Brave Men S2E15: Forgiveness

Forgiveness is one of the most powerful acts of love Forgiving others Forgetting what Can you actually forget What you forgive and if you don't forget it does that mean you actually forgave that person? How do we forgive? How does that happen and? What if that person is gone or What if that person Is you We'll talk about that today on brave men It's brave men with Paul Lewis Cole Wisdom and courage for the journey Hi, this is Paul Cole and with me today our chief provocateurs Brian Boyd Hello Paul and Brian forgiveness. I think it's a huge huge issue in our culture today I forgive you for having computer problems today I just want you to know I've been carrying this around that for like five minutes and I finally ready to let it go You know, I think some people have carried stuff around for longer than five minutes I think that's probably the case. This is really fun to do and for those of you listening It you know technology is phenomenal. I'm in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and Mr. Cole Paul Cole is in Texas and Yet it's as if we're sitting next to each other and it helps good. You've had time face to face and it's good So this is the brave men podcast and we encourage you to share and subscribe And tell your friends please About it and we've got some great stuff coming up this season Cluing some giveaways. Is this season two? This is season two Paul. Yes And how was season one? Did you listen to part of it? It broke records. It was incredible You know, I This is what this here's why I love the president our president right now is yeah, Trump he would say This this is the season one was massive. It was huge in fact They tell me it was the most beautiful season Yes, he's ever had yeah Well a few years ago a colleague of mine told me that was the year of the podcast then two years ago That was the year the podcast. Oh, yeah, and you know 2020. We're we're on all we're firing all cylinders So you can find brave men on Apple podcasts Spotify iHard radio and wherever you get your favorite podcast So please tell a friend really we're all those places all those places all at the same time instantly Instantly, yeah, it's amazing. You know the the beauty of this in Because I love sharing what the Lord's putting in our hearts and Mm-hmm wisdom see my deal is that I don't believe that just listening to a podcast to get more information Unless you're you know trying to do some sort of tech thing or build, you know an engine in a car Then information is good, but for those of us wanting to build our lives and be a deeper in wisdom closer to God It's not just about information. It's about a revelation So when you and I talk and when I think of You know, here's what I'm sharing with a friend of mine. I think about it Like sitting with my friend Jim was last gig across a cup of coffee sitting at a local coffee place You know a redefined or roots and What is it that that I could share or what is it that he and I could talk about that he could help me with That makes me a larger person Just a bunch of banter I Bride, I'll listen to my wife was listening to one day at her night, and I overheard it that it was a girl talking about Taking her kids to school Mm-hmm, and I said now. What's the point of that story? She said well, there's no point. It's just she's streaming her life And I said right that's it. She goes. Yeah, I saw yeah, are there people listening? She said that's true. She said yeah, she's got I don't you know the follower thing you know that whole deal brine Yeah, yeah, she said she's got like 18,000 people that follow her. It's true. I'm like to listen to that And frankly, it's off just between you and me brine. Yeah, it was a little shrill. Yeah, no It was it was just like interesting to talk about crossing guards and stuff Well, there's a there's a youtuber, and this is totally off topic audience But the youtuber named Kit Boge KIT Bogey and All he does is is when he gets a call or he calls these Scammers that want to go on your computer and make sure you get your refund or You've been a buyer. You've had a virus infection and they have to check it out and you need to pay them money Oh, yeah, and it's a scam He yeah, he takes them he spends time with them hours and hours and hours in cases And he streams the whole thing and it's like you can't stop watching It's just you can't you can't turn your eyes in just a guy in front of a green screen I mean you just you can't stop watching Yeah, but so but here's the deal anyway, you know Paul the Apostle said He said send easily gets on us He said you know before the Holy Spirit because of the things that easily and here's my deal I believe we live in a world of easy distraction And in fact, I think distractions by and large for most people are like eating You know a chocolate Sunday. It's just inviting Because I think it's difficult for most of us to face reality And so the beauty for a person that doesn't want to face reality is living somebody else's reality Right And the fact is is that You know someone 19 verse 11 says your word I've hidden in my heart that I'm not sin against you You know if we want to build a larger life and you know that means You know if you will like my friend friend Clint Gresham talks about you know do I measure up if we want to build Build a life in which we feel like I'm beginning To sort of measure up. Notice I'm beginning to sort of build and live a life It's fully orbed and it has courage and faith and is present, which is what wisdom is Yeah, I believe we have to put the word of God in us And I believe we have to cut away distractions and what forgiveness does What forgiveness does is cut away the