Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the Love Justice Podcast, where we hear from different voices who are joining us in the fight against modern day slavery. Here's your host, Hannah Munn.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Welcome to the Love justice podcast, where we share the ideas behind Love Justice's impactful work through conversations about fighting the world's greatest injustices.
I'm your host, Hannah Munn. Joining us for today's conversation is Matt Smallbone, Australian native and East Nashville local, serving as lead pastor at Church of the City downtown. Before stepping into pastoral ministry, Matt toured globally as a bass player for Michael W. Smith and Rebecca St. James. He's a husband, a father of four, and his Instagram tagline is working at becoming the most joyful old guy you've ever met.
And joining Matt is John Molyneux, the founder and CEO of Love Justice. And today we're talking about forgiveness and how it's foundational to finding the world's greatest injustices. Well, I am so excited for today's conversation, and that is because we have guest Matt Smallbone, who is the head pastor of Church of the City, downtown Nashville. That's actually the home church of Boston. And I wherever we're back in the States when we're on furlough from our time in South Africa.
And this summer, Matt did a really, really cool sermon series. His team did a sermon series called A1 Another Sermon Series. So the different points of Scripture where Jesus commands us to one another, and one of those was to forgive one another.
And that sermon was phenomenal. Matt, first of all, phenomenal sermon. And when I heard that sermon, I actually remember where we were at. We were driving from Nebraska to Nashville. Listen to that sermon on that.
And I just kept turning to Austin, my husband, and saying, man, there's so many parallels in this teaching to what John has been talking about with Love justice staff over the last five years.
And I just kind of had this conviction that forgiveness is not just important, but it's actually central to doing the work God created us to do. Whether that's justice work, living in community, loving others, loving God. Actually, all of those things. It's central to all of those things.
And I think in that moment after your sermon, Matt, Austin and I just started audibly forgiving people that had been like, on our heart in the last three months. And just the breakthrough that happened after that was like, man, I like, I needed to be reminded of this all the time. John is reminding me all the time. And there was something that you said in that teaching where you actually quoted an author of a different book. And Just said, when we're young, our primary temptation is stuff like lust, but as we age, the primary temptation becomes unforgiveness and resentment. And man, that word just dropped of like, how true is that? And so my desire for this particular episode is for us to flesh out the topic of forgiveness a bit more for people who care about the least of these and who want their lives to make a real impact.
Because, John, I know that you have a really cool testimony too, as you were getting ready to go into the field for a first time of where God just really led you to forgive people.
So are you guys in? That's what I'm hoping we can do.
[00:03:23] Speaker C: I'm excited.
[00:03:25] Speaker B: So, Matt, let's start off with you. Could you just introduce yourself where do you serve, a little bit about your church community and just share a little snapshot of the justice related initiatives that your church engages in.
[00:03:36] Speaker C: Yeah. So my name's Matt Smallbone. I'm an Australian immigrant. I've lived in the United States for 20 years. I moved over here to do music originally. So a bunch of Aussies have moved to Australia, to Nashville over the years to pursue music and had a. Had a good run at that. We had our fourth child and it felt like we had to have time for that horrible conversation that it might be time to stay home a little more.
And so I got off the road and had always been told by people that I had a pastor's heart is what they would say. And my dad's a pastor, Methodist pastor in Australia. We grew up kind of bouncing around little country towns where he would, where he would pastor. And honestly, it felt like the worst possible way to, to spend your adult life being a pastor because I just knew how hard it could be. But God changed my heart after that season of touring a lot. And I found myself working at a church in a surfer church in Ormond Beach, Florida, where there's a bunch of recovery work needed and just fell in love, fell in love with the ministry, actually. I think in my life, I've always thought you have to choose between having fun and meaning and you don't get to have both of them at the same time. And funds are pretty high value in my life. And I have been just so amazed that being a pastor is actually, there's all this meaning and all of these great times. Obviously tons of pain to walk through as well. But I really do. I feel like as I turned about 40, that I finally figured out what I was actually meant to do with my life. So I've Been the lead pastor of.
In a network of churches called Church of the City. We've got several churches in middle Tennessee and another couple in New York City.
And so we've. I've been doing that. I've been in this particular role for 10 years. And my current context is we, during COVID we kind of got kicked out of East Nashville, which is a very progressive, you know, for the. For the Bible Belt, very progressive neighborhood, moved across the city to downtown. So we. Our ministry context is this like little progressive bubble right in the middle of the Bible Belt is where is where I do ministry. So it's actually, I find it super interesting. Our church is called Church of the City and we feel the weight of paying that off at times. When it definitely when it comes to justice work, there would be nothing worse than just having this hypocritical job. Like we're of the city, but we don't do anything for the least of these. So a couple of years in, we developed a program that we call our Missional Partners. So one of the ways we really lean into justice work is by supporting geniuses in the field. So I think as a church, so one thing we do have is a lot of people and we do have some resources, a lot of NGOs in Nashville and around the world who don't have access to either of those things. So we like to financially support people who are actually doing the work in the field. The first 10% of anything that's given goes to our missional investment portfolio. And we have like 35 some odd missional partners that we help fund and where appropriate, you know, send, send volunteers if they need.
So we, we work. There's a lot of homelessness in Nashville. We work with folks like people loving Nashville Charity Water.
There's a ministry in Nashville called Cultivate that helps underestimated entrepreneurs like take their great ide and actually build a business plan out of that and escape cyclical property.
There's a neighborhood five miles from here that has the highest incarceration rate in all of the country.
And so we're trying to help people escape some dangerous cycles. We work with Nashville Anti Human Trafficking Coalition, a bunch of other guys, but the one I'm most proud of is our church has really got involved in the foster care system.
