Turn in your Bibles with me to
Matthew chapter 6. We're going to continue in Matthew
chapter 6 today. We're going to read verse 12,
which we read last week, and then move into verses 14 and
15. Starting at Matthew 6 verse 12,
we read this, "...forgive us our debts, as we forgive our
debtors. And then in verse 14, Jesus says,
for if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father
will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their
trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Let's pray. Father, our Father,
Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we call you our Father, and by
the Spirit of our God, we come to you, Lord. And when we read
these words, we pray that you would give us understanding and
give us in our hearts to forgive one another, to forgive others. Help us, dear Lord, to know you
as you are in your heart, to know our Savior, to know what
you've done for us by your spirit teaching us all that you've done
in the Lord Jesus Christ so that we too might be like you and
walk in your ways and forgive and so give you honor and reverence
and respect as our father. Lord, give us this grace. We
dare to pray the words that you've said, forgive us our debts as
we forgive our debtors. And in the same breath and thought
we pray, Lord, cause us to have a heart to forgive and forgive
us our so many debts, even our sin of not forgiving. In Jesus'
name we pray. Amen. Last week, as I mentioned, I
attended a memorial service for a dear believing woman whom I
had never had the pleasure or honor of meeting. But while I
was there, everyone talked about this sister in Christ. They talked
about what she was like. They talked about what she liked
to do, about her generosity, her kindness, her joy, her warmth
of friendship. And they talked about her loyalty
and her intelligence. They talked about her smile and
her graciousness. As I sat there, I couldn't help
wishing that I had known this woman. I even wanted to be like
her. Even though I never met her,
I felt that I knew her in some way by what she really loved,
by the way she treated others, by what she did to show what
she was like. Now, it was clear that this woman
must surely have deeply loved the Lord Jesus Christ. As we
sang her favorite hymn, Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior, I thought
about how she loved the same songs that I did. And as we sang,
trusting only in thy merit, would I seek thy face, heal my wounded,
broken spirit, save me by thy grace. Savior, Savior, I couldn't
help but weeping. I was not alone. I was praying
in my heart what must have passed through her heart over the years,
and in a small sense this past week I came to know this woman,
Annie Robinson, who went home to be with her Lord. Now, I say
all this to ask something. What is God like? Do you ever
wonder if you know the Lord? I've entitled this message, Do
I Know the Lord? Have you ever asked the Lord,
Lord, do I really know you? Knowing God in Jesus Christ is
eternal life. How would God describe himself?
How would those who know Him describe Him? What does God consider
to be His most endearing, His most admirable, His most glorious
quality? What does God consider to be
His glory? We don't have to guess. Moses
asked those questions. He asked God to show him His
glory. And God honored his request.
In Exodus 34, 6 and 7, the Lord said this as he passed by Moses
to show him his glory. He said, the Lord, the Lord God,
listen carefully, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and
abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no
means clear the guilty. If those who truly know God were
to tell you what God is like, this is what they would say.
He had mercy on me. He forgives sin. He forgave my
sin. He is righteous and holy in all
His ways, yet in His love and wisdom, He found a way to forgive
my sin, to be just and yet justify me. And He did it at the highest
cost, the death of His own dearly beloved Son. In the New Covenant,
God promises to make Himself known to all with whom God made
a covenant in Christ. In Hebrews 8-11 it says this,
They shall all know the Lord. I read that verse many times
and asked, Lord, do I know You? How do I know You? Now I believe
the answer to that question comes in the verse that follows. It
explains it this way. 4. I will be merciful to their
unrighteousness and their sins and iniquities will I remember
no more. As Psalm 910 says, they that
know thy name will put their trust in thee. If we know God,
if we know Him as He reveals Himself in Jesus Christ, and
we can know Him in no other way, we will know Him as the One who
forgives my sin, and we will put our trust in Him. God makes
Himself known in Christ as the God who forgives sin. This is God's glory, forgiving
sin for no reason, but the reason he found in himself. No one and
nothing outside of God ever causes him to do what he does, or constrains
him, or motivates him to act in one way or another. His own
justice demands that sin be punished, and if he punishes sin without
forgiving it, he is still glorious. Yet, God, in his goodness, has
sovereignly purposed and promised to forgive the sins of His people.