distractions of bitterness anger rage disappointment see disappointments not based on where you are But where you expected to be and so disappointment happens to every single one of us in life Paul David in Psalm 23. Here's one David said Laura's my shepherd, right? And he said yay, though I walk through the valley. Yay. Of course, that's the what I learned as a kid the King James the same Bible the Paul had And he said though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death shadow of death This is fascinating because I think we all walk through shadows and I think we all walk through valleys We're talking the other day you and I about Instagram and about social media and tiktok and Whatever else we might be on and um You know so often nobody shows the valleys The it's all mountop there is somebody does get vulnerable and show the valley like Yeah, I'm not gonna read that But the fact is we all go through valleys and and when David said it's a shadow of death It he didn't say it's the valley of death. He said it's the shadow of death And in other words somebody has you put a shadow over you And and if shaded you if you will there you go They've shade so in the shade We feel Disappointed We feel upset we feel like something's not clicking. It's not right and so often Forgiveness is the antidote to the shade Let's let's talk brass tacks for a second. Yeah, if I think about my own life Paul I can go back to 1995 96 97 To a instance where Something really not good happened and a a Christian brother Um did something in business with me that that I probably could honestly if I'm being totally vulnerable right now tell you I have not let go 25 years later And there's a little piece somewhere inside me that still is No way can I forgive This person for what happened and I don't know I honestly don't know how to get over it and and uh It's there's two or three things like that that I don't know how I can get past that So clearly I'm in the wrong. I think I'm probably in the wrong here. No, what you are is human It's it's not I don't see how it can happen. It's called being human and yeah That's why in that little piece at the front. I said you know if I remember something If I still remember it does that mean I didn't forgive it And I uh I'll direct your attention to uh the book of John And uh in the book of John and of course this is uh John the same man who wrote the revelation of Christ You know, we call it the book of revelation and he has this amazing moment John does Where Jesus appears is kind of a cool moment because he just appears And all of them in a room and he just showed Jesus just shows up Uh it says that we're meeting behind locked doors in verse 19 chapter 20 of John it says Jesus He's standing here I think this is great because he didn't have to do that. He could have knocked on the door You ever think about the the Humanity of Christ in the sense that he kind of freaked his guys out occasionally like walking on the water. Right. He didn't have to do that Yeah He just could have met them on the other side. Sure like like you know Hey, they they go hey, you're already here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, steady walks by them Sure. What is that? What was the of course there's this moment with Peter and You know what my son Brandon C-34 worth is a pastor of C-34 worth church had Brandon always talks about this. He said at least Peter got out of the boat Most people don't do that. That's true. Yeah, man I mean we would slam Peter on Instagram if he did that now would be like yeah, man of no phase But he got out of the boat is the only guy did it. Why did Jesus walk by them? I you know sometimes Jesus had these Funny moments where he just messed with his guys Just to say hey We're in this together, but then he says and then he says He shows up. He shows them the wounds And they're filled with joy and he says peace be with you Now here's key. He said as a father has sent me so I'm sending you then he breathed on them And said receive the Holy Spirit Verse 23 chapter 20 says if you forgive anyone sends their forgiven if you don't forgive They're not forgiven and another translation which I think is accurate says if you don't forgive them, they are retained Right In other words, they're held So let's talk about this. What does that mean? Does that mean forgiveness mean I do some sort of thing does it does it actually mean I go face to face with the person Hmm does because I give an example. I had a guy But in fact, it was in Montana, Brian Man came up to me. I talked about this. I talked about releasing these things the scripture what Jesus said is the sins you forgive Are forgiven that doesn't mean now that You know religious leaders for a thousand years sold forgiveness as a business Somebody said one time to me Brian. They said wouldn't it be better You know we're talking about the state of our nation wouldn't it be better if the church just ran everything I say I don't know about that. We tried that once. It's called the dark ages Right That's true You know, it's so that but but they sold these indulances and stuff and it's a big business for as long as they could keep that deal going Until until Martin Luther kind of blew up their business by saying, you know, it's all free. It's grace And and so forgiveness You know when we forgive somebody when we talk about forgiving others. It's not a release Of their life. It's a release from us. In other words, we release it out of our lives. We say I forgive you Now that doesn't mean we can forget it our brains the way our brain is made Actually keeps everything that's ever happened to us in our entire lives. It stays there in our brains. It's where we're