It was hitting the news a couple, probably three years ago that the foster care system was so overwhelmed that when children were removed from their parents home on what they. What they call removal day in that line of work that they. There was nowhere for them to Go. And so they were sleeping in the department, the DCS office of the Department of Children's Services, what we call Intellise, which is when the government take custody of the children.
And we were just like, that doesn't seem like the right place to sleep in the right environment for your first. For your first night away from your family. So we thought we'd do something about it, and we did what we always do. We looked to partner with somebody, found an organization called Isaiah117House. And we bought a house for them in East Nashville, which is. Which is near kind of where the. Where the court. Where the children's court meets.
And we got into partnership with the government and a bunch of. Raised some money locally. It was actually a very easy thing to raise money for, which is something I don't get to say very often, but we built out this house. And now when kids in Davison county and surrounding are removed from their parents, they're not sleeping on the floor of a DCS office anymore. We've got this space where the government workers can actually do their job and try to connect them to families without having to do a ton of babysitting. And our church then sends volunteers and to help to be there and, you know, help these traumatized kids on the most difficult and confusing day of their life.
And so that's. That's the sort of stuff we. We like doing. Like, we. We like to take our name seriously and hold ourselves accountable to. To paying it off.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that, Matt. And, Austin, I've had the privilege of being in some of those services where you've highlighted those ministry partners and gotten to share some of the testimonies and the stories of, um. And what's really cool is just the. I think the community of people that you guys have at Church of the City downtown, where you have people that want to rock up and they. They want to. They want to get their hands dirty and they want to cook the meal, give the night out. Like, it's just like, the vibe in that church is really electric when it comes to getting involved in justice initiatives, which is really cool and always has Austin and I, you know, saying, like, man, if we were in the States, like, this is the church that we would definitely want to be a part of.
[00:09:58] Speaker C: I mean, John, I think, to lead that way. So you just wanting.
So I'm fascinated to hear John's take on forgiveness and justice and how it all. I've got a pen on paper. Ready?
[00:10:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
John, maybe as a starting point, do you Want to introduce yourself? Maybe give us 60 seconds on love Justice's mission. I know you've talked a lot about it over the episodes, and just probably, like, just the first take on where forgiveness shows up in the Love justice team culture.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
So I'm John Molyneux. I'm the CEO of Love Justice.
I've lived in Nepal for the last 20 years. And, Hannah, as you know, I now live in South Africa, where you also are based. But in terms of Love justice culture, you know, in the Christian worldview, not hurting one another, like, not wronging one another, that's not really an option. You know, we will because we are. Because we are all sinful. So it's just inevitable that we will hurt each other in the course of anything that we're doing together. And certainly, you know, moving around the world to fight the world's greatest injustices is a part of that. And, you know, that is our mission, is sharing the love of Christ by fighting the world's greatest injustices. And in the course of doing that, we hurt one another. And so my team has to forgive me regularly.
I have to forgive my team members regularly. Hannah, you and I have had to forgive one another again, I'm sure, again and again over many years. And so I've also been hurt and betrayed throughout the course of my 20 years, many times, and really deeply in a lot of ways.
And because Christ taught me that forgiveness is not optional. It's a requirement of the Christian life, I learned to forgive. And I can see now, and I've seen it, had I not learned to forgive, I would be filled with bitterness and rage, and I would have burned out. I would have left, and I would have destroyed love justice in 20 different ways. But because Jesus just taught me the importance of practicing forgiveness. Yeah. So I've tried to infuse that throughout our culture, and. And, you know, it's really not even me teaching everyone, but just we're all reminding one another of what Christ teaches all of us, that the importance of forgiving.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: So, yeah.
So, Matt, maybe let's hear. I'm going to ask you guys both the same question, hearing from Matt first.
And I essentially just want you to kind of make the case of why forgiveness is not just important, but it's actually central to living the life God called us to and doing meaningful, impactful justice work, especially in the backdrop of, you know, most Christians probably agreeing, like, yeah, we should forgive. Right? Like, there's no we shouldn't forgive. Scripture tells us that.
But why is it so central to how we work out our faith.
[00:13:02] Speaker C: Well, you stole my thunder with that Rollheiser quote earlier. I was, I was gonna drop that one, but for me that was.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: You gotta drop it again.
[00:13:10] Speaker C: Yeah, I like where he ends at because that's what really that particular quote got me thinking about like the Christian journey.
And I feel like it goes in one of two ways. As we age, I feel like life either and we have formed into either these wonderful 80 year olds or the worst 80 year olds on the planet.
And I think the difference is almost as simple as the happiest people I know have learned how to forgive over the course of their lives. So you hang out with every 80 year old.
We don't get to escape tragedy, you know, this side of eternity. And somehow it feels like everyone has a pretty heavy bucket of sadness and disappointment by the time we've been on the planet for eight decades.
I've made a real study of these deliriously happy older people. And when you chat with them, there's not this list of resentment or they don't hate their sister.
They figured it out 47 years ago. And the miserable people never figured out how to forgive their sister 47 years ago.
And then what happens is just the unforgiveness piles on top of each other and it makes your world so small. One of the problems with unforgiveness is you can't go shopping at your local grocery store for the rest of your life without being fearful of running into somebody who hurt you that you've kind of never released from the moral debt that they owed. I love how practical the Bible is on all this, by the way. Like, Paul's not like everything's groovy in the kingdom of heaven, man. Just like say the prayer and follow Jesus like he's.
Paul and Jesus are super realistic that we're going to hurt each other. And then they just, they lay out this really clear argument that forgiveness needs to be unlimited and regular, regular and unlimited forgiveness. And I think it's like in the justice world, if you don't learn as a younger person how to forgive regularly and in an unlimited way, I think you're a candidate.
