The Danger of Assumptions
This week we jump into the book of 2 Samuel as Pastor Gene points out how assumptions can be extremely dangerous
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good morning if you're new here among us my name is gene i serve here at c3 church as your lead pastor and i'm glad you came this morning are you glad you came this morning who else here had a crazy week raise your hand if you had a crazy week maybe you had a crazy saturday like i did or saturday night like i did but you know what this world is a crazy place and we can be crazy in church but this is a place of peace i want you to hear that this morning i'm just feeling like i'm not kind of alone here and having a crazy week and seeing the world is a crazy place but this is a place of peace all right so that's what we're going to come here and do on sundays find your piece here tell a friend you got a friend who's going crazy with the world they're disappointed in the world i got a place you can come and find some peace all right and then we're going to lead you to jesus that's what this is all about so thank you for coming this morning i'm going to tell a story now i heard a story about two brothers there was an older brother clearly there has to be well he could have been like nope you can't do it at the same time so there's an older brother this is when i off the cuff things and there's a younger brother the older brother very successful the american success story beautiful house the white picket fence beautiful wife got the kids 2.5 children everything's great great job making tons of money the younger brother not so much he had a wife and kids and stuff a house but he also had a drinking problem and he also had a gambling problem so he was always having a tough time with money they lived in a small town that doesn't help everybody knows his deal and now he can't find a job he's really down on his luck he finally hits a bottom though and he decides to go to a neighboring town where they don't know him and he interviews for a job and he gets the job a fresh start here's the problem he gambled away his car so he couldn't do the commute goes to the older brother who's successful and figures i'll ask him for a loan here's the problem he'd already done that several times and the older brother pointed that out you already owe me thousands of dollars not going to give you more money until you pay the money you owe me back that's it the younger brother says this is different i want a fresh start i'm getting a job somewhere else in another town nobody knows me i'm going to do it right this time the older brother says all right if you keep the job for a year i'll forgive all the debt everything you owe me i'll forgive it all just keep the job for a year deal about a week later the older brother goes to the younger brother's house to check in on him just dropping in it's on a saturday he knows he works at nine to five there might have been motives for dropping in unannounced but he looks in the driveway he sees no car he looks in the garage no car but there's a brand new bicycle in the garage he thinks he puts two and two together and he says not again he squandered the money bought a bike with the leftovers to get back and forth to work fantastic younger brother sees him out the window comes out to greet him the older brother's like ah no no no no i'm not even talking to you anymore we're done you've blown it i don't want to talk to you again until you've paid back every cent you owe me everything don't speak to me anymore the younger brother says wait no no let me explain no i'm not hearing it not another word gets in his car drives off you know what he never spoke to his younger brother again in fact one day he got a phone call many years later a person let him know your brother's dead didn't surprise him he had a drinking problem all these other things going on of course he wasn't actually even sad he said you know what i'm not even going to go to this funeral done with this guy i've been done with this guy wife convinces him though hey look bring some closure to this it's also going to look pretty bad to your family if you don't go to your brother's funeral so go fine so he gets dressed up goes to the funeral he's sitting there listening to people talk and then one of those people is his nephew and so his younger brother's son begins talking he's an older man now he's got kids of his own he's doing all right he starts talking and it's surprising to the older brother because he begins to validate justify some of these resentments that the older brother has it gets up there and he's just honest he says you know what elephant in the room my dad was an alcoholic he never really got over it there are always drinking buddies right there you're next you know also my dad had a gambling problem so i know i'm not going to get any inheritance because there's going to be a line out the door all you that he owed money to the older brother's like me first now the older brother is like feeling pretty good now he's like i'm glad i came to this funeral i feel justified in all these resentments and he's kind of happy plus i'm going to get paid who goes to a funeral and gets paid that's kind of nice but then the younger brother says there's something weird happen i still can't figure out for all my dad's faults he managed to put me through college and i could never figure out how he did that now it wasn't harvard or anything community college but still i have no student loans i never figured out how he did that with all the troubles he had just then a man sitting next to the older brother a childhood friend of theirs leaned over he says i know how he paid off the debt he looked at me said how well he used the money that you gave him for the car to put the kid through college bought a bike instead to get back and forth to work you see assumptions can be a very dangerous thing today we find ourselves in the rest of the story where we're going to see some