Well, good morning, everyone.
If you would open your Bibles with
me to Ephesians chapter four, Lord, we will finish up our study
in this chapter of Ephesians four this morning. Before we
begin, let's bow before our Lord and seek his blessing, his presence. Our Father, we bow in your presence
this morning. Father, we come in to your presence
carefully and reverently, daring only come into your presence,
pleading the person, the doing and the dying, the blood and
the obedience of Christ our Savior. Father, I beg of you this morning
that you would give each of us the spirit of worship, that you
would give us a heart that hungers and thirsts and pants after thee
And Father, that you would fill us and refresh us with the preaching
of your darling son. I pray that you would mix everything
that we hear with God-given faith. Father, I beg of you that you
would not let us just go through the motions of religion, but
you'd enable us to worship, that you'd enable us to seek your
presence and seek your will. Father, that you'd speak to us
through your word. In what we pray for ourselves,
we pray for your people who meet all around this country, all
around the world this morning. Father, wherever your people
meet, we pray you'd bless in a mighty and special way in this
dark, dark day. Father, how we pray for a revival
in the land, how we pray that you would cause your redemptive
glory in the Lord Jesus Christ to shine forth in this dark,
dark world. Father, we also pray for those
who are in times of great difficulty and sickness and sorrow. Father, we pray you'd be with
your people. We pray a special blessing, our brother Cecil and
his family, that you'd be with them. Haley, that you'd be with
her and strengthen and heal her. Father's others, there's so many
who need you especially. We're thankful to know that thou
art able. Father, we thank you for the many blessings of this
life, how richly you've blessed us. We're humbled and awestruck
that you'd be so merciful and gracious to a people as sinful
as we are. And Father, we thank you. Pray
your continued hand of leadership and blessing and protection be
upon us. And all these things we ask in that name which is
above every name, the name of Christ our Savior, amen. All right, the title of our lesson
this morning is forgiveness. Now this is a subject that's
needful for every believer. This subject is needful because
every believer lives in constant need of forgiveness, don't we?
We always need forgiveness. We need forgiveness from God,
we need forgiveness from each other. Every believer also finds
it very difficult to truly forgive someone. When someone hurts you
on purpose, I'm sure you're just like me, you find it very difficult
to truly forgive them. Now, we'll say the words I forgive
you, we will try our absolute best not to bring it up anymore,
won't we? We have a problem forgetting them, and truly forgiving them. And if you're a believer, that
bothers you, because we want to truly forgive. That's the
nature that God has given us. The Lord's forgiven me, He's
freely forgiven me of all my sin. Now that makes me want to
forgive others, even though in this flesh, it's a very difficult
thing to do. So this is a good subject for
us to look at, the subject of forgiveness. As I began studying
this this week, I found this very interesting and helpful.
When Paul talks about forgiveness, you know how he begins talking
about this subject of forgiveness? He begins talking about How to
avoid the need for forgiveness in the first place. You know,
we might find it easier to avoid offending someone than offending
someone and then having to go ask their forgiveness. Barney
Fife used to say about crime and bad behavior, nip it in the
bud. Nip it in the bud, Andy. Brother Eric Floyd says you can
learn everything you need to know about how to live in this
world by watching I'm Andy Griffith, Mayberry RFD, and that's what
Barney said, nip it in the bud. Well, if we nip our bad attitude
in the bud, there's gonna be a whole lot less need for us
to be forgiven, isn't there? This is what Paul is saying,
Ephesians 4, look at the beginning of verse 31. Let all bitterness
and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away
from you with all malice. and be kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath
forgiven you. Now Paul says, you notice what he begins talking
about here is attitude. And all these things in beginning,
at the very beginning of this chapter, when he's talking about
the believer's walk, he's always talking about attitude. as much
what we do, but it's the attitude, it's the motive behind it. And
forgiveness can only come from having the right attitude. See,
we're not just talking about saying the words, I forgive you. What we're talking about is having
the right attitude and actually forgiving someone. And Paul begins
with some tips here. How can we avoid the need for
forgiveness in the first place? Well, it begins by saying, let
all bitterness be put away from you. And that word bitterness
means it's a bitter hatred. It means a bitter root, a bitter
root that grows and produces bitter fruit, bitter conduct. And Paul says, let that attitude
be put away from you. And you notice he says, let it
be put away from you. That verb is in the passive tense. This is not telling us something
that we can actively do for our own selves. It's in the passivity. Let it be put away from you.
