September 22, 2025 • 58 mins
In this episode, Brody shares real stories from his time in ministry about conflict, forgiveness, and finding peace with God. He reflects on Psalm 133:1 — “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity” — and what it really means when unity feels out of reach.
Even when others don’t forgive or agree, Brody reminds us that we can still be right with the Lord. Through personal experience and biblical truth, he offers encouragement for handling conflict with grace and walking in redemption.
Psalm 133:1
Redemption, Betrayal, and Responsibility in Ministry | No Sanity Stories
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Saturday morning , it is 5.30 and I'm on the road
driving through the NantahalaGorge andI thought, man, this
will be a good time to record anNSR podcast.
We've got several episodes thatwe're working on right now that
are not ready to be posted, soI told JB I'd get something up
on this drive.
Today I've got to drive toBlacksburg, virginia, from
(00:22):
Andrews, north Carolina, and soI've got a few hours here in the
truck, got on the road earlyand I thought, man, you know
what, I'm going to talk to theNSR crowd, and this morning,
while I'm driving, and whatevertime of day this is, that you're
listening to this.
I'm hoping it's going to beexactly what the Lord needed for
you to hear, and so I'm goingto share a couple stories and
(00:46):
give some thoughts on what Ithink are important biblical
application of the doctrinalidea, the complexity of
extending grace to others, andparticularly the fact that
sometimes, when we go throughconflict, we're called upon by
God to extend grace to someoneelse, whether that's forgiveness
(01:09):
or to seek reconciliation, butthat when we do that, sometimes
even once that has been done,the consequences of a particular
situation may linger and maykeep us from moving forward in
that relationship in the samemanner that we have in the past.
I want to share a few storiesthat are a little bit
uncomfortable.
I'm going to be very crypticand not give names and specific
(01:33):
things that would giveidentities of people away, just
because these are sensitiveissues.
But I want to talk about graceand conflict and consequences
and the difficulties ofrelationships that we face
sometimes in the Christian life.
So with that as an introductionthis morning for me, literally
(01:54):
in the darkness driving throughthe Nantahala Gorge, let me
welcome you to this week'sepisode of no Sanity Required.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Welcome to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of
Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
A podcast about the Bible culture and stories from
around the globe.
I was recently on the road andstopped and spent the night.
It was me and a couple of otherguys from Snowbird.
We stopped and stayed with somefriends, really close friends
and ministry supporters, andwe're sitting around the
(02:42):
breakfast table before we got onthe road to head on home.
We had some meetings out inRaleigh, which is a state
capital here in North Carolinafor our listeners that don't
live in North Carolina, and bythe time we got all done it was
pretty late up in the eveningand we stayed with some friends
who we just wanted to see,wanted to visit Very dear, very
(03:02):
close friends of ours.
In my ministry life they've beenlifelong friends.
I mean, I think we go back tothe second year that Snowbird
existed is when we met thisfamily, and so we're having just
a conversation sitting arounddrinking coffee, and the
(03:22):
conversation turned to asituation that they were asking
me about.
That had to do with an episodehere on NSR from a few months
back where we talked aboutbetrayal in ministry and the
need for vigilance and fortitudewhen it comes to dealing with
(03:44):
certain situations.
You might remember that episode.
Uh, we'll link it in the in theepisode notes, but it goes back
to uh, to that story, and thatwas back in March of this year,
2025.
And it was called somethinglike uh, redemption
responsibility or let's seebetrayal Responsibility, let's
(04:05):
see Betrayal, redemption andResponsibility in Ministry.
I believe is what JB titledthat and I thought it was a
really fitting title.
I believe it was March 3rd and,like I said, we'll link that
episode in case you didn't hearit, but it was a story of a
situation that occurred here inministry and I got a lot of
(04:27):
feedback from that story.
It's a pretty wild story, so wewere just sharing some thoughts
from that sitting arounddrinking coffee, and it got me
thinking about a few otherdifficult situations I've faced
in ministry and I want to just Iwant to share a thought that I
think could be a little bitcontroversial, but I really do
(04:51):
believe it's it's it's rooted inbiblical truth and you have to
forgive, maybe, the soundquality, cause I'm literally
like I said I'm driving, I'mjust recording and this is
coming through the Bluetoothsystem in the truck, but the
difficult situation that I'mdescribing I'm just recording
and this is coming through theBluetooth system in the truck,
but the difficult situation thatI'm describing is what do you
do when there's conflict?
I guess there's two things Iwant to talk about.
One is what do you do whenthere's conflict between two
(05:17):
believers you and another personthat professes to be a Christ
follower follower and it'sspecifically a person who, who
really does follow Jesus, andthen you really do follow Jesus,
and so you've got thiscommonality, this brotherhood.
The scripture speaks to thepurity and the richness of the
(05:40):
relationships that we havewithin the body of Christ.
And you come to these momentsin your life where you're at
odds with another brother orsister and you can't seem to
work through that, you can'tseem to reconcile the
relationship.
There's hurt or offense orsomething like that.
There's an offense in therelationship, or there's hurt in
(06:04):
the relationship.
There's the sense of you feelbetrayed or you feel stabbed in
the back or something like that,and you're trying to deal with
that conflict and work throughit and you get to a point where
you go man, I don't think we canget on the same page here.
How do we wrestle with that asChristians?
Because the Bible says a lot ofthings about this.
(06:25):
Now, y'all, I don't have notesin front of me, I don't have my
Bible open.
So I'm going to do everythingfrom memory, and so some of the
biblical references I'm going tomake in this conversation I'm
not going to be able to give youreferences to.
You can go look those up,though, and um, but the first
thing that comes to my mind iswhen Jesus says if you're at the
(06:45):
altar, so the implication isyou're worshiping the Lord,
you're at church, you're in acorporate worship gathering,
something like that, and youremember that there's an offense
that's unsettled between you,there's a conflict that needs to
be resolved between you and abrother or sister in Christ, and
(07:06):
Jesus says hey, you need toleave your gift at the altar.
You need to leave your gift atthe altar, you need to stop this
act of worship in a worshipservice setting and you need to
go to that brother or thatsister.
I mean, it's a pretty intense.
What he's telling us to do is apretty intense endeavor.
(07:27):
I mean he's saying stop whatyou're doing, quit raising your
hands and singing worship songsat church, you know.
Or quit, get up from the altaror put your money back in your
pocket Instead of tithing orgiving your offering to the
church.
You need to go deal with thissituation.
What he's doing is he's placinga priority on restoring
(07:52):
fellowship between you and abrother or sister in Christ.
This is very important to theLord that we live in harmony.
There are several other versesthat speak to the unity and the
harmony that God wants us tohave.
There's Psalm 133.
I believe it's Psalm 133, verse1, that says how good and how
(08:14):
pleasant it is when brothersdwell together in unity.
And then Jesus speaks to theEphesians.
The Apostle Paul, writing underthe inspiration of the Holy
Spirit, says to the Ephesianchurch that we have this bond of
the spirit, so we're boundtogether by the spirit and we
have a unity of peace.
(08:34):
We're unified by peace, we liveat peace, and the scripture
says that as much as it'spossible, we're to live at peace
with all people, especiallythose who are of the household
of faith.
And so you've got this glimpseinto the heart of God, not a
(08:55):
glimpse, you've got, we've got Ishouldn't use that terminology
We've got clear teaching thatunity within the body of Christ
is a big deal to the Lord.
That unity within the body ofChrist is a big deal to the Lord
when he says as much as it'spossible.
I think there's I don't want tosay there's a provision or a
loophole or something like that.
But I think what we have is arecognition that, man, this is
(09:16):
not always going to be easy.
There's times where and I hopeall of us have experienced this
where I've wronged somebody,maybe with my words, maybe with
my actions, and I've had to goto that person and say to him
hey, I'm sorry, I've wronged youand will you forgive me and
(09:37):
seek to restore thatrelationship.
And sometimes I might havewronged somebody to the point
that it's not as easy as justsaying I'm sorry, will you
forgive me?
And they say, yeah, no problem,I forgive you.
Let's just put it behind us.
There may be betrayal that thattakes some time, maybe a long
(09:59):
time, maybe a little time to putthat relationship back in order
.
Where I've done damage to thatrelationship.
I remember ruining arelationship one time that to
this day my heart is is heavyover it because I don't know the
damage that was done.
I just don't know and it was myfault, and what had happened is
(10:23):
a young couple had come toSnowbird.
This is early days of Snowbird.
This is about 2003, 2004,.
Somewhere in there.
Snowbird was about six or sevenyears old and there was a young
(10:49):
lady that had come to Snowbirdin like 1999.
And her life had been deeplyimpacted by her week at Snowbird
.
It had really changed her life.
And so, a few years go by, sheends up in a relationship with a
young man.
I think they're engaged to bemarried and they're really
wanting to serve the Lord andget involved and they're at a
(11:10):
small rural church and just thedemographic or the dynamic of
kids they're working with, theseare poor kids that don't have
money.
This church doesn't have muchmoney, this church doesn't have
much money, Snowbird doesn'thave much money.
But they reach out and they say, hey, we want to bring these
(11:32):
kids to camp but we just can'tafford to pay the registration
costs to bring them.
And our policy back then was andit's very similar today.
I'd say the policy today issomething like hey, we'll figure
it out, we'll make it happen,let's do what we got to do.
(11:53):
I don't know what we got to do,but let's do what we got to do
to get y'all here.
That was kind of the policyback then and really it's the
heart of the ministry now aswell, and really it's the heart
of the ministry now as well.
But back then maybe I don'twant to say to a fault, but
maybe to a point of sometimescausing some problems internally
(12:16):
we would just say yes toeverybody.
I mean, the early snowbird days,there were a lot of people that
came and participated in campsand events we were putting on
and didn't pay any money and wewere just trying to figure out
how to cover the cost of food,you know, and and uh.
Everything was done back thenin a very grassroots sort of way
(12:38):
and, um, it looked a littledifferent than it looks today.
The mindset and heartbeat wasthe same, but definitely looked
different.
And so, anyway, I told thisyoung lady yeah, you go ahead,
you bring these 10 kids and comeon.
And I said something likethere's some things that we
(12:59):
might need to do to streamliney'all's time here.
Do to streamline y'all's timehere.
I didn't communicate this withher real well, but I basically
said y'all, come on and we'llgive your students a really good
week, a good weekend.
It was a weekend event andwe'll cut some costs where we
can and make it affordable forus and y'all.
(13:20):
And so they didn't pay anything.
I think they ended up bringing,like I think it was, 12
students and then these twoleaders, so 14 people, um, and
we didn't.
They weren't able to payanything, so we didn't.
One of the things we did is wedidn't take them down the river.
It was it was a weekend wherewe were doing rafting trips and
(13:41):
we took that off the table forthem just because of the cost
For those 14 kids.
Back then that would have costus probably $250.
And because we have to pay.