And this, according to God's own estimation, because we can
never know what's good unless He says it, is His own glory. It brings praise to the glory
of His grace. Now, if a person owed a king
a huge debt, say 10,000 talents, as is recorded in Matthew 18,
And a talent was about 75 pounds, and there's 16 ounces to a pound.
And silver today costs about $16 an ounce. It would come to
about $192,000,000 in today's dollars. And if it was gold,
about $12,000,000,000. And now if the king brought this debtor
into his court and required him to pay his debt, as is recorded
in Matthew 18. But the debtor had nothing to
pay. absolutely nothing, not even a small part of his debt,
and if when this was the case, at that time, the king, out of
his own free and sovereign choice and goodness, completely forgave
that man all his debt, you know that that man should, at least,
be thankful beyond words. The entire kingdom and all kingdoms
around would hear and wonder at the act of mercy and forgiveness
that that king showed his indebted, helpless subject. Now this is
the point scripture makes. God's glory is seen in his forgiveness
of sins. We read it just a moment ago.
Forgive us our debts. sin is a debt, and those who
know God know Him in this way, He has forgiven me all my sins."
The first way we know the Lord savingly is that He reveals Himself
as the God who forgives our iniquity. Listen to what it says in Psalm
85. In fact, turn with me to Psalm
85. Turn to a few of these passages
so that you see the things that are so dear to us that we even
bring back to God in our hearts, by faith, and in our prayers.
He says in Psalm 85 verse 2, Thou hast forgiven the iniquity
of thy people. Thou hast covered all their sin. Selah. Thou hast taken away all
thy wrath. Thou hast turned thyself from
the fierceness of thine anger. God Himself forgives. God Himself
removed His own wrath. He removed the cause of it, our
sin. And then, look at Micah, chapter
7. I always have a hard time finding
Micah. I flip back and forth until I narrow it down. Let me
see if I can help you out as soon as I find it. It's past
Joel and Amos and Obadiah. There it is. Past Jonah, Micah chapter 7,
just before Nahum, it says in verse 18, "...who is a God like
unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passes by the transgression
of the remnant of his heritage. He retaineth not his anger for
ever, because he delighteth in mercy." He will turn again. He will have compassion upon
us. He will subdue our iniquities and that will cast their sins
into the depths of the sea. How do we know God? We know Him
in Jesus Christ. Remember what it says in John
118? The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. We know God in Jesus Christ. We know God the Father by how
Jesus Christ forgave sins. And we know God in how he purposed
to forgive sins, promised, provided, purchased the forgiveness of
our sins, and then proclaimed it to us and persuaded us concerning
the forgiveness of our sins. It says in Romans chapter 15,
look at this one, Romans chapter 15. He says this, and I bring this verse to your
attention because we know God by how the Lord Jesus Christ
acted, by what He said. Look at what it says here in
Romans 15 verse 7. Wherefore, receive ye one another,
As Christ also received us to the glory of God. You see that? The Lord Jesus Christ received
us to the glory of God. Now those words, those few words,
make sense to us. But I think it makes more sense
to us if we see it in a way, a historical way, that God teaches
this. And I don't want to read it all
to you because the account is long. But you can read about
this in Genesis starting around chapter 37 about Joseph and his
brethren. It was Christ who forgave us
and received us to the glory of God. Think of Joseph. His
brothers envied him. They hated him. They cast him
into a pit. They thought to kill him. And
they sold him into slavery to their enemies. Though he only
did faithfully and good to his master in Egypt, his master's
wife falsely accused him and had him cast into prison. And
though doing only good in prison, even revealing dreams to the
baker and butler, the butler forgot him. But Joseph revealed
the dreams of Pharaoh. God gave Joseph an understanding. so that he could interpret dreams,
just as our Lord Jesus Christ interpreted the will of God as
the Son of God. He knew all things, he says in
John 5, the Father Himself doeth. The Father revealed all things
