All right. Hey, everybody, welcome to Valley Creek. We are so glad you are here with us and it is a great season. God is moving. And when God is moving, we always want to follow. And so it's a great time to take a next step. Maybe that next step is to get in a Circle. Maybe it's to join a serve team. Maybe it's to go to Join the Movement and say, "This is my church." Maybe it's to be a part of Serve the City, start giving, say, "Jesus is Lord and I will follow." I don't know. But I know this, when the wind of God is blowing, raise your sails, and harness it, and go with Him to the places He's inviting you to go. It's time. And that is a prophetic word over your life and mine and our church. And that is the series that we're in, in this series called It's Time because it's time. And we're not asking the question, "What time is it?" We're asking the question, "What is this time for?"

What is God doing and how do I align my life with it? You see in the Bible, real quick, there are two words for the word "time," the word "chronos" and the word "kairos." Chronos, think chronological: Clocks and calendars, days, weeks, months, years, kind of how we measure things in our life. But then there's kairos time: Divine time, divine seasons and purposes and activities of God that we want to align our lives with. And what we don't want to do is fill our chronos with things that aren't kairos. We want to fill our chronos, our daily time, with the divine plans and purposes that God has for our life. In fact, the theme verse for this series is, "There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven." Our job is to discover the divine purpose behind the activity, the season, the circumstances, the places we are in life, and then align our lives with it. In fact, I love this verse that says, "The sons of Issachar understood the times and knew what Israel should do."

In other words, because they understood the divine time and season that they were in, they knew exactly what they should do. And because they knew what they should do in the now, they prepared themselves for what God was going to want to do in the then. Because they knew what to do in the present, they could prepare themselves for what God was going to want to do in the future. And if you will align your life with what God is doing now, you prepare yourself for what He wants to do in the future. But the more we reject and resist the now, the harder it is to align ourselves with the then. And this is why so many of us never move forward into the future with God, because we keep rejecting what He's asking us to do, or align our lives with in the present. Like, think of King David for a second. When he is a teenager, he is sent out to be a shepherd boy.

It was the divine time and season for his life. What did God want to do in the now? He wanted to teach him how to worship, how to have deep character, how to fight lions and bears so that in the future he would be prepared to have the character to be the King of Israel, to defeat Goliath and ultimately be part of the lineage of Jesus. He embraced what God was doing now so he could be prepared for what God wanted to do then. And if you've been in this series or you're sitting here today and you're finding yourself with a little bit of regret or remorse about all the divine times and seasons that maybe you've missed over the last 20 years, or maybe just over the last two years of Covid. If you're like, thinking like, "Honestly, I really didn't align my life with God." That's okay. Look at this. "I will repay you for the years the locust have eaten." In other words, if you will just right now, say, "You know what, I don't think I got it right back then, but Lord, I look to you right now and I turn all of my heart to you." He will make it right.

And He can restore all of the things of the past that were missed because God is working for the good of you. So turn your heart towards Him and be free from regret. You see, the problem with humanity is whatever season we're in, we always want to be in another season, right? Like it's really basic. We know it's true. It's like, when you're single, all you want to do is be married. And then when you're married -- know what I'm saying? Yeah. When you don't have kids, all you want to do is have kids. And then you have kids -- you're catching what I'm saying, right? And you're in school, all you want to do is get out of school. You get out of school, all you want to do is go back to school. You don't have a job, all you want is a job.

You get the job, you're like, it was kind of nice back here, right? We're in summer, all we want to do is get to winter. We're in winter, all we do is complain about winter. Summer, come on. It's the human heart. We have a really hard time acknowledging and engaging the season that we're in, and so we constantly miss what God is doing now, and then that causes us to miss what He is going to do in the future. In fact, Jesus talking to a bunch of people, He's standing in front of a bunch of people and He says, "For John [the Baptist] came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'he has a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.' But wisdom is proved right by her actions." In other words, Jesus says, "The reason you're missing Me standing right here in front of you is because you didn't engage the last season, so you're not prepared for this season."