Somebody else is gonna have to do that. And you know who the
only one is who can take this away from us, this bitter attitude.
It's the Lord. So the best thing we can do if
we want to let all bitterness be taken away from us is pray.
Pray and ask the Lord. Lord, take away this bitterness. Take this out of me. And that
applies to each one of these things. Let them be taken away. This is all in the passive tense.
If they're gonna be taken away from us, the Lord's gonna have
to do it. We need to spend time in prayer asking the Lord, Lord,
take away this bitterness from me. Just don't be so bitter about
people all the time. Don't be so touchy. If I am less
easily offended, there's gonna be less need for forgiveness
in there. If I'm just not offended so easily, people won't have
to apologize to me. Don't be so bitter with people
and give people a break. Because remember this, I know
you're having a hard time. They are too. Just cut them a
little bit of slack. And I tell you, a good way to
let bitterness be put away from us is by hearing the gospel preached. The gospel softens the hearts
of God's people The gospel ought to produce a sweet attitude,
a sweet fruit, not a bitter fruit. Then Paul says, let all wrath
be put away from you. This word wrath doesn't just
mean anger in the sense that we think about it. It means fierceness,
fierceness. Don't be so fierce. Don't be
looking for a fight all of the time. I tell you, there'll be
less need for forgiveness if we don't pick a fight. Isn't
that right? There'll be less need for forgiveness
if we don't pick a fight. Now let this attitude be taken
from you. Pray and ask the Lord to take
it away from you. And again, a mighty good way
to have this be taken away, this fierceness be taken away from
us, is by hearing the gospel preached. The gospel should produce
a tender-hearted attitude, shouldn't it? Not fierce, but tender-hearted. Constantly hearing the gospel.
just might soften us up a good bit. Just might. Then Paul says,
let all anger be put away from you. And this word anger means
anger that seeks punishment. It seeks to punish people. Now
let that be taken from you. If that would be taken from us,
the Lord's gonna take it from us, isn't he? Because that's
just the nature of this flesh. So pray and ask the Lord to take
this anger that just seeks punishment, retribution, take it from me.
And I'll tell you a mighty good way to fix that attitude is hearing
the gospel preached, hearing Christ preached. The gospel should
produce peacemakers. That's what our Lord called believers,
they're peacemakers. Let's seek to be peacemakers,
not executioners. Now I'm just sure of this. Peacemakers
have to ask for forgiveness a whole lot less often than executioners
do. Then Paul says, let all clamor
be put away from you. And that word clamor means crying.
Now it's not crying as in weeping over your sin. We all ought to
be weeping over our sin, crying over our sin. This is not talking
about weeping when somebody hurts us. The word means crying. like a crow crying. It's an irritating
cry. It's a cry for vengeance. It's
irritating, isn't it? If we'd be less irritating to
folks, we'd have to ask their forgiveness a whole lot less
often. Let this be taken away from you. I tell you what we
ought to try out. Let's try out crying for mercy.