to His Son. And the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled
the will of God in our salvation. And so, on this account, Joseph
was just like our Lord Jesus Christ. Because he revealed Pharaoh's
dreams, He was chosen by Pharaoh to administer
his kingdom in all things. Everything in Pharaoh's kingdom
was under Joseph's hand. No one in that kingdom could
lift up a foot, it says, or a hand without Joseph. No one lived
without Joseph. When the people needed bread,
Pharaoh said, Go ask Joseph. Go to Joseph. Joseph ruled over
all. And then Joseph's brothers came
to him. Now, Joseph only loved his brothers. And he only wanted good for them. But God revealed to Joseph that
his sufferings, in all of his sufferings, that God caused him
to suffer in order that he might save his brothers and his family
from death. This is exactly what the Lord
Jesus Christ did. And so Joseph, in seeing this,
remember he could interpret the will of God. In seeing this,
Joseph gladly endured all the suffering, all the abuse his
brothers gave to him, knowing that it was for their good and
for the joy that was set before him he endured it all, just like
our Lord Jesus Christ. In order that he might fulfill
God's will, preserve the lives of his brethren. Now when the
time was right, his brothers came to him and they knew their
guilt they stood before Joseph and Joseph said to them finally
after a long in and out of his presence he said to them I am
Joseph and it says in scripture and they were greatly troubled
at his presence but Joseph said this in order to teach them who
he was in the forgiveness of their sins on his part Just like
our Lord Jesus Christ said to his brethren in Luke 24, he says,
see my hands, my feet, that it is I myself. Because He had just
risen from the dead. God had accepted the sacrifice.
Forgiveness had been purchased. Remission had been made. And
He's there to teach them. And just like in the book of
Acts, in Acts 20 chapter 2, in Peter's sermon, He taught them
there that they were the ones who crucified the Lord of Glory. Like Christ, Joseph received
his brethren to the glory of God. Didn't he? Now you would
think that after all this, Joseph's brothers of all people would
know him. They would surely know, like
the people at the funeral. They knew what Joseph was like. They had seen him in trial. They
had seen him as the ruler, having power over them. But did they? The sad fact is, they did not. Though he was exalted, though
he had the highest place in Pharaoh's kingdom. Though he freely and
frankly had forgiven them in faith to the glory of God and
received them in spite of the fact that it was at personal
cost to himself, he didn't even consider that suffering for their
sakes. He says to them, now don't be
angry with yourselves that you sold me here. God did it. God did it. He went before you
to preserve life. And He saw Himself in all this.
and yet they did not know him. In Psalm 50 21 it says, you thought,
the Lord says in Psalm 50 21, you thought that I was altogether
like you. And Joseph's brethren, they thought
that Joseph was altogether like them. And so at the end of their
father's life, after Jacob died, they came to Joseph and they
said to him, in Genesis 50, they said to him, Now, Jacob, our
father, said before he died, to forgive us, forgive your brothers
the great sin that they did to you. It was as if they were saying,
we know That in your heart, all the while that you've been telling
us all these good things, providing all things for us, having the
power of the king of Egypt, the most powerful man in the world,
that you were only doing it because of your father. And now that
he's dead, you're going to take vengeance on us. What a heart
of unbelief. What a heart of unbelief they
had. They thought that Joseph was altogether like themselves. Now, grace, if it teaches us
anything, it teaches us to be gracious. And the way that we
treat others is the way we think God treats us. The way that we
think God treats us is the way we come to God. When Joseph's
brothers came to him and they asked him to forgive them because
their father had said that, It was not a prayer of faith. It
was a prayer of accusation. And Joseph wept because of that. They couldn't even believe, after
all that time, that he did it out of goodness. Out of sovereign
goodness. He forgave them frankly. Unreservedly. Without any reservation on his
part. Fully. He didn't hold any of
their sins against him. And he did it at once. And so we learn much from this.
