True life of Christ is never
a curse. True life of Christ is never a burden, but it's a
joy. A complete joy with no true complaints. But then there are
others. There are others in our lives.
There are other people that are a part of our homes, a part of
our jobs, a part of our families. part of our church. And these
others, if they would just stand in the way, a lot of pain, a
lot of stress, a lot of discomfort, a lot of problems all the way
around would be solved. A local man once told me that
there is good news in life. The good news is that we get
to work and live closely with people. We said there's also
bad news in life. The bad news is that they would
get to work and live pleasantly with you. Life has both sides of the
coin pent up. Life wouldn't be truly simple
if we could just live by ourselves. Life would be so simple that
there would be no one to stand in our way. No one in our way
at home. No one in our way for what we're
going to watch on television. No one in our way on the freeway. No one in our way at the DMV. If we remove other people from
our lives, our lives will be somewhat simple. It would be
somewhat simplistic, right? Well, it might even seem like
a dream to you, but I can also say that if you think hard enough,
you will see that if there are no people in your lives, there
are no relationships. And despite all the stress and
the struggles and the pain that some people may cause you, friends, there are relationships that
are a blessing. There are intimacies that you
would love to never end. The problem is, We focus too
much on those people who hurt us, those people who bother us,
those people who, well, downright irritate us. Sometimes we wish that these
people would not walk into the room. Sometimes we wish these
people would not even come around. I mean, be honest. Be honest
with yourself this morning. There are myriads of different
personalities just among us. There are myriads of different
interests and different odors. And they keep us guessing. And
sometimes they keep us digressing when it comes to people. The
seriousness of the matter for the church is that we have a
misunderstanding of how we are to appropriately relate to each
other in these situations. And that's one of the things
I want to address today. For example, I want to throw a word out. I
want you to think about what comes first to your mind. If
I say the word unity, if I say the word unity, That word means
a lot of different things to a lot of people. Then what comes
to mind for you? Togetherness. Togetherness. So for the... The
way that works, what is togetherness? Togetherness for some people
means always getting along with no conflict. But that's not the
definition of unity. So when you think of unity, you
think of togetherness. Some people think, well, it's
always getting along with someone, or maybe It means that we're
always on the same page, or that we like each other, if you will. Well, this is really not the
case. Unity is really defined, listen
to this definition, as a totality of oneness with nothing wanting.
That's the Oxford definition of unity. Let's go to the latest verse. A complete thing lacking nothing
as a whole. I mean, do you feel that way?
See, what if, for instance, what you believe about something that
I believe is different? Is there unity? Well, we can
get along in that situation, we can choose not to discuss
it, so therefore we can say we're unified. But we're not unified
because we're not one in mind and spirit. For if we're not all on the same
page, if we're not all walking together with the same truth,
then we're not unified no matter how well we get along. Actually, I would say that keeping
our mouths closed on issues that are not unified is not unity
at all, but a silent and deadly issue. Here's another example. Some
people consider the word love. They consider the word love,
and they think perfect tenderness. They think love is a way it makes
one feel, but is it not loving to discipline a child? And when
a child being disciplined, he or she is not feeling very well. Isn't it loving to rebuke someone
in danger? But a rebuke never feels good
to the recipient. Often times we consider love
and unity in a way that causes us to actually deny what God
has called us to do. For how can we love one another
and endure with each other if there's never an opportunity
to express love toward an unloving person? How can we endure when
everything is perfect? Think about that. See, people
cause problems with other people. Here's the truth, if you haven't
figured it out by now, friends, is that people are going to hurt
you. People are going to laugh at you. People are going to smirk
at you. People are going to hate you.
People are going to try to kill you. People are going to try
to rob you. People are going to beat you.
People are going to ignore you. People are going to make fun
of you. People are going to be cruel. And at some time in your
life, you probably have been cruel to someone else, or at
a minimum, had a cruel thought toward them in your heart. Chances
are, if you were to finish this statement, it would tell you
a little bit about yourself. Here it is. The last person in
the world that I want to see today is Fill in the blank. Who is that
person? Who is that person? What do they
say to you? What do they do to you? When you came to church, or when
you come to church, do you see people in the congregation and
hope that they don't come up and talk to you? When you drive in the parking
lot and you see that car and you go, well, they're here. Maybe
you long for your husband to stay late at work because you
really don't want to see him come home. Are you here now, today, and
are you upset in your spirit because you expected someone
else to do something that they failed to do? The opinions towards someone
right now that if they knew about it, it would hurt or anger them?
