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When great harm is done to us, it can be very difficult to forgive.
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When someone sins against us, they rip us apart and cause such a great
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wound within us.
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We may feel that it is impossible to forgive that person who has done
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such a thing to us, the sin can cut so deep into the very heart of
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who we are.
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Joe fell in love with Emma when they were in college.
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They had two children together.
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He was a software engineer, and she was a middle school teacher in the
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public school.
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They had two children.
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They enjoyed their life together.
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But he'll tell you that the day he found out that she was pregnant
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with their third child was a day that he'll never forget.
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In fact, as he tells the story, he was on the deck of their house
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grilling hot dogs and hamburgers.
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The kids were playing in the yard with the dog, and she had come home
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from work, and so she walks up behind him and says, I'm pregnant
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again.
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I'm going to have a third child.
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Joe immediately was so excited about it.
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Oh, my goodness.
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This is great, wonderful news.
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Until she said, but you have to know that I've been seeing someone
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else, and I think it's his.
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Well, the hamburgers and the hot dogs never made it off the grill.
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He turned off the grill, went into the garage, got into the car, and
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he spent all night driving all the streets of the town.
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He kept thinking about that moment.
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He kept rehearsing in his head over and over what he had heard, and he
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kept saying to himself, I will never forgive her.
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I will never forgive her.
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Over and over again
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as he replayed the scenario, his conclusion at the end of it was, I
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will never forgive her.
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When great trauma happens to us, we often will replay it in our head
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over and over and over again.
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We'll also tell it to people over and over again.
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And whatever conclusions we've made from that trauma, we will repeat
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that over and over again.
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The psychological term for this is cognitive looping. Is we will loop
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the event over and over again in our mind over and over again as we
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tell it.
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And as we keep telling the story, it becomes so embedded into our soul
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that we cannot think anywhere else except that this is the most
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unforgivable thing that someone has ever done to us.
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It becomes so
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embedded in a part of us thinking that way.
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And that's how it happened for Joe.
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He had embedded this into his soul as the most unforgivable thing that
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someone has ever done to him.
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And the looping of unforgiveness is this spiral that spirals you down
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into this deep, dark pit.
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And as you spiral down into this deep, dark pit of unforgiveness, you
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get angry, you get bitter.
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You yourself then end up sinning and doing things or saying things and
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thinking things that are ungodly because of the unforgiveness that you
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have toward whoever it is that has done whatever they have done to
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you.
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And the midst of spiraling in this unforgiveness kind of thing that
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you end up in this looping, we forget about the great gift, which is
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the forgiveness that God gives to us through his Son, Jesus Christ.
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Well, Joe was definitely looping.
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He definitely was in this spiral of unforgiveness with the conclusion
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always being, I will never forgive her.
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It was causing him all kinds of problems.
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He was angry, he was bitter.
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He was short tempered.
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He began to drink.
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And with the encouragement of some of his fellow friends, he went to
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go see his pastor.
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And of course, what did he do?
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He told the story, the story that he had been telling in his head and
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telling to other people the story that had been looping in his life
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over and over and over again.
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He told all the details of it.
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He said, I was so excited we were going to have a third child and end
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to find that she had been sleeping with someone else. All those nights
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she said that she was in her classroom at school working.
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She was really spending it with him.
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I loved her.
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I trust her.
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I sacrificed for her.
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And yet she loved and trust and sacrificed for some other guy.
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He was just so angry about the situation.
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And of course, he told the story that he had been embedded into his
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heart and soul.
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He shared that all with his pastor.
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And of course, the conclusion came to which he had come to from the
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very beginning, is that I'll never forgive her.
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Pastor empathetically listened as he was telling this story.
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And when he was done, his pastor stood up, laid his hand on his head,
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on Joe's head, and he said, in the name of the Father, the Son,
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and the Holy Spirit, remember.
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Remember your baptism and remember that you are a forgiven child of
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God.
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You see, in the midst of unforgiveness, Joe had remembered something
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that he should have never forgotten.
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And that was the gift of forgiveness in Christ.
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And sometimes, you see, when we get in the midst of being unforgiving,
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we forget.
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We forget the gift that has been given to us.
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We forget the gift that can bring us peace and that can bring us joy.
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We forget.
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You see, if Joe would have continued to refuse to forgive his wife for
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what she has done, well, he would have rejected God's forgiveness for
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himself.
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So how do we overcome unforgiveness?
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Well, we remember we remember the gift of forgiveness in Christ.
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We remember our baptism.
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The catechism says this about baptism.
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Baptism is the it works
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forgiveness of sins rescues from death and the devil and gives eternal
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salvation to all who believe this as the words and promises of God
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declare.
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We remember the Lord's Supper.
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The catechism says this about the Lord's Supper.
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These words given and shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins, show
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us that in the sacrament, forgiveness of sins, life and salvation are
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given us through these words.
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For where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and
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salvation.
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We remember Jesus First John, chapter one, verse seven, says but if we
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walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one
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another
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and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
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When great harm comes to us, it is difficult to forgive, but not
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impossible, because in those times of unforgiveness, we remember.
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We remember our baptism.
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We remember the gift of forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
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First Peter, chapter 2:24.
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He himself bore our sins in his body beyond the tree so that we might
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die to sin and live for righteousness.
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By his wounds you have been healed.
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Amen.