Forgiveness

I'd like to see what the Lord has to say to us about forgiveness with one another. So if you don't have any bitterness in your heart or any offenses against you, you can just keep reading your Bible or think about what you're going to make for dinner. But for those of us that do have a problem with offenses and feeling offended, let's read in Matthew 18.

And let's see what the illustration is that the Lord puts in our hands for how to deal with forgiveness. Let's read in Matthew chapter 18 and let's read in verse number 21. Matthew 18 and 21.

And Peter came to him and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents.

Now you might remember the talents you're studying in Revelation, right? In your Bible studies, a talent is a gigantic weight, maybe 70 pounds, I don't know, a hundred pounds, some huge amount of weight. And this isn't a weight of dirt or a weight of a rock. This is weights of gold or silver.

And so this man owes 10,000 times a hundred pounds times the weight of the value of gold, an infinite number of dollars that we could say, 10,000 talents, maybe 10,000 lifetimes of earnings and unpayable debt. But when he was not able to pay his master commanded that he be sold with his wife and children and all that he had and that payment be made. The servant therefore fell down before him saying, master have patience with me and I will pay you all.

This man is completely clueless, isn't he? He has no ability to pay. Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him and forgave him the debt, an unpayable debt, an incredible forgiveness. Of course, this is speaking of you.

You were unpayable. You couldn't, you couldn't buy your salvation. You couldn't earn God's forgiveness, but he gave you it anyway.

Now we're going to talk about how it looks when we forgive one another. But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred pence or a hundred denarii, just a hundred days worth of work. So it's not completely insignificant, but still almost nothing in comparison.

And he laid his hands on him and he took him by the throat saying, pay me what you owe me. So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him saying, have patience with me and I will pay you a whole. Does that sound familiar? Yeah, it's the same thing that he said, but he would not, but went and threw him into prison, tell he should pay the debt.

So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very greatly grieved and came and told their master all that had been done. Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not now have compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you? And his master was angry and delivered him to the tortures until he should pay all that was due him.

So my heavenly father also will do to you, each of you, if from his heart, he does not forgive his brother, his trespasses. Interesting to see the context here, isn't it? The famous question, how often do I forgive my brother? Seven times? No, 70 times seven. And then the story, the great story that we like to use for the gospel.

But now let's apply it to us because that's really who is for, isn't it? About those that are unforgiving. What I'd like to do today is to take you to a funeral, a funeral of something that you've been carrying around for too long and it burns in your heart. It may, it weighs you down and you need to bury it.

It's called unforgiveness. So for some of you, it might be trivial. It might be something you say, I've already dealt with that.

It's over and I feel pretty good about it. Others, we've got more of a stronger flame inside of us and we have anger or we've got problems that really hinder us. They prevent us from living any kind of a victorious life in Christ.

And so that's why we need to plan a funeral. What do you do at a funeral? Well, you think about what was, and then you leave it behind. Or maybe at your funeral, you think, oh, what will never be.

And you have to say, well, it's not like I'm going to have him around anymore. I have to leave it there. What was ended, what will never be.

And then we leave it behind. So we grieve for a while and then we have to move on. And the same way with forgiveness in a person's life.

Now, what is forgiveness going to be? Well, in this chapter, we see that God sees forgiveness just like a debt. I'm sure people have borrowed things from you and you've forgiven them. I know, let's say for instance, let's say your neighbor asked to borrow your lawnmower.

And he comes over and he says, Hey, Mr. Southard, can I cut my grass? I just don't have a machine. And you say, sure, go ahead and take it. It's a nice machine.

It's 500, $600 worth. And he takes it away and he's cutting his grass. And then he puts it in his garage and you notice next week, I got to cut my own lawn, but he's got my, he's got my machine.

What do I do? And you can, you can decide I'm going to go demand it from him. Or you might just to say, well, I'm going to write it off. He, he stole it from me.

Or maybe somebody borrowed some money from you and they just don't want to give it back. And you can say the same thing. Well, he must need it.

And so in physical things, we can write them off. We know exactly what they're worth. We can say it's gone.

It's, it's no longer mine. I'm not going to hold this person responsible for it. I'm not going to demand the money, but other things are a little harder to write off.

And those are the things that we carry around with us. Maybe somebody stole something from you. That's worth more than money.