Who is the one person that could never call you again and would
make your life better? Well, let's focus on this issue right
now. Because this is the issue, the heart of the issue, for today's
sermon. And this, just as the primer
for pride and humility and everything else a few weeks back, this will
be the primer for the next few weeks. as we move into an area
of Proverbs, looking at relationships and how we should relate to each
other. So the next four Sundays, as
we venture into this, my prayer is that today would be the foundational
way you filter the next four weeks. One of the most amazing
things about so many professing Christians is their misunderstanding
of a specific term, or a specific theology, or a specific issue.
And that issue that I'm talking about, how many of you have figured
it out today? Forgiveness. Or more specifically, unforgiveness. So many Christians misunderstand
forgiveness in such a way that they don't know how to properly
appropriate it in their lives. They don't know how to apply
it to their lives. And I'll be completely frank with every one
of us. One who does not forgive is in
grave danger. True love, see, true love is
the love that God has given to his children. His power to love,
in spite of the difficulty, the true lover of God is the true
lover of his children, no matter how bad they might be toward
us at times. The Scripture exhorts us to love
one another, which implies, by the very command, that there
is going to be opportunities to love when that people are
unlovable. And also that there might be
reasons for them to not be loved. Sort of like sinning against
a holy God. Definitely a reason to not be loved. Now, forgiveness does not mean
that we allow an offender to escape the consequences of sin, the penalty of violence of the
law. We are to allow the law to lightly impose justice where
God allows it. But if we continue to hold that person in bondage
to us, it is because we feel that their sin against us is
greater than our sin against God. I think Alistair Bates said
that. So in turn, our lives become imprisoned and suffer greatly. And so there's three things that
I want us to see today in this sermon. I want us to see the
problem with unforgiveness. I want us to see the power of
forgiveness. And I want us to look at the
process of forgiveness. The problem of unforgiveness,
the power of forgiveness, and the process of forgiving. Those
three things. And here's why. First, you see
the problems with unforgiveness. And I had to stop with this because
it just kept going on and on and on, and I had pages and pages
of different things that I wanted to examine, all apart. Here's the problem. The person
who does not forgive is blind to their own sins. The person
who holds someone else responsible for their sins, and I'm not talking
about accountable, I'm talking about holding them bondage, bringing
judgment into their lives by continually looking at them in
a way that clouds the view of who they really are, and most
importantly, it clouds the view of who we really are. We're blind
to our own sins when we hold someone else in bondage to what
they've done against us. What we have forgotten is that
from which we have been saved. The person who does not forgive
is blind to their own sin. The person who does not forgive
is mocking the gospel, making a mockery of it. They become
a scoffer of the gospel. They look at the gospel, they
look at the cross, and they say, that's a joke, and I will not
forgive this person. Now, no, we don't say that literally
with our mouths or minds, even. We're blind to that, see. We're
blind that we are mocking the gospel, because we're saying
that God in his sovereign, holy, just mercy has decided to forgive
me when I don't deserve it, and so therefore I'm going to do
what God should have done to me to this person, which is be
continually unforgiving toward them. That's a mockery of the
gospel. The person who does not forgive
is also rebellious for God. For God says we must forgive
each other. It is the command, and I think
that is the declaration of what God's power does in the lives
of His children. That we are forgiving. Friends,
you might not think this is relevant to you today, and if you don't,
I think it's the very message you need to hear. Because they're talking about
beating the heart at the sound of a loud voice that doesn't have some
root of bitterness in their heart towards something or someone
in some way or at some season in their life, past, present,
or future. And I'll be straight with you. I think the ultimate
reality of self-reliance in the flesh is a result of bitterness
and pride. Unforgiveness is probably one
of the greatest sins. that the world knows in the church
today. I don't think it's the person blind to
their sins and making a mockery of the gospel for the best of
God. They're blind anyway, just period. They're blind to see anything
good. They're blind to see anything joyful. The person does not feel as blind,
walking around with scales in their eyes. No way of truly seeing anything
good. But everything is slanted and
jaded, and every person they talk to, they have this suspicion. Every person that offends them,
they hold them to the same standard for the rest of their lives.