We run our own trips but wehave to pay a fee to the boat
rental company whose equipmentwe use.
We lease.
(14:03):
We use another company'sequipment.
We don't own our own wrapped inequipment.
It's way easier for us that way.
We don't have to store you know20 big boats and trailers to
haul them on and the paddles andgear and all that.
So, anyway, getting into theweeds there.
But we don't own that stuff, welease it out.
And between the fee that we payper head for the boat leases
(14:27):
and the cost of like, we have topay to the forest service for
running trips.
It was like here's a place, wecan cut costs and what we'll do
is we'll spend the afternoonthis group of kids, we'll have a
great time, we'll just stay atcamp and they can ride swings
and zip lines and do stuff likethat, and so that's fine.
(14:51):
But then what I did was we werein the dining facility.
We were in the metal building.
If you've ever been to Snowbird, we were in the metal building
and a group of students weregoing rafting.
That a different group ofstudents, it was a church that
was here.
It was a few churches.
So this group that was herethat we were comping or giving a
(15:12):
free weekend to they were oneof maybe half a dozen groups
that were here.
So we had probably 100 studentshere that weekend Back in the
early days.
That would have been a very bigweekend for us.
Maybe it was 80 kids, I don'tremember.
But somewhere in the discussionwith the person that was leading
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the rafting trip, they hadaccidentally talked to these 12
kids about the rafting trip andthese kids were excited and what
I did that was stupid is I saidhey, they're not going rafting.
And my staff person looked atme like what do you mean?
And I sort of moved my mouthbut didn't say anything out loud
(15:57):
.
I said something like you know,hey, I made the hand motion of
hey, no, just drop it.
They're not going raftingbecause they're not paying and
we're not taking them rafting.
But the way I said it, I hopethis story is making sense.
The way I said it, that younglady saw me say that I didn't
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know she was standing rightthere, she was just a few feet
away and the way I articulatedthat was very insensitive and it
hurt her feelings really bad.
It made her feel like a secondclass person or you know, a
charity case or something likethat.
So I felt terrible about it andand I tried to apologize, I
(16:37):
tried to reconcile the you knowthe, the hurt.
I just said I was soinsensitive.
I'm so sorry I should not havesaid that that way.
And she was so hurt because sheheld this breaks my heart.
20 some years later she felt soloved by this ministry.
(16:57):
It deeply impacted her life andone of the things that had such
a profound impact on her wasshe felt like we cared about her
.
It didn't have anything to dowith what she brought to us, it
was just she came to us brokenand we loved on her.
And in that day I think shefelt a little bit like oh you
mean, if I don't have money, Ican't afford your.
(17:18):
You know it just hurt herfeelings and I trust the Lord
eventually, you know, broughtsome peace and healing in her
heart and mind.
But she's never been back, tomy knowledge, I've never.
She never came back after thatand I remember talking to her
fiance that was here the malechaperone and he was just like
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man that hurt her feelingsreally bad and you know he said
something like she really lovesthis place and now it's.
You know she feels like I don'tknow it, just it wasn't good.
And so I'm sure we've all hadsituations where you did
something, said something, youhurt somebody and then you
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couldn't put that back together.
And then you couldn't put thatback together, you couldn't
restore that because that otherperson wouldn't respond in a way
that would allow true andgenuine reconciliation.
And that's really difficult andfor me that's the kind of thing
that just eats at me.
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You know it really does.
That just eats at me, you knowit really does.
And so I want to.
Before I move on to the nextscenario and the next story it's
a very heavy story I want totell one or two more stories
that are much to me, I think,much heavier.
Let me say this the Bible givesus three different words or
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situations that we need tounderstand the definition of if
we're going to understand how tobring resolve to broken
relationships.
The first word isreconciliation, the second word
is repentance and the third wordis forgiveness.
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Reconciliation, repentance andforgiveness.
Now, that word repentanceanother Bible word that I'd put
maybe up under that as a sub ofthat word, would be the word
confession.
So repentance and or confession, so like if we think of
repentance as turning away frommy sin and turning to the Lord
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and abandoning my sin,confession is a part of that.
So the Bible teaches that I'mto confess my sins to the Lord,
or that I'm to confess my sin toa brother or sister.
We're to confess our sins toone another.
But then the Bible also usesthe word confession in other
ways too, like it'll say thatwe're to confess that Jesus is
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Lord, and so the word confessionis sort of a subcategory or a
compatible idea with the wordrepentance, and the word
repentance is turning away fromsomething, the word confession
is confessing or speaking truthabout something, and so in this
context, let's start with thatword.
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Let's say that I've wronged aperson.
So go back to my story and Iwronged that young lady.
I confessed that wrong to herand I wronged that young lady.
I confessed that wrong to herand I repented to her.
What I said was I wronged you,I'm sorry.
And then the thing that I saidwas will you forgive me?
Okay, another word that we wantto talk about in this
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three-word set is forgiveness.
Forgiveness is when I extendgrace to another person and I
don't hold their sin or theirwrongdoing or their offense
against them.
So forgiveness would have beenif that young lady would have
said hey, I know your heart, Itrust your heart, I forgive you.
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Or maybe she wouldn't have saidthat, maybe she would have said
that was very hurtful, but Iforgive you, and she would have
released me from that wrongdoing, that sin I had committed
against her.
I hope that makes sense.
And so forgiveness is when Iextend grace to someone who has
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wronged me.
Confessional repentance is whenI ask for forgiveness.
For you parents, here's a goodprinciple.
If you're parenting, especiallyyounger children, you want to
teach them to say will youforgive me, not just to say I'm
sorry.
So a common thing for us iswhen we wrong somebody, we say
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to them hey, I'm sorry.
Now.
That's important and there's atime where I need to say I'm
sorry.
But for a small child.
I want to teach them saying I'msorry is not like a magical
word, it's not an anecdote whereI can go well, I said I'm sorry
, so everything's okay, but Iask for forgiveness.
I'm asking that person to putthis hey, I want to do my part
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to put this relationship right,to put it back, in order to put
it back to a place of peacefulfellowship.
And so I'm asking forforgiveness where, if I say I'm
sorry, that's part of it and Ido need to say that.
So what we try to teach ourkids when they were younger is
we would you know?
When we were raising smallchildren, we would say I want
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you to say I'm sorry, will youforgive me, something to that
effect.
Or I'm sorry, I've wronged you,will you forgive me?
And so forgiveness andrepentance go hand in hand.
But here's the caveat Unlessboth of those things happen, I
cannot get that third word, thatother word, which is
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reconciliation, right.
So I can ask for forgiveness andseek forgiveness.
In other words, I can repent, Ican practice repentance and
confession to the person I'vewronged, and then I can.
Then, as the person who's beenwronged, I can extend grace and
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forgiveness and I can say, hey,hey, man, you know what?
I forgive you, I forgive you.
Let's put it behind us.
And if I do that, if those twoparties, if one person asks
forgiveness and seeksforgiveness and is repentant and
the other person extends thatforgiveness, now what we've got
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is reconciliation.
We've reconciled therelationship and sometimes both
parties have committed wrong,right?
I mean, there's a principle,that's a pretty important
principle, which is a lot oftimes two people have sinned
against one another and whenthat happens and they both come
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to each other and they have aconversation and they put that,
they put that relationship backtogether.
I hope I'm not.
I hope I'm not just droning onhere.
I hope this is helpful.
I feel like I'm rambling.
I.
You know, I don't know if it'sdriving down the road like this
is a little bit harder to stayon task, but hopefully that's
(24:29):
making sense.
So, repentance and forgiveness,repentance slash, confession
and forgiveness that's one partof that's two parts of
reconciliation that have to cometogether.
But now the third, that firstor third word, however, whatever
order.
I said that in to begin with.
Reconciliation, that otherpiece.
Order.
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I said that in to begin withReconciliation, that other piece
that requires both parties forreconciliation to occur.
Reconciliation means we'vebrought the relationship back
into alignment.
So this would be when a husbandand wife have said ugly things
to each other, they sit down andhave a conversation and they
apologize to one another.
That apology, that I'm sorry,will you forgive me.
(25:13):
And then it's grace extendedyes, I forgive you, I accept
that apology, I love you, it'sokay, we can move forward.
And then saying, you know,maybe, and I wronged you as well
, so I'm sorry, will you forgiveme.
And that other partner saying,yes, I forgive you as well, so
I'm sorry, will you forgive me.
And that other partner saying,yes, I forgive you as well,
let's move forward.
So now we've got reconciliation, and the Bible says that we
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have.
We are ministers ofreconciliation.
So reconciliation should besomething that occurs in the
life of a believer as just anatural outworking of the Holy
Spirit in my life.
So reconciliation is when twopeople that have wronged one
another work to restore thatfellowship.
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And reconciliation can occurbetween a husband and wife.
It can occur between twofriends.
It can occur between twostrangers.
I mean, it can be two strangerswho have wronged each other but
want to put things back inorder.
You know it's reconciliation.
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It's something that occurs whentwo people have wronged each
other, or one person has wrongedthe other one, or both have
wronged each other and they workto restore that relationship,
to put it back in place.
The picture I always imagine isif you've got a joint that's
dislocated, you imagine yourshoulder popped out, your knee
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popped out and you've got to putthat joint back in place.
You've got to reduce thatdislocation, you've got to put
it back in order and sometimesthere's some soreness.
I've got a knee that if I'm notcareful it'll pop out.
I mean, it'll literally pop outof the joint and it is so
painful and I work to put thatknee back in place by just
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straightening my leg out realaggressively.
I just kind of stick my footforward and pop my leg.
Just kind of stick my footforward and pop my leg, just
kind of snap my leg straight andit'll put it back in place.
And it's excruciating.
But the knee being out of jointis more painful than putting
the knee back in joint.
But after I do that it's sorefor a day or two.
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There's some soreness, there's aneed for some healing, and so
reconciliation is putting thatthing that's disjointed back in
place so healing can begin.
And the main thing when itcomes to relationships, the main
reconciliation that we'reconstantly working towards is
reconciliation with the Lord,and so God never has to
apologize to me, god never hasto repent to me, god never has
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to confess sin to me.
But I have to do those thingsto the Lord and what I know is
that when I do that, the Biblesays he is faith 1 John 1, 9,
he's faithful and just toforgive me and to put that
relationship back in order.
So I wanna lay that groundworkfor the next part of the
conversation, the rest of thisconversation, which the
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groundwork is we are to striveto achieve and attain and keep
reconciliation with otherbelievers as much as it is
possible.
Live at peace with all men,especially brothers and sisters
in Christ, he says, especiallythose who are of the household
of faith.
So I hope that littleconversation there makes sense
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Reconciliation, repentance andforgiveness.
Now I can extend forgiveness tosomebody who doesn't ask for it,
but that doesn't bringreconciliation about.
So let me give you an exampleof that.
So let me give you an exampleof that.