instead of crying out for vengeance. See, one of those cries is irritating,
one of them sweet. Let's try crying out for mercy
instead of vengeance. Let's try crying out for grace
rather than retribution. That's just a whole lot more
peaceful way to be, isn't it? And the more peaceful we are,
the less likely we are to have to ask for forgiveness. Then Paul says, let all evil
speaking be put away from you. That word evil speaking means
blasphemy. And my goodness, how we need
to beg God to forgive our blasphemy. Now, blasphemy is not just cuss
words. It's not just taking the Lord's
name in vain. It's not just preaching a false gospel, although all
that is included. But you know, you can blaspheme
the Lord without ever saying a word. We blaspheme the Lord
by our attitude. not trusting him like we should. We need forgiveness for that,
don't we? See, when we first started talking about blasphemy,
you know, using bad language and taking the Lord's name in
vain and preaching a false gospel, probably everybody here thought,
well, I don't have too much trouble with that. But when we talk about
blaspheming the Lord by our attitude and not trusting him like we
should, suddenly we all became guilty, didn't we? We need forgiveness. Now let that be taken away from
you. I can't take that away from, I can't take that weak faith
away from myself, but I sure can pray that the Lord will enable
me to trust him more fully. But this word blasphemy has a
second meaning. It means lying on somebody. It
means slandering someone's character. I can think a few things more
hurtful than somebody slandering your character. I just can't hardly think of
anything more hurtful than that. Most of us take some care about
our reputation. And when somebody lies on you,
I mean, I just can hardly think of anything more hurtful. Well,
I know this. If I just keep my mouth shut
and don't slander you, I'm not going to have to go back and
ask your forgiveness later. And if I slander you and I'm
a believer, I'm going to have to go back and ask your forgiveness
sooner or later. Well, a way to avoid all that
mess in the first place is just don't lie on you. If I don't
do that, there's not gonna be a problem, is there? That nips
it in the bud. If instead of lying on people
and carrying tails on people and trying to drag somebody else
down to make myself look better, if I have my speech seasoned
with grace instead of slander, I'm gonna have a whole lot more
peaceful life. we're gonna get along better and there's gonna
be a whole lot less need to ask forgiveness later, isn't it? Then Paul says malice, let all
malice be put away from you. Now malice is ill will that makes
you wish evil on someone. Now if you're wishing evil on
someone, sooner or later you're gonna have to ask their forgiveness.
You will if you're a child of God. And we can't make that malice
go away from us. The Lord's got to take it from
us. He's got to take that attitude from us. We sure can pray that
the Lord take this attitude of malice away from us. But malice
also means this. It means not ashamed of doing
something wrong. Like somehow I'm justified in
being so fierce. I know this is wrong, but somebody
did wrong to me, so I'm going to do wrong to them and I'm not
ashamed of it. That's malice. Well, I tell you,
we sure can pray that the Lord take that attitude from us. He
taught us that when somebody, when somebody does, does something
wrong towards you, what are you supposed to do? You supposed
to act in malice and do something wrong back to them? Or are we
supposed to turn the other cheek? Which did he teach us to do?
I know that's impossible for our flesh to do, but we sure
can't ask the Lord to take that attitude from us. And if he does,
we're going to have to ask forgiveness from our brethren a whole lot
less often. Now Paul says, let all these things be taken from
you. Pray that the Lord take these things away from you. If
we want to promote forgiveness, we'll ask the Lord to take these
things away from us. Because if he takes these things,
these attitudes out of us, that we'll have less need to ask somebody
for forgiveness. But then we're also to ask the
Lord, Lord, put something on me. Put something in me. Take
these attitudes of the flesh, these attitudes of the Adam's
nature away from me and put these attitudes in me. These will promote
forgiveness too. First, Paul says, kindness. Ask
the Lord to put kindness in you. That word kind, it means easy. It means manageable. And it means
fit for use. If you would be fit for use in
God's kingdom, be easy to get along with. Be manageable. Sheep are manageable. Goats are not manageable. Wolves
are not manageable. But sheep are manageable. And don't be a sheep in wolf's
clothing. You know, I think a lot of times
sheep think, God's sheep think, well, I can't act like a sheep,
you know, if I'm gonna get along, you know, in this world, kind
of get my way. Don't be a sheep in wolf's clothing. I know the
wolves come in in sheep's clothing, but let's not us be sheep in
wolf's clothing. There's never a need for the
believer to act like a wolf. to bite and to devour. We're
sheep that are to graze in the green pastures of God's word.
