a well and told their dad that he was dead. They were jealous of his relationship with their dad, and so for years they hid his secret. But Joseph, God looked after him everywhere he went. God flourished and blessed him. So even in Egypt, while he was in slavery, he was eventually promoted to be one of the top officials in the whole nation, the superpower of Egypt. Well, one year there's a famine in the land of Israel, and the brothers come searching for food in Egypt, and while they're there, Joseph runs into them, and he has a decision to make. He has the power to punish them to finally get even, to finally make them pay for what they did to him. They offended him. Or he has the power to conceal an offense. And I want you to see, in Genesis 45, what he does. Joseph could no longer keep his composure in front of all of his attendance, so he called out, "Send everyone away from me." No one was with him when he revealed his identity to his brothers, but he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and also Pharaoh's household heard it. Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph. Is my father still alive? How's dad?" But they could not answer him because they were terrified that it was him. And Joseph said to his brothers, "Please, come near me." And they came near. "I am Joseph, your brother," he said, "and the one that you sold into Egypt. And now, don't be grieved or angry with yourselves for selling me here, because God sent me ahead of you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there will be five more years without plowing or harvesting. God sent me ahead of you to establish you as a remnant within the land and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. Therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, Lord of his entire household, and ruler over all of the land of Egypt. There is so much in this passage, but here's how you know if you've totally forgiven somebody. Number one, you no longer need to tell people about what that person did to you. I want you to notice that when Joseph is with his brothers, he calls all of the attendants and says, "I need you to leave the room." I don't know why he didn't think about leaving those Egyptian people in the room so that they could see how magnanimous he is, how forgiving, how gracious, how he took the high road with his brothers. It would have been great for his reputation had they observed the way he just let them off the hook for their horrid past behavior. But instead, I want you to notice, because everything's in the Bible and he tells all those people to leave the room because he wants to conceal their fence. He does not want to make them pay in the public eye for what they did to him. He has forgiven them, so it's not important to him that other people know anymore. Now, I don't know about you, but when somebody's hurt me and I'm going to meeting and their name comes up, I feel like my flesh wants to tell on them. And here's how it normally goes for me when I'm trying to be spiritual, but I'm really in the flesh. I'll say something like, "Hey, out of protection for you all, I need to tell you something about this guy." But as I've searched my heart, I think that's less about protection and more about punishment. I now have the power to punish them. Scripture says that a good name is more precious than rubies. I can ruin their name with these people right now. I have the power to do that. You will know that you are on the road to forgiveness when you begin to sense that it's not healthy to talk about it anymore. It's not helpful, and it really just stirs it all back up in your own heart, and it's a way for you to get even. And Scripture says, "It is not your job to get even. Leave vengeance to God." And Joseph doesn't say to his brothers, "Hey, what you did was fine." No, he just conceals it. So can you truly stop talking about it and stop telling people how badly you were treated and what a victim you were? Until you get to that point, you really haven't forgiven. The second thing I want you to see this passage is this. You begin to pray for ways to remove the fear between the two of you. This is one of my favorite parts of the passage. Look, it says, in verse 3, I'm Joseph. Is my father still alive? He wants to talk about his dad, and his dad's still going, and when can I see him again? He missed his dad, but they could not answer him because they were terrified. They knew that they had done wrong, and their past was finally going to catch up to them, and he now had the power to make them pay. But notice how he puts them at ease. He makes them not afraid of him. There are people who have done things under my leadership that I still have the email. I still have the voicemail. I still have the evidence that they were 100% wrong. And there's a little piece of me in moments like that where if I see them in public, they better be afraid of me, because they know that I know that I have the evidence. And as long as I have that attitude, really what it is is I'm going to hold this person to their past, and they know it. In fact, the word Satan means accuser. So in some ways I have a satanic