You're a young man or youngwoman who's abused or abandoned
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or hurt by your father, andyears go by and your father dies
and you go through lifecarrying the pain of the abuse.
Maybe that he did to you whenyou were young you can forgive
him, and by doing that, you'renot okaying or condoning what he
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did.
You're just, you're justreleasing him into the hands of
God.
You're saying this is theLord's situation to deal with.
I'm going to leave this in theLord's hands.
I'm going to, I'm going tochoose to live as someone who
forgives, and what that does isit releases you from a prison of
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bitterness and resentment andhatefulness.
I hope that makes sense.
So another example of this wouldbe when you see someone who I
don't know if you've ever seenthis, but a person they go up on
stage, they go up on the like,they're in court.
Okay, a situation wheresomeone's in court, so maybe
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they don't go up on the stand,but they get to give what's
called a witness impactstatement.
And I heard this recently.
There was a man he was a godlyman and his daughter had been
murdered, and when the courtdate came and the trial came,
and just before the judge was Ibelieve it was right before the
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judge was going to sentence theman who had murdered this
brother's daughter, the familymembers of the young lady who
was murdered they got to go upand give what's called witness
impact statements and the ideais that this would influence or
(30:40):
give impact, maybe, to thesentencing process.
And so this father there was,like I don't remember what the
family member was before thefather went up, but it was a
brother, sister, I don'tremember a friend and somebody
goes up and they basically sayto this murderer I hate you,
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you've stolen something from usthat we can never get back.
I hope that you rot in prison,I hope that you get what you
deserve.
One day God's going to judgeyou for this.
And they were saying thingsthat I mean, I could identify
with, you know, I could relateto, I understand that as a dad,
as a, as a father myself, I feltthat as a brother, as a friend,
(31:23):
as a husband.
You know I felt it.
But then the father goes upthere.
Here's this man who's so broken, his daughter's been taken from
him.
You know, this young20-year-old lady, young lady has
been murdered senselessly by astranger who saw her and was,
(31:44):
you know, overtaken by dark,sociopathic, psychopathic urges
and he assaulted her and killedher.
And the father says to this manyou've broken our hearts,
you've ripped our hearts out ofour chest, you've taken
something from us that can neverbe given back in this life.
(32:04):
But I choose to forgive you andI choose to extend grace to you
.
I'm not going to holdresentment and anger and
bitterness and it was.
It was a powerful statement thefather was making.
And then he he said why he wasable to do that.
He said God has forgiven me andI pray that one day you might
(32:27):
seek forgiveness from the Lordand that one day you might be
brought into a relationship withthe Lord.
You know, he basically extendedgrace.
It reminded me of Jesus on thecross saying Father, forgive
them.
They don't know what they'redoing.
So the principle there is youcan extend forgiveness to
somebody that's not asking youfor it and what that can do is
(32:49):
that can reconcile you to God.
You can find peace with God,even though that relationship
may not be totally restored andreconciled.
So then that same thing kind ofworks the other way, where you
can ask for forgiveness, you canapologize, you can confess your
(33:11):
sin to another person and theymight not extend grace to you,
they might not forgive you.
That man, that's hard, that'svery difficult, that's one that
that goes back to that story Itold with that young lady I had
I had wounded and hurt her tothe point she wasn't able to
extend forgiveness to me.
And I understood it.
(33:32):
I got it and you can ask forforgiveness to a person that
doesn't extend grace to you.
I feel for someone who can'tforgive someone else because
your bitterness or yourresentment or your lack of
forgiveness sort of becomes thisprison that you live in.
(33:53):
I'll be honest, we all holdgrudges or hold on to hurt
that's been done to us and itbecomes a prison.
I know a person who she wassexually abused as a young lady,
and this is an older woman.
Now I'll give you a comparisonof two people One older lady, a
(34:17):
dear sister in Christ, who is afaithful listener to this to no
Sanity Required podcast, and sheprobably knows who she is.
I go to church with thiswonderful lady.
I love her so much.
She's got the joy of the Lordin her life.
I've talked about her on NSRbefore but I'm not going to say
(34:39):
her name on this episode becauseit's very sensitive.
But she was a victim of abuseand she's given that to the Lord
and she didn't get saved untilshe was about 70.
She didn't come to faith inJesus until she was about 70
years old.
But one of the things she'sworked through and continues to
(35:00):
work through is forgivingsomeone for abuse and pain and
trauma that they caused her somany decades ago.
But she's choosing not to livein that bitterness, even though
that person is no longer alive.
She can't restore or reconcilethat relationship, but she's
(35:24):
released that person, she'sforgiven them.
And it's not that she'sforgiven them in the sense that
and this is what I want to getto, and this has gone long, so
I'm gonna have to do a secondepisode, we'll do a part two
here.
But forgiving that persondoesn't mean that she says, oh,
it's okay.
You know, man, no hard feelings.
No, there are hard feelings,there's hurtful feelings.
(35:44):
She lives with pain, but she'schoosing not to live in a prison
of bitterness.
And the way she's out fromunder that is by releasing that
person, by forgiving them, eventhough they're not here to ask
for it.
There's another person about thesame age Matter of fact, they
(36:10):
might be the exact same ageAnother person in her seventies
that I've that little and I havecounseled, worked with and she
just lives with bitterness andbrokenness.
She is one of the most angry,bitter, unhappy, unjoyful people
I know, and it all goes back toabuse and pain that was caused
to her when she was a littlegirl and a young lady, like from
(36:33):
the time she was maybe eight ornine years old, I think, up
until she was maybe a youngteenager, you know, 13, maybe
something like that, I don'tknow.
I don't know exactly.
I don't know the age window,but for several years there was
some severe abuse that occurred.
Know the age window, but forseveral years there was some
severe abuse that occurred.
And she carries the pain.
My heart breaks for her becausethat damages a person.
(36:55):
That trauma, that sexual trauma, that physical trauma, the
emotional, psychological traumaa person goes through when
they're hurt like that.
They carry it with them forlife, you know.
And so she's just an angry,hurt, bitter person.
And a study of these two women,I see that they both were
(37:17):
wronged, they both were hurt,they both were damaged, but one
of them lives with the joy ofthe Lord as her strength and
every time I see her she'ssmiling, she calls me, big guy,
and she comes over and gives mea hug and she loves little and
she loves our children and she'sthe sweetest sister in Christ
(37:37):
and she's enjoying the season ofher life that she's in because
of the joy she has in Christ.
And I'm convinced one of thethings that gives her that joy
is that she's free frombitterness Doesn't mean she
doesn't have to deal with it,fight it every day, contend with
it.
Her joy is hard fought joyevery day because of it, but she
(38:03):
lives with that joy.
The other woman that Imentioned not so she's angry.
Every time I see her there's ascowl on her face, there's a
bitterness in her heart thatjust comes through.
And so I've used those twostories to say and I still
haven't got to the one storythat I'm going to tell I think
(38:24):
I'm going to have to push it tothe next episode, part two.
This is taking way longer than Ithought it was going to take,
but that's okay.
I'm just driving and talking.
Hopefully you're still hangingwith me.
But I think we can all examineour hearts and see, man, I've
got some bitterness towardssomebody.
I'll just be honest with y'all.
Hopefully I'm always justhonest with y'all.
(38:45):
That's a figure of speech.
When I say that, I'm notimplying that I haven't been
honest with you, but I want toshare something here at the end
of this episode that's realvulnerable for me, and it is
that I fight and deal withbitterness.
I mean, I have to fight it allthe time towards my biological
father and towards his father,my grandfather, because of just
(39:09):
broken relationships in our home.
And I'm going to get real, rawand real here and share a
personal story of a strugglethat I have with bitterness.
And some of y'all might haveheard me reference this before,
but my biological grandfather onmy dad's side, I love him,
(39:31):
loved him.
He's been dead for 12 years now.
He died in 2013 and I loved him.
He was a godly man.
I believe he loved the Lord, butI believe he allowed bitterness
to creep into our family.
I believe he allowed bitternessto creep into our family, and
(39:57):
there are broken relationshipsthat can never be put right, can
never be reconciled, because ofhis patriarchal headship in our
family, his leadership and Iwould even say because of his
failure and shortcomings.
Now hear me out, because I'm'mgonna have family members that
listen to this.
I don't have a lot of familymembers that listen to NSR, but
I do have some, and I have onecousin and maybe some of his
(40:18):
kids that listen to this and Iwant them to hear my heart in
this.
I am not bitter towards mygrandfather.
I love him, loved him, lovedwhat he stood for.
He was a minister of the gospel.
He preached the gospel.
He was well known in WesternNorth Carolina as a faithful
preacher of the gospel of Jesus.
He pastored churches in themountains of North Carolina for
(40:41):
his whole life.
There's a lot of things Iadmire and respect about him,
but there was brokenrelationships in our family that
I believe he caused.
And what happened is mygrandmother died when I was a
young boy.
I was about 11 or 12 years oldI believe I was 12 years old and
she died.
And when he remarried there wasa lot of pain caused through
(41:07):
his second marriage and I'm notsaying who was right, who was
wrong, cause I was just a kid,but I know that that my, my
father and his sistersexperienced a lot of pain and
broken relationship over overthis, and so that hurts me to
(41:29):
know.
But then here's where it becamevery personal for me, when I
became a grown man and I beganto work in ministry full time
and I became a preacher and Istarted to preach and teach the
word of God and we started tolead ministry events and
Snowbird started to get footing.
(41:50):
He did not agree with the way wedid ministry and we had
conversation about this.
It was very brief and then heexpressed this to some other
people in the family that sharedit with me.
But he did not agree with theway we do ministry at Snowbird
he he disagreed with our styleof music.
(42:11):
He came from an old schoolbackground of mountain preachers
, sort of independent or notindependent but like
fundamentalist background, whereat church you should not use
secular quote unquote secularinstruments.
You should preach in a suit.
(42:36):
There's a certain order to theworship service, and so he did
not agree with the way that weled worship and sung songs and
the skits and humor that wemight use, things like that.
It was just a different opinionon how things ought to be done.
But he so disagreed with itthat he never heard me preach
except one time and that waswhen my father died my father's
(43:01):
father, this man that I'mtalking about.
He came to the funeral andthat's the only time he ever
heard me preach and he voiced anoffense at the way I preached
my father's funeral.
I preached Romans 8, 28, 29, and30, that all things work
together for good, and I talkedabout in that passage the Bible
(43:23):
says that God's plan and purposefor us, in saving us, is to
conform us to the image ofChrist.
And I said you know my earthlyfather for all of his struggles
that's a different conversationthat I've shared here before For
all of his struggles.
In the end of his life hedesired to be conformed to the
image of Christ and in hisfuneral message I said that he's
(43:47):
now conformed to the image ofChrist.
But in that conversation, inthat message, I used the word
but I said something about mydad whipping my butt one time
when I was a kid and mygrandfather got offended because
I used the word butt, b-u-t-tin a sermon and he didn't like
that.