To John's point, in the justice space of doing toxic justice, this may be an oversimplification, but I think every good thing can have a healthy and a toxic version of it. And I think the toxic justice stuff gets done by people who haven't learned how to forgive because they're bringing all of this hurt. And I think to do great God honoring justice, work you have to have, you have to, you have to be able to be hopeful for a good outcome and have generous interpretations of situations. And as we age, that becomes impossible without forgiveness.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Yeah, that's so good, Matt. I love the generous interpretations because in love justice, we call that giving the benefit of the doubt.
So I'm sure John will share more a little bit about that. But John. Yeah. Anything else that you would have to add?
[00:16:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean forgiveness is just absolutely central to the Christian life because it is commanded as the condition of our receiving the forgiveness that gains us entrance to the kingdom. You know, the scripture just says quite simply, forgive and you will be forgiven. Don't and you won't. And so forgiving everyone continually, because it's not a one time thing, it's again and again thing, it's an unconditional requirement of the Christian life.
And so practically speaking, it's super important because bitterness ruins us. It ruins our peace, our character. It distorts our perception of things and the decisions that we make. And it essentially just ruins everything it touches. So whether it's justice work or selling ice cream or leading a church, whatever it is, doing it well, we need to establish the practice and the discipline of continually forgiving everyone for everything.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: Yeah, that's so good. So Matt, I think that kind of begs the question what forgiveness is and what it isn't. You define biblical forgiveness as releasing someone from a moral or relational debt as an act of grace. What myths like forgive and forget reconcile immediately, the pain goes away. Most sabotage people here.
And how do you pastor folks in a healthy and biblically safe pract practice of forgiveness?
[00:17:29] Speaker C: Yeah, well, you always use scripture as, as the guide. So I would just say to anyone listening in, you know, when you say words like forgiven, the Bible seems to argue for regular and unlimited forgiveness. Our minds all go to like the worst possible thing that's ever happened to us. And our assumption is like, man, I'm down with Jesus and that and his teachings in, in general. But if you're asking me to do that, then that is, that is unsafe. Psych. It's not psychologically safe, it's not physically safe for me.
And I just want to lovingly say that if, if and I have been there, I think we're actually, you know, still there. I've, I've practiced forgiveness every day. We'll probably get into that in a little bit and, but we have all been kind of in, in that space. But I just want to encourage you, if that's your reaction to biblical forgiveness, then you don't really understand it very well. I think part of the problem for people is there's a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation.
And I think many people are not willing to engage in forgiveness because they think it will inevitably lead in reconciliation. And they're like, well, if I forgive my abuser, then I will have to just pretend nothing has ever happened and jump back into life with them. And so I think it's actually helpful. It's been helpful in our context to. With our people always explain, forgiveness is unlimited and safe. When it's done biblically, it's unlimited and safe. Forgiveness is personal.
Reconciliation is a bit different. It involves two people. So you can forgive someone without that needing necessarily to be a mutuality.
Forgiveness is given. Reconciliation is more earned. You'd be very unwise to jump back into an unsafe situation after you forgive somebody.
There's nothing in scripture that would say, like, the idea with forgiveness is you just say some words out loud and jump straight back into a dangerous situation. You can't find that in the New Testament.
Forgiveness is always possible. I am sadly learning reconciliation is not always possible because it requires two sides to be welcome to come to that table.
And forgiveness is possible without reconciliation.
But with reconciliation being the goal, most of the time, it's not possible if you don't start at forgiveness. So I think that's probably the easiest way to describe it and the biggest barrier to forgiveness that I find this thought that forgiveness is the same as reconciliation, and they're very different things. Forgiveness leads to reconciliation, and reconciliation can't happen. It can't happen without forgiveness. That's why it matters.
[00:20:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah, That's a really helpful distinction. Matt, thanks for sharing that.
John, you recently, and you guys are both kind of working on maybe some different things.
Matt, you maybe are working on like, a Lord's prayer resource potentially, like, to be determined. Like, watch that space. And John, you had just finished writing Loving justice, which is a study, like a small group study, on the different things that you've learned while doing love justice. That's not love justice specific, but it's more about, like, justice, work, impact, like doing the heart work to then do the do the work.
And so in that study, you warn that pride can cancel spiritual progress. How does unforgiveness quietly morph into spiritual pride or judgment?
And how have you seen humility protect teams from that?
[00:21:13] Speaker A: Yeah, well, the scripture said, don't let the sun go down while you're still angry and don't give the devil a foothold.
And it's sort of implied that if you do, the devil does get a foothold when we let the sun go down, when we're so angry. So, you know, First John 2:11 says, anyone who hates a brother and sister is in darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they're going because the darkness has blinded us. And so, you know, we all condemn and critically judge the things that we don't struggle with and the things that were done against us. Those are the two things that we all tend to condemn. We tend to exaggerate those things. And then we also are exaggerating the importance of what our good qualities are, even as we overlook or downplay the sorry. As we overlook or downplay the things that we did to hurt others.
And so as a result of all this, we carry around this set of judgments based on that, and we kind of pat ourselves on the back like the Pharisee saying, lord, I thank you. I'm not like these other men.
But Jesus tells us that it was the tax collector who came in, and he bowed his head, beat his breast, and he said, lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. And he, rather than the Pharisee, went away justified before God. And so we have to go kind of go to the school of the Pharisee and the tax collector from Luke 18, this Pharisee, he actually fasted twice a week. He gave a tenth of all that he got. Those are good. Those are really good things that are probably better than some. Some of us probably better. And. And all it took for him to not be justified before God, despite those things, was thanking God that he was not a robber, evildoer, or adulterer, which is hardly an egregious act, you know, he's thanking God, you know. And so on the other hand, the tax collector, his job was enriching himself by exploiting people, you know, and we can probably assume safely that it wasn't without reason. Besides, what we do know, there's probably other reason that he stood far off and wouldn't lift his eyes.