What can a person take from you? Well, they can steal your honor. Can't they? They can embarrass you. Somebody can steal your Liberty.

Somebody can steal your innocence. Somebody can steal your happiness. They take it away from you.

And it's a little bit harder for you to just say, I'm going to release this. I'm going to let it go. I'm going to bury it because those are a little less concrete, aren't they? But those are the things that really are more important to forgive.

Now, this chapter is about a man that had an unforgivable debt and it's a command for every believer to live in the light of this forgiveness. How does an assembly work? Can you have a pastor who is very strong and his opinion is law? Some places might try that, but what do we do here? What do you do in Cedar falls? What's the governing principle to keep the unity of you together? I know that you were forgiven by Christ and you know that I was, I was forgiven. And because we both were, we should be willing to forgive each other.

That's the law of grace. If you can say that, that's the rule that we function under. We were both saved and we don't deserve it.

Now let's talk about this here. Let's, let's view forgiveness or unforgiveness. Let's say let's view unforgiveness the same way that God sees it.

So we'll start about this command here. First number 21. How often do I forgive my brother? Up to seven times.

Now, I suppose if you were to look in your study Bible and your footnotes, you would say, Oh, the, the times of the, uh, the rabbis would have said that, uh, three times, three strikes and you're out was the rule. If your brother forgive sins against you, you can forgive him up to three times. And then after that, you can exact a vengeance on him.

Well, so Peter thinks, well, three times, let's see, let's double that. And then I'll add one. And now I've got seven extra points for me, right? Lord, I'm really learning.

And of course the answer is no. Peter don't look for any limit. Don't look for any loophole.

Don't look for any exception up to an infinite number. There's no limit here. He says 70 times seven.

Uh, you don't think he was calculating. Let's see, what is that? Some 490 times? No, that's not the idea. It's unlimited forgiveness.

And so there's no limit. And also there's no time limit. He says, do it immediate, do it unconditionally forgive him.

Why commanded by God? Because you were first forgiven yourself. Have you experienced salvation? If you have, then there's something new in your heart that you didn't have before you have the capacity to forgive. So what's the limit of grace here? Well, the proof of salvation is found in verse 35.

And we might as well go right to there because that's the hardest verse in this chapter to interpret. If I were to ask you in the Bible reading tonight, uh, or at Wednesday, if I were to say, uh, if I were to say, Hey Brian, what's this verse mean? It says here, my heavenly father will do to you. Also, if you don't forgive from your heart, every man, his trespasses put you on the spot, right? That's a hard question to answer.

So what's it mean that you won't be saved? If you, if you don't forgive, well, you know that salvation, the plan of salvation is not by work. So this isn't talking about the plan of salvation. This is talking about the proof of salvation.

The plan of salvation is that you're saved by grace. God forgives you with no strings attached. You receive his son and you're, you have eternal life.

But the proof of that is that you're willing to forgive. If you say, I don't want God's forgiveness, not in me, not through me. I'm not going to have anything to do with it.

I have a bitter, unforgiving heart. Then it's a proof that no, you weren't forgiven. You were not saved.

And so that's the strong words that he has here. The proof of a Christian, what happens? It's a debt that is canceled. And let's go straight into the illustration then this debt, first of all, let's look at each phrase as they come to us.

So what do we start with here? Verse number 23, how does God view this? Well, he's uses the words, the kingdom of heaven. He says, now the kingdom of heaven is like unto this King. And so we're dealing with a different set of rules here in the assembly where we're dealing with the spiritual government of God in the kingdom of heaven.

Now you might not find this where you work. You might not find this where you play. This might not be the rule of your neighborhood, but it is here.

This is the kingdom of heaven, not earthly wisdom. And the King who sets the mood of forgiving us expects us to follow suit. So it's his, his rule.

Now we've got this 10,000 talents, literally 10,000 lifetimes of unforgiveness or unforgiven debt. And he has no way to pay, even though he thinks he does. God has to forgive him freely.

Forgive him. Now let's just talk about your relationship with somebody else. Now, somebody that has offended you, really hurt you.

They may have a debt so big that it is literally impossible for them to repair it and to, and to make things right with you. Now the issue of the lawnmower be quite easily a few hundred dollars and it could be done on unpaid debts, physical. Yeah, it can be repaid.