We're sheep that are to drink the deep still waters of God's
word. A pastor friend of mine and I
were, we were talking this week in part of the conversation that
just came up about the advice. I told him about the advice,
a piece of advice brother Henry gave me when I became the pastor. Actually, this was, I take that
back. That was way before I was a pastor. And he said, he made
this statement and it shocked me. I chewed and chewed and chewed
and chewed and chewed and chewed on it and didn't understand what
he was talking about until I became a pastor. This is what Brother
Henry said. He said, preaching is the small
component of being a pastor. The biggest job of the pastor
is to watch for wolves. And I told my pastor friend that
I have amended that. I found that to be true, and
I have amended that to say what I said a minute ago. You gotta
watch for the wolves, but you gotta watch for the sheep in
wolves' clothing too. And he said, he said, Brother
Henry gave me the same advice. And he said, I've amended it
to this. The biggest job of a pastor is
being a game warden. Watching for all this different
stuff, you know, going on. Now you think about that. Take
it and think about it. The biggest job of a pastor is
being a game warden. Be easy to get along with. Be manageable. If I am easy to
get along with, I'm going to have to ask for forgiveness a
whole lot less often, aren't I? And if you're easy to get
along with, you know what else you'll do? you'll forget easier. Be easy to get along with, be
manageable. And you know, this matter of
kindness is imitating our Savior. Every believer wants to be Christ-like. Don't you? Don't you want to
be Christ-like? Well, kindness is imitating our Savior. In Matthew
11, verse 30, the Lord stood and cried to all those, if you're
thirsty, if you're hungry, if you're weary, Come to me, I'll
give you rest. And this is what he said. My
yoke is easy and my burden is light. That word easy, he said
my yoke is easy, is the very same word translated kind in
our text. The Lord says, come to me. My
yoke is kind. He's kind to his people. If we
would imitate our Lord, seek to be kind. Manageable, easy
to get along with. Next Paul talks about being tender
hearted. Ask the Lord to enable you to
be tender hearted. The word means strong bowels
of compassion. Ask the Lord, Lord give me this
heart that has strong bowels of compassion for your people,
for you and your people. Give me a heart that loves Christ
and loves his people. And Lord, then enable me to act
on that love. I just don't think much of somebody's
claim of love if they never act on it. I mean, I just don't see
how you can. If you love the folks here, be
sure they know it. And I tell you how they'll know
it, is by your actions, by your actions. And we can ask the Lord
to enable us to act on that love. Now, I'll tell you what we love
naturally is ourselves. So to love someone else, that
doesn't come naturally to us. See, that's why we have to ask
the Lord to put this in us, put this in us. And if the Lord will
put a tender heart in us, there's gonna be less need for us to
be forgiven by our brethren. And if we're tenderhearted, we'll
also forgive others. A whole lot more easier if we're
tenderhearted. You find it easy to forgive the
people that you love, don't you? All right, now here's where all
this lesson has been leading to, forgiveness. Ask the Lord to enable you to
be forgiven. Now this word that Paul uses,
forgiveness here, It means more than just the way we use the
word. It's a deeper, deeper word than
what we use when we talk about forgiving someone. When somebody
does something wrong to you and you say, I forgive you. The word
means do something that's pleasant. And do something that's agreeable.
