The Good life | Talk 3: Lord, Help me forgive

Talk

BRO. NICO NARVAEZ:

Our one big message today is: “Forgive those who do not deserve to be forgiven.”

When Bro. Audee Villaraza sent me the Talk outline, I read it, and I didn’t like it. Honestly, I prefer talks about financial abundance. Forgiveness is hard.

Am I right, or am I right?

But here’s the thing: Forgiveness is the spiritual equivalent of taking a bath.

Let’s do this quick activity. Raise one hand.

Then, turn your head towards your armpits. Then, you take a big, big whiff.

Then you say, “Ahhh. I need to take a bath.” But not just any kind of bath.

Say: “I need to take a spiritual bath.”

Forgiveness is hard. But that’s what’s beautiful about The Feast.

Because whatever you are going through, you are not alone.

Today, expect renewal, and expect the fresh breath of God flowing through your life.

Welcome back to our Sermon on the Mount series called The Good Life.

What Jesus Wanted

In the Sermon on the Mount, you will hear Jesus say this line six times:

“You’ve heard it said…But I say to you.”

Basically, Jesus was saying that others may have a perspective about some issues– but He has his own, His own lens on the issues.

Jesus chose six specific laws in the Law of Moses: Murder, Adultery, Divorce, Oaths, Eye for an Eye, Love Your Neighbors.

Jesus wanted to revolutionize these laws. What do I mean?

For example, Steve Jobs revolutionized a lot of technologies that we use today.

One, the mouse. The mouse was intended to be used for Xerox machines.

But then Steve Jobs saw the mouse and he was like, “Let’s revolutionize this mouse and I’ll use it for my own project: the Lisa computer.”

Today, when we see or hear about the mouse, we don’t think about Xerox machines. We think about personal computers.

That’s exactly what Jesus wanted to do with the six laws– because the people then grew up with these laws all their life. Even their grandparents grew up with these laws. Jesus wanted to revolutionize the laws.

Why only six laws? In the Torah, there are 613 laws.

Jesus was leaving a clue. In the Bible, most of the time, six means incomplete. Basically, Jesus was leaving a hint: that the law was incomplete. Why does Jesus want to revolutionize this?

In the new Kingdom that Jesus was building, He wanted not just behavior modification. Jesus wanted inner transformation.

To dive into this more, let’s welcome our best friend, Bro. Bo Sanchez.

Talk

BRO. BO SANCHEZ:

You know, you wake up in the morning, and you ask: “What’s wrong with the world?”

And sometimes, you look at the mirror and you ask: “What’s wrong with me?” That question, we always ask because genetically, hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago, it was about survival: “What’s wrong with me?” But the more I live in this world– I’m a semi-old guy– I’m telling you, the more I realize we were asking the wrong question.

We should ask: What’s right: What’s right about life?

Look at the person beside you: What’s right about that person?

Then look at yourself and say, “What’s right about me? What’s right about the life that God has given to me?”

Anyway, that’s my reflection this morning.

I want to talk about how these six laws that Jesus was revealing– how He was revealing the heart of God.

To this day, Jesus wants our hearts to beat with the heartbeat of God. That’s basically what Jesus was trying to do back then.

I was talking to a young woman and she was very angry. She was very hurt.

She was talking about her best friend who cheated and lied to her face.

I told her that forgiveness will always be unfair. If the person deserves to be forgiven, that’s fairness. But whenever you forgive someone, it will always be unfair to you. That was my message to her.

There are two expressions of bad anger that you find in the Sermon on the Mount. The first one is temper and the other one is resentment.

Temper is like a nuclear bomb. It explodes. Resentment is like a smoldering ember that’s within you. If you fan it, it can become a wildfire that destroys your life.

Matthew 5: 21-22 says:

After this verse, Matthew 5:22 says: “And if you call someone a fool, you will be in danger of the fire of hell.” – Matthew 5:22.

This means you are like committing murder.

To Jesus, the problem is not only killing someone.

Have you heard people say: “I’m a good person. I haven’t killed anyone.” Or: “Oh, thank you so much. I feel safe right now. You’re not going to slice up my throat.”

No. Jesus is saying: “No, it’s not only murdering someone. You can actually murder someone with your words.”

Have you ever murdered someone with your words?

Have you seen a three-year-old having a temper tantrum? Flailing arms. Lying on the floor. Trying to grab a toy. It’s like it’s the end of the world if he does not get this toy.

I have seen adults who act like toddlers or adult toddlers.

They are grabbing for positions, titles, and stuff as if it is the end of the world if they don’t get what they want. Is this resonating with you? I have also seen parents who are throwing temper tantrums like their children.

5 Comments Parents Should Never Say

Parents, have you ever said any of these in a fit of rage and regret saying them later on?