built That doesn't mean you can access it, but it does mean it's still there In fact, that's why when we sleep Now what's there's a little sidebar. The amazing thing about sleeping is that When we're sleeping our brain is still using 95% of the amount of energy that it uses when you're awake Wow, and the reason is is that the brain is sorting out all the things that happen to you that day Look at it like if you had a card file like actual physical cards and putting them in different files Sure, and the brain puts things in different or if you had different tabs or or sure different You know file folders on your You know on your computer and you put different things in different file folders And that's what the brain does files am I and so as you get older is this funny, you know people always go I'm getting older. I can't remember now really what it is is you have more Things and elements and experiences to go through in order to access and retrieve that memory And there's actually a thing this is funny. There's actually a thing called density Neural density And that means you had just have more stuff to go through to access You know what it is you want to access now let's come back to releasing it out of our heart Bible says in Proverbs 4 it says guard your heart because out of your heart comes your life So in other words what you put and when we when the Bible talks about the heart it talks about physically the heart But it also talks about the soul of man it's speaking of our mind or intellect our thoughts our mindset That's why when we're mentoring men Brian always say your Pattern of thinking your system of thinking is perfectly designed to achieve the results you're now getting Now where's how I think is what I become what's in my heart then Becomes what I do with my hands right so religion always tried to change our hands Laws changes from the outside end, but Jesus came to changes from the inside out to in fact a Bible talks about washing our heart Romans 122 talks about Thinking differently become a new person by thinking differently now watches So let's bring it down to forgiveness forgiveness Is not just the act of facing a person saying forgive me and they have a response it is literally releasing The responsibility for that moment back to that person And saying I forgive them. I don't know what their deal was. I don't know what they were going through I don't know where they were living their lives, but I forgive them. I had a man in Montana And he came up to me on a Sunday morning You know, I just shared this on Saturday and we in that moment we forgave in that moment We had I had all the men forgive their fathers. Wow Most likely 60 to 70% of the men in that room in Montana Had an issue with their dad. Yeah, whether the dad wasn't there or the dad Didn't affirm them or the dad actually abused him This man came up to me big guy Brian. He's about 60 years old by a tough guy shook my hand I mean his hands went around my hand. I mean just But man strong guy and he started getting kind of emotional He goes hey, thank you for yesterday. I said what do you mean? He said I forget my dad yesterday Said you did man, that's awesome And so he said I He said when I was Growing up, I I didn't have a father in the home and my mom had a couple boyfriends and they were there But I didn't really know who my dad was and I asked my mom a few times and she said, you know, he's he's no longer around And so when I was 13 somebody told me, you know, your dad lives in the town near us This is a man he lived up in Montana He said when I was 16. He said I found out where this man lived. He said I researched it Found out he said when I was 18 years old I went over and found this man. I walked into a bar where he was sitting And I said hey, I'm your son. This man's telling me this story So I'm your son. He said the man looked at me. He said he f-bomb me swore at me So get get out of here and tell your mom never call me again Wow, he said that happened when I was 18 years old. He said I'm 60 years old today or right now Oh, no, I hated that man ever since he said I began to hate that man every day I would wake up with hatred now check this out right. Oh, so The Bible says what's in your heart is what you become what he became was what he kept in his heart and what was in his heart was anger age disappointment Disconnection hated that man. He said I woke up every morning with like a claw on my nose. I said like I'll I would wake up Hating the man. Yeah, he said I've had a couple marriages they haven't worked out. I've had a couple relationships I haven't worked out I've been in and out of businesses He said all these things said yesterday And so where's your daddy? So he passed away that guy passed away years ago He said but yesterday I forgave him For the first time in my life. Come on. He said this morning. I woke up and he now he gets emotionally his eyes started Yeah, sure I'm tearing up man And he says to me he says Paul says morning. I woke up And that claw Wasn't there Wow, it wasn't on my head Sure the power of forgiveness Brian is not that that person responded Yeah, the power of forgiveness is that in faith we set it with our mouths I and that's what we did we practiced it. I said you gotta say this out loud man. He said I said it out loud. I forgive my Dad And he said it just it released something in my life. So now unforgiveness Hold stuff in Forgiveness releases unforgiveness binds or holds something into us. So so let's say I have another friend who Who grew up his dad was very abusive alcoholism And when he where he grew up in Argentina You had to be 18 before you could sign your own deals, you know contracts and stuff He said I grew