Michael Todd- The DIG Forgive yoU

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:21):
TC Nation. We just finished having a mini dance party.
Brie was over there getting it with our pre music. Okay,
come on, welcome to the dig man. We're so glad
that you guys are with us. I saw a few
of you all come in just a little bit earlier.
I saw some people from Chicago, UK is in the building.
Come on, I think Sasha from UK. Yes, sir, she

(00:42):
is in the building. So we're glad to have you
with us. This is a dig where we go deeper
in God. And this is actually Fu's study hall Forgiveness,
university study hall. This is the midterms. Listen, if we
haven't had an opportunity to meet. My name is Julia,
and I'm so honored to the vision here at Transformation
Church where we are representing God to the lost and

(01:04):
found for transformation in Christ.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Listen.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
If this is your first time with us, you are
a VIP, go ahead, drop a one in the chat.
Make sure that you text a number that you see
on the screen. We want to connect with you. Get
some resources into your hands. Let you know how we represent.
Maybe it's a way that you'll know if new merch
pops out. I don't know, but just make sure that
you text that number. But listen, we believe that God

(01:27):
has a plan for you. Sunday was amazing, and today
we are going to go deeper in that. But on
behalf of our pastors Michael and Natalie Todd. We're so
honored that you decided to say, Hey, I'm gonna spend
my Wednesday night with a few of these people. And
so we're glad that you're with us. But listen, before
we get going, I want to encourage you to invite
some people to come. Like if you were here, first

(01:48):
of all, if you came on Sunday, you already know
it's about to be crazy tonight. Okay, because Sunday, like
Pastor Mike, he was in his bag for real. And
so I want to encourage you. We've got a culture
code of invitation, and that means transformation starts with invitation.
There's some people in your lives that need to be
a part of this. There's some people that got a

(02:08):
chance to watch the rebroadcast, but now they're asking you questions.
Tell them to hop on over to YouTube, Instagram, join
us right here. All you got to do is share
the links. So I want to encourage you to do that.
And then if you are watching with the crew, some friends,
some family, all of it. If it's more than four people,
we want to know text and number that you see
on the screen TC party to eight two eight two

(02:28):
eight two sound like an infomercial, but we want you
to do that. Okay, but listen the dig. If you're
asking yourself you're here for the first time, you're like,
what the heck is the dig? Listen, this is We're
gonna have authentic, transparent conversation, and let me tell you,
it's about to get real real. So here's what I
need you to do. Go grab your notes from Sunday
or Tuesday, whatever day you watch the message, go grab

(02:50):
your notes right now. I'm not asking you to start
a new note, grab the old notes, because all we're
doing is we're taking different points that Pastor Michael brought
out and we're giving to coal handles to that. We're
gonna share our story and hopes that you would be
able to connect with us and really apply God's word
in real life, like to your real culture, like putting

(03:10):
Christ in the middle of your culture. And so I
want to encourage you to do that. Listen, I've got
some amazing guests around me, and I'm gonna have them
introduce themselves, but we want to get to know you too.
So the question that I have for the table as
well as for you is what is the most embarrassing
thing You've ever done? Are the most embarrassing moment? So

(03:30):
I'm gonna start with Devin, I.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
Think, all right, Well, like pastor Julia said, my name
is Devin, and the most embarrassing thing that I've ever done.

Speaker 4 (03:38):
You know, I was trying to.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
Spice it up for my husband, spicy, doing what married
people do, are you should? And you know, I was
feeling confident in myself and I was wearing like six
inch to lettle heels, actually my pageant heels, which you
are out there and you've done pageants, you know those
hills are high. And so I went for a move
that I hadn't rehearsed and I fell and literally fell
into our TV. Okay, and then my heel snapped. I

(04:02):
broke the heels. I'm not too shot about because those
were like my favorite heels. And then I fell on
the ground and I literally sprained my ankle and was
limping for like two weeks straight. So you know, make
sure you practice.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
I don't play no game.

Speaker 5 (04:16):
Well mine's not as embarrassing as that. But my name
is Grayson, and I think the most embarrassing thing I
did it was it was when I was a child.
My parents, like good parents, took me to Disney World
and I I, uh, I had to go to the bathroom,
and I kept telling my mom, but she wasn't. She
wasn't quite paying attention to me. So I was like, Okay,

(04:37):
I'm five, I'm I do what I want. So I
just whipped it out right there and Cinderella, you know,
she was doing her little pageant wave and she saw
me and she said, and there and there I was,
there was, there was me, Pete. That wasn't embarrassing for me.
The most embarrassing part was getting the whoop it that
that's what?

Speaker 2 (04:58):
That's what?

Speaker 1 (04:59):
Screen did you screw as you were getting like the
you know sometimes people get the holy ghosts when they
get what.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
It's a dance movie.

Speaker 5 (05:05):
It's the Yeah, I felt all the spirit in those
last years. I mean, whoopins yeah.

Speaker 6 (05:12):
Oh my gosh, okay, Hi, my name is Bree, and
I want to say hell. One of my most embarrassing
moments was the one year that I was on the
basketball team at in middle school.

Speaker 7 (05:25):
And.

Speaker 6 (05:28):
It was one year in my entire life, and I
was table okay, terrible, and I went for the shot.
I missed a shot, and then like the referee called something,
and I didn't know what he called because all I
know is travel and I didn't know he did something else.

Speaker 4 (05:45):
And so that's all I knew.

Speaker 6 (05:47):
So he called something, and then I saw everybody like
lining up at like the free throw line, like someone needed.
Someone just got fouled and it was time to line
up for a free throw shot. So I started lining
up on the line and it was like.

Speaker 4 (05:57):
It's you. You got fouled, You got to do the
free throw.

Speaker 6 (06:00):
And I was mortified and I knew at that instant
this is not for you.

Speaker 4 (06:06):
Did you make the free throw though? No, no, no, no, no,
no no. I didn't make one side all year.

Speaker 8 (06:14):
Well, hi, everybody, my name is Chad, and I've been
racking my brain trying to think of something different than
what I'm going to share with you for my most
embarrassing moment. But it was fifth grade and it was
we were in class and it was one of those
I think it was a Friday.

Speaker 9 (06:27):
It was a relaxed day.

Speaker 8 (06:28):
Work was done, and it was kind of a show
and teale, But it wasn't a show and tale of things.
It was kind of a show and teale about special
talents that you had. So I remember we had the
guy in class that was double jointed, that could do
the little double jointed things with his fingers, and somebody
that could whistle a certain way.

Speaker 9 (06:45):
Well, I had a special skill.

Speaker 8 (06:48):
And this is probably going to tell my age, but
if you grew up in the late seventies and early eighties,
there was a show on Friday Night called The Incredible Hulk.

Speaker 9 (06:57):
Now it's not this what you see in the movie.
This was the real Incredible Hulk.

Speaker 8 (07:01):
Yeah, Lou Forigno, and my special skill is I could
do the Incredible Hulk. I knew how to do the
flexing move and make the veins pop out of my neck.

Speaker 9 (07:11):
I mean it was pretty impressive.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
You were one of those kids.

Speaker 10 (07:14):
To get to the rest of the store.

Speaker 9 (07:15):
You don't know why I'm not going to do that.

Speaker 8 (07:17):
So I got in front of the class and I
did my Lou Forigno Hulk move, guys, and I strained.
I had the veins popping out of my neck and
I farted and it was not a quiet one.

Speaker 9 (07:27):
It was allowed when in front of the whole class.

Speaker 4 (07:30):
We no longer want you to do it at all.

Speaker 9 (07:33):
Yeah, that's why I'm not. So that's my most embarrassing moment.