And I thought, man, what a sadthing that here we're trying to
(44:10):
honor, you know, a man who'sdied, my father, and this man's
son, my grandfather's son, andall he took away was he's
offended.
That I said, but and, man,there was friction between us,
there was beef between us that Inever understood.
I just didn't understand it and, to be honest, to this day I
don't.
(44:30):
And I'll run into people whowill say you're a granddad, oh,
you're so-and-so's grandson andman.
He was a godly man, he was thegreatest preacher, he was a
great influence in my life andpeople will talk about him with
admiration and reverence andI've gotten to a point in my
(44:53):
life where that doesn't offendme.
I'm thankful God used him.
But Snowbird was 16, let's see,16 years old when he died.
Now, the last few years of hislife he had dementia and so I
would say for the first about 13years of Snowbird's ministry he
(45:16):
was especially the first 10years he was still speaking some
and he had retired frompastoring but he was still doing
ministry in differentcapacities and he never came and
heard me preach, he neversupported us in any way, he
never gave any sort of credenceor credibility to our ministry
(45:37):
and, to the contrary, he onlysaid condescending or negative
things.
And I preached one time at.
I preached two, three times,three times at events within
five miles of his house here inWestern North Carolina.
I lived about 70 miles from him, so Snowbird's campus was about
70 miles away and I lived about70 miles from him.
(46:02):
But I preached at an event inHaywood County, north Carolina,
three separate occasions.
Two of those were at LakeJunaluska Assembly, which is a
big camp and conference centerowned by the Methodist
denomination, and at one ofthose there was about 2,000
people there and he didn't cometo it.
(46:23):
And another time and this isthe one I really don't
understand I spoke.
There was the Haywood CountyAssociation of Churches put on
an annual event and at thisparticular event I spoke on one
of the nights.
It was a I think it was a threenight event and they did it at
(46:46):
the at the Ag Center Was that?
It was kind of?
It was not an outdoor event,but it was at the Ag Center,
somewhere they do rodeos andcattle sales and stuff like that
cattle shows.
It was there in that arena andI preached and he didn't come
and there was a lot of otherpreachers there, pastors from
his association didn't come.
He didn't come hear me.
(47:07):
And then the last thing and I'mnot—please hear me y'all, I'll
get around to the positive inall this.
I'm not bitter or angry, I'mnot whining, complaining, I'm
not playing the victim, I just.
I want to make a point here.
The other thing was.
This is the one that I haveresentment that I have to battle
and I really have to fight for.
(47:28):
After my dad died, my brother,who I love so much and who I'm
so close with he got married andmy dad was dead when my brother
got married and my brother'smarriage took place at Snowbird.
We got him married up, we gothim hitched up to his awesome
(47:48):
wife and they're doing great.
And now you know, and they'redoing great.
And now you know, almost 20years later, they've been
married 18 years and the Lordhas blessed them and they're
faithful people.
They love Jesus, they serve theLord with like all of us, you
know they're not perfect servethe Lord to the best of their
(48:09):
ability.
They're faithful to their sonsand raising them in the nurture
and admonition of the Lord.
They fight for their marriage.
And man, it's just an honor toknow my brother and his wife and
when they got married, mygrandfather did not come to that
wedding ceremony.
Now I would add me and mybrother are the only two
(48:31):
namesakes in his family.
So my grandfather had one son.
That was my dad, who had twosons, that's me and my brother.
My grandfather had threedaughters, so my dad's three
sisters and they all had sonswho were just as much grandsons
to to that man as I am.
(48:53):
But the point I'm making is meand my brother are the only ones
that have his last name.
You know, we're Holloways, andhe did not come to my brother's
wedding.
Just a few miles down the roadNow, my maternal grandfather was
there, and that's a differentconversation.
I'm going to do an episode whereI tell his story sometime,
because it's the opposite.
(49:13):
He was not a Christ follower.
My whole life my mama prayedfor him and we got to see him
turn to the Lord late in lifeand begin to follow Jesus.
But this granddad, my paternalgrandfather, didn't come to my
brother's wedding and y'all, I'mgonna tell you I have struggled
with bitterness and resentmentover that, because I love my
(49:34):
brother so much.
And isn't that how it works?
You can endure offense or pain,or you know people can talk
ugly about me.
It don't bother me.
But if somebody says somethingugly about somebody I love or
care about, daggum, that firesme up, you know you get fighting
mad, and so it hurt me for mybrother.
So anyway, that's a long storyI just told, but I'm telling it
(49:58):
all to say I love my grandfather.
I can genuinely say I don'thold offense or grudge against
him.
He's gone to be with the Lord.
And I want to focus on thethings he did well, because I'll
tell you this about him he wassomebody who would witness and
share the gospel with anybody.
(50:18):
He didn't go anywhere that hedidn't share the gospel.
And when he preached he wasn'tan expositor, he was kind of the
old school form of mountainpreachers is that they get up
and kind of give three pointsand just preach topical sermons,
you know.
But he was faithful, he wasn'tunfaithful to the scripture, he
(50:44):
preached it faithfully.
And so I wrestle with that, andhere's what I've chosen to do I
forgive him and then Irecognize that there's some
things that he would need toforgive me for if he was here.
And I refuse to live inbitterness over that
relationship, but I know that Ihave aunts and cousins that were
(51:10):
hurt by him and I know that oneday the Lord will reconcile
those relationships when we'rewith the Lord.
And so let me wrap this episodeup.
Here's how I want to wrap it up.
Okay, so, if you're still withme because I sure feel like I've
rambled If you're still with me, let me.
I can wrap all of this up.
(51:30):
This is interesting, by the way.
I'm driving past the exit wheremy granddad lived, but I
haven't been to his.
You know, it's been a long time.
But I'm driving past that exitright now, which is also the
exit where I preached at thosethree events at those two
different venues.
I'm driving past the LakeJunaluska exit right now.
(51:53):
So that's wild.
But anyway, if you're stillwith me I hope you are I can
wrap all of this up really,really, really quickly and I
think I can put it into aconcise summary that'll make it
all make sense.
You can experiencereconciliation to God when
(52:17):
fellowship is broken withanother believer that leads to
your bitterness or resentment,where you don't have the right
heart or attitude before theLord.
You can make things right withGod, even if you can't make
things right with that otherperson.
So someone who's died and goneon that did you wrong and you
can't reconcile thatrelationship.
(52:38):
You can give that to the handsof the Lord and refuse to live
with bitterness or resentmentand you can be reconciled to God
.
You can be reconciled toanother person if you're both
willing to work towards thatreconciliation.
I forgive you, you forgive me.
Let's live at peace, let's putthis behind us, let's move
(52:59):
forward.
And some of you listening tothis episode might need to go
have a conversation withsomebody.
It's time to reconcile thatbroken relationship.
There might be a dad or agranddad you need to go
apologize for the way youwronged your son or daughter
when you should have been anexample to them.
There might be a lady who islistening to this that needs to
(53:22):
go to her husband and say, hey,I'm sorry, I've wronged you, my
attitude's been wrong.
There might be a man that'slistening to this that needs to
go to his wife and say, hey,I've not been caring and loving
and kind, I'm sorry.
There might be friendships thatare broken.
There might be someone in yourchurch and you're worshiping
(53:44):
together on a Sunday and youneed to make this thing right.
Work towards reconciliation.
The Bible says we are ministersof reconciliation.
The Bible says we are ministersof reconciliation, and so, in
order for people to bereconciled to God, there is a
need for both of us to bewilling to sit down at the table
(54:04):
and have conversations thatlead to that reconciliation.
But you can forgive somebodyeven if they don't seek it.
And then here's the other thing.
You can ask for forgiveness.
You can confess your sin tosomeone else, you can repent,
you can apologize, and they maychoose to hold a grudge and not
(54:27):
forgive you, but that ain't onyou, that's between them and the
Lord, and you can be reconciledto God by confessing that you
can live in freedom even thoughthat person holds a grudge
against you.
I know for a fact of a fewpeople that are holding grudges
against me that I wish we couldreconcile it and I've asked for
(54:51):
forgiveness.
And I know some people that areholding grudges against me and
I'm not willing to ask forforgiveness because to do so let
me think how to say this.
They're holding somethingagainst me that I believe.
For me to ask for forgivenesswould be to admit to something
(55:13):
that I believe the Lord would.
I believe I've acted in a waythat is in alignment with the
leadership of the Holy Spiritand there's not an admission of
wrongdoing that I need to makebecause I need to be.
I need to live with convictionover that decision.
If that makes sense.
(55:33):
I hope that makes sense.
I'm speaking a little bitcryptically there, but there may
be a time where someone wantsyou to apologize.
And to apologize would be toadmit that something is wrong.
That is not wrong and you don'tneed to do that but as much as
it is possible to live at peacewith people and there's other
people that I've askedforgiveness of and they can't
(55:56):
extend it, they're too bitter orwhatever that might be.
So reconciliation is theministry of every believer.
We need to strive towards itand know that we can be
reconciled to God, and sometimesit's difficult to be reconciled
to another believer.
In the next episode I'll getinto grace extended, even though
the consequences of our actionsmight linger and that there
(56:19):
might be something where youhave to live in your life for a
long period of time in brokenfellowship with somebody because
you have what someone mightcall irreconcilable differences.
We can't get past this.
I love the Lord, this otherperson loves the Lord.
We still don't know how to moveforward and I share situations
(56:40):
like that, but in this episode Ihope that it sheds some light
on how you can be a person wholives with confession and
repentance.
You can be a person who extendsgrace and forgiveness, and we
can all strive to be people wholive at reconciliation with and
forgiveness, and we can allstrive to be people who live at
reconciliation with the Lord.
And this is all just real freshto me right now because there's
a relationship in my life whereI don't know how to move forward
(57:04):
.
There's actually a fewrelationships in my life.
I don't know how to moveforward and seek reconciliation.
I don't know what that lookslike.
I've tried and I've tried toextend the olive branch and it's
not been received.
And that's hard man.
It's hard and I know that partof why it's not been received is
(57:24):
because I've caused hurt tothis person.
And how do I seek forgivenessfrom someone who feels like I've
hurt you?
It's tough man.
So some of you might be in asituation like that where it's
not as simple as just say I'msorry and then say I forgive you
and let's move on.
Sometimes it's more complicatedthan that, so we'll get into
(57:44):
that in the next episode.
That might be helpful forsomeone who's dealing with
conflict.
That man, how do you moveforward and you're having a hard
time moving forward?
And we'll get into some morestories.
That's where I'll get into acouple of pretty hard, intense
stories that are heavy.
But in the meantime let's bepeople who have ministries of
(58:06):
reconciliation, who strive toshow grace and have the mind and
attitude and heart of Christtowards others, do the best we
can.
Hope you're still with me aftermy rambling driving down the
road for almost an hour here.
I hope it's been beneficial andhelpful and we'll see you on
the next episode of no SanityRequired.