And no matter what they say, no matter what comes out of their
mouth, they always come back to think, well, that person said
one thing, but I don't believe it. They can't hold to truth. And the person who does not forgive
envies others. That person holds envy in their
heart. We see John in his first epistle talking about the spirit
of murder which was in Cain. He killed his brother Abel. And
why did Cain kill Abel? Because Abel's deeds were righteous. So when someone comes in repentance
and we murder them in our hearts because we don't receive them
and forgive them, then we envy them. Because they've come to
the reality of spiritual sight and repent of their sin, and
we hate their righteousness, and so therefore we stick them
to this path of destruction. We want them to fall like we
are falling. We want them to hurt like we
are hurting. We want them to feel what we
are feeling. That is vengeance. And the Lord says, Vengeance
is mine, I will repay it. The person who does not forgive
is foolish. Foolish is the wisdom of the
Lord. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of the wisdom. Fear
of the Lord. Wisdom is hating evil. So the
person who does not forgive is foolish. They're not wise. Because
wisdom always forgives. Wisdom always puts another above
themselves. Wisdom lays down one's life and
sacrifices at the cost of their own life so that the other, the
offender, might be lifted up and brought to mercy and brought
to sanctification. Not justice. Friends, we don't
pray for justice in the lives of those who offend us, because
if justice was given, we would stand convicted in hell before
a holy God this very moment. The person who does not forgive
is an example of sin. There goes sin walking amongst
us, like the green mile on Death Road, the final walk to the chamber
from the holding cell. I've never seen it, but many
people have told me, who've been in prison, who've said that they'll
yell out, dead man walking, when that man makes that final green
line. For the unforgiving person, in a spiritual sense, in some
degree, is a dead man walking. At best, an example of sin walking. Sin led living. Fleshly living. And ultimately, this is probably
my focus today, ultimately, the person who does not forgive has
no peace. No peace, no release in their
heart, no peace in their mind, no peace in their soul. The person
who does not forgive walks in an utter bitterness, in an utter
attitude about life, a jaded, just irritated presence about
everything It's too cold. It's too hot. That noise is bothering
me. Everything, I believe sometimes
an unforgiving spirit, just continues to well up inside of us to such
a place that nothing is good enough for us. There's no peace
in our hearts. Proverbs 14.30. As you look in
your bullets, and I'll be in 14.30, 16.6, and 3.3, respectively. Proverbs 14.30 says this, A tranquil
heart gives life to the flesh. A tranquil heart gives life to
the flesh. But envy makes a bold lot. Listen to that language. Well,
that doesn't say anything about forgiveness. Yes, it does. Envy
is bred out of unforgiveness. It's wanting to just hold what
someone else has. in contempt, to despise them. But the point being, a tranquil
heart is like the flesh, a peaceful heart, a healed heart. This is
a heart that is full of life, as we saw a couple of weeks ago,
that the heart of the believer has life in it, for the Word
of God is life. And that we are to guard the
heart, for from it is the wellspring of life. So if we can guard our hearts against unforgiveness, we already
have peace. For Jesus, who is perfect, and
who lived a perfect life, and died as the Lamb of God to take
away the sins of the world, Jesus the Christ actually made peace
between man and God. And so unforgiveness is a lack
of peace between man and man. And what Jesus says is a lack
of peace between man and man is a lack of peace between you
and God. And there's no peace in the heart
of an unforgiver because they cannot do three things at all.
They cannot do these things. Not do them well, not do them
a little bit, they cannot do. So if you have no peace in your
heart because of unforgiveness, You cannot do these three things.
Here they are. The person that is unforgiving
has no peace because they cannot worship. You may go to the motions of
worshipping. You may spell out words of worship, but you can't
worship. You pray to Him with your lips,
but your hearts are far from Him. For if your heart was close
to the Lord, it would be forgiving toward your brother. You cannot worship. It is impossible
to worship with unforgiveness in your heart. And that's why
you have no peace, for you have no intimacy with your Father.
You have no intimacy with the God who saved you from your sins.