Remember the verse in Romans 15-7, Christ received us to the
glory of God, just as Joseph received his brothers to the
glory of God. Now notice, our Lord Jesus Christ's
heart is the same as his father's heart. It says of David that
he was a man after God's own heart. Because David is a type,
a picture, a shadow, a representation, the forerunner of our Lord Jesus
Christ. It's mentioned that his heart
was a heart after God's heart because the Lord Jesus Christ
would be an exact, expressed image of his father. And what
did our Lord Jesus Christ do? He forgave us for his father's
sake. He received us to the glory of
God. This is what it teaches us in
Hebrews 8-11. They shall all know the Lord. How? They shall know him through
the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember the man who was carried
by his friends, his four friends, and let down through the roof
where Jesus was? He couldn't move. He was a paralytic. Of all things you would think
he needed was healing. And Jesus said to him, The first
thing He said to him, Son, thy sins are forgiven thee. What
a statement! What a glory! Do you know it
is the most God-like thing that you can do to forgive sins? Because this is the heart, this
is the glory of God, that He forgives iniquity. We know then
that to know the Lord means first that we know what He is like. In His gracious, condescending,
merciful love that He has forgiven us all our sins for Christ's
sake. It says in Ephesians 4.32, God
has forgiven us for Christ's sake. We know God forgives out
of free and sovereign mercy. When God forgives, He doesn't
look for something in us as a reason to forgive. His forgiveness is
free. Nor is there anything in us that
can prevent God in His sovereign mercy and free grace of forgiving
us of our sins. No sin in us is too big for God
to forgive. Not only is it free on God's
part, but it costs God everything to forgive. His sovereign and
free mercy that He determined to show on us is immeasurable
because the cost that it required God to pay in order to forgive
us our sins. What cost was that? He had to
remove our sins from us and He had to lay them on His Son. And
laying them on His Son meant that His Son became guilty. His
Son became filthy. His Son bore the shame of those
things, those sins that we have done, the thoughts of our hearts. and the actions and our words
and our hatred toward God and toward one another, our lust,
our envy, our pride, all that we are that's in opposition and
hostility to God, God in mercy took that huge debt, immeasurable,
unimaginably huge, for his own name's sake, laid it on his son,
and then punished his son, so that he, God, reconciled us to
himself by the death of his son. Romans 5.10. And we know from this that God
doesn't forgive unjustly. He says, I will by no means clear
the guilty. God forgives, and He forgives
freely, but it's always according to righteousness. We just read
it in Psalm 85, verse 2 and 3. It's God who has removed His
wrath. Look at Isaiah chapter 12. I
love these texts that God the Holy Spirit has given us to teach
us. God to know the Lord what he's like Isaiah chapter 12 he
says verse 1 and in that day thou shalt say O Lord I will
praise thee though thou was angry with me thine anger is turned
away and thou comfortest me How does he know that God's anger
is turned away? Because God has shown him what
God himself has done to his son. It says that by this we know
the love of God that he sent his son to be the propitiation. That means the removing of his
wrath by appeasing his wrath and satisfying his justice. So
he says, Lord, Thou has taken away all... I mean, Thine anger
toward me is turned away. Thou comfortest me. Behold, God
is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid. For the Lord Jehovah is my strength.
Do you see what forgiveness does to us? It causes us to know the
Lord. And knowing the Lord, we trust
the Lord. And trusting the Lord, we find strength. And we're no
longer afraid. That's what faith does. So we
know that God forgives justly. And we know that He proclaims
to us His goodness and glory in forgiveness. Like Joseph,
assuring us, he said, as I mentioned in Luke 24, Behold my hands and
my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see. Resurrection
means acceptance. Acceptance means remission. Remission is forgiveness. He
says it in Hebrews chapter 10. He says, now where remission
of these is, There is no more offering for sin. Why is the
Lord Jesus Christ offered only once? Because His one offering
has completely and fully put away the sins of His people.