influence. I get to be an accuser because I know they're guilty and I want to make them feel uncomfortable. That is so un-Christlike. And Joseph shows us a better way, which is to promote peace. So I mentioned when I came to Lifeway, there were a number of people that didn't like decisions that I was making, and some of them were really good people, but just couldn't get on board with where I was feeling let go. And there were some people that left that I had a really high respect for spiritually, but just didn't agree with me philosophically. And one of them in particular was somebody that I really liked on a personal level, but our last meeting was painful, and it hurt, and it was left unresolved. And I knew I was going to see him at the Southern Baptist Convention. I just knew it. And I thought, "I don't want him to be afraid to run into me, and I don't honestly want to be afraid to run into him." And so that morning I sent him a text, and I just said, "Hey, man, I just want you to know that I still have the highest respect for you, and I'm really sad the way things ended between us." And he sent me a really gracious text in return, in my heart just for joys, because healing had started to happen. And then Lily and I get to the airport, and who's on our flight but him? And I can't tell you, like, what a relief it was that we had already begun the process of healing, because when we saw each other, we hugged. Who are the people in your life that you think it's actually possible that if you would reach out and show grace, that grace could begin to be applied? Because time doesn't heal wounds, grace does. Joseph knew that, and he knew a lot of time had passed, but he needed to apply grace, and he wanted to take away the terror that they would feel in his presence. So until you feel like you want to take the terror away from people when they're in your presence, you really haven't forgiven them. You have power over them, and you like it. The third, you look for ways that God used a bad situation for good in your life, and this is one of the greatest things about the story of Joseph, and this is one of the reasons why it's one of our favorite stories in the Bible, is that he goes and says to them, "Look, don't be grieved, verse 5. Don't be mad at yourselves." Because God sent me ahead of you to preserve life, and then he goes down at the bottom to say, "It was not you who even sent me here, but God, he's made me a father to Pharaoh." He says later, "What you meant for evil, God meant for good." So in every trauma that has happened in my life, everything that I felt like hurt me or wounded me, if I look back through the eyes of God's sovereignty, God has used that to make me a better dad, or a better husband, or a better friend, or a better leader. With time, God takes those wounds, and he redeems them to make them part of your strength. And I'll give you a perfect example. When I was in my twenties, both of my parents dropped out of my life. My mom went first, she suffered mental illness, and we just couldn't connect and lost touch. And then my dad followed the same path. So for about ten years, which are very tumultuous and important years in my life, I didn't have my mom and my dad there. And I realized, looking back, that I was making some really big decisions. Like a grown-up kid, and I was needing some parents myself, and they weren't there, and I needed to be seen. I really needed them to see me. And that's wounded me greatly. A.W. Tozer said, "God cannot use a man greatly until he wounds him deeply. God cannot use a woman greatly until he wounds her deeply." But here's how God's used that in my life. I really love being the President of Lifeway, because we have 700 incredible employees that I love to see. And one of my favorite things is getting to know our employees that never get celebrated, but their work is so crisp and so good. And for me to step into a scenario where I see what you did there, and that was so good. Seeing people is such a powerful thing, because I know how much I missed it when I didn't get it. And so what the enemy meant for evil, God has not turned that into good in my life, because one of my greatest joy of life is not teaching and preaching. It's sitting down and seeing somebody that needs to be seen. And so God has a way of taking these things that, in retrospect, were really painful and making them the place of your greatest calling and fulfillment. If you allow the Holy Spirit to bring forgiveness. And so those are three things that we learned from the life of Joseph, but here's what I wanted to do. I emailed or texted three members of Forest Hills that I respect spiritually and said, "Send me a story of a time you had a hard time forgiving, because I think sometimes we think we're the only ones in the room struggling to forgive." And so here are three quick stories I just want to share. Here's someone in this church who said this. The summer before my ninth-grade year of high school, my dad, who had been out of full-time work for one year, landed a job that moved him from Dallas, Texas to a city six hours away. It was another ten years before my parents were under