He was a sinful person.
But there's something monumental in this about the Christian life where the tiniest twinge of judgment ruins a lifetime of uprightness, while the humble plea for mercy overcomes a lifetime of sin.
So humility and judgment trump sin and righteousness. There's no gain or growth in the Christian walk that's not preceded and followed by humility or destroyed by pride and judgment. So I just think we can never go wrong by. Just always think about that.
The tax collector who stood far off and he bowed his head and beat his breast and said, lord have mercy on me, a sinner. That. That needs to become the posture of our hearts.
[00:24:03] Speaker B: Yeah, Matt, I'll pause just to see if there isn't any thing you would feed off of John's response. That was really good, John.
I don't think I've heard you say it that way before.
[00:24:16] Speaker C: Regarding. Regarding pride.
[00:24:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Or just even. Yeah. Some of what John shared.
Yeah.
[00:24:23] Speaker C: I mean, I think the problem with pride is regarding this conversation is it's just the barrier. It's the barrier that you face to forgiveness. It's like anytime you view yourself. New Testament authors are really in sync on this. Like anytime you view yourself above. Above others.
It's not a recipe for human flourishing in any means.
Humility, I mean, I think it's impossible to forgive without humility. Like it's literally the most humble act of all where someone has hurt you, they actually owe you and you're setting them free from that. Like it's the prideful heart. I mean, and you feel it when someone's really hurt you. It is. It's probably pride that you're feeling in your heart in that moment where you're going, well, here we go again. Got to forgive this person for the 18th time for this thing. And Prado just stopped that.
[00:25:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
Matt, let's talk about the parable of the unmerciful Servant. We are shown how quickly we ourselves can forget the mercy shown to us.
Talk about the rhythms that can keep us in God's mercy, keep that mercy in front of us and center so that forgiveness becomes that regular rhythm instead of maybe something that we do once a year, or it's something that becomes like really difficult. Or we build it up into something more hard or difficult than it is when we just. Rather than just doing the reflux response.
[00:25:56] Speaker C: Yeah. You know, so it's the parable of the unmerciful servant is in Matthew 18:21, 35.
And it all begins with Peter coming to Jesus and asking, how many times will I forgive my brother or sister who've sinned against me? And he offers seven times. So this is where the unlimited bit comes in. Because Peter would have grown up being taught.
And the rabbis pulled this, I think from Amos, that really forgiveness was a three time deal. It was like that was really the common assumption about forgiveness. I think Peter thinks we're starting to learn Jesus by this point and, and maybe doubled it and added one or figured out that seven was the important number in kingdom math.
So Peter's going like, man, is it seven times? And then Jesus says 70 times seven, which is where I get to the unlimited bit, because this is hyperbole. Obviously, Jesus isn't advocating for spiritual accounting here where we keep a spreadsheet of, you know, the, you know, you forgive your wife for packing the dishwasher wrong for the first 489 times and then a 490, like, I'm out. You know, I, yeah. And you know, just live my business forever. So Jesus says 70, you know, so Jesus says, I tell you, not 7 times 70 times 7 or 77 times in the NIV.
And then Jesus does his thing and he tells a story about the kingdom of heaven is like a king. He wanted to settle accounts with his servants and there was a man who owed him 10,000 bags of gold. And when you do the map on this or when you do the math on this, you realize that this is $3 trillion. So this is like a low in. This is a low income earning person who owes the king $3 trillion. And what you can't miss in this parable is everyone's dying laughing. It's not that funny to us.
But irony was like, Jesus was a funny dude and. But his sense of humor was irony, and that's not that funny to us. Like a great joke back then would be something like the firehouse burnt down and they're slapping their knees because that's ironic that the firehouse burned down when they had all that stuff to stop it. So anyway, there's a lot of irony and a lot of humor going on here. So this poor, this guy who's making minimum wage, which is like 7.25 an hour or something like that in Tennessee, owes $3 trillion to the king. And he forgives. And he forgives him of that. And, and it's very funny. He says, I will repay the debt. And so it's just an impossible. It's an, it's an impossible debt. So what, what you get from the setup of this story is forgiveness is, is unlimited and it's for everything. Like, there's no. It's a $3 trillion debt, which I, which I think is, is the national debt of France right now. Like, it's a crazy amount of money that can ever repay back. And I think the audience is laughing as this, this guy who's working a minimum wage job tells Jesus he's going to repay him $3 trillion.
But then we're reminded of our, of the short memory of humans when he goes out and finds A fellow servant who owned it owed him 100 silver coins, which I think is about $5,000, which is a lot of money. But it's, you know, with some planning, you can. You can figure that one out. And he refuses to. To forgive him and has. Has this guy. So he's forgiven a $3 trillion debt and refuses to re. Re. Refuse to forgive a $5,000 debt. Maybe in his attempt to. I mean, it's a parable. It didn't. Didn't happen. But in his attempt to maybe pay back his 3 trillion. And I think it's. It's so rich. I think everything you need to know about forgiveness and how expansive it is is right here. I think it's important you read this parable, obviously, that we are like, you've got to place yourself appropriately in these parables to do good Bible work. And we are the unmerciful servant. There's so much of the unmerciful servant in all of us that we feel like there should be limits both in magnitude and frequency.
And Jesus said, no, this is. This is an unlimited forgiveness kind of thing. Which, you know, again, I think that's just. That's what leads to human flourishing.
[00:30:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. John, I would love for you to share, kind of in the backdrop of the theology of forgiveness and what scripture says, just a personal story of how forgiveness in your life led to kind of a breakthrough in God's calling on your life.