And for that, God says, I will remember their sins and iniquities
no more. And by this they shall know the
Lord. Peter told his hearers in Acts
chapter 2, those that had crucified the Lord Jesus Christ, in verse
23 he says, The Lord Jesus Christ being delivered by the determinate
counsel and for knowledge of God, just like Joseph told his
brethren he was subjected to their sin and suffering for it. He says, "...you have taken him,"
Peter tells them in Acts 2, "...and by wicked hands have crucified
and slain, whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death,
because it was not possible that he should be holded of it." And
then in Acts 2.37 he says, Now when they heard this, just like
Joseph's brothers, they were pricked in their heart. And they
said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren,
what shall we do? Peter said to them, repent and
be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for
the remission of sins, the release, the forgiveness, the deliverance
of our sins. And you shall receive the gift
of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost has given us as a consequence
of Christ's redemption by His blood. Just as Joseph told his
brothers, don't be angry with yourself. God sent the Lord Jesus
Christ to preserve our lives. The Jews killed Jesus, yet it
was Christ from his throne, as Joseph on his throne, in glory,
that sent Peter to preach forgiveness, the remission of sins to those
who did this to him. And so he tells them, don't be
angry with yourselves. God sent me before you to preserve
life. What a mercy. Can you think of
anything greater? Can you think of any glory greater
than God? God is in heaven. It says in
the prayer, the Lord Jesus taught us to pray after this manner.
Our Father which art in heaven. What an infinite distance! As
the heavens are higher than the earth, so much higher is God's
love to us that He would make us His sons by the death, the
reconciliation and the redemption of His sons for us. That God
would lay our sins on Jesus. That the Lord Jesus Christ would
take those sins to Himself and suffer voluntarily, willingly,
in order to have His people. That's love, isn't it? Now, the
Lord Jesus, in the verses that we read in Matthew 6, I will
turn back to them. In Matthew chapter 6, He says, If you forgive men their
trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if
you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive
you your trespasses. If we do not forgive others from
our heart, When we don't forgive, I mean when we don't forgive
others unconditionally. Now when God forgives us, as
I mentioned, there are conditions. There are conditions. But God
meets all the conditions. But when we forgive, we forgive
unconditionally. That's what God is saying. If
we don't forgive unconditionally, what is this implying? If we
don't forgive others? Remember what Peter said to the
Lord Jesus. He said, Lord, if my brother
sins against me in the day, say seven times, am I supposed to
forgive him seven times? And Jesus said, I say unto you,
Not 7, but 70 times 7. And he wasn't given him a maximum
quantity. Reach this threshold and after
that you can do what you want with your brother. No. He's saying
there's this need in your brother's life and in your own life for
a constant and continual forgiveness of sins. Don't you find it true
in your heart? Don't you go daily to the Lord
and ask Him to forgive you like Jesus taught us to do? Forgive
us our debts? Don't you do that? Because we
need a continual, an ongoing forgiveness of our sins. We need
to appeal to God on the basis of Christ's blood to have our
sins remitted. But we know they're remitted.