people make some assumptions and it gets them in a lot of trouble also we'll see in the text that there are places where we can be tempted to assume things that we shouldn't we left off with the death of king saul very tragic life very tragic death now 2nd samuel 1 1 says this after the death of saul david returned from his victory over the amalekites and spent two days in ziklag on the third day a man arrived from saul's army camp he had torn his clothes and put dirt on his head to show that he was mourning he fell to the ground before david in deep respect where have you come from david asked i escaped from the illusory light camp the man replied what happened david demanded tell me how the battle went the man replied our entire army fled from the battle many of the men are dead and saul and his son jonathan are also dead how do you know saul and jonathan are dead david demanded of the young man the man answered i happened to be on mount gilboa and there was saul leaning on his spear with the enemy chariots and charioteers closing in on him when he turned and saw when he turned and saw me he cried out for me to come to him how can i help i asked him he responded who are you i am an amalekite i told him then he begged me come over here and put me out of my misery for i'm in terrible pain and i want to die so i killed him the malachi told david for i knew he couldn't live then i took his crown and his armband and i have brought them here to you my lord to david's reaction he then tears his clothes he mourns all day for saul showing again his character for all his flaws right he honored the lord's anointed one as far as the amalekite is concerned if you're familiar with the account of saul's death you may have raised an eyebrow because the accounts kind of don't really line up too well one's a sword the other is a spears got a little few details wrong but we don't know it's a place where we can make an assumption is he lying is he just trying to win favor with david we're not really sure whatever the case may be we do know that he made an assumption that's going to cost him his life so david says why weren't you afraid to kill the lord's anointed one remember david had his chance a couple times right he didn't do it so why did you do it you have confessed that you killed the lord's anointed one and so he has that man killed terrible tragedy and irony here that the amalekite says he's the one who does it that was one of the major sins of saul he didn't finish them off like he should have costs him his life so david composes a funeral song for saul and jonathan remember that david is a psalmist he's a songwriter he's very talented musician side note lots of different books we don't have or are included in the bible and not it says that this one is found in the book of jasher we don't have it but if we keep reading what we do have second samuel 2 1 says this after this david asked the lord should i move back to one of the towns of judah yes the lord replied then david asked which town should i go to to hebron the lord answered david two david's two wives were hinom from jezreel and abigail the widow of nabal from carmel so david and his wives and his men and their families all moved to judah and they settled in the villages near hebron then the men of judah came to david and anointed him king over the people of judah then david hears about the guys who buried saul burned saul's body and buried the bones if you remember that the people from jabash gilead he applauds them for what they did and asks for their loyalty but if we keep reading it says this but abner son of nur the commander of saul's army had already gone to mayanam with saul's son ishbosheth there he proclaimed ishbosheth king over gilead jezreel ephraim benjamin and the land of the ashrites and all the rest of israel ishbosheth saul's son was 40 years old when he became king and he ruled from mayonam for two years meanwhile the people of judah remained loyal to david david made hebron his capital and he ruled as king of judah for seven and a half years keep your eye out for a couple things here david's diplomacy so he's dealing with a split kingdom and so this is like a precursor to what's going to happen later down the line when israel falls and judah falls david's going to unify the kingdom but in these sections he's making a great effort to do so so i'll point some of that out to you split kingdom israel in the north judah and the south david now is king of judah now we have their generals ishbosheth has abner that's his general joab is david's general and so now they're going to get go to war with one another first we get a scene where abner is talking to joab or communicating with him at the pool of gibeon and he makes a suggestion kind of similar to the reasoning behind david and goliath sometimes you'll send one champion out to represent each side instead of losing thousands of men you lose one in this case 12 and 12 and they're going to fight one another to kind of decide something i guess and it's kind of kind of strange it seems like a summary of what's going on it says that they all grab each other's hair and stab each other in the side and kind of like in a synchronized death battle just all die at the same time a little strange probably just a summary of what happened but because there's no decisive winner there's now a big battle and abner is on the losing side so he's fleeing away and now you have abhishei assahel and joab the three sons of zeruwaya you might remember abishii he's the guy i remember when they snuck up on abner and saul and they had the spear and the water jug he's the guy who was with david so you have these three brothers and assahel is chasing after abner now and it says he is as fast as a gazelle so easy to remember assahel as fast as a gazelle he's running after abner but abner warns him got to pay attention abner looks back he says and he warns him stop chasing me go find one of the like younger guys and plunder them kill them