And maybe the particular story I'm thinking of, and can let you elaborate, would just be before you moved to Nepal to start Love justice, you really felt like God was calling you to do forgiveness work.
So I'd love to just share that testimony.
[00:30:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I mean, it's funny when I was thinking about this, how little we remember our breakthroughs, and I think part of it is because forgiveness and repentance, they're so easy once you do it. They're so simple, and even as they're so hard for those who don't.
And so, I mean, I have to forgive people every. All the time. Every time is a breakthrough, I think. You know, like, but. But, you know, I saw in the scriptures, you know, early on when, after I became a Christian and this is before I moved to Nepal, forgiveness is. Is so important. It's so central. I saw how serious God is about it, and I kind of just had this, okay, I need to decide. I either need to make a radical commitment to radical forgiveness, that that's how you be a Christian. That's how you become Christian. And so it was just hammered into me just through the scriptures. And so, you know, we either do or don't get to the point that's unconditionally required of habitually forgiving everyone for everything.
If you do, it's by a thousand little moments you barely maybe notice or remember. But all I know is, all I really remember about that, Hannah, is that years ago I saw that and I started doing it. And each. It wasn't like there was this big, big person I needed. There's a thousand people I need to forgive, you know, as I go about my life. And so.
But I. I would also say, like, it's. There's these moments. Like the moment that you talked about when you were. When you and Austin were driving in the car and you were listening to Matt sermon. I mean, that conversation, whatever. The conversation you guys had that could have turned into in a different direction had one of you said, oh, you know, some. Some particular thing. And.
But even, even for anyone who's listening and who hasn't gone all in on the forgiveness of the gospel, you know, if you hold these things in your mind and you make that commitment, you'll have to make lots of little choices throughout the day for the rest of your life. But that, that can be a. That is a breakthrough moment for you. And every time we're hurt and we're wronged, that's a potential breakthrough or not moment. You know, there was a time in the murderer who became all twisted up in bitterness. They could have just for someone, and it would have been so easy. And it's such a small and even obvious thing, but they would have ended up becoming a totally different person.
And there's times when I could have gone down a different path and I wouldn't know it because I don't see those paths. What would I have become had I not learned whatever the first five people that I had to forgive and did?
But I also. It's not like I've risen above this. I have to keep choosing this continually.
And I've gone down that wrong path or started to go down that wrong path many times and still do.
But I can see how the times and ways that I have learned to forgive, they have been crucial for love, justice. They've been crucial for my story. I can think of half a dozen specific ways, as I mentioned earlier, that I would have destroyed the whole organization and destroyed my life if I took the path of my anger and hurt was leading me down. But it's just a. It's just a.
It's a decision to make. A radical commitment to something.
And that can happen.
Well, it's almost like it does happen once or maybe the first time. But it's a continual thing. It's something that you have to establish as a discipline and a regular practice.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Matt, talk to us about why is why forgiveness is seemingly hard to do in practice. Like what prevents us from taking the biblical truth and the theology that we know about forgiveness but then actively applying. Actively and practically applying it.
[00:34:27] Speaker C: Well, it gets to John's point, it gets a lot easier. Like forgiveness is very rarely super difficult for me anymore now that I'm, you know, I'm in a habit of praying the Lord's Prayer several times a day. And just when you have to ask to be forgiven and find someone to forgive it, it just, it just honestly it gets, most of the time it gets, it's easier and easier and so it does, it does get hard, I think, I think pride is a barrier. I think one of the barriers is also like we can imagine that if we forgive them, we're letting them off the hook from divine retribution. And I think there's some super interesting stories from your guys country, South Africa, was it the Truth and Reconciliation Commission?
I think that's some fascinating. Like it was post apartheid, right? Imagine it was Mandela leading this thing.
One of my favorite stories from that is like someone, someone asked some, someone to forgive them and so that, that'd be okay with God. And the person responded, well, I forgive you, but I can't speak on behalf of God. Like so I think there's, there's this, there's a sense that it's a bit of a weird instinct in Christians but if we were to set this person free then they're going to get off scot free, maybe in eternity or something. And we don't want to be responsible for that level of kindness or something. And I just don't think that's how it works. Just because I forgive you, John, because he said something mean to me. I think God's sense of like justice and you know, that the measured wrath of God is not impacted I don't think by how I forgive people, but what it does is sets me free. You know, the surprise twist with forgiveness is if you don't do it, you end up being in prison.
And it really is a, it's a lot, I'm gonna say it's carefully managed to cut this out, but it's a lot more of a self serving practice than most people think. It's like it actually feels really good. Like I'm not Catholic, but I've got Catholic friends. And I think daily forgiveness is really. It's been a help. It's a new rhythm for me, and it's been super healthy. But I've always shocked with my Catholic mates who say that confession is, like, their favorite thing to do ever. And 10 years ago, I remember hearing this for the first time going, I can't imagine a scenario how that could possibly be this, because they walk out of their light. They're like. They've just kind of.
They've erased some of the debt in their life. And so, I mean, that's. That's the. It's. It's hard. And it's the surprise twist. It's, like, just the absolute best thing for you.
And there's just something about the broken way that we think where we feel like it somehow cosmically unfair or something.
It ends up. Yeah. Surprise twist is we get to be free, which is. That's a pretty big deal.
[00:37:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I grew up Catholic, Matt, and so we would do confession, I think, quarterly as a who.
And I was recently talking about this with some friends of mine because we were going through the community practice of practicing the Way at our church here in South Africa. And it was talking about confession and forgiveness and doing that in community and kind of being a little bit daunting. And I was like, yeah, it is kind of weird, like, how it was almost easier to confess to a priest that I didn't know than it is to confess in, like, community with people that I do know.