Speaker 10 (07:36):
I love it. I love it. Well, Hello everyone. My
name is de Mario. And uh, my most embarrassing moment
was when I talked dirty to my mother in law.
Now this was not on pause, this was on accident.
Let me explain, uh, to what Devin said. You know,
married people do what married people do, right, and so

(07:56):
we did what we do. And I was texting my
wife just to talk to her about that and had
some very colorful commentary. You know, I had some colorful
commentary to say. And an hour went by, like two hours,
and by I'm like, man, shit, she didn't respond. So
I look at my phone and no response. But probably
late that day, I get a text from my mother

(08:17):
in law and since she says interesting and she says son,
she says son is love making. So yeah, yeah, that
was pretty embarrassing to get that response from my mom
and that I.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
Was embarrassed too, like at this point, So my most
embarrassing moment So I played softball growing up, and so
there's one of these days I'm running late for practice.
So you know, your mom drops you off. I get
out the car, glab my glove, and I take off
sprinting to go to the field. And it's like, you
got to go through some trees and all of this

(08:48):
good stuff. So I take off running and the next
thing I know, I land flat on my back. I
had ran into a chain that was connected from one
tree to the other tree. And yeah, so clearly the
whole teams me. Uh, I mean, just you know, get
yourself back up, just off, you know, and keep going. Second,
because I was thrown off. Thrown off, it was like

(09:12):
all of a sudden, I saw God. I didn't know
what happened, like literally, you know, and catch my breath.
But anyway, listen, Uh, you guys had some crazy, amazing
things to say about this message from this past Sunday
forgive you, and so we just want to read a
couple of those reactions we had. Shamir Smith, she said,
this feels like a mid term. Yes it was, and

(09:35):
yes it is. Sometimes midterms are more difficult than than
final exams. I have to forgive myself for so much.
The hardest part and that is truth. And then we
have Punisha Martin who said, this sermon series is a
tran it's transformation in itself, learning to let go so

(09:55):
God can finally come in and begin to heal my wounds.
Thank you, pastor Mike since student of hashtag fu I
love that. And Brandy you said this was so awesome.
I needed this so bad. This message has been revealing
so many truths to me. Forgiveness has been heavy on
my heart, but it's really hard for me. But I
now believe that my heart is beginning to change because

(10:18):
of these messages. And listen that that is our why,
it is the vision, It's transformation in Christ, and even
the dig this is transformation in Christ. Like we're gonna
go hot. We've got a culture code of humble, open
and transparent, and so I'm gonna ask you right now, like,
get humble, because all of us have already done that,
But get humble, be open with yourself, be transparent with yourself,

(10:41):
and get ready because God really wants to set so
many of us free.

Speaker 10 (10:44):
Come on, come on, Yeah, talking about this week, Week
five of our f You series Forgive You. I love
this week because it kind of took a turn.

Speaker 7 (10:52):
You know.

Speaker 10 (10:52):
Pastor Michael said, you know, weeks one through four he
wouldn't ask us to ask us to forgive anybody, but
this week he did ask us to forgive our person,
and that's ourselves. You know. I love how he even
talked about, you know that we're the last person that
we usually think about for forgiving, you know, like I
forgive my mom, I forgive my dad, I forgive Da
Da da da. But but but we don't, we don't
take the time to forgive ourselves, you know, forgive ourselves

(11:15):
for the fact that maybe we were the one that
sent the text message, the fact that we were at
that place that we shouldn't have been, the fact that
maybe we were driving the car when the accident happened.
Whatever it is, like, these are things that we we
we hold in ourselves and we silently just allow the
enemy to kind of beat us up with that stuff.
You know. One thing that Pastor Michael said is that
selfish forgiveness is the first step to self less forgiveness.

(11:39):
And I love even how he said that many times
we we uh it says, what does a man? What
does a man gain if he gains this whole world,
but loses his own soul, his own mind, will emotions,
you know, your your own mental sanity, and that kind
of thing. And so I love what he said was
that God never intended you to forgive them, but forget you.
And and the reality is that no forgiveness is the

(12:01):
key that unlocks us. So in this first clip, pastor
Mike talks about that. So let's go ahead and check
this one out.

Speaker 7 (12:07):
God doesn't want you to forgive everybody else and forget you.
Don't forgive everybody else and forget you. That's why forgiveness
is your key. Somebody say, forgiveness.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
Is the key.

Speaker 10 (12:20):
Say it again, forgiveness.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
Is the key.

Speaker 7 (12:23):
Let me give them an actual example. See what forgiveness does.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
Is it locks you up.

Speaker 7 (12:29):
It puts me in the change. I don't want a second.
Let me wipe my thad. Okay, it puts me in
a change. Go ahead, now, ouch, why you put me
in like that? See the thing about this right now
is I can get an instruction lift your hands.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
And raise and praise God. Yeah, I'm going to a limit.

Speaker 10 (12:53):
Ty your shoe.

Speaker 7 (12:55):
Okay, like basic things.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
I'm chained.

Speaker 7 (13:02):
But the crazy thing about forgiving you is it doesn't
take anybody else to do this work.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
It takes you because you have the key.

Speaker 10 (13:11):
Come on, come on. So forgiveness is the key, But
unforgiveness is what keeps us chained up. Uh Man Transformation Nation.
We're gonna we're gonna talk about this real quick. But
here's our first question for the night. What unforgiveness against
yourself has you chained up? And so we're gonna start
off Devon, go ahead and kick us off with that.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
So for me, it was not forgiving myself for not
being a virgin when I got married, And I realized
this past weekend that it has been keeping me chained
in my marriage.

Speaker 4 (13:39):
You know, I've always.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
Wondered, like, why do I sometimes struggle like emotionally when
in my sex life with my marriage, And I thought
that it was because of like I was experiencing the
consequences for having sex outside of marriage. Like I was like, well,
this is one of those consequences, Like I'm gonna struggle
emotionally when I have to push past that. And this
weekend I realized that it wasn't like it wasn't that
Brendan hadn't forgiven me husband It wasn't that God hadn't

(14:01):
forgiven me. Because I'd repented to God, He'd cleansed me.
I was a new creation in him. He purified me
for my marriage. But it was because I hadn't forgiven
myself for not being a virgin when I got married.
It was because I hadn't forgiven myself for not being
able to give my husband what he was able to
give me. And so I realized that I'm holding the key.
It's not that God hasn't forgiven me. It's not that

(14:22):
my husband hasn't forgiven me. I've been chained because I'm
the one who has the key that can actually unlock
those chains so I can experience the fullness of marriage.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
Wow, Chad, you were talking to us even about your
personal journey and trying to figure out, Hey, what are
these chains that are holding me.

Speaker 8 (14:44):
Mister Joels. For me, it was the it was unforgiveness
for myself for divorce. Thirteen years ago, I went through
a divorce. I grew up a pastor's son, went to
a Christian university, knew all of the right things to do.

Speaker 9 (15:00):
But the regrets that I have.

Speaker 8 (15:03):
With letting a divorce happen in my life and the
people that it affected. It's something that I needed to
forgive myself for and I like to just share a
little bit about my story with that. I did what
a lot of guys do. A lot of people do
when they go through something like a divorce. They try
to get comfort. They try to fill that void with
another relationship. And that's what I did. And I did

(15:25):
that and went for about two years, and that relationship
did not work out. So I found myself in my
little apartment one night. I woke up just sobbing, crying
out to God. It wasn't a religious prayer, it was
just God help me. And I did not know this
scripture at the time, but I know it now and
I claim it is my word. It's ps I'm thirty

(15:46):
four eighteen, and it says the Lord is close to
the broken hearted.

Speaker 9 (15:50):
He rescues those whose spirits are crushed.

Speaker 8 (15:53):
And so in that little apartment, I had a shotgun
in my closet.

Speaker 9 (15:56):
I was having all these thoughts here I am divorced.

Speaker 8 (15:59):
This relation ship that I was putting all my hopes
in has not worked out the way I wanted it
to work out. I don't know my kids, the way
I need to know my kids. I've not been pleasing
to God. So went to sleep, pride myself to sleep
that night. A few days later, I run into an
old friend at the gym, and this friend did three

(16:19):
things for me.

Speaker 9 (16:21):
This friend was an answer to prayer.

Speaker 8 (16:23):
This friend first of all gave me a card and
invited me to church, a WIN invitation.

Speaker 9 (16:28):
And a W invitation.

Speaker 8 (16:31):
Then he took me out to breakfast and just heard
my story, did not judge me, just listen to my story.

Speaker 9 (16:36):
And then that person invited me to a small group.

Speaker 8 (16:39):
So here's a little bit of plug for our b
groups that are going to launch in early twenty twenty.

Speaker 9 (16:44):
We're excited about it, Liz.

Speaker 8 (16:45):
But I want to just tell you, and what's amazing
even me being here tonight. This was eleven years ago
this month that someone invited me to a community of
people that I could that I could get healing opportunities
for me to share my story with other people. God
began to give me a vision and a passion for
other men that were going through a divorce that we're
going through the same type of thing. So here I

(17:07):
am at one point, this lost isolated man, and here
I am now where God has used is used my
pain to help other people. So being able to forgive
myself for that and just seeing how God can restore
relationships is a beautiful thing. So I just want to
speak to anyone who's watching tonight that you've gone through
a divorce and you may feel like it's hopeless. It's

(17:30):
not too late for you. God has a perfect plan
for your life to turn your story.