up hating my dad and decided that by the time I was 18 I would beat him up when I turned 18 and I would leave That's all what happened. So I was 16. I got invited to the youth group I met Jesus Christ as my lord and savior and I forgave my dad. It's really wow What'd you do when you're 18? He said well, I didn't beat him up, but I left He said and now he pastors and churches in his mid 40s in Miami And I said what's things like now? He said well about 10 years ago just before my father passed away I was able to lead him to faith in Jesus Christ That's amazing So any of you told me about his little brother. We had had time to talk. We were playing golf He was playing golf Brian. I was playing at golf I just like driving the cart. That's driving the cart. Yeah, I really good at that You know there's four people a year die of carts, but There's a whole other story right right Manusia that nobody needs to know So But he I said what about your little brother, you know his brother was four years younger in him He said all my brothers messed up. He's a my brother Uh, he's just like he's worse. He's fact he's worse than my dad just like him, but worse alcoholic abusive number of relationships marriages I said wow, so he didn't go to the youth group. He said no, I said so he never forgave your dad And he looked at me and he said no, I don't think he has I said there's the key right there and I gave him these scriptures and he's a pastor but he had never seen this before I said when you forgive something it's released out of your heart New patterns and thinking and mindsets begin to happen He said wow, I said so your brother never forgave your dad So it stayed in his heart proverbs four says you become what's in your heart and your brother Became what he kept in his heart. He said wow So when we forgive and why don't we do this right now Brian just Take a minute with The friend who's listening right now. Let's let's just practice it and it's an out loud practice My dad my dad Dr. Ed Cole my dad who wrote maximize manhood and all these books we use as a curriculum Dad used to say there everything comes out of the mouth by way of confession Okay, so in other words everything comes out of your life by confessing it confess your sin So it's a pattern that's in the word of God's in the New Testament with a second covenant He said everything he said so there are some things though You need to confess out you need to just drive out to the desert Strive to the desert get out of your car Find a rabbit so find a jackrabbit confess everything for the jackrabbit Is that and then shoot the rabbit? Oh, no Lord In other words, don't let anybody know but get it out. Let me find my bind dog cocoa. He's around here somewhere No, you don't want to shoot coco. I don't want to shoot coco Yeah, but but the fact is is that everything has to be confessed out so out loud verbally And this is why I say when we pray for our family pray for them out loud when you pray for others pray for them out loud When you practice that and we did it in the the book seven habits the pilled spiritual endurance We talked about one of those things was armor up You know, what's your ritual? How do you start your day in your day? You know, and there's a part where we need to out loud pray for our family. So out loud we say Father, I can't so Jesus said to his disciples He said the first thing he did is he breathed on them and said receive the Holy Spirit Because apart from that, I think it's very difficult to actually forgive Okay, watch this So in faith by faith we receive cries by faith we forgive and we say I allowed father in the name of Jesus I forgive the man who hurt my family by ripping me off of my business I forgive him I release it from my life I no longer harbor ill will I don't hope anything bad happens to him and I release it father cleanse me of any bitterness anger rage any Pad ill will towards him that I have in me I release it in the name of Jesus now Everything in our lives is a pattern of process You know, Jesus said pray this way every day our father who art in heaven. Holy is your neck kingdom come will be done And and forgive us as we forgive those who have trespass the princess. I think it's a daily Process and he and here's where you begin to know I've forgiven that person is that when you because you're gonna remember it Or you're gonna run into them in the supermarket or wherever it may be And the ability to walk up to that man or that woman And just say hey, what's up? How are you doing shake hands? I mean you'll ever do business with them again Right, but it also means you don't have to turn around and walk the other way Well walk up to him with some sort of thing Or when somebody mentions oh hey, weren't you uh, weren't you in business and Boise Idaho and And all of a sudden that bumps up against that wound See one of the biggest issues in marriages and relationships is that people bump up against wounds And all of a sudden you're yelling at your kids. You don't even know why It's just they bumped up against something Yep, you're your dad unjustly chastised you judged you he he you got reprimanded unjustly and you've never forgotten that And then your kids do something that's kind of the same thing And you go hey In the same anger that you had towards your hair Now you actually Throw it out on your kids and they're like what the heck just happened to dad Yeah, they don't deserve that So that 15 second 20 second prayer. Oh my gosh Really can just release it you know, I I think there are times when we've you and I and others have done something deliberately Against someone else causing pain, but then I think there are times when something is done Non