And it also means to graciously restore. Now look at Proverbs
chapter 19. I don't know that I can think of
anything more agreeable to the gospel of Christ, more agreeable
to the spirit of God, than to graciously restore someone to
fellowship and friendship. You know, I talked a minute ago
about the believer wanting to be Christ-like. I don't know
that we can do in this life anything more Christ-like than to graciously
restore a brother when they've done us wrong. Look what Solomon
says here, Proverbs 19 verse 11. The discretion of a man,
the wisdom of a man deferred his anger. A wise man, he's gonna
defer his anger. He's not gonna act on it immediately. And it is his glory to pass over
a transgression. Passing over a transgression,
forgiving a transgression of our brother is a glory. That's
being Christ-like. Now look over at Luke chapter
17. Luke chapter 17. I want to show you a verse of
scripture, a passage of scripture. My dear friend, Jim Meadows showed
me this years ago. I've chewed on this for a while
too. Luke 17 verse one. Then said he to the disciples,
It is impossible, but that offenses will come. But woe unto him through
whom they come. It were better for him that a
millstone were hanged about his neck and he cast into the sea
than that he should offend one of these little ones. Now, boy,
this is right where we live, isn't it? Offenses are gonna
come. Offenses will come because we're
all sinners. We can't help it. We can't help
but offend one another. Whether it's people out in the
world that they don't really care to means whether or not
they offend you or not. Or our brethren in Christ that
offend us and they care about it. Maybe they didn't mean to,
but they did. Offenses must come. Because we're all sinners. We
can't help it. That's just what we do. But now
that doesn't excuse it, does it? Because the Lord says, woe
unto them by whom these offenses come. Better than millstone were
cast about his neck. He cast into the depths of the
sea. He offended one of my little ones. I mean, there's ramifications
for this. But when somebody offends you,
this is what my dear friend Jim told me. Don't be woe when everybody
that offends you. Because look what the Lord says
next here, verse three. Take heed to yourselves. Don't
take heed to the person that offends you. Take heed to yourselves.
If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him, and if he repent,
forgive him. And if he trespass against thee
seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to
thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him. This is what
Jim told him. When somebody offends you, you
take heed. Don't tell them, they better
take heed. When somebody offends you, you better take heed. because you know what is required
of you when your brother offends you, you got to forgive them.
Now you take heed, you take heed about that. The Lord says, you
forgive them. You've got a hard job being laid
upon you when a brother offends you, you got to forgive them. Forgive them. Never rebuke them,
the Lord says. And that doesn't mean go scream
and yell at them and beat them. It means talk to them in love.
Talk to your brother. love so that it breaks his heart
that he offended you so that he'll ask ask for your forgiveness
and Lord says when he repents you forgive him immediately you
forgive him and if he does it again forgive him again and he
does it again forgive him again maybe does it again forgive him
again and again and again and again and again now that's not
our nature is it I might forgive you once, I might forgive you
twice, three strikes you're out, you know. I might be like Peter
said, oh, I'll forgive my brother seven times. The Lord says as
often as he does it, you forgive him. Now the disciples heard
exactly what the Lord was saying. Look what they said in response
to what the Lord's instructions here in verse five. And the apostle
said unto the Lord, increase our faith. If I've got to forgive
my brother every time he trespasses against me, Lord, increase my
faith. Lord, put this attitude in me,
because that's not going to come to me by nature. Lord, put this
in me. Lord, I beg of you, put forgiveness
in my heart so that I can forgive my brother and my sister. And
when that happens, now the Lord said, take heed. When you've
been offended by one of your brethren, what's required of
you is to be kind, to be tender-hearted, to be easily entreated. Let it
go. Just let it go. Quit holding
it against them. Quit seeking retribution against
them and move on in love. Move on. And this won't be a
one-time deal. This matter of forgiveness is
not a one-time deal. Because you notice, look back
in our text here, the way Paul says this, he says, forgiving one another. Don't just forgive one another,
forgiving one another. Constantly forgiving one another. Because we're all sinners who
all live in need of constant forgiveness. Forgiving one another. I need to be forgiven constantly,
and I need to forgive others constantly because they're just