Speaker 2 (58:26):
Thanks for listening to no Sanity Required.
Please take a moment tosubscribe and leave a rating.
It really helps.
Visit us at SWOutfitterscom tosee all of our programming and
resources and we'll see you nextweek on no Sanity Required.
It's Saturday morning , it is 5.30 and I'm on the road
driving through the NantahalaGorge andI thought, man, this
will be a good time to record anNSR podcast.
We've got several episodes thatwe're working on right now that
are not ready to be posted, soI told JB I'd get something up
on this drive.
Today I've got to drive toBlacksburg, virginia, from
(00:22):
Andrews, north Carolina, and soI've got a few hours here in the
truck, got on the road earlyand I thought, man, you know
what, I'm going to talk to theNSR crowd, and this morning,
while I'm driving, and whatevertime of day this is, that you're
listening to this.
I'm hoping it's going to beexactly what the Lord needed for
you to hear, and so I'm goingto share a couple stories and
(00:46):
give some thoughts on what Ithink are important biblical
application of the doctrinalidea, the complexity of
extending grace to others, andparticularly the fact that
sometimes, when we go throughconflict, we're called upon by
God to extend grace to someoneelse, whether that's forgiveness
(01:09):
or to seek reconciliation, butthat when we do that, sometimes
even once that has been done,the consequences of a particular
situation may linger and maykeep us from moving forward in
that relationship in the samemanner that we have in the past.
I want to share a few storiesthat are a little bit
uncomfortable.
I'm going to be very crypticand not give names and specific
(01:33):
things that would giveidentities of people away, just
because these are sensitiveissues.
But I want to talk about graceand conflict and consequences
and the difficulties ofrelationships that we face
sometimes in the Christian life.
So with that as an introductionthis morning for me, literally
(01:54):
in the darkness driving throughthe Nantahala Gorge, let me
welcome you to this week'sepisode of no Sanity Required.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Welcome to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of
Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
A podcast about the Bible culture and stories from
around the globe.
I was recently on the road andstopped and spent the night.
It was me and a couple of otherguys from Snowbird.
We stopped and stayed with somefriends, really close friends
and ministry supporters, andwe're sitting around the
(02:42):
breakfast table before we got onthe road to head on home.
We had some meetings out inRaleigh, which is a state
capital here in North Carolinafor our listeners that don't
live in North Carolina, and bythe time we got all done it was
pretty late up in the eveningand we stayed with some friends
who we just wanted to see,wanted to visit Very dear, very
(03:02):
close friends of ours.
In my ministry life they've beenlifelong friends.
I mean, I think we go back tothe second year that Snowbird
existed is when we met thisfamily, and so we're having just
a conversation sitting arounddrinking coffee, and the
(03:22):
conversation turned to asituation that they were asking
me about.
That had to do with an episodehere on NSR from a few months
back where we talked aboutbetrayal in ministry and the
need for vigilance and fortitudewhen it comes to dealing with
(03:44):
certain situations.
You might remember that episode.
Uh, we'll link it in the in theepisode notes, but it goes back
to uh, to that story, and thatwas back in March of this year,
2025.
And it was called somethinglike uh, redemption
responsibility or let's seebetrayal Responsibility, let's
(04:05):
see Betrayal, redemption andResponsibility in Ministry.
I believe is what JB titledthat and I thought it was a
really fitting title.
I believe it was March 3rd and,like I said, we'll link that
episode in case you didn't hearit, but it was a story of a
situation that occurred here inministry and I got a lot of
(04:27):
feedback from that story.
It's a pretty wild story, so wewere just sharing some thoughts
from that sitting arounddrinking coffee, and it got me
thinking about a few otherdifficult situations I've faced
in ministry and I want to just Iwant to share a thought that I
think could be a little bitcontroversial, but I really do
(04:51):
believe it's it's it's rooted inbiblical truth and you have to
forgive, maybe, the soundquality, cause I'm literally
like I said I'm driving, I'mjust recording and this is
coming through the Bluetoothsystem in the truck, but the
difficult situation that I'mdescribing I'm just recording
and this is coming through theBluetooth system in the truck,
but the difficult situation thatI'm describing is what do you
do when there's conflict?
I guess there's two things Iwant to talk about.
One is what do you do whenthere's conflict between two
(05:17):
believers you and another personthat professes to be a Christ
follower follower and it'sspecifically a person who, who
really does follow Jesus, andthen you really do follow Jesus,
and so you've got thiscommonality, this brotherhood.
The scripture speaks to thepurity and the richness of the
(05:40):
relationships that we havewithin the body of Christ.
And you come to these momentsin your life where you're at
odds with another brother orsister and you can't seem to
work through that, you can'tseem to reconcile the
relationship.
There's hurt or offense orsomething like that.
There's an offense in therelationship, or there's hurt in
(06:04):
the relationship.
There's the sense of you feelbetrayed or you feel stabbed in
the back or something like that,and you're trying to deal with
that conflict and work throughit and you get to a point where
you go man, I don't think we canget on the same page here.
How do we wrestle with that asChristians?
Because the Bible says a lot ofthings about this.
(06:25):
Now, y'all, I don't have notesin front of me, I don't have my
Bible open.
So I'm going to do everythingfrom memory, and so some of the
biblical references I'm going tomake in this conversation I'm
not going to be able to give youreferences to.
You can go look those up,though, and um, but the first
thing that comes to my mind iswhen Jesus says if you're at the
(06:45):
altar, so the implication isyou're worshiping the Lord,
you're at church, you're in acorporate worship gathering,
something like that, and youremember that there's an offense
that's unsettled between you,there's a conflict that needs to
be resolved between you and abrother or sister in Christ, and
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Jesus says hey, you need toleave your gift at the altar.
You need to leave your gift atthe altar, you need to stop this
act of worship in a worshipservice setting and you need to
go to that brother or thatsister.
I mean, it's a pretty intense.
What he's telling us to do is apretty intense endeavor.
(07:27):
I mean he's saying stop whatyou're doing, quit raising your
hands and singing worship songsat church, you know.
Or quit, get up from the altaror put your money back in your
pocket Instead of tithing orgiving your offering to the
church.
You need to go deal with thissituation.
What he's doing is he's placinga priority on restoring
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fellowship between you and abrother or sister in Christ.
This is very important to theLord that we live in harmony.
There are several other versesthat speak to the unity and the
harmony that God wants us tohave.
There's Psalm 133.
I believe it's Psalm 133, verse1, that says how good and how
(08:14):
pleasant it is when brothersdwell together in unity.
And then Jesus speaks to theEphesians.
The Apostle Paul, writing underthe inspiration of the Holy
Spirit, says to the Ephesianchurch that we have this bond of
the spirit, so we're boundtogether by the spirit and we
have a unity of peace.
(08:34):
We're unified by peace, we liveat peace, and the scripture
says that as much as it'spossible, we're to live at peace
with all people, especiallythose who are of the household
of faith.
And so you've got this glimpseinto the heart of God, not a
(08:55):
glimpse, you've got, we've got Ishouldn't use that terminology
We've got clear teaching thatunity within the body of Christ
is a big deal to the Lord.
That unity within the body ofChrist is a big deal to the Lord
when he says as much as it'spossible.
I think there's I don't want tosay there's a provision or a
loophole or something like that.
But I think what we have is arecognition that, man, this is
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not always going to be easy.
There's times where and I hopeall of us have experienced this
where I've wronged somebody,maybe with my words, maybe with
my actions, and I've had to goto that person and say to him
hey, I'm sorry, I've wronged youand will you forgive me and
(09:37):
seek to restore thatrelationship.
And sometimes I might havewronged somebody to the point
that it's not as easy as justsaying I'm sorry, will you
forgive me?
And they say, yeah, no problem,I forgive you.
Let's just put it behind us.
There may be betrayal that thattakes some time, maybe a long
(09:59):
time, maybe a little time to putthat relationship back in order
.
Where I've done damage to thatrelationship.
I remember ruining arelationship one time that to
this day my heart is is heavyover it because I don't know the
damage that was done.
I just don't know and it was myfault, and what had happened is
(10:23):
a young couple had come toSnowbird.
This is early days of Snowbird.
This is about 2003, 2004,.
Somewhere in there.
Snowbird was about six or sevenyears old and there was a young
(10:49):
lady that had come to Snowbirdin like 1999.
And her life had been deeplyimpacted by her week at Snowbird
.
It had really changed her life.
And so, a few years go by, sheends up in a relationship with a
young man.
I think they're engaged to bemarried and they're really
wanting to serve the Lord andget involved and they're at a
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small rural church and just thedemographic or the dynamic of
kids they're working with, theseare poor kids that don't have
money.
This church doesn't have muchmoney, this church doesn't have
much money, Snowbird doesn'thave much money.
But they reach out and they say, hey, we want to bring these
(11:32):
kids to camp but we just can'tafford to pay the registration
costs to bring them.
And our policy back then was andit's very similar today.
I'd say the policy today issomething like hey, we'll figure
it out, we'll make it happen,let's do what we got to do.
(11:53):
I don't know what we got to do,but let's do what we got to do
to get y'all here.
That was kind of the policyback then and really it's the
heart of the ministry now aswell, and really it's the heart
of the ministry now as well.
But back then maybe I don'twant to say to a fault, but
maybe to a point of sometimescausing some problems internally
(12:16):
we would just say yes toeverybody.
I mean, the early snowbird days,there were a lot of people that
came and participated in campsand events we were putting on
and didn't pay any money and wewere just trying to figure out
how to cover the cost of food,you know, and and uh.
Everything was done back thenin a very grassroots sort of way
(12:38):
and, um, it looked a littledifferent than it looks today.
The mindset and heartbeat wasthe same, but definitely looked
different.
And so, anyway, I told thisyoung lady yeah, you go ahead,
you bring these 10 kids and comeon.
And I said something likethere's some things that we
(12:59):
might need to do to streamliney'all's time here.
Do to streamline y'all's timehere.
I didn't communicate this withher real well, but I basically
said y'all, come on and we'llgive your students a really good
week, a good weekend.
It was a weekend event andwe'll cut some costs where we
can and make it affordable forus and y'all.
(13:20):
And so they didn't pay anything.
I think they ended up bringing,like I think it was, 12
students and then these twoleaders, so 14 people, um, and
we didn't.
They weren't able to payanything, so we didn't.
One of the things we did is wedidn't take them down the river.
It was it was a weekend wherewe were doing rafting trips and
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we took that off the table forthem just because of the cost
For those 14 kids.
Back then that would have costus probably $250.
And because we have to pay.
We run our own trips but wehave to pay a fee to the boat
rental company whose equipmentwe use.
We lease.
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We use another company'sequipment.
We don't own our own wrapped inequipment.
It's way easier for us that way.
We don't have to store you know20 big boats and trailers to
haul them on and the paddles andgear and all that.
So, anyway, getting into theweeds there.
But we don't own that stuff, welease it out.
