THE NEW YOU

the new you because that's what we have is a new person. It doesn't say that we're repurposed. It doesn't say that we're rebuilt or cleaned up. It says that you are a new man, a new man.

You're completely brand new. But the Apostle Paul has some instruction force of what being that new man and things that you should take place in your life as you have to come that new man and then you walk. And where this message comes out of today is Ephesians 4 starting in verse 25. So I just want to, I want to read down these last few verses of this chapter real quick.

So again, chapter 4 starting in verse 25, it says, therefore, the reason it says, therefore, is he's talking about becoming that new man in unity in the body and in the sense, therefore, since you have became this, pulling away, lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands, what is good, that he may have something to give to him who has need. Verse 29, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the heroes, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, calamity, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be kind to one another, tender hearted for giving one another, even as God had Christ Jesus forgave you. Go ahead, pray, I swear, for God to us, just in knowing this time with us. Father God, I tell you that we love you, we thank you for the freedom that you gave to us, we thank you for the sacrifice that you made for us to have that freedom. God, we thank you for your word, we thank you that you've given us ability to gather and to bask in the glory of your word, God.

I ask that as this takes place today, God, that it be 100% of you and zero of me, God, I ask that the hearts and minds here that receive this word, God, that it speaks to them where they're at in one. But most importantly, God, that I'll take experience it all in love, the love of you, the love that you continually give to us. God, we just, again, we tell you thank you and that we love you for all, Jesus name, amen. Love that last part there where it says, even as God in Christ forgave you, the whole gospel, the whole gospel, that the whole gospel is centered around Christ and what he did.

You know, Revelation tells us that it's by the blood and the testimony, Jesus really gave us the blood. It's the testimony that stands out of day saying, that's what set me free, that's what gave me the new. The enemy is literally shaking in madness right now because he knows that he can't touch you because you have the blood, amen. So let's go ahead and start breaking this down.

We're starting verse 25 and just wanna show you some things that God's spoke to me over this time and in this, but that verse says, therefore putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Some translations will say that we are one body, but Paul talks in this chapter a lot about unity and it's so important to understand. All our actions affect the body in a whole. Anything that my hand does, it affects the rest of my body in some way, shape or form and we need to see ourselves as members that affect one another, but it says to put away lying, how does it, how does it, putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor.

I wanna tell you on this one of truth isn't always comfortable. There is times that we have to speak truth to one another where the hear of it is not going to be comfortable in the situation or is gonna think that it's damaging to them, but they're not seeing the bigger picture of it. God gives us the ability to see past the right here and right now. I was having our normal Sunday meeting get together, how well time would everyone call it with Seth and Fred and we was talking about this verse.

And Fred gave me the analogy or example of, if you go up in the lovers' leaves, if somebody is running towards the cliff and about to fall off of it and you tackle them, you may injure them at that point, you may hurt them by the force that you hit them with, but you did it out of love that stopped them from going off the cliff. And we have to see it like that. We have to start speaking truth to one another, but also in our walk we have to speak truth to ourselves because as the body, the people of the outside, where the Gentiles need to see the truth that is in us. And it's things like Nate, you today, of standing and saying, I am set free.

That truth needs to be example in your life today. Otherwise it is empty, hollow words. And without the truth of it, it looks crazy to the people out there. Another one that I wanna talk to you about it, and it's one that irritates me so bad.

When you're speaking of God, you must use truth. A lot of people like to use a phrase of, well, God told me. So many people wanna cover up their actions or what they're doing by saying God told me. Now here's the thing with it.

I can't tell you that you're lying. I can't say to you you're wrong because I don't know what God says to you. I don't know what God imparts when you're hard. But once you know something about that truth, there is gonna be a day in your life that you have to stand in a place and you have to give an account for every work.

You have to give an account whether you spoke truth or whether you spoke a lot, you're going to give an account for that. So next time you wanna say God told me, I want you to really ask yourself and be truthful with yourself. Did God tell me this? Or did my own selfish desire and ambition want this?

And the reason I'm saying God told me is so that you can't argue. Excuse me for a second. Oh, okay. Red is persistent on me cutting my beard.

I hate holding microphones because I'll be honest with you guys in speaking about telling me. Now you're able to see me up here shaking like this. It's gotten better, but it's not perfect. So again, I wanna stress for we are members of one another.