But what about the young girl that remembers the abuse? What about the person who is completely humiliated in front of everybody? What about somebody who has lost their confidence in life? And they, and they just can't go forward anymore. The damage that was done to them might not be able to be overcome, might not be able to be repaid. There is no remedy.

There's no court. There's no apology. There is no quantity that can be given to restore you to where you were.

It's an unpayable debt. So what do you do? The solution according to this Bible is to forgive it. You will never extract enough vengeance.

You will never extract enough out of that person to feel like you've been justified. It's an unpayable debt. And so Jesus says there's 10,000 talents at stake and he is unable to pay.

They can't pay you back no matter what they did. So what could you, what could you demand? What's justice here? What does he say? Sell him, make him a slave, chain him to an oar. He is going to live the rest of his short, miserable life as a servant of somebody else and he will die in his family with him.

Does that pluck a string in your heart to say, ha, that's what I would love to do to this person. It's what he needs. The person that has offended me.

Is that really what you want? Would you really like to destroy the other person's life? Is vengeance that great in bitterness so swelling in your heart that that's what you want? Obviously not. That's where the last part of this parable comes from. A person with that attitude doesn't have salvation.

No. Vengeance is not yours. It belongs to the Lord.

What justice do you really want then? You say, I'd like to have some vengeance. I'd like to be recompensed. I'd like to be repaid.

No, the answer is you can't. You let it go. It's forgiveness.

Look at the other attitude. Another gross and a misunderstanding. What does he say? He's there on his knees begging before the king and he says, have patience with me and I will repay you all.

Does he have a clue? He doesn't have a clue. He could live the rest of his lifetime working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and he could be a utter exhaustion and he would have one ten thousandth of his debt paid off. He could live for centuries and never, never, ever pay his debt.

What is the lesson there? That the person that offended you rarely, if ever, has a clue or a concept of how much they hurt you. He said, have patience and I will repay thee all. Also, let's take a look at our own selves.

We don't have a clue about our own actions either, about our own failings, about our own sins against our brother. We don't know the pain. We don't know what we do.

We don't feel the consequences of the offense that we give to other people either, do we? So he's clueless. None of us rightly estimates the impact we have on other people. Well, let's look at another phrase, verse 26 and verse 29.

What's he say there? It repeats. He says, Master, have patience with me and I will repay you all. Oh, this is like deja vu.

Didn't we just have this conversation a minute ago as we we plead to God, God, forgive me for my sins. Save me from hell. I accept your son.

I am I am I am now a child of God. And then just minutes later, perhaps in the story, the same unforgiveness in his heart is shown to be ugly. The same words.

What's the remedy? What's the remedy for this man at the end? Where does he end up? Well, of course, the servants report him. They send him a bad report to their boss and he comes and he takes this man and he throws him into prison, the torturers, the tormentors, and he is there until he repays the debt. If God were to put you where you belong and he were to extract judgment on you, it would take not only the flames of hell, but it would be for eternity.

There is no limit. There is no way that you would ever be able to pay for the consequences of your sin. And so this man ends up in an unresolved, unpayable, unredeemable condition.

He's lost forever. Well, let's talk about for a minute about Peter again. Why does why why do we have these excuses? What what excuses do we make then? Or what loopholes do we search for for for not granting forgiveness? Peter was looking for, he says, is there a limit? Is there seven? He wants his get out of jail free card.

He wants the loophole. He wants some way to say there's got to be a limit to this Lord. Well, is there anyone here in this audience right now that could come up to the front and say, listen, Chad, I appreciate what you're saying, but my circumstance is different.

I, you just need to all hear the details of my story. And then you will understand why I should not be required to forgive my brother. Is there anyone here that would have that kind of a reason? No, it's an unconditional thing, isn't it? It applies to all of us equally.

There is no limit to this, but we come up with reasons why we don't. I'll just give you a few of them. Okay.

Here's the first one. Let's say, um, let's say my Bible here represents like my unforgiveness and, and here I carry it around. It's right here.

You can see it, right? Kind of like almost a chip on my shoulder. And, uh, we don't look like that normally when we, uh, when we dress, but man, the attitudes there sometimes, right? You meet somebody and you think, Ooh, they've got something there. They're carrying with them and maybe it's unforgiveness.