And between the fee that we payper head for the boat leases
(14:27):
and the cost of like, we have topay to the forest service for
running trips.
It was like here's a place, wecan cut costs and what we'll do
is we'll spend the afternoonthis group of kids, we'll have a
great time, we'll just stay atcamp and they can ride swings
and zip lines and do stuff likethat, and so that's fine.
(14:51):
But then what I did was we werein the dining facility.
We were in the metal building.
If you've ever been to Snowbird, we were in the metal building
and a group of students weregoing rafting.
That a different group ofstudents, it was a church that
was here.
It was a few churches.
So this group that was herethat we were comping or giving a
(15:12):
free weekend to they were oneof maybe half a dozen groups
that were here.
So we had probably 100 studentshere that weekend Back in the
early days.
That would have been a very bigweekend for us.
Maybe it was 80 kids, I don'tremember.
But somewhere in the discussionwith the person that was leading
(15:34):
the rafting trip, they hadaccidentally talked to these 12
kids about the rafting trip andthese kids were excited and what
I did that was stupid is I saidhey, they're not going rafting.
And my staff person looked atme like what do you mean?
And I sort of moved my mouthbut didn't say anything out loud
(15:57):
.
I said something like you know,hey, I made the hand motion of
hey, no, just drop it.
They're not going raftingbecause they're not paying and
we're not taking them rafting.
But the way I said it, I hopethis story is making sense.
The way I said it, that younglady saw me say that I didn't
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know she was standing rightthere, she was just a few feet
away and the way I articulatedthat was very insensitive and it
hurt her feelings really bad.
It made her feel like a secondclass person or you know, a
charity case or something likethat.
So I felt terrible about it andand I tried to apologize, I
(16:37):
tried to reconcile the you knowthe, the hurt.
I just said I was soinsensitive.
I'm so sorry I should not havesaid that that way.
And she was so hurt because sheheld this breaks my heart.
20 some years later she felt soloved by this ministry.
(16:57):
It deeply impacted her life andone of the things that had such
a profound impact on her wasshe felt like we cared about her
.
It didn't have anything to dowith what she brought to us, it
was just she came to us brokenand we loved on her.
And in that day I think shefelt a little bit like oh you
mean, if I don't have money, Ican't afford your.
(17:18):
You know it just hurt herfeelings and I trust the Lord
eventually, you know, broughtsome peace and healing in her
heart and mind.
But she's never been back, tomy knowledge, I've never.
She never came back after thatand I remember talking to her
fiance that was here the malechaperone and he was just like
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man that hurt her feelingsreally bad and you know he said
something like she really lovesthis place and now it's.
You know she feels like I don'tknow it, just it wasn't good.
And so I'm sure we've all hadsituations where you did
something, said something, youhurt somebody and then you
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couldn't put that back together.
And then you couldn't put thatback together, you couldn't
restore that because that otherperson wouldn't respond in a way
that would allow true andgenuine reconciliation.
And that's really difficult andfor me that's the kind of thing
that just eats at me.
(18:21):
You know it really does.
That just eats at me, you knowit really does.
And so I want to.
Before I move on to the nextscenario and the next story it's
a very heavy story I want totell one or two more stories
that are much to me, I think,much heavier.
Let me say this the Bible givesus three different words or
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situations that we need tounderstand the definition of if
we're going to understand how tobring resolve to broken
relationships.
The first word isreconciliation, the second word
is repentance and the third wordis forgiveness.
(19:07):
Reconciliation, repentance andforgiveness.
Now, that word repentanceanother Bible word that I'd put
maybe up under that as a sub ofthat word, would be the word
confession.
So repentance and or confession, so like if we think of
repentance as turning away frommy sin and turning to the Lord
(19:32):
and abandoning my sin,confession is a part of that.
So the Bible teaches that I'mto confess my sins to the Lord,
or that I'm to confess my sin toa brother or sister.
We're to confess our sins toone another.
But then the Bible also usesthe word confession in other
ways too, like it'll say thatwe're to confess that Jesus is
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Lord, and so the word confessionis sort of a subcategory or a
compatible idea with the wordrepentance, and the word
repentance is turning away fromsomething, the word confession
is confessing or speaking truthabout something, and so in this
context, let's start with thatword.
(20:17):
Let's say that I've wronged aperson.
So go back to my story and Iwronged that young lady.
I confessed that wrong to herand I wronged that young lady.
I confessed that wrong to herand I repented to her.
What I said was I wronged you,I'm sorry.
And then the thing that I saidwas will you forgive me?
Okay, another word that we wantto talk about in this
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three-word set is forgiveness.
Forgiveness is when I extendgrace to another person and I
don't hold their sin or theirwrongdoing or their offense
against them.
So forgiveness would have beenif that young lady would have
said hey, I know your heart, Itrust your heart, I forgive you.
(21:05):
Or maybe she wouldn't have saidthat, maybe she would have said
that was very hurtful, but Iforgive you, and she would have
released me from that wrongdoing, that sin I had committed
against her.
I hope that makes sense.
And so forgiveness is when Iextend grace to someone who has
(21:28):
wronged me.
Confessional repentance is whenI ask for forgiveness.
For you parents, here's a goodprinciple.
If you're parenting, especiallyyounger children, you want to
teach them to say will youforgive me, not just to say I'm
sorry.
So a common thing for us iswhen we wrong somebody, we say
(21:54):
to them hey, I'm sorry.
Now.
That's important and there's atime where I need to say I'm
sorry.
But for a small child.
I want to teach them saying I'msorry is not like a magical
word, it's not an anecdote whereI can go well, I said I'm sorry
, so everything's okay, but Iask for forgiveness.
I'm asking that person to putthis hey, I want to do my part
(22:17):
to put this relationship right,to put it back, in order to put
it back to a place of peacefulfellowship.
And so I'm asking forforgiveness where, if I say I'm
sorry, that's part of it and Ido need to say that.
So what we try to teach ourkids when they were younger is
we would you know?
When we were raising smallchildren, we would say I want
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you to say I'm sorry, will youforgive me, something to that
effect.
Or I'm sorry, I've wronged you,will you forgive me?
And so forgiveness andrepentance go hand in hand.
But here's the caveat Unlessboth of those things happen, I
cannot get that third word, thatother word, which is
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reconciliation, right.
So I can ask for forgiveness andseek forgiveness.
In other words, I can repent, Ican practice repentance and
confession to the person I'vewronged, and then I can.
Then, as the person who's beenwronged, I can extend grace and
(23:26):
forgiveness and I can say, hey,hey, man, you know what?
I forgive you, I forgive you.
Let's put it behind us.
And if I do that, if those twoparties, if one person asks
forgiveness and seeksforgiveness and is repentant and
the other person extends thatforgiveness, now what we've got
(23:47):
is reconciliation.
We've reconciled therelationship and sometimes both
parties have committed wrong,right?
I mean, there's a principle,that's a pretty important
principle, which is a lot oftimes two people have sinned
against one another and whenthat happens and they both come
(24:08):
to each other and they have aconversation and they put that,
they put that relationship backtogether.
I hope I'm not.
I hope I'm not just droning onhere.
I hope this is helpful.
I feel like I'm rambling.
I.
You know, I don't know if it'sdriving down the road like this
is a little bit harder to stayon task, but hopefully that's
(24:29):
making sense.
So, repentance and forgiveness,repentance slash, confession
and forgiveness that's one partof that's two parts of
reconciliation that have to cometogether.
But now the third, that firstor third word, however, whatever
order.
I said that in to begin with.
Reconciliation, that otherpiece.
Order.
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I said that in to begin withReconciliation, that other piece
that requires both parties forreconciliation to occur.
Reconciliation means we'vebrought the relationship back
into alignment.
So this would be when a husbandand wife have said ugly things
to each other, they sit down andhave a conversation and they
apologize to one another.
That apology, that I'm sorry,will you forgive me.
(25:13):
And then it's grace extendedyes, I forgive you, I accept
that apology, I love you, it'sokay, we can move forward.
And then saying, you know,maybe, and I wronged you as well
, so I'm sorry, will you forgiveme.
And that other partner saying,yes, I forgive you as well, so
I'm sorry, will you forgive me.
And that other partner saying,yes, I forgive you as well,
let's move forward.
So now we've got reconciliation, and the Bible says that we
(25:37):
have.
We are ministers ofreconciliation.
So reconciliation should besomething that occurs in the
life of a believer as just anatural outworking of the Holy
Spirit in my life.
So reconciliation is when twopeople that have wronged one
another work to restore thatfellowship.
(25:57):
And reconciliation can occurbetween a husband and wife.
It can occur between twofriends.
It can occur between twostrangers.
I mean, it can be two strangerswho have wronged each other but
want to put things back inorder.
You know it's reconciliation.
(26:18):
It's something that occurs whentwo people have wronged each
other, or one person has wrongedthe other one, or both have
wronged each other and they workto restore that relationship,
to put it back in place.
The picture I always imagine isif you've got a joint that's
dislocated, you imagine yourshoulder popped out, your knee
(26:42):
popped out and you've got to putthat joint back in place.
You've got to reduce thatdislocation, you've got to put
it back in order and sometimesthere's some soreness.
I've got a knee that if I'm notcareful it'll pop out.
I mean, it'll literally pop outof the joint and it is so
painful and I work to put thatknee back in place by just
(27:03):
straightening my leg out realaggressively.
I just kind of stick my footforward and pop my leg.
Just kind of stick my footforward and pop my leg, just
kind of snap my leg straight andit'll put it back in place.
And it's excruciating.
But the knee being out of jointis more painful than putting
the knee back in joint.
But after I do that it's sorefor a day or two.
(27:23):
There's some soreness, there's aneed for some healing, and so
reconciliation is putting thatthing that's disjointed back in
place so healing can begin.
And the main thing when itcomes to relationships, the main
reconciliation that we'reconstantly working towards is
reconciliation with the Lord,and so God never has to
apologize to me, god never hasto repent to me, god never has
(27:46):
to confess sin to me.
But I have to do those thingsto the Lord and what I know is
that when I do that, the Biblesays he is faith 1 John 1, 9,
he's faithful and just toforgive me and to put that
relationship back in order.
So I wanna lay that groundworkfor the next part of the
conversation, the rest of thisconversation, which the
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groundwork is we are to striveto achieve and attain and keep
reconciliation with otherbelievers as much as it is
possible.
Live at peace with all men,especially brothers and sisters
in Christ, he says, especiallythose who are of the household
of faith.
So I hope that littleconversation there makes sense
(28:29):
Reconciliation, repentance andforgiveness.
Now I can extend forgiveness tosomebody who doesn't ask for it,
but that doesn't bringreconciliation about.
So let me give you an exampleof that.
So let me give you an exampleof that.
You're a young man or youngwoman who's abused or abandoned
(28:52):
or hurt by your father, andyears go by and your father dies
and you go through lifecarrying the pain of the abuse.