And as members of one another, if my foot is acting crazy, but I'm saying I'm okay, how crazy does it look to everybody else? You know what I mean? If I'm saying I'm okay, but I'm walking, I'm flunky. Like it doesn't look right to everybody else, you're lying to yourself and we have to operate together.

And we have to understand that Diana's actions affect me. And if we look more at that and said that, how are my actions today going to affect the rest of the body? How's my words today going to affect the body of Christ, the church that I am a part of? How's it going to affect it?

I think we start telling the truth a little bit more. Verse 26, and this one I get a lot of questions about. Says, be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath.

It's actually a two part verse of being angry and not sinning. And also don't let the darkness into it. I wanna talk first about that, be angry and do not sin. I want you guys to hear this and hear this very clearly.

Anger is not a sin. It's what you do with the anger that can become the sin. Anger is given to us as a way to protect us, as a way for us to acknowledge things for to give us motivation and drive. I wanna give you an example in that.

And I hope that this affects somebody's heart. One of the things that beyond makes me angry right now is I'm gonna use youth sports as an example. Parents are not stepping up and volunteering and doing what it takes to make an organization successful for our children. I'm angry about that.

What I don't do is go cuss parents out. What I do is I step up and do my part to be able to watch that organization or that team or their children enjoy themselves. So I want you to understand that when you get angry about something, it's God letting you know like I want you to do something about this. I want you to be effective in this area.

I've put a drive and a burn and a desire inside of you to do something about it. Now, when I get angry with the wife, I do my best enough sin. And a lot of people, you know that they talk about, when I say to you, Jesus got angry. The one that people think about is flipping tables.

There we go. That's the first one they think about. Flipping a table is not a sin in the way that Jesus did it. He was clearing the temple of greed and things that were not supposed to be there.

Me being angry with the wife and flipping the dining room table is not correct. So nobody next week told me, tell me that you flipped the table in front of your wife and you don't believe it was a sin. I'll call you out on that one. I will speak truth.

But I want you to hear this one. It comes out in Mark 10 verse 14, it's where it starts. It says, but when Jesus saw it, he was greatly displeased and sent to them, let the little children come to me and do not forbid them, for if such is the kingdom of God. So what he's talking about is the disciples were stopping children from coming to Jesus to speak with him and to be with him.

In that, in the disciples was the problem. When you don't understand it, it says he was greatly displeased. Anger is displeased with something. It is something that I need to address.

It's something that I need to do. Anger itself again is not the sin. It's what we do with the anger that becomes the sin. And I also believe with this verse, it's encouraging us to allow ourselves to feel emotions.

God gave us emotions for a reason. So it's okay to feel them. But then as part of this, do not let the sun go down on your wrath. I believe it's saying more of don't let your anger be in the darkness.

A lot of people express it as, you know, going to sleep it like, I believe that is a part of it. You know, one of the things that Fred has taught me in my walk with my marriage and my life is, you know, make sure that at night, like I don't go to sleep on the couch because of the fact I'm angry at my wife. So to acknowledge that, just talk through it with her and to lay down with her at night because that's where I'm supposed to be. That's what I'm called to do.

But I believe it's saying like, when you're angry about something, don't leave it in here. Don't let the wheels spin in darkness and just become more angry about it. It's called nursing a grudge. And that's what causes us to act out in the wrong way.

Bring it to the light. The one that you take it to your anger is God himself. You take it and you say, God, I am angry about this situation. What do you want me to do with it?

Do you want me to join the youth sports? Do you want me to step up and become a counselor? Because I see addiction out there and I'm angry about it. I see homelessness problem.

It's making me angry. Does that mean I start throwing homeless people out of Cumberland Maryland? No, I'm angry about it. So I start doing something to stop that problem too many times in the city and Christians and the Gentiles and all of it.

They talk about the filth that's standing at Sheetsus, asking for a dollar. You want to stop asking for a dollar? Help them out. Get them out of the situation that they're in.

Is there an addiction and an awful problem in that there? Yes, there is. Stop complaining about it and start doing something. When you nurse a grudge, when you have a problem and you go to sleep with that problem and you don't address the problem or take it to God to bring it into the light, what happens if you go to bed stewing and mad about something?

The next morning you wake up stewing mad about the same problem. There is nothing that you can do about what happened yesterday. There is nothing in this world. When you woke up this morning, everything previous to that was obsolete except for the lesson that you learned from it.