For you have forsaken what the Gospel has done in your life,
through your mind. God is love, and His children
love Him with all of their hearts, and all of their minds, and all
of their souls, and all of their strength. So we cannot worship God. when
we walk in unforgiveness. As a matter of fact, Paul prohibits
even the use of the elements. And the Lord suffers with unforgiveness
in our hearts. He says it is absolutely an abomination. The other thing a person cannot
do, they have no peace because they cannot worship, they have
no peace because they cannot love. Unforgiveness is the opposite
of true love because forgiveness is what flows out of true love.
And I'll prove that to you in a few minutes. You cannot love those that love
God, love the children of God. They love their brothers. What
did we learn in 1 John? It says if you say you welcome
the light, but do not have love for your brother, you're a liar. Lord, you cannot say I have love
for the Lord. I mean, Jesus himself sums up all 619, 614 laws of
the prophets. Did you know that there were that many laws in
the Old Testament? He summarizes all of them in
two. Love the Lord your God with all you've got. with all your
heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
For on these two, all the laws of the prophets hinge. For you cannot love me and hate
your brother. You cannot love God and hate
your brother. You cannot love God and be unforgiving
toward your brother. Friends, I really see this as
an epidemic in the Church of America. The Church of America
has become a country club. cross. Somewhere in between the affluent
and the bourgeois, we find unforgiveness as a common ground. We're not
united in Christ as a whole, we're united in unforgiveness.
I'm not saying we as in the group that's here, the body of Christ
as a whole. And when someone has no peace,
it's because they cannot worship, because they cannot love. Love
is opposed to unforgiveness. Love exists inside of letting
the hurt go. But thirdly, they have no peace
because they cannot pray. Behold, the Lord's hand is not
shortened, that it cannot save. or his ear, gold, that it cannot
hear, but your iniquities have made a separation between you
and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so
that he does not hear." Isaiah 57. Several places in Scripture,
God does not hear the prayer of the wicked. God does not hear
the prayer of the sinner. I think the Jews got that. John
chapter 9. But that's so much sun regeneration. Yeah. Maybe in the context, but
it still works. We have unrepentant sin in our
lives. Unforgiveness toward a brother.
And then we go to the Lord and we pray for anything but that.
Poverty? Poverty listens. It's against
its nature. The person who does not forgive
honestly is in prison in bitterness. They're in prison in bitterness.
They're bound and shackled and locked away in bitterness. And
some of us right now have started to feel that right in our hearts.
We feel the bitterness inside of our soul rising up and growing
into weeds inside of our hearts that we can no longer take it. And if the one-two thing happens,
it'll choke us out to where we're completely ineffective and we'll
never worship again, and we'll never love again, and we'll never
pray again, and by the grace of God, we'll dip through the
spike. By the skin of our teeth, we'll escape the flames of hell.
And some of us will be broken, and we'll come to repentance.
And we'll come to understand the reality of what God's grace
is, and what it has done for us, and to us, and through us. A tragical heart gives life with
the flesh, but in we makes the bones rot. Are your bones rotting
this morning? Are you decaying? A cause of
unforgiveness? That's the problem with unforgiveness. Now let's see the power of forgiveness. Proverbs 3.3. Proverbs 3.3. What's amazing about Proverbs
is they teach the foundation for what the apostles confirm
in the New Testament. The Apostles affirm and allude
to the Old Testament wisdom, time and time again. Paul says
we ought to put on steadfast love. The Apostles also teach
that God is a God of steadfastness. Where did that come from? It
comes from the reality of God's words. Right here in Proverbs
3, 3. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness
forsake you. Thine is it around your neck.
Write them on the tablet of your heart. Let it not forsake you. In other
words, steadfast love and faithfulness. Do not run from it. Do not let
it run from you. Do not let it escape your presence. Bind it around your neck. Write
it on the tablet of your heart. Walk in steadfast love and faithfulness
toward the Lord, toward each other, in forgiveness, in repentance,
in forbearing, throughout every second of your lives. But how am I supposed to do that?
when that person continually sins against me. That's the point!
Steadfast means even when they do. You can't forgive if someone
doesn't sin. So how are you going to continually
forgive if someone isn't continually sinning? How are you going to
continually forbear if someone is continually grinding against
your butt? You just want to endure. I want to love. I want to love. It's the power of the gospel.