The season of John the Baptist was a season of repentance and remorse and sorrow and confession. But the season of the Son of Man is a season of celebration and rejoicing and salvation, and because you didn't engage that season, you're missing this season. But wisdom is proved right by her actions. In other words, wisdom chooses to align itself with whatever God is doing, regardless of how we feel. And so, it's time. What is it time for in your life that glorifies God? That's the season that it is. And as we're going through this series, we're taking one thing each week and saying prophetically, we believe this is true for all of us right here and right now. And so this week, I just want to speak over your life and mine that it's time to make it right. It's time to make it right relationally. If we're honest, the last two and a half years that most of us have walked through, are probably the most relationally damaging time that we've ever experienced in our entire lives.

Marriages, parents and children, friendships, best friendships, partnerships, neighbors, people in church, people you work with. I mean, the relational carnage and damage that took place was massive. Division, slander, gossip, criticism, accusation, intentional, unintentional, all of the stuff that happened, and it just caused this like, relational nuclear fallout in so many ways and places in life. And I know, even as I say, it's time to make it right, I can feel so many of you like, "Bro, I am just getting out of that whooping of a season. Don't make me go back." Like it was bad and I get it, and a lot of things shouldn't have happened, but they did.

But it's okay. Like, come on, we're moving forward. God's moving. Let's sing some songs. Right. But how you finish one season determines how you enter into the next season. And if we're really going to finish what this last season was, then we've got to make it right. Because it's about finishing well so we can start the next thing well, and doing that with a healthy and a whole heart. In fact, look at this, "Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." As far as it depends on you, make it right. Even if they're not interested in apologizing, forgiving, being friends, reconciling, working through it, they're not interested, they want nothing to do with you, as far as it depends on you. It's got nothing to do with them and what they do and how they say, as far as it depends on you, make it right.

Make it right. With all your heart, with everything that you've got, make it right in Jesus' name. In fact, in the Sermon on the Mount, the most famous message ever preached, Jesus says, "Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you," relational brokenness, "leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift." This is fascinating. Jesus says, make it right. He says, one of the highest forms of worship is reconciliation. What God wants from you more than your song, more than your lifted hands, more than your tithes and offerings, more than your proclamations and prayers and prophecy is to make it right with the people around you, with all your heart.

In fact, the Old Testament says the same thing, "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." In other words, what does God want from you? To make it right through mercy and humility. It's time to make it right. And I don't want to talk to your head today. I really want to talk to your heart. I mean, you remember the story of the prodigal son? Maybe one of the most famous stories Jesus tells about this father who has two boys, an older brother and a younger son. And one day, the younger son comes in and wishes his father dead and says, "I want my inheritance and I want it now." And he takes his share of inheritance. And you want to talk about relational brokenness and fallout. He just broke his entire relationship with the father and with his brother. And he goes out and he blows the thing on wild living, ends up in a pig pen, comes to the end of himself, and he realizes, "I can never be a son again.

But maybe I can just go get a job in my father's kingdom because I'm dying over here." And he comes back with this pitiful little repentance speech. He's not really repentant, he's just hungry. And the father sees him from a long distance out run and grabs him, gives him a big hug. "My son has come home. Get the robe, the ring and the sandals." Takes the boy inside the house and throws a big party. The father made it right. And while the party is happening in the house, the other brother hears about what is happening and refuses to come in. And so the father goes out to the older brother and he explains to him, "My son, your brother was dead, he is now alive. He's lost, he is now found. This is a time of celebration." And the older brother refuses to come in. And the father is pleading with him. It literally says, pleads with him, "Come home and make it right."

And the most interesting thing about that story is, it leaves it with a cliffhanger. We don't know if the older brother ever came in and made it right. I think that is the story for so many of us right now. That the Father is saying, "Come home, let's make this right." This is people of grace and mercy and justice. Come on, look at this. "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come. All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you, on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God."

You're a new creation in Christ. God is not counting your sins against you. He has made it right with you, reconciled with you, and now He has anointed you, empowered you, entrusted you. He has made you an ambassador, a representer of what? Reconciliation. How are we going to make it right with the world if we can't first make it right with one another? And if God isn't counting my sins against me, why on Earth do I feel the need to count other people's sins against them? It's time to make it right. I mean, in three verses, look at how many times the word "reconciliation" is used. It's one of the highest forms of worship.