Speaker 9 (17:36):
For his glory.

Speaker 8 (17:37):
That sounds a little cliche, but it's not. He can
use your story for his glory. He can restore those
things that have been lost, that have been stolen. So
I just want to encourage you tonight with that.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
Come on, Chad, listen. One thing I just want to
pull out. There's something that you said in the midst
of everything that was going on. You didn't have some
pretty words to say, it was help yes. And that
scripture that you talked about. I know you said you
didn't know that scripture before, but it's become your anchor.
Like God is near to the broken hearted, and so

(18:07):
if you're feeling lost, you're feeling broken, you're feeling like
you're at your wits end, you only have to say
a word to Jesus and know that he's right where
you're at. Like I think about that moment where you
talked about a shotgun and you're here with us today
because He was near you and you didn't have to
say it any kind of fancy way. And so I
just want to encourage you. If you're in a room

(18:29):
where you're at work and you're feeling you're connecting with
this story, I want you to know that God is near.
He's right where you're at. He's connecting right with you,
and he wants to kill your heart. All you have
to do is let it down. All you have to
do is cry out to him the same way that
Chad cried out to Jesus on that night.

Speaker 6 (18:47):
It's so beautiful. This message has just shook me, y'all.
I mean, I genuinely believe that. I feel like it's
one of my top five favorite messages now at this
point from Pastor Mike because it was just so good.
I genuinely believe that outside of our relationship with God,
the most important relationship we can have as a relationship
with ourselves. And for him to start off the sermon

(19:08):
series just talking about how we need to forgive ourselves
it's so important because if we don't give it to ourselves,
we can't give it to anybody else. And the funny
thing is, even even going into the weekend and having
I kind of knew that that's what the sermon was
going to be about.

Speaker 4 (19:21):
We had talked about it before.

Speaker 6 (19:22):
I really thought, man, this is going to help so
many people, but didn't necessarily know how much it was
going to apply to me when the message came forth.
And so this week, I just feel like some of
the unforgiveness that God has just been pointing out in
my life that just over the past couple of days,
I feel like number one, like just being a one
on the enneagram.

Speaker 4 (19:41):
I have this inner critic and I call.

Speaker 6 (19:43):
Her Corella Deville, who lives inside my head, and she's
always telling me what I can do better, like you
could do this better, you could have did that better,
whatever the case may be. And there's been several times
just in the past few days, I've said out loud
to myself.

Speaker 4 (19:55):
Forgive yourself, forgive yourself, Like, no, you didn't say that right.
Maybe you could have worded that a little bit different.

Speaker 6 (20:01):
Maybe that meeting didn't go as well as you thought
it was gonna go whatever the case may be, and
I've had to say out loud to myself, forgive yourself
so I can let it go and continue moving on.
The Other thing that I feel like God has just
really been putting his finger on in my life is
even just my childhood and the hometown that I was
raised in. I moved to Tulsa thirteen years ago, so

(20:23):
well around the same time you was having a life change,
I was having.

Speaker 4 (20:26):
A life change.

Speaker 6 (20:27):
But thirteen years ago I moved here for college, and
I didn't do a great job of keeping in touch
with my loved ones back home, and still to this day,
I'm really not great at it. And one of the
things that I really feel like God's been pointing out
to me, which sometimes it even makes it a struggle
for me to go back home because I feel so
bad that I didn't keep in touch with everybody, is

(20:47):
I have to forgive myself from not making the space
to keep in touch with my loved ones. I started working,
got friends, got a whole new life in Tulsa, and
just busied myself so much that it was very difficult
for me to keep in touch with everybody else, and
still had this life that I've created in Tulsa, and
so that's something that I feel like, you know, I
was invited home for an event a couple of weeks ago,

(21:08):
and I was like, I don't want to go, and
it was just this thing in me and I literally
told the person who invited me, no, I can't come.
But after evaluating it and even after this Sunday, realizing
like there is something deeper in there that I have
to forgive myself from the shame of feeling like I
haven't been this you know, perfect family member to everybody
you know, and so that has I mean, God has

(21:29):
definitely been dealing with me over it. This is very
tender and very new since Sunday, like he's been dealing
with me that with that significantly, that's.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
So good for me.

Speaker 5 (21:39):
I would say, I need to forgive myself for disqualifying
myself out of situations of where God had wanted to
take me. I'm a three on the Enneagram, so I'm
all about promotion and like leveling up and like getting
to the next tier. Yeah, actually I wrote that song.
I'm still waiting on my check Sierra. But I start

(22:00):
to beat myself up because I'm like God wanted you
to be here, and because of one mistake that I
made in a moment, I harp on that and I'm like,
I could be here, but now I have to start
in this season. So I start comparing myself to the
people who might be who might have started the season
with me and are progressing further than me, and so
I start to take out my frustration out on them,
and so in turn, what I don't forgive myself for

(22:22):
I start to put on other people, and so I
don't ever get the full healing from that. Instead of
being like, Okay, God, I'm just I'm gonna just start
right here and serving this season and continue forward, I
start to hold those things like, well, now you look,
you could be here, like always thinking like that next
step was like oh you took a step, but you
could be three steps ahead.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
But I think I just need to forgive myself for.

Speaker 5 (22:43):
Like, Okay, you messed up, you did something wrong, but
now we're here and we have to continue to go forward.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
Man, for me, I would say that it was or
is even now is just forgiving myself of words that
I've spoken over myself. And so probably one story that
I can think of how it hindered me. It was
several years ago where I was. I had been on
the praise and worship team, and then we had a

(23:10):
new worship leader come in and so now it's time
to you know, re up, you know, re audition and everything.
And so I auditioned and then I didn't make it,
and I started I beat myself up so much, you know.
I mean, I had been singing all my life all
these different things, and I didn't understand why I hadn't
made it. But I started to create all of these

(23:30):
different stories, like you're not good enough, and then I'm
walking in shame, or they're disappointed in you, you missed
the mark, You're a failure, all of these different things.
And what that ended up creating for me was that
I could no longer worship in my own church, like
I remember, from being in the front and worshiping when
I wasn't on stage or whatever, going to the back

(23:51):
of the church and worshiping, you know. And so it
had me so locked up, even to where I couldn't
talk to Bishop. I didn't want to talk to pastor
Debbie because I'm creating all that these stories of how
everybody else saw me the way that I saw myself
as a failure, is not being good enough, not being anointed,
or whatever else the different thoughts that came up, and
so that had me locked up. I don't even remember

(24:12):
how long, and we were married at the time, but
it almost spun me into depression in that season.

Speaker 10 (24:19):
You know, Wow, that's good, that's good. Yeah for me.
I think about my battle with pornography. You know, I
feel like, and I know that there was a time
in college where I knew the word, I knew all
the different things that I needed in order to overcome pornography.
But I feel like I didn't. I didn't capitalize and
take advantage of that moment. I didn't put in the work.

(24:40):
I didn't put in the time to really get free.
And you know, I think part of the regret is
that that then spilled into my marriage. It's spilled into
airs that I said, Hey, I'll never deal with this
in marriage, and yet here here I was dealing with it.
And so I think in a lot of ways, you know,
it hindered my confidence, you know, even in the ministry.

(25:01):
You know, in some ways, I feel like, man, I
started the ministry a little bit later because of that,
you know, the Bible talks about how if if it
says that if we don't, if our heart condemns us,
then we don't have confidence towards God. And you know,
that confidence was it was a big thing that that
I felt like was chained up because I couldn't I
just couldn't forgive myself. I couldn't get past the fact that, Man,

(25:22):
why did I overcome this earlier? You know what, Now
I'm delayed in life, you know, I'm not. I'm not
as far as I want to be because I didn't
deal with this when I should have. And so, yeah,
that that pornography and that that lack of confidence that
came as a result of not overcoming it earlier was
the big thing that got me.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
I think what's important even to what you said. And
Pastor Michael said this a few weeks back, but was
the time like it's like giving ourselves time, you know
what I mean? So so many times we're trying to
rush past whatever we're dealing with, but we won't spend
the time. And Bri, you said this this past week
in our staff meeting. And with stillness, like being able

(26:02):
to get still before the Lord so that we can
see what's in our hearts, see what's going, See how
we're chained up. It requires us getting still. And so
just even what you were saying there is it's time.
How much time are we willing to put in to
even forgive ourselves?