But we think forgiveness demands an action of obedience forever,
because we are so offended that that person has dared to say
again the same thing, or do again the same thing, or go on us the
same way, so that we become haughty and justified in our unforgiveness
toward them. Or we say this, well, I forgive,
but I know they're going to do it again. Why should we put this on? Go to Proverbs 16, 6, and we're
going to stay here for a little while. Why should we walk in steadfast
love? That is the power of forgiveness,
and here's where we see it in Proverbs. Proverbs 16, 6. It says this, By steadfast love
and faithfulness, iniquity is atoned for. And by the fear of
the Lord, one turns away from evil. Listen to this verse again. By steadfast love and faithfulness,
iniquity is atoned for. And by the fear of the Lord,
one turns away from evil. You see what this is saying?
The steadfast love of God. What does that mean? That's what
it's talking about, the love of God. The steadfast love of
God. That means that love is foundationally
eternal. It never began, per se. God didn't just say, okay, now
I'm going to love. He always has, and it will never end. And
the actions of God always result from His steadfast love. The
ability of God to love is supernaturally sufficient and eternal. God does
love forever. This is an act that does not,
though, listen, the act of God's steadfast love does not remove
His anger towards sin. Perceive that. God's steadfast
love and thus forgiveness does not remove His anger towards
sin. That's the whole idea of atonement. He has to punish sinfulness. He has to put either you and
I on the cross forever, or we might get on the cross for six
hours. So forgiveness does not put our
anger towards sin aside. Our anger towards sin must remain.
For the Spirit of the Lord is hatred of evil. However, forgiveness
requires our anger for the person to be released. The old cliché,
love the sinner and hate the sin, it's not cliché, it's theologically
sound. Are we loving the person? Are we? Have we released them
from their sin? And do we anchor ourselves with
the sin, or do we project that anger on the person? The faithfulness, the steadfast
love of God is a never-ending eternal love. By steadfast love
and faithfulness, iniquity is atoned for. Look at the faithfulness
of God in this. See, the faithfulness of God
is a for sure, even when we fail. Paul tells Timothy, he says,
the same is trustworthy. For if we have died with him,
we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign
with him. If we deny him, he will also
deny us. If we are faithless, He remains
faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. Paul reiterates this in the letters
of Romans, chapter 3, verse 3. He says, What if some are unfaithful?
Does this unfaithfulness nullify the faithfulness of God? We are to remain faithful to
forgive because God has been faithful to forgive us. God's
faithfulness is a never failing faithfulness. Our faithfulness
is waning. Jesus even says that that's how
we should pray. How can we pray what Jesus says to pray if there
hasn't been an action of our heart? And forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debts. What's amazing about that? We
pray that and also that God forgives us of our sins. God's forgiveness
of sins. done the cross. By faith you've
been changing your sins even more. They've been nailed to
the cross. But we pray that we might be
mindful of that forgiveness. That we might forgive others.
That's why it's partnered the way it is. Lord, Willie and I
plan to preach on prayer the week after Easter. Maybe for
two or three weeks. The same thing, sometimes we
are modest to our prayer life, but we don't even understand
the essence of prayer, what it is and how we should pray. God
has forgiven us. And so we see here in this proverb,
the love and the faithfulness of God has atoned for sin. So the love of God is atoned for
sin, the faithfulness of God is atoned for sin, so why is
it not that our love and faithfulness for each other is a forgiving
of sins and a sin-forbidding against us? as a shadow of God's
faithfulness and love. Yes, it is a mirror. So God's love and faithfulness
has its own percentage. We see the result of God's faithfulness
and love. The result of God's faithfulness
and love is that He forgives sinners. And here's the kick.
Remember, church, we don't deserve this. We don't deserve forgiveness. We've done nothing to warrant
forgiveness. We've done everything to warrant judgment. And yet
God, in His faithful love and faithful forgiveness, atones
for sins on the blood of His Son on the cross. He who knew
no sin became sin that we might be called the righteous of God.