And so if we want to be a worshipping church, then we should be really good at forgiving, apologizing, and giving thanks. So those are the questions for you. Who do you need to apologize to -- or, who do you need to forgive? Who do you need to apologize to? And then who do you need to thank? Because it's time. Come on. Who do you need to forgive? As you walked through these last two and a half years, I bet people did some pretty crummy things to you. I bet there were things that were said, things that were done, accusations that were made, criticisms that were leveled intentionally, unintentionally, gossip, slander, division, people shooting at your reputation, people making your life harder, people bailing on you when you needed them the most. I bet there was all kinds of things that happened in your heart and the Lord was right there with you because He's close to the broken-hearted.

And as we walked through these last two and a half years, it's like a pile of offenses has built up inside of our heart. So what do we do with that? He tells us. "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you." I get it. Easier said than done, but His whole point is, we're supposed to forgive others the way that God has forgiven us. So then the question is, how has God forgiven me? Fully, abundantly, completely. He doesn't treat us as our sins deserve, but as far as the east is from the west, so far as He removed our transgressions from us. He has forgiven our wickedness and remembers our sins no more. We have redemption through His blood, forgiveness through grace. He has cancelled our debt and credited our account. He has forgiven your sins, but He's also blessed you in the heavenly realm with every spiritual blessing. When was the last time you stopped to meditate on how much you have been forgiven in Jesus?

Because you will always forgive other people to the level you believe God has forgiven you. If you want to know what you really believe about God's forgiveness towards you, just look at how you forgive other people. If you demand an apology from others, you think God's demanding an apology from you. If you keep people at a distance, you think God is keeping you at a distance. If you want to make it hard for people and say, "No, we'll never work through that," then you think God is making it hard for you and saying, "You'll never work through that." Like, however you treat other people who sin or offend you is how you believe that God treats you when you fail in your life. When was the last time you thought about how God has actually forgiven you?

And the key to forgiving others is not focusing on what they did to you, but what Jesus has done for you. You want the secret? This is the secret. Don't focus on what they did to you, focus on what Jesus has done for you. Why? Because he who has been forgiven much loves much. And he who has been forgiven little loves little. So the more I focus on how much I have been forgiven, the more forgiveness and grace begins to build into my life that I can release into other people. But the more I focus on what they did to me and less about what Jesus has done for me, the more the bitterness and the anger and the offense begins to grow. I mean, do you remember the story that Jesus tells us of the unmerciful servant? Great story. He tells us about a king who wants to settle his debts, and he calls in a man who owes him an unpayable sum of money. Like in a hundred lifetimes, this guy could never make enough money to pay it back, and he hits his knees and he begs for mercy and for grace and for forgiveness. And the king is moved.

And he says, "Cancel his debts. Let him go free." Are you kidding me? The guy walks out and he walks down the street and he bumps into a guy that owes him a few hundred bucks. And he says, "Pay me back what you owe me, right now." That guy hits his knees. "Please give me some time. Give me some forgiveness, I'll get it to you. Just I need a little bit more time to make it right and get it all settled." And he says, "No," and he has the man arrested and thrown in jail. And the king hears about it and brings the first man back in. And he says, "Are you kidding me? I cancelled all that debt of yours and you're not going to let it go and make it right with this guy?" That story offends us when we hear it. Because we know there's a violation of justice there. The problem is, we're usually that first guy. That we have been forgiven abundantly and completely and fully and yet we still don't want to release that into the lives of other people.

We forget how much we have been forgiven, so we're unable to actually forgive others. Are you with me on this? You see, forgiveness is always specific and it's always expressed. I want you to think about this. It is always specific and it is always expressed. And this is really important. Let's say I came and I stole your wallet. Okay, I took it from you. You didn't realize it was gone and I felt bad about it. So I came back and I said, "Hey, I'm really sorry I stole your wallet." You're like, "You stole my wallet?" "Yeah, I want to give it back to you, say I'm sorry." And you're like, "Oh okay, all right. Thank you for giving it back. We're good." And you put it in your pocket. Now, what you don't know is that when I had stolen it, I took $100 out of it and bought something with it. And because you think you've forgiven me and let me go because you have your wallet back, the next time you go to the store and you pull your wallet out to pay for something with that $100 bill and you go to get it and it's not there, all of the emotion, all of the anger, all of the offense comes flooding to the surface.