and plunder them so we get the picture here that abner's a more experienced stronger warrior but maybe he's an older guy like me so he's running along and he's like ah stop it and he says i don't want to kill you how would i ever face your brother again warns him and warns him kid doesn't listen he runs and it says that he hits him with the butt end of his spear it goes through his body and kills him well now joab and abishii they find out and they're not happy so they're chasing after him intending to kill him and there's one scene where he's getting ready to make his stand on a hill with the benjamites and abner appeals again he said must we always be killing one another don't you realize that bitterness is the only result when they actually listen job says if you hadn't said anything we would have chased you all night so they go their separate ways and it turns out to be way worse for abner than it is for joab joab only loses 19 men plus his brother that's very bad but abner loses 360 men way worse for them so if we turn the page we see this second samuel 3 1. that was the beginning of a long war between those who were loyal to saul and those who were loyal to david as time passed david became stronger and stronger while saul's dynasty became weaker and weaker if we keep reading if you're reading along my friends you'll see a brief genealogy of david's sons born in hebron that's not all of them but then it says as the war between the house of saul and the house of david went on abner became a powerful leader among those loyal to saul one day ishbasheth saul's son so that's the king of israel accused abner of sleeping with one of his father's concubines a woman named rizpah daughter of ayah so abner immediately reacts sharply what am i some judean dog that should accuse me of this look at all the things that i've done for your family it's really really mad so here's another assumption that we can make that abner slept with the concubine now if you don't know a concubine can be like a second wife it's probably not the primary wife but they had polygamy back then we gotta just deal with it and get over it so it's one of his dad's wives he's being accused of sleeping with we don't know if he did it or not it doesn't really say but here's what we know he did react sharply and immediately keep that in mind and he takes the opportunity to leave so he splits from the king of israel and he says i'm going to make david's kingdom great so this is where abner plays the role of like an ambassador that's what he's going to do first he sends messengers to david says you know aren't you king of all this land aren't you the real king is basically the summary of it so david kind of likes the idea sends messengers back and they make a deal here's the deal i want my wife michael back huh there's another wife remember michael was left with saul that was his daughter got left behind with her and he mentions the bride price he paid 100 philistine lives well if you remember david was an overachiever here he gave him 200 things from the philistines as the bride price he wants her back so he calls on ish bush send my wife back to me and you get this kind of almost comical scene where her husband because it had told us before she got married off even though not divorced from david pounty he's kind of pitiful penalty he's kind of following behind crying about his bride as they take michael off and abner just basically says go home you know get out of here so here's what abner does he acts as an ambassador and he gets all the support from david from the elders of israel in particular the tribe of benjamin this is important because this is where saul is from so the benjamites are really important here he's drumming up all this support for him so what does he do he finally goes to hebron he's 20 men with him he announces it to david they celebrate they have a feast and then he leaves then right after it joab comes back from a raiding party so that's david's general he finds out about it he says what what were you thinking he's probably a spy he's going to come in here and you know do bad things to us this is bad news what'd you do so he sends messengers for abner just remember the ex-general of israel come on back abner comes back he sees him at the town gate now abner is none the wiser he doesn't know he figures maybe he wants to talk to me so joab comes up to him and stabs him in the stomach kills him in revenge for the death of his brother david remember diplomacy he disagrees sharply with this he has nothing to do with this in fact he condemns it and he curses joab and his brother may they have family members in the future who have like leprosy sores and begging for food and all this horrible stuff he proclaims curses on him he mourns he doesn't eat anything may the lord strike me dead if i eat anything today he's really trying to make an effort to show everybody not saying he's not sincere but he's making a strong effort to show everybody that he's really upset about this and this pleases the people he writes another song this one's for abner short one but remember diplomacy very important for david right now if we turn the page second samuel 4 1 when ishbasheth saul's son heard about abner's death at hebron he lost all courage and all israel became paralyzed with fear now there were two brothers banana and recap who were captains of ishbo sheth's raiding parties they were sons of riman a member of the tribe of benjamin who lived in biroth the town of biroth is now part of benjamin's territory because the original people of biroth fled to get him where there are still lived there as foreigners now if you're reading along you're going to see a little parenthetical note a pretty good version of the bible i'll put this in parentheses because it's kind of like parentheses because parentheses isn't a word parentheses because you got to kind of hang on to this for later so it's going to talk about mephibosheth mephibosheth it's fun to say say it with