Speaker 9 (26:20):
That's good. I just thought of a scripture.

Speaker 8 (26:23):
I'm not a Bible scholar, but there's a few scriptures
that I've learned, and this is one that I memorize
and I just feel like to share because it ties
in with what you're saying. Hebrews chapter four, verses fifteen
and sixteen says, for we do not have a high
priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who's
been tempted in all things as we are yet without seining.

Speaker 9 (26:42):
Let us therefore draw near.

Speaker 8 (26:43):
With confidence to the throne of Grace, that we can
receive grace and mercy in our time of need. And
a lot of times when we mess up, we just
it's like we want to beat ourselves on the back
and we feel like we got to punish ourselves. And
God saying, hey, come to me with confidence for mercy
and grace, and that's our heavenly father, that we can
do that with that's good.

Speaker 10 (27:02):
That's good. Well, you know, in the message Passion Michael,
you know obviously we're talking about forgive you, forgive yourself,
and Pastion Michael did such an excellent job giving us
the acronym forgive you or forgive and show the different
steps that we can take to actually forgive ourselves. And
so I want to we want to step through those
really quick. The first one is that it is face
you f for face you basically become aware of the

(27:25):
areas in your life where you have not forgiven yourself.
The second one was the oh which was owned. You
take responsibility for the part that you played, even if
it was even if it was one percent, and you
know ninety nine percent was played by somebody else. We
take ownership for the one part that we played. The
r was remind you. I love how he said that
what you did is not who you are and we

(27:45):
need to be reminded of that through the Word of God,
through friends, through the people that are in our lives.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah, and then he said g was for grieve you
grieve what you thought was going to happen, Grieve your expectations.
And I love the fact that he said that grieve
your expectations. So many times we set the expectation it
may not be a God thing, but now we're beating
ourselves up. And then I insulate you, you need to
entrust somebody else with you, you know, And so I

(28:10):
thought that was super powerful. And then value you. You're
worth it, man, such a powerful moment. Like so many
times we don't think we're worth it, but really, he
just said you're worth it. And then he embrace you,
give yourself the space to forgive you now. And be honest,
we're not gonna get through all of those tonight. That's

(28:32):
a lot, but this is study hall, and so we
are gonna dig into a few of those. And so
we're gonna start off with the first part of the
acronym F face you. So let's check this out.

Speaker 7 (28:44):
You gotta face you, and the only way you can
face you is to actually look at you, actually get
a mirror of what is going on. And I'm not
just talking about a regular mirror. The mirror that God
gives us spiritually is his word. Our spiritual mirror is
the word of God. When I read the Bible, your

(29:07):
attitude is nasty when I read. That's why y'all stay
away from it, because if you actually start reading it,
it shows you what's on you.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
It's the only.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
Book that you read it, and it reads you.

Speaker 7 (29:20):
I cannot hide that I'm walking in pride when I
read the word. I cannot hide that I'm in sexual
temptation when I read the word. When I put that
mirror on me and I start looking at what God
says is good and what grace looks like and what
his love looks like, I see clearly.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
I'm not walking in love.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Woo listen uh again passing my He really was in
his bag. He was slicing and dice it. Maybe he
had his knyves out. I don't know, but that was
super powerful. But he said, if you face you, God
can fix you. And so tc Nation, here's where you
gotta get a little hot, get hot with us, hot
with yourself. Why is it so hard to face you?

(30:04):
I love how pastor Mike used the imagery and holding
up a mirror earlier, and just like it's a reflection.
But the word of God is going to show you yourself.
And so you were talking about this earlier. What do
you do when you have faced yourself? But you can't
get past the past that you've seen.

Speaker 4 (30:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (30:23):
I just I think that in church sometimes we give
this false image that the goal is to move past something,
and the truth is, I really believe that success is
being present to what God wants to do in me
right now, And so oftentimes we are we're just trying

(30:43):
to like get past the moment I face myself, but
it keeps coming back up.

Speaker 4 (30:48):
Why is it?

Speaker 6 (30:49):
And it's like because God still wants to do something
in you with that, Like he still wants to work that.
And I think about, like I think about David in
the Bible and how the Bible says that he was
a man after God's own heart. Yet David made a
very foul mistake, like he took a man's wife, impregnated her,
killed him so he would get out of the picture.

Speaker 4 (31:09):
Now, some of y'all ain't done this, most of us
ain't done this, you know what I'm saying. But he
did all of that.

Speaker 6 (31:15):
And I just think that if David had moved past
his failure without actually allowing God to deal in him,
we wouldn't have the Book of Psalms.

Speaker 4 (31:25):
The Book of.

Speaker 6 (31:25):
Psalms is primarily written by David, because David actually dealt
with what God wanted to do in him.

Speaker 4 (31:33):
He didn't try to hurry up.

Speaker 6 (31:34):
And rush past and move past and get to this
other space, and he actually allowed God. There was weeping
and mourning and gratitude and joy. That we can find
all the emotions that you can ever have in life
in the Book of Psalms. And that's because David, after
such a grave failure, allowed God to do a deep

(31:55):
work in him. And that's what we want. We want
a deep work that means it don't happen fast. There's
so much of us that we want deep quality work
from the Lord, but we want it done in the
next half hour, you know what I mean. And if
you think about that, that doesn't even add up at all.
And so my encouragement to you, whoever you are that
are watching right now is don't try to move past anything.

(32:15):
Just open yourself up to be available to whatever God
wants to speak to you right now, in this present moment.
This is why we say that God is Jehovah Shama.
He is a Lord who is present. He's not in
the future waiting for you to get there. He's right
with you right now, close to the broken hearted. And
so let's stop trying to move past it and just
deal with it.

Speaker 10 (32:35):
Yeah. I think that's so good because you know, you
talk about moving past it. Usually we just wanted to disappear.
We don't want to see it anymore. We wanted to
be behind us. I don't want to see that. But
I just started thinking about scars. You know, I have
a scar right here on my neck. And the thing
about a scar is that it's evidence that I was
heard at one point, but now I'm healed. And so
God wants to use our story like that, like he

(32:57):
wants He doesn't want us to forget about our story
or to erase story. He wants to redeem it so
that we can look back and say, yes, I was there,
but now I'm here. So that's so good about you know,
not just moving past and allowing God to redeem that.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
Yeah, and Chad, you said this earlier, our story will
bring him glory. Like the reality is like it's not
getting past it. Like our past. It really is evidence
of God transforming our lives. And so it's not going
to be like, oh, you'll never bring it up, but
it's an opportunity to share it, like when we share
our testimony, when we share our story with somebody, it's

(33:29):
an opportunity for God to help them be transformed. And
so I want to encourage you. Maybe you're saying, man,
everybody out there is so bold, they're sharing their stories. No,
we do it scared, like the reality is some of us.
Some people might have thrown up before this because they
were going to share in a different platform. But that's
the thing, Like we're doing it scared because it allows

(33:50):
God to get the glory. Like it really is not us,
we can't do it, but it really is showing people
who God is. And so every time you say it,
it's God.

Speaker 6 (34:00):
I think about this is that the whole Bible is past.

Speaker 4 (34:05):
It's all past tense.

Speaker 6 (34:07):
So what would happen if we all threw away the past,
if we all just moved into the future and through
the past away like it never happened. We wouldn't have
these stories to live off of. We wouldn't have these
stories to inspire us and speak truth over us. The
past is connected to who we are today, and the
more that we try to disconnect ourselves from that, the
worst that we're gonna feel.

Speaker 4 (34:28):
Because it's an.

Speaker 6 (34:29):
Illusion to even think that who you are today is
not connected to something of who you were in the past.
But God can use that just like he uses the word,
which is all past tense, all history, to be able
to heal us and redeem us today.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
Yes, I mean you look at Paul, Paul out here's
slaying Christians and he I mean, he's in the Bible
so many different times for the good that he's done.
And so really I want to tell people, like, it
doesn't matter what you've done, Like it doesn't matter, Like
you can think of the craziest thing you could think,
think of Hitler, you can think of anything, like God
still will redeem those individuals for his glory. Like that's

(35:06):
the crazy thing that we sometimes see it as, like,
well God can't do that, and he's like, do you
know who I am? Yeah, blot it out and not
hold it against them. But Grayson, you were saying something
to us a little bit earlier too.