I'm just sort of blending some things together. Those people in our lives that
sin against us, they do not deserve the forgiveness of God. But because
God isn't forgiving God, they do deserve our forgiveness. See,
that's the difference between us and God. They deserve our
forgiveness. We don't deserve God's forgiveness. Because of that, they deserve
our forgiveness. We deserve each other's forgiveness. The Lord's table, the Lord's
supper, is a picture of His atonement through the blood and bodies
of Jesus Christ. And the only disqualifier to
be able to partake of the Lord's supper is when one has a grievance
toward the Lord. Why? Because the picture of the
Lord's table is a picture of atonement for sin. How in the
world, how dare we pick it up and celebrate the body and the
blood of Christ for our sins when we hold someone accountable
for theirs? Listen to what I'm, don't hear
what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that people aren't accountable
for sin, but we have to release them from the penalty of that
all at once. How dare we? and praise God and raise our
hands and take that bread and say, this is your body Christ,
you bled and died for me and this is your blood shed for me
and all I have for you, I'm going to give you, get out of my face!
You see what I mean? How dare we? God forbid that
we should ever act in that way. How dare we stand at the foot
of the cross and join our lips when we stab our brother in the
chest? Friends, we're all guilty of
bitterness and unforgiveness in some way. May God really reveal
to us our hearts today. Jesus on that mountain
said, forgive them, Father. We're not objects of wrath, but
objects And we are called out by God's
grace, and we are granted repentance. Oftentimes, we've got to forgive
because we're not in deep relationship and intimacy with the Word of
God. We're not in love with the Word of God as we should be.
And therefore, the grace that is needed to forgive each other
is not present. But we're still going on what
we got yesterday. And actually, that thanksgiving under our eye,
we'll call it AAA. Paul says to the Church of Philosophy,
he says, you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision
of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven
us all our sins. Dead is dead, friends. We ought
to put to death the flesh. We were all once dead, and we've
been set free and made alive by grace, and been forgiven on
the back of Christ, by the flesh of Christ, the righteousness
of God becoming sin that we might be called righteous. I love that text. I love that
text in Colossians. If then, you have been raised from Christ,
seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the
right hand of God, set your minds on things that are above, not
on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life
is hidden when Christ Jesus in God. When Christ, who is your
life, appears, you also will appear with Him in glory. Put to death their Lord, will
Paul say. Put the debt, therefore, of what
is earthly in you, which is sexual immorality, which is impurity,
which is passion, which is evil desire, and covetousness, which
is idolatry, on the account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked,
when you were living in them, but now you must put them all
away, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing
that you have put off the old self's practices, and have put
on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the
image of its Creator. Here there is not Greek or Jew,
circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free,
but Christ is all and in all. Put on then, as God's chosen
ones, holy and beloved. Put on this, God's chosen ones,
holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness,
and patience. Bearing with one another, and
if one has a complaint against another, what does it say? Forgiving
each other, just as the Lord has forgiven you, so that you
must also forgive, and above all these things, put on love. steadfast love which binds everything
together in perfect harmony. Love forgives. Love forgives. Let the peace of Christ move
in your hearts. See the impact that means? And let the peace
of Christ move in your hearts. For when you are unforgiving,
you do not have peace. To which you indeed were called
in one body, and be thankful that the Word of Christ dwelleth
in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing
songs and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your
hearts to God. And whatever you do, and word it in me, do it
all for the glory, or do everything, excuse me, in the name of the
Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Jesus said, Father, forgive them
for they know not what they do. And then they cast lots and advised
garments. When he was reviled, he did not
return reviled. When he suffered, he did not
threaten, but he continued entrusting himself to Him who judges justly. That's the power of forgiveness.
Power of forgiveness brings everything in perfect harmony with peace
of God reigning and ruling in your hearts. And it comes with
the intimacy of the Word of God that you may have the power to
have the grace to forgive in the time that you need to forgive. And so everybody's here now going,
okay, I get it, I gotta forgive. And this is one of these sermons
that I think I have to put some specific application, but I have
to be careful. So I pray that you would be like
the Marines, and you would search the scriptures, and you would
qualify what I say you must do based on your walk with God of
the universe through His Word, in emphasis of the Word. So finally, we see the process
of forgiveness. What does it look like? How are we to forgive? Remember. Remember! The first part of forgiveness
is remember. Remember what I've just said,
Church. Remember what God has forgiven you of. Remember. Remember what God has done for
you and toward you. And let this be the talk that
sings in your heart. Doctrine. See, that's what forgiveness
is. Forgiveness is letting the hurt
go. Unforgiveness is self-pity and personal pride. I'm hurt,
and it needs to be fixed, because you hurt me. Versus, forgive
them, but they don't know what they do. Well, you don't understand
how bad that hurts. You'd rather forgive them, but
they don't know what they do. But you don't know how hard it
is to try to forgive them when they don't know what they do.