deliberately and I'll give you a story I We were living in Tulsa at the time and and friend of mine at uh at oral arts university was working. We were working together and And one day he He wasn't calling me we weren't talking and there was a there was a coldness and there there was something wrong. I miss And I let it go let it go finally um I went to him and said dude. What is there something wrong? He's man. Yeah, tell you what You said this and you did this and it really hurt me and I honestly Paul had no clue I had no idea and I just I was in his office. I went I am so Saw I had I really had no idea Yeah, man that really did it and we we hugged We we hugged it out wow and and now uh seven eight nine years later We're we're we're close. Yeah, that's fantastic and I'm so thankful that well and thankful he had the guts to say that So there it is right there so forgiveness right and dealing with that thing is not a sign of weakness. It's a sign of strength You're right. That's that that's what I'm you're a warrior is not a man of war He's a man of peace who understands that peace is always the result of strength So it's the stronger man see because strength is always in the heart not in the hands The man who's weakened his heart has to always prove stuff with his hands In other words, he's got a he's dictatorial with his family demanding of his employees You know, he's always got a brag about his stuff. He did stuff. He has conquests Because he's trying to find validation in his hands, but true validation comes from the father and heaven in our hearts Right Funny funny moment talking about validation. Let's my son Bryce Sure eating at a place over in the Fort Worth Where you have to it's a parking ticket and you go in if you didn't go eat at this place It doesn't you got to pay for your parking But if you ate there you get to ticket validated and parking is free. Okay, sure Yeah, so so about that forgets he goes out to his car. Oh, he runs back in And he walks up to the guy at the counter. He says hey I need to be validated And the guy looks at him and goes I think you're an awesome man. Oh, shut up. Come on. That's not true. Yeah true story Oh, that's really funny. That's great. And then they both start cracking. No, there's the that's great dude. I get to love it You know, we all need that and uh, yeah, what happens sometimes is For us the validation is that we're so angry Mm-hmm. We're never gonna forgive him. That's who I am and it becomes our It becomes our part of our part of who we are our identity and it holds us captive and we never live out our full Purpose remember, you know, what I've taught before is God doesn't love you and have a wonderful plan for your life God loves you and has a wonderful purpose for your life And he has a plan for mankind the plan was Jesus is Jesus So the purpose is is find your purpose. What what is it that? The god You know brings you alive in Christ and and do that You know too often we get sidetracked looking for a plan. Yeah, I can't find his plan. I don't know what his plan is Well plans real simple in that sense. You know love god love people So if you don't know where you're headed yet go help somebody go volunteer to the rescue mission So in terms of forgiving people the power forgiveness Bands getting that that purpose back on track getting identity Uh, unhinged to getting the shade, you know, I don't walk through the valley of the shadow of death I don't camp in the valley of shadow death. I walk through it right So forgiving somebody else is walking through that shadow So when we forgive a business partner Who did stuff doesn't mean you you're gonna go back and do business with them But you just you just get released from any kind of bitterness hate anybody bumping up against it You just don't have a problem with You know driving down the middle of the street and Boise, Idaho Had and running into the guy I'm never doing business in Boise, Idaho Sorry Boise got some good friends got Jason passers-a-grade church and boys. No, it's great. I love Idaho Well, let's but we're at the end right? Yeah, this is we could talk forever. I mean, this is a great topic, but forgiveness is huge I forgive you for going over on our podcast time today Paul. Yeah, well Thank you. That's okay. Yeah Your more information For more information about christian men's network and this topic Incredited visit cmn.men that's cmn.men If you'd like to reach us here at the podcast, it's easy. Just drop us an email Paul at cmn.men that's Paul at cmn.men And we will be reading all the emails that come in and yours may be read in a future podcast That'd be awesome. Hey before we go Paul can you just do a quick prayer. I think a Something to to bring this home and then pray for those who are dealing with forgiveness issues and then we'll close out Father, I thank you for your power and the 19th of a Holy Spirit Because Jesus said this is the only way you're going to be able to do it So I thank you for your presence. I thank you for the power and the 19th of a Holy Spirit it is somewhat a mysteriously impossible thing to forgive somebody and yet you said if we'll forgive them We begin the process of healing in our own hearts regardless of what the response is so father in the name of Jesus I thank you Right now we forgive those who have heard us the thing you taught us to pray every day We love you with all of our hearts and we thank you For salvation and freedom in Jesus. Amen Amen. Thank you Paul and we will see you next time on the cmn.man brave men podcast You've just experienced brave men with Paul Lewis Paul Paul is president of the Christian men's network Connect with Paul at cmn.man or write to him at Paul at cmn.man