Speaker 10 (35:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (35:20):
I was saying a lot of people don't actually pray
for the things that they need help with because they
don't want to receive it as a reality. So like
if you're praying about something and you're like, oh God,
I just need your help, He's help with what, Like
what are you talking about, Like what are you saying?
Like you need to get specific about what you need
deliverance from because like I don't know if y'all know,

(35:41):
but God already knows, Like.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
He already he already knows what you're going through.

Speaker 5 (35:45):
But people trick themselves into thinking like if I don't
say it, it won't be my reality. But what you're
doing is you're suffering in dark, like you're suffering in silence,
and the faster that you're more vulnerable with God, who
already died for everything that you are going to do
like you were. He went to the cross because he
knew that you were going to mess up, Like I
don't know if I do that for my kids, like

(36:07):
quite honestly, if I'm yeah, quite honestly, I mean I'm
twenty years old right now, ain't got no kids. But
I'm saying like he did that because he knew we
were going to make all that mistakes and he factored
all that in. So I think we just have to
get real about what we're praying about.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
I love the fact that you said that, because one
of the things that I used to hate hearing in
churches is faked to you make it and the reality
is so many of us have faked it so much
so that we believe it, you know what I mean,
And then we never deal we never deal with the
real thing. And really what it ends up being, Hello,
Halloween's coming up is trick or treat? What part of you?
What part of me are you gonna get? Are you

(36:41):
gonna get to treat me? Or you're gonna get the
trickery of me?

Speaker 7 (36:43):
You know?

Speaker 1 (36:43):
And so I love the fact that you said that, like,
we got to be able to get transparent and get
real with who we are and put that out there.

Speaker 10 (36:50):
Yeah. Well, and you know, I think, like you said,
the faked till you make it thing, that's that's not it.
But I think there is something that comes with the
power of your words, you know, and actually being able
to get passed up. Sometimes you just have to use
your words to say the truth, even though it doesn't
look like it yet. The Bible talks about how our
tongue is like a rudder on a ship. It's like
the steering wheel. And yeah, I remember one time I

(37:10):
heard a person when I was really battling pornography hard,
they were saying like hey, and instead of saying, well,
I'm not going to do that. I'm not gonna just
just begin to like speak over yourself, even while you're
in the middle of it, while you're typing the thing up,
say I'm delivered from pornography, while you're going to this site,
I'm delivered from pornography. Because the reality is that when
you start to say stuff like that, it literally starts

(37:32):
to set the tone in the direction of where you're going,
and you'll find yourself that that that a week later,
you'll you'll actually believe like, I am delivered. I don't
have to do this. I don't have to go this
to this site. I don't have to drink from this
bottle or whatever it is. And so just using the
power of your words to turn the tide of your
life and turn the direction of your life is another
powerful way to do that.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Absolutely well, listen, guys, it's getting real good. I think
we got to check out this next clip. We decided
that we needed to go to remind you, and so
let's check this out.

Speaker 7 (38:04):
You're not what you did, You're who he says you are. See,
this is where the enemy tries to trick people, and
this is where people fall in the pit of depression,
they face themselves and they own it, and then they
don't get reminded of what God says about them. And
that's why the word of God is so important in
your life, because failure is an event.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
It is not a person.

Speaker 10 (38:27):
Man, that's good. Failure is an event, it is not
a person. The reality is that you know a lot
of what it takes to remind ourselves of what God
is saying. It depends on the voices that we're hearing.
It depends on the voices that we're allowing in our life.
And so real quick, we want to talk around the
table about this. How do you silence the voice of
the enemy, Jules, Well.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
First, I'd like to say that oftentimes we say enemy
and we think that's just the devil, and reality is
some people. It's people, some of the people, and sometimes
you are your own worst enemy. Here reality, like I
think about I think about me, like the turmoil that
my mind can go in, the tormenting that can happen

(39:07):
in my mind, of how I speak over myself, or
even if somebody else says something to me, Now I
take that on as for myself, and so now I'm
rehearsing that thing over and over and over again. And
Pastor Michael said this earlier in the series about forgiveness
must be practice, and I think this is a portion
of that. Like one of the ways that we have

(39:27):
to silence the enemy is we've got to practice shutting
him up. And I don't know what that looks like
for you. Maybe that's turning off certain music. Maybe there's
certain people you need to cut out your life. Maybe
maybe that's for you, like, oh, I gotta take I
gotta take every thought under captivity. Maybe that's talking over
yourself or putting sticking. I don't know what it is,
but you know what it is. Maybe it's journaling or

(39:50):
certain things that you've got to write down. And I
want to encourage you to do that now. Chad, we
were talking a little bit earlier in reference to even
isolation and and how so many people can get isolated
and that ends up being more powerful then I would say,
for some people, it ends up being more powerful than
maybe God's voice.

Speaker 8 (40:10):
Yes, absolutely, I had to be intentional because I was
comfortable with isolation. And it's interesting when you go through
something like what I went through with my divorce and
God bringing me out of that. I started looking at
my past of just how much I have I practiced isolation,
and isolation is not your friend when you're going through
one of these things. So being intentional to be comfortably uncomfortable,

(40:34):
to do some things that you've not done before, which
is when you get together in a small group one
of the things that I did.

Speaker 9 (40:42):
You just made me think about that.

Speaker 8 (40:43):
When I was really coming out of this and starting
to be intentional with my life to live a free life.
The scripture John ten Ten, the thief cometh not but
to still kill and destroy. Jesus came that you may
have life and have it to the full. And I
remember getting real intentional with that verse, thinking, you know what,
that's a possibility. It's not just a promise. Jesus came

(41:06):
and you're going to live an abundant life. There's things
that we have to do and be intentional about to
do that. And I was not living an abundant life.
I had a lot of worry, anxiety, fear. So I
began to just find scriptures God's truth that had to
deal with those situations.

Speaker 9 (41:23):
And I remember going to Walmart.

Speaker 8 (41:26):
And getting some poster board and some sharpie markers and
writing and pulling some of those scriptures out and learning
those scriptures, writing them on the mirror, getting them on
my shower board, and just getting intentional because I really
had horrible thinking. I had a horrible thinking for most
of my life for forty years. And so I think
being intentional with God's word, his precious promises and then

(41:49):
confessing them the power of the confession. You know what's
kind of about the COVID the masks, you know when
we wear those, You know you can do that without
looking kind of crazy. You can pray, you can confess
things out loud. You're not going to look like a
nu but who cares? Even if you do like it?

Speaker 9 (42:02):
Do you look like it? I mean, that's one of
those things we have to be intentional about.

Speaker 10 (42:06):
You know. One thing that came to my mind as
you were talking is the difference between learning and training.
You know, you can learn everything there is to know
about working out lifting weights, this is the proper form.
But if you don't train yourself, then then you'll never
be you know, like, you'll never get to the point
where it transforms you. Training is what transforms you. And
that continual confessing that over and over, that repetition is

(42:29):
a part of what retrains you. So that's good.

Speaker 6 (42:31):
Yeah, I feel like it is more than it's about
even silencing the voice of the enemy. It's about amplifying
the voice of God because the one of the tricks
of the enemy is to think that he's eventually going
to stop talking to you, and that's just not going
to happen until you die. Like, he is always going
to try to talk to you, and he only speaks lies.

(42:53):
The Bible says that he is a father of lies. Literally,
his native tongue is lies, and so he's always going
to try to do that in our heads and through people,
whatever the case will be.

Speaker 4 (43:03):
He's gonna try to lie to us.

Speaker 6 (43:05):
What our job is to do is to amplify the
voice of God though in our life, because God's native
language is truth, and his truth actually sets us free.
The lies of the enemy will bind us up and
chain us, but the truth of God will always set
us free. And so that's why it's important to take
practically the word of God like Chad was saying, and
put post it note.

Speaker 4 (43:24):
I have done that in my life.

Speaker 6 (43:26):
I have put posting notes around my house to remind
myself of the truth of God's word, because just because
I stopped listening to truth doesn't mean the enemy's gonna
stop lying.

Speaker 4 (43:35):
I mean he's gonna continue trying to do that.

Speaker 6 (43:36):
And so that's why it's always on us to make
sure that we're amplifying the voice of God so that
that voice of the enemy does get softer and softer.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
Yeah, I think that's so good.

Speaker 5 (43:45):
And I feel like another way we can take the
power away from the enemy is by us telling our testimony.
The enemy loses all his power when he can't hold
that over our head anymore. And I remember when I
was struggling with lust and life, I was.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
Like, oh my god, Okay, I need some community. So
I guess I'm gonna tell my best friends.