Remember. Remember what God has done to
you. It's telling you to remember
to think about it. The second thing I believe you
have to do before you can really truly see the possible. As you
remember, think. Think through it. Think about
the hurt that the other has caused you. praise God for it. What are you saying? Praise God
for it? Because you now have a way to
be obedient to the call of God. I've been offended, now I can
be obedient and forgive. Now I can love and prove the
gospel. I can prove the gospel. Is it impossible for you? Maybe
you don't have the gospel. Praise God. Remember what God
has done for you. Think about it and praise God
for the hurt. For now it's an opportunity for
you to fulfill your obligation as a child of God. To forgive
and love. The third step will get us to
the third part. It's not necessarily in this
order. It may be different and things are all at the same time
kind of thing, but as we nail it out, pray. We pray, and we
pray not the way we've been told to pray through tradition. God,
get him. See, that's the way we've been
told to pray. Get him! Yah! Take him out! Making her, you pray that? No, we pray blessings, not prosperity. Bringing the pulse of joy. Help me become nothing that He
might become something. Pray blessings to the lives of
those who hurt you. Pray to God it will make them
prosper and be strong in the end. God, withhold your wrath
against this man. God, take away all of that judgment
that you might be putting up on this man. Bring him to repentance,
so that he might be full of joy, not, oh, I'm sick of being hurt.
That's not prayer. That's not forgiveness. Don't pray for God to do something
in regard to judging someone else because of your pain. Father
forgive them, for they know not what they do. Now, in Deuteronomy
24.17 it says, Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let
not your heart be glad when you stumble. Isn't that backwards? Do not
rejoice when your enemy falls and let not your heart be glad
to be stumbled. Alright, that's for our enemies. And folks, I'm
talking about each other. So we're to not rejoice. So what are we to do? We're to
learn. We're weak when our enemies struggle and fall. We're weak
when they suffer. When we see our enemy in need,
we're to give ourselves to them. We're to die for the people who
hate us. We're to love those who persecute
us. We're to pray for those and bless those who are our enemies.
That is the power of the gospel. That's the power of the man that
we saw in South America who was macheted and left for dead, who
goes to the prison and finds the man he tried to kill him
and disciples him in Christ. Whoever mocks the poor insults
his maker. He who is glad at calamity will
not go unpunished, Robert said. Jesus said, bless those who curse
you, pray for those who abuse you, but I say to you, church, love
your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. So we're to
remember what God has done. We're to think about it and pray
for the offense. We're to pray blessings in the
light of those who have offended us, and we are to serve them. We're to serve them. We're to
become a slave. Dioponos, nulos, in the Greek
means slave. Someone who is a piece of property
is what it means. We translate it into English,
even the ESV and the Newman obviously just released a few months back.
They still translate it as servant. Bob's servant. The word is slave,
and it means you are a piece of property that God owns. We
are to become a slave to our enemies and those who reject
us. We are to be a slave to each other. That is the language of the Word
of God. It is not my interpretation.
It's the absolute God-dawned text. Jesus didn't become a servant.
He didn't become a bond-servant. He became a slave. He subjected
Himself and became a slave to the will of the Father, and He
became a slave to the sinfulness of humanity in that regard, because
He became sin. And He died so that sin could be atoned for. It's a servant. Ah, I think I'm
going to call it sick today. A slave, that's no choice. I mean, heck, in Exodus it says
when you see your, what does it say? When you see your enemy's
ox or mule running away, go save it. Save your enemy's ox. Save
it. And the biggest question is,
okay, okay, okay, okay, I've done this. I've done this. and do it again. They began to
sin against me again. A child of mine sinned against
me, and a husband of mine, and a wife of mine, and a friend
of mine, and a brother of mine, and a pastor of mine. They sinned
against me again. How many times should I forgive them? Pay attention
to yourselves, Jesus says, if your brother sins, rebuke him. I probably would preach a sermon
on rebuke. Here's the key word for rebuke,
humility. That's one who needs to receive it themselves. Rebuke him, and if he repents,
forgive him. You know what repentance? I'm
for repentance. That's as far as a human eye
and heart can judge. I don't see that. Sorry. That's
repentance. 30 seconds later, turns around
and does it again. It's brand new. Knock, knock. There you go again. I knew it. That was brand new. Brand new. If your brother sins or repents,
forgive him. And if he sins against you seven
times in a day and turns to you seven times saying, I repent,
you must forgive him. O mouth, the God who created
your body and soul said that out of his own voice, blow the
chords. Why? The Father forgives them, but
they don't know what to do. Forgiveness means that you no
longer expect the person to turn and do the same thing over, and
when he does, it's like the very first time he ever did it. And this seems very hard, but
it is possible in Christ. And the issue there, too, is
one of the final things that I said years ago, and I sort
of live by it on my own terms. Stop talking about the ends.