Why? Because you never actually identified what I took from you and cancelled that debt and credited my account. So every time you are confronted with it, every time someone touches that spot of your heart, every time you hear that person's name, it's like a flood of emotions comes rushing back to the surface, because you didn't specifically and expressively let out loud forgive that person for what they took and let it go. Come on, this is what we have to do: "I forgive you for 'specific' and I bless you in Jesus' name." Say this with me, ready? All our campuses. "I forgive you for... and I bless you in Jesus' name." That wasn't so hard, was it? Easier said than done. I forgive you for... breaking my trust. I forgive you for... hurting my reputation. I forgive you for... leaving me when I needed you the most.

I forgive you for... causing me to miss out on that opportunity that I really cared about. And I bless you in Jesus' name. See, this is not a feeling, this is a choice. And it does not mean we're going to be best friends, and that we're going to hang out again and we have to be buddy, buddy, bro, bro. No, no, no. It just means that I no longer need to demand justice from you because justice has already been fulfilled in Jesus. And it needs to be specific and expressed and hear me, probably 95% of the forgiveness work you need to do is not actually face-to-face with that person. It's you and the Lord. Why? Because if you walk up to somebody and say, "Hey, I'm here to say I forgive you for and I bless you in Jesus' name," they're going to look at you and be like, "You're here to forgive me? Like, are you kidding me?" First of all, they don't even think there's a problem. Now, number two, now there is a problem because now -- like, we -- "If anybody needs to forgive somebody, it's me towards" -- you know what I'm saying? Right?

So it's usually not actually face-to-face with that person, it's usually you and the Lord working through it over and over again. And the reason it needs to be specific is so you can actually cancel that thing. So when it happens again, the emotion doesn't rise up in you because it's already been taken care of. And it needs to be specific, because if you actually start working through the offenses in your heart, you're going to figure out really quickly there are a whole bunch of offenses in your heart towards other people for things they didn't even do wrong. "I forgive you for making a hard decision that I didn't like." Oh, so you're forgiving that person because they didn't do your opinion or your preference. Huh? Maybe that's not a real offense in the first place. You would be -- I would bet you, a majority of the offenses in your heart are actually things like that. The other person actually didn't even sin or do anything wrong, but they somehow ground against the flesh nature of ourselves and created an offense within us.

And you have to keep working this and you have to keep working this. And here's how you know you've worked through it. When their name comes up, your emotional response is compassion. That's how you know you've worked through it. Why? Because when Jesus hung on the cross, He looked at those who were crucifying Him and said, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." Compassion was His emotional response to those who had sinned against Him. That's when you know you've worked all the way through it. "See to it that no one misses the grace of God, and that no bitter root grows up and causes trouble and defiles many." When we miss the grace of God for us, bitterness is the result in our own heart, and bitterness is not just an intentional offense, bitterness -- the word bitterness, actually in the Bible it means "extreme wickedness."

It's an extreme wickedness that becomes a resentment not towards that person, but ultimately towards God. And so can I ask you the question, what in your life, if you're missing the grace of God, what is causing to spring forth and to grow and to take root in your heart because you're missing the grace of God for you, which ultimately troubles and defiles not just you, but everyone around you? Come on. "A man's wisdom gives him patience; it's to his glory to overlook an offense." When you overlook an offense, when you forgive, when you make it right, you release the glory of God into your life and into theirs. And every time you make it right and you forgive, what you are doing is you are showing both you and them that mercy triumphs over judgement. You're literally showing them that mercy, the mercy and the grace of God is better than judgement. All throughout the Old Testament there was this thing. Every seven years, they were called to cancel all the debts and free all the slaves.

It was like God's way of saying, "I know piles of offenses are going to build up in your heart, but the kingdom is a kingdom of freedom, and so every seven years we're going to stop and declare that this is the time to make it right." This is the time to make it right in Jesus' name. And so can I just ask you, which of the four are you? You never forgive. You forgive if they go first and apologize. Sometimes you forgive, if you're in a good mood that day. Others would say, I'm quick to forgive. You never get to say this one about yourself. Only other people get to look at the reality of your life and to find whether or not that's true. Come on, it's time. It's time. "When the time had fully come, God sent his son Jesus, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem you." At just the right time, God made it right with you, and it is just the right time for you to make it right with them.