Speaker 5 (44:05):
So I thought we're two baby lambs at the time,
and so like we're spending the night at my friend's
house and like I I make it a scene like
it's theatric, Like I turn off the lights. We're all
sleeping up. Yeah, we're sleeping the bar. And you know,
I'm like, okay, so you guys aren't gonna judge me.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
I have to tell you something.

Speaker 5 (44:24):
And it's like I'm struggling with lust and they're like okay,
And I was like and then one of my friends
was even like yeah, me too, And I was like, well,
why couldn't you have told me this before?

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Like why did we have to make this whole thing?

Speaker 5 (44:35):
But sometimes you have to take that step, like the
word says, we overcome by the say we know the script,
the blood of the lamb, and the word of our testimony.
You know, I knew it was an animal, it's the lamb,
but we.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
My bad.

Speaker 5 (44:52):
But anyway we have to we have to say those
things because that snatches it away from the enemy.

Speaker 9 (44:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (44:57):
Yeah, man. That makes me think about even some of
the the techniques I've had to practice in marriage. You know,
there's times where like dreams come up, you're dealing with
with lust and all that stuff, and the enemy. I
remember before he would just beat me up with that
stuff and then the Lord just like, well just get
it out, like tell and I would. I tell Jules
about it, and it's like, oh, you know the thing
that he was trying to hold over my head and

(45:18):
keep against me, almost like a blackmail, you know what
I'm saying, Like he lost he lost all of that
credibilityy and that ability to hold that over me because
I got it out there. So yeah, that's that's really good.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
No, that's so good. And really what it what it
ended up doing, was disarming the enemy, like he no
longer has the power over you. And here's the thing.
Even with that, like so many times many of us
are thinking that it doesn't take all of that, like, man,
that's so elementary, you shouldn't have to do that. And
the reality is like I want to be free, so
I don't care what it takes. I don't care. Like

(45:51):
man Pastor Michael said this at the beginning, humble yourself,
like let me get low, let me get low, like
I don't care hear how elementary it may seem to say,
go get some cards, go get some sticky notes, turn
off that music. Like if it takes that for you
to be free, for you to forgive yourself, baby, do

(46:12):
it like I'm trying to get trained up right, Like
I'm telling you, I want to encourage you out there,
like do the things that you need to do to
remind yourself of what God has spoken over you. And
there's a scripture that talks about how our mind has
to be transformed and the only way our mind is
able to be transformed is through the word of God
washing over these other thoughts that the enemy tries to

(46:35):
put to put into our mind. Really, and Bree, something
you said in reference to amplifying, there's this prayer I
used to pray to God, like, Dad, I want to
hear your voice even if I'm standing next to the
loudest speaker in a concert. And what that kind of
speaks to is the command and the weight of his voice.
Let that be louder and bigger than what the enemy

(46:57):
is saying. And so practically we can pray, We can
pray the craziest of the stupidest prayers that you think
is like, ah, nah, that's just stupid. No pray it,
you know, do it? And so Man, so Man, remind
you is super awesome that that pastor Michael just talked
about how practically we could do that.

Speaker 10 (47:16):
Yeah, well, you know, I think one thing we were
talking about was like, how can you switch our mindset
from you know, basically reminding of ourselves of what we've
done to who God says that we are. And Devin,
you had some powerful thoughts about that.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
Yeah, I think it really comes down to taking every
thought captive and for me, what that looks like is
taking captive the defense mechanisms or the self deprecating thoughts
that sometimes I throw into conversations because I'm trying to
like beat people to the punch. So like, if I'm
in a conversation with my friends, we're talking about clothes
and we're like, oh, I have these cute clothes, I'm like, yeah,
I have a cute pair of jeans. I used to fit,
but I've gained weig because now I'm fat. And then

(47:49):
it's like, but those are the thoughts that we have
to take captive, and we have to change shift it
to what God says, and Tewod Corinthians ten to fively says,
we demolish every pretension, every defense mechanism, or every self
deprecating thought that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.
So anything that comes out of my mouth, or even
any thought that I have that sets itself up against
what God says, I have to take that thought captive.

(48:12):
And I can say, yeah, I've gained way, but I'm
fearfully and wonderfully made curves and all we've got to
like switch it to match up with what God says
about us.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
Absolutely, I love how Pastor Michael said that failure is
not an event. It's excuse me. Failure is an event,
not a person. And so even what you're saying, like,
I've done the same thing, you know. And so my
friends have absolutely hated it, including my husband, but it's understanding,
like sometimes we connect our identity with the things that
we're speaking over ourselves. And I love how Pastor Michael

(48:40):
brought that out, like, hey, this is just an event,
you know, But we've got to put the word of
God on these things, because the word of God is
the truth, and I think that we.

Speaker 6 (48:49):
Have to the thing about this is sometimes it's hard
for you to speak truth over yourself when you don't
believe it. But I really do believe that we begin
believing things that are reput to us.

Speaker 4 (49:01):
So that's why we have to keep repeating.

Speaker 6 (49:03):
There's certain lies that the enemy has repeated to us
over and over since childhood, which now we believe, and
we now have to fight that with truth. And you
have to keep saying it to yourself until you believe it.
Like I remember reading Psalms forty over myself over and
over again during a time of depression until and I
told myself, I am gonna read this until my heart

(49:23):
leans into it, until I believe this. And so even
if you feel right now like this scripture doesn't matter
to me, or Devin says, I'm beautifully and wonderful, Mary,
You're like, I can't even I don't even believe that
by myself, keep saying it, because if you keep saying it,
one day, you're gonna actually believe it.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
Yes, absolutely, And you know the other thing about that
is having right community around you. And Pastor Michael gave
us a beautiful illustration of that out of this forgive
acronym insulate you. So let's check this clip out.

Speaker 7 (49:52):
And they don't want you to insulate you. I need
you to bring some people around you. I need you
to get in community because the enemy's plan of isolation
is for you to go through this process alone. Breathe
Charles Amber, will Bishop come here.

Speaker 9 (50:13):
See.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
The thing that you need to know.

Speaker 7 (50:15):
Is that when I'm falling apart in my life, what
God does is bring people around me. Ah, And this
is what he wants to do for you. And these
are real people for me, Like he brings people around
you that can actually insulate you. Yeah, well, I need
somebody big right here, because right now I'm falling apart.

(50:36):
Right now, I don't even have the strength to even
act like this is something that I can go through.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
My son turns five tomorrow and.

Speaker 7 (50:43):
He still has autism, And what's going on in my life?
I don't know if I can be able to do
by myself. Did we give him the wrong medicine?

Speaker 10 (50:52):
God?

Speaker 7 (50:53):
Did we do something that wasn't right?

Speaker 1 (50:55):
God?

Speaker 7 (50:55):
Today, God, anything that I did, I gotta forgive me.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
But I can't do it.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
If I didn't have.

Speaker 7 (51:01):
Insulation around me, I'd fall apart and damage myself more.
But right now, God, because you're so good and you've
given me community, you don't just want me to be
able to make it by myself. You have now called
me to insulate myself.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
Come on, oooh, insulate yourself.

Speaker 10 (51:21):
Man.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
I'm gonna ask TC Nation a very hot question. Are
you willing to be transparent with people? And if not? Why?
Around the table, what I want us to kind of
talk about is what are some of your apprehensions with

(51:42):
surrounding yourself around people?

Speaker 2 (51:45):
Great, let me go ahead and start this off. I
think my apprehension would be that.

Speaker 5 (51:50):
I have to be vulnerable with people as I said,
I'm a three and if you know anything about that,
we're very image conscious. We have a we try to
cast off a thing that we want people to believe
about us. And when you're vulnerable with community, they that
mass comes off. They see every parts of you. If
you want true change, you let them into every part
of you. And so my apprehension would be like, oh,

(52:13):
what if they don't think about me the same, What
if they think that I'm someone I'm not, Or what
if they go and betray my trust or talk about
it behind my back or tell somebody else. And it's like,
I don't want those things to happen. I don't want
to be hurt. No one wants to be put in
that situation. So it's like I go through all these
thoughts and emotions of oh no, I can't trust anybody
with that because they think I'm somebody that I'm not.

(52:35):
But what's so amazing about God is he'll put people
around you who don't care about what.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
You've put up in front of other people.

Speaker 5 (52:41):
He'll place people that like, could care less about all
those stuff and care more about you as a person.