One of the greatest things that we can do as brothers and sisters
is when someone comes up to us and talks to us about somebody
sinning against a phenom, just stop them right there. Just stop
them. You either go to them, or you keep your mouth shut.
But I need prayer counsel. If you don't need anything, you
need to repent. But I don't want to understand that you're not
right with God. You're closed, and your time's
over. I mean, of course, you don't
want to say it like that. You might get caught. Somehow, we talk about it too
much. And we talk about our offense
and how we've been offended. We must stop talking about our offense
and get over the cross with Christ and His faithful love that covers
the multitude of sins. A senior pastor a few months
ago, in the middle of last year, probably August, sat down with
me. and a few other younger pastors.
He'd been pastoring for 35 plus years, 40 years. And he's talking
about this very issue when he says these words. He says, I
used to get really offended when people would accuse me of doing
or saying something that I had not done or said. For example, like when someone
accused me of lying, it used to be really irritating because
I tried my best to never be dishonest. Here's what the Lord has shown
me is, why should I be offended by someone saying truth? It might
not be true in this circumstance, but I have lied, therefore I
am a liar. So I've hated, perceived it,
loved them, forgiven them, and worshipped them. The love of a holy and just God
can cover your sins. Can it not cover the sins of
your brother against you? And the final thing is I go back
to thanksgiving. Give thanks in the Lord always
in all things. Thank Him for the sin against
you so that you might be humble, you might be reminded of how
much He's forgiven you, and that now gives you the opportunity
to forgive others, which is part of your witness and your worship. We are unable to live according
to the Word of God, and we all just sort of get along. The wisdom of God is truly seen
in our faith for each other. Christ is propitiation. That word is several places in
the New Testament. And it means that God's judgment
and wrath against sin is satisfied by Jesus' prophecy, so that God
could be just in forgiving sinners. God is the just and the justifier
of that faith. My prayer for you today, Church,
is that you would be solid in this reality, to see the reality
of the cross in such a way that you do not get over it, that
it's an ever-mindful journey, an ever-mindful feeding under
the mattress of the princess who gets always there, always
digging, always making an impression in your life, and the cross of
Christ, the gospel of Jesus Christ, is the filter by which you relate
to each other. and foundational. As you'll see
in the next few weeks, the primary problem in our marriages is unforgiveness. The primary problem in our churches
is unforgiveness and bitterness. The primary problem in our communities
is bitterness and unforgiveness. The primary problem in the world
is that we don't love each other the way God has loved us. And the issue is not that we
are able to, but that we're not even trying to. And unfortunately, well I say
fortunately, your turn to be forgiven is coming. So if you want to be forgiven,
then you need to forgive. The scripture says that the measure
that you forgive will be forgiven. Now that doesn't mean, well,
they didn't forgive me, I'm not forgiving them. My grandmother Titus, very wise,
she summed it up like this, what's good for the goose is good for
the gander. And I would pray that you would truly
trust in the fullest way possible the gospel of Jesus Christ. Understanding that your sin is
vile and deserving of judgment. and that only by His gracious
forgiveness, unmerited favor, he cannot earn it, deserve it,
and should receive it, are you saved. You repent of your sins,
trust in Christ, and in turn, church, be able to repent and
forgive each other. Let's pray. Father, Today. This day. This day is a day of salvation
for your people. Today, the day. Not the day that
earmarks it, God. That's the problem. We're looking
for that day. We're looking for that point
in time. The problem every day for your children is a day of
salvation. But we walk eternally. And the understanding that you
alone are our grace. You alone are our Savior.