But nonetheless, like, the. The lightness, I think, that comes from both confession and forgiveness is, like, what you said, it's actually more about us in some ways and what God is doing in our life than it is actually about the person that you're forgiving. Although it can also have, like, an effect on the person that you're forgiving as well.
Yeah. I think this ties really well into the next question, too, John, that, like, one of the values of love justice is to admit our weaknesses.
It's a global value we have. And so I'm curious to hear from you. How does a culture of confession and forgiveness in the workplace impact how communities and teams operate and maybe, like, sharing it from a place of, you know, we don't know who's listening. And maybe they're thinking about how to do this in their own teams or their own spaces where they're working or doing life and just kind of. Yeah. Create a little bit of a vision for what the impact has been within Love justice.
[00:38:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, Hannah, I mean, as you said, admit our weaknesses is, is a global value. We strive to do that. It, it's. And it's really primarily us as individuals that have to do it.
And this is another. Both forgiving and repenting are the two things that, that they really seem so hard when you don't do them and they seem impossible and they feel impossible. And then once you do them that they're so easy. And so it seemed really hard for me for a long time. You know, I would feel so defensive when I would, when I felt that I myself or our work was, was being criticized. But the scriptures were really clear about, about this. And CS CS Lewis influenced me a lot in the fact that like, I could never go wrong by admitting my weakness. You know, if he says somewhere like, if I admit, if I admit a sin or weakness and actually I wasn't wrong in that situation, God himself will be my defender. But how terrible it is if I fail to do it, I could go so horribly wrong by failing to admit real weaknesses or sins, which of course I was and I still do. We all do.
Because ultimately sin is blindness. We're all blind to our own sin.
And that's the way that we justify and twist everything up. And we, we're not aware of the ways that we're sinful. We see it in other people because we're in the habit of judging the things that we don't struggle with and justifying the things that we do struggle with. And so I kind of got to a point where I stopped accepting the fact, accepting the fact that I feel certain I didn't do anything wrong as evidence that I didn't do anything wrong. It was like that.
It has no bearing on whether or not I really was wrong. Because if I am wrong, I'm going to think that, and if I'm not wrong, I'm going to take that. So especially if, especially when other credible people are telling me that.
So I started seeing situations where I would apologize for something I didn't see and then I did come to see it, but it was like the apologizing that actually unlocked my ability to see that. And so, yeah, so I mean, many other people in Love justice were also doing that. All of this is influenced by. It's really Christ in the Scriptures directing us all to repent and forgive unconditionally and very quickly and do the opposite of our instinct is to accuse and to justify and to do the opposite, to forgive and to repent. And so Hannah, you remember how in our anti trafficking leadership team meetings, how we were triggering each other. We're constantly triggering each other. Usually I was the one triggering people. And there was a lot of discussion that was happening. And you remember Bryony was like, why does every LGI meeting have to be like a counseling session? You know, and it's because we're sinful. And you and Kirk really started speaking to each other on this stuff. And we're just learning to stop our sins from making us less impactful that we could be together. And we're kind of. I love the journey that we're on with this. In love, justice, speaking into each other's lives, you know, like, forgiving one another, admitting our weaknesses. So as you know, we have a regular practice as an organization.
Every division will annually do an honest assessment, which is like, okay, we say all these things. This here's the reality of our biggest weaknesses. And again, the first time I did that, I was like, boy, I don't want to do this because I don't want to.
And now that I've done it, looking back, we just have all these things that we admitted were weaknesses 10 years ago, eight years ago, five years ago, and now they became strengths because we did it, we were honest about it. And so that's what it's like for us as an organization. We get better because we're serious about identifying, highlighting, and admitting our weaknesses. And the same thing is true with us as individuals. We get better at the things that we admit and that we face up to.
[00:42:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Also, Matt, this is kind of funny. John's known for, like, being in the middle of a strategy meeting. And if someone usually getting triggered is like a sign that something's going on, whether it's your own sin or unforgiveness. And so I would be in a meeting with John and I'd start to get, like, amped up. And he just. He would look at me and goes, you need to forgive that person just like straight up in the middle. And it's almost like it catches you so off guard. And then you're like, yeah, yeah, I do. And then John will be like, okay, let me hear it. Let's like, like say it out loud. And he like, John's just become so aggressively passionate about forgiveness in those, like, even in a work context that is very, I would say, untraditional. Or maybe forgiveness is viewed as more private.
[00:43:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:43:38] Speaker B: And like the personal work. And John's just like, I can't tell you how many times in a work context he's said, Hannah, you need to forgive that person or like you need to do it now.
It's just like, yeah, you're right.
And then it kind of like de. Escalates the situation and then we can actually get to what we need to get through, which is really cool and kind of ties really well into this. Next question for you, Matt, is that when communities or people practice forgiveness over time, what actually changes? You kind of mentioned, like it's for us a little bit or alluded to, like it is a little bit of like, selfish. But what actually changes and what is the fruit of a regular practice of forgiveness?
[00:44:16] Speaker C: Yeah, well, unforgiveness, I mean, ends up impacting your body and all sorts of things. I think the famous pastors use this quote all the time, and I don't know who to attribute it to, but it's unforgiveness is like drinking rat poison and expecting the rat to die is kind of how, how it works. That's a pretty.
I'm the king of the okay, metaphor. That's a really good one. I think of. Part of what we're talking about is of how it all works. But I got some research here.
It's like modern medicine is starting to catch up with the ancient wisdom of why this is so good for us.
So regarding personal health and community health, the researchers at Hopkins would say the act of forgiveness is not just good for your soul, it's good for your heart, your sleep, your blood pressure, immune system, and even your pain levels. So that's some physiological things. When a community is getting a solid seven hours sleep a night, things tend to get easier anyway.