me mephibosheth now you know how to say it so anyway remember him not going to go into the text really but just keep him in mind he's jonathan's son he's crippled because he gets dropped as a baby his feet are crippled but we're going to see more happen there with diplomacy later on not this week now we get back to recap and baina they think it's a good idea to kill ishbo chef so this is made easy by their by ishmael's doorkeeper who's tired from working she falls asleep they sneak past her he's taken a midday nap anybody take a midnight nap be careful because someone might come in and kill you and cut your head off that's what they do they bring it to david and they say look basically like your enemy's head gross but anyway david's used to that kind of thing but here's the thing here's how he responds someone once told me that saul was dead thinking it was good news but i killed him at ziklag remember the amalekites we were coming full circle it's like the same thing happened that was his reward for his news how much more reward for someone who kills an innocent man in his own bed so he has them killed they cut off their hands and their feet they just just discard the bodies by the pool and hebron and then they take ishbo sheth's head and they put it in abner's tomb so again he's honoring abner so like the amalekite these men paid the price for an assumption again assumptions can be a very dangerous thing how often do we make assumptions without having all the details do we do that and then let that lead to big mistakes saying the wrong thing ruining relationships with people this happens when we're not careful to get all of the information before making a decision about something how often do we make assumptions that lead to resentments or lack of forgiveness do we do with that sometimes you see jesus calls us to reconcile to move away from these resentments that rot within us matthew 18 15. if another believer sins against you go privately and point out the offense go right to them instead of talking to everybody else about it if the other person listens and confesses it you have won that person back the goal okay if you're marking your bible circle that and be like well star the goal win the person back but if you're unsuccessful take one or two others with you so that you can yell at them no read along go back again so so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses if the person still refuses to listen take your case to the church go to pastor gene's office then if he or she won't accept the church's decision to treat that person as a pagan or corrupt tax collector all too many people love that last part see that's what jesus said to do no yes but not yet like you got a lot of steps first but that's what too many people do right they get a problem with someone in the church or with me or somebody else and they go and they build a resentment talk to everybody else about it but that person they don't have all the details they leave that's more common but that's not what jesus says to do if we keep reading we see the verse is about binding in heaven binding on earth loosing in heaven losing earth where two or three are gathered in his name jesus is there and then it says this a lot of people stop there they shouldn't matthew 18 21 then peter came to him and asked the lord how often should i forgive someone who sins against me seven times gives a little proposal there right no not seven times jesus replied but seventy times 7 490 that's a lot see peter is trying to lawyer it do we do that do we lower jesus sayings the scriptures we stop at a convenient place but jesus gives him no out none you see i want to make a note too forgiveness and reconciliation are two different things sometimes someone won't receive we want to forgive them but they won't receive it that's on them not you so sometimes reconciliation is difficult it's not possible right now but we hope for it that's the thing our heart has to be on that place you you have to come really meaning like i forgive you will you forgive me can we just reconcile this thing otherwise it doesn't really count you have to mean it and sometimes though they go eh but that doesn't mean it's okay for you to build that well now i got a resentment about that they wouldn't accept my forgiveness no no no you're doing you keep doing this you keep doing this stop just forgive them and then if they throw it away whatever it's on them it's hard to do but it's on them sometimes forgiveness has to be done from afar the person can represent a danger to you or someone you care about so we have some practical issues here but it still has to be done you still have to mean it it could be physical or emotional harm i've had situations where i had to kind of remove people from my life because i was causing them to sin my presence was causing that person to lie all the time i was like you don't need to lie to me you can just go lie to yourself and so it can be like that or causing you to sin not good but forgive them love them and forgive them from afar send flowers i don't know in any event we must forgive reconciliation is always the ideal that is always what we want but sometimes it's not possible so then you get the last step so you see all that in between there that's the important stuff so then it's like okay leave like get out but you forgive them hoping they'll come back i believe this is what happens when we look at first corinthians five and then we go to chapter two reconciliation he's forgiven honoring can be done from afar so can forgiveness but the forgiveness is absolutely not optional you must know that so jesus he continues with a parable about forgiveness he's going to tell a story he likes to do that so he says there was a king who wanted to settle his accounts and so he called upon a servant give me the money you owe me now it says it's a myriad of money miriada a lot of money so it's like some version will say millions of dollars but it's just it's a lot of money