Who do you need to forgive? Yourself, God, your spouse, your boss, that person. Come on, work through it, work through it, work through it. Do the hard work in Jesus' name. Who do you need to forgive? And not only who do you need to forgive, who do you need to apologize to? Because I would bet, in this last two and a half years, there's a whole lot of people who are hurt by you. Things you said and attitudes you carried and actions you made, intentional and unintentional, gossip, slander, things you put on Facebook, things you criticize people over, ways you acted, how you treated people, how you shirked things off, I bet there's a whole lot of relational damage that didn't just come in, but that also was released out. And here's the paradox. If we would spend more time focusing on apologizing, we would have to spend less time focusing on forgiving.

Because people who are really good at apologizing become really good at forgiving. Why? Because they are deeply connected to their own brokenness, their own sin, and the impact that that has on others. So they know they need the grace of God for themselves, so they become much easier to give the grace of God away. Come on, look at this. "From that time on, Jesus began to preach, 'Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" Jesus' main message was 'Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand'. Repent, change your mind, confess, turn away from dead works and of faith towards God. Apologize it, own it, take responsibility that you were going in the wrong direction and God has a better direction for you. And if this was Jesus' main message, then this should be my main response in life. From that time on, this is His message guys. Not, "pray a prayer so you can go to heaven when you die." It's, "Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand." Repent, change your mind, apologize, own it so the grace of God can take work in your life.

Come on, "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret but worldly sorrow brings death." See, what this godly sorrow has produced in you, what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. He says, there's godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. Worldly sorrow is, "I'm sorry I got caught. I'm sorry there's consequences." Worldly sorrow, shame, condemnation, guilt, fear. But then there's godly sorrow. Godly sorrow is like, "I own this, I was wrong, that was sin, I sinned against you and against God, and I have this urgency in my life to make it right in Jesus' name." Listen to me. Only a secure heart can offer a genuine apology. Only a secure heart can offer a genuine apology.

Only a person who lives in grace can actually apologize. Why? Because they know they're not defined by what they do, but by what Jesus has done. So when they realize something is off in their life, they're quick to bring it out of the darkness and into the light because they know it doesn't define them, so they don't want to hold on to it. They don't want to drag them down. They want to be like, "Oh my gosh, this isn't who I am and this isn't how I live. And Jesus has already forgiven me so I can fully own this whole thing and say, I am sorry for what I did. I was wrong." Think about this, the orphan heart cannot apologize. The orphan heart defends, deflects, minimizes, justifies. "It wasn't really a big deal, and everybody's doing it anyways. And it was kind of your fault anyways. And it really, you know, and really what I did wasn't really that big of a deal."

That's an orphan's heart. That is not a biblical apology in Jesus' name. The heart of a son owns, takes responsibility, has a level of humility and ownership and calls sin sin. "I was wrong. And what I did hurt you. And I'm sorry for that." Only a secure heart can do that. Why? Because we know who we are in Jesus. "God made him, Jesus, who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." Like if you believe this is true, you're really good at apologizing. If you really believe that Jesus already took all of your sin, it's already been placed on Him, it's already been put on His account, then why would you ever be hesitant to acknowledge your brokenness and bring it out of darkness into light?

But if I don't believe that I'm the righteousness of God, or that my righteousness is determined based on what I do, not what He has done, then I'm going to be very hesitant to apologize, because my own pride and arrogance keeps me from acknowledging my own mistakes and my own brokenness. If you want to know -- if you really believe that you are who God says that you are, look at how you apologize. That will tell you whether or not you're secure enough to actually do it. Does that make sense to you? Like this is the core of the whole thing. "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves." Pride blinds us into thinking, no big deal, not my fault, no problem. "And the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and forgive us of our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." And even though they might be mad at us, we know God is not mad at us. And that I don't want to deceive myself in pride and be like, it's no big deal, da, da, da. No, no, no. No, no, no. "I was wrong. I was wrong.

I own this, but I'm not afraid to bring it out of the darkness into the light because I know I've already been forgiven and been made right in Jesus' name." "But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another." When we bring things out of the darkness, confess and repent and apologize and own it, what happens with fellowship? We make it right in Jesus' name. Come on, say this with me. Ready? "I'm sorry for... I was wrong. Will you please forgive me?" It's the first time some of you have ever said those words in your life. "I'm sorry for, specific." You got to call sin sin. Okay, hear me. You didn't have an affair, you committed adultery. You didn't just take something from someone, you stole from them. You didn't just not do what your parents asked you to do, you dishonored your father and your mother.