What we need from God is grace to receive by faith the reality
of that in our hearts, in our own experience. So that we can
have fellowship and communion with God. And not be afraid,
as he says in Isaiah 12. So the first thing we see here
is that if we don't forgive sins, that just like Joseph's brethren,
we ourselves are exhibiting an evil heart of unbelief. We're saying, really, and this
really reveals as I thought on these things, we're really saying
that God holds a grudge against us in spite of all that He has
said and all that Christ has done. And all that we profess
to believe unto eternal life, we're denying it by not forgiving
others. You know, in my own experience,
nothing saddens me more than knowing my heart is slow to receive
the full enjoyment of God's forgiveness for Christ's sake. Nothing saddens
me more. It's as if I'm asking for some
additional assurance, just like his brethren did. Give us additional
assurance that you're going to forgive us. We're just like them, aren't
we? We think God is altogether like ourselves. This is a root
of bitterness. Have you detected it in your
own self? that when someone has wronged you, that you're slow
to forgive, because if you forgive them all at once, freely, frankly,
you deprive yourself of getting even with them, showing them
a sour face, harsh words, impolite manners, all the while keeping
a subconscious attempt, maintaining a subconscious attempt to justify
your anger and resentment and the grudge you hold against them.
Rather than burying the hatchet, we sharpen it, and we want to
return evil for evil. Lord, deliver me from my wretchedness. Give me a heart like yours. Cause
me to forgive freely, unreservedly, at once and fully, not looking
for anything in return and not looking for a response, but just
forgiving for Christ's sake. Secondly, When we don't forgive,
I believe we're seeking judgment where Christ's blood has already
made satisfaction. By withholding forgiveness from
our brethren, we're saying that we deserve payback for crimes
that were already paid to God in the blood of Christ, His own
Son. If God is the judge of all the
earth and He will do right, If He will receive us on the merits
of Christ's blood to the full remission of our sins, do we
dare require more payment than He? More than Christ? Will we try to make our personal
sense of wrong add to the satisfaction of God's justice that He already
received in heaven from Christ's blood? Isn't that a blasphemous
thought? But that's what we're saying
when we don't forgive others. Third, another thing we say when
we don't forgive others, and this is example for us in the
life of two men at least, we're saying that though God has let
his enemy go for Christ's sake, he should have held him to our
justice. Now David was a man after God's own heart. Yet Saul
envied him, and pursued him with three thousand men to kill him.
And David found Saul one day. God delivered Saul into David's
hand. Yet David let Saul go. And Saul
said to David, If a man find his enemy, will he let him go?
Saul thought David was his enemy. Of course, he wasn't. But Saul
had trumped up in his own evil conscience that because people
liked David more than him, and he envied David, he began to
hate David. And that hatred turned so that
he projected in David's mind hatred toward himself. But David's
heart was like God's heart. And Saul said to David, You have
rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded you evil. Had Saul wronged
David? Oh yes. Have we wronged God? Oh yes. Did David let his enemy
go? Did God let you go? Did He redeem
you at the price of Christ's own blood and set you free and
let you go from the guilt and condemnation and debt and curse
and bondage of your sin? Will you let your enemy go? Will
you forgive those who have wronged you? Will you forgive them before
they ask? Will you forgive them even while
they are doing wrong? Do you have a heart like God's?
Remember what Jesus prayed? Father, forgive them. And Stephen,
Lord, hold not this charge to my account. Doesn't this make
us want to pray, Lord give me a heart like my Savior, like
Joseph, like David, and like Stephen? And then there is another
example of letting an enemy go. Joab killed Abner because Abner
had killed his brother Asahel. Abner had killed Asahel in battle.
Abner had even warned Asahel, stop following, stop chasing
me, go get some larmer. Asahel didn't listen. Abner killed
Joab's brother. Later in life, Abner met with
David, and David and Abner made peace. But Joab came to David,
he was so... had so much vengeance against
Abner, that he went to David, the king, and he pretended, Joab
pretended, that he was angry against David for letting Abner
go, because he accused Abner of being deceitful. And so when
Abner returned, Joab took him aside. And in the gate he spoke
to him quietly and secretly, and there he killed him for the
blood of his brother Asahel. You can read about that in 2
Samuel 3. What this is teaching us is that Joab wouldn't let
go one with whom the king had made peace. Isn't that what we
do when we don't forgive? Remember Philemon? Paul humbled
himself before Philemon for the sake of Onesimus the slave. Paul
entreated Philemon. He mentioned his love for Onesimus
the slave. He said, my love for him is as
the love of a father whom he'd bear in prison as his own son. under the unjust and sorrowful
treatment of prison. And Paul pointed Philemon to
God's sovereign goodness, that by divine mercy, he says, he,
according to God's goodness, would receive Onesimus forever.