right you just can't imagine how much money this guy owes and he can't pay it and so the king is like well i'm going to sell you and your whole family to pay off the debt that's it so he begs him and finally the king has some compassion and he forgives the debt great you know what he does with the forgiveness he turns right around and finds another servant who owes him money but it says much less money but he won't forgive it he jokes him and he says give me the money you owe me can't pay it he throws him in prison he doesn't forget it here's what happens matthew 18 31 when some of the other servants saw this they were very upset they went to the king and told him everything that had happened then the king called in the man who had been forgiven and he said you evil servant i forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant just as i had mercy on you then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt that's what my heavenly father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart jesus's words not might forgiveness now even if you've not read the bible a lot which i'm not saying is a good thing even if you haven't read the bible a lot you probably know some of jesus's teachings on forgiveness how many people here could recite the lord's prayer the our father very very common right so you know that it talks about forgiveness in there forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors right or those who sin against us lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil you know how it ends a lot of people say for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory are yours forever and ever right in our version and those are really nice words but what if i told you that wasn't in jesus version he didn't say that so it's nice it's true here's the power of the yes it's a doxology at the end what if i told you jesus's version ends really differently this is what it says in his so that was verse 13 not the kingdom of the glory thing so if we go back verses 13 verse 13 lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil that's that's 30. if we keep reading so here's the thing people we interrupt jesus we do that a lot so he's talking he doesn't stop talking one continuous flow matthew 5 through 7 jesus talking the whole time matthew 6 14 the very next verse remember he talked about forgiveness and he says if you forgive those who sin against you your heavenly father will forgive you don't stop but if you refuse to forgive others your father will not forgive your sins that's how the lord's prayer ends we don't like those verses but i want you to let them soak in today i know it's hard view me as like a personal trainer make you doing an extra set all right we can do that too if you know my story we can do that all right so this is the extras come on let's go put my fingers on the bar come on spaghetti arms you can do it if you've got to make this you got to lighten it up all right because otherwise you guys are going to be like i'm never coming back if you forgive those who sin against you your heavenly father will forgive you take the cross 15 out just cross it out don't stop reading but if you refuse to forgive others your father will not forgive your sins scare anybody else in the room terrifies me terrified this is jesus talking let's just frame this out properly not gene god this is god this is jesus his words it's not the only place it appears either by the way well that's just out of context nope no he means it he's really serious here and so we have to take this seriously these verses have some serious serious implications consequences so yeah you know we put a little doxology at the end of the prayer and we stop and that sounds nice makes us feel good but it's not what jesus is saying here we've replaced it with something that sounds nicer but jesus's words don't always sound nice it's not the point i get it guys we're probably not going to see these verses on a coffee mug imagine then can we flip back to them can you can you imagine these on a coffee mug like can we see it on the screen that imagine that on a coffee mug or just 15. that's it imagine that you're out you're just sitting across the table from somebody and those are on your coffee mug but you know what maybe they should be right maybe we should be starting our day like this ah you know right are we gonna stencil maybe we should we should stencil them on the church wall somewhere you know people come in that would really like thin out the herd we'd really like separate the christians from the people who really aren't christian i think just do that we'll stencil them on the wall that's it it'll be like just this that's it no one else will come here you see we must not preach christ without consequences he didn't now here's the encouragement i get it i get it i get it it's hard forgiveness is hard i'm going to give you some steps it'll make it easier so it's not optional so what do we do step one pray you know what praying is it's a conversation with god what does david do he asks him questions where do i go hebron right so god is speaking so praying is listening praying is listening you're a conversation with someone and they just don't listen they talk over you and they're not listening to you that's how most christians pray i want god i want god i want god please blah blah blah yeah good we're done no ask him questions why what's going on and then go listen listen sometimes it's not like an audible voice but he'll he'll send people to speak to you i've had to happen a lot the more obedient i am the more that happens where i'll pray about something someone will walk right up to me and just start saying something i'm like you are literally answering the question i just asked it happens all the time and the person never knows what they're doing so god uses things he uses other people he uses the radio he i mean he just uses anything he's god do whatever he wants and then sometimes you'll you'll hear something or