“I’m through with you.” “I wish I never had kids.” “Don’t call me mother.”4

If there’s a parent beside you, tell that parent: “Please stop saying that. That’s poison.”

“For that petty ridiculous thing, you’re upset?”

If you only rewind your life when you were at that age and then a friend did not text you, you felt it was the end of the world already. You were affected by these things. Now that you’re an adult, you look down at your children.

No. What you want to do is you want to listen. You want to validate.

“I hate you too.”

Why? Because your child said: “I hate you too.”

For crying out loud, your child is prone to say those things because his prefrontal cortex is not yet very formed– because he’s a child. By age 24 or 25, that’s when the brain gets fully formed.

But you, you’re already an adult.

Friends, are you prone to tender tantrums?

If so, this is what I want you to do. I want you to cry out to God and say: “Lord, help me. Help me.”

Whenever you feel the anger rising,

I want you to take 10 deep breaths. I want you to pause. I want you to sing.

I want you to say: “Praise the Lord.”

I want you to go out of your conversation, take a walk, and regain calmness so you will not say things that you will regret later on.

I want you to believe: “God is making me brand new.” I was talking with my brother-in-law, Rainard.

He was telling me, “Bo, I have a problem with anger all my life.”

He was telling me that he’s been following the Lord. He’s asking God for help.

So, he drove to a grocery store and the parking lot was packed. He waited for a car to leave. After a few minutes of waiting, he saw the car in front of him was about to leave. He was happy. He had to back off so that the car could leave the parking slot. When the car left the parking slot, another car came and slipped in like a stealth missile. Oh my gosh! Rainard exploded.

He opened the window and he said, “Hey, I’m waiting here.”

The other guy just went out of his car, closed the door, looked at Rainard and said, “I was also waiting.”

Rainard knew he was lying. He shouted at him and the man just walked away. Rainard said, “May karma hit you!”

For some reason, that sentence hit a nerve…

Rainard felt like he won the battle. He closed his car and marched into the grocery store. While he was pushing his cart, putting grocery in, he felt something he never felt before. He felt remorse. Why did he say those things and the manner by which he spoke them? You know what he did? He searched for the other driver in the store. He wanted to ask forgiveness.

Never did he experience that.

What do you call that? God is making him brand new.

The second expression of bad anger, Resentment, is a different kind of expression. The Sermon on the Mount talks about it as well.

Matthew 5: 23-25:

What is God saying here? You cannot worship God if you do not give a gift of peace to the person that you have a conflict with.

That’s crazy. That’s absolutely nuts.

Jesus says: “We cannot worship God if we fail to give peace to others.”

Every Sunday, we go to The Feast and we worship the Lord but we haven’t given peace.

Tell somebody beside you: “Alas, we’re wrong.”

A few years ago, a company donated a big ship to our Feast Community. We were so happy that we were already imagining floating Feast on the sea. After a few months, we returned the donation.

We said, “Sorry, thank you– but no. Thank you.” The big ship was beautiful on the outside but there was already rust on the inside. The experts told us that we would have to remove the rust and to refurbish and that we would have to do it every year. How much? Millions which we don’t have– so, we returned it.

My Friends, rust and resentment are the same. Rust does not destroy you. What destroy are rust plus time.

If you scrape rust regularly, you’ll be okay.

Forgiveness has to be done every day. As Nico said, you’ve got to take a bath every day. It’s normal to get angry at people who hurt us. Our daily job is to scrape off anger from our soul.

3 Common Practical Questions

God wants you to forgive but he’s not asking you to trust again. Trust has to be earned over time. When you forgive someone in your heart, you give the gift of peace, not proximity.

When you forgive someone, it doesn’t mean that you’ll be chummy-chummy again.

For example, you’re serving together in a ministry. Because of personality and background differences, you have a conflict– and it’s a very painful conflict.

But then God calls you to forgive. So, you forgive each other. Will it mean serving in the same team again? Yes. Should they serve in the same team? It depends.

My advice is try serving again together but if you see that there’s always friction, you can say: “Let’s serve in two separate teams and maybe, enjoy the friendship outside the working together.

Forgiveness is a decision.

Forgiveness is an action. When you decide to forgive,

the feelings of hurt will come back. Angry feelings will come back. That’s okay. But God wants you to make a decision to forgive.

If you think that you cannot forgive, this is what you do: Cry out to God. Raise your right hand. Wave at God. Let’s say a prayer: Lord, You know I still can’t stand him. Help me forgive those who don’t deserve to be forgiven.

You cry out to God and God will take you from where you are. God will move you from that position and He’ll be the One to lead you.

That prayer, “Lord, help me to forgive,” is the opening that God needs for His grace to trickle in your heart.