Maybe that he did to you whenyou were young you can forgive
him, and by doing that, you'renot okaying or condoning what he
(29:12):
did.
You're just, you're justreleasing him into the hands of
God.
You're saying this is theLord's situation to deal with.
I'm going to leave this in theLord's hands.
I'm going to, I'm going tochoose to live as someone who
forgives, and what that does isit releases you from a prison of
(29:34):
bitterness and resentment andhatefulness.
I hope that makes sense.
So another example of this wouldbe when you see someone who I
don't know if you've ever seenthis, but a person they go up on
stage, they go up on the like,they're in court.
Okay, a situation wheresomeone's in court, so maybe
(29:57):
they don't go up on the stand,but they get to give what's
called a witness impactstatement.
And I heard this recently.
There was a man he was a godlyman and his daughter had been
murdered, and when the courtdate came and the trial came,
and just before the judge was Ibelieve it was right before the
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judge was going to sentence theman who had murdered this
brother's daughter, the familymembers of the young lady who
was murdered they got to go upand give what's called witness
impact statements and the ideais that this would influence or
(30:40):
give impact, maybe, to thesentencing process.
And so this father there was,like I don't remember what the
family member was before thefather went up, but it was a
brother, sister, I don'tremember a friend and somebody
goes up and they basically sayto this murderer I hate you,
(31:00):
you've stolen something from usthat we can never get back.
I hope that you rot in prison,I hope that you get what you
deserve.
One day God's going to judgeyou for this.
And they were saying thingsthat I mean, I could identify
with, you know, I could relateto, I understand that as a dad,
as a, as a father myself, I feltthat as a brother, as a friend,
(31:23):
as a husband.
You know I felt it.
But then the father goes upthere.
Here's this man who's so broken, his daughter's been taken from
him.
You know, this young20-year-old lady, young lady has
been murdered senselessly by astranger who saw her and was,
(31:44):
you know, overtaken by dark,sociopathic, psychopathic urges
and he assaulted her and killedher.
And the father says to this manyou've broken our hearts,
you've ripped our hearts out ofour chest, you've taken
something from us that can neverbe given back in this life.
(32:04):
But I choose to forgive you andI choose to extend grace to you
.
I'm not going to holdresentment and anger and
bitterness and it was.
It was a powerful statement thefather was making.
And then he he said why he wasable to do that.
He said God has forgiven me andI pray that one day you might
(32:27):
seek forgiveness from the Lordand that one day you might be
brought into a relationship withthe Lord.
You know, he basically extendedgrace.
It reminded me of Jesus on thecross saying Father, forgive
them.
They don't know what they'redoing.
So the principle there is youcan extend forgiveness to
somebody that's not asking youfor it and what that can do is
(32:49):
that can reconcile you to God.
You can find peace with God,even though that relationship
may not be totally restored andreconciled.
So then that same thing kind ofworks the other way, where you
can ask for forgiveness, you canapologize, you can confess your
(33:11):
sin to another person and theymight not extend grace to you,
they might not forgive you.
That man, that's hard, that'svery difficult, that's one that
that goes back to that story Itold with that young lady I had
I had wounded and hurt her tothe point she wasn't able to
extend forgiveness to me.
And I understood it.
(33:32):
I got it and you can ask forforgiveness to a person that
doesn't extend grace to you.
I feel for someone who can'tforgive someone else because
your bitterness or yourresentment or your lack of
forgiveness sort of becomes thisprison that you live in.
(33:53):
I'll be honest, we all holdgrudges or hold on to hurt
that's been done to us and itbecomes a prison.
I know a person who she wassexually abused as a young lady,
and this is an older woman.
Now I'll give you a comparisonof two people One older lady, a
(34:17):
dear sister in Christ, who is afaithful listener to this to no
Sanity Required podcast, and sheprobably knows who she is.
I go to church with thiswonderful lady.
I love her so much.
She's got the joy of the Lordin her life.
I've talked about her on NSRbefore but I'm not going to say
(34:39):
her name on this episode becauseit's very sensitive.
But she was a victim of abuseand she's given that to the Lord
and she didn't get saved untilshe was about 70.
She didn't come to faith inJesus until she was about 70
years old.
But one of the things she'sworked through and continues to
(35:00):
work through is forgivingsomeone for abuse and pain and
trauma that they caused her somany decades ago.
But she's choosing not to livein that bitterness, even though
that person is no longer alive.
She can't restore or reconcilethat relationship, but she's
(35:24):
released that person, she'sforgiven them.
And it's not that she'sforgiven them in the sense that
and this is what I want to getto, and this has gone long, so
I'm gonna have to do a secondepisode, we'll do a part two
here.
But forgiving that persondoesn't mean that she says, oh,
it's okay.
You know, man, no hard feelings.
No, there are hard feelings,there's hurtful feelings.
(35:44):
She lives with pain, but she'schoosing not to live in a prison
of bitterness.
And the way she's out fromunder that is by releasing that
person, by forgiving them, eventhough they're not here to ask
for it.
There's another person about thesame age Matter of fact, they
(36:10):
might be the exact same ageAnother person in her seventies
that I've that little and I havecounseled, worked with and she
just lives with bitterness andbrokenness.
She is one of the most angry,bitter, unhappy, unjoyful people
I know, and it all goes back toabuse and pain that was caused
to her when she was a littlegirl and a young lady, like from
(36:33):
the time she was maybe eight ornine years old, I think, up
until she was maybe a youngteenager, you know, 13, maybe
something like that, I don'tknow.
I don't know exactly.
I don't know the age window,but for several years there was
some severe abuse that occurred.
Know the age window, but forseveral years there was some
severe abuse that occurred.
And she carries the pain.
My heart breaks for her becausethat damages a person.
(36:55):
That trauma, that sexual trauma, that physical trauma, the
emotional, psychological traumaa person goes through when
they're hurt like that.
They carry it with them forlife, you know.
And so she's just an angry,hurt, bitter person.
And a study of these two women,I see that they both were
(37:17):
wronged, they both were hurt,they both were damaged, but one
of them lives with the joy ofthe Lord as her strength and
every time I see her she'ssmiling, she calls me, big guy,
and she comes over and gives mea hug and she loves little and
she loves our children and she'sthe sweetest sister in Christ
(37:37):
and she's enjoying the season ofher life that she's in because
of the joy she has in Christ.
And I'm convinced one of thethings that gives her that joy
is that she's free frombitterness Doesn't mean she
doesn't have to deal with it,fight it every day, contend with
it.
Her joy is hard fought joyevery day because of it, but she
(38:03):
lives with that joy.
The other woman that Imentioned not so she's angry.
Every time I see her there's ascowl on her face, there's a
bitterness in her heart thatjust comes through.
And so I've used those twostories to say and I still
haven't got to the one storythat I'm going to tell I think
(38:24):
I'm going to have to push it tothe next episode, part two.
This is taking way longer than Ithought it was going to take,
but that's okay.
I'm just driving and talking.
Hopefully you're still hangingwith me.
But I think we can all examineour hearts and see, man, I've
got some bitterness towardssomebody.
I'll just be honest with y'all.
Hopefully I'm always justhonest with y'all.
(38:45):
That's a figure of speech.
When I say that, I'm notimplying that I haven't been
honest with you, but I want toshare something here at the end
of this episode that's realvulnerable for me, and it is
that I fight and deal withbitterness.
I mean, I have to fight it allthe time towards my biological
father and towards his father,my grandfather, because of just
(39:09):
broken relationships in our home.
And I'm going to get real, rawand real here and share a
personal story of a strugglethat I have with bitterness.
And some of y'all might haveheard me reference this before,
but my biological grandfather onmy dad's side, I love him,
(39:31):
loved him.
He's been dead for 12 years now.
He died in 2013 and I loved him.
He was a godly man.
I believe he loved the Lord, butI believe he allowed bitterness
to creep into our family.
I believe he allowed bitternessto creep into our family, and
(39:57):
there are broken relationshipsthat can never be put right, can
never be reconciled, because ofhis patriarchal headship in our
family, his leadership and Iwould even say because of his
failure and shortcomings.
Now hear me out, because I'm'mgonna have family members that
listen to this.
I don't have a lot of familymembers that listen to NSR, but
I do have some, and I have onecousin and maybe some of his
(40:18):
kids that listen to this and Iwant them to hear my heart in
this.
I am not bitter towards mygrandfather.
I love him, loved him, lovedwhat he stood for.
He was a minister of the gospel.
He preached the gospel.
He was well known in WesternNorth Carolina as a faithful
preacher of the gospel of Jesus.
He pastored churches in themountains of North Carolina for
(40:41):
his whole life.
There's a lot of things Iadmire and respect about him,
but there was brokenrelationships in our family that
I believe he caused.
And what happened is mygrandmother died when I was a
young boy.
I was about 11 or 12 years oldI believe I was 12 years old and
she died.
And when he remarried there wasa lot of pain caused through
(41:07):
his second marriage and I'm notsaying who was right, who was
wrong, cause I was just a kid,but I know that that my, my
father and his sistersexperienced a lot of pain and
broken relationship over overthis, and so that hurts me to
(41:29):
know.
But then here's where it becamevery personal for me, when I
became a grown man and I beganto work in ministry full time
and I became a preacher and Istarted to preach and teach the
word of God and we started tolead ministry events and
Snowbird started to get footing.
(41:50):
He did not agree with the way wedid ministry and we had
conversation about this.
It was very brief and then heexpressed this to some other
people in the family that sharedit with me.
But he did not agree with theway we do ministry at Snowbird
he he disagreed with our styleof music.
(42:11):
He came from an old schoolbackground of mountain preachers
, sort of independent or notindependent but like
fundamentalist background, whereat church you should not use
secular quote unquote secularinstruments.
You should preach in a suit.
(42:36):
There's a certain order to theworship service, and so he did
not agree with the way that weled worship and sung songs and
the skits and humor that wemight use, things like that.
It was just a different opinionon how things ought to be done.
But he so disagreed with itthat he never heard me preach
except one time and that waswhen my father died my father's
(43:01):
father, this man that I'mtalking about.
He came to the funeral andthat's the only time he ever
heard me preach and he voiced anoffense at the way I preached
my father's funeral.
I preached Romans 8, 28, 29, and30, that all things work
together for good, and I talkedabout in that passage the Bible
(43:23):
says that God's plan and purposefor us, in saving us, is to
conform us to the image ofChrist.
And I said you know my earthlyfather for all of his struggles
that's a different conversationthat I've shared here before For
all of his struggles.
In the end of his life hedesired to be conformed to the
image of Christ and in hisfuneral message I said that he's
(43:47):
now conformed to the image ofChrist.
But in that conversation, inthat message, I used the word
but I said something about mydad whipping my butt one time
when I was a kid and mygrandfather got offended because
I used the word butt, b-u-t-tin a sermon and he didn't like
that.