the same roof again. This absence of my dad meant I helped to raise my younger brother and my sister, supported my mom emotionally. My parents' decision to be a part caused emotional pain that is sustained because of the years that were missed. And that might be your story that you missed a big part of your childhood because one of your parents went through something that devastated you. That is so many people's story, and the enemy wants to tell you that you're alone in that, but I can tell you the greatest thing about being a part of a local church, that when church people start to get vulnerable, they find their greatest strength in one another's stories. And so the enemy tells you, "Hey, hide that, cover it up. Don't let people know what happened in your past." But what really happens when people get into a small group and begin sharing their stories, they begin to understand that we're all in this together learning how to forgive. Another person in the church, a lady said this. When I was 17, a new girl in my Sunday school class was struggling to fit in and my mother encouraged her me to be a friend to her. Not long after that, she began receiving hateful letters. The letters were signed by me. Her parents and my youth minister decided to confront my parents who then confronted me. I denied writing them, but my mother did not believe me until she saw the letter with a different handwriting, and my name misspelled. Now watch what happens. My mother still decided that the best course of action was for me to accept the responsibility for the actions and apology of all parties. So to this day, I have no idea who wrote those letters, but I do know that I had to forgive those that did not believe me. It was one of the hardest things I've encountered thus far, but I also know that somehow the girl had deeper wounds than these letters that these letters had caused. I had to forgive her and her family. I had to forgive my mother, too, and this last line is so compelling. She had me do what was easiest for her instead of what was right for me. On the last day of Fuge Camp this week, I got up early and I prayed to the Lord, like, "Lord, what would be the final things you'd want me to say to a room full of kids?" I just tried to listen to the Holy Spirit and I wrote a few things down, but one of the things that God laid on my heart that I was not prepared to say was, "Be gracious to your parents as much as you possibly can." They're hard on themselves. They see the gaps in their own life. They have their own broken story, and everybody that's a parent realizes that it's only a matter of time before my kids tell on me that I had my own struggles, too. Be kind to your parents, if you can. And that's the story of so many people that they're trying to forgive their parents. I read a lot of biography. I'm out of love, people. Will Smith, opening page of his book. When I was nine years old, I watched my father punch my mother in the side of her head so hard she collapsed. I saw her spit blood. That moment in that bedroom, probably more than any other moment in my life, has defined who I am today. You think about what's happened with Will Smith over the last two years and why violence was such a quick response for him. Bob Iger is the CEO of Disney, a guy that appears to have it all together. He's just an amazing leader. My dad struggled with manic depression, and he tried several therapies, including electroshock therapy to treat his illness. But as the older child, I bore the brunt of his emotional unpredictability. Never felt threatened by his moods, but I was acutely aware of the dark side that he had, and I felt sad for him all the time. We never knew which dad was coming home at night, and I can distinctly recall sitting in my room on the second floor of our house, knowing by the sound of the way he opened and shut the door and walked up the steps whether this was going to be happy or sad dad. There are a lot of us in this room that have work to do in forgiving our parents, and I'm one of them. I actually showed my wife this text between the services I texted my parents because this sermon was just, man, I needed to hear this today. Mom and Dad, I'd like to find a time to come up to Illinois by myself and talk about the last 25 years. I have so many questions about things that have happened along the way, and I'd like to share some things on my heart in an attempt to improve our relationship. Forgiveness never gets easier. And if you think you've graduated from having to forgive people, you've graduated from grace. It's an active project in all of our lives, and I want you to think about those five people that God would call you to begin actively forgiving, and I want to share one last story. Gentleman in this church writes, "My story begins when my spouse at the time suddenly decided to leave and be with someone else." As you can imagine, the spectrum of emotions was broad, hurt, shame, anger, even paralysis of what to do next. There were many questions, but no immediate answers. Why did it happen? What did I do wrong? Can I ever trust again? Can I ever forgive? That makes me think about, I heard