Speaker 10 (52:47):
I like how you talked about image. You know, I
know for myself. That was definitely a big one. You know,
pride was my biggest apprehension. I didn't want people in
my business and I didn't want I never wanted to
show or display weakness, especially when I got into marriage,
because in my context and what I all that I
knew about being a man, like the man is the rock,
the man is the you know what I'm saying, Like

(53:08):
the man, the man is the strong one. And so
I didn't I didn't even have a concept for being
vulnerable in relationships and friendships. And because of that, I
didn't have that concept in marriage. And so when when
when when I when I had a chink in my armor,
when I when I had a failure that happened. I
mean I wrestled so hard to be open with it,
to be open with my wife about it, because in
my mind is like, well, I'm supposed to protect her.

(53:30):
I'm supposed to cover her. I'm not supposed to be
the one that is uncovered or that's that's unstable. I'm
supposed to be the stability in my household. And so
a big, big part of my apprehension and being open
and being vulnerable was pride and not and not just
not wanting to give off any aura of weakness in
my life.

Speaker 5 (53:49):
It's crazy because men are taught to not be vulnerable,
like we're taught you have to be the rock, you
have to be the support system, you have to be
the person that knows all the answers, like nothing can
go wrong. So we like, as we're growing up, we're
brought up with this, Oh, I can't ever act like
I'm struggling. Oh I can't ever be dealing with anything,
and that pressure is put on us so bad to

(54:10):
when when we open up belong groups, there's less men
belong groups and there are women belong groups because men
don't want to come up and be vulnerable about how
they're feeling and how they don't have all the answers.

Speaker 10 (54:19):
Oh yeah, I was gonna say. You know, as crazy
as that, like, there are people that are built specifically
for your weaknesses. You know, that's the lie, the enemy
that is to make you feel like, well, well, nobody
can handle this. I can't tell my best friend or
my wife about this because they couldn't handle it because
they look up to me and da da da da.
But the reality is that there are certain people that
are built to help insulate you when you're falling apart,

(54:40):
like there are people that God has placed strategically around
you that are built to help hold you up and
support you.

Speaker 5 (54:45):
So and it's a real sign of true strength when
a man can admit that he's weak in an area,
and that's where they become stronger when they get help.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
We don't have to do it on our own.

Speaker 8 (54:55):
I got schooled in that this week, Grayson and I
could just echo you guys as far as pride and vulnerability,
how we just don't want to do that, and also
not wanting to be a burden. You know, I should
have this stuff together. I don't need to burn somebody
else with it. But I got school this week. I
had someone on our staff that came into my office
and wanted to talk and he just he modeled this.

(55:17):
He said, Man, I don't feel like I'm being the
father that I need to be right now, not being
the husband that I need to be. And so it
humbled me. Him being vulnerable and just sharing, hey, these
are these needs. And we prayed together about it and
encouraged him. It humbled me, and it served as an
example to me of why we need that insulation, Why

(55:37):
we need each other, how important it is. So when
we do these things, you know you talked about sharing
your testimony. When we share these things, it motivates others.
It becomes contagious. You know, we want to do those things.

Speaker 4 (55:48):
So that's so good chat.

Speaker 3 (55:49):
I think for me, like Grayson, I'm a three on
the Enneagram. So it's all about like the image that
like we're projecting to people. So for me, my biggest
apprehension is not appearing perfect. And I know that when
I insulate myself or if I expose something that I'm like
struggling with, not only do I have to do with
the other person realizing I'm not perfect, but more so,
like I have to face the fact that I'm not perfect.

(56:11):
And I literally had to live this. A couple of
months ago, I was going through like a season of
experiencing like an intense mental battle with infidelity and like
the enemy was really tormenting my thoughts with it.

Speaker 4 (56:21):
I never acted upon it.

Speaker 3 (56:22):
It was never my intention to, but it was like
it was an intense, like mental battle, and the Holy
Spirit kept speaking to me and he was like, you
need to tell someone, You need to tell someone, And
I went back and forth with God because I was like, well, God,
if I tell someone then like I mean, what if
they think I'm a cheater?

Speaker 1 (56:36):
What if they think?

Speaker 3 (56:36):
You know, my ma, It's gonna expose that my marriage
isn't perfect. And I literally went back and forth with
God for about two weeks. He told me the person
that I needed to tell and that I need to
have as my insulation. I was like, I don't know, God,
And so finally I did. I had a conversation with
She's on her staff. Her name was Taffy about I
had a conversation. The whole time I was talking, my
voice was like shaking as I was.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
Like getting it out.

Speaker 3 (56:56):
But I got it out, and you know, she was
great and amazing and we prayed, and then I walked
and I walked away from that conversation. It was like
a weight was like lifted off my shoulders. Like literally
the burden that I was experiencing was so heavy, and
once I exposed it, there was so much freedom in
the exposure.

Speaker 4 (57:11):
It was like I the weight.

Speaker 3 (57:13):
I It was like physical that I could feel the
weight being lifted off of my shoulder. And since I
had that conversation with her, the mental battle has stopped.
And I really believe it's because there is so much
freedom in exposure. When we expose the things that the
enemy is using to torment us, to taunt us.

Speaker 4 (57:29):
There's so much freedom in that.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
There's so much freedom in the insulation that we have
that now it's like I've disarmed the enemy. He can't
use that against me anymore because I've exposed it.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
Man, That's that's that's so good.

Speaker 10 (57:42):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
One of the one of the things for me, or
one of my apprehensions has been can you handle my humanity?

Speaker 9 (57:49):
Like?

Speaker 1 (57:49):
Can you can you handle our even? How do you
handle me when I'm at my weakest points? You know,
are you going to use it against me? Are you
gonna harm me even more? Uh? You know one of
the things now, of course, being a pastor, it's another
part of like figuring out who who are the people
to be the core that I can just be vulnerable
with in every single facet of it, and that or

(58:12):
every single facet of life, like when I'm struggling as
a wife or as a mom, or even in work,
like I'm questioning, can can you handle the raw side,
the real side, the side that's sad, the side that's
hurt the side that may not be like the happy,
go lucky Jules. You know what I'm saying, Are you
gonna be like damaging that side, you know what I'm saying,

(58:33):
Or you're not gonna handle or as the package to say,
handle with care. And so that that parts has created apprehensions.
But one thing that Pastor Michael said was that you
have to be the one to invite people in. And
what I understand even with that, and this was last week,
he just talked about that there are gonna be people
that fail you, you know, And so instead of creating

(58:55):
this picture perfect type of scenario or a situation, I realized,
I gotta be willing to expose myself and be out there,
even at the cost that somebody could harm me, but
trusting God enough to let somebody come close.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
Yeah, I think that.

Speaker 5 (59:11):
I think that's so good because when you talk about
being vulnerable with people, it kind of can feel like
you're about to throw up, Like you feel like all
these things in your in your stomach, in your heart,
like I don't know, I'm sick, I'm bad. But like
like as you throw up, as we all know, we
all oh, we feel better.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
I feel like That's what it's like.

Speaker 5 (59:29):
When we're telling somebody like the skeletons on our closet,
We're like, oh, what if they're going to judge me?
What if what if they're going to think of me different?
And when we tell them, it's like a weight is
lifted off of our shoulders. It's like, why didn't I
do this earlier? Why didn't I start this process to
healing earlier with each other?

Speaker 2 (59:45):
So I just think that's it.

Speaker 6 (59:46):
No, Just think about a house without insulation. All the
weather outside of that house is going to get inside
of the house, like everything that the winter, the rain,
the heat, all gonna get inside the house without that insulation.
And so if you're having a difficult time really being
vulnerable and open and honest with your community, think about

(01:00:09):
them as insulation. I think it was so much wisdom
for Pastor Mike to use the word insulation on Sunday
to describe community, because that's exactly what it does. That
they're gonna be crazy whether that happens in our life,
but community insulates us and it helps to keep us healed.

Speaker 4 (01:00:26):
On the inside.