you feel something or come to a decision so listen then surrender you have to surrender and submit that's how you receive the holy spirit because the holy spirit he's going to make all this much easier like much easier he's better at this stuff than we are can you imagine that like god's like actually better at something than we are you know so he's gonna help you forgive surrender all that anger to god let him take it just saying you deal with that right you have enough righteous indignation in the world just take that this will help you to then do some practical things like get the facts get rid of the assumptions if it's a person okay let me buy you coffee and just let the person talk no but but just just let them talk and then if they're like i don't want to talk about what you want to talk about good what do you want to talk about i just i'm just i don't want to talk i just listen you tell me all your stuff and you know what pastors know this got to be patient sometimes it's a lot of meetings it's okay i love you we can do this as long as you need to do this and if you're tired just ask the holy spirit please give me strength start praying that helps ask the questions what assumptions might you have made then here's the big one ask god a question i've done this it's actually very relieving but at first kind of painful god what is my part in this whole thing what did i do wrong because we always assume that we didn't do anything wrong what is my part what part where am i wrong in this here's the other thing stop making perhaps unrealistic expectations instead put yourself in their shoes golden rule matthew 7 12 if we kept reading right from chapter five treat others the way you want to be treated but not if you're masochistic just treat others love others right that this is the law it's a remarkable statement this is the law and the problem you want here this this is what jesus is saying this whole thing love him love him love her love that's it that's what jesus is saying it is i've read it in the greek is remarkable very short this is the law and the prophets love other people treat them the way you want to be treated remarkable there summarize it for you just love but it's kind of like the hardest thing to do isn't it so pray and again it doesn't matter whether that person changes whether that person accepts you gotta forgive them and you gotta love them so the story was joab gonna kill abner anyway think about it if presented with the facts if he knew what was going on do you think he would have forgave it or was he gonna kill him anyway did he know he was warned like at least twice i don't want to kill you kid stop chasing me i could never face your brother again if i had to kill you and here's the interesting thing i think i think from a martial arts perspective did it for many many years when i look at the scene i think that this is what happens here's the forensics i'll give you the correct picture i think so it says he looked back he looked back so he's got a spear right he's old man like me and so he's running along but he's good like so kid listen if you fight with me i'm going to kill you don't do it but he's not now it says he's really fast like a gazelle why would he hit him with the butt end of the spear if you really want to kill someone you turn around stab him probably he wants to knock the wind out of him it's a great martial arts technique right in the stomach and then the person doubles over like that right and then you just walk away don't do that to anyone this week anyway just so he's going fast but here's the thing he's going like a gazelle so he runs into the spear and it goes through him i believe he did not want to kill him two warnings and the butt end of the spear he didn't want to do it but do you think if job knew that do you think he changed his mind i don't know you see abner presented a threat to joab he could be david's new general you see sometimes we don't forgive because we have a motive and we have to find out what that might be if we're not forgiving that's something else we need to ask ourselves we come up with lots of reasons but they're only excuses jesus isn't going to accept them do you think abner was looking for an excuse to leave ishbo chef pretty quick right i'm out you're gonna make an accusation i'm done do we do that too we're looking for an excuse to not forgive but abner for all his faults too he gives us a key verse i want to share with you before we close second samuel 2 26 abner shouted down to joab so after assahl's been killed must we always be killing each other don't you realize that bitterness is the only result don't you realize that bitterness is the only result so in this story as it frames out don't you realize that bitterness is the only result we've been talking about church being a place of peace and taking that peace with you throughout the week and extending it to others so let's do that but on the topic of peace let me add something inner peace forgiveness is freeing forgiveness is freeing i want that inner peace for you don't let it rot within you and there's something else i want everybody to hear i know a lot of you need to hear this sometimes you're not forgiving others because you haven't forgiven yourself you want peace forgive yourself god already forgave you who are you to hold on to it forgive yourself it's okay move on you cannot do anything about the past but you can do something about the future forgive yourself forgive others it's freeing we only ruin our lives when we let those resentments rot within us let's remember the grace and mercy that god has poured out over all of us and extended to those for whom jesus died amen let me pray for you from the scriptures lord fill us with your spirits and help us to get rid of all bitterness rage anger harsh words and slander as well as all types of evil behavior instead help us to be kind to each other tenderhearted forgiving one another just as god through christ jesus has forgiven us amen