It's not, "I'm sorry I said that." It's, "I'm sorry I was harsh in the words that I used." It's not, "I'm sorry I didn't do what you asked me to do." It's, "I'm sorry I was rebellious and selfish." Are you catching me? The journey of holiness does not minimize sin. It calls sin sin, puts that out there so that we can freely receive the grace of God. If you minimize sin, you know what else you minimize? Grace. If you don't have a high view of the law and God's expectation of man, then you will never have a high view of grace, right? Because if I'm minimizing and justifying and defending and bringing down, then guess what? Grace isn't all that great. If we would just call sin sin, we would be overwhelmed by the grace of Jesus. But because we have an orphan heart that defends, deflects, minimizes, justifies, then God's grace, yeah, it's good. Thanks. Thanks, J-man.

But when we call it what it is, it changes it. The reason so many of us never receive grace it's because we had never acknowledged our desperate need for it. At some point in time, you got to catch the whole story of the Bible. And I don't have time to go into this, but Zacchaeus, the Old Testament, it's like when people were wrong, what they did is they made restitution. They owned it, they made it right. "Look Lord, here and now, if I cheated anybody, I'll pay them back four times the amount." The Old Testament, if I took something from you, I had to give it back plus 20%. The sense of like, "I own this, I was wrong and I need God's grace in my life." And everything I'm talking about today, understand this is the anchor point. If you would learn to focus on apologizing and get really good at apologizing, it changes.

But we spend so much time in church trying to teach people how to forgive. It's almost like the wrong focal point. The right focal point is learn how to apologize. Forgiveness will be a fruit of that. Why? Because apologizing is acknowledging the gravity of God's grace in my life that outpaces the gravity of the sin in my life. And He makes all grace abound to you, that you don't have to be afraid. You don't have to be afraid of looking at your spouse and saying, "I had an awful attitude these last two years." You don't have to be afraid of confessing something to your parents and bringing it out of the darkness into the light. You don't have to be afraid of looking at your friends or your boss, or those other people and just be like, "I was just a jerk, man. I was wrong. I am sorry for... will you please forgive me?" And every time we do that, we're showing them and us that the justice of God is at work.

That one day, He is going to make all things new, all things right. Even the things that we can't control that we feel like are lost, lonely, and broken, when you apologize and you own it, you demonstrate and model the justice of God that one day it's all going to be right. Come on. So which of these are you? Which of these are you? You don't get to say this about yourself. Who do you need to apologize to? Who do you need to apologize to? If you're afraid to apologize, you need to look back at the grace of Jesus in your own life because you're not secure in your identity and in grace and in righteousness and in the finished work that He fully, abundantly, and lavishly has extended to you. We should be the best people in the world at apologizing because we're the only people in the world who can actually do it genuinely.

Because you understand a lost person can't really do that. Why? Because when they're acknowledging they're wrong, sin is still applied to their account. When I acknowledge I'm wrong, I remind them and myself that this sin is sin, and it's been applied to Jesus' account. Apologizing is almost like having a receipt for something that you've paid for in a store and you get to show and say, "You know what, this has already been paid for. I'm not paying it. I'm not paying for it a second time." When I apologize, it's like pulling that receipt out and saying, "This has already been paid for in Jesus' name. So I have no problem stepping fully into the responsibility and the ownership of it, because it's already been transferred to Jesus's account, paid for once and for all with the words, 'It is finished.'" That's a healthy heart. That's the heart work.

Who do you need to apologize? And I don't really have time for this. Who do you need to thank? I'll just throw that one as a big old softball to you. Who do you need to thank in this season? Look at how many slides we're skipping to get to this. Who do you need to forgive? Who do you need to apologize? Who do you need to thank? Here's the summary of the whole thing. "All of you, clothe yourselves with," say it with me, "humility towards one another, because, 'God opposes the proud but he gives grace to the humble.' Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up into time." Clothe yourselves with humility. It literally is referring to putting on the servant's apron of humility. Put on the servant's apron of humility. Come under other people. Because it takes humility to forgive, takes humility to apologize, and it takes humility to actually give thanks to other people and acknowledge that you need them in your life as well. God opposes the proud.