Speaker 6 (01:00:27):
Things are always going to happen to us, but community
helps us to heal on the inside.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
And one one of the things you said this as
we were talking about this illustration, but you almost fell
over during that time, right, And I want to bring
that out is because like when we're when we're going
through and I'm going to try not to cry, but
in general, just because I just feeling the hurt of
so many people and not having people that they can

(01:00:52):
literally lean onto them and there are people around them
that will push them back up, like so many times
where like, hey, I'm falling and I'm broken, And there's
a scripture that talks about if two walking together and
if one falls, the other to pull up. Like when
I when I think about that, and I think about

(01:01:13):
the people we need to have around insulating us to
help us stand up, to help us be ready, to
encourage us to say you got this, you can win
this fight, you got it. And really it's it's the
opportunity for us to literally expose everything without judgment, to
be broken before people so that we are able to

(01:01:36):
forgive ourselves because sometimes you need community to process. And
I will say this because pastor Mike alluded to this,
sometimes you're the people that are around here are the
insulate part is counseling. Sometimes it's counseling.

Speaker 4 (01:01:48):
That is the truth.

Speaker 6 (01:01:49):
Because some people are like they may be watching right
now and they're like, I don't have any good friends
that are going to push me towards living Christ's inner life.

Speaker 4 (01:01:56):
You can always start with some therapy, like.

Speaker 6 (01:01:59):
Somebody that it's just going to speak truth over you,
that's going to give you wisdom.

Speaker 4 (01:02:03):
That is community. That's insolation in so many ways.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
I didn't want to disregard that because there are I know,
I saw some people on Sunday they said, hey, I've
been trying to get a part of a group. Well
I want to encourage you that there are people that
you're doing life with right now. I mean, bring them
onto Forgiveness University, bring them onto the dig and say, baby,
I'm not perfect, but I am progressing, so let's do
this thing together.

Speaker 6 (01:02:27):
And it's so beautiful because when you need somebody and
you have to lean on them and you think, oh,
maybe they don't really have a strength to help me up,
Like there is a God given strength that He will
give to your community to be able to hold you up.
That there are times where friends have come to me
and they needed some assistance, some wisdoms and something, and
I didn't think I had the tools to give to them,

(01:02:48):
but God gave me exactly what I needed to say
in the scripture and whatever the case may be. And
so it's a risk. Now, let us not act like
this is like something easy to do. It's absolute risk
and you may lose in the process learning that they're
not real insulation for you.

Speaker 4 (01:03:03):
But it's a risk worth taking.

Speaker 5 (01:03:05):
And I think a good thing to remember is that
our community is our bumpers, like they are not our God.

Speaker 9 (01:03:10):
Like.

Speaker 5 (01:03:10):
Our community is supposed to be placed to lead us
back to God, to remind us of the things that
God has called us to be. I feel like so
many people put their faith into people, and when they
fail them, they take that as God failing them. And
that's just we're human. We're going to make mistakes, we're
going to say it wrong. We're not gonna have all
the answers at one time. But when you're supposed to
grab along with people, and people are supposed to push

(01:03:32):
you towards your purpose or push you through a hard.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
Time, they're your bumpers back to God.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
That's okay, Greg, come through what to do the young,
But coming through well, listen, guys, we know that Pastor
Michael gave us some very practical action steps using the
acronym forgive. I want to encourage you to go back
listen to the last several weeks messages. But one of
the things that Pastor Mike started off with there was

(01:03:59):
a point he said, selfish forgiveness is the first step
to selfless forgiveness. And when you forgive yourself, you are humbled.
You cannot privately forgive. And the scripture that I used
was one Peter four and six. So humble yourself under
the mighty power of God, and at the right time
he will lift you up in honor. And so what
I want to encourage all of you all to do,

(01:04:21):
and Pastor Mike did this on Sunday for us. What
he did is he took out his phone. And maybe
you're watching on your mobile device so you can get
a mirror, but he took out his phone, and I
want I want you guys to do it. If you're
if you're watching on TV, go grab your phone, turn
it around to where you're you're able to see yourself.
And what you're gonna do is you're gonna state your

(01:04:41):
name and you're gonna say, I forgive you for whatever
that thing is. And really, this is an opportunity for
you to be humbled, like get real, get raw with yourself.
You know what it is. You know what text you said,
you know what things that you've done to yourself are
to others. But right now it's about you. It's it's
selfishly forgiving yourself so that you can selflessly forgive others.

(01:05:04):
And so right now I'm gonna start it off. And
so Julia, I forgive you for the negative words that
you've constantly spoken over yourself.

Speaker 6 (01:05:14):
Brie, I forgive you for not making intentional space to
keep in touch with your loved ones.

Speaker 8 (01:05:22):
Chad, I forgive you for divorce, for neglecting your marriage
people in your life.

Speaker 10 (01:05:29):
Well, de Mario, I forgive you for allowing regret to
steal your confidence and hold you back from doing all
that God has for you.

Speaker 3 (01:05:39):
Devin, I forgive you for not being a virgin and
for not being perfect.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
Grayson Emmanuel France wal Todd, I forgive you for holding
yourself back.

Speaker 10 (01:05:52):
Wow, Wow, that's so powerful. Even as Jule said, you know,
let's all take the time to do that, to look
ourselves in the face and the forgive ourselves. And the
reality is that you know some of you are watching
and you've heard everything. It's like that sounds good, but
you're still feeling like, I don't know how I could
ever forgive myself for whatever I've done. And the reality
is that no matter what you've done, no matter who

(01:06:13):
you've heard, no matter how bad you feel like you've
hurt them, there's no one that we've hurt more than God,
like God has absorbed the hurt of all of humanity.
And here's the thing. If God can forgive you for
everything that you've ever done, if he can forgive all
of humanity for everything that we've ever done, he can
also give you the power to forgive yourself for the

(01:06:34):
things you've done. And so maybe you're watching and you
have never received Christ as your Lord and savior. I
want to take a minute and I just want to
lead you in a prayer, because really, that is the
beginning of us being able to forgive ourselves, is that
we first receive the forgiveness that Christ has purchased through
his blood. So I want to prayer a prayer with you.
None of us pray alone. We're gonna pray here on
the panel, Transformation Nation is going to pray with us,

(01:06:57):
and so let me lead you in that prayer. Say this. Say,
Dear God, thank you for loving me. Thank you for
sending your son to die just for me. God, I
admit that I made mistakes. Come into my heart, forgive me,
transform me, renew me. I am yours in Jesus' name. Amen, Amen, Amen, listen.

(01:07:27):
If you just said that prayer and mint it with
your heart, I know that transformation just started in your life.
It might not feel like it, it might not look like
it yet, but the seed of transformation just started because
Christ entered your heart. If you prayed that prayer, I
want to encourage you to go ahead and text the
word saved to the number that's on the screen. We
want to get you some resources and get you some
help as you start this new journey. You can't do

(01:07:49):
this alone, and so we want to be here right
alongside you to help you as you start this brand
new journey with Christ.

Speaker 1 (01:07:53):
Come on, yes, listen, we said that this was the midterm,
and so we've got some things that we want you
to do. This is a great conversation, but now we
have to put some application to it, and so what
is some of the next steps that you're going to
take this week? We've got some resources. There is a
quiz or a pop quiz, you know, midterm kind of deal,
but we have that on our social media. The hosts

(01:08:16):
are throwing that in the chat and we'll make sure
that we put it in the description for later. But
there's three questions that we have on there, and we
want to encourage you to tag us to let us
know who are you going to have to hold you accountable,
who in your life will help you be accountable to
forgiving you and even help you to be accountable to
forgiveness university because many people say they're graduating with honors

(01:08:37):
and we just forgave the first person. And so just
make sure that you do that. We listen. We've got
Noonday prayer that is happening every single day. Also, we
want to encourage you to join us for week six
of FU and I want to encourage you, like in bite,
people like this is transformation at its core text us

(01:08:57):
if you are watching with multiple people to TC party
to eight two eight two eight two, and Pastor Michael said,
this is past Sunday, our crazy faith offering we're doing
that on December sixth. And here's the thing we have
been Man, I've seen God do so many amazing things
as a result of our end of year giving. Really
it is to move the vision forward. And we're not

(01:09:20):
telling you a number or anything like that. You're just
asking God, what would you have for me to sew
into to sew? What would you have for me to sew?
And whatever God gives you, I want to encourage you
just to obey God as he gives you that. And
also I thought this was a powerful message. And what's
cool is that we have released our first reading plan

(01:09:41):
on the U version Bible app. So I want to
encourage you that plan is marked and as we've talked about,
forgive you, like marked is about your purpose, like God
can still use you once to use you. And so
I want to encourage you to go check out that
four day reading plan. But listen from all of us here,
from our lead pastors, Pastor Michael, and now we want
to encourage you to have amazing week, but go out

(01:10:03):
and live a transform life. We love y'all.