like me. They have the same need for forgiveness
that I have. All right, now here's the key
to the whole thing. We get to the end of the lesson,
and now I'm gonna give you the key. The key to this whole attitude
of forgiveness is this phrase, for Christ's sake. For Christ's
sake. God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven
all of the sin of all of his people. Every act of sin, every
thought of sin, every motive of sin is to offend God Almighty. We care a whole lot when somebody
offends us. Do we care all that much we've offended God? And
God has forgiven the sin of his people. All of it. Why? For Christ's sake. For Christ's
sake. God forgives the sin of his people
because God's own son took the sin of his people and his body
on the tree and suffered and died to put it away. Now that's
forgiveness. That's forgiveness. When God
forgives sin, he does it in justice. He forgives the sin of his people
because Christ paid the debt in full. That's for Christ's
sake, isn't it? And when God forgives sin, he
does what you and I can't do. He forgets it. Now God forgets
it because there's no sin left to remember. There's sins and
iniquities, why? Remember no more. Because the
blood of Christ made that sin not to exist. There's no reason
for God to be angry with his people because they don't have
any sin. Why? For Christ's sake. Because Christ put it away. Now,
if God's done that for you, if he's forgiven your sin for Christ's
sake, because Christ was sacrificed for you to pay a debt that's
so infinite, we can't even begin to imagine the height and depth
and size of our debt. And Christ paid it all for you.
Now you forgive others. Look at Matthew chapter 18. Matthew 18, beginning in verse 23. Therefore, as the kingdom of
heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account
of his servants. And when he begun to reckon,
one was brought unto him, which owed him 10,000 talents. That
is more than a man, 10,000 talents. That's more than a man would
earn in a lifetime of his whole career. But for as much as he
had not to pay, his Lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife
and his children and all that he had in payment to be made.
The servant therefore fell down and worshiped him, saying, Lord,
have patience with me and I'll pay thee all. Now that's a lie.
He could never pay this debt. It's more than he could earn
in a lifetime. But he says, I'll pay thee all. And the Lord of
that servant was moved with compassion and loosed him and forgave him
the debt. But the same servant went out and found one of his
fellow servants, which owed him 100 pence. That's an hour or
two's wages. Just take an hour or two to earn
that much money. And he laid hands on him and took him by
the throat, saying, pay me that thou owest. And his fellow servant
fell down at his feet and besought him, saying, have patience with
me and I'll pay thee all. But he would not, but went and
cast him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when
his fellow servants saw what was done, they were very sorry,
and came and told unto their Lord all that was done. Then
his Lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked
servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desirest me. Shouldest not thou also have
had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on
thee? Now it doesn't really matter
what punishment that the king, this rich man, gave to this servant,
you know, who was forgiven this huge debt. The punishment really
doesn't matter. I'm talking about their attitude.
Which servant do you want to be? Huh? Which servant do you
want to be? And then let me give you this
last. When we forgive our brethren for Christ's sake, for Christ's
sake, we do it in this way. is for the sake of the body of
Christ. If two people here have a problem
with each other, fussing and fighting and feuding with one
another, and it becomes known, that's not good for this body.
It's not good for this body at all to know we've got two people
here fussing and fighting and hating one another. But if those
two people forgive one another, that's good for this body. Isn't
it? That's good for this body. When
your brother offends you, forgive. Forgive him because that's what's
best for this body. God help us if we tear this body
up. God's given us in his mercy and
grace a place that we can meet together and worship him. Worship him. In peace, we have
peace here. Don't take it for granted. Thank
God for it. We have peace. We have unity. We're able to
worship God with one accord. God help us if we tear that up. Do you know how few places, how
few cities there are in this country where you can come and
worship like this? Not very many. And for reasons known only to
God, And only because of his unspeakable mercy and grace,
he's given that to us. I'm telling you, protect it with
all your worth. If we forgive one another, that's
good for the body of Christ. And that ought to be our desire
soon. All right, well, hope the Lord bless that to you. I'll
get off my soapbox now.