I know anytime I have to slip on the couch or anything like that, that fight ends up ending three or four days later. Where if I had just went to bed that night and said, hey, I'm sorry, or hey, this is what made me angry, I could have woke up the next day and not lost three days of my life and anger. We have got to be more willing to say the things of I'm sorry. And if you can't say I'm sorry, or maybe you don't see it as your fault, you know it's okay to talk to a person about what made you angry?

How's that person to fix that problem that they're doing that makes you angry? If you don't tell them what it is that they're doing to make you angry, communications key in that. And that's bringing it to the light. James 1 19 and 20 tells us, so then my beloved brother and let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

Wrath is a type of anger, but it's more of wrath is more of what you do with your anger. If you outbursts in anger, if you allow anger to control the situation, that doesn't produce the righteousness of God. You know what does? Chris, I'm sorry, the speaking and saying, here's what the situation was.

What did God himself do when he was angry about sin? He didn't bring his wrath upon all of us that we so much deserve. He said, no, I see a problem. I'm angry about this.

I'm gonna do something about it. I'm not gonna affect the sinner. I'm going to affect the sin. And that's where we need to get to.

I'm going after the sin, not the sinner. We're called to love people, not to have animosity, not to have hatred, not to damage that person. The next verse, 27 says, Lord give place to the devil. It's great how it talks about, you know, bring it into the light, not taking it into darkness and says, Lord give place to the devil.

Darkness is the devil's playground. That's where he will run things around and twist them and all that kind of thing. And if you just allow the thought or the damage that's been taking place to you inside of your mind and you don't bring it into the light, you're doing exactly what he wants to do and you're giving him a complete foothold to you to control the situation itself. 20 says, let him who stole still no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands, what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need, work to give him who has need.

If you're angry about something, we just mentioned it and you see a problem in something, doesn't tell you to complain about it, doesn't tell you to sit down and do nothing, it tells you to work to give to him who has need. Taking care of your anger and doing things about the things that you're angry about is consistent with work that you must do. Also, this verse is telling us, you know, with that let him who stole still no longer, it's not talking, I don't think it's just talking strictly about, oh, I took $5 from you. Make you stole life for so long.

You stole, you know, your mother showed into you and you stole that love for so long. But you got to stand here today and give it back. You put in the work for months upon months to stand here and see her smile today. Just a side note, nay, I hope you value that, I do.

There's a lot of us that graduate these homes and come to the place and we wish we just had the place to sit and sit today. Appreciate it, cherish it. Also, it's telling us, don't work for just yourself. You don't stop doing what you're doing just for you.

Ultimately, yes, I wholeheartedly believe you will stand on that day by a learn and given account for yourself. I wholeheartedly believe that. But it's our faith that encourages one another. And I believe it's telling us that he can give to who has need.

Your testimony will give to who has need. There's many of us to sit here today that have a testimony of coming out of addiction or that. And we give it to those who are in that life now because they're in need of it. They're in need of freedom.

They're in need of love. They're in need of forgiveness. We're called to do that ourselves. There's one that we get a question on a lot.

It's 4.29. It says, let no corrupt word, proceed out of your mouth. But what is good and necessary for edification, that it may impart grace to the heroes. I take this back to the first part we was talking about there of sometimes the truth hurts.

But why do I tell you truth that may hurt you at the present moment for the edification of God's purpose inside of your life? This is let no corrupt. There's times that we can go to one another. And we want to tell them what they're saying or whatever they're doing or that.

And we want to just cuddle to their feelings. Does that in any way sound good? No, it's a corrupt word. Although what I'm saying may be nice.

Although what I'm saying may be what you want to hear. But it's corrupted in my heart. I'm more worried about your love than I am God's love. I'm more worried about your purpose and your feelings than what I am God's feelings of purpose in your life.

I am corrupting the very love that God gave us. It says to all who hear it. Stop gossiping. I'm going to say that again, stop gossiping.

Take what you have to say to the person that you have it for. But also it says to all that hear it. Who knows that I can be standing here talking to Fred? But everybody in the first three rows can hear what I'm saying.

I may be standing in the grocery store talking to the person in aisle six. Guess who can hear me? Five and seven can hear me also. And there's where we have a problem.

We want to talk to a person like the only one here. And we want to say things that are damaging to someone else. And what you're forgetting is that other person that you're talking about is in aisle five. And you're affecting them.

Stop it. So last night I was with a couple people. And we got to talking about this verse itself. And the verse out of Colossians 4, verse 6 got brought up.

It says, let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you should answer everyone. I got to look into that verse. And they mentioned it last night. And I want you to know that salt has multiple purposes.