Holding on to resentment increases your risk of heart attack, depression and anxiety. And on flip of that, forgiveness literally helps you heal. So Dr. Karen Schwartz, who's a psychiatrist at Hopkins, explains it this way.
John Hopkins, the famous hospital in America, There is an enormous physical burden to being hurt and disappointed. Immune system gets thrown off, and basically when that stays locked in over time, there's all kinds of chronic problems come your way, including heart disease and diabetes. They're also finding that forgiveness is the opposite effect. It's a bit like hitting reset on your nervous system. So it calms your body, quietens the stress response, and it opens up space for emotional healing and even joy.
I think in a, in a church community or in any community, what, what forgiveness does is it allows everyone to move on to new adventures. There's something about unforgiveness that keeps you tethered in a painful moment in time.
And some people choose to Live there for the rest of your life. And Jesus says there's a better, there's a better way to live than that. You can, you can. They did the wrong thing 1 million percent and they've hurt you 1 million percent. But it feels like the choice is to stay right there, stuck in that moment in time, and every couple of months it comes back again and, and all of these negative things happen to our body or the option is to, to move on and live some godly adventures. When you do crazy stuff like move to South South Africa to do justice work and stuff like that. Like those, those are, those are really healthy signs that, that people just don't get caught in, in the moment they're in. So that's what I worry about with my people. Like, you see it sometimes you're like, man, you've been carrying this 20 year old burden, which is honestly the Bible is. There's lots of advice on how to move on from this. And it's just forgiven them in your heart. That's at the end of that passage we didn't get to is. It's, it's about forgiving people from your heart. And I think that's, this is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart. And so there's, there's something about the heart that is, is, is healed and becomes whole when we do all this. Yeah. Is that, is that helpful?
[00:47:32] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. And it's also making me think of just, even a couple weeks ago, like I was feeling pretty anxious, like tight chested, like, just like unsettled, like, was just feeling unsettled and like, like antsy. That's another word. Just like kind of on edge. And I, I told Austin, I was like, listen, like when the kids go down for a nap, like I need a good qt. Like I need a quiet time. And it was in that that I just realized like the first thing I needed to do was just I needed to forgive like 10 people.
And it started with forgiveness. And it was almost like physically like what you're talking about in that research. Like the physically like coming down from how my body was carrying the unforgiveness in a way that I, it didn't click for me until I was forgiving. And so it was just really like, I just feel like God is constantly like reminding and so merciful and graceful in like the reminders of like, yes, forgiveness, yes, yes. And just the blessing that comes from being obedient to that. Like you talked about the Fruit and the physical fruit, the spiritual fruit, the mature fruit, like emotional maturity that comes from that.
Yeah, it's just how kind. How kind that that practice is like, so that we can become more like him.
And so, Matt, you alluded to this earlier. You mentioned that you've been praying the Lord's Prayer daily, specifically that line of forgive as we forgive. And what does that look like for you, practically on a daily basis?
[00:49:06] Speaker C: Yeah. So I don't think I'm embarrassed by how little I'd really thought about forgiveness. My.
I think what I'd settled into as an adult was once I couldn't stand the pain anymore, I would get down to. I'd get down to forgiving people. And maybe three times a year I just have this big forgiveness dump where I just kind of had to choose to walk away. I think personality wise, I'm pretty good at trying to. I'm pretty good at saying the positive in situations. And every now and then that works for a season until you realize you actually have been deeply hurt and you need to do some business with forgiving people. So I've been experimenting.
We talked through the Lord's Prayer at church earlier in this year. And it was so fascinating to me that Jesus, the disciples watched Jesus praying. And these Jewish boys, who knew how to pray properly, you would have thought, said teach us to pray like that.
And so what I've been doing is praying the Lord's Prayer in order.
What I have been learning is it is important to pray it in order. I think it's not accidental that Jesus started with our Father in heaven. Some days I don't get past it, don't get far past that. But here's how I go into it. Now. Usually I'm going into prayer. In my line of work, there's something broken somewhere that is weighing heavily on my heart that we need to get to. You know, that's going to be part of a work day. So I'll go with that person or that situation in mind and I'll. I'll re. Realign my heart by praying Our Father in Heaven. And just think about.
This is a nerdy detail, but the Greek word basically is daddy. And, and the heavens is almost means like as close as the air we breathe. So I sometimes just sit in that. This situation, this person I need to forgive, dad, who is close, and just acknowledge the presence of God. That'll. That'll change the way you pray, you know, special is your name, holy is your name, your kingdom come. And then you start and go, God and This is. This is justice language here. Like you're. There is a rule and reign and a way of Jesus that is not true in these situations that I'm facing right now. Would you will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And slowly what happens is your heart starts realigning. So you go into this meeting like God, make her say sorry to me and confess all this stuff. But slowly your heart is like getting realigned to the graciousness of Jesus.
The kingdom come will be done on earth, is in heaven. Ultimately, I am submitting to you as the sovereign God of the universe that you know what's best here. Give us today our daily bread. Then you're going. But this is what I would actually like to happen. So you get to that fairly late in the piece, and then you get to the forgiveness piece. And so quite often I know I'm going to have to forgive someone at step five or whatever that is. And so I'll have kind of spent a fair bit of time praying for them.
So I spend every. Because I'm not doing a, you know, a massive forgiveness dump. Three months with that, three months of hurt piled up. I usually just try and think of a name that I've hurt. I think through my last. Since the last time I prayed, like, who have I hurt in that amount of time?
Or what have I, you know, where have I missed the mark in my role as a pastor or whatever. Would you forgive me for that? And then I will spend some time as part of that exchange. It seems to be important to God that we also, as we seek him for forgiveness, that we forgive other people. And so I will.