You gave the gift but together with the gift of peace, you also need to give the gift of respect and wait for the person to accept that gift. But your role is done.

What is the role of anger in our life? Why did God give us the ability to be angry? Maybe it would have been better if God made us all like Winnie the Pooh, not get angry at all. God gave us the gift of anger.

3 Purposes of Good Anger:

When evil is happening, when co-workers are being exploited, and when someone is being abused, anger can give us the courage to confront. That’s why, God gives us the ability to get angry. But… good anger must be controlled anger.

When Jesus got angry, He never turned to violence. People wanted Him to take arms to kick out the Romans and the conniving priests. But Jesus never did that.

Anger gives you protective instinct. People who are being emotionally and physically abused need to get angry.

If you are being abused physically, emotionally in your marriage, let your anger rise so that you can walk out of that relationship. Protect yourself and never return until that person gets rehabilitated.

I have met battered women who do not have that anger within them and that is why they stay in exploitative and abusive relationships.

Anger is always an invitation for you to get to know yourself.

Whenever you get angry, you ask three deeper questions:

It takes a lot of humility to ask those questions.

Here is my warning: Without humility, anger and arrogance are deadly. They will destroy.

But good anger is always planted in the soil of humility.

Bad anger will dehumanize yourself and the people around you.

And that’s what we do not want.

This Is What God Wants…

Have you ever experienced getting angry at yourself?

When I meet a person who is angry at himself, at his family, at life, and at the world, I believe it’s usually a projection of self-hatred.

I’ve been in this Ministry for 45 years. I’ve met many people who are very angry. Bottom line, angry people are angry with themselves.

What happens is they dehumanize themselves. They don’t see their worth and their beauty.

Connecting to what I said at the start of this Talk: They always question themselves: “What’s wrong with me?”

Today, God is asking, “What is right about you? To look at your beauty, to look at your worth, to look at your dignity, to look at how blessed you are.

Fr. Clive was saying this a while ago. You are so loved. You are so blessed.

When there is so much love in your heart, it’s so difficult to get angry at yourself.

When you know how loved you are, it’s so difficult to get angry also, at other people.

Do you see your worth? Do you see your value?

Do you see your immeasurable dignity and divine identity– that you have those fingerprints of God all over your soul, and that you were made in His image and likeness?

If you do, it will be a bit difficult to get angry at yourself and at others.

Nemi’s Story

I’m going to close with one story.

I was attending a wake of a 67-year-old woman. Then, I saw this older woman walk near me. Immediately, I sensed her relaxed and effervescent joy.

She approached me and said, “Bro. Bo, I watch you.”

I said, “Wow, fantastic.”

She introduced herself: “My name is Nemi.”

She looked at the picture of the one who died. She said, “She died so young.

My daughter is older than her. My daughter is 68. She’s over there.”

I broke all decorum about being polite. You don’t ask this to a woman– I asked her, “How old are you?”

With a big smile, she said, “I’m 91.”

I asked her, “What exercise do you do?” She said, “I don’t like to exercise.”

I asked her diet.

She said, “When I want to lose weight, I eat Almond Roca chocolate.”

She was laughing and I was laughing. She said one line that I will never forget for a long time.

The secret to her youth, beauty, happiness, and joy is this: She said…

“In the past 91 years,

I have not held one

negative thought against anyone.” Boom! Mic drop!

She also said, “My friends would tell me, ‘Nemi, why are you like that? When we make mistakes and we do something against you, you’re the one who approaches us to talk to us…”

Her answer is: “That’s who I am.”

Surrender

Forgive those who do not deserve to be forgiven because we worship a God who was hanging on that cross. Instead of carrying grudges, He carried the cross for you and for me.

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them. They do not know what they are doing.”

We do not deserve to be forgiven. Yet, to this day, Jesus says: “Come.”

My Friends, let’s be part of this Kingdom that will last forever. This Kingdom where every human being is made worthy, loved, and blessed.

Heavenly Father, here we are. We surrender ourselves to You. We’re so broken. We need You.

We need Your help.

Please come. Change me. Transform me. In Jesus’ Mighty Name. Amen.

Commitment

I’m going to invite you to give Your life

to Jesus now. I also invite you to surrender to Him your dreams, whatever petitions that you have in your heart, whatever you wrote down on your copy of the Novena to God’s Love. Pull it out and lift it to God.

Let’s give our lives to Jesus, Everybody– including our dreams, whatever hurts us, whatever worries us, all our fears, surrender them to Jesus.

Everybody, say:

“Jesus, I give my life to You. Forgive me for all my sins.

Save me. I want to follow You all the days of my life.

Jesus, my life is Yours. And I surrender my worries, my fears, my doubts, my brokenness. Heal me. Change me. Transform me. And I believe You will bless me more. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”