So your words have multiple purposes. I want to give them to you with flavor. But I want to make sure it's the flavor of God that I'm giving it to you. But salt also does something else.

It preserves. It preserves meat. So when I'm saying something to you, even in this goes back to what I was saying, even though it may hurt you right now right here, you don't want to hear what I have to say. But it's preserving your soul.

It's preserving your spirit to be there for God. It's not about just me getting it flavored. It tastes good right this moment. It's about being lasting in your life.

If I stopped you from running off the cliff, I saved you from death at that moment. Now hopefully it preserves you enough to stand up, look over there to that cliff and say, you know what? That's a lot higher than what I thought it was. I'm glad you stopped me.

With hearing that word though, we got to make sure, not we have to make sure the person who's hearing it, needs to make sure that they're hearing it in the right manner. This person loves me, that's why they're saying it. But there's the opposite end of that spectrum too. I must be saying it to you in love.

I talk to men and women all the time, and I tell them things that they're doing wrong or that I see wrong in their life and that. And I'm not saying anything that I say to make myself appear bigger than you or better than you or more righteous than you. Saying it because I love you, because I want better in your life. And that's where we got to get to.

When we're talking to people, we need to make sure that our heart is right and not corrupt in what we're saying to them. Now it's on that person to receive it in the same way. I can't control how you receive it. I can't control what you do with it.

You ever heard the saying to you the meat spit out the bones? That's what you need to start doing in life. The things that people talk to you about, the things that you read in God's word now. You need to understand it.

It's done out of edification. It's done out of love. It's done in uplifting and upbringing. There's somebody trying to tear you down.

There's somebody standing on a platform and saying that they're more righteous than you. That is not the person that you want to sow into your life. There's a big one change, 310. This is out of the same mouth, proceeds blessings and curses.

My brother and these things are not to be so. I can't sit here and talk with Whitney about an issue that she may be having or that I may be having and give whole hearted great loving advice just so I can turn around here and gossip about it. I blessed her with my words of love and then I cursed her with my words of gossip. Pressed up.

We can't use God's word and bless life and turn around. And this isn't just the words that proceed out of your mouth. It's the same. You give blessing to God today.

Now don't turn around and live another way. What is the verses of words that are double-edged so it cuts both in and out? What is it? Hebrews 412.

Understand that. And this is a complete side note. Something I wasn't even thinking. Is that your words can cut as much somebody else as they can yourself.

I encourage men that go through our homes and women that go through our homes. When they're speaking things, don't speak them in a corrupt way. Don't uplift yourself. Speak words of encouragement to yourself also.

Out loud. If he's in 430, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. I wanna pause right there. I know you can grieve God.

I know it's awesome about this verse. It proves that God is a real physical being. He's not an entity. He's not so magical for so that.

He has feelings also. When God said create them in our image. He's talking about this right here. He gave us the same feelings and heart that he has.

Don't do things. So anytime you're going to do something or say something or anything like that, I want you to think two things. How does this edify the body that I'm a part of and does it grieve God? Is what I'm doing grieving God.

Because if you ask yourself that, then you're not going to turn around and gossip about somebody because that's grieving the Holy Spirit. Because I wanna say by whom we were sealed for the day of redemption. I like also with it, it sums up how Paul gave you a list of things about talking and things like that that don't do these things. But then he also, he broadens the spectrum.

So he's tiny with it at first. And then he broadens it for everything. Anything that you're doing to grieve the Holy Spirit, don't do it. Like I mentioned some specifics, but just in case you're not catching on to what I'm saying, everything else, here it is, don't grieve the Holy Spirit.

I like that. Sealed. I really, I like this that your life has been sealed for the day of redemption. I was looking up that word that's used there.

I'm not even gonna try to pronounce it. Me and Don worked on it this morning. And it's sometimes about Italian, Greek, Hebrewic word. But it means you are concealed.

You're safe inside for security from Satan. It's what they actually mean. Security from Satan. When you are sealed by God, he can't touch you.

But also this word is also used in Matthew 27, verse 66. We're talking about the tomb being sealed. And this gives you a physical picture of it. It's a stamping almost.

It is put over top of it. And it's locked inside. Once you become that new man, you are sealed inside of redemption. There's only two things in this world, in this universe, whatever you wanna say, that can break that seal.

Two. Jen can't break my seal. I can't. I can't.

And the Holy Spirit is the only other one. The only day that he's gonna break that is the day that you stand before him. And he's gonna say come on in. Come on in.