And so, uh, you, you look at them and they say, you know, I would forgive, but it's just too big. It's too big to forgive. And so we carry it with us instead of, instead of burying it, there it is.

We keep it along too big to forgive. If it's that big, then that's that even more reason that we should forgive because the more damage that it caused to you, the more damage that it will continue to cause. If you don't get rid of it, if you don't deal with it, what happens when you go to the doctor and you think I got, I got something in me and they X-ray you and they, and they look at you and they say, look at that.

You got this big lump inside you. And the first thing you say is cut it out of me, get rid of it. I don't want to abandon it.

I'm going to be, I'm going to be done with this once and for all. That's what it is. But now we say it's too big.

I can't let go of it. I can't forgive it because it was too bad. It was too big.

It was too burning on me. It was too much. And so instead of forgiving the offender, we keep it and it just gets worse.

Here's another one. We have, we got this lump in us, right? You know what we say? You know, if I just ignore it, maybe it'll go away. Time will heal it.

But what happens to it? The doctor says, you got a problem. You're going to ignore it. What happens? It gets bigger, right? It gets, it burns even deeper.

And so the idea that time will heal all wounds. If you don't do anything about it, it's just a false thing. There you are.

You know what happens? There you are. You're going through fairway. You got your cart and you're around the corner and there she is face to face.

And all of a sudden, everything that was in you just boils right back up and you can feel it again. And it didn't go away. It just got, just got deeper.

It was boiling and simmering. And there it is all as ugly as ever. Time didn't heal it.

Did it? No, you got to deal with it. Time doesn't heal the wound unless you deal with it. Festering, blistering, nothing will make it go away if you don't fix it.

How about this one? Here's another excuse. You're carrying it around and you'll say, uh, yeah, I'll let go of it. I'll let go of it, but there's a condition.

I will let go of it when he comes in, asks for the forgiveness. But until then I'm going to carry it. Well, what happens? How long are you going to wait for that? I got some news for you.

He's not coming. You're going to live the rest of the life than waiting. No, you shouldn't.

You don't have to wait for them to take the initiative. You do it yourself. So you don't say, uh, it's too big to forgive.

Or you don't say, uh, time will heal it. You don't say, um, I'll wait for him to come and ask for forgiveness. Those don't work.

Here's another one. You might say, you know, even if the, even if the person did come, if the person did say miraculously from some, some unknown, uh, work of God, the person did come and ask you, I'm sorry. Uh, I, I, what I did was wrong.

Will you forgive me? You probably wouldn't forgive him anyway. And that kind of a frame of mind. And so that's not a good excuse, but you might say this.

I can't forgive unless I can forget that's backwards. Isn't it? I can't forgive unless I can forget. The truth is you will never be able to forget until you do forgive unconditionally.

Let it go. Writing the debt off. You'll never forget it.

No, it'll be there when you're, when you're, um, when you're washing the clothes or you're standing there in the shower or you're, or you're mowing the lawn or whatever. And your mind is free to wander. And you just say, Oh, I still remember.

And every time it comes back, you like have the fan and you, and you fan the coal so that the fire doesn't go out and it, and the burn is still there. We like to remember, don't we? How do you, how do you forget that? How do you let it go? The answer is forgiveness. Here's another one.

The last one, we got another excuse. You say this, I can't let this thing go. I can't forgive him because he'll just do it again.

They'll just do it again. So why would I forgive? So what do you want to do? You want to carry two of them around now? You know, he did it once. Now he's going to forgive it.

He's going to offend me again. I'm going to carry another one. It's not a good idea.

No, the idea is that, yeah, there might be problems with him, but unforgiveness isn't your way to fix it. You've heard it before, right? That unforgiveness and bitterness is like drinking a little bit of poison every day, just to sip enough to make you sick. And as you drink that, you hope that the other person will die.

That's not going to work. So you might say I'd forgive him, but he would just do it again. And in some way we think that that's like, our unforgiveness is like justice, but it doesn't work.

They're living in ignorant bliss of what they did. And you're living in bitterness of soul for what they did. So what's the idea? What do we do? Well, like I said, forgiveness is writing off a debt.

Now it doesn't mean that perhaps you, um, you have the face-to-face conversation yet. You say, I forgive you. They might say, forgive you for what? And they, I didn't offend you.