a sermon one time from a gentleman who was talking about being a shortstop. He played college baseball, and he said that many people think the worst part about being an infielder is taking a ground ball to the face. It's actually not. He said, "The hardest part about being an infielder is after you take one to the face, the next time you see it coming. Can I really stay? Can I really trust? Am I going to open myself up to this again?" The thing I want to say to you all today that I'm still learning myself is the minute you stop opening yourself up to forgiveness, you become a swamp of grace rather than a conduit of it. Water is a life-giving material, but when you put it in a standing place that it does not flow, it becomes death. And the way that God has so built grace is that we are the recipients of grace, and we will stay healthy in grace as long as grace is coming in and flowing out. And so the reason I have to forgive people is so that I can continue to be a recipient of the thing that I need the most, which is a lot of forgiveness. And if you think it's hard to forgive people, imagine how hard it is for God to forgive you. And you think about all the people that weren't there for you. You think about all the people too that you weren't there for them. And the most powerful thing that can happen in a church is not that we figure out the right recipe for music or the right Sunday school model or all that. The best thing that happened in a life of church is that people start repenting for holding bitterness in their heart and getting right with other people. Lindley and I heard a quote a long time ago that couples don't fall out of love, they fall out of repentance. And I, what do you say? Say this, churches don't fall out of revival, they fall out of repentance. And so what God wants to do with the Holy Spirit wants to do in my life is bring me freedom, where the spirit of the Lord is there's freedom. And the way we get free is by coming clean about our need for forgiveness and our inability to forgive other people. And that's where Jesus promises that He will be with you and provide the grace that you need to sustain you. So I want you to think as we sing this last song about the power of amazing grace and how whole stadiums of secular people become quiet the minute they hear this song. And I just want you to sing it with me. Amazing grace. [Music] [Music] Lord Jesus, we ask you to forgive us when we make Christianity into religious rules. When we forget that the good news is the gospel of grace that we have been forgiven for everything we've ever done, that you took our sins and you put them behind your back, you concealed them. As far as the east is from the west, my past has been removed from me. But why is it so hard when someone hurts me to put their past behind me? Why is it God that in my flesh I want to punish people and I want to make them pay for how they've disappointed me and yet not a single day that I've ever come to you, Lord, have I gotten that answer? And so I pray, Lord, first of all, anyone in this room that's never been the recipient of grace that's never stepped inside this thing called forgiveness that only Jesus can provide because of the cross. Lord, if there's anybody here or listening online that's never given their life to Christ and gotten a full pardon for their sins and felt the liberty that comes with that, Lord, I pray that today they would call out to you even now and say, Lord Jesus, I invite you in, forgive me of my past and give me a future. Fill me with your Holy Spirit and give me freedom. And Lord, I pray for all those in the room that I've been speaking to. There are at least a few that I would guarantee, Lord, from the moment I opened up this topic, this has been hard to hear. The Holy Spirit is just upon them, convicting them, pushing them to wholeness and healing and forgiveness. I pray for those people who are feeling that pull to live an amazing grace, Lord, that you'd give them the strength to continue on, to keep forgiving, to keep extending mercy as they also receive forgiveness. And Lord, I pray about those five people that all of us have, that pray that there be a list even made today. Lord, here are my five that you're calling me to actively forgive. Oh God, give us grace and strength to do that which we feel like we are incapable of because until we release them, we will not be released ourselves. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Let It Shine is a Production of the Life Way Podcast. Executive produced by me, Angie Elkins, produced by Nikki Ogden. It's recorded at the Life Way Podcast Studios and engineered by Donnie Gordon. Edited by Robert Elkins. An original theme song arranged by Robert Elkins, the Maestro himself. Performed by Tiffany Casey, Abby Pierce, Ryan Walker, Jarian Felton and Shawna Felton. Art by Grace Morgan and I'm your host, Angie Elkins. Meet me back here next week. This is the light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine. This is the light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine. This is the light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. [MUSIC PLAYING]