And so Paul asked Philemon to receive Onesimus. He said to
him, receive him as myself. And Paul offered to pay Philemon
all the injuries that Onesimus had done against him. What a
picture of our Lord Jesus Christ! Though sinful, loved by our Redeemer,
though justly condemned, He pleads our case, asking His Father to
receive us and to lay all debts on His account. There is no higher
love, no higher expression of God's love than His forgiveness
of our sins for Christ's sake. Is there? And then, fourthly, I think it's
the fourth point, What does it mean if we don't forgive, my
brother? What about an unbeliever? Should we forgive unbelievers?
Think about this. How do you know, first of all,
that this is not a brother for whom Christ died? Isn't God the judge of all? Isn't
His mercy sovereign mercy? Isn't His mercy given by His
own sovereign prerogative alone? Would you or I presume to be
the accountant over God's judgment and God's sovereign mercy to
determine whom he will show mercy? He says in Romans 9.15, I will
have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. Where would you be? Where would
your case be if you depended on others to act as a guardian? a keeper, a lookout for God's
justice on your account, you would be in hell. Because no
one but God can or would show you mercy. Remember Ephesians
2.4? But God, but God, when we in our hearts, in our minds,
and by our evil actions We're the children of wrath, even as
others, but God, for His great love, or with He loved us, even
when we were dead in sins. That's what God did. Only God
can forgive sins. Only God can, and only God will. And so, let God be God. Stand back. It's God's glory
to show mercy. It's God's glory to forgive for
Christ's sake alone. Let's forgive even unbelievers. And then, fifthly, and perhaps
the last, well, not the last one that I have here is, when
we don't forgive others, we are actually opposing the prayer
and the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do. Did He look for something
in us when He forgave us? It was our sin that put Him on
the tree, according to God's gracious will. When we were enemies,
He reconciled us to Himself by the death of His own Son. It
was Christ who bore our sins gladly, that He might receive
us to the glory of God, and for His great love wherewith He loved
us. God forgave us for Christ's sake alone, not needing, not
wanting, and not expecting anything from us. It was free. It was at once, and it was full
and complete. Look at Song of Solomon, chapter
8, verse 7. This is a verse I often run to
in my mind as I'm thinking about these things. Song of Solomon. God forgives just like we saw
in the life of our Savior. Song of Solomon is just before
the book of Isaiah. In chapter 8. I'll get the pages separated
here. He says this, verse 7. Many waters cannot quench love. Neither can the floods drown
it. The floods of our iniquity could
not drown the love of God for His people. If a man would give
all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be
contemned. That means to be utterly abhorred
and disdained and despised. What? You come with a price for
sovereign love and mercy? Do you see? When God forgives
us, He forgives us freely. He found the reason in Himself. To forgive others as God, for
Christ's sake, has forgiven us, is the most Christ-like thing
that we can do. It says in Ephesians chapter
4, look at this with me, Ephesians chapter 4. We refer to these
often, but it's good to see this. I made the statement that it's
the most Christ-like thing, the most God-like thing that we can
do to forgive, he says in Ephesians 4.32. Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven
you." Verse 1 of chapter 5. Be ye therefore followers of
God as dear children, and walk in love. That's the reason God
forgave us, as Christ also hath loved us. and hath given himself
for us for an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor."
And then the next point here is, if we don't forgive, we prove,
well, we at least are saying by our actions and by our attitude,
that salvation is not truly all of grace. We're saying that something
must be given, something paid back, some condition must be
met before, by the sinner, before his sins can be forgiven. We're
saying that God should treat me better than others for something
he finds in me. We're saying that forgiveness
is not free, that it's a reward, a payback for conditions I meet.