And I thought, man, what a sadthing that here we're trying to
(44:10):
honor, you know, a man who'sdied, my father, and this man's
son, my grandfather's son, andall he took away was he's
offended.
That I said, but and, man,there was friction between us,
there was beef between us that Inever understood.
I just didn't understand it and, to be honest, to this day I
don't.
(44:30):
And I'll run into people whowill say you're a granddad, oh,
you're so-and-so's grandson andman.
He was a godly man, he was thegreatest preacher, he was a
great influence in my life andpeople will talk about him with
admiration and reverence andI've gotten to a point in my
(44:53):
life where that doesn't offendme.
I'm thankful God used him.
But Snowbird was 16, let's see,16 years old when he died.
Now, the last few years of hislife he had dementia and so I
would say for the first about 13years of Snowbird's ministry he
(45:16):
was especially the first 10years he was still speaking some
and he had retired frompastoring but he was still doing
ministry in differentcapacities and he never came and
heard me preach, he neversupported us in any way, he
never gave any sort of credenceor credibility to our ministry
(45:37):
and, to the contrary, he onlysaid condescending or negative
things.
And I preached one time at.
I preached two, three times,three times at events within
five miles of his house here inWestern North Carolina.
I lived about 70 miles from him, so Snowbird's campus was about
70 miles away and I lived about70 miles from him.
(46:02):
But I preached at an event inHaywood County, north Carolina,
three separate occasions.
Two of those were at LakeJunaluska Assembly, which is a
big camp and conference centerowned by the Methodist
denomination, and at one ofthose there was about 2,000
people there and he didn't cometo it.
(46:23):
And another time and this isthe one I really don't
understand I spoke.
There was the Haywood CountyAssociation of Churches put on
an annual event and at thisparticular event I spoke on one
of the nights.
It was a I think it was a threenight event and they did it at
(46:46):
the at the Ag Center Was that?
It was kind of?
It was not an outdoor event,but it was at the Ag Center,
somewhere they do rodeos andcattle sales and stuff like that
cattle shows.
It was there in that arena andI preached and he didn't come
and there was a lot of otherpreachers there, pastors from
his association didn't come.
He didn't come hear me.
(47:07):
And then the last thing and I'mnot—please hear me y'all, I'll
get around to the positive inall this.
I'm not bitter or angry, I'mnot whining, complaining, I'm
not playing the victim, I just.
I want to make a point here.
The other thing was.
This is the one that I haveresentment that I have to battle
and I really have to fight for.
(47:28):
After my dad died, my brother,who I love so much and who I'm
so close with he got married andmy dad was dead when my brother
got married and my brother'smarriage took place at Snowbird.
We got him married up, we gothim hitched up to his awesome
(47:48):
wife and they're doing great.
And now you know, and they'redoing great.
And now you know, almost 20years later, they've been
married 18 years and the Lordhas blessed them and they're
faithful people.
They love Jesus, they serve theLord with like all of us, you
know they're not perfect servethe Lord to the best of their
(48:09):
ability.
They're faithful to their sonsand raising them in the nurture
and admonition of the Lord.
They fight for their marriage.
And man, it's just an honor toknow my brother and his wife and
when they got married, mygrandfather did not come to that
wedding ceremony.
Now I would add me and mybrother are the only two
(48:31):
namesakes in his family.
So my grandfather had one son.
That was my dad, who had twosons, that's me and my brother.
My grandfather had threedaughters, so my dad's three
sisters and they all had sonswho were just as much grandsons
to to that man as I am.
(48:53):
But the point I'm making is meand my brother are the only ones
that have his last name.
You know, we're Holloways, andhe did not come to my brother's
wedding.
Just a few miles down the roadNow, my maternal grandfather was
there, and that's a differentconversation.
I'm going to do an episode whereI tell his story sometime,
because it's the opposite.
(49:13):
He was not a Christ follower.
My whole life my mama prayedfor him and we got to see him
turn to the Lord late in lifeand begin to follow Jesus.
But this granddad, my paternalgrandfather, didn't come to my
brother's wedding and y'all, I'mgonna tell you I have struggled
with bitterness and resentmentover that, because I love my
(49:34):
brother so much.
And isn't that how it works?
You can endure offense or pain,or you know people can talk
ugly about me.
It don't bother me.
But if somebody says somethingugly about somebody I love or
care about, daggum, that firesme up, you know you get fighting
mad, and so it hurt me for mybrother.
So anyway, that's a long storyI just told, but I'm telling it
(49:58):
all to say I love my grandfather.
I can genuinely say I don'thold offense or grudge against
him.
He's gone to be with the Lord.
And I want to focus on thethings he did well, because I'll
tell you this about him he wassomebody who would witness and
share the gospel with anybody.
(50:18):
He didn't go anywhere that hedidn't share the gospel.
And when he preached he wasn'tan expositor, he was kind of the
old school form of mountainpreachers is that they get up
and kind of give three pointsand just preach topical sermons,
you know.
But he was faithful, he wasn'tunfaithful to the scripture, he
(50:44):
preached it faithfully.
And so I wrestle with that, andhere's what I've chosen to do I
forgive him and then Irecognize that there's some
things that he would need toforgive me for if he was here.
And I refuse to live inbitterness over that
relationship, but I know that Ihave aunts and cousins that were
(51:10):
hurt by him and I know that oneday the Lord will reconcile
those relationships when we'rewith the Lord.
And so let me wrap this episodeup.
Here's how I want to wrap it up.
Okay, so, if you're still withme because I sure feel like I've
rambled If you're still with me, let me.
I can wrap all of this up.
(51:30):
This is interesting, by the way.
I'm driving past the exit wheremy granddad lived, but I
haven't been to his.
You know, it's been a long time.
But I'm driving past that exitright now, which is also the
exit where I preached at thosethree events at those two
different venues.
I'm driving past the LakeJunaluska exit right now.
(51:53):
So that's wild.
But anyway, if you're stillwith me I hope you are I can
wrap all of this up really,really, really quickly and I
think I can put it into aconcise summary that'll make it
all make sense.
You can experiencereconciliation to God when
(52:17):
fellowship is broken withanother believer that leads to
your bitterness or resentment,where you don't have the right
heart or attitude before theLord.
You can make things right withGod, even if you can't make
things right with that otherperson.
So someone who's died and goneon that did you wrong and you
can't reconcile thatrelationship.
(52:38):
You can give that to the handsof the Lord and refuse to live
with bitterness or resentmentand you can be reconciled to God
.
You can be reconciled toanother person if you're both
willing to work towards thatreconciliation.
I forgive you, you forgive me.
Let's live at peace, let's putthis behind us, let's move
(52:59):
forward.
And some of you listening tothis episode might need to go
have a conversation withsomebody.
It's time to reconcile thatbroken relationship.
There might be a dad or agranddad you need to go
apologize for the way youwronged your son or daughter
when you should have been anexample to them.
There might be a lady who islistening to this that needs to
(53:22):
go to her husband and say, hey,I'm sorry, I've wronged you, my
attitude's been wrong.
There might be a man that'slistening to this that needs to
go to his wife and say, hey,I've not been caring and loving
and kind, I'm sorry.
There might be friendships thatare broken.
There might be someone in yourchurch and you're worshiping
(53:44):
together on a Sunday and youneed to make this thing right.
Work towards reconciliation.
The Bible says we are ministersof reconciliation.
The Bible says we are ministersof reconciliation, and so, in
order for people to bereconciled to God, there is a
need for both of us to bewilling to sit down at the table
(54:04):
and have conversations thatlead to that reconciliation.
But you can forgive somebodyeven if they don't seek it.
And then here's the other thing.
You can ask for forgiveness.
You can confess your sin tosomeone else, you can repent,
you can apologize, and they maychoose to hold a grudge and not
(54:27):
forgive you, but that ain't onyou, that's between them and the
Lord, and you can be reconciledto God by confessing that you
can live in freedom even thoughthat person holds a grudge
against you.
I know for a fact of a fewpeople that are holding grudges
against me that I wish we couldreconcile it and I've asked for
(54:51):
forgiveness.
And I know some people that areholding grudges against me and
I'm not willing to ask forforgiveness because to do so let
me think how to say this.
They're holding somethingagainst me that I believe.
For me to ask for forgivenesswould be to admit to something
(55:13):
that I believe the Lord would.
I believe I've acted in a waythat is in alignment with the
leadership of the Holy Spiritand there's not an admission of
wrongdoing that I need to makebecause I need to be.
I need to live with convictionover that decision.
If that makes sense.
(55:33):
I hope that makes sense.
I'm speaking a little bitcryptically there, but there may
be a time where someone wantsyou to apologize.
And to apologize would be toadmit that something is wrong.
That is not wrong and you don'tneed to do that but as much as
it is possible to live at peacewith people and there's other
people that I've askedforgiveness of and they can't
(55:56):
extend it, they're too bitter orwhatever that might be.
So reconciliation is theministry of every believer.
We need to strive towards itand know that we can be
reconciled to God, and sometimesit's difficult to be reconciled
to another believer.
In the next episode I'll getinto grace extended, even though
the consequences of our actionsmight linger and that there
(56:19):
might be something where youhave to live in your life for a
long period of time in brokenfellowship with somebody because
you have what someone mightcall irreconcilable differences.
We can't get past this.
I love the Lord, this otherperson loves the Lord.
We still don't know how to moveforward and I share situations
(56:40):
like that, but in this episode Ihope that it sheds some light
on how you can be a person wholives with confession and
repentance.
You can be a person who extendsgrace and forgiveness, and we
can all strive to be people wholive at reconciliation with and
forgiveness, and we can allstrive to be people who live at
reconciliation with the Lord.
And this is all just real freshto me right now because there's
a relationship in my life whereI don't know how to move forward
(57:04):
.
There's actually a fewrelationships in my life.
I don't know how to moveforward and seek reconciliation.
I don't know what that lookslike.
I've tried and I've tried toextend the olive branch and it's
not been received.
And that's hard man.
It's hard and I know that partof why it's not been received is
(57:24):
because I've caused hurt tothis person.
And how do I seek forgivenessfrom someone who feels like I've
hurt you?
It's tough man.
So some of you might be in asituation like that where it's
not as simple as just say I'msorry and then say I forgive you
and let's move on.
Sometimes it's more complicatedthan that, so we'll get into
(57:44):
that in the next episode.
That might be helpful forsomeone who's dealing with
conflict.
That man, how do you moveforward and you're having a hard
time moving forward?
And we'll get into some morestories.
That's where I'll get into acouple of pretty hard, intense
stories that are heavy.
But in the meantime let's bepeople who have ministries of
(58:06):
reconciliation, who strive toshow grace and have the mind and
attitude and heart of Christtowards others, do the best we
can.
Hope you're still with me aftermy rambling driving down the
road for almost an hour here.
I hope it's been beneficial andhelpful and we'll see you on
the next episode of no SanityRequired.
Speaker 2 (58:26):
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