You was sealed off in this while you was there. But now you're free with me. You have a home here. But we need to remember the part of, only I can break that seal here.

Nothing that Jen says to me, nothing that Jen does in her life can affect mine. How many of us have ever said the words? Well, because so and so I did this. Stop it.

You did that because you wanted to. You did that because that's where your heart mind was. Stop blaming the problems in your walk with God on everybody else. Start looking at yourself.

I am sealed inside of a bubble. My heart is my own to control. My love is my own to control through Christ. And anything you do doesn't deter that.

Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, calamity, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Let it all be put away. And you can see all the examples of everything in between. But let it be put away.

I wanna look first off, the let it all only be put away. Only God can put it away from you. When you come into that new. If you try to bring the old into the new, it will continue on.

You have to allow God to put it away from you. Our flesh says to act one way. And if we operate in that, we will continue to do all those things. But if you let God put it away and you operate in him, you will no longer have it.

But I wanna look at them words there. Bitterness, do you know where it starts? Disappointment. You're disappointed in something.

So you have an option to either sit and dwell on it or do something about it. Bitterness is the one that you can be a slave to. I said just a little bit ago there. That if I go to sleep with my anger, my bitterness, my rage, then that is the thing that will control me the next day.

That's the classification of what a slave is. That's controlling me. Let it be put away. I want you to see something that was a bitterness.

And it's out of Acts 8, verse 18 and 19. And it says, and when Simon saw that through the laying one of the apostles hands, the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money saying, give me this power also that any one of whom I lay hands, I may receive the Holy Spirit. Yeah, may receive the Holy Spirit. The reason, so I hope you guys know the source.

Simon, the source are laying their hands and people are being set free and receiving the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues. And he has a bitterness. I want that. I mentioned that because that's a problem where a lot of us get angry and a lot of us have bitterness in our life is because we see something in somebody else that we don't have in our own.

First off, if you want something in your life, you need to go to the Holy Spirit. We said if you have a problem with somebody, you go to that person. The same if you want something from the Holy Spirit. I don't go to the Holy Spirit.

I got to go to the Holy Spirit. I got to God himself. But a lot of our anger and life is a story because why is that person getting a blessing and I'm not? I work 10 times harder than them.

I do this. I do that. Hebrews 12, 15, tells us, looking carefully, at least anyone falls short of the grace of God. Let any root of bitterness spring up and cause trouble.

And by this may become the foul. It says any root of bitterness spring up, it becomes the foul or cause of trouble. If you allow bitterness to dwell in your life, if you allow that anger and animosity in your heart to dwell, it's not giving grace. And we need to remember that we operate in the grace of God and we know where in our life shall we, shall we fall short of that and giving that to somebody else.

Don't get angry about it. Take it to God. It says wrath. I want you to know that's what comes from your bitterness.

That's how you handle it. Your wrath is the actions of your anger. So cause it's outburst. When you operate out of that, nothing good comes out of it.

You forget about the grace and instead of remembering grace from my wife, I'm yelling. I'm not saying that through you, so don't take that wrong. But if I have anger to words and I bring wrath, that means I'm causing an outburst. Remember grace in that situation.

We're gonna be like Jesus and give the grace. See, Jesus gave us the grace of God. We deserve the wrath of God. But Jesus gave us the grace of God.

We are called to be like that. There's multiple verses on, one slow to your wrath. I want that I'm gonna use, I've got a couple of different, but I'm only gonna use one of them right now. And it's Proverbs 51.

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Again, I said that the wrath is the actions of your anger. If you give a harsh word to somebody, the only thing that that produces is anger in them to words you. I can tell you about yourself with love.

I can also tell you about yourself with anger. If I say it in anger, it causes anger in you. If I say it in love, it may cause anger in you, but I believe that the heart receives it different. A harsh word if I yell something at you, it's different than me sitting down at a table and softly speaking it with you.

Says, Calamor, before you've been speaking, Calamor is brawling just because you can't. I argue with you just because I can't. I cause a fight just because I can't. We can't allow ourselves to do just because we can't.

We have to think of love in their situations. But I wanna talk about the evil speaking for a second. If you look at the word that you used here, it's blasphemous. I'm not meaning blaspheming the Holy Spirit that's a whole different subject, but it's blasphemous.

I say things just to hurt you. I don't say them because it's love or what I should say. I say it just to cut you. Just to cause hurt and pain in your life.