But grace, grace doesn't end with forgiveness as is taught
by the Catholic Church and a lot of religions. Grace begins with
a full forgiveness of our sins. God forgives based on the redemption
in Christ's blood, and this forgiveness is to the praise of the glory
of His grace. Ephesians 1, 6 and 7. I think
that you could say this, forgiveness of sins is the chief jewel in
God's glorious crown. That's what is meant when it
says He is both just and the justifier of him which believeth
in Jesus. It's His glory to forgive sins.
It's to the praise of the glory of His grace. And what could
be more glorious than that God would be gracious to sinners?
There is nothing And finally, by denying others
forgiveness, we deny what we profess to believe as our only
hope, because we fail to practice what we say. We're basically
hypocrites. Now, my only hope is that God has freely and truly
forgiven me all my sins, just because it pleased Him to do
so. It glorified him to do so. Look
at Daniel chapter 9. I was reading Daniel 9 as we
were going to Hawaii on the plane and reading it and re-reading
it. It says this. He says in verse 18, This is a long prayer, I encourage
you to read it, but he says, O my God, incline thine ear,
and hear, open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the
city which is called by thy name. For we do not present our supplications
before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies. He
stood, Daniel stood in his prayer on the foundation of God's goodness
and his mercy and the forgiveness of his sins as he told Moses,
this is my glory. He says, O Lord, hear, O Lord,
forgive, O Lord, hearken and do. Defer not for thine own sake,
O my God, for thy city and for thy people which are called by
thy name. So when we fail to forgive, We're failing to profess our
only hope that God forgave us freely for his namesake. Forgiveness is God's glory. As
Joseph received his brothers, so Christ received us to the
glory of God. There's no cause outside of God
for forgiving us. He freely forgave us, fully,
unreservedly, without regret. He forgave His people by putting
their sin on His Son, by punishing Him to death for them. This is love we will never understand. We will spend eternity worshiping
God for it, full free forgiveness of all my sins by a holy and
sovereign God in perfect justice, out of pure love and mercy, He
has forgiven us all of our sins. What grace is this! Love endures
all things. Love is kind. Love suffers long. Love bears all things. Love does
not seek its own. It provides all for the one it
loves at cost to itself. Love, according to Proverbs 10,
12, covers all sins. Christ loved us and gave himself
for us as an offering and a sweet-smelling savor to God. God, help us to
unreservedly, immediately, fully, without conditions, in the name
of our great God and Savior, to forgive others for their sins
and to keep forgiving. and to keep forgiving, just as
we need to be forgiven continually, constantly. God does not forgive
us because we forgive others. God does not forgive us because
He foresees that we will forgive others. Rather, we forgive others
because we have been forgiven. Therefore, if we do not forgive,
we prove we have not been yet forgiven. We have eternal life
and know the Lord Jesus and follow him as dear children by faith.
He gives us this faith. And in giving us this faith,
we see ourselves as the man who owed 10,000 talents, even more
so. And we come to God and we say,
Lord, you have taken away all my sins. What can I render to
the Lord for his goodness toward me? I'll take the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord. Let's pray. Father, we thank
You for Your love. Thank You that this love, freely
determined to forgive us for Christ's sake, You laid our sins
on Him, freely and frankly forgiving us immediately, unreservedly
and fully for everything we've ever done and will do. And You've
received us to the glory and praise of your grace and the
Lord Jesus Christ with a heart just like yours has received
us to the glory of God even though the suffering was his own because
he loved and endured all of it he loved us and endured all that
he might have us and bring us to God and see the joy on his
father's face to have his many sons chosen before the world
began brought to himself holy Faultless without blame before
him in love Lord give us this grace to be like our father to
be like our Savior our master and to freely forgive others
as you've forgiven us so that when we pray Forgive us our debts
as you forgive as we forgive others We will find grace from
you so to do in Jesus name. We pray amen