There is a name of someone that I have forgiven probably for the last 180 days.
It's interesting what comes to your mind. And it's just some of the forgiveness stuff just takes a while.
And so that's kind of how I go about it. And then you get into the spiritual warfare stuff at the end of that prayer. Help me understand what truth is, sort of the spirit and all that. But, yeah, that's kind of how I do it. So what has been great about just being disciplined in praying the Lord's Prayer is you can't skip the forgiveness. And so I really have a. It is. So, guys, if you hear anything from me, it's just like. It's really. It's a really freeing practice, this. It's terrifying. I think, honestly, there's some spiritual powers that want us not to realize just honestly how great and kind of easy this is. And how much of a win it is. And so I think I would just recommend to anybody, just like, if you, if you haven't been good at forgiveness, just start with something easy. Don't think of the most horrific thing that's ever happened to you, but just start practicing daily, forgiving the easier ones. And that's why we call it practicing the way of Jesus, not like nailing the way of Jesus, like start. Start with something manageable and forgive the person who, you know, looked at you weird at work or something.
And you've got, you got plenty of time to just kind of work up to legitimately forgive someone and set them free from the debt that they owe you. And when you do. And the other, the other bit with setting people free from debt is it's. You're also basically saying, I am not.
I'm not going to use their offense to my advantage socially anymore. Like, it's like, basically when you're legitimately forgiving someone, you're saying, I'm not going to use that thing they did to play games in our social circle. Like, this is like, I'm moving on from this. So it's a little bit deeper than what we've been able to get into today. It's not just, I forgive you and you're done. Like, there's some responsibility to actually live like, you've forgiven them. And a big part of that is not bringing it up in, in the middle of your next thing. You've got to move on.
[00:54:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah, Matt, you definitely, like, took the words right out of my mouth with this last question. And as we come to a close, maybe I'll ask John first. And then, Matt, if you have anything else to, like cherry on top, feel free to chime in after John.
But just thinking about our listeners and for listeners who know that they're stuck in resentment or feel that conviction, give them that first step they can do today, a next step that they can do this week and keep the practice going. And not only that, because, Matt, you touched on, like, here's an example of something that you could do, or here's the Lord's Prayer, but also give a vision for hope, for what they have to look forward to if they stick it out.
[00:55:28] Speaker A: Yeah. So. But real quick, before I go into that, I. I've been thinking, listening to you guys and thinking about something that, I don't know, it just kind of when I'm thinking about people who are stuck and who are, who are having a. Having a hard time coming to that point of forgiveness, they Know that that's what the scriptures say they hear and everything we're saying. But they're like. One of the things that I think is happening is. Might sometimes happen is we're all thinking like, I've never done and would never do something as bad as what this person did to me.
And I think that may actually be true. And it probably is true for everyone.
We all have things that the worst thing we've done against me is maybe is. Well, I don't know if it's true for everyone, but we have a lot more people sinning against us, and we're just one person. So it's likely that someone has done something worse than what we've done to them.
And I think that the way that we think through this is really important because that may actually be true. But it's important to know that God judges us by what we've been given.
And that person who did that to us, they were hurt.
That's part of how they became that way. Someone did something to them. And we can't trace all this out. We don't know.
But it was important to me. Years ago, I was thinking about traffickers. And when you fight human trafficking, you get really mad at trafficking truckers. It's because what they do is so horrible and it's, you know, but, you know, as we've kind of traced this out and you've seen how some traffickers, their story is that they were trafficked, they were the victim that you were desperately pleading for, you know, and so it was important for me to kind of go think that through and be like, you know, I was given so much. You know, the. Where I was born, my friends, my parents and everything, everything that I inherited that I'm not morally responsible for was such a blessing. And some people inherit so much less.
Maybe their parents abandoned them, maybe they're abused as a child, and then they're, you know, some people. And so if I was given what, that, what say a trafficker was given and that trafficker was born into what I was given, maybe he would. Maybe that person would have been better than me and maybe I would have been worse than him. And it's up. It's in God's hands to know this. And so.
But it kind of goes back to the tax collector. It's all.
All of us, it's all just pleas for mercy. And so I think that's all we have is to bow our head and to beat our chest and to say, lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. And that is our hope that he will, and he does.
But I think that the experience of our sin and being forgiven is part of the reason. It's meant to connect to how we forgive others. And so it is. I do also want to refer to what Matt has been saying.
It's not like you're saying it's not wrong. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. And you know, he's got. He has judgment under control, but it's just as simply as releasing the burden, the moral burden. Just stop thinking about it.
Say the words and then stop thinking about it. And then when you start thinking about it again, say the words again and stop thinking about it. And so those words are very simple. And anyone can do it anytime. And you should. Whenever you realize you have anyone to forgive, you should do this. Just pray aloud and say, I forgive blank for blank in Jesus name.
And when the feeling comes back, do it again. It will come back. And then you just release it. And yeah, the breakthrough that you get from that is freedom and a flourishing life and not being imprisoned and in pain and having all those physiological things that harm your body and things that harm your mind and distort your perception. Instead of that, you just get the opportunity to go and flourish and do something amazing with this one wild and precious life that God has given us.
[00:59:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that's good.
Well, guys, thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation. Matt, I know that you even referenced, like, man, it's actually that easy and there might be something more there, like preventing. And I just hope that this conversation really stirs people and that, you know, they can maybe trace back to. Not for the sake of us knowing, but just that this would be a moment that someone could look back to and say, like, that was a breakthrough moment for me that led to that flourishing, active life in Christ and doing what he's called me to do and not feeling held back by our unforgiveness. So, yeah, I just really appreciate the time that you guys took to unpack this. And, yeah, just really hopeful and really expectant.
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