There's a difference between me saying something to help you and I can say the exact same thing, something to help you or I can say it in a way just to cut you. Am I telling you about yourself just because I want you to hurt or am I telling you about yourself because I love you and want to see better in you? People speaking is the latter of the two. I'm saying it just because I want to cause damage.

Or I think that I'm better than or however you may word it. And again, Malice ties into that. Malice is the thought process of causing harm. It is me being angry with, I'm using the wife constantly.

She's not here today, babe, I love you. Don't take this wrong. But when I go to sleep on the couch, the only thing I do is I spin my wheels in the darkness that we talk about and the only thing that my mind is thinking is what can I say first thing in the morning to cause you pain? I allow it to stew as we just said with Calammar, just to hurt you.

Malice is holding onto the grudge of a thing instead of having the grace to forgive the thing. Last verse and that is 32. This whole time Paul is telling us things not to do. Now he wraps it up for you and says, hey, since you've put on this new man, or excuse me, since you became this new man, I don't want to say put on because it's not a covering that's just over top.

It's from the core out. If he's in 432 and says be kind to one another. Tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God and Christ forgave you. I love that old saying what would Jesus do, the WWJD.

And that's what it is, as for Christ forgave you. But he's giving you a couple different commands here. And it's three different. It says be kind, tender hearted, forgiving.

I think before you can be kind or tender hearted. I think forgiveness has to come before that. It's easy to love a person that loves you. It's easy to give to a person who gives to you because you feel that you're gonna get something back.

So I think it's a start with forgiveness. Somebody does you wrong. Why don't you guys ask yourself why did they do that? First place we need to examine us ourselves.

Did I do something to cause that? Did I make them angry towards me? But there's also something else we gotta ask them for giving. Where's that person at their life?

What's going on with that person that they feel they have to act that way? Be angry at the sin, not the sinner. I wanna change that word of unforgiveness. Cause it unforgiveness boils down to one thing.

And that's unwillingness. If you hold onto something that somebody did to you or you have an animosity or an anger towards them, it's because you choose to. You become a sin to that. If Whitney says something ignorant to me, how does that affect my life in any way or shape or form?

One of the biggest struggles that we have inside of the hope homes is, well, this happened to me as a child. Well, the cops did this to me. I got high because this happened to me in life. That's your unwillingness to forgive.

That is your unwillingness to walk past that situation. And we become a slave to it. It holds us bondage. I sat for so long in nightmares and chaos in my life because of things that I did while I was in Iraq.

Very much real things that damaged my mind. But you know when they stopped, when I stopped thinking about it. If you sit and dwell and stew on what somebody did to you, it's gonna fuel you, it's gonna cause the damage. But if you're willing to say, you know what?

That doesn't affect my life today in any way, shape or form. There is nothing that happened over there that's damaging to me today. Now does that mean I forget about it? No.

Hold on, forgiveness and forgetting are two different things. And I hope you guys understand that. If every time I let somebody in my house, they steal from me, I'm not gonna forget that. I'm just gonna meet you with it.

I'm still gonna love you. I'm still gonna be a part of your life. But we can sit on the front porch and talk. So the question I get with this a lot, how do I know when I forgave?

And they'll follow that up with what I haven't forgotten about. So I feel that I haven't forgave. I wanna know the soul heart of when you know you can forgive it, when you can pray for that person and sincerely mean it. When you want nothing but the best for that person and you stop saying, well they stole from me, I hope their house gets wrapped in burns to the ground.

Oh, that guy cut me off in traffic. I hope in the next corner he wrecks his car. That's not unforgiveness. And how you know when it is, that you've received forgiveness is when the fact that you can say God, I know Whitney spoke ignorantly to me.

But I pray throughout this day that there's so many kind people that speak into her life, God. I pray that her heart, when she says these things again, that it cuts her on the inside and she's convicted to not say it no more and I truly mean that. When you can say, I love this person with no butt after it. If I say the person that's been stealing from my house, if I say, I love this person but, you just made everything previous to that but obsolete.

I say it all the time. The only word that should follow but is Jesus, but God. When you can I have you? So what I want you guys to take from this today really is that last three ports.

I want you to understand it, you've put on the new man, but there's things that you're called not to do no more. And I want you to understand that even if one of those things takes place in your life, it doesn't break your seal. You're still that new man. You just had a new difficulty.

But also, I want you guys to know that you're forgiven. And in order to forgive, you must accept that forgiveness first.