There's something about pride that keeps the grace of God from flowing into my life. But the moment I will humble myself, it's like I open up a deluge. I open up the dam and the river of grace flows fully into my life and not only forgives me and frees me, it empowers me to walk out the awkward, uncomfortable journey of interpersonal relationships of forgiveness and apologizing and dependence and gratitude and all the different things that go with it. Listen, if you've been sitting here in this message and you've been thinking to yourself, "I sure hope so-and-so is listening..." They're not. Because I'm not talking to them, I'm talking to you. If you walk out of here today and you start thinking how someone else should do what you think they should do and how they should make it right, you've already missed the entirety of the whole point. Entirely, the whole point is not about anyone else around you making anything right. It's about who is God asking you to make it right with.

And it requires a level of discernment and trusting the Spirit. Because if you just walk up to somebody in three minutes and say, "I forgive you for all the things that you did." Wrong, you're just wrong. Work it out with the Lord. Apologizing. Again sometimes, sometimes -- if someone does not know that you've been bad mouthing them behind their back, don't walk up to them and say, "Hey, I want to say I'm sorry for bad mouthing you behind your back." Look out for a right hook right after that. When we do -- just so you're clear, when we do things like that, that is not about them, it's about us. It's not about Jesus, and it's not about them. It's about me feeling good about me. This whole thing is not you about feeling good about yourself. This whole thing is about acknowledging my desperate need for the grace of Jesus in every way, shape and form. And when I grab a hold of that, it changes everything. Come on, we should be the greatest people on the face of the earth at forgiveness, at apologizing and genuine gratitude. Gratitude.

And so maybe you need to write someone a note. Maybe you need to give someone a gift. Maybe you need to sit with the Lord for hours and work through this hurt and this pain. That's real. From your dad 50 years ago, from your ex 20 years ago, from that person last night. I don't know. But so many of us never get to the future with God because we are trapped in the past. You can't step into kairos seasons if you're holding on to the chronos of yesterday. What is the chronos of yesterday? Clocks, calendars, days, week, months. It's how we define time and we hold onto "they did this then." And God's saying, "I know, but I want to do this now." So if you want to move forward and you say, last two and a half years, I'm ready -- okay, great, great. Got to make it right.

Come on. Go all the way back to the story of the prodigal -- I'm done. The father goes out and he asked the older brother to come in and make it right. And it's a cliffhanger and we don't know what happens. I think the Father is coming to you and me today and He's saying, "Hey, leave your work in the field. Leave your school work behind. Leave all the sports and the activities and all the things that you think you got to go do. Come inside. Come home. Let's make it right. Leave all the religion behind. Leave all the things you think you got to do for me behind. What I want right now more than anything else, I want you to come inside. And I want you to make it right." We think God wants us to show up next Sunday and sing, sing some songs. We think God wants us to go to a Circle this week and talk to people about forgiving and apologizing.

No, God actually wants us to come inside and forgive and apologize. Does that make sense? It's the grace of God that can do that, but it requires humility in our lives. It's time. It's time. 

"When the time had fully come, God sent Jesus born under the law to redeem those under the law." The time has already come for the fullness of forgiveness and grace to be released in the universe. May we receive it and be conduits of it. So you close your eyes with me. Thank you for letting me come into your heart space today. My prayer was that, together, we could walk into the rooms of our heart a little bit so that the Holy Spirit could come in and turn on some lights.

Because He has more than enough grace for any and everything in your heart. And I wish we had more time to sit here now and me to ask you prompting questions. My encouragement this week is, do the heart work with the Lord. Just ask Him. Ask Him, "Holy Spirit, who do I need to forgive? Holy Spirit, who do I need to apologize to? Holy Spirit, who do I need to thank?" And then ask Him what those things look like practically. And then allow His grace to fill, inspire, motivate and move you in Jesus' name. So thank you, Jesus, for your grace that changes everything. We acknowledge that You're telling us it's time to make it right. May we have the courage and the strength and the humility to follow You into the fullness of a life of freedom. We love You, Jesus. Thank you for grace. In Your name we pray. Amen.