And you might just get a, you met a horrible, horrible conversation that way. Now, the idea here is that in your mind and in your heart and in your soul, you release this person from their responsibility. You release them from the obligation.

You release them from the vengeance that you want. You say, well, I'm going to let it, let it go. There may come a time when you have a, a reconciliation, but for right now, for your own health, you just leave it with the Lord.

You say, well, I can't do anything now. I forgive it. You know what happens to people that are unforgiving? There's a whole lot of collateral damage.

Well, look at the story. What did he lose? Well, first of all, he lost a good friend, didn't he? He lost his relationship. Look at him.

He goes out there and he strangles the man. He's got him by the throat. And he's saying, you owe me a hundred pence.

You owe me a hundred days wages. And the man is choking out the answer. I will have patience with me.

What kind of a friend is he after that? Before it was a pretty good relationship. Obviously he says, Hey, listen, I'm a little short of cash. Would you, would you lend me some money? And he says, sure, I'll give you some.

And it seemed to be okay. All of a sudden he's completely lost his friend. How valuable are your brothers here in the assembly in Cedar falls? How valuable is your relationship with your mother? How valuable are your children to you? How valuable are they? Are you willing to lose them over money over an argument? That's what he lost.

He choked his friend and probably never talked to him again. What else did he lose? Well, he lost his self-respect. I mean, the man had a total meltdown.

There he is choking him. And you can just see the anger in his voice. You can see that he's saying, pay me what you owe.

What do you look like to other people? I must confess. And it's an embarrassing story, but I remember when I was first saved, I was just a saved when I was 14. And there was a kid that owed me lunch money.

His name was Marty. And he played the trombone right next to me in the band one day. And, and he needed some money for a lunch.

I don't know what a lunch costs a dollar or $2. It wasn't much, but he said, nah, I don't have the money. I'm not going to pay.

And he laughed at me. And I don't know, just, uh, it was a whole lot bigger than he was. And at the moment I just said, Marty, come here.

And I, and I actually, I don't know if I choked him, but I know I grabbed his shirt and I stuck him against the wall. And I said, you're going to pay me by 11 o'clock because I'm going to eat today. And I'm not going to lose on my lunch because of whatever you owe me.

And I could see the fear in his eyes. His eyes were big and he was pinned against the wall there in the band room. And he's like, okay, okay, I'll find the money.

And then later I went to the lunch room and I was sitting there at 11 thinking, what have I done? What have I done? I'm supposed to be saved. I would just save like, I don't know, a month or two before. And I'm thinking grief, I have just ruined every, every ounce of credibility I had with this kid.

And so I had to confess to him. I says, Marty, um, you know, he came in and he says, here's your money. And he came in and I says, I have to confess to you.

He says, you know, I got saved just a short time ago and I'm not supposed to act like that. I'm really sorry. And he kind of laughed and he says, man, you should have seen yourself.

I thought, good grief, I should have seen myself. I hope I can see myself. I don't want to do that again.

I'm supposed to be a Christian, aren't I? Good grief. I'm just like the man in the parable choking his friend who really lost in this story. The man that was choked or the man that was choking, obviously the man that was demanding the debt lost all of his credibility.

Do you want to be a responsible, honored, respected person in the fellowship here? You think you'll get it by demanding vengeance? No, you're not. So the man lost his friend. He lost completely his, his, uh, his self-worth and his self-control.

Look what else you can lose. This is like a bomb that comes in and just destroys everything. And there's shrapnel that goes through the crowd and the people that are laying there wounded.

Who are they? There is co-servants. There is fellow servants. There's co-laborers.

What does it say? It says they were very sorry. They were sad. They were grieved.

Okay. There's just two people in the assembly here in Cedar Falls. Let's just suppose there's just two people that have a problem and they're fighting.

They're going after each other. Well, pretty soon what happens? Well, this side over here, they're mad at that side over there. We've got ourselves a conflict.

The fellow servants, they're affected as well. What would it look like then for unforgiveness in an assembly? I can just picture it right now. I've got a beautiful gospel hall.

You just let unforgiveness go for a couple of years. Maybe 10. It's going to be high grass.

There's going to be weeds. There's going to be paint that's peeling. There's going to be a for sale sign.

The assembly is not going to be here. It's going to be gone. Is unforgiveness a problem? It can be.

It can ruin your relationship with a man. You can ruin your own testimony. You can also ruin other people around you.

And of course, what this man ultimately found out, what he really lost was a soul. It should have dawned on him. I really don't understand anything about forgiveness.

I'm not forgiven myself. I'm not even part of this. I'm not even saved.

And so a man that wasn't going to forgive found himself humiliated before the king. Anyone who professes to be in the light and yet hates his brother, where is he? He's in the darkness. Well, what are some of the concepts then that we should clarify? Remember I said, this might be something where you would just release it mentally.

This is what you do in your heart. So forgiveness, it might be granted, but I suppose we couldn't say that forgiveness is enabling. Somebody keeps spending money on your credit card.

Maybe it's your child and they're just irresponsible. And what do you do? They've run up a huge debt. Well, the first thing I would do is I would take the credit card away from them.

Say, no, you're not going to keep spending my money like that. You might be able to say, well, there was $5,862 and 32 cents. I remember the number.

You can forgive it, but you don't give them the card again. Do you? Or maybe you've got a father-in-law or a husband. I don't know who he is, but he's got a problem with drunk drinking and he's hurting the family.

It's your father, let's say. And you've gone on, you've left it behind. You're older now, you've got your own family.

But what do you do when he calls and he says, Hey, it's New Year's Eve. Let's go. Come on, we're going to have another party.

Now, of course you just say, well, sorry, dad, I can't go back there again. So forgiveness doesn't mean you enable and forgiveness doesn't mean that you expose yourself to the same hurt again. Sometimes you just have to say what Paul says.

As much as within you lies, as much as within you is, live peaceably with all men. Up to a certain point, right? You just say, well, you know, I'm not going to, I'm not going to go there again. I'm not going to open the wound again.

I'm not going to be hurt again, but I will write off the past. So forgiveness is not exposing yourself. Forgiveness is not enabling the other person to continue, but it is unconditional.

Whose benefit is for, again, for them? Not so much. It's for you. You're the one with a cancer growing inside.

You're the one with the bitterness in the heart. You're the one that needs it the most. So let's just say this, maybe in our own mind, whatever it is, you can, you don't have to expound on it, but you can just say this date, this person, this, this thing, that's going to bugging me, that there's an offense against me today.

Let's just have a funeral for it, wrap it up and bury it. What happens though, when we dig it up again, what happens when we, when we thought we had a victory? Yeah. I, I left it in the past.

It's in my rear view mirror. I can just forget about it. Thank God it's behind me, but it comes back.

Well, it comes back, but maybe not quite as strong. You can say to this, I left that behind me. It's already been paid.

This bill has got a canceled stamp on it. It's over. I know it's still there, but I'm going to leave it alone.

So it's like a crisis, isn't it? We have this moment where we say this is it. And then we need to have a process to continue to say, I already did this. It's been canceled.

If the computer screen in the office says shadows, uh, still a lot of money on his car, but the debt is canceled. It's still there. We know about it, but we don't have to deal with it.

We don't have to exact the vengeance anymore. We let it go. So what do we do? We return back to the moment of the decision.

Again, we return back to the moment of crisis. We say, this is what I decided I'm going to keep for this decision. What do we do? We bury it.

We say our goodbyes, we mourn, and then we keep living. We move on. This is the forgiveness of salvation shown in practical living.

I got another question for you. Maybe we'll close with this. What is the proof in your family? I'm talking about your cousin family, your extended family, the family of the world, the ones that are a little bit critical to say, Hey, you know, she says she's saved.

What's the big test going to be? How are they going to know? I think maybe the question is, can she forgive? Can she really do that? That speaks perhaps louder than any other theology or verses that you quote or anything else. They just say, wow, this person, they have a salvation. That's really, really something.

This is spectacular. They're not a bitter person. They don't take the time at the party or at the meal to say, I don't care who hears about this.

This is my justification. I'm mad and I can be rightly angry and I don't care who gets hurt by what I say. No, you're not like that at all.

You say, you know, it's true. It hurt me a lot, but I've let it go. I'm forgiven.

That's an amazing testimony. Somebody